LONDON // While organisers and corporate sponsors gear up for the start of the London Olympic Games a year from today, one East London resident living close to the hyper-development for the global sports event has a more prosaic worry - rising rents.
"I have to meet my landlord soon and I'm worried he's going to put up the rent," said Antonio Curcetti, a photographer, who along with many other artists has helped transform Hackney Wick's disused factories and warehouses into a thriving urban arts scene in recent years.
Looming on the horizon is the futuristic £537 million (Dh3.2 billion) Olympic stadium, built on a 2.5 sq kilometre parcel of land between Hackney Wick and Stratford that will be the focus of next year's games.
"We have a great community here of artists and locals and I do worry what's going to happen because of the Olympics," said Mr Curcetti, 42, who works at the Hackney Pearl cafe to subsidise his photography work. "We won't know until May or June next year whether this will be good for us or if we'll be priced out."
Supporters of the games claim the flurry of development will transform what was a long-neglected part of London, the home of immigrants from the Huguenots in the 18th century to Bangladeshis and Somalis in recent decades.
Historically, the wealthy favoured West London because of prevailing winds that carried the stench of industry to the east, which still suffers some of the highest rates of poverty and lowest life expectancy in the country.
Critics of next year's extravaganza say only property developers and corporate interests will benefit from the multimillion-pound public investment, including upgraded transport links, stadiums and Olympic Village housing.
The opening of a £269m aquatics centre, designed by Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid, was scheduled for tonight along with the launch of the one-year countdown to the games. Boris Johnson, London's mayor, was set to invite the world to London.
A BBC poll released yesterday found that seven out of 10 Londoners believed the Olympics would benefit East London, justifying the public investment. But 55 per cent felt the capital's transport system would not be able to cope with tens of thousands of visitors. Just under half said they wanted "to avoid the Olympics" and one in five said they would leave London during the games.
The Conservative-led coalition government, meanwhile, is hoping the Olympics will lift the national mood and deflect attention from the country's economic struggles. The games were worth having because "they take people's minds off what's happening" elsewhere, Hugh Robertson, the sports minister, told the Financial Times.
Iain Sinclair, an author and Hackney resident, has been a persistent naysayer. In his latest book, Ghost Milk: Calling Time on the Grand Project, he summed up the games as "an architecture of future ruins, invasion technologies and incubated terror, at enormous expense, at a time when ordinary services are being pinched out of existence."
Tessa Jowell, the opposition Labour minister for the Olympics, defended the development in a debate with Mr Sinclair published in last Saturday's Guardian. "What was derelict wasteland with 300 mostly struggling businesses has been replaced by the largest urban park in Europe for 150 years," she said.
She went on to say that consultation with local residents had even extended to delaying some construction to allow the harvesting of pumpkins and marrows grown in urban gardens.
But Mr Sinclair retorted that in Athens and Beijing, previous Olympics hosts, stadiums and facilities were now neglected and unused, having made little lasting impact to improve the lives of locals.
Security and terrorism fears are a big concern. The announcement in 2005 that London had won the Olympics bid was overshadowed the next day by the July 7 bomb attacks that killed 52 people.
The BBC reported that Chris Allison, the national Olympic security coordinator, told senior police officers recently: ""We're expecting the terrorism threat level to be severe. In fact, I think it will be right up near critical. They won't call it critical but it will be very close it. The top end of severe."
This would mean a terrorist attack was "highly likely" under the official grading system used in the UK. The overall threat level was downgraded this month.
Meanwhile, tourists and curious locals are already flocking to see the breakneck construction under way in East London. For the time being at least, they can also see evidence of the urban artistry taking place in the area.
Travellers getting off the train at Hackney Wick last Sunday were just as absorbed by the filming of a pop music video in a graffiti-strewn bit of wasteland as they were by the rising Olympic stadium.
But it remains to be seen whether local artists will win local government approval of a key demand of their recent manifesto published in the Hackney Wick newspaper: "Ensure that art is the defining character of the neighbourhood and is integrated at all levels of society and is not a separate luxurious thing. Everyone must live an artistic life."
sdevi@thenational.ae
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Our family matters legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
STAGE 4 RESULTS
1 Sam Bennett (IRL) Deceuninck-QuickStep - 4:51:51
2 David Dekker (NED) Team Jumbo-Visma
3 Caleb Ewan (AUS) Lotto Soudal
4 Elia Viviani (ITA) Cofidis
5 Matteo Moschetti (ITA) Trek-Segafredo
General Classification
1 Tadej Pogacar (SLO) UAE Team Emirates - 12:50:21
2 Adam Yates (GBR) Teamn Ineos Grenadiers - 0:00:43
3 Joao Almeida (POR) Deceuninck-QuickStep - 0:01:03
4 Chris Harper (AUS) Jumbo-Visma - 0:01:43
5 Neilson Powless (USA) EF Education-Nippo - 0:01:45
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
The more serious side of specialty coffee
While the taste of beans and freshness of roast is paramount to the specialty coffee scene, so is sustainability and workers’ rights.
The bulk of genuine specialty coffee companies aim to improve on these elements in every stage of production via direct relationships with farmers. For instance, Mokha 1450 on Al Wasl Road strives to work predominantly with women-owned and -operated coffee organisations, including female farmers in the Sabree mountains of Yemen.
Because, as the boutique’s owner, Garfield Kerr, points out: “women represent over 90 per cent of the coffee value chain, but are woefully underrepresented in less than 10 per cent of ownership and management throughout the global coffee industry.”
One of the UAE’s largest suppliers of green (meaning not-yet-roasted) beans, Raw Coffee, is a founding member of the Partnership of Gender Equity, which aims to empower female coffee farmers and harvesters.
Also, globally, many companies have found the perfect way to recycle old coffee grounds: they create the perfect fertile soil in which to grow mushrooms.
Anghami
Started: December 2011
Co-founders: Elie Habib, Eddy Maroun
Based: Beirut and Dubai
Sector: Entertainment
Size: 85 employees
Stage: Series C
Investors: MEVP, du, Mobily, MBC, Samena Capital
The National's picks
4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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Sinopharm vaccine explained
The Sinopharm vaccine was created using techniques that have been around for decades.
“This is an inactivated vaccine. Simply what it means is that the virus is taken, cultured and inactivated," said Dr Nawal Al Kaabi, chair of the UAE's National Covid-19 Clinical Management Committee.
"What is left is a skeleton of the virus so it looks like a virus, but it is not live."
This is then injected into the body.
"The body will recognise it and form antibodies but because it is inactive, we will need more than one dose. The body will not develop immunity with one dose," she said.
"You have to be exposed more than one time to what we call the antigen."
The vaccine should offer protection for at least months, but no one knows how long beyond that.
Dr Al Kaabi said early vaccine volunteers in China were given shots last spring and still have antibodies today.
“Since it is inactivated, it will not last forever," she said.
The rules on fostering in the UAE
A foster couple or family must:
- be Muslim, Emirati and be residing in the UAE
- not be younger than 25 years old
- not have been convicted of offences or crimes involving moral turpitude
- be free of infectious diseases or psychological and mental disorders
- have the ability to support its members and the foster child financially
- undertake to treat and raise the child in a proper manner and take care of his or her health and well-being
- A single, divorced or widowed Muslim Emirati female, residing in the UAE may apply to foster a child if she is at least 30 years old and able to support the child financially
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
COMPANY PROFILE
Founders: Alhaan Ahmed, Alyina Ahmed and Maximo Tettamanzi
Total funding: Self funded
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A MINECRAFT MOVIE
Director: Jared Hess
Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa
Rating: 3/5
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
The specs
Price, base / as tested Dh1,100,000 (est)
Engine 5.2-litre V10
Gearbox seven-speed dual clutch
Power 630bhp @ 8,000rpm
Torque 600Nm @ 6,500rpm
Fuel economy, combined 15.7L / 100km (est)
Quick pearls of wisdom
Focus on gratitude: And do so deeply, he says. “Think of one to three things a day that you’re grateful for. It needs to be specific, too, don’t just say ‘air.’ Really think about it. If you’re grateful for, say, what your parents have done for you, that will motivate you to do more for the world.”
Know how to fight: Shetty married his wife, Radhi, three years ago (he met her in a meditation class before he went off and became a monk). He says they’ve had to learn to respect each other’s “fighting styles” – he’s a talk it-out-immediately person, while she needs space to think. “When you’re having an argument, remember, it’s not you against each other. It’s both of you against the problem. When you win, they lose. If you’re on a team you have to win together.”
More from Neighbourhood Watch
The Bio
Name: Lynn Davison
Profession: History teacher at Al Yasmina Academy, Abu Dhabi
Children: She has one son, Casey, 28
Hometown: Pontefract, West Yorkshire in the UK
Favourite book: The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
Favourite Author: CJ Sansom
Favourite holiday destination: Bali
Favourite food: A Sunday roast
Company Profile
Name: Thndr
Started: 2019
Co-founders: Ahmad Hammouda and Seif Amr
Sector: FinTech
Headquarters: Egypt
UAE base: Hub71, Abu Dhabi
Current number of staff: More than 150
Funds raised: $22 million
Ms Yang's top tips for parents new to the UAE
- Join parent networks
- Look beyond school fees
- Keep an open mind
Sui Dhaaga: Made in India
Director: Sharat Katariya
Starring: Varun Dhawan, Anushka Sharma, Raghubir Yadav
3.5/5
Specs
Engine: 51.5kW electric motor
Range: 400km
Power: 134bhp
Torque: 175Nm
Price: From Dh98,800
Available: Now
Other promotions
- Deliveroo will team up with Pineapple Express to offer customers near JLT a special treat: free banana caramel dessert with all orders on January 26
- Jones the Grocer will have their limited edition Australia Day menu available until the end of the month (January 31)
- Australian Vet in Abu Dhabi (with locations in Khalifa City A and Reem Island) will have a 15 per cent off all store items (excluding medications)
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The%20specs
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Europe’s rearming plan
- Suspend strict budget rules to allow member countries to step up defence spending
- Create new "instrument" providing €150 billion of loans to member countries for defence investment
- Use the existing EU budget to direct more funds towards defence-related investment
- Engage the bloc's European Investment Bank to drop limits on lending to defence firms
- Create a savings and investments union to help companies access capital
THE LIGHT
Director: Tom Tykwer
Starring: Tala Al Deen, Nicolette Krebitz, Lars Eidinger
Rating: 3/5
Analysis
Members of Syria's Alawite minority community face threat in their heartland after one of the deadliest days in country’s recent history. Read more
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%3Cp%3EAuthor%3A%20S%20Frederick%20Starr%3Cbr%3EPublisher%3A%20Oxford%20University%20Press%3Cbr%3EPages%3A%20290%3Cbr%3EAvailable%3A%20January%2024%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
