Jewboo
10th December 2015, 07:59 PM
https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_606w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2015/12/10/Foreign/Images/RA20151210_Trump_Dubai1514497601461449780972.jpg
Dubai development takes down Trump’s name
DUBAI — Since the project was announced 18 months ago, giant billboards featuring Donald Trump’s name proclaimed the luxury development “the Beverly Hills of Dubai.” Akoya by Damac, a $6 billion development launched in a partnership between Damac Properties and the Trump Organization, promised a Trump-branded golf course at the heart of a residential enclave with hudreds of apartments and villas ranging in price from $1 million to $10 million.
But on Thursday, the signs bearing Trump’s name had disappeared, with giant blank gaps in a line of billboards left in their place. Security guards stood watch nearby and stopped anyone who tried to take pictures. The senior vice president for corporate communications at Dubai-based Damac Properties, Niall McLoughlin, declined to comment on the billboard issue Thursday after the company initially vowed to honor its ties with the Trump Organization.
But the Republican presidential candidate’s recent call for a “total and complete” ban on entry by Muslims into the United States has created unease in some of the places in the Middle East where he does business.
This week, Dubai-based Landmark Group announced that it would remove Trump home decor products from its 180 Lifestyle stores in the region because it “values and respects the sentiments of its customers,” the Associated Press reported.
Meanwhile, in an interview with CNN, Emirati billionaire Khalaf al-Habtoor, who once held the contract to build a later-canceled Trump International hotel and tower in Dubai, branded his former business associate “the biggest enemy of Islam.” In a column in the National newspaper, which is published in the emirate of Abu Dhabi, Habtoor said he had once supported Trump’s presidential bid but had realized “I was wrong and do not mind admitting it.”
Although there was muted support for Trump in some quarters in the region, Arab leaders issued a statement Thursday after a Gulf Cooperation Council meeting in Saudi Arabia expressing “deep concern” about the “hostile, racist and inhumane rhetoric against refugees in general and Muslims in particular.” The Akoya development, centered on a golf course bearing Trump’s name, is in the finishing stages, with the first 50 villas due to be handed over to buyers within weeks. The entire development is expected to be completed next year.
Even by Dubai’s extravagant standards, it has been touted as an exclusive neighborhood, with villas fringing a central golf course, and with private, man-made “beaches” around vast lakes and parklands.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/trumps-name-comes-down-from-billboards-at-development-in-dubai/2015/12/10/a3346188-9de1-11e5-9ad2-568d814bbf3b_story.html
Dubai development takes down Trump’s name
DUBAI — Since the project was announced 18 months ago, giant billboards featuring Donald Trump’s name proclaimed the luxury development “the Beverly Hills of Dubai.” Akoya by Damac, a $6 billion development launched in a partnership between Damac Properties and the Trump Organization, promised a Trump-branded golf course at the heart of a residential enclave with hudreds of apartments and villas ranging in price from $1 million to $10 million.
But on Thursday, the signs bearing Trump’s name had disappeared, with giant blank gaps in a line of billboards left in their place. Security guards stood watch nearby and stopped anyone who tried to take pictures. The senior vice president for corporate communications at Dubai-based Damac Properties, Niall McLoughlin, declined to comment on the billboard issue Thursday after the company initially vowed to honor its ties with the Trump Organization.
But the Republican presidential candidate’s recent call for a “total and complete” ban on entry by Muslims into the United States has created unease in some of the places in the Middle East where he does business.
This week, Dubai-based Landmark Group announced that it would remove Trump home decor products from its 180 Lifestyle stores in the region because it “values and respects the sentiments of its customers,” the Associated Press reported.
Meanwhile, in an interview with CNN, Emirati billionaire Khalaf al-Habtoor, who once held the contract to build a later-canceled Trump International hotel and tower in Dubai, branded his former business associate “the biggest enemy of Islam.” In a column in the National newspaper, which is published in the emirate of Abu Dhabi, Habtoor said he had once supported Trump’s presidential bid but had realized “I was wrong and do not mind admitting it.”
Although there was muted support for Trump in some quarters in the region, Arab leaders issued a statement Thursday after a Gulf Cooperation Council meeting in Saudi Arabia expressing “deep concern” about the “hostile, racist and inhumane rhetoric against refugees in general and Muslims in particular.” The Akoya development, centered on a golf course bearing Trump’s name, is in the finishing stages, with the first 50 villas due to be handed over to buyers within weeks. The entire development is expected to be completed next year.
Even by Dubai’s extravagant standards, it has been touted as an exclusive neighborhood, with villas fringing a central golf course, and with private, man-made “beaches” around vast lakes and parklands.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/trumps-name-comes-down-from-billboards-at-development-in-dubai/2015/12/10/a3346188-9de1-11e5-9ad2-568d814bbf3b_story.html