A bridge being built in Sudan

I just came across an interesting blog, Unity Bridge, about a development project in Yabus, Sudan.

Yabus is home to five tribes and 60,000 people, divided by a river that is impassable for up to six months every year.

The blog follows the project to build a 74m bridge which will unite the town so that both sides will enjoy access to the clinic, market, and schools all year long. The small and big hurdles, success stories and setbacks so typical for development work in Africa.

Picture courtesy Unity Bridge

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Rumble: Hadrian's villa

This week, we took a day off and visited Hadrian's villa ("Villa Adriana" in Italian).

The villa was created at Tibur (modern-day Tivoli) as a retreat from Rome for Roman Emperor Hadrian (or "Adrian")in the early 2nd century.

Hadrian was said to dislike the palace on the Palatine Hill in Rome, leading to the construction of the retreat. During the later years of his reign, he actually governed the empire from the villa. A large court lived there permanently.

The villa is a complex of over 30 buildings, covering an area of 1 square kilometre of which much is still unexcavated. The villa was the greatest Roman example of an Alexandrian garden, recreating a sacred landscape. The complex included palaces, several thermae, theatre, temples, libraries, state rooms and quarters for courtiers, praetorians and slaves.

More posts on The Road about Italy and living in Italy.

Most pictures were taken by my oldest daughter, Lana.

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News: Dubai builds the world's tallest tower (again)

Currently, the world's tallest structure is the soon to be finished the Burj Dubai, which is rumoured to stand at 818 meters. Today, Dubai revealed its successor, the Nakheel Tower, to be "over one kilometre" high and have more than 200 floors.


The new superstructure is part of a US$38.12 billion project that includes the world’s first inner city harbour.

The Nakheel Tower will have more than 150 lifts and house 19,000 apartments with 10,000 parking spaces. The complex will provide homes and offices for 100,000 people.

If all the reinforcing bars were laid end to end they would stretch from Dubai to New York -- one quarter of the way round the world. 30,000 workers will be involved in construction


The new tower will be so tall it will have five different micro-climates. The temperature in the atmosphere at the top of the building could be as much as 10 degrees cooler than at the bottom. (Full)

Pictures courtesy Nakheel.

More posts on The Road about Dubai

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Rumble: Burj Dubai, the World's Tallest

For one week, during our workshop in Dubai, I could see Burj Dubai, the world's tallest building being constructed only half a mile from where I was sitting.
It really dwarfs the "other world's tallest buildings"!

For one week, I was gazing at this amazing project.
Have a look at this video:

Part 1:


Part 2:


Video courtesy uae@uae.net, picture courtesy wikipedia.

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