Paris Hilton walked the red carpet at Okku late on Thursday night to celebrate the Japanese restaurant's second anniversary.
The American socialite and hotel chain heiress arrived at the restaurant at the five-star Monarch Hotel on Sheikh Zayed Road a fashionable 35 minutes late in a blue and silver full length dress.
Hilton arrived in Dubai on Wednesday. Before her arrival she tweeted, "My first trip in Dubai was great, but I can already tell my second trip here will be even better! I love Dubai, such an incredible place!".
She spent part of Thursday afternoon at Dubai Mall. From there she tweeted, "At The Dubai Mall Aquarium. So beautiful! This mall is so big and has the best stores! Huge! :)".
At 12:35am on Friday morning, she arrived at Okku accompanied by two friends, Gelareh Monajemi and Marta Vezzaro, both from Italy. The two were contestants on Hilton's competitive reality show, Paris Hilton's Dubai BFF, which was filmed here in 2009.
Although the show aired on several MTV channels around the world, it has yet to air here because of litigation between the show's UAE-based producers and its US-based distributors. According to an MTV representative, there are no plans to show the series on MTV Arabia.
On the red carpet outside Okku, Hilton posed briefly for photographers, before being whisked inside the restaurant for a private party. Security was tight and several members of the public who hoped to party the night away with Ms Hilton were turned away, including Samir, 21, from Jordan.
"I am a huge fan of Paris," he said. "It would have been absolutely divine to party with her, but I couldn't get in. At least I got to see her in person."
From inside Okku, Ms Hilton tweeted, "Partying @OkkuRestaurant with my Dubai BFFs Gelareh @ReemyPie and @martitabff. Love my girls!".
ealghalib@thenational.ae
Will the pound fall to parity with the dollar?
The idea of pound parity now seems less far-fetched as the risk grows that Britain may split away from the European Union without a deal.
Rupert Harrison, a fund manager at BlackRock, sees the risk of it falling to trade level with the dollar on a no-deal Brexit. The view echoes Morgan Stanley’s recent forecast that the currency can plunge toward $1 (Dh3.67) on such an outcome. That isn’t the majority view yet – a Bloomberg survey this month estimated the pound will slide to $1.10 should the UK exit the bloc without an agreement.
New Prime Minister Boris Johnson has repeatedly said that Britain will leave the EU on the October 31 deadline with or without an agreement, fuelling concern the nation is headed for a disorderly departure and fanning pessimism toward the pound. Sterling has fallen more than 7 per cent in the past three months, the worst performance among major developed-market currencies.
“The pound is at a much lower level now but I still think a no-deal exit would lead to significant volatility and we could be testing parity on a really bad outcome,” said Mr Harrison, who manages more than $10 billion in assets at BlackRock. “We will see this game of chicken continue through August and that’s likely negative for sterling,” he said about the deadlocked Brexit talks.
The pound fell 0.8 per cent to $1.2033 on Friday, its weakest closing level since the 1980s, after a report on the second quarter showed the UK economy shrank for the first time in six years. The data means it is likely the Bank of England will cut interest rates, according to Mizuho Bank.
The BOE said in November that the currency could fall even below $1 in an analysis on possible worst-case Brexit scenarios. Options-based calculations showed around a 6.4 per cent chance of pound-dollar parity in the next one year, markedly higher than 0.2 per cent in early March when prospects of a no-deal outcome were seemingly off the table.
Bloomberg
The Vile
Starring: Bdoor Mohammad, Jasem Alkharraz, Iman Tarik, Sarah Taibah
Director: Majid Al Ansari
Rating: 4/5
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Our family matters legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
