Dubai's Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building is illuminated during festivities marking the one-year countdown to Expo 2020. Giuseppe Cacace / AFP
Dubai's Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building is illuminated during festivities marking the one-year countdown to Expo 2020. Giuseppe Cacace / AFP
Dubai's Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building is illuminated during festivities marking the one-year countdown to Expo 2020. Giuseppe Cacace / AFP
Dubai's Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building is illuminated during festivities marking the one-year countdown to Expo 2020. Giuseppe Cacace / AFP

Soft power and prestige: the allure of world Expos endures


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  • Arabic

When the first World’s Fair was held in London in 1851, the invention of the telephone was still a quarter of a century away.

Today, however, vast technological leaps has meant countries can now promote themselves to an audience of millions at the touch of a button.

Yet despite our increasingly digitalised world, nations still spend tens of millions of dollars ensuring they have a strong, lasting presence at Expos - the latest of which opens in October in Dubai.

Their enduring appeal, and governments' eagerness to take part in and host the mega events despite the expense, is explained by the opportunity to gain 'soft power' currency and to define their national image to outsiders, internationally renowned experts told The National.

In several cases, not participating is more expensive in diplomatic terms than participating

“Countries still attend Expos in the age of jet travel because there is value in engaging ordinary people en masse,” Nick Cull, Professor of Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California and an authority on the history of world expositions, said.

“Expos today can be understood as part of the apparatus of soft power. Countries who host them show themselves to be in the big league and win international attention simply for putting on a show.

"Nations or corporations who participate are similarly able to assert themselves and show relevance to a theme.

“So many major innovations have been showcased at Expos — telephones, TVs, mobile phones — it is a chance for a country to show what it is doing and plans to do.

“If you are a large and influential country you need to be seen to be involved on the world stage and to keep it up. Some scholars think of this as like paying rent on your positive image.”

Simply participating in and spending on an Expo presence may gain favour with the host nation, but it is not enough to ensure success.

A truly great pavilion must have “harmony of design” that unites “the vision of an architect with that of an exhibit designer and amazing content”, Prof Cull said.

Officially, Expos are non-political events yet competition between traditional rivals has long been a feature.

During the 20th Century, rivalries between capitalist and socialist systems became a major undercurrent of World Expos, with the Soviet Union in particular putting significant effort into its showings.

This year, an increasingly confident China is set to have one of the most imposing pavilions, focusing on the nation’s history and technological innovations, with Russia also vowing to put on a “next level” display that presents the country as forward-thinking and modern.

The efforts by its rivals partially explain why Mike Pompeo, the US Secretary of State, spent months attempting unsuccessfully to get around laws which ban public funds being used for American Expo showings.

While previously the private sector has paid for a US presence, a bankruptcy following America's Milan exhibit in 2015 has left businesses unwilling to step up this time. US participation was only secured at the last minute, when the UAE offered to pay for the US pavilion.

Prof Cull is among those who has been attempting to raise awareness of what is at stake in the US, and what would have been lost if had failed to show up in Dubai.

“It seems such a small amount of money to make it happen when so much is spent on hard power resources every day,” he said.

“Skipping Expos is a bad habit. It makes the US seem small and petty and undermines plans to host a future Expo themselves. Reputational security in the long-term means showing up and sharing a vision.”

According to organisers, more than 190 countries and territories have confirmed participation in Dubai, making it “the most inclusive and international” ever.

Saudi Arabia is set to use its presence to complement its wider efforts to promote itself as a destination for tourism and foreign investment.

India’s pavilion, which will display its space programme, is set to cost around $68m (Dh250m), a proportion of which will be paid by private donations, but smaller nations are also investing heavily.

New Zealand is expected to spend $35m (Dh128m) on its pavilion, dedicated to the Maori value of guardianship and protection known as "kaitiakitanga", while Kazakhstan has set aside $23.5m (Dh86m) for its showing, which it hopes will help with its push to attract overseas investment.

Turkmenistan has promised that visitors to its pavilion will be accompanied by virtual Akhal-Teke horses while Monaco will be represented in its own right by a mirrored exhibition space which will “replicate the sights and smells of the French Riviera”.

A contract to build the UAE’s pavilion was worth $96m (Dh353m), but for a host nation, there are far greater opportunities than for participants, according to César Corona, a Mexican-born academic who specialises in public diplomacy and World Expos.

“Countries continue to take part in Expos mainly for two reasons,” he said.

“The interest of the participating country and the interest of the host country. Host countries appreciate early confirmations of participation which helps attract more participants.

"In several cases, not participating is more expensive in diplomatic terms than participating.

“Another strong reason to participate is country promotion, which may involve informing, reinforcing or reframing public perception, building or strengthening bilateral relations, highlighting an industry, promoting tourism or using the pavilion as a backdrop for meetings with business representatives.”

Hosting Expos helped countries become “more relevant international actors,” Mr Corona said. Examples of this working were Japan in 1970, Spain in 1992 and China in 2010, he said, where there events were seen as marking major turning points in countries’ development and global image.

“Considering that the UAE has been in a period of transition for a couple of decades, I believe its government plans to use Expo 2020 in the long-term to make Dubai’s population more internationally orientated and more receptive to foreign ideas,” he added.

“Having a physical presence at Expos is still valued because they create memorable experiences through authenticity.

“Communicating with staff who travelled from their countries, observing up-close the texture of real archaeological pieces, walking into unique architectural works that will cease to endure after a few months or tasting combinations of spices for the first time creates a sense of belonging and connection with foreign cultures that the internet and virtual reality cannot yet offer.”

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FOOTBALL TEST

Team X 1 Team Y 0

Scorers

Red card

Man of the Match

 

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RESULT

Aston Villa 1
Samatta (41')
Manchester City 2
Aguero (20')
Rodri (30')

Sheikh Zayed's poem

When it is unveiled at Abu Dhabi Art, the Standing Tall exhibition will appear as an interplay of poetry and art. The 100 scarves are 100 fragments surrounding five, figurative, female sculptures, and both sculptures and scarves are hand-embroidered by a group of refugee women artisans, who used the Palestinian cross-stitch embroidery art of tatreez. Fragments of Sheikh Zayed’s poem Your Love is Ruling My Heart, written in Arabic as a love poem to his nation, are embroidered onto both the sculptures and the scarves. Here is the English translation.

Your love is ruling over my heart

Your love is ruling over my heart, even a mountain can’t bear all of it

Woe for my heart of such a love, if it befell it and made it its home

You came on me like a gleaming sun, you are the cure for my soul of its sickness

Be lenient on me, oh tender one, and have mercy on who because of you is in ruins

You are like the Ajeed Al-reem [leader of the gazelle herd] for my country, the source of all of its knowledge

You waddle even when you stand still, with feet white like the blooming of the dates of the palm

Oh, who wishes to deprive me of sleep, the night has ended and I still have not seen you

You are the cure for my sickness and my support, you dried my throat up let me go and damp it

Help me, oh children of mine, for in his love my life will pass me by. 

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UAE%20Warriors%2033%20Results
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Sole survivors
  • Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
  • George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
  • Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
  • Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
SPEC%20SHEET
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England's all-time record goalscorers:
Wayne Rooney 53
Bobby Charlton 49
Gary Lineker 48
Jimmy Greaves 44
Michael Owen 40
Tom Finney 30
Nat Lofthouse 30
Alan Shearer 30
Viv Woodward 29
Frank Lampard 29

A new relationship with the old country

Treaty of Friendship between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United Arab Emirates

The United kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United Arab Emirates; Considering that the United Arab Emirates has assumed full responsibility as a sovereign and independent State; Determined that the long-standing and traditional relations of close friendship and cooperation between their peoples shall continue; Desiring to give expression to this intention in the form of a Treaty Friendship; Have agreed as follows:

ARTICLE 1 The relations between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United Arab Emirates shall be governed by a spirit of close friendship. In recognition of this, the Contracting Parties, conscious of their common interest in the peace and stability of the region, shall: (a) consult together on matters of mutual concern in time of need; (b) settle all their disputes by peaceful means in conformity with the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations.

ARTICLE 2 The Contracting Parties shall encourage education, scientific and cultural cooperation between the two States in accordance with arrangements to be agreed. Such arrangements shall cover among other things: (a) the promotion of mutual understanding of their respective cultures, civilisations and languages, the promotion of contacts among professional bodies, universities and cultural institutions; (c) the encouragement of technical, scientific and cultural exchanges.

ARTICLE 3 The Contracting Parties shall maintain the close relationship already existing between them in the field of trade and commerce. Representatives of the Contracting Parties shall meet from time to time to consider means by which such relations can be further developed and strengthened, including the possibility of concluding treaties or agreements on matters of mutual concern.

ARTICLE 4 This Treaty shall enter into force on today’s date and shall remain in force for a period of ten years. Unless twelve months before the expiry of the said period of ten years either Contracting Party shall have given notice to the other of its intention to terminate the Treaty, this Treaty shall remain in force thereafter until the expiry of twelve months from the date on which notice of such intention is given.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF the undersigned have signed this Treaty.

DONE in duplicate at Dubai the second day of December 1971AD, corresponding to the fifteenth day of Shawwal 1391H, in the English and Arabic languages, both texts being equally authoritative.

Signed

Geoffrey Arthur  Sheikh Zayed

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TV: Match on BeIN Sports

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