Much like the rivalry between Auckland and Wellington, there has always been a hint of competition between Dubai and Abu Dhabi, two of the biggest and most important of the seven emirates making up the United Arab Emirates.

They're a bit like Serena and Venus Williams. Everyone thinks they want to knife each other in the back - especially during Wimbledon - but we'll never know for sure. Who will win the trophy in the competition between Dubai and Abu Dhabi? Time will tell.

Falling glass and cracking walls provided enough warning for 21 workers to reach safety before a large section of a building under construction in Deira collapsed yesterday.

No injuries were reported in the incident, which lasted about 40 minutes, destroying at least 12 cars and causing millions of dirhams in damage. It left shattered glass and debris strewn over the area.

Last night Dubai Police confirmed that the contractor of the commercial complex had been taken into custody after a part of the building collapsed on to the busy road heading to Sharjah. The rest of the structure remains intact.

A new high-speed ferry service from Abu Dhabi will be launched in the New Year.

The service’s destination will be announced after the conclusion of Ramadan in September, but likely routes include Doha, Bahrain or perhaps southern Iran.

The first details emerged last week with the sale of three ferries from a Canadian company to Abu Dhabi MAR, a yacht builder based in the capital.

The privately owned company is setting up a new division to operate the ferries once they have been refitted for use in the Gulf.

Dubai properties located across those parts of the emirate made more accessible by the new Dubai Metro, may receive a price boost.

The new rail service will start operation of around 44 trains out of 62 to run on the Red Line when the service is launched on 9 September 2009.

A total of 79 trains will be used on the Red and the Green Lines to carry around 27,000 passengers per hour per direction once the metro is fully operational in March next year.

A senior official at Dubai Metro told the press: “Initially, we will launch operations starting with the capacity of around 6,300 passengers per hour per direction with fewer trains on the track. All the stations are not yet ready but we hope to open 17 to 22 stations out of the total 29.”

The Dubai Metro project, which will become the world's lengthiest driverless scheme, is being completed in a record time of just 49 months. The metro track runs from Al Rashidiya Station to Jebel Ali Free Zone Station.

As the recession forces more Britons to return home from United Arab Emirates, many are donating unwanted items to groups taking from the rich and giving to the poor.

The charity Take My Junk UAE is the idea of Faisal Khan. The 34-year-old businessman said he was so moved by the plight of the Emirates' labourers he wanted to do something positive to help.

Now Mr Khan spends 15 hours a day driving around Dubai collecting donated household junk and distributing the goods in labour camps.

They locked their doors, pulled down the shutters and ignored callers, but it was not enough to stop municipal inspectors from making the first evictions of their drive to enforce the city’s one-villa-one-family regulation.

“Inspectors came this morning and reminded us that we have to move out. We were prepared for this and the family is now moving to International City,” said Abdul Kadir, a resident of Al Rashidiya, whose brother’s family had also been evicted. “We did not expect any trouble, but we were wrong.”

The municipality said that starting this month, it would intensify efforts to uphold the one family per villa rule. Officials say shared villas pose health and environmental risk

Hotels in Dubai continue to lead the world in profitability with net profits, or margins, of 35 per cent in 2009, according to researchers.

"We still have excellent net margins compared to other parts of the world," said Amine Hamdani, Vice-President, CBRE Hotels, a hospitality consultancy and asset management firm.

Arnaud Andrieu, CBRE's Vice-President, said: "Cities, such as Paris, London and New York, would have a lower net profit than Dubai. In Europe, the average net profit is about 18 to 20 per cent so far in 2009 for the five-star segment. In New York, it would be above 20 per cent this year."

Revenue and profit margins have plunged in Dubai’s world famous retail sector this summer, as shops slash prices to boost dwindling sales.

Dubai Summer Surprises (DSS), the annual event organised by the Dubai Shopping Festival (DSF), is an important time of year for the city’s retailers.

Summer is traditionally a strong season for Dubai’s many shopping malls, as schools and universities close for the holidays and soaring temperatures keep people from going outside.But this year, no amount of discounting seems to help.