China Is Building A Structure 20 Times Bigger Than The Sydney Opera House

new century city centre china

A thousand kilometres from the nearest coast a towering glass wave rolls over the plains of Sichuan, the roof of what Chinese officials say will be the world's largest standalone structure.

The 100-metre-high "New Century Global Centre" is a symbol of the spread of China's boom, 500 metres long and 400 metres wide, with 1.7 million square metres of floor space, big enough to hold 20 Sydney Opera Houses according to local authorities.

By comparison the Pentagon in Washington -- still one of the world's largest office buildings -- is barely a third of the size with a mere 600,000 square metres of floor space.

The Global Centre is just a few kilometres from the US consulate where the police chief of Chongqing fled to seek asylum, triggering the fall of his patron Bo Xilai and exposing the biggest scandal to rock China's Communist Party for years.

But it represents a different side of China, where lower costs and government subsidies are still fuelling double-digit growth in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province.

new century city centre china

The city of 14 million people plans to expand its subway from two lines to 10 by 2020, build a new airport and become a new Silicon Valley.

The Global Centre will house offices, conference rooms, a university complex, two commercial centres, two five star hotels, an IMAX cinema, a "Mediterranean village", a skating rink and a pirate ship, among other attractions.

About 400,000 square metres will be devoted to shopping, most of the outlets high-end luxury brands.

Despite Chengdu being around 1,000 kilometres from the sea the complex has a marine theme, with fountains, a huge water park and an artificial beach, accented by the undulating roof, meant to resemble a wave.

"This is an ocean city built by man," said guide Liu Xun. "There will be 1,000 rooms (in the hotel) and all will have seaside views."

new century city centre china

The thick smog that normally blankets Chengdu risks making it a sunless sea, but visitors will not need to worry about that, she said.

"We have borrowed a Japanese technique. There will be an artificial sun that will shine 24 hours a day and allow for a comfortable temperature," Liu said. The system uses specialised lighting technology that heats as well as illuminates.

The centrepiece will be a 5,000 square metre artificial beach, to include a rafting course and a "seafront" promenade, complete with parasols and seafood outlets that can accomodate 6,000 people.

A giant screen 150 metres long and 40 high will form the horizon and offer sunrises and sunsets, accompanied by nautical breezes.

The exterior facade is near completion and an army of workers are rushing to finish the Chinese-designed building in time for a June 2013 international forum hosted by US magazine Fortune.'

new century city centre china

China's incoming president Xi Jinping is expected to attend the event and meet the heads of some of the world's biggest multinationals.

Another enormous building is planned across the road. Award-winning British-Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid's Chengdu Contemporary Arts Centre is to include a theatre, an opera house and a museum.

In a video developers China Exhibition and Travel Group describe Chengdu as a "world class modern city of idyllic beauty", and say the Global Centre -- including restaurants serving "the rarest oceanic fish species" -- will bring to mind "the fabulous heavens".

It is, they say, "a landmark which commands the world and is looked upon by the world with respect".

SEE ALSO: Check Out The Lavish Government Buildings Cropping Up In Outer China

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Loads Of Journalists, Few Believers In The Only Town Expected To Survive The Apocalypse

Bugarach, FranceThe Daily Telegraph's France correspondent Henry Samuel meets new agers and grumpy journalists in the one place predicted to survive the apocalypse

If the legend is true and the sleepy southern French town of Bugarach is the only place standing after the apocalypse, the Earth will be populated by 150 policemen, some on horseback, 250 frustrated journalists from around the world and 198 very bewildered villagers.

A huge, global internet conspiracy theory suggests this "doomsday village", with its curious "upside down" mountain offers protection against the end of the world supposedly predicted by the Mayan calendar for approximately 11.21GMT Friday.

The theory goes that the mountain is in fact a vast underground car park for UFOs, and only those within spitting distance of the mount stand a chance of jumping on board.

By the afternoon, with only hours to go before the world's supposed final curtain, intergalactic hitch hikers were few and far between and tempers were fraying among reporters flown in from as far as China in the hunt for elusive esoterics.

"Beam me up froggy," sighed one British journalist.

 

Any true "believers" bold enough to try to tackle the 4,035ft climb to the peak of Pic de Bugarach in heavy drizzle first had to get past cohorts of police stationed in roadblocks around the village. Only visitors with press or village passes were allowed in.

Once inside, the route to the top remained equally daunting, with Le Pic protected by an elite gendarme mountain unit, while another team of police potholers scoured its myriad underground caverns to succour any hapless New Agers lost underground.

Some did make it however.

Frédéric, 28, an unemployed waiter from Marseille squinted determinedly at the cloud-shrouded peak with a tent and rucksack on his back.

"I must be up there between midday and two o'clock on Friday," he said earnestly, his brother Laurent, 35, by his side.

"A ray of sunlight will pass by all the planets aligned to the sun and into the rock. At that moment, a passage, a window will open up an inter-dimensional vortex," he insisted.

"There is a hole the other side of the summit, about knee height, and we will sit in it. If the passage opens we will pass into another dimension," he said.

He said he had initially expected 200,000 people to turn up today, but admitted that might be an exaggeration.

A little further down the main street, Sylvain Dufir, 44, or "Oriana", his cosmic name, was equally persuasive in revealing the "true meaning of the apocalypse".

"There will be no end of the world, no cataclysm, but a revelation," he said with a knowing smile. "On Friday, all humanity will go through a sort of internal alchemy, a revolution inside our cells so we can be at one with the golden light of divine love," he said.

"The feeling will be like 10,000 orgasms," he insisted. "Bring it on," said a passing French youth.

As for Bugarach, he added: "Flying saucers do enter the mountain but they are much too fast to be photographed." With trapped journalists in need of sustenance, Patrice Etienne, who runs an organic grocery, was doing a roaring trade serving food and drink, including a Bugarach "End of the World Vintage", said to "peak in December 2012".

He remained sceptical about the doomsday plot, but added: "There's no smoke without fire."

"They speak of the end of the world to put us off the scent. But the army, which is secretly sending spy planes up there at night, is getting ready for something equally serious," he claimed.

Sceptical journalists were the main obstacle to solving the riddle of the mount, he claimed. "We want help from Russians and Japanese scientists, experts with material open to such phenomena," he said.

Moving into the quiet backstreets, some villagers were scathing of the spectacle.

Muttering as he opened his front door, Alain Jany, 53, a retired soldier, grumbled: "I'm starting to wonder whether I'm the only sane person and everyone else is mad, or the reverse." "It reminds me of a disaster movie or some kind of conflict. All you see in our village are journalists and gendarmes. Usually they come when there's something to cover, like a war, a murder. But what are they all waiting for here? Nothing! I've been up that peak 50,0000 times and have never seen a thing. It's rubbish," he said.

Sitting calmly in her kitchen a dozen yards down the road, Valerie Austin, a retired music teacher from Northumberland, sighed: "The circus has come to town."

"On French local radio this morning, the joke was:"I feel sorry for the spaceship, they obviously have no idea what the price of petrol is around here."

"You've got to see the funny side, but it's been a roller coaster."

Further out of the village, Susie Harrison, 50, a New Ager who moved from Glastonbury to Bugarach 10 years ago, was putting the finishing touches to a mashed potato mountain reminiscent of the one from Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

While she said there was definitely "something special" about the mountain she doubted the world would end, but had a friend who did. He had a problem, however.

"Ian left the village to buy clean underpants for the occasion and now the police won't let him back in, so he's very annoyed. I might have to go and rescue him," she said.

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The Cheapest Way To Heat Your Home This Winter

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What’s the cheapest way to heat your home: oil, natural gas, electricity, propane?

Home heating costs vary by region and even by house.

Here's what the average Northeast homeowner can expect to pay to heat his or her home with various fuels this winter, as forecast by the Energy Information Administration (EIA):

4. Heating oil: $2,526

Oil prices have risen so high that oil heat, once competitive with other major home-heating fuels, has become the most expensive to use. Prices are tied to world events, so they can change quickly.

But the trend of the past decade is clear: Heating oil prices have more than doubled from $10.31 per million British thermal units to more than $25 per million Btus.

Nationally, only about 6 percent of homeowners use oil as their primary home heating source. Most of them are located in the Northeast.

This comparison uses the EIA’s Northeast prices, because it’s the one region that uses all four fuels in quantity and because it reflects the full costs of heating in a northern climate.

3. Propane: $2,386

Although it’s a relatively clean fuel, propane is expensive and has been losing popularity for years. In the winter of 2006-07, some 6.5 million homes used it for primary heat; this winter, that number is down to 5.6 million, according to EIA estimates.

The cost varies a lot by region. In the Midwest, heating a home with propane costs an average of only $1,534. In Maine, propane is replacing oil because it's cheaper to use.

Although it’s a relatively clean fuel, propane is expensive and has been losing popularity for years. In the winter of 2006-07, some 6.5 million homes used it for primary heat; this winter, that number is down to 5.6 million, according to EIA estimates. The cost varies a lot by region.

In the Midwest, heating a home with propane costs an average of only $1,534. In Maine, propane is replacing oil because it's cheaper to use.

2. Electricity: $1,315

The use of electric heat is on the rise, even in the frosty Northeast. Cost is a main draw, although some homeowners complain that electric heat isn’t as efficient as other fuels. Nationally, about a third of US homes rely on electricity as their primary heating source.

1. Natural gas: $1,024

Of the four main fuels used to heat US homes, natural gas is the most popular and now the cheapest, as well. A decade ago, gas cost about 80 percent of an equivalent amount of oil; it now costs less than half of oil, as oil prices have risen and America’s boom in natural gas drilling has kept gas prices low.

Nearly half of all homes use natural gas as their primary heating source. Some analysts forecast a huge supply of the fuel will be available for decades to come. 

Not everyone believes the supply is so large that natural gas will continue to be a low-cost fuel. The trends of the past decade, however, are encouraging: In inflation-adjusted terms, natural gas prices are roughly the same as they were in 2003-04, even before adjusting for inflation.

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Serbia Is The Sickest Man Of Europe

serbiaEvent

On December 18th the World Bank released an estimate for a real GDP contraction of 2% in Serbia in 2012.

Analysis

Bad news keeps coming out of Serbia, with the World Bank being the latest organisation to revise down its growth estimate for 2012, to the worst economic performance in the western Balkans. Unemployment has rocketed, to 26.2% in October, with 170,000 jobs being lost in 2012. Inflation is running in double digits, following a food price shock, and the dinar is under pressure. FDI inflows have dried up as investors have taken flight from Serbia's economic malaise.

There are several reasons why Serbia has performed so badly. Like other countries, it has been adversely affected by the euro zone recession (we estimate a contraction of around 0.5% in the euro zone in 2012). Along with its neighbours, Serbia had to contend with severe winter weather in early 2012, which had a negative impact on economic activity. The region-wide drought had a devastating impact on agricultural output. In common with others, Serbia has been badly affected by rising international food prices.

There are some Serbia-specific explanations too. The election in early 2012 led to fiscal loosening in 2011 and left the incoming government facing a budget deficit in excess of 11% of GDP. Ensuing budget adjustments depressed consumption. The unemployment rate is among the highest in the region, having risen inexorably since a low of 13.3% in March 2008, and this has kept domestic consumption at rock bottom.

The government forecasts growth of 2.5% in 2012, banking on production at the Fiat plant in Kragujevac. Agriculture is also expected to bounce back. These are potential bright spots for Serbia. However, the gloomy outlook for the euro zone, for which we forecast another year of economic contraction, does not bode well for demand growth in Serbia's main export markets. If the government signs a new arrangement with the IMF, it will be under pressure to persist with fiscal consolidation and structural reforms, both of which will have a negative impact on employment and domestic demand.

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