What in the world is happening to The World? The
London Times reports that one of the world's most ambitious building projects, a series of islands in the Arabian Gulf shaped like a map of the Earth, may be in real trouble. We've been following this project for years watching as various people laid claim, or were rumored to have laid claim to country-named islands. Richard Branson even planted a Union Jack on one of the islands as one of his infamous stunts. But now the project is becoming an ocean wasteland, a half-finished project of rocks and sand surrounded by breakwaters. Work has stopped inside the manmade lagoon and instead of neatly defined islands in the shape of recognizable countries and continents, ragged sandy blobs pushed barely above the water remain. The Times article quotes a Dubai property agent as saying that the project has been cancelled, a fact which leaves many investors in the lurch.
