Did you ever imagine that Hello Kitty would be big worldwide? Maya Castro, Miami No, not at all. When I started I didn't even know whether she would sell in Japan. I was told that Hello Kitty was only for children and that Westerners wouldn't carry her around. Why doesn't Hello Kitty have a mouth? Sandi Saksena, Dubai It's so that people who look at her can project their own feelings onto her face, because she has an expressionless face. Kitty looks happy when people ...

Dubai's financial crisis may have calmed a bit now that the central bank of the United Arab Emirates has promised to stand behind the city state's banks with fresh liquidity. After all, the UAE, to which Dubai belongs, has perhaps $700 billion accumulated from petroleum riches — a resource that Dubai, which is apparently stuck with tens of billions of dollars in debt, does not enjoy. But the question remains, if the central bank in Abu Dhabi decides ...

A few years ago, an adviser went to Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum with a plan for a tall office building. "Only 90 stories?" the ruler of Dubai asked. The aide was sent back to the drawing board, with instructions to design the highest structure not just in Dubai, not just in the Middle East, but in the world. When the Burj Dubai has its grand opening in January, it will be an 818-meter monument to the visionary autocrat ...

The European Tour looks set to suffer a major body blow this week when it announces a reduction in prize money for this year's flagship $20 million Race to Dubai and Dubai World Championships. A golf insider from the region has told CNN that the impact of the credit crunch on Leisurecorp, the company behind the concept, and the fact the Dubai World Championship has not attracted the handful of marquee sponsors hoped for, has led to a decision to ...

There are a number of ways to measure the financial turbulence of the past year: the billions of dollars in public funds used to prop up banks; the cliff-drop in exports from any major economy; or the latest unemployment report. Another way to judge the financial volatility of the past year is the ranking of the most expensive cities for expatriate employees to live. The 10 most expensive cities for expatriates -- according to a cost of living survey released ...

The British are coming, the British are coming -- to Brooklyn? By subway? New York's struggling Metropolitan Transportation Authority has sold the naming rights to the second-busiest subway stop in Brooklyn. The Atlantic Avenue-Pacific Street Station will now have the name of a British bank, Barclays, added to it. Several subway riders are outraged that Barclays has purchased the naming rights to this subway stop, which sees about 10 million people go through it each day. One straphanger said, "A ...

Members of Iran's influential National Security Council have told opposition leader Mir Hossein Moussavi that his repeated demands for the annulment of the June 12 election results are "illogical and unethical," state media reported. Esmaeel Kowsari told the government-run Iranian Labor News Agency in an interview Friday that the council met with Moussavi, former presidential candidates Mehdi Karrubi and Mohsen Rezaie, and former Iran President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who now chairs the Assembly of Experts. The assembly is ...

The handful of squat and humble warehouses that comprises Dubai's unofficial creative district bears little resemblance to the emirate's legendary multi-billion dollar skyline. But in just three years, around 30 galleries and cultural institutions have set up in this dusty neighborhood. In the process, they have helped inspire private and governmental initiatives designed to alter the perception that Dubai is nothing but a characterless, globalized marketplace of vulgar shopping malls and exploited workers. The swell of creativity — in ...

As a tense Tehran awoke Wednesday bracing for more protests, residents in the capital city and elsewhere said they were too afraid to talk about the political crisis over the phone. Residents, worried the government was monitoring phone conversations, said the Internet was the best way to transmit information about the unrest. However, the spotty connection made it difficult to rely on the Web. "It's beyond fear," said a woman who arrived at a U.S. airport from Iran, but still ...

A New York Times reporter who was held by the Taliban for seven months has escaped, the newspaper reported Saturday. David Rohde told his wife, Kristen Mulvihill, that he and a local reporter, Tahir Ludin, climbed over the wall of a compound late Friday where they were being held in the North Waziristan region of Pakistan. Pakistani military spokesman Gen. Athar Abbas told CNN that the Pakistani military was involved in freeing Rohde. Additional details were not immediately available. ...