Abu Dhabi’s top hotel, the Emirates Palace, recently debuted a vending machine that dispenses gold bars.

The machine, named Gold To Go, allows customers to trade cash for gold in quantities ranging from coins up to 10-gram bars.

Customers using the shiny machine — itself gold-plated — can choose from 320 items, including gold customized with logos.

The price of gold, which was up to $1,245 an ounce yesterday, is measured by the machine every ten minutes.

A village in the Seychelles called La Misere is demanding millions in damages for pollution caused by the construction of a huge palace for the United Arab Emirates president, residents said Thursday.

Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan, also the prince of Abu Dhabi, is building a lavish compound on the highest spot of the Indian Ocean nation’s main island, on the site of a former US tracking station.

The Hurun Research Institute published the 2010 Hurun Wealth Report today for the second consecutive year.

The report analyses the number and distribution of China’s wealthy across the nation’s major cities and provinces.

The report shows that there are 875,000 people with more than RMB 10million (EUR 1.1M / USD 1.47M) in China today, an increase of 6.1% from last year.

This growth has occurred against a background of strong economic performance in China‘s economy.

GDP grew by 8.7% in 2009 to RMB 33.5trillion, and the Shanghai Composite Index rose over the same period from 2300 points to 3000, an increase of 30%.

The world’s new richest man, Mexican Carlos Slim, and a fresh crop of billionaires in Asia helped lead a comeback for the wealthiest few on the planet in 2010, Forbes magazine said Wednesday.

The publication’s annual rich list reflected a resurgence of wealth after the financial turmoil of 2009, with the top 10 wealthiest worth a combined 342 billion dollars, compared to 254 billion dollars in the previous year.

“The global economy is recovering. The financial markets came back, especially emerging markets,” said magazine editor-in-chief Steve Forbes.

“There’s a 50 percent increase in general global wealth compared to last year,” Forbes said.

Certainly the economy recovered for the super rich, who took a beating during last year’s stock and commodity market collapses, but saw across-the-board gains this year.

Forbes counted 1,011 billionaires from 55 countries, up from 793 last year, though still shy of the pre-crisis 1,125 listed in 2008.

The top 10 richest people in the world have a combined worth of 342 billion dollars in 2010, up from 254 billion a year ago.

Here are the 20 wealthiest, as announced Wednesday by Forbes magazine in its annual list of the world’s billionaires:

1. Carlos Slim Helu and family. Mexico. Telecoms. 53.5 billion dollars.

2. Bill Gates. US. Microsoft. 53 billion dollars.

3. Warren Buffett. US. Berkshire Hathaway. 47 billion dollars.

Shoppers wondering how to deal with the afterlife found an answer Friday — a cell-phone-equipped golden coffin, one of many items on display at the opening of an international luxury fair in Verona.

The coffin was priced at a mere 280,000 euros (381,000 dollars), while a diamond-studded, cancan-style wedding gown in pink chinchilla fur could be scooped up for 220,000 euros.

More traditional items include a boat running on a Ferrari engine and a crystal-covered piano, whose price was undisclosed.

A limited-edition sports car was priced at 1.3 million euros, while the more ecologically conscious could opt for a 24-carat gold racer bicycle.