The World Dubai will see its first island open to the public this week with the launch of the luxury World Island Beach Club.

“We will be opening in the first week of January,” said Reza Sinnen, operations manager at the beach club, based on the island of Lebanon.

The resort was originally scheduled to open in the fourth quarter of 2011 but pushed back its launch following construction delays.

A cluster of 300 artificial islands off Dubai‘s coast in the shape of a global map is stable, its developer Nakheel insists, despite a court claim alleging that “The World” was neglected and eroding away.

“There is no issue with the stability of The World islands that are approximately 70 percent sold and handed over,” a Nakheel spokesman said.

“The island purchasers (have) the responsibility to proceed with their developments in due course,” he added.

An investor in the World project (Dubai) has listed an island on sale defying the “no flipping” diktat by UAE Defense Minister, Nakheel.

The 20,000 sqm island is up for sale for Dh42 million ($11million), according to Streamline Real Estate Brokers, the agency brokering the deal.

When contacted about the ‘re-sale’, a Nakheel spokesperson said: “Flipping is not allowed for islands on The World.”

London’s Mirror reports that the ruler of Dubai offered Victoria Beckham $40 million to help design a luxury hotel.

Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum personally wrote Beckham an email explaining his offer, the story says.

He reportedly asked her to put her name on the hotel and consult on the choice of room design and furnishings.

Like many expatriates, Safi Qurashi misses home.

But now the Dubai-based shopkeeper’s son from South London has solved the problem. He has bought Great Britain.

Mr Qurashi, 39, has paid £43 million for the Britain-shaped island in The World, a man-made archipelago off the coast of Dubai, where each piece of land represents a different country, state or city.

The wealthy prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the crown prince of Dubai has gifted the already rich former F1 racer his own piece of “The World”.

Situated off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, “The World” is a grouping of man-made islands developed to look like a map of the Earth.

Valued at roughly $7 million, Schumacher’s island will be located in the southern hemisphere, part of the “Antarctica” island cluster, when completed in a few years, presumably before the Michael Schumacher World Champion Tower in Abu Dhabi is completed.