Pile foundations have been completed for the 463-meter Lakhta Center in St. Petersburg, Russia. The last pile under the foundation was produced on June 17, 2014, and the project is on schedule, developers say. In total there are 2,080 piles of various diameters and depths in the foundations of the complex. All the piles are bored. Two hundred sixty-four piles 2 meters in diameter support the tower, 848 piles of 1.2 meters' diameter support the multifunctional building and entrance arch, and 968 piles of 600 millimeters support the underground car park. The behavior of the piles will be monitored by sensors, which will record information during the entire period of construction and operation of the complex.

It sounds like an April Fool's joke, but from what we can tell, the Chinese government is completely serious about their latest high speed rail project. According to multiple news outlets, China plans to build an 12870 kilometers railroad (sounds plausible) connecting China, Russia, Canada, and the U.S. that includes a 200 kilometers undersea tunnel spanning the Bering Strait! The plan was announced in China's state-run newspaper, the Beijing Times, and apparently Russia is already on-board with the plan. While it would be nice to travel from China to America in two days without setting foot in a single airport, engineers around the globe are skeptical. According to the report, which cites a single expert at the Chinese Academy of Engineering, Chinese officials "are considering a route that would start in the country's northeast, thread through eastern Siberia and cross the Bering Strait via a 200-kilometers long underwater tunnel into Alaska." This sounds fine, until you realize the proposed undersea route is longer than the Chunnel and the Seikan Tunnel in Japan (currently the world's longest and deepest) combined. Both were amazing feats of engineering in their own right, and that was without four major world governments (two of which don't play very nicely together) in the mix. Unsurprisingly, "no other Chinese railway experts have come out in support of the proposed project. Whether the government has consulted Russia, the US or Canada is also unclear," reports the Guardian. It's worth pointing out that Russia did green light a similar project in 2011. While we're inclined to file this one under 'strange and unusual news' for the time being, it's interesting to note that if anyone could create something as preposterous as an undersea railway around the world, it's China. "In the last half decade or so, China has embarked on an astonishing rail construction spree, laying down tens of thousands of miles tracks and launching myriad high-speed lines," explains the Washington Post.

UAE-based developer Kleindienst Group announced that contractors have been mobilized on its flagship The Heart of Europe project - a cluster of six islands forming part of The World, Dubai's iconic man-made island development. The company said in a statement that work has now started with the dispatching of 600 tons of materials and equipment from the main land to the islands. Vibro-compaction of all six islands is the first step in the construction process, preparing them for buildings to be erected. The construction process is anticipated to last until the end of 2016. The Heart of Europe project includes islands for mainland Europe, inspired by Austrian, Italian, Spanish, German and French architecture; Monaco; Sweden; Switzerland; St Petersburg, Austria and Germany. Once complete, The Heart of Europe will offer visitors and holiday makers the authentic charm of each of its European countries. Monaco will boast "all the elegance and opulence of the French Riviera" with contemporary villas and luxurious yachts, while Sweden will feature a central marketplace that encompasses the tradition of Stockholm's famous Saluhall markets. The first European island to be built will be Germany. The six stunning islands will offer leading hotels for families and wedding parties, landscaped gardens, climate controlled plazas, street performers, snow and rain-lined streets and much, much more. The World, master developed by the Nakheel Group's The World subsidiary, was first announced in 2003. The entire project spans approximately 9 kilometers in width, 7 kilometers in length, and is 4.5 kilometers from the Dubai mainland coast. The World's 300 islands and 27 kilometers breakwater were completed in 2008 cover over 870 thousand square meters and are visible from space. On May 2013 a Nakheel subsidiary has signed an out-of-court settlement agreement with Kleindienst Properties, a key investor in The World project, ending the need for it to go to the Dubai World Tribunal. The settlement, under which Kleindienst Properties will pay the balance owing of US$ 185 million to The World LLC, allows Kleindienst to continue with its planned Heart of Europe islands at The World.

Venezuela said on Tuesday it would start crushing abandoned cars and bicycles to provide raw materials for housing construction and supplement drastically reduced amounts of local steel, reported the Reuters. "We have sent 10,485 automobiles, 9,651 motorbikes and 539 bicycles to the national steel industry," Maria Martinez, a deputy justice minister, said during a visit to an abandoned car deposit outside Caracas. That quantity of steel, she said, could be used for rebars, which reinforce concrete, in the construction of tens of thousands of housing units. In one of late socialist leader Hugo Chavez's most popular policies, the "Great Venezuelan Housing Mission," authorities built or refurbished more than 250 thousand housing units in 2012 for low-income families. That fell to around 150 thousand last year. Production of rebars in March 2014 was at an 18-year monthly low of 8,796 tonnes, down from 46,051 tonnes in March last year. Venezuelan steelmaker Sidor has an installed annual capacity of 5 million tonnes, but output has declined since its nationalization six years ago due to frequent protests and insufficient investment. Total steel output reached a 16-year low of 1.5 million tonnes in 2012, and was only slightly higher at 1.6 million in 2013. The steelmaker's problems are part of a general malaise in the South American OPEC nation's once-buoyant metals industry.

The Avesta Company has announced that the first phase of the 30 million square meters (3000 ha) Caspian Islands project will be completed by May 28, the Azertag state news agency reports. The first phase consists of several beaches, restaurants, bridges and about 4 kilometers of roads, as well as two 50 thousand square meters parks. The project will be implemented in three stages. The total investment required in the Caspian Islands project is estimated at US$ 100 billion. In general, Caspian Islands is to comprise 50 artificial islands containing 19 high-rise residential districts with more than 150 schools and numerous other support institutions, also it is planned to construct 20 kilometers boulevard and 20 bridges. The city is to house 1 about million residents. Caspian Islands is to be the site of the 1,050-meter Azerbaijan Tower, a proposal that is expected to cost more than US$ 2 billion to construct and is estimated to be completed by 2025. If completed, the Azerbaijan Tower would exceed the height of the under-construction 1,000-km Kingdom Tower in Saudi Arabia, currently set to be the world's tallest building by 2019. This Skyscraper is expected to construct during the second phase of project. The owner of Avesta Ibrahim Ibrahimov is one of the richest men of Azerbaijan. He was born in May 28, 1955 in Nakhichevan. Near friend of presidential family Ibrahimov (he called Ilham Aliyev "the Boss of All Bosses") is going to occupy the penthouse at Azerbaijan Tower. Opposition figures say that Ibrahimov owes much of what he has to the Aliyev family, but when NYT correspondent Peter Savodnik asked him about it, he shrugged. Western financial analysts and real estate developers are understandably skeptical about Caspian Islands project. For one thing, there's President Ilham Aliyev's regime, which opposes political competition and other reforms that would diversify its economy and spur the long-term growth needed for this kind of mega-project (NYT).