Oktoberfest in Dubai ‘like election rally inP yongyang’

Beer barons and German critics have scoffed at plans to move the Oktoberfest from Munich to Dubai this year after Bavaria’s cancellation of the world’s biggest beer festival for the second year in a row. ‘‘An Oktoberfest in Dubai, that’s like a demonstration for democracy in Pyongyang,’’ Clemens Baumgartner, the official in charge of the festival, said. It emerged last week that the Berlin Christmas market organiser Charles Blume and the Munich-based restaurateur Dirk Ippen planned to stage the Oktoberfest on the Dubai marina this year. It will have imported Bavarian beer and German waiting staff, and the organisers are said to be inviting celebrities such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, Pamela Anderson and Steven Seagal. The Dubai authorities have approved the festival, which is to start on October 7 and run for nearly six months rather than the usual two weeks.