This crime is by far the most sensational in Abu Dhabi since we set foot in the city in October of 2009: An American mother and kindergarten teacher stabbed to death in a restroom at a tower on Reem Island, which is recently developed part of Abu Dhabi. The killing occurred on Monday, and suspicion […]

[Read more →]

Noted a week or so ago: Too much good sports stuff this week. Specifically, today. Actually, we had even more good stuff than I presented. Add to the list:

[Read more →]

Omar Abdulrahman … the best player nearly no one outside the UAE knows about. He is really good, if he is allowed to play, and he has become the leader of the UAE national team, which plays host Saudi Arabia in the semifinals of the Gulf Cup of Nations tomorrow. He dominated the final Group […]

[Read more →]

This actually is a handy compilation of information, if you are planning to visit the United Arab Emirates sometime soon. And you probably are not planning any such thing, if you live in the States. It’s just too far. But this should be required reading for Europeans and, in particular, for Britons and Russians, who […]

[Read more →]

Sometimes someone says something that makes so much sense, you have to share it. So it was with Queen Rania of Jordan, who at the Abu Dhabi Media Summit this week said Arab and Muslim extremists are using social media to drown out the peaceful majority. “A minority … is using social media to rewrite […]

[Read more →]

Apparently, it is Dubai’s great good fortune to have vacuous celebrities drop by fairly regularly. Last month, it was Paris Hilton. In this case, it is Kim Kardashian, who may rank No. 1 in world history in the dubious category of “famous for being famous”. Which, apparently, qualifies her as the “world’s hottest dinner date”. […]

[Read more →]

It often turns out this way, in the news biz. Weeks of making something out of nothing. And then a stretch of time where you have big events colliding on the calendar. This is one of those “colliding big events” weeks, here in the UAE. Four events that pretty safely fall into our top 10 […]

[Read more →]

Have I mentioned I love the Volvo Ocean Race? Oh, yes. I have. The first leg, from Alicante, Spain, to Cape Town, South Africa, ended yesterday, with the Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing boat, Azzam, the first across the finish line. Azzam needed 25 days to cover the 6,500 nautical miles from the Mediterranean to the […]

[Read more →]

That was perhaps the inevitable headline to a story that ran in The National over the weekend concerning a group of people dedicated to researching paranormal activity in the UAE. This was known as the Ghostbusters story, in the newsroom, harking back to the wonderful 1984 movie with Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd. The theme […]

[Read more →]

We know this for a fact: The island of  Tristan da Cunha is the most remote inhabited location on Earth. The Hawaiian Islands are more remote, collectively, but seven of them are inhabited. If you tire of one, you can hop over to the next. Can’t do that at Tristan da Cunha. The nearest humans […]

[Read more →]