Watching American sports live, from the UAE, takes some extra effort. Not that things are not available. They are, if you pay a little bit extra — maybe $50 a year — to augment your basic cable package (most of which is not in English) with a set of stations that includes ESPN, Fox and, […]

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If you pay any attention to the U.S.-based National Hot Rod Association — better known as the NHRA — you know the name of an Emirati. Which puts you ahead of most of the planet’s people. That guy who drives one of the two Top Fuel cars for Al Anabi Racing? Khaled Al Balooshi? An […]

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If you follow global soccer, you know this is not an unusual story. Nigeria’s national team today refused to leave its hotel in Namibia because the Nigeria soccer federation had not paid the players the money they were promised for recent successes in international games. How is this possible? Because the Nigeria federation is broke […]

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It was a couple of years ago now. I was covering a golf tournament, here in the UAE, and I was talking to the English mother of an Emirati golfer. The kid’s father, the woman’s husband, was an Emirati. We got to talking about languages, while watching her son play. And she said: “Arabic is […]

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I do not pretend to understand this on any sort of molecular level, or even a studied-it-in-books level. But after 3.5 years here, it is plain that the dynamics of men and women in the UAE are … distant and complicated. It stems from a society that separates males from females from the first day […]

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Perhaps you saw this story from a day or two ago. A Saudi prince celebrating his college graduation spent 15 million euros– about $20 million — to have chunks of Disneyland Paris all to himself over the course of three days. Well, to himself and about 60 friends. Lots of money in the Gulf. Some […]

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Remember Muammar/Moammar Qaddafi/Gaddafi/Khadafi? Same guy. Multiple ways of spelling his name in various major media. And he was famous, as the dictator who ruled Libya for four decades. Figuring out how to render names in the Arab world is very difficult for the non-Arabic speaking media. Also, deciding which of each person’s several names to […]

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Anyone who has run a newspaper sports section knows that eight months of the year, maybe even nine or 10 … you do not have to worry about a section having a newsy feel. News just happens, in the form of scheduled events. Might be news in addition to the scheduled events. Might break your […]

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You could come to the UAE in January to have a look around. The temps would be in the 80s Fahrenheit, and if you hailed from the northern halves of Europe or North America you would be quite grateful for the sun and the warmth and perhaps even for the sheer number of fellow snowbirds […]

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In a way, Italy began from the first announcement of the Alitalia flight crew, while still on the ground in Abu Dhabi. It is rare to hear Italian on the Arabian Peninsula, and to most Americans it is a delightful language. Round and rhythmic, almost like poetry with its cadences and energy. Wonderful to hear […]

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