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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What is the U.S. perception of Pakistan? Not particularly good, it seems safe to say. In theory, an ally of the U.S., but a very shabby ally. Apparently, Osama bin Laden hid out in Pakistan for much of the period when he was hunted by the U.S. military, and was in Pakistan when he finally […]

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Architecture, another topic way outside my areas of expertise. But it doesn’t take deep understanding of the field to note the trends in Dubai, City of Skyscrapers. The newest has come on line, and whatever its official name (which is in flux), it certainly will be known as the “twisted tower”. Why that name?

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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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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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The first time I was in the same building with Walter Zenga was in 1990, at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome. He was the starting goalkeeper for Italy, and they were facing Austria in the opening game of the World Cup. Zenga did not allow a goal, which was a fairly common outcome, for him, […]

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A few days ago I wrote about Josef Hickersberger, one of my favorite soccer coaches in the UAE, and how he had been rushed back to Abu Dhabi from retirement in Austria in an attempt to salvage the season by leading a struggling team to a victory in the President’s Cup semifinals. And how did […]

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I don’t know Justin Bieber from the man in the moon. I have to keep checking to make sure his first name is Justin, not Dustin. An old-guy thing. Except that I never would have been a fan at any age. Hmm. I do know this: Dustin … Justin Bieber made some impressions in his […]

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Justin Bieber is doing a particularly long/grueling world tour, working name the Believe Tour. One of his stops is in Dubai, tonight and tomorrow. A certain segment of the local population — the usual Bieber demographic of girls ages 10 to 14, or so — has gone ape. And what went on today demonstrates at […]

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This is a country where the concept of “self-service” is an ugly rumor from overseas. Generally, anyone with money here … expects someone else to pick up after them, clean their home, wash their cars, raise their children and, most certainly, pump their gas. It may make for an very interesting social experiment, then, when […]

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