In a previous life as a Southern Californian, I remember being told how bad we all were at driving in the rain. And, collectively, SoCal people probably are bad at it. People living there expect their roads to be dry and grippy … because 340 days a year they are. What then to expect from […]

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In journalism, some days just turn weird. You think you know how things will go. It seems slow. Routine. Boring. At the 4 p.m. news meeting I all but said “sorry, folks, sports is dull today …” And four hours later I was in a cab in the posh northwest corner of Abu Dhabi island, […]

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Just writing that headline invites disaster. Plumbing going bad a few floors above us, or a sudden breakdown of some of the appliances. But (so far) the new digs here in Abu Dhabi are so much better than the old that a certain person living here has suggested “It’s like I actually began living in […]

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December 2, National Day, in the UAE. On that date in 1971, six sheikhdoms (soon to be seven) on the tip of the Arabian peninsula decided to come together as a country. The Brits were pulling out of the Gulf, and it seemed like a good idea to team up. National Day. When the UAE […]

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The Galaxy won the Major League Soccer championship today, and the way this will play around 98 percent of the soccer world is this: David Beckham leaves MLS with another championship. That is how it will be looked at here in the UAE, certainly. I have two thoughts here. The first is something I’ve already […]

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Some crazy weather here. The high temperature in Abu Dhabi today was 77 Fahrenheit, making it the lowest daily high since April. A real bundle-up day. But here is the shocker. Rain. Quite a bit of it. The most in a day since 2006, some people said.

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We bring you two regional updates in the world of monkeys. One involving the bizarre murder case of the man in Dubai who was out walking his monkey … and the other a band of marauding monkeys who trashed the backyard of a co-worker.

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If you believe the forecasts of a group named the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and many do, the world is headed back into recession next year. The triggers for more bad economic times, the OECD suggests, will be the U.S. fiscal cliff and shrinkage in the Euro Zone. Some regions are exceptions, however. […]

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More than most of the populated parts of the planet, the UAE sports season is quite condensed. Some of the indigenous sports — well, soccer, anyway, sometimes at barely a walking pace — compete for most of the year. But the heat is too brutal about seven months out of 12 for most anything else, […]

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Why not? Those were the words from Kefah Al Kaabi, a TV and radio soccer pundit here in the UAE. The question was:

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