It is surprising how many people living in the UAE are eager to visit Las Vegas. No need to make that 20-hour trip. All the locals need do is check in to Atlantis The Palm in Dubai, and they can enjoy the whole of the mainstream Las Vegas experience — aside from the gambling, that […]

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Qualifying for the 2018 World Cup is really the only international sports story of any significance in the UAE over the next two years. Some runners, swimmers and shooters will go to the Rio Olympics, the government is crazy about jiu-jitsu, various global golf and tennis and cycling tours will pass through the country between […]

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Actually, we’re pushing 60 percent finished with the current decade, given that we persist in starting decades and centuries and millennia on years that end in zero. (Digression alert!) And, by the by, what are we calling this decade? Apparently we haven’t decided because it’s varieties of stupid/awkward. Back in 2009, the BBC did a […]

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The routs rolled across the world’s biggest continent. Iraq 5, Chinese Taipei 1. South Korea 8, Laos 0. Iran 6, Guam 0. UAE 10, Malaysia 0. Qatar 15, Bhutan 0. And that last one eclipsed a couple more blowouts that came slightly later: Kuwait 9, Myanmar 0, and Saudi Arabia 7, East Timor 0. At […]

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Apparently, I am supposed to have a phone that does everything but whistle Dixie. A flat, rectangular thing that covers my palm and connects me to news events and the very latest ridiculous thing on Twitter. And allows me to be overtly rude by staring at it while I am in a group of people. […]

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One of the biggest selling points for people and businesses relocating to the UAE, over the first 44 years of its existence, has been the near universal absence of individual taxes. No individual income tax. No sales tax. No inheritance taxes. No property taxes. If you were paid $100,000 by your employer … you received […]

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It wasn’t long ago that leaving the U.S. for the Old World meant learning to live without a wide range of foodstuffs, from Oreos to blueberries. Now, pretty much everything you have ever eaten is available. Even perishable fruits and vegetables. Which still amazes me. Like the little box of blueberries I am looking at.

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Abandoned cars are the dumped mattresses of the UAE. An economic problem “solved” by property owners who simply walk away from their former investment … a solution that cannot be swept up in the morning. The National reported this week that Abu Dhabi Municipality has impounded 3,000 vehicles of some 4,300 abandoned on the streets […]

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Gasoline price hikes always come as something of a shock in the Gulf, where many countries are pretty much floating on oil and consumers expect to pay very little at the pump. Saudi Arabia is the world’s leading producer of oil and gas prices there have always been cheap — about 59 cents a gallon, […]

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Most major movies made in Hollywood make their way to the UAE, sometimes opening on the same day as they do in the U.S. But certain movies … Well, you can’t really plan on seeing them in Abu Dhabi. Which is why we spent two of the past three evenings in Southern California theaters. The […]

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