The American colt California Chrome has landed in Dubai ahead of his first race on foreign soil — the $10 million Dubai World Cup next weekend. It seems possible the decision by Chrome’s owners to run the winner of the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes and Santa Anita Derby at Dubai’s Meydan Racecourse could translate into […]

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Bhutan is a small, rarely visited country on the eastern end of the Himalayas. North of India, south of Tibet, middle of nowhere. And it probably is neither unkind nor unfair to suggest that a couple of weeks ago, Bhutan was best known, globally, for being the country ranked 209th — and last — in […]

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On the whole, I am proud of Americans in the UAE. The thought struck me again over the weekend, while dealing with players and coaches in the Emirates American Football League. The league is justly proud that the majority of its players (57 percent) come from somewhere other than the U.S., and includes participants from […]

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That is the name of the honey store near the offices of The National. I don’t know how long it has been there. Maybe weeks. Maybe years. But I  noticed it on the drive to the newspaper offices. A small sign over a small shop, nearly obscured by construction all around it. “Emirates Flower Honey […]

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  Journalists who work inside the office need to get out once in a while. To see anew how the other half lives. To get reacquainted with the realities of reporting. The untidy and inexact process of going onsite, piecing together what has happened, interviewing people who may not want to talk, making sense of […]

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“Lady” is a gorilla kept at the Al Ain Zoo, the biggest zoo in the UAE. We visited the zoo, for the first time, earlier this year. Her 40th birthday was observed yesterday at the zoo, with birthday cake and press opportunities. How festive Lady felt is not known, of course. One thing that stuck […]

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The biggest sports competition in Europe is not the various soccer leagues, nor any of the tournaments within those leagues. It is the European Champions League. The competition that brings together the best clubs in the continent. Which I try to watch when I am particularly interested in a match. The trouble? This time of […]

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The UAE won the right to stage the 2019 Asian Cup on Monday … a tournament not well known in the rest of the world but a very big deal in Asia. Almost as big a deal to Asia as the African Cup of Nations is to Africa. Way bigger than North America’s generally limp […]

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Not much ties together these two stories, other than they appeared next to each other on the front page of The National today and seem to recurring themes, here in the UAE. A kid winning one million dirhams in a drawing in Dubai … and a lion being taken from a home in Sharjah.

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Of all the things the British could have left behind, in Cyprus: The awful habit of driving on the left side of a street. Cyprus is one of four countries in Europe that has the driver on the right side of the car, and the car in the left lane. The other three?

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