My sister and I were going to have T-shirts made with the statement, “No, I am NOT on Facebook!” or even: “Facebook? No, thanks! I have real friends!” We were both more than a little irritated by the Facebook Mexican wave, though it felt more like the flu at times. Every day one more person seemed to catch the bug, yet ... More

Anybody who has followed the aftermath of the world-cup qualifying play-off in Sudan between Egypt and Algeria cannot help but be astounded [by what has happened]. Thank God that Egypt and Algeria do not share a border otherwise what happened may have had dire consequences, because what is happening today suggests that things ... More

By this time next week I hope to be in the final stages of possibly the most challenging duty of my faith, the hajj. While I always knew it was a journey I would make one day, I didn’t expect to be embarking on it quite so soon. The opportunity arose when I was asked to cover the pilgrimage for work. And so I decided to ... More

A faded photo of an attractive man in an army uniform winking at the camera as he shows off his pink Cadillac, a fragile and yellowed edition of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace with notes scribbled in the margins, a worn-out pair of children’s ballerina shoes and a child’s suede sack holding 10 heavy gold coins with Pope John ... More

As a young boy, I used to play football with the other children in the neighbourhood, and then as a teenager, I played with my high school team. When I grew up and started working, I could soon afford to go to Germany to attend the world cup finals, and took my pregnant wife with me. In 1968, I attended the Olympics in Mexico, ... More

What's in a name? When you are making a hotel reservation do you care whether the person taking the call is called Sam Mahmood, Sam Namagembe or Sam Taylor? When applying for a loan, does it matter to you that the person handling your account may be the son or the daughter of an immigrant? When visiting the doctor does it ... More

Looking at the calendar a few days ago, I realized that had he lived, King Hussein would have celebrated his 74th birthday on November 14. I was filled with nostalgia, remembering situations and stories related to the King. One wonders how a 17-year-old managed to bear the weight of the crown of a country situated in a very ... More

The other day, I bumped into Yohannes, an Ethiopian and a long-term resident of the Kingdom. Upon inquiring about my health, I replied that I had been down with an extended bout of the common cold. You know the symptoms: Stuffy head, sniffles and the ancillary sore throat. “I hope it was not the swine flu”, he replied ... More

The weather has been slightly schizophrenic lately – cold, hot, cold, hot. But the sun was spectacular yesterday afternoon, with the sweetest breeze in the air. I left the gym yesterday at around 3pm and hailed a taxi to my part of Cairo. The minute I get into the taxi, the cab driver’s mobile phone rings. He answers ... More

Bicycles, bicycles, and more bicycles. That’s the first thing you notice after landing in Copenhagen. Driving from the airport into the city, one is amazed at the sheer number of bicycles on the road. They are everywhere and outnumber the cute European cars and colorful buses. And the cyclists seem to have the first right ... More

If I were to receive a letter from the Nobel Prize commission asking me to nominate somebody for a new category, nobility, if I were asked to suggest a person, dead or alive, who would be considered a symbol of nobility in all aspects of his/her life, I would feel a huge responsibility. I would think of names of the past, ... More

JERUSALEM -- “Read it when you get the chance,” my friend said, as he handed me Barack Obama’s memoir, “Dreams from My Father.” Having read the book, I’m more hopeful about the prospects for peace in the Middle ... More

Last weekend I was tempted to go to Damascus. Altogether, the trip took just about 15 hours, of which almost half was spent driving and handling border transactions, but it was still a lot of fun. It is not that I have not been to Damascus for long; actually I did the same trip, by taxi, less than a month ago, accompanying ... More

Wearing a medical face mask and a mismatched sweat suit, my friend couldn’t get a single taxi to stop and take him home. It wasn’t until he removed the face mask that he could get a cab, but not without feeling guilty all the way home about the possibility of having infected his cab driver with the swine flu. “What ... More

They say clothes make a man. Or is it his shoes? I don’t know how much of that is relevant in the Gulf, where our white dishdashas or khandouras make us all equal, and even the fanciest of slippers still expose our feet. An office, however, no matter what one wears, has a lot to say about character. I was recently invited ... More

Like most Abu Dhabi residents who drive a car, I have problems with the increasing traffic and with the difficulty of finding parking. I’m not as badly off as many: my office off Muroor Road has adequate parking space, and at home there’s space on a nearby sandy patch that I can use, now that the completion of a couple ... More

When my eldest son went to school in England, we, the parents, had to drive up to the pick-up point and in turn come out of our cars and take delivery of our children. One day it struck me that some class teachers become laden with “treats” that the mothers or fathers handed over as they picked up the children. I felt ... More

People are saying that the end of the world and life as we know it is imminent. The date: 21-12-2012. Articles, research and films have become preoccupied with the terrifying Planet Niburu, which is getting closer and closer to earth, and state that NASA has known about this since the beginning of the 1980s and has been ... More

Arabs see Murdoch as a person who does not respect them, their faith, or heritage. The majority say that he is gambling with his money if he thinks that the Arabs will forget his far right wing political news machine, or his pro-Israeli stands. Many even have already started to call for boycotting Rotana should such investment ... More

Constructed 4,500 years ago, and the only extant wonder of the ancient world, the great pyramid of Khufu has remained an enigma that excites the curiosity of experts and the imagination of amateurs. It has been subject to the wildest of theories. Among the more far fetched is the suggestion it was built by the inhabitants of ... More