No matter where you live in Dubai, there are certain things that you can’t get away from — some more annoying than others — irrespective of how hard you try. For instance, there’s the low hum of nearby freeway traffic, which, to the untrained ear, could be confused with waves crashing on the adjacent beaches. […]

I shouldn’t have been shocked, I’ve seen it all before. But for reasons unknown that day, I stood still and watched a boy cleaning my hotel-room window. Perched right there in front of me, with a dirty rag in one hand and a spray-bottle in the other, in true-to-life high definition, a boy of no […]

WINDHOEK, 7 September 2011 — Chinese construction firms in Namibia are permitted to operate in in near-complete violation of Labour Laws and Safety Codes, a U.S. Embassy WikiLeaks Cable suggests. Although Namibia has generally worker-friendly laws, enforcement doesn’t seem to be consistent across the board. Many people and organizations have complained that GRN does not […]

DAR ES SALAAM — Surprising how some global events end up beating a path to your own front door. Just this morning I was reading a WikiLeaks U.S. cable written by the U.S. Embassy in Tanzania, which accuses Tanzania’s President, Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete, of accepting bribes to the tune of $1 million from the UAE-based […]

The idea that the human race as a whole can be looked upon as a cancerous disease is nothing new. In fact, the idea was originally coined by Dr. Alan Gregg, an official working for the Rockefeller Foundation whose job was to recommend funding strategies on improving public health and medical education. He travelled extensively […]

Over the years I’ve often wondered what it is about men and spitting when in the toilet, or more importantly, why they feel compelled to spit before urinating. This whole spitting activity was completely foreign to me, until one day, I noticed that the guy standing next to me spat into the urinal before relieving […]

I was recently working on another project where I needed to read Plato’s Republic and his Allegory of the Cave. Part of the project required me to explore how Plato’s Allegory of the Cave could be considered a metaphor for the Media and how we perceive news and current affairs; my exploration of the topic follows. […]

Who could have thought there was so much to know about blueberries. This was my first introduction to the North American blueberry — very different to the ones I was used to in continental Europe. I was invited to help pick blueberries at a nearby organic farm in Canada, a short drive from Waterloo. What […]

No matter how ridiculous the airport security checkpoints may appear, the rest of the world has nothing on the experience one gets in the US. I completely support bag x-ray machines, metal detectors, the explosive residue and contraband swab, the customs sniffer dogs and even annoying questioning, but I draw the line when common sense […]

There are things that most people wouldn’t consider being part of a job description; taking your clothes off probably being one of them. So what would you say if I told you that that is exactly what I had to do? One of my clients — the largest diamond miner in the world — invited […]