When my children were very young, we lived in Manhattan in an apartment that was laid out like a long rectangle. I could peek my head out of the kitchen and see into the living room and even a tiny bit into the bedroom shared by my two sons. It wasn’t a great space for entertaining, but as the working mother of little boys, I thought it was great. I didn’t have to worry about the boys falling down a flight of stairs or wonder what that loud thump was in a faraway room.
I got used to working in short bursts: focus for a bit and then glance up to see that no one had ingested a Lego or tried to go swimming in the toilet. When the sounds of the boys playing together turned into shouting, I could intervene before one boy clocked the other over the head. I didn’t always have to stop what I was doing with every incident, but everything took just a little bit longer than it should have. Toddlers are fast – their bodies move much faster than their little brains – and they’re absolutely not governed by any recognisable logic. To them, putting toy cars in the clothes dryer seems like a perfectly reasonable enterprise.
There was a rhythm to those days that I’ve been reminded of recently from a very unlikely source: the American president, Donald Trump. This past week, I’ve been hard-pressed to get any work done because I am so distracted by the short outbursts coming from the White House via Twitter and by the stunning flurry of executive orders swooping off his desk like so many bad-tempered birds.
So there I was at my desk earlier this week and my phone chirped, alerting me to a news flash: there was the president insisting that his inauguration crowds were the largest anyone had ever seen. I turned off the alerts on my phone, went back to work and then had to look up something online. Across the top of the screen scrolled headlines telling me that an executive order had just encouraged the building of the Keystone and Dakota access pipelines, and, in a subheading, that the president still insisted that his crowds were bigger than any other in modern memory. I turned off the alerts on my computer, wanting to shut out any other possible sources of intrusion from the Oval Office, and tried to get back to work.
But then the silence got to me, you see, in the same way that if you’re a parent and you haven’t heard any noises from your children in a while, you start to get anxious. What if that silence means that in fact they’re busy shredding your photo album, or drawing on the walls, or pulling the entire toilet paper roll into the toilet?
I told myself that, unlike being the parent of a toddler, there isn’t any possible thing I can do to intervene with American presidential policy, so I might as well stop paying attention.
If the president does the national security equivalent of drawing on the walls in permanent marker, I can’t very well “put him in timeout”, as I used to do with my children.
I’ve started turning off my phone and working outside, writing in longhand on a pad of paper, to avoid all possible distractions. In the long run, learning to shut out the world while I’m working is a good exercise, but inevitably in this day and age, a person has to turn on the computer or make a phone call – and there it is, the news: he’s authorised the wall between the United States and Mexico, banned immigration from seven Muslim countries and fired the acting attorney general who challenged the legality of his actions.
That Manhattan apartment has long since been rented to another family and my children are old enough to no longer need supervision. But it’s looking like if I want to get any work done, I’m going to have to find a cave in the middle of the desert.
Deborah Lindsay Williams is a professor of literature at NYU Abu Dhabi
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The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
At a glance
Global events: Much of the UK’s economic woes were blamed on “increased global uncertainty”, which can be interpreted as the economic impact of the Ukraine war and the uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Growth forecasts: Cut for 2025 from 2 per cent to 1 per cent. The OBR watchdog also estimated inflation will average 3.2 per cent this year
Welfare: Universal credit health element cut by 50 per cent and frozen for new claimants, building on cuts to the disability and incapacity bill set out earlier this month
Spending cuts: Overall day-to day-spending across government cut by £6.1bn in 2029-30
Tax evasion: Steps to crack down on tax evasion to raise “£6.5bn per year” for the public purse
Defence: New high-tech weaponry, upgrading HM Naval Base in Portsmouth
Housing: Housebuilding to reach its highest in 40 years, with planning reforms helping generate an extra £3.4bn for public finances
Fixtures
Sunday, December 8, Sharjah Cricket Stadium – UAE v USA
Monday, December 9, Sharjah Cricket Stadium – USA v Scotland
Wednesday, December 11, Sharjah Cricket Stadium – UAE v Scotland
Thursday, December 12, ICC Academy, Dubai – UAE v USA
Saturday, December 14, ICC Academy, Dubai – USA v Scotland
Sunday, December 15, ICC Academy, Dubai – UAE v Scotland
Note: All matches start at 10am, admission is free
The Cairo Statement
1: Commit to countering all types of terrorism and extremism in all their manifestations
2: Denounce violence and the rhetoric of hatred
3: Adhere to the full compliance with the Riyadh accord of 2014 and the subsequent meeting and executive procedures approved in 2014 by the GCC
4: Comply with all recommendations of the Summit between the US and Muslim countries held in May 2017 in Saudi Arabia.
5: Refrain from interfering in the internal affairs of countries and of supporting rogue entities.
6: Carry out the responsibility of all the countries with the international community to counter all manifestations of extremism and terrorism that threaten international peace and security
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Ruwais timeline
1971 Abu Dhabi National Oil Company established
1980 Ruwais Housing Complex built, located 10 kilometres away from industrial plants
1982 120,000 bpd capacity Ruwais refinery complex officially inaugurated by the founder of the UAE Sheikh Zayed
1984 Second phase of Ruwais Housing Complex built. Today the 7,000-unit complex houses some 24,000 people.
1985 The refinery is expanded with the commissioning of a 27,000 b/d hydro cracker complex
2009 Plans announced to build $1.2 billion fertilizer plant in Ruwais, producing urea
2010 Adnoc awards $10bn contracts for expansion of Ruwais refinery, to double capacity from 415,000 bpd
2014 Ruwais 261-outlet shopping mall opens
2014 Production starts at newly expanded Ruwais refinery, providing jet fuel and diesel and allowing the UAE to be self-sufficient for petrol supplies
2014 Etihad Rail begins transportation of sulphur from Shah and Habshan to Ruwais for export
2017 Aldar Academies to operate Adnoc’s schools including in Ruwais from September. Eight schools operate in total within the housing complex.
2018 Adnoc announces plans to invest $3.1 billion on upgrading its Ruwais refinery
2018 NMC Healthcare selected to manage operations of Ruwais Hospital
2018 Adnoc announces new downstream strategy at event in Abu Dhabi on May 13
Source: The National
The specs
Engine: four-litre V6 and 3.5-litre V6 twin-turbo
Transmission: six-speed and 10-speed
Power: 271 and 409 horsepower
Torque: 385 and 650Nm
Price: from Dh229,900 to Dh355,000
Ahmed Raza
UAE cricket captain
Age: 31
Born: Sharjah
Role: Left-arm spinner
One-day internationals: 31 matches, 35 wickets, average 31.4, economy rate 3.95
T20 internationals: 41 matches, 29 wickets, average 30.3, economy rate 6.28
Our legal consultants
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
Ms Yang's top tips for parents new to the UAE
- Join parent networks
- Look beyond school fees
- Keep an open mind
Test
Director: S Sashikanth
Cast: Nayanthara, Siddharth, Meera Jasmine, R Madhavan
Star rating: 2/5
