Cold and Windy

No photos outside today as we have a powerful sandstorm blowing over the Gulf. Massive dust winds are coming in from Pakistan and Iran, the temperature has fallen from 38°C on Saturday to 17°C yesterday.

"This instability is because of the transition between winter and summer," a forecaster said. What makes this year different, Dr Sallam said, is the frequency of such conditions. "Before we would only see it for a couple of days in a year," he said. "Now it's the third week with the same story. The weather changes are a lot more prominent and this is what people are not used to."

So I decided to have a roam around the International Security Show that is going on downstairs. The biggest supplier is Tawazun Holdings, I blipped their stand being constructed last week. They had an interesting range of semi-automatic pistols... a nice 9 x 19mm with laser sights for the weekend perhaps. The Caracal pistol series are the first pistols made in the United Arab Emirates, and are now the service pistol of the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Jordan.

The police Dodge Charger was okay, but more of interest was the Nimr vehicle (photo above) by Emirates Defense Technology. The Nimr vehicle has been designed to carry out military, police and peacekeeping missions in the Middle East area thanks to a cooling system that allows the vehicle to withstand the harsh desert climate which can reach as high as 55 Celsius. The vehicle also features composite ceramic armor & a central tire inflation system. The vehicle is based on a flexible modular concept to provide support for a wide range of missions. Currently 500 vehicles are in use with the UAE army, and so far I haven't seen one of the streets in police livery.