Category Archives: United Arab Emirates

Arab states agree to end three-year boycott of Qatar

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Reconciliation with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain and the UAE includes a non-aggression pact

A three-year boycott of Qatar by four other Middle Eastern countries that disfigured Gulf cooperation and raised concerns in the west about a strengthened regional role for Iran and Turkey has come to a stuttering close.

“The kingdom is happy to welcome you,” Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Mohammed bin Salman said as he greeted Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, on the tarmac of the airport in Al-Ula, north of Medina, on Tuesday.

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US approves sale of $290m in bombs to Saudi Arabia

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Arms deals with Middle East dictatorships are being rushed through by Trump, critics say, despite opposition over human rights records

The US state department has approved the sale of $290m in bombs to Saudi Arabia as part of a flurry of arms deals with Middle Eastern dictatorships in the last weeks of the Trump administration.

Critics of the sales say they are being rushed through despite broad congressional and public opposition to such military support because of the human rights records of the regimes involved and in the case of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the huge civilian death toll from the war in Yemen.

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Aden airport blasts attack ‘directed at Yemen government’

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Explosions struck after plane carrying the Yemen prime minister and cabinet politicians landed

At least 26 people have been killed and more than 60 injured after an attack on the airport in the Yemeni city of Aden that appeared to be targeted at a plane carrying members of the newly formed government.

Three loud explosions and gunfire were heard on Wednesday afternoon as members of Yemen’s cabinet disembarked. Clouds of smoke billowed from the terminal building. Initial reports suggested the blasts had been caused by mortar shelling or missiles.

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‘Vaccine diplomacy’ sees Egypt roll out Chinese coronavirus jab

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A lack of trial data transparency from China has raised concerns, but the country is confidently pushing ahead

When Egypt’s health ministry sent out an invitation to doctors to be vaccinated against Covid-19, they neglected to make clear it was a clinical trial.

Instead, it assured them that two Covid-19 vaccines developed by China’s National Biotec Group, part of a state-owned conglomerate known as Sinopharm, had no side-effects and that “the minister of health was vaccinated today, and orders were issued to vaccinate all doctors and workers who wish to be vaccinated”.

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Revealed: how abusive texts led to discovery of hacking of Al Jazeera

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Threatening messages led to monitoring of phone that unearthed evidence of cyber-attack against Qatar-based network

A series of abusive text messages sent to an Al Jazeera investigative programme were the first crumbs that eventually led to the discovery of an unprecedented hacking operation against dozens of staff from the Qatar-based media network, according to one of the journalists who was targeted.

Researchers at Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto claimed on Sunday that the UAE and Saudi Arabia used spyware sold by an Israeli private intelligence company to access the phones of at least 36 journalists, producers and executives from Al Jazeera, as well as that of a London-based reporter with the Al Araby network.

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Trump’s flurry of dodgy deals will not bring the Middle East any peace

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The outgoing US president has his eyes on a Saudi Arabia-Israel accord – no matter who gets hurt

Peace deals that entrench injustice, punish the weak and are propelled by greed, blackmail and weapons sales have precious little to do with peace – and are unlikely to endure. Yet the Middle East has witnessed a recent spate of such dodgy deals. All concern Israel and all were hastily cobbled together by the White House. As his curtailed presidency grinds to an unlamented close, Donald Trump appears engaged in a frantic foreign policy fire sale.

Peace is always a welcome prospect – but never at any price. Trump’s horse-trading on Israel’s behalf has made a cruel mockery of Palestinian rights. By agreeing to normalise relations with Israel, the UAE and Bahrain broke with the 2002 Arab peace plan that makes recognition conditional on the creation of a viable, independent Palestinian state. The deal was sweetened with offers of advanced US weapons and money-spinning business and trade opportunities.

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China’s Sinopharm vaccine: how effective is it and where will it be rolled out?

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Trials have claimed 86% efficacy, but Peru has suspended tests because of ‘an adverse event’ and there is concern about lack of transparency

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Trials in the United Arab Emirates have shown that China’s Sinopharm vaccine has 86% efficacy. So what is the Chinese treatment, where is it being trialled and will it challenge the vaccines being developed in western countries?

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Chinese Covid-19 vaccine has 86% efficacy, UAE says

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First results released from trial of Sinopharm shot involving 31,000 people

The United Arab Emirates said a Chinese coronavirus vaccine tested in the federation of sheikhdoms has 86% efficacy, in a statement that provided few details but marked the first public release of information on the performance of the shot.

The announcement brought yet another contender into the worldwide race for a vaccine to end the pandemic, a scientific effort in which China and Russia are competing with western firms to develop an effective inoculation.

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Breakthrough in Qatar dispute after ‘fruitful’ talks to end conflict

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Saudi prince hails progress in negotiations brokered by Kuwait and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner

A breakthrough in the three-and-a-half-year dispute between Qatar and its neighbouring Gulf states appears to have been achieved following what were described as “fruitful” talks to resolve the conflict.

The Saudi foreign minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, said “significant progress” had been reached in the last few days and he was optimistic all countries were close to finalising a resolution.

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Qatar firms’ failure to pay leaves migrant workers destitute – report

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Despite government measures, thousands left struggling during Covid outbreak as companies withhold salaries and benefits, research shows

Companies in Qatar have failed to pay “hundreds of millions of dollars” in salaries and other benefits to low-wage workers since the coronavirus outbreak, according to new research by the human rights group Equidem.

In its report, Equidem describes how thousands of workers have been dismissed without notice, put on reduced wages or unpaid leave, denied outstanding salary and end of service payments, or forced to pay for their own flights home.

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British woman accusing senior UAE royal of sexual assault to fight on

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Caitlin McNamara says she will appeal the Crown Prosecution Service’s decision not to pursue Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan for the alleged attack in Abu Dhabi

The British woman who accused a United Arab Emirates senior royal of sexually assaulting her has vowed to fight on after the Crown Prosecution Service declined to prosecute him last month, saying that the CPS decision sends “a clear message to this man and those committing similar crimes that as long as they’re of economic value to the UK, they can do whatever they want”.

Caitlin McNamara, who was the curator of the first Hay festival in Abu Dhabi in February, went public with her accusations last month. She alleges that Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, the UAE’s minister of tolerance, had attacked her shortly before the festival, which his department had funded. McNamara had believed she would be attending a business meeting with the royal, who denies the allegations through a London lawyer: “Our client is surprised and saddened by this allegation, which arrives eight months after the alleged incident and via a national newspaper. The account is denied.”

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United Arab Emirates to relax Islamic laws on personal freedoms

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Country to end lenient punishments for ‘honour’ killings and decriminalise alcohol amid reforms

The United Arab Emirates has ended lenient punishments for so-called “honour” killings, lifted a ban on unmarried couples living together and decriminalised alcohol, in reforms to personal laws.

Foreigners living in the Gulf state will also be able to follow their home country’s laws on divorce and inheritance, rather than using UAE legislation based on Islamic religious law, government-linked media reported.

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UAE decriminalises alcohol and lifts ban on unmarried couples living together

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Country also ends lenient punishments for ‘honour’ killings as part of reforms

The United Arab Emirates has ended lenient punishments for so-called “honour” killings, lifted a ban on unmarried couples living together and decriminalised alcohol, in reforms to personal laws.

Foreigners living in the Gulf state will also be able to follow their home country’s laws on divorce and inheritance, rather than using UAE legislation based on Islamic religious law, government-linked media reported.

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Revealed: Sheikh Khalifa’s £5bn London property empire

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Documents reveal UAE president owns multibillion-pound property portfolio spanning London’s most expensive neighbourhoods

The row of 1960s-built houses with untidy gardens on a quiet cul-de-sac near Richmond upon Thames appears to have little in common with Ecuador’s red-brick embassy in Knightsbridge, where Julian Assange spent seven years in hiding, just across the road from Harrods.

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Israel’s pact with the UAE is not about peace. It’s a business deal | Sami Abu Shehadeh

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Palestinian homes are still being demolished and illegal settlements expanded. That’s why tomorrow I’ll be voting against the agreement in the Knesset

Tomorrow, the Israeli parliament will be voting on the agreement to normalise relations with the United Arab Emirates. A large majority will approve a hugely favourable step towards the Israeli government’s goals: perpetuating its systematic violations of international law and of the Palestinian people’s inalienable rights. Those parliamentarians who believe in justice and equality are going to vote against this agreement. I’m afraid, though, that we are a tiny minority.

This week, we were given copies of the agreement, which I read in the three languages (Arabic, Hebrew and English) and figured out a few things. First of all, those who wrote it in different languages tailored it to their audiences. While in English and Hebrew, they repeated the word “normalisation” several times, it is not even mentioned in Arabic. This is a business deal that merely establishes diplomatic relations, and not a peace agreement. The word “annexation” (of occupied Palestinian territory) is not even mentioned.

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‘They have to be punished’: the mothers trapped in the UAE by ‘love crimes’

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Single migrant women left destitute by Covid can’t leave until they have served sentences for sex outside marriage – but virus restrictions mean prisons won’t accept them

When Reyna* took a taxi to Al-Awir prison in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, she was hoping to turn herself in and be admitted as an inmate. The former domestic worker from the Philippines had brought her three-month-old son along with her.

Reyna lost her job during the pandemic; she can no longer pay for their rent or food and wants to return to her homeland. But in order to be permitted to leave the UAE she must first serve a jail sentence for having sex outside marriage, which is illegal under the country’s Islamic laws.

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Turkey and UAE openly flouting UN arms embargo to fuel war in Libya

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Guardian joint investigation finds both sides send military cargo planes to region, in blatant violation of agreement to end conflict

Turkey and the United Arab Emirates are carrying out regular and increasingly blatant violations of the UN arms embargo on Libya, fuelling a proxy war that is evading political solutions, a joint investigation by the Guardian has found.

Flight data and satellite images show both nations using large-scale military cargo planes to funnel in goods and fighters to forces or proxies inside Libya, routinely violating the 2011 UN arms embargo despite political promises to abstain.

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Saudi heir and Jared Kushner inch kingdom towards deal with Israel

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Saudi Arabia’s interventions could result in seismic shift in region’s geopolitics

As the UAE and Bahrain prepared to sign a deal to normalise diplomatic relations with Israel this summer, Saudi Arabia – the regional heavyweight – was quietly urging them on.

For several months before the deals were signed at the White House, the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, had been laying out his rationale for a pact that would overturn regional policies towards a long-term foe.

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Trump’s pre-election diplomatic offensive glosses over awkward realities

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The ‘Abraham accords’ merely make public once-furtive friendships between Israel and Gulf monarchies, while bigger problems remain

The White House was festooned with the flags of four nations. There were trumpet blasts, multiple signatures on various pieces of paper, and much weighty talk about blood and history – everything you might expect from a peace deal.

And not just any peace deal. The agreements signed in Washington on Tuesday were titled the Abraham Accords, implying a epochal reconciliation between Judaism, Islam and Christianity, three faiths with shared Middle East ancestry.

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‘It’s going to be peace in the Middle East’: Trump on historic accords – video

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A historic agreement signed between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain at the White House will, according to Donald Trump, ‘be peace to the Middle East.’

They signed agreements to establish formal relations, ending a decades-old taboo in Arab diplomacy as power and priorities shift in the region.

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