Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Dominant donors to record appeal to alleviate suffering of civil war will include countries leading aerial bombing campaign
The international community will gather on Tuesday to try to raise more than $4bn to help alleviate the suffering and famine caused by Yemen’s civil war, but will find itself heavily dependent on three combatants in the conflict – Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and the US – to reach its fundraising target for 2019.
The $4.2bn (£3.2bn) target for 2019 – the largest sum sought for any single year since the start of the civil war in 2015 and an increase of 33 % on last year – will be the focus of an all-day pledging conference in Geneva.
Defence contractors are in Abu Dhabi this week for the Middle East’s biggest arms fair – supported to the hilt by UK ministers
A Khaleeji bagpipe band, a colourful aircraft display, a performance by the Armenian Military Orchestra and a big show of support from the Emirate royal families. These were some of the touches at Sunday’s opening ceremony for the International Defence Exhibition and Conference (Idex 2019) in Abu Dhabi, the Middle East’s biggest arms fair.
It’s a decadent and distasteful celebration of militarism and weaponry. Missiles, rifles, tanks, helicopters and warships are on display for anyone that can afford them. More than 100,000 people will attend this week, including representatives from all of the world’s biggest arms companies and military delegates from 57 nations. Among those looking to do business is the UK government, which has sent a team of civil servants to support UK arms company reps in doing as much business as possible. Particularly with the uncertainty of Brexit on the horizon, they will pull out all stops to cement sales.
Hind Mohammed al-Bolooki could be sent home after North Macedonia rejected her claim
An Emirati woman who fled her family and is now trapped in a detention centre in North Macedonia is begging to be allowed to claim asylum elsewhere instead of being deported back home, the Guardian has learned.
Hind Mohammed al-Bolooki, 43, says she was locked in a room at her home in Dubai in October last year by family members after she asked for a divorce, but she managed to escape and leave the country.
Show of public Christian worship considered largest ever seen on the Arabian peninsula
Marivic Sorita’s eyes filled with tears as she spoke of her daughters back in the Philippines. She has seen them only three times in the 11 years she has worked as a housemaid in Abu Dhabi. Her eldest, now 21, had recently completed her studies “thanks to the sacrifice” Sorita has made by the separation, sending almost all her salary back home.
Maybe one day, when her 14-year-old daughter has also finished her studies, Sorita will be able to go back to Manila and be reunited with her family. But for now, she was enjoying a rare day off work for what she described as a “very, very special” occasion.
Almost one-third in UK see rift, finds survey ahead of pope’s visit to Arabian peninsula
Large numbers of people in Christian-majority countries in the west see a fundamental clash between Islam and the values of their nation, according to a survey.
However, significantly fewer people in the Middle East and North Africa view Christianity in the same way.
As the first leader of the Catholic church to visit the Arabian peninsula, Francis knows his contact with Muslims will be as important as the mass he hosts for the Christian minority
Pope Francis’s visit to the United Arab Emirates this week will be greeted enthusiastically. Some 120,000 people are expected to turn out for his mass in a sports stadium in Abu Dhabi – as many as turned out in Dublin when he travelled to historically Catholic Ireland last year. The first visit by a pontiff to the Arabian peninsula, the birthplace of Islam, highlights the complications of the religious situation in the Middle East, and more widely the issues of Christian-Muslim relations.
There may be as many as 2 million Christians in the Middle East today. Despite nearly 16 years of war and sometimes brutal persecution in the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq, many remain in the lands that were the cradle of Christianity. In part this is because it is still made as hard as possible for them to leave the region. The Christians of Iraq have largely been driven from their homes by persecution, as have some of the Christians of Syria, where a number have taken the side of the Assad dictatorship. But they have ended up in refugee camps rather than reaching notionally Christian Europe.
Vessel moored near Hodeidah hosts meetings with Yemen government delegates and Houthi rebels
Yemen peace talks have been held onboard a UN-chartered boat anchored in the Red Sea in an attempt to find a neutral venue acceptable to both sides.
Patrick Cammaert, a retired Dutch general and head of the UN mission in Yemen, chaired the meeting on the ship moored off the port city of Hodeidah. Houthi rebel military officials had refused to meet in government-held areas in southern Hodeidah, citing security fears.
Francis’s trip to United Arab Emirates ‘to promote peace’ comes amid bloody conflict to south
Pope Francis will be the first pontiff to visit the Arabian peninsula, the birthplace of Islam, when he celebrates mass this week in front of an expected 120,000 people in Abu Dhabi.
The pope has been invited to visit the United Arab Emirates by Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, to take part in an international interfaith meeting as part of the Gulf state’s “year of tolerance”.
Plans for prisoner exchanges have also not gone to plan, says Martin Griffiths
Deadlines for a retreat of Houthi troops in Yemen, agreed in talks last month, have had to be delayed, the UN special envoy for Yemen, Martin Griffiths, has said. He also conceded plans for prisoner exchanges have not gone to plan.
Griffiths also had to deny that the retired general Patrick Cammaert, appointed by the UN to implement the ceasefire in the Red Sea port of Hodeidah, had quit due to disagreements with Griffiths’s team.
With sex outside marriage punishable by jail, migrant workers who become pregnant are often forced to keep their babies locked away
A sweltering, windowless room in an old district of Dubai, no more than 5 metres by 3 metres in size, is home to nine people from the Philippines. Eight are adults, working long hours in low-paid jobs so they can send money home to their families. The ninth is a six-year-old boy.
His name is Jerry and he shares a tiny bed with his mother, Neng. Jerry loves dancing, Peppa Pig and doughnuts. This small dark room is the only home he has known, as he’s spent his life in hiding as a stateless child. Growing up without a birth certificate or any other identification means he has no access to education and has never visited a doctor. Officially, this little boy does not exist.
In this May 20, 2017, file photo, President Donald Trump shakes hands with Saudi Deputy Crown Prince and Defense Minister Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh. In emails obtained by The Associated Press, George Nader claims he later met with Mohammed bin Salman, who by then had been elevated to crown prince, and Abu Dhabi's crown prince, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, in a lobbying effort to alter U.S. policy in the Middle East.
Three months before the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump Jr. met with a small group of people at Trump Tower in New York, including an emissary for two Arab princes and an Israeli social media specialist, who offered assistance to the Trump campaign, The New York Times reported on Saturday, citing several people with knowledge of the encounters. The Times identified the emissary as George Nader, a Lebanese-American businessman, and reported that he informed Trump Jr., President Donald Trump's son, "that the crown princes who led Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were eager to help his father win election as president."
The founder of controversial military contracting firm Blackwater was asked whether he had formal communication with the Trump campaign. He claimed that he sent "papers" outlining his foreign policy ideas to Steve Bannon-and put up a Trump yard sign.
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Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem , Group Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, DP World, has met senior executives from India's Tata Group to explore opportunities for cooperation, knowledge sharing and best practice. Discussions covered logistics and supply chain operations, innovative customer care and creating high quality, sustainable services.
Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election, on Capitol Hill in Washington, June 21, 2017. Mueller has in recent weeks subpoenaed the Trump Organization to turn over documents, including some related to Russia, according to two people briefed on the matter, the New York Times reported on March 15, 2018.
It was a few days before the one-year anniversary of President Donald Trump's inauguration and a Lebanese-American businessman was on his way to Mar-a-Lago. George Nader, an international fixer whose long history included intrepid back-channel mediation between Israel and Arab countries - and a 15-year-old pedophilia conviction in Europe that has not been previously reported - was transiting through Dulles International Airport outside Washington.
News that special counselor Robert Mueller has turned his attention to Erik Prince's January 11, 2017 meeting in the Seychelles with a Russian banker, a Lebanese-American political fixer, and officials from the United Arab Emirates, helps clarify the nature of Mueller's work. It's not an investigation that the former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation is leading-rather, it's a cover-up.
"In wealthy nations, they believe that they have the freedom to pursue those alternatives and not worry so much that they pay less," said one professional. Iranian women are topping the charts with the highest number of female scientists in the world, far surpassing their western counterparts with over half of students leaving with science diploma.