Free Republic

President Biden will skip the United Nations climate summit that kicks off Thursday in Dubai amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas, a report said Sunday. Biden, who just weeks ago called climate change “the ultimate threat to humanity,” will not be among the leaders of nearly 200 countries who will attend the two-week event, known as COP28, a White House official told the New York Times. The official who asked to remain anonymous to discuss the president’s plans did not provide a reason for his absence, but senior aides told the publication that Biden has been preoccupied with...

The man who police have questioned in relation to the death of a Jewish man during a clash with pro-Palestinian protestors is a 50-year-old college professor, DailyMail.com can reveal. Loay Alnaji, who teaches computer science at Ventura Community College in California, allegedly hit Paul Kessler with a megaphone knocking him to the ground. Police raided his home on a quiet cul-de-sac in Moorpark, California, on Sunday evening, we have learned. ‘My husband was getting home from Costco when he saw a SWAT team, six cops with rifles and full gear. Their vehicles were not police cars, they were unmarked,’ neighbor...

At first glance, Thursday’s first-ever phone call between Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman and Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi might suggest the two predominantly Muslim nations are coming together to support Hamas and its war on Israel. But a closer look shows the two leaders were talking past each other. The Saudi prince, known as MBS, wants peace with Israel and his country’s full integration into the world economy, an agenda that puts him fundamentally at odds with Tehran’s drive to destroy Israel and dominate the Middle East through a network of clients and proxies. According to the Saudi readout...

"After the Taliban shut universities for women, my only hope was to get a scholarship which would help me study abroad," says 20-year-old Afghan student Natkai. Natkai's name has been changed for her own safety. The Taliban have cracked down hard on women who oppose them. Natkai says she kept studying even though there was little chance of her ever attending university in her homeland. Then she was granted a scholarship to study at the University of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) from Emirati billionaire businessman Sheikh Khalaf Ahmad Al Habtoor. The scholarships for Afghan women were announced...

A British fashion entrepreneur has sold a coveted plot of sand on a luxury island in Dubai in a record-setting deal. The empty, 24,500-square-foot parcel of land, which lies on the man-made Jumeirah Bay Island and has no structures on it, sold for 125 million dirhams, or $34 million, on April 19, according to Knight Frank, the real estate firm that brokered the off-market deal. The sale is noteworthy because of the property's sparseness — previous headline-grabbing sales in Dubai have been of mega-mansions and ultra-luxurious apartments. "Only buys you the sand" A $34 million real estate deal in Dubai...

The founder and former CEO of collapsing crypto trader Sam Bankman-Fried is said to be holed up with members of his inner circle in the Bahamas while his empire collapses around him. Bankman-Fried, 30, resigned from FTX on Friday, as the crypto exchange filed for bankruptcy and reports emerged that up to $2 billion in client funds had vanished from the company's books in recent weeks. According to Coin Telegraph, the disgraced former CEO is holed up at the Albany Tower alongside FTX co-founder Gary Wang and the company's director of engineering Nishad Singh.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The Middle East is the most water-scarce region in the world, but participants at an upcoming climate summit in Dubai will be ensconced in a resort with one of the world’s largest water parks, complete with artificial lagoons, encounters with dolphins and a mesmerizing aquarium with sharks, sting rays and schools of fish. It’s a striking backdrop for a climate summit aimed at tackling lack of water and other pressing issues facing the region due in part to warming global temperatures from the very fossil fuels produced by Gulf Arab states and others. The...

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani says he left Kabul to prevent bloodshed as he denied reports he took large sums of money with him as he departed the presidential palace. Ghani, who confirmed he was in the United Arab Emirates, said he was in 'consultation' to return to Afghanistan after he met a barrage of bitter criticism by former ministers for leaving the country suddenly as Taliban forces entered the capital on Sunday. But the United States - Ghani's most important ally - reiterated today that it did not see Ghani as a player in the region, after the ousted president...

Reps. James Comer (R-Ky.) and Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.) on Tuesday demanded answers from the Biden administration on whether ex-Afghan President Ashraf Ghani stole US aid before fleeing to the United Arab Emirates. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki on Wednesday indicated she's not aware of whether or not it's true that Ghani fled to Dubai with millions of dollars. https://twitter.com/stevennelson10/status/1430669793267494913

The founder of Dubai, Sheikh Rashid, was asked about the future of his country, and he replied, "My grandfather rode a camel, my father rode a camel, I ride a Mercedes, my son rides a Land Rover, and my grandson is going to ride a Land Rover…but my great-grandson is going to have to ride a camel again." Why is that, he was asked? And his reply was, “Hard times create strong men, strong men create easy times. Easy times create weak men, weak men create difficult times. Many will not understand it, but you have to raise warriors, not...

While the Biden campaign was announcing a slate of radicals sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood to stack its foreign policy desk if it ever takes over the government, a very different sort of trip was underway in the middle east that clarified how wrong and dangerous they were. In an event that would have been inconceivable under Barack Obama, the Shillman Fellows of Reservists on Duty, an organization founded by Israeli military veterans that tours college campuses to speak about the realities of fighting terrorism, were on their way to Dubai. Dubai, as part of the United Arab Emirates, had...

An Ukrainian Airlines plane carrying 180 passengers and crew crashed tonight just minutes ago after takeoff from Tehran, Iran! This comes on the same night that Iran fired a dozen missiles at US bases in Iraq. Al Hadath Dubai News reported a missile took down the Ukrainian flight. https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/01/breaking-dubai-news-iranian-missile-took-down-ukrainian-plane-that-exploded-after-takeoff-from-tehran-airport/

September 18, 2019 Clip No. 7492 Houthi Military Spokesman Brigadier Yahya Saree Threatens the "Glass Towers" of Abu Dhabi and Dubai, Adds: We Have Dozens of Targets in the UAE Houthi military spokesman Brigadier Yahya Saree said in a September 18, 2019 press conference that aired on the Houthi Al-Masirah TV (Yemen) that the Yemeni armed forces are "determined to carry out widespread and large-scale operations" against the "coalition of aggression and the forces of evil" that are led by Saudi Arabia and the UAE. He emphasized that Houthi forces will not hesitate to "deal an immediate and exceptional" response...

The Foreign Affairs Ministry of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) issued a statement Sunday directly condemning the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas for a bloody terror spree that has left over 700 dead since early Saturday, urging the region to avoid following the group toward “nihilistic destruction.” The UAE is one of the world’s wealthiest and most influential explicitly Islamic governments. Abu Dhabi’s condemnation of Hamas and extension of condolences to the majority-Jewish victims of the Hamas rapes, abductions, and massacres on Saturday is a dramatic contrast in tone from neighboring Iran – where the regime threw a street party to...

I have family members in Bali wanting to travel to Dubai and then home to the USA. Is that a wise route or even possible now with the War in Israel. I think it's a bad choice. What do my Freeper friends suggest? Are there travel restrictions in place?

A 21-year-old New York college student has been freed from a Dubai jail after previously facing a year behind bars in one of the nation's notorious prisons. The student, who attends Lehman College in the Big Apple, was passing through the nation from Istanbul on her way to New York when she was detained with a friend. Instead of the 10-hour layover she was expecting, De Los Santos was subjected to a months-long ordeal after inadvertently tapping the airport security guard. The female officer accused De Los Santos of 'assaulting and insulting' them, which Santos denied. She was forbidden to...

A New York business arts student has been jailed for a year in Dubai after she tapped an airport security officer on the arm during a strip search as they checked her medical waist binder and left her half-naked. Elizabeth Polanco De Los Santos, 21, who attends Lehman College in the Big Apple was heading to New York from Istanbul with a friend when they were detained during a ten-hour layover at Dubai International Airport on July 14. But what she thought would be a short stop in the UAE has turned into a months-long nightmare, after airport security was...

One of the key events of the End Times is a coming peace treaty between Israel and her neighbors which the coming antichrist will broker. We read about this in Daniel 9:27, “And he, [the antichrist, referred to in the previous verse as ‘the prince that shall come’] shall confirm the covenant with many for one week [one set of seven years] and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate…” There’s a lot to unpack in this verse: The antichrist...

Plus, Michelangelo at the Albertina in Vienna and Julianknxx at the Barbican in LondonA Unesco conference and archeological summit in Saudi Arabia are the latest examples of the country’s increasing focus on culture as part of the so-called Vision 2030 programme. We look at Saudi Arabia’s unprecedented and lavishly funded focus on contemporary and ancient culture and how that relates to ongoing concerns about artistic freedom and human rights abuses in the kingdom. Alia Al-Senussi, a cultural strategist, and senior advisor at Art Basel and to the Saudi ministry of culture, joins host Ben Luke to discuss the contemporary art...

The Jazlah plant in Jubail city applies the latest technological advances in a country that first turned to desalination more than a century ago, when Ottoman-era administrators enlisted filtration machines for hajj pilgrims menaced by drought and cholera. Lacking lakes, rivers and regular rainfall, Saudi Arabia today relies instead on dozens of facilities that transform water from the Gulf and Red Sea into something potable, supplying cities and towns that otherwise would not survive. But the kingdom's growing desalination needs –- fuelled by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's dreams of presiding over a global business and tourism hub –- risk...