Free Republic

Details of the recent agreement to develop an integrated industrial and residential zone at Sokhna in Egypt were presented to investors and businesses in Dubai. Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem, Group Chairman and CEO, DP World and Admiral Mohab Mamish, Chairman of the Suez Canal Authority and Chairman of the Suez Canal Economic Zone (SCZone), today presented The opportunities to invest and launch operations in the project were outlined to company representatives, many of whom already have existing outlets in Dubai’s Jebel Ali Freezone (Jafza). Sokhna World Zone will create a sustainable industrial area to attract foreign investment and will feature...

The dramatic events in Saudi Arabia of the past few days portend a game change in the Middle East not seen in decades. Predictably, the mainstream media, desperate as they are to find something, anything to blame on President Trump, have completely missed it. Instead, they have babbled about the market implications of the arrests of Prince Alwaleed bin Talal and Co., Saudi Arabia ‘emerging’ as an arms manufacturer, conflict with Hezbollah, palace intrigue, etc. etc. Few have put their finger on the actual events – a palace revolution in Riyadh that could change the Middle East in profound and...

Sheikh Nahjan Mubarak al Nahjan, the minister for tolerance in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), has said that inadequate surveillance of mosques has led to Islamist terrorism in Germany. “You can’t just leave a mosque open and allow anyone to go there and to preach. You need to have licenses,” said al Nahjan in an interview with DPA. He added that the problem existed in Germany, France and the United Kingdom, arguing that Muslims were becoming radicalized in mosques where the authorities were not exerting strong enough control. […] In the authoritarian UAE, mosques are comprehensively controlled by the authorities....

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Long-haul carrier Emirates purchased 40 American-made Boeing 787-10 Dreamliners on Sunday at the start of the biennial Dubai Air Show, a $15.1 billion deal certain to please U.S. President Donald Trump who has touted the plane's sales as a job creator in America. The deal appeared to surprise Boeing's archrival Airbus, whose staff had attended a long-delayed news conference and left the room just moments before the announcement. Airbus has pinned hopes of continuing production of its double-decker jumbo jet on Emirates, the world's largest operator of the aircraft which took delivery of its...

French President Emmanuel Macron announced today that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) ordered two Gowind corvettes from French shipbuilder Naval Group (formerly DCNS). President Macron made the announcement during a press conference in Dubai. The deal includes an option for two more vessels (for a possible total of four corvettes). The corvettes will be built by Naval Group in cooperation with local shipbuilder Abu Dhabi Shipbuilding (ADSB). Contacted by Navy Recognition, an industry source explained that the corvettes would have quite a unique configuration: They are set to be fitted with the Tacticos combat management system (instead of Naval Group's...

As if on cue, the work has begun to rehabilitate Fusion GPS’s image and normalize its dossier and its behavior. Axios wrote that this is all really normal, and that Glenn Simpson and others at Fusion GPS, many of whom are former senior Wall Street Journal reporters and editors, are just good old regular gumshoe ink-stained, unhappy people trying to make a living. Last week, Hillary Clinton went on the Daily Show to “explain” that it really was just opposition research. To be clear, there is neither anything normal about Fusion GPS dossier nor the way the firm goes about...

Despite apparent plans to buy advanced Russian fighter jets and the United States rebuffing the requests for years, the United Arab Emirates reportedly remains interested in joining the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program. The U.S. government has had long-standing concerns that such a sale could undermine Israel’s so-called “qualitative military edge” in the region, but jet’s controversial and centralized computer brain, known as the Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS), might actually help soothe those fears. On Nov. 4, 2017, Defense News reported that experts and insiders had made clear that the UAE had a continued desire to buy F-35s, in...

The United Arab Emirates said Thursday it would stop issuing new visas to North Korean workers, becoming the latest Gulf country to limit Pyongyang's ability to evade sanctions and raise money abroad amid tensions with the U.S. A statement by the UAE Foreign Ministry did not address the hundreds of North Korean laborers already working in the Emirates. A call to the UAE's Embassy in Washington was not immediately returned. The statement said the UAE would pull its non-resident ambassador to North Korea as well as stop North Koreans from opening new businesses in the Emirates, a federation of seven...

The UAE has evaluated a number of fighter aircraft including the Dassault Rafale, Boeing’s Advanced Super Hornet and Advanced F-15 and the Eurofighter Typhoon. Emirati attention now seems to have switched back to the Advanced F-15, already entering service with the Royal Saudi Air Force as the F-15SA and now ordered by Qatar as the F-15QA. These orders promise to keep the F-15 production line out to 2022. Following a meeting between US Defence Secretary, James Mattis, and Sheikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, deputy supreme commander of the UAE Armed Forces and Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, reports emerged...

Las Vegas (CNN)In addition to his frequent forays into casinos and gun shops, Las Vegas strip killer Stephen Paddock took 20 cruises, many of them in Europe and the Middle East, investigators have learned. New video shows concertgoers fleeing scene 02:57 The cruises included stops at ports in Spain, Italy, Greece, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, according to information provided by a law enforcement source who asked not to be identified because the source was not authorized to share information about the investigation. Paddock's girlfriend, Marilou Danley, accompanied him on nine of the cruises. [...] In the wake of...

MOSCOW, October 3. /TASS/. The United Arab Emirates wants to buy over a squadron of Sukhoi Su-35 advanced fighter jets from Russia and the contract may be signed by the yearend, a source in the system of military and technical cooperation told TASS on Tuesday. "They want a lot, over a squadron but the exact number will be specified in the course of negotiations that may be held in November during an air show in Dubai," the source said. The relevant contract may be signed by the yearend, if the negotiations are successful, the source said. TASS does not yet...

World's heaviest woman, Eman Abdul Atti, died at Abu Dhabi's Burjeel Hospital today. According to a statement by the management of Burjeel Hospital, Eman at 4:35 am. Her death was due to an intestinal shock with dysfunction of the body organs including kidney failure. The statement added that during her stay at the hospital, Eman has been supervised by a team of more than 20 doctors. They added that her health had been steadily improving since her arrival in the UAE however it took a turn for the worse this morning. Eman had earlier been treated by a doctor in...

In an April 20 (given the deep connections between the Brotherhood and the Nazi Party, the date may not have been an accident) story in the Jerusalem Post, the question was asked, Will Qatar abandon the Muslim Brotherhood? As they put it, Qatar is the only country who openly supports the Muslim Brotherhood. This followed the pressure exerted on Qatar to do just that from its three Gulf neighbors, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates. Saudi Arabia even threatened a blockade should Qatar not comply. Clearly the Brotherhood, and their revolutionary aims, had been recognized as a threat...

It’s something of an open secret that maritime special operations forces around the world rely on a wide array of highly specialized water craft, such as high-speed, low-profile speed boats, miniature submarines, and more. Now, one company, SubSea, is trying to combine a number of these features into single design it calls the Diver Delivery Unit (DDU), which can transform from a speedboat to a mini sub and back again. The DDU concept is centered on a symmetrical twin-hull design, both of which could carry personnel or other equipment. The United Kingdom-based firm says the final arrangement will be both...

Former national security adviser Susan Rice privately told House investigators that she unmasked the identities of senior Trump officials to understand why the crown prince of the United Arab Emirates was in New York late last year, multiple sources told CNN. The New York meeting preceded a separate effort by the UAE to facilitate a back-channel communication between Russia and the incoming Trump White House. The crown prince, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, arrived in New York last December in the transition period before Trump was sworn into office for a meeting with several top Trump officials, including Michael Flynn,...

TOKYO -- Japan could be on the verge of exporting its first piece of finished defense equipment. The government is considering sales of the Air Self-Defense Force's latest transport aircraft, the C-2, to the United Arab Emirates, The Nikkei learned on Saturday. Government ministries are already providing specifications and other related information about the vehicle to the UAE. Now the two countries have to conclude a treaty regarding the transfer of defense equipment and technology -- an essential step before the C-2 can be sent to the UAE. The C-2, developed by Kawasaki Heavy Industries, has a cruising range of...

Yousef Otaiba ridicules Gulf ally in email exchange, betraying years of frustration at Riyadh old guard that coalesced into efforts to change it The UAE's ambassador to Washington described Saudi Arabia's leadership as "f***in' coo coo!", in one of a series of leaked emails that suggest years of Emirati frustration with Riyadh's old regime that has coalesced into a clear strategy to usurp it by bolstering the rise of the young Mohammed bin Salman. The messages, obtained by Middle East Eye through the GlobalLeaks hacking group, show Otaiba mocking Saudi Arabia to his Egyptian wife, Abeer Shoukry, over the Saudi...

As many of you will recall, Obama made a trip to Pakistan when he was at Occidental College. I am seeing indicators that this relates to the Awans' network and to Iraq and Iran's nuclear programs, which I'm putting out here for others to help fill the missing pieces in and to get this to the right people. First, a recap of Obama's Pakistan trip:Obama’s Russia Problem: Obama's Links to Soviet-era Spy Rings and Terrorist NetworksAt Occidental College, Obama became involved in radical student politics, deliberately networking with activist students and professors, as he mentions in his autobiography. In 1981,...

In the third such successful strike on warships belonging to the Saudi Arabia-led coalition in Yemen since the beginning of 2017, Houthi rebel recently attacked an unknown vessel of the United Arab Emirates’ Navy. Beyond this most basic detail, however, both sides have released wildly different and equally unconfirmed statements regarding the incident. On July 29, 2017, pro-Houthi forces, referring themselves as the “Yemeni Navy,” released a statement taking responsibility for the attack, which they said occurred in the Red Sea off the coast of the port city of Mocha, Yemen. According to an English-language report from the Houthi-controlled SABA...

The United Arab Emirates has one of the most repressive governments in the world. The Gulf dictatorship brutally cracks down on internal dissent and enables abusive conditions for its massive migrant labor force. It also plays a key role in the bloody war in Yemen, running a network of torture prisons in the “liberated” parts of the country. That makes it all the more shocking that the UAE is so rarely criticized by leading U.S. think tanks, who not only ignore the Gulf dictatorship’s repression, but give a privileged platform to its ambassador, Yousef Al-Otaiba. Otaiba is a deeply influential...