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Egyptian Navy Gowind Corvette El Fateh (971). Source: Ahmed XIV/Wikimedia Commons The United Arab Emirates has reportedly finalized a contract for the procurement of at least two Gowind corvettes. On June 7, French publication La Tribune reported that the UAE had completed a deal for two Gowind corvettes. The agreement, valued at around EUR750 million, was reportedly signed in March of this year, but was not announced. The Gowind corvettes, which are built by France’s Naval Group, are to come equipped with Raytheon’s RIM-162 Evolved SeaSparrow Missiles to protect from aerial threats as well as MM40 Exocet anti-shipping missiles, produced...

A Lebanese-American businessman and key “witness” in the special counsel’s investigation of Russian election interference was arrested and charged Monday with transporting a dozen images of child pornography and bestiality. George Nader, 60, was arrested Monday morning at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, according to federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia. Nader was involved in several key meetings at the center of the special counsel’s Trump/Russia investigation and his name shows up more than 100 times in the Mueller report. Throughout the investigation, Nader was represented by Kathryn Ruemmler, Obama’s long-term White House Counsel/fixer. The...

A BRIT teacher accidentally killed herself with a lethal overdose after she swallowed a bag of cocaine in a first-class airport lounge while waiting to fly home to Dubai. Victoria Buchanan, 42, ingested the resealable bag when she realised she still had the drug in her possession while drinking a glass of champagne after she checked in with her luggage. The mum-of-three had earlier acquired £200 worth of the Class A drug during a family visit to the UK with her husband Mark who is a shipping company boss. She had £60 worth of cocaine left when she decided to...

King Salman of Saudi Arabia has pulled off in Mecca what many had thought unlikely -- getting 20 or so disparate Arab nations to unite in a common position against Iran. ... In middle-of-night, back-to-back summits at Islam's holiest of sites, the aging but still-attentive Saudi monarch got a double endorsement of his claims that Iran is destabilizing the Middle East and a backing of his call for "the international community to shoulder its responsibility. The six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council and 21 Arab League nations present called for Iran to stop "interfering in the internal affairs" of its neighbors and...

Since taking office in 2017, President Donald Trump has achieved more for Israel and the Jewish people than any other president before him. Since 1948, the State of Israel has seen friendly presidents of the United States as well as unfriendly, but today Israel’s greatest friend sits in the White House. Since taking office in 2017, President Donald Trump has achieved more for Israel and the Jewish people than any other president before him, even rivaling Harry Truman, who voted in favor of and later recognized the Jewish state. The list of accomplishments President Trump and his administration have produced...

[GCC=Gulf Cooperation Council] Makkah: The GCC Summit in Makkah has condemned the recent sabotage operations, which targeted four tankers in UAE’s regional waters and drone attacks on Saudi oil facilities. The GCC leaders discussed the exceptional circumstances and dangerous challenges the region is undergoing following the recent attacks on the UAE and Saudi Arabia and their ramifications and direct threat to the regional security and peace, to freedom of global marine navigation and trade as well as to world oil markets as a result of attempts by some countries to undermine security and stability of the region, support terrorism and...

The gathering will take place on June 25-26 and will be attended by several Gulf Arab States as well as Arab partners for peace all over the region. By Mike Evans Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump hold up the signed document acknowledging Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, on March 25, 2019. (photo credit: AMOS BEN-GERSHOM/GPO) The Trump administration announced on Sunday the first stages of the peace plan roll-out, confirming that it will host a workshop in Bahrain in late June to focus on more direct economic investments of the West Bank and Gaza. The...

More proof emerges that Obama used spy agencies to undermine Trump. President Obama’s UN Ambassador Samantha Power was reportedly “unmasking” Americans almost on a daily basis right up to President Trump’s inauguration, which bolsters Trump’s claim that the Obama administration tried to rig last year’s election by spying on the then-GOP candidate’s campaign.Fox News is reporting that in the closing months of the Obama administration, Irish-born Power reportedly made more than 260 requests to identify Americans whose names turned up in foreign intelligence collection, a process called unmasking. Why an envoy to the United Nations would be involved in unmasking...

As Iran girds for possible war with the United States, President Trump may turn out to be the best friend it has. Despite the saber-rattling of senior aides and Trump’s own tweets, when push has come to shove over the past two years, the president has repeatedly backed away from the threatened use of military force. Whether the target has been North Korea, with which warnings of “fire and fury” have become little more than an exchange of “beautiful” letters between Trump and Kim Jong Un, or Venezuela, where the threat of “all options” has failed to upset the status...

President Donald Trump during a Saturday rally in Wisconsin described a phone call with the leader of Saudi Arabia in which he demanded more money from the oil-rich nation. “Look, Saudi Arabia, very rich country, we defend them, we subsidize Saudi Arabia. They have nothing but cash, right? We subsidize them. And they buy a lot from us, $450 billion they bought,” Trump began. “You know, You had people wanting to cut off Saudi Arabia. They bought $450 billion. I don’t want to lose ‘em! But the military, we subsidize Saudi Arabia!” “I called the King,” he continued. “I like...

Jeddah: Saudi Arabia’s King Salman Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud called for an emergency meeting of Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states and leaders of Arab League countries to discuss the security of the region and measures to enhance it, according to a Saudi Press Agency (SPA) report late on Saturday. The Saudi Press Agency (SPA) said King Salman had invited Gulf leaders and Arab states to two emergency summits in Mecca on May 30 to discuss recent "aggressions and their consequences" in the region. The extraordinary meeting has been called following attack on the commercial maritime ships in the territorial...

RIYADH/DUBAI (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia is taking managerial control of Saudi Binladin Group and discussing a possible transfer of some of the giant construction group’s assets to the state while its chairman and other family members are in detention, sources told Reuters. Binladin, which had over 100,000 employees at its height, is the biggest builder in the country and important to Riyadh’s plans for large real estate, industrial and tourism projects to help diversify the economy beyond oil. However, the group has been hurt financially in the past couple of years by a slump in the construction industry and a...

In this Dec. 14, 2017 file photo, the remains of an Iranian Qasef-1 Unmanned Aerial Vehicle is seen during a press briefing at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling in Washington. Image Credit: AP Dubai: Saudi Energy Minister Khalid Al Falih said on Tuesday that two oil pumping stations for the East-West pipeline had been hit by explosive-laden drones, calling the attack "an act of terrorism" that targeted global oil supplies. Falih condemned the attacks in a statment saying: "The latest acts of terrorism and sabotage in the Arabian Gulf... not only target the Kingdom but also the security of oil supplies...

Saudi Araba said drones attacked one of its oil pipelines as other assaults targeted energy infrastructure elsewhere in the kingdom on Tuesday, shortly after Yemen’s rebels claimed a coordinated drone attack on the Sunni power. The assaults marked the latest incidents challenging Mideast security after the alleged sabotage of oil tankers off the coast of the United Arab Emirates earlier this week amid heightened tensions between the U.S. and Iran. Yemen’s Houthi rebels, whom Saudi Arabia has been fighting against since March 2015, said they launched a series of drone attacks on the kingdom, across the border from Yemen. […]...

Saudi Arabia announced on Monday that two of its oil tankers suffered “significant damage” from sabotage attacks off the coast of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) near the Strait of Hormuz. The attacks reportedly also damaged two ships from other nations, one of them registered to Norway. The Saudis and Emiratis did not name any suspects but their implications about the motive suggested a link to Iran. Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said the sabotage was intended to “undermine the freedom of maritime navigation, and the security of oil supplies to consumers all over the world.” The minister’s statement stressed...

Most news consumers understand that media, in general, plays favorites. They cheer on and protect Designated Heroes, and with seemingly boundless energy relish every opportunity to assail Designated Villains. We’ve long known, from polling and other quantifiable metrics, that journalists have very pronounced political biases. Even as journalists often indignantly tout the objectivity of their work product and defend the credibility of others in their profession, the sorry results stand for themselves. It’s no longer controversial—other than in the most surreal, eye-rolling conversations with committed left-wing partisans—to say the American media leans overwhelmingly left and has a strong preference for...

As tensions rose over the weekend between the US and Iran in the Persian Gulf, several vessels were “sabotaged” off the coast of the United Arab Emirates. Both Iranian media and the UAE reported the incident, but 24 hours after it happened, much of what occurred was still shrouded in mystery, with allegations of “explosions” and questions about how severe the “sabotage” actually was. The Saudi energy minister confirmed that two of its oil tankers were targeted in a “sabotage attack.” It took place as the tankers were “on their way to the Arabian Gulf” via the Emirate of Fujairah,...

Dubai: Saudi Energy Minister Khalid Al Falih said on Tuesday that two oil pumping stations for the East-West pipeline had been hit by explosive-laden drones, calling the attack "an act of terrorism" that targeted global oil supplies. Falih condemned the attacks in a statment saying: "The latest acts of terrorism and sabotage in the Arabian Gulf... not only target the Kingdom but also the security of oil supplies to the world and the global economy." "These attacks prove again that it is important for us to face terrorist entities, including the Houthi militias in Yemen that are backed by Iran,"...

DUBAI (Reuters) - Four commercial vessels were targeted by “sabotage operations” near the territorial waters of the United Arab Emirates without causing casualties, the foreign ministry said on Sunday, without giving details of the nature of the sabotage.

<p>DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The United Arab Emirates said Sunday that four commercial ships off its eastern coast “were subjected to sabotage operations,” just hours after Iranian and Lebanese media outlets aired false reports of explosions at a nearby Emirati port.</p>