Free Republic

DUBAI: The United Arab Emirates minister of state for foreign affairs said on Saturday that Turkey should stop interfering in Arab affairs, criticizing comments on Libya made by Turkey’s defense minister. Turkish media had reported the Turkish minister making remarks critical of the UAE’s actions over Libya. The UAE, alongside Egypt and Russia, backs eastern Libya commander Khalifa Haftar, whose fighters have been battling the forces of the internationally recognized government in Tripoli. Turkey has stepped up support for the Tripoli government. “Relations are not managed by threats and there is no place for colonialist delusions in this day and...

The United Arab Emirates has succeeded with the initial stage of its first ever Mars mission, thanks to the launch of an H-IIA rocket built by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries from Tanegashima Space Center in Japan on Sunday. The rocket carried the Al Amal (Hope) Probe for the UAE, a Mars orbiter that is set to arrive at the red planet by February 2021, and spend a Martian year (687 days) on orbit around Mars collecting data about its atmosphere. This is the first of three separate planned missions to Mars that are scheduled to take place during July, including a...

WASHINGTON — A Japanese rocket launched the United Arab Emirates’ first mission to Mars July 19, an orbiter that will study the planet’s weather while demonstrating the country’s growing space capabilities. The H-2A rocket lifted off from the Tanegashima Space Center in Japan at 5:58 p.m. Eastern. The launch was originally scheduled for July 14 but delayed five days by poor weather at the launch site. The rocket’s upper stage released the Emirates Mars Mission, or Hope, spacecraft, nearly an hour after liftoff. The spacecraft contracted controllers shortly after separation. Hope is a 1,350-kilogram satellite developed by the Mohammed bin...

First-Ever Corporate Enforcement Action by DOJ of North Korean Sanctions            WASHINGTON – Essentra FZE Company Limited (“Essentra FZE”), a global supplier of cigarette products that is incorporated in the United Arab Emirates (“UAE”), has agreed to pay a $665,112 fine and enter into a deferred prosecution agreement with the Justice Department for conspiring to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (“IEEPA”) and defrauding the United States in connection with evading sanctions on North Korea.  Today’s public filing against Essentra FZE is the first ever DOJ corporate enforcement action for violations of these regulations. ...

Palestinians say sending medical aid through Tel Aviv is a 'cover for normalisation' of ties with Israel. The Palestinian Authority (PA) has rejected an aid shipment from the United Arab Emirates, according to the Palestinian health minister. In a news conference on Thursday, Mai Kaila said her country refused to receive the medical aid as the Emirati side ignored to coordinate with them. "The UAE has not coordinated with us regarding the medical aid, and we reject to receive it without coordination," said the minister. "We are a sovereign country, and they should have coordinated with us first." Earlier on...

WASHINGTON - Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, and the UAE on Tuesday issued statements welcoming the Trump administration's peace plan. "The Kingdom reiterates its support for all efforts aimed at reaching a just and comprehensive resolution to the Palestinian cause," said the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs. "The kingdom appreciates the efforts of President Trump's administration to develop a comprehensive peace plan between the Palestinian and the Israeli sides, and encourages the start of direct peace negotiations between the Palestinian and Israeli sides, under the auspices of the United States," the statement reads. It also called to resolve any disagreements with...

A European Vega launcher failed Wednesday night around two minutes after liftoff from French Guiana and fell into the Atlantic Ocean, destroying an Airbus-built surveillance satellite for the United Arab Emirates. Arianespace, the French launch service provider in charge of Wednesday night’s mission, declared a failure minutes after the 98-foot-tall (30-meter) Vega rocket took off from the Guiana Space Center on the northeastern coast of South America. Luce Fabreguettes, Arianespace’s executive vice president of missions, operations and purchasing, said the failure occurred around the time of ignition of the Vega rocket’s solid-fueled Zefiro 23 second stage. “As you have seen,...

The left is worried about Trump’s conflict of interests. Maybe they should worry about Barack Hussein Obama’s conflicts of interest. Lease Given to Our Enemies The family of Iraqi nuclear physicist Dr. Jafar Dhia Jafar, “the father of Iraq’s nuclear weapons program,” has been awarded a 35-year lease for cargo container operations at Port Canaveral, Florida. The Center for Security Policy reports that two intrepid researchers produced a paper titled, Secret Deal Allows Company Tied to Saddam’s Nuclear Bombmaker, Iran and U.A.E. to Manage Key Florida Port Facilities. The paper notes that Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew unilaterally approved...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump, declaring a national emergency because of tensions with Iran, swept aside objections from Congress on Friday to complete the sale of over $8 billion worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan.The Trump administration informed congressional committees that it will go ahead with 22 military sales to the Saudis, United Arab Emirates and Jordan, infuriating lawmakers by circumventing a long-standing precedent for congressional review of major weapons sales.

FULL TITLE: Alleged UAE spy under investigation for possible links to Jamal Khashoggi killing found dead in Turkish jail =========================================================== An alleged spy for the United Arab Emirates (UAE) being investigated for possible links to the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi was found dead in his Turkish jail cell, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday. Turkish prosecutors on Monday said wardens had found the suspect, Zaki Y.M. Hassan, hanged inside his solitary cell in Istanbul’s Silivri prison, according to the newspaper, which added that prosecutors are calling for an investigation into the death. Turkish authorities were reportedly investigating Hassan and...

Venezuela will fly 15 tonnes of gold to the United Arab Emirates in coming days in return for euros in cash as the country tries to stay solvent, sources have said. In total, Nicolas Maduro plans to sell 29 tonnes of Venezuelan gold - worth around $1.2billion - to the UAE by February in order to buy basic goods and prop up his crumbling government. Meanwhile Russia, which is backing Maduro, was forced to deny being in contact with opponent Juan Guaido after the politician said he sent a message to Moscow.

CARACAS - Venezuela will sell 15 tonnes of gold from central bank vaults to the United Arab Emirates in coming days in return for euros in cash, a senior official with knowledge of the plan said, in a bid by the cash-strapped country to stay solvent. The sale of gold reserves that back the Bolivar currency began on Jan. 26 with a shipment of 3 tonnes, the official said, and follows the export last year of $900 million of unrefined gold to Turkey.

Four Arab countries are backing Donald Trump’s plan for a settlement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, according to an Israeli newspaper, and are willing to sideline the PA’s President Mahmoud Abbas to see it done. According to a report in Israel Hayom, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Jordan told Jared Kushner, the US president’s son-in-law and the man charged with solving the Israel-Palestine issue, and envoy Jason Greenblatt they were behind Washington’s so-called “deal of the century”. Israel Hayom, a daily newspaper owned by billionaires Miriam and Sheldon Adelson, reported that it spoke to officials from...

The government of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, which has aided, funded and armed jihadist groups in Syria for years, is troubled by the detention of a key operative in Dubai by United Arab Emirates security, most likely in cooperation with the Americans. The man who was picked from a Grand Sheraton Hotel in Dubai while having breakfast with his wife on Feb. 20, 2018 is Mehmet Ali Öztürk. He has been running logistical lines for jihadist groups, especially Turkmens and Chechens, in Syria, since 2011, when the Syrian crisis began. Öztürk is linked to Turkish spy agency the National Intelligence...

Palestinian Authority officials did not attend the meeting, which focused on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. WASHINGTON – Israeli national security officials sat around the same table on Tuesday morning with their counterparts from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and the United Arab Emirates, discussing a dire humanitarian situation unfolding in the Gaza Strip. The summit on Gaza, called by Jared Kushner, the US president’s son-in-law and senior adviser on Middle East peace, as well as Jason Greenblatt, his special representative for international negotiations, marks an unprecedented moment for Israeli diplomacy, as their dialogue with officials from Arab states is...

Senior Saudi, Emirati and Qatari leaders will meet with US President Donald Trump in the next couple of months, Reuters reports US officials as saying, amid efforts by Washington to try to resolve a dispute between the Gulf neighbors. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan of the United Arab Emirates and Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani are all planning to have bilateral visits with Trump in March and April, a senior US official said. The agenda will include setting up a Gulf Cooperation Council summit, the official said, which...

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...

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...

A mosque in the capital of the United Arab Emirates Abu Dhabi was renamed on Wednesay to “Mariam Umm Eisa” – meaning mother of Jesus in Arabic. The move was aimed at promoting social connections between followers of different religions and strengthen the common characteristics between them, local media reported. The name of the mosque, previously known as “Sheikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Mosque,” was changed by order of Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammad bin Zayed al-Nahyan to “consolidate bonds of humanity between followers of different religions”. UAE's Minister of State for Tolerance Sheikha Lubna al-Qasimi said the move reflected...