Free Republic

Where in the world is Will Smith? Sources say that days after the Oscar slap flap, Will was flown by his BFF, the Crown Prince of Dubai, Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, aka “Fazza,” to the middle Eastern kingdom so he could cool out while his bad press burns like a California wildfire. The 39 year old Fazza, as he is known, is a good looking 39 year old entrepreneur, sports man, and businessman. He was married off to a cousin in 2019 and now has a set of twins. When the babies were born, Smith sent...

Netflix and Sony have stepped away from their projects with Will Smith a week after he slapped Chris Rock at the Academy Awards.

Former Trump campaign chairman and presidential-pardon recipient Paul Manafort was blocked from leaving the country Sunday because his U.S. passport was not valid, a Miami-Dade police spokesperson told NBC News on Wednesday. Manafort, 72, was attempting to fly from Miami to Dubai on a 9:10 p.m. Emirates airline flight when he was denied boarding because of an issue with his passport, the police spokesperson said, confirming a Knewz.com report. The spokesperson said Customs and Border Protection officials on the scene denied his boarding. A CBP spokesman declined comment, saying, "For privacy reasons, U.S. Customs and Border Protection is unable to...

Russian tennis player Andrey Rublev wrote "No War Please" on a TV camera moments after advancing to the final at the Dubai Championships on Friday. The seventh-ranked Rublev had just beaten Poland's Hubert Hurkacz 3-6, 7-5, 7-6 (5) in their semifinal match before writing his message on the camera -- as is common after matches. Russian troops bore down on Ukraine's capital Friday in an invasion of a democratic country that has fueled fears of wider war in Europe and triggered worldwide efforts to make Russia stop.

The Jewish state’s dream of warm peace with its Arab neighbors has eluded it for more than 72 years. In September 2020, President Donald Trump helped engineer the Abraham Accords between Israel, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates. The very treaty signing on the White House lawn projected human warmth, and signaled a warm peace. Subsequently, Sudan and Morocco joined the normalization of relations with Israel. It is true that peace, as opposed to war, came much earlier than September 2020. Israel signed a peace treaty with Egypt in 1979 and with Jordan in 1994. These peace treaties, however,...

Monday's strike, aimed at a base in Abu Dhabi hosting US forces, was thwarted by American-built Patriot interceptors, following an earlier deadly strike on a fuel depot. Unverified footage that circulated on social media appeared to show moving lights from anti-projectile defenses being fired into the pre-dawn sky over the UAE capital that day. The Public Prosecution said "deterrent legal measures" would be taken against those publishing such material in the UAE, which prides itself as a safe business haven and global tourist destination.

The ruler of Dubai was ordered to pay his princess ex-wife and their children more than $730 million in the most expensive divorce settlement in British history. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, 72, was ordered in London’s High Court on Tuesday to pay Princess Haya Bint Al Hussein, a half-sister of Jordan’s King Abdullah II, a lump sum of around $333 million within the next three months. He also has to immediately pay several million more for the education of their children — Al Jalila, 14, and Zayed, 9 — and then guarantee $385 million to cover future payments.

Sotheby’s Dubai has opened its exhibit of Sandro Botticelli’s The Man of Sorrows, a rare example of the artist’s later work. The painting is expected to sell at an estimated excess of $40 million at Sotheby’s Old Masters sale in New York in January, and it's on view in Dubai until Tuesday. The brooding portrait of the resurrected Christ was executed in the late 15th or early 16th centuries – the last decade of the artist’s life. For Christopher Apostle, head of Old Master Paintings at Sotheby’s New York, the work presents an unusual moment in the artist’s oeuvre. “Botticelli...

The Boeing 737, repatriating Indians stranded in Dubai due to the coronavirus pandemic, overshot the table-top runway and crashed while landing at Calicut International Airport in the southern state of Kerala in heavy rain on August 8, 2020. In spite of being asked to go around by the pilot monitoring the landing, the pilot flying the aircraft failed to do so, the agency said, and the monitoring pilot also failed to take over the controls and execute the order. The aircraft had already made one failed attempt to land before it overran the 2,700-metre (8,900-foot) runway. The airport is known...

Seven US civilians carrying firearms on a private plane were arrested in Dubai last week after trying to enter Afghanistan during the US evacuation, a report said. The would-be vigilantes wanted to assist the deadly military-led evacuation efforts from Kabul’s airport, before they were caught with firearms by United Arab Emirates officials on August 31, the last day of the pullout, according to Newsweek. “The passengers reportedly planned to assist Afghanistan evacuation efforts but had no approved onward travels plans,” a State Department cable obtained by the magazine reportedly read. The US Consulate General in Dubai was reportedly “engaging with...

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The Middle East on Monday got its first completely automated cashier-less store, as retail giant Carrefour rolled out its vision for the future of the industry in a cavernous Dubai mall. Like Amazon’s breakthrough unmanned grocery stores that opened in 2018, the Carrefour mini-market looks like any ordinary convenience store, brimming with sodas and snacks, tucked between sprawling storefronts of this city-state. But hidden among the familiar fare lies a sophisticated system that tracks shoppers’ movements, eliminating the checkout line and allowing people to grab the products they’ll walk out with. Only those with...

A young Chinese woman says she was held for eight days at a Chinese-run secret detention facility in Dubai, along with at least two Uyghurs, in what may be the first evidence that China is operating a “black site” beyond its borders.Wu Huan, 26, was on the run to avoid extradition to China because her fiancé was considered a Chinese dissident. Wu told The Associated Press she was abducted from a hotel in Dubai and detained by Chinese officials at a villa, converted into a jail, where she saw or heard two other prisoners, both Uyghurs.She said she was questioned...

We’ve all heard the stories about how China is making people disappear in their reeducation camps in the western reaches of their nation, particularly the Uyghurs. But are they engaged in similar tactics in other countries? That’s the claim being made by one Chinese woman who says that she was detained in a secret black site in Dubai for more than a week. The woman claims to have been held without access to legal counsel or the ability to contact her family. She also was reportedly forced to sign legal documents incriminating her own fiance’ who is still back in...

The rain is formed using drone technology that gives clouds an electric shock to 'cajole them' into clumping together and producing precipitation The UAE is one of the most arid countries on Earth and the technique helps to increase its meagre annual rainfall Video shows it is working with monsoon-like downpours across the country

With a staggering depth of 60 meters (196 feet), the pool, part of the new Deep Dive Dubai attraction — has stolen the record from Poland's Deepspot, which has a depth of over 45 meters (148 feet). The Deep Dive Dubai pool is filled with 14 million liters of fresh water — the volume of six Olympic-sized swimming pools — and is at least four times bigger than any other diving pool in the world. Guinness awarded it the "Deepest swimming pool for diving" title on June 27. Water temperature is maintained at 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit), a...

Caring for pets during the hot summer months can be difficult , but Dubai always has innovative solutions to offer! Water-loving dogs can now enjoy their very own spa day at “Petsville” in Al Quoz with the latest pet attraction “Aqua Pawk” consisting of two refreshing & safe pools for dogs. Since the opening of pools last month, “Petsville” has become one of Dubai’s success stories offering the perfect place for pups to cool-off in the scorching summer heat, and a distinctive addition to the Dubai’s pet care facilities.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A container ship anchored at Dubai's huge port caught fire late Wednesday Thursday, the emirate's media office reported, causing an explosion that sent tremors across the commercial hub of the United Arab Emirates. The Twitter post from Dubai's state-run media office said that a fire was reported to have erupted on a ship and that a team of firefighters was working to control the blaze. Witnesses reported shaking buildings across the city.

Emirati grandmaster Salem Salah plays world champion Magnus Carlsen on Saturday, and could win $100,000Emirati chess champion Salem Salah is preparing for a speed chess tournament on Saturday, when he'll come up against the World Champion, Magnus Carlsen. Antonie Robertson / The National It was clear from a young age that Salem Saleh had startling talent, and an extraordinary mind. The Arab chess prodigy started winning professional championships aged only 10, and was named a grandmaster by the International Chess Federation (FIDE) when he was 16, a title currently held by 1,721 other players in the world. As Arab...

A photograph posted this week on two public Instagram accounts purports to show Princess Latifa, the daughter of the ruler of Dubai, who has not been seen or heard from in months. In mid-February, BBC Panorama broadcast secret video testimony from her in which she said she was being held as a hostage and feared for her life. The BBC is unable to verify the photo, and no further information has been provided. However, a friend of Latifa's confirmed that it is the princess in the picture. The BBC understands that the appearance of the image is not random or...

A young Chinese dissident on the Chinese Communist Party’s wanted list is seeking help after being held incommunicado for a month in the United Arab Emirates, with the prospect of being sent back to China to face torture. Dubai police arrested Wang Jingyu, a 19-year-old from Chongqing city in southern China’s Sichuan Province, during his transfer flight to New York on April 6. Wang, who says he has done nothing wrong, has been in custody since with limited contact with the outside world. “This is 100 percent linked to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP),” he said in an interview with...