Free Republic

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...

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...

There’s a history needed for context here. But first, here’s the latest developments in order of their occurrence. ♦ 6:00am Bahrain’s Foreign Affairs Ministry issued a statement early Monday saying it would withdraw its diplomatic mission from the Qatari capital of Doha within 48 hours and that all Qatari diplomats should leave Bahrain within the same period. The ministry’s statement said Qatari citizens needed to leave Bahrain within two weeks and that air and sea traffic between the two countries would be halted. It wasn’t immediately clear how that would affect Qatar Airways, one of the region’s major long-haul carriers....

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain cut relations with Qatar for supporting the Muslim Brotherhood. The Saudi-led Arab coalition fighting Yemen's Houthi rebels also expelled Qatar from its alliance because of Doha's practices of strengthen terrorism. Qatar has categorically denied supporting; Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, and is confidant US President Donald Trump will not last in power.

When serving under the Obama administration, Secretary of State John Kerry lobbied on behalf of two highly questionable Islamic organizations to get the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to remove them from its list of terrorist groups. Both of the groups — which have had great influence on President Barack Obama’s domestic and foreign policy concerning its handling of Islam and terrorism during his time in office — are based in Washington, D.C., and have posed a major concern for national security. “The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) — an unindicted co-conspirator in a plot to fund the terrorist group Hamas...

On Nov. 16, 2014, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) took the unusual step of designating the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), and the Muslim American Society (MAS) – as terrorist organizations.They were among 83 groups named for their connections to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.This outraged CAIR officials, who immediately began efforts to get their organization removed from the list. They found a powerful ally in Secretary of State John Kerry, who authorized State Department officials to meet regularly with UAE officials to lobbying on behalf of CAIR and MAS .CAIR already had a sympathetic ear in the Obama administration, including...

Mohammad Bin Rashid: 'We do not want to see any discrimination based on colour, sect or origin'The legacy of both Shaikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan and Shaikh Rashid Bin Saeed Al Maktoum represent the values of tolerance and respect of which the UAE is proud, His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, said. In a message on the eve of International Tolerance Day, Shaikh Mohammad recalled his memories of the majlis of his father, the late Shaikh Rashid, who used to receive Emiratis and expatriates of different...

A quiet but bloody war is raging on in Libya, and players from around the hemisphere continue to attempt a stabilization of what continues to be a very unstable situation. Some of these nations even have their own forward operating bases in Libya, including a secretive remote airfield operated by the United Arab Emirates and located about 50 miles southeast of Benghazi. Here, the UAE has deployed a pocket air force of heavily armed and armored agricultural planes developed into surveillance and light attack platforms–the AT-802U Border Patrol variant of the Air Tractor and the more capable IOMAX Archangel–in addition...

Turkey is convinced Arab countries were involved in Friday night’s failed coup attempt against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, an Arab intelligence source told Breitbart Jerusalem. The source said that Ankara believes the UAE and Egypt, two of the bitterest enemies of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Arab world, sought to undermine Erdogan’s regime, one of the movement’s staunchest allies and sponsors. Turkish embassies and intelligence agents across the Middle East have been trying to accumulate damning evidence of the involvement of these countries’ espionage agencies in the failed coup, he added. Turkey has also inquired whether the Turkish cleric Fethullah...

Last month has proven to be catastrophic for the credibility of one of Russia’s most touted air defense systems. The troubles for the Pantsir S1 air defense system in Libya began when Khalifa Haftar’s yearlong Tripoli offensive against the Ankara-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) began to collapse. Believed to have been supplied to the Libyan strongman as early as last year by his backers in the Gulf, the Russian system was meant to be used as a trump card against Turkey’s combat unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) air interdiction operations. Yet, after a major GNA counteroffensive last month, and the...

Solomon Samuel Simone (aka RAZ from CHAZ or CHOP) is the proclaimed warlord of CHAZ, the multi-block area located in Seattle. Raz hates America but owns multiple guns, luxury automobiles, millions in real estate.More importantly, Raz is supported by the Islamic government in Dubai.The leader of CHAZ, Warlord Raz Simone was previously identified running guns in the newly formed country in the center of Seattle. Today we have more on RAZ thanks to the work of Yaacov Apelbaum.Raz the warlord, doesn’t only run guns, he owns guns. Raz owns a couple of handguns, which were somehow ‘restored’ through a special...

The Seattle Police — who, remember, ran away from the precinct — say that they are getting reports that armed people within CHAZ are extorting the people living there. While it is tempting to say these radical fools get what they deserve, the fact is that the authorities in Seattle, and in Washington State, have allowed Antifa to take over a portion of a major American city, and run it according to the law of the street. This is what happens when you let the mob rule. Various Twitter accounts have portrayed Mr. Simone as a sort of warlord in...

He insulted the currency and shared the video on social media. The Dubai Police have arrested a young man over a video that he posted on social media in which he can be seen insulting the UAE's national currency. In the viral video, the suspect can be seen pretend-sneezing and using a currency note to clean himself. He has been referred to the authority concerned for further action, the police said. The police said that the cybercrime law specifies a maximum fine of Dh1 million and a prison term for insulting the country or its symbols. The police also posted...

The 2020 Dubai World Cup card, scheduled for March 28, was canceled on Sunday by Dubai government officials. A release from the government of Dubai media office announced what was translated into English as a postponement until next year, meaning there will be no 2020 World Cup. The United Emirates Racing season begins in the autumn and all but wraps up before the hottest months with the World Cup in late March. Iran sits just north of Dubai across the Strait of Hormuz and has close commercial ties to the United Arab Emirates. Iran became an early hotspot in the...