United Arab Emirates

For an emirate dependent on trade, transport and tourism, vaccination, not lockdown, is key to keeping its economy goingAs if the Boohoo online fashion company had not generated enough controversy in recent months, its bosses once again found themselves in the headlines last week for hosting a four-day meeting with suppliers in the luxurious surroundings of […]

UK-based security firm faces calls to repay charges made by recruitment agents for jobs in Gulf states and conflict zonesMigrant workers working for the British security company G4S in the United Arab Emirates have collectively been forced to pay millions of pounds in illegal fees to recruitment agents to secure their jobs, the Guardian can reveal.An […]

Stung by scepticism over ‘luxury business trips’ in a pandemic, influencers in Dubai are touting their ‘hard graft’In ordinary times influencers posting from Dubai go out of their way to show you what a good time they are having. In Covid’s latest cruel reversal, they are now doing everything they can to show that they are working their socks […]

Talk of brotherly unity rather than lessons learned dominated the Gulf Cooperation Council summitThe meeting on Tuesday between Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, crown prince Mohammed bin Salman and his Qatari counterpart Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani was hailed as a breakthrough that brought together two feuding parties who were finally willing to resolve […]

Reconciliation with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain and the UAE includes a non-aggression pactA three-year boycott of Qatar by four other Middle Eastern countries that disfigured Gulf cooperation and raised concerns in the west about a strengthened regional role for Iran and Turkey has come to a stuttering close.“The kingdom is happy to welcome you,” Saudi […]

Land border has been closed since mid-2017 after Qatar was accused of supporting Islamist groupsSaudi Arabia will reopen its land and sea borders with Qatar, in the first steps toward ending a diplomatic crisis that has deeply divided regional US allies since 2017.Kuwait’s foreign ministry announced the move on Monday, as part of a deal towards resolving […]

Move part of diplomatic reboot of efforts to cajole opposing sides into forming national unity governmentThe United Nations will try to reboot its push towards national unity in Libya by bringing in monitors to oversee a widely flouted ceasefire and by forcing the country’s riven political leadership to find a mechanism for electing a prime minister.UN […]

Arms deals with Middle East dictatorships are being rushed through by Trump, critics say, despite opposition over human rights recordsThe US state department has approved the sale of $290m in bombs to Saudi Arabia as part of a flurry of arms deals with Middle Eastern dictatorships in the last weeks of the Trump administration.Critics of the sales say they […]

Explosions struck after plane carrying the Yemen prime minister and cabinet politicians landedAt least 26 people have been killed and more than 60 injured after an attack on the airport in the Yemeni city of Aden that appeared to be targeted at a plane carrying members of the newly formed government.Three loud explosions and gunfire were heard on Wednesday […]

A lack of trial data transparency from China has raised concerns, but the country is confidently pushing aheadWhen Egypt’s health ministry sent out an invitation to doctors to be vaccinated against Covid-19, they neglected to make clear it was a clinical trial.Instead, it assured them that two Covid-19 vaccines developed by China’s National Biotec […]

Threatening messages led to monitoring of phone that unearthed evidence of cyber-attack against Qatar-based networkA series of abusive text messages sent to an Al Jazeera investigative programme were the first crumbs that eventually led to the discovery of an unprecedented hacking operation against dozens of staff from the Qatar-based media network, […]

The outgoing US president has his eyes on a Saudi Arabia-Israel accord – no matter who gets hurt Peace deals that entrench injustice, punish the weak and are propelled by greed, blackmail and weapons sales have precious little to do with peace – and are unlikely to endure. Yet the Middle East has witnessed a recent spate of such dodgy deals. All concern […]

Internal Foreign Office report calls for changes in the way such cases are handledUK diplomats have failed to give enough priority to cases of British nationals detained abroad, even when there was a high risk they were being tortured, according to a report quietly released by the Foreign Office.The report, commissioned by Jeremy Hunt during his time as […]

Trials have claimed 86% efficacy, but Peru has suspended tests because of ‘an adverse event’ and there is concern about lack of transparencyRead all our coronavirus coverage hereTrials in the United Arab Emirates have shown that China’s Sinopharm vaccine has 86% efficacy. So what is the Chinese treatment, where is it being trialled and will it […]

Exclusive: US policy, if enacted, would hinder deliveries of badly needed aid in war-torn countryThe Trump administration is facing mounting calls to abandon threats to sanction Houthi rebels in northern Yemen to avoid an imminent danger of extreme famine in the country, where almost two-thirds of the population are in need of food aid.US state department […]

The grand prix season ends in Abu Dhabi this weekend. The sport needs to rethink its partnerships with oppressive regimesFor Formula One fans around the world, the news that world champion Lewis Hamilton has recovered from coronavirus and will be fit to race in Abu Dhabi this weekend will be met with jubilation. F1’s management, on the other hand, might […]

First results released from trial of Sinopharm shot involving 31,000 peopleCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageThe United Arab Emirates said a Chinese coronavirus vaccine tested in the federation of sheikhdoms has 86% efficacy, in a statement that provided few details but marked the first public release of information on the […]

Saudi prince hails progress in negotiations brokered by Kuwait and Trump’s son-in-law Jared KushnerA breakthrough in the three-and-a-half-year dispute between Qatar and its neighbouring Gulf states appears to have been achieved following what were described as “fruitful” talks to resolve the conflict.The Saudi foreign minister, Prince Faisal bin […]

Spacecraft known as Hope carries instruments designed to study the tenuous Martian atmosphereThe Emirates Mars Mission (EMM) is on course to arrive at the Red Planet on 9 February. A third and final major trajectory correction manoeuvre (TCM) was completed on 10 November. An additional minor TCM in December will tee it up for a Mars orbit insertion […]

Despite government measures, thousands left struggling during Covid outbreak as companies withhold salaries and benefits, research showsCompanies in Qatar have failed to pay “hundreds of millions of dollars” in salaries and other benefits to low-wage workers since the coronavirus outbreak, according to new research by the human rights group Equidem.In […]