On his recent trip to the Middle East, Donald Trump posed for cameras sitting side by side with the emir of Qatar. "We are friends," Trump said, shaking the emir's hand. "We have been friends now for a long time. Our relationship is extremely good." So good, apparently, that Trump was hoping to...
Blog archive: Uae
-
28th May 2017
-
26th May 2017The first tangible result of Donald Trump's visit to the "Muslim summit" in Riyadh last weekend has been the reopening a long-standing feud among Arab Gulf states. Over the last few days Saudi and Emirati media have been attacking Qatar ferociously, especially over its attitude towards Iran and...
-
25th May 2017Earlier this week a story appeared on the website of Qatar's government-run news agency quoting what it said was a speech made by the emir at a military graduation ceremony. The remarks attributed to the emir brought a furious reaction from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Qatar...
-
24th May 2017Hot on the heels of Donald Trump's visit to Saudi Arabia and the festivities surrounding it, a new feud has erupted among the Arab Gulf states. The Saudis and Emiratis are blocking the websites of al-Jazeera and other Qatari news sources. Qatar, meanwhile, says reports of a controversial speech...
-
9th May 2017For the last two years a Saudi-led coalition has been waging a war in Yemen to restore the "legitimate" government headed by Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi. But that goal is now in doubt because Hadi's lacklustre performance has opened up a rift between Saudi Arabia and its key ally in the conflict,...
-
4th May 2017Findings of the annual Arab Youth Survey were released in Dubai yesterday amid the customary fanfare. Once again, the survey asked young Arabs which country they would like to live in if they had a choice and, once again, the United Arab Emirates topped the list. Indeed, according to the survey...
-
20th March 2017The Gulf's autocratic rulers have joined forces in denouncing Switzerland after it complained about human rights abuses in Bahrain. The row began last Tuesday when Switzerland's representative at the UN Human Rights Council made a brief statement expressing concern about five particular...
-
5th March 2017In countries where gender discrimination is considered a social and religious necessity, the dividing line between male and female is not to be crossed. Men must behave and dress as men, and women as women – or face punishment. In Saudi Arabia last week, police raided a gathering of...
-
21st February 2017A former director of GNRD, the strange "human rights" organisation that went bankrupt last year amid accusations of money-laundering, has been taken into custody on fraud charges in Austria. Hassan Moussa is suspected of diverting funds from an Islamic education centre in Vienna and is...
-
13th February 2017Amid escalating tensions within Yemen's "liberated" zone, two rival militias tussled for control of Aden airport at the weekend. Forces commanded by Saleh al-Amiri Abu Qahtan and reputedly paid by the Emiratis have been protecting Aden airport since 2015. On Friday they brought flights to a...
-
2nd February 2017While the arrival of Donald Trump at the White House has been greeted with horror in many parts of the world, his fellow autocrats in the Arab Gulf states have been giving him a much friendlier reception. Trump spent an hour on the phone talking to the Saudi king last Sunday. The views of...
-
31st January 2017When Donald Trump issued his now-notorious travel ban on Friday it was couched mainly in terms of protecting the US from terrorism. Framing it in this way gave its racist undertones an aura of respectability, though thankfully there were millions of people who refused to be fooled. Many opponents...
