Recently in UAE Category

Expensive real estate deals point to corruption by Azerbaijan's president By Andrew Higgins Even by the standards of a city that celebrates extravagance, it was a spectacular shopping spree: In just two weeks early last year, an 11-year-old boy from Azerbaijan became the owner of nine waterfront mansions. The total price tag: about $44 million -- or roughly 10,000 years' worth of salary for the average citizen of Azerbaijan. But the preteen who owns a big chunk of some of Dubai's priciest real estate seems to be anything but average. His name, according to Dubai Land Department records, is Heydar Aliyev, which just happens to be the same name as that of the son of Azerbaijan's president, Ilham Aliyev. The owner's date of birth, listed in property records, is also the same as that of the president's son. More at the Washington post

This is not Munich, but an extraordinary investigation by the Dubai authorities into the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh

By Leonard Doyle

Evidence that a blundering Mossad hit squad used Irish passports to get themselves in and out of Dubai to carry out a hit on a top Hamas official has tarnished the allure of the Irish laissez passer.

Ma'an News- A four-person squad of Israeli Shin Bet and Mossad operatives arrived in Dubai on European passports to assassinate Muhammad Al-Mabhouh, the alleged liaison between Iran and Hamas it emerged at the weekend.. The assassination squad interrogated Al-Mabhouh in his hotel room before killing him, according to the Israeli news-site Inyan Merkazi. Dubai police also have a lead in the investigation of the assassination according to London-based newspaper Al-Hayat. Al-Mabhouh is believed to have been involved in the abduction and murder of two Israelis soldiers in 1989