DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal and his investment company said Monday they are investing a combined $300 million into Twitter, giving the microblogging site a cash boost as it looks to entice more users and paying advertisers. (more)
Goldman Sachs says the United Arab Emirates’ third largest bank by assets may need to set aside as much as $2.2 billion by 2013 to cover bad loans, Bloomberg reports. (more)
CAIRO (AP) — A young Google executive who helped ignite Egypt’s uprising energized a cheering crowd of hundreds of thousands Tuesday with his first appearance in their midst after being released from 12 days in secret detention. “We won’t give up,” he promised at one of the biggest protests yet in Cairo’s Tahrir Square. (more)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — An Iranian supercomputer. New space rockets and satellites carrying the flag of the Islamic Republic. Biotech innovations that include artificial tendons. (more)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran has arrested about 70 Christians since Christmas in a crackdown that demonstrates the limits of religious tolerance by Islamic leaders who often boast they provide room for other faiths. (more)
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — An Abu Dhabi luxury hotel that boasted an $11 million Christmas tree decorated with gold and gems admitted Sunday it may have taken the holiday spirit a bit too far. (more)
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — FIFA’s top officials left open the option of rescheduling the 2022 World Cup in Qatar to avoid the blistering summer. (more)
The woman stepped off Hadda Street into a pair of courier offices in Yemen’s capital. In FedEx and UPS storefronts tucked along shopping centers and travel agencies in San’a, she mailed two Hewlett-Packard printers to the United States. (more)
The midterm elections are about many, many things. The elections have been nationalized by supporters of the Tea Party movement. Establishment Republicans have largely survived primary challenges, only to realize the electorate isn’t embracing them as reasonable voices. Voters are sending a different message entirely: the Democratic establishment — led by President Obama, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid — is perceived as overreaching, grasping and power-obsessed. It’s a familiar meme; Republicans worth their political salt found this out in both the 2006 and the 2008 elections. (more)
Last week’s terror plot to send two explosive-laden packages from Yemen to synagogues in Chicago was far from an isolated incident. The plot, in fact, likely represents the fifth attempt by the Yemen-based al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) to strike Western targets in the past ten months. An AQAP operative attempted to detonate a commercial airliner in the skies over Michigan last Christmas, and the group has unsuccessfully attacked three British diplomatic targets in Yemen this year, including a failed suicide assassination attempt on the British ambassador. The Christmas Day attack alerted Americans and policymakers to the threat posed by AQAP, and last August the CIA assessed that the Yemen-based franchise eclipsed al Qaeda’s core in Pakistan — frequently referred to as “al Qaeda Prime” — as the most dangerous al Qaeda branch in the world. Unfortunately, however, the U.S. has failed to develop an effective strategy to combat the terror threat emanating from Yemen. (more)
Just four days before midterm elections, President Obama went before the nation to address fears of suspicious packages that led to an investigation on three continents. He called the packages a “credible threat” that “apparently” contained explosive material. (more)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — United Arab Emirates swimming officials said Sunday that “overexertion” led to the death of U.S. national team swimmer Fran Crippen and denied reports that the American had a heart attack during a race the day before. (more)
Earlier this month, while motorcades zoomed past our downtown Washington office carrying important dignitaries to supposedly important meetings, you may have noticed that The Daily Caller spared barely a word covering the allegedly new and improved Middle East peace process. And last week, as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was in the Middle East to further those peace talks, you would have learned little about it by reading TheDC. (more)
The city of Dubai has become a major Middle Eastern commercial center. It also has been called the Middle East’s “shopping capital.” (more)
Amidst the contentious debate surrounding the building of a mosque and Islamic community center at Ground Zero, it was revealed that the imam behind the project – Feisal Abdul Rauf – will soon be departing on a State Department-sponsored trip to the Middle East — and American taxpayers will be footing the bill. (more)
An explosion on an oil tanker in the Persian Gulf last week has been determined to have been an act of terror, the United Arab Emirates said today, an ominous development that signals that al Qaeda may be threatening the oil industry’s most heavily traveled shipping lane. (more)
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — A preliminary agreement between the maker of the popular BlackBerry smart phone and the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which government officials say grants them some access to users’ data, will avert a ban on the phone in that country. (more)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The United Arab Emirates outlined plans Sunday to block BlackBerry e-mail, messaging and Web browsing services in a crackdown that could jeopardize efforts to establish the country as an international business hub. (more)
A Thai court issued an arrest warrant Tuesday for ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra on terrorism charges, accusing the fugitive former leader of fomenting two months of unrest in Bangkok that left 88 people dead. (more)
Investigators have arrested a Pakistani army major linked to the prime suspect in the botched attempt to bomb New York City’s Times Square early this month, Pakistani law enforcement sources said Tuesday. (more)
