UAE

DUBAI (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia said it received a distress message on Friday from a damaged Iranian tanker in the Red Sea but the vessel kept moving and switched off its transponder before it could provide assistance, state news agency SPA reported on Saturday.

SPA said the Sabiti tanker did not respond to many communications from the Saudi authorities. Saudi Arabia was committed to the security and safety of navigation and international laws, it said.

DUBAI (Reuters) - An Iranian government spokesman on Saturday described as a “cowardly attack” an incident that Iranian media have called the apparent targeting by missiles of an Iranian-owned oil tanker, and said Iran would respond after the facts had been studied.

The tanker Sabiti was hit in Red Sea waters off Saudi Arabia on Friday, Iranian media have reported, an incident that could stoke friction in a region rattled by attacks on tankers and oil installations since May.

DUBAI, Oct 12 (NNN-WAM) – In line with its continuing commitment towards enhancing key collaborations with research and academic institutions, the Abu Dhabi Digital Authority, ADDA, announced the signing of a strategic Memorandum of Understanding, MoU, with Khalifa University of Science and Technology.

The MoU was signed by Dr. Rouda Al Saadi, Director-General, ADDA, and Dr. Arif Sultan Al Hammadi, Executive Vice President, Khalifa University of Science and Technology, at the 39th edition of GITEX Technology Week.

ABU DHABI (Reuters) - Sudan has received half of $3 billion in aid promised by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in April and expects the remainder to be paid by the end of next year, Sudan’s finance minister said late on Monday.

The Gulf countries agreed the aid package soon after former president Omar al-Bashir was ousted, throwing a lifeline to Sudan’s new military leaders at the time.

DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran will not succumb to U.S. pressure and will use every possible way to export its oil, Iranian Oil Ministry’s website SHANA quoted Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh as saying on Sunday.

Iran’s crude oil exports were reduced by more than 80% when the United States re-imposed sanctions on the country last November after President Donald Trump pulled out of Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

“We will use every possible way to export our oil and we will not succumb to America’s pressure because exporting oil is Iran’s legitimate right,” Zanganeh said.

Islamabad, Oct 4 (PTI) Pakistan's former military ruler Pervez Musharraf plans to return to politics on October 6 after remaining inactive for over an year due to his deteriorating health, according to one of his top aides.

General (retd) Musharraf, 76, who has been living in Dubai since March 2016, is facing the treason case for suspending the Constitution in 2007, a punishable offence for which he was indicted in 2014. A conviction for high treason carries the death penalty or life imprisonment.

DUBAI, Oct 5 (NNN-WAM) – Hazza Al Mansoori, the first Emirati astronaut, along with astronauts Nick Hague and Aleksey Ovchinin, returned to Earth safely, after completing his eight-day scientific mission aboard the International Space Station, ISS. The hatch closing of the Soyuz MS-12 took place at 08:20 UAE time.

The spacecraft un-docked from the ISS, on Oct 3, at 11:37 UAE time, and landed in the southeast of Dzhezkazgan in Karaganda Region, Kazakhstan at 14:59.

DUBAI (Reuters) - A border crossing between Iran and Iraq, which is due to be used by hundreds of thousands of Shi’ite Muslim worshippers at an annual pilgrimage this month, has been closed because of unrest in Iraq, Iranian state television reported on Thursday.

A senior Iranian pilgrimage official told state television that the Khosravi border crossing was closed, but other crossings were open ahead of the pilgrimage in the southern Iraqi city of Kerbala.

The state news agency IRNA said the Chazabeh crossing, which had been closed late on Wednesday, had reopened.

ALMATY (Kazakhstan), Oct 3 (NNN-AGENCIES) — An Emirati who made history as the first Arab to reach the International Space Station is set to return to Earth on Thursday following an eight-day mission that sparked euphoria in his homeland.

Hazzaa al-Mansoori of the United Arab Emirates will touch down in the Kazakh steppes at around 1100 GMT along with NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin, who both survived a failed launch to the ISS last year.

1 Oct 2019; MEMO: UAE Minister of Foreign Affairs Abdullah Bin Zayed wished a happy New Year to the followers of the Jewish faith tweeting “Shana Tovah”, in what is seen as another step towards normalising ties with Israel at an official level.

Literally meaning the “head of the year”, the two-day Rosh Hashanah celebration began at sundown on Sunday and will come to an end at nightfall today.