UAE

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The Ukrainian jetliner stood ready for takeoff at Iran’s main international airport bound for Kyiv, packed with passengers and so many bags on one of the cheapest routes to the West that the ground crew rushed to unload some luggage to make its weight for flight.

Nearly an hour late, Tehran air traffic controllers finally cleared Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 for takeoff, carrying a newlywed couple, Iranian students bound for universities in Canada and others seeking a better life abroad.

DUBAI (Reuters) - The United States will not lift sanctions on Iran in order to negotiate, U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted late on Saturday, seemingly in response to a Der Spiegel interview with Iran’s foreign minister.

“Iranian Foreign Minister says Iran wants to negotiate with The United States, but wants sanctions removed. @FoxNews @OANN No Thanks!” Trump tweeted in English on Saturday and later in Farsi.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Cybersecurity experts said Thursday there were still many unanswered questions from an investigation commissioned by Jeff Bezos that concluded the billionaire’s cell phone was hacked, apparently after receiving a video file with malicious spyware from the WhatsApp account of Saudi Arabia’s crown prince.

The experts said the evidence in the privately commissioned report does not show with certainty that Bezos’ phone was actually hacked, much less how it was compromised or what kind of malware was used.

DUBAI (Reuters) - The successor to the Iranian commander killed in a U.S. drone strike would suffer the same fate if he followed a similar path by killing Americans, the U.S. special representative for Iran said, according to Asharq al-Awsat newspaper.

DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran has asked the U.S. and French authorities for equipment to download information from black boxes on a downed Ukrainian airliner, a request that will add to international frustration at Tehran’s failure to send the recorders abroad for analysis.

Canada, 57 of whose citizens were among the 176 people killed in the crash, has said France should handle the flight data and voice recorders as one of the few nations with the ability to analyze the information.

DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran said on Monday that it had not closed the “door to negotiations” in efforts to resolve a dispute over its nuclear agreement with world powers that has escalated steadily since the United States withdrew from the deal in 2018.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said any further move by Tehran to scale back its commitments to the deal would depend on actions by other parties, after European states triggered a mechanism that could lead to the reimposition of U.N. sanctions.

DUBAI (Reuters) - Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a Friday prayers sermon that Iran’s missile strikes on U.S. targets in Iraq showed it had divine support in delivering a “slap on the face” to a world power.

Making the main weekly sermon in Tehran for the first time since 2012, with Iran and its clerical rulers under pressure at home and abroad, Khamenei also said that U.S. sanctions imposed in a row over its nuclear program would not make Iran yield.

DUBAI (Reuters) - All countries involved in the Ukrainian airliner crash in Iran should avoid turning it into a political issue, an Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Friday.

“We request all sides not to make human issues, particularly this tragic accident, into an excuse for political gestures,” Abbas Mousavi was quoted as saying by the semi-official ISNA news agency.

16 Jan 2019; MEMO: Exploitative employers in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are increasingly using tourist visas to hire Indians in a scam that leaves migrants open to labour abuse, police and activists said, Thomson Reuters Foundation reports.

Indian migrants on visit visas – quicker and cheaper to obtain than work permits – are wary of reporting exploitation on the job for fear of revealing their illegal status, they say.

DUBAI (Reuters) - Iranians called on social media on Wednesday for fresh demonstrations a week after the shooting down of a passenger plane, seeking to turn the aftermath of the crash into a sustained campaign against Iran’s leadership.

Protesters, with students at the forefront, have staged daily rallies in Tehran and other cities since Saturday, when after days of denials the authorities admitted bringing down a Ukrainian plane last week, killing all 176 aboard.