Dubai

DUBAI (Reuters) - Dubai Airports’ chief executive warned on Monday it would be another tough year for the Middle East’s busiest hub, Dubai International, after passenger numbers slid 70% in 2020.

The airport, the base for airline Emirates and a major source of income for Dubai, handled 25.9 million passengers last year, mostly in the first quarter before the COVID-19 pandemic struck.

DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran said on Monday it will block snap inspections by the U.N. nuclear watchdog this month if other parties to the 2015 nuclear deal fail to fulfil their obligations, a challenge to U.S. President Joe Biden’s hope of reviving the accord.

“If others do not fulfil their obligations by Feb. 21, the government is obliged to suspend the voluntary implementation of the Additional Protocol,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The United Arab Emirates on Sunday published the first image for its Mars probe now circling the red planet.

The picture, taken Wednesday, shows sunlight just coming across the surface of Mars. It shows Mars’ north pole, as well as Mars’ largest volcano, Olympus Mons.

The image comes from its “Amal,” or “Hope,” space probe.

The probe swung into orbit around Mars on Tuesday in a triumph for the Arab world’s first interplanetary mission.

DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran’s Revolutionary Guards conducted an overnight ground forces drill near the Iraqi border in the southwest of the country, state television reported on Friday.

It said tank divisions, drone units and paratroopers participated in the annual drill - dubbed the “Great Prophet” - that followed week-long celebrations marking the 42nd anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

The Islamic Republic has recently conducted several military exercises as it seeks to push the United States to return to Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

DUBAI (Reuters) - At least 400,000 Yemeni children under 5 could die of starvation this year without urgent intervention amid soaring rates of severe malnutrition driven by war and the coronavirus pandemic, four U.N. agencies said on Friday.

The warnings come nearly six years after the outbreak of war that rendered 80% of the population reliant on humanitarian aid.

In a report published on Friday, the agencies projected a 22% increase in severe acute malnutrition among children under 5 in Yemen, compared to 2020.

DUBAI (Reuters) - Qatar is working to de-escalate tension in the region by advocating for a return to the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, state media quoted its foreign minister as saying.

“The State of Qatar is working on de-escalation through a political and diplomatic process to return to the nuclear agreement,” Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani said on Wednesday, according to state news agency QNA.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — One of Saudi Arabia’s most prominent political activists was released from prison Wednesday, her family said, after serving nearly three years on charges that sparked an international uproar over the kingdom’s human rights record.

DUBAI (Reuters) - Emirates Airlines President Tim Clark said on Wednesday Boeing’s 777x jet was unlikely to be delivered before the first quarter of 2024.

Boeing has been developing the widebody jet, a new version of its 777 series, with the goal of releasing it in late 2023, already three years later than planned.

“The 777x was due to come in June of last year, Now it’s unlikely to be, I think, before the first quarter of 2024,” Clark told a virtual summit by aviation consultancy CAPA.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Three young Saudi men who faced death sentences for acts they were accused of committing as minors have been handed a 10-year prison sentence instead, the Saudi Human Rights Commission said.

Ali al-Nimr, Dawood al-Marhoun and Abdullah al-Zaher, youth from Saudi Arabia’s Shiite minority, were detained separately on charges stemming from their participation in anti-government Shiite protests over discrimination that rocked the country’s eastern province in 2011-2012.

DUBAI (Reuters) - The Saudi-led military coalition engaged in Yemen said it had intercepted and destroyed an armed drone on Sunday launched by the Iran-aligned Houthi movement towards southern Saudi Arabia.

The bomb-laden unmanned aerial vehicle aimed to target “civilians and civilian objects”, coalition spokesman Colonel Turki al-Malki said in a statement carried on Saudi state media.