Dubai | News

The ex-wife of a nephew of Dubai’s ruler has been arrested following a long-running custody battle, prosecutors in the UAE said on Friday. Zeynab Javadli was detained after her former husband, Sheikh Saeed bin Maktoum bin Rashid Al Maktoum, accused her of abducting their three children. “Dubai Public Prosecution confirms that Ms. Zeynab Javadli has been taken into custody, following a complaint filed by the father of her three children alleging that she abducted the children during a court-approved visitation session,” said a statement sent to AFP. “The matter remains under investigation and is subject to ongoing legal proceedings.” Since late 2025 Javadli, a former international gymnast from Azerbaijan, has posted several Instagram posts with her daughters, in which she pleads for help and accuses her ex-husband of taking them away. But a lawyer for Sheikh Saeed, a nephew of Dubai’s ruler and United Arab Emirates Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, said he was awarded custody of the three g...

Kraken’s parent company, Payward, received preliminary approval from Dubai's VARA, paving the way for UAE dirham funding, margin and OTC trading and institutional access via Kraken Prime. Cryptocurrency exchange Kraken moved closer to a launch in the United Arab Emirates after its operator, Payward, received preliminary approval from Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA), according to the company. Payward on Thursday announced its UAE expansion alongside receiving preliminary approval for a broker-dealer, investment and management licence from VARA. A spokesperson for Kraken told Cointelegraph the preliminary approval was granted on Thursday, with a full launch date to be confirmed. Read more

Crypto.com says a new UAE Stored Value Facilities license will let residents pay Dubai government fees in crypto, as the company doubles down on regulated expansion in the Middle East and beyond. Update (May 11, 2026, at 13:17 UTC): This article has been updated to include responses from Mohammed Al Hakim, president and general manager for the UAE at Crypto.com. Crypto.com has received a Stored Value Facilities license from the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates, allowing residents to pay Dubai government fees using cryptocurrencies via its platform, the company said Monday. The company says the license allows users to fund payments in digital assets while settlements are made in UAE dirhams or in dirham-backed stablecoins approved by the central bank under the SVF framework. Read more

Daniel Kinahan, een van de drie hoofden van de Ierse Kinahan-misdaadfamilie, is door de politie aangehouden in Dubai. Dat meldt de Ierse publieke omroep RTE. Ierland had om zijn arrestatie gevraagd.

De politie van Dubai heeft woensdag het Ierse misdaadkopstuk Daniel Kinahan gearresteerd. Hij was al langer voortvluchtig vanwege zijn betrokkenheid bij een groot internationaal crimineel netwerk.

Luxosul hotel Burj Al Arab din Dubai va fi închis timp de 18 luni, a confirmat miercuri un membru al personalului, potrivit Reuters. Grupul Jumeirah nu a făcut nicio asociere între proiectul de modernizare și conflictul regional.

Dubai’s regulator issued new guidance placing token launches into three buckets, tightening disclosure and governance standards for stablecoins, RWAs and other digital assets. Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) published detailed guidance on Thursday that clarifies how token issuers should structure, disclose and distribute virtual assets in the emirate, sharpening rules for stablecoins and real-world asset (RWA) tokens. The document, which interprets VARA’s existing Virtual Asset Issuance Rulebook rather than creating new law, sets out three distinct issuance pathways and spells out who is responsible for what in each. Rather than treating all tokens as if they pose the same risks, the framework draws clear lines between Category 1 issuances (including fiat-referenced virtual assets and asset-referenced virtual assets), Category 2 issuances that must be distributed via a VARA-licensed intermediary, and exempt virtual assets with limited functionality. Read more

Dubai blijft voor KLM een ‘no-go’, ook na het akkoord over een staakt-het-vuren in het Midden-Oosten. Ondertussen laat branchevereniging ANVR weten dat voor ‘overstappers’ in de mei- en zomervakantie naar een oplossing wordt gezocht.

LONDON: Three Pakistani-origin British members of parliament attended promotional events for a Dubai property, scheme own­ed by Pakistani real estate tycoon Malik Riaz Hussain and his son Ali Riaz Malik, both of whom cannot enter the United Kingdom and are being investigated by authorities in Pakistan, according to an investigation by The Sunday Times. The MPs including Labour’s Naz Shah and Afzal Khan along with independent Ayoub Khan spoke at roadshow events in June 2024 promoting the Waada project, a proposed 14m-sq-foot development in south Dubai that will feature luxury apartments, mansions, a five-star hotel and a replica Eiffel Tower. At one event, the property tyc­oon and his son appeared via large screens, with Riaz Malik saying “The true measure of success is not what we build, but who we uplift.” Mr Riaz, 72, is the founder and chairman of Bahria Town, while his 48-year-old son serves as chief executive. In 2019, the pair agreed to forfeit £190m to Britain’s National Crime Agency following an unexp...

Voor de kust van Dubai is brand uitgebroken op een olietanker na een aanval, meldt Koeweit. De Golfstaat waarschuwt voor een mogelijk olielek in de Perzische Golf. Volg alle ontwikkelingen in het Midden-Oosten in ons liveblog.

Ucraina a respins afirmațiile Iranului potrivit cărora ar fi distrus un depozit ucrainean anti-dronă din Dubai, acuzând Teheranul de „dezinformare”.

Diana Davitian, spokesperson for Rustem Umerov, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, stated that reports of an alleged strike on a warehouse containing Ukrainian UAVs in Dubai are false.

Heavy rainfall has lashed large parts of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), from Dubai to Abu Dhabi, as well as northern emirates, Gulf News reported on Friday. As per the UAE’s National Centre of Meteorology (NCM), “unstable conditions driven by a low-pressure system have brought repeated waves of rain, strong winds, and thunderstorms across the country”. Gulf News said that flashes of “lightning, booming thunder, and heavy downpours” were reported by residents in major cities across the Gulf state, from Thursday night into Friday early morning. The unstable weather also brought “thunderstorms, dust-raising winds, and reduced visibility”. Heavy rainfall also flooded the streets in some locations, according to the report. In Sharjah, heavy rain caused wadis to flow, “temporarily disrupting traffic on roads”. According to Gulf News, residents said the “skies put on a full-blown light-and-sound show — booming thunderclaps and electric streaks of lightning flashing overhead, all at the height of raging storm clouds...

Dubai’s property market is beginning to show early signs of weakening nearly three weeks into ​the US-Israeli war on Iran, with data from analysts showing tanking transaction volumes and some real estate agents pointing to price reductions. The war, and ‌Tehran’s strikes against Israel, US bases and Gulf states including the United Arab Emirates, have pierced Dubai’s image as a safe haven for the world’s wealthy. Real-estate transaction volumes in the UAE fell 37 per cent year-on-year in the first 12 days of March, and 49pc month-on-month, Goldman Sachs analysts estimated in a note published this week. Some properties are already being offered at big discounts, with price cuts of 12-15pc, according ​to some real estate agents and messages on social media that Reuters reviewed. For instance, a seller was looking for a “quick sale” for a property close to the Burj Khalifa — the world’s tallest building — a message shared by an agent read. The seller was looking for $650,000, down about 12pc from a previous pric...

Een expat in Dubai zag voor het eerst in zijn leven de raketten boven zijn hoofd vliegen. Oorlog maakt alledaagsheid ineens aangenaam. Zelfs in de meest opwindende stad van de wereld.

At present, foreign airlines cannot land at Ben Gurion Airport because of a NOTAM from the Israel Civil Aviation Authority, which severely restricts activity in Israeli airspace.

Ukraine will participate for the first time in one of the world's largest humanitarian aid and development exhibitions – Dubai International Humanitarian Aid & Development Conference and Exhibition (DIHAD) – which will take place on May 5-7, 2026 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, provided the security situation allows.

A pair of planned Dubai conferences, Token2049 and TON Connect, have been pulled from the calendar amid Middle East unrest.

Abdul Malick sat among mourning relatives in his village in southern Pakistan, receiving condolences from neighbours after his nephew, Muzaffar Ali, was killed in Dubai last week. Ali, a 27-year-old labourer, was one of two Pakistanis killed in retaliatory Iranian strikes against Gulf countries since the start of US-Israeli attacks on the Islamic Republic two weeks ago. Debris fell on his vehicle when a projectile was intercepted. “It is a great tragedy for a family whose sole breadwinner was lost,” said Malick, flanked by Ali’s three young children. “We have nothing to do with this war. It is unfortunate that the poor are being used as fuel for a conflict they have no part in,” he told AFP. Ali moved to Dubai from Jamshoro four years ago. Relatives offer prayers on the grave of Pakistani national Muzaffar Ali, who was killed in Dubai amid the ongoing Middle East war, after his funeral in Jamshoro in Sindh on March 12. — AFP Another victim, Murid Zaman, a 48-year-old father of five from Bannu, had been workin...

The crypto conference organizer said tickets will remain valid for the rescheduled April 2027 event, with holders also able to transfer tickets to the Singapore event. Update March 13, 10:56 am UTC: This article has been updated to add more information about the regional situation and additional details from the announcement. The Dubai edition of Token2049, one of the crypto industry’s largest global gatherings, has been postponed until 2027 due to regional uncertainty affecting international travel and event logistics.  The organizers said on Friday that the conference, originally scheduled for April 29-30, in Dubai, will instead take place on April 21-22, 2027.  Read more