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Finn sues Emir of Dubai for alleged torture
A Finnish woman wanted to help Princess Latifa escape Dubai. The plan failed and the two were arrested. Now Tiina Jauhiainen is reporting the Emir for torture – in Germany.
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Frank Clarke quits job as Dubai judge following criticism by Labour’s Ivana Bacik of desert kingdom’s regime
Frank Clarke, who was formerly the most senior judge in the country, has resigned from the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) courts after Labour leader Ivana Bacik said it was not appropriate for him to hold the job while he is president of Ireland’s Law Reform Commission (LRC).
Former Chief Justice Mr Clarke and Peter Kelly, the former President of the High Court, were sworn in as DIFC judges at a remote ceremony on Wednesday presided over by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Dubai’s deputy leader. Al Maktoum is also the president of the DIFC, which holds commercial hearings in English based on common law.
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Sheikh Mohammed expected to miss Royal Ascot under cloud of High Court ruling
Sheikh Mohammed al-Maktoum is expected to be absent from Royal Ascot this week after last year’s revelations in a court case.
The sheikh has previously been a guest of the Queen in the royal box but is not expected to attend the meeting. Palace sources had indicated in October that he would not be invited into the royal box again.
Sheikh Mohammed, the owner of the Godolphin stable, has been a leading figure in racing for three decades but has become something of an embarrassment to the sport after a High Court judge ruled that he ordered the hacking of phones belonging to his estranged wife, Princess Haya, and her British lawyer. He was also found to have ordered the abduction of his two daughters.
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Sheikh Mohammed: Should we really allow this man on a racecourse?
No one seems to know if Sheikh Mohammed is going to attend the Cazoo Derby at Epsom. The race has certainly been good to him: he has had the Derby winner in two of the past four years. He has three runners, one of which, Nations Pride, is third-favourite. All that is certain is that if he does turn up, no one is going to stop him. And you can be equally sure that no one is going to talk about it.
This is the omerta of racing, the sport’s embarrassment, its terrible silence — because on the one hand, Mohammed is the most powerful player and the most successful owner in British Flat racing, but on the other, if you follow recent legal cases, he shouldn’t be allowed to own a single racehorse, let alone three Derby runners.
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England and the Lost Princess
It is one of those strange and heady days when you’re being driven towards New York, but the New York that you‘re being driven towards is not the one you love so much and lived in for five years, but a hamlet with a main road cutting through it like a vicar’s knife — not New York, New York, but the bucolic English one of the East Lindsey district of Lincolnshire in the parish of Wildmore in the Fens. My companion at the wheel here is someone I have known for fourteen years. We met in Dubai on our way then to a war zone. Dubai will feature in this story, but it is peacetime freakery, another story for another day, which brings us together here.
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How Pegasus spyware ‘infected’ the phones of Jeff Bezos, El Chapo and No 10
It is the must-have eavesdropping system for the world’s autocrats — as well as many democratic governments. Last week it was reported that some officials at No 10 and the Foreign Office had had their smartphones “infected” with Pegasus, a powerful Israeli-developed cybertool. Not only does it give spies access to all data on the phone but also, by hacking its camera and microphone, turns it into a watching and listening device.
President Emmanuel Macron and Jeff Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon, have been previous targets. In the latest case, according to the Canadian research centre Citizen Lab, UK government officials had been targeted by the United Arab Emirates (UAE), possibly linked to the divorce proceedings between Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai, and Princess Haya Bint al-Hussein, who has found sanctuary with her children in Britain. The sheikh has been found in a High Court ruling to have used Pegasus to track his ex-wife and her British lawyers.
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UAE tried to ‘influence’ Tory ministers to ‘mislead’ the public, sacked embassy guard says in court papers
The claims have emerged days after the UAE was accused of being behind spyware infecting phones at Downing Street and the Foreign Office.
The United Arab Emirates tried to “influence” Government ministers to “mislead” the British public about important international affairs, a sacked embassy bodyguard claims.
Conservative politicians including Ben Wallace and Gavin Williamson, the current and former defence secretaries, Leo Docherty, the military veterans minister, and Alistair Burt, the former minister for the Middle East, were named as alleged targets of the Gulf state in legal court papers seen by the Telegraph.
Lee Hurford, a close protection officer to the former ambassador, Sulaiman Almazroui, at the London embassy, has also claimed the UAE “paid” a company to “monitor” Jeremy Corbyn, the then leader of the opposition.
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Sheikh Mohammed: ‘Abusive’ Dubai ruler loses responsibility for children
Dubai’s ruler has been denied legal responsibility for two of his children who live in fear of abduction in Britain because of his “remorseless and unremitting” domestic abuse.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, 72, a member of the Queen’s racing circle, was condemned by a senior British judge for his behaviour towards the youngest of his six wives, Princess Haya Bint al-Hussein.
Haya, 47, fled to London in 2019 in fear of her life with their children — Jalila, now 14, and Zayed, ten — after her husband learnt that she was having an affair with her British bodyguard. Mohammed was ordered last year to pay her a record £554 million settlement.
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The Price Of Happiness
U.N. Power Broker Jeffrey Sachs Took Millions From the UAE to Research “Well-Being”.
Starting in 2016, the men who run the United Arab Emirates went all-in on positivity. They installed a giant smiley face on the dome crowning a Dubai police station. They created a Ministry of Tolerance and a Ministry of Happiness, as if inspired by George Orwell. And they began funding research, bankrolling prominent global intellectuals to study the psychology and science of bliss.
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Dubai Ruler Ordered to Pay More Than $728 Million in Divorce Settlement
London court rules Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid must pay Princess Haya a lump sum of about $333 million plus annual payments.
A London court awarded the former wife of Dubai’s ruler a divorce settlement of more than £550 million, equivalent to more than $728 million, in a rare case that pulled back the curtain on the luxurious lifestyle of one of the world’s richest and most discreet families.
Princess Haya bint Al Hussein, a daughter of Jordan’s late King Hussein, left Dubai for the U.K. in 2019 with the two young children she had with Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum. She said she feared for her life after Sheikh Mohammed had previously ordered that two of his other children be forced back to the United Arab Emirates. Princess Haya later discovered that Sheikh Mohammed, who is also the prime minister of the U.A.E., had divorced her months earlier under Shariah law without her knowing.