PARIS – French sports retail giant Decathlon has secretly continued selling clothes in Russia despite officially pulling out in protest at Russia’s war in Ukraine, according to a media report on Dec 19. The multinational retailer, which posted sales of €15.4 billion (S$22.4 billion) in 2022, announced within weeks of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that it...
Blood Gold Report: Key Findings The Kremlin has earned more than US$2.5 billion from trade in African gold since Vladimir Putin launched his full scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. In the Central African Republic (CAR), a Wagner front company has been awarded exclusive rights to the Ndassima mine, the country’s largest gold mine, in return...
For months, Sudan’s army kept silent amid alleged Emirati interference in the country’s civil war, but its anger has finally boiled over, leading to harsh exchanges between Khartoum and Abu Dhabi. The brutal conflict broke out in mid-April between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), killing more than 12,000 people and displacing...
Our second series investigates the rise and fall of a Dubai-based super cartel. The Financial Times’ award-winning podcast series Hot Money is back. In this series our reporter Miles Johnson investigates a mysterious murder in a small town that leads to a web of drugs, money laundering and state-sponsored assassinations stretching from Dublin to Dubai....
Its government seems eager to exacerbate problems, only then to present itself as a reasonable arbiter. It is a fireman-arsonist. Who in their right mind would support Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, the camel-trading Sudanese general who rose through the ranks during the genocide in Darfur? What kind of government would provide arms to his Rapid Support...
Biden’s benign neglect brought the RSF to the brink of victory. Now, Washington has a chance to save Sudan. The diplomatic needle has moved on Sudan at last. There’s an opening to halt the carnage, end the famine, and save the state from collapse. An intricate diplomatic dance is underway involving African and Arab leaders...
There are fears that guests and journalists could be spied on at the international climate conference in Dubai. The president of international climate conference COP28 works with surveillance experts linked to a phone tapping scandal and the “Chinese military industrial complex”, openDemocracy can reveal. Sultan Al Jaber – who is the chair of a new...
Matthew Hedges, tortured in UAE in 2018, tells reporters and activists to take clean phones and watch who they deal with. Journalists and campaigners attending the Cop28 climate conference in Dubai should “not be naive” and take steps to protect their physical and digital security, a British academic who was tortured in the summit’s host country has...
The United Arab Emirates planned to use its role as the host of UN climate talks as an opportunity to strike oil and gas deals, the BBC has learned. Leaked briefing documents reveal plans to discuss fossil fuel deals with 15 nations. The UN body responsible for the COP28 summit told the BBC hosts were...
The UK government is leaning toward ordering a probe into RedBird IMI’s proposed Telegraph deal, after the prospect of an Abu Dhabi-backed fund taking control of the British newspaper raised national security concerns among some Conservative lawmakers. Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer said she’s “minded to” issue a so-called Public Interest Intervention Notice. “This relates to concerns I...