Responding to the news that Emirati authorities on 7 December began a new mass trial, prosecuting more than 80 Emiratis, including renowned Emirati human rights defenders and prisoners of conscience – some of whom have already spent a decade behind bars, and are now facing trumped up terrorism charges, Aya Majzoub, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional...
Host Country Should Stop Rights Repression, Drop Fossil Fuel Plans. The United Nations should urge the United Arab Emirates to end its human rights repression and eliminate its plans to expand fossil fuel production as countries begin negotiations at the annual UN climate conference in Dubai, Human Rights Watch said today. The UN should also urgently develop...
The Gulf state’s human-rights record suggests it is no champion of open dialogue, say the two lawyers. In the landscape of international diplomacy, the choice of a host country for a global summit is often symbolic. As the world prepares to converge in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for the COP28 climate conference, the decision to host...
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...
Toxic pollutants released during gas flaring are endangering millions more people than previously feared, a BBC investigation suggests. Flaring – the burning of waste gas during oil drilling – is taking place across the Gulf, including by COP28 hosts the United Arab Emirates. New research suggests pollution is spreading hundreds of miles, worsening air quality...
Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber is not named on the website of the Abu Dhabi fund bidding for the Telegraph titles and his Wikipedia page contains no reference to his role in shaping the country’s censorship regime. Al-Jaber is, however, poised to become a prominent figure in UK media as chairman of International Media Investors (IMI) and...
The UAE is destroying the ecosystem of a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and yet its oil company chief will preside over COP28. It is no joke; the man who will preside over the upcoming climate summit, COP28 (which will take place in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE), from November 30 to December 12), is the chief oil executive of...
Ethnic slaughter is taking place in Darfur on a scale reminiscent of the genocide of 2003-5. Peace campaigners say that the Janjaweed, who were responsible for the killing of 400,000 of Sudan’s Black Africans two decades ago, have stepped up their efforts to eliminate non-Arab tribes, knowing the world’s attention is elsewhere. Vicky Ford MP,...
The need to act on the climate crisis has never been clearer. In 2023, heat records have been shattered around the world. Seemingly every day brings news of extreme weather, imperilling lives. In July, UN Secretary-General António Guterres grimly announced that ‘the era of global boiling has arrived’. In short, there’s a lot at stake as the...
Last month, the European Council proclaimed itself as “the global leader in climate action”. The November 13 EU Foreign Ministers meeting with COP28 President Sultan Al-Jaber of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), where the global climate conference is set to begin later this month, is the first real test of that claim. In a letter to EU foreign ministers...