From Foreign Waters

On its Commemoration Day, the United Arab Emirates remembers those heroes who have sacrificed their life fighting for the citizens and their country.  November 30 is remembered as Martyr's Day. There will be both a public and an official commemoration of the fallen heroes today. Every year, on this day, the country’s top officials and people remember the martyr’s who have sacrificed their lives for their dedication towards the UAE.  Like every year, the UAE pasode homage to them and people expressed their gratitude and respect to the heroes who lived for their country. The emirati nation has time and again shown respect to the army personnels who have lost their lives. This is one such event that recognises their sacrifice.  The UAE government ensures that families of these heroes are always taken care of. Be it the government or non-government organisations, everyone is included in the activities that take place on this special day. The UAE nationals and expatriates also participa

The first ever passenger flight from the United Arab Emirates to Israel took off on Thursday morning from the Dubai International Airport.  After signing a deal to normalise the ties between the two countries in September. Through this agreement, the UAE became only the third country to open its diplomatic borders for Israel and officially recognise Israel after Jordan and Egypt.  The flight took off at 9:40 am yesterday to Tel Aviv, a city in Israel. It was reportedly a direct flight by the budget airlines flydubai. It will be nearly a three hour long journey to the Israeli city.  The Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu will be himself welcoming the first batch of passengers of the inaugural flight, confirmed one of the Israeli spokesman.  Ofir Gendelman confirmed the information through a tweet saying,“PM Netanyahu will attend this morning the welcoming ceremony for the first @flydubai commercial flight that will arrive at Ben-Gurion International Airport. These are the fruit

A campaign has been devised by the Dubai Foundation for Women Children that aims at ending violence against them in the United Arab Emirates. This is their sixth campaign aiming at stopping violence against women and also aims at sheding light on the mental health of the women.  This initiative has been taken by the foundation along with global UNiTE to End Violence against Women campaign launched by the Secretary-General of the United Nations. This will be 16 day long campaign which will kick off on November 25 that is marked as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women and end on Human Rights day celebrated on December 10.  A statement released by the Dubai Foundation for Women and Children reported by WAM said that the campaign will shed light on the neglected and ignored area of mental health of women. The coronavirus pandemic has also to a lot of extent affected the lifestyles of women and shaped their mental health and this campaign will target this area

The United Arab Emirates solidified its stance on two state solutions in Palestine during a roundtable discussion hosted by the Emirates Society, where they also supposedly discussed ways of strengthening the ties between the United Kingdom and UAE.  The Emirates Society is a UK based society which focuses on the ties between the two countries on various aspects ranging from economic, political and cultural affairs. The institution hosted a high-level discussion on the remarkable Abraham accords, which were signed on September 15 this year.  Through this deal, the UAE and Israel normalised their ties with each other opening up a larger scope of possibilities for the two. This meeting explored further trade areas between the two and regional resolutions as a tie between Muslim and Jewish popoultations.  Reem bint Ebrahim Al- Hashimy represented the UAE at the online event, minister of state for International cooperation. Other dignitaries present at the event were ban-Ki-moon, the forme

On October 31, England president Boris Johson had announced complete lockdown for four weeks which meant that the country will next start freely moving from December 2. This step meant that all the international travels would be stopped.  But now as things progress, England has striked Dubai from its Quarantine list which is especially beneficial in December given the wintery atmosphere that will be taking place in the United Kingdom versus the considerably warmer situation in the United Arab Emirates.  Last week it was announced by the officials of the European country that the city will be added to the list of quarantine free travel destinations. From November 14, passengers arriving from the UK from Dubai will no longer have to serve the mandatory quarantine period of 14 days which makes it easier for the Emirates who want to experience the Christmas time in the European nation.  Other than Dubai, the British government also lifted travel bans and restrictions from the following pla

One of the emirates and capital of the United Arab Emirates, Abu Dhabi, has continued to keep its low percentage of positive covid-19 cases.  Experts have time and again credited the UAE taking strict actions against those flouting rules that ensure safer movement within the community as one the most important reason why the Emirati capital managed to fare this good in controlling the increasing number of covid-19 cases.  The Abu Dhabi Media Office also confirmed the improved performance of the country in fighting this battle against the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and tweeted, “Abu Dhabi's Emergency, Crisis & Disaster Committee announced the National Screening Programme and other testing initiatives continue to limit the spread of COVID-19 in the emirate, through mass testing and providing free tests for all segments of society.”  The media office praised the efforts taken by the officials and one of the major one being free tests that helped identify many cases and gave an o

The United Arab Emirates has made some changes in the Islamic law that relaxes alcohol consumption and cohabitation. The nation on Saturday announced criminalisation of ‘honor killings’, an age-old regressive culture of killing a person by the perpetrator who believes that the victim has brought shame or dishonor upon the family. While addressing the press, the government officials said that these reforms will be adding to the efforts that will improve legislation and will also provide a better platform for investment opportunities in the country. The officials also asserted that this will help in consolidating ‘tolerance principle’. Emirati film-maker Abdalla Al Kaabi said, “I could not be happier for these new laws that are progressive and proactive.” The filmmaker is known to deal with topics such as homosexualitu and gender identity. He said that 2020 has been a tough and transformative year for the UAE. The government is yet to disclose detailed structure of these laws and changes

 The United States department has made an unofficial deal of $10 billion defense sale to the United Arab Emirates.  As per a report in Reuters, the US state department has sent a notification to the congress and informed them about plans to sell $10 billion of defense equipment, which will include selling precision-guided munitions, non-precision bombs and missiles to the United Arab Emirates.  The proposal, which was first reported by CNN, has not yet officially been addressed and the state department spokesperson also denied commenting on the policy. The ordinance was reportedly submitted late Thursday in front of the congress, which came after president Trump planned to sell sophisticated armed aerial drones to the UAE.  These latest developments have come after the US was notifying the congress about potential sale of F-35 fighter jets to the middle eastern country.  The strength in the relationship between the UAE and US were fully established when the Arab state agreed to open it

The cabinet of the United Arab Emirates revealed through a tweet on Monday that it will be spending 26.04 billion dirhams ($7.09 billion) on social projects which will be a part of the budget for next year.  As per the information revealed by the UAE news agency WAM, 21.3 billion dirhams was  designated for government affairs while 3,93 billion dirhams was allocated to federal projects. The total amount that added up to the budget was 58 billion dirhams.  The Dubai media office said, quoting Dubai’s ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-maktoum, who is also the UAE’s prime minister, “the UAE economy will be among the fastest to recover in 2021, and the government has dealt with the 2020 budget efficiently and has all the tools to continue its financial and operational efficiency in 2021.” The federal budget however saw a decrease this when compared to last year of nearly 15.8 billion dirhams which means last year it was 61.35 billion dirhams. Experts say that this will not make any major