Cairo court overturns conviction of Hisham Talaat Moustafa, sentenced to death for murdering Suzanne Tamim in Dubai
An Egyptian court today ordered the retrial of a businessman sentenced to death for murdering his former lover, a Lebanese pop star.
The Cairo appeals court overturned the conviction of Hisham Talaat Moustafa prompting cheers and clapping from the billionaire’s [...]

New restrictions after death of Hamas operative in Dubai blamed on Mossad agents with European and Australian passports
Dubai’s police chief has said travellers suspected of being Israeli will not be allowed into the United Arab Emirates even if they arrive with alternative passports.
Lt Gen Dahi Khalfan Tamim announced the move after the killing of a [...]

Serious Organised Crime Agency to interview dual British-Israeli nationals whose passport identities were used by assassins of Hamas operative
British police will travel to Israel to interview six British nationals whose identities were used in the Dubai assassination of a senior Hamas official, as new information emerge that Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was drugged before being killed.
The intervention [...]

William Leith looks at the world through rose-tinted glasses

Here are two books vying for attention in what you might call the Gladwell market. They are books about how the world works. They are fundamentally upbeat. They tell us stories about clever people, and how these people, in the authors’ opinions, have made the world a [...]

After investigation into killing of Hamas official emirate’s police chief emerges as a star across the Arab world
Until a month or so ago, few people outside Dubai had even heard of the emirate’s police chief, Lt Gen Dahi Khalfan Tamim. But after his investigation into the assassination of a senior Hamas official by an alleged [...]

Leader accused by military of corruption but popular with rural poor
Born to a silk-trading family in Chiang Mai, Thaksin Shinawatra began his working life as a policeman. After several failed business ventures, in 1989 he established Shinawatra Datacom, a mobile phone network business that was to become the biggest phone operator in Thailand, and make [...]

Leak in 11m-litre tank forces closure of area inside Middle East’s biggest shopping centre
The Middle East’s biggest shopping centre was partially evacuated today as maintenance crews scrambled to contain a leak, captured on video, springing from a shark-filled aquarium.
The footage posted on the website of a Dubai newspaper showed the water from the 2.6m-gallon (11m-litre) [...]

The Dubai police have released flight information for 22 of the suspects in the Mabhouh murder last month. See the data as a spreadsheet• Get the data• Interactive guide to the flight patterns
The Dubai police have released further details of the passports used by the suspects in the murder of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a senior Hamas [...]

Fifteen new suspects and six more UK passports faked, with Britons stunned at having identities stolen• Datablog: full list of suspects
The web of intrigue surrounding the death of a senior Hamas official became more tangled today after Dubai police identified a further 15 members of an alleged Mossad squad who carried out the assassination, including [...]

Six new suspects in killing of Hamas official were carrying British passports
Dubai police today identified 15 more suspects wanted over the murder of a senior Hamas official in the Gulf emirate last month, including another six who used British passports.
The announcement brings to 26 the total number of people suspected of involvement in Mahmoud al-Mabhouh’s [...]