Tag: uae

Epstein Flipped Israel’s Gaza-Tested Biometric Scanners Into Nigeria Ports Deal for UAE

The year before Jeffrey Epstein’s suspicious death in a Manhattan jail, the financier was working to broker an infrastructure deal for Emirati logistics conglomerate DP World in Nigeria, according to a massive trove of emails released by the Justice Department last month.

In an email exchange from the summer of 2018, Epstein facilitated talks between then-chair of Nigeria’s sovereign investment fund, Jide Zeitlin, and DP World’s ex-chairman, Sultan Ahmad bin Sulayem, on possible shipping terminals in Lagos and Badagry. Sulayem resigned from DP World on February 13, 2026 amid fallout from the revelation of his intimate friendship with Epstein.

DP World’s leadership was reluctant to invest in an industrial zone in Nigeria unless they could own the surrounding port outright, and talks with previous Nigerian presidents, since 2005, had led nowhere. Zeitlin informed Sulayem that he was close to then-President Muhammadu Buhari and billionaire shipping magnate Gabriele Volpi—the owner of Intels, Nigeria’s largest logistics company, which services the country’s massive oil & gas sector. Epstein, in turn, offered to involve Kathryn Ruemmler, former White House counsel under President Barack Obama. Ruemmler recently announced her resignation as chief legal officer of Goldman Sachs.

Sulayem and Epstein worked together for more than a decade, cultivating a friendship between Israel and the United Arab Emirates long before the Abraham Accords agreement in 2020. Zeitlin wrote to Epstein in September 2018, after Djibouti nationalized DP World’s main hub in East Africa, “I hope your pal’s sojourn in Tel Aviv … was more effective than his efforts on the African continent.” After Epstein’s death, DP World acquired a controlling stake in a Nigerian logistics provider in 2022 and began expanding its footprint in Lagos as of last year.

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Investigation into Democrat Ilhan Omar’s Husband May Reach to Somalia, Kenya, and the United Arab Emirates

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) wants officials to look abroad regarding Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-MN) husband, Tim Mynett, and his failed business ventures.

Comer wants the House Ethics Committee investigation to look at countries such as Somalia, Kenya, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the New York Post reported Saturday.

The news comes after Omar’s net worth increased from $51,000 to $30 million in one year with the surge of wealth linked to two of Mynett’s businesses. However, Omar has said people were falsely claiming she was worth millions and pointed the finger at conservatives who she said were unfairly targeting her, per Breitbart News.

According to the Post, “Mynett’s investment firm Rose Lake Capital wanted to build solar panels in Africa and his main business partner received a $10,699 air ticket to Dubai after talks about a deal there.”

The outlet continued:

Comer’s committee initially spearheaded the probe and in a Feb. 5 letter to Mynett, demanded he turn over “all documents and communications” by anyone affiliated with either Rose Lake Capital LLC or his failed California winery eStCru LLC related to travel “to the United Arab Emirates, Somalia or Kenya, or travel undertaken to solicit business connected to those countries. This includes the dates of travel, the individuals who traveled, and the stated purpose of each trip.”

The deadline for Mynett to respond is Thursday.

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Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem Named by Massie Over Epstein ‘Torture Video’ Email

Kentucky Republican Representative Thomas Massie named the Emirati businessman Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem as the individual Jeffrey Epstein had emailed about a “torture video”.

Sulayem is chairman and CEO of DP World, a major global logistics firm based in the UAE. Newsweek has contacted DP World’s media office via email for comment.

The emails were released by the Department of Justice in the Epstein files, but one sender’s name was redacted. Lawmakers have been able to view the unredacted files.

Epstein sent an email on April 24, 2009, that said: “where are you? are you ok , I loved the torture video”

The recipient’s email address and name were redacted.

But Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said the recipient was identified in the file EFTA00666117, which names “Sultan Bin Sulayem” while redacting the email address.

The nature of the “torture video” is not known.

They replied a day later to say: “I am in china I will be in the US 2nd week of may”

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Inside Job? Reports Suggest New Venezuela’s Interim President, Delcy Rodríguez, Negotiated With the US the Removal of Maduro, With the Mediation of UAE

Did Rodríguez betray Maduro?

Now that Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro has been captured by US forces and taken to the US to answer for the alleged crimes he is charged with, many are keeping an eye on the ‘day after’ in the South American country.

Many are surprised that Caracas will not be led by Venezuela’s opposition leader and Nobel Prize Winner María Corina Machado, but rather by Maduro’s Vice-President, Delcy Rodríguez.

But reports have arisen that may solve this apparent puzzle.

Secret meetings are said to have been held in Doha, UAE, involving Rodríguez, a senior member of the UAE royal family serving as a mediator, and members of the Donald J. Trump administration.

The Telegraph reported:

“Ms. Rodríguez had reached out to Washington to present herself as a ‘more acceptable’ alternative to the Maduro regime. She now rules Venezuela with the approval of Mr. Trump.

Details of the meeting have fueled suspicions that the removal of Mr. Maduro was an inside job, planned to leave a president in power who can manage a transition without dismantling the state completely and causing turmoil and riots.”

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WEF and UAE Launch AI Regulation Platform

The World Economic Forum (WEF), long known for promoting centralized influence over global governance, is now stepping into the heart of emerging technology regulation.

In partnership with the United Arab Emirates, the WEF has launched the Global Regulatory Innovation Platform (GRIP), a two-year initiative aimed at shaping how artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and other advanced technologies will be governed worldwide.

While framed as an effort to help governments keep pace with fast-moving innovation, GRIP positions the WEF to exert significant pressure over national regulatory demands. The project’s stated deliverables include a Global Regulatory Playbook, a Regulatory Future Readiness Index, and a Global Regulatory Innovation Hub, all of which are designed to influence how states craft their policies around new technologies.

“Innovation moves fast. Regulation must too,” said Børge Brende, President of the World Economic Forum. “GRIP enables governments to co-create policy frameworks that are agile, anticipatory, and ready for the technologies shaping our future.”

But behind the rhetoric of agility and inclusivity lies a deeper concern: the WEF’s expanding role in pushing specific regulatory frameworks that mirror its long-standing agenda of tightening control over digital speech.

This is not a neutral facilitator stepping in to help governments. It is a well-connected body with a record of advocating for top-down approaches to information governance, particularly in the world of online content.

In recent years, the WEF has frequently called for greater regulation of the internet, framing free expression concerns as secondary to the need to combat misinformation and “harmful content.”

These calls have often aligned with proposals to give tech companies and governments more authority to define and suppress disfavored narratives. GRIP now offers the WEF another vehicle to embed those priorities into the very structures governing AI development and deployment.

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The way you walk is apparently as unique as your fingerprint and the UAE wants to use it to track criminals

According to reports out of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), biometrics are gaining an ever more prominent place in local law enforcement’s activities, and the type of technology involved is also getting ever more fine-grained.

Accuracy aside – but apparently, the way you walk – as interpreted by mass surveillance technology – can now be used as an incriminating piece of evidence against you in this country.

As always with these stories, one wonders how in the world the police ever managed to do their job for centuries (as they have done) without relying on invasive and controversial technologies like this – but that is not the question most media outlets are willing to “bother” with just now.

Instead, we’re hearing from one of the Emirates, Dubai, that the thing with biometric surveillance of the population – handily justified as something positive, when there’s a criminal case that can be attached to the practice – has now gone well beyond fingerprinting, facial recognition, and such.

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