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Get you up to speed: UAE intercepts drone after US and Iran exchange attacks
The United Arab Emirates intercepted a drone approaching from Iran over its territorial waters and confirmed there was no attack on its Al Menhad airbase. This incident followed a series of exchanges of hostilities between the United States and Iran, escalating tensions in the region.
The UAE’s air force successfully intercepted a drone approaching from Iran over its territorial waters on Monday. Following a series of attacks between the US and Iran, officials have emphasised the importance of relying on official sources, as ongoing negotiations for de-escalation continue with mediators from Oman, Pakistan, and Qatar.
The UAE’s Ministry of Defence has called reports of an attack on its Al Menhad airbase “false” and urged the public to rely on official information. In response to the escalating conflict, UAE presidential adviser Anwar Mohammed Gargash stated that “political solutions must begin with de-escalation and restoring normal shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.”
What remains unclear — It is uncertain how the recent escalation in hostilities will affect ongoing negotiations to resolve the conflict.
UAE intercepts drone from Iran amid rising US-Iran tensions
News|US-Israel war on IranUAE intercepts drone after US and Iran exchange attacks
The UAE says it intercepted a drone coming from Iran and rejected ‘false’ reports of an attack on its Al Menhad airbase.
Published On 31 Aug 202631 Aug 2026
Published On 31 Aug 202631 Aug 2026The United Arab Emirates says it has engaged a drone coming from Iran over its waters and denied reports of an attack on its Al Menhad airbase, after the United States and Iran resumed hostilities for the first time since July.
Iran’s army said in a statement cited by Iranian news agencies that dozens of drones were launched at US military assets at the Al Menhad airbase in the UAE early on Monday.
In a statement on X on Monday, the UAE’s Ministry of Defence described the reports as “false” and “urged the public to rely on official sources for information and to refrain from circulating rumours or inaccurate information”.
Later, the ministry said the UAE’s air force intercepted a drone “over the country’s territorial waters, approaching from Iran”.
The incident comes after the US and Iran exchanged attacks overnight, further denting hopes for a resolution of the more than six-month-long conflict.
US forces on Sunday struck two Iranian launchers on Iran’s Larak Island, some 660km (410 miles) east of Kharg Island, a US official said. Iran retaliated by attacking two bases used by US forces in Jordan and the UAE’s Al Menhad airbase, according to Iranian media.
The Jordan strikes targeted US bases used to launch and support the attack on Larak, Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.
The Iranian army said its drone attack on the UAE’s airbase targeted sites where US forces and helicopters were stationed in response to the Larak casualties.
Iran has carried out a wave of attacks on Gulf countries since the US and Israel launched their war on Iran in late February. But at the urging of Gulf allies Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, US President Donald Trump said on August 1 he would order the military to hold off on new strikes on Iran.
The UAE’s presidential adviser, Anwar Mohammed Gargash, condemned the renewed escalation, saying “the policy of targeting the Arab Gulf states and Jordan has proven to be a failure”.
“Political solutions must begin with de-escalation and restoring normal shipping through the Strait of Hormuz,” Gargash added.
Stalled negotiations
Sunday’s return to hostilities comes after the Trump administration ramped up economic pressure on Iran and its business partners with new sanctions, and mediators intensified efforts to resume negotiations on a potential deal to end the war.
High-level delegations from mediators Oman, Pakistan and Qatar visited Tehran last week in an effort to advance negotiations to bring the war to an end.
The Strait of Hormuz remains a crucial sticking point during negotiations. Last week, Trump said all mines had been detonated or removed from the international waters of the strait, and Iran had been warned that any vessel placing new mines would be destroyed.
While Trump has repeatedly said the Strait of Hormuz is open, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has called those statements “an obvious lie”, reiterating that it remains closed to ships without Iranian permission to transit.
The waterway carried nearly a fifth of global crude oil and liquefied natural gas shipments before the war.
October 12, 2024
6:18 am
‘Cheer up, you caught the bad guy,’ says killer Virginia McCullough as she is arrested for murdering her parents
A woman who murdered her parents “in cold blood” before hiding them in makeshift tombs for four years told officers to “cheer up, you caught the bad guy” as she was arrested in her home.
Virginia McCullough, 36, poisoned her father John McCullough, 70, with prescription medication and fatally stabbed her mother Lois McCullough, 71, shortly afterwards in 2019.
She ran up large debts on credit cards in her parents’ names and after their deaths, she continued to spend their pensions until she was finally caught in 2023.
In body-worn video footage released by police, a handcuffed – and eerily calm – McCullough told officers: “I did know that this would kind of come eventually.
“It’s proper that I serve my punishment.”
She said she had slipped something into her father’s drink then put his body under a bed on the ground floor, and put her mother’s body in an upstairs wardrobe.
McCullough, having been arrested on suspicion of double murder, told an officer: “Cheer up, at least you’ve caught the bad guy.”
She added: “I know I don’t seem 100% evil.”
At the police station, she told officers where a kitchen knife was, which she described as a “murder weapon”, and a hammer which she said “will still have blood on it”.
McCullough, of Pump Hill, Chelmsford, Essex, was sentenced to life imprisonment on Friday with a minimum term of 36 years at Chelmsford Crown Court, after she admitted to their murders between 17 and 20 June 2019 at an earlier hearing at the same court.
Chelmsford Crown Court heard how she hid their bodies in makeshift tombs at the family home in Great Baddow in Essex, then told persistent lies to cover her tracks.
The court heard she cancelled family arrangements and frequently told doctors and relatives her parents were unwell, on holiday or away on lengthy trips.
But concerns over Mr and Mrs McCullough’s welfare were raised in September 2023 by a GP at their registered practice, and Essex County Council’s safeguarding team referred these to police.
The GP had not seen the couple for some time and said Mr McCullough had failed to collect medication and attend scheduled appointments. It was found McCullough had frequently cancelled appointments, using a range of excuses to explain her father’s absence.
Police said a missing persons investigation was initially launched and McCullough lied to officers, claiming her parents were travelling and would be returning in October.
It became a murder investigation, and when officers forced entry to the house in Pump Hill on September 15 2023, McCullough confessed that her parents’ bodies were in the house and that she had killed them.
Nicola Rice, a specialist prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “McCullough callously and viciously killed both of her parents before concealing their bodies in makeshift tombs within their home address.
“She spent the next four years manipulating and lying to family members, medical staff, financial institutions, and the police, spending her parents’ money and accruing large debts in their name.”
She added: “This was a truly disturbing case, which has left behind it a trail of devastation, and I can only hope that the sentence passed today will help those who loved and cared for Lois and John begin to heal.”
To downplay the genocide, the israelis claim there’s only 20,000 people left in north Gaza, says
@MahaGaza
: the real number exceeds 400,000
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Gosh he’ll soon be a true blue Tory at this rate
Or far far worse
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To address hardship & the climate crisis, the government must keep the £2 cap & make public transport accessible for all.
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November 23, 2024
8:25 am
Defense alliance NATO chief Mark Rutte has met US President-elect Donald Trump to discuss global security issues, according to a NATO spokesperson.
The meeting took place in Palm Beach, Florida.
During his first term as US president, 2017-2020, Trump pushed for European NATO countries to spend more on defense and described the alliance’s cost-sharing as unfair to the US.
Rutte took over as NATO chief from Norwegian Jens Stoltenberg in November.
Before taking office in January, Trump has nominated Pete Hegseth for the post of defense secretary, which has raised eyebrows among many allies.
Hegseth, 44, has served as an infantry captain in Iraq and Afghanistan, but has no senior military or government officer experience.
November 23, 2024
8:25 am
November 23, 2024
8:17 am
Multiple missiles were fired in an airstrike towards a densely populated part of Lebanon’s capital early on Saturday.
The huge airstrike targeted Beirut’s Basta neighbourhood, and no prior warnings were given by the Israeli military. The largely residential area was struck last month.
At least one violent explosion was heard across the city, Reuters witnesses said, and plumes of smoke could be seen. Scenes of massive destruction at the site were shared online, including a massive crater in the ground.
“Beirut, the capital, woke up to a horrific massacre, as the Israeli enemy’s air force completely destroyed an eight-story residential building with five missiles on Al-Mamoun Street in Basta,” the state-run National News Agency reported.
The health ministry put the initial death toll at four, with 23 wounded. The number is expected to climb in the coming hours as search and rescue efforts continue.
It came after a long day of Israeli airstrikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs, which have been non-stop since last week.
The cross-border fighting between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group escalated into a full-blown war in mid-September.
Israel has bombed southern Lebanon, Beirut’s southern suburbs and the eastern Beqaa region, and has sent ground troops across the border. Hezbollah has continued to fire rockets deeper into Israel.
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