United Arab Emirates

Saudi Arabia, the UAE and the US bought millions in weaponry made in Bulgaria, an investigation of the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) reveals.

French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian will meet with his Russian counterpart in Moscow on Dec. 21 to request an increase in strikes against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

Talks will also touch on how the two countries can share intelligence relating to the jihadist group, Le Drian told journalists before travelling to Russia.    

Turkey has joined a 34-state Islamic military alliance against terrorism whose formation was announced by Saudi Arabia on Dec. 14, according to a joint statement published by state news agency SPA.

Russian tour operators are turning their focus to Asian destinations like Thailand and China, after the country's tourism board banned package holidays to Turkey in response to the shooting down of a Russian jet near the Syrian border last month. 

The new report by US NGO Global Financial Integrity entitled 'Illicit Financial Flows from Developing Countries: 2004-2013' rings alarm bells about the amount of 'black money' leaving the four Balkan countries each year.

Bitter divisions in Serbia over the development of the Belgrade Waterfront are the subject of a major investigative feature in Thursday's UK Guardian. The mega-development of the city's long neglected Danube bank has split Belgrade, the article recalls.

A criminal court of peace in the Aegean city of ?zmir has ruled for the arrest of 10 suspects in a "military espionage" case in which 13 people were charged with fabricating evidence. 

The ?zmir public prosecutor had sent the 13 suspects, four of whom were security officials who exercised their right to remain silent, to court for arrest.

A German-origin businessman has been seized by Interpol in the United Arab Emirates on suspicion of the premeditated murder of an Egyptian-origin businessman in Istanbul in 2013. 

The killing is thought to have taken place after a disagreement over grain trade worth $14 million.

Iraqi Kurdistan's cash-strapped government has seized billions of dollars in deposits at two branches of Iraq's Central Bank since 2014, bankers said, calling into question the region's image as a business-friendly paradise in the Middle East.

United Arab Emirates (UAE) Foreign Minister H.H. Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan has condemned the downing of a Russian jet by Turkish F-16s, while addressing the fifth meeting of the UAE-Russia joint ministerial committee at the Foreign Affairs Ministry in Abu Dhabi.