Relations between two countries soured in January when a UAE-backed force was defeated by Saudis

Saudi Arabia is being urged to reconcile with the United Arab Emirates over Yemen as the price Riyadh must pay to form a military alliance capable of driving the Houthis back.

Relations between the UAE and Saudi Arabia in Yemen, where both had backed anti-Houthi forces, plummeted in January this year when a force with which the UAE had been aligned – the separatist Southern Transitional Council (STC) – was attacked and defeated by Saudi Arabia in a move intended to squash its attempt to recreate a separate southern state. The UAE subsequently in effect quit Yemen.

When transnational alliances have scarcely been weaker, the way the club was allegedly run offers a bleak vision of a world driven by brute power and wealth

The cache of leaked emails and documents that would eventually lead to the crisis in which Manchester City are now embroiled was published by Der Spiegel in 2018, and often it was the tone of the club’s communications that was as startling as their content. Of City chairman Khaldoon al-Mubarak, a trusted adviser to the royal family of the United Arab Emirates, it was said that he would “rather spend 30 million on the 50 best lawyers in the world to sue [Uefa] for the next 10 years” than accept a fine.

In the same tranche of documents, City lawyer Simon Cliff asserts that “Uefa doesn’t respond to anything other than aggression”, and threatens the governing body of European football – who were pursuing City over alleged financial irregularities at the time – with “the destruction of their rules and organisation”.

The extraordinary success of the rebels, and Saudi counterstrikes, threaten economic havoc. But the country’s civilians are paying the highest price

Even in a region beset by turmoil and learning to expect the unexpected, the lightning advance of Yemen’s Houthis along the Red Sea coast has shocked observers. More than 100,000 people have been forced to flee in a country where immiseration and displacement have become routine and half the population depend on humanitarian aid. But outsiders are paying close attention, because by claiming thousands of kilometres in a matter of days, and seizing strategically important islands, the Iran-backed rebels now control the Bab al-Mandab strait – the other major regional energy chokepoint after the Hormuz strait.

The Iran war has forced Saudi Arabia to rely on moving oil via its east-west pipeline to Red Sea ports. Now drone strikes – blamed on an Iran-backed militia in Iraq – have shut the pipeline: on one estimate, a month-long closure could cut global crude supply by 120m barrels. The halt to shipping through the Bab al-Mandab strait could be much more protracted. Taking the oil north is a far slower and more expensive route to Asian markets, and does not preclude attacks by the Houthis, who are also targeting oil facilities.

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Die Airline aus Dubai bekommt die Flugrechte für die Hauptstadt. Verkehrsminister Bilger hat lobende Worte. Die Lufthansa kritisiert die Einigung scharf.

Air bases used by US in UAE and Kuwait hit as Israeli defence chief says Iran’s regime fears collapse due to economic pressures

Iran has continued to demonstrate an ability to target bases in the Gulf used by the US despite six months of war and a new sanctions regime described by the Trump administration as an “economic D-day”.

As Iran’s military targeted US bases in the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, despite threats of further strikes by the US president, Israel’s defence chief warned that economic pressures from the sanctions could lead Tehran to escalate to more “extreme measures”.

Washington says it acted after observing Iran was planning to deploy fresh mines in strait of Hormuz

The US and Iran have exchanged fire for the first time in a month, with missiles and drones fired at Iranian rocket launchers on an island in the strait of Hormuz, and Iran targeting US military bases in Jordan and the United Arab Emirates in response.

The US president, Donald Trump, on Monday threatened further action. The US is trying to prise open Tehran’s grip on shipping going through the strait, which before the war accounted for a fifth of the world’s seaborne energy supply. Washington claimed that Iranian control over the waterway had been loosened by repeated US attacks on Iranian missile launchers and radars.

Iran responded to an assault on its Larak Island by targeting US bases in Jordan

• Trump threatens further action as US and Iran exchange fire in new flare-up

Coinciding with this week’s G20 meeting, the EU has issued a statement saying it will work with the US and other allied countries to maintain economic pressure against Iran.

“The ‌EU welcomes efforts at ensuring that Iran ceases its destabilising activities and engages in peace negotiations with good ‌faith, also through additional economic pressure, including through ​the US-led Operation Economic Outcast,” it said in reference to the pressure strategy the White House describes as “an unprecedented campaign to sever every remaining economic lifeline sustaining” the Islamic republic.

Tehran urges US to ‘correct its behaviour’ as UAE says one of its ships targeted by Iranian missile

Iran has issued tough new demands for reopening the strait of Hormuz, while the United Arab Emirates said one of its ships was targeted by an Iranian missile, as a deal to open the strategic waterway remained out of reach on Saturday.

Iran’s politburo-like body known as the supreme national security council said the strait of Hormuz will not open until the United States “corrects its behaviour”, and its state broadcaster published a statement from the council’s secretary, Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, who is also a commander in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Exclusive: Lack of funds left British museums unable to pay eight-figure sum for collection, which went to Abu Dhabi institution

• Britain’s Jurassic gold rush: the fossil hunters chasing fortunes on Dorset’s beaches

One of the most important collections of UK Jurassic fossils ever compiled has been sold to a museum in Abu Dhabi, the Guardian can reveal, in what British experts have described as a loss for the nation.

The collection, which was amassed by a private fossil collector, consisted of 318 specimens, including ichthyosaurs, fish and crustaceans among other creatures, some of which could be new species.

Residents eligible for dining and hotel packages if they can persuade family and friends to city spurned by visitors amid Iran war

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Dubai is offering to pay residents who attract family and friends to visit the emirate in an effort to revive tourist numbers that have plummeted since the city was drawn into the US-Israel war on Iran.

The Dubai Invite scheme, an initiative of the department of economy and tourism, allows residents of the United Arab Emirates to nominate friends and relatives and then to receive benefits worth more than 3,000 UAE dirham (about £610) if they visit.

From Nevada to Manchester, developers are trialling innovative solutions to clean energy’s biggest challenge

In the deserts of the United Arab Emirates a sprawling clean energy project, stretching across an area roughly the size of 12,600 football fields, will play host to a breakthrough allowing solar energy to power the equivalent of half a million homes through the night.

The Gulf state has been steadily combining 5.2GW of solar power capacity with 19GWh of battery storage to create the largest battery scheme in the world.

The city of El Obeid faces catastrophe. Governments are shirking their duty to challenge all those sustaining this war

“This is not a drill. It is a red alert,” said the UN rights chief, Volker Türk, on Friday. He was warning that catastrophe was unfolding in the strategically important Sudanese city of El Obeid in north Kordofan. Near-siege conditions are tightening, relentless drone attacks continue and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and allies are massing around it.

Two decades ago, after the genocide in Darfur, the world said “never again”. But it is happening again, and few are even paying attention. The alarm was raised repeatedly last year as the starvation siege of El Fasher in north Darfur deepened. Tens of thousands of people were killed in the subsequent massacre, with one witness describing “a scene out of a horror movie”. UN investigators reported “the hallmarks of genocide”, including explicit calls to eliminate non-Arab communities. Civilians who fled were raped and murdered; so were those who stayed. Before El Fasher came a killing spree in Geneina by RSF-allied forces.

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US secretary of state seeks to reassure UAE, Kuwait and Bahrain over security and US-Iran ceasefire deal

The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has said no country, including Iran, would be allowed to charge tolls for shipping in the strait of Hormuz as he sought to reassure US allies in the Gulf that Washington would take a firm line in peace negotiations with Tehran.

Rubio is to meet Gulf allies on Tuesday and Wednesday in an attempt to reassure them that the US remains committed to their security and the 60-day ceasefire deal struck with Iran last week will not embolden Tehran.

As US lifts its blockade, Tehran says fees to cover cost of managing waterway will come into effect at end of 60-day negotiation period

Iran has announced plans to introduce a system of maritime fees in the strait of Hormuz in two months, after the 60-day period of negotiation that has been triggered by the signing of the memorandum of understanding.

Tehran, claiming a historic victory over the US, said the strait was under its control and a European plan for a naval mission to escort ships though the strait would not be welcome. The US on Thursday lifted its blockade of Iran, and oil tankers began freely moving through the critical channel.

Sellers of luxury villas have wiped tens of millions of pounds off asking prices, with sales down 19% in May from the previous month

Property sales in Dubai have fallen “off a cliff”, a leading market watcher has said, after war in the Middle East forced a dramatic slowdown in one of the world’s most expensive real estate markets.

Sales in the city dropped 19% in May compared with the previous month, accelerating from a 4% drop in April, the researcher ValuStrat found.