Issue 1065, 19 July, 2018

Article length: 838 words

UAE: Gentle push-back from MBR against Abu Dhabi’s adventurism

The diplomatic community in the UAE is still weighing the significance of a series of early August tweets by federal Vice President and prime minister and Dubai Ruler Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, in which ‘MBR’ criticised politicians who failed to focus on facilitating and managing change “in their own backyards”. In a trio of messages on 4 August, MBR tweeted that “great achievements speak for themselves, not empty speeches with meaningless words” and that the Arab world had a “surplus of politicians” but “a shortage of administrators” who were focused on the plight of the people and on delivering concrete improvements.