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Brenda Power: Let’s not horse around — racing is just business
What would the bloodstock magnate Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum have to do to provoke the same horror and indignation in the racing world as that picture of trainer Gordon Elliott sitting on a dead horse? Abduct two of his own daughters at gunpoint and keep them as prisoners for years? Get agents to terrorise…
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Mary Robinson says she made her biggest mistake in role over Princess Latifa
Former president now says she believes UAE princess is being detained against her will
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The Middle East’s Progressive Darling Abuses Its Women
In a series of recently released videos, Latifa Al Maktoum, a Dubai princess who was missing for more than a year, recounted her harrowing capture by around a dozen commandos who raided a boat she was sailing 30 miles off the coast of India. After a struggle, one tranquilized her, and she fell unconscious. The…
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Godolphin stables Sheik ‘should be banned from Melbourne Cup and Everests’, activists demand
The ruler of Dubai should not be allowed to race in the Melbourne Cup or Sydney’s Everest after his daughter claimed she was being kept hostage, human rights activists say. Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, Dubai’s Prime Minister and owner of Godolphin stables, has been under pressure since his daughter Princess Latifa smuggled out a…
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Elaine Byrne: Robinson should have known better on the plight of Princess Latifa
“As a woman, I want women who have felt themselves outside history to be written back into history.” So said Mary Robinson in her famous “Mná na hÉireann” speech in 1990, when she became Ireland’s first female president. That historic speech is very much at odds with Robinson’s extraordinary lack of curiosity around the wellbeing…
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Gangsters’ paradise – Dubai’s finely spun web starts to unravel
His finely spun web has entangled the former Irish president, Mary Robinson, his estranged wife Princess Haya and the blue-bloods of the Irish Turf who tapped him for more than €5m for the redevelopment of the Curragh Racecourse. Dubai, his middle-eastern emirate, also harbours Christy Kinahan, head of the notorious drugs cartel. And it is…
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Justine McCarthy: Mary Robinson must lead on search for missing Princess Latifa
For those of us who celebrated Mary Robinson’s election as Ireland’s first woman president in 1990 the vapour trails of euphoria lingered long after she had left Aras an Uachtarain seven years later. She was a feminist who did not just talk the talk; she had walked the walk to Leinster House and the Four…
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I released Princess Latifa’s ‘prison’ video. I pray it doesn’t backfire
Tiina Jauhiainen was on holiday at her parents’ house in northern Finland in the spring of 2019 when her phone lit up with a message from a stranger. The person said they had a message from Princess Latifa Al Maktoum of Dubai, Jauhiainen’s best friend. It was a heart-stopping moment. A year earlier, Jauhiainen, an…
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Theresa May paid £115k to speak at event founded by Dubai ruler accused of kidnapping
EXCLUSIVE: The Tory Maidenhead MP and former Prime Minister Theresa May flew out to the Gulf last year to speak at the Global Women’s Forum event – which was founded by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. Former PM Theresa May accepted £115,000 to address a women’s forum founded by the Dubai ruler accused of…
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United Nations and the BHA would do well to take heed and learn lessons of former Newmarket school governor’s stand against Sheikh Mohammed
At a certain point in Panorama’s 32-minute report, The Missing Princess, broadcast last Tuesday, a troubling story became disturbing. From wondering how Princess Latifa bint Mohammed Al Maktoum was coping with being held captive by her father, the ruler of Dubai, the viewer’s concern was for the young woman’s safety. The princess is one of…