united arab emirates

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - Dubai's government expects to run a budget deficit of nearly half a billion dollars in 2012 as it works to move beyond its financial difficulties.

When Libyan rebels first called out for international aid, the wealthy Gulf was quick to answer: Warplanes from Qatar and United Arab Emirates joined the NATO-led military coalition against Moammar Gadhafi and critical aid and diplomatic support were funneled to opposition fighters.

The United Arab Emirates' telecommunications agency said Saturday that BlackBerry smartphone services would remain available in the country, suggesting it may roll back on plans to limit a high-security option.

Mideast mobile phone retailer Axiom Telecom is seeking to raise as much as $382 million in the United Arab Emirates' first initial stock offering this year.

The United Arab Emirates has withdrawn a threat to cut key services on BlackBerry smart phones - just days before the ban was set to take effect.

The United Arab Emirates will not suspend BlackBerry services on October 11 after resolving a dispute with its Canadian maker Research in Motion over access to email and other data, state news WAM agency said on Friday.

The United Arab Emirates on Friday backed off a threat to cut key BlackBerry services, just days before a ban was set to take effect that could have harmed the country's business-friendly reputation.

Threats by the governments of India, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia to shut down BlackBerry's corporate e-mail services reflect unease about a technology that the U.S. government also took a while to accept.

Alcohol remains off limits, but it looks like Saudis will still be allowed to feed their Crackberry addiction after all.

The Saudi government had said that it would begin blocking Blackberry's instant messaging services on Friday - claiming that by not being allowed to monitor messages, the popular devices and service from Canada's Research in Motion represented a national security risk to the Kingdom.

That Friday deadline was extended to today, and then that extended deadline came and went without any reported disruption in service.

Both the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia are set to ban some functions of BlackBerry devices used in their countries.