Sharjah / Emirates Business A rare example of the passenger aircraft that is synonymous with early jet air travel in the UAE made its final journey when it arrived in Sharjah this month. The front section of a Vickers VC10, fondly nicknamed ‘The Queen of the Skies’, recently arrived from the UK by boat before being driven through the …

  Ain Issa/ AFP A US-backed Kurdish-Arab alliance pushed closer to Raqa and Iraqi forces seized a key town near Mosul as offensives advanced on Monday against the two IS group strongholds. After announcing the start of the long-awaited offensive on Raqa on Sunday, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance said it had moved south towards the city despite fierce extremist …

  Ankara /AFP Turkey on Monday warned the United States not to allow demographic changes in the Syrian city of Raqa after Kurdish-Arab forces launched a US-backed operation to capture the extremist bastion. Turkish forces are conspicuously absent from the operation, even though they are present in northern Syria in their own incursion in support of pro-Ankara Syrian rebels against …