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Photographer Trapped By Dubai Blaze Captures Incredible Footage

By Andrew Torchia

DUBAI (Reuters) - A blaze that engulfed a Dubai skyscraper on New Year's Eve - the emirate's third high-rise fire in three years - has raised fresh questions about the safety of materials used on the exteriors of tall buildings across the wealthy region.

Hundreds of gleaming towers rose up in Gulf Arab states, especially the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, during the past decade's economic boom. Ultra-modern, flamboyant designs often involved heavy use of cladding - layers fixed to the outside of buildings for decoration, insulation or protection.

After Dubai's latest blaze, which security officials said spread up the outside of the 63-storey Address Downtown luxury hotel and residential tower, experts are asking if the layers may in some cases make buildings more vulnerable to fire.

"The fires that have erupted in Dubai landmarks have raised concerns about the quality of material used to clad the emirate’s buildings," The National, a leading UAE newspaper, reported on Saturday.

Experts say most of Dubai’s approximately 250 high-rise buildings use cladding panels with thermoplastic cores, the newspaper said. Panels can consist of plastic or polyurethane fillings sandwiched between aluminum sheets.

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People watch the Address Downtown hotel burning after a huge fire ripped through the luxury hotel in …

Such cladding is not necessarily hazardous, but it can be flammable under certain circumstances and, depending on a skyscraper's design, may channel fires through windows into the interiors of buildings, said Phil Barry, founder of Britain's CWB Fire Safety Consultants Ltd.

Barry told Reuters that, working as a consultant in the Gulf in 2012, he had identified "a general trend of fires in high-rises", which in some places indicated a need for stronger regulation and tougher building codes.

PREVIOUS FIRES

On Saturday, authorities were still investigating the cause of the fire at the Address Downtown. Dubai police said 14 people were lightly injured as the building was evacuated; a medic at the scene said over 60 people were treated for mild smoke inhalation and other complaints.

Mohamed Alabbar, chairman of Emaar Properties, which owns the hotel, said it had been built to the highest quality standards and following international best practice.

"We are determined to restore it to all its glory, and even surpass the splendid architectural standards," Alabbar said in a statement. He did not discuss the reason for the blaze or the financial impact on Emaar, or say when the hotel might reopen.

In February last year, hundreds of people were evacuated from one of the world's tallest residential buildings when fire broke out at the Torch, a 79-storey skyscraper in Dubai. An investigation by the building's management found most of the damage was to the exterior cladding.

In November 2012, a 34-storey residential building was partially gutted by a fire. An investigation blamed a discarded cigarette butt that fell on a pile of waste; the blaze swept through cladding panels on the tower.

The UAE revised its building safety code in 2013 to require that cladding on all new buildings over 15 meters (50 feet) tall be fire-resistant.

But the new rules do not apply to buildings erected before that year, and Barry noted that the vast majority of the country's skyscrapers fell outside the regulations; the Address Downtown was completed in 2008.

In an article published soon after last year's Torch fire, Barry Greenberg and Michael Kortbawi at UAE law firm Bin Shabib & Associates said the cost of replacing cladding on skyscrapers with safer materials would be "prohibitive".

But they added that the cost of not acting could prove even larger. "Total loss of a supertall building - requiring demolition and replacement - is a distinct possibility in the event of a fire," they wrote.

(Reporting by Andrew Torchia; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Vatican City (AFP) - The Vatican's first accord with the Palestinians -- an agreement that Israel has attacked as counter-productive to the Middle East peace process -- has come into force, the Holy See announced Saturday.

The accord was signed in June, just over two years after the Roman Catholic Church recognised the Palestinian territories as a sovereign state in February 2013.

The accord covers the operation of the Church in areas of the Holy Land under Palestinian control but its significance has been seen in broader terms as a symbol of growing international backing for a Palestinian state.

"With reference to the Comprehensive Agreement between the Holy See and the State of Palestine, signed on 26 June 2015, the Holy See and the State of Palestine have notified each other that the procedural requirements for its entry into force have been fulfilled," a Vatican statement said.

"The agreement... regards essential aspects of the life and activity of the Church in Palestine, while at the same time reaffirming the support for a negotiated and peaceful solution to the conflict in the region."

In June, the Vatican hailed the agreement, which includes provisions to protect the rights of Christians, as a model for other Arab and Muslim states in their relations with Christian minorities facing increasing persecution in the Middle East.

Israel attacked the accord as premature and counterproductive to efforts to get the Palestinians to resume direct negotiations with the Jewish state.

The Vatican's recognition of the state of Palestine -- joining dozens of others -- followed a November 2012 vote in favour of recognition by the UN General Assembly.

The Church has had diplomatic relations with Israel since 1993 but has yet to conclude an agreement on Christian rights there. Negotiations on the subject have been running since 1999 but have repeatedly run into deadlock over the status of Jerusalem.

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Saudi Arabia says 47 executed, including prominent Shi'ite cleric

By Sam Wilkin

DUBAI (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia's execution of a leading cleric from the Shi'ite Muslim minority drew protests from around the world against the ruling Al Saud family and threatened to further intensify a wave of sectarian conflict in the Middle East.

Lebanon's Supreme Islamic Shi'ite Council called Saturday's execution of cleric Nimr al-Nimr a "grave mistake", and the Hezbollah group termed it an assassination as Shi'ites took to the streets in protest from Tehran to Kashmir.

Saudi Arabia executed 47 people including Nimr, whom the government accused of inciting violence against the police. His supporters, however, said he was a peaceful dissident who advocated greater rights for the kingdom's Shi'ite minority.

Scores of Shi'ites in Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province marched through Nimr's home district of Qatif shouting "down with the Al Saud", and several hundred gathered in nearby Bahrain, a Sunni-ruled island kingdom allied to Saudi Arabia.

In Iran, a Shi'ite theocracy and rival to Saudi Arabia, state media channels carried non-stop coverage of clerics and secular officials praising Nimr and predicting the downfall of Saudi Arabia's Sunni ruling family.

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Saudi Shiite women hold placards bearing portraits of prominent Shiite Muslim cleric Nimr al-Nimr du …

Shi'ite leaders in Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, and Yemen also warned of reprisals, in a signal that sectarian conflicts across the Middle East could be further inflamed.

As a Saudi-led coalition announced the end of a ceasefire in its war with Yemen's Houthi movement, the Houthis said Nimr had been given a "mock trial".

In India, hundreds of Shi'ites demonstrated in the Muslim-majority northern province of Kashmir, where one protest organizer said the charges against Nimr were "baseless".

TERRORISM CHARGES

Three other Shi'ites were executed alongside Nimr, but most of the convicts were jihadists linked to al Qaeda, a radical Sunni group that regards Shi'ites as heretics and has often targeted them in its attacks.

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A Bahraini anti-government protester holds up a picture of Saudi Shiite cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, …

Shi'ite groups across the region accused Saudi Arabia of using terrorism as a pretext to execute Nimr, a figurehead for the kingdom's restive Shi'ite population who called for peaceful protests in sermons broadcast online.

The Saudi government says Nimr ordered his followers to attack the police, and was to blame for a series of shooting and petrol bomb attacks that killed several policemen during anti-government protests in Qatif in 2011-13.

Lebanon's Hezbollah, however, said Nimr had "demanded the squandered rights of an oppressed people", and condemned Riyadh for executing him and other Shi'ites alongside "terrorist bands". "Nimr resisted oppression with words," the group added.

In Beirut, Shi'ite shopkeeper Abu Ali Dimashq said he hoped Nimr's death would prove "a victory against the Al Saud family, because this is the beginning of their end, God willing."

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei added his voice to a chorus of condemnation by tweeting a tribute to Nimr. His website also carried an image comparing Saudi Arabia to Islamic State, as other Iranian officials accused the kingdom of supporting terrorism.

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Nimr al-Nimr, executed in Saudi Arabia, was a charismatic religious leader who delivered fiery speec …

"The Saudi government supports terrorists and takfiri (radical Sunni) extremists, while executing and suppressing critics inside the country," foreign ministry spokesman Hossein Jaber Ansari said.

The wave of condemnation could harm Saudi Arabia's efforts to form an Islamic alliance against the jihadist militants of Islamic State. Riyadh announced the coalition last month, but did not include the Shi'ite powers.

Politicians, militias and a prominent cleric in Shi'ite-majority Iraq called on the government to sever ties with its neighbor, just one day after Saudi Arabia reopened its embassy in Baghdad for the first time since 1990.

Iran's foreign ministry had said on Monday it was willing to talk to Saudi Arabia after months of escalating tensions, but any chance of a rapprochement appeared to be derailed as clerics, officials and students lashed out at the kingdom.

(Additional reporting by Angus McDowall in Riyadh, Stephen Kalin in Baghdad, John Davison in Beirut, Fayaz Bukhari in Srinagar, and Noah Browning and Sami Aboudi in Dubai; Editing by Helen Popper)

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran's top leader on Sunday warned Saudi Arabia of "divine revenge" over the execution of an opposition Shiite cleric while Riyadh accused Tehran of supporting terrorism, escalating a war of words hours after protesters stormed the Saudi Embassy in Tehran.

Saudi Arabia announced the execution of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr on Saturday along with 46 others, including three other Shiite dissidents and a number of al-Qaida militants. Al-Nimr was a central figure in protests by Saudi Arabia's Shiite minority until his arrest in 2012, and his execution drew condemnation from Shiites across the region.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei condemned the execution Sunday in a statement on his website, saying al-Nimr "neither invited people to take up arms nor hatched covert plots. The only thing he did was public criticism." Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard said Saudi Arabia's "medieval act of savagery" in executing the cleric would lead to the "downfall" of the country's monarchy.

Saudi Arabia's Foreign Ministry said that by condemning the execution, Iran had "revealed its true face represented in support for terrorism."

The statement, carried by the official Saudi Press Agency, accused Tehran of "blind sectarianism" and said that "by its defense of terrorist acts" Iran is a "partner in their crimes in the entire region."

Al-Nimr was convicted of terrorism charges but denied ever advocating violence.

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Smoke rises as Iranian protesters set fire to the Saudi embassy in Tehran, Sunday, Jan. 3, 2016. Pro …

Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shiite Iran are locked in a bitter rivalry, and support opposite sides in the wars in Syria and Yemen. Iran accuses Saudi Arabia of supporting "terrorism" in part because it backs Syrian rebel groups, while Riyadh points to Iran's support for the Lebanese Hezbollah and other Shiite militant groups in the region.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry has summoned the Saudi envoy in Tehran to protest, while the Saudi Foreign Ministry later said it had summoned Iran's envoy to the kingdom to protest Iran's criticism of the execution, saying it represented "blatant interference" in its internal affairs.

In Tehran, the crowd gathered outside the Saudi Embassy early Sunday and chanted anti-Saudi slogans. Some protesters threw stones and Molotov cocktails at the embassy, setting off a fire in part of the building, said the country's top police official, Gen. Hossein Sajedinia, according to the semiofficial Tasnim news agency. He later said police had removed the protesters from the building and arrested some of them, adding that the situation had been "defused."

Hours later, Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dowlatabadi said 40 people had been arrested on suspicion of taking part in the embassy attack and investigators were pursuing other suspects, according to the semi-official ISNA news agency.

The cleric's execution could also complicate Saudi Arabia's relationship with the Shiite-led government in Iraq. The Saudi Embassy in Baghdad reopened for the first time in nearly 25 years on Friday. Already on Saturday there were public calls for Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to shut the embassy down again.

Al-Abadi tweeted Saturday night that he was "shocked and saddened" by al-Nimr's execution, adding that "peaceful opposition is a fundamental right. Repression does not last."

Hundreds of al-Nimr's supporters also protested in his hometown of al-Qatif in eastern Saudi Arabia, in neighboring Bahrain where police fired tear gas and bird shot, and as far away as northern India.

Also Sunday, the BBC reported that one of the 47 executed in Saudi Arabia, Adel al-Dhubaiti, was convicted over a 2004 attack on its journalists in Riyadh. That attack by a gang outside of the home of a suspected al-Qaida militant killed 36-year-old Irish cameraman Simon Cumbers. British reporter Frank Gardner, now the BBC's security correspondent, was seriously wounded in the attack and paralyzed, but survived.

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Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Associated Press writers Joseph Krauss and Maamoun Youssef in Cairo contributed to this report.

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Follow Jon Gambrell on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jongambrellap .