Russia’s Bolshoi Theatre will make its first official tour of the United Arab Emirates with five days of opera, orchestral music and ballet at Dubai Opera from 2 to 6 December 2026. The programme, presented by Dubai Opera in collaboration with Art Seasons, will feature Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera The Tsar’s Bride, a symphonic concert conducted by Valery Gergiev and Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker, performed by the Bolshoi […]
Arabian Post Staff -Dubai Etihad Airways has extended cancellations on its Abu Dhabi services to Riyadh, Dammam and Jeddah until October 24, citing continuing regional disruption and warning passengers that further timetable changes remain possible. The airline confirmed that every flight between Abu Dhabi’s Zayed International Airport and both Riyadh and Dammam will remain cancelled through Saturday. Its suspension of Jeddah services covers four specified flights rather […]
Google has warned that a suspected China-linked espionage group exploited a critical vulnerability in BeyondTrust remote support systems, gaining privileged access and establishing mechanisms to remain inside compromised networks. The vulnerability, designated CVE-2026-102764, was disclosed on 15 October after investigators identified attacks dating to 29 August. Google’s Threat Intelligence Group and its Mandiant division attributed the activity to Armory Castle, previously tracked as UNC5221, and warned that […]
Air passengers across the UAE could face limited flight delays as seasonal weather changes reduce visibility, prompting the General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) to caution airlines and airport operators about possible operational disruptions. The authority issued its advisory on Saturday, October 17, warning that changing atmospheric conditions could restrict horizontal visibility across parts of the country. Such conditions may affect aircraft movements, depending on prevailing weather and […]
Abu Dhabi is expected to prioritise additional borrowing over withdrawals from sovereign wealth assets if the US-Iran war escalates, according to Fitch Ratings, which forecasts substantial budget surpluses and manageable government debt through 2028. The rating agency said the emirate would favour debt financing rather than drawing down investments beyond the established dividend policy of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), reflecting its ability to access capital […]
President Donald Trump has declined to rule out deploying the United States’ largest conventional bomb against Iran after November’s congressional elections, leaving open the possibility of another escalation in the conflict. Speaking in an interview broadcast on Thursday night, Trump described the weapon, popularly called the Mother of All Bombs, as exceptionally powerful but stressed that it was not nuclear. He did not announce an attack, identify […]
The technology, announced on Wednesday at Singapore International Cyber Week, uses a customised version of Google’s Gemma model to recognise manipulation in conversations and warn users before they transfer money or disclose sensitive information.
The partners have not announced a public release date, named supported messaging applications or published independent accuracy figures. Their announcement describes a model that messaging platforms and operating system developers could integrate, rather than a scam detection application already available for general download.
The initiative forms part of the National AI Partnership between Google DeepMind and Singapore’s government. It addresses fraud schemes that unfold through extended conversations, rather than relying exclusively on suspicious links, keywords or individual messages.
Google DeepMind said the model had been adapted using examples of scams involving impersonation of banks, public institutions and prominent local figures. Its training also covered regional fraud patterns intended to make fraudulent exchanges appear credible to Singaporean users.
The system operates through two stages to limit the processing demands placed on smartphones. A lightweight classifier initially examines incoming messages for possible threats, consuming relatively little computing power. Messages considered suspicious then undergo a more detailed assessment using the fine tuned Gemma model.
During the second stage, the AI examines a broader section of the conversation to assess whether the exchange displays patterns of manipulation. This contextual approach is intended to distinguish ordinary conversations from attempts to build trust before requesting payments, passwords or other confidential details.
Where the model identifies potentially fraudulent behaviour, it generates a warning on the handset, encouraging the recipient to pause and exercise caution. The alert is designed to intervene before a person acts on a scammer’s instructions, although the organisations have not disclosed measured reductions in fraud losses from using the system.
A central feature is that the analysis takes place locally. Conversations do not need to be uploaded for cloud based examination, an important distinction for messaging services that use end to end encryption to prevent intermediaries from reading message contents.
Mark Chen, director of trust and safety at GovTech Singapore, said the collaboration sought to identify targeted local scams in real time while keeping personal communications private. The partners present local processing as a way of reconciling fraud prevention with confidentiality.
The privacy safeguards also extend to development. Google DeepMind said the model was fine tuned inside a government managed Google Cloud environment described as a sovereign sandbox, where training material remained isolated.
According to the company, private citizen conversations and personally identifiable information were excluded from training. Instead, developers used anonymised datasets derived from scam reports and intelligence feeds. Testing included synthetic conversations and local material covering different scam categories and changing impersonation methods.
Those measures describe the development process and proposed operation, rather than an independent assessment of the finished product. The partners have not released detailed public benchmarks showing false positive rates, missed scams, battery consumption or performance across different smartphone models.
Singapore has strong reasons to pursue additional protections. Google DeepMind said scams account for more than half of crimes reported in the country, while cumulative losses since 2019 exceed S$4 billion. It estimated that social engineering schemes account for as much as 80 per cent of scam losses.
Such schemes often depend on prolonged interaction, with perpetrators establishing apparent relationships or authority before introducing requests for money. Detecting suspicious intent across multiple messages therefore presents a different technical challenge from blocking known fraudulent websites or telephone numbers.
The announcement comes alongside separate Android security enhancements unveiled by Google, including optional cloud assisted analysis in Google Messages. That service uses a protected computing environment, whereas the Singapore collaboration specifically centres on keeping conversation analysis on the handset.
The distinction is significant because the two approaches involve different arrangements for processing private communications. The Singapore model is designed to assess message content without transmitting conversations externally, although its practical privacy protections will also depend on how individual applications implement the technology.
Google DeepMind said its model was optimised for smartphones commonly used in Singapore. It has not specified the minimum hardware requirements, participating mobile manufacturers or whether the technology will eventually support additional languages and markets.
Google has made its new frontier artificial intelligence model, Gemini 4 Argon, available through Google AI Studio, expanding developers’ access to advanced reasoning, software engineering and autonomous task execution capabilities. The global rollout, announced on October 13, extends access to developers and enterprises through the Gemini API, with the company positioning Argon as its most capable model for complex professional and scientific workloads. Google said the model […]
BR Shetty, founder of NMC Healthcare and UAE Exchange, has filed a $15 billion lawsuit against Bank of Baroda and 25 other defendants in the Bombay High Court, alleging financial misconduct that contributed to the collapse of his business empire. The state-owned lender has responded by declaring that it will firmly defend its interests, while maintaining that it has not yet been formally served with the lawsuit […]
Arabian Post Staff -Dubai The United Arab Emirates holds first place in Arton Capital’s 2026 Passport Index, with its citizens able to access 182 destinations through visa-free travel or facilitated entry arrangements, according to the latest published rankings. The assessment places the UAE ahead of Singapore and Malaysia, which share second place with mobility scores of 175, while Spain follows with 174. The seven-destination advantage reflects the […]
Arabian Post Staff -Dubai Agility Global has agreed to sell its entire 65.12% holding in Dubai-based energy logistics company Tristar Holdings to Aegis Logistics, with proceeds potentially reaching $581 million. The agreement, approved by Agility’s board on Tuesday, forms part of a wider acquisition under which Aegis plans to purchase approximately 89.8% of Tristar from three shareholders for $809 million. Completion is expected by the end of […]
A former OpenAI engineer has appeared in a San Francisco federal court accused of secretly installing a recording device in a conference room used for confidential executive meetings. Abdulrahman Alfozan, 35, a Saudi national, was arrested on 9 October and made his initial court appearance on Tuesday, 13 October, the US Department of Justice said. He remains in federal custody pending a detention hearing scheduled for 19 […]
Canada has established a national artificial intelligence council to advise Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government on safe adoption, economic opportunities and domestic control of critical technology. The Prime Minister’s National Council on Artificial Intelligence, announced on 2 October, brings together researchers, entrepreneurs, investors and public-sector specialists to provide independent advice on the government’s AI for All strategy. Its remit includes managing technological risks, improving public services and […]
British travellers visiting Jeddah, Dammam or most Saudi airports could jeopardise their travel insurance after the UK government expanded its warnings amid missile and drone attacks on the kingdom. The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) now advises against all but essential travel to both cities and every airport in Saudi Arabia except Medina International Airport. The updated guidance, issued on 11 October, remained current on Tuesday. […]
Dubai’s Global Village will reopen at 6pm on Wednesday, 14 October, launching its 31st season with expanded cultural displays, new entertainment productions and additional attractions. The seasonal destination will operate until May 2027 under the theme “A More Wonderful World”. Organisers have announced 29 pavilions representing more than 90 cultures, alongside over 3,500 shopping outlets. The line-up includes a standalone Sri Lanka pavilion, a combined Russia and […]
Arabian Post Staff -Dubai Dubai Police has warned that increasingly convincing artificial intelligence deepfakes could undermine confidence in genuine photographs, videos and recordings, creating new obstacles for criminal investigations and digital security. A study prepared by the force’s Future Foresight Centre says the challenge is expanding beyond identifying fabricated material to establishing that authentic content has not been manipulated. It identifies potential consequences for public safety, information […]
Britain, the United States and international partners have issued a joint cybersecurity warning detailing how China-linked hackers allegedly use commercial tools and compromised infrastructure to penetrate organisations worldwide and steal sensitive information. The advisory, published on Thursday, identifies Integrity Technology Group, a company based in China, as an enabler of operations targeting government services, manufacturers, healthcare providers and technology networks. It describes automated scanning, large botnets and […]
USA Today Co. and publishers representing 19 newspapers have filed a federal lawsuit against OpenAI, seeking more than $250 million in damages over allegations that the artificial intelligence developer unlawfully used their journalism to train ChatGPT. The complaint, filed on Thursday in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, accuses OpenAI of copying hundreds of thousands of copyrighted articles without permission or payment. […]
A high-severity vulnerability in React Server Components can allow unauthenticated attackers to overwhelm vulnerable Next. js servers through specially crafted HTTP requests, potentially making affected applications unavailable. The flaw, identified as CVE-2026-23870 and tracked under security advisory GHSA-rv78-f8rc-xrxh, affects specific releases of React 19. Security maintainers have issued patches and urged developers operating affected server-side applications to upgrade immediately. The vulnerability carries a severity score of 7.5 […]
The Wikimedia Foundation has identified unauthorised activity by artificial intelligence agents it believes were operated by OpenAI, including attempts to misuse online tools and automated traffic that may have disrupted a public data service. The organisation, which operates Wikipedia and other open knowledge projects, said its investigation uncovered unapproved wiki edits, unsuccessful attempts to exploit a shared note-taking service and millions of requests to its public interfaces. […]
Britain, the United States and international partners have issued a joint cybersecurity warning identifying malicious operations enabled by China’s Integrity Technology Group, as American authorities seized internet domains associated with tools used to penetrate critical infrastructure networks. The advisory, released on Thursday by Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre and agencies from six other countries, describes how China-linked operators combine automated scanning, compromised devices and direct exploitation of […]
Arabian Post Staff -Dubai Saudi Arabia’s Almarai plans to invest more than $4 billion through 2031 to expand production capacity, diversify its food and beverage portfolio and strengthen its presence across priority markets. The Riyadh-based company unveiled details of its 2026–2031 growth strategy at a capital markets day on Thursday, outlining four priorities covering established businesses, new product categories, emerging distribution channels and geographical expansion. The investment […]
Dubai’s residential property market has recorded a sharp decline in transactions as the Middle East war dampens demand, while moderate price corrections have emerged in several segments, S&P Global Ratings said. The credit ratings agency warned that continuing regional instability, combined with substantial housing deliveries scheduled for 2027 and 2028, could intensify downward pressure on prices, particularly apartments purchased primarily for investment. S&P Global Ratings credit analyst […]
Google has released Nano Banana 2.1, cutting image-generation costs by approximately half while improving editing accuracy, visual consistency and text rendering, as developers face a deadline to migrate from its predecessor. The new artificial intelligence model, introduced on 6 October, targets developers, businesses and creative professionals using automated image production. Google says the upgrade delivers stronger visual quality, better adherence to instructions and greater consistency when users […]
