Russia is seeking backing from Abu Dhabi investors to build a giant airport in Cuba seen as an international gateway to Latin America, a report said Wednesday.

Talks on the proposal have been held between Moscow and Abu Dhabi state investment fund Mubadala, The National newspaper reported citing Russian Industry Minister Denis Manturov.

Ten foreign workers have died in a fire that hit a tire shop in Abu Dhabi, apparently trapping the laborers in a warehouse used illegally for accommodation, local media said Saturday.

Eight others were injured in the blaze that gutted the two-storey building in the Mussaffah district on Friday, Gulf News daily reported, saying that the makeshift hostel above the shop was originally a storage area.

Human Rights Watch urged the Louvre and Guggenheim museums Tuesday to pressure the United Arab Emirates to end worker abuse on a project that will host branches of the institutions.

Some employees at the Saadiyat Island site in Abu Dhabi, which will also be home to a campus of New York University, are withholding wages, confiscating workers' passports, and housing them in substandard accommodation, HRW said.

An Abu Dhabi fund said Sunday that it will provide $57 million worth of concessional loans for clean energy projects in five developing countries.

The projects were aimed at bringing "reliable and sustainable power to more than 280,000 people" in Argentina, Cuba, Iran, Mauritania and St. Vincent and the Grenadines, said the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development.

Customs agents at Rafik Hariri International Airport thwarted on Sunday an attempt to smuggle narcotic pills, in the third such operation in the past 24 hours, the state-run National News Agency reported.

NNA said the agents arrested an Egyptian arriving from Cairo at around 1:30 am after finding 2,050 red-colored pills inside two icons made of wood.

The customs at Rafik Hariri International Airport foiled an attempt to smuggle 3 kilograms of cocaine to Lebanon, the state-run National News Agency reported on Saturday.

According to NNA, customs employees detained a 33-year-old Brazilian transit passenger identified by his initials R. M. en route to Abu Dhabi for the possession of the drugs.

The head of the main Syrian opposition group in exile said Sunday he expected the support of the international community to press the fight against Damascus and Islamic State jihadists.

The United States is pushing for the formation of a broad international coalition to tackle IS which has captured swathes of Iraq and Syria, and has already secured the backing of 10 Arab states including Saudi Arabia.

UAE telecom giant Etisalat said Thursday it expects to complete its purchase of Vivendi's 53 percent stake in Maroc Telecom, Morocco's main provider, on May 14.

French media and entertainment group Vivendi in November announced it had agreed to sell its Maroc Telecom stake to Etisalat for 4.2 billion euros.

Nine suspected al-Qaida members accused of plotting attacks in the United Arab Emirates have gone on trial in Abu Dhabi's state security court, newspapers reported Tuesday.

A first hearing was held Monday, and the case adjourned until May 19 to allow for defense lawyers to be appointed, the reports said.

Dense morning fog led to flight diversions from Abu Dhabi and Dubai airports, causing delays Thursday, officials and an airline said.

Dubai Airport announced delays on its Twitter account due to the fog and the Gulf News daily quoted a spokesman as saying that low visibility has "caused the diversion of eight flights into Dubai and one flight was canceled."