LONDON,—Sky News is preparing to pull the plug on its controversial news joint venture with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) after the Sky News Arabia channel was accused of propaganda and genocide denial, the Daily Telegraph UK reported.

The British satellite broadcaster has effectively given notice that it will withdraw Sky News Arabia’s licence to use its brand next year, The Telegraph can reveal.

It is understood that Sky executives delivered the news to the UAE’s state media business, IMI, late last year and have completed the necessary legal work for the licence to lapse.

Communications between the two sides remain open and an agreement to salvage the partnership could yet be reached.

Sky declined to comment. IMI initially declined to comment but, after this story was published, a spokesman said it was “incorrect” to say any decisions had been taken on the future of the relationship.

“Any suggestion that decisions have been taken on the future of this partnership is incorrect,” they said.

“Discussions are actively under way, and both sides remain fully and positively engaged in that process.”

The spokesman said the discussions were commercially focused, and so confidential, but not tied to editorial matters.

The upcoming split follows Sky News Arabia being accused of whitewashing atrocities carried out by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a Sudanese paramilitary group backed by the UAE, according to Western intelligence agencies.

Sheikh Mansour, the Manchester City owner who also funds IMI, has allegedly played a key role controlling the UAE’s activities in Sudan. The UAE has denied culpability for atrocities committed by the RSF.

In 2024, the Gulf state lashed out at the UK via the former Conservative minister Nadhim Zahawi for “standing by while the Sudanese defame them” at the UN.

IMI had separately in 2023 attempted to take control of The Telegraph in a partnership with RedBird Capital Partners, a US private equity firm. The deal was blocked following an outcry over press freedom.

After extended wrangling, the pair have agreed to sell the newspaper on to the German publisher Axel Springer.

The decision by Sky to break ties with IMI will bring to an end a 50-50 partnership first agreed in 2010.

At the time, Sky was under the control of News Corp and Rupert Murdoch, who was seeking to build lucrative alliances with the UAE and planned to licence his entertainment brands to 20th Century Fox World, a theme park in Dubai.

However, the project was cancelled in 2018 before construction began.

Sky has been owned by the US cable giant Comcast since 2018. Its withdrawal from the UAE partnership will come after it also ended the licence held by News Corp to use the Sky News brand in Australia.

There, the tone of the channel is closer to Mr Murdoch’s partisan US juggernaut Fox News than to Sky News in the UK, which operates under strict impartiality regulations.

Sky News Arabia initially set out to bring the highest international standards to coverage of the Middle East, but UK-based former Sky executives told The Telegraph in November that the channel had become a mouthpiece for the UAE’s rulers.

One said an editorial board meant to monitor coverage had “no real power” as the channel was “owned by (UAE vice-president) Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed”.

Sky News Arabia generated international controversy last year in its reporting on the RSF’s capture of El Fasher, the capital of Darfur state.

Satellite imagery documented a massacre of thousands of civilians, with so many shot in the streets that piles of blood and bodies were visible from space.

In February, a UN fact-finding mission reported that an intent to commit genocide was the “only reasonable inference” from the pattern of rape, murder and ethnic cleansing.

But Sky News Arabia sent a reporter to the scene who is married to a senior official in the RSF’s parallel government.

Tsabih Mubarak Khatir was filmed hugging a female RSF commander who had urged fighters to rape Darfuri women, telling her “we are with you”.

She then filed reports claiming there was no evidence of the atrocities documented by satellite imagery or media reports gathered from those who managed to flee.

On its news website, Sky News Arabia ran articles suggesting that the satellite imagery was fake news.

The UAE is widely accused of backing the RSF in Sudan’s civil war as part of an effort to gain access to the country’s valuable ports, gold reserves and farmland.

IMI defended Sky News Arabia’s coverage in a statement to The Telegraph, saying accusations of bias were “outrageous and unfounded”.

A spokesman also said it was “categorical fake news” that the board of editorial standards had ceased to function effectively.

UK-based Sky News did not respond to detailed requests for comment on the reporting of its UAE-based sister channel.

Sky News is a British free-to-air television news channel, live stream news network, and news organisation, owned by Sky Group, a division of Comcast.

It was launched in the late 1980s as one of the first modern rivals to television news from the UK’s public service broadcasters, the BBC and ITV.

Rupert Murdoch, then owner of newspapers like The Sun and The Times, founded Sky Satellite (the operator of Sky News) in 1989. Sky News started broadcasting on February 5, 1989.

(With files from The Daily Telegraph UK)

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