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The Saudi crown prince and de facto ruler, Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), finds himself in a difficult place, fighting three very different sorts of wars. The first — and the longest running — is the Saudi-led campaign against Houthi rebels in Yemen that on 25 March passed its fifth...
As COVID-19 continues to impact markets and national and global economies, it is worthwhile noting that Gulf economies were already slowing before the virus hit the region. A comprehensive assessment by London-based Capital Economics, released on February 25 but based on statistics up to...
On Friday, the media reported that Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), had arrested two powerful members of the royal family, Prince Ahmed bin Abdul Aziz, the sole remaining full brother of King Salman, and the former crown prince, Mohammed bin Nayef. Al Jazeera describes the...
There was a time, not so long ago, when the idea of Turkish troops placing their boots on non-Turkish soil was almost unthinkable. Turkey might bomb Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) positions in Iraq, Turkish aircraft might skirmish occasionally with Greek counterparts, but no one got their boots...
To the extent that people know anything about the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), they reasonably assume that they have something to do with the economy (development), and with the environment (sustainability). They’re only partly right. The bigger challenge, especially for countries in...
As the entire world knows, Jared Kushner has been working very hard over the past two and a half years at crafting a deal with so much cash in it ($50 billion) that no reasonable Palestinian could refuse. To his deepest consternation, when he finally revealed its contents to the public at...
On January 31, Gary Grappo, a former diplomat and Fair Observer’s chairman of the Board, grudgingly came to the defense of the Trump administration’s “deal of the century” that many feel has abusively been referred to as a “peace plan.” Grappo begins by admitting that it is...
Following President Donald Trump’s long-awaited unveiling of his “deal of the century” Middle East peace plan on January 28, the Palestinians now confront an existential moment: find a way to make it work or begin wrestling with how to accommodate a single state. The optics of Trump’s...
The long-awaited “deal of the century” crafted by Jared Kushner and presented by his father-in-law, US President Donald Trump, finally saw the light of day on January 28. Playing the role of the most brazenly dishonest of “honest brokers,” Trump, accompanied by legally (and morally)...
On January 8, Bahrain’s high criminal court of appeal upheld the death sentences of Mohammed Ramadan and Hussain Ali Moosa. The two were convicted in December 2014 in the killing of a police officer using confessions secured under torture. The UK Minister of State for the Middle East Andrew...
In an article published by Fair Observer, political analyst Amin Farhad provides some much-needed clarity on the ambiguous situation concerning the US military presence in the Middle East after the strike that killed Iranian General Qassem Soleimani on January 3. Although there has been a...
