Turning Qatar into an Island: Saudi cuts off its nose to spite its face
There’s a cutting-off-the-nose-to-spite-the face aspect to a Saudi plan to turn Qatar into an island by digging a 60-kilometre ocean channel through the two...
Remembering Syria: Iran struggles with potentially explosive environmental crisis
Iranian leaders are struggling, three months after anti-government protests swept the Islamic republic, to ensure that environmental issues that helped sparked a popular uprising...
Moderating Islam: Saudi Prince Mohammed walks on shaky ground
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has dazzled international media and public opinion by lifting some restrictions on women’s rights, holding out hope for...
China moves to counter violent and non-violent expressions of Uighur identity
China is moving on multiple fronts to pre-empt in the short-term Uighur foreign fighters fleeing Syria and Iraq from reasserting themselves in Central Asia...
Egyptian ultras: Down but not out
Egyptian general-turned-president Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi won a second term virtually unchallenged in what is widely seen as a flawed election. The run-up to the...
Anticipated harder US policy towards Iran magnifies Iranian Arab protest
Protests have erupted in Iran’s oil-rich province of Khuzestan barely three months after the Islamic republic was rocked by mass anti-government demonstrations.
Sparked by anger...
Will the real Pakistan stand up, please?
Two headlines this month beg the question US officials have been grappling with for more than a decade: Will the real Pakistan stand up,...
Natural gas: An underrated driver of Saudi hostility towards Iran and Qatar
Debilitating hostility between Saudi Arabia and Iran is about lots of things, not least who will have the upper hand in a swath of...
Make Wine Not War: Wineism’s recipe for a sustainable political future
When Miguel Torres, scion of an iconic Spanish winemaking dynasty, described the impact of the Catalan quest for independence on his more than a...
Saudi Prince Mohammed’s religious moderation unlikely to change Asian realities
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman may be seeking to revert his kingdom to an unspecified form of moderate Islam but erasing the impact...