More: UAE
Saudi religious diplomacy targets Jerusalem
A United Arab Emirates-backed Saudi effort to wrest control from Jordan of Islam’s holy places in Jerusalem signals a sharper, more overt edge to...
Saudi Arabia drags geopolitical baggage on to the World Cup pitch
Saudi Arabia has much at stake when its national soccer team enters the pitch for the opening match of the 2018 World Cup in...
2018 World Cup potentially set to become latest Middle Eastern battlefield
A possible Saudi-Iranian clash on the soccer pitch promises to be a highlight of this month’s World Cup in Russia.
It would add significant drama...
Mahathir’s reforms could put Saudi Arabia and the UAE on the spot
Newly elected Malaysian Prime Minister Mohammed Mahathir is adopting policies that could reshape the Southeast nation’s relations with powerful Gulf states.
A series of anti-corruption...
2018 World Cup offers Chechnya opportunity to play Middle Eastern politics
When strongman Ramzan Kadyrov last month opened The Local, a United Arab Emirates-funded luxury hotel in the Chechen capital of Grozny and prepared to...
Middle Eastern rivalry spills onto Asian soccer pitches
Saudi Arabia’s bitter rivalry with Iran has spilled onto Asian soccer pitches with the newly created South West Asian Football Federation (SWAFF) reflecting the...
Saudi Moroccan soccer spat symbolizes the Arab world’s new politics
A Saudi Moroccan soccer spat speaks volumes about the depth of change in the Arab world.
The spat over Saudi Arabia’s refusal to support a...
Gulf crisis escalates as major corporations are forced to take sides
The Gulf crisis that pits a United Arab Emirates-Saudi-led alliance against Qatar is escalating in discreet but no less worrisome ways that effect major...
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...
Arabs leverage lucrative nuclear contracts to enhance security and keep options open
Controversy in South Korea over a secret military clause in a nine-year old agreement to build the United Arab Emirates’ first nuclear reactor raises...