19 JANUARY 2017 – DUBAI, UAE: Khalaf Ahmad Al Habtoor, Founding Chairman of the Al Habtoor Group, hosted his inaugural ‘Open Talk’ session with a group of 50 of his social media followers. Open Talk is a monthly series of face-to-face discussions on key issues impacting the UAE and wider region. Al Habtoor said, “Social media is such a powerful platform. I have many followers who I […]
By Lisa Barrington | BEIRUT BEIRUT After years of political deadlock, Lebanon finally has a new government. Now it needs a new economy. Battered by war in neighbouring Syria, neglected by wrangling politicians and caught in rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran, the pillars of the economy – remittances from overseas workers, tourism and real estate – are not what they were. Long-term, Lebanon is searching for […]
ABU DHABI // More than 30 Christian leaders held prayers at the site of a 7th century monastery on Abu Dhabi’s Sir Bani Yas Island during a landmark visit sponsored by the Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Court and the National Programme for Tolerance. The recitation of the Lord’s Prayer by Christian leaders, including the regional archbishops of the Syrian Orthodox and Greek Orthodox churches, is thought to […]
WASHINGTON It would be better for the United States to carefully review the 2015 Iran nuclear deal rather than unilaterally withdraw from it, Nikki Haley, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for ambassador to the United Nations, said on Wednesday. “I think what would be more beneficial at this point is that we look at all the details of the Iran deal, we see if they (the Iranians) […]
Other relatives told Israel Radio that Mr. Qian, the driver, was not an extremist. When asked in the past what he would do when the police arrived to evict him, Mr. Qian had responded that he would drive to his mother’s home in a nearby town. Michal Haramati, a rights activist from Jerusalem, who was in the village at the time, told the Israeli news website Ynet […]
Adel Al-Jubeir, Saudi Arabian foreign minister, said the US may face a flood lawsuits if it retains its Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA) bill. The bill allows US nationals to sue foreign states for supporting terrorism, regardless of if they are on the US state sponsor of terrorism list or not, thus ending the concept of foreign sovereign immunity. Al-Jubeir warned that this would mean […]
TEHRAN — Even if President-elect Donald J. Trump would want to, there is no chance of renegotiating the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran, the country’s president, Hassan Rouhani, said on Tuesday. “Mr. Trump says things like that he is not happy with the nuclear deal, or he calls it the worst agreement,” Mr. Rouhani said. “These are more like slogans. I consider it unlikely that anything will […]
|Arabian Post Staff| A session of the Middle East Policy Council held last week in Washington on the theme. “U.S. Commitments in the Middle East: Advice to the Trump Administration” offered viewpoints from veterans of the Obama administration and observers of the incoming Trump one on how President-elect Trump’s worldview might intersect with some of the region’s most pressing foreign policy challenges. The four-person panel had expertise […]
Speaking of Kushner, I was told he refused to meet with a senior French diplomat after a demand from Trump Tower that the Paris conference be canceled was ignored. Get used to my-way-or-the-highway diplomacy with team Trump. U.N. resolution 2334 infuriated Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, who called it “shameful.” He seemed surprised that ignoring Obama’s veto of an earlier settlements resolution in 2011 would have […]
DUBAI Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Tuesday U.S. President-elect Trump cannot unilaterally cancel the nuclear deal Tehran signed with world powers including Washington and that talk of renegotiating it was “meaningless”. Trump, who will take office on Friday, has called the July 2015 agreement “the worst deal ever negotiated”. He has threatened to either scrap the agreement or seek a better deal. Under Iran’s agreement with […]
Photo Celebrations erupted in the courtroom when the verdict was announced. Credit Mohamed El-Shahed/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images CAIRO — An Egyptian court on Monday upheld a ruling that said the government cannot transfer control of two key Red Sea islands to its main financial backer, Saudi Arabia, deepening a rift between the two Middle Eastern countries. The alliance between Egypt and Saudi Arabia, two of the […]
Bahrain’s foreign ministry summoned Iraq’s ambassador in Manama to protest against remarks by Iraqi officials denouncing the execution of men convicted of a 2014 bomb attack, state news agency BNA said on Monday. The execution on Sunday of three men, whose attack killed three policemen, has drawn condemnation from rights groups. Iran called it a “reckless” act. British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said Britain opposes the death […]
TEHRAN — Perplexed residents here focused their eyes — and smartphones — upward on Monday afternoon as antiaircraft weapons hidden on rooftops suddenly began blasting away at “an unidentified flying object” in the clear sky. The thunderous clack-clack of gunfire and small dots of white smoke overhead provided a loud and unexpected accompaniment to the start of city’s evening rush, as videos show. Anti-aircraft fire on the […]
LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – As university students mill around a bright and airy study hall in London, Eiad Zinah converses in his native language Arabic with a female student from Germany. It is the first time the pair have met for a language tuition session – and it is the Syrian refugee who is running the tutorial today, not the other way around. “It’s an amazing […]
He was the president who took out Osama bin Laden but was blindsided by Isis; who made Asia his priority but saw his trade deal for the region stymied; who built bridges with once sworn enemies in Cuba and Iran but who sparred with allies in Israel and Saudi Arabia. The mixed and sometimes messy foreign policy legacy of Barack Obama includes a climate change agreement and […]
DUBAI/TEHRAN: Iran will not renegotiate its nuclear agreement with world powers, even if it faces new US sanctions after Donald Trump becomes president, Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Sunday.US “hostility” to Iran is growing day by day despite Tehran’s nuclear deal, the senior Iranian official said, ahead of the first anniversary of the historic accord.“The United States has done whatever it can do (to) slow […]
ADEN: At least 26 Yemeni fighters died in fresh clashes and an air strike as government forces advanced against Shiite Houthi rebels near a key shipping strait, medics and officials said Saturday.A week-long assault by government forces and their allies aims to expel the Iran-backed Houthis from Dhubab region, close to the Bab Al-Mandab strait linking the Red Sea and Indian Ocean.Twelve bodies of Houthi insurgents were […]
The head of Dubai Land Department (DLD) has predicted an rebound for the city’s real estate market this year, signaling an upward trend for sustained growth in the run-up to Expo 2020. Sultan Butti Bin Merjen, director general of DLD made the comments in an annual report for 2016 which revealed that total real estate transactions in Dubai exceeded AED259 billion ($70.5 billion). This was marginally down […]
PARIS Over the past two decades, planemakers Airbus (AIR.PA) and Boeing (BA.N) have traded the crown in the annual orders race, and it was usually clear who had bragging rights in the fiercely competitive $120 billion annual jet market. On Wednesday, Airbus retained the top spot when it said it had recorded a total of 731 net orders for 2016, beating Boeing’s tally of 668 for the […]
‘Contemporary art is not a decoration, it is a statement. It is a wonderful seismograph of our societies and realities.” These words were part of the opening speech given last week by founder Lorenzo Rudolf at the seventh edition of Art Stage Singapore in the South-east Asian island city. Rudolf, from Switzerland, has made it his mission to champion those sentiments since 1991, when he took over […]
Video A Hunger Strike for His Wife Arash Sadeghi, an Iranian political prisoner, went on hunger strike for more than two months to protest the incarceration of his wife, Golrokh Ebrahimi-Iraee, who was temporarily released. By NEETI UPADHYE on Publish Date January 4, 2017. . Watch in Times Video » TEHRAN — The hunger strike, a pressure tactic of self-starvation used by political protesters around the world, […]
If Donald Trump was concerned by the clashing views that emerged from his cabinet nominees in the first days of Senate confirmation hearings, he did not show it on Friday. “All of my Cabinet nominee (sic) are looking good and doing a great job,” the president-elect tweeted before sunrise in New York. “I want them to be themselves and express their own thoughts, not mine!” But the […]
International investigators have said for the first time that they suspect President Bashar al-Assad and his brother are responsible for the use of chemical weapons in the Syrian conflict, according to a document seen by Reuters. A joint inquiry for the United Nations and global watchdog the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) had previously identified only military units and did not name any commanders […]
Throughout the presidential campaign and since Donald Trump’s election, former diplomats, retired generals, and foreign-policy analysts have attempted to decipher, explain, and predict his foreign-policy strategy. Will he pursue the big-stick model of Teddy Roosevelt? Embrace a neo-Nixonian “madman” strategy? Is Trump actually a champion of foreign-policy realism, or perhaps no realist at all? But all those questions make the same mistake — they assume the incoming […]
