Mitt Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts and staunch critic of Donald Trump during the recent presidential campaign, left the clubhouse at Mr Trump’s New Jersey golf course with no announcement about whether he will join the new administration. Donald Trump is holding meetings with prospective members of his administration at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey this weekend. Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee for president […]
1979: A threatening revolution Saudi Arabia, a young country pieced together only in the 1930s, has built its legitimacy on religion. By promoting its stewardship of the holy sites at Mecca and Medina, it could justify its royal family’s grip on power. Continue reading the main story Iran’s revolution, in 1979, threatened that legitimacy. Iranians toppled their authoritarian government, installing Islamists who claimed to represent “a revolution […]
The House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday for legislation to extend American sanctions on Iran for 10 years, a move that proponents called critical economic leverage to ensure Iranian compliance with an international nuclear agreement. The legislation, known as the Iran Sanctions Extension Act, needs Senate approval and President Obama’s signature before the end of the year, when American sanctions are set to expire. Under the […]
For the South Koreans who are binge-viewing all six seasons of Game of Thrones on HBO Asia, the rise, and now anticipated fall, of their 11th president will be familiar territory. There are obvious parallels between South Korea’s fragile co-existence with its unpredictable neighbour and the geopolitics of George RR Martin’s fantasy world, in which the dark forces in the north are held at bay by a […]
Saudi Arabia’s energy minister thinks OPEC will reach a deal to cut oil output and said a production ceiling of 32.5 million barrels a day would speed the balancing of supply and demand. The group is near a consensus on capping production for at least six months, said his Algerian counterpart. “I am still optimistic that the agreement reached in Algiers to put a ceiling to production […]
Donald Trump has begun putting together his transition team and naming the cabinet members who will come to power in Washington after the inauguration on January 20. Follow the FT’s guide to the main players he has already picked — and the positions yet to be filled — here. Trump’s choices: MIKE PENCE Vice-president © AFP Mike Pence, the Indiana governor and former congressman, was picked as Donald […]
HONG KONG Chinese telecoms equipment group ZTE Corp (000063.SZ) (0763.HK) said on Friday it has won a further reprieve to Feb. 27 on export restrictions that were imposed on the company by the U.S. government. In March, the U.S. Commerce Department hit ZTE with some of the toughest-ever U.S. export restrictions for allegedly breaking sanctions against Iran but has since issued temporary reprieves on the curbs. The […]
Qatar’s Energy Minister Mohammed Al Sada said on Thursday that Iran and Iraq were being asked to freeze oil output at current levels as part of a wider deal to restrain production. “We are discussing with both countries on that and we are looking at various ways and means of coming to a mutual understanding,” Sada told reporters. The energy minister also said that Qatar, the world’s […]
When Iran conducted a mass hanging in August of Sunni prisoners accused of attacks in its restive western Kurdish region, the executions were widely criticized as an egregious human rights violation. But death-penalty opponents also were appalled at what came next. Videos that showed apparently coerced confessions of the prisoners — interwoven with ominous-sounding music and clips of unrelated assaults by militants of the Islamic State — […]
November 17, 2016 by: Anjli Raval, Oil and Gas Correspondent Worries are growing that a build-up of unsold oil off the coast of the UK will keep prices down as the broader market surplus increases pressure on Opec to cut production. Industry analysts and shipbrokers said an excess of light sweet crudes, has led to a surge in the number of Aframax tankers — which carry around […]
After winning the Best Actress award for lead star Jacyln Jose at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Ma’ Rosa has been chosen as the Philippines’s entry to the Best Foreign Language Film category of the 89th Academy Awards, scheduled to be held on February 26, 2017. Can director Brillante Mendoza’s gritty urban drama give the Philippines its first ever Oscar nomination and award? Two industry websites think […]
Rotana to open 16 hotels in 2017 The UAE hotel company Rotana has announced that it will open 16 hotels next year, including five in the UAE and four in Saudi Arabia. There will also be two hotels each for Turkey and Iraq and the company’s first property in Muscat, Oman. The UAE properties are the Capital Centre Rotana in Abu Dhabi, complementing the existing Capital Centre […]
DUBAI// A man sexually assaulted two maids he hired to clean his house, the Dubai Criminal Court heard. The 50-year-old Iranian accountant hired the Filipinas to clean his home in Al Nahda for three hours last August. “We arrived at 3pm and divided the work, I took the bedrooms and she took the kitchen. Ten minutes later she came to me and told me to be careful […]
BAGHDAD/BASHIQA: Iraqi militias said on Wednesday they had driven ISIS terrorists from an air base west of Mosul, a victory which would threaten its supply route from Syria to its last major stronghold in Iraq. “The airport of Tal Afar has been liberated,” Yusif Al-Kallabi, a spokesman for Popular Mobilization, a coalition of mainly Iranian-backed militias, told Iraqi state TV.The capture of the base, if confirmed, could […]
Photo Destroyed buildings in the Syrian village of Kfar Jales, near Idlib, on Wednesday, following air strikes by Syrian and Russian warplanes. Credit Omar Haj Kadour/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images LONDON — President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, in his first remarks since the American election, has called President-elect Donald J. Trump “a natural ally, together with the Russians, Iranians and many other countries” in the struggle against […]
By Alex Lawler and Rania El Gamal | LONDON/DOHA LONDON/DOHA OPEC officials are working to nail down details of their plan to limit oil supply and gaps over some sticking points are narrowing, OPEC sources said, a sign of progress in finalizing the exporter group’s first such deal since 2008. OPEC agreed in Algeria on Sept. 28 to limit supply with special conditions given to Libya, Nigeria […]
Russia launched its long-awaited offensive across Syria on Tuesday just hours after Vladimir Putin discussed the conflict with Donald Trump amid growing questions about how the incoming American president will deal with his Russian counterpart. Sergei Shoigu, Russia’s defence minister, said the air strikes were targeting Isis and Syrian jihadis, their ammunition depots and training camps, in the provinces of Idlib and Homs. Opposition activists said the […]
|By Matein Khalid| Donald Trump’s shock win will have a profound impact on the GCC economic constellation via multiple feedback loops. His economic policies mean a much higher US dollar, anathema to GCC economies since it correlates with stock/property market crashes, banking stress and oil slumps. This is the macroeconomic linkage due to the GCC US dollar peg whose lessons the region learnt the hard way in […]
DUBAI: Yemeni Foreign Minister Abdel Malek Al-Mekhlafi said on Tuesday his government was not interested in a cease-fire and unity government announcement by US Secretary of State John Kerry.Speaking after talks in Oman, which is close to the Houthis, and in the UAE, a key member of the Saudi-led coalition, Kerry said he had presented Houthi delegates with a document outlining a cease-fire and peace deal.He said […]
By Steve Holland and Emily Stephenson | WASHINGTON/NEW YORK WASHINGTON/NEW YORK President-elect Donald Trump closed in on naming two early Wall Street backers to key economic positions but jettisoned a national security expert from his transition team on Tuesday, a sign of the premium he places on loyalty as he confronts the task of building his administration. Trump, a Republican outsider who won a surprise election victory […]
Photo A blanket of smog covered Tehran on Monday. Every year, heavy pollution gets trapped by the Alborz Mountains. Credit Atta Kenare/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images TEHRAN — This week, as a yellow blanket of smog settled in for what is typically a winter-long stay, Reza Shajiee, a prominent hipster socialite, posted a picture of himself on Instagram wearing a gas mask under his motorcycle helmet. The […]
November 15, 2016 by: Kathrin Hille in Moscow Vladimir Putin has urged Donald Trump to co-operate on the war in Syria and develop economic ties in his first push to improve strained Russian relations with the US following America’s election. The Russian president spoke by telephone with Mr Trump, the US president-elect, late on Monday and expressed a “willingness to build a dialogue between partners with the […]
Photo Donald Trump at a rally against the Iran deal in Washington last year. He vowed during his campaign to renegotiate or renounce the agreement. Credit Doug Mills/The New York Times Seventy-six national security experts urged President-elect Donald J. Trump on Monday to reverse his hostility to the nuclear agreement signed with Iran last year and to use it as a tool to ease other tensions with […]
BRUSSELS: The European Union extended its sanctions on Syria on Monday, banning the country’s central bank chief and its finance minister from traveling in Europe and freezing their assets in a further step to isolate President Bashar Assad.The decision to target Central Bank Gov. Duraid Durgham and Finance Minister Maamoun Hamdan, along with 16 other government ministers, made good on the EU’s threat last month to increase […]
