Search results

A cargo aircraft that once belonged to Iran’s Mahan Air has been flown to Florida, two years after being impounded in Buenos Aires following a US court ruling.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s mid-February tour of the UAE and Qatar followed the signing of big energy supply deals and the release of former Indian naval officers sentenced to death in Doha for spying.

The IRGC Navy has launched long-range ballistic missiles from one of its ships for the first time, as it continues to flex its muscle in the face of heightened tensions with the United States, but an Iranian spy ship that was thought to have been working closely with Yemen’s Houthis appears to have been sidelined after a US cyberattack.

The Saudi government’s Public Investment Fund has been signing contracts with more lobbying and communications specialists, as it continues to face political scrutiny over its investments in the United States.

Bahrain has set up diplomatic relations with Vanuatu and Qatar with Tonga in a continuation of the trend for Gulf states to expand their diplomatic and development ties with small Pacific Island nations.

Hassan Al-Shehi has presented his credentials, to become the first UAE ambassador in Damascus since 2011, adding further to a bilateral relationship that seemed broken when Abu Dhabi supported opposition groups in the Syrian civil war’s early years.

Abu Dhabi National Oil Company is setting up a joint venture with BP focused on natural gas exploration and production in Egypt.

Alpha Dhabi reported a 25% rise in profits in 2023, alongside a 14% increase in revenues, as the investment firm owned by UAE national security advisor Sheikh Tahnoun Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan’s International Holding Company announced multi-billion-dinar joint venture deals with Adnoc Drilling and Mubadala.

Four Emirati soldiers and one Bahraini officer were killed in an attack on a military base in Mogadishu on 10 February. They had been training the Somali Armed Forces.

None of the Gulf’s emerging ´middle powers’ have issued a detailed policy document setting out their approach to projecting soft power, even as they continue to spend extravagantly while drawing in investment and talent. Autocracies have no real need to orchestrate the sort of public debate that might follow, even if they regularly sound out local opinion via traditional diwans or more modern polling techniques — not to mention ever more pervasive surveillance of their citizens and others’ communications.

Despite international criticism of its nuclear power programme – which critics allege is a cover for developing atomic weapons – the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran is pushing ahead with plans to develop 20GW of nuclear generating capacity by 2041.

Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed Sabah Al-Salem Al-Sabah has presented his government’s legislative programme to parliament, but critics inside and outside the National Assembly are likely to make political life difficult for the premier in the coming months, while Kuwait waits on a much-anticipated crown prince appointment

Plans by the Saudi state-owned Public Investment Fund to remodel the world of professional golf continue to cause controversy in Washington, where senators are taking a dim view of the fund’s approach to their inquiries. That is not denting the PIF’s sporting appetite though, with cycling, rugby and motorsport deals in the pipeline.

International Holding Company reported an 18% year-on-year rise in revenues to $16bn for 2023, but profits were flat at the increasingly high-profile conglomerate chaired by UAE national security adviser Sheikh Tahnoun Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan.

Khalid Al-Shamlan takes over the real estate and infrastructure file at the Abu Dhabi government’s investment fund.