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Across The Region, News, Data & Analysis: Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Yemen
Iran’s reformers have consolidated their disparate political factions into a single parliamentary bloc. The Second Khordad Front could eventually command more than 200
Arms deals are in the air, with several contracts for the U.K.’s BAe Systems. Bahrain’s new deal was signed at Farnborough; Algeria is buying British equipment through Qatar; and there is speculation that BAe may be negotiating a new-style agreement with Saudi Arabia.
Following the imposition of sanctions and other UN Security Council (UNSC) resolutions on Iraq, extra-regional actors’ attitudes towards Baghdad have become central to Iraq’s international rehabilitation. Whilst the inter-state community and international organisations can work to build a humanitarian agenda for economic rehabilitation, it is the permanent members
As well as bringing disaster to Kuwait, the August 1990 Iraqi invasion has become synonymous to many Arabs with a decline in the political fortunes of the Arab world and the onset of paralysis in Arab regional organisations. Arab media and inter-Arab diplomacy focuses on two recurrent themes –
This is the first of three articles which will look at the changed and changing political imperatives that have come into place in the Gulf region since Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. The second and third articles will look at attitudes towards Iraq from within the region and the wider world community respectively.
With the sole exception of Oman, which has resolved all of its border disputes, each of the GCC states has been active in attempting to settle its territorial claims during recent weeks. These disputes have ranged from the highly visible International Court of Justice (ICJ) arbitration over the claims and counterclaims forwarded by Qatar and
Tracking the innocuous air defence war over Iraq is not an activity that many journalists stick with for long. To the short-term observer nothing much changes and little of value can be confirmed. Just occasionally, however, the conflict offers fruitful insights into the political dimension of the ongoing conflict with Iraq. In
The US State Department’s Patterns of Global Terrorism 1999 presents a satisfying picture of the containment of global and Middle Eastern terrorism. In contrast to the 1998 report there were no mass casualty attacks, whilst the encouraging trends displayed in that report - effective counterterrorist activities pushing terrorism into the lawless fringes of world society – continued.
Iran’s rightist faction has employed a wide array of tools in recent weeks. The constitutional bodies they dominate, including the Assembly of Experts, the Expediency Council and the Guardian Council have used every means at their disposal to negate the reformist victory in the Majlis elections and seek an extension of the current conservative
The response to Opec’s recent decision to increase production quotas by 7% was, by and large, positive from consumers and producers alike – not least of all the United States where the spectre of high oil prices was beginning to loom increasingly large in public awareness. Opec itself, very naturally, stressed that the decision to raise production
Whilst it is unclear whether the ‘Iraq Trip Report’ recently released by a number of US Democrat and independent congressional staffers will prompt a major reconsideration of US policy on Iraqi sanctions, the report contains many interesting observations on the state of Iraqi society, on its economic prospects and on the future of UN operations in the country. Though only recently released, the report describes the August 1999 trip made by five US legislators to Iraq, and their conclusions on the issues of sanctions and depleted uranium-related illnesses.
The Gulf Arab states will have watched the recent parliamentary elections in Iran with more than just neighbourly interest. The high turnout of the electorate was a solid reminder of the democratic process at work in the Islamic Republic and the regional implications of a spread of democracy will not have been lost on the traditonal Arab governments of the area.