Tag Archives: Qatar

The current spike in oil and gas prices could not have come at a worse time. On the eve of the UN COP26 global climate conference in Scotland this month, soaring energy prices are resulting in increased investor interest in fossil fuel companies. The S&P 500 energy sector is up …

There is no clear path for unfreezing Afghan government funds, Qatar’s foreign minister told a conference on Wednesday, highlighting the economic challenges Afghanistan faces under its new Taliban rulers. Qatar is hosting talks between the Taliban and Western officials and is seen as having influence over the Taliban movement. Much …

The Taliban held their first face-to-face talks with a joint EU-US delegation Tuesday in Qatar as the hard-line Islamists pursue their diplomatic push for international support. Afghanistan’s new rulers are seeking recognition, as well as assistance to avoid a humanitarian disaster, after they returned to power in August following the …

The European Union foreign policy chief said on Sunday the Taliban government’s behaviour up to now was “not very encouraging”, and any economic collapse in Afghanistan would raise the risk of terrorism and other threats. Josep Borrell, speaking at a joint news conference with his Saudi Arabian counterpart, also said …

France, Britain and Germany are working on a United Nations proposal aimed at establishing a safe zone in Kabul to allow safe passage for people trying to leave Afghanistan, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Sunday. Macron, who said France had begun discussions with the Taliban to explore how further …

Several Middle Eastern leaders and French President Emmanuel Macron met in Baghdad on Saturday at a summit hosted by Iraq, which wants its neighbours to talk to each other instead of settling scores on its territory. Iraq’s security has improved in recent years but it is still plagued by big …

Israeli warplanes bombed Hamas sites in Gaza in response to incendiary balloons launched from the Palestinian enclave that caused brush fires in southern Israel, its military said early on Tuesday. There were no immediate reports of casualties in the air strikes that targeted what the military said was a weapons …

Former President Donald Trump launched on Saturday a sustained attack on President Joe Biden’s handling of the retreat of U.S. forces from Afghanistan, which he called “the greatest foreign policy humiliation” in U.S. history. Trump, a Republican who has dangled the possibility of running again for president in 2024, has …

U.S. President Joe Biden thanked Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani in a call for the country’s “generous support” as Washington evacuates thousands of people from Afghanistan, the White House said on Friday. Biden said the airlifts “would not have been possible without the early support from Qatar,” the …

The Taliban have agreed to allow “safe passage” from Afghanistan for civilians struggling to join a US-directed airlift from the capital, President Joe Biden’s national security adviser said, although a timetable for completing the evacuation of Americans, Afghan allies and others has yet to be worked out with the country’s …

Last week, the UAE introduced Nora Al-Matrooshi as the first Arab woman to start training to be an astronaut as she could play a pivotal role in the country’s upcoming space missions. The UAE, considered a newcomer to the world of space exploration, sent the first Emirati into space as …

Netflix has announced a new hardship fund in collaboration with the Arab Fund for Arts & Culture (AFAC) to support those most affected by the pandemic in the Arab region’s film and TV community. The fund, valued at $500,000, will provide financial support in the form of individual grants ($2000 …

The Islamic insurance market will continue to grow at current levels in the coming two to three years as more GCC, southeast Asian and African countries introduce mandatory health care, according to Moody’s Investors Service. Takaful growth will be helped by relatively low levels of insurance penetration and large Muslim …

The U.S. envoy for the Horn of Africa, Jeffrey Feltman, is traveling to Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Kenya this week, the State Department said on Tuesday. From May 31 to June 6, Feltman planned to meet with senior officials “to discuss cooperative approaches to supporting a …

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit Israel and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank on Wednesday and Thursday as part of Washington’s efforts to build on the Gaza truce, a source briefed on the planning said on Saturday. US, Israeli and Palestinian officials have not published Blinken’s …

Israel and Hamas will cease fire across the Gaza Strip border as of Friday, the Palestinian Islamist faction and Egyptian state TV said, bringing a potentially tenuous halt to the fiercest fighting in years. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said his security cabinet had voted unanimously in favour of …

The U.N. Security Council will publicly discuss the worsening violence between Israel and Palestinian militants on Sunday, diplomats said, reaching a compromise over U.S. objections to a meeting on Friday. Diplomats said the United States, a close ally of Israel, had initially suggested a virtual public meeting could be held …

Palestinian militants fired barrages of rockets into Israel and Israeli warplanes pounded Gaza in the early hours of Tuesday, and unrest also spread within Israeli Arab communities in Jerusalem. A Palestinian official said Egypt, Qatar and the United Nations were trying to intervene to stem the violence – the worst …

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz discussed bilateral ties in a call on Tuesday, the Turkish presidency said, the second conversation between the two leaders in less than a month. Turkey is seeking to improve ties with the Gulf Arab state after they were thrown …

Turkey will hold an Afghan peace summit from April 24 to May 4 meant to jump-start efforts to end Afghanistan’s war and sketch out a possible political settlement, Turkish authorities said on Tuesday. The summit includes the United Nations and Qatar as part of a U.S.-backed push to advance talks …

President Joe Biden has decided to withdraw the remaining U.S. troops from Afghanistan by Sept. 11, 2021, 20 years to the day after al Qaeda’s attacks triggered America’s longest war, U.S. officials said on Tuesday. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin are expected to …

The United States and the United Arab Emirates will work together on coordinating finance to decarbonise the economy, focusing on areas including hydrogen, renewable energy and low carbon urban design, a joint statement said on Monday. U.S. climate envoy John Kerry, who is leading efforts to get countries to step …

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani will put forward a three-phase peace roadmap for Afghanistan during a proposed meeting in Turkey, seeking an agreement with the Taliban and a ceasefire before elections, a document seen by Reuters shows. Washington is pushing for a conference to be hosted by Turkey, with U.N. involvement, …

International deliveries of arms were flat in the period 2016-2020, ending more than a decade of increases, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said in a report on Monday. The United States, France and Germany – three of the world’s biggest exporters – increased deliveries, but falls in exports …

Turkey’s actions must show alignment with Egypt’s principles and goals for relations between the two countries to return to normal, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said on Sunday. Shoukry confirmed contacts between Cairo and Ankara after years of tensions but indicated that dialogue was limited. Relations have been frosty since …

A powerful car bomb near a police station on Friday night killed at least seven people and wounded more than 50 others in Afghanistan’s western Herat province, officials said. Herat Governor Sayed Abdul Wahid Qatali said several women and children were among the dead. He added that at least 53 …

U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez said on Tuesday a May 1 deadline for withdrawing U.S. forces from Afghanistan may have to be reconsidered because the Taliban are not meeting their commitments under a 2020 peace deal. “I’m very concerned about the viability of the peace process in …

The U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan proposed a shakeup of the stalled peace process this week, including an interim government and a conference of key players, according to diplomatic and political sources, but his plan faced immediate objections by the warring sides. Afghan-born U.S. diplomat Zalmay Khalilzad is on a …

Libya’s eastern strongman Khalifa Haftar has offered his backing for a peace process that seeks to end a decade of chaos, after meeting the head of a new transitional presidential council. The military commander met with Mohammed Younes Menfi, a former diplomat who also comes from eastern Libya, and who …

Egyptian authorities on Saturday released a journalist working for Qatar’s Al Jazeera television network who was held in pre-trial detention for more than four years, his brother and a lawyer told Reuters. Mahmoud Hussein, an Egyptian detained in December 2016‮‮ ‬‬after arriving in Cairo from Doha on vacation, was held …

Iran has hosted the political leader of Afghanistan’s Taliban during the past week, offering Tehran’s own help as a mediator in peace talks between the insurgents and the Afghan government that have become stalled in Qatar. Shi’ite Muslim Iran has been a foe of the hardline Sunni Muslim Taliban for …

After months out of the global spotlight, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has swept back to centre stage with eye-catching diplomatic and economic moves aimed at showing the new U.S. president he is a valuable partner who can get things done. Within the span of a few weeks, the …

The UAE Minister for Foreign Affairs Dr. Anwar Gargash has told Arab News that the GCC is “collectively in agreement with any threat towards its security” from Iran. In a virtual press conference on Thursday, the minister addressed the 41st GCC summit held in AlUla where an agreement was signed …

The debate as to whether Diego Maradona is the best player the world has ever seen will spark back into life with the news of his death at the age of 60 on Wednesday, However, those lucky Saudi fans who saw him in action in Jeddah in 1987 will surely …

Female assassins who lured an Afghan security official to his death with promises of sex before shooting him and dumping his body at a cemetery are among thousands of Taliban criminals freed as part of a fragile peace plan. While the ultra-conservative Islamists ban women from many areas of life …

Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister said on Saturday he was confident that Democrat Joe Biden’s incoming U.S. administration would pursue policies that help regional stability and that any discussions with it would lead to strong cooperation. Riyadh is bracing itself for a new U.S. president who pledged on the election campaign …

A prominent women’s rights advocate who was part of Afghanistan’s government’s team of negotiators at the intra-Afghan talks with the Taliban said that despite the negotiations in Doha, Qatar, the insurgent group believe in regaining power “through military means.” “(Since signing the deal with the US), the Taliban feel they …

The main focus of Middle East peace efforts should be to bring Israel and the Palestinians back to the negotiating table, the Saudi foreign minister said on Thursday in a comment suggesting that Israeli-Saudi normalization is unlikely any time soon. “I believe that the focus now needs to be on …

A suicide bomber drove an explosive-laden truck into a checkpoint in Afghanistan late on Wednesday killing 11 people, as peace talks between the government and Taliban militants in Qatar seemed to have no bearing on the violence at home. No group claimed responsibility for the attack in the southern province …

Despite over a year of negotiations, Sudan is facing a fresh obstacle to its removal from a U.S. terrorism list that has hindered its economy: a demand that it normalize relations with Israel, three sources familiar with the matter said. However, three Sudanese government officials told Reuters on Thursday that …

Saudi Arabia’s price for normalising relations with Israel is the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, a senior member of the Saudi royal family reaffirmed on Friday. Prince Turki al-Faisal was apparently responding to U.S. President Donald Trump who said on Wednesday he expected Saudi …

by James M. Dorsey | Jul 14, 2020 An initial version of this story was first published in Inside Arabia A podcast version of this story is available on Soundcloud, Itunes, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn, Spreaker, Pocket Casts, Tumblr, Podbean, Audecibel, Patreon and Castbox. A Palestinian move to secure Palestine’s energy needs by tying them to high-stakes Turkish regional gambits constitutes an effort to reduce Palestinian dependence on …

Israel called on Tuesday for the immediate resumption of indirect talks on the return of two Israeli civilians and the remains of two soldiers held for years in Gaza, but the territory’s Islamist rulers Hamas dismissed the overture. The Israeli appeal came in a statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s …

Facebook Inc (FB.O) said on Monday it had removed two networks of fake accounts linked to digital marketing firms in Egypt and India which were pushing dueling narratives about countries in the Gulf on the Facebook and Instagram platforms. Facebook, in its first monthly report on information operations, said both …