The feud between Qatar and the other Gulf companies, in particular Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), is over. Saudi Arabia has agreed to open its airspace to Qatar and the Qatari ruler, Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, arrived in Riyadh last week for the GCC conference and was greeted by Saudi's Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman...
New Zealand PM bows out
Here's an article from The Economist which, while talking about John Key's resignation, states that NZ is "one of the most successful countries in the world. While this is debatable, there is no doubt that Key has had successes- namely international recognition- along with failures, housing, immigration and the environment. We have yet to see whether the new Prime Minister, John English, will have the same success.
A humanitarian disaster is looming in Yemen. In a list of countries where crises are set to worsen, Yemen is ranked as number three, according to the International Rescue Committee (IRC). The Civil War in Yemen started in 2014 and has been ongoing. Continued conflict, widespread hunger and a collapsing international aid response threaten to dramati...
Lucia Dore and Carole Railton discuss the options you could consider if you are "home alone" this Christmas. This article first appeared for www.behaviouralshift.com. It's that time of year, again. But this time, instead of deciding what you want to do at Christmas, it is probably forced upon you. You may not be allowed to meet family and friends; ...
The last year has seen many machinations in the Middle East, not the least being the "normalization" of relations between Israel and some Arab countries, such as the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco- brokered by then- President Trump's administration in the US. Oman is expected to be the next to reach "normal" relations with Israel....
I wrote an article entitled "Why great leaders are great communicators" (https://www.futureproofingcomms.co.uk/thelatest/fp2-ch26)four years ago for a UK public relations publication, Futureproof. It was brought to my attention again recently by the US-based Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) training center for ( https://inlpcenter.org) who had wr...
Qatar has used its deep pockets to influence Turkey. As someone who is interested in capital flows and investment, I was interested to read how cash-strapped Turkey is. In this regard, Qatar is helping. Cash-strapped Turkey relies on Qatari investments By Mustafa Sonmez for Al Monitor Dec 2, 2020 Scrambling to draw foreign investors to ease Turkey'...
There's been much discussion as to why Iran's top nuclear scientist was assassinated and which country was behind the attack. Israel is considered to be the main culprit with the backing of the US. What will it mean for the nuclear deal and for the entire Middle East region? This article discusses some of the reasons why the assassination happened....
Iran has struggled to contain the spread of Covid-19 and has accused Washington of cutting off access to a life support system. Consequently, it is the hardest hit country in the Middle East. The latest figures show that the country has had 907,000 confirmed cases and 46,689 deaths, according to WHO. It was with great interest that I read that Iran...
This article looks at the intersection of COVID-19 with the media and entertainment industries. It is by Dr. Mohamed Abdulzaher, an academic and artificial intelligence journalism pioneer. He is based in Dubai. Media has played a major role over the last entire year in raising awareness of the pandemic, by reporting news, features and updates on 24...
Transitioning between the Trump and Biden administrations in the US is not easy. President Donald Trump refuses to concede to President-elect Joe Biden. Consequently, he has been trying to overturn election results, especially in key states such as Arizona, Georgia and Michigan, and resorting to all sorts of conspiracy theories. Most of his c...
Lucia Dore writes about her experience living in a largely Covid-19 free country. While the rest of the world suffers, she feels she is living in a "bubble". The weather is also getting hotter. The world is in a turmoil. Most people are waiting for the world to return to "normal"- that is, the way we did things pre-Covid-19. So many people have sai...
This interview took place in 2017 when UNRWA was still funded by the US. It is no longer, as my previous blog explains. UNRWA is 100 per cent funded by donations (the largest donor was the US) followed by the EU, some other European countries, Japan, and to some extent Australia and some smaller countries. Lucia Dore writes. A case study of UNRWA w...
"A healthy land comes out of a healthy society. No job, no electricity and no water. Without these things we cannot reach a healthy society." These are the words of Dr Akihiro Seita on the humanitarian disaster in last year's Israeli-Gaza war. Dr Seita is Director of Health at United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). In a wide-ranging interv...
By Ben Caspit for Al Monitor If Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were eligible to vote in the United States, he would naturally and logically have voted for President Donald Trump and convinced all his acquaintances to do so, as well. On the other hand, one school of thought believes Netanyahu has squeezed all he can out of this US preside...
I have been following the US elections, as most people have, so my interest in this article is not to do with the US elections, though it is US-related. It explores the very difficult and fraught relationship between Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia, and the murky issue of water. CAIRO —Al Monitor- Three days after US President Donald Trump's statements a...
Life has changed enormously in the past year for most of the world. People can't travel abroad; they can't meet other members of their families or friends, with the number of people allowed to meet being limited- to about six in some countries, like the UK. It's been interesting living in a part of the world where there are very few cases and where...
Will US foreign policy change much if the incumbent, President Donald Trump, or Joe Biden is elected? Much has been written about the US election and whether Donald Trump or Joe Biden will make a difference to how the US conducts its foreign policy with the Middle East, Iran in particular, especially since the withdrawal of the US from the nuclear ...
The American elections have dominated international media for a number of months. But will the election of Donald Trump or Joe Biden make a great deal of difference for the Middle East? It may herald some change in the direction of policy, but not much. Donald Trump is clearly the preferred candidate in the UAE and Bahrain, hence the so-called "nor...
The talk in the West, especially by President Trump, are the deals he says he has struck between Israel and the UAE and Israel and Bahrain. How these deals will pan out is not what the USA, or other parties in the West, will anticipate, I'm sure. Already, the Arab-Israeli faction in the Israeli Knesset has voted against the deal and not everyone is...
What the next wave of journalism will look like is outlined by Dr Mohamed Abdulzaher, an Egyptian academic based in Dubai, the UAE. He specialises in artificial intelligence journalism and Dubai's Gulf Today carries his column regularly. Have you ever imagined what the world would be after the Fourth Industrial Revolution, after Artificial Intellig...