Steven Sahiounie, journalist and political commentator A 10-meter (33-foot) yacht built in 1974, equipped with two motors, left Tripoli, Lebanon on Saturday with about 60 migrants onboard, including women and children. Six people, including an 18-month-old girl, Taleen Al-Hamwi, and two women died with more than 10 people still missing after the boat sunk.The […]
In a wholly predictable move, Iran’s parliament has voted overwhelmingly (240 out of 244 MPs present and out of the 290 total) to increase spending on its elite Revolutionary Guards and its ballistic missile programme.
Saudi Arabia has passed an ultimatum to neutral Gulf Cooperation Council member state Kuwait to be handed to the Qatari regime in an attempt to end the current crisis wherein Saudi Arabia has led a total boycott of Qatar along with the UAE, Egypt Bahrain, Libya’s House of Representatives, Yemen’s Hadi government and the Republic of Maldives.
King Salman of Saudi Arabia has now appointed his 31 year old son Prince Mohammed bin Salman his Crown Prince, ousting his nephew, former Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, who had previously supervised Saudi Arabia’s security forces, and who is credited by some people with defeating the challenge within Saudi Arabia that extreme Wahhabi terrorists connected to Al-Qaeda posed to the ruling family.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has issued his most provocative remarks to date on the Qatar crisis gripping the Gulf and the wider region.
With Turkish troops en route to Qatar, Erdogan stated,
“A very grave mistake is being made in Qatar, isolating a nation in all areas is inhumane and against Islamic values. It’s as if a death penalty decision has been taken for Qatar”.
Somalia’s President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, also known as Farmajo, attends his inauguration ceremony in Mogadishu, Somalia, Feb. 22, 2017. (AP/Farah Abdi Warsameh)
Somali President, Mohammed Abdullah Farmajo, has been offered $80 million in exchange for his agreement to sever diplomatic relations with the State of Qatar, the New Khalij news outlet reported a prominent journalist has revealed.
“After two hours of enticement, Farmajo rejected the tempting offer,” journalist Jaber Al-Harimi said.
Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani attends a Gulf Cooperation Council summit in Doha, Qatar. (AP/Osama Faisal)
Qatar’s neighbors have implemented a threat they made three years ago, and severed their ties with, and physically cut off, the small Gulf state, prompting a diplomatic crisis in the important resource-rich region.
On the second day of the Qatar crisis, people are all ready looking for possible outcomes.
Here are the most likely outcomes based how things currently stand, in order from most to least likely.
1. Palace Coup/Internal Regime Change
It is a open secret among the Qatari elite and watchers of the Gulf that many prominent figures in Qatar have been openly opposed to the wily rule of Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. Coming to power at the age of 34 in 2013, the young Emir has often pursued foreign policies designed to ‘rock the cradle’.
Less than two weeks after Donald Trump visited Saudi Arabia and spoke of the need for Arab unity against Iran, two of the Gulf’s most prominent and ideologically similar states are at each others throats.
While received wisdom is that the Saudi led diplomatic and economic isolation of the small and wealthy state of Qatar represents a fracture in the grand anti-Iranian coalition the United States seeks to build, practically it means something less and something more at the same time.
