UAE

Morgan PALUMBO, Jessice DRAPER
It was a bare-knuckle brawl of the first order. It took place in Washington, D.C., and it resulted in a KO. The winners? Lobbyists and the defense industry. The losers? Us. And odds on, you didn’t even know that it happened. Few Americans did, which is why it’s worth telling the story of how Saudi, Emirati, and Qatari money flooded the nation’s capital and, in the process, American policy went down for the count.

The Covid-19 pandemic may have permanently changed the way diplomacy is conducted. Diplomacy has traditionally relied on physical contact in both formal and informal settings. Physical diplomacy has included the presentation of credentials of accreditation by ambassadors to heads of state; participation in global summits and bilateral, trilateral, quadrilateral, etc. meetings; diplomatic receptions, and so on.

MEMO | May 20, 2020

A series of Danish investigations published on Danwatch on Sunday accused the country’s largest arms manufacturer of war crimes in Yemen.

Is the coronavirus, which has hit GCC countries quite hard, going to fuel proxy wars further with the economic objective of fortunes to be made, once the fighting stops? Or dig them in deeper? Don’t overlook Russia in the scramble for reconstruction contracts.

In the coming months, it is likely that more Arab media titles in the region will fold following the financial crisis and the vociferous media wars which they conduct which are costly and self-defeating. How do you like your fake news? With or without a media banner?
World Press Day passed like a thief in the night in the Arab world. It’s largely seen as something lauded by western countries who use it to chastise what they see as backward countries with authoritarian leaders who only know the one model of journalism in their countries: pay-as-you-go.

Press TV – May 8, 2020

The leader of Yemen’s popular Houthi Ansarullah movement has slammed Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates for using certain television programs to promote relations with Israel and demean the Palestinian struggle against occupation.

A breakaway faction from the Saudi-backed forces, supported by the UAE, is threatening to push the Saudi Crown prince out of the picture altogether. It wants independence for the South and to end the five-year war with the Saudis. But this might start an entirely new war in Yemen.

Gulf Arab countries have nowhere to look for a bailout of their own private sector, like in the UAE, once the envy of the Arab world, as the banks just can’t pull it off. New friendships can flourish as underdogs like Morocco come out winners. But what about Iran?

Submitted by InfoBrics, authored by Paul Antonopoulos, Research Fellow at the Center for Syncretic Studies…

By Paul Antonopoulos | March 31, 2020