The revenue generated by state-owned Saudi oil company Saudi Aramco accounts for up to 80% of the kingdom’s fiscal budget. The company did not hide its losses, and officially reported a decrease of $22.9 billion in net income in 2019, and there have also been serious spending cuts on development, i.e. on maintaining and increasing…
Much remains to be learned about the coronavirus, though it is quite possible that it will not be possible to determine how it developed if the various governments that might be involved prove to be uncooperative. The Chinese carefully controlled the information on the virus in its early stages, though they eventually adopted a complete…
The US often decapitates terrorist leaders in a bid to deal terrorism a significant blow. However, groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS are becoming increasingly resilient, and quickly replace their fallen leaders with more lethal ones. After the US military assassinated ISIS’ leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in October last year, there was much speculation about who…
Wadi Hilweh, also known as Silwan, is a lovely, ancient town that sits in the valley directly below the Al-Aqsa compound, just outside the Old City of Jerusalem. Sadly, on any given day in this ancient valley, one can see ongoing ethnic cleansing, violence incited by Israeli settlers and the erasure of history, all at…
While everyone was worried of what they believed would inevitably be World War III, mankind suddenly found itself fighting World War C against COVID-19 instead, which has since become the single most globally disruptive event in human history. *** The entire world is at war, though it’s not one of the many World War III…
President Donald Trump continues his policy of military withdrawal from the “Broader Middle East”. To this end, he is gradually moving his troops, signing agreements with the forces against which they were deployed (e.g. the Taliban) and negotiating the release of his prisoners. At the same time, the Pentagon called on the United Kingdom to…
