A spike in oil prices as a result of a temporary halt in shipments through the strategic Bab el Mandeb strait may be short-lived, but the impact on Yemen’s three-year-old forgotten war is likely to put the devastating conflict on the front burner. The halt following a Saudi assertion that Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen…
Mahdi al-Mashat, President of the Houthi Supreme Political Council (the political wing of the Ansar Allah movement) has requested Russia for help in resolving the military conflict in Yemen. In a letter sent to President Vladimir Putin, Mahdi al-Mashat emphasised the “aggression against Yemen” and “the military escalation perpetrated by the Saudi-led coalition of Arabian…
As South African President Cyril Ramaphosa concluded visits this month to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, securing $10bn worth of investment from each country, questions arise as to what price tag is attached to these investments. South Africa’s arms exports to both Gulf countries have grown since the begining of the…
During President Trump’s now infamous visit to Saudi Arabia, Washington and Riyadh signed arms deals amounting to almost $110 billion, a move viewed by some as fueling an arms race in an already dangerous Middle East. In the past decade, it has become clear that there is a Saudi quest to move from a country…
Long satisfied to attempt to dominate pan-Arab media and battle it out with Qatar’s state-owned Al Jazeera television network, Saudi Arabia has now set its hegemonic sights on influencing the media landscape of the non-Arabic speaking greater Middle East. In the wake of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s concentration last year of control of Saudi-owned…
On 9 July 2018, in a historic meeting in the Eritrean capital, Asmara, Ethiopia’s prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, and Eritrea’s president, Isaias Afewerki, signed an agreement on peace and friendship, officially ending their almost two decades-long cold war. To reach this point, on 5 June, Ethiopia finally accepted a peace agreement that both countries had…
