As President Trump worked in recent days toward a deal to end his war with Iran, he threw a curveball: Arab states as well as Pakistan and Turkey should consider it mandatory to welcome the agreement by establishing diplomatic relations with Israel under the president’s Abraham Accords. President Trump at the White House on Wednesday….
Despite a substantial budget, the action film Desert Warrior starring Anthony Mackie and Ben Kingsley is on track to be one of the biggest box office flops of all time. Releasing on April 24, 2026, in the United States, the historical epic had a difficult production, to say the least, and received dismal review scores…
Hong Kong’s leader will travel to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan next month to explore and seize new business opportunities, making Central Asia his latest area of focus and with the largest delegation accompanying him. After several years of promoting the city in the Middle East and Southeast Asia amid geopolitical uncertainties, Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu…
For decades, the Strait of Hormuz has been a narrow passage with a big footprint. Whenever it comes under tension, the world is reminded that energy security is less a policy construct than an everyday reality for Asia’s economies, factories and prices. For China, Japan, South Korea, India and Southeast Asia, it has always been…
AT LAST IT has jumped. For years the United Arab Emirates (UAE) chafed at restrictions that came with membership of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). It had even threatened to quit; and on April 27th, in the middle of a war, it stormed out. The headquarters of the Organization of the Petroleum…
April 28 (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia will host an exceptional meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council in Jeddah on Tuesday, the first in-person meeting of Gulf leaders since their states became a front in the Iran war two months ago. A Gulf official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the meeting aimed to craft a…
A war in the Middle East probably wasn’t what Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney had in mind in Davos earlier this year, when he made a pitch for the world’s so-called middle powers to join together in a world defined by increasingly aggressive military juggernauts. A satellite view of smoke billowing at a Saudi Aramco…
MOSCOW, April 27 (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin held talks with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi in St. Petersburg on Monday and told him he hoped the Iranian people would weather what he described as a “difficult period” and that peace would soon prevail. Russia has offered to mediate to try to help restore…
Hong Kong Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po recently said the city could rise to become the world’s No 2 financial centre in 10-15 years. That is the right kind of ambition. In a world being reshaped by geopolitical fragmentation, China’s growing global weight and rapid technological change, Hong Kong must think beyond remaining internationally competitive…
KYIV, April 24 (Reuters) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Friday arrived in Jeddah on his second visit to Saudi Arabia in a month, as Kyiv tries to bolster security cooperation and advertise its battle-tested technology in the Middle East amid the Iran war. “Yesterday, at a meeting with European leaders, we secured financial guarantees…