The two major regional Islamic powers of the Middle East, Saudi Arabia and Iran have established with the direction and guidance of China a new agreement that will restore full diplomatic, economic and security relations between both countries, a diplomatic move that asserts China´s rise of influence in the region and eases the regional tensions, rebalancing the power in the …

According to a report released by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the new year found 4.1 million people in north-west Syria, out of which 80% are women and children, in the need of humanitarian aid to fulfill their basic needs. A month earlier, the UN OCHA estimated that the number of aid recipients in Syria …

The present article is a critical analysis of the strategic challenges and political dilemmas that Israeli society will have to face under its the new Netanyahu-led government. The new Netanyahu-led coalition government of Israel is made of an alliance of hard-right nationalist and radical religious parties and embodies the sentiment of being the most right-wing pro-settler and expansionism government in …

Since the end of 19th century, the Middle Eastern region and countries of the Persian Gulf has taken the strategic attention of most world powers over its energy resources mainly in oil crude and more recently natural gas. In what concerns to the strategic oil crude, that geographical area holds two-thirds of the world’s reserves and because of it the …

Last week a terrorist attack was carried out in Kabul, with explosive planted in a hotel popular among Chinese nationals. Responsibility was claimed by the Islamic State Khorasan Province: it happened a day after a meeting between the Chinese ambassador and the Afghan deputy foreign minister to discuss security-related matters. The ISKP, a jihadist group rival of the Taliban due …

Lebanon has been at the centre of political turmoil for some time now, with the vacuum at the Presidency deepening the crisis. The plunge, which started with a financial crisis, has now affected every sector and class in Lebanon, where amidst the political uncertainty, the Lebanese are battling a cholera outbreak, energy crisis as well as disruption in healthcare services. …

In a worrying but strangely unsurprising turn of events, the last weeks of August and the beginning of September have seen the explosion of a major political crisis and violent clashes in Iraq. The breakdown of the Parliament and the subsequent taking to the streets of supporters of the different prominent figures of the Iraqi political scene was predictable: the …

Millions of individuals around the world suffer from malnutrition. Most of them come from countries that are linked directly with conflicts, as conflicts affect the food availability and accessibility by having a great impact on agricultural production, mainly through the destruction of infrastructure. Besides that, conflict causes security malfunctions related to the access to the markets and thus, as a …

The confirmation of Iran’s foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, of recent discussions with his Saudi counterpart, Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, in Baghdad (Iraq) last August (Al Jazeera, 2021) could be envisaged as a decades-long awaited catalyst for a directional change in the relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia. This would represent a major turning point not only for the diplomatic …

The Persian Gulf Countries such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Oman share similarities in terms of economic development patterns, state governing models and social lifestyles (Martin, 1984). One of the main common characteristics of these countries are the oil-driven economies, autocratic monarchical rule and religion based politics (Barnes and Jaffe, 2006). Strategically, Abu …