In-depth analysis and editorials on Qatar diplomacy, Gulf geopolitics, and Middle East affairs
The Australian Embassy in Doha closed its public-facing offices to walk-in visitors in early July 2026, citing escalating regional security concerns after fresh security threats and reports of missile interceptions in the region
Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, the former Emir of Qatar who ruled the country from 1995 to 2013, has died at the age of 74, Qatari government announcements confirmed on Sunday, July 12, 2026
Iran and Qatar have resumed maritime trade after a suspension of roughly five months, Iran's commercial attaché in Doha, Abbas Abdolkhani, said on Sunday, according to the Iranian state news agency IRNA
Qatar has been ranked the most economically resilient country in the Middle East, even as forecasts point to a sharp contraction in the value of its output
Qatar has been ranked the most peaceful country in the Middle East and North Africa in the 2026 Global Peace Index, the annual assessment published by the Institute for Economics and Peace
Somaliland's president opened an embassy in Jerusalem and signed a strategic partnership with Israel this week, six months after Israel became the first state to recognise the breakaway republic — even as reports of a possible Israeli base near Berbera, denied by Hargeisa, stir Red Sea tensions.
Qatar's role as financial guarantor for Iran centers on roughly $6 billion in Iranian oil revenue that Doha agreed to hold and oversee, the arrangement that underpinned the September 2023 prisoner exchange in which Tehran released five detained Americans
A Human Rights Watch investigation traces a recruitment pipeline from Bogotá through Abu Dhabi military bases to Darfur — and silence from the capitals that already know.
Captain Boualem Khoukhi's stoppage-time header earns Qatar a 1-1 draw with Switzerland — and the first point in the nation's World Cup history.
A new global monitor finds Israeli armed forces were responsible for more than 55 percent of all civilian deaths from explosive weapons in 2025 — the third straight year above half. The report stresses its figures are minimums, likely an undercount of the real toll.
Three months into the Gulf's worst crisis in decades, the cost of a closed Strait of Hormuz can now be counted
US President Donald Trump has dismissed the prospect of a military clash between Israel and Turkey, casting his personal rapport with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as enough to keep two of Washington's allies from coming to blows
On 9 June 2026, Qatar's Ministry of Defence widened eligibility for the National Service Programme to two groups previously kept out: children of Qatari mothers, and non-Qatari residents born in Qatar
Qatar's decision to open its National Service Program to children of Qatari mothers and to non-Qatari residents born in the country is, on its face, an administrative tweak
Qatar's Ministry of Defence has expanded eligibility for the country's National Service Program to include children of Qatari mothers and non-Qatari residents born in Qatar, a significant shift from rules that previously restricted enlistment largely to those with Qatari fathers
Pakistan used a UN Security Council session on Iran on 9 June to place itself at the centre of the most consequential diplomatic opening between Washington and Tehran in a generation — and to name Qatar among the partners that made it possible
From Israel's recognition of Somaliland to Gulf port deals in breakaway regions, outside powers are entrenching Somalia's divisions. Qatar's message is the opposite: Somalis should settle their own affairs, free of foreign interference.
Doha is counting down to a World Cup that will feel very different from the last one
Nearly three months into the war between Iran and a US-Israeli coalition, the clearest measure of its cost is written in the oil market
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's renewed demand for sovereign access to the Red Sea has hardened into one of the Horn of Africa's most dangerous flashpoints, with both Ethiopia and Eritrea reported to be moving troops toward their shared border
Somalia is seeking Turkish support to map and develop its uranium deposits and other critical minerals, widening a fast-growing energy partnership that has already handed Ankara sweeping rights over the Horn of Africa nation's oil and gas
Four rainy seasons failed in a row
Mohamed Adam farmed in West Kordofan until the Rapid Support Forces took his region
Human Rights Watch released a report this week documenting that hundreds of Colombian mercenaries have been trained at military bases inside the United Arab Emirates, then deployed to fight alongside the Rapid Support Forces in Sudan
The weapons reported moving through Bosaso airport into Sudan in the spring of 2026 are not for a war that Puntland is fighting
Qatar has taken the lead in the Muslim world's rejection of the establishment of an Israel-Somaliland embassy, as the country joined fourteen other Muslim-majority states and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation in declaring the move null and void and reaffirming Somalia's territorial integrity
*Hassan Sheikh Mohamud's term ends on Friday
It would be a mistake to read Turkey's blueprint for the Somali coast as a development partnership that happens to be commercial
Somalia's president Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has thirteen days left in office
Qatar's 2024 LNG exports fell 3.9% to $56.9B as European buyers cut sharply (Belgium -53%, Italy -25%) while UAE (+34%), Kuwait (+16%) and Japan (+28%) absorbed the redirected cargoes.