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  • Saudi-Iran
    Rouhani Looks to Warmer Ties with Saudis, Tepidly Criticizes US Syria Strikes

    On his second trip to the UN General Assembly as Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani Tuesday said he looked forward to better relations with regional rival Saudi Arabia and only tepidly criticized the US attack on Islamic State (ISIL or ISIS) and Khorasan targets in Syria.

    Speaking at a press breakfast with about two dozen media representatives, Rouhani expressed hope that the P5+1 (US, UK, France, Russia, China plus Germany) and Tehran will conclude a comprehensive agreement on Iran’s nuclear program by the current Nov. 24 deadline but noted that differences remain and that this week’s series of meetings in New York are likely to be critical.

  • U.N. Meetings
    President Barack Obama to meet with Iraqi, Egyptian leaders

    Obama’s meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi Thursday is expected to be the first face-to-face meeting between the two men. Egypt has been pivotal in U.S. efforts to fight terrorism and rein in violence between Israel and Gaza, but the U.S. has objected to strong-arm tactics by al-Sisi’s government, such as the jailing of journalists and figures from the opposition Muslim Brotherhood.

  • ISIS and Iraqi Kurds
    Oil-rich Kirkuk in Iraq’s north fears attack by Islamic State

    In recent weeks, international attention has focused on Islamic State advances elsewhere in the Kurdish region, such as near the strategic Mosul dam and the city of Irbil, capital of semiautonomous Iraqi Kurdistan. U.S. airstrikes have helped push back the militants — and provided a tactical and psychological lift for peshmerga fighters, who fell back last month in a humiliating retreat.

  • Terrorism Funding
    New group plans to spotlight secret funding for Islamic State militants

    It has begun building what it claims will be the best publicly available database of information about extremist groups and their supporters. The information will be provided to governments as well as the private sector, media and other outlets, organizers said.

  • Arabs and ISIS
    Arab Countries Carve Out Role in Anti-Terror Fight

    Arabian Gulf countries, apart from using their bases for coalition forces to conduct military action against Islamic State militants, will play a major role in the fight against the group by cutting its terrorist financing and presenting a counter narrative to Islamic State leaders. The Jeddah Communique Coalition, formed to battle Islamic State militants, has been growing, however, Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) leaders are remaining cautious of the Obama administration’s leadership in the issue.

  • Iraqi Kurdistan
    ISIS vs. the Kurds

    The fighting between ISIS and the Kurds stretches along a six-hundred-and-fifty-mile front in northeastern Iraq—a jagged line that roughly traces one border of Iraqi Kurdistan, the territory that the Kurds have been fighting for decades to establish as an independent state. With as many as thirty million people spread across the Middle East, the Kurds claim to be the world’s largest ethnic group without a country. Iraqi Kurdistan, which contains about a quarter of that population, is a landlocked region surrounded almost entirely by neighbors—Turkey, Iran, and the government in Baghdad—that oppose its bid for statehood.

  • Global Oil Markets
    Saudi Arabia plays a complicated game with oil prices

    Economic weakness in China led a sharp slowdown in demand. US production was driven by shale to its highest level since 1986 this year, and is likely to beat its all-time high next year, with new deepwater production also on the way. The stronger dollar also puts pressure on the price. Then Riyadh has to balance against other Opec members to maintain that target. Over the past three years this has been more difficult than usual, in a game featuring least three wild cards.

  • Construction
    Saudi return on buildings to rise sharply until 2022

    Aracadis has completed a study into returns on built assets on a total of 30 countries. They included Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. “The UAE was ranked seventh among the 30 countries in terms of return on built assets as a proportion of GDP. Saudi Arabia ranked 29th,” Al Malaika said. He also said the return on built assets would be lifted by paying greater attention to planning, procurement, operations and maintenance and replacement and renewal of built assets.

  • Advertising
    Analyzing the Mid-East’s surge in online classifieds

    Online classifieds have become so popular in the Arab world that in some countries the leading classifieds website is more popular than Facebook. This is the case for leading Arabic classifieds website OpenSooq.com, which is a leader in its category in several countries including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Jordan. With a simple, easy to use website and popular iOS and Android apps, OpenSooq is not only leading in countries that have mature online audiences, but also in countries where the number of Internet users is growing very quickly via smartphones, such as Iraq and Libya.

  • US Foreign Policy
    House approves Obama’s Iraq-Syria military strategy amid skepticism

    The vote placed Congress one step closer to authorizing the third significant U.S. military operation in Iraq in the past quarter century, and it put lawmakers on record approving U.S. engagement in the years-long Syrian civil war. It delivered Obama much-needed domestic political support as he seeks an international coalition to combat the growing threat of Islamist terrorism in the Middle East. But the tally — 273 to 156 — also revealed widespread misgivings in both parties about the plan’s chances of success, even among lawmakers who voted in favor of it.