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In a surprise move, Saudi Arabia sacked its long-time oil minister over the weekend, an event that illustrates the near-total control that the new young Saudi prince has obtained over the country’s energy industry. For many years, Ali al-Naimi, the outgoing Saudi oil minister, was the voice of Saudi Arabia’s oil industry and policy. Even seemingly insignificant remarks from al-Naimi could move oil prices up or down. But the 80-year old oil minister has seen his power eclipsed by the 30-year old Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. In April, when al-Naimi was forced to backtrack on the Doha oil...

“WE DON’T care about oil prices,” Muhammad bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s deputy crown prince, recently told Bloomberg, a news agency: “$30 or $70, they are all the same to us.” Such comments by the man calling the shots in the world’s biggest oil power should be taken with a pinch of salt. Low oil prices cost the country billions, threaten its credit rating and are turning it from creditor to debtor: this week it set out to raise $10 billion from global banks. Yet the claim is not entirely hollow, either. Saudi Arabia is determined not to give any succour...

Saudi Arabia single-handedly scuttled the Doha meeting, knowing all along that Iran would not participate, with a valid reason. The Russians and others agreed to proceed without Iran, planning to include them at a later date. So if everything was known beforehand, why did the Saudi’s pour cold water on the aspirations of the remaining members, risking its alienation from Russia and the OPEC community? Was it simply Saudi enmity toward Iran? Not exactly. Upon closer scrutiny, we can find the Saudi masterstroke behind Doha. It is well known that Saudi Arabia is heavily dependent on oil revenues, and that...

WASHINGTON • The U.S. government is poised to approve two long-delayed sales of Boeing Co. fighter jets to Qatar and Kuwait, and could announce the multibillion-dollar deals during President Barack Obama's visit to the Gulf this week, according to two sources familiar with the matter. The decision would mean more job security for thousands of workers at Boeing's sprawling plant in north St. Louis County, where the F-15 fighter and F/A-18E/F Super Hornets are made. Both deals have been stalled amid concerns raised by Israel that equipment sent to Gulf states could fall into the wrong hands and be used...

No incentive for Saudis to let up Getty Saudi Arabia's minister of Oil and Mineral Resources Ali al-Naimi (C) arrives for the OPEC meeting, in the Qatari capital Doha, By WilliamWatts Deputy markets editor Why would the Saudis give up now?That’s the question crude oil bulls should have been asking themselves ahead of the Sunday meeting of major oil producers that failed to produce an agreement to put a lid on production. Prospects for a deal fell apart after Iran refused to sign up, prompting Saudi Arabia, the world’s swing producer, to effectively walk away. Those that believed Riyadh had...

While everyone is talking about the failure of the Doha negotiations, Kuwait has more than made up for OPEC’s failure all on its own. Kuwait’s oil workers walked off the job this weekend, flexing their muscles over a pay dispute. The state-owned Kuwait Oil Company took to Twitter to report the damage done by the workers strike, announcing that oil production fell to 1.1 million barrels per day on Sunday, a catastrophic development considering it normally produces nearly 3 mb/d. Also, Kuwait Petroleum Corp., the state-owned refining company, said that its production of refined products dropped from 930,000 to 520,000...

Oil prices tumbled on Monday after a meeting by major exporters in Qatar collapsed without an agreement to freeze output, leaving the credibility of the OPEC producer cartel in tatters and the world awash with unwanted fuel. Tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran were blamed for the failure, which revived industry fears that major government-controlled producers will increase their battle for market share by offering ever-steeper discounts. "OPEC's credibility to coordinate output is now very low," said Peter Lee of BMI Research, a unit of rating agency Fitch. "This isn't just about oil for the Saudis. It's as much about...

Saudi Arabia turns oil weapon on Iran: Kemp By Reuters Published: 13:22 GMT, 18 April 2016 | Updated: 13:22 GMT, 18 April 2016 By John Kemp LONDON, April 18 (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia's decision to scupper negotiations on a coordinated oil output freeze in Doha on Sunday seems to confirm a significant shift in the kingdom's oil policy. For decades, the kingdom has insisted it does not wield oil as a diplomatic weapon, but at the weekend it did just that as part of an intensifying conflict with Iran. ("Saudi-Iran tensions scupper deal to freeze oil output", Reuters, April 17)...

Qatar Airways has announced plans to launch the world’s longest direct flight: a 9,034-mile schlep from Doha to Auckland. Should the route get the green light, it would beat the current record holder – Qantas’s Dallas-Sydney service – by almost 500 miles. The journey time would be an estimated 18 hours and 34 minutes, according to the journey planning website travelmath.com.

Attorneys representing the family of Ahmed “clock kid” Mohamed sent a letter to Irving, Texas, officials demanding $10 million in compensation for “damages” and written apologies from the city’s mayor and police chief. snip After making appearances at a number of high-profile locations, including the White House, Mohamed and his family moved to Qatar. “For personal security reasons, Ahmed and family are in Doha, Qatar. However, when they feel safe again, all of them want more than anything to come home, to Irving, Texas,” the letter states.

As I walked into the department this bright brisk morning, coffee cheerily in hand, the live global seismogram display in the atrium caught my eye with an alarming event that had just happened during my bike ride into work. *gasp* that looks bad *gasp* that looks bad BIG earthquake, somewhere in the vicinity of Central/Southern Asia. Indeed, an earthquake deep (>200 km) beneath the Hindu Kush mountains of Afghanistan had shaken a huge swath of Central and South Asia. The great depth of the earthquake meant less extreme shaking at the epicenter (nobody lives closer than 212 km from the...

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To the American Public: Over the course of the last month, the Qatar Awareness Campaign has issued 25 letters, addressed to people, companies, organizations, and universities who profit from their relationship with the state sponsor of terror, Qatar. Why? Despite their official denials, Qatar is the nation that funds Hamas, Fatah, Boko Haram, al Qaeda and the Islamic State. Qatar, as the host country of the revolutionary Muslim Brotherhood and one of the wealthiest countries in the world, attracts these fanatical, murderous groups like a magnet, showering them with endless funding and resources. Looking back, it is an astonishing list...

Carnegie Mellon University Office of the President, Dr. Subra Suresh 5000 Forbes Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15213 412-268-2000 Dear Dr. Suresh: This letter is being sent to you on behalf of the Qatar Awareness Campaign Coalition. The purpose is to inform you and the public of the activities of Qatar, the country whose capital hosts a campus of Carnegie Mellon University. Since 2001, the Qatar Foundation has borne all campus development costs associated with the campus in Doha’s Education City. (Also see here.) Since 2004, Carnegie Mellon has operated Carnegie Mellon in Qatar, as part of Qatar’s Education City. The educational...

Palestinian and other Arab commentators are blasting Egypt's cease-fire offer this week in the Israeli-Gazan fighting, saying it was a gift to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who accepted it, and a trap for Hamas, which rejected it. Azmi Bishara, the fugitive former Knesset member who now heads the Arab Center for Research and Policy in Doha, Qatar, wrote in the pan-Arab alaraby.co.uk that the offer gave no relief to Gaza, nor freedom for the Hamas members recently returned to Israeli prisons. "This Egyptian declaration represents a stab in the back to the resistance and the people of Gaza. … [T]his...

"In his new book, “Dark Forces: The Truth About What Happened in Ben­ghazi” (Broadside Books), writer Kenneth R. Timmerman explains how the US government’s efforts to arm the Libyan rebels backfired, flooding weapons into Syria, and as he ­reveals here, Afghanistan: The Obama administration isn’t only giving the Taliban back its commanders — it’s giving them weapons. Miliary records and sources reveal that on July 25, 2012, Taliban fighters in Kunar province successfully targeted a US Army CH-47 helicopter with a new generation Stinger missile...."

<p>MILAN (AP) — Foreign ministry officials in Rome and Vienna confirm that names of two nationals listed on the manifest of the missing Malaysian airlines flight match passports reported stolen in Thailand.</p> <p>Italy's Foreign Ministry said Saturday that an Italian man whose name was listed as being aboard is traveling in Thailand and was not aboard the plane.</p>

South Sudan News: Turabi Urges Jihadists to “Reunite” with South SudanJuba — June 13 … (SSN) Hassan al-Turabi – the spiritual guide of Sudan’s Islamists-Jihadists and the doyen of the global Jihadist trend since the early 1990′s – is in Doha, Qatar, to consult with Sheikh Youssuf al-Qaradawi – the spiritual guide of the Muslim Brothers and the entire Sunni Islamist trend. The main subject of the consultations between Turabi and Qaradawi is how to return Sudan to its former role and glory as a leader of global Islamism-Jihadism. Both veteran luminaries of radical Sunni Islam are convinced that the...

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Tuesday Washington was increasingly confident that weapons being sent to the Syrian opposition by other countries were going to moderate forces. Kerry, on his first overseas tour since taking office, told a news conference in Doha he had held talks with nations in the region about the kinds of arms being sent to the different Syrian opposition forces. Saudi Arabia and Qatar are widely believed to be providing weapons to the rebels, but the United States says it does not wish to send arms for fear they may find their way to...

A couple of weeks ago the great global warming bandwagon coughed and spluttered to a halt in Doha, the latest stop on its never-ending world tour. The annual UN climate conference COP18 is no small affair. This is a bandwagon whose riders number in the thousands: motorcades of politicians, buses full of technocrats and policy wonks and jumbo-jets full of hippies travelling half way round the world, (ostensibly) to save the planet from the (allegedly) pressing problem of climate change This is despite the fact that nobody seems able to point to any great problems caused by the modest warming...