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  • U.S., Qatar target Hezbollah financial network with sanctions

    The United States and Qatar took coordinated action on Wednesday targeting a Hezbollah financial network in the Arabian Peninsula, the U.S. Treasury Department said in a statement. The Treasury said it designated individuals including Ali Reda Hassan al-Banai, Ali Reda al-Qassabi Lari and Abd al-Muayyid al-Banaiare for having provided financial or material support to Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based Shi'ite Islamist group that Washington has designated as a foreign terrorist organization.

  • A New U.S. Weapons Exports Policy: Transformed or Simply Revamped?

    A new Conventional Arms Transfer policy based on human rights could have a major impact on the global arms trade and U.S.-Gulf relations, but questions remain as to whether recent announcements will lead to concrete policy shifts.

  • Libya Wants U.S. Oil Companies to Boost War-Torn Nation’s Output

    Libya is trying to encourage U.S. oil companies to return to the war-torn nation and help it raise output rapidly. “I would like to personally encourage foreign companies, especially those from the U.S., to come back,” Oil Minister Mohamed Oun said in an interview in Italy, where he’s attending a conference. “We require a lot of work to upgrade and maintain our facilities.”

  • U.S. to press Saudi crown prince for Yemen cease-fire

    Sullivan is being dispatched at a moment when the situation in Yemen, the Arab world's poorest country, has further deteriorated. Fighting has intensified in the key city of Marib, as Iran-backed rebels have sought to oust the Saudi-backed government from the oil-rich city in the country's north. International efforts to end the war have been fruitless. Tim Lenderking, the U.S. special envoy for Yemen, called out the Houthis in July for continuing "to refuse to engage meaningfully on a cease-fire and political talks." Saudi Arabia offered a cease-fire proposal to Yemen's Houthi rebels earlier this year as it looked to rehabilitate its image with the Biden administration.

  • U.S. top security adviser, Yemen envoy head to Saudi, UAE

    Brett McGurk, the NSC's Middle East and North Africa Coordinator, will also join Sullivan and Tim Lenderking, the council spokeswoman Emily Horne said in a statement, adding that Sullivan will meet "with senior leaders on a range of regional and global challenges."

  • U.S. pension fund to vote against Aramco chair for Reliance board

    CalSTRS' voting decision is based on U.S. proxy advisory research firm Glass Lewis' recommendation, BloombergQuint reported on Friday. Reliance, owned by billionaire Ambani, had appointed Aramco's Yasir Al-Rumayyan as an independent director on July 19 in the process of formalising a deal it had struck with the Saudi Arabian company to sell 20% stake in its oil-to-chemicals business.

  • U.S. and Israel held secret talks on Iran “plan B”

    The meeting last week was held via a secure video conference call and led by national security adviser Jake Sullivan and his Israeli counterpart, Eyal Hulata.

  • Afghans in Crisis Before U.S. Withdrawal

    In November/December 2019, just before the February 2020 signing of the U.S.-Taliban peace deal, more than seven in 10 Afghans (72%) reported that there had been times in the past 12 months when their household lacked enough money for food. This marked a 15-percentage-point increase from 2018 and a new high since Gallup first began measuring this item annually in Afghanistan in 2008.

  • SABIC, ExxonMobil JV in U.S. preparing for initial startup

    Saudi Basic Industries, the world's fourth-biggest petrochemicals firm, said on Sunday its joint venture project with ExxonMobil in the U.S. Gulf Coast has started commissioning activities and preparing for an initial startup. The project includes the establishment of an ethylene production unit with annual capacity of about 1.8 million tonnes, which will feed two polyethylene units and a monoethylene glycol unit, it said in a statement.

  • Op-Ed: The U.S.-Pakistan Relationship Needs a Rethink

    More generally, the U.S. should stop granting Pakistan special treatment. The fiction that Pakistan is a “major non-NATO ally” should finally be abandoned. This rebalancing should be dispassionate, not spiteful — indeed, the U.S. should continue to support Pakistani civil society, including by funding health, education and climate initiatives, and should lead global efforts to cushion the blow of any refugee exodus from Afghanistan.