After the Cabinet reshuffling at the beginning of this year, when many prominent representatives of the Al-Attiyah clan, the second most powerful after the House of Thani, were replaced with members of the ruling dynasty, some experts in…
Vladimir Simonov
OPEC Meeting and its Consequences for Oil Producers
The results of the recent OPEC meeting were pretty predictable – all the member states announced their reluctance to cut oil production levels, while some are even planning to increase them. In the meantime, Iran wants to…
Would Moscow Persuade Damascus to Take Peace Seriously?
Late on March 14, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin summoned Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to the Kremlin in order to announce in front of numerous TV crews that Russia was beginning a partial withdrawal of…
McCain is Playing Chicken With Baghdad
According to the Iraq Press Agency, the head of the Iraqi parliamentary bloc Irada, Hannan al-Fetlaui stated that up to 100,00 foreign troops are headed to Iraq. Up to 90,000 are going to be sent by the Arab and Gulf States to Iraq to fight the Islamic State…
A321 Crash: The Qatari Trace
Recently, a number of Western journals have been trying to persuade readers that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “war” in Syria is aimed at diverting public attention in Russia from the complex social and economic problems that have been caused by falling…
Qatar is Caught in the Middle of Yet Another International Scandal
The former Prime Minister of Qatar Hamad bin Jassim has been caught at the center of yet another scandal, but this time around the charges pressed against him imply something more serious than “mere” corruption. The British court has recently…