Saudi Arabia has not produced a stable allied state and has not eliminated the threat of militias: Al-Estiklal interview with Ahmed Al-Zurqa, Yemeni writer and political analyst.

“Israel’s” recognition of Somaliland, widely condemned, signals a strategic move with major regional and geopolitical implications for Somalia, Palestine, and the Horn of Africa.

On November 17, the Israeli war company, Elbit Systems Ltd., revealed a $2.3 billion international arms deal, keeping the buyer secret, though foreign intelligence soon pointed to the UAE.

In an interview with Al-Estiklal, Egyptian economic expert Abdul Hafiz al-Sawi criticized the decision to reopen the famous Helwan Iron and Steel Factory, calling it a sign of confusion and inconsistency in the country’s economic policymaking after the plant was shut down in 2021.

Attention is back on the money: Trump aims to have Gulf states replace China in the rare metals sector

While the U.S. tightly restricts gambling and betting platforms and sharply limits their advertising, the UAE is moving in the opposite direction, racing to legalize gambling, sports betting, and related digital platforms.

The UAE is expanding its influence in southern Yemen, building parallel forces and seizing strategic resources, heightening its rivalry with Saudi Arabia and fueling secessionist tensions.

Tensions between Iran and the Gulf states have spiked sharply in the wake of a GCC summit in Manama, where member countries renewed their call for Tehran to end its “occupation” of the three Emirati islands.

Despite the Trump administration’s direct complicity in the aggression on the Arab world and the wider Middle East, the president’s new national security strategy sketches a shift in Washington’s priorities, signaling a pullback from the region.

Amid the takeover of Seiyun, the largest city in Yemen’s Hadramout Valley, by the UAE-backed STC militia, Saudi Arabia has dispatched a high-level delegation led by Maj. Gen. Mohammed bin Ubayd al-Qahtani in an apparent bid to defuse tensions in the oil-rich province.

For thousands of Pakistanis, the United Arab Emirates has long been a prime destination for work, migration, and family reunification; now it suddenly feels like a door quietly swinging shut.

As clashes erupt in Yemen’s Hadramawt between the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council and the Saudi-aligned Hadramout Tribes Confederacy, observers warn the province could be pushed toward full-scale civil war.

The U.S. condemns atrocities by the Rapid Support Forces militia in Sudan while quietly using UAE-backed bases for “grey zone” operations in the Horn of Africa.

For more than a decade, the imprint of Emirati influence has stretched far beyond the Middle East, moving past politics and economics into far more sensitive arenas in Europe.

Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki warned that foreign militarization of Yemen’s islands threatens Red Sea security, urging littoral states to take charge and highlighting the islands’ central geopolitical role.