Ahmed Balaha

Banque du Caire is finally going public on the Egyptian Exchange after years of delays, offering a significant stake to investors. This move is a crucial step in Egypt's wider economic reform agenda.

Economy

Iraq and Turkey are discussing a groundbreaking financing model for the vast "Development Road" project, potentially using oil revenues to build critical infrastructure. This strategic move could reshape regional trade and energy flows.

Economy

King Mohammed VI has called for a new wave of reforms to shift the economy toward private-sector leadership and high-value manufacturing.

Egypt & North Africa

The UAE's economy reached $262 billion in the first half of 2026, with non-oil sectors driving nearly 80% of activity, despite a slowdown in the second quarter. This performance underlines the nation's push away from oil reliance.

Economy

Riyadh and Abu Dhabi signed a landmark agreement to deepen cooperation on electricity grids and cross-border rail, aiming to cut logistics costs and improve energy resilience across the region.

Economy

The decision reflects improved resilience against external pressures and robust economic growth, despite regional geopolitical tensions.

Economy

Saudi Aramco and NESR are investing $200 million in the region's first direct lithium extraction project, aiming to produce battery-grade material by 2027. This move is a crucial step in the Kingdom's drive to become a key player in the global electric vehicle supply chain.

Economy

President Sisi met with South Korean business leaders to promote a new industrial hub, aiming to significantly boost foreign investment and make Egypt a regional export powerhouse.

Economy

The UAE has seen its foreign direct investment surge to an unprecedented level, marking nine consecutive years of growth and underscoring its shift towards advanced technology and a knowledge-based economy.

Economy

Saudi Aramco has tapped KBR for a significant engineering contract to upgrade its Marjan offshore field, ensuring long-term production stability and advanced gas processing capabilities. This investment highlights the Kingdom's commitment to its energy future.

Energy

The Saudi stock market saw a strong rebound, with the Tadawul All Share Index (TASI) gaining over one percent, driven by major bank and energy stocks and steady oil flows.

Economy

As parliament prepares to debate the 2027 budget, you'll want to understand how a proposed new exchange rate and a significant deficit could affect your purchasing power and business operations.

Economy

The state oil giant has cut prices for November shipments to Asia, offering its flagship Arab Light crude at a $5 per barrel discount. This move targets market share amidst high shipping costs and regional disruptions.

Energy

The Kingdom is pausing flagship projects and entertainment events as the Public Investment Fund shifts toward strict spending limits.

Economy

A technical upgrade to the Tadawul allows orders to fill across multiple price levels. It comes as the market looks to recover from a difficult third quarter.

Economy

Baghdad's state-owned tankers have made their first shipment past the Strait of Hormuz in decades, signalling a major change in how it gets its crude to global markets.

Energy

Yemen's Houthi group claimed drone and missile strikes on a Riyadh Aramco facility, sparking fears of energy supply disruptions and pushing Brent crude prices above $106.

Energy

The United Arab Emirates has warned Britain it may pull significant investments after a Premier League ruling against Manchester City, signalling a rare diplomatic and economic escalation stemming from sports.

Economy

As Houthi attacks persist, the Kingdom is boosting its western pipeline capacity and exploring an Oman bypass to safeguard its crucial oil exports.

Energy

The coordinated move by major economies aims to ease global fuel prices and address Europe's diesel shortage. For Saudi Arabia, this could mean less revenue from its primary export.

Energy

Soaring global energy prices have pushed Morocco's trade gap wider, putting pressure on household budgets and government finances.

Economy

As the Lebanese pound loses more than 98% of its value, the country's economic recovery hinges on crucial IMF-backed reforms. However, a presidential challenge to a new banking law highlights ongoing political hurdles.

Economy

A security breach on a Dubai-Tel Aviv flight has halted a key regional air link, affecting thousands of business and leisure travellers.

Politics

The Kingdom projects a significant economic contraction in 2026 due to falling oil activity, yet remains committed to its multi-billion dollar Vision 2030 projects.

Economy

Despite ongoing market volatility and efforts to recover supply, the major oil producers are taking a cautious stance, impacting global energy markets and regional trade.

Energy

Global oil markets are reacting to ongoing geopolitical tensions and reduced Gulf supply, pushing prices upwards. The UAE is investing in critical infrastructure to safeguard its exports.

Energy

The two nations are boosting investment and promoting local currency trade, aiming for a significant increase in total commerce by 2032.

Economy

Egypt is aiming for solid economic expansion and attracting significant investment, but a depreciating currency could impact your purchasing power and business costs.

Economy

The ongoing Iran conflict has severely impacted global oil supply through the vital Strait of Hormuz, pushing prices significantly above pre-war levels.

Energy

The Jerusalem-born land expert who spent a century documenting Palestinian property, and most of it in exile, left behind records that historians and negotiators still rely on.

People & Books

Millions of Christians live and worship in the Gulf states, most of them migrant workers. Their churches sit on top of a far older Christian history in eastern Arabia.

Faith

The founder of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions argued that occupation is a system, and that only a strategy aimed at the whole system could end it. His thinking has travelled a long way since.

Palestine & Israel

Once a fringe idea, the call for a single democratic state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean now features in mainstream debate. Where did it come from, and what are its critics' objections?

Palestine & Israel

Washington spent two decades and hundreds of millions of dollars trying to win Arab audiences with a satellite channel. The story of Alhurra says a lot about how public diplomacy works, and how it doesn't.

Politics

A month after Rafik Hariri's assassination, perhaps a million Lebanese filled central Beirut. It was the largest demonstration in the country's history, and within weeks Syrian troops were gone.

Lebanon & Syria

The idea that Israel pushed America into Iraq was popular on both the left and the right. The record at home was messier: Israeli opinion was split, and the government's calculations were more cautious than the neoconservative project.

Politics

The 2011 uprising hit Bahrain's banks, tourism and credit rating at once. More than a decade later, the island is still paying for the crisis in debt and dependence on its Gulf neighbours.

Gulf

Educator, community leader and writer, Samia Nasir Khoury has spent a lifetime building institutions in Palestine and describing life under occupation to audiences abroad.

People & Books

In 2004 and 2006, two surveys in The Lancet estimated that the Iraq war had killed far more civilians than officials acknowledged. The fierce reaction to them became a case study in how wars are counted.

Iraq

A former Iraqi air force general wrote that Saddam Hussein had flown his weapons of mass destruction to Syria before the 2003 invasion. The claim sold books; the evidence never materialised.

Iraq

Washington's democracy rhetoric after 2001 raised hopes of a rapprochement with reformers in the Muslim world. The gap between words and policy made the partnership harder than it looked.

Politics

A California writer and peace activist, Rachelle Marshall spent years chronicling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for American readers, returning again and again to one theme: what occupation costs everyone involved.

People & Books

Is it legitimate to compare the violence of occupation with the violence of attacks on civilians? The argument, made by Israeli activists like Jeff Halper, still divides opinion sharply.

Palestine & Israel

Pakistanis often describe their relationship with the United States as a betrayal by a partner who only calls when it needs something. The history explains why the anger runs so deep.

Politics

An English parish priest became one of the best-known critics of Christian Zionism, and one of the most controversial.

People & Books

In the mid-2000s, a small circle of Jordanian bloggers created one of the Arab world's liveliest online communities, years before social media made such spaces commonplace.

People & Books

When the Kurdistan Region's exports first passed 100,000 barrels a day, it looked like the start of an oil boom. What followed was a long fight with Baghdad over who controls Kurdish crude and its revenue.

Energy

Expelled from his Galilee village as a boy in 1948, Elias Chacour became a priest, an educator and an archbishop, and one of the best-known Palestinian Christian advocates of reconciliation.

Faith

Mohammed Rashid, known as Khaled Salam, controlled much of the Palestinian Authority's commercial wealth in the Arafat years. The story of that money became a story about accountability.

Palestine & Israel

An American-born correspondent based in the region since the 1960s, Michael Jansen has chronicled wars, occupations and uprisings from Beirut to Baghdad for readers in Ireland, Jordan and the Gulf.

People & Books

Half a century after it was published, Emile Habiby's darkly comic novel remains one of the sharpest portraits of life as a Palestinian inside Israel.

People & Books

Why do some movements turn to attacks on civilians while others choose nonviolent struggle? The Palestinian experience offers evidence for both, and a clear verdict on which path wins more support.

Palestine & Israel

A Palestinian scientist makes the case for one democratic state built on human rights. The argument has aged better than its critics expected.

People & Books

Perched in the hills north-east of Ramallah, Taybeh traces its history to the time of Christ. Today it is known for its churches, its brewery, and the pressures facing its small Christian community.

Faith

In June 2007 Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip after days of fighting with Fatah. The split that followed still defines Palestinian politics.

Palestine & Israel

A covenant attributed to the Prophet Muhammad, preserved for centuries at St Catherine's Monastery in Sinai, promises protection to Christians. What does it say, and how authentic is it?

Faith

The battle for Sirte in 2011 was the last major fight of Libya's revolution. It ended with Muammar Gadhafi's death, and left a city in ruins and a country without a plan.

Egypt & North Africa

The Greek Orthodox Archbishop of Sebastia is one of the most outspoken Palestinian Christian clerics, known for his defence of Jerusalem's Christians and his calls for Muslim-Christian unity.

Faith

A Presbyterian minister and scholar, Donald Wagner spent decades urging American evangelicals to see Palestinian Christians, and Palestinians generally, as part of the story of the Holy Land.

People & Books

CNN's Beirut bureau chief was kidnapped by Hezbollah-linked militants in 1984. What he did after his escape surprised many who knew his story.

People & Books