The British navy says of Tuesday’s hijacking of a ship off in the Gulf of Oman, following a loss of steering control reported by at least six ships in the area, that the “incident [is] complete.” Clearly, it isn’t. The armed hijackers who boarded the Panama-flagged asphalt tanker Asphalt Princess …

Biden officials’ claims that the US doesn’t ‘seek conflict’ is belied by pushes to continually one-up Beijing’s defenses. One purpose of Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman’s meetings in China on Monday was to place “guardrails” on the deteriorating relationship. She told her counterparts that the United States welcomes “stiff …

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin inadvertently introduced a conversation about where the EU should focus its security priorities. Some of Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s remarks in Singapore on Tuesday are a severe embarrassment to the British government. Whether Austin realized this or not, he undermined one part of Biden administration …

Former Air Force analyst Daniel Hale is going to jail for revealing the extent to which US drones kill civilians. The District Court of Alexandria, Virginia on Tuesday sentenced former Air Force intelligence analyst Daniel Hale to nearly four years in prison. He was charged under the Espionage Act for …

Lawrence in Arabia – War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East. Scott Anderson. Anchor Books, Random House LLC, New York, 2013. Every very seldom often a book comes along that greatly exceeds expectations. Lawrence in Arabia is one of those books. Scott Anderson’s writing is …

On July 27, 2021, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin – amid a diplomatic standoff with China – said: “We will not flinch when our interests are threatened. Yet we do not seek confrontation.” The message is clear: the US is turning its gaze to Asia and wants China to …

Ebrahim Raisi will be sworn in as Iran’s next president on August 5, marking a defining moment in the situation around the nuclear issue. Having weathered the brunt of Trump’s ‘maximum pressure’, Tehran is in a better situation today. The international situation works in its favour too. Iran has gained …

The Saudi state-owned oil company said reports it will engage in the process of creating cryptocurrency are “false.” Saudi Arabia’s state oil company has denied reports it will make more of the cryptocurrency Bitcoin. Aramco called claims they would engage in Bitcoin mining “false and inaccurate” in a Monday press …

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States is confident that Iran carried out the attack on the Israeli-linked oil tanker. The United States is “confident” that Iran is responsible for an attack on an Israeli-linked oil tanker that killed two crew members off the coast of Oman last …

There are indications the Kremlin is about to revise its approach to Israel in order to force the Israel Defense Forces into accepting new rules of the regional game. The end of Benjamin Netanyahu’s grip on power in Israel fueled media speculation of what it means for Russian-Israeli coordination in …