Author: Saalim al-Dajani

The Taliban-run Afghanistan saw its first significant foreign investment last month when a Chinese firm signed a 25-year-long, multimillion-dollar contract to extract oil. Experts are cautiously optimistic the project may bring jobs and income despite China’s sketchy record on executing deals. On January 6, the Taliban signed with Xinjiang Central Asia Petroleum and Gas Company (CAPEIC), a subsidiary of the state-owned China National Petroleum Company (CNPC), a contract to extract oil from the Amu Darya basin, which stretches between central Asian countries and Afghanistan where it covers about 4.5 square kilometres (1.73 square miles). The deal will see an investment of…

A US Navy reconnaissance jet flew over the Taiwan Strait on Monday, in a maneuver intended to assert the right to operate in international airspace despite strong objections from the Chinese military. In a statement Monday, the US 7th Fleet said the flight of the P-8A Poseidon over the waterway that separates China and the self-ruled island of Taiwan was conducted in accordance with international law, demonstrating “the United States’ commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific.” But a spokesman for China’s Eastern Theater Command of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), Army Senior Col. Shi Yi, accused Washington of hyping…

The Kuroshio Current enters the South China Sea via the Luzon Strait and exerts significant effects on circulation and water mass properties of this marine basin. However, limited by the few on-site observations, multi-decadal variations in Luzon Strait Transport remain uncertain. Recently, a research team led by Prof. HU Dunxin and Prof. SUN Weidong from the Institute of Oceanology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (IOCAS) and their collaborators used coral isotopic proxy from Xiaoliuqiu Island along the Kuroshio intrusion route to reconstruct Luzon Strait Transport and investigated its interannual and decadal variability. The study was published in Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology on…

The US Navy reconnaissance jet flies at 21,500 feet over the South China Sea, 50 kilometres from the contested Paracel Islands, a group of about 130 small atolls, the biggest of which are home to Chinese military bases. A voice, saying it’s coming from a People’s Liberation Army (PLA) airport, crackles over the radio of the US Navy P-8 Poseidon as a CNN crew, given rare access aboard the US flight, listens in. “American aircraft. Chinese airspace is 12 nautical miles. Not approaching any more or you bear all responsibility,” it says. In a few minutes, a Chinese fighter jet armed with air-to-air missiles intercepts…

“The objective for today is to come back alive.” Yevgeny is a young commando from the “Mad Pack”, a special forces unit that has been fighting in Bakhmut since November. His words are familiar — lacquered with that mix of emotions common to almost all soldiers fighting on the frontlines of war: laughter and unease. We clamber into a Land Cruiser and head toward the city. “The situation is always changing,” he continues. “But one thing remains the same: the line of contact is always active.” Even by the standards of eastern Ukraine, Bakhmut is a hellscape of destruction. Electricity…

DUBAI, Jan 23 (Reuters) – Investment bank Lazard Ltd said on Monday it hired Wassim Al-Khatib as chief executive officer of the bank’s investment banking business for the Middle East and North Africa. Al-Khatib will also be CEO of Lazard Saudi Arabia, the statement said. Al-Khatib joins Lazard from Citigroup where he headed its business in Saudi Arabia and prior to that he was the head of National Commercial Bank’s investment banking business where he was a key dealmaker on oil giant Aramco’s, initial public offering. International banks have been courting Saudi Arabia ever since the kingdom outlined plans to…

Israel’s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, entered Al-Aqsa Mosque’s courtyards in occupied East Jerusalem on Tuesday, in a move bound to inflame tensions. A video posted on social media shows Ben-Gvir touring the courtyards with a heavy security detail. On Monday, the Palestinian movement Hamas warned Israel that it “won’t sit idly by” if the new security minister visits Al-Aqsa Mosque, as he vowed to do on Sunday. Following his visit on Tuesday, Ben-Gvir said: “Our government will not surrender to threats from Hamas. “The Temple Mount is the most important place for the people of Israel,” he said,…

Rüya Bayegan using prime minister Barzani’s right hand – Rania Majeed – to elbow her way back to KRG? Ankara, Erbil (4/1 – 45). Rüya Bayegan, the CEO of BGN International and its Turkey-based subsidiary Bayegan Group, was once considered an instrumental member of the petrochemical industry in Turkey. However, as of at least October 2022, Bayegan and her husband, Ercüment Bayegan, have been under investigation by Turkish authorities on allegations of fraud, document forgeries and tax evasion as a result of their role in the disastrous Yurtgas scandal. The recent contract between BGN International with the Indonesian state owned oil and gas company Pertamina raises…