Iran War Revives the Power of America’s Oil Lobby
The Iran war gives the U.S. oil industry a powerful argument that U.S. energy dominance, expanded drilling, faster permits, LNG exports, and pressure on rival producers... Read more.
UAE Denial of Netanyahu Visit Shows Israel Has Become a Liability
Abu Dhabi denied Netanyahu’s alleged visit and the reception of any Israeli military delegation indicating a turn in the UAE's enthusiasm in declaring links with... Read more.
UAE Receives First Nvidia AI Chips Boasting its Tech Ambitions
The shipment marks a turning point in the UAE’s push to become a global AI hub, but it also places Abu Dhabi inside Washington’s widening contest over advanced... Read more.
Saudi Arabia’s AI Ambitions Move From Infrastructure to Industrial Execution
IBM’s latest pitch to the Kingdom reflects a wider shift in Saudi Arabia’s AI strategy from building compute capacity and sovereign infrastructure to embedding... Read more.
Ziad Rahbany and Expressing Beirut in Jazz
In the music of Ziad Rahbany, jazz was not imported into Arab culture as a foreign fashion. It was translated into the sound of Beirut: ironic, wounded, political,... Read more.
Israel’s Education Minister Threatens University Budgets in Push to “keep politics off campus”
In a statement issued Wednesday, Kisch said university leaders must commit to three principles: avoiding institutional political positions, maintaining continuity... Read more.
The New Arab LLM Race: Sovereign AI and the Limits of Gulf-Egyptian Ambition
The recent wave of Arabic large language models, Jais in the UAE, ALLaM in Saudi Arabia, and Karnak in Egypt, marks a decisive shift in the region’s AI politics.... Read more.
Emirates, Kuwait and the Age of Company-States
The experiments unfolding in the Emirates and Kuwait are not merely regional phenomena. They are signals of a world in which the attributes and burdens of population... Read more.
Mustafa Akyol and the Fight to Reclaim Islamic Reason
Tracing a lifelong effort to reconcile Islam with reason, freedom, and moral autonomy, Akyol’s journey reflects a sustained attempt to revive a tradition of interpretation... Read more.
Explainer: UAE Leaves OPEC Marking Strategic Break in Gulf Energy Order
The UAE’s exit from OPEC reflects a calculation that the benefits of flexibility, capturing market share, now outweigh the benefits of collective restraint.... Read more.