الخليج وسياسة الطاقة

On December 29, 2010, Houston-based Noble Energy announced a "significant natural gas discovery" in the Leviathan offshore license area eighty miles off the northern Israeli port of Haifa. According to the company, recent measurements confirmed initial estimates for the field of 16 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of gas, making it

The recent confirmation that North Korea has built a centrifuge plant for uranium enrichment has major implications for the Middle East as much as it does for East Asia. The presence of the plant, shown on November 12 to visiting Stanford University professor Siegfried Hecker and two colleagues, has sparked

The October 27 death of a long-serving Arab ruler in an obscure Persian Gulf sheikhdom has the potential to alter the tense relationship between the region's Arab states and Iran, while also testing the ruling style and adaptability of hereditary, quasimonarchical Arab states. Tiny but strategically situated Ras al-Khaimah, part

On October 23, the people of the Persian Gulf state of Bahrain will vote in parliamentary and municipal elections. Five days later, the trial will begin of more than twenty Shiite political activists detained since August and charged with terrorism and conspiring against the government. Both events will be watched

For nearly two weeks, the Persian Gulf island state of Bahrain has experienced near-daily disturbances following government arrests of opposition activists from the majority Shiite community. The timing of the arrests seemed geared toward preempting trouble in advance of the scheduled October 23 parliamentary and municipal elections, which minority Sunni

Given the rising instability of Middle East energy supplies, the Caspian basin has emerged in prominence as an alternative resource for the world's growing energy consumers. As a result, the region is becoming enmeshed in a web of overlapping political, military, trade, and energy interests of countries extending from Asia

In August 2009, Scottish authorities released Abdel Basset al-Megrahi -- the Libyan terrorist responsible for the deaths of 270 passengers in the 1988 Pan Am Flight 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland. Libya's acceptance of responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing and agreement to pay compensation to the families of victims had

Starting in August, U.S. officials are visiting East Asia, Latin America, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to garner support for tightening Iran sanctions under UN Security Council Resolution 1929. Robert Einhorn, the U.S. State Department's special advisor for nonproliferation and arms control, and Daniel Glaser, deputy assistant secretary of

On July 13, 2010, Barak Salmoni, along with Christopher Boucek and April Longley Alley, addressed a special Policy Forum luncheon at The Washington Institute. Author of the recent study Regime and Periphery in Northern Yemen: The Huthi Phenomenon, Dr. Salmoni has served as a political scientist at the RAND National