Breakfast News Recap: Ukraine talks widen as Gulf tensions rise and Microsoft outage drags on
US envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff met President Volodymyr Zelensky in Dublin after earlier talks with Vladimir Putin in Moscow, as European leaders moved closer to a shared position on how Europe should be represented in any future Russia Ukraine peace talks. The Dublin discussions also brought Italy's Giorgia Meloni and UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham together on defence, Ukraine and migration. đź”— đź”— đź”—Across the Gulf, Iran's Revolutionary Guard said it struck a US early warning radar site in Bahrain, while Saudi Arabia said it intercepted suspected Houthi drones over the Riyadh region and the Eastern Province after... [Continue Reading]
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Iran claims it struck US radar site in Bahrain amid rising Gulf tensions
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps says it has targeted a US early-warning radar site in Bahrain, describing the move as retaliation for an attack on a telecommunications tower in southern Iran. The claim was made on Thursday and comes amid a sharp rise in tensions involving Iran, the United States and Israel across the Gulf region. Bahrain hosts the headquarters of the US Navy's Fifth Fleet, giving the allegation immediate regional significance.According to the supporting report, the IRGC said the strike was carried out by its Aerospace Force. The statement, carried by a semi-official Iranian outlet, described the action as... [Continue Reading]
GCC agrees to station forces at new military command post in Kuwait amid regional security concerns
The Gulf Cooperation Council has agreed to station forces at a new military command post in Kuwait, according to the bloc's secretary-general. The decision was announced after defence ministers from Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates met in Manama. It marks a further step in the GCC's effort to strengthen collective defence coordination across the Gulf.Secretary-General Jasem Mohamed Albudaiwi said the post will form part of the GCC Unified Military Command, which was created in 2013 to plan joint operations. The bloc did not say when the new facility will open, how many troops will... [Continue Reading]
Qatar says progress seen in US-Iran talks after White House meeting
Qatar said on Tuesday that it sees progress in talks between the United States and Iran, a day after Qatar's prime minister met US President Donald Trump at the White House. The assessment came as Doha said it was continuing mediation efforts aimed at reducing uncertainty around the crisis between Washington and Tehran. A Qatari foreign ministry official said the White House meeting was held in a positive atmosphere and focused on advancing the talks.Ibrahim bin Sultan Al Hashmi, director of the foreign ministry's Media and Communication Department, said Qatar could not say how close or how far away an... [Continue Reading]
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Trump says Israel and Gulf allies should repay US war costs after Iran conflict
United States President Donald Trump has said Washington will seek compensation from countries he says it protected during the war on Iran. In comments aired in an interview with CBS News correspondent Ross Douthat, Trump said those countries would pay back "any and all costs" the United States incurred in the conflict. He said the US would get "all that money back" and added that the countries involved would do so "100 percent".Trump explicitly named Israel for the first time in this context, saying it would not exist without US military intervention. He also repeated earlier remarks that Gulf states... [Continue Reading]
Fear the Shia, Arm the Sunnis: The Uncomfortable Numbers Behind America’s War Narrative
“When fear is managed carefully enough, a nation can be taught to look away from the blood on the floor and stare instead at the shadow on the wall.” A friend of mine, whose name I will not reveal because he asked me not to, sat across from me over dinner and placed a question on the table that would not leave me alone. He was born into a Muslim Shia background, and for the angle of this article, that detail matters, not because I wish to reduce a man to a sect, but because sect has become one of... [Continue Reading]
The Mirage of the Umbrella: The Shifting Sands of the U.S.-Israel-GCC Alliance
As I sat in a recent debate at the historic Carlton Club in London, listening to Faisal Abbas, the Editor-in-Chief of Arab News, I felt a tangible shift in the room, not because a new fact had been revealed, but because an old illusion had finally lost its last breath. The old-world order has not merely changed, it has evaporated, leaving the Gulf to realize it is no longer watching a distant fire from the safety of marble towers and air-conditioned ministries, but is instead standing directly inside the smoke. The GCC today is caught in a lethal crossfire between... [Continue Reading]


