TEHRAN — Brent crude pushed above $105 a barrel on Wednesday and Polymarket’s wagering on a US-Iran peace deal by April 30
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TOKYO — Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi called Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Wednesday and asked him directly for more
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TEHRAN — Iran’s deputy speaker of parliament Hamidreza Hajibabaei confirmed on Wednesday that the first revenue from Tehran’s Strait of Hormuz toll
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RIYADH — Donald Trump’s April 23 order for the US Navy to “shoot and kill any boat” laying mines in the Strait
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Table of Contents The 57% Profit Surge on 30% Less Oil How Does Aramco Actually Pay the Saudi State? The IPO Split:
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WASHINGTON — The USS Spruance put several rounds from its 5-inch gun into the engine room of a 295-metre Iranian container ship
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Table of Contents Thirteen Days from Veto to Coordination What Changed in the April 20 Call? The Economic Arithmetic Behind the Alignment
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Table of Contents What Does 31 Vessels Actually Mean? Trump Kills the Clock The IRGC Answers Within Hours Saudi Arabia’s Indefinite Arithmetic
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Table of Contents What Is the STEP Quartet? How Did Four States With No Treaty Broker a Ceasefire? The Architecture of Failure
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RIYADH — Ukraine signed 10-year defence cooperation agreements with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar between March 27 and 30, covering drone
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RIYADH — A classified Pentagon briefing to the House Armed Services Committee on April 22 confirmed what shipping insurers and Saudi fiscal
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WASHINGTON — The White House ruled on April 22, 2026 that Iran’s seizure of two commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz
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RIYADH — China did not volunteer to become the mediator of the Hormuz crisis. The structural geometry of the war — Beijing’s
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BEIJING / RIYADH — Chinese President Xi Jinping told Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on April 20 that “the normal passage through
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TEHRAN — Mojtaba Khamenei has not been seen alive on camera in 45 days. A US-Israeli intelligence memo shared with Gulf allies
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JEDDAH — Saudi Arabia has killed a $1.5 billion Pakistani arms sale to Sudan by withdrawing the financing that made it possible,
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NEW DELHI — India became the first state actor to suffer a documented legal injury from Iran’s authorization ceiling on April 18,
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TEHRAN — Iran’s hardline establishment responded to President Trump’s open-ended ceasefire extension on April 22, 2026, not with diplomacy but with a
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The Northwood Dilemma: Saudi Arabia’s Absence from the 30-Nation Hormuz Coalition and Why It Matters
LONDON — Thirty nations sent military planners to Northwood on Tuesday, the first time a non-NATO command structure has been used to
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DHAHRAN — Brent crude closed at $101.91 on April 22, its biggest single-day rally since the ceasefire was first announced, and Saudi
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RIYADH — The ceasefire extension that Donald Trump announced on April 21 does not contain a single clause requiring Iran to restore
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Table of Contents Pioneer and Chief Head West The Mine Clearance Gap Since September 2025 Why Do Wooden-Hulled Ships From 1992 Matter
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JEDDAH — The ceasefire expired at midnight, the first Indonesian pilgrims boarded their Hajj flights from Jakarta, and the IRGC seized two
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TEHRAN — Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on April 20 formally labelled the United States naval blockade of Iranian ports an “act
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RIYADH — Saudi Transport Minister Saleh bin Nasser Al-Jasser spent the week of April 16-22, 2026, holding back-to-back virtual meetings with his
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