Kate Dourian

1 week ago | agsi.org | Kate Dourian |Hussein Ibish |Aziz Alghashian |Mohammed Baharoon

On May 24, the U.S. government took decisive action to begin implementing President Donald J. Trump’s surprisingly bold decision, announced during his mid-May visit to Riyadh, to lift all U.S. sanctions on Syria. It represents the most significant – albeit benign – aftershock following the political earthquake set off by the sudden collapse of the Bashar al-Assad regime in early December 2024.

3 weeks ago | economymiddleeast.com | Kate Dourian

The International Energy Agency (IEA) and the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) downgraded sharply their oil demand forecasts for 2025 amid intensifying trade tensions between the U.S. and China. OPEC, while more optimistic, also revised its forecasts lower. All three organizations cited the impact of recent U.S. tariffs for the cuts.

1 month ago | mees.com | Kate Dourian

In December 1975, when Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, aka Carlos the Jackal, and an armed group attacked Opec headquarters in Vienna and took dozens of ministers and delegates hostage, one man kept his cool. His name was Abdul Samad al-Awadhi, a member of the Kuwaiti delegation and a former head of the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation’s (KPC) Europe operations. He died in London last week.

1 month ago | economymiddleeast.com | Kate Dourian

Gulf Arab states, led by the UAE and Saudi Arabia, have witnessed a modest rise in electric vehicle (EV) adoption as they develop infrastructure to support a move away from internal combustion engines. Urbanization and economic growth have led to a rise in emissions from the transportation sector, making decarbonization an imperative in the drive to net zero carbon emissions.

2 months ago | economymiddleeast.com | Kate Dourian

Last month, a nationwide power outage in Sri Lanka caused by a monkey tripping an electricity transformer drew attention to the urgent need for resilient power grids as the global economy becomes more electrified and digitalized. Medical facilities and water purification plants in Sri Lanka had to rely on backup generators to maintain critical operations while traffic was gridlocked because traffic lights went dark.