Tag: Gulf

‘Extremely dangerous’ Hurricane Idalia makes landfall on Florida coast

ST. PETERSBURG, United States, Aug 30, 2023 (AFP) – Hurricane Idalia slammed into northwest Florida as an “extremely dangerous” Category 3 storm early Wednesday, as officials warned of catastrophic impacts including storm surges of up to 16 feet (about five meters). Authorities in the southern US state described Idalia and its potentially deadly high surging waters as a once-in-a-lifetime event for Florida’s northwest coast, ordering mass evacuations and issuing flood alerts. The US National Hurricane […]

Continue Reading →

Florida orders evacuations ahead of ‘extremely dangerous’ Idalia

GAINESVILLE , United States, Aug 29, 2023 (AFP) – Residents along Florida’s west coast were under orders to evacuate Tuesday ahead of Hurricane Idalia’s arrival, as forecasters said the storm was strengthening over an exceptionally warm Gulf of Mexico and would likely become “extremely dangerous” before landfall. Idalia, which the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said had become a Category 1 hurricane overnight, was churning Tuesday morning hundreds of miles off Florida’s southwest, and bringing […]

Continue Reading →

US aims to deploy troops on tankers to deter seizures by Iran

  WASHINGTON, Aug 3, 2023 (AFP) – The United States is preparing to deploy Marines and Navy personnel aboard commercial tankers transiting the Gulf as part of efforts to deter Iran from seizing ships, a US official said Thursday. The security forces would provide a further layer of protection for the tankers in addition to the warships and planes operating in the strategically vital area, through which around a fifth of the world’s oil passes. […]

Continue Reading →

Saudi compensates families of Covid health worker victims

Saudi Arabia has begun compensating the families of health workers who died because of the coronavirus, state media reported on Sunday, after announcing last year that each will receive $133,000. The kingdom said in October it would distribute “500,000 Saudi riyals to the families of those who died as a result of Covid-19 working in the health sectors, be it government or private, civilian or military, Saudi or non-Saudi”. The oil-rich Gulf country said the […]

Continue Reading →

Qatar denies Gulf bloc exit rumors

DOHA, Qatar (AFP) — Qatar denied on Thursday that it plans to quit the Gulf Cooperation Council as it prepares to mark three years of isolation led by the regional bloc’s heavyweight Saudi Arabia. However, the gas-rich state cautioned that the effort by three of the GCC’s six members to isolate Doha economically and politically meant people in the region were “doubting and questioning” the organization. Rumors of Qatar’s imminent departure from the GCC, founded […]

Continue Reading →

Qatar says, talks stall with Saudi to defuse Gulf crisis

by Gregory WALTON DOHA, Qatar (AFP) — Talks between Doha and Riyadh to resolve a two-year regional spat have stalled, Qatar’s foreign minister said, after a flurry of diplomacy late last year raised hopes the damaging rift was being healed. Saudi Arabia, along with its allies the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt, cut all diplomatic, trade and transport ties with Qatar in June 2017. The four governments accused Doha of backing radical Islamists, including […]

Continue Reading →

Japan destroyer heads to Middle East as Iran-US tension lingers

TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — Japan sent a naval destroyer to the Middle East on Sunday for a rare overseas mission to ensure the safety of its ships amid lingering tension between Iran and the US. The vessel left the Yokosuka naval base, south of Tokyo, for an information-gathering mission in the Gulf of Oman, northern parts of the Arabian Sea and parts of the Gulf of Aden. Japan earlier decided not to take part in […]

Continue Reading →

US navy prepares allies to ‘protect navigation’ in Gulf

by Mohamad Ali Harissi On Board the  RFA Cardigan Bay in the Gulf, Undefined (AFP) — The United States is training Gulf allies to “protect navigation” in the region’s troubled waterways, as it seeks to build an alliance to contain Iran. Washington’s three-week International Maritime Exercise (IMX), which started on October 21, came after a number of commercial vessels were attacked in the Gulf from May, ratcheting up regional tensions. Washington and other Western powers […]

Continue Reading →

Gulf tensions rise as US shoots down Iranian drone

by Jerome Cartillier with Amir Havasi in Tehran WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — Tensions in the Gulf region mounted Thursday as US President Donald Trump said an American naval vessel shot down an Iranian drone that threatened the ship as it was entering the Strait of Hormuz. It was the first US military engagement with Iran following a series of increasingly serious incidents. Trump announced that the USS Boxer, an amphibious assault ship, “took defensive […]

Continue Reading →

Oil producers meet to discuss output amid Iran tension

Major crude producers are set to meet Sunday to discuss how to stabilise a volatile oil market amid rising US-Iran tensions in the Gulf, which threaten to disrupt supply. Key OPEC members and other major suppliers including Russia will assess the oil market and examine compliance to production cuts agreed late last year. But the subject of Iran, which is not present, will dominate the one-day meeting of the OPEC+ group. It comes days after […]

Continue Reading →

US issues warning to airlines flying over Gulf

  WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — The Federal Aviation Administration has warned US airlines flying over the Gulf to exercise caution “due to heightened military activities and increased political tensions in the region.” The advisory, which also covers airspace over the Gulf of Oman, comes amid rising tensions between the US and Iran. Increased tensions in the region “present an increasing inadvertent risk to US civil aviation operations due to the potential for miscalculation or […]

Continue Reading →

Attacking Gulf oil routes exposes alternatives to Hormuz

by Omar Hasan DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AFP) — Attacks on Saudi and UAE oil assets built to bypass the Strait of Hormuz, a strategically important waterway in the Gulf, have raised fears that alternative routes could be vulnerable. Four ships including two Saudi oil tankers were damaged in mysterious sabotage attacks Sunday off Fujairah, an emirate located at the crucial entrance to the Gulf. That incident was followed by drone strikes Tuesday by Yemen’s […]

Continue Reading →
1 2 3