A low median age, referred to as a demographic youth bulge, can be a very positive tailwind for economic and, particularly, consumption growth in emerging markets. But this is only the case if there is sufficient job creation: an unemployed youth bul...

Should governments in the Middle East that are allied, or at least aligned, with the US be more concerned for their security following the final US withdrawal from Afghanistan? Or, at least, no more than they were before recent images from Kabul airp...

The consensus view on Afghanistan is that with the abrupt withdrawal of US-led NATO forces, the resulting vacuum of decisive military power, and the rapid territorial gains of the Taliban (with minimal resistance so far), another long civil war looms...

If Iran is responsible for the drone attack on an oil tanker managed by an Israeli company, an attempted attack on a Saudi merchant vessel, and the hijacking of a tanker operated by a UAE company, then the question is why would it launch attacks at t...

Iran inaugurated an oil pipeline that circumvents the Strait of Hormuz on 22 July. Assuming there is ultimately progress on negotiations with the US over the nuclear deal, this modestly reduces the risk to long-term global oil supply and, from an Ira...

OPEC has pulled an eleventh-hour rabbit out of the hat many times before, and it will need to do so again to bring the UAE back into the fold this time. The UAE is the fourth-largest producer in OPEC+ and wants its quota to reflect the over 20% capac...