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An American nuclear submarine has crossed the Suez Canal to join the US fleet stationed in the Persian Gulf, Egyptian sources say. Egyptian officials reported that the nuclear submarine crossed the canal along with a destroyer on Friday and Egyptian forces were put on high alert when the navy convoy was passing through the canal. An American destroyer recently left the Persian Gulf, heading towards the Mediterranean Sea; earlier Thursday, a US Navy rescue ship crossed the canal to enter the Red Sea. The deployment comes as recent reports allege that US Vice President Dick Cheney is seeking to rally...

ARABIAN GULF — The Royal Navy has taken command of the Coalition Maritime Forces protecting Iraq's vital oil platforms in the Northern Arabian Gulf. Commodore Duncan Potts RN has taken over command of Combined Task Force 158 (CTF158) from Commodore Allan du Toit of the Royal Australian Navy. Command of the Task Force is rotated between the UK, US and Australia. The UK last held command of CTF158 in July 2007 and will command the Task Force until August. Combined Task Force 158's primary mission in the Northern Arabian Gulf is maintaining security in and around both the Al Basrah...

Turns out Google already had another cartographic controversy on its hands. Earlier this week we learned of an Israeli city's slander lawsuit against the search giant based upon Google's refusal to remove a user-generated Google Earth notation that identifies the community of Kiryat Yam as Arab Ghawarina. A Google spokesperson told me that the notation violated no aspect of the company's terms of use agreement, no matter how much it violated the sensibilities of Kiryat Yam officials. In this second controversy, however, Google does not have the "We didn't do it" card at its disposal. That's because Google itself has...

Iran bristles as French forces head for war games in the Gulf By Ben Hall in Paris and Simeon Kerr in Dubai February 23 2008 French armed forces will take part in large-scale war games in the Gulf next week, underlining France's growing military presence in the region amid heightened tensions over Iran's nuclear ambitions. France will deploy 1,500 personnel, two frigates and eight Mirage fighter jets to the defence exercises, held in conjunction with the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. Paris has long-standing defence co-operation agreements with the two countries and is one of their biggest suppliers of arms....

Not content with finishing construction of the "The World", a constellation of man-made islands forming the shape of the continents, Dubai's developer, Nakheel, is to build "The Universe": an archipelago of reclaimed islands depicting the sun and the planets and moons of the solar system. Only half of The World's islands have been sold, but Sultan bin Sulayem, Nakheel's chairman, says Dubai is pressing ahead with another offshore project. Residents have already moved into apartments and villas on Palm Jumeirah, the city's first reclaimed development, which will boast several deluxe hotels, including a refurbished Queen Elizabeth II, the liner's final...

PARIS (AP) - For sale: A palatial pleasure yacht with swimming pools, opulent salons and, should the winds of war blow, a rocket launcher and mini-submarine. The sale of the 269-foot Ocean Breeze, built for Saddam Hussein and docked on the French Riviera, could be thwarted, however, if Iraq can prove it belongs to someone in the late dictator's entourage - and now, therefore, to the government in Baghdad. A court hearing will likely be held in March to determine the rightful owner. The government in Baghdad suspects the yacht, which French authorities seized on Jan. 31, is still Iraqi....

Open letter to Google Earth 2008-01-26 Open letter to Google Earth Google Earth uses the incorrect name of the Persian Gulf It has come to our attention that Google Earth has been using an unrecognized name for the Always and Forever, Persian Gulf. Considering the fact that it is in Googles interest as a search engine is to support educational and scientific institution, it is hard for us to fathom how they made reference to the Persian Gulf with an unrecognized name. The United Nations, in addition to historical records and facts that date back more than thousands of years,...

Iran Says French Base in Gulf "Not Conducive" to Peace February 03, 2008 Reuters Fredrik Dahl TEHRAN -- Iran declared on Sunday that a French military base in the Gulf would not help security and peace in the oil-rich region. Paris signed a deal with the United Arab Emirates in January to build France's first permanent military installation in the Gulf, just across the water from Iran. The base will accommodate 400 to 500 personnel, keeping France within reach of sea lanes through which over a third of global oil shipments pass. "We are against any kind of increase in...

TEHRAN (AFP) - A gas field with an estimated 11 trillion cubic feet in reserves has been discovered in the Gulf off the coast of Iran, Oil Minister Gholam Hossein Nozari said on Saturday. "A gas field with an estimated reserve of 11 trillion cubic feet (311 billion cubic metres) was found by an Indian company in the Persian Gulf," Nozari told a news conference.

CAIRO, Egypt - Iran's top military commander said Saturday that his forces would retaliate against American military bases in the Persian Gulf if they are involved in any possible future attack on Iran.

Six gulf states control sovereign wealth fund assets of some $1.7 trillion. Here are the men who manage these funds The men who manage the so-called sovereign wealth funds of the Persian Gulf for their governments are quickly becoming some of the world's most powerful money managers. They are using billions from Persian Gulf oil revenues to change the face of global finance by buying big chunks of blue chip companies, partnering with private equity firms to do buyouts, and increasingly snapping up companies on their own. As the credit crisis deepens, investment banks and buyout firms are stepping back...

IIn the movie “Die Hard 2,” a terrorist is laying out his nefarious plans to the air-traffic control chief — played by one Sen. Fred Thompson — at Dulles International Airport. “Dammit, you can't do this!” an aghast Thompson tells the terrorist character. “I am doing this!” snarls the terrorist. With similar melodramatic aplomb, the Iranians played a potentially deadly game of chicken just as all eyes were fixated on Thompson and the rest of the New Hampshire hopefuls. As Iranian speedboats confronted U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf, a radio transmission intoned in the speaker's best Darth Vader English,...

George Bush calls Iran 'leading terror sponsor' By Damien McElroy In Riyadh Last Updated: 4:46pm GMT 13/01/2008 President George W Bush has condemned Iran as the foremost threat to global security as he attempted to rally Gulf states behind a tougher line against the Islamic Republic during a tour of the region. In a keynote speech in Abu Dhabi President Bush said it was time to confront an Iran that supported terrorism and defied the United Nations to pursue secret nuclear research. "Iran is today the world's leading state sponsor of terror," he said. "It sends hundreds of millions of...

WASHINGTON (AP) - An al-Qaida terror suspect detained in England was sent to the United States in early 2001 by the principal architect of the Sept. 11 suicide hijackings to perform surveillance on economic targets in New York, according to U.S. officials and government interviews with other captured terror suspects. They said the suspect claimed he has associates in America, possibly in California. Abu Eisa al-Hindi was arrested in a roundup last week in Britain along with 11 others. The disclosure that al-Hindi also was known as Issa al-Britani provides tantalizing details that further link al-Hindi to recent Bush administration...

US reveals new Iran 'incidents' Iran has described the incident as an "ordinary occurrence" Iranian speedboats approached US warships in two previously undisclosed incidents in the Strait of Hormuz in December, a US Navy official has said.The USS Whidbey Island fired warning shots during one of the encounters on 19 December, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. He also described a third stand-off on 6 January - that sparked US protests - as the most serious incident. Iran has accused the US of faking its video of the most recent encounter. 'Radio threat' The US official...

Lockheed eyes additional missile sales in Gulf Tue Jan 8, 2008 2:30pm EST By Andrea Shalal-Esa WASHINGTON, Jan 8 (Reuters) - Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N: Quote, Profile, Research) has provided technical details to Saudi Arabia and Qatar about advanced systems to shoot down enemy ballistic missiles, hoping to add to missile sales already planned to the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, company officials said on Tuesday. The Bush administration last month announced plans for sales of Lockheed's Patriot PAC-3 missiles to the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait with a potential combined value of nearly $10.4 billion. The sales are part...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Two U.S. Navy fighter jets plunged into the Persian Gulf Monday, after what initial reports suggest was a mid-air collision, a defense official said. All three pilots ejected safely from the planes and were headed back to the USS Harry Truman, the aircraft carrier they were operating from, according to the official, who requested anonymity because the information was preliminary and not yet released publicly. No other details or the crash were released. One of the F-18 jets that crashed held two pilots, the other held just one. The crash occurred at about 1 p.m. EST.

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran's Foreign Ministry said Monday that a confrontation between Iranian boats and U.S. Navy ships in the Persian Gulf over the weekend was "something normal" and was resolved. It suggested the Iranian boats had not recognized the U.S. vessels. The Pentagon said that in the incident early Sunday, five small Iranian boats repeatedly "charged" U.S. warships in the Gulf's Hormuz Strait and dropped boxes in the water. The boats warned the U.S. ships that they would set up "explosions," a U.S. Defense Department official said. The U.S. craft were on the verge of opening fire when the...