MANAMA, Bahrain -- Saudi Arabia pushed ahead Monday with efforts to forge a single federation with its five Persian Gulf neighbors as the conservative monarchy seeks to build a new bulwark against the waves of change sweeping the Middle East. The Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, said after a meeting in Riyadh of the loosely allied,...
BEIRUT, Lebanon -- Syria's diplomatic isolation deepened on Friday as four more Persian Gulf states moved to close their Damascus embassies in protest of the violent suppression of a year-old uprising. At the same time, Turkey advised its citizens in Syria to evacuate and announced that it would soon suspend consular services there, a possible...
DUBAI -- The Dubai Mercantile Exchange, set up in 2007, is on a quest to establish its Oman crude oil futures contract as a leading benchmark for pricing oil deals. But regional instability and low trading volumes on the exchange pose tough challenges to that ambition. To secure its place in the global oil market, the exchange hopes to persuade...
Oman er et sultandømme i den sydøstlige del af Den Arabiske Halvø. Oman grænser til de Forenede Arabiske Emirater, Saudi-Arabien og Yemen. Oman er en del af Mellemøsten.
Oman er delt ind i otte regioner (mintaqah). Disse er igen delt ind i mindre distrikter (wilajat, i ental wilaja).
Sultanen er stats- og regeringschef. Posten som sultan går i arv. Sultanen udvælger selv regeringen, som sidder i et råd. I begyndelsen af 1990'erne oprettede sultanen et folkevalgt råd, Majlis ash-Shura, men kun få omanere havde stemmeret. Almindelig stemmeret for personer over 21 år blev indført den 4. oktober 2003. Over 190.000 personer (74% af de stemmeberettigede) stemte for at vælge 84 sæder. To kvinder blev valgt. Fold ud