author - oman observer

Every summit begins with vision statements. This one began with a ledger. The IUCN Conservation Congress treated conservation as a balance sheet of species, coastlines, and political will. The week...

Muscat felt like a harbour the night Sinbad the Omani Sailor opened. The hall lifted with strings and voices as an old voyage met a new century. Days earlier, I had stood at the Berkeley Forum,...

New York offered a study in stillness and motion. One minute the city surged, the next it paused. President Trump’s motorcade locked an avenue in place, and even the French president stood waiting...

I spent last week in Hong Kong at the Belt and Road Summit, a gathering that feels like a living map. You can hear trade routes in the hallway, see ports and rail lines in a speaker’s hand gesture,...

I woke today to a sky the colour of pewter, the kind that makes the sea pause. In Oman, we read the weather like a familiar poem. The shamal, the slow build of heat over the Gulf, the khareef mist...

I have been thinking about silence and how it settles around women who are told to wait, lower their voices, and soften their ambition until meaning blurs. Breaking that silence rarely arrives as a...

Years ago, when I was working in fisheries, we explored the idea of drawing cold water from the deep seas off Oman. The vision was simple on paper and ambitious in practice: water cool enough to...

Some mornings in Muscat I wake before the city stirs. Heat gathers early, heavy before sunrise. At a summer camp last week, a girl in the front row asked how to plan a life when the map keeps...

Some stories force us to confront more than injustice. They ask us to examine the limits of our empathy, the thresholds of our action and the truths we are still unwilling to hold. A legal ruling. A...

The sun streamed into my office last Wednesday afternoon as I watched history unfold from thousands of miles away. At the Peace Palace in The Hague, the International Court of Justice delivered its...

What happens to a country that uses nearly 195 million tonnes of materials a year, only to reuse 2 per cent of them? This question became the framing lens for Oman’s first Circularity Gap Report,...

I was catching up on the news when a headline from Brazil caught my eye. COP30’s presidency has initiated a global call to address what they are identifying as climate disinformation. Not soft...

What if you were offered $232 billion to shape the future of your region? No contest. No catch. Only a choice. To act with care, with courage and with creativity.That figure is real. It is the...

Stepping out just after dawn in Muscat, heat drapes across my shoulders, heavy as a wool cloak. The car thermometer already blinks 35, yet a news alert says Brussels will match us by mid-afternoon. A...

The cotton tote in my handbag has become muscle memory. Unroll, fill it with tomatoes and coriander, and feel the weave tighten across my knuckles. On Monday evening while shopping in Muttrah, that...

I didn’t come to TED Countdown, a global gathering focused on accelerating climate solutions, in search of answers. I came carrying questions. Heavy ones. About exhaustion. About how long one can...

Ten years ago, I stood in a crowded hallway in Paris, watching history unfold. The Paris Agreement had just been adopted and the room erupted. There were cheers, tears and applause. I remember the...

They stood in a row, robes a little too long, shoes slightly untied, voices carrying more truth than they knew as they sang: “One step closer to being the best that I can be.” I had the honour of...

I often find that the most powerful ideas are the ones we overlook. We get caught up in chasing innovation, in launching megaprojects, in building the future as if it is something far away. But...

It was sunset in Muttrah and the sky over the corniche was brushed with hues of apricot and rose. The scent of frankincense drifted through the air as I sat at Bait Al Luban with a visiting friend, a...