Summary: Saudi Arabia’s crown prince is using giga-projects to drive forward his plan to wean the kingdom off its dependency on oil revenues; the results thus far of his Vision2030 project are mixed but if oil prices hold steady MbS may yet see some of his hugely ambitious schemes come to fruition by the end of the decade.
Summary: authoritarian regimes continue a relentless campaign against independent media with little or no criticism from their Western allies.
Summary: with the Saudis and the Houthis continuing to negotiate directly on a peace deal, little thought has been given to the negative implications of such a bilateral agreement for the people of Yemen.
Summary: as the online information war rages on, dissidents inside Salman’s Electronic Army counter its “counter extremism” by leaking information about its activities to the Saudi opposition.
Summary: Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter could call time, for the time being, on Gulf states using the platform to spread disinformation and attack critics and regional foes.
Summary: despite the recent uptick in equity markets, global economic prospects look gloomy enough to justify agreement on a further cut in output when OPEC+ meets on 4 December.
Summary: a renegade golf tournament handsomely funded through Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund shows MbS has ambitions well beyond the links.
Summary: the Gulf states are seeing Washington through far different eyes than Washington is seeing them. America is playing from an old playbook, without realising that the game has changed and nowhere is this more clearly highlighted than by Putin’s war against Ukraine.
Summary: a new revolutionary pan-Arab liberation movement launched in London on September 30. A straw in the wind?
Summary: a new revolutionary pan-Arab liberation movement launched in London on September 30. A straw in the wind?
