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How many Saudis are there?
A new census is being released in Saudi Arabia for the first time since 2010, having been carried out by the General Authority for Statistics (GASTAT) in 2022. Buried in the announcements, however, was a slight revision to previous population statistics. In an Arab News story, for example, from GASTAT President Fahad al-Dossari: “For that…
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March Op-Eds (Iran-Saudi)
Plenty of op-eds have emerged to comment on the recent Iran-China-Saudi summit to normalize Saudi-Iranian relations (and plans for further dialogue). In the English-language Arab News, editor Faisal J. Abbas focused explaining the apparent contradictions of Saudi policies for English-speaking audiences: Some may be skeptical of Saudi intentions, or indeed call this a U-turn; they…
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U.S. Public Opinion of Late
The past year was a tumultuous time for the bilateral relationship, largely comprising a war of words in U.S. news outlets over Saudi and Emirati (un)willingness to coordinate oil production decisions around U.S. foreign-policy goals in Europe. For a relatively short post, I looked at the periodic polling that the Harvard-Harris project conducts on questions…
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الأخبار: نوفيمبر و ديسيمبر 2022
بعض الملاحظات من الصحف الأمريكية حول الشأن السعودي وقضايا ذات الصلة السياسات والسياس Save translation فيضان جدة هرع عمال البلدية في مدينة جدة لضخ المياه وإزالة الأضرار يوم الجمعة بعد الفيضانات الناجمة عن الأمطار الغزيرة التي قتلت شخصين على الأقل وأثارت غضبًا معلنًا نادرًا من الحكومة. وفي عام 2017 ، أطلق ولي العهد السعودي الأمير…
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News & Commentary: Nov. 2022
As I’m trying to spend less time on Twitter, I’m experimenting with revamping this site to have more regular posts – starting with end-of-the-month roundups of news related to Saudi Arabia (and to a lesser extent, the rest of the Gulf) as well as some commentary in translation from the same. World Cup 11/3 –…
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Backlash to the Backlash
Op-ed commentary on U.S. criticisms of the recent OPEC+ decision. Hopefully updated as time permits, but a packed work schedule does not permit much spare time this semester! As always, this is a selective look at the op-ed pages because there is only so much time in the day (and not much of it at…
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Biden’s MidEast trip
A few notes on local coverage of Biden’s visit to Saudi Arabia – hoping to update this site more regularly starting this autumn so bear with me. Al-Riyadh’s editorial offered a fairly straightforward writeup of Biden’s Washington Post op-ed and the forthcoming visit – not overly praiseful of U.S. policy but not particularly critical either.…
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Oil & chaos
Recent Saudi newspaper commentary has charged the international community with failing to resolve the conflict in Yemen; years of Houthis missile & drone attacks have been accompanied by a shift away from c. 2019 or so commentary that suggested the coalition could simply wash its hands of the conflict. To be updated, esp as Friday’s…
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Russia & Ukraine
Taking a brief break from fast-paced dissertation writing to clear my head, so no time to contextualize these op-eds. You might check out this RAND report from c. 2016 on Russia’s policy towards the Middle East, this note from AGSIW (Kate Dourian) on what OPEC+ is up to, and this MEI roundup on views of…
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Catching Up
The academic job market took up almost all of my time in the Fall, so I’m trying to get back into this blog now. This post is mainly an assortment of what I recall seeing in various op-eds over the past few months; I’ll try to post a bit more regularly this Spring. Qatar &…
The Bitter Lake
البحيرات المرة
The Bitter Lake 