Category: Uncategorized
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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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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 &…
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Discussions of Elections in Qatar
There has been much discussion on social media of certain objections to how Shura Council elections in Qatar are playing out this year, with some Qatari citizens excluded from participation on the basis of the 2005 Nationality Law. I will add more when I have time – for now, adding in & translating relevant threads…
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The Democratic Party
In a recent discussion about “anti-Americanism” in Saudi media I was gently encouraged to think more about how anti-Americanism manifests as anti-left-wing-Americanism (i.e. antni-Democratic Party, built up as the same kind of socialist bogeyman you see on Fox News) in particular. While this has changed a bit since the 2020 election, it has started to…
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KSA-UAE Tensions: Oil, Trade, TV
Once again, Twitter and the occasional statement to international media has offered evidence of some below-the-surface tensions between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, as documented on this site with respect to the conflict in Yemen back in 2019. Following up on those posts, I’ll put a bit of what I’m seeing here, but…
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Al-Qarar Center for Media Studies
I haven’t posted for a while as I a) figure out what makes sense to cover given Ahmed al-Omran’s excellent coverage of Saudi media over at Riyadh Bureau (which you should absolutely sign up for!) and b) deal with trying to finish my dissertation. One thing I’ve come across recently (that I don’t fully understand…
The Bitter Lake 