Tag: Saudi Arabia
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Football, Yemen and More
Newcastle Deal Last week the efforts of the Public Investment Fund to participate in the takeover of UK football club Newcastle United fell apart, mainly due to the lingering fallout over Saudi Arabia’s tolerance and likely creation of a pirated version of Qatari sports broadcaster BeIN Sports. The dominant theme among patriotic commentators and Tweeters…
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Omnibus (May and June 2020)
It’s been more difficult than I thought to keep up with this, so this is a fairly haphazard dump of links to commentary for the past month or so. Qatar 3 years on from the start of the Gulf rift, double-header op-eds from leading Aawsat columnists Salman al-Dosari and Abdelrahman al-Rashed What saddens Qatar is…
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Workers, Finance woes, and Israel (May 1-7)
Foreign workers Saudi papers and media outlets have seen an uptick in discussions of foreign workers – probably concerns over Saudi citizens’ employment once the economy starts to open up again + reported COVID-19 cases being disproportionately among expatriate workers in the Kingdom. These have ranged from fairly neutral discussions of statistics and labor markets…
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Coronavirus II
It’s getting a bit tricky to keep this updated with everything else going on – spending a fair amount of time at home with the COVID-19 closures and restrictions, but also spending more time on things like grocery shopping than I normally would. Hence no time to review social-media content, though you’re welcome to pass…
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Coronavirus
Government Reactions and Commentary [Update] The government has announced a wave of flight cancellations, although airlines have been left to fill in the details for many cases: First, several MENA destinations along with South Korea and Italy: Then several European destinations, including Germany and France as well as Turkey – cutting off 3 major routes…
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The Deal of the Century
The Palestinian Issue Through the (Very Recent) Ages First, check out Ian Black’s excellent review of GCC-Israel ties. Now, a look back at the past 5 years or so of prominent commentator Abdelrahman al-Rashed’s main articles related to Palestine and the Palestinians. From 2014 – “The Secret of Palestine’s Negotiations” I doubt that Kerry’s plan…
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The Return of Dhari
This holiday week saw the effective return, or at least rehabilitation, of Saud al-Qahtani, once deemed “the loudest and most visible Saudi official” online or off. This came as part of a round of verdicts announced in the trial of those accused of the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. The Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs made…
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Aramco, Pensacola, Etc.
Pensacola Shooting After a Saudi graduate student opened fired on a U.S. Naval base Pensacola, with a handgun purchased inside Florida, condemnations rolled in across Twitter and the Kingdom’s op-ed pages. The unanimity of the Saudi people, government, and King in condemning this cowardly criminal act, committed by a citizen of the Kingdom against a…
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Riyadh Agreement and Aramco IPO (11/4 to 11/11)
Riyadh Agreement One of the top stories for local media and commentary was the signing of the Riyadh Agreement, which “ended a three-month standoff that threatened to split the anti-Huthi bloc.” (Peter Salisbury, ICG). A wide range of commentary presented this is a major diplomatic triumph for the Kingdom: Yemen could have been tossed into…
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Lebanon, al-Baghdadi, Other Items
Protests in Lebanon A number of Saudi op-eds over the past two weeks have focused on the ongoing protests in Lebanon – mainly focused on the complete lack of credibility of Lebanon’s political class with protesters, but with much commentary also highlighting (to various degrees) the implications for Hizbullah and its relationship with Iran. Okaz…
The Bitter Lake 