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QUOTED
“If you want to be big in the Middle East, you need to be in Saudi—full stop.”
-Ronny Froehlich, German entrepreneur, in his company’s new office in Riyadh. The growing number of startups in Riyadh is set to rival neighboring Dubai. [bloomberg.com]
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TOP STORY
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan in Washington Wednesday to discuss Iran, Yemen, and other issues of mutual interest. [more]
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TOP STORY
Saudi Arabia and other oil producing nations that form the OPEC+ group are seeking common ground on how to keep oil prices from tumbling further in the face of weak demand from the spread of the Coronavirus. [more]
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TOP STORY
Planners and developers working on making Saudi Arabia’s Al-Ula UNESCO heritage site easier and more enjoyable to visit are keen to keep intact the natural beauty and wonder of the site, the UAE-based The National reports, citing an interview with Francesca Arici, the site’s chief planning officer. [more]
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TOP STORY
Saudi Aramco has seen an increase in attempted cyber attacks since the final quarter of 2019 and has successfully repelled all of them so far, according to a Reuters report, which cited comments from an interview with chief information security officer Khalid al-Harbi. [more]
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MORE TOP STORYLINES
Via Holly Ellyatt in cnbc.com : Demand is now expected to fall by 435,000 barrels a day (b/d) in the first quarter of 2020, down from the same period a year ago, and marking the first quarterly contraction in more than 10 years, the IEA said in its monthly oil market report Thursday.
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Via Rawan Radwan in arabnews.com : Love is in the air and hearts and flowers are everywhere as the Kingdom prepares to celebrate the once “haram” Valentine’s Day tomorrow. As recently as three years ago it would have been unthinkable — Saudi Arabia’s feared religious police saw to that.
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Via Aarti Nagraj in gulfbusiness.com : According to the latest update, the coronavirus death toll has reached 1,115, with confirmed cases in China alone standing at 44,653. Outside of China, 395 confirmed cases have been reported in 24 countries, including eight in the UAE, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).
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MORE ON THE KINGDOM AND BEYOND
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More than 200,000 people converged at the conference, including Adam Selipsky, chief executive of Amazon’s cloud computing division, who ...[By Adam Satariano and Paul Mozur via nytimes.com]
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Diriyah Gate, one of the first Saudi giga-projects, said this week that it was on target for completion by late 2027.
The opening of the project’s...[By Andrew Hammond via agbi.com]
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His comment is significant because, like LIV Golf’s team competition and shotgun starts, the...[By Cindy Boren via washingtonpost.com]
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The recently released book “Battleground – 10 Conflicts that Explain the New Middle East” by historian Christopher Phillips provides a useful overview of ten ongoing conflicts...[By Christopher Phillips via thecipherbrief.com]
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A serious escalation of tensions in the Middle East would push the price of oil above $100 (£80) a barrel and reverse...[By Larry Elliott via theguardian.com]
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The regional upswing also defies oil production cutbacks which have all weighed on economic growth in the region as seen from International Monetary Fund’s latest...[By Issac John via khaleejtimes.com]
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Speaking at the event titled “Industrial policies to promote economic diversification,” the top official said there have been fundamental changes in the legislative and economic regulations to...[via arabnews.com]
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From April 22 to 25, 2024, the 26th World Energy Congress convened in the Netherlands, drawing participation from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s energy industry....[By Pooja Chandak via solarquarter.com]
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The Chinese province at the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak reported a record rise in deaths and thousands more cases on Thursday under a new...[By Winni Zhou and Dominique Patton via reuters.com]
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It is "a whole new level of state-on-state conflict," said Charles Lister, senior fellow at the Middle East Institute. "And given Erdogan's domestic considerations, it's...[By Nick Paton Walsh via cnn.com]
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The U.N. earlier warned flight restrictions by commander Khalifa Haftar’s forces known as the Libya National Army (LNA) were hampering humanitarian and mediation efforts in...[By Ayman al-Warfalli and Ulf Laessing via reuters.com]
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Investors are pondering what shape a default might take, with the crisis-ridden nation’s government wrangling over whether to continue servicing its liabilities....[By Netty Idayu Ismail via bloomberg.com]
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The run-up in Iranian equities perversely stems from the country’s status as an international pariah. With hardly any outside investment trickling into the country, and...[By Peter S. Goodman via nytimes.com]
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NATO is to expand the Western alliance’s training mission in Iraq, partly in response to U.S. calls do more in the Middle East.
At a meeting...[By Martin Banks via defensenews.com]
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We see the potential for growing geopolitical instability in the Middle East and North Africa this year, a continuation of last year’s trend. There are bright...[via albrightstonebridge.com]
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In pursuit of foreign and domestic information dominance, Iran began operating Facebook and Twitter sockpuppets as early as 2010. As the United States and Iran...[By Emerson T. Brooking and Suzanne Kianpour via atlanticcouncil.org]
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U.S. policymakers may be taking the current peace effort in Afghanistan seriously and believe it could actually succeed. At best, it is a well-intentioned attempt...[By Anthony H. Cordesman via csis.org]
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