The Deputy Crown Prince's interview in Riyadh was 5 hours long and went until 4 in the morning. He discussed plans to privatize a small percentage of Saudi Aramco and expand and re-task the country's Public Investment Fund.
Central bank data released on Monday shows Saudi consumers withdrew and spent less money in February and a key money supply metric “shrank for the first time since at least 2000,” according to Bloomberg and Reuters.
Interest in film and cinema in Saudi Arabia is growing. Although movie theaters are banned in the Kingdom, Saudi citizens rank among the most active YouTube viewers in the world. The purpose of the film festival is to give a platform and audience to support the Saudi Arabia’s budding film industry.
America’s relationship with Saudi Arabia during the Obama Administration over the last seven years has been challenged by a war-weary American public and a President who is cautious about the use of military force and resistant to what he has termed the ‘Washington playbook.’
The decision to support Saudi Arabia came after two days of meetings in March 2015 between then-Ambassador to the United States Adel Al-Jubeir and top officials in the Obama administration at the White House.
Saudi Arabia will honor its contracts with French defense companies for $3 billion in arms previously bound for Lebanon as military aid, but will keep the equipment for its own army, foreign minister Adel Al-Jubeir said.
!["Saudi Arabia shared intelligence that's made Americans safe. They have allowed us to use their air bases in time of conflict," he said. "They are all-in against [ISIS]," Sen. Graham said.](https://www.sustg.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Saudi-military-defense-arms-security20-900x600.jpg)
