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  • Elon Musk’s Neuralink Brain Implant Startup Is Ready to Start Surgery

    Elon Musk is preparing for the most consequential launch of his career. But this one isn’t rocket science—it’s brain surgery. Musk’s company Neuralink Corp. is seeking a volunteer for its first clinical trial, meaning it’s looking for someone willing to have a chunk of their skull removed by a surgeon so a large robot can insert a series of electrodes and superthin wires into their brain. When the robot finishes, the missing piece of skull will have been replaced with a computer the size of a quarter that’s meant to stay there for years. Its job will be to read and analyze the person’s brain activity, then relay that information wirelessly to a nearby laptop or tablet.

  • Red Sea Film Fest Unveils Saudi Selection, Special Screenings, Competition Lineup

    The Red Sea International Film Festival has unveiled its selection of 36 movies from Saudi Arabia, as well as its Arab Spectacular and Red Sea: Competition lineups for this year’s third edition. “Collectively, these strands will showcase the rich and varied work by established and new filmmakers from the region, including documentaries and titles produced by the Red Sea Film Foundation,” organizers said on Monday.

  • French Rafales ‘Trounce’ Eurofighters As Germany Blocks Sale Of Typhoon Jets To Saudi Arabia – Reports

    More than 6,000 British workers are employed directly by the Typhoon program, with a further 28,000 in the supply chain. The UK needs its air industrial base to keep going. This is attributed to one reason: the production of the sixth-generation fighter jet will start in full earnest only in the 2030s, and the Royal Air Force is replacing its Eurofighters with US-produced F-35 stealth jets. This would essentially leave a vacuum in the industry.

  • EU and Saudi Arabia reaffirm commitment to deepening investments

    Officials from the Saudi government and the European Commission meeting at a forum in Riyadh have reaffirmed their commitment to increasing and deepening the investment relationships between the two countries.

    Meeting at the Saudi-EU Investment Forum, the Saudi Minister of Investment, Khalid Al-Falih, and the Vice-President of the European Commission Green Deal, Interinstitutional Relations and Foresight, Maros Sefcovic, released a joint statement in which both parties recognised "the imperative of forging a deeper strategic partnership between Saudi Arabia and the European Union".

  • COP28 and the growing Europe-MENA hydrogen connection

    Since COP27 last year in Egypt, countries within the MENA region have adopted national strategies and pursued new projects in hydrogen development aimed at transitioning their economies to clean energy exports. Yet, with a few exceptions, several memoranda of understanding (MoUs) signed since the conference have not turned into actual investment decisions so far, notably in the case of COP27 host Egypt. Meanwhile, the European Union (EU) and most of its member states are slowly but surely building their hydrogen supply chains, with plans that in most cases involve interdependence with the MENA region.

  • How McDonald’s Middle East franchises got into a public feud over Israel

    In Israel, a local McDonald’s operator has been offering discounts to soldiers, security forces and others since Hamas’ October 7 assault by militants that killed 1,400 people and captured over 220 hostages, according to Israeli authorities. A handful of hostages have since been released. McDonald’s Israel has so far given out 100,000 free meals, according to posts on social media.

  • German opposition to Saudi Eurofighter exports a ‘real problem’ – Airbus CEO

    Airbus (AIR.PA) Chief Executive Guillaume Faury hit out at the German government for its strict line on arms exports in a newspaper interview published on Tuesday, with Berlin blocking the delivery of Eurofighter combat aircraft to Saudi Arabia.

    "The German government's stance on arms exports to some countries is a real problem," Faury told the business daily Handelsblatt.

    "If Germany wants to be a trustworthy partner in major defence projects, it must resolve the issue of export controls with the other Europeans and not in spite of them," he said.

  • While U.S. VCs Accept Billions From Saudi Arabia, It’s Only Publicly Backed One European Firm

    Saudi Arabia’s $700 billion Public Investment Fund has disclosed that Swedish venture capital fund Northzone has taken investment from its venture investment arm Sanabil — the only European VC firm known to have done so. The disclosure was part of Sanabil’s decision earlier this year to name the venture, growth and buyout funds it has backed in a move toward transparency that exposes Saudi Arabia’s growing influence in the tech industry.

  • European Union to Review Aid for Palestinians

    Spanish officials said they asked EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell to put the question of Palestinian aid on the agenda for Tuesday’s ministers’ meeting. A spokesman for the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs said Ireland remains committed to delivering humanitarian assistance to Palestinian civilians and “their needs should continue to be a central part of the overall response to this crisis by the international community.”

  • Commentary: Newcastle v PSG and the Saudi-Qatar feud that won’t go away

    “Relations between Qatar and Saudi Arabia have repaired further and faster with the Saudis than with the other states that moved against Qatar,” explains Dr Kristian Ulrichsen, the author of Qatar and the Gulf Crisis, the definitive account of the colossal falling-out that erupted in 2017 between Qatar on one side and Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates on the other.