MUST-READS

• Pilgrims return to Mecca as Saudi eases virus restrictions

  Before visitors can enter the mosque to pray or perform the umrah, they have to apply and reserve a specific time and date through an online application to avoid crowding and maintain social distancing. Visitors can also select their means of transportation and meeting points via the app .

• Saudi CMA Approves Investcorp-backed Theeb Rent a Car’s IPO; Offloading 30% Stake

  Founded in 1991, Theeb primarily serves individual customers with short-term rental service. It operates a fleet of over 19,000 vehicles with a network of branches across the Kingdom, including presence at airports.

• Saudi Tax Relief Unleashed for Home Buyers to Keep Boom Rolling

  Saudi Arabia added new incentives to keep its mortgage boom going by scrapping a 15% value-added tax on property sales and offering other relief for home buyers amid a push by the Arab world’s largest economy to expand residential ownership. Property transactions will instead be subject to a new 5% real estate sales tax, according to state-run news agency SPA. The government will also shoulder the cost of taxes for first-time home buyers of properties worth up to 1 million riyals ($267,000), according to a royal order published on Friday.

• Saudi Arabia Pegs Budget to Oil at Around $50, Goldman Says

  “Using our own estimates for the breakdown of government revenues, we calculate that the numbers presented in the budget statement are based on an average oil price of around $50 a barrel between 2020 and 2023,” said Farouk Soussa, a London-based analyst at Goldman. Brent crude fell 6.3% to $39.27 a barrel last week as more countries tightened restrictions to counter the coronavirus pandemic and U.S. President Donald Trump got infected, causing traders to fret about the outlook for energy demand.

• Lebanon and Israel, Officially Enemies, Agree to Talks on Sea Border

  Lebanon and Israel have agreed to open their first negotiations on nonsecurity issues in three decades, a rare if limited breakthrough between hostile neighbors that are technically at war and have no formal diplomatic relations. Talks aimed at ending an enduring dispute over their maritime boundary in a patch of the Mediterranean Sea rich with natural gas are slated to begin this month, officials from both countries said Thursday.

• Perspective: How the Trump admin’s prisoner swap photo-op complicated future exchanges with Iran

  “Elliott Abrams and I over the years have worked well on a number of issues, and we are working together on the Venezuela hostages in a positive way. However, I disagree with the statement that he made that it was maximum pressure that brought the hostages back,” Richardson told Responsible Statecraft. “In both releases of Americans — Wang and White — there was a clear exchange.”

• Mossad chief visits Bahrain to discuss cooperation

  National Intelligence Agency President Adel bin Khalifa Al-Fadhel and Strategic Security Bureau Chairman Shaikh Ahmed bin Abdulaziz Al Khalifa welcomed Yossi Cohen upon his arrival in the capital Manama, the official Bahrain News Agency reported. The two sides stressed the importance of the declaration recently signed between Bahrain and Israel, saying it would pave the way for future cooperation between the two countries in various fields.

• World Bank ranks UAE, Bahrain as top Arab nations for human capital

  The Human Capital Index 2020 measures potential productivity in the health and education sectors across 98 percent of the world’s population — with a focus on the knowledge, skills, and health that a child born today is expected to accumulate by their 18th birthday. In the global rankings, the UAE came 44th against a global benchmark and first in the Arab world in the index, followed by Bahrain at 46th, Oman at 64th, Saudi Arabia at 84th and Kuwait at 88th.

• Lebanon and Israel to hold ‘historic’ maritime border talks

  Lebanon and Israel have declared overlapping boundaries in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, and a resolution of the dispute would allow them to exploit offshore natural gas fields.

• African Oil Giant Paves Way to Sell Stake After Aramco Splash

  Legislation two decades in the making is working its way through parliament that would make the Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. independent of government and cut its access to state funding. The move comes after Saudi Arabia in December sold 1.5% of its national oil company, creating a behemoth valued at nearly $2 trillion that vies with Apple Inc. for the title of the world’s most valuable company.

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