MUST-READS

• PIF backing proposed $5 billion basketball league

  Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund has been named as a strategic partner to a group of investors looking to create a new basketball league that will span Asia and Europe to one day rival the NBA, with Swiss bank UBS serving as an advisor. The Financial Times reported Friday that the $5 billion competition plans to create six men's teams and six women's teams that will compete in eight host cities. Macau and Singapore are set to be hosts, while organisers are also looking for European venues. The league hopes to lure top players from around the world, especially Europe, and give them an alternative to the NBA. Byron Deeter and venture capital firm Quiet Capital are among the investors, with Maverick Carter, NBA great LeBron James's business manager, and Skype co-founder Geoff Prentice also on board.

• Saudi media shifts tone on Israel and Hamas after Trump’s Gaza plan

  Saudi media have launched an unprecedented wave of criticism against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump following their recent remarks on plans for the forced displacement of the Palestinians from Gaza. The reaction has marked a noticeable significant shift in the kingdom's media coverage of Israel and Hamas, which has been picked up on by several pan-Arab outlets. This is significant given that Saudi media is generally seen as towing the government line on key issues and has a record of echoing state foreign policy. What stood out in the official response was the deliberate omission of Netanyahu's official title, with the state-run Al-Ikhbariya channel later confirming that it was intentional. "The name of the state no longer applies to Israel," a commentator on the channel said, reinforcing a stronger Saudi stance following years of talk on normalisation.

• PIF becomes title sponsor of Saudi Ladies International
  Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) is the new title partner of the renamed PIF Saudi Ladies International, a partnership which also sees the prize money for the tournament being increased to match that offered for the equivalent men’s tournament. The PIF Saudi Ladies International returns February 13-15 at Riyadh Golf Club and will also see a new format with tour professionals taking part in both an individual and team competition.

• Trump says he might meet Putin in Saudi Arabia after call on Ukraine

  Trump made the comment a few hours after speaking with Putin in their first publicly disclosed call since Trump took office. Trump said they had agreed on "starting negotiations immediately" to end the war in Ukraine, which is approaching its third anniversary. Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump floated the idea of meeting Putin in Saudi Arabia, along with the Saudi crown prince. He did not lay out a timeline and said he would deal with Putin on the phone in the meantime. In an interview with the Economist published on Wednesday, Zelensky had said he'd had little contact with Trump's team and raised concerns about "any decision-making" on Ukraine taking place without Kyiv's involvement.  

• Trump says he and Putin expect to meet, probably in Saudi Arabia

  US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he did not think it was practical for Ukraine to join NATO and that it was unlikely Ukraine will get back all of its land. Trump discussed the war in Ukraine on Wednesday in phone calls with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in the US president’s first big step toward diplomacy in a conflict he has promised to end. Trump said he and Putin expect to meet in the future, probably in Saudi Arabia.

• Secretary Rubio’s Travel to Germany, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates
  Secretary of State Marco Rubio will travel to Munich on February 13 to participate in the Munich Security Conference, where he will discuss a range of U.S. priorities with international partners. While in Munich, Secretary Rubio will also participate in the G7 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting. He will then travel to Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates from February 15-18. Secretary Rubio’s engagements with senior officials will promote U.S. interests in advancing regional cooperation, stability, and peace. The trip will center on freeing American and all other hostages from Hamas captivity, advancing to Phase II of the ceasefire agreement in Gaza, and countering the destabilizing activities of the Iranian regime and its proxies.

• Syria’s new leaders zero in on Assad’s business barons
  Syria's new rulers are combing through the billion-dollar corporate empires of ousted president Bashar al-Assad's allies, and have held talks with some of these tycoons, in what they say is a campaign to root out corruption and illegal activity. After seizing power in December, the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) rebel group that now runs Syria pledged to reconstruct the country after 13 years of brutal civil war and abandon a highly-centralized and corrupt economic system where Assad's cronies held sway.

• Why Saudi’s Formula E race has moved – and what its future holds

  Saudi Arabia will host Formula E for a seventh time this week, but it'll be the first E-Prix weekend to be held anywhere other than Riyadh as it hits a shortened version of the Jeddah Corniche Formula 1 track. The change has come about through the previous Diriyah street track, rightly lauded for its challenge and complexity, being consumed by rapid development in the area. In fact, the original plan had been for Diriyah to be replaced in 2023 but space and legislative granting was found to ensure two further editions of the races could take place that year and again last season. The building work on various infrastructure projects around the historic Diriyah site was unmissable, and even the residual dust was a talking point as it took several sessions to clean the newly laid track.

• 60 Saudi relief trucks cross Hail en route to Syria

  Sixty relief trucks crossed Hail region, heading to Syria, as part of the Saudi relief land bridge for the Syrian people, which is operated by the King Salman Center for Relief and Humanitarian Aid (KSrelief). The relief convoy carries food and shelter supplies to alleviate the effects of the difficult conditions that Syrian people are going through. Under the direction of the Emir of Hail Region, Abdulaziz bin Saad, the relief convoy was received jubilantly on the way.

• How LEAP 2025 is Driving AI Investment Across Saudi Arabia
  Michael Champion, CEO of Tahaluf, states: “The massive volume of new investments announced on day one builds on the progress made at LEAP and across the Kingdom in previous years, reaffirming Saudi Arabia’s undisputed status as the primary digital accelerator in the Middle East and North Africa.” Arvind Krishna, Chairman & CEO of IBM, took to the stage to predict quantum computing breakthroughs are “three to five years away”, for significant impacts for pharmaceuticals, energy and AI. Quantum computing emerges as a prominent topic of discussion, exploring how this will solve problems rapidly to drive efficiency and innovation.

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