MUST-READS

• NCB IPO
  Saudi NCB’s $6 Billion IPO Heavily Oversubscribed

  National Commercial Bank’s $6 billion initial public offering was heavily oversubscribed as retail investors placed orders worth more than 23 times the shares that Saudi Arabia’s biggest bank by assets offered for sale. About 1.25 million people placed orders worth $82.9 billion for the retail portion of the offering, according to GIB Capital and HSBC Saudi Arabia, the IPO’s financial advisers and lead managers.

• Anti-ISIS Strategy
  Obama To Ask Congress for New War Powers To Fight ISIS

  Obama said a group of congressional leaders will come to the White House Friday to continue the discussions of the AUMF, and U.S. Central Command’s Gen. Lloyd Austin, who is directing the fight against the Islamic State, will brief the lawmakers on the status of the operation. “The idea is to right-size and update whatever authorization Congress provides to suit the current fight, rather than previous fights,” Obama said Wednesday.

  • Washington Post - Obama to seek new authorization for fight against Islamic State
  • Foreign Policy - Five Republicans Who Will Dominate on Foreign Policy in the Next Congress
  • Daily Beast - Republican Hawks Already Have a War Plan for ISIS, Ukraine, and Obama
• Gulf Wages
  Saudi women employees paid ‘almost half as men’

  The disparity in wages between men and women in the Gulf region is the largest in Saudi Arabia, Makkah daily reported. According to statistics published by the World Economic Forum for 2014, Saudi women earn on average only 56 percent of the wages earned by men.

  • Al-Bawaba - At least it's not in the kitchen: 77% of Saudis want home employment for women
• Extremist Rehabilitation
  The 3-step guide to de-radicalizing jihadists

  Sophisticated de-radicalization programs such as those in Saudi Arabia or Singapore break the dynamics of militants’ groups by separating detained leaders and core members from their followers. They also make wise use of militants’ families, who are called upon to exert a moderating influence on graduating detainees, helping to prevent their slide back into extremism.

• Pakistan and Youth
  Teenage Wasteland

  What extremist groups succeed at -- and where foreign assistance often fails -- is offering a cause, with the promise of excitement, possibility, and a new future. Though this is what assistance programs deployed by the United States are meant to offer young people, if they don't speak to youthful idealism and the desire to change the world, they'll never compete. When you want to change the world, digging ditches just won't cut it.

• ISIS and Antiquities
  ISIS destroying Iraq’s cultural heritage: UNESCO chief

  ISIS has destroyed shrines, churches and precious manuscripts in Mosul, Tikrit and other areas of Iraq it controls and excavated sites to sell objects abroad, in what Bokova has previously described as "cultural cleansing". In September, officials said that ISIS militants are using intermediaries to sell priceless treasures, such as ancient Iraqi artefacts, on the black market to finance their activities. The militants gained some experience of dealing in antiquities after taking control of large parts of Syria, but when they captured the northern Iraqi city of Mosul and the Nineveh province in June, they gained access to almost 2,000 of Iraq's 12,000 registered archaeological sites.

  • CNN - The greatest buildings you'll never see: 19 priceless monuments lost in battle
• Mobily
  Tadawul index plunges 3.5%

  Shares in Saudi Arabian telecommunications firm Mobily plunged their 10 percent daily limit on Tuesday after the firm restated 18 months of earnings and posted a shock profit drop, undermining the entire stock market.

• Religion and Violence
  Book Review: Karen Armstrong’s Fields of Blood: Is Religion Inherently Violent?

  All of Armstrong's arguments come back to the same basic point: It's impossible to explain contemporary or historical violence solely through religion. "Muslim fundamentalism ... has often—though again, not always—segued into physical aggression," she writes. "This is not because Islam is constitutionally more prone to violence than Protestant Christianity, but rather because Muslims had a much harsher introduction to modernity." (Here, she dates modernity to the defeat of the Ottoman Empire during World War I.) In other words: Even religious history has to be read through the narrative lens of politics.

• 2014 Mid-Term Elections
  After Election Day, the Isolationists Will Be Back

  en we wake up Wednesday morning, a lot of us will be isolationists again.

• Sports
  Saudi club demands investigation into finals refs

  Angry Al Hilal officials are demanding an investigation into the appointment and performance of match officials in the Saudi club's 1-0 aggregate loss to Western Sydney in the Asian Champions League finals, describing the outcome as "a black spot in the history of Asian football."

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