MUST-READS

• G7 foreign ministers meet in Canada amid tensions with Trump
  Foreign ministers of leading Western democracies meet in Canada on Thursday after seven weeks of rising tensions between U.S. allies and President Donald Trump over his upending of foreign policy on Ukraine and imposing of tariffs. The Group of Seven ministers from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States, along with the EU, meet in the remote tourist town of La Malbaie, nestled in the Quebec hills for two days of meetings that in the past have broadly been consensual on the issues they face. Top of the agenda for Washington's partners will be getting a debriefing on U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio's talks on Tuesday with Kyiv in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where Ukraine said it was ready to support a 30-day ceasefire deal.

• Russia’s high-flying gas exporter crippled as Europe stays away
  When the CEO of Russian state gas giant Gazprom, Alexei Miller, opened a lavish Italian palazzo-styled building in central St Petersburg to house the company's export arm 11 years ago, he augured a future funded by European sales. "This is symbolic," he said, referring to the modern new offices in Russia's most European city. "Europe will increasingly need Russian gas."  Instead, the opulent offices have come to symbolize Gazprom's rapid decline, dragged down by the almost total loss of European markets after the war in Ukraine ruptured Russia's ties with the West. Reeling under multi-billion-dollar losses and scrambling for savings, the company is now considering putting the palazzo up for sale along with other luxury properties it owns, according to a Gazprom executive and another source with knowledge of internal discussions at Gazprom.

• Eid al-Fitr: Employees, students in Saudi Arabia to enjoy long Eid holiday

  This year’s month of fasting began on March 1. The official Eid holiday in Saudi Arabia will start on Sunday March 30, meaning that employees will enjoy a long holiday with Friday, March 28, and Saturday, March 29, already off as weekend days. The Eid al-Fitr break will be extended to four days ending on Wednesday, April 2, with work resuming on Thursday, April 3. For students on the other hand, the break will begin on March 20 and studies will resume on April 6, according to the education ministry’s academic calendar. The actual date of the first day of Eid al-Fitr will be confirmed when the crecent moon is sighted.

• Saudi Arabia’s Emergence as a Diplomatic Broker

  Although Riyadh’s audition for the global spotlight began years ago, it has kicked into overdrive this year, with the kingdom hosting multiple bilateral and multilateral meetings since January alone. These include the first high-level, direct meeting between Russia and the United States in years; an emergency Arab League summit to discuss postwar reconstruction plans for Gaza; an international meeting on securing assistance for post-Assad Syria; and the first foreign trips by interim Syrian president Ahmed al-Sharaa and newly minted Lebanese president Joseph Aoun. Most recently, Riyadh hosted President Volodymyr Zelensky this week amid high-level U.S. discussions on resolving the Ukraine war, and a follow-up summit between President Trump and Vladimir Putin may take place there as well.

• Siemens Energy awarded $1.6 billion Supply Contract for Rumah 2 and Nairyah 2 Power Plants

  Siemens Energy announces that it has been awarded a USD 1.6 billion project, with Harbin Electric International as the EPC contractor, to provide key technologies for the Rumah 2 and Nairyah 2 gas-fired power plants in Saudi Arabia. Located in the western and central regions, the plants will add 3.6 gigawatts of power to the national grid – enough to supply around 1.5 million homes. The project includes long-term maintenance agreements to support the plants’ operational reliability over the next 25 years. Core components for the power plants will be manufactured at the Siemens Energy Dammam Hub, which is currently expanding to increase local production capacity and support Saudi Arabia’s energy sector.

• Pokémon Go developer Niantic to sell gaming business to Saudi group

  Niantic Labs has announced that it’s selling its video game division to Saudi Arabia-owned mobile developer Scopely for $3.5 billion after struggling to replicate the success of Pokémon Go across its other AR games. The newly inked agreement includes Niantic’s Pokémon Go, Monster Hunter Now, and Pikmin Bloom mobile gaming titles. The acquisition is subject to regulatory approval and other closing conditions. Should the deal go through, it will also bring Niantic’s social companion apps for Pokémon Go — Campfire and Wayfarer — under Scopely ownership. Scopely says it will gain “Niantic’s entire team of exceptional gamemakers and category-leading games.” However, the Peridot and Ingress AR gaming titles, the latter of which is also supported by the Wayfarer mapping app, will remain under the ownership and development of Niantic Spatial.

• Saudi Arabia leads Arab nations in condemning Israel’s Gaza electricity cut

  Saudi Arabia led other Arab nations Qatar and Jordan in condemning Israel’s decision to cut electricity supply to the war-battered Gaza Strip, calling in separate statements for the international community to take action. Israel announced on Sunday it was disconnecting the only power line to a water desalination plant in Gaza, in an effort to pressure Palestinian militant group Hamas into releasing hostages amid an apparent impasse in truce talks. Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry expressed “condemnation in the strongest terms of the Israeli occupation authorities’ use of collective punishment against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip by cutting off electricity to the area.”

• China, Iran and Russia hold joint naval drills in Middle East as tensions rise between Tehran and US

  The joint drills, called the Maritime Security Belt 2025, took place in the Gulf of Oman near the strategic Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Arabian Gulf through which a fifth of all crude oil traded worldwide passes. The area around the strait in the past has seen Iran seize commercial ships and launch suspected attacks in the time since President Donald Trump first unilaterally withdrew America from Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers.

• Syria’s government signs breakthrough deal with Kurdish-led authorities in northeast

  Syria’s interim government signed a deal Monday with the Kurdish-led authority that controls the country’s northeast, including a ceasefire and the merging of the main US-backed force there into the Syrian army. The deal is a major breakthrough that would bring most of Syria under the control of the government, which is led by the Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham group that led the ouster of President Bashar Assad in December. The deal was signed by interim President Ahmad Al-Sharaa and Mazloum Abdi, the commander of the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. The deal to be implemented by the end of the year would bring all border crossings with Iraq and Turkiye, airports and oil fields in the northeast under the central government’s control. Prisons where about 9,000 suspected members of the Daesh group are also expected to come under government control.

• Commentary: Lamenting Ramadan cliches is the biggest cliche of all

  Similarly, if you see a Ramadan ad without gentle oud music and dusk-blue lighting, without a skipping child excited by her first fast, and her smiling grandfather welcoming her to the heaped iftar table, one can ask: is this a Ramadan ad? Perhaps because the familiar imagery is comforting, ads remain the same year after year, just as family traditions remain the same. Let us, therefore, let AI run rampant. It will churn out the same familiar fare as human marketers, but without wasting sleep-starved and hungry man-hours to do so. In the meantime, the humans can work on new stuff. Don’t get too excited; this will not be revolutionary new stuff, but evolutionary.

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