MUST-READS

• Egypt reclaims 3,400-year-old stolen statue of King Ramses II
  Egypt welcomed home a 3,400-year-old statue depicting the head of King Ramses II after it was stolen and smuggled out of the country more than three decades ago, the country's antiquities ministry said on Sunday.
  The statue is now in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo but not on display. The artefact will be restored, the ministry said in a statement.
  The statue was stolen from the Ramses II temple in the ancient city of Abydos in Southern Egypt more than three decades ago. The exact date is not known, but Shaaban Abdel Gawad, who heads Egypt's antiquities repatriation department, said the piece is estimated to have been stolen in the late 1980s or early 1990s.

• Global defense spending jumped in 2023

  Total global defense spending grew at its fastest pace in the last decade from 2022 to 2023, as governments respond to security crises unfolding around the world. Combined military outlays jumped 10.4 percent in 2023 on strong growth from nearly all of the top spenders, bringing the global total above $2 trillion for the first time, according to a new report from Forecast International, a sister brand of Defense One.

• Saudi Arabia aims to double local honey production

  Saudi Arabia has invested SAR140 million ($37 million) to support its nascent rural honey industry, the government said this week. The country has raised subsidised production by 41 percent since 2021 and wants to double output by 2026. The Sustainable Agricultural Rural Development Program, known as Reef Saudi, said its funding supported over 10,500 people in the industry.

• Saudi Arabia issues weather warnings as country braces for heavy rainfall

  Saudi Arabia’s General Directorate of Civil Defense has issued weather warnings and safety instructions as the country braces for heavy rainfall.

  Several regions across the Kingdom will experience medium to heavy rainfall accompanied by torrential downpours and hail until Tuesday, according to the authority.

• How is fine dining thriving in Saudi Arabia’s F&B Industry?

  Experiential Dining: these days, with the rising competition, the fine dining restaurants are focusing on offering unique dining experiences that go beyond food and that includes theme decorations per local, internal, and seasonal activities, entertainment, and personalised services. These experiences drive word-of-mouth and social media sharing leading to always attract more customers and footfalls.

• First Iran group in nine years heads to Saudi Arabia for umrah pilgrimage
  The first group of Iranian pilgrims in nine years made its way to Saudi Arabia on Monday for the umrah, or minor pilgrimage, Iran's official news agency reported, as a result of improving ties between the two Middle Eastern powers.
  Iranian media had said in December that Saudi Arabia had lifted restrictions on Iranians wanting to perform umrah but flights were delayed until now due to what Tehran called "technical problems".

• 67 Arab Universities Included in 2024 QS Rankings by Subject

  The fourteenth edition of the QS World University Rankings by Subject, released today, features 67 universities from 12 Arab countries. These subject-specific rankings are a part of the annual QS World University Rankings series published by QS Quacquarelli Symonds, a British higher-education analytics company. The 2024 subject listings analyse the performance of 16,400 individual academic programmes across 56 subjects at over 1,500 universities worldwide. Among these rankings are 477 programmes from the Arab region, with 56 of them ranking within the top 100 globally for their subject. Saudi Arabia’s King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals (KFUPM) boasts two of the region’s top programmes, ranking fourth globally in petroleum engineering and ninth in mineral and mining engineering.

• The Urgent Need for Transparency Reform in Gulf Central Banks

  The currencies of Gulf Arab states are pegged to the dollar, limiting in significant ways the room for maneuver in central banks’ decision making, as their interest rates need to follow the decisions of the U.S. Federal Reserve. Transparency remains important nonetheless to these banks’ broader governance and accountability framework as well as to their independence from political interference. And conversely, lack of transparency can lead to uncertainty about the ability of Gulf monetary authorities to continue defending the peg, which may encourage speculation and eventually the collapse of the fixed exchange rate regime.

• Saudi Arabia Interior Design Potential Unveiled in Milan

  When French design collective Hall Haus traveled to Saudi Arabia to begin Haus Dari, a modern-Majlis-type seating system that mimics desert dunes, settling on the approach and seeing their creation come to fruition took a good six weeks. Started in 2020 by Zakari Boukhari, Sammy Bernoussi, Teddy Sanches and Abdoulaye Niang, the f ...

• White House Makes Fresh Push for Historic Deal to Forge Saudi-Israel Ties

  As inducements to recognize Israel, the White House is offering Riyadh a more formal defense relationship with Washington, assistance in acquiring civil nuclear power and a renewed push for a Palestinian state—a package that U.S. officials say they are in the final stages of negotiating.

  The U.S.-brokered effort offers Israel a prize it has long sought: a historic normalization deal with Riyadh, Israel’s most powerful Arab neighbor.

  U.S. officials say the successful multicountry effort to shoot down Iranian missiles and drones on Saturday should make it clear to Israel that its security against threats from Tehran can be enhanced through closer integration with Saudi Arabia.

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