MUST-READS

• Ramadan 2024: Find out why Saudi Arabia’s Prince Mohammad Bin Salman banned iftar in mosques ahead of Ramadan

  The notice, raising issues about cleanliness being compromised when iftar feasts are held inside mosques, directed imam and muezzin to oversee the organisation of these feasts in mosques’ courtyards and charged them with the responsibility to ensure cleanliness soon after the feast concludes.

• Saudi Arabia: Migrant Workers’ Long Overdue Wages at Risk

  In 2016, following a period of low oil prices and an economic downturn in Saudi Arabia, several companies failed to pay hundreds of thousands of migrant workers their wages, leaving them stranded. In late 2023, Saudi Oger’s Liquidation Trustees and Mohammad Al-Mojil Group (MMG)’s Bankruptcy Trustee, the trustees of the two Saudi-based construction companies, who faced such economic challenges and are currently in liquidation and bankruptcy respectively, announced that former employees should register for their payments.

• Worldwide Decline of Freedom Outweighs Improvements

  Democratic watchdog organization Freedom House has released its annual ranking of the world's most free and most suppressed nations. The report is considered a key barometer for global democracy and this year's edition found that global freedom has declined for the 18th year straight. While 2022 had been heralded as a “possible turning point” as about as many countries showed improvements as marked declines, 2023 saw a new low of nations bettering their freedom prospects - only 21. This number stands opposite 52 countries where political freedoms and civil liberties declined.

• Americans Remain Committed to NATO, Critical of UN

  A 47% plurality of Americans want to see the United States keep its current commitment to NATO, with 20% feeling support for the alliance should increase. Meanwhile, 16% think the U.S. should decrease its NATO commitment, and 12% would prefer that the U.S. withdraw from NATO entirely. Americans' overall support for NATO remains unchanged from the prior reading two years ago just before Russia’s broader-scale invasion of Ukraine and the additions of Finland and Sweden to the alliance. Compared to other similar trends from the 1980s and 1990s, major changes in support for the alliance have occurred among those wanting increased support and those wanting the U.S. to exit the alliance entirely.

• More than 100 killed while seeking aid in Gaza, overall death toll passes 30,000

  Gaza health authorities said Israeli forces on Thursday shot dead more than 100 Palestinians as they waited for an aid delivery, but Israel blamed the deaths on crowds that surrounded aid trucks, saying victims had been trampled or run over. At least 112 people were killed and more than 280 wounded in the incident near Gaza City, Palestinian health officials said. The loss of civilian lives was the biggest in weeks. Hamas said the incident could jeopardise talks in Qatar aimed at securing a ceasefire and the release of Israeli hostages it is holding. When asked if he thought it would complicate the talks, U.S. President Joe Biden said: "I know it will."

• Iran election: ruler Khamenei seeks big turnout amid discontent

  Iranians voted for a new parliament on Friday in an election seen as a test of the clerical establishment's legitimacy at a time of growing frustration over economic woes and restrictions on political and social freedoms. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has called voting a religious duty, was the first to cast his vote in Iran. "Vote as soon as possible ... today the eyes of Iran's friends and ill-wishers are on the results. Make friends happy and disappoint enemies," Khamenei said on state television.

• Yellen, Saudi finance minister discuss economy, collaboration at G20 meeting

  US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen met with Saudi Arabia’s finance minister Mohammed al-Jadaan at the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors meeting in Sao Paulo, Brazil, a statement released by US Department of treasury on Thursday reported. Yellen and the Saudi minister discussed economic prospects of the Kingdom, the advancements made in its reform initiatives and its involvement in global and regional affairs, the statement added.

• Saudi Arabia targets human skills as key to expanding economy at Riyadh event

  “Education is in itself the most important sector in which to invest,” Khalid Al Falih said on Thursday during his opening speech on the second and final day of the Human Capability Initiative event in Riyadh. He said that the needs for the energy sector are changing as the world shifts to cleaner methods, along with the advanced technology markets, which both demand talent for jobs that have not yet been created. This will have “a tremendous impact” on Saudi Arabia’s global competitiveness, and that is where its investment will be directed, said the minister.

• Saudi researchers devise new method of producing microalgae

  Saudi Arabia currently imports most of the raw materials it needs for livestock feed: protein, lipids, and carbohydrates. Replacing even a fraction of those imports with homegrown feed would represent massive savings and a big step toward food security, according to the KAUST team. The difficulty of cultivating algae at scale has prevented its potential as an animal feed raw material from being realized to date. However, scientists working at KAUST’s new Saudi Center for Algal Biotechnology Development and Aquaculture maintain that the Spirulina and Chlorella strains of algae they have developed are adapted to seawater, which makes their algae cultivation method both economically viable and environmentally sustainable.

• Saudi Arabia wants to be ‘the next Silicon Valley,’ Princess Loulwa says: Video

  Princess Loulwa Al Saud, co-founder and CEO of RiseUp Saudi, says Saudi Arabia focuses on knowledge more than on funding.

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