MUST-READS

• Riyadh Metro
  Metro project to bring Riyadh on par with world’s great cities

  Work on the project is under way. It includes 756 metro cars, 85 stations, 6 metro lines and 176-km. network. It will also include 3,853 bus stops and stations, 24 bus routes, 1,150 km network and 956 buses. Three foreign groups have been awarded contracts to build the project.

• Syria
  In the Syria We Don’t Know

  ISIS came along to supersede the FSA, as the FSA had replaced the protesters. ISIS was more combative, more ruthless, better financed, and more effective, using mobility across the desert in Syria and Iraq to launch surprise attacks. It used suicide teams in bomb-laden trucks to open the way into regime strongholds that its rebel adversaries had merely besieged. Moreover, it has achieved the one objective that eluded the FSA: it brought American airpower into the war, but not in the way the FSA wanted. Instead, the Syria war has produced an opposition to Assad so repellent and so antagonistic to Western allies in the region that when the air intervention came, it arrived in the guise of the regime’s ally in all but name.

• Saudi Survey
  High cost of living plaguing Saudi youth: Poll

  Nearly 60 percent of young Saudis ranked the high cost of living as one of their top three issues. Regional disparities are quite apparent: respondents from the east and the south were more likely to cite this as a top concern than were those from the center. In the focus groups, many young Saudis expressed fear that the high cost of living would limit their ability to marry and have children.

• Iran Negotiations
  Reading Between the Red Lines: An Anatomy of Iran’s Eleventh-Hour Nuclear Negotiating Strategy

  After yet another round of negotiations on the Iranian nuclear issue this week in Vienna, Tehran is simultaneously reinforcing its red lines while raising expectations that a final agreement remains within reach. While these might sound like mixed messages, in fact they are part of a sophisticated, multi-prong strategy aimed at pressuring Washington and its negotiating partners to accede to Tehran’s stipulations for a deal.

  • Defense One - The Last Step to an Iran Nuclear Deal
• Global Data Energy
  Saudi Assets Lead World’s Upstream Developments for Recoverable Oil Reserves, says GlobalData

  The Khurais and Manifa projects in Saudi Arabia have the most recoverable reserves among the world’s top 100 upstream developments, with approximately 19.4 billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe) and 13.7 billion boe, respectively, according to research and consulting firm GlobalData.

• Saudi Shi'a
  Protests break out after a Shia cleric is sentenced to death

  A powerful orator, 54-year-old Sheikh Nimr emerged as a leader of protests that broke out in 2011 in response to the violent suppression of the pro-democracy movement in neighbouring Bahrain. The island kingdom, whose predominantly Shia population is ruled by a Sunni dynasty, is linked to the Eastern Province by a causeway. In sermons Mr Nimr did not only denounce the Bahraini clampdown, which was bolstered by troops from Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Gulf allies. He also demanded greater rights for Saudi Arabia’s own disenfranchised Shias, who have long complained of discrimination in government jobs and education, as well as of being demonised by official media. The first Shia minister in Saudi history was only appointed in June this year.

• Global Travel
  Opinion: Traveling While Arab

  Despite the amicable way I am treated by people in the book world, in airports I am just another Arab, a potential terrorist.

• Iran Negotiations
  U.S. says no talk now about extending Iran nuclear negotiations

  "We don’t know if we’ll be able to get to an agreement, we very well may not,” the official said, declining to be named.

• Prince Alwaleed
  Belittling the Impact of Oil Price Fall ‘a Catastrophe That Cannot Go Unmentioned’, Alwaleed Writes

  “As we have repeatedly warned in the past...our country faces the danger of continuing to depend almost entirely on oil,” Prince al-Waleed said in the letter. “The kingdom’s 2014 budget is 90% dependent on oil revenues, so belittling [the impact of falling oil prices] is a catastrophe that cannot go unmentioned,” he said.

• UNSC
  UN Backs New Yemeni PM Nominee

  The United Nations Security Council has welcomed Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi's appointment of a new prime minister, the latest move in an effort to overcome several years of political turmoil in the country.

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