Category Archives: Saudi Arabia

US-Saudi talks amid reports of far-reaching diplomatic plan for Middle East

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But Jeddah’s demands for brokering an Israeli-Palestinian respite are reportedly a ‘non-starter’ and a ‘sucker’s bet’

The US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, has held talks with the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, in Jeddah, in what was reported to be part of a bid for an ambitious and far-reaching diplomatic breakthrough in the region.

The White House said Sullivan and the prince discussed on Thursday “initiatives to advance a common vision for a more peaceful, secure, prosperous and stable Middle East region interconnected with the world”.

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Revealed: Saudi Arabia’s $6bn spend on ‘sportswashing’

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Exclusive: Billions deployed since early 2021 in a move critics say is an attempt to distract from human rights record

Saudi Arabia has spent at least $6.3bn (£4.9bn) in sports deals since early 2021, more than quadruple the previous amount spent over a six-year period, in what critics have labelled an effort to distract from its human rights record.

Saudi Arabia has deployed billions from its Public Investment Fund over the last two-and-a-half years according to analysis by the Guardian, spending on sports at a scale that has completely changed professional golf and transformed the international transfer market for football.

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‘An ideal tool for a repressive regime’: Snapchat’s Saudi ties questioned

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Critics say social media app – partly owned by a Saudi investor – pushes pro-crown prince hype while critical voices are punished

Saudi Arabia appears to be exploiting the US messaging app Snapchat to promote the image of its crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, while also imposing draconian sentences on influencers who use the platform to post even mild criticism of the future king.

The California-based company, which last year agreed to a “collaboration” with the Saudi culture ministry, has more than 20 million users in the kingdom – including an estimated 90% of 13-to-34-year-olds – and the crown prince has met personally with some of the platform’s biggest “Snapchatters” for informal talks about current events, according to people familiar with the encounters.

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UK invites Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman to visit

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Saudi heir’s official visit would be first since he was accused of being behind killing of Jamal Khashoggi

The Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, has been invited to the UK on an official visit in late autumn, the first such visit by the heir to the Saudi throne since he was accused of masterminding the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, the Washington Post columnist and dissident.

Numerous UK ministers have been to Saudi Arabia in the interim, and senior Saudi ministers have also come to the UK, including the foreign minister, Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud.

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Mother of Cheshire boy, 7, kidnapped by father says Saudi lawyers ‘too scared’ to help

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Exclusive: Ranem Elkhalidi meeting Foreign Office officials this week as she continues fight to bring her son home

A woman whose seven-year-old son was kidnapped by his father and taken to Saudi Arabia has said lawyers in the country are too afraid to get involved with her case, as she prepares for a meeting with the Foreign Office this week.

Ranem Elkhalidi has vowed to keep fighting for the safe return of her Cheshire-born son Ibrahim, who was taken from his primary school six months ago by her estranged husband, Hamzah Faraj, a Saudi national, in breach of a court order.

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Thousands suffer heat stress on hajj pilgrimage as temperatures reach 48C

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People struggling in the swelter was a common sight, especially after day-long outdoor prayers at Mount Arafat

More than 2,000 people suffered heat stress during the hajj pilgrimage, Saudi officials said on Thursday, after temperatures soared to 48C (118F).

Over 1.8 million Muslim worshippers performed the days-long hajj, mostly held outdoors at the height of the Saudi desert summer. Many elderly were among the pilgrims after a Covid-era maximum age limit was scrapped.

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Saudi leader trying to avoid ‘pariah’ status with LIV-PGA merger, says rights group

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Mohammed bin Salman said to look to repair his reputation after 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul

The proposed merger between the Saudi-backed LIV Tour and the American PGA Tour marks the latest maneuver by Riyadh in its campaign to repair its reputation and head off the sort of blacklisting that occurred after the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a prominent advocate for democracy in the Middle East told the Guardian.

“This is a merger in name only. This is really about the Saudi government throwing a premium at PGA Tour that they obviously found too overwhelmingly tempting to resist,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now (Dawn).

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Urgent action needed to protect ‘dying’ Kenyan domestic workers in Gulf, say rights groups

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Deaths and alleged abuse of Kenyan women in Saudi Arabia fuels demands for Nairobi to act on human rights

Rights groups have expressed concern that not enough has been done to address the alleged mistreatment of domestic workers in Gulf states, such as Saudi Arabia, after the Kenyan government moved to secure work opportunities abroad for its citizens.

“This is a matter of grave public interest,” said John Mwariri, a lawyer at Kituo cha Sheria, a legal aid organisation. “Many of our Kenyan citizens have been abused and are dying there. There is an urgent need for protections.”

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Yemen peace talks must accept country is divided in two, says southern leader

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Exclusive: Maj Gen Aidarus al-Zoubaidi says a Houthi-run north and STC-led south is the new reality

The leader seen as integral to solving Yemen’s nine-year civil war has said the west has to accept a new reality in which Yemen’s north is controlled by the Houthis and the south is run by his separatist Southern Transitional Council (STC).

In a Guardian interview, Maj Gen Aidarus al-Zoubaidi, the president of the STC and vice-president of the UN-recognised government of Yemen, said the planned talks on the country’s future had to be reconfigured to meet that new reality, including by putting the issue of a separate southern state at the foreground of discussions. The talks are largely under the control of Saudi Arabia, which wants to find a way to extricate itself from a war that is estimated to have caused more than 250,000 deaths.

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US Senate asks governor of Saudi wealth fund to testify over LIV-PGA merger

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Invitation raises possibility Yasir al-Rumayyan could be questioned under oath about execution of Jamal Khashoggi

The powerful governor of Saudi Arabia’s state-backed investment fund has been invited to testify before a Senate committee in the wake of a proposed merger between the Saudi-backed LIV Tour and the PGA, raising the possibility the executive could be questioned under oath about issues ranging from the future of golf to the execution of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Yasir al-Rumayyan, governor of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, was invited to testify on 11 July by the Senate permanent subcommittee on investigations, whose chairman, the Democratic senator Dick Blumenthal, is one of the toughest critics of Saudi Arabia on Capitol Hill.

This article was amended on 21 June 2023 to clarify that Yasir al-Rumayyan is the governor of Saudi Arabia’s state-backed investment fund, rather than the chairman.

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Soft power: Saudi Arabia flexes muscles with launch of new Gulf airline Riyadh Air

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Launch comes amid resurgent demand for air travel after end of Covid lockdowns

As the deafening roar of an F35 fighter jet washes over the Paris air show, Tony Douglas allows himself a moment of nostalgia: he was formerly responsible for the UK government agency charged with buying the planes.

Now he is in charge of a different aviation proposition, leading the launch of a new commercial airline belonging to the Saudi Arabian state.

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Threatened Saudi dissident told to live like Edward Snowden by Met police

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Col Rabih Alenezi received advice after reporting death threats, of which he says he receives 50 a week

A Saudi Arabian dissident living in London was told to “emulate” the life of the US whistleblower Edward Snowden by a Metropolitan police officer, amid death threats he received after fleeing his country.

Col Rabih Alenezi, 44, had been a senior official in Saudi Arabia’s security service for two decades, but sought asylum in the UK after he claimed to have been ordered to carry out human rights violations. His life was threatened for criticising the regime of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

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Yemeni activist who revealed sexual abuse by Houthis ‘being held by Saudi intelligence’

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Samira al-Houri disappeared after allegations that claims of female prisoners being raped were embellished

A prominent Yemeni human rights activist who revealed sexual abuse by Houthis in the country’s jails has been detained for more than a year by Saudi intelligence and her whereabouts is unknown, her friends have claimed.

The claim about Samira al-Houri’s disappearance has been made by Ali Albukhaiti, a prominent Yemeni politician and writer, who told the Guardian he decided to go public after he felt all private diplomatic avenues to secure her release had been exhausted. Albukhaiti drew parallels with the case of Jamal Khashoggi, the murdered Saudi journalist and dissident, saying although he had no evidence about her fate he feared for her safety.

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Brent crude price rises after Saudi Arabia agrees to cut oil output

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Price gained more than 2% on Monday morning to touch one-month high of $78.73

The price of Brent crude has risen after Saudi Arabia agreed to cut its output to firm up oil prices after a weekend of tense talks.

Saudi ministers agreed to cut 1m barrels per day (bpd) from its output from next month at a meeting of the Opec+ group of oil-producing nations in Vienna.

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Saudi Arabia warns Snapchat users that ‘insulting’ regime is a criminal offense

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Users of the social media app have faced legal consequences for posts – some private – that are critical of Saudi authorities

Saudi state media issued an explicit warning that it is a criminal offense to “insult” authorities using social media apps such as Snapchat, the California-based messaging app whose chief executive recently forged a new “cooperation” deal with the kingdom’s culture ministry.

The threat – which was originally televised in April and then deleted – has gained new resonance as more cases emerge in which Snapchat users and influencers in the kingdom have been arrested by authorities and, in some cases, sentenced to decades-long prison sentences.

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Jordan’s crown prince cements status with glitzy wedding to Saudi architect

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Celebrities and UK royals watch Prince Hussein marry Rajwa Alseif in marriage seen to secure succession and boost state ties

Jordan’s monarchy has cemented the role of its 28-year-old crown prince with a wedding attended by global royalty, including Britain’s Prince and Princess of Wales, in a glittering show seeking to buttress the succession and move on from a painful family scandal.

Crown Prince Hussein married Rajwa Alseif, a 29-year-old Saudi architect linked to her own country’s ruling dynasty, on Thursday afternoon in a match seen as boosting Amman’s rocky relationship with its more powerful and oil-rich neighbour.

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Austrade forum to promote links with oil giant Saudi Aramco condemned by activists

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Environmental groups say the event in Perth to court the biggest polluting oil company of all time is ‘akin to a joint trade show with a tobacco major’

A government meet-and-greet to connect Australian industry with the world’s largest oil company, Saudi Aramco, has been criticised by environmental groups as “akin to a joint trade show with a tobacco major”.

Australia’s international trade agency Austrade will host the event, “Doing business with Aramco 2023”, next Friday at the Duxton Hotel in Perth.

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Russian weapons manufacturers hosted at Saudi trade event

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Companies with direct links to Russian military set to attend, which is likely to heighten tensions with US

Seven sanctioned Russian companies, including a manufacturer of military helicopters deployed in the war in Ukraine, are visiting Saudi Arabia next week as part of a trade mission to increase business with the Gulf state.

Companies including weapons manufacturers with direct links to the Russian military, state corporations involved in the invasion of Ukraine, and the agency overseeing a Ukrainian nuclear plant in the country seized by the Russian military last year, are set to attend.

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‘No one listened’: mother of Cheshire boy kidnapped by father says she warned authorities

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Ibrahim Faraj, seven, was abducted and taken to Saudi Arabia in November

A woman whose seven-year-old son was kidnapped by his father and taken to Saudi Arabia has said she repeatedly warned authorities it would happen but “no one listened”.

Ranem Elkhalidi has not seen or spoken to Ibrahim Faraj since November, when he was abducted by his father, Hamzah Faraj, in breach of a court order.

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China and Saudi Arabia boycott G20 meeting held by India in Kashmir

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Indian presidency of group becomes mired in controversy as tourism session hosted in disputed territory

India’s presidency of the G20 group of leading nations has become mired in controversy after China and Saudi Arabia boycotted a meeting staged in Kashmir, the first such gathering since India unilaterally brought Kashmir under direct control in August 2019.

The meeting, a tourism working group attended by about 60 delegates from most G20 countries taking place from Monday to Wednesday, required a large show of security at Srinagar international airport.

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