All posts tagged: Arabia

Christie’s Establishes Saudi Arabia Outpost

Christie’s Establishes Saudi Arabia Outpost

Published by skeptic

Today, Christie’s became the first international auction house to establish a permanent commercial license to operate in Saudi Arabia. Noor Kelani will oversee the new location in her recently established role as managing director of Chrisie’s Saudi Arabia. According to a press release, she will head up client services for the fine art and luxury secondary business to “build on long-established clientele in the Kingdom and engage with the next generation of collectors”. Prior to her appointment, she was responsible for operations at Ayyam Gallery in Jeddah and was an adviser for private collections. Related Articles Though an opening date has yet been determined, Christie’s is planning to host both exhibitions and private sales, as well as “supporting cultural regional events within the Kingdom, with regular international touring highlights from important auctions into the Kingdom for the public and clients to view,” a spokesperson told the Art Newspaper. Though the auction house has an outpost in Dubai, which was established in 2005, the latest expansion in the Saudi capital of Riyadh will focus on modern …

Hajj heat deaths in Saudi Arabia stress climate threat for pilgrims

Hajj heat deaths in Saudi Arabia stress climate threat for pilgrims

Published by Sam

DUBAI — The effects of a deadly heat wave during the Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia this month were made worse by the lack of accommodations and other services such as cooling centers for those who traveled there without proper permits, witnesses and media reports said. Temperatures in the holy city of Mecca topped 125 degrees Fahrenheit during the five-day pilgrimage that started June 14, according to the Saudi meteorological center. On Sunday, Saudi Health Minister Fahd Al-Jalajel told local media that 1,301 deaths had been reported and that 83 percent of those people were unregistered pilgrims. At least 600 were from Egypt, according to diplomats who spoke to Agence France-Presse and other news agencies. The Hajj is normally a source of prestige for the Saudi government. Saudi authorities said about 1.8 million pilgrims made the journey, which is one of the five central tenets of Islam. Every able-bodied Muslim is required to complete the Hajj once in their lifetime. Many of the rituals include spending extended periods of time outdoors and walking long distances. …

Mers outbreak in Saudi Arabia puts health experts on high alert

Mers outbreak in Saudi Arabia puts health experts on high alert

Published by skeptic

The first case, a man with underlying health conditions, went to hospital in early April after developing a cough, fever and body aches. He later died from the disease. But two other men in the same hospital, both aged 60, have also tested positive for the coronavirus – sparking a broad contact tracing effort from health officials, to detect further infections before it can spread further. Dozens of people have been tested. “Hospitals can either serve as a source of prevention or amplification of transmission,” said Dr Saskia Popescu, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. “I’ve spent a lot of time studying Mers healthcare-transmission cases and using those lessons to strengthen healthcare bioprep and honestly, THIS is why we invest in infection prevention programs,” she wrote on X, formerly Twitter. Mers is ‘still around and still a threat’ Mers was first detected in 2012, when it jumped from camels to humans in Saudi Arabia, and it has since spread to 27 other countries. Globally, 2,204 cases and 860 deaths …

Whistleblower Says Saudi Arabia Told Operatives It’s Okay to Kill Villagers to Build 105-Mile Skyscraper

Whistleblower Says Saudi Arabia Told Operatives It’s Okay to Kill Villagers to Build 105-Mile Skyscraper

Published by skeptic

At least one protester has reportedly been shot and killed by Saudi forces. Crossing the Line Saudi Arabia is working on a comically colossal skyscraper, called “The Line,” that aims to stretch across 105 miles of desert and tower over the Empire State Building. And that’s only one part of an even greater ambition, the world’s largest construction project simply called “Neom.” Unsurprisingly, The Line is already turning out to be a hot mess, with architects struggling to finalize designs, while the foundations are already being built. Besides getting a reality check, the project — led by the journalist-mulching Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman — is also already mired in human rights abuses. Ex-intelligence officer Rabih Alenezi, who has been living in exile in the UK since last year, told the BBC that Saudi forces were given the green light to use lethal force to clear land for the sprawling construction site. Alenezi claims that he was told to move a nearby village, resulting in a protester getting shot and killed — serious allegations …

Saudi Arabia Discovers It’s Hard to Build a 105-Mile Skyscraper

Saudi Arabia Discovers It’s Hard to Build a 105-Mile Skyscraper

Published by skeptic

“It’s battling against the entire history of the way cities are founded and grow.” Bottom Line The future of Neom, Saudi Arabia’s enormous city building project, is looking shaky as costs soar and sloppy construction setbacks mount, The Wall Street Journal reports. Constructing its centerpiece, “the Line,” was never going to be easy. The uber-ambitious pair of skyscrapers is supposed to be taller than the Empire State Building and span 105 miles of desert, its western end terminating on the coast of the Red Sea. That staggering scale comes with staggering costs. Officially, Neom was budgeted at $500 billion, which is more than 50 percent of Saudi Arabia’s federal budget, the WSJ notes. But those projections may have been too optimistic. According to employees working on the project and people familiar with the plans that spoke to the paper, just the first 1.5 miles of the Line will cost more than $100 billion, with the entire project expected to easily clear $2 trillion — more than the GDP of Brazil. “It’s battling against the entire history …

‘They’ve destroyed us because of some tweets’: why has Saudi Arabia targeted these three sisters? | Saudi Arabia

‘They’ve destroyed us because of some tweets’: why has Saudi Arabia targeted these three sisters? | Saudi Arabia

Published by skeptic

In September 2022, Fawzia al-Otaibi was a week into a trip to her home country of Saudi Arabia, staying with a friend near the Bahrain border, when her phone rang. As soon as she heard the male voice on the other end of the line, she realised that returning had been a terrible mistake. It was a police officer who, in 2019, had tracked her down and fined her for public indecency after she had posted a video on her Snapchat account, showing her dancing in jeans and a baseball cap at a concert in Riyadh. She and her two sisters, Maryam and Manahel, had become targets in a campaign of arrests, threats and intimidation by the Saudi authorities after they had used their popular social media channels to post about women’s rights. For her, the dancing clip wasn’t a political statement; it was just about sharing a happy moment with her followers. After the fine, Fawzia left Saudi Arabia for Dubai and hadn’t been back to her home country in three years. She thought …

F1 and oil funds: Saudi Arabia steamrolls onto sports’ hallowed grounds

F1 and oil funds: Saudi Arabia steamrolls onto sports’ hallowed grounds

Published by skeptic

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia —  To understand the scope of Saudi Arabia’s ambitions in the sporting landscape, don’t look just to this spring’s Formula One race in Jeddah — which ended with a predictable one-two win for the Red Bull team. The revealing action was at the after-party. Amid a bloom of fireworks over Jeddah’s coast, dozens of drones buzzed in synchronicity to spell out the kingdom’s goal: “Saudi Arabia. Home of Sporting Events.” It’s a vision that increasingly seems within reach. Backed by funds from the state-owned oil giant Aramco and the vast endowment of its Public Investment Fund, the autocratic monarchy has in only a few years steamrolled its way onto the sporting world’s most hallowed grounds. In soccer, it has lavished its local clubs with hundreds of millions of dollars, courted superstar players to its league and successfully lobbied to host the 2034 World Cup. Its bid to create a rival golf tournament rattled the genteel PGA enough to force it into a reluctant union. Tennis, boxing, cricket, pro wrestling, even eSports — all …

Saudis push for ‘plan B’ that excludes Israel from key deal with US | Saudi Arabia

Saudis push for ‘plan B’ that excludes Israel from key deal with US | Saudi Arabia

Published by skeptic

The US and Saudi Arabia have drafted a set of agreements on security and technology-sharing which were intended to be linked to a broader Middle East settlement involving Israel and the Palestinians. However, in the absence of a ceasefire in Gaza and in the face of adamant resistance from Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israeli government to the creation of a Palestinian state – and its apparent determination to launch an offensive on Rafah – the Saudis are pushing for a more modest plan B, which excludes the Israelis. Under that option, the US and Saudi Arabia would sign agreements on a bilateral defence pact, US help in the building of a Saudi civil nuclear energy industry, and high-level sharing in the field of artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies. An offer would be made to Israel of normalisation of diplomatic relations with Riyadh in return for Israeli acceptance of the two-state solution to the 76-year Israeli-Arab conflict. But under Riyadh’s plan B proposal, completion of the US-Saudi deals would not be made dependent on agreement from the …

US State Secretary Blinken to travel to Saudi Arabia next week

US State Secretary Blinken to travel to Saudi Arabia next week

Published by Sam

WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit Saudi Arabia on Monday and Tuesday to meet with regional partners and discuss efforts to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of Israeli hostages, the State Department said on Saturday (Apr 27). “He will discuss the recent increase in humanitarian assistance being delivered to Gaza and underscore the importance of ensuring that increase is sustained,” the State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in statement. “The Secretary will also emphasize the importance of preventing the conflict from spreading and discuss ongoing efforts to achieve lasting peace and security in the region, including through a pathway to an independent Palestinian state with security guarantees for Israel.” Blinken is not scheduled to visit Israel on this trip. War began in Gaza after Hamas fighters crossed into Israel on Oct 7, killing 1,200 people and capturing 253 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. Nearly 32,000 people have been confirmed killed in Israel’s retaliatory onslaught, according to Palestinian health officials in Hamas-run Gaza, with thousands more feared lost under the rubble. …

‘To the Future’: Saudi Arabia Spends Big to Become an A.I. Superpower

‘To the Future’: Saudi Arabia Spends Big to Become an A.I. Superpower

Published by skeptic

On a Monday morning last month, tech executives, engineers and sales representatives from Amazon, Google, TikTok and other companies endured a three-hour traffic jam as their cars crawled toward a mammoth conference at an event space in the desert, 50 miles outside Riyadh. The lure: billions of dollars in Saudi money as the kingdom seeks to build a tech industry to complement its oil dominance. To bypass the congestion, frustrated eventgoers drove onto the highway shoulder, kicking up plumes of desert sand as they sped past those following traffic rules. A lucky few took advantage of a special freeway exit dedicated to “V.V.I.P.s” — very, very important people. “To the Future,” a sign read on the approach to the event, called Leap. More than 200,000 people converged at the conference, including Adam Selipsky, chief executive of Amazon’s cloud computing division, who announced a $5.3 billion investment in Saudi Arabia for data centers and artificial intelligence technology. Arvind Krishna, the chief executive of IBM, spoke of what a government minister called a “lifetime friendship” with the …