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Despite the US company’s $170m deal with the UAE, European firms are proving increasingly strong competition for air-launched missile systems contracts
Geopolitics; Reappointed in Qassim; Football club talks; Compensation; Marriage
State giant Saudi Aramco has been awarded the contract to build and finance a planned $10bn oil refinery at the Red Sea port of Jizan in the underdeveloped Jizan province on the Yemen border.
Highlighting the Obama administration’s growing engagement with Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) states, secretary of state Hillary Clinton was to visit
Islamist campaigners for constitutional reform have managed to sustain a permanent and openly declared organisation in the Kingdom for three months. Protests have usually consisted of one-off petitions or statements by groups of intellectuals, but the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association (ACPRA) is maintaining a campaign presence through a series of statements and ‘letters to the King’ on its website www.ksaright.org.
For long a staunch opponent of the climate change agenda, Saudi Arabia’s resistance to a new deal on the environment will be put to the test as representatives of 190 countries hammer out an agreement on global energy policy in Copenhagen. Critics say the world’s largest oil exporter has played an obstructionist role in the fight to limit the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions that a majority of governments now believe cause climate change.
Delegates attending the 30th Gulf Co-operation Council summit in Kuwait, which started on 14 December, have said they support Saudi Arabia in its stance against Yemen's Al-Houthi rebels. Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah
Back in the Kingdom; Military inspection; Return home from Europe, Lebanon; Clinton meeting; Family safety campaign; News Corp deal; Flood comments
Economic as well as political problems are adding to fears that Yemen is sliding towards state failure. The Kingdom’s military acceleration along the border in November illustrates the considerable force with which Saudi Arabia is prepared to intervene in its neighbour’s affairs
Since the beginning of 2009, there have been signs that the long-awaited overspill of jihadist violence from Yemen into Saudi Arabia has gathered pace, leading up to last month’s Saudi offensive against militant targets in the Yemeni borderlands.
The Saudi bombing of targets in Yemen has underlined the potential for the crisis in the poor and populous southern Arabian state to flare into wider conflict (see Risk management report – Saudi Arabia). Escalation of the crisis also poses major problems for opposition forces within the country, who are well aware of President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s ability to turn a political and humanitarian drama to his advantage.
Sarko meeting; SEC reshuffle; Swine flu; Yemen crisis, foreign meetings; Term extended
On 2 November, King Abdullah appointed Prince Mansour Bin Mitab Bin Abdelaziz Al-Saud as municipal and rural affairs minister. Mansour's father, Prince Mitab, who has a record of government service dating
Humanitarian concerns have forced a ceasefire in Yemen’s murderous Al-Houthi conflict amid signs that the Arab-Iranian ‘cold war’ is hotting up. With Saudi Arabia and Egypt joining the US in seeing wider regional significance in what has long been understood as a localised conflict, Ali Abdullah Saleh is looking to exploit a difficult situation
Qatar meeting; To Geneva; Oman, The Hague; Belgium meetings; Funeral; Funeral; Not a rebel
