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Saudi Arabia's energy minister Prince Abdelaziz Bin Salman Bin Abdelaziz  announced in November that Saudi Aramco had discovered two natural gas fields in the Empty Quarter, at the Al-Hiran and Al-Mahakik fields.

The work schedule is unrelenting for Qatari Prime Minister and foreign affairs minister Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman Bin Jassim Al-Thani, who flew into Manama for talks with Bahraini Prime Minister and Crown Prince Salman Bin Hamad Al-Khalifa on 17 November – to cement bilateral ties as well as discuss the situation in Gaza. 

Saudi Power Procurement Company issued a request for qualification (RfQ) in November for projects involving some 3.7GW of solar power generation capacity in the fifth round of bidding under the Ministry of Energy's National Renewable Energy Programme.

Prominent Saudi businessman Sheikh Mohammed Bin Issa Al-Jaber has lost a long-running case against the founders of Al-Arabiya television channel over a disputed $30m payment. 

Saudi Arabia is due to bring in a new legal framework for businesses in mid-December. The Civil Transactions Law sets out a new code for property rights, financial transactions and other contracts. 

Former UK Prime Minister David Cameron made a surprise return to the British government when he was appointed foreign secretary. During his time as premier, from 2010 to 2016, he did much to expand relations with the Gulf states.

Leaders from the 15-strong Caribbean Community (Caricom) arrived in Riyadh mid-November for the first Saudi-Caricom summit.  Separately, Saudi ambassador to the UN Abdelaziz Bin Mohammed Al-Wasel signed protocols to establish diplomatic relations with Micronesia and Nauru. 

Omani officials appear confident that, despite international diplomatic attention having largely switched to the Gaza conflict, a peace settlement can be achieved soon between the warring factions in Yemen and Saudi Arabia, with all parties now appearing to recognise that ending the civil war is in their overwhelming political interest.

Economic slump: The economy shrank by 4.5% year on year in Q3 2023, a sharp change from the 1.2% expansion reported in Q2 23. It was the first decline in real GDP since the start of Q1 21 and was entirely due to a slump in the oil and gas sector, where activity contracted by 17.3% yr/yr due to voluntary production cuts.

Saudi Arabia is leading a fresh effort from the Gulf to assert its regional influence in an attempt to bring the Gaza war to an end, there has been no indication that Israel would consider reducing the intensity of its relentless bombing campaign as it seeks vengeance for the brutal Hamas assault of 7 October.

Saudi Power Procurement Company (SPPC) signed power purchase agreements (PPAs) covering a total of 1.5GW of solar photovoltaic power, under round four of the National Renewable Energy Programme.

The National Anti-Corruption Commission (Nazaha, meaning integrity) has released summaries of 21 recent cases, offering an insight into its work, the scale of some corruption cases and its willingness to indict senior officials. 

Iran’s consul general in Jeddah Hassan Zarnegar Abarqouie left Tehran early November to take up his post, eight months after Saudi Arabia and the Islamic republic agreed to restore diplomatic ties in a China-brokered deal. 

Saudi Arabia hosted fresh talks in late October between President General Abdel-Fattah Burhan’s Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) led by Lieutenant General Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo (often known as Hemedti).

Even before the new Gaza war shattered comfortable assumptions about regional security, the global economic climate had been hostile, as shown in analysis of the International Monetary Fund's new reports on the global outlook and regional economic performance.