Saudi Royal Family Is Still Spending in an Age of Austerity
By NICHOLAS KULISH and MARK MAZZETTIDEC. 27, 2016
Members of the Saudi royal family at a reception at the palace in Riyadh last year. There are thousands of princes and princesses in the House of Saud and many are accustomed to a lavish lifestyle. Credit Karl-Josef Hildenbrand/Deutsche Presse-Agentur, via Alamy Live News
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The Abqaiq oil field in Saudi Arabia. The royal family’s wealth is derived from the enormous reserves of petroleum discovered in the kingdom more than 75 years ago. Credit Dmitri Kessel/The LIFE Premium Collection, via Getty Images
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This property in the Mayfair district of London was linked to King Salman in 2009 documents released among the Panama Papers. Credit Andrew Testa for The New York Times
Saudi Arabia is not nearly as affluent on a per-capita basis as Qatar or Kuwait, which are also rich from oil and gas but support far fewer people than their large neighbor. (Both also have been hit hard by the low oil prices.) Despite a robust social safety net — including free education and health care — there are poor Saudis, and many in the middle class barely make ends meet.
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As governor of Riyadh, Salman helped oversee the family, even maintaining a jail for young princes who ran amok. “When there was a problem in the family, misbehavior by one of the sons, the person invariably called upon to conciliate and solve the problem was Salman,” said the former United States ambassador Chas W. Freeman Jr., who knew him in Riyadh.
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“This family has been figuring these things out amongst themselves for 30 years,” said Ford M. Fraker, a former United States ambassador to Saudi Arabia and now president of the Middle East Policy Council.
“Swim together or sink together,” he said, “is ingrained in their DNA.”
Saudi Arabia allows women into stadium as it steps up reforms
Mixed audience permitted for the first time as national day festivities promote patriotic pride and aim to open up society
Saudi women sit for the first time in the King Fahd stadium in as the country celebrated its national day on 23 September. Photograph: Fayez Nureldine/AFP/Getty Images
Reuters
Saturday 23 September 2017 21.02 EDT
Saudi Arabia has allowed women into the national stadium for the first time as it launched celebrations to mark the 87th anniversary of its founding with an unprecedented array of concerts and performances.
The festivities are part of a government bid to boost national pride and improve the quality of life for Saudis timed to coincide with Saturday’s national day.
As well as allowing women to attend an operetta at the stadium in Riyadh on Saturday night, another concert in the Red Sea city of Jeddah featured 11 Arab musicians, plus fireworks, air acrobatics and traditional folk dance shows.
The events are part of the government’s Vision 2030 reform programme launched two years ago to diversify the economy away from oil, create new sectors to employ young citizens and open up Saudis’ cloistered lifestyles.
However in a country that adheres to the austere Wahhabi brand of Sunni Islam, which bans gender mixing, concerts and cinemas, the plan’s seemingly anodyne goals to empower women, promote sports and invest in entertainment have been criticised.
Saudi rulers are also starting to reform areas once the exclusive domain of the clergy, such as education and the law, and have promoted elements of national identity that have no religious component, or pre-date Islam.
They have stepped up national day celebrations that were previously attacked by clerics as undermining religious feeling, and are promoting heritage sites, such as Nabatean rock temples, once seen as embarrassing in the land of Islam.
Saudi flags and green billboards, often bearing the face of King Salman and his son Crown Prince Mohammed, have gone up across Riyadh this week, and at night skyscrapers are flooded in green light - the national colour.
Companies from telecoms operators to furniture stores have launched patriotic-themed marketing campaigns offering discounts for the holiday weekend.
The government agency organising the national day festivities, expects some 1.5 million Saudis to attend events in 17 cities over four days.
Vision 2030 reforms are intended to capture up to a quarter of the $20 billion currently spent overseas by Saudis, who are accustomed to travelling abroad to see shows and visit amusement parks in nearby tourist hub Dubai or further afield.
This weekend’s events, though, are free to the public.
Senior Saudi Prince Miteb bin Abdullah reportedly released
"Saudi Arabia Moves to Silence Deposed Prince, Dissidents"
[VIDEO]
November 29, 2017, 5:26 PM
Saudi Arabia reportedly released a senior Saudi prince who had been among dozens of prominent royals and businessmen being held under house arrest at a five-star hotel in Riyadh. Reports say Prince Miteb bin Abdullah paid a billion dollars to regain his freedom.
There's no official confirmation that Prince Miteb bin Abdullah has been released, but that's not surprising in this ultra-conservative Islamic kingdom where the government is quite opaque, reports CBS News correspondent Holly Williams.
There's no question that corruption is widespread in Saudi Arabia, and ordinary Saudis tell us they love the crackdown. But critics say the crown prince is using it to sideline his rivals.
Any sign of political instability in Saudi Arabia is a cause for concern because the oil-rich kingdom has so much influence across the Middle East.
There's no mistaking the liberalizing mood in Saudi Arabia, and you see much less gender segregation in offices and public places. When Holly Williams was in Saudi Arabia three years ago, she said she had to cover her head in the traditional Islamic fashion or the religious police could have punished the Saudis she was with.
The religious police are still on the street. In fact, they stopped Williams a couple of nights ago and told her to cover her head with a scarf, but now they can only hand out advice – not punishment.
Williams wore a long robe out of respect for local customs, but Saudi government officials have told her whether she covers her hair is a matter of personal choice. That might seem superficial, and of course lots of Saudi women want to cover their heads as a sign of religious piety, but Williams said she thinks it shows increasing personal freedom in the very conservative country.
Canada A+ Australia D: Rahaf al-Qunun: Saudi teen granted asylum in Canada
"Saudi Arabia Moves to Silence Deposed Prince, Dissidents"
11 January 2019
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It is only two days since the Australian government announced that it had been approached to take Ms Qunun, and that it would treat her request sympathetically. The UN usually approaches only one country at a time to seek asylum.
It is not clear why the Australian option fell through, and the UN switched to Canada. It might be that Australia's tough line towards refugees, and the insistence of its Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton that she would get no special treatment, threatened to slow down the processing of her application.
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