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  • Saudi Arabia First-Quarter Deal Flow Slumps to Three-Year Low

    Saudi Arabia closed the fewest number of first-quarter investment deals since 2021 in a further sign the kingdom is struggling to attract funding from private companies and foreign investors.

    The country finalized 64 transactions in the first three months of 2024, according to data from the Ministry of Investment, down 40% on a year earlier. The count is slightly below that recorded in the fourth quarter.

    The US and the UK were leading investors, followed by the UAE, Egypt and Singapore. The report didn’t say why the number fell.

  • Celebrating World Environment Day in Saudi Arabia with two KAUST startups

     King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) is celebrating Saudi Arabia hosting World Environment Day 2024 by highlighting two of its innovative local startups that are developing solutions for greening Saudi Arabia.
    Saudi Arabia is hosting World Environment Day on June 5 with a focus on land restoration, desertification and drought resilience. One of the most effective ways to restore degraded land, halt desertification and build drought resilience is through ecosystem restoration.

  • Rock Art Found in This Saudi Arabian Cave Offers ‘Rare Glimpse’ Into Ancient Human Life

    Based on rock art and animal bones found at Umm Jirsan, the research team believe that the lava tube would have been a key location for livestock herders. The extensive cave art includes six animal herding scenes, 23 identifiable depictions of sheep, 15 of ibex, seven of goats, and two of cattle.

    The evidence found at Umm Jirsan dates from the Neolithic (10,000 B.C.E.) to the Chalcolithic/Bronze Age (around 2,000 B.C.E.). The artifacts and rock art found at the site demonstrates that the site was occupied repeatedly and periodically by human groups for at least 7,000 years.

  • Saudi Arabia starts $13,300 fines and deporting expats over Hajj violations

    Saudi Arabia has introduced and is enforcing penalties for violating Hajj permit violations. The Public Security has started enforcing penalties for those violating Hajj regulations and instructions without a Hajj permit in the city of Makkah, the central area, the holy sites, the Haramain train station, security checkpoints, screening centres, and temporary security checkpoints.

  • New Study Say Life on Earth may have Originated in Saudi Arabia 3.48 billion years ago

    Scientists have identified living stromatolites on Saudi Arabia’s Sheybarah Island in the Red Sea, marking the first discovery of living shallow-marine stromatolites in the Middle East. The discovery raises significant questions related to how and where life first originated on planet Earth. Published in the journal Geology, the study explores these ancient microbial structures and offers a unique glimpse into Earth’s early life and the environmental conditions that prevailed billions of years ago.

  • Saudi Arabia sees 477% increase in multinational HQs in first quarter

    Some 127 international companies have relocated their regional headquarters to Saudi Arabia over the first quarter of 2024, according to a new report, an increase of 477% from the previous year as the kingdom looks to lure businesses to set up there as it diversifies its economy away from oil.  

  • Saudi startups take lead in MENA funding space

    Saudi Arabia’s startup ecosystem has affirmed its leading position in the funding space, capturing over 53 percent of the region’s venture debt financing in 2023, according to MAGNiTT’s latest report. The venture data platform revealed that Saudi startups raised a total of $400 million in venture debt last year, a 602 percent growth compared to $57 million in 2022.

  • Saudi FM Discusses Gaza Truce Proposal with US Counterpart

    Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan discussed in a telephone conversation on Saturday with his US counterpart, Antony Blinken, the Gaza truce proposal announced by President Joe Biden a day earlier. The Saudi minister expressed during the call the Kingdom’s support for all efforts aimed at an immediate ceasefire, the complete withdrawal of Israeli occupation forces, the urgent entry of humanitarian aid to civilians affected by the Israeli offensive, and the safe return of displaced persons to their homes. Farhan emphasized the need to seriously address any proposal that achieves a permanent ceasefire and ends the suffering of the Palestinian people in Gaza

  • ‘Norah’ Review: A Striking Debut About Artistic Repression in ’90s Saudi Arabia

    The first Saudi Arabian film ever selected for Cannes, the tender rural drama “Norah” is writer-director Tawfik Alzaidi‘s first feature film. The story of a schoolteacher tasked with introducing literacy to an isolated village and his unlikely relationship with a precocious young girl, the movie suffers from a few early-career filmmaking tics, which prevent all its pieces from all neatly fitting together. However, it’s also underscored by the kind of optimism and poetry about art that one often finds in novice works from directors destined to make more polished and accomplished films (if perhaps more cynical ones).

  • U.S. Conducts Large-Scale Logistics Exercise With Saudi, Emirati Partners

    The U.S. Marine Corps-led Native Fury 24 — an exercise that's in its ninth iteration this year — put combined, joint interoperability to the test through a series of complex logistics maneuvers, dynamic combat training evolutions, and convoys spanning more than 1,000 miles across two countries. More than 600 Marines, soldiers, sailors and airmen and took part in Native Fury 24 alongside their partner nation counterparts. This year marked the first time the exercise has featured bilateral operations with both the Royal Saudi Armed Forces and United Arab Emirates Armed Forces.