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Reminiscent of the "Great Game" played out in Afghanistan between Great Britain and Russia more than a hundred years ago, Saudi Arabia and Iran are engaged in their own decades-long strategic rivalry for power and influence in the Middle East, stretching from the Mediterranean Sea to the Gulf and Arabian Sea. It is built mostly along sectarian and ideological lines - Saudi Arabia as the leader of the Sunni Muslim world, and Iran as the leader of the Shia Muslim world.
‘Today we are facing a very dangerous situation as terrorism has turned from cells into armies and from hiding into hotbeds to have shelters in countries and misusing their capacities. It has formed a dangerous cordon engulfing Libya, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen. Before these dangerous facts, we are required to take the most firm and fateful policies and decisions to combat this vicious attack with all the possible serious and rapid move, taking into account the elements of time and the consequences of inaction.
“Demand in the UAE and Saudi Arabia was reported as strengthening, both at home and abroad. Interestingly, PMI data recorded over a period of time have clearly indicated that the MENA region still have the same leaders (UAE, Saudi Arabia), and same laggards (Egypt, Lebanon) in terms of economic performance,” said Wetterwald. In Saudi Arabia, the August headline PMI (non-oil private sector economy) of 60.7 was at its highest level since July 2011. The most recent data in the PMI series lead to an optimistic assessment relative to the growth over the first half of 2014.
Bullishness towards Saudi Arabia peaked in the July survey, days after the stock market regulator announced it would open the market to direct foreign investment early next year. Since then, sentiment towards the market has been declining, partly because sharp gains in stock prices have left many of them looking fully valued for now. The main index is up 10 percent since the announcement but has pulled back from its peaks in the past week.
In debates about terrorism and extremism in Saudi Arabia, extremism is repeatedly attributed to the era of Juhayman Ibn Muhammad ibn Sayf al-Otaybi, who in 1979 led extremists to take over the Grand Mosque in Mecca. The government at the time met the radicals’ demands and allowed them to implement their brand of conservatism through the media, education and other forms of public life. This era in Saudi history is called the Awakening, and Wahhabism at the time was not described as a source of extremism. Today, however, because of IS, there are discussions on the connection between Sunni jihadist extremism and Wahhabism inside and outside Saudi Arabia. This might eventually change the way Saudis see themselves.
US crude oil production in August was still lower than either Saudi Arabia’s, at about 9.7m b/d, or Russia’s at 10.1m b/d. The overall US leadership in petroleum is accounted for by its higher production of natural gas liquids such as ethane and propane, which have a lower energy content and are often used as feedstocks for the petrochemical industry rather than for fuel. Still, on current trends the US could catch up with Saudi Arabia and Russia on crude production alone by the end of the decade.
Virgin Mobile Middle East and Africa (VMMEA), part-owned by British entrepreneur Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, launched telecoms services in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, beginning the biggest shake-up in the Kingdom’s telecoms sector in six years. VMMEA is launching two brands after benefiting from the national telecoms regulator’s decision to order the country’s three mobile operators to each host a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) in an effort to stimulate competition. The two brands being launched by VMMEA are Virgin Mobile, aimed at the youth market, and Friendi Mobile, targeting Saudi’s expatriate workers.
Western diplomats said if a final nuclear deal is reached, the United States and European Union would quickly waive and then lift unilateral, proliferation-related economic sanctions on Iran that would provide a rapid windfall to Iran's economy. (However, the US trade embargo on Iran, enacted after Iran's 1979 seizure of the US embassy and hostage crisis, would remain in place, a senior US official said.) A new UN Security Council resolution outlining the deal and what steps all sides had agreed on would also be passed, western diplomat said.
Anonymous officials have questioned the imminence of the threat in some news reports, but the primary reason officials are so concerned about the Khorasan Group is the makeup of its membership. The network reportedly includes as many as several dozen operatives from Afghanistan and Pakistan (Khorasan, in jihadist terminology), South Asia, North Africa and the Middle East. Its leader, Fadhli -- if he is still alive -- is uniquely positioned to lead a group of al Qaeda operatives from around the world, having had direct experience fighting with and/or organizing and raising funds for al Qaeda affiliates from Afghanistan, Yemen, Kuwait and even Iran.
There is a long history of pinning unpleasant-sounding names on unpleasant people. Rather as the term Nazi caught on in English partly because of its resonance with words such as "nasty", Da'ish rolls pleasurably off Arab tongues as a close cousin of words meaning to stomp, crush, smash into, or scrub. Picking up on this, France has officially adopted the term for government use, with its foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, explaining that Da'ish has the added advantage of not granting the group the dignity of being called a state.