As Joe Biden looks on powerlessly,one of the biggest winners from the oil cartel’s power play is likely to be Vladimir Putin.
The US resident was dismembered in 2018 in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul,an operation US spies believed was ordered by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Neom is a pet project of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and has been promoted as a tourism destination for Westerners.
A total of 215 prisoners,including those who defended Mariupol from within a sprawling steel plant before surrendering,have been released.
Clandestine links are increasingly visible as some of the Middle East’s deep-seated rivalries cautiously give way to pragmatic economic and security ties.
Biden,a storyteller with a penchant for embellishment,insists he pointedly blamed the Crown Prince for the murder of columnist Jamal Khashoggi. Saudi officials say they saw it differently.
The US president had pledged to make Saudi Arabia a pariah on the global stage. Then the price of oil,the war in Ukraine and Middle East relations got in way.
The US president had vowed to make Saudi Arabia “pay the price,and make them,in fact,the pariah that they are” over the killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Jared Kushner’s less-than-impressive record as an investor did not stop his new private equity firm securing a $US2 billion commitment from a fund led by the Saudi crown prince.
The executions come at a time of heightened concern over Saudi Arabia’s human rights record,but also as the West scrambles to replace its dependence on Russian oil.
More than 25 years after Greg Norman tried to start a world tour,it has emerged he will be the CEO of a new company that will start by adding 10 tournaments on the Asian Tour.