In a significant geopolitical development, Saudi Arabia has officially declared its membership in the BRICS+ group, a move formally announced via state TV. Riyadh had been engaged in negotiations regarding its accession to the group for several months. Last August, Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan affirmed that the details of the move would be thoroughly assessed before a decision was made. Foreign... 

Leaders of the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan have jointly condemned Israel’s “blatant aggression” against the Palestinian people. They also warned that the Israeli regime’s war on the Gaza Strip will have “dire consequences” for the entire region and the international community as well. The leaders of the six nations of the GCC —Saudi... 

A major meeting of top envoys from Saudi Arabia and Iran is expected to happen in Beijing on Thursday, as the next significant step in the China-brokered rapprochement and normalization of ties between the longtime enemies takes shape. As Reuters underscores, “The meeting between Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud and his Iranian counterpart, Hossein Amirabdollahian, will be the first formal meeting... 

Last week, global elites and world leaders gathered in Davos, Switzerland for the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual summit. Adel Bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs and Climate Envoy for Saudi Arabia, said at a recent meeting in Switzerland, “There will be no cars.” It can be recalled that Saudi Arabia unveiled its plans for a new futuristic city that will house 9 million... 

Cyril Ramaphosa, the president of South Africa, brought news of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s declaration of his nation’s decision to join the BRICS when he returned from Riyadh earlier this week. This is not entirely unexpected because Iran and Argentina made similar announcements in the spring. The increasing association will need us to come up with ever-complicateder acronyms... 

A group of leading Congressional Democrats are seeking to punish longtime US ally Saudi Arabia for the latest “shock” oil output cuts recently announced by OPEC, which was taken by the Biden administration as a direct slap in the face and shot across the bow. Senator Chris Murphy and Rep. Ro Khanna are leading the charge to get advanced anti-air missile systems which the Pentagon has stationed... 

While gay pride flags are flying high everywhere in the western world, officials in Saudi Arabia have launched a crackdown on the promotion of homosexuality by seizing rainbow-colored items being sold in shops. The crackdown is primarily unfolding in the country’s capital, Riyadh, where toys and clothing featuring rainbow colors are being removed from store shelves. “We are having to look out... 

Tech behemoth Microsoft is bribing clients in the Middle East and Africa on a massive scale, according to whistleblower Yasser Elabd, a 20-year employee of the firm who published his testimony on Friday on the website Lioness. Elabd claims the company spends more than $200 million annually on bribes and kickback schemes in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, and Ghana, among other countries. Worse,... 

A peer-reviewed case study published in Saudi Arabia documents a woman who has suffered a very severe life-threatening skin reaction following a Pfizer COVID-19 injection. She was diagnosed with Stevens-Johnson syndrome/toxic epidermal necrolysis (SJS/TEN). A 49-year-old woman with no previous medical history presented to the emergency room with a history of fever and skin eruption. She has received... 

Saudi Arabia may have joined the US in blaming Iran for last week’s attack on its oil facilities, but the kingdom’s response clearly shows it doesn’t believe it to be true, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has said. “Since the Saudi regime has blamed Iran – baseless as that is – for the attacks on its oil facilities, curious that they retaliated against Hodaideh in Yemen today... 

The United States says it will send troops to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to bolster Riyadh’s air defenses following a recent drone attack on two major oil facilities owned by Saudi state oil giant Aramco. The decision to send reinforcements to the region, which was approved by President Donald Trump on Friday, was made at the request of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates,... 

Iran has rebuffed US accusations of launching a drone attacks that cut Saudi Arabia’s oil output in half. A senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander, meanwhile, has warned Washington that Tehran is ready for war. Allegations that Iran was behind the drone attacks on Saudi oil facilities are “unsubstantiated” and false, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Seyyed Abbas Mousavi stated on Sunday.... 

Houthi rebels in Yemen say they deployed 10 armed drones which hit two large Saudi Aramco oil facilities on Saturday morning, causing massive fires and huge clouds of smoke on the sites. The attack was carried out by the Houthi Air Force, the spokesperson for the Yemeni rebel group, Brigadier Yahya Serai, said on Al Masirah TV, vowing to “expand the operations against the Saudi regime in the future.” The... 

Saudi Arabia has amended national regulations to allow adult women to register a marriage or a divorce and be eligible for the guardianship of minor children, Reuters reported, citing local media. According to the report, Riyadh has also altered the national passport system, travel permissions and civil affairs regulations, which will allow Saudi women to travel without permission from male relatives... 

Saudi Arabia—whose rulers contributed at least $25 million to the pro-illegal immigration Clinton Foundation—has arrested at least 3.4 million illegal immigrants since November 2017, according to their Interior Ministry. A report in the Saudi-based Albawaba Business News service, quoting officials from the Saudi Interior Ministry, said that security forces apprehended a total of 3,443,455 “expatriates”...