Arabias

Imagine a housing project with a futuristic design and an ambitious scale reminiscent of a dystopian sci-fi setting that would cost billions of dollars. With the new footage of Saudi Arabia’s “The Line,” you don’t have to imagine it but simply envision yourself in the heart of it.The one trillion-dollar mega-city is currently under construction in Saudi Arabia, and the new photos showcasing its recent progress display what some may call a monstrosity of modern infrastructure. The project, essentially consisting of a…

Paleoclimate records for the last 400,000 years in the study region of Hajar mountains, Oman. This includes alluvial records of wetter (blue) and drier (orange) conditions from both the sample sites and literature (a), lake sediments (b), speleothem records from Hoti Cave (c), marine organic carbon from bromine (d), prediction of Indian Ocean Summer Monsoon (e), solar insolation reaching Earth at 30°N in June (f), and benthic oxygen isotopes as a proxy…

You could call it the summer that Saudi Arabia swallowed sports. On June 6th, news broke that Saudi-backed LIV Golf was merging with the Professional Golfers’ Association, funded to the tune of over a billion dollars by the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF). In soccer, the world’s most popular and lucrative sport, the kingdom has brought global superstars such as Karim Benzema, Neymar, and Jordan Henderson to the desert to play their trade, laboring not only under the region’s sweltering heat but virulent criticisms of…

You might believe we’re fresh from the biggest music festival in the world, what with more than 200,000 people having assembled in some fields in Somerset. We’re not.Actually, Glastonbury is pretty much a minnow compared to the biggest music festival in the world. Soundstorm, held each December, attracts more than triple the Glastonbury crowd, but you don’t hear the headliners wanging on about what a life-changing experience it was. You don’t hear them mention it at all, to be honest. I only heard of it earlier this year,…

EV startup Lucid (LCID) revealed it is raising roughly $3 billion through a public stock sale and new investment from its majority stockholder, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF). Lucid raises $3 billion via stock sale Lucid, like most EV startups, is struggling with rising input costs as it works to ramp production. To make matters worse, falling valuations are making it harder to access cheap funding. The EV startup produced 2,314 Lucid Air models in the first three months of…

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DUBAI—An oil production cut by Saudi Arabia and its allies demonstrated how Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is willing to set aside U.S. concerns to pursue a nationalist energy policy aimed at funding an expensive makeover of his kingdom.This weekend’s move came as a surprise after Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman told industry analysts privately in February that the kingdom would tolerate oil prices slipping to around $65 or $70 a barrel,…

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Saudi Arabia is building a futuristic city in the middle of a vast desert— from scratch.A vital element of the country's Vision 2030 plan, the project is the brainchild of Saudi's de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, also known as MBS. The site covers an area of more than 10,000 square miles, about the same size as Massachusetts. And it could cost $500 billion to complete."So Mohammed bin Salman wants to project himself as a liberal leader within the conservative royal family in Saudi Arabia," Ali Dogan,…

Portuguese football star Cristiano Ronaldo poses for a photo with the jersey after signing with Saudi Arabia's Al-Nassr Football Club in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on December 30, 2022.Al Nassr Football Club / Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty ImagesSoccer superstar Cristiano Ronaldo's move to Saudi club Al-Nassr, and the kingdom's growing investments in the sport, could have ripple effects across Europe and the U.S., experts have told CNBC.Ronaldo's two-and-a-half-year contract, reportedly worth up to 200 million euros ($212…