Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had a vision for the perfect city: no streets, no cars, a completely sustainable environment that has everything a person could need. He’s apparently willing to settle on just building some data centers. According to the Financial Times, the much-maligned plans for a megacity project known as Neom are set to be downsized from their original ambitions and may go from being a hub for humans to a hub for AI. Sounds about right.
The Line, the most famous high-profile facet of Neom, was initially imagined as a fully contained city that would primarily exist in a linear design, stretching 110 miles long with walls that climbed up 1,600 feet, though the whole thing would be just 660 feet wide. It’d be able to house up to nine million people, and anyone would be able to cross from one end of the city to the other in just 20 minutes via subway.
Shockingly, realizing that dream has proved difficult. While Saudi Arabia broke ground on the project in 2022, it has been plagued with delays, setbacks, and sizable budget overruns. It didn’t take long for developers to start pushing back on some of the more outlandish ideas in the project, like an upside-down building that would hang from a bridge. Last year, the CEO overseeing Neom abruptly quit, and there were rumblings that the project would go from a full-fledged futuristic city to something more like a small proof of concept for what could be done down the road.
Now it seems like even that level of ambition feels out of reach. Per the Financial Times, the latest on the project is that it’ll be “far smaller” than initially planned, and may even cease to be a city at all. The report suggests that Neom could pivot to become a hub for data centers, in line with Prince Mohammed’s design to make Saudi Arabia a major player in the AI space.
The failure of The Line, predictable as it is, would be much funnier if not for the high human cost that has endured for the doomed project. To secure the land for the project, the Saudi government evicted people from their homes and even executed three people for refusing to vacate. Much of the construction has been done by migrant workers who have been exposed to slavery-like conditions, and reports from human rights groups indicate that dozens have died and many more have sustained serious injury while working on the project.
All that to ultimately power some chatbots. Some lines don’t need to be drawn.
After STC setbacks in the east, Saudi Arabia corrals southern factions into talks while allegations of secret prisons run by UAE forces in Yemen regain attention.
For much of the Yemen war, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) appeared aligned under the umbrella of the Saudi-led coalition, united by the declared objective of rolling back Houthi control and restoring Yemen’s internationally recognized government. Yet developments over the past months have brought into sharper relief a growing divergence between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi-one that has reshaped dynamics on the ground in southern Yemen and reopened long-suppressed debates over sovereignty, accountability, and the future balance of power in the country.
In addition to power shifts, accusations of human rights abuses involving UAE-backed forces have come back into focus, specifically regarding allegations of secret prisons in Yemen.
The Southern Transitional Council (STC), a UAE-backed actor, has sought to consolidate control over southern governorates and advance a renewed secessionist project. Its recent military setbacks, the Emirati recalibration that followed, Saudi Arabia’s parallel push to convene Yemeni factions in Riyadh, and renewed scrutiny of human rights violations have together marked a turning point in the conflict’s southern theater. At the same time, the Houthis, while not aligned with Riyadh, remain a central factor shaping Saudi calculations following the Gaza war and the collapse of earlier understandings.
Yemen today is governed not by a single center of power but by overlapping authorities, armed groups, and external sponsors. According to Abdulghani Al-Iryani, a senior researcher at the Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies, this fragmentation is the result of both internal rivalries and deliberate external strategies. “The Houthis took over the capital of Yemen, Sana’a, in 2014 and expelled the elected president,” Al-Iryani told The Media Line. “As a result, the government of Saudi Arabia enlisted the help of many countries in the region in a Saudi-led coalition to evict the Houthis from the capital and restore the legitimate government.”
That objective was never achieved. “When it became clear that there’s no advance towards the objective, the members of the coalition withdrew and only the United Arab Emirates stayed with a sizable contribution of weapons and funds and fighters and soldiers,” Al-Iryani explained.
Supporters of the UAE-backed separatist group, Southern Transitional Council, rally in Aden, Yemen January 10, 2026. (credit: REUTERS/Fawaz Salman TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY)
The UAE’s continued involvement reshaped the south. “The UAE managed to expel the Houthis from the port city of Aden in the south and from most of the south,” he continued. “And the forces that it has funded and supported, several, actually, nearly a dozen armed groups, took over the south.”
Among those groups, the STC emerged as the dominant political-military actor. “The temporary capital was controlled by an armed group called the Southern Transitional Council, which is backed by the UAE,” Al-Iryani said. “And it seeks secession from Yemen and restoration of the old People’s Democratic Republic of South Yemen,” he added.
He stressed that the STC’s internal makeup is inherently volatile. “The Southern Transitional Council is a collection of socialist generals and activists from the Yemen Socialist Party,” he said, “and they are allied, they are joined by extreme Salafists,” he added.
“The combination is very strange, but that is, I think, intended,” he noted. “They believe that their religious duty is to exterminate the Houthis because the Houthis are Shia.”
In late 2025, STC forces moved eastward toward Hadramawt and Al-Mahrah-an advance widely seen as an attempt to complete control over the territory of pre-1990 South Yemen.
Tawfik Al-Hamidi, a Yemeni lawyer, human rights activist, and politician working with the SAM Organization for Rights and Liberties, told The Media Line that since Dec. 2025, Yemen has witnessed a major shift following the movement of forces affiliated with the STC toward the eastern governorates of Hadramawt and Al-Mahrah.
“This move appeared aimed at completing control over all territories that previously constituted South Yemen before 1990,” he said, adding that “the advance was reportedly backed by the United Arab Emirates, which has financed and supported STC forces-estimated at over 100,000 personnel-and supplied them with advanced weapons, including armored vehicles.”
Saudi Arabia reacted forcefully. “Saudi Arabia viewed this step as a direct threat to its national security and strategic depth,” Al-Hamidi said, particularly in light of the Bab al-Mandab strait and statements by senior STC leaders signaling readiness to normalize relations with Israel in the event of southern secession.
After the STC refused to withdraw, “Saudi Arabia turned to military intervention, following an official mandate from the internationally recognized Yemeni government to protect civilians in Hadramawt,” Al-Hamidi noted.
Al-Iryani described the outcome starkly: “It was a big defeat. The soldiers that withdrew from the east left all the heavy weaponry behind. And they became disorganized. It was a very hectic withdrawal,” he said.
Saudi Arabia then moved to contain the crisis politically. “The STC had no choice but to accept the ceasefire and was given instructions to come to Riyadh for south-south talks,” Al-Iryani continued.
“The delegation of the STC arrived in Riyadh, minus the chairman of the STC, General al-Zoubaidi, who was whisked by the UAE to Abu Dhabi,” he noted. “As it stands now, he is calling for resistance, while his delegation has, under Saudi pressure, dissolved itself,” he added.
Al-Iryani placed the STC episode within a broader Emirati regional strategy. “The UAE attached itself to the US and to Israel and attempts by all means to make itself useful to these two powers,” he said. “And since the US was worried about the Islamist uprising that started with the Arab Spring, the UAE made it its task to destroy Islamist parties throughout the region,” he added.
“The UAE chose an extreme strategy of basically planning to exterminate the Muslim Brotherhood but supporting extremist groups in doing so as well,” he noted.
Proxy war in Yemen
In Yemen, this translated into proxy warfare. “That is why … instead of forming one strong militia in the south, they formed a dozen militias so that even if Saudi can control some, they cannot control them all,” Al-Iryani said.
“Currently, there are Yemeni mercenaries for the Emirates,” he added. “They have these armed groups that they have formed and supported and trained, and they can use them to destabilize the country and obstruct any peace aspects in the long run.”
While Riyadh does not support the Houthis, Al-Iryani emphasized that Saudi-Houthi relations had entered a pragmatic phase before October 7.
“For the past three years, the Houthis were under the impression they had made a deal with Saudi Arabia,” he said. “They figured since we’re going to get all the land that we want on the negotiation table, why fight now as we used to?” he added.
That understanding unraveled after the Gaza war. “That has changed from the Saudi side by the strong, aggressive stance of the Houthis in support of the people of Gaza,” he said.
“The Saudis tolerated the losses that the Houthis’ activity in the Red Sea caused them,” Al-Iryani noted. “But when the fighting formally stopped in Gaza with the current ceasefire, it became clear to the Houthis that the Saudis have no interest in going back to the agreement that they had negotiated before October 7th,” he explained.
He stressed that Saudi Arabia remains focused on limiting Houthi influence rather than accommodating it. “I believe that the Saudis are committed to ending the war,” Al-Iryani said. “It is in their best interest to stop the fighting because it affects them directly as a neighboring country,” he noted.
As military and political dynamics shifted, long-standing allegations against UAE-backed forces resurfaced.
“Regarding the secret prisons operated by the UAE in Yemen, this is not a new issue,” a Yemeni journalist based in Sana’a told The Media Line under conditions of anonymity. “It has been documented for years in reports issued by local and international human rights organizations,” he said.
“These reports did not receive sufficient attention due to the political and military alignment between the UAE and Saudi Arabia,” he added, “which has had severe repercussions on Yemeni civilians who have paid a heavy price as a result of the expansion of Emirati influence in several southern provinces,” he continued.
UAE officials have denied accusations that it is running secret prisons in Yemen. The Media Line reached out to multiple sources for more details, but they did not respond.
Al-Hamidi detailed the record. “On May 25, 2017, SAM for Rights and Liberties announced the discovery of dozens of secret detention sites in Aden, Hadramawt, and Shabwa, operated by unlawful forces backed by the UAE,” he said.
“Most alarming, however, are reports revealing coordination between UAE-backed forces and elements linked to al-Qaida,” Al-Hamidi added. “This raises serious concerns about the nature of this coordination and its role in fueling extremism rather than combating it.”
Al-Hamidi added that subsequent documentation by the SAM Organization for Rights and Liberties expanded on these findings. According to reports published by the organization in the years that followed, including investigations into enforced disappearances and a comprehensive report titled “The Long Absence,” the network of secret detention facilities was accompanied by systematic patterns of disappearance, with dozens of detainees remaining unaccounted for.
“Dozens of victims remain missing to this day,” Al-Hamidi said, warning that many cases have faded from public attention despite being fully documented by human rights organizations.
From Sana’a, the Yemeni journalist warned of the broader consequences. “What the UAE has done goes far beyond the framework of the Arab Coalition, constituting grave human rights violations, a breach of Yemeni sovereignty, and a violation of international law,” he said.
“Ultimately, the continued presence of the UAE in Yemen has contributed significantly to prolonging the conflict, strengthening Houthi influence, and creating an unstable environment in which the threat of terrorism is used as a political tool against opponents,” he added.
Looking ahead, assessments of Saudi–Emirati relations diverge sharply.
“In my view, it is unlikely that we will see a further confrontation between Saudi Arabia and the UAE in Yemen,” the Yemeni journalist said, “despite the clear differences in their objectives and approaches,” he added.
“The relationship between the two countries is based on a broader strategic partnership that goes beyond the Yemeni file,” he noted, “which is why disagreements are usually managed behind the scenes rather than through open confrontation,” he added.
Al-Iryani offered a far bleaker outlook. “I think that the break between Saudi Arabia and the UAE is going to be permanent,” he said, citing Abu Dhabi’s alignment with Israel, still seen as a hostile actor for Riyadh.
“The current withdrawal of STC and formally with it of the Emirates doesn’t end the fighting on the ground, it helps Riyadh to gain back control gradually, but for sure this is far from over,” Al-Iryani said.
As Yemen enters yet another phase of recalibration, the retreat of the STC, Saudi Arabia’s renewed political initiative in Riyadh, the reassessment of the Houthi file after Gaza, and the resurfacing of long-documented human rights violations together underscore how unresolved the conflict remains.
What has changed is that the fault lines within the coalition itself, long present beneath the surface, are now shaping events as decisively as the war’s original divisions, leaving Yemen caught between competing regional agendas, fragile local actors, and an elusive path toward stability.
Yemen’s southern separatists welcomed a Saudi call for dialogue as fighting eased in the south, raising hopes of de-escalation in a rare public rift between Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
Yemen’s southern separatists welcomed on Saturday a call for dialogue by Saudi Arabia to end a recent military escalation, a potential sign that an unusually public confrontation between the kingdom and the United Arab Emirates may be easing.
The fast-moving crisis in Yemen has opened a major feud between the two Gulf powers and fractured a coalition of forces, headed by Yemen’s internationally recognized government, which is fighting the Iran-backed Houthis.
The UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council has for years been part of that government, which controls southern and eastern Yemen and is backed by Gulf states, but last month STC forces suddenly seized swathes of territory.
The crisis triggered the biggest split in decades between formerly close allies Saudi Arabia and the UAE, as years of divergence on critical issues came to a head, threatening to upend the regional order.
The STC said in a statement on Saturday that the Saudi initiative was a “genuine opportunity for serious dialogue” that could safeguard “the aspirations of the southern people.”
Supporters of the UAE-backed separatist Southern Transitional Council (STC) wave flags of the United Arab Emirates and of the STC, during a rally in Aden, Yemen, December 30, 2025. (credit: REUTERS/Fawaz Salman)
Saudi-backed forces reclaim Mukalla
The STC’s statement came hours after Yemen’s Saudi-backed, internationally recognized government said it had retaken control of Mukalla, the key eastern port and capital of Hadramout province, from the southern separatists who seized it last month.
Rapid government gains since Friday have reversed many of the STC gains last month and cast doubt on the viability of its intention to hold a referendum on independence within two years.
Saudi-backed forces had already taken control of key locations in Hadramout, a large province with stretches of desert along the Saudi border.
STC forces blocked roads leading to Aden from the northern provinces, residents said. The group appealed for regional and international leaders to intervene against what it described as a “Saudi-backed military escalation.”
In a statement, it added that northern Islamist factions – an apparent reference to the Islah party that is part of the internationally recognized government – had targeted civilians and vital infrastructure.
The UAE, the main STC supporter, urged restraint, saying it was “deeply concerned” about the escalation in Yemen.
Yemen, split for a decade between warring regions, sits at a highly strategic location between the world’s top oil exporter, Saudi Arabia, and the Bab al-Mandeb Strait that guards the vital sea route between Europe and Asia.
Yemen calls for Saudi Arabia hold peace summit with UAE, Southern Transition Council
Rashad al-Alimi, the head of Yemen’s Saudi-backed presidential council, submitted a request for Saudi Arabia to host a peace conference in Riyadh for all factions involved in the recent flare-up of violence in southern Yemen, Yemeni state-owned outlet Saba News Agency reported early on Saturday.
Saudi Arabia welcomed the request in an announcement released by the Saudi Foreign Affairs Ministry, stating that the only way to resolve the conflict is “through dialogue within the framework of a comprehensive political solution in Yemen.”
The ministry emphasized the importance of “building on the close relation between the two brotherly countries” and continuing Saudi efforts “to support and strengthen the security and stability of the Republic of Yemen.”
Tarek Saleh, a member of the Saudi-backed Yemen Presidential Council, met with Saudi Defense Minister Prince Khaled bin Salman and exchanged viewpoints on Yemen.
They discussed means to bolster joint efforts to support the stability of the country and the region’s security, according to a post on X by the Yemeni official early Sunday.
Aden airport reopens following temporary closure amid conflict
Aden airport, the main transport hub for areas of Yemen outside Houthi control, was closed on Thursday after a dispute over new restrictions announced by the internationally recognized government on flights with the UAE, but flights are due to resume on Sunday, officials at Yemen’s national airline said.
The STC and Saudi Arabia have accused each other of responsibility for shutting off air traffic. The STC, in its statement on Saturday, said southern Yemen was being subjected to a land, sea, and air blockade.
The crisis began early last month when the STC seized swathes of territory, including Hadramout, establishing firm control over the whole territory of the former state of South Yemen that merged with the north in 1990.
The leadership of the internationally recognized government, which had been based in Aden and included several ministers from the STC, departed for Saudi Arabia, which regarded the southern move as a threat to its security.
Fellow Gulf monarchy Qatar, which has long had regional policy differences with the UAE, said it welcomed efforts by Yemen’s internationally recognized government to address the southern issue.
How far the feud between Saudi Arabia and the UAE over their differences on regional security bleeds into other issues may become plainer over the weekend as both countries join a scheduled OPEC meeting to determine the group’s oil output policy.
Early this week, Saudi Arabia bombed a base in Hadramout and asked all remaining UAE forces in Yemen to depart, calling this a red line for its security, and the UAE complied.
The STC declaration on Friday that it wants a two-year transition period leading to a referendum on independence for a new South Arabian state was the movement’s clearest indication yet of its intention to secede.
Yemen’s more than decade-long civil war has flared up after a United Arab Emirates-backed separatist movement swept through territory in the south, splintering the Saudi-led coalition.
Yemen’s more than decade-long civil war has flared up after a United Arab Emirates-backed separatist movement swept through territory in the south, splintering the Saudi-led coalition that was created to fight the Iran-aligned Houthi group.
Below are details of the key factions in the conflict in Yemen, which has caused one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises:
The Houthis
The Yemeni conflict was triggered when the Houthi movement, formally named Ansar Allah, ousted the Saudi-backed, internationally recognized government of then-president Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi in late 2014.
The group remains the dominant military force in the country, controlling the capital Sanaa and Yemen’s populous northern highlands. It is estimated to control territory where between 60% to 65% of Yemenis live.
The Saudi-led coalition accuses Iran of arming, training and funding the Houthis. The group denies being an Iranian proxy and says it develops its own weapons.
HOUTHI TERRORISTS carry weapons as they stand near the site of Israeli airstrikes in Sanaa, Yemen, in September. (credit: KHALED ABDULLAH/REUTERS)
The Houthis have demonstrated their missile and drone capabilities during the Yemen war in attacks on Saudi Arabia and the UAE, targeting oil installations and vital infrastructure.
Seen as part of a regional alliance known as the “Axis of Resistance” backed by Iran, the Houthis have also rallied behind the Palestinians in the Gaza war, lobbing drones and missiles at Israel and attacking commercial shipping in the Red Sea.
The Houthis have proven resilient, defying over ten years of bombing by the Saudi-led coalition, as well as US and British strikes in recent years.
Saudi Arabia
Riyadh entered Yemen when it led the military coalition against the Houthis in March 2015, seeking to restore Hadi’s government. Saudi Arabia sought to prevent an Iran-aligned group from consolidating power on its southern border.
Riyadh and Tehran, despite a China-brokered thawing of relations, have long been regional rivals and deeply distrust one another.
STC
The Southern Transitional Council, which was trained and equipped by the United Arab Emirates, seeks secession for the south, which was an independent state until unification with the north in 1990. The southern leadership at the time tried to secede in 1994 but was swiftly beaten by then-president Ali Abdallah Saleh’s army.
The STC, led by Aidarous al-Zubaidi, is ostensibly part of the Saudi-led coalition but declared in 2020 it would establish self-rule in the south. Tensions peaked in December 2025 when the group seized large swathes of land in Hadramout and Al Mahra provinces and swept to the borders of Saudi Arabia, challenging the regional heavyweight’s influence.
Islah party
The Yemeni Congregation for Reform, better known as al-Islah, is a Sunni Islamist movement with historic ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. It is a key faction within the recognized government but is viewed by the UAE and the STC as a terrorist organization. Its major stronghold has long been Marib, the country’s sole gas-producing region with one of its largest oilfields.
UAE
The UAE joined the Saudi-led coalition and was among its most effective ground forces. A withdrawal of UAE troops was announced in 2019 and completed in 2020, but it maintained influence on the ground through the STC and other factions.
Abu Dhabi is motivated by its antipathy towards the Muslim Brotherhood and securing shipping lanes in the strategic Bab al-Mandab Strait and Gulf of Aden, analysts have said.
The Saudi-backed government
The eight-member Presidential Leadership Council, led by Rashad al-Alimi, is the internationally recognized authority in Yemen but faces dwindling power. It was formed in Riyadh in April 2022 to replace former president Hadi and unify anti-Houthi forces, but the council has been paralyzed by the divisions it was meant to solve.
Following the STC’s December offensive, the government’s effective control is likely now limited to small, isolated pockets, and is reliant on Saudi airpower.
National Resistance Forces
The National Resistance Forces are a well-equipped anti-Houthi force led by Tarek Saleh, a nephew of former Yemeni president Saleh and a member of the PLC. Originally established with UAE support to battle the Houthis on Yemen’s west coast, the force has maintained ties to Saudi Arabia and aims for a unified Yemen, positioning itself as a counterweight to both the Houthis and southern secessionists.
DUBAI, Jan 2 (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Yemen said on Friday that Aidarus Al-Zubaidi, the leader of the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC), refused landing permission the previous day for a plane carrying a Saudi delegation to Aden.
The halt in flights at Aden international airport was the latest sign of a deepening crisis between Gulf powers Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, whose rivalry is reshaping war-torn Yemen.
“For several weeks and until yesterday, the Kingdom sought to make all efforts with the Southern Transitional Council to end the escalation … but it faced continuous rejection and stubbornness from Aidarus Al-Zubaidi,” the Saudi ambassador, Mohammed Al-Jaber, said on X.
Yemen’s separatist STC did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on Jaber’s statement.
Zubaidi issued directives to close air traffic at Aden airport on Thursday, the ambassador added, saying that a plane carrying a Saudi delegation to Aden aiming to find solutions to the crisis was denied permission to land.
In a statement on Thursday, the STC-controlled transport ministry accused Saudi Arabia of imposing an air blockade, saying Riyadh required all flights to go via Saudi Arabia for extra checks.
The UAE backs the STC, which seized swathes of southern Yemen last month from the internationally recognised government, backed by Saudi Arabia, which in turn saw the move as a threat.
The Aden international airport is the main gateway for regions of the country outside Houthi control.
(Reporting by Ahmed Elimam; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
A rare dispute between Saudi Arabia and the UAE erupted after Riyadh launched airstrikes in Yemen, accusing Abu Dhabi-backed forces of threatening stability by seizing territory.
On December 31, Saudi Arabia laid down a gauntlet over Yemen. It carried out airstrikes on vehicles that it said had been smuggled to the port of Mukalla from the UAE.
It said that recent gains by the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council in Yemen in the last weeks were approaching a red line. Riyadh called out the UAE by name, an unusual type of dispute in the Gulf. The Gulf is usually conservative in its policies, and countries don’t like to argue.
There are exceptions, such as when Riyadh led a number of countries to break ties with Qatar in 2017. This has changed now, and Riyadh and Doha appear more friendly. Riyadh is also more friendly with Ankara and Tehran. As such, Saudi Arabia is now empowered.
The question about Yemen is whether the UAE may have overplayed its hand or if the STC overstepped its bounds. Today, there is a war of words in the media in Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The UAE supports the STC. Saudi Arabia is messaging that things are not acceptable in Yemen.
An analysis piece at Arab News in Saudi Arabia says that it’s important for Yemen not to be “Sudanized.” Sudan is in the midst of a civil war. So is Yemen. Saudi Arabia has backed the Yemeni government in Yemen.
Damaged military vehicles, reportedly sent by the United Arab Emirates to support Southern Transitional Council (STC) separatist forces, following an air strike carried out by the Saudi-led coalition in the port of Mukalla, southern Yemen, on December 30, 2025. (credit: AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES)
The government is weak
However, the government is weak and doesn’t control much of the country. “In a region already teetering on the edge, Yemen’s rapidly evolving situation on the ground is raising alarm bells. While international observers continue to place their bets on diplomacy and de-escalation, there is growing concern that the country may be inching toward a dangerous regional conflagration. At the heart of this anxiety lies the Yemeni government’s and the Coalition to Restore Legitimacy in Yemen’s unwavering commitment to preserving territorial unity and preventing the rise of extremist safe havens that could destabilize not just Yemen, but the broader region and beyond,” Arab News says.
The analysis goes on to note “it would be naive to view developments in southern Yemen in isolation. The parallels with Sudan — where the Rapid Support Forces have left a trail of devastation and a massacre in places like El Fasher — and with the recent Israeli recognition of Somaliland, are too stark to ignore. These cases serve as cautionary tales of what could unfold in Yemen if the Southern Transitional Council were allowed to unilaterally impose a new reality through force and foreign alliances.”
Al-Ain media in the UAE is seeking to show that the STC is doing the right thing. It analyzes the areas the STC recently conquered near the Saudi border. This includes the large region of Hadhramaut.
“The return of Hadhramaut to the forefront of the Yemeni scene was not just a passing event, as the largest governorate in terms of geographical area had remained an arena for terrorism and corruption and a supply line for the Houthis for years,” Al-Ain says. The report claims that the Muslim Brotherhood has been active in this area. It also says the Iranian-backed Houthis and Al Qaeda are active here.
“As a result of this situation, the streets of the governorate remained under the weight of protests demanding services and supporting the Transitional Council to intervene to defeat the triad of death that has been squatting on the chest of the governorate for years.”
The long article seeks to explain how the STC came to control Hadhramaut in a rapid campaign in early December. The reasons for this go back to 2022, the article argues. It’s worth noting that Saudi Arabia had dialed back its involvement in Yemen in 2022 after intervening in the country in 2015. Riyadh has also patched things up with Iran, and the Houthis have stopped attacking Saudi Arabia.
As such, the UAE remained in Yemen even as the Saudis seemed to be reducing their role. The UAE-backed STC success seemed to be the first major change on the battlefield in years.
A second report at Al-Ain says that “the southern government moves in Yemen were not the product of a passing moment, but rather the result of accumulated security and economic factors that observers confirm have deepened the crisis and created a fragile reality that requires intervention to restore balance.”
It adds, “Yemeni analysts told Al-Ain News that over the years, strategic areas have turned into open arenas for conflicting influence, growing corruption networks, and arms and drug smuggling, amid weak state institutions and the erosion of their ability to impose their sovereignty, which has directly affected security and stability and prolonged the conflict.”
Another Al-Ain report also says that the STC believes that the Yemen government has stabbed it in the back. Mohammed al-Zubaidi, the head of the Southern Transitional Council in Wadi Hadhramaut, has said that the head of the Presidential Council, Rashad Al-Alimi, the official president of Yemen’s government, has provided false reports.
He added that “the head of the Presidential Leadership Council and his allies are now stabbing the South and Hadhramaut in the back, despite the sacrifices made by the people of the South, and the land and areas provided by their Governorates to enable the Council to carry out its work.”
According to other reports, after the Saudi airstrikes, the STC has withdrawn from areas near Mukalla, and the UAE is going to withdraw forces as well. Nevertheless, the STC says it remains steadfast in confronting threats.
The military spokesman for the STC, Mohammed Al-Naqeeb, said that his forces stand firmly in areas from “Al-Mahra in the east to Bab al-Mandab in the west, and from Mayun to Socotra.”
While the UAE media has covered the STC announcements, the media in Saudi Arabia portrays Riyadh’s actions as having widespread support.
Arab News noted “Gulf and Arab countries on Tuesday offered their support for the internationally recognized government in Yemen, after the UAE withdrew its forces from the country. It came after the military coalition supporting Yemen’s government carried out airstrikes targeting a shipment of weapons and vehicles destined for southern separatist forces. The shipment arrived in the port of Al-Mukalla on two vessels that traveled from Fujairah in the UAE.”
The report added that “rarely on Tuesday, shortly after the airstrikes, Rashad Al-Alimi, the head of Yemen’s presidential council, told Emirati authorities to withdraw their troops from Yemen within 24 hours. Saudi authorities said the separatists, who operate under the Southern Transitional Council and are supported by the UAE, pose a direct threat to the Kingdom’s national security and regional stability, after recently seizing territory in the governorates of Hadramaut and Al-Mahra.”
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is now doubling down on saying it will confront threats. Saudi Arabia’s Cabinet, chaired by King Salman, said this in a meeting, according to reports. Saudi Arabia’s king also received a message from Russia’s Vladimir Putin, according to Arab News. This shows how Riyadh enjoys strong connections abroad.
CAIRO, Dec 27 (Reuters) – Yemen’s Saudi-led coalition said any military moves by the main southern separatist group STC in the eastern province of Hadramout contrary to de-escalation efforts will be dealt with to protect civilians, the Saudi state news agency reported on Saturday.
The statement from the coalition spokesperson, General Turki al-Malki, comes in response to a request from Yemen’s head of the Presidential Leadership Council, Rashad al-Alimi, to the coalition to take immediate measures to protect civilians in the Hadramout from “violations committed armed groups affiliated with the STC”.
(Reporting by Yomna Ehab; Editing by William Mallard)
DUBAI, Dec 25 (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia said on Thursday it remains hopeful that Yemen’s main southern separatist group will end an escalation that has given it broad control across the south, deepening uncertainties in a country already divided between two administrations since civil war erupted over a decade ago.
In a foreign ministry statement, the kingdom described the military operations by Yemen’s Southern Transitional Council (STC) – through which the group seized the eastern provinces of Hadramout and Mahra earlier this month – as an “unjustified escalation.”
“The kingdom remains hopeful that the public interest will prevail through ending the escalation by the Southern Transitional Council and the withdrawal of its forces from the two governorates in an urgent and orderly manner,” the statement said.
The UAE-backed STC forces were initially part of the Sunni Muslim Saudi-led alliance that intervened in Yemen in 2015 against the Iran-aligned Houthis. But the STC turned on the government and sought self-rule in the south, including the major port city of Aden where the Saudi-backed administration is headquartered.
A joint Saudi-Emirati military delegation arrived in Aden on December 12 to discuss measures aimed at defusing tensions. Saudi Arabia said the teams were sent to put “the necessary arrangements” to ensure the return of STC forces to their previous positions outside the two provinces.
The kingdom added, however, that these efforts remain in progress to restore the situation to its previous state.
Yemen has been marred by civil war since 2014, through which the Houthis took control of the northern part of the country including the capital, Sanaa, pushing the Saudi-backed government to flee south and headquarter in the port city of Aden.
(Reporting by Nayera Abdallah; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
BEIJING, Dec 15 (Reuters) – China and Saudi Arabia agreed to have closer communication and coordination on regional and international issues, with Beijing lauding Riyadh’s role in Middle East diplomacy, statements following a meeting between the nations’ foreign ministers on Sunday showed.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is on a three-nation tour in the Middle East that began in the United Arab Emirates and is expected to end in Jordan. He met with Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud in Riyadh on Sunday.
A joint statement published by China’s official news agency Xinhua did not elaborate on what issues the countries will strengthen coordination on, but mentioned China’s support for Saudi Arabia and Iran developing and enhancing their relations.
“(China) appreciates Saudi Arabia’s leading role and efforts to achieve regional and international security and stability,” the statement released on Monday said.
The statement also reiterated both countries’ support for a “comprehensive and just settlement” of the Palestinian issue and the formation of an independent state for Palestinians.
At a high-level meeting, Wang told his Saudi counterpart that China has always regarded Saudi Arabia as a “priority for Middle East diplomacy” and an important partner in global diplomacy, a Chinese foreign ministry statement on Monday said.
He also encouraged more cooperation in energy and investments, as well as in the fields of new energy and green transformation.
The countries have agreed to mutually exempt visas for diplomatic and special passport holders from both sides, according to the joint statement.
(Reporting by Liz Lee and Shanghai newsroom; Editing by Paul Simao)
In just five years, Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea International Film Festival has gone from an ambitious start-up to an established stop on the global festival circuit — and few people have had a closer view of that transformation than managing director Shivani Pandya Malhotra. A veteran executive with more than 25 years in the entertainment business, and previously the longtime managing director of the Dubai International Film Festival, Pandya Malhotra joined the Red Sea Film Foundation in 2019 with a remit to build a world-class festival from scratch and a year-round engine to finance and nurture filmmakers across Saudi Arabia, the wider Arab world, Africa and Asia.
Under her leadership, the foundation has rolled out four key pillars — the festival, the Red Sea Souk market, Red Sea Labs and the Red Sea Fund, which has already supported some 280 projects from across the region. Since debuting in Jeddah’s UNESCO-listed Al Balad district in 2021, the festival has showcased more than 520 films from 85 countries and over 130 Saudi titles, helping put a once-nascent local industry on the map as the country’s box office and production levels surge.
The fifth edition, running Dec. 4–13, 2025, leans into Red Sea’s “East meets West” mission: Rowan Athale’s boxing biopic Giant opened the festival, while a 16-strong competition line-up mixes new work from Asia, Africa and the Arab world, including Saudi Oscar submission Hijra and the world premiere of Somali director Mohammed Sheikh’s Barni. Sean Baker, fresh off his Anora Oscar run, presides over the jury, as a packed talks program welcomes guests ranging from Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Adrien Brody to Giancarlo Esposito, Juliette Binoche, Darren Aronofsky, Ana de Armas, Nicholas Hoult and many more.
The Hollywood Reporter connected with Pandya Malhotra to discuss the festival’s rapid growth, the structural challenges still facing Saudi’s film industry, and how she responds to Western skepticism following the recent backlash over the Riyadh Comedy Festival.
How would you describe the original vision when you began building the Red Sea Film Foundation and festival in 2019? Five years later, how do you feel about how you have or haven’t fulfilled those goals?
When we started in 2019, it really was a clean slate — which is very exciting but also a huge responsibility. We knew from the outset that we didn’t just want a festival; we wanted a foundation with four core pillars that would support an entire ecosystem: a festival, a market, labs and a fund. The idea was to build something that could nurture talent and projects year-round, while also creating a truly international platform.
From the beginning, we were clear that our international focus would be on Asia, Africa and the Arab world. That’s the region we wanted to champion and become the ultimate platform for. Today, all of those verticals are fully open to that geography, and we’ve been very strategic about sticking to that long-term plan. There’s always more to be done, I feel we’ve accomplished a lot.
It’s unusual to launch a new festival in a country where the public film culture is so young. What did you learn about Saudi audiences from that first edition, and how have they evolved over five years?
What surprised us most is how cinema-literate people already were. For decades, Saudis have watched a huge amount of cinema — but privately, at home. So the culture was there; it just wasn’t a collective experience. We didn’t fully realize how much they had already absorbed until we opened the festival.
In that first year, we were unsure how audiences would respond to foreign-language films and independent cinema. Then we started seeing sold-out screenings for everything from Indian films to anime. We had one Indian title where we were nervous we wouldn’t fill the room — and it completely packed out. We discovered there was a long history of people watching Indian cinema, Egyptian cinema, some arthouse, anime… all of that had been part of people’s lives already.
What has changed over five years is that we’ve become much more audience-focused in a targeted way. This year’s program is very consciously shaped for this public: there’s something for families, for genre fans, for people curious about arthouse cinema. And you can see that reflected not just at the festival but in Saudi box office admissions generally. International films regularly rank in the top 10 here now, and the market is growing this year, which is also why so many studios are suddenly very interested in this market.
What do you see as the major structural challenges that still need to be addressed for the Saudi industry to become fully self-sustaining?
Every pillar of the ecosystem is developing — the infrastructure, the creatives, the financing, the international interest. The ambition and enthusiasm are enormous, and film is part of Vision 2030, so there is strong support at a national level.
Where we still need to accelerate is in crew and craft. The creative talent has always been here; a lot of people moved from being YouTubers or content creators into filmmaking, and that adaptation has happened quite quickly. But to sustain the volume of production we’re now seeing — and the international projects that are coming in — we need experienced crews on the ground at every level. That just takes time, targeted training and investment.
For us at the foundation, that’s one of the main reasons we launched the Labs very early on. We run feature labs with TorinoFilmLab, series labs with Film Independent, shorter programs with USC and Misk, workshops on sound design, film music, scriptwriting — all of these are about building capacity. And of course, there are other institutions in Saudi that have their own strategic programs. Collectively, those efforts will help fill the gaps. But it will take some time.
Were there particular international models you looked at when imagining how Red Sea and the Saudi industry might develop?
I think everyone in this part of the world looks at Korea. What they achieved across film, series and pop culture is remarkable — and, in my view, very strategic. They championed their cinema, they worked to get it seen internationally, and they built a global audience over time. It didn’t happen overnight, but suddenly it felt like Korean content was everywhere.
We’ve definitely studied what others have done, including Korea, knowing that each country has its own curve and you can’t just copy-paste a model. But you can learn from the way they structured support, how they positioned their stories globally, and how they kept investing for the long term. From a Saudi perspective, that’s very inspiring.
Looking ahead another five years, what would count as success for you — or as a sign that the foundation has achieved what you hoped?
On a practical level, I’m quite pragmatic: I want to see films we’ve supported doing well both on the festival circuit and commercially. Already this year, seven films backed by the Red Sea Fund have been selected by their countries as Oscar submissions, which is incredibly encouraging. But for me, the real success is when those kinds of films are also reaching audiences and performing at the box office.
We’ve already seen several Saudi films, including titles we’ve supported or premiered at the festival, become top-grossing releases in the local market. I’d love to see a diverse slate of films — from different countries, in different styles — traveling to major festivals, winning awards and also finding sustainable audiences. That balance between artistic recognition and commercial viability is very important if the industry is going to thrive.
Because most of THR’s readership is in the U.S., I do want to ask about the recent backlash around the Riyadh Comedy Festival, and the way some Western observers view cultural events in Saudi primarily through a political or human rights lens. How do you respond to that skepticism?
For us at the Red Sea Film Foundation, we’ve always been very focused and strategic about what we’re doing. In the early years, there was definitely some skepticism around people coming to the festival. But I can genuinely say that everyone who has actually attended has seen the work we’re doing, experienced the atmosphere and the community, and wanted to come back. That’s why you see so many returning guests — high-profile talent, directors, industry figures.
Often, the loudest critics are the ones who have never been here. They don’t know Saudi; they haven’t seen the changes on the ground. This is a question I’ve been asked consistently over five years, and my answer is always the same: come and see it. Judge for yourself. Speak to the people who have attended — regardless of where they are from — and they’ll tell you about their experience.
Have the headlines around the Riyadh comedy festival made it harder this year to convince American filmmakers or industry participants to attend?
Honestly, no. At this point, people are familiar with us. Almost everyone we invite either has a friend who has been to Red Sea or knows someone who has worked with us. Word of mouth from those guests has been our strongest ambassador. The feedback they share about the festival, the people they’ve met here and the filmmakers they’ve discovered has been overwhelmingly positive. We haven’t faced resistance on that front at all.
What are you most excited about in the fifth edition’s program?
It’s difficult to single out films, but I’m very proud of the shape of the competition and the strength of our women filmmakers this year, particularly from the Arab world. We have filmmakers like Haifaa al-Mansour, Annemarie Jacir, Kaouther Ben Hania and Shahad Ameen presenting new work, alongside a broader line-up that really reflects our Asia–Africa–Arab focus.
I’m also excited about the overall range: Giant as an “East meets West” opener; a competition that includes the world premiere of Barni and titles like Hijra and Lost Land; and our International and Arab Spectacular strands, which bring together everything from Angelina Jolie’s Couture to Haifaa’s mystery thriller Unidentified.
Then there’s the conversations program — Sean Baker presiding over the jury and doing a masterclass, Adrien Brody and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan joining In Conversation, Giancarlo Esposito mentoring our SeriesLab participants. All of that creates a very rich environment for dialogue between local and international talent.
You previously spent many years helping build the Dubai International Film Festival. What lessons from that chapter have you applied in Jeddah?
There were many lessons. From Dubai, I took a very clear sense of what works structurally in a festival, what kinds of industry support are most effective, and what the region as a whole needs in terms of platforms. When I came to Saudi, I didn’t yet know exactly what Saudi needed, but I did know what the wider region lacked.
For someone attending Red Sea for the first time — maybe a reader who’s curious after all these headlines — what’s your practical advice for getting the most out of the festival and Jeddah?
From a festival perspective, I’d say: don’t just stick to the red carpets. Watch films in competition, go to the In Conversation sessions, drop into a Souk talk or a masterclass if you can. That’s where you really feel the energy of the community we’re trying to build.
And then take time to explore Al Balad. We’re based in a UNESCO heritage site, and the old town tells you a lot about Jeddah’s history as a gateway to the kingdom — you feel the diversity of people and cultures that have passed through here. If you manage to escape the festival bubble, the beaches are beautiful, the food scene is fantastic, and there’s a growing number of local chefs doing really interesting things. My hope is always that first-time visitors come once for the films, and then come back because they’ve genuinely fallen in love with the place.
NEW YORK (AP) — Paramount on Monday launched a hostile takeover offer for Warner Bros. Discovery, initiating a potentially bruising battle with rival bidder Netflix to buy the company behind HBO, CNN and a famed movie studio along with the power to reshape much of the nation’s entertainment landscape.
Emerging just days after top Warner managers agreed to Netflix’s $72 billion purchase, the Paramount bid seeks to go over the heads of those leaders by appealing directly to Warner shareholders with more money — $77.9 billion — and a plan to buy all of Warner’s business, including the cable business that Netflix does not want.
Paramount said its decision to go hostile came after it made several earlier offers that Warner management “never engaged meaningfully” with following the company’s October announcement that it was open to selling itself.
In its appeal to shareholders, Paramount noted its offer also contains more cash than Netflix’s bid — $18 billion more — and argued that it’s more likely to pass scrutiny from President Donald Trump’s administration, a big concern given his habit of injecting himself in American business decisions.
AP AUDIO: Paramount goes hostile in bid for Warner Bros., challenging a $72 billion offer by Netflix
AP’s Lisa Dwyer reports on a hostile bid for Warner Bros. Discovery.
Over the weekend, Trump said the Netflix-Warner combo “could be a problem” because of the size of the combined market share and that he planned to review the deal personally.
For its part, Netflix says it is confident Warner will reject the Paramount bid and that regulators, and Trump, will back its deal, citing multiple conversations that co-CEO Ted Sarandos has had with him about the streaming company’s expansion and hiring.
“I think the president’s interest in this is the same as ours, which is to create and protect jobs,” Sarandos said Monday at an investor conference.
Battle draws political attention in Washington
The fight for Warner drew strong reaction in Washington, with politicians from both major parties weighing in on the likely impact on streaming prices, movie theater employment and the diversity of entertainment choices and political views.
Paramount, run by David Ellison, whose family is closely allied with Trump, said it had submitted six proposals to Warner over a 12-week period before the latest offer.
“We believe our offer will create a stronger Hollywood. It is in the best interests of the creative community, consumers and the movie theater industry,” the Paramount CEO said in a statement. Ellison added that his deal would lead to more competition in the industry, not less, and more movies in theaters.
A regulatory document released Monday suggested another possible Paramount advantage to win over Trump: An investment firm run by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner would be investing in the deal, too.
Also participating would be funds controlled by the governments of three unnamed Persian Gulf countries, widely reported as Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi and Qatar. Trump’s family company has struck deals this year for buildings and resorts that bear his name in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, partnering in the former with a company closely tied to the government and in the latter with the government fund itself.
Also possibly in Paramount’s favor are recent changes at CBS News since its October purchase of the news and commentary website The Free Press. The site’s founder, Bari Weiss, who has a reputation for fighting “woke” culture, was then installed as editor-in-chief in a signal Ellison intended to shake up the storied network of Walter Cronkite, Dan Rather and “60 Minutes,” long viewed by many conservatives as the personification of a liberal media establishment.
Trump is a wild card
Still, Trump is a wild card given his tendency to make decisions based on gut and his personal mood.
On Monday, he lashed out at Paramount for allowing “60 Minutes” to interview his ally-turned-enemy Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, writing on social media that “THEY ARE NO BETTER THAN THE OLD OWNERSHIP.”
The drama surrounding control of Warner began Friday when Netflix made the surprise announcement that it had struck a deal with its management to buy the Hollywood giant behind “Harry Potter,” HBO Max and DC Studios.
The cash and stock proposal was valued at $27.75 per Warner share, giving it a total enterprise value of $82.7 billion, including debt that will be assumed in the deal. By contrast, the Paramount offer is for $30 per Warner share, and worth $108 billion, included assumed debt. Paramount’s offer is set to expire on Jan. 8 unless it’s extended.
But comparing the two deals is complicated because they are not buying the same thing. The Netflix offer, if it goes through, will only close after Warner completes its previously announced separation of its cable operations. Not included in the deal, which is unlikely to close for at least a year, are networks such as CNN and Discovery.
The federal government has the authority to kill any big media deals if it has antitrust concerns, but such matters are usually left to experts at the Department of Justice. In his decision to get involved personally, Trump has decided, as he has with other government norms, to make a sharp break with precedent.
That worries Usha Haley, a Wichita State University specialist in international business strategy, who noted that Ellison is the son of longtime Trump supporter Larry Ellison, the world’s second-richest person.
“He said he’s going to be involved in the decision. We should take him at face value,” Haley said of Trump. “For him, it’s just greater control over the media.”
But others are uncertain how big a role Trump will play.
John Mayo, an antitrust expert at Georgetown University, said the scrutiny will be serious whichever offer is approved by shareholders and goes before the DOJ, and that he thinks experts there will keep partisanship out of their decisions despite the politically charged atmosphere.
“That may affect at least the rhetoric that occurs in the press,” he said, “though I doubt it will affect the analysis that occurs at the Department of Justice.”
Shares of Paramount surged 9% on Monday while Netflix fell 3.4%, and Warner Bros. closed up 4.4%.
___
Associated Press writers Matt Sedensky, David Bauder and Charles Sheehan in New York and Michael Liedtke in San Francisco contributed to this report.
ABHA, Saudi Arabia — From the air, Abha’s mountains emerge as a shock of emerald green rising from a sea of sand. Terra firma brings other surprises: a bracing wind that has me grabbing for a jacket — a piece of clothing all but ignored in other parts of Saudi Arabia.
Indeed, so much of Abha, the capital of the southwestern province of Asir, seems a world away — and two dozen degrees cooler — from the scorching desert that dominates Western notions of the kingdom.
I’m here as a tourist — and Saudi Arabia hopes for many more. The government is spending nearly $1 trillion to make attractive what, just over a decade ago, was one of the most tourist-averse countries on earth.
If you’ve read anything about tourism in Saudi Arabia, you’ve probably seen mention of Vision 2030, the all-out diversification plan to reduce the kingdom’s reliance on oil; Neom, the sci-fi-esque desert metropolis with plans for an artificial moon and flying cars; or the Red Sea Project, which intends to turn a 92-island archipelago off the country’s pristine Red Sea coast into a network of 50 luxury hotels and about 1,000 residential units.
Those two flagship projects were heavily featured during President Trump’s visit to Riyadh in May, which saw Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman — Vision 2030’s architect — guide him to a hall with elaborate mock-ups of the finished product.
A man sits in an old fort on Mt. Qais, one of the verdant areas in southwestern Saudi Arabia.
(Tasneem Alsultan)
Abha and Asir weren’t in the prince’s presentation, but they are nevertheless part of the tourism transformation, though for now they offer more grounded and arguably more authentic pleasures — the primary reasons why I chose to come here. (The other, less whimsical reason is that I wasn’t sure I could convince my editors to OK a $2,500-a-night private “dune villa” at the St. Regis Red Sea for “journalistic purposes.”)
Perched at almost 7,500 feet above sea level, Abha is occasionally nicknamed by Saudis as the “Lady of the Fog” or “the Bride of the Mountain.”
Both titles seemed apt on the day I arrived, and, as fog wafted over a nearby summit, I visited Art Street, a park with theaters, music festivals, restaurants and cafes. Lilac jacaranda trees were in full bloom. Later, I took a 20-minute drive to Al Sahab Park, a short distance outside Abha, crowded with people admiring the evening mist shrouding Jabal Soudah, the country’s highest peak at 9,892 feet.
“People come here to touch the clouds,” said Hussein al-Lamy, a 42-year-old pharmaceutical company employee who lives two hours away. He smiled, taking in the Harley bikers parked near the cliffs and the men and women strolling nearby sporting Asir’s traditional garlands made of orange marigold, dill and artemisia, a gray-green plant similar to sage.
“I left my kids and wife at home for a few days’ visit here,” he said. “It’s a good place to clear the mind.”
Men gather for a wedding in Abha, the capital of Saudi Arabia’s Asir province.
(Tasneem Alsultan)
Next morning, I took a walk through Souq Al Thulatha, a central shopping thoroughfare that despite its name (which in Arabic means Tuesday Market) is open every day of the week.
One stall sold slices of mangoes brought in from Jazan, the fertile southern province famous for its tropical fruits, wheat and coffee; others sold raisins, spices, nuts and gourmet honey from Yemen. Traffic was still light, but vendors told me that at the height of the summer season — when many Saudis flee the fry-an-egg-on-your-hood heat of Riyadh and Jeddah to Abha — you would barely have room to stand.
In its drive to become a must-see destination, the kingdom is ecumenical about its audience, hoping to attract not only Saudis who in the past would travel elsewhere — and who spent $27 billion on international travel in 2024, according to government figures — but also international visitors.
There are signs it’s working: An International Monetary Fund report noted that annual tourists exceeded the Vision 2030 target of 100 million seven years ahead of schedule.
Work is already underway on Abha’s touristic makeover. All over the city, you see signs advertising projects sponsored by the Public Investment Fund, the oil-backed sovereign wealth fund overseeing the gargantuan investments in the kingdom’s no-holds-barred metamorphosis. Construction will soon begin on upgrading the airport.
Locals pose at a mural in one of the many parks in Abha, which has been working to attract more international tourists.
(Tasneem Alsultan)
Beyond the city limits, the fund is planning six tourist districts in the region’s choicest spots; they’ll leverage the area’s majestic vistas to focus on wellness spas, yoga pavilions, meditation retreats, golf courses and glamping pods, according to promotional materials.
“We’re in a transitional phase for the moment, so there’s construction and it can be a bit inconvenient, but things are already getting better,” said Mohammad Hassan, 36, owner of a cafe in Abha called Bard wa Sahab (Cold and Clouds), near an Instagram-ready mountaintop vantage point.
Hassan acknowledged that the spate of development was likely to increase competition and had already spurred a rise in rents. But he appeared happy about what the changes will mean for his business.
“Before, Abha mostly got Saudi visitors or people from the [Persian] Gulf,” he said. “We’re already seeing more foreigners, but the government’s plans will make Abha known internationally.”
Other locals grumble that the construction has made Asir’s most beautiful areas off-limits, and that the focus on luxury will change the freewheeling character of the region.
“We would go to the mountains and camp for days. Authorities have stopped all that, and of course we won’t be able to do it when the resorts open,” said Nasser, a municipal worker who gave only his first name for privacy reasons.
“Maybe all that the government is doing will make it better, but it’s impossible for the old way of life we had here to return,” he said.
Another potential break with the past is possibility of allowing alcohol in the country. But crossing that Rubicon is no easy decision for authorities all too aware of the kingdom’s status as the birthplace of Islam, which bans alcohol and takes a dim view of those who drink and sell it.
Rijal Almaa, an ancient village about 15 miles from Abha, is a popular destination for tourists in Saudi Arabia’s Asir province.
(Tasneem Alsultan)
Nevertheless, many believe it’s coming. Staff working on the construction designs for the Red Sea Project say hotel rooms in various resorts will be equipped with elaborate minibars. And the Four Seasons in Riyadh has opened a tonic bar — but with no booze — that asks you to “delight in a symphony of handcrafted cocktails meticulously prepared to elevate your senses.”
Despite the hundreds of billions Saudi Arabia has spent, there are skeptics. They point to depressed oil prices that mean the government can’t balance its budget or keep up with Vision 2030’s ballooning costs. A few projects have already stalled; architects working on the resorts say that layoffs have spiked and that the scope of their work has been reduced. Other flagship projects, including the Line, have seen their once-fantastical goals grounded by the realities of physics and finance.
Whatever the fate of Vision 2030’s grander plans, Abha’s charms await.
The Rijal Almaa heritage village, located in Asir province, is more than 900 years old.
(Tasneem Alsultan)
One afternoon, I decided to brave Jabal Soudah, figuring a short hike was in order. I started down a barely there path with a vague plan to soon turn back. Indeed, I was so ill-equipped (with inappropriate walking shoes, a tiny bottle of water and a massive cold) that I should have done so. But I kept going, curious to see what the next bend would bring.
Four hours later, sunburned and more winded than I like to admit, I reached a hamlet where I later hitched a ride back to the city.
But before I found the ride, I ignored the exhaustion and lingered for a moment in this corner of a country more known for desert than the dense forest I had crossed. Before me, the mountain range extended somewhere beyond the haze. The fog coalesced around the summits, with sunset’s final rays transforming them into a gracefully undulating landscape of golden gauze.
President Donald Trump is directing the federal government to combine efforts with tech companies and universities to convert government data into scientific discoveries, acting on his push to make artificial intelligence the engine of the nation’s economic future.
Trump unveiled the “Genesis Mission” as part of an executive order he signed Monday that directs the Department of Energy and national labs to build a digital platform to concentrate the nation’s scientific data in one place.
It solicits private sector and university partners to use their AI capability to help the government solve engineering, energy and national security problems, including streamlining the nation’s electric grid, according to White House officials who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity to describe the order before it was signed. Officials made no specific mention of seeking medical advances as part of the project.
“The Genesis Mission will bring together our Nation’s research and development resources — combining the efforts of brilliant American scientists, including those at our national laboratories, with pioneering American businesses; world-renowned universities; and existing research infrastructure, data repositories, production plants, and national security sites — to achieve dramatic acceleration in AI development and utilization,” the executive order says.
The administration portrayed the effort as the government’s most ambitious marshaling of federal scientific resources since the Apollo space missions of the late 1960s and early 1970s, even as it had cut billions of dollars in federal funding for scientific research and thousands of scientists had lost their jobs and funding.
Trump is increasingly counting on the tech sector and the development of AI to power the U.S. economy, made clear last week as he hosted Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The monarch has committed to investing $1 trillion, largely from the Arab nation’s oil and natural gas reserves, to pivot his nation into becoming an AI data hub.
For the U.S.’s part, funding was appropriated to the Energy Department as part of the massive tax-break and spending bill signed into law by Trump in July, White House officials said.
As AI raises concerns that its heavy use of electricity may be contributing to higher utility rates in the nearer term, which is a political risk for Trump, administration officials argued that rates will come down as the technology develops. They said the increased demand will build capacity in existing transmission lines and bring down costs per unit of electricity.
Data centers needed to fuel AI accounted for about 1.5% of the world’s electricity consumption last year, and those facilities’ energy consumption is predicted to more than double by 2030, according to the International Energy Agency. That increase could lead to burning more fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas, which release greenhouse gases that contribute to warming temperatures, sea level rise and extreme weather.
The project will rely on national labs’ supercomputers but will also use supercomputing capacity being developed in the private sector. The project’s use of public data including national security information along with private sector supercomputers prompted officials to issue assurances that there would be controls to respect protected information.
Sudan is a country with a long memory: Our history stretches back to the biblical Kingdom of Kush, one of Africa’s greatest civilizations. The war now waged by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia is unlike anything we’ve ever faced. It is tearing the fabric of our society, uprooting millions, and placing the entire region at risk. Even so, Sudanese look to allies in the region and in Washington with hope. Sudan is fighting not only for its survival, but for a just peace that can only be achieved with the support of partners who recognize the truth of how the war began and what is required to end it.
BEIRUT — Seven years ago, he was virtually persona non grata, any link to him considered kryptonite among U.S. political and business elite for his alleged role in the killing of a Washington Post columnist and Saudi critic.
But when Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman came to Washington this week, he cemented a remarkable comeback, positioning himself as the linchpin of a new regional order in the Middle East, and his country as an essential partner in America’s AI-driven future.
During what amounted to a state visit, the crown prince — Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader — was given the literal red carpet treatment: A Marine band, flag-bearing horsemen and a squadron of F-35s in the skies above; a black-tie dinner attended by a raft of business leaders in the prince’s honor; a U.S.-Saudi Investment Forum at the Kennedy Center the next day.
Throughout, Bin Salman (or MBS, as many call him) proved himself a keen practitioner of the brand of transactional politics favored by President Trump.
President Trump and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman walk down the Colonnade on the way to the Oval Office of the White House on Tuesday.
(Brendan Smialowski / AFP via Getty Images)
He fulfilled Trump’s ask, first floated back in May during the Riyadh edition of the U.S.-Saudi Forum, to raise the kingdom’s U.S. investment commitments from $600 million to almost $1 trillion.
And the prince managed to mollify Trump in his oft-repeated call for Saudi Arabia to join the Abraham Accords, the normalization pacts with Israel brokered during the president’s first term, even while changing nothing of his long-stated position: That establishing ties with Israel be accompanied by steps toward Palestinian statehood — an outcome many in Israel’s political class reject.
“We believe having a good relation with all Middle Eastern countries is a good thing, and we want to be part of the Abraham Accords. But we want also to be sure that we secure a clear path [to a] two-state solution,” Bin Salman said.
“We want peace with the Israelis. We want peace with the Palestinians, we want them to coexist peacefully,” he added.
President Trump greets Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, at the White House on Tuesday.
(Andrew Caballero-Reynolds / AFP via Getty Images)
At home in Saudi Arabia, the trip was touted as an unequivocal triumph for the prince. Saudi state media boasted the country’s emergence as a major non-NATO ally for the U.S., and the signing of a so-called Strategic Defense Agreement as demonstrating Riyadh’s centrality to American strategic thinking.
This touting came despite little clarity on what that agreement actually entails: Its text wasn’t published, and it was mentioned only in passing in a White House “fact sheet,” which emphasized Saudi Arabia would “buy American” with significant purchases of tanks, missiles and F-35s; the latter would be the first time the U.S.’ most advanced jet is sold to an Arab country.
Saudi Arabia will also be given access to top-line AI chips, enabling it to leverage plentiful land and energy resources to build data centers while “protecting U.S. technology from foreign influence,” according to the White House.
Talks over Riyadh’s civilian nuclear program, stalled for a decade over concerns from previous administrations, yielded a framework that in theory allows Saudi Arabia to build a nuclear plant. Uranium enrichment, which in theory would allow weaponization, isn’t part of the agreement, U.S. officials say.
Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and President Trump watch a flyover of F-15 and F-35 fighters before meeting at the White House.
(Brendan Smialowski / AFP via Getty Images)
On the regional politics front, Bin Salman got a pledge from Trump to help broker an end to the war in Sudan.
The visit capped Bin Salman’s stunning redemption arc from the nadir of his reputation seven years ago.
Back then, his image as a dauntless reformer — reversing bans on women driving, neutering the country’s notorious religious police — was already crumbling after he sought to silence not only foreign opponents, but anyone domestically who questioned Vision 2030, his far-reaching (and hugely expensive) plan for transforming Saudi Arabia.
Then came the 2018 strangulation and dismemberment in Turkey of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi insider-turned-mild-critic and Washington Post columnist.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is seen inside a vehicle while leaving the White House after a meeting in the Oval Office with President Trump.
(Andrew Caballero-Reynolds / AFP via Getty Images)
Trump appeared more inclined to side with the prince, who denied any involvement in the killing, but the CIA said in a leaked report it had high confidence the prince ordered Khashoggi’s assassination.
Association with Bin Salman, once Washington’s Middle East darling, became toxic. International companies rushed to pull out of the kingdom. Politicians made it clear he was unwelcome. Then-candidate Joe Biden vowed to make the Saudi government “a pariah.”
In time, the prince stepped back from his more pugilistic policies, while geopolitics, energy concerns and a turbulent Middle East forced Biden to moderate his rejectionist stance.
That same year, Riyadh helped broker a prisoner swap between Russia and Ukraine. Later, a China-brokered agreement saw the prince calm his country’s stormy diplomatic relations with Iran. Just last month, he reportedly worked behind the scenes to push through a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
His White House visit seemed to cement his comeback, but little of what was promised is a done deal.
For one, whether Saudi Arabia can pony up $1 trillion — a figure amounting to 80% of its annual GDP and more than twice its foreign exchange reserves — is an open question.
Crucially, the prince didn’t specify when the money would be invested.
Though the investment pledge is big, “how much and over what period of time is completely unclear,” said Tim Callen, an economist and former International Monetary Fund mission chief to Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia is also pulling back on its government spending, with deflated oil prices forcing it to downsize many of its gigaprojects, Callen added.
“The pot of money available to push out all these projects and investments has shrunk, relative to 2022 and 2023,” he said.
“My take on it is that things are going to advance both on the investment and trade side [between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia] because there are mutual economic interests between the two countries,” he said. But in the short term, he added, $1 trillion “is too big a number for the economy of Saudi Arabia.”
As for F-35s, seeing them on Saudi runways is likely to take years. Congress has to approve F-35 sales, and some opposition could arise if they’re seen to jeopardize Israel’s qualitative military edge.
Israel, the only nation in the F-35 program allowed to use certain specialized technology, would expect Saudi Arabia to receive “planes of reduced caliber,” Trump said on Tuesday, with the prince on his side.
“I don’t think that makes you too happy,” he said to the prince.
“As far as I’m concerned,” Trump added, “I think [Israel and Saudi Arabia] are both at a level where they should get top of the line.”
But the bigger obstacle may be Saudi Arabia’s links to China, said Richard Aboulafia, managing director of AeroDynamic Advisory and an aviation analyst.
Saudi security forces stand at attention beneath a portrait of Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, during a military parade as pilgrims arrive for the annual pilgrimage in the holy city of Mecca on May 31.
(AFP via Getty Images)
In recent years, Saudi Arabia has run military exercises with the Chinese navy and fielded Chinese-made weapons in its armed forces. Ensuring it doesn’t get a look at the aircraft’s capabilities presents “a different set of challenges,” Aboulafia said. Similar concerns scuttled the United Arab Emirates’ attempts to acquire the jet, he added.
Another issue is that a backlog in aircraft delivery means another recipient would need to give up their production slots in Saudi Arabia’s favor.
Also key to Bin Salman’s return to the U.S.’ full embrace was his treatment by Trump at the White House.
When a reporter asked the prince about the Khashoggi killing, it was Trump who put up a vociferous defense, and called Khashoggi “extremely controversial.”
“A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about. Whether you like him or didn’t like him, things happen, but he knew nothing about it,” Trump said, pointing to the crown prince.
President Trump, right, and Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, shake hands during their meeting in the Oval Office.
(Nathan Howard / Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Trump also took a swing at Biden’s fist bump, engaging in an awkward hand-grabbing game with Bin Salman.
“I grabbed that hand,” Trump said. “I don’t give a hell where that hand’s been.”
Saudi Arabia is in talks with General Atomics on a potentially record-setting package of up to 130 MQ‑9Bs and 200 collaborative combat aircraft (CCA).
“The deal is still in [the] worksand there’s been a lot of effort since last time we talked,” David Alexander, the president of General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, told the outlet Breaking Defense this week on the sidelines of the Dubai Airshow.
On Tuesday, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman arrived in Washington, D.C., securing multibillion-dollar deals with President Donald Trump, who rolled out the red carpet and dismissed criticism of the kingdom’s human rights record.
Newsweek has contacted the Saudi Foreign Ministry for comment.
Why It Matters
The scale of the deal underscores growing U.S.-Gulf defense ties. In May, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia signed a $142 billion defense sales deal that the White House called the largest in history.
The Saudi ruler secured a non-NATO ally designation from Trump, a security agreement between their countries, and the U.S. president plans to approve sales of F-35 jets to the kingdom. Trump called Salman a “great ally,” downplayed Israeli concerns over its qualitative military edge and defended the crown prince over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, which U.S. intelligence linked to Salman.
What To Know
Drones have been defining modern air warfare, and CCAs—semi-autonomous, unmanned combat aircraft designed to operate alongside manned fighters, also known as “loyal wingmen”—represent a low-cost advantage in air combat capacity.
The MQ‑9B is a next-generation, remotely piloted aircraft designed to fly safely in civilian airspace, controlled through satellite links. Its SkyGuardian and SeaGuardian variants descend from the RQ‑1 Predator and MQ‑9 Reaper. It features eight wing hardpoints and one centerline hardpoint, which can accommodate weapons, intelligence-gathering equipment or specialized sensors.
The May agreement, signed following Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia, covers air force and space capabilities, missile defense, naval and coastal security, border and ground force modernization, and upgrades to information and communication systems. According to Dubai-based The National, the deal was expected to include MQ‑9B drones, though the White House did not confirm their inclusion.
Saudi Arabia is one of the world’s largest arms importers and has been investing heavily in expanding its domestic defense capabilities. China is emerging as a global competitor in niche sectors of the Middle Eastern arms market.
In March, the U.S. State Department approved the sale of eight MQ‑9B drones to Qatar for almost $2 billion, marking the first time this type of military equipment was sold to the region. Alexander said there could be talks with the United Arab Emirates over acquiring MQ‑9B drones, which it has long expressed interest in.
What People Are Saying
David Alexander, the president of General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, told Breaking Defense on Monday: “The deal is still in [the] worksand there’s been a lot of effort since last time we talked, and it includes MQ-9 Bravo short takeoff and landing, and it includes a collaborative combat Gambit series.”
Ali Awadh Asseri, a former Saudi ambassador to Pakistan and Lebanon, wrote in Arab News on Wednesday: “The U.S. has now approved the first transfer of F-35 stealth fighters to an Arab country, along with advanced missile defense systems and nearly 300 modern tanks. These capabilities dramatically enhance the Kingdom’s capacity to neutralize missile and drone threats, safeguard its airspace and protect its territory—long-standing Saudi priorities now finally addressed.”
What Happens Next
Alexander said that if the final deal includes CCAs, the program could also feature local manufacturing in Saudi Arabia.
Trump says U.S.-Saudi Arabia partnership is “among the most consequential in the entire world” – CBS News
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President Trump on Wednesday again touted his relationship with Saudi Arabia and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. CBS News chief White House correspondent Nancy Cordes reports.
new video loaded: Saudi Arabia’s Return to Washington
David Sanger, a White House and national security correspondent, describes how the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, a pariah after the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, has become a dealmaker in Washington.
By David E. Sanger, Melanie Bencosme, Leila Medina, James Surdam and Rebecca Suner
November 19, 2025
David E. Sanger, Melanie Bencosme, Leila Medina, James Surdam and Rebecca Suner
President Trump claimed Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman “knew nothing” about the 2018 murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. But the U.S. intelligence community concluded in 2021 that MBS “approved an operation in Istanbul, Turkey, to capture or kill Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.”
President Trump said Tuesday he will designate Saudi Arabia as a major non-NATO ally, marking a step up in defense ties between the United States and the Gulf monarchy.
Mr. Trump announced the move at a black-tie dinner at the White House in honor of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto leader of Saudi Arabia. The two leaders signed a new strategic defense deal earlier in the day, and Mr. Trump said Monday the U.S. will sell F-35 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia.
The designation could open the door to further collaboration between Saudi Arabia and the U.S. military, including easier access to U.S.-made military equipment. It’s also a symbolic move: Mr. Trump said in brief remarks Tuesday evening that it would take “our military cooperation to even greater heights.”
There are currently 20 major non-NATO allies, including other Middle Eastern countries like Israel, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Egypt, Tunisia and Jordan.
“A stronger and more capable alliance will advance the interests of both countries, and it will serve the highest interests of peace,” Mr. Trump said during Tuesday’s dinner.
The U.S.’s close relationship with Saudi Arabia dates back eight decades, bookended by a meeting between King Abdulaziz Ibn Saud and former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt aboard a U.S. Navy cruiser in 1945. The two countries have long cooperated on defense, and in recent decades, they have been bound together in part by a mutual rivalry with Iran.
During Tuesday’s meetings — marked by elaborate White House ceremonies and a military flyover — Mr. Trump pressed for even further military and economic cooperation with the Gulf state. The White House said Tuesday that Saudi Arabia will buy hundreds of tanks and fighter jets and will partner with the U.S. on artificial intelligence and civil nuclear issues, while bin Salman pledged to invest nearly $1 trillion in the U.S., up from $600 billion.
Members of Mr. Trump’s family also have some business interests in the country. Mr. Trump insisted earlier Tuesday he has “nothing to do” with those deals, and “they’ve done very little with Saudi Arabia, actually.”
Still unclear is whether Saudi Arabia will sign onto the Abraham Accords, a series of diplomatic deals brokered by Mr. Trump between Israel and majority-Muslim states like the United Arab Emirates. Most of those agreements were inked during the president’s first term, and Mr. Trump told “60 Minutes” he believes Saudi Arabia will also join.
During an Oval Office event earlier Tuesday, bin Salman told reporters he wants to join the accords but needs to see a path toward a Palestinian state. Mr. Trump added that the two leaders “had a very good talk on the Abraham Accords.”
Mr. Trump told reporters Tuesday he believes bin Salman “knew nothing” about the 2018 killing, and called Khashoggi “extremely controversial.” Bin Salman said it was “really painful to hear” about the killing.
