1:29 - Richard's one big thing this week in Saudi Arabia is an update to Saudi Arabia's founding story as the Kingdom celebrated its Founding Day on February 22.
 
Earlier this year, the government announced the new holiday will be celebrated with a day off for both public and private sector workers, and released a vintage-looking logo used to mark the event.

The Saudi English-daily Arab News features a fascinating report on how historians and experts in the Kingdom worked to reveal the actual founding day as 17 years off from previous recording, instead using the first date of Bin Saud’s first day as ruler of Diryiah, in what is now modern-day Riyadh, instead of his alliance with Sheikh Mohammed ibn Abdulwahhab.

“There is no doubt that the events of 1744, the year in which Imam Mohammed ibn Saud of Diriyah offered sanctuary to the religious reformer Sheikh Mohammed ibn Abdulwahhab, were hugely significant….But over time the importance of that admittedly historic moment of common cause between state and faith came to obscure the far more complex and deeper-rooted origins of the First Saudi State…

“It is to correct this neglect of the Kingdom’s crucial embryonic years that Founding Day has been created, to celebrate 1727 as the true moment of birth and to give Saudis a deeper appreciation of a past far richer than many realize.”

“The theoretical effort of “laying the foundation” for Founding Day is crucial to building states, cementing identity, and enlightening society. The Saudi identity is coherent, modernist, and developed; and like identities throughout history and across the globe, it must be reimagined and reestablished constantly, especially during transitional, historic periods. Today in Saudi Arabia, this effort takes the form of Vision 2030.”

11:43 - Lucien's one big thing in Saudi Arabia this week is a look at the oil market and Saudi oil exports as the Russian invasion in Ukraine rages. Where is Saudi Arabia's oil going now, and what's next for energy markets? With oil now headed over $100 a barrel on Brent and possibly even higher as the situation in Ukraine deteriorates, Washington is already in close coordination with Saudi Arabia on energy markets.
Russia of course is a big player in the oil markets - making up the "plus" in the new market-setting cartel "OPEC+," which adds a layer of complexity to the crisis in Ukraine and as as sanctions against Russia start to ratchet up, although the West is not sanctioning the Russian oil sector yet.
But much of Saudi Arabia's oil now heads to Asia - in fact in 2021, 80% of Saudi crude headed to Asia, with China as the leading consumer.
The top four destinations for Saudi crude are China, Japan, South Korea and India.
Recent data show that US was again the only non-Asian importer of Saudi oil to make the top five, but the amount the U.S. imported from Saudi Arabia decreased from 407,000 b/d in 2020 to 376,000 b/d in 2021.  This is the lowest in 36 years.
Saudi exports to European markets also dropped in 2021.

39:58 - Yallah! Six storylines in Saudi Arabia from the week to get you updated heading into the weekend.

•Expo 2020 in Dubai is not just jaw-dropping national pavilions and entertainment. Governments and global leaders convened this week at the Dubai Exhibition Centre at Expo 2020 for the Food, Agriculture and Livelihoods Business Forum. New Zealand, which is recognized globally as one of the most progressive agricultural and aqua-cultural nations – its food sector feeds around 40 million global consumers each year, eight times its population – is New Zealand is taking the lead on the forum that will address the urgent need to transform the world’s food and agricultural systems to feed 10 billion people by 2050, within environmental limits.

 
•It was a historic day for Saudi Arabia as the women's national football team played, and won, its first official international match on Sunday. The Saudi squad traveled to the Maldives to beat the Seychelles 2-0 in a friendly which comes just a month after the final team was named. It will now face the Maldives in its second match today. The team was congratulated by Brazilian soccer legend Pelé, who called it a "historic day."

•Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud said that Lebanon must offer stronger signals that it is serious about reform to secure support from the international community as it struggles with a financial crisis. “Lebanon first needs to be actively saving itself… We need a stronger signal from the Lebanese body politic that they are going to step up.”  He said this included stabilizing the economy and addressing issues of corruption and mismanagement as well as “regional interference and loss of state sovereignty.”

•To mark World Radio Day, the Saudi Broadcasting Authority recently launched Al-Ekhbariya Radio, the first news radio station in Saudi Arabia. The station will have a network of 85 correspondents and will focus 80% of its programming on local news with the remainder focused on Arab and international news. Station director Mubarak Al-Ati said, “Launching the station is in the interest of the Saudi media renaissance to keep pace with the developments the kingdom is undergoing at all levels. Saudi media will continue to advance in service of the kingdom’s leadership and people.”

 
•Arab News recently reported that the government has not yet decided to integrate it innovative Tawakkalna application with the Absher platform. The Absher app was introduced in 2015 by the Ministry of Interior and is the leading e-services platform in Saudi Arabia. It served 23 million users who carried out more than 85 million operations in 2021.  Tawakkalna was launched in 2020 by the Ministry of Health and is mandatory for all people in the country to enter worksites, shops, and malls. It also has more than 23 million users and last year was selected among the top applications in the e-health category by World Summit on the Information Society Prizes.

•Leading Saudi soccer clubs Al-Nassr and Al-Hilal have each signed long-term strategic partnerships with the investment vehicle of Qiddiya, the new entertainment district near Riyadh which plans to build a new 40,000-seat, cliff-top stadium for the two Riyadh-based clubs. Likewise, the PIF-owned Central Jeddah Development Company has also signed deals with two other top clubs Al-Ittihad and Al-Ahli for the same annual amount of $26.6 million and the same duration – until 2042.