Saudi Arabia

Globally, computer science and information technology majors in universities are dominated by men. However, in the Middle East, 40 percent of university students specializing in computer science and IT are women.

Once upon a time, Qatar was the small Gulf monarchy exerting influence around the Middle East and North Africa. It was frequently described as “punching above its weight” or, more innovatively, as “A Bouncy Bantam” and a “Pygmy with the Punch of a Giant.” But those days are long gone for Qatar. Instead, it is...

The new year is likely to bring some serious economic pain to parts of the Gulf, especially Saudi Arabia. As in most economic reforms, there are negative impacts of austerity, especially to the low- and middle-income population. Bracing for the impacts of higher electricity and fuel costs, new taxes and fees, along with mounting pressure...

The Gulf Arab states and the states of the Maghreb are part of one strategic space defined, broadly, by shared linguistic, cultural, religious, social, and historical characteristics.

Yemen’s history has seen a number of alliances of convenience unravel spectacularly, most recently the three-year marriage of convenience between former President Ali Abdullah Saleh and the Zaydi Shia Houthi rebels, who on December 4 killed Saleh in the capital of Sanaa after several days of fighting between their militias and his loyalists.

It would be no small irony if, in death, former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh advances the cause of peace in his impoverished homeland far more than he ever seemed interested in doing during the final years of his life. Saleh, who died December 4 at the hands of the Houthi rebels, was an unlikely...

Nadeemah Abulaynain started riding her bicycle in her Jeddah neighborhood and, through Instagram, slowly attracted other women to join her. In 2015, at 16 years old, she founded Saudi Arabia’s first independently run women’s public cycling group, Bisklayta. Riding bicycles in public became permissible for women in 2013 with one caveat: the presence of a...

Saudi Arabia is in a period of top-down restructuring, creating risk and opportunity for its citizens and ruling family. There have been a series of recent proclamations: public policy shifts on women’s economic inclusion, limits on the power of the Islamic clerics, promises of robots and new technology, and open investment opportunities in special economic...