While Saudi Arabia’s economy remains dominated by its hydrocarbons sector, several other sectors have emerged in recent years as key propellors of economic growth. The Kingdom’s financial services industries have continued to expand steadily despite the liquidity challenges posed by falling oil prices. Trade and investment are being treated as key priorities as the government looks to negotiate this altered economic landscape, aiming to leverage its large population, high per capita income and many sea and air links. The country’s capital markets sector meanwhile is poised for a period of significant growth on the back of the opening of Tadawul to international investors in 2015 and the raft of regulatory upgrades implemented as result. The domestic insurance industry, which remains dominated by the motor and medical segments, has enjoyed double-digit growth over the past five years in both revenue and net profit. Elsewhere the targets outlined in Vision 2030 indicate that a period of greater opportunity and integration is on the horizon for private players operating in core sectors such as health care, utilities, industry and ICT.

The human rights records of more than ninety countries and territories are put into perspective in Human Rights Watch's signature yearly report. Reflecting extensive investigative work undertaken in 2016 by Human Rights Watch staff, in close partnership with domestic human rights activists, the annual World Report is an invaluable resource for journalists, diplomats, and citizens, and is a must-read for anyone interested in the fight to protect human rights in every corner of the globe.

This 2015 Article IV Consultation highlights that the rising oil prices and production resulted in large external and fiscal surpluses for Saudi Arabia. Real GDP growth is projected to slow to 2.8 percent in 2015, and then further to 2.4 percent in 2016 as government spending begins to adjust to the lower oil price environment. Nevertheless, government debt is very low and was 1.6 percent of GDP at end-2014. The current account surplus declined to 10.9 percent of GDP in 2014. It is expected to move into a small deficit in 2015 but return to surplus during 2016–20. Over the medium term, growth is expected to be about 3 percent. Inflation is likely to remain subdued.

Our intuition on how the world works could well be wrong. We are surprised when new competitors burst on the scene, or businesses protected by large and deep moats find their defenses easily breached, or vast new markets are conjured from nothing. Trend lines resemble saw-tooth mountain ridges. The world not only feels different. The data tell us it is different. Based on years of research by the directors of the McKinsey Global Institute, No Ordinary Disruption: The Four Forces Breaking all the Trends is a timely and important analysis of how we need to reset our intuition as a result of four forces colliding and transforming the global economy: the rise of emerging markets, the accelerating impact of technology on the natural forces of market competition, an aging world population, and accelerating flows of trade, capital and people. Our intuitions formed during a uniquely benign period for the world economy -- often termed the Great Moderation. Asset prices were rising, cost of capital was falling, labour and resources were abundant, and generation after generation was growing up more prosperous than their parents. But the Great Moderation has gone. The cost of capital may rise. The price of everything from grain to steel may become more volatile. The world's labor force could shrink. Individuals, particularly those with low job skills, are at risk of growing up poorer than their parents. What sets No Ordinary Disruption apart is depth of analysis combined with lively writing informed by surprising, memorable insights that enable us to quickly grasp the disruptive forces at work. For evidence of the shift to emerging markets, consider the startling fact that, by 2025, a single regional city in China -- Tianjin -- will have a GDP equal to that of the Sweden, of that, in the decades ahead, half of the world's economic growth will come from 440 cities including Kumasi in Ghana or Santa Carina in Brazil that most executives today would be hard-pressed to locate on a map. What we are now seeing is no ordinary disruption but the new facts of business life -- facts that require executives and leaders at all levels to reset their operating assumptions and management intuition.

Contents: (1) Recent Developments; (2) Background: Saudi Arabia (SA)-U.S. Relations, 1931-2001; 9/11 and its Aftermath; Recent Assessments; Terrorist Financing; (3) Congress. Interest in SA: U.S. Foreign Assist. to SA and Prohibitions; Counter-terrorism Assist.; BAE Corruption Inquiry; (4) Current Issues in U.S.-SA Relations; Mil. Cooperation: Counterterrorism; Al Qaeda; Combating Extremism; Arab-Israeli Conflict; SA-Palestinian Relations; SA Policy Priorities in Iraq; U.S.-SA Trade; U.S. Oil Imports and SA Policy; SA Boycott of Israel and WTO Membership; Human Rights, Religious Freedom, and Political Reform; Leadership and Succession; Social Reform Debates and Recent Leadership Changes; Human Rights; Religious Freedom.

Improving the investment climate continues to be an important part of the SAG's broader program to liberalize the country's trade and investment regime, diversify an economy overly dependent on oil, and promotes employment for a young population. The government encourages investment in nearly all economic sectors, with priority given to transportation, education, health, information and communications technology, life sciences, and energy, as well as in four new "Economic Cities" that are at various stages of development. The Economic Cities are comprehensive large-scale developments in different regions focusing on particular industries, e.g., information technology. Prospective investors will find Saudi Arabia attractive for its economic stability, large market (with a population of over 30 million), sound infrastructure, and well-regulated banking system. In the "2015 Doing Business" report, the World Bank ranked Saudi Arabia 49th out of 189 economies in terms of ease of doing business, a significant drop from 2012 where they ranked 22nd. In its "Corruption Perceptions Index 2014" report, Transparency International ranked Saudi Arabia as the 55th-cleanest out of 175 countries in terms of perceived levels of public-sector corruption, down from 57th in 2011 but still better than in 2008, when it ranked 80th. In its 2015 "Economic Freedom Index," the Heritage Foundation gave the Kingdom a score of 62.1 out of 100, a drop of 0.1 from 2014, placing it 77th out of the 178 rated countries.

The first systematic global study of how Christians respond to persecution, presenting new research by leading scholars of global Christianity.