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tv   NEWSHOUR  Al Jazeera  February 3, 2019 9:00pm-10:01pm +03

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that gives foreign investors pause. the murder of one journalist has washed away the veneer of change and quashed investor confidence. to see people to be allowed to speak. the interest of a stakeholder never get priority over the kingdom the privatization process would mean saudi oil reserves will be up for scrutiny. finances will be in the public eye . you go from running a business where you have endless resources and site to one day having to register your company with the exchange and have to disclose every single number. the company's had over the last five to ten years every piece of cap ex every decision that's been made every partnership every single thing you've done is now in the public purview why the move.
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i think you gain by. because. if you're a private company that's run so well it's painful because you have answer a lot of question but not nearly as painful as after you take people's money. those saudi economists who dared to raise concerns about the prince's ambitious twenty thirty plans are in jail. you know that's not the kind of couldn't know that you had. a day before the murder prominent economist is samo samo was indicted on terrorism related charges his crime was providing analysis some of which explained that a high valuation of aramco could mean that the kingdom will not get any oil revenue for decades because all of it will go to
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a ram co controlled by shareholders. in the beginning stages you have to take anyone's money because it is just disclosing to the exchanges here's how we run our business here's why you should be comfortable listing us you then go out to raise capital. and once you're taking someone else's money they own those shares and you're a company for the people by the people you know not a company for the management management or the or the king. and the transitions massive. that changeover from state control to a public listed which began in two thousand and seventeen is now shelved for years to come kia ram co executives have also left or been moved. so that process for a company like this probably a year and a half selling a tech start up for you have a slide presentation and some hope you have
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a business that changes global markets for decades and decades it's a process that will be expansive. it will be intrusive and it will be transformative. saudi aramco places the kingdom's reserves at two hundred sixty one billion barrels of oil but that magic number with no real third party audit has remained more or less constant for nearly thirty years since the one nine hundred eighty s. there have been rising production changes in technology and no announcements of major oil discoveries in the kingdom but other oil giants such as shell and exxon have revised down their reserves during this period. if on average saudi production was at nine million barrels a day in the last thirty years a ramp has pumped out nearly one hundred billion barrels without a dent in its two hundred sixty one billion reserves and the jury's out on how much
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they actually have and what it's worth. looking at their reserves figures you know makes if you look too closely at it you start to wonder how it can stay roughly constant from year to year when they're they're producing an export and so much oil every year disclosure of the reserves it's a top secret in saudi arabia and i think this is a significant concern on the part of around co-executors they treat their reserves with kid gloves they are duty is to get the most out of these reserves in the best way possible the reserve confidence will only be consistent with third parties verifying the information that's got to be done through regulatory fashion that everyone's comfortable it can't just be something a company says and and hopes is the case you've got to verify. whatever other qualities god may have given the saudis he gave them a lot of wealth in the ground and that's not going to go away so we want might
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quibble over the over the reserves. but you know the saudis have the ability to do fracking. but i haven't even started basically. but would the possibility of higher reserves be enough for investors to finance. probably the biggest downside is the transparency that would have resulted around saudi reserves saudi oil reserves that doesn't change very much from year to year and really hasn't changed much over the past couple of decades doesn't give much insight beyond the single number you know around two hundred sixty billion barrels if saudi aramco would have listed shares in the new york stock exchange or the london stock exchange the regulators would force saudi arabia to come clean on all of its reserves you know how much of that is proven probable or otherwise i think that's
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a tough sell within the kingdom within saudi aramco and within the ministry and all the way up to the head of state i don't think so do you arabia is not trustworthy when it comes to their reserves i think their reserves that there but the capacity is another question the saudi aramco has never produced twelve and a half million barrels a day and has never come within about a million barrels a day of that says that it can reach that level of capacity after a period of about six months of additional investment right so it can't just twist a few valves and crank up an extra two million barrels a day i can remember on one occasion. sitting in the office of of them. minister petroleum who did not know that i understood arabic. when one of his hades came rushing in. and said we've got we've proved the reserves in this particular
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new field they'd found and he said well how much is a three billion barrels and he said oh it's too small kaput. well that's twice the alaska reserve. if you had full access to to ramp those reserves figures and you know other inside details about its revenue streams and whatnot you know anybody with a smartphone could second guessed saudi minister you know right now when the when the oil minister goes to vienna to speak in public at an opec meeting and you can see him surrounded by hoards of reporters each shoving their voice recorder in his face to catch a cold snippet of what he says about you know saudi plans saudi reserves saudi oil production. in assad it saudi market strategy the world would be is quite is dependent on the oil minister for information you know to sort of on the walk the.
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you know the secrets of whatever and co was going to do also you know you put those there with that information out there it's out there for everyone. we should just be dynamic in the response and the reserves matter because the reserves and output give saudi arabia the regional and international clout as the largest producer in the oil producing club of nations known as opec vacation travel watching billions and billions and billions of dollars of industry get moved by opec. and opec being a saudi driven organization they have to be meticulous the company is so good at what it does that that also brings its leaders a certain amount of political clout when it comes to opec and when it comes to other dealings with other countries apprentice not the top though and. really wants
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to start belies the oil price at the some extent in that it you need therefore bag i think is still in bought then to how then we can bring the best price but it's. not the prize that benefits are going to prove himself and the prize that also benefited the producer and consumer. his studio for good we're going to become a courtroom is a sham with every focus on fundamentals focus on addressing the global markets needs court reliable supply is petroleum saudi arabia is the keystone in opec it is the big dog it's the ringleader if you will within opec opec members maintain a little bit here and there no one has more than one million barrels per day of spare oil production capacity that that i know maintains that that kind of level of spare capacity. as you know as as a policy saudi arabia saudi aramco typically maintain you know
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a million two million barrels two million barrels a day of oil production capacity that they don't use ok so no profit oriented firm would ever do this you wouldn't invest all the billions in developing oil fields and pipelines and storage facilities and production infrastructure and then just leave it dormant saudi aramco has done it at the behest of the sad state. and you know it's the key aspect in the saudi u.s. partnership the ramp those ability to bring more oil production online in its willingness to cut back at times and markets are oversupplied let's go to the crux of the the u.s. and saudi strategic partnership. saudi arabia if we broke with them i think your oil prices would go through the roof i've kept them down they've helped me keep them down right now we have low oil prices are relatively i'd like to see it go
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down even lower. billions of dollars are treated at the world's largest stock exchange it's business as usual on wall street but like other exchanges around the . also tried to sway saudi aramco to live in new york even the u.s. president weighed in on his preferred medium of communication but the strict requirements remained a deterrent for the i.p.o. which was being called the world's largest offering it would be a double whammy for mohamed been so mom to not get the two trillion dollars valuation and having to compromise on not listing on the world's largest stock market. you're the world's largest oil producer and you don't list in the world's largest stock exchange that's definitely something i definitely miss or access to capital new york is terribly complicated by virtue of the nine eleven hangover so i thought from the beginning it was quite you know it was
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a nice thing to dangle before the americans but it was probably not going to come to us you know there aren't that many exchanges that can do this so london and new york were the two main ones that you know that they could really handle something like this both of which have pretty stringent transparency requirements new york's more south. london was signaling that it was willing to roll back. some of its transparency requirements and make a special deal for aramco the prince's i.p.o. hit the brakes from a lofty two trillion dollar valuation to uncertainty about the size of saudi reserves for litigation risks to stringent requirements from stock exchanges the reality was different from the political statements but i think the two trillion dollar number zero is significant for the saudis but not significant for the rest of them are talking about a business that dwarfs almost every business in the us and p.
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five hundred i would say two trillion dollars is a high valuation it's not unachievable when you look at what the size of it is whether it's a trillion trillion after two trillion. the scales all relative it's massive and so if you have a business earning two hundred three hundred four hundred billion dollars a year there's a multiple put on it. and the market's going to say well even though you're a trillion dollar business give or take whether you're one trillion or three trillion is going to be dependent on the earnings and your decline curves and your gross strategy what type of growth percentage going to put on your business it's a huge number there's no question about it whether you look at the high level we look at the low level it's huge it's a huge i.p.o. huge company and so i guess what you're asking me is how do they expect to sell it i think there's enough money out there that can cover it but if on the
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other hand the global economy should begin to tick down would then it's going to be a hard sell they would have to lower the price putting a line in the sand is is strong and smart from your own perspective but the market's going to determine what they feel comfortable about buying. your stock it that's worth what someone tells you it's worth but we hope so when my have been someone announced the remco i.p.o. and he basically said we're looking for a valuation of two trillion dollars that's the largest valuation of all time for any company and that's of those for the whole company they were never talking about selling any more than five percent so it seems like they're looking to raise one hundred billion dollars which is a large amount but not that much so the quip but the question is really is a ram co valued at two trillion dollars what are their oil reserves which is really
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tends to be the bulk of what makes up an oil company valuation now we're also has a lot of other assets around the world not oil not upstream oil assets but they own shares in refineries in china in south korea they own oil storage facilities in japan that they own the largest oil refinery in the united states and they also have a lot of research and development things going on they've also got petro chemical and oil refineries in saudi arabia so the company is worth more than what they dig out of the ground and sell but does that get us to two trillion dollars the answer also depends on what the price of oil is at the time of the i.p.o. and when they announced the i.p.o. we were in the midst of a very period of very low well prices so you can see i would be very hard to reach a two trillion dollars valuation in say two thousand and seventeen when the price
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of oil was you know fifty or fifty five dollars a barrel. it's an indirect devaluation of the saudi economy which is reliant on a whim cup so it's not just a company with a proposed two trillion dollar price tag. there's a major problem with valuing the company. what is it that's being offered some slice of the overall company i guess but no direct ownership of any part of it how much are the reserves after all are they understated or overstated what level of efficiency does saudi aramco have in comparison with other oil companies. where is the future market. mohamed been so months vision was to take the money from the i.p.o. to revamp the saudi public investment fund which would play a leading role in developing non oil industries but that fund has already started
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borrowing money instead of stacking up oil revenues the tens of billions expected from a ram code never arrived and global banks provided their first ever loan of eleven billion dollars the i.p.o. it seems to be from what people say was designed to generate cash for the public investment fund of saudi arabia which is designed to make investments for the future not to use for the saudi budget not to use for those kind of projects but really a sovereign wealth fund to rely on you know when oil is no longer important commodity here you have a company which has been deliberately nontransparent is now listed on any market that has no shareholders other than the kingdom itself to which to report in saudi arabia is not a notably free press environment and it is not a democracy and accountability is uncertain.
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we're heading to the place some deep in the true remember zone it's taken us two days this boat just to get the search crew. looks at what is being done to protect one of the region's most iconic creature because they're disappearing because the legal pad trained with too many researchers wanted to see if reintroduction of the consul is a viable option to face some of these population pretty good. techno on al-jazeera and. this is al jazeera i'm dead you know big a deal with a check on your world headlines venezuela's president nicolas maduro has offered to hold early parliamentary elections as he fights demands to resign but his rival and
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his supporters at home and abroad are demanding a presidential vote it's a peace deal has been agreed in the central african republic aimed at ending six years of conflict between muslim and christian fighters government leaders struck the deal with fourteen armed groups after a week of talks and soon done backed by the united nations and the african union mohamed has more on this from khartoum. we don't have the details about how many of those warlords who what names and so on and what is the basis on which. will be created of the worlds that will be pardoned within the framework of the second an agreement that has been proposed by the african union and supported by the united nations hosted by sudan but it is not the first time this happens seven at least seven agreements of this kind had been agreed on in the past yemen's warring sides are holding talks aboard a united nations boat in the red sea in an attempt to save the fragile for a day the cease fire it's hoped the meeting will finalize
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a timeline for the withdrawal of troops from the city and pope francis who is set to begin his first trip to the gulf region has called for the truce to be respected politicians in egypt are planning to push for major changes to the constitution including the creation of a second chamber of parliament and the appointment of one or more deputy presidents their request follows some citizens demanding changes to presidential term limits now the local media is focusing on the idea that eight years another enough and not enough to deal with the economic political or security challenges of egypt face and therefore the current president needs more time to fix the political economic and security challenges if you look at the actual what happened between twenty four thousand to now it's a t.d. addition on multiple levels with the economic political or security or human rights values the last four child refugees held in an australian run detention center on the pacific islands of now route are being resettled in the us they'll go with their families under a deal struck with the administration of former president barack obama australia's
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government says it won't send any more children to naru ending the widely criticized policy it's back to saudi aramco the company and the state next on al-jazeera then it's the news hour i'll see them. the kingdom is home to the most important religious sites for muslims but saudi arabia is a real source of power is it spoiled well into ram co converts that black gold into dollars and riyadh so. many academics experts and oil economist either refused or refrain from speaking to us as soon as they heard it's about a ram co the kingdom's most potent economic firepower. the saudis can use oil as a weapon like opec did it in one thousand nine hundred seventy three they put an embargo and what happened to the price of oil. it shot up over one hundred dollars
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a few years ago we saw oil prices tumble. created that it was the saudis. they flooded the market. why they wanted to put shallow oil out of business well it backfired. the partnership between the u.s. and saudi arabia rests on linked interests many of which have either disappeared or are now problematic they basic bargain of. preferred access to energy in return for security protection but the united states is now the swing producer internationally for oil given fracking and we are an energy exporter not dependent on the gulf the support that the saudis provided by making american foreign policy allowed. acceptable to most things.
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now the muslim world is so divided and the united states is there is lot of fabric of that bargain is gone. saudi arabia also controls of vast media empire for decades it's been tens of millions of dollars to lobby cultural institutions think tanks universities even government all to improve the kingdom's image that's jumped from ten million dollars spent in two thousand and sixteen to more than twenty seven million dollars today used to fuel a sophisticated saudi influence machine that money shapes policy and perceptions and it also covers up criticism of the kingdom much of this was revealed in twenty fifteen when wiki leaks published thousands of cable exchanges between saudi diplomats posted abroad and the foreign ministry. houston texas is an oil town. it's
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a testament to saudi soft power and how big saudi money is securely invested in the us regardless of what saudi arabia is accused of and even a local marathon here is sponsored by a ram code but whether it's nine eleven or the murder of the saudi journalist jamal khashoggi it all continues to cast a shadow over the kingdom's image abroad. in terms of jasta which is the law that was passed basically saying that for the say to the saudi government for the role and nine eleven. that has been put forward as a reason not to list on the new york stock exchange. i'm not a lawyer but it would not be a real concern at all evidence that at least that's available if the u.s. government has presented an declassified is not significant enough to probably convict her of to get a. ruling you know to be able to sue the saudi them so there's that but say it was
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. then the question is ok so what kind of assets can you go after and if you're saying that aramco is an asset of the saudi government and therefore should pay well there's already a lot of aramco investment in the united states that they can go after they can go after moti by the largest refinery they have research centers all over there is around headquarters services company in in america i think that that's a convenient excuse to give but if they wanted to list on the new york stock exchange it's not really a significant barrier. motif as the largest refinery in the united states which goes through old whopping six hundred thousand barrels a day it's more than two thousand employees work near the gulf of mexico but this behemoth facility isn't u.s. it's a subsidiary of the centerpiece of saudi crown prince mohammed bin vision twenty
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thirty he wants to expand the petro chemicals business instead of the kingdom's heavy reliance on oil sales. so influential in port arthur goodwill tiva security sent a policeman to stop us from filming they even called the police to hold us until they could question why journalists were filming their facilities. despite tight control over media and any opinion which doesn't fall in line with that of the kingdom efforts to privatized had been a hard sell at home. with very little accountability of the ruling family radical changes are viewed with suspicion by many ordinary saudis. one of the major objections by people in the kingdom was their fear that the money would go into the pockets of the royal family rather than be used in a transparent way to provide government services to the people in other words waste
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fraud and hispanic front are a concern on the part of the public concerned by foreigners i think the conference is trying to create an environment conducive to foreign investment but events things keep happening questions keep getting raised that make that difficult. geo political power is to is the exclusive access to information about saudi reserves they hold that information very close and they let it out and in dribs and drabs it's almost like the strategic ambiguity around the israeli nuclear weapons capability they release what they choose to release when they choose to release it that's a source of power very similar with the oil reserves in saudi arabia. this is not the first time reforms have been promised in saudi arabia or the first time when those promises have been left up by western powers and lauded by the media. since
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the one nine hundred fifty s. the new york times which likes to be called the newspaper of record has given similar coverage to saudi kings and princes the media has given them titles such as trailblazers and performers similar to the current crown prince even the glitzy twenty thirty roadmap hints that promises. well the vision itself is hardly new this was largely drawn out there by consultants mckinsey in particular. and they were able to do that quickly because the ministry of planning in saudi arabia had all these ideas. there to be gathered up so the vision isn't new the drive for change in the kingdom transformative drive was also not new in many ways i had been so many resembles his grandfather. closes of
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different methods of blows these united kingdom with tribal marriages bewildering number of marriages and divorces that brought different groups in the society and it into his family he conducted a war in the saudi south. which is on a sea of which took land from yemen and made it definitively part of saudi arabia he suppressed religious uprisings there are many similarities one could say and it worked whether the current dr will work or not is unknown and certainly not the first time claims of reform have been made in saudi arabia for example king faisel when he became king he made a lot of very important changes and reforms in saudi arabia that before that the government had been spending very recklessly and carelessly under king his brother king so it was reported actually that he would carry around in his pocket of the
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budget and whenever he would see a minister say in the halls or something he would question them he would say how are you spending this money what are you doing with it so this is not the first time that that reforms have been tried probably every previous king in saudi arabia has announced it to some extent and there have been one of the key aspects i think that a lot of the reform plans always include megaprojects. and in my mind those mega projects never really pan out and so that's always something to be wary of you can hold up the ramp i.p.o. is the key example of that but there were lots of other privatisations that would have really helped kind of. move saudi arabia's economy from various state status based shoe a much more diverse and vibrant private economy so for example they wanted to sell parts of siberia airlines of of different national companies and it really almost seems like the reverse is happening that the state is actually more involved in the economy as opposed to less involved and that i think is probably not
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a good sign for developing a diverse and vibrant private economy but at the same time there are ships in whole troll and social expectations that have to occur in saudi arabia and so those changes i think a setting a year of twenty thirty years probably very. ambitious i think the saudis realize that the time has come that they must change the way they run the economy through the business otherwise what would happen in. iraq look what happened with iran what happened with libya it's not too far fetched to think that that can happen with saudi arabia.
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susumu human or the gentleman i wouldn't say yeah i mean you know that could tell you the good work done to them you know overall it's also the d.o.b. element and the leadership that is not the spotlight but there were a doctor or someone with him one hundred other she kind of the time of them that are now that she come to help look on the other she turned to dust and you. did you look at the health. the old going more in yemen is not just creating global pressure but also a strain on the saudi economy in addition tens of thousands of foreign workers have been expelled from saudi arabia. the government's reduction in subsidies for fuel and utilities has become a burden it's had to borrow aggressively to plug the budget deficit. well the budgetary crisis is not new i did have a conversation with the late then crown prince abdullah later king abdullah who
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made a real effort in the late ninety's had to institute a tax system other than that. and the conversation went like this i said to him you know i think you have a problem here because for example in the united states if i take a section of desert that's a part of nevada and i either invest my own money or i borrow money from a bank and i build an industrial estate a park and a related community and i don't doubt the government for anything the government still has to come up with all sorts of services police education and waste water management road maintenance even if i build the roads initially and so forth. and the same is true in saudi arabia if except even more so because at that time at least saudi arabia was heavily subsidizing electricity and water and other things
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that people needed so i said you know the difference is that in the god every cent will come back in the form of increased government revenue. and so that the very the debt will be replaced by a stream of revenue that makes the government whole and enables. higher level of service whereas in saudi arabia not one house comes back basically you have a sister and i said in rich private prosperity impoverish is the government the opposite of normal economics so i've said to people. i'll give you a real nigel if they're real parliament and a role in allocating tax resources but in order to do that you've got to pay taxes and he said i came very close to getting a consensus on this in the end i failed the merchants particularly in the western
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province would not agree so it's difficult to to rationalize a big investments in a country that's already a hard sell for investors anyway because of you know the visa requirements and red tape and you know lifestyle issues in saudi arabia a lot of a lot of foreigners it's not a you know considered a great destination for you know second homeowners or for you know foreigners who are looking to move their families and put their kids in the local schools you know they would go to dubai or rain or abu dhabi or doha to go to the region. so it's you know sat here has never been a real easy sell for foreign investment for the size of its economy f.b.i. flows there aren't proportionally as big as they are for some of the more open economies around the region. perhaps the biggest challenge to the saudi economy comes from the wave of change in the way the country is being run through the
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muḥammad been so mom's pursuit of vision twenty thirty has upset the traditional order in twenty fifteen when. things on my own ascended the throne in short order within a year old power was essentially transferred into the hands of his favorite son prominence of man this destroyed the consultative tradition. within the royal family and more broadly in the kingdom here you have a young man who has great ambition drive imagination. determined to change things impatient and not willing to wait for consultation so a lot of egos have been bruised a lot of interests have been shaken many people have lodged objections to this fundamental change in the constitutional order in saudi arabia this is before you get to things like. they had
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a corruption drive which. exacted huge amounts of money from the wealthy elite in the kingdom. kings on my will be the last king of his generation it had always passed from brother to brother to brother and it's clear even though there are still some living brothers are sons of up to ozzy's it has been decided that samana will be the last of that generation. the next generation there are a lot of princes there and a lot of them had a great deal of control and in certain segments of the economy and and and of saudi society and there always been kind of a balancing act that went on between these different segments of the royal family there been a lot of tensions produced basically traditionally in saudi arabia and the end goal for arab societies general lady. of the king or the or the i mean here the leader has the same responsibilities as the sheriff in
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a tribe there's really two responsibilities one is to. ensure that decisions are taken by consensus after consultation he proclaims a consensus does not. make a decision then imposes a second responsibility is to ensure that the less fortunate the poorer share of the wealth so it's a the government or the this case the leader must distribute condoms charity to the needy the saudi state is built on these principles the first one has been badly compromise as power has been gathered into one man surrounds or perhaps to. the proud parents and his father the members of the family the ruling family who were previously consulted i feel excluded in many cases from the decision making process they would have all be and had to agree together on things
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almost like different shareholders and it does appear that that process is changing i would be cautious of of saying well it's now different everything is different now it's a one man show that may be the image that they'd like to present to everyone but that doesn't mean that all of the other sources of power have necessarily been eliminated. that you know if enough brothers decide that. is not the right way that that couldn't be changed i think where it's too early to write off that process and to say that he has fully consolidated power. to the highest and we still are doing that just want to send it to you that five hundred thirty three million dollars five hundred twenty five million dollars that's enough for you here we've heard from lucrative military contracts to support for each other's wars there is
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a special relationship between the us president the saudi king and mohamed been some all right right. but that special relationship has been under stress like i love the king solomon said king. we're protecting you you might not be there for two weeks without us you have to pay for your village and. we filmed this during the period when the saudi government was officially denying that its agents murdered journalist jamal khashoggi the government later confessed to the killing of the saudi consulate in istanbul and admitted it was a premeditated murder. a lot of fingers are pointed at the crown prince for allegedly ordering the killing in turkey but the u.s. president still has unwavering support for muhammad bin so i don't know if anyone's going to be able to conclude that the crown prince heard it but i will say this i
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don't know i don't know but whether he did it or whether he did he denies it vehemently his father denies it the king family. the case remains open regardless of saudi denials and criminal sentences it risks the prince's grip on power for an investment vision twenty thirty and aramco i.p.o. . despite several attempts and its subsidiaries did not respond to our request for interviews partly as. the killing of the saudi journalist that has put them in the spotlight and if they come forward and tell the whole truth of what happened then that will be a sign that they're really ready for a change if not. they may be faced with harsh. economic sanctions.
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and if that's the case the market. seems to be saying well saudi arabia's economy is going to fall off a cliff on the foreign policy front the kingdom has flirted into a series of adventures none of which have turned out well it is stuck with a garrison along with others from the go gulf cooperation council in bahrain. where an arrest continues and shows no sign of abating. it is it has become. really battered by syria which has been a transformative situation in the middle east brought the russians back in is the major foreign player for example. saudi arabia is relationships with turkey have been badly damaged. by this it has. seen fit to
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divide itself from qatar. and conduct a blockade which again shows no sign of going away and rich essentially divides the gulf cooperation council irreparably and finally of course it is a gauged in a war in yemen with no clear objective that is feasible and no war terminations strategy. saudi aramco said failure to launch and the young leaders stumble from one crisis to another are directly linked there is an urgency to rush into things but also a lack of experience. that is really like planning for the growth of the nation. not the. exit of an i.p.o. and the growth of the nation takes a lot more planning. and
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a couple months and ultimately you see they've pulled back i would guess because they recognize that this is a transformational moment it's going to take. a lot more time and energy to get into the realm of the public markets if they ever get comfortable they may never become for with i know there are elements within so deciding who don't want to see that change and they feel that this is too much and too soon and too big and the pushback from the government has been they need to be dragged kicking and screaming into these changes and best is the way it's going to be i see that as a much bigger backlash than even the religious or conservative people is really unemployment and saudis not taking jobs or they've made a big push to get rid of foreign labor in saudi arabia but the problem is that if you're not replacing that with saudi labor then you're not going to have. an
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economy if people aren't taking jobs and unemployment remains high despite there being jobs then you've got a significant problem and i see that really as the biggest threat to the changes they can make all the decrees they want but if people don't work people aren't working and making money and they don't see that as a valuable part of their lives that and they're not going to pacify people with movie theaters. it's all to me a function of how fast they want to get to their end goal which none of us know that the more they're in the street is obviously toil but they need to be more open and that's the keep saudi arabia has to make it on its own for an extended never do and so far it seems to be having difficulty right now there's no substitute for oil so it's not going to go away in the short term you know the writing is on the wall and the saudis have have read it. the saudi crown prince is adamant that he is the
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hope of change he may have the desire but what he can actually achieve with me is the big question. that. when you open up that. this was the media savvy princes first public appearance three weeks after the murder of. at an event and widely referred to as davos in the desert.
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hello there over south america that's a lot of wet weather at the moment the satellite picture is showing plenty of showers in the northeast around forty later and i'm also seeing plenty of it through bolivia and down into the extreme southern parts of brazil now over bolivia that's what we've seen some of the worst of the rain and the ground is now waterlogged that's caused a problem with some landslides including this one which swept away six cars and the home now the showers are expected to continue as we head through the next few days but in the south of i'm up here over parts of peru and into brazil that will be working its way northward so for rio it looks increasingly wet as we head through monday as we head up towards the central americas there's plenty of sunshine here and just one or two isolated showers i think for the bahamas though here it will be a wet a day there it will clear though a monday does look a good deal brighter as we head further north we've got a very active system that's making its way in from the pacific that's giving us
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some heavy rain and very strong winds over parts of california and a lot of snow over the mountains as well that system is edging its way eastward still giving some fairly heavy snowfalls as it does say be easing a fraction as edges its way eastwards for monday therefore some of us in the eastern parts of canada will see some snow but also be plenty more looking in from the pacific. who sponsored. this is al-jazeera. and that is our life from our headquarters and. coming up in the next sixty minutes
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as mass protests once again fill venezuela's capital embattled president nicolas maduro makes an election offer. a rare hope for peace in the central african republic after fourteen armed groups reach a deal with the government. the last child refugees held in an australian run prison camp are finally getting a new home boss. either of the people in the photo a u.s. state governor changes his story about a racist picture that appeared under his name. to go with its super bowl sunday fans of the los angeles rams and new england patriots have taken over the city of atlanta ahead of the big game that i'm all for in the program. hello venezuela's president nicolas maduro is proposing early parliamentary
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elections as pressure grows on him to resign but the opposition leader fido's sees that as a poit by maduro to stay in power and instead wants a presidential election or latin america editor on the sea a new man reports from. it looked and sounded like a carnival. as far as the eye could see answer an opposition leader. to increase pressure to force president nicolas maduro out. anyone else any other alternative is better than this government they've been in power for twenty years and done nothing but starve us. after years of frustrated attempts they feel changes in the air. this time is different because we have to help before the country's carnage. the last march we have to go to was. just hours earlier an
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air force general defected the first top ranking officer to do so since why the offered them an amnesty a stinging blow. that the military's loyalty is crucial to his political survival. this is. getting to be. on the other side of president gathered his supporters he's vowed to never give in to pressure from servants of the u.s. empire as he calls the opposition but one of the rejects demands for a new presidential elections he's offering an alternative. i agree but the legislature should be religious by the country and that we hold free elections with guarantees and may the people decide on the national assembly. want is for my.
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self proclaimed interim president announced his next move the imminent arrival to the border of humanitarian aid in israel is most needy i say that earlier al jazeera asked him if he army would. and. lao the aid to cross into that is way a lot from neighboring colombia and brazil. that is i hope that the patriot takes over in soldiers who respect the constitution will withdraw the support of majority and give it to the people of venezuela who need that food. as the power struggle continues all eyes will soon be on the border to see how this latest challenge to the embattled government plays out to see in human al-jazeera got access to a peace deal is expected to be signed within hours to end six years of fighting between muslims and christians in the central african republic government leaders
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struck the deal with fourteen armed groups after a week of talks in sudan backed by the united nations and the african union the fighting has killed thousands of people mohamad valve joining us from sudan's capital khartoum so the devil is in the detail mohamed what do we know about this peace agreement. not much in so far we're expecting the full document of this agreement to be revealed in about three hours from now when the two presidents of sudan and the central african republic attend the signing ceremony with the initials the official ceremony in the central african republic will take place next wednesday we know only the broad lines of this agreement including including the creation of the formation of an inclusive national unity government between all the parties of this conflict and also an amnesty to the warlords in this conflict that's a very sticking point that has been the subject to many controversies and
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discussions during this long week of talks here in khartoum the hope now after seven at least seven failed peace agreements in the past one of them signed last year in august here in ca to whom the hope now is that because most of the leaders of those factions the military or the armed factions in the central african republic have personally as attended these talks and are going to sign this agreement there is a high hope now among the the central african people that this time around that peace agreement will hold it has been six years of devastating conflict sectarian conflict between muslims and christians in the central african republic and it has caused the death of many thousands and the displacement of almost one million people between those who are displaced internally and those who have who had to flee the country so it it's high time. central african factions
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came to a conclusion to this and brought final peace to the country val thank you. the democratic republic of congo's main opposition leader martin for you is urging supporters to embrace peaceful resistance he believes his rival felix just colluded with the former president to steal december's election victoria gate and he reports . show support for martin for you live by those who believe he is the democratic republic of congo's legitimate president his message is a rally in the capital kinshasa was uncompromising and. nothing can work when they've tried to steal victory from us we will peacefully continue with our resistance without end you voted for me and this is your victory. last month the highest court in the democratic republic of congo dismissed in a pill buy for you live he said the december thirtieth presidential election was
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rigged for you argued that felix chee sickie had made a power sharing deal with outgoing president joseph kabila a charge both men deny. the message of martin fire president is very clear we must resist peacefully and till we get back out victory our country must be controlled by someone who is voted in by a nomination. the lead up to the pulse of violence and controversy over the decision to delay voting in some areas for health and security reasons which in effect meant that more than one and a quarter million people from an electorate of almost forty million were excluded the african union as well as the french and german governments raised doubts about the outcome of the election. the people around the country voted for for you the result is clear he is the winner people who have rigged this election will be
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responsible for what happens next we will not accept a victory that is stolen from us she said he was sworn in as president last month cold for peace and security but the you lou and his supporters say they are determined to fight for what they believe is justice victoria gate and be al jazeera. pope francis has appealed for an end to the war in yemen ahead of his historic visit to the united arab emirates addressing a crowd in the vatican city the head of the catholic church also urged those involved in the conflicts to respect a fragile cease fire he later boarded a flight to abu dhabi where he'll meet the crown prince it's the first time a pope has visited the arabian peninsula or earlier human rights watch released an open letter to pope francis say he should use his visit to press the u.s. government to end violations in the m. and part of it reads the u.a.e. plays a prominent role in the saudi led coalition's military operations in yemen since more it's twenty fifteen the coalition has indiscriminately bombed homes markets
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and schools impeded the delivery of humanitarian aid and used widely banned cluster munitions human rights watch has documented nearly ninety apparently unlawful coalition attacks some of them likely war crimes speaking of yemen warring sides are holding talks right now aboard a boat in the red sea trying to save the whole day the truce the meeting between the saudi u.a.e. backed government and who the rebels is being chaired by the u.n. outgoing monitor retard general patrick come ere the sides are discussing how to implement a peace agreement reached in sweden last year and called for a withdrawal of forces from hyundai the home of a crucial sea port city correspondent he's covered yemen extensively he is here to break down this meeting for us because it's the third such meeting of this joint committee. what are you hearing about what will be discussed the steps going forward the meeting is still underway and the u.n. hopes to achieve the following first of all they would like to ensure that you. in
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the city of her data of the ports. oversee the operation of the withdrawal of forces from the city. from the port to would like to consolidate the cease fire agreement. but they facing huge obstacles when it comes to the withdrawal of the with advisors the hope is are saying there will only pull out if the fighting comes to an end nationwide number two they're not going to hand over control of the city or hurt it or to the government the government is saying they're of the ones who definitely have to have a bigger say in running the data and i think this is where the u.n. is facing a problem an indication that it's a huge challenge for the patrick comer took over about a month and a half ago to be able to salvage a deal now this is going to be his last mission because he's leaving so he explains that the u.n. is still struggling to bring all the parties to negotiate a permanent political settlement and i suppose the location of that meeting taking
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place on a ship in the red sea just tells us how both parties distrust each other definitely the. the trust deficit has been widening of a since two thousand and fifteen patrick comer to a. redeployment committee tried once and his convoy came under fire in her data the problem is that in the data itself despite the fragile cease fire you have intense fighting on the askers of the city the these are saying that this is the because of the star the u.a.e. coalition and the government we are shelling areas the government is saying the houthi is are targeting civilians so the u.n. is facing a huge problem when it comes to consolidating the cease fire in in her data and by the way it was not only about the cease fire they were hoping to implement an x. president exchange deal stuff happening.


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