The United States has ordered the withdrawal of some of its diplomatic personnel stationed in Saudi Arabia, one of its main allies in the Middle East, following attacks by Houthi militias from Yemen. The petromonarchy suffers constant attacks from this group allied with Iran, such as the one this Wednesday night that left one dead and eight injured at the King Fahd International Airport in Dammam, in the east of the country. Families of personnel at American embassies in the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Qatar, and Bahrain are also being evacuated.

In Riyadh, cars fill the roads, restaurants receive customers and football matches are played. But, under this appearance of normality, an uneasiness that is difficult to erase has settled in: not knowing when the next alert will sound or where the next projectile might fall. The wave of attacks by the Houthis from Yemen has hit strategic infrastructures and has exposed the limits of a country that has invested enormous resources in defense.

Being able to participate in the Dakar Rally is the dream of many motor sports fans. In the Pedró household, father and son have achieved it. If Josep the father did the longest Dakar of all time crossing Africa from end to end in 1992, Josep the son (Barcelona, 1987) has already completed three editions in Saudi Arabia. In the last one, he was second in the toughest motorcycle category, the original by Motul', in which one participates without assistance. Now he is preparing for the next edition, but he does so with anxiety, denouncing that it seems impossible to hold the race in Saudi Arabia, since the conflict in Yemen and the Persian Gulf do not allow for guaranteed safety, with drones attacking Saudi territory on a regular basis.

The King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, the second busiest in Saudi Arabia, has remained closed this Monday after several days of missile attacks claimed by Yemen's Houthi rebels. This weekend alone, projectile impacts caused at least fourteen deaths and more than 300 injuries, according to available tolls. Given this situation, the airport is expected to remain closed until next Saturday, October 17, according to an official aeronautical notice issued this Monday and reported by Reuters.

At least 13 people have died and more than 300 others have been injured in a missile attack at King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia. Saturday's bombing is the third attack on the airport this week and the deadliest in the country since May 2015, when the war in Yemen had already entered a phase of intensified fighting between Saudi forces – which supported the internationally recognized Yemeni government – and Houthi rebels. Saudi authorities attribute the attack to the Houthi rebels, aligned with Iran, and have described it as a "war crime". They have also announced that they will respond to the offensive.

There is a strait south of the Red Sea that helps explain why the Houthis have ceased to be just an actor in the Yemen war: Bab el-Mandeb, the maritime passage that connects the Gulf of Aden with the Red Sea and through which 12% of global trade passes. In recent weeks, the group, aligned with Iran, has advanced along the western coast of Yemen and has consolidated positions at strategic points in the strait. At the same time, has resumed attacks against Saudi Arabia and has announced a blockade against ships linked to the kingdom.Now, the Houthis have a position that allows them to threaten one of the main maritime routes between Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. And they do so while the war between Iran and the United States has turned the Strait of Hormuz into the other major focus of maritime tension in the region.“The Houthis have a real capacity for pressure. They cannot indefinitely close traffic through the Red Sea, but they can certainly increase costs, generate uncertainty, and periodically interrupt commercial and energy flows,” explains Neil Quilliam to ARA, a researcher at the Middle East and North Africa program at the international analysis center Chatham House. According to the expert, they do not need to close the strait: it is enough for them to increase the risk.If sailing through the Red Sea is too expensive or unsafe, companies can divert ships around the Cape of Good Hope, on the Atlantic coast of South Africa, with more days of navigation and higher costs. Thus, Tehran and its allies can exert pressure from two different points on two key routes for global trade and energy.The Houthis, who officially call themselves Ansar Allah (Partisans of God), are part of the so-called "axis of resistance," the network of armed and political actors linked to Iran, and they receive military and technological support from Tehran. A 2024 UN report documents transfers of military material, assistance, and training linked to Iran and other actors in the axis to the Zaydi Shia group. Although Iran denies supplying weapons to the group and claims its support is only political, the Houthis have gone from being a local militia in northern Yemen to possessing about 350,000 fighters and a significant arsenal of missiles, drones, and anti-ship weapons.The role of the Houthis in the US-Iran confrontation

Various reports from the analysis centers Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Chatham House point out that the Houthis can now act as a negotiation instrument for Iran before Washington, in a war that has already been going on for seven months. But this does not mean that Tehran controls the group's decisions. The movement has a command structure, territorial interests, and its own political agenda. Control of the coast, in fact, responds to its own interests: it gives them more capacity to pressure Saudi Arabia, strengthens their position ahead of future negotiations regarding Yemen, and expands their control over the oil and gas in the areas they dominate.

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We read in ARA that footballer Esther González, former Madrid striker and world champion with Spain, has “deleted the photos she had with her wife and son from her public profiles, just as her signing” for Al-Qadisiyya, a Saudi Arabian club, has been made official. You know, readers, that the country of Lawrence condemns relationships between people of the same gender (death penalty, specifically).

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Controversy on social media over the move of a Spanish footballer after signing for Al-Qadissiyya, a club in Saudi Arabia. Esther González, former forward for Madrid and world champion with Spain, has accepted a very attractive financial offer and then deleted photos she had with her wife and son from her public profiles, just as her signing has been made official. The Saudi country is known for being against the rights of the LGBTIQ+ community and for persecuting same-sex relationships.

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"An attack against Saudi Arabia will also be considered an attack against Turkey and Pakistan. And vice versa." This is established by the trilateral defense agreement reached this Friday in Mecca between Riyadh, Ankara and Islamabad, which commits the three countries to respond jointly to an aggression against any of them.

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For decades, the relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia was built on a known balance: Washington guaranteed the kingdom's security, and Riyadh ensured the stability of the global energy market. A pact born in the second half of the 20th century that turned Saudi Arabia into a strategic partner for American policy in the Middle East.

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The United States and Saudi Arabia on Wednesday closed a civil nuclear cooperation agreement that would open the door to the development of a Saudi nuclear program without some of the safeguards traditionally required by Washington. U.S. President Donald Trump has assured that "there will be no enrichment of nuclear material" and that the program will be exclusively for civilian uses. He also specified that the pact will only go ahead if Saudi Arabia adheres to the Abraham Accords, promoted by the United States in 2020, and if it normalizes relations with Israel. Riyadh has not yet reacted publicly.

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The Houthis have once again opened a new front in the war between the United States and Iran. The Yemeni group has claimed a missile and drone attack against two Saudi oil tankers sailing in the Red Sea, in compliance with the threat issued days earlier to impose a maritime blockade against ships linked to Saudi Arabia crossing the Bab el-Mandeb strait. The attack has caused several oil tankers to alter their route, shipping companies to review their plans, and increased concern about a new disruption of world trade on one of the planet's most strategic maritime routes.

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The President of the United States, Donald Trump, is running a marathon to dynamite all the international rules that have been built over the years and, with his direct action, or with his alliances, to work towards a world in which, effectively, only the law of the strongest or, also, the law of the richest prevails. This is the case of the agreement he has signed with Saudi Arabia to allow the great Gulf power to enrich uranium in its own territory for nuclear fuel. In principle, it would not have military purposes, but, unlike other previous agreements with third countries, such as the United Arab Emirates, it is not foreseen, according to what has transpired so far, that there will be strict security clauses or the requirement of full access for inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency. It simply mentions "high standards of nuclear safety" and "nuclear non-proliferation." Although it is an agreement that has been negotiated for many years, it was initially linked to Saudi Arabia's commitment to recognize the State of Israel - which was cut short after Hamas's attacks on October 7 - and had more limits than are now foreseen to be imposed.

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The Houthi movement in Yemen announced on Monday a naval blockade against Saudi Arabia, expanding the war in the Middle East and adding instability to global hydrocarbon trade. The Iran-linked armed group stated in a communiqué that it declares "a maritime embargo against the criminal Saudi enemy, based on the eye-for-an-eye equation, with immediate effect," in response to what it described as an "unjust and oppressive siege" imposed by Riyadh on Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen.

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While the United States and Iran exchange attacks and threats, Qatari mediators are keeping talks open in Tehran. Barely 48 hours after Donald Trump declared the memorandum of understanding "dead" and ordered new air strikes against Iranian infrastructureIranian infrastructure, the diplomatic channel remains open. In a post on Truth Social, the President of the United States has reflected the instability of the truce: "The Islamic Republic of Iran has asked us to continue the talks. We have agreed, but the United States has clearly told them that the ceasefire is OVER!".

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The life of the economist, politician, and writer Antoni Vives (Barcelona, 1965) took a radical turn when, in 2018, he landed in Saudi Arabia to meet with the country's prince, Mohammed bin Salman, and the team with which he was preparing Vision 2030, which was to translate into the urbanization of a region in the middle of the desert "the size of Belgium" called Neom – which integrates the words new and future– to build "a city designed for nine million inhabitants" in the middle of the desert. He has now decided to explain the seven years he spent leading that mammoth project in a memoir literary and very interesting, In the secret country (Pòrtic, 2026), which does not hide the contradictions of an absolute monarchy guided by Sharia, capable of having a journalist critical of the regime murdered and dismembered as Jamal Khashoggi and which, at the same time, has the aspiration to modernize itself. Vives's own trajectory will surprise more than one reader. In addition to winning the Crexells prize with Farringdon Road's Dream (La Magrana, 2011) and the Bookseller with And tomorrow, paradise (RBA, 2014), has been deputy mayor for Urbanism between 2011 and 2015 at Barcelona City Council —during Xavier Trias's last term— and in 2022 was sentenced to two years in prison, settled with a compensation of 155,000 euros, for irregular contracting of the then mayor of Santa Coloma de Cervelló, Jesús Arévalo, by the entity Barcelona Regional, which Vives had chaired.

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Only Pelé had managed to score the first goal of a World Cup match at eighteen years old or younger. Until Lamine Yamal arrived. The Rocafonda genius was in charge of scoring the first goal in Spain's thrashing of Saudi Arabia in Atlanta (4-0), a match where Luis de la Fuente's team shook off the bad feelings from their weak debut against Cape Verde. If against the Africans Spain couldn't even score a single goal, against the Saudis they already had three in 25 minutes. Between Lamine Yamal and a brilliant Mikel Oyarzabal, Spain thrashed in a match that became increasingly disjointed as the minutes passed, as Luis De la Fuente's team had quickly finished the job. In fact, he substituted Lamine Yamal at halftime to protect him, because the future of the national team in the World Cup depends heavily on him.

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"Anything to declare?" Most people have heard this phrase when their plane had just landed. But customs control is more flexible when it affects authorities. Miguel Sebastián, former Minister of Industry (2008-2011), recently recounted how gifts on official trips were managed – at least in his time. In 2008, already on board the Falcon during the return flight from the city of Jeddah (Saudi Arabia), a royal emissary handed him a leather wallet that hid luxury jewelry inside. He decided not to take the gift home and it is currently in a display case at the ministry, but he recalls that the officials told him: "The most common thing was for us ministers to keep the gifts."Sebastián intended to defend the former Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero for the jewelry case that he will have to justify before the judge – which come from "inheritances and gifts", according to his spokesperson. But the former minister ended up opening up the can of worms about whether there are many gifts of this kind on official trips that end up at the homes of monarchs, presidents, and ministers, which often land at Torrejón de Ardoz air base (Madrid), the military facilities where official Falcon-type planes are housed.

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The politician, writer, economist, and urban planning consultant Antoni Vives has lived for six and a half years in Saudi Arabia, at the service of Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS), designing and promoting the construction of the linear city Neom, in the desert at the northern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, on the Red Sea coast; a unique commitment to sustainable modernity, conceived for architects and engineers as well as botanists. Civilization and nature: 170 km long, on paper it is designed to run on renewable energies and intended for 9 million inhabitants who will not need to use cars, with all personal and collective services within 5 minutes. It is the largest open-air construction project in the world. Will they succeed?

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Of all the Persian Gulf monarchies that have suffered attacks from Iran since Washington initiated the war, Saudi Arabia is in the most confusing position, immersed in a genuine strategic dilemma. Among other reasons, because it is the largest and most powerful country in the region, the one with the oldest and closest ties to the United States, but the one which, along with Oman, has suffered least from the wrath of the ayatollah regime. At least, until now. Therefore, contradictory news has been published about how and when Riyadh would like the war to end, and what its future security strategy might be, given the failure of the current one.

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