• A US citizen embroiled in a legal battle with her Saudi ex-husband over their daughter has lost — laying bare the Kingdom's archaic legal system.
• Bethany Vierra, a Washington state native moved to Saudi Arabia in 2011 and married a Saudi in 2013. They divorced in 2017 and have been embroiled in a bitter dispute over custody of their daughter Zaina, 4, since.
• Vierra's story came to prominence after The New York Times reported husband Ghassan al-Haidari was using his power as Vierra's legal guardian to prevent her leaving the country with Zaina.
• On Sunday, a Saudi judge ruled Vierra's video evidence — allegedly showing al-Haidari taking drugs in front of Zaina — was worthless as it was not witnessed by a man.
• Her husband's other defence was that he swore to Allah he did not commit any offences. This was sufficient for the judge, who ruled Zaina would live with al-Haidari's mother, who lives in the same house.
• INSIDER understands Vierra has 30 days to appeal the ruling, and will do so.
• Visit INSIDER's homepage for more stories. 

A custody battle between a US citizen and her ex-husband over their 4-year-old daughter in a Saudi court has exposed the harsh realities facing women in the country's legal system.

On Sunday, a Saudi judge granted custody of 4-year-old Zaina, the daughter of Washington state native Bethany Vierra, to ex-husband Ghassan al-Haidari's family, Vierra confirmed to INSIDER.

The ruling was made despite video evidence allegedly showing him verbally abusing her and taking drugs in front of the child.

Vierra was granted a divorce from al-Haidari in 2017, and has been engaged in a bitter legal battle with the Saudi businessman since November 2018. 

In a ruling made on Sunday, a copy of which INSIDER has reviewed, the judge wrote Zaina would reside exclusively with her grandmother because Vierra wasn't a Muslim and because evidence allegedly showing al-Haidari smoking hashish wasn't valid as it had not been witnessed by a man. 

The judge said in his ruling: "Since the mother is new to Islam and a foreigner in this country and embraces customs and traditions in the way she was raised, we must avoid exposing Zaina to these traditions." 

The case highlights both the Kingdom's opressive guardianship system and difficulties women face in the courts. 

Under the system, women are considered second-class citizens and have the same rights as children. Women need male permission to leave the home, get married, and to travel abroad.

Vierra's story rose to prominence after The New York Times reported al-Haidari was using his power as Vierra's legal guardian to prevent her leaving the country with Zaina.

On Sunday, the judge disregarded evidence against Vierra's husband because he swore to Allah he had not committed an offence.

Vierra's husband had previously used his power as her legal male guardian to prevent her from taking Zaina to visit family in Washington state.

Last week Saudi Arabia hinted it would amend the guardianship law pertaining to women needing permission to  leave the country, after a global backlash to the government's Absher app, first revealed by INSIDER.

Vierra moved to Saudi Arabia in 2011 to teach at a women's university. While there, she met al-Haidari. They married in 2013 at a destination wedding in Portugal. Vierra now runs a yoga studio in Riyadh.

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NOW WATCH: YouTube is in dangerous territory after not removing a video that ridiculed a Vox producer for being gay

• Jeffrey Epstein had a foreign passport that was linked to an address in Saudi Arabia in order to protect him from "potential kidnappers, hijackers, or terrorists," his lawyers wrote in a letter submitted to the court on Tuesday.  
• Federal prosecutors discussed the passport at a bail hearing on Monday, which was found in a locked safe in Epstein's home along with over $70,000 in cash and loose diamonds, court papers revealed.
• In a letter to district judge Richard Berman filed on Tuesday, prosecutors followed up on that claim writing, "The Government is attempting to obtain additional information about the Foreign Passport, including how it was obtained and whether the passport is genuine or fabricated."
• The passport was issued in the 1980s and appeared to have a photo of Epstein but was under a different name. His residence was listed in Saudi Arabia, prosecutors said.
• It is unclear how Epstein obtained the foreign passport and whether it is legitimate. 
• Epstein's lawyers argued that the passport acquired in the 1980s was only used "for personal protection" in connection with Middle East travel because Epstein is Jewish.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Jeffrey Epstein, the financier recently charged with crimes related to sex trafficking, had a foreign passport that was linked to an address in Saudi Arabia in order to protect him from "potential kidnappers, hijackers, or terrorists," his lawyers wrote in new court documents filed on Tuesday.

In court papers filed in conjunction with his bail request, Epstein's lawyers say a foreign passport discovered by federal agents during a raid on his Manhattan mansion was from Austria and "expired 32 years ago."

They argued that the passport was only used "for personal protection." 

"Epstein – an affluent member of the Jewish faith — acquired the passport in the 1980s, when hijackings were prevalent, in connection to Middle East travel," they wrote. "The passport was for personal protection in the event of travel to dangerous areas, only to be presented to potential kidnappers, hijackers or terrorists should violent episodes occur." 

"The government offers nothing to suggest — and certainly no evidence — that Epstein ever used it," his lawyers argued. 

Federal prosecutors discussed the passport at a bail hearing on Monday, which was found in a locked safe in Epstein's home along with over $70,000 in cash and loose diamonds, court papers revealed. The passport was reportedly issued in the 1980s and appeared to have a photo of Epstein but was under a different name. His residence was listed in Saudi Arabia.

Prosecutors said the discovery of the passport suggests that Epstein posed a flight risk and should remain in jail, according to NBC News. They added that the other objects found in the safe supported the notion that Epstein was prepared "to leave the jurisdiction at a moment's notice."

In a letter to the judge filed on Tuesday, prosecutors followed up on that claim writing, "The Government is attempting to obtain additional information about the Foreign Passport, including how it was obtained and whether the passport is genuine or fabricated."

"But the defendant's possession of what purports to be a foreign passport issued under an alias gives rise to the inference the defendant knows how to obtain false travel documents and/or assume other, foreign identities," they continued. "This adds to the serious risk of flight posed by the defendant."

It is unclear how Epstein obtained the foreign passport and whether it is legitimate. 

Epstein was charged with sex trafficking of minors and conspiracy to commit sex trafficking. The indictment against Epstein, unsealed last week, alleges that between 2002 and 2005 "Epstein sexually exploited and abused dozens of underage girls" and convinced others to engage in sex acts for money. 

Read more:Jeffrey Epstein reportedly wired $350,000 to 2 people after a bombshell 2018 report, prosecutors say

Epstein previously cut a deal with the US Attorney's Office in Miami in 2008 to avoid federal charges, pleading guilty to state prostitution charges and registering as a sex offender. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison but only served 13 months in a private wing of the Palm Beach County Jail where he was allowed to work in an office six days per week. 

The billionaire financier is currently being held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan. He has pleaded not guilty. If convicted, he faces up to 45 years in federal prison.

Epstein's legal team has asked the court to allow him to surrender his current passport and live under house arrest, Reuters said. US District Judge Richard Berman, who is presiding over Epstein's case, is set to respond to Epstein's bail request on Thursday. 

SEE ALSO: The former prime minister of Israel defended his business dealings with Jeffrey Epstein: 'You expect me to have noticed?'

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NOW WATCH: Why the US border facilities are 'concentration camps,' according to historians

• Saudi Arabia booked four major US rappers to headline a landmark music festival after Nicki Minaj pulled out over the kingdom's poor human-rights record.
• Jeddah World Fest 2019 announced on Wednesday that Future, 50 Cent, Chris Brown, and Tyga would headline the show, which takes place Thursday. 
• Minaj pulled out of the festival on July 9 "after better educating myself" over Saudi Arabia's poor treatment of the LGBT community. Being gay in Saudi Arabia is punishable with the death penalty.
• Janet Jackson will also join the bill for the gig at Jeddah's KASC Stadium, which had already secured sets from Liam Payne and Steve Aoki.
• The Human Rights Foundation has called on all performers to quit, labeling Saudi Arabia "one of the world's worst human rights violators."
• Visit INSIDER's homepage for more stories.

Saudi Arabia has booked four major US rappers to reinforce the headline slot of a landmark music festival after Nicki Minaj cancelled in protest over the kingdom's human-rights record.

Jeddah World Fest 2019 — billed as the largest-ever music concert in the country — announced on Wednesday that 50 Cent, Tyga, Future, and Chris Brown would join the bill, just 24 hours before doors were set to open.

Janet Jackson was also announced as a performer at the alcohol-free festival, which is organized by Saudi Seasons, a state-sponsored project aiming to make Saudi Arabia a desirable tourist destination.

The festival is set to begin at 8.45 p.m. local time (1.45 p.m. ET).

On July 9, Minaj announced she was pulling out of the festival"after better educating myself" about Saudi Arabia's poor treatment of the LGBT community.

The Human Rights Foundation penned letters to Janet Jackson, 50 Cent, Chris Brown, Tyga, and Future on Wednesday, calling for them to boycott the festival. The foundation is leading a charge to educate musicians who want to cash in on lucrative paychecks for playing in Saudi Arabia.

"The Human Rights Foundation considers the Saudi regime to be one of the world's worst human rights violators and has contacted Minaj, urging her to cancel her performance, refuse the regime's money," they wrote.

Liam Payne and Steve Aoki also faced calls from rights groups to pull out, but the pair are still scheduled to perform.

The festival also faced embarrassment earlier this month after it announced, falsely, that MTV would broadcast the festival worldwide.

MTV denied the claim shortly afterward, telling Arabian Business: "MTV is not and was never broadcasting or participating in the Jeddah World Festival."

Jeddah World Fest has since retracted that claim from its website.

After Minaj pulled out of the festival, she said she feared inadvertently getting arrested in the conservative Islamic country.

"I could make one mistake & go to jail in a diff country where women have no rights," she tweeted.

The kingdom's human rights record has been under intensified scrutiny since the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in October 2018.

Being gay in Saudi Arabia is punishable with the death penalty.

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NOW WATCH: 'Shark Tank' star Robert Herjavec explains what makes America great

• A mysterious foreign passport found inside a safe in Jeffrey Epstein's Manhattan mansion had been used to travel to at least four countries in the 1980s, prosecutors said in court documents seen by The Daily Beast.
• The Austrian passport was found in a locked safe in Epstein's Manhattan mansion along with more than $70,000 in cash and several loose diamonds, prosecutors said, according to The Daily Beast.
• The passport appeared to have a photo of Epstein but was under a different name. The residence was listed in Saudi Arabia.
• Epstein's lawyers said in court papers on Tuesday that the passport was for "personal protection," and that prosecutors had offered no evidence that Epstein ever used the passport.
• But on Wednesday, prosecutors said stamps inside the now-expired passport suggest it was used to enter France, Spain, the United Kingdom, and Saudi Arabia in the 1980s, according to The Daily Beast and NBC News.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

A mysterious foreign passport found in a safe in convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein's home had been used to travel in and out of multiple countries in the 1980s, federal prosecutors said Wednesday.

It was found in a locked safe in Epstein's Manhattan mansion, along with $70,000 in cash and 48 loose diamonds, The Daily Beast cited prosecutors as saying.

The expired passport from Austria appeared to have a photo of Epstein, but was listed under a different name. The residence was listed in Saudi Arabia.

"The passport contains numerous ingress and egress stamps, including stamps that reflect use of the passport to enter France, Spain, the United Kingdom, and Saudi Arabia in the 1980s," prosecutors said in court documents published Wednesday, according to The Daily Beast and NBC News.

Epstein, a billionaire financier, was charged with sex trafficking of minors and conspiracy to commit sex trafficking earlier this month. He has pleaded not guilty and faces up to 45 years in prison.

Epstein's lawyers on Tuesday said the passport was from Austria and "expired 32 years ago" in court papers filed in conjunction with his bail request.

They added that the passport was for "personal protection" against "kidnappers, hijackers or terrorists" that may have wanted to target Epstein because of his Jewish faith. 

"The government offers nothing to suggest — and certainly no evidence — that Epstein ever used it," his lawyers argued.

Prosecutors said on Wednesday, however, that Epstein's lawyers had not yet addressed how Epstein obtained the foreign passport, or whether he is a citizen or resident outside the US.

"The defendant's submission does not address how the defendant obtained the foreign passport and, more concerning, the defendant has still not disclosed to the Court whether he is a citizen or legal permanent resident of a country other than the United States," they wrote, according to NBC News.

Read more:Jeffrey Epstein had a foreign passport that listed an address in Saudi Arabia to protect himself from 'hijackers or terrorists,' his lawyers claim in new court documents

Prosecutors said the discovery of the passport suggests that Epstein posed a flight risk and should remain in jail, NBC News reported.

They added that the other objects found in the safe alongside the passport — the cash and the loose diamonds — supported the notion that Epstein was prepared "to leave the jurisdiction at a moment's notice," according to NBC News.

Epstein is currently being held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan. 

Epstein's legal team has asked the court to allow him to surrender his current passport and live under house arrest, Reuters reported. 

SEE ALSO: 'You kissed me on the lips in front of the paparazzi': New report seems to reveal why NBC was filming Trump and Epstein at 1992 Mar-a-Lago party

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NOW WATCH: Secrets you probably didn't know about 7 famous landmarks in Washington, DC

• The Pentagon reportedly plans to send 500 troops to Saudi Arabia, as tensions between the US and Iran continue to heat up.
• The Pentagon said in June it planned to send another 1,000 troops to the Middle East, but did not say when or where the troops would be sent.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The US is poised to send hundreds of US troops to Saudi Arabia, according to new media reports.

CNN reports two US defense officials said 500 troops will deploy to Prince Sultan Air Base, which the US has eyed as a spot for increased presence because intelligence indicates the desert region would be difficult for Iranian missiles to strike.

The new troops would be in addition to a small number of troops and support personnel already in Saudi Arabia readying a Patriot missile defense battery and a runway.

The deployment is part of the Pentagon's plan to send 1,000 additional troops to the Middle East due to escalating tensions with Iran. The proposal was unveiled on June 17, but it was unclear exactly where the troops would be sent.

"The United States does not seek conflict with Iran," former Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan said at the time. "The action today is being taken to ensure the safety and welfare of our military personnel working throughout the region and to protect our national interests."

Congress has yet to receive formal notification of the troop movement, but were unofficially tipped off that the deployment would happen, according to CNN.

Although the Trump administration has sought to cozy up to Saudi Arabia, the United States' relationship with Saudi Arabia has been strained since the death of Washington Post's Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October 2018 as well as concerns about the ongoing Saudi-led fight in Yemen against Iran-supported Houthi rebels that has resulted in thousands of civilian casualties.

The Pentagon and US Central Command did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Military Times.

Pentagon spokesperson Cmdr. Rebecca Rebarich said no official announcement has been issued and that the military "continually works to manage our force posture in the region," according to The New York Times, who also reported the plans after CNN.

The US has already boosted its presence in the Persian Gulf in recent months. For example, the Trump administration sent the USS Abraham Lincoln, B-52 bombers, and a Patriot antimissile battery to the region in May.

Tensions have worsened since then, especially after Iran shot down a US surveillance drone on June 20. In response, the Trump administration was prepared to launch a military strike, but President Donald Trump said he backed off the plan after he learned the number of estimated casualties.

SEE ALSO: The Pentagon agrees to send another 2,100 troops to US-Mexico border

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NOW WATCH: Trump approved the largest weapons deal in US history — here's what Saudi Arabia is buying

• The US is sending American forces, including fighter aircraft, air defense missiles, and likely more than 500 troops, to a Saudi air base.
• The Saudi Foreign Ministry announced the basing agreement Friday without mentioning details.
• Senior US defense officials said some troops and Patriot air defense missile systems have already arrived at Prince Sultan Air Base, south of Riyadh, where the troops have been preparing for the arrival of aircraft later this summer as well as additional troops.
• Putting US combat forces back in Saudi Arabia, after an absence of more than a decade, adds depth to the regional alignment of US military power, which is mostly in locations on the Persian Gulf that are more vulnerable to Iranian missile attack.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

WASHINGTON (AP) — With Iranian military threats in mind, the United States is sending American forces, including fighter aircraft, air defense missiles and likely more than 500 troops, to a Saudi air base that became a hub of American air power in the Middle East in the 1990s but was abandoned by Washington after it toppled Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein in 2003.

The Saudi Foreign Ministry announced the basing agreement Friday without mentioning details.

Senior American defense officials said some US troops and Patriot air defense missile systems have already arrived at Prince Sultan Air Base, south of Riyadh, where the troops have been preparing for the arrival of aircraft later this summer as well as additional troops. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity in order to provide details not publicly announced.

The agreement has been in the works for many weeks and is not a response specifically to Friday's seizure by Iran of a British tanker in the Persian Gulf. Tensions with Iran have spiked since May when the Trump administration said it had detected increased Iranian preparations for possible attacks on US forces and interests in the Gulf area.

Read more: 'Relax and speak to America': US soldiers in Trump's military parade are handed instructions on what not to say

In a written statement Friday evening, US Central Command said the deployments to Saudi Arabia had been approved by the Pentagon.

"This movement of forces provides an additional deterrent, and ensures our ability to defend our forces and interests in the region from emergent, credible threats," Central Command said. "This movement creates improvement of operational depth and logistical networks. US Central Command continually assesses force posture in the region and is working with Kingdom of Saudi Arabia authorities to base US assets at the appropriate locations."

Putting US combat forces back in Saudi Arabia, after an absence of more than a decade, adds depth to the regional alignment of US military power, which is mostly in locations on the Persian Gulf that are more vulnerable to Iranian missile attack.

But it also introduces a political and diplomatic complication for the Trump administration, accused by critics of coddling the Saudis even after the murder last fall of dissident writer Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents. Many in Congress now question the decades-old US-Saudi security alliance and oppose major new arms sales to the kingdom.

Starting with the January 1991 air war against Iraq after its invasion of Kuwait the previous summer, the US flew a wide range of aircraft from Prince Sultan air base, originally known as al-Kharj. Supported by an all-American array of creature comforts like fast-food restaurants and swimming pools, US forces there flew and maintained Air Force fighters and other warplanes.

The base also served as a launch pad for the December 1998 bombing of Iraq, code-named Operation Desert Fox, which targeted sites believed to be associated with Iraq's nuclear and missile programs. In 2001, the base became home to the US military's main air control organization, known as the Combined Air Operations Center, which orchestrated the air war in Afghanistan until it was relocated in 2003 to al-Udeid air base in Qatar.

SEE ALSO: 'Relax and speak to America': US soldiers in Trump's military parade are handed instructions on what not to say

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NOW WATCH: Jeff Bezos is worth over $160 billion — here's how the world's richest man makes and spends his money

• President Donald Trump vetoed measures blocking his administration from selling billions of dollars in weapons and maintenance support to Saudi Arabia.
• The White House said that stopping the sale would send a signal that the US doesn't stand by its partners and allies.
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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has vetoed a trio of resolutions trying to block his administration from selling billions of dollars in weapons and maintenance support to Saudi Arabia.

Trump, who has sought to forge closer ties with Riyadh, had pledged to veto the resolutions of disapproval that passed the House and Senate last week.

The votes came against the backdrop of heightened US tensions with Iran.

The White House had argued that stopping the sale would send a signal that the United States doesn't stand by its partners and allies, particularly at a time when threats against them are increasing.

The arms package, worth an estimated $8 billion, includes thousands of precision guided munitions, other bombs and ammunition, and aircraft maintenance support for Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

SEE ALSO: There's a lurking danger the US-Iran powder keg in the Persian Gulf could be ignited in Iraq

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NOW WATCH: Jeff Bezos is worth over $160 billion — here's how the world's richest man makes and spends his money

• Saudi Arabia has long been planning a futuristic mega-city in the desert.
• A report from the Wall Street Journal included a wild array of details on the plans, including futuristic and bizarre features like something out of a sci-fi movie.
• Citing documents drawn up by three large consultancy firms, the Journal says the city could feature artificial rain, robotic maids, and holographic teachers.
• Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman wants to build the $500 billion project to diversify the Saudi economy and lessen its reliance on oil.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Fresh details have emerged about Saudi Arabia's wildly ambitious plan to build a $500 billion mega-city in the middle of the desert, officially known as the Neom project.

According to a report from the Wall Street Journal on Thursday, plans have been drawn up to furnish the city, which Saudi Arabia wants to be the size of Massachusetts, with a variety of futuristic, and in some cases, downright weird sounding, technologies.

The Journal cites reports created by three of the world's biggest consultancy firms — McKinsey & Co, Boston Consulting, and Oliver Wyman — all of whom have been employed to help plan the creation of Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman's vision for the city.

Read more: Saudi Arabia is building a $500 billion mega-city that's 33 times the size of New York City

The city will be known as Neom, a portmanteau of the Greek word neos, meaning "new," and mustaqbal, the Arabic word for "future."

Among the ideas presented in the consultants' reports, the Journal says, are artificial clouds to create rain in the desert, robotic maids to do housework, and a beach featuring glow-in-the-dark sand.

Proposed features mentioned in the consultancy reports are said to include:

• Flying taxis. In the future, one report says, according to the Journal: Driving is just for fun, no longer for transportation (e.g. driving Ferrari next to the coast with a nice view)."
• A giant artificial moon that will be illuminated every evening.
• A state-of-the-art security and surveillance system, which will use drones, security cameras, and facial recognition technology to track every citizen constantly.
• "Cloud seeding" technology to make artificial clouds and produce higher rainfall that naturally possible in the Saudi desert.
• School classes taught by holographic teachers. Neom will have the "leading education system on the planet," the consultants' reports say.
• A Jurassic Park-like island filled with robotic dinosaurs to entertain residents and visitors.
• A dining scene including the "highest rate of Michelin-starred restaurants per inhabitant" of any city in the world.

Neom is the centerpiece in bin Salman's Vision 2030 plan to modernize and diversify the Saudi economy, lessening the kingdom's reliance on fossil fuels.

Saudi Arabia is the world's second biggest producer of oil, narrowly behind the US in terms of production capacity.

As a result, its economic prosperity is linked closely with global oil prices, which are volatile.

Read more:Saudi Arabia is reportedly ditching laws that allow men to control women's travel with a government app

In October 2017, bin Salman first announced the project, at the Future Investment Initiative conference in Riyadh, saying at the time that Neom will "be a place for the dreamers for the world."

"Neom is all about things that are necessarily future-oriented and visionary," Neom Chief Executive Nadhmi al Nasr said in a statement to the Journal.

"So we are talking about technology that is cutting edge and beyond — and in some cases still in development and maybe theoretical," he added.

Read more:Saudi Arabia books Future, 50 Cent, and Chris Brown to headline landmark music festival after Nicki Minaj pulled out over the kingdom's human-rights record

While the Saudi government says the city will attract the "world's greatest minds and best talents" concerns have been raised about how the project will be funded.

According to the Journal's report, former employees of Neom, and people with knowledge of the project "don't know how much of the plan will become reality due to potential funding issues and technological limitations."

Initial stages of the city's planning and development have been funded by money borrowed from abroad, the Journal said, citing people familiar with the matter.

You can read the Wall Street Journal's full report here.

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NOW WATCH: 7 lesser-known benefits of Amazon Prime

• SoftBank's Vision Fund is the world's largest tech investor and has backed companies like Uber, WeWork, and Ola.
• In addition to its first $100 billion fund, it has just launched a second worth $108 billion, with backers including Apple and Microsoft. 
• The Vision Fund is most closely associated with SoftBank Group's CEO, Masayoshi Son. But the senior team is made up of a number of former investment bankers and technologists.
• Together, they're writing checks for billions of dollars and reshaping the tech landscape.
• Click here for more BI Prime stories.

Softbank's Vision Fund has set out to find the tech stars of tomorrow today.

Led by the billionaire Masayoshi Son, the $100 billion mega-fund drew astonishment, acclaim, and scorn upon its launch in 2017. And it has just unveiled a second, $108 billion, fund to pump further capital into the market.

Doling out checks in increments of at least $100 million, it has amassed a sprawling and formidable portfolio of about 80 tech investments in AI, semiconductors, e-commerce, transportation, and healthcare.

It backs some of the biggest names in tech today, including Uber, Slack, WeWork, and Grab.

Read more: SoftBank launched a whopping new $108 billion fund, and it will only inflate a tech bubble it's creating all on its own

The rich financial support has allowed tech companies to remain privately held for longer periods by providing liquidity for employees and resources for aggressive expansion campaigns.

The fund itself has grown quickly. It's claimed that it will soon have 800 staff, up from 400 in September. At the top, there are 34 key figures driving SoftBank forward, including investors, technologists, and talent spotters.

Of those managing partners and partners, 29 are men, five are women, and 15 are former investment bankers or traders.

Meet the SoftBank Vision Fund's top people.

SEE ALSO: WeWork's CEO explains why he thinks his $47 billion company is recession-proof and how he keeps his ego in check as a young billionaire

Masayoshi Son, chairman and CEO of SoftBank Group

Japan's richest man is something of an icon amongst tech investors.

Son is of South Korean descent and studied at UCLA Berkeley. He was an early investor in Yahoo and Alibaba and has since used his platform to invest in and acquire a variety of tech and telecom companies, including US wireless operator Sprint. He founded Softbank in 1981 and bet big on the internet, losing billions during the dot-com crash, but has remained committed and now plows billions of dollars into startups every year.

"I don't like No. 2. From my personality perspective, I can't accept No. 2. I need to be No. 1. I've been like that since I was a kid," Son is quoted as saying, according to TechCrunch.

Rajeev Misra, CEO, SoftBank Investment Advisers

Misra is SoftBank's executive vice president and serves as a director on SoftBank's board. He is also CEO of SoftBank Investment Advisers, the group that oversees the firm's $100 billion Vision Fund.

The 57-year-old grew up in Delhi, India, before attending the University of Pennsylvania to study mechanical engineering. He has said his dream when he was younger was to work at Bell Labs, the famous R&D institution, and he spent time earlier in his career working at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

From there he made his way to finance, making his name as a top trading executive at Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank, and UBS, and asset manager Fortress Investment Group.

He joined SoftBank in 2014 and became CEO of SoftBank Investment Advisers in May 2017. Since then he has helped oversee high-profile investments in several major tech startups including WeWork, and become the public face of the Vision Fund.

Ron Fisher, vice chairman, SoftBank Group

Ron Fisher founded SoftBank Capital in 1995, the investment arm of SoftBank Group that oversees the Vision Fund, where he has served as vice chairman and head of investment since stepping aside as Managing Partner in 2015.

Fisher has bet big on US based technology startups like mobile-device-storage company PogoPlug in December 2010, and workplace-rental company WeWork's parent The We Company in August 2017. He was also involved in the Vision Fund's $1 billion investment in sports apparel site Fanatics in September 2017.

Before joining SoftBank Group, Fisher served as the CEO of Phoenix Technologies, a system software developer for personal computers, and Interactive Systems, UNIX software company.

He sits on the board of Sprint, where he has been the vice chairman since SoftBank took majority ownership of the wireless carrier in 2013, and the chip manufacturer ARM, following an all-cash share offer in September 2016.

Akshay Naheta, managing partner, EMEA

Naheta joined the Vision Fund in 2017 from the London investment firm Knights Assets and Co., which he founded. His fund, which focused on arbitrage and value investing, made an annual return of 113% a year on $416 million in investments, according to VC Circle.

Before that, he followed a similar path to Misra. After studying electrical engineering at the University of Illinois and then studying for a doctorate at MIT, he took to finance, becoming a top trader at Deutsche Bank. There, he held roles across trading and structuring, including head of principal strategies, where he was responsible for proprietary trading and structured deals.

At the Vision Fund, he's been involved in investments in the car-dealing platform Auto1, the Brazilian e-commerce firm Loggi, the biotech Roivant, and the chipmaker Nvidia.

Colin Fan, managing partner, Americas, Asia

Colin Fan is one of the more storied members of the SoftBank elite.

Born in China, raised in Canada, and schooled at Harvard, Fan has said the odds of his becoming a doctor were "overwhelming." Instead, he went into finance, becoming a managing director at Deutsche Bank at just 28.

He rose to become head of Deutsche Bank's trading operation and made waves after appearing in an internal video warning traders "some of you are falling way short of our established standards."

He later left the German lender acrimoniously and subsequently sued the bank, before joining SoftBank in California in 2017.

He focuses on financial technology, given his background, and has been involved in deals including the recent $800 million financing of supply-chain finance funder Greensill Capital, which values the firm at $3.5 billion.

Deep Nishar, senior management partner, Americas

Nishar grew up in Mumbai without running water, according to a Bloomberg report, and after moving to the US he graduated from the University of Illinois and Harvard Business School.

He founded his own enterprise startup during business school and later moved to Google and then LinkedIn. He joined SoftBank Investment Advisors in 2015 as a senior managing partner sitting in the organization's San Carlos, California, office.

At SoftBank, he focuses his investments on startups in health tech and enterprise tech such as the workplace-communication tool Slack and the molecule manufacturer Zymergen.

He is particularly interested in artificial intelligence and genomics where it relates to health tech and bioengineering, with investments such as Guardant Health, Improbable, Petuum, Relay Therapeutics, and Vir.

Eric Chen, managing partner, Asia

Chen joined SoftBank in 2018, based in San Francisco, and oversees the Vision Fund's investments in Asian companies such as Alibaba and Guazi.

Born in China, Chen studied physics at Peking University and obtained a doctorate in electrical engineering from Stanford. Upon finishing at Stanford in 1998, he joined JPMorgan, working there for four years.

He then cofounded Brion Technologies, which specialized in computational lithography, serving as its chief executive and selling the company to semiconductor giant ASML in 2007. He then spent a number of years at private-equity firm Silver Lake, before taking the role of CEO at BaseBit Technologies.

Ervin Tu, managing partner, Americas

Ervin Tu joined SoftBank as the cohead of corporate finance and mergers and acquisitions in San Francisco with Alex Clavel after managing Goldman Sachs' technology, media, and telecommunications banking group, according to a Business Insider report.

Once he arrived, he helped get the Vision Fund off the ground, working with Rajeev Misra. Now the fund's set up, he's a managing partner for the Americas with a focus on sustainable investments.

He led SoftBank's $1.2 billion primary direct investment deal in Uber in December 2017, which valued the company above $70 billion, according to Crunchbase. And he also had a key role in the fund's investment in ByteDance, the company behind the popular TikTok app.

Greg Moon, managing partner, Asia

Tokyo-based, South Korea-raised Moon joined SoftBank in 1996 and previously ran the firm's early-stage capital business out of Seoul. Moon was the CEO and president of SoftBank Ventures Korea for 16 years before joining the Vision Fund as a managing partner for Asia in 2017.

He leads on the fund's business in the fintech, media, frontier tech, and real-estate sectors out of Asia and is responsible for the firm's investment in OneConnect, a fintech that is a subsidiary of the Chinese insurer Ping An. OneConnect could be set for an IPO this year, according to Reuters.

"I grew up in South Korea when it was a military dictatorship,"Moon said on the SoftBank website."I read a lot of science fiction, which fed my imagination both about technology and offered a vision of just future."

Jeff Housenbold, managing partner, Americas

Housenbold was part of the inaugural group of McDonald's MBA intern program, and went on to lead business development and marketing at a variety of consumer and technology companies, including eBay.

Before joining SoftBank in 2017, he led online creative suite Shutterfly as president and CEO for 11 years, taking the company public in 2006.

At SoftBank, he oversees real estate and consumer deals, and led the firm's investments in consumer startups like the dog-walking app Wag, the food-delivery company DoorDash, the e-commerce site Brandless, and the real-estate site OpenDoor.

He also led big ticket investments in prefab builder Kattera and delivery app Rappi. 

Kentaro Matsui, managing partner, Asia

Matsui focuses on investments in fintech, health tech, transportation, and logistics, particularly in Asia. He also leads SoftBank Investment Advisers Japan, a subdivision of SoftBank Investment Advisers.

Originally a banker, Matsui helped oversee SoftBank's acquisitions of companies, including Vodafone Japan and Arm Holdings.

The Tokyo-based investor obtained his undergraduate degree from Keio University in Japan and holds a law degree from New York University.

One of Matsui's companies, Brain Corp., recently completed a deal with Walmart to implement 1,500 floor-cleaning robots in its stores. The robots run on BrainOS, Brain Corp's flagship artificial-intelligence software.

Michael Ronen, managing partner, Americas

Michael Ronen joined SoftBank as a managing partner for the Vision Fund in July 2017 after more than 19 years at Goldman Sachs.

While growing up in Israel, Ronen was selected to study astrophysics and computer programming at Technion, the country's highly esteemed technical university. He joined Goldman Sachs's technology, telecom, and media group after completing his MBA at New York University's Stern School of Business, where he advised clients such as Apple and his current employer, SoftBank Group, according to his LinkedIn profile.

He leads investment in media and transportation industries for SoftBank, including February's blockbuster $1 billion investment in the logistics-management startup Flexport.

Munish Varma, managing partner, EMEA, Asia

Varma is one of SoftBank's biggest players in the fintech business and another major figure in the vision fund who worked for Deutsche Bank.

Originally from India, Varma took an MBA from Cornell University in 1997 and then worked at Nomura and Deutsche Bank, rising to head of global markets for India at the latter. He joined SoftBank in 2017.

Varma worked on the $440 million funding deal for British fintech OakNorth earlier this year, which gave the company a $2.8 billion valuation.

"We look for businesses that are addressing very significant pain points ... addressing markets that are massive, with a product that clearly satisfies their needs," Varma said at a fintech conference in London onstage with OakNorth in April.

Varma is also responsible for companies including Delhivery, FirstCry, Oyo, Paytm, and Policy Bazaar.

Praveen Akkiraju, managing partner, Americas, Asia

A former executive at Cisco Systems based out of San Francisco, Akkiraju is also an alumnus of Harvard Business School and has a master's in electrical engineering from Louisiana State University and a degree from the University of Madras.

Before joining SoftBank in 2018, he was CEO at two start-ups, VCE and Viptela. The latter was later acquired by Cisco while the former grew to a $1.2 billion company under his leadership.

One of Akkiraju's deals was intelligent automation company Automation Anywhere from India, which SoftBank Vision Fund led a $300 million funding for.

Akkiraju is a fan of roller coasters and regularly visits the biggest with his son.

Saleh Romeih, managing partner, SBIA EMEA

Romeih is a managing partner at SoftBank Investment Advisers. He also serves on the SBIA investment committee, helping oversee its diverse portfolio of investments in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

Born to a Syrian father and a Japanese mother, Romeih grew up in Japan and France and attended Georgetown University. After graduating from Georgetown, he obtained an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania in 1994.

Fluent in five languages, Romeih says his unusual background made him learn how to invent possibilities for himself as he had never been a natural fit in his surroundings.

After obtaining his MBA, he spent 18 years as a managing director at Deutsche Bank, before holding a similar post at Goldman Sachs from 2013 until 2016, when he joined SoftBank.

Brian Wheeler, managing partner, General Counsel

Brian Wheeler is the general manager and general counsel at SoftBank Investment Advisers, where he focuses on cross-border and venture-focused mergers and acquisitions.

Wheeler has had stints at international prestigious law firms like Shearman & Sterling LLP and Cooley LLP after graduating from New York University School of Law, according to his LinkedIn profile.

He started his career after college at Travelers Insurance, before deciding to quit to surf in Hawaii for nine months before moving to New York for law school.

Catherine Lenson, managing partner, global head of HR

Catherine Lenson joined SoftBank Investment Advisors as partner and global head of HR in October 2017 and was promoted to managing partner in April.

Based in London, Lenson graduated from Cambridge University with a master's in French and Italian. She joined UBS as an HR graduate in 2004 and worked her way up to head up reward for the bank's UK and European business during her 13 years with the organization, according to her LinkedIn profile.

One of Lenson's key objectives for SoftBank has been to build diversity within the broader organization.

Navneet Govil, managing partner, CFO

As SoftBank's managing partner and chief financial officer, Navneet Govil is one of the most important people at SoftBank Investment Advisers. His hand-selected 30-person finance team has a key role in the eye-popping investment amounts that grab headlines and propel startups into unicorn territory.

Govil was born in Zambia and attended a school his father started adjacent to his work at a university for refugees in their rural town.

He later attended the University of Rochester and Cornell University's SC Johnson School of Business before moving on to energy company SunPower Corp. as vice president and treasurer in San Jose, California.

Neil Hadley, managing partner, chief of staff

Neil Hadley operates largely behind the scenes as SoftBank Investment Advisors' chief of staff and managing partner on the Vision Fund, a role he took on in October 2017. Hadley works closely with Vision Fund CEO Rajeev Misra to develop procedures and processes that help the fund function as efficiently as possible.

Before joining SoftBank Investment Advisers, Hadley spent more than two decades with UBS in London and New York City. He held various roles during his tenure according to his LinkedIn profile, and worked closely with the then UBS CEO and COO during the financial crisis, helping to create a so-called bad bank for legacy assets the bank wanted to run down.

Ruwan Weerasekera, COO

Ruwan Weerasekera joined SoftBank Investment Advisers as the chief operating officer for the Vision Fund in October and is based in London. As COO, Weerasekera's self-reported short attention span helps him be intensely focused on a new challenge facing the firm every day.

Before joining SoftBank, Weerasekera held various roles across a wide variety of organizations including Accenture, UBS, and IV Capital. He started his own consulting business in 2015, according to his LinkedIn profile. He also holds director positions on Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Standard Bank and the National Health Service Trust.

Andreas Hansson, partner, EMEA

Hansson is another of the technical experts leading the Vision Fund's pursuit of new companies. He holds a corporate doctorate undertaken with Phillips in the Netherlands in electrical engineering in conjunction with the Eindhoven University of Technology.

Hansson subsequently worked as technical assistant to the CTO for Cambridge, UK-based ARM, the semiconductor engineering company, which was acquired by SoftBank in a $30 billion deal in 2016.

Based in London, Hansson focuses on sectors of "deep tech" including AI and Internet of Things technology.

He joined SoftBank as an investment director in 2017 before becoming a partner in April.

David Thevenon, partner, EMEA

London-based Thevenon is one of the key figures at SoftBank's Vision Fund on transport and works with major players in the ride-hailing space like India's Ola, China's DiDi, and southeast Asia's Grab.

The Frenchman is a Google alumnus, working there for 10 years as part of its Android development team. He joined SoftBank in 2014 before becoming a partner in 2016.

He focuses on the future of transportation, robotics, and fintech and is part of the Vision Fund team involved with online lender Kabbage.

Faisal Rehman, partner, EMEA

Based in the United Arab Emirates, Rehman helps oversee the company's investments in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Rehman graduated from the London School of Economics in 1992 with joint honors in economics, accounting, and finance. He then trained at the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, before serving in managerial roles at Ernst and Young's Warsaw and Sydney offices.

In 2000, Rehman left EY to join Deutsche Bank, working his way up from an associate role to managing director over 12 years. Like his SoftBank colleague, Saleh Romieh, Rehman worked at Deutsche Bank for 18 years in total.

Rehman is a keen horse rider and can be spotted horse-riding in the Arabian desert during his time away from work.

Justin Wilson, partner, Americas

Wilson joined SoftBank Investment Advisers as a partner in November 2015 and focuses on investing in the real-estate and consumer-technology sectors. He was part of the Vision Fund's investments in e-commerce startup Brandless, storage company Clutter, real-estate company Compass, and home-buying app OpenDoor, among others.

The Stanford Business School graduate spent his first years in the workforce in finance at firms like Lehman Brothers, Monitor Ventures, and The Boston Consulting Group before joining Google as the head of global business strategy. He left his role as head of global top accounts at Google for SoftBank.

Wilson grew up in a military family and lived in Korea, Texas, California, and Washington.

Kirthiga Reddy, venture partner, Americas

Reddy joined SoftBank Investment Advisers as a venture partner in December and is the first female investment partner on the Vision Fund, which she says is proof that "dreams do come true."

Reddy was the first hire for Facebook India, where she oversaw the creation of the company's global operations center and cultivated relationships with advertising customers. She moved to the company's headquarters in Menlo Park, California, in 2016 to lead Facebook's global marketing partnership for financial services, according to her LinkedIn profile.

Before she joined SoftBank, Reddy cofounded F-7, a seed fund, with six other former female Facebook executives after leaving the company for SoftBank. She told Bloomberg that she is "actively recruiting" more female investment partners for SoftBank.

Lydia Jett, partner, Americas

Jett joined SoftBank four years ago and made partner earlier this year. She is predominantly focused on e-commerce, having previously sat on the board of Indian company Flipkart until its recent acquisition by Walmart.

Jett is responsible for Tokopedia and Coupang, major online marketplaces in Indonesia and South Korea.

Based in California, Jett holds an MBA from Stanford and previously worked at JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs. She's described the Vision Fund as "the most over-capitalized startup in the world," referring to its huge resources and major investors.

Murtaza Ahmed, partner, EMEA

Another Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs alumnus, Ahmed held senior roles at both institutions before joining the Vision Fund in 2017.

Educated in math at the University of Cambridge, Ahmed was a Goldman Sachs managing director at 30 and spent seven years at the firm. He previously worked as head of the EMEA emerging markets structuring and sales strategies team at the US bank.

He sits on the board of the nonprofit EMpower. Ahmed's background is predominantly in emerging markets with an emphasis on deal structuring.

Sumer Juneja, partner, Asia

Juneja is the head of SoftBank's operations in India and was previously a partner at Norwest Venture Partners before joining SoftBank in 2018.

His role is to leverage the incredible opportunities available to investors in India, a country which has seen a huge leap in tech accessibility in recent years and boasts a huge, young population. "Technology has made geographic barriers meaningless, but cultural differences are still very real," according to Juneja.

A graduate of the London School of Economics, Juneja has lived in London, Mumbai, and Hong Kong and used to work at Goldman Sachs as an investment banking analyst. He sits on the board of ride hailer Ola.

Ted Fike, partner, Americas

Ted Fike joined SoftBank Investment Advisers as a partner in October 2017 to focus on consumer and real-estate investments for the Vision Fund. He is on the board of the dog-walking app Wag and travel startup GetYourGuide.

After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, Fike went after a traditional financial-services career with stints at major institutions like Credit Suisse, the Boston Consulting Group, and Bain Capital.

He went on to join Google during the 2008 financial crisis as a senior business lead and worked up to corporate development principal in just under four years. After a stint at CapitalIG, he joined the payments startup Tilt as CFO before it was acquired by Airbnb in 2017.

Tom Cheung, partner, Americas

Tom Cheung started as a partner at SoftBank Investment Advisers in January 2018 and led the Vision Fund's investments in UK-based finance startup Greensill Capital and smart-window manufacturer View.

The Harvard alumnus spent the first two years of his career analyzing corporate finance mergers and acquisitions for Credit Suisse before joining Insight Venture Partners as principal focusing on enterprise investing. He then spent 10 years at Deutsche Bank in Hong Kong and New York where he focused on equity investing and structured finance across the Asia Pacific region and later the firm's global business, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Cheung credits his work ethic to growing up as a restaurant employee and says that he is a "pretty good cook" as a result of years in a professional kitchen.

Vikas Parekh, partner, Americas

Parekh joined SoftBank Investment Advisers as a partner focusing on enterprise investing in March 2016 and has since worked on the firm's blockbuster deals in the workplace-chat app Slack and coworking company WeWork.

According to his LinkedIn profile, Parekh received his bachelor's and master's degrees in engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta and relocated to New York City for a career in finance after graduation. He received his MBA from Harvard Business School and rejoined the Boston Consulting Group in 2011 as an ambassador to the group's Mumbai-based team.

He appreciates working with founders because they never quit, something he learned by cultivating a running habit.

Penny Bodle, partner, global head of IR

Based in London, Bodle is a partner at SoftBank Investment Advisers and its head of investor relations in the EMEA region. She also works alongside the Vision Fund's major limited partners to help them develop their businesses.

Her finance career began in asset management at Morgan Stanley, where she was a divisional director on distribution, working across asset classes.

Bodle then became a managing director at Raptor Group, a holdings firm investing in a range of tech, entertainment, and real-estate assets. Since 2015, she has also served as senior adviser to Oakpoint Advisers, a third-party capital-raising business based in the US.

Bodle describes SoftBank Investment Advisers as "a place where the best idea wins, but if that idea is yours, you have to own it. There's no passing the buck."

Shivana Lala, partner, head of tax

Lala is a partner at SoftBank Investment Advisers and has served as its head of tax since July 2018. She originally joined SoftBank in January 2017 as its international tax manager, just three months after Masayoshi Son first announced SoftBank's Vision Fund.

Managing taxes has been a passion of Lala's from age 16, when she helped prepare tax returns for small businesses in Mumbai. From 1998 until 2001, Lala trained as an accountant at the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.

Before joining SoftBank, Lala spent 12 years as a senior international tax and treasury manager at KPMG, the US financial services giant.

She is an Indian classical-dance enthusiast and has ambitions of starting a Bollywood dancing school for kids in London.

Yosuke Sasaki, partner, head of CEO office

Sasaki has served as a partner and head of the CEO office at SoftBank Investment Advisers since 2017. In that role, he assists SoftBank Investment Advisers' CEO, Rajeev Misra, with managing and operating the Vision Fund.

Sasaki's ties to SoftBank stretch back to 2003, when he was appointed manager of its finance department in Tokyo. During his time as finance department manager, Sasaki led SoftBank's $15 billion acquisition of Vodafone Japan in 2006.

Other previous roles Sasaki has held at SoftBank include an 18-month stint as manager of its holdings in China and India, two years as vice president of SoftBank Telecom America, the US arm of SoftBank in charge of internet and telecoms services, and two years as head of the company's global finance group.

• The Senate failed to override President Donald Trump's vetoes, allowing plans to sell billions of dollars of weapons to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
• The vote to override Trump's vetoes, which took place on Monday, resulted 45-40. A two-thirds vote was needed.
• The votes came after the House Oversight Committee released a report criticizing the Trump administration over its apparent willingness to let private parties with close ties to the president wield outsized influence over U.S. policy toward Saudi Arabia.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate has failed in a bid to override a series of vetoes issued by President Donald Trump, allowing the administration to move forward with plans to sell billions of dollars of weapons to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Trump's decision to sell the weapons in a way that would have bypassed congressional review infuriated lawmakers from both parties. In a bipartisan pushback, Democrats and Republicans banded together to pass resolutions blocking the $8.1 billion weapons sales to the U.S. allies in the Persian Gulf.

A vote Monday to override Trump's vetoes failed, 45-40. A two-thirds vote was needed.

The White House argued that stopping the sales would send a signal that the United States doesn't stand by its partners and allies, particularly at a time when threats from hostile countries such as Iran are increasing.

Tensions between Iran and the West have mounted since Trump unilaterally withdrew the U.S. withdrew from a 2015 accord that restricts the Iranian nuclear program. Trump reimposed sanctions that had been lifted under the accord.

Saudi Arabia has long been a regional rival to Iran, and tension has mounted between the UAE and Tehran over several issues, including the UAE's coordination with U.S. efforts to curb what it calls Iran's malign activities in the region.

The Senate votes came after the House Oversight Committee released a report criticizing the Trump administration over its apparent willingness to let private parties with close ties to the president wield outsized influence over U.S. policy toward Saudi Arabia.

New documents obtained by the committee "raise serious questions about whether the White House is willing to place the potential profits of the president's friends above the national security of the American people and the universal objective of preventing the spread of nuclear weapons," the report said.

The report "exposes how corporate and foreign interests are using their unique access to advocate for the transfer of U.S. nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia," said Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the panel's Democratic chairman.

Read more:Trump vetoes resolutions from Congress attempting to block arms sales to Saudi Arabia

Cummings, who has repeatedly targeted the Trump administration in a series of investigations, came under sharp attack from Trump this weekend, when the president called the congressman's district a "disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess" where "no human being would want to live."

The 50-page Oversight report, released Monday, says Trump's longtime personal friend, campaign donor and inaugural chairman, Tom Barrack, negotiated directly with Trump and other White House officials to seek positions within the administration, including special envoy to the Middle East and ambassador to the United Arab Emirates.

At the same time, Barrack was promoting the interests of U.S. corporations seeking to profit from the transfer of nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia; advocating on behalf of foreign interests seeking to obtain U.S. nuclear technology; and taking steps for his own company, Colony NorthStar, to profit from the proposals, the report said.

A spokesman for Barrack said he has been cooperating with the Oversight panel and provided documents the committee requested.

The spokesman, Owen Blicksilver, said Barrack's investments and business activities are well known and are intended to "better align" Middle East and U.S. objectives. Barrack has never served in the Trump administration.

The Trump administration has approved seven applications for U.S. companies to sell nuclear power technology and assistance to Saudi Arabia. Lawmakers from both parties have expressed concerns that Saudi Arabia could develop nuclear weapons if the U.S. technology is transferred without proper safeguards.

Congress is increasingly uneasy with the close relationship between the Trump administration and Saudi Arabia. Trump has made the kingdom a centerpiece of his foreign policy in the Middle East as he tries to further isolate Iran. In the process, Trump has brushed off criticism over the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the Saudis' role in the war in Yemen.

The nuclear approvals, known as Part 810 authorizations, allow companies to do preliminary work on nuclear power ahead of any deal to build a nuclear plant. They do not allow transfer of nuclear material, equipment or components.

SEE ALSO: Trump is going around Congress to sell bombs to Saudi Arabia, and a top senator warns it's an 'incredibly dangerous precedent'

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NOW WATCH: This is the shortest route for a road trip across the US to see 50 national landmarks

• Saudi Arabia forcibly disappeared a dissident princes by diverting his private plane to Riyadh so they could arrest him, a report says.
• Prince Salman bin Turki's abrupt disappearance in February 2016 was covered in western media, but new details have emerged, given to Vanity Fair by three members of bin Turki's entourage.
• Bin Turki's entourage told Vanity Fair that their private plane from Paris to Egypt had suspiciously been replaced with a Saudi government one with an all male cabin crew.
• Several hours into the flight, the aides said the the cabin lights and in-flight monitors were turned off, and the plane changed course to Riyadh.
• Upon landing the trio said they were held for 72 hours and forced to sign non-disclosure agreements. Bin Turki has not been seen in public since. 
• Visit INSIDER's homepage for more stories. 

Saudi Arabia once disappeared an out-of-favor dissident prince by redirecting his private jet to Riyadh in mid-air, a report says.

The story of Prince Sultan bin Turki's disappearance first hit headlines in 2016, but new details have emerged from three members of bin Turki's entourage, who spoke with Vanity Fair this month.

Bin Turki had been out of favor with the royal household after accusing it of corruption, criticizing the Kingdom's human rights records, and suing his cousin in court for allegedly kidnapping him in 2013.

The aides, who were not named by Vanity Fair, told the magazine that when they arrived at Paris' Le Bourget Airport on February 1, 2016, to board the prince's private jet to Egypt, they were met with an entirely different aircraft.

They were told the newer, and much larger, plane in front of them was a peace offering from the Saudi Embassy in Paris. According to Vanity Fair, the aircraft's tail number, HZ-MF6, was registered to the Saudi government.

Read more:Saudi Arabia's crown prince reportedly wants to build a $500 billion desert city with artificial rain, a glow-in-the-dark beach, and robot dinosaurs

Aviation records seen by Vanity Fair show that the plane's owner requested that no tracking of the jet be made available on the flight-tracking website FlightAware.

The passengers recounted to Vanity Fair how a few hours into the flight, the cabin lights and in-flight monitors were turned off, and the plane changed course to Riyadh.

When they arrived in the Saudi capital they say they were met by armed police, taken separately to the Ritz Carlton Hotel, kept under lock and key for three days, and then forced to sign non-disclosure agreements. Riyadh's Ritz Carlton was famously used as a makeshift prison during Saudi Arabia's crackdown on corruption in 2017.

Read more: What life is like inside Saudi Arabia's '5-star prison' — the Ritz-Carlton where some of the kingdom's richest and most powerful elites were held

Bin Turki has not been seen in public since the incident, but told The Independent earlier in 2016: "If I disappear you know what happened to me."

2015 saw two other high-profile royal dissidents vanish without trace: Prince Turki bin Bandar and Prince Saud bin Saif al-Nasr.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: 7 secrets about Washington, DC landmarks you probably didn't know

• Saudi Arabia and Qatar have been at each other's throats since a June 2017 bust-up saw the Kingdom severe ties with its neighbor.
• The Saudis, backed by six Gulf states, accused Qatar of supporting terrorism and backing Saudi Arabia's mortal enemy — Iran.
• The 41-mile land border which used to let in 40% of Qatar's food was sealed off, and has remained so since.
• Here's what's going on and why the dispute shows no sign of letting up. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. 

In June 2017, Saudi Arabia cut all diplomatic and trade ties with its neighbor Qatar in dramatic circumstances, shunning the peninsula.

The Saudis, backed by six Gulf states who consider Saudi to be the regional hegemon, accused Qatar of supporting terrorists, and siding with Iran, Saudi Arabia's arch nemesis.

Qatar's only border, shared with Saudi Arabia, used to let in 40% of all Qatar's food imports. It was closed, and remains a ghost-town to this day.

The dispute hit new heights in late 2018, when Saudi Arabia said it planned to entirely sever Qatar from the mainland by digging a huge canal.

Here's what has happened, and what's likely to happen next.

The Qatari-Saudi land border has been closed for more than 2 years after a huge falling out between Qatar and the Saudi-led Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). Here's why.

Qatar is a tiny peninsula, sharing its only land border with Saudi Arabia, the de-facto leader and hegemon of the seven Gulf states.

The Gulf states are Iraq, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.

Iraq did not join the boycott, and continues to strengthen its political and financial relationship with Qatar.

The border, with Saudi Arabia's Rub al-Khali desert on one side, is just 41 miles long.

Until the blockade, the border processed 40% of Qatar's food imports. Since June 5, 2017, it's been closed, a result of the massive fallout between the Saudi-led GCC and Qatar.

The spark which ignited the fallout was a comment allegedly made by Qatar Emir Sheikh Tamim cited in state media. It slammed Saudi Arabia, and praised their nemesis Iran.

"There is no reason behind Arabs' hostility to Iran and our [Qatar's] relationship with Israel is good," Sheikh Tamim was alleged to have said.

Qatar says the state media outlet was hacked by the UAE, and that Sheikh Tamim did not make the comments.

They deleted the statement immediately. 

Source: BBC

Fake comment or not, Saudi Arabia had long taken issue with Qatar's open support of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist group, and of Iran, Saudi Arabia's nemesis.

Saudi Arabia accused Qatar of "grave violations being committed by the authorities in Doha over the past years in secret and public aiming at dividing internal Saudi ranks."

They also said Qatar was "adopting various terrorist and sectarian groups aimed at destabilizing the region including the Muslim Brotherhood Group, Daesh (ISIS), and Al-Qaeda."

Bahrain said Qatar was "shaking the security and stability of Bahrain and meddling in its affairs."

At the time Qatar said the boycott was "unjustified" and "based on claims and allegations that have no basis in fact."

Source: Saudi Press Agency, Yemen Extra, Reuters

Qatar says the Muslim Brotherhood is a moderate political movement that can help regional stability. Saudi Arabia named the Brotherhood an agent of terror in March 2014.

Source: Washington Post

Qatar and Saudi have never been bosom friends. Qatar became so wealthy in the 1960s by utilizing its oil and gas reserves that it was able to distance itself from Riyadh and pursue its own agenda.

Despite their wealth, when the border was closed, Qataris panicked, prompting a mass rush on grocery stores amid fears of a food shortage.

Source: Doha News

Qatar then doubled down on its shipping activity.

Thanks to the country's proximity to major shipping routes like the Strait of Hormuz Qatar's gas and oil trade has continued uninterrupted.

Qatar also pulled new food supplies from Turkey, Iran and India. 

Source: Bloomberg

President Donald Trump has even weighed in on the rift, pointing the finger at Qatar for funding instability and terrorism in the region.

Saudi Arabia has long been a key ally to the US in the Middle East, so Trump's support was unsurprising.

Qatar has routinely denied supporting terrorism.

When the dispute reached its peak in 2017, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain gave Qatari visitors and expats just two weeks to leave, and forbid their citizens from entering Qatar.

The UAE and Egypt gave Qatari diplomats just 48 hours to leave.

Source: BBC

Qatar Airways, the national flag-carrier, was barred from using Saudi airspace, as were all flights in and out of Doha.

As the issues worsened, the US and Kuwait unsuccessfully tried to convince the parties to make peace.

The US considers Saudi Arabia the key to counter-balancing Iran in the Middle East, and has tried hard, but so-far unsuccessfully, to sway Riyadh to end the Qatar blockade.

The US wants Qatar to be part of the proposed Middle East Strategic Alliance (MESA) — a multi-country effort to check Iranian power in the region.

Critics say MESA is a guise for the US to pull forces out of the area, without letting Iranian, Russian, or Chinese influence grow.

Progress seemed to have been made in Riyadh in October 2018, after Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman praised Qatar at the Future Investment Initiative, known as "Davos in the Desert."

"Qatar, despite the differences we have, has a great economy and they will be doing a lot in the next five years," he said.

Source: New York Times

The feud impacted all Qataris — just before it was closed Saudi Arabia drove 12,000 Qatari camels and sheep back across the border.

Hundreds of camels died of thirst in the process, al-Araby reported, and farmers were forced to pay up to QR3000 ($824) per camel,"a source told The Peninsular.

Qatar is one of the world's richest countries, and confidently struck out on its own from the Gulf coalition orchestrated by Saudi Arabia against Iran.

Qatar has the second highest gross domestic product per capita in the world — at $129,700 — after Luxembourg's $139,100, according to the CIA World Factbook.

Qatar's wealth derives from the South Pars/North Dome Gas field — the world's largest — which it shares with Iran. The gas field is located in the Persian Gulf.

In June 2018, pro-government media reported Saudi Arabia was to turn Qatar into an island by digging a monstrous canal parallel to the border.

The 37 mile-long and 200-meter-wide "Salwa Canal" would cut off the two nations, but part of Saudi Arabia would remain part of the newly created Qatari island. 

It is estimated to cost Saudi Arabia 2.8 billion riyals ($747 million.)

The Saudi territory on the Qatari side of the canal will be used as a nuclear waste facility. 

Some saw the move as an empty threat, but in August 2018 a senior government official confirmed the project, and expressed excitement over its potential. 

Source: Reuters

Qatari-Saudi relations soured further after Qatar-owned TV network Al Jazeera relentlessly covered the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in October 2018.

Khashoggi, who was a staunch critic of the Saudi regime, was killed in the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. It is widely believed in the West that his death was ordered from high up in the Saudi government, with the CIA concluding that Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman likely ordered the killing.

Source: Wall Street Journal, Washington Post

The US' position has changed throughout the conflict. After initially supporting Saudi action, Donald Trump has softened to Qatar.

In July 2019, during a White House visit from Sheikh Tamin, Trump thanked his "old friend" for Qatari investments and weapons purchases, which support the US economy.

Qatar had just signed off on $370 billion worth of investments with US companies.

Sheikh Tamim told Donald Trump at the signing: "We trust the economy here."

Source: Bloomberg

In May 2019, it looked like frosty relations could be thawing, after Qatar's prime minister attended an emergency Iran summit in Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia's King Salman called the summit to discuss how the international community must use all means to confront Iran, but said Saudi Arabia wants peace.

No progress between Saudi Arabia and Qatar was made at the summit with Qatar's foreign minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani concluding: "The Gulf summit statement talked about a unified Gulf, but where is it amid the continuation of Qatar's blockade?"

Source: The Associated Press 

No breakthrough has come, and tensions remain high.

Gulf analyst Dr Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, a fellow for the Middle East at the Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University in Houston, told Business Insider the tensions show no sign of abating.

"I don't see any imminent signs of a thaw in the blockade of Qatar by Saudi Arabia and the UAE."

"The Qatari Prime Minister's participation at the Mecca Summits in Saudi Arabia at the end of May did not lead to any breakthrough, as some beforehand had hoped it might."

"The leadership in Abu Dhabi remains resolutely opposed to any normalization of ties and easing of the blockade."

• Facebook on Thursday said it took down a vast network of fan pages and fake accounts that were linked to the Saudi Arabian government.
• The social network suspended more than 350 different accounts and pages, which had about 1.4 million followers.
• Facebook said the operation, which built fake people and accounts, was designed to increase support for the Saudi Arabian government while attacking its enemies.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Facebook on Thursday announced it had taken down hundreds of fake accounts originating from Saudi Arabia, which were designed to mislead people and bolster support for the Saudi government.

In a Facebook Newsroom post, the company's head of cybersecurity policy Nathaniel Gleicher shared that Facebook had discovered, and suspended, two separate operations: one originated from Saudi Arabia, while the other began in Egypt and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The two operations were not linked, according to Facebook.

In total, Facebook said it removed 217 accounts, 144 pages, five groups and 31 Instagram accounts "that were involved in coordinated inauthentic behavior originating from Saudi Arabia."

According to Gleicher, people created fake pages and accounts, plus "masqueraded as local news organizations," to talk about local news and political issues — usually in a positive light. Posts touched on the Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman and the "successes of the Saudi Armed Forces" in Yemen. They also created negative posts that criticized "neighboring countries including Iran, Qatar and Turkey, and called into question the credibility of Al-Jazeera news network and Amnesty International," according to Facebook.

"Although the people behind this activity attempted to conceal their identities, our review found links to individuals associated with the government of Saudi Arabia," Gleicher said.

Facebook shared a couple of examples of these inauthentic posts, including one that was dated on November 6, 2018. The time frame for these posts is still unclear, so there may be examples of posts that are older than November 2018, but Facebook has not said one way or the other.

Facebook says the individuals responsible for these posts spent about $108,000 on Facebook and Instagram ads, and their posts reached about 1.4 million accounts.

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• Women in Saudi Arabia have been granted the right to travel without a male guardian's permission, local media reported on Friday.
• According to the Saudi Gazette, amendments to legal restrictions on travel men men and women over the age of 21 can get a passport and travel without asking anybody. 
• Under the previous system, women needed to ask a man before crossing a border. INSIDER published an in-depth report on the system, which was often administered via smartphone app.
• The changes in the law also grant women permission to register the birth of a child, a marriage, a divorce, or a death. This too was previously only possible for men.
• Visit INSIDER's homepage for more stories.

Women in Saudi Arabia have been granted the right to travel without a male guardian's permission, in a shift which removes one of the most prominent restrictions on the status of women in the country. 

According to the Saudi Gazette, Saudi authorities approved amendments to regulations which would allow women to apply for and obtain a passport without permission from a male guardian.

The change was hinted last month by anonymous Saudi officials speaking to the Wall Street Journal, and has now become official.

The amendment will allow women aged 21 and over to apply for a passport themselves, and remove rules that required women to receive permission each time they wanted to cross the Saudi border. This gives them equal standing with men on the same age.

The change to the law follows a global backlash over the system, prompted by in-depth reports by INSIDER about the realities of the system, which proved a significant barrier to women trying to flee the country.

Many of the requests were administered via a Saudi government app, called Absher, which allowed guardians to grant and rescind travel permissions with a few button presses on their smartphones.

INSIDER's reports highlighting the fact that both Apple and Google had approved the app for download via their app stores prompted criticism of the companies, but both continued to offer the service.

Read more:Saudi Arabia makes history, ending longstanding rule that barred women from driving

The changes announced Friday also allow women to complete other tasks formally restricted to men, including registered the birth of a child, a marriage, a divorce, or a death.

In recent months, women were also granted the right to access government and health services without requiring consent from their male guardians, and to open their own businesses, join the military, and to exercise in public. 

One of the highest-profile changes saw women in the country granted permission to legally drive a car.

Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, has promised to accelerate reforms in the country.

His Vision2030 program for the nation's development calls for "equal opportunities" for men and women in Saudi Arabia, though it is unclear precisely what other changes could follow.

Read more:Saudi Arabian women can now drive — here are the biggest changes they've seen in just over a year

Despite the advances, Saudi women are far from reaching equality.

In the 2018 Global Gender Gap Report, Saudi Arabia was ranked 141 out of 144 countries measured. 

The country still enforces a strict dress code, under which most women wear a long cloak, known as an abaya.

Men and women are still prohibited in many contexts from mixing in public, with beaches, stadiums, public transport and pools segregated by gender.

Dr. Lina Abirafeh, the director at the Institute for Women's Studies in the Arab World, told Business Insider last year that she has seen surface-level changes enhancing women's rights, but that Saudi society has much left to do.

"Positive steps are being taken but Saudi Arabia still lags behind in terms of women's rights," she said.

"There might be a strategy to appear liberal in the global arena but it is hard to tell if there is genuine intention for real change within the society - or if these are tokenistic,"she added. 

The Kingdom has incentive to appear modern to the outside world as it moves to shift the country's economy away from oil.

• Read more:
• Saudi Arabia runs a huge, sinister online database of women that men use to track them and stop them from running away
• Google joins Apple in probing Saudi app that lets men control where women travel, as pressure piles on the tech giants to kill the service
• Apple CEO Tim Cook promises to investigate the Saudi app branded 'abhorrent' for allowing men to track women

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• Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund has made its first major direct investment in a European startup, participating in a $550 million round into the doctor app Babylon Health at a $2 billion valuation.
  
• The Saudi fund, which has $300 billion in assets under management, is taking a growing interest in tech. It has mostly stuck to funding Silicon Valley firms such as Uber and Magic Leap directly and through SoftBank's $100 billion Vision Fund.
• As the fund turns its attention to Europe, European founders and investors will have to address whether taking Saudi money poses a moral quandary after the kingdom was linked to the brutal killing of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi in October.
• But venture capitalists speaking with Business Insider said there was little concern around taking money from investors with links to Saudia Arabia and, if anything, people were warier of China.
• Click here for more BI Prime stories.

Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund has made its first major, direct investment in a European tech company, participating in a $550 million funding round in Babylon Health.

The round values Babylon Health at $2 billion and is meant to support the company's expansion to the US and Asia. Other backers included an unnamed US insurer, the German insurance fund Ergo, and the existing funders Kinnevik and Vostok New Ventures.

Babylon said it had closed $450 million of the round and expected the final close of $550 million "shortly." A spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for clarification.

Babylon Health offers video consultations with doctors as well as a chatbot that checks people's symptoms. It has caused some controversy over its impact on funding and resources for the UK's National Health Service.

The Saudi fund's investment cements two new trends: the emergence of sovereign wealth funds in European tech and the growing amount of Saudi-connected cash flowing into the European startup ecosystem.

The question is whether this raises a moral quandary for founders and investors, given that the kingdom was linked to the brutal killing of the US-based Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in October.

The horror over Khashoggi's killing prompted some soul-searching in Silicon Valley, where tech firms have accepted billions either directly from the Saudi fund or from SoftBank's Saudi-backed $100 billion Vision Fund.

About $45 billion of SoftBank's first Vision Fund is from the Public Investment Fund. Uber has also raised $3.5 billion directly from the Public Investment Fund. WeWork accepted $4.4 billion from it, and it has also invested directly in Magic Leap and the carmaker Lucid Motors.

The term Silicon Valley, at least to outsiders, connotes a certain positivity and optimism and a sense that technology is good for the world and humanity. That ethos appears incompatible with a government accused of murdering its opponents and then trying to cover it up.

WeWork's cofounder Adam Neumann said tech firms needed to "agree on a certain level of moral standards" when quizzed about Saudi Arabia.

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said in November that he was "anxious" about Khashoggi's killing. And in November, SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son denounced the "horrific and deeply regrettable act," condemning the killing as an "act against humanity, journalism, and free speech."

Privately, some deals have fallen through. Recode reported last October that at least one US fund manager cut off investment talks with Saudi Arabia over Khashoggi's death. Sequoia also reportedly has no backing from the Public Investment Fund in its latest funds, despite other Saudi connections.

Now Saudi money is beginning to flow into European tech

Even with the Babylon investment, there is less Saudi money flowing around European tech — at least in public view.

Since Khashoggi's death, SoftBank's Vision Fund has led a $440 million round in the UK lender OakNorth and a $484 million round in the German travel guide GetYourGuide.

Earlier investments include the car dealer Auto1. Saudi Arabia's Kingdom Holding Company has also invested into the French music-streaming startup Deezer.

Aside from these direct investments, there's the question of how many European venture-capital firms may have Saudi-connected limited partners. Venture capitalists aren't generally required to disclose their LPs publicly.

Investors who spoke with Business Insider were mixed on whether founders or venture capitalists would really be too high-minded about Saudi money.

Read more: I spent 24 hours living on SoftBank services like Uber, WeWork, and Oyo. It revealed some flaws in Masayoshi Son's grand $100 billion investment vision.

One investor, who backs both European and US startups, felt founders were thinking more about the origins of funding. "Founders are asking, 'Where does this money come from?'" the person said.

But another European investor simply said "No" when asked, adding that venture capitalists were more concerned at the moment with taking money from China thanks to greater scrutiny on Chinese investments both in the US and in Europe.

"Sadly the money goes deeper than direct investments," a third investor said, adding: "How many startups do you know that would refuse the SoftBank Vision Fund? That's mostly despot money."

The person added that scrutinizing the big funds of funds, which back venture-capital firms, might expose lots of unethical money. "Plenty of oil money in the mix if you go up many of those chains," the person said.

Join the conversation about this story »

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• Saudi Arabia has allowed adult women to travel without needing the permission of their male guardian, but for many fleeing abuse in the country it won't matter.
• Many of the 1,000 Saudis who flee each year are under 21, meaning that despite the change, they still need male permission to leave the country. 
• For women over 21 seeking to leave the country, the law will allow them the chance to do so safely, and with a reduced fear of capture.
• However, for young escapees like Rahaf Mohammed, who went viral for barricading herself in a Bangkok hotel room in January, it will make little difference, and still force women to flee in dangerous circumstances.
• Several previous escapees have spoken of hacking into their guardian's Absher account — a government e-service part of which lets men approve where women travel  — to give themselves permission to travel.
• Visit INSIDER's homepage for more stories. 

The news that Saudi Arabia is to allow women to travel without the permission of their male guardian was met with jubilation by women across the Kingdom.

But for the some one thousand women who flee abroad to escape abuse every year, nothing will change.

The reform, announced on Friday, allows women over 21 to get a passport and leave the country without prior approval from their male guardian.

However, women forced to flee — citing abuse and the opressive guardianship system — are often under 21.

In early January 2019, 18-year-old Rahaf Mohammed went viral for barricading herself in a Bangkok hotel room while Thai police tried to deport her back to Saudi Arabia, where she had fled from, citing abuse from her father.

Mohammed, as a minor and a woman, needed permission from her guardian to leave the Kingdom, so was forced to take her chance whilst on holiday in Kuwait, already outside of the Kingdom. 

Read more:Saudi Arabia runs a huge, sinister online database of women that men use to track them and stop them from running away

Similarly, under the new rules 20-year-old Dalal al-Showaiki, who says she has fled to Turkey with her 22-year-old sister to escape arranged marriages, would also struggle to leave without alerting her guardian.

Despite the groundbreaking changes to the law announced on Friday, women like al-Showaiki and Mohammed must still risk their lives and leave the country in secret, dangerous circumstances. 

Several escapees have also spoken of hacking into their guardian's Absher account — a government e-service part of which lets men approve where women travel— to give themselves permission to travel.

Join the conversation about this story »

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• Women under the age of 21 in Saudi Arabia can now travel without a male guardian's permission.
• The country has also allowed women to drive, lifted a decades-long ban on cinemas, and is building a multi-billion dollar entertainment city 2.5 times the size of Disney World.
• Many of the changes have been pushed by Mohammed bin Salman who, since his promotion to crown prince in June 2017, has taken drastic steps to reform and modernize Saudi Arabia in an effort to shift the country's economy away from oil and prepare the country for the future.
• MBS remains a polarizing figure, though, as he faced global outcry in fall 2018 over the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who the CIA later concluded was assassinated on the prince's orders.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Woman over the age of 21 in Saudi Arabia can now travel without a male guardian's permission.

It's the latest example of the kingdom slowly starting to loosen restrictions on daily life in the last two years. The country also finally allowed women to drive, lifted a decades-long ban on cinemas, and began building a multi-billion dollar entertainment city 2.5 times the size of Disney World.

Many of the changes have been pushed by 33-year-old Mohammed bin Salman who, since his promotion to crown prince in June 2017, has taken drastic steps to reform and modernize Saudi Arabia in an effort to shift the country's economy away from oil and prepare the country for the future.

While he is seen as a figure who is loosening up some freedoms for women in the kingdom, he is also harshly criticized for human rights offenses. The CIA has concluded he ordered the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in fall 2018.

But many of the changes to daily life have benefitted Saudi women and, despite how small some may seem, are proving crucial in their march toward equality. Here's a list of the activities that are now allowed in the country.

SEE ALSO: Saudi Arabia arrested 10 activists who campaigned for women's rights to drive just weeks before it planned to lift the ban on driving

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Women can travel without a male guardian's permission.

Women can now apply for passports without the approval of a male guardian. They also don't need permission to cross the Saudi border anymore.

In an amendment to Saudi Arabian regulations, women 21 years and older are given the same rights as men when it comes to traveling. Previously, women only had a page in their male guardian's passport.

The regulation used to say that the wife's place of stay was her husband's, but now its focus is on minors' being with their father or guardian.

That means that women under the age of 21 are still subject to the guardian system. INSIDER's Bill Bostock pointed out that many of the 1,000 Saudis who flee each year are under 21, meaning that despite the change, they still need male permission to leave the country.

These changes come after the Saudi Arabian traveling system came under fire, partly due to reporting by INSIDER, which highlighted how the system restricted women trying to flee the country.

The law changes also let women register births, marriages, divorces, or deaths. This used to only be possible for men.

Women took to the streets when Saudi Arabia lifted its longstanding ban on women driving.

Women had been campaigning for driving rights for years, and were finally allowed to get behind the wheel in July 2018. Many women had spent months preparing for the ban to be lifted by taking driving courses specifically designed for women.

Previously, Saudi Arabia was the only country in the world where a woman could go to jail for driving.

While many applauded the shift, several of the activists involved in the Right to Drive campaign were suddenly arrested and held without charge in May 2018. Many were later released, but people still feel threatened.

Women could vote for the first time ever in municipal elections.

While municipal councils don't hold much power in the country, the ability to vote was a symbolic moment for women. It was the first time in history they could go to the polling booths. Although, it was only the third time the country had gone to the polls at all, since it became a country in 1932.

The voting stations were still segregated, but women said it felt great to be able to vote. Seventeen women were elected.

Women can now access basic rights, like education and healthcare, without permission from a male guardian.

The royal decree King Salman made in May 2017 allows women to access government and health services without requiring consent from their male guardians, who otherwise have the ultimate authority over what women in the country can do.

The King proposed easing the strict male guardianship laws within three months of his decree, but more general guardianship laws are still in place today — male approval is needed for women to, get married, or leave jail.

Women regularly face difficulty conducting transactions, like renting an apartment and filing legal claims, without a male relative's consent or presence.

They can also open their own businesses without a guardian's permission.

In February 2018, Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Commerce and Investment said that women would be able to "start their own business freely," and no longer face more obstacles than men in becoming entrepreneurs.

Dima Al-Shareef, a Saudi law consultant, told Arab News that the country was "witnessing a new era in the empowerment of Saudi women, in the commercial sphere in particular."

Stadiums recently began letting women watch sports live.

King Abdullah Sports City stadium in Jeddah made history when allowed women to sit in the stands to view a national soccer game in January 2018.

Despite gaining entry, women were segregated from men and had to use special entrances designated for women and families.

The Saudi government announced in October 2017 that it would be opening up stadiums in Riyadh, Jeddah, and Dammam for women and families. The government added that plans to open up more women-friendly facilities at stadiums around the country would be ready within the year.

And the number of women working in the private sector has soared 130% from 2013.

In March 2017, the Ministry of Labour and Social Development said that women represent 30% of the private sector work force.

The report said that the government hopes to see that number jump by an extra 28% by 2020.

Sarah Al-Suhaimi became the first woman to chair Saudi Arabia’s stock exchange.

Al-Suhaimi was appointed head of the Middle East's largest stock exchange in February 2017.

She graduated with honors from King Saud University, and later went to Harvard Business School. Al-Suhaimi is also the CEO and a Board Director of the investment arm of Saudi Arabia's first bank.

Currently, Saudi Arabia enforces strict labor codes that prevent women from working in certain professions, such as optometry, and strict religious observance prohibits women and men from mixing sometimes even at work.

Another challenge is getting to work. Without the ability to drive, many women have to rely on male guardians for transport, though investments have been poured into improving public transportation and ride-sharing apps for women.

And another woman, Tamadur bint Youssef al-Ramah, was the first to be appointed deputy labor minister.

Al-Ramah's position was announced in March 2018 in conjunction with a major military and political reshuffle, which was seen as a way to "pump young blood" into the government, a Saudi analyst said on TV.

Saudi Arabia joined the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, which promotes gender equality and female empowerment.

Saudi Arabia was voted in for a four-year term in April 2017, outraging many who viewed the appointment as "absurd," given Saudi Arabia's vast gender inequality. 

Still, the United Nations defended its decision.

"Saudi Arabia's interest in occupying one of the Commission's seats allocated to the Asia-Pacific region is an indication that the country wants to play an active role in the work of this important body," it said.

Women can now jog and do physical exercise in the streets.

Saudi Arabia introduced physical education for girls in 2017 and began granting licenses for women's gyms, allowing women to exercise publicly.

Over 1,500 women participated in the first all-women run that was organized shortly before International Women's Day in 2018.

Women were previously banned from running in the country's official marathons, but Saudi officials have said women will be allowed to compete in the 2019 Riyadh international marathon.

They can also enlist in the military.

Saudi Arabia's military opened applications to women for the first time in March 2018. But the criteria for applicants was and included specific height, weight, and education requirements.

Notably, women still needed to ask their male guardians for permission to apply and needed to reside with their guardian in the same province as the future job's location.

And divorced women can retain custody of their children.

In March 2018, mothers in Saudi Arabia were granted the right to retain custody of their children after divorcing, without going through legal proceedings.

Previously, Saudi courts required women to petition for custody, in a battle which often spanned years.

In many other Middle East countries the father is considered a child's natural guardian, and gains full custody at a certain age.

But despite all these advances, women are far from reaching equality.

In the 2018 Global Gender Gap Report, Saudi Arabia was ranked 141 out of 144 countries measured.

Women still need male permission for many major activities, like filing a police report.

The country still enforces a modest dress code. Most women wear a long cloak known as an "abaya" and many shops don't even allow women to try on clothing at malls.

Men and women and men are still prohibited from mixing in public, with beaches, public transport and pools segregated by gender.

But a Saudi government program to improve citizen's quality of life, put forward in May 2018, called for "intermingling of both genders to enhance social cohesion."

Lina Abirafeh, the director at the Institute for Women's Studies in the Arab World, told Business Insider that these changes have been impactful, but the country still needs to do more.

"There is a need to progress gradually but also to be clear that the goal is full equality — without exceptions," Abirafeh said.

• Saudi Arabia is reforming a law which required women to receive permission for a man to get a passport or cross a border.
• The system made it difficult for abused women to flee the country as refugees — a situation highlighted by INSIDER's reporting.
• When a backlash came, and Apple and Google were pressured to stop hosting the app which Saudi men used to grant and rescind travel permission, they did nothing.
• The tech giants have shown themselves to outsource moral decisions about their own platforms to the Saudi royal family.
• The situation is not surprising, but that does not make it less of a disgrace.
• Visit Business Insider's home page for more stories.

On Friday morning, the government in Saudi Arabia announced that it would dismantle a small but significant part of the oppressive 'male guardianship' legal system that formally designates women there as second-class citizens.

According to officials, women will no longer require permission from a man in their family — their "guardian"— to receive a passport or to cross a border.

The change follows a firestorm of criticism of the system, prompted by a series of reports by INSIDER's Bill Bostock showing how Saudi men could use it to make it very difficult for mistreated women to flee as refugees.

Although readers seemed immediately sympathetic to the plight of the women we described, the most explosive element of the story was hiding in plain sight.

It was that, in the age of the smartphone, these requests were largely administered on iPhone and Android devices, using Saudi Arabia's in-house app, Absher, which had been approved by Apple and Google for their app stores.

Politicians and rights groups lined up to accuse the tech giants of complicity in an obviously unjust system. US Senator Ron Wyden told them it "flies in the face of the type of society you both claim to support and defend."

Despite months of questions, the response from both companies was initially silence, and then a collective shrug of the shoulders. In short: they did nothing. 

Apple CEO Tim Cook, ambushed on the subject during an interview with NPR, promised to look into the issue. The investigation came to nothing — at least that we know of.

Google also pledged to investigate, but has said nothing in public since. It later briefed a California congresswoman that its intention was also to take no action.

On the issue of whether or not its services should be used to help keep refugees in a country they would desperately like to flee, Silicon Valley did not take a decision.

Instead, this week's change was left to the conscience of Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, a man credibly accused of dealing with critics by having them choked to death then cut into small pieces with a bone saw.

Read more:How Saudi Arabia's sinister online database of women let men and stop them from running away

The new system is a partial change: women (and indeed men) under the age of 21 still require a guardian's permission to travel.

Many of the most prominent women to run away, in spite of Absher's grip on them, were in their late teens, and will face the same problems.

Once they leave, women are treated like national security threats, aggressively tracked and sometimes forcibly brought back.

The motives are also questionable.

Saudi Arabia's attempt to burnish its image around the world — which included a big-money PR tour and meetings with to Apple and Google— have faltered of late, not least because of the attention heaped on Jamal Khashoggi's murder.

An investigation into the treatment of other Saudi dissidents, published this week by Vanity Fair, was a timely reminder that Khashoggi's case is by no means a one-off.

A long-overdue change to one of Saudi Arabia's most objectionable laws is a relatively easy way to get back on track the narrative of nation reforming itself.

In 2019, it is naive to assume that some of the biggest companies on earth would act against their own interests on a point of principle. We have much evidence to the contrary.

Nonetheless, this case is a sad reminder that the commitment of giant tech companies to forging a better world only goes so far.

SEE ALSO: Saudi women no longer need a man's permission to travel after the government changed a law that let men control women's movements with an app

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• Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman quickly rose to power, taking over as country's de facto ruler and courting other world leaders.
• But MbS' rising star has started to lose its luster, as his brutal campaign in Yemen drags on and his ambitious foreign-policy efforts founder.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. 

The United Arab Emirates' recent decision to withdraw from the Yemen war has left Saudi Crown Prince and de facto ruler Mohammad bin Salman (MbS) the sole key driver of that disastrous conflict.

MbS's friend, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince and de facto UAE leader Mohammed bin Zayed (MbZ), has left him to pick up the pieces. In the aftermath of MbZ's action, MbS's star seems to be dimming and his influence on the international scene is waning.

Frequent attempts by the United States Congress to halt American arms sales to Saudi Arabia and to hold MbS accountable for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi have severely tarnished the Saudi leader's reputation and standing. Although Congress has not been able to overcome President Trump's veto and actually impede those arms deals, symbolic congressional action has long-term negative implications for MbS.

Traditional American bi-partisan support for Saudi Arabia, which goes back to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, has been reduced, because of MbS's hubris and repression, to a personal relationship between the the Saudi autocrat and the current US president and his son-in-law.

The traditional bi-partisan support has all but faded, leaving the Saudi crown prince dependent on the goodwill and quid-pro-quo support of the Trump administration. MbS's actions have, in effect, undermined long-term Saudi interests and whatever goodwill the kingdom used to have with the US public.

Once a new administration comes to Washington, demands to hold MbS accountable for his actions in Yemen and for Khashoggi's gruesome murder will again resurface. The failure to override Trump's veto aside, several senators have expressed negative views of the Saudi leader. The millions of dollars that MbS has spent in Washington to burnish his image have not served him well.

Israel-Palestine

The failure of Jared Kushner's Israel-Palestine "Deal of the Century" plan at a Bahrain workshop in late June was another blow to the MbS brand. Kushner and MbS had hoped they would be able to persuade Arab leaders to attend the Bahrain event and hail Kushner's economic plan on Palestine. But the leaders of Jordan, Egypt, Kuwait, and several other countries refused to sign on to the initiative.

They argued that the economic portion of an Israel-Palestine peace deal must go hand in hand with a political component along the path of a two-state solution. As I have written previously on this blog, the Bahrain event fizzled and was reduced to a photo-op that failed to gain traction. MbS must have been stung by his inability to deliver Arab support to his friends in the White House.

If Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wins next month's national election and is able to form a government, he will be expected to cater to the extreme Israeli right. Instead of a deal with the Palestinians along the lines of Kushner's ill-fated economic formula, Israel's ultra-right politics would be consumed by talk about annexation of the occupied territories and a population transfer of Palestinians out of Israel. Despite his camaraderie with Kushner, MbS's Arab credentials will be sullied.

It's ironic that the three-decade old Arab Peace Initiative, which calls for full Arab recognition of Israel in return for terminating the Israeli occupation on the basis of UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, was initiated by another Saudi crown prince, MbS's uncle Abdullah, and continues to be supported by his own father, King Salman. His special relationship with Kushner will not help him salvage his self-perceived image as a seminal Arab leader and his covert relations with Israeli intelligence and political leaders will not help him deliver Palestinian support.

If MbS truly believes in improving the lives of Palestinians, why doesn't he join Qatar in funding economic development in the West Bank and Gaza and prove to the Palestinians that he is committed to their well being? He could also initiate serious talks with the Israelis and Palestinians about the future of the two peoples "between the River and the Sea." Otherwise, history will view him, like many other Arab leaders before him, as having fought the Palestinian cause to the last Palestinian.

Iran

The potential for restarting talks with Iran—through diplomatic efforts involving Oman and possibly the UAE—is another blow to MbS's regional ambitions and hubris. The recent statement by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that US forces will begin withdrawing from Afghanistan before next year's elections could be a message to MbS about Iran.

Although it's easy to disagree with Trump on many foreign policy issues, one gets the impression from Pompeo's announcement that Trump is not gung-ho about another war in the Middle East or a military confrontation with Iran. Tough talk toward Iran doesn't mean that war is imminent.

The Wall Street Journal reported this week that an Emirati delegation went to Iran to discuss maritime security in that part of the Persian Gulf. The UAE, especially Dubai, is keen on keeping commercial shipping routes secure and on convincing international trade partners that it is safe to conduct commerce with the Arab states of the Persian Gulf.

Of course, peacefully resolving regional political tensions with Iran is the best guarantee for safe commerce in the Persian Gulf.

Dubai, the most commercially driven emirate within the UAE, has traded with Iran for decades. Dubai also has a significant Shia minority and a relatively large number of successful businessmen of Iranian origins. It also has a history of prioritizing business above all. During the heyday of the Arab boycott of Israel, when blacklisted items like Coca-Cola and Ford cars could not be traded in the Arab world because of the boycott, one could always find them at the Dubai port. Mohammed bin Zayed's animus toward Iran notwithstanding, in the modern history of Dubai commerce always trumps politics.

If the Wall Street Journal report is accurate, perhaps this is the message that the UAE delegation is taking to Tehran. Keeping the complexity and interconnectivity of regional issues in mind, it's possible to imagine that the UAE peace delegation would expand its maritime security agenda to include Yemen, the nuclear deal, sanctions, and other thorny issues. Such talks could become more comprehensive if Oman and Kuwait join them.

If the talks result in some sort of quiet rapprochement between Tehran and Washington, they could be the prelude to a new deal in which nuclear discussions would be a major component. If the Trump administration supports de-escalation and continues to give sanction waivers to major Iranian trade partners, it should become clear to MbS that Trump is not seeking a war with Iran.

If Washington and Tehran begin a serious conversation about the nuclear deal and the sanctions, then MbS's regional wars and hostile machinations toward Iran and Shia Islam would have failed. His isolation would continue, and history would judge him as yet another failing corrupt, repressive Arab autocrat. His grand design for the region would be no more than a chimera, and his money-powered ambition to be a kingmaker on the world scene would evaporate.

Repression

In recent months, many US senators have publicly admonished MbS for his repressive human rights record.

The growing number of dissidents being executed in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain—where the Saudis have tremendous sway—has tarnished MbS's reputation and standing. These executions are primarily sectarian in nature, directed against Shia citizens of both countries, and are generally based on illegal arrests, torture, coerced confessions, and sham trials. The Bahraini regime relies on Saudi military support as a tool in repressing their Shia majority.

With the recent announcement that US troops are being sent back to Saudi Arabia, MbS will begin to feel the heat from the kingdom's Wahhabi-Salafi religious flank. The religious opposition to the presence of "infidel" troops in the "Land of the Two Holy Mosques" in 1991 fueled Osama bin Laden's terror campaign against the Saudi regime and the United States.

After the US-led international coalition evicted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein from Kuwait in 1991 and US troops stayed on in Saudi Arabia, religious activists decried the presence of these troops on the basis of a hadith attributed to the Prophet Muhammad. Regardless of the authenticity of this hadith, radical Wahhabis believe that Muhammad said on his deathbed that only one religion shall exist in Arabia.

Non-Muslim "infidel" troops, according to this view, should be expelled from the kingdom. In the early 1990s, this became the rallying cry for Bin Laden and al-Qaeda. This radical mantra could re-emerge as a terrible nightmare for MbS around which his opponents would coalesce.

In the aftermath of the UAE withdrawal from Yemen, MbS will be forced to re-examine the grand design he devised for himself and for the region. The design, which has been fueled by his economic largesse and perceived support from the Trump White House, is fading. Will MbS internalize the ensuing failure and act on it before it's too late?

Dr. Emile Nakhleh was a Senior Intelligence Service officer and Director of the Political Islam Strategic Analysis Program at the Central Intelligence Agency.

SEE ALSO: For Iranians, war with the US has already begun

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• Mecca, Islam's holiest city, is the world's hottest city.
• It is the warmest inhabited place on earth, with an average annual temperature of 87.3 degrees Fahrenheit. In summer, temperatures can reach 120 degrees Fahrenheit.
• It has more than 1.5 million permanent residents, and another 2 million pilgrims journey there each year.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Islam's holiest city is also the world's hottest city.

Mecca, in Saudi Arabia, is the warmest inhabited place on earth. Its average annual temperature is 87.3 degrees Fahrenheit. In summer, temperatures can reach 122 degrees fahrenheit.

The city is located in Sirat Mountains, inland from the Red Sea, 900 feet above sea level.

On top of the heat, it gets busy. While a little over 1.5 million people live there permanently, more than 2 million pilgrims travel to Mecca annually. Every Muslim, who is able and can afford it, is expected to travel there at least once in their life for the Hajj. Non-Muslims are not allowed to enter Mecca.

For those who live there year-round, winters are a little more manageable. But it never gets cold.

These photos show what it's like in the world's hottest inhabited city.

SEE ALSO: 21 amazing photos that show what life is like in the coldest inhabited town on earth

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Welcome to Mecca, the world's hottest inhabited place.

In Mecca, during the summer, between June and September, temperatures can reach 120 degrees Fahrenheit, and the streets get busy.

Sources: Weather Spark, Britannica

The city has about 1.5 million permanent residents, but more than 2 million pilgrims flood into Mecca for six days for the Hajj every year.

Sources: Al Arabiya, The National, Al Jazeera

The main day of the pilgrimage, which requires worship outside from sunrise to sunset, can be particularly trying.

Source: Forbes

The closest city to Mecca is Jeddah, a seaside port on the Red Sea. It's about 70 miles miles away and requires traveling through the desert to get there.

Source: UNESCO

Mecca's wild temperatures are due to it's location, in a dry valley at the base of the Sirat Mountains ...

Sources: Britannica, Seasons of the Year

... surrounded by the Arabian Desert. Its average annual temperature is 87.3 degrees Fahrenheit, but it's a dry heat.

Sources: Britannica, Seasons of the Year

There's very little greenery, as the view from space shows here. The white structure in the middle is the Great Mosque.

Source: Wikimedia

For the next 10 years, the Hajj will be during the summer.

Sources: Al Arabiya, The National

But the high temperatures are nothing new. Seen here is a pilgrim being given a cold bath to cope with the heat in 1967.

In 1985, a reported 2,000 people got heat stroke, and more than 1,000 of those people ended up dying.

Source: Vox

Dealing with the heat requires preparation. Hotels and some home owners, like the Saudi royalty seen here, have air conditioning.

And one of Mecca's cooler spots is around the Kaaba, one of Islam's most holy objects.

Sources: Khaleej Times, The National

The ground near the Kaaba is made from white Thassos marble, which was imported from Greece. It reflects the sun and heat during the day and remains cool even on hot days. The area also has an abundance of air conditioning.

Sources: Khaleej Times, The National

But people have to go outside. It's common for pilgrims to buy lots of water to help them get through the heat later in the day.

Source: The National

For those who need to be outside in the heat, umbrellas are a must.

Source: Forbes

Some have modified them to limit energy use as much as possible.

One man has even created a "smart umbrella," which uses solar energy to power a fan to keep the user cool. It also has a flashlight, a USB outlet to charge phones, and a GPS tracker.

Source: Eco-Business

To keep cool, pilgrims may also eat ice cream.

Source: New York Times

And whenever there's time for a break, people keep drinking water.

Water is even sprayed into the mouths of those in need.

Since Mecca is in the desert, even during the evening temperatures only drop to about 84 degrees Fahrenheit.

Sources: My Weather 2, Weather and Climate

For the 1.5 million residents who live there year-round, two of Mecca's main industries are now tourism and construction. Thirteen of 15 of Mecca's old neighborhoods have been rebuilt for tourism and commerce.

Source: The Guardian

Smaller businesses like tour guides, vegetable sellers, and street vendors are struggling to compete with the newly built fast-food chains and hotels.

Source: The Guardian

During the winter, locals can look forward to milder temperatures, with an average high of 86 degrees Fahrenheit, and a low of 65 degrees Fahrenheit.

Sources: Britannica, My Weather 2

Over the entire year, there is usually fewer than 5 inches of rain.

Sources: Britannica, My Weather 2

Due to the arid, harsh conditions, wild animals and plants aren't abundant. Seen here is a cat sleeping on a mountain.

Other wild animals in the area include wolves, hyenas, foxes, mongooses, and jerboas. There has also been a surge in monkeys in Mount Al-Noor District since weapons used to shoot them were banned.

Sources: Britannica, Al Arabiya

If carbon emissions continue at their current rate, by 2100, Mecca's maximum temperature could soar to 131 degrees Fahrenheit.

Source: Business Insider

If it continues to get hotter, the Hajj may become a physically impossible journey due to heat stress.

Source: Wired