Global media fanfare over event promising ‘changing’ Saudi Arabia

LONDON: Thousands of media reports have emerged from across the globe about the Future Investment Initiative in Riyadh, during which Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman yesterday pledged to return the country to its moderate past.
At least 9,000 articles were published in English and many more in other languages about the high-profile event, which has attracted thousands of business leaders to the Saudi capital.
The Wall Street Journal carried a lengthy piece headlined “Saudi Prince pushes greater tolerance, unveils development project” in which it outlined Mohammed bin Salman’s aim to, as the newspaper put it, “push the country into the 21st century.”
NBC News said the event offers glimpse of a “changing Saudi Arabia.”
It noted that the Future Investment Initiative attracted a mixed crowd of some 3,000 business people, in a country where men and women have typically been segregated at such events.
“Dubbed ‘Davos in the desert’ — a reference to the annual World Economic Forum in Switzerland — the conference is the first of its kind,” the newspaper said.
“This is not just buzz, not just symbolic,” it quoted Elliot Hentov, the head of research at State Street, one of America's oldest financial institutions, as saying.
Other news outlets that included the New York Times and The Independent also carried news of the event.