July 2018
The Saudi Fund for Development (SFD), representing the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, transferred the Kingdom’s partial contribution, $80 million, to support the Palestinian Authority’s budget. Saudi Arabia’s Ambassador to Egypt and Saudi Permanent Representative to the League of Arab States, Ambassador Osama bin Ahmed Nuqali, released a statement last Thursday that the SFD has transferred $80 million to the account of the Palestinian Ministry of Finance.
As part of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s wider effort to develop in a manner that is aligned with long-term global aims, the Kingdom participated in the United Nation’s High-level Political Forum (HLPF) on Sustainable Development which took place from Monday, July 9 to Wednesday, July 18, 2018.
This year, the HLPF theme is: "Transformation towards sustainable and resilient societies." It aims at reviewing progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and focusing in particular on:
The Embassy wanted to highlight developments since yesterday’s attack, with Iranian support, on a tanker in the Bab-Al-Mandeb strait.
Today, social media has been fluttering with threats from the Kayhan Newspaper-which has been echoing the warning of IRGC-backed Yemen's Ansarallah spokesman- explicitly targeting the Gulf countries saying: "Our missiles are on their way, evacuate Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Riyadh."
The Coalition Forces to Support the Legitimacy in Yemen’s Spokesperson, Colonel Turki Al-Maliki, issued a statement noting that at 1:15 AM, Riyadh local time, a Saudi oil tanker was the subject of a Iranian-backed Houthi militia attack while in international waters, west of the port of Hodeidah, which is under the control of the Houthi militia. The attempted attack was thwarted thanks to coalition naval vessels present in the area at the time. The attack resulted in minor damages to the tanker.
The Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud has awarded two Saudi students posthumously with the Order of King Abdulaziz of the First Degree for their bravery and service. The two Saudi students drowned in the state of Massachusetts in the Chicopee River on June 29, 2018, while trying to rescue two children who were caught in the river’s current. The King met with the families of the two students at his office in the Salaam palace in Jeddah, where he expressed his condolences and sympathies for their loss, and lauded the student’s bravery and selfless act.
The Embassy wanted to highlight a recent Op-Ed publication by His Royal Highness Ambassador Prince Khalid bin Salman, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s Ambassador to the United States of America, in which he details why Iran’s detrimental expansionist policies across the Middle East and the rest of the world must not be appeased but rather confronted.
Wednesday morning, July 18, 2018, Saudi Royal Air Defense Forces detected, at 10:15 AM local time, a ballistic missile fired towards the southwestern city of Najran, which was intercepted and destroyed. This reflects the second time this week that the Iranian-backed Houthi militia launched such an attack against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
The Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud received a delegation participating in the International Conference of Muslim Scholars Conference on Peace and Stability in Afghanistan, at the Al-Salam palace in Jeddah.