From Der Spiegel, November 11:
The autocratic countries of the Persian Gulf play a key role in the new world order – and for the future of Germany's economy. Complete dependence will be difficult to avoid.
The Saudi Arabian desert can seem endless, particularly here in the northwestern part of the country, where people are a rare sight. For hours on end, there is only sand, rock, heat and the occasional empty road. It seems almost unreal, almost like a fata morgana, when long columns of dump trucks suddenly appear just before the Red Sea coast. They are followed by a swarm of excavators, digging their way through dunes and scree across several dozen kilometers.
Perhaps, grumble critics, the plans for what is to be built here are nothing more than hot air. After all, those plans sound far too crazy to be true: a model region called NEOM, as big as the German state of Hesse, rising out of the desert, complete with technology parks, industrial production and a 170-kilometer-long futuristic city – 500 meters high, 200 meters wide, completely CO2 neutral. Residents will move through the metropolis in flying taxis and high-speed trains. The price tag? Five-hundred-billion dollars. For the first phase.
Crazy? More like shock and awe. A demonstration to the world of what can be done with virtually limitless monetary resources. Mohammad bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and ruler, is the driver behind the vision. By 2030, the country is to have transformed into a high-tech nation, independent of oil and even more powerful than it is today. It is a monstrous, almost surreal plan. But the money is there – more than ever before.
Three-and-a-half trillion dollars, an unfathomable sum, are set to flow into the coffers of the six Gulf states in the next five years should the prices for oil and gas remain as high as they are today – a gift from Vladimir Putin. Because Europe is no longer interested in importing energy from Russia, oil from Saudi Arabia and natural gas from Qatar have become the focus, no matter how high the price.
The plan currently afoot in the desert is perhaps more gigantic than any project since the construction of the pyramids. Fully 30,000 construction workers are already laboring away in NEOM, with that number soon to explode to 300,000. In just a single year, a town for 4,000 engineers, technicians and project planners from around the world has sprung up, complete with swimming pools, schools, restaurants and tennis courts. Long rows of single-story homes stretch out behind barbed wire and security gates....
....MUCH MORE
Also at Der Spiegel, a handy little tool that we've been checking for the last couple months:
