Podcasts

Most Recent: Episode #40

Sam Blatteis, CEO of The MENA Catalysts, explains the continued potential and vitality of the digital economy and high tech sectors in  the Gulf, post-COVID;  the Gulf’s commitment to the knowledge economy, and how it has become a differentiator in a fragmenting Arab world; why the US is still the partner of choice for Gulf governments, but why and how the US-China competition for influence in the region may be heating up; the synergies between the Gulf and Silicon Valley; and more

• UAE minister draws on the past to seize possibilities of AI future (al-monitor.com)
• Gulf states’ quest to find ‘new oil’ turns to hydrogen (al-monitor.com)
• Hi-tech rivalry between Abu Dhabi and Riyadh heats up (al-monitor.com)
• Diplomacy in the Gulf follows the money (al-monitor.com)

Most Recent: Episode #35

Ben Caspit talks this week with Yaron Zelekha, an economist who was formerly the finance ministry's accountant general and is the founder of the New Economy party. Zelekha warns that Israel has no economic policy, and that Israel has no state budget and has not launched any reforms in the past decade. More worrying, he says, is the fact that the citizens of Israel no longer trust their government. “Twenty three percent of the population lives under poverty line. Twenty percent of businesses collapsed this past year. No single country in the West experienced such a business catastrophe,” he says. 

• Neo-liberal Netanyahu turning socialist
• Netanyahu — not Mr. Security, not Mr. Economy
• Israelis look for 'anyone but Bibi'

| Apr. 1, 2020

As the coronavirus crisis continues to grip the world, the markets have been on the shakiest ground yet since the 2008 economic recession - especially with regards to the price of oil. In the last few years, Saudi Arabia and Russia have developed a special relationship to stabilize oil prices in the face of growing competition from the Americans, who for the first time has begun to outpace both countries in terms of production. But when demand for oil began to fall precipitously in the face of COVID-19, the relationship ended in a messy way. Phil and Cooper break down the bad breakup and how it’s affected economies worldwide.