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Oil, entitlement, & how MBS is changing Saudi Arabia
What is Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman really doing to modernize Saudi Arabia? On GZERO World, Ian Bremmer asks Princeton University's Bernard Hayel.
MBS, as he's known in the West, is "basically banking on the bulk of the population that's under 30, [who think] he's a rock star because of the things he's doing."
Meanwhile, "anyone over 40 hates him because he's taking away entitlements" and changing the modus operandi of the country.
Haykel explains that the crown prince knows it's unsustainable for Saudi Arabia to continue relying exclusively on oil to grow.
They're still raking it in because prices are high, but MBS needs to get ahead of the curve by reforming subsidies and taxation.
Watch the GZERO World episode: Saudi Arabia’s repressive power politics
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Activist Loujain al-Hathloul is far from free in MBS's reformed Saudi Arabia
In 2014, Loujain al Hathloul did the unthinkable: attempt to drive into Saudi Arabia, the last country in the world with a driving ban for women.
That changed four years later after Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, aka MBS, removed the restriction on women, she explains on GZERO World.
But just six weeks before the ban was lifted there, she was arrested in the UAE and flown to Riyadh against her will. Loujain later spent more than 1,000 days behind bars for her activism defending women's rights.
Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden's recent trip to Saudi Arabia has angered human rights groups like DAWN, founded by Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi before he was murdered in a hit the CIA says was ordered by MBS.