Saudi 'Davos in the desert' opens with region on war footing
Voice of America
General view of the venue as Saudi Arabia's Minister of Energy Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman Al Saud attends the Future Investment Initiative (FII) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia Oct. 29, 2024.
Global business leaders gathered in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday for a glitzy investor forum as conflict shakes the region and skepticism mounts over the Gulf kingdom's most ambitious development projects.
FILE - U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and South Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs Cho Tae-yul are pictured at a meeting in Vientiane, Laos, July 27, 2024. They will meet with their nations' top defense officials Oct. 31 in Washington.
Plainclothes police officers pass by a primary school following a knife attack that occurred on an intersection road near a school in the northwestern Haidian district in Beijing, Oct. 28, 2024.
FILE - Guinea junta leader Col. Mamady Doumbouya, leaves a meeting with an ECOWAS delegation in Conakry, Guinea, Sept. 10, 2021. Authorities recently dissolved dozens of political parties.
Umbrella for Democratic Change activists gather for a rally after their failed protest in Gaborone, Botswana, Oct. 26 2024. (Mqondisi Dube/VOA) Police vehicles patrol roads leading to the Zimbabwe Embassy in Gaborone, Botswana, Oct. 26 2024. (Mqondisi Dube/VOA)
Scavengers work at the scene of a collapsed building in suburban Abuja, Nigeria, Oct. 28, 2024.
Georgia's President Salome Zurabishvili, flanked by leaders of opposition parties, speaks during a press conference at the presidential palace in Tbilisi, a day after the parliamentary elections, Oct. 27, 2024. (Georgian Presidential Press Service / AFP) Tina Bokuchava, the chair of the United National Movement opposition party, gives a speech during a gathering at the party's headquarters after exit polls were announced during parliamentary elections in Tbilisi on Oct. 26, 2024.
Vilija Blinkeviciute, leader of Lithuania's Social Democratic Party talks with journalists as exit poll results are announced in Vilnius, during the second round of parliamentary elections on Oct. 27, 2024.
A view shows an apartment building which was hit by a Russian air strike, in Kharkiv, in this handout picture released on Oct. 28, 2024. (Press service of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine in Kharkiv region/Handout via Reuters)
FILE - Members of the U.N. Security Council vote to approve its first resolution endorsing a cease-fire plan aimed at ending the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, June 10, 2024, in this photo provided by the United Nations. FILE - Iranian Foreign Minister Araqchi speaks during a press conference in Istanbul, Oct. 19, 2024. Smoke billows amid ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as pictured from Marjayoun, near the border with Israel, Oct. 28, 2024.
A campaign poster for Uzbekistan's legislative elections is seen at Tashkent's Chorsu Bazaar, Oct. 27, 2024.