Villainess
smooth talk on a rainy summer evening
qiyama is startingThis place is a scam. MBS has had been fleeced by the cadaans and yahuud so thoroughly.
Here is an article in the WSJ describing what NEOM is supposed to be:
A Prince’s $500 Billion Desert Dream: Flying Cars, Robot Dinosaurs and a Giant Artificial Moon
Saudi Arabia’s crown prince turned to U.S. consultants for help imagining a massive new city-state in a barren section of his kingdom. What emerged was a Jetsons-style world of automation.
SHARMA, Saudi Arabia—This seaside corner of northwest Saudi Arabia is so barren that the only abundant resources a group of consultants could identify were sunlight and “unlimited access to salt water.”
But Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman didn’t see a wasteland when he landed in his helicopter here a few years ago. He saw the future— and hatched a plan for a $500 billion city-state to cover 10,000 square miles of rocky desert and empty coastline to attract the “world’s greatest minds and best talents” to the world’s best paying jobs in the world’s most livable city.
They’ll fly drone taxis to work while robots clean their homes. Their city will supplant Silicon Valley in technology, Hollywood in entertainment and the French Riviera as a place to vacation. It will host a genetic-modification project to make people stronger.
These ideas are laid out in 2,300 pages of confidential documents by consultants at Boston Consulting Group, McKinsey & Co. and Oliver Wyman that The Wall Street Journal reviewed, and discussed in interviews with people involved in the project called Neom, a portmanteau of the Greek word for “new” and the Arabic word for “future.” The documents, dated September 2018, offer the most detailed look inside Neom and its planning since the project was unveiled in 2017.
Tasked by the crown prince, known as MBS, to help turn his imaginary city into a reality, the consultants created an expensive mix of science fiction and corporate buzzwords interrupted by uncomfortable realities: Local tribes would be forcibly relocated. A court system developed by law firm Latham & Watkins and labeled “independent” would have judges reporting directly to the king, and operating under Shariah law, or Islamic jurisprudence.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, here speaking to U.S. journalist Maria Bartiromo in 2017, wants Neom to create new industries in entertainment, tourism and renewable energy while attracting residents from around the world, according to planning documents.
PHOTO: FAYEZ NURELDINE/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
“This should be an automated city where we can watch everything,” Neom’s MBS-led founding board said, according to the documents—a city “where a computer can notify crimes without having to report them or where all citizens can be tracked.”
Neom’s board has adopted the consultants’ recommendations, the documents show. The consulting firms and Latham declined to comment on the documents, which were completed before MBS’s underlings allegedly killed journalist Jamal Khashoggi last fall, according to Saudi officials. Former Neom employees and people familiar with the project say they don’t know how much of the plan will become reality due to potential funding issues and technological limitations.
The Saudi government didn’t respond to a request for comment on the plans for Neom.
Nadhmi al-Nasr, the chief executive of Neom, said construction is underway for a project that “is all about things that are necessarily future-oriented and visionary.”
PHOTO: FAYEZ NURELDINE/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
“Neom is all about things that are necessarily future-oriented and visionary,” Neom Chief Executive Nadhmi al Nasr said in an emailed statement. “So we are talking about technology that is cutting edge and beyond—and in some cases still in development and maybe theoretical.” He said that construction is under way. The first projects include an airport and a resort, Neom said in a statement. The government has also built a palace at the site.
Neom is the centerpiece of MBS’s effort to transform an insular, oil-dependent kingdom into a country with an outward-looking, diversified economy. Rather than relying on petroleum revenue to fund purchases from foreign countries, MBS has said he wants Saudi Arabia to produce goods and services that Saudis currently buy abroad. He has proposed Neom as a Massachusetts-sized area with auto factories, hospitals, tech companies and resorts to keep Saudis spending domestically.
But the plan to spend $500 billion building Neom from scratch, rather than investing in existing Saudi cities, reflects the kingdom’s long-standing problems as much as MBS’s ambitions. Foreign companies have long avoided investing there due to an opaque legal system, corruption, and social strictures banning alcohol and requiring women get a male relative’s permission to travel. MBS found those structures so entrenched that it was easier to develop a new city than to change existing ones.
“Starting Neom from scratch, with independent systems and regulations, will ensure the availability of best services without social limitations,” he said at Neom’s first board meeting, according to the documents.
Neom is the biggest, and most ambitious, in a series of futuristic cities that Gulf leaders have developed to help diversify away from oil dependence. In the United Arab Emirates, Dubai and Abu Dhabi have become major commercial hubs, as has Qatar’s capital, Doha.
ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY ANDERS NILSEN, PHOTO: BLOOMBERG NEWS
. This is going to be a flop. The UAE tried this already in a simpler way with Masdar City. It flopped.
