[ad_1]
Endeavor, the holding company of Beverly Hills entertainment agencies, has sent its co-director, Ariel Emanuel, to help advance negotiations for a Saudi investment.
Unlike Davos, the conference in Switzerland that brings together a list of the richest and most prominent people in the world, the Saudi event has struggled to attract heads of state. This year, the organizers hoped to attract French President Emmanuel Macron and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. neither was available. Last year, Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, and Nicolas Sarkozy, the former president of France, were present.
The Ritz-Carlton, originally built as a palace for guests of the royal family and foreign dignitaries, is an ideal place. Visitors walk on a red carpet in a vast hall resembling a cathedral, with frescoed ceilings and sparkling chandeliers.
Inside the hotel, invited women are encouraged to wear work clothes. But outside, they stick to the most typical Saudi dress, called abaya, keeping their arms and legs covered. Last year, some women were redirected to the side entrances of the hotel's conference center, rather than to the main entrance of the building.
Much of the lecture was a familiar blend of speeches and roundtables. But some recalled the hubbub that followed the presentation of Crown Prince Mohammed to Neom: they joked that it was a gigantic sandcastle. Even stranger were the big robots that the organizers placed in the lobby, where they had conversations with the entertained guests.
In retrospect, clouds formed on the horizon. A few days after the aliens left the Ritz-Carlton, Crown Prince Mohammed turned him into a high-end prison for hundreds of wealthy Saudis. For weeks, the guards kept them locked up – by maligning some – until they handed over billions of dollars in the form of ill-gotten gains, according to the prince.
Steven A. Cook, an expert from the Council on Foreign Relations on Saudi Arabia, said that the conference, like the decision of Crown Prince Mohammed to let women drive, was supposed to give an attractive face what constitutes a ruthless attempt to transform his society.
