The State of Play - August 29, 2023

In this edition: Saudi human rights abuse, Nvidia performs like gangbusters, updates on the Thai and Spanish elections, and 'de-risking' from China.

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Saudi Arabia’s most recent human rights abuses

Source: BBC

Recently, Saudi Arabia has been doing a lot to try and rehabilitate its global image. Whether it is through sportswashing, using LIV and soccer, or through diplomacy and trying to testing the waters on a deal with Israel, Riyadh is attempting to remake its image as a global force beyond oil.

24 August 2023 - ‘Bridges with everyone’: how Saudi Arabia and UAE are positioning themselves for power (Andrew England, FT):

Where others view the shifting global currents through the lens of risk, Riyadh and Abu Dhabi see opportunities as they leverage their financial muscle and abundant oil resources to strategically hedge against their traditional relations with the west. The common theme in both Gulf states is one of self-assured, assertive leaders who are no longer willing to accept binary “with us or against us” US demands.

And then stories like this break, and you remember what it actually going on there.

21 August 2023 - They Fired on Us Like Rain (Nadia Hardman, Human Rights Watch):

Saudi border guards have killed at least hundreds of Ethiopian migrants and asylum seekers who tried to cross the Yemen-Saudi border between March 2022 and June 2023. Human Rights Watch research indicates that, at time of writing, the killings are continuing. Saudi border guards have used explosive weapons and shot people at close range, including women and children, in a pattern that is widespread and systematic. If committed as part of a Saudi government policy to murder migrants, these killings would be a crime against humanity. In some instances, Saudi border guards first asked survivors in which limb of their body they preferred to be shot, before shooting them at close range. Saudi border guards also fired explosive weapons at migrants who had just been released from temporary Saudi detention and were attempting to flee back to Yemen.

Unfortunately, it appears western governments were aware of this and chose to ignore it.

27 August 2023 - U.S. Knew Saudis Were Killing African Migrants (Ben Hubbard and Edward Wong, NYT):

Last fall, American diplomats received grim news that border guards in Saudi Arabia, a close U.S. partner in the Middle East, were using lethal force against African migrants who were trying to enter the kingdom from Yemen.

The diplomats got more detail in December, when United Nations officials presented them with information about Saudi security forces shooting, shelling and abusing migrants, leaving many dead and wounded, according to U.S. officials and a person who attended the meetings, all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity since they were not authorized to speak to journalists.

In the months since, American officials have not publicly criticized the Saudis’ conduct, although State Department officials said this past week, following a published report of the killings, that U.S. diplomats have raised the issue with their Saudi counterparts and asked them to investigate. It remains unclear whether those discussions have affected Saudi actions.

World leaders and sports leagues might try to paper over Saudi Arabia’s image, but stories like this are a reminder that the government hasn’t really changed.

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Nvidia’s Q2 earnings

In one of the year’s more anticipated earnings reports, last week Nvidia released its Q2 results. On the back of the AI boom, earlier this year Nvidia became one of the few companies to reach a $1tn market cap. The expectation at the time was that revenue would take off as companies continued to invest in AI research.

Well, was the investor hype warranted?

In a word - yes.