Winners of the Create & Inspire 2014 competition from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and the UK travelled to Brazil last month to experience one of the most colourful cultures in the world, on a creative adventure of a lifetime.  

Culture and Information Minister Abdul Aziz Khoja will open on Tuesday a weeklong cultural event in Berlin coinciding with the Saudi National Day celebrations.  A major event in the festival will be a comprehensive exhibition showcasing the past and present of the Saudi culture. 

Moving to end the Islamic State’s reign of terror in the Middle East, several nations are weighing hard-power, military options as well as soft-power propaganda tactics to dismantle the extremist army, discredit its ideology and discourage foreign recruits from its influence.

Iran's main cultural centre in the Sudanese capital was closed on Sunday, an AFP correspondent reported, amid reports of Khartoum playing a balancing act between maintaining ties with Riyadh and Tehran.  The Iranian flag still flew above the building on one of Khartoum's main roads across from the airport but an AFP reporter found the gate padlocked and no sign of anybody inside.

There are extraordinary elements in the present U.S. policy in Iraq and Syria that are attracting surprisingly little attention. In Iraq, the U.S. is carrying out air strikes and sending in advisers and trainers to help beat back the advance of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (better known as ISIS) on the Kurdish capital, Erbil. The U.S. would presumably do the same if ISIS surrounds or attacks Baghdad. But in Syria, Washington’s policy is the exact opposite: there the main opponent of ISIS is the Syrian government and the Syrian Kurds in their northern enclaves.

The Death Penalty Worldwide Database, which collects information on executions across the globe, shows that Saudi Arabia has one of the highest execution rates in the world, and applies the death penalty to a range of offenses that do not constitute “most serious crimes,” including drug offenses, adultery, sorcery, and apostasy. According to media reports, Saudi Arabia has executed at least 34 people in 2014, including the 19 between August 4 and August 20. According to Agence France-Presse, Saudi Arabia executed at least 78 people in 2013. 

The Middle East is in turmoil and increasingly there is a need for the two regional powers, Iran and Saudi Arabia, to mend their differences in an effort to address urgent regional security matters. There is no denying that the Arab-Persian rivalry and sectarian divide is deep-rooted and will require serious dialogue and engagement to be rectified.