Saudi Arabia

The final numbers are in, and according to AFP, Saudi Arabia carried out 153 executions in 2016 based on official announcements, fractionally lower than the year before.

As AFP adds, the ultra-conservative kingdom is one of the world’s most prolific executioners and has a strict Islamic legal code under which murder, drug trafficking, armed robbery, rape and apostasy are all punishable by death. Once charged, the likelihood of avoiding a terminal sentence is nominal.

After suffering two record budgets shortfalls in 2015 and 2016 as a result of plunging oil prices, and which nearly brought both Saudi Arabia's economy and banking sector to a standstill, not to mention billions in unpaid state worker wages at least until generous foreign investors funded the Kingdom's imminent cash needs with its first, and massive, bond sale ever, today Saudi Arabia released it budget outlook for the next year.

Saudi Arabia has admitted using banned cluster bombs during its airstrikes against Yemen. The Saudi’s have finally admitted that they used British-manufactured cluster bombs against Houthi rebels in Yemen, increasing pressure on the UK government which has repeatedly refused to curb arms sales to Riyadh. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have on several occasions reported the use of illegal cluster bombs by the kingdom in Yemen.

Submitted by Nick Cunningham via OilPrice.com,

Saudi Arabia surprised the world by helping to engineer an unexpectedly strong agreement from OPEC members to cut production by 1.2 million barrels per day, followed by additional cuts from non-OPEC members. While the two agreements incorporate cuts from a wide range of oil producers, Saudi Arabia will do much of the heavy lifting, cutting nearly 500,000 barrels per day and even promising to go further than that should the markets warrant steeper reductions.

Submitted by Wayne Madsen via Strategic-Culture.org,