The picture says it all: Marco Rubio and Sergey Lavrov, America and Russia, sat about a hardwood table beneath the dripping chandeliers of Saudi Arabia’s Diriyah Palace, ready to remake Eurasia for the rest of the century. Between them sits Prince Farhan bin Abdallah, the Saudi foreign minister, and cousin to Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman (MBS). Delegates from Europe and Ukraine are nowhere to be seen.

In a break from long standing religious tradition, Saudi Arabia is set to open its first ever liquor store within a few weeks. 

The decision—led by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman—is historic for the kingdom, which has enforced stringent prohibition measures against alcohol since it was first banned in 1952.

The consumption of alcohol is forbidden in Islam, but the incoming store will only sell alcohol to non-Muslims in Riyadh’s diplomatic quarter, and authorization must be sought through an app called Diplo, Reuters reported. 

Saudi Arabia’s first alcohol store has opened in the diplomatic quarter of its capital Riyadh, accessible to non-Muslim diplomats. 

While it only affects a select group, it’s a big change for the highly conservative Muslim kingdom, where alcohol has been banned since 1952 after a Saudi prince murdered a British diplomat in a drunken rage. Drinking is also forbidden under Islam, and most of Saudi Arabia’s local population is religiously observant.

Saudi Arabia is preparing to open its first alcohol store in the capital Riyadh which will serve exclusively non-Muslim diplomats, according to a source familiar with the plans and a document.

Customers will have to register via a mobile app, get a clearance code from the foreign ministry, and respect monthly quotas with their purchases, said the document, which was seen by Reuters.

His plane flanked by four fighter jets, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia began a rare trip on Wednesday to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, two oil-rich Gulf nations that have resisted pressure to take sides in the Ukraine war.

The talks touched on international crises, primarily Israel’s two-month-old war with Hamas — a conflict that has played into Mr. Putin’s geopolitical aims by distracting Western leaders from the war in Ukraine.

The Biden administration is pressing ahead with a concerted effort to strike a “grand bargain” in the Middle East that includes normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, calculating that the U.S. could reap big rewards if it can overcome steep obstacles.

President Joe Biden’s aides have made this diplomatic push a foreign policy priority despite varying degrees of skepticism by experts on whether the timing, conditions and current regional leadership are right for a mega-deal that could reshape the geopolitics of the Middle East.

For months, Saudi Arabia and Israel – with the United States – have been discussing an agreement to normalise relations.

The US has made it clear that official relations between its two allies in the Middle East is a top priority, with top diplomat Antony Blinken declaring it a “national security interest“.

This comes amid a regional realignment after Iran and Saudi Arabia re-established diplomatic ties after years of animosity.

President Joe Biden’s administration is trying to finalize a “complicated” agreement to establish diplomatic ties between Saudi Arabia and Israel and shore up U.S. security ties with the Gulf Arab state as a hedge against China's encroachment in the Middle East.

“It’s complicated, and to land all of these different pieces, it takes a tremendous amount of work,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Thursday during an MSNBC broadcast. “We’re in the middle of it. It’s still a challenge.”

On the menu today: The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia effectively purchases the world of professional golf, and new evidence points to the Ukrainian government as the saboteur of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

Selling Our Institutions

The leadership of big, prominent, influential, and popular American institutions is for sale to the highest bidder — and very often, sovereign-wealth funds of brutal regimes are the highest bidder.

And the winner is …

Golf.

Golf and its fans around the globe who’ve grown tired of the hypocrisy that has divided the sport with the PGA Tour, threatened by LIV Golf and banning players who jumped to the Saudi-backed tour, now get to see the best players compete against each other more than in only the four major championships.