– Saudi Arabia’s crown prince showed up only briefly this week at the kingdom’s flagship investment forum, which largely drew leaders and firms with strategic interest in the Gulf state and wrapped up with relatively meagre deals and an anticlimactic finale. It was a far cry from the inaugural Future Investment Initiative (FII) in 2017 when Mohammed bin Salman, embraced then by the West as a bold reformer, shared his vision of a modern, tolerant kingdom that would build futuristic cities. However, as Riyadh prepares to assume the Group of 20 presidency, its ability to once again draw big names after a Western boycott of last year’s event showed it starting to recover from the damage to the prince’s image that followed the murder of […]