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Google, siding with Saudi Arabia, refuses to remove widely-criticized government app which lets men track women and control their travel

Google has rejected calls to remove a Saudi government app which offers a tool for men to control where women travel.

The company told the office of Democratic Rep. Jackie Speier, who had called for its removal, that the app does not violate its terms of service.

Google has declined to remove from its app store a Saudi government app which lets men track women and control where they travel, on the grounds that it meets all their terms and conditions.

Google reviewed the app — called Absher — and concluded that it does not violate any agreements, and can therefore remain on the Google Play store.

The decision was communicated by Google to the office of Rep. Jackie Speier, a California Democrat who, with other members of Congress, wrote last week to demand they remove the service.

Google did not respond to a request for comment on the decision.

https://www.businessinsider.com/absher-google-refuses-to-remove-saudi-govt-app-that-tracks-women-2019-3?utm_source=fark&utm_medium=website&utm_content=link&ICID=ref_fark

Saudi Arabia runs a huge, sinister online database of women that men use to track them and stop them from running away

Saudi law says every woman must have a male guardian, who has enormous power over her life and travel.

The Saudi government has digitized parts of the guardian system, letting Saudi men manage women's lives online.

Guardians can specify when and from which airports women can travel, effectively trapping them in Saudi Arabia.

The system includes a text-messaging system that alerts men when women use their passports. They are often able to catch them as a result.

The system has existed for years, but it has come under renewed scrutiny after the high-profile asylum claim of the Saudi teen Rahaf Mohammed.

https://www.thisisinsider.com/absher-saudi-website-men-control-women-stop-escape-2019-1

Saudi Arabia: why jobs overhaul could define MBS’s rule.

The crown prince is leaning on the private sector to recruit local workers, but some businesses are paying a heavy price

Fahad al-Shahrani answers his phone with a glint in his eye, like a gambler who knows the cards are stacked in his favour. The 27-year-old has been enthusing about how the dynamics of the Saudi labour market are shifting as Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman oversees what is widely viewed as the kingdom’s most aggressive drive to secure private sector employment for young nationals. Before, he would send his CV to 30 companies and receive no responses, he says.

But in recent weeks he has found himself in demand. “My phone is ringing all the time,” he says. As if on cue, it buzzes into life — a perfume shop where Mr Shahrani applied for a job has called to say he is being considered for the post.

The scene plays out in a watch store where the young Saudi started working just a month earlier. Nidhal Shaaban, the shop’s Syrian manager, observes quietly that his newest employee is already on the hunt for a better paying job. Watch stores are among 12 retail sectors — ranging from opticians to car parts outlets — added to the so-called “Saudisation” programme in November that means Saudi nationals must account for at least 70 per cent of their employees. The store manager knows government policy is, at least for now, working in favour of Mr Shahrani and his peers.

Yet Mr Shahrani’s optimism belies the massive hurdles that face Riyadh’s efforts to overhaul a labour system that has for decades been dependent on millions of imported workers from across the region and Asia, who are typically willing to do more work for lower pay. Of all Prince Mohammed’s pledges to modernise and diversify the oil-dependent economy, it is the most daunting and critical challenge, experts say.
Get it right and Saudi Arabia will ease its addiction to foreign workers, who occupy about 90 per cent of all private sector jobs, and address rampant youth unemployment in a country where more than half the population is aged under 25. Fail and joblessness will soar and risk becoming a source of social instability in the world’s leading oil exporter.

“Job creation is at the crux of Prince Mohammed’s [reforms] and the long-term prosperity and stability of the country,” says John Sfakianakis, chief economist at the Riyadh-based Gulf Research Centre. “At the end of the day it’s your ability to produce employment and income that people test you on.”

The omens do not appear good. Even as more Saudis have found jobs in the private sector, unemployment among the local population has been on a steep upward trajectory in the three years since the crown prince launched his ambitious Vision 2030 reform plan. From 11.5 per cent in the first three months of 2016, it climbed to 12.9 per cent in July last year, the highest level on record. Youth joblessness is close to 40 per cent and far higher for young women.

The measures Riyadh has introduced to accelerate labour reform have increased the costs for businesses already grappling with lacklustre growth since the 2014 oil price drop tripped up the economy.

In addition to forcing Saudisation on a widening number of sectors, the government has increased the levies that firms must pay for each foreign worker from SR200 ($53) a month to SR300 at companies that employ more Saudis than expatriates, and to SR400 a month for those that employ fewer nationals.

Riyadh also introduced a monthly SR100 fee that expatriates have to pay for their dependants in 2017, and doubled it last year.
The goal is to begin to close the gap between the cost of employing Saudis and foreigners, with the former typically paid 1.5 times to three times more than overseas workers.

The most visible result of the reforms is Saudi nationals standing behind shop counters and burger bars in the ubiquitous malls dotted across the country’s cities, or repairing mobile phones, selling car parts or hardware. But many small and medium-sized companies have been forced to close, according to analysts and Saudi media reports, due to the added labour costs and lacklustre growth.

“[If] you are trying to improve employment — which is happening — but at the same time you are imposing another [cost], this creates pressure on business,” says one Saudi executive. You have to protect the existing businesses . . . [but] some are closing.”

He and others insist the government is doing the right thing after years of inaction and complacency while the petrodollars flowed in. Previous attempts at Saudisation in the 1990s and 2000s were toothless, with companies doing the bare minimum to tick their quota boxes and complaining about the work ethic of nationals. Generous state benefits, which can amount to as much as two-thirds of the minimum public-sector wage, provided little incentive for Saudis to search for work.

Today, labour ministry officials patrol shops to ensure they are complying with quotas. Those in violation face a SR20,000 fine. “We have had a very disorganised economy since 1975. Before then we had normal cycles of everything, the number of foreigners was only 100,000,” says the executive. “With the oil booms things went in all directions, there was no plan, there was no strategy.”

Yet he accepts that there will not be any reduction in unemployment for the “foreseeable future”. Instead, just holding joblessness at the current rate for the next few years “is a challenge”.

The reforms are already having a dramatic impact on many of the 10m overseas workers in the kingdom, which has a population of 33m. Coupled with the woes of a battered construction sector and weak growth, the reforms have fuelled an exodus of expatriates. More than 314,000 left between the second and third quarters of last year, bringing the number that have departed the kingdom since the beginning of 2017 to more than 1.4m.

For years, the kingdom has provided an outlet for jobseekers in the Arab world’s non-oil exporters and Asian countries that provide the bulk of the country’s construction and domestic help jobs. No one is expecting Saudis to take on roles in these sectors and foreigners will continue to constitute a major segment of the labour force.

But the more Saudis are employed in the service sectors, the more they will be replacing Arabs from neighbouring countries, threatening to weaken a vital economic link between the region’s oil exporter and poorer neighbours such as Egypt and Jordan. Remittance outflows from Saudi Arabia fell from a peak of $38.8bn in 2015 to $36bn in 2017, according to World Bank data.“

All foreigners are worried. If I lose my job I will have to leave the country and as I’m a Syrian I can’t go home because of the war,” says Mr Shaaban, who fled his homeland in 2011 and says he has had to dismiss some Yemeni workers to make way for Saudis since the changes were introduced. “I know more than 50 people who left in the past year after being replaced by Saudis. They had to leave. Companies don’t want to hire any more foreigners.”

For Riyadh, the dilemma is how to push ahead with reforms without inflicting more damage on a private sector that is being leaned on to hire Saudis. The economy has struggled since oil prices plunged in 2014 and it slipped into recession in 2017. Gross domestic product bounced back to expand by 2.3 per cent last year, but the IMF forecasts it will slow again to 1.8 per cent in 2019.

The situation has been exacerbated by government moves that have hurt fragile investor sentiment. Prince Mohammed’s extraordinary crackdown on corruption in November 2017, during which more than 300 princes, businessmen and former government officials were rounded up, sent shockwaves through the kingdom. The global outrage triggered by the October killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi further dented international interest at a time when the kingdom is desperate for foreign backing for the prince’s mega-projects.

In January Riyadh launched a $450bn, 10-year plan that focuses on mining, industry, logistics and energy, with the hope of creating 1.6m jobs by 2030. But that — like so many of Prince Mohammed’s plans — will depend on the kingdom attracting massive levels of investment.
Some businesses say that in the wake of the Khashoggi murder, the leadership is paying more attention to local concerns. King Salman approved in February a $3.1bn plan to ease the burden of expat levies on businesses in a bid to stimulate growth. And the government will exempt some companies from paying the 2018 fees or reimburse those that have already paid on the condition that they make progress on hiring Saudis. Officials acknowledge that some of the reform targets were too ambitious.

At the same time the government has quietly recalibrated its goal of reducing Saudi unemployment to 9 per cent by 2020 to 10.5 per cent by 2022, analysts say. But Prince Mohammed is unlikely to ease up on his Saudisation drive.

“He’s just going to keep pushing this as his main priority. Every time someone suggests, your Royal Highness, should we slow down and ease the process,’ he says, ‘no, this is a priority and we have no more time to slow down,’” says Fawaz al-Alamy, a former deputy minister of commerce and World Trade Organization chief technical negotiator. “Some believe the answer is to improve the skills of Saudis and narrow the chasm between foreigners’ and locals’ wages, until the Saudis are grabbed by employers for their merits.”

But the kingdom is in a race against time. A 2015 report by McKinsey, the consultancy that advises the government, estimated that up to 4.5m working-age Saudis would enter the labour market by 2030, almost doubling the size of the domestic labour force to 10m. The report said that to absorb the influx would require the creation of almost three times as many Saudi jobs as were created during the 2003-2013 oil boom.

Job creation is already failing to keep pace with about 400,000 young Saudis entering the job market each year, 230,000 of them university graduates. Mr Sfakianakis calculates that just to meet the 10.5 per cent unemployment target by 2022, the economy will need to absorb about 30,000 jobs in the private sector every month, compared with the 4,000-6,000 a month generated so far.

The relaxation of some of the social restrictions on women in the highly conservative state, such as lifting the ban on driving, means more of them are also looking for work.

“Pressuring the private sector to hire regardless, although positive, is going to have its limitations. You need real and productive growth,” Mr Sfakianakis says. “The Saudi employment we are having now is mainly the [foreign worker] replacement factor and government employment, but after that you need real growth [to create jobs].

”An important test will be whether the Saudi nationals — often criticised for depending on state handouts — can match the productivity of those they are replacing.

Using his phone, Mr Shahrani checks his employment history on the government social insurance website and discovers that he has only been in a job for 27 months in the nine years since he completed a diploma in computer studies. He spent time at a car company but felt uncomfortable as most of the other employees were foreigners. A job in the customs office ended because the commute was too long. And he tried working as a supermarket cashier but it “was long hours” and “very tiring”.

He earns SR3,000 a month in the watch shop, but plans to quit as soon as he finds a better paying job. And he dismisses the idea that Saudis have a poor work ethic “as just a stereotype”.

Across from the shop, Afrah Hilal, 23, is settling into a new role running a small perfume stall, work she started 24 hours after leaving her previous employer. “I was fired in the morning, came here in the evening and started work the day after,” she says.

“Some companies used to hate hiring Saudis but that has changed and workers are being more serious,” the 23-year-old adds. “Previously they would never last long, they would stay for two to three months, get some money, buy something and leave. But now there’s a much better work ethic.”

Others are less convinced. “The young population is not willing to work . . . Social and cultural change can’t happen overnight,” says the Saudi executive. “It [the reform] is tough. It’s not an easy job.”

https://www.ft.com/content/fc240c0e-29fb-11e9-88a4-c32129756dd8

Why the U.S. and Saudi Arabia Are Destined to Diverge

Highlights

◾The relationship between Saudi Arabia and the United States has long been a volatile one, but that volatility will become more frequent in the coming decades, outgrowing some of the personal relationships that provide its framework today.

◾U.S.-Saudi cooperation has always been based on common interests rather than common needs. While those interests have changed over time, they are now entering a phase in which they will not be as closely aligned.

◾The shale revolution and its effect on global energy markets is driving Saudi Arabia ever-closer to Russia and China economically and politically.

◾An ascendant China will force the United States to complete its pivot toward Asia, with a resulting reduction in the attention it pays toward the Middle East. More and more often, Riyadh will struggle to get on the same page as Washington in balancing against China.

President Donald Trump's current enthusiasm for Saudi Arabia notwithstanding, the relationship between the United States and perhaps its most important ally in the Middle East is undergoing a significant transformation. U.S. political pressure on Saudi Arabia is rising, led by a growing congressional discomfort over the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen and the circumstances surrounding the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, but that is just the tip of the iceberg.

Beneath the surface of the politics of the day, a pair of more significant geopolitical shifts is helping pull the longtime allies apart: the evolution of the global system away from U.S. dominance toward an intensifying, near-peer competition with China, as well as the fundamental reshaping of the global oil and gas markets upon which Saudi Arabia has built its wealth and power. As both countries adjust to these changing dynamics, their shared strategic relationship will evolve away from the foundation of oil, counterterrorism and the mutual desire to contain Iran. It's likely that, as those changes play out, the countries' future priorities will not align as they have in past decades.

The Big Picture

The fundamental relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia is changing dramatically and will continue to undergo significant shifts over the next two decades. Their alliance has always been beset by complications — becoming downright antagonistic at times — but the distance will only grow as their mutual strategic importance declines in the coming years.

The U.S. and the Balance of Power - https://worldview.stratfor.com/themes/us-and-balance-power

The Saudi Survival Strategy - https://worldview.stratfor.com/topic/saudi-survival-strategy

A Relationship Built on Pragmatism - Despite their obvious differences, Saudi Arabia and the United States have maintained a nearly eight-decade friendship. From the beginning, the U.S.-Saudi relationship has rested on mutual needs, not necessarily shared values.

A World that is Shaken, not Stirred - Two significant geopolitical shifts are altering the fundamental way that Saudi Arabia and the United States interact: the dramatic transformation in global energy markets and the rise of China, which is reducing the dominance of the U.S.-led Western order that emerged after the Cold War.

Toward a Multipolar World - After the Cold War ended, the United States was left standing as the global system's dominant power. But with China's emergence, that is evolving into a more multipolar structure, and the United States has, naturally, refocused its attention on countering its rising rival.

A Relationship that Bends but not Breaks - Even if Saudi importance in the eyes of the United States declines, their relationship would not necessarily reach a breaking point, but it would certainly become more volatile.

NOTE: Each sub-header above covered in detail: https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/why-us-and-saudi-arabia-are-destined-diverge