This month, Saudi Arabia’s oil company, Aramco, revealed that it generated $111.1 billion in net income last year, making it the world’s most profitable company by far. So it is not particularly surprising that a scant six months after the murder and dismemberment of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi by government goons stunned the world, businesses and banks are once again courting the kingdom. “The fact that there are issues in the press does not tell me I must run away from a place. Mr. Fink’s statement appeared to be a variation on what many other corporate barons have used as justification for working with the de facto Saudi ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman — that they are helping Saudis to reform and modernize their society. The purported modernization decreed by the prince has been accompanied by a broad campaign of arrests, trials, convictions and executions.

Source: New York Times April 24, 2019 23:09 UTC