title: Mick Jagger

text: Jagger and the rest of the band moved to the south of France as tax exiles in 1971 to avoid paying a 93 percent supertax imposed by Harold Wilson's Labour government on the county's top earners. After the band's acrimonious split with their second manager, Allen Klein, in 1971 and Richards' heroin addiction, Jagger took control of their business affairs; the feuds between Jagger and Richards originated during this time as a result. Jagger has managed the group ever since, with Prince Rupert Loewenstein acting as business adviser and financial manager from 1968 until 2007.


title: Mick Jagger

text: Along with the rest of the band, Jagger changed his look and style as the 1970s progressed. While in France, he learned to play guitar and contributed guitar parts for songs on "Sticky Fingers" (1971) and the Stones' subsequent albums except "Dirty Work" in 1986. For the Rolling Stones' highly publicised 1972 American tour, Jagger wore glam-rock clothing and glitter makeup on stage. Their interest in the blues had been made manifest on the 1972 album "Exile on Main St.". Music critic Russell Hall has described Jagger's emotional singing on the gospel-influenced "Let It Loose", from "Exile" as the singer's finest-ever vocal achievement.


title: Mick Jagger

text: In 1972, Mick Jagger, Charlie Watts and Bill Wyman with Nicky Hopkins and Ry Cooder, released the album "Jamming with Edward!", which was recorded during the "Let It Bleed" sessions. The album includes loose jams while the rest of the Stones (reportedly) were waiting for Keith Richards to return to the studio.


title: Mick Jagger

text: That November, the band began recording sessions in Kingston, Jamaica, for the album "Goats Head Soup"; it was released in 1973 and reached No. 1 in both the UK and US. The album, which contained the worldwide hit "Angie", was the first in a string of commercially successful but tepidly received studio albums. The sessions for "Goats Head Soup" also produced unused material, most notably an early version of the popular ballad "Waiting on a Friend", which was not released until the "Tattoo You" LP nine years later.


title: Mick Jagger

text: Another legal battle over drugs, dating back to their stay in France, interrupted the making of "Goats Head Soup". Authorities had issued a warrant for Richards' arrest and the other band members had to return briefly to France for questioning. This, along with Jagger's 1967 and 1970 convictions on drug charges, complicated the band's plans for their Pacific tour in early 1973: they were denied permission to play in Japan and almost banned from Australia. A European tour followed in September and October 1973, which bypassed France, coming after Richards' arrest in England on drug charges.


title: Mick Jagger

text: The 1974 album "It's Only Rock 'n Roll" was recorded in the Musicland Studios in Munich, Germany; it reached No. 2 in the UK and No. 1 in the US. Jagger and Richards produced the album credited as "the Glimmer Twins". Both the album and the single of the same name were hits.


title: Mick Jagger

text: Following Mick Taylor's exodus from the band that December, the Stones were in need of a new guitarist. The recording sessions for the next album, "Black and Blue" (1976) (No. 2 in the UK, No. 1 in the US), in Munich provided an opportunity for some guitarists hoping to join the band to work while trying out. Multiple guitarists were auditioned some without even knowing it and Ronnie Wood of Faces was selected, joining the band in 1975. Woods has functioned as a mediator within the group, especially between Jagger and Richards. His first full-length LP with the band was "Some Girls" (1978), on which they ventured into disco and punk, a move primarily led by Jagger.


title: Mick Jagger

text: Following the success of "Some Girls", the band released their next album, "Emotional Rescue", in mid-1980. During recording sessions for the album, a rift between Jagger and Richards slowly developed. Richards wanted to tour in the summer or autumn of 1980 to promote the new album. Much to his disappointment, Jagger declined. "Emotional Rescue" hit the top of the charts on both sides of the Atlantic and the title track reached No. 3 in the US.


title: Mick Jagger

text: In early 1981, the group reconvened and decided to tour the US that year, leaving little time to write and record a new album, as well as rehearse for the tour. That year's resulting album, "Tattoo You", featured several outtakes, including lead single "Start Me Up", which reached No. 2 in the US and ranked No. 22 on Billboard's Hot 100 year-end chart. Two songs ("Waiting on a Friend" (US No. 13) and "Tops") featured Mick Taylor's unused rhythm guitar tracks, and jazz saxophonist Sonny Rollins played on "Slave", "Neighbours" and "Waiting on a Friend". The album reached No. 2 in the UK and No. 1 in the US.


title: Mick Jagger

text: While continuing to tour and release albums with the Rolling Stones, Jagger began a solo career. According to "Rolling Stone", he did so to "establish an artistic identity for himself apart from the Rolling Stones"...his "boldest attempt yet". Jagger started writing and recording material for his first solo album "She's the Boss". Released on 19 February 1985, the album, produced by Nile Rodgers and Bill Laswell, features Herbie Hancock, Jeff Beck, Jan Hammer, Pete Townshend and the Compass Point All Stars. It sold well, and the single "Just Another Night" was a Top Ten hit. During this period, he collaborated with the Jacksons on the song "State of Shock", sharing lead vocals with Michael Jackson.


title: Mick Jagger

text: Jagger performed without the Stones for the Live Aid multi-venue charity concert in 1985. He performed at Philadelphia's JFK Stadium, including a duet with Tina Turner of "It's Only Rock and Roll" (which was highlighted by Jagger tearing away Turner's skirt) and a cover of "Dancing in the Street" with David Bowie, who was performing at Wembley Stadium, London. The video was shown simultaneously on the screens of both Wembley and JFK Stadiums. The song reached No. 1 in the UK the same year.


title: Mick Jagger

text: When Richards got himself off heroin and became more present in decision making, Jagger was not used to Richards' presence and did not like his authority diminished. This led to the period Richards has referred to as "World War III", saying at the time if Jagger toured without the Stones, it would be a "death sentence". When the Stones released "Dirty Work" in March 1986, Jagger's relations with Richards were at an all-time low, resulting in Jagger refusing to tour to support the album. For his part, Jagger claimed: I think that one ought to be allowed to have one’s artistic side apart from just being in the Rolling Stones. I love the Rolling Stones—I think it’s wonderful, I think it’s done a lot of wonderful things for music. But, you know, it cannot be, at my age and after spending all these years, the only thing in my life.


title: Mick Jagger

text: He released his second solo album, "Primitive Cool", in 1987. Though it failed to match the commercial success of his debut, it was critically well received. Richards released his first solo album, "Talk is Cheap", shortly afterwards. Many felt this marked the Stone's obituary. Jagger produced the songs "Glamour Boys" and "Which Way to America" on Living Colour's album "Vivid" in 1988. Between 15 and 28 March, he did a solo concert tour in Japan (Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka).


title: Mick Jagger

text: Jagger and Richards reunited in the Barbados in 1988 and produced dozens of songs. Richards recalls:We just started in. And within two days, we realized we had five or six songs happening. I did have to take Mick to a few discos—which are not my favourite places in the world—because Mick likes to go out and dance at night. So I did that. That was my sacrifice. I humoured him. And that's when I knew we could work together.


title: Mick Jagger

text: Ron Wood believes the modest sales of Jagger's "Primitive Cool" "surprised" Mick and made him "realize the strength of the band". Richards recalled: "We've been stuffed together for years and one of the consequences of the break was making us realize we were stuck together whether we liked it or not. Jagger agreed, saying: "Because we've been doing it for so long, we don't really have to discuss it. When we come up with a lick or a riff or a chorus, we already know if it's right or if it's wrong." On 29 August 1989 this work was released on the band's 19th UK and 21st U.S. album "Steel Wheels".


title: Mick Jagger

text: The 1989–1990 Steel Wheels/Urban Jungle Tour was the band's first world tour in seven years and their biggest stage production to date. Opening acts included Living Colour and Guns N' Roses. Recordings from the tour include the 1991 concert album "Flashpoint", which reached No. 6 in the UK and No. 16 in the US, and the concert film "Live at the Max", released in 1991. The tour was Bill Wyman's last. After years of deliberation he decided to leave the band, although his departure was not made official until January 1993.


title: Mick Jagger

text: Following the success of "Steel Wheels", and the end of Jagger and Richards' well-publicised feud, Jagger attempted to re-establish himself as a solo artist. He acquired Rick Rubin as co-producer in January 1992 for what would become his third solo album, "Wandering Spirit". Sessions for the album began the same month in Los Angeles and ended in September 1992. Richards was making his second solo studio album, "Main Offender", at the same time. On "Wandering Spirit", Jagger kept celebrity guests to a minimum, having only Lenny Kravitz as a vocalist on his cover of Bill Withers' "Use Me" and bassist Flea from Red Hot Chili Peppers on three separate tracks. Jagger signed with Atlantic Records, which had signed the Stones in the 1970s, to distribute the record. "Wandering Spirit" was his only solo release with the label, with the exception of "The Very Best of Mick Jagger"—a compilation album containing no new material. Released in February 1993, "Wandering Spirit" was commercially successful, reaching No. 12 in the UK and No. 11 in the US.


title: Mick Jagger

text: By 1993, the Stones were ready to start recording another studio album. Charlie Watts recruited bassist Darryl Jones, a former sideman of Miles Davis and Sting, as Wyman's replacement for 1994's "Voodoo Lounge". Jones continues to perform with the band as their touring and session bassist. The album met with strong reviews and sales, going double platinum in the US; reviewers took note and credited the album's "traditionalist" sounds to the Rolling Stones' new producer Don Was. "Voodoo Lounge" won the Grammy Award for Best Rock Album at the 1995 Grammy Awards. It reached No. 1 in the UK and No. 2 in the US.


title: Mick Jagger

text: The accompanying Voodoo Lounge Tour lasted into the following year and grossed $320 million, becoming the world's highest-grossing tour at the time. On 8 September 1994, the Stones performed their new song "Love Is Strong" and "Start Me Up" at the 1994 MTV Video Music Awards at Radio City Music Hall in New York. The band received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the ceremony.


title: Mick Jagger

text: The Rolling Stones ended the 1990s with the album "Bridges to Babylon", released in 1997 to mixed reviews. It reached No. 6 in the UK and No. 3 in the US. The video of the single "Anybody Seen My Baby?" featured Angelina Jolie as guest and met steady rotation on both MTV and VH1. Sales were roughly equal to those of previous records (about 1.2 million copies sold in the US). The subsequent Bridges to Babylon Tour, which crossed Europe, North America and other destinations, proved the band remained a strong live attraction. Once again, a live album was culled from the tour, "No Security", only this time all but two songs ("Live With Me" and "The Last Time") were previously unreleased on live albums. The album reached No. 67 in the UK and No. 34 in the US. In 1999, the Rolling Stones staged the No Security Tour in the US and continued the Bridges to Babylon tour in Europe.


title: Mick Jagger

text: In 2001, Jagger released his fourth solo album, "Goddess in the Doorway," spawning the single "Visions of Paradise", which reached No. 44 in the UK. Following the 11 September attacks, Jagger joined Richards in the Concert for New York City, a benefit concert in response to the terrorist attack, to sing "Salt of the Earth" and "Miss You".


title: Mick Jagger

text: According to "Fortune", from 1989 to 2001, the Stones generated more than US$1.5 billion in total gross revenue, exceeding that of U2, Bruce Springsteen, or Michael Jackson. Jagger celebrated the Rolling Stones' 40th anniversary by touring with the band on the year-long Licks Tour, supporting their commercially successful career retrospective "Forty Licks" double album. In 2007, the band grossed US$437 million on their A Bigger Bang Tour, which earned them an entry in the 2007 edition of "Guinness World Records" for the most lucrative music tour. When asked if the band would retire after the tour, Jagger said "I'm sure the Rolling Stones will do more things and more records and more tours. We've got no plans to stop any of that really."


title: Mick Jagger

text: Two years later in October 2009, Jagger joined U2 on stage to perform "Gimme Shelter" (with Fergie and will.i.am) and "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of" with U2 at the 25th Anniversary Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Concert.


title: Mick Jagger

text: On 20 May 2011, Jagger announced the formation of a new supergroup, SuperHeavy, which included Dave Stewart, Joss Stone, Damian Marley and A.R. Rahman. The group started with a phone call Jagger received from Stewart. Stewart had heard three sound systems playing different music at the same time in his home in St Ann's Bay, Jamaica. This gave him the idea of creating a group with Jagger, fusing the musical styles of several artists. After multiple phone calls and deliberation, the other members of the group were decided upon. SuperHeavy released one album and two singles in 2011, reportedly recording 29 songs in ten days. Jagger is featured on will.i.am's 2011 single "T.H.E. (The Hardest Ever)" along with Jennifer Lopez, officially released to iTunes on 4 February 2012.


title: Mick Jagger

text: On 21 February 2012, Jagger, B.B. King, Buddy Guy and Jeff Beck, and a blues ensemble, performed at the White House concert series before President Barack Obama. When Jagger held out a mic to him, Obama twice sang the line "Come on, baby don't you want to go" of the blues cover "Sweet Home Chicago", the blues anthem of Obama's hometown. Jagger hosted the season finale of "Saturday Night Live" on 19 and 20 May 2012, doing several comic skits and playing some Rolling Stones' hits with Arcade Fire, Foo Fighters and Jeff Beck.


title: Mick Jagger

text: Jagger performed in with the Rolling Stones on 12 December 2012. The Stones played the Glastonbury festival in 2013, headlining on Saturday, 29 June. This was followed by two concerts in London's Hyde Park as part of their 50th anniversary celebrations, their first there since their famous 1969 performance. In 2013, Jagger teamed up with his brother Chris Jagger for two new duets on his album "Concertina Jack," released to mark the 40th anniversary of his debut album. On 7 October 2016, the Stones headlined the first night of the three day music festival Desert Trip and covered the Beatles' 1969 single "Come Together"; Paul McCartney performed the next night. In July 2017, Jagger released the double A-sided single "Gotta Get a Grip" / "England Lost". They were released as a response to the "anxiety, unknowability of the changing political situation" in a post-Brexit UK, according to Jagger. Accompanying music videos were released for both songs.


title: Mick Jagger

text: In March 2019, a Rolling Stones tour of the US and Canada from April to June had to be postponed as Jagger needed a transcatheter aortic valve replacement. On 4 April 2019, it was announced that Jagger had successfully undergone the procedure at NewYork–Presbyterian Hospital, and was in great health. After a six-week delay while Jagger recovered, the No Filter Tour resumed with two performances at Chicago's Soldier Field.


title: Mick Jagger

text: The band's 1973 album "Goats Head Soup" was reissued on 4 September 2020 and featured previously unreleased outtakes, such as "Criss Cross", which was released as a single and music video on 9 July 2020, "Scarlet", featuring Jimmy Page, and "All the Rage". On 11 September 2020, the album topped the UK Albums Chart as the Rolling Stones became the first band to top the chart across six different decades.


title: Mick Jagger

text: The Rolling Stones—featuring Jagger, Richards, Watts and Wood at their homes—were one of the headline acts on Global Citizen's "One World: Together at Home" on-line and on-screen concert on 18 April 2020, a global event featuring dozens of artists and comedians to support frontline healthcare workers and the World Health Organization during the COVID-19 pandemic. On 23 April, Jagger announced through his Facebook page the release (the same day at 5pm BST) of the single "Living in a Ghost Town", a new Rolling Stones single recorded in London and Los Angeles in 2019 and finished in isolation (part of the new material that the band were recording in the studio before the COVID-19 lockdown), a song that the band "thought would resonate through the times we're living in" and their first release of original material since 2012. The song reached No. 1 on the German Singles Chart, the first time the Stones had reached the top spot in 52 years, and making them the oldest artists ever to do so.


title: Mick Jagger

text: In August 2021, it was announced that Charlie Watts would undergo an unspecified medical procedure and would not perform on the remainder of the No Filter tour; the longtime Stones associate Steve Jordan filled in as drummer. Watts died unexpectedly at a London hospital on 24 August 2021, at the age of 80, with his family around him. Jagger, Richards and Wood paid tribute to him, along with former bandmate Wyman. It was discussed whether the band would continue, and they opted to carry on as it was what "Charlie wanted us to do". During their first show after Watts' death, Jagger told the crowd:It’s a bit of a poignant night for us. Because this is our first tour in 59 years that we’ve done without our lovely Charlie Watts. We all miss Charlie so much. We miss him as a band. We miss him as friends, on and off the stage. We’ve got so many memories of Charlie. I’m sure some of you that have seen us before have got memories of Charlie as well. And I hope you’ll remember him like we do. So we’d like to dedicate this show to Charlie.In a May 2022 interview, Jagger stated "I don't really expect him to be there any more if I turn round during a show. But I do think about him. Not only during rehearsals or on stage, but in other ways too." On the one year anniversary of Watts' death, Jagger shared what "Rolling Stone" described as a "moving tribute" on social media, which included a voiceover by Jagger backed with "Till the Next Goodbye". That same year, Jagger cowrote "Strange Game" for the television series "Slow Horses" after being emailed "out of the blue" by composer Daniel Pemberton, whom he didn't know; the song was released on 1 April and subsequently nominated for an Emmy award. That June, two shows scheduled in the Stones' Sixty tour were postponed after Jagger contracted COVID-19. The tour resumed following Jagger's recovery in late June.


title: Mick Jagger

text: His songwriting partnership with Richards is one of the most successful in history. His relationship with Richards is frequently described as "love/hate" by the media. Richards said in a 1998 interview: "I think of our differences as a family squabble. If I shout and scream at him, it's because no one else has the guts to do it or else they're paid not to do it. At the same time I'd hope Mick realises that I'm a friend who is just trying to bring him into line and do what needs to be done."


title: Mick Jagger

text: "Dirty Work" (a UK & US No. 4) was released in March 1986 to mixed reviews, despite the US top five hit "Harlem Shuffle". With relations between Richards and Jagger at a low, Jagger refused to tour to promote the album, and instead undertook his own solo tour, which included Rolling Stones' songs. Richards has referred to this period in his relations with Jagger as "World War III". As a result of the animosity within the band at this time, they almost broke up. Jagger's solo records, "She's the Boss" (UK No. 6; US No. 13) (1985) and "Primitive Cool" (UK No. 26; US No. 41) (1987), met with moderate success and, in 1988, with the Rolling Stones mostly inactive, Richards released his first solo album, "Talk Is Cheap" (UK No. 37; US No. 24). It was well received by fans and critics, going gold in the US. The following year "", a documentary spanning the career of the band was released for their 25th anniversary.


title: Mick Jagger

text: Richards' autobiography, "Life", was published on 26 October 2010. According to a 15 October 2010 article, Richards described Jagger as "unbearable", noting that their relationship had been strained "for decades". By 2015, Richards' opinion had softened. While saying Jagger could come off as a "snob", he added "I still love him dearly ... your friends don't have to be perfect."


title: Mick Jagger

text: Jagger has had an intermittent acting career. His most significant role was in Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg's "Performance" (1968), and as Australian bushranger Ned Kelly in the film of the same name (1970). He composed an improvised soundtrack for Kenneth Anger's film "Invocation of My Demon Brother" on the Moog synthesiser in 1969.


title: Mick Jagger

text: Jagger auditioned for the role of Dr. Frank N. Furter in the 1975 film adaptation of "The Rocky Horror Show", a role that was eventually played by Tim Curry, the original performer from its theatrical run in London's West End. Director Alejandro Jodorowsky approached him in the same year to play the role of Feyd-Rautha in his proposed adaptation of Frank Herbert's "Dune", but the movie never made it to the screen. Jagger appeared as himself in the Rutles' film "All You Need Is Cash" (1978) and was cast as Wilbur, a main character in Werner Herzog's "Fitzcarraldo", in the late 1970s. The illness of principal actor Jason Robards (later replaced by Klaus Kinski), and a delay in the film's notoriously difficult production, resulted in him being unable to continue because of schedule conflicts with a Stones' tour; some footage of Jagger's work is shown in the documentaries "Burden of Dreams" and "My Best Fiend". Jagger developed a reputation for playing the heavy later in his acting career in films including "Freejack" (1992), "Bent" (1997), and "The Man From Elysian Fields" (2002).


title: Mick Jagger

text: In 1991, Jagger founded Jagged Films with Victoria Pearman and, in 1995, founded the film production company Lip Service with Steve Tisch. Jagged Films' first release was the World War II drama "Enigma" (2001), starring Kate Winslet as one of Bletchley Park's Enigma codebreakers. That same year, Jagged Films produced a documentary about Jagger entitled "Being Mick". The programme, which first aired in the US on ABC on 22 November, coincided with the release of his fourth solo album, "Goddess in the Doorway." In 2008 the company began work on "The Women", an adaptation of the George Cukor's film of the same name, directed by Diane English.


title: Mick Jagger

text: As a member of the Rolling Stones Jagger appears in several documentaries, including "Gimme Shelter", filmed during the band's 1969 tour of the US, and "Sympathy for the Devil" (1968) directed by French New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard. Martin Scorsese worked with Jagger on "Shine a Light", a documentary film featuring the band with footage from the A Bigger Bang Tour during two nights of performances at New York's Beacon Theatre. It screened in Berlin in February 2008. McCarthy predicted the film would fare better once released to video than in its limited theatrical runs. Jagger was a co-producer of, and guest-starred in the first episode of the short-lived American comedy television series "The Knights of Prosperity". He also co-produced the James Brown biopic "Get On Up" (2014). Alongside Martin Scorsese, Rich Cohen and Terence Winter, Jagger co-created and executive produced the period drama series "Vinyl" (2016), which starred Bobby Cannavale and aired for one season on HBO before its cancellation. Jagger portrays an English art dealer-collector and patron in Giuseppe Capotondi's thriller "The Burnt Orange Heresy" (2020).


title: Mick Jagger

text: Jagger has been married and divorced once, and has had other relationships, resulting in eight children with five women. He also has, as of 2021, five grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.


title: Mick Jagger

text: Jagger dated Chrissie Shrimpton between 1963 and 1966. From 1966 to 1970, he had a relationship with Marianne Faithfull, the English singer-songwriter/actress with whom he wrote "Sister Morphine", a song on "Sticky Fingers". Jagger met the American singer Marsha Hunt in 1969 and, though she was married, the pair had a relationship. When it ended in June 1970, Hunt was pregnant with Jagger's first child, Karis Hunt Jagger, who was born on 4 November 1970. Hunt is the inspiration for the song "Brown Sugar", also from "Sticky Fingers".


title: Mick Jagger

text: In 1970, he met Nicaraguan-born Bianca Pérez-Mora Macias. They married on 12 May 1971 in a Catholic ceremony in Saint-Tropez, France. Their daughter, Jade Sheena Jezebel Jagger, was born on 21 October 1971. They separated in 1977, and in May 1978 she filed for divorce on the grounds of his adultery. During his marriage to Pérez-Mora Macias, Jagger had an affair with then-"Playboy" model Bebe Buell from 1974 to 1976.


title: Mick Jagger

text: In late 1977, Jagger began dating American model Jerry Hall. They had an unofficial private marriage ceremony in Bali, Indonesia, on 21 November 1990, and lived at Downe House in Richmond, London. The couple had four children: Elizabeth 'Lizzie' Scarlett Jagger (born 2 March 1984), James Leroy Augustin Jagger (born in 1985), Georgia May Ayeesha Jagger (born 12 January 1992), and Gabriel Luke Beauregard Jagger (born in 1997). During his relationship with Hall, Jagger had a 1991 to 1994 affair with Italian singer/model Carla Bruni, who later became the First Lady of France when she married then-President of France Nicolas Sarkozy in 2008. Jagger's relationship with Hall ended after she discovered that he had had an affair with Brazilian model Luciana Gimenez, who gave birth to Jagger's seventh child, Lucas Maurice Morad Jagger, in May 1999. Jagger's unofficial marriage to Hall was declared invalid, unlawful, and null and void by the High Court of England and Wales in London in 1999. Jagger's subsequent relationship was 2000 to 2001 with the English model Sophie Dahl.


title: Mick Jagger

text: Jagger was in a relationship with fashion designer L'Wren Scott from 2001 until her suicide in 2014. She left her entire estate, estimated at US$9 million, to him. Jagger set up the L'Wren Scott scholarship at London's Central Saint Martins College.


title: Mick Jagger

text: Since Scott died in 2014, Jagger has been in a relationship with American ballet dancer Melanie Hamrick. Jagger was 73 when Hamrick gave birth to their son Deveraux Octavian Basil Jagger in 2016.


title: Mick Jagger

text: Jagger's father, Basil "Joe" Jagger, died of pneumonia on 11 November 2006 at age 93. Although the Rolling Stones were on the A Bigger Bang tour, Jagger flew to Britain to see his father before returning the same day to Las Vegas, where he was to perform that night, after being informed his father's condition was improving. The show went ahead as scheduled, despite Jagger learning of his father's death that afternoon. Jagger's friends said that the show going on was "what Joe would have wanted". Jagger called his father the "greatest influence" in his life.


title: Mick Jagger

text: Jagger is a supporter of music in schools, a patron of The Mick Jagger Centre in Dartford, and sponsors music through his Red Rooster Programme in its local schools. The Red Rooster name is taken from the title of one of the Rolling Stones' earliest singles.


title: Mick Jagger

text: An avid cricket fan, Jagger founded Jagged Internetworks to cover the sport. He keenly follows the England national football team, and has regularly attended FIFA World Cup games. In 2021, Fox Business quoted an estimate that his net worth was US500 million and called him "one of music's more identifiable figures". Earlier that same year, "The Times" had quoted it at approximately £310 million.


title: Mick Jagger

text: Jagger was honoured with a knighthood for services to popular music in the Queen's 2002 Birthday Honours, and on 12 December 2003 he received the accolade from The Prince of Wales. Jagger's father and daughters Karis and Elizabeth were present. Jagger stated that although the award did not have significant meaning for him, he was "touched" by the significance that it held for his father, saying that his father "was very proud". In 1989, Jagger was inducted into the American Rock and Roll Hall of Fame alongside the other Stones, including Mick Taylor and Ronnie Wood as well as Brian Jones and Ian Stewart (posthumously). In November 2004, the Rolling Stones were among the inaugural inductees into the UK Music Hall of Fame.


title: Mick Jagger

text: In 2014, the "Jaggermeryx naida" ("Jagger's water nymph"), a 19-million-year-old species of 'long-legged pig', was named after Jagger. Jaw fragments of the long-extinct anthracotheres were discovered in Egypt. The trilobite species "Aegrotocatellus jaggeri" was also named after Jagger. On Jagger's 75th birthday, scientists named seven fossil stoneflies after present and former members of the band. Two species, "Petroperla mickjaggeri" and "Lapisperla keithrichardsi", were placed within a new family Petroperlidae. The new family was named in honour of the Rolling Stones, derived from the Greek "petra" that stands for "stone". The scientists referred to the fossils as "Rolling Stoneflies".


title: Mick Jagger

text: From the time that the Rolling Stones developed their anti-establishment image in the mid-1960s, Jagger, with Richards, has been an enduring icon of the counterculture. This was enhanced by his drug-related arrests, sexually charged on-stage antics, provocative song lyrics, and his role in "Performance". One of his biographers, Christopher Andersen, describes him as "one of the dominant cultural figures of our time," adding that Jagger was "the story of a generation". Jagger, who at the time described himself as an anarchist and espoused the leftist slogans of the era, took part in a demonstration against the Vietnam War outside the US Embassy in London in 1968. This inspired him to write "Street Fighting Man" that same year.


title: Mick Jagger

text: In 1967, Cecil Beaton photographed Jagger's naked buttocks, a photo that sold at Sotheby's auction house in 1986 for $4,000.


title: Mick Jagger

text: Jagger was reported to be a contender for the anonymous subject of Carly Simon's 1972 hit song "You're So Vain", on which he sings backing vocals. Pop artist Andy Warhol painted a series of silkscreen portraits of Jagger in 1975, one of which was owned by Farah Diba, wife of the Shah of Iran. It hung on a wall inside the royal palace in Tehran.


title: Mick Jagger

text: In 2010, a retrospective exhibition of portraits of Jagger was presented at the festival Rencontres d'Arles, in France. The catalogue of the exhibition is the first photo album of Jagger and shows his evolution over 50 years.


title: Mick Jagger

text: Jagger's relationships served as the inspiration for the theatrical show parody "Jumpin' Jack", written by Lyle Victor Albert. In the show, the protagonist, Jack, is "a member of that ever-expanding, worldwide club made up of Mick Jagger's illegitimate children."


title: Mick Jagger

text: Maroon 5's song "Moves like Jagger" is about Jagger, who acknowledged the song in an interview, calling the concept "very flattering". Kesha's song "Tik Tok", the Black Eyed Peas' hit "The Time (Dirty Bit)" reference Jagger, and his vocal delivery is referenced by rapper Ghostface Killah in his song "The Champ", from his 2006 album "Fishscale", which was later referenced by Kanye West in the 2008 T.I. and Jay-Z single "Swagga Like Us".


title: Mick Jagger

text: On television, the ITV satirical puppet show "Spitting Image" caricatured Jagger as perpetually high throughout its run in the 1980s and 1990s. In 1998, the MTV animated show "Celebrity Deathmatch" had a clay-animated fight to the death between Jagger and Aerosmith lead singer Steven Tyler; Jagger wins the fight by using his tongue to stab Tyler through the chest. The 2000 film "Almost Famous", set in 1973, refers to Jagger: "Because if you think Mick Jagger'll still be out there, trying to be a rock star at age 50 ... you're sadly, sadly mistaken." This was a view that Jagger similarly shared in 1975, once quipping to "People" magazine "I’d rather be dead than sing ‘Satisfaction’ when I’m 45".


title: Mick Jagger

text: In 2012, Jagger was among the British cultural icons selected by artist Sir Peter Blake to appear in a new version of his most famous artwork—the Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" album cover—to celebrate the British cultural figures of his life that he most admires.


title: Mick Jagger

text: In more recent decades, Jagger has been seen as a "poster boy" for healthy living and, as of 2006, was "said to run 12 km a day, to kick-box, lift weights, cycle, and practise ballet and yoga"; he has his own personal trainer. It has been estimated that during the average show, he covers between 5 and 12 miles on stage "while strutting and shimmying through shows at dizzying speeds".


title: Mick Jagger

text: In the words of British dramatist and novelist Philip Norman, "the only point concerning Mick Jagger's influence over 'young people' that doctors and psychologists agreed on was that it wasn't, under any circumstances, fundamentally harmless". According to Norman, even Elvis Presley at his most scandalous had not exerted a "power so wholly and disturbingly physical". "[W]hile [Presley] made girls scream, [he] did not have Jagger's ability to make men feel uncomfortable." Norman likens Jagger in his early performances with the Rolling Stones in the 1960s to a male ballet dancer, with "his conflicting and colliding sexuality: the swan's neck and smeared harlot eyes allied to an overstuffed and straining codpiece".


title: Mick Jagger

text: His performance style has been studied by academics who analysed gender, image and sexuality. Musicologist Sheila Whiteley noted that Jagger's performance style "opened up definitions of gendered masculinity and so laid the foundations for self-invention and sexual plasticity which are now an integral part of contemporary youth culture". His stage personas also contributed significantly to the British tradition of popular music that always featured the character song and where the art of singing becomes a matter of acting—which creates a question about the singer's relationship to his own words. His voice has been described as a powerful expressive tool for communicating feelings to his audience, and expressing an alternative vision of society. To express "virility and unrestrained passion" he developed techniques previously used by African American preachers and gospel singers such as "the roar, the guttural belt style of singing, and the buzz, a more nasal and raspy sound". Steven Van Zandt wrote: "The acceptance of Jagger's voice on pop radio was a turning point in rock & roll. He broke open the door for everyone else. Suddenly, Eric Burdon and Van Morrison weren't so weird—even Bob Dylan."


title: Mick Jagger

text: Over time, Jagger has developed into the template for rock frontmen and, with the help of the Stones, has, in the words of the "Telegraph", "changed music" through his contributions to it as a pioneer of the modern music industry. Jagger is often described as one of the most popular and influential frontmen in the history of rock & roll; in 1994 the "New York Times" noted that his "influence hangs heavily over contemporary British rock" as many singers "incorporated elements" of his onstage presence into their personas. In 2015, "Billboard" ranked him among the best rock frontmen of all time, referring to him as ""the" rock and roll frontman" whose "swagger brought a style and sexiness to rock music that he built on for decades" and openly wondering "would we even have rock stars without Mick?" Musician David Bowie joined many rock bands with blues, folk and soul orientations in his first attempts as a musician in the mid-1960s, and he was to recall: "I used to dream of being their Mick Jagger." Bowie suggested, "I think Mick Jagger would be astounded and amazed if he realized that to many people he is not a sex symbol, but a mother image." Jagger appeared on "Rolling Stone" List of 100 Greatest Singers at No. 16; in the article, Lenny Kravitz wrote: "I sometimes talk to people who sing perfectly in a technical sense who don't understand Mick Jagger. [...] His sense of pitch and melody is really sophisticated. His vocals are stunning, flawless in their own kind of perfection." This edition also cites Jagger as a key influence on Jack White, Steven Tyler and Iggy Pop. Jagger also has been known to seek out newcomer artists to the music industry and advise them.


title: Mick Jagger

text: "The Telegraph" has called Mick Jagger "the Rolling Stone who changed music". CNN has called Jagger's "greatest talent, besides strutting and singing" his "ability surround himself and the rest of the band with a group of very able executives."


title: Mick Jagger

text: As Jagger has aged, his continued vitality has provoked comment. Bon Jovi frontman Jon Bon Jovi said: "I can't get over it...I'm...dying already and I'm gonna go out there and play four songs. How do they do it?" Since his early career Jagger has embodied what some authors describe as a "Dionysian archetype" of "eternal youth" personified by many rock stars and the rock culture.


title: Mick Jagger

text: Jagger has repeatedly said that he will not write an autobiography, but according to John Blake, in the early 1980s, after a slew of unauthorised biographies, was persuaded by Lord Weidenfeld to prepare his own, for a £1 million advance. The resulting 75,000-word manuscript is held by Blake, who, briefly planned to publish it, until Jagger withdrew support.


title: Mick Jagger

text: "Mick Jagger is the least egotistical person," observed Watts in 2008. "He'll do what's right for the band. He's not a big head—and, if he was, he went through it thirty years ago."


title: Mick Jagger

text: Jagger was slated to appear in the 1982 film "Fitzcarraldo" and some scenes were shot with him, but he had to leave for a Rolling Stones tour and his character was eliminated.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud (; born 31 August 1985), colloquially known by his initials MBS or MbS, is Crown Prince and Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia. He also serves as the chairman of the Council of Economic and Development Affairs and chairman of the Council of Political and Security Affairs. He is considered the "de facto" ruler of Saudi Arabia, being deemed as such even before his appointment as prime minister in 2022. He served as minister of defense from 2015 to 2022. He is the seventh son of King Salman.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: Mohammed was born as the eldest of six children to Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz and his third wife, Fahda bint Falah Al Hithlain. After obtaining a law degree from King Saud University, he served as an advisor to his father. After Salman ascended the throne in January 2015, he appointed Mohammed as minister of defense, and Mohammed was also given the role of deputy crown prince in April 2015. He was promoted to crown prince after the dismissal of Crown Prince Muhammad bin Nayef, King Salman's nephew, in 2017. Salman ceded the position of prime minister to Mohammed in 2022.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: Mohammed rules an authoritarian regime. There are no democratic institutions in Saudi Arabia, and elements of repression are still evident. Islamic scholars, human rights activists, women's rights activists, journalists, former insiders, Islamists, and other political dissidents are systematically repressed through tactics including torture, jailing, and killings. Mohammed is alleged of deploying a unit of assassins known as the Tiger Squad to execute extrajudicial killings. He was personally linked to the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi Arabian "Washington Post" columnist who had criticised the Saudi government, but he has denied involvement in the killing. Mohammed was behind the Saudi bombing campaign in Yemen which has exacerbated the humanitarian crisis and famine there. His government has overseen a crackdown on feminists. He was also involved in the escalation of the Qatar diplomatic crisis, the 2017 detention of Lebanese prime minister Saad Hariri, the start of a diplomatic spat with Canada, the arrest of Saudi princes and billionaires in 2017, an alleged phone hack against Amazon chairman Jeff Bezos in 2019, and treason charges against his cousin and rival Muhammad bin Nayef in 2020.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: Mohammed has touted reforms in an effort to rebrand his regime's image internationally and within the kingdom. These include regulations restricting the powers of the religious police and improving women's rights, such as the removal of the ban on female drivers in 2018 and weakening the male-guardianship system in 2019. Other cultural developments under his reign include the first Saudi public concerts by a female singer, the first Saudi sports stadium to admit women, an increased presence of women in the workforce, and opening the country to international tourists by introducing an e-visa system, allowing foreign visas to be applied for and issued via the Internet. The Saudi Vision 2030 program aims to diversify the country's economy through investment in non-oil sectors including technology and tourism.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: Mohammed bin Salman was born on 31 August 1985 to Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz and his third spouse, Fahda bint Falah Al Hithlain. Fahda is a granddaughter of Rakan bin Hithlain and great-granddaughter of Dhaydan bin Hithlain, who were heads of the Al Ajman tribe. In 1915 the Al Ajman tribe, under Dhaydan's leadership, fought against the Al Saud, during which Salman's uncle Saad bin Abdul Rahman was killed in the battle of Kanzan.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: Mohammed is the eldest among his mother's six children and is the eighth child and seventh son of his father. His full siblings include Prince Turki and Prince Khalid. Mohammed holds a bachelor's degree in law from King Saud University.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: After graduating from university, Mohammed spent several years in the private sector before becoming a personal aide to his father. He worked as a consultant for the Experts Commission, working for the Saudi Cabinet. On 15 December 2009, at the age of 24, he entered politics as a special advisor to his father when the latter was the governor of Riyadh Province. At this time Mohammed began to rise from one position to another, such as secretary-general of the Riyadh Competitive Council, special advisor to the chairman of the board for the King Abdulaziz Foundation for Research and Archives, and a member of the board of trustees for Albir Society in the Riyadh region. In October 2011, Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz died. Prince Salman began his ascent to power by becoming second deputy prime minister and minister of defence. He made Mohammed his private advisor.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: In June 2012, Crown Prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz died. Prince Mohammed moved up into the number two position in the hierarchy, as his father became the new crown prince and first deputy prime minister. He soon began remaking the court in his own image. On 2 March 2013, Chief of the Crown Prince Court Saud bin Nayef Al Saud was appointed governor of the Eastern Province, and Mohammed succeeded him as chief of the court. He was also given the rank of minister. On 25 April 2014, Mohammed was appointed state minister.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: On 23 January 2015, King Abdullah died and Salman ascended the throne. Prince Mohammed was appointed minister of defence and secretary general of the royal court. In addition, he retained his post as the minister of state.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: In Yemen, the political unrest (which began escalating in 2011) rapidly became a major issue for the newly appointed minister of defence, with Houthis taking control of northern Yemen in late 2014, followed by the resignation of President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi and his cabinet. Mohammed's first move as minister was to mobilise a pan-GCC coalition to intervene following a series of suicide bombings in the Yemeni capital Sana'a via air strikes against Houthis, and impose a naval blockade. In March 2015, Saudi Arabia began leading a coalition of countries allied against the Houthi rebels. While there was agreement among those Saudi princes heading security services regarding the necessity of a response to the Houthis' seizure of Sana'a, which had forced the Yemeni government into exile, Mohammed launched the intervention without full coordination across security services. Saudi National Guard minister Mutaib bin Abdullah Al Saud, who was out of the country, was left out of the loop of operations. While Mohammed sold the war as a quick win on Houthi rebels in Yemen and a way to put President Hadi back in power, however, it became a long war of attrition.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: In April 2015, King Salman appointed his nephew Muhammad bin Nayef as crown prince and his son Mohammed as deputy crown prince. In late 2015, at a meeting between his father and U.S. president Barack Obama, Mohammed bin Salman broke protocol to deliver a monologue criticising U.S. foreign policy. When he announced an anti-terrorist military alliance of Islamic countries in December 2015, some of the countries involved said they had not been consulted.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: Regarding his role in the military intervention, Mohammed gave his first on-the-record interview on 4 January 2016 to "The Economist", which had called him the "architect of the war in Yemen". Denying the title, he explained the mechanism of the decision-making institutions actually holding stakes in the intervention, including the council of security and political affairs and the ministry of foreign affairs from the Saudi side. He added that the Houthis usurped power in Sana'a before he served as minister of defence.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: In response to the threat from ISIL, Mohammed established the Islamic Military Counter Terrorism Coalition (IMCTC), a Saudi-led Islamic alliance against terrorism, in December 2015. The IMCTC's first meeting took place in Riyadh in November 2017 and involved defence ministers and officials from 41 countries.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: Mohammed was appointed crown prince on 21 June 2017, following the King's decision to depose Muhammad bin Nayef and make his own son the heir to the throne. The change of succession had been predicted in December 2015 by an unusually blunt and public memo published by the German Federal Intelligence Service, which was subsequently rebuked by the German government.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: On the day Mohammed bin Salman became crown prince, U.S. president Donald Trump called him to "congratulate him on his recent elevation". Trump and Mohammed pledged "close cooperation" on security and economic issues, according to the White House, and the two leaders also discussed the need to cut off support for terrorism, the recent diplomatic dispute with Qatar, and the push to secure peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Mohammed told "The Washington Post" in April 2017 that without America's cultural influence on Saudi Arabia, "we would have ended up like North Korea."


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: In May 2017, Mohammed publicly warned "I confirm to you, no one will survive in a corruption case—whoever he is, even if he's a prince or a minister". In November 2017, he ordered some 200 wealthy businessmen and princes to be placed under house arrest in The Ritz-Carlton, Riyadh. On 4 November 2017, the Saudi press announced the arrest of the Saudi prince and billionaire Al-Waleed bin Talal, a frequent English-language news commentator and a major shareholder in Citi, News Corp and Twitter, as well as over 40 princes and government ministers at the behest of the Crown Prince on corruption and money laundering charges.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: Others arrested or fired in the purge included Prince Mutaib bin Abdullah, head of the Saudi Arabian National Guard; Minister of Economy and Planning Adel Fakeih; and the commander of the Royal Saudi Navy, Admiral Abdullah bin Sultan bin Mohammed Al-Sultan.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: Those arrested in the Ritz Carlton were the subject of what became called "the night of beating". Most were beaten, and some were tied to walls in stress positions as part of torture by Saudi agents. The interrogators knew very little outside of the victims' assets within Saudi Arabia and wanted to know more about their off-shore holdings, while the victims did not know why they were detained. The detainees were threatened with blackmail. At one point, the interrogators told the victims to contact their bank managers in Geneva and elsewhere and ask for large sums of money, and were surprised due to their inexpertise that the assets were not entirely in cash. Swiss banks identified some of the transactions as under duress and were able to stop some of them. During the proceedings, there was no due process nor plea bargains. U.S. officials described the actions as "coercion, abuse, and torture". Detainees were denied sleep, had their heads covered, and were beaten. Seventeen had to be hospitalised. After many days, the remaining detainees were moved to Al-Ha'ir Prison, while some released are banned from travelling abroad.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: One hypothesis for the arrests was that they were part of a power grab on the part of Prince Mohammed. "The New York Times" wrote:


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: Another hypothesis was that the purge was part of a move towards reform. Steven Mufson of "The Washington Post" argues that Mohammed "knows that only if he can place the royal family under the law, and not above as it was in the past, can he ask the whole country to change their attitudes relative to taxes [and] subsidies." An analysis from the CBC claimed that "the clampdown against corruption resonates with ordinary Saudis who feel that the state has been asking them to accept belt tightening while, at the same time, they see corruption and the power elite accumulating more wealth". Mohammed's reform agenda is widely popular with Saudi Arabia's burgeoning youth population, but faces resistance from some of the old guard more comfortable with the kingdom's traditions of incremental change and rule by consensus. According to a former British ambassador to Riyadh, Mohammed "is the first prince in modern Saudi history whose constituency has not been within the royal family, it's outside it. It's been young Saudis, particularly younger Saudi men in the street". The 2018 Arab Youth Survey found that nine out of ten 18–24 year-olds in the MENA region support Mohammed's campaign against corruption.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: Robert W. Jordan, former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, said that "certainly Saudi Arabia has had a corruption problem for many years. I think the population, especially, has been very unhappy with princes coming in and grabbing business deals, with public funds going to flood control projects that never seem to get built... I would also say it's a classical power grab move sometimes to arrest your rivals, your potential rivals under the pretext of corruption".


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: Trump expressed support for the move, tweeting "I have great confidence in King Salman and the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, they know exactly what they are doing...Some of those they are harshly treating have been 'milking' their country for years!" French president Emmanuel Macron, who visited Riyadh days after the purge, when asked about the purge stated "this is not the role of a president, and similarly I would not expect a leader of a foreign country to come and infringe on domestic matters."


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: On 30 January 2019, the Saudi government announced the conclusion of the Anti-Corruption Committee's work. According to the Corruption Perceptions Index, Saudi Arabia is slowly improving its public sector, while figures of 2016 indicated a score of 46, whereby 0 implies a highly corrupt score and 100 a clear one, the index gives Saudi Arabia a score of 49 in 2017 and 2018, and 53 in 2019 the highest score achieved by Saudi Arabia until now.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: On 27 September 2022, Mohammed was appointed as prime minister of Saudi Arabia by King Salman. Traditionally, the king has held the title of prime minister.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: Mohammed's ideology has been described as nationalist and populist, with a conservative attitude towards politics, and a liberal stance on economic and social issues. It has been heavily influenced by the views of his former adviser Saud al-Qahtani and the ruler of Abu Dhabi, Mohammed bin Zayed. His style of ruling has been described as extremely brutal by journalist Rula Jebreal and authoritarian by Jamal Khashoggi and Theodor Winkler.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: On 29 January 2015, Mohammed was named the chair of the newly established Council for Economic and Development Affairs, replacing the disbanded Supreme Economic Commission. In April 2015, Mohammed was given control over Saudi Aramco by royal decree following his appointment as deputy crown prince.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: In December 2017, Mohammed criticised the United States' decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. In March 2018, he referred to Turkey as part of a "triangle of evil" alongside Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood. In 2018, he voiced his support for a Jewish homeland of Israel. This is the first time that a senior Saudi royal has expressed such sentiments publicly. In September 2019, Mohammed condemned Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's plans to annex the eastern portion of the occupied West Bank known as the Jordan Valley.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: Under Mohammed's leadership, Saudi Arabia strengthened its relationship with Russian leader Vladimir Putin. In 2016, Mohammed signed an agreement to cooperate with Russia in global oil markets. After Mohammed was accused of murdering Jamal Khashoggi, Putin was one of few world leaders to publicly embrace Mohammed. In 2021, Mohammed signed a military cooperation agreement with Russia.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: Mohammed took the leadership in the restructuring of Saudi Arabia's economy, which he officially announced in April 2016 when he introduced Vision 2030, the country's strategic orientation for the next 15 years. Vision 2030 plans to reform Saudi Arabia's economy towards a more diversified and privatised structure. It details goals and measures in various fields, from developing non-oil revenues and privatisation of the economy to e-government and sustainable development.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: One of the major motives behind this economic restructure through Vision 2030 can be traced back to Saudi Arabia's reliance on a rentier economy, as a limit on oil resources makes its sustainability a problem in the future. While the country claims to own a proven reserve of 266.58 billion barrels of crude oil, the energy analyst Matthew R. Simmons estimates the true number to be far less, as the last non-Saudi report by the General Accounting Office in 1978 only mentioned 110 billion barrels.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: At the inaugural Future Investment Initiative conference in Riyadh in October 2017, Mohammed announced plans for the creation of Neom, a $500 billion economic zone to cover an area of 26,000 square kilometres on Saudi Arabia's Red Sea coast, extending into Jordan and Egypt. Neom aims to attract investment in sectors including renewable energy, biotechnology (especially genetically modified agriculture), robotics and advanced manufacturing. The announcement followed plans to develop a 34,000 square kilometre area across a lagoon of 50 islands on Saudi Arabia's Red Sea coastline into a luxury tourism destination with laws on a par with international standards. In a further effort to boost the tourism industry, in November 2017 it was announced that Saudi Arabia would start issuing tourist visas for foreigners, beginning in 2018.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: Mohammed's biggest bet was his plan to restore Saudi dominance in global oil markets by driving the new competition into bankruptcy, by keeping the oil price low enough for a long enough period. Saudi Arabia persuaded OPEC to do the same. A few small players went bankrupt, but American frackers only shut down their less-profitable operations temporarily, and waited for oil prices to go up again. Saudi Arabia, which had been spending $100 billion a year to keep services and subsidies going, had to admit defeat in November 2016. It then cut production significantly and asked its OPEC partners to do the same.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: In the last week of September 2018, Mohammed inaugurated the much-awaited $6.7bn high-speed railway line connecting Mecca and Medina, the two holiest cities of Islam. The Haramain Express is 450 km line travelling up to 300 km/h that can transport around 60 million passengers annually. The commercial operations of the railway began on 11 October 2018.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: In October 2018, Mohammed announced that the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia's assets were approaching $400 billion and would pass $600 billion by 2020.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: Mohammed announced a project to build Saudi Arabia's first nuclear reactor in November 2018. The kingdom aims to build 16 nuclear facilities over the next 20 years. Efforts to diversify the Saudi energy sector also include wind and solar, including a 1.8 gigawatt solar plant announced in the same month as part of a long-term project in partnership with SoftBank.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: Mohammed established an entertainment authority that began hosting comedy shows, professional wrestling events, and monster truck rallies. In 2016, he shared his idea for "Green cards" for non-Saudi foreigners with Al Arabiya journalist Turki Aldakhil. In 2019 the Saudi cabinet approved a new residency scheme (Premium Residency) for foreigners. The scheme will enable expatriates to permanently reside, own property and invest in the Kingdom.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: In April 2017, Mohammed announced a project to build one of the world's largest cultural, sports and entertainment cities in Al Qiddiya, southwest of Riyadh. The plans for a 334-square kilometre city include a safari and a Six Flags theme park.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: Further cultural developments followed in December 2017 with Saudi Arabia's first public concert by a female singer, and in January 2018 a sports stadium in Jeddah became the first in the Kingdom to admit women. In April 2018, the first public cinema opened in Saudi Arabia after a ban of 35 years, with plans to have more than 2,000 screens running by 2030.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: The first measures undertaken in April 2016 included new taxes and cuts in subsidies, a diversification plan, the creation of a $2 trillion Saudi sovereign wealth fund, and a series of strategic economic reforms called the National Transformation Programme. Mohammed's plans to raise capital for the sovereign wealth fund included selling off shares of Saudi Aramco, the state-owned petroleum and natural gas company, with the capital to be re-invested in other sectors such as to implement the diversification plans. In October 2017, the plan for Aramco's IPO listing was criticised by "The Economist", which called it "a mess". Mohammed slashed the state budget, freezing government contracts and reducing the pay of civil employees as part of drastic austerity measures.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: In October 2017, Mohammed said that the ultra-conservative Saudi state had not been "normal" for the past 30 years, blaming rigid doctrines that had governed society in a reaction to the Iranian Revolution, which successive leaders "didn't know how to deal with". He stated that he aimed to have Saudi Arabia start "returning to what we were before—a country of moderate Islam that is open to all religions and to the world". This amounted to telling the country's clerics that the deal the royal family struck with them after the Grand Mosque seizure was to be renegotiated. Building an industrial culture was seen as incompatible with Wahhabism. The Wahhabis were committed to fixed social and gender relationships. These were consistent with an economy built on oil sales, but industrialization requires a dynamic culture with social relations constantly shifting. The regime's commitment to "moderate Islam" has been questioned.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: In an interview with a CBS "60 Minutes" that aired on 29 September 2019, Mohammed invited people to visit the kingdom to see the transformation, asking for people to meet Saudi citizens for themselves.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: On 26 April 2020, the Supreme Judicial Council of Saudi Arabia abolished flogging as a punishment in the country, stating that the decision was "an extension of the human rights reforms introduced under the direction of King Salman and the direct supervision of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman". The following day, the Human Rights Commission of Saudi Arabia reported the enactment of a royal decree abolishing the death penalty for crimes committed by minors.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: Saudi Arabia, OPEC's largest producer, has the second-largest amount of oil reserves in the world. On 28 September 2021, U.S. president Joe Biden's national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, met with Mohammed in Saudi Arabia to discuss the high oil prices. In October 2022 in protest of Saudi Arabia cutting oil production, U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Saudi Arabia knew the cut would "increase Russian revenues and blunt the effectiveness of sanctions" and accused Saudi Arabia of "coercing" other oil producing countries to agree. The record-high energy prices were driven by a global surge in demand as the world quit the economic recession caused by COVID-19, particularly due to strong energy demand in Asia.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: The relations between Russia and Saudi Arabia evolved under Mohammed, granting the two nations the ability to conspire in oil export decisions.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: Mohammed heads a repressive authoritarian regime in Saudi Arabia. Human rights activists and women's rights activists in Saudi Arabia routinely face abuse and torture by the regime. Critics, journalists and former insiders are tortured and killed. The regime has targeted Saudi dissidents who are located abroad, most famously Jamal Khashoggi, a columnist of "The Washington Post", who was murdered by the regime. Mohammed has justified the mass arrests of human rights activists as being as necessary for enacting reforms in Saudi Arabia.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: Mohammed has increasingly consolidated power in Saudi Arabia during his tenure as leader. He significantly restricted the powers of the Saudi religious police.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: Early in his leadership tenure, Mohammed sought to cultivate an image of Saudi Arabia as implementing various reforms. Human rights groups say that repression has worsened under his tenure. According to human rights groups, arrests of human rights activists have risen under Mohammed. He has reportedly created the Tiger Squad, a team of assassins that act as a death squad, to target Saudi critics inside and outside Saudi Arabia.<ref name="middleeasteye/22oct2018"></ref><ref name="middleeasteye/22oct2018-1"></ref> Among those detained in a wave of arrests in September 2017 were Abdulaziz al-Shubaily, a founding member of the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association (ACPRA); Mustafa al-Hassan, an academic and novelist; and Essam al-Zamel, an entrepreneur. Ahead of the lifting of the ban on women driving in June 2018, 17 women's rights activists were arrested, including the women to drive and anti-male guardianship campaigner Loujain al-Hathloul. Eight of the 17 were subsequently released. Hatoon al-Fassi, an associate professor of women's history at King Saud University, was arrested shortly afterwards.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: In August that year, the human rights activist Israa al-Ghomgham and her husband, both arrested in 2015, were put under legal threat of beheading. Human Rights Watch warned that the al-Ghomgham case set a "dangerous precedent" for other women activists currently detained. HRW's Middle East director Sarah Leah Whitson said, "Any execution is appalling, but seeking the death penalty for activists like Israa al-Ghomgham, who are not even accused of violent behaviour, is monstrous. Every day, the Saudi monarchy's unrestrained despotism makes it harder for its public relations teams to spin the fairy tale of 'reform' to allies and international business." On 23 April 2019, 37 people, mostly Shia human rights activists involved in the Qatif conflict, were executed in one of the largest mass executions of the minority sect in the kingdom's history.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: In August 2019, Loujain al-Hathloul's brother Walid informed that his sister was offered release on denying the human rights abuses committed against her in Saudi prison. Walid wrote on Twitter that the Saudi state security laid a proposal for Loujain to sign a document and appear on camera to deny that she had been tortured and sexually harassed in jail. He stated that Loujain mentioned to the family that she had been whipped, beaten, electrocuted in a chair, and harassed by masked men, who would wake her up in the middle of the night to shout threats at her in cell. Walid also tweeted that Loujain refused the offer proposed by Saudi authorities and "immediately ripped the document".


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: In response to foreign criticism and women's rights activism, Mohammed has implemented modest reforms to improve women's rights in Saudi Arabia. In September 2017, he implemented the women to drive movement's multi-decade demand to lift the ban on female drivers. He legislated against some elements of Saudi Arabia's Wali system, also a topic of a decades-long campaign by women's rights activists. In response to the Saudi anti male-guardianship campaign, the Saudi government enacted a law that allows women above 21 years old to obtain passports and travel abroad without needing the permission of their male guardians. In February 2018, it became legally possible for Saudi women to open their own business without a male's permission. According to the Saudi Information Ministry, , mothers in Saudi Arabia became authorised to retain immediate custody of their children after divorce without having to file any lawsuits.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: Some have called Mohammed the architect of the war in Yemen. On 10 January 2016, "The Independent" reported that "the BND, the German intelligence agency, portrayed...Saudi defence minister and Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman...as a political gambler who is destabilising the Arab world through proxy wars in Yemen and Syria." German officials reacted to the BND's memo, saying the published statement "is not the position of the federal government".


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: Mohammed leads the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen against the Houthi rebels, who in 2015 seized Sana'a and ousted the Saudi-backed Hadi government, ending multilateral efforts towards a political settlement following the 2011 Yemeni uprising. Coalition airstrikes during the intervention have resulted in thousands of civilians killed or injured, prompting accusations of war crimes in the intervention. Following a Houthi missile attack against Riyadh in December 2017, which was intercepted by Saudi air defence, airstrikes killed 136 Yemeni civilians and injured 87 others in eleven days. In August 2018, the United Nations reported that all parties in the conflict were responsible for human rights violations and for actions which could be considered war crimes.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: The war and blockade of Yemen has cost Saudi Arabia tens of billions of dollars, further aggravated the humanitarian crisis in the country and destroyed much of Yemen's infrastructure, but failed to dislodge the Shiite Houthi rebels and their allies from the Yemeni capital. More than 50,000 children in Yemen died from starvation in 2017. From 2015 to May 2019 the number of total deaths of children is said to be approximately 85,000. The famine in Yemen is the direct result of the Saudi-led intervention and blockade of the rebel-held area. In October 2018, Lise Grande, the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator for Yemen, warned that 12 to 13 million Yemenis were at risk of starvation if the war continued for another three months. On 28 March 2018, Saudi Arabia, along with its coalition partner the UAE, donated US$930 million to the United Nations which, according to UN secretary-general António Guterres, "...(will) help to alleviate the suffering of millions of vulnerable people across Yemen". The funds cover almost one-third of the $2.96 billion required to implement the UN's 2018 Yemen Humanitarian Response Plan. Following the Houthi missile attack against Riyadh in December 2017, which was intercepted by Saudi air defence, Mohammed retaliated with a ten-day barrage of indiscriminate airstrikes against civilian areas in Yemen held by Houthi forces, killing dozens of children.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: In August 2018, a report by "The Intercept" cited unnamed sources claiming that former U.S. secretary of state Rex Tillerson had in June 2017 intervened to stop a Saudi-Emirati plan to invade Qatar, resulting in increased pressure from Saudi Arabia and the UAE for his removal from office.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: Following the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi, the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations approved a resolution to impose sanctions on people blocking humanitarian access in Yemen and suspend arms sales to Saudi Arabia. Senator Lindsey Graham said America's relationship with Saudi Arabia "is more of a burden than an asset." He also said, "The crown prince [of Saudi Arabia] is so toxic, so tainted, so flawed."


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: Andrew Smith, of Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT), said that British foreign secretaries Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt "have played an utterly central and complicit role in arming and supporting the Saudi-led destruction of Yemen." Hunt's Conservative leadership campaign was partly funded by a close associate to Prince Mohammed.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: On 16 August 2020, a lawsuit filed by a former top intelligence official, Saad al-Jabri, revealed that in 2015 Mohammed secretly called for Russia to intervene in Syria at a time when Bashar al-Assad's regime was close to falling apart. The Saudi monarchy had been supporting anti-Assad rebels, while Russians were bombing rebel-held cities in support of Assad, killing tens of thousands of Syrian civilians in the process. Western diplomats say that Mohammed was strongly influenced by Emirati politician Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan (who later became ruler of Abu Dhabi). The UAE was pushing for the idea of helping Russia stabilise Syria and enabling the Assad regime in the country. In 2017 it was reported that Saudi Arabia provided weapons to Syrian opposition groups, fighting against the Assad regime. Conflict Armament Research (CAR) reported that these weapons frequently ended up in the hands of the Islamic State members. In 2018, Mohammed reportedly wanted the U.S. military presence to maintain in Syria, despite President Donald Trump's declaring the withdrawal of American forces from the war-torn country.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: According to David Ottaway of the Wilson Center, "[o]f all [Mohammed's] domestic reforms," the most "consequential" has been his work limiting the influence of Saudi Wahhabi clergy, "who still command millions of followers in the country and beyond". Mohammed's inviting of "a constant stream of Western male and female singers, bands, dancers and even American female wrestlers" to perform in Saudi Arabia is in complete conflict with religious conservatives who have spoken "against the opening up of the kingdom to secular Western culture". Journalist Graeme Wood writes, "it is hard to exaggerate how drastically this sidelining of Islamic law will change Saudi Arabia."


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: In 2016, Mohammed took steps to drastically curtail the powers of the "Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice" (CPVPV), or Islamic religious police. The "feared" CPVPV, which had thousands of officers on the streets and powers to arrest, detain, and interrogate those suspected of violating of sharia, and it was banned "from pursuing, questioning, asking for identification, arresting and detaining anyone suspected of a crime".


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: Mohammed states that "in Islamic law, the head of the Islamic establishment is "wali al-amr" (Arabic: وَلِيّ الأمر ), the ruler. While Saudi rulers "have historically stayed away from religion", and "outsourced" issues of theology and religious law to "the big beards", traditionally conservative and orthodox religious scholars, Mohammed has "a law degree from King Saud University" and "flaunts his knowledge and dominance over the clerics", according to Graeme Wood. He is "probably the only leader in the Arab world who knows anything about Islamic epistemology and jurisprudence", according to (secular) scholar of Islamic law Bernard Haykel. In an interview televised in Saudi Arabia on 25 April 2021, Mohammed criticised the devotion of Saudi religious leaders to Wahhabi doctrines "in language never before used by a Saudi monarch", saying "there are no fixed schools of thought and there is no infallible person", and that fatwas "should be based on the time, place and mindset in which they are issued", rather than regarded as immutable.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: explained that Islamic law is based on two textual sources: the Quran and the Sunnah, or the example of the Prophet Muhammad, gathered in many tens of thousands of fragments from the Prophet's life and sayings. Certain rules—not many—come from the unambiguous legislative content of the Quran, he said, and he cannot do anything about them even if he wants to. But those sayings of the Prophet (called Hadith), he explained, do not all have equal value as sources of law, and he said he is bound by only a very small number whose reliability, 1,400 years later, is unimpeachable. Every other source of Islamic law, he said, is open to interpretation—and he is therefore entitled to interpret them as he sees fit.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: The effect of this maneuver is to chuck about 95 percent of Islamic law into the sandpit of Saudi history and leave MBS free to do whatever he wants. "He's short-circuiting the tradition," Haykel said. "But he's doing it in an Islamic way. He's saying that there are very few things that are fixed beyond dispute in Islam. That leaves him to determine what is in the interest of the Muslim community. If that means opening movie theaters, allowing tourists, or women on the beaches on the Red Sea, then so be it."


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: As of early 2021, Prince Mohammed has "ordered a codification of Saudi laws that would end the power of individual Wahhabi judges to implement" their own interpretation of Sharia. According to Wood, many conservative clerics strongly appear to have succumbed to "good old-fashioned intimidation" by the government to reverse their religious positions and supporting the government line on issues such as "the opening of cinemas and mass layoffs of Wahhabi imams".


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: In August 2016 Donald Trump Jr., the son of U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump, had a meeting with an envoy representing Mohammed bin Salman and the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, Mohammed bin Zayed. The envoy offered help to the Trump campaign. The meeting included Joel Zamel, an Israeli specialist in social media manipulation, Lebanese-American businessman George Nader, and Blackwater founder Erik Prince.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: Upon Trump's election, support for Mohammed bin Salman was described as one of the few issues where rival White House advisers Jared Kushner and Steve Bannon agreed. Mohammed, then deputy crown prince, was subsequently invited to the White House and given the treatment typically afforded to foreign heads of state by diplomatic protocol. He subsequently defended the Trump administration's travel ban for nationals of 7 Muslim-majority countries, stating that "Saudi Arabia does not believe that this measure is targeting Muslim countries or the religion of Islam". Kushner also inquired as to how the U.S. could support Mohammed in the succession process. After Mohammed became crown prince, President Trump reportedly said, "We've put our man on top". Trump initially supported the Saudi-led blockade of Qatar, despite opposition from U.S. secretary of state Rex Tillerson and Secretary of Defense James Mattis, though he later changed his position. Mohammed later reportedly claimed Kushner had provided intelligence assistance on domestic rivals to Mohammed during the 2017–19 Saudi Arabian purge, which Trump had personally expressed support for. The Trump administration also firmly supported Prince Mohammed during global backlash following the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: In 2019, during the Trump administration, Joe Biden criticised Mohammed, describing him as a pariah due to the 2018 killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. In July 2021, six months into the Biden presidency, Saudi deputy defence minister Khalid bin Salman Al Saud (Mohammed's brother) visited the United States. It was the first meeting between senior U.S. and Saudi officials after Jamal Khashoggi was murdered in 2018. In September 2021, Biden's national security adviser Jake Sullivan met with Mohammed. In the meeting, Mohammed ended up shouting at Sullivan after he raised the killing of Khashoggi.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Saudi Arabia declined U.S. requests to increase oil production and thus undercut Russia's war finances. The "Wall Street Journal" wrote in April 2022 that the U.S.-Saudi relationship was at "its lowest point in decades." In April 2022, CIA director William Burns traveled to Saudi Arabia to meet with Mohammed, asking him to increase the country's oil production. They also discussed Saudi weapons purchases from China.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: Relations between the United States and Saudi Arabia became weak after OPEC+ announced a cut in oil production by two million barrels a day. The US government is angered by the move, accusing Saudi Arabia of siding with Russia in its war against Ukraine. The Saudi government denied these claims, claiming that the move was not politically motivated but to bring stability in global oil markets.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: Reuters reported that Mohammed "said the dispute with Qatar could be long-lasting, comparing it to the U.S. embargo against Cuba imposed 60 years before, but played down its impact, dismissing the Gulf emirate as "smaller than a Cairo street". Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Bahrain cut diplomatic and trade links with Qatar [in June 2017], suspending air and shipping routes with the world's biggest exporter of liquefied natural gas, which is home to the region's biggest U.S. military base."


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: In November 2017, Mohammed forced Lebanese prime minister Saad Hariri to resign when he visited Saudi Arabia. Mohammed believed that Hariri was in the pocket of Iran-backed Hezbollah, which is a major political force in Lebanon. Hariri eventually was released, went back to Lebanon and annulled his resignation.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: Chrystia Freeland, Canada's minister of foreign affairs, issued a statement via Twitter on 2 August 2018 expressing Canada's concern over the recent arrest of Samar Badawi, a human rights activist and sister of imprisoned Saudi blogger Raif Badawi, and called for the release of human rights activists. In response to Canada's criticism, Saudi Arabia expelled Canada's ambassador and froze trade with Canada. The "Toronto Star" reported that the consensus among analysts indicated that the actions taken by Mohammed were a "warning to the world — and to Saudi human rights activists — that his Saudi Arabia is not to be trifled with".


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: In October 2018, Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a critic of Mohammed, went missing after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Turkish officials reportedly believe that Khashoggi was murdered at the consulate, claiming to have specific video and audio recordings proving that he was first tortured and then murdered, and that a medical forensics expert was part of the 15-man Saudi team seen entering and leaving the consulate at the time of the journalist's disappearance. Saudi Arabia denied the accusations and 13 days later Mohammed invited Turkish authorities to search the building as they "have nothing to hide". Saudi officials said they are "working to search for him". The "Washington Post" reported that Mohammed had earlier sought to lure Khashoggi back to Saudi Arabia and detain him.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: According to "Middle East Eye", seven of the fifteen men suspected of killing Khashoggi are members of Mohammed's personal bodyguard. John Sawers, a former head of the British MI6, stated that in his judgment of the evidence it is "very likely" that Mohammed ordered the killing of Khashoggi.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: In the aftermath of Khashoggi's death, multiple commentators referred to Mohammed as "Mister Bone Saw", a play on the initials MBS. The name refers to the alleged use of a bone saw to dispose of Khashoggi's remains.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: Mohammed has denied any involvement in the murder and blamed the assassination on rogue operators. However, Western countries are not convinced and believe this could not have happened without Mohammed's knowledge or approval. Donald Trump described the Saudi response to the killing as "one of the worst in the history of cover-ups." Trump also believes that Mohammed at least knew about the plan, saying that "the prince is running things over there more so at this stage."


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: After the murder, Mohammed's close confidant Ahmad Asiri was sacked, as was former advisor Saud al-Qahtani.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: The recording of Khashoggi's killing collected by Turkish intelligence reportedly reveals that one of the members of the kill team instructed someone over the phone to "tell your boss, the deed was done." American intelligence officials believe that "boss" was a reference to the Crown Prince. The person who made the call was identified as Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb, a security officer who is frequently seen travelling with the prince.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: Seven weeks after Khashoggi's death, Saudi Arabia, in order to "distance ... Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, from the grisly murder" stated it would pursue the death penalty for five suspects charged with "ordering and executing the crime."


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: On 16 November 2018, it was reported that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had concluded with "high confidence" that Mohammed ordered Khashoggi's murder. The CIA based its conclusion on several pieces of evidence, including an intercepted conversation in which Mohammed's brother Khalid offered Khashoggi assurances that it would be safe for the journalist to enter Saudi Arabia's consulate in Istanbul. Although the CIA reportedly had not determined whether Khalid had any foreknowledge of Khashoggi's ultimate fate upon entering the consulate, it believed that Khalid conveyed this message to Khashoggi at Mohammed's behest. In the CIA's analysis, the killing was most likely motivated by Prince Mohammed's privately stated belief that Khashoggi was an Islamist with problematic connections to the Muslim Brotherhood, a perception that differs markedly from the Saudi government's public remarks on Khashoggi's death.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: On 4 December 2018, a group of United States senators were briefed by CIA director Gina Haspel on the murder of Khashoggi. After the briefing, the senators were more than certain that Mohammed played a major role in the killing. Senator Lindsey Graham said, "You have to be willfully blind not to come to the conclusion that this was orchestrated and organised by people under the command of MBS and that he was intrinsically involved in the demise of Mr. Khashoggi." Senator Bob Corker said that the prince "ordered, monitored, the killing" and "If he were in front of a jury, he would be convicted of murder in about 30 minutes." On 5 December 2018, UN Human Rights chief Michelle Bachelet asked for an international investigation to determine who was behind Khashoggi's murder.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: A former Saudi intelligence chief and senior member of the Saudi royal family, Prince Turki bin Faisal, dismissed the CIA's reported finding that Mohammed ordered the journalist's killing, saying that "The CIA has been proved wrong before. Just to mention the invasion of Iraq for example."


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: In March 2019, U.S. senators accused Saudi Arabia for a number of repetitive misdeeds and criticised Mohammed, saying he has gone "full gangster". The senators said the list of human rights violations by Saudi Arabia is too long to comprehend the situation in the kingdom or even work with Mohammed.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: In June 2019, a UN report entitled "Annex to the Report of the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions: Investigation into the unlawful death of Mr. Jamal Khashoggi" linked Mohammed to the assassination.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: In a June 2019 article, "The Guardian" claimed that after Khashoggi's assassination, the media group became a target of hacking attempts made by a Saudi cybersecurity subdivision, as per an internal order document obtained by the group, with Saud al-Qahtani undersigned. According to an interview in a PBS documentary film recorded in December 2018 and parts released in September 2019, Mohammed bears responsibility for the killing of Khashoggi since it happened under his watch but he denies any knowledge of the murder in advance. He denied in an interview with CBS' "60 Minutes" aired on 29 September 2019 any personal involvement in the killing, adding that "once charges are proven against someone, regardless of their rank, it will be taken to court, no exception made", but said that he had to take "full responsibility for what happened".


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: On 25 February 2021, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a declassified report approved by Director Avril Haines. The report, "Assessing the Saudi Government's Role in the Killing of Jamal Khashoggi" stated that, "We assess that Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman approved an operation in Istanbul, Turkey to capture or kill Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi."


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: On 26 February 2021, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions Agnès Callamard released a statement urging, "The United States Government should impose sanctions against the Crown Prince, as it has done for the other perpetrators targeting his personal assets but also his international engagements."


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: On 18 November 2022, due to his new role as the Saudi prime minister, Mohammed got US immunity over Khashoggi's murder. However, Biden's administration emphasized that this was not a determination of innocence.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: On 9 July 2020, four United States senators urged President Trump to secure the freedom of Saad al-Jabri's children Omar and Sarah, calling it a "moral obligation" to support a man who aided the U.S. intelligence for years and had close ties with key members of the Saudi royal family. The Saudi government detained Omar and Sarah in March 2020 and, to date, their whereabouts remain unknown. Saudi Arabia had issued an extradition request and Interpol notices to bring back Saad al-Jabri, who was the U.S. anti-terrorism contact in the Middle East and was staying in Canada since 2018. The Interpol notice against al-Jabri was removed, citing that he was a political opponent of Mohammed.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: In August 2020, al-Jabri filed a federal lawsuit in Washington D.C. alleging that Mohammed dispatched a "Tiger Squad" to Canada during October 2018 to assassinate al-Jabri, who was the closest adviser to Mohammed's chief rival, former crown prince Muhammad bin Nayef. The squad was identified and returned by Canadian authorities. Following the lawsuit, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued the summons against Mohammed bin Salman, along with 11 other people. The summons stated that a judgement would be taken by default against the concerned parties if they fail to respond. Documents filed to the U.S. federal court revealed that Mohammed was served the lawsuit on 22 September 2020 at 4:05 p.m. ET via WhatsApp, and twenty minutes later the message was marked as "read".


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: In February 2019, Mohammed defended China's Xinjiang re-education camps for Uyghurs and Muslims, saying "China has the right to carry out anti-terrorism and de-extremisation work for its national security." Mohammed's comments received severe criticism worldwide. The Chinese Communist Party has imprisoned up to 2 million Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities in China's north-western province of Xinjiang in concentration camps, where they are allegedly subjected to abuse and torture. Miqdaad Versi, spokesperson for the Muslim Council of Britain, called Mohammed's remarks "disgusting" and a defence of "the use of concentration camps against Uighur Muslims".


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: In March 2019, Gavin de Becker, a security specialist working for Jeff Bezos, accused Saudi Arabia of hacking Bezos's phone. Bezos was the owner of "The Washington Post", the leader of the company Amazon, and the world's richest man at the time.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: In January 2020, the results of FTI Consulting's forensic investigation of Bezos' phone were made public. The company concluded with "medium to high confidence" that Bezos' phone was hacked by a multimedia message sent in May 2018 from Mohammed's WhatsApp account, after which the phone begun transmitting dramatically higher amounts of data. The report points to circumstantial evidence: first, a November 2018 message from Mohammed to Bezos includes an image resembling the woman Bezos was having an affair with, despite the affair not being public knowledge at the time; second, a February 2019 text from Mohammed to Bezos urges Bezos not to believe everything, after Bezos was briefed on the phone regarding an Internet campaign against him conducted by Saudis.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: United Nations special rapporteurs Agnès Callamard and David Kaye reacted that the alleged hack suggests that Mohammed participated "in an effort to influence, if not silence, "The Washington Post"'s reporting on Saudi Arabia". They declared that the alleged hacking was relevant to the issue of whether Prince Mohammed was involved in the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, who worked for "The Washington Post".


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: Under Mohammed's leadership, Saudi Arabia has lobbied to weaken global carbon emissions-reduction agreements. Domestically, Saudi Arabia has a track record of making bold announcements about environmental efforts which do not pan out.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: Former Saudi crown prince Muhammad bin Nayef was arrested on 6 March 2020, along with his half-brother Nawwaf bin Nayef and King Salman's brother Prince Ahmed bin Abdulaziz. The three princes were charged with treason. The Saudi government claimed the princes were trying to overthrow Mohammed bin Salman.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: In 2021, the former Saudi intelligence official Saad al-Jabri said in an interview with CBS that Mohammed bin Salman mentioned to Interior Minister Muhammad bin Nayef Al Saud plans to kill King Abdullah in 2014. This would allow then-crown prince Salman bin Abdulaziz, Prince Mohammed's father, to take the throne. Al-Jabri has called Mohammed "a psychopath, killer ... with infinite resources, who poses threat to his people, to the Americans and to the planet". The prince has rejected all allegations; the Saudi embassy called al-Jabri "a discredited former government official with a long history of [fabrication]".


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: On 6 April 2008 Mohammed married his first cousin Sara bint Mashour, a daughter of his paternal uncle Mashour bin Abdulaziz. Prince Mohammed and Princess Sara have five children; the first four were named after their grandparents, and the fifth one is named after his great-grandfather King Abdulaziz, the founder of Saudi Arabia. In 2022, "The Economist" reported that on at least one occasion, Mohammed beat his wife so severely that medical treatment was required.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: In 2015, Mohammed purchased the Italian-built and Bermuda-registered yacht "Serene" from Russian vodka tycoon Yuri Shefler for €500 million. In 2015, he purchased the Château Louis XIV in France for over $300 million.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: In December 2017, a number of sources reported that Mohammed, using his close associate Prince Badr bin Abdullah bin Mohammed Al Farhan as an intermediary, had bought "Salvator Mundi" by Leonardo da Vinci; the sale in November at $450.3 million set a new record price for a work of art. This report has been denied by the auctioneer Christie's, the Saudi Arabian embassy, and the UAE government, which has announced that it is the actual owner of the painting. The exact current location of the painting is unknown, as it has not been seen publicly since the auction. However, it has been suggested that Mohammed's yacht "Serene" houses "Salvator Mundi".


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: Mohammed has travelled extensively around the world, meeting with politicians, business leaders and celebrities. In June 2016, he travelled to Silicon Valley and met key people in the U.S. high tech industry, including Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. In early 2018, he visited the United States, where he met with many politicians, business people and Hollywood stars, including then-President Trump, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Henry Kissinger, Michael Bloomberg, George W. Bush, George H. W. Bush, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Oprah Winfrey, Rupert Murdoch, Richard Branson, Mayor Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles, Michael Douglas, Morgan Freeman, and Dwayne Johnson. Trump praised his relationship with Mohammed. The prince also visited the United Kingdom, where he met with Prime Minister Theresa May, Queen Elizabeth II and Prince William, Duke of Cambridge.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: On 25 December 2020, as part of the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Health's national COVID-19 vaccination plan, the Crown Prince was shown receiving the vaccine in a video released by the Saudi Press Agency.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: In December 2020, Mohammed invested money into Take-Two Interactive, Electronic Arts, and Activision Blizzard through Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund. The investments amounted to 14.9 million shares in Activision Blizzard, 7.4 million shares in Electronic Arts, and 3.9 million shares in Take-Two Interactive. Mohammed has stated that he grew up playing video games.


title: Mohammed bin Salman

text: On 19 November 2022, Mohammed was awarded an honorary doctorate from Kasetsart University in the field of land knowledge for sustainable development.


title: Algeria

text: Algeria, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country in North Africa. Algeria is bordered to the northeast by Tunisia; to the east by Libya; to the southeast by Niger; to the southwest by Mali, Mauritania, and Western Sahara; to the west by Morocco; and to the north by the Mediterranean Sea. It is considered part of the Maghreb region of North Africa. It has a semi-arid geography, with most of the population living in the fertile north and the Sahara dominating the geography of the south. Algeria covers an area of , making it the world's tenth largest nation by area, and the largest nation in Africa, being more than 200 times as large as the smallest country in the continent, The Gambia. With a population of 44 million, Algeria is the ninth-most populous country in Africa, and the 32nd-most populous country in the world. The capital and largest city is Algiers, located in the far north on the Mediterranean coast.