Mohammed bin Salman

Saudi Arabia is expected to announce investments in Pakistan worth between $15 billion and $20 billion during Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's official visit, according to the head of Pakistan's Board of Investment, Arab News reports. 

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has refused to say whether he believed the CIA's assessment that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman played a role in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.

A Saudi royal advisor fired over the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi continues to wield influence in Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's inner circle, according to Western, Arab and Saudi sources with links to the royal court.

When the world's most expensive artwork ever sold at auction was purchased at a Christie's sale in November 2017, the art world was a little confused.

All evidence collected by Turkey point that the missing body of journalist Jamal Khashoggi is inside the well of the garden of the Saudi consul's house, after it was carefully placed there by the instructions of the "Tiger Team" of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the writers of a new book on the murder say.

The assassination of Jamal Ahmad Khashoggi, a Washington Post journalist and fierce critic of Saudi Arabia, at the latter's consulate in Istanbul on October 2, with the apparent approval of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, has already had far more serious repercussions than the fact as such.

UN chief Antonio Guterres called on Dec. 16 for a "credible" probe into journalist Jamal Khashoggi's murder in Saudi Arabia's consulate in Istanbul.     

"It is absolutely essential to have a credible investigation and to have the punishment of those that were guilty," Guterres said at a conference in Doha.

The slain journalist Jamal Khashoggi was funding an "electronic army" to fight with Saudi state propaganda, while describing Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as a "beast," according to his private Whatsapp messages published by CNN International.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman sent at least 11 messages to Saud al-Qahtani, his closest adviser who oversaw the team that killed Jamal Khashoggi, in the hours before and after the journalist's death in October, according to a highly classified CIA assessment seen by the Wall Street Journal.

The day will also see a highly anticipated meeting between US president Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, whose nations have been embroiled in an escalating trade war with new US tariffs on Chinese goods set to take effect a month from now.