Safa Al Ahmad is a Saudi journalist and TV producer based in the Middle East.
The patriarch has spoken. In a slow short speech on 25 September, the king of Saudi Arabia said that women will be able to vote and run for political office. But not for at least four years: the announcement was conveniently timed to be just too late for them to join in last week's local elections, which even the men couldn’t get too excited about. They showed their disappointment with very low voter turnout, blank ballots and all-out boycotts.
I took the train to Hasa today. The station at Dammam, near the Persian Gulf, is clean and spacious. But security dealt with me as though I was getting on a plane to Kandahar. Families with oversized suitcases and a million plastic bags checked in. Big, beautiful copper chandeliers adorned the corridor leading to the trains. Purple flowering shrubs grew beside the track. The train gathered...
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