Week Ahead: Saudis host G20 summit and Harry on TV fundraiser

WORLD LEADERS MEET VIRTUALLY

The 2020 G20 leaders’ summit is taking place virtually at the weekend as world leaders come together to discuss the global response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Saudi Arabia is hosting the summit for members of the G20, who include the United Kingdom, the United States, Brazil and India amongst others.

A spokesperson for the event said: “The upcoming G20 Leaders’ Summit will focus on protecting lives and restoring growth, by addressing vulnerabilities uncovered during the pandemic and by laying down the foundations for a better future.”

In addition to Covid, the summit is also likely to bring renewed focus on relations between the UK and Saudi Arabia, which have been under scrutiny this year.

Arms trading resumed between the UK and Saudi Arabia just a day after 20 Saudi nationals linked to the brutal killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi had UK human rights sanctions imposed on them.

In September, Boris Johnson held talks with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia where they discussed the war in Yemen and the pair’s economic ties. The Yemeni civil war has raged on for the past five years, with a Saudi-led coalition facing off against Iran-backed Houthi rebels since March 2015. The conflict has killed more than 112,000 Yemenis and devastated the Arab world’s poorest country.

NOVEL CHOICE

The winner of this year’s Booker Prize will be announced on Thursday. The prestigious prize, given to the best novel of the year written in English and published in the UK or Ireland, features four female and two male writers.

Avni Doshi’s debut novel Burnt Sugar and Maaza Mengiste’s The Shadow King are among the books shortlisted, with The New Wilderness by Diane Cook, Tsitsi Dangarembga’s This Mournable Body, Douglas Stuart’s Shuggie Bain and Real Life by Brandon Taylor are also up for the award.

There was some surprise in the literary world in September when Dame Hilary Mantel, who featured on the longlist, failed to make the cut and missed out on becoming a triple winner of the prize with the third book in her Cromwell trilogy, titled The Mirror And The Light.

Judge and author of the Jack Reacher series Lee Child said her trilogy of novels is “one for the ages”, but added: “There were books that were better, that’s all I can say personally.”

HARRY’S HEROES

The Duke of Sussex will join celebrities participating in the Stand Up For Heroes comedy event in the US to help raise money for military veterans on Wednesday.

Harry, whose request for a wreath to be left on his behalf at the Cenotaph was denied by staff in the royal household, will appear virtually as a special guest for the televised show, which is being held online for the first time.

Celebrities taking part include Bruce Springsteen, Sheryl Crow, and actor Ray Romano.

RIP PPV

The Premier League returns this weekend after an international break - with the unpopular pay-per-view model for matches not being shown on Sky or BT now scrapped.

Fans had been asked to pay £14.95 per game on top of their normal sports subscriptions to access the games but there were widespread boycotts of the broadcasts.

The league has reverted to the model which was in place at the start of the current season, where all matches were screened by one of the competition’s broadcast partners - Sky, BT, Amazon and the BBC. The arrangement will be reviewed in the New Year as football bosses continue to push for fans to be allowed back into stadiums.

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