Sebastian Usher

He was the final decision maker in Iran.

He held the true reins of power.

But the kind of system that had involved under the decades of

of his supreme leadership was one in which a number of regime institutions have become extremely powerful beneath him and around him.

And as far as the regime is concerned, they will be hoping that those can withstand this blow and that they will be able to

Sebastian Usher.

This was a massive building, 400 metres by 400 metres, and it was going to have the biggest, with a dome, the biggest AI kind of projection facility ever.

So you would enter it and you'd enter these new worlds, essentially.

And I think it's a retrenching of a number of these extraordinary projects.

Partly because economic reality is hitting home a little bit.

These are essentially being financed by the PIF.

This is a private investment fund, which is essentially under the personal control of Mohammed bin Salman, but spread across all of these extraordinary countries.

projects.

It's becoming difficult, it seems, to actually be able to pursue some of them.

Oil prices are not what they were.

So I think that is also a cold shower of reality.

But there is still a lot of modernisation going on in Saudi Arabia's capital city.

Riyadh, compared to how it was 20 years ago, is just a completely different city, bursting with entertainment, whereas once it was a wasteland.

There was nothing.

There'd be restaurants you could go to, but it'd be segregated.