It was reported this week from many sources that Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal wants to build an $8 billion dollar Disney resort in Bahrain, a tiny island country in the Persian Gulf, connected to Saudi Arabia by the King Fahd Causeway to the northwest and Qatar to the south. There apparently are plans to build the largest bridge in the world between these two neighbors, the Qatar-Bahrain Friendship Bridge.

Alwaleed is the world’s eighth richest man and owns 10 percent of Disneyland Paris operating company EuroDisney and his company Rotana Audio Visual signed to distribute Walt Disney products in the Middle East and Africa.

Building a theme park would obviously strengthen the brand in the region and allow his company to sell more Walt Disney products. The Prince is not a stranger to publicity — apparently in 2001 the Prince presented Mayor Rudy Guilliani with a $10,000,000 check for the Twin Tower fund but it was rejected when a statement released with the check became political and in 2005 he donated the largest sum ever to the world’s largest museum — $20 million to the Louvre.