In Sri Lanka itself, the execution has rekindled debate about the safety of expatriate workers in the Middle East and about the poverty which drives people including Ms Nafeek to seek work abroad.

BBC: Sri Lankan maid Rizana Nafeek beheaded in Saudi Arabia

The country's 30m or so people, two-thirds of them citizens and the rest expatriate workers or dependents, are largely complacent.

ECONOMIST: Saudi Arabia

Middle Eastern regulators would have been particularly interested in one of the symposium's subjects: what western countries will do about hawala, a trust-based method of moving money that is used by terrorists as well as by expatriate workers in the Gulf and elsewhere.

ECONOMIST: Money launderers keep a few steps ahead of academe

After months of having few expatriate workers around, the facility had an unusual number of high-level executives on site from out of town.

WSJ: Algeria Probes Possible Role of Local Workers in Attacks

With plenty of money to go round, Gulf Arabs have grown accustomed to lavish social security, subsidised utilities, and an inexhaustible army of Asian expatriate workers to do the menial jobs for them.

ECONOMIST: The suffering Gulf

Kidnappings of expatriate oil workers in the Niger Delta region by the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) earlier this year have also increased concerns surrounding the security of the county's energy infrastructure.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Dragon at the fount of Africa

Expatriate workers brought in to staff the schools and hospitals throw doubt on this: the equipment, they say, is poorly maintained and Libyan workers are unreliable.

ECONOMIST: Libya

Virtually no member of the middle class, which includes just about all expatriate workers, is without at least one all-night guard.

ECONOMIST: Kenya