Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2005 10:49 am Post subject: Saudi Arabia News
I didn't notice an SA thread forgive me if there is. Here is a recent news event and an OP/Ed on OBL and SA.
Quote:
Speeches by Osama bin Laden have an avid Western audience when he thunders against the United States and its allies, threatening imminent destruction. Other bin Laden speeches dealing with religious issues or the state of Islamic civilization, however, tend to attract much less attention. This reality at times blurs the often acutely accurate analysis bin Laden presents on Islamic political affairs, especially those in Saudi Arabia.
Bin Laden's lengthy 16 December 2004 speech entitled "A Statement to the Saudi Rulers" raises two themes that carry new importance in the context of recent events in Saudi Arabia; that Saudi reforms will lack substance and an acknowledgement of setbacks to the mujahideen in the kingdom with the promise that more serious fighting is yet to come. [1]
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- The United States plans to rebuke Saudi Arabia for doing too little to stop the trafficking of people as Washington pushes its ally to improve its human rights record, U.S. officials said on Thursday.
The State Department will cite Saudi Arabia on Friday as one of the world's worst offenders in an annual report evaluating countries' efforts at combating the trafficking of thousands of people forced into servitude or the sex trade every year, the officials said.
The criticism comes after President George W. Bush urged Saudi Arabia this year to be a leader of reform in the Middle East and follows a similar U.S. report in September that accused the kingdom of severe violations of religious freedom.
The US government has suggested wealthy Saudi individuals remain "a significant source" of funds for Islamic terrorists around the world, despite widely-publicized efforts by the desert kingdom to shut down these channels.
The statement by Treasury Undersecretary Stuart Levey before the US Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, contrasted with earlier upbeat assessments by US officials that Saudi Arabia was making good progress in stemming the flow of private money to terrorist groups
Security forces arrested four people yesterday morning in Al-Naseem district, east of the capital, on the suspicion of being affiliated with those on the new list of 36 top terrorists.
The Interior Ministry confirmed the arrests to Arab News saying that it was part of the “combing operation which is taking place in several districts of the city.”
_________________ "The age of excess is over. The age of entropy has begun"
Support for suicide bombings, Islamist violence and Osama bin Laden was falling across much of the Muslim world even before last week's bombings in London, according to a survey published yesterday.
The study, by Washington polling organisation the Pew Centre for the People and the Press, found that many people in predominantly Muslim countries share concerns over Islamic extremism, with many seeing it as a threat to their own countries.
The U.S. government on Thursday froze the assets of the Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia, a United Kingdom-based Saudi opposition group the United States says backs al Qaeda.
MIRA is run by Saad al-Fagih, an exiled Saudi dissident whose name is on the U.N. list of people associated with al Qaeda and the Taliban, the Treasury Department said. Fagih uses MIRA to provide al Qaeda with recruits and public relations help, said Stuart Levey, Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence.
Western expatriates have expressed alarm over a new Saudi law that would ban the employment of foreign security guards.
The expatriates said the law would undermine security at Western companies and installations amid Al Qaida's campaign in the kingdom. They said Saudi security guards, most of them whom lack weapons or training, have failed to protect Westerners in the kingdom.
_________________ "The age of excess is over. The age of entropy has begun"
The United States has determined that Saudi Arabia continues to allow citizens to finance Al Qaida, including its insurgency campaign in Iraq.
U.S. officials said that despite numerous appeals the Saudi kingdom has not arrested financiers of Al Qaida or related groups. They said the kingdom has also failed to freeze the assets of leading Saudi financiers of Islamic insurgency groups.
_________________ "The age of excess is over. The age of entropy has begun"
Saudi Arabia's long serving ambassador to Washington has been replaced, a foreign ministry official said Wednesday.
Prince Bandar bin Sultan, a Washington insider who has held the post for 20 years, asked to be relieved of his post a month ago, the official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity, because an official announcement has not yet been made.
The US embassy in Riyadh has warned in a statement that it has indications of possible new terrorist attacks in Saudi Arabia.
'The American embassy in Riyadh advises all American citizens living in Saudi Arabia that it has received indications of operational planning for a terrorist attack or attacks in the kingdom,' a warden message said.
_________________ "The age of excess is over. The age of entropy has begun"
Joined: Oct 15, 2004 Posts: 2185 Location: Arkansas
Posted: Wed Jul 20, 2005 11:08 pm Post subject:
I wonder if the resignation of the U.S. Ambassador is related to the death or near death of King Fahd and also the "terror warnings" which may be a cover for a power struggle if Fahd is dead. There was some earlier speculation that the Ambassador's rumored resignation was related to Fahd's health, and has been speculation that there may be a power struggle after he dies. Is this all related? If there is violence, it would be less alarming to the world to pass it off as a terrorist attack rather than a full blown civil war or power struggle within the royal family. Just a guess.
Western reporting on Saudi Arabia has been in attack mode ever since Sept. 11. Not since the Borgias has a ruling family received such bad press as the House of Saud, and the U.S.-Saudi connection is probably the one that Americans would most like to sever, if it could be done without raising gasoline prices.
In "Saudi Arabia Exposed," John R. Bradley, a British journalist who spent two and a half years as a newspaper editor and reporter in Saudi Arabia, calls the Saudi royals "perhaps the most corrupt family the world has ever known." His book is a highly informed, temperate and understanding account of a country that, he maintains, is an enigma to other Arabs, and even to the Saudis themselves.
_________________ "The age of excess is over. The age of entropy has begun"
Visiting Saudi naval forces commander Vice Admiral Fahd bin Abdullah bin Muhammad Al-Saudi met his Pakistani counterpart Admiral Shahid Karimullah Tuesday for talks on expanding cooperation, an official said.
"The talks focused on enhancing cooperation in tactics, maritime security, military training, education and joint naval drills," a navy spokesman told DPA after the meeting.
_________________ "The age of excess is over. The age of entropy has begun"
President Gloria Arroyo is to visit Saudi Arabia on her way to New York next month to ask whether the Philippines and other smaller economies can secure 'affordable' oil prices, her chief aide said.
Arroyo will visit Saudi Arabia from Sept 11 to 12 and meet King Abdullah to take up the issue of high oil prices before she attends the UN summit in New York, said executive secretary Eduardo Ermita.
_________________ "The age of excess is over. The age of entropy has begun"
Crown Prince Sultan, deputy premier and minister of defense and aviation, yesterday reaffirmed that Saudi Arabia had nothing to do with increasing oil prices in the world market and had done everything possible to lower them.
Prince Sultan also disclosed plans for creating more job opportunities for Saudi women by allowing them to work two shifts.
_________________ "The age of excess is over. The age of entropy has begun"
Iraq's Interior Minister directed a fresh attack on Saudi Arabia in an interview aired on Tuesday, targeting the kingdom for its treatment of women and Shi'ites just days after insulting a royal as a "bedouin on a camel".
"(They should) create a democratic system and give freedoms, and not grant rights in just dribs and drabs, saying that maybe a woman can drive a car but she can only work within limits in the workplace," Bayan Jabor told Al Jazeera television.
_________________ "The age of excess is over. The age of entropy has begun"
The U.S. Defense Department on Monday notified Congress of possible military sales to Saudi Arabia worth up $2.1 billion for items ranging from tactical display terminals to aircraft maintenance.
The biggest potential contract is $918 million to help modernize the Saudi Arabian National Guard with equipment that includes 144 armored personnel carriers, 52 command and control vehicles, 3,600 assault rifles and 12 water cannon vehicles.
_________________ "The age of excess is over. The age of entropy has begun"
An official in NATO said that a Saudi Arabian official held non-official talks since several days with officials at the headquarters of NATO in Brussels.
The official who asked to be anonymous stressed that the NATO's secretary general Jakob Gijsbert (Jaap) de Hoop Scheffer received the Saudi delegation led by prince Turkey Bin Muhammad Saud al-Kaber, the assistant of the foreign minister for political affairs.
_________________ "The age of excess is over. The age of entropy has begun"
Iran and Saudi Arabia have denied that Iran's foreign minister delayed a trip to the country because of Saudi concern about Iran's influence in Iraq.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki was due to visit Riyadh, but instead continued a regional visit in the United Arab Emirates.
_________________ "The age of excess is over. The age of entropy has begun"
Saudi Arabia and the European Union have reached an agreement on gas prices, paving the way for Riyadh's accession to the World Trade Organization by the end of this year, press reports said.
The two sides reached a deal after high-level talks between Commerce and Industry Minister Dr. Hashem Yamani and Ambassador Bernard Savage, chief of the delegation of the European Commission in Saudi Arabia.
_________________ "The age of excess is over. The age of entropy has begun"
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