Free Republic

JEDDAH, 11 February 2003 — With Eid Al Adha being celebrated today, there was a virtual run on the main sheep market here yesterday. The market scene was chaotic as cars and pickup trucks sat bumper-to-bumper throughout the afternoon. Once on the eastern side of the Makkah Ring Road from Palestine St., it took more than two hours for drivers to reach the main market. Some shoppers, in anticipation of the jam, parked their vehicles by the roadside and walked to the market. Thousands of animals will be offered as a sacrifice both by pilgrims and other Muslims for the...

TEHRAN -- At a time when U.S. military activities and preparations had reached such a level that almost all observers had started a countdown to a massive military attack on Iraq, all of sudden unofficial reports indicate that Washington is now following a different strategy based on a "white battle" to achieve the same goal a "red war" could accomplish . Reports of the past few days, particularly those with European sources, indicate that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein may take asylum in Russia and a U.S.-backed group will replace him without much change in the structure of the ruling system...

PARIS - A key US adviser to the Pentagon said in an interview published yesterday that there were far too few weapons inspectors in Iraq to root out any weapons of mass destruction and blamed French President Jacques Chirac. "We wanted a lot more inspectors. But ask Chirac why there's such a reduced number," Richard Perle, head of the US Defence Department's Policy Review Board, was quoted as saying in the interview with the French newspaper Le Figaro. Asked if France blocked moves to deploy a larger number of inspectors, Perle was quoted as replying "But of course." "France's constant...

WASHINGTON, 14 December 2002 — US President George W. Bush said in remarks released Thursday that Americans are skeptical of Saudi cooperation in the war on terrorism but he trusts Riyadh’s pledges to help. Crown Prince Abdullah, deputy premier and commander of the National Guard, “has assured me that the Saudi government will do everything they can to disrupt finances headed toward terrorists,” Bush told ABC News in an interview. “He is a good, honest man.” “I’ve got a very good relationship with Crown Prince Abdullah. And I admire Crown Prince Abdullah. I believe he is as we say ‘the...

Officials from the Esbat al-Ansar group said Friday that US reports accusing the militant Islamic group of having nerve gas supplied by Iraq did not deserve a response. The officials were “adamant” that the reports were “fabricated,” a source said. Esbat al-Ansar, based in Sidon’s Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp, has been described as a “terrorist” organization by Washington. The officials from the group were reluctant to speak with reporters, but one said that such reports did not warrant a reply. “We are not in a hurry to reply to (US President George W.) Bush or others,” the official said. The...

TEHRAN, Dec. 13--President Mohammad Khatami, in a message to the Fourth Kharazmi Youth Festival on Thursday, urged special attention to youth hailed as the most valuable national asset. "Preparing the ground for the develop- ment and flourishing of youth potentials and talents as well as material and spiri- tual protection of the future manpower is a great mission worthy of special attention," the message, read out by Education Minister Morteza Haji, noted. The president expressed pleasure at the increasing growth, dynamism and achievement of the nation's youths in scientific, technical, research, analytical and creative fields. Khatami expressed hope that Iran's...

Tehran, Dec 14, IRNA -- Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi here Saturday rejected any Iranian concealment of two nuclear facilities which US officials have claimed the Islamic Republic was clandestinely developing to possibly build nuclear weapons. "The Islamic Republic of Iran's activities in this field are totally transparent, clear and peaceful and there is no secrete and obscure point on the launch of these (plants) in the future," Kharrazi said, adding "basically there is no possibility of concealing such centers." He said Tehran had invited the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to inspect both the facilities as he dismissed US posture...

Bahrain ushers in a new era of democracy with the opening of the National Assembly today. The assembly, which comprises the elected parliament and the appointed Shura Council, will be opened by His Majesty the King. He will address the assembly during the opening session, which will be held in a specially built open-air auditorium, inside the assembly complex in Gudaibiya. Shura Council chairman Dr Faisal Al Mousawi will also speak at the ceremony, which will be attended by top government officials, diplomats and dignitaries. The assembly complex, which formerly housed just the Shura Council, includes the main 80-seat chamber,...

Equality between the sexes has become a common topic for discussion these days. People keep making comparisons between men and women; some call publicly for sexual equality while others will only do so indirectly. First, there is no need whatsoever to make comparisons. It would be illogical for any comparison to be made since comparisons are only made between two distinct and different entities capable of surviving independently of each other. This does not apply in the case of men and women because neither can survive independently without the other. The two should not be viewed as rivals since they...

Princess Haifa, wife of Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the US, rarely graces the society pages, so it was shocking to see her in Newsweek’s "terrorism" pages recently as an Al-Qaeda financier. Princess Haifa fell under suspicion because she wrote some personal checks to a woman claiming, like a fairy-tale character who lived in a shoe, that she had six children and a thyroid condition, and did not know what to do (except to write Princess Haifa and ask for money). Newsweek was casting aspersions on a devout and pious woman for giving charity to another woman with children who said...

Washington, Dec.10, SPA -- The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) expressed its outrage at Tuesday's decision by the Bush administration to vote against a United Nations General Assembly resolution calling on Israel to repeal the Al-Quds Law that declares that "Al-Quds, complete and united, is the capital of Israel." The negative vote by the Bush administration was a departure from past American votes on this issue, ADC said in a statement. Usually, the United States abstains on such resolutions. In their letter to Secretary of State Colin Powell, ADC President Ziad Asali and Executive Vice President Khalil Jahshan characterized the U.S....

BERLIN, 8 December 2002 — The Saudi Embassy in Berlin has denied having any links to a Moroccan who is standing trial here over the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Der Speigel weekly reported in its forthcoming issue, to be published tomorrow. In a letter to German investigators probing a potential link with the suspect, Saudi Embassy representatives said they had no knowledge of Mounir El-Motassadeq, Der Spiegel reported. Detectives who searched Motassadeq’s flat last year turned up the business card of an official in the Saudi Embassy, whom Der Speigel identified as Mohammed Fahiki, a member of the embassy’s...

KUWAIT, Dec 9 (KUNA) -- Iraq has reached a point where it mistakenly believes it has complied with UN resolutions relating to the 1990 aggression on Kuwait. However, Saddam's salute to "those aiming weapon at foreign invaders" in his recent speech would most probably be seen as explicitly abetting terrorism. Addressing Kuwaitis with the words "the land must be rid of the disgrace of foreign existence by force and any means necessary", Saddam might have again focused attention of the US led campaign against global terrorism on Iraq. The speech included many poorly disguised messages directed at and meant to...

Under the guise of "objectivity," virtually every major news agency, newspaper and television news network in the West is feeding its readers and viewers a morally neutral view of world events that is so distorted as to verge on mendacity. Take this article from The New York Times, which describes the recent Muslim rioting in Nigeria over one sentence written by a Nigerian reporter in an article defending the Miss World pageant ("Muhammad would probably have taken one of the contestants for a wife."): First, the headline: "Fiery Zealotry Leaves Nigeria in Ashes Again." Notice that no group is identified...

TEHRAN -- President of Tehran's Imam Sadeq University said here on Friday that the Intifada of the Palestinian nation has revived the hopes for the liberation of the occupied holy Qods, and the Zionists are definitely not able to halt the victorious Intifada. The Secretary of the Combatant Clergies Society, Ayatollah Mohammadreza Mahdavi Kani who was speaking to IRNA on the sidelines of the International Day of Qods during the Friday Tehran rally added, "the crimes committed by the Zionists up to the present time in occupied Palestine are unprecedented throughout history." Kani stressed that the United States definitely has...

WASHINGTON: North Korea is in possession of nuclear bombs made with help from Pakistani engineers, a spy who has defected from the communist country has disclosed. Kenki Aoyama, an Osaka-born North Korean spy who has fled to Tokyo via Beijing has told the Japanese and Western media that he personally ran into a group of 30 to 40 visiting Pakistani engineers who were helping Pyongyang's nuclear program in the mid-1990s. Soon after, around 1996, North Korea acquired the centrifuges needed to enrich the uranium that goes into the bombs. Pakistan's nuclear program revolves almost entirely around the centrifuge method. "They...

BAGHDAD - Iraqi officials at the first suspected weapons site to be checked by UN experts in four years said on Wednesday they "cooperated fully" and answered all questions without any problems. Haitham Mahmoud, director general of the "al-Tahadi" (Defiance) installation, added that "when they went out they told us that there were no problems. "We were surprised by the arrival of the UN inspectors, but we cooperated fully with them," he said. "We led them to into all the rooms, workshops, laboratories, and all other places," he told reporters who entered the site after the departure of the inspectors....

BAGHDAD - An Iraqi civil defence official said Western planes flew over Baghdad on Wednesday, setting off air raid sirens in the Iraqi capital but launching no attacks. "We had an aerial breach by enemy planes," the official told Reuters. "But there is no attack." US and British military spokesmen quickly denied there had been any British or US activity over Baghdad. There was no immediate comment from the Iraqi military. "Iraqi claims that Western warplanes flew over Baghdad tonight are false," a Pentagon spokesman in Washington said. "In recent days there have been several false reports regarding US activity...

TEHRAN - Iran's hardliners are plotting to declare a state of emergency and oust the Islamic republic's elected reformist government, the leader of Iran's main reform party warned in an interview published on Wednesday. "Some are seeking to declare a state of emergency. They intend to eliminate the reformist movement," Mohammad Reza Khatami, the leader of the Islamic Iran Particpation Front (IIPF) and brother of President Mohammad Khatami, told the student news agency ISNA. "The radical minority has tried many times to get rid of the refomist movement by violent means and military acts," he alleged. He also said certain...

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) — Islamists leading the new parliament in Pakistan's northwest border province vowed Tuesday to block the manhunt for Al Qaeda in their rugged tribal-dominated region, where the US military believe hundreds of the extremists are hiding. "We have opposed the government's pro-US policies, particularly operations aided by (the US) and we shall maintain our opposition," Akram Durrani, the likely chief minister of North West Frontier Province (NWFP), told AFP in an interview. "We will neither allow our land to be used for terrorist activities, nor will we allow any operation particularly involving FBI agents. People who voted...