Free Republic

When Chelsea Clinton wanted to make a low-key visit to the hurricane-stricken Rockaways last fall, she arranged to take a trip with her close friend Huma Abedin, a longtime aide to Hillary Rodham Clinton. -snip- But the reality, it turns out, is just the opposite: Those close to the couple say that Ms. Abedin, a seasoned operative well versed in the politics of redemption, has been a main architect of her husband’s rehabilitative journey, shaping his calculated comeback and drawing on her close ties with one of the country’s most powerful families to lay the groundwork for his return. A...

HOLY CRAP– Saudi student Abdul Rahman Ali Issa Al-Salimi Al-Harbi was injured in the Boston Marathon Bombings. He was once a “person of interest” in the bombings. He was put on a terror watch list after the bombings. Michelle Obama visited al-Harbi in the hospital last week. He posted pictures on his Facebook page: Then there’s this… Abdul Rahman Al-Harbi has visited the White House several times since 2009.

Searching old newspapers is one of my favorite pastimes, and I have tried to use them many times to shed light on current events — or to inform readers about how the past is prologue to our very interesting present-day quandaries. Recently, I came across a syndicated column from November 1979 that seemed to point 30 years into the future toward an obscure campaign issue that arose briefly in the 2008 presidential campaign.

On Sept. 11, Pastor Lindsey Williams, former minister to the global oil companies during the building of the Alaskan pipeline, announced the most significant event to affect the U.S. dollar since its inception as a currency. For the first time since the 1970's, when Henry Kissenger forged a trade agreement with the Royal house of Saud to sell oil using only U.S. dollars, China announced its intention to bypass the dollar for global oil customers and began selling the commodity using their own currency.

A French Jewish mother at the centre of a high profile custody battle with a Saudi prince has died after falling from a fourth storey apartment, amid suspicions of foul play. Police are still investigating what caused the death of Candice Cohen-Ahnine, 35, who fell from her Paris apartment window on Thursday night. Investigators reportedly had been leaning towards an accident as cause of death, but by Sunday reports in the French media suggested Ms Cohen-Ahnine had slipped and fallen to her death "as if she was escaping something dangerous". Police refused to confirm the reports when contacted by The...

Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, now the next in line to take over the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, was one of several defendants sued last year for his alleged support of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Salman is identified as an “individual patron” of al-Qaeda and as the leader of the Saudi High Commission for Relief to Bosnia and Herzegovina (SHC). A U.N. sponsored investigation further determined that Prince Salman bin Abdul Aziz al Saud, the head of the SHC, transferred in excess of $120 million from his personal accounts and SHC accounts under his control to the Third...

Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, the second biggest shareholder in Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, has revealed his frustration with the fallout from the News of the World phone-hacking scandal and admitted that it is harming the reputation of the company overall, not just its publishing interests.

A member of the Saudi Royal Family entourage has been accused of luring two young women back to his room at the Plaza Hotel and raping one of them. Canadian businessman Mustapha Ouanes, 60, who works both for a construction company and the unnamed prince, appeared in court yesterday on charges of first-degree rape, two counts of criminal sexual acts in the first degree, one count of sexual abuse in the first degree, and other charges related to an incident in January 2010. The court heard that Ouanes met two young bartenders in a bar in Manhattan.

(CNN) -- Saudi Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz Al Saud has died, a State Department official told CNN on Friday. There were no more immediate details about his death.

LONDON, Oct 12, 2011 (AFP) - A former chief of Saudi intelligence said Wednesday there was overwhelming evidence that Iran was behind a plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to Washington and must "pay the price". "The burden of proof is overwhelming... and clearly shows official Iranian responsibility for this. Somebody in Iran will have to pay the price, whatever the level of these persons is," Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal told a conference on oil in London. The prince, who has also served as Saudi ambassador to the United States and Britain, said the alleged plan to kill the kingdom's...

The Saudis effectively ended their strategic alliance with the US in the aftermath of the US-supported overthrow of Hosni Mubarak. Since then the Saudis have strengthened their ties to China and Russia and from what I understand have refused to sign any new oil contracts with the Americans. Now in this op-ed in the New York Times, the Saudis are hitching a ride on the Palestinian UN bid to justify their previous abandonment of America. Saudi Prince Turki Al-FaisalAs my readers are well aware, I think that the US's abandonment of Mubarak was one of the greatest strategic errors the...

Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal said Sunday that he wants oil prices to drop so that the United States and Europe don't accelerate efforts to wean themselves off his country's supply. In an interview broadcast Sunday on "CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS," the grandson of the founding king of modern Saudi Arabia said the oil price should be somewhere between $70 and $80 a barrel, rather than the current level of over $100 a barrel. "We don't want the West to go and find alternatives, because, clearly, the higher the price of oil goes, the more they have incentives to go...

The House of Saud watches nervously as friends fall and the United States changes its alliances. Bruce Riedel on how money could help them—and why King Abdullah should not be underestimated. The view from the enormous marble palaces in Riyadh and Jidda is becoming grim. For the House of Saud, the winter of Arab discontent has been unsettling so far as friends fall in waves. It may get a lot worse from the royal family’s perspective. But the Saudi royals are proven survivors who have been around and in power for centuries. They know how to survive and have the...

Saudi Prince Turki bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud has warned the country's royal family to step down and flee before a military coup or a popular uprising overthrows the kingdom. In a letter published by Wagze news agency on Tuesday, the Cairo-based prince warned Saudi Arabia's ruling family of a fate similar to that of Iraq's executed dictator Saddam Hussein and the ousted Iranian Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, calling on them to escape before people "cut off our heads in streets." He warned that the Saudi royal family is no longer able to "impose" itself on people, arguing that deviations...

For centuries, an astronomy observatory in Greenwich, London -- the namesake of Greenwich Mean Time -- has been the reference point for lines of longitude, ships' navigation on the world's seas and the time zones used today. But Saudi Arabia wants to change that. It's building what it calls the largest clock in the world, atop the second-largest skyscraper in the world, in the Islamic holy city of Mecca -- in hopes of replacing GMT with "Mecca Time." The clock dwarfs London's Big Ben, with four huge faces each about 130 feet in diameter and inscribed with the Arabic words...

A former member of the Palestine Liberation Organization who has converted to Christianity says a Saudi prince is now the second-largest shareholder in Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, the parent company of the Fox News Channel. For years the Fox News Channel has described itself as "fair and balanced," free from what some consider the "Kool-Aid" of liberalism and political correctness of other national news agencies. But Walid Shoebat, former Palestinian terrorist who is now a Christian, says ever since Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal became a major stockholder in Fox's parent company, he has been able to influence its news...

THE FUTURE OF FOX NEWS – AT 10:15 P.M. ET: Those on our side have come to depend on Fox News as one of the few outlets where our views get a fair hearing. But will that always be the case? There have been some disturbing signs in recent days. Fox, of course, is under the control of Rupert Murdoch, pro-American stalwart and something of a media genius. But Murdoch is aging, and it's widely reported that his son, James, who's becoming increasingly powerful in the parent News Corporation, which owns Fox, has views rather different from those of his...

ABU DHABI—News Corp.'s Fox International Channels said Monday it is basing the Middle East operations of its global online advertising network in Abu Dhabi and setting up an office here for its documentary-production arm. Fox International said it would also move some broadcasting operations related to its Mideast channels from Hong Kong and other locations to Abu Dhabi. The moves are the latest by a handful of large, international media outlets to establish footholds in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. The city-state, in an effort to diversify away from oil, has set out to lure a...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 25 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz was joined by world leaders and nearly 3,000 guests as he delivered the keynote address to inaugurate the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). Other speakers during the ceremony included the KAUST Chairman of the Board of Trustees and Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, His Excellency Ali Al-Naimi, Minister of Higher Education, His Excellency Dr. Khaled Al-Anqari, and the President of KAUST, Professor Choon Fong Shih.