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New evidence has emerged that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama was closely associated as early as age 25 to a key adviser to a Saudi billionaire who had mentored the founding members of the Black Panthers.

I think you will enjoy this gentleman's take on the encroaching Islamofascism and Islamification of Europe, especially the United Kingdom. Click the video to watch.

In the early Church, Masses were sometimes celebrated in the catacombs to hide from the authorities. In post-Reformation England, priests would disappear into Catholic homes and dispense the sacraments in secret. On a recent trip to the Persian Gulf, I met with a priest who also ministers secretly — in modern day Saudi Arabia. For his own security and that of his flock, we cannot name him, give his precise location or his nationality. Yet, he was happy to reveal an interesting insight into his ministry in Saudi Arabia, a country in which no churches are allowed. In hidden ways,...

A court in Saudi Arabia is reported to be preparing to hear a plea for divorce from an eight-year-old girl who has been married off to a man in his 50s. The Saudi newspaper al-Watan said the girl had been married off to the man by her father without her knowledge. The child's mother is thought to be pushing for the marriage to be annulled - though the father opposes the move. In April, a court in neighbouring Yemen annulled the arranged marriage of another eight-year-old girl. She had been married to a 28-year-old man. Child-protection groups say children are...

THE grand mufti of Saudi Arabia, in recent press statements, has rightly warned parents against marrying their young daughters to men who are older than them by 50 and 60 years or more. He described such practices as an indication of lack of conscience on the part of the parents. He also said such marriages will not protect the chastity of the girls and may drive them toward sinful acts. The mufti stressed that the young girl will be living in agony while her parents enjoy the comforts her dowry can buy them. I cannot agree more with the mufti....

We need help from the connected global community to “smoke out “ an underreported item in the world press regarding former Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar bin Sultan’s recent deal with Russia and possible American collusion or silent consent in this month’s Russian rape of Georgia. It’s a complex issue that needs some explanation. When Bandar bin Sultan was in Moscow on July 14th, he and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin signed a large and historic Saudi-Russian arms agreement between the world’s top two oil producers in return for a Russian pledge to cease support of Iran, among other things (see John...

Saudi trade officials are warning against what they claim to be cancerous products made in Israel and other countries that are allegedly being smuggled into the kingdom. The Riyadh Chamber of Commerce and Industry said smugglers are bringing in the products through Djibouti, Yemen and Somalia. The chamber was urging importers and traders to be watchful regarding this merchandise. The products, said to be manufactured in Israel, China and Taiwan, include pesticides, agricultural fertilizers, children's toys, canned foods, perfumes, cigarettes, juices and candy. Israel and Saudi Arabia have no diplomatic relations. Last month the Saudi Interior Ministry said it had...

Saudis use cash and counseling to fight terrorism About 3,200 former militants have completed the ambitious program aimed at persuading them to disavow violent Islamist ideologies. By Caryle Murphy | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor from the August 20, 2008 edition Riyadh, Saudi Arabia - Khalid al-Hubayshi's career as an Islamic warrior came to an end with the siege of Tora Bora in Afghanistan. Ordered to retreat, he walked through snow for six days. He was captured by Pakistani forces, delivered to the Americans, and relocated to a cage in Cuba. The young Saudi's break with militant jihadi ideology...

Meet Saudi Arabia's mad motorway skaters An incredible video shows what has become the latest dangerous craze to hit Saudi Arabia: street skating.The footage appears to be genuine... The three boys cling onto the car as they appear to 'skate' along the road's surface As the car drives down the motorway at high speed the boys, who look no older than teenagers, open the doors, step outside in their white robes and then proceed to 'skate' along the tarmac as it speeds beneath their sandalled feet. At one point all three of the car's doors, all but the driver's, are...

A federal appeals court on Thursday ruled Saudi Arabia could not be held liable for the September 11 attacks against the United States despite charitable donations that ended up in the hands of Al-Qaeda. Upholding a 2006 decision by a lower court, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan ruled inadmissible a lawsuit in which families of victims of the 9/11 attacks charged that Saudi Arabia, four Saudi princes, a Saudi charity and bank had given material support to Al-Qaeda. The plaintiffs in the case cited Saudi donations to Muslim charity groups that were later transferred to the Al-Qaeda...

ISLAMABAD (AFP) — Saudi Arabia's intelligence chief dashed to Pakistan for talks with the government over its plans to impeach President Pervez Musharraf, a senior official in Islamabad said Saturday. The visit of Muqrin bin Abdul Aziz came as a minister from the ruling coalition pressed Musharraf to stand down within two days and avoid putting the country through a destabilising impeachment battle. "Yes, Saudi intelligence chief Prince Muqrin bin Abdul Aziz did visit Pakistan on Friday and met senior government officials," a senior coalition official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

A federal appeals court today rejected lawsuits by victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks against Saudi Arabia and senior members of the Saudi royal family, alleging that they helped foster al-Qaeda and other Islamist terrorist groups. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, ruling in Manhattan, said Saudi Arabia and members of its royal family were protected from being sued because the State Department had not officially designated the desert kingdom as a supporter of terrorism. Under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, foreign governments are immune from such lawsuits unless the State Department finds in advance that...

Saudir Arabian Muslim father cut out his daughter's tongue and lit her on fire upon learning that she had become a Christian. The child became curious about Jesus Christ after she read Christian material online, the Gulf News reported. Her father read of her Internet conversation, detached her tongue and burned her to death "following a heated debate on religion," according to an International Christian Concern report...

Her crime? Converting to Christianity. "Saudi man kills daughter for converting to Christianity," by Mariam Al Hakeem for Zawya, August 13:Riyadh: A Saudi man working with the Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice recently killed his daughter for converting to Christianity. According to sources close to the victim, the religious police member had cut the tongue of the girl and burned her to death following a heated debate on religion. The death of the girl sent shockwaves and websites where the victim used to write with various nick names have allocated special space to mourn her, while...

Saudi Arabia is to build five modern prisons in the kingdom to replace US Guantanamo detention facility, a new report has revealed. Jordanian daily quoted unnamed sources as saying that US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Saudi officials are cooperating to construct the prisons which are to replace Guantanamo and US secret prisons in Europe. Riyadh is to spent about two billion Saudi Rials for the project which can accommodate up to 18000 inmates, they added. Bin laden firm and with the help of German engineers will build the prisons in the Saudi cities of Mecca, Haer, Demmam, and Qasim....

Muslims are establishing Mosques all over America ranging from the ostentatious, such as in Washington D.C., to academically-cloaked university Islamic centers, to innocuous storefronts and even prison chapels. One and all have the same aims: Hold the faithful in line, recruit as many new adherents by any and all means, and indoctrinate one and all in the imperative of Islamic conquest. It is in these Islamic places that the impressionable young and the fanatical adults are drilled with the duty to carry out Jihad against the Dar ul Harb ("land of war"-anyplace not completely under the rule of Islam.) Operating...

Aggressively pursuing its so-called "nuclear rights" with thousands of new gas centrifuges now online, Iran is concentrating on producing the weapons-grade material it needs to build nuclear bombs and warheads. While this is the "final push" in their nuclear weapons program, they have been on this track since the 1980s and have absolutely no intention of changing direction, despite their conciliatory language from time to time. Sound familiar? The Iranian model emulates the same kind of hosing down given us by North Korea's "Little Kim." The Iranians watched the North Koreans jerk us around (first the Clinton administration and then...

Last update - 12:21 06/08/2008 Israeli TV ad poking fun at oil sheikhs draws Saudi ire By Haaretz Staff and Channel 10 Saudi Arabia's MBC TV began its Sunday night news edition not with Syrian President Bashar Assad's trip to Iran, nor with Palestinian infighting in Gaza - but with an outraged report on an Israeli TV commercial. The advertisement shows wealthy Arab oil barons enraged that a Nissan car is so fuel efficient.

Saudi Arabia's MBC TV began its Sunday night news edition not with Syrian President Bashar Assad's trip to Iran, nor with Palestinian infighting in Gaza - but with an outraged report on an Israeli TV commercial. The advertisement shows wealthy Arab oil barons enraged that a Nissan car is so fuel efficient.

More than a dozen Christians in Saudi Arabia who were accused by government officials of worshipping in their homes have been ordered deported. According to a report from International Christian Concern, the Christians will be expelled tomorrow for one specific home worship service in Taif in April.

The Washington-DC based human rights group, International Christian Concern (ICC) www.persecution.org has learned that Saudi Arabia is deporting 15 Christians on Tuesday, August 5th, for holding private worship meetings in a house in the city of Taif. On Friday, April 25, twelve Saudi Arabian police raided a house where 16 Christians were holding a prayer meeting. The first officer to enter the house after breaking down the main gate pointed a pistol at the Christians and ordered them to hand over their resident permits and mobile phones. The other 11 police followed quickly and started searching the entire house. They...

In Isi Leibler's "Candidly Speaking" (July 29), we read the same myths regarding the kingdom of Saudi Arabia; sweeping statements are presented as immutable fact. In 2005, one of my closest professional partners (as well as closest friends) and I planned for and created a model for a Saudi-sponsored interfaith dialogue to be ideally hosted by King Abdullah in Spain. We worked on the concept in Riyadh, where I live. (For the record, she is Jewish and visits the kingdom frequently.) We submitted the business plan to specific members of the royal family, and three years later the dialogue materialized...

A Turkish soap opera featuring an independent fashion designer and her amazingly supportive and attractive husband is emptying the streets whenever it's on and has more than doubled the number of Saudis visiting Turkey this summer. Millions of people -- especially women, apparently -- are tuning in nightly to find out whether the couple will stay together or be torn apart by jealousies and old flames. But "Noor," the story of a multi-generational, upper-class Turkish family, has also sparked a backlash. The show has become the subject of angry Friday sermons in this strict Islamic kingdom, and the country's chief...

Groups take stand against Saudi Arabia - Afteraction report Yesterday a diverse group of patriotic Americans involved in the anti-jihad Resistance from many different organizations took a strong and firm stand against Saudi Arabian influence in America. During a protest a group of individuals brought a Saudi flag and threw it on the ground in front of the Saudi consulate in Los Angeles. Individuals, including women and children, proceeded to stomp on the flag. Emotions were high since the latest spike in petroleum costs has only further enabled the Saudi government to fund the spread of radical Islam throughout the...

In only a couple of hours we will be holding a protest against Saudi Arabia in front of their consulate in West L.A., all FReepers are urged to get out there! PROTEST AGAINST SAUDI ARABIA WHEN: Saturday, August 2nd 4:00 PM WHERE: Saudi Consulate at 2045 Sawtelle Blvd. Los Angeles, CA (Near W. Olympic & Sawtelle) SAUDI ARABIA: World’s greatest exporter of Terror. Protest against: - Saudi funding of terror with petro-dollars - Saudi influence in American politics - Saudi influence in American schools - Saudi religious persecution of non-Muslims - Saudi human rights violations - Saudi violations of women's...

PROTEST AGAINST SAUDI ARABIA WHEN: Saturday, August 2nd 4:00 PM WHERE: Saudi Consulate at 2045 Sawtelle Blvd. Los Angeles, CA (Near W. Olympic & Sawtelle) SAUDI ARABIA: World’s greatest exporter of Terror. Protest against: - Saudi funding of terror with petro-dollars - Saudi influence in American politics - Saudi influence in American schools - Saudi refusal to help ease high gas prices - Saudi promotion of terrorism and extremism through the construction and funding of radical mosques and madrassas in America Event sponsored by the United American Committee and other groups involved in the anti-jihad resistance. Contact info@unitedamericancommittee.org for more...

Saudi Arabia's religious police have announced a ban on selling cats and dogs as pets, or walking them in public in the Saudi capital, because of men using them as a means of making passes at women, an official said on Wednesday. Othman al-Othman, head of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice in Riyadh, known as the Muttawa, told the Saudi edition of al-Hayat daily that the commission has started enforcing an old religious edict. He said the commission was implementing a decision taken a month ago by the acting governor of the capital,...

Religion of Irony alert. Al Qaeda's #3 has called for the death of Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah for meeting with the Pope and calling for interfaith dialogue. Why does this get King Abdullah a death fatwa? The logic goes something like this: The Pope offended Muhammad by suggesting that the Muslim prophet spread Islam by the sword. For this, the Pope deserves death. King Abdullah deserves death by colluding with the Pope and abandoning violent jihad. It would be funny if it weren't so tragic. Al Libi also is accuses King Abdullah of being involved in some conspiracy --part...

Riyadh, 25 July (AKI) - A Saudi football star playing for a Swiss team has refused to play against an Israeli team for apparent political and religious reasons. Hussein Abdulghani, who plays for Swiss premier league club Neuchatel Xamax, said he would not play a game against a 'Zionist team', reported Arabic language newspaper al-Quds al-Arabi on Friday. Neuchatel Xamax is reportedly planning a game with an as yet unnamed Israeli team. Team officials are said to have accepted his decision not to play in the future match against the Israeli team. Abdulghani, 31, has represented Saudi Arabia in three...

Textbook Terrorism: Islamofascism INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Posted 7/24/2008 Islamofascism: A new study confirms our "ally" Saudi Arabia is still poisoning young Muslim minds with anti-Western textbooks. So? Its hate-filled graduates are enrolling at our colleges. ...despite promised reforms, the kingdom still teaches students to "hate the infidels." The texts assert that it's "permissible" for a Muslim to kill an "apostate," an "adulterer," a "homosexual," as well as non-Muslims practicing "polytheism," or Christianity. The violent ideology is introduced in a religion textbook in the first grade and reinforced and developed in following years of the public education system, culminating in the...

Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf is on record stating his ambitions to make his country a modern and secular state modeled on the Turkish republic under Kemal Ataturk. Ironically, even as that goal appears mind bogglingly unachievable for Pakistan, recent events will conspire to push Turkey in the direction of Pakistan; into becoming a breeding ground for a new class of Islamic militants. The transition of Turkey into a new front for Saudi interests will follow typical ideological, strategic and political trends... It is no mere coincidence that the Saudis need a functioning Sunni army to counter the likely expansionism of...

Islamofascism: A new study confirms our "ally" Saudi Arabia is still poisoning young Muslim minds with anti-Western textbooks. So? Its hate-filled graduates are enrolling at our colleges.The Hudson Institute reviewed the 2007-08 textbooks distributed by the Saudi Ministry of Education and found that, despite promised reforms, the kingdom still teaches students to "hate the infidels." The texts assert that it's "permissible" for a Muslim to kill an "apostate," an "adulterer," a "homosexual," as well as non-Muslims practicing "polytheism," or Christianity. The violent ideology is introduced in a religion textbook in the first grade and reinforced and developed in following years...

Editor’s Note: Newsmax Editor Christopher Ruddy is visiting Israel this week and met with Natan Sharansky. The former Soviet dissident spent more than a decade in the communist Gulag. He emigrated to Israel after his release in 1986, became a Knesset member and served in four successive Israeli governments, including time as deputy prime minister. In 2006, he resigned from Israel’s Knesset, but he remains active in the country’s political discourse. He has just authored his latest book “Defending Identity: Its Indispensable Role in Protecting Democracy.” Jerusalem — An Israeli businessman I met described Natan Sharansky as having an “inner...

Arabs.. racism.. it exists...word 'abd - Arabic for "slave" - often used in our household... so common ..its negative connotations.. to anyone darker skin than themselves - from southern Sudanese house servants to migrants from Darfur- clear intent to demean.. addressing a particularly dark-skinned or thick-lipped child.was a kind of racism that no one challenged, addressed,..through a child's eyes.. on a scale of colour, lighter was good, darker was bad. The word 'abd, although strictly meaning "slave" or "servant", became synonymous with negritude. my Islamic heritage reinforced this with quotes from Muhammad such as "You should listen to and obey...

Commodity Online ABUDHABI : It seems that oil rich Middle East nations finally began to face the realities of core issues such as food shortages that continued to affect common man around the world. Faced with a scarcity of fertile land, water shortages and surging world food prices, wealthy Arab states in the Gulf are seeking to secure their food supplies by investing in agriculture abroad. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the top food importers among Arab countries in the Gulf, are now looking to Asia and Africa as opportunities for agricultural investments. UAE, which imports around 85...

Two great episodes of Covert Radio now up at the Covert Radio Show Website. In the first episode, Eli Lake from the New York Sun, checks in to talk about the internal wrangling between Maliki/Chalabi and Obama. Then in the second new episode, Daveed Gartenstein Ross from the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, warns about the looming threats from an Al Qaeda Strike on the oil facilities in Saudi Arabia.

Who Needs Doctors? Sunday, July 13, 2008 · 32 Comments Saudis comprise around 20% of the workforce in the healthcare sector. Considering this very low figure, the government have decided to open new colleges of medicine and health-related sciences to cope with the increasing demand of healthcare services in the country. It seems pretty much straightforward and it should make sense to almost everyone. I say “almost” because there is one particular man who strongly disagrees.Sheikh Saleh al-Fowzan, a senior cleric and member of the Ulema Council, recently wrote to Al-Riyadh daily expressing his dismay at this approach by the government,...

Senior Saudi Cleric: Bin Laden "Is a Promoter of Evil and Depravity"; Al-Zawahiri Is a "Deviant" Following the recent arrest in Saudi Arabia of 520 terrorists who had planned attacks on the country's oil facilities, the Saudi daily 'Okaz published an interview with Saudi Supreme Judicial Council head Sheikh Saleh bin Muhammad Al-Luhaidan. In his discussion of terrorism in Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Al-Luhaidan called Al-Qaeda a criminal organization that threatens to destroy the world's purest country. He also called bin Laden a promoter of evil, and the members of his organization criminals. In addition, he said that in order to...

Because they are so clearly designed for the convenience of large testing companies, I had always assumed that multiple-choice exams, the bane of any fourth-grader's existence, were a quintessentially American phenomenon. But apparently I was wrong. According to a report last week by the Hudson Institute's Center for Religious Freedom, it seems that the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Education finds them useful, too. Here, for example, is a multiple-choice question from a recent edition of a Saudi fourth-grade textbook, "Monotheism and Jurisprudence," in a section that attempts to teach children to distinguish between "true" and "false" belief in God: Q....

(ANSAmed) - PARIS, JULY 17 - A "luminous and liberated" veil, in the spirit of Islam's poetics, will cover but not hide, thanks to a light transparent structure, the Visconti Court of the Louvre Museum in Paris, in the right wing, to host the new museum of Islamic arts, to be established in 2010. ¿It is a political museum¿, as explained to ANSA by Rudy Ricciotti, of Italian origins, one of the two architects, with Mario Bellini from Milan, who designed the project, selected among 52 applicants. "In the sense that it recognises all the peoples in a lay state,...

WASHINGTON — Two years after protracted American-Saudi negotiations persuaded the State Department that the Saudis would remove religious intolerance from their national textbooks, a new study finds the books still portray non-Sunni Muslims as the enemies of true believers. The report from the Center for Religious Freedom at the Hudson Institute finds that the Saudi textbooks are filled with the austere supremacism of the Wahhabi sect of Islam, despite promises from the Kingdom in 2006 to alter them. For example, a textbook for 10th graders on Islamic jurisprudence not only says it is permissible in Islam to murder a homosexual,...

I was privileged this week to preview, before its release to the public, what may well prove to be a masterpiece of the documentary film-making art—a new look at the Biblical story of the Exodus from Egypt in the light of contemporary archeology and politics in the Middle East. Filmmaker Tim Mahoney´s "The Exodus Conspiracy",[1] due to be released within a few months, seeks to demonstrate the historical accuracy of the Biblical narrative of the exodus of the children of Israel from Egypt on the basis of recent archaeological discoveries and geographic explorations. A secondary thesis of the film is...

MADRID — A conference convened by Abdullah of Saudi Arabia for the purpose of gathering together leaders of the world's religions ended here yesterday with little sign as to whether the Saudi monarch's efforts to counter religious extremism would continue. The conference concluded on a sour note this afternoon as Christian and Jewish participants complained that the organizers, the Muslim World League, had too much control over the conference's closing communiqué. The three-day gathering in Madrid of more than 200 religious leaders was closely watched because it is the first time that a Saudi monarch had invited Jewish rabbis to...

The Saudi king's talk of tolerance and moderation notwithstanding, the Jewish state is proving to be a divisive issue at the religious conference that the Saudi monarch has convened here. The conference, the theme of which is interfaith dialogue, is an effort by the Saudi monarch to foster more cordial relations between imams in his country and Christian and Jewish religious leaders in the West. The conference is also drawing notice because Abdullah, whose kingdom includes the sites of Islam's two holiest places, denounced religious extremism during his address on Wednesday to the Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, and Jewish leaders...

A Shia imam in Saudi Arabia has declared his support for Iran and called on supporters to send money to the country to help it fight against the United States and Israel. "We stand by Iran and we will do everything to support this country," said Shia imam Namer Baqer al-Namer during a sermon he gave at the Imam Hussein mosque in the eastern village al-Awamiya on Friday. The sermon was published on the imam's Internet site on Tuesday. A Saudi citizen, al-Namer said that he felt very close to Iran for his Shia belief and called on the faithful...

U.S. imam calls for Neturei Karta ban at Saudi-run interfaith conference. by Walter Ruby Special to The Jewish Week Madrid­­­— A top American Muslim leader and American Jewish groups formed an unlikely alliance this week against a fiercely anti-Zionist chasidic group at an interfaith conference in Madrid, spearheaded by Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah. Dr. Sayyid Syeed, national director of the Islamic Society of North America, said he was upset by the planned participation in the conference, which opened this week, of Rabbi Yisrael Dovid Weiss, a representative of Neturei Karta from upstate Monsey. Rabbi Weiss was to be the only...

PARIS (AFP) — French President Nicolas Sarkozy praised Islam on Wednesday at a ceremony with Saudi Prince Al Walid bin Talal to lay the first stone for a new Islamic art section of the Louvre museum. "This will be an opportunity for the French and all visitors to the Louvre to see that Islam is progress, science, finesse, modernity, and that fanaticism in the name of Islam is a corruption of Islam," Sarkozy said at the ceremony. The new exhibition space is due to open in 2010 after the 86-million-euro (136-million-dollar) renovation project is completed at the Louvre, which draws...

Saudi “Charities” and the War Against America   By Jamie GlazovFrontPageMagazine.com | Wednesday, July 16, 2008 Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Alex Alexiev, vice president for research at the Center for Security Policy. FP: Alex Alexiev, welcome to Frontpage Interview. Alexiev: Thank you, Jamie, It’s always a pleasure to chat with you.FP: The U.S. government recently designated the infamous Saudi Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation as a terror financier. Tell us about Al Haramain. Alexiev: Well, there is a lot to tell and a lot has been written about it already in the counterterrorism blog and elsewhere for those who want...

MADRID: Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah will open here today an international interfaith conference that aims to allow representatives of the world’s great religions to get to know each other. The Muslim World League (MWL) has organized the World Conference on Dialogue on the directives of King Abdullah. The king “has been calling for this type of dialogue between religions for the past three years,” Saleh Al-Namlah, undersecretary at the Saudi Ministry of Culture and Information, told reporters. Around 200 people are expected to attend the event. They include representatives of the world’s major religions: Islam, Christianity,...