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Women were also jailed 10 days in the first sentence of its kind in Saudi ArabiaA Saudi court sentenced two local women to 10 days in prison and ordered them lashed 10 times each after they were found guilty of swearing at each other on WhatsApp. The judge at the court in the western Red Sea port of Jeddah tried to reconcile the two but they refused and insisted on charging each other. “The judge had no choice but to sentence the two and make them write a statement not to abuse each other again,” Arar daily said, adding that...

Navi Pillay said Tel Aviv's two-week onslaught on Gaza - which has cost more than 650 Palestinians lives - would be thoroughly investigated. Ms Pillay, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said the attacks have destroyed houses and hospitals and killed civilians. "These are just a few examples where there seems to be a strong possibility that international humanitarian law has been violated, in a manner that could amount to war crimes. "Every one of these incidents must be properly and independently investigated." According to Gaza officials, 475 houses have been destroyed and 2,644 damaged, while 46 schools, 56 mosques...

GENEVA, July 23 (Reuters) - The United Nations on Wednesday launched an international inquiry into human rights violations and crimes that may have been committed by Israel during its military offensive in the Gaza Strip. The U.N. Human Rights Council condemned the Israeli assault which it said had involved "disproportionate and indiscriminate attacks", including aerial bombing of civilian areas, collective punishment, and the killing of more than 650 Palestinians. At the end of an emergency session, the 47-member forum adopted a resolution presented by Palestinians by a vote of 29 states in favor, 1 against (the United States) with 17...

Blames overweight wife for refusing to compromiseA 40-year-old Yemeni citizen, identified as Yassin, divorced his wife because of her snorting, the ‘Al Rai’ newspaper has reported. The husband said that his wife used to eat many nuts and chocolates till she now weighs more than 80kg, up from her original 50kg, the paper reported. He added that she refused to undergo any diet or weight- loss programme. However, the final straw for the man was her snoring at night, which he attributed to her weight. The report quotes the man as saying: “We have three children, but she does not...

Police found bank deposits receipts worth Dh1.2m and expensive four-wheel car with himSaudi police arrested an Arab man for begging although he had in excess of SR1.2 million (Dh1.2 million) and an expensive four-wheel vehicle. Police said the unnamed man, a resident of a nearby Gulf country, is visiting the Gulf kingdom on a tourist visa with his wife and three children, adding that he was found to be staying in a luxury furnished apartment in the Western Saudi port of Yanbu. “We found large sums of cash with him and receipts for bank deposits…he had a total of more...

Saudi woman have been blamed more than men for the high divorce rate in the Gulf Kingdom and one of the main reasons is their disobedience. A study issued this week by a local legal centre showed there are 11 key reasons for the surge in divorces in the world’s largest oil exporter. Six of them are related to women and four to men while the 11th reason has to do with the couple’s families and their interference in their marital life, showed the study by the Riyadh-based consultancy Centre for Legal Training. “One of the main reasons for the...

Qatar, the world’s top liquefied natural gas exporter, is using its gas money to cash in on some top-of-the-line U.S. supplied military hardware. Qatar’s defense minister, Hamad Bin Ali al-Attiyah, met with Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and signed acceptance letters for $11 billion worth of Apache attack helicopters, Patriot missile defense batteries and anti-tank Javelin missiles, the Pentagon said in a statement Monday. “Today’s signing ceremony underscores the strong partnership between the United States and Qatar in the area of security and defense and will help improve our bilateral cooperation across a range of military operations,” said Rear Adm....

The Royal Saudi Air Force’s Typhoon aircraft completed 10,000 flying hours recently, BAE Systems Saudi Arabia PR and communications director Monther M. Tayeb told Arab News. “The Typhoon aircraft’s performance is significant in the history of any fleet. Eurofighter Typhoon is the world’s most advanced swing-role combat aircraft simultaneously providing deployable air-to-air and air-to-surface capabilities,” he said. Tayeb noted that BAE Systems delivered the first two Typhoon aircrafts in the Kingdom in 2009 and form part of a fleet totaling 72 aircrafts. “This agreement forms part of a strategic relationship between the governments of Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom,”...

A sheep was sold for SR750,000 (Dh750,000) in Saudi Arabia and dealers said it was one of the rarest rams in the Arabian Peninsula. Saudi businessman Fahd Al Widinani bought the sheep after more than a week of negotiations with its owner in the western Saudi town of Makkah. “The sheep is called Hadad and its one of the rarest breeds in the region,” the Arabic language daily Sabq said.

An ongoing lawsuit has pried loose new records linked to a family of Sarasota Saudis who left home in a hurry just before 9/11. It was Halloween night, 2001. The horrors of 9/11 were still fresh on the the minds of Americans. At a time when everyone was on edge, the sight of a man disposing documents in a dumpster behind a Bradenton storage facility aroused suspicion. Summoned to the scene, Manatee County sheriff’s deputies confronted the man, who had a Tunisian passport. According to FBI records, authorities searched the dumpster and found “a self-printed manual on terrorism and Jihad,...

Royal Dutch Shell is ending investments in a gas development project in Saudi Arabia. The emergence of the shale gas industry has opened up more lucrative opportunities for energy companies elsewhere. Shell has decided to end further investment in the Kidan area of the Empty Quarter, the sea of sand dunes that cover south-east Saudi Arabia. Italy's ENI, Spain's Repsol and France's Total - have already abandoned the search for commercially viable gas deposits in that part of Saudi Arabia. Kidan, rich in sour gas...

Saudi Arabia’s Minister of National Guard Prince Mutaib bin Abdullah, the son of King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, cried during a meeting with national guard members. A YouTube film published in Sada newspaper showed the 61-year-old Prince, who was named to this past in 2013, sobbed and cried as he covered his face with a tissue. He then took the tissue off and addressed the guards :”.... anyone who does not like you…oh members of the national guards.” The paper said the film was circulated on social networks in Saudi Arabia and viewed by a large number of people but...

Security men in the sacred Saudi town of Makkah arrested a man wearing strange clothes inside the Grand Mosque, saying his costume detracted worshippers. Many curious men had left their prayers at the mosque and surrounded the man to take a close look at his apparel, prompting the mosque’s security men to intervene. “He was told to go and change his clothes because they are distracting the worshippers from their prayers…he left but returned with the same clothes,” Sada daily. It said police arrested the bearded man for interrogation after he entered the mosque for the second time with the...

She had 8 children from husband and was told after his death they were siblingsA Saudi woman discovered that she was married to her sibling for 50 years and had eight children from him before his death, a newspaper reported on Sunday. After his recent death, the woman was told that she and her husband had been breastfed by the same mother and that they are not permitted by Islam to marry each other, the Arabic language daily Okaz said. The paper quoted relatives as saying the woman at first did not believe what she was told at her husband’s...

A Saudi man set precedence in the Gulf Kingdom’s conservative society when he sought his wife’s written opinion whether she would let him marry again. But her response carried an implicit threat to her husband. In a letter he left her at home, the husband told his wife that he intends to marry again on the grounds Islam permits men to have four wives at a time. A copy of the letter published by Sada newspaper showed the man marked two answers at the bottom “I agree and I don’t agree.” It showed the wife not only answered “I don’t...

Saudi Arabia’s feared religious police arrested a Syrian man on charges of having affairs with 35 women, some of whom said they were victims of sorcery. Members of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice caught the unnamed man red-handed as he met a girl at a café. The girl had informed the Commission that the man had tried to manipulate her and swindled large sums of money from her. She said that she had known the man via social networks and that he had posed as a Saudi seeking to marry. Newspapers said the Syrian...

Shoe thief sends SR500, asks victim for forgivenessA thief with a guilty conscience has asked for forgiveness from a Saudi man whose shoes he had stolen eight years ago. The guilt-ridden thief sent SR500 in an envelope alongside the apology note. The victim, Abu Abdul Rahman,said that his shoes were stolen as he was having dinner at a wedding reception hosted by a relative, local news site Sabq reported on Thursday. In keeping with the local tradition, food is served on in a majlis and guests and hosts leave their shoes at the door. Abu Abdul Rahman said that he...

Tyler Durden 07/03/2014 While up until now the virtual war between Saudi Arabia, openly calling for the ouster of Iraq's Maliki (whose words in retaliation were just as harsh) was primarily of words, things appear to be escalating on that front too following an overnight report that Saudi Arabia has deployed 30,000 soldiers to its border with Iraq after Iraqi soldiers withdrew from the area, Saudi-owned al-Arabiya television reported Thursday. The world's top oil exporter shares an 500-mile border with Iraq, where Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) insurgents and other Sunni Muslim militant groups seized towns and cities...

Wife denies report, saying she was divorced because of family riftsA Saudi man divorced his wife just after he saw her driving a car on social networks, but the woman denied the report, saying she was divorced because of persistent rifts. The unnamed woman said she would file a lawsuit against her husband for his cruelty and beating her up during their marriage and that she would demand alimony. “The report that he divorced me for driving a car is not true… if this is the reason, then I would not only drive a car but perform stunt driving,” she...

A worker was caught on camera preparing shawarma with his feet, prompting public calls on Saudi authorities to punish the restaurant. But officials later denied the restaurant is based in the Gulf Kingdom and said it could be in Turkey. A picture showing the worker squeezing the shawarma meat on the bar with his feet with the help of two other workers was published on social networks in the Kingdom. “Social network users called for action against the restaurant and slammed those workers for abusing public health at a time when demand for restaurant food surges during Ramadan,” Sada newspaper...

Representatives of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) stated that they will ruin the Kaaba after capturing Saudi Arabia. APA reports quoting Turkish media that ISIS wants to take control of Arar city of Saudi Arabia and start operations here. ISIS member Abu Turab Al Mugaddasi said that they would destroy the Kaaba in Mecca: “If Allah wills, we will kill those who worship stones in Mecca and destroy the Kaaba. People go to Mecca to touch the stones, not for Allah.”

THe World Health Organisation suggests on a recent outbreak of Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) in Saudi Arabia (among other things): Food hygiene practices should be observed. People should avoid drinking raw camel milk or camel urine, or eating meat that has not been properly cooked.

Saudi reconnaissance planes have found ISIS terrorists heading for the Saudi border, aiming to seize control of the Iraqi-Saudi border crossing at Ar Ar

Thursday, June 26, the day before US Secretary of State John Kerry was due in Riyadh, King Abdullah summoned a National Security Council meeting “upon the current security events in the region, especially in Iraq,” and ordered “all necessary measures to protect the kingdom against terrorist threats.” This meant a general call-up of military units for a high level of preparedness. DEBKAfile’s military sources disclose that Egypt is assembling an expeditionary commando force to fly to Saudi Arabia and bolster its border defenses. This flurry of Saudi-Egyptian military steps comes in the wake of intelligence gathered by Saudi reconnaissance planes...

Saudi Arabia’s Shura council (appointed parliament) will shortly hold a special session to debate a law allowing women to drive cars, a newspaper said on Tuesday. The Arabic language daily Al Riyadh said Shura members would debate a proposal by two female members abolishing a long-standing ban on driving by women. “This is a wonderful proposal. We hope it will see light soon,” the paper said, quoting Shura member Lubna Al Ansari. Al Riyadh said a poll it had conducted among local journalists showed 92 per cent of them supported the proposal.

Russia and Saudi Arabia Saturday stressed the importance of preserving Syrian and Iraqi territorial integrity after talks in the Saudi city of Jeddah. Riyadh and Moscow have opposing positions on the conflict in Syria, with Russia backing President Bashar Assad and Saudi Arabia supporting the rebels seeking to topple him for more than three years. But Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov said they had agreed "to work together to apply the Geneva I agreement that provides for a peaceful transfer of power in Syria," a Saudi spokesman said after the meetings. The ministers also...

A car carrying 11 people rammed into a camel in Saudi Arabia and overturned off the road, killing eight and injuring the remaining passengers. The car was moving on a motorway in the southern Asir province when the driver was caught off guard by a camel crossing over. The vehicle hit the camel and veered off the road before overturning, Sabq newspaper said, quoting a police spokesman. “Six passengers died on the spot while two died on the way to hospital…the other three suffered from medium to serious injuries,” the spokesman said without mentioning what happened to the camel.

A Syrian woman lured her Saudi husband for an alleged picnic in a desert area where he was murdered by her lover by her husband’s gun. The unnamed woman had told police in the capital Riyadh that three masked men attacked her husband and robbed him before shooting him dead in the desert. But forensic experts checking the murder weapon found that it belongs to the woman’s husband, according to Sada Arabic language daily. “After she was interrogated, the wife confessed that she had lured her husband so her lover will kill him. “The killer later handed himself over to...

The U.S. Government spawned ISIS. I can't put it much plainer than that. Our government in partnership with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, Britain and France, created the beast, ISIS, that we now must attempt to neutralize - at the expense of placing Americans once again in harm's way. I realize this is going to cause some cognitive dissonance with some conservatives, but the trail of facts leads where it leads and this is a very inconvenient and disturbing truth that needs to be digested if we are to learn what really lies behind the tactics that are bringing America to...

Saudi health authorities have warned the public about eating shawarma during summer, saying it could cause food poisoning. The health ministry said high summer temperatures give rise to bacteria in food prepared outdoors, including shawarma and buffet meals. “Utmost care should be taken when eating such types of food as they could cause poisoning due to the hot weather which causes bacterial growth in the food,” the ministry said on its website, according to Ajel newspaper. It said shawarma and other food sold outdoors are also vulnerable to dust and pollutants during summer more than in other seasons.

A Saudi man travelled to Qatar and killed a man who murdered his brother nearly 37 years ago, fulfilling his tribe’s long-standing wish to avenge his death. Sada newspaper said the unnamed Saudi managed to identify his brother’s Yemeni killer and locate his whereabouts in Qatar, where he had got the citizenship. “He travelled to Qatar after getting information on where his brother’s killer lives…he went straight to that man and killed him,” the paper said. It said the Saudi man’s tribe intended to stage a big party to celebrate the killer’s death but was stopped by the Prince of...

Iraq's Shi'ite rulers defied Western calls on Tuesday to reach out to Sunnis to defuse the uprising in the north of the country, declaring a boycott of Iraq's main Sunni political bloc and accusing Sunni power Saudi Arabia of promoting "genocide". Maliki has blamed Saudi Arabia for supporting militants in the past, but the severe language was unprecedented. On Monday Riyadh blamed sectarianism in Baghdad for fuelling the violence.

The al-Qaeda breakaway group that has captured Iraq's biggest northern city is on a recruitment drive in Saudi Arabia. The evidence showed up last month in Riyadh, where drivers woke up to find leaflets stuffed into the handles of their car doors and in their windshields. They were promoting the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, which has grabbed the world's attention by seizing parts of northern Iraq. The militant group is also using social media, such as Twitter and YouTube, to recruit young Saudi men. ISIL, known as Da'esh in Arabic, has "territorial ambitions and is far more...

The Iraqi government says it has halted a militant group's advance on Baghdad. As The Telegraph reports, the Iraqi army started engaging the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, after it made a rapid advance in which it captured the key city of Mosul. "'Our security forces have regained the initiative,' said Maj Gen al-Moussawi, adding that the Iraqi army had won 'remarkable victories with the help of volunteers'. 'We will not stop at liberating Mosul from ISIS terrorists, but all other parts,' he continued."

Media Firestorm as Rick Perry Compares Homosexuality to Alcoholism By Julio Severo Texas Governor Rick Perry has caused a firestorm by comparing homosexuality to a disorder that people can avoid like alcoholism at an event in San Francisco. Rick Perry According to the San Francisco Chronicle, even though most of the event focused on economic issues, Perry was provocatively asked about the Texas Republican Party’s approval of platform language allowing Texans to seek voluntary counseling to leave the homosexual lifestyle. Perry responded to the question by saying that he did not know whether such so-called “reparative therapy” worked.  The...

A 10-year-old Saudi boy stunned hundreds of people attending a summer festival when he put live snakes and spiders inside his mouth and letting a Copra bite his hand. Abdul Rahman Al Shammari went on stage to give the dangerous performance to the surprised audience in the northern town of Rafha. Sabq newspaper carried several pictures of the performance showing the boy having snakes and scorpions inside his month and getting bitten by a poisonous Copra.

A Saudi woman who learned her husband married again went mad and waited for him and his new wife to come home before opening fire at them, killing him instantly. Police said the man was rushed to hospital in the northwestern Sakakah town but was already dead, adding that the new wife was seriously injured in the shooting. “She waited for them at home…when the husband came with his new wife, she opened fire at them,” Ajel Arabic language daily said. Saudi woman kills son after argument A Saudi woman stabbed her son to death after a heated argument at...

Each has two eyes and two mouthsSheep born with two heads in Saudi Arabia. (SUPPLIED) A sheep was born with two heads in Saudi Arabia and owner said it was one of the rarest cases he has seen, according to a local newspaper. The sheep was born at a farm in the southern Jazan province and it has one body but two heads, the Arabic language daily Sabq said. “It has one body but two fully growth heads each having two eyes and two mouths…it is one of the rarest cases I have ever seen,” farmer Abdo Jarab said.

Suspects thought the male nurse was laughing at a time for griefSharjah: A male nurse in Al Qassimi Hospital was severely beaten up by five young men after their relative died at the hospital as they believed the nurse was laughing at them, an official at Sharjah Police told Gulf News. The male nurse, an Indian in his 30s, was described by police as having a smiling face. The assault took place on Saturday night at the hospital when a female relative of a deceased fell on the ground due to shock at the death. The male nurse did not...

Wife disobeyed, hubby says; he is mean, she countersA Saudi man divorced his wife for disobeying him and buying a beverage can although she has given him four children, a newspaper reported on Sunday. The unnamed man had repeatedly refused his wife’s request to buy her beverage on the grounds he did not want her to have such drinks. But the wife rebuffed her husband’s claims, saying he has refused to buy her beverage and many other items because he is mean. “When the husband returned home one day, he found that his wife has bought a beverage can…he immediately...

A mentally ill African man claiming to be Jesus Christ mounted a wall at the Grand Mosque in the western Saudi town of Makkah and smashed a lamp before he was captured by security men, newspapers reported on Thursday. The man had managed to sneak into the Mosque through thousands of Moslem pilgrims and climbed the wall before attacking a lamp and smashing part of it. “We arrested the man…he was not under the influence of drugs or alcohol as some social networks say…he is mentally ill as he claimed to be Jesus Christ,” said Major Ge

A court in Al-Rass near Madinah has issued a verdict separating a couple after finding out that they had been breastfed by the same woman, local reports say. The separation order comes 25 years after the couple were married and blessed with seven children. The judge issued the verdict on the basis of a religious edict issued by Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Asheikh, media reports said. According to a saying of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), “Breastfeeding makes forbidden what is forbidden by blood relations.” It means that even if a man and woman are not related by...

The 155 million-year-old female dinosaur exhibit at The Dubai Mall will now be known as ‘DubaiDino’ and the winner of the naming competition is Johara Al-Bayedh from Saudi Arabia. DubaiDino, the name recommended by Johara, emerged as the clear favorite surpassing thousands of other names suggested. Johara won a trip to ‘Jurassic Park’ in Universal Studios, Orlando, US, with her family for a five-day, six-night excursion, inclusive of flights, accommodation and tickets. The name was chosen from thousands of entries for the #NameTDMDino competition held on social media platforms and across educational institutions, since the exhibit was unveiled in March...

Pastry shop apologises, insists it has utmost respect for morals policeA pastry shop in Saudi Arabia has offered its apologies after one of its employees made a cake that reportedly denigrated the moral police for tailing an open truck driven by a woman and transporting women. Social media in Saudi Arabia, where women are banned from driving, promptly decried the cake and users said that “it was making fun of the highly respected members of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice who were depicted as using a van to chase the all women truck.”...

Mother of 18-year-old man defendant appeals for mercyA Saudi court ordered the amputation of the hand of an 18-year-old local man found guilty of stealing a sheep, triggering an impassionate appeal by his mother to reverse the verdict, a newspaper reported on Tuesday. The court in the southwestern town Turba handed down the sentence in line with Sharia (Islamic law) enforced in the conservative Gulf Kingdom but legal experts believe he can appeal the sentence, Sabq Arabic language daily said. His mother said her son Khalid confessed to his crime but added that the sheep owner had dropped the case...

A Saudi man divorced his wife just three months after their marriage because she was over-romantic, a newspaper in the Gulf kingdom said on Monday. The unnamed man acted after he was shocked that his wife has spent a large sum of money on buying candles and other items to make her house look more romantic, the Arabic language daily Sada said. ‘The husband accused his wife of having illusions after she spent a large sum of money and borrowed SR5,000 from her sister-in-law to buy a big quantity of candles and other items to make her home look more...

Saudi authorities are cracking down on social media, the Saudi Gazette reports Monday, and are in the process of reviewing the Anti-Cybercrime Law to allow legal proceedings to be filed against social networking sites for allowing accounts which promote adultery, atheism, and homosexuality. The Saudi Anti-Cybercrime Law was enacted by royal decree on March 26, 2007. According to the Gazette, the law—like many cyber-security laws enacted since the rise of the internet—aims “to ensure information security, protection of rights pertaining to the legitimate use of computers and information networks.” But it also functions as a “big brother” over the Saudi...

MERS is very scary. This week, while avoiding the term global health emergency, the World Health Organization announced that the deadly viral infection was both serious and urgent. So far, there have been 571 confirmed cases of MERS; 171 of those people died from the disease. There's one place, however, where the mood about MERS isn't scaring everyone. It's also the place where the infection was first reported in 2012 and where almost 500 recorded cases have been found so far: Saudi Arabia. And the skepticism about the virus has taken a strange turn in Saudi Arabia, where people have...

Israel, Iran mafia flood Saudi market with fakes Substandard and fake products worth billions of dollars are being dumped in the Kingdom by mafias in Israel and Iran, said Abdul Rahman Al-Zamil, president of the Council of Saudi Chambers (CSC). Al-Zamil urged the cooperation of Saudis and expats to prevent such products from entering the market. “You can see such products everywhere and most of these products come from Israel and Iran with the support of mafias,” Al-Zamil told Arab News. He urged expats to be cautious of such products. “Ignorant consumers purchase these products, only to bin them after...

Obama is saying he is contemplating arming and training Syrian rebels (just the 'moderates' which will be identified by their smiles). However, as the following PBS Frontline documentary exposes, the Syrian rebels themselves say they are already armed and trained by US in the use of sophisticated weapons and fighting techniques, including, one rebel said, "how to finish off soldiers still alive after an ambush." The interviews are the latest evidence that after more than three years of warfare, the United States has stepped up the provision of lethal aid to the rebels, as PBS notes "it appears the Obama...