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RIYADH - Two Saudi guards were shot dead and three others injured on Saturday morning after a man drove up to the gate of the royal palace in Jeddah and began shooting, the interior ministry said in a statement carried by state news.

Hugh Hefner dies at 91 and women in Saudi Arabia get royal permission to drive a car. These two markers separated by continents and cultures, one in the West and the other in the East, dramatically reflect the changing ways men and women relate to each other. Hugh Hefner was largely responsible for a sexual revolution that hurt and helped both men and women in the never-ending war between the sexes. It's true that neither side will win this war because there's too much fraternizing with the enemy. It's more like the continuous push and pull of ying and yang....

After experiencing a literal false start to the first ever trip by a ruling Saudi Arabian monarch to Moscow, the country’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud has gone to have what his country has called “historic momentum” in expanding relations with the Kremlin, including reports of a purchase of S-400 surface-to-air missiles and other arms deals. As with developments in Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, this could indicate a political shift by the Saudi regime away from its historical ally the United States or an attempt to exert political pressure on officials in Washington. Salman and his entourage...

What women in Saudi Arabia cannot do: -- Marry, divorce, travel, get a job or have elective surgery without permission from their male guardians. Women still are beholden to restrictive guardianship lawsthat govern nearly every aspect of their lives. In cases where a woman's father is deceased or absent, her husband, a male relative, brother, or in some cases, even a son, must give his approval before a woman can obtain often basic entitlements. -- Mix freely with members of the opposite sex. Some exceptions include hospitals, banks and medical colleges. In 2013 authorities ordered shops that employ both men...

INTIMACY THE SUBSTANCE AND KEY TO THE KINGDOM OF GOD Here are The Keys to The Kingdom ,Seek me first in all you do ! Not just the big things but in every matter of the heart . Now if you do this , the other keys will reveal themselves to you . SUBSTANCE DESCRIBES THE UNDERSTANDING AND VISION of My Spirit for I AM in and through all creation , the very "Matter" of Eternity and it is when you step into agreement and oneness with Me alone that Heaven and Earth join AS ONE within you and we...

Ladies, start your engines. Saudi Arabia's king issued a decree on Tuesday allowing women to drive, which would end a longstanding ban on female motorists in the ultra-conservative country. The Saudi Ministry of the Interior said the decree means women will be allowed to drive in 10 months. Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world that prohibits women from driving.

Saudi Arabia announced on Tuesday that it would allow women to drive, ending a longstanding policy that has become a global symbol of the repression of women in the ultraconservative kingdom. The change, which will take effect in June of next year, was announced on state television and in a simultaneous media event in Washington. The decision highlights the damage that the no-driving policy has done to the kingdom’s international reputation and its hopes for a public relations benefit from the reform. (please see link, for full article)

King Salman had issued a decree allowing women to be given driving licences, the Saudi Press Agency said. Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world that has forbidden women from driving. Rights groups have campaigned for years to allow women

A social studies textbook in Saudi Arabia was recalled for including a photo depicting a Star Wars character next to a king. The black and white photo, by Saudi artist Abdullah Al Shehri, features the small, green Jedi Yoda seated next to King Faisal as he signed the United Nations Charter in San Francisco in 1945. Saudi education minister Ahmed al-Eissa apologized for the mistake and said measures were being taken to correct the error. "The Education Ministry regrets unintentional error that appeared in the picture of the signing of the Charter of the United Nations Commission on social studies...

Self-righteous Westerners who indulge in moral equivalences such as “discrimination against women isn’t unique to any one religion” would do well to educate themselves, or make their claims to the real victims of Islamic doctrine, which assigns an inferior status to women. It also sanctions female genital mutilation and the rape of infidel women, both of which phenomena we see with distressing frequency today. So now it emerges that “Sheikh Saad al-Hajari, the head of the government’s religious edict authority in the southern province of Assir,” recently addressed the “the evils of allowing women to drive.” It’s because they have...

The Saudi government said Al Jazeera's Snapchat channel was breaking local laws related to published material and cyber crime, according to Snap. Officials requested the removal of the channel from the app's Discover section, a Snap spokeswoman told CNNMoney on Monday. "We make an effort to comply with local laws in the countries where we operate," the spokeswoman said. ... The Qatar-owned news outlet has been in the crosshairs of several governments in the region during a prolonged diplomatic dispute in the Gulf. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain broke off relations with Qatar in June over...

A Royal Saudi Air Force Typhoon has crashed in Yemen’s southern province of Abyan, Yemen, killing the pilot. A RSAF Typhoon combat aircraft involved in a mission against Houthi fighters over Yemen crashed into a mountain in Al Wade’a district on Sept. 13, 2017. The pilot, identified as Mahna al-Biz, died in the incident that follows the one of a UAE pilot, who was also reportedly killed in another crash in Yemen last week, said Yemen’s Saba news agency. According to the first (unconfirmed) reports on social networks, the aircraft suffered a technical failure during a CAS (Close Air Support)...

Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman made a discreet visit to Israel despite the fact that the Jewish state and Saudi Arabia do not have official diplomatic ties, Israeli and Arab media speculated earlier in the week. Rumors about the momentous visit, which was not confirmed by Israel, started swirling when Israel Radio's diplomatic correspondent covering Arab affairs, Simon Aran, took to Twitter to announce the visit. Aran tweeted that a senior Arab figure from the Gulf region paid a visit to Tel Aviv last week, stirring immense interest in the Arab media. Israel Radio's Arabic-language broadcast reported that...

Tawfiq catapulted to fame when he took time out of his day job as a business analyst last year to develop an anonymous messaging tool called Sarahah -- honesty in Arabic -- that subsequently topped the charts for app downloads. Initially conceived as a tool for soliciting bluntly frank workplace feedback, Sarahah has found its way into the smartphones of millennials worldwide, even as critics have raised alarm about trolling and privacy issues. it is built on the premise that stripping users of their identity promotes ruthless honesty. "Feedback is the goal -- anonymous feedback."

RIYADH: US forces praised the ability of Saudi pilots participating in the Red and Green Flag 2017 military exercise at Base, Nevada, said Lt. Col. Khalid Al-Yousuf. The participating Saudi pilots seek to portray an honorable image of the Kingdom in terms of capability, he added. The Saudi Royal Air Force (SRAF) is participating with eight Typhoon aircraft, an A303MRTT and two transport planes. The SRAF “remains one of the best (air forces) in the Middle East and the world, and the only force from the Middle East to participate in the exercise for the sixth time in a row,”...

As The Post's Liz Sly recently noted, the war in Syria has become a tangled web of conflict dominated by "al Qaeda veterans, hardened Iraqi insurgents, Arab jihadist ideologues and Western volunteers." On the surface, those competing actors are fueled by an overlapping mixture of ideologies and political agendas. Just below it, experts suspect, they're powered by something else: Captagon. A tiny, highly addictive pill produced in Syria and widely available across the Middle East, its illegal sale funnels hundreds of millions of dollars back into the war torn country's black market economy each year, likely giving militias access to...

Forced back into court by an act of Congress and faced with tens of billions of dollars in potential civil liability, oil-rich Saudi Arabia is asking a U.S. judge again to throw out a lawsuit brought against it by thousands of 9/11 victims.Lawyers for the kingdom moved last week to dismiss the massive case pending in federal court in New York City, citing “baseless accusations that Saudi Arabia conspired to commit a horrific crime against its longstanding ally the United States by knowingly funding the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.”The plaintiffs are survivors of the attacks, family members of...

The sprawling project will cover 34,000 square kilometers (13,100 square miles) across a lagoon of 50 "untouched natural islands." It will include resorts, hotels and other residential units that will allow travelers easy access to scuba diving and rock climbing.

"Qatar's demands to internationalize the holy sites is aggressive and a declaration of war against the kingdom," Adel al-Jubeir was quoted saying on Al Arabiya's website. "We reserve the right to respond to anyone who is working on the internationalization of the holy sites," he said. Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani said no official from his country had made such a call. "We are tired of responding to false information and stories invented from nothing," Sheikh Mohammed told Al Jazeera TV. Qatar did accuse the Saudis of politicizing hajj and addressed the United Nations Special Rapporteur on...

McCain Institute for International Leadership executives refuse to disclose how much money big donors have contributed to the nonprofit that’s named after Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, The Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group has learned. [snip]“McCain-Feingold” — that required public disclosure of all contributions of at least $250 in federal elections.Spokesmen for the McCain Institute and for the Arizona State University (ASU) Foundation — where the nonprofit’s finances are held — refused to divulge any dollar amounts from big ticket donors despite repeated requests by TheDCNF.