Free Republic

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.