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SNIPPET: "According to a report issued by Fund for Peace, Yemen is in the midst of a violent storm caused by the disappearance of the oil and gas reserves and the large flow of Somali refugees with connections to Al-Qaeda as well as the flow of extremists from Saudi Arabia. The report said that "the refugees and the extremists are the most significant imports by Yemen in 2008.""

The Health Ministry announced Egypt's first swine flu fatality on 19 July. The victim was identified as 28-year-old Samah El-Sayed Salima, recently returned from Saudi Arabia after the omra. Her death came after the Health Ministry had repeatedly advised pilgrims to cancel omra trips. El-Sayed began suffering flu-like symptoms in Mecca. She also had an underlying heart condition. Egypt's first cases of swine flu were confirmed in June among people travelling from the US. Soon cases were being reported among passengers coming from Western countries and from Saudi Arabia after performing omra rituals. The Ministry of Health began to call...

BOSTON – A crowd of hundreds of local Muslims inaugurated a large new mosque last week in Roxbury Crossing. The 68,000 sq foot Islamic Cultural Center in the heart of Boston, designed by Dr. Sami Angawi, and pioneered by board member Dr. Walid Fitaihi, Dr. Osama Kandeel and others, celebrated its inauguration with the historic attendance of the first Muslim in the United States Congress, Keith Ellison, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino. This new Islamic cultural center in America is tremendously significant as it resides 5 minutes from the heart of downtown Boston and less than...

RIYADH (AFP) - Saudi beauty queen Aya Ali al-Mulla trounced 274 rivals to win a crown, jewellery, cash and a trip to Malaysia, and all without showing her face, Saudi media reported on Friday. With her face and body completely covered by the black head-to-toe abaya mandatory in the conservative Muslim kingdom, 18-year-old Mullah was named "Queen of Beautiful Morals" late on Thursday, newspapers said. There was none of the swimsuit and evening gown competitions and heavy media coverage of beauty pageants elsewhere when the contest was decided in the eastern city of Safwa. Instead, the winner and the two...

President Obama's strategy for achieving Middle East peace has "two major components.The first was to force Israel into a "minor" concession to show that he would pressure the Jewish state. Unfortunately for the President, what he thought was a "minor" concession was a major concession to Israel. The second component was to convince the Arab states particularly the Saudis to take public steps toward normalizing relations with Israel. To the President, getting the Saudis involved is important because the Hamas-Fatah split has weakened Abbas to the point that he does not have the power to deliver on any agreement that...

U.S. relations with Saudi Arabia are always something of a proverbial black box. And President Barack Obama's meeting with Saudi King Abdullah last month was no exception. A late add-on to Obama's planned June itinerary to Egypt, Germany, and France and conducted at King Abdullah's horse ranch outside of Riyadh, the June 3 meeting was quickly overtaken by coverage of Obama's high-profile June 4 speech to the Muslim world from Cairo. But two sources, one a former U.S. official who recently traveled there and one a current official speaking anonymously, say the meeting did not go well from Obama's perspective....

Here’s an interesting epilogue on the Human Rights Watch funding scandal I mentioned earlier this week. Just a few weeks after it was first revealed that HRW has been raising funds from the Saudi regime and advertising itself as overtly anti-Israel, and just a few days after this burst into the public awareness, its biggest competitor, Amnesty International, has distanced itself from HRW by releasing a blistering 65-page report on the practice of torture and other severe human-rights abuses taking place in Saudi Arabia. According to Amnesty’s press release:

Energy: New drilling techniques may open up a 14-year supply of natural gas trapped in porous rock in the Northeast. That is, if environmentalists in New York and elsewhere don't keep it trapped in the ground.Natural gas is the cleanest of the fossil fuels, so clean that it is a key part of oilman T. Boone Pickens' plan to wean us off foreign sources of energy. Natural gas can fuel a new generation of automobiles that would help us achieve energy independence and at the same time contribute to a cleaner planet. In the northeastern U.S., there is a massive...

Energy: With a media wind at his back, Barack Obama regularly gets away with false and distorted statements. He repeated one Tuesday that seems superficially plausible but should not go unchallenged.ust as he said during the Sept. 26 University of Mississippi debate with John McCain, the Illinois Democrat claimed during the Nashville town hall setting that "we have 3% of the world's oil reserves and we use 25% of the world's oil. So what that means is that we can't simply drill our way out of the problem." It's disappointing that McCain failed to call out Obama on his figures,...

Energy: While members of Congress take vacations their constituents can no longer afford, a country prepares to end its dependence on foreign oil by extracting supplies from shale rock. It's not the U.S. It's in the Middle East.Jordan imports 95% of its oil. Unlike the U.S., the desert kingdom plans on doing something about it. It does not, however, plan to cover its flat open spaces with solar panels or wind farms. It's going to do something the Democratic Congress has refused to do — get oil from its abundant shale rock. On Sunday, Maher Hjazin, head of the Jordanian...

Swine flu fears and the global economic crisis are taking their toll on bookings at hotels in the city of Mecca, two months before the start of a minor pilgrimage that attracts up to two million Muslim pilgrims. Umra can be performed any time of the year but most prefer to do it during the last 10 days of the fasting month of Ramadan, which will be around September 10 to 20 this year. The haj season, which falls in November this year, attracts some three million pilgrims. At Ajyad Hotel, favoured for its proximity to the Grand Mosque and...

A delegation from Human Rights Watch was recently in Saudi Arabia. To investigate the mistreatment of women under Saudi Law? To campaign for the rights of homosexuals, subject to the death penalty in Saudi Arabia? To protest the lack of religious freedom in the Saudi Kingdom? To issue a report on Saudi political prisoners? No, no, no, and no. The delegation arrived to raise money from wealthy Saudis by highlighting HRW's demonization of Israel. An HRW spokesperson, Sarah Leah Whitson, highlighted HRW's battles with "pro-Israel pressure groups in the US, the European Union and the United Nations." (Was Ms. Whitson...

The International NGO, Human Rights Watch (HRW) is once again proving once again why its top banana Ken Roth is a perennial nominee for the Self Hating Jew Awards. They have a simple strategy, Advocacy not Accuracy. HRW is famous for inventing and/or twisting facts to slander Israel. They tend to use Palestinian sources only, without bothering to verify. HRW refuses to recognize terrorist attacks against Israel as provocative. For example, a year before the Gaza War they objected to Israel's limited response to the rocket attacks on Sedrot. In Jan 2008, Joe Stork of HRW wrote a 34 paragraph...

Mossad head Meir Dagan assured Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu that Saudi Arabia would allow IAF jets to fly over the kingdom during any future raid on Iran's nuclear facilities, The Sunday Times reported. The British paper reported that Dagan held talks with Saudi officials earlier this year on the topic. However, the Prime Minister's Office issued an official denial on Sunday morning, saying the report was "completely false and baseless." The Israeli media has already carried unconfirmed reports that high-ranking officials, including former prime minister Ehud Olmert, held meetings with Saudi officials, but the kingdom has denied the reports. "The...

Dr. Faten Abdel-Rahman Khorshid is responsible for one of the Kingdom’s greatest national achievements in the field of science for her work which began with the urine of camels and concluded in a potential cure for cancer. After spending more than five years in lab research, this Saudi scientist and faculty member from King Abdul Aziz University (KAAU) and President of the Tissues Culture Unit at King Fahd Center for Medical Research, has discovered that nano-particles in the urine of camels can attack cancer cells with success. Her work began with experiments involving camel urine, cancer cells found in patients’...

A family in Saudi Arabia is taking a "genie" to court, accusing it of theft and harassment, reports say. They accuse the spirit of threatening them, throwing stones and stealing mobile phones, Al Watan newspaper said. The family have lived in the same house near the city of Medina for 15 years but say they only recently became aware of the spirit. They have now moved out. A local court is investigating. In Islamic theology, genies are spirits that can harass or possess humans.

The push for conversion to plug-in electric cars will do nothing to stop carbon emissions, a report by the GAO warns, throwing cold water on a push by Democrats to get more plug-ins on the road. In fact, the problem could be made worse as demand goes up at coal-fired electrical plants. Plus, the need for batteries may just have the US changing the dictators to which we’re chained, as IBD reports...

Geert Wilders’ Speech in CopenhagenGates of Vienna, 15 June 2009...The problem is that the injunctions in the Koran are not restricted to time or place. Rather, they apply to all Muslims, in any period. Another problem is that Muslims also regard the Koran as the word of Allah. Which means that the Koran is immune from criticism.Apart from the Koran, there is also the life of Muhammad, who fought in dozens of wars and was in the habit of decapitating Jews with his own sword. The problem here is that, to Muslims, Muhammad is ‘the perfect man’, whose life is...

Weekend reports that Saudi Arabia will allow overfly rights to Israeli warplanes to strike nuclear facilities in Iran came as no surprise in these quarters. A growing Arab-Israeli detente is being driven by the shared sense of threat from Tehran. In March, a high-ranking Israeli source told us, "You'd be amazed at how we see eye-to-eye with the moderate Arab states."

According to the Times of London, the Saudis have agreed to tacitly allow Israelis to transit their airspace to attack Iran and end its nuclear program. The Mossad has worked with the Saudis for several years as the Iranian threat in the region grew, and the Saudis — and other Arab states — would be privately relieved to have Tehran’s nuclear ambitions curtailed. But is now the right time, while the mullahs teeter in Iran? The head of Mossad, Israel’s overseas intelligence service, has assured Benjamin Netanyahu, its prime minister, that Saudi Arabia would turn a blind eye to Israeli...

Saudi Arabia has indicated to Israel that it would not protest use of its airspace by Israeli fighter jets in the event the government resolves to launch a military assault against Iran, according to a report which appeared in the British newspaper The Sunday Times. The Prime Minister's office issued a statement in response Sunday morning, saying that "the Sunday Times report is fundamentally false and completely baseless." According to The Sunday Times, Mossad chief Meir Dagan held secret meetings with Saudi officials, who gave their tacit approval to Israel's use of the kingdom's airspace. Advertisement "The Saudis have tacitly...

WINNIPEG — Manitoba exported a cache of guns worth $1.2 million to Saudi Arabia last year, but the federal government won't say who sold them, who bought them, or what they were used for. According to international-trade data available on the Industry Canada website, Manitoba exported a total of $3.1 million in "arms and ammunition" to foreign countries last year. That could include anything from flame-throwers to shotgun cartridges to rocket-launchers, and it's double what the province exported in 2004. Except for Manitoba's guns, Canada sold virtually no other weapons or ammunition to Saudi Arabia last year. Ontario was the...

BEIRUT: Days after officials in Washington announced that a US ambassador would soon be sent to Syria, reports have emerged of an upcoming Syrian-Saudi Arabian summit to be held in Damascus that could include Lebanon. Conventional wisdom holds that any improvement in Syrian-Saudi ties generally contributes to increased stability in Lebanon, and according to experts on Levantine politics, Lebanon may already be benefiting from those nations' thawing ties and a revamped US policy in the region. "Any relief or stabilization in the Syrian-Saudi relationship will be positively reflected in the Lebanese political life," Chafik Masri, an international law professor at...

Saudi Arabia would turn the other cheek and allow Israel to use its airspace to attack Iran, London’s Sunday Times reports. According to the report, Mossad chief Meir Dagan has told Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu that Syria has hinted to the move. “The Saudis have tacitly agreed to the Israel air force flying through their airspace on a mission which is supposed to be in the common interests of both Israel and Saudi Arabia,” a diplomatic source stated.

The head of Mossad, Israel’s overseas intelligence service, has assured Benjamin Netanyahu, its prime minister, that Saudi Arabia would turn a blind eye to Israeli jets flying over the kingdom during any future raid on Iran’s nuclear sites. Earlier this year Meir Dagan, Mossad’s director since 2002, held secret talks with Saudi officials to discuss the possibility. The Israeli press has already carried unconfirmed reports that high-ranking officials, including Ehud Olmert, the former prime minister, held meetings with Saudi colleagues. The reports were denied by Saudi officials.

A member of the Saudi royal family has called for the assets of his brother to be frozen. Prince Khaled bin Talal denounced his brother's media empire in an unprecedented public attack from within the ruling family.Prince Khaled accused Prince Walid bin Talal of disseminating vice and violating the rules of Islamic Sharia in the conservative kingdom. Prince Walid is one of the richest businessmen in the world.It has long been known that there is a split within the ranks of Saud family between liberals and conservatives. Prince Khaled said he had been forced to speak out after quiet efforts...

A member of the Saudi royal family has called for the assets of his brother to be frozen. Prince Khaled bin Talal denounced his brother's media empire in an unprecedented public attack from within the ruling family. Prince Khaled accused Prince Walid bin Talal of disseminating vice and violating the rules of Islamic Sharia in the conservative kingdom. Prince Walid is one of the richest businessmen in the world. It has long been known that there is a split within the ranks of Saud family between liberals and conservatives. But, until now, they have always managed to keep a lid...

Here's a trivia question, what country has funded more Palestinian terrorism than any other country in the world? If you answered Saudi Arabia you win the "pink Camaro" Out of the five Arab League states that declared war against Israel in 1948 which is the only one still in an active state of war with the Jewish state? Here's a hint, the ruler has a funny beard that kind of looks like a Hitler mustache glued onto his chin sideways. OK last question. In what country are Jewish people not allowed to live, or even visit. Let's face it Saudi...

From Gloucester to Afghanistan: the making of a shoe bomber Saajid Badat this week pleaded guilty to plotting to blow up a plane. What drove this quiet football fan to thoughts of terror? Mark Honigsbaum and Vikram Dodd Saturday March 5, 2005 The Guardian He seemed the model British Muslim citizen - a poster boy for integration whose knowledge of the Qu'ran and achievement at grammar school made Gloucester's close-knit Islamic community proud. When in November 2003 anti-terrorist police turned up at the terraced house in the Barton and Tredworth district of the city that Saajid Badat shared with his...

Most commentary on the regional reaction to Iran's postelection strife divides Arabs into pro-Iranian and pro-American camps, a simplistic division that misses a key distinction. At the official or semiofficial level, Arab reaction to Iran's current travail is divided into three, not two, main parts: the usual handful of pro-Iranian-government actors (Syria, Hizballah, and Qatar); the surprisingly strident anti-Iranian-government stance from Saudi Arabia; and the large camp of cautious bystanders, including major actors like Egypt, which harbors a serious grudge against Tehran. Equally noteworthy is that caution, rather than reflexive support for either Iran or the street demonstrators, is also...

It's no secret that members of the Saudi royal family have provided extensive financial support to al Qaeda. But now, as Eric Lichtblau of the New York Times reports, thousands of pages of previously undisclosed documents provide a detailed look at this disgusting phenomenon.

Using colourful bras donated by employees at Victoria's Secret, a group of 26 mostly Saudi women completed the first course of its kind to be offered in the kingdom – how to fit, stock and sell underwear. The training organisers hope will help boost a campaign to lift the ban on women selling underwear in the kingdom. The graduates held a small ceremony at a college in the western seaport of Jiddah this week, capping 40 hours of instruction during which they learned to overcome their embarrassment at doing bra fittings, deal with customer complaints and display the stock in...

Official Believes Dog Belongs To Member Of MilitaryA "sweetheart" of a dog now in a California shelter may be really, really far from home. His microchip says the knee-high, light tan Saluki came from Saudi Arabia. The neutered male dog brought to a Carlsbad animal shelter last week has an implanted microchip that was sold to the U.S. Military Training Mission, headquartered in Riyadh, said Lt. Dan DeSousa of San Diego County's Animal Services Department. The dog was found June 15 near Escondido, about 30 miles north of San Diego. DeSousa said he believes someone in the military owns the...

The potential loss of tens of billions of dollars in damages is not what the Saudis fear most, should the Supreme Court allow this lawsuit to move forward. Way down in the Washington Times' article today about the Obama administration irking 9/11 families by asking the Supreme Court to deny their appeal of a ruling barring a lawsuit against Saudi princes was this gem: "A Justice Department spokesman said the administration held the meetings to hear from family members and declined to discuss details. Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg said that while he sympathized with the families, the State...

Family members of the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks say they have been blindsided by the Obama administration's opposition to their lawsuit seeking damages from top members of the Saudi Arabian government over suspected financial links to the 9/11 attackers.,P. A series of closed-door meetings between the relatives' groups and Justice Department officials, arranged as an update on Mr. Obama's plan to close the detention facility at the U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, turned instead into a sharp clash over the Saudi legal action... "Physically, President Obama has done what previous presidents have done for a long time,...

Cinema Comes To Riyadh for First Time in Decades By DONNA ABU-NASR | Associated Press | For the first time in three decades, Saudis in the nation's capital did something that most Westerners take for granted _ they went to the movies. But it wasn't exactly date night. No women were allowed.

Saudi weighs Eurofighter, F-15 for new jet deal Reuters, Thursday June 18 2009 * Saudi Arabia steps up efforts to renew combat jet fleet * Saudi Arabia may double Eurofighter purchase - sources * Talks held with Boeing over more F-15s - sources By Tim Hepher and Andrea Shalal-Esa PARIS, June 18 (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia is stepping up efforts to acquire advanced fighter jets to renew its combat fleet amid growing security concerns in the Gulf region over Iran, two sources following the matter said on Thursday. Riyadh is in talks with Britain over possibly doubling a recent purchase...

Yemeni authorities have arrested the financier of Al-Qaeda operations in the country and in neighbouring Saudi Arabia, an official said Sunday, as cited on the defence ministry news website. "The arrested man is named Hassan Hussein bin Alwan, a Saudi national, and he is the financier for attacks launched by Al-Qaeda organisation in Yemen and Saudi Arabia," the unnamed security official told September Net website. "He is considered one of the most dangerous members of Al-Qaeda," he added.

A Saudi princess has been sued over $126,000 in unpaid lingerie and clothing bills at a Paris boutique, AFP reported. Another upscale Paris store, lingerie store "Aux Caprices de Lily," told AFP Maha al-Sudairi, wife of Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz, owes them $98,000. In total, the princess owes millions in unpaid shopping bills to a string of high-end Paris retailers.

the administration is now nearing a deal with Saudi Arabia to take many of the 100 Yemini detainees who remain at Gitmo. Supposedly the Yeminis would enter one of the Saudi rehabilitation programs. Yemin has asked the U.S. for financial assistance to establish a rehabilitation program similar to that of the Saudi's but so far, the U.S. has resisted that option. What kind of sweetener are we adding to the deal? If we're giving Palau $200 million, what are we offering Saudi Arabia? Is throwing Israel under the bus part of the deal? Just askin'.

MANAMA, Bahrain -- Every weekend, bumper-to-bumper traffic blocks the causeway into this small island nation as visitors from nearby Saudi Arabia flock to delights unavailable at home: movie theaters, bars and, for some, commercial sex. With few other attractions, Bahrain's booming tourism industry thrives on the island's reputation as a freewheeling oasis just a short drive from major Saudi cities. Bahrain has little oil of its own; tourism, mostly by the four million Saudis who cross the causeway each year, accounts for a tenth of its economy. All of this is endangered, as Bahraini legislators press to scrap the country's...

Yesterday, I remarked that President Obama made a shrewd move in agreeing with the tiny Pacific island of Palau to have the Uighers be moved there. I also said that the Uighers were going to be the relatively easy decisions as far as the set of prisoners in GITMO. Well, it appears that as the decisions become more difficult, the plan is more dicey. Last night, it was first reported, that Yemen has agreed to have a significant portion of their ex pats sent to Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia may have nominated its first ever woman cabinet minister - but she cannot appear on television without permission, it has been revealed. Noura al-Faiz's appointment in February as deputy minister for women's education was hailed as a huge step for the integration of women in conservative Saudi Arabia, where a puritanical form of Islam bans women from driving, voting and mixing with unrelated men. 'I don't take my veil off and I will not appear on television unless it is allowed for us to do so,' Faiz told the daily Shamss, which published a picture of the deputy...

RIYADH (Reuters) - King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has urged U.S. President Barack Obama to impose a solution on the festering Arab-Israeli conflict if necessary, a Saudi newspaper said on Sunday.

JEDDAH: The June 4 speech at Cairo University by US President Barack Obama was watched widely in the Arab world, including the desert of Hail province where traffic virtually vanished during the address. According to a report in Asharq Alawsat daily, residents of Dhabi village gathered around TV screens to catch Obama’s words. “Obama’s speech caused the postponement of some of my appointments by request of my guests, relatives and friends, as well as some nearby Bedouin,” said Awad Khudair Al-Shammari, the owner of one of the few television sets in the area. Al-Shammari, who owns and breeds camels, said...

Barry stands in line with King Abdullah with his hand extended, while greeters ignore and walk right past him !

President Barack Obama met with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia,, he did not bow (video) obsequiously before the Muslim king – at least not physically: “I thought it was very important to come to the place where Islam began and to seek his majesty's counsel and to discuss with him many of the issues that we confront here in the Middle East.” As leaders of Muslim nations, Obamah and Abdullah have a lot in common. Whatcha talkin’ about, Willis?

Saudi Arabia and France are close to finalizing a civil nuclear cooperation pact that could lead to the sale of French atomic energy technology, French Economy Minister Christine Lagarde said here yesterday. A deal could be completed “soon,” Lagarde said after a day of meetings with Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah, Petroleum and Mineral Resources Minister Ali Al-Naimi, Finance Minister Ibrahim Al-Assaf and other top officials. “The talks have progressed well,” she added. Lagarde gave no details of what would be covered by the agreement, but officials said it could be completed and signed by the end...

When President Obama first met the Saudi royals, he seemed to bow at the waist. Either that or he doubled over in pain. Did he bow? Or didn't he bow? That was the topic du jour at the press briefing that day. But now we have the answer: Obama is, indeed, really bowing to the Saudis as he visits the Middle East this week. First, he is bypassing Israel. Visiting the Middle East and not going to Israel would be like touring North America and omitting a stop in the United States. It only makes sense if you interpret it...

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia -- From the moment Barack Obama stepped off Air Force One, his first visit to Saudi Arabia as president was filled with, well, pomp and pageantry fit for a king. His host was, after all, the monarch who presides over the oil-rich nation. King Abdullah staged an elaborate welcome ceremony, showered Obama with compliments, put up the president at his lavish desert horse farm and gave him a gift -- a bulky gold necklace that the king says carries special meaning.