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Saudi archaeologists have discovered an ancient hieroglyphic inscription mentioning an Egyptian pharaoh on a rock near the ancient oasis of Tayma, Tabuk province. The discovery, about 400 km north of Madinah and northeast of the ancient Nabatean site Madain Saleh, marks the first confirmed hieroglyphic inscription discovered in the Kingdom. "The rock was bearing an inscription of King Ramses III, one of the kings who ruled ancient Egypt from 1192 B.C.to 1160 B.C.," said SCTA Vice President for Antiquities and Museums Ali Ibrahim Al-Ghabban at a news conference on Sunday at the Commission on National Museum. Al-Ghabban said the discovery...

... Arsenault and others refuse to believe Cramer, 50, who was found dead in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia on Jan. 15, committed suicide by leaping off the third-floor balcony of his hotel — as family members were originally told by representative of his employer, Kollsman Inc., of Merrimack, and its parent company, Elbit Systems of America. Family members suspect foul play after receiving suspicious text messages from Cramer just minutes before his death. ...

Frosty Fatwa: Saudi Cleric Bans Snowmen By Abby Phillip January 13 Do you want to build a snowman? You'd love to? Well, that's too bad — at least according to Saudi Arabia's Sheikh Mohammed Saleh al-Munajjid, a prominent cleric. With snow covering the highland areas of Tabuk province in Saudi Arabia, there's not much else to do with the fluffy white stuff other than build snowmen and snow camels.

The UK , France and Israel showed signs this week of lining up for military action with regard to Syria and Iran as soon as America’s presidential election was out of the way Tuesday, Nov. 6, military sources report. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu spent two days (Oct. 31-Nov. 1) talking to President Francois Holland. As the Defense Minister Ehud Barak landed in London the next day, Prime Minister David Cameron was reported on standby for the dispatch of RAF fighter-bombers to the Persian Gulf. Barak flew to London after US Gen. Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of...

Abdul-Aziz al-Mutairi, 22, was left paralyzed and subsequently lost a foot after a fight more than two years ago. He asked a judge in northwestern Tabuk province to impose an equivalent punishment on his attacker under Islamic law, his brother Khaled al-Mutairi told The Associated Press by telephone from there. He said one of the hospitals, located in Tabuk, responded that it is possible to damage the spinal cord, but it added that the operation would have to be done at another more specialized facility. Saudi newspapers reported that a second hospital in the capital Riyadh declined, saying it could...

Amnesty International urged Saudi authorities on Friday not to medically paralyse a man in retribution for similar injuries he allegedly caused during a fight. The London-based group quoted reports that a court in the northwestern town of Tabuk had approached a number of hospitals to ask if they could cut the man?s spinal cord in retribution, as requested by the victim. "We urge the Saudi Arabian authorities not to carry out such a punishment, which amounts to nothing less than torture. While those guilty of a crime should be held accountable, intentionally paralysing a man in this way would constitute...

The proven superiority of the Judeo-Christian world over the fundamentalist Islamic worldHere is how Saudi Arabia, the owner of Mecca and therefore the heart of Islam, uses what passes for medical science. It is admittedly to the credit of one of the hospitals that was asked to do this refused. A Saudi judge has asked several hospitals in the country whether they could damage a man’s spinal cord as punishment after he was convicted of attacking another man with a cleaver and paralyzing him, the brother of the victim said yesterday. ...one of the hospitals, located in Tabuk, responded that...

A Saudi judge has asked several hospitals in the country whether they could damage a man's spinal cord as punishment after he was convicted of attacking another man with a cleaver and paralyzing him, local newspapers reported on Thursday. Saudi Arabia enforces strict Islamic law and occasionally metes out punishments based on the ancient legal code of an eye-for-an-eye. However, Saudi King Abdullah has been trying to clamp down on extremist ideology. The reports said Abdul-Aziz al-Mutairi, 22, was left paralyzed after a fight more than two years ago and asked a judge to impose an equivalent punishment on his...

A Saudi man convicted of paralysing a fellow countryman in a cleaver attack is being threatened with having his spinal cord cut in a tit-for-tat punishment. The ultra-conservative desert Kingdom enforces Islamic law and on rare occasions metes out punishments based on the ancient code of an ‘eye-for-an-eye’. The case judge in the northwestern province of Tabuk has sent letters to several hospitals seeking their advice on whether it is medically possible to render the attacker’s spinal cord non-functional, local newspapers said. [...] Ten years ago, an Egyptian worker had an eye surgically removed in a Saudi hospital as punishment...

Israeli Air Force aircraft dropped off large quantities of military gear at a Saudi Arabian military base last week in preparation for a potential attack on Iran, a number of Iranian and Israeli news outlets have reported. The unconfirmed report, first published by the semi-official Iranian news agency Fars and the Islamic website Islam Times, claimed that on June 18 and 19, Israeli helicopters unloaded military equipment and built a base just over five miles outside the northwestern city of Tabuk, the closest Saudi city to Israel. All civilian flights into and out of the city were said to have...

WASHINGTON - During the Iraq (news - web sites) war, Saudi Arabia secretly helped the United States far more than has been acknowledged, allowing operations from at least three air bases, permitting special forces to stage attacks from Saudi soil and providing cheap fuel, U.S. and Saudi officials say. The American air campaign against Iraq was essentially managed from inside Saudi borders, where military commanders operated an air command center and launched refueling tankers, F-16 fighter jets, and sophisticated intelligence gathering flights, according to the officials. Much of the assistance has been kept quiet for more than a year by...

[IMRA: If there was a doubt that it would be a grave error for Israel to enter into a withdrawal scheme that relied on a third party to determine if the Palestinians were honoring their obligations, the United States sent a sharp reminder of the obvious: even the friendliest available third party makes its determinations based on its own interests rather than the facts.] WASHINGTON [MENL] -- The United States has refused to address the issue of deployment of Saudi F-15S fighter-jets in a base near the Israeli border. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher was asked about the F-15S deployment...

The Saudi Arabian opposition in London says there has been a major influx of US warplanes into Saudi airbases close to the Iraqi border.It says that large numbers of US planes have been arriving at the airbases of Tabuk and 'Arar, and that Saudi troops there had moved out to make room for them. Military ties with Washington are unpopular in Saudi Arabia There was no official comment from the Pentagon. But a spokesman for the Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia said the US shows every appearance of mounting a new front in its expected conflict with Iraq. He...