Free Republic

As the Line gigaproject continues to grow in the Saudi desert, some new construction details have been announced that highlight the mind-boggling challenge of turning a huge tract of rugged landscape into a futuristic megacity, including its reported use of one fifth of the entire world's currently available steel.To recap, the Line is the key part of Saudi Arabia's Neom project, which is itself part of a larger push to transform the country's predominantly oil-based economy into a tourism-focused one as fossil fuel use is inevitably reduced in the coming years.The plan is for the Line to eventually have a...

[Wow! What condescension! This article is more about what this Saudi Swine thinks about us than any recommendation about Isreal. But more than anything else it tells us how our Saudi "friends" think. - ML/NJ] Recently I read a report that the daughter of US Vice President Cheney, Elizabeth Cheney, a deputy assistant secretary of state, had supervised a training program on democracy for some 50 Arab women from 12 countries. Among the women were two Saudis. (I did wonder what qualifications Ms. Cheney had for this particular job. Does she have one other than her father’s being vice president?...

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Adviser Michael Waltz and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff speak to reporters after their meeting with a Russian delegation in Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia condemns “in the strongest terms” Israel’s decision to turn the Jerusalem headquarters of the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency into apartments. Last week, the Israel Land Authority said it was preparing plans to turn the Ma’alot Dafna complex into 1,440 housing units, after telling UNRWA it must evacuate the premises. The Saudi Foreign Ministry notes in an English-language statement “the Kingdom’s rejection of the continued blatant Israeli violations of international laws and resolutions…and its systematic political and military targeting of the United Nations agencies and its relief organizations. “The Kingdom also rejects the continued endangerment of the lives of...

Salvator Mundi, a $450 million painting attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, has not been seen publicly since it sold at Christie’s in 2017, the year it became the most expensive artwork ever auction. And the reason for that, according to a new BBC report, is that it may be held in storage in Geneva. The good news, per the BBC, is that its owner, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, may eventually make it publicly viewable. According to that report, the crown prince, often labeled MBS for short, plans to display it in a future museum in...

Dr. Jordan Peterson and Tammy Peterson sit down in-person with journalist and activist Tommy Robinson. They discuss why he was recently detained in Calgary, the lawfare being waged against him and the film he is attempting to screen, the story behind the film, why he became an activist, the brutality of the UK grooming gangs, and the cowardice of the government that is actively enabling it. ..... (0:00) Coming up (0:20) Intro (1:52) “A spot of trouble” - detained in Calgary (8:02) The film they don’t want you to see, headlines vs. reality (19:44) Lawfare waged against a journalist, paying...

Saudi Arabia has been left humiliated after being forced to scale back its multi-trillion-dollar plans for a 106-mile linear megacity in the desert to just over one per cent of its original length. The ambitious project, named the Line, forms part of the kingdom's lucrative Neom infrastructure project - which had been slated to cost up to $1.5trillion.

The long, convoluted, and somewhat disgusting history of KSA to the present day.

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, known for his close ties to US President Joe Biden, published an op-ed on Saturday following Biden’s meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in New York this past week. Friedman asserted that, while appearing friendly toward Netanyahu, the President had "privately slip[ped] a homework assignment into Bibi's pocket." This assignment, according to Friedman, was for Netanyahu to decide whether to dismantle his coalition, or miss out on the chance to achieve normalization with Saudi Arabia. “It was a master class in how a US president puts a fateful decision to an Israeli leader —...

A cash boost of hundreds of millions of dollars and more control of land in the occupied West Bank are among Palestinian demands in the event of a three-way deal involving the US, Saudi Arabia and Israel, the BBC has learned. Officials from the Palestinian Authority (PA) held talks in Riyadh with Saudi counterparts on Wednesday. They were also due to see US officials. The Americans are long thought to have been pushing for a landmark pact to normalise Israel-Saudi ties. It would be underwritten by Washington and would include a major security deal the Saudis want to achieve with...

The Biden Administration has demanded that the Israeli government drop judicial reform from its agenda in exchange for the normalization of the Jewish State's relations with Saudi Arabia, Channel 12 News reported this evening (Tuesday). According to the report, the Saudis are demanding the resumption of peace talks with the Palestinian Authority, while the US was the party to raise the demand over the judicial reforms in exchange for mediating the normalization talks. On Sunday, it was reported that Bahrain had been mediating negotiations between Israel and Saudi Arabia on aspects of normalization, such as allowing direct flights between the...

Saudi Arabia and Iran have agreed to restore diplomatic ties, Iran announced Friday afternoon. The two countries will reopen their embassies in Riyadh and Tehran within 60 days, Iranian media reported, claiming that the deal was reached during a recent meeting in China. The Islamic Republic and the Saudi kingdom have not had formal diplomatic ties after an attack on the Saudi embassy in Tehran and a Saudi consulate in Mashhad, prompting Saudi Arabia to expel Iran's mission in Riyadh. The attacks in Tehran and Mashhad came in response to the execution of a prominent Shi'ite cleric in Saudi Arabia....

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said Israel is making strides towards a “quantum leap” in regional relations, which he predicted would culminate in full diplomatic ties and trade with Saudi Arabia. Speaking at an event held in Jerusalem by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Netanyahu warned of the danger of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons – a danger that has brought Israel closer to former enemies across the Middle East. “If Iran achieves its goals of reaching nuclear weapons it puts the future of Israel at risk, it puts the future of world peace at risk. There has...

The Biden administration is holding meetings with Saudi Arabia on the issue of normalization with Israel, Walla! reported. According to the report, the US would like to see Saudi Arabia join the Abraham Accords. US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan raised the issue in his meeting with the Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman during his visit to the kingdom last month, three US and Arab sources familiar with the issue said. According to the sources, bin Salman did not reject outright the possibility....

An opportunity for a new beginning between Saudi Arabia and Iran has been presented by Joe Biden’s presidency, two leading Saudi and Iranians close to their diplomatic leaderships are proposing in an article in the Guardian today. The article is co-written by Abdulaziz Sager, the Saudi Arabian chairman and founder of the Gulf Research Center, and Hossein Mousavian, a former senior Iranian diplomat and now a nuclear specialist based at Princeton University. Their proposals are the fruit of a track 2, or backchannel initiative that has been under way privately for months. Their discussions are one of the few forms...

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has congratulated United States President Donald Trump on the elimination of Islamic State terror-movement leader Abu-Bakr Al-Baghdadi. Bin Salman said the historic operation was another step in the fight against terrorism...

An initial agreement between Yemen's southern separatists and the internationally backed government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, designed to end a power struggle in the country's south, would see the separatists included in a new cabinet, according to a draft of the deal obtained by Al Jazeera. The Saudi-brokered deal includes arrangements for a system of power that involves both Hadi's government and the Southern Transitional Council (STC), whose forces have been at loggerheads in Aden for months. The draft agreement, expected to be announced in the coming days, followed weeks of negotiations hosted by Saudi Arabia. Yemen's Information Minister...

(Warning) Video of CNN anchor person President Donald Trump in a statement on Saturday said late al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's son Hamza bin Laden had been "killed in a United States counterterrorism operation in the Afghanistan/Pakistan region." He did not give a time period for the operation or the death. "The loss of Hamza bin Ladin not only deprives al-Qa'ida of important leadership skills and the symbolic connection to his father, but undermines important operational activities of the group," the President said in the statement. Trump also said "Hamza bin Ladin was responsible for planning and dealing with...

United Nations Human Rights Council member state Saudi Arabia today beheaded 37 Saudi citizens in a mass execution across the country for alleged terrorism-related crimes, publicly pinning one headless body to a pole as a warning to others. It marked the largest number of executions in a single day in Saudi Arabia since Jan. 2, 2016, when the kingdom executed 47 individuals, including a prominent Shiite cleric whose death sparked protests in Iran and the ransacking of the Saudi Embassy there. "The death penalty was implemented on a number of criminals for adopting extremist terrorist ideologies and forming terrorist cells...

Arab leaders are pressuring the Palestinian Authority to accept the peace plan drawn up by the Trump administration, which is expected to be released this June, a source within the Palestinian Authority claims. According to a report over the weekend by the Qatari Alkhaleej Online outlet, a member of the Central Committee of PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ ruling Fatah party said that Arab leaders are applying “political and financial pressure” on the Palestinian Authority to accept the so-called ‘Deal of the Century’ – a framework for a final status agreement between Israel and the PA drawn up by the White...