Free Republic

WASHINGTON -- For more than a decade, questions have lingered about the possible role of the Saudi government in the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, even as the royal kingdom has made itself a crucial counterterrorism partner in the eyes of American diplomats. Now, in sworn statements that seem likely to reignite the debate, two former senators who were privy to top secret information on the Saudis' activities say they believe that the Saudi government might have played a direct role in the terrorist attacks. "I am convinced that there was a direct line between at least some of the...

Video translated from clip posted on YouTube in December 2008. Clip originally aired on the Arabic-language satellite station 'al-Hurra', on the program 'Misawa'. Subtitled video is above, full transcript below (thanks to Nonie Darwish for finding the video): Guest - More than 23% of children in Saudi society have been raped. Host – So about a quarter of Saudi children have been-- Guest - About a quarter of Saudi children have been raped. Sixty-two percent of those people— Host – Those children. Guest - No, I’m sorry, the study was directed at university students. Twenty-three percent had been raped during...

Much to the distress of Indian leaders, on January 19 the Bangladesh army announced it had thwarted a coup attempt against the government, conceived and nearly executed by some mid-ranking officers. Five army officers, including a lieutenant colonel and two Majors have already been arrested, while a top army officer is under investigation. The attempted coup was instigated by Islamic radical military personnel, including some Bangladeshis living abroad and retired and serving officers. Ever since the India-friendly government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina came into office in December 2008, her arch-rival Begum Khaleda Zia and elements of Pakistan’s military establishment...

..Because They Were Not Wearing Hijabs During an interview that aired on Egyptian Dream2 TV January 10, Saudi journalist Nadin Al-Badir relayed horrific instances of abuse and murder — including forcing over a dozen school girls to perish in a fire because they were not wearing traditional Islamic head coverings — carried out by the country’s religious police or, the “Authority for the Promotion of Virtue.” The journalist also revealed that most of these police are “ex-cons who used to be drug users or drug dealers.” Al-Badir explained that, “Even Sheik Abd Al-Muhsen Al-Abikan, advisor to the royal court, suggested...

A twelfth-grade Saudi textbook titled Studies from the Muslim World includes a chapter on Palestine and the Palestinian cause, which deals extensively with the Jews. The chapter presents the conflict over Palestine as a religious struggle between the Jews and the Muslims that goes back to the era of the Prophet Muhammad. It states that there is no hope of ever making peace with the Jews because they do not believe in peace, but only strive to spread corruption and instability throughout the world, for they are liars, connivers and cheats by nature. It also stresses that these negative traits...

Saudi tycoon Prince Alwaleed bin Talal on Tuesday announced plans to launch a pan-Arab news channel in 2012, saying the television network will promote freedom of speech. “The region is experiencing dramatic changes which will probably continue and cause significant developments” and Alarab “channel will follow up on these changes,” Alwaleed told a news conference in Riyadh. A company statement said: “Alarab will focus editorially on the important shifts taking place across the Arab world with an emphasis on freedom of speech and freedom of press.” The Arab world has been rocked a wave of protests that have toppled autocratic...

It’s billed as a “Birther Conference.” Republican presidential hopeful Andy Martin will convene the “Third National Conference on President Barack Obama’s Missing Birth Certificate and College Records” this weekend at the Capital Hilton, just blocks from the White House. Naturally, Mr. Martin has asked Donald Trump — some call him a “birther,” some a “proofer” — to speak at the conference, which begins Friday.

Saudi Arabia has sent dozens of tanks to Bahrain, where anti-government protests continue for about two weeks, Egypt's Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper said on Tuesday. Eyewitnesses reported seeing "15 tank carriers carrying two tanks each heading towards Bahrain" along the 25-km King Fahd causeway, which links the small island nation of Bahrain to Saudi Arabia. Protestors are mainly Shiites account for about 70% of the Bahraini population, but have long complained of discrimination and other abuses by the Sunni Khalifa dynasty that has ruled the tiny Gulf nation for more than two centuries. In the worst unrest in the kingdom since...

Saudi authorities detained hundreds of demonstrators on Friday in Jeddah who gathered to protest against poor infrastructure after deadly floods swept through Saudi Arabia's second biggest city, police and witnesses said. Some Jeddah streets remained submerged on Friday, and electricity was still out in low-lying parts of the city two days after torrential rains caused flooding that killed at least four people and swept away cars. The protest came after mass messages sent over BlackBerry smart phones called for popular action in response to the flood, an unusual move in the Arab state at a time of spreading anti-government unrest...

For nearly a century, the West has seen the Muslim world primarily through the prism of the Arab states that stretch from North Africa to the Persian Gulf. Born of decaying empires, these states still carry echoes of desert war and ancient calls to glory. Yet for more than a thousand years after the founding period of Islam, Arabs did not lead the Muslim world, or even the Middle East. For that millennium, non-Arab Muslim rulers to the east and north marked the course of these Islamic lands. Then, the late 19th and early 20th centuries brought both the “Arab Awakening”...

Barack Obama's White House says the president did not bow to the Saudi King when they met during the recent G-20 meeting in London. If you think he did, you're just believing your lying eyes. Snip http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/obama_bows_to_saudi/2009/04/08/201290.html?s=al&promo_code=7DB6-1

An elderly Saudi Arabian woman, who had two unrelated men in her house at the same time, was sentenced to 40 lashes, UPI reported. Khamisa Mohammed Sawadi, 75, was charged with offenses against Islam by the religious police after having a man she considers her son because he she breastfed him as a baby, and friend who was with him, in her house at the same time, UPI reported. They were delivering bread to the woman, Sawadi told local media. She is appealing her sentence.

Clinton for sale By posting this am I saying that Bill Clinton is different from any other powerful politician, in taking money from foreign donors who obviously hope to influence the political process? No, in this Bill Clinton is not singular. But look at this list: $10 million to $25 million from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Between $1 million and $5 million each from Saudi businessman Nasser Al-Rashid, Friends of Saudi Arabia, the Dubai Foundation, and the governments of Kuwait, Qatar, Brunei and Oman. And the New York Post here is worried about money from India keeping Hillary from...

This story is just outrageous as the obviously politically correct Canadian government cannot even bring themselves to condemn the act of Saudi Arabia not allowing Jews or anyone who has traveled through Israel to enter their country.

For several days there was a fierce national debate over whether American car companies in Detroit deserved $25 billion of taxpayer money and whether American jobs should be saved. The automakers and a union representative were ridiculed, didn’t get the money, and were told to come up with a “plan” to save the companies. After backing the $700-billion Wall Street bailout, Bill O’Reilly of Fox News said Detroit didn’t deserve any federal money because the car companies had been mismanaged. This was a point made by many in the media. But Citigroup got $20 billion over the weekend from the...

Shariah-compliant banking, sometimes called Islamic banking, is growing in popularity in the Western and Islamic worlds. But critics say American interest in the system at a time of economic crisis is opening the door to increased Islamic influence in the American banking system. Worse yet, some fear the banks may be helping to finance international terrorism. In Shariah-compliant banking, lenders may not charge interest and investors cannot make money from forbidden industries like gambling, alcohol, pork and pornography. Selling debt, devising derivatives and short selling are also prohibited, and investments must be closely tied to actual assets. In the U.S.,...

Sarah Stern, who heads EMET, the Washington, D.C.-based Endowment for Middle East Truth think-tank, says the Saudi Arabians are using their petrodollars to make major inroads into the American educational system, from elementary school and up. Speaking with Eve Harow on Israel National Radio, Stern said the Saudis are making use of a clause in the little-known Higher Education Law called Title VI to train teachers from kindergarten through 12th grade with an anti-American, anti-Israel bent. Stern explained that Title VI was legislated in 1958, "in the midst of the Cold War, when it was felt that American youngsters did...

Saudi Arabia walked out on OPEC yesterday, saying it would not honor the cartel's production cut. It was tired of rants from Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and the well-dressed oil minister from Iran. As the world's largest crude exporter, the kingdom in the desert took its ball and went home. As the Saudis left the building, the message was shockingly clear. “Saudi Arabia will meet the market’s demand,” a senior OPEC delegate told the New York Times. “We will see what the market requires and we will not leave a customer without oil."

To engineer a huge expansion in the chemicals business, the oil giant has put a woman in charge Nabilah Al-Tunisi was wrapping up an executive M.B.A. at Stanford University two summers ago when she got an urgent call from Saudi Aramco headquarters in Dhahran. Pack your bags, she was told, and move to Houston. Al-Tunisi had just been put in charge of the engineering on a new $25 billion refinery and petrochemicals plant--the Ras Tanura Integrated Project. Ras Tanura, a tiny finger in the Persian Gulf, already has a 550,000-barrel-per-day refinery, Aramco's biggest. Under a joint venture with Dow Chemical...

Khurais on schedule to raise oil capacityK.S. Ramkumar | Arab News   br>MEDIA TOUR: Workers look at journalists during a media tour of the Khurais oilfield, located between Riyadh and Dhahran, on Monday. (AP)   KHURAIS OILFIELD: Saudi Aramco has assured that it would fulfill its commitment to raise oil capacity by 1.2 million barrels per day (bpd) by June 2009 through the new Khurais oilfield.“This is the biggest new field in our plan to raise oil capacity and we are on schedule,” Amin Nasser, Saudi Aramco’s senior vice president for exploration and production, told a large group of national...