Riyadh (AFP) – Saudi Arabia’s new King Salman further cemented his hold on power, with a sweeping shakeup that saw two sons of the late King Abdullah fired, and the heads of intelligence and other key agencies replaced alongside a cabinet shuffle.
A Saudi Imam has followed the footsteps of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and delivered an extensive sermon proclaiming that Muslims had initially discovered America, and that Christopher Columbus’ voyage there was a plot to kill pre-Columbian Muslims.
Tuesday on PBS’s “News Hour,” host Judy Woodruff reported on President Barack Obama avoiding confronting Saudi Arabia on its poor human rights record while making a special trip to meet Saudi Arabia’s new King Salman after King Abdullah’s death. Woodruff
Tuesday on Fox News Channel’s “America’s Newsroom,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said Saudi Arabia “needs to be working against radical Islam.” In discussing President Barack Obama’s visit Paul said, “I hope he says to Saudi Arabia that we’d like them to help
A news bulletin from the U.S. Department of Defense announces a “research and essay competition in honor of Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah bin Abdul-Aziz, hosted by the National Defense University.”
Barack Obama didn’t have time to travel to France in observance of the Charlie Hebdo massacre. He doesn’t have time to meet with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, either.But it seems Obama is willing to make time to visit Saudi Arabia — and bearing quite a gift in the process.
Ukraine endured another violent day as over 30 died and 102 were wounded in Mariupol from attacks by pro-Russian separatists. The majority of those killed were innocent civilians, including two children.
After Saudi Arabia sentenced blogger Raif Badawi to public flogging, seven of the nine members of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) stepped forward to ask the Saudis to commute his sentence or, if not, to whip them instead.
Death of Saudi’s King Abdullah raises concerns about policy changes; Saudi Arabia trapped in a corner over Syria policy; More on the political realignment of the Mideast following the Gaza war
Salman bin Abdulaziz (estimated age of 79), became King of Saudi Arabia on Friday. He succeeds his half-brother, King Abdullah, who passed away on Thursday at the age of 91. As the new King, the former Crown Prince was chosen by Abdullah out of a potential pool of an estimated 4,000 Saudi Princes who were eligible to replaced the deceased King.
Yemen government resigns, creating power vacuum for AQAP to fill; Southern Yemen leaders call for secession from North Yemen; Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah dies
King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has died aged 90 after suffering with pneumonia for the last few weeks. The king ruled Saudi Arabia since 2005 and has been credited with bringing in moderate reforms to the conservative Muslim country. He
The resignation of United States-backed Yemen President Abd-Rabbuh Mansur Hadi was deemed a strategic “win for Iran” and al-Qaeda, according to House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-CA) in an interview on CNN Thursday. The war-torn nation’s Prime Minister Khaled Bahah also resigned.
Nigeria’s Boko Haram terrorists spread into Cameroon; Major escalation in fighting in Yemen; Israel on alert after Iran confirms its general was killed by Israel
The continuing flare-ups on Saudi Arabia’s northern border with Iraq has led some to believe that the Islamic State is set on an eventual push towards the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina.
Saudi Arabia officials arrested the man who filmed the brutal video of a woman beheaded in public in Mecca. The swordsman murdered Myanmur woman Laila Bint Abdul Muttalib Basim as she screamed her innocence.
A Saudi Arabia-funded institute for interreligious dialogue in Vienna has ignited controversy among politicians and citizen groups alike. Austrian politicians have publicly asked how Saudi Arabia can have a dialogue center in Vienna and simultaneously persecute free speech activists in their own country.
Saudi Arabian authorities publicly beheaded a woman in the holy city of Mecca after a court convicted her of sexually abusing and murdering her stepdaughter. The kingdom has executed nine people only two weeks into the new year.
The flogging of liberal blogger Raif Badawi has been postponed on medical grounds, according to latest reports. He had been due to receive the second instalment of 50 lashings in front of a mosque in Jeddeh this afternoon. His punishment,
Saudi Arabia postponed a second round of 50 lashes for blogger and activist Raif Badawi Friday, according to his family.
A Saudi religious authority, Mohamed Saleh Al Minjed, issued a fatwa (religious edict) that making snowmen or snow animals is not compliant with the teachings of Islam. Supporters of the fatwa said that even if the snow creations are created out of good fun, they must be rejected, because it is what people in corrupted Western cultures do. Al Minjed said only figures without a “soul,” such as structures, food, or vehicles, can be recreated with snow.
For sheer brutality, it pales in comparison to the massacre of journalists and cartoonists Wednesday at the Paris office of Charlie Hebdo, but Saudi Arabia’s flogging of a liberal blogger Friday further shows how rooted the concept of violence is in response to any insult of Islam.
Russia is on a long-term holiday that started two weeks ago and ends on Monday, January 12. At that time, the banks and the stock exchange will reopen, and it’s feared that both the ruble and the Moscow stock exchange will fall sharply.
Saudi ground forces supported by air power launched a “major security operation” against Islamic State (ISIS, ISIL, IS) jihadists inside Saudi Arabia, according to a member of the Iraqi Parliament.
The mayor of a town in Nottinghamshire has been told to resign after he spent most of the past six months working in Saudi Arabia. The Liberal Democrat Mayor of Stapleford, Kevin Thomas, has attended only 15 events since he
