Saudi Arabia - Page 56

Saudi Arabia’s powerful deputy crown prince is expected to visit Washington in mid-June for talks with top U.S. officials, possibly including President Barack Obama, amid growing friction between the longtime allies, three sources familiar with the matter said on Friday.

The Arab League’s parliament declared on Wednesday that the annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, the hajj, “should not be politicized and exploited to target Saudi Arabia,” according to a report from the Saudi Gazette transcribed by al-Arabiya.

Months of peace talks and years of armed clashes have done little to bring Yemen close to a resolution of its civil war, as the Shiite Houthi rebels in charge of its capital, Sanaa, take more ground closer to the bases of the internationally recognized government.

Islamic State on Tuesday urged Muslims to destroy their satellite TV sets to prevent hostile channels “destroying their beliefs and polluting their ethics”. The ultra-hardline Sunni group issued its call as military pressure increased against it with offensives targeting its

Al-Qaeda has suffered some battlefield setbacks in chaotic Yemen, but the terror organization still controls highly profitable oil fields in the southern regions of the country and has been taking advantage of fuel shortages to reap huge profits.

Saudi social media has reacted to news of a Saudi man sought by police after he shot and critically wounded an obstetrician who delivered his newborn baby. The physician, a Jordanian national, was called to intervene in the delivery that had been supervised

Contents: Report: Israel and Saudi Arabia are allying against Iran and Hezbollah; Iran and Hezbollah turn focus of hostility from Israel to Saudi Arabia; Shifting Israeli alliances in the Mideast

OPEC’s thorniest dilemma of the past year – at least from a purely oil standpoint – is about to disappear.

The Jerusalem Post reports: A Jordanian doctor who helped deliver a baby at a Saudi hospital was shot by the woman’s husband who was angry that a male obstetrician tended to his wife, according to a report in the London-basedAl-Araby newspaper.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s Egyptian government has gotten a cold shoulder from the Obama administration until now, but security fears may be thawing out that relationship.

JAFFA, Israel – A Saudi novelist has suggested allowing fasters to drink water during Ramadan, set to take place this year during the height of the summer.

TEL AVIV – The Saudi press is continuing to unleash fury over the U.S. Senate’s unanimous vote on a bill allowing the families of 9/11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia, this time with the London-based Al-Hayat daily claiming that the U.S. planned the attacks on the World Trade Center in order to generate a global war on terror.

TEL AVIV – The Saudi press slammed the U.S. for its “despicable” double standard in regard to a proposed bill that would allow victims of the September 11 attacks to sue the kingdom, claiming that the move would “open the gates of hell,” enabling all countries that have been wronged by the U.S. to sue it for war crimes.

On Thursday, the U.S. government officially added the ISIS affiliates in Libya, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen to the list of designated terrorist organizations.

Eight major maritime chokepoints, through which oil tankers transit, exist globally. Seventeen million barrels of oil daily pass through one of them — the Strait of Hormuz.

From Yahoo News: Is there a smoking gun in the 28 pages that were redacted from the congressional joint inquiry on intelligence from before and after the 9/11 attacks that links the Saudi Arabian government to the attacks? A co-chair

JAFFA, Israel – Pilgrimage to Sinai’s El Tor Mountain is preferable to making hajj to Mecca, an Egyptian cleric has said.

JAFFA, Israel – Riyadh has yet to issue an official response to the U.S. Senate resolution that would allow families of 9/11 victims to sue the Saudi government for any role in the attacks, but the unanimously-passed resolution has been met with sweeping condemnation on Saudi social media.

On Tuesday, the Republican-controlled Senate unanimously approved bi-partisan legislation that would allow for families of the victims of the devastating 9/11 terrorist attacks to sue the government of Saudi Arabia.

TEL AVIV – The crisis between Saudi Arabia and Iran sunk to a new low in recent days as Riyadh accused Iran of politicizing the hajj pilgrimage by stopping its own Iranian citizens from traveling to the religious event.

JAFFA, Israel – The hashtag #Saudi_marries_israeli has gone viral on Saudi social media, although the credibility of the story is in question. Several Saudi news outlets reported on an unnamed Saudi marrying an unnamed Israeli, but presented no evidence that the marriage took

CAIRO (AP) — An Egyptian court on Saturday sentenced 51 people to two years in prison for taking part in protests last month, officials said.

It seems like only yesterday that the great hope of the oil market was that oil-producing nations, both inside and outside OPEC, would come together and cap production to bring prices back up. Now the chief executive of the Saudi national oil company says it will increase production, but he expects prices to start rising anyway.

JAFFA, Israel – Numerous complaints about “outrageously dressed” tourists have been registered in Tiran and Sanafir, the two Red Sea islands Egypt transferred to Saudi Arabia last month.

The army loyal to Yemen’s internationally recognized government will invade the Yemeni capital of Sanaa if the United Nations-brokered peace talks in Kuwait — aimed at ending the year-long war in the country — fail, a spokesman for the Saudi-led Arab coalition has said.

The United States has carried out four airstrikes in recent weeks against a resurgent al-Qaida branch in Yemen, killing 10 jihadists and injuring one, according to U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM).

TEL AVIV – In an oped published on Politico, former Middle East adviser to President Barack Obama, Dennis Ross, declared that Israel and Arab countries are increasingly turning to Russia because the United States is seen as “weak” and Middle Eastern leaders have “given up” on Obama.

Saudi Twitter users have launched the hashtag #marry_sporty_girl as a government decision to introduce physical education in girls’ school has been fiercely debated in the ultraconservative kingdom.

CNN reports: Washington (CNN) In a reflection of the change and churn in the Middle East, former high-level officials from Saudi Arabia and Israel — nations that have no formal diplomatic ties — spoke publicly about their shared sense of Iran as a threat, their differences on Palestinians and the role the United States plays in their chaotic region.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Saudi Arabia on Saturday announced the ouster of its longtime oil minister as part of a larger ongoing government shakeup.

Dr. Salman al-Ouda, a leading cleric in Saudi Arabia, rendered a judgment on homosexuality that has “provoked controversy in Saudi Arabia and other parts of the Middle East,” according to Middle East Eye. He said homosexuality is a sin, but it does not require criminal punishment.

Hard on the heels of President Obama’s visit to Saudi Arabia, CIA Director John Brennan appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press to denounce the controversial “28 pages” of the 9/11 report as “uncorroborated” and “unvetted,” and he warned that releasing them would lead “some people” to reach “very inaccurate” conclusions.

Barack Obama was elected president in 2008 on a pledge to end the war in Iraq.

President Obama has not read the the classified 28 pages of the 9/11 report that refers to Saudi Arabia’s role in the 2011 terrorist attacks.

All of us loved less-than $2 a gallon at the pump. AAA reports: “Americans paid cheapest quarterly gas prices in 12 years”—which resulted in savings of nearly $10 billion compared to the same period last year. However, oil (and, therefore gasoline) has been creeping upward since the February low—topping $45 a barrel, a high for the year. And that could be a good thing.

JAFFA, Israel – Saudi authorities have launched an inquiry into the burning of seven buses owned by the Bin Laden family’s company, one of the biggest contractors in the kingdom.