Free Republic

Satellite images have revealed that a network of ancient rivers once coursed their way through the sand of the Arabian Desert, leading scientists to believe that the region experienced wetter periods in the past... Over the course of five years the researchers will study the landscape features and excavate sites of likely archaeological interest, using the network of water courses as a map. They will use the latest dating techniques to pinpoint the ages of fossils of animals, plants and different stone tool technologies and compare the similarities and differences displayed in the region's rock art. The team's main focus...

‘Once mellowed and moldering, the far-flung civilization of the Arabs is being swept today by invigorating winds of change. A fruitful kind of disorder is replacing the old fixed patterns of life.” Those contemporary-sounding words were published in 1962, in a glossy, picture-laden, 160-page book titled The Arab World. The volume boasts three virtues that make it worth a review a precise half-century later. First, the editors of Life magazine, then the outstanding American weekly, produced it, implying cultural centrality. Second, a retired senior State Department official, George V. Allen, wrote the introduction, pointing to the book’s establishment credentials. Third,...

The White House announced on Thursday a major arms sale deal to Saudi Arabia worth around 29.4 billion dollars. "The United States and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia have signed a government-to-government agreement under the Foreign Military Sales program to provide advanced F-15SA combat aircraft to the Royal Saudi Air Force," White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Joshua Earnest said in a statement. The agreement includes production of 84 new aircraft and the modernization of 70 existing aircraft, as well as munitions, spare parts, training, maintenance and logistics, according to the statement. "This agreement reinforces the strong and enduring relationship...

Giant stone structures in the Azraq Oasis in Jordan They stretch from Syria to Saudi Arabia, can be seen from the air but not the ground, and are virtually unknown to the public. They are the Middle East's own version of the Nazca Lines -- ancient "geolyphs," or drawings, that span deserts in southern Peru -- and now, thanks to new satellite-mapping technologies, and an aerial photography program in Jordan, researchers are discovering more of them than ever before. They number well into the thousands. Referred to by archaeologists as "wheels," these stone structures have a wide variety of...

(JESUS)"I AM" THE FIRST DOOR YOU MUST WALK THROUGH ! Obession with people is not where I desire my children to be but I must be your first fruit in all you do and seek after for I AM THE FIRST DOOR you MUST walk through to receive anything Godly and of the Kingdom for I AM THE PATH as well as THE LIGHT that illuminates MY WILL FOR YOU in all things. So SEEK MY FACE and THE EYES OF UNDERSTANDING shall open unto you as I become paramount in all you seek after using MY HEARTS DESIRE for...

<p>Workers at Syncrude Canada's oil sands North Mine in Fort McMurray, Alberta. Canada's oil sands contain the world's third-largest proven concentration of crude oil reserves.</p> <p>EDMONTON, Alberta—In a 21st-century oil boom, this sparsely populated Canadian province has become one of the world's newest petroleum powerhouses. Foreign investors are piling in, and Alberta plans to double production over the next decade.</p>

Maybe we should prepare for the possibility that the Middle East might someday descend into chaos… Too late, someday has arrived. How about this nightmare scenario? Cairo-style riots in Riyadh. Few pundits think it’s impossible now, and many talking heads of the intelligensia actually think the prospect of an Arabia sans the House of Saud is all but inevitable. Good riddance of course, but as with other Muslim Nations that are currently in flux: who or what will replace the sweet angels of the Saudi Fiefdom?

The US fears that Saudi Arabia, the world's largest crude oil exporter, may not have enough reserves to prevent oil prices escalating, confidential cables from its embassy in Riyadh show. The cables, released by WikiLeaks, urge Washington to take seriously a warning from a senior Saudi government oil executive that the kingdom's crude oil reserves may have been overstated by as much as 300bn barrels – nearly 40%. The revelation comes as the oil price has soared in recent weeks to more than $100 a barrel on global demand and tensions in the Middle East. Many analysts expect that the...

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...

A court in Saudi Arabia rebuked nine Saudi men and women after they were caught sitting together at a coffee shop... The nine were caught by security agents at the café in the central town of Madina and handed over to police, who referred them to court... The prosecutor demanded lashing and ...Gender-mixing is banned in public in Saudi Arabia...

A Saudi woman who thought of an innovative way to mend fences with her husband decided to give him a present that he would not refuse — a new wife. “Her husband accepted the solution and married the new woman…during the wedding, the guests were told that the man’s first wife selected the bride for her husband to please him and restore his dignity.” Under Islam, a man can have four wives at the same time but women are allowed one husband at a time.

MAKKAH: A clinic in the Eastern Province that provides treatment to people possessed by jinns has volunteered to help Turki, a 29-year-old Saudi from Makkah who according to his father is possessed by a female jinn and has, as a result, been chained to a bed for more than six years. “I’ve spoken to the center and they’ve offered to help my son. They will provide accommodation, food and air tickets for him, his wife, me and his mother who is my ex-wife,” said Turki’s father. He, however, added that traveling to the Eastern Province is going to be difficult....

The following is from an e-mail (I have been contacted since I have done some research on Arab-Islamic slavery) I got from a person who seemed to be of a Jewish background, it's well written, I only did minor edits. An in-formal "apology" from "white" Jews to racist Islamic-fascists of the: Nation of Islam, New Black Panther Party Dear racist Muslim of the NOI, NBPP, etc. Please "excuse" us for...: 1) Not dominating in the predominantly Arab-Muslim slave trade, wherein, your "glorified" Muslim "brothers" have uprooted you, sold you, traded you like cattle to the "white" [non-Jewish] man in Europe,...

It is a common belief that the "Arab-Israeli conflict" is a conflict of two peoples fighting over the same piece of land and is therefore one of nationalism. Rarely, if ever, do we hear or read of the religious component to this conflict. However, if anything, the conflict is more of a "Muslim-Jewish" one than an "Arab-Israeli" one. In other words, the conflict is based on religion -- Islam vs. Judaism -- cloaked in Arab nationalism vs. Zionism. The fact of the matter is that in every Arab-Israeli war, from 1948 to the present, cries of "jihad," "Allahu Akbar," and...

On November 20, 1979, shots rang out in the courtyard of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, the holiest shrine in Islam, just as 50,000 worshippers were completing the final prayers celebrating the dawn of the new Moslem century. A roar of "Alahu Ahkbar," God is great, rose from the crowd as a bedouin preacher seized the mike from the Grand Imam and ordered his men to sniper nests in the minarets. Two weeks later, after a military siege and assault using nerve gas and artillery, the militants were all either dead or awaiting beheading. Within two months, a couple of...

Saudi Arabia has conducted tests to stand down its air defences to enable Israeli jets to make a bombing raid on Iran's nuclear facilities, The Times can reveal. In the week that the UN Security Council imposed a new round of sanctions on Tehran, defence sources in the Gulf say that Riyadh has agreed to allow Israel to use a narrow corridor of its airspace in the north of the country to shorten the distance for a bombing run on Iran. To ensure the Israeli bombers pass unmolested, Riyadh has carried out tests to make certain its own jets are...

The trouble with the peace process is that it is rigged against Israel. It is a vehicle forced on her by the international community to enable it to impose its will on her. It all started with UNSC Res 242, which established the principle of land for peace. Just how much land or peace was not described. It was left to the parties to each cut a deal. This resolution in no way threatened Israel because she was left with a free hand to define what she considered to be "secure" borders. In the meantime, she was authorized by the...

If supporters of Israel have been roiled lately by the tense exchanges between Washington and Jerusalem, they are soon in for another shock. On March 13, a report on the Foreign Policy Magazine website revealed that in mid-January, a team of senior military officers from the U.S. Central Command (responsible for overseeing American security interests in the Middle East) arrived at the Pentagon to brief Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Michael Mullen on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Gen. David Petraeus had sent them to amplify his growing concerns at the lack of progress in bringing the Arab-Israeli conflict to an...

(IsraelNN.com) The German news magazine Der Spiegel has reported that Saudi Arabia is hoping Israel will strike Iran's nuclear facilities, and is even prepared to open its skies to Israeli warplanes to allow such an operation to take place. Similar reports were published in 2009, and denied by both Israel and Saudi Arabia. The Der Spiegel report stated that officials in Riyadh had spoken to United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about the importance of stopping Iran's nuclear program, even if doing so requires the use of military force.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, March 10, 2010 – Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates asked Saudi King Abdallah today to use his country’s influence to convince other nations to support United Nations sanctions on Iran, Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said here. Gates met with the Saudi monarch and Crown Prince Sultan, who also serves as minister of defense and aviation. Gates also met privately with Abdallah at a ranch outside Riyadh. The meetings were cordial and constructive, and focused on a range of issues besides Iranian nuclear ambitions and missile proliferation, a senior defense official said, speaking on background. The leaders...

A woman from Saudi Arabia has been sentenced to receive 300 lashes and 18 months in prison over complaints against court officials. Sawsan Salim, who was taken to court last month in a court in Rass, in Qassim province, was sentenced after a judge decided that a petition she filed had contained 118 spurious complaints against officials, including the judges themselves, and she had appeared before him without a male guardian. Salim also claimed officials had chided her for not being accompanied by a male guardian, as required under Islamic law, during her visits to their offices.

Who are the Palestinians and who is occupying what? [...] But 3000 years ago there were no other languages that used the same verb forms as are found on this piece of Hebrew inscribed pottery. The Arabs were not there. They were in Arabia.

In the late 1980s, when I was in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, a friend suggested that I drive out into the desert near Jubail to see the oldest extant Christian church in the world. And there it was, surrounded by a chain-link fence to keep casual visitors and foreign archaeologists out. Experts who saw the site before it was closed said that the church was built by Nestorian Christians, and was probably used from the 4th to the 9th century. Its existence embarrassed the Saudi government, which prefers to believe that Arabia went straight from paganism to Islam....

Al Qaeda will soon return to attacking America interests at sea, a prominent contributor on a jihadist forum posted Monday. The message, from a writer called Abu Raghd on the Al-Falluja forum, says that the terrorist organization will take up the policy of “a blow for a blow and a raid for a raid” against the U.S., according to a translation from the Washington D.C.-based Middle East Media Research Institute. Less than two weeks after a botched Christmas Day attack on an American airliner by a Nigerian-born militant, Abu Raghd threatened future strikes “on an extravagant scale.”

The Vatican's top cleric in the heart of Muslim Arabia tends to a flock of 2 million Christians spread around six desert nations. But he has to do it quietly: Most of them must still pray in secret and are forbidden to display crosses and other symbols of their faith. n this image taken Tuesday... From his base in the emirate of Abu Dhabi on the Persian Gulf, Archbishop Paul Hinder travels the Arabian Peninsula, even slipping in and out of Saudi Arabia - the birthplace of Islam, where restrictions on Christians are the toughest.

Video on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erk22YkMybA Saudi Arabia uses fighter jets against Yemeni Houthi rebels. Both Yemen & Saudi Arabia accuse Iran of arming the rebels. Why did Arab satellites carriers drop Iranian Al Alam TV? And will the war of proxies lead to a confrontation between Saudi Arabia and Iran ?

Jerusalem — Saudi Arabia has been identified as the source of the growing Islamization in the U.S. military. A leading analyst asserted that Saudi Arabia spent millions of dollars in its effort to convert U.S. soldiers to Islam. Dr. Gal Luft, co-director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security in Washington, said the campaign pioneered by the Saudis began during the 1991 war against Iraq, which involved the deployment of nearly 500,000 U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia. "Nearly two decades have passed since the Saudi conversion campaign, and most of the converts may no longer be in uniforms,"...

(IsraelNN.com) According to the U.S. Commerce Department, the number of requests received by American companies from Saudi Arabia to boycott Israel has increased by more than 75% in the past two years, rising from 42 in 2006 to 65 in 2007 to 74 in 2008.

In a move to preserve religious and moral values in cyberspace, a group of unidentified Saudis have launched a "clean" Islamic alternative to the leading video-sharing site YouTube. Naqa means "pure" in Arabic. The website offers a collection of edited and Islamically "clean" clips from YouTube under the banner, “Participate with us in a clean website." Site administrators censor video clips that express critical views of the government, Islamic scholars and members of the Saudi royal family.

With the world seemingly unable to stop Iran's nuclear march, other countries in the region are now pushing forward with their own plans to build nuclear power plants. The Saudi newspaper Al-Watan reported on Thursday that the Saudi minister of water and electricity, Abdullah al-Hosain, said the kingdom was working on plans for its first nuclear power plant. The US inked civil nuclear power deals with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates last year.

CONTINGENCY OPERATING BASE BASRA, Iraq, July 28, 2009 – Air operations here cater to a wide range of travel needs, providing air travel for servicemembers and civilians for mission requirements and leave. An Iraqi worker guides a vehicle across the tarmac at Basra International Airport, Iraq, July 23, 2009. Air operations at Contingency Operating Base Basra are a joint effort between 3rd Air Operations Battalion, 58th Aviation Regiment, and Skylink Arabia, a civilian company that employs Iraqi workers. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Frank Vaughn  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. As commercial aircraft land and take off at Basra...

(AP) — WASHINGTON - Barack Obama began on Day One of his presidency to "reboot" America's damaged relationship with the world's 1.5 billion Muslims. With this week's Mideast trip and long-promised speech in Cairo, he takes a perilous leap into the effort. It's a big gamble. As Obama prepares to leave Washington on Tuesday for stops in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, followed by a jaunt through Europe, the president and his advisers see an urgent need to try to reverse animosity toward the U.S. felt among Muslims around the globe.

The Collector of Worlds. By Iliya Troyanov; translated by Will Hobson. Ecco. 464 pages. $24.95.Sir Richard Francis Burton (1821-1890) has been variously identified as an explorer, linguist, writer, soldier, translator, diplomat and even a spy. Perhaps he is best known by many readers as the translator of "One Thousand Nights and A Night" and the "Kama Sutra." Another claim to fame was his journey to find the source of the Nile River. Now, Bulgarian writer Iliya Troyanov ("Along the Ganges") has imagined key elements of Burton's life in the fast-paced biographical, historical novel "The Collector of Worlds." Troyanov distills the...

NASA Earth Observatory is having a 10th anniversary, and you can vote for the best image (through April 13th; the finals are April 14-27. Voting Info Anyway, I've been voting, and found two nice images of sand dunes. I might have posted the second one before; oh well, it's still a great image. As is common, click for full size.

Freeman of Arabia   [Mark Steyn] Re Charles Freeman, a truly dreadful appointment, I wrote seven years ago in the British Spectator, in a piece headlined "Down With Saudi Arabia: It's time to destroy the Arab kingdom" (ah, happy days!): By now, the 'Saudis Are Our Friends' op-ed may even have its own category in the Pulitzers. Usually this piece turns up after the Saudis have done something not terribly friendly - refused to let Washington use the US bases in Saudi Arabia, or even to meet with Tony Blair. Then the apparently vast phalanx of former US ambassadors to...

Amazon.com: Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis: Bat Ye'Or, Bat Yeor: Books Eurabia is one of the most significant books of the current generation.http://www.amazon.com/Eurabia-Euro-Arab-Axis-Bat-YeOr/dp/083864077X When Europe became Eurabiahttp://somebodyhelpme.info/eurabia/eurabia.htmlMore Muslims than Catholics in Europehttp://iwka.wordpress.com/2008/03/31/more-muslims-than-catholics/ Stop Eurabia! Eurabian News [Spanish]http://noticiasdeeurabia.wordpress.com/ Eurabia Newsvinehttp://eurabia.newsvine.com/[Eurabia] is a project that was conceived, planned and pursued consistently through immigration policy, propaganda, church support, economic associations and aid, cultural, media and academic collaboration. Generations grew up within this political framework; they were educated and conditioned to support it and go along with it. This is the source of the strong anti-American feeling in Europe and of the paranoiac obsession...

The mere prospect seems impossible: Pope Benedict XVI as the first modern-day pontiff to set foot on the Arabian Peninsula. But is such a visit so unlikely? Speculation about the possibility has been growing since Bahrain’s King Hamad invited the Holy Father to visit his country earlier this month. The king is the first Arab head of state to officially invite the Pope during a private audience and comes after Qatar’s deputy prime minister made a similar invitation last year. Both gestures reveal an interesting phenomenon that’s taking place in the region: growth in the number of Christians living there...

Many of us have heard of the famous advertising empire known as Saatchi and Saatchi, laughed at the jokes of Jerry Seinfeld, tapped our feet to the beats of Paula Abdul and shopped at Max Azria’s BCBG stores. So what do all these successful people from various industries have in common? They are all of Arab origins. The Jewish presence in what is now the Arab world dates back thousands of years; in fact, the very religion was founded in this region. Arab Muslims, Christians and Jews have been living in peace and harmony for centuries, so what happened? In...

Arab women had more rights at the time of the Romans than they have today. At that time, in fact, their capacity to conduct their own economic affairs was recognised, which is not true in Saudi Arabia today. This is maintained by a female Saudi scholar, Hatoon al-Fassi, in a book entitled "Women In Pre-Islamic Arabia", Barred from teaching at King Saud University in 2001, the scholar has examined the situation of Nabataea, a kingdom that at the beginning of the Christian era included parts of modern-day Jordan, Syria, and Saudi Arabia, and had its capital in Petra. "We now...

Just a cool-looking shot from space.

WASHINGTON, March 16, 2008 – Information gleaned from 48 foreign fighters detained in Iraq offers insight into al Qaeda’s methods, a Multinational Force Iraq spokesman told reporters during a briefing today in Baghdad. “The foreign detainees told similar stories about what happened to them once they were smuggled into Iraq,” said Navy Rear Adm. Greg Smith, director of Multinational Force Iraq’s communication division. “These 48 men told us they were lured here with the promise they would be killing Americans … but they were disappointed that most of the violence they saw was directed at the Iraqi people … fellow...

Divorces Get on Fast Track With E-Communication Arab News RIYADH, 2 March 2008 — Living in a high-tech world, many husbands have opted for new ways of divorcing their wives rather than confronting problems head on through discussion and dialogue. Jawhara, a divorcee, said that she received a message on her mobile phone from her husband that read, “Pack your things and go to your family before I return, you’re divorced.”

Saudi Arabia to lift ban on women drivers By Damien McElroy in Riyadh Last Updated: 9:18pm GMT 20/01/2008 Saudi Arabia is to lift its ban on women drivers in an attempt to stem a rising suffragette-style movement in the deeply conservative state. Government officials have confirmed the landmark decision and plan to issue a decree by the end of the year. The move is designed to forestall campaigns for greater freedom by women, which have recently included protesters driving cars through the Islamic state in defiance of a threat of detention and loss of livelihoods. The royal family has previously...

My harrowing story, by the teenage girl who was sentenced to 200 lashes after being gang raped in Saudi ArabiaWhen a teenage girl was gang raped in Saudi Arabia,a court sentenced HER to 90 lashes. After she complained,it was increased to 200. Now, the victim speaks for the first time... She was only 19 and a new bride when it happened. Seven men held her at knifepoint and, for a number of hours, she was subjected to a horrific gang rape. But when she later went to the authorities, they sentenced her to 90 lashes. She complained in the media,...

MOSUL, Iraq, Nov. 30, 2007 – A long-awaited passenger terminal project here that had lagged behind schedule now is complete. Less than three months after Mustafa Yoldah left his company’s office in Turkey and came to Mosul with a new foreman and extra workers, the project was finished. For the first time in 15 years, the Mosul, Iraq, airport is ready for commercial flights, beginning with the mid-December Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Photo by Alda Ottley  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. “He made it happen,” said Alda Ottley, project engineer for this facility. The terminal is...

To be a "good" Muslim References -  'Palestinian' child abuse -  Evil 'Joy' -  'Blessing' Hitler -  Mourning the wicked -  Australia - Muslim land -  Jihad on all Buddhists -  Spain - Muslim land -  Europe - Muslim land -  Arabs DON'T care about 'Palestinians' -  72 virgins - Loyalty -  'Pallywood' -  (use of) Ambulances for terror -  (use of) Women for terror -  Human Shields -  Middle east background -  September 11 terror plot on London -  Myth on: 'Terrorists are desperate' -  Beheadings -  Ilan Halimi [an example of monsterous wild prolonged torture motivated by hate only] -  Muslims attacking Jews in France -  Ahmadinejad ' Islamic Hitler' -  Cutting -  'Honor killing' -  Jews & Christians as "Apes & Pigs"? - ...

They could soon become the majority of the population in the United Arab Emirates. And in Saudi Arabia, too, their numbers are increasing. Who they are, where they come from, and how they live. A report from Dubai and Abu Dhabi ROMA, August 31, 2007 – Three months ago to the day, on May 31, the Holy See established diplomatic relations and exchanged ambassadors with the United Arab Emirates. Few noted the fact that the United Arab Emirates has the greatest Christian presence of any Islamic country. And it is a new and growing presence. Exactly the opposite of what...

JEDDAH: Regional powerhouse Saudi Arabia said on Wednesday it will send a mission to Iraq to consider reopening its embassy there, a move that could help bolster the troubled Shia-led government in Baghdad. “A diplomatic mission from the foreign ministry” will visit Baghdad to explore the possibility of reopening the embassy, Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal told reporters. He was speaking at a news conference with visiting US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defence Secretary Robert Gates, on a tour aimed in part at seeking support for Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s government and countering Shia Iran’s influence in...

In its latest Economic and Financial Review of Saudi Arabia, National Bank of Kuwait (NBK) examined how the world’s largest oil exporter has prospered and put on its best economic performance in two decades as a result of the recent oil boom. Indeed, Saudi Arabia has become one of the fastest-expanding economies in the region, with real economic growth averaging an estimated 6% over the past four years, compared with a 1.4% average growth over the previous 10 years. Nominal gross domestic product (GDP) reached $311 billion in 2005 and is estimated to have increased 11.2% in 2006. Given...

Groundwater reserves under Arabian deserts have yet to be exploited but could provide vital resources for agriculture in some of the world's driest areas, according to a space photography expert. Large underground reserves are situated under what appears to be barren deserts, said Farouk Al Baz... Director of the Centre for Remote Sensing at Boston University... Al Baz said radar images of Arab deserts have revealed numerous courses of rivers and streams that led to depressions where lakes have formed... "A lot of pumping in one area at the same level is not good. What is there is probably all...