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RIYADH — Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Fahd bin Abdulaziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia is in stable condition and doctors’ reports are reassuring, the foreign minister said yesterday, a day after the monarch was taken to hospital with pneumonia. Fears about the king’s health heightened on Friday after a royal statement urged Saudis to pray for his recovery. Saudi officials said yesterday that the king, 83, had had water drained from his lungs. “Thank God, his condition is stable and the doctors are reassuring about the subject. We all pray for his speedy recovery, God willing,” Foreign...

Saudi stocks ease on King Fahd's illness, but long term market outlook remains stable. RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi Arabian stocks fell nearly one percent on Saturday partly on uncertainty over the health of King Fahd, but the long-term outlook for the market remained one of continued growth, analysts said. The all-share index of the largest Arab bourse ended the morning session at 12,360 points, down 0.94 percent, at the start of the trading week. Some traders blamed concerns about the health of the ruler of the world's top oil exporter, who was hospitalised with pneumonia and fever on Friday, but...

<p>Reliable sources in the Saudi capital of Riyadh said Friday that King Fahd is dead, reports the Saudi Institute.</p> <p>The king had been dead since late Wednesday, according several well placed sources in the capital of Riydah who spoke to the Saudi Institute, a pro-democracy think tank in Washington, on condition of anonymity.</p>

RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia declared a state of alert and canceled all leave of its security forces on Friday after ailing King Fahd was taken to hospital, an Interior Ministry official said. "The authorities declared a state of alert, canceled all leave of the security forces and put forces on standby after the king was admitted to hospital," the official told Reuters. The ruler of the world's top oil exporter was taken to King Faisal Specialist Hospital in Riyadh on Friday evening with a fever and water in his lungs. "King Fahd was running a high temperature for three...

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - King Fahd, who moved Saudi Arabia closer to the United States during his two-decade rule, was taken to a Riyadh hospital Friday for medical tests, the Saudi Press Agency said. An Arab official said the government had put the kingdom on a state of alert and canceled all military leaves. But the Interior Ministry denied that any emergency had been declared. "This is absolutely not true," ministry spokesman Mansour al-Turki said. "There's no canceling of leaves and no state of emergency or anything."

Riyadh, 29 April (AKI) - Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah's visit to the United States this week to discuss oil matters with President George W. Bush, took place amid growing speculation back home that the bed-ridden King Fahd's condition has worsened with the monarch slipping out of conciousness. Speculation is rife among Riyadh's ruling elite of Fahd's clinical death - but even if this were true, any official announcement would delayed until a final decision on Fahd's successor has been taken. Sources close to the Saudi royal family told Adnkronos International about the "suspicious" disappearance of King Fahd from public...

Riyadh, 29 April (AKI) - Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah's visit to the United States this week to discuss oil matters with President George W. Bush, took place amid growing speculation back home that the bed-ridden King Fahd's condition has worsened with the monarch slipping out of conciousness. Speculation is rife among Riyadh's ruling elite of Fahd's clinical death - but even if this were true, any official announcement would delayed until a final decision on Fahd's successor has been taken. Sources close to the Saudi royal family told Adnkronos International about the "suspicious" disappearance of King Fahd from...

Saudi Arabia Frees Westerners Jailed for Bombings Aug. 8 — By Dominic Evans LONDON (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia has freed five Britons and a Canadian convicted of carrying out a wave of bombings in the Gulf state in 2000 and early 2001, their lawyer said on Friday. "They have been granted clemency. They left Saudi Arabia today," Salah al-Hejailan told Reuters by telephone. Two of the men had been sentenced to death and, if the sentences had been ratified by King Fahd, faced public beheading. The others had been given lengthy prison sentences. They were accused of carrying out several...

RIYADH, 26 May 2003 — Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Fahd received Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi at Al-Yamamah Palace here yesterday and underscored the strong relations between the two countries. Earlier, Crown Prince Abdullah, deputy premier and commander of the National Guard, and Koizumi held talks on major global issues including the situation in Palestine and Iraq. The two sides emphasized the “importance of speedy implementation of the Middle East Road Map to establish an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital,” the Saudi Press Agency said. The two countries also urged the Anglo-American occupiers to...

Saudi's King Fahd Vows to Expand Reforms Sat May 17, 2003 03:55 PM ET RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia's King Fahd, whose country was rocked by suicide bombings this week, pledged on Saturday to expand reforms in the conservative Muslim kingdom, and said his people rejected terrorism. Foreign and domestic pressure has been mounting on the Saudi government to speed up democratic reform and crack down on the country's powerful religious establishment, to create a social environment less conducive to militancy. "Saudi people...reject terrorism in all its forms and will not permit a group of deviant terrorists to infringe upon...

ARAB NEWS (Saudi) May 17 '03:"Sorry, You Can't Win"Dr. Hamoud Al-Ghathami/Al-Madinah [IMRA: King Fahd Academy in Washington, D.C. was established in 1984-5. During 1984-94 King Faud spent over $35 million on the school of 1,200 students. Not giving the prize to a Saudi recipient was a private Saudi decision. There was no U.S. interference.] QUOTE FROM TEXT: "Arabs and Muslims are sometimes treated as if they were not human's and to whom principles of justice and equality apply. This is why so many Arabs and Muslims are now in American prisons without trial on the mere suspicion of having links...

King Donates SR10m to Iraq Telethon Riyadh [SPA]................. The telethon ordered by the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Fahd bin Abdulaziz to raise funds to help the Iraqi people began in Riyadh at 5 pm Sunday. King Fahd donated 10 million riyals to help the brotherly Iraqi people. Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdulaziz, deputy premier and commander of the National Guard, also donated 5 million riyals. Until 2:00am Monday, donations received by the campaign organized by the Ministry of Information and transmitted live by the kingdom television, reached over SR42 million in cash. Among others, Prince Sultan...

LOS ANGELES (AFP) - A US judge ordered Saudi Arabia's King Fahd and members of his family to pay more than 200 million dollars to the estranged wife of a dead Saudi royal following a 20-year legal battle. The court in Los Angeles ordered the payment under a long-disputed 1983 separation agreement between Sheik Mohammed al-Fassi, the eccentric late brother-in-law of Prince Turki bin Abdul Aziz, and his wife Dena al-Fassi. Dena al-Fassi, 41, filed the suit in late 2001 claiming the Saudi royals should be responsible for covering the 81-million-dollar settlement awarded to her that has ballooned to...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 8 — Saudi Arabia's leaders have made far-reaching decisions to prepare for an era of military disengagement from the United States, to enact what Saudi officials call the first significant democratic reforms at home, and to rein in the conservative clergy that has shared power in the kingdom. Senior members of the royal family say the decisions, reached in the past month, are the result of a continuing debate over Saudi Arabia's future and have not yet been publicly announced. But these princes say Crown Prince Abdullah will ask President Bush to withdraw all American armed forces from...

<p>Cannes, France, Aug. 22 (Bloomberg) -- Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, the world's 11th richest man, urged fellow Saudis to remain invested in U.S. markets amid speculation they have pulled billions on concern the assets will be frozen.</p> <p>The 45-year-old nephew of King Fahd, whose net worth Forbes magazine valued at $20 billion, dismissed analyst estimates that Saudi investors have withdrawn $200 billion from the U.S. market. The families of about 600 killed in the Sept. 11 attacks have filed a $1 trillion lawsuit last week against Saudi banks, charities and individuals.</p>

Saudi Arabia is teetering on the brink of collapse, fuelling Foreign Office fears of an extremist takeover of one of the West's key allies in the war on terror. Anti-government demonstrations have swept the desert kingdom in the past months in protest at the pro-American stance of the de facto ruler, Prince Abdullah. At the same time, Whitehall officials are concerned that Abdullah could face a palace coup from elements within the royal family sympathetic to al-Qaeda. Saudi sources said the Pentagon had recently sponsored a secret conference to look at options if the royal family fell. Demonstrations across the...

Rumsfeld: Saudis Worry About Effects RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) -- Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, preparing allies for possible military strikes in Afghanistan, said Saudi officials expressed concern Wednesday that a war on terrorism could create harmful ``secondary effects'' in the Muslim world. Rumsfeld met in the Saudi capital with King Fahd and Crown Prince Abdullah, then dined at the palace of Prince Sultan, the kingdom's minister of defense. It was the first stop on a mission to boost support from Arab and Central Asia nations with bases that could be vital for military action. While the Saudis offered praise ...

King Abdullah leaves for France today to discuss peace process AMMAN (JT) — His Majesty King Abdullah on Thursday will leave for Paris on the first leg of a four-country tour during which he will hold talks with Western and Arab leaders on means to end the suffering of the Palestinian people and advance efforts to put the peace process back on track. The King will start his talks with French President Jacques Chirac in Paris before heading for Geneva where he will discuss with Saudi King Fahd Ben Abdul Aziz and UAE President Sheikh Zayed Ben Sultan Al Nahayan...

'Plans for King Fahd surgery cause commotion' GENEVA (AP) — Plans for King Fahd of Saudi Arabia to undergo cataract surgery has caused an upheaval at the hospital of the University of Geneva, a newspaper reported Wednesday. “I saw couches, beds and furniture arrive,” the Tribune de Geneve quoted a patient as saying. “They made noise all night. We weren't even warned. They even moved one patient to make space.” The 81-year-old king, vacationing since May in a residence he owns in Geneva, has rented part of the hospital's ninth floor, which is reserved for private care, the newspaper said....