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May 2, 2007 Saudis put British defence deals on ice after furore over investigation David Robertson Saudi Arabia is understood to be delaying plans to buy British defence equipment after the controversy and public debate surrounding its links with BAE Systems. Defence industry and diplomatic sources said that the Saudis are deeply embarrassed by the furore that followed the Government’s decision to halt an investigation into BAE’s dealings with the Kingdom. Negotiations to buy defence equipment, including two Type 45 destroyers worth £800 million each, have stalled as the Saudis wait for calmer times. Last December the Attorney-General shut down...

Saudi Arabia hails project to reform fighters By David Blair in Riyadh Last Updated: 1:59am BST 02/04/2007 As American jets bombed his last stronghold in the mountains of Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden ordered a young supporter from Saudi Arabia to flee to safety. Aged only 27, the young man had already spent seven years as a "holy warrior" in countries as far flung as the Philippines and Afghanistan. Prince Turki al-Faisal praised the rehabilitation project's contribution to reducing terrorist threats He obeyed his leader's command and retreated over the border into Pakistan - where he was swiftly captured. That was...

- A Saudi woman who was kidnapped at knifepoint, gang-raped and then beaten by her brother has been sentenced to 90 lashes -- for a meeting a man who was not a relative, a newspaper reported on Monday. In an interview with the Saudi Gazette, the 19-year-old said she was blackmailed a year ago into meeting a man who threatened to tell her family they were having a relationship outside wedlock, which is illegal in the ultra-conservative desert kingdom. After driving off together from a shopping mall near her home, the woman and the man were stopped and abducted by...

Riyadh - A Saudi Arabian court has convicted and sentenced 20 foreigners to receive lashes and spend several months in prison for attending a party where alcoholic drinks were served and men and women danced, a Saudi newspaper reported on Sunday. The kingdom's religious police arrested 433 foreigners, including more than 240 women, for attending the "impudent" party in Jiddah, the state-guided newspaper Okaz reported. It did not identify the foreigners, give their nationalities or say when the party took place. Judge Saud al-Boushi sentenced the 20 to three to four month in prison and ordered them to receive an...

With a Sunni-Shiite cold war descending on the Middle East, Saudi Arabia appears to be hardening its sectarian battle lines. By Michael B. Farrell | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor AL HUFUF, SAUDI ARABIA - Sadek al-Jubran says he's all too familiar with fatwas that declare him an infidel. As a member of a religious minority in a country without religious freedom, Mr. Jubran grew up with discrimination. It's something Shiites like him have regularly faced in this conservative Sunni-ruled kingdom – in the streets and at school, in courtrooms and at the office.

The letter "X" soon may be banned in Saudi Arabia because it resembles the mother of all banned religious symbols in the oil kingdom: the cross. The new development came with the issuing of another mind-bending fatwa, or religious edict, by the infamous Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice — the group of senior Islamic clergy that reigns supreme on all legal, civil, and governance matters in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The commission's damning of the letter "X" came in response to a Ministry of Trade query about whether it should grant trademark protection to...

Orgies in Wahabi Saudi Arabia: Western culture blamed Thursday, November 2, 2006 Known as a modest and pious man, Saudi King Abdullah has been hearing steady reports of a sharp decline in morals in his country. In Jeddah, the Mawadda Social and Family Reconciliation and Counseling Center has been processing requests for help from thousands of married couples on the verge of breaking up. The threat is not divorce, heavily frowned upon in the kingdom, but of the husband establishing a second home with a concubine or prostitute. "Our youths are not, unfortunately, educated on the importance of leading a...

A Saudi court has sentenced a gang rape victim to 90 lashes of the whip because she was alone in a car with a man to whom she was not married.

A court in Saudi Arabia has sentenced the victim of a gang rape to 90 lashes of the whip because she was alone in a car with a man other than her husband. The Jerusalem Post reports the high-profile and controversial trial ended with the convicted rapists sentenced to punishments ranging from one thousand lashes to as little as 80 — 10 fewer than the victim — along with prison terms of between one and five years. The woman's family says it will appeal what it considers inadequate sentences for the rapists.

A Saudi court has sentenced a gang rape victim to 90 lashes of the whip because she was alone in a car with a man to whom she was not married. The sentence was passed at the end of a trial in which the al- Qateef high criminal court convicted four Saudis convicted of the rape, sentencing them to prison terms and a total of 2,230 lashes. The four, all married, were sentenced respectively to five years and 1,000 lashes, four years and 800 lashes, four years and 350 lashes, and one year and 80 lashes. A fifth, married, man...

had an unusual education in the Holocaust. When I was working for the Attorney General, I was assigned to do the classified research about the Holocaust, so I went underground to a little town called Suitland, Maryland, right outside Washington, D.C., and that's where the U.S. government buries its secrets -- literally. There are twenty vaults underground and each vault is one acre in size. Anyone see the movie "Raiders of the Lost Ark"? The last scene of that movie is what the underground vaults are really like, only not as organized as they are in the movie. And in...

Two jailbreaks and a series of arrests in recent months suggest that sympathy for al-Qaeda militants in Saudi Arabia still runs strong despite a government crackdown, analysts said this week. The authorities in the world's biggest oil exporter say they have seized nearly 80 al-Qaeda members or sympathisers from around the country over the last three months. Four of them are among six men who escaped from a detention centre in Riyadh in June. The authorities also said that prisoners who escaped a higher level prison earlier this year could also be linked to al Qaeda. Saudi commentators say there...

  Murtha speech gets cheers and jeers By Richard Robbins TRIBUNE-REVIEW Sunday, May 14, 2006 U.S. Rep. John P. Murtha -- one of the most vocal critics of President Bush's handling of the war in Iraq -- drew cheers and boos during his commencement speech at Seton Hill University on Saturday when he once again called for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops. "We don't care. This isn't about graduation," Leonard Pierce, of North Huntingdon, the parent of a graduate, called out several times from the audience. The catcalls prompted shouts from other audience members that Murtha should be allowed...

Why did it take until January for Muslim protests to erupt in violence, after the initial non-violent reaction to the publication of the Prophet Mohammed cartoons in Denmark on September 30, 2005? The answer lies within the enigmatic and schizophrenic Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. By designating themselves Custodian of Islam's holy shrines, Mecca and Medina, the Saudi royal family and its uncompromising Wahhabi-Salafist religious partners have declared to the Muslim world that they are the true defenders of Islam and its Prophet. The issue of the cartoons provided the Saudi royal family with an unprecedented opportunity to reinforce their Muslim...

RIYADH, 22 February 2006 — The Kingdom needs to hone the communication skills of “smart Saudi women” to put across its message effectively to the American audience, said a prominent Arabist intellectual from the US during a press conference here yesterday. “The country is wasting its resources in trying to reach out to the Americans through their media. Such a strategy has turned out to be counter-productive,” James Zogby, president of the Arab-American Institute (AAI), told mediapersons at the Council of Saudi Chambers of Commerce & Industry (CSCCI). Pointing out that Saudi Arabia should review its communication strategy, Zogby said...

A British airline banned its staff from taking Bibles and wearing crucifixes or St. Christopher medals on flights to Saudi Arabia to avoid offending the country's Muslims. British Midland International also has told female flight attendants they must walk two paces behind male colleagues and cover themselves from head to foot in a headscarf and robe known as an abaya, the Mirror newspaper of London reported. Teddy bears or other cuddly toys also are not allowed. Airline officials, who have sparked outrage, the paper says, explain the Islamic kingdom's strict laws – enforced by religious police – prohibit public practice...

In Search of Murtha's ArmyBy Jed Babbin Published 12/13/2005 12:10:46 AM Last week, I went to Iraq to search for John Murtha's army. You know: the one he described as "broken, worn out," and "living hand to mouth." Thanks to the help of some friends in low places, I met with a lot of the troops and almost all of the commanders around Baghdad and at Camp Fallujah. Murtha was not just wrong, but damnably wrong. And so, unsurprisingly, is Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean, who declared the war unwinnable. I promised to bring back as many of the facts...

One of the mysteries these days is the about-face of a supposed Democrat war hawk, Representative John Murtha of Pennsylvania. Considered a supporter of the Iraq conflict, the decorated former Marine suddenly came out with statements calling for the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq and that the war is not winnable. After the liberal media feasted on his sudden burst on the national scene, Murtha became the new lightning rod for the antiwar, anti-American movement. Recently, he said that the US military was worn out and unable to protect Americans should a security crisis emerge. And the media again...

Republican lawmakers say that ties between Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) and his brother's lobbying firm, KSA Consulting, may warrant investigation by the House ethics committee... According to a June 13 article in The Los Angeles Times, the fiscal 2005 defense appropriations bill included more than $20 million in funding for at least 10 companies for whom KSA lobbied. Carmen Scialabba, a longtime Murtha aide, works at KSA as well. KSA directly lobbied Murtha's office on behalf of seven companies, and a Murtha aide told a defense contractor that it should retain KSA to represent it, according to the LA Times....

A family member's ties to special interests raise questions in the case of Democrat John Murtha. When Congress passed the $417-billion Pentagon spending bill last year, Rep. John P. Murtha, the top Democrat on the House defense appropriations subcommittee, boasted about the money he secured ... But the bill Murtha helped write also benefited at least 10 companies represented by a lobbying firm where his brother, Robert "Kit" Murtha... Clients of the lobbying firm KSA Consulting — whose top officials also include former congressional aide Carmen V. Scialabba, who worked for Rep. Murtha for 27 years — received a total...