Home >> Middle East Saudi Arabia Trip by Saudi Royal Unlikely to Herald Radical Change
Jonathan Spyer, Ph.D. - 10/19/2009
The Syrian Al-Watan newspaper reported on Wednesday that a two-day visit by Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz was due to begin that day. The talks, Al-Watan noted, would conclude with the signing of a joint agreement on the issue of taxes. This is what is known as setting a low bar for success. The editors of Al-Watan have good reason for their caution. Despite the great importance being attached by some regional analysts to the Saudi-Syria talks, they are unlikely to herald a fundamental shift in regional diplomacy. Saudi Arabia's Agricultural Project: From Dust to Dust
Elie Elhadj, Ph.D. - 7/29/2008
Arid conditions have always prevented the development of any sizeable settled agricultural communities in the Arabian Desert. This article examines the events that led to and the lessons that may be drawn from a failed, politically determined economic and ecological policy created by poorly informed elite enjoying rentier economic circumstances. Beginning in the early 1980s, however, Saudi Arabia spent enormous amounts of money and exhausted massive volumes of water from mainly nonrenewable aquifers in an ostensible effort to achieve food self-sufficiency. On January 8, 2008, the Saudi governm... Saudi Oil Price Summit
Abdul Ruff - 6/27/2008
Pressured primarily by the USA and European states and with a view to trying to calm the volatile market, Saudi Arabia , the world's biggest oil producer, hosted an emergency oil meeting of oil producing and consuming nations, known as the OPEC, in Jeddah on June 22 to discuss soaring oil prices. Amid concerns that recent record oil prices are helping tip the US and other major economies towards recession, energy ministers from more than 30 countries, as well as senior executives from the world's largest oil companies, attended the conference in the city of Jeddah. The meeting took place amid ... The US should have invaded Saudi Arabia, not Iraq.
Ted Belman - 5/14/2008
The best response to 911 is still the matter of heated debate. Obama wants out of Iraq and into Afghanistan and wants Pakistan bombed. Democrats generally argue we should have stayed in that theater and not gone into Iraq and what they want to do now is correct the administrations mistake. Hillary shares this view except for the bombing of Pakistan. Turkey and Saudi Arabia's new rendezvous
Iqbal Latif - 3/25/2008
Saudi Arabia is a land of predicament for Saudi women seeking opportunities but facing constraints. They are neither allowed to drive nor vote, but some good news has emerged. They can now stay at an all-woman’s hotel. Saudi Arabia recently opened its first hotel for females only. It is big news in a country where sensitivities about having male guides are so predominant that last year two Saudi clerics issued a fatwa forbidding women from accessing the Internet without the presence of a male guide. The hotel offers luxurious accommodation with a full-range of health and beauty care for ladies... Saudi Arabia, Wahhabism and the Spread of Sunni Theofascism
Amb. Curtin Winsor, Ph.D. - 10/22/2007
The United States has largely eliminated the infrastructure and operational leadership of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terrorist network over the past five years. However, its ideological offspring continue to proliferate across the globe. Saudi Arabia Lectures the EU on Human Rights
Fjordman - 10/10/2007
The “Human Rights Commission” of Saudi Arabia, a country where slavery was formally abolished as late as the 1960s and is still practiced more or less openly (it is allowed according to sharia law), now lectures Europeans on Islamophobia. Fake Jihad - A New Term Coined By The Grand Mufti Of Saudi Arabia
Iqbal Latif - 7/22/2007
Two small words but a huge step forward emerging from the frozen barren intellectual landscape of Saudi Arabia. According to Orientalist Gilles Kepel, "fitna is sometimes translated by sedition, that is the fact that the Muslim community is fragmented because it has lost sense of proportions and realities, of maslaha, and that it is therefore delivered to the demons of extremism and is going towards its fall. It is the jihad which returns as a boomerang inside and weakens the community. The fitna is the ulemas' obsessive fear since Islam exist." Iran-Saudi Arabian Embrace: A New Beginning?
Dilip Hiro - 3/16/2007
The US, struggling to control violence in Iraq, has ratcheted up its threat against neighboring Iran as a primary culprit. Longstanding US concerns about Iran defying the international community by developing nuclear weapons have recently been heightened by its accusation that the Islamic state has been supporting Shiite militias against Sunnis in Iraq’s ongoing civil war. Conservative US policymakers argue that the growing power of Iran threatens US allies like Saudi Arabia. Against this backdrop, an image of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Saudi King Abdullah embracing at a recent ... Of Women and Wahhabism: The Strange Backwardness of Saudi Arabia
Nicholas M. Guariglia - 6/18/2006
Some four years ago, an all-girl’s school in the Saudi holy city of Mecca went ablaze in fire. The girls –– around 800 of them –– fled the building in a hastened frenzy. What a sight it must have been to see hundreds of young Saudi women escape a burning structure without the time or foresight to put on their headscarves and abayas… such a sight, indeed, that the kingdom’s religious police, the shadowy and much feared mutaween, attempted to keep the remaining girls inside the building. Fifteen of the girls died, not due to police negligence or desp ite police heroics, but due to a separate ... Religious Freedom: A Saudi Taboo
Manuela Paraipan - 12/8/2005
The U.S. State Department, in a report released in November 2005, cites Saudi Arabia as restricting religious freedom. The situation did not improve much since last year, when the State Department reported that religious freedom was lacking in the Kingdom. The report stated, "Islam is the official religion and all citizens must be Muslims." Moreover, the state is imposing the Sunni version of Islam on all citizens, be they Shi'a Muslims or non-Muslims. However, the State Secretary Rice at the time refused to sanction Saudi Arabia, saying she wanted "to allow additional time for the continuation of discussions leading to progress on important religious freedom issues." Oil Prices and Saudi Arabia: Interview with Matthew Simmons (Part 3)
Sean-Paul Kelley - 6/9/2005
Matthew R. Simmons founded Simmons & Company in 1974. The company's focus is on oil services, mergers and acquisitions, as well as bankruptcy workouts. In 1995, the company began providing "total energy services" to the industry. It has offices in Texas, Louisiana and Scotland, with 126 employees, including 76 professionals. This is Part 1 of the interview with Mr. Simmons on the energy policies of the George W. Bush Administration. You can find Part 1 Here and Part 2 Here. Oil Prices and Saudi Arabia: Interview with Matthew Simmons (Part 2)
Sean-Paul Kelley - 6/8/2005
Matthew R. Simmons founded Simmons & Company in 1974. The company's focus is on oil services, mergers and acquisitions, as well as bankruptcy workouts. In 1995, the company began providing "total energy services" to the industry. It has offices in Texas, Louisiana and Scotland, with 126 employees, including 76 professionals. This is Part 2 of the interview with Mr. Simmons on the energy policies of the George W. Bush Administration. You can find Part 1 Here and Part 3 Here. Oil Prices and Saudi Arabia: Interview with Matthew Simmons (Part 1)
Sean-Paul Kelley - 6/7/2005
Matthew R. Simmons founded Simmons & Company in 1974. The company's focus is on oil services, mergers and acquisitions, as well as bankruptcy workouts. In 1995, the company began providing "total energy services" to the industry. It has offices in Texas, Louisiana and Scotland, with 126 employees, including 76 professionals. This is Part 1 of the interview with Mr. Simmons on the energy policies of the George W. Bush Administration. You can find Part 2 Here and Part 3 Here . |
