Prince Bandar: with friends like these…

Saudi Arabia’s rulers threatened to make it easier for terrorists to attack London unless corruption investigations into their arms deals were halted, according to court documents revealed yesterday.
Previously secret files describe how investigators were told they faced “another 7/7″ and the loss of “British lives on British streets” if they [...]

I can’t find it online, so I am republishing below this fine op-ed by Mona al-Tahawy where she makes the obvious yet crucial point that Saudi Arabia’s medieval practices (only one manifestation of its backwards ideology) have been tolerated far too long:
Gender Apartheid
by Mona Eltahawy
NEW YORK — Once upon a time, in a country called [...]

La Tunisie des illusions perdues - excellent article on 20 years of Ben Ali
AIPAC Court Adopts Silent Witness Rule - Testimonies in AIPAC spying case to be secret
What today’s Islamists want by Ibrahim El Houdaiby - Muslim Brother explains views
The United States’ new backyard, by Alain Gresh - America’s new near-abroad
Rice in Lebanon: Hard to [...]

Saudi Arabia’s media influence:
Saudi Arabia’s takeover of the region’s media is a reflection of what is occurring globally where a handful of multinational companies increasingly dominate the media. This spills over from entertainment into news coverage.
To Saudi Arabia such control is paramount in an era when the media is increasingly pervasive, because Riyadh’s political and [...]

From Le Figaro, an article on how Saudi Arabia is creating a new security service specifically dedicated to protecting petroleum installations. Beyond threat perceptions about attacks on these centers, there is also the factor that this will create yet another service, exclusively under the control of Minister of Interior Prince Nayef and his son — [...]

Saudi Religious Police Attacked by Girls:
Dammam, Asharq Al-Awsat - Members of Khobar’s Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice were the victims of an attack by two Saudi females, Asharq Al-Awsat can reveal.
According to the head of the commission in Khobar, two girls pepper sprayed members of the commission after they had [...]

Saudi Women Petition for Right to Drive:
DHAHRAN, Saudi Arabia, Sept. 23 — For the first time since a demonstration in 1990, a group of Saudi women is campaigning for the right to drive in this conservative kingdom, the only country in the world that prohibits female drivers.
After spreading the idea through text messages and e-mails, [...]

I want this book. (You can get it from Amazon.)
Update: Looking through the book’s site linked above, there are PDF versions of declassified Western intelligence documents on the siege. Some interesting examples are this US embassy in Cairo report of how Mubarak, vice-president at the time, ordered al-Ahram to downplay news of the siege that [...]

Saudi prince criticises monopoly of power at the heart of kingdom:
A prominent prince plans to form a political party in Saudi Arabia and invite jailed reformists to join. The rare call for reform from within the royal family is likely to anger the kingdom, which bans political parties.
Prince Talal bin Abdul-Aziz, a half-brother of King [...]

I have read about the Alms for Jihad affairs in Britain — and I would fully support the Association of Librarians of America in keeping the book available in the US, regardless of the quality of the book (which I have no idea about).
OIF is hearing from librarians who are wondering if they must comply [...]

Most of the Gulf countries have made it onto the Tier 3 list (those countries with the worst record in human trafficking, according to the report) of the State Department’s Trafficking in Persons Report 2007: Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. UAE is on the Tier 2 watch list.
So is Egypt. From the report:
Egypt [...]

Tony Blair on the recent allegations that Saudi Prince Bandar pocketed a $2 billion commission on an arms deal with BAe:
“This investigation, if it had it gone ahead, would have involved the most serious allegations in investigations being made into the Saudi royal family,” Blair said at a meeting of the Group of Eight nations [...]

After the jump is a story from the FT about pressure being brought on the mutawwa (religious police) in Saudi Arabia — worth reading.

This news is a couple of weeks old, but I found telling what German news magazine Der Spiegel discovered in attorney documents which are part of the file on the Siemens corruption scandal (which also extends to bribery in Saudi Arabia – see this excellent WS Journal article):
The documents suggest that a part of the [...]

This is an interesting project:
Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah will next week lay the foundation stone for a $1.5 billion bridge project that will link the Kingdom to neighbouring Egypt.
The bridge will link the Sinai region of Egypt, close to the Sharm el-Sheikh resort town, to the northwest of Saudi Arabia near Ras el-Sheikh Humayd.
Two bridges [...]

A very cautiously written, but important column by Rami Khouri: When Arab security chiefs conduct foreign policy
Two intriguing meetings took place this past week in the Arab world. In Egypt, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with the intelligence services directors of four Arab states - Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab [...]

As my friend Hugh Miles notes in this Telegraph piece, something of a landmark constitutional change has taken place in Saudi Arabia:
Saudi Arabia has significantly reduced the powers of its absolute monarchy by quietly removing the king’s authority to choose his own successor.
This landmark constitutional reform, enacted by royal order last October but only disclosed [...]

I have an op-ed about US strategy in the Middle East and the growing Sunni-Shia divide over at TomPaine.com. Let me know what you think.
Later today I will post a hyperlinked version here.
Update: The New Saddam
Making a renewed appearance in the State of the Union address this year was Iran. Bush set out an agenda [...]

HRW has sent an open letter to King Abdullah of “mainstream moderate” Saudi Arabia urging to put an end to a campaign of persecution against Ahmadis:
Your Majesty,
We write to urge you to put an immediate end to Saudi Arabias nationwide campaign to round up followers of the Ahmadi faith who have committed no [...]

The Washington Post takes the time to point the obvious and gets in some good old fashioned Hozz-bashing:
The new strategy explains a series of reversals of U.S. policy that otherwise would be baffling. In addition to embracing the Middle East peacemaker role that it has shunned for six years, the administration has decided to seek [...]