U.S. to sell $30 billion-worth of fighter jets to Saudi Arabia

By macleans.ca - Friday, December 30, 2011 at 10:27 AM - 0 Comments

The United States has confirmed a deal to sell 84 Boeing F-15 jets to Saudi Arabia, and to upgrade 70 F-15s already in the Saudi air fleet, the BBC reports. The $30-billion deal is part of a larger arms deal approved by the U.S. Congress last year, worth approximately $60 billion over the next ten to 15 years. Josh Earnest, White House deputy spokesperson said the deal would help support American jobs, while senior state department official Andrew Shapiro said it represented “a strong message to countries in the region that the United States is committed to stability in the Gulf and broader Middle East.” The announcement comes amid increasing tension with Iran, including recent posturing from Tehran over its ability to control the Strait of Hormuz, a strategically crucial oil route. Saudi Arabia is a key American ally in the region, and one of the most important suppliers of oil to the U.S.
BBC

Terror plot—or fantasy?

By Michael Petrou - Tuesday, October 25, 2011 at 11:20 AM - 2 Comments

Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images

It’s a baffling plot that strains the credulity even of those deeply familiar with Iran’s capacity for murder and intrigue.

Last week, the U.S. Justice Department said it had disrupted an Iranian plan to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States, Adel al-Jubeir. Several options were supposedly discussed, including a restaurant bombing that likely would have killed many innocent bystanders.

The U.S. has charged two individuals with the alleged plot. One, Gholam Shakuri, is a suspected member of the Quds Force, a wing of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps responsible for operations—including terrorism and assassination—outside Iran. The second, Mansour Arbabsiar, is an Iranian-born American citizen who, over the past three decades, has failed at a variety of business ventures selling everything from used cars to horses, gyros and ice cream. He’s been sued, chased by angry creditors, and charged with theft. Friends say he’d often forget keys and cellphones, and that his socks didn’t always match.

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ThreatDown

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, October 14, 2011 at 3:53 PM - 6 Comments

Speaking with reporters today in Peterborough, the Prime Minister commented as follows on the alleged Iranian plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to the United States.

Let me just say with regards once again to this specific plot, we condemn this in the strongest possible terms, and it only reiterates the position that our government has been expressing for several years now, that the regime in Tehran – we have no quarrel with the Iranian people, but the regime in Tehran represents probably the most significant threat in the world to global peace and security. And so we take these matters very, very seriously, and we will be working with our allies.

Back in June, Mr. Harper implied that something threatened the existence of the country. Paul subsequently considered the conditional country here. I noted the rhetoric again here.

In an interview with this magazine, the Prime Minister was asked about the threat and identified “Islamic extremist terrorism,” but also an increasingly complex world. Roland Paris read that interview and came away wanting the Prime Minister to be more specific.

In an interview with Peter Mansbridge this fall, Mr. Harper identified “Islamicism” as the greatest terrorist threat to Canada, but here he seems to elevate Iran to the most significant global threat. It’s unclear whether that makes Iran the threat to Canada that he has vaguely referred to in the past.

Good news, bad news: Sept. 22-29

By macleans.ca - Monday, October 3, 2011 at 10:00 AM - 0 Comments

Good news

No longer for scholars' eyes only, the Dead Sea Scrolls are posted online. (Lior Mizrahi/Getty Images)

Steps in the right direction

The king of Saudi Arabia has granted women the right to vote, acknowledging they can make “correct opinions.” This in a place where females can’t travel without a male’s permission, and where one woman who drove, despite a ban, was sentenced to 10 lashes. King Abdullah’s decision also permits females to run for Shura Council. Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai has approved draft regulations allowing women’s shelters to remain independent from government, and receive donations without state intermediation.

Weird science

It was an exciting week in space news: NASA’s Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite, deployed by the space shuttle in 1991, fell from orbit. A troublemaker on Twitter, armed with some Orson Welles quotes, managed to spread rumours worldwide that UARS had fallen near Okotoks, Alta. Fortunately, it appears the satellite crashed harmlessly somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. A few days earlier, space geeks were titillated with another report: physicists think they saw neutrinos travelling faster than the speed of light, which, if confirmed, would disprove Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity.

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Saudi Arabia women given right to vote, seek office

By macleans.ca - Monday, September 26, 2011 at 10:57 AM - 6 Comments

Women in Saudi Arabia have been given the right to vote, run for office and be appointed to governing councils by King Abdullah, the country’s 86-year-old ruler. Abdullah made the announcement on Sunday in a speech that was broadcast live on state television. Manal al-Sharif, the 32-year-old figurehead of a contingent of women who have openly defied Saudi Arabia’s much-discussed driving-ban for women, welcomed the move to extend the franchise. She called Abdullah a “reformer” and said the decision was “historic and courageous.” Men in Saudi Arabia, an ultra-conservative Muslim country existing under a strict interpretation of Sunni Islam, were first able to vote in municipal elections in 2005. Women will join them on their second trip to the polls Thursday, but since the nomination process is already closed, and no women will be on the ballot. The winners of the election fill half the seats in the country’s 285 municipal councils. The rest are appointed.

AFP

'Day of Rage’ begins quietly in Saudi Arabia

By macleans.ca - Friday, March 11, 2011 at 2:27 PM - 1 Comment

One day after police fired on protesters in Saudi Arabia, the streets in the eastern city of Qatif are quiet, with only peaceful demonstrations on the outskirts of town. Witnesses report heavy police presence in the country’s capital, Riyadh, and no protests. Another city, Al-Ahsa, saw several protesters arrested but again witnesses reported no violence. Protesters have been calling for democratic reforms in the country, which has been ruled by the al-Saud family for the last 80 years. Shiite Muslims in the Eastern Province have called for an end to what they say is government discrimination against them; the royal family and the majority of the country’s population are Sunni Muslims.

Washington Post

A crackdown on bloggers

By Josh Dehass - Thursday, January 27, 2011 at 4:18 PM - 0 Comments

Considering that Saudi Arabia has jailed bloggers on charges as dubious as “annoying others,” it’s no surprise that most of them post anonymously. But as of Jan. 1, they face pressure to use their real names, or risk being shut down, reports Fast Company. The government also ruled that “news bloggers” are subject to the same strict censorship as newspapers, including a ban against criticizing sharia law or “compromising public order.” The edict also says that only citizens over 20 are allowed to post news, which excludes the 31 per cent of foreign residents, plus youth—two groups that are most often disaffected. But Tariq al-Homayed, editor-in-chief of the royal-family-owned Asharq Alawsat newspaper, says the decision will reduce harmful rumours. “Anybody who wants to challenge the media is welcome to do so, so long as they do this under their real name,” he wrote.

Although Ahmed al-Omran fears the new rules will silence many bloggers, it hasn’t stopped him from posting on his blog, Saudi Jeans. “Today was a huge day for Tunisia,” he wrote on Jan. 15. “The only thing that annoyed me was that Saudi Arabia welcomed the ousted dictator. Here’s to a domino effect all over the Middle East.”

Dictatorship oil

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, January 11, 2011 at 2:07 PM - 64 Comments

First, a correction. The list of oil sources posted here should have read: Algeria, the United Kingdom, Norway, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Angola, Iraq, Mexico, Venezuela, Russia and the United States. You’ll note that, in the original post, Iran was listed where Angola should have been. My apologies to to the good people of Angola.

Meanwhile, Ezra Levant, seemingly the inspiration for the government’s new rhetoric, continues to draw a line between good oil and bad oil: the former including our crude, the latter including crude from suppliers such as Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Venezuela, Algeria. In total, those four nations account for about 40% of our oil imports.

How ethical is your oil?

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, January 7, 2011 at 5:32 PM - 188 Comments

The Environment Minister observed yesterday (around the 12-minute mark of that interview) that Canada is a supplier of ethical oil—a phrase recently employed by Ezra Levant—because the revenues derived from that oil are not used to “fund terrorism or the destabilization of other governments.” This may or may not beg questions about the origins of our own oil imports.

The latest release of Statistics Canada’s Energy Statistics Handbook lists our sources of crude oil and equivalents going back to 1989. Our noted individual sources in 2010 (through September) were, in order: Algeria, the United Kingdom, Norway, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Iran, Iraq, Mexico, Venezuela, Russia and the United States.

The prince and his manservant

By Leah McLaren - Thursday, November 4, 2010 at 11:20 AM - 0 Comments

Evidence included video footage of Abdulaziz attacked in the hotel’s elevators |Metropolitan Police/Press Association Images

Last week at the Old Bailey courthouse, a prince was jailed for life.

Saud Abdulaziz bin Nasser al Saud, 34-year-old grandson to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and a member of one of the richest and most powerful families in the world, was convicted of murdering his manservant in what Crown prosecutor Jonathan Laidlaw described as “a really terrible, a really brutal attack.” It took place last February, when Bandar Abdulaziz, 32, was found beaten and strangled to death in a room at the five-star Landmark hotel in the upscale central London district of Marylebone. At the time, Saud co-operated fully with police, appearing “shocked and upset” at the death of his companion who, testimony revealed, often slept on the floor at the foot of his bed like a faithful dog. But during the October trial, a different story emerged.

The prince was revealed as a decadent playboy involved in a sadistic sexual relationship with Abdulaziz, a poor orphan—one so psychologically oppressed he did not even put up a fight to save his own life. While a post-mortem revealed Abdulaziz died with chipped teeth, split lips, a fractured rib and severe injuries to his head and internal organs, the prince had not a mark on him. The victim also had strange bite marks on both cheeks, which the prosecution argued were proof (in addition to sexually explicit photos of Abdulaziz on the prince’s phone) that the abuse had “an obvious sexual connotation.”

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A switch to mecca time?

By Julia Belluz - Thursday, September 9, 2010 at 4:00 PM - 0 Comments



SAUDI PRESS AGENCY/AP/CP

Islam’s holy month of Ramadan, which this year ends during the second week of September, revolves around the clock: there’s fasting from dawn to sunset, and prayers five times each day. To help keep time, Saudi Arabia has erected the world’s biggest clock, which started a three-month trial period in Mecca at the beginning of Ramadan.

The opulent four-faced Mecca Clock Royal Tower is a marvel: it soars to 600 m, hovering over Mecca’s Grand Mosque, and when completed will be the world’s second tallest building. The structure reflects a goal by some Muslims to establish “Mecca time” as the universal standard. Scholars and clerics have argued that the Saudi city is the true global meridian, “in perfect alignment with the magnetic north,” and should therefore replace Greenwich Mean Time, which they say was imposed on the world when Britain was a colonial power. In the unlikely event that this comes to pass, the sun will never set on Mecca and its massive clock. Instead of looking up to Big Ben, inscribed in Latin with the phrase ‘Lord, keep safe our Queen Victoria I,’ the new tower’s Arabic inscription, ‘God is greatest,’ will loom above all.

And you all laughed

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, January 28, 2010 at 4:48 PM - 35 Comments

Jack Layton, Sept. 1, 2006. “A comprehensive peace process has to bring all the combatants to the table.”

New York Times, today. Afghanistan’s president declared Thursday that reaching out to the Taliban’s leaders should be a centerpiece of efforts to end the eight-year-old war there, setting in motion a delicate diplomatic process that will carry great risks for both Afghanistan and the United States.

Ahem. Continue…

Jail time for Saudi 'sex braggart'

By Katie Engelhart - Thursday, October 29, 2009 at 5:00 PM - 3 Comments

Some people like to boast about their sexual conquests, others think it uncouth to do so. Here’s a story supporting the latter group: last week, 32-year-old Mazen Abdul-Jawad was sentenced to five years in a Saudi Arabian jail and 1,000 lashes for vaunting his sexual escapades on a Lebanon-based Arabic station, LBC. The self-professed philanderer, a divorced father of four, was detained in July, shortly after appearing on the show Bold Red Line, where he detailed his technique for picking up women at shopping malls—live on TV. He also paraded a number of sex toys in front of the camera, and reflected on losing his virginity at the age of 14.

In the West, Jawad, dubbed a “sex braggart” and the “Saudi Casanova” by the Saudi press, might have simply been written off as a lout looking for his 15 minutes of fame. Not in the kingdom, where unmarried men and women are forbidden from mingling and the Islamic religious elite reigns over many areas of public life. Jawad’s TV escapade led 200 Saudis to file legal complaints against him. Continue…

A co-ed school in Saudi Arabia

By Michael Barclay - Thursday, October 15, 2009 at 4:00 PM - 0 Comments

Education in Saudi Arabia used to be strictly segregated along gender lines. That’s all changed with the opening last month of the kingdom’s first co-ed university—the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). Not only will women be able to study and work alongside men, they won’t be required to wear veils and will be permitted to drive cars—both serious no-nos for all other Saudi women.

It’s a bold move in Saudi Arabia, where the status of women has often been described as akin to apartheid. KAUST exists outside the education ministry—it’s run by Aramco, the state oil company, which invested $10 billion in its construction. The university is part of King Abdullah’s plan to diversify the Saudi economy beyond oil, and to create new opportunities for the large Saudi youth population (more than half of the population is under 25). To do this, KAUST could be considered a trial balloon to expand women’s education. Continue…

This Week: Good news/Bad news

By The Editors - Friday, August 21, 2009 at 9:00 AM - 0 Comments

Face of the week
Suaad Hagi Mohamud is reunited with her son in Toronto after spending three months in Kenya due to an identity dispute

A week in the life of Y.E. Yang
The 37-year-old South Korean arrived at the PGA Championship in Chaska, Minn., ranked 110th in the world. On Friday, he scored a two under par 70, leaving him six strokes behind the leader and odds-on favourite, Tiger Woods. But a 67 on Saturday drew Yang within striking distance of Woods, and on Sunday, he clinched victory on the 18th with a brilliant shot over a tree. After the win, Yang received a congratulatory phone call from South Korean President Lee Myung-bak. Continue…

Diplomacy

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, November 24, 2008 at 8:12 PM - 13 Comments

In a rare show of tactical bipartisanship, the three opposition parties combined to ask four consecutive questions this afternoon on the matter of Omar Khadr. If the opposition persists on this front, it’ll be maybe another week before Irwin Cotler charges across the aisle and strangles Lawrence Cannon.

While reading his prepared lines—amazing that the Conservatives still want to be heard maintaining that Mr. Khadr has been treated “humanely”—the new Foreign Affairs Minister did manage to vow that “the Government of Canada does not want to interfere in the judicial sovereignty of another nation.”

This will surely come as some surprise to Saudi Arabia and the two young Canadians it is currently planning to behead.

Saudi Arabia's first hotel for working women

By Lianne George - Thursday, August 21, 2008 at 4:08 PM - 0 Comments

What do you do when you’re a businesswoman living in a country like Saudi Arabia, where until a few months ago, it was illegal for you to set foot into a hotel (where business is often conducted) without a guardian or “mahram”? (Now, after a Royal Decree was issued by Saudi prince Talal Abdul Aziz Al Saud earlier this year, the only requirement for women checking into a hotel is their national ID card. Also, the front desk must inform the local police of their room reservation and the duration of their stay.)

Well, the new Luthan Hotel and Spa, Saudi Arabia’s first women-only hotel, opened in March, was designed to ameliorate the situation. The project came together under the direction of 20 Saudi princesses and businesswoman, according to an article in Marie Claire magazine this month. Men (even boys) are forbidden from entering the property. All staff are women. Inside is a sort of “sanctuary” for female professionals where they can remove their veils, go for a work-out, or hang out at the spa, and presumably hold meetings without ever having to set eyes on a dude. Which is great. Except of course it doesn’t resolve the little matter of having to conduct business with men, who comprise 95 per cent of the workforce.

Megapundit: The IOC's 'moral midgets'

By selley - Friday, August 15, 2008 at 1:47 PM - 0 Comments

Must-reads: Rosie DiManno and Colby Cosh on Olympic politics; Janet Bagnall on PromArt; Marcus Gee on Georgia; Don Martin on that fall election you’re all dying to vote in.

Political steeplechase
In the wake of day seven of the Olympics, the commentary has gone all serious-like again.

“Who on Earth thinks that children aren’t treated like interchangeable parts all the time on Western TV programs” Colby Cosh asks, apparently unmoved (as are we, quite frankly) by the plight of seven-year-old Yang Peiyi. And who among us believes “that vocal performers singing anthems and other tricky numbers in open-air stadia don’t lip-sync as a matter of course?” Cosh detects the same whiff of hysteria that consumes Canadians whenever our athletes perform below expectations, noting that exactly none of the 15 potential medal-winners the National “We’re getting beaten by Togo” Post identified have yet had their chances to medal. “If we were as self-confident as we fancy ourselves,” he concludes, “we might at least consider making a collective decision to stop worrying quite so much about the Summer Games.”

We were on the fence for much of Rosie DiManno‘s argument that Saudi Arabia should either allow female athletes to compete in the Olympics or be banned, in view of the IOC’s core principle of gender equality, until she reminded us that “South Africa was rendered an Olympic pariah for three decades because of apartheid.” Not to say the two phenomenon are equal, but one IOC member recently rejected the comparison on highly suspect grounds, arguing apartheid can’t “be considered parallel to the effort to bring women into absolutely equal gender balance.” “Balancing the sexes is not even the issue, you hypocritical git,” DiManno quite rightly responds in the Toronto Star. “But spoken like a true moral midget.”

Continue…

How much oil? Send in the auditors.

By Colin Campbell - Wednesday, June 18, 2008 at 11:09 AM - 0 Comments

Some interesting thoughts on oil prices and supply… “The most complicated question of the 21st Century.”

(via The Oil Drum)