city:riyadh

Saudi vegetable seller dies after self-immolation
http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/saudi-vegetable-seller-dies-after-self-immolation

A Saudi newspaper says a vegetable seller who set himself on fire in Riyadh after police confiscated his goods for standing in an unauthorized area has died.

The website for newspaper Sada reported that the man, identified only by the family name of Sureihi, died in hospital late on Friday.

The self-immolation emulated that of a street vendor in Tunisia, whose 2011 death inspired a series of uprisings in the region.

Saudi vegetable seller dies from self-immolation-
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2013/May-19/217614-saudi-vegetable-seller-dies-from-self-immolation.ashx#axzz2Tk7R

RIYADH: A Saudi newspaper says a vegetable seller who set himself on fire in Riyadh after police confiscated his goods for standing in an unauthorized area has died.

The website for newspaper Sada reported that the man, identified only by the family name of Sureihi, died in hospital late on Friday.

Religious police head in social media warning | GulfNews.com
http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/saudi-arabia/religious-police-head-in-social-media-warning-1.1184251

Social networks and microblogs, particularly Twitter, cannot be guidelines in people’s lives, the head of the Saudi Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice has said. “Those who resort to social networks and microblogs, especially Twitter, as their guides have lost their lives and their afterlife,” Shaikh Abdul Lateef Al Shaikh said. “Twitter has become a platform for whoever does not have a platform,” he said in the Saudi capital Riyadh, quoted by local Arabic daily Al Watan. Saudi Arabia has been pushing an integrated legal, media and social drive to confront the “deviant mindset” of extremists and arch-conservatives influenced by calls, often made online, to jihad and holy wars.

New Coronavirus case in KSA

Riyadh: A new case of the deadly coronavirus has been detected in Saudi Arabia where 15 people have already died after contracting it, the health ministry announced on Saturday on its internet website.

“One new case of novel coronavirus recorded in the Eastern Region” where most of the kingdom’s cases have been registered, said the ministry, which last week created a special web page dedicated to the outbreak.

http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/saudi-arabia/new-case-of-coronavirus-in-saudi-arabia-1.1184978

Saudi-Qatar Honeymoon In Lebanon is Over
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/05/qatar-saudi-arabia-stuggle-influence-middle-east.html

In its internal discussions, Hezbollah affirms that Qatari funding stands behind the rise of Sheikh Ahmad al-Assir, who came to prominence in the last two years by challenging and criticizing Hezbollah from his Bilal bin Rabah mosque in Sidon. Hezbollah’s information also indicates that Saudi Arabia is funding Salafist factions in Lebanon that profess animosity towards the party.

(En dehors de ce paragraphe, c’est le genre d’article que je trouve totalement spéculatif.)

Saudis overtaking Qatar in sponsoring Syrian rebels- http://www.thenational.ae/thenationalconversation/comment/saudis-overtaking-qatar-in-sponsoring-syrian-rebels

Par Hassan Hassan, qui présente comme d’habitude les Saoud comme des paragons de vertu.

Arabie Saoudite : des centres pour réinsérer les anciens islamistes - France Info
►http://www.franceinfo.fr/monde/arabie-saoudite-prison-5-etoiles-978073-2013-05-06

L’Arabie Saoudite tente de réinsérer les anciens islamistes proches d’Al-Qaïda. Une réinsertion qui passe par des centres de réhabilitation. Des établissements très confortables que France Info a pu visiter en exclusivité. Notre correspondante Clarence Rodriguez a pu recueillir les confessions d’un ancien terroriste d’Al-Qaïda passé par ce centre. Exceptionnellement, il a accepté de se confier à une journaliste femme.

166 ‘reformed’ militants freed | ArabNews
http://www.arabnews.com/news/450607

L’objectif des wahabo/saoud est l’adoption d’une « voie modérée de l’islam. » #Hallucinant

http://www.arabnews.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/galleryformatter_slide/homecoming.jpg

grippe #chiroptère, #NCoV , ça faisait longtemps qu’on n’en avait pas entendu parler.
Saudi Arabia reports 7 cases of SARS-like virus
http://www.newsday.com/news/world/saudi-arabia-reports-7-cases-of-sars-like-virus-1.5186071

Saudi Arabia’s Health Ministry said Thursday that five people have died and two other patients were in critical condition with confirmed cases of a new respiratory virus related to SARS.
The ministry said in a statement that it had informed the World Health Organization of the seven new cases of novel coronavirus.
(…)
Since September 2012, WHO has been informed of 24 confirmed cases. Sixteen of the patients died.

Australian on trial for terrorism in Saudi Arabia - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-05-01/australian-on-trial-for-terrorism-in-saudi-arabia/4663718

The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFAT) has confirmed an Australian man is on trial for alleged terrorism-related offences in Saudi Arabia.

DFAT says the 25-year-old, named in the media as Shayden Thorne from Perth, was arrested 18 months ago and is being detained in a prison outside Riyadh.

His brother, Junaid Muhammed Thorne, 23, is also in the country but is in hiding after being released from prison after two months of detention without being charged.

Junaid’s cousin, Stephanie Riley, says Shayden was arrested after police found terrorism-related material on a laptop that he had borrowed.

Article apocalyptique dans le New York Times : Islamist Rebels’ Gains in Syria Create Dilemma for U.S.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/28/world/middleeast/islamist-rebels-gains-in-syria-create-dilemma-for-us.html

Across Syria, rebel-held areas are dotted with Islamic courts staffed by lawyers and clerics, and by fighting brigades led by extremists. Even the Supreme Military Council, the umbrella rebel organization whose formation the West had hoped would sideline radical groups, is stocked with commanders who want to infuse Islamic law into a future Syrian government.

Nowhere in rebel-controlled Syria is there a secular fighting force to speak of.

(C’est moi qui souligne cette dernière phrase.)

Ne pas se méprendre : ça ne veut pas dire que c’est plus vrai que lorsque le New York Times ment dans l’autre sens… Mon intérêt ici, c’est à nouveau de remarquer qu’il y a d’un côté l’habituel discours assez simple et binaire des dirigeants (avec spectaculaire alignement du gouvernement français), mais qu’il y a aussi, quasiment depuis le début, nombre de tribunes totalement contraires dans les médias. Certes loin d’être majoritaires, mais beaucoup plus forts et présents que pour d’autres guerres. Et ces discours hétérodoxes (pendant que les gouvernements occidentaux refont le coup des armes de destruction massive) débarquent au NY Times. C’est assez curieux.

Saudi May Confiscate Unused Land For Housing
A shortage of land in big cities has frustrated efforts to build half a million homes - a project ordered by King Abdullah in 2011.

Wealthy Saudis have bought residential land plots around the country as long-term investments, pushing up prices and making them too costly for developers of lower-income housing. Under a previous system, other plots were awarded as land grants to citizens who could not afford to develop them.

A royal decree earlier this month ordered ministries to give up land for development to the Housing Ministry.

“The expropriation of properties for the public interest is done around the world. We might do it in a limited way,” said Housing Minister Shuwaish al-Duwaihi in comments in a television interview reported by the Arab News newspaper.

Unused military land will also be used for future housing, he added. “We are coordinating with military sectors to take their lands which they don’t need,” he said.

Reuters

http://gulfbusiness.com/2013/04/saudi-may-confiscate-unused-land-for-housing

Saudi Center Aims for ‘Life After Jihad’ - Middle East Real Time - WSJ
http://blogs.wsj.com/middleeast/2013/04/24/saudi-rehab-center-aims-to-shape-life-after-jihad

http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-XE715_Saudi__E_20130423104621.jpg

“And this is the indoor pool,” one of the builders of the new rehab center in Riyadh said, ushering Saudi and foreign journalists into a vast room with what appeared to be an Olympic-size pool, with sparkling blue water lapping at the sides.

Other highlights of the press tour of the Mohammed bin Nayef Care and Counseling Center included an outdoor pool, a professional-size soccer pitch, a gym with sauna and steam room, dining halls, dorms, classrooms and other gathering places.

After prison and rehab, many ex-offenders are offered help finding housing, jobs, and even wives. The rehab program maintains a 90% success rate, said Maj. Gen. Mansour al Turki, spokesman for the Interior Ministry, which runs the rehab program. The Saudi program has influenced other subsequent rehab programs in Asia and Europe, and elsewhere in the Middle East.

Découverte d’une vaste réserve de pétrole au Yémen qui ferait trembler l’Arabie Saoudite

Oil has become the new object of dispute between Saudi Arabia and Yemen, after news reports and Yemeni sources recently revealed that Yemen enjoyed the largest oil well in the world, and that a small part of this well extended to Saudi Arabia at a depth of 1,800 meters. They indicated that while Riyadh boasts 34% of the global oil reserves, the discovery of these oil wells in Yemen will allow it to have an extra 34% in reserves, which would give Yemen an upper hand whose future consequences is feared by Saudi Arabia. Indeed, the oil wells on top of which Yemen is sitting are mainly located in vital areas, such as the one situated between Jawf, Ma’reb and the Rub’ al-Khali [Empty Quarter] Desert.

Al Masri Al Yum
http://today.almasryalyoum.com/article2.aspx?ArticleID=379533

Pour les opposants politiques, le Royaume promet répression et torture ; pour les anciens d’Al Qaeda, des vacances dans un spa avec piscine, sauna et cours de rattrapage en wahhabisme.
http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/saudi-opens-luxury-resort-rehabilitate-qaeda-prisoners

Saudi Arabia is hoping to turn jailed al-Qaeda militants off terrorism with counselling, spa treatments, exercise and by insisting on its slightly less radical brand of Salafism at a new luxury rehabilitation center in Riyadh.

In between sessions with counselors and talks on religion, prisoners will be able to relax in the center’s facilities which include an Olympic-size indoor swimming pool, a sauna, a gym and a television hall.

The new complex is the work of the Prince Mohammed bin Nayef Center for Counselling and Care, a body set up seven years ago to rehabilitate extremists jailed during a Saudi crackdown on the local branch of al-Qaeda.

“Just under 3,000 (Islamist prisoners) will have to go through one of these centers before they can be released,” interior ministry spokesman General Mansur al-Turki told AFP during a tour of the new center.

La preuve : ça marche !

But not everyone is convinced that the program could tame the fighters. There have been some high-profile returns to the ranks of the jihad, such as Saeed al-Shehri, who became deputy leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula after supposedly being rehabilitated.

Si le centre respecte les habitudes des princes séoudiens en matière de luxe, il doit aussi y avoir prostituées venues d’Europe de l’Est avec un visa artistique. #oupas

Saudi Ambassador to Lebanon Courts Hezbollah
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/politics/2013/04/saudi-arabia-ambassador-lebanon.html

Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Lebanon, Ali Awad al-Asiri, has been the focus of attention lately as a result of remarkable political overtures toward internal factions that the kingdom, and its ambassador, had had frosty or nonexistent relations with, particularly the Free Patriotic Movement.

En Royaume des al Saud, trois jeunes Emiratis ont été renvoyé chez-eux parce que trop beaux !!!!
http://now.msn.com/united-arab-emirates-men-ejected-from-saudi-arabian-festival-for-being-too-

Syria: Jordan to spearhead Saudi Arabian arms drive | World news | The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/14/syria-jordan-spearhead-saudi-arms-drive

Jordan has agreed to spearhead a Saudi-led push to arm rebel groups through its borders into southern Syria, in a move that coincides with the transfer from Riyadh to Amman of more than $1bn (£650m).

It marks a significant change for Jordan, from a policy of trying to contain the spillover threat posed by the civil war across its border to one of actively aiming to end it before it engulfs the cash-strapped kingdom.

Saudi labour restrictions spark anger, fear among expats

Under new rules imposed this year, foreigners are allowed to work only for their legal sponsors in the kingdom while their spouses cannot take up jobs.

The change in the law affects millions of expatriates in the Gulf state and has sparked fears of mass deportations of migrant workers.

Some 200,000 people, mostly Asians and Yemenis, have already been expelled from the oil-rich kingdom in the past three months due to the new restrictions, immigration officials say.

Many foreigners enter Saudi Arabia under the sponsorship of a Saudi national but end up working for others, or set up their own businesses.

Saudi Arabia officially hosts eight million foreign workers, while economists say there are another two million unregistered non-Saudi workers in the kingdom.

In a calming measure, King Abdullah on Saturday ordered the interior and labour ministries to allow “workers violating the labour and residency system a maximum of three months to rectify their situation.”
The practice of sponsoring expatriates, which repeatedly comes under fire from rights groups, has become a lucrative business for many Saudis who engage in trafficking of work visas.

http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/68998.aspx

. :ميدل ايست اونلاين ::Middle East Online :.
http://www.middle-east-online.com/?id=152856

انتصار جديد للمرأة السعودية بين ألفي رجل

Un petit pas, la profession d’avocate ouverte aux femmes en Arabie saoudite.

Visite du PM de Bahrein à ses amis saoudiens :

Bahrain and Saudi Arabia have reiterated strong support for each other’s stability and security as “firm and consistent positions within their policies”.

The pledge was renewed during a one-day visit by Bahrain’s Prime Minister Prince Khalifa Bin Salman Al Khalifa to Riyadh for a meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Salman Bin Abdul Aziz.

“HRH Prince Salman, the Crown Prince, Deputy Premier and Defence Minister reiterated the support of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to the Kingdom of Bahrain in all matters that preserve its security, stability and sovereignty,” Bahrain News Agency (BNA) reported. “HRH Prince Salman stressed that this support is a robust and steady position within the Saudi policy.”

In a statement, Prince Khalifa said that Bahrain “stresses its firm and strong support to the sister state of Saudi Arabia on all measures it takes to preserve its security and boost its stability as it faces terrorism and endeavours to eradicate its roots”.

http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/bahrain/bahrain-saudi-arabia-reiterate-mutual-support-1.1167612

Lebanon: Tammam Salam’s Path to Prime Minister
http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/lebanon-tammam-salam%E2%80%99s-path-prime-minister

How did Lebanon and Saudi Arabia’s power brokers decide on Tammam Salam as the country’s next prime minister? Al-Akhbar explains how former prime minister Mikati’s calculations failed him and paved the way for Salam’s rise.

When former prime minister Fouad Siniora delivered his speech to the massive crowds at the funeral of Wissam al-Hassan, the assassinated intelligence chief, standing next to him was none other than Tammam Salam.

Last night, Siniora and Salam were side-by-side once again, this time at Saad Hariri’s downtown mansion. The Arab and international signal had been given to begin negotiations on a new prime minister. With that, MP Salam is now the next prime minister in waiting.

Rien ne va plus en Arabie où l’application des dispositions pour déporter les étrangers en situation irrégulière ont fait paniquer les conducteurs de camion-citernes qui, en infraction à la loi sur le travail, se sont arrêtés de travailler...
Dans les files d’attente, les rumeurs, parmi les citoyens privés d’eau depuis parfois 2 semaines, les rumeurs vont bon train contre les officiels accusés de se servir d’eau en priorité..

http://www.saudigazette.com.sa/index.cfm?method=home.regcon&contentid=20130405159988

Alwaleed bin Talal: Revolutions of ‘Arab Chaos’ won’t reach Gulf region

Middle East Online

Saudi billionaire prince Prince Alwaleed regretted the “negative” outcome of Arab Spring uprisings, saying the politics of new Islamist-dominated governments “do not reflect the aspirations of the people ... for freedom and justice.”

Prince Alwaleed, the richest Arab businessman and a nephew of King Abdullah, said in a television interview aired late Tuesday that uprisings which toppled strong Arab leaders would not reach the Gulf monarchies, where “the leaders look after the interests of their peoples,” said the prince.

Prince Alwaleed bin Talal has also called for parliamentary elections in the absolute monarchy where the king names members of a toothless Shura consultative council.

The Prince added that the monarch’s January decision to appoint 30 women to the council was “very important” but needed to go further.

“For this to become historic, I think two things are essential: first, elections, even if partial, and, more importantly, (giving) powers,” he said in the interview aired on several channels, most belonging to his media empire.

The prince also said that ending a ban on women driving in Saudi Arabia was a matter of time, despite strong resistance from religious conservatives in the desert kingdom that is the birthplace of Islam.

“I think that driving (for women) is definitely coming,” he said, playing up the economic benefits of saving wages paid to foreign drivers.

http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=57899

En écho à l’information d’Al Jazira selon laquelle les femmes pourraient être autorisées, en Arabie Saoudite, à faire du vélo dans certaines zones, il est bon de rappeler le sympathique film de Haifaa al-Mansour’s, “Wadjda,” (2012) sur le même thème (voir ci-dessous).

By AL ARABIYA WITH AGENCIES (2012)
The Saudi female director of a new feature film, showing at the Venice film festival, has explained how she beat the odds to produce the heartwarming tale of a girl’s quest to own a bicycle. In Haifaa al-Mansour’s landmark film “Wadjda,” 10-year-old Waad Mohammed plays a girl who is also testing the boundaries of a woman’s place in a highly conservative society where her love for Western music and fashions land her in trouble. Mohammed’s impish personality and resilience in the face of adversity add to the poignancy of the story and left some of the film’s first viewers in tears. (…) Al-Mansour said she was forced to direct what is her first feature film from a van with a walkie-talkie in some of the more conservative neighborhoods where she could not be seen in public together with male crew and cast members. In some areas, screaming local residents would block shooting altogether.

http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/09/01/235466.html
http://riyadhconnect.com/wajda-film-by-first-female-saudi-director-wins-critical-acclaim-at-ve