Saudi Arabia - Page 14

The internationally recognized government of Yemen and the Houthi rebels that currently control the capital, Sana’a, have agreed to exchange over 1,000 prisoners as part of a confidence-building exercise, the United Nations (U.N.) announced Sunday.

King Salman of Saudi Arabia applauded the administration of President Donald Trump at the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday for its role in helping Arab states normalize relations with Israel.

Saudi state media reported on Sunday that Bahrain foiled a terrorist attack this year allegedly plotted by a group calling itself the “Qasem Soleimani Brigade,” acting with the support of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), itself a designated terrorist organization.

Streaming giant Netflix announced on Wednesday that it has signed a five-year partnership deal with Saudi Arabian animation studio Myrkott, which produces a cartoon series called Masameer that is popular with Middle Eastern audiences.

Oman on Sunday welcomed the normalization deal between Bahrain and Israel, saying it hopes it will contribute to peace throughout the region, state media reported.

This is a miraculous development, one that the foreign policy establishment in Washington, DC, said was impossible. But it is happening, thanks to President Donald Trump.

Former Vice President Joe Biden claimed Thursday that President Donald Trump has “put Israel in danger” — even as more and more Arab and Muslim states make peace with the Jewish state.

Saudi Arabia supports a “fair” solution for the Palestinian cause, King Salman has told Donald Trump in a phone call, as the US President praised the kingdom for opening its airspace to Israel-UAE flights.

Bahrain on Thursday announced it will allow all Israeli flights to the United Arab Emirates to cross through its airspace, a day after Saudi Arabia made a similar declaration.

In a recent article, Wired magazine outlines how an ongoing investigation has revealed that Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s team successfully infiltrate Twitter’s platform to shut down anonymous critics within Saudi Arabia.

In another monumental coup for Israel’s warming ties with Arab Gulf states, Saudi Arabia on Wednesday announced it will allow all Israeli flights to the United Arab Emirates to cross through Saudi airspace.

The first ever direct commercial flight from Israel to the United Arab Emirates took off Monday morning carrying a senior Israeli and American delegation for talks to cement the recently signed U.S.-brokered agreement to establish ties between the two countries.

Saudi Arabia said on Wednesday it would not normalize relations with Israel without an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal, breaking the kingdom’s silence since last Thursday’s announcement to establish diplomatic ties between Israel and the United Arab Emirates.

Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press,” National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien discussed the deal brokered between Israel and the UAE to normalize relations.

Mina (Saudi Arabia) — Muslim pilgrims took part Friday in the “stoning of the devil”, using sanitised pebbles in the last major ritual of the scaled-down hajj as Saudi authorities seek to prevent a coronavirus outbreak.

Saudi authorities arrested 936 people Thursday for allegedly trying to enter Islamic holy sites during the hajj pilgrimage “without prior authorization,” Saudi news outlet al-Arabiya reported.

The Hajj, Islam’s annual pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, began Wednesday with strict government imposed social distancing measures severely limiting attendance of the event — 1,000 pilgrims participated compared to last year’s 2.5 million.

This year’s hajj, which has been scaled back dramatically to include only around 1,000 Muslim pilgrims as Saudi Arabia battles a coronavirus surge, will begin on July 29, authorities said Monday. 

Amman — Jordan’s top court has dissolved the country’s branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, a transnational Islamist movement, an official said Thursday, citing the group’s failure to “rectify its legal status”.

Thursday on MSNBC’s “The Last Word,” House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) said if Congress was delayed in receiving the financial records of President Donald Trump because of court battles, “the country continues to be at jeopardy during that

The Daily Beast published a report Monday documenting “at least 19 fake personas” that managed to “place more than 90 opinion pieces in 46 different publications” over the past year praising the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) while criticizing its adversaries Qatar, Turkey, and Iran.

Fazal Hadi Muslimyar, the head of the Afghan Senate, said during a parliamentary address on Tuesday that many of the Taliban prisoners freed as part of the “peace process” have already returned to the battlefield. 

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Saudi Arabia has issued guidelines for about 1,000 pilgrims who will be allowed to perform the hajj pilgrimage in Mecca later this month, an experience that will be unlike any before because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Saudi Arabia has banned international visitors from making the annual Islamic pilgrimage, or Hajj, this year in a bid to control the spread of the coronavirus.

TEL AVIV – A staunchly pro-Israel Saudi journalist said he was stripped of his citizenship over charges of espionage, Arab media reported.

RIYADH — — Saudi Arabia is expected to scale back or call off this year’s hajj pilgrimage for the first time in its modern history, observers say, a perilous decision as coronavirus cases spike.

TEL AVIV – Saudi Arabia and Israel are holding secret negotiations to allow Saudi representatives to join the Waqf Islamic council that controls the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, according to a report Monday by the Israel Hayom daily.

TEL AVIV — Rep. Ilhan Omar compared Israel with Saudi Arabia in an interview Sunday, saying both countries used money to influence the Trump administration and that as a result Israel’s “destructive policies” were being “rubber stamped” by the U.S.

Riyadh — Saudi Arabia will end its nationwide coronavirus curfew from June 21, except in the holy city of Mecca, the interior ministry said Tuesday, after more than two months of stringent curbs.

The Ministry of the Interior of Saudi Arabia on Friday announced a 24-hour coronavirus lockdown and nationwide curfew for the Eid al-Fitr holiday, which is scheduled for May 23 to 27 in the kingdom.

Residents of Saudi Arabia who violate the country’s coronavirus ban on large gatherings will be permanently banished from the Kingdom, the nation’s interior ministry announced Tuesday, Saudi news site al-Arabiya reported.

Muslims in Saudi Arabia will be allowed to perform their Eid al-Fitr prayers at home this year as a result of the closure of mosques in response to the Chinese coronavirus pandemic, local news service Al Arabiya reported Monday.

President Donald Trump mocked the media Monday for asking him about the firing of State Department Inspector General Steve Linick last Friday, who was apparently looking into claims that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had asked a staffer to walk his dog, among other personal errands.

Saudi Arabia will maintain a national curfew the during the five-day Eid al-Fitr holiday, which begins in a little more than a week, state media said Wednesday.

Washington — Boeing has been awarded two contracts worth more than $2 billion for the delivery of more than 1,000 air-to-surface and anti-ship missiles to Saudi Arabia, the Pentagon said Wednesday.

In a federal court filing made last month, but not unsealed until last week, the FBI’s counterterrorism division accidentally revealed the name of an official from Saudi Arabia’s embassy in Washington who has long been suspected of assisting the al-Qaeda terrorists who carried out the 9/11 attacks.