Saudi Arabia - Page 33

The Ritz-Carlton Riyadh will reopen to the general public in February after three months of serving as a temporary detention center for royals, officials, and businessmen caught up in Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s anti-corruption crackdown.

Prince Abdullah bin Saud bin Mohammed was named president of the Saudi Marine Sports Federation in October. His tenure came to an abrupt end after three months on Wednesday, when he was sacked over his criticism of royal arrests seen by skeptics as part of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s effort to consolidate power.

SAUDI police have arrested young men who were sprayed with confetti in a “gay wedding video”. Mecca police made the arrests after the men were seen walking side by side on a carpet at an outdoor festival in the holy city.

TEL AVIV – Saudi Arabia is considering purchasing Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system in an effort to counter the threat from Iran, prominent Swiss paper Basler Zeitung reported this week.

Iran’s foreign minister on Monday warned neighboring countries against fomenting unrest after anti-government protests roiled the country over the past two weeks.

Contents: Rohingya ARSA attack on Burma (Myanmar) police complicates fantasy repatriation plans; Rohingya refugee crisis in Bangladesh continues to grow

A football match scheduled for this Friday in Saudi Arabia will mark the first time women in the Gulf kingdom have been allowed to venture to a sporting event.

Saudi Arabia’s attorney general on Sunday confirmed 11 princes had been arrested after protesting the kingdom’s austerity measures and would face trial after “disrupting public peace and order”.

Contents: Iranian advisors are ‘on the ground’ with Houthis in Yemen, supplying weapons and intelligence; Forces realign in the Yemen war following the death of Ali Abdullah Saleh

Two months after a sweeping series of arrests and temporary detentions made in connection with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s corruption probe, the fate of perhaps the biggest fish caught in the net remains uncertain: Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, one of the most wealthy, famous, and well-connected men in the world.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei blamed unspecified “enemies of Iran” for the growing protests against his Islamic regime continuing Tuesday, implying protesters are receiving “money, weapons, politics and intelligence” from abroad.

Contents: Iran protesters kill a police officer in escalating violence; Trump and Netanyahu express solidarity with Iranian protesters

Dismissing the notion of any Israeli connection to the ongoing protests in Iran, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the “heroic” demonstrators protesting against the “cruel regime” in a YouTube video published Monday.

TEL AVIV — The riots in the streets of Iran have excited social media networks in the Sunni Arab world ever since they first broke out, with many expressing their hope that the confrontations would harm the extremist Iranian regime, which is trying to exert its influence over Arab states.

King Abdullah of Jordan reportedly fired his brothers Prince Feisal and Prince Ali and his cousin Prince Talal on Friday, relieving them of important military posts.

A two-time world female chess champion from Ukraine has decided to skip an upcoming tournament in Saudi Arabia, even though doing so will cause her to lose her titles because she refuses to be treated like a “secondary creature” in the Saudi Kingdom.

TEL AVIV — A chess grandmaster was forced to surrender her title for refusing to wear a traditional Arab robe in a major chess tournament held in Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia kicked off a world chess tournament Tuesday amid controversy over the kingdom denying visas to players from Israel and barring from attending.

Citing a dozen “Western, Lebanese, and regional officials and associates” of Lebanon’s Prime Minister Saad Hariri, on Christmas Eve the New York Times published an account of Hariri’s resignation (and later un-resignation) that asserts he was forced out of office by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as part of Saudi Arabia’s cold war against Iran.

TEL AVIV — Sunni Arab countries are reportedly fuming at Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas over his reaction to the American recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, according to Israeli paper Israel Hayom.

After apparently being barred from participating in a tournament in Saudi Arabia, the Israel Chess Federation is refusing to concede it has been checkmated in its bid to make history.

Although failing to match up to the dizzy heights of a U.S. presidential election year, 2017 has been another eventful year for world politics.

Place a temporary hold on U.S. funding for the United Nations except in the case of urgent humanitarian relief. Set up a committee to review all U.S. UN contributions.

Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, noted this week that there is mounting evidence showing that Iran is indeed arming Shiite Houthi rebels in Yemen in violation of the U.N. resolution that codifies the nuclear deal between the Islamic Republic and world powers into international law.

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have engaged in discussions with the Muslim Brotherhood (MB)-affiliated Islah party in Yemen as part of its efforts against Iranian-backed Shiite rebels in the war-ravaged country.

Turkish authorities will not allow New Year celebrations at Istanbul’s iconic Taksim Square for security reasons, state media reported Wednesday, quoting local officials.

Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels attacked the capital of Saudi Arabia, with a ballistic missile on Tuesday, specifically targeting the Saudi royal palace. Saudi media reports that air defenses were able to intercept the missile. Reporters in Riyadh heard an explosion and saw a “plume of smoke” in the sky above the city.

Saudi Arabia will begin issuing tourist visas in the first quarter of 2018, its top tourism official said, a first for the kingdom as it undergoes major economic and social reforms.

A report in Saudi outlet Al Arabiya on Monday cites local sources in Yemen as claiming that internal strife among the nation’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels has claimed the lives of more than 30 fighters who attempted to desert the movement.

Hollywood star John Travolta has wooed fans during a visit to Saudi Arabia, where authorities have said that commercial cinemas will reopen next year after more than a three-decade ban on movie theaters.

The United States on Thursday displayed incontrovertible proof Iran has violated multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions against weapons proliferation in the form of missiles and explosives recovered from Middle Eastern battlefields by America’s allies.

Contents: Organization of Islamic Cooperation throws a temper tantrum over Jerusalem; Palestinians disappointed by final communiqué of OIC Summit

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) held an emergency summit called by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Istanbul on Tuesday. The meeting produced a resolution calling for the United States to rescind its formal recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and vaguely threatened “political and economic restrictions” against countries, presumably including the U.S., which defy the OIC’s demands.

Speaking from a meeting of Arab League foreign ministers in Cairo on Saturday, Lebanese Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil called for “pre-emptive measures” against the U.S. decision to move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. He said this should begin with “diplomatic measures” and then proceed to “political, then economic and financial sanctions” against the United States.

RIYADH – Saudi Arabia on Monday lifted a decades-long ban on cinemas, part of a series of social reforms by the powerful crown prince that are shaking up the ultra-conservative kingdom.

Contents: Protests fizzle 3 days after Trump’s Jerusalem announcement was universally condemned; Trump’s proclamation hardens splits among Arab countries