April 29

AMEINFO - Saudi Arabia has just announced that its inflation surged to 9.6% in March, still lower than the inflation levels in Qatar and the UAE, but very challenging for an economy where lower income earning groups are hard hit by the increasing cost of food.

High oil prices are to blame for mounting inflation rates in the region, alongside local currencies that are pegged to the US dollar at a time of falling interest rates.

High oil prices are fuelling domestic investment and global business is flocking to the region putting further pressure on the existing supply of accommodation and other infrastructure.

From tonight's Nelson Report comes some interesting comments and an element of reconsideration (or consternation):

SUMMARY: the super-classified briefing for select Members on Capitol Hill was promptly given to the TV networks, a move which didn't make Congress any happier about the seven-month delay in explaining why the US thinks Israel wiped-out a North Korean aided nuclear plant in Syria.

In fact, our experts see no reason for Israel to bomb, as no way the plant was able to produce nuclear weapons grade materials, even IF it was a nuclear plant, which some still challenge.

Sheesh, this is just absolutely unreal, proving once again that truth is stranger than fiction. It's complicated and convoluted and I'll be following this story (and its spin-offs) more closely in the near future. But for now from tonight's Nelson Report on 'that Syrian nuke facility' and how the North Koreans were involved in it:

SUMMARY: six months after the event, Capitol Hill finally got a full-scale briefing on the Syrian plant destroyed by Israeli bombs after photo-recon allegedly proved it was a nuclear facility patterned after N. Korea's Yongbyon.

Allegedly intended to boost the Administration's case for continued 6 Party negotiations with N. Korea, carrying out the "Singapore" finesse of us telling the DPRK what it's doing, and they not denying it?

But...it may have had the opposite effect, especially since they are denying it for now, pending what Korea desk chief Sung Kim brings back.

CIA obviously mistrusted Capitol Hill capacity to "leak" responsibly, objectively...why else the leaks, starting Tuesday, with emphasis on what the intel community wants Cap Hill to hear, think?

NY Times story this morning hints that A/S Chris Hill is on the way out, and allegedly close associates seem to feel they can say he will quit soon, if he isn't forced out.

The "real story" on Syria intel reflects intrigue inside the White House, between "war with Syria" advocates vs those who have actually learned a few things from Iraq.

At a minimum, you have to worry that regardless of what happens in Pyongyang, the 6 Party process is about to be scuttled right here in Washington...stay tuned.

If you want the full story there's more.

April 10

Independent - The Serious Fraud Office's decision to drop its investigation into alleged bribery and corruption involving arms deals between BAE Systems and Saudi Arabia was overturned by the High Court today.

The ruling was an extraordinary victory for anti-bribery pressure group Corner House Research and the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT).

The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) investigation arose out of BAE's £43 billion Al-Yamamah arms deal with Saudi Arabia in 1985, which provided Tornado and Hawk jets plus other military equipment. background

William Fisher | New York | April 9

IPS - Jordan, often described in the mainstream press as the most moderate country in the Arab Middle East, was the first to receive prisoners "as a true proxy jailer for the CIA" and has received more victims of "extraordinary rendition" than any other country in the world, according to a new report by Human Rights Watch (HRW).

The report charges that U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, were aware that "Jordan was already notorious for torturing security detainees" because the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) "already had a history of close relations" with Jordan's General Intelligence Department (GID).

HRW charges that "Torture and cruel or inhuman treatment seems to have been systematically used" against most of the detainees rendered by the CIA to Jordan. "Detainees claim they were threatened, beaten, insulted, deprived of sleep, and subjected to falaqa -- a form of torture in which the soles of the feet are beaten with an object," HRW says.

The report claims that rendered prisoners were "hidden whenever the International Committee of the Red Cross visited".

The report:“Double Jeopardy: CIA Renditions to Jordan

Washington | April 4

Reuters - A U.S. B-1 bomber crashed at an air base in Qatar on Friday, a U.S. defense official said, adding the cause was still unknown.

"A B-1 crashed. We're investigating," the official said.

Qatar-based Al Jazeera television earlier said the plane was a B-52. The U.S. official said it was a B-1.

The B-1 is a long-range bomber aircraft capable of flying intercontinental missions without refueling and is able to penetrate sophisticated defensive networks.

U.S. defense officials had few details on Friday's crash, saying they did not know how many people were on board or what mission the bomber was conducting.

Dominic Moran | Tel Aviv | April 4

ISN - A period of hiatus following a wave of Arab nuclear announcements appears to have ended with the signing of a Franco-UAE atomic pact, as Egypt prepares to launch a tender for the country's first nuclear energy plant.

There are strong indications that the UAE deal could constitute the first step in a developing trend of atomic development and competition promoted both by pressing energy needs and regional instability.

M K Bhadrakumar | March 29

Asia Times - When US President George W Bush named Karachi-born Pakistani American Sada Cumber as the first US envoy to the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), the White House announcement of February 27 almost passed off as pork-barrel politics on the part of a lame-duck administration. Cumber is a Texan entrepreneur - and so was Bush.

Cumber is founder of CACH Capital Management based in Austin, Texas, which is a high-performance wealth management firm with acumen and expertise in rendering advisory services to Muslim countries flushed with disposable petrodollar sovereign wealth funds. But then wouldn't Bush know the OIC is not an institution for investment selection and portfolio structure?

White House press secretary Dana Perino explained that Bush considered the OIC to be an important organization and that's why he appointed a special envoy. She said, "The [OIC] has a constructive role to play in the world, and the president is signaling our desire to have a greater dialogue with the organization as well as Muslims around the world." But the OIC has been existence for 39 years - and Muslims for over a millennium. Why now?

Sami Moubayed | Damascus | March 29

Asia Times - Clashes took place last week in the Kurdish district of Qamishly, northeastern Syria, between Syrian security and Kurds celebrating their Nawrooz new year. Three Kurds were killed, enraging both Masoud al-Barazani, the president of Iraqi Kurdistan (a former ally of Syria) and Iraqi President Jalal Talabani.

This might explain why Talabani will not be heading his country's delegation to the upcoming Arab summit in Damascus this weekend. Barazani said, "We strongly condemn the killing of the innocent people in Qamishly. These people were just celebrating the beginning of their new year and had committed no crime," calling on the Syrians to launch an investigation into the event.

Cairo | March 26

M&C - A deep inter-Arab rift over Lebanon's political standoff has hit the upcoming summit of Arab heads of state hosted by Syria, with leaders of Saudi Arabia and Egypt staying away and lebanon boycotting it.

Yet the Syrians are pretending the non-attendance is not uncommon, and saying the Lebanese absentees are missing a 'golden chance.'

But the absence of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and Egyptian President Hosny Mubarak, two regional heavyweights, masks irreconcilable differences with Syria over Lebanon.

Both leaders are not only snubbing the Damascus summit but have also downgraded their representation, instead of sending their foreign ministers who would normally attend the annual summits.

** Egypt snubs Arab summit as tensions run high
** Lebanon: Not taking the road to Damascus
** Saudi King to Skip Arab Summit
** Syrian accuses U.S. of trying to 'torpedo' summit
** Arab summit riddled with divisions

Ghazanfar Ali Khan | Riyadh | March 24

Arab News - The Shoura Council has discussed a national plan to deal with any potential leakage of radioactive material in the Kingdom following warnings of possible attacks on Iran’s nuclear reactors.

“The plan to check radiation hazards was discussed by Shoura members, but it will be discussed and reviewed again before being tabled for voting,” a Shoura Council member said yesterday.

“The King Abdulaziz City for Science & Technology (KACST) has prepared a proposal that encapsulates the probabilities of a nuclear and radiation leak in case of any unexpected attacks,” said the Shoura member, speaking on condition of anonymity.

March 19

PressTV - Two Kuwaiti TV stations have said the country's opposition-dominated parliament had been dissolved amid a long-running political crisis.

Al-Watan and al-Rai stations said Wednesday's meeting, called on by Kuwait's Emir, Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, had concluded with a decision too dissolve the parliament, paving way for snap elections.

March 18

BBC - A Yemeni guard has been killed in an explosion near the US embassy in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, an official has said, quoted by AP news agency.

A mortar was fired at a school next to the embassy in the central district of Sawan, reports say.

Other guards and some children were said to be wounded. It is not clear whether the embassy was the target.

John Hooper | Rome | March 18

The Guardian, - · Pope's spokesman hopeful of 'historic' agreement
· Secret negotiations follow King Abdullah's Rome visit

The Vatican has been holding secret talks with the Saudi Arabian authorities on building churches in Muhammad's homeland, according to one of Pope Benedict's most senior Middle East representatives. Archbishop Paul-Mounged El-Hashem said: "Discussions are under way to allow the construction of churches in the kingdom. We cannot forecast the outcome."

But, speaking to the news agency Agence France-Presse, the Lebanese prelate, the Pope's envoy in the Gulf, added: "There are around three or four million Christians in Saudi Arabia, and we hope they will have churches."

At the Vatican, the Pope's spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi, said: "If we manage to obtain authorisation for the construction of the first church, it will be an outcome of historic dimensions."

March 11

BBC -

Saudi women's rights activists have posted on the web a video of a woman at the wheel of her car, in protest at the ban on female drivers in the kingdom.

Wajeha Huwaider talks of the injustice of the ban and calls for its abolition as she drives calmly along a highway.

She says the film was posted to mark International Women's Day. Thousands have viewed it on the YouTube website.

The last such public show of dissent was in 1990 when dozens of women were arrested for circling Riyadh in cars

Riyadh | March 9

AP - Saudi Arabia's top religious authority warned Saudis against giving money to "evil" organizations, a newspaper considered close to the government reported Saturday.

Just days before the warning by Sheikh Abdul-Aziz Abdullah al-Sheikh, grand mufti of Saudi Arabia, police intercepted a phone message purportedly from al-Qaida's No. 2 leader, Ayman al-Zawahri. In the audio recording, al-Zawahri exhorts followers to collect money for needy families in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"It is bad to give funds to just anyone who asks, and to parties with shabby reputations or unknown backing," the mufti said in the statement published in the daily newspaper al-Okaz.

"It's even worse to give it to an organization that's known for its evil and for hurting Islam and its followers," he added in an apparent reference to al-Qaida.

The oil-rich kingdom, birthplace of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, has been waging a crackdown on the group's militants since a 2003 wave of attacks on foreigners here.

Jad Mouawad | March 6

IHT - OPEC, rebuffing calls from U.S. President George W. Bush to increase oil output, cited "mismanagement" of the American economy as a major factor driving prices up.

Record prices are suddenly creating the sharpest tensions in years between the oil cartel and the United States, the world's largest oil consumer. Two days after the president called for more oil on the global market, OPEC members, meeting in Vienna, Austria, chose to leave their production levels unchanged, declaring that the market has plenty of oil already.

The cartel's president on Wednesday blamed financial speculators and American economic problems, which have helped lower the value of the dollar, for the high oil prices. After the meeting, oil prices settled above $104 a barrel, a record.

"I think it's a mistake to have your biggest customer's economy to slow down" because of high energy prices, he(Bush) said.

Chakib Khelil, Algeria's oil minister and OPEC's president this year, said Wednesday that the high price of oil was due not to a lack of supplies, but instead resulted from the "mismanagement of the U.S. economy" that has helped send the dollar tumbling.

Hannah Allam | Abu Dhabi | Feb 28

McClatchy - Red carpet met sand earlier this month at a soiree that not so long ago would have been unlikely in this desert city-state.

Hired models in cocktail dresses welcomed guests who spilled from Rolls-Royces. Cameras flashed as members of Abu Dhabi's royal family took their seats before enormous white screens.

The affair was the launch of a $15 billion development known as Masdar City. Its goal: Create the greenest outpost on the planet, a futuristic zero-carbon, no-waste, car-free compound in a place that lives almost exclusively on sales of crude oil. The irony didn't go unmentioned.

"Now, you may be asking, 'Why would Abu Dhabi proactively seek a key role in alternative energy?' " Sultan al Jaber, Masdar's California-educated chief executive officer, told the crowd. "The short answer is: because we can, and because we should."

more

Amman | Feb 25

IHT - Even as it enriches Arab rulers, the recent oil-price boom is helping to propel an extraordinary rise in the cost of food and other basic goods that is squeezing this region's middle class and setting off strikes, demonstrations and occasional riots from Morocco to the Gulf.

In Jordan, the soaring price of oil led the government to remove almost all its costly fuel subsidies this month, pushing the price of some fuels up 76 percent overnight. In a devastating domino effect, the cost of basic foods like eggs, potatoes and cucumbers doubled or more.

In Saudi Arabia, where the inflation rate had been virtually zero for a decade, it has reached an official level of 6.5 percent, though unofficial estimates put it much higher. Public protests and boycotts have followed, and 19 prominent clerics posted an unusual statement on the Internet in December warning of a crisis that would cause "theft, cheating, armed robbery and resentment between rich and poor."

Amol Rajan | February 22

The Independent - A London-based television executive is facing four years in jail after an amount of cannabis weighing less than a grain of sugar was found in his bag at Dubai airport. Cat Le-Huy, 31, a German national and head of technology at the television production company Endemol, has been held for three weeks without charge after flying to the United Arab Emirates on 26 January...The Foreign Office says nine British nationals have been detained in Dubai over drugs offences this year, including Keith Brown, from the West Midlands, who was also jailed this month for four years after a speck of cannabis was found stuck to the bottom of a shoe.

As if there was any question the Saudis weren't our great and wonderful allies:

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 pressed on with their inquiries and the Saudis carried out their threat to cut off intelligence.

Screw the Saudis. We should have overthrown their corrupt monarchy and given the Hejaz to the Wahhabists and given their oil fields to the Kuwaitis, Bahrainis and the Qataris after 9/11 for what they did.

But now the best way to hose the Saudis is to cut a deal with Iran. (And hose them we should.) Although that will never happen, because the Shi'a are too dangerous and the Sunni's are like the Kucinich's of the Middle East, dig?

Robert Verkaik | February 15

The Independent - Tony Blair wrongly influenced due legal process when he used "irresistible pressure" to end the Serious Fraud Office's investigation into alleged bribery and corruption involving arms deals between BAE Systems and Saudi Arabia, it was alleged in the High Court.

** A cover-up laid bare: court hears how SFO inquiry was halted
** BAE inquiry 'put lives at risk'
** BAE: secret papers reveal threats from Saudi prince
** The BAE files

February 14

Aljazeera - The US president has ordered expanded sanctions against Syrian government officials and their associates.

The new sanctions target officials the US says are engaged in "public corruption" or are believed to have been responsible for actions that "undermine efforts to stabilise Iraq", the White House said on Wednesday.

George Bush's order, issued on Wednesday, did not specify which officials would be affected.

The latest measures follow US claims that Syria has failed to stop fighters from crossing the border into Iraq.

Imad Moustapha, the Syrian ambassador to the US, told Al Jazeera the restrictions were "ridiculous".

You just got to love our allies, the Saudis:

Saudi Arabia's religious police have banned red roses ahead of Valentine's Day, forcing couples in the conservative Muslim nation to think of new ways to show their love.

The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice has ordered florists and gift shop owners in the capital Riyadh to remove any items colored scarlet, which is widely seen as symbolizing love, newspapers said.

"They visited us last night," the Saudi Gazette quoted an unidentified florist as saying.

I think Ms. Hymowitz would love the place!

Tamar Levin | February 10

IHT - When John Sexton, the president of New York University, first met Omar Saif Ghobash, an investor trying to entice him to open a branch campus in the United Arab Emirates, Sexton was not sure what to make of the proposal — so he asked for a $50 million gift.

"It's like earnest money: if you're a $50 million donor, I'll take you seriously," Sexton said. "It's a way to test their bona fides." In the end, the money materialized from the government of Abu Dhabi, one of the seven emirates.

Sexton has long been committed to building NYU's international presence, increasing study-abroad sites, opening programs in Singapore, and exploring new partnerships in France. But the plans for a comprehensive liberal-arts branch campus in the Gulf, set to open in 2010, are in a class by themselves, and Sexton is already talking about the flow of professors and students he envisions between New York and Abu Dhabi.

The American system of higher education, long the envy of the world, is becoming an important export as more universities take their programs overseas.