Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Women’s rights activist was released from prison in February but faces years of probation
A court in Saudi Arabia has denied an appeal by one of the kingdom’s most prominent political activists that would have allowed her to travel freely, her supporters said, weeks after her release from prison.
Relatives of Loujain al-Hathloul, whose 1,001-day detention drew fierce international criticism of the kingdom’s human rights record, had hoped that a five-year ban on travelling outside Saudi Arabia that the court imposed as a condition of her release on 10 February would be lifted. She also faces three years of probation, meaning she cannot return to activism or speak her mind without risking re-arrest, her family said.
US president has chosen to ‘recalibrate’ relations with Saudi Arabia, but some say a rupture is required
In late 2019, as Joe Biden stood on a debate stage and boldly vowed to make Saudi Arabia a pariah if he was elected president, a little-known former aide and Middle East expert was examining what exactly a “progressive” post-Trump stance towards the oil-rich kingdom might look like.
Daniel Benaim, a policy wonk who had worked for Biden as a speechwriter, and for Hillary Clinton and John Kerry before that, first travelled to Saudi Arabia and then began interviewing dozens of Democratic and progressive policy experts to come up with a blueprint.
Killed journalist’s fiancee petitioned for report implicating crown prince to be part of case against 26 Saudis
A Turkish court trying 26 Saudi nationals in absentia for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi has refused to admit as evidence a recent US intelligence report implicating the kingdom’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, despite a petition from the journalist’s fiancee, Hatice Cengiz.
The declassified US report released last Friday said Washington believed that Prince Mohammed approved the operation to “capture or kill” Khashoggi.
Dissidents decry lack of sanctions for Mohammed bin Salman over Khashoggi killing and warn of ‘permanent impunity’ for Saudi heir
Exiled dissidents who have been warned about threats against them by Saudi Arabia said they have been put in greater danger by the Biden administration’s decision to forgo direct sanctions on Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman – even as US intelligence agencies acknowledged that he was complicit in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.
The activists, including some who have previously been warned that they were possibly at risk of being hurt by agents of the kingdom, said in interviews with the Guardian that they believed the 35-year-old crown prince would be emboldened after the White House declined to sanction him.
Family suggests case of mistaken identity after Dr Osama AlHasani, 42, detained in Tangier
An Australian citizen facing potential extradition from Morocco to Saudi Arabia was detained just hours after meeting his newborn child, his wife says.
The wife of Dr Osama AlHasani – a dual Australian and Saudi citizen – has also raised fears about his welfare and says the family is confused about the precise nature of the accusations against him.
State department ‘not in a position to detail the identity’ of those on list as US under heavy criticism for failure to sanction Saudi heir
The US state department has refused to say whether Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is one of the Saudi officials subject to US visa restrictions under the new “Khashoggi ban”.
The ban is named after the Saudi dissident and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, whose murder and dismemberment in 2018 was approved by the crown prince, according to a US intelligence assessment declassified on Friday.
After years of violence half the population is going hungry and 400,000 under fives are at risk of dying from malnutrition
Eleven-year-old Sadia Ibrahim Mahmud was so weak she could not even move the blanket covering her tiny frame by herself.
“I want to get better, and I want to go to school,” she said, her voice barely more than a whisper. The autumn sunlight pouring into the malnutrition ward at a Sana’a hospital hurt her eyes; she turned her head on the pillow and tried to rest.
Exclusive: letters to Dominic Raab and Lady Scotland say Princess Basmah requires urgent medical treatment
Supporters of a prominent Saudi Arabian princess detained with her daughter in Riyadh have appealed to the British government to help secure their release.
In two letters to both foreign secretary Dominic Raab and Commonwealth general secretary Patricia Scotland, the princess’s supporters urged them to intervene on behalf of Princess Basmah bint Saud bin Abdulaziz al-Saud and her daughter Souhoud Al Sharif, arrested in Jeddah two years ago.
Biden’s announcement comes after Saudi exiles express shock over lack of sanctions against Mohammed bin Salman over killing of journalist
President Joe Biden said on Saturday that the US would make an announcement on Saudi Arabia on Monday, following an intelligence report that found that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had approved the killing of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul in 2018.
Saudi dissidents have expressed anger and disbelief that while the US has officially confirmed the long-suspected view that Prince Mohammed “approved” the killing of the journalist, he will escape punishment. A declassified intelligence assessment released on Friday concluded that the heir to the throne “approved an operation to capture or kill Khashoggi”.
Analysis: The US has sanctioned 76 people linked to Khashoggi’s murder, but not Mohammed bin Salman, future king of a strategic Middle East ally
Friday was the day that Joe Biden’s vaunted drive to put human rights back at the centre of US foreign policy slammed, as such drives usually do, into the brick wall of great power realpolitik.
As it had promised, the new administration obeyed the law laid down by Congress and ignored by its predecessor. It published an unclassified summary of the intelligence assessment that the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, “approved” the murder and dismemberment of the Saudi reformer and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
Analysis: decision not to penalise Saudi heir over Jamal Khashoggi shows kingdom still has influence
After two years of blanket cover from Donald Trump, a new US president has officially blamed Mohammed bin Salman for the most savage political slaying of modern times and brought the Saudi heir’s unchecked run with Washington to a humiliating halt.
Joe Biden’s confirmation that Prince Mohammed approved the butchering of Jamal Khashoggi bluntly ends the era of bromance between his predecessor and the kingdom’s de facto leader, and signals a very different relationship with a new administration.
As Biden tours a food bank in Houston, Republicans are taking turns railing against his administration at the annual CPAC conference. David Smith sends another virtual report from the gathering.
Speakers at CPAC continue to pledge fealty to former president Donald Trump. Matt Gaetz, a congressman from Florida, told the audience: “My fellow patriots, don’t be shy and don’t be sorry, join me as we proudly represent the pro-Trump America first wing of the conservative movement.
“We’re not really a wing; we’re the whole body. We’re the main attraction in the greatest show on earth.”
Gaetz, a self-proclaimed “Florida man” wearing blue jacket and purple tie, lashed out at “cancel culture” and “lockdown governors” including Democrat Andrew Cuomo of New York. He also defended Republican senator of Ted Cruz of Texas.
“It was awful the way the media treated Ted Cruz,” he said. “I mean, the left and the media were more worried about Ted Cruz going to Mexico to spend his own money than about the caravans coming through Mexico to take ours.”
If Congresswoman Liz Cheney, who voted for Trump’s impeachment after the 6 January insurrection at the US Capitol, were on the CPAC stage she would be booed, he predicted. The party’s true leadership was not in Washington, Gaetz said.
He also described the biggest threats to freedom as big government and big business, in particular big tech. “There are no checks and balances when they can control-alt-delete anyone for any reason,” the congressman warned.
NEWS: Several Republicans in the House have skipped Friday's votes and enlisted their colleagues to vote on their behalf, signing letters saying they couldn't attend "due to the ongoing public health emergency."
But those members are scheduled to be at CPAC
US Treasury secretary Janet Yellen has announced sanctions on former Saudi intelligence deputy chief Ahmad Hassan Mohammed al Asiri and the Rapid Intervention Force (RIF), known as the ‘Tiger Squad’ which supplied much of the hit team that killed Jamal Khashoggi, the US-based dissident who was murdered by Saudi operatives in Turkey in 2018.
US Treasury announces sanctions on former Saudi intel deputy chief Ahmad Hassan Mohammed al Asiri and the Rapid Intervention Force (RIF), known as the 'Tiger Squad' which supplied much of the hit team that killed Khashoggi https://t.co/pjXruJhUxv
It hasn't been out long but so far seems like view is a mix of relief and frustration: the US calls MBS a murderer, but stops far short of taking actions against him that would in effect change the line of succession.
But that is the snap judgement. Will this report stop business leaders like Steve Schwarzman from meeting with MBS in Riyadh? Will it stop MBS from stepping foot in the US? TBD
Biden administration to target ‘counter-dissident’ activity and Saudi official but not Mohammed bin Salman personally
US intelligence agencies concluded that the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, approved the 2018 murder of the Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi but stopped short of personally targeting the future Saudi king with financial or other sanctions.
White House says president ‘affirmed the importance the United States places on universal human rights and the rule of law’
Joe Biden has spoken with Saudi Arabia’s King Salman for the first time as president, ahead of the publication of a US intelligence report expected to implicate the Saudi crown prince in the 2018 murder of dissident and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
A White House account of the call did not mention the report, but did say, in another context, that Biden “affirmed the importance the United States places on universal human rights and the rule of law” and that the two discussed working on “mutual issues of concern”.
President Biden to call King Salman as his administration prepare to release intelligence report expected to implicate crown prince
Joe Biden is expected to call Saudi Arabia’s King Salman, as his administration prepares to release a declassified intelligence report that many experts expect will name the royal’s son and heir as complicit in the grisly murder of Jamal Khashoggi.
The White House confirmed on Wednesday that Biden’s call to the 85-year-old ruler would take place “soon” and that the declassified report on Khashoggi’s murder was being readied for release. Biden is insisting that he speak only to the king.
The close associate of the journalist killed by the Saudi regime is determined to speak out in a new documentary, despite the arrest of family members
Not long before he was murdered, the journalist Jamal Khashoggi told his young friend Omar Abdulaziz two things that have subsequently never been far from his thoughts. The first was: “Never forget, your words matter.” And the second: “Be careful, this kind of work might get you killed.”
Omar Abdulaziz, 29, lives in exile in Montreal, Canada, where he has been, before and after Khashoggi’s death, among the most vocal critics of the Saudi regime that killed his friend. His words do matter – his tweets have been viewed nearly a billion times in the past year; he has an almost daily YouTube programme that has clocked up 45m views. And he is left in no doubt of their potential consequence: death threats are routine; both of his younger brothers and dozens of his friends have been arrested and imprisoned in Saudi Arabia in failed attempts to silence him.
The new US administration has signalled it expects the desert kingdom to ‘change its approach’ in a break with Trump policy
The Biden administration has said it expects Saudi Arabia to “change its approach” to the US and signalled that it wants to minimise any direct contact between the president and the country’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Question mark over far Biden administration will go to push allies to end arms sales
Senior US lawmakers have called on the UK to live up to its “moral responsibility” and help end both countries “complicity” in Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, in a sign of the pressure the UK will face in Washington to join the Biden administration and end weapons sales to the kingdom.
Sisters of women’s rights activist step up pressure on Saudi leaders a day after her release from prison
The sisters of the women’s rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul have stepped up pressure on Saudi Arabia’s leaders after her release from prison, demanding “real justice” and insisting the human rights campaigner will fight a year travel ban.
One day after Hathloul’s release from custody – widely billed as a peace offering from Riyadh to the administration of the new US president, Joe Biden – Lina al-Hathloul said her sister would take legal action in the kingdom to overturn restrictions imposed on her as part of her probation.
Prince Mohammed views the decision to release the women’s rights activist as an attempt to belatedly engage the new administration, whose strident tone on human rights issues in its early weeks of office has all but conditioned a working relationship with Riyadh on righting the wrongs of the Trump years.