Strict rules governing women’s lives could be changed according to Saudi newspaper
Saudi Arabia could be planning to relax the country’s strict male guardianship laws to allow women to leave the country without needing permission from a male relative, according to reports.
Travel restrictions for women over the age of 18 are due to be lifted this year, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, quoting Saudi officials familiar with the matter.
Continue reading...Princess Hassa accused of getting bodyguard to beat man for taking photo in Paris home
The sister of the crown prince of Saudi Arabia is going on trial in absentia in Paris accused of conspiring to kidnap and beat a worker who was refurbishing her luxury apartment in Paris.
Hassa bint Salman’s French lawyer said she denied the charges of complicity in armed violence, complicity in holding someone against their will and theft against an Egyptian-born man who was carrying out repairs at her family’s Paris residence on the exclusive Avenue Foch in September 2016.
Continue reading...Move is a significant moment in civil war, but officials say UAE remains in Saudi-led coalition against Houthis
The United Arab Emirates has announced a “strategic redeployment” from the port city of Hodeidah in Yemen, as well as a more limited tactical retreat elsewhere in the country – marking a significant moment in Yemen’s four-year civil war.
UAE officials said the move, under discussion for as long as a year, was designed to support a United Nations-led peace process that began in Stockholm last December. It was the first official UAE confirmation of a withdrawal, which has been reported in recent weeks by witnesses and foreign officials.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Corbyn says government is risking lives in Yemen by seeking to set aside judgment
Ministers have asked the courts to set aside a landmark ruling that British arms sales to Saudi Arabia are unlawful, a legal manoeuvre that prompted Jeremy Corbyn to accuse the Conservatives of prioritising military exports over civilian lives.
The government has applied for a stay of last month’s judgment pending an appeal, according to Campaign Against Arms Trade, which is fighting the case, at a time when conflict between the Saudis and Houthi rebels in Yemen has intensified.
Continue reading...Vladimir Putin says deal due to expire on Sunday will be extended by six to nine months
Russia has agreed with Saudi Arabia to extend by six to nine months a deal with Opec on reducing oil output, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, said, as oil prices come under renewed pressure from rising US supplies and a slowing global economy.
The Saudi energy minister, Khalid al-Falih, said on Sunday that the deal would most likely be extended by nine months and no deeper reductions were needed.
Continue reading...Prime minister urges open legal process over murder and raises Yemen concerns
Theresa May has raised concerns about the murder of Jamal Khashoggi and the humanitarian cost of the conflict in Yemen during a face-to-face meeting with the Saudi crown prince at the G20 summit in Osaka.
The prime minister held a bilateral meeting with Mohammed bin Salman on Saturday at what will be May’s final global summit before she steps down in July.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Wife of jailed Taoufik Bouachrine says murdered Saudi critic knew her husband was in danger
The wife of a prominent Moroccan newspaper editor and critic of Saudi Arabia has described how the murdered Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi warned her husband that his life was in danger in the months before he was arrested in Morocco and jailed for offences he has consistently denied.
Asmae Moussaoui, 43, also says she believes Saudi Arabia told the Moroccan government to silence her husband Taoufik Bouachrine, 49, shortly before he was taken into custody.
Continue reading...The Saudis are good customers, Trump says – which evidently outweighs the fact they murdered and carved up a Washington Post journalist
It’s that time of a presidency when every incumbent pretends to be what he isn’t, or to do what he hasn’t. With a re-election year kicking off, everyone wants to know if the candidate can fill in the gaping holes in his record, to give voters some reason to hope or believe.
Related: Mike Pompeo didn't raise Jamal Khashoggi murder in meeting with Saudi king
Continue reading...Sanctions target supreme leader and eight commanders of Iranian Revolutionary Guard
Donald Trump has ordered new sanctions against Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, and other officials including eight Revolutionary Guard commanders in the latest step of an escalating pressure campaign.
Iran’s foreign minister, Javad Zarif, will also face fresh sanctions in a few days, US officials said. He negotiated the 2015 nuclear deal with the US and other major powers, and has spearheaded Iranian diplomacy since.
Continue reading...Donald Trump has dismissed a United Nations request for the FBI to investigate the murder of the dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, suggesting it would jeopardise American weapons sales to Saudi Arabia.
Related: 'We are coming to get you': recordings reveal Saudi plan for Khashoggi murder
Continue reading...Truth or consequences, a parlour game in which players are penalised for dishonesty or wrongdoing, is mostly fun – but it also reflects a broad moral consensus about the unacceptability of lying. This long-held belief is deeply rooted in popular culture. Truth or Consequences was the title of a postwar American TV quiz show whose success was so great that a New Mexico town was named after it. Put simply, and as a general rule, most people expect that if you tell whoppers, you get punished.
Why, then, do so many modern leaders seem to think they can lie and get away with it? A propensity to deny, dodge or disown the consequences of political actions is spreading globally like a toxic virus. There was a time, as David Miliband, the former foreign secretary, argues in this year’s Fulbright Lecture, when public accountability was on the rise. Not any more. In what he calls the age of impunity, “those engaged in conflicts around the world believe they can get away with anything, including murder”.
Continue reading...US considers response to shooting down of US drone that Tehran claims was flying in Iranian airspace
US security officials have been summoned to the White House to discuss a response to the shooting down of a US spy drone, which Donald Trump has called a “big mistake” by Tehran.
Iran said it shot down the unmanned aircraft in its airspace. The US military has said it was downed over international waters in the strait of Hormuz.
Continue reading...Ruling prompts government to suspend new arms sales to Saudi Arabia while it urgently reviews its processes
British arms sales to Saudi Arabia have been declared unlawful by the court of appeal because ministers failed to properly assess their contribution to civilian casualties in indiscriminate bombing in Yemen.
The unexpected ruling has prompted the British government to suspend new arms sales to Saudi Arabia while it urgently reviews its processes – although Liam Fox, the international trade secretary, has said the government would also seek to appeal.
Continue reading...Russia, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Iran and the US are also seen as less likely to use their influence for good than they were 10 years ago
The United States has joined Russia, Saudi Arabia, Israel and Iran in a rogue’s gallery of countries perceived as likely to use their influence for bad. All five countries are also seen as less likely to use their influence for good than they were 10 years ago.
Related: ‘Credible evidence’ Saudi crown prince liable for Khashoggi killing – UN report
Continue reading...The UN report into October’s murder of Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul is the fullest account yet of events and as horrifying as one would expect. Agnes Callamard, the special rapporteur, describes a “deliberate, premeditated execution”; secretly recorded conversations before his visit discussed the arrival of the “sacrificial animal” and dismemberment of a body. She concludes that the crown prince of Saudi Arabia should be investigated because there is “credible evidence” that he and other senior officials are liable for the killing – a conclusion also reached by the CIA – despite the kingdom’s insistence that it was a rogue operation.
No reminder should be needed of the brutality of the killing of Khashoggi, a widely respected journalist living in Washington. Even Saudi Arabia’s business and diplomatic allies blanched, or at least felt obliged to put some distance between themselves and the crown prince Mohammed bin Salman. The kingdom, after repeated lies about what happened, announced that it would try 11 suspects for his murder.
Continue reading...Mohammed bin Salman should be investigated over journalist’s murder, says report
The crown prince of Saudi Arabia should be investigated over the murder of the dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi because there is “credible evidence” that he and other senior officials are liable for the killing, according to a damning and forensic UN report.
In an excoriating 100-page analysis published on Wednesday of what happened to Khashoggi last October, Agnes Callamard, the UN’s special rapporteur, says the death of the journalist was “an international crime”.
Continue reading...State department experts recommended addition of Riyadh after assessing it had hired child fighters from Sudan to fight in Yemen
Mike Pompeo, the US secretary of state, has blocked the inclusion of Saudi Arabia on a list of countries that recruit child soldiers, dismissing his experts’ findings that a Saudi-led coalition has been using underage fighters in Yemen’s civil war, according to four people familiar with the matter.
The decision, which came after a fierce internal debate, could prompt new accusations by human rights advocates and some lawmakers that the Trump administration is prioritizing security and economic interests in relations with Saudi Arabia, a major US ally and arms customer.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Yana Peel co-owns NSO Group that licensed Pegasus software to authoritarian regimes
A leading human rights campaigner and head of a prestigious London art gallery is the co-owner of an Israeli cyberweapons company whose software has allegedly been used by authoritarian regimes to spy on dissidents, the Guardian can reveal.
Yana Peel, the chief executive of the Serpentine Galleries and a self-proclaimed champion of free speech, co-owns NSO Group, a $1bn (£790m) Israeli tech firm, according to corporate records in the US and Luxembourg.
Continue reading...Former foreign secretary accused of showing ‘total disregard’ for civilians
Tory leadership frontrunner Boris Johnson recommended that the UK allow Saudi Arabia to buy British bomb parts expected to be deployed in Yemen, days after an airstrike on a potato factory in the country had killed 14 people in 2016.
Campaigners accused the then foreign secretary of showing a “total disregard” for Yemeni civilians by allowing the sales, revealed for the first time in emails disclosed via a freedom of information request.
Continue reading...Murtaja Qureiris, 18, is on trial for charges including ‘sowing sedition’, says Amnesty
A young Saudi man, arrested when he was 13, could face execution for taking part in Shia-led protests as a child, Amnesty International has said.
Murtaja Qureiris, now 18, is on trial for charges that include joining a “terror group” and “sowing sedition”, according to the rights group. He was detained in September 2014 and held in solitary confinement for part of the time since.
Continue reading...