In Sudan’s fresh minted revolution it is not only the country’s old military guard, once associated with the deposed former president Omar al-Bashir, whom protesters view with deep suspicion.
Last week the Egyptian embassy in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, was also the scene of protests and chants aimed at President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. “Tell Sisi,” the crowd shouted. “This is Sudan! [Egypt’s] borders stop at Aswan!”
Continue reading...The warlord Khalifa Haftar, who controls eastern Libya, has never disguised his ambitions. Once one of Muammar Gaddafi’s generals, he returned from exile in the US when the dictator fell in 2011, attempted to launch a coup three years later, repeatedly declared his intention to take Tripoli and has said that his country may not be ready for democracy.
So the professions of shock from his backers when he mounted his assault on the western capital, held by the internationally recognised Government of National Accord, cannot be treated with great seriousness. The only real surprise about his advance was its timing. By moving while the UN secretary-general was in the country, to discuss arrangements for a UN-organised conference intended to lead to elections, he destroyed muted hopes of a political solution and underscored his already evident contempt for the process. As the prime minister, Fayez al-Sarraj, complained, the response of many supposed allies was silence.
Continue reading...Maha and Wafa al-Subaie called for Absher, which supports male guardianship system, to be removed by Google and Apple
Two runaway Saudi sisters on Wednesday urged Apple and Google to pull an “inhuman” app allowing men to monitor and control female relatives’ travel as it helped trap girls in abusive families.
Maha and Wafa al-Subaie, who are seeking asylum in Georgia after fleeing their family, said Absher – a government e-services app – was bad for women as it supported Saudi Arabia’s strict male guardian system.
Continue reading...Defendants, several of whom campaigned for right to drive, given no new date for hearing
A court in Saudi Arabia has postponed a fourth hearing in the trial of several women’s rights activists, a case that has intensified western criticism of Riyadh following the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
A court official informed some of the women’s relatives that the session would not take place, citing the judge’s “private reasons”, and could not provide a new date. The public prosecutor said last May that some of the women had been arrested on suspicion of harming Saudi interests and offering support to hostile elements abroad.
Continue reading...There will be deep unease in Foreign Office over role of Saudi Arabia and UAE
Blame for the renewed Libyan crisis has been laid at the doors of some of Britain’s closest allies in the Gulf, highlighting again how the UK’s commercial interests so often trump its political priorities in the Middle East.
In exchanges in the UK parliament, the shadow foreign secretary, Emily Thornberry, traced the crisis to Nato’s overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, an intervention described even by the government minister Mark Field as “calamitous”. She also accused France of supporting Khalifa Haftar’s attack on Tripoli, an accusation that the Élysée Palace strenuously denies. Other MPs blamed Russian meddling.
Continue reading...First arrests since Jamal Khashoggi killing include women’s rights activists
Saudi Arabia has launched a fresh round of arrests of activists and critics, many of them supporters of jailed civil rights campaigners, in an apparent rebuff to mounting international pressure over its treatment of dissidents.
Eight people, including two US-Saudi citizens, were detained on Thursday in the first such sweep of perceived critics of the country’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, since the killing of writer Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October.
Continue reading...House voted 247-175 to send the resolution to Trump’s desk, where it is likely to be met with a veto
Congress has given final approval on a resolution to end American military assistance for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, in an unprecedented attempt to curtail the president’s power to go to war and a sweeping rebuke to Donald Trump’s foreign policy.
Related: War has broken Yemen. A new route to peace is needed, now | Hisham Al-Omeisy
Continue reading...Four children of murdered journalist have also been given houses to ensure they ‘continue to show restraint in their public statements’
The children of murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi have received multimillion-dollar homes and are being paid thousands of dollars per month by the kingdom’s authorities, the Washington Post has reported.
Khashoggi – a contributor to the Post and a critic of the Saudi government – was killed and dismembered in October at the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul by a team of 15 agents sent from Riyadh. His body has not been recovered.
Continue reading...State-owned Saudi Aramco makes profits of £84.7bn last year, beating Apple and Exxon
Saudi Arabia’s state oil company has emerged as the most profitable business in the world, racking up profits of $111.1bn (£84.7bn) in 2018 to overtake Apple.
According to a rare glimpse into its finances contained in a bond-offering document, Saudi Aramco made the profit on revenues of $355.9bn last year, as it produced 10.3m barrels per day of crude oil.
Continue reading...Exclusive: cuts, burns and bruising documented, despite government denials of torture
Political prisoners in Saudi Arabia are said to be suffering from malnutrition, cuts, bruises and burns, according to leaked medical reports that are understood to have been prepared for the country’s ruler, King Salman.
The reports seem to provide the first documented evidence from within the heart of the royal court that political prisoners are facing severe physical abuse, despite the government’s denials that men and women in custody are being tortured.
Continue reading...Chief executive allegedly targeted because he owns Washington Post, where Jamal Khashoggi was columnist
The security chief for Jeff Bezos, chief executive of Amazon, says the Saudi government had access to Bezos’s phone and gained private information from it.
Gavin de Becker, Bezos’s longtime security consultant, said he had concluded his investigation into the publication in January of leaked text messages between Bezos and Lauren Sánchez, a former television anchor whom the US National Enquirer tabloid newspaper said Bezos was dating.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Yemen rebel chief says foreign secretary ‘cannot be a peace broker and arms salesman’
The leader of the Houthi movement in Yemen has condemned the British foreign secretary for pressing Germany to relax its arms sales ban on Saudi Arabia, saying it was not possible for the UK to be a peace-broker in the country and an arms seller.
“Britain sending aid does not change the tragic reality of its arms sales. Jeremy Hunt cannot promote peace while at the same time acting as an arms salesman,” said Mohamed Ali al-Houthi, the head of the supreme revolutionary committee, in an interview with the Guardian.
Continue reading...Decision comes one day after 11 women appeared in court on charges relating to activism
Three Saudi women on trial with eight others for charges relating to human rights activism have been released on bail.
Foreign observers welcomed the move to temporarily release Aziza al-Yousef, Dr Rokaya Mohareb and Eman al-Nafjan. The rest of the women are expected to be bailed on Sunday.
Continue reading...Pair, given asylum in undisclosed country, faced recriminations in kingdom
Two Saudi sisters who say they were beaten and treated like slaves by their brothers and father have been granted asylum in an undisclosed country.
The women, aged 18 and 20, ran away from their family last September while on holiday in Sri Lanka and have been stranded in Hong Kong since an abandoned attempt to reach Australia, where they hoped to secure asylum.
Continue reading...Corbyn, Cable and other leaders write to Jeremy Hunt about ‘morally reprehensible’ policy
Five opposition parties in Westminster have called on the UK to end arms sales to Saudi Arabia on the fourth anniversary of the Yemen civil war, saying it has contributed to a catastrophic humanitarian crisis.
The letter signed by leaders of the Labour party, Scottish National party, Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru and the Green party, comes as a fragile truce negotiated in December hangs by a thread.
Continue reading...Delegates at UN environment assembly say the oil producers are protecting their industries
The United States and Saudi Arabia have hamstrung global efforts to scrutinise climate geoengineering in order to benefit their fossil fuel industries, according to multiple sources at the United Nations environment assembly, taking place this week in Nairobi.
The world’s two biggest oil producers reportedly led opposition against plans to examine the risks of climate-manipulating technology such as sucking carbon out of the air, reflective mirrors in space, seeding the oceans and injecting particulates into the atmosphere.
Continue reading...Series of Mohammed bin Salman no-shows at high-profile meetings fed claims of rift with king
The heir to the Saudi throne has not attended a series of high-profile ministerial and diplomatic meetings in Saudi Arabia over the last fortnight and is alleged to have been stripped of some of his financial and economic authority, the Guardian has been told.
The move to restrict, if only temporarily, the responsibilities of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is understood to have been revealed to a group of senior ministers earlier last week by his father, King Salman.
Continue reading...King Salman said to have been angered by recent moves by Prince Mohammed against him
There are growing signs of a potentially destabilising rift between the king of Saudi Arabia and his heir, the Guardian has been told.
King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman are understood to have disagreed over a number of important policy issues in recent weeks, including the war in Yemen.
Continue reading...Head of southern transitional council says ignoring will of people is ‘recipe for instability’
Peace in Yemen is impossible without acknowledgement of southern Yemen’s calls for independence from the north, leaders of the United Arab Emirates-backed southern transitional council (STC) are due to tell British MPs and officials as they step up efforts to be involved in the peace talks.
The south of Yemen, briefly a communist state, was united with the north in 1990 and southern separatists were then beaten militarily when they tried to secede in 1994. Continued southern resentment at the north’s control of the country’s resources, including by the rebel Houthis, is a large undercurrent in the civil war.
Continue reading...More than dozen arrested in 2018 and rights groups say some have been tortured
Saudi women’s rights activists detained last year in a sweeping crackdown on campaigners will be put on trial, prosecutors have said.
“The public prosecution would like to announce that it has concluded its investigation and prepared the indictment list against the defendants ... and will refer the case to the relevant court,” the state-controlled Saudi Press Agency said on Friday.
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