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Post by JustJohn or JJ on Jan 23, 2015 4:16:41 GMT -7
Saudi King Abdullah dies, new ruler is Salman
In this Sunday Aug. 10, 2014 photo provided by Saudi Press Agency, Saudi's King Abdullah, left, presents Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, with a high medal, in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia. El-Sissi met late Sunday in Saudi Arabia with one of his strongest international supporters, King Abdullah, to talk about key security issues impacting the region. (AP Photo/Saudi Press Agency) RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) -- Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, the powerful U.S. ally who joined Washington's fight against al-Qaida and sought to modernize the ultraconservative Muslim kingdom with incremental but significant reforms, including nudging open greater opportunities for women, has died, according to Saudi state TV. He was 90. More than his guarded and hidebound predecessors, Abdullah assertively threw his oil-rich nation's weight behind trying to shape the Middle East. His priority was to counter the influence of rival, mainly Shiite Iran wherever it tried to make advances. He and fellow Sunni Arab monarchs also staunchly opposed the Middle East's wave of pro-democracy uprisings, seeing them as a threat to stability and their own rule. He backed Sunni Muslim factions against Tehran's allies in several countries, but in Lebanon for example, the policy failed to stop Iranian-backed Hezbollah from gaining the upper hand. And Tehran and Riyadh's colliding ambitions stoked proxy conflicts around the region that enflamed Sunni-Shiite hatreds - most horrifically in Syria's civil war, where the two countries backed opposing sides. Those conflicts in turn hiked Sunni militancy that returned to threaten Saudi Arabia. And while the king maintained the historically close alliance with Washington, there were frictions as he sought to put those relations on Saudi Arabia's terms. He was constantly frustrated by Washington's failure to broker a settlement to the Israel-Palestinian conflict. He also pushed the Obama administration to take a tougher stand against Iran and to more strongly back the mainly Sunni rebels fighting to overthrow Syrian President Bashar Assad. Abdullah's death was announced on Saudi state TV by a presenter who said the king died at 1 a.m. on Friday. His successor was announced as 79-year-old half-brother, Prince Salman, according to a Royal Court statement carried on the Saudi Press Agency. Salman was Abdullah's crown prince and had recently taken on some of the ailing king's responsibilities. Abdullah was born in Riyadh in 1924, one of the dozens of sons of Saudi Arabia's founder, King Abdul-Aziz Al Saud. Like all Abdul-Aziz's sons, Abdullah had only rudimentary education. Tall and heavyset, he felt more at home in the Nejd, the kingdom's desert heartland, riding stallions and hunting with falcons. His strict upbringing was exemplified by three days he spent in prison as a young man as punishment by his father for failing to give his seat to a visitor, a violation of Bedouin hospitality. Abdullah was selected as crown prince in 1982 on the day his half-brother Fahd ascended to the throne. The decision was challenged by a full brother of Fahd, Prince Sultan, who wanted the title for himself. But the family eventually closed ranks behind Abdullah to prevent splits. Abdullah became de facto ruler in 1995 when a stroke incapacitated Fahd. Abdullah was believed to have long rankled at the closeness of the alliance with the United States, and as regent he pressed Washington to withdraw the troops it had deployed in the kingdom since the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. The U.S. finally did so in 2003. When President George W. Bush came to office, Abdullah again showed his readiness to push against his U.S. allies. In 2000, Abdullah convinced the Arab League to approve an unprecedented offer that all Arab states would agree to peace with Israel if it withdrew from lands it captured in 1967. The next year, he sent his ambassador in Washington to tell the Bush administration that it was too unquestioningly biased in favor of Israel and that the kingdom would from now on pursue its own interests apart from Washington's. Alarmed by the prospect of a rift, Bush soon after advocated for the first time the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. The next month, the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks took place in the United States, and Abdullah had to steer the alliance through the resulting criticism. The kingdom was home to 15 of the 19 hijackers, and many pointed out that the baseline ideology for al-Qaida and other groups stemmed from Saudi Arabia's Wahhabi interpretation of Islam. When al-Qaida militants in 2003 began a wave of violence in the kingdom aimed at toppling the monarchy, Abdullah cracked down hard. For the next three years, security forces battled militants, finally forcing them to flee to neighboring Yemen. There, they created a new al-Qaida branch, and Saudi Arabia has played a behind-the-scenes role in fighting it. The tougher line helped affirm Abdullah's commitment to fighting al-Qaida. He paid two visits to Bush - in 2002 and 2005 - at his ranch in Crawford, Texas. When Fahd died in 2005, Abdullah officially rose to the throne. He then began to more openly push his agenda. His aim at home was to modernize the kingdom to face the future. One of the world's largest oil exporters, Saudi Arabia is fabulously wealthy, but there are deep disparities in wealth and a burgeoning youth population in need of jobs, housing and education. More than half the current population of 20 million is under the age of 25. For Abdullah, that meant building a more skilled workforce and opening up greater room for women to participate. He was a strong supporter of education, building universities at home and increasing scholarships abroad for Saudi students. Abdullah for the first time gave women seats on the Shura Council, an unelected body that advises the king and government. He promised women would be able to vote and run in 2015 elections for municipal councils, the only elections held in the country. He appointed the first female deputy minister in a 2009. Two Saudi female athletes competed in the Olympics for the first time in 2012, and a small handful of women were granted licenses to work as lawyers during his rule. One of his most ambitious projects was a Western-style university that bears his name, the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, which opened in 2009. Men and women share classrooms and study together inside the campus, a major departure in a country where even small talk between the sexes in public can bring a warning from the morality police. The changes seemed small from the outside but had a powerful resonance. Small splashes of variety opened in the kingdom - color and flash crept into the all-black abayas women must wear in public; state-run TV started playing music, forbidden for decades; book fairs opened their doors to women writers and some banned books. But he treaded carefully in the face of the ultraconservative Wahhabi clerics who hold near total sway over society and, in return, give the Al Saud family's rule religious legitimacy. Senior cleric Sheik Saleh al-Lihedan warned against changes that could snap the "thread between a leader and his people." In some cases, Abdullah pushed back: He fired one prominent government cleric who criticized the mixed-gender university. But the king balked at going too far too fast. For example, beyond allowing debate in newspapers, Abdullah did nothing to respond to demands to allow women to drive. "He has presided over a country that has inched forward, either on its own or with his leadership," said Karen Elliot House, author of "On Saudi Arabia: Its People, Past, Religion, Fault Lines." "I don't think he's had as much impact as one would hope on trying to create a more moderate version of Islam," she said. "To me, it has not taken inside the country as much as one would hope." And any change was strictly on the royal family's terms. After the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings in particular, Saudi Arabia clamped down on any dissent. Riot police crushed street demonstrations by Saudi Arabia's Shiite minority. Dozens of activists were detained, many of them tried under a sweeping counterterrorism law by an anti-terrorism court Abdullah created. Authorities more closely monitored social media, where anger over corruption and unemployment - and jokes about the aging monarchy - are rife. Regionally, perhaps Abdullah's biggest priority was to confront Iran, the Shiite powerhouse across the Gulf. Worried about Tehran's nuclear program, Abdullah told the United States in 2008 to consider military action to "cut off the head of the snake" and prevent Iran from producing a nuclear weapon, according to a leaked U.S. diplomatic memo. In Lebanon, Abdullah backed Sunni allies against the Iranian-backed Shiite guerrilla group Hezbollah in a proxy conflict that flared repeatedly into potentially destabilizing violence. Saudi Arabia was also deeply opposed to longtime Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whom it considered a tool of Iran oppressing Iraq's Sunni Muslim minority. In Syria, Abdullah stepped indirectly indirectly into the civil war that emerged after 2011. He supported and armed rebels battling to overthrow President Bashar Assad, Iran's top Arab ally, and pressed the Obama administration to do the same. Iran's allies Hezbollah and Iraqi Shiite militias rushed to back Assad, and the resulting conflict has left hundreds of thousands dead and driven millions of Syrians from their homes. From the multiple conflicts, Sunni-Shiite hatreds around the region took on a life of their own, fueling Sunni militancy. Syria's war helped give birth to the Islamic State group, which burst out to take over large parts of Syria and Iraq. Fears of the growing militancy prompted Abdullah to commit Saudi airpower to a U.S.-led coalition fighting the extremists. Toby Matthiesen, author of "Sectarian Gulf: Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the Arab Spring That Wasn't," said Abdullah was not "particularly sectarian in a way that he hated Shiites for religious reasons. ... There are other senior members of the ruling family much more sectarian." But, he said, "Saudi Arabia plays a huge role in fueling sectarian conflict." Abdullah had more than 30 children from around a dozen wives.
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Post by JustJohn or JJ on Jan 23, 2015 4:58:52 GMT -7
Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Salman bin Abdul Aziz will take over as the new king, but he is in poor health and his reign may not last long. (Yuya Shino/Reuters) By Kevin Sullivan and Liz Sly January 22 at 6:47 PM RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah bin Adbul Aziz died early Friday, setting the stage for a transition of power at a critical moment as the key U.S. ally in the Middle East struggles with falling oil prices and rising Islamist violence. The monarch, believed to be 90, was succeeded by his brother, Crown Prince Salman, according to state television. That put the region’s most important Sunni power and America’s closest Arab ally in the hands of a 79-year-old who is reportedly in poor health and suffering from dementia.
[Read obit: Abdullah, a wily king who embraced limited reform, dies] Salman’s rise to the throne postpones the question of when the Saudi monarchy will turn to the next generation of princes to run their country of 28 million people at a crucial moment in a region mired in crisis. While observers in Riyadh widely predicted a smooth transition to Salman, his poor health means his rule could be relatively short. Should there be a power struggle to succeed him, it could leave a vacuum in the Middle East at a critical time. Saudi Arabia is a key member of the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State and a major ally of the government that just fell in neighboring Yemen.
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Post by JustJohn or JJ on Jan 23, 2015 5:02:17 GMT -7
That's all we need. A Wahhabi Muslim ruler with dementia as an ally !!!
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Post by pieter on Jan 23, 2015 7:06:48 GMT -7
Looks like the old Kremlin and Vatican! Soviet leadership by interpreting the positions of the communist leaders as they stood on the Kremlin walls reviewing the Red Army on parade.
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Post by karl on Jan 23, 2015 7:35:40 GMT -7
Personally I would not entertain the thought of death to some one even such as now past King Abdullah. He has enjoyed a rather long life into years 90 and so be it as so. It is a bit suprising of Prince Salmon bin Abdul Aziz of the house of Saud {Al Saud} of the Royal Family of Saudi Arabia, to take over the reigns of government, but then should not be so.
With the above, goes also a decree in year 2006 was a change instigated from previous practice of son to son passage of the throne. Thusly changed to future royal kings to be committee chosen. Upon the surface has the sound of a more democratic view in the eye of Western thinking, but actually. For most of and possible all of the committee is composed of direct relatives comprised of the Royal family of Aziz.
Every thing changes, but every thing stays the same.
Karl
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Post by Jaga on Jan 24, 2015 12:35:19 GMT -7
Guys, thanks for starting this threat. Did you notice that the Saudi men with their robes over their heads look generally younger, since you cannot see whether they are bold or not..... I did not even know that their king is 90 years old! I guess nobody knows exactly how old he was but somewhere around 90.... Here i found another article. It looks that the secession of Saudi Arabia king is almost like conclave: Saudi King Abdullah’s death sets up complex succession process www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/saudi-king-abdullahs-death-sets-up-complex-succession-process/2015/01/22/340e0a9c-a28e-11e4-9f89-561284a573f8_story.htmlThe monarch, believed to be 90, was succeeded by his brother, Crown Prince Salman, according to state television. That put the region’s most important Sunni power and America’s closest Arab ally in the hands of a 79-year-old who is reportedly in poor health and suffering from dementia..... .... While observers in Riyadh widely predicted a smooth transition to Salman, his poor health means his rule could be relatively short. Should there be a power struggle to succeed him, it could leave a vacuum in the Middle East at a critical time. Saudi Arabia is a key member of the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State and a major ally of the government that just fell in neighboring Yemen. .... In an apparent bid to preempt quarrels about succession — and also secure the line for his own favored branch of the family — Abdullah last year took the unprecedented step of anointing a deputy heir, Prince Muqrin, 71, his youngest brother. Muqrin is said to be smart and is well-liked by ordinary Saudis; he also has good ties with Saudi Arabia’s most important ally, the United States >>> The succession process is conducted by the Allegiance Council, a body created by Abdullah. It consists of 35 senior princes, all sons and grandsons of Abdulaziz, who meet in secret to choose a new leader when the king dies
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Post by JustJohn or JJ on Jan 25, 2015 6:24:25 GMT -7
A Saudi Palace CoupPosted: 01/23/2015 8:22 am EST King Abdullah's writ lasted all of 12 hours. Within that period the Sudairis, a rich and politically powerful clan within the House of Saud, which had been weakened by the late king, burst back into prominence. They produced a palace coup in all but name. Salman moved swiftly to undo the work of his half-brother. He decided not to change his crown prince Megren, who was picked by King Abdullah for him, but he may choose to deal with him later. However, he swiftly appointed another leading figure from the Sudairi clan. Mohammed Bin Nayef, the interior minister is to be his deputy crown prince. It is no secret that Abdullah wanted his son Meteb for that position, but now he is out. More significantly, Salman, himself a Sudairi, attempted to secure the second generation by giving his 35- year old son Mohammed the powerful fiefdom of the defense ministry. The second post Mohammed got was arguably more important. He is now general secretary of the Royal Court. All these changes were announced before Abdullah was even buried. The general secretaryship was the position held by the Cardinal Richelieu of Abdullah's royal court, Khalid al-Tuwaijri. It was a lucrative business handed down from father to son and started by Abdul Aziz al Tuwaijri. The Tuwaijris became the king's gatekeepers and no royal audience could be held without their permission, involvement, or knowledge. Tuwaijri was the key player in foreign intrigues -- to subvert the Egyptian revolution, to send in the troops to crush the uprising in Bahrain, to finance ISIL in Syria in the early stages of the civil war along his previous ally Prince Bandar bin Sultan. The link between Tuwaijri and the Gulf region's fellow neo-con Mohammed bin Zayed, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, was close. Tuwaijri is now out, and his long list of foreign clients, starting with the Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi may well feel a cooler wind blowing from Riyadh. Sisi failed to attend the funeral on Friday. Just a question of bad weather? Salman's state of health is cause for concern, which is why the power he has given his son is more significant than other appointments announced. Aged 79, Salman is known to have Alzheimers, but the exact state of his dementia is a source of speculation. He is known to have held cogent conversations as recently as last October. But he can also forget what he said minutes ago, or faces he has known all his life, according to other witnesses. This is typical of the disease. I understand the number of hospital visits in the last few months has increased, and that he did not walk around, as he did before. So his ability to steer the ship of state, in a centralized country where no institutions, political parties or even national politics exist, is open to question. But one indication of a change of direction may lie in two attempts recently to establish links with Egyptian opposition figures. I am told that senior advisers to Salman approached an Egyptian liberal opposition politician and had a separate meeting with a lawyer. Neither of them are members of the Muslim Brotherhood but have working contacts with it. Talks were held in Saudi Arabia in the last two months about how reconciliation could be managed. No initiative was agreed, but the talks themselves were an indication of a more pragmatic, or less belligerent, approach by Salman and his advisers. It was understood that these meetings were preparatory to a possible initiative Salman may announce once he was in power. The policy of the late King was to declare the Brotherhood terrorist organization on a par with the Islamic State and al Qaeda. Even before the Sudairis made their move, a power struggle within the House of Saud was apparent. Early on Thursday evening, rumors on Twitter that the king was dead flooded the Internet, which is the primary source of political information in the kingdom. There were official denials, when a Saudi journalist on al Watan newspaper tweeted the information. The palace's hand was forced when two emirs tweeted that the king was dead. MBC TV network cut broadcasting and put the Koran on screen, a sign of mourning, while national television kept on with normal programming. This was a sign that one clan in the royal family wanted the news out quickly and the other clan was stalling for more negotiations. The need for a change of course is all too apparent. On the very night in which the royal drama was taking place, a political earthquake was underway in Saudi Arabia's backyard, Yemen. President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi, his prime minister and government resigned after days of virtual house arrest by Houthi militia. Hadi's resignation leaves two forces in control of the country both of them armed to the teeth: an Iranian backed militia which gets its training from Hezbollah, and al Qaeda, posing as the defender of Sunni muslims. It is a disaster for Saudi Arabia and what is left of the ability of the Gulf Cooperation Council to make any deal stick. Their foreign ministers met only the day before. Yemen's former strongman Ali Abdullah Saleh, who was levered out of power three years ago and who according to leaked telephone calls, advised the Houthis on how to grab power, is now calling for fresh elections, and there were already calls on Thursday night for the south to split away from the North. Yemen, in other words, has officially become the Middle East's fourth failed state. The meteoric rise of the Houthis in Yemen was not the result of spontaneous combustion. It was planned and plotted months ago by Saleh and the United Arab Emirates. Saleh's son, the Yemeni ambassador to the UAE, was a key figure in this foreign intrigue, and as I reported before, he met an Iranian delegation in Rome. This was picked by US intelligence and communicated to Hadi. The year before, the then Saudi intelligence chief Prince Bandar flew a leading member of the Houthi delegation via London for a meeting. Incredible as it seemed, the Saudis were re-opening contact with an Iranian backed Zaydi or Shia sect with whom they had once fought bitter wars. The Saudi/Emirati plan was to use the Houthis to engage and destroy their real target, which was Islah, the Islamist party and chief representative of the Sunni tribes in Yemen. As elsewhere in the Arab world, the entire focus of Abdullah foreign policy after 2011, was to stop the Arab spring in its tracks in Tunisia and Egypt and crush all forces capable of mounting an effective opposition in the Gulf States. Everything else, including the rise of Saudi's foremost regional rival Iran, became subservient to that paramount aim to crush democratic political Islam. The Yemen plan backfired when Islah refused to take up arms to resist the Houthi advance. As a result, the Houthis took more control than they were expected to, and the result is that Yemen stands on the brink of civil war. Al Qaeda's claim to be the only fighters prepared to defend Sunni tribesmen, has just been given a major boost. It is too early to tell whether King Salman is capable of, or even is aware of the need for changing course. All one can say with any confidence is that some of the key figures who stage-managed the Kingdom's disastrous foreign intrigues are now out. Meteb's influence is limited, while Tuwaijiri is out. It is in no-one's interests for chaos to spread into the Kingdom itself. Maybe it is just coincidence that Abdullah died almost on the eve of the anniversary of the January 25 revolution in Egypt. But the timing of his death is a symbol. The royal family should learn that the mood of change, that started on January 25 is unstoppable. The best defense against revolution is to lead genuine tangible political reform within the Kingdom. Allow it to modernize, to build national politics, political parties, real competitive elections, to let Saudis take a greater share of power, to free political prisoners. There are two theories about the slow train crash which the Middle East has become. One is that dictatorship, autocracy, and occupation are the bulwarks against the swirling chaos of civil war and population displacement. The other is that dictators are the cause of instability and extremism. Abdullah was evidence in chief for the second theory. His reign left Saudi Arabia weaker internally and surrounded by enemies as never before. Can Salman make a difference ? It's a big task, but there may be people around him who see the need for a fundamental change in course. It will be the only way a Saudi King will get the backing of his people. He may in the process turn himself into a figurehead, a constitutional monarch, but he will generate stability in the kingdom and the region.
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Post by JustJohn or JJ on Jan 25, 2015 6:33:06 GMT -7
Saudi Arabia's New King Salman Unlikely To Change Country's Strict Religious PoliciesThe Huffington Post | By Antonia Blumberg Posted: 01/24/2015 7:19 am EST Saudi Arabia's new monarch, King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud, comes to power at a time when blogger Raif Badawi has been sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes for criticizing Islam. Will the new king usher in a more open era for religious freedom? Probably not, experts say. "Given King Salman's close ties with the Wahhabi religious establishment, I would expect that the new king will be if anything tougher on dissent in the kingdom," Karen Elliott House, journalist and author of 'On Saudi Arabia: Its People, Past, Religion, Fault Lines -- And Future' told The Huffington Post by email. Wahhabism, a branch of Sunni Islam that emphasizes literal interpretation of the Quran, has long dominated religious life in Saudi Arabia. Its strictness often leads believers to reject other forms of faith, even within Islam, and has been called by some critics the "fountainhead of Islamist terrorism." "The religious curriculum in Saudi Arabia teaches you that people are basically two sides: Salafis [Wahhabis], who are the winners, the chosen ones, who will go to heaven, and the rest," Ali al-Ahmed, director of the Washington-based Institute of Gulf Affairs, told PBS in 2001. "The rest are Muslims and Christians and Jews and others." The ultraconservative country has come under attack from the international community in recent months for enforcing strict punishment on Badawi, who many say was exercising a human right to free speech. The turnover of power could, however, result in pardoning for the blogger, House mused. "Sometimes when senior royals die, the new King releases prisoners or does some other magnanimous act," she said. In a series of lectures delivered at King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah in 2012, Salman, 79, argued for "moderation" in religion and argued against the rise of extremism. "We should read the history of the leaders who adopted an extremist stance in their policies and decisions which exposed their countries to wars and turmoil or because of their following personal whims or fleeting man-made ideologies," then-Prince Salman said. He continued: "We have been honored by Allah with the opportunity to serve Arab and Muslim people. That service is undertaken with real moderation based on the principles of the religion and not for any personal motives." Three years later and crowned king, Salman addressed his country, saying: "We will continue adhering to the correct policies which Saudi Arabia has followed since its establishment." Change may be on the horizon, though, with the rise of social media movements, as well as a growing contingent of Saudi women unwilling to accept the kingdom's strict gender regulations. "People you talk to, they are much more willing to raise their voice now than before," al-Ahmed told AP. "When Abdullah came, people had high hopes. I don't think that is there now. ... People think of [Salman] as another Al Saud prince who is not willing to share power, so I think people are going to accelerate their demands."
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Post by karl on Jan 25, 2015 10:24:42 GMT -7
With all their pomp and robes, these people are what they are, modern individuals living as they were in medivale archaic times. I am sorry, but my self to speak not so nice about them. For what they do, is not very honourable in the manner of treatment of their own people.
For these so called honour bound Arabs operate as if they are exempt from human abuse. Yet, nothing is mentioned of this in the International family of Human Rights.
These Arabs are very guilty of various manners of human abuses such as: Human Trafficing primarly for house whole help in forced labour by virtue of: Forced labour by various manners of debt bondage/purchase of children in 3rd world economies such as Nepel/India/Sri Lanka/Banglodesh and some Africa Countries.
And not a peep from the various human rights groups. It is interesting of the total silence as to be deafening.
My self to say as above not as an activist but out of disgust of these people for what they do.
And, these Arabs are to be respected and honour given to them???
Karl
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Post by JustJohn or JJ on Jan 25, 2015 11:16:22 GMT -7
With all their pomp and robes, these people are what they are, modern individuals living as they were in medivale archaic times. I am sorry, but my self to speak not so nice about them. For what they do, is not very honourable in the manner of treatment of their own people. For these so called honour bound Arabs operate as if they are exempt from human abuse. Yet, nothing is mentioned of this in the International family of Human Rights. These Arabs are very guilty of various manners of human abuses such as: Human Trafficing primarly for house whole help in forced labour by virtue of: Forced labour by various manners of debt bondage/purchase of children in 3rd world economies such as Nepel/India/Sri Lanka/Banglodesh and some Africa Countries. And not a peep from the various human rights groups. It is interesting of the total silence as to be deafening. My self to say as above not as an activist but out of disgust of these people for what they do. And, these Arabs are to be respected and honour given to them??? Karl You are oh so right Karl!!! Every bit of what you said is correct.
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Post by pieter on Jan 25, 2015 14:36:17 GMT -7
Karl,
With your anthropological, historical and real empirical knowledge of Arabs and the Arab world I can't compete. Your university study in Hamburg, and your time in Syria (Aleppo and Damascus) gives you some credit. My limited experiance, knowledge and information stems from decades of following the Foreign news pages and tv and radio reports about the Middle-East, reading encyclopedia and speaking with Muslims from the Middle-East, North-Africa, Bosnia-Herzegowina. Many Non-Arab muslims, most of them Sunni-Muslims, and therefor partly linked to the Sunni-Muslim Arab world. A minority of the people I spoke with were minorities of other sects or religions of the Middle-East, like Arab christians (Egyptian Copts, Lebanese Marronite Christians, Assyrian christians from Syria or Iraq. A lot of Arab christians live in the West, since they fled from Islamist terror in their countries. In the Netherlands some neo-Gothic 19th century Roman-Catholic churches, became Coptic or Assyrian. because the Dutch Roman-Catholic church closed them and sold them, due to lack of viditors due to the secularization process in the Netherlands. It is great that in that sense these churches stay christian houses of worship). I have never bern to a Muslim country and therefor can't judge for instance the situation in Morocco, Turkey or the Arabian Peninsula.
What I do know is the fact that Arab tribes, clans, dynasties, sheiks, and thus people have lived in a state of conflict, competition and war with eachother for millenia and hundreds of years. The Ismaelites or Arabs descent all from the Arab beduin tribes of the desert. In the desert it is the survival of the fittest. Camels were their livestock, and they travelled from Oasis to Oasis, settlement to settlement, and had to defend their families, camels and goods against robers, rival tribes and other people or dangers (like desert storms, snakes, scorpions, drought or sandstorms). The history of the Middle-East and thus the Arab world does not only show conflicts between Arabs and Persians (Iranians), Arabs and Turks (during the Ottoman Empire that ruled North-Africa and large parts of the Arab world in the Middle-East), Arabs and the Kurds (in Syria, Iraq and Iran, when Iran was conquered by Muslim Arabs in the Middle Ages), and last but not least the Arab conflict in Israel & Palestine with the Israeli jews and Israeli Druze. The Middle-East, North-Africa and the Horn of Africa shows a constant state of conflict between Arabs. Within ruling clans bloodshed and palace coups were not uncommon, in which son, cousin or brother assasinated the ruler and took it's place. And look within the two Baath party regimes, in Syria and Iraq. Brutal opression, assasination and intimidation of people of the same clan, sect and family were not uncommon. Saddam Hussein killled his own family members it that suited him. The United Arab State of Egypt and Syria failed due to rivalry between Gamal Abdel Nassr and Hafez Assad, and Nassr was in contant competition with his generals Abdel Haikm Amer and Salah Salem and Sayyid Qutb of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.
In my opinion the old authoritarian absolutist Arab form of rule (clan leaders, religious leaders with their fatwah's and call to Jihad, sheiks, kings, sultans, ajatollah's), the fundamentalist islamist interpretations of both Sunni- and Shia-Islam and the influence of European and Asian totalitarian and authoritarian rule and ideologies (colonialism, fascism, Nazism, Marxism-leninism, stalinism, Titoism and Maoism) have created dangerous ideologies, systems, states, movements and parties in the Middle-east like Pan-Arabism, Arab Nationalism, Arab socialism, Baathism and etc. People in the West forget that there were and are extremist secular Arab extremists too. Khadaffi's Libiya, Sadam Husseins Iraq, South Yemen, Marxist-Leninist Palestinian fractions like the Black September, the Marxist-Leninist and Pan-Arabic PFLP with it's armed wing the Abu Ali Mustapha Brigades, the Pro-Syrian Palestian nationalist PFLP-GC, the Abu Nidal Organisation and the Maoist Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP)
The relationship between the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Islamic Republic of Iran has fluctuated – it strengthened as a result of Hamas moving away from Iran due to differing positions on the Syrian Civil War. Iran rewarded the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine for its pro-Assad stance with an increase in financial and military assistance.
In 1969, the PFLP declared itself a Marxist-Leninist organization, but it has remained faithful to Pan Arabism, seeing the Palestinian struggle as part of a wider uprising against Western imperialism, which also aims to unite the Arab world by overthrowing "reactionary" regimes.
Back to the Oil rich Gulf Arab royal family clans and their regimes.
You get a point there in mentioning their decadent and hedonistic richness which they show with a lot of bling bling, bad taste, like in Europe and the USA the nouveau riches with their tanning bed skin color, bad taste and lack of sophistication, modesty and civilization.
I understand your practical, sober, Protestant (Lutheranian) North-West Europeanan lack of sympathy, disgust and irritation about these people. They don't have the moral, ethical, social, political, democratic and enlightened views and opinions you have and other Europeans, Americans, Canadians, New Zealanders and Australians. Who have a background of hundreds of years of slow evolutionary reform and progress with their Renaissance, Golden ages (17 th century in the Netherlands), dismantlement of feodalism, absolutism, slavery and totalitarian systems, with enlightenment, reason, scientific progress, philosophical, psychological, medical, technological and financial-economical development. The Arabs and many other Muslim cultures and nations are stuck in a patriarchal, tribal, clan based structure of nepotism (keeping and paying your extended family clan of hundreds or thousands of people on important positions which secures your powerbase, regime and thus rule) and thus corruption. One one side there is a little elite of the super rich and on the other side there is the poor population, the exploited and abbused guest workers and the oppressed Shia minority. Women are treated as second class citizens and slaves, and the punishments for various crimes are barbaric in European and American point of view.
How did the Muslim world, which was once a great civilization has become so divided, destructive, terrorised, polarized, primitive (maybe even backward) if we look back at the great civilization it once was in all aspects. Islam or the Muslim world was more develloped, sophisticated and civilized than Europe was in it's scientific, cultural, medical, astronomical, economical, theologic, philosophic, architectural and mathematic achievements. I am sure many Muslims long for that time of Muslim civilization in which by the way Muslims, Christians and jews lived peaceful side by side in Moorish Spain, Midieval Egypt and Ottoman Turkey. Sephardic jews from Spain and Portugal fled to Aamsterdam, Poland, Morocco and the Ottoman Empire. In the Moorish city of Cordoba Muslim, christian and jewish sciebtists and scholars worked side by side in the palace of the Sultan. That Muslim civilization is gone, due to the dominance and mission in the world of the Saoudi branch of Islam, the Wahhabism.
Arabs in modern times live in the Arab world, which comprises 22 countries in the Middle East, North Africa, and parts of the Horn of Africa. They are all modern states and became significant as distinct political entities after the fall and dissolution of the Ottoman Empire (1908–1918).
You are right about the human rights abuses in the Arabs world, and that they receive a lack of attention. I sometimes believe that that has something to do with the support the American and German governments give to Saoudi Arabia. Politically, military, financially and economically. The West needs Saoudi Arabia for it's oil, and as a powerful strategic allie in the Middle East against Iran, Al Qaida and ISIS (Islamic State).
Saoudi Arabia went very far in the direction of Reforms, a peace deal with Israel and supporting the Military regime of El Sissi in Egypt against the Muslim Brotherhood, and Islamist insurgency in the Sinai desert. It supports the Free Syrian Army and other rebel forces in Syria against Assad (and in that being an allie of the West in that Civil War too).
These Arabs are not only guilty of Human Trafficing but also racist, xenophobe and discriminatory towards non-Arab Muslims, Shia-Muslims, black Africans, and Indonesians and Malayans who go to Mecca for pilgrimage. Black slave trade is commited by Arabs in Sudan and the Arab Peninsula. I have the idea that there is a slave trade route from Sudan to Oman and Yemen and probably from there to Saoudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Kuwayt. I have no proof of that, but believe that it exists. I saw black africans in documentries and video's about the Arab world. How is it possible that there are black native people in the Arab Gulf states and in Palestine? I saw black Palestinians too. Black Israeli jews are logical due to the ecodus of Ethiopian jews to Israel with operation Moses in 1990. But black Saoudi's and Palestinians? I know that Indians, Pakistani, Philippinian and Thai people work in the Gulf states next to poor Palestinian and Egyptian guest workers. These Egyptians and Palestinians are exploited by their Gulf Arab brethern too. They are seen as the riff raff, the poor whites (of thd South), the Ukrainians, Bulgarians and Rumanians (in West European demeaning guestworker hierarchy; West-europeans look down on those 'primitive' poor East-Europeans with disdain). Arabs outside the Gulf know this and hate this hierarchy in the Arab world, and the in their eyes lack of support for the Palestinian cause by the Arab rulers, regimes, elite and especially the most important Sunni-Muslim Arab states; Saoudi Arabia and Egypt.
Cheers, Pieter
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Post by karl on Jan 25, 2015 16:23:00 GMT -7
Pieter
My experience was primarly work related even when is social situations. or as when in Iraq with the field work for University studies.
Please do not discount your self so easily with your working knowledge of the Gulf region. My self am a blabberie mouth and talk too much. It is not good to paint with too broad of brush of people, for not all Arabs as painted to be. For through the many friends and contacts with this, the various sources you have through your work, is an excellent manner of experience to gain a good feel of this area. After all, a person has not to die to know what death is.
I do enjoy your manner of responses with the presented details. It provides an intimate knowledge of the material for also others to gain by.
With Syria, there has and is a bit of controversy over their use of poison gas used some years back against some Kurdish villegers with very fatal results in dissemination against the unprotected villegers. With this, the source of material for manufacture of these chemicals as being sourced from our manufacturers and French. The stuff is now hitting the fan over that incident, it would appear the sins of the past have a habit of showing up to the present. It is times such as this that Mexico is nice..
Sorry with the nasty weather in your area, hopefully, the public transport will be up and running for your return to your home safely.
Karl
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Post by JustJohn or JJ on Jan 27, 2015 5:36:54 GMT -7
Saudi Succession Hints at Shift in Foreign RoleSaudi Arabia’s new top leadership: King Salman, right, Crown Prince Muqrin, center, and Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, left. Credit Saudi Press Agency, via Associated Press RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, the interior minister of Saudi Arabia, arrived at a meeting of security chiefs from across the Arab world in Marrakesh, Morocco, last March to deliver a call to arms: It was time, he declared, for a concerted effort to eradicate the Muslim Brotherhood, according to two Arab officials briefed on the meeting. Several were stunned at his audacity. Brotherhood-style Islamists are an accepted part of politics in much of the Arab world, including Tunisia, Libya, Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain and Morocco itself, to say nothing of their warm welcome in Qatar, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity so as not to anger the powerful Saudi prince. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, left, the president of Egypt, with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia in June. The king, who died last week, gave Egypt $12 billion in assistance after Mr. Sisi came to power. But this toughness toward perceived enemies to his family’s dynasty is characteristic of Prince Mohammed, a central player in the often opaque leadership of the kingdom who was named last week as deputy crown prince, making him second in line to the throne. Analysts and diplomats who know him say Prince Mohammed embodies Saudi Arabia’s shift to a more assertive foreign policy, propping up allies and dismantling perceived foes. Inside the kingdom, he has been a driving force in defeating extremist networks and in stifling and punishing political dissent. As world dignitaries including President Obama fly here this week to congratulate the new monarch, King Salman, it is Prince Mohammed’s appointment to deputy crown prince that has captured attention across the Middle East. Analysts and diplomats say his elevation is a harbinger of the Saudi leadership’s longer-term vision for their state and the region, but it also raises thorny questions about royal politics among the hundreds of princes who may feel passed over. Prince Mohammed’s rise in prominence comes amid newly tense relations between Riyadh and Washington, and while his focus on counterterrorism is in line with the White House’s, it is uncertain that he would be any less hostile to the continuing negotiations between Washington and Iran over its nuclear program, or to signals that the White House is no longer pushing for the ouster of Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad. At the same time, Prince Mohammed’s security-first approach to preserving stability and silencing political opposition has been criticized by human rights groups and has often been cited as a motivation by those who support radical Islamist groups. As interior minister, Prince Mohammed oversees a range of internal security forces; protects vital oil infrastructure; and commands a domestic intelligence network that keeps him informed about the secrets of the kingdom. He has also played a critical security role in almost every sensitive Saudi international file as well, including dealing with Bahrain, Qatar, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and the Palestinians. Prince Mohammed works closely with American intelligence and has such close ties to the White House that he has met twice, in Washington and Riyadh, with Mr. Obama. “He is the strongest prince,” said Bernard Haykel, a professor at Princeton University who studies Saudi Arabia. “He is the most powerful guy in the system. He is the pivot.” As a younger half brother of King Abdullah, who died last week, King Salman, 79, has been next in line for the throne for years. And like those two men, the new crown prince, Muqrin, 69, is also a son of Saudi Arabia’s founder. But Prince Mohammed, 55, is the first of the founder’s grandsons to be named as an heir to the throne, and his coronation would make him the first of his generation to lead the kingdom. Many took his appointment as an attempt to underscore the dynasty’s stability, laying out its rulers for decades to come. “They have told the people of Saudi Arabia that everything is going to be stable for the next 30 years, so don’t worry about the transition,” said James B. Smith, a former United States ambassador to Riyadh. “And it is a strategic message to everyone else who wants to try to second-guess the whole transition idea.” Prince Mohammed, moreover, has only daughters, so he is not perceived to have a personal interest in positioning specific heirs to succeed him. “It means he is a player for the system, who cares about the family as a whole more than he does about himself,” Professor Haykel said. But unlike the older generation, made up of a few dozen men, Prince Mohammed’s cohort has an estimated 600 princes, and some analysts suggest that his selection could anger cousins or even uncles who were not chosen. “It sets into motion some very strange family dynamics, none of which appear very good,” said Michael Stephens, a researcher at the Royal United Services Institute who studies Saudi Arabia. While either of the next two kings could technically name someone else as a successor, many who know Prince Mohammed say he has stood out for his hard work and integrity. Whenever a security officer is killed in the kingdom, he is known to pay his respects to the family in person, said Mustafa Alani, a scholar at the Gulf Research Center. And when King Abdullah’s death was announced, Prince Mohammed was not in Riyadh jockeying for position; he was at a counterterrorism conference in London. “He is the hardest-working person I have ever seen in any government, and I spent a lot of time with him,” said Mr. Smith, the former ambassador. Unlike King Abdullah or King Salman, who studied at the court, Prince Mohammed was educated in the West and graduated from Lewis & Clark, a liberal arts college in Portland, Ore. Because of his Western education, Prince Mohammed is believed to favor liberalization on matters like education and opportunities for women. But he has made few public statements on social issues, and experts say his security mind-set makes him unlikely to push for changes that might endanger his family’s legitimacy as the guardians of the kingdom’s ultraconservative version of Islam. “None of these people are ideological,” Professor Haykel said. “There is no commitment to anything beyond their interests.” Prince Mohammed is a second-generation security chief, the son of the former interior minister Prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz. As deputy minister under his father, Prince Mohammed was credited with a leading role helping Saudi Arabia fend off Al Qaeda and other Islamist militants over the last decade. Diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks portray Prince Mohammed as personally motivated to fight militant Islam and in tight cooperation with the United States. In one cable, he said it had been difficult to see that Saudis had played role in the Sept. 11 attacks and other incidents. “Terrorists stole the most valuable things we have,” Prince Mohammed told Richard C. Holbrooke, a former ambassador to the United Nations, in 2008. “They took our faith and our children and used them to attack us.” State Department officials credit Prince Mohammed with developing a distinctive approach to combating terrorist recruiting in the kingdom, working directly with the families of dead militants. By providing support to the families “and telling them their sons had been ‘victims’ and not ‘criminals,’ ” the program gave the families “a way out” and provided a public relations advantage to the government. “If you stop five but create 50,” Prince Mohammed was quoted as saying, “that’s dumb.” Prince Mohammed was also eager to cooperate with the United States. In 2009, he called their law enforcement and intelligence agencies “one team” and said he had asked the king for permission to maintain a special “security channel” to exchange information with Washington regardless of the ups and downs of bilateral relations. But that focus on security has included a broader crackdown on dissent. Adam Coogle, who monitors Saudi Arabia for Human Rights Watch, said that while law enforcement under Prince Mohammed’s father had often been arbitrary, Prince Mohammed had professionalized and formalized it. “The actual outcomes for people are worse,” Mr. Coogle said. “You did this or said that, so you are sentenced to 15 years.” Among the laws used to stifle dissent are a so-called cybercrimes law and a terrorism law implemented last year that allows for the prosecution of acts that “undermine the security of the society” or “endanger its national unity.” The law gives the interior minister broad powers over detention and has been used to jail many nonviolent dissidents, Mr. Coogle said. “He is the architect of the crackdown on and jailing of these activists with ludicrously harsh sentences,” Mr. Coogle said. “This is all on his watch.” Still, after a recent attack on members of Saudi Arabia’s Shiite minority in its eastern province, Prince Mohammed flew to the funeral to pay his respects — an important gesture for a Saudi royal. In 2009, Prince Mohammed was lightly wounded when a militant who came to his palace saying he wanted reform blew up a bomb hidden in a body cavity. Though some criticized Prince Mohammed for letting his guard down, Mr. Alani, of the Gulf Research Center, said that Prince Mohammed had told his guard not to search the man so as not to humiliate him. “It showed that this man is not delegating things to his assistants,” Mr. Alani said. Correction: January 27, 2015 An earlier version of this article misstated the given name and omitted the middle initial of a former United States ambassador to Saudi Arabia. He is James B. Smith, not Jeffrey.
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Post by JustJohn or JJ on Jan 31, 2015 4:59:23 GMT -7
The Slaying of the Saudi Spider
Posted: 01/30/2015 8:54 am EST
The palace coup is complete. In a far-reaching decree on Thursday night, the new Saudi king Salman unraveled the legacy of his half-brother Abdullah and set the kingdom on course for a significant regional realignment. A possible rapprochement with Turkey and Qatar, a return to the traditional role Saudi Arabia has occupied as mediator between Fatah and Hamas, and a qualitative change in the support Riyadh has given the military rulers of Egypt are all now on the table.
Blowing away the cobwebs also means dealing with the spider. Prince Bandar bin Sultan has been stripped of his last remaining role as head of the National Security Council. This, one senses, really is the end of the line for Bandar, and the region will be all the more stable for it.
Abdullah's two sons, Prince Mishaal bin Abdullah, who is the governor of Mecca, and Prince Turki, who governed the capital Riyadh, have been dismissed. Abdullah's only son left in power is Prince Muteb, who stays as head of the National Guard. There is no love lost in this family.
A conservative cleric, Saad al-Shethri, who backed gender segregation in higher education, has become Salman's personal adviser. But a balance has been struck with the addition of the new information minister, Adel al-Toraifi, a young liberal who is a former head of Al Arabiya news channel.
The two men to emerge with the power to run the country are Mohammed bin Nayef, the deputy crown prince, and Salman's son Mohammed, who now has three roles: defense minister, general secretary to the royal court, and president of the newly formed Council of Economic and Development Affairs. Another Salman son, Abdulaziz, is deputy petroleum minister. The second generation has now been firmly secured by the Sudairi clan.
Salman started his reign by buying the love of his people, the same thing the late King Abdullah tried to do during the first months of the Arab Spring. All state employees will receive two months of bonus salary, and all retired state employees will receive two months of bonus pension. Students who receive state grants and those on social security will get two months of extra funds as well. The bill comes to a mere $30 billion.
"Dear people: You deserve more and whatever I do I would not be able to give you what you deserve," the newly inaugurated monarch said on Twitter, just a few weeks after Riyadh signaled it would have to cut back on public spending because of the oil-price crash. Salman was retweeted 250,000 times.
King Salman has had rave reviews. All manner of former opponent of King Abdullah are now singing Salman's praises. Informed Saudi observers note that King Abdullah became dogmatic in his last years. Salman, for them, marks a return to the moderation of King Fahd.
The new king stressed continuity, but his first seven days in power have been anything but. And the gear change will be noted first abroad. In a world in which personal relations play out in politics, it is important to remember who Salman's and Bin Nayef's friends are.
King Salman has remained close to Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad, the emir of Qatar, so the threat that Saudi Arabia made last year to lay siege to its tiny neighbor or have it expelled from the Gulf Cooperative Council now looks like a bad memory. Similarly, bin Nayef is close to senior Turkish officials, Saudi sources tell me.
The rift between Turkey and Saudi Arabia after the Arab revolutions of 2011 will have pained him, not just because the two regional powers need each other to contain Iran's expanded influence in Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon and Syria but personally. It is likely that he will repair that rift.
It is also payback time for bin Nayef's personal enemies. The interior minister has still not forgotten that two-hour conversation that the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, Mohammed bin Zayed, had with Richard Hass 12 years ago, which we know about courtesy of WikiLeaks. Speaking about bin Nayef's father, who was the Saudi interior minister at the time, the Emirati prince observed that Darwin's theory that man was descended from the apes was correct.
Bin Nayef, the son, has more recent scores to settle with Abu Dhabi's ruler. Erem News, which, like every Emirati news outlet, is controlled by the royal court, questioned bin Nayef's appointment as deputy crown prince. Saying that Salman failed to consult the Allegiance Council, the UAE mouthpiece noted, "The mechanism of choosing Mohammad Bin Nayef from among several prominent grandsons has attracted the attention of observers."
This was not a casual post. An Egyptian TV anchor, Yousef Al-Hosseini, tried the same thing on as soon as Abdullah's latest illness became known. According to Arab Secrets, this was part of a campaign masterminded by the ousted Khaled al-Tuwaijri, Abdullah's confidant, to keep Prince Meteb lined up for the role of deputy crown prince. The website named the route through which the anchor's script was dictated, from the Saudi royal court through to Sisi's office manager, Abbas Kamil, the man who has been secretly recorded asking for the satirist Bassim Yousef to be taken off the air.
Tuwaijri, Bandar and bin Zayed ran out of time. The king died before a serious challenge to Salman could be mounted. And now two of them, at least, are yesterday's men. We will watch with interest what happens to the third. This food chain of intrigue from Riyadh to Cairo is likely to be broken.
The changes taking place in the Saudi royal palace are already having their effect. Bin Zayed stayed away from Abdullah's funeral, as did the Egyptian president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. And just at the time when Sisi needs a fresh injection of Saudi cash, Egypt is more unstable than ever, with full-scale military operations in the Sinai and mass protests around the country that never seem to die down. The Egyptian Pound is at an all-time low. The options for Sisi appear to be narrowing.
This is not a good time for the Egyptian army to lose its chief bankroller in Riyadh, but this now is a real possibility. Even if bin Nayef decides to keep the funds going -- and there was always a difference between funds promised and hard cash received -- it may now come with strings attached.
The policy of declaring the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization may also be about to change. Salman himself received Sheikh Rached Ghannouchi, the leader of Ennadha, in his condolences for the late king. This is the most senior Islamist to be welcomed in Saudi Arabia. The removal of Suleiman Ab Al-Khail as the minister of endowments and Islamic affairs, who was an arch opponent of the Brotherhood, is another sign that the policy might be about to change.
Even if it doesn't, the outcome of the earthquake this week in Saudi Arabia will be received with quiet satisfaction by senior foreign office officials who bridled at David Cameron's launching of an inquiry into the Brotherhood in Britain, which was done under Saudi and Emirati pressure.
Up until Salman took over, the inquiry headed by Sir John Jenkins has proved to be a political embarrassment. It has been unpublishable because it came to the "wrong" conclusion, clearing the Brotherhood of any involvement in terrorism in Egypt. Now the new masters of Riyadh might even welcome such a conclusion.
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