King and Prime Minister Abdullah

A group of veteran Saudi activists rushed to launch a new political and human rights association on Monday, saying the government is already trying to stifle the move. Eleven activists sent a declaration about the creation of the Association for Civil and Political Rights to Saudi King Abdullah on Sunday night even though Saudi security officials had begun questioning potential signatories, Mohammed al-Qahtani, co-founder and a politics professor, told AFP. "The idea is to form a society to defend civil and political rights," Qahtani said. "The country is open now, rhetorically at least," he said, citing King Abdullah's programme of regular "national dialogues" on ... Read Full Story

A member of Al-Qaeda’s Yemeni branch released an audio message online, in which he blasts the King of Saudi Arabia for creating a university for both men and women will attend. REUTERS/ Khaled al-Hariri Ibrahim al-Rubaish, a former Guatanamo prisoner, said King Abdullah is moving the ultra-conservative Kingdom closer to secularism. “If he is not able to distinguish between good and evil and what is good and harmful, then how can he be put as the ruler over millions of people?” the recording goes. “I call upon every Muslim to (distance themselves) from this agent apostate government, that has clearly demonstrated that it prefers ... Read Full Story

A group of veteran Saudi activists launched a new political and human rights association on Monday while saying the government is already trying to stifle the move. Eleven activists sent a declaration about the creation of the Association for Civil and Political Rights to Saudi King Abdullah on Sunday night even though Saudi security officials had begun questioning potential signatories, Mohammed al-Qahtani, co-founder and a politics professor, told AFP. "The idea is to form a society to defend civil and political rights," Qahtani said. "The country is open now, rhetorically at least," he said, citing King Abdullah's programme of regular "national dialogues" on important ... Read Full Story

Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah is expected in Syria on Wednesday in a further sign of warming ties between the two Arab states, a newspaper close to the government reported. It will be the monarch's first visit to Syria since he acceded to the throne in 2005. "King Abdullah will arrive in Syria this afternoon for a two-day official visit, at the head of an important delegation," the Al-Watan daily reported. On Monday the royal court in an announcement carried by the official Saudi news agency SPA said Abdullah would travel to Syria "in the coming days." Relations between Damascus and Riyadh deteriorated in the ... Read Full Story

The Saudi king dismissed a prominent hard-line cleric who criticized a university he recently launched for allowing men and women to take classes together. King Abdullah issued a royal decree relieving Sheik Saad bin Naser al-Shethri from his duties on the powerful government-sanctioned Council of Senior Islamic Scholars, the official Saudi Press Agency reported. The decree issued Sunday did not provide a reason for al-Shethri's dismissal, but the cleric was quoted by local media in late September as demanding an end to coed classes at the newly opened King Abdullah Science and Technology University He said that mixing students of the opposite sex was ... Read Full Story