Taking a chance on a democratic Yemen

Yemen’s youthful democratic movement needs the support of outside powers – otherwise the stalemate, the and worsening economic and humanitarian crisis, will continue.

How Saudi Arabia Killed the Arab Spring

Saudi Arabia squashed the “Arab Spring” when it sent its military to quell the popular uprising in neighboring Bahrain earlier this year.

A Letter to Saudi Women Drivers

Saudi Women who stand up to the regime simply by driving should also challenge it’s intervention in Bahrain.

A Piece by Balqees Melhem

They taught us in school… That he who does not group-pray at the mosque is a hypocrite! My dad was one of them.

Not a Failure: Saudi Arabia Before and #AfterMarch11

by Nour Merza

They called it a failure. But the white robes that filled the streets of the Saudi capital yesterday show another side of the story. Two days after the March 11 Day of Rage that no one but police officers attended, small protests sparked in Riyadh. These developments suggest that despite analysts’ claims that March 11 was a “non-event,” there is evidence that proves otherwise. Taking a closer look at the event reveals that, rather than being a failure, March 11 was in fact a success. read

“Pay the worker his wage before his sweat dries”

Guess what this image is…

A Sri Lankan maid whose Saudi employer allegedly hammered 23 nails into her arms, legs and forehead is set to undergo surgery Friday, while government officials meet with Saudi diplomats in Colombo over the incident.

Pakistan and Saudi Get Cozier. Nuclozier.

Discussion on a post-racial America aside, let me bring your attention to a very interesting piece from the guardian which was forwarded to me, entitled Pakistan’s Bomb and Saudi Arabia by Julian Borger of the Guardian, part of his Global Security blog. According to Borger, who recently attended a wee conference in Brussells hosted

As Iranians Struggle for Reforms…

Saudi Arabia, that bastion of freedom, continues its existential ridiculousness by arresting 67 guest workers at a party for reportedly wearing women’s clothes.

The men are Filipinos and the Philippine embassy says they have since been released.

They now face charges of imitating women, and possession of alcohol.

The Saudi authorities were tipped off to this egregious transgression by the Saudi newspaper, al-Riyadh, which said those arrested were celebrating the Independence Day of the Philippines at a private party in the Saudi capital on 13 June.

Executing Jihadists by Remote Control

Screenwriters take note, this would make an awesome plot for another one of those CIA-agent-in-the-Middle-East-type movies Hollywood loves so much…

Germany’s The Local recently reported that a Saudi inventor filed for a patent with the German Patent and Trademark Office (DPMA) for a killer GPS-like microchip that would allow governments to locate and terminate known extremists and criminals (and possibly political opponents and dissenters?) at the push of a button.

President Obama, I liked you better as a community organizer

“You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s fight to make sure our so called allies in the Middle East, the Saudis and the Egyptians, stop oppressing their own people, and suppressing dissent, and tolerating corruption and inequality, and mismanaging their economies so that their youth grow up without education, without prospects, without hope, the ready [...]