The Nation contributor, Robert Scheer, on Bush’s low favorability rating in Saudi Arabia:

“It turns out they hate us not for our success, as Bush once claimed, but for our incompetence, which he has done much to exhibit.”

Robert nails it with his “Those Ungrateful Saudis” piece. Give it a read!

from AFP

Look at the size of that huge phallic symbol! Actually, it looks like a huge middle finger pointing directly at the United States! - JS

DUBAI (AFP) - The world’s tallest building, still under construction in the booming Gulf emirate of Dubai, has become the world’s tallest free’standing structure, its developers said on Thursday.

The Burj Dubai tower is now 555 metres (1,831.5 feet) tall and has surpassed the 553-metre- (1,824.9-feet) CN Tower in Toronto, Canada, which held the record for the world’s tallest free’standing structure since 1976, developers Emaar Properties said in a statement.

The skyscraper, being built by South Korea’s Samsung and set for completion at the end of next year, is one of several mega projects taking shape in Dubai, which is part of the United Arab Emirates.

The statement did not reveal the tower’s final projected height or its final number of stories, which Emaar has kept secret since launching the project in January 2004.

The developer announced in July that Burj Dubai, Arabic for Dubai Tower, had exceeded Taiwan’s Taipei 101 which is 508 metres (1,676.4 feet) tall, to become the tallest building in the world.

What was it Bush said……what was it? We’d go after any terrorists or any country who supports terrorists? Why isn’t he shooting his mouth off to them?

Despite six years of promises, U.S. officials say Saudi Arabia continues to look the other way at wealthy individuals identified as sending millions of dollars to al Qaeda.

“If I could somehow snap my fingers and cut off the funding from one country, it would be Saudi Arabia,” Stuart Levey, the under secretary of the Treasury in charge of tracking terror financing, told ABC News.

Despite some efforts as a U.S. ally in the war on terror, Levey says Saudi Arabia has dropped the ball. Not one person identified by the United States and the United Nations as a terror financier has been prosecuted by the Saudis, Levey says.

“When the evidence is clear that these individuals have funded terrorist organizations, and knowingly done so, then that should be prosecuted and treated as real terrorism because it is,” Levey says.

More at the Blotter

United Press International

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, Aug. 27 (UPI) — Almost 2,000 camels have died in Saudi Arabia in the past month due to animal feed that is suspected to have been poisoned.

The country’s Agriculture Ministry said tests revealed the feed was contaminated by insecticide, the BBC reported.

Camel owners have been promised compensation from King Abdullah. Camels are often traded for thousands of dollars each and are used for racing and as a source of meat.

The deaths, which have occurred throughout the country, involve symptoms such as vomiting, sweating and excitability, the BBC said.

“Veterinary experts say the symptoms indicate cases of poisoning and not an infectious disease,” Agriculture Minister Fahd Bilghoneim told a news conference. “And this accords with what camel owners have said about animal feed they bought.”

By Sue Pleming and Andrew Gray

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates travel to the Middle East next week seeking Arab support to stabilize Iraq but they may face an uphill battle from Saudi Arabia.

U.S. officials are increasingly frustrated with Sunni Arab nations such as Saudi Arabia that harbor doubts about Iraq’s Shi’ite-led government, seeing it as unable to pacify the country and too close politically to Shi’ite-dominated Iran.

A senior State Department official said on Friday Iraq’s Sunni Arab neighbors must send an “affirmative” message of support to the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and to Sunni moderates in Iraq.

“We want to see all of the neighbors, particularly such key partners as Saudi Arabia and the (United Arab) Emirates, play in Iraq the kind of supportive and constructive role that will be in their interests as well as ours in the region in confronting the negative forces,” said the official, who spoke on condition he was not named.

Rice and Gates will deliver this message when they meet ministers of the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council as well as Jordan and Egypt in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh on Tuesday, followed by meetings in Saudi Arabia.

“The region itself can’t sit on the fence waiting. It needs to positively engage as well,” said the senior official.

The New York Times reported on Friday that the Saudis had offered financial support to Sunni groups in Iraq and U.S. officials were increasingly concerned about its close Arab ally’s “counterproductive” role in Iraq.

read more HERE

An oil rich nation……. yet we sit on our hands here in the U.S. when it comes to developing alternative energy sources. Go figure……..

From Gasworld:

A world class, multi-million riyal research centre for renewable energy has been set up in Saudi Arabia and will seek to empower the country, to play the role of world energy leader for future years.

The centre is housed at the Dhahran-based King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM) and is currently working on resource mobilisation before its leading research activities begin in earnest next year.

S. U. Rahman, interim director of the Centre of Research Excellence in Renewable Energy (CoRE-RE) at KFUPM, reportedly said there is evidence of ample interest in alternative fuels in Saudi Arabia, including the generation and use of hydrogen and solar energy as an alternative to fossil fuels.

He commented, “Moreover, it is high time to pursue intensive studies and research in the field of renewable energy as the Kingdom lags behind in this area.”

The centre has set up different divisions for research on hydrogen, methanol and fuel cell, solar and wind energy, advanced energy storage systems, electrical infrastructure and control systems, and the economics of renewable energy.

Rahman also indicated that the Ministry of Higher Education has supported the initiative with a mandate to pursue research programs in the field of renewable energy.

Why not bomb bomb bomb…..bomb bomb Saudi Arabia?

Although Bush administration officials have frequently lashed out at Syria and Iran, accusing it of helping insurgents and militias here, the largest number of foreign fighters and suicide bombers in Iraq come from a third neighbor, Saudi Arabia, according to a senior U.S. military officer and Iraqi lawmakers.

About 45% of all foreign militants targeting U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians and security forces are from Saudi Arabia; 15% are from Syria and Lebanon; and 10% are from North Africa, according to official U.S. military figures made available to The Times by the senior officer. Nearly half of the 135 foreigners in U.S. detention facilities in Iraq are Saudis, he said.

Fighters from Saudi Arabia are thought to have carried out more suicide bombings than those of any other nationality, said the senior U.S. officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the subject’s sensitivity. It is apparently the first time a U.S. official has given such a breakdown on the role played by Saudi nationals in Iraq’s Sunni Arab insurgency.

He said 50% of all Saudi fighters in Iraq come here as suicide bombers. In the last six months, such bombings have killed or injured 4,000 Iraqis.

The situation has left the U.S. military in the awkward position of battling an enemy whose top source of foreign fighters is a key ally that at best has not been able to prevent its citizens from undertaking bloody attacks in Iraq, and at worst shares complicity in sending extremists to commit attacks against U.S. forces, Iraqi civilians and the Shiite-led government in Baghdad.

The problem casts a spotlight on the tangled web of alliances and enmities that underlie the political relations between Muslim nations and the U.S.

More at the LA TIMES

WASHINGTON - The United States hasn’t yet persuaded Saudi Arabia, the Sunni power broker in the Middle East and a close U.S. ally, that it should support Iraq’s Shiite-led government, a senior State Department official said Friday.

It’s an uphill fight.

“We believe the Saudis would best advance their and our interests … were they to be constructively engaged” in helping the elected Iraqi government succeed, said David Satterfield, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s top adviser for Iraq.

Asked whether the administration has succeeded in that lobbying effort, Satterfield gave a half smile and said, “We continue to make the point to them, for their own sake.”

In an interview with The Associated Press, Satterfield also said the United States is certain that radical Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr is still living next door in Iran. That contradicts aides to the anti-American religious and political leader.

“We know he’s out of the country, we don’t (merely) think” so, Satterfield said. “He’s in Iran, which is where he has been since mid-January.”

More at Yahoo News

No foreign diplomat has been closer or had more access to President Bush, his family and his administration than the magnetic and fabulously wealthy Prince Bandar bin Sultan of Saudi Arabia.

Prince Bandar has mentored Mr. Bush and his father through three wars and the broader campaign against terrorism, reliably delivering - sometimes in the Oval Office - his nation’s support for crucial Middle East initiatives dependent on the regional legitimacy the Saudis could bring, as well as timely warnings of Saudi regional priorities that might put it into apparent conflict with the United States. Even after his 22-year term as Saudi ambassador ended in 2005, he still seemed the insider’s insider. But now, current and former Bush administration officials are wondering if the longtime reliance on him has begun to outlive its usefulness.

Bush administration officials have been scratching their heads over steps taken by Prince Bandar’s uncle, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, that have surprised them by going against the American playbook, after receiving assurances to the contrary from Prince Bandar during secret trips he made to Washington.

For instance, in February, King Abdullah effectively torpedoed plans by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for a high-profile peace summit meeting between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel and the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, by brokering a power’sharing agreement with Mr. Abbas’s Fatah and Hamas that did not require Hamas to recognize Israel or forswear violence. The Americans had believed, after discussions with Prince Bandar, that the Saudis were on board with the strategy of isolating Hamas.

Read more at THE NEW YORK TIMES

Saudi Arabia has dismissed Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s invitation to Arab leaders to attend a Middle East peace conference.

The Saudi Cabinet Monday said Israel first must end what it called constant violations and inhuman aggression against the Palestinian people.

In Paris, visiting Palestinian Foreign Minister Ziad Abu Amr said Mr. Olmert’s proposal skips over necessary steps in the peace process.

But in Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said that interaction between Israel and potential Arab partners would be positive.

On Sunday, Mr. Olmert invited all Arab leaders to a peace conference and called Saudi King Abdullah a “very important leader.”

Last week, the Arab League re-launched a 2002 plan calling for normal relations with Israel in return for Israel’s withdrawal to its 1967 borders.

Mr. Olmert welcomed the decision, but said Israel does not accept all parts of the plan.

The plan calls for the right of return of Palestinian refugees to their homes inside Israel.

Mr. Olmert said the plan, with some changes, could be a basis for dialogue.

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