SHAFAQNA

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) -- Saudi Arabia will give the Palestinian government in the Israeli-occupied West Bank $100m to help alleviate a worsening budget crisis, the Palestinian president's office has said. "The state's budget is facing a large deficit as a result of the docking of Palestinian money by the Israeli government as a punitive step after the UN recognition of Palestine as an observer state," Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said in a statement on Thursday. Abbas has struggled…

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) -- Saudi Arabia has criticised world reaction to its beheading of a Sri Lankan maid convicted of killing her employer's baby, the official Saudi news agency SPA reported. Riyadh "deplores the statements made... over the execution of a Sri Lankan maid who had plotted and killed an infant by suffocating him to death, one week after she arrived in the kingdom", the government spokesman said. Rizana Nafeek was beheaded on Wednesday in a case that sparked…

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – A group of prominent Saudi political activists who were jailed for long terms more than a year ago have been offered release if they sign a document pledging to abandon their activities, their lawyer said. Bassim Alim, who represented 16 Saudi activists sentenced in November 2011 for terms of between five and 30 years for convictions ranging from financing terrorism to incitement against the king, said 10 of the men had signed the document.…

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – It’s not quite the “Arab Spring,” but even Saudi Arabia, the most change-resisting nation in the Middle East, is showing signs of being affected by the mood of the time. Consider events of just the past week or so: * The new Consultative Assembly has women members for the first time. In fact, a Royal Decree states that from now on women should have at least 30 percent of the 150 seats. * Once…

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – A group of hardline clerics protested outside the royal palace in Riyadh against the king's decision to appoint 30 women to the kingdom's top advisory body, a YouTube video posted on Wednesday showed. The footage of Tuesday's demonstration showed clerics protesting what they said were "dangerous changes in the country and these latest appointments in the Shura Council that do not represent the philanthropists and the good people." "These appointments are not representative of…

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – As he was falling asleep, the father of five turned to his wife and said he hopes it will all be worth it someday. Maybe someday, Mohammed Al-Qahtani said, his daughter be able to walk somewhere without a male guardian. Maybe someday, she'll be able to drive a car without fear of arrest. "Maybe I'm dreaming," Al-Qahtani said. "My newborn daughter, maybe one day she will vote for the prime minister in Saudi Arabia."Of…

SHAFAQNA(Shia International News Association)-- We pay a lot of attention to revolutions when they emerge suddenly and violently, but when a transformation arrives gradually and peacefully it's easy to miss. Let's stop for a moment and take a look at a slow-motion development changing the world as we know it: The United States is giving up its addiction to foreign oil. For decades, we bemoaned the awful toll this addiction has taken. The need for oil and natural gas -- much…

SHAFAQNA(Shia International News Association)-- Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah appointed Prince Saud bin Nayef as governor of the oil-producing Eastern Province, the Royal Court said in a statement carried by state news agency SPA on Monday. The Eastern Province is home to the country's Shi'ite Muslim minority which has held protests over the past two years calling for more rights and the release of jailed relatives. "Prince Mohamad bin Fahad bin Abdulaziz is relieved of his duties as the governor of the Eastern…

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) -- King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia has appointed 30 women to the previously all-male consultative Shura Council, marking a historic first as he pushes reforms in the kingdom. The decrees, published by the official SPA news agency on Friday, give women a 20 percent quota in the Shura Council, a body appointed by the king to advise him on policy and legislation. One decree amended an article in the council's statute to…

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) -- Saudi Arabia's king on Friday appointed 30 women to the Shura Council, the first time women have been chosen for the country's top consultative body. King Abdullah issued a decree that the 150-member council be composed of at least 20% women, the official SPA news agency reported. Abdullah also ordered that the term of the council members be four years, beginning after the current term ends. The SPA said the move was made "after…