The State Department criticized Saudi Arabia on Wednesday for arresting peaceful reform activists, calling the action a disappointing backward step by the Arab monarchy.

A Saudi fact-finding mission to the US found that Saudis are failing to reach out to ordinary Americans.

Al-Watan Arabic newspaper recently published the statute of the newly-founded National Human Rights Association (NHRA). After the setting up of the association, reactions began to appear in the local press. Most of them were in favor of the association.

Self-examination is the order of the day as a looming confrontation between liberals and conservatives - that may well take a generation to unfold - threatens internal stability.

Manama: Saudi leaders have rebuffed a British plea urging the kingdom to encourage other Arab countries to "consider" a US initiative to democratise the Arab world. The leaders maintain that political reforms in the region should not be imposed from outside.

The 9-11 Commission recently confirmed in a staff report accounts of Saudi Arabia’s attempts to capture Osama bin Laden prior to 9-11 and efforts to foil Al-Qaeda terror attacks inside the Kingdom as early as 1998.

Since the May 12, 2003, al Qaeda bombing in Riyadh that killed 23 people, the Saudi government has launched an all-out offensive against terrorists who are targeting the kingdom, arresting hundreds of suspected operatives in dozens of raids throughout the country.

The royal rulers of Saudi Arabia sense that their country is in crisis but don't know how to solve it. Time is short...

Saudi Arabia, which has faced strong criticism for its past support of Islamic extremist groups, has now put in place world class laws and regulations to combat the financing of terrorism, according to a confidential international assessment.

For the first time, Saudi Arabia has established a non-governmental human rights organization to uphold the basic rights guaranteed to its citizens. The National Human Rights Association (NHRA), which will implement international human rights charters signed by Saudi Arabia, will also include a special panel to monitor violations of women's rights.

Saudi Arabia pledged Tuesday to wipe out terror activity in the kingdom after a raid that killed the suspected al-Qaida chief on the Arabian peninsula - a man believed to have once been a bodyguard for Osama bin Laden.

RIYADH, March 16 (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia detained several prominent reformists on Tuesday in a move their supporters described as a major setback to democratic change in the conservative Muslim kingdom.

And Saudi Arabia says it has arrested four liberal reformists in two cities. They were accused of making statements that do not serve Saudi unity. All four have called for a constitutional form of government.

If the Saudis had been happy with the presidency of George H.W. Bush -- and they were -- they must have been truly ecstatic, in the summer of 2000, that his son was the Republican candidate for president.

A message purportedly by al-Qaida vowed to avenge the killing earlier this week of the suspected al-Qaida chief on the Arabian peninsula, a man the group identified Thursday in a statement as a former bodyguard for Osama bin Laden.

Saudi Arabia will not be dictated to by outside forces — the United States or others — on reforms, Assistant Deputy Foreign Minister Prince Turki ibn Muhammad told the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva yesterday.

Saudi Arabia's detention of several prominent reformers aims to rein in calls for political change which had come uncomfortably close to questioning the absolute rule of the royal family, analysts said on Wednesday.

There will be no letup in the Kingdom's fight against terrorism, Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal said yesterday, a day after security forces gunned down two terror suspects including a leader of the Al-Qaeda network in the Gulf region.

There will be no letup in the Kingdom’s fight against terrorism, Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal said yesterday, a day after security forces gunned down two terror suspects including a leader of the Al-Qaeda network in the Gulf region.

Two years ago a woman named Huda Al-Mansour came to the offices of Al-Riyadh newspaper bringing with her films and a projector and accompanied by some volunteers.

Until the bombing, denial was officially sanctioned as a collective response to accusations that Saudi Arabia had a bit of a terrorism problem.

If, in the future, the war on terrorism is fought in the orderly confines of the courtroom and not just in the caves of Tora Bora, then incriminating documents could become the equivalent of smart bombs.

JEDDAH, 13 March 2004 — The participation of women in the Shoura Council is under study, according to a senior member of the body.

Today, the estate and family of John P. O'Neill, Sr., famed FBI counter-terrorism expert who perished in the World Trade Center attack just days after starting his job as Chief of Security at the Twin Towers, are filing two class action lawsuits

Saudi Arabia has condemned yesterday’s bombing incident in Madrid, Spain. An official statement issued yesterday said:

Saudi Arabia is not oil barrels," the prince protested. "Our most important natural resource is our people." Also "more precious than oil," he added, is his country's centrality, site of Mecca and Medina, to the Islamic religion.

In a country in which the founder of Wahhabism abhorred music, singing and poetry were an essential part of life in Al-Khalaf and then Abha, where Abodehman went to secondary school.

Saudi Arabia, one of the most male-dominated nations on earth, is preparing to break tradition and allow women to take part in its first elections, reports the Guardian's Brian Whitaker, in the article "Saudi Women Get the Vote." The move will no doubt win the wrath of religiousconservatives.

For the past two decades, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been engaged in an extensive effort "to spread Islam to every corner of the earth."

After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah told President Bush that his government was "fully prepared to cooperate with you in every way that may help identify and pursue the perpetrators of this criminal incident."