Thursday, November 1, 2018

the fight within Saudi Arabia; US borrowing doubles

Here are 3 figures resisting MbS, the crown prince:

1)       10-30-2018

    Prince Ahmad bin Abdulaziz, the younger brother of King Salman, has returned to Saudi Arabia after a prolonged absence in London, to mount a challenge to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman or find someone who can.
  The septuagenarian prince, an open critic of bin Salman (MBS), has travelled with security guarantees given by US and UK officials.  “He and others in the family have realised that MBS has become toxic,” a Saudi source close to Prince Ahmad told Middle East Eye.
  “The prince wants to play a role to make these changes, which means either he himself will play a major role in any new arrangement or to help to choose an alternative to MBS.”      https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/exclusive-saudi-dissident-prince-flies-home-tackle-mbs-succession-58983364
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2)     11-8-2017  Earlier this year, 
Abdul Aziz’s tweets made headlines when he essentially defied his increasingly powerful cousin (MbS) in public, defending Mohammed bin Nayef, the former crown prince removed from his post in June, and lashing out at the apparent partnership between Saudi Arabia and the UAE.  https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/mystery-surrounds-fate-late-king-fahd-s-son-amid-saudi-intrigue-1517142278
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7-24-18    The online news site Arabi21 has published new information about Abdul Aziz bin Fahd, the Saudi prince who has been under arrest for more than ten months and the son of the former Saudi King Fahd bin Abdul Aziz.
Arabi21 revealed that the arrest of the prince was carried out at the request of the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, Mohammed bin Zayed.
According to the newspaper’s report, the whole process of arrest, humiliation and torture of the prince was filmed and sent to bin Zayed in Abu Dhabi.
Arabi21 quoted a Saudi source saying that Abdul Aziz bin Fahd was aboard his yacht off the coast of Spain when he responded to the request of his uncle, King Salman, to visit him in Saudi Arabia.  Before the Hajj, Abdul Aziz bin Fahd left his yacht hoping that he would return to it after Hajj, but this did not happen.
The source added that "during the arrest, Prince Abdul Aziz bin Fahd was beaten and insulted, which caused him injuries and a state of severe depression.  His condition got worse and he was later admitted to a hospital in Riyadh. Then, he disappeared from the hospital and rumours about his death have spread. …Prince Abdul Aziz bin Fahd was arrested in September after he published a number of tweets in July attacking the ruling family in the UAE.  He was then pressured to stop writing against the UAE and delete the tweets, but he refused to respond to these pressures.
He was arrested a few days after his meeting with King Salman in Mecca in September, according to Arabi21https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/arabic-press-review-israelis-hold-conference-iran-protests-75763914
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  It was reported that after King Fahd's death, Abdul Aziz  began to live in Switzerland and came to Saudi Arabia to participate in the meetings of the Council of Ministers.[5]
  On 26 June 2011, he was relieved from his position as head of the court of Cabinet affairs by a royal decree.[6]  It was declared that he resigned from his posts of minister of State and member of the Council of Ministers at his own request in June 2011.[7
According to unconfirmed reports, Al Arabiya was founded through investment by the Middle East Broadcasting Center, as well as other investors from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the Persian Gulf states.[9]  Through MBC, Saudi Prince Abdulaziz bin Fahd and his maternal uncle Waleed bin Ibrahim al Ibrahim own and have control over Al Arabiya.[14]
In March 2012, the channel launched a new channel, Al-Hadath which focuses exclusively on prolonged extensive coverage of political news.[30]
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3)   9-6-18    The son of detained Saudi scholar Salman Odah has told Middle East Eye his father was targeted for holding “independent” views and for refusing to become “a mouthpiece of the government”.
  Salman Odah is a prominent Saudi Sunni cleric who was detained in September 2017 as part of a crackdown led by the then recently appointed crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman.  The crackdown, largely perceived as a campaign to crush potential dissent, has targeted independent clerics, businessmen, feminists and human rights activists.

  The cleric's son, 
Abdullah Odah, spoke to Middle East Eye on Wednesday   https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/son-saudi-cleric-salman-odah-says-crackdown-aimed-silence-independent-voices-1883314970
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  In April, Saudi Arabia warned it would start selling as much as $750 billion in Treasuries and other assets if Congress passes a bill allowing the kingdom to be held liable in U.S. courts for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, according to the New York Times.   https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-05-30/the-untold-story-behind-saudi-arabia-s-41-year-u-s-debt-secret
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10-23-18   The brutal Saudi regime has lavished luxury freebie trips worth £320,000 on 50 MPs, the Mirror can reveal.   https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/brutal-saudi-regime-splashes-320000-13467763
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The U.S. Treasury Department said government borrowing this year will more than double from 2017 to $1.34 trillion as the Trump administration finances a rising budget deficit.  https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-29/treasury-sees-2018-borrowing-needs-surging-to-1-34-trillion

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