Viet Nam News RIYADH — Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait have offered $2.5 billion in aid for Jordan to ease its economic crisis following a wave of anti-austerity protests, the Saudi state media announced early Monday. "In light of the close brotherly ties... it was agreed that the three countries would provide an economic aid package to Jordan totalling $2.5 billion," the official Saudi Press Agency said. The package, announced at a summit of the four nations in the holy city of Mecca, will include a deposit in the Jordanian central bank, World Bank guarantees, budgetary support over five years and financing for development projects, SPA said. The summit, called by Saudi King Salman, was attended by Jordan’s King Abdullah II along with leaders of the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait. Mass protests against price rises and a proposed tax hike have rocked Jordan in recent days as the government pushes austerity measures to slash the country’s … [Read more...] about Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait offer $2.5 bn in aid to crisis-hit Jordan
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Saudi Arabia to help Germany investigate attacks: Spiegel
Saudi Arabia has offered to help German investigators find those behind Islamist bomb and ax attacks in July, news magazine Der Spiegel reported on Saturday, citing a senior member of the Saudi government. Saudi authorities are in contact with their German colleagues, responding to new findings that show both attackers were in close contact via a chat conversation with possible Islamic State backers from Saudi Arabia, Spiegel said. Traces of the chat, which investigators have been able to reconstruct, indicate that both men were not only influenced by but also took instructions from people, as yet unidentified, up until the attacks, the report said. The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for an attack on July 18 near Wuerzburg in Bavaria in which a 17-year-old refugee believed to be from Pakistan or Afghanistan wounded five people with an ax before police shot him dead. A 27-year-old Syrian who blew himself up in Ansbach, southern Germany on July 24 had pledged allegiance … [Read more...] about Saudi Arabia to help Germany investigate attacks: Spiegel
Syria’s Assad blames West for refugee crisis
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has blamed Europe's refugee crisis on Western support for "terrorists", as people fleeing his country's civil war stream towards the European Union. In his first public comments on the mass migration, broadcast on Wednesday, Assad said Europe could expect more refugees. Countries including the United States, Turkey and Saudi Arabia want to see Assad gone from power and have supported the opposition to his rule during the four-year-old war, including some of the armed groups fighting him. Assad said Turkish support had been crucial to the growth of two of the biggest insurgent groups in Syria, Islamic State and the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front, and aerial bombing by a U.S.-led coalition had failed to stop Islamic State. Turkey denies the accusation. The Syrian president dismissed Western suggestions that his government's actions in the war had fuelled the spread of such groups. "As long as they follow this propaganda, they will have more refugees," Assad … [Read more...] about Syria’s Assad blames West for refugee crisis
In haven for Mideast emigres, a hope U.S. will take more refugees
Asady was once a refugee who fled Saddam Hussein's government in Iraq in the early 1990s and lived in a tent in Saudi Arabia's desert for more than two years before a Christian agency brought him to the United States. He said the powerful image of the drowned toddler helped spark awareness of the plight of Syrian refugees around most of the world. For Arab-Americans who sit at the six booths of Iraqi Kabob in Dearborn, Michigan, lively discussions about violence in the Middle East and the refugees it creates are always taking place, he said. "We follow the political situation day to day," Asady said on Monday, speaking eloquent English developed over 22 years in the country. "We live with the politics. The rest of the world woke up when that 3-year-old boy drowned." Asady, 47, is a partner in the restaurant on Warren Avenue, a busy four-lane street lined on both sides with Middle Eastern restaurants, bakeries, supermarkets, meat shops and more. It is the community's commercial heart in … [Read more...] about In haven for Mideast emigres, a hope U.S. will take more refugees
Despite furore over Jerusalem move, Saudis seen on board with U.S. peace efforts
Saudi Arabia pulled no punches when it condemned President Donald Trump's move to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. But Palestinian officials say Riyadh has also been working for weeks behind the scenes to press them to support a nascent U.S. peace plan. Trump reversed decades of U.S. policy on Wednesday with his announcement and instructions to begin the process of moving the embassy in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, despite warnings that it would drive the wedge between Israel and the Palestinians deeper. The Saudi royal court described the decision as "unjustified and irresponsible" and "a big step back in efforts to advance the peace process." But Arab officials privately say that Riyadh appears to be on board with a broader U.S. strategy for an Israeli-Palestinian peace plan still in its early phases of development. Four Palestinian officials, who spoke on condition they not be named, said Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas discussed … [Read more...] about Despite furore over Jerusalem move, Saudis seen on board with U.S. peace efforts