Saudi arabia

The government is pulling out of the £5.9 million deal to run a prison in Saudi Arabia, Number 10 has announced, after a row between two Cabinet ministers surfaced in the press. Downing Street also said that David Cameron was writing to the Saudi authorities to raise the ‘extremely concerning’ case of Karl Andree, a British pensioner sentenced to 350 lashes after being caught with homemade alcohol. But the Prime Minister’s official spokeswoman said that the Andree case wasn’t linked to the decision on the prison deal, and wouldn’t answer questions on when the decision was made.

Earlier this week I asked where the celebrated ‘Ummah’ is when it comes to Muslim refugees. I think we now have an answer. Here is a video of one Kuwaiti official’s response to the question of why none of the Gulf countries seem willing to take any Syrian refugees. ‘Kuwait and the other Gulf Cooperation Council countries are too valuable to accept any refugees. Our countries are only fit for workers. It’s too costly to accept them here. Kuwait is too expensive for them anyway. As opposed to Lebanon and Turkey which are cheap. They are better suited for the Syrian refugees. ‘In the end it is not right for us to accept a people that are different from us. We don’t want people that suffer from internal stress and trauma in our country.

I have just returned from a trip abroad to find Britain and Europe in a state of madness. I will not reflect on any connections between these events. But perhaps a reader could enlighten me as to why in recent days Britain and Europe appear to have decided that Syria's refugees are entirely 'our' responsibility. Other than a generalised sense that we are all human beings, Europeans are about as far down the list of those responsible as it is possible to be. Neither this country nor any of our European allies have made any significant intervention in Syria's civil war. So why should Hungarians and Slovakians, Austrians and Poles be expected to bear such a significant responsibility for this?

Though it hasn’t been hitting the headlines recently, the situation in Yemen has been rapidly deteriorating and looks set to grow worse in the coming months. The country now seems to have fallen into all-out civil war, with a level of complexity which echoes the catastrophic war occurring 1,500 miles north in Syria. The war in Yemen is part of the larger Sunni-Shia conflict currently shaking the Middle East. There are the Houthis, a Shia Islamist group, which back in February forced President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi out of Sana'a, the capital of Yemen.

When the Shah of Iran gave the order to create the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran (AEOI) in 1974 it is unlikely that he had any idea of just how controversial his move would ultimately prove. The AEOI brought order to what had hitherto been a disorganised programme and set the country on the path to an eventual clash with the world’s leading western powers. That clash began in 2002, when at a public press conference in Washington DC, an Iranian opposition group, the Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MKO) exposed details of undeclared Iranian nuclear activities, which had progressed much further than anyone had suspected. At least, almost anyone.

Whatever happened to America’s desert kingdom? In the four months since Salman bin Abdulaziz al Saud became king of Saudi Arabia, everything we thought we knew about this supposedly risk-averse US ally has been turned on its head. In a ruling house long known for geriatric leadership, the new king has pushed aside elder statesmen and seasoned technocrats alike in favour of an impetuous and uncredentialled son, Mohammed bin Salman, who may be in his late twenties. Now the world’s youngest defence minister, the princeling is already second in line for the throne, prompting grumbles from Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, about ‘inexperienced youngsters’.

After years of hearing how terrible Western interventions are in the Middle East (Exhibits A, B and C the fiascos of Iraq, Afghanistan and post-Gaddafi Libya), it will be interesting to see how a Saudi-led all-Muslim intervention fares in Yemen. My prediction is it won’t be much better than those of the infidels. For a start we are dealing with the poorest country in the Arab world. Whereas Iraq sits on a lake of oil, squandering the proceeds with a venality that is ghastly to behold, Yemen is running out of water, let alone oil. With an estimated GDP per capita of $2,500, the country comes 187th in the world. The figure for Saudi Arabia, incidentally, is $31,300. The last thing Yemen needs is more war.

If the cries of ‘Je suis Charlie’ were sincere, the western world would be convulsed with worry and anger about the Wallström affair. It has all the ingredients for a clash-of-civilisations confrontation. A few weeks ago Margot Wallström, the Swedish foreign minister, denounced the subjugation of women in Saudi Arabia. As the theocratic kingdom prevents women from travelling, conducting official business or marrying without the permission of male guardians, and as girls can be forced into child marriages where they are effectively raped by old men, she was telling no more than the truth.

Today a quick game of 'spot the difference.' First, here are some photos, released yesterday, of Isis pulling down the crosses on ancient churches and desecrating Christian holy sites in Mosul, Iraq. They admit to doing this because they wish to destroy all records of pre-Islamic civilisation and because, they say, they are following Islamic law. And then secondly we have Saudi Arabia's Grand Mufti speaking at a conference in Kuwait on Tuesday. There Saudi Arabia's top cleric, Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah, called for the destruction of all churches on the Arabian peninsula. He explained that this is necessitated by Islamic law. So perhaps the first part of the game should be 'spot the difference'. The second part might be: 'and which one is our ally?' Answers below.