FACTBOX-Key political risks to watch in Saudi Arabia
REUTERS: May 3 - The world's No. 1 oil exporter faces the twin challenges of creating jobs for a young population at a time of unrest in the Arab world, and pursuing economic reforms with a royal succession looming.

The stability of Saudi Arabia is of global importance since the kingdom sits on more than a fifth of oil reserves, is home to the biggest Arab stock market, is a major owner of dollar assets and acts as a regional linchpin of U.S. security policy.

King Abdullah, who is around 87, unveiled $93 billion in social handouts in March, on top of another $37 billion announced less than a month earlier.

But this apparent effort to insulate the kingdom from Arab popular protests sweeping the region has not stopped activists, including liberals, Shi'ites and Islamists, calling in petitions for more political freedom. Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy with no elected parliament.

Riyadh has not seen the kind of mass uprisings that have shaken the Arab world this year, but Shi'ites in the kingdom's oil-producing east have staged a number of protests.

Almost no Saudis in Riyadh answered a Facebook call for protests on March 11 in the face of a massive security presence.

Saudi Arabia has been ruled by the Al Saud family for 79 years, with influence from clerics following the austere Wahhabi school of Islam, and many oppose the very reforms the king has started.

However, slowing down reforms to modernise education might affect government plans to create jobs -- unemployment last year reached 10 percent.

And with around 70 percent of Saudi Arabia's almost 19 million people under the age of 30, the pressure to find them gainful employment is huge. » | RIYADH | Tuesday, May 03, 2011

An Unlikely Alliance
THE GUARDIAN: Islamists and the radical left have little in common apart from a hatred of the west and western capitalism

What do the far left and Islamists have in common? Not a lot, you may say, but you would be wrong. Despite being ideologically at the extremes of the political spectrum, they in fact share one worrying trait.

The old rule that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" seems to be shaping the relationship between the hard left and Islamists in Britain today. By having a common foe in western capitalism, which they conveniently blame for all of the world's ills, they have developed a marriage of convenience against the odds.

This alliance can also be seen on the international stage as Hugo Chávez holds hands with Iran's Ahmedinejad while our own Ken Livingstone hugs Yusuf al-Qaradawi. It was also evident at anti-Iraq war rallies where CND, the Socialist Workers Party and Respect shared platforms with the likes of the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB) and the British Muslim Initiative which are schismatic offshoots of radical Islamism.

Azzam Tamimi (spokesman for MAB) when asked by BBC Hardtalk's Tim Sebastian if he was prepared to blow himself up in Palestine, replied: "If I can go to Palestine and sacrifice myself I would do it. Why not?"

Now don't get me wrong – I'm all for people of different backgrounds coming together and working in harmony. But it worries me slightly when the only thing that's really binding these divergent factions is not their love for all humanity or their desire to see a totalitarian state, but their common hatred of the west which can be called "westophobia". There, I've used it, the one word that can actually sum up all the various groupings that are ideologically driven to view the west and western capitalism as "the enemy". An Unlikely Alliance: Islamists and the radical left have little in common apart from a hatred of the west and western capitalism >>> Ghaffar Hussain | September 30, 2008

Cross-posted at A New Dark Age Is Dawning >>>

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