Images of daily life Photoessays of daily life in Morocco, Yemen and Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and Hong Kong. [An update on a plep thread from 2003, and some nice armchair travel for a Sunday morning]
posted by carter on Dec 4, 2005 - 8 comments

A week after Saudi Arabia banned the practise of forced marriage, Hamid Karzai followed suit, announcing he would seek the same freedoms for young women in Afghanistan. In the UK, a special unit within the Foreign Office has handled almost 1000 cases of forced marriage since it was set up in 2000, and this year a special joint Forced Marriage Unit was launched by the Foreign & Commonwealth Office for outreach & awareness purposes. While a law barring forced marriage is expected to publish in the UK later this year, some take umbrage at the often-misleading "forced marriage" terminology and are worried that its criminal-offence status could actually deter women from speaking out against it.
posted by jenleigh on Apr 28, 2005 - 25 comments

Looks like the Saudis may kick the US out. The US presence in Saudi Arabia has been blamed for a lot of discontent in that country. Sounds as if once the campaign in Afghanistan is considered finished, the US may no longer be the guest of the Saudi royals.
posted by Salmonberry on Jan 18, 2002 - 28 comments

50 Muslim nations demand UN probe Afghan 'massacre' Should Saudi Arabia name a special prosecutor?
posted by Postroad on Jan 12, 2002 - 0 comments

Saudis in the worst squeeze play yet. SA is in a triangulation of criticism from Afghanistan, from within the country, and from Washington. The fall of this Muslim regime, a US ally, with a horrible human rights record and repressive culture, the largest supplier of oil in the world, and huge supplier of contract business for the US, is not something to take lightly. Catch-22.
posted by mmarcos on Oct 28, 2001 - 10 comments