All Blog Posts from World Watch

As millions of Muslims begin arriving in Mecca for this year's pilgrimage, Saudi officials face a unique challenge: how to prevent this sacred rite from becoming an inadvertent incubator and global transmitter of swine flu.

The conditions that will arise during the pilgrimage, or hajj, which officially begins in the last week of November, are the exact opposite of what health officials like to see.

An estimated 2.5 million people from up to 160 countries — including perhaps 15,000 from North America — will walk, pray and eat in close proximity to each other for several days. They will touch the same religious objects and sleep in crowded tent cities.

Some, inevitably, will arrive carrying the new virus strain, H1N1.

Read full post…

Saudi Arabian King Abdullah Bin Abdullaziz arrives in Damascus Wednesday to take Saudi-Syrian relations to new heights after years of bitter tension; a landmark shift in diplomacy which analysts predict may push Lebanon's political elite to find consensus on a national unity government.

The visit is the first of its kind since 2005, when bilateral relations hit rock bottom in 2005 following the assassination of Lebanese prime minister Rafik Al-Hariri, who was close to Riyadh. Syria was accused of the murder and, under intense regional and international pressure, withdrew the troops from Lebanon it sent to end the civil war there. Damascus denies any involvement in Hariri's murder.

A sweetening in that relationship could have significant repercussions for the region. Washington is hoping to engage Syria in a new round of peace talks with Israel. The Obama administration and its Arab allies want to diminish the influence Iranian-backed groups Hezbollah and Hamas have over regional affairs. Syria wields influence over these militant organizations, classified by Washington as terrorist groups.

Read full post…

Hundreds of hardcore Arab fighters loyal to al Qaeda have fled the Afghanistan-Pakistan region this year, heading mainly to Yemen to bolster an Islamist insurgency targeting oil-rich Saudi Arabia, according to Arab, Pakistani and Western officials who spoke to CBS News.

The implications of such a buildup in Yemen are profound not only for the stability of Saudi Arabia — the birthplace of Islam and home to the holiest of Islamic shrines — but for the world's dependence upon a continued flow of petroleum from the largest known oil reserves.

Read full post…

Saudi Arabia is looking to purchase billions of dollars in weapons from Russia in an effort to get the Kremlin to scrap plans to sell surface-to-missile Iran, according to a Financial Times story this week.

But official Russian sources have not confirmed the Kremlin's willingness to agree to such a deal, reports CBS News' Alexei Kuxnetsov. In fact, even analysts with knowledge of the Kremlin’s policies sounded rather skeptical.

Back in 2007, Iran announced plans to acquire Russia's S-300 weapons system for upwards of $1 billion. Since then, Russia has been facing pressure from the United States not to go through with the sale.

According to the Financial Times, Saudi Arabia's offer to buy the latest version of the system, the S-400 – akin to the U.S. Patriot missile defense system – for $2 billion is the latest attempt to get Moscow to back out of its deal with Tehran.

“The U.S. pressure is the stick, and a huge Saudi arms package is the carrot,” Ruslan Pukhov, director of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies in Moscow, told the Times.

Pukhov said the deal may actually go as high as $7 billion.

Alexander Khramchikhin, a senior analyst with the Institute for Political and Military Analysis in Moscow, told Kuznetsov that while a deal between Russia and Saudi Arabia could be theoretically possible, a "number of stumbling blocks" make its probability near zero.

Read full post…

The United States is nearing a deal that would send nearly 100 Yemeni detainees held at Guantanamo Bay to Saudi Arabia, according to a Wall Street Journal report Thursday.

Officials told the Journal the deal could speed up President Obama's plan to close the U.S. military facility that houses alleged terrorists.

Read full post…

President Obama just landed in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia under bright sunshine and a high temperature of 108 degrees. It's his fourth foreign trip as President and his first to the Middle East, an area of increasing concern for the young Administration.

President Obama has renewed the push for a long-lasting Middle East peace, meeting in the Oval Office recently with the leaders of both Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

But there is much more on the President's agenda for this quick stop here in Riyadh.

Read full post…

Updated at 3 a.m. Eastern, April 7, 2009:

Turkish officials have told the U.S. the man in custody is a "known fabricator" who has made various unsubstantiated claims in the past.

U.S. officials tell CBS News, "There was never a serious plot or threat against the President."

Turkish authorities told American officials the man never actually obtained an Al Jazeera credential, never gained access to any Presidential venue, and was in custody before Mr. Obama arrived in the country.

Click More for the full story.

Read full post…

Saudi King Abdullah kept up his conciliatory approach to Syria on Sunday and sent his son to Damascus to discuss with Syrian President Basher Al-Assad the best ways to improve their bilateral ties, which reached a low ebb over Lebanon, Iraq and to a lesser extent, Palestine.

Read full post…

The Hamas leadership said on Wednesday it still has "certain reservations" over an Egyptian cease-fire plan, which calls for an immediate truce between Israel and the Islamic movement until an agreement is reached.

"We responded positively to the Egyptian initiative but there is still several specified points of differences and certain reservations. We hope that these points will be solved over the next few days to meet with the Palestinian national interests," a Hamas source, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told CBS News.

Read full post…

Saudi Arabia dispatched the powerful head of its intelligence service to Pakistan to press the country’s ruling regime for immediate action in dealing with militants linked to the Mumbai terrorist attacks, a diplomat tells CBS News.

Read full post…