Muslim Calligrapher Writes Luke's Gospel for Pope

Author:
Source: AP
Date: 2007-04-27

Muslim calligrapher Yasser Abu Saymeh has dedicated the past two months to Christian art, writing the Gospel of Luke in ornate Arabic script to be presented to Pope Benedict XVI when the Roman Catholic leader visits the Holy Land next month.

Abu Saymeh never read a New Testament text before he was picked for the prestigious assignment by Bethlehem's Christian mayor. He said he has since come to appreciate the shared strands of the two faiths.

"I found that many of the things emphasized in Christianity exist in our religion," said the 51-year-old Abu Saymeh.

The artist has nearly completed the Gospel's text, which will eventually cover 65 poster-sized pages. It will be accompanied by colored drawings depicting the life of Christ, from the Nativity to the crucifixion.

The pope will receive the gift on May 13, when he visits Bethlehem as part of a pilgrimage that also includes stops in Nazareth and Jerusalem, the other focal points in the life of Jesus.

During a May 11 reception at the residence of Israel's president, Shimon Peres, the pope will receive another rare gift of Scripture — a 300,000-word Hebrew text of the Jewish Bible inscribed on a silicon particle the size of a grain of sand, using nanotechnology.

Calligraphy is prized in Islamic cultures because Islam frowns upon figurative art as idolatrous.

Abu Saymeh was trained in Baghdad and works in a small studio in Bethlehem, a few hundred yards (meters) from the Church of the Nativity, built over Jesus' traditional birth grotto.

He opens his workshop early every day, right after dawn prayers at a mosque near his home. The walls are decorated with handwritten verses from the Quran and Arabic poetry. Writing tools are laid out on an old table, including two dozen calligraphy pens and black, green and red ink.

Every few days, a local priest checks completed pages for accuracy. The text and drawings will be bound in deer hide and presented in a mother-of-pearl box, a specialty of Bethlehem artisans.

When it came to choosing a calligrapher for the project, the choice quickly fell on Abu Saymeh. He had won distinction in 2007, when he presented a handwritten copy of the Quran to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

He also teaches calligraphy at a local university, and is sometimes asked to testify in court as a handwriting expert, usually in fraud cases. Raised in a Palestinian refugee camp in Jordan, he began his career by drawing signs for what he said were peaceful demonstrations against Israel's military occupation.

Mayor Victor Batarseh said he chose Luke among the four Gospels because he felt his writing contains the most detail about Jesus' time in the city. And he picked Abu Saymeh not just because of his talent, but to send a message of peaceful religious coexistence.

"It's a message to the world that Bethlehem is the city where Christianity was born," he said. "It's also the place of brotherly relations between Muslims and Christians."

Relations between Christians and Muslims in Bethlehem are generally good, though there is occasional friction, usually involving either land disputes or mixed couples breaking the taboo of marrying someone from another religion.

Muslims make up two-thirds of the population in the town of 30,000 and Christian influence has been receding steadily.

The issue of interfaith relations will be high on the pontiff's agenda during his May 8-15 tour, which includes several meetings with Muslim leaders.

Among many Muslims here resentment is still festering from 2006, when Benedict linked Islam and violence. The pope quoted a Medieval text that characterized some of the teachings of Muhammad as "evil and inhuman," particularly "his command to spread by the sword the faith."

Benedict long ago expressed regret for any offense his words might have caused, but his comments on the upcoming trip will be watched closely by Muslims and Chrisians in the Palestinian territories. Any misstep could upset the delicate relations between the Muslim majority and a dwindling Christian minority.

The calligrapher said he took on the mission, in part, because he wanted to send a conciliatory message and distance himself from extremists.

"I would like this to be a message from a Muslim artist through this simple work that the Muslim artist is tolerant and not aggressive, despite abuses that may come from here and there from extremists who use our religion for their own interests," he said.

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Kuwaiti Investment Firm Posts First Ever Loss

Author:
Source: AFP
Date: 2009-04-27

Global Investment House, a leading Kuwaiti investment firm, said on Sunday it made its first ever loss last year due to the global financial crisis.

The 257.4 million dinars (881 million dollars) loss compares with a profit of 312 million dollars in 2007, Global said in a statement.

The price of the company's shares, which have been suspended from trading since March 31, had slumped 67 percent so far this year after plummetting 79 percent in 2008.

Its market capitalisation stands at just 288 million dollars, down from 4.1 billion dollars at the end of 2007.

"2008 was a year of unprecedented global market turbulence. Global has not been immune to this and we unfortunately reported our first ever loss in 2008," said Maha Al-Ghunaim, chairperson and managing director of Global.

"This has been caused, in a large part, by unrealized losses on our investments and as a result we are renewing our focus on fee generated income, which has always been profitable," she added.

In December, Global said it defaulted on the majority of its debts and appointed HSBC Bank as financial adviser to renegotiate the existing credit facilities' terms with the lending bank group.

The company has continued to meet all its debt service payments as they fall due, it added.

The firm has reduced costs by more than 20 percent through decreasing its workforce by 10 percent, scaling back salaries and cancelling all 2008 related bonus payments, it said.

Global has been one of Kuwait's fastest expanding investment firms in the past few years, taking substantial loans in the process.

The company ratings have been downgraded by some international rating agencies, and others placed it on their watch lists for a possible downgrade.

Investment companies in Kuwait have been facing difficulties repaying their debt with the tightening of credit opportunities due to the global financial crisis.

The 99 companies under the supervision of the central bank of Kuwait have a total debt of around 18 billion dollars, including eight billion dollars owed to foreign lenders.

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Saudis Use Soft Touch to 'Save' Former Militants

Author:
Source: AFP
Date: 2009-04-28

It was seeing the now notorious photographs of American soldiers torturing Iraqis inside Abu Ghraib prison that set Abdullah al-Hammami on the path of jihad.

"I wanted to kill Americans," he said. But instead he was arrested in Saudi Arabia as he was heading to Iraq in 2005 and spent 44 months in prison.

Now he says that what he had wanted to do was wrong. "We had a corrupted concept about jihad," Hammami told AFP during an organised visit to the Prince Mohammed bin Nayef Centre for Care and Counselling.

Saudi Arabia set up the pioneering rehabilitation facility three years ago for returnees from the US prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and for militants arrested inside the country.

Hammami had just come from a class in his "resort", as his centre unit is called, where Sheikh Ahmed Hamid Jelani, a smiling, pudgy-faced cleric, led a discussion on the principles behind jihad, or Islamic holy war.

The care centre is Saudi Arabia?s front line for ensuring that Al-Qaeda does not rear its head again, after a series of lethal domestic attacks between 2003 and 2006 forced Riyadh to concede the country was breeding terrorists.

More than 270 detainees -- 117 released from Guantanamo -- have already been put through the centre's programme to draw them back into the bosom of the Saudi state and persuade them to abandon politics.

The centre is the polar opposite of Guantanamo, where harsh interrogation methods aim to break the will of detainees.

Instead, the Saudi authorities mother them with ample food, recreation and classes designed to persuade them that they may have had good intentions, but that they had made the wrong choice.

"Now I know the rules and regulations for jihad," Hammami said. "First, it needs the consent of the government. Second, the consent of my parents."

According to Abdul Rahman al-Hadleq, the interior ministry's director of ideological security, "the hard approach is not the only approach."

Named after the assistant interior minister for security who launched it, the care centre opened in early 2006, and Saudi officials are proud of the low recidivist rate among those released back into society.

Of the former Guantanamo inmates, only 11 have gone astray. Five were jailed, five are still missing and one, Mohammed al-Awfi, returned voluntarily after linking up with Al-Qaeda in Yemen.

While the care centre has a bevy of psychologists and other experts to figure the detainees out, its approach boils down to convincing them that in going on jihad they rejected Saudi society -- family, tribe and the state that provides for them.

The programme offers ample financial and social benefits, aiming to ensure that a graduate turns to the right people when he has questions on how a good Saudi Muslim should behave.

"We tell them it's not your responsibility to decide," said Turki al-Otayan, the centre's main psychologist.

This approach is underpinned in the deeply conservative Wahhabist school of Islam, the basis of the Saudi state, where the patriarchal royal family rules with the support of powerful clerics over a heavily tribal and family-based society.

"There is a lot in Wahhabism about obedience and recognition of authority," said Christopher Boucek of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, who has researched the care centre.

The Guantanamo detainees get a taste of this as soon as they arrive. They are hugged, kissed and well-fed. They meet Prince Mohammed himself one-on-one. Much of the first week home is spent with their families.

After some weeks, a centre "beneficiary" receives multi-day leave of absence for family holidays, also paid for by the government. The family gets stipends too. In return, all are held responsible if he backtracks to militancy.

Hadleq said a primary goal is to get the ex-militant married, to saddle him with responsibilities that would prohibit time for politics. The graduates get money for dowries and homes to live in, and babies also get financial support.

After graduating, "you have to live in the area of your family and your tribe. It is strong social control," said one security official.

The care centre is located behind three-metre-high (10-foot-high) walls in a nondescript suburban Riyadh neighbourhood, just off a main thoroughfare lined with family amusement parks and karting tracks.

The compound is made up of separate "resorts". There are bedrooms, a kitchen, classrooms and a fake bedouin tent used for meetings and prayers. The wall of one building sports a large painting of a leafy tree being watered by the hand of Prince Mohammed.

The detainees are not lost for recreation for the three to 12 months they spend there. There is a swimming pool and gym, a billiards table, computer game consoles and a well-used volleyball court.

They take drawing classes from an art therapist, who says many often start by depicting violent scenes and end up painting bucolic landscapes.

"We do not do negative brainwash. We do positive brainwash," Otayan said.

Foreign security officials praise the centre's innovative approach, but say it is unlikely the same model could be applied to militants from other states -- like the Yemenis at Guantanamo that some have suggested be placed in Saudi hands.

In addition, the centre is only for the least strident militants the Saudis have arrested. The government has jailed at least 1,500 militants and stresses that "anyone with blood on their hands" is a terrorist and will not be freed.

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Terrorism: A Cultural Phenomenon

Author: Turki al-Hamad
Source: Asharq Al-Awsat
Date: 2009-04-27

An Al Qaeda cell was recently arrested in Saudi Arabia, prior to this a huge number of suspects were detained last year; all in all 500 Al Qaeda members were arrested in one big swoop [in June 2008]. Since early last year a total of 700 people have been arrested on charges of belonging to the Al Qaeda organization. They planned to wreak havoc across the globe by targeting the international economy by way of attacking Saudi Arabia's oil facilities and assassinating [Saudi] security and civilian figures. This came at a time when we believed that the Al Qaeda organization in Saudi Arabia was almost finished, leaving only remnants behind. Then the news [of these arrests] reached us and we had no choice but to look at the issue again.

Three conclusions can be drawn from these reports, some which are positive, but the majority of which have are negative.

The first conclusion is that the fight against terrorism continues, and that the security efforts to pursue terrorism and the terrorists – especially in Saudi Arabia – are largely successful. This can be seen in the large number of Al Qaeda members who have been detained, and the uncovering of the terrorist cell before it was able to carry out any terrorist activities. This is an effort that deserves praise, for were it not for the vigilance of the Saudi security forces in this area, and their efficiency in tracking down these terrorists, the situation could be much different.

The second conclusion is that the Al Qaeda organization remains active and strong; evidence of this [conclusion] can be seen in the continued existence of the group despite all efforts [to wipe it out]. The recent lack of operations is nothing more than the organization lying in wait and recalculating, a change in tactics and strategy, in the way that a chameleon blends into its environment and lies in wait for its prey. The low profile that Al Qaeda was keeping with regards to its strength and activities [in Saudi Arabia] was broken up by the Saudi security authorities [arrest of its members] and this raises the following questions; why has Al Qaeda remained attractive to a large number of our youth? Why does this organization gain so many followers despite all efforts to combat it at various levels?

Answers to questions like this vary according to circumstances such as time and place, and there is no single factor that can explain the endurance of Al Qaeda and its ideology despite all efforts to contain it. Perhaps time and place are not the only circumstances that can explain Al Qaeda's survival. To a large extent the answer to the above questions lies in the nature of the efforts made to combat Al Qaeda, which at times addresses the results [of terrorism] – something that is necessary- without directly engaging the root of the problem. Ultimately Al Qaeda's strength does not lie in the organization itself so much as in the environment that facilitates Al Qaeda's recruitment of supporters and followers. And so despite all the security efforts to combat Al Qaeda and its active and sleeper cells, these efforts – which deserve to be praised- have ultimately not succeeded in rooting out Al Qaeda. This can be seen in the continued existence of the organization in Saudi Arabia, as well as in the Al Qaeda cell that was preparing to carry out operations [on Saudi soil]. This despite all the efforts of the security services and the Munasaha [rehabilitation] program, despite [Saudi Arabia] opening the door to amnesty [for reformed extremists], and the government describing them as misguided rather than criminals. And so despite all of these opportunities the news continued to be reported that Al Qaeda have a strong presence [in Saudi Arabia] and that their [terrorist] activities are ongoing.

Why is this the case?

The third and most important conclusion is that the persistence of Al Qaeda is a result of the persistence of the circumstances that Al Qaeda is working against, this provides the organization a suitable environment for existence and vitality. The spread of an epidemic is not due to the strength of the virus itself, but due to the existence of an environment that provides the virus with the opportunity to grow and develop. The fight against the epidemic is therefore the fight against the virus itself, and so unless the virus itself is combated the epidemic will continue. The same can be said about Al Qaeda. In Saudi Arabia, for example, the security agencies performed their full role with regards to the detection, investigation and arrest [of terrorists] but this is not everything. Weeds return once they have been plucked out so long as their roots remain intact. The roots in this case, and in any real society, are the places of socialization, from homes to the mosque, from social clubs to the media and others. These help to shape an individual's personality from childhood, and help them move in one direction or another or at the least give the individual the potential of moving in one direction or the other. These institutions sow the first seeds that give rise to the core of thought and behavior; this supports the popular [Arab] proverb "One goes back to their roots."

The security success in the fight against terrorism and the forces of destruction has not been accompanied by successes in the fight against the ideology behind this destructive behavior. What other explanation is there for the hundreds of Al Qaeda recruits, a figure which represents only the tip of the iceberg, not to mention the silent followers and sympathizers. There is a defect – there can be no doubt about that – and this is in the damage that has been caused by the educational institutes [in Saudi Arabia] since we diverted from the correct path, socially and culturally, and we took up the labyrinthine ideology of the Sahwa [Islamic re-awakening] in the late 1970s [following the Mecca siege]. Educational institutes, without exception, began to reflect this ideology. This is an ideology that is in essence a culture of blood and death that calls for the eliminating of the unbelievers – i.e. anyone who does not fully agree with this ideology – both within Saudi Arabia and abroad. All educational institutions then formed along this basis, in the light of the ideological struggle against the Iranian revolution that was attempting to export a different concept of Islam, as well as the political struggle against a superpower that was attempting to occupy Afghanistan in order to access the waters of the Gulf. These factors resulted in the state turning a blind eye to what was going on inside these educational institutes, and even in some cases encouraging what was gong on there for political purposes, and so today we are reaping what we sowed.

Perhaps circumstance rules supreme, and the game of politics has its own rules, and some things are necessary. There is no shame in making a mistake - life in essence is trial and error – but it is shameful to deny making the mistake [in the first place] and to continue to make the same mistake over and over again. As for nations, it is wrong to continue implementing a policy that may have been effective once, but is a disaster once circumstances have changed. In the end, the wise man is one that not only listens to others, but who also listens to his own experience and history. Only the obstinate will deny that there have been efforts to release these educational institutes from their [ideological] captivity, but these efforts have only dealt with the visible tip of the iceberg. This is where the problem lies, schools and educational curriculums continue to disseminate extremist ideology in spite of the efforts to reduce its impact, and has resulted in the elimination of the effective education of any cadres by involving Islam in the fields of chemistry and medicine, resulting in the classification of humanity [into believer and unbeliever] and the promotion of hatred and a culture of death. Some mosques continue to give sermons calling for death, destruction and killing, but now we are in need of new sermons that call for tolerance and inter-faith dialogue, because we are all the children of Adam. We are in need of sermons that address the glories of life and humanity. At this point someone will ask; are we supposed to leave behind our culture and religion?

Of course not, for those that are in control of the world today have not forgotten their culture and religion, indeed they are well aware of their own religion, and how the world works. We are Muslims, there is no doubt about that, but we are not by necessity Islamists, and there is a difference between Islam and Islamism. Before the Sahwa we were a society of Muslims, giving God his right, and not forgetting our lot in the world. But after the Sahwa and the kidnapping of our educational institutes we became a society of Islamists forgetting our lot in the world. There is no getting out of this situation except by going back to the world that we neglected and returning to our Islam and our humanity. Without uprooting the intellectual and cultural roots behind extremism and violence, we will continue to be plagued by these [ideological] weeds, pulling them out but leaving the roots to remain and sprout once more. Until the situation changes, Al Qaeda and its supporters will continue to exist and appear in this same way.

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Al Maliki Saved Us the Trouble of a Reply

Author: Tariq Alhomayed
Source: Asharq Al-Awsat
Date: 2009-04-27

Iraqi President Nuri Al Maliki has had enough of the taxing rebuttals stemming from of the barrage of insults, defamations, and accusations of treachery after we disapproved of the threatening manner that he used against the so-called "neighboring countries." Last week in front of a tribal gathering in Baghdad President Al Maliki addressed these "neighboring countries" saying "[you must] stop those that cause harm to Iraq until Iraq no longer needs to defend itself."

However the day before yesterday, Mr. Al Maliki issued a statement retracting, or correcting [his comments on] the neighboring countries, in which he said "We are keen to strengthen our relations with neighboring countries, and Iraq has recently witnessed a number of countries opening their embassies [in Baghdad] and announced their desire to participate in the process of reconstruction and development." Al Maliki added that Iraq's policy "is to increase positive relations with all nations, and work to solve the problems caused by the previous regime, establishing good relations with them [the nations] on the basis of common interests."

This is what is required, and hoped for, and is the difference between Iraq today and Iraq under the previous regime, for threatening language does not move anything forward or change anybody's position, it only serves to make things more complicated.

The machinery of insults that were issued last week on known websites commenting on my previous article "Al Maliki: Who are These Neighboring Countries" were fueled by sectarianism and extremism, and were not in the language of reason and [did not] understand the common interests between the countries in the region.

Safeguarding Baghdad is in the interest of all the surrounding countries that do not have ambitious designs on the lands of Mesopotamia. It is not reasonable for the surrounding Arab countries to mobilize their entire capabilities – specifically the Gulf states- in order to combat terrorism, which has cost them much economically, politically and with regards to security, while allowing terrorism [to continue] in Iraq. For if your neighbor has settled down [and is in safety], then you too are in safety. This is the logic of the Arab states that are eager for Arab solidarity and pursue reconciliation with Iraq to ensure that Iraq does not become a marginal or divided state that exports terrorism and problems.

Mr. Al Maliki's statement is important and should be respected because politics is the language of logic and [mutual] interests, not the language of threats, and Iraq is an Arab country no matter what is said. The significance of Iraq does not lie in any one [single] sect; but rather in its Sunni, Shiite, Kurdish, and Christian communities, indeed in every single Iraqi citizen regardless of religion.

There is no doubt that there are some outstanding problems between Iraq and many of its surrounding countries, but more important than this is that there is communication [between them] for the sake of building trust between all parties for problem solving is based upon [mutual] respect, and aims at safeguarding our region. If this occurs, and in the spirit of Mr. Al Maliki's statement, we can be certain that the threat is behind us, and that as Mr. Al Maliki said in his statement, that Iraq "is working to solve the problems caused by the previous regime."

As for those that rushed to insult and accuse, we say to them, would that your jealousy of Iraq be the size of your jealousy of Iran.

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Problems on hold : Beyond doubt of bias

Author:
Source: Watani
Date: 2009-04-27

In an Easter message to expatriate Copts, President Hosny Mubarak stressed that no-one can harm the unity of Egypt’s Muslims and Copts, both of whom constitute the common, tight-knit texture of the Egyptian community. Every member in that community, Mubarak said, enjoys full citizenship rights and believes that religion concerns God while the homeland belongs to all. The President said: “I tell you as president of all Egyptians that we will never allow attempts at conspiracy or vilification to cause division between the two wings of the nation. We will fight culprits by the force of law, and Egypt will remain a safe homeland for all its children without the least doubt of any bias or discrimination.”

Even though the President was addressing expatriate Copts, his message relayed by the media at the forefront of the news, reached Copts and Muslims in Egypt. It undoubtedly produced a general feeling of comfort, while at the same time raising a few questions that beg answers. That such a declaration has come from the head of the State implies that the State views itself as the entity which incorporates all Egyptians and secures their rights as full citizens with full equality, with no bias or discrimination. This in itself confirms that the citizenship clause which comes at the forefront of the Egyptian Constitution is the sole standard which governs rights, legislation, and laws. However, the realistic implementation of citizenship rights and the materialization of the President’s message from a mere congratulatory note into a fact on the ground, remains the focus of skepticism.

Copts know very well that President Mubarak is a moderate, and believe him when he says that Copts and Muslims may only be distinguished according to their faithfulness to the homeland, the Egyptian community, and their adherence to the law. But they also know that the tools to implement such notions are the laws, regulations, supervisory authorities, and mechanisms of accountability and questioning that are in place in the community. In Egypt these are obviously replete with flaws and deficiencies which interfere with the materialization of equality and non-discrimination.

It is impossible to boast of equality and non-discrimination while current legislation and procedures flagrantly discriminate between Muslims and Copts regarding the building of places of worship. The discrimination begins with the absolute ease with which Muslims are allowed to purchase or are allocated the best and most spacious plots of land to build mosques, as contrasted by the absolute difficulty with which Copts may be allocated land or allowed to purchase land to build a church. Permits required to build and equip mosques with all necessary utilities are swiftly made available, whereas the same permits are next to impossible to obtain in the case of churches. The same open discrimination is also displayed in renovation and restoration procedures; permitted so easily for mosques and so forbiddingly for churches. Over and above, while the building of mosques requires no security approval, that of a church pre-conditions such an approval which, besides being not guaranteed, is usually open ended where time is concerned.

It is no secret that a bill for a unified law for the building of places of worship has been lying in the offices of Parliament for some five years now. Even though the bill has wide support among MPs, it has not yet been placed on the agenda of any parliamentary round so far. The absence of an official explanation for such a move has naturally given rise to conjecture, with some claiming that President Mubarak has not given the bill the green light yet.

Justifications are frequently offered for the current discrimination in the building of places of worship, but these justifications are no more than lame excuses. It is sometimes claimed that there is no need for the law since the president has ceded his power of approving permits for renovations and restorations of churches to the governors, and now only retains the right to approve permits for new churches. This move, it is claimed, has facilitated church building. But any observer can obviously tell that nothing has been made easier as long as any permit pre-requires a security approval. President Mubarak has repeatedly boasted that he never rejected an application for a permit to build a new church, but this is besides the point since it concerns only the applications that were allowed to reach his office and says nothing of the countless others that never reached the President.

Regardless of the number of procedures required to build a church or mosque and their respective difficulty, the only measure of real equality will be the passage of a unified law that affords neither Muslims nor Christians any preferential treatment.

Worth noting, however, is that discrimination between Muslims and Copts is not merely confined to the building of places of worship, but involves other aspects which I plan to discuss at length in subsequent articles.

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Foreign Ministry open to expanding pilgrim visa services: Official

Author:
Source: Arab News
Date: 2009-04-27

The Foreign Ministry may consider opening centers for issuing visas in various parts of countries that send large numbers of pilgrims for Haj and Umrah, an official said yesterday.

The aim of opening such centers would be to reduce crowding at Saudi embassies and consulates, Muhammad bin Ahmed Tayeb, director general of the ministry’s office in Makkah province, told Arab News.

“It’s possible. In fact, this is our policy. During the Haj season we send many officials to different countries to issue visas and support our staff in embassies, particularly in countries such as India, Indonesia, Turkey and Egypt,” Tayeb said when asked about the possibility of expanding visa services abroad.

However, he pointed out that for opening such offices provincial authorities in those countries should make formal requests to the Saudi ministry through their central governments.

“We can send two or three officials to the Indian state of Kerala, for example, to issue Haj visas if required,” he said, adding that the ministry would respond positively to such requests.

Tayeb also spoke about the new visa introduced by the Kingdom in order to help foreign businessmen explore investment opportunities in the Kingdom and establish links with their Saudi counterparts.

“Businessmen can now get visas directly from our missions and they don’t need an invitation letter from the Kingdom.” He said if any businessmen faced problems in getting visas they should contact the ministry. “We’ll help them,” he added.

Tayeb emphasized the Kingdom’s efforts to boost domestic tourism in order to make the sector a major revenue earner. “Tourism is very important for our national economy and our people have begun to realize its benefits,” he said.

The impact of the current global financial crisis on Saudi Arabia has not been as serious as on other countries thanks to the economic measures taken by the government.

He described the appointment of Prince Naif as second deputy premier as “a very good step,” adding that it would strengthen the Kingdom’s political stability.

“Prince Naif is an experienced statesman. He has been the country’s interior minister for 35 years. He is a well-known figure in the Arab world so his appointment was not a surprise. People in general are satisfied with this decision,” he said.

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