Word: saudi
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Sitting forward on a powder blue chair in his ornate living room, Mohammed al Ammari makes his campaign pitch to a dozen men all clad in the traditional Saudi robe and headdress. As a member of Riyadh's city council, he vows, he would work to rebuild the capital's crumbling downtown into a modern urban hub. The setting and promise may lack pizzazz, but al Ammari jabs a forefinger into the air as he speaks, visibly thrilled to be a candidate in the Kingdom's first-ever nationwide election. Two days later, he is beaming after casting his ballot...
...Like many Saudis, al Ammari believes last week's election is a long-awaited response by the Saudi royal family to demands for change that followed the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, which featured 15 young Islamic extremists from Saudi Arabia among the 19 hijackers. Despite the vote's obvious shortcomings, Saudi newspaper headlines hailed the Kingdom's ?historic? election day and speculated that next on the reform agenda would be balloting for the 120-member Shura Council, a quasi-parliament whose members are appointed by King Fahd bin Abdulaziz al Saud...
...voted were joyful, with many fathers bringing their small sons to experience and get a snapshot of the moment. Officials pulled off a smooth election, thankfully free of the terrorist attacks in the country by Saudi-born Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda organization that have killed 221 since 2003. Yet women were barred from participating, while even male voters were allowed to choose only half the representatives on 178 toothless municipal bodies, the rest to be appointed...
...Pakistan's main nuclear-research laboratory, Khan traveled the world for more than a decade, visiting countries in Africa, Central Asia and the Middle East. According to a source in Pakistan's Defense Ministry, U.S. officials are investigating whether Khan's network might have sold nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries. The U.S. has submitted questions to Khan asking whether North Korea and Iran sold such equipment to third parties. The ultimate fear: that one of Khan's clients may pass along nuclear technology and expertise to terrorist groups. Although the U.S. does not have concrete evidence...
...Pyongyang, sometimes aboard Pakistani military cargo planes. Pakistani officials say Khan has testified that the North Koreans were so appreciative that in 1999 they took him on a private tour of their nuclear facilities during his visit to Pyongyang. U.S. and IAEA investigators believe that Khan also traveled to Saudi Arabia and Egypt and to such African countries as Sudan, Ivory Coast and Niger. The purpose of those trips remains unclear, but intelligence officials have hunches: Saudi Arabia and Egypt are believed to be in the market for nuclear technology, and many African countries are rich in raw uranium...