Saudi Arabia - Leading the World in Human Rights!!!!!!???

Saudi prince flogged by police after court ruling

© Reuters

A Saudi Prince from the kingdom’s ruling royal Al Saud family has been flogged in prison as part of a court-ordered punishment just weeks after another prince was executed for murder, according to local reports.

Okayz Daily, a Saudi Arabian daily newspaper located in the port city of Jeddah, reported Wednesday that the unidentified prince was given lashes in a prison in the city on Monday.

It comes less than a month after Prince Turki bin Saud al-Kabir was put to death in Riyadh for shooting dead another man, identified as Adel al-Mahemid, in a brawl. It was the first execution of a member of the Saudi royal family in more than four decades.

Kabir was the 134th person to be put to death in the country in 2016, according to an AFP tally of ministry statements confirming executions.

The legal system of Saudi Arabia is based on Sharia law, under which murder, drug trafficking, armed robbery, rape and apostasy are all punishable by death.

The oil rich country and close ally of the US had the third highest number of executions in 2015 after Iran and Pakistan, according to Amnesty International.

China is not included in the ranking as the data is treated as a state secret but the human rights organization believes China remains the world’s top executioner.

‘Like asking if you’ll stop beating your wife’

Saudi ambassador dodges Yemen cluster bomb question

 © Zaid Jilani / YouTube

The Saudi ambassador to the US has dodged a journalist’s question on the use of cluster bombs in Yemen, saying it’s like asking, “Will you stop beating your wife?” He also said the Saudi-led coalition will continue bombing Yemen, “no matter what.”

Prince Abdullah Al-Saud, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States, was confronted by a reporter from the Intercept, the publication said on Tuesday.

“Will you continue to use cluster weapons in Yemen?” the reporter asked the diplomat.

Al-Saud laughed before answering: “This is like the question, ‘Will you stop beating your wife?’”

After the reporter repeated the question, the ambassador again dismissed it, saying “You are political operators. I’m not a politician.”

Speaking at the Annual Arab-US Policymakers Conference last week, al-Saud insisted that the Saudi-led coalition will continue its bombing campaign in Yemen, the Intercept reported. “If anyone attacks human lives and disturbs the border, in whatever region, we’re going to continue hitting them, no matter what,” said al-Saud.

On Monday, the US envoy to the UN, Samantha Power, called on the Saudi-led coalition to “refrain from taking steps that escalate violence” in Yemen. However, her appeal contradicts Washington’s actions, with the Pentagon continuing to supply arms and provide military support to Riyadh.

Earlier, Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused the Saudi-led coalition of war crimes following an airstrike on a funeral in Yemen on October 8. In that incident, at least two air-dropped munitions penetrated the roof of a hall containing over 1,000 mourners during the funeral ceremony of Ali al-Rawishan, the father of the Sanaa-based administration’s interior minister, Jalal al-Rawishan. At least 140 people were killed and 610 wounded.

Despite calls by US officials to review its support for its Middle Eastern ally, Washington continues to sell arms to Saudi Arabia, approving more than $20 billion in military sales in 2015 alone, HRW reports.


According to UN data from August this year, the Saudi intervention in Yemen has claimed the lives of at least 10,000 people, including almost 4,000 civilians. The UN and HRW have repeatedly accused the Saudi military of dropping cluster bombs in Yemeni residential areas.


Saudi Arabia leading the world in human rights!!!!!!???

So, in spite of bombing funerals in a foreign country, in spite of wife-beating being a standing joke, in spite of beheadings and floggings, often for what would not even be crimes in a civilized country - Saudi Arabia just got re-elected to the UN Human Rights Council. To make matters worse, the head of that council is also a Saudi. 

Saudi Arabia exercises Sharia law which is founded in 7th century, barbarian, madness and has no place in the 21st century. Yet, there will be no complaints about human rights from the UN.

Saudi Arabia is flexing its muscles in many corners of the world and is becoming more dangerous by the hour. The low price of oil is causing considerable financial stress in Riyadh, the consequences of which could be global in extent. The Saudis have loaned billions, if not trillions of dollars to western countries and the fear of them recalling those loans may explain why western countries keep selling mountains of military weapons to the kingdom. Or, maybe it is just greed.

Controversial UN Climate Panel Chief in the Spotlight Again - Steps Down

NEW DELHI: Rajendra Pachauri, industrial engineer-turned head of the UN’s climate science panel and one-off sex novel author, who stepped down as the head of the UN’s climate science panel, is no stranger to accolades — nor to controversy.

At his peak, the now 74-year-old Indian accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the policy-shaping body he heads, and was showered with national honours and honorary doctorates.

On Tuesday he stood down as head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) following allegations that he sexually harassed a 29-year-old woman researcher from the Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), the Delhi think tank he heads.

The allegations had forced the bearded father-of-three, who denies any wrongdoing, to pull out of a four-day conference at a highly sensitive time, with the global community preparing to ink a planet rescue pact in December.

Rajendra Pachauri - IPCC head steps down

That deal will be largely informed by the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report, a summary of the latest climate science.

It warns that on current greenhouse gas-emission trends the world is on track for double the UN goal of limiting global warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), resulting in devastating floods, droughts and rises in sea level.

Pachauri, a vocal advocate of tough action against global warming, has had many career ups and downs, and this is not the first time he has faced public scrutiny.

He had to weather calls for his resignation after gross errors were found in a landmark IPCC report, and faced widespread ridicule for an attempt at erotic literature.

In 2007 he held aloft the Nobel jointly awarded to the IPCC under his chairmanship, and to former US vice president-turned climate campaigner Al Gore.

That was instead of giving it to Irena Sendlar (right) the brilliant and courageous, young, Polish woman who rescued 2500 Jewish babies and children from Nazi Warsaw's ghetto at great risk. And, indeed, had both of her legs broken by the Gestapo when she was finally caught.
But what's 2500 lives compared to some shaky science by a man of questionable integrity and a politician.

But three years later Pachauri was mired in controversy when errors were found in the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report.

An erroneous claim that Himalayan glaciers could be lost by 2035 was allegedly taken from a press article instead of a scientific study. Or maybe he got it from Al Gore??!!

Pachauri refused to accept personal responsibility for the error and rejected pressure to step down, claiming “ideologically-driven posturing” was behind attacks on the IPCC.

An international review at the time called for fundamental reforms at the IPCC, including an overhaul of the post of chairman which Pachauri first took up in 2002.

Some critics have questioned where his loyalties lay, given his business dealings with carbon trading companies.

According to a CV on the TERI website, Pachauri had during his IPCC tenure also served on the boards of India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corporation and natural gas company GAIL. No conflict there...Pfft!

Educated in Britain and the United States, where he earned doctorates in industrial engineering and economics, Pachauri is a sustainable development veteran.

But his critics, who once included Gore, stress that he has no science qualifications.

An avid cricket fan and vegetarian, Pachauri has said his focus on the health of our planet came from his childhood in India’s Himalayan foothills — not far from some of the glaciers that have since blemished his career.

“It was so beautiful and unpolluted when I was a child,” he told AFP in 2007. “One saw the beauty of nature at its most pristine. It gets into your soul and you don’t lose that.”

Having penned more than 130 academic papers and nearly 27 books, mainly related to energy and the environment, Pachauri generated warming of a different kind when he tried his hand at creative writing with the 2010 novel Return to Almora.

The offering is laced with steamy references to the sexual urges of protagonist Sanjay Nath who, like Pachauri, studied engineering.

He has hinted that the book, which interweaves themes of reincarnation with breathless accounts of Nath’s carnal prowess, may be based on his own life.

His very appointment was controversial. Pachauri was regarded as a compromise candidate to replace the outspoken British-American scientist Bob Watson whom sources claimed was forced out by the climate-sceptic Bush administration.

Pachauri’s second consecutive six-year term as IPCC chairman had been due to end in October, just weeks before the Paris conference.

The IPCC said vice-chair Esmail Al Gizouli would take over as acting chair.