As the violence escalated several Arab Gulf countries - including Saudi Arabia - decided to withdraw their observers.
America has blacklisted a handful, including, jointly with Saudi Arabia, Bosnian and Somali branches of the Saudi Arabia-based al-Haramain Islamic Foundation.
Sir William - now ambassador to Saudi Arabia - acknowledged that international support for the sanctions policy in place against Iraq since 1991 - which underpinned the policy of containment - was steadily breaking down at the time.
BBC: Iraq inquiry told of 'clear' threat from Saddam Hussein
Meanwhile, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is going to the Middle East early in the new year to drum up support from the so-called mainstream states -Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia - for stability in Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian Territories.
As ever, foreign affairs issues are likely to occupy much time at the summit, and Berlusconi -- who has just returned from Saudi Arabia -- will be calling for backing for the Saudi Middle East peace plan, seen by some EU officials as the only game in town at present.
Before the ouster last year of President Hosni Mubarak, Egypt sided with Sunni-led Saudi Arabia and Sunni-dominated Arabian Gulf States toward the isolation of Shiite-led Iran.
Another irony: like crude oil, a small number of countries--Russia, Iran, Qatar and Saudi Arabia--control the vast majority of the world's natural gas reserves.
And Simon Murie, founder of niche tour operator Swimtrek, says the Strait of Hormuz (Oman-Iran), Gulf of Aqaba (Egypt-Saudi Arabia) and La Perouse Strait (Hokkaido, Japan - Sakhalin, Russia) are all waiting to be swum.
We are in consultation with the IEA and the oil-producing states -- of which Saudi Arabia is one -- about the unrest in the Middle East and the effect on oil prices.
About 1.5 million Sri Lankans work abroad -- nearly 400, 000 of them in Saudi Arabia alone -- because of their limited earning potential at home.
The Jeddah, Saudi Arabia-based OIC has been a contributor to CAIR, and the two have a history of coordinated meetings, methodologies and goals.
Sanaa, Yemen (CNN) -- Saudi Arabia's deputy consul was kidnapped in Yemen's southern port city of Aden Wednesday, two security officials there told CNN.
The Nepalese government says 58, 000 Nepalese women are working in these Gulf states -- Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Oman.
And universities in Asia--indeed, extending all the way to the Arab Gulf and the King Abdullah megaplex for science and technology in Saudi Arabia--are rising to offer an alternative.
Although the risk from Dubai is not systemically important on a global level, it is significant across the United Arab Emirates and the rest of Gulf Cooperation Council--Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar.
And in terms of -- Saudi Arabia is an important partner and we are in regular contact at a variety of levels with the Saudi government, and I think that this is just part of that sort of continued contact.
The BBC's Charles Haviland in Colombo says that it appears that the maid's passport was falsified to give her age as 23 when she went to Saudi Arabia - other documents said to be genuine show that in fact she was only 17 and therefore a child.
It is therefore hardly surprising that the state faith of Saudi Arabia - Wahhabism - has become the most dynamic ideological strain of Islamism in Sub-Saharan Africa, given that the Ministry of Islamic Affairs reportedly receives more money for activity in Africa than does the Foreign Ministry.
Jockeying for position among an array of Syrian groups also reflects interventions by key backers - like Saudi Arabia and Qatar, as well as Turkey and the US - to try to forge an opposition to their liking.
Its huge, long-running contract with Saudi Arabia, known as al-Yamamah, accounts for more than a quarter of its pre-tax profits, according to Mr Fothergill.
Nidae Al-Ryadh of Free Access to Scientific and Technical Information was the first Arabic declaration in support of OA by the participants in the Second Gulf-Maghreb Scientific Congress (Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, February 25-26, 2006), which calls for free access to all scientific literature on the internet.
The UAE would get about 26 F-16 fighters and it and Saudi Arabia would get advanced air-launched missiles.
Still, Feldman claims his systems can follow currency down to pennies or a 5-halala coin from Saudi Arabia, and identify serial numbers and issue-places of money orders and traveler's checks.
But countries that are playing multi-alignment don't have to thaw domestically -- witness Saudi Arabia and Kazakhstan.
The Group B matches kick off on Sunday, with Japan playing Jordan and 2007 runners-up Saudi Arabia taking on Syria.
The Saudi security services continued to pursue terrorist suspects, six of whom were killed in a shoot-out in north-western Saudi Arabia .
During his Mideast tour, Bush also is scheduled to visit oil-rich Saudi Arabia, where he will meet King Abdullah amid increasing American frustration at gas prices.
While wireless carriers in the United States battle to outdo one another by offering customers the most possible features, carriers in cameraphone-wary Saudi Arabia fight to gain market share by offering less services than the competition.
ENGADGET: Saudi mobile carriers ban SMS voting for Arab reality show
While the developed world, led by the U.S., staggered through a global credit crunch, China's gross domestic product grew 11% in the first quarter, and the Gulf Cooperation Council--the oil-rich federation of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates--averaged nearly 7% growth in the same period.
In fact, in the course of a long career in the Foreign Service, Freeman served in capacities - notably as ambassador to Saudi Arabia and as the number two man in Embassy Beijing - where the job often is seen as representing the host government to his own, rather than the other way around.
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