Saudi looks to the future, opens coed university

Academic focus is solar energy, desalination
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RIYADH/DUBAI: Saudi Arabia’s new $10 billion, state-of-the-art science and technology university welcomes the country’s first coed student body Wednesday in one of the king’s keystone attempts to power his country into the 21st century with renewable energy and social reform.
The King Abdullah University of Science and Technology on the Red Sea coast boasts one of the world’s fastest supercomputers, state-of-the-art “green” technologies and a team of top scientists timed its launch for Saudi Arabia's National Day.
“This international research university is a contribution from Saudi Arabia to promote knowledge,” King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud told a meeting of the Council of Ministers at al-Safa Palace last week.
The energy-efficient university, equipped with the latest technology and some of the world's top scientists, is set to break both scientific as well as social barriers. And with one of the world’s largest educational endowments it hopes to attract students and faculty from around the world with funding for 2,000 graduate students.
The 20,000 faculty, staff, students and their families are expected to live on campus, the first where men and women can mingle freely.
The university accepted 817 students from 61 countries from more than 7,000 applications, and about 15 percent of the incoming student body is women.
“The idea behind this university, if it succeeds, is to be very pioneering because the Saudi society by nature is a closed one, and if we look at universities in other countries like the United States we find them to be diverse and international,” Abdulrahman al-Rabesh, a consultant and engineer with the company, told Al Arabiya.
“I believe in mixed-gender education because it puts women on equal footing with men,” he said, adding that the idea of mixed-gender education is not completely new to Saudi universities since some medical schools offer coed classes.

Obama's star power faces new test at UN summit

UNITED NATIONS: More than 120 world leaders meet Wednesday on the heels of a climate change summit to tackle other crucial issues on the international agenda from terrorism and the spread of nuclear weapons to growing poverty resulting from the global financial crisis.
American President Barack Obama makes his debut during the meeting, hoping his international star power can throw new muscle behind a policy agenda that is already struggling to deliver.
Besides Obama, a host of new faces will also step to the podium at this last General Assembly ministerial session in the U.N.'s landmark headquarters before it closes for renovation later this fall -- Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, China's President Hu Jintao and Japan's newly elected Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama.
The U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will also urge leaders to take steps to free the world of nuclear weapons, to address the "red flags of warning" about a global economic recovery and make a fresh push to achieve U.N. anti-poverty goals especially reducing maternal and child mortality rates which remain very high, according to his prepared text.
Ban will call for a revival of negotiations to achieve a comprehensive settlement in the Mideast and a two-state solution where Israel and Palestine live side-by-side in peace. And he will pledge to see the Afghans "through their long night" and stand as well with the people of Pakistan.

National Day of achievements

JEDDAH: Saudi Arabia marks its 79th National Day on Wednesday, not only to remember the country’s unification at the hands of King Abdul Aziz but also to celebrate its achievements in the educational, health and economic sectors. Being the world’s largest oil exporter, it has become a member of G20 and is the largest economy in the Middle East.
“The National Day of Saudi Arabia is different from other countries. It is not an occasion to remember liberation from colonialists but rather an occasion to celebrate the unity of our people,” said Prince Abdul Rahman, deputy minister of defense and aviation.
Prince Sultan bin Salman, chairman of the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities (SCTA), said: “By celebrating this day we are not just remembering the history but we take it as an opportunity to think about what we should do to have a brighter future.”
“Saudi Arabia is a major player on the world economic map, in terms of its contributions to the capital of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and (other) development banks and in terms of providing financial assistance to the less-developed countries,” said Finance Minister Ibrahim Al-Assaf.
Labor Minister Ghazi Al-Gosaibi said his ministry had been successful in bringing down the Kingdom’s unemployment rate from 11.2 percent to 9.8 percent. As many as 36,614 Saudis were given employment in the private sector during the first half of this year, he said.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton congratulated King Abdullah and the Saudi people on the occasion.
“The United States values Saudi Arabia as a close friend and ally. Ever since King Abdul Aziz and President Franklin D. Roosevelt first met aboard the USS Quincy in 1945, our two nations have united in a durable and dynamic partnership that is based on mutual respect and mutual interest. Over the years, our friendship has deepened and enhanced the security and prosperity of both our countries,” she said in a message. “On this historic occasion, I want to salute King Abdullah for his leadership on key regional and global challenges, from championing the Arab peace initiative to working to respond to the international economic crisis.”
Pakistani Ambassador Umar Khan Alisherzai extended his warmest felicitations to King Abdullah and members of the royal family and the Saudi people. “Saudi Arabia enjoys enormous respect in the comity of nations, particularly in the Islamic world,” he said while praising the king’s initiative to enhancing interfaith dialogue.

Al-Qaeda issues new threats on KSA

DUBAI: AL-QAEDA has threatened further attacks inside Saudi Arabia following a suicide bomber's failed attempt to kill Riyadh's deputy interior minister last month, the SITE Intelligence Group said.
'If you can flee with your skin, then do so. By Allah, they will climb your walls and will come to you from where you do not expect,' Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) leader Abu Baseer al-Wuhayshi says in a video posted online, the US-based monitoring group reported.
Deputy Interior Minister Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, responsible for security affairs, was lightly injured in the Aug 27 attack in Jeddah that was claimed by AQAP, which named the bomber as Abdullah bin Hassan bin Taleh Assiri.
'Our heroes have woven their grave-clothes with your blood,' Wuhayshi says. The video also contains a telephone conversation between Assiri and the prince, in which the bomber says he wishes to return to Saudi Arabia from Yemen because he has repented.
On Sept 1 the Saudi interior ministry also released excerpts of the same conversation.
'I would like to meet you to discuss the whole matter with you,' Assiri told Mohammed, according to the excerpts broadcast by Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya television. The conversation took place after Assiri arrived at the the Saudi-Yemeni border, state news agency SPA reported.
Assiri was taken to Jeddah and when he arrived at Mohammed's residence and met him, he confirmed his wish to hand himself in and also help a group of Saudis living in Yemen to return home, the ministry said. While making a phone call to one of them in the reception room where they were meeting, he blew himself up.
Saudi and Yemeni branches of Al-Qaeda announced in January their merger into 'Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula'.
The attempt to kill Prince Mohammed was the first high-profile Al-Qaeda attack on the Saudi government since militants rammed a car bomb into the fortified interior ministry in Riyadh in 2004.
It was also the first strike on a member of the royal family since Al-Qaeda launched a wave of attacks in the kingdom in 2003, targeting Western establishments and oil facilities and killing more than 150 Saudis and foreigners.