The archenemies Iran and Saudi Arabia are battling for supremacy in the Middle East and are carrying out their struggle in proxy wars in Yemen, Syria and Iraq. Domestically, though, the two countries are facing remarkably similar problems.

Newly released files may show connections between low-level Saudi officials and a terrorist support network in southern California led to the 9/11 attacks

Women in Saudi Arabia face flogging and imprisonment if they check their husband’s phone without his permission. The offence would be prosecuted as a violation of privacy because it is not covered in the country’s Islamic laws, senior lawyer Mohammad al-Temyat has said. The issue has been a source of growing debate in the kingdom, with high profile cases leading to almost 35,000 tweets...

One of the biggest mysteries in global finance was just revealed: How much U.S. debt Saudi Arabia owns. Saudi Arabia stockpiled $116.8 billion of U.S. Treasuries as of March, the Treasury Department announced on Monday, ending four decades of keeping the figure secret. That makes Saudi Arabia the 13th largest foreign holder of U.S. debt, though well behind the $1 trillion-plus owned by China and Japan each.

A Saudi man who claims he invented the concept of e-commerce during the early days of the internet says that he is talks with big firms who wish to avoid litigation for stealing his world-changing idea. “There are now undergoing negotiations with big companies inside [the kingdom] and abroad to find a solution without opting to head to international judiciary,” Faisal bin Fahd al-Osaimi told the local Saudi daily Okaz. Osaimi said he presented the concept of e-commerce to the late King Fahd in 1991, the same year the internet was born.

The deal between the only country in the world that bans female drivers and Silicon Valley’s ride-sharing company Uber Technologies Inc. may be as unusual as it is convenient. What’s sure is that it’s caused outrage among many Saudi women. They are angry that Uber’s new $3.5 billion investment from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund not only means the government directly profits from the ban, but also it effectively – in their view – endorses the country’s no-women-behind-the-wheel policy.

Obama and Prince Mohammad discussed the importance of supporting a political transition away from President Bashar Al Assad.

Djibouti (HAN) March 13. 2013. Public Diplomacy & Regional Security News.Opinion by: Somaliland activist and senior editor at The Democracy Chronicles. Ever since I was born I could hear the waves of hatred and prejudice pouring upon Jews for unexplained reasons, but apparently associated with the Arab-Israeli conflict, which Somalia was not a part of. During …

A suicide bomber was killed and two other people wounded in a blast near the U.S. consulate in Saudi Arabia’s second city of Jeddah early on Monday, state TV said, the first bombing in years to attempt to target foreigners in the kingdom. The attacker parked his car outside a hospital opposite the consulate at about 2.15am and detonated his device after being approached by two security men, killing him and lightly wounding them, it said, quoting a security spokesman.

Saudi Arabia has arrested 12 Pakistanis and seven Saudis in connection with the suicide bombing on the prophet's mosque in the city of Medina and other attacks in Jeddah and Qatif. Saudi Arabia said a suicide bomber who attacked the prophet's mosque in the city of Medina on Monday was a 26-year-old Saudi citizen with a history of drug abuse. Naer Muslim Hamad crossed a parking lot next to the mosque and detonated an explosive belt, killing four soldiers, the state news agency SPA quoted an interior ministry spokesman as saying.

The long-classified pages detailing alleged ties of the Saudi Arabian government to the 9/11 hijackers will be released by Congress as early as Friday, sources told CNN Thursday. Known as the "28 pages," the secret document was part of a 2002 congressional investigation of the Sept. 11 attacks and has been classified since the report's completion. It turns out there are actually 29 pages, sources said. Sources said there are still some procedural steps that need to be taken before the release, which members of both parties in Congress and family members of victims have been seeking for years.

Thousands of people have circulated a short animation video designed to show the restrictions that Saudi Arabia's male guardianship system places on women. The video, published on Facebook by Human Rights Watch, depicts a Saudi woman being forced to reconcile with her abusive husband.

The U.S. government and mainstream media are playing down the long-hidden 9/11 chapter on official Saudi connections to Al Qaeda’s hijackers, hoping most Americans won’t read it themselves, as 9/11 widow Kristen Breitweiser observes. (July 15, 2016)

The U.S. State Department has approved the potential sale of more than 130 Abrams battle tanks, 20 armored recovery vehicles and other equipment, worth about $1.15 billion, to Saudi Arabia, the Pentagon said on Tuesday. The approval for land force equipment coincides with Saudi Arabia leading a military coalition in support of Yemeni forces loyal to the exiled government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi who are trying to oust Iran-allied Houthi forces from the capital, Sanaa. Human rights groups have criticized the coalition's air strikes because of the deaths of civilians.

At least three people have been killed in chaotic scenes in Yemen after bombs rained down on a city square where thousands of protesters had gathered in support of the country’s ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh. Fighter jets with the Saudi-led coalition bombed the country’s capital city of Sanaa yesterday, including the area around the Presidential palace, Associated Press reports. Local officials reported at least three civilians were killed during the attack.

Critics see Saudi Arabia’s export of a rigid strain of Islam as contributing to terrorism, but the kingdom’s influence depends greatly on local conditions. By Scott Shane.

A Saudi Arabian court has ordered a man should be given 2,000 lashes and spend 10 years in prison because he ridiculed the Koran and denied the existence of God on Twitter. The 28-year-old was sentenced after the state's Islamic police discovered 600 tweets professing his atheism. Under laws introduced two years ago, atheism is defined as 'terrorism'.

The plight of women in Saudi Arabia is no secret matter, with women still prohibited from making independent decisions, without the supervision and/or permission of their legal male guardians. Now, scores of Saudi women are taking to Twitter to demand the end of the male guardianship system with the #TogetherToEndMaleGuardianship hashtag. The social media campaign was promoted by Human Rights Watch (HRW) and is aimed at highlighting the oppressive and prohibitive nature of the guardianship system.

The Saudi government has announced that more than 3 million Saudi women, aged 15 and above, do not have national Identification Cards. The Arab country’s Civil Affairs has referred to a lack of special offices for registration of women and giving ID cards to them as one of the main reasons for this problem, as reported by Fars and translated by IFP.

Iran's leader message to Hajj rituals was usually issued to ceremony of ‘Renouncing Unbelievers’ initiated and mainly held by Iranian pilgrims, but this year, Saudi regime did not allow Iranian Muslims participate in the Islamic rituals. During last year ceremonies in September 2015, about 5000 pilgrims were killed in a stampede tragedy in Mina which was caused by misconduct of the rituals by Saudi forces. With about 500 Iranians among martyrs, Iranian nation has so far been angry at Saudis.