#Prince salmane

[originalleftist]

Over half of anti-Heard tweets were bots or paid trolls, many linked to Saudi government bots.

"According to an investigation by Tortoise Media, which examined more than one million tweets, more than 50 per cent of anti-Heard messages in the run-up to the 2022 defamation case were "inauthentic' - either from automated "bot" accounts or people hired to attack the actress."

"Bradley Hope, author of a book on Bin Salman, told the podcast that the pro-Depp tweets emanating from Saudi Arabia appear to be produced by "flies", a name for Saudi bot accounts."

"An intelligence professional who tracks online disinformation campaigns, said there was only a "0.1 per cent chance" that the hate directed at Heard was from genuine Depp fans.

The investigation also claims that bot networks in Thailand and Spain tweeted large numbers of pro-Depp messages."

"...more than 100 Twitter accounts sent 1,000 identical messages at exactly the same time to any company that had worked with Heard, reading: "This brand supports domestic violence against men."'

"The makers of the podcast argue that the criticism of Heard could have affected the jury in the 2022 US defamation trial which found in favour of Depp."

"So, if you couldn't tell the difference between a real-life Johnny Depp fan and a bot in 2022, then you probably won't be able to tell a Russian troll from a US election official in 2024. And that represents a serious problem for the security of our democracies."-Alexi Mostrous, presenter of the podcast.

"Johnny Depp and the Saudi Embassy did not respond to Tortoise's request for comment."

[royal-confessions]

“Crown Prince Hussein juts confirmed he has no leadership skills, in his interview he talked like he rehearsed everything he said, it doesn't come naturally. Apart from being Saudi ARABIA'S puppet I don't know what we learned from his interview.” - Submitted by Anonymous

“I was curious so I watched the interview of Prince Hussein, what can I say about it? Once again he praised his wife, praised saudis and praised MBS in other words : HE IS SAUDI ARABIA'S PUPPET. The man is too weak. Good luck to Jordanians” - Submitted by Anonymous

“Maybe you've had already a few confessions on Hussein's interview with a Saudi channel😅 I want to add my opinion if you don't mind. His interview clearly showed why he married a saudi woman. I don't have to add more. Real eyes realize real lies. Ps:I'm saudi😅” - Submitted by Anonymous

“Hussein of Jordan doing an interview : oh I love Saudis people , my wife is a blessing 😂😂. Nobody can teach him how to not make it obvious he is so scared of the big Saudi Arabia? Scared of another coup?? And we thought he could be King one day!” - Submitted by Anonymous

“Prior announcing the engagement of R&H, there was a public poll for the Jordanian public asking which Gulf country should they have better relationships with and the winner was KSA. Recently, Prince Hussein stating in TV he is now related to the royal family of Saudi is the most telling thing ever. He made a clown of himself and showed so much servitude to a different country with that boot-licking statement.” - Submitted by Anonymous

“Prince Hussein said he admires MBS.🤢🤮There is 2 options :1) he is scared of him and it means he is up for a life of submission to him or 2) he is just like him which says a lot about him!” - Submitted by Anonymous

[pariaritzia]

Queerness in Indian Media

↳Film: DIDI TERA DEVAR DEEWANA from HUM AAPKE HAIN KOUN (1994, Hindi), dir. SOORAJ BARJATYA

Sooraj Barjatya films are known for their (often unintentionally comedic) portrayals of traditional family values, which is why it was so surprising that a song like Didi Tera Devar Deewana somehow made it into what was, at the time, the biggest Indian blockbuster. The character Rita (Sahila Chaddha), who has no prominent role in the film otherwise, crossdresses to role-play as Prem (Salman Khan). She teases the women, romances Nisha (Madhuri Dixit) and conducts herself with a confident masculinity that was, and still is, virtually unheard of in mainstream Indian cinema across all languages.

Commentary on this song by Professor Gayatri Gopinath, from her book Impossible Desires: Queer Diasporas and South Asian Public Cultures, was posted by Desbian Herstory here.

This song was only the beginning of Madhuri Dixit's involvement in queer media, as she would go on to feature in multiple gay and gay-coded media, both as a supportive character and as the gay character herself. She has also been supportive in real life of the LGBTQ community.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

The social media company formerly known as Twitter has been accused in a revised civil US lawsuit of helping Saudi Arabia commit grave human rights abuses against its users, including by disclosing confidential user data at the request of Saudi authorities at a much higher rate than it has for the US, UK or Canada.

The lawsuit was brought last May against X, as Twitter is now known, by Areej al-Sadhan, the sister of a Saudi aid worker who was forcibly disappeared and then later sentenced to 20 years in jail.

It centers on the events surrounding the infiltration of the California company by three Saudi agents, two of whom were posing as Twitter employees in 2014 and 2015, which ultimately led to the arrest of al-Sadhan’s brother, Abdulrahman, and the exposure of the identity of thousands of anonymous Twitter users, some of whom were later reportedly detained and tortured as part of the government’s crackdown on dissent.

Lawyers for Al-Sadhan updated their claim last week to include new allegations about how Twitter, under the leadership of then chief executive Jack Dorsey, willfully ignored or had knowledge of the Saudi government’s campaign to ferret out critics but – because of financial considerations and efforts to keep close ties to the Saudi government, a top investor in the company – provided assistance to the kingdom.

The new lawsuit details how X had originally been seen seen as a critical vehicle for democratic movements during the Arab spring, and therefore became a source of concern for the Saudi government as early as 2013.

The new legal filing comes days after Human Rights Watch condemned a Saudi court for sentencing a man to death based solely on his Twitter and YouTube activity, which it called an “escalation” of the government’s crackdown on freedom of expression.

The convicted man, Muhammad al-Ghamdi, 54, is the brother of a Saudi scholar and government critic living in exile in the UK. Saudi court records examined by HRW showed that al-Ghamdi was accused of having two accounts, which had a total of 10 followers combined. Both accounts had fewer than 1,000 tweets combined, and contained retweets of well-known critics of the government.

The Saudi crackdown can be traced back to December 2014, as Ahmad Abouammo – who was later convicted in the US for secretly acting as a Saudi agent and lying to the FBI – began accessing and sending confidential user data to Saudi Arabian officials. In the new lawsuit, it is claimed that he sent a message to Saud al-Qahtani, a close aide to Mohammed bin Salman, via the social media company’s messaging system, saying “proactively and reactively we will delete evil, my brother”. It was a reference, the lawsuit claims, to the identification and harming of perceived Saudi dissidents who were using the platform. Al-Qahtani was later accused by the US of being a mastermind behind the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.

“Twitter was either aware of this message – brazenly sent on its own platform – or was deliberately ignorant to it,” the revised lawsuit states.

Twitter, now X, does not respond to questions from the press.

The Guardian contacted the company lawyer in the case, Ben Berkowitz of Keker, Van Nest & Peters, but did not receive a response. The Guardian also contacted Dorsey’s new company, Block, Inc, to request a comment from the former Twitter chief executive, but did not receive a response.

After Abouammo resigned in May 2015, he continued to contact Twitter to field requests he was receiving from Bader al-Asaker, a senior aide of Mohammed bin Salman, for the identity of confidential users. He made clear to the company, the lawsuit alleges, that the requests were on behalf of his “old partners in the Saudi government”.

The lawsuit also alleges that Twitter had “ample notice” of security risks to internal personal data, and that there was a threat of insiders illegally accessing it, based on public reporting at the time.

Twitter “did not simply ignore all these red flags … it was aware of the malign campaign”, the lawsuit claims.

On 28 September 2015, Twitter received a complaint from a Saudi user that their accounts had been compromised. But, the lawsuit alleges, the company did not act to bar one of the Saudis who was later accused – Ali Hamad Alzabarah – from having access to confidential user data, even though he had accessed the user’s account previously.

Saudi Arabian authorities, the lawsuit alleges, would formally follow up with Twitter once it received confidential user data from its agents working inside the company, by filing so-called EDRs – or emergency disclosure requests – in order to obtain documentation that confirmed a user’s identity, which it would then use in court. Often those EDRs were approved on the same day.

In May 2015, when two Twitter users tweeted about the kingdom in a way that al-Asaker found objectionable, Albabarah accessed the users’ data within hours. EDRs about the users were then sent, and automatically approved by Twitter, the lawsuit alleges.

Between July and December 2015, Twitter granted the kingdom information requests “significantly more often” than most other countries at that time, including Canada, the UK, Australia and Spain, the lawsuit alleges.

On 5 November 2015, just days before Twitter was confronted by the FBI about its concerns about a Saudi infiltration of the company, it promoted Alzabarah – now a fugitive living in Saudi. In response, Alzabarah sent his Saudi government contact, al-Asaker, a note, conveying his “unimaginable happiness” for the promotion. The note, the lawsuit claims, is evidence that Alzabarah believed al-Asaker had “arranged” or “been influential” in connection to the promotion.

Once Twitter was made aware of the FBI’s concerns, it put Alzabarah on leave and confiscated his laptop, but not his phone, which he has used extensively to contact his Saudi state contacts. Twitter, the lawsuit alleges, “had every reason to expect that Alzabarah would immediately flee to Saudi Arabia, which is exactly what he did.”

The US attorney’s office in San Francisco, which handled the case, did not respond to The Guardian’s request for comment on the company’s handling of the matter.

Twitter would later notify users who had been exposed, telling them their data “may” have been targeted, but did not provide more specific information about the scale or certainty that the breach had, in fact, occurred.

By “failing to give this crucial information, Twitter put thousands of Twitter users at risk,” the lawsuit alleges, claiming that some may have had time to escape the kingdom had they understood the risk. Even once Twitter was aware of the breach, it continued to meet and strategize with Saudi Arabia as one of its vital partners in the region. Dorsey met with bin Salman about six months after the company was made aware of the issue by the FBI, and the two discussed how to “train and qualify Saudi cadres.”

“We believe in Areej’s case and we will zealously prosecute it – but what she wants most is for Saudi Arabia to simply release her brother and let him re-join his family in the United States,” said Jim Walden, a lawyer representing Al-Sadhan from Walden Macht & Haran. “Were that to happen, she and Abdulrahman would gratefully resume their lives and leave justice in God’s hand.”

[deadpresidents]

You have mentioned your interest in reading about Saudi Arabia and I share your interest, so I want to know if you think the crown prince will actually become king eventually?

Yes, without a doubt. The Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), is already the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia and has instituted major economic, cultural, and religious reforms over the past few years that have dramatically changed Saudi Arabia. (Of course, he has also been responsible for some impulsive foreign policy disasters and brutal human rights violations.) With the possible exception of the Emirati leader, Mohammed bin Zayed (MBZ), the Saudi Crown Prince is already the most powerful leader in the Arab world.

King Salman is still alive (at least he was a few minutes ago), so he is officially in charge, but the King is nearly 88 years old and it is believed that he has been in failing health for a while now. It's not unusual for there to be a de factor ruler while the Saudi King is still living, and in every instance that de facto ruler ultimately succeeded the King. King Saud was forced to hand over power to the future King Faisal because Saud was utterly incompetent and unfit to effectively rule the country. King Khalid, who had assumed the throne when Faisal was assassinated in 1975, handed the reins over to future King Fahd because his health was failing. Fahd suffered a massive stroke in the 1990s, and future King Abdullah stepped in as de facto ruler until he was proclaimed King upon Fahd's death. So there's a lot of precedent for the de facto ruler to eventually become King in his own right. MBS has taken about as much control over Saudi Arabia as possible while still respecting the position of his father, but he's undoubtedly the person calling the shots and he's seemingly (and, in some cases, publicly) sidelined any potential threats to his rule once King Salman dies or abdicates.

Unless there is some shocking turn of events -- and it would probably take nothing short of a revolution at this point -- MBS will eventually succeed his father as King. That will make him the first grandson of Ibn Saud, the founder of the modern Saudi state, to become King. Since the death of Ibn Saud in 1953, every one of his successors as King of Saudi Arabia has been one of his roughly 50 sons. And because MBS is still so young (he's only 38 years old right now), he will likely have the opportunity to rule Saudi Arabia and become the most influential leader in the Middle East for decades to come.

[vyorei]

Qatar and Saudi Arabia are going to try and stop Apartheid Israel's genocide-in-progress and get more aid in to those trapped in Gaza

Obviously I don't have high hopes they'll be able to do anything but regardless, you have to hope SOMEONE will drag those fucking bastards out.

[hasdrubal-gisco]

this is so based i'm going to cry. if it weren't for the arabs with infinite petrowealth, the passion-megaprojects genre would have died out, the chinese are too pragmatic and normal to do stupid shit the way russians or arabs can

[plitnick]

Netanyahu’s ‘hands are on the wheel’ again — and Joe Biden is just fine with that!

Netanyahu’s ‘hands are on the wheel’ again — and Joe Biden is just fine with that!

Ever since it became clear that Benjamin Netanyahu was likely to return as Israel’s prime minister and that he would be bringing in a government that, even for Israel, was radically right wing, the Joe Biden and Antony Blinken have consistently been saying that they will react to the government’s actions, not its members, and that they would be dealing with Netanyahu, not Bezalel Smotrich or…

[kirstythejetblackgoldfish]

Faisal Mikdad to RT: The meeting between President Bashar al-Assad and the Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, was very warm and reflected the historical relations binding the two countries

We feel from the Crown Prince’s words that the future of relations is promising and they will return to normal on all levels

[usa-journal]

Saudi Crown Prince Receives Message from Maldives President on Strengthening Ties

Riyadh, August 19 (QNA) - Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince and Prime Minister, Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, received a written message on Monday from Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu. The message focused on enhancing bilateral relations and exploring opportunities for cooperation in various fields.

The message was handed over by the Maldives' Minister of Foreign Affairs, Moosa Zameer, during a meeting with Saudi Foreign Minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan bin Abdullah.

[royal-confessions]

“In 1973 the US threatened to bomb Saudis oil fields after King Faisal of Saudi Arabia cut off their supply for supporting Israel, King Faisal replied “You're the ones who can't live without oil. We come from the desert, our ancestors lived on dates/milk, we can go back and live like that again!” In 2023, Crown Prince MBS said “We condemn what the Gaza Strip is facing from military assault, targeting of civilians, the violations of international law by the Israeli occupation authorities. We stress on the need to stop this war and the forced displacement of Palestinians” LITERALLY A MONTH AFTER the crisis started. What a weak ass man. Have the guts to bonesaw dissident but no guts to stand up for Palestinians like his family did in the past.” - Submitted by Anonymous

[saveralivehindi]

साऊदी अरब के प्रिंस के मोहम्मद बिन सलमान को सता रहा मौत का खतरा! जानें क्या है पूरा मामला

दुनिया के सबसे बडे प्रिंस और एमबीएस(MBS) नामसे मसहूर सउदी अरब के प्रिंस मोहम्मद बिन सलमान  को अपनी मौत का खतरा सता रहा है। साउदी के प्रिंस मोहम्मद बिन सलमान सुरक्षा के कड़े घेरे में रहते हैं। फिस भी उनको अपनी मौंत का खतरा सता रहा है ।  दरअशल, मोहम्मद बिन सलमान ने अमेरिका के एक समाचार आउटले(पाॅलिटिको) के एक रिपोर्ट के मुताबिक मोहम्मद बिन सलमान के डर का जिक्र किया है। रिपोर्ट के अनुसार क्रराउन…

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie took aim at former President Trump’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, and her husband, Jared Kushner, during the former New Jersey Governor’s campaign launch Tuesday, saying the “grift from this family is breathtaking.”

“The grift from this family is breathtaking,” Christie said at a New Hampshire town hall. “It’s breathtaking. Jared Kushner and Ivanka Kushner walk out of the White House, and months later get $2 billion from the Saudis.”

Christie was pointing to the $2 billion investment made by the Saudi-backed Public Investment Fund, which is controlled by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, into Kushner’s investment firm A Fin Management, LLC (Affinity) in 2021. The House Committee on Oversight and Reform announced a probe into the investment last year to determine whether Kushner improperly used his influence as a government official to secure the investment.

Kushner served in his father-in law’s administration as an adviser who was tasked with policy in the Middle East. Kushner incorporated Affinity in Delaware in January 2021, shortly after former President Trump left office. Six months later, he received the $2 billion investment, according to the House committee.

“You think it’s because he’s some kind of investing genius? Or do you think it’s because he was sitting next to the President of the United States for four years doing favors for the Saudis?” Christie asked on Tuesday. “That’s your money. That’s your money he stole and gave it to his family. You know what that makes us? A banana republic.”

Christie, who has been a vocal critic of former President Trump over the last year, did not hold back on his attacks on his former friend at the town hall, saying a “lonely, self-consumed, self-serving mirror hog is not a leader,” and likening him to Voldemort, the villain in the “Harry Potter” series.

Christie entered the growing field of Republican presidential candidates after he filed paperwork Tuesday, but former President Trump remains the front-runner. In a CNN poll last month, just 2% of Republican-leaning voters chose Christie.

[deadpresidents]

Despite reading dozens of books on Saudi Arabia, the Saudi monarchy, and several biographies of Mohammed bin Salman, I must admit how surprised I am that MbS's actual speaking voice sounds exactly like Tom Hardy's posh accent in Inception. It's quite jarring at first.

[rightnewshindi]

सऊदी के क्राउन प्रिंस मोहम्मद बिन सलमान को सता रहा हत्या के डर, जानें क्यों अमेरिका के सामने व्यक्त की चिंता

Saudi Arabia Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman: सऊदी अरब के शासक और क्राउन प्रिंस मोहम्मद बिन सलमान (MBS) ने अपनी सुरक्षा को लेकर चिंता जाहिर की है। पोलिटिको की एक हालिया रिपोर्ट के अनुसार, एमबीएस ने अमेरिका के सामने अपनी जान की खतरे की आशंका जताया है। उन्होंने यह चिंता खासतौर पर इजरायल के साथ संबंधों को सामान्य बनाने की अमेरिका की योजना के संदर्भ में व्यक्त की है। MBS को क्यों सता रहा है जान के…

[justnownews]

Saudi Crown Prince Faces Assassination Risk Over Israel Normalization Efforts: Politico Report

A recent report published by US-based news outlet Politico claims that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) is at risk of assassination due to his efforts to normalize relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel. According to the report, MBS has confided to members of the US Congress that his pursuit of a comprehensive deal involving the US and Israel, which includes the normalization of…