Saudi polls, aid sweeteners not enough: activists

RCMP officials are negotiating with their counterparts in Saudi Arabia to provide training in “investigative techniques,” Postmedia News has learned. While such a deal could bolster international cooperation and the fight against terrorism, some observers question whether Canada’s national police force should be providing support to the oil-rich kingdom, whose human-rights record has long been criticized.

Morocco's King Mohammed VI promised sweeping constitutional reforms, including real powers for a popularly elected prime minister instead of a royal appointee, as well as a free judiciary.In his first speech after uprisings across the Arab world and less than a month after protests erupted in Morocco for more social justice and limits on royal powers, the king Wednesday pledged to draw up a new draft constitution.

Fracking isn’t just for shale. In Russia, producers are importing techniques from the U.S. to squeeze billions of dollars of extra oil from Soviet-era fields. TNK-BP, Russia’s third-largest producer, will use hydraulic fracturing combined with horizontal drilling in almost half the wells it sinks this year, a sixfold increase in just two years, the company said. OAO Rosneft, OAO Lukoil and OAO Gazprom Neft have similar plans.

A former Lebanese minister apologised on Wednesday for a slur against Saudi women that sparked angry protests among Sunnis and instead lashed out at Riyadh for the killing of women in Bahrain."It was a wrong thing to say and I apologise for it," said Wiam Wahhab, who last week slammed Saudi Arabia for dressing its women in "trash bags," in reference to the black niqab of ultra-conservative Islam."However, what about ... Saudi Arabia's injuring and killing of veiled Bahraini women?" added Wahhab, a Druze former minister who is close to Saudi Arabia's regional rival Syria.

FIFA president Sepp Blatter will spend time in Saudi Arabia this week hoping to drum up support for his bid to be re-elected to a fourth mandate."I know very well that the best way to win Arab support for my candidature is to come to Saudi Arabia," said Blatter, the president of football's world ruling body."It is a powerful and influential country in every domain, including in sport. Saudi Arabia is one of the countries from whom I will be looking for support."

In the Gulf, known for its conservative Muslim beliefs, young film-makers are stirring up debate on such issues as forced marriage and wearing the veil with an art form largely confined to the shadows until now.Indeed, some of those artists come from Saudi Arabia, a country that bans cinemas.And the fruit of their work and of others -- more than 100 films from Gulf countries and from Iraq -- were presented in the third edition of the Dubai Film Festival, which took place this past week.