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Saudi princes plunder nation's wealth
 [Iran Press TV] Exposed documents show that thousands of relatives of Soddy Arabia's King Abdullah enjoy the monopoly of the kingdom's financial and commercial resources.Classified evidence cited former United States Ambassador to Soddy Arabia William Wyche Fowler as saying that in the late 1990s Saudi Prince Al Waleed bin Talal Al Saud trusted Washington with secret information on the royal family's financial secrets, wrote German newspaper Die Welt. The royal exposed the dominance of 7,000 Saudi princes on the country's oil and business enterprises. Bin Talal, himself among the beneficiaries, is rated as the world's 26th richest person by the US business magazine Forbes. Together with his wife and children, the 56-year-old lives in a 330-room palace in the capital, Riyadh, with walls made out of Italian alabaster. The edifice is fitted with tennis courts, five luxurious kitchens, a movie theatre and a parking space holding 200 state-of-the-art luxury cars, namely Rolls-Royces, Ferraris and Lamborghinis, and can accommodate 2,000 guests at the same time. While a subject of criticism by Saudi clergymen and religious leaders, the royal has written columns in The New York Times ...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize... about the implementation of reforms in the kingdom, defending the rights of women and disadvantaged people. Soddy Arabia, the world's number one oil exporter, owns the biggest economy among the Arab nations. The information comes out amid protests across the kingdom by the jobless, demanding their share of the country's oil-driven economy. The protests rage despite a ban by the Interior Ministry on all kinds of demonstrations and public gatherings. Posted by: Fred 2011-04-22 |
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