Prominent Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi resigned on Sunday from the helm of the al-Watan daily in a move believed linked to official displeasure with articles critical of the state’s harsh Islamic rules.
Al-Watan announced that Khashoggi, 52, was stepping down as editor-in-chief “to focus on his personal projects,” in a statement published on its Web site and in its Sunday edition.
The statement from Prince Bandar bin Khaled al-Faisal, chief executive of the company that owns al-Watan, praised Khashoggi as “a loyal son ... who left a clear mark on its progress.”
The resignation, which came hours after Khashoggi celebrated his third marriage on Saturday, was unexpected and Saudi journalists said they believed it was because of high-level government pressure.
Reached by telephone, Khashoggi said he “chose to resign for the better of al-Watan.”
It came three days after al-Watan published a controversial column by poet Ibrahim al-Almaee criticizing Salafism, which advocates returning to the fundamentals of Islam.
The article disputed Salafists’ rejection of popular religious traditions, such as patronizing shrines and graves of important Islamic figures.
Khashoggi was abroad when the article appeared and he said he disagreed with the decision to run the article.
“Al Watan should not have published this article,” he said. “It was a human error. He [the editor] did not realize what the article meant.”
The newspaper’s staff expressed shock at his resignation.
The resignation also followed a year of tensions with authorities and religious conservatives over articles and columns viewed as critical of the ultra-conservative Wahhabi Islam which dominates Saudi life.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion