BERLIN/JEDDAH, July 12 (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia is to send
female athletes to the Olympics for the first time, with a
judoka and an 800m runner representing the kingdom in London,
the International Olympic Committee said on Thursday.

Wodjan Ali Seraj Abdulrahim Shahrkhani, who will compete in
the 78-kg category in judo, and teenager Sarah Attar will be the
first Saudi women ever to take part after talks between the IOC
and the country.

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia gave a lavish reception to Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi on Thursday, a gesture analysts said indicated the Arab world’s wealthiest country was ready to put old tensions behind it to do business with the new Islamist president.

In his first official foreign visit since his election in June, Mursi, who belonged to Egypt’s influential Muslim Brotherhood movement which had long had strained ties with Saudi Arabia, arrived in Jeddah late on Wednesday.

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia will send women athletes to the 2012 London Games if they are invited by the International Olympic Committee, a Saudi official told Reuters on Wednesday in comments that suggested Riyadh was moving towards resolving the thorny issue.

“Saudi Arabia will allow female athletes to participate if they receive an invitation from the International Olympic Committee or other countries’ Olympic committees,” the official, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue, told Reuters by telephone.

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia, July 11 (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia will
send women athletes to the 2012 London Games if they are invited
by the International Olympic Committee, a Saudi official told
Reuters on Wednesday in comments that suggested Riyadh was
moving towards resolving the thorny issue.

“Saudi Arabia will allow female athletes to participate if
they receive an invitation from the International Olympic
Committee or other countries’ Olympic committees,” the official,
who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the
issue, told Reuters by telephone.

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia, July 10 (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia’s
annual inflation eased to 4.9 percent in June, its lowest level
since September last year, despite a big rise in housing prices,
official data showed on Tuesday.

Inflation slowed from 5.1 percent in May. The month-on-month
rate in June was unchanged from 0.2 percent in May, according to
the Central Department of Statistics.

JEDDAH (Reuters) – Pakistan deported the family of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden to Saudi Arabia on Friday, their lawyer and a diplomat said, nearly a year after U.S. special forces killed the world’s most wanted man in a northwestern Pakistani town.

The move ended months of speculation about the fate of the three widows and 11 children, who were detained by Pakistani security forces after the May 2 raid.

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia, April 4 (Reuters) – An important Saudi
official riding in a chauffered Rolls Royce unspools a wire
fence across previously unclaimed land. “It’s mine now,” he
says.

The scene, in a YouTube spoof video satirising a new state
agency to combat corruption, has attracted 2.2 million viewers
in a strait-laced Islamic kingdom where Saudi online comedians
are tackling once-taboo subjects – and gaining a wide following.

JEDDAH (Reuters) – A Saudi Arabian human rights activist and lawyer who has been barred from travel by the authorities said on Wednesday he would appeal against the ban, which has been criticized by Amnesty International.

Waleed Abu al-Khair, who has previously filed cases against the government for jailing an activist without trial and for not allowing women to vote in municipal elections, said he was summoned to the interior ministry on March 21 and told he was banned from travelling because of “security concerns”.