News You Can’t Believe*! Saudi Arabia Opens to Outsiders as It Looks to the Future
THE TELEGRAPH: Gulf nation is liberalising and the West needs to alter its outdated perceptions

The Kingdom Tower in Riyadh. Photo: The Telegraph
If anything sums up the mystery of Saudi Arabia, it is the story of two women who "mingled" with members of the opposite sex.

One was Khamisa Sawadi, a 75-year-old grandmother sentenced to 40 lashes for being found in the presence of a man who was not a blood relative. It was her late husband's nephew, and he had called at her house to deliver a loaf of bread.

The other was Aisha Natto, a businesswoman from Jeddah, who was to be seen the other day "mingling" quite openly with a large number of men: Saudis, other Arabs and Westerners. Many of the women around her were not even veiled.

The very same government that has refused to intervene on behalf of Mrs Sawadi was hosting the Global Competitiveness Forum at Riyadh's Four Seasons Hotel, where Dr Natto received an award as founder of one of the country's fastest growing businesses.

The forum is one of a string of initiatives by which Saudi Arabia is trying to change its reputation as an inward-looking, conservative – and men-only – state whose economic policies revolve around deploying its oil wealth in the interests of its ruling family. >>> Richard Spencer in Riyadh | Sunday, February 07, 2010

*They’ll be telling us next that we can go skinny dipping there!

Change What to What, Obama?
THE TELEGRAPH: Barack Obama will lose the November election to John McCain unless he overhauls his message of change, outlines specific plans and reassures Americans that he is one of them, according to swing voters in Denver.

The results of a focus group held by Frank Luntz, the leading American pollster, on the eve of the Democratic convention should sound alarm bells for the Obama campaign after a month in which Mr McCain, the Republican, has drawn level in the polls.

"The way that he gets here to the Democratic nomination - 'change' - is not how he gets there, to the White House," said Mr Luntz. "If it's change, by itself, he will fail. Change what? Change how? Change why?" Mr Luntz is a Republican but his work on focus groups is respected on both sides of the aisle.

Some 21 carefully-selected undecided voters were gathered in a conference room in a downtown skyscraper. Observed by The Daily Telegraph and a small group of other media through a one-way mirror, they were grilled by Mr Luntz about their views of the candidates in a two-hour session.

Although 12 said they had voted for President George W. Bush in 2004, not a single person described themselves as a Republican - bad news for Mr McCain, who has to shake off his party label to claim victory.

But these undecideds were willing to separate their disdain for the Republican party from the individual candidates. The one-word descriptions of Mr Obama showed he has mountain to climb to overcome the doubts of these swing voters in the swing state of Colorado - a top Democratic target in November. Message of Change Will Doom Barack Obama, Swing Voters Warn >>> By Toby Harnden in Denver | August 25, 2008

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