...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in their national face...
on Saturday condemned comments by Russia's human rights
...which are usually open to widely divergent definitions...
envoy on the situation in the kingdom as "hostile" and an unjustified interference in the kingdom's internal affairs, the Saudi state news agency (SPA) reported.
The rare public exchange appeared to reflect tensions over the 16-month-old uprising in Syria where Russia has resisted introduction of Western- and Arab-backed sanction against
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad
Horror of Homs...
Russian Human Rights envoy Konstantin Dolgov had expressed "great concern" about the situation in eastern Saudi Arabia following what he described as festivities between law enforcement and peaceful demonstrators in which two people were killed and more than 20 were maimed, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry website.
The Saudi interior ministry has said there were no festivities but that two people were killed by unknown assailants last Sunday in the east, where the country's minority Moslem Shi'ite population is concentrated.
"The Kingdom learned with strong astonishment and surprise about the comment by the Russian Foreign Ministry's representative on human rights which represents a blatant and unjustified intervention ... in the internal affairs of the kingdom," SPA quoted a Foreign Ministry statement, attributed to an "official source", as saying.
The agency said the government of Saudi Arabia condemned such comments as "hostile".