Latest news with #Saudis
Yemen Online
12 hours ago
- General
- Yemen Online
Saudi Royal Court Announces Death of Prince Al-Waleed bin Khaled bin Talal After Two-Decade Coma
The Saudi Royal Court has officially announced the passing of Prince Al-Waleed bin Khaled bin Talal Al Saud, widely known as the 'Sleeping Prince,' following nearly 20 years in a coma caused by a traumatic car accident in 2005. In a deeply emotional statement shared by his father, Prince Khaled bin Talal, the family expressed their sorrow and faith: 'O tranquil soul, return to your Lord, well-pleased and pleasing. Enter among My servants, and enter My Paradise.' 'With hearts believing in Allah's will and decree, and with deep sorrow and sadness, we mourn our beloved son.' Prince Al-Waleed, who was just 15 when the accident occurred during his military studies in London, remained in a vegetative state for two decades. His condition became a symbol of perseverance and paternal devotion, as Prince Khaled refused to withdraw life support, believing in divine healing. Videos of the prince responding faintly to Quranic recitations had long captured public empathy across the Kingdom. The funeral prayer will be held on Sunday, July 20, at Imam Turki bin Abdullah Mosque in Riyadh for men, and at King Faisal Specialist Hospital for women. Mourning gatherings will take place over three days at the family's residence in Al-Fakhariya district. Social media platforms were flooded with tributes under the hashtag #SleepingPrince, as Saudis and others across the Arab world shared condolences and praised the family's unwavering faith. Prince Al-Waleed was the eldest son of Prince Khaled bin Talal and the nephew of billionaire investor Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal. His story, marked by tragedy and hope, has left a lasting emotional imprint on the nation.
Gulf Insider
a day ago
- Sport
- Gulf Insider
UAE To Face Qatar, Oman In World Cup Qualifiers
The United Arab Emirates were drawn to take on Qatar and Oman in the fourth phase of Asia's preliminaries for the 2026 World Cup on Thursday. According to the Emirates News Agency (WAM), the winners of each of the three-team groups, which will be played in October, will join already-qualified Australia, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Uzbekistan, Iran and Jordan at next year's expanded 48-nation finals in the United States, Canada and Mexico. Saudi Arabia will host Group A and open against Indonesia on October 8. Indonesia will then play Graham Arnold's Iraq on October 11 before the Saudis and Iraq face off on 14th October. Group B hosts Qatar, organisers of the 2022 World Cup, will take on Oman in their first game on October 8. The UAE will face Oman on October 11, with Qatar and the UAE meeting on October 14. The nations finishing in second place in each group will advance to a further round of qualifying, which will be held over two legs in November on a home-and-away basis. Source Bahrain News Agency
Scroll.in
2 days ago
- Scroll.in
Iqbal Akhtar, The Conversation
Stories written by Why Zohran Mamdani's surname tells the story of migration, resilience and community Mamdanis in Uganda belong to the Khoja community, a South Asian Muslim merchant caste, that shaped economic development across the western Indian Ocean. Iqbal Akhtar, The Conversation · 5 minutes ago How women are reshaping Islamic pilgrimages as Saudis change rules Single women can now travel unaccompanied by a male guardian, part of an effort by the kingdom to improve the rights of women in Saudi Arabia. Iqbal Akhtar, The Conversation · Jul 28, 2023 · 07:30 pm
Kuwait Times
3 days ago
- Sport
- Kuwait Times
Saudi Arabia to meet Iraq, Indonesia in World Cup qualifiers
RIYADH: Saudi Arabia were drawn to take on Iraq and Indonesia in the fourth phase of Asia's preliminaries for the 2026 World Cup on Thursday with back-to-back Asian Cup winners Qatar facing the United Arab Emirates and Oman. The winners of each of the three-team groups, which will be played in October, will join already-qualified Australia, Japan, South Korea, Uzbekistan, Iran and Jordan at next year's expanded 48-nation finals in the United States, Canada and Mexico. Saudi Arabia, who are attempting to qualify for a seventh World Cup finals since 1994, will host Group A and open against Indonesia on October 8. Indonesia will then play Graham Arnold's Iraq on October 11 before the Saudis and Iraq face off on October 14. Iraq have only qualified once in their history, in 1986. Group B hosts Qatar, organizers of the 2022 World Cup but who have never qualified for the finals, will take on Oman in their first game on October 8. UAE will face the Omanis on October 11, with Qatar and the UAE meeting on October 14. The United Arab Emirates reached the World Cup one time, in 1990, while Oman have never qualified. The nations finishing in second place in each group will advance to a further round of qualifying, which will be held over two legs in November on a home-and-away basis. Asia has been granted eight guaranteed berths at the finals. A possible ninth berth is available to the winner of November's match-up via an intercontinental playoff in March. Dutch-born players Patrick Kuivert's Indonesia have embarked on a recruitment drive of Dutch-born players and backroom staff to bolster their bid for a first World Cup finals berth since becoming an independent nation. Jordi Cruyff, son of Dutch football legend Johan, was in February appointed technical adviser to the Football Association of Indonesia to work alongside Kluivert. Indonesia last qualified for a World Cup while still under Dutch colonial rule and lost 6-0 to Hungary in their only match of that tournament, hosted by France. They will face a difficult task against Middle East giants Saudi Arabia, who have home advantage and will be heavily favored to top Group B. The Saudis have qualified for the World Cup on seven previous occasions including the last two editions. Australia, Japan, Jordan, Iran, South Korea and Uzbekistan have already secured their World Cup berths from the Asian confederation. — Agencies
NBC Sports
3 days ago
- Sport
- NBC Sports
Vintage performances for 50-somethings Lee Westwood, Phil Mickelson on Day 1 of The Open
Phil Mickelson rallied from a missed chip shot in Round 1 of The 153rd Open, holing out for par from inside the bunker to put him tied for second early at Royal Portrush. PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland – How special, old boy, your name once again near the top of the famed yellow leaderboard here at the 153rd Open Championship? 'Ohhhhh, yeah,' Lee Westwood said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. 'Can't beat seeing your name up there on a Thursday.' Stated with a smile, it was the kind of self-deprecatory downplaying you might expect from a player making his 28th career start in the game's oldest major, an aging warrior who understands that a first-round 69 means next-to-nothing other than a tidy start. But in the twilight of Westwood's career, it should still have been a surprising moment worth savoring. Same as it was for 55-year-old Phil Mickelson, one shot worse on Thursday (70), but who was nonetheless in the clubhouse with his best major round in more than two years. 'Links golf, more than any golf, gives you a chance when you're our age,' Westwood said. 'There's a bit more run on the ball. It's not a golf course where it's laid out where there's a massive advantage to carrying a trap at 310 yards, which I don't have anymore. You've got to use the conditions and hold the ball into the wind.' Westwood was among the best stories to emerge from Final Qualifying earlier this month, after he was a late signup and played the course blind on little sleep but still medaled. It was the first time in three years that he'd even tried to compete in his favorite tournament in the world, and he didn't have a satisfactory explanation why. Life. Mood. Schedule. Game. But Westwood had started to see signs that, maybe, he should give it a try. His iron play was coming around. He closed with 62 at a recent LIV event for a rare top-10. 'I played with him a few weeks ago, and he was striking it really nice,' said 2022 Open winner Cameron Smith. 'This is the best I've seen him hit it in the last few years.' That carried over to qualifying and here, too, to Royal Portrush, where Westwood placed a distant fourth in 2019. It still represented his best Open finish since '13, when he kicked away the 54-hole lead, another major title that eluded him. 'Yeah,' Westwood agreed, 'it's as good as it's been for a while.' For Mickelson, Thursday's 70 was his first sub-par score in his last 22 major rounds. It's been that sort of pedestrian play, on the only big stages he now appears, that have made the now-55-year-old contemplate his competitive mortality. Just last month, at a LIV event in Virginia, Mickelson said that he didn't want to 'hold back' his HyFlyers team with his performance and would promptly walk away whenever he deemed himself a hindrance. He could have been viewed that way during the league's inaugural year, in 2022, when Mickelson's game went in the tank after explosive comments that the Saudis were 'scary motherf-----s' to get in business with, and that he still wanted to be one of the architects of the proposed breakaway league because he hoped to use it as leverage against the PGA Tour, remarks that ended friendships and torched sponsors and, at least in some circles, made him a pariah. His poor play continued throughout 2023, when he finished no better than 10th in the short fields, just two years after becoming the oldest major champion of all time. And his competitive irrelevance seemed to peak last year, when he ranked 46th in the LIV standings, just outside of the league 'drop zone' that – if not for the many contractual bailouts – could have led to an embarrassing relegation. Golf Channel Staff, 'If I'm not an asset, if I'm not helping, if I'm holding it back, then it's time for me to move on and get somebody else in here who is going to really help the team win and succeed,' Mickelson said last month. 'These guys deserve to experience that, and I want them to. As a partner in this team, I want that as well.' But that's no longer the case, neither for Mickelson nor his teammates (which might say as much about him as it does his supporting talent). Mickelson ranks 15th this season – better than former world No. 1 Dustin Johnson, or European Ryder Cupper Tyrrell Hatton, or five-time major winner Brooks Koepka – on the strength of three top-6s. It's somewhat extraordinary that a player of his vintage, now tasked with more international travel than at any point in his decorated career, in shorter events that prioritize hot starts, against competitors half his age, has performed this well. For his part, Mickelson credited the long offseason when he rededicated himself. And he pointed to the power of team play, how it has revitalized him in ways that individual play apparently never could. 'It makes me excited and looking forward to getting back out and playing so that we can hang,' he said. Mickelson could have been doing myriad other things by this point in his life. He could have been a beloved presence in the broadcast booth, sharing with viewers his decades of knowledge in his inimitable style and wit. He could have been shaping this year's U.S. Ryder Cup team in his own image. He could have been bullying the other graybeards on the senior circuit. But instead, he's hawking HyFlyers merch and collaborating with YouTube influencer Grant Horvat and taking to X to weigh in on state politics, all while, in his spare time, keeping his game sharp enough to power his team in 54-hole shotgun-start events in far-flung locations like Saudi Arabia, Singapore and Spain. For a swashbuckling star whose exploits, both good and bad, were must-see TV, it's bizarre to see him now so subdued. He still grins and pops his thumb and engages with fans, but afterward, in front of the cameras again, he answers most questions – if he even speaks at all – with his hands stuffed in his pockets and without that usual twinkle in his eye. Normally relishing the role of antagonist, he didn't play ball with any of the touchy topics of the day, from Horvat's decision to turn down a Tour invite because he couldn't bring his own film crew, or the R&A opting to steer clear of Muirfield (site of his lone Open title) for the past dozen years because of supposed logistical challenges. 'I don't really get into the politics on that,' he said. 'There's some things I get in politics on, but not that.' Then came a wry smile. Off in Game No. 5, Mickelson and his playing partners largely avoided the worst of the weather, getting soaked only on their penultimate hole of the day. That's when the crafty lefty – sporting a blue, team-issued rain suit, all-weather gloves and aviator shades – carved a tee shot into the 17th fairway, knocked an iron through the rain some 15 feet below the hole and poured in the birdie to get under par for the day. More than any other major, The Open is conducive to these types of early-tournament stories, the old guy hanging tough, using his experience and guile to turn back the clock against players who are bigger, stronger, faster, better. But that well-worn trope implies a certain level of luck and fortune – that these past-their-prime plodders somehow used the ancient turf to slap some 250-yard drives up the fairways, or they trundled some top-spinning approaches into middle of the green and, for the first time in eons, rolled in putts from all over. In reality, Westwood capitalized on the par 5s and, when he finished his round, was leading the field in strokes gained: off the tee. He gave himself 'loads of looks' inside 20 feet – eight in all – and converted four of them during his opening 69. Mickelson, meanwhile, missed more fairways (eight) than he hit (six) but ranked inside the top 10 both on and around the greens, including a slick hole-out from the bunker after his first sand shot buried under the lip. How sticky their current positions are remains to be seen. It's happened before at this championship, and it'll no doubt happen again. The top level of the sport is skewing younger than ever, but careers are being extended in ways never before seen, too. Forgiving equipment and optimized swing theory helps. But so does the new-age training and post-round recovery. Now well into their fourth decades as professionals, both Westwood and Mickelson are arguably as fit as ever. 'The older golfers are much more capable now,' said Padraig Harrington, 53. 'The game you can extend longer. It's just the mental side of it, the ability to not burn out. So if you can battle through all that, you can see what people on a given week can do.' What they did Thursday was post up on the early leaderboard and enjoy the walk up 18, just like old times, even if just for one day.
