Saudi Arabia: Saudi Arabia denies it hacked Jeff Bezos' phone after media report implicates crown prince - by Charles Riley and Shimon Prokupecz

UN experts said they are "gravely concerned" by information they have received suggesting that a WhatsApp account belonging to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was used to deliver spyware to the mobile phone of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.

"The information we have received suggests the possible involvement of the Crown Prince in surveillance of Mr. Bezos, in an effort to influence, if not silence, The Washington Post's reporting on Saudi Arabia," the experts said in a statement Wednesday.

The statement was released by UN special rapporteur Agnes Callamard, who specializes in extrajudicial killings and conducted an investigation into the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and David Kaye, a UN special rapporteur focused on freedom of expression. The pair called for an investigation into the allegations.

The UN experts released their statement after media outlets including CNN Business reported that a forensics team hired by Bezos had concluded that the CEO's mobile phone had been compromised and that the hack originated from an account controlled by bin Salman. A source told CNN that the forensics team had reached its conclusion with "medium to high" confidence. The story was first reported by The Guardian.

Tuesday night, before the UN experts released their statement, Bezos declined through a representative to comment to CNN Business on the Guardian's story. Amazon (AMZN) declined to comment when contacted by CNN Business. Facebook (FB), which owns WhatsApp, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the UN experts' statement; nor did a lawyer who represents Bezos.

On Wednesday, Bezos tweeted a photo of himself attending a memorial service for Khashoggi in 2019.

The photo marked Bezos's first public remark since reports of the WhatsApp breach came to light.

The revelation casts a new shadow over the future king, whose efforts to overhaul Saudi Arabia's economy and attract foreign investment have been frustrated by global concern over his alleged role in the murder of Khashoggi in the country's consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. Sources previously told CNN that the CIA has concluded that bin Salman personally ordered the killing, which bin Salman has consistently denied.

Read more at: Saudi Arabia denies it hacked Jeff Bezos' phone after media report implicates crown prince - CNN

Saudi Arabia's Poor Human Rights Record: the Real Message Behind Saudi Arabia's Feud With Canada - by Bessma Momani

Saudi’s young Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman (MBS) has been moving his country at a rapid speed of change. At home, that has elicited joy and caused a surge of nationalism. But since becoming crown prince last year, his foreign policy moves have been a source of anxiety for the international diplomatic community. Unpredictable and brash moves have now become the crown prince’s diplomatic signature.

From the alleged kidnapping of the Lebanese Prime Minister to get him to renounce Hizbollah and Iranian influence in Lebanese politics, to the severing of all diplomatic and economic ties with neighboring and fellow Gulf Cooperation Council member Qatar, to the now intractable war against the rag-tag Houthi rebels in Yemen, MBS takes foreign policy to the extreme.

Now it looks like it’s time to take on Western governments that dare criticize Saudi Arabia’s human rights record. Countries who speak out will lose billions of dollars of lucrative business deals. And so, on Monday, Saudi Arabia was willing to cut Canada loose—to achieve its broader objective of signaling to the world that the new Saudi Arabia is serious about rejecting unsolicited criticism of its internal affairs. After all, bilateral economic ties are minor in the grand scheme of things. What matters to Riyadh is that the message will be heard loud and clear across the globe.

Both Sweden in 2015 and Germany in 2017 felt similar Saudi wrath when they criticized the Kingdom’s human rights. European ambassadors were temporarily recalled and some business deals were suspended. But the crown prince is taking this diplomatic spat with Canada to a whole other level.

Expelling the Canadian Ambassador, halting new trade and investment deals, suspending Saudi Airlines flights into Canada, removing government holdings of all Canadian assets and bonds in their financial portfolio, flying back Saudi patients from Canadian hospitals, telling some 15,000 Saudi students in Canada on government scholarships to find alternate arrangements abroad, recalling nearly 800 Saudi doctors training in Canadian healthcare to come home. All this in under a week since the Canadian Foreign Ministry sent a tweet criticizing Saudi human rights’ record.

If the dispute with Qatar is any indication of where things are going with Canada, the Saudi crown prince will leave no room for compromise, ask the impossible of the Canadian government, and continue to bash Canada at every turn. Saudi state television has already made Canada—a country with a reputation of welcoming minorities and immigrants—to be the beacon of global oppression. This all out mudslinging of a country’s reputation comes from the same playbook used with Qatar.

So what next? Short of having Canada’s foreign minister’s resignation, this feud will likely continue to roil until there is a change in government. Since the crown prince is a young 32 and has effectively consolidated power around him, it will be the change of Canadian government that will put this diplomatic spat to rest. Canada has elections coming up in October 2019. Until then, expect more of the extreme. After all, Saudi Arabia is literally trying to cut off Qatar by creating a physical channel of water between it and the Qatari peninsula attached to it. At least in Canada, they can be thankful we do not share a border with the Saudis.

But the country with which Canada shares the longest undefended border in the world, the United States is silent. The absence of diplomatic support for Canada from its traditional allies is astounding. In any other time of history, Canada would have expected the United States to have come to the defense of Canadians and the liberal democratic values they supposedly share. But under the Trump administration, this is no normal United States.

Trump is also no fan of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau—calling him “weak” on Twitter—and is likely unimpressed with Trudeau’s self-declared feminist foreign policy. We don’t know whether Riyadh cleared the diplomatic move with Washington before expelling Canada’s Ambassador, but the deafening silence out of the White House on the matter makes it clear that Trump does not care for a traditional bilateral relationship with Canada. Indeed, he may be relishing the thought that Trudeau is getting a beating by the Saudis.

The young undemocratic dictatorial crown prince is not yet king, but already Qatar, Yemen, and now Canada are in Saudi crossfires. It seems clear that Saudi Arabia will be sending shockwaves in diplomatic circles for years to come.

Note EU-Digest: the EU must, without any fear, side with Canada on this issue, and make sure that this dictatorial theocratic Saudi Government, with their poor human rights record, better "watch their horses", if they want to survive in a civilized society.  

Read more: The Real Message Behind Saudi Arabia's Feud With Canada | Time