Big movements from Saudi, yet only a ripple.

Let's start with this.

(It's Moonie UPI, so, who knows)

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, Aug. 7 (UPI) -- Saudi Arabia said Sunday it was working to bring back to the kingdom a total of $360 billion invested abroad in the last 18 months.

Weird. New king takes over Saudi, and one of his first acts, after making rather explicit statements that he will NOT crack down on the Wahabi extremists, is to make a statement that he intends to bring large sums of cash back to the kingdom. Now, Saudi propaganda since 9-11 has claimed that 50-60% of Saudi foreign investment is in the US. If this were an across the board pullback, the US economy would expect to see $180 Billion to be sucked out of it. But, after looking around, I couldn't find anywhere where it said where this money was to be drawn from.

So, maybe economic warfare? But against whom?

Now, what's curious about this is that this announcement comes just one day after this.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia -- A U.S. delegation led by Vice President Dick Cheney paid respects Friday to King Abdullah, a visit intended to show the importance Washington attaches to close ties with oil power Saudi Arabia.

Cheney, former President Bush and former Secretary of State Colin Powell offered condolences on the death Monday of the new monarch's half-brother, King Fahd.

So, just what is going on?

Update: And let's add this to the mix.

From the Sunday Telegraph (also interestingly republished in the Moonie Washington Times)

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia -- Two senior al Qaeda operatives in Saudi Arabia made money transfers and used coded text messages to communicate with suspected terrorists in Britain in the months before the July attacks in London, according to security officials in the kingdom.
The Sunday Telegraph has learned that the two men, of Moroccan descent, have since been fatally shot in separate gunbattles.

I had expected an inter-family power struggle after Fahd died, but that has not materialized. Instead, we have actions which are yet to form a complete whole.

When the new pope came into office, there was great speculation for a week about the changes he might make and the effects that those changes might have. Why has their been no similar questioning in the press about Saudi? So, the pope changes a ritual, or reinstates fish on Friday, that's nothing compared to the waves felt by even modest turns in the Saudi ship of state.

Update:

The United States has closed its embassy and two consulates in Saudi Arabia for two days in response to a terror threat, the embassy has said.

The US, Britain, and Australia are citing "credible evidence," but the excerpt box has this.

"We can't dispel the possibility of a terrorist attack... but we have no information about an imminent terrorist attack
Maj Gen Mansour al-Turki
Saudi Interior Ministry spokesman

Oh, and the picture, at the top('cause I can't figure out how to get it down here) has the caption,

The closures come days after a top-level visit to Riyadh