Explosion Hits Shiite Mosque in Eastern Saudi Arabia

RIYADH – Several people were killed and many others were wounded on Friday when an explosion went off at a mosque in the town of al-Qudayh in the eastern Saudi Arabian, Shiite-majority province of al-Qatif, according to the Saudi Interior Ministry.

An Interior Ministry spokesman, quoted but the Saudi Press Agency, or SPA, said that security authorities responded to reports of an explosion in a mosque in al-Qudayh after Friday prayers, and added that more information would be announced later, however other media outlets have indicated that it was a suicide bombing.

Photos released on social networks depicted the mangled body of the suspected suicide bomber, as well as traces of blood on the floor, and ambulances evacuating victims.

Last November, a recording was released in which Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi called for jihad in Saudi Arabia.

Al-Baghdadi urged Saudis to revolt against the Shiites in their country, but also the ruling Sunni al-Saud family and the Saudi army.

Also in November, a number of unidentified assailants attacked a Shiite mosque in the town of al-Daluh, in the eastern Saudi province of al-Ahsa, which resulted in the death of eight people, and the subsequent arrest of 77 people allegedly involved in the attack, apparently on the orders of IS.

Saudi Arabia’s Shiite community accounts for about 10 percent of the predominantly population, while many of them live in the eastern part of the Sunni kingdom

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Judge Demands New Plan for Releasing Hillary Clinton Emails

WASHINGTON – A federal judge on Tuesday rejected the State Department’s plan to publish next January the emails of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Judge Rudolph Contreras said Tuesday that he will ask that the emails not be released en masse but gradually and he will require that the State Department establish a schedule for making them public.

In question are some 55,000 pages of emails from the 2009-2012 period.

Clinton turned over those files to the State Department after controversy arose over the fact that during those four years she always used a personal email account and a private server for her communications.

The department’s target date for publishing the emails is Jan. 15, 2016, just two weeks before the Iowa caucuses, the first important milestone of Clinton’s battle for the Democratic presidential nomination.

The future publication of these documents comes as a result of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by Vice News.

After the judge’s ruling, Clinton said Tuesday that she wants the emails to be released “as quickly as they possibly can” be.

Clinton noted that she has said repeatedly that she wants the emails to be published, although she said that the State Department has its own procedures whereby the process could be delayed.

The former secretary of state urged her former colleagues to review the communications as soon as possible and emphasized that she is certain that they will only serve to prove “the hard work” she did while heading the department.

Clinton acknowledged in March that it would have been “smarter” to use an official email account, and she added that she only erased messages that contained personal communications and not ones related to her work as secretary of state.

Mexican Congressional Candidate Halts Campaign amid Threats

CULIACAN, Mexico – Gerardo Brambila Rojo suspended his campaign for a seat in the Mexican Congress representing the western state of Sinaloa after receiving threats from an armed group, officials of the Citizens Movement party said.

Two armed men went to Brambila’s home and asked him to halt his campaign, state party chairman Mario Imaz Lopez told Efe.

The Citizens Movement reported the threat to the No. 2 official in the Sinaloa state government, Gerardo Vargas Landeros, who ordered protection for Brambila.

“He is the only candidate from the Sinaloa de Leyva municipality, he was president of an irrigation project, president of the Farmers’ Association, he is a good candidate with an excellent profile, a record of social service among the people, he is very well known and enjoys widespread support in the region,” Imaz Lopez said.

The party leader said Brambila was alarmed by the threat and has remained holed up in his home, waiting until he feels confident enough to resume his campaign.

On Tuesday, Sinaloa state legislators from Mexico’s three largest parties demanded that authorities take steps to ensure candidates’ safety.

Sinaloa, the birthplace of Mexico’s first major drug cartels, is one of the most violent regions in the country thanks to frequent armed confrontations among rival criminal organizations.

More than 83 million Mexicans are eligible to cast ballots June 7 to choose 500 federal legislators, nine state governors and hundreds of regional and local officeholders.

Violence has marred the 2015 campaign, with two candidates slain on a single day last week. 

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Wanted: Saudi Arabia seeks eight executioners as beheadings soar

The job may also involve amputations for those convicted of lesser offences, the advert said, and no special qualifications are needed.

According to Saudi Arabia’s official press agency, the country beheaded its 85th victim on Sunday. This compares with more than 90 for the whole of last year, according to an Amnesty International report on the death penalty in 2014.

Most were executed for murder but 38 had committed drug offences. Half were from Saudi Arabia and the others were from Pakistan, Yemen, Syria, Jordan, India, Indonesia, Burma, Chad, Eritrea, the Philippines and Sudan.

Diplomats have put the increase in the number of executions down to more judges being appointed, allowing for a backlog of appeal cases to be heard.

A downloadable PDF form for the job says the successful applicants would be paid at the lower end of the civil service pay scale.