mymyselfandnepal, i did you look at the link i provided above????? yes saudi arabia may has its share of human rights, if you think humans rights only as an elite small population with BMWs and sprawling manisions and if you think education means spending $100,000 each year for their children in their universities. you may have met some affluent saudi families and you may travleed around the world, but have you ever looked beyond the walls of saudi families?? waht happens with critics of governmnet?? how they are disappeared and beheaded. dont' be so narrowminded as to limit your judgement to what you see in front of your eyes. "they make fantastic shopping malls, entertainment centers, all exclusive for women so that they don't feel the discrimination and they keep up with the teachings of Islam too" are yuu telling me building these entertainmetn cetners and shopping malls reflects a respect for women??????????????????????????????????????????????????? am i missing something here or does anyone else understand this logicc??? if you do, please explain. shopping malls and cetners are COMMERCIAL. these business people are there to make money from rich saudi men and women. malls are not a representation of respecting anyone's rights. and yes, they do have shpping malls with designers clothes. but look at the irony, women are not allowed to display these fabrics in public, they have to wear it inside tthier four walls!!!!!! every body, even foregins have to wear burkasssss in saudi arabia. u sound like some uber conservative man from the . i would not be surprised if you told me women shoudl stick to buyin clothes from malls, and make themselves available for thier men. that is a right of women and if we allow them to do just that, we are respecting thier rights, isnt' it???? "active monarchies and countries progressing?" saudi arabia is a very affluent country, economcially prospering, great businesses, but thier strict and literal interpreation of sharia law by the royal family (not by the peoples, mind you, the royall family) has limited the rights of citizens and disallowed more democratic reforms in the country. lets look at our country when our monarch was active. hm, yep we progressed, backwards. like many said, what happeend, except for massive massieve massive embezzelement of national treasury, curtailing media freedom, further grip of the maoist insurgecny in the countryside, more violence, frustrated citizens, plunged deeper into debt, no sign of peace.......hey that guy had a chance. had he made one single attempt i would be ready to forgive everything else. again, reading your posts, i think that is what you would consider "progress". my idea of progrss begs to differ. yes, china scolded teh US for its abuse of human rights, but i also read the news when china decided to send 10-20 years in prison to a free lancing journalist for critisizing the governmnet???? and china critsized teh US when US critisized china for their abuse of human rights, so it was bascially a every single country in the world has suffered from human rights abuse and has committed them in some extent or another. but that is not an excuse to justify the continuation this kind of abuse till eternity. as for your point of US killings, murders, i absolutely agree with you. the crimes US has committed in foregin nations are horrnedous and extreme in almost alllll parts of the world. i never said US has respected human rights at all times , but that does not justify anyone else. i think a lot of european countires respect human rights more than US. However, US''s disrespect of human rights again does not justify the beatings, violence done to women, to critics of government, to restrict media freedom and thousands of others......dont' use such lame excuses. if you think saudi arabia has human rights, show me where. as for "barking", hm, does that mean someone who makes no sense...lets say as if to say building shopping malls for women so that they don' feel discriminated so that they could keep up with the teachings of Islam ??? sure sounds very intellectual to me!