Today: Karen Elliott House on Saudi Arabia

A lot of Americans forget that most of the 9/11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia. So the appearance this afternoon by media bigfoot Karen Elliott House, at Brown's Watson Institute, promises to be interesting:

Monday, April 7, 2008 at 4:00 PM

Directors Lectures Series on Contemporary International Affairs

Live Video Stream Available

An archived video will also be made available at this site within 24 hours of the event.

 

"Reform in Saudi Arabia: Movement or Mirage?," with Karen Elliott House,  former senior vice president of Dow Jones & Company and former publisher of all print editions of The Wall Street Journal, and Watson Institute Overseer.

 

King Abdullah, who just turned up #4 on a global list of "worst dictators" doesn't deserve that billing. But how real is the reform image he seeks to cultivate since assuming the throne in 2005? True the kingdom has held municipal elections and King Abdullah favors more freedom for women. But with US pressure for more liberalization now gone, reform is becoming more rhetoric than reality. Politics is limited to the ruling family and the religious establishment is given sway over social change. So women remain the battleground between religious conservatives and modernizers: One woman is thrown in prison for coffee with a male colleague at Starbucks. Is reform success in America's interest?

 

Karen Elliott House had been president of Dow Jones' international group since January 1995 before being appointed publisher in July 2002. In 1974, she joined the Journal's Washington, D.C. bureau as a journalist, where she covered energy, environment, and agriculture. She was named diplomatic correspondent in 1978, moved to New York in 1983 as assistant foreign editor, and became foreign editor in 1984. House won a Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting in 1984 for her coverage of the Middle East. In March 1989, she was named vice president of Dow Jones' international group.

 

She is currently working on a book on Saudi Arabia and is a Senior Fellow at Harvard's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. 

 

Location: Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street.