Saudi Arabia’s stone wonders

From fish rock to elephant rock, AlUla reveals Saudi Arabia’s stone wonders

The deserts of AlUla continue to astonish visitors with timeless natural wonders

Sep 07, 2025

Devadasan K P, Chief Visual Editor

In Wadi Al-Fann, AlUla, stands one of Saudi Arabia’s most striking natural wonders — the Fish Rock. Nearly 200 meters long, the colossal sandstone formation resembles a giant sea creature stranded in the desert, captivating visitors with its surreal silhouette. When images first surfaced online, many speculated it was a fossilised prehistoric fish, sparking fascination and myth. Experts, however, point to erosion. According to the Royal Commission for AlUla, ancient rivers once shaped the rock as they flowed across Gondwana 500 million years ago. Today, Fish Rock remains a powerful symbol of AlUla’s timeless landscapes and geological heritage.

SPA

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AlUla, in northwestern Saudi Arabia, is a land of extraordinary natural beauty and deep history. For thousands of years, its famed oasis, framed by dramatic sandstone mountains, has sustained diverse flora, fauna, and thriving human communities. What makes AlUla truly unique is its geological legacy, showcasing three distinct eras of Earth’s past. The oldest formations, the Precambrian Arabian Shield rocks, are layered with sediments deposited over millions of years. These layers preserve a permanent record of ancient environments, including fossilised plants and animals, offering remarkable insights into Earth’s evolution while shaping AlUla’s breathtaking and timeless desert landscape.

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Elephant Rock, AlUla’s most iconic natural wonder, rises 52 meters into the Arabian sky, resembling a giant elephant with its trunk rooted to the ground. Unlike the nearby Nabataean tombs of Hegra, carved by human hands, this sandstone colossus was sculpted by wind and water erosion over millions of years. Surrounded by golden sands and other majestic formations, Elephant Rock dominates the landscape — a timeless reminder of nature’s artistry and the enduring power of the desert.

Shutterstock

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In AlUla’s Sharaan nature reserve, mushroom-shaped rocks stand as striking natural wonders. The most famous formation, sculpted over millions of years, owes its shape to erosion, where wind wears away the softer lower layers of sandstone more quickly. Covering 1,500 square kilometres of red-rock canyons, desert valleys, and seasonal wildflowers, the reserve is dedicated to protecting and restoring AlUla’s fragile ecosystem. Conservation efforts are underway to help native flora and fauna reclaim their natural habitat.

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Among the monumental tombs of Hegra, near Jabal Al Ahmar, stands Face Rock — a sandstone formation resembling a human head gazing across the desert. Like many of AlUla’s natural wonders, it was shaped by centuries of erosion. Sunrise and sunset are the best times to visit, when shifting light enhances the illusion and makes the rock appear to glow from within. This striking landmark captivates visitors and photographers, offering a magical glimpse into AlUla’s timeless landscape.

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The Arch (also known as Rainbow Rock). Its bridge-shaped structure, which resembles a rainbow flanked by two clouds, is a rare sight. Enthralled by this sprawling display of sandstone, don’t miss spotting semi-precious desert diamonds on-site.

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The Dancing Rocks are so-called because these formations are sculpted by nature to appear as if they are swaying in unison. Located in the Raggasat Valley, the rocks dance together, slightly removed from the surrounding rock formations. This place is famous for hiking activities and the dune buggy experience.

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In the remote desert areas of AlUla, find stark, black volcanic rock and inactive volcanoes which stand atop sandstone and are surrounded by seas of golden sand to make for truly dramatic, other-worldly sights. Some of those areas are visitor-friendly, with guides to experience hiking around the top of a volcano. Khaybar, the neighbouring Oasis in the south of AlUla, is well known for its two famous sites: The White Volcano and the Black Volcano.

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Lava flows- the earliest human activity is evidenced in AlUla in Harrat Uwayrid and elsewhere in northwestern Saudi Arabia in Harrat Khaybar. These important volcanic areas comprise two of the largest in Saudi Arabia. Harrat Khaybar includes a spectacular 100-kilometre-long vent system containing lava domes, tuff rings, basaltic cones and the Jabal Qidr stratovolcano. The dramatic lava flows of volcanic events can be seen across the region.

US & UK built world's biggest tax havens

Anglo-Saxon offshore machine: How US & UK built the world's biggest tax havens

At least $26 trillion — roughly one-third of global GDP — is stashed in offshore accounts worldwide. 

While, governments lose an estimated $480 billion in tax revenue every year, the money, which belong to billionaires, multinationals, and oligarchs, sits untaxed.

Here's how the two Anglo-Saxon powers deliberately built and expanded the system: 👇

▪️The first offshore drilling began in 1896 off Summerland, California, built by early oil operators using wooden piers.

▪️The modern offshore era started in 1947 in the Gulf of Mexico, when Kerr-McGee together with Phillips Petroleum and Stanolind Oil & Gas drilled the first platform in open water.

🤔 How it works

▪️A shell company has no real operations, but exists only on paper. Wealthy individuals set them up in jurisdictions with low taxes and strict secrecy.

▪️Money moves through layers of entities across multiple countries. Eventually tax authorities cannot trace the true owner.

💸 Who benefits

▪️The richest 0.1% of the global population hold 80% of all untaxed offshore assets. That is roughly $2.84 trillion.

▪️Western elites are deeply embedded: US political figures and major corporations appear prominently in the Panama Papers and Paradise Papers — two massive data leaks that exposed how the wealthy hide money offshore.

♟ The architects: London and Washington

▪️The City of London sits at the centre of a global spiderweb of offshore jurisdictions. British Crown Dependencies (Jersey, Guernsey, the Isle of Man) and Overseas Territories (Cayman Islands, British Virgin Islands, Bermuda) funnel trillions back to London.

▪️ Combined, these British-linked havens manage over $11 trillion in assets.

▪️The United States — now the world's largest provider of financial secrecy — has since overtaken Britain, according to the Tax Justice Network.

▪️Washington demands foreign banks report on American account holders (FATCA). But it refuses to share similar information about foreign accounts held in the US.

🔒The main havens

📍British Overseas Territories: Cayman Islands (70% of the world's hedge funds), British Virgin Islands, Bermuda, Gibraltar.

📍British Crown Dependencies: Jersey, Guernsey, Isle of Man.

📍US domestic havens: Delaware, Wyoming, Nevada

😱 Until the US and the UK close their own loopholes, the world's wealth will keep disappearing into the same Anglo-Saxon vaults.

Syrian dirty war was always about energy pipelines

 🇸🇾 Syrian dirty war was always about energy pipelines: Hormuz crisis just proved it

👉 Syrian president Ahmed al-Sharaa (aka Nusra Front leader Abu al-Julani) just said the quiet part out loud, declaring that the Iran war revealed Syria’s “strategic location” as “a safe corridor and alternative route” for energy exports from the Gulf to Turkey and the Mediterranean.

🔴 Iraqi oil is already flowing west via Syrian ports (3-month, 650k tons per month contract agreed in late March), per Sharaa. Damascus’s “Four Seas” project will transform Syria into a regional energy hub linked to the Gulf, Med, Black and Caspian seas, he says.

🔴 The timing of the comments is telling: The US announced this week that it’s completed the withdrawal of American troops from Syria, selling out the Kurds after spending a decade working with them to rob Assad of control over Syria’s vital oil, gas and food-producing regions and prevent rebuilding.
 
Pipeline plans come full circle

♦️ The US, Mossad, Turkish and Gulf monarchies-sponsored dirty war against Assad that began in 2011 was sparked in part to overthrow a government that rejected plans to become a regional energy transit state.

♦️ In 2009, Assad vetoed a $10B, 30-40 bcm Qatari pipeline to pump natural gas from the Gulf to Europe. The CIA ramped up support for the Syrian opposition immediately.

♦️ In 2016, RFK Jr. revealed a direct link between the dirty war and the vetoed pipeline.

💬 “If completed, the project would have had major geopolitical implications. Ankara would have profited from rich transit fees. The project would have also given the Sunni kingdoms of the Persian Gulf decisive domination of world natural gas markets and strengthen Qatar, America’s closest ally in the Arab world.”

📌 In 2012, a DIA report declared that the establishment of a “Salafist principality” in Syria was “exactly” what the US, Gulf states and Turkey wanted “to isolate the Syrian regime” from Iran. Pundits assumed at the time the agency was talking about ISIS. Strategically, the term applies to Sharaa just as well.

@geopolitics_prime

Interesting Insight on Iran

INTERESTING INSIGHT OF THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN

Our neighboring country Iran, which has been fighting the infidel world for a month and five days, has the following internal conditions:

1. In the 35-day war, no financial aid has been received from any country so far.
2. No appeal has been made for food supplies.
3. No appeal has been made for medicines.
4. As soon as the war began, bread, petrol and diesel were given out free of charge in the country.
5. Despite a month of war and continuous day and night bombardment by the entire infidel world, not a single Iranian has emigrated from the country. Instead, Iranians living abroad are returning to defend their homeland.
6. The word "lockdown" is probably unfamiliar to any Iranian.
7. Big businessmen have posted notices saying: Take the goods now and pay after the war.
8. During the war and the bombing, ministers are present among the masses on the streets, participating in anti-American protests.
9. The Iranian president visits a shopping mall to check prices and amenities.

How is such a peaceful population possible in a country that has suffered from sanctions and wars for 47 years?

Because:

1. The Supreme Leader has not even bought his own house.
2. Children of ministers and generals are not allowed to study abroad.
3. Government officials and administrators cannot have accounts abroad.
4. No minister or general owns a second home outside the country.
5. The Supreme Leader works 18 hours a day.
6. There are no immoral centers in the name of co-education.
7. There are no American or European schools and colleges.
8. Education is free, so almost every second young person has an engineer, a PhD, or at least a master's degree.
9. Prices do not rise secretly at night; instead, the government presents a bill to parliament, and then the Supreme Leader makes the decision. Prices can only increase by 2-3% once or twice a year, and the public is given relief from the Supreme Leader's budget.
10. Cooking bread at home is prohibited so that women can study and participate in social events.
11. Delivery (childbirth) is free, and at least 20,000 rupees equivalent are transferred to the mother's account as a gift at the time of childbirth.
12. In medical treatment, 70% is paid by the government and 30% is paid by the patient.
13. There is no theft or robbery.
14. There is no royal culture or protocol.
15. You will not find beggars.
16. Not praying is considered a sin.
17. From sunset to sunrise, the police cannot even enter the house of a murderer because that time is for his family.
18. The prison is empty, and if someone commits a crime, they are given work in the prison, and their salary is sent to their families so that they do not get involved in immoral activities due to financial constraints.
19. The position of the leader of Friday prayers is higher than that of the governor, so the administration cannot act arbitrarily. The administration is warned during the Friday sermon.
20. Ministers and administrative officials are present in the first row during the Friday prayers.
21. There is no concept of big or small families; the nation is divided into Syeds and non-Syeds.
22. Teachers are highly respected and cannot be summoned to the police station or court, because a teacher does not commit such acts.
23. There is no tradition of keeping servants.
24. Mentally, everyone appears satisfied and happy.

Zuckerberg AI avatar is the new boss

Welcome to Meta: Here your new boss is a Zuckerberg AI avatar

Meta is developing a photorealistic AI avatar of Mark Zuckerberg to interact directly with 79,000 employees, training it on his voice, mannerisms, and public statements. 

👁 Superintelligence Labs is running the project with a single objective: eliminating the management layer entirely.

Every corporation suffers from the principal-agent problem, where the founder's vision gets distorted as it trickles down through layers of interpreters.

The avatar solves this by making Zuckerberg infinitely replicable, so employees receive directives straight from the source with no middlemen in between.

💵Meta is already flattening its structure, packing up to 50 engineers under a single manager while pouring up to $135 billion into AI infrastructure this year alone.

Meanwhile, a separate "CEO agent" lets Zuckerberg bypass his own vice presidents to pull information directly from the bottom.

Here is the fracture everyone misses: the avatar learns only from what Zuckerberg says publicly, not from his private boardroom battles or closed-door calls with Jassy, Pichai, or Altman.

Employees will take orders from the founder's ego model, not his actual cognition model.

When the real Zuckerberg needs to reverse course and contradict everything his digital twin has been preaching for months, the company will split in two: one half will follow the avatar, the other will follow the human, and trust in leadership will dissolve precisely when alignment matters most.

@geopolitics_prime

Girls hunted by Epstein coterie went missing...

Although Epstein's documents have been censored by the U.S. Department of Justice, it is understood from the data that has so far revealed that there is a perverse organization based on manhunts among the elites on a global scale. The majority of the people who hunt are young girls...

And Epstein of Lot

2 February 2026

YENİÇAG - Arslan CLOUD

The events that the whole world thought of as "lost children" were not investigated, and there was no agenda, there was no agenda, as the "composite theory, psychotic," that the people who brought up this perverted organization. According to the forensic statistics of TURKSTAT, 4,517 children disappeared in Turkey in 2008, 5,81 in 2009, and 8,81 in 2010. In 2011, where the number of missing children was to double households, 10 thousand 67 children were reported missing, 12 thousand 474 in 2012, 16 thousand 218 in 2013, 18 thousand 696 in 2014, 17 thousand 706 in 2015 and 11 thousand 691 in 2016. There is no information as to how many of these children are not found! There is also no information about children lost in major earthquakes. ’

For some reason, TURKSTAT has not been publishing data on missing children since 2016!

Ismail

According to the new Epstein documents, girls were taken from Turkey to Epstein Island. According to correspondence, some girls were taken to Epistein Island after undergoing “massage training ” in a large hotel in Antalya. At the same time at the hotel, an intern was killed and allegations that the cell phone was still missing were not adequately investigated.

Email traffic between Jeffrey Epstein and Bill Gates was also announced on March 3, 2017.

In the e-mail sent with the topic "bgc3 deliveries and scope," Epstein offers Bill Gates a "Pandemi Simulation" and talks about the preparation of technical specifications and follow-up recommendations for epidemic types!

Again, there is talk of a study on neurotechnologies that can be used as "weapons" in the national intelligence and defense industry. (The US President Trump himself announced that a new weapon was used in the U.S. raid on Venezuela.)

The documents focus on access to personal health data, and the name of US President Donald Trump is mentioned in at least 4,500 documents in new files.

The new Epstein files include members of the UK, Norway, Denmark and Swedish royal families, as well as some politicians and some businessmen from the United States, Britain, France, Slovakia, Turkey and Arab countries.

Ismail

The documents show that the organization known as Epstein is a perversion organization of elites worldwide.

The Epstein organization reminds the people of Lot. The people of Lot were a people living near the lake Lot on the border of today's Israel-Jordan. According to the Qur’an, the people of Lot were in averse relationship, and so that Allahthey had committed rape of both angels God, disguised as men, and they did not listen to Lot, the one who gave them. God, except for the wife of Lot, saved his entire family, but destroyed his people.

According to Wikipedia, the Ebla tablets, discovered by Italian archaeologist Paolo Matthiae and his team during the excavations of the ancient city Tell Mardikh between 1974 and 75 BC, and dated between 2500 BC and the city were demolished, are named after Sodom and Gomore (L't Kavmi).

Ismail

EpsteinThe people who have expanded with the participation of elites of all nations appear to haunt younger girls.

There are allegations that perverted elites use the kidnapped children not only as sex slaves, but also for prolonging their lives by changing their blood, and for stem cell and organ transplantation, even among allegations that children were sacrificed according to the Baal tradition of the former Hebrews, but this atrocity is still cited as a conspiracy theory to the world... The documents Epstein called Baal into his bank account is also evident. In fact, tens of thousands of children in Gaza were slaughtered in front of the whole world, and the world did not react enough... But this massacre was a ritual of mass sacrifices, and it's still going on...

Source: News Centre

Iran is doing what Africa refused to do

Break Free From Exploiters...

IRAN IS DOING WHAT AFRICA HAS REFUSED TO DO
By Segun Adeniyi

Many Africans insult IRAN today.

They say Iran is stubborn, aggressive, or anti-We3st.

But let’s ask an uncomfortable question:

Why is Iran so determined to stand up to the We3st?

Because Iran remembers its history.

And Africa seems to have forgotten hers.

1. How the West Exploited Iran’s Oil.

In 1908, massive oil reserves were discovered in Iran. 

But who controlled them?

Not the Iranian people.

A British company called the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC)—today known as BP—ran Iran’s oil industry and took most of the profits.

Iran had little control over its own resources.

Imagine Nigeria’s oil being controlled entirely by foreigners.

That was Iran’s reality.

2. Iran Tried to Take Back Its Oil.

In 1951, Iran elected a nationalist Prime Minister named Mohammad Mossadegh.

His crime?

He nationalized Iran’s oil industry so the wealth would benefit Iranians instead of foreign corporations. 

But Britain and the West refused to accept it.

They imposed economic blockades and tried to destroy Iran’s economy.

Sound familiar?

3. The West Overthrew Iran’s Democracy.

When sanctions didn’t work, the West chose another option:

Regime change.

In August 1953, the CIA and British intelligence (MI6) carried out a covert operation called Operation Ajax to overthrow Mossadegh. 

The coup removed Iran’s democratically elected government and restored the pro-Western Shah.

Hundreds died during the coup. 

Even the CIA later admitted the operation was carried out as an act of U.S. foreign policy. 

Let that sink in:

A democratic government was overthrown because it wanted control of its own oil.

4. The West Took Back Iran’s Oil.

After the coup, a 1954 oil consortium gave Western companies control of Iran’s oil again:

40% to American companies

40% to British companies.

The rest to European companies. 

Iran’s resources were once again divided among foreign powers.

This is the exact model that operated across Africa.

5. Why Iran Became Anti-Western

Fast forward.

In 1979, the Iranian Revolution overthrew the Western-backed Shah.

The revolution was driven by one powerful idea:

Independence from foreign domination.

Since then, Iran has endured:

Sanctions.

Isolation.

Economic warfare.

Military threats.

Yet the country still built:

A domestic missile industry.

A major scientific and nuclear research sector.

One of the strongest military deterrence systems in the Middle East.

Many analysts say Iran’s technological push became a symbol of sovereignty after decades of foreign exploitation. 

6. Compare That With Africa.

Africa also has:

Oil
Minerals
Rare earth resources
Gold
Lithium

The youngest population on earth.

But who controls most of it?

Foreign companies.

Western corporations extract Africa’s resources while Africans export raw materials and import finished products.

Exactly the system Iran tried to end in 1951.

7. The Hard Truth Africans Don’t Want to Hear.

Iran chose resistance.

Africa chose dependence.

Iran built domestic industries despite sanctions.

Africa still imports:
Refined fuel
Machinery
even toothpicks.

Iran invested in self-reliance.

Africa invested in foreign approval.

My final thoughts?

You don’t have to agree with Iran’s politics.

But one thing is undeniable:
Iran decided its destiny would not be written in Washington, London, or Paris.

Until Africa makes the same decision, our resources will keep building other people’s economies.

And we will keep wondering why the richest continent on Earth remains poor.