\"Saudi Arabia\'s religious police are reported to have forced schoolgirls back into a blazing building because they were not wearing Islamic headscarves and black robes.\" So begins a report today by England\'s Telegraph Group Ltd., publishers of The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph. The report quotes Saudi newspapers to the effect that scuffles broke out between firemen and members of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice when the latter tried to keep the girls inside a burning school in Mecca. Fifteen girls were killed as they stampeded to escape from the blazing building in the holy Muslim city. The Telegraph reported that a civil defense officer said that he saw three members of the religious police \"beating young girls to prevent them from leaving the school because they were not wearing the abaya.\"



Saudi Arabia\'s Prince Abdullah clarified last night that his latest peace proposal includes \"normalized relations,\" and not merely peace, between the entire Arab world and Israel. Israel must merely withdraw to the pre-1967 lines, including from the Temple Mount, the Old City of Jerusalem, the Jordan Valley, the cities of Maaleh Adumim, Ariel, and Efrat (Gush Etzion), and all of Judea, Samaria, Gaza, and the Golan.