Saudi Arabia has signed a $1.7 billion direct commercial sales contract with Raytheon Company to upgrade the Kingdom’s Patriot Air and Missile Defense System to the latest Configuration-3. The award includes ground-system hardware, a full training package and support equipment upgrades. The announcement came last night at the Paris Air […]
ISLAMABAD: President Asif Ali Zardari, on Tuesday, asked the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz chief Nawaz Sharif to wait patiently for the next general elections and refrain from “maligning” institutions of the country. President Zardari was addressing a large gathering of PPP workers and office-bearers in Naudero in connection with the 58th birthday ceremony of Benazir Bhutto. In his […]
An Iranian diplomatic thrust to bring Afghanistan and Pakistan onside against the United States – benefiting already from the countries’ fury at US efforts to isolate them from Taliban talks – lends greater significance to an anti-terrorism summit in Tehran being attended by Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari. The […]
http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js It has been a grim seven weeks for Pakistan’s powerful generals. The unilateral raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound opened them up to charges of complicity abroad and a sense of deep embarrassment at home. The criticism sharpened after a major terrorist attack on a naval base in the […]
UNITED NATIONS: The UN General Assembly has voted unanimously to elect Ban Ki-moon for a second five- year term as the world body’s Secretary General, lauding him for bolstering the organisation’s role and visibility in “trying circumstances.” The 192-nation assembly backed the 67-year-old former South Korean foreign minister by acclamation […]
by Simon Bradley, swissinfo.ch Blistering barnacles! A real Yeti skin on sale in Geneva! Not exactly; it is the pelt of an Ursus arctos pruinosus, or rare Tibetan blue bear, to be more precise. The hide is the main attraction on Wednesday at the Hotel des Ventes auction house. It […]
By AHMED AL-HAJ | AP SANAA, Yemen: The head of Yemen’s most powerful tribal confederation warned Tuesday that Yemen could plunge into civil war if President Ali Abdullah Saleh is allowed to return home. Saleh is currently in Saudi Arabia, where he is receiving treatment for serious injuries from a […]
By ROBERTA FEDELE | ARAB NEWS JEDDAH: During a conversation regarding the venture of Manal Al-Sharif — the 32-year-old computer consultant arrested on May 22 for having uploaded on YouTube a video of herself driving — one young Saudi woman perceptively noticed: “What if all women here were aware of […]
By ARAB NEWS JEDDAH: The International Islamic Relief Organization-Saudi Arabia (IIROSA) has called on governments and international aid agencies to pay greater attention to the plight of displaced people around the world. In a statement issued on the occasion of the World Refugee Day on Monday, which is being marked […]
By ARAB NEWS JEDDAH: Saudi Arabia has agreed to give a SR75 million loan to Mauritania, the Saudi Press Agency reported. Saudi Ambassador to Nouakchott Saud Al-Jabiry presented a letter from Finance Minister Ibrahim Al-Assaf to his Mauritanian counterpart approving the loan from the Saudi Fund for Development. “This loan […]
By JULHAS ALAM | AP DHAKA: Bangladesh will retain Islam as the state religion in amendments the government is proposing to its constitution, a government minister said Tuesday. A former military ruler declared Islam the state religion in 1988 by amending the charter, but it barely affected Bangladesh’s secular legal system […]
By Khaled Neimat AMMAN – With almost a million cars expected to enter Kingdom this summer, concerned authorities are gearing up to tackle the challenge. Both the Greater Amman Municipality (GAM) and the Public Security Department’s (PSD) Traffic Department have drawn up plans to deal with road congestion, officials said […]
By Laila Azzeh AMMAN – Around 79 per cent of divorces that occurred last year took place before consummation of the marriage, a study has found. The survey by sociologist Hussein Khazaali, based on official statistics, showed that there are nearly 60,000 marriages registered in the Kingdom each year in […]