“I believe strongly in the rights of women. My mother is a woman. My sister is a woman. My daughter is a woman. My wife is a woman,” said Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah in an interview with Barbara Walters on American television station ABC in October 2005. Saudi women have taken [...]
Egyptian police raided the Cairo office of Iranian television channel, Al-Alam, confiscating its equipment after it was found to be operating without license, a security source said on Monday. The raid was carried out on Sunday and the head of Al-Alam’s Cairo office, Ahmed Sioufi, was charged with working without an official permit, the source [...]
TEHRAN: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Saturday that war was not essential to achieve the destruction of Israel, Iran’s state news agency IRNA reported. “The destruction of the Zionist regime does not necessitate making war,” he said in a speech during a tour of northeast Iran. “If countries of the region cut ties with the [...]
Saudi King Abdullah has sacked one of his most hardline advisers, Sheikh Abdelmohsen al-Obeikan. Sheikh Obeikan, who was an adviser to the royal cabinet, opposed moves to relax gender segregation.The dismissal comes shortly after Sheikh Obeikan attacked plans by “influential people to corrupt Muslim society by trying to change the natural status of women”.Saudi officials [...]
Saudi Arabia yesterday agreed to give an initial loan package worth nearly $ 2 billion to support Egypt’s economy. It has transferred $ 1 billion to Egypt’s central bank as an eight-year deposit, Faiza Abu El-Naga, the Egyptian minister for planning and international cooperation, said yesterday. “Saudi Arabia is implementing its financial package for Egypt, [...]
AMMAN: Jordan has no plans to revalue its dinar currency or sever the currency’s peg to the US dollar and will maintain a tight monetary policy to preserve the attractiveness of dinar-denominated assets at a time of regional uncertainty, the central bank deputy governor said on Wednesday. “I think that the peg to the dollar [...]
Sheikh Abdul Rahman Al-Sudais, imam and khateeb of the Grand Mosque in Makkah, has been appointed head of the Presidency for the Two Holy Mosques with the rank of a minister, a Royal Court announcement said yesterday. Al-Sudais, a learned Islamic scholar, replaces Sheikh Saleh Al-Hosain, who had requested higher authorities to relieve him from [...]
Only women will staff cosmetics and perfume shops from June 30, local Arabic daily Al-Madinah reported yesterday quoting a senior official of the Labor Ministry. Assistant Secretary of the Ministry of Labor for development Fahd Al-Tikhaifi said the ratio of employment of Saudi women in this sector would be very large. He did not speculate [...]
DUBAI: Iranians voted yesterday in a run-off parliamentary election in which allies of hard-line Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei hoped to complete victory over President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a conservative increasingly criticized by the clerical elite. Khamenei’s expected majority is likely to mean a tougher final year for Ahmadinejad in his second and last term. With [...]
The UAE and France concluded on Wednesday two weeks of joint military exercises, showcasing the high competence and capabilities of the forces and their operational readiness. The war games, held every four years, took place in the western Al Hamra desert region. The exercises were attended by General Shaikh Mohammad bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown [...]
