Middle East

Riyadh, Nov 8: Saudi Arabia will pay by next month the money it owes private companies, a committee headed by Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said Monday. “The council came up with a package of solutions and procedures to settle the dues that met the requirements of spending,” SPA reported after a regular meeting of the Council of Economic and Development Affairs. Solutions “will be

Riyadh, Nov 7: Saudi Arabia and China agreed to step up cooperation on various key issues including security and counter-terrorism during talks held in Riyadh Sunday. Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Naif and Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, received a delegation led by Chinese President Xi Jinping’s special envoy Meng Jianzhu. The two sides also

Riyadh, Nov 6: Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman is sponsoring the 4th Saudi International Conference on Information Technology on Sunday. The venue of the conference is the King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology in Riyadh. The conference seeks to put forward the appropriate and supportive infrastructure for the initiatives and programs of the Kingdom’s Vision 2030. The city

Dubai, Nov 4: Alarmed by the dangers posed by drones to planes, Dubai airport has decided to deploy a 'drone hunter' to fix the problem that has resulted in losses running into millions of dollars. The airport, the third busiest in the world, has already been forced to shut three times this year because of unauthorised drone activity, creating a headache for airlines and their passengers. During

Jeddah, Nov 5: Saudi Arabian Airlines (Saudia) recently thwarted schemes by international gangs to carry out thefts onboard its aircraft. The schemes involved rummaging passengers’ bags and stealing their money and belongings while they were asleep or in toilets. Mansour Al-Bader, media and public relations director at Saudia, confirmed that Saudi Arabian Airlines crew successfully thwarted three

Geneva, Nov 4: At least 239 migrants, believed to be from West Africa, have died in two shipwrecks off Libya, a spokesman for the United Nations migration agency said on Thursday. One group of migrants, including about 20 women and six children, set off in a rubber dinghy from Libya around 3 a.m. on Wednesday, but their boat collapsed after a few hours, said Flavio di Giacomo, a spokesman for the

Dubai, Nov 3: Celebrations might get exciting, but beware of leaving your flag on the ground since it may lead you to prison. According to the Ministry of Culture and Knowledge Development, the UAE flag law states: "Any person who publicly drops, damages or in any way insults the Union flag, the flag of any member emirate in the Union on the flag of any other country as a result of disgust or

Riyadh, Oct 2: Minister of Labor and Social Development Mufrej Al-Haqabani confirmed that developing a common system to extend insurance protection for Gulf citizens working in any of the GCC’s countries will encourage the mobility of labor forces between these countries, and realize economic and social stability in accordance with the strategies of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries. Minister

Jeddah, Nov 1: “North Spear” military exercises began Sunday in the northwestern region of Saudi Arabia in parallel with the Bahrain-hosted first Gulf joint exercises titled Arab Gulf Security-1. Participating in the North Spear exercises are units from the Royal Saudi Land Forces, the special forces of Malaysia and the United States and the Saudi Special Forces. The drill will continue until Nov

Jeddah, Nov 1: Saudi Arabia has appointed Capital Market Authority Chairman Mohammed Al-Jadaan as its new finance minister by royal decree, replacing Ibrahim Al-Assaf, who had held the post since 1996. Al-Assaf, 67, had been the last veteran member of Cabinet to remain in a key post through a series of government reshuffles after Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman assumed power last