Middle East

Riyadh, Mar 13: Pakistanis should ensure they have valid passports to renew their residence permits as required by new Saudi legislation. Pakistan Consul General Aftab Ahmed Khokhar issued this warning here recently at a community function. He said the Saudi government recently introduced new laws making it mandatory for expatriates to have valid passports to renew their iqamas.He said many

Riyadh, Mar 12: Riyadh has been ranked one of the most polluted cities in the world, according a report released by a United Nations organization. The World Health Organization (WHO) report named Ahvaz, the capital of the Khuzestan Province in Iran, to be suffering the worst levels of air pollution, followed by Ulan Bator in Mongolia. The list also included Lahore, New Delhi, Riyadh, Cairo, Dhaka

Dubai, Mar 10: An Indian in Dubai has been jailed for six months followed by deportation from the United Arab Emirates for molesting a five-year-old girl. The Dubai Court of First Instance passed the sentence after the 23-year-old delivery man earlier admitted that he had grabbed the girl by her hand, and hugged, kissed and touched her inappropriately, the Khaleej Times reported Saturday. The girl

Dammam, Mar 9: Col. Ziyad Al-Ruqaiti, spokesman for Eastern Province police, said 32,015 expatriates have been arrested in the province’s various cities, governorates and villages for violation of residency and labor law since the launch of the inspections campaign. He said the arrested persons have been handed over to the directorate and branches dealing with illegal expatriates affiliated with

Jeddah, Mar 5: Riyadh and Jeddah are two of the least expensive cities in the world when it comes to living costs, says a new report from the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). The Worldwide Cost of Living is a biannual EIU survey that compares more than 400 individual prices across 160 products and services including food, drink, clothing, household supplies, home rents, transport, utility bills

Jeddah, Mar 4: One person was killed and at least nine were injured in a stampede after violence broke out among deportees at the Shumaisy deportation center on Sunday, said Col. Atih Al-Qureshi, police spokesman for the Makkah region. According to sources, chaos erupted when several inmates attempted to climb the walls of the center and attack the guards on duty, creating panic. Security forces

Makkah, Mar 2: Sheikh Saleh Al-Talib, an imam at Makkah’s Grand Mosque, said that Muslim solidarity is essential for survival. “We live in a world that only respects the strong and the united,” he said during the Friday sermon. “Muslims don’t want another religion to rule them, so they must unite. We are in need of brotherhood, true conduct that achieves our goals and justice to prevail in our

New Delhi, Feb 28: Three men have confessed in a Saudi Arabian court that they buried alive five Asian men — suspected to be Indians — on a farm in an eastern province of the kingdom four years ago, local media reported. The crime, committed in 2010, came to light after skeletons were discovered during digging on the farm. According to a report published on Friday in the English language Arab News

Makkah, Feb 28: Forty-five-year-old Syed Laeequddin Quadri, from Maharashtra, India, was standing in quiet contemplation straining his head to look at the golden crescent atop the majestic Makkah Clock Tower. “That is unbelievable,” he told Arab News after Dhuhr prayers on Thursday. “Being a construction expert, I can imagine how much steel and concrete must have been poured into this gigantic

Riyadh, Feb 24: Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti and President of Council of Senior Scholars and General Presidency of Scholarly Research and Ifta Sheikh Abdulaziz Bin Abdullah Al-Sheikh has appealed to citizens and residents, especially the wealthy to contribute generously to the Saudi National Campaign to Support Brothers in Syria While lauding Custodian of the Two Holy Mosque King Abdullah’s generous