Middle East

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Mecca, Dec 23: Prince Khaled Al-Faisal, who was hitherto governor of the Makkah region, has been appointed minister of education, replacing Prince Faisal bin Abdullah. Prince Mishaal bin Abdullah, who was the governor of Najran, will take charge as the new Makkah governor. Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah made

Jeddah, Dec 22: The new Labor Law, which has been amended by the Shoura Council recently, offers a range of incentives to both Saudi and foreign workers in the private sector. The amended law insists that an employer should obtain written permission from the worker before transferring him to another place. The draft law, however, allows an employer to ask an employee to work in a different place

Riyadh, Dec 21: The crackdown on violators of visa and resident regulations in the Kingdom has unveiled a vast network of cover-up businesses commonly known as tasattur which is prevalent in Jeddah, Riyadh, Dammam and the cities in the south. More than 97 percent of small-scale enterprises come under tasattur which is posing a challenge as these businesses are a breeding ground for illegal

Jeddah, Dec 19: Officials at King Abdulaziz International Airport uncovered 60 cases of forged documentation last year at the facility, mostly involving entry visas to European countries, an official said. Mansour Al-Jifri, director of the airport’s document authentication unit, told Arab News there were cases of impersonation, passport forgery, and attempts to use stolen or illegally issued

Riyadh, Dec 15: More than 254,000 Saudi men and women have been employed in the aftermath of the status correction phase for foreign workers, Labor Minister Adel Fakeih announced at a meeting held recently to discuss the latest developments in the Saudi labor market. The minister pointed out that the rise in employment figures among Saudis is a result of a 25 percent decrease in foreign labor

Jeddah, Dec 6: Jobless young Saudis have called on the Ministry of Labor to increase Nitaqat quotas at private firms and fill positions left vacant by departing illegal workers to solve the country's unemployment problem. This comes as Minister of Labor Adel Fakeih recently announced that 250,000 Saudis have found jobs because of the rectification process. A survey conducted by Arab News showed

Berlin, Dec 4: Five Arab countries are ranked among the top 10 most corrupt nations, according to Transparency International’s newly released annual Corruption Perceptions Index, as instability in the region has profound effects on governance. The list, published on Tuesday, ranks countries on an index score that relates to perceptions of the degree of corruption as seen by country analysts and

Dubai, Dec 3: Health authorities in the capital of the United Arab Emirates say a woman has died from the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, or MERS. The health authority in Abu Dhabi reported the death of the Jordanian woman, 38, on Tuesday. Her husband and son have also contracted the virus. It says they are in stable condition. The World Health Organization (WHO) said in a separate statement

Riyadh, Dec 2: A Saudi diplomat was found dead inside a swimming pool at an apartment complex in Colombo on Sunday. Abdulaziz Abdul Rahman Al-Jammaz, Saudi ambassador to Sri Lanka, told Arab News over the phone that the deceased was Abdullah Al-Heej, a 32-year-old diplomat who had been serving at the Saudi mission in Colombo over the past two-and-a-half years. Al-Heej was working as an accountant

Jeddah, Nov 30: Security forces arrested 20 Ethiopian rioters on the Makkah-Jeddah Expressway on Friday for throwing stones that damaged 14 cars and injured four Saudis. An eyewitness said police officers fired shots into the air to disperse the rioters and soon brought the situation under control. The Ethiopians were apparently rioting because they could not gain entry into the Shumaisi detention