JEDDAH: A substantial number of companies in the Kingdom have stepped up their efforts to get out of the Nitaqat red category in order to qualify for the various services of the Labor Ministry and other government departments, including the Passport Department.
RIYADH: A number of prominent figures in real estate business have urged the authorities to regulate the sector and curb the number of offices mushrooming in various parts of the Kingdom in an extremely disparate manner.
JEDDAH: There are hundreds of uninhabited and dilapidated buildings in the old residential districts of Jeddah that have become havens for criminals and brothels.
JEDDAH: Officials of the Ministry of Labor and the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry (JCCI) discussed ways to speed up women’s employment in lingerie and cosmetics shops in a meeting in Jeddah on Tuesday.
DAMMAM: There are those critical moments when life and death hang in the balance and when a moment of uncertainty can tip those scales irrevocably.
JEDDAH: Private sector employees have the right to paid leave of 10 to 15 days to perform Haj once in his service period, the spokesman of the Labor Ministry said on Wednesday.
JEDDAH: The Haj Ministry has strongly warned against felling trees in Arafat and other holy sites and said anyone found violating the sanctity of the place by such acts will be dealt with severely.
MAKKAH: The Civil Defense has established 15 first aid points inside the Grand Mosque complex to provide emergency health help to the guests of God, Director of Civil Defense in Makkah Brig. Jameel Arbaeen announced Wednesday.
RIYADH: The High Commission for the Development of Arriyadh (HCDA) briefed recently a delegation from the Madinah municipality on its experience in the fields of transportation, environment and information technology management.
JEDDAH: Inspection tours of rest houses, Haj roads and gas stations where buses transporting pilgrims stop have been intensified during the Haj season, mayor of Jeddah Hani Abu Ras announced Monday.
AMMAN: Jordan’s King Abdallah pledged Wednesday that his country would shift as of the next general elections to a parliamentary system, whereby governments are formed by parties or coalitions enjoying majorities at the Parliament.
NAIROBI: The Kenyan suspect arrested after two grenade blasts exploded in Nairobi says he is a member of the Somali militant group Al-Shabab.
KABUL: The Afghan Taleban will hunt down and punish anyone who takes part in next month’s national assembly, where the possibility of long-term US military bases in Afghanistan will be discussed, the group warned in a statement on Wednesday.
TEHRAN: Iran’s Parliament has dropped a summons calling President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in for questioning, Iranian media reported on Wednesday, signalling an uneasy truce after months of political struggle between rival conservative factions.
CAIRO: Two policemen convicted of beating a young man to death in a case that inspired Egypt’s uprising were sentenced to seven years in prison on Wednesday, enraging families of the police who smashed wooden benches in the courtroom and tried to attack the dead man’s lawyers and relatives, the lawyer said.
SANAA: Hundreds of Yemeni women have set fire to a pile of traditional female veils to protest the government’s brutal crackdown against the country’s popular uprising.
AMMAN: People in the city of Homs and nearby areas of northwest Syria staged a general strike on Wednesday over President Bashar Assad’s intensifying military crackdown on protesters, and two were killed in one town, activists and residents said.
DOHA: Qatar said Wednesday its soldiers fought on the ground alongside forces that toppled long-time leader Muammar Qaddafi
RIYADH: The Ministry of Health has launched an emergency service to Haj pilgrims with 135 ambulances supported by 350 doctors in the holy city of Makkah. "The services will be intensified from Nov. 4 to 9 in places such as Arafat, Muzdalifah and Mina," Dr. Tariq bin Salim Al-Arnos, chairman of the emergency and field medical services committee of the Ministry of Health, announced here on Wednesday.
TUNIS: Proof came Wednesday that Tunisia’s moderate Islamic party Ennahda had won Sunday's landmark elections, the first since the overthrow of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January.
RIYADH: The Arriyadh Strategic Planning Program (ASPP) has executed a number of environmental projects in the Kingdom's capital city.
ALMATY: A previously unknown Islamist group has threatened ex-Soviet Kazakhstan with violence unless it abolishes a new law that bans prayer rooms in state buildings in the mainly Muslim Central Asian nation, a US-based online monitoring service said.
RABAT, Afghanistan: At least 10 Afghan civilians were killed and 35 wounded on a road near a major US base after a small bomb punctured a hole in the side of a fuel tanker that was later engulfed by a large blaze, eyewitnesses and officials said on Wednesday.
SEOUL: US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta branded North Korea a “serious threat” on Wednesday, as the US military cast a cautious eye on diplomatic engagement with Pyongyang that it fears could be short-lived. The US and North Korea appear to be inching toward six-party talks aiming to wean the North of its nuclear programs.
DAMMAM: A Saudi-Spanish consortium is on track to build the key Western component of the Kingdom’s high-speed rail system that will link Makkah, Madinah, Jeddah and Rabigh, the Saudi Railways Organization announced Wednesday.
