International

JEDDAH — The Council of Ministers has recently approved restructuring of visa system for Haj and Umrah pilgrims as well as for visitors and transit passengers. This is through unifying the visa fee for issuing visa for each person at a rate of SR300. The Cabinet also canceled fee for repeating Umrah pilgrimage. This revoked the earlier rule to the ... Read More »

  Hunter said he believed Behenna’s conviction was unjustified because of erroneous jury instructions and the failure of prosecutors to turn over evidence supporting a self-defense claim WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump has pardoned a former US soldier convicted in 2009 of killing an Iraqi prisoner, the White House announced Monday. Trump signed an executive grant of clemency, a full pardon, ... Read More »

Saudi authorities said various government agencies were involved in the operation, including those who handle environmental protection The vessel had a crew of 26, including 24 Iranians and two Bangladeshis DUBAI: Saudi Arabia said Thursday it was responding to an emergency involving an Iranian oil tanker off the coast of Jiddah, and analysts said the vessel carried over 1 million ... Read More »

MUNICH, Germany — Researchers in Germany have created transparent human organs using a new technology that could pave the way to print three-dimensional body parts such as kidneys for transplants. Scientists led by Ali Erturk at Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich have developed a technique that uses a solvent to make organs such as the brain and kidneys transparent. The ... Read More »

Seven suspects were arrested in connection with the Easter Sunday bomb attacks on eight churches and hotels in Sri Lanka that left more than 200 dead and hundreds more injured, the country’s defense minister said. Three police were killed during the raids on a house in Colombo on Sunday afternoon after the government announced it would imposed a country-wide curfew ... Read More »

Four heavily armed attackers were killed in a failed terrorist attack on an interior ministry building in Zulfi, north of Riyadh, Al-Arabiya TV said. Videos circulating on social media show the dead armed with machine guns, bombs and Molotov cocktails. The suspects who were on board a car tried to crash through the main entrance of the General Directorate of Investigation’s Center ... Read More »

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia — A pall of gloom has descended on the downtown of Balad in Jeddah which houses most of the garment shops that include children and women wear as deadline for Saudization of these shops nears. A majority of these shops are being run by Bangladesh expatriates. Although the shops and kiosks are located on narrow lanes, they are ... Read More »

The 41-year-old worker was kidnapped and tortured by his Indian captors, say police Three Indian nationals have been arrested and charged in court BEIRUT:  A Bangladeshi man kidnapped by Indian workers in Lebanon was the victim of a ransom plot, Lebanese internal security forces said. The 41-year-old worker was kidnapped as he was heading to work in the coastal region ... Read More »

The investigation found that in this year’s entrance exams the school reduced all applicants’ first-stage test scores by 20 percent and then added at least 20 points for male applicants The investigative report said the manipulation was “profound sexism,” according to lawyer Kenji Nakai TOKYO: A Tokyo medical school apologized Tuesday after an internal investigation confirmed that it altered entrance ... Read More »

Following reports of European countries testing premium variety basmati rice imported from India with traces of cancer causing fungicide tricyclazole, Saudi Arabia has also asked exporters to cut use of fungicide. Significantly, Saudi Arabia is the largest importer of basmati from the country, with 70% of the $2 billion (Rs 12,000 crore) consignment headed for it. Reports suggest that the ... Read More »

KANPUR: Soot turned the white handkerchief around Abhash Kumar Sharma’s face to black as the police officer tried to direct gridlocked traffic in the Indian city with the world’s dirtiest air. It was all he had to ward off the pollution blamed for filling Kanpur’s hospital beds with growing numbers of chronic lung and cancer cases. “It is the same ... Read More »

Soldiers targeted the educated, they said, so there would be no community leaders left willing to speak up against the pervasive abuse An Amnesty International report from November documented a system of institutionalized discrimination and segregation of the Rohingya that was meant to erase their identity BALUKHALI REFUGEE CAMP, Bangladesh: The last time Mohammed Hashim saw his brother alive, he ... Read More »

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte sent a message with special envoy Mama-o to Kuwait. (AP) MANILA — A Philippine mayor accused of involvement in narcotics trafficking survived an ambush on Sunday, police said, four months after President Rodrigo Duterte publicly threatened to kill him. Retired police chief superintendent Vicente Loot, a mayor in the central province of Cebu, had been repeatedly ... Read More »

In wake of wide Saudi Arabian cultural and social global openness, for the first time in the country’s history it has signed a cooperative agreement with the Vatican to build churches for Christian citizens to advocate the important role of religions and cultures in renouncing violence, extremism, terrorism and achieving security and stability in the world.   The agreement was signed by ... Read More »

A baby has been born in China to a surrogate mother four years after his parents died in a car crash, Chinese media reported. The couple, who died in 2013, had frozen several embryos hoping to have a child through IVF. After the accident, their parents fought a protracted legal battle to be allowed to use the embryos. The boy ... Read More »