OMAR OIL FIELD, Syria: Holdout Daesh fighters hunkered down in a riverside camp in eastern Syria Friday as US-backed forces pressed to expel them from the last scrap of their dying “caliphate.”Thousands of men and women have poured out of the pocket of territory in the village of Baghouz near the Iraqi border in recent…
JEDDAH: Finnish health specialists are seeking further cooperation on infection prevention with Saudi Arabia given its experience with handling mass gatherings during the annual Hajj pilgrimage, said a senior researcher at the Satakunta University of Applied Sciences.Dr. Riika Mäkinen, who presented a paper on infection prevention at the recent Global Ministerial Patient Safety Summit in…
RIYADH: A seminar was held in Riyadh on Thursday, the day before International Women’s Day. The event was organized by the Human Rights Council in collaboration with the UN office in Saudi Arabia. One of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030’s goals is to empower women in all fields. Within a span of just two years, the…
HAMBURG, Germany: He’s under house arrest in Moscow without a phone or the Internet, yet Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov’s new opera is set to premiere in Germany on Sunday.A modern take on Verdi’s Nabucco, the work at the Hamburg Opera deals with the anti-immigrant populism that flared amid Europe’s refugee crisis.Serebrennikov, the enfant terrible of…
Jeddah bids farewell to art-loving mayor Mohammed Said Farsi who transformed the city JEDDAH: The man credited with transforming Jeddah into an “open-air museum,” its former mayor Mohammed Said Farsi, died on Tuesday in Paris.While serving first as chairman of the Jeddah municipality and later as the city’s mayor, he installed hundreds of works of…
HAMBURG, Germany: He’s under house arrest in Moscow without a phone or the Internet, yet Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov’s new opera is set to premiere in Germany on Sunday.A modern take on Verdi’s Nabucco, the work at the Hamburg Opera deals with the anti-immigrant populism that flared amid Europe’s refugee crisis.Serebrennikov, the enfant terrible of…
OSLO: Norway will announce on Friday whether its sovereign wealth fund, which is the world’s biggest and has been fueled by petrodollars, will divest its oil and gas holdings in a decision keenly awaited by climate activists.While the decision is said to be based solely on financial considerations and not on the environment or climate…
OSLO: Norway will announce on Friday whether its sovereign wealth fund, which is the world’s biggest and has been fueled by petrodollars, will divest its oil and gas holdings in a decision keenly awaited by climate activists.While the decision is said to be based solely on financial considerations and not on the environment or climate…
DUBAI: Women’s freedom of movement has become more apparent today, as we see them join the global workforce and take jobs overseas, according to a Dubai-based labor diplomat from the Philippines, one of the world’s biggest sources of migrant workers – most of whom are in the Middle East. “I think we are at a…
NEW DELHI: India’s top court has set up a mediation team to try to settle a land dispute between Muslims and Hindus over plans to build a Hindu temple on a site where hard-liners demolished a 16th century mosque.Attorney Vishnu Jain says the court on Friday gave the three-member team four weeks to submit its…
BAHAWALPUR, Pakistan: On the congested streets of Bahawalpur, a city in southern Pakistan's jihadi heartland, emotions run high in favor of Jaish-e-Mohammad, a U.N.-designated terror group that recently pushed nuclear-armed India and Pakistan to the brink of war.Such support complicates Prime Minister Imran Khan's latest crackdown on militant groups, including Jaish-e-Mohammed. In recent days, Khan…
BAHAWALPUR, Pakistan: On the congested streets of Bahawalpur, a city in southern Pakistan's jihadi heartland, emotions run high in favor of Jaish-e-Mohammad, a U.N.-designated terror group that recently pushed nuclear-armed India and Pakistan to the brink of war.Such support complicates Prime Minister Imran Khan's latest crackdown on militant groups, including Jaish-e-Mohammed. In recent days, Khan…
CARACAS, Venezuela: Much of Venezuela remained engulfed by darkness into early Friday amid one of the largest power outages in years, raising tensions in a country already on edge from ongoing political turmoil.The blackout hit 22 of 23 states by some accounts. It struck the capital Caracas, which until now has been spared the worst…
GAZA: Amid the poverty and deprivation of the Gaza Strip, Palestinian women struggle to find a taste of normality that is taken for granted in much of the rest of the world.Nada Rudwan used to work in digital marketing, but as her work slowed — unemployment in Gaza stands at nearly 50 percent — she…
‘It’s a challenge’: Raya Al-Hassan, the Middle East’s first female interior minister BEIRUT: “What, it’s been two weeks? Wait, three weeks? No!” Lebanon and the Arab world’s first woman interior minister Raya Al-Hassan exclaimed as she recalled the sunny February Friday when she was sworn in at the Ministry of Interior in Beirut. It should…
Raya Al-Hassan, the Middle East’s first female interior minister, pledges to take ‘people-centric’ approach in Lebanon BEIRUT: “What, it’s been two weeks? Wait, three weeks? No!” Lebanon and the Arab world’s first woman interior minister Raya Al-Hassan exclaimed as she recalled the sunny February Friday when she was sworn in at the Ministry of Interior…
‘Sky is the limit,’ says Aisha Al-Mansouri, the UAE’s first female A380 pilot DUBAI: As the UAE’s first female pilot of an A380, Aisha Al-Mansouri knows a thing or two about breaking glass ceilings. She was just one of two female cadets when Etihad Airways first opened its training program in 2007 — and seven…
RIYADH: As part of its initiative to encourage financial institutions to invest in a greater number of small and medium enterprises (SMEs), the Kafalah program has signed an agreement with Saudi Finance Company. In its efforts to help achieve the Vision 2030 objective for SMEs to contribute 35 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product,…
‘Sky is the limit,’ says Aisha Al-Mansouri, the UAE’s first female A380 pilot DUBAI: As the UAE’s first female pilot of an A380, Aisha Al-Mansouri knows a thing or two about breaking glass ceilings. She was just one of two female cadets when Etihad Airways first opened its training program in 2007 — and seven…
Saudi Arabia’s chief diplomat assures Pakistan of Kingdom’s support amid regional crisis ISLAMABAD: Saudi Arabia’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Adel Al-Jubeir visited Islamabad for talks on Thursday, following last week’s standoff between India and Pakistan. Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi welcomed Al-Jubeir, and expressed gratitude for the Kingdom’s “steadfast support,” and the offer…
