Malaysia will host the World Congress of Muslim Librarians and Information Scientists (WCOMLIS2008) at the Putra World Trade Centre (PWTC). This is the second time Malaysia is hosting the event, the fifth in its series. The congress made its debut in Malaysia in 1986, when it was staged at Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM), Sintok in Kedah. Apart from Malaysia, countries that have hosted the congress are the United States, Turkey and Iran. The United States hosted the first congress in 1982. ...

Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah will launch a number of electricity, water, health and other development projects worth more than SR12 billion. The properties to the eastern side of the mosque would be acquired for the expansion project, which is being carried out at a cost SR4.7 billion. It includes construction of 182 sunshades in courtyards around the mosque. King Abdullah will lay the foundation stone for four electricity projects worth more than SR6 billion. They include ...

Junior social affairs minister Ahmed Aboutaleb is poised to become the new mayor of Rotterdam, after council officials voted to nominate him for the job. Aboutaleb, a Labour party member, will be the first mayor in the Netherlands to have a Moroccan background. Prior to joining the cabinet, Aboutaleb was in charge of social issues on Amsterdam city council. Aboutaleb first started thinking about applying for the job in the summer. ‘It is a really nice city, with a special population mak...

Organisation of the Islamic Conference secretary-general Prof Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu has congratulated the governments of Turkey and Uganda for their election as non-permanent members of the United Nations (UN) Security Council. He expressed confidence that the two countries, as well as Burkina Faso and Libya, who are OIC members, would actively and effectively promote international peace and security and defend Muslim causes at the international level. "The membership of these countries i...

The Islamic financial system in Malaysia operates in parallel with the conventional banking system, servicing both the Muslim and non-Muslim communities. Pointing this out, the Raja Muda of Perak, Raja Dr Nazrin Shah said the shariah principles which underline Islamic finance have contributed towards its stability and resilience in facing issues such as the current global financial turmoil. "Therefore, it comes as no surprise that during the current global financial turmoil, Is...

Stronger ties between Russia and Muslim nations augur well for a world that has seen problems associated with US hegemony, according to religious, cultural and political leaders who attended the Russian-Islamic World Strategic Vision Group’s three-day forum at the Jeddah Conference Palace. “The first eight years of the 21st century have shown us how a world dominated by one superpower can be dangerous. These eight years have demonstrated that problems cannot be solved by a brute s...

Germany’s politics, history and way of life are the focus of a pilot program for Berlin Muslim Imams, which aims at equipping the Muslim scholars with the tools to help their community integrate in the mainstream German society. About 25 imams from all over the capital have registered so far to join the voluntary pilot program which started this week. The goal of the program is to make the Muslim leaders better informed about the ways of life in the country they live in. The progra...