Tariqur Rehman, one of the 10 Pakistani students arrested on suspicion of being involved in plotting terrorist activities in the UK and then released for want of actionable evidence but facing deportation orders on national security grounds, returned home after authorities withdrew his deportation orders. “Now he carries no ‘terror’ stigma any more and we assume that the Pakistani authorities too would have no cause to detain him on his arrival for interrogation,” one ...

Turkey’s ruling party AKP won 12 mayoral seats, while the main opposition CHP gained 10, in renewed local elections held in 30 districts around the country. Renewed elections were held in 30 municipalities of the 2,931 that went to the polls on March 29, after they were cancelled for various reasons. According to the unofficial results, the Justice and Development Party, AKP, won 12 mayoral seats, while the Republican People’s Party, or CHP, won 10 seats in Sunday’s ele...

Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah has ordered the expansion of the courtyards on the eastern and western sides of the Prophet’s Mosque. Welcoming the decision, Madinah Gov. Prince Abdul Aziz bin Majed said the project would reduce crowding at the mosque and create space for the increasing number of worshippers. Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Falih, vice president for the Prophet’s Mosque affairs at the Presidency for the Two Holy Mosques, commended the king’s decision an...

China called on the US to hand over a group of ethnic Uighurs held at Guantanamo Bay rather than send them to the tiny Pacific nation of Palau, which has offered to resettle them. The strong reaction from Beijing, which says the 17 Uighurs are members of an insurgent group operating in far western China, came one day after Palau said it had agreed to take them in temporarily. China pressed its demand that these Uighurs should be sent back to China. It urged the US to implement the UN Security...

Indonesia is threatening millions of dollars worth of meat exports from New Zealand. It has blocked meat shipments and set a deadline of October 1 for New Zealand to fix the halal certification at the 60 meat works listed to export there. Meat exports to Indonesia were worth about $90 million last year. Agriculture minister Anton Apriyantono said if the certification was not fixed up by October 1, meat from Australia and New Zealand would be banned. The Ulema Council (MUI) of Indones...

The oil-rich Gulf Cooperation Council took a major step towards a single currency union when four members signed a pact to create a joint monetary council after years of hesitation. Foreign ministers from Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia agreed at a Riyadh meeting to set up the council, a precursor to the ultimate goal of establishing a common currency, a spokesman for the grouping said. Foreign ministers from Oman and the United Arab Emirates also attended the meeting but did not sign...

Undersecretary at the Ministry of Haj in Saudi Arabia Ali Balkhayr has said his ministry is carefully watching outbreaks of infectious diseases, such as swine flu, in various parts of the world. The ministry is collaborating with the Ministry of Health to stop the entry of any pilgrim carrying dangerous infections, Balkhayr said. According to Saad Al-Qurashi, head of the National Committee for Haj and Umrah, no case of swine flu has been detected among Umrah pilgrims since the virus orig...