The world’s tallest building Burj Khalifa took five years to build, is more than 160 floors high and has comfortably surpassed the previous record holder in Taiwan, the Taipei 101. More than 12,000 people will occupy its 6 million square feet, zooming up and down in 54 elevators that can reach speeds of 40 miles an hour. It will have the world’s highest mosque, on the 158th floor; the world’s highest swimming pool, on the 76th floor; the highest observation deck, on the 12...

Fifty-two unmarried Muslim couples face charges of sexual misconduct and possible jail terms after being caught alone in hotel rooms by Malaysia’s Islamic morality police during a New Year’s Day crackdown. The detained, mostly students and young factory workers, are expected to be charged with khalwat, or “close proximity,” which under Malaysia’s Islamic Shari’ah law is described as couples not married to each other being alone together in a priv...

A Saudi man was beheaded in Madinah for raping and robbing four women after offering to give them a ride in his pickup truck. Salah ibn Rihaidan ibn Hailan Al-Johani lured the women into his pickup while posing as a taxi driver on four different occasions. He would then take the women to remote areas where he would abandon them after raping and robbing them, said the Ministry of Interior in a statement. The statement said Al-Johani was married and had a criminal record, adding that he was a...

The 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq lacked legitimacy under international law, an independent commission probing Dutch political support for the still controversial action said. “There was insufficient legitimacy” for the invasion for which the Netherlands gave political but no military backing, commission chairman Willibrord Davids told journalists in The Hague. The commission’s report said the wording of UN resolution 1441 “cannot reasonably be interpreted (as the Dut...

A French parliamentary commission’s proposal to ban full Islamic veils such as the burqa and the niqab from public places has roused heated debate, and efforts to hammer out a compromise are gathering speed. The head of the commission said the next step should be a law imposing the ban, but many lawmakers and activists have voiced scepticism at the prospect of police forcing women to lift their veils. The possibility of a ban has dominated public debate for months an...

China endorsed efforts to create an independent Palestinian State. “China will continue its support for the Palestinian effort to establish an independent state,” the Chinese Foreign minister said. Yang said that China supports the principles of a two-state solution under the Saudi-driven Arab Peace Initiative, which calls for an independent Palestinian state based on 1967 borders and with Jerusalem as its capital. This position of China on Palestinian state was disclosed by the...

Israel caved in to demands from Turkey and apologised over an insult to its ambassador. Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon had summoned the Turkish ambassador to complain about a TV show. The ambassador was forced to sit on a low sofa without a handshake which outraged Turkey and it threatened to recall the ambassador. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said a letter of apology has been written, and the premier “hopes this will end the affair.&rd...

Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs Ahmet Davutoglu and Secretary General of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu discussed various regional issues at their meeting held at the new OIC headquarters. Both were accompanied by their respective high-level delegations. After the nearly 90-minute meeting, Davutoglu told reporters that the discussions centred on the issue of bilateral relations between the OIC and Turkey, and ways to develop these relations for the...

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan won the 2010 King Faisal International Prize (KFIP) for Service to Islam. Prize in science (mathematics and medicine) was also declared. “The award for Islamic studies was withheld, as none of the nominees met the criteria laid down by the selection committee this year,” said Prince Khaled Al-Faisal, governor of the Makkah region and chief of the King Khaled Foundation (KKF). KFIP Secretary-General Abdullah Al-Othaimeen announced the n...

China and Saudi Arabia expect to boost trade volume by 50 per cent to $60 billion by 2015 and to amicably solve disputes over some issues such as dumping. Trade volume between the two countries exceeded the 2010 target of $40 billion in 2008. In 2009 China imported more than 800,000 barrels of crude oil per day from Saudi Arabia, its biggest oil supplier, 12 percent more than in 2008. The Kingdom wants to increase exports of both oil and other products to China and boost bilateral investmen...

A leading Iranian nuclear scientist was murdered in Tehran in a rare bomb attack that the government quickly blamed on “mercenaries” in the pay of United States and Israel. Massoud Ali Mohammadi, a particle physics professor at prestigious Tehran University, died when a bomb strapped to a motorcycle was triggered by remote control outside his home in northern Tehran as he was getting into a car on his way to work. Tehran’s chief prosecutor also implicated the United States...