Prominent Saudi scholars slammed a recent call by another scholar to demolish the Al Haram Mosque and reconstruct it in a way that would prevent the mingling of men and women during circumambulation (tawaf) and prayers. They agreed in unison that this was a ridiculous call by a scholar, who had no authority or jurisdiction to do so. While ridiculing the call, Shaikh Abdul Mohsen Al Obaikan, adviser to the Royal Court, said such individual opinions should not be taken into considera...

The only power plant in the blockaded Gaza Strip has completely shut down because it has run out of fuel, the Vice President of the Palestinian Energy Authority announced on April 9. “The four generators at the power station stopped after the industrial diesel they needed to operate ran out,” said Kanaan Obaid. Obaid added that the power station used to provide 60 megawatts of power across the Gaza Strip, but after its failure half of the cities in the region wi...

Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri urged Israel on April 8 to move ahead toward finding a political solution with the Palestinians by privileging dialogue over little wars. “Israel must move ahead because we need to have a credible process that the Arab world can believe in,” Hariri said in Madrid at a joint news conference with his Spanish counterpart Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. He accused Israel of trying to create little wars here and there to hold up the peace...

Iran unveiled a third generation of domestically built centrifuges on April 9, which officials said would enrich uranium much faster than existing models. US President Barack Obama, who is seeking tougher UN sanctions against Tehran, acknowledged that such measures would not necessarily work, but said sustained world pressure could overtime prompt Iran to revise its nuclear calculations. During a ceremony marking Iran’s National Day of Nuclear Technology, President Ma...

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, once Chief of Staff to Bush’s first secretary of state, Colin Powell has accused former American President George W. Bush and his top aides for covering up the innocent Guantanamo Bay detainees, amid fears releasing them could harm the war on terror. Wilkerson presented in a lawsuit filed by a former Guantanamo inmate and published by The Times. He alleged that Bush’s Vice President Dick Cheney and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld knew that mos...

Kuwaiti police have arrested a Chinese on getting information that the man used forged marriage contracts to bring in 34 bogus wives into the country. The man was arrested after an immigration official suspected about his frequent visits to the immigration office to get entry visas. Officers discovered that the accused had submitted 34 requests for family reunion, presenting every time a fake marriage contract to allow the bogus wife to stay in Kuwait for three months. He later confessed th...

Sharjah Police are cracking down on people wearing lungi, a wraparound dress worn across some South Asian countries, in public. The police have already arrested an Indian and interrogated him for wearing the said attire. The man told media persons that he was recently stopped by some intelligence officers who sought to know why he was going out in public wearing a lungi. “I was caught by the police at a petrol station mart. Police asked me why I had venture...

The Human Rights Watch (HRW) has urged the United Nations to investigate the violations of laws of war between the government of Yemen and Al Houthi rebels during the recent conflict in the north of the country. “The truce between the Yemeni government and Al Houthi rebels presents an opportunity to investigate violations of laws of war by both sides in order to sustain the fragile truce and ensure that it does not break down, said Joe Stork,” Deputy Middle East Director at HRW....

International artists participated for the first time at the Sharjah Calligraphy Biennial, at the Arts Area, on April 7. “This is the first international biennial where artists participated from around the world, such as Iran, Germany and Morocco,” said Abdullah Mohammad Al Owais, Director of Department of Culture and Information of the Sharjah Government. The fourth edition of the Calligraphy Biennial was the feature displays of artworks in various locations around the emirate ...

Kitchen waste is converted into organic fertiliser every month, thanks to an initiative by the Al Ain Municipality in Liwa, Abu Dhabi. The organic fertiliser has minimised the use of chemical fertilisers in Al Ain, paving the way for eco-friendly agricultural practices, said an executive of a private company, which has been assigned by the Municipality to treat the city’s garbage. “Out of 800 to 1,200 tonnes of garbage collected daily from the city, more than half comes from kit...