ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has ordered the United Kingdom to withdraw some of its military training teams from the country, the British Embassy said Monday.
TOKYO: Nearly 70 percent of Japanese oppose the restart of nuclear reactors halted for maintenance work, a poll showed on Monday, even though keeping them shut could mean power blackouts this summer and higher electricity bills.
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip: A Palestinian human rights group is demanding an inquiry into the death of a Gaza man in Hamas police custody.
BEIJING: Sudan’s President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir failed to show up on time on Monday in the Chinese capital for talks with his country’s most powerful patron.
Sudan’s Bashir warns, reassures China on south split
TEHRAN: Iran’s Revolutionary Guards began a 10-day missile training exercise on Monday “to preserve its readiness against enemy strikes,” a veiled reference to attacks the United States and Israel have refused to ruled out to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.
BEIRUT: Lebanese officials said on Monday they expected a UN-backed tribunal investigating the assassination of former prime minister Rafik Al-Hariri to issue indictments soon.
ROME: The incoming head of the UN food agency has predicted high and volatile food prices for years to come and says he hopes the UN will take a bigger role in trying to help countries deal with the impact.
ATHENS: Greece’s parliament begins on Monday to debate a deeply unpopular austerity plan which international lenders are demanding to see approved this week to avert the threat of bankruptcy.
JEDDAH: A Riyadh court has heard how two men accused of involvement in three terrorist attacks in Riyadh in 2003 had homosexual relations with each other. Eighty-five people in total are being tried in connection with the attacks.
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has ordered the United Kingdom to withdraw some of its military training teams from the country, the British Embassy said Monday. The demand is likely related to fallout from the covert US raid that killed Osama Bin Laden last month.
RIYADH: Some of 16 Saudi reform activists being tried on security and sedition charges may receive their verdicts next week after spending more than four years in detention, their lawyer said on Saturday. Most of the lawyers, professors and activists in the group were detained in 2007 after they met in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah to discuss reform.
RIYADH: A majority of the Shoura Council members voted for an amendment to a draft resolution on Sunday to allow women to vote in the municipal elections. There was a difference of opinion on an article in the annual report of the Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs, which was tabled Sunday during the council's 44th regular session, chaired by the Shoura Council Vice President Bandar Hajjar.
JEDDAH: The trial of 85 militants accused of involvement in three terrorist attacks in Riyadh in 2003 began at a special criminal court here Sunday. The public prosecutor, who read out charges against the militants, demanded the death sentence for the ten defendants who appeared Sunday.
RIYADH: The Court of Grievances in Buraidah is examining a petition filed by a young Saudi with special needs against alleged discrimination against him when he applied to be a teacher.
JEDDAH: Water and Electricity Minister Abdullah Al-Hussayen on Sunday disclosed his ministry's plans to establish a Zamzam water distribution project near the Prophet's Mosque in Madinah.
JEDDAH: The Labor Ministry is working on new rules and regulations aimed at phasing out unskilled foreign workers from the Kingdom so as to replace them with Saudis, Al-Eqtisadiah newspaper quoted Labor Minister Adel Fakeih as saying on Saturday.
RIYADH: Justice Minister Muhammad Al-Eissa has said that his ministry would speed up vacating real estate properties in order to issue land deeds quickly.
JEDDAH: The National Society for Human Rights (NSHR) has urged Saudi banks to find a way for foreign residents to get around the law that requires their accounts to be frozen when they fail to update personal information due to bureaucratic delays in renewing residence visas.
DAMMAM: Saudi brothers Ali and Hussein Muhammad Hussein may be jailed for life after a Bahraini court charged them with attempt to occupy a police station on March 16, Al-Watan daily said Sunday.
JEDDAH: The Consulate General of Pakistan in Jeddah has denied rumors being circulated among the expatriate community for nearly two months about distribution of flood compensation by the Saudi authorities.
TEHRAN: Iran accused the European Union of “distorting reality” on Sunday after the bloc slapped sanctions on the Syrian leadership and three high-ranking Iranian officials the EU said was helping Damascus crush dissent.
JERUSALEM: Israel is threatening to bar international journalists from the country for years if they board ships attempting to breach the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip.
VIENNA: The IEA order to release emergency oil stocks should be halted immediately, OPEC’s Secretary General said at the end of cooperation talks with the European Union.
YOKOHAMA, Japan: Nissan Chief Executive Carlos Ghosn unveiled an ambitious six-year plan for growth, including a target of boosting its share of the global auto market to eight percent.
WASHINGTON: French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde appeared poised to become the head of the International Monetary Fund this week despite a strong challenge to Europe’s traditional hold on the job.
CARACAS: Senior allies of Venezuela’s socialist President Hugo Chavez have dismissed reports he is sicker than the government has admitted, telling his enemies to “stop dreaming” of his death.
SYDNEY: Tobacco giant Philip Morris has launched legal action against the Australian government over the country’s plans to strip all logos from cigarette packages.
NEW YORK: US Rep. Michele Bachmann, a favorite of Christian conservatives and anti-tax Tea Party activists, kicks off her presidential campaign Monday in Iowa where she hopes home field advantage will give her an early edge among Republicans seeking to challenge President Barack Obama.
JEDDAH: Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah issued a decree merging the court for Cabinet affairs with the royal court and appointed Khaled bin Abdul Aziz Al-Tuwaijri as head of the royal court and the king's private secretary. King Abdullah also set up a committee under the chairmanship of Al-Tuwaijri to complete necessary procedures and make required changes to implement the decree as well as to propose necessary changes to the Council of Ministers Law.
JEDDAH: The Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities (SCTA) will develop the sulfuric spring in Hafr Al-Batin, in the northeast of the Kingdom, for tourists looking for physiotherapy, the commission announced Sunday. It described the project as a quantum leap in tourism in Saudi Arabia.
KABUL, Afghanistan: Afghan President Hamid Karzai accuses Pakistan of firing 470 rockets into two of its eastern border provinces in a three-week barrage. Afghan security forces said Sunday that 36 people have died in the barrages, which hit civilians in areas where NATO forces have withdrawn.
RAMALLAH, West Bank: The West Bank Palestinian leadership formally decided to press ahead with efforts in September to win UN recognition of a state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, in what could be a blow to efforts to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia: Now old and infirm, four of the top surviving members of the Khmer Rouge’s ruling elite are about to face justice, decades after their plans for a Communist utopia in Cambodia left an estimated 1.7 million people dead by execution, medical neglect, overwork and starvation. On Monday a UN-backed tribunal, comprising Cambodian and foreign jurists, begins trying them on charges including crimes against humanity, war crimes, genocide, religious persecution, homicide and torture.
