Riyadh, July 27: Saudi beauty queen Aya Ali al-Mulla trounced 274 rivals to win a crown, jewellery, cash and a trip to Malaysia, and all without showing her face.
With her face and body completely covered by the black head-to-toe burqa mandatory in the conservative Muslim kingdom, 18-year-old Mulla was named “Miss Moral Beauty” on Friday.
Tel Aviv, July 27: The Israeli navy has successfully tested its Barak anti-missile system, the military announced Sunday.
The test included a version of the missile system with improved rocket-interception capabilities, the military said.
An interceptor missile was fired from the Israel Navy Ship Lahav, a Sa’ar 5-type corvette, successfully intercepting a target described as simulating an incoming enemy missile.
—-Agencies
Tehran, July 27: Amid controversies over president Ahmadinejad’s first deputy pick, the Iranian Minister of Culture and the Islamic Guidance Mohammad-Hassan Saffar-Harandi announces his resignation.
In his letter to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Saffar-Harandi said he would not be present at the ministry anymore following Ahmadinejad’s “oral notification” on his dismissal and the announcement of a caretaker for the ministry.
Saffar-Harandi expressed his regret over the recent dissensions among Iran’s ruling system, saying, “It led to the weakening of the government.”
Kabul, July 27: While July has been named the deadliest month for NATO in Afghanistan, nearly two dozen people including a foreign soldier have been killed across the country.
The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said in a statement that a foreign soldier died of wounds suffered in an attack by insurgents on Saturday in southern Afghanistan.
However, the alliance did not reveal the nationality of the soldier or the exact location of the incident.
Baunchi, July 27: More than 50 Nigerians were killed on Sunday in clashes between security forces and militants in the northeastern city of Bauchi, residents and hospital sources said.
The fighting began early on Sunday when around 70 militants armed with guns and explosives attacked a local police station in retaliation for the arrest of their leaders.
Police and soldiers repelled the attack and then raided neighbourhoods to arrest those responsible. Hospital sources and residents said more than 50 people were killed in the fighting.
Abu Dhabi, July 27: The United Arab Emirates has begun identifying children of UAE fathers and foreign mothers in different countries under a new integration programme, the WAM news agency reported.
A committed formed under the ‘identity-inclusion programme’ by the interior ministry is currently in Cairo examining documents of children born to Egyptian mothers, the report said.
Tehran, July 27: Iran’s influential former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani defied a call by a group of hardline clerics to back the country’s disputed presidential election result, a news agency reported.
On Friday, 50 members of the 86-seat Assembly of Experts, called on Rafsanjani in a statement to show more support for Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who endorsed the re-election of the hardline president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, soon after the June 12 vote, which moderates say was rigged.
Tehran, July 27: His political opponents accuse him of electoral fraud and refuse to recognise his re-election as president. People on the streets signal their resentment towards him with calls of ‘Death to the dictator’. Abroad, the Iranian leader is persona non grata.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s only hope lies with his allies in parliament and in particular, the Islamic republic’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. But even they are now no longer one hundred percent behind him.
Tehran, July 27: A senior Iranian commander says Israel is unlikely to strike the country but warns that Tel Aviv will receive a ‘decisive’ response in case of an attack on Tehran.
Lieutenant Commander of the Iranian Army Ground Force, General Kioumars Heidari, sent a ‘serious’ warning to Israel on Sunday over any potential military strike.
The commander said “the armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran are fully prepared to repel any aggression with a decisive response” in case of any Israeli military attack on the country.
Riyadh, July 27: A campaign calling for a boycott of the Lebanese television channel LBC got underway in Saudi Arabia following the telecast of a controversial show.
While appearing on The Bold Red Line, a Lebanese television programme, last week, Jeddah resident Mazen Abdul Jawad detailed his sexual exploits, beginning with when he had sex with a neighbour at the age of 14.
Meanwhile, the Lebanese channel announced it would discontinue the programme.
Hundreds of Saudis, through their websites, made a call to others to stop watching the channel.
Tehran, July 27: His political opponents accuse him of electoral fraud and refuse to recognise his re-election as president. People on the streets signal their resentment towards him with calls of “Death to the dictator”. Abroad, the Iranian leader is persona non grata.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s only hope lies with his allies in parliament and in particular, the Islamic republic’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. But even they are now no longer one hundred percent behind him.
Baghdad, July 27: Iraq has been very harsh to Alvin Macadangdang, a Filipino who came to the post-US invasion country lured by promises of safe work and high pay to provide for his three children back home.
“I was told that my salary was going to be US $500, which is a very good amount of money in my country,” Macadangdang, 34, told.
But when he arrived in Iraq to work in a leather company, he discovered that all the promises of the velvet-tongued labor recruiters were hollow.
Cairo, July 27: Battling more efficient, resilient resistance, US Iraq veterans are complaining about a tougher Afghanistan mission.
“They are two totally different worlds,” Marine Sergeant Jacob Tambunga, who has been recently deployed in the restive southern Afghan province of Helmand, told The New York Times on Sunday, July 26.
“In Iraq, they’d hit you and run,” said Tambunga, a squad leader in Company C, First Battalion, Fifth Marines who fought the deadliest Iraqi resistance in the so-called Sunni death triangle.
“But these guys stick around and maneuver on you.”
Tehran, July 26: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday sacked his Intelligence Minister, a day after he caved in to pressure from hardliners and forced his controversial First Vice President to step down.
Various local news agencies had reported that four ministers had been sacked but Ahmadinejad’s office denied this, saying only Ejeie had been given his marching orders.
Tehran, July 26: Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called on Saturday on the country’s various groups to set aside their differences and work for the progress of the country.
But reports of a death in prison of one of several people arrested following June’s disputed presidential election stirred up the opposition anew.
Riyadh, July 26: Majed Othman Jadiya Al-Khubairi, a Saudi father, has magnanimously waived SR120,000 in blood money and pardoned Hemraj Moriya (35), who was found to be 100 percent at fault in a traffic accident that killed Al-Khubairi’s son Othman, a Saudi Navy officer in Al-Kharj, 70 km from Riyadh.
Othman was 22 at the time of his death.
Jeddah, July 26: Saudi Arabia’s foreign assets dropped by about SR190 billion in the first half of this year amid heavy public spending in a bid to boost economy dampened by global fiscal woes, the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA), the Kingdom’s central bank, said in its June statistical bulletin.
From around SR1.7 trillion at the end of 2008, the foreign assets tumbled to about SR1.5 trillion at the end of June, said SAMA.
Jeddah, July 26: The Ministry of Health and Jeddah Municipality have enlisted 30 volunteers belonging to India to create an awareness against dengue fever in Al-Sharafiah District, home to a large number of Indian expatriates.
The volunteers are contributing in distributing thousands of brochures in the district. They also talk to motorists on the causes for affliction with dengue fever and suggest ways to prevent the disease.
Abdul Ghafoor Azhari, Director of Insect Control at Jeddah Municipality, said the Indian nationals are participating in the campaign voluntarily without any fee.
Jeddah, July 26: The regulation governing medical insurance coverage currently provided to about seven million people in the Kingdom was tightened Saturday by the Cooperative Health Insurance Council (CHIC).
The amended executive regulation applies to 1,597 health service providers and 25 insurance companies. It includes rules for pricing and issuing policies.
The amendment effectively strengthens the Council’s powers over insurance companies and health service providers, said CHIC Secretary General Dr. Abdullah Al-Shareef.
Dhulum, July 26: A Kuwaiti couple and their eldest son were killed and nine others in their car were injured in an accident on the Dhulum-Afif Road, Saturday.
The injured included an infant and a housemaid, traffic officials said.
The family was heading for Makkah when their SUV veered off, overturned and crashed near the Omairah Checkpoint, traffic police said.
Ambulances rushed the casualties to Dhulum Health Center.
The seriously injured were subsequently taken to Afif Hospital, medical sources.
–Agencies–
Arbil, July 26: Preliminary counting was underway on Sunday in presidential and legislative elections in Iraqi Kurdistan, with the region locked in disputes with Baghdad over land and oil.
Nearly 80 percent of the region’s voters turned out in what election officials trumpeted as a transparent poll, with official counting due to take place in the Iraqi capital and full results not expected for days.
Tehran, July 26: The top aide to Iran’s opposition leader says his boss has requested permission from authorities to hold a memorial service for victims of post-election unrest.
Ali Reza Beheshti told The Associated Press Sunday that Mir Hossein Mousavi signed the request with Mahdi Karroubi, the other reformist candidate in last month’s disputed presidential election.
Beheshti said the two requested a memorial Thursday in a Tehran mosque to recite the Quran, the Muslim holy book, and hold moments of silence.
Washington, July 26: One NATO soldier and several insurgents have been killed in a fire fight in eastern Afghanistan, the US military said on Saturday, as Taliban-linked violence spirals weeks before elections.
Troops with the coalition International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) came under fire from small arms and rocket-propelled grenades as they tried to search a house on Friday in the east of the country, the military said.
Tehran, July 26: Thirteen of 16 people killed in a plane accident in northeastern Iran on Friday were crew and the three others were passengers, Iran’s state television reported on Saturday.
The passenger plane, an Ilyushin Il-62 from Kazakhstan leased by Iran’s Aria Aviation Company, veered from the runway and hit a wall while landing at Mashhad’s Hasheminejad Airport.
Iranian media said 30 people were injured in the accident and they were being treated at three hospitals in the same city.
Washington, July 26: U.S. military authorities in Afghanistan may hire a private contractor to provide around-the-clock security at dozens of bases and protect vehicle convoys moving throughout the country.
The possibility of awarding a security contract comes as the Obama administration is sending thousands of more troops into Afghanistan to quell rising violence fueled by a resurgent Taliban. As the number of American forces grow over the next several months, so too does the demand to guard their outposts.