Saudi Arabia on Sunday announced the detention of hundreds of government officials, including military and security officers, on charges involving bribery and exploiting public office, and said investigators would bring charges against them. Scores of the kingdom’s economic and...

The central bank of the United Arab Emirates, home to the skyscraper-studded city of Dubai, announced Sunday a $27 billion stimulus package to deal with the economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic. The money will go toward supporting the country’s banks, and regulatory limits on loans...

Gulf Arab states expanded measures to contain the spread of coronavirus on Sunday with Oman banning open ship-to-ship transfers with Iranian vessels, Abu Dhabi’s bourse closing trading halls and Dubai shuttering cinemas, gyms and arcades. Citizens and residents in Kuwait, which went into...

The Gulf emirate of Abu Dhabi closed all tourist attractions, including its branch of famed Paris museum the Louvre, from Saturday until March 31 as a precaution against the coronavirus. "In line with precautionary measures to ensure the health and safety of visitors, #AbuDhabi's main...

Citizens and residents of Kuwait got ready for a virtual nation-wide lockdown by rushing to supermarkets as authorities took exceptional measures against coronavirus, including banning all commercial passenger flights starting Friday. Streets in the Gulf Arab state were largely empty...

Stock markets in energy-rich Gulf states tumbled Thursday with Saudi shares down more than 4.0 percent following worldwide losses amid fears over the coronavirus pandemic and an oil price war. Dubai Financial Market dived more than 7.0 percent at the open on the last trading day of the...

Loujain al-Hathloul, a prominent Saudi women's rights campaigner who has been detained for almost two years, is due to appear in court on Wednesday this week, Amnesty International said. Hathloul, alongside another 12 women activists, faces what Amnesty has called "bogus" charges over...

The lack of action by the United Nations after the brutal slaying of the dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi raises questions about the organisation's credibility, his fiancee said. It was high time for the UN -- and individual countries -- to take action against those responsible,...

Yemen’s army said it wrested control of several northern towns from the Iran-backed Houthi rebels Monday, a step toward reversing the rebels’ rapid gains in the strategic area. Yemeni forces, supported by Saudi air power, announced on Twitter that they retook cities in the vast Khub...

Saudi Arabia’s crown prince meant to send a strong message to critics within the royal family by detaining senior princes this weekend: Don’t you dare oppose my succession to the throne. The main target in the crackdown, sources said, is King Salman’s brother, Prince Ahmed bin Abdulaziz,...

Saudi Arabia said on Monday it will impose a fine of up to 500,000 riyals ($133,000) on people who do not disclose their health-related information and travel details at entry points, as the Gulf state works to prevent the spread of coronavirus. The kingdom on Sunday imposed a temporary...

Saudi authorities Sunday cordoned off the eastern region of Qatif, a centre of the kingdom's Shiite minority, in a bid to contain the fast-spreading coronavirus as the total number of cases rose to 11. The lockdown on Qatif, home to around 500,000 people, is the first action of its kind...

Saudi Arabia’s authorities have recorded four news cases of the coronavirus, taking the total of infections to 11, the kingdom’s health ministry said on Twitter on Sunday. The new four individuals, which include three women, have interacted with another case reported previously who had been...

Shares in the energy-dependent Gulf plunged to multi-year lows Sunday after OPEC and its allies failed to clinch a deal on production cuts to support prices that have been hit by the novel coronavirus. The Saudi stock market, the largest in the region, dived by 7.7 percent minutes from the...

Saudi Arabia has asked people who have traveled to Lebanon, Egypt, Italy or South Korea to self-quarantine for two weeks from the day of their arrival in the Kingdom, Saudi state media quoted the health ministry as saying on Saturday. It asked people who had visited any of the four...

British police said Saturday they were reviewing an investigation into the disappearance of the ruler of Dubai's daughter after a court found that she had been abducted by her father. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, who is vice-president and prime minister of the United Arab...

OPEC and its allies failed to reach a deal on oil production cuts Friday, after Moscow refused to tighten supply to counter the effects of the coronavirus outbreak. The day before, OPEC ministers had recommended reducing output by 1.5 million barrels per day in face of the global slowdown...

An eerie emptiness enveloped the sacred Kaaba in Mecca's Grand Mosque, Islam's holiest site, where attendance at Friday prayers was hit by measures to protect against the deadly new coronavirus. An imam said during his sermon he hoped for an end to the epidemic and backed a decision by...

Saudi Arabia's King Salman has relieved the economy minister in the latest cabinet reshuffle, official media reported citing a royal decree, as the kingdom grapples with plunging oil prices. Saudi Press Agency said late Thursday that the king "relieved" Mohammed al-Tuwaijri from his...

Saudi Arabia reopened two of the most holy religious sites in Islam, Al-Haram Mosque in Mecca and Al-Masjid al Nabawy in Medina, after they were closed for sterilization to halt the spread of the new coronavirus, state TV Al-Ekhbariya reported on Friday. Saudi Arabia closed the sites to...