(Reuters) - Kuwait briefly detained a prominent Sunni Muslim cleric less than two weeks after the United States included him on a sanctions list on suspicion he was funneling money to militants in Iraq and Syria , his lawyer said on Monday. Shafi al-Ajmi, who was detained...

Pioneering device facilitates doctor-patient interface  A robot promises to change the way doctors and patients interact in certain UAE hospitals. A next-generation robot, called VGo, is now being used to enhance patient-doctor interface and help manage hospitals better....

The festive spirit of Eid Al-Fitr continued through the weekend with a huge turnout of families at Jeddah's waterfront as authorities intensified patrols and rescue operations to keep the crowds under control and to save holidaymakers from the dangers of the sea. Thousands of people...

Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz urged religious leaders on Friday to take a united stance against “terrorists” trying to “highjack” Islam and denounced the international community’s “indifference” to what he described were “war crimes” being committed in the Gaza Strip. The...

Saudi men who went to fight in Syria are still coming back to the Kingdom, confirmed the Saudi Embassy in Turkey. The embassy also confirmed that it treated a citizen in Syria before sending him back to the Kingdom. Adel Mirdad, Saudi ambassador to Turkey, said the embassy's efforts...

Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani arrived in the Saudi coastal city of Jeddah on Tuesday for talks with King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz, an Al Arabiya correspondent reported. The meeting is the first for the two Arab leaders since a major rift between Qatar and Saudi...

(Reuters) - A Bahraini policeman died on Saturday of wounds sustained in a bombing that the Interior Ministry said was a terrorist act. Attacks on security forces have been on the rise in the strategically located Gulf Arab country, which hosts the U.S. Fifth Fleet, more than...

(Reuters) - The Yemeni air force bombed Shi'ite Muslim fighters north of Sanaa on Saturday in fighting that caused "a large number of casualties", local officials said, after a truce reached last month between the insurgents and government forces collapsed. The fighting in...

(Reuters) - Two suspected al Qaeda militants blew themselves up early on Saturday after being surrounded inside a government building in southern Saudi Arabia , following an attack on a border post with Yemen , Saudi-owned al-Arabia television reported. The satellite channel,...

BEIRUT (The Daily Star): Saudi King Abdullah appointed Prince Bandar Bin Sultan as his special envoy and Prince Khaled bin Bandar as head of Saudi Intelligence two days after the latter’s dismissal as deputy defense minister. Abdullah had sacked Khaled from his...

  A visit visa can be converted into a permanent residency permit for a close family member of an expatriate worker under special conditions, a senior Passport Department official said during a phone-in service with Arab News readers on Wednesday....

(Reuters) - Bahrain released one of the Arab world's best-known activists on Saturday after he served a two-year jail sentence for his role in protests calling for democracy in the U.S.-allied kingdom. Nabeel Rajab, founder of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, was found...

Gulf neighbours the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia on Tuesday announced a joint committee to confront "regional challenges", in a statement published on official Emirati news agency WAM. The move came as Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal met UAE Crown Prince...

Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah will travel to Iran on May 31 amid a recent thaw in Tehran's relations with Gulf states, the Iranian foreign ministry said Tuesday. Relations between Iran and the Gulf states have been frosty for years, with disagreements over the...

DUBAI (Reuters) - The United Arab Emirates has referred nine expatriate Arabs to a state security court on charges of joining al Qaeda, collecting donations and recruiting fighters for al-Nusra Front in Syria, state news agency WAM reported on Monday. The agency said two...

US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel arrived in the Saudi Arabia Tuesday, the first leg of a regional tour focusing on Iran's nuclear programme and Syria's civil war. Hagel will hold talks with Saudi officials and on Wednesday he will meet Gulf Cooperation Council defence ministers...

(Reuters) - Saudi Arabia has identified 18 new cases of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), it said late on Wednesday, pushing the total number of infections in the country so far to 449. Four people died from the disease on Wednesday, taking the total death toll in...

  The United States disapproves of a decision by its Gulf ally Bahrain to sign an investment cooperation deal with Russia at a time when U.S. and European governments are imposing economic sanctions on Moscow over the Ukraine crisis, an official said. "With Russia...

A Saudi Arabian court on Sunday sentenced five men to death for their involvement in a suicide attack on expatriate residential compounds in Riyadh in 2003, the state news agency reported. Another 37 people were sentenced to terms of three to 35 years for assisting the attacks...

Air strikes in southern Yemen killed about 30 suspected al Qaeda members on Sunday, local tribal sources said, in the second day of strikes against militant targets in the country. On Saturday an air strike killed 10 al Qaeda militants and three civilians in central Yemen , a...