A1SaudiArabia.com

JEDDAH – The fate of the proposed unemployment benefit scheme will be decided in six months time, according to a member of the Shoura Council which last month voted for further study of the proposal.

Saoud Al-Shamari, who sits on the Shouras Administration and Human Resources Committee, said the Council was “gathering data and studies related to the proposal to look at it from all aspects – the economic, social and psychological”.

“If the conclusions are accepted, it will be put to a vote in the Shoura Council before going for royal approval,” Al-Shamari said.

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WASHINGTON – President Barack Obamas furious, final push to get a health care bill passed threatens to shove aside the message he promised would top his list this year: creating jobs.

Even as the White House juggles several enormous issues at once, the public takes its cues about the presidents chief concern from how he spends his time, energy and capital. As Obama himself put it on Wednesday, from now until Congress takes a final vote on a health care overhaul, “I will do everything in my power to make the case for reform.” That kind of now-or-never campaign means America can expect a debate consumed by health care, again, for weeks.

The White House is trying mightily to focus it on real people and the human cost of inaction. But there will be no escaping the same slog that turned off so many people in 2009 – congressional process, arm-twisting and doomsday rhetoric.

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WASHINGTON – The United States lost 36,000 jobs in February and the unemployment rate held at 9.7 percent, the government said in a better-than-expected report Friday that may be skewed by winter storms.

The Labor Department said that payroll employment was “little changed” from January, noting job losses in construction and information that were partly offset by increases in temporary hiring.

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WASHINGTON – Facing a tough political environment, President Barack Obama on Saturday turned up the heat for the health care overhaul that has been his top priority for a year, yet has not been passed by a Democrat-dominated Congress.

The president used his weekly radio and Internet address to attempt to sway a public that has soured on the topic – and especially Democratic lawmakers who are wavering.

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JEDDAH – Saudi novelist Abdo Khal won the International Prize for Arabic Fiction on Tuesday for “Spewing Sparks as Big as Castles”, about the seductive yet destructive allure of the world of the palace. Khals novel depicts inequalities and power abuses and examines the destructive effect of enormous wealth by portraying relations between impoverished Saudis and a corrupt palace dweller.

The prize was awarded Tuesday in the Emirates capital Abu Dhabi.

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DAMMAM – Indian expatriates are keenly looking forward to the three-day visit of Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh to the Kingdom.
Terming the visit as historic, coming as it does 28 years after the visit by any Indian prime minister, many Indian expatriates feel enthusiastic and are looking forward to present Prime Minister Singh with memorandums on pressing issues facing the community in the Kingdom. Indira Gandhi was the only other Indian prime minister to have visited the Kingdom in 1982.
Members of the Indian community Saudi Gazette talked to spoke of several issues requiring the immediate attention of the Indian government and expressed their hope that all contentious issues would be resolved during the prime minister’s visit.
The hopes and aspirations of the Indian community are given below:

There are a large number of Indian overstayers in the Kingdom owing to various reasons. The immediate attention of the government is required to resolve this delicate issue. I recommend an official request from our government to the Saudi authorities for a general amnesty for these people facilitating their departure to India. 
– K.T.A. Muneer, Overseas Indian Cultural Congress chief organizer
I expect the PM’s visit to be fruitful in strengthening bilateral relations between the two countries.
I hope that Saudi Arabia will hasten the introduction of the Islamic banking system in India accepting the recommendations of the Raghuram Rajan Committee to establish Islamic banking which has been a great success in many European countries and America.

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WASHINGTON – America is still strongly competitive with other nations in the world marketplace, but only if the government and US businesses move ahead with a unified agenda, President Barack Obama says.

In a speech prepared for delivery Wednesday to business leaders whose support he has enjoyed, Obama ties together pieces of his agenda and describes them as a unified push to help the United States compete, according to excerpts released Tuesday by the White House.

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SAN FRANCISCO – Technologists have been worrying aloud for years that America is losing its competitive edge as other countries invest more heavily in technology education and innovation.

To counter that trend, Intel and 24 venture capital firms said Tuesday that they planned to invest $3.5 billion in American start-ups over the next two years.

In addition, Intel, Google, Cisco Systems, Microsoft and 13 other employers pledged to add jobs in 2010 – specifically by hiring 10,500 graduates of American colleges, largely those with computer science and engineering degrees.

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WASHINGTON – The White House will unveil its latest health care reform proposals on Monday ahead of a bipartisan summit that President Barack Obama hopes will advance the stalled legislation, a senior administration official said on Saturday.

Obama urged Democrats and Republicans on Saturday to find common ground at a summit he will host on Thursday to help rejuvenate efforts to overhaul the $2.5 trillion US health care system, one of his top domestic policy priorities.

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Smoking was discovered by the Spanish conquistadors in America, about 500 years ago; from Spain, it spread to the rest of Europe, and thence to the Muslim world about 100 years later.

Unfortunately, while the West has long realized the dangers of smoking and attempted to reduce it, in the Muslim lands, it has spread with little or no interference. Early Muslim scholars, confronted with this obnoxious habit, declared it to be Makrooh (detested), comparing it with such things as garlic and onions. This was due to the fact that, at that time, no one was aware of the harmful effects produced by smoking, which include, cancer, heart disease, strokes, miscarriages and premature birth in women and several other diseases.

Since it has become clear that smoking is harmful, it is obligatory upon all Muslims to abstain from it, for Allah has said: “And do not kill yourselves, Allah is indeed Merciful to you.” (Quran, 4:29), and the Prophet (peace be upon him) said: “Let there be no inflicting of harm and no reciprocating harm.” (Ahmad)

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