A1SaudiArabia.com

DAMMAM – Indonesian authorities are increasing the cost for the recruitment of women to work as housemaids in the Kingdom from SR8,800 to about SR9,200.

The increase is about $100 (SR375). The new cost will take effect from April this year. A member of the National Committee for Recruitment, Hussein Al-Mutairi, said that Indonesian contracting offices had made the request to Saudi authorities for all future contracts. He said the decision does not affect monthly salaries which will remain at SR800.

Al-Mutairi said the Indonesian authorities also want all maids to arrive in the Kingdom in 90 days after being contracted, rather than the 30 to 45 days currently.

Read More

The Saudi royal family and the government are working extremely hard for the development of the Kingdom, and Canada wishes to strengthen its relations with Saudi Arabia, said Dave Levac, member of the provincial parliament (MPP) and deputy minister of energy, Ontario, Canada, on his recent visit to the Kingdom.

“We want to have stronger ties with Saudi Arabia – a country that cares a lot for its people – just like Canada does,” said the minister, who was accompanied to the Kingdom by Khalil Ramal, MPP and assistant immigration minister, Ontario Canada. The visit, organized by the Canadian Dawa Association (CDA) in cooperation with the Forum for Social Studies, United Kingdom, sought to promote a better understanding of Saudi Arabia and enhance bilateral relations between the two countries.

Read More

JEDDAH – A Saudi woman has divorced her husband through the courts after discovering that he had married another lady.

According to Al-Watan Arabic daily, the woman in her 40s took her case to Jeddahs General Court after she found out that her husband of 20 years had taken a second wife and was thereby in violation of one of the conditions of their original marriage contract. The Court of Cassation later upheld the divorce ruling.

The woman, who is the mother of the mans four children, had included in their marriage contract a condition that he never take a second wife and also that she could divorce him if it transpired he had been married to anyone before.

Read More

NAJRAN – A Ministry of Health committee investigating the death of a woman while she was undergoing an appendectomy late last year, on Tuesday listened to the testimony of her husband.

Faisal Mansour Al-Makrami, the husband of Arwa, the woman who died on the operation table on the third day of Eid Al-Adha last year, accused the medical team which conducted the operation at King Khaled Hospital here of negligence.

After testifying before the committee, Al-Makrami said the investigation includes all those who dealt with his wifes case from the time she was taken to the hospitals emergency room until she was pronounced dead.

Read More

JEDDAH/TAIF/DHAMAD – Residents and shop workers in a southern Jeddah district are accustomed to seeing Muhammad Sultan running around in the streets scratching his body.

His elderly mother blames herself for her only childs condition. “For 16 years he has suffered from mental illness. I noticed his silence and introversion but I thought it would go away, until he was fired from his job because he had been absent. Maybe my failure to take him to doctors when it first occurred made his suffering worse,” she said.

She said that his condition has worsened recently, to the point where he often “ate the leaves of trees. But he doesnt hurt anybody”, the mother added. She said Muhammad spends his days sitting in front of nearby shops and only comes home to eat or sleep.

Read More

RIYADH – The Shoura Council is scheduled to discuss this week the implications of the decision of the Commission for Information Technology and Communication (CITC) to ban receiving roaming international calls free of charge and the exchange of international calls through a single network at local call charges.

Dr. Khaleel Ibrahim, member of the Shoura Council, said the Council will discuss the commissions decision as part of its discussion of a report on telecommunications and information technology.

Read More

 
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.

Read More

RIYADH – Sheikh Qais Aal Al-Sheikh Mubarak, a member of the Board of Senior Ulema, has said that it is not permissible to pronounce “takfeer” – accusing Muslims of unbelief – on those who permit “disputable issues” on which scholars are not unanimous. A judge from the Ministry of Justice has also said that “takfeer rulings” may only be issued by the courts of the judiciary.

The scholars have spoken on the issue in response to a fatwa earlier this week from Sheikh Abdulrahman Bin Nasser Al-Barrak in which he deemed lawful the killing of anyone permitting “ikhtilat” – mixing of the sexes – in the workplace or in education.

Read More

JEDDAH – Many parents and teachers are not educating young children properly in matters of belief by using scary stories of punishment in the grave and in Hell. This only serves to create psychological problems and can also result in children disliking their own religion.

Several education specialists and scholars on the Shariah interviewed on the effectiveness of this method and the possible adverse effects on the child suggested more successful ways to educate young children.

Read More

JEDDAH – “Extreme fatwas have come to the fore once again, but this time theyve been met with condemnation in religious and cultural circles”.

So began a report in Al-Watan Arabic daily on Wednesday following the publication of a fatwa the previous day by Sheikh Abdulrahman Bin Nasser Al-Barrak on his official website deeming lawful the killing of anyone permitting “ikhtilat” – mixing of the sexes – in the workplace or in a place of education.

Al-Watan said that “observers were surprised to see the fatwa issued in his name, in which he says: anyone permitting ikhtilat – or ikhtilat that leads to forbidden things – is permitting these forbidden things, and anyone who permits them is a kafir (unbeliever), making him an apostate, and he should be tried and if he doesnt retract his words then it is a duty to kill him”.

Read More