Latest Saudi Arabia News

This image provided by I.R. Consilium taken in 2019, shows the deck of the FSO Safer, indicating the lack of basic maintenance for several years, leading to incidental smaller spills, moored off Ras Issa port, Yemen. Houthi rebels are blocking the United Nations from inspecting the abandoned oil tanker loaded with more than one million barrels of crude oil. UN officials and experts fear the tanker could explode or leak, causing massive environmental damage to Red Sea marine life. (I.R. Consilium via AP)

UN encouraged experts may get to visit oil tanker off Yemen

Jul. 10, 2020 5:37 PM EDT

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United Nations said Friday it is encouraged that a U.N. team may be able to visit an oil tanker loaded with 1.1 million barrels of crude oil that is moored off the coast of Yemen, posing a serious risk to Red Sea marine life, desalination plants and shipping. Houthi rebels, who...

VIRUS DIARY: In Saudi Arabia, a photographer finds new focus

Jul. 9, 2020 9:40 AM EDT

JIDDAH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — I moved to Saudi Arabia from Egypt last year, eager to photograph a national awakening that was once unimaginable in a country so beholden to ultraconservative mores. Permission to have fun had been suddenly granted. It jolted this nation of 34 million — almost half of...

FILE - In this March 7, 2020 file photo, workers disinfect the ground around the Kaaba, the cubic building at the Grand Mosque, over fears of the new coronavirus, the Muslim holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Guidelines were announced Monday, July 6, 2020 as Saudi Arabia gets ready for the 1,000 or so pilgrims that will be allowed to perform the hajj pilgrimage in Mecca later this month. The experience will be unlike any before which usually draws some 2.5 million people. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil, File)

New at Saudi hajj: Bottled holy water, sterilized pebbles

Jul. 7, 2020 1:40 PM EDT

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Saudi Arabia has issued guidelines for about 1,000 pilgrims who will be allowed to perform the hajj pilgrimage in Mecca later this month, an experience that will be unlike any before because of the coronavirus pandemic. The pilgrims will only be able to drink holy water...

The front desk staff wearing masks due to the coronavirus pandemic help customers at the Rove City Centre Hotel in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Monday, July 6, 2020. Dubai reopened for tourists Tuesday amid the coronavirus pandemic, hoping to reinvigorate a vital industry for this city-state before its crucial winter tourist season. (AP Photo/Jon Gambrell)

Thermometers in hand, Dubai opens for tourists amid pandemic

Jul. 7, 2020 7:28 AM EDT

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — From French soccer jerseys to slick online campaigns, Dubai is trumpeting the fact that it reopened for tourism on Tuesday — but what that means for this sheikhdom that relies on the dollars, pounds, rupees and yuan spent by travelers remains in question. With...

Hatice Cengiz, the fiancee of slain Saudi journalist Jamal Kashoggi, leaves a court in Istanbul, Friday, July 3, 2020, where the trial in absentia of two former aides of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and 18 other Saudi nationals over the 2018 killing of the Washington Post columnist had began. Turkish prosecutors have indicted the 20 Saudi nationals over Khashoggi's grisly killing at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul that cast a cloud of suspicion over Prince Mohammed and are seeking life prison terms for defendants who have all left Turkey. Saudi Arabia rejected Turkish demands for the suspects' extradition and put them on trial in Riyadh.(AP Photo/Emrah Gurel)

Turkey: Khashoggi's fiancee appears at absent Saudis' trial

Jul. 3, 2020 11:00 AM EDT

ISTANBUL (AP) — The fiancee of Jamal Khashoggi told a Turkish court Friday that the Washington Post columnist was lured to his death at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul through “a great betrayal and deception,” and she asked that all persons responsible for his killing be brought to justice....

Workers salvage oil canisters from the wreckage of a vehicle oil store hit by Saudi-led airstrikes in Sanaa, Yemen, Thursday, July 2, 2020. (AP Photo/Hani Mohammed)

Saudi-led coalition launches new strikes on Yemeni capital

Jul. 2, 2020 3:04 PM EDT

CAIRO (AP) — The Saudi-led coalition fighting Iran-backed rebels in Yemen said Thursday that it unleashed a new air campaign on the war-torn country's capital and on other provinces, in retaliation for drone attacks on Saudi Arabia that were claimed by the rebels. “The targeting of civilians and...

Health officials disinfect an area around a hospital after one of the hospital's patients tested positive for the new coronavirus in Gwangju, South Korea, Wednesday, July 1, 2020. South Korea is considering including religious facilities on the same list with nightclubs, hostess bars and karaoke rooms as

The Latest: South Korea worries as virus resurgence spreads

Jul. 1, 2020 10:41 PM EDT

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea says it has confirmed 54 more COVID-19 cases as the coronavirus continues to spread beyond the capital region and reach cities like Gwangju, which has shut schools and tightened social restrictions after dozens fell sick this week. The figures reported Thursday brought the...

A Saudi vendor is seen through a bracelet as a woman buys jewels at the gold market a day before the expected increase of VAT from 5% to 15%, in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, Tuesday, June 30, 2020. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

Saudi shoppers rush to buy gold before taxes triple

Jul. 1, 2020 3:57 AM EDT

JIDDAH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Saudi shoppers have rushed to buy big-ticket items such as gold, appliances and electronics ahead of the announced tripling of taxes on basic goods on Wednesday as the government tries to shore up revenue for its economy battered by the coronavirus and low oil prices. The...

FILE - In this Wednesday, June 24, 2020 file photo, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks during a news conference at the State Department in Washington. On Tuesday, June 30, 2020, Pompeo and Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif are scheduled to address a U.N. Security Council meeting on implementation of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal that the Trump administration pulled out of as tensions between the two countries escalate. Tuesday's long-scheduled council meeting comes a day after Iran issued an arrest warrant for President Donald Trump and dozens of others for alleged involvement in the killing of an Iranian general. A key issue at Tuesday’s meeting is expected to be U.S. opposition to the lifting of a U.N. arms embargo on Iran in October. (Mandel Ngan/Pool via AP, File)

Pompeo urges UN arms embargo on Iran's `terrorist regime'

Jun. 30, 2020 5:40 PM EDT

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Calling Iran “the world’s most heinous terrorist regime,” U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday to extend the U.N. arms embargo against Tehran, which expires in October, and reject “extortion diplomacy.”...

In this Sunday, June 14, 2020 photo, seven-month-old Issa Ibrahim Nasser is brought to a clinic in Deir Al-Hassi, At seven months old, Issa weighs only three kilos. Like him, hundreds of children suffer from acute severe malnutrition because of poverty and grinding conflict. Yemen. (AP Photo/Issa Al-Rajhi)

Hunger stalks children in Yemen as UN cuts aid programs

Jun. 29, 2020 6:09 AM EDT

AL-HANABIYA, Yemen (AP) — When Issa Nasser was born late last year in a village in northern Yemen, his weight was about 3 kilograms, or 6.6 pounds. Now, the 7-month-old infant weighs nearly the same — less than half the average weight for his age — and has wafer-thin skin and emaciated limbs....

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