Saudi voters have elected 20 women for local government seats, according to early results, a day after women voted and ran in elections for the first time in the country’s history.

Saudi Arabia, under growing pressure to account for a crush that killed more than 700 people at the hajj pilgrimage, suggested pilgrims failing to follow crowd control rules bore some blame for the worst disaster at the event for 25 years.

At least 87 people were killed when a crane toppled over at Mecca’s Grand Mosque yesterday, Saudi Arabia’s civil defence head said, less than two weeks before Islam’s annual haj pilgrimage.

ENGLAND: Britain’s prime minister has been serenaded by a man with a ukulele who sang that he should "fuck off back to Eton".

Three women who survived a decade of captivity in an Ohio house before being freed have received bravery awards.

I’M just back after a short break from the Irish winter which took me to Morocco.

Accidental shootings at gun shows in North Carolina, Indiana and Ohio this weekend left five people injured.

Saudi Arabia has closed its Cairo embassy and recalled its ambassador following protests over a detained Egyptian human rights lawyer.

AN AUSTRALIAN man has been sentenced to 500 lashes and a year in a Saudi Arabian jail after being convicted of blasphemy.

FROM Sligo to Saudi, Kilkee to Kusadasi and Navan to Nairobi — Irish holidaymakers are nothing if not adventurous, at least online.

Violent clashes broke out between residents of the holy city of Medina on the day minority Shiite Muslims commemorated the death of their most sacred saint, a Saudi security official said.

Saudi Arabia’s Supreme Court has refused to ratify the death sentence of a Lebanese psychic convicted of practising witchcraft in a case that has outraged international human rights groups.

AN Iranian scientist who spent 14 months in the United States in mysterious circumstances denied on his arrival in Tehran yesterday that he had spilled Iran’s nuclear secrets to US agents.

An Iranian nuclear scientist claimed today that he suffered extreme mental and physical torture at the hands of US interrogators after disappearing last year, adding to Tehran's allegations he was abducted by American agents.

A missing Iranian nuclear scientist has surfaced at a Pakistani embassy in the US, apparently asking to return home.

It is understood a man due to be beheaded in Saudi Arabia on charges of witchcraft has had a last-minute reprieve.

A LEBANESE TV psychic, who was convicted in Saudi Arabia for witchcraft could be beheaded today, his lawyer said.

A Lebanese TV psychic who was convicted in Saudi Arabia for witchcraft could be beheaded this week, his lawyer said.

The disappearance of an Iranian nuclear scientist on a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia in June is raising questions about whether he defected and gave the West information on Iran’s nuclear programme.

ARTO DER HAROUTUNIAN’S name may not be familiar to many but for those with a penchant for North African food, it’s a name worth noting. Arto was born in Aleppo, Syria in 1940 and grew up in the Levant but came to Britain with his parents as a child and remained there for most of his life.

US President Barack Obama has begun his latest bid to open a dialogue with the Muslim world by meeting King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, home to Islam’s two holiest sites, Mecca and Medina.

An explosion today killed at least 15 people in the Somali capital, Moogadishu, witnesses said.

SENSING the start of a personal computer revolution, Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard University in 1975 to start Micro-Soft and pursue a vision of a computer on every desk and in every home.

JONI Mitchell fans or refugees?

Saudi Arabian police have arrested 28 men for allegedly planning to attack holy sites around Mecca and Medina during the recently finished Muslim hajj pilgrimage, the kingdom’s Interior Ministry said today.

Strong thunderstorms that moved across Ohio knocked out power to about 18,000 homes and businesses and killed one person, authorities said.

Prime minister Dominique de Villepin has ordered tougher security measures to protect French citizens abroad from the threat of terrorism.

Three Frenchmen were killed today and at least one other was injured when they came under fire while travelling in the Saudi Arabian desert north of Medina, a spokesman for the kingdom’s Interior Ministry said.

Saudi police have arrested 10 people for collecting donations and recruiting on behalf of militant groups, the interior ministry spokesman said today.

A Pakistani convicted of smuggling heroin and two local men who robbed a bank and murdered a foreigner were beheaded in Saudi Arabia today, the official Saudi Press Agency reported.

YOU’D have to wonder what Pope Benedict had in mind when writing the controversial address he delivered at Regensburg last week.

A stampede after an Islamic religious seminar killed at least 29 women and children and injured more than 70 others in Karachi today.

Hundreds of worried pilgrims crowded around a photo display at a medical centre in Mina, Saudi Arabia, today, scanning anxiously for pictures of loved ones who may have been among the 362 people killed the day before in a deadly stampede.

More than two million Muslim pilgrims from almost 180 countries raised their hands to heaven and chanted in unison as they hiked through a desert valley yesterday to a tent city on the outskirts of Mecca in preparation for the annual hajj.

An Arab-American college student was convicted yesterday of joining al-Qaida and plotting to assassinate President George Bush.

An Arab-American college student was convicted today of joining al-Qaida and plotting to assassinate President George W Bush.

Saudi security forces battled suspected al-Qaida militants across the kingdom today, killing four wanted extremists in the capital and clashing with armed men in the holy city of Medina.

A REPORT in The Independent (London) last weekend suggested that the authorities in Saudi Arabia are targeting the birthplace of the prophet Mohammed in the holy city of Mecca for destruction.

Heads of state from around the world jetted into the Saudi capital of Riyadh amid tight security today to attend the funeral of King Fahd, the oil-rich country’s ruler for almost a quarter of a century who died yesterday from a long illness.

Saudi King Fahd’s condition is stable and reassuring, Crown Prince Abdullah said today, three days after the monarch was hospitalised suffering from pneumonia.

Saudi Arabia’s King Fahd, whose actions to strengthen the oil kingdom’s ties with the US brought down the wrath of Islamic militants, was taken to a Riyadh hospital yesterday apparently suffering from pneumonia.

ARABS began the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in reflective mood as violence across much of their world brought reminders from their leaders of true Islam’s tolerant nature - backed by increases in security.

FOLLOWING the D-Day ceremonies for the soldiers who unflinchingly went into battle to liberate Europe from the Nazis 60 years ago, Britain’s newspapers wondered yesterday if today’s generation of young Europeans would be ready to make the same sacrifice.