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The decision, announced in a note issued on Wednesday by the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs, cited last week's move by the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare the Ebola outbreak in DRC's eastern North Kivu and Ituri provinces a public health emergency of international concern. Riyadh's move came despite the WHO saying at the time of its international emergency declaration that no country should close its borders or place any restrictions on travel or trade because of Ebola and urging governments elsewhere in Africa and around the world not to "panic" in response to the decision. The epidemic has...

Saudi Arabia has shot down two ballistic missiles over the cities of Taif and Jeddah, east and west of Mecca respectively, which it blamed on Yemen's Houthi movement. Saudi air defences shot down a ballistic missile over the city of Taif, 65 kilometres east of Mecca, in the early hours of Monday morning. Another missile was launched at the port city of Jeddah, on the other side of Mecca, according to Saudi-owned news channel Alarabiya.

Mecca's grand mosque in Saudi Arabia was hit with a plague of biblical proportions this week when a huge swarm of locusts descended upon the Islamic holy site. A number of videos were uploaded online showing locusts creeping around the Islamic pilgrimage hub, crawling their way across the stone slabs, providing a small snapshot of what Pharaoh saw during the Passover thousands of years ago.

A massive swarm of locusts plagued Mecca, Saudi Arabia, earlier this week, prompting authorities at Islam’s holiest site to launch a cleaning operation to remove them. Videos posted to social media showed the insects swarming around cleaners and worshipers in the city’s Grand Mosque, where millions of Muslim pilgrims congregate every year. “Specialized teams have been directed to work in the fight to eliminate these insects,” authorities in Mecca said, according to the Al-Araby Al-Jadeed news site. “We have harnessed all efforts available to speed up the eradication of the insects in the interest of the safety and comfort of...

Simply raising this topic is almost certain to be denounced as “Islamophobia,” but disease vectors don’t care about theology.  In the past week, there were two health scares at major US airports with passengers quarantined on airliners that landed from overseas with very sick passengers on board. On Wednesday, an Emirates Airline 380 super jumbo jet from Dubai was quarantined at JFK Airport, with 100 passengers initially reported as ill. Eventually, nineteen passengers were confirmed as ill, and ten passengers were hospitalized with respiratory illnesses. The following day, two American Airlines flights from Europe were quarantined upon landing at...

Ten people were tested for a battery of respiratory viruses and bacteria in hopes of ruling out serious pathogens that could present a public health threat. Two of them tested positive for an especially virulent type of influenza A virus, and one of the two, who was gravely ill with pneumonia, was co-infected with another respiratory virus, Cetron said. A third person tested positive for a cold virus. All three had taken part in the Haj, which this year drew 2 million people to Mecca, Cetron said. Seven crew members, who boarded the flight in Dubai and were not at...

<p>DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — More than 1.5 million Muslims are gathering for the annual hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, where Saudi Arabian authorities have boosted security amid concerns about demonstrations against a possible U.S.-led war in Iraq.</p> <p>Saudi officials expect 500,000 pilgrims from inside the kingdom to join more than 1.3 million foreigners in the five-day ritual starting Saturday.</p>

More than one million pilgrims have already arrived in Saudi Arabia, days before the kingdom prepares to host its mammoth annual Hajj pilgrimage, according to state media. The Hajj, which is expected to draw more than two million pilgrims this year, represents a key rite of passage for Muslims and a massive logistical challenge for Saudi authorities – as these stunning images show.

My friends, we will stand together. We will stand firm. We will not submit. Never. Not in Israel, not in Europe, not in America. Nowhere. We will survive. We will stop islam. We will defend our freedoms. We will remain free. via A warning to America -- Speech Geert Wilders, Cornerstone Church, Nashville, 12 May 2011 Dear friends from Tennessee. I am very happy to be in your midst today. I am happy and proud to be in this impressive church. My friends, I am here to speak words of truth and freedom. Do you know why America is in...

As a member of Mauritania's slave-owning class, Abdel Nasser Ould Ethmane could have had anything he wanted as a present for his circumcision ceremony: a toy, money, a camel, or, as his brother would choose, a bicycle. But the 7-year-old wanted something more sinister. He chose Yebawa Ould Keihel, a young boy with skin the color of coal. At that moment, Abdel became a slave master. It's an experience that's common here in Mauritania, a vast country in West Africa's Sahara Desert where activists and the United Nations estimate 10% to 20% of people are enslaved -- usually dark-skinned people...

Saudi Arabia is reportedly planning to modernise Mecca by building a retractable roof over the Kaaba - the most sacred site in Islam - in what critics fear will 'destroy the cradle' of the religion. Although the new roof has not been officially confirmed, a video of the 'umbrella project' circulating on social media shows a scale model on display in the holy city demonstrating how the retractable roof would operate.

Massachusetts high school students pretended to be Muslims in the "Islamic" city of Jerusalem as part of a class assignment used in Newton Public Schools to teach about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a new report revealed. One father was particularly upset when he discovered his daughter had been assigned what he described as an inflammatory pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel article, according to the report. The man was allegedly told by the school's principal that lessons the next year would be even more upsetting to him. [Snip] "As our concluding project on the Islamic world, you will work in groups to simulate a historical...

Two million Muslims from around the world have arrived in Mecca for the hajj pilgrimage two years after a deadly stampede killed more than 2,000 worshippers. Shiite Muslims from Iran returned to Mecca in Saudia Arabia, following the biggest catastrophe in the history of the hajj. Last year the tragedy killed nearly 2,300 pilgrims with 464 Iranians among the fatalities, leading to officials in Tehran criticising Saudi Arabia's organisation of the pilgrimage.

MAKKAH: Economic experts have said Hajj and Umrah revenues are poised to exceed $150 billion by 2022 in light of the expected mergers of economic blocs and groupings to meet the growing demand on Hajj and Umrah economics in terms of transport, commercial stores and expansion in small, medium enterprises (SMEs). Muhsin Al-Sharif, a member of the Committee of Real Estate and Investment, said Hajj revenues will feed the national economy and, therefore, an integrated plan should be worked out to control revenues and financial resources in a manner that will serve Vision 2030. This will also serve the national...

Al Arabiya said security forces had found two groups of terrorists in Mecca and a third group in the city of Jeddah. The foiled attack targetted worshipers at the mosque, it said.

Last November, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange declared that the “CIA created ISIS” alongside a release of 500,000+ cables from 1979. Assange said that the decision made by the CIA, along with Saudi Arabia, to send large sums of money into arming the Mujahideen in Afghanistan during their fight against the Soviet Union, eventually led to the creation of al-Qaeda. This terror group was responsible for the 9/11 atrocities in New York, which resulted in the invasions of both Afghanistan and Iraq by the U.S. and the inception of ISIS. The bloody year of 1979 would prove a pivotal one for...

AS THE governor of Mecca, Prince Khalid bin Faisal Al Saud has been able to compensate for earlier failings. He came to his role in 2007 from Asir province, where his plans to erect modern tower blocks in the city of Abha were largely unfulfilled. He successfully erased Abha’s quaint old town, with its beehive houses made of wattle, only to replace them with squat breeze-block bungalows. Not a high-rise was to be seen.

Saudi Arabia is our enduring internal enemy, already within our borders and permitted to poison American Muslims with its Wahhabi cult. Oh, and Saudi Arabia’s also the spring from which the bloody waters of global jihad flowed. Iran humiliates our sailors, but the Saudis are the spiritual jailers of hundreds of millions of Muslims, committed to intolerance, barbarity and preventing Muslims from joining the modern world. And we help. Firm figures are elusive, but estimates are that the Saudis fund up to 80% of American mosques, at least in part. And their goal is the same here as it is...

“Issac the traveler” as he is known on social media has so far walked almost 6,000 km and has now reached Kuwait. But the Spanish traveler of Algerian descent has about 1,356 km to go to reach the holy city of Makkah to perform Umrah. Umrah is a non-mandatory lesser pilgrimage made by Muslims to Makkah, which may be performed at any time of the year. From Paris - Issac’s starting point - the traveler took five months to reach Kuwait, passing through 16 countries. The only device he has with him to help him reach the goal is simply...

The Arab Coalition fighting in Yemen said on Thursday that it has intercepted a ballistic missile that hit 65 km away from Saudi Arabia's holy city of Makkah, saying it was fired by militias in Yemen. The missile was fired from Saada province towards Makkah, the coalition said. No damage has been reported. Coalition forces confirmed that they targeted the sites where the missile was launched from in Saada and destroyed it shortly after the incident. The firing of the missile received condemnations from several countries with Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates reacting with statements condemning Iran and Houthi...