Latest news with #KingFahd
Tourism Breaking News
12-05-2025
- Business
- Tourism Breaking News
Marriott International signs agreement to bring the iconic St. Regis brand to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
Post Views: 99 Marriott International signed an agreement with Miyar Alshati Real Estate Company (managed by Miyar Capital), Telal Al Wadi Real Estate Company and Saud Al Arifi Investment Group to introduce the iconic St. Regis brand to Jeddah in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Anticipated to open in 2030, the project features a luxury hotel and residences that will bring St. Regis' celebrated rituals, bespoke spirit, storied heritage, and signature Butler service to the coastal city. 'The signing of The St. Regis Jeddah reflects our commitment to expand our portfolio of brands and experiences in the Kingdom,' said Karim Cheltout, Senior Vice President, Development, Middle East & Africa. 'Jeddah continues to be an important business and leisure destination in the region, and a gateway to Makkah and Medina. We look forward to offering locals and travellers to the city the St. Regis' legendary service, modern glamour and distinctive luxury experiences.' The St. Regis Jeddah is expected to feature 191 elegantly appointed guestrooms, suites and serviced apartments with sea views, five distinct dining venues including a signature restaurant and pool lounge. The hotel is anticipated to include a range of facilities such as an indoor swimming pool, fitness centre and spa, along with more than 1,000 square metres of meetings and events space for celebrations and iconic gatherings. The project is also expected to include The Residences at The St. Regis Jeddah, which will feature 92 one-to-five-bedroom branded residences and offer luxury amenities such as a resident lounge, media room, children's activity area, meeting rooms, library, fitness centre and a swimming pool. In a joint statement, Tilal Al Wadi Real Estate Company, Miyar Capital and Saud Alarife Group stated, 'We are proud to announce the signing of the first St. Regis property in Jeddah, which we are confident will elevate the standard of luxury hospitality in the city. This project also aligns with our dedication to supporting the Kingdom's Vision 2030 framework. By fostering tourism and creating unparalleled guest experiences, we aim to contribute significantly to Jeddah's vibrant hospitality landscape and the nation's ambitious goals for economic diversification and cultural enrichment.' Jeddah is a key port city and vibrant urban centre on the western coast of the of the Arabian Peninsula overlooking the Red Sea. The second largest city in Saudi Arabia after Riyadh, Jeddah is an ancient trading hub that also acts as a vital gateway to the Holy Cities of Makkah and Medina. The St. Regis Jeddah will be located within the 52-storey U-View Tower along the city's waterfront that offers travellers and locals seaside views and attractions including King Fahd's Fountain and the Jeddah Corniche Circuit which hosts the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix Formula 1 races.
India.com
07-05-2025
- India.com
World's first private road with no turns and 256 km long was built in..., not Brunei, UK, Denmark, UAE, Kuwait
New Delhi: Roads are never straight or uniform. They have many twists and turns. However, you would be surprised to know that there is a road in the world that has no turns for 256 kilometers. This road is known as 'Highway 10′ in Saudi Arabia. Previously, this record belonged to Australia's Eyre Highway. Let us tell you some interesting facts about this 256-kilometer-long Highway 10. Located in Saudi Arabia, this 256-kilometer (159 miles) long road cuts through the Rub' al Khali desert, also known as the 'Empty Quarter', which is the largest sand desert in the world. Notably, this is a private road, built for use by King Fahd, which is why there are no turns on this road. According to a report by Arab News, Highway 10 starts from Harad (a city famous for oil and gas reserves) and goes up to Al Batha near the UAE border. The highway built in Saudi Arabia is a unique example of modern engineering. It provides a unique driving experience. According to the Guinness World Records, it is a highway built in the desert without any turns. The estimated driving time on this super straight highway is about 2 hours, meaning the distance of 256 kilometers can be covered in just two hours. However, despite the lack of turns, there remains a risk of accidents on this highway because camels roam around in the desert areas and can suddenly appear on the road. Before Highway 10 in Saudi Arabia, Australia's Eyre Highway was the second longest highway in the world without any turns. This 146-kilometer long road connects Western Australia to South Australia. This highway is also completely straight. The interesting thing is that while Highway 10 has camels posing a danger, Eyre Highway is frequented by kangaroos.
Arab News
19-04-2025
- Politics
- Arab News
1988 - The bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie
JEDDAH: The king leads the Saudi delegation at a Gulf Cooperation Council summit in Manama, there is a new government in Israel, and there is a crisis in Sudan; that Arab News front page could have been published on almost any day in recent years. Except the Saudi king was King Fahd, the Israeli prime minister was Yitzhak Shamir, and another report on the page tells you that this was Dec. 23, 1988. Two nights before, Pan Am Flight 103 from Frankfurt to Detroit, via London and New York, had been blown up by a terrorist bomb as it crossed the border between England and Scotland. With a death toll of 270 — all 243 passengers and 16 crew, and 11 victims on the ground in Lockerbie, where the aircraft smashed into two residential streets at 800 kph — it remains the deadliest terror attack in UK history. Few events resonate all the way from a small Scottish border town to the White House. This was one such event. Lockerbie, with its 4,000 souls, joined that list of places in the UK and elsewhere — Aberfan, Munich, Srebrenica, My Lai — forever associated in the public consciousness with cruel and senseless loss of life. Scotland, my country, and Glasgow, my city, are not soft places, nor are the journalists they produce noted for emotional incontinence. But I saw tough, cynical, diamond-hard reporters return from Lockerbie numbed into glazed-eyed silence by the enormity of what they saw there, and full of respect and admiration for the quiet dignity and fortitude with which its townspeople bore their losses. Most of the plane's passengers were American, and their relatives flew from the US to identify bodies and possessions. The people of Lockerbie temporarily buried their own grief to provide accommodation, food, comfort and solace to the bereaved. Bonds were forged that remain to this day. When a terrorist attack was confirmed, the perpetrator identified by Washington was inevitable. The US and the regime of Muammar Qaddafi in Libya had been in a state of undeclared war for years, and US airstrikes in April 1986, far from cowing Qaddafi, appeared only to have incensed him. US and UK investigators believed Libyan agents in Malta concealed a Semtex bomb inside a radio-cassette player and sent it in a suitcase to Frankfurt, where it was loaded aboard Pan Am Flight 103 and the fate of 270 people was sealed. With some narratives, paradoxically, it can make sense to work backwards — in this case from when Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi, a Libyan intelligence officer and former head of security for Libyan Arab Airlines, died at his home in Tripoli on May 20, 2012, at the age of 60. More than 11 years earlier, in January 2001, three Scottish judges sitting at a special court in a former US air base in the Netherlands had sentenced Al-Megrahi to life imprisonment on 270 counts of murder for the Lockerbie bombing. He served more than eight years in two prisons in Scotland before the Scottish government released him on compassionate grounds when doctors said he had terminal cancer, and he returned to Libya in August 2009. Given three months to live, he lasted for nearly three years. Al-Megrahi was, and remains, the only person to be convicted of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103; with his death, therefore, case closed? Well, no. The repercussions began soon after the disaster, and continue to this day. Pan Am, its security operations exposed as criminally useless, was bankrupt after a year and out of business after two. UN sanctions against Qaddafi and Libya reinforced their pariah status, and by February 2011 the country was embroiled in civil war. Qaddafi was captured and killed on Oct. 20, 2011. Al-Megrahi would outlive him by seven months. The US Federal Aviation Authority issues a bulletin warning of an anonymous tip that a Pan Am flight from Frankfurt will be blown up in the next two weeks. Pan Am Flight 103 is destroyed by a bomb over Lockerbie. Alleged Libyan intelligence officers Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi and Lamin Khalifa Fhimah are indicted for murder by US and Scottish authorities, but Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi refuses to allow their extradition for trial. After a nine-year standoff, Qaddafi agrees to allow Al-Megrahi and Fhimah to be tried under Scottish law in the Netherlands. Al-Megrahi is jailed for life. Fhimah is found not guilty. Al-Megrahi loses an appeal against his conviction. Qaddafi accepts Libya's responsibility for the bombing and agrees to pay compensation to each of the victims' families. Al-Megrahi, with terminal prostate cancer diagnosed, is released on compassionate grounds and returns to Libya. Libyan civil war breaks out. Libya's former Justice Minister Mustafa Abdul Jalil claims Qaddafi's regime was implicated in the bombing. Qaddafi is killed by rebel militia while trying to flee after the fall of Tripoli. Al-Megrahi dies, aged 60. The US announces the arrest of Abu Agila Masud, accused of constructing the bomb device that destroyed Pan Am Flight 103. For the rest of us, airline and airport security have intensified on an apparently endless upward trajectory, and we can at least be grateful that an unaccompanied suitcase with a bomb inside can never again travel from Malta through two airports to the skies over Scotland. Perhaps most significantly, however, Lockerbie may have marked the beginning of a collapse in public trust in what our governments tell us. Authorities in the US and the UK have always insisted that Al-Megrahi was guilty, and that he acted alone or with a single accomplice. Few believe that. Major world events — the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the moon landings, the 9/11 attacks on America — attract conspiracy theorists like iron to a magnet, and Lockerbie is no exception. It was Iran; it was the Palestinians; it was Mossad; it was the Stasi; it was apartheid South Africa. What makes Lockerbie different is that one of the 'theories' is almost certainly fact — but which one is anyone's guess. One man more entitled than most to make that guess is Jim Swire, the softly spoken but determined English country doctor whose daughter Flora, 23, perished on board the plane. Swire, now in his late eighties, has devoted his life to finding the truth about Lockerbie. He met and questioned Al-Megrahi. He met and questioned Qaddafi. He has been a thorn in the side of UK and US authorities for more than 30 years, and he believes to this day that the case against Al-Megrahi was a travesty and a tissue of lies, to cover up some ghastly truth that may never be known. US President George H. W. Bush set up an aviation security commission in September 1989 to report on the plane's sabotage, and British relatives of the victims met members of the commission at the US Embassy in London in February the following year. A member of Bush's staff told one of the relatives: 'Your government and ours know exactly what happened, but they are never going to tell.' Perhaps not. But like a tenacious shoot from a seed buried deep beneath the soil, the truth has a way of reaching the light. This year the production of two television drama series, one focused on Swire's dogged search for that truth, has brought the Lockerbie tragedy back into the public consciousness. Old theories are being revived. But this year could also see those theories refuted — or vindicated. On May 12, a man identified in court papers as Abu Agila Mohammad Masud Kheir Al-Marimi, or simply Masud, will go on trial in Washington charged with having made the bomb that destroyed Pan Am Flight 103. The story of how Masud was identified, captured and extradited to the US — a country with which Libya has no extradition treaty — remains to be told. It also remains to be seen whether the trial of Masud will bring some kind of closure, or simply further distress, for the still-grieving families of the victims of Pan Am Flight 103, and for the people of Lockerbie.
Tourism Breaking News
03-04-2025
- Tourism Breaking News
Makkah Hotel and Towers wins ‘Best 5 Star Hotel KSA'
Post Views: 80 Makkah Hotel and Towers was recognised as the 'Best 5 Star Hotel KSA' at the seventh edition of the Arabian Travel Awards 2024. Makkah Hotel and Towers is the closest hotel to holy Haram situated in prime central location in Makkah right a few steps away from the Holy Mosque. The Makkah Millennium Towers offers a prime location over the Haram piazza in front of King Fahd gate with unique features, including rooms and suites with stunning views, a wide variety of culinary options, and a shopping mall.
Saudi Gazette
07-03-2025
- General
- Saudi Gazette
20,000 Zamzam water containers distributed at Grand Mosque for Ramadan
Saudi Gazette report MAKKAH — A total of 20,000 Zamzam water containers have been distributed throughout the Grand Mosque to accommodate the needs of worshippers and pilgrims during Ramadan, the General Authority for the Affairs of the Grand Mosque and the Prophet's Mosque announced. The authority urged visitors to follow awareness guidelines when using the designated Zamzam water facilities. It emphasized the importance of properly disposing of plastic cups in designated waste bins and refraining from opening Zamzam water containers to maintain hygiene and order. In addition to the widespread availability of Zamzam water, well-equipped ablution facilities have been provided to ensure convenience for worshippers. These facilities are strategically placed across different parts of the Grand Mosque, including the King Fahd expansion ablution areas, accessible via escalators and elevators, as well as those in the Mas'a area, serving worshippers near Al-Marwah and Al-Mas'a. Other locations include the eastern courtyard near Al-Qashashiyah, the western courtyard opposite the Makkah Construction and Development Company, and areas near the King Abdulaziz Endowment Towers. Additional ablution facilities are available inside the bathrooms between Makkah Company and Dar Al-Tawhid, as well as in the northern courtyards. The presidency stressed the importance of utilizing these designated ablution facilities and reserving Zamzam water strictly for drinking. It emphasized that maintaining cleanliness and adhering to the guidelines would help create a spiritual and tranquil environment, allowing worshippers to perform their religious rituals with ease and devotion.
