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JEDDAH: Saudi Arabia's new high-speed railway opened to the public on Thursday, whisking Muslim pilgrims and other travellers between Makkah and Medina, Islam's holiest cities. The Haramain High Speed Rail system will transport passengers 450 kilometres (280 miles) via the Red Sea port of Jeddah at speeds of up to 300 kilometres per hour. Two trains, each carrying 417 passengers, departed from Makkah and Medina at 8 am (0500 GMT), according to the state-run Saudi Press Agency. Two daily services are initially…

LONDON: A gleaming monument to the ambition and creativity of its age, the world's largest Victorian glasshouse reopens to the public on Saturday after a lengthy facelift to show off some of the world's rarest plants. "Temperate House" in Kew Gardens in west London is large enough to house three jumbo jets and has been shut for the past five years for a $57 million (46 million euros) renovation project. The botanical gardens glasshouse will house around 1,500 species split into geographical areas: Africa, the Americas,…

A massive "movie metropolis" billed as China's answer to Hollywood opened on Saturday, aiming to boost the domestic film industry and attract foreign producers. A total of 50 billion yuan ($7.9 billion) has been invested in building the studio complex in the eastern port city of Qingdao, according to the project's initiator, Chinese conglomerate Dalian Wanda, which is owned by one of China's richest men Wang Jianlin. But the opening lacked the high-wattage star power that turned out for the project's inauguration in…

NEW DELHI: India is seeking to buy around 110 fighter jets, the air force said in a request for information issued on Friday, marking a first step toward a long-delayed deal that could be worth more than $15 billion. Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Saab and Dassault Aviation are among the manufacturers expected to compete. The planes must be built largely in India as part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s drive to build a domestic industrial base. Read More: Fighter jets, drones on table as Mattis visits key ally India The…

SEATTLE: Amazon.com will open its checkout-free grocery store to the public on Monday after more than a year of testing, the company said, moving forward on an experiment that could dramatically alter brick-and-mortar retail. The Seattle store, known as Amazon Go, relies on cameras and sensors to track what shoppers remove from the shelves, and what they put back. Cash registers and checkout lines become superfluous - customers are billed after leaving the store using credit cards on file. For grocers, the store’s…

RIYADH: Saudi Arabia invited bids on Tuesday for a "utility-scale" 300-megawatt solar project, a first for the world's top oil exporter. "Today's bid opening represents a significant milestone for the National Renewable Energy Programme, and an important step on the way to diversifying Saudi Arabia's domestic energy mix and building a cutting edge domestic renewable energy sector," Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said. Bidders for the Sakaka solar energy project -- to be located in the country's northern Al-Jouf region…

BRUSSELS: An exhibition opened at Brussels’ Atomium building on Thursday to honor twin anniversaries of two Belgian icons -- the Atomium itself, which turns 60 next year, and Surrealist painter Rene Magritte, who died 50 years ago. The exhibition will run for a year and occupies two levels of the gleaming metal structure built in the form of a crystal of iron and which has become a symbol of the capital since being built for the World’s Fair of 1958, known as Expo58. It transforms 10 of Magritte’s most notable works…

BEIJING: China's first "cyber court" was launched on Friday to settle online disputes, as the legal system attempts to keep up with the explosion of mobile payment and e-commerce. Residents of the eastern city of Hangzhou -- home to e-commerce giant Alibaba -- can now register their internet-related civil complaints online and wait to log onto to their trial via videochat. The cyber court will "offer regular people an efficient, low-cost solution to these new kinds of disputes that take place on the internet," Du Qian,…

YONAGUNI, JAPAN: Japan on Monday switched on a radar station in the East China Sea, giving it a permanent intelligence gathering post close to Taiwan and a group of islands disputed by Japan and China, drawing an angry response from Beijing.

U.S. stocks opened sharply higher on Tuesday after weak economic data out of China bolstered hopes of more stimulus measures from the Chinese government.