DAMMAM, Saudi Arabia--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep 22, 2025--
MODON, the Saudi Authority for Industrial Cities and Technology Zones, has announced the launch of its landmark project, the Multi-Story Factory, in the First Industrial City in Dammam, the first of its kind in the Arabian Gulf Region. This initiative comes as part of MODON’s strategy to provide innovative products that enhance the investment climate in Saudi Arabia’s industrial sector.
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The new project represents a pioneering model of sustainable vertical industrial development. It is aimed at increasing the efficiency of industrial land use and providing flexible solutions for investors. The building consists of eight floors, covering an area of more than 7,500 square meters, and includes 78 industrial units ranging from 156 m² to 251 m². Each unit is designed to meet the growing needs of entrepreneurs and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
This innovative concept seeks to build an integrated industrial ecosystem that empowers the next generation of industrialists and accelerates the start of their operations by offering ready-to-use, fully serviced spaces. The project demonstrates MODON’s firm commitment to supporting the growth of SME. These enterprises are a key driver of economic development and job creation. It targets vital sectors such as food, medical and pharmaceutical industries, as well as electronics and 3D printing technologies.
MODON emphasized that such landmark projects contribute to strengthening Saudi Arabia’s position as a leading global industrial hub. They leverage the country’s advanced infrastructure and strategic logistics location. These steps reaffirm MODON’s pivotal role in driving Saudi Arabia’s industrial transformation and attracting high-quality investments from around the world.
It is worth noting that MODON currently oversees 39 industrial cities across Saudi Arabia. These cities host more than 9,000 industrial, logistics, and investment facilities. Cumulative investments exceed SAR 463 billion, and the developed area spans more than 220 million square meters. MODON also manages licensing and supervision of industrial cities and complexes developed by the private sector, including their infrastructure foundations.
Source:AETOSWire
MODON Unveils First Multi-Story Factory (Photo: AETOSWire)
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Myanmar insisted Friday that its deadly military campaign against the Rohingya ethnic minority was a legitimate counter-terrorism operation and did not amount to genocide, as it defended itself at the top United Nations court against an allegation of breaching the genocide convention.
Myanmar launched the campaign in Rakhine state in 2017 after an attack by a Rohingya insurgent group. Security forces were accused of mass rapes, killings and torching thousands of homes as more than 700,000 Rohingya fled into neighboring Bangladesh.
“Myanmar was not obliged to remain idle and allow terrorists to have free reign of northern Rakhine state,” the country’s representative Ko Ko Hlaing told black-robed judges at the International Court of Justice.
African nation Gambia brought a case at the court in 2019 alleging that Myanmar's military actions amount to a breach of the Genocide Convention that was drawn up in the aftermath of World War II and the Holocaust.
Some 1.2 million members of the Rohingya minority are still languishing in chaotic, overcrowded camps in Bangladesh, where armed groups recruit children and girls as young as 12 are forced into prostitution. The sudden and severe foreign aid cuts imposed last year by U.S. President Donald Trump shuttered thousands of the camps’ schools and have caused children to starve to death.
Buddhist-majority Myanmar has long considered the Rohingya Muslim minority to be “Bengalis” from Bangladesh even though their families have lived in the country for generations. Nearly all have been denied citizenship since 1982.
As hearings opened Monday, Gambian Justice Minister Dawda Jallow said his nation filed the case after the Rohingya “endured decades of appalling persecution, and years of dehumanizing propaganda. This culminated in the savage, genocidal ‘clearance operations’ of 2016 and 2017, which were followed by continued genocidal policies meant to erase their existence in Myanmar.”
Hlaing disputed the evidence Gambia cited in its case, including the findings of an international fact-finding mission set up by the U.N.'s Human Rights Council.
“Myanmar’s position is that the Gambia has failed to meet its burden of proof," he said. "This case will be decided on the basis of proven facts, not unsubstantiated allegations. Emotional anguish and blurry factual pictures are not a substitute for rigorous presentation of facts.”
Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi represented her country at jurisdiction hearings in the case in 2019, denying that Myanmar armed forces committed genocide and instead casting the mass exodus of Rohingya people from the country she led as an unfortunate result of a battle with insurgents.
The pro-democracy icon is now in prison after being convicted of what her supporters call trumped-up charges after a military takeover of power.
Myanmar contested the court’s jurisdiction, saying Gambia was not directly involved in the conflict and therefore could not initiate a case. Both countries are signatories to the genocide convention, and in 2022, judges rejected the argument, allowing the case to move forward.
Gambia rejects Myanmar's claims that it was combating terrorism, with Jallow telling judges on Monday that “genocidal intent is the only reasonable inference that can be drawn from Myanmar’s pattern of conduct.”
In late 2024, prosecutors at another Hague-based tribunal, the International Criminal Court, requested an arrest warrant for the head of Myanmar’s military regime for crimes committed against the country’s Rohingya Muslim minority. Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, who seized power from Suu Kyi in 2021, is accused of crimes against humanity for the persecution of the Rohingya. The request is still pending.
FILE - In this Sept. 7, 2017, file photo, smoke rises from a burned house in Gawdu Zara village, northern Rakhine state, where the vast majority of the country's 1.1 million Rohingya lived, Myanmar. (AP Photo, File)
