Saudi Arabia: Massive Cabinet shake-up under King Salman

January 30, 2015

Jeddah, Jan 30: Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman announced a massive Cabinet reshuffle on Thursday, appointing Azzam Al-Dakhil, new education minister, Ahmed bin Aqeel Al-Khateeb new health minister, Adel Al-Toraifi, minister of culture and information and Abdul Lateef bin Abdul Malik Al-Asheikh new minister of municipal and rural affairs.

King Salman, who ascended the throne on Friday, reappointed Prince Khaled Al-Faisal as governor of Makkah in place of Prince Mishaal bin Abdullah and Prince Faisal bin Bandar governor of Riyadh, replacing Prince Turki bin Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz. He removed Prince Bandar bin Sultan from the position of the secretary-general for National Security Council and special envoy of the king.

Walid bin Mohammed Al-Samaani is the new justice minister, who replaces Mohammed Al-Eissa while Saleh bin Abdul Aziz Al-Asheikh was reinstated Islamic affairs minister, replacing Sulaiman Abalkhail. He merged the higher education ministry with the Ministry of Education.

Other new ministers are: Mohammed Al-Suwaiyel, minister of telecommunications and information technology; Majed bin Abdullah Al-Qassabi minister of social affairs; Abdul Rahman bin Abdul Mohsen Al-Fadli, agriculture minister; Khaled bin Abdullah Al-Araj, minister of civil service; Saad bin Khaled Al-Jabari state minister; and Mohammed bin Abdul Malik Al-Asheikh, state minister.

Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal, Petroleum and Mineral Resources Minister Ali Al-Naimi, Finance Minister Ibrahim Al-Assaf, National Guard Minister Prince Miteb bin Abdullah, Labor Minister Adel Fakeih and Water and Electricity Minister Abdullah Al-Hussayen retained their positions.

Other Cabinet members are: Crown Prince Muqrin, deputy premier; Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Naif, second deputy premier and minister of interior; Prince Mansour bin Miteb, state minister and adviser to the king; Prince Mohammed bin Salman, defense minister; and Matlab Al-Nafeesa, state minister; and Musaed Al-Aiban, state minister.

Housing Minister Shuwaish Al-Dhuwaihi, Haj Minister Bandar Hajjar, Economy and Planning Minister Muhammed Al-Jasser, Commerce and Industry Minister Tawfiq Al-Rabiah, Transport Minister Abdullah Al-Muqbil will remain in their positions. Other ministers who retained their positions were: State Minister for Shoura Affairs Mohammed bin Faisal Abusaq, and State Minister Essam bin Saad bin Saeed.

King Salman appointed Khaled bin Abdul Mohsen Al-Muhaisen as president of the National Anti-Corruption Commission (Nazaha), replacing Mohammed Al-Sharief.

Intelligence chief Prince Khaled bin Bandar was relieved and Gen. Khaled bin Ali Al-Humaidan was named the new chief. Prince Khaled bin Bandar, Prince Mishaal bin Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz bin Musaed and Prince Abdul Aziz bin Sattam have been named advisers to the king with the rank of minister.

King Salman dissolved a number of bodies such as the Higher Committee for Educational Policy, Higher Committee for Administrative Organization, Civil Service Council, the Higher Commission for King Abdulaziz City of Science and Technology, Higher Education and Universities Council, Higher Council for Education, Higher Council for Petroleum and Mineral Affairs, Supreme Economic Council, National Security Council (NSC), Supreme Council for King Abdullah City for Nuclear and Renewable Energy, Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, and Supreme Council for the Affairs of the Handicapped.

Two new councils have been established: The Council for Political and Security Affairs and the Council for Economic and Development Affairs. The two councils will be closely linked with the Council of Ministers. The commission of experts will continue as one of the agencies of the Cabinet’s general secretariat.

The Council for Political and Security Affairs will have nine members and will be chaired by Prince Mohammed bin Naif.

The 22-member Council for Economic and Development Affairs will be chaired by Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

King Salman also reshuffled the general committee for Cabinet under the chairmanship of Musaed Al-Aiban.

Other major appointments were: Prince Abdul Aziz bin Salman, deputy minister of petroleum and minerals with the rank of minister; Prince Turki bin Saud, president of King Abdulaziz City of Science and Technology with the rank of minister; Hazim bin Mustafa Zagzoug, head of the king’s private affairs; Fahd Abdullah Al-Samari, adviser at the Royal Court; Mohammed bin Sulaiman Al-Ajaji, head of experts commission at the Cabinet; Yahya bin Abdullah Al-Samaan, assistant president of the Shoura Council; Abdul Rahman Al-Hussayen, president of the Control and Investigation Board; Mohammed bin Abdullah Al-Jadaan, president of Capital Market Authority; Sulaiman bin Abdullah Al-Hamdan, president of the General Authority of Civil Aviation replacing Prince Fahd bin Abdullah; Abdul Rahman bin Abdullah Al-Sanad, president of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, replacing Abdullatif Al-Asheikh; Nabeel bin Mohammed Al-Aamoudi, president of the Saudi Ports Authority, replacing Abdul Aziz Al-Tuwaijri; and Ibrahim bin Mohammed Al-Sultan, mayor of Riyadh. Mohammed bin Abdul Kareem Al-Eissa has been removed from his position as member of the Council of Senior Islamic Scholars, one decree said.

Comments

Add new comment

Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.

10,000 bodies decomposing under destroyed buildings in Gaza spreading diseases

News Network

April 30,2024

Gaza civil defense agency has warned of a looming health disaster in the besieged Strip as the decomposition of dead bodies under the rubble of buildings destroyed by the relentless Israeli bombings accelerates.

The agency pointed on Tuesday to the risk of diseases and epidemics associated with the public decomposition of thousands of bodies due to rising temperature.

“The continued accumulation of thousands of bodies under the rubble has begun to cause the spread of disease and epidemics, especially with the onset of summer and the rise in temperatures, which accelerates the process of decomposition,” it said in a statement.

Seven months into the war, the Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor warned earlier that the decomposition of dead bodies for long periods leads to the transmission of serious diseases, including blood-borne viruses and tuberculosis.

"Gastrointestinal infections like cholera can also be easily spread through direct contact with dead bodies leaking excrement, soiled clothing, or contaminated tools or vehicles," it added.

In another report last week, Euro-Med Monitor also warned that thousands of corpses left in the streets or beneath house debris are rotting and being consumed by cats and dogs, which is an additional factor contributing to the spread of infectious diseases.

"The spread threatens the environment and public health in the Strip, and health authorities in the Strip have detected about one million cases of infectious diseases," the report added.

The Global Nutrition Group also estimates that at least 90 percent of the Gaza Strip’s children under the age of five are affected by one or more infectious diseases and that 70 percent have had diarrhea in the past two weeks—a 23-fold increase compared with the 2022 baseline.

Unexpected blistering temperatures across Gaza have also added to the daily misery faced by the enclave’s people and sparked new fears of disease outbreaks amid a lack of sufficient clean water and waste disposal, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, also known as UNRWA said on Thursday.

This comes as the death toll from Israel's genocidal campaign against Gaza rose to 34,535. Among the dead are more than 14,500 children and 9,500 women.

Since the war began on October 7, nearly 85 percent of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been displaced.

Vast swathes of the besieged territory are in ruins as Israel continues its onslaught, dropping at least 75,000 tons of explosives on Gaza, according to the Gaza Media Office.

Earlier this month, UNRWA, said 62 percent of all houses in the besieged territory have been damaged or destroyed.

Gaza Media Office recently reported that nearly 90,000 housing units have been destroyed while nearly 300,000 units have been damaged by the Israeli air and ground offensive.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported on Monday that nearly 37.5 million tons of conflict-generated debris are estimated to be present throughout Gaza, based on assessments by UN bodies.

The world’s hunger watchdog, known as the Integrated Food-Security Phase Classification (IPC), said in a report published on March 18 that about 1.1 million Palestinians in Gaza are living through catastrophic food insecurity, warning that famine is likely to strike by May in northern Gaza and can spread across the territory by July.

Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory, said in a report published in late March that there were clear indications that Israel has violated three of the five acts listed under the UN Genocide Convention.

These acts Albanese said were “killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to the group’s members; and deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”

Comments