Skip to main content

Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz is dead

23 01 2015

Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud (Reuters/Jacques Brinon)
Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz  died in hospital. He was undergoing treatment for pneumonia. An official statement has named Saudi Crown Prince Salman the new king.
“His Highness Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and all members of the family and the nation mourn the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz, who passed away at exactly 1 a.m. this morning,” said the statement on Saudi Arabian state TV channel attributed to Salman.
Salman has immediately appointed his half-brother Muqrin as his crown prince and heir.
King Abdullah had been in hospital for several weeks as he had been suffering from pneumonia and temporarily needed to breathe through a tube on account of his illness.
US President Barack Obama has expressed his condolences and praised the late Saudi King for his “steadfast and passionate belief in the importance of the US-Saudi relationship as a force for stability and security in the Middle East and beyond.”
Meanwhile, Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has announced that he will be leaving the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in order to travel to Saudi Arabia and pay his respects. Abdullah was officially appointed king in 2006, but prior to that he had run the country for at least 10 years as de facto regent, after his predecessor, King Fahd, suffered a debilitating stroke.
King Salman the new head of state of the number one oil exporter in the world is thought to be 79 years old. King Salman was appointed Crown Prince in 2012 and in the same year started serving as a defense minister. Before assuming these responsibilities, he had been governor of Riyadh province for five decades.
Abdullah was a staunch US ally, who supported the western fight against Al-Qaeda and maintained attempts to keep rival Shia Iran in check. Under his rule, Saudi Arabia strongly backed Syrian rebels trying to overthrow the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad. The monarch had also been the first international head of state to congratulate the interim government of Egypt after the July 2013 military coup deposed Mohamed Morsi.
King Abdullah implemented some modest reforms in the areas of women’s rights and economic deregulation, but largely stayed away from any severe changes to the kingdom’s political system. King Salman is said to be part of the royal circle that will continue to pursue similar policies.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Rouhani wins Iran's Presidential election Moderate cleric Hassan Rouhani won Iran's presidential election on Saturday, the interior ministry said, scoring a surprising landslide victory over conservative hardliners without the need of a second round run-off.Interior minister Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar announced on state television that Rouhani secured just over 50 percent of the ballot based on a 72 percent turnout of 50 million eligible voters. Mr Hassan Rouhani ... got the absolute majority of votes and was elected as president," Najjar said. Tehran Mayor Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, a hard-line conservative, lagged behind with about 16 percent of the votes. Iran's top nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, he too a hard-line conservative, earned 11 percent. The voter turnout was 72.7 percent. President-elect Hassan Rohani, sixty four years old, is known as a moderate conservative. He has been stressing the need to improve ties with Western nations, and is back...
Post a Comment
20
Save Dissent to Save Democracy   THE rising instances of physical violence and threats against political opponents and the inability to accept dissent must raise huge concerns amongst all of us who see democracy as perhaps the really stellar achievement since Independence. AAP’s attack on BJP headquarters and acts of arson committed under the very noses of their elite leadership; the attacks on Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia in Gujarat in the last two days; the recent manhandling of the caretaker of journalist Siddharth Varadarajan’s house by some garden variety thugs; and the violence and threats meted out regularly to their political opponents by political parties is surely deplorable and condemnable. This is a fatally flawed trend which will destroy the very foundations of our democratic institutions if not pushed back with all the strength and condemnation that the civil society can mobilise. Replaying the past To begin with, it must be clarified that we should ...
Post a Comment
20
Discipline Virat can win WCC JUNE 24, 2019 Monsoon in day reach Lucknow Pranati- win the bronze medal M7.3 Earthquake – Banda Sea https://sagarmediainc.com/ INVITATION | LAUNCH OF “SWACHH MAHOTSAVA” CELEBRATIONS BY SH. GAJENDRA SINGH SHEKHAWAT, UNION MINISTER, JAL SHAKTI | 3.45 PM , MONDAY, 24 JUNE | VIGYAN BHAWAN, DELHI Invitation for a discussion on “Emergency: Darkest Hour in Indian Democracy” : S Gurumurthy, Chairman, VIF & Dr A Suryaprakash, Chairman, Prasar Bharti on Monday, 24th June 2019 17.30 NMML Invitation _Dr. Prabha Ravi Shankar_“G.A. Natesan (1873-1949): ‘Old and Dear Friend’ of Mahatma Gandhi”_24 June 2019_3.00pm  CPR and CSH are pleased to invite you to a workshop on ‘Whims of a Digital Boss: The Story of Insecure App-Based Workers in Delhi’ Speaker:  Akriti BhatiaTuesday, 25 June 2019, 3:45 p.m. Centre for Science and Humanities (CSH), 2, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Road, (formerly Aurangzeb Road) What are the Priorities ...
Post a Comment
20