Dubai, Feb 24: Kuwait and Bahrain confirmed on Monday their first novel coronavirus cases, the countries' health ministries announced, adding all had come from Iran.
Kuwait reported three infections and Bahrain one in citizens who had returned home from the Islamic republic.
Riyadh, Jul 20: Saudi Arabia's King Salman has been admitted to a hospital in the capital, Riyadh, for medical tests due to inflammation of the gallbladder, the kingdom's Royal Court said Monday in a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency.
The statement said the 84-year-old monarch is being tested at the King Faisal Specialist Hospital. The brief statement did not provide further details.
King Salman has been in power since January 2015. He is considered the last Saudi monarch of his generation of brothers who have held power since the death of their father and founder of Saudi Arabia, King Abdulaziz.
King Salman has empowered his 34-year-old son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, as his successor. The crown prince's assertive and bold style of leadership, as well as his consolidation of power and sidelining of potential rivals, has been controversial.
With the support of his father, Prince Mohammed has transformed the kingdom in recent years, opening it up to tourists and eroding decades of ultraconservative restrictions on entertainment and women's rights as he tries to diversify the Saudi economy away from reliance on oil exports.
The prince has also detained dozens of activists and critics, overseen a devastating war in Yemen, and rounded up top members of the royal family in his quest for power.
The Saudi king has not been seen in public in recent months due to social distancing guidelines and concerns over the spread of the coronavirus inside the kingdom, which has one of the largest outbreaks in the Middle East.
He has been shown, however, in state-run media images attending virtual meetings with his Cabinet and held calls with world leaders.
King Salman, who oversees Islam's holiest sites in Makkah and Medinah, was a crown prince under King Abdullah and served as defense minister. For more than 50 years prior to that, he was governor of Riyadh, overseeing its evolution from a barren city to a teeming capital.
Dubai, Mar 23: All inbound, outbound and transit passenger flights to and from the United Arab Emirates – home to one of the world’s busiest hubs – are to be suspended for two weeks.
The UAE’s National Emergency Crisis and Disasters Management Authority (NCEMA) and General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) has announced that passenger flights to, from and through the country will be suspended from 25 March for a period of two weeks, in order to “curb the spread of the Covid-19”.
Freight and emergency evacuation flights will still be permitted to operate.
The suspension affects major global hubs in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Dubai-based Emirates has already announced that it will suspend most of its passenger flights from 25 March.
“Additional examination and isolation arrangements will be taken later should flights resume, in order to ensure the safety of passengers, air crews and airport personnel and their protection from infection risks,” state the NCEMA and the GCAA.
Dubai International Airport was the third-busiest airport in the world in 2018, handling 89 million passengers.
Muscat, Jan 11: Oman's Culture and Heritage Minister, Haitham bin Tariq Al Said, took oath as country's Sultan on Saturday following the demise of Qaboos bin Said al-Said, the country's government confirmed on Saturday.
Sputnik quoted a report by sultanate's Al-Roya newspaper as saying that the new Sultan " affirmed the continuation of the country's modernisation and development in various fields."
The development comes after Qaboos bin Said, who had served as the ruler of Oman since 1970, died Friday at the age of 79.
Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had condoled Qaboos's demise and remembered him as the "beacon of peace for India and the world".
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