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Anti-corruption body probes appointment of minister’s son

October 28, 2016

Jeddah, Oct 28: A citizen has sent a complaint to the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC or Nazaha), calling for investigation into an alleged case of corruption involving the appointment of the son of Civil Service Minister Khaled Al-Araj to the post of project manager for a monthly salary exceeding SR21,000.

Anti-corruptionThe complaint came soon after the minister stated that the typical Saudi employee does not spend more than one hour a day to do real work, a statement most Saudis deemed offensive.

Saad Al-Thuwaini wrote a complaint letter to Nazaha President Khaled Al-Muhaisin, claiming abuse of power on the part of the minister.

Al-Thuwaini asked that the matter be investigated and that the minister’s son undergo an examination to establish his credentials.

He took issue with the salary earned by the minister’s son, which is rarely obtained by regular Saudis working in whatever specialties and holding whatever qualifications.

The minister insists that his son was not shown favoritism when hired.

The NACC took the complaint seriously, acting promptly.

The anti-corruption body’s spokesman, Abdulrahman Al-Ajlan, said the commission monitors media and Internet news and takes action to ensure the implementation of the national strategy to protect integrity and fight against corruption.

He said the commission is monitoring regularly the social network postings regarding the hiring of the minister’s son.

“I would like to remind all that Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman said that the Kingdom does not tolerate corruption of any sort and that no one is above the law,” said Al-Ajlan.

That matter was not discussed by the Nazaha alone, but also by Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage (SCTNH) President Prince Sultan bin Salman, who said it is not right to say that citizens do not work and that Saudi Arabia lacks expertise in various fields of work.

A video circulated on social media shows Prince Sultan saying that “the country’s development and achievements over the past years are fantastic and quite difficult to believe ... we cannot say that the citizens do not work and there is no development.”

Prince Sultan said: “Who built this country? Who united it before the discovery of oil, and before economic prosperity? Those who accomplished this were the citizens who trust God Almighty, who stand side by side, who always support their state, who believe in this state, in this place and its future.”

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Agencies
May 26,2020

Dubai, May 26: An Indian expat, who recently recovered from COVID-19, fell to his death from a building in Dubai, police said.

The 26-year-old Indian national identified as Neelath Muhammed Firdous from Kerala, fell from the seventh floor balcony of his building where he stayed with six others including his uncle, Naushad Ali, 33.

A Dubai Police official confirmed the incident to Gulf News on Monday and said it had been a suicide.

"He was suffering from a mental disorder and there is no criminal suspicions behind his death," said the official.

"The incident happened on Sunday," the official confirmed.

The victim's relative said: "(He) awoke early to perform prayers and everyone was getting on with their daily morning chores when he walked to the balcony and jumped.

"He was suffering from a mental disorder and had been disturbed for some time. He thought everyone was out to attack him and had stopped eating his food as he thought people were feeding him poison. He was refusing to even take water from us."

The victim had tested positive for COVID-19 on April 10. On May 7, he was discharged from a Dubai hospital after clearing all tests.

The relative told Gulf News that he had registered the victim in the Department of Non-Resident Keralites Affairs (NORKA) last month in order to repatriate him, however he was unsuccessful in procuring a ticket.

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Agencies
July 22,2020

Riyadh, Jul 22: Saudi King Salman held a cabinet meeting via video call from hospital in the capital Riyadh on Tuesday, a day after the 84-year-old monarch was admitted with inflammation of the gall bladder.

Three Saudi sources said the king was in stable condition.

A video of the king chairing the meeting was broadcast on Saudi state TV on Tuesday evening. In the video, which has no sound, King Salman can be seen behind a desk, wordlessly reading and leafing through documents.

The king, who has ruled the world’s largest oil exporter and close US ally since 2015, was undergoing medical checks, state media on Monday cited a Royal Court statement as saying.

Three well-connnected Saudi sources who declined to be identified, two of whom were speaking late on Monday and one on Tuesday, said the king was “fine”.

An official in the region, who requested anonymity, said he spoke to one of King Salman’s sons on Monday who seemed “calm” and that there was no sense of panic about the monarch’s health.

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coastaldigest.com news network
August 3,2020

Sharjah, Aug 3: A 24-year-old Indian engineer has fallen to death from the sixth floor of a residential building on Eid al-Adha in the UAE's Sharjah, a media report said on Monday. 

The electrical engineer, identified with his single name Sumesh, hailed from the south Indian state of Kerala.

He lived in a building in Al Dhaid in Sharjah, from where he fell to death on Friday, the report said, adding that he was apparently talking over the phone and threw it down minutes before the incident.

Sumesh, who came to the UAE a year ago, worked as a designer in Sharjah's Muwaileh area. His roommates said that he had some "personal issues" that had been "bothering him for some time", according to the report.

"It was Eid al-Adha and our cook had made biryani for us. We were all cracking jokes and having a good time. In fact, even Cuckoo (Sumesh) was also laughing with us. He seemed happy. Nobody had anticipated this. I did sense a few times that something was troubling him and I even asked him about it, but he brushed it off," the report quoted his roommate Dileep Kumar as saying.

Shans KF, another roommate, said Sumesh was to travel to India for his annual leave but could not because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The police have launched an investigation and moved the body to the forensic lab for an autopsy.

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