Briefly

SAUDI ARABIA

Saudi king admitted to hospital for tests

Saudi Arabia's ruler King Salman bin Abdulaziz has been admitted to hospital in the capital Riyadh, suffering from inflammation of the gall bladder, the kingdom's Royal Court said on 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. The king has ruled the world's largest oil exporter since 2015. The custodian of Islam's holiest sites, he also served as governor of the Riyadh region for more than 50 years. The de facto ruler and next in line to the throne is the crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, who has launched reforms to transform the kingdom's economy and end its "addiction" to oil.

IRAN

Execution carried out over general's killing

Iran executed a man convicted of providing information to the United States and Israel about a prominent Revolutionary Guard general later killed by a US drone strike, state TV reported on Monday. The report said the death sentence was carried out against Mahmoud Mousavi Majd, without elaborating. The country's judiciary had said in June that Majd was "linked to the CIA and the Mossad", the Israeli intelligence agency, and alleged that Majd shared security information on the Guard and its expeditionary unit, called the Quds, or Jerusalem Force, which Qassem Soleimani commanded. Soleimani was killed in the drone strike in Baghdad in January. The strike also killed Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, an Iraqi militia leader, and five others. Iran later retaliated for Soleimani's killing with a ballistic missile strike targeting US forces in Iraq.

DPRK

Leader inspects medical project

Kim Jong-un, top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, visited the Pyongyang General Hospital under construction and gave field guidance, official media reported on Monday. While touring the construction site, Kim highly appreciated the builders' feats and also pointed out the serious problems in the financial arrangements of the construction, the Korean Central News Agency, or KCNA, said, without mentioning the date of the visit. Kim said lots of things have been done so far and the construction has made exceptionally rapid progress despite a difficult situation. However, "the construction coordination commission is organizing the economy in a careless manner with no budget for the construction properly set up," he said, severely rebuking the commission for burdening the people by encouraging all kinds of "assistance".

Agencies - Xinhua