More jobs, housing for citizens in 5-year plan

September 16, 2014

Jeddah, Sep 16: The Council of Ministers has prioritized housing, jobs and an increased standard of living for citizens in its 10th Five-Year Development Plan from 2015 to 2020.

Prince Salman
The 24-point plan approved at its meeting on Monday, includes efforts to preserve Islamic values and teachings, promote national unity and consolidate the Kingdom’s identity, said Culture and Information Minister Abdul Aziz Khoja after the Cabinet meeting.

The plan aims to strengthen the Kingdom’s economy and promote its growth, stability and competitiveness. “It also aims to enhance institutional reforms, support civil institutions and raise the efficiency and productivity of state agencies and their employees,” Khoja said.

The new five-year plan will uphold the principles of accountability and transparency and strive for the protection of integrity and fight corruption, the minister added.

The Cabinet, which was chaired by Crown Prince Salman, deputy premier and minister of defense, also adopted several measures to crack down on errant Umrah operators.

The Cabinet approved amendments to laws regulating Umrah trips from outside the Kingdom. The Interior Ministry would use Article 60 of the country's residency law to punish Umrah companies involved in trading visas, and bringing people to the country for other purposes.

“The Ministries of Interior and Haj shall prevent Umrah companies from accessing their automated system if they fail to ensure the return of their pilgrims from the Kingdom to their respective countries,” Khoja said while explaining the new regulations.

The Cabinet authorized the minister of housing to discuss with his Egyptian counterpart a housing cooperation agreement. It banned non-Saudis from time-sharing activities or marketing the scheme in Makkah and Madinah. “Non-Saudis are also banned from the acquisition of any rights under time-sharing for tourist real estate units in Makkah and Madinah except through inheritance,” Khoja said.

The Cabinet congratulated Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah for being awarded an honorary doctorate degree from Imam Muhammad bin Saud Islamic University. The Cabinet was briefed on the telephone conversation between King Abdullah and US President Barack Obama.

Referring to last week›s Jeddah meeting to fight Islamic State militants, the Cabinet reiterated the Kingdom’s commitment to stand against the threats posed by terrorism in all its forms.

Khoja said the Cabinet welcomed the formation of the new Iraqi government and the confidence in it by the Iraqi parliament. It hoped that this would contribute to the return of security and stability in Iraq and the consolidation of national unity and cohesion among its people.

On the occasion of the 27th session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Saudi Arabia renewed its call on the international community to protect the rights of the Palestinian people for self-determination and an independent state with Jerusalem as its capital.

The Kingdom expressed deep regret at the world not taking a decisive and courageous stand to end the suffering of the Syrian people. The Kingdom also renounced terrorism and extremism and rejected and condemned the gross violations of human rights perpetrated by terrorist organizations.

In this context, the Cabinet thanked the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees for praising the Kingdom’s humanitarian assistance to refugees in various countries.

The Cabinet praised security and customs officers for their efforts in preventing attempts to smuggle drugs worth SR2 billion into the Kingdom and arresting 1,197 smugglers and drug traffickers over the past six months.

The Cabinet welcomed the Human Development Report 2014 issued by the United Nations Development Program, which raised the Kingdom’s rank from 57 to 34 in human development programs.

The Cabinet postponed the transfer of jurisdiction of the investigation and prosecution on customs issues from the Customs Department to the Bureau of Investigation and Prosecution for a period of four years, Khoja said.

The Cabinet appointed Tariq bin Ziyad Al-Sudairi a member of the board of directors of the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul) representing the licensed brokerage companies; Sami bin Abdullah Al-Saleh as ambassador at the Foreign Ministry; Prince Saud bin Fahd bin Abdullah, deputy governor for security affairs in Riyadh; Saad bin Abdullah Al-Mufreh financial advisor at the Ministry of Health; Abdullah bin Sulaiman Al-Maiman director general of financial affairs at the Ministry of Defense; Hashim bin Abdullah Shatta minister plenipotentiary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Abdulaziz bin Saleh Al-Muhanna administrative advisor at the Ministry of National Guard; Ibrahim bin Abdulkarim Al-Khatib adviser at Riyadh governorate; and Yusuf bin Abdullah Al-Saadi sector head at the Finance Ministry.

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News Network
November 12,2024

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The UN humanitarian coordinator for Lebanon has warned that the “picture of life in Lebanon remains grim,” highlighting an "alarming" level of human suffering and significant humanitarian consequences due to the ongoing Israeli carnage.

Imran Riza, the UN Deputy Special Coordinator and Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Lebanon (UNSCOL), provided a stark overview of the Arab country's dire circumstances in a statement released on Monday.

“The current picture of life in Lebanon remains grim. Yesterday, airstrikes reportedly killed 23 people, including seven children, in the village of Aalmat in Mount Lebanon,” Riza said on X.

An airstrike in the city of Tyre on the same day resulted in the tragic deaths of five siblings from a single family, all of whom had special needs, according to his statement.

He added that in the last week, Israeli airstrikes have killed at least 241 individuals and left 642 others injured in Lebanon, as reported by the Ministry of Health.

“In the past month, more than 185,000 people have fled their homes in their search for safety within the country, bringing the total to over 870,000 people internally displaced,” Riza said

The UN official highlighted that numerous individuals, including the elderly and those with health issues, are staying behind while witnessing the ruins of their ancestral homes.

He urged for the swift safeguarding of civilian people and infrastructure, emphasizing the necessity to uphold international humanitarian law and end the ongoing violence.

Lebanon’s National News Agency reported that Israeli forces bombed a house in the town of Maydoun in Bekaa on Monday night, killing three people and destroying the house.

Earlier, Israel bombed the northern town of Ain Yaaqoub, killing at least 14 people.

The killings came as Israeli military continued to pound Lebanon, bombing shops selling electrical appliances in the southern city of Tyre and carrying out air raids on the towns of Shamshtar in eastern Baalbek and Roumine in southern Nabatieh.

Lebanon’s Ministry of Health said Israeli attacks killed at least 54 people across the country on Monday.

Israel’s merciless attacks continue despite calls from the UN Security Council for an immediate ceasefire and directives from the International Court of Justice urging measures to prevent genocide and alleviate the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza and Lebanon.

In Lebanon, at least 3,243 people have been killed and 14,134 others wounded in Israeli attacks since the war on Gaza began on October 7, 2023.

The Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah opened a support front for Palestinians in Gaza only a day after the Israeli regime unleashed its genocidal war on the besieged territory.

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News Network
November 4,2024

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Hundreds of Israeli settlers conducted a brutal attack in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah.

The settlers set fire to numerous homes and vehicles of Palestinians and then moved to the main road connecting Ramallah to other cities, targeting Palestinian cars passing by.

They stormed the city of al-Bireh, near Ramallah, and burned Palestinian property and vehicles.

A woman sustained injuries after the settlers hurled stones at her vehicle, according to Palestinian news outlets.

Tension has been running high across the West Bank because of Israel’s genocidal war in the Gaza Strip, which has killed at least 43,341 people, mostly women and children, since last year’s October.

The Monday settler attack came as the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas warned of Israel’s plans to annex the West Bank and drive Palestinians out.

“We warn of the grave danger posed by the plans led by the extremist occupation regime and illegal settler groups to displace the residents of Palestinian villages in the occupied West Bank,” Hamas official Mahmoud Mardawi said.

Israel's far-right minister Bezalel Smotrich called for the full annexation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip last week.

Smotrich asserted that Israel should unequivocally declare there would be no Palestinian state.

He repeated his proposal of expanding Israeli settlements within the West Bank and other occupied territories.

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News Network
November 10,2024

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The media office in the Gaza Strip, where the Israeli regime has been waging a genocidal war since last October, says as many as 188 Palestinian journalists have been killed since the onset of the brutal military onslaught.

The office provided the figure on Saturday, naming four journalists as the most recent victims of the onslaught.

It identified the foursome as Zahraa Mohammad Abu Sukheil, Ahmad Mohammad Abu Sukheil, Mustafa Khadr Bahar, and Abdel Rahman Khadr Bahar.

The office said it “strongly condemns the targeting, killing, and assassination of Palestinian journalists by the Israeli occupation and holds it fully responsible for committing this heinous crime.”

“We call on the international community, international organizations, and those involved in journalistic work worldwide to take action against the occupation, pursue it in international courts for its ongoing crimes, and pressure it to halt the genocide and the targeted killings of Palestinian journalists,” it said.

Earlier in the day, the office said the Israeli regime had bombed the tents sheltering journalists and displaced persons at the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Hospital in the city of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza for the ninth consecutive time.

The atrocity that claimed the lives of two people and injured 26 others came as part of “the genocidal crimes committed by the Israeli occupation army against hospitals, civilians, and displaced persons,” it said.

The media office held the regime and the United States, its biggest ally, as well as other countries aiding the genocide fully responsible for such systematic crimes.

At least 43,552 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed and 102,765 others wounded since the launch of the war that followed a retaliatory operation by Gaza’s resistance groups.

The fatalities include 44 people, who were killed across the coastal sliver, in the most recent phase of the military onslaught.

As many as 24 of the victims were killed in the northern part of the territory, where the regime has markedly intensified its deadly attacks for weeks.

They included an eight-year-old child and a five-year-old one, who lost their lives after Israeli warplanes targeted a group of minors filling up jerry cans with water alongside their mother at the Jabalia Refugee camp.

Gaza’s heath ministry, meanwhile, said a number of victims remained under the rubble and in the streets following Israeli airstrikes, saying ambulances and civil defense teams could not reach them due to the sheer extent of the destruction caused by the raids and obstruction caused by the regime.

Also on Saturday, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report, a United Nations-backed assessment, warned that famine was looming in northern Gaza amid escalated Israeli aggression and the regime’s near-total siege of the targeted areas.

The alert from the Famine Review Committee warned of "an imminent and substantial likelihood of famine occurring, due to the rapidly deteriorating situation in the Gaza Strip."

On October 17, the body projected that the number of people in Gaza facing "catastrophic" food insecurity between November and April 2025 would reach 345,000, or 16 percent of the population.

The IPC report classified that figure as Phase 5 -- a situation when "starvation, death, destitution, and extremely critical acute malnutrition levels are evident."

The Israeli military, however, questioned the report's credibility.

"To date, all assessments by the IPC have proven incorrect and inconsistent with the situation on the ground," the army said in a statement, denouncing "partial, biased data and superficial sources with vested interests."

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