Saudi Arabia's crown prince says the anti-corruption drive launched late last year is the "shock therapy" his kingdom needs to root out widespread graft.
"You have a body that has cancer everywhere, the cancer of corruption. You need to have chemo, the shock of chemo, or the cancer will eat the body," Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told the Washington Post in an interview published Tuesday night.
"The kingdom couldn't meet budget targets without halting this looting," he said.
In the latest move for change, a dramatic shake-up announced in royal decrees late on Monday saw top brass, including the chief of staff and heads of the ground forces and air defence replaced and a broad defence reform plan approved. The government bureaucracy is also to be overhauled.
The crown prince said the shake-up announced by his aging father, King Salman, was aimed at installing "high energy" people who could achieve modernisation targets. "We want to work with believers," the crown prince told the US paper.
The changing of the military guard came just a month shy of the third anniversary of the launch of a Saudi-led coalition to fight Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.
Prince Mohammed has been the main driver of the kingdom's more aggressive regional push since he took over as defence minister in early 2015.
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MATCH INFO
Barcelona 2
Suarez (10'), Messi (52')
Real Madrid 2
Ronaldo (14'), Bale (72')
The figures behind the event
1) More than 300 in-house cleaning crew
2) 165 staff assigned to sanitise public areas throughout the show
3) 1,000+ social distancing stickers
4) 809 hand sanitiser dispensers placed throughout the venue
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: SmartCrowd
Started: 2018
Founder: Siddiq Farid and Musfique Ahmed
Based: Dubai
Sector: FinTech / PropTech
Initial investment: $650,000
Current number of staff: 35
Investment stage: Series A
Investors: Various institutional investors and notable angel investors (500 MENA, Shurooq, Mada, Seedstar, Tricap)
Kill Bill Volume 1
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Stars: Uma Thurman, David Carradine and Michael Madsen
Rating: 4.5/5
Glossary of a stock market revolution
Reddit
A discussion website
Redditor
The users of Reddit
Robinhood
A smartphone app for buying and selling shares
Short seller
Selling a stock today in the belief its price will fall in the future
Short squeeze
Traders forced to buy a stock they are shorting
Naked short
An illegal practice
In 2018, the ICRC received 27,756 trace requests in the Middle East alone. The global total was 45,507.
There are 139,018 global trace requests that have not been resolved yet, 55,672 of these are in the Middle East region.
More than 540,000 individuals approached the ICRC in the Middle East asking to be reunited with missing loved ones in 2018.
The total figure for the entire world was 654,000 in 2018.
Honeymoonish
Director: Elie El Samaan
Starring: Nour Al Ghandour, Mahmoud Boushahri
Rating: 3/5
SPECS: Polestar 3
Engine: Long-range dual motor with 400V battery
Power: 360kW / 483bhp
Torque: 840Nm
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Max touring range: 628km
0-100km/h: 4.7sec
Top speed: 210kph
Price: From Dh360,000
On sale: September
SPECS
Engine: 1.5-litre turbo
Power: 181hp
Torque: 230Nm
Transmission: 6-speed automatic
Starting price: Dh79,000
On sale: Now
MATCH INFO
UAE Division 1
Abu Dhabi Harlequins 12-24 Abu Dhabi Saracens
Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver review
Director: Zack Snyder
Starring: Sofia Boutella, Charlie Hunnam, Ed Skrein, Sir Anthony Hopkins
Rating: 2/5
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Floward
Based: Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Founders: Abdulaziz Al Loughani and Mohamed Al Arifi
Sector: E-commerce
Total funding: About $200 million
Investors: Aljazira Capital, Rainwater Partners, STV and Impact46
Number of employees: 1,200
Blonde
Director: Andrew Dominik
Stars: Ana de Armas, Adrien Brody, Bobby Cannavale
Rating: 3/5
THE DETAILS
Deadpool 2
Dir: David Leitch
Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Josh Brolin, Justin Dennison, Zazie Beetz
Four stars
HAEMOGLOBIN DISORDERS EXPLAINED
Thalassaemia is part of a family of genetic conditions affecting the blood known as haemoglobin disorders.
Haemoglobin is a substance in the red blood cells that carries oxygen and a lack of it triggers anemia, leaving patients very weak, short of breath and pale.
The most severe type of the condition is typically inherited when both parents are carriers. Those patients often require regular blood transfusions - about 450 of the UAE's 2,000 thalassaemia patients - though frequent transfusions can lead to too much iron in the body and heart and liver problems.
The condition mainly affects people of Mediterranean, South Asian, South-East Asian and Middle Eastern origin. Saudi Arabia recorded 45,892 cases of carriers between 2004 and 2014.
A World Health Organisation study estimated that globally there are at least 950,000 'new carrier couples' every year and annually there are 1.33 million at-risk pregnancies.
DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE
Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Hugh Jackman, Emma Corrin
Director: Shawn Levy
Rating: 3/5
