Saudi Arabia

At least 11 people were killed and 219 injured in Saudi Arabia on Aug. 30 when a fire broke out at a residential complex housing employees of oil giant Saudi Aramco, authorities said.

Saudi Arabia on Aug. 26 executed three of its citizens for murder and a Syrian convicted of drugs smuggling, a day after Amnesty International urged a moratorium on rising executions in the conservative kingdom.

Saudi Arabia has executed at least 175 people over the past 12 months, on average one person every two days, according to a report released Aug. 25 by Amnesty International.

"No one can set the price of oil. It's up to Allah," said Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi in May. But less devout people believe that Saudi Arabia has been trying very hard to set the price of oil - and to set it low. Moreover, it has been remarkably successful, because last week the price of oil was in the mid $40s per barrel, down from just over $100 last May.

MERS coronavirus infections have soared in Saudi Arabia ahead of the hajj pilgrimage, killing three people and forcing a Riyadh hospital to close its emergency ward, officials and newspapers said on Aug. 20. 

A Saudi medical official says authorities have temporarily closed an emergency ward in one of the kingdom's largest hospitals after at least 46 people, including hospital staff, contracted the potentially fatal Middle East respiratory syndrome, also known as MERS.
     

In 2014 global defense spending increased for a sixth year in a row, according to a study by business analyst firm IHS. Defense trade rose by 13.4 per cent to 64.4bln US dollars. These are the countries the imported the most weapons and those that exported the most. The US tops the exporters of military equipment, followed by Russia.

The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing in a Saudi Arabian mosque that killed at least 15 people, international newswires reported.

Seventeen people were killed in a suicide bombing in a mosque in the town of Abha in southwestern Saudi Arabia on Thursday, international newswires reported, citing a local TV channel.

The Saudi interior ministry has confirmed the attack but put the death toll at "more than 13" people, according to AFP.

A suicide bomb attack inside a mosque in a local security forces headquarters in Abha city in south-west Saudi Arabia killed 13 people and wounded nine on Aug. 6, the Saudi state news agency reported, citing an interior ministry spokesman.

State television had earlier reported a death toll of 17.