Saudi Arabia

The 69-year-old Greek man who contracted the potentially fatal Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) while working in Saudi Arabia remains in a critical condition in an Athens hospital almost three weeks after being admitted for treatment.

By Dimitra Manifava

Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz al Saud, the owner and chief executive of Kingdom Holding Company (KHC), expressed the Four Seasons luxury hotel chain’s strong interest in the Astir Palace Resort in southern Athens during a meeting on Monday at Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras’s office.

A Greek man who returned to Athens from the Persian Gulf tested negative for the rare and deadly respiratory disease MERS, which has killed dozens of people in Saudi Arabia.

The 70-year-old was being treated in a negative pressure room at Sotiria Hospital in Athens.

A 69-year-old Greek man who has been in the intensive-care unit of Athens’s Sotiria hospital since he tested positive for the potentially fatal MERS virus on his arrival in the Greek capital from Saudi Arabia last week was in a critical but stable condition on Tuesday night, doctors said, as health authorities remained on high alert to stop the virus from spreading.

World military expenditure totalled USD 1.75T in 2013, a fall of 1.9% since 2012, according to figures released by Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).