Will the new crown prince bring reforms to Saudi Arabia?

Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah has appointed Defense Minister Prince Salman as the country's heir apparent, following the death of Salman's brother on Saturday. 

|
Hassan Ammar/AP
Saudi Arabia has named its defense minister, Prince Salman bin Abdel-Aziz, shown here in this May 2012 photo, as the new crown prince, following the death of Salmans brother, Crown Prince Nayef, on Saturday.

Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah has appointed Defence Minister Prince Salman as crown prince and heir apparent, ensuring a smooth succession at a time of tough challenges for the world's biggest oil exporter.

The appointment, reported on state television, was announced in a royal decree one day after the burial of Crown Prince and Interior Minister Nayef, who died on Saturday.

Crown Prince Salman becomes Abdullah's third heir after the deaths of two elder brothers in the past eight months. He has built a reputation for pragmatism and is seen as likely to continue the king's cautious domestic reforms.

Prince Ahmed bin Abdulaziz, a younger brother of both Salman and Nayef, was named as the new interior minister after spending several decades as deputy interior minister.

The new crown prince will keep the defence portfolio and has been appointed deputy prime minister to King Abdullah, the royal decree said.

Salman, a half-brother of Abdullah, is likely to continue with cautious social and economic reforms as well as Saudi Arabia's moderate oil pricing policy, analysts said before his appointment.

He would also be likely to maintain the kingdom's alliances with Western and Sunni Muslim states, they said.

(Reporting By Angus McDowall; Editing by Sami Aboudi and Angus MacSwan)

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Will the new crown prince bring reforms to Saudi Arabia?
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/2012/0618/Will-the-new-crown-prince-bring-reforms-to-Saudi-Arabia
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe