The Cabinet on Monday approved the restructuring of the Military Service Council (MSC) under the chairmanship of the Prime Minister, the King. The MSC deputy chairman will be the Deputy Prime Minister and Defense and Aviation Minster. The Second Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior, Foreign Minster, Chief of General Intelligence, General Secretary of the National Security Council, and Finance Minister will serve as MSC members. King Abdullah, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, briefed the Cabinet on his consultations and meetings in the past week with world leaders, including King Abdullah 11 of Jordan last Wednesday in Al-Khobar, and the messages he received from Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, Bahraini King Hamad Bin Issa Al-Khalifa and Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi. The Cabinet was also briefed on the King's meetings with Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith and US President Barack Obama's special envoy to the Gulf and Southwestern Asia. Abdul Aziz Khoja, Minister of Information and Culture, said the Cabinet noted that the huge projects launched by the King last week in the Eastern Province reflect the strength of the Saudi economy and offer concrete evidence of the Kingdom's ability to deal with the global economic crisis. The Cabinet also heard a report from the Minister of Health on the precautionary measures taken to protect citizens and residents against the AH1N1 swine flu and the ministry's convening of the Gulf Health Ministers' Conference next Saturday in Riyadh. World Health Organization (WHO) experts will attend the conference to study ways to step up the preventive measures.
