{"id":21640,"date":"2020-03-23T12:43:04","date_gmt":"2020-03-23T07:13:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kashmir.today\/saudi-arabia-to-impose-curfew-in-madina-mecca-from-evening\/"},"modified":"2020-03-23T12:43:04","modified_gmt":"2020-03-23T07:13:04","slug":"saudi-arabia-to-impose-curfew-in-madina-mecca-from-evening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/?p=21640","title":{"rendered":"Saudi Arabia imposes dusk-to-dawn curfew over coronavirus"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong><em>Saudi Arabia&#8217;s King Salman warned on Thursday of a &#8220;more difficult&#8221; fight ahead against the virus, as the kingdom faces the double blow of virus-led shutdowns and crashing oil prices.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/m.economictimes.com\/news\/international\/world-news\/saudi-arabia-imposes-dusk-to-dawn-curfew-over-coronavirus\/articleshow\/74769496.cms\">Economic Times<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Riyadh:<\/strong> Saudi Arabia&#8217;s King Salman has announced a nationwide dusk-to-dawn curfew from Monday in a bid to limit the spread of the new coronavirus, the latest in a series of restrictions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The curfew &#8212; from 7 pm until 6 am &#8212; will be imposed for 21 days, the official Saudi Press Agency reported, citing a royal order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The move comes after Saudi Arabia on Sunday said the number of COVID-19 cases had jumped to 511, the highest in the Gulf. The kingdom has reported no deaths so far.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Health sector employees as well as security and military officials will be exempt from the curfew restrictions, the royal order said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Saudi Arabia&#8217;s King Salman warned on Thursday of a &#8220;more difficult&#8221; fight ahead against the virus, as the kingdom faces the double blow of virus-led shutdowns and crashing oil prices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Arab world&#8217;s biggest economy has shut down cinemas, malls and restaurants, halted flights and suspended the year-round umrah pilgrimage as it steps up efforts to contain the deadly virus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Last week, the kingdom unveiled stimulus measures amounting to 120 Saudi billion riyals ($32 billion) to support businesses and said it plans to raise borrowing to 50 percent of GDP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Saudi Arabia has also suspended prayers inside all its mosques except the holiest two sites in Islam in Mecca and Medina, a sensitive move in the deeply conservative Muslim kingdom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The world&#8217;s top crude exporter faces plunging oil prices, the mainstay of government revenue, which have slipped to around $25 a barrel to touch multi-year lows on the back of sagging demand due to the virus and a price war with Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>More than 1,300 coronavirus infections have been detected in the Gulf region, with most cases initially identified among travellers returning from Iran which is one of the world&#8217;s worst affected countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><em>(This story has not been edited by Kashmir Today staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Saudi Arabia&#8217;s King Salman warned on Thursday of a &#8220;more difficult&#8221; fight ahead against the virus, as the kingdom faces the double blow of virus-led shutdowns and crashing oil prices. Economic Times Riyadh: Saudi Arabia&#8217;s King Salman has announced a nationwide dusk-to-dawn curfew from Monday in a bid to limit the spread of the new [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21068,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21640\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}