沙特王储苏尔坦因病去世

Right now, a plan is underway in Saudi Arabia to make sure that there is a prayer service that happens on Tuesday. This will happen at a mosque in Riyadh. Mourners from across the country will be able to attend to pray for the late Crown Prince. This is much an accordance with the burial rituals that happened that proceeded with other Saudi leaders, including the late King Fahd, when he passed away in 2005. It's a very similar scenario, people came out to this mosque in Riyadh. And before they pledged their allegiance to the new king King Abdullah I, they prayed for the late King Fahd and afterwards expecting in a couple of days, there will be prayers, mass services for the late Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdul-Aziz, John.

And the question now is who will become the next Crown Prince? The speculation and the expectation is, it will be Prince Nayef in his late 70s. And very conservative, that could have quite an impact on the kingdom.

That's right, John. This is the key question right now. For a while now, people have known as this internal power struggle that's been going on in Saudi Arabia, the royal court, you have the King who seen as a progressive, who seen as a cautious reformer in Saudi Arabia, and then you have on the other side of that, the ideological spectrum, across that divide, a prince Nayef. Prince Nayef has been the interior minister of Saudi Arabia since the 80s. He's very powerful. He seems to be very conservative. He's known to have ties with the clerical establishment, the religious police.

And somebody that progressive in Saudi Arabia really fear. Now while they would seem that Prince Nayef, histological next choice to be the next Crown Prince, that he is, as is now, his second deputy Premier, the second deputy Prime Minister in Saudi Arabia, it's not yet clear if he will actually become the next Crown Prince. There is an allegiance council in Saudi Arabia, this is part of the royal court, just a few members of the royal family that the king set up in 2007 as part of his reform packages in Saudi Arabia. And it is up to this council to try to answer any succession questions in the years to come.

This was set up in part because so many of the leaders in Saudi Arabia are so old. Saudi King is said to be around 86, the Crown Prince was said, said to have been around 82. And Prince Nayef, who's the Interior Minister is thought to be around 76, 77. So this council was set up in order to try to choose in what would be considered, in Saudi standards, a little bit more of a populist democratic fashion, who the next monarch would be or the next Crown Prince would be. But this is all done in, very much in secret, not a lot known about the council who exactly the members are. And it's still unclear if Prince Nayef, even though many people think that he does want to be king one day and he does want to become Crown Prince, if he actually will get the nod to become the next Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia and what that will mean for the country.