THURSDAY, JUNE 28, 2012
@alwatandaily
Issue No. 1473
12 PAGES
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150 Fils with IHT
Majority Bloc seeks ‘gentleman agreement’ with PM Opposition to refrain from submitting motions in return for constitutional amendments
Staff Writers and Agencies
KUWAIT: While parliamentary circles are eagerly anticipating the acceptance of the Cabinet’s resignation and the issuing of a decree for the reappointment of His Highness Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah as Prime Minister, sources close to the Majority Bloc disclosed that the bloc is poised to seek a “gentleman agreement” with the premier. The deal is reportedly aimed at backing the prime minister’s new Cabinet and putting an end to further motions to question ministers. In exchange, the bloc would expect the government to support its plans to introduce amendments to the Constitution as well as the Parliament’s Internal Charter and the Constitutional Court’s Law. Sources have further revealed that the Majority Bloc conveyed a message to the government that it would be flexible over deferring the dissolution of the 2009 Parliament for a few weeks so that parlia-
mentary elections are not held in the sweltering summer season. In return, the bloc wants assurances that the 2009 assembly would be disbanded and would not hold sessions. In a related vein, the Cabinet is reportedly facing difficulties in finding an MP to join the new Cabinet, after a number of lawmakers in the 2009 assembly turned down the offer of being included in the lineup. Some are said to have set conditions that they would stay in Cabinet beyond the elections, hence they will not have to run for Parliament, while securing their ministerial position. For his part, National Assembly Speaker Jassem Mohammad AlKharafi confirmed that His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah is the only one who has the constitutional right to take the proper decision to keep the parliament or to dissolve it. In a press statement made at the Parliament Wednesday, Al-Kharafi said that he is currently staying in Kuwait because of the ruling issued by the Con-
Al-Hajraf approves exam results with high success rates for public, private schools
KUWAIT: Minister of Education and Minister of Higher Education and Acting Minister of Finance Dr. Nayef Al-Hajraf approved Wednesday the high school exams’ results (Arts & Science) and the results of Religious Institute exams 2011-2012. In a press conference on this occasion and honoring the outstanding students, Al-Hajraf said that success percentage in government education reached 94.6 percent and reached 94.4 percent in private education. Success percentage in Arts section in government schools reached 90.6 percent and reached 83.5 percent in private schools. The number of students who passed exams in Science section in public schools reached 10,329 students while the number reached 8,992 students in More on 2 Arts section.
Hundred dead, 250,000 stranded in Bangladesh floods
stitutional Court “to take the procedures to enforce the court ruling”, stressing belief in the state of institutions and appreciation to the judicial authority. Al-Kharafi said that there are procedures to be taken to enforce the court ruling adding, “The government made the first step by submitting its resignation to His Highness the Amir”, adding that he is waiting for the decision of His Highness the Amir to accept the resignation and to assign a prime minister to form the coming government. When asked about the next step after the formation of a government, Al-Kharafi said that the next step is “to hold a session by parliament and inviting the prime minister and ministers to take oath before the parliament”. He added, “In case of lack of quorum, I will suspend the session and call for holding another session. If the lack of quorum continues, I will refer the issue to His Highness the Amir to take the proper decision.” CONTINUED ON PAGE 2
Clinton to attend Geneva talks on Syria Saturday
National Assembly Speaker Jassem Mohammad Al-Kharafi giving a speech at the Parliament on Wednesday, June 27, 2012. (Al Watan)
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Saudi passenger train derails, 34 hurt RIYADH: At least 34 people were injured Wednesday, two of them in critical condition, when a Saudi passenger train derailed east of the capital, a railway official and a medical source said. The accident occurred east of Riyadh as the train was heading to the capital from the eastern city of Dammam, they said. Hamad Abdel Qader, deputy chief of operations at the Saudi Railways Organization, told AFP that the train derailed “100 kilometers (62 miles) east of Riyadh.” A company statement put the location of the accident at 70 kilometers (43 miles) away from Riyadh – in almost the same location where another passenger train derailed two years ago. The train was carrying 332 passengers and an investigation is underway to determine the cause of the accident.
There were “no deaths in the accident ... but several” people were wounded, including one man who was evacuated to Riyadh for medical treatment, said Abdel Qader. In all 34 passengers were wounded, two of them in critical condition, according to Saad bin Misfer Al-Qahtani, a Riyadh health official quoted by the staterun SPA news agency. The train was travelling along Saudi Arabia’s only passenger rail link, some 400 kilometers (250 miles) long, that connects Riyadh and Dammam, a coastal city in the vast desert kingdom’s oil-rich Eastern province. Almost two years ago to the day - on June 26, 2010 - a passenger train also derailed 70 kilometers east of Riyadh but only its driver and his assistant were wounded. -AFP
Myanmar vows action on child soldiers, says UN
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Queen Elizabeth shakes hands with ex-IRA chief
Bangladeshi fire fighters search for bodies after a landslide in Chittagong on June 27, 2012. (AFP)
DHAKA: At least 100 people have died and 250,000 left stranded by flash floods and landslides in Bangladesh set off by the heaviest rain in years, police and officials said on Wednesday. The low-lying and densely populated country, which is in its wet season, has been battered by five days of torrential downpours. The deaths took place late on Tuesday and on Wednesday. Most were caused by landslides, others by wall collapses, lightning strikes and surges of floodwater. Army, police and fire brigade personnel were helping in rescue efforts. Weather officials said more rain was expected over the next few days. Hundreds of homes have been washed away, while authorities have moved many families from shanty housing and told others to leave quickly. At least 23 people were killed in and around the southeastern port city of Chittagong, while 36 died in Bandarban in an area known as the Chittagong Hill Tracts. “Several more people are feared trapped in hillside homes buried under heaps of mud. Rescue operations are continuing,” Chittagong Deputy Commissioner Faiz Ahmed said. A further 38 died in the coastal district of Cox’s Bazar near the Myanmar border, officials and police said. Officials in the affected areas said about 100 people were missing, many swept away by floodwater, and about 200 injured. -Reuters
Salman Rushdie fatwa turned into Iranian video game
LONDON: Salman Rushdie was the target of a notorious fatwa issued by Ayatollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic republic of Iran, 23 years ago. Now, the author of The Satanic Verses is the subject of an Iranian computer game aimed at spreading to the next generation the message about his “sin”, reports The Guardian. The Stressful Life of Salman Rushdie and Implementation of his Verdict is the title of the game being developed by the Islamic Association of Students, a government-sponsored organization which announced this week it had completed initial phases of production. News of the computer game came as Tehran on Tuesday played host to the country’s second International Computer
Games Expo. “The organizers considered the event as an opportunity to introduce Iranian culture, value and Islamic identity, and also a way to present Iranian products to international computer games designers and producers,” the English-language state television channel, Press TV, reported on its website. Three years ago, the student association and Iran’s national foundation of computer games asked students across the country to submit scripts for the game and the top three were handed over to video developers. But development of the game was delayed. The director of the students association, Ahmad Khalili, told the Fars news agency that production of the game was under way despite technical More on 9 difficulties.
BELFAST: Britain’s Queen Elizabeth shook the hand of former IRA guerrilla commander Martin McGuinness for the first time on Wednesday, drawing a line under a conflict that cost the lives of thousands of soldiers and civilians, including that of her cousin. The meeting with McGuinness, who is now the deputy first minister of Northern Ireland, comes 14 years after the Irish Republican Army ended its war against British rule in the province, and is one of the last big milestones in a peace process whose success has been studied around the world. The queen met McGuinness, Northern Ireland’s Unionist first minister Peter Robinson and Irish President Michael D.Higgins for just under 10 minutes behind closed doors in a theatre in a leafy suburb of Belfast cordoned off by hundreds of police. McGuinness shook the hand of the queen a second time as she
left the theatre, this time in front of television cameras, but unlike other guests chose not to bow his head. The queen’s bright green outfit appeared to have been chosen with Ireland’s national color in mind, and McGuinness wished a smiling monarch well in Irish, saying “Slan agus beannacht”, which he told her means “Goodbye and god speed”. There has been scattered opposition to the gesture of reconciliation from dissident Irish militants and from some of the IRA’s victims. But the vast majority of the province’s politicians backed the meeting, the first between the queen and a top member of the IRA or its former political wing, Sinn Fein. “Today is a huge event and it is, in a sense, the ultimate handshake,” John Reid, British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland from 2001 to 2002, told More on 5 the BBC.
Spain 4
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Portugal 2
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Germany vs Italy
Kuwait inflation slows to 25-month low of 2.8%
DUBAI: Kuwait’s annual inflation rate eased to a 25-month low of 2.8 percent in May and prices edged down slightly from the previous month, mainly because of cheaper food, state news agency KUNA reported on Wednesday. Inflation in the major oil exporter has been slowing gradually. It hit 3.3 percent in April, down from a peak of 5.4 percent in May 2011. Consumer prices fell 0.1 percent month-on-month in May, compared to a 0.6 percent drop in April, KUNA said, citing data from the Central Statistics Office. “The low inflation reading is testament to a weak demand climate and anaemic credit growth,” said Liz Martins, senior regional economist at HSBC in Dubai. “Even with the salary hikes we have seen in recent months, we don’t expect a major pick-up in the short- to medium term.” Around 3,000 Kuwaiti customs workers went on a week-long strike for higher pay in March, disrupting port traffic, while employees at national carrier Kuwait Airways grounded planes for three days during a walkout. The civil service commission eventually agreed to wage rises of 25 to 30 percent for public sector employees, and proposed increases of up to 330 dinars ($1,190) per More on 6 month for Kuwaiti private sector workers.
Arctic sea-ice levels at record low for June
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Gabon burns five tons of ivory LIBREVILLE: Gabonese President Ali Bongo on Wednesday set fire to five tons of ivory worth around 10 million euros (14 million US dollars) to mark his government’s commitment to battling poachers and saving elephants. The pyre that was kindled in the capital Libreville represented the west African nation’s entire government stockpile and would have required the killing of some 850 elephants. “Gabon has a policy of zero tolerance for wildlife crime and we are putting in place the institutions and laws to ensure this policy is enforced,” Bongo said. “We don’t want our children to inherit an empty forest. For that reason, we cannot allow this trafficking to continue,” he said.’ The spectacular burning of ivory tusks and carvings at Cite de la Democratie, a vast complex for hosting state functions, was welcomed by conservationists at a time when elephant poaching in central Africa is reaching record levels. The stock destroyed Wednesday amounted to 4,825 kilograms, including 1,293 pieces of rough ivory mainly composed of tusks and 17,730 pieces of worked ivory, according to the WWF nature protection organization. “We believe this is a strong signal of intent by Gabon against poaching and illegal wildlife trade – at a time of intense poaching pressure in central Africa, where the illegal killing of elephants for ivory is at record levels,” the WWF said. -AFP
Turkish Cypriot protesters hold signs in front of the European Commission headquarters in Brussels June 27, 2012. The protesters were dressed in white to show their anger at not being represented in Cyprus’ presidency of the European Council, starting July 1, 2012. (Reuters)