SUNDAY, MARCH 25, 2012
@alwatandaily
Issue No. 1384
16 PAGES
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Parliament ‘temporarily’ accepts government pay raise Wage increments for civil servants, retirees temporarily accepted by MPs
Mohammed Al-Salman, Mohammed Al-Khaldi, Osama Al-Qatari and Ahmed Al-Shemmari Staff Writers
KUWAIT: The majority of MPs are likely to temporarily accept the wage increments that have been recently made by the Civil Service Commission for civil servants and retirees, to avoid further delays. Reportedly, the lawmakers will, afterwards, make fresh demands for the wages to be raised after the necessary studies are completed. In the same vein, it has been gathered that the joint parliamentary committee, which is tasked with studying special allowances and salaries, will hold its first meeting tomorrow (Monday). The committee is expected to outline a comprehensive vision concerning the discrepancies in special allowances and bonuses. It will also ask the government to provide information about State reserves and budget surplus particularly since the Civil Service Commission only gave figures about wage increases without submitting a compressive study about the framework through which the increases were made. The sources affirmed that there is a likelihood of redefining
all jobs in order to raise salaries for intermediate certificate holders. According to reports, the government will turn to consultative firms in this regard, with sources expecting that the studies will cost from five to eight million Kuwaiti dinars. The study is due to last between four to six months. Parliamentary sources spoke of mounting pressures on MPs to finalize wage increases. In the same vein, MP Hamad Al-Mattar asserted that the recent increments are completely unacceptable because they do not achieve justice or equality. “As a result, we are back to square one as far as this issue is concerned. If the government refuses to consider my proposal, then the Parliament needs to play a role,” the MP was quoted as saying. Referring to the layoffs from the private sector, Al-Mattar accused the government of merely coming up with figures rather than presenting a clearcut vision. A member on the Parliament’s Budget Committee has cast doubt on the figures offered by the government. According to the MP, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, the figures seek to scare lawmakers and citizens of a collapse of budge structure due to salaries. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2
Kuwait apologizes to Kazakhstan over anthem
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Deadly clashes in Egypt after soccer club banned
Pigeons fly over an installation of clocks by French artist Arman on March 24, 2012 in Paris. Europe moves to summer time at 0100 GMT on March 25 when clocks go forward an hour. (AFP)
PORT SAID: One person was shot dead and 18 injured when angry soccer fans clashed with security forces in Egypt’s Port Said after their club was banned over the country’s worst stadium disaster, a medical source said on Saturday. The Egyptian Football Association (EFA) banned the club, Al-Masry, for two seasons for a pitch invasion that killed 74 fans last month, the most deadly incident since the protests that toppled President Hosni Mubarak last year. The EFA ordered Port Said Stadium, where the stampede took place after Al-Masry beat Cairo’s Al Ahli, to be closed for three years. Military police fired shots in the air to disperse hundreds of soccer fans protesting outside the Suez Canal Authority building in Port Said, witnesses said. The clashes began late on Friday and continued into the early hours of Saturday. “Hundreds of angry fans clashed with military police after the decision was announced,” one witness said. “One was shot dead, in the back, and 18 were injured in the clashes, two of them are suffering gunshot wounds,” the medical source said. Port Said harbor was closed on Saturday morning because of the protests and ships using the Suez Canal were directed to a secondary route east of the city, sources at the Suez Canal Authority More on 4 and Port Said harbor said.
North Korea to hold first parliament session under new leader
SEOUL: North Korea said on Saturday it will hold an annual parliamentary session next month during which the reclusive country’s new young leader, Kim Jong-un, is expected to be appointed officially to top posts of the state. The announcement by the North’s state news agency that the session will be on April 13 came as concern grew over a decision by the North to launch a rocket next month marking the centenary of founder Kim Il-sung’s birth. The rocket launch, which the United States and other countries say is the same as a ballistic missile test, which is banned under UN resolutions, could coincide with the promotion of the young Kim to the top posts. Even China, North Korea’s main ally, has expressed its worry over the rocket launch, scheduled for between April 12 and April 16, and has urged the North to “stay calm and exercise restraint and avoid escalation”. The secretive North has twice tested a nuclear device, but experts doubt whether it yet has the ability to miniaturize an atomic bomb to fit inside a warhead. Many North Korea watchers expect the junior Kim, who is in his late 20s, to be apMore on 5 pointed at the assembly to the posts his late father, Kim Jong-il, held.
Egyptian protesters gather opposite riot policemen (right) during a demonstration outside the Cairo convention centre against potential Islamist influence on Egypt’s post-revolution constitution on March 24, 2012. Egypt’s Islamist-dominated parliament and senate began meeting to elect a panel to draft a new constitution amid calls by liberal groups for protests against Islamist influence over the charter. (AFP)
African Union launches US-backed force to hunt Kony
JUBA: The African Union (AU), backed by the United States, has put together a 5,000-strong military force to hunt down fugitive warlord Joseph Kony, whose profile has shot up following a celebrity-backed campaign against him. Kony, accused of terrorizing northern Uganda for two decades, is wanted by the International Criminal court for war crimes. He is accused of leading a group that abducted children to use as fighters and sex slaves and hacked off living victims’ limbs as a method of intimidation and revenge. A video about Kony posted on YouTube by a California filmmaker has been viewed by tens of millions of people, promoted on Twitter with the hashtag #Kony2012 and endorsed by major Hollywood celebrities. The AU force aims to coordinate soldiers already hunting for Kony from South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Central African Republic (CAR) and Uganda with logistical and intelligence help from Washington. In October, US President Barack Obama said he was sending 100 military advisers to the four countries involved in the new
Facebook takes steps to address privacy concerns
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Greece’s deputy prime minister retiring
ATHENS: Greece’s deputy prime minister, who made headlines by saying that ordinary citizens are just as responsible as politicians for his nation’s economic crisis, announced Saturday that he will not seek re-election. An early election is expected in May, and Theodoros Pangalos, 73, a veteran socialist lawmaker, told state TV channel NET he won’t compete in it. He also predicted that his party and the conservative New Democracy, which leads in opinion polls, will both fail to win an outright majority. True to form, the outspoken Pangalos said he does not think the two coalition partners - his socialists and the conservatives - will be able to continue ruling together to pull Greece out of its worst economic crisis in several decades. “The two biggest parties are proving that they cannot govern together, even if a large portion of the decisions they will have to make is prescribed” by the two loan agreements Greece has signed with the European Union and the International Monetary Fund, Pangalos said. Asked if the politicians whose policies nearly bankrupted the country will manage to take it out of its current predicament, Pangalos said: “Of course not. That’s why I am retiring.” Widely known as a brilliant but mercurial man, who clashed with political friends as well as opponents, Pangalos became a lightning rod for disaffected Greeks who have tended to blame politicians for all their woes during the past two years. “We devoured (the money) together,” he had said when the extent of the crisis became apparent, meaning that ordinary citizens as well as politicians were to blame for the profligate state and that many had profited from widespread corruption. His words caused a huge outcry and are still used against him and politicians in general. Pangalos, who is tall and overweight, has been verbally and physically attacked, with critics throwing yogurt at him in public. -AP
Device created to prevent baby theft or switches
People take part in a flash mob event organized by the “Alliance VITA” association as part of their tour of France in solidarity with elderly people and against euthanasia on March 24, 2012 in front of the Eiffel tower in Paris. Events take place in 50 French cities from March 5 to May 4, 2012. The placards read “To care is not to kill”. (AFP)
AU force. “The Americans are playing a pivotal role in some aspects,” AU special envoy Francisco Madeira said on Saturday. “They support us militarily, they support us with equipment, they support us with military advice, they support us even with intelligence and training,” he told reporters at its launch ceremony in the South Sudanese capital Juba. He gave no details on the troops’ strategy. The force will be headquartered in Yambio in South Sudan near the border to the DRC. Units will be also based in Dungu in the DRC and Obo in the CAR, officials said. UN Central Africa envoy Abou Moussa said the force had to capitalize on the high level of global pressure on Kony. “We need to take advantage of the high level of interest, goodwill and political commitment to finally put an end to this crime.” LRA violence in the region has subsided since 2005 when the LRA was ejected from Uganda and now Kony is believed to command only hundreds of followers, scattered in jungle hideouts. -Reuters
MADRID: Recent reports about newborns who were switched by mistake at the hospital and sent home with the wrong mother or babies who were outright stolen from their mothers during the dictatorship of General Francisco Franco have shocked Spain and prompted activists to demand that their cases to be clarified. That is why the Spanish firm ICN Technologies has created an identification and monitoring system for babies which
company chairman Carlos Herreros said would make changing or stealing babies impossible. Herreros became obsessed with the idea of baby safety when his first daughter was born. When he returned to the hospital after an initial visit with his newborn he found his child was wearing different garments from the ones hospital workers had dressed her in initially and her identification band was on a different leg. More on 11
Star Wars Stormtroopers pose for photographers in a queue at Legoland in Windsor west of London on March 24, 2012, to mark the launch of the new Star Wars Miniland Experience. (AFP)
Lawyer says French gunman’s mother is released
PARIS: Authorities investigating France’s deadly shooting rampage have released the mother of the Islamist fanatic blamed for the killings but were questioning his older brother to determine whether he served as an accomplice, officials said Saturday. Police are trying to determine whether 23-year-old Mohamed Merah had any help in carrying out the executionstyle murders of seven people that have shocked France and refocused attention on the threat of radical Muslim terrorists. Police say there is evidence to suggest that his brother worked as an assistant. Merah’s brother, Abdelkader, was flown to Paris for further questioning Saturday, along with his girlfriend, but a lawyer for Merah’s mother, 55-year-old Zoulhika Aziri, said she had been released
without charge. Jean-Yves Gougnaud told reporters in the southern French city of Toulouse that Aziri’s world had been “turned upside down.” “She is devastated,” he told reporters after her release. “At no time could she have imagined that her son was the one who did it.” Aziri was freed late Friday from a police station in Toulouse, a judicial official said on condition of anonymity because the information wasn’t cleared for public release. Mohamed Merah, who claimed allegiance to al-Qaida, died in a hail of gunfire Thursday after a dramatic 32-hour standoff with police at his apartment in Toulouse. At one point, police brought his mother to the scene, but she refused to urge her son to surrender, officials See also 5 said.-AP