CR IP TI ON BS SU
THURSDAY, MARCH 15, 2012
RABIA ALTHANI 22, 1433 AH
www.kuwaittimes.net
40 PAGES
NO: 15388
150 FILS
Kuwait National & Liberation Days
Kuwait, Iraq reach $500m deal over airline dispute Amir to attend Arab League summit in Baghdad conspiracy theories
Thank God it’s not me By Badrya Darwish
badrya_d@kuwaittimes.net
I
don’t know whether it’s me and the parliament or whether it is the whole nation and the parliament. From the very beginning I expected this kind of parliamentary behaviour but I kept on telling myself: “Be optimistic! There is light at the end of the tunnel.” The way things are going on in this parliament are pathetic. It is the same scenario repeating itself like the previous parliament and the previous parliament and the one before that. How many parliaments were elected and dissolved for the same trivial reasons. If we think seriously about it, of course it is going to be the same because 70 or 80 percent of the previous MPs were re-elected whether from the opposition or the Shiite side with all due respect to both sides. The way I see it: Both sides now are going only after their own agendas and interests. Kuwait’s parliament is turning into a theatre to watch and laugh at. With the latest incident of waving black flags inside parliament and MPs wearing black scarves the next day, it is clear that both sides are working for their own agendas. The parliament was not made for any party to display its own sectarian and tribal issues. It looks like the honorable gentlemen do not know the protocol of parliament and why parliaments are made in the first place. May I remind them that parliaments are there to fight for the rights of people and to be a watchdog for the government and its projects - they are there to oversee that these projects are implemented in the country. This parliament has stalled the country’s development over trivial issues. I do not care if they wear black scarves. All I care about is the development of Kuwait. We demand better streets, infrastructure and electricity. We demand better healthcare and education and an efficient fight against corruption. We want to know where the money of Kuwait is going. We don’t care whether you are Sunni or Shiite. We demand parliamentarians to be loyal to Kuwait and not to foreign agendas and countries. I have asked many of my friends and colleagues. It turns out that it is not me. It is the parliament behaving the same way and everyone is singing to their own tune but nothing for Kuwait, as usual. As long as we think sectarian and tribal, we will never succeed. Have a good day!
MPs set up probes into graft, torture KUWAIT: The National Assembly voted yesterday to set up probes into allegations of corruption, smuggling and torture, the state KUNA news agency reported. Members of the new opposition-dominated parliament agreed to set up two commissions of inquiry into allegations of corruption relating to members of the previous parliament, KUNA said. Former prime minister Sheikh Nasser Mohammad Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah is also accused of having transferred hundreds of millions of dollars of public funds into private accounts he held abroad. A third parliamentary panel will investigate “everything related to smuggling diesel”, while a fourth will probe a controversial contract between the state-owned Kuwait Oil Co and Anglo-Dutch giant Shell, KUNA said. Two other panels will probe alleged “violations” against people held in police custody and the enforcement of broadcasting laws. — AFP (See Page 3)
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KUWAIT: HH the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah meets Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki at Bayan Palace yesterday. — AFP
Max 25º Min 16º High Tide 05:30 & 16:39 Low Tide 10:11 & 23:41
KUWAIT: Kuwait agreed a $500 million deal with Baghdad during a visit by Iraqi Premier Nouri Al-Maliki yesterday, ending a decades-long debt dispute that saw an Iraqi Airways flight impounded in London. The agreement comes amid a two-day trip by Maliki and several of his senior ministers ahead of an Arab League summit in Baghdad at the end of the month, the first to be held in the Iraqi capital since now-executed dictator Saddam Hussein’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Maliki was received on arrival to Kuwait by HH the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah. Iraqi government spokesman Ali Al-Dabbagh said Sheikh Sabah confirmed his attendance of the summit during the meeting, which will be the first such visit by a Kuwaiti ruler since Saddam’s invasion. “An agreement was reached to solve the problem of Iraqi Airways... for $500 million,” Maliki’s spokesman Ali Moussawi told AFP. Under the deal, Iraq will pay Kuwait $300 million in cash and will invest another $200 million in a joint Iraqi-Kuwaiti airline venture, he added. According to Kuwait Airways, Iraq’s flag carrier owes it $1.2 billion as a result of the 1990 invasion. Kuwait says 10 of its planes as well as aircraft parts were plundered after its airport was seized during the invasion. The dispute saw British authorities seize the passport of Iraqi Airways chief executive Kifah Hassan Jabbar and impound the plane which he flew to London in April 2010. The incident marred Iraqi Airways’ first commercial flight from Baghdad to London in 20 years. Continued on Page 13
Saudis to cover oil shortfalls Iran against using oil as ‘political tool’ KUWAIT: Saudi Oil Minister Ali Al-Naimi said yesterday that the oil-rich kingdom stands ready to cover any shortfalls of crude supplies in the market. “As I have noted many times before, Saudi Arabia and others remain poised to make good any shortfalls - perceived or real in crude oil supplies,” he told participants at the 13th International Energy Forum in Kuwait, the largest gathering of oil producing and consuming countries. Iran last month slammed comments made by Naimi in January vowing to pump more oil to cover any shortfalls resulting from new sanctions on Tehran’s exports of crude. Naimi said speculation was the main cause for volatility in oil prices, after New York’s main contract, West Texas Intermediate, hit $110 a barrel on March 1, before easing to around $106 now. “Ultimately, volatility is caused by speculation in the marketplace, based on a conjecture over tighter supply-demand balances in the future, and increased interest in energy commodities as an asset class for financial investors,” he said. “It is this emphasis on ‘paper barrels’, rather than actual cargos, which creates problems,” he added. Naimi acknowledged that other factors have an impact on prices, namely “misinformation about peak oil, unsubstantiated concerns about production capacity,” as well as “global events” and the “often sensational reporting of such events”. But Iran’s oil minister Rostam Qasemi yesterday slammed the use of the vital commodity as a political tool by “big countries” against producers, warning sanctions will jeopardise supplies. “Unfortunately, some big countries who are among the major energy consumers view oil as one of the basic constituents in their military, security and political strategies, and use it as a political tool against oil producing countries,” he told forum. “Exerting unilateral economic constraints... is a threat which jeopardises free trade and the continuity of oil supply in the world,” he said, in clear reference to Western sanctions on Iranian oil exports over its controversial nuclear program. Qasemi’s comments came as the International Energy Agency forecast yesterday that Iranian oil exports will fall by 800,000 barrels per day after mid 2012. The IEA said Iran’s exports would decline to around one million bpd, while global demand for oil grows by 800,000 bpd to 89.9 million bpd. “Ultimately, all concerned groups in the oil market, including Continued on Page 13
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SIERRE, Switzerland: A rescue worker looks at bloodstains on the wreckage of a tourist bus from Belgium as it is dragged by a tow truck outside the tunnel of the motorway A9 early yesterday. — AP
28 killed in school bus crash in Switzerland SION, Switzerland: Distraught families of victims of a horrific school bus crash in a Swiss Alpine tunnel that killed 28 people flew to the scene yesterday, still unaware if their children were alive or dead. The coach bringing 46 children and four teachers back to Belgium from a skiing holiday hit a concrete wall late Tuesday in the motorway tunnel near the town of Sierre. A total of 22 children from two Catholic primary schools were killed, along with the teachers and both coach drivers, and 24 reported injured. The injured, three of whom were said to be in a coma, were taken by ambulance and helicopter to four hos-
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pitals as fire crews worked for hours to cut them free from the twisted wreckage of the coach. Belgium announced a day of national mourning, while the Swiss parliament observed a minute’s silence for the victims. Belgian Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo and Swiss President Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf were due to visit the site of the crash later yesterday. “This is a tragic day for all of Belgium,” said Di Rupo. As well as Belgians, the children included 10 of Dutch nationality and one Pole, authorities said. Police in the southern Valais canton told reporters early yesterday Continued on Page 13
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