CR IP TI ON BS SU
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 8, 2014
KAC seeks local help in financing $4.4bn deal
Spain king’s daughter summoned over financial crimes
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www.kuwaittimes.net
RABI ALAWWAL 7, 1435 AH
One-way trip to Mars? Sign me up, says Frenchwoman
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Downhill queen Vonn to miss Sochi Olympics
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Focus on media’s role in human trafficking Govt shelter to house 700 runaway maids, trafficked victims
By Velina Nacheva KUWAIT: A government shelter for runaway maids and victims of human trafficking with the capacity to accommodate 700 women will soon open its doors. The facility located in Jleeb Al-Shuyoukh currently shelters some 250 people, said Col Iskandar Al-
Kandari, Director of the Department for Domestic Labour Recruitment at the Immigration Investigation Department at the Ministry of Interior at a workshop on ‘The Role of Media in Combating Human Trafficking’ held at the United Nations House in Mishref yesterday. Government representatives, journalists,
university professors, scholars, activists, diplomats and representatives of NGOs gathered for the two-day forum. The event is organized by the International Organization for Migration in cooperation with the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Col Naguib Khalifa Al-Shatti, Assistant
Director General for Immigration Investigation at the Ministry of Interior, explained that in the last six years, the department has identified 4,075 fake companies employing 12,500 marginal laborers who were brought into the country after paying huge amounts for visas. Of these, the ministry assisted 5,000 workers to transfer
Arctic air brings record cold to US
Max 16º Min 06º High Tide 04:22 & 17:10 Low Tide 10:55 & 23:44
their visas to other companies and rectify their status. The rest were repatriated. According to Shatti, complaints filed by workers resulted in the discovery of the fake companies, half of which have been referred to the office of the General Attorney, the Investigation Department and local courts. Continued on Page 13
X-rated pics hog #kuwait on Twitter By Bader Khaled
CHICAGO: Ice builds up along Lake Michigan at North Avenue Beach as temperatures dipped well below zero on Monday in Chicago. — AFP CHICAGO:A blast of bone-chilling cold snarled air travel, closed schools and prompted calls yesterday for people to stay inside in the United States and Canada, as temperatures plunged to lows not seen in two decades. Superlatives of cold-talk abounded, even in midwestern states used to chest-high snow and bitter cold, as the National Weather Service said the deep freeze was making its way east. Air travel was a nightmare, stranding many travelers trying to head home from year’s end holidays. More than 4,300 US flights were canceled Monday - nearly half of those in Chicago - and more than 6,500 were delayed, according to FlightAware, a flight-monitoring site. Toronto’s Pearson Airport halted ground operations early yesterday because of “equipment freez-
ing” and out of concern for the safety of airport personnel, it said on its Twitter account. Flights were scheduled to resume at 9:00 am local time (1400 GMT), but police were reinforced at the airport amid rising tension among stranded travelers. Airline JetBlue said it was reducing operations at four airports in the bustling northeast corridor - JFK, La Guardia, Newark and Boston - until 10:00 am (0300 GMT ) yesterday. More than a dozen deaths were blamed on the frigid weather. A shift in a weather pattern known as the “polar vortex” triggered a drastic drop in temperatures to lows not seen in two decades. It coincided with wind chill warnings in much of the eastern United States. Continued on Page 13
KUWAIT: People in Kuwait love social media and apparently so does the rest of the world. The hashtag #kuwait is among the most popular and widely used country-name hashtags. Because of this, it has now become a target for hardcore pornographers who have taken it over. In the last week or so, a steady stream of sexual images have been posted on Twitter with the hashtag #kuwait. Along with #kuwait, the images are also often hashtagged #saudi, #ksa, #bahrain, #ff #egypt, #morsi and #sex as well. People who search #kuwait but check only ‘top’ posts can screen out much of the unwanted images, but those who select ‘all’ will be barraged with a steady stream of pornographic material. Pornography is illegal in Kuwait and the Ministry of Communication will block websites with words or images deemed sexually explicit. But blocking specific tweets is much more of a challenge. Efforts to block and report the hashtag abuse have had limited results as the pornographers are using a variety of Twitter handles. This reporter blocked and reported 22 posts but more were added during the reporting process. Use of social media in the Arab world is among the world’s highest and as such a variety of commercial entities have sought to exploit hashtags. The hashtag #egypt topped Twitter’s most often used hashtags in 2011 and #jan25 also reached record numbers. The use of the #kuwait hashtag on Instagram is also among the highest in the world, rivaling major world powers. As of yesterday, there were 13.5 million photos hashtagged #kuwait on Instagram. In comparison, the hashtag #usa had 12.5 million photos and the hashtag #uae had 10.4 million photos. Instagram has blocked more than 100 hashtags to prevent pornography from overtaking the photo service, but its policy has focused largely on words associated with sex or pornography or various body parts. Twitter also has a policy that allows users to report abuse or spam, but it’s often up to users to report abuse. Given the popularity of regional hashtags on Instagram, it’s likely that #kuwait will soon also be flooded with inappropriate images.
Dinos from Arabian peninsula identified STOCKHOLM: An international team of paleontologists has for the first time identified dinosaur species that lived in the Arabian peninsula, Swedish scientists said yesterday. The researchers found teeth and bones dating from around 72 million years ago in the northwestern part of the region, along the coast of the Red Sea in what is today Saudi Arabia, Uppsala University said in a statement. The area now a desert, but at the time it was a beach on the African coast, and the Arabian landmass was largely underwater.
The remains are tail vertebrae from a titanosaurid sauropod, an herbivore which was probably longer than 20 m, and teeth belonging to an abelisaurid, a carnivorous theropod which was around six metres long. “These are the first taxonomically recognizable dinosaurs reported from the Arabian peninsula,” Australian paleobiologist Benjamin Kear said in the statement. “Dinosaur fossils are exceptionally rare in the Arabian peninsula, with only a handful of highly fragmented bones documented this far.” — AFP
KUWAIT: MP Safa Al-Hashem stands behind newly appointed Labour and Planning Minister Hind AlSabeeh in the National Assembly’s Abdullah AlSalem hall during a session yesterday. — Photo by Yasser Al-Zayyat (See Page 3)
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British MPs in Iran to boost diplomatic ties ANKARA: A British parliamentary delegation led by former foreign secretary Jack Straw met Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif yesterday at the start of the first such visit in years, Iranian state television reported. Long-strained ties between the two countries have warmed since the relatively moderate Hassan Rouhani was elected Iran’s president in June. In December, a new non-resident charge d’affaires made Britain’s first diplomatic visit to Iran since London downgraded ties after hardliners stormed its embassy in 2011. The two countries’ respective embassies remain closed, however. Iranian media said the delegation would also meet parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani and the head of the parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, Alaeddin Boroujerdi. The other members of the British delegation are former finance minister Norman Lamont, Conservative member of parliament Ben Wallace and Labour lawmaker Jeremy Corbyn.
Egyptian cleric urges referendum boycott DUBAI: A famous pro-Muslim Brotherhood TV cleric based in Qatar has issued a fatwa saying it is forbidden to vote in Egypt’s constitutional referendum. Egyptian cleric Youssef Al-Qaradawi issued the opinion yesterday, a day before Egyptians abroad are set to vote on the draft charter. Voting in Egypt is scheduled to start Jan 14. A prior constitution approved under former Islamist President Mohamed Morsi was suspended after the military removed him from power following mass protests. Qaradawi said Morsi’s ouster was a military coup and that any act that gives the new government legitimacy, including voting in the referendum, is forbidden by religion. Over the weekend, Egyptian officials summoned Qatar ’s ambassador to Cairo to express concerns about the Gulf state’s criticism of Egypt’s decision to designate the Brotherhood a terrorist organization.
Flexible chip can be wrapped around hair PARIS: Scientists in Switzerland said yesterday they can create electronic chips so flexible they can be wrapped around a human hair. The technique entails building an electronic circuit on top of a sandwich of polyvinyl layers perched on a hard base. The wafer is then placed in water, which dissolves two of the polyvinyl layers and causes the base to be released, sinking to the bottom of the lab dish. What remains is a circuit embedded on a light, transparent non-soluble polymer film called parylene that is just one micrometre, or a millionth of a metre, thick. The transistors continue to work even when wrapped around a human hair, which is about 50 micrometres thick. The ultra-bendable chip may have medical uses, and has already been tested on an artificial eye in the lab. It was added to a contact lens to provide a monitor for glaucoma, in which pressure builds up dangerously in the eyeball. The invention also has many other potential outlets, from flexible solar cells to wearable bio-sensors.
US moves to stop jet engine export to Iran ISTANBUL: The United States Commerce Department has issued an emergency order using US anti-terrorism export control laws against a Turkish company in an attempt to stop it from exporting two Boeing airplane engines to Iran. The order posted online was issued Friday because US officials believed that an Iranian cargo company was set to pick up the secondhand engines yesterday. The order also targeted the Iranian company, Pouya Airline. H Engin Borluca , the director of the Turkish company, 3K Aviation & Logistics, said he was unaware that US restrictions applied to transactions outside of the US and is seeking to return the engines to the sender. The US Commerce Department order imposes strict restrictions on the business of 3K, Pouya and a third company, USbased Adaero International Trade that the document says shipped the engines to Turkey.