CR IP TI ON BS SU
TUESDAY, MARCH 25, 2014
Road closures and detours during the Arab Summit
JAMADA ALAWWAL 24, 1435 AH
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20 3Lebanon7urges13 support for Widespread traffic jams as road closures hit commuters
Egypt, Saudis to pressure Qatar at meet KUWAIT: An assortment of Arab nations will likely use the Arab summit to try to pressure the tiny but wealthy Gulf nation of Qatar to stop supporting the Muslim Brotherhood and other opposition movements throughout the region. Egypt and Saudi Arabia have labeled the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization, and two senior Arab officials said yesterday that those two countries would take the lead in attempting to isolate Qatar by calling for a collective Arab approach to terror. The two-day Arab League summit in Kuwait, which begins today, follows months of tension over this issue. Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates have joined Egypt and Saudi Arabia in withdrawing their ambassadors from Qatar. Qatar has reacted with dismay at the diplomatic gestures but insists it will push ahead with its own policies. Qatari Foreign Minister Khalid bin Mohammed Al-Attiyah has said his country will “follow a path of its own” and that the independence of its “foreign policy is simply non-negotiable”. Qatar has in recent years played an outsized role in Arab affairs, spearheading efforts to resolve the Syrian crisis and mediating in some of Sudan’s internal conflicts. At the heart of Egypt’s dispute with Qatar is its perceived support for the Brotherhood and former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, who was ousted last July in a coup. Continued on Page 13
KUWAIT: HH the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah (right) receives Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani after his arrival yesterday. — KUNA (See Page 3)
Tameemi continues war against expats KUWAIT: Independent Shiite MP Abdullah Al-Tameemi yesterday continued targeting expatriates, squarely blaming them for any problem Kuwaitis are facing, and calling for a drastic cut in their numbers to vacate their jobs for nationals. Two months ago, the same lawmaker submitted a strange proposal calling to cancel the residence permits of expatriates who spent five years in the country and that the size of any single foreign community must not exceed 10 percent of Kuwaitis or around 124,000. This time, Tameemi is targeting expatriates employed in government jobs, saying they must be drastically reduced to create jobs for Kuwaitis and bedoons. He bluntly called for “cutting the number of expatriates to safeguard the Kuwaiti society and its prosperity”. Narrating the “ills” of expatriates, the lawmaker said that Kuwait’s losses from the presence of expatriates are huge,
“starting from traffic jams, consumption of public services, unemployment among citizens and the large funds they remit to their home countries”. Tameemi made his new calls in a series of questions he addressed to the Minister of State for Cabinet Affairs Sheikh Mohammad Al-Abdullah AlSabah. Tameemi demanded the number of expatriates employed for more than five years in administrative and technical jobs at government agencies and companies with the exclusion of husbands of Kuwaiti women and bedoons. He demanded to know the numbers in each government department based on educational qualification and job title. Tameemi also asked for the number of expatriates employed at the government in so-called rare specializations and demanded to know each specialization and the number in each one. Continued on Page13
529 Morsi supporters sentenced to death CAIRO: An Egyptian court sentenced 529 supporters of deposed Islamist president Mohamed Morsi to death yesterday after just two hearings, in the largest mass death sentencing in the country’s modern history. The shock
verdict by the court in the southern province of Minya, which is subject to appeal, came amid a sweeping crackdown on Morsi’s supporters since his overthrow by the army last July. Continued on Page 13
KUWAIT: Lebanon’s foreign minister called on Arab countries yesterday to support the Lebanese army to counter fallout from Syria’s civil war, which he said threatened to tear the country apart. Around one million Syrian refugees have fled to Lebanon, a displacement that has strained public infrastructure and threatened to upset the sectarian balance. This “is threatening the existence of Lebanon”, Gebran Bassil told reporters before a meeting of Arab League leaders in Kuwait today. “This would create a danger also to the whole (of) humanity, because if the Lebanese model would vanish, then a big clash is to be expected between civilizations, religions and all aspects or differences in the world,” he said, speaking in English. Meanwhile, the international mediator on Syria said yesterday a resumption of peace talks in Geneva between Damascus and the opposition was “out of the question” for the moment. “A return to Geneva is out of question for the time being because the criteria have not been met,” UN and Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi said in Kuwait. A second round of peace negotiations collapsed in Geneva on Feb 15. Brahimi broke off the talks, known as Geneva II, to give the government and opposition an opportunity to take stock, and without setting a date for another round of negotiations. In a briefing to the UN Security Council earlier this month Brahimi accused Syria of delaying efforts to resume Geneva talks, diplomats said. Separately, motorists were stuck for hours on roads in traffic jams as roads were closed from Kuwait International Airport to Bayan Palace, the venue of the summit. In a statement on Sunday, the Ministry of Interior said it had completed all preparations to ensure smooth traffic flow during the summit, which necessitated the closure of roads. Yesterday evening saw a flurry of arrivals of heads of state and dignitaries from around the Arab world, who were received at the airport by HH the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah and other senior officials. Continued on Page 13
Malaysia jet crashed at sea
BEIJING: A relative of passengers on Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 cries after hearing the news that the plane plunged into the Indian Ocean at a hotel yesterday. — AFP
8 killed, 108 missing in huge US landslide
MINYA, Egypt: Egyptian relatives of supporters of ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi cry sitting outside the courthouse yesterday in this southern province. — AFP
Max 30º Min 13º High Tide 07:12 &17:14 Low Tide 00:05 & 11:46
LOS ANGELES: More than 100 people are still unaccounted for after a devastating landslide in the northwestern US state of Washington, while eight people are so far confirmed dead, officials said yesterday. The number reported missing or unaccounted for rose dramatically from 18 to 108 after the massive landslide slammed “like a freight train” into a mountainside in Snohomish County. “We’re still in rescue mode here, but the situation is very grim,” said Snohomish County fire district chief Travis Hots. “We’re holding out hope
that we’ll find people that are still alive, but we haven’t found anyone alive since Saturday.” Emergency management chief John Pennington stressed that 108 is the number of reported missing or unaccounted for, not necessarily actually missing after the disaster on Saturday. But he said there were a total of 49 dwellings of various types in the area hit by the devastating landslide, and that there were likely to have been more people at home on a Saturday than during the week. “To date there are 108 reports of names of individuals who are either unaccounted for or missing,” he said. “This doesn’t mean that there are 108 injuries, or 108 fatalities, it’s 108 reports,” he told reporters. “It was Saturday, and it was probably a higher number than you would see during a weekday,” he said. The wall of mud, rocks and trees smashed into the rural town of Oso, northeast of Seattle, destroying houses and part of a highway. — AFP (See Page 9)
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia said yesterday its missing airliner had crashed in the Indian Ocean, extinguishing the hopes of relatives of those on board but shedding no light on why it veered so far off course. A sombre Prime Minister Najib Razak said a new analysis of satellite data on Malaysia Airlines flight MH370’s path placed its last position in remote waters off Australia’s west coast, “far from any possible landing sites”. “It is therefore with deep sadness and regret that I must inform you that, according to this new data, flight MH370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean,” Najib said. Relatives of those on board received the news in a Malaysia Airlines SMS message which said: “We have to assume beyond all reasonable doubt that MH370 has been lost and none of those on board survived.” The plane went missing on March 8 with 239 people aboard - two thirds of them Chinese - en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. The announcement touched off deep despair among relatives in both cities. “What can I say? I had the belief that my son would return home safely. But what can be done?” said Subramaniam Gurusamy, whose 34-year-old son Puspanathan Gurusamy was on board. “This is fate. We must accept it,” he said, his voice choking with emotion. In Beijing, family members who have gathered in a hotel throughout the crisis, repeatedly raging at the airline over the agonizing 17-day wait for information, were crushed when the carrier finally broke the news at a meeting in the hotel’s ballroom. Some burst out, sobbing uncontrollably, held by fellow family members while others collapsed and were taken away on stretchers. Others quietly wiped away tears. “For them, the past few weeks have been heartbreaking; I know this news must be harder still,” Najib said in Kuala Lumpur. The premier said yesterday’s conclusions were reached based on new analysis of satellite data by Britain’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB), and the satellite telecommunications firm Inmarsat. He gave no specifics such as precisely where the plane may have been lost. Numerous recent sightings of suspected debris, by satellites as well as aircraft crisscrossing the Continued on Page 13