CR IP TI ON BS SU 40 PAGES
NO: 15393
150 FILS
TUESDAY, MARCH 20, 2012
www.kuwaittimes.net
RABIA ALTHANI 27, 1433 AH
Govt eyes spending rise amid industrial unrest Kuwait Airways strike will not block foreign carriers conspiracy theories
Please, talk to us!
By Badrya Darwish
badrya_d@kuwaittimes.net
I
t’s a shame that two weeks after celebrating Kuwait’s national and liberation days, the country has come to a standstill. This time is not related to a stalemate from the parliament. It is no longer just a political issue. As if Kuwait Airways, the customs and civil servants from ministries have all agreed with each other to create chaos. Chaos is everywhere from A to Z. From chabra khudar (the vegetable market) to Kuwait International Airport. We watched how these people celebrated the national days with thousands of lights and decorations that were put on buildings, cars, fences and electricity poles. Kuwait was a shining crystal ball. National songs and the anthem were played everywhere much earlier than the national day. Even in my private gym, they have been playing national songs since Feb 10. You would never think that the same people have this plot for Kuwait only two weeks later. Everyone decided to go on strike at the same time regardless of the interest of the country and the nation. People in other countries go on strike too. It is a way of demanding their rights and salary raises. But they do not agree to ruin the country at the same time. Where is the national sentiment when you hang national decorations? They made you feel that you are not a patriot if you don’t play national songs. Music was even played in wrong places, such as clinics, hospital or private gyms. Where is the patriotism now, may I know? Is it only that we are patriotic in celebrations? Nobody would even dare touch anyone if they played extra music. It is a sensitive area where you could have been wrongfully judged. Patriotism means to care for your country from the bottom of your heart - in good times and in bad times. Patriotism is to feel concerned and be responsible. Go on strike but do it responsibly. The worst part of it is that the government is missing in the public domain. For example, a rumour has it that KAC will serve other airlines but conflicting reports say that they will not assist other international airlines. There is no official government source who could come and inform the nation. They have left it to rumours and hearsay. Why can’t anyone from the government come out and say what is going on? Are we living in a lawless country without institutions or spokesmen? We are entitled to know. Please, somebody talk to us!
Awazem ransack Scope TV over Qallaf’s ‘insult’ By A Saleh KUWAIT: Al-Azmi tribesmen stormed Scope TV headquarters early yesterday and destroyed its contents in protest over an interview aired by the channel in which MP Hussein Al-Qallaf allegedly insulted the head of their tribe, Falah bin Jame. The channel filed a case against the intruders accusing them of forcibly entering and damaging equipment, but the tribesmen filed a counter case against the channel. The channel insisted that interviewees were responsible for their own views and that if such views offend anybody, they could go to court. Moreover, in protest over the assault, Scope TV decided to stop broadcasting until further notice. “We cannot tolerate such chaos and disrespect of the law in today’s modern world,”‘ said the channel’s management, blaming the interior ministry for its incapability to protect establishments and facilities. “If you did not like what Al-Qallaf said, the easiest answer is to report it to the public prosecutor and sue him!”
Continued on Page 13
Amir attends military officers’ graduation ceremony
2
KUWAIT: A woman walks by empty shelves at a market in Salmiya yesterday. Store shelves at some supermarkets are running empty as striking customs workers refuse to allow hundreds of trucks to cross the border. That is prompting merchants to hike prices, with the cost of some goods such as dairy products, detergents and diapers rising significantly. — AP
Max 21º Min 12º High Tide 11:01 & 22:18 Low Tide 04:12 & 16:26
KUWAIT: Kuwait’s state budget for next fiscal year envisages a spending increase of about 13 percent from the current year’s plan, state news agency KUNA reported yesterday as the state grappled with a wave of industrial unrest. The budget for the 2012/2013 fiscal year, which starts on April 1, is expected to total around KD 22 billion ($79 billion), KUNA quoted the head of parliament’s budget committee as saying. That estimate assumes revenues of around KD 14 billion, KD 12.8 billion of which would come from oil, Adnan Abdulsamad said. The projection is based on an oil price of $65 a barrel, KUNA added. Although the plan assumes a budget deficit, global oil prices are currently trading well above $100, so Kuwait could well post a surplus next fiscal year. For the first nine months of its 2011/12 fiscal year, the government recorded a budget surplus of KD 13.2 billion. “The government is right to be conservative in terms of its planning. However, the way oil markets look now it seems that oil prices are going to average well over $100 a barrel in the coming months. Despite the spending increase, we do see another large surplus,” said Daniel Kaye, senior economist at National Bank of Kuwait. Nevertheless, state finances could come under pressure from wage increases granted because of the industrial unrest, which is partly due to increased union activity since last year’s Arab Spring uprisings in the region, and follows a snap election last month which saw the Islamist-led opposition win control of the National Assembly. Meanwhile, workers from state-run Kuwait Airways will continue a strike that has forced the cancellation of dozens of flights, but pledged to allow international carriers to fly in and out of the country, union officials said yesterday. Continued on Page 13
Troops fight rebels in Damascus clash BEIRUT: Rare gun battles between security forces and rebels broke out yesterday in an upscale Damascus neighborhood where embassies are located and senior officials live, one of the most serious confrontations in the tightly controlled capital since the anti-government uprising began a year ago. At least four people were killed. The clash was a show of force by the opposition fighters, who recently suffered several major setbacks when they were driven out of strongholds in the northern city of Idlib and the central city
of Homs. It demonstrated that they can strike at the heavily guarded heart of the capital. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has a network of activists throughout Syria, said 18 government troops were wounded in the fighting. It described the clashes “as the most violent of its kind and closest to security centers in Damascus since the revolution began”. Damascus has been largely free of the daily shootings and killings reported across the country since the uprising
against President Bashar Assad began. But the capital has witnessed several major bombings targeting government security buildings, most recently on Saturday. The government blames “terrorists” for the bombings but the opposition says that the regime itself may be carrying them out to discredit the uprising. The US has suggested Al-Qaeda may be entering the fray in Syria. The gun battles in Damascus came hours after a team sent by the UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan arrived in the capital, Annan’s spokesman
Gunman kills four at French Jewish school TOULOUSE, France: A suspected serial killer shot dead three children and a teacher at a Jewish school in France yesterday, plunging the nation into shock. President Nicolas Sarkozy declared the murders a “national tragedy” as anti-terror police probed the third fatal shooting in the Toulouse area in recent days by a gunman using the same pistol and stolen scooter. France stepped up security at Jewish and Muslim schools following yesterday’s assault on the Ozar Hatorah school, which local parents, rights groups and world governments quickly denounced. Two boys aged three and six and their father, religious studies teacher Rabbi Jonathan Sandler, 30, who witnesses said tried to shield them, were gunned down, along with the 10year-old daughter of the school’s director. The gunman opened fire on a crowd as children and teachers arrived for early classes in the morning, then charged on to school grounds. A fifth victim, a 17-year-old boy, was left in a critical condition.
Bahrain opposition ready for dialogue
8
TOULOUSE, France: Policemen are at work near the Ozar Hatorah Jewish school yesterday where four people were killed when a gunman opened fire. — AFP The killer was wearing a full face the same southwestern region in helmet and escaped on what police which the attacker rode the same said was a 500cc Yamaha TMAX scoot- scooter and wielded the same .45 calier stolen in Toulouse earlier this bre handgun. “This tragedy has left month. Last week, three French para- the entire national community distroopers - all of North African descent traught,” Sarkozy declared at the - were killed in two similar incidents in Continued on Page 13
Iran’s ‘The Separation’ shines at Asian film awards
37
Ahmad Fawzi said. He added that the delegation is in contact with Syrian Foreign Ministry officials and will discuss ways of implementing Annan’s proposals to end the crisis. During a recent visit to Damascus, Annan pushed for an immediate ceasefire to allow all parties to hold a dialogue on a political solution. The government responded in a letter to Annan that it is “keen to end violence” but insisted that rebels give up their weapons first. The state-run news agency SANA Continued on Page 13
TB lurks among rich and poor LONDON: On New Year’s Eve 2004, after months of losing weight and suffering fevers, night sweats and shortness of breath, student Anna Watterson was taken into hospital coughing up blood. It was strange to be diagnosed with tuberculosis (TB) - an ancient disease associated with poverty - especially since Watterson was a well-off trainee lawyer living in the affluent British capital of London. Yet it was also a relief, she says, finally to know what had been making her ill for so long. But when Watterson’s infection refused to yield to the three-pronged antibiotic attack doctors prescribed to fight it, her relief turned to dread. After six weeks of taking pills that had no effect, Watterson was told she had multi-drug resistant TB, or MDR-TB, and faced months in an isolation ward on a regimen of injected drugs that left her nauseous, bruised and unable to go out in the sun. “My friends were really shocked,” Watterson said. “Most of them had only heard of TB from reading Victorian novels.” Tuberculosis is often seen in the wealthy West as a disease of bygone eras - evoking impoverished 18th or 19th century women and children dying slowly of a disease then commonly known as “consumption” or the “white plague”. But rapidly rising rates of drugresistant TB in some of the wealthiest cities in the world, as well as across Africa and Asia, are again making history. London has been dubbed Continued on Page 13
London games organizers unveil Olympic torch route
16