Edinburgh-based firm agrees to £571m offer that will create world’s largest airport services firm
Executives at the British aviation services company John Menzies have accepted a £571m takeover deal from a Kuwaiti rival, after rebuffing three previous offers.
A subsidiary of Agility Public Warehousing had made the bid more than a month ago, which was conditional at the time, although the John Menzies board said it would accept the offer.
Continue reading...Dissident couple say their lives would be under threat if returned from Bosnia to Kuwait, as rights groups claim notice undermines refugee law
A Kuwaiti princess seeking asylum in Bosnia-Herzegovina has claimed the Kuwaiti state is using an Interpol red notice to intimidate and harass her and force the extradition of her partner, a prominent dissident blogger, back to the country.
Sheikha Moneera Fahad al-Sabah and Mesaed al-Mesaileem, said they face torture and threats to their lives if they are returned to Kuwait due to their political activism.
Continue reading...Defence ministry says women joining military need permission of male guardian and must wear head covering
Kuwaiti women are angry after the military, having allowed female soldiers to take combat roles, decided they need the permission of a male guardian and banned them from carrying weapons.
Activists have decried the policy as “one step forward, two steps back” after the defence ministry also decided that women in the armed forces, unlike civilians, must wear head coverings.
Continue reading...Oilwells set alight by Iraqi forces in 1991 were put out within months, but insidious pollution still mars the desert
For 10 months in Kuwait, everything was upside down. Daytime was full of darkness from the thick smoke, and nights were bright from the distant glow of burning oilwells.
When Iraq’s leader, Saddam Hussein, ordered the occupation of Kuwait in August 1990 in an attempt to gain control of the lucrative oil supply of the Middle East and pay off a huge debt accrued from Kuwait, he was fairly quickly forced into retreat by a US coalition which began an intensive bombing campaign.
Continue reading...Ambassador warned Foreign Office an Iraqi invasion was under way but this was not passed on to airline
Hundreds of British passengers might have avoided being taken hostage by Saddam Hussein in 1990 if a call by a British ambassador regarding Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait had been relayed to British Airways, the Foreign Office has disclosed.
The revelation of the phone call and the decades long cover-up was made on Tuesday under the 20-year disclosure rule, but was known to ministers and diplomats since 1990. The current foreign secretary, Liz Truss, has apologised for the omission.
Continue reading...Expulsion ordered a day after similar move by Saudi Arabia in response to criticism of the Riyadh-led intervention
Kuwait has given Lebanon’s envoy to the emirate 48 hours to leave, a day after Saudi Arabia made a similar move over a minister’s criticism of the Riyadh-led military intervention in Yemen.
The diplomatic row, in which Saudi Arabia has also suspended imports from Lebanon and Bahrain has expelled Beirut’s envoy to Manama, is another blow for a country already in the grip of crippling political and economic crises.
Continue reading...With the region warming twice as fast as the rest of the world but oil spoils keeping regimes in power, leaders are in a bind
Northern Oman has just been battered by Cyclone Shaheen, the first tropical cyclone to make it that far west into the Gulf. Around Basra in southern Iraq this summer, pressure on the grid owing to 50C heat led to constant blackouts, with residents driving around in their cars to stay cool.
Kuwait broke the record for the hottest day ever in 2016 at 53.6, and its 10-day rolling average this summer was equally sweltering. Flash floods occurred in Jeddah, and more recently Mecca, while across Saudi Arabia average temperatures have increased by 2%, and the maximum temperatures by 2.5%, all just since the 1980s. In Qatar, the country with the highest per capita carbon emissions in the world and the biggest producer of liquid gas, the outdoors is already being air conditioned.
Continue reading...Online retailer strikes deal with Kuwait’s Alshaya Group to launch in franchise stores and online
The online fashion retailer Boohoo has struck a deal with Kuwait’s Alshaya Group to sell its brands in franchised Debenhams stores and online in the Middle East.
Alshaya, which already holds the franchise to operate Debenhams stores in the region, will have exclusive rights to operate its shops and websites in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Egypt, Oman and Qatar.
Continue reading...Saudi prince hails progress in negotiations brokered by Kuwait and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner
A breakthrough in the three-and-a-half-year dispute between Qatar and its neighbouring Gulf states appears to have been achieved following what were described as “fruitful” talks to resolve the conflict.
The Saudi foreign minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, said “significant progress” had been reached in the last few days and he was optimistic all countries were close to finalising a resolution.
Continue reading...Calls for boycott of French goods after president’s remarks at tribute to murdered teacher Samuel Paty
France has appealed for foreign governments to stamp out calls by what it calls a “radical minority” for a boycott of French products after Emmanuel Macron’s public backing of the Muhammad caricatures.
The appeal came as anger escalated across the Islamic world over the president’s remarks at a national tribute to the murdered high-school teacher Samuel Paty last week, with Turkish leader, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, calling on Monday for a complete boycott of French products in Turkey.
Continue reading...The emir of Kuwait, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, who has died aged 91, ruled his country for 14 years and acquired a reputation for being committed to peaceful dialogue and unity among other Gulf states known for their divisive quarrels in recent times. Discreet, mild-mannered and valuing his personal links with fellow monarchs, Sabah was known as “the dean of Arab diplomacy”.
Since 2017, however, when the younger, more assertive leaders of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates boycotted their rival Qatar, he found it increasingly hard to play the role of regional mediator, but was still credited with having forestalled potentially disastrous military action. The war in Yemen, scene of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, was another nightmarish situation.
Continue reading...Emir who mediated to prevent conflict between Qatar and Saudi Arabia will be succeeded by his brother
Kuwait’s emir, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, the architect of the nation’s modern foreign policy and one of the region’s most influential voices, has died at the age of 91.
The monarch died on Tuesday at the Mayo clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, where he had been recovering after surgery in July. His body was being flown to Kuwait for burial.
Continue reading...Gulf states prepare for demographic shift as migrant workforces return home, with prospects bleak for those who stay
During 14 years in Lebanon, Jevie Olido’s four children have grown up without her, her marriage has failed and her parents have grown old. Now, the income that kept her far from her home in the Philippines has also gone, rubbed out by the coronavirus crisis and an economic implosion that has forced thousands of desperate domestic workers like her to look for ways to leave.
In neighbouring Jordan, Samir Ali, an Indian garment worker, is also waiting to be paid, after only receiving his March salary when he and other foreign workers at their factory threatened to strike. The pandemic has crippled production across the country and caused clashes between labourers and employers. Eight of the 40 men had registered to go back to India once their contracts had finished. “We’ve decided this factory is really bad,” he said. “We’re poor people, so we have to find another way.”
Continue reading...Rights groups say host countries should offer foreign workers same protections as citizens
Crammed into work camps, stood down from their jobs, facing high rates of infection and with no way home, hundreds of thousands of migrant workers are bearing the brunt of the coronavirus pandemic in the Middle East, migrant advocates and diplomats say.
Such workers’ risk of exposure to Covid-19 is so high, rights groups say, that host countries need to offer the same protections granted to their citizens or face the threat of a rampant outbreak that proves ever more difficult to contain.
Continue reading...The coronavirus pandemic has pushed countries around the world to take stringent measures to prevent the spread of the Covid-19 virus and protect citizens. A muezzin in Kuwait was heard saying 'al-salatu fi buyutikum' or 'pray in your homes' instead of the usual “hayya alas-salah' or 'come to prayer'. Saudi Arabia has banned pilgrimages to the Grand Mosque in Mecca and touching the Ka’bah, the shrine toward which all Muslims face in prayer
Continue reading...Rules intended to protect domestic workers have only made them more vulnerable to exploitation and abuse, say activists
Amita* knew she had to escape. After five months of being assaulted, starved and being forced to work for 20 hours a day as a domestic maid in a suburban house in Kuwait, the 45-year old from Nepal seized her chance. While the household slept, she climbed out of a downstairs bathroom window and fled.
Amita managed to find the Nepali embassy, hoping that staff there would assure her safety and help send her home to Kathmandu.
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