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THE FIRST ENGLISH LANGUAGE DAILY IN FREE KUWAIT Established in 1977 / www.arabtimesonline.com WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 28, 2016 / RABI AL AWWAL 29, 1438 AH emergency number 112 NO. 16350 40 PAGES 150 FILS cricket Page 36 FM hails Kuwait response to Aleppo Bond invitation to NBK, KAMCO O Syrians, save your blood and negotiate Temporary panels formed By Abubakar A. Ibrahim Arab Times Staff and Agencies KUWAIT CITY, Dec 27: Kuwait’s First Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled Al-Hamad Al-Sabah said Tuesday that Kuwait had taken a host of steps in response to the “humanitarian tragedy” of the Syrian city of Aleppo. Addressing an emergency parliamentary session on Aleppo, Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled said the steps taken by the State of Kuwait included local, Gulf, Arab, Islamic and international moves. He reiterated Kuwait’s relentless position calling for a ceasefire and a political solution which is the only permanent and safe way out of the Syrian crisis. INTERIOR WARNS ON GROWING SCOURGE OF DRUGS Continued on Page 9 Traffic regulations reviewed Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled said he was grateful for the de- cision to hold the special parlia- mentary session to discuss the crimes against humanity being committed in the war-torn Syr- ian city. He underscored the scope of a conflict closing in on its sixth year, where 400,000 lives have been lost, adding that the war has induced a total of 4.8 mil- lion refugees and 6.6 million internally displaced people, as shown by UN statistics. Moreover, Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled said that Kuwait, conginzant of the enormity of this humanitarian tragedy, “has taken numerous measures to help put an end to the blood- shed.” He recalled a statement issued by the Cabinet on Dec 19, 2016, deploring the massa- cres in Aleppo and calling for increased efforts to mitigate the misery of the Syrian people. Speaking on similar mea- sures, Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled noted that “the Arab League has held a pair of urgent meet- ings on the situation in Aleppo, at the behest of Kuwait.” He Three months needed to eliminate DAESH: Iraq PM BAGHDAD, Dec 27, (Agencies): Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al- Abadi said on Tuesday it would take three months to eliminate Is- lamic State, as US-backed forces battle to dislodge the militants from their city stronghold of Mosul. Abadi previously said the city would be retaken by the end of this year but commanders blame the slower pace on the need to protect civilians who have mostly stayed in their homes rather than fleeing as was expected. “Conditions indicate that Iraq needs three months to eliminate DAESH (Islamic State),” state TV quoted Abadi as saying. More than two months into the operation, elite Iraqi soldiers have retaken a quarter of Mosul, but en- tered a planned “operational refit” this month. A US battlefield commander told Reuters on Monday Iraqi forces would resume their offensive in the coming days, in a new phase of the operation that will see American troops deployed closer to the front line inside the city. Mosul, the largest city held by Islamic State anywhere across the once-vast territory it controlled in Iraq and neighbouring Syria, has been held by the group since its fighters drove the US-trained army out in June 2014. Its fall would probably end Is- lamic State’s ambition to rule over millions of people in a self-styled caliphate, but the fighters could still mount a more traditional in- surgency in Iraq, and plot or inspire attacks on the West. An Iraqi journalist was kid- napped by unidentified gunmen from her home in Baghdad over- night, police and relatives said on Tuesday, prompting Abadi to order an investigation. Afrah al-Qaisi is an outspoken critic of government institutions in satirical columns she writes for several local newspapers and media outlets. Qaisi used to work for the pan-Arab, Saudi-owned newspaper Asharq al-Awsat. Iraq’s Interior Ministry said in a statement it had formed a team to look into her abduction. The gunmen took Qaisi from the predominantly Sunni south- ern Saydiya district of the capital where she lived with her family, according to Ziyad al-Ajili, head of the Iraqi Journalistic Freedoms Observatory. “They separated the children from their mother after forcefully entering the house and took money, jewellery, laptops and her car as they left,” Ajili said. Her husband was away at the time and the assailants broke into the house after Qaisi refused to open the door. Iraq is ranked second after So- malia in the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) 2016 Index of Impunity, which calculates the number of unsolved murders over a 10-year period as a percentage of each country’s population. Over the past decade, 71 journal- ists have been killed with impunity in Iraq, according to the CPJ. Many were victims of Sunni in- surgents who were active in Iraq even before Islamic State mili- tants overran around one third of the country more than two years ago. But other armed factions, includ- ing Shi’ite militias, some backed by the government, have grown increasingly powerful through their participation in Baghdad’s fight against Islamic State. Islamic State group fighters “summarily executed” 13 civilians after villagers rose up against them at the start of the Iraqi army’s of- fensive to retake Mosul, Human Rights Watch said Tuesday. The killings took place in the DUBAI, Dec 27, (RTRS): National Bank of Kuwait (NBK), the Gulf Arab State’s largest commercial lender, and investment firm KA- MCO said they had been invited by the public debt office at the Kuwaiti Ministry of Finance to participate in a bond issue by the government. A request for proposals has been sent to NBK’s subsidiary NBK Capital to help arrange a sovereign US dollar-denominated bond issue, and the deadline to respond is Jan 5, NBK said in a bourse statement on Tuesday. The request is under study, it added. Finance Minister Anas al-Saleh said in July that the government planned to sell as much as $10 bil- lion of US dollar-denominated con- ventional and Islamic bonds in in- ternational markets to help plug its budget deficit for the current fiscal year, which will end on March 31. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visits the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific to place a wreath at the Honolulu Memorial, on Dec 26, in Honolulu. He stood for a moment of silence after the wreath laying. (AP) — Story on Page 14 Euro/KD 0.3192 Yen/KD 0.0026 British £/KD 0.3741 KSE +30.66 pts at closing Dec 27 See Page 33 Dow +25.16 pts at 21:00 Dec 27 See Page 34 Nasdaq +29.75 pts at 21:00 Dec 27 FTSE +4.49 pts at closing Dec 23 Nikkei +6.42 pts at closing Dec 27 Gold $1,131.35 per oz (London) US$/KD US$/KD 0.30610/20 0.30610/20 NYMEX crude $53.90 per barrel Brent crude $55.91 per barrel 3-month $ LIBOR rate 0.99706% ▼ ■ ▼ ▲ ▲ ▲ ▲ ▲ ■ ▲ ▲ ▲ Newswatch KUWAIT CITY: The Syrian Ob- server of Human Rights has received information from Reuters News Agency that a Kuwaiti citizen “Abu Jandal” may have died in a battle at North Syria on Monday, Dec 26, re- ports Al-Seyassah daily. The news agency informed the Syrian Observer of Human Rights that a top leader of Islamic State (IS) terrorist organization was killed in a battle between the rebels and the US-supported Syrian forces in North Syria. Director of Syrian Observer of Human Rights Rami Abdulrahman indicated that it is possible that the deceased is a Kuwaiti citizen known as Abu Jandal Al-Kuwaiti and that he died in a battle between the rebels and the Democratic Syrian forces in Jabar Town on Monday. ❑ ❑ ❑ WASHINGTON: US President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday an- nounced that Thomas Bossert, for- mer deputy homeland security ad- viser to President George W. Bush, would be his White House adviser on security and counterterrorism is- sues, according to a statement. As assistant to the president for homeland security and counterter- rorism, Bossert would be Trump’s top counterterrorism chief. He cur- rently runs a risk management con- sulting firm and has a cyber risk Continued on Page 9 Opinion By Ahmed Al-Jarallah Editor-in-Chief, the Arab Times FOLLOWING six years of civil war in Syria, the defeat has become clearer to all especially to the re- gime in Syria and the revolution. As long as Syrians are the ones paying the miserable price and the Syrian land and borders are being violated by regional and interna- tional forces that are ogling to place a foot in Syria, continuing with the refusal for any negotiations and po- litical solutions will revive another Palestinian disaster, which was caused by Palestinians when they fell for revolutionary slogans and placed their hopes on Arab stances. For instance, the Egypt of Abdul- Nasser took the “Palestine libera- tion” to its launch pad for achieving objectives that actually had nothing to do with Palestine and its people. One century ago, Arabs were not in a position to stop Britain from issuing the Balfour Declaration, which had promised the Jews a home in Palestine in a bid to solve the European problem at the ex- pense of Palestinians. However in 1948, which is 31 years after that infamous declara- tion, Arabs had the opportunity to prevent Israel from expanding and occupying the entire land of Pales- tine, if only they accepted the Unit- ed Nations’ resolution to divide the Email: [email protected] Follow me on: [email protected] Continued on Page 9 Continued on Page 9 — Details Page 7 —
