News Summary Report Mon, May 03, 2021
External Affairs
Kuwait Embassy in Bejing Starts Ramadan Iftar Projects in Shanghai Kuwait Embassy in Beijing announced Sunday that it started an iftar (breakfast meal) project under the auspices of Kuwait Awqaf Secretariat in Shanghai district, northwest China.
In a statement to KUNA, the embassy stated that this project was paid in full by philanthropists in Kuwait and implemented under embassy’s supervision.
During this week, more than 717 food baskets will be distributed on Muslim families and individuals in a city in Shanghai, the embassy added.
It also explained that each basket contains rice, flour, oil, tea, and sugar.
KUNA
Domestic Affairs
Ministry Keen to Encourage Creativity, Promote Values: Inf. Min.
Minister of Information and Culture, Abdulrahman Al-Mutairi, said Sunday that encouraging creativity and innovators, supporting ministry workers’
competencies and promoting values would be among the ministry’s strategy for the next five years, to be launched soon.
In a statement, Al-Mutairi, also Minister of State for Youth Affairs, said that a team has been formed to coordinate between the Ministry of Information and local production institutions to ensure creativity that contribute to the advancement of society.
The Ministry pays great attention in supporting the distinguished employees to promote Kuwaiti media as the ministry is keen to provide continuous and fruitful training for the ministry’s employees to keep pace with the rapid media developments, he said.
“The ministry is continuing to develop the new unified visual identity according to the highest technical and creative standards”, Al-Mutairi added.
He also stressed the official Kuwaiti media discourse with its various platforms to focus on promoting values “in society stemming from our genuine Islamic religion and Kuwaiti traditions”. The Ministry aims through this comprehensive strategy to build a media system that seek to develop performance that contributed to the development of the country, he said.
KUNA
Kuwait Logs 1,316 New COVID-19 Cases, Nine Deaths
Kuwait’s Ministry of Health has announced recording 1,316 new coronavirus infections and nine related deaths in the past 24 hours.
The new figures take the total cases in the country up to 276,586 and deaths to 1,578 respectively, noted the ministry’s spokesman Dr. Abdullah Al-Sanad in statements to KUNA on Sunday.
He pointed out that some 1,409 more people had been cured of the virus over the past day, raising the total of those, who have overcome the disease to 260,008.
He added that the number of people hospitalized with the virus currently stands at 15,000, with 208 of them in intensive care units.
Al-Sanad revealed that some 8,172 swab tests were conducted over the last day, bringing the total to 2,343,069. He renewed calls for nationals and expats alike to abide by health precautions to curb the spread of the virus.
KUNA
MPs to look at honor killing penalties
The Women and Family Affairs Committee was set to discuss Sunday Article 153 of the Penal Code, which stipulates light penalties for those involved in honor killing crimes in light of the recent crimes against women.
Minister of Interior Sheikh Thamer Ali Al-Sabah, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Justice and Minister of State for Nazaha Enhancement Abdullah Al-Rumi, and Minister of Social Affairs and Societal Development Dr.
Mashaan Muhammad Mashaan are expected to attend the meeting.
In another development, MP Mehalhal Al-Mudaf said it is inappropriate to criticize charitable work which is part of the Kuwait society and distinguishes it from other countries. He urged those who have evidence that the Kuwaiti Muslim Brotherhood or any other bloc is involved in conspiracies to inform the concerned authorities. He added that whoever accuses the Brotherhood of involvement in conspiracies must present proof to the authorities.
The Parliamentary Legal and Legislative Affairs Committee approved two bills on amending Handicapped Affairs Law number 8/2010, and forwarded reports on these bills to the other concerned panel.
One of the bills grants the right to take care of a handicapped to the person, who obtained custody over the latter as per a court verdict. This is aimed at addressing problems resulting from family disputes and divorce cases.
According to the existing law, the father who got divorced has the right to take care of his handicapped child even if the child is under the custody of his mother (ex-wife).
This loophole in the existing law enables the divorced father to receive benefits and allowances allocated for his handicapped child although the latter is under the custody of the mother, who should be granted such privileges.
The other bill amends Article 42 of the law in order to grant the right to receive indemnity to public sector employees with medium to severe disabilities, as well as the employees taking care of handicapped relatives.
Arab Times
Kuwait’s labor market faces severe ‘shortage’ of workers
While the exceptional decisions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic are still in effect in the country including preventing non-Kuwaitis from entering the country, business sectors are being severely affected. Besides the bleeding of losses, there is a flagrant shortage of manpower, reports Al-Qabas daily.
According to official sources, business owners have repeatedly demanded the relevant government agencies to allow the entry for employees with valid residency permits in the country, in line with the necessary health measures.
They revealed that there are about 350,000 workers holding valid residency permits, and had renewed work permits and civil IDs during the last period.
The sources explained that the labor market lost about half a million workers during 2020 (350,000 with valid residency, and 150,000 who left permanently).
Therefore, it is necessary to take required measures to allow the stranded people to gradually return.
According to statistics, the total number of workers who left the labor market during 2020 reached 31 percent of the total registered manpower in the business sectors. Commenting on the labor shortage, Khaled Al-Ashab - a human resources official in a logistics service company - said, “The shortage of labor has doubled. Many companies suffer from a shortage of drivers, especially heavy vehicle drivers, as well as specialized and technical skilled workers in the field of mechanics, maintenance, cleaning, service employment and construction sectors.
Yousef Al-Shammari, who owns agricultural and contracting activities, said,
“The shortage of manpower in the agricultural sector is huge. The demand for workers has increased, and their salaries have increased currently to KD 350 from KD 120 before the crisis Employment in the agricultural sector has become scarce, after allowing the transfer of workers to other sectors where they wish to work. This increased the gap in the shortage in the farms, and the demand for labor became high.
The same applies to the grazing and fishing sectors”. In the health sector, officials from the Ministry of Health affirmed that a recommendation to allow the return of workers stranded outside the country is subject to further studies and follow-up of developments related to the COVID-19 pandemic locally and globally. They stressed that the COVID19 curve differs from one country to another, due to which it is difficult to generalize the recommendation to all countries from where expatriates come.
Arab Times
Continuous Escalation and Confrontation … Open Possibilities
Confrontation between both the legislative and executive authorities have increased to rising escalations as MPs reactivate interpellations. This opens the gate for open possibilities pursuant to the political conditions, especially with existence of an interpellation for the Health Minister Sheikh Dr. Basel Al-Sabah, which is listed on the agenda, and dispute on postponing two interpellations for His Highness the Prime Minister.
Yesterday, Speaker of the National Assembly announced receiving two interpellations from MP Shuaib Al-Muwaiziri addressed to the Foreign Minister and State Minister for the Cabinet Affairs, Sheikh Dr. Ahmad Al-Nasser and the Finance Minister Khalifa Hamadah, remarking that he informed the two ministers about them. Al-Ghanim said that the two interpellations will be listed in the first upcoming session.
Meanwhile, MP Al-Muwaizri said that the “subject of both interpellations is related to disrespect of Article 99 of the Constitution, and Article 121 of the Internal Regulations of the National Assembly “non-response to MPs questions”. He hoped that “the two ministers are able to confront these two simple interpellations, which consist of one subject that doesn’t need an effort”.
Further, Chairman of Woman and Family Panel, MP Osama Al-Shaheen announced that the Panel sent a letter to the Legislative Panel to expedite transfer of proposals related to abrogation of Article 153 of the Penal Code, and increasing the penalty of attacking houses to commit sexual crimes, and to refer sexual harassment to the Family Panel as it is the competent one.
Al-Anbaa
May 06th --- All Paper-Based Exams Schools Are Ready for Students The Ministry of Education determined May 6 as deadline for all paper-based exams’ high schools to receive students. They are estimated to be 306 schools in different educational zones.
Informed educational sources disclosed to Al-Anbaa newspaper that after that date, educational and health leaderships will visit and check schools to ensure their readiness, remarking that the educational zones and the engineering affairs departments are working in a fast pace for preparations and maintenance of buildings.
Sources pointed out that the training courses launched by the ministry via
“ Darbny” or “ Train me” platform targets all personnel at high school stage schools, 12th grade students and their parents to raise their awareness of the importance of health precautions that are necessary during the period of paper-based exams, remarking that all training courses will be lifted over
“ Darbny” platform, which is related to Development Department.
Meanwhile, the ministries of education and health submitted an integrated report to the Educational Panel at the National Assembly on preparations for paper-based exams.
Al-Anbaa
8 Controls for Kuwaiti Departures and Arrivals Under Consideration Official sources announced in special statements to Al-Anbaa that any citizen can travel abroad as there are no provisions that can prevent anybody from travel. However, there are some controls for departure, including commitment to register at “Kuwait Mosafer platform, payment of health insurance covering travel period in case of infection with the virus, inking of the covenant at
“Kuwait Mosafer” platform, and getting negative PCR certificate for countries requesting it, sources added.
Further, sources added that arrivals have to be committed to “Shlonik” app and to get negative PCR certificate whose validity is for 72 hours, and to be committed to home quarantine for one week for the recipient, and two weeks for non-vaccinated people, one of them is one week at the hotel and another week at home. Ban on entry of non-Kuwaitis is still enforceable with exception of physicians, diplomats and domestic labor.
Sources pointed out that the above controls are still under consideration pursuant to the health system, which includes 5 key basics, hoping that the Cabinet mitigates such controls.
Al-Anbaa
Economy
No Worries for Salaries –There is a Need for Participation of the Community and the National Assembly to Implement Economic Reforms Minister of Finance and State Minister for Economic Affairs and Investment, Khalifa Hamada said that salaries and subsidies consume more than 71% of the public budget of the state of Kuwait as they represent 51% for salaries and 20%
for subsidies. He stressed that any financial reform has to focus on rationalizing the above two categories since they represent the biggest portion of expenditures in the budget.
Finance Minister stated during a TV interview on “In Official Way” program that Kuwait is a welfare state, which provides many services and goods with low prices that are below the main cost of the service. This is a kind of social welfare provided by the country to the community and individuals, he said, remarking that the country has a philosophy for restructuring subsidies in order to direct them to citizens who deserve them.
Further, he pointed out that the current oil prices are still good, and no worries to pay monthly salaries for citizens, however, he stressed that the financial condition needs participation from all, especially MPs to implement many financial and economic reforms.
As for rewards of frontlines, the minister said that a decision from the Cabinet has been issued regarding that reward, and the State Audit Bureau (SAB) prepared statements related to them, and the Ministry of Finance issued an additional approval of the budget of 2021/2022 for payment of rewards pursuant to statements.
Al-Anbaa
Production of 60,000 Barrels of Heavy Oil
The CEO of Kuwait Oil Company, Emad Mahmoud Sultan disclosed that the company made achievements during the last fiscal year, the most significant of which is discovery of two oilfields. The first discovery represents extension of the northern part of Burgan field in South and East of Kuwait, however, the second discovery is Al-Qashaanya oilfield North Kuwait. These discoveries are important for achieving the strategic objectives of the company, he added.
Sultan said that KOC achieved a significant milestone by reaching the stage of producing 60,000 barrels of heavy oil on a daily basis from South Al-Ratka oilfield North of Kuwait, which is considered as a historical milestone not only in the history of the company alone but also for the country in terms of maximizing productivity and access into the club of countries producing and exporting heavy oil.
Al-Anbaa
