Following the spread of COVID-19 in China and other countries and with the rise in the global infection rates, health sources reassured that the health situation in Kuwait is good, reports Al-Qzbas daily. They indicated that there is constant coordination with the World Health Organization to follow up on developments in the epidemiological situation. The sources explained the infection rate based on the swab tests carried out daily in the country did not exceed one percent during the recent period.

The rate of recovery from COVID-19 infection touched 100 percent, which means the level of community immunity is great and unprecedentedly strengthened compared to the period when COVID- 19 disease had emerged. The number of people who received the third and fourth booster doses exceeded 217,000 citizens and residents during the eight months from April 2022 to December 2022. Meanwhile, the sources affirmed that the airport movement is normal and there are no restrictions on travel, and that flights are operating according to the usual schedule. The sources explained that the health system in the country is ready to deal with developments that may occur at any time, especially after gaining practical field experience in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic.

The first infections were recorded locally in late February 2020, and there are wards designated for people with COVID-19 as well as isolation rooms in all public hospitals. The factor that supports the stability of the general indicators related to the COVID-19 virus in the country is the high rates of anti-virus vaccinations, and the remarkable demand for them during the current year. The total number of those who received the two doses during the period from April 19, 2022 until date is 51,735 citizens and residents, or 85.2 percent of the total population eligible for vaccination.

Huge quantities of local tree firewood offered for sale were monitored by environmental activists, in violation of the Environmental Protection Law and the decision of the Ministry of Commerce issued last year, which prohibits “displaying, selling, or marketing local wood to individuals, companies, factories, or mobile vehicles, except after obtaining the approval of the official authorities,” reports Al-Rai daily.

Activist Saad Al-Hayyan told the daily, “What is happening is a disaster by all standards, and the regulatory authorities must tighten their grip to protect the green cover in Kuwait,” pointing out that “the price of a faggot of local firewood is only one dinar compared to 5 dinars for the imported faggot, given that the local wood acquired by chopping local trees is cheap and as a result the demand increases and with it the felling of trees.”

A l -Hayyan accused “Asian gangs for felling trees and selling firewood along highways in Abdali, Nuwaiseeb and Kabad,” pointing out that “some have had the audacity to place advertisements about the availability of any required amount of firewood.”

Article 41 of the Environmental Protection Law No. 42 of 2014, which amended some of its provisions by Law No. 99 of 2015, states the following: ‘It is prohibited to practice grazing or land exploitation for traffic crops or any other activity that would harm the quantity or quality of vegetation cover in any area which leads to desertification or deterioration of the wild environment.

It is also prohibited to damage crops, plants, and trees, to pick flowers in public squares, streets, and public facilities, and to uproot trees and wild plants from public lands. With the exception of what is specified by the executive regulations of this law for reasons of development, and in all cases an obligation to compensate what has been uprooted from the green areas including trees.”

KuwaitSat-1 will launch on Tuesday onboard a SpaceX rocket, carrying with it the hopes and dreams of Kuwaiti youth of further space exploration, said operational director at the National Project for the First Kuwaiti Satellite Dr Ahmad Al-Kandari on Sunday. Speaking to KUNA, Dr Kandari said that once the KuwaitSat-1 reaches its designated orbit, it will disengage from the rocket and spread its wings containing solar-powered batteries that will enable it to operate.

The satellite will be able to send its first message in four hours and two minutes after launch, with the signal received at a station at Kuwait University, he revealed. He went on to say the rocket used in the operation is able to carry up to 70 to 100 pieces of equipment. Kandari pointed out the launch of this particular project will pave the way for plans to further develop Kuwait’s space capabilities.

The official said the project had been four years in the making, consisting of seemingly never-ending training, research and studies by the project’s team members. KuwaitSat-1 has a high-definition camera which will capture important data and pictures of Kuwaiti waters to analyze the level of pollutants, he revealed. KuwaitSat-1 cost KD 316,000 ($1.032 million), with 67 members assembling the satellite, which took around 1,000 hours of work to be completed. — KUNA

The government has collected about 900 million dinars in taxes from companies during the past five years, specifically from April 2017 until the end of March 2022, reports Al-Anba daily. The data showed that the total taxes were 787.6 million dinars, which came in the form of income tax from foreign companies, income tax from Kuwaiti companies to support employment, zakat proceeds from Kuwaiti companies, and companies’ contributions to state services, in addition to about 110 million dinars that came from profits distribution, in addition to revenues for issuing tax certificates or others.

The data disclosed fiscal 2018/2019 witnessed the highest rate of collection of taxes on income, profits, and capital gains from companies and other projects, during which they collected 181.3 million dinars, in addition to a non-recurring rate of “dividend profits” of about 109.94 million dinars, which is equivalent to the value of income tax from foreign companies for the same year, bringing the total collection to 291.2 million dinars.

Fiscal 2017/2018 was the second highest revenue earner from corporate taxes worth 162.16 million dinars, then 2020/2021 with collections of 161.5 million dinars, and 2019/2020 was fourth with revenues amounting to 151.3 million dinars, then the year 2021/2022 ranked fifth as the lowest corporate tax collections in 5 years.

The Chairman of the Board of Directors of Al- Durra Company, Muhammad Al- Olayan, said that, as of January 2023, the amount for recruiting new domestic workers from the Philippines will be 700 dinars, inclusive of the travel ticket, reports Al-Qabas daily.

He stated that the requests for domestic workers from Sri Lanka will be 650 dinars, not including the ticket, and the guarantee will be on the company for six months from the date of arrival.

To encourage domestic migrants to exercise their franchise, the Election Commission of India (ECI) on Thursday informed about a prototype Multi-Constituency Remote Electronic Voting Machine (RVM), which would enable migrant voters to vote from remote polling stations.

“Migration-based disenfranchisement is indeed not an option in the age of technological advancement. The voter turnout in General Elections 2019 was 67.4 % and the Election Commission of India is concerned about the issue of over 30 Crore electors not exercising their franchise and also differential voter turnout in various States/UTs,” the ECI said in a statement. It said the inability to vote due to internal migration (domestic migrants) is one of the prominent reasons behind low voter turnout.

With the objective of finding a technological solution that is credible, accessible, and acceptable to all stakeholders, the Commission, headed by Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar, along with election commissioners Anup Chandra Pandey and Arun Goel, explored the option of using a modified version of the time-tested model of M3 EVMs to enable voting at remote polling stations i.e. polling stations outside the home constituency, for domestic migrants, the statement further read.

The migrant voter wouldn’t be required to travel to his/her home district to exercise his/her franchise.
The Commission has also circulated a concept note amongst the political parties highlighting the challenges of defining domestic migrants, implementation of Model Code of Conduct, ensuring secrecy of voting, facility of polling agents for identification of voters, process and method of remote voting, and counting of votes, among other issues.

A Multi Constituency Remote Electronic Voting Machine (RVM) is being piloted by the Commission for facilitating the participation of domestic migrants from their remote locations itself.

The modified form of EVM can handle up to 72 multiple constituencies from a single remote polling booth. The initiative, if implemented, can lead to a social transformation for the migrants and connect with their roots, as many times they are reluctant to get themselves enrolled at their place of work for various reasons such as frequently changing residences, not enough social and emotional connect with the issues of an area of migration, unwillingness to get their name deleted in the electoral roll of their home/native constituencies as they have permanent residence/property, the ECI further informed.

The Commission has also invited all recognised eight national and 57 regional political parties on January 16, 2023, to demonstrate the functioning of the multi-constituency prototype Remote EVM. Members of the EC’s Technical Expert Committee will also be present during the demonstration.

The Commission has also solicited written views of recognised political parties by January 31, 2023, on various related issues including changes required in legislation, changes in administrative procedures, and voting method/RVM/technology, if any other, for the domestic migrants, the release further stated.  

 Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, the shy German theologian who tried to reawaken Christianity in a secularized Europe but will forever be remembered as the first pontiff in 600 years to resign from the job, died Saturday. He was 95. Benedict stunned the world on Feb. 11, 2013, when he announced, in his typical, soft-spoken Latin, that he no longer had the strength to run the 1.2 billion-strong Catholic Church that he had steered for eight years through scandal and indifference.

His dramatic decision paved the way for the conclave that elected Pope Francis as his successor. The two popes then lived side-by-side in the Vatican gardens, an unprecedented arrangement that set the stage for future “popes emeritus” to do the same.And now Francis will celebrate Benedict’s funeral Mass on Thursday, the first time in the modern age that a current pope will eulogize a retired one. As tributes poured in from political and religious leaders around the world, Francis himself praised Benedict’s “kindness” Saturday and thanked him for “his testimony of faith and prayer, especially in these final years of retired life.”

Speaking during a New Year’s Eve vigil, Francis said only God knew “of his sacrifices offered for the good of the church.” The former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger never wanted to be pope, planning at age 78 to spend his final years writing in the “peace and quiet” of his native Bavaria. Instead, he was forced to follow the footsteps of the beloved St. John Paul II and run the church through the fallout of the clerical sex abuse scandal and then a second scandal that erupted when his own butler stole his personal papers and gave them to a journalist.

Being elected pope, he once said, felt like a “guillotine” had come down on him. Nevertheless, he set about the job with a single-minded vision to rekindle the faith in a world that, he frequently lamented, seemed to think it could do without God. “In vast areas of the world today, there is a strange forgetfulness of God,” he told 1 million young people gathered on a vast field for his first foreign trip as pope, to World Youth Day in Cologne, Germany, in 2005. “It seems as if everything would be just the same even without him.”

He echoed that theme in his final will released by the Vatican on Saturday night, urging the faithful especially in his homeland to “stand firm in the faith!” Two pages in length and dated 2006, the will also touched on a theme dear to his heart of the beneficial dialogue between faith and reason. With some decisive, often controversial moves, he tried to remind Europe of its Christian heritage. And he set the Catholic Church on a conservative, tradition-minded path that often alienated progressives. He relaxed the restrictions on celebrating the old Latin Mass and launched a crackdown on American nuns, insisting that the church stay true to its doctrine and traditions in the face of a changing world.

It was a path that in many ways was reversed by his successor, Francis, whose mercy-over-morals priorities alienated the traditionalists who had been so indulged by Benedict. Benedict’s style couldn’t have been more different from that of John Paul or Francis. No globe-trotting media darling or populist, Benedict was a teacher, theologian and academic to the core: quiet and pensive with a fierce mind. He spoke in paragraphs, not soundbites. He had a weakness for orange Fanta as well as his beloved library; when he was elected pope, he had his entire study moved – as is – from his apartment just outside the Vatican walls into the Apostolic Palace. The books followed him to his retirement home.

“In them are all my advisers,” he said of his books in the 2010 book-length interview “Light of the World.” “I know every nook and cranny, and everything has its history.” It was Benedict’s devotion to history and tradition that endeared him to members of the traditionalist wing of the Catholic Church. For them, Benedict remained even in retirement a beacon of nostalgia for the orthodoxy and Latin Mass of their youth – and the pope they much preferred over Francis. 

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 His Highness the Amir Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah shared Saturday congratulatory cables with the leaders of the Arab and friendly countries on the New Year.

His Highness the Amir wished further security, peace, stability and prosperity to all countries all over the world in this New Year, and well-being to their leaders (KUNA)

A large number of Indian engineers have registered with the Embassy under the ongoing registration drive launched on 08 December 2022. However, it is understood that some engineers have not registered. 2.

The last date for registration is therefore being extended till 07 January 2023.

Those have not registered are advised to register at the earliest by filling in the online Google form at the link given below:- https://forms.gle/vFJaUcjjwftrqCYE6

A new method has been introduced by Kuwait's Central Bank to detect counterfeit banknotes by establishing a unified mechanism for local banks to use in the event that they detect a forged note, reports Al- Rai daily.

The regulatory update, which will be implemented on Jan 1, will ensure the detection of counterfeit banknotes by requiring a memorandum of deposit.

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare issued 'Guidelines for International Arrivals' and regularly updated them. Globally, COVID-19 cases are on the rise, resulting in revisions to the current guidelines.

Scope 

For flights landing in India from 1st January, 2023 (10.00 IST) until further orders, this document provides protocols to be followed by international travellers and points of entry (airports, seaports, and land borders).

A.1. Planning for Travel 

1. Travelers should preferably be fully vaccinated as per the country's primary schedule of vaccination against COVID-19.

2. A set of additional requirements applies to all international flights from certain high-risk countries Travelers of this type would need to:

a. Submit complete and factual information in self-declaration form on the online Air Suvidha portal (www.newdelhiairport.in) before the scheduled travel, including last 14 days’ travel details.

b. Upload negative COVID-19 RT-PCR report on the Air Suvidha portal (The test should have been conducted within 72 hrs prior to undertaking the journey).

c. Each passenger shall also submit a declaration with respect to authenticity of the report and will be liable for criminal prosecution, if found otherwise.

d. They should also give an undertaking on the portal or otherwise to Ministry of Civil Aviation, Government of India, through concerned airlines before they are allowed to undertake the journey that they would abide by the decision of the appropriate government authority for any post arrival requirement including home/institutional quarantine/ self-health monitoring, as warranted.

A.2. During Travel 

3. In-flight announcement about the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic including precautionary measures to be followed (preferable use of masks and following physical distancing) shall be made in flights/travel and at all points of entry.

4. Passengers with symptoms of COVID-19 during travel shall be isolated as per standard protocol i.e. wearing masks, being isolated and segregated from other passengers throughout flight/travel, and being shifted to an isolation facility for further treatment.

A.3. On arrival 

5. De-boarding should be done ensuring physical distancing.

6. The health officials at the point of entry should conduct thermal screenings on all passengers.

7. The passengers found to be symptomatic during screening shall be immediately isolated, taken to a designated medical facility as per health protocol (as above).

8. The following protocol post arrival shall also be followed:

a. A sub-section (2% of the total passengers  in all incoming international flights) shall undergo random post arrival testing at the airport on arrival, irrespective of port of departure.

b. Such travellers in each flight shall be identified by the concerned airlines (preferably from different countries). They will submit the samples and shall be allowed to leave the airport thereafter.

c. If such travellers samples are tested positive, their samples should be further sent for genomic testing at INSACOG laboratory network.

d. They shall be treated/isolated as per laid down standard protocol.

9. All travellers should self-monitor their health post arrival also shall report to their nearest health facility or call National helpline number (1075)/ State Helpline Number in case they have any symptoms suggestive of COVID-19.

* China, Singapore, Hong Kong, Republic of Korea, Thailand and Japan

* Children under 12 years of age are exempted from both pre-departure and post-arrival random testing. However, if found symptomatic for COVID-19 on arrival or during the period of self-monitoring period, they shall undergo testing and treated as per laid down protocol.

Kuwait’s Ministry of Interior (MoI) has taken all necessary security and traffic arrangements and preparations across the country ahead of New Year festivities, said a senior security official Thursday.

The main goals of the country’s security organs are to apply law to everyone without any exception and to deal with all people nationwide in a civilized manner, taking human circumstances and conditions into account, the ministry’s public relations manager Maj. Gen. Tawheed Al-Kandari said in a press statement. (KUNA)

After being convicted of providing a fake experience certificate, a Kuwaiti court sentenced a foreign doctor to one month in prison and ordered his deportation after serving the sentence.

According to Al Qabas, an Egyptian doctor who had worked at a Kuwaiti private hospital forwarded documents, including an experience certificate, to apply for a job in another Gulf country.

The experience certificate was found to be false when the documents were verified.

In court, the hospital's lawyer argued that the doctor's act was "unethical and dishonest", as well as forging official documents.

An unidentified suspect killed her cat with three gunshots, according to a local newspaper. A female citizen insisted on tracking him down. The complainant registered a misdemeanor case at the Al-Fayhaa police station under the title “harming an animal.”

A woman in her thirties reported the incident to the police station after being informed that her cat was shot by an unidentified individual in her garden at precisely 3:00 pm last Wednesday.

The citizen confirmed that she rushed her cat to a veterinary clinic, where veterinarians declared the animal dead. A medical report confirming the animal’s death and the cause of death was attached to the case file.

The General Traffic Department announced that its patrol vehicles will be released with a “new look” in the new Gregorian year 2023 that distinguishes them from the patrol vehicles of the other sectors of the Ministry of Interior, reports Al-Rai daily. Director of the General Traffic Department Major General Yousef Al-Khadda declared the release of about 300 traffic patrol vehicles with their new look, after changing their color from cyan to yellow in order to make them look different from the patrol vehicles of other sectors in the Ministry of Interior so that citizens and residents can easily identify them on the roads and request assistance in emergency situations.

He revealed that, “There are 500 old patrol vehicles that are currently in service, and they will be completely changed during the coming period.” Major General Al-Khadda said, “The General Traffic Department will soon launch a new bid for vehicles equipped with the best technologies and cameras to monitor violations of vehicles that are parked in prohibited areas or in parking lots for people with special needs, which impede movement either in markets, complexes, or government agencies that witness a density of vehicles. Its role will be to capture the vehicle on video and photographs, after which the file will be uploaded to the traffic system to record a direct violation. This is aimed to ensure that the rights of the violator and the traffic department are not lost. This will also help the officers to focus on other work without being preoccupied with following up this violation.”

Rains continued throughout the country until Wednesday dawn as levels reached as high as 63mm and as low as 12.5mm, Kuwait Meteorological Department of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation said Tuesday. The levels hit 63mm at Al-Ahmadi Port, 17.7 mm in Kuwait City, 17.5 mm in Al- Jahra Governorate and 12.5 at Kuwait Airport.

Speaking to KUNA in a statement, Abdulaziz Al- Qaraqi, a meteorologist at the department, forecast that the weather will improve gradually following Wednesday dawn and that the country witnessed scattered heavy rains in several parts. The country will witness dry and cold air, and northwesterly winds that are active ranging between 15 and 45 kilometers per hour, he said, indicating that the lowest degrees are between five and eight.(KUNA)

The Minister of Education and Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, Dr. Hamad Al-Adwani has issued a decision regarding the work system and tuition fees in private schools in all their educational systems for the academic year 2022-2023, reports Al-Qabas daily.

According to the decision, of which the daily obtained a copy, the fees for the current year will remain the same without an increase in all Arab and foreign private schools, with the continued validity of Resolution 10/2018 regarding private school fees, in addition to the decision issued in 2020 for schools concerned with people with disabilities, for the academic year 2022- 2023.

Authorize
Al-Adwani also decided to authorize the Assistant Undersecretary for General and Specific Education to impose appropriate penalties on schools violating this decision, and other decisions issued in implementation or regulation of it, and the decisions regulating the work of private schools. On the other hand, the Ministry of Education has completed direct contracting procedures for renting 200 cars to transport high school exam boxes for the academic year 2022-2023, to and from committees in various educational regions.

Informed sources said the delay in issuing the tender for the means of transferring paper exams to the regulatory authorities is what prompted the ministry to resort to direct contracting, in order for the success of the process of transferring documents on the scheduled date on January 4, and not obstructing the progress of work. The sources indicated that the cost of direct contracting for the provision of these transport vehicles amounted to about 75 thousand dinars during the examination period for the academic period from January 4 to January 16, 2023.

Rains accompanied by hailstones fell in a number of areas in Kuwait which brought great joy from some Kuwaitis and expats, in various regions of Kuwait. Besides heavy rains in some parts, the southern part of the country saw showers of hailstones and snowfall especially in the camp areas that were most fortunate to enjoy wonderful winter weather.

People pose for a picture in an area south of Kuwait that witnessed snow fall Tuesday, Dec 27, 2022Children playing with the snow while their parents look on.