MUHARRAM 29, 1439 AH THURSDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2017 Max 36º 32 Pages 150 Fils Established 1961 Min 22º ISSUE NO: 17359 The First Daily in the Arabian Gulf www.kuwaittimes.net Xi declares ‘new era’ as AUB reports profits of US author Saunders wins Hazard rescues Chelsea 10party congress opens 17 KD 40m for 9 months 29 2017 Man Booker Prize 16 in 6-goal Roma thriller Ghanem tears into Israel at global parliamentary meet Speaker lambastes Israeli delegation, shames it to leave hall SAINT PETERSBURG, Russia: Kuwait’s chief law- voiced his gratitude to Ghanem for his speech. maker fiercely retaliated to the Israeli parliament repre- Speaking to the parliament, Berri thanked Ghanem for sentative’s comments on imprisoned Palestinian lawmak- his forceful stance. ers at an international conference yesterday. “The say- Kuwait is a staunch supporter of the Palestinian issue ing ‘if you have no shame do as you please’ applies to and has maintained its boycott of Israel even as other the comments made by this rapist (Israeli) parliament,” Gulf and Arab states have softened their stance or are National Assembly Speaker Marzouq Al-Ghanem told allegedly strengthening links with Israel. Kuwait Airways lawmakers gathered at Inter-Parliamentary Union talks. refuses service to Israeli citizens, citing a Kuwaiti law During a discussion about Palestinian lawmakers barring citizens from agreements “with entities or per- arrested by Israeli authorities, Ghanem said this “repre- sons residing in Israel, or with Israeli citizenship”. sents the most dangerous type of terrorism - the terror- The national carrier has resisted pressure to change ism of the state”. “You should grab your bags and leave its policy and has absorbed major financial hits as a this hall as you have witnessed the reaction of every result. Last year, Kuwait Airways cancelled flights honorable parliament around the world,” he said, between London and New York after a fracas over its addressing the Israeli delegation. “Leave now if you refusal to carry Israeli citizens. It dropped the route have one ounce of dignity, you occupier, you murderer after 35 years of operations. Faced with lawsuits, it also of children,” he charged. The Israeli delegation left the ended other intra-European flights over similar reasons. talks following the remarks by Ghanem and several oth- And earlier this month, Arab-Israeli Facebook star er parliamentarians amidst applause. Nuseir Yassin slammed Kuwait Airways for its long- In press statements on the concluding day of the standing policy of refusing to fly Israeli passengers. He IPU assembly, MP Mohammad Al-Dallal said the had booked a Kuwait Airways flight to the India from Kuwaiti delegation successfully won support for an New York, but when he arrived at the airport to check in, item on Rohingya Muslims that was overwhelmingly he was turned away. Yassin also questioned the motives SAINT PETERSBURG, Russia: National Assembly Speaker Marzouq Al-Ghanem gestures during a voted for and added to the assembly’s agenda. Later behind Kuwait’s boycott, claiming that the country’s speech at the Inter-Parliamentary Union meeting yesterday. — KUNA yesterday, Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri efforts hurt Israel’s Arab minority. — Agencies Palestinian girl Qatar emir open wins $150K Arab to dialogue to reading prize end Gulf crisis DUBAI: A Palestinian high school student yesterday BOGOR, Indonesia: Qatar is “open to dialogue” in won $150,000 in an Arabic-language reading competi- resolving a dispute that has seen the Gulf state isolated tion organized by the Dubai government. Seventeen- from its Arab neighbors, its emir said during a visit to year-old Afaf Raed Sharif, from Ramallah, beat 16 final- Indonesia yesterday. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab ists from across the Arab world to land the top prize in Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain cut diplomatic and trade BOGOR: Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim Al-Thani meets the second annual Arab Reading Challenge. Participants ties with Qatar on June 5, accusing it of financing terror- Indonesian President Joko Widodo at the presiden- had to read at least 50 books to qualify. ism and maintaining too close of ties to their arch-rival “This is a victory over all the challenges that we face. Iran. Doha denies the charges. tial palace yesterday. —AFP We refuse to be any less than any other people in the Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani said world,” Sharif told AFP. “It’s a message to all students: he discussed the issue with President Joko Widodo of The leader of the world’s biggest exporter of lique- don’t you ever give up. Don’t you ever break. When you Indonesia, which has the world’s largest population of fied natural gas also visited Malaysia - another Muslim- set a goal, you can reach it. It won’t be easy ... but you Muslims and has close ties to the Arab world. “We con- majority nation - and Singapore this week. Saudi and have to make persistence and patience your allies.” veyed...that Qatar is ready to conduct a dialogue to other Arab nations have made a list of 13 wide-ranging The all-girl Al-Iman school, in Bahrain, won a $1 mil- solve the problem as we already know that no one will demands of Qatar, including closing down the Al lion prize for the best reading initiatives for students. win,” Thani told reporters after meeting with Widodo at Jazeera television network and curbing ties with Iran. The principal of the winning school takes home DUBAI: Palestinian high school student Afaf Sharif raises the state palace in Bogor, outside the capital of Jakarta. Kuwait and top United States officials have attempted $100,000 of the prize money, with the school’s reading a trophy next to Emir of Dubai Mohammed bin Rashid “We are all brothers and suffering because of this cri- to mediate between the parties, but there is little sign supervisor taking another $100,000 and the remaining Al-Maktoum at the Arab Reading Challenge. — AFP sis,” he added. President Widodo did not publicly that the crisis will be resolved soon. $800,000 going to school funds. — AFP address the dispute. Continued on Page 11 UAE boosts A Saudi first: trades with Spokeswoman competition ABU DHABI: The oil-rich United Arab Emirates, seeking at US embassy to elevate the prestige of vocational skills among its youth, this week hosted a global trades competition - the WASHINGTON: As Saudi Arabia feverishly por- first in the Middle East. At the Abu Dhabi convention cen- trays itself as ready to join the ranks of modern, toler- ter yesterday, schoolgirls in tartan uniforms followed their ant societies, the kingdom has turned to a once- teachers past contestants engrossed in aircraft mainte- unlikely messenger - one of its daughters - to make its nance and hairdressing competitions. Foreign competi- case to the West. On Fatimah Baeshen’s first day as tors from as far afield as Norway and China rubbed the Saudi Embassy in Washington’s official spokes- shoulders with Emirati college students, men in traditional woman, the ultra-conservative white robes and women in black flowing gowns. nation’s rulers issued a decree to They were some of the thousands of UAE students lift its ban on women driving, bussed in on field trips to see some 1,300 competitors starting next summer. It was a take part in WorldSkills Abu Dhabi 2017, billed as the step toward erasing what much of world’s top vocational skills competition. “The leadership the world sees as a stain on Saudi of the UAE really wants to show their population the Arabia women’s rights record. opportunities that vocational skills offer to young peo- ABU DHABI: Competitors take part in an aircraft maintenance competition during the “World Skills” interna- Fatimah Baeshen Activists are pushing for greater ple,” WorldSkills International spokesman Crispin tional competition yesterday. — AFP human rights and political free- Thorold told AFP. doms, even with the recent openings for women. Vocational jobs in the Gulf are often filled by migrant Baeshen, the first woman to hold embassy post, workers and seen as less prestigious than careers in the came back home and was telling his mother that, ‘Oh Over at the welding competition, Mohammed is no stranger to life behind the wheel of a car. The army, government or business. Thorold said that was not yeah, they have a world skills contest and I’m gonna Youssef Ali Bandar from Kuwait recalled his family’s Saudi-born Baeshen spent years living, working unique to the Middle East. “There are very few coun- go,’” Don said smiling as his son, now 22, focused on his initial resistance to his career path. “When I first want- and studying in the United States, affording an tries... where there is genuine equality in the minds of task during an hours-long competition. ed to do welding for a living, my parents said ‘Why! easy fluency in the routines of American life that parents and the minds of teachers between academic “For Jonathan it was a great thing because he was You’ll be like a laborer driving around in a pick-up many Westerners see as irreconcilable with the qualifications and vocational qualifications,” he said, sin- never one we could see going on to a four-year school truck full of gas cylinders,’” he told AFP with a grin. He country she represents. “I’m a byproduct of the gling out Germany and Finland as exceptions. to be an engineer or work in an office setting,” he said. nearly switched topics at his technical institute, but one longstanding Saudi-US relationship,” Baeshen Don Robertson, from the US state of Missouri, flew “He was very good with his hands and he did have a of his instructors encouraged him to stick with welding.