Power Restored After Blackout Hits Kuwait
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SUBSCRIPTION THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2015 RABI ALTHANI 23, 1436 AH www.kuwaittimes.net Kuwaiti, The Real Fouz: Jon Stewart Balotelli American My ideal leaving Comedy steals the friendship makeup Central’s ‘The spotlight to celebrated2 brush37 kit Daily38 Show’ down19 Spurs Power restored after Min 17º Max 25º blackout hits Kuwait High Tide 04:48 & 16:40 Low Tide Outage blamed on cable failure at Subbiya plant 10:38 & 23:55 40 PAGES NO: 16431 150 FILS By Shakir Reshamwala KUWAIT: Large parts of Kuwait plunged into darkness yesterday, disrupting traffic and leaving people stuck in elevators and Ferris wheels. The Ministry of Electricity and Water said the widespread power outage was due to cable failure that caused the Subbiya power station to lose 2,000 megawatts. Power was later gradually restored to the affected areas. The blackout affected most of the country, including Hawally, Rumaithiya, Salwa, Fintas, Bayan, Mahboula, Salmiya, Shaab, Khaitan, Farwaniya, Rai and the Fourth Ring Road and adjacent neighborhoods. Kuwait International Airport, seaports, hospitals and major malls including The Avenues and Marina Mall were also hit by the blackout. Oil facilities were unaffected. Police and security personnel were on full alert to prevent any untoward incidents. Incidentally, Minister of Electricity and Water Abdul- Aziz Al-Ibrahim last month said the nation’s power grid will add 1,000 MW before the onset of the summer sea- son. He said expansion works at the Zour South and Subbiya power plants will each add no less than 500 MW to the national grid. Ibrahim added expansion works at the Zour North power plant are almost 70 per- cent complete and will provide 230 MW to the national grid by July. He said the country has surplus electricity, but called on consumers to rationalize power usage. Talabat sold KUWAIT: Vehicles drive on a highway engulfed with darkness after a power blackout hit most of Kuwait yesterday. — Photo by Joseph Shagra for €150m FRANKFURT: German e-commerce group Rocket Rapist cop’s death penalty upheld Internet agreed to buy Kuwait-based food delivery service Talabat for about €150 million ($169.6 mil- lion) as part of efforts to create the biggest delivery Student tries to smuggle 10,000 narcotic pills network outside China. The move comes only days after Rocket splashed out hundreds of millions of By A Saleh and Hanan Al-Saadoun her several more times in the neck, chest and back when euros to increase its stakes in grocery service she moved, holding her neck to stop the bleeding and try- HelloFresh and Delivery Hero and announced the KUWAIT: The appeals court yesterday upheld the death ing to get up. formation of its new Global Online Takeaway Group. sentence of a policeman for “abducting, raping and He then dragged and hid her body behind a mound of The latest addition to the group, Talabat, oper- attempting to murder” a Filipina woman. The lower court sand to become prey for stray dogs. But the Filipina sur- ates in Middle Eastern countries including Kuwait, had condemned the policeman, identified only by the ini- vived and crawled to a nearby road where a passerby took Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, cooper- tials Y M, to death last June. He can still challenge the rul- her to hospital. The victim along with the taxi driver later ating with restaurants such as Burger King, KFC and ing before the supreme court. The victim’s lawyer, Sultan identified the suspect in a lineup. The policeman initially Pizza Hut, Rocket said yesterday. “The Middle East is Al-Towalah, said he would also demand compensation. denied arresting any Filipina, believing she was dead, but one of the most attractive markets with significant According to court documents, the traffic policeman when he was told she was alive, pleaded insanity. An growth potential and highly attractive EBITDA had stopped a taxi with two Filipinas and found out that examination at the psychiatric diseases hospital proved he (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and one of them had an expired residency visa. He ordered her was sane and responsible for his actions. About 180,000 amortisation) margins,” top executive Oliver to get into the police car, and in an attempt to prevent him Filipinos, many of them women employed as domestic Samwer said in a statement. from jotting down the car’s license plate number, told the helpers, work and live in Kuwait, making up the fourth Rocket also said its 50 percent-owned taxi driver to move ‘quickly’, according to the driver’s testi- largest foreign community in the state. Foodpanda had struck a deal to buy 24h.ae, which it mony. Separately, airport customs officers arrested an said was a strong player in the United Arab Yielding to his orders, the Filipina got in the patrol car, Egyptian juvenile for attempting to smuggle more than Emirates. Both transactions are expected to close in which he drove to an open yard in Mishref where he took 10,000 narcotic tablets into the country. The pills were the next few weeks, Rocket said. While Berlin-based off his clothes and asked her to do the same. The woman sewn in the back of his vest. The source said there is a pos- Rocket sees itself as building an e-commerce oper- refused, and begged him to take her to the police station sibility that his family may be involved because the sus- ating empire, some investors see it as a launch pad for future stock market listings of everything from or hand her over to her country’s embassy. But the police- pect is young and it is unlikely that he has the ability to sell KUWAIT: Narcotic pills are sewn into the back of online fashion to home furnishings to personal man stabbed her in the neck and raped her. He then left such a large quantity of drugs. He added that it is possible the vest of an Egyptian student who was arrest- finance firms. — Reuters her for dead in a pool of blood, but returned and stabbed the suspect may be selling the drugs to fellow students. ed yesterday at the airport. US gunman kills three Muslim students MPs pass five-year WASHINGTON: A North Carolina man counts of first-degree murder, police said. was cooperating with investigators. “Our development plan espousing anti-religious views has been The victims, who were pronounced dead on investigators are exploring what could have charged with the murders of three Muslim the scene, were identified as Chapel Hill resi- motivated Mr Hicks to commit such a sense- By B Izzak also voted on another law for the first students, including a husband and wife, who dents Deah Shaddy Barakat, 23, and his wife less and tragic act. We understand the con- year starting April of the five-year plan were shot to death in the university town of Yusor Mohammad, 21, as well as her sister cerns about the possibility that this was KUWAIT: The National Assembly yester- which stipulates spending KD 6.6 billion. Chapel Hill, police said yesterday. Police said Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, 19, of Raleigh. hate-motivated and we will exhaust every day overwhelmingly approved the five- Minister of Social Affairs and Labor they were looking into the possibility of a Hicks turned himself in after the shooting lead to determine if that is the case,” Police year development plan despite strong and Planning Hind Al-Subaih told the hate crime, but that the incident appeared Tuesday in Chapel Hill, just outside the cam- Chief Chris Blue said. criticism by MPs for the government’s fail- Assembly that the plan is part of Kuwait’s to be triggered by a dispute between neigh- pus of the University of North Carolina. The father of the two women, ure to implement the previous plan. The long-term vision of becoming a regional bors over parking. “Our preliminary investigation indicates Mohammad Abu-Salha, a psychiatrist in new plan envisages spending KD 34.15 trade and financial hub. She said the plan The shooter, identified as 46-year-old that the crime was motivated by an ongoing Clayton, told the News & Observer that his billion on development projects in the aims at dealing with economic, housing, Craig Stephen Hicks, was being held without neighbor dispute over parking,” Chapel Hill daughters wore Muslim headscarves and years 2015/2016-2019/2020. Thirty-three demographic and other structural imbal- bond in the Durham County Jail on three police said in a statement, adding that Hicks that the killings bore signs of a hate crime MPs voted for the plan, four voted against ances. based on religion and culture. “It was execu- it while one MP abstained. The Assembly Continued on Page 13 tion style, a bullet in every head,” Abu-Salha told the Raleigh, North Carolina-based news- paper. This was not a dispute over a parking space; this was a hate crime. This man had picked on my daughter and her husband a couple of times before, and he talked with them with his gun in his belt. And they were uncomfortable with him, but they did not know he would go this far.” A Facebook page believed to belong to Hicks showed dozens of anti-religious posts, including one calling himself an “anti-theist,” saying he has a “conscientious objection to religion,” and other memes denouncing Christianity, Mormonism and Islam. His page (Left) Craig Stephen Hicks, 46, enters the courtroom for his first appearance at the also showed a photo of a loaded revolver, Durham County Detention Center yesterday over the shooting deaths of three alongside a video of a puppy and a promo- University of North Carolina students.