RABIA ALAWWAL 24, 1441 AH THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2019 28 Pages Max 23º Min 08º 150 Fils Established 1961 ISSUE NO: 17990 The First Daily in the Arabian Gulf www.kuwaittimes.net Kuwait book fair opens with New Lanka president picks It’s Colbert karaoke as NZ Mourinho handed task of 5 500 publishers participating 6 brother as prime minister 19 PM hosts US comedian 28 reviving struggling Spurs Saudi king slams Iran ‘chaos’, urges it to quit ‘expansionism’ Pentagon: Iran missiles unrivaled in Mideast • US aircraft carrier transits Hormuz RIYADH/WASHINGTON: Saudi Arabia’s King Salman struck a defiant note against the kingdom’s enemies, say- Bader Al-Kharafi acquires 29% of Gulf ing yesterday that missile and drone strikes it blames on Iran had not halted development and reiterating that Riyadh will not hesitate to defend itself. He also urged archrival Iran to abandon an expansionist ideology that Cable with a book value of $500m has “harmed” its own people, following violent street KUWAIT: Al-Khair National Group (Al- protests in the Islamic republic. Kharafi Group) announced accepting a pro- “We hope the Iranian regime choses the side of wis- posal by Al-Khair International Stocks dom and realizes there is no way to overcome the inter- Company (Bader Nasser Al-Kharafi) to pur- national position that rejects its practices, without aban- chase 29 percent of Gulf Cable Company’s doning its expansionist and destructive thinking that has shares at a book value of around $500 million. harmed its own people,” the king told the consultative A press release issued by Al-Khair National Shura Council. The region’s leading Shiite and Sunni pow- RIYADH: Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz greets the Group explained the sale process will be con- ers have no diplomatic ties and are at odds over a range Shura Council yesterday as Secretary General of the top ducted according to Capital Markets Authority of issues, including the wars in Syria and Yemen. advisory body Abdullah Al-Sheikh looks on. — AFP and Boursa Kuwait regulations. “The kingdom has suffered from the policies and prac- Notably, as part of its new strategy to deal tices of the Iranian regime and its proxies,” King Salman by Iran. Saudi leaders regularly accuse Iran of stirring with local and international economic changes, said, quoted by the foreign ministry, reiterating that conflicts by supporting Shiite movements in the region. Al-Khair International Company, owned by Riyadh does not seek war but is “ready to defend its peo- Tehran denies the charges and in turn says Riyadh sup- Bader Nasser Al-Kharafi, recently made a ple”. In his annual address to the appointed Shura ports radical Islamist groups. In Yemen, the Iran- number of substantial acquisitions and pur- Council, he called again on the international community aligned Houthi rebels have been fighting the govern- chased shares in operational companies listed to stop Tehran’s nuclear and ballistic missile ment - backed by a Saudi-led military coalition - for Bader Nasser Al-Kharafi on the stock exchange. programs and halt regional intervention, saying it than four years. was time to stop the “chaos and destruction” generated Continued on Page 24 mander. The UN human rights office said it was Iran claims victory alarmed by reports live ammunition had caused a “sig- nificant number of deaths”. Amnesty International said more than 100 demonstrators were believed to have over ‘conspiracy’ been killed, and that the real toll could be as high as 200. The full extent of the bloodshed was difficult to TEHRAN: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said the ascertain given a near-total Internet blackout since the country’s people had defeated an “enemy conspiracy” weekend. behind a wave of violent protests and were celebrating Rouhani told a cabinet meeting that “our people their victory. Rouhani blamed the deadly unrest on have been victorious against ... the enemy’s conspiracy. “anarchists” who took to the streets “based on a plot “Those anarchists who came out onto the streets were that the region’s reactionary, the Zionists and few in number,” he said, insisting “this is the biggest Americans hatched”, referring respectively to Saudi display of the power of the nation of Iran”. Supreme Arabia, Israel and the US. leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said late Tuesday that The demonstrations erupted in sanctions-hit Iran on “the recent actions were security issues, not from the Friday, hours after the price of petrol was raised by as people... We have repelled the enemy.” Khamenei has much as 200 percent. Motorists blocked highways in previously blamed the unrest on the Pahlavi royal family Tehran before the unrest spread to at least 40 urban cen- ousted in the 1979 Islamic Revolution and armed oppo- tres, with petrol pumps torched, police stations attacked sition group the People’s Mujahedeen of Iran, which and shops looted. Officials have confirmed five deaths, Tehran considers a “terrorist” cult. including of three security personnel stabbed by “rioters”. In Shahriar, thousands of mourners trailed behind a In Shahriar, west of Tehran, mourners chanted truck carrying a coffin, clutching portraits of the slain “Death to America” in a funeral procession yesterday Guard and posters that read “Down with USA”. ARDABIL, Iran: Iranians wave the national flag during a rally in support of the Islamic republic’s government and for one of those killed, a Revolutionary Guards com- Continued on Page 24 supreme leader in this northwestern city yesterday. — AFP rules. No formal, written order has been Duterte bans made public that spells out the scope of the ban or penalties for violations. Israeli air strikes Duterte is notorious internationally for ‘toxic’ vaping, his deadly anti-narcotics crackdown, but he has also targeted tobacco with a kill 23 in Syria orders arrests wide-ranging ban on smoking in public. Citing “the order of the president” JERUSALEM: Israel said its warplanes carried out a MANILA: Philippine police were yesterday, a statement from the head of “very intense” attack against Iranian forces and ordered yesterday to arrest anyone the Philippine police ordered “effective Syrian army targets in Syria yesterday, in raids a caught vaping in public, just hours after today, all police units nationwide to monitoring group reported killed at least 23 people. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte enforce the ban on use of vapes; ensure In a rare confirmation of their operations in Syria, the announced he would ban e-cigarettes. that all violators will be arrested”. The Israeli army said they had carried out dozens of The abrupt prohibition, revealed by ban came days after Philippine health strikes against the Iranian elite Quds Force and the Duterte late Tuesday adds to a growing authorities reported the nation’s first Syrian military, in response to four rockets fired at global backlash against a product once vaping-related lung injury, which resulted Israel a day before. promoted as less harmful than tobacco in a 16-year-old girl being hospitalized. Britain-based monitoring group the Syrian smoking. Duterte, a former smoker, called Vaping has taken off in the Philippines, Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said 23 people the devices “toxic” and said vaping intro- with specialty shops and vapers puffing were killed in the strikes - 21 fighters and two civil- duced “chemicals” into the user’s body. away in public a common sight. E-ciga- ians. Sixteen were non-Syrian fighters, the group’s He ordered the arrest of anyone vap- rette users were caught off guard by the head Rami Abdel Rahman said. Iran has fought along- ing publicly in a country that already has ban and questioned the utility of side Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad’s forces in the some of Asia’s toughest anti-smoking Continued on Page 24 MANILA: A customer smokes at a vape store in the Philippine capital yesterday. — AFP country’s eight-year civil war, heightening Israeli con- cern over the presence of its arch foe along its border. photographs, a practice known as revenge porn. Victims, “considered a shame in this society”, said Kamel. These “Whoever hurts us, we will hurt him,” Israeli Prime activists and lawyers blame the phenomenon on a blend of images were being increasingly exploited, Kamel and other Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement. Revenge porn, factors: a conservative society, social media being used as activists said, relaying testimonies of a half-dozen victims “This is what we did overnight vis-a-vis military tar- virtual dating platforms, poor digital security among victims who declined interviews out of fear their identities would gets of the Iranian Quds Force and Syrian military tar- pics: Sextortion and weak laws. be revealed. One woman paid $200 every month for four gets in Syria after a barrage of rockets was launched The potential consequences can be devastating in a milieu years to an ex-boyfriend so he wouldn’t publish intimidate at Israel.” The Israeli army said they had targeted as conservative as Iraq: At best, an indelible mark of shame pictures of her, her colleague told AFP. Another had her about a dozen military sites, including warehouses and spreads in Iraq on a family but at worst, a death sentence by “honor killing” photographs stolen by a hacker and sold her telephone and military command centers. for the victims. Last year, Iraqi model and Instagram starlet jewelry to pay him off. “It was very intense,” spokesman Jonathan BAGHDAD: The threat came by anonymous Instagram mes- Tara Fares was shot dead in Baghdad, with many suspecting A third developed an online affair with a man, who then Conricus told AFP. The most important target, he said, sage one late Iraqi evening, making Hala’s blood run cold: gunmen who were contemptuous of her comparatively liberal threatened to forward her pictures to her husband unless was a control facility at the main international airport “I’ve got all your pictures and recordings.