SUBSCRIPTION WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 28, 2013 SHAWWAL 21, 1434 AH www.kuwaittimes.net Brotherhood US heat wave Wildfire rages on, Arsenal in CL leader denies prompts early threatens San for 16th ‘terror’ 7claims school10 dismissals Francisco10 water straight20 year Max 45º ‘Ready to hit’ Min 31º High Tide 03:48 & 17:31 West powers could attack Syria ‘in days’ Low Tide 11:01 & 22:52 40 PAGES NO: 15911 150 FILS AMMAN: Western powers could attack Syria within days, envoys from the United States and its allies have told rebels fighting President Bashar Al-Assad, sources who attended the meeting said yesterday. US forces in the region are “ready to go”, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said, as Washington and its European and Middle Eastern partners honed plans to punish Assad for a major poison gas attack last week that killed hundreds of civilians. Several sources who attended a meeting in Istanbul on Monday between Syrian opposition leaders and diplomats from Washington and other governments said that the rebels were told to expect military action and to get ready to negotiate a peace. “The opposition was told in clear terms that action to deter further use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime could come as early as in the next few days, and that they should still prepare for peace talks at Geneva,” one of the sources said. Ahmad Jarba, president of the Syrian National Coalition, met envoys from 11 states in the Friends of Syria group, including Robert Ford, the US ambassador to Syria, at an Istanbul hotel. United Nations chemical weapons investigators, who finally crossed the frontline to take samples on Monday, put off a second trip to rebel-held suburbs of Damascus. Washington said it already held Assad responsible for a “moral obscenity” and President Barack Obama would hold him to account for it. However, with Russian and Chinese opposition com- plicating efforts to satisfy international law - and Western voters wary of new, far-off wars - Western lead- ers may not pull the trigger just yet. British Prime Minister David Cameron called parliament back from its summer recess for a session on Syria tomorrow. He and Obama, as well as French President Francois Hollande, AT SEA: A picture released by the US Navy shows aircrafts assigned to Carrier Air Wing 7 fly in formation above face tough questions about how an intervention, likely the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D Eisenhower (CVN 69) in the Mediterranean Sea. US forces are ‘ready to go’ if to be limited to air strikes, will end - and whether they called on to strike the Syrian regime, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told the BBC yesterday. (Inset) Russian air risk handing power to anti-Western Islamist rebels if defense missile system Buk-M2 is on display at the opening of the MAKS Air Show in Zhukovsky outside Assad is overthrown. Moscow yesterday. Russia has supplied similar missiles to Syria. — Agencies Continued on Page 15 Govts seek Facebook info SAN FRANCISCO: Governments sought information on over 38,000 Facebook Qatar confirms users in the first half of 2013 and the No 1 social network complied with most new MERS case requests, the firm said in its first report on the scale of data inquiries it gets from DOHA: Health authorities in Qatar announced the countries around the world. The report second confirmed case in a week of the MERS coron- follows allegations by former intelligence avirus in the Gulf state, with a 29-year-old man contractor Edward Snowden that practi- infected and in intensive care. The Qatari patient cally every major Internet company - suffers from asthma and has been in contact with including Facebook, Google Inc and another patient infected with MERS. He is “in a criti- Microsoft Corp - routinely hands over cal condition and is under intensive care,” the troves of data on potentially millions of Facebook has at least partially com- Supreme Health Council said in a statement late users to national intelligence agencies. plied to about 80 percent of those Monday. Facebook has more than 1 billion requests, the company acknowledged On August 20, the authorities announced the first users worldwide. US law enforcement yesterday. Authorities in other countries infection in the Gulf state of a 59-year-old Qatari. authorities were by far the most active in with large Facebook user bases, includ- Another Qatari national with the infection died in a mining Facebook, seeking information ing India, the United Kingdom and London hospital on June 28. The virus has killed 47 on about 20,000 to 21,000 users between Germany, also requested information on people worldwide since September, 41 of them in January and June. That represents a thousands of users. Facebook, which dis- Saudi Arabia which neighbors Qatar. MERS is consid- slight rise from the six months between closed the figures in its first “Global ered a cousin of the SARS virus that erupted in Asia June and December 2012, when US Government Requests Report,” said it in 2003 and infected 8,273 people, nine percent of agencies requested information on individually scrutinized every informa- whom died. roughly 18,000 to 19,000 Facebook tion request and required governments Like SARS, it is thought to have jumped from ani- accounts, according to figures previously to meet a “very high legal bar” to receive DEIR EZZOR: A general view shows a heavily damaged street in Syria’s eastern user data. town of Deir Ezzor. — AFP mals to humans, and shares the former’s flu-like released by the company. symptoms-but differs by causing kidney failure. Continued on Page 15 PAGE Researchers have pointed to the Arabian camel, or PAGE Kuwaiti student in dromedary, as a possible host of the virus. Scientists India rupee sinks as studying the new virus have found older patients, men and people with underlying medical condi- Asian stocks plunge Australia faces trial tions are those particularly at risk. — AFP Al-Qaeda rebuffs Boy’s eyes gouged out US ‘propaganda’ in gruesome attack BEIJING: A six-year-old boy in China had his eyes gouged out, blinding AQAP denies plots him for life, reports said yesterday, in a gruesome attack that may have been carried out by a ruthless organ trafficker. Family members found DUBAI: Al-Qaeda in Yemen has denied US allegations it is plotting the boy covered in blood some three to four hours after he went miss- massive attacks that prompted the closure of Western missions in ing while playing outside, according to a television report posted the country this month, in a statement posted online. The extremist online. network also denied reports confirmed by Yemen’s President The child’s eyes were found nearby but the corneas were missing, Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi that US intelligence services had intercept- reports said, implying that an organ trafficker was behind the harrow- ed a conversation between Al-Qaeda chief Ayman Al-Zawahiri and ing attack. Police offered a 100,000 yuan ($16,000) reward for informa- Nasser Al-Wuhayshi, head of the Yemen-based Al-Qaeda in the tion leading to the arrest of the sole suspect, who they said was a Arabian Peninsula. woman. “He had blood all over his face. His eyelids were turned inside “Hadi repeated the nonsense and propaganda published by US out. And inside, his eyeballs were not there,” his father told Shanxi intelligence on telephone calls between jihadist leaders to justify Television. the US plot to kill Muslims in Yemen through continued raids,” Its report showed the heavily-bandaged boy being taken from an AQAP said in the statement posted on jihadist Internet forums. operating theatre and placed in a hospital bed, writhing in agony as Hadi had “claimed the jihadists were plotting to target oil terminals family members stood at his bedside weeping. The boy was drugged in the country using bomb-laden trucks,” said AQAP. “We deny what and “lost consciousness” before the attacker removed his eyes, state he said and regard it as an attempt to justify US criminal practices. broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV) said on its account on Sina TAIYUAN: A boy lies on his hospital bed with his eyes covered with bandages in a Continued on Page 15 Weibo, China’s version of Twitter. hospital in Taiyuan, north China’s Shanxi province yesterday. — AFP Continued on Page 15 WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 28, 2013 LOCAL News in brief Commercial licenses KUWAIT: Informed sources said the Cabinet will ask for quick amendments to the commerce ministry’s law to allow employees to obtain commercial licenses to prac- tice any commercial activity in addition to fighting monopoly to supply food stuff, and consumer goods apart from industrial and construction activities. Media cooperation KUWAIT: Minister of Information and Minister State for Youth Affairs Sheikh Salman Al-Humoud Al-Sabah yes- terday, met separately with Kuwaiti Ambassadors to Brazil and Germany, Eyada Al-Saeedi and Munthir Al- Essa respectively, discussing with them means to boost coordination between the Ministry of Information and their embassies. A statement by the ministry said that Sheikh Salman also discussed with the diplomats means to bolster ties with both Brazil and Germany especially within the media domain. He stressed that the ministry was keen on exchanging expertize and visits between Kuwait and the two friendly nations which in turn would boost ties and also develop media in the country. KUWAIT: Dr Nayef Al-Hajraf, the minister of education and higher education, yesterday toured a number of Mubarak Al-Kabeer educational area schools to check their preparations for the new school year set to begin soon. —- Photos by Yasser Al-Zayyat Kuwait- Palestine relations KUWAIT: Acting Undersecretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Ali Abdullah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah met yesterday with Palestinian Ambassador to Kuwait MPs seek body to handle Rami Tahboub.