otics may lead to future antibiotic-resistant infec - Kuwait Times

FRIDAY, MARCH 16, 2012
TEHRAN: A senior Hamas figure in
Gaza, Mahmud Zahar, is visiting
Tehran for meetings with top Iranian
officials, media reported yesterday.
Zahar’s trip was taking place shortly
after Gaza militants and Israel agreed a
fragile truce that ended four days of
deadly cross-border violence.
Zahar, who serves as Hamas’s foreign
minister, met his Iranian counterpart,
Ali Akbar Salehi, who voiced his
country’s support for the Palestinians.
Salehi condemned Israeli air strikes on
Gaza as “savage attacks by the Zionist
regime against the innocent
Palestinian population,” the official
IRNA news agency reported.
“Support for the Palestinian population
is part of our principles and religious
beliefs and we are certain that
the Palestinian people will triumph,”
he said. Zahar, in return, thanked Iran
for its “limitless support.” On
Wednesday, Zahar met the head of
Iran’s supreme national security council,
Saeed Jalili, and the leader of Iran’s
parliament, Ali Larijani, the official
IRNA news agency reported. Zahar’s
visit followed one by Hamas leader
Ismail Haniyeh last month, who shared
the podium with Iranian President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on February
11 to commemorate the anniversary of
Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Israel and the United States consider
Hamas to be an armed proxy of Iran
able to strike Israel with Iranian-supplied
rockets should the Islamic republic
be threatened militarily. On
International
Top Hamas official visits Tehran
Indian kidnapped
in Philippines
‘feared’ killed
Wife, relatives deny reports
KUWAIT: Philippines
authorities were verifying
unconfirmed
reports that Biju Kolara
Veettil, a Kuwait-based
Indian national, who
was kidnapped by militants
in Philippines, was
executed by the Abu
Sayyaf militant group in
the southern province
of Sulu, according to
reports yesterday.
A Philippine-based
news portal quoting
Senior Superintendent Antonio Freyra of the Sulu
provincial police chief, reported that Biju Kolara Veetil,
36, was reported to have been killed by his captors for
still unknown reason .
The authorities are citing reports that Biju was murdered
even though his Filipina wife paid a ransom to
the al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf in the southern
province of Sulu, an Australian news paper reported.
Australian adventurer Warren Rodwell is still kept as
hostage by the Abu Sayyaf group, the daily reports.
However there has been no confirmation about his
fate since kidnappers sent a video to his wife a few
days before Christmas in which he pleaded with his
family to raise a $2 million ransom, said the Kuwaitbased
web portal indiansinkuwait.com quoting
reports.
Biju, working in Kuwait as Operations Manager in
Kuwait Bronze Al-Tawooz Company for the past nine
years, was kidnapped while he was visiting his Filipina
wife’s relatives in a southern Philippine island by a
group who claimed themselves as members of Abu
Sayyaf, an Islamist separatist group based in The
Philippines about nine months back.
He married a Philippine native, Eleena, who was also
working in Kuwait, eight years ago. Biju, a native of
Moodady near Koyilandy Taluk in Kozhikode District,
Kerala, India is the son of Narayanan K, a retired Indian
Army officer.
Biju’s relatives when contacted informed that they
did not have any confirmation about the news. His relatives
contacted Biju’s wife and she denied the reports
that she paid ransom to the abductors. She charged
that some vested interest are spreading this false information
to close the case officially.
“But I just want to clarify that this is still subject to
confirmation and we have no proof that he is alive or
dead,” Sr Supt. Antonio Freyra, Sulu provincial police
chief told reporters in Philippines.
SANAA: It was a stunning attack by Al-Qaeda in a country
that is one of the world’s hottest fronts against the terror
group. Militants rampaged through an army camp in southern
Yemen before dawn, catching soldiers asleep and
killing more than 180. Amid the turmoil, the defense minister
ordered helicopters to evacuate the wounded. The air
force commander, Mohammed Saleh al-Ahmar, refused,
according to a senior official at the main air force base in
Sanaa. Notably, al-Ahmar is a half brother of ousted leader
Ali Abdullah Saleh. Many in the military and government
say the refusal last week is one example of how Saleh is
working behind the scenes to obstruct the new US -backed
government as it tries to bring reform and step up the fight
against Al-Qaeda militants in this impoverished Arab
nation. Saleh was the fourth ruler to fall in the Arab Spring
wave of revolts in the Mideast, stepping down in the face of
protests after more than three decades in power. But while
he’s no longer president, he has effectively emerged as a
parallel ruler: His loyalists and relatives still pervade state
bodies and military, and officials who back the new government
say he uses those levers to persistently undermine
them. The goal, they fear, is to pave the way for Saleh to
return to power by showing the new government is incapable
of dealing with the country’s multiple problems.
Saleh has set up an office in the giant, extravagant Sanaa
mosque that he built during his rule and that bears his
name, just around the corner from the presidential palace.
There he meets with his loyalists and powerful tribal leaders
who back him.
The result is constant friction between Saleh’s supporters
and the new president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi. The
Americans hope Hadi can reinvigorate the fight against Al-
Qaeda, which many Yemenis say Saleh’s military waged
only halfheartedly. Al-Qaeda’s branch here is seen by
Washington as the most dangerous arm of the terror group
after repeated attempts to carry out bombings on
American soil. It only grew stronger during the past year’s
turmoil, when militants seized control of several towns in
the south, including Zinjibar, a provincial capital.
US officials say the Pentagon plans to assist Hadi with
Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu branded Gaza an
“advance post for Iran,” which he
explicitly accused of arming, financing
and training militants in the
Palestinian enclave. But Ahmed Yussef,
a counsellor to the Hamas foreign ministry,
earlier this month told AFP that
“Iran does not need Hamas to respond
to Israel in the event of an attack,
because it has enormous military capabilities
at its disposal, which allow it to
act without us.”— AFP
Yemenis: Ousted leader
undermining Qaeda fight
SANAA: In this Saturday, Dec 24, 2011 file photo, Yemen’s
President Ali Abdullah Saleh speaks to reporters during a press
conference the Presidential Palace in Sanaa, Yemen. —AP
about $75 million for military training and equipment. After
talks in Sanaa last month, President Barack Obama’s top
counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, said Hadi was
“committed to destroying Al-Qaeda.” But Brennan acknowledged
Hadi could face resistance in reforming an army that
is seen as hobbled by corruption and divided loyalties. He
said some in the military “have tried to take advantage of
their positions for personal gain.”—AP
Kurd leader slams Baghdad
officials as ‘failures’
ARBIL: The leader of Iraq’s autonomous
Kurdistan said yesterday that central government
officials who did not acknowledge
the region’s oil contracts were vindictive
“failures”. “The officials in the central
government who refuse to admit
these contracts are failures who could not
give to Iraq what we give to our people in
Kurdistan,” Massud Barzani said in a
speech in Kurdish regional capital Arbil.
“They want us to be like them.” He continued:
“The problem is not whether these
contracts violate the constitution or not,
but that they (central government offi-
cials) do not want the region to develop.”
Barzani did not explicitly name any of the
officials he was referring to. The central
government in Baghdad and Kurdistan
regional authorities have been locked in a
prolonged dispute over oil contracts with
foreign energy firms. The Kurdistan region
has signed around 40 contracts with international
companies on a production-sharing
basis without seeking the express
approval of the central government’s oil
ministry. The federal oil ministry, meanwhile,
has awarded energy contracts to
international companies on the basis of a
per-barrel service fee. It has also refused to
sign deals with any firm that has agreed a
contract with Kurdistan. That refusal was
put in the spotlight in October, when
Kurdistan inked a deal with ExxonMobil to
explore six areas of the region. The US firm
had previously signed a contract with
Baghdad to ramp up production at the
West Qurna-1 field, Iraq’s second-biggest.
Iraq has said the oil giant must choose
between the two contracts. Baghdad has
also yet to approve an oil and gas law that
would regulate the sector, with proposals
languishing for several years.— AFP