Habib Toumi

Turner and his family - Al Watan Daily

A disgruntled American is behind the spate of hoax bomb calls that gripped Kuwait in the last few weeks, a Kuwaiti paper said.

Orlando Turner a former resident of Kuwait said that the hoax threats were meant to exert pressure on the Kuwaiti authorities to speed up the settlement of his legal case with his soon-to-be ex-Filipino wife who wants the custody of their 11-month-old daughter, Al Watan Daily reported on Sunday.

First revealing himself in a YouTube video under the name “jackofalltrades98”, Turner claimed to know the truth about the bomb threats that had caused the shutting down and evacuation of several buildings in Kuwait.

Turner said that he was behind nine of the ten bomb threat calls in 2010, not claiming responsibility for Kuwait Stock Exchange hoax call, the paper said. continue reading…

Al Mabhouh - Time

A Gulf country had sought to put pressure on the police authorities in Dubai to allow the body of slain Hamas leader Mahmoud Al Mabhouh to be repatriated without delay, a Kuwaiti newspaper reported.

Al Aan did not name the country, but said that it had good ties with Hamas and interceded on behalf of the Palestinian faction when the Dubai authorities said that it would keep Al Mabhouh’s body for some time for the sake of the investigation.

The authorities in Dubai did not give his body to his family or to Hamas immediately was because he had a foreign nationality and they wanted to make sure about the reason of death,” Al Aan newspaper said on Sunday, quoting unnamed UAE sources.

Al Mabhouh who was killed in a Dubai hotel room in January had entered the UAE with a Syrian passport, according to the report, dismissing speculation that he had used a forged Iraqi travel document.

George Mitchell

A US State Department official has denied as “rumours” media reports that Special US Mideast envoy George Mitchell had offered his resignation.

“There appears to be a monthly rumour, story that George Mitchell is resigning. He is not, and he is on the job,” Philip J. Crowley, Assistant Secretary, said at the Daily Press Briefing on Friday. “George Mitchell is determined. He is engaged in discussions with the Palestinians, with the Israelis, with others around the region. And we’re all looking for that formula that can open the door for talks to begin.”

Hadith An-Nass, a Nazareth-based daily, reported on Friday that Mitchell wanted to quit in frustration with the way the US administration has been handling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The paper, quoting an unnamed Arab political source, said that his decision stemmed partly from a perception of biased favour towards Israel by some US officials within the State Department and also from his own failure to advance the resumption of peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

According to the report, the White House had turned down Mitchell’s request.

However, in the briefing, Crowley said that the US was frustrated because of the lack of progress. continue reading…

Police on Saturday morning conducted the first ever hostage rescue operation in Bahrain’s modern history and successfully freed nine Chinese supervisors held by angry labourers at a resort construction site in the coastal village of Zallaq, 40 kilometres south of Manama.

The operation followed an all night long siege of the site where the Chinese labourers held the architects and foremen and demanded that they be replaced for allegedly ill-treating them.

The interior ministry and an official from the Chinese embassy negotiated with the labourers, but could not reach a deal, sources said, prompting the police to launch its operation and free the hostages. Two labourers are believed to have been slightly injured in the drawn storming.

George Mitchell ... Time to say farewell?

 Special US Mideast envoy George Mitchell has requested to resign in frustration with the biased favour towards Israel by some US officials within the State Department, Hadith An-Nass, a Nazareth-based daily, reported on Friday.

The newspaper, quoting an unnamed Arab political source, said that Mitchell’s request was partly based on the way the US administration has been handling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

His decision also stemmed from his own failure to advance the resumption of peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, the paper said, adding that the White House turned down the request.

Peace talks between Palestinians and Israelis were halted more than a year ago over the war in the Gaza Strip and have not resumed.

Jamal Sulaiman

Algerians are pushing for the replacement of a Syrian star in a television series based on a book written by an Algerian novelist about the liberation war in the North African country.

 The Algerians said that Syrian actor Jamal Sulaiman had flagrantly sided with the Egyptians during the bitter standoff between the two countries last November and that he repeatedly insulted the North Africans.

“He never missed an occasion to criticize the Algerians and to demand that they apologise to the Egyptians for their alleged attacks on their fans during the do-or-die march in Sudan,” Algerian bloggers and Facebook users said. “For his repeated assaults on Algerians and on their collective conscience, he is not qualified to play the role of Khalid, a hero in the struggle for Algeria’s independence in the Memory of the Body, the book written by Ahlam Mostaghanmi,” they said. continue reading…

Ali Tounsi

The chief of Algeria’s national security, Ali Tounsi, was shot dead in his office on Thursday shortly before noon, an Algerian daily has reported.

Witnesses quoted by Echorouk said Tounsi was killed by a 64-year-old retired army colonel who was hired by the national security agency to oversee the police helicopters unit.

According to the report, the officer had requested a brief private talk with Tounsi before the start of a larger meeting scheduled to discuss the findings of an investigation incriminating the retired colonel.

The paper said that following a heated argument, the officer took out his gun and fired more than five shots before turning it on himself. He is believed to be in a critical condition in a hospital in Ain Nadja, Echorouk said.

The victim had been in charge of the national security for the last 15 years when he was called from his retirement as head of intelligence to help in the fight against terrorism. He is largely credited with helping to establish peace in the country, following years of turmoil.

The interior ministry said in a statement that Tounsi was killed at around 10.45 am and that it started investigations into the assassination.

Shaikh Ahmad Al Abdullah

The move to grill the information minister following the airing of a show that allegedly denigrated Kuwait’s tribes has gathered pace among lawmakers.

“Things look bright and three more MPs have joined the 20 lawmakers who have already signed up for the quizzing of the minister,” Ali Al Deqbasi, the MP who filed to quiz Shaikh Ahmad Al Abdullah, said. “We are confident that more MPs will join us within the next few days,” he said in a statement published in the Kuwaiti media.

MP Mislim Al Barrak said that the evidence in the possession of the MPs keen on grilling the minister was enough to make other members of the parliament to call for action against him. He did not however explain the nature of the evidence.

The minister came under fire after a private television station, Al Sour, last year aired a show in which some of the guests denigrated tribesmen and said that they broke Kuwaiti law by holding dual citizenship. Tribesmen make up around half of the native population and also half of the parliament.

The station was taken off their air and its owner briefly detained. However, several MPs said that they wanted the minister to assume his responsibilities for not taking stringent action against media that “worked on dividing the country and eroding its unity.” continue reading…

MP Adel Al Mouawda

A Bahraini lawmaker has sharply criticized Arabs for their “eerie silence” that allowed Israel to designate two Islamic shrines on Palestinian territory as national heritage sites. MP Adel Al Mouawda also slammed Israel for its decision, saying that it amounted to waging a religious war on Muslims.

“Arabs have been so eerily silent that they have broken all records of collective passiveness and lapses into inaction,” Al Mouawda said. “Their passive attitude has encouraged the Israelis to disregard Muslims and their sacred sites and to do whatever they wanted,” said Al Mouawda who chairs the parliamentary committee for foreign affairs, defence and national security.

According to the Salafi lawmaker, the latest Israeli decision is the latest of a string of actions to “seize Islamic sanctities, Judaize Jerusalem and preserve the so-called Jewish character of the Zionist entity.”

“Every now and then, we see actions such as intrusions into the Aqsa Mosque and excavation work under the mosque as a prelude to destroying it. The policies of killing, torture, sieges and starvation continue unabated, and the latest is the assassination of Mahmoud Al Mabhouh,” he said. continue reading…

Exquisite Italian garden

Italy’s grand art of gardening, where love of nature smoothly blends with art and passionately hugs with architecture, as admired in the numerous villas and giardini of the romantic Peninsula, will be represented for the first time at the Bahrain International Garden on February 25-28 in Manama.