Habib Toumi

Kuwait City

Kuwait has approved the nomination of Mohammad Husain Mohammad Bahr Al Uloom as Iraq’s ambassador, diplomats said on Wednesday.

“We have endorsed his appointment and he is welcome here any time he wants to come,” the unnamed sources were quoted as telling Al Anba daily.

Initial news of his appointment last month were warmly greeted by Kuwait and

Shaikh Mohammad Sabah Al Salem, the foreign minister, said that the nomination after a 20-year hiatus was a good move, while a foreign ministry official denied pressure from either Baghdad or Tehran on Kuwait City to approve it.

The Iraqi post has been vacant since 1990 when Iraqi troops invaded the northern Arabian Gulf emirate and set off the 1991 Gulf War.

The Iraqi nominee is the son of Shiite scholar and politician Mohammad Bahr Al Uloom and the brother of the former oil minister, Ibrahim Bahr Al Uloom. continue reading…

An Arab teacher has been sacked for asking her students at a private university in Bahrain to observe a one minute’s silence in tribute to Iraqi former president Saddam Husain.

The university administration fired the teacher after incensed Bahraini and Kuwaiti students complained about the teacher’s request, Bahraini daily Al Ayam reported on Tuesday.

The political science teacher allegedly called for the tribute before the start of the class, saying that the students had to pay respect to the “martyr and hero of the nation.” However, several students took the request to the president who launched an investigation into the incident.

Years after his downfall and subsequent execution, Saddam remains a controversial figure in Bahrain. continue reading…

Woman's elections poster: the husband's picture and the brother-in-law's name

An Iraqi woman running in the March elections has appealed to voters to back her up, but put the picture of her husband instead of her own on her campaign poster. She also identified her brother-in-law to capitalise on his name.

 “Elect the one who is part of you … Mrs Shadha Razzaq Al Sultani … Wife of Ahmad Shaikh Jassem … Brother of Shaikh Malek,” the woman, also known as Um Sajed, wrote on the poster next to the picture of her husband wearing a two-piece suit and a tie.

 The poster, posted on Iraqi websites, drew sarcasm and scorn from readers who wondered how the woman would attend the parliament sessions if she ever got elected.

A Jordanian tribe has decided to name all the males born this year “Saddam” and all the females “Raghad”, “Hala” or “Rana” after Saddam’s daughters after their town municipal council shelved a plan to name a street after Iraqi former leader Saddam Hussain.
The town cancelled the plan in the wake of a political and diplomatic furore it sparked in Jordan, Kuwait and Iraq.
Jordanian Prime Minister Sameer Al Rifae said his government would not accept the decision taken by the municipal council of Al Mazar, a small town 250km south of Amman.
Nabeel Al Shareef, Jordan’s Minister of State for Information and Communications, told the Ammon news service that the residents of Al Mazar submitted a petition to the municipal council to revoke their decision about naming one of the town streets after Saddam Hussain.
The council eventually accepted the petition and cancelled the decision, he said.

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