MP Abdullah Al-Turaiji yesterday submitted a proposal to the National Assembly calling to restrict vehicle ownership by expatriates to only two and impose extra fees on any additional vehicles, saying the proposal aims at reducing traffic jams. Turaiji’s proposal calls on the interior ministry to take the necessary measures to restrict the number of vehicles foreign residents can own for personal use to only two “to counter the illegal trade in vehicles, reduce traffic jams” and “ensure there are enough spaces for the use of Kuwaiti citizens at commercial malls, markets and public places”.

The proposal states that if residents want to own more than two vehicles, they should apply to the traffic department, and if approved, they must pay extra fees for additional vehicles. The lawmaker said there are scores of dilapidated vehicles on Kuwaiti roads owned by expatriates, causing traffic jams, chaos and accidents. He added that these vehicles are normally parked in public squares and car parks of schools, mosques and commercial malls, and efforts by the Municipality have failed to resolve this problem.

Turaiji said based on reports in the press and social media, dozens and probably hundreds of expats own up to 50 vehicles each. The lawmaker said some residents are using public places and parks to park their vehicles and have exploited such places to trade in vehicles, clearly violating the law. He said although there is no law restricting vehicle ownership by expats, “authorities should intervene to control the situation” in order to serve public interest.

MPs have earlier submitted proposals targeting residents, like urging the government to impose taxes on their money transfers and calling to substantially reduce the number of expats in the country, who currently constitute some 70 percent of Kuwait’s population of 4.6 million./KT

The first two of 28 Eurofighters ordered by Kuwait have been delivered to the Gulf state, Italy’s Leonardo announced on Tuesday.

The two aircraft flew from Italy, where they were assembled, with refueling escort provided by two Italian air force KC-767 tankers while two Italian Eurofighters also provided escort.

Leonardo said Kuwait pilots were training at the Italian Air Force’s 4th Squadron at Grosseto in central Italy, while Leonardo test pilots and instructors from the Italian air service will support the initial training of Kuwaiti pilots and the OCU (Operational Conversion Unit) at Al Salem base in Kuwait.

Italy has managed the sale of Eurofighters to Kuwait and test-flown the new electronically scanned radars mounted on the aircraft.

Known as the Eurofighter Common Radar System Mk 0, the radar is also due to equip Qatar’s 24 Eurofighters and is built by the Euroradar consortium teaming Leonardo Italy, Leonardo UK, Spain’s Indra and Germany’s Hensoldt.

An upgrade, the Mk 1, will retrofit roughly 130 German and Spanish Eurofighters in the mid-2020s, while the U.K. has developed a Mk 2 version featuring different components.

“The Eurofighter Typhoons we have developed and produced for the Kuwait Air Force are the most advanced in the whole history of the European program,” said Leonardo CEO Alessandro Profumo.

The four original Eurofighter partners have now ordered 510 aircraft, with Saudia Arabia buying 72, Austria 15, Oman 12, Kuwait 28 and Qatar 24 for a total of 661 aircraft./ Defense News 

In a fresh assault on religious freedom of Muslims, French government has closed at least 21 more mosques in the country, accusing them of "promoting extremism".

France’s Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, appearing on the French television LCI on Sunday, said 21 mosques that showed signs of extremism had been closed in the country.

The minister said they recently carried out raids at 99 mosques on suspicion of extremism, and closed 21 of the mosques in question while the process of closing 6 others was underway.

Darmanin further said that these steps were taken on the basis of the so-called “separatist” law.  

He said 36 mosques were left open “because they did not contradict the laws of the Republic,” while other mosques were stopped from receiving external funding and the prayer leader of one of the mosques was dismissed on suspicion of extremism.

He later took to Twitter to share details about the action taken by the French government, while emphasizing that the raids on mosques will continue.

The move is seen as yet another Islamophobic attack targeting the country’s persecuted minority Muslim community, which have seen deep marginalization and witch-hunt in recent years.

On July 2021, the lower house of the French parliament approved a controversial bill targeting religious freedom and stigmatizing Muslims, while tightening rules on the funding of mosques, associations, and non-governmental organizations belonging to Muslims.

In an act to enforce the law, the main association in defense of Muslims, the CCIF, was also dissolved.

The bill also targeted Muslim girls under the age of 18 by banning the wearing of hijab - a headdress worn by Muslim women - in public places.

Pertinently, Muslim women are banned from sending their children to school in Islamic veil in France.  

Months earlier, French President Emmanuel Macron had unveiled a plan to defend what he called France’s secular values against “Islamist radicalism” and claimed that the religion was “in crisis”.

He said “no concessions” would be made in a new drive to eliminate religion from education and public sector in the country.

Human rights groups have raised grave concerns over the law, saying it discriminates and stigmatizes French Muslims.

Last year, two Muslim women wearing headscarves were stabbed near the Eiffel Tower in Paris amid heightened racial tensions, but French state media chose to stay silent on the incident.

It came after the killing of a French teacher by an extremist outside his school in November last year for showing derogatory cartoons of Prophet Muhammad during his class.

This gave an excuse to the French president as he defended the profane caricatures and introduced the legislation targeting so-called Islamic extremism.

The deeply offensive caricatures set off angry protests worldwide. Inside France, a crackdown on the Muslim community saw multiple mosques forced to close, the country’s biggest Muslim charity and an anti-Islamophobia organization banned, and dozens of people arrested.

More than 5 million Muslims live in France, who account for the largest Muslim population in Europe, along with German Muslims. /agencies

The European Union’s diplomatic service is currently examining various scenarios for Russia’s actions against Ukraine to prepare the bloc for all possibilities, its top diplomat said Tuesday. 

“We are expecting the best but preparing for the worst,” foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told EU lawmakers regarding the bloc’s response to the massive Russian military buildup in and around Ukraine in his speech at the European Parliament’s plenary session in Strasbourg, France.

Borrell said the concentration of troops is an “attempt to undermine for the Ukrainians territorial integrity which was already jeopardized when Russia took over Crimea.”

He admitted that they were “studying the different scenarios that one could imagine that could happen in the following days or weeks” in order to prepare the EU’s response to any development.

He repeated the bloc’s warning that an attack against Ukraine would end in “high political and economic costs” for Russia but stressed that EU diplomats were working in a “deterrent mode” since the bloc did not want to contribute to escalating the conflict between Ukraine and Russia.

In 2014, Moscow began supporting separatist forces in eastern Ukraine against the central government, a policy that it has maintained in the past seven years.

For the second time this year, Russia concentrated a significant number of troops in and around Ukraine last month.

Top EU officials have repeatedly expressed support for Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty over the past few months.

The EU has been applying restrictive measures in response to the Ukrainian crisis since 2014.

Currently, 188 people and 48 entities are on the bloc’s blacklist for violating Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.

Separate economic sanctions on Russia’s finance, energy and defense sectors are also in place because of Moscow’s reluctance to fully implement the Minsk Agreements meant to establish peace in eastern Ukraine.

On Monday, the EU also blacklisted the Russian private military contractor Wagner Group for human rights violations and intervening in conflicts around the world, including the one in Ukraine.​​​​​​​/aa

COVID-19 deaths in the US surpassed 800,000 Tuesday, according to Johns Hopkins University.

The Maryland-based educational institution has also registered more than 50.2 million infections since the first case was confirmed in Washington state in January 2019.

The country continues to lead the world in coronavirus fatalities.

Earlier in the day, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki cited a new study from the Commonwealth Fund, which she said found that vaccinations have saved over 1 million lives, prevented more than 10 million hospitalizations and prevented more than 35 million COVID cases since President Joe Biden took office.

"This is not by accident. The president made it his top priority to make sure vaccines were readily available to Americans as early as possible," said Psaki.

After the delta variant, which caused a spike in the number of cases across the country, the US was rattled with fears over the new omicron variant, which was first identified in South Africa.

US health authorities announced the country’s first case of the omicron variant in the state of California on Dec. 1. The patient was a traveler who returned Nov. 22 from South Africa and tested positive on Nov. 29.

Since then, the new variant has been identified in at least 29 states and Washington, DC.

The US administered the first coronavirus vaccine on Dec. 14, 2020. One year on, more than 486 million vaccine doses have been administered so far in the country./agencies

A total of 24 rhino carcasses have been found across South Africa since Dec. 1, the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and Environment said in a series of tweets late Tuesday.

The department said seven carcasses were found at Kruger National Park, one of Africa’s largest game reserves, seven in Mpumalanga province, six in KwaZulu-Natal and four in the Western Cape province. 

The department condemned the continued poaching of rhinos for their horns and revealed that nine poachers have been arrested since the start of December.

South Africa is home to nearly 80% of the world's rhinos. Currently, there are less than 30,000 African rhinos remaining, with the biggest population at Kruger National Park. 

In July, Environment Minister Barbara Creecy said 249 rhinos were killed in the country for their horns in the first six months of 2021.

Creecy attributed the increase in poaching to the easing of COVID-19 lockdown restrictions in the country. 

In the first half of 2020, 166 rhinos were killed, while in the first six months of 2019, when there were no lockdown restrictions, 318 rhinos were poached. 

The minister said the highest number of poaching incidents took place at Kruger National Park, where 132 rhinos were poached and one elephant was killed. 

She said a number of arrests have been made and those responsible prosecuted in the past six months.

Creecy added that numerous confiscations of rhino horns have taken place since January thanks to South Africa’s cohesive partnership with countries in Southeast Asia, where the horns are in high demand. 

In some Asian countries, the horns are used for traditional medicines or as a status symbol for the wealthy. ​​​​​​​

The environment department said it will give an update on the total number of rhinos killed for their horns in 2021 early in 2022./agencies