Correspondence, official books, meetings and requests for amendments to the Kuwait Metro Project between the Public Authority for Roads and Transportation (PART) and Kuwait Municipality have been going on for more than three years; until the authority sent a ‘shocking’ letter last Sunday, dodging its responsibility for the project, reports Al-Rai daily. In the letter, the authority said its only function is to take decisions regarding the requests related to conflicts and obstacles to the right of way.

The authority’s letter was dated Nov 28, 2021 in response to the letter of the Municipality dated April 18, 2019. It justified its position by pointing out there are many conflicts regarding the project, and that it was not officially instructed to start the project.

Returned
Also, the authority returned to the Municipality a CD containing the path and stations of the metro; in addition to the feasibility studies prepared by the Partnership Authority in 2012 and 2016. An official from the Municipality expressed dissatisfaction over the authority’s behavior, indicating that it is surprising the authority responded to the municipality’s letter after two years and eight months. He explained that even if the project is under the Council of Ministers, the authority must carry out certain tasks as per the government’s instruction on Oct 11, 2020 that it should follow up and implement the railway project.

According to the source, the authority’s disclaimer about its responsibility surprised the Municipality whose Director General, Engineer Ahmed Al-Manfouhi, contacted PART on April 18, 2019 regarding the request for data about the metro project mentioned in the feasibility studies; in addition to the file of the geographical coordinate system of the right-of-way./aa

  “From Kuwait to Egypt” – this is how brokers of visa trade have crossed borders … through a criminal activity that is based on trafficking in the sweat of toiling people and selling illusions to those looking for opportunities to earn a “halal” (legitimate) livelihood, reports Al- Qabas daily. Just seven months after this issue was highlighted by Al-Qabas daily in its issue on April 30, 2019 regarding one such broker, an Egyptian who fled Kuwait and was arrested in one of the governorates of Upper Egypt, the Egyptian arm of law caught up with him this week and sentenced him to four-year imprisonment with hard labor.

The court obligated him to compensate his victims financially. Investigations into the case, as obtained by the daily, revealed that the accused had professionally brokered to sell visas and bring workers under the sponsorship of fictitious companies. He later fl ed back to his country after the COVID- 19 crisis, but he was arrested there after hundreds of workers whom he conned had filed lawsuits against him. According to investigations and security information, it was found that the accused possesses bank balances exceeding 400 million Egyptian pounds which he obtained through visa trade. He also owned real estate in various parts of Egypt.

For years, he worked for the benefit of fictitious companies, whose owners were convicted in several cases following the COVID-19 crisis. This week, the victims and their families flocked to a court in Upper Egypt, where the judge listened to the complaints of some of them. They revealed that the accused was residing in Jahra from where he conducted his illicit business of conning hundreds of his countrymen by promising to provide jobs for them in Kuwait at a cost of KD 1,500 per visa but later left them out on the streets to fend for themselves. The investigations revealed that the broker received 30 percent of the visa-trade proceeds, and the rest went to the owners of fictitious companies who were disavowing workers upon their arrival in Kuwait.

All this was exposed during the COVID-19 crisis. According to security sources, the accused was charged with illicit gain, after discovering that the money he owned originated from Kuwait, where his bank balances exceed millions of pounds, He also owned real-estate properties including houses and lands. With the correspondence of the reports, a suspicion of human trafficking, fraud, and illegal business was detected. Cases are ongoing in regard to other charges. Since the time of his arrest, reports continued to pile up against him, all of which were related to human trafficking, fraud, selling of fake visas to Kuwait, and establishing partnerships with Kuwaitis who own fictitious companies. This was based on investigations and information obtained by the Egyptian authorities from their Kuwaiti counterparts, in addition to the statements of the victims. Locally, coordination is ongoing between the General Department for Residency Affairs and the Public Authority for Manpower to control the fake labor offices, which advertise the sale and transfer of residency through social media platforms, or provide services in exchange for money from October 1 to November 22./ arabtimesonline

South Africa’s president said Wednesday that the latest round of COVID-19-related travel bans is akin to punishing the country for its advanced genomic sequencing and ability to detect new variants quicker.  

“Excellent science should be applauded and not punished,” Cyril Ramaphosa said in his opening remarks during a state visit to Nigeria. 

Last week, South African scientists announced that they had discovered a new COVID-19 variant with a large number of mutations compared to previous variants and reported it to the World Health Organization (WHO), which named it omicron. 

Days later, a number of countries imposed travel bans on South Africa and other southern African countries, including Namibia, Lesotho, Botswana, Eswatini, Malawi, Zimbabwe and Mozambique. 

“As we meet today, we have noted the announcements by several countries to institute travel restrictions on South Africa and other countries in our region as a result of the discovery by our scientists of the new omicron variant of the coronavirus,” Ramaphosa said according to a statement from his office. 

“Whilst we respect the right of all countries to take the necessary precautionary measures to protect their citizens, we need to remember that this pandemic requires collaboration and sharing of expertise,” he said during the 10th session of the Binational Commission between South Africa and Nigeria. 

Ramaphosa said his country’s immediate concern over the travel bans is the damage that the restrictions are causing to families, the travel and tourism industries and business. 

“It is our hope that the countries that have imposed these bans urgently reconsider their decisions,” he said. 

He applauded his host President Muhammadu Buhari for the solidarity he and his government have expressed with South Africa, which sends the strongest of messages. 

“It says that as African countries, we are standing united against the imposition of arbitrary and discriminatory restrictions that are not only unscientific but counter-productive in the long run,” he said at a joint press briefing with Buhari. 

Ramaphosa also said that the leaders of Ivory Coast, where he will travel to later, as well as of Ghana and Senegal have also expressed their dissatisfaction with the travel bans against South Africa and other southern Africa countries.​​​​​​​

“This is a global pandemic, and overcoming it requires that we collaborate and work together as a collective,’’ he added./agencies

The new coronavirus variant omicron presents a risk for global air traffic recovery, according to Fitch Ratings.

New and highly contagious COVID-19 variants such as omicron indicate that air traffic operating conditions remain volatile, the global rating agency said in a statement late Tuesday. "While it is too early to assess the effects of the omicron, additional waves of infections and policy responses could lead to travel restrictions and stalled or temporary declines in traffic.”

The agency lowered its forecast for global revenue passenger kilometers (RPK) for this year and the next.

It expects global RPKs to come in at 55% below pre-pandemic levels for 2021 and 30% in 2022.

Previous forecasts showed a decline of 35% and 15%, respectively, from 2019 pre-pandemic levels./aa