Kuwait is trying to mediate a Gulf crisis between Qatar and its Arab neighbors, which have severed ties with the energy-rich travel hub and moved to isolate it from the outside world, Qatar’s foreign minister said yesterday.
The biggest diplomatic crisis in the Persian Gulf since the 1991 US-led war against Iraq pits several nations against Qatar, which is home to about 10,000 US troops and a major US military base.
Airlines suspended flights and residents nervous about the peninsula’s lone land border closing cleaned out grocery store shelves.
Photo: AP
In an interview with Doha-based satellite news network al-Jazeera, Qatari Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said Kuwait’s ruler had asked Qatar’s emir to hold off on giving a speech about the crisis late on Monday night.
Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani “received a call from the emir of Kuwait asking him to postpone it in order to give time to solve the crisis,” Sheikh Mohammed said.
Still, the minister struck a defiant tone, rejecting those “trying to impose their will on Qatar or intervene in its internal affairs.”
The state-run Kuwait News Agency reported that Kuwaiti ruler Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad Al Sabah spoke with Qatar’s emir on Monday evening and urged him to give a chance to efforts that could ease tensions.
The call came after a senior Saudi royal arrived in Kuwait with a message from the Saudi king.
Al Sabah was scheduled to travel to Saudi Arabia yesterday to meet with King Salman bin Abdulaziz al Saud.
In a sign of the potential consequences for the Qatari economy, a number of banks in the region began stepping back from business dealings with Qatar.
Saudi Arabia’s central bank advised banks in the kingdom not to trade with Qatari banks in Qatari riyals, sources said
Meanwhile, the Philippines announced it would temporarily suspend the deployment of migrant workers to Qatar.
Philippine Secretary of Labor and Employment Silvestre Bello said the ban took effect yesterday, but there is no plan yet to repatriate the more than 200,000 Filipino workers in Qatar.
Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates on Monday said they were cutting diplomatic ties with Qatar.
Yemen’s internationally backed government also cut relations with Qatar, as did the Maldives and one of conflict-ridden Libya’s competing governments.
The move came just two weeks after US President Donald Trump visited Saudi Arabia and vowed to improve ties with Riyadh and Cairo to combat terrorism.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the move was rooted in longstanding differences and urged the parties to resolve them.
Flight tracker Web sites showed Qatar Airways flights taking a circuitous route mostly over Iran to avoid their neighbors.
Al-Jazeera reported trucks carrying food appeared to be stranded on the Saudi side of the border.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique