Early results of a snap election in Kuwait pointed to gains by opposition candidates in the Gulf state’s fourth parliament in six years
Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad Al Sabah called the vote in December after dissolving the chamber in response to a deepening political deadlock that has stymied reform and held up vital development projects in the key oil-exporting state.
Sixty-two percent of Kuwaitis cast their ballots on Thursday, up slightly from 58 percent in the previous election in 2009. Initial results were expected yesterday morning.
Opposition candidates and former members of parliament (MP) who spearheaded a movement to oust Kuwaiti Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser al-Mohammed Al Sabah have been tipped to expand their influence in parliament, riding a wave of frustration at the impasse and perceived corruption.
“There’s obviously more traction now for the opposition groups. You have kind of a momentum,” Risk Advisory Group senior adviser Shahin Shamsabadi said.
That anger came to a head in November when protesters led by opposition MPs stormed the assembly demanding the resignation of Sheikh Nasser, whom they accused of graft. They got their way soon afterward, when the emir dismissed his Cabinet.
A deluge of disinformation about a virus called hMPV is stoking anti-China sentiment across Asia and spurring unfounded concerns of renewed lockdowns, despite experts dismissing comparisons with the COVID-19 pandemic five years ago. Agence France-Presse’s fact-checkers have debunked a slew of social media posts about the usually non-fatal respiratory disease human metapneumovirus after cases rose in China. Many of these posts claimed that people were dying and that a national emergency had been declared. Garnering tens of thousands of views, some posts recycled old footage from China’s draconian lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic, which originated in the country in late
French police on Monday arrested a man in his 20s on suspicion of murder after an 11-year-old girl was found dead in a wood south of Paris over the weekend in a killing that sparked shock and a massive search for clues. The girl, named as Louise, was found stabbed to death in the Essonne region south of Paris in the night of Friday to Saturday, police said. She had been missing since leaving school on Friday afternoon and was found just a few hundred meters from her school. A police source, who asked not to be named, said that she had been
VIOLENCE: The teacher had depression and took a leave of absence, but returned to the school last year, South Korean media reported A teacher stabbed an eight-year-old student to death at an elementary school in South Korea on Monday, local media reported, citing authorities. The teacher, a woman in her 40s, confessed to the crime after police officers found her and the young girl with stab wounds at the elementary school in the central city of Daejeon on Monday evening, the Yonhap news agency reported. The girl was brought to hospital “in an unconscious state, but she later died,” the report read. The teacher had stab wounds on her neck and arm, which officials determined might have been self-inflicted, the news agency
ISSUE: Some foreigners seek women to give birth to their children in Cambodia, and the 13 women were charged with contravening a law banning commercial surrogacy Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday thanked Cambodian King Norodom Sihamoni for granting a royal pardon last year to 13 Filipino women who were convicted of illegally serving as surrogate mothers in the Southeast Asian kingdom. Marcos expressed his gratitude in a meeting with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet, who was visiting Manila for talks on expanding trade, agricultural, tourism, cultural and security relations. The Philippines and Cambodia belong to the 10-nation ASEAN, a regional bloc that promotes economic integration but is divided on other issues, including countries whose security alignments is with the US or China. Marcos has strengthened