Kuwait’s emir authorizes deputy prime minister to serve temporarily as prime minister

The Emir of Kuwait, Sheikh Mishal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah. (AFP/File)
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Updated 25 January 2024
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Kuwait’s emir authorizes deputy prime minister to serve temporarily as prime minister

  • The current prime minister will take on the duties of deputy emir while Emir Sheikh Mishal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah is out of the country

KUWAIT: Emir Sheikh Mishal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah of Kuwait issued a decree on Wednesday authorizing Deputy Prime Minister Sheikh Fahad Yusuf Al-Sabah to serve temporarily as prime minister, the Kuwait News Agency reported.

He will stand in for Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed Sabah Al-Salem Al-Sabah, who has been tasked with taking on the responsibilities of deputy emir while Sheikh Mishal is out of the country.

Sheikh Mishal became emir of Juwait in December following the death of his predecessor, Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, at the age of 86.


Wizz Air to exit Abu Dhabi operations

Updated 9 sec ago
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Wizz Air to exit Abu Dhabi operations

  • Wizz said geopolitical instability had led to repeated airspace closures around Abu Dhabi, hitting demand
  • Failure to secure the flying rights for certain routes had also meant it was unable to grow in the region
LONDON: Low-cost carrier Wizz Air said on Monday it was quitting its Abu Dhabi operation after six years to focus on its main European market, citing geopolitical instability and limited market access.
Wizz, which originally focused on central and eastern Europe but expanded into Britain, Italy and Austria, said in future it would concentrate on its much more profitable European business.
Wizz said the geopolitical instability had led to repeated airspace closures around Abu Dhabi, hitting demand, while the impact of the hot environment in the Middle East had hurt engine efficiency, making it hard to operate its low-cost model.
Failure to secure the flying rights for certain routes had also meant it was unable to grow in the region as it had hoped, the airline said.
“They just couldn’t make money out of the Middle East,” Davy analyst Stephen Furlong said.
Wizz said it will stop local flights from September 1, 2025 and would be contacting customers regarding refunds.
“Supply chain constraints, geopolitical instability, and limited market access have made it increasingly difficult to sustain our original ambitions,” Wizz Air CEO Jozsef Varadi said in a statement.
“While this was a difficult decision, it is the right one given the circumstances,” he added.
Wizz Air is in talks with Airbus about scaling back its order for 47 A321XLR, a longer range aircraft, and converting some of them to regular A321 jet.
“We have 47 XLRs on order. We are going to scale that back,” Varadi said.
“We have conversion rights for the majority of that of that aircraft order. So we are talking to the manufacturer.”

Iran says ‘no specific date’ for US nuclear talks

Updated 12 min 53 sec ago
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Iran says ‘no specific date’ for US nuclear talks

  • Iran had been negotiating with the US before Israel began strikes on its nuclear facilities last month
  • The US launched its own set of strikes against Iran’s nuclear program on June 22

TEHRAN: Iran said Monday it had “no specific date” for a meeting with the United States on Tehran’s nuclear program, following a war with Israel that had derailed negotiations.

“For now, no specific date, time or location has been determined regarding this matter,” said foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei of plans for a meeting between Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and US envoy Steve Witkoff.

Iran had been negotiating with the United States before Israel began strikes on its nuclear facilities last month, which Washington later joined.

Araghchi and Witkoff met five times, starting in April, without concluding a deal, before Israel launched surprise strikes on June 13, starting a 12-day war.

“We have been serious in diplomacy and the negotiation process, we entered with good faith, but as everyone witnessed, before the sixth round the Zionist regime, in coordination with the United States, committed military aggression against Iran,” said Baqaei.

The United States launched its own set of strikes against Iran’s nuclear program on June 22, hitting the uranium enrichment facility at Fordo, in Qom province south of Tehran, as well as nuclear sites in Isfahan and Natanz.

The extent of the damage from the strikes remains unknown.

With its own strikes, numbering in the hundreds, Israel killed nuclear scientists and top-ranking military officers as well as hitting military, nuclear and other sites.

Iran responded with missile and drone attacks on Israel, while it attacked a US base in Qatar in retaliation for Washington’s strikes.

Israel and Western nations accuse Iran of pursuing nuclear weapons, a charge Tehran has consistently denied.

While it is the only non-nuclear power to enrich uranium to 60-percent purity, close to the level needed for a warhead, the UN’s atomic energy watchdog has said it had no indication that Iran was working to weaponize its stockpiles.


Blast in residential block near Iran’s Qom, source says not Israeli attack

Updated 19 min 7 sec ago
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Blast in residential block near Iran’s Qom, source says not Israeli attack

  • The agency said the residents of the building were ordinary citizens

DUBAI: An explosion at a residential building injured seven people in the Pardisan neighborhood of Qom city, Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency reported, going on to quote an unnamed source saying it was not the result of any Israeli attack.
“Four residential units were damaged in the blast. Initial assessments show that the cause of the incident was a gas leak, and follow-ups are continuing in this regard,” the director of Qom’s fire department told Fars.
The agency said the residents of the building were ordinary citizens.
Iran’s regional arch-rival Israel has a record of assassinating Iranian nuclear scientists, whom it considers part of a program that directly threatens Israel. Tehran maintains its nuclear program is solely for peaceful purposes.
Since the end of a 12-day air war last month between Iran and Israel, in which Israel and the United States attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities, several explosions have occurred in Iran, but authorities have not blamed Israel.
“People should not worry about rumors (of Israeli attacks). If a hostile action occurs in the country, the news will immediately reach the people and alarm bells will simultaneously be activated in the Occupied Territories,” Fars quoted an unnamed Iranian source as saying following the blast in Qom.


Anger turns toward Washington in West Bank town mourning two men killed by settlers

Updated 14 July 2025
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Anger turns toward Washington in West Bank town mourning two men killed by settlers

  • Residents of area call for stronger action from Washington
  • Many residents have American citizenship, family ties to US

AL-MAZRA’A ASH-SHARQIYA, West Bank: Frustration among Palestinians grew toward the United States on Sunday as mourners packed the roads to a cemetery in the Israeli-occupied West Bank town of Al-Mazr’a Ash-Sharqiya for the burial of two men, one of them a Palestinian American, killed by settlers.
Palestinian health authorities and witnesses said Sayfollah Musallet, 21, was beaten to death, and Hussein Al-Shalabi, 23, was shot in the chest by settlers during a confrontation on Friday night.
Most of the small town’s roughly 3,000 residents share family ties to the United States and many hold citizenship, including Musallet, who was killed weeks after flying to visit his mother in Al-Mazr’a Ash-Sharqiya, where he traveled most summers from Tampa, Florida.
“There’s no accountability,” said his father Kamel Musallet, who flew from the United States to bury his son.
“We demand the United States government do something about it ... I don’t want his death to go in vain.”
Israeli killings of US citizens in the West Bank in recent years include those of Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, Palestinian American teenager Omar Mohammad Rabea and Turkish American activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi.
A US State Department spokesperson said on Friday it was aware of the latest death, but that the department had no further comment “out of respect for the privacy of the family and loved ones” of the victim.
Many family and community members said they expected more, including that the United States would spearhead an investigation into who was responsible.
A US State Department spokesperson on Sunday referred questions on an investigation to the Israeli government and said it “has no higher priority than the safety and security of US citizens overseas.”
The Israeli military had earlier said Israel was probing the incident. It said confrontations between Palestinians and settlers broke out after Palestinians threw rocks at Israelis, lightly injuring them.

‘Betrayal’
Musallet’s family said medics tried to reach him for three hours before his brother managed to carry him to an ambulance, but he died before reaching the hospital.
Local resident Domi, 18, who has lived in Al-Mazr’a Ash-Sharqiya for the last four years after moving back from the United States, said fears had spread in the community since Friday and his parents had discussed sending him to the United States. “If people have sons like this they are going to want to send them back to America because it’s just not safe for them,” he said.
He had mixed feelings about returning, saying he wanted to stay near his family’s land, which they had farmed for generations, and that Washington should do more to protect Palestinians in the West Bank.
“It’s a kind of betrayal,” he said.
Settler violence in the West Bank has risen since the start of Israel’s war against Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza in late 2023, according to rights groups.
Dozens of Israelis have also been killed in Palestinian street attacks in recent years and the Israeli military has intensified raids across the West Bank.
Around 700,000 Israeli settlers live among 2.7 million Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, territories Israel captured from Jordan in the 1967 war.
US President Donald Trump in January rescinded sanctions imposed by the former Biden administration on Israeli settler groups and individuals accused of being involved in violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.
Malik, 18, who used to visit Musallet’s ice-cream shop in Tampa and had returned to the West Bank for a few months’ vacation, said his friend’s death had made him question his sense of belonging.
“I was born and raised in America, I only come here two months of a 12-month year, if I die like that nobody’s going to be charged for my murder,” he said, standing in the cemetery shortly before his friend was buried. “No one’s going to be held accountable.” 


Trump says hopes to get Gaza ‘straightened out’ over next week

Updated 14 July 2025
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Trump says hopes to get Gaza ‘straightened out’ over next week

  • The US is backing a 60-day ceasefire with a phased release of hostages, Israeli troop withdrawals from parts of Gaza and talks to end the conflict

JOINT BASE ANDREWS, United States: US President Donald Trump told reporters on Sunday that talks are ongoing over Israel’s conflict in Gaza and he hopes for progress in the next week, even as ceasefire negotiations in Doha stalled.
“Gaza — we are talking and hopefully we’re going to get that straightened out over the next week,” Trump said, echoing similarly optimistic comments he made July 4.