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Page 48
THE FIRST ENGLISH LANGUAGE DAILY IN FREE KUWAIT
Established in 1977 / www.arabtimesonline.com
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2014 / SAFAR 29, 1436 AH
emergency number 112
52 PAGES
NO. 15626
150 FILS
Fitch affirms Kuwait’s ‘AA’ rating, resilient to declining oil prices
Outlooks stable
Photo by Mohamed Khalaf
A bird flies along Shuwaikh’s sea front during a foggy weather
early Friday.
Electricity, water, petrol eyed
Subsidies to be lifted in
first six months of 2015
By Raed Yousef and Nasser Qadeeh
Al-Seyassah Staff
KUWAIT CITY, Dec 20: The government subsidy on electricity,
water and petrol will be lifted within the first six months of 2015,
reliable sources from the concerned ministerial committee say.
They affirmed that the move
is part of the second phase of
the governmental plan to
reduce expenditures from the
state budget, following the cancellation of subsidy on diesel
LOS ANGELES, Dec 20, and jet fuel.
(Agencies): The Sony hack, the
The sources revealed that the
latest in a wave of company delay in issuing this decision
security breaches, exposed was due to the delay by the
months of employee emails. concerned authorities particuOther hacks have given attack- larly Fatwa and Legislation
ers access to sensitive informa- Department to allot necessary
tion about a company and its conditions in this regard, and
customers, such as credit-card its non-inclusion in the general
numbers and email addresses. budget of 2015-2016.
One way hackers can sneak into
They explained that the gova company is by sending fake ernmental study conducted for
emails with malicious links to approving the categorization of
employee inboxes. Here are electricity consumption took
five simple steps to make your into consideration the observaemail more secure and limit the tions made by the legal experts,
harm a hacker can have:
the recommendations of the
■ Archive early and often
Supreme Planning Council and
Most corporate email sys- the dues of Ministry of
tems allow people to set up reg- Electricity with the governularly scheduled archiving so mental authorities, citizens and
that emails are moved off of the expatriates. “It has become
server after a certain number of necessary to modify the tariff
days. You can still check scheme of electricity and water
archived emails on your work which was applied since 1966”,
computer, but they are no they added.
longer easily accessible on
The sources revealed that the
websites outside the office or government, in the beginning
on your phone. That limits of 2015, will refer to the parliahackers’ ability to access those ment the details of its project
emails too. You can make that is aimed for controlling
exceptions for emails that you consumption and eliminating
want to keep in your active depletion, particularly since
inbox, and they won’t be applying the same fees will
archived.
increase the annual subsidy on
■ Get organized
electricity and water to KD7
As emails come into your billion.
inbox, deal with them. Sort
Meanwhile, MP Jamal Althem into folders. This seg- Omar assured citizens that the
ments your data, requiring an National Assembly will confront
Opinion
KUWAIT CITY, Dec 20, (KUNA): Fitch Ratings has
affirmed Kuwait’s Long-term foreign and local currency Issuer Default Ratings (IDR) at ‘AA,’ according to
a fresh report released by the internationally renowned
agency.
The outlooks are stable; Kuwait’s ceiling has been
affirmed at ‘AA+’ and the short-term foreign currency
IDR at ‘F1+’.
Key rating drivers, Kuwait’s IDRs, reflect the following key rating drivers: Kuwait is resilient to the
decline in oil prices that has occurred so far in 2014.
Very high per capita oil exports have consistently
generated large fiscal and current account surpluses and
surpluses in excess of 20% of GDP are forecast each
year to 2016, despite the prospect of lower oil prices.
Fitch estimates that the FY14 fiscal breakeven oil
price is USD48/b and the 2014 external breakeven is
USD40/b. These are among the lowest of all rated sovereigns. An exceptionally strong sovereign balance
Continued on Page 8
What does the oil price decline
got to do with the stock market?
and other countries that do not export oil.
Why is our stock market collapsing amid the unstable
By Ahmad Al-Jarallah
Editor in-Chief, the Arab Times
A
mid the wave of panic sweeping across the Gulf’s
stock exchange markets as a result of the fall of the
price of oil in the global market, we need to ask ourselves
this question: why all this panic and why is the focus
mostly on the grim analysis and interpretations? The oil
export market in the region has no links with the movement of stock market prices as in the western countries
Continued on Page 8
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IS has executed 100 foreign
fighters trying to quit: report
Kurds press Sinjar operation in northern Iraq
5 ways to make
your email safer
Continued on Page 8
Continued on Page 8
KUWAIT CITY: Kuwait
Continued on Page 8
An activist opposed to both
US ‘issues’
travel alert
WASHINGTON, Dec 20,
(AFP): The United States
issued a worldwide travel alert
Friday, warning Americans to
be vigilant during the holiday
Continued on Page 8
Children play on a swing in the park of the Safir Maalula Hotel, in the ancient Christian town of Maalula, 56 kms northeast of the Syrian capital
Damascus on Dec 20. (AFP)
killed, this would not see the ideology that
spurred the creation of the so-called caliphate
crumble overnight.
“If Baghdadi is out of the picture before his
caliphate is firmly established, the Islamic
State group will be seriously challenged, but
with resourceful lieutenants in charge, it will
not be finished without a further fight,” said
Michael Ryan of the Washington-based
Jamestown Foundation.
US officials have been open about the limits
of the military operation and have warned the
West will have to dig in for the long haul to
combat IS.
Military chief General Martin Dempsey
recently told the US Senate that IS would “ultimately be defeated when their cloak of religious
legitimacy is stripped away and the population
on which they have imposed themselves reject
them.
Continued on Page 8
Continued on Page 8
Allies need to look beyond military campaign
A billboard for the film ‘The
Interview’ is displayed on Dec
19 in Venice, California. US
President Barack Obama on
Friday warned North Korea it
would face retaliation over the
cyber attack on Sony Pictures.
(AFP) – See Pages 14 & 24
PARIS, Dec 20, (AFP): The Pentagon has
hailed the deaths of several top leaders of the
Islamic State group, but experts say this is far
from enough to cripple what has proven to be a
resilient organisation.
US officials say air strikes have killed several senior and mid-level jihadists including Abu
Muslim al-Turkmani, the right hand man of IS
chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, dealing a serious
blow to the group’s operations.
But analysts warn that disruptions of this
type are often fleeting and that the US-led
coalition needs to look beyond their military
campaign to weaken the group that has become
the world’s most feared jihadist organisation
since proclaiming a “caliphate” straddling
Syria and Iraq six months ago.
“Eliminating key leaders is a means to disrupt plots and degrade capabilities. But they do
not defeat or destroy terrorist organisations,”
said Bruce Riedel, a former CIA agent and
adviser to US President Barack Obama who is
now a leading terrorism expert.
“Al-Qaeda in Iraq lost its top leadership
twice but still thrived sufficiently to give birth
to the Islamic State.”
Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John
Kirby said strikes against the group’s leadership were disrupting the jihadists’ “ability to
command and control current operations
against” Iraqi federal and Kurdish forces.
But the real impact is hard to quantify, especially as the command structure of the Islamic
State group is largely a mystery to intelligence
services, with its members masters at disguising themselves through a multitude of false
identities, nicknames and noms de guerre.
And the Western view of a pyramid-like
command structure with a supreme leader,
deputies and cascading line of subordinates
does not take into account a reality where tribal, regional, cultural and historical ties often
take precedence.
Even if jihadist supremo Baghdadi was
IS and the regime of Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad,
who is well-known to the
British business broadsheet,
said he had “verified 100 executions” of foreign IS fighters
trying to leave the jihadist
group’s de facto capital.
IS fighters in Raqqa said the
group has created a military
police to clamp down on foreign fighters who do not report
for duty. Dozens of homes have
been raided and many jihadists
have been arrested, the FT
reported.
Some jihadists have become
disillusioned with the realities
of fighting in Syria, reports
have said.
According to the British
press in October, five Britons,
three French, two Germans and
two Belgians wanted to return
home after complaining that
they ended up fighting against
other rebel groups rather than
Assad’s regime. They were
being held prisoner by IS.
In total, between 30 and 50
Britons want to return but fear
they face jail, according to
researchers at the International
Centre for the Study of
Radicalisation at King’s
College London, which had
been contacted by one of the
Killing top leaders not enough to cripple IS
Newswatch
Human Rights Society
(KHRS) renewed its commitment to press for cancellation
of the sponsorship system and
work on implementing an
alternative system that protects rights of the employer
and employee by signing the
international pact for protecting the rights of immigrant
and members of their families, reports Al-Watan daily.
On the sidelines of the
event
marking
the
International
Day
of
Immigrants on Dec 18,
KHRS required passing special laws to protect the rights
LONDON, Dec 20,
(Agencies): The Islamic State extremist
group has executed 100
of its own foreign fighters who tried to flee
their headquarters in
the Syrian city of
Raqqa, the Financial
Times newspaper said
Saturday.