LOCALARAB TIMES, FRIDAY-SATURDAY, APRIL 13-14, 2018

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KUNA photoHind Al-Sabeeh attends Arab Labor Conference in Cairo.

Global executions down

Kuwait one of four countriesto resume death penalty in ’17KUWAIT CITY, April 12: Kuwait is one of four countries which resumed the death penalty in 2017, according to the report released by Amnesty International on Thursday.

The human rights organization based in London revealed in its report that 84 percent of the executions in 2017 were carried out in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Pakistan.

Besides Kuwait, other countries which resumed executions last year were Bahrain, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates.

The report added that the number of executions in the Middle East and North Africa decreased by one percent — from 856 in 2016 to 847 in 2017.

Iran, Saudi Arabia and Iraq are the top three executing countries — 92 percent of executions in the region.

Iran reportedly executed 507 people or 60 percent of executions in the region, while Saudi Arabia executed 146 or 17 percent of executions in the region.

Amnesty International went on to say that 264 executions were carried out for drug-related cases or 27 percent of all recorded executions last year.

In 2017, around 619 death sentences were imposed in the region; lower than the number recorded in 2016 — 764 death sentences. Egypt imposed 402 death sentences and this is the highest in the region.

The report on the death penalty calls sub-Saharan Africa a “beacon of hope” amid a decline in executions worldwide.

Twenty countries across sub-Saharan Africa have now abolished the death penalty for all crimes, Amnesty International says in the report released early Thursday. Just two countries in the region, Somalia and South Sudan, car-ried out executions last year.

Executions worldwide dropped again in 2017, with at least 993 recorded in 23 countries. That’s down 4 percent from the year before and down 39 percent from 2015.

At least 2,591 death sentences were recorded in 53 countries last year, down from a record high of 3,117 the year before, the London-based human rights organization said.

The numbers don’t include the thou-

sands of executions and death sentences that Amnesty International believes have occurred in China, where they are con-sidered a state secret.

China remained the “world’s top exe-cutioner, the report said.

The United States remained the only country in the Americas to carry out executions, with 23 last year, up slightly from the year before.

With the progress in Africa, “the isola-tion of the world’s remaining executing countries could not be starker,” said the organization’s secretary general, Salil Shetty.

Even among those countries some “significant steps” were seen. In Iran, executions were down 11 percent and drug-related executions were reduced to 40 percent. In Malaysia, changes to anti-drug laws now allow discretion in sen-tencing for drug trafficking crimes.

But Amnesty International called “dis-tressing” the continued use of the death penalty for drug-related offences, with 15 countries last year imposing death sentences or carrying out executions. Drug-related executions were recorded in China, Iran, Singapore and Saudi Arabia, where “drug-related beheadings rocketed from 16 percent of total execu-tions in 2016 to 40 percent in 2017.”

The rights group also expressed con-cern that at least five people in Iran were executed last year for crimes committed when they were under the age of 18, with another 80 people with similar pasts still on death row.

People with “mental or intellectual disabilities” were executed or faced a death sentence in the United States, Japan, Pakistan, Singapore and the Maldives.

Worldwide at least 21,919 people are known to be under a death sentence, Amnesty International said: “Now is not the time to let up the pressure.”

Other challenges remain, the report says, including in sub-Saharan Africa: Both Botswana and Sudan reportedly resumed executions this year.

And early this year, Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni said he will sign the first death warrants in nearly two decades to create fear among crimi-nals, vowing to “hang a few.”

‘Money supply in February upby 0.7% compared to January’

Assets of local banks increased by 0.8%

Kuwaiti inventors pose with other officials.

822 inventors take part in Geneva exhibition

2 Kuwaitis display their inventionsGENEVA, April 12, (KUNA): Two Kuwaiti inventors are partaking in the International Exhibition of Inventions; one displaying a device for doors’ quick unlocking in dis-tressing relief operations and the other publicizing a method for treat-ing oil-contaminated soil.

Hussein bou Mejdad, a firefighter, told Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) that he had thought deeply and for a long time to invent a tool for opening doors after encountering situations where he and fellow firefighters had

to smash doors to salvage trapped people amid raging fires.

The firemen in strenuous relief operations are compelled to break doors causing loud and horrific sound adding to stranded persons’ fear.

“I was inspired by the Almighty to invent the device to open locked doors in no more than 15 seconds without breaking them and with min-imum damage,” said bou Mejdad in the remarks to KUNA.

He expressed gratitude to Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research

(KISR) for helping him to acquire a patent for his innovation, already on sale in Oman and Qatar.

For his part, Meshari Al-Mutairi said it had dawned on him to create a method for cleansing oil soaked soil when the Iraqi occupiers torched and damaged Kuwaiti oil installations, forming pools of crude oil and pollut-ing the country’s soil.

The exhibition, scheduled April 11-15, has grouped 822 inventors from 40 countries.

KUWAIT CITY, April 12: The Central Bank of Kuwait (CBK) issued statistics show-ing that money supply increase by 0.7% in February compared to January, recording about KD 36.9 billion, reports Al-Rai daily.

The Economic Research Department in the bank said the Kuwaiti dinar deposits of the private sector increase by 0.2 percent in February — KD 32.4 billion.

Foreign currency deposits increased by 5.1 percent in the same month — KD 2.7 billion and the private sector deposits totaled KD 35 billion while the expatriates’ loans reached KD 35 billion by the end of February. The cash credit facili-ties of expatriates increased by 0.1 percent in February com-pared to December 2017, reach-ing KD 35.2 billion.

The statistics also revealed that the total balance of local banks increased by KD 3 billion in February. The assets of local banks increased by 0.8 percent, reaching KD 63.2 billion; whereas the net foreign assets in local banks increased by 1.3 percent, reaching KD 6.7 billion in the same month.

On the other hand, CBK’s term deposits decreased by 12.3 percent — about KD 819 million. The bank’s assets increased by 2.2 percent reaching KD 9.8 billion in February; while its net foreign assets increased by 2.1 percent — about KD 9.6 billion.

Med forContinued from Page 1

including senior officials of Ministry of Health must be questioned instead of direct-ing accusations at Al-Seyassah daily.

Along with confirmation by Head of Skin Diseases Department about the lack of med-icines for treating scabies, new episodes in the series of medical scandals are emerging.

The ministry imported large quantities of Para Plus medicine, which is used for treat-ment of lice infections, and turned them into medicines for treating scabies by placing printed stickers on the containers of those medicines to claim they are medicines for scabies.

In this regard, Undersecretary of Ministry of Health Dr Mustafa Redha has issued a decision to form a committee headed by General Surgery Consultant Dr Mohammad Al-Othman. This committee will be assigned to investigate the import of the abovementioned medicine and figure out the facts behind this issue.

He also assigned the committee to pre-pare a detailed report with recommenda-tions to prevent such a situation from occur-ring in the future. The work of the commit-tee has to end within two weeks from the date of its first meeting.

This committee includes Consultant of Skin Diseases at Adan Hospital Dr Adel Abdulrazzaq, head of Department of State Sector Inspection from the Medicine Inspection Division, head of Pharmacology Office in Capital Health Zone, and legal researcher from the Legal Affairs and Investigations Department.

The committee will be authorized to view all relevant documents and listen to those who can help in discovering the facts.

However, the decision of the undersecre-tary did not clarify any details concerning the issue.

In this regard, medical sources explained that the ministry, about two years ago, imported 60,000 containers of a medicine used for treating lice and nit infections. Such huge quantities of this medicine were not required. Therefore, stickers were recently placed on the containers on which it was printed that the medicine is effective in treating scabies.

Meanwhile, Head of Skin Disease Department at Ministry of Health Dr Nawaf Al-Mutairi has issued an applicable state-ment to withdraw his previous statement and recorded speech. He is now on the side of the ministry concerning the denial, and had even applauded the performances of the senior officials of the ministry.

Regarding the retraction of the statement previously issued by him, Dr Al-Mutairi said, “Nobody dares make any announce-ment that contradicts the statements of Ministry of Health at Adan Press Conference.”

He stated that Minister of Health Dr Bassel Al-Sabah and the Undersecretary Dr Mustafa Redha are new in the ministry and are trying their best to deal with such situa-tions.

Dr Al-Mutairi declared that the statement issued by the ministry to claim that the rate of infections is within the normal average conforms to the World Health Organization standard.

He refuted the claim that there was ever an epidemic or high number of cases of scabies in Kuwait. However, this contra-dicts his previous recorded statement in which he declared that there are around 270 cases in Adan and Jahra hospitals, and that this is a fact that the minister or any other official cannot deny.

Despite the fact that the recordings, which can confirm his statements, are avail-able, Dr Al-Mutairi insisted that there was not an iota of truth in everything published in the media that quotes him on this issue.

He stressed that the statements were base-less and involved distortion of information for specific objectives.

Dr Al-Mutairi counseled that journalists should abide by professional ethics by stick-ing to facts. However, he at the same time forgets the “ethics of a man who should not retract his statements.”

In contrast to the confession he had repeatedly maintained that the stores of Ministry of Health did not have medicines for treating scabies, he recanted by saying, “Medicines and other necessary materials needed for treating this disease are avail-able.”

Dr Al-Mutairi allayed fears of citizens and expatriates in this regard, urging them to ignore the media reports and seek reliable information from the official and authorita-tive channels.

After earlier accusing senior officials such as the Head of Skin Department at Adan Hospital Dr Fatmah Al-Khawajah and the Consultant Dermatologist at the same hospital Dr Adel Abdulrazzaq of hiding facts, Dr Al-Mutairi has now withdrawn his previous statement by declaring, “Ministry of Health and the skin departments are treat-ing all cases of infections with necessary transparency without hiding any informa-tion.”