Kuwait lauds UN role on COVID-19
KUWAIT CITY, Sept 26, (KUNA): Representative of His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled Al-Hamad Al-Sabah on Friday commended the exceptional roles played by the UN to face the novel coronavirus pandemic.
KUWAIT CITY: His Highness the Deputy Amir and Crown Prince Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, Friday, sent a cable of condolences to Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz AlSaud over demise of Prince Saud bin Fahd bin Mansour bin Jalawi Al-Saud.
His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah Khaled AlHamad Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah sent a similar cable. (KUNA)
KUWAIT CITY: Kuwait’s confirmed coronavirus cases increased by 758 to 103,199 with two people having succumbed to the disease, which raised the death toll to 597 in the past 24 hours, the health ministry said on Saturday.
The figures include people, who have come into contact with infected individuals, and others whose source of infection is currently being investigated, read a ministry statement.
There are 108 people currently receiving intensive care for the virus out of a total 8,391 patients being hospitalised.
Some 4,138 swab tests were conducted in the last 24 hours, out of a total of 733,893 so far, added the spokesman.
Earlier, the ministry said 649 people have recovered from the virus, upping the total number of those to have overcome the disease to 94,211. (KUNA)
DALLAS: A major US provider of software services to state and local governments acknowledged Friday that it was hit by a ransomware attack two days after telling clients an unknown intruder had compromised its phone and information technology systems.
Tyler Technologies said in a statement that it confirmed the intruder used ransomware but did not provide further details on its response, citing an ongoing investigation. A spokesperson for the Dallas-area company did not directly answer a question about whether it paid to have its systems unlocked.
Ransomware purveyors are increasingly breaking into company and government networks and siphoning out valuable data before scrambling them and demanding payouts. They threaten to make the stolen data public if the victim doesn’t pay up.
Tyler, which is a publicly traded S&P 500 company, informed clients across the country Wednesday about the data breach, but said the impact appeared limited and that there was no reason to believe its customers were affected. The company said it brought in outside information technology experts and informed law enforcement.
The FBI has declined to comment on the breach.
Tyler provides software services to local and state governments across the country for everything from jail and court management systems to payroll, human resources, tax and bill collection, and land records. (AP)
WASHINGTON: The Trump administration on Thursday hit an Iranian revolutionary court and several judges with sanctions in part for their role in the conviction and execution of a young wrestler.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo imposed the sanctions on two judges with Branch 1 of the Revolutionary Court of Shiraz as well as three prisons where he said human rights abuses were rampant. The sanctions include asset freezes and ban Americans from doing business with the targets.
Pompeo said Judge Seyyed Mahmoud Sadati was being hit for his involvement in the case of 27-year-old wrestler Navid Afkari who was executed earlier this month despite worldwide appeals for clemency, including from President Donald Trump. Pompeo called the execution “an unconscionable act” that “must not be in vain.”
“The United States calls upon all nations to promote accountability for this regime by imposing sanctions like the ones announced today,” Pompeo said. “Too often, the Iranian regime targets, arrests, and kills the brightest and most promising Iranians, thereby depriving Iran of its greatest asset – the skill and talent of its own people.” (AP)
This came during Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled’s speech at the 75th session of the UN General Assembly.
The roles were shown through harnessing all methods and measures to address this pandemic by accelerating work on providing vaccines, diagnostic tools, and treatment to all people and everywhere, he said.
Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled congratulated Volkan Bozkir on being elected President of UN General Assembly, expressing Kuwait’s full support to facilitate the assembly’s works and responsibilities, and appreciating efforts made by former UNGA president Tijani Mohammed-Bandi.
The 75th session of the UNGA is being held amid unprecedented conditions, which affected the whole world, he said, referring to the repercussions of the novel coronavirus on all countries across the globe.
He offered sincere condolences to the world’s peoples and countries over those died due to the pandemic.
He stressed the importance of enhancing the implemented environmental, social, healthy and economic systems, pointing to the deaths of 960,000 due to the coronavirus pandemic and the infections of more than 3 million others as well as the highest waves of recession the world didn’t see since the aftermath of World War II.
The pandemic has contributed to increasing crises the countries are suffering from and enlarged challenges facing their people of which unfortunately the Arab and Middle Eastern region have got the largest share, despite the presence of written solutions and the described remedial methods represented in the abundant amount of international references of the UN Security Council and the General Assembly’s resolutions and outcomes, he noted.
However, the chronic challenge regarding implementing and seriously dealing with their provisions remained an obstacle to move forward towards achieving the desired progress, he stated.
Within the framework of its responsibilities to back efforts of the international community to combat the pandemic, Kuwait donated about $290 million, stressing its commitment to cooperation so as to support all international efforts to facilitate producing vaccines and offer them fairly to the neediest countries.
He announced that Kuwait is ready to host critical cases of the UN’s employees and the field workers in Central and Western Asia infected by the coronavirus to receive treatment in hospitals in Kuwait.
On Palestine, Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled said the Palestinian issue still has a central, historical and pivotal position in the Arab and Islamic worlds, affirming Kuwait’s firm and steadfast stance in supporting the choices of the Palestinian people to obtain their legitimate rights.
He also stressed the importance of continuing efforts to resume negotiations within a specific timetable to reach a just and comprehensive peace in accordance with the references of the peaceful process, international legitimacy decisions, the Arab peace initiative, and end the Israeli occupation as well as establish an independent Palestinian State with East Jerusalem as its capital, on the borders before June 4, 1967.
He appreciated, in this context, all international efforts aimed at resolving this key issue.
On Yemen, he said that the continuation of Yemen’s crisis, which poses dangerous threats to regional stability and security, is a clear signal of a reality on how to deal with the relevant resolutions and outcomes of the UN Security Council, stressing the importance of implementing the Stockholm Agreement.
“In this context, we renew our firm position that the Yemeni crisis can only be resolved politically based on the three agreed upon references, the Gulf initiative and its executive mechanisms, the outcomes of the national dialogue and the UN resolutions mainly 2261, renewing our support to all efforts made by UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy for Yemen aimed at resuming the political process to reach a peaceful solution to the crisis,” he said.