KUWAIT CITY: Kuwait named the emir’s son Sheikh Ahmad Nawaf Al-Sabah as prime minister on Sunday, replacing caretaker premier Sheikh Sabah Al-Khalid, Kuwait News Agency reported on Sunday.

Sheikh Ahmad was deputy prime minister and interior minister in the outgoing government, which had submitted its resignation in April.

In his late 60s, he began his career with the police force and then entered the interior ministry. After his father Emir Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad took power in 2020 he was appointed deputy head of the National Guard.

LONDON: The UN Special Envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg condemned on Sunday a Houthi attack that hit a residential neighborhood in Taiz that killed a child and injured 10 others.

The Houthi attack injured 11 boys and girls, mostly under the age of 10, and one of the boys later died of his injuries. Some of the children are in critical condition.

“The warring parties have obligations under international law to protect civilians. The killing and injuring of children is particularly reprehensible,” Grundberg said.

PARAKH, Iraq: Abandoned sandals and upturned chairs attest to the panic that gripped this peaceful rest spot in Iraq’s Kurdish mountains when deadly shelling slammed into it this week.
Turkey denies that its forces were responsible for the artillery fire that killed nine people and wounded 23 on Wednesday.
But both the government in Baghdad and the Kurdish regional authorities, who organized a press tour of the lunch spot in the border village of Parakh, have said Turkish forces were to blame.

DUBAI: Tobacco use remains a serious health concern in countries across the Middle East and North Africa, which have some of the highest proportions of smokers in the world.

Despite this high prevalence of tobacco use in the region, policies introduced by Saudi authorities appear to have resulted in significant reductions in the number of smokers in the country, coupled with an increase in those seeking help to quit the habit.

BEIRUT: Political observers fear a strike by Lebanon’s public sector employees that started a month ago will turn into civil disobedience if it is not dealt with properly, amid government efforts to address their grievances.

The heads of the administrative units in the Ministry of Education and Higher Education announced that they, too, would join the strike by Monday.