Tens of thousands of stateless people in Kuwait will be offered citizenship of the impoverished African nation of Comoros to end their decades-old problem, the government said Sunday. The stateless people – known as bidoons – would be granted “special applications for Comoros’ economic citizenship,” Kuwait’s interior ministry assistant undersecretary Major-General Mazen Al Jarrah told Al Jarida daily. Those who ...

A bill calling for the imposition of a five-year residency cap on foreigners in Kuwait and a ban on bringing their families into the country has been cleared by the parliament’s legal and legislative committee. The bill, submitted by MP Abdullah Al Tamimi, also limits the size of any expatriate community to less than 10 per cent of the Kuwaiti ...

Kuwait National Petroleum Co (KNPC) plans to spend $40 billion in the period to 2022 on projects including a new refinery and a clean fuels project, its chief executive said on Monday. Mohammed Ghazi al-Mutairi said in a speech at a conference in Kuwait city that the Clean Fuels Project would also include the expansion and modernising of the Mina ...

Waltham-based Raytheon Co. is planning to invest at least $50 million over the next seven years to establish a campus in Kuwait for the University of Massachusetts Lowell, officials said. The defense contractor called the arrangement a unique way to meet its contractual commitments to invest in Kuwait, one of its foreign customers, in return for the Arab nation’s purchase ...

Oil prices are likely to remain around $65 a barrel for the next six to seven months, the head of Kuwait’s state oil company said on Monday. “I think oil prices will remain at these levels for six to seven months, around $65 a barrel, until world economic recovery is clear or if there were any political crises or OPEC ...

Kuwait has cut spending in its 2015/16 budget by almost a fifth to account for the plunge in oil prices. The country’s development program won’t be affected, Finance Minister Anas Al-Saleh told reporters Monday in Kuwait City. The budget deficit for the fiscal year starting April 1 will be 7.02 billion dinars ($23.8 billion), on projected outlays of 19.1 billion ...

Jordan vowed Thursday to make every effort to save a pilot captured by the Islamic State group in Syria as Washington denied claims the jihadists shot his warplane out of the sky. Maaz al-Kassasbeh, a 26-year-old first lieutenant in the Jordanian air force, was captured by IS on Wednesday after his F-16 jet crashed while on a mission against the ...

Jordan coach Ray Wilkins has promised his side will make life as awkward as possible for holders Japan in Tuesday’s pivotal Asian Cup clash. The Blue Samurai are overwhelming favourites to make it three wins out of three to finish top of Group D, but should Jordan pull off a shock in Melbourne they can still progress to the quarter-finals, ...

Focus in the hostage crisis is now on Jordan’s response to a statement made by a group believed to be the Islamic State that freelance journalist Kenji Goto would be freed in exchange for the release of Sajida al-Rishawi, a would-be suicide bomber on death row in Jordan. The Japanese government is doing its utmost to obtain cooperation from Amman. ...

Jordan remains “as committed as ever” to a U.S.-led military coalition against ISIS, the kingdom’s foreign minister said Sunday, amid heightened fears for the life of a Jordanian fighter pilot held by the militants. Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh spoke a day after another ISIS hostage, Japanese journalist Kenji Goto, was purportedly beheaded by the militants. The fate of the two ...