Kuwaiti Politics

Kuwait's parliament on Tuesday passed in principle a bill that requires the government to buy billions of dollars of bank loans owed by citizens and reschedule them after waiving interest.

Kuwait opposition groups on Sunday formed a broad-based coalition, apparently to reinvigorate a sagging protest movement, and demanded fundamental reforms including a multi-party democratic system.

An Iraqi Airways plane landed in Kuwait City on Wednesday for the first time since Iraq's invasion of the emirate in August 1990, after a commercial dispute was resolved.

An Iranian official was killed in Syria overnight by "armed terrorists" while travelling from Damascus towards Lebanon, the Iranian embassy in Beirut said in a statement on Thursday.

Human rights conditions deteriorated in Kuwait last year as police used excessive force against protesters and the government clamped down on online activists, Human Rights Watch said Tuesday.

A Kuwaiti MP on Sunday filed to question in parliament the interior minister over allegations that his ministry was dealing with Israel and for failing to control opposition-led protests.

A bill to grant Kuwaiti citizenship to at least 4,000 stateless people this year passed the first stage of approval in the Gulf state's parliament on Thursday.

Kuwait's parliament on Wednesday voted to form a special panel to probe allegations of irregularities in two contracts worth $5.0 billion awarded to two foreign-led consortia.

Thousands of Kuwaitis demonstrated Tuesday after a court sentenced three former MPs to three years in jail for insulting the emir, in a ruling the opposition described as "political".

International donors at a Kuwait conference on Wednesday pledged more than the targeted $1.5 billion in aid for stricken Syrians, UN chief Ban Ki-moon said.

Kuwait MPs Tuesday overwhelmingly ratified a settlement deal between the Kuwaiti and Iraqi national carriers under which Baghdad will pay $500 million in compensation, ending a 22-year-old dispute.

Hundreds of Kuwait opposition supporters demonstrated on Sunday to demand the dissolution of the parliament elected last month in general polls boycotted by almost all political groups, witnesses said.

Kuwait Foreign Minister Sheikh Sabah Khaled al-Sabah on Thursday received the first Palestinian ambassador to the Gulf state since the Iraqi invasion in 1990, state news agency KUNA reported.

Kuwait's provisional budget surplus surged 43 percent to 14.7 billion dinars ($52.2 billion) in the first seven months of the fiscal year, boosted by oil income, government data showed on Monday.

Kuwaiti activists have called for protesters to camp outside parliament next Saturday on the eve of its opening session as they step up pressure to dissolve the newly elected house.

Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah on Monday accepted the resignation of the cabinet which quit as part of a routine process after election, the official KUNA news agency reported.

The Kuwaiti opposition is to stage a demonstration at the weekend to protest against the new parliament which was elected amid a huge boycott, organisers said on Monday.

Kuwait's Shiite minority candidates appeared Saturday set to win around 15 seats of the 50-member parliament in the polls boycotted by the Sunni-dominated opposition, their biggest ever tally.

Kuwaitis cast ballots on Saturday to elect a second parliament in 10 months, but early turnout was low as voters appeared to heed an opposition call to shun the poll over a disputed electoral law.

Tens of thousands of supporters of the Kuwaiti opposition marched in the capital Friday on the eve of parliamentary elections, urging a poll boycott in protest at changes to the electoral law.