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Al-Ahram Weekly 15 - 21 July 1999 Issue No. 438 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 15 - 21 July 1999 Issue No. 438
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Features Travel Living Sports Time Out Chronicles People Cartoons Letters New cabinet
CROWN PRINCE and Prime Minister of Kuwait Sheikh Saad Al-Abdallah Al-Sabah formed a new cabinet on Tuesday. The cabinet, however, includes only one member of the parliament elected in early polls on 3 July in which government opponents and anti-corruption MPs won overwhelmingly.The new cabinet is expected to face early challenges when the new opposition-dominated parliament meets on Saturday, Reuters reported. The ruler, Emir Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, has referred 60 decrees to parliament for approval. These decrees, issued after the last parliament was dissolved in May, include a particularly controversial one that grants full political rights to women.
Several leading opposition MPs representing a wide political spectrum turned down offers to join the cabinet. Members of the ruling Al-Sabah family kept the ministries of foreign affairs, oil, defence and the interior in the new cabinet, while Sheikh Ali Al-Salem Al-Sabah, a liberal member, was replaced as finance and communications minister by Sheikh Ahmad Al-Abdallah Al-Sabah.
Barak's line
ON THE eve of a week-long visit to the US, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak set out some conditions for moving the Middle East peace process forward, including a less prominent role for Washington.In an interview with The New York Times published on Tuesday, Barak described the US role in the region as "overly involved", suggesting that the Americans should stop acting as "arbitrator, policeman and judge" and should return to their "special roles as facilitators". Barak added that his discussions with the Clinton administration would be built on this strategy.
Barak said he was determined to carry out certain parts of the Wye agreement in the next few weeks, but insisted that full implementation straightaway was too risky because of terrorism, which he feared could kill the whole peace process. He pledged to give Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat a deadline, promising to return the land by a given date regardless of where the final status talks stood at that point.
The US daily, AFP reported, said Barak's goal was not for regional brotherhood and love, but to draw a line in the sand that in his words "separates us from them."
