Highway riot contained

November 30, 2013

Highway_riot_contained Jeddah, Nov 30: Security forces arrested 20 Ethiopian rioters on the Makkah-Jeddah Expressway on Friday for throwing stones that damaged 14 cars and injured four Saudis.

An eyewitness said police officers fired shots into the air to disperse the rioters and soon brought the situation under control.

The Ethiopians were apparently rioting because they could not gain entry into the Shumaisi detention center, he said.

“A large number of Ethiopians, who arrived in buses, moved onto the highway and tried to stop speeding cars. However, the highway security patrol closed the expressway at a safe distance from the detention center to prevent the situation from escalating. The troublemakers were confronted and taken into custody," a security source said.

“The rioting started when a group of Ethiopians hurled stones at passing motorists and the security forces. The police opened fire into the air to bring the situation under control,” the eyewitness said. He said the Ethiopians went on the rampage when they could not enter the detention center.

The center only takes in those expatriates arrested by the security forces for violating labor and residence regulations. It does not accept those who surrender voluntarily.

The highway patrol teams diverted oncoming traffic via Bahrah overpass.

The rioters were isolated, arrested and then taken to the detention center.

Maj. Gen. Ali Al-Ghamdi, director of Makkah Police, and Brig. Hassan Al-Shablan, director of the road security special forces, were present to oversee the operation, according to police sources.

Various social networking sites carried a number of postings showing the incident.

Some Ethiopians resorted to similar unruly behavior in front of the center last week, said Col. Badr Al-Saud, director of public relations at the Makkah police department.

Until Wednesday, 38,000 illegal workers were detained at the Shumaisi center, including 25,200 men and 12,800 women and children. Most of them were from Ethiopia and Indonesia, and others from Somalia, Niger and Chad.

The source said 9,870 illegal workers were deported from the center since the launch of the labor correction campaign on Nov. 4.

In another development, 200 Ethiopians are continuing their sit-in protest at the gate of their consulate in Jeddah. They want travel documents to go home.

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Covid-19 increases suicide rates among expats in Kuwait

Agencies

June 28,2020

Kuwait, Jun 28: Measures imposed to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus in Kuwait are believed to have increased suicide cases in the country, according to a media report.

Forty suicide cases and 15 failed attempts, mainly among Asian expatriates, have been recorded in Kuwait since late February, Gulf News quoted the Al Qabas newspaper report, citing sources as saying on Saturday.

Investigations into the majority of cases have revealed that those who committed suicide had experienced psychological and economic troubles due to dire financial circumstances after their employers stopped to pay them as a result of economic fallout from the coronavirus-related measures.

In one case, an expat livestreamed his suicide while chatting with his fiancee on a social networking platform, the newspaper report said.

Suicide cases have increased by around 40 per cent since the start of the COVID-19 crisis, according to the sources.

Some 70 to 80 suicide cases are recorded annually in Kuwait. Last year, they reached 80 suicides against 77 in 2018.

"Suicide cases have started to go up in Kuwait during the coronavirus pandemic due to fear, anxiety, isolation and instability experienced by people and absence of daily aims that could help the person to spend time regularly as before," the newspaper quoted social psychology consultant Samira Al Dosari as saying.

Uncertainty for some expatriates, whose countries have refused to take them in, is another motive for attempting suicide, according to Jamil Al Muri, a sociology professor at the Kuwait University.

"This is in addition to greed of the iqamat traders, who have brought into the country workers in names of phantom companies and abandoned them on the streets," he added.

Starting from Tuesday, Kuwait will embark on the second phase of a stepwise plan to bring life to normal, Gulf News reportd.

According to Phase 2, a nationwide night-time curfew will be reduced by one hour to run daily from 8 p.m. until 5 a.m. for three weeks.

Kuwait has so far reported 44,391 COVID-19 cases, with 344 deaths.

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YA ALLah save all dispressed people in the earth..

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Abu Dhabi's ADC Bank likely to lay off hundreds of employees

Agencies

July 28,2020

Dubai, Jul 28: Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank (ADCB) (ADCB.AD) is letting go hundreds of employees, sources said, the latest in a round of lay-offs by regional banks as pressure mounts to cut costs amid lower oil prices and the coronavirus crisis.

The UAE’s third-biggest lender is laying off 400 employees, two sources familiar with the matter said, after it had committed to not cutting staff because of the crisis.

In a statement, a spokesman said ADCB had pursued efficiency over the last decade by managing out its lowest underachievers after regular reviews, while ensuring talent was deployed in high-growth areas, such as digital banking.

“A certain number of redundancies are therefore expected every year in the normal course of business,” the bank spokesman added.

The sources said the cuts would involve ADCB’s consumer business and several in top management were among those being let go. One source said the bank was looking to close 20 branches.

In March, ADCB had declared, “No employee will be made redundant during 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

UAE banks have been hit by government measures to rein in the spread of the virus, forcing many businesses to shut temporarily.

Last week, Dubai’s largest bank, Emirates NBD, reported a slump of 58% in profits. In June, sources told Reuters the bank started a new round of hundreds of lay-offs.

In May, ADCB reported a fall of 84% in first-quarter net profit as it took impairments of $292 million on debt exposure to troubled hospital operator NMC Health and payments group Finablr.

It was a major lender, with an exposure of about $981 million, to NMC Health, which went into administration this year after months of turmoil following questions over financial reporting.

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Dubai ruler launches New Media Academy

June 15,2020

Dubai, Jul 15: His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of UAE and Ruler of Dubai, announced the launch of a 'New Media Academy in Dubai on Monday - a new institution that will train people on the science of digital media.

Taking to Twitter, Sheikh Mohammed said that new media is a new science that has its own set of special tools and secrets, and that the future cadres of UAE must be at the forefront of it.

"The academy will prepare new experts and managers in the field of communication in government and private institutions, as well as training professional social media influencers", Sheikh Mohammed tweeted, adding that the new media is providing new job opportunities and careers today, and will always be a main supporter in the journey of development.

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