Kuwaiti MPs on Wednesday blamed alleged squabbles in the ruling Al-Sabah family for the chronic political crises that have plagued the Gulf state in the past decade, paralysing development.

Kuwaiti MPs on Wednesday blamed alleged squabbles in the ruling Al-Sabah family for the chronic political crises that have plagued the Gulf state in the past decade, paralysing development.

Former US president Bill Clinton said on Sunday that his wife Hillary will be a `great secretary of state` if president-elect Barack Obama named her to the post.

`If he (Obama) decided to ask her and they did it together, I think she`ll be really great as a secretary of state,` Clinton told an economic conference in Kuwait hosted by the National Bank of Kuwait.

Three Kuwaiti Islamist MPs said on Sunday they will file a request to grill the prime minister for allowing a prominent Iranian Shiite cleric to enter the Gulf state despite a legal ban.

Waleed al-Tabtabai, Mohammed al-Mutair and Mohammed Hayef, all Sunni Muslim Salafi lawmakers, said in a joint statement that they will file the request on Monday.

A court on Sunday ordered the Kuwait Stock Exchange to resume trading after accepting a government appeal against an earlier ruling that halted trading for two sessions, a legal source said.

KUWAIT CITY, Oct 22, 2007 (AFP) - Kuwait's interim Oil Minister Mohammad al-Olaim said on Monday he expects lower oil prices as a result of a boost in OPEC output set to take effect next month.

'We think that the demand-supply will be affected positively by the 500,000 barrels increase,' said Olaim, referring to the production rise coming into force on November 1.

'Everybody knows... high prices are not related to supply and demand issue,' he said. 'They are related to other things like geopolitics, refinery production in the US and others reasons.'

KUWAIT CITY, Oct 21, 2007 (AFP) - Senior security officials from Iraq and its neighbours agreed on Sunday to exchange more intelligence in a bid to help quell the insurgency in war-ravaged Iraq, a senior Kuwaiti official said.

'We have agreed to boost coordination among intelligence agencies to prevent the transfer of terrorists to and from Iraq,' Kuwaiti delegation chief Major General Khaled al-Ossaimi told reporters after a two-day meeting.

KUWAIT CITY, Oct 20, 2007 (AFP) - Iraq complained to a meeting of senior security officials from neighbouring states on Saturday that foreign fighters were continuing to infiltrate the country, a Kuwaiti official said.

'The Iraqi delegation complained that infiltrations were still continuing from some states,' Kuwaiti delegation chief Major General Khaled al-Ossaimi told reporters without naming any country.

Syria and Iran have been accused in the past of facilitating the flow of foreign fighters into neighbouring Iraq.

KUWAIT CITY, Oct 18, 2007 (AFP) - Kuwait urged Turkey on Thursday to exercise utmost restraint after the Turkish parliament authorised a military incursion into northern Iraq.

'We have been following with great concern the developments on the Turkish-Iraqi borders. We hope that our brothers in Turkey will observe the maximum degree of self-restraint,' Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammad al-Sabah said.

In remarks quoted by the official KUNA news agency, he called on Iraqi and Turkish leaders to resolve 'border violations and terrorist attacks' through dialogue.

KUWAIT CITY, Oct 18, 2007 (AFP) - National security chiefs of pro-Western Gulf Arab states will meet in Kuwait next week to assess the regional situation and draw up a common strategy, an official said Thursday.

It will be the first such meeting in the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council, deputy chief of Kuwait's National Security Agency Sheikh Thamer Ali al-Sabah told the KUNA news agency.

SINGAPORE, Oct 18, 2007 (AFP) - A joint venture firm said Thursday it planned to invest two billion US dollars to build a petrochemical plant in Singapore which is expected to be completed by 2011.

Jurong Aromatics Corp Pte Ltd, a joint venture including South Korean refiner SK Energy and Swiss-based oil and commodities trading house Glencore, said in a statement construction would start next year on Jurong Island.

The project is 60-percent owned by Jurong Energy Corp and Continental Chemical.

KUWAIT CITY, Oct 18, 2007 (AFP) - Three Kuwaiti commercial banks announced a sharp increase in their profits for the first nine months of 2007, according to statements on the website of the Kuwait Stock Exchange Thursday.

Commercial Bank of Kuwait, the third largest in the oil-rich Gulf emirate, posted a net profit of 330.7 million dollars on September 30, a 22.9 percent rise on 269 million dollars it earned in the same period of 2006.

Ahli Bank increased its nine-month profit by 55.5 percent to 251 million dollars from 161.4 million dollars a year earlier.

KUWAIT CITY, Oct 17, 2007 (AFP) - Kuwait Oil Co said on Wednesday it has awarded Autralia-based WorleyParsons a five-year 313-million-dollar contract for management services.

KOC deputy managing director Fahd al-Ajmi said in a statement the contract will support the company in achieving its long-term strategy of raising oil production capacity to four million barrels per day (bpd) by 2020.

KUWAIT CITY, Oct 12, 2007 (AFP) - Kuwait is to buy an unspecified number of Patriot missiles from the United States, Defence Minister Jaber al-Mubarak al-Sabah told the state news agency KUNA on Friday.

Sheikh Jaber, responding to questions about Washington's sale of arms to Gulf allies, said 'Kuwait has signed deals, not for airplanes, but for materiel such as ships and Patriot missiles.'

He did not give any further details.

KUWAIT CITY, Oct 11, 2007 (AFP) - Kuwaiti authorities arrested 14 Iranians trying to enter the emirate illegally in a boat, the interior ministry said Thursday.

The boat was detected by coastguards as it approached the southern Kuwaiti coast, the ministry said in a statement cited by the official KUNA news agency.

Kuwait frequently arrests migrants from neighbouring Iran seeking jobs in the oil-rich emirate or smuggling drugs.

KUWAIT CITY, Oct 11, 2007 (AFP) - Interior ministers of countries neighbouring Iraq will meet here on October 23 to discuss ways to achieve stability in the war-ravaged nation, an official said Thursday.

The ministers will focus on ways of achieving stability and security in Iraq, the head of the interior ministry's legal department, Maj-Gen Khaled al-Ossaimi, told the official KUNA news agency.

The one-day meeting will be preceded by a gathering of experts on October 20 and 21, he said.

KUWAIT CITY, Oct 11, 2007 (AFP) - Kuwait Finance House, the largest Islamic bank in the Gulf emirate, announced Thursday a 49 percent rise in net profits for the first nine months of the year.

KFH said it posted 393.5 million dinars (1.4 billion dollars) on September 30 compared to 264.5 million dinars (944 million dollars) in the year-earlier period, chairman Bader al-Mukhaizeem said.

Return on assets was 3.2 percent while return on equity was 27 percent.

Assets reached 29.5 billion dollars, a 45 percent increase from 20.4 billion dollars a year earlier.

KUWAIT CITY, Oct 11, 2007 (AFP) - Kuwaiti shares ended the week trading through Thursday at a new all-time high above the 13,000-point psychological barrier on the back of abundant liquidity and positive financial results.

The Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE) Index cruised past the 13,000 points for the first time on Sunday and stayed above the mark despite some pressure from profit-taking sales, brokers said.

The KSE Index finished trading at 13,079.00 points, up 0.8 percent from last week's close of 12,977.20 points.

KUWAIT CITY, Oct 10, 2007 (AFP) - The National Bank of Kuwait, the Gulf emirate's largest bank, on Wednesday announced a 16 percent rise in net profits for the first nine months of the year.

NBK said it posted a record profit of 787.5 million dollars on September 30 compared with 679 million dollars in the same period of 2006.

Returns on equity were 32.2 percent, while returns on assets stood at 3.33 percent, the bank said in a statement.

KUWAIT CITY, Oct 9, 2007 (AFP) - Kuwait's first private budget airline Jazeera Airways announced on Tuesday it will make a rights issue aimed at doubling its capital to 70 million dollars to finance expansion.

'The capital increase gives us the opportunity to fund the airline's planned expansion and grow our operations to enter new markets,' chairman and chief executive officer Marwan Boodai said.

The issue is open only to the airline's 36,500 shareholders, with the subscription period running from October 21 to November 1.

KUWAIT CITY, Oct 9, 2007 (AFP) - A Kuwaiti watchdog on Tuesday criticised the oil-rich emirate which dropped 14 places in the ranking of a world corruption index and called for immediate practical measures to fight graft.

In its annual Corruption Perceptions Index, Berlin-based Transparency International (TI) last month ranked Kuwait in 60th place among 179 countries, down from 46th place last year.

Kuwait has been downgraded on the TI corruption index in each of the past five years.

KUWAIT CITY, Oct 8, 2007 (AFP) - Former Kuwaiti defence minister and senior member of the Al-Sabah ruling family Sheikh Salem Sabah al-Salem al-Sabah died on Monday after a long illness, the Amiri court announced. He was 69.

The elder son of former emir Sheikh Sabah al-Salem al-Sabah, who ruled the oil-rich emirate between 1965 and 1977, Sheikh Salem graduated in law from Britain.

He served as Kuwait's ambassador to the United States, Britain and several other countries before he took his first ministerial job in 1975 as minister of social affairs and labour.

KUWAIT CITY, Oct 7, 2007 (AFP) - OPEC member Kuwait, which discovered large reserves of non-associated natural gas last year, will start commercial production in December, a top oil executive said Sunday.

'We will start producing 175 million cubic feet (five million cubic meters) of free gas in December,' said Farouk al-Zanki, head of Kuwait Oil Co (KOC) which is responsible for exploration and production.

The company strategy is to increase production in phases to one billion cubic feet (28.4 million cubic meters) by 2015, Zanki told the official KUNA news agency.

KUWAIT CITY, Oct 7, 2007 (AFP) - The de-pegging of the Kuwaiti dinar from the dollar and linking it to a Basketball of currencies has helped the emirate cut inflation, the central bank governor said in remarks published on Sunday.

One month after de-coupling the dinar from the dollar on May 20, 'the inflation rate dropped from 5.3 percent in May to 4.4 percent in June,' Sheikh Salem Abdulaziz al-Sabah told Al-Rai newspaper.

But Sheikh Salem stressed it was too early to judge the full impact of the measure on the oil-rich emirate's economy.

KUWAIT CITY, Oct 7, 2007 (AFP) - Kuwaiti shares rallied past the 13,000-point psychological barrier for the first-time on Sunday on the back of high liquidity and investor optimism for good third quarter results.

The Kuwait Stock Exchange Index finished trading on the first day of the week at 13,020.70 points, up from last week's close of 12,977.20 points.

The index, which ended last year down 12 percent, is now a 29.3 percent above its 2006 close of 10,067.40 points.

KUWAIT CITY, Oct 4, 2007 (AFP) - The Kuwait Stock Exchange has defended decisions that have been strongly criticised by leading investors, vowing that it would not allow anyone to undermine the national economy.

'Some people are trying to undermine the national economy for their own interests. We will not allow them to do so,' bourse director Saleh al-Falah told a news conference on Wednesday night.

KUWAIT CITY, Oct 3, 2007 (AFP) - Forty-three of the 190 firms listed on the Kuwait Stock Exchange made an unprecedented protest on Wednesday about decisions by the bourse's management they said was detrimental to the economy.

The companies, which include firms owned by major merchant families, published a joint advertisement in the press criticising several steps recently taken by the bourse.

KUWAIT CITY, Oct 2, 2007 (AFP) - An Islamist lawmaker in Kuwait called for the interior ministry on Tuesday to draw up a blacklist of employers who mistreat their domestic helpers and urged stiff penalties for physical abuse.

MP Waleed al-Tabtabai said in a statement that employers who abuse their maids 'physically or morally' should be added to the blacklist and prevented from hiring new maids.

The lawmaker also urged authorities to refer all employers who physically abuse their maids to court.

KUWAIT CITY, Sept 30, 2007 (AFP) - A former Kuwaiti defence ministry official was Sunday sentenced to life imprisonment and fined some 72 million dollars for corruption and profiteering, legal sources said.

Faisal al-Dawood was accused of failure to perform his job by signing a faulty contract with a Hungarian company and benefiting from the subsequent huge financial loss to the state.

KUWAIT CITY, Sept 30, 2007 (AFP) - Kuwait has selected 17 international companies to bid for the construction of a 14-billion-dollar oil refinery after scrapping the first round of tenders because of inflated cost estimates.

State-owned refiner Kuwait National Petroleum Co (KNPC) published the names of the companies in advertisements in Sunday's newspapers in the OPEC member state, which sits on 10 percent of the world's oil reserves.

KUWAIT CITY, Sept 26, 2007 (AFP) - Six Bangladeshi workers were killed and two others seriously injured Wednesday when their minibus collided head-on with a truck, a security source said.

The source said the accident took place on the seventh ring road, some 25 kilometres (16 miles) south of Kuwait City.

Around 200,000 Bangladeshis work in oil-rich Kuwait, mostly as domestic helpers and in other unskilled jobs.

KUWAIT CITY, Sept 26, 2007 (AFP) - The Kuwait appeals court on Wednesday upheld a death sentence against a Philippine housemaid for killing her employer's seven-year-old son by slitting his throat, a legal source said.

May Membrini, as the name was shown in court documents, was convicted of killing the boy last January, as well as slitting his 11-year-old brother's throat and stabbing his 17-year-old sister.

Afterwards she allegedly jumped from the second storey of her employer's home.

KUWAIT CITY, Sept 26, 2007 (AFP) - Kuwait has again increased its budget for a new oil refinery to more than 14 billion dollars after scrapping an initial tender round because of high cost estimates from international bidders.

'The new budget approved by the Supreme Petroleum Council is four billion dinars (around 14.4 billion dollars),' Kuwait National Petroleum Co (KNPC) chairman Sami al-Rasheed told reporters late Tuesday.

KUWAIT CITY, Sept 25, 2007 (AFP) - US ally Kuwait on Tuesday rallied to the defence of neighbouring Iran, which is coming under increasing international pressure to reveal more details about its controversial nuclear programme, the official KUNA news agency reported.

'Iran is a friendly neighbouring state and we cannot accept seeing it in an embarrassing situation,' KUNA reported Sheikh Jaber al-Mubarak al-Sabah, the oil-rich state's first deputy premier, defence and interior minister, as saying.

KUWAIT CITY, Sept 25, 2007 (AFP) - State-owned Kuwait Airways Corp (KAC) got a new chairman Tuesday ahead of plans to partially privatise the carrier, the official KUNA news agency reported.

The agency quoted acting communications minister Abdulwahed al-Awadhi as saying he had appointed Barrak al-Sabeeh to head the loss-making airline.

Sabeeh was the chief executive officer of Zain Telecommunication in Kuwait.

KUWAIT CITY, Sept 23, 2007 (AFP) - Kuwait on Sunday extended the bid period for a 26 percent stake in its third mobile company until November 18 from the previous closing date of September 7, the establishing committee said.

The committee said the bid is now open for previously pre-qualified companies and for new bidders.

'The process has been set as a single stage bid with no pre-qualification requirements. The 26 percent stake ... will be awarded to the bidder that submits the highest bid,' a statement said.

KUWAIT CITY, Sept 20, 2007 (AFP) - The ruler of the Gulf state of Kuwait has warned the local press that 'inciting disputes and conflicts' was a red line that must not be crossed.

'Our local press has contributed ... to transforming our country into an arena of conflict and disputes without considering regional conditions,' Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah told editors, in comments published on Thursday.

KUWAIT CITY, Sept 19, 2007 (AFP) - US ally Kuwait called on neighbouring Iran on Wednesday to show full cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency over its disputed nuclear programme.

'We believe in the importance of reaching a peaceful solution, but at the same time we call on the Iranian officials to extend full coopaeration with the IAEA,' Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah was quoted by the official KUNA news agency as saying.