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Indonesia punishes labor agencies dealing with Kuwait and others Published Date: November 09, 2011 By A. Saleh, Staff Writer KUWAIT: Indonesian authorities have cancelled the licenses of 28 Indonesian agencies that specialized in recruiting Indonesian workers for jobs overseas, including Kuwait, accusing them of violating the Southeast Asian country's labor laws, according to an insider. The insider revealed that the Indonesian labor ministry had assessed over 387 recruitment agencies, stressing that the results showed that only 28 of these had been violating the law against sending workers to Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and Malaysia, which were blacklisted for Indonesian domestic workers to travel to for work. According to the Indonesian Minister of Manpower and Transmigration, Mohaymen Eskandar, the assessment report showed that these agencies had been forging documents on agency workers' age, training and medical records. In other news, the Iraqi parliament's White Bloc (WB) recently urged their country's envoy to the UN to demand that Iraq be exempted from the UN's Chapter Seven on the grounds that the reasons for this classification had ended a long time ago and that the whole issue is now in the hands of on e country, Kuwait. WB member MP Alia Nassef insisted that Kuwait hates Iraq and its people, adding that Kuwait would never forget old grudges, adding, "It's obvious that Kuwait is taking retaliation against the helpless Iraqi people and blaming them for the follies of the former regime." Nassef urged the Iraqi UN envoy to work to obtain exemption for Iraq from Chapter Seven status, which she said was only maintained "upon Kuwaiti demands. The UN's Chapter Seven consists of 13 articles that are still applicable due to various unresolved issues, such as the whereabouts of the remains of a number of Kuwaiti prisoners of war and other citizens, as well as looted Kuwaiti artifacts and documents belonging to the Amiri Diwan and the Crown Prince's Archives, along with compensation for environmental and oil damages. On a separate issue, a Ministry of Defense insider said yesterday that in his statement about 'good news for the military after Eid,' the Acting Prime Minister and Minister of Defense Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah was referring to the upcoming publication of a number of lists naming those bedoon (stateless) servicemen to be accorded Kuwaiti citizenship. The minister personally supervised the compilation of these lists over the past two years, said the insider, adding that sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak persona lly ensured that the information for each candidate was scrupulously documented and verified. The insider added that the first of the names of those to be naturalized would be announced in the next four months, and will include those military personnel who fought in the 1967 and 1973 wars, who had no negative security history, who held no other citizenship and who had been living in Kuwait since 1965. Priority will be given especially to those who fought in the 1991 war to liberate Kuwait following the 1990 Iraqi invasion. Finally, a parliamentary insider said yesterday that once the scandal over the accusations of multimillion dinar corruption have been resolved the current parliamentary alliance of opposition MPs formed to support the grilling of the premier will dissolve just as the previous 'Anything But the Constitution' coalition formed by MP Jamaan Al-Harbish did. Opposition MPs agree on grilling the prime minister over the deposits, but they disagree over various other issues such as grilling ministers who are sheikhs," said the insider , adding that the opposition MPs would definitely disagree on demanding a 'no-cooperation vote' against certain ministers or a 'no-trust vote' against the interior and defense ministers. The insider also suggested that the opposition alliance had asked its members not to participate in a session called by 12 MPs for November 14 to vote on teachers' pay increases and student grants, on the grounds that this session was only being held to divert attention from the main one taking place the next day. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
