N E W STHURSDAY, JANUARY 5, 2017

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Sources said the committee studying the increase infees had completed its work and submitted its report toformer health minister Dr Ali Al-Obaidi, but it wasdeferred.

Sources said the new health service fees will beimposed in the very near future because it is difficult to

keep government health service fees as they are, asthey are not compatible with the true cost of the servic-es provided, and especially since the current fees beingcollected from expats are far lower than those in the pri-vate sector. Sources said some treatment will be for free,including emergency and accident cases. Nuclear medi-cine will be 50 percent cheaper because it is not avail-able in the private sector.

Health charges for expats set...

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80 percent and applied the decision in September, trig-gering a standoff with the previous Assembly that eventu-ally led to the Assembly’s dissolution and holding freshpolls in November. Opposition lawmakers made a strongshowing in the election, winning nearly half of the 50Assembly seats after making abolishing the price increasesthe top issue in their election campaigns.

Although Kuwaiti citizens were spared from the hugeincrease in power and water prices, MPs argue that anyincrease in electricity and petrol prices will reflect nega-tively on the cost of living and inflation rates in the coun-try, thus affecting citizens. Mutair said the proposed billalso amends a 1995 law that bans the government fromraising charges on public services without the priorapproval of the Assembly, in order to add petrol and otherfuels to the law. The lawmaker said that any increase in

power prices will deal a heavy blow to small enterprisesrun by young Kuwaitis, charging there are influential peo-ple who do not want to see Kuwaiti youth succeed.

Another opposition MP Riyadh Al-Adasani is moving inthe same direction with a number of other MPs, and willsubmit a draft law calling for fixing the price of petrol atthe levels before the September increase. The bill also callsfor adding petrol to the 1995 law that bans the govern-ment from raising the prices of services and products men-tioned without the prior approval of the Assembly.

The two similar bills are expected to be passed with ahuge majority by lawmakers since the issue has massivepopular backing. The issue will likely be debated on Jan 10,when the Assembly is scheduled to hold a special discus-sion on government-sponsored economic reforms.According to the electricity hike law, the increase on expa-triates’ homes will come into effect late August. Theincrease will be huge, especially in the summer months.

Lawmakers ask govt to scrap power...

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The shooting set off intense political debate, with PrimeMinister Benjamin Netanyahu having earlier called Azaria’sfather to express his sympathy. Others on the right havecalled for him to be pardoned in an extraordinary publicrift between politicians and the country’s military. Beforehe became Israeli defense minister in May, AvigdorLieberman was among those showing strong support forAzaria, including attending one of his court appearances.

He has since backed away from his earlier stance and,after yesterday’s verdict, said he disagreed with the deci-sion but that it must be respected. Others from what isseen as the most rightwing government in Israeli historymaintained their hardline position. “He’s our son, our child,”Culture Minister Miri Regev told Israeli television. The caseburst into public view when a video of the March 24 shoot-ing in Hebron in the occupied West Bank emerged andspread widely online.

The video showed Abdul Fatah Al-Sharif, 21, lying onthe ground, shot along with another man after allegedlystabbing and moderately wounding a soldier minutes ear-lier, according to the army.

Azaria then shoots him again in the head without anyapparent provocation. His lawyers argued the soldier mayhave thought the Palestinian was wearing explosives, butothers said he had already been checked for a suicide beltand no one in the video appears to be acting with cautiontoward him. The Palestinian’s father told reporters in

Hebron after the verdict that Azaria should be sentencedto life. “For me, a just verdict will be one that is similar tothe verdicts our sons (in Israeli prisons) get,” Yusri Al-Sharifsaid. In a statement, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry said“the occupation’s chain of command” must also be prose-cuted, accusing it of inciting soldiers to kill. The video wasfilmed by a Palestinian volunteer for Israeli rights groupB’Tselem, which accused the security forces of “routinewhitewashing” in a statement after the verdict. “The factthat one soldier was convicted today does not exoneratethe Israeli military law enforcement system from its routinewhitewashing of cases in which security forces kill or injurePalestinians with no accountability,” B’Tselem said.

Military chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot has spoken outagainst the politicization of the case, warning it could bad-ly harm the army. He said rules on when to open fire mustbe followed. The case galvanized the Israeli public, and tel-evision and radio stations interrupted their broadcasts tocarry live coverage of the verdict. It had been portrayed bysome as a test of whether Israel’s military could prosecuteone of its own, though many Palestinians dismissed it,arguing Azaria was only taken to trial because of the video.The military has said it began investigating before therelease of the video. The last time an Israeli soldier wasconvicted of manslaughter was in 2005, Israeli mediareported. Israeli security forces have been accused ofexcessive force in certain other cases as well, thoughauthorities say officers act appropriately to protect them-selves and civilians. — Agencies

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“There were people crying,” said Aaron Neufeld, a 26-year-old paralegal who commutes on the rail line daily. “Isaw some bloody faces.” Neufeld, who was riding in thesecond car, said the train appeared to be approaching nor-mally until it crashed, knocking passengers on top of oneanother and shattering glass windows. “Bags went flying,”he said. “People were thrown to the ground.”

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo explained that thetrain was supposed to stop at a bumper but failed to do so,moving a few feet past it. He said the most serious injurywas a possible broken leg. “First concern is (for) the peopleon the train. There were a number of minor injuries,” hetold reporters. “What happened with the operator, wedon’t know. And obviously there will be an investigation tofind out exactly what happened, why the operator didn’tstop the train before it hit the bumper block.”

Explaining why it was difficult to pinpoint exactly how

many people were injured, Cuomo added: “They werestanding and they were getting ready to get off the train.“The train has a sudden stop, they’re not prepared for thesudden stop. They get knocked around, banged around,they hurt an arm, they hurt a leg.”

The engineer was probably responsible for failing tostop the train before it hit the bumper, said TomPrendergast, chairman of the Metropolitan TransportationAuthority, the agency that runs the railroad. “At that speed,it’s pretty much the locomotive engineer’s responsibility tostop the train,” Prendergast said as he stood beside Cuomoat the briefing.

New York’s emergency notification system warned oftraffic and transit delays and road closures in the area. InSeptember, a train derailed during rush hour as it enteredthe station in Hoboken, New Jersey. One person died and114 were injured. An investigation into that incident, inwhich the train entered the station at an unusually highspeed, is ongoing. — Agencies

103 hurt as NY train derails

A man walks with his dog on fresh snow in Moscow yesterday. Temperatures dropped to about -9 C. — AP