MANAMA: His Royal Highness Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa received more cables of congratulations from diplomats, senior officials and citizens on leaving hospital in good health after undergoing successful check-ups. They prayed to Almighty God to bless the Premier with abundant good health and happiness to continue the dedicated march in service of the homeland and citizens.
Charity push
MANAMA: Labour and Social Development Minister Jameel Humaidan received board members of Al Naim Charity Society, led by chairman Hameed Youssef Rahma. They discussed the need to facilitate measures so it could perform its social and charity role and collect donations to help needy families.
Services hailed
MANAMA: Public Security chief Major General Tariq Al Hassan visited the Operations Room of the General Directorate of Traffic of the Saudi Interior Ministry.
The visit was on the sidelines of a joint security committee meeting between Bahraini and Saudi interior ministries. Maj Gen Al Hassan was briefed on techniques to control traffic signals and methods to deal with traffic jams, along with traffic monitoring that included the use of smart cameras across Riyadh to detect violations and track violators. He also visited the Unified Security Operation Centres (911) of the ministry that is equipped with state-of-the-art devices. The centre is dedicated to providing security services and issuing reports and statistics for the ministry’s various departments, and to following up on emergency cases. Maj Gen Al Hassan hailed the efforts of Saudi police to uphold security, public order and law enforcement by providing the best services. The Interior Ministry delegation that accompanied Maj Gen Al Hassan included the Customs president and senior officials.
Teacher wins case
MANAMA: The High Administrative Court has ruled in favour of a teacher adding two years to his overall period of work with the Education Ministry. He filed a lawsuit against the General Organisation for Social Insurance (Gosi), which failed to count the two years, on the pretext that he was a temporary teacher. The complainant first started work with the ministry in 1997, said a report in our sister paper Akhbar Al Khaleej. The court issued its verdict based on a law regulating government employees on pensions and end of service premiums.
Warehouse fire
MANAMA: Civil Defence personnel have started to extinguish a fire in a warehouse in Tubli. Police are at the scene, the Interior Ministry posted on its Twitter account last night.
Indian rivals unite
NEW DELHI: Two political rivals in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh will form a alliance in a bid to defeat Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in national elections scheduled for May. The Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), both of whom command large support bases among Uttar Pradesh state’s working class and are led by former chief ministers, will contest the election as a team, they said. Uttar Pradesh is India’s most populous state and accounts for about a sixth of all members of parliament. Barring a couple of exceptions in the 1990s, the party winning the most number of seats there has historically helped form the federal government. It is not clear how the seats will be allotted and what role the main opposition Congress party will have in the state, but SP’s chief Akhilesh Yadav hinted that it will not have a significant role to play.
Congress, which ruled India for nearly four decades since its independence from Britain in 1947, is working to build a so-called “grand alliance” with other parties in preparation for the vote. “We can give Congress two seats they have always held,” Yadav told news channel NDTV, referring to constituencies from where Congress president Rahul Gandhi and his mother Sonia Gandhi have contested in the past.
Woman shot dead
GAZA CITY: Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian woman during Gaza border protests yesterday, medics said, and the military said it opened fire in response to grenade and rock attacks and breaches of the frontier. Ashraf Al Qidra, spokesman for the Gaza health ministry, said 25 other Palestinians were wounded by Israeli gunfire during the mass demonstration, a weekly event along the border since March 30. Gaza’s health ministry, run by Hamas, says more than 220 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli troops in the protests, billed as pressing for an end to a grinding Israeli-led blockade of the enclave.
The 44-year-old woman killed yesterday was shot in the head.
Medicines alert
MANAMA: Selling medicines on social media websites is banned in Bahrain unless authorised officially, the National Health Regulatory Authority warned yesterday.
Its chief executive Dr Mariam Al Jalahma said medical products can only be sold online through authorised pharmaceutical centres.
Several violators, who don’t work in the medical sector, were recently referred to the Public Prosecution, she added.
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