KUWAIT: OSN cable TV network, the leading network in the Middle East, hailed Kuwait security authorities' efforts which resulted in arresting three people for hacking. Kuwait's Criminal Investigations Department (CID) had recently announced arresting three Indian hackers who had been operating an illegal TV broadcast network in Salmiya, where detectives found dozens of illegal decoders for Dish TV network of Indi and OSN. The suspects used their network to illegally broadcast the channels to over 10,000 subscribers in an area of 15 square meters. It took police detectives and Ministry of Utilities officials six months to investigate the matter after receiving reports from OSN's content protection team. "I congratulate Kuwaiti authorities for the successful arrest of the hackers and busting this illegal network that had cost us millions of dollars in losses," said OSN's Chief Legal Officer Sophie Moloney. According to CID estimates, the culprits, who are currently facing charges of money laundering and abuse of Kuwait's telecommunications infrastructure, were making around KD 70,000 a month from their illegal services.

Fuel prices

The court of cassation is scheduled to pass its final sentence today in a case filed to undo the government's decision to increase fuel prices, said informed sources. The Comprehensive Court had initially decided to suspend the cabinet's decision made on August 1, 2016 to increase the fuel prices effective from September 1, 2016. However, the Court of Appeals later overturned the verdict on grounds that the cabinet's decision was fully constitutional and was made according to its liabilities in running and managing the state's natural resources.

Generating electricity

Coal is still the largest material used to generate electricity with over 339 percent of the world's production, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA)'s 2015 key statistics about the sources of electricity in the world. IEA report also showed that natural gas came second in generating electricity with 23 percent of the world's energy followed by water and dams with 16 percent, nuclear reactors with 10.6 percent, renewable resources with seven percent and oil with four percent. Statistics also showed that the total world production of electricity was 24,225 terawatts per hour, of which China produced around one quarter, or 5,844 terawatts per hour, followed by the United States which produced 4,297 terawatts per hour (18 percent), India which produced 1,383 terawatts per hour (5.7 percent) then Russia which produced 1,066 terawatts per hour. The report also showed that the Middle East only produced 4.3 percent of electricity, which is equivalent to Japan's production, and that Kuwait was ranked fourth in terms of using oil in generating electricity.

Jobs in coops

The Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor's (MSAL) cooperative societies sector strongly warned all coops of not yielding to its regulations concerning providing enough job opportunities for citizens as per a memorandum of understanding signed by MSAL, the Manpower and Government Restructuring Program (MGRP), Kuwait Union of Consumer Cooperative Societies (KUCCS) and the Public Authority for Applied Education and Training (PAAET), said informed sources. MSAL warned that societies rejecting to cooperate would be subject to suspension of their bank accreditation, the sources said, adding that so far only ten out of the total 35 coops have provided jobs for citizens. The sources also noted that MSAL was keen on encouraging national labor to work in non-governmental jobs in order to limit the number of expatriate laborers.

By A Saleh