Schools shut down as heavy rains lash Kuwait

Emergency services on full alert to deal with possible incidents

Manama: Schools and colleges were closed on Wednesday after heavy rains lashed Kuwait since morning.

The Ministry of Public Works said emergency teams had been deployed in the country’s governorates to deal with any accident resulting from the stormy weather.

Abdul Mohsen Al Enezi, the assistant undersecretary, said the ministry dealt with 100 complaints since the early hours of the day when the country was under torrential rains accompanied by gales.

Trees have fallen and the sewage system suffered damage due to the flooding rain waters, he said, adding that however the emergency teams dealt with the situation, Kuwait News Agency (Kuna) reported.Earlier, the Ministry of Electricity and Water said the power-water network was functioning normally and the technical teams were on full alert round the clock to ensure supplies normally.

The ministry said that people who had complaints should call the hotline or use social media to communicate.

According to the official news agency, Kuwait was engulfed in stormy weather conditions that prompted authorities to take extraordinary measures, including suspending classes while volunteers scrambled into action, aiding those in need for assistance in the thunder storm-whipped neighbourhoods, mainly in Al Jahraa and Taimaa.

The storm began raging in the early hours, with strong winds, heavy rain, recurring thunder and very low visibility. Many public places and roads have been swamped with water, as the authorities urged motorists to drive carefully.

Social media and microblogs posted pictures of people struggling to make their way on foot or in vehicles. One short clip showed two men using a boat across the flooded road.

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Apple Breaks Earnings Record With Strong iPhone Sales

An Apple Store in New York City.

The tech giant's latest earnings report beat expectations

Apple reported record fourth quarter earnings of $1.96 per share on revenue of $51.5 billion, driven—once again—by strong iPhone sales.

The results beat but did not blow past expectations. The stock rose more than 2.75% in after hours trading.

“Fiscal 2015 was Apple’s most successful year ever, with revenue growing 28% to nearly $234 billion. This continued success is the result of our commitment to making the best, most innovative products on earth, and it’s a testament to the tremendous execution by our teams,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We are heading into the holidays with our strongest product lineup yet, including iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, Apple Watch with an expanded lineup of cases and bands, the new iPad Pro and the all-new Apple TV which begins shipping this week.”

“Apple’s record September quarter results drove earnings per share growth of 38% and operating cash flow of $13.5 billion,” said Luca Maestri, Apple’s CFO. “We returned $17 billion to our investors during the quarter through share repurchases and dividends, and we have now completed over $143 billion of our $200 billion capital return program.”

By the numbers:

— Revenue: $51.5 billion, up 22.3%
— iPhone: 48.05 million, up 22.3%
— iPad: 9.883 million, down 19.8%
— Mac: 5.71 million, up 3.4%
— Services: $5.09 billion, up 10.3%
— Other products: $3.05 billion, up 104.6%
— Gross margin: 39.9%, up from 38%
— Revenue guidance: $75.5 to $77.5 billion
— GM guidance: 39% to 40%

Volkswagen slumps to first quarterly loss in at least 15 years after rigging diesel emissions tests

PHOTO: Volkswagen has reported a third-quarter operating loss of 3.48 billion euros.

German auto giant Volkswagen has posted its first quarterly loss in 15 years in the wake of the global pollution-cheating scandal which also forced it to lower its full-year forecasts.

Volkswagen said provisions related to its admission that it fitted 11 million diesel vehicles worldwide with sophisticated software to skew emissions tests pushed it deeply into the red in the period from July to September.

The group also warned of further "considerable financial charges" related to legal proceedings over the scam, over which it is the subject of criminal probes in the United States and Germany.

Volkswagen, which has just been overtaken by Toyota as the world's biggest carmaker in terms of sales, ran up a net loss of 1.673 billion euros ($2.52 billion) in the three-month period, compared with a profit of 2.971 billion euros a year earlier.

The losses were due to a charge of 6.7 billion euros ($10 billion) Volkswagen took to cover the initial costs of the scandal, primarily a recall of all vehicles fitted with the software scheduled to begin in January 2016.

Excluding that provision, operating profit would have remained stable at 3.2 billion euros in the three-month period, the company said.

Third-quarter sales revenues, or turnover, advanced by 5.3 per cent to 51.487 billion euros, while deliveries to customers fell by 3.4 per cent to 2.392 million vehicles worldwide.

"The figures show the core strength of the Volkswagen group on the one hand, while on the other the initial impact of the current situation is becoming clear," said Matthias Mueller, who was appointed chief executive shortly after the scandal broke to steer Voklswagen out of its biggest-ever crisis.

U.S. Plans More Patrols in South China Sea Despite Chinese Rebuke

An archive photo of destroyer USS Lassen, which sailed within 12 nautical miles of Subi Reef in the Spratly archipelago in South China Sea, on Oct. 27, 2015.

China has responded harshly

The U.S. is planning more naval patrols in the South China Sea despite a strong rebuke from the Chinese government, according to a new report.

The news, attributed to an anonymous U.S. defense official by by Voice of America, comes after a China Foreign Ministry spokesman condemned a U.S. patrol in the disputed waters as “deliberately provocative actions.” U.S. Ambassador to China Max Baucus had been summoned to explain the perceived violation of China’s territory on Tuesday. The U.S. official said of the patrols: “This is not going to be the last one.”

“We stand firmly against the harm caused by any country to China’s sovereignty and security interests under the cloak of navigation and over-flight freedom,” said a statement from the Chinese government.

The U.S. patrol occurred near artificial islands built by China on reefs in the Sea. Vietnam, Taiwan, Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines also have claims in the region. The U.S. move follows prodding from allies.

Scientists levitate tiny objects using sound

PHOTO: The scientists created three-dimensional acoustic fields that can exert forces on particles to levitate and manipulate them

A team of scientists have used sound waves to levitate tiny objects without a wizard or wand in sight.

The breakthrough, published today in Nature Communications, could lead to developments in areas as diverse as high-powered "tractor beams"; or manipulating drug delivery in the human body.

Co-author Bruce Drinkwater, Professor of Ultrasonics at the University of Bristol, said while other groups had successfully levitated objects, this had been achieved only by surrounding the object with speakers.

However, Professor Drinkwater and colleagues managed to move the tiny objects - less than one millimetre in size - using a single-sided array of loudspeakers.

The use of a single-sided device to manipulate objects in mid-air extends the potential of the technology as items would no longer need to be surrounded by loudspeakers, Professor Drinkwater said.

He said their new study built on the work of researchers at the University of Dundee.The Dundee team had shown there was a force attracting some acoustic waves back to their sound source.

"But they did not move anything and their system could not trap and hold any objects stable," he said.

"So, we have gone from knowing that the force exists to turning it into a stable working device."

In the paper, the researchers reveal they have not only levitated very small objects but could move them in a controlled manner using acoustic "tweezers", "twisters" and "cages" to manipulate the objects

Ivory Coast President Ouattara easily wins re-election

Results will now be sent to the constitutional court to be validated

vory Coast president Alassane Ouattara smiles to supporters as he leaves a polling station after voting in Abidjan. Ouattara received nearly 84 per cent of the vote

Abidjan, Ivory Coast: Ivory Coast’s President Alassane Ouattara easily won re-election in the first vote since a disputed poll five years ago sparked violence that killed thousands in the West African economic powerhouse, the electoral commission announced early Wednesday.

Ouattara received nearly 84 per cent of Sunday’s vote, trouncing the opposition, according to results read out by Youssouf Bakayoko, the head of the commission. Ouattara needed to get more than 50 per cent to avoid a run-off.

The results will now be sent to the constitutional court to be validated, Bakayoko said.

Ouattara was the heavy favourite long before the campaign began. As the country awaited official tallies Tuesday, he said the vote had allowed Ivory Coast to “turn the page on the crisis our country went through” after the election five years ago.

In that contest, Ouattara defeated ex-president Laurent Gbagbo in a run-off but Gbagbo refused to step down, leading to violence that killed more than 3,000 people and dragged on until Gbagbo’s arrest in April 2011. Gbagbo is set to go on trial next month for crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

This time around, Ouattara faced a divided opposition that failed to gain traction. He campaigned on the impressive economic rebound he has overseen since taking office in May 2011, though critics say ordinary Ivorians have not benefited much from the growth and that post-conflict reconciliation has been minimal.

The second-place finisher with 9 per cent was Pascal Affi N’Guessan, the candidate of Gbagbo’s Ivorian Popular Front political party. A large faction of the party had withheld its support for N’Guessan, calling him a traitor to Gbagbo and predicting the vote would be rigged.

Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert Pleads Guilty in Hush Money Case

Former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert leaves after a guilty plea at Dirksen U.S. Courthouse in Chicago on Oct. 28, 2015.

The longest-serving Republican Speaker admitted to making illegal cash withdrawals in the alleged hush money scheme

Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert pleaded guilty to illegal bank transactions in an alleged hush-money scheme that linked back to his days as a high school teacher.

Hastert entered the guilty plea in an Illinois federal court on Wednesday just weeks after prosecutors in the case announced they had reached a deal with the embattled Republican leader. In May, Hastert was charged with improper transactions and lying to federal authorities about his banking transactions, which were said to have been conducted in an effort to hide the alleged sexual abuse of a former student.

According to the indictment, Hastert was set to pay a person known simply as “Individual A” a total of $3.5 million. Hastert is charged with withdrawing the money in amounts under $10,000, in violation of banking law. Little is known about “Individual A” other than the fact that Hastert knew him or her for his or her entire life.

Under his plea, Hastert did not plea guilty to lying to federal authorities but the lone count carries a maximum penalty of 5 years in prison. According to NBC News, prosecutors recommended 6 months imprisonment for the 73-year-old. At Wednesday’s hearing, Hastert admitted to the judge that he knew what he did was wrong.