KUWAIT — Kuwaiti police investigating a deadly blaze at a wedding tent that killed 43 women and children say the ex-wife of the groom has confessed to starting it.

Charred clothing, shoes and other debris litter the ground in the aftermath of the fire that left 43 women and children dead in a wedding tent near Kuwait City. REUTERS

The tent was consumed by flames in seconds in the worst civilian disaster in Kuwait’s modern history.

Fire service officials said the tent had only one exit and did not meet fire safety regulations.

Media reports say the woman told police she had wanted to avenge ill-treatment by her husband before their divorce.

Later the Ministry of the Interior, quoted by the official news agency Kuna, announced that one person had been arrested on suspicion of causing Saturday’s fire, but no further details were given.

Earlier on Monday the Qabas newspaper said the 23-year-old ex-wife of the groom had told police she used petrol to set fire to the packed and highly inflammable wedding tent.

The victims were all women and children because traditionally wedding celebrations are segregated along gender lines.

The Kuwait Times newspaper reported that the groom’s new bride had escaped injury but that her mother and a sister had died.

Some local newspapers have criticized the government over the blaze, which happened in the town of Jahra, saying its handling revealed failures in disaster response planning.

MPs criticized the lax official reaction to unlicensed tents being erected in residential areas despite the implicit safety risks.

Most of the bodies were burned beyond immediate recognition, police said, and forensic officials were now working to identify the victims.

Ninety guests were injured in the blaze and ensuing stampede, and five burn victims are in a critical condition, medical officials say.

Dutch university fires Islamic scholar Ramadan

AMSTERDAM — A Dutch university fired Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan this week for hosting a show on Iran’s state television, which the school said could be seen as endorsing the regime.

Tariq Ramadan

Ramadan — known as a reformist who condemns terrorism, seeks to modernize Shariah law and urges Muslims living in Europe to integrate — has recently been criticized in the Dutch press for allegedly voicing more conservative views for Muslim audiences than he does in the West.
Both the City of Rotterdam and Erasmus University dismissed Ramadan from his positions as “integration adviser” and professor, saying his program “Islam & Life” airing on Iran’s Press TV is “irreconcilable” with his duties in Rotterdam.

Ramadan “continued to participate in this program even after the elections in Iran, when authorities there hard-handedly stifled the freedom of expression,” Rotterdam and the university said in a joint statement.

It said Ramadan had “failed to sufficiently realize the feelings that participation in this television program, which is supported by the Iranian government, might provoke in Rotterdam and beyond.” He had worked at the university since 2007.

The professor, a Swiss citizen who is now on vacation in Morocco, told Dutch radio he would appeal the “naive and simplistic” decision.

Ramadan has written an open letter to Dutch media saying the show was a debate forum, and that he had no involvement with Iran’s government.

“Repression against and killing of civilian people cannot be accepted and must be condemned,” he said in the letter, published by Dutch media last week when the debate broke out. “I support transparent, democratic process, and I expect the Iranian regime to respect this principle.”

Ramadan has lectured in France, England and the United States, and also has had trouble with the U.S. government.

He had his U.S. visa revoked in 2004 shortly before he was to receive tenure at Notre Dame University in Indiana. He was denied entry to the U.S. in 2006 on the grounds that he had given $1,336 to a charity linked to Hamas, which the U.S. considers a terrorist organization.

The American Civil Liberties Union launched, and initially lost, a case arguing that the U.S. had wrongly excluded Ramadan based on his beliefs. In July, an appeals court said the government should have told Ramadan why his visa was rejected and given him a chance to prove he doesn’t support terrorism. The case is now back in lower court.

Ramadan had opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq and said he sympathizes with the resistance there and in the Palestinian territories. He also was among the most prominent Muslims to condemn the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

Republican Huckabee supports Israeli settlements

JERUSALEM — The U.S. has taken too harsh a stance against Israel on the issue of settlements, hindering peace negotiations, former Arkansas governor and presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee said during a visit to Israel on Monday.

Former governor of Arkansas Mike Huckabee (R) stands with Mayor Benny Kashriel during a visit to the West Bank Jewish settlement of Maale Adumim, August 18, 2009. While American Jews are supportive of eliminating the illegal settlements, and President Obama has called for a freeze them, Huckabee voiced support for the settlers against international law. REUTERS/Ammar Awad

Huckabee, a Southern Baptist preacher popular among the Republican Party’s social conservatives, has been touted as a possible Republican candidate in 2012.
His three-day trip, focusing on visits to settlements and meetings with settler leaders, puts him in direct opposition to President Barack Obama and positions him even to the right of Israel’s own hawkish prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

Obama has been pushing Israel to freeze settlements. And Netanyahu has pledged to dismantle unauthorized settlement outposts such as one Huckabee plans to visit.

The Obama administration has specifically criticized Israeli building plans in east Jerusalem, where Israeli control has never been internationally recognized and which the Palestinians want for the capital of a future state.

”It concerns me when there are some in the United States who would want to tell Israel that it cannot allow people to live in their own country, wherever they want,” Huckabee said in east Jerusalem.

He said the Obama administration’s emphasis on the settlement issue sets a condition that unnecessarily impedes peace talks.

Later Monday, Huckabee is slated to attend a dinner at the Shepherd Hotel, the site of a controversial planned housing project in east Jerusalem. The Obama administration has called for Israel to suspend the project, which is funded by American millionaire Irving Moskowitz. Israel rejected the demand, saying east Jerusalem is part of Israel’s capital.

Anti-settlement protesters plan to hold a demonstration outside the dinner, and the Israeli group Ir Amim, which promotes Jewish-Arab coexistence in Jerusalem, condemned Huckabee’s visit to the hotel.

The group said in a statement that Huckabee ”is seeking to regain his standing in the American political system by befriending extremists among settler organizations in Israel.”

The U.S. administration is pressing Israel to stop building settlements on lands the Palestinians claim for a future state, including east Jerusalem, which was captured and annexed by Israel in 1967.

Israel insists some settlement construction must continue to accommodate the expanding settler population, and the issue has morphed into an unusually public dispute between the two traditionally close allies. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has refused to hold peace talks with Israel until a settlement freeze is implemented.

The number of Israeli settlers in the West Bank — home to some 2.5 million Palestinians — has more than doubled since the mid-1990s and now tops 300,000. Another 180,000 Israelis live in Jewish neighborhoods built in east Jerusalem.

Syria, Iraq and Turkey to discuss drought

ISTANBUL — Ministers responsible for water supplies from Syria, Iraq, and Turkey will meet in Turkey’s capital city of Ankara on September 3 to discuss the drought affecting the countries and the region.

The talks come in response to a claim made by Iraqi Water Minister Latif Rashid that Turkey had broken a promise to increase water flows down the Euphrates River.

Iraq last month called for an urgent meeting with Syria and Turkey after the flow of water from the Tigris River sank by half.

Rashid said the problem was the result of Turkey holding back on the flow of the waterways.

Turkey had increased the flow of the Euphrates to overcome a shortage along the river from its source in Turkey down through Iraq and Syria in June, but Iraq said the amount was about 145 cubic meters per second less than what was expected.

The region has been dealing with a drought for the past two years due to a sharp fall in winter rains. A report in June by the International Institute for Sustainable Development said about 160 villages in northern Syria had been abandoned due to drought in 2007 and 2008 and warned of the potential for armed conflict for control of water resources in the Middle East.