KUWAIT CITY, May 17: Kuwaitis voted for change in the Gulf emirate’s second poll in a year, giving women their first seats in parliament and punishing Islamic groups, according to results released on Sunday.
Frustrated at political turmoil that has rocked the wealthy Opec member over the past three years, Kuwaitis voted 21 new faces into the 50-member parliament, reducing Sunni groups to a minority.
There was no immediate official figure on Saturday’s election turnout, but the state-run KUNA news agency estimated it at 58 per cent, down from last year’s 65 per cent.
Four women candidates made history by winning the first female seats in the Kuwaiti parliament, with one of them coming on top of the 10 winners from her district.
Liberals Massuma Al Mubarak, Aseel Al Awadhi and Rula Dashti, besides independent Salwa Al Jassar won seats in the new house. The four women are all US-educated and hold doctorate degrees in political science, economics and education.
Sixteen women were among 210 candidates who stood in the election, the third since 2006.
“This is the will of change of the Kuwaiti people,” MP Mubarak said. “We hope the re sults will lead to political stability and help achieve the desired cooperation between parliament and government.” The two mainstream Sunni groups, the Islamic Salafi Alliance and the Islamic Constitutional Movement, the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, were dealt a heavy blow, winning just three seats against seven held in the previous parliament.
Their tribal Islamic supporters were also reduced from 14 to just eight seats. And instead of winning first positions like they did last year, several of them came in last. Liberals and their allies improved their tally by one seat to eight. The Shia groups emerged as big winners, almost doubling their strength from five seats to nine.
The nationalist Popular Action Bloc led by veteran opposition figure Ahmad Al Saadun took three seats, down one.
Major tribes, which account for half of the population, won 25 seats, a few of them proIslamists.
Under law, a new cabinet must be named before elected MPs hold their first formal session after two weeks. The early elections were called after Emir Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah dissolved parliament in March for the second time in a year.—AFP
Washington: Are American lawmakers and the Obama administration unintentionally funding a runaway Pakistani nuclear weapons program that may not only mean a mortal danger to the US in the long run, but also pose a more immediate existential threat to India?
Influential American commentators and media outlets are now starting to question what they see as Washington’s indirect bankrolling of Pakistan’s nuclear program through massive infusion of aid, even as President Obama is insisting that he is confident Islamabad won’t allow its nuclear assets to fall into extremist hands.
News of Islamabad’s accelerated nuclear weapons program, exposed by US satellite imagery is being scrutinized in the light of the administration-backed Congress move to pump billions of dollars of US aid into Pakistan. Confirmation by US’ highest military official, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, admiral Mike Mullen, that Pakistan is indeed ramping up its weapons program, had added a sense of urgency to the review, particularly since the aid package is being finalized this week.
On Monday, the New York Times reported that members of Congress have been told in confidential briefings that Pakistan is rapidly adding to its nuclear arsenal, “raising questions on Capitol Hill about whether billions of dollars in proposed military aid might be diverted to Pakistan’s nuclear program.”
Indian officials have long maintained in private that any unconditional aid to Pakistan would result in the unstable country pumping more domestic resources into its bloated military, including its nuclear weapons program.
As a result, the administration has persuaded lawmakers to either withdraw or dilute tough conditions they had proposed for disbursal of the five-year $ 7.5 billion aid, including calling the country’s nuclear weapons program to account, access to its nuclear smuggler AQ Khan, and ending the policy of terrorism towards India.
But now, Pakistan’s drive to spend heavily on new nuclear arms has been a source of growing concern to some officials even inside the Obama administration, NYT said, because the country is producing more nuclear material at a time when Washington is increasingly focused on trying to assure the security of an arsenal of 80 to 100 weapons so that they will never fall into the hands of Islamic insurgents.
“The billions in new proposed US aid, officials acknowledge, could free other money for Pakistan’s nuclear infrastructure, at a time when Pakistani officials have expressed concern that their nuclear program is facing a budget crunch for the first time, worsened by the global economic downturn,” the paper reported in a front page story.
But President Obama himself seems confident that the US, through the Pakistani military, had a handle on the country’s nuclear weapons to the extent it will not fall into extremist hands.
Troops close in on Swat capital
Peshawar: Pakistani jets and helicopters on Monday bombarded militant targets in Swat, where troops entered strategic towns in a pincer thrust towards the Talibanheld capital of the northwest valley. Pakistan’s deadly offensive against Taliban fighters entered a fourth week on Monday with troops battling on three fronts in the districts of Lower Dir, Buner and Swat where over 1.1 million people have been displaced. AFP
Is this not Terrorism ?
Keeping quiet about it will not help Christians, do not retaliate ...
1. Lets take an example to import the data to SQL Server table, I am going to import student information data from ms excel sheet to tStudent SQL table,
using System.Data.OleDb;
using System.Data.SqlClient;
public void importDataFromExcel(string excelFilePath)
{
//Declare Variables - Edit these based on your particular situation
string sSQLTable = "tDataMigrationTable";
// make sure your sheet name is correct, here sheet name is Sheet1, so you can change your sheet name if have different
string myExcelDataQuery = "Select StudentName,RollNo,Course from [Sheet1$]";
try
{
//Create our connection strings
string sExcelConnectionString = @"Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=" + excelFilePath +";Extended Properties=" + "\"Excel 8.0;HDR=YES;\"";
string sSqlConnectionString = "SERVER=MyDatabaseServerName;USER ID=DBUserId;PASSWORD=DBUserPassword;DATABASE=DatabaseName;CONNECTION RESET=FALSE";
//Execute a query to erase any previous data from our destination table
string sClearSQL = "DELETE FROM " + sSQLTable;
SqlConnection SqlConn = new SqlConnection(sSqlConnectionString);
SqlCommand SqlCmd = new SqlCommand(sClearSQL, SqlConn);
SqlConn.Open();
SqlCmd.ExecuteNonQuery();
SqlConn.Close();
//Series of commands to bulk copy data from the excel file into our SQL table
OleDbConnection OleDbConn = new OleDbConnection(sExcelConnectionString);
OleDbCommand OleDbCmd = new OleDbCommand(myExcelDataQuery, OleDbConn);
OleDbConn.Open();
OleDbDataReader dr = OleDbCmd.ExecuteReader();
SqlBulkCopy bulkCopy = new SqlBulkCopy(sSqlConnectionString);
bulkCopy.DestinationTableName = sSQLTable;
while (dr.Read())
{
bulkCopy.WriteToServer(dr);
}
OleDbConn.Close();
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
//handle exception
}
}
In above function you have to pass ms excel file path as a parameter, if you want to import your data by providing client an access to select the excel file and import, then you might have to use asp.net file control, and upload the excel file on the server in some temp folder, then use the file path of the upload excel file and pass the path in above function. Once data import is completed then you can delete temporary file.
The above method , first delete the existing data from the destination table, then import the excel data into the same table.
