Syrian regime condemned, support urged for Hadi RAWDAT AL-KHURAIM — The Council of Ministers has approved a new arbitration system aimed at expediting and developing the process of arbitration thereby resolving business and other disputes between two or more parties effectively. The new system was approved at the Cabinet meeting here Monday presided over by King Abdullah, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques. Executive bylaws governing the system will be issued by the Council of Ministers later. The system shall not affect in any way Islamic Shariah guidelines and international agreements. The system shall be applied to any arbitration to be carried out in the Kingdom — be it commercial or international — provided the two parties agree on the modalities of the new system. However, the rules of this system shall not be applied to civil status or to issues where reconciliation is impermissible. The new system envisages that any arbitration decision issued according to the governing rules of the system cannot be challenged. Dr. Abdul Aziz Khoja, Minister of Culture and Information, said the Cabinet condemned Syrian regime's “dangerous escalation” in attacks across the country and called for support of the new president in neighboring Yemen. The Cabinet “expressed regret over the dangerous escalation in violence by the Syrian regime across several Syrian cities and villages.” “The lack of commitment to the (peace) plan of United Nations-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan ... shows the extent of stubborness of the Syrian regime and its disrespect for its Arab and international commitments,” it charged. The government also called on “all political powers in Yemen to support President Abdo Rabbu Mansour Hadi” and a Gulf peace initiative which ended former strongman Ali Abdullah Saleh's 33-year-long rule. Saudi Arabia played a key role in sealing the initiative which granted Saleh immunity from prosecution in return for stepping down and under which Hadi took power for an interim two-year period. On domestic issues, Dr. Khoja said, the Cabinet lauded the King's order to increase the capital of the Saudi Industrial Development Fund (SIDF) from SR20 billion to SR40 billion. The order, the Cabinet said, will stimulate industrial development and create new jobs for citizens. The Cabinet commended the efforts of the Saudi Basic Industries Corporation to build a sophisticated industrial base in the petrochemical sector in various parts of the world. Sabic recently laid the foundation stone for a joint venture project with a Chinese company to set up a polycarbonate plant in Tianjin, China with an annual production capacity of 260,000 tons.
