Kuwait Times house style

Derived from current Kuwait Times copy (kuwaittimes.com, August 2026). These are the rules the rewriter enforces.

Headlines

• Sentence case — only the first word and proper nouns take a capital. No full stop.
• 4–9 words, active present-tense verb: “MoI steps up efforts to boost security efficiency and service”.
• Verbless heads are used for data stories: “Abduction cases down 45.5%”.
• No leading article. Digits for all numbers; % not “percent”; KD 5.8m, $392 million.
• Single quotes for quoted words: “…with ‘Arqami’ on Sahel”.
• Bare abbreviations allowed: MoI, MoH, CITRA, KUNA, GCC, KD, y-o-y.

Byline and dateline

• Byline: By KUNA, By Kuwait Times Staff, or By <Name>.
• The body opens with the city in caps and a colon: KUWAIT:, CAIRO:, WASHINGTON:.

Lede and structure

• Inverted pyramid. One dense opening paragraph of 35–60 words carrying the news and its significance.
• Never opens on a date or a subordinate clause.
• Paragraph 2 carries the sourcing: “In a press statement issued Wednesday, the ministry said…”.
• Body paragraphs run 2–4 sentences (45–80 words) — longer than wire style.
• The closing paragraph typically adds a related programme, deadline or next step.

Names and titles

• Full formal title before the name: “Undersecretary of the Ministry of Health Sheikh Dr Salman Khalifa Al-Sabah”.
• Honorifics carry no full stop: Dr, Mr, Sheikh, Sheikha.
• Rulers: “His Highness the Amir Sheikh …”, then “HH the Amir”.
• Al- names hyphenated and capitalised: Al-Sabah, Al-Shamali. Second reference = family name only.

Numbers, spelling, punctuation

• American spelling: program, center, organized, defense, labor.
• No serial comma: “justice, equality and equal opportunity”.
• Currency: KD 5.8 million in body, KD 5.8m in heads. Dollars as $392 million.
• Attribution by day of the week within the past week; month abbreviations otherwise (Sept 12).
• Percentages spelled out in body (45.5 percent), symbol in heads.
• Acronyms expanded on first use, abbreviation in brackets after.

Tone

• Neutral and institutional. No first person outside Opinion, no rhetorical questions, no editorialising adjectives.
• Institutions speak: “the ministry said”, “the ministry noted”, “he added”.

Laws, decrees and circulars

• Lead on the practical effect on people, not the decree number.
• Issuing authority and effective date belong in paragraph 1 or 2.
• Decree and article numbers go lower down; penalties, exemptions and deadlines must all appear.

A note on the terminology toggle

• Kuwait Times world copy uses “Zionist” / “Zionist entity” where wire services write “Israeli” / “Israel”. That is a real house convention, so it is offered as an option — but it is off by default, because it is an editorial-political choice rather than a style rule.