Kuwait's supreme court on Monday upheld life terms on two Iranians, a Kuwaiti and a stateless on charges of forming a ring to spy for neighboring Iran.

The court, whose rulings are final, also upheld the acquittal of two Iranians, including the only woman in the ring, and a Syrian, a statement issued by the court said.

Security at Rafik Hariri International Airport thwarted on Thursday night a drugs smuggling attempt to Kuwait, reported the National News Agency Friday.

It said that five kilograms of narcotic pills were found concealed in the baggage of two travelers.

Kuwait plans to increase service charges on foreigners, media reports said Wednesday, triggering the ire of the main labor union which also blasted the government for deporting hundreds of expatriates.

State Minister for Cabinet Affairs Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah al-Sabah said in comments published Wednesday that the government has sent a draft law seeking to raise public services charges on expatriates.

Kuwait's lower court on Wednesday sentenced a Saudi man to five years in jail for insulting the emir on Twitter, a human rights activist said.

The court passed the sentence on Abdulaziz al-Mutairi in absentia, as his whereabouts are currently unknown, the director of the Kuwait Society for Human Rights, Mohammad al-Humaidi, told AFP.

Kuwait has deported 213 foreigners over the past few days for committing "grave" traffic offenses as part of a drive to reduce accidents, a senior interior ministry official said in comments published on Tuesday.

"We have deported 213 expatriates during the past few days for violating traffic rules and committing grave offenses," interior ministry assistant undersecretary for traffic affairs Major General Abdulfattah al-Ali told al-Anbaa newspaper.

Kuwait's court of appeals on Monday reduced a two-year jail term handed to an opposition tweeter for insulting the emir to one year, the director of the Kuwait Society for Human Rights said.

"The court reduced the sentence on Sager al-Hashash to one year in jail with immediate effect," Mohammed al-Humaidi said on his Twitter account.

Kuwaiti writer Saud al-Sanaussi has won the Arab version of the Man Booker Prize for a novel focusing on the situation of migrant workers in the Gulf.

"The Bamboo Trunk" explores the difficulties facing Asians in the oil-rich region through the story of Jose, a young man rejected by the family of his Kuwaiti father because his mother was a Filipina maid.

National Mobile Telecommunications Co of Kuwait (Wataniya) reported Wednesday a 31.1 percent slide in net profit in the first quarter of 2013 due to competition and tough economic conditions.

Wataniya, in which Qatar's Qtel owns 92.1 percent, posted 19.5 million dinars ($68.7 million) in the first three months of 2013 compared to 28.3 million dinars ($99.6 million) a year ago, the company said in a statement.

Kuwait's appeals court on Monday granted opposition leader Musallem al-Barrak bail as it began examining his five-year jail term for insulting the emir, a lawyer said.

Former MP Barrak appeared in court, although he had refused to turn himself in to police over the past week during which he insisted on seeing the original arrest warrant.

Kuwait has donated $15 million to the United Nations to help war-torn Syria's 500,000 Palestinian refugees, the United Nations said on Thursday.

The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, says half of the Palestinian refugees in Syria have been internally displaced by the conflict and that 45,000 have fled to neighboring Lebanon and Jordan.