AMIR ISSUES A HOST OF DECISIONS - Qatar Tribune

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs HE Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al Thani met Minister of Foreign Affairs of Tunisia Khemaies Jhinaoui in Doha on Monday. They discussed bilateral relations and means to boost them. They also exchanged views on a number of topics of common interest. (QNA)

QNADOHA

THE Shura Council on Monday discussed a draft law on DNA da-tabase and decided to refer it to the Internal and External Affairs Committee to study it and submit a report thereon to the council.

The draft law provides for the establishment of a DNA database at the Ministry of Interior and for it to be attached to the competent authority at the ministry.

The database is to be used to store genetic information ob-tained from DNA samples as per the law. The genetic information shall be stored for 30 years and shall be removed after the expiry of this period.

The data stored in the DNA database shall be confidential and cannot be viewed without

the permission of the Minister of Interior, the Public Prosecutor or a competent court. The use of biological samples taken for pur-poses other than those provided for in the draft law, which speci-fies the penalties to be applied to those who violate it, is prohibited.

Shura Council’s weekly meet-ing on Monday was chaired by its Speaker HE Ahmed bin Abdullah bin Zaid al Mahmoud. PAGE 2

AMIR ISSUES A HOST OF DECISIONS

DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER MEETS TUNISIAN FM

TRIBUNE NEWS NETWORKDOHA

FAWZIA al Khater, Assistant Un-dersecretary for Educational Af-fairs at the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, has called on the academic and administra-tive officials in state schools to prepare for the implementation of the new education system for high schools.

The new system has three streams — scientific, literary and technological — for high school students. The new system will be implemented for Grades 11 and 12 from next school year.

Students can choose any of

them according to their wishes starting from the eleventh grade.

There are four basic subjects in the literary track — English, Physical Education, Islamic Edu-cation and Life Skills — and five specialised subjects — History, Geography, Mathematics, Arabic, General Mathematics and Science.

As for the scientific track, the students will have five specialised subjects — Arabic language, Math-ematics, Chemistry, Biology and Physics.

They will also have Islamic Education, Scientific Research, English Language, and Physical Education.

In case of technological track,

the students will have to study five mandatory subjects: Algorithms, Programming, Communication Technology, Networks, Math-ematics and Arabic, as well as four

common subjects.Other optional materials will

be selected for all students, who can choose any of the subjects studied in Grades 11 and 12 -- Phi-losophy, Psychology, Computer Science, Visual Arts, Geology, So-ciology, Differentiation and Inte-gration.

Fawzia said the Ministry of Education and Higher Educa-tion is working to bring in more teachers for the technological track, which will be implemented starting next year.

“Since the technological stream is new to schools, there are not enough teachers in this field,” she said.

New 3-track system for high school students from next academic year

29,089 raids at food outlets in 2018: Doha MunicipalityDOHA The Municipality of Doha conducted 29,089 inspection raids at different food estab-lishments in 2018, an increase of 52 percent over the previous year. In 2017, the Doha Municipality had conducted 19,096 inspections. In 2018, there were a total of 88 decisions regarding administrative closure of food establishments. The doctors of the health control section examined a total of 694,140 slaughtered animals, of which 11,282 were destroyed as they were deemed unfit for human consumption. PAGE 4

Shura reviews draft law on DNA database

Fawzia al Khater

Al Wakra Hospital Emergency Depts

treat 30,000 patients every month

Al Wakra Hospital’s three emer-gency departments treated more than 30,000 patients, while the hospital’s various outpatient departments provided care to 20,000 patients each month. Each day, approximately 600 adult patients and 300 children are treated at the hospital’s Adult and Paediatric Emergency Departments, with an additional 80 women cared for at the Obstetrics and Gynaecology Emergency Department each month. “With a combined staff of 2,351, including 288 doctors working across a variety of medical specialties, we provide a full range of diagnostic and treatment services for outpatients and inpatients, including day care patients of all ages,” Medical Director of Al Wakra Hospital Dr Sabah al Kadhi said on Monday. PAGE 2

THE ongoing Marmi International Festival at the Sealine area continues to draw large number of people. The fourth day competition of the Hadad Al Tahadi championship will be held on Tuesday. On Monday, there was an exciting chase between Al-Shawaheen and Al-Zaghal, who proved their superiority for the third day of the Hadad Al Tahadi Championship.

Marmi International Festival a big hit

QNADOHA

THE Amir HH Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al Thani on Monday issued Amiri Decision No 1 for 2019, appointing Ahmed Issa Rashid al Ibrahim al Mohanna-di as Chairman of General Tax Authority (GTA).

The decision is to go into effect from the date of its issue and is to be published in the Of-ficial Gazette.

The General Tax Authority (GTA) will be in charge of imple-menting all tax laws and improv-ing tax compliance in the coun-try. GTA has been established as a separate entity, under the supervision of the Ministry of Fi-nance, and is in line with Qatar’s plans to reduce the country’s dependence on hydrocarbon re-sources.

The law establishing the GTA mandates the authority to implement all tax laws and setup all related bylaws, pro-cedures and instructions and be responsible for their imple-mentation, review and assess tax return forms and collect taxes from subject entities.

It also mandates GTA to rep-resent Qatar in relevant interna-tional and regional organisations and at international conferences and events and sign tax agree-ments with other countries to encourage economic coopera-tion and joint investments.

The GTA will regulate the work of the taxation system through financial instruments that positively influence the level of welfare of citizens and resi-dents alike, as well as improve public services.

Mohannadi appointed as GTA Chairman

Baker appointed as National Tourism Council Secretary-General

DOHA The Amir HH Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al Thani on Monday issued Law No. 1 of 2019 regulating the investment of the non-Qatari capital in economic activity. The law is ef-fective and shall be published in the Official Gazette. (QNA)

Law regulating investment of non-Qatari capital issued

DOHA The Amir HH Sheikh Tamim bin Ham-ad al Thani on Monday issued Law No 2 of 2019 on supporting the competitiveness of national products and combating harm-ful practices to them in international trade. The law is effective and shall be published in the Official Gazette. (QNA)

Law on supporting competitiveness of

national products issued

DOHA The Amir HH Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al Thani on Monday issued Law No 3 of 2019, amending some of the provisions of the Civil and Commercial Procedure Law, enacted by Law No 13 of 1990. The law is effective and shall be published in the Official Gazette. (QNA)

Amendment to Civil and Commercial Procedure Law

DOHA The Amir HH Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al Thani on Monday issued Amiri Decision No. 2 of 2019, appointing Akbar al Baker as Secretary-General of the National Tourism Council and Hassan Abdulrahman al Ibrahim as Assistant to the Secretary-General of the National Tourism Council. The decision is effective starting from its date of issue and is to be published in the Official Gazette. (QNA)

Saudi woman ‘under the care’ of UN agency: Thai officials

(PG 10 )

Shura Council Speaker HE Ahmed bin Abdullah bin Zaid al Mahmoud.

TUESDAYJANUARY 8, 2019

JUMADA AL-AWWAL 2, 1440VOL.12 NO. 4508 QR 2

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Business 12Blue chips push Qatar Stock Exchange 142 points higher

Sports 16Qatar seek to lay marker for 2022 World Cup

SJC chief meets US House of Representatives team

CHAIRMAN of the Supreme Judiciary Council (SJC) and President of the Court of Cassation Dr Hassan bin Lahdan al Hassan al Mohannadi met with a delegation of US House of Representa-tives in Doha on Monday. During the meeting, they discussed judicial cooperation between Qatar and the United States of America, as well as means of enhancing and developing them in various fields. (QNA)

Hammadi meets Ethiopian ambassador SECRETARY-GENERAL of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs HE Dr Ahmed bin Hassan al Hammadi met with Ambassador of Ethiopia to Qatar HE Metasebia Tadesse Woldegiorgis on the occasion of the end of his tenure in the country. Hammadi thanked the ambas-sador for his efforts in promoting bilateral ties between the two countries, wishing him success in his future assignments. (QNA)

Brazilian FM meets Qatar’s ambassadorMINISTER of Foreign Affairs of Brazil Ambassador Ernesto Araujo met with Ambassador of Qatar to Brazil HE Ahmed bin Ibrahim al Abdullah in Brasilia on Monday. (QNA)

Contact US: Qatar Tribune I EDITORIAL I Phone: 40002222 I ADMINISTRATION & MARKETING I Phone: 40002155, 40002122, Fax: 40002235 P.O. Box: 23493, Doha.

Amir issues amended law on public prosecutionTHE Amir His Highness Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al Thani issued on Monday Law No 5 of 2019, amend-ing some provisions of Law No 10 of 2002 on the Public Prosecution.

The law is effective start-ing from the day following the date of its publication in the official gazette.

HH the Amir also issued an instrument of ratification ap-proving a draft memorandum of understanding between the Ministry of Education and Higher Education of the State

of Qatar and the Ministry of Higher Education of the Sul-tanate of Oman on coopera-tion in the field of science and higher education. The draft MoU was signed in Doha on 7/6/2018.

HH the Amir issued an-other instrument of ratifica-tion approving an agreement on the promotion and protec-tion of mutual investments be-tween the Government of the State of Qatar and the Govern-ment of the Republic of Togo. The agreement was signed in Doha on April 30, 2018. (QNA)

Zakat Fund provides over QR18.3 million aid in DecTHE Zakat Fund of the Minis-try of Endowments and Islamic Affairs (Awqaf) has extended assistance worth more than QR18.3 million in December to the beneficiaries of the families registered with it.

In a press release on Mon-day, the Fund said it provided QR 18,336,810 in December, including repeat assistance, one-time aid, tuition fees, treatment and help for those in debt distress.

According to the Fund, the assistance was given to those entitled to it in accordance with the Shariah regulations.

It pointed out that it pro-

vided QR11,161,715 as repeat assistance to eligible fami-lies, QR1,617,331 as one-time aid to those in specific needs, QR5,417,224 to those in fami-lies eligible for assistance such as students enrolled in different education stages and QR996,187 for patients who are eligible for assis-tance in cooperation with Hamad Medical Corporation in addition to QR144,353 on miscellaneous aids.

The Zakat Fund receives Zakat in 30 offices distributed around Qatar. Zakat payers may also use ATMs to pay or request a Zakat collector. (QNA)

Mahmoud briefs Shura members on meeting with German delegation

QNADOHA

THE Shura Council held its regular weekly meeting on Monday under the chair-manship of Speaker HE Ahmed bin Abdullah bin Zaid al Mahmoud. At the end of the meeting Mahmoud briefed the council on his recent meeting with Ger-

man Bundestag member and Spokesperson of the Social Democratic Party of Germa-ny’s Parliamentary Group Nils Schmid and his accom-panying delegation, during which they discussed bilat-eral relations between the State of Qatar and the Fed-eral Republic of Germany and ways of supporting and developing them in the par-

liamentary field.The German Bundestag

member praised the great progress made by Qatar in various fields and its distin-guished role in the regional and international arenas, as well as its efforts for peace and stability in the region and the world.

He also expressed pleas-ure that Doha will host the

next session of the General Assembly of the Inter-Par-liamentary Union (IPU).

Meanwhile, the Financial and Economic Affairs Com-mittee of the Shura Council held a meeting within the 47th regular session of the council under its Rappor-teur Ali bin Abdullatif al Misnad.

The committee reviewed

a draft law determining cus-toms duty on types of iron similar to those produced by Qatar Steel Company, and a request for general discus-sion on the achievement of the National Plan for Food Security.

The committee decided to complete its deliberation on both topics at its next meeting.

Secretary-General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs HE Dr Ahmed bin Hassan al Hammadi met on Monday with Acting Charge d’Affaires of the US Embassy in Doha William Grant. During the meeting, they reviewed bilateral relations, means of supporting and developing them and prospects for cooperation, in addition to issues of common concern. (QNA)

HAMMADI MEETS ACTING CHARGE D’AFFAIRES

Al Wakra Hospital’s emergency depts treat over 30,000 patients every month


WITH more than 30,000 patients treated at its three emergency departments each month and over 20,000 pa-tients cared for at various outpatient departments, Al Wakra Hospital has emerged as Hamad Medical Corpora-tion’s (HMC) second busiest hospital.

Each day, approximately 600 adult patients and 300 children are treated at the hospital’s Adult and Paediat-ric Emergency Departments, with an additional 80 women cared for at the Obstetrics and Gynecology Emergency De-partment each month.

Dr Sabah Alkadhi, medical director of Al Wakra Hospital, said the general hospital was designed, built and staffed with an eye on the changing needs and expectations of the growing community in the country’s southern region .

“With a combined staff of 2,351, including 288 doctors, working across a variety of medical specialties, we pro-vide a full range of diagnostic and treatment services for outpatients and inpatients, including daycare patients of all ages,” he said.

Dr Alkadhi said that Al

Wakra Hospital is continuing to add to the services offered to patients as part of efforts to increase access to care for those living in Al Wakra and the surrounding areas.

He noted that recent ad-ditions include the National Burns Center, a robotic sur-gery service for general sur-gery and urology, and a coun-try-wide collaborative service with dentistry, diabetes, men-tal health and cardiology.

Al Wakra Hospital has also become a centre of excel-lence for hernia surgery.

“We continue to expand the services we provide to patients. This year, we intro-

duced a play therapy service to support paediatric patients throughout their inpatient care and to help them man-age their pain. We have also opened a new Admissions and Discharge Lounge to improve patient care and experience. The Admissions and Dis-charge Lounge is a comforta-ble space that has streamlined the admission and discharge processes and is helping pa-tients return home more quickly,” said Dr Alkadhi.

According to him, a num-ber of new services introduced this year have helped reduce wait times and improved ac-cess to elective care services.

He explained that approx-imately 20,000 patients are received each month in the hospital’s various outpatient departments, noting that up to 3,500 patients are treated each month by the Rehabilita-tion Department, which has a hydrotherapy pool and dedi-cated facilities for male, fe-male and paediatric patients.

Dr Omar al Qahtani, deputy medical director of Al Wakra Hospital, said the hos-pital’s expanded clinics have increased capacity to care

for patients. He said the main Outpa-

tient Department features 48 consultation rooms with over 400 clinics held each week, adding that future expan-sion plans include the com-missioning of a new CT scan, which is expected to be opera-tional early in the New Year.

“We are planning to es-tablish a Center of Excel-lence for Stone Treatment. We also continue work on the expansion of our inpatient and outpatient rehabilitation services. There are also plans to establish a blood donation centre here in Al Wakra so that those wishing to donate blood can do so right in the community, without having to travel to Doha,” said Dr Qahtani.

QC’s relief benefits reach 13 mn people worldwide


THE number of beneficiaries of Qatar Charity’s (QC) relief projects implemented in 2018 reached nearly 13 million in countries affected by crises and disasters.

These projects were carried out with the generous support of the people in Qatar at a to-tal cost of over QR209 million. A major share of these projects comprised relief aid for dis-placed Syrians and refugees.

The aid was distributed to the affected people in 31 coun-tries, especially those going through wars, crises and natural disasters, especially the inter-nally displaced Syrians and ref-ugees in Turkey and Lebanon.

The relief assistance was also provided to people in Yemen, Palestine, Somalia and Iraq, as well as several other countries.

Humanitarian projects were implemented through QC’s offices, and in partnership and cooperation with UN agen-cies, international organisa-tions and local partners. These projects included comprehen-sive relief, basic winter needs, food supply, shelter, health, education, water and sanita-tion, social cohesion and liveli-hoods, protection, training and capacity-building.

Around 4 million displaced

Syrians and refugees availed themselves of QC’s relief pro-jects worth QR85 million, emerging as the top beneficiar-ies, while the Rohingya stood second in terms of benefiting from QC’s relief aid worth QR46 million. Palestinians occupied the third place, as the projects implemented for them amount-ed to around QR17 million.

Food supply, education and health projects were given top priority by QC in most of the countries covered by the aid. The amount of assistance provided in the field of food supply reached QR59mn, ben-efiting more than 3 million people, while the size of the overall relief projects amount-ed to QR58 million.

The cost of educational pro-jects such as running schools, printing curricula and training

teachers amounted to more than QR30 million, while more than 7 million people benefited from health projects imple-mented at cost of more than QR28 million.

The shelter projects, which included housing units, tents and rents, were implemented at a cost of about QR14 mil-lion, benefiting more than 108,000 people in India, Pal-estine, Indonesia, Somalia and other countries.

QC also implemented wa-ter and sanitation projects, social cohesion and livelihood programmes, and training and capacity building projects, in addition to distributing the basic winter requirements to the needy in a number of countries suffering from cold waves, benefiting more than 178,000 people.

Al Wakra Hospital is continuing to add to the services offered to patients as part of efforts to increase access to care for those living in Al Wakra and the surrounding areas.

It has emerged as Hamad Medical Corporation’s second busiest hospital

The projects were carried out at a total cost of over QR209 million.

Fire Station opens ‘One Dust’ exhibitionTRIBUNE NEWS NETWORK

DOHA

THE Fire Station has opened an exhibition by Qatar-based artist Jesse Payne titled ‘One Dust’.

The exhibition, which will run until January 27 from 9am to 7pm, is inspired by the sand storms that occasionally lash Qatar.

It is the latest initiative by the Fire Station to create a hub for art and culture in

the country. ‘One Dust’ is a series of

works that recreate the over-whelming sense of power and scale that sand storms possess, exploring both the fascination and fear brought forth by the natural phenomenon and em-phasising the idea that we all originate from ‘dust’.

Going beyond its literal meaning, Payne uses dust as a metaphor for the obstacles and challenges that the region is fac-

ing during these tumultuous times. His brush strokes paint a picture of chaos, confusion and beauty of a region consumed by its own ‘dust’. In and amidst this, he invites the viewers to embrace that ‘dust’, to accept one another and to look for-ward to a better tomorrow.

Payne is an American art-ist who is currently serving as Assistant Professor in the Art Foundations Department at Virginia Commonwealth Uni-

versity Qatar. Dedicated to em-ploying a rigorous tactic when amplifying his creative interests and working with a variety of mediums, Payne’s work is a re-flection of self-investigation and is influenced by the environ-ment, people and experiences he encounters in day-to-day life.

Payne is currently a mem-ber of the 2018-2019 Artist in Residence programme. Launched in 2015, the nine-month programme is open to

all Qatar-based artists and has grown become a platform for artistic expression. It provides artists in Qatar with the op-portunity to develop their art practices and showcase their works to the world through media coverage, open studio nights and a large exhibition at the end of the residency. During their residency, artists have access to their own studio space and can participate in networking sessions.

The exhibition, which will be open until January 27 from 9am to 7pm, is inspired by the sand storms that occasionally lash Qatar.

02 Tuesday, January 8, 2019

CNA-Q receives prestigious CTAB accreditation for 4 programmes


COLLEGE of the North Atlan-tic-Qatar (CNA-Q) has received a total of four accreditation award certificates from the Ca-nadian Technology Accredita-tion Board (CTAB).

Errol Persaud, PEng, edu-cation consultant with CTAB, presented the awards to CNA-Q President Dr Khalifa al Khalifa at a ceremony at the college on Monday. The certificates were awarded to the three-year di-ploma programmes of Process Automation Engineering Tech-nology, Electrical Engineer-ing Technology, Mechanical Engineering Technology, and Chemical Processing Engineer-ing Technology.

“These accreditations are extremely important for CNA-Q,” said Dr Khalifa. “They vali-date the excellent work we are doing here at the college and serve as a reminder that CNA-Q

is an internationally recognised technical college, preparing students to be trained as in-novative problem-solvers and technically competent work-

ers who strive to meet Qatar’s evolving economic needs. These CTAB accreditations mean that CNA-Q programmes meet and exceed, an outstanding stand-

ard of education in the field of engineering technology.”

The Process Automation Engineering Technology pro-gramme has been re-accredit-ed for a second time until 2020, and the Electrical Engineering Technology programme has also been re-accredited until 2020. The Chemical Process-ing Engineering Technology programme secured its first accreditation until 2021; and finally, Mechanical Engi-neering Technology also has garnered accreditation from CTAB until 2021.

While visiting the state-of-the-art college, Persaud also presented award certificates to the college’s engineering grad-uates who recently captured first place in the CTAB 2018 National Research/Technology Report Contest.

Ahmed Saleh al Baker, Ahmed Ibrahim alHeidous and Mohammed Ahmad al Enazi won first prize for their report

entitled ‘Natural Gas Liquid Re-covery Plant Design, Simulation and Optimisation’.” The three are graduates of the Chemical Processing Engineering Tech-nology Program at CNA-Q.

Candace Scott, chair, CTAB, said: “CNA-Q students were among some of the top sub-mittals this year and CTAB is pleased to announce that the first-place winner of the 2018 National Applied Research/Technology Report Contest was from College of the North Atlantic-Qatar. Congratulations to this year’s winners Ahmed Saleh alBaker, Ahmed Ibrahim al Heidous and Mohammed Ahmad al Enazi!”

Graduates of the Process Automation Engineering Tech-nology programme at CNA-Q, Ahmed Haseeb and Hassan Mouhsin, also received an hon-orable mention for their report ‘Design a Safety Control System for the Instrument Air Supply in a QAPCO Plant’.

CNA-Q President Dr Khalifa al Khalifa receives the accreditation certificates from Errol Persaud, PEng, education consultant with CTAB (JALAL PATHIYOOR)


ABDULLAH Abdulghani & Bros Co WLL (AAB), the exclu-sive distributor of Toyota and Lexus in Qatar, collaborates with Sharq Village & Spa in its bid to reduce Qatar’s carbon footprint by using hybrid elec-tric vehicles (HEVs).

AAB and Sharq Village & Spa signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) fol-lowed by the handover of a Camry hybrid and a Lexus ES hybrid vehicle for hotel use in this regard recently. This is part of AAB’s initiative to en-dorse the environmental ben-efits of hybrid electric vehicles in the country.

The Toyota Camry Hy-

brid and the Lexus ES oper-ate on both battery and gas/petrol engine and electric mo-tor depending on the driving conditions. The electric motor reduces load on the engine dur-ing driving, thus contributing to low emissions and reducing harmful substances in exhaust gas as well as lower fuel con-sumption – making it an envi-ronment-friendly car.

Firas Mufti, AAB’s senior marketing manager, said, “We are delighted to collaborate with Sharq Village & Spa on this noble initiative of reducing Qatar’s carbon footprint. We share the same values of car-ing for the environment while at the same time endorsing the hybrid electric technology”.

Belal al Kadry, general manager at Sharq Hotel & Spa stated, “It gives us immense

pleasure to partner with Abdul-lah Abdulghani & Bros Co WLL

to collectively make what little difference we can to reduce our community’s carbon footprint in an endeavour to build a sus-tainable future. This symbiotic sentiment between us led to what we hope will inspire more such collaborations for busi-nesses to be mindful of pro-tecting the environment while making big strides.”

The new Camry HEV pro-vides a comfortable and stable ride with superior handling characteristics, thanks to Toy-ota’s New Global Architecture (TNGA) platform, which repre-sents an entirely new strategy to the way the company de-signs, engineers and packages its vehicles. TNGA retains all of Toyota’s traditional values of superlative build quality

and safety while injecting a fun driving experience that plays on all the senses.

The class-leading model can be driven entirely by either electrical power with zero-fuel consumption and carbon emis-sions, or with a combination of a petrol engine and two elec-tric motors depending on the vehicle speed and customer’s driving behaviour. The batter-ies in the hybrid electric drive train are automatically charged by either the petrol engine or when braking and decelerating, eliminating the need to plug in a power cord. Furthermore, the all-new Camry HEV does not require a special fuel yet drives like any other conventional car. In addition, thanks to its top-class fuel efficiency, visits to

petrol stations will be lesser.The class-leading hybrid

electric model ES 300h can be driven entirely by either electrical power with zero-fuel consumption and carbon emis-sions, or with a combination of a petrol engine and two elec-tric motors, depending on the vehicle’s speed and customer’s driving behaviour. The batter-ies in the hybrid electric drive train are automatically charged by either the petrol engine or when braking and decelerat-ing, eliminating the need to plug in a power cord. Further-more, the ES 300h electrified hybrid model features a host of advanced technologies, yet drives like any other conven-tional car and does not require special fuel.

Abdullah Abdulghani & Bros Co WL and Sharq Village & Spa officials at a MoU signing event in Doha recently.

The accreditations means the college’s programmes offer education of outstanding standards in the field of engineering technology

AAB, Al Sharq Village to cut Qatar’s carbon footprint with HEVs

Amiri Naval Forces kickoff Fleet-2 exerciseQATAR’S Amiri Naval Forces began the Fleet-2 Exercise on Sunday, which will conclude on January 20.

The exercise, which was attended by Commander of the Qatar Amiri Naval Forces HE Major General Abdullah bin Hassan al Sulaiti who also is overseeing the exercise, aims to showcase the role of the naval forces in defend-ing coasts, islands, the State’s

economic facilities at sea, and to train officers to plan and execute war plans, as well as testing the administra-tive and technical support’s efficiency.

Participating in the exer-cise were the Qatari Amiri Na-val Forces (fleet command), Qatari Amiri Air Force (fight-er jets and helicopters units) and Special Joint Forces (Na-val Special Force). (QNA)

KHULAIFI MEETS US SECURITY OFFICIAL: Director of Public Security Staff Major General HE Saad bin Jassim al Khulaifi met on Monday with Thomas Galati of the US New York State Police. During the meet-ing, they discussed a number of topics of common interest and ways to boost bilateral relations. (QNA)

Nation 03Tuesday, January 8, 2019

Ooredoo connects QNB to 5G networkTRIBUNE NEWS NETWORK

DOHA

OOREDOO on Monday an-nounced it has connected QNB, the largest financial institution in the Middle East and Africa, to its be-spoke, pre-standardised 5G network services.

With the new service, QNB will benefit from a connectivity solution via radio technology for cor-porate customers who may have operations in hard-to-reach areas, as an alter-native to high-speed wired networks. Ooredoo Qatar’s 5G service offers an ex-tremely high-speed, low la-tency network for selected corporate applications.

On top of vastly im-proved coverage, Ooredoo’s 5G commercial service will also enable QNB – to offer their customers the latest in smart applications to en-hance their digital lives. The bank’s customers can expect Ooredoo’s 5G commercial service to utilise the latest network technology to of-fer much higher speeds and capacity, as well as better latency than the existing cel-lular systems.

Following the launch of 5G in May 2018, in line with Qatar National Vision 2030 to deliver world-class infrastructure, Ooredoo has showcased exciting mile-

stones including the demon-stration of the world’s first driverless aerial taxi, as well as super-speed 5G in a mov-ing vehicle at a dedicated event at The Pearl.

Speaking about the QNB deployment, Manar Khalifa al Muraikhi, director PR and Corporate Communications at Ooredoo, said: “We are ex-ceptionally proud to be able to offer our groundbreak-ing 5G network services to yet another key corporate customer and, in particular, one which provides such valuable services to the citi-zens and residents of Qatar. We are excited to see what a phenomenal difference 5G will make to digital lives in Qatar and the wider region and look forward to continu-ing a productive partnership with QNB.”

Commenting on the new partnership, Yousef Dar-wish, general manager of QNB Group Communica-tions, said: “Ooredoo is one of our main partners that we are proud to work closely with. This new service con-firms that both parties have only one goal, which is to provide the best and latest of technology to their cus-tomers. We are keen to con-tinue to deliver high quality solutions to our loyal cus-tomers as part of our inno-vative and customer service excellence.”

QRCS trains schoolkids in first aid, boostssanitation in Philippines’s MindanaoTRIBUNE NEWS NETWORK

DOHA

QATAR Red Crescent Society (QRCS) has conducted a series of first aid, risk reduction and psychological support courses for 2,500 students from eight primary schools in Mindanao, southern Philippines.

Under a multifaceted pro-ject co-implemented by the Philippine Red Cross, QRCS’ representative mission in the Philippines also rehabilitated water and sanitation (Watsan) facilities and promoted hy-giene awareness at the target schools.

Noura Rashid al Dosari, General Director of Relief and International Develop-ment Division, QRCS, stated, “QRCS is a key humanitarian service provider in the Philip-pines with its active interven-tions in response to the sev-eral natural disasters that hit the country over the past few years. These include 2013 Ty-phoon Haiyan, 2014 Typhoon Hagupit, 2017 Surigao earth-quake, 2017 Typhoon Vinta and 2018 Typhoon Mangkhut, just to name a few.”

She lauded the strong re-lations between the two na-tional societies, as Senator Richard J Gordon, president of the Philippine Red Cross, pays particular attention to having friendly ties with QRCS. “We work together on diverse humanitarian op-

erations to help the affected communities in the Philip-pines,” Dosari said.

Earlier in 2018, QRCS do-

nated two water tankers, each with 10,000-litre capacity, to the Philippine Red Cross, Do-sari pointed out. “They will be

used to provide drinking water for people during the recur-rent disasters that frequently strike Mindanao, the country’s

second-largest island which is most prone to typhoons, floods and earthquakes,” she concluded.

2,500 students from eight primary schools in Mindanao, southern Philippines, attended the training courses.

Closure on F-Ring Road

THE Public Works Authority (Ashghal) on Monday closed two westbound lanes of F-Ring Road towards Bu Hamour area for a distance of 1 kilometre after Al Thu-mama Interchange. During the one-week closure period, two main lanes will re-main open to traffic, Ashghal said in a press statement.

The partial closure, designed in collabora-tion with the General Directorate of Traffic, is to enable the installation of a pedestrian bridge on the road, added the statement. (TNN)

Tovino Thomas was given a grand welcome by Radio Suno team members as part of the ‘Big Screen with Tovino Thomas’ show.

Radio Suno hosts Malayalam actor Tovino Thomas


RADIO Suno 91.7 FM, ‘Qa-tar’s Favourite Malayalam Radio Station’, organised the show ‘Big Screen with Tovino Thomas’ in association with World Wide Films at Vox Cin-emas at Doha Festival City re-cently.

The winners of the online contest had an opportunity to watch the movie ‘Ente Um-mante Peru’ (My mother’s name) with the star himself.

Tovino Thomas was given a grand welcome by Radio Suno team members. Later, a meet & greet event was held at

Iceberg restaurant where the star spent time with the listen-ers of the radio station.

As part of the movie show, listeners had brought their mothers along for the meet & greet event. Radio Suno’s Managing Director Krishna-kumar presented a memento to Tovino Thomas during the show at Vox Cinemas.

World Wide Films Co-founder Noufal Ahmed and Radio Suno Managing Direc-tor Ameer Ali were present to witness the moment.

The movie has been receiv-ing overwhelming response from the Malayalam speaking communities in Qatar.

Doha Municipality conducts over29,000 food inspections in 2018

QNADOHA

THE Municipality of Doha, represented by the health con-trol section of the Department of Municipal Control, in 2018 conducted 29,089 inspections of various institutions and es-tablishments across the mu-nicipality.

The annual report released by the municipality on Monday showed 52 percent increase in the number of inspections -- 19,096 inspections -- during 2018. The number of admin-istrative closures and seizures in 2018 reached 180, of which 88 were administrative closure of food establishments over violations of various laws and regulations.

The doctors in the health control section supervised the examination of 694,140 slaughtered animals and de-

struction of 11,282 carcasses which were found unfit for hu-man consumption.

The health control inspec-

tors also examined 364,286 tonnes of vegetables and fruits, out of which 11,647 tonnes were destroyed after finding them

unfit for human consump-tion. They also implemented 376 seizures and slapped fines amounting to QR2.1 million.

Seminar on challengesto Arabic languageQATAR National Commis-sion for Education, Culture and Science held a seminar on Sunday to discuss chal-lenges facing the Arabic language and how to over-come them. The seminar was held in cooperation with Ahmed bin Moham-med Military College and

Qatar University.Commander of Ahmed

Bin Mohammed Military College Major General Fahd bin Mubarak al Khayarin and Secretary-General of Qatar National Commission for Education, Culture and Science Dr Hamda al Sulaiti attended the seminar. (QNA)

Nation04 Tuesday, January 8, 2019

QF helps young artists use filmmaking as means of expressionTRIBUNE NEWS NETWORK

DOHA

QATAR Foundation (QF) is playing a significant role in cre-ating opportunities and inspir-ing young people to become filmmakers.

Amal al Muftah, a student from Northwestern University in Qatar (NU-Q) – a QF part-ner university – recently won an award for Best Narrative at the Doha Film Institute’s Ajyal Youth Film Festival for her piece, Sh’hab.

Muftah’s interest devel-oped as a student at Qatar Academy Doha, part of QF’s Pre-University Education, in 2012, when she registered for a filmmaking course that she had little interest in. However, she soon realised she had dis-covered her passion.

“When I took the course at school, I found that film was a

way for me to express myself in a way that was different from other means of communica-tion,” she said.

When she joined NU-Q, she found a network of people – fellow students, professors and mentors – who helped her turn her hobby into a full-time commitment.

Being a young Qatari film-maker, she felt a desire to em-power the local filmmaking culture and create works origi-nating in the country.

“I wanted to be based here in Qatar and talk about the cul-ture and the lives people lead. I feel like I’m creating a mirror through my films. They reflect the day-to-day lives of people in Qatar, even the not-so-in-teresting parts. Many people tend to respond to that point of view,” she said.

Muftah’s award-winning film,” Sh’hab”, is inspired by

tales her grandmother told her as a child and myths she said

people in the region believed decades ago.

She created the film as a way of connecting with her

roots and the history of her country. The story revolves around a little girl chasing fallen stars.

“It’s a film about dreams and ambitions for everyone. It combines all the generations of Doha – the old and the young – in one film,” she said.

Mariam al Dhubhani, also a student at NU-Q, is another aspiring filmmaker. Her di-rectorial breakthrough –”Just Another Memory” – was a way for her to create a new narra-tive and come to terms with the reality of the crisis in her home country, Yemen.

Dhubhani always had a passion for media and film-making, but living in Yemen and pursuing an education in pharmaceutical sciences made it difficult for her to work towards it.

“It only became possible once I moved to Qatar and got

admitted to NU-Q,” she said. “Just Another Memory”

was part of a painful journey for Dhubhani.

“Escaping war didn’t re-ally help in liberating me from its emotional and psycho-logical burdens. This personal documentary is a piece of me that tells not only a part of my life, but also highlights an im-portant humanitarian crisis,” she said.

Winning the award for Best Documentary at the Ajyal Youth Film Festival only mo-tivated her to continue telling stories through her films.

Opportunities for stu-dents and filmmakers are endless in Qatar.

Universities like NU-Q provide resources and train-ing for students to develop a number of storytelling skills and host workshops to nur-ture local talent.

Mariam al Dhubhani, winner of the Best Documentary award for her film, “Just Another Memory”, and Amal al Muftah, winner of the Best Narrative award for her film, “Sh’hab’, at the DFI Ajyal Film Festival Awards.

QA Cargo commences transpacific freighter service to GuadalajaraTRIBUNE NEWS NETWORK

DOHA

QATAR Airways (QA) Cargo has commenced freighter ser-vices to Guadalajara, Mexico, expanding its network in the Americas region.

The new destination is being served by the airline’s Boeing 777 freighter.

Guadalajara has been added as a new destination on the cargo carrier’s high demand transpacific freighter route from January 6, 2019.

The twice-weekly freight-er departs directly from Ma-cau to Los Angeles in North America and connects on-ward to Mexico City arriving in Guadalajara, before de-parting for Doha via Liège.

Guadalajara is the capital and largest city of the Mexi-can State of Jalisco. It has the third-largest economy and industrial infrastructure in Mexico.

Major exports on the flights consist of perishables and general cargo, while gen-eral cargo will form the ma-

jority of imports.Qatar Airways Chief Of-

ficer Cargo Guillaume Hal-leux said, “We have had a very successful 2018. Our custom-ers have welcomed the trans-pacific route, which is a faster solution over the Pacific for Asian exports destined for the Americas and we are de-lighted to add Guadalajara as another stop on this route.

“The twice-weekly freighter offers significant capacity into and out of this destination and is an impor-tant addition to our expand-ing network of more than 60 freighter destinations. The launch of this freighter service to Guadalajara not only provides a consistent and reliable service, but also contributes to economic and trade growth in Mexico.”

2018 has been highly suc-cessful for Qatar Airways Cargo with cargo volumes increasing by 10 percent in 2018 com-pared to 2017. Exports grew by 14 percent and transshipments have increased by 12 percent over the previous year.

The carrier’s products have also performed excep-tionally well with positive tonnage growth and the intro-duction of several enhance-ments to its products, such as the roll out of the automated mail management system across its network that greatly benefits customers of postal mail and e-commerce.

In addition to launching freighter services to Macau and commencing transpacific freighter services, the car-rier added belly-hold cargo capacity to several key des-tinations and also received two brand new Boeing 777 freighters as part of its expan-sion strategy. Qatar Airways Cargo operated more than 300 charters carrying prod-ucts ranging from racehors-es, cattle, pharmaceuticals, perishables, garments and cars. The cargo carrier also won two prestigious industry awards in 2018, recognising its continued growth and em-phasis on delivering the high-est levels of service in the air cargo industry.

HIA’s ‘Golf Simulator Experience’ to provide passengers play session


HAMAD International Airport (HIA) on Monday launched ‘Golf Simulator Experience’ at the Oryx Airport Hotel to allow passengers enjoy a col-lection of gaming options and playing sessions.

The launch was attended by Qatar Golf Association of-ficials, Champions from the Qatar National Golf team and media representatives.

This innovative recrea-tional space comes as a part of the airport’s efforts to provide passengers with exceptional facilities and five-star services to relax, rejuvenate and re-charge during their transiting time at HIA.

The ‘Golf Simulator Ex-perience’ is equipped with a High Definition Golf Pack-age, Golf Bags and Clubs for men, women and kids. The facility also includes a lounge with seating area, creating the best atmosphere for pas-sengers in transit.

The Oryx Airport Hotel at Hamad International Air-port also features the Vitality Well-being & Fitness Centre that offers travellers an indoor swimming pool, hydrotherapy tub, gym and classic spa treat-ments among other services.

With the latest Golf Simu-lator Experience, HIA’s Oryx Airport Hotel will reflect a haven of serenity at a world-class airport.

Engineer Badr Moham-med al Meer, HIA chief op-erating officer, said: “Being the first airport in the Mid-dle East to launch a ‘Golf Simulator Experience’ in a passenger terminal complex shows Hamad International Airport’s commitment in of-fering pioneering solutions

towards passenger experi-ence. We are excited to offer passengers an avant-garde recreational space designed for the modern traveller.”

Philippe Anric, director of Operations for Dhiafatina Hotels, said: “We are very pleased to witness the Oryx Airport Hotel’s extension of its world-class facilities with the new ‘Golf Simulator Experi-

ence’. Our efforts to provide the best customer service ex-perience to every one of our guests shows our commitment to excellence. We look forward to welcoming passengers to indulge themselves in the lat-est entertainment the Airport Hotel has to offer.”

The Golf Simulator Ex-perience is a step forward for HIA as it prepares to receive

50 million diverse passengers by 2022.

HIA will continue to in-vest in innovative solutions designed to meet the needs of the modern traveller, making the airport a destination on its own.

Officially launched in 2014, The Oryx Airport Hotel at Hamad International Air-port has consistently shaped the travel experience for pas-sengers by providing a smooth and hassle-free experience through world-star customer services and facilities.

Hamad International Air-port is classified as a five-star airport by Skytrax, making it one among only five other air-ports in the world to achieve this prestigious status. HIA also has been ranked the 5th best airport in the world at the SKYTRAX World Airport Awards 2018 and is a candi-date for the ‘World’s Best Air-port 2019’ awards by Skytrax.

The launch of ‘Golf Simulator Experience’ at the Oryx Airport Hotel was attended by Qatar Golf Association officials, Champions from the Qatar National Golf team and media representatives. (JALAL PATHIYOOR)

Guadalajara has been added as a new destination on the cargo carrier’s high demand transpacific freight-er route from January 6, 2019.

HIA becomes first M-E airport to introduce golf simulator at passenger terminal complex

Russian ambassador attends QBG’s tree-planting ceremony


THE Qur’anic Botanic Gar-den (QBG), a member of Qa-tar Foundation (QF), recently hosted a tree planting ceremo-ny – part of its popular ‘Ghars’ campaign –which was attend-ed by Ambassador of the Rus-sian Federation to Qatar HE Nurmakhmad Kholov, in line with Qatar Russia 2018 Year of Culture.

The ceremony, held in Oxy-gen Park at Education City, was also attended by Machailleal Naimi, president of Commu-nity Development, QF, as well as QF officials, ambassadors, representatives from the Unit-ed Nations Educational, Scien-tific and Cultural Organization, and members of the public, highlighting QBG’s efforts to encourage the community to engage in ‘green’ initiatives.

Fatima Saleh al Khulaifi, project manager, QBG, said: “We are pleased to welcome the Russian Embassy officials to our event in conjunction

with the Qatar Russia 2018 Year of Culture, signifying cul-tural cooperation between the two countries.

“QBG launched the ‘Ghars’ tree-planting campaign as one of its initiatives to protect and preserve the environment and build an environmentally-con-scious community, not only in Qatar but across the region and the whole world. QBG’s ef-

forts are in line with the United Nations’ goals for sustainable development and the Qatar National Vision 2030.”

The Russian ambassador said: “I am pleased to be a part of this event organised by QBG. There is no doubt that QBG contributes to the intel-lectual and cultural value of Qatar Foundation – educating the community about Islam,

and helping to position Qatar as a modern scientific and ed-ucational centre.”

QBG regularly organises tree-planting activities to pro-mote the importance of envi-ronmental awareness among community members, and the ‘Ghars’ campaign is part of the organisation’s goal of cultivat-ing 2,022 trees by the 2022 FIFA World Cup.

Ambassador of the Russian Federation to Qatar HE Nurmakhmad Kholov with Qatar Foundation and Qur’anic Botanic Garden officials and other guests at a tree-planting ceremony in Doha recently.

The Westin Doha extends winter staycation offerTRIBUNE NEWS NETWORK

DOHA

THE Westin Doha Hotel and Spa has announced the ex-tension of its exclusive winter getaway package for fami-lies looking for a comfortable break or a relaxing staycation in Qatar until January 20.

The hotel offers an attrac-tive deal for Doha residents and visitors from across the re-gion to make the most of their families staycation where they can book two rooms for one night for just QR890 inclusive of Westin’s signature super food breakfast, high-speed in-ternet and complimentary ac-cess to the hotel’s four swim-ming pools, including Doha’s only children’s ‘Waves’ pool.

For those who wish to relax and explore culinary delights, the hotel offers five dining op-tions. Seasonal Tastes, the sig-nature restaurant offers a wide variety of creative internation-al cuisines. More adventurous guests can dine at Sabai Thai, the award-winning authentic Thai restaurant that focuses

on the textures and flavours from the four grand regions of Thailand. For meat lov-ers, Hunters Room & Grill, a contemporary Grill & Lounge serves the finest quality meat selected from boutique farms.

Additionally, for guests who are looking for a tranquil place to relax and savour de-lectable coffees, sandwiches and afternoon tea, the Waves Pool Café and Luxe Lounge are the perfect destinations.

Moreover, the spa has an attractive offer for its guests. They can book a 50-minute

Westin Workout massage for QR600 and get compli-mentary access to the Westin Workout Studio and a com-plimentary gift. Additionally, in-house guests who are seek-ing to rejuvenate and revitalise during their stay can explore the city’s first Heavenly Spa menu comprising a diverse range of signature massages and facials provided by experi-enced therapists.

For more information and reservation, contact at +974 4492 1600 or [email protected]

Nation 05Tuesday, January 8, 2019

IANSKOCHI/THIRUVANANTHAPURAM

PEOPLE in the perenni-ally strike-hit Kerala can now breathe easy.

The Kerala High Court passed an interim order on Monday that henceforth if any group wished to call for a shutdown, it should give seven days notice and those who wish to challenge it can approach the court. The ruling followed a petition filed by the Kerala

Chamber of Commerce and Industry pointing out that in 2018 there were 97 shutdowns which caused massive losses to its members.

A division bench of Chief Justice Hrishikesh Roy and Justice A.K. Jayasankaran Nambiar then intervened seek-ing a seven-day notice for any future shutdown or strike call.

The immediate provocation of the order was the widespread violence that erupted across Kerala during a shutdown

called by the Sabarimala Kar-ma Samithi (SKS) last week to protest against the entry of two women in the hitherto banned age group at the Sabarimala temple.

Kerala Police chief Loknath Behra said on Sunday that close to 40,000 people have been booked for creating violence in the state in the past three days and 1,869 cases have been filed.

Till Sunday, 5,769 people had been arrested, of which 789 had been remanded while

4,980 hot been released on bail.On its part, the Kerala gov-

ernment on Monday gave its nod for a new ordinance titled ‘Kerala Prevention of Damage to Private Property and Pay-ment of Compensation Ordi-nance 2019’.

“Through this ordinance, any destruction of private prop-erty at the time of a shutdown or due to other unrest, adequate compensation would be collect-ed from those who did it,” Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said.

Kerala HC, govt provide relief to citizens

NEW DELHI: Two miners have been killed in India’s re-mote northeast, police said Monday as rescuers kept up efforts to save 15 workers trapped for over three weeks in an illegal mine elsewhere in the region. The two men were likely hit by boulders as they tried to extract coal while digging narrow tunnels on the slopes of a hill in mineral-rich Meghalaya state on Friday, police said.AN “enquiry is underway” and the owner of the quarry is being sought, the police said. (AFP)

2 miners dead in new mishap, fate of 15 unknown

ADDIS ABABA: Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki on Monday reopened a border crossing between their countries as part of an ongoing reconcili-ation between the former foes. The two leaders re-opened the border crossing between Humera in Ethiopia and Oum Hajer in Eritrea on the western edge of both nations, according to the state-owned Ethiopia Broad-casting Corporation. (AFP)

Ethiopia, Eritrea reopen another border crossing

SYDNEY: An Australian senator faced criticism from across the political spec-trum and possible censure Monday, after it emerged that he used taxpayer cash to fly business class to a far-right rally. PM Scott Morrison and opposition leader Bill Shorten both condemned Senator Fraser Anning’s participation in the rally in the southern city of Melbourne on Saturday, a rare show of political unity.

Morrison accused the independent politician of “associating himself with extreme and offensive racist views.” (AFP)

Aussie senator draws flak over using public money

CHENNAI: The Election Com-mission has cancelled the Thiruvarur Assembly by-elec-tion in Tamil Nadu, citing the ongoing relief work after the Gaja cyclone that devastated major parts of Thiruvarur district, giving a huge relief to major political parties who were seen as reluctant to contest the election ahead of general elections. The Com-mission said it has rescinded the January 3 notification for the bye-election scheduled on January 28 to fill the vacancy caused by the death of former chief minister M. Karunanidhi in August. (IANS)

EC cancels TN by-election after cyclone

NEWS IN BRIEF

IANSNEW DELHI

OPPOSITION parties and politi-cal leaders on Monday sought to dismiss as “election gimmick” the Narendra Modi govern-ments move to give 10 percent reservation for economically backward people in the general category, ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

The Union Cabinet on the day approved 10 percent quota for people belonging to “unre-served categories”, including Christians and Muslims, in jobs and education with an annual income limit of Rs 8 lakh.

Questioning the legality of the move vis-a-vis the Supreme Court putting a cap of 50 percent on reservations, the Congress called it an “election gimmick”.

“Did you (government) not think of this for 4 years and 8 months? So, obviously thought of as an election gimmick 3 months before the model code. You know you cannot exceed 50 percent cap, so it is done only to posture that you tried an uncon-stitutional thing,” Congress MP Abhishek Manu Singhvi said.

“Forward reservation is a gimmick to fool people, the 50 percent cap continues to be law,” he said citing the M R Balaji case in which the Supreme Court put a 50 percent cap on reservations.

“Government only mislead-ing nation. Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan tried exceed-ing 50 percent quota but was struck down by court. Modi, BJP clearly think Indian public eats grass,” said Singhvi adding that the move was a sign of the Modi’s “fear and certainty of los-ing 2019 elections”.

Communist Party of India’s (CPI) D Raja said the move indi-cated the ruling BJP’s despera-tion. Supreme Court advocate and nominated Rajya Sabha member KTS Tulsi said, “This looks like an attempt in the di-rection of abolishing the entire reservation system.”

Reservation for upper castes poll gimmick: Oppn

AFPLAGOS

NIGERIA’S military was on Monday accused of attacking press freedom after troops raided a newspaper for pub-lishing a front-page story about its handling of the Boko Haram insurgency.

Computers were seized and two journalists in the northeast city of Maiduguri were detained following the Daily Trust story about mili-tary plans to recapture the town of Baga on the shores of Lake Chad.

The army said it acted because the newspaper had compromised national secu-

rity by publishing details of future operations against the jihadists.

Soldiers and operatives from the secret police and civil defence paramilitary raided the daily’s offices in Maiduguri, the capital Abuja, and commercial hub, Lagos, on Sunday.

Army spokesman Briga-dier-General Sani Usman said the report “divulged classified military information, thus un-dermining national security”.

Daily Trust editor Man-nir Dan-Ali condemned the action as “unlawful” and said the stand-off at the newspa-per’s Abuja headquarters last-ed five hours. Some commen-

tators compared the action to harassment of the media and censorship during former army general Buhari’s previ-ous time as military head of state in the 1980s.

The Africa Program Coor-dinator at the Committee to Protect Journalists, Angela Quintal, said the army’s raid of the Daily Trust was “outra-geous” and a “blatant viola-tion” of media and citizens’ rights.

Amnesty International Nigeria said the authorities had an “obligation to protect freedom of the press... as pro-vided by the constitution and international human rights laws”.

Nigerian army accused of curtailing press freedom over newspaper raid

IANSNEW DELHI

WITH an eye on the upper caste vote in the coming Lok Sabha elections, the Union Cabinet on Monday approved 10 percent reservation for eco-nomically backward people in the general category in jobs and educational institutions.

The Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, took the decision to provide for 10 percent quota for people be-longing to “unreserved catego-ries”, including Christians and Muslims, in jobs and education with an annual income limit of Rs8 lakh and a land holding

ceiling of about five acres, high-ly placed sources said.

A Constitution amendment bill for the purpose is likely to be introduced in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday.

The sources said the pro-posed move will not disturb the existing 50 percent reser-vation for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes. “The quota will include sections not falling under any provision of reserva-tion such as Brahmins, Banias, Thakurs, Jats, Gujjars, Mus-lims and Christians,” a source privy to the decision told IANS.

He said that rules will be framed in due course to imple-

ment the Cabinet decision. The decision comes four months before the Lok Sabha polls and after the reverses suffered by the BJP in the Assembly polls in the Hindi heartland states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.

The BJP was said to have faced the wrath of the upper castes, especially in Madhya

Pradesh and Rajasthan, over the amendment brought by the Central government to nullify the Supreme Court judgement in the SC-ST Act last year.

The idea has also been fa-voured by the RSS, which has been demanding a quota on these lines. The move, a step to consolidate upper caste votes, was dubbed as “election gim-mick” by the Opposition par-ties which questioned its legal-ity vis-a-vis the Supreme Court putting a cap of 50 percent on reservations.

However, the government defended the decision saying this was not aimed at placat-ing the upper castes but was in

keeping with the principle of “sabka saath, sabka vikas” (de-velopment for all).

Minister of State for Fi-nance Shiv Pratap Shukla said, “This is not an attempt to pla-cate the upper castes. We are trying to give them their right. We are not doing a favour to them. It is in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s motto of ‘sabka sath, sabka vi-kas’.

“Those who do not want to get this bill passed in Parlia-ment may go ahead. We will try to get this bill passed,” he said. Udit Raj, a Dalit MP belonging to the BJP, said it was a “bold” decision.

The quota will apply to people with an annual income limit of Rs8 lakh and land holding ceiling of 5 acres

Cabinet approves 10% quota for upper castes

Assam groups observe ‘back day’ against Citizenship BillIANS

GUWAHATI

SEVERAL groups opposing the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill 2016 on Monday observed a ‘black day’ in protest against the move of the Joint Parlia-mentary Committee (JPC) on Citizenship (Amendment) Bill 2016 to table its report to the Lok Sabha.

While the All Assam Stu-dents Union (Aasu) and 30 other outfits burnt copies of the Bill in towns and villages of Assam to register their protest, over 70 other organisations un-

der the leadership of Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti (KMSS) hoisted black flags in different parts of the state. The Asom Jatiyatabadi Yuba Chatra Pari-shad (AJYCP), another leading student body, also staged pro-tests across the state.

One AJYCP member stood nude protest in Tinsukia town shouting slogans against the Bill and the JPC’s move to table the report.

“We have observed the day as ‘Black day’. The Citizenship Bill has not only threatened the existence of indigenous com-munities of Assam but also

make the indigenous people a minority in their own land. The BJP has failed to understand

the sentiments of the people of the state. We are going to fight till the Bill is scrapped,” said

AASU adviser Samujjal Bhat-tacharyya. While AASU and other groups staged protests on Monday, the North East Students Organization (NESO) -- an umbrella organisations of students bodies of all the north-eastern states -- has called for a total shutdown on Tuesday.

“This Bill is against the in-digenous people of Assam and we are going to oppose it tooth and nail. NESO has also called for a mass demonstration in Guwahati on January 23 to register its protest against the Bill,” he added.

“Through the Bill, the BJP

wants to win the Lok Sabha polls. We have already started a movement against this and will continue until the Bill is withdrawn,” said KMSS leader Akhil Gogoi.

There have been protests in Assam over the Citizenship Bill since last year when the mem-bers of the JPC visited Assam to seek public opinion over the Bill. The movement has been intensified from January 4 when Prime Minister Naren-dra Modi during a public rally in Silchar said that the Citizen-ship Bill would be passed by Parliament soon.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi (centre) gestures during a rally in Gurdaspur, Punjab, recently. (AFP)

Gabon arrests soldiers behind attempted coup

DPAJOHANNESBURG

FIVE soldiers have been ar-rested after trying to seize power in Gabon on Monday, as Paris and the African Union condemned the coup attempt in the West African nation.

The alleged leader of the plot and four cohorts were tak-en into custody, Radio France Internationale (RFI) reported, quoting a government spokes-man who said the situation is under control.

The young soldiers in-volved had not had widespread support among the rest of the military, spokesman Guy-Ber-trand Mapangou told RFI, call-ing them “a group of jokers.”

A video circulating online purported to show the armed soldiers saying they had seized a radio station early Monday and calling on citizens to rise up. In the video, a soldier in a green beret and military fa-tigues says the army wanted to help restore the country’s “dignity” and “preserve de-mocracy.”

Other videos posted on Twitter, which could not be independently verified by dpa, appeared to show tanks on the streets and the sound of shots fired.

LS passes bills on right to education, personal lawsNEW DELHI: The Lok Sabha on Monday passed “Right of Chil-dren to Free and Compulsory Education (Amendment) Bill, 2018” and “The Personal Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2018” amid uproar created by the opposition on various issues.

Union Minister of Hu-man Resource Development Prakash Javadekar introduced “Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (Amend-ment) Bill, 2018” saying that

the amendment made by the Rajya Sabha in the bill to further amend the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 be taken into consid-eration.

Introducing the Bill, which was later passed by the House without discussion, Javadekar informed Speaker Sumitra Mahajan that “on page 1, line 3, for the word and figure “Act, 2018”, the word and figure “Act, 2019” be submitted. (IANS)

SC takes stern view of people being hauled up under invalidated IT Act

IANSNEW DELHI

THE Supreme Court on Mon-day took strong exception to and expressed shock over the people being arrested and prosecuted under Section 66A of the Information Technol-ogy Act -- which was junked as unconstitutional by the top court way back in 2015 -- as it sought Centre’s response on a PIL by the NGO PUCL.

Describing as “shocking” that people were being pros-ecuted under a provision that was invalidated by the top court, the bench of Justice Ro-hinton Fali Nariman and Jus-tice Vineet Narain said: “We

are going to take a strict action against the officials and arrest them.”

Seeking response from the Centre in four weeks, the court

gave a week’s time to NGO People’s Union for Civil Liber-ties (PUCL) to file its rejoinder to the Centre’s response.

The Supreme Court had on March 24, 2015, quashed Section 66A of the Informa-tion Technology Act, 2000, holding that it was violative of Article 19(1)(a) of the Consti-tution guaranteeing freedom of speech and expression.

The court had said that “it is clear that Section 66A arbi-trarily, excessively and dispro-portionately invades the right of free speech and upsets the balance between such right and the reasonable restric-tions that may be imposed on such rights.”

AGP ends ties with BJP over Modi govt’s move

NEW Delhi: The AGP on Monday quit the alliance with the BJP over the Modi government’s decision to go ahead with the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 which seeks to give citizenship to non-Muslim minorities from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Asom Gana Parishad President Atul Bora said this here on Monday after an AGP delegation led by him met Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh. “We have made our best efforts to convince the BJP leadership about the negative impact of the Bill and the stand of the people of Assam, But the BJP has decided to go ahead with the Bill leaving us with no option but to quit the alliance,” he told the media. (IANS)

the proposed move will not disturb the existing 50 per-cent reservation for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes

The Supreme Court of India.

India / World06 Tuesday, January 8, 2019

AFPCOLOMBO

A Sri Lanka court Monday re-jected calls to subject the presi-dent to a mental health exami-nation after he sacked a former ally, dissolved parliament and plunged the country into crisis.

The Court of Appeal reject-ed a petition to force Maithri-pala Sirisena before a panel of psychiatrists to scrutinise his mental state in the wake of the political upheaval in the Indian

Ocean island. The instability ended peacefully when Sirise-na’s controversial appointee Mahinda Rajapakse stood down, and the deposed prime minister Ranil Wickremesin-ghe returned to power with the support of parliament.

Mental infirmity is grounds for removing a presi-dent if two-thirds of parlia-ment agree, but no party or coalition in the legislature commands such a majority.

The two-judge bench of the

appeals court said it did not have the jurisdiction to force Sirisena to be examined, and ordered the petitioner pay the state 100,000 rupees ($540) in legal costs.

The crisis dragged on for weeks until the Supreme Court denied Rajapakse the right to rule and he bowed out in December. Some factions within Sri Lanka’s parliament have pushed for Sirisena to be investigated for orches-trating an alleged coup.

Sri Lanka court refuses to test president’s sanity

JAKARTA: At least 32 people were killed by a landslide in Indonesia on New Year’s Eve, authorities said Monday as they ended a week-long search for missing victims. Rescuers who have been pulling bodies from moun-tains of mud called off the search with one person still unaccounted for after heavy rains triggered the deadly slides in West Java province. Several others were injured in the December 31 disaster. “The search has wrapped up,” said West Java police chief Agung Maryoto. (AFP)

Indonesia landslide death toll reaches 32, says official

US: A US Navy guided-missile destroyer on Monday sailed near disputed islands in the South China Sea where China has built military instal-lations, sparking anger in China as trade talks between the two countries kicked off. The USS McCampbell sailed within 12 nautical miles of the Paracel Islands “to challenge excessive maritime claims,” US Pacific Fleet spokeswoman Rachel McMarr said She added that “freedom of navigation” operations are “not about any one country”. (AFP)

US conducts latest South China Sea sail-by amid talks

NAYPYIDAW: Myanmar has called on its military to “launch operations” against ethnic Rakhine rebels be-hind a deadly attack on four police stations last week, a government spokesman said Monday, as a surge of violence forces thousands more from their homes. Authorities said that the attack by hundreds of militants left 13 police offic-ers dead and nine wounded before the army, known locally as the Tatmadaw, were able to provide back-up. The AA said that three of its fighters had been killed. (AFP)

Myanmar army to launch ‘crackdown’ on Rakhine rebels

News in brief

AFPHERAT, AFGHANISTAN

TALIBAN fighters attacked two checkpoints in western Afghanistan, killing at least 10 members of the security forces and pro-government militia, officials said Monday, in a bloody 24 hours in the war-torn country.

At least 15 militants were killed in the fighting in Qadis and Ab Kamari districts of Badghis province that began late Sunday, provincial gover-nor spokesman Jamshid Sha-habi said.

Provincial council chief Abdul Aziz Bek gave a higher death toll of 21–14 police and seven militia members–but that figure could not be imme-diately confirmed.

“The Taliban captured both checkpoints and took all the military equipment and am-munition with them,” Bek said.

The Taliban, who have been slaughtering Afghan se-curity forces in record num-bers, claimed responsibility for both attacks.

On the other side of the country in the southeastern province of Paktika, eight civil-ians were killed and 12 wound-ed on Monday when a roadside

bomb exploded near a market in Janikhail district. Among the dead were two brothers aged 10 and 12, provincial police spokes-man Shah Mohammad Aryan said. A group of children had been trying to remove the ex-plosive device from the ground when it exploded, Aryan said.

It was not clear if the bomb had been deliberately planted or was left over from decades of conflict.

Civilians have long borne the brunt of the war, with 8,050 people killed or wounded in the first nine months of 2018, ac-cording to the latest UN figures.

The bloodshed comes amid a flurry of diplomatic efforts aimed at bringing the Taliban to the negotiating table and ending the 17-year war.

10 Afghan security forces killed in Taliban attacks

THENEWS.COM.PKISLAMABAD

CHIEF Justice Mian Saqib Ni-sar ordered the government to remove the names of PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto and Chief Minister Sind Murad Ali Shah from the Exit Control List (ECL). While hearing the Fake accounts case, a three-member bench headed by CJP Nisar di-rected the officials to delete pa-ras regarding the PPP chairman and Sindh CM from the report prepared by the Joint Investiga-tion Team.

At the outset, the Attorney General apprised the apex court of the progress made on the SC orders of placement of 172 sus-pects on the no fly list. He in-formed the bench that the Fed-eral Cabinet had forwarded the matter to a review committee which would decide it.

The chief justice asked the JIT counsel to explain why Bil-wal Zardari was dragged into the case. He is just a kid and taking his mother’s legacy for-ward, he observed.

The names of Bilawal Bhut-to and Murad Ali Shah were included for point scoring, he remarked.

Later, the SC sent the fake accounts case to the National Accountability Bureau for fur-ther investigation with a direc-tion to complete the probe with-in two months.

Earlier today, the banking court had extended the bail be-fore arrest of former president Asif Ali Zardari and his sister Faryal Talpur till Jan 23.

Zardari, Faryal reject JIT report Asif Zardari and Faryal Talpur denied all the claims made about Zardari Group in the JIT report that was submit-ted before the Supreme Court.

They submitted in their re-ply in the Supreme Court that the final submissions for order sought by JIT/prayer from the Supreme Court as well as entire JIT report and executive sum-mary may kindly be rejected.

In their 17-pages reply sub-mitted in the Supreme Court through their legal team on be-half of Zardari Group (Pvt) Ltd,

Asif Ali Zardari and his sister Faryal Talpur stated that no

wrongdoings have been done by the answering respondents and

the JIT report and executive summary are based on surmis-es and conjectures and are out-come of political victimisation.

“The entire report and ex-ecutive summary are based on misleading facts and with-out perusal of documents and without even affording a proper opportunity to the answering respondents to give appropri-ate reply which is violation of Article 10–A of the Constitution of Islamic Republic of Pakistan, 1973,” the reply stated.

That JIT Investigation Re-port No.1 to 27, innumerable documents and statement of witnesses recorded by JIT have not been supplied to the an-swering respondents and JIT be directed to provide the same in-cluding JIT report No 25. There cannot be fair trial without fair investigation which is para-mount for due process of law.

The allegations mentioned in the report other than fake ac-counts by JIT were never com-municated to the respondents for response. The said allega-tions are beyond the mandate given by Honourable Supreme Court to JIT. Thus the same are outcome of malicious intent with ulterior motives to ma-lign, demean and defame the respondents and the same are strictly denied.

The reply stated that the allegations leveled in the JIT report and executive summary against are denied in toto as the same are without any law-ful justification and outcome of malicious intent and ulterior motives. That allegations have been levelled in paragraph 26 of the Report that M/s. Park Lane Pvt. Ltd., has beneficial owner-ship of Mr. Asif Ali Zardari and Mr. Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the same as stated in the JIT report.

(File photo) The chief justice asked the JIT counsel to explain why Bilwal Zardari was dragged into the case.

The names of Bilawal Bhutto and Murad Ali Shah were included for point scoring, says CJP

Pakistan SC orders govt to take Bilawal, Murad’s names off ECL

AFPDHAKA

SHEIKH Hasina was sworn in as Bangladesh’s prime min-ister for a record fourth term Monday after a crushing elec-tion victory marred by deadly violence and claims of wide-spread rigging.

Hasina, 71, has presided over record economic growth in the South Asian country of 165 million people but critics have accused her of creeping authoritarianism.

Her ruling Awami League party and its allies won the December 30 elections by a landslide, securing 288 seats

in the 300-seat parliament compared to just seven for the main opposition.

The campaign saw mass arrests of opposition activists and candidates and allega-tions of widespread rigging including ballot stuffing and voter intimidation.

Seventeen people were killed on election day.

The European Union has called for a probe into alle-gations of irregularities, say-ing “significant obstacles to a level playing field... tainted the electoral campaign and the vote.”

The United States ex-pressed concern about “cred-

ible reports of harassment, intimidation and violence”.

The United Nations on Friday said there were indi-cations that “reprisals” have

targeted the opposition since the election, including physi-cal attacks, arbitrary arrests, harassment, disappearances and filing of criminal cases.

Hasina sworn in as PM after ‘tainted’ polls

PM Sheikh Hasina greets President Abdul Hamid before taking oath at the swearing-in ceremony in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on Monday. (REUTERS)

PHILSTARMANILA, PHILIPPINES

THE Philippine Commission on Women Monday expressed dismay at public officials who are supposed to uphold the dignity of its citizens, espe-cially women, and promote gender equality but instead perpetuate misogyny.

Officials are “supposed to uphold the dignity of its citi-zens, especially women, pro-mote gender equality, and be exemplars of honor and integ-rity, continue to perpetuate misogyny grounded on power,” it said. While the agency didn’t mention specifically who it was referring to, it follows a

statement made by President Rodrigo Duterte on December 30, when he said he touched the private parts of a domestic worker when he was younger.

The PCW is the government policy-making and coordinat-

ing body on advancing the role of women in the country.

“The PCW reiterates that sexual molestation or abuse, in-cluding rape, are public crimes and a violation of human dig-nity,” it said.

“It is an abhorrent attack on a person’s self-worth and should never be used as subject matter to prove a point,” it add-ed. Presidential spokesperson Salvador Panelo, meanwhile, argued that the president’s sto-ry wasn’t obscene because peo-ple were laughing.

“If it was obscene, the re-action of the audience would have been bad, they would have been angry at him,” Panelo said earlier. The PCW joined other

organizations, including the Commission on Human Rights, in condemning misogyny. The CHR last Friday said the gov-ernment should refrain from making such statements that might contravene its commit-ment to uphold the rights of Filipino workers, especially women.

“Filipino domestic work-ers, especially women, face a number of challenges in some receiving countries. The current administration is fully aware of this condition when, in early 2018, the government even prompted a deployment ban in Kuwait following numerous cases of disappearance, death, and abuses of Filipino workers.

Philippine Women’s commission slams officials who ‘perpetuate misogyny’

Need for fair investigationThat JIT Report No.1 to 27, innumerable documents and statement of witnesses recorded by JIT have not been supplied to the answering respondents and JIT be directed to provide the same including JIT report No 25. There cannot be fair trial without fair investigation which is paramount for due process of law

Record deaths“The Taliban captured both checkpoints and took all the military equipment and ammunition with them,” Abdul Aziz Bek said. The Taliban, who have been slaughtering Afghan secu-rity forces in record num-bers, claimed responsibility for both attacks.

Pakistan summons Indian high commission official over civilian death in LoC firingISLAMABAD: The Indian Deputy High Commissioner JP Singh was summoned by Foreign Office Spokesperson Mohammad Faisal on Monday over the killing of a civilian in unprovoked firing by the Indian forces along the Line of Control (LoC).

Foreign Office Spokesperson Mohammad Faisal condemned the indiscriminate firing carried out by the Indian occupation forces in the Bagsar Sector.

The unprovoked firing resulted in the death of a 26-year-old, Azeem, while a woman was injured.

The Indian forces along the LoC and the Working boundary are continuously targeting civilian populated areas with heavy weapons. This unprecedented escalation in ceasefire violations by India is continuing from the year 2017 when the Indian forces committed 1970 ceasefire violations. (TRIBUNE.COM.PK)

New Malaysian king to be picked this month after shock abdication

AFPKUALA LUMPUR

A new Malaysian king will be elected and sworn in this month, royal officials said Monday, after Sultan Muham-mad V abdicated in a historic first following his reported marriage to a Russian former beauty queen.

The king stepped aside Sunday following intense speculation about his future after reports surfaced in re-cent weeks that he had taken medical leave, and then wed the former Miss Moscow.

As the country reacted

with shock to the news, Malay-sia’s Islamic royal families met at the national palace to push ahead with the task of picking a king to take over from Mu-hammad V, 49, who gave up the throne after just two years.

Keeper of the Ruler’s Seal, Syed Danial Syed Ahmad, said after the meeting that a new king and his deputy would be elected on January 24 and in-stalled on January 31.

Swearing in ceremonies for Malaysian kings are lav-ish affairs, marked by honour guards and Islamic prayers and attended by hundreds of guests in traditional finery.

President Rodrigo Duterte.

Cambodia celebrates 40th anniversary of Rouge ouster

AFPPHNOM PENH

TENS of thousands of Cam-bodians packed a stadium in Phnom Penh Monday to celebrate the 40th anniver-sary of the expulsion of the brutal Khmer Rouge regime -- a day strongman Prime Minister Hun Sen called the country’s “second birthday”.

The ultra-Maoist Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pot, in-stalled a reign of terror in 1975 that left two million Cambodians dead from star-vation, hard labour, torture and mass executions.

It ended on January 7, 1979, when Hun Sen, a for-

mer Khmer Rouge cadre, led Vietnamese forces into the capital to expel the murder-ous regime.

The 66-year-old pre-mier hailed the day as Cambodia’s “second birth-day” at an elaborate cer-emony in Phnom Penh’s Olympic Stadium, where he was joined by traditional Khmer apsara dancers and marching bands.

“Today we celebrate this ceremony in order to recall unforgotten memo-ries of the most heinous crimes of Pol Pot’s group,” Hun Sen told the crowd, and thanked Vietnam for saving the country.

Nepal probes ‘Buddha boy’ over missing devoteesKATHMANDU: A Nepali spiritual leader believed by his followers to be a reincarnation of Buddha is under investigation over the disappearance of several devotees, police in Kathmandu said Monday.

Ram Bahadur Bomjan, dubbed “Buddha Boy”, became famous in 2005 after followers said he could meditate motionless for months without water, food or sleep in Nepal’s jungles.

The 28-year-old guru has a devout following but has been accused of physically and sexually as-saulting some of his flock.

Special police investigators have begun inquiries after the families of four of Bomjan’s devo-tees allegedly vanished from his ashrams. “The police have started investigating these complaints against Bomjan,” Uma Prasad Chaturbedi, a spokesman for Nepal’s Central Investigation Bureau, said. “The investigation is in preliminary stage and we cannot share many details.” Bomjan has long been dogged by accusations of abuse in deeply spiritual Nepal, even as thousands of worshippers queued for days to witness his so-called miracles of meditation deep in the jungle.

In September last year, an 18-year-old nun accused the guru of raping her at one of his ash-rams. Dozens more have filed complaints against him alleging assault. The self-styled godman said he beat them for disturbing his meditation. (AFP)

Pakistan / Philippines / Asia 07Tuesday, January 8, 2019

ESTABLISHED SEPTEMBER 3, 2006

PRINTED AT ALI BIN ALI PRINTING PRESS

HAMAD BIN SUHAIM AL THANI CHAIRMANADEL ALI BIN ALI MANAGING DIRECTORDR HASSAN MOHAMMED AL ANSARI EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Companies’ Newest Nightmare: Employee ‘Ghosting’

HAVE you ever decided you’ve had it with a relationship? If so, you probably know what ‘ghosting’ is all about -- you cut off all commu-nications with someone who keeps

trying to reach you -- hoping that they will eventually give up and go away.

Ghosting has long been a ‘thing’ with people on social media. But now it’s mi-grated to the workplace -- what LinkedIn dubs ‘ghosting at work’.

People schedule interviews and don’t show up; they make it through the in-terview process get a job offer and ghost them; and they say they’ve accepted the of-fer and never show up at work and refuse to respond to the company’s follow up.

But that’s not all. People who have worked at a company for a while just stop showing up to work. They get emails, let-ters, and calls from their manager and peers and they fail to respond. Eventually the em-ployer has to terminate the employee.

The practice has become so rampant that it even found its way into the Federal Reserve Bank’s latest report on the state of

the US economy.The Fed’s Summary of Commentary

on Current Economic Conditions by Fed-eral Reserve District, noted “A number of contacts said that they had been ‘ghosted,’ a situation in which a worker stops coming to work without notice and then is impos-sible to contact.”

I wonder where employees got the idea that ghosting their companies was a good idea. Obviously, it’s something younger workers are used to from their dating lives. But decades before Facebook, it was wide-ly practiced by employers.

For example, the last time I was look-ing for a job -- many decades ago, I would mail resumes to companies, call to set up an interview, and never get a response. Companies did not even bother to send out rejection letters.

What’s more, if I did get an interview, I would call to learn about next steps. And the company would ignore my messag-es until I got the message that I was not worth an iota more of their time.

It doesn’t take a genius to realise that the player with the upper hand is the one who is in greater demand than the avail-able supply. When the unemployment rate

is above, say, 4 percent the employer is doing the ghosting of job candidates. And when the unemployment rate drops below 4 percent, employees ghost companies.

Last time employees were ghosting em-ployers was in 1999 and early 2000 --right before the dot-com bubble burst. And I think the latest bubble started bursting in October and will continue to get worse in 2019. That means that workers who are ghosting companies today will probably pay a price in 2019 as the job market starts to look much less rosy than it does now.

Nevertheless, I think employers are supposed to be the grownups here and I think they should take action to make tal-

ent want to work in their companies so they won’t get ghosted by their people.

How so? Here are two things employ-ers should do to help ghost-proof their em-ployee base.

1. Create a growth-friendly culture.Culture flows from what the CEO val-

ues. And if the CEO has growth-friendly values, such as respecting talent, deliver-ing competitor-beating value to customers, and innovation, the company will grow.

Lowell, Massachussetts-based work-force management software provider, Kronos, was picked by the Boston Globe as its 2018 best place to work. Its CEO, Aron Ain, visited my Babson College class

in November and he clearly conveyed through its words and deeds that it re-spects its employees.

As one of my students said, “It was compelling to hear from a CEO of a com-pany as large as Kronos who is so invested in his company culture. I am compelled by his trust in his employees. It’s a very re-spectful style of management, and I would be honoured to work there.”

2. Make family a top priority.Most companies expect people to give

up family time to meet corporate goals.So, it was jarring to hear Ain talk about

how he wants his people to make their family, not Kronos, their top priority. One of my students said, “I really appreciated Ain’s advice about not losing sight of what is important to us outside of work. It was very refreshing to hear his perspective on the value of having passions and meaning-ful relationships outside of work.”

Since my students are of the age where they are both familiar with ghosting and about to enter the workforce, their reac-tions bode well for Kronos and companies that can follow its lead.

If these tips don’t ghost-proof your company, the next recession will.

PETER COHAN TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE

A growth-friendly culture in the company and encouraging employees to prioritise family are two steps to avoid the phenomenon of ghosting

Opinion

THE VIEWS EXPRESSED ON THE OPINION AND ANALYSIS PAGES ARE THE AUTHORS’ OWN. QATAR TRIBUNE BEARS NO RESPONSIBILITY.

(Tribune News Service)

MUCH of America’s foreign policy establishment, on both the right and the left, has been in an up-roar over President Trump’s decision to withdraw 2,000 US

troops from Syria. If Trump’s critics are to be believed, it amounts to one of the worst foreign policy blunders in American history, a catastrophe for the nation’s in-terests and influence in the Middle East. Although the president’s failure to consult and coordinate with Congress and allies in making the decision was a head-spin-ning case of diplomatic and political mal-practice, on balance, critics’ fears about the withdrawal are overblown.

Here are five reasons why.The Islamic State ‘caliphate’ isn’t

going to return. Islamic State now con-trols 1 percent of the territory it once held in Syria and Iraq. It has lost thousands of fighters and recruitment is down. Syria is not Iraq in 2011, where Islamic State mili-tants advanced when there were no coun-tervailing forces. The group’s fighters still confront thousands of determined Kurd-ish forces, and Syria, Iran, Israel, Turkey and Russia share a common interest in preventing an Islamic State resurgence. Jihadist attacks in northeast Syria will continue and could certainly contribute to keeping Syria unstable. But a continued US military presence won’t change that, or eliminate the risk of a terrorist attack on the United States. Wiping out Islamic State was never realistic — the political, econom-ic and sectarian grievances that inspire its fighters cannot be eliminated by military means alone, and the Trump administra-tion refuses to invest in stabilisation efforts that might address those issues.

Israel and the Kurds can survive without US troops in Syria. It’s true that the foothold that Iran and its Leba-nese proxy, Hezbollah, have established in Syria threatens Israeli security. But Is-rael can defend itself and is doing so by attacking Iranian and Hezbollah targets in Syria. “Our enemies understand our intelligence and air superiority,” said the Israel Defence Forces chief of staff after Trump’s announcement.

As for the Kurds, US officials always made it clear that Washington viewed its partnership with these fighters as trans-actional, temporary and tactical. It simply isn’t in US interests to help carve out the autonomous enclave the Kurds seek in northeast Syria. That fight could lead to a direct military confrontation with Syrian President Bashar al Assad’s forces or with NATO ally Turkey, which sees the Syrian Kurds, allied as they are with the militant Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, as a mortal enemy. The major actors, includ-ing Turkey, have an interest in avoiding an all-out battle with the Kurds, who, in the wake of Trump’s decision, have begun to seek reconciliation with the Assad regime.

Vital US interests won’t be sac-rificed when the troops are with-drawn. The United States doesn’t have vital interests in Syria. This was true under President Obama just as it is under Trump. Yes, the Syrian war is a proxy conflict be-tween the US and Iran and Russia, and yes the war has had a horrific toll — hundreds of thousands of civilians killed, a massive refugee crisis, cities destroyed, terrorists sent around the world — but neither the White House, Congress nor the American public, after protracted wars in Iraq and Afghanistan support a huge military and economic investment in Syria.

Syria is not a major source of oil. It isn’t an existential threat to Israel. The terrorist threat it poses to the US has been inflated and is better handled by means other than military action. The country is broken, dysfunctional; neither Russia nor Iran will be able to use its influence there to establish hegemony in the Middle East.

As US troops depart, Russia and Iran aren’t left with a win. Iran and Russia will dominate Syria as they have done for years. Both countries have al-ways had a greater strategic stake in Syria than the US and thus were more willing to accept a high price to pro-tect their interests there. Now both will struggle with the difficulties of pacify-ing and reconstructing a war-torn state. With American forces in place, Putin and the Iranians could leave some of the dirty

work of confronting the remnants of Is-lamic State to Washington; no longer. And with the US, a common adversary, gone, tensions between Iran and Rus-sia could rise. The more Syria becomes a burden for Russia and Iran, the better for the United States.

American credibility hasn’t been destroyed. Any damage to the US stems from our own reckless rhetoric and con-fused policy in Syria — we never commit-ted to ousting Assad, pushing out Iran or helping the Syrian Kurds realise their po-litical goals. Other US allies and partners will judge America’s support based on how the US responds to them individu-ally, not on how Washington has behaved in a country where it has no vital interests.

Two US presidents have failed to come up with an effective policy toward Syria and the Syrian civil war. Withdraw-ing 2,000 US forces from a battlefield in which other powers have the will and re-sources to prevail may make Syria even messier than it is now. But keeping US military forces in place with no serious, long-term strategy or attainable objec-tives to guide them would not make the situation significantly better. Syria was never America’s to win or lose, and get-ting out now is not a catastrophe.

(Aaron David Miller has been a State Department advisor in

Republican and Democratic ad-ministrations. Richard Sokolsky,

a non-resident senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for

International Peace, worked in the secretary of State’s Office of Policy Planning from 2005 -15.)

The US President Made The Right Call On Syria

AARON MILLER AND RICHARD SOKOLSKY | TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE

Keeping a military presence in a war-torn nation without serious, long-term strategy or attainable objectives would not make the situation significantly better

THIS past year was a bad one for China’s religious believers, particularly Chris-tians and Muslims. In January, military police closed a church in the province of

Shanxi that had some 50,000 congregants — not by locking the doors but by dynamit-ing the building. In December, the govern-ment seized a church in the city of Chengdu, arresting the pastor and more than 100 of his parishioners, some of whom said they were beaten.

Both churches were guilty of operating without official permission under a new set of regulations designed to tighten the Chi-nese government’s control of religion in all its forms. The organisation Human Rights Watch says hun-dreds of unauthorised churches have been de-molished in a campaign “to ensure that religious groups support the gov-ernment and the Commu-nist Party.”

The Catholic Church has been forced into an uncomfortable accommodation to keep operating in China. Under an agreement reached in September, Pope Francis ac-cepted seven bishops appointed by the gov-ernment and gained a veto over the bishops Beijing chooses in the future.

It’s not just organised Christianity that has been targeted. Individual belief also is under attack. In April, the government barred online merchants from selling the Bible, which may now be purchased only at church stores.

President Donald Trump is not known for his fervour on the topic of human rights, but his administration has made a com-mendable priority of focusing attention on Beijing’s hostility toward religion. In Sep-tember, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo denounced “an intense new government crackdown on Christians in China.” In Oc-tober, Vice President Mike Pence raised the issue again, asserting, “For China’s Chris-tians, these are desperate times.”

It may seem natural for a US administra-tion that has much support from evangeli-

cal conservatives to highlight the mistreat-ment of Christians. But it also has decried persecution of Muslims, some 1 million of whom are held in re-education camps in the province of Xinjiang. Human Rights Watch says, “The authorities have effectively out-lawed Islam in the region.” In September, the White House indicated it was consider-ing sanctions on individual Chinese officials involved in the crackdown.

No faith is exempt from official interfer-ence and control. “All of the five religions officially tolerated by Chinese leaders — Buddhism, Catholicism, Daoism, Islam and

Protestantism — are now experiencing draconian treatment from the govern-ment of President Xi Jin-ping,” reported The Wash-ington Post.

Communist regimes have long aimed at stamp-ing out religion, which they see as a dangerous rival for the allegiance of their peo-ple. But Beijing has seen the number of Christians grow

by about 10 percent per year since 1979, ac-cording to the Council on Foreign Relations — to as many as 130 million. In a decade or so, China could have the world’s larg-est population of Christians. Such growth “makes the government very nervous,” University of Notre Dame political scientist Karrie Koesel told the Post. “It’s not because they’re challenging the state, but the state sees religion as an existential threat.”

Religious freedom, however, is a vital human right that deserves to be respected even in authoritarian countries. The Trump administration can’t dictate what the Chi-nese government does toward its religious citizens, but it can make sure that the world is fully aware of its abuses — and that at least some of the abusers pay a price.

The Beijing regime, meanwhile, ought to consider whether it really wants to be the enemy of those at home and abroad who find meaning and understanding in faith — whether Christian, Muslim or any other. History shows that religions always outlast governments.

China’s Crackdown On Religion

Religious freedom is a vital human right that deserves to be respected by all societies and countries

The Trump administration can’t dictate what the Chinese government does toward its religious citizens, but it can make sure that the world is fully aware of its abuses — and that at least some of the abusers pay a price

The terrorist threat Syria poses to the US has been inflated and is better handled by means other than military action

08 Tuesday, January 8, 2019

TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE

IT’S official: Fentanyl now ranks as the most deadly drug in America, health of-ficials said Wednesday.

The synthetic opioid that’s up to 50 times more

powerful than her-oin was responsible for 18,335 overdose deaths in 2016, more than any oth-er drug, the Nation-al Center for Health Statistics said in a new report.

By compari-son, heroin, the drug that previ-ously held the No. 1 spot, caused 15,961 overdose deaths in 2016, the most re-cent year included in the new study released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Officials said fentanyl deaths skyrock-eted over the five-year period included in the new report that analyzed death certifi-cates.

Fentanyl was mentioned in the death

records of approximately 1,600 people in 2011 and 2012. That number hovered around 1,919 in 2013, then more than dou-bled to 4,223 in 2014 and jumped again to 8,251 in 2015, the new report said.

The drug has been linked to many high-profile fatalities, includ-ing the accidental over-dose deaths of Prince, Tom Petty, former Wilco band member Jay Ben-nett and rappers Lil Peep and Mac Miller.

Overall, drug over-dose deaths have spiked during the last decade, researchers found.

From 2011 through 2016, the number of drug overdose deaths increased by 54 percent in the U.S., from 41,340 deaths in 2011 to 63,632 deaths in 2016, accord-

ing to the report.Oxycodone ranked as the deadliest

drug in 2011. It was replaced by heroin from 2012 to 2015.

The new report found 29 percent of all overdose deaths in 2016 involved fentanyl.

Throughout the study period, cocaine

ranked second or third among the top 15 deadliest drugs.

From 2014 through 2016, the number

of drug overdose deaths involving cocaine nearly doubled from 5,892 to 11,316.

The report also found that approxi-

mately 70 percent of drug overdose deaths linked to fentanyl or heroin involved at least one other specific drug.

ALI TORKAMANI AND ERIC TOPOL

IN early 2018, it was estimated that over 12 million people had had their DNA analyzed by a direct-to-consumer genetic test. A few months later, that num-

ber had grown to 17 million. Mean-while, geneticists and data scientists have been improving our ability to convert genetic data into useful insights--forecasting which people

are at triple the average risk for heart attack, or iden-

tifying women who are at high risk for breast

cancer even if they don’t have a fam-

ily history or a BRCA gene mu-tation. Paral-lel advances have dramati-cally changed the way we search for and make sense of vol-

umes of data, while smartphones continue their unrelenting march toward becoming the de facto portal through which we access data and make informed decisions.

With a few exceptions, the ge-netic tests used today detect only uncommon forms of disease. The tests identify rare variants in a sin-gle gene that causes the disease.

But most diseases aren’t caused by variants in a single gene. Often a hundred or more changes in genetic letters collectively indicate the risk of common diseases like heart at-tack, diabetes, or prostate cancer. Tests for these types of changes have recently become possible, and they produce what is known as your “polygenic” risk score. Poly-genic risk scores are derived from the combination of these variants, inherited from your mother and father, and can point to a risk not manifest in either parent’s family history. We’ve learned from stud-ies of many polygenic risk scores for different diseases that they provide insights we can’t get from tradition-al, known risk factors such as smok-ing or high cholesterol (in the case

of heart attack). Your polygenic score doesn’t represent an una-

voidable fate--many people who live into their 80s and 90s may harbor the risk for a disease without ever actu-ally getting it. Still, these scores could change how we view certain diseases and help us understand our

risk of contracting them.A polygenic risk score

might tell you that you’re at high risk

for breast cancer and spur you to get more intensive screening.

Genetic tests for rare forms of disease caused by a single gene typi-cally give a simple yes or no result. Polygenic risk scores, in contrast, are on a spectrum of probability from very low risk to very high risk. Since they’re derived from combina-tions of genome letter changes that are common in the general popula-tion, they’re relevant to everybody. The question is whether we’ll find a way to make proper use of the in-formation we get from them. Can

they inform us about changes to our lifestyle, or point to medications we should take or a screening test

we should get, that might im-prove our chances of staying

healthy?Statin drugs are a

good case study for this. They’re widely used, even though 95% of the people taking them who haven’t had heart disease or stroke get no benefit aside from a nice cholesterol lab test. We can use a polygenic risk score to re-duce unneces-

sary statin use, which not only is ex-pensive but also carries health risks such as dia-betes. We know that

if you are in the top 20%

of polygenic risk for heart at-

tack, you’re more than twice as likely to benefit from statins as people in the bottom

20%; these people can also benefit greatly from improving their lifestyle (stop smoking, exercise more, eat more vegetables). So knowing your polygenic risk might cause you to take statins but also make some lifestyle changes. (And a recent large-scale study in Finland showed that peo-ple with high heart-risk

scores responded with lifestyle im-provements at a much higher rate than those with low risk scores.)

And it’s not just about heart dis-ease. A polygenic risk score might tell you that you’re at high risk for breast cancer and spur you to get more intensive screening and avoid certain lifestyle risks. It might tell you that you’re at high risk for co-lon cancer, and therefore you should avoid eating red meat. It might tell you that you’re at high risk for type 2 diabetes, and therefore you should watch your weight.

Yet despite growing evidence that polygenic risk scores are im-portant, until recently there was no service allowing people to determine their own scores, even if they had in-vested in their own personal direct-to-consumer genetic profiling. We’re at-tempting to remedy that through the development of MyGeneRank, a free mobile app that estimates users’ poly-genic risk for heart attack and stroke from their own genetic data. It also al-lows them to participate in a clinical trial to measure the influence of poly-genic risk information on people’s behavior, as reported by them, and their heath data, captured by mobile sensors linked to their smartphones.

There are still some issues and controversies we need to deal with. Equal access is one major concern--especially given that the majority of genetic studies have been performed in populations of European ances-try. For now, it appears that the more powerful the predictions be-come, the less accurate they become with other populations.

In addition, genetic risk informa-tion is likely to make some people feel anxious or fatalistic (or might give others a false sense of security). Previous studies suggest that genetic risk information has a minimal influ-ence on these psychological states, but many of those studies were done when the variations in risk you could get via polygenic factors were mar-ginal. As our ability to separate peo-ple into increasingly different classes of genetic risk gets better, these is-sues may become more prominent.

Another challenge will be to con-vince people to forgo or delay medi-cal interventions if they have a low risk of a certain condition. This will require them to agree that they’re better off accepting a very low risk of a catastrophic outcome rather than needlessly exposing themselves to a medical treatment that has its own risks. People tend to overesti-mate the likelihood of catastrophic events, so if polygenic scores are to achieve their full impact on health outcomes and health-care spending, we’ll need to find a way to effectively communicate those trade-offs.

And finally there are the privacy concerns. We need to maintain our current protections against genetic discrimination so that people can benefit from their own genetic in-formation without having to worry that insurance companies will get access to that information and use it to raise their rates or denycoverage.

You can’t change your genetic risk. But you can use lifestyle and medical interventions to offset that risk. We can accelerate breast can-cer screening for women with a high risk for the disease, and help people with borderline risk of heart disease to make decisions about whether to take statins or not.

(TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE)

HEALTH09Tuesday, January 8, 2019

Geneticists and data scientists have been improving our abil-ity to convert ge-

netic data into useful insights--forecasting which people are at

triple the average risk for heart attack, or identifying women who are at high risk

for breast cancer even if they don’t have a family history or a

BRCA gene mutation.

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HOW YOUR DETAILED GENETIC PROFILE CAN PREDICT YOUR RISK OF DISEASES AND IMPROVE YOUR HEALTH

The synthetic opioid that’s up to 50 times more powerful than heroin was responsible for 18,335

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the National Center for Health Statistics has said

in a new report.

Israel visit by Iraqi officials raises storm

AFPBAGHDAD

VISITS by Iraqi officials to Israel announced by the Jewish state stirred controversy Monday in Iraq, where the deputy parlia-mentary speaker demanded a probe to identify those who crossed a “red line”.

Israel’s foreign ministry said on Twitter on Sunday that three Iraqi delegations visited Israel in 2018, and details were also later released by media. Baghdad does not recognise Is-rael, and is technically in a state of war with it.

First deputy speaker of par-

liament Hassan Karim al-Kaabi called in a statement for “an in-vestigation... to identify those who went to the occupied terri-tory, particularly if they are law-makers”. “To go to the occupied territory is a red line and an extremely sensitive issue for all Muslims”, the statement said.

Kaabi is close to Shiite leader Moqtada Sadr, whose bloc won the largest number of seats in Iraq’s legislative election last year. Israel’s for-eign ministry said on Twitter that the 15 Iraqi visitors were “influential Shiite and Sunni personalities in the country”, but did not give names.

NEWS IN BRIEF

RAFAH: Hamas employees retook control of the border crossing between Gaza and Egypt on Monday after the Palestinian Authority withdrew its own staff, a journalist and Hamas officials said. The PA’s civil affairs authority had on Sunday accused Hamas of “summoning, arresting and abusing our employees”, leading it to conclude that their presence was futile, according to official Palestinian news agency WAFA. A journalist saw Hamas officials at the border crossing’s main gate and inside accompanying offices in southern Gaza on Monday. A Hamas border official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they had taken control “to avoid a vacuum”. (AFP)

Hamas reclaims Egypt border crossing as PA withdrawsBEIRUT: The Kurdish-led force battling the remnants of the Islamic State group in eastern Syria said Monday it captured five foreign militants, including two US citizens. The two Americans, two Pakistanis and an Irishman were part of a cell planning an attack on civilians fleeing the militant group’s last bastion, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said. The SDF has spearheaded the bat-tle against IS in eastern Syria and is close to flushing out the jihadists from their last pocket near the Iraqi border. The force, which receives key support in the air and on the ground from the US military, said in a statement that the militants were captured on December 30. (AFP)

Two Americans among foreign fighters captured by Syrian Kurds

AFPBANGKOK

THE Saudi woman who made a desperate plea for asylum after landing at Bangkok airport has been placed “under the care” of the United Nations refugee agency, a Thai official said late Monday.

Rahaf Mohammed al-Qu-nun said she ran away from her family while travelling in Kuwait because they subject-ed her to physical and psycho-logical abuse.

The 18-year-old said she

had planned to seek asylum in Australia and feared she would be killed if repatriated by Thai immigration officials who stopped her during tran-sit on Sunday.

Thai immigration chief Surachate Hakparn had said Sunday that Qunun was denied entry because of her lack of doc-uments. But he made an abrupt about-face the next day, follow-ing a global media frenzy as the young woman pleaded on Twit-ter for different countries to help her. After announcing that Thailand “will not force her” to

leave, Surachate told report-ers late Monday that Qunun

would be “allowed to stay” after a meeting with officials from the

UN refugee agency UNHCR. “She is under the care of the UNHCR now but we also sent Thai security to help take care (of her),” Surachate told report-ers at Suvarnabhumi airport.

He said Qunun had told UNHCR officials she “wants to stay in Thailand for a while while seeking asylum to a third country”. The agency “will take five days to consider her status” and another five days to arrange for travel, Surachate said, add-ing that he would meet with Saudi diplomats on Tuesday to explain Thailand’s decision.

Saudi teenager put ‘under care’ of UN agency: Thai official

Sisi admits close cooperation with Israel in SinaiDPACAIRO

EGYPT’S President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi has said his military was closely cooperat-ing with Israel in operations against militants in Sinai, in the first acknowledgement by a senior official about such a sensitive issue in Egypt.

“The air force sometimes needs to cross to the Israeli side. And that’s why we have a wide range of coordination with the Israelis,” al-Sissi said in an interview with the “60 Minutes” programme broad-cast on CBS News on Sunday.

When asked if it was the deepest and closest coopera-

tion that Egypt ever had with Israel, Sisi replied: “That is correct.” Prior to the broadcast of the interview, the network said the Egyptian government tried to stop it going on air.

Responding to a question about why his government could not wipe out terrorists from Sinai with more than 1 billion dollars in US military aid every year, the Egyptian president said:

“And why hasn’t the US eliminated the terrorists in Afghanistan after 17 years and spending 1 trillion dollars?” Egypt has seen a spate of at-tacks targeting security forces, mainly in northern Sinai, since the army’s 2013 overthrow of

Islamist president Moham-med Morsi.

Al-Sissi denied reports by Human Rights Watch that there are 60,000 political pris-oners in Egypt.

“I don’t know where they got that figure,” he told pre-senter Scott Pelley in the in-terview.

“I said there are no politi-cal prisoners in Egypt. When-ever there is a minority try-ing to impose their extremist ideology, we have to intervene regardless of their numbers,” he added.

Al-Sissi, a former general, has been leading a crackdown on secular and Islamist oppo-sition figures since 2013.

AFPWASHINGTON

PRESIDENT Donald Trump on Monday sought to end fears of an abrupt US pullout from Syria, saying the fight against the Islamic State group was not over and that withdrawal would be done in a “prudent” manner.

“We will be leaving at a proper pace while at the same time continuing to fight ISIS and doing all else that is prudent and necessary!” Trump tweeted.

The president has come under withering pressure both at home and in allied capitals after previous statements indi-cating that he considered the IS group vanquished and that he wanted US troops out of Syria imminently.

Trump’s new statement follows a trip by his national

security adviser John Bolton to Israel in which he told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday that withdrawal would not happen before “ISIS is defeated and not able to re-vive itself.” The reassurances

followed a diplomatic storm caused by Trump’s surprise announcement in Decem-ber that appeared to signal a rapid withdrawal from Syria, where US special forces play an important role in support-

ing local forces fighting IS.“We’ve won against ISIS,”

he said at the time. “We’ve beaten them and we’ve beaten them badly. We’ve taken back the land. And now it’s time for our troops to come back

home.” Allies like Britain and France warned that IS was not defeated. Questions were also raised over the fate of Kurdish groups that have done much of the fighting alongside the Unit-ed States in Syria, but now fear attacks from Turkey.

The initial pullout promise also sparked outspoken op-position from within Trump’s Republican party and the res-ignation of respected defense secretary James Mattis. In Monday’s statement, Trump complained that media cover-age had skewed his original words, saying that his latest po-sition on Syria was “no different from my original statements.”

Currently, about 2,000 US forces are in the Syria, which is in the grips of a complex civil war. Most of the US soldiers are there to train local forces fighting the hardcore-Islamist IS.

US troops pullout from Syria to be done ‘prudently’: Trump

US President Donald Trump speaks to the media as he returns from Camp David to the White House in Washington, US, on Sunday. (REUTERS)

Trump’s new statement follows a trip by his national security adviser John Bolton to Israel

AFPKHARTOUM

MORE than 800 protesters have been arrested in anti-government demonstrations held across Sudan since last month, a minister said Mon-day, as hundreds gathered at a rally backing President Omar al-Bashir.

Interior Minister Ahmed Bilal Osman on Monday gave details to parliament of arrests made during the protests and violence that marked several rallies.

“The total number of pro-testers arrested until now is 816,” Osman said.

The figure was the first given by officials for those detained since the rallies erupted initially in towns and villages and later spread to the capital Khartoum.

Osman told lawmakers there had been a total of 381 protests reported since De-cember 19.

He said that 118 build-

ings were destroyed in the protests, including 18 that belonged to police, while 194 vehicles were set on fire in-cluding 15 that belonged to international organisations.

Protests broke out when the government raised the price of a small loaf of bread from one Sudanese pound to three (from two to six US cents).

On Monday, crowds of protesters gathered in the Red Sea city of Port Sudan but they were quickly dispersed by riot police, witnesses said.

As the anti-government unrest rumbled on, the first rally backing Bashir was held in the eastern city of Kassala.

Hundreds of people from Kassala and neighbouring towns and villages gathered in front of the local governo-rate to express their support for Bashir. Several supporters were carrying banners that read “Bashir, we want you to stay”, witnesses said.

“We want Bashir as presi-dent in order to maintain security in the country,” Mo-hameddin Issa, a resident of Kassala participating in the rally said by telephone.

“Security is the top prior-ity, after that comes food...but I also believe that the problem of food will be solved soon.” Bashir’s supporters also took to social networks Twitter and Facebook to back the rally in Kassala.

“The rally in Kassala shows how popular the gov-ernment is and how safe the country is,” Ibrahim al-Sid-diq, spokesman of NCP wrote in a post online.

Sudan rally in support of President Bashir as 800 protesters arrested

Saudi teen Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun is seen with Thai immigration authorities at a hotel inside Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok, Thailand on Monday. (REUTERS)

IS suicide bomber kills 5 in Syria’s Raqa: MonitorBEIRUT: An Islamic State group suicide bomber attacked a centre for Kurdish forces in the northern Syrian city of Raqa on Monday, killing four civilians and an anti-jihadist fighter, a monitor said. The attacker blew himself up after entering the centre run by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

“A suicide attacker wearing an explosives belt blew himself up inside a YPG centre after opening fire on a security check-point at its entrance,” Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said. At least four civilians and a YPG fighter were killed in the attack, he added. The YPG forms the backbone an alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters called the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) battling to expel IS from its last redoubt in eastern Syria. IS claimed responsibility for the attack they said targeted a “recruitment centre” for Kurdish forces. (AFP)

Sudan President Omar al-Bashir.

Fresh Israeli strikes on Hamas targets in GazaJERUSALEM: The Israeli army said Monday it had carried out further air raids against Hamas positions in the Gaza Strip in response to a rocket being fired over its border.

The Israeli air defence system intercepted the rocket which was fired overnight from the Hamas-ruled coastal enclave, the army said. Planes and a helicopter gunship then raided “terror targets within the organisation’s military camp in the northern Gaza Strip,” the statement said.

A Hamas security official in Gaza said that Israeli aircraft carried out three raids, targeting a position of the armed wing of the movement near Beit Lahia in the north of the Palestinian enclave without causing any casualties.

The latest raids follow strikes by the Israeli army on two Hamas posts on Sunday, after balloons carried an explosive device over the border fence. (AFP)

(File photo) Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas meets his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in the Egyptian capital Cairo.

Trump’s security adviser arrives in Turkey for talks over SyriaISTANBUL: US President Donald Trump’s security adviser John Bolton has arrived in Turkey for eagerly awaited Syria talks, state news agency Anadolu reported Monday.

Bolton is accompanied by Chief of Staff Joseph Dunford and the Syria representative of the US government, James Jeffrey, who is also the new special envoy for the fight against the terrorist militia Islamic State.

Talks with Turkish presidential spokesman and security adviser Ibrahim Kalin, Defence Minister Hulusi Akar and intelligence chief Hakan Fidan were originally scheduled for Tuesday.

On the agenda are, inter alia, the role of Turkey in the fight against Islamic State after the an-nounced withdrawal of US troops from Syria and a planned Turkish offensive against Kurdish troops in northern Syria.

Prior to his arrival in Turkey, Bolton had stressed that the US wanted protection guarantees from Turkey for the Kurds fighting in Syria.

The US delegation is due to leave on Tuesday. (DPA)

Gulf / Middle East10 Tuesday, January 8, 2019

New California Governor Newsom takes the helm

REUTERSSACRAMENTO

DEMOCRAT Gavin Newsom will be sworn in as California’s 40th governor on Monday, ce-menting the dominance of his party’s progressive wing and ushering in a leftward shift that could give the most populous US state an even greater role as a counterweight to the policies of Republican President Donald Trump.

Newsom, who led efforts to legalize same-sex marriage and was the political force behind the state’s decision to legalize marijuana, sweeps into office with a three-fourths Democratic majority in the state legislature, dominance that could make the state a bellwether as the national party jockeys to find a candidate to run against Trump in 2020.

“Californians will be looking to Governor Newsom to pro-vide leadership in areas where there are differences in policy between California and Wash-ington, areas like immigration, environment and health,” said Mark Baldassare, president of the Public Policy Institute of California, a nonpartisan poll-ing and analysis think tank.

A former mayor of San Francisco, Newsom, 51, is ex-pected to seek universal health-care coverage, push the state to offer free preschool and community college, and con-tinue California’s opposition to Trump’s nationalist stance on immigration.

In 2004, he ordered the city-county clerk of San Fran-cisco to issue marriage licences to same-sex couples, sparking legal battles.

ISTANBUL: Six people have lost their lives after a ship sank off the Turkish Black Sea coast. Another seven of the 13 people on board were rescued, the state news agency Anadolu reported on Monday. Ac-cording to the news agency DHA, the rescuers used two boats, four helicopters and one plane. The freighter fly-ing the Panamanian flag had sunk for as yet unknown reasons at 8 am (0500 GMT) about 130 kilometres off the coast of the province of Samsun. (DPA)

Six dead after ship sinks off Turkish coast

KIEV: Ukraine’s newly cre-ated independent Orthodox Church held its first service in Kiev on Monday after a historic break with the Russian Orthodox Church that has enraged Moscow. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko attended the service in Kiev’s most an-cient church, the 11th-centu-ry Saint Sophia’s Cathedral. The service came a day after the Orthodox Patriarch Bar-tholomew based in Istanbul handed over a formal decree that finalised recognition of Ukraine’s new Church. (AFP)

Ukraine church holds ‘historic’ first service

THE HAGUE: Dutch officials will provide free legal advice to relatives of those killed in the downing of flight MH17 over Ukraine for damages claims, the country’s jus-tice minister said Monday. Justice Minister Ferd Grap-perhaus also said a joint investigation into the tragedy was nearing completion. The Malaysia Airlines jet was shot down over war-torn eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014, killing all 298 on board. The Boeing 777 passenger jet was hit by a Russian-made BUK missile. (AFP)

Dutch to give free legal aid for MH17 claims

DUSSELDORF: A church in the German city of Solingen has blocked the deportation of an Iranian man by allow-ing him to stay on its prem-ises under church asylum. The church called on people to come for an early morn-ing service at 5 am (0400 GMT) on Monday in order to show solidarity and prevent authorities from entering the church to arrest the man, who is Christian. THE church argued that the man had a right to asylum because Christians are persecuted in Iran. (DPA)

Church blocks deportation of asylum-seeker

News in brief AFP

VATICAN CITY

POPE Francis vowed justice for victims of clerical sex abuse Monday, describing paedophil-ia as one of the “vilest” crimes ahead of a historic global meet on the crisis roiling the church.

“I cannot refrain from speaking of one of the plagues of our time, which sadly has also involved some members of the clergy,” he said in his an-nual address to ambassadors to the Holy See.

“The abuse of minors is one of the vilest and most heinous crimes conceivable. Such abuse inexorably sweeps away the

best of what human life holds out for innocent children, and causes irreparable and lifelong damage,” he said.

Francis swore to “render justice to minors”, and said a meeting of the world’s bish-ops in February was “meant to be a further step in the church’s efforts to shed full light on the facts and to allevi-ate the wounds caused by such crimes”.

A litany of child sexual abuse scandals has rocked the Catholic church, which has 1.3 billion followers around the world. In December the pontiff had vowed the church would never again treat abuse allega-tions without “seriousness and promptness”, calling on abus-ers to hand themselves in to police.

Pope vows justice for victims of abuse

AFPLONDON

BRITISH Prime Minister The-resa May said Monday she was seeking further EU Brexit as-surances in a bid to persuade MPs to back her unpopular deal in a crucial vote next week, while the bloc repeated it would not renegotiate.

Parliament returned from its Christmas break ready to resume debating the with-drawal deal struck in Novem-ber, before a vote in the House of Commons next week, possi-bly on January 15.

May postponed the vote last month because of intense opposition to the agreement from MPs, but there is little sign yet of the clarifications she promised to secure from EU leaders.

The stakes could hardly be higher as the clock ticks down to Brexit on March 29, when Britain, the world’s fifth-big-

gest economy, splits from its main trading partner.

“We are continuing to work on further assurances, on further undertakings from the European Union,” May said after talks with the Dutch, French, German, Spanish and EU leaders over the holidays.

A government source said these assurances may not be ready before MPs resume debating the Brexit deal on Wednesday, but are expected by the time of the vote.

However Margaritis Schi-nas, the spokesman for the European Commission, said:

“There are no negotiations, because all we have on the ta-ble is what we consider given, acquired and approved.”

He added: “We must await events, the ratification process on the British side.”

The Brexit deal took nearly two years to negotiate and only covers separation issues, leaving open the future rela-tionship, but it has provoked anger on all sides in London.

May survived a confidence vote in her own party over the agreement in December, but her Brexit-backing MPs are still in open revolt, while the opposition Labour party is an-gling for new elections.

May warned on Sunday that rejecting her deal next week would put Britain “in un-charted territory”.

Labour wants to renegoti-ate the agreement, but some Brexit supporters say there is nothing to be feared from leav-ing the EU with no deal at all.

Seeks further EU assurances to persuade lawmakers to back the deal

British Prime Minister Theresa May speaks during the launch of the NHS long-term plan in Liverpool, Britain, on Monday. (REUTERS)

PM May resumes Brexit battle ascrucial vote looms

AFPLOS ANGELES

BOHEMIAN Rhapsody pulled off a major upset at the close of the Golden Globes on Sunday, taking home the fi-nal two top prizes to put itself into the Oscars conversation along with Green Book and Roma.

On a night of wins for movies representing minori-ties, two awards favourites about white people -- Dick

Cheney biopic Vice and musi-cal romance A Star is Born -- all but struck out, with each picking up just one trophy in the run-up to the all-impor-tant Oscars on February 24.

Bohemian Rhapsody -- which charts the rise of British rock group Queen -- picked up best actor for Rami Malek, who plays legendary frontman Freddie Mercury. It also bagged the biggest movie award of the night -- best drama.

“I am beyond moved. My heart is pounding out of my

chest right now,” said Malek, whose list of people to thank

included the Queen singer, who died in 1991.

“Thank you to Freddie Mercury for giving me the joy of a lifetime. I love you, you beautiful man. This is for and because of you, gorgeous.”

The two trophies were the final prizes in a ceremony that had been expected to be a consecration for A Star is Born -- starring Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper in the age-old Hollywood fable of an ailing performer and his muse -- which went into the night with five nods.

Star had to content itself with a statuette for best song, which went to Gaga and writ-

ing partner Mark Ronson, while Christian Bale -- who plays Cheney -- picked up the solo gong for Vice.

Civil rights dramedy Green Book was the nu-merical winner -- if not the prestige player -- picking up awards for best comedy movie, best supporting ac-tor Mahershala Ali and best screenplay. The boozy gala at the Beverly Hilton also recognized Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma, a cinematic ode to his childhood in 1970s Mexico City, with best director and foreign film honors, while seven movies bagged one statuette each.

Bohemian Rhapsody rocks Golden Globes with surprise coda

Bohemian Rhapsody winner Rami Malek (centre) poses with Queen band members Roger Taylor and Brian May during the 76th annual Golden Globes Awards in California. (AFP)

Trump to visit US-Mexico border on Thursday

AFPWASHINGTON

PRESIDENT Donald Trump will visit the US-Mexican bor-der this week, his spokeswom-an said Monday, in the latest bid to pressure Congress over border wall negotiations that have led to a partial govern-ment shutdown.

He will “travel to the South-ern border on Thursday to meet with those on the front-lines of the national security and humanitarian crisis,” Sa-rah Sanders said in a tweet.

There was no further infor-mation on where Trump would travel. The visit was announced as the White House and Dem-ocrats controlling the lower house of Congress refused to cede significant ground in what has become one of the biggest

political challenges of Trump’s turbulent presidency.

Trump is demanding more than $5 billion to fund construction of what he calls a “wall” to stop illegal immi-grants. Democrats have dis-missed the project as a political stunt.

In retaliation Trump has refused to sign a wider spend-ing package -- leaving swaths of the government without fund-ing and hundreds of thousands of employees facing delays in their paychecks.

The standoff has morphed from a debate over how to stem illegal immigration to a pow-erplay between the president and a Democratic Party en-joying control of the House of Representatives following their victory in November’s midterm legislative elections.

11Tuesday, January 8, 2019

Kevin Spacey denies abuse allegations

AFPNANTUCKET

KEVIN Spacey pleaded not guilty Monday to indecently as-saulting a teenager who alleged that the Oscar-winning US actor groped him in a bar in Massa-chusetts in 2016.

The “House of Cards” star, who faces five years in prison if convicted, is accused of repeat-edly reaching down into the pants of a man identified as Wil-liam Little, who was 18 at the time of the alleged attack at a Nantucket restaurant.

Spacey, dressed in a gray coat over a dark blazer and tie, was not asked for his plea dur-ing the brief arraignment in a crowded Nantucket courtroom, but his lawyer entered the denial on Spacey’s behalf.

A follow-on hearing was scheduled for March 4, but Spacey is not required to attend. The 59-year-old actor stood quietly with his hands clasped as the clerk read out the charge “that in the town of Nantucket on July 18, 2016 (the defendant) did commit indecent assault and battery on someone 14 and over.”

The case marks the first time Spacey has faced sexual miscon-duct charges, although there are dozens of claims against him.

Venezuelan top court judge flees country

AFPCARACAS

VENEZUELA’S Supreme Court said Sunday a justice who sat on a panel that deals with electoral issues has fled the country, reportedly to Florida.

The high court said it has opened an investigation into the justice, Christian Zerpa, over allegations he sexually harassed women who worked in his office.

But Venezuelan journal-ists based in the United States linked the defection to Presi-dent Nicolas Maduro’s contro-versial attempt to be sworn in this week to a second six-year term.

Journalist Carla Angola, who said she interviewed Zer-pa, reported he was in Florida and was prepared to cooperate with US prosecutors investi-gating Venezuelan corruption and human rights violations.

News of the defection came a day after the opposition-controlled National Assembly declared Maduro’s presidency to be illegitimate and called for a transitional government to organize democratic elections.

Maduro was re-elected May 20 in presidential elec-tions called by a regime-backed Constituent Assembly and boycotted by the opposition, many of whose best-known leaders were under house ar-rest or barred from running.

Italy populist leaders back ‘yellow vest’ protestsAFPROME

THE two leaders of Italy’s rul-ing populist coalition on Mon-day threw their support behind the “yellow vest” protesters roiling neighbouring France.

“Yellow vests, do not weak-en!” Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio, who heads the anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S), wrote on his party’s blog.

He denounced the French government for protecting the elite and the privileged.

Matteo Salvini, his coun-terpart from the far-right, the anti-immigrant League, also

backed the “yellow vest” pro-testers.

“I support honest citizens protesting against a president

who governs against his peo-ple,” Salvini said in a state-ment, while “firmly” condemn-ing recent protest violence.

Pope Francis.

Boxer held for assaulting police PARIS: French police on Monday arrested a former professional box-er seen punching officers during a “yellow vest” demonstration in Paris, as the government prepared to announce a new tough line on violent protests. In shocking images filmed on Saturday, a heavily built man in a black duffel coat can be seen squaring up to several police officers before knocking them down in a hail of punches and then kicking them on the ground. One of the officers is then beaten by other protesters wearing yellow vests before being rescued by fellow riot police in protective equipment and helmets. The ex-box-er, identified by French media as 37-year-old Christophe Dettinger, is a former heavyweight fighter who reportedly works for the local government in the Essonne area south of Paris. (AFP)

Rami Malek named the best actor who plays Freddie Mercury

Truck tests for ‘no-deal’ Brexit

MANSTON: Dozens of trucks took part in a government exer-cise Monday for coping with possible Channel gridlock caused by a no-deal Brexit, assembling on a disused airport runway that could be turned into a giant lorry park. But haulage groups labelled the exercise “too little too late” and “window dressing”, while a local MP said the plan was “too complex” and would cre-ate “enormous confusion” for lorry drivers.

Nearly 100 lorries descended on Manston airfield in south-east England, which has been identified as a possible holding facility under contingency plans for leaving the European Union without a divorce agreement on March 29.

As part of the test, the vehicles then made two trips in convoy to and from the port of Dover -- a 20-mile (32-kilometre) journey -- along a route far less used by trucks than the main highway from London. (AFP)

Europe / Americas

Wall Street takes a breather after Friday’s rally

REUTERS

US stocks treaded water on Monday as investors turned wary of the latest round of US-China trade talks and a pro-longed government shutdown, halting Wall Street’s strong surge from Friday.

The struggle for direction comes after the three major indexes rallied more than 3 percent on Friday follow-ing strong U.S. jobs data and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the central bank was not on a preset interest rate-hike path.

Six of the 11 major S&P sec-tors were lower, led by a 1 per-cent drop in utilities.

The gainers were led by a 1.04 percent jump in consum-er discretionary stocks, driven by Amazon.com Inc and Netf-lix Inc.

China and the United States kicked off talks in Bei-jing on Monday in the first face-to-face meeting since Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping in December agreed to a 90-day truce in the trade war to help strike a deal.

After ominous signs the trade war was taking a toll on U.S. growth, including Apple’s sales warning and weak fac-tory activity data, investors are worried that corporate profits could take a bigger hit than an-ticipated.

“Trade has been one of the big factors, along with the budget stalemate, contributing to the climate of fear that we’re seeing,” said Scott Brown, chief economist at Raymond James in St. Petersburg, Florida.

“We’ve been through this (trade talks) so many times that you’d wonder when the market would get desensitized to it.”

U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said on Monday the two countries were likely to reach a good settlement over immediate trade issues while an agreement on structural trade issues and enforcement will be harder.

SATYENDRA PATHAKDOHA

QATAR’S stock market rose for a third straight session on Monday, boosted by blue chip stocks amid rising oil prices. Oil prices rose by 3 percent on Monday.

Extending its rally from the last year, the Qatar Stock Exchange (QSE) jumped 142 points, or 1.37 percent, to close at 10,494.22 points on Monday.

Blue chip stocks like In-dustries Qatar, Commercial Bank and Ezdan Real Estate gained 3 percent, 4.06 percent and 5.9 percent respectively to lift the main index higher.

Other heavyweight stocks like Qatar National Bank and Qatar Insurance Company also jumped 1.09 percent and 3.16 percent respectively to move the main index upward.

Six of the seven sector in-dices made gains on the day that saw the Qatari bourse’s li-quidity increase to QR333.39 million from QR148.86 mil-lion in the previous session.

The volume of shares trad-ed increased to 18.48 million shares against 10.1 million in the previous session.

The number of trades also increased to 8,593 from 5,680 trades on Sunday.

The real estate sector, which gained 3.66 percent on the back of 5.9 percent rise Ezdan and 3 percent rise in Mazaya Qatar, was the best performing sector index for the day.

The insurance and trans-port sectors, which gained 2.44 percent and 2.05 per-cent respectively, were also instrumental in supporting the main index to continue its gaining trend.

All major constituents of the insurance sector index like Qatar Insurance Com-pany, Doha Insurance and Al Khaleej Takaful Group made impressive gains to make the index the second best per-former for the day.

The transport sector’s gain was driven by all three constituents- Milaha, Gulf Warehousing Company and

Nakilat- which made good gains.

Similarly, the industrial sector also levelled up 2.03 percent as Industries Qatar, Gulf International Services and Aamal Holding Company outperformed.

The banking sector, which gained 1.31 percent, was also instrumental in pushing the index higher.

The telecom sector, which witnessed a marginal decline of 0.33 percent, was the only loser.

The day saw three of the stocks like Investment Hold-ing Group, Salam Interna-

tional and Qatar First Bank rise to almost 10 percent.

Foreign institutional in-vestors remained bullish throughout the day and ac-counted for 43.59 percent of the total buy at the end of the trading session.

The day saw 33 out of the 42 stocks traded close in the positive territory. While eight stocks declined, there was no change in the share price of the remaining one stock.

Despite selling pressure from Qatari investors, both conventional and Islamic stocks remained positive throughout the day.

Qatari bourse’s liquidity increases to QR333.39 million from QR148.86 million

Six of the seven sector indices of QSE made gains on Monday. (FILE PHOTO)

Blue chips push Qatar Stock Exchange 142 points higher

Bullish Blue chip stocks like

Industries Qatar, Commercial Bank and Ezdan Real Estate gained 3 percent, 4.06 percent and 5.9 percent respectively to lift the main index higher

Other heavyweight stocks like QNB and Qatar Insurance Company also jumped 1.09 percent and 3.16 percent respectively


REGISTRATION for this year’s Al-Fikra National Business Competition 2019 is open as Qatar Develop-ment Bank (QDB) sets in motion an elaborate process that will see three best entre-preneurial ideas get the fund-ing and backing to become a reality.

Al-Fikra aims to support entrepreneurship develop-ment in Qatar by identifying

top business ideas of Qatari youths that have the poten-tial to be transformed into successful projects.

The contestants can bene-fit from a series of workshops by Al-Fikra to help them pitch their ideas in a more tactical and professional way.

Since its inception, Al-Fikra has been one of the most important platforms provided by QDB to achieve its mission of helping diversi-fy the national economy and to support Qatar National Vi-

sion 2030.After the registration, all

applicants will go through an initial filtering process from February 17 to 21, 2019. Se-lected applicants will under-go training that will last from February 24 to March 7.

Following this, the con-testants will be given time to revisit and update their ideas based on what they have learned from the training sessions.

The aim of this step is to screen the submitted busi-

ness plans to make sure they comply with the required criteria before handing them over to the jury.

The final will be held on

April 30, where the top eight finalists will present their fi-nal pitches in front of a judg-ing panel for the top three positions.

The top three winners of the competition will be able to benefit from QDB services such as incubation, financ-ing, and ‘Isteshara’, in order to convert their ideas into businesses and other awards.

“The competition intends to develop the business ideas of successful Qatari entre-preneurs and to contribute

to the development of the private sector in Qatar. We also aim to foster the crea-tivity culture in Qatar and to introduce new products and services, which in turn would lead to the emergence of new businesses and hence diversification in the local market,” said QDB CEO Ab-dulaziz bin Nasser al Khalifa.

“We at QDB continuously strive to increase creativity by offering solutions to mar-ket challenges and boosting collaboration among the sec-

tors, knowing that this com-petition is the best platform to achieve our aspirations and support Qatar National Vision 2030,” he added.

This year, Al Fikra will be divided into three cat-egories — the emerging ideas (Al-Fikra Startup) for gen-eral business ideas; (Al-Fikra Mashroie) for university students and (Al-Fikra Chal-lenges) for entrepreneurs. QDB expects to draw close to 150 participants in the com-petition.

QDB launches 7th Al-Fikra National Business CompetitionAl-Fikra aims to support entrepreneurship develop-ment in Qatar by identifying top business ideas of Qatari youths that has the poten-tial to be transformed into successful projects.


QATAR Insurance Group has promoted three of its senior executives. Fahad al Suwaidi has become the Deputy CEO of QIC Qatar Operations; Ahmad M Zebeib the Deputy CEO of QLM Life and Medical WLL, and Ahmed al Jarboey the Senior Vice President of QIC MENA Retail and Motor Claims.

The promotions form an integral part of Qatar Insur-ance’s strategic succession plan, Qatarisation and con-sistent efforts towards the re-alization of the Qatar National

Vision (QNV) 2030.Remaining true to its ob-

jective of being a talent-driven organization, Qatar Insur-ance has always given a lot of weightage to the process of lo-cal talent identification, train-ing and retention process. In fact, it forms an integral part of major strategic decisions to ensure that the focus on talent and competencies is well wo-ven into the success fabric of QICGroup.

A graduate from Saint Leo University, Fahad al Suwaidi completed his Bachelor of Arts in Management in the US. He joined QIC’s Motor Claims department as a Manager and

subsequently was appointed as the Senior Manager. Fa-had was later appointed as the

Senior Manager for Property and Commercial Risks. The following year, Fahad moved

to Marine, Energy and Avia-tion Risks Department.

Fahad has now assumed

responsibility as Deputy CEO of QIC Qatar Operations. He has played a key role in dig-itising procedures to improve efficiency through automation of processes.

A postgraduate from the University of Westminster in London, Ahmad Mohamed Zebeib secured a MA diploma in Marketing. Ahmadstarted his career with Qatar Re and has worked in various depart-ments within the QIC Group. Subsequently, Ahmad was promoted to the position of Vice President for the MENA region and Head of Retail in Qatar. Through his dedication and commitment, Ahmad was

promoted and shifted to QLM Management team. Ahmad has assumed responsibility as the Deputy CEO of QLM Life & Medical WLL.

Ahmed al Jarboey com-pleted his Bachelors in Busi-ness Management from the University of Derby. He start-ed his career in the Retail de-partment of QIC.Later he was appointed as the Managerfor supervising the branches for Retail at QIC. Subsequently he assumed the position of Sen-ior Manager for Motor Claims. Ahmed has now assumed re-sponsibility as the Senior Vice President of QIC MENA Retail and Motor Claims.

Qatar Insurace announces promotion of three senior executives

Ahmad Mohamed Zebeib is the new Deputy CEO QLM Life & Medical WLL

Fahad al Suwaidi is the new Deputy CEO of QIC Qatar Operations

Ahmed al Jarboey is the new Senior Vice President of QIC MENA Retail and Motor Claims

OPEC cuts lift oil prices by 3%, stabilise stock market

REUTERSNEW YORK

OIL prices climbed about 3 percent on Monday, rebound-ing further from 1-1/2-year lows reached in December on support from OPEC produc-tion cuts and steadying equi-ties markets.

Brent crude LCOc1 futures rose $1.47 to $58.53 a bar-rel, a 2.6 percent gain, as of 11:12 a.m. EST (1612 GMT). U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude CLc1 futures rose $1.56 to $49.52 a barrel, a 3.3 percent gain.

Oil futures have gained about 10 percent since last Monday. “Momentum is com-ing back into the market from very depressed price levels,” Petromatrix strategist Olivier Jakob said.

Prices drew support from an agreed supply cut by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, as well as some non-member countries such as Russia and Oman.

OPEC oil supply fell in De-cember by 460,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 32.68 million bpd, a Reuters survey found last week, led by cuts from top exporter Saudi Arabia.

OPEC and its allies are try-ing to rein in a surge in global supply, driven mostly by the United States, where produc-tion surpassed 11 million bpd in 2018. Record high crude oil production has pushed up U.S. inventories.

“The oil market continues to rally as the OPEC and non-OPEC production cuts are tak-ing effect, reducing the over-supply situation that we’ve been seeing in the market,” said Andrew Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates in Houston.

U.S. crude inventories at Cushing, Oklahoma, the de-livery point for U.S. crude fu-tures, fell by 565,000 barrels from last Tuesday to Friday, traders said, citing data from market intelligence firm Gen-scape.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 8, 2019

India forecasts over 7 percent GDP growth PAGE 14

Elon Musk breaks ground on Tesla’s Shanghai factory PAGE 14

DOW QE GOLD

SILVERWTIBRENT

23,667.05+233.89 PTS

1,289.20+0.26%

15.74-0.29%

10,494.22+142.00 PTS

35,850.16+155.06 PTSSENSEX

PRICE PERCENTAGE58.21 +2.02%

PRICE PERCENTAGE49.17 +2.52%

www.facebook.com/QatarTribune

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Dubai residential prices could fall by up to 10% in 2019: Savills CEO

REUTERS DUBAI

RESIDENTIAL real estate prices in Dubai could fall by 5 to 10 percent in 2019, weak-ened by new supply, a strong dollar and lower oil prices, the Middle East chief executive of Savills said on Monday.

Dubai’s over-supplied property market has stead-ily fallen since a mid-2014 peak, hurting earnings of the emirate’s top developers and forcing construction and en-gineering firms to cut jobs and halt expansion plans.

While the latest fall in house prices has not come close to the more than 50 percent plunge seen in 2009-2010, which pushed Dubai itself close to a debt default, residential prices fell by 6 to 10 percent in 2018, Savills’ Steve Morgan said.

And this drop could be re-peated in 2019, he added.

The United Arab Emirates, which Dubai is part of, is ex-periencing its latest real estate slump along with other parts of the Middle East, largely due to oversupply, although a strong dollar and lower oil prices are also a factor.

The UAE dirham is pegged to the dollar, making the coun-try more expensive for those holding other currencies, while oil is a major driver of regional wealth.

Morgan said he was “bull-ish” that Dubai was head-ing towards the bottom of its

property market downturn, although cautioned he had thought the market touched bottom a year earlier.

S&P Global Ratings’ ana-lysts said last year the market could decline by 10 to 15 percent in 2018 and 2019 before stabi-lising in 2020 at the earliest.

AFP WASHINGTON

WORLD Bank President Jim Yong Kim announced Monday he would step down next month, more than three years before his current term was due to ex-pire.

The decision ends Kim’s six-year tenure and may give US President Donald decisive influence over the future leadership of the global development lender.

“It has been a great honor to serve as president of this remarkable institu-tion, full of passionate in-dividuals dedicated to the mission of ending extreme poverty in our lifetime,” Kim said in a statement.

Kim, who became presi-dent in 2012, is to join an as-yet unnamed firm fo-cusing on investments in developing countries, the

bank said in a statement, and will return to the board of Partners-in-Health, which he co-founded.

Under Kim’s leader-ship, the bank set the goal of eliminating extreme pov-erty by 2030 and ramped up financing.

Last year, it also won approval for a sharp $13 billion capital increase af-ter acceding to requests from the Trump admin-istration to curb loans to high-income countries like China.

Kim’s tenure was also marked by high levels of disaffection among World Bank staff, who chafed at a widespread internal re-structuring that Kim began.

World Bank CEO Kristalina Georgieva will serve as interim president upon Kim’s February 1 de-parture, the bank said in a statement.

WB President Kim announces resignation

File photo of Jim Yong Kim, President of the World Bank Group, in California. (REUTERS)

Smaller UAE banks face merger pressureREUTERS

DUBAI

SMALLER banks in the Unit-ed Arab Emirates are facing regulatory pressure to merge after the fallout from a prop-erty downturn forced the state to lead a bailout of Invest Bank last month.

UAE has 50 commercial banks including 22 local lend-ers, a number seen as too high in a country of about 9.5 mil-lion people. Saudi Arabia, which has a population of 32 million, has 12 banks and is set to lose two of those if an-nounced mergers are success-fully concluded.

After two of the UAE’s big-gest lenders, First Gulf Bank and National Bank of Abu Dhabi, merged in 2017 to be-come First Abu Dhabi Bank, three more lenders are in talks to combine, led by Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank.

Analysts expect mergers in

the sector to accelerate given a slowing economy, slide in house prices, robust account-ing standards and tougher competition.

“There will be pressure on the bigger banks to absorb smaller lenders,” said Sabah al-Binali, CEO of Abu Dhabi-based investment firm Uni-versal Strategy.

“People were expecting mergers from an economic point of view, but what you are seeing now is perhaps a greater regulatory push to strengthen balance sheets.”

Smaller banks in the UAE, which are mostly fam-ily owned, have lost market share to the top four lenders, which now control around 65 percent of banking sector loans, according to Fitch. De-spite that, their owners have resisted mergers, partly due to differences over who would control the combined entity.

But one banker, who has

been advising banks on M&A, said there are more merger conversations happening in a sign that owners are becoming more open to consolidation.

“We are party to a number of such conversations and in-stigating a number of those,” the banker said.

In 2009 the UAE rescued its largest banks with billions of dollars of fresh equity with-out forcing losses on share-holders.

Nine years on, with those lenders well capitalised, au-

thorities are tightening the screws on smaller banks, but without the generosity shown to the larger players.

The Sharjah government proposed to buy Invest Bank shares for just 0.70 dirhams ($0.19) each, against the last traded price of 2.40 dirhams, after the central bank ordered it to take losses that wiped out its capital base.

“The central bank has be-come much more involved with all of the banks in ensur-ing (they) have a sustainable business model and the risks they are taking can withstand downside shocks,” said the banker.

A second banker said the central bank had been closely scrutinizing distressed as-sets and challenging banks on their classification assump-tions for such assets, especial-ly in the real estate sector.

The central bank did not respond to a Reuters request

for comment.Mik Kabeya, assistant vice

president at rating agency Moody’s, said smaller banks tended to have higher expo-sure to small and mid-sized corporates, which have been disproportionately affected by the relatively soft economy.

He added that there was a need for scale to meet size-able investment requirements related to compliance, digi-talization and new accounting standards.

The central bank is be-coming increasingly strict with the banks in terms of maintaining minimum capi-tal, liquidity and loan loss reserve levels, said Redmond Ramsdale, senior director, fi-nancial institutions at Fitch Ratings. “Real estate and con-tracting sectors are a large sectorial exposure across all UAE banks. This is putting pressure on asset quality met-rics for all banks.”

UAE has 50 commercial banks including 22 local lenders, a number seen as too high in a country of about 9.5 million people

REUTERS LONDON

SALES of hard currency debt issued by developing nations should bounce back this year after a torrid 2018 for emerg-ing markets, driven by fresh supply from the Middle East, especially Saudi Arabia, Mor-gan Stanley predicted.

Sovereign hard currency gross issuance is expected to rise to $158 billion in 2019 - a

15 percent increase on 2018 - but will remain below the record $674 billion sold in 2017, Morgan Stanley strate-gist Simon Waever said in the bank’s EM sovereign credit outlook for 2019, published on Monday.

A grim combination of a strong dollar, Sino-US trade tensions, central banks turn-ing off the money taps, cooling growth around the globe and crisis in Turkey and Argentina

have battered emerging mar-kets in the past twelve month.

While gross issuance recov-ered, this translated only into a $1 billion increase of net issu-ance year-on-year in 2019 due to emerging markets facing heavy redemptions, Morgan Stanley found, adding overall debt redemptions were rising to $2 trillion in 2019 from $1.4 trillion last year.

Among the issuers, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia are likely to remain large issuers, wrote Waever, expected to sell over $10 billion each. Abu Dhabi and Kuwait could both come with large deals after a hia-

tus in 2018, though battered Argentina will stay out of the market after its 2018 bumper $9 billion deal. Uzbekistan and

Benin meanwhile have both announced they wanted to sell inaugural hard currency bonds.

Among sovereign issuers, oil exporters’ share will grow again, predicted Morgan Stan-

ley, accounting for just over half of 2019 issuance compared to around one third over 2013-2015.

Easing oil prices in the later months of 2018 made many governments’ oil price assumptions look optimistic, it said.

However, cutting back on budgeted expenditure could be tough as there was pressure to boost spending thanks to weak growth or social pressure given the austerity measures under-taken in the past few years by crude exporters.

“This dynamic should keep external issuance reasonably

high,” Morgan Stanley wrote.With emerging market

issues traditionally tapping markets early in the year, 2019 ought to be no exception as gov-ernments face heavy redemp-tions in the second quarter of 2019 and worry about tighter financial conditions through-out the year, wrote Waever.

“Specifically, 17 percent of total issuance historically comes in January,” he wrote. “The Philippines has already announced a benchmark 10y bond deal, and we think that Egypt, Oman and Mexico are likely to issue sooner rather than later.”

Middle East to lift EM sovereign debt sales in 2019: Morgan StanleySovereign hard currency gross issuance is expected to rise to $158 billion in 2019

REUTERS BEIJING

CHINA has the “good faith” to work with the United States to resolve trade frictions, the For-eign Ministry said on Monday as officials of the world’s two largest economies resumed talks in a bid to end their trade dispute.

US officials are meeting their counterparts in Beijing this week for the first face-to-face talks since US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed in December to a 90-day truce in a trade war that has roiled global markets.

Trump said on Sunday that trade talks with China were going very well and that weak-ness in the Chinese economy gave Beijing a reason to work towards a deal.

On Monday, US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told NBC the talks were being held with appropriate-level staff and would help determine how the administration moves forward.

Ross also said he saw “a very good chance that we will get a reasonable settlement that China can live with, that we can live with and that ad-dresses all of the key issues”. He added that it would be easi-est to tackle immediate trade but harder to resolve enforce-ment issues and structural re-forms such as intellectual prop-erty rights and market access.

The two sides agreed to hold “positive and construc-tive” dialogue to resolve eco-nomic and trade disputes in accordance with the consen-sus reached by their respec-tive leaders, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told a regular news briefing.

“From the beginning we have believed that China-US trade friction is not a positive situation for either country or the world economy. China has the good faith, on the basis of mutual respect and equality, to resolve the bilateral trade fric-tions.”

Trump imposed import tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars of Chinese goods last year and has threatened more to pressure Beijing to change its practices on issues ranging from industrial subsidies to in-tellectual property to hacking. China has retaliated with tariffs of its own.

“As for whether the Chi-nese economy is good or not, I have already explained this. China’s development has am-ple tenacity and huge poten-tial,” Lu said. “We have firm confidence in the strong long-term fundamentals of the Chi-nese economy.”

Lu also said Vice President Wang Qishan would attend the annual World Economic Fo-rum in Davos, Switzerland in late January, but added that

he had not yet heard of any ar-rangements for a meeting with Trump there.

By Monday evening, few details had emerged of the trade talks, which were sched-uled to run through Tuesday.

Although the talks were held at a vice ministerial level, Chinese Vice Premier Liu He, who has led trade negotiations with the United States and is a top economic adviser to Xi, made an unexpected appear-ance at the meetings on Mon-day, according to a person fa-miliar with the discussions.

The US delegation, led by Deputy US Trade Representa-tive Jeffrey Gerrish, includes under secretaries from the US departments of agriculture, commerce, energy and treas-ury, as well as senior officials

from the White House.Tu Xinquan, a Chinese

trade expert at Beijing’s Uni-versity of International Busi-ness and Economics, told Reu-ters before talks began that the meetings would likely focus on technical issues and leave ma-jor disagreements to more sen-ior officials.

“China’s economy is signifi-cantly slowing down, and the US stock market is declining quickly. I think the two sides need some kind of agreement for now,” Tu said.

Data last week showed manufacturing has slowed in both China and the United States, though the US Labor Department on Friday re-ported a surge in new jobs in December along with higher wages.

Officials have given scant details on concessions that China might be willing to make to meet US demands, some of which would require structural reforms unpalatable for Chi-nese leaders.

Even if a trade agreement is reached soon, analysts say it would be no panacea for China’s economy, which is ex-pected to continue decelerating in coming months.

China’s stridently national-ist Global Times tabloid said in an editorial late on Sunday that statements from both sides that they hoped to reach a deal were cause for optimism, but that Beijing would not cave in to US demands.

“If China was going to raise the white flag, it would have done it already,” the paper said.

China has ‘good faith’ to fix trade issues with US

Under Secretary for International Affairs David Malpass (left) of the US Department of the Treasury and other members of the US trade delegation to China, in Beijing on Monday. (REUTERS)

US officials are meeting their counterparts in Beijing this week

Dubai realty sector slumps The United Arab Emirates, which Dubai is part of, is experiencing its latest real estate slump along with other parts of the Middle East, largely due to oversupply, although a strong dollar and lower oil prices are also a factor

A grim combination of a strong dollar, Sino-US trade tensions, central banks turning off the money taps, cooling growth around the globe and crisis in Turkey and Argentina have battered emerging markets in the past twelve month.

13Tuesday, January 8, 2019Economy & Business

AFP LONDON

NEW UK car sales slid in 2018 on weak demand for diesel ve-hicles, and will fall further this year on poor consumer confi-dence and Brexit, an industry body said Monday.

Sales sank 6.8 percent to 2.367 million vehicles after a 5.7-percent drop in 2017, the Society of Motor Manufactur-ers and Traders (SMMT) said in a statement. Consumers continued to ditch diesel cars for automobiles seen as more environmentally-friendly.

With Brexit on the horizon in March, the SMMT forecast that the market faces another 2.0-percent decline this year.

“The challenges before us are something of a perfect storm,” said SMMT chief ex-ecutive Mike Hawes.

“It’s causing considerable

worry and agitation across boardrooms both in the UK and abroad.”

He added it would be “un-fair” to attribute the entire sales drop to Brexit fears but cautioned that falling con-sumer confidence had curbed people’s desire to make a “big ticket purchase”.

Some diesel vehicle own-ers are switching to petrol or alternatively fuelled vehicles, but most are keeping their ex-isting cars owing to uncertain-ty over how they will be taxed, the SMMT noted.

Britain is scheduled to leave the European Union on March 29.

Since Britain voted to leave the bloc in June 2016, a drop in sterling – making imported goods more expensive – has fuelled inflation and put a major squeeze on household budgets.

UK car sales slide in 2018 before Brexit

Geely sees sales growth evaporating

REUTERS BEIJING

CHINA’S most globally high-profile and successful car-maker, Geely, is forecasting flat sales this year, a sharp slowdown from 2018 as the country’s giant auto market struggles with slowing eco-nomic growth and more cau-tious consumers.

Geely Automobile Hold-ings, the main listed unit of the Geely empire which owns Volvo Cars and Proton, post-ed sales growth of 20 percent in 2018.

That was despite a slide in sales at a host of other car-makers and forecasts that last year was the first in decades to see a fall in sales in China’s overall car market.

The gloomy forecast for 2019 highlights how the year is likely to be tough for all carmakers, including General Motors and Great Wall Motor.

Geely said in a filing that despite its growth last year, it had missed a sales target of 1.58 million cars by around 5 percent.

Its sales started to slow in the last quarter of 2018, with a 44 percent drop in December alone, according to monthly sales data filings.

Some other domestic and international firms have flagged a sharp drop in de-mand in China at the end of last year, including Apple, which cut its global sales fore-cast due to Chinese weakness.

Geely’s chairman Li Shu-fu said in a new year’s ad-dress that the year ahead was pivotal.

“We must lay the foun-dation for our survival, oth-erwise we may soon face a period of demise,” he said in the address posted on Geely’s social media last year.

REUTERS WASHINGTON

THE Trump administration on Monday launched a drive to push US firms to better protect their trade secrets from foreign hackers, following a slew of cases accusing individuals and companies of economic espio-nage for China.

US companies hit by recent attacks included Hewlett Pack-ard Enterprise and Interna-tional Business Machines.

The National Counter-In-telligence and Security Center,

which coordinates counter-intelligence efforts within the US government, launched the outreach campaign to ad-dress persistent concerns that many companies are not doing enough to guard against cyber theft.

The Centre is worried about cyber attacks on US gov-ernment agencies and the pri-vate sector from China, Russia, North Korea and Iran.

Top corporate executives and directors should “know the intent of our adversaries and what they are trying to do

economically to gain the upper hand,” William Evanina, a vet-eran FBI agent who oversees the center, said in an inter-view. “We are not saying don’t invest in China or with China, but know the risk.”

The drive targets trade as-sociations across the United States and their members. Vid-eos, brochures and online in-formational materials describe the threat posed by cyber es-pionage and other methods used by foreign intelligence services.

One brochure details meth-

ods hackers use to break into computer networks and how they create fake social media accounts to deceive people into revealing work or personal de-tails. It outlines ways to protect information, such as research-ing apps before downloading them and updating anti-virus software.

The first parts of this ad-ministration outreach effort called “Know the Risk, Raise Your Shield,” focused mainly on federal workers. The new phase follows a series of cases announced by the US govern-

ment against individuals and firms for allegedly stealing government secrets and pro-prietary information from US companies for China’s benefit.

Nine cases announced since July 2018 included the unsealing last month of an in-dictment of two alleged hack-ers linked to China’s main spy agency on charges that they stole confidential government and corporate data. The pair allegedly belonged to a hacking ring known as APT 10.

Evanina said the new cam-paign also focuses on what he

called Moscow’s “aggressive, persistent attacks” on com-puter networks of critical US infrastructure, which includes power grids and communica-tions, financial and transpor-tation systems.

China and Russia have re-peatedly denied conducting such attacks.

The most serious threats now facing companies, Evani-na said, are efforts to plant ma-licious software in components purchased from suppliers or to substitute counterfeit parts for genuine products.

US initiative warns companies over foreign hackers

Lilly to buy Loxo Oncology in $8 billion cancer push

REUTERSNEW YORK

ELI Lilly and Co said on Mon-day it would buy Loxo Oncolo-gy for about $8 billion in cash, making its biggest bet on a cancer therapy market expect-ed to be worth several billions of dollars.

The deal follows Bristol-Myers Squibb agreement last week to buy Celgene Corp for $74 billion, and gives Lilly access to Loxo’s portfolio of targeted medicines that treat cancers caused by rare gene mutations.

The portfolio is centered around the company’s first commercial medicine, Vitrak-vi, which is sold in partnership with Bayer.

Shares of Lilly were down 2.5 percent while those of Loxo were trading close the offer price of $235 per share, which was at a 68 percent premium to the stock’s Friday close.

“The acquisition of Loxo, along with last weeks acquisi-tion of Celgene, may repre-sent the cream of the crop in biotech being harvested by big pharma,” IFS Securities ana-lyst David Bouchey said.

“The size of the deal may indicate Lily’s willingness to pay up to out-bid the competi-tion.”

But BMO Capital Markets analyst Alex Arfaei said the $8 billion valuation seemed high as Loxo was not profitable yet and Wall Street expects rev-enue of $1 billion only by 2023.

The company bought Armo Biosciences, a developer of drugs that help the body’s im-mune system to fight cancer, for $1.6 billion last year and in-dicated that it was on the look-out for similar acquisitions.

Indianapolis, Indiana-based Lilly’s oncology portfolio includes lung cancer drug Al-imta, Erbitux, a treatment for certain types of colorectal can-cers and gastric cancer medi-cine Cyramza. Alimta brought in $520.5 million in the latest reported quarter.

Loxo’s Vitrakvi, priced at $32,800 per month, could eventually generate over $750 million in sales along with another similar drug, ac-cording to brokerage Piper Jaffray & Co.

AFP SHANGHAI

TESLA boss Elon Musk presided Monday over the ground-breaking for a Shang-hai factory that will allow the electric-car manufacturer to dodge the China-US tariff crossfire and sell directly to the world’s biggest market for “green” vehicles.

The plant in a Shanghai suburb is Musk’s biggest over-seas move yet and will eventu-ally have an annual production capacity of 500,000 vehicles, Tesla says, dramatically in-creasing the California-based company’s output.

“China is becoming the global leader in electric vehi-cle adoption, and it is a market

that is critical to Tesla’s mis-sion to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable en-ergy,” Musk said, according to a statement released by the manufacturer.

Musk had hinted recently at an upcoming Shanghai trip to break ground for the plant but Monday’s event was not publicly announced until the Tesla CEO broke the news in a series of tweets earlier in the day.

In typically iconoclastic style, the 47-year-old Musk changed his Twitter profile picture around the time of the ceremony to one showing his face with an exaggerated han-dlebar moustache drawn on it.

The Shanghai government later posted photos on social

media showing Musk and offi-cials from Tesla and the city on a large stage at a launch cer-emony at the site, located on Shanghai’s distant outskirts.

No investment figures were given but the cost of the project has been estimated by analysts at up to $5 billion.

The Shanghai venture comes as US companies face pressure from President Don-ald Trump to keep manufac-turing jobs at home, and as Beijing and Washington wage a trade spat that has seen both sides levy tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars of prod-ucts.

Analysts say production in China would allow Tesla to side-step such measures, which have already caused a

spike in the price of the cars the company now imports to the Chinese market.

But construction of the plant – the subject of stop-start negotiations between Tesla and Shanghai for well over a year – gets under way just as the outlook for China’s consumer market has turned worrisome.

Apple sparked global alarm over the prospects for

the world’s second-largest economy last week when it cut its revenue forecast, citing slowing demand in China and the trade war.

Domestic and foreign au-tomakers have been racing to grab shares of China’s electric-vehicle sector – already the world’s biggest and expected to continue to grow as the Chi-nese government pushes clean technologies.

But the pace of growth is expected to slow along with China’s economy.

The Shanghai factory will be Tesla’s first production line outside the United States.

Musk tweeted earlier on Monday that Tesla was “aim-ing to finish initial construc-tion this summer, start Model 3 production end of year & reach high-volume production next year”.

The Shanghai plant would supply the “Greater China

region” with “affordable ver-sions” of the Tesla Model 3 – the carmaker’s first mid-price, mass-market vehicle – and its planned Model Y, Musk tweeted.

The Model S, Model X and “higher cost versions” of the 3 and Y would continue to be made in the United States for the global market, including China, he added.

Despite its relative afford-ability compared to other Te-sla models, the price of a US-made Model 3 now starts at about $50,000, but Musk has said he aims to get that down to $35,000. He provided no price figures for China-made cars.

China typically requires foreign automakers to forge joint ventures with domestic firms when establishing manu-facturing plants, which means sharing profits and technology with local partners.

Elon Musk breaks ground on Tesla’s Shanghai factory

Tesla boss Elon Musk speaks during the ground-breaking ceremony for a Tesla factory in Shanghai on Monday. (AFP)

The plant is Musk’s biggest overseas move yet and will eventually have an annual production capacity of 500,000 vehicles

BIG MOVE

REUTERSNEW DELHI

INDIA forecast its economy will grow more than 7 percent in the current financial year ending in March, giving some relief to Prime Minister Naren-dra Modi who seeks a second term in national elections to be held by May.

With the fall in global crude oil prices and strengthening of the rupee in recent weeks, the Modi administration plans to prop up rural demand through higher state spending and a fi-nancial package for farmers in the annual budget to be pre-sented on February 1.

Gross domestic product is estimated to grow 7.2 percent in 2018/19, faster than a pro-visional 6.7 percent growth in 2017/18, Ministry of Statistics said in a statement.

Manufacturing is now fore-cast to grow 8.3 percent this fis-cal year compared with 5.7 per-

cent in the previous year. Farm output may grow 3.8 percent, up from 3.4 percent.

Most private economists have already lowered India’s growth forecast to around 7 percent for the 2018/19 fiscal year, compared with the Re-serve Bank of India’s earlier estimate of 7.4 percent, citing weakening consumption and a

slowdown in credit offtake.“Sequential growth has

slowed down across the board. Slowdown in manufacturing, construction and select ser-vices are the main reasons for slowdown seen in 2018/19,” said Rupa Rege-Nitsure, chief economist at L&T Financial Holdings Ltd.

She said the government

could prop up rural demand ahead of the elections and the first half of 2019 could remain volatile due to political uncer-tainty and global headwinds.

Having swept to power in 2014 promising to galvanise the economy, Modi has been criticised for failing to create enough jobs for the more than 12 million young Indians enter-ing the labour force each year.

India needs growth of 8 percent-plus to generate enough jobs for those workers.

The unemployment rate shot to a 27-month high of 7.38 per cent in December and numbers of those employed fell by about 11 million over the last 12 months, data released by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, a Mumbai-based think tank, showed.

The statistics office will re-lease economic growth data for the October-December quarter on Feb. 28, along with revised full-year growth estimates.

India forecasts over 7% GDP growth

A worker pushes a wheelbarrow at a construction site of a residential building in Mumbai. (File photo) (REUTERS)

China is becoming the global leader in electric vehicle adoption, and it is a market that is critical to Tesla’s mission to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energyTesla boss Elon Musk

14 Tuesday, January 8, 2019 Economy & Business

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QATAR coach Felix Sanchez leads his side into the Asian Cup against Lebanon on Wednesday with their politi-cally-charged appearance in the United Arab Emirates an-other test en route to 2022.

In three years and 10 months the World Cup will begin in Qatar. Only South Africa, in 2010, have been eliminated as World Cup hosts before the knock-out stage and Qatar intend to avoid that fate.

“It’s a very important year for us as we are competing in the Asian Cup as well as the Copa America,” Hassan al Hay-dos told a Qatar newspaper.

“Then we have the World Cup coming up in four years. These tournaments are part of our preparations for the FIFA World Cup.”

Qatar have been only a modest regional power with quarter-final appearances in 2000 and 2011 their best showings at the Asian Cup.

They were eliminated with three losses out of three four years ago in Australia.

But under boss Felix Sanchez, in charge since July 2017 - a veritable epoch in the shelf-life of ever-changing Qa-tari coaches - things have im-proved considerably.

A win over Switzerland and draw with Iceland, albeit

in friendlies, were noteworthy results achieved as the Doha’s Aspire academy finally seems to be paying dividend.

Crucially Sanchez has plenty of experience with the players, having worked at As-pire for seven years from 2006

before coaching the under-19, U20 and U23s before taking the senior post.

He is national coach num-ber 16 since the year 2000 but stability is bringing reward.

Striker Akram Afif – scorer of the winner against the Swiss

– joined Spanish side Villarreal, although he is currently back on loan at Al Sadd, while defender Abdulkarim Hassan was Asian player of the year in 2018.

“Every team goes into any competition eyeing the title,” said Sanchez. “The Qatari team’s goal is no different.

Favourites in Group E will be Saudi Arabia, looking to bounce back from a poor World Cup, while North Korea will also feel capable of reach-ing the knock-outs.

The meeting with Saudi Arabia, on January 17 in Abu Dhabi, will be eagerly antici-pated around the world with onlookers anxious to see how the teams react given the po-litical situation between the countries.

In truth, this is not the first sporting meeting between po-litical rivals and the footballers are likely simply to get on with playing football.

FIFA president Gianni Infantino, who attended the tournament opening game on Saturday, backs a sudden expansion of the 2022 World Cup from 32 to 48 teams - an idea viable only by using Qa-

tar’s neighbours as co-hosts. “There are tensions in this

particular region and it’s up to their respective leaders to deal with that but maybe it’s easier to talk about a joint football project than more complicated things,” Infantino said at a re-cent conference in Dubai.

“If it can help all the people in the Gulf and all the countries in the world develop football and bring a positive message to the world about football, then you should give it a try.”

Whether Infantino gets his expansion wish early – the in-crease will definitely happen at the 2026 edition – or not is of little real concern to them.

“If we see that it’s in the benefit of football, the World Cup itself, and we feel like it’s going to add, we would be all for it,” Nasser al Khater, As-sistant Secretary-General of the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy, said last year. “If we feel that it’s not in favour of us or of football, we won’t go for it.”

In 2022 the football world will turn to Qatar whatever happens. And their team may even be competitive to boot.

Qatar’s striker Akram Afif during the team’s training session in Al Ain, UAE, on Sunday. Qatar are placed in Group E of the Asian Cup 2019 along with Lebanon, North Korea and Saudi Arabia.

QATAR SEEK TO LAY MARKER FOR WORLD CUP 2022

AFPABU DHABI

MEHDI Taremi scored twice as Iran crushed Yemen 5-0 in the war-torn country’s Asian Cup debut on Monday to fire an omi-nous warning to their title rivals.

Team Melli’s dominant per-formance in Abu Dhabi was in stark contrast to joint-favour-ites South Korea, who scraped past the Philippines while Chi-na profited from a goalkeeping howler to spark a comeback against plucky Kyrgyzstan.

Looking to end a 43-year title drought since last winning Asian football’s most coveted prize, Iran ruthlessly dispatched Group D minnows Yemen.

Iran took just 12 minutes to take the lead as Taremi

finished clinically from close range after a shot from Sardar Azmoun was spilled by Yemen keeper Saud Alsowadi.

Captain Ashkan Dejagah doubled his side’s lead in the 23rd minute with a low free kick which cannoned in off the post and the hapless Alsowadi before Taremi powered home a bullet header moments later.

Sardar Azmoun tapped in a fourth goal seven minutes into the second half, by which time Iran were playing some champagne football, pull-ing off extravagant flicks and back-heels that left Yemen’s players chasing shadows.

When substitute Saman Ghoddos volleyed home Iran’s fifth from the edge of the box af-ter 78 minutes the Yemen play-

ers looked physically shattered and only the woodwork pre-vented Mahdi Torabi adding a spectacular sixth in injury time.

South Korea, still await-ing the arrival of Tottenham forward Son Heung-min, left it late before beating the Phil-ippines by the same scoreline.

Fellow debutants Kyr-gyzstan led China 1-0 at half-time but they were left to rue a costly error by goalkeeper Pavel Matiash, whose embar-rassing own goal put the Chi-nese on course for a 2-1 win.

Kyrgyzstan looked capable of pulling off an almighty up-set against China when Akh-lidin Israilov smashed home the opening goal just before half-time in Al Ain. But China profited from the howler of the tournament so far when Matiash, attempting to claw a defensive header over the bar, batted it over the line instead.

A Chinese winner looked inevitable and it was Yu who completed the turnaround, rounding Matiash and scoring from a tight angle 12 minutes

from time.Lippi, who is expected to leave at the end of the Asian Cup, said he was “enormously un-happy” at China’s first half performance, but proud of their revival. “During the first half we weren’t playing well, and I thought if we keep play-ing like that we’re going to lose the match,” said the 2006 World Cup-winning coach.

“After the reaction from my players in the second half, I’m happy that we won the three points.”

Later in Dubai, prolific goal poacher Hwang Ui-jo snatched a second-half winner as South Korea beat Sven-Goran Eriks-son’s Philippines, impressive on their tournament debut.

The Koreans, looking to

end 59 years of hurt after fail-ing to win the title since 1960, soaked up considerable pres-sure in their opening Group C fixture before Hwang broke the deadlock after 67 minutes.

The Koreans, runners-up to hosts Australia four years ago, were indebted to goalkeeper Kim Seung-Gyu, who plunged to his right to deny Javier Patino in the 54th minute.

Five-star Iran purr as China, South Korea survive scares

South Korea’s Hwang Uijo (top) tackles Philippines’ defender Alvaro Silva as he kicks the ball during their match in Dubai on Monday. (AFP)

Most teams would regard the Asian Cup as a high point but for Qatar it is only the latest stepping stone

Qatar coach Felix Sanchez (2nd left) during the team’s training session in Al Ain on Sunday.

England women’s football

team to train in Doha

AFPDOHA

ENGLAND’S women football team will hold a winter train-ing camp in World Cup 2022 host Qatar this month, offi-cials in the Gulf and the Eng-lish Football Association con-firmed on Monday.

The team will train at Do-ha’s Aspire Zone from January 14-22, said officials in Qatar, as they continue preparations for the World Cup later this year and ahead of taking part in the SheBelieves Cup, a four-team tournament in the United States in February and March.

“The training camp in Qa-tar is crucial for our SheBe-lieves Cup preparation and an ideal opportunity for us to work as a group as we begin an important year,” said England coach Phil Neville.

It the first time the English women’s team has trained in Qatar, although the men’s side played – and lost – a friendly in Doha against Brazil in No-vember 2009.

Twenty eight players will make the journey from the UK to the Gulf, with the squad expected to be announced Tuesday. The women’s World Cup takes place in France in June and July. England’s women’s team is joining a host of other sides – domestic and international – currently train-ing in Qatar.

Bayern Munich and PSV Eindhoven are already in Doha, with Qatari-owned French champions Paris Saint-Germain flying out on Sunday (13th). At least seven other club sides will train in Aspire during this month.

Among the national teams in Qatar are Sweden and Fin-land, who will play each other in a friendly on Tuesday.

The English Football Asso-ciation, which failed in its bid to host the 2018 World Cup, has previously been a critic of the decision to host the 2022 tournament in Qatar. However, in February last year, the Qatari and English Football Associa-tions signed a “memorandum of understanding” in Doha to “share resources and expertise, develop knowledge (and) un-derstanding” of football issues.

England’s women football team will train at Aspire Zone from January 14 to 22.

Al Annabi to play Lebanon in their opening match on Wednesday

ResultsGroup D: Iran 5 (Taremi 12, 25, Saud Alsowadi 23-og, Azmoun 53, Ghoddos 78) bt Yemen 0Group C: China 2 (Matiash 50-og, Yu Dabao 78) bt Kyrgyzstan 1 (Israilov 42) South Korea 1 (Hwang Ui-Jo 67) bt Philippines 0

TUESDAY, JANUARY 8, 2019

ASIAN CUP 2019

S ARABIA VS NORTH KOREA

India register historic Test series triumph in Australia PAGE 19

Eagles edge Bears, Chargers oust Ravens in NFL playoff thrillers PAGE 18

DPABARCELONA

GOALS from Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez helped Barcelona to a narrow 2-1 win at Getafe which stretched their lead at the top of La Liga to five points over Atletico Madrid, who drew 1-1 at Sevilla.

Getafe almost took the lead when Jaime Mata volleyed home superbly but the goal was disallowed after the officials awarded a foul on Barcelona defender Clement Lenglet.

Despite intense pressure from the hosts, Barcelona took the lead through Messi, who showed speed and determina-tion to knock a loose ball in the

box past goalkeeper David Soria and then squeeze home from a tight angle.

Gerard Pique should have doubled the Catalans’ lead but was denied from close range by Soria, before Suarez curled an effort inches past the post.

But the Uruguayan man-aged to get on the scoresheet with a mighty volley from the edge of the area in the 39th minute, when Messi’s free-kick was headed back to him.

Getafe struck the post after an effort deflected against Ar-thur and then the woodwork, before Mata pulled one back from close range after being teed up by Angel two minutes before the interval.

Angel almost levelled for Getafe right after the restart with an effort inches wide of Marc-Andre ter Stegen’s far post, capitalising on a poor clearance from the German goalkeeper.

Mata should have levelled but somehow fired over with the goal gaping after beating Ter Stegen.

“Leo (Messi) is the best in the world, wherever he plays,” said Suarez. “He always has touches of a special player and to share that with him is incredible.

“(My goal) was really tough and there were a lot of people in the way, but I managed to hit it well.” Earlier, new Real Sociedad coach Imanol Alguacil earned an impressive 2-0 vic-tory at 10-man Real Madrid to leave Los Blancos fifth, 10 points behind their arch-rivals.

Alguacil’s side, now 11th,

took the lead at Madrid in the third minute after Casemiro bowled over Mikel Merino in the area and Willian Jose dis-patched the penalty.

Madrid fans showed their anger with a drab display by whistling their players at half-time, but Real Sociedad came closer at the start of the second

period with Adnan Januzaj fir-ing across goal.

Worse was to come for San-tiago Solari’s side when Lucas Vazquez was dismissed for picking up two yellow cards just after the hour mark.

Geronimo Rulli produced a fine double save to deny Vin-icius Junior and Sergio Ramos, and Madrid were left raging af-ter the goalkeeper appeared to fell Vinicius but no penalty was awarded. The young Brazilian forward offered a lively display up front in one of the few bright spots for Los Blancos.

Midfielder Ruben Pardo sealed Real Sociedad’s victory by heading home at the back post from Willian Jose’s cross, with the Brazilian firing wide in stoppage time when he should have netted the third.

“Vinicius was very good. He is 18 and he showed self-confi-

dence. We are happy because of that and nothing else,” Solari said.

“The pity is that the team did everything to win the game [but] if you can’t score, it’s im-possible.” Atletico, second, and Sevilla, third, tied at the Ramon Sanchez-Pizjuan in a hard-fought affair.

A rocket from Andre Silva beat Atletico goalkeeper Jan Oblak but crashed against the post and out, though moments later Wissam Ben Yedder sent the hosts ahead.

The French forward fired home from close range in the 37th minute after the ball dropped nicely for him during a scramble in the box.

But Antoine Griezmann equalized just before half-time with a superb free-kick into the top corner, his eighth league goal of the season.

Lionel Messi & Luis Suarez score as Barca win 2-1 at Getafe

Barcelona beat Getafe to take control of Spanish La Liga

Barcelona’s Lionel Messi shoots at goal during their Liga Santander match against Getafe at the Coliseum Alfonso Perez Stadium, in Getafe, on Sunday. (REUTERS)

AFC.COM ABU DHABI

IRAQ may be a top side but a confident Vietnam fancies their chances going into Tues-day’s AFC Asian Cup UAE 2019 Group D tie at the Zayed Sports City Stadium.

A spectacular 2018, said head coach Park Hang-seo, will see Vietnam giving the continental showpiece their all as the Southeast Asians look to better the quarter-final finish achieved in their last appear-ance in 2007.

Iraq head coach Srecko Ka-tanec was equally bullish, cit-

ing a solid preparation for his confidence.

“Our group is hard with three tough teams but we have worked hard and will do our best to get a result,” said Hang-seo, who has worked wonders with Vietnam since taking over.

The Under-23 side emerged runners-up in the 2018 AFC U-23 Champion-ship and fourth in the 2018 Asian Games, while the squad in the UAE are coming from a successful AFF Cup campaign where Vietnam defeated Ma-laysia in the final.

“Obviously, we had a very good 2018 and the confidence

in the team is very high. The people of Vietnam are also ex-pecting more from us which means pressure as well as con-fidence for the team.

“However, we have worked very hard since the AFF Cup. Our focus has been on the AFC Asian Cup and the players are highly motivated.

“Iraq will be a challenge, as will (Islamic Republic of) Iran and Yemen. They are all good

sides but so are we and we are looking to have a successful AFC Asian Cup.”

Iraq head coach Katanec, at the helm for just over three months, is also satisfied with his team’s preparation. “What I can say is that we are pre-pared. Our (training) camp was good and the players are where I want them to be.”

The Slovenian refused to be drawn into setting a target for his team even as compari-sons are made with the title-winning side of 2007 and the one that finished fourth four years ago.

“The first match is always

very important and that is what our focus is on now. If you ask me for a target, I will tell you that it is to win every game and if we do that, you know what it mean at the end.”

Katanec was coy when asked about his starting line-up, only saying: “I know the lineup, I’m fully convinced by my team, but as I said, we pre-pared very well but you never know as every game is a differ-ent story.

“We have qualities and if our players give everything, we will play a good game. About the result, you never but I am very confident with the team.”

The Southeast Asians will look to better their 2007 quarter-final finish

Hopeful Vietnam fancy chance against big Iraq

Vietnamese players at a training session ahead of their group match against Iraq on Monday in the AFC Asian Cup 2019.

DUSSELDORF: Franck Ribery’s recent tirade shows that football players need better coaching and support on how to interact via social media, according to the German players’ union VDV.

VDV managing director Ulf Baranowsky told dpa on Monday that clubs and federations must help the players in this area as “many players don’t find it easy to deal with social media.” Ribery was fined by Bayern Munich after he responded to at times harsh and insulting criticism for posting a photo of having served a gold covered steak in a famous Dubai restaurant with a rant on his private social media channels filled with expletives. “Two-way insults in the internet is not nice for anyone involved. If a player is provoked he has the right to react. But it should have the right level, which isn’t easy in a stressful situation,” he said. The VDV said it depends on each individual case whether clubs can sanc-tion wrongdoings from players in a private environment.

Players’ union on Ribery affair: Players need social media support

CONAKRY: Guinea has accepted to stage the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations instead of the 2023 edition, a move that confirms Cameroon as the 2021 hosts, the Confederation of African Football (CAF) president said on Monday. “I am delighted with this change in the organisation of the calendar that will see the Nations Cup take place in Guinea in 2025 and I am proud that the president of Guinea, Alpha Conde, has himself accepted,” Ahmad Ahmad said. Ahmad, who held talks with Conde on Sunday, told reporters it was a similar situation to Cameroon, which will stage the 2021 tournament having been stripped of hosting this year’s edition. In 2014, CAF awarded hosting rights to Cameroon (2019), Ivory Coast (2021) and Guinea (2023). Fol-lowing the decision to remove this year’s edition from Cameroon because of severe delays in building stadiums and security concerns, Egypt and South Africa have bid to step in as hosts.

Guinea accepts to host 2025 Africa Cup of Nations

JOHANNESBURG: Liverpool star Mohamed Salah is set to be named 2018 African Player of the Year for a second succes-sive time at a gala awards ceremony in Senegal Tuesday.

The sharpshooter is competing against fellow English Premier League stars, Liverpool team-mate Sadio Mane from Senegal and Gabonese Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang of Arsenal.

Consistent scorer Salah has already won the 2018 BBC African Footballer of the Year prize and it would be a shock if he did not add to his collection of individual honours in Dakar.

Should he be confirmed as the best footballer in Africa once again, Salah will become the first player from the north of the continent to claim back-to-back titles. Ivorian Yaya Toure, Samuel Eto’o from Cameroon and Senegalese El Hadji Diouf achieved the feat in a competition first staged 48 years ago with Malian Salif Keita voted number one.

Salah set to retain African Player of the Year title for second straight year

ABU DHABI: Thailand have fired coach Milovan Rajevac fol-lowing a humiliating 4-1 thrashing by India in their opening Asian Cup game at the weekend. The 65-year-old Serb, who took charge of Thailand in 2017, paid the price after the War Elephants conceded three second-half goals to slump to a shock defeat in Abu Dhabi on Sunday. Thai football chiefs took a dim view of their Group A flop and acted swiftly to remove Rajevac the morning after. “The result is not what is expected of the Thai national team and that our supporters deserve,” Thailand’s FA president Somyot Poompanmoung said. “Like all Thai football fans across the country, I am also disappointed with the result. But as president of the football association, I cannot stand still with this problem.” Former assistant coach Sirisak Yodyardthai will assume control of the team when they face Bahrain on Thursday, Thai officials added. Rajevac, who has had spells in charge of Algeria and Qatar, famously steered Ghana to the quarter-finals of the 2010 World Cup where they were beaten on penalties by Uruguay.

Thailand axe coach Rajevac after Asian Cup horror show

News in brief

FixturesIraq v VietnamSaudi Arabia v Korea DPR

Sacked Thailand coach Milovan Rajevac at the Asian Cup 2019.


QATAR Football Association (QFA) President Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa bin Ahmed al Thani received a Nordic Football As-sociation delegation in Doha on Monday.

Attending the meeting were Nordic Football Associa-tion President Terje Svendsen, also head of the Norway soc-cer, Danish Football Associa-tion President Jesper Moller, Swedish Football Association Vice-President Jorgen Eriks-son, Swedish Football As-sociation General Secretary Hakan Sjostrand, Football Association of Finland Presi-dent Ari Lahti and Faroe Is-lands Football Association Vice-President Roin O. J. Schroter.

QFA General Secretary Mansour al Ansari, Executive Director of the QFA President Office Ali Dawood and QFA Executive Director of Strategy and Institutional Develop-ment Mushtaq al Waeli also

attended the meeting. The Nordic Football As-

sociation officials are in Doha as a number of Scandinavian national teams like Sweden, Finland, Iceland, and Estonia are holding their winter train-ing camps in Qatar.

The four national teams are also set to play friendly matches during their visit to Qatar on January 8, 11 and 15.

The friendly matches will be held at the Al Sadd Stadium and Khalifa International Sta-dium.

During the meeting, the officials discussed the bilat-eral relations concerning foot-ball in Qatar and Scandinavia and ways of improving them. They also discussed points of mutual interest and the im-portance of developing them

in the future, while continuing to strengthen the cooperation between these associations.

The Nordic Football As-sociation’s delegation will also be given an exclusive tour of Al Bidda Tower’s ‘Legacy Pa-vilion’ – which brings to life the plans for the 2022 FIFA World Cup Qatar. The del-egation is planning a visit at the Education City Stadium

to witness its’ latest develop-ments.

QFA president meets Nordic Football Association delegation to strengthen ties

QFA President Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa bin Ahmed al Thani with Nordic FA President Terje Svendsen at the Al Bidda Tower in Doha on Monday.

QFA President Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa bin Ahmed al Thani leads a meeting with delegation of the Nordic Football Association.

FixtutesSweden v Finland (TuesdayFinland v Estonia (FridaySweden v Iceland PSV v Club Brugge Iceland v Estonia (15 Jan)

AFC ASIAN CUP 2019

Sports 17Tuesday, January 8, 2019

AFPCHICAGO

DEFENDING Super Bowl champion Philadelphia edged the Chicago Bears and the Los Angeles Chargers ousted Balti-more from the championship chase in two NFL playoff thrill-ers Sunday.

Bears kicker Cody Parkey clanked a 43-yard field goal at-tempt off the left upright and crossbar with five seconds re-maining as the Eagles sealed a 16-15 victory at Chicago.

“It came down to the wire. We were just hoping for a miss,” said Eagles quarterback Nick Foles.

“The big thing is we saw some adversity in the first half with a couple turnovers but no one loses faith. We were able to rally behind our defense and we were able to get the win.”

The Chargers seized a 20-point lead but needed a turnover in the final seconds to thwart a Ravens fightback and claim a 23-17 first-round triumph at Baltimore.

“Our defense was unbe-lievable,” Chargers quarter-back Philip Rivers said. “We couldn’t get anything but field goals early on offense but we fi-nally got it done. It was a great team win.”

The Eagles booked a trip to top seed New Orleans next Sunday with the other Nation-al Conference playoff matchup sending the Dallas Cowboys to the Los Angeles Rams on Sat-urday.

The Chargers have a sec-ond-round date next Sunday at New England while top seed Kansas City will entertain the Indianapolis Colts on Saturday in the other American Confer-ence contest.

Mitch Trubisky drove Chi-cago 80 yards and connected with Allen Robinson on a 22-

yard touchdown pass for a 15-10 Bears lead with 9:04 re-maining, but Chicago failed on a 2-point conversion run.

Foles, last year’s Super Bowl Most Valuable Player, drove the Eagles to Chicago’s 2-yard line, where the NFL’s stingiest defenders at allowing points denied two runs and a pass to set up a tension-packed fourth-down all-or-nothing play.

Foles hit Golden Tate with a 2-yard touchdown pass for a 16-15 Eagles lead with 56 sec-onds remaining but a 2-point

conversion run failed, giving Chicago a final chance.

“I just waited on my op-portunity. I just tried to make

a play and it worked out,” Tate said. “A great collective effort. We found a way.”

But the drama wasn’t over. Trubisky marched the Bears downfield where Parkey was foiled the first time when the Eagles called timeout just be-fore the snap to negate a kick he booted down the middle be-tween the uprights.

On the next attempt, Par-key struck an upright for the fifth time this season and saw the ball bounce off the cross-bar before falling on the wrong side for the Bears.

Jake Elliott’s 43-yard field goal had put the Eagles ahead only 5:23 into the game but Parkey answered from 36 and 29 yards for a 6-3 Bears half-time lead.

Foles tossed a 10-yard touchdown pass to tight end Dallas Goedert with 5:20 re-maining in the third quarter to put the Eagles in front 10-6.

The 83-yard, seven-play touchdown march was aided by two key penalties against Bears defenders, a third-down unnec-essary roughness call on Adrian Amos sustaining the drive and

a 33-yard pass interference call against Prince Amukamara, a cornerback of Nigerian herit-age, putting the ball at the Chi-cago 10-yard line.

But the Bears rallied to re-claim the lead, starting with Parkey’s 34-yard field goal with 14:13 remaining to pull Chicago within 10-9.

At Baltimore, the Ravens fell behind 23-3 on rookie Mike Badgley’s fifth field goal, a 47-yarder with 9:14 to play.

Baltimore rookie Lamar Jackson, who became the youngest quarterback in NFL playoff history on the eve of his 22nd birthday, threw touch-down passes of 7 and 31 yards to Michael Crabtree to pull the Ravens within the final mar-gin.

Jackson got the ball back with 45 seconds remaining but Uchenna Nwosu, a Chargers linebacker of Nigerian descent, knocked loose a fumble from him and Melvin Ingram recov-ered for Los Angeles to secure the victory.

“We just come out and play assignment football. We have to come out and play together,” Ingram said. “Any squad. Any place. We don’t care.”

The Ravens fumbled three times in their first eight plays from scrimmage, an Ingram recovery setting up the first Badgley field goal from 21 yards. He added kicks of 53, 40 and 34 yards for a 12-0 Charg-ers half-time lead.

Baltimore’s Justin Tucker kicked a 33-yard field goal but was wide right from 50 yards, his first career playoff miss af-ter making nine in a row, and LA responded with a 60-yard touchdown drive capped by Melvin Gordon’s 1-yard run and a 2-point conversion pass from Rivers to Mike Williams for a 20-3 Chargers lead.

Eagles edge Bears, Chargers oust Ravens in NFL playoff thrillers

Sports18 Tuesday, January 8, 2019

Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Nick Foles (9) throws a pass against the Chicago Bears during their NFC Wild Card playoff game at Soldier Field in Chicago on Sunday. (USA TODAY SPORTS)

Attiyah wins first stage of Dakar Rally


WORLD 50m Rifle 3 Positions champion and Rio Olympic Games bronze medallist Alexis Raynaud defended his reputa-tion by winning the 10m Air Rifle Mixed gold medal at the National Shooting and Ar-chery Team Cup at the Losail Ranges on Monday.

In the event dominated by the French, who are in Qa-tar for a short winter train-ing ahead of the new season, Raynaud, who dominated the 2017 and claimed both the World Cup Finals and World Championship following up his 2016 Rio Games third-place finish, edged compatriot Michael Dhalluin by 0.1 of a point to emerge the winner.

Raynaud collected 248.5, while Dhalluin shot 248.4 in a

thrilling finale. Brian Baudu-ovin, another Frenchman, was third with 226.4.

Another feature of the event was that four of the re-maining five in the final were female shooters, including one from Qatar. The 2016 World Junior Championship silver medallist Judith Gomez (206.1) beat 2018 world championship silver medal winner Jade Bordet (185.3) to grab the fourth spot.

Matte Romane, also from France was sixth with 164.3. Qatar’s Ahmed Mohsin al Ali was placed seventh, after post-ing 143.8 and his compatriot Matara Fahad al Assieri was eighth with a tally of 119.7.

Besides the French and Qatari participants, shooters from India, Pakistan and Ne-pal also contested.

Qatar’s Khaled al Shar-

shani topped the Junior Men’s 10m Air Rifle contest. He beat Nasser al Naimi, while Seif al Mohannadi was third.

Tournament Director

Ibrahim al Mohannadi was the chief guest at the prize dis-tribution and gave away the awards.

Raynaud was delighted

with his gold-medal winning show. He said after the po-dium ceremony, “I’m quite pleased with my participation in the winter camp in Qa-

tar and the event. The Losail Ranges are well-equipped and provide good motivation for all the French shooters in the camp.

“The level of the competi-tion was good. It was nice to see that a couple of shooters from Qatar also made it to the finals. We hope that such camps will help both France and Qatar get good results, be-sides improving their shooting standard. We hope to get bet-ter till the end of the camp,” he added.

Nasser al Nuaimi, the sil-ver medal winner in the junior contest, said, “The competition was good for me. I contested in the Arab Shooting Champion-ship in Qatar and now I com-peting in this championship. I’m young and learning. I’m focused on improving my lev-el and hopefully, I’ll get gold medal in upcoming events.

“I owe the silver medal to the Qatar shooting associa-tion, which is encouraging all the shooters like me.”

Raynaud leads French domination in 10m Air Rifle at Losail

Men’s 10m Air Rifle champion Alexis Raynaud is flanked by silver medallist Michael Dhalluin (left), bronze medallist Brian Bauduovin and Tournament Director Ibrahim al Mohannadi in Losail on Monday.

ResultsChargers 23 Ravens 17Eagles 16 Bears 15Second-round fixturesIndianapolis at Kansas City Dallas at LA RamsSundayLA Chargers at New EnglandPhiladelphia at New Orleans

De Minaur, Muguruza through to

Sydney 2nd round

DPASYDNEY

HOME favourites Alex de Min-aur and Samantha Stosur made it through to the second round of the Sydney International on a wet Monday along with former Wimbledon champion Garbine Muguruza.

Rain showers delayed play by more than five hours and the action did not end until shortly after midnight when Muguruza overcame a late wobble to beat fellow Spaniard Carla Suarez Navarro 6-3, 6-4.

Muguruza next faces Dutch number seven seed Kiki Bertens who ousted US lucky loser Ber-narda Pera 7-5, 6-4.

Former US Open champ Stosur rallied to beat Slovakia’s Domenica Cibulkova 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 with the help of 44 winners, among them 15 aces. She now meets Swiss Timea Bacsinszky who upset ninth seed Anasta-sija Sevastova of Latvia, 6-7 (3-7), 6-4, 6-4.

De Minaur, who was a fi-nalist last year, meanwhile de-feated Serbia’s Dusan Lajovic 6-4, 6-3.

“This is where I made my first final and where I really started to gain momentum and then play some great tennis,” said the 19-year-old.

American Sam Querrey was demolishing Tunisia’s Malek Jaziri 6-1, 4-1, firing off a series of aces, when his opponent re-tired due to injury.

His compatriot, 21-year-old Reilly Opelka, meanwhile beat Albert Ramos-Vinolas of Spain 6-3, 6-4 and will now face de Minaur in the second round.

In other action, Italy’s Camila Giorgi defeated Austral-ian wildcard Ajla Tomljanovic convincingly 6-3, 6-3 and will take on defending champion Angelique Kerber in the next round.

The 30-year-old German, who won all her singles match-es at last week’s Hopman Cup, said on Monday she was feel-ing confident.

“I was feeling, from match to match, better and better. And I can see, of course, that I’m feeling good and the rhythm is there,” she told reporters. “I re-ally love this tournament. You have a really strong field here with really top players,” she said.

Second seed Kerber and top seeded world number one Simona Halep have first-round byes.

Garbine Muguruza in action.

Schauffele roars back to seize Tournament of Champions win

AFPLOS ANGELES

XANDER Schauffele made two eagles in a remarkable 11-un-der par 62 on Sunday to seize victory in the US PGA Tour Tournament of Champions by one stroke from Gary Wood-land.

Schauffele started the day five shots off Woodland’s lead and opened with a bogey on the par-73 Plantation course in Ka-palua, Hawaii.

He birdied four of his next five holes before chipping in for his first eagle of the day at the ninth. He holed out for an eagle from 107 yards out in the fairway at 12, birdied 14 and 15 and capped his round with back-to-back-birdies to edge his fellow American, who had led four-time major winner Rory McIlroy by three strokes coming into the final round.

“Honestly, it was a crazy day,” Schauffele said after sign-ing for a 23-under total of 269.

Woodland had five birdies in his 68 for 270.

Northern Ireland’s McIlroy, meanwhile, could get nothing going in the final round of his first appearance at the event, which is open only to winners of

tour events the previous season.He carded a one-under par

72 that left him tied for fourth, eight shots off the pace. He fin-ished on 277 alongside Ameri-can Dustin Johnson and Aus-tralian Marc Leishman.

Justin Thomas carded a 65 to finish alone in third on 274.

While the expected duel between Woodland and McIl-roy, playing together in the fi-nal group, never materialized, Schauffele provided plenty of

drama. The 25-year-old admit-ted that even after birdies at the third, fifth, sixth and seventh holes he wasn’t looking much at the leaderboard, since he started the day so far back.

“Obviously he was play-ing great,” Woodland said. “My goal today was to birdie the par-fives and make a cou-ple more and see if that was enough. Obviously I needed to birdie the last there, but, I’m playing great.”

Xander Schauffele poses with the trophy after winning the Sentry Tournament of Champions at the Plantation Course at Kapalua Golf Club in Lahaina, Hawaii on Sunday. (AFP)

DAKAR RALLY FLAGOFF: Toyota Gazoo Racing’s Nasser al Attiyah of Qatar claimed the opening stage from Lima to Pisco in the Dakar Rally, beating last year’s champion Carlos Sainz nearly by two minutes on Monday. The Qatari drove with conviction during a thundering first half of the special as he posted the best time at WP1.38 seconds before winning the stage with controlled pace. (REUTERS)

Khaled al Sharshani, the winner of the Junior Men’s 10m Air Rifle, with silver medallist Nasser al Naimi (left), bronze medal winner Seif al Mohannadi on the podium on Monday.

AFPSYDNEY

VIRAT KOHLI’S dominant In-dia reinforced their status as the world’s number one team by win-ning a historic first-ever series in Australia on Monday after play in the final Sydney Test was aban-doned due to rain.

Australia were still 316 in ar-rears when the match was called off as a draw, leaving India with a 2-1 triumph after wins in Adelaide and Melbourne. Australia won in Perth.

It is the first time they have managed the feat since they began touring Australia in 1947-48.

India had ripped through the Australian tail in Sydney on a shortened day four, when bad light and rain allowed only around 100 minutes of play, bowling the hosts out for 300 in reply to their own ominous 622 for seven declared.

Australia then suffered the in-dignity of being forced to follow on at home for the first time in 30 years as Kohli twisted the knife.

Only four overs of their second innings were possible, with Mar-cus Harris not out two and Usman Khawaja unbeaten on four before the match was called off.

“I want to say I’ve never been more proud of being part of a team, than this one right here,” said Kohli.

“The boys make the captain look good. By far, this is my big-gest achievement. It’s at the top of the pile.”

Australia skipper Tim Paine paid tribute to India.

“Have to tip our hat to India, we know how tough it is to win in

Australia so congrats to Virat and (coach) Ravi (Shastri) because it’s a huge achievement,” he said.

“Disappointed, definitely over

the last two Tests. We had our chances in Adelaide, in Perth I thought we played some good cricket, but in Melbourne and Syd-

ney, we’ve been outplayed.”India got the series off to the

best possible start by winning the tight opening Test in Adelaide by 31 runs on the fifth day -- their first Test win in Australia for a decade.

The victory was built on Pu-jara’s first innings 123 and his second innings 71, while wicket-keeper Rishabh Pant took a world record-equalling 11 catches.

Australia bounced back in Perth to level the series, winning by 146 runs.

It was a huge relief for the home side, having not won a Test since the ball-tampering “sandpa-pergate” scandal that rocked inter-national cricket last March.

But another Pujara century in Melbourne set the visitors up for a big first innings total and when Australia capitulated in reply to 151 all out, the scene was set for India to take a stranglehold on the series coming into Sydney.

Aside from man-of-the-series Pujara, a big part of their their suc-cess in Australia has been execut-ing their bowling plans to deprive the Australian batsmen of playing their shots.

India’s bowling coach Bharat Arun said the successful strategy stemmed from mistakes made last year in Tests against South Africa and England.

“I thought those two tours were a great experience for us and that has helped us immensely to come and do well in Australia,” he said.

“We said that to be success-ful in Australia, we need to make sure that we need to take the cut and the pull out of the Australian batsmen and then focus the attack on our strengths, so that’s exactly what we did.”

While virtually all of Australia’s leading batsmen got starts, none converted them into a big innings, underscoring how much they miss the banned Steve Smith and David Warner.

Harris’ 79 in Sydney was the highest any of their batsmen man-aged the entire series, making it the hosts’ first four-Test home series without scoring a century in their history.

The Indian team celebrates with the Gavaskar-Border Trophy at the Sydney Cricket Ground on Monday. India won the four-Test series 2-1 after the fifth and final day of the last match was abandoned due to rain. (AAP)

‘Proud of the boys’: India

PM and stars praise

historic triumph

AFPNEW DELHI

PRAISE and congratulations poured in for Virat Kohli’s India on Monday after the tourists won their first-ever Test series in Australia, underlining their world number one ranking.

“A historic cricketing accom-plishment in Australia!” Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrote on his official Twitter handle.

“Congratulations to the Indian Cricket Team for the hard-fought and richly deserved series victory.

“The series witnessed some memorable performances and solid teamwork. Best wishes for the various games ahead.”

Batting legend Sachin Ten-dulkar called it “an amazing day for Indian cricket. #TeamIndia has made this a series to be cherished. Proud of the boys.”

He singled out for praise Cheteshwar Pujara.

“Test match batting at its best by Pujara. @cheteshwar1 has been the difference be-tween the 2 teams for me. To be able to bat for such long periods of time is a testament to his concentration and understand-ing of the game,” Tendulkar wrote on Twitter after Pujara’s Sydney knock.

Former greats VVS Lax-man and Virender Sehwag also lauded the win.

Laxman said the win “gives such an immense sense of satisfaction and joy”, while Se-hwag felt “proud” of the team’s achievement.

Former skipper Sunil Gavaskar rejected claims that India won because Australia was weakened by the absence of the suspended Steve Smith and David Warner.

“India played the opposi-tion they were presented with and it’s a great achievement for them,” Gavaskar said during a post-match show on host broad-casters Sony Six.

Former India captain Sourav Ganguly said India’s maiden Test series win in Australia is a “terrific” achievement and cred-ited the way the team batted for the success.

“It’s a terrific win. They played excellent cricket throughout and the batting clicked. They scored 400-600 runs and that was the key,” Ganguly told reporters at the Eden Gardens here.

Paine struggles to find any gain from Australia loss

The boys make the captain

look good. By far, this is my biggest achievement. It’s at the top of the pile.India captain Virat Kohli

India fans provide the cheer at the Sydney Cricket Ground during the final Test. (AFP)

AFPSYDNEY

AUSTRALIA skipper Tim Paine desperately looked for positives Monday after his side’s calamitous 2-1 Test series loss to India, but struggled to find many.

While they won in Perth, Aus-tralia were comprehensively out-played the rest of the series, losing in Adelaide and Melbourne before being spared by the rain in a one-sided Sydney finale.

Pace spearhead Mitchell Starc failed to fire, and Australia’s bats-men plumbed disappointing lows.

Their squad for two Tests against Sri Lanka is due to be an-nounced on Wednesday, with the

matches Australia’s last red-ball cricket before the Ashes tour to

England later in the year.And there will be some nervous

players waiting to find out their fate. “We’re really disappointed. We know we had some guys miss-ing but we honestly felt coming into this series that in Australia, we could beat India,” said Paine, who has won only one of the seven Tests he has been in charge.

“But throughout the series, more often than not when those big moments came up, Virat (Kohli) scored a century or (Cheteshwar) Pujara scored one, or (Jasprit) Bumrah bowled a great spell and got them through those moments.

“Their best players stood up in

the big moments.”Asked how the batsmen will be

able to handle an English attack on home territory if they were not able to deal with India’s quicks on doc-ile pitches in Melbourne and Syd-ney, Paine said: “We’ll have con-versations in the next day or two”.

But he also suggested that not much will be changing. “I have faith that the guys we have around the team are the right guys – (we) just have to keep putting some faith and trust in them,” he said.

“They are learning on the job, but I think we’ll get there. We can’t help that we haven’t got Mike Hus-seys or Michael Bevans,” he added.

Australia captain Tim Paine (centre) watches on with teammates as India celebrate series victory at the Sydney Cricket Ground on Monday. (AAP)

From 1947 to 2019

29 Asian captains have played 31 series in Australia

Asian teams have won 11 Tests and lost 66

Only 8 Asian captains have won Tests in Australia

India’s Virat Kohli is the only Asian captain to win

a Test series in Australia

They came. They conquered.: Anushka on Virat & Co show

IANSSYDNEY

ACTRESS Anushka Sharma is over the moon after the historic series win of the Indian cricket team in Australia. She says she is proud of her husband Virat Kohli, who led the team in the four match series that India claimed 2-1.

Anushka, the “proud” wife of Kohli took to Instagram to praise Indian team and her husband.

She wrote: “They came. They conquered. History written and cre-ated by this bunch. Huge congratu-lations to all players, coaching unit and support staff ; it takes undying perseverance and solid conviction

to focus on what’s important and shut out the rest. So happy and proud of you my love Virat.”

Apart from Anushka, several other members from film fraternity also congratulated team India.

Actor Anil Kapoor hailed team India’s win. “A historic moment! Congratulations team India! This is simply amazing! Making India proud,” he said.

Filmmaker-actor Farhan Akhtar showered the team with the con-gratulatory wishes for “finally break-ing through the Aussie barrier”.

Actor Rahul Bose: A wonderful achievement by team India! Con-gratulations Virat Kohli. You and your team have made history. It is another matter that this Indian team’s true capability against the present (strug-gling) Australian side is 3-0 /4-0.

India captain Virat Kohli’s wife Anushka Sharma gives a thumbs up soon after India’s historic win. (AFP)

Fromto

DOMINANT INDIA WIN FIRST-EVER TEST SERIES IN AUSTRALIA

Sports 19Tuesday, January 8, 2019

The Last Word20 Tuesday, January 8, 2019

DFI announces Qumra 2019 Masters


FRENCH New Wave cinema legend Agnès Varda, prolific Japanese director and writ-er Kiyoshi Kurosawa and Polish filmmaker Pawel Pawlikowski have been confirmed as the first three Qumra Masters of the Doha Film Institute’s dedicated industry incuba-tion and talent development event.

The three leaders in global cinema will nurture the development of local and inter-national up-and-coming filmmakers in Qa-tar in a series of masterclasses and mentor-ing sessions at the fifth edition of Qumra. A selection of pivotal works of Agnès Varda, Kiyoshi Kurosawa and Pawel Pawlikowski will be screened as part of the programme that provides unique professional develop-ment opportunities for emerging filmmak-ers and introduces them to some of the finest works in global cinema by true van-guards of the industry.

Delegates with projects will also par-ticipate in workshops and working ses-sions with industry experts, advancing their progress, covering all stages of the production-- from scripting and direction through to post-production, distribution and marketing.

“We are honoured to welcome three true masters of cinema to be our 2019

Qumra Masters, and to share their wis-dom, learning and insights with emerging filmmakers,” said Fatma Hassan al Re-maihi, chief executive officer of the Doha Film Institute (DFI). “The participation of these three living legends who have es-tablished remarkable identities in cinema will expand the possibilities of the me-dium for Qumra delegates. Agnès Varda, Kiyoshi Kurosawa and Pawel Pawlikowski have redefined storytelling, inspiring gen-

erations of filmmakers around the world to create fearlessly and to be true to their creative spirit.”

“The assembly of masters of filmmak-ing Agnès Varda, Kiyoshi Kurosawa and Pawel Pawlikowski conjures the essence of ‘Seven Samurai’ in providing essential pro-tection of the cinematic community from the ‘looting’ of global cultural bandits” said Elia Suleiman, the DFI’s artistic advisor.

Born in 1928 to Greek father and

French mother, Agnès Varda was a photog-rapher in the 1950s. In 1954, she founded Cine-Tamaris to make La Pointe Courte, which earned her the title of ‘Grand Mother of the French New Wave’. Her body of work includes 33 short and feature length docu-mentary and narrative films, including Cleo from 5 to 7 (1962); Vagabond (1985), Jacquot de Nantes (1991), The Gleaners & I (2000), The Beaches of Agnes (2008) and Faces Places (2017). Varda has won several

recognitions including among others an Academy Honorary Award® for her con-tribution to cinema.

Kiyoshi Kurosawa is a world-renowned film director, writer, film critic, and pro-fessor at Tokyo University of the Arts. A graduate of Rikkyo University, he pro-duced independent 8mm films and made his commercial feature directorial debut in 1983 with Kandagawa Wars. Initially attracting international attention with Cure (1997), he then delivered the nota-ble License to Live (1998), Barren Illu-sion (1999), Charisma (1999), and Pulse (2000), which was awarded the FIPRESCI Prize in the Un Certain Regard at 2001 Festival de Cannes.

Born in Warsaw, Pawel Pawlikowski has lived in London, Germany and Italy since the age of 14. A graduate of literature and philosophy from London University, he started making short films during his postgraduate studies at Oxford, later join-ing BBC’s documentary department. He started making unique documentaries in 1987, moving into narrative fiction in 1996 with Twockers while teaching documen-tary and narrative film directing at the Na-tional Film School. In 2013, he moved back to Warsaw, where he continues to make films and teaches film writing and direct-ing at the Wajda School.

Pawel PawlikowskiAgnès Varda Kiyoshi Kurosawa

French New Wave cinema legend Agnès Varda, prolific Japanese director and writer Kiyoshi Kurosawa and Polish filmmaker Pawel Pawlikowski will be the first three Qumra Masters of DFI’s dedicated industry incubation and talent development event

German institute team wins QatarDebate’s Arabic debate championship title in ViennaTRIBUNE NEWS NETWORK

DOHA QATARDEBATE Center (QD) a member of Qatar Foundation (QF), concluded the European Universities Arabic Debating Champion-ship, hosted in the Austrian capital of Vienna from Janu-ary 3 to 5.

The three-day tournament featured 20 universities repre-senting 15 European countries.

The European Institute of Human Sciences team from Germany was award-ed the championship title, while the Yalova University team from Turkey took sec-ond place. The two teams debated the motion, ‘This House believes that the time has come to replace interna-tional laws with a single uni-

versal constitution’. Dr Hayat Abdulla

Maarafi, executive director of QatarDebate, said: “This is an exceptional achievement in QD Center’s history and a good start of the year 2019. The tournament reflects the

centre’s keenness to promote Arabic language and its effec-tive use in a debate.” Maarafi also noted the important role played by debates in influ-encing young people.”

Commenting on the ‘EU-ADC 2019’, Aisha al Nesf,

head of Educational Pro-grams-QatarDebate, said: “The tournament is a diverse and wonderful gathering of people of different cultures and views, who are profi-cient in debating skills in Arabic.”

Abdulrahman al Subaie, head of Outreach Program - QatarDebate, said: “We conclude today the first Eu-ropean debate Champion-ship in Arabic organised by QD in Vienna. We thank all the distinguished media and

the management of The Eu-ropean Institute of Human Sciences in Germany and to all participating teams, judg-es, and volunteers for their contribution to the success of the tournament.”

Amel al Rabai, head of

Arabic Language at the Euro-pean College of Humanities, Frankfurt, suggested to the QatarDebate management to organise a European univer-sity debate championship in Arabic language, which was welcomed.

The 3-day tournament featured 20 universi-ties representing 15 European countries

The winning team from the European Institute of Human Sciences in Germany

SC honoured for commitment to cybersecurity

THE Supreme Committee for Deliv-ery & Legacy (SC) has been awarded prestigious RSA Excellence Award for its work in the field of cybersecurity and protection.

The award was given in recogni-tion of the SC’s ‘RSA Archer Suite’ project after the Security and IT de-partments demonstrated an ability to stretch the capabilities of the system and create an impact on regional and enterprise level.

Major Othman al Homoud, dep-uty head of Cyber-Security Unit at Security Committee, and Maryam al Muftah, SC’s Information Technol-ogy director, accepted the award on behalf of the SC.

In acceptance speech, Homoud said, “I am delighted to accept this prestigious award on behalf of my colleagues in the Security Committee and the SC.

“From day one, we have always treated the subject of security as our greatest priority and we work togeth-er every day to deliver not only the greatest FIFA World Cup in the tour-nament history, but also the safest. Projects such as this play a huge part in helping us achieve these goals.”

Muftah said, “The SC has suc-

cessfully used the Archer system to host and manage the cyber-security capabilities framework created for the 2022 FIFA World Cup – an enor-mous task and one that requires a great deal of commitment, collabora-tion and continuity.

“I am delighted to receive this award on behalf of the SC and the IT Department. I also look forward to continuing to build on this success over the coming years as we work to-gether to deliver an amazing World Cup in 2022.”

The ‘RSA Archer Suite’ project was established by the SC to oversee the implementation of a unified cy-ber-security capabilities framework.

The system is accessible to multiple entities and organisations across Qatar who are involved in delivering a safe and successful tournament in 2022.

The framework allows organi-sations to quickly implement risk-based cyber-security building prac-tices that tackle people, processes and technology elements – all based on industry standards and best prac-tices. This, in turn, leads to improved cyber-security maturity, more in-formed decision-making and en-hanced business performance.

Major Othman al Homoud, deputy head of Cyber-Security Unit at Security Committee, and Maryam al Muftah, SC’s In-formation Tech-nology director, accepted the award on behalf of the SC.

SC continues to ensure Qatar 2022 belongs to everyone, says Emadi


THE Supreme Committee for Deliv-ery and Legacy (SC) continues to work to ensure that FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar belongs to everyone, said Mead al Emadi, SC Community En-gagement Manager.

“As we move into 2019 and look back at 2018, our main motivation continues to be to take along all the communities on the road to 2022. That is the essence of what Qatar 2022 is all about-- to unite all communities and showcase the diversity among us and, more importantly, the commit-ment and passion within the Qatari communities in all existing natures,” Emadi said.

“For me, it is an honour to speak directly to the people who are support-ing us in the delivery of the first World Cup in the Arab world. Through all our initiatives, we have reached out to thousands of people, but one of the programmes that personally makes me especially proud is the Accessibil-ity Forum.

During the summer of 2018, the SC took a delegation of Accessibility Forum members to observe and re-port on the cultural and infrastructur-al disability services at the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia. Fifteen represent-atives participated in the observation trip and documented their experi-ences in order to increase operational expertise and event readiness in 2022 for both the SC and its partners.

“We also continued to reach out to the young generations in Qatar through the Youth Panel, which suc-cessfully began its third course having graduated 180 students since 2015. The 2018 class included 54 represent-atives of 30 different countries from across the world,” Emadi said.

He added, “Our commitment with expatriate residents in Qatar has also continued to grow with a total of 43 countries represented and that enjoy

direct access to our experts and rele-vant information about our plans that is to be spread across their different communities.

“One of the SC’s initiatives is also to support local and regional Rama-dan tournaments annually to encour-age greater participation in sports, to drive positive behaviour within the population and create lasting benefits for the region and its people. In 2018,

we sponsored eight tournaments in Qatar, Oman and Kuwait.”

“In parallel, we hosted the second Ramadan Tournament workshop to empower local and regional football tournament organisers and other par-ties to have the knowledge to deliver successful mini football tournaments from the planning to the delivery phase,” he said.

Guest speakers at the workshop

attended by 30 participants from different stakeholders included SC Ambassador Mohammed Saadon al Kuwari.

Emadi said, “In the first part of 2018, we also launched the Cultural Experience programme, conducting several workshops to bring together the leading organisations within the cultural sector. Our goal with this initiative was to start the work to en-hance the fan experience leading to and during the tournament in 2022.

“Finally, we were delighted to complete another full and successful programme of Higher Education Info Sessions. The sessions were designed to update and educate the next gener-ation of graduates across Qatar on the plans for Qatar 2022 and its associat-ed legacy projects and opportunities.”

Across eight sessions in Educa-tion City and Al Bidda Tower, the programme reached out to over 600 students from Georgetown Univer-sity, Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU), Qatar University, North-western University and the Qatar Leadership Centre.

During the summer of 2018, the SC took a delegation of Accessibility Forum members to observe and report on the cultural and infrastructural disability services at the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia.

AMIR ISSUES A HOST OF DECISIONS - Qatar Tribune

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