Amir pledges $100mn to combat climate change - Gulf Times

GULF TIMES

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QATAR

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QATAR | Page 3

In brief

TUESDAY Vol. XXXX No. 11315

September 24, 2019Muharram 25, 1441 AH www. gulf-times.com 2 Riyals

Commerce minister opens The Big 5 Construct Qatar

SPORT |

Messi, Rapinoe crowned world’s best by FIFA

Amir pledges $100mn to combat climate changeQNANew York

His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani yesterday announced that

Qatar will contribute $100mn for the support of small developing island states and the least developed states to deal with the climate change, natural hazards, environmental challenges and to build the capacity to counter their destructive eff ects.

The Amir said the contribution was within the framework of Qatar’s keen-ness to assume its role as an active partner with the international com-munity in the eff orts to meet the phe-nomenon of climate change, which is undoubtedly ‘one of the serious chal-lenges of our time’.

His Highness the Amir took part in the UN Climate Action Summit 2019, which was held by the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres at the UN headquarters in New York yesterday.

The summit was held in conjunction with convening of the 74th session of the UN General Assembly and was at-tended by a number of heads and lead-ers of the world and representatives of civil society organisations and institu-tions concerned with the environment internationally.

The Amir participated in the Climate Finance and Carbon Pricing Coalition session alongside French President

Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister of Jamaica Andrew Holness.

Delivering a speech, the Amir thanked the UN secretary-general for his eff orts in preparing and organising the important summit.

The Amir said: “The phenomenon of climate change is undoubtedly one of the serious challenges of our time. It is a problem that is continuously exac-erbating and causing many problems which intertwine in their economic, environmental and social dimensions and have very serious negative reper-cussions on all forms of life including human life and on both developed and developing countries alike, especially on the tracks of the sustainable devel-opment which all peoples aspire to.

“This serious phenomenon makes it incumbent upon the international community to co-operate and double eff orts to confront it and reduce its

repercussions. It is suffi cient for us to look at the devastation caused by Hur-ricane Dorian in the Bahamas and the suff ering of its population to realise the dire need for such co-operation.

“All states must fulfi l their responsi-bilities and honour their commitments which international agreements have established to this eff ect.”

Highlighting the eff orts of Qatar in this regard, His Highness the Amir said the State of Qatar has assumed its re-sponsibility as an active partner in the international community to confront the climate change phenomenon. “In 2012, it hosted the Eighteenth Session of the Conference of States Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Doha Car-bon and Energy Forum, in which inter-national experts participated to develop public policy recommendations for this sector and for governments on climate

change and alternative energy, and carbon capture and storage. Qatar has also spared no eff ort to ensure the suc-cess of negotiations of the Paris Climate Agreement in 2015.

“At the national level, the State of

Qatar - in the light of its National Vi-sion 2030 - has taken many measures to develop technologies taking into consideration climate change and adoption of clean energy, through the optimal use of water in order to reduce

the loss of desalinated water, encour-agement of recycling and reuse of wa-ter, improving air quality, promoting the effi ciency of using gas and energy, waste recycling and increasing green spaces. To Page 24

Money will go to small developing island states and the least developed states to build capacity to counter environmental challenges

Amir participates in United Nations Climate Action Summit 2019

2022 FIFA World Cup to be the first ‘carbon neutral’ tournament

Qatar Sovereign Wealth Fund to promote green investments activities

His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani met yesterday with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his accompanying delegation, on the sidelines of the 74th session of the UN General Assembly in New York. Talks during the meeting dealt with the bilateral relations and ways to develop them in various aspects of co-operation, especially in the political and economic areas. Modi thanked the Amir for the good treatment of the Indian community in Qatar. They also exchanged views on the latest developments in the region.

His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani delivering a speech at the UN Climate Action Summit 2019 in New York yesterday.

His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani met yesterday with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her accompanying delegation, on the sidelines of the 74th session of the UN General Assembly in New York. The meeting discussed the strategic relations between the two friendly countries and ways to develop them. The German Chancellor thanked the Amir for Qatar’s investments in Germany. The two sides also exchanged views on key international developments as well as the developments in the Middle East, particularly in Libya. The meeting was attended by the off icial delegation accompanying the Amir.

Amir meets German Chancellor

Amir holds talks with Indian PM

QATAR | Infrastructure

Qatar on the way tosmart transport system

REGION | Politics

European leaders sayIran behind Saudi attack

BUSINESS | Travel

Thomas Cook collapses,600,000 left stranded

The Ministry of Transport and Communications continues to strive towards establishing a smart transport system, as part of the implementation of Tasmu Smart Qatar Program. The programme aims to lower road fatalities to 6 per 100,000 people, in addition to lowering car emissions by 10% among other goals. The ministry said in a report it issued on Sunday that Qatar acknowledges the importance of having a modern transportation infrastructure in economic and industrial development. Page 8

The leaders of France, Germany and Britain yesterday agreed that Iran carried out this month’s attack on Saudi Arabian oil infrastructure and called on Tehran to choose dialogue over further “provocation.” Emmanuel Macron, Angela Merkel and Boris Johnson backed the conclusion of the US on the blasts at the Abqaiq and Khurais facilities. “It is clear to us that Iran bears responsibility for this attack. There is no other plausible explanation,” they said in a joint statement after meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.

British travel firm Thomas Cook collapsed yesterday, leaving hundreds of thousands of holidaymakers stranded. The 178-year-old debt-plagued group declared bankruptcy after failing to secure £200mn ($250mn) from private investors. It left around 600,000 tourists stranded worldwide according to Thomas Cook, while its 22,000 staff are out of a job. Business Page 16

QATAR

Gulf Times Tuesday, September 24, 20192

His Highness the Deputy Amir Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamad al-Thani received at the Amiri Diwan yesterday the credentials of seven new ambassadors to Qatar. The Deputy Amir received the credentials of Kosovo ambassador Amir Ahmadi, Japanese ambassador Kazuo Sunaga, Ireland’s ambassador Aidan Cronin, Malta ambassador Joseph Touma, Finland ambassador Marianne Nissila, Kingdom of Lesotho ambassador Boomo Frank Sofonia and ambassador of Lao Sisonxay Ngaovongsi.The Deputy Amir welcomed the new ambassadors and wished them success in their missions and the relations between Qatar and their countries further development.For their part, the ambassa-

Deputy Amir receives credentials of seven ambassadors

dors conveyed to His Highness the Deputy Amir the greetings of the leaders of their countries and wishes for the Qatari people to have continued progress and prosperity.The ambassadors were earlier accorded off icial reception ceremonies at the Amiri Diwan.

Preparations continue to secure IAAF World Athletics eventsThe Security Committee of the

IAAF World Athletics Cham-pionships Doha 2019 contin-

ues preparations for the tournament at a fast pace, along other commit-tees working within the Supreme Organising Committee.

The security teams in the Security Committee, consisting of the de-partments of the Ministry of Interi-or, are awaiting enormous tasks and challenges in a tournament that has gained its distinctive character from the standard global participation represented by 213 countries and more than 3,000 athletes competing in 24 disciplines.

During the tournament, three facilities will host events and com-petitions: Khalifa International Sta-dium, Qatar Sports Club, which is dedicated to the training of athletes participating in the tournament, as well as Doha Corniche, which witnesses various marathons.

Captain Saeed Juma al-Hitmi

from the Establishments and Au-thorities Security Department and Director of Marathon Security at the tournament, said that the secu-rity authorities in the country are responsible for securing all sports events and other major events, for Qatar to be a place where athletes fi nd a good atmosphere for creativi-ty. The Security Committee has pre-pared for this event, which is being held for the fi rst time in Qatar and the Middle East, he added.

Captain al-Hitmi added that for the fi rst time in athletics tourna-ments Doha Corniche is witnessing the fi rst night marathon, which is an event of special interest to the In-ternational Association of Athletics Federations, and athletes race dur-ing the night on the opening day and immediately after the ceremony and under spotlights, and the Security Committee has developed a plan to secure marathons and walking com-petitions for men and women.

He stressed that the committee took all safety measures and secu-rity and evacuation plans according to well-studied standards, and these eff orts come in co-ordination with all relevant parties to ensure suc-cess, which confi rms the readiness of the State of Qatar to host all major sporting events.

He pointed out that Doha Cor-niche will witness some closures at specifi c times, for example on September 26, some streets to the Corniche will be closed from 6pm-5am the next day, as well as on September 27.

He stressed that these closures do not aff ect the traffi c movement and will not cause congestion, and there are alternative ways that can be used in times of closures, appealing to citizens and residents to cooperate with police to perform their task in maintaining security.

For his part, Captain Saeed Man-sour al-Abdullah, from the Estab-

lishments and Authorities Security Department, co-ordinator of the media centre for the tournament, said that their mission is limited to secure the media centre and its an-nexes at Khalifa International Sta-dium, as well as those present in-side the facility during the various sporting events and activities.

He appealed to everyone to co-op-erate with security and abide by the laws and regulations in force, stress-ing that the state has harnessed all the possibilities and facilities for the media to carry out their duties to the fullest.

He added that the Supreme Or-ganising Committee expects the presence of large numbers of media representatives representing vari-ous international and local media, whether television stations, radio stations, newspapers or websites, and it is expected that about 2,500 media people will take part in the event. (QNA)

Ooredoo launches contest for Nojoom members

Ooredoo has announced a new competition for members of its loyalty programme, No-

joom, to celebrate the IAAF World Athletics Championships Doha 2019 with Ooredoo as the national partner.

The Nojoom Quiz of the Day Com-petition will run from September 27 until October 6, giving Nojoom members the chance to win 150,000 Nojoom points every day of the tour-nament by answering a quiz question

via the app, the company has said in a statement.

The Nojoom Quiz of the Day will ask members one question each day of the tournament, and all correct entries from that day will go into a daily draw

from which three lucky winners will be selected at random to win

150,000 Nojoom points each, the statement notes.

There will be a new quiz question posted every day of the tournament and members may attempt to answer the question only once. Winners will be

announced the following day, with Thursday and Friday winners being an-nounced the following Sunday, via the Ooredoo website.

Manar Khalifa al-Muraikhi, direc-tor of PR and Corporate Communi-cations at Ooredoo, said: “We are

beyond proud that the IAAF World Athletics Championship event is coming to Doha, and that we are the national partner. To celebrate this momentous occasion in our sporting history, we’re delighted to off er this exciting competition to our valued Nojoom members to thank them for their loyalty to Ooredoo.

“We look forward to an amaz-ing tournament and wish every-one the very best of luck with each day’s quiz!”

‘Protein’ chocolate bars banned‘High protein’ chocolate bars

do not meet halal require-ments and these products dif-

fer in composition from the Mars, Bounty, Snickers and Milky Way products available in the domes-tic market, the Ministry of Public Health announced yesterday.

The ‘protein’ chocolates contain protein from non-halal source and are not imported by an authorised dealer in Qatar, it said, adding the announcement comes in response to what has been raised in social media in this regard.

The ministry called on all not to buy the products through the internet or through personal sources.

As part of the precautionary measures, the ministry has di-rected its inspectors to ensure that the markets are free from the items and inform the ports not to allow their entry even in non-commercial quantities. (QNA)

Qatar takes part in ICAO Global Aviation Forum

Qatar has participated in the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) Global

Aviation Forum.The forum, which is held under

the theme “Innovation in Avia-tion”, is organised by ICAO for sen-ior government offi cials responsible for aviation, transport, science and technology, fi nance and economic planning, trade, development, and international co-operation.

HE the Chairman of Qatar’s Civil

Aviation Authority, Abdullah bin Nasser Turki al-Subaie, chaired Qa-tar’s delegation to the forum.

The series of interactive ses-sions that will be held during the forum will develop a set of policies, business models, regulatory proce-dures, administrative and govern-ance systems that will drive innova-tion to achieve sustainable aviation development.

Also, the forum will contribute to the development of the latest avail-able technologies at an aff ordable cost to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals set out in the 2030 Agenda and sup-

QNAMontreal

port the ICAO initiative to leave no country behind.

The forum will coincide with the innovation fair, which will showcase a range of new technologies and ideas being implemented in the aviation industry.

The fair will enhance the cul-ture of innovation and its potential

for sustainability in the sector.Also, it will provide knowledge

to key decision-makers on how to implement innovation within their countries.

One aspect of modern innovation is the relatively low cost of devel-opment, making it aff ordable for all emerging countries.

A session in progress at ICAO Global Aviation Forum.

QATAR3


Commerce minister opens The Big 5 Construct QatarQatar is not only delivering

some of the world’s most innovative and signature

projects, but it is also developing its processes for effi cient delivery and maintenance of sustainable construction and infrastructure, according to an industry expert.

Andrew Gardner-Mitchell, the chair of the CIOB Hub Com-mittees for Qatar and the Mena Region, who is one of the speak-ers at the three-day The Big 5 Construct Qatar, said: “Con-struction professionals joining the industry in Qatar can expect to have a voice and infl uence over the country’s exciting jour-ney to construction excellence.”

The second edition of The Big 5 Construct Qatar, being organised by dmg events Doha until tomor-row at the Doha Exhibition and Convention Centre (DECC), was inaugurated yesterday by HE the Minister of Commerce and In-dustry Ali bin Ahmed al-Kuwari.

A dedicated platform where in-ternational and regional construc-tion players can meet face-to-face, do business, and learn in Doha, The Big 5 Construct Qatar hosts 150 ex-hibitors from 20 countries and runs over 40 free and certifi ed education sessions this week.

Product off ering at The Big 5 Construct Qatar covers the en-tire building cycle across seven dedicated sectors, including MEP services, building interiors and fi nishes, building envelope and special construction, construc-

tion tools and building materials, construction technologies and innovations, concrete, and plant machinery and vehicles.

dmg events Doha country manager Loubna Aghzafi said, “We are extremely proud to open The Big 5 Construct Qatar. We continue to witness keen inter-est from international players looking to do business in Qatar’s construction sector and we are honoured to off er them access to local stakeholders who can sup-port their growth in the country.”

To further promote the unique opportunity that Qatar has to off er to international business visitors, The Big 5 Construct Qatar, along with the Qatar Na-tional Tourism Council (QNTC), features a ‘Hosted Buyers Pro-gramme’ and international me-dia tour throughout the event, bringing global business visitors even closer to local prospects.

According to dmg events Doha, the more than 40 free educa-tion sessions curated by industry thought leaders at The Big 5 Con-struct Qatar would update visiting professionals with the latest de-velopments in the sector.

Sessions run across themes, including Project Management, Architecture and Design, Gen-eral Construction, Sustainabili-ty, and the fi nal day talks on BIM and Women in Construction.

Another speaker at the event, Dr Hossam Samir Ibrahim, Urban & Regional Planning consultant at the Ministry of Municipal-ity and Environment, said: “Free education at The Big 5 Construct Qatar is hugely benefi cial for

By Peter AlagosBusiness Reporter

HE the Minister of Commerce and Industry Ali bin Ahmed al-Kuwari leading the ribbon-cutting ceremony of The Big 5 Construct Qatar in the presence of QNTC’s Ahmed al-Obaidli, dmg events president Matt Denton and other dignitaries. PICTURES: Noushad Thekkayil

More than 150 exhibitors from 20 countries are participating in this year’s edition of The Big 5 Construct Qatar.

construction professionals look-ing to advance their career. This style of education provides deep learning in the construction ca-reer fi eld and is recognised by employers for real job relevance.”

The Big 5 Construct Qatar is backed by QNTC (strategic part-ner), Qatar Free Zones Authority (offi cial free zone sponsor), Al Dar-wish (lanyard sponsor), Al-Adekhar (urban landscape sponsor) and FUSO (transportation sponsor).

‘Israeli practices have reached dangerous stage of escalation’

Qatar has stressed that the practices and poli-cies of the Israeli au-

thorities have reached a dan-gerous stage of escalation, recklessness and defi ance of many international laws and conventions, the latest of which is the announcement by the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of his intention to impose Israeli sovereignty on all areas of the Jordan Valley, the northern Dead Sea and settlements in the occupied West Bank.

This came in a speech deliv-ered by Qatar’s Permanent Rep-resentative to the United Na-tions in Geneva ambassador Ali Khalfan al-Mansouri during the general debate on the Human Rights Council’s (HRC) Agenda Item 7 on the human rights situ-ation in Palestine and other oc-cupied Arab territories during the current session of the HRC.

Ambassador al-Mansouri stressed that the declaration of the prime minister of the Israeli occupation government is a fl agrant violation of the Char-ter of the UN, the principles of international law and relevant UN resolutions, in addition, it contributes to undermining the political process, destroys the two-state solution and works to spread violence, chaos and in-stability in the Middle East.

He pointed to the impor-tance of Item 7 as a major item in the work of the HRC, stress-ing the need to participate in it because of its importance in highlighting the continuing violations of human rights and ongoing crimes committed by

Israel, the occupying power, against the Palestinian people, adding that it is not like the rest of the occupations in history, it is a racist and settler occupa-tion, seeking ethnic cleansing against the Palestinians and destroying their identity.

The ambassador called on the international community to shoulder its legal and moral responsibilities towards pro-viding international protection for the Palestinian people, en-suring that they have all their legitimate rights, and pressur-ing Israel, the occupying power, to commit it to implement the resolutions of international le-gitimacy, ending its occupation of all Palestinian and Arab ter-ritories, lifting the unjust siege imposed on the Gaza Strip, stopping the construction of settlements, halting attempts to Judaize the city of Jerusalem and Al Aqsa Mosque, obscuring their identity and changing their de-mographic composition, resolv-ing the issue of Palestinian refu-gees, and ensuring that all Israeli offi cials are held accountable for violations and crimes against the Palestinian people.

Also, ambassador al-Man-souri called on all companies that run businesses or benefi t from illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied State of Pales-tine to terminate those activi-ties immediately.

He called on the Offi ce of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to publish the database of these companies publicly and under the provi-sions of the HRC resolution, not to approve any further postponement due to lack of justifi cation, and to update the database annually.

QNAGeneva

QFZA hosts workshop at Big 5 Construct Qatar

Qatar Free Zones Au-thority (QFZA) is par-ticipating in The Big

5 Construct Qatar event in Doha, Qatar’s biggest annual gathering of representatives from across the construction sector.

The event is taking place at the Doha Exhibition and Con-vention Centre until tomorrow.

In addition to participat-ing with a booth at the event, QFZA has hosted a workshop on opportunities for con-struction stakeholders in the fast-growing Qatar Free Zones

at Ras Bu Fontas and Umm Al Houl.The workshop focused on

the various competitive ad-vantages of the zones and investment activity to date, QFZA said in a statement.

QFZA will host meetings with a wide range of key play-ers in the space, and encour-ages investors and company representatives attending the exhibition to meet the QFZA team to learn more about the investment opportunities and incentives off ered to investors at Qatar Free Zones.

QFZA’s booth at the event.

HE the Speaker of the Shura Council Ahmad bin Abdulla bin Zaid al-Mahmoud met at the government palace in Nursultan yesterday with Kazakhstan Prime Minister Askar Mamin, on the occasion of his participation in the 4th Meeting of the Presidents of Parliaments of Eurasian Countries. During the meeting, bilateral relations between the two countries and ways of enhancing them were reviewed, in addition to a number of issues of common concern. The meeting was attended by members of the Shura Council and charge d’aff aires at the Qatar embassy in Kazakhstan Ahmed Saad Hazeem al-Sulaiti.

Shura Council Speaker meets Kazakhstan PM

HE the Chairman of the Supreme Judiciary Council (SJC) and President of the Court of Cassation Dr Hassan Lahdan Saqr al-Mohannadi met with Malaysian Law Minister Datuk Liew Vui Keong and his accompanying delegation, in Doha yesterday. During the meeting, they discussed legal and judicial relations between the two friendly countries and ways of supporting and developing them.

SJC chairman meets Malaysian law minister Minister

meets Malaysian counterpart

HE the Minister of Justice and Acting Minister of State for Cabinet Aff airs

Dr Issa Saad al-Jafali al-Nuaimi met with Malaysian Law Min-ister Datuk Liew Vui Keong and his accompanying delegation in Doha yesterday.

During the meeting, the visit-ing delegation was briefed on the Qatari legal experience, its de-velopment in various fi elds and its continuous eff orts to con-solidate them in a manner that strengthens the principles of the rule of law and institutions.

The two sides also discussed areas of legal cooperation in var-ious judicial fi elds and reviewed the exchange of experiences in legislative work. (QNA)

HE the Attorney-General Dr Ali bin Fetais al-Marri met in Doha yesterday with Malaysian Law Minister Datuk Liew Vui Keong and his accompanying delegation, who are visiting Qatar. During the meeting, they exchanged views on a number of issues related to the legal and judicial fields, as well as means of joint co-operation in the exchange of expertise and training.

Attorney-general meets Malaysian law minister

Qatar condemns bombing of Turkish convoy in IraqQatar has strongly condemned the bombing of a Turkish military convoy in northern Iraq that killed two Turkish soldiers.In a statement yesterday, the Ministry of Foreign Aff airs reiterated Qatar’s firm stance on rejecting violence and terrorism, regardless of the motives and reasons.The statement expressed Qatar’s condolences to the victims’ families and the government and people of Turkey.

Qatari ambassador participates in launching relief convoy to Sudan

Qatar ambassador to Su-dan Abdulrahman bin Ali al-Kubaisi has par-

ticipated in launching the relief convoy to Kassala state in east-ern Sudan in support of those aff ected by fl oods. The project is funded by Qatar Fund for Devel-opment (QFFD) and implement-ed by Qatar Charity at a cost of $1,879,000.

The launch was attended by Humanitarian Aid Commission-er Dr Mohamed Al Sinari Mosta-fa representing the Sudanese government, Qatar Charity’s Sudan offi ce director Hussein Karmash and other representa-tives of civil defense and emer-gency room for fl oods and rains.

In a speech at the inaugura-tion ceremony, the Humanitar-ian Aid Commissioner expressed gratitude to the Qatari leader-ship, government and people for its humanitarian initiative, its response to the relief appeal

for those aff ected by fl oods and rains and providing great sup-port during the autumn season.

Dr al-Sinari said that Qatar always stands with Sudan to deal with the eff ects of disasters and fl oods and thanked Qatari or-ganisations for their signifi cant humanitarian role in Sudan.

Ambassador al-Kubaisi added that this convoy comes as part of the relief provided by Qatar to those aff ected by the fl oods and rains that hit many states of Sudan, under the guidance of His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani to stand with

Sudan during this ordeal. Qatari planes airlifted relief

aid to Khartoum airport, in-cluding great quantities of food, medicine and humanitarian as-sistance, in addition to what was distributed through Qa-tari organisations with funding from QFFD.

QNAKhartoum

Ambassador to Sudan Abdulrahman bin Ali al-Kubaisi along with others at the launch event.

Patient Safety Week underlines importance of quality servicesFifth Qatar Patient Safety Week, organised by the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH), highlighted the most important challenges that can hinder talking about patient safety with patients, their families and healthcare practitioners, with suggestions of strategies, models and initiatives that can improve speaking behaviour for patients.During the Patient Safety Week, the concept of patient safety and quality in the face of emergencies and adversity was explored as a prerequisite for achieving universal health coverage. The impact of this on the provision of health services and eff orts at the regional and international levels, in addition to discussing the practice of medicine in the

context of Qatari law, identifying shortcomings and opportunities for improvement to achieve patient safety and the health workforce. It also discussed local programmes to encourage healthcare personnel and patients to speak up for patient safety and identified opportunities for participatory and reciprocal learning, especially in dealing with challenges. The ministry concluded the safety week, which was held from September 15-21 under the slogan “Speak Up for Patient Safety” in conjunction with the first World Patient Safety Day that was approved by the World Health Organisation on September 17,

with the aim of intensifying eff orts and highlighting the importance of patient safety as a global priority.The conference was attended by about 1,000 health practitioners from various institutions in Qatar, including 34 experts from Qatar and abroad. The Fifth Qatar Patient Safety Week was supported by health and educational institutions such as Hamad Medical Corporation, Primary Health Care Corporation, Hamad Healthcare Quality Institute, Sidra Medicine, Qatar Red Crescent Society, World Innovation Summit for Health (WISH), Aspetar, Aster Hospital, Al Ahli Hospital, Doha Clinic Hospital, and Al Fazaa volunteer centre. (QNA)

HE the Minister of Commerce and Industry Ali bin Ahmed al-Kuwari visiting the booth of Al Darwish Engineering.

4 Gulf TimesTuesday, September 24, 2019

QATAR

QNB Group joins United Nations Global CompactQNB Group, the largest fi -

nancial institution in the Middle East and Africa,

has joined the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC), the world’s largest corporate sus-tainability initiative, promoting better business practices in the areas of human rights, labour, environment and anti-corrup-tion, as part of its commitment to sustainable development.

This new partnership comes within the increasing focus on sustainability as one of the most pressing topics across all indus-tries, QNB Group has said in a statement.

QNB Group acting Group CEO Abdulla Mubarak al-Khalifa said: “We are early on in our sus-tainability journey and I fi rmly believe a proactive approach to

managing environmental, so-cial and governance factors will strengthen our business resil-ience in the long-term and sup-port QNB Group’s position as the largest fi nancial institution in the Middle East and Africa.

“By joining the UNGC, we commit to embed its principles as part of the culture and day-to-day operations of the Group and to engage in projects which advance the broader objectives of the United Nations Sustaina-ble Development Goal and Qatar National Vision 2030.”

The UNGC provides a prin-ciple-based framework, best practices and resources that enables companies globally to conduct business responsibly and ethically while contribut-ing to the betterment of society.

With 13,000 participants and stakeholders in 170 countries, it helps organisations catalyse action, secure partnerships and collaborate.

This initiative aims to mo-bilise a global movement of sustainable companies and stakeholders to create a more sustainable world.

To make this happen, the UNGC supports companies on two main pillars: doing busi-ness responsibly by aligning their strategies and operations with the Ten Principles on hu-man rights, labour environment and anti-corruption; and tak-ing strategic actions to advance broader societal goals, such as the UN Sustainable Develop-ment Goals, with an emphasis on collaboration and innovation.

Supporting this initiative, QNB recently launched its Group-wide sustainability strategy across the organisation in line with national and international standards, the statement notes.

As a result, it has improved the way in which it incorporates sustainability (Environment, Social and Governance) crite-ria into its fi nancing activities, launched initiatives to reduce its environmental impact and supported local communities through volunteering and dona-tions.

Further, QNB has strength-ened its risk management framework and improved the transparency of its corporate governance business practices, ensuring it operates in a respon-sible and ethical manner. The QNB head off ice.

QIC Insured, Ooredoo collaborate to reward Nojoom membersQIC Insured, the personal insurance division of QIC, has

collaborated with Ooredoo to make customers’ journeys even more rewarding. Exclusive to direct walk in and

online customers, those registered with Ooredoo’s rewards pro-gramme, Nojoom, can now earn loyalty points when buying or renewing Home Contents Insurance, Annual Travel Insurance, Personal Accident Benefi t Insurance, and QIC Anaya.

QIC Insured said it has always focused on meeting the direct and indirect needs of its customers. In order to build a culture of continuous improvement that uplifts customers’ experience, QIC Insured has consistently deployed state-of- the-art tech-nology and metrics that measure both customer satisfaction with journey and the operational indicators that underlie each customer journey. Ahmed al-Jarboey, senior vice-president - Mena Retail & Motor at QIC Insured, said: “We have taken a step further towards extending our range of benefi ts to enhance customers’ experience with this distinctive partnership.

“It is our way of rewarding customers for selecting QIC as their trusted insurance partner. In fact, what makes the new loyalty programme even more appealing is that customers can earn Nojoom points even when buying or renewing policies at special rates, discounts or while using Promo codes.”

He added, “QIC Insured has been very successful at aligning eff orts in matching the pace of change in customer loyalty pro-grammes. We are confi dent that this new tie-up will bring a host

of benefi ts to our customers. “As we continue to embed design thinking into our business model and co-create solutions with our partners, we aspire to introduce more exclusive off ers and privileges for our customers.”

For more information on how to earn and redeem Nojoom points, one can call 8000742.

The QIC headquarters in West Bay.

Doha Forum report launched at Concordia Summit in New YorkDoha Forum has

launched a report on the opening day

of the Concordia Summit in New York, titled ‘Reim-agining Governance in a Multipolar World’, written in partnership with The Stimson Centre, a leading non-partisan policy re-search centre.

In anticipation of Doha Forum’s 19th edition on this very theme, which will take place from December 14-15, the report considers current trends in govern-ance worldwide and the core principles to which world leaders will need to recommit in the 21st cen-tury.

Written to provoke de-bate and inform discus-sions between govern-ments, society, the media and think tanks alike, the report was launched at the dedicated Doha Forum stand at the Concordia Summit, at which time HE Lolwah Alkhater, Spokes-person for the Ministry of Foreign Aff airs and Ex-ecutive Director of Doha Forum, and President and CEO of The Stimson Cen-tre, Brian Finlay, hosted at-tending guests.

Commenting on the re-port, HE Alkhater said: “Doha Forum is delighted to partner with The Stim-son Centre on this report, in advance of this year’s

19th edition of the forum. We must continue to en-gage in open debate and dialogue to ensure the in-terchange of ideas with the commitment to achieving a peaceful and sustainable world. I am sure that the launch of this report will only serve to encourage such debate.”

“Next year’s UN 75 Sum-mit provides a unique op-portunity to refi ne the tools of global governance to better meet the evolving challenges of our time. This report provides practical starting points for the in-ternational community to not only better understand

the need for enhanced co-operation across govern-ment, industry and civil society, but to take mean-ingful action and ensure that we are better equipped to resolve confl icts peace-fully, to address the eff ects of a changing climate, and to better manage cross bor-der economic shocks when they occur,” said Finlay.

The Doha Forum Report is also published on the home page of the Doha Fo-rum website, www.doha-forum.org.

An annual policy forum, Doha Forum immerses global leader and policy-makers in crucial debate

and aims at thought lead-ership to refl ect recent de-velopments in migration, climate change, changing world leaderships and the rise of new global powers. Last year, the forum made breakthroughs challenging topics by encouraging open discussion on a platform enveloped in the values of diversity, diplomacy and dialogue.

The Concordia Annual Summit, taking place in New York until today, is the largest and most inclusive non-partisan forum in the world, and this year runs alongside the United Na-tions General Assembly.

HE Lolwah Alkhater with Brian Finlay at the Concordia Summit.

Thousands of displaced persons to benefi t from QC contributions

UNHCR – the UN Refugee Agency and Qatar Charity (QC) have signed three agreements

worth $5mn in support of thousands of displaced women, men and children in Yemen, Iraq and Bangladesh.

The agreements were signed by Khaled Khalifa, UNHCR Regional Representative to the Gulf Co-oper-ation Council Countries (GCC), and Yousef bin Ahmed al-Kuwari, CEO of Qatar Charity, at a side event on the ‘Role of Sport in Safeguarding and Empowering Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons’ (IDPs) organised by QC at the UN General Assembly.

“The generous contribution will provide much needed cash-assist-ance for internally displaced families in Yemen and Iraq, as well as enhance water, health and sanitation facili-ties for Rohingya refugees and host communities in Bangladesh,” a press statement notes.

Commenting on the partnership with QC, Khalifa said: “Qatar Char-ity has been a key partner of UNHCR for many years. Their support has directly contributed to elevating the suff ering of thousands of vulnerable refugees and IDPs around the world. Such partnerships are critical as they allow UNHCR to deliver urgent and lifesaving aid to address most press-ing humanitarian needs in our re-gion and beyond.” In Bangladesh, the contribution will be used to support UNHCR’s ongoing eff orts to enhance and develop water, health and sani-

tation facilities in the settlements hosting Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazar. This includes increasing sup-ply of potable water, the construction of new bathing facilities and the con-struction and maintenance of latrines with septic tank de-sludging services that are better suited to the terrain.

These eff orts will “drastically improve” the living conditions of approximately 12,600 Rohingya refugees and members of the host community, the statement notes. For Iraq and Yemen, the donation was made through UNHCR’s Shariah-Compliant Refugee Zakat Fund. UN-HCR’s Zakat Fund helps the most vulnerable refugee and internally dis-placed families with cash assistance to cover basic expenses such as rent,

food, healthcare and debt repayment. More than 71,000 vulnerable IDPs, including female-headed house-holds, will receive cash assistance allowing them to cover their most pressing needs, the statement adds.

“Qatar Charity is committed to mak-ing a diff erence in the lives of people in need. Our partnership with UNHCR ensures that we support life-saving initiatives, which address the critical humanitarian needs of displaced peo-ple around the world,” said al-Kuwari.

Since 2012, UNHCR’s partnership with Qatar Charity has helped more than 1mn refugees and displaced per-sons around the world through the provision of education, healthcare, shelter, cash assistance and emer-gency relief.

Off icials at the agreement-signing ceremony.

QATAR5Gulf Times

Tuesday, September 24, 2019

Safari Hypermarket Group has announced the winners of the third lucky draw of the ‘Win 15 Toyota Fortuner 2019 Cars’ promotion. The draw was held at Safari Mall, Abu Hamour, on Sunday in the presence of an off icial from the Ministry of Commerce and Industry and off icials representing the Safari management. The winners of three Toyota Fortuner 2019 vehicles are Dil Bahadur Chhetri (coupon No 2415721), Aneesh (2784648) and Awad Hazayed (1436005).

Safari announces winners of lucky draw

QU college, IEI to launch CentenaryInternational Engineering Congress

The Qatar University College of Engineering (QU-CENG) and the Institution of Engineers, India (IEI) – Qatar Chapter will launch the Centenary Interna-

tional Engineering Congress at Qatar University Research Complex auditorium to discuss several topics related to ‘Smart Engineering - State of the Art Technologies in Oil & Gas and Infrastructure Development’, on September 26.

IEI will also be celebrating Engineer’s Day on September 27 at Al Dana Club, West Bay, which is observed annually on September 15 worldwide.

The opening session will feature speeches from QU presi-dent Dr Hassan al-Derham, Indian ambassador P Kumaran, IEI president Dr T M Gunaraja and Qatar Foundation Re-search, Development and Innovation chief adviser Dr Na-beel al-Salem.

CENG dean Dr Khalid Kamal Naji said, “In co-ordination with our partners, CENG will continue to deliver on its mission and vision to fulfi l the needs of the industrial sec-tor and community by providing high quality research that responds to today’s engineering challenges in a way that makes a diff erence in the engineering various areas.”

“The conference will discuss diff erent advanced and state-of-the art technologies and technological innovations of integrated engineering processes for development of pet-rochemical and civil infrastructure,” he continued.

“Smart engineering intelligently connects buildings, in-dustries, production processes, energy systems, to adapt

and evolve the way people live and work - happily, comfort-ably, sustainably and in harmony. It supports the way the industry and organisations want to be: effi cient, responsible and smarter. Technology and the ingenuity of people come together to be at one with our environments and to care for our world. It has to be done from the macro to the micro level, from physical products, components and systems to connected, cloud-based digital off erings and services, from intelligent grid control and electrifi cation to smart storage solutions, from building automation and control systems to pipelines, switches, valves and sensors,” added Gunaraja.

Qatar University


QATAR

Q-Chem woos Qatari talentsQatar Chemical Com-

pany Ltd (Q-Chem) organised its Qatarisa-

tion ‘Open Day’ from Septem-ber 16-18 at its headquarters in Doha.

“The Q-Chem ‘Open Day’ is an annual event intended to attract and recruit more Qatari talents.

“It is part of company’s com-mitment to the development of nationals and to reach out to the community to achieve sus-tainable development, which is in line with Qatar National Vi-sion 2030,” the company said in a statement.

The ‘Open Day’ “enhances Q-Chem’s position as the pre-ferred employer in the country”, the statement noted.

Successful candidates will have an opportunity “to have a fulfi lling career in one of Qatar’s top companies” in the sector, the statement pointed out.

They will be part of “a dy-namic team of professionals who pursue a common goal and contribute to their growth,

professional development and integrity”.

Many young Qataris turned out to attend the three-day event, running from 8am- 2pm.

Nasser Jeham al-Kuwari, CEO of Q-Chem, said: “Q-Chem Open Day off ers yet an-other opportunity to attract more Qataris to join one of the vibrant organisations in the country.

“Over the years, our Qatari-sation rate has increased and our eff orts were recognised last year with the Qatarisa-tion Award (Best Qatarisation Progress) in the Energy and In-dustry Sector.

“Qataris have an opportunity to work in one of the three Q-Chem-operated facilities — in Mesaieed, Ras Laff an and at the company’s headquarters in Doha.

“Since its inception, Qataris have been able to progress to-wards the company’s leader-ship ranks.

“Today, 41% of key positions in Q-Chem are held by Qataris

who joined through our Qatari-sation programmes.”

Q-Chem off ers its employ-ees “an exciting, challenging and rewarding work experience with competitive benefi ts”, the statement added.

The company also off ers training and continuous devel-opment programmes, including individual development plans, providing them with a road-map for progressing within the company.

Q-Chem recruits, develop and retrains highly competent nationals through its special programme, Total Quality Qa-tarisation (TQQ). The TQQ is strongly linked to individual performance and proven com-petencies that relate to meeting operational requirements and organisational success.

Through this initiative, Q-Chem off ers a wide range of capacity-building programmes to prepare, attract and develop Qatari nationals.

It also fosters young Qataris so that they can benefi t from the initiative.

The Q-Chem ‘Open Day’ is an annual event intended to attract and recruit more Qatari talents.

Vodafone Qatar has an-nounced that all its fl agships stores are now staff ed with

retail advisers able to communi-cate using sign language. This an-nouncement comes on the Interna-tional Day of Sign Languages that is celebrated annually across the world on September 23 along with International Week of the Deaf.

Qatar Society for Rehabilitation of Special Needs (QSRSN) delivered sign language training to Vodafone Qatar’s employees over a 10-day pe-

riod, during which they were taught the basic foundations of sign lan-guage in addition to customer serv-ice skills and telecom-related signs, the company said in a statement.

Khames Mohamed al-Naimi, chief human resources offi cer at Vodafone Qatar, said: “I am incred-ibly proud of our employees for the commitment and enthusiasm they showed to this training. The deaf community can now walk into any of our fl agship stores knowing that they will be welcomed in an inclu-

sive environment where they can communicate with ease.

“At Vodafone Qatar, we place great importance on all customers receiving a great experience and that includes customers with dis-abilities. We deeply believe that there is a corporate responsibility to cater to the needs of this segment and enable them to stay connected with society and the world.”

Vodafone Qatar launched perma-nent off ers and services for custom-ers with disabilities in 2012 under

its ‘Vodafone for All’ programme.Customers registered and hold-

ing a valid special needs card from the QSRSN are off ered a 50% dis-count on all Vodafone postpaid plans and 10% discount on select handsets equipped with accessibil-ity features and applications.

Vodafone Qatar’s fl agship stores are located in Landmark Mall, Villag-gio, City Center Doha, LuLu Hyper-market — D-Ring Road, Al Furosiya, Industrial Area, LuLu Hypermarket — Gharaff a, Msheireb and Al Wakrah.

Vodafone Qatar retail stores’ staff get sign language training

Vodafone staff receive their sign language certificates.

Mazda, Porsche andFord models recalled

The Ministry of Commerce and Industry (MoCI), in co-operation with National Car Company, dealer of Mazda in Qatar, has announced a recall of the Maz-

da BT-50 pickup, model years 2016-2018, due to possible cracks in the brake hose that may lead to an oil leak.

Also, in co-operation with Porsche Centre Doha — Al Boraq Automobiles, dealer of Porsche in Qatar, the MoCI has announced a recall of the following Porsche models — 2016 Panamera, Boxster and Cayman, 2016 and 2017 911 Carrera, 2017 Cayman and 718 Boxster, due to loose side-impact airbag sensors that need to be properly tightened to the vehicle.

Also, in co-operation with Almana Motors Company, dealer of Ford in Qatar, the ministry has announced a re-call of Ford Ranger models of 2004-2011 and Ford Courier model of 2004 due to faulty airbag infl ators in the aff ected vehicles.

The MoCI said the recall campaigns come within the framework of its continuous eff orts to protect consumers and ensure that car dealers follow up on vehicle defects and repairs.

The ministry will co-ordinate with the dealer to follow up on the maintenance and repair works and communicate with customers to ensure that the necessary repairs are carried out.

The MoCI has urged all customers to report any viola-tions to its Consumer Protection and Anti-Commercial Fraud Department, which processes complaints, enquir-ies and suggestions through the call centre: 16001, e-mail: [email protected], Twitter: @MOCIQATAR, Instagram: MOCIQATAR and the ministry’s mobile app for Android and iOS: MOCIQATAR

The Bangladesh embassy has said it will hold an Open House session at its premises at 4pm on September 28. Bangladeshi expatriates living in Qatar are invited to share their opinion and views about various services provided by the embassy at the Open House. Ambassador Ashud Ahmed and off icials of the embassy will remain present during the Open House.

Bangladesh embassy Open House

QATAR7Gulf Times


Qatar, UN seek to boost peace and prosperityQNADoha

Emphasising the State of Qa-tar’s full support to interna-tional institutions, led by the

United Nations and its noble goals and mission, His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani will today head Qatar’s delegation to the 74th session of the UN General Assembly in New York.

His Highness earlier had visited the French Republic and the UK, where he held talks with the French President Emmanuel Macron at Elysee Palace in Paris, and with Brit-ish Prime Minister Boris Johnson at 10 Downing Street in London, to promote strategic relations and co-operation, in addition to exchanging views on the most prominent up-dates regionally and internationally.

The Amir will deliver a speech today at the opening session of the UNGA, which will touch on the con-stants of the Qatari policy and the state’s attitudes towards the most prominent issues and the local, Arab and international topics.

His Highness is keen that the State of Qatar takes part in all in-ternational activities, dialogues and meetings on all levels that aim primarily to consult and exchange views on issues, topics and hap-pening topics on the regional and international arenas, in addition to discussing ways to address the chal-lenges facing mankind and develop-ment around the world, achieving peace and ensuring human rights.

His participation in such inter-national meetings along a number of other dignitaries, heads of state and government, heads of delega-tions and governmental and non-governmental organisations, comes as part of the Amir’s belief in the importance of the UN and its noble mission, its responsibility to main-tain peace and stability in the world, defuse international crises and put them on the path of solutions and compromises and to stir away from the spectre of wars or resort to mili-

tary force or waving it in happening areas of the world.

The Amir’s repeated participa-tion in the UNGA opening sessions every year stems from his keenness to further promote the State of Qa-tar’s bright image and people, its distinguished relations with diff er-ent countries and peoples and its status before the leaders and repre-sentatives of diff erent countries of the world.

As always, the issues of the Arab and Islamic nations will top the speeches of the Amir in various fo-rums, including the security matters in the Gulf, its stability and prosper-ity, especially as he is from a region that faces many dangers from all sides and is rippled by confl icts and crises that threaten the internation-al stability as a whole.

His Highness Sheikh Tamim’s speech is expected to focus on the Palestinian cause on the basis of Qatar’s belief in this just cause and the need to fi nd a peaceful and fair solution on the principle of two-state solution and the Arab peace initiative; and its belief that the Arab-Israeli confl ict cannot be set-tled unless a just and lasting solu-tion to the question of Palestine is in place to ensure legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, including the right to establish an independent state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.

It also highlights the State of Qa-tar’s belief in the necessity of resolv-ing the Syrian issue in accordance with the will of the Syrian people away from foreign interference, and

stresses that only a political solu-tion that can stop the blood of Syr-ians and put an end to their suff er-ing both inside and outside Syria, in a way that meets the aspirations of the Syrian people for justice, dignity and freedom, and preserves the uni-ty and sovereignty of Syria.

Regarding Yemen, Qatar affi rms in all forums and events the impor-tance of preserving Yemen’s unity and achieving its security and sta-bility, ending the state of fi ghting and war, adopting dialogue, political solution and national reconciliation as the basis for ending this crisis and implementing the relevant Security Council resolutions.

It calls on all Yemeni parties to resort to national reconciliation to end the confl ict on the basis of in-ternational resolutions as soon as possible, especially as the confl ict there has recently witnessed serious developments beyond Yemeni terri-tory.

On the Libyan issue, Qatar strongly supports all eff orts to re-store security and stability in Libya and believes that foreign interven-tion there complicates the crisis and prevents the national consensus sought by the Libyan brothers.

The State of Qatar is keen to strengthen its strategic partnership with the United Nations and has always worked to achieve its goals, including maintaining international peace and security, supporting in-ternational development eff orts, promoting and consolidating hu-man rights, providing humanitarian relief, and participating in collec-tive eff orts and initiatives to address current and emerging challenges facing the world.

Qatar’s foreign policy is based on a set of principles and parameters, which include the consolidation of international peace and security through the promotion of a peaceful resolution of international confl icts, and the establishment of a culture of peace, tolerance and dialogue among civilisations, cultures and religions.

Based on its commitment to re-nounce use of force or interfere in

the aff airs of others and attempts to impose fait accompli by force, the State of Qatar always strives to achieve a peaceful resolution of disputes through mediation, which is one of the priorities of its foreign policy.

The State of Qatar has a long-standing and successful record in mediation, with no interference in the internal aff airs of other coun-tries.

The fi ght against terrorism is one of the most important challenges facing the world because it repre-sents a real threat to international peace and security.

The fi ght against terrorism is one of the priorities of the State of Qa-tar’s policy on the national, regional and international levels, and Qatar’s fi rm position is based on the rejec-tion of all forms and manifesta-tions of terrorism anywhere in the world, whatever the reasons and causes, with the importance of dis-tinguishing between terrorism and the struggle of peoples and their le-gitimate struggle for their rights and independence.

The State of Qatar refuses to deal with this phenomenon with double standards or according to the iden-tity of its perpetrators.

The 74th session of the General Assembly comes at a time when the world faces serious security, politi-cal and economic threats and chal-lenges, with the emergence of new confl icts and the re-emergence of tensions in some countries, which puts the will of the international community represented by the United Nations and its various insti-tutions in front of a real test if they are to maintain their role and mis-sion in maintaining and achieving international peace in accordance with the resolutions and charters of international legitimacy, which confi rms the importance of re-sponding to calls made by peace-loving countries, including the State of Qatar, where Doha strongly be-lieves in the importance of dialogue as the best way to peace and peaceful settlement of confl icts and crises.

Qatar’s foreign policy is based on a set of principles and parameters, which include the consolidation of international peace and security through the promotion of a peaceful resolution of international confl icts, and the establishment of a culture of peace, tolerance and dialogue among civilisations, cultures and religions

Indian embassy Open House on Thursday

Indian ambassador P Kumaran will hold an Open House on the

Indian embassy premises from 3pm-4pm on September 26 to

listen to/redress any urgent labour and consular issues faced by

Indian nationals in Qatar.

QNL event turns the spotlight on local folklore, storytelling

Qatar National Library, in collabora-tion with the Qatari Authors’ Fo-rum, recently hosted forum member

Saleh Gharib for a talk, ‘Qatar’s Old Tales’. Refl ecting Qatar’s rich storytelling and folk-lore tradition, Gharib based his lively lecture on the most popular literary traditions in Qatari society as a way of reviving and shar-ing memories of the nation’s heritage.

He also sought to encourage a dialogue between Qatar’s age-old traditions, prov-erbs and legends in an evocative way to re-veal their powerful messages and highlight their appropriate use.

Agnes Bach, who participated in the event, said: “The library connects me with people and cultures. The event today gave me so much interesting information about Qatar’s unique traditions, past lifestyles and how these traditions are relevant in the present.”

“Stories, proverbs and sayings make up the oral tradition and heritage of a nation, which need to be maintained and recorded as its passed on from one generation to the other. Today’s event has provided me with a deeper insight into Qatari culture,” she added.

Another participant, Jacqueline Notting-ham, a college counsellor, said: “I enjoy the cultural and historical events taking place at the Library, and today’s lecture presented an interesting aspect of Qatar’s traditions.

Events such as this help non-Qataris such as myself better understand the place where we live and its history and heritage.”

Saleh Gharib speaking at the event.

Texas A&M vice-chancellor to speak on agriculture and national security

Dr Patrick J Stover, vice-chancellor of Texas A&M AgriLife in The

Texas A&M University System, will deliver a lecture, ‘Agriculture,

Food and Nutrition are the Future of National Security’, at noon

today in the Multaqa Student Centre Cinema in Education City.

Stover will discuss how harmonising agriculture and food sys-

tems with human, environmental and economic health is among

the greatest challenges to ensure prosperity, sustainability and

national security globally.

He will explain that while increases in global food produc-

tion, done in a manner that is environmentally and economi-

cally sustainable, will be essential to keep pace with worldwide

population growth, reductions in the global burden of chronic

disease will require the development of culturally acceptable

food system architectures that support human health and are

accessible to the most vulnerable populations.

Ministry hosts first meeting of Islamic Studies’ co-ordinators

The Ministry of Education and Higher Education, represented by

the department of Islamic studies, yesterday held the first meet-

ing of the co-ordinators of Islamic studies, within the framework

of the development plan that the Department is keen to imple-

ment during the new academic year 2019-2020.

The meeting included seven main axes during which the

speakers addressed the subjects of Islamic studies, ways and

mechanisms to activate the core values of the educational

curriculum of the State of Qatar, plans to raise the academic

achievement levels of students, and the impact of competencies

in the educational process, and how to follow it up, and the con-

tribution of lessons programme in raising students’ cognitive

and skill levels.

The Head of Department, Sheikha al-Mansour, stressed the

need to take care of the updated plan of the Ministry in order to

achieve Qatar National Vision 2030, with the commitment of the

staff including coordinators and teachers to refer to the depart-

ment of curricula to answer queries related to resources, in the

framework of keeping up with educational updates to achieve

the desired educational outcomes. — QNA

HE the Minister of State for Foreign Aff airs

Sultan bin Saad al-Muraikhi met in New York

yesterday with commissioner-general of the

United Nations Relief and Works Agency for

Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA)

Pierre Krahenbuhl. The meeting, which was

held on the sideline of the 74th UN General

Assembly, discussed the co-operation relations

between Qatar and UNRWA, besides topics

of mutual interest. HE al-Muraikhi also met

with Kosovo’s Deputy Prime Minister Behxhet

Pacolli. During the meeting, they discussed

bilateral ties and topics of common interest.

Al-Muraikhi meets UNRWA chief, Kosovo deputy PM


QATAR

Qatar on fast track to adopting smart transport systemQNADoha

The Ministry of Transport and Com-munications continues to strive towards establishing a smart trans-

port system, as part of the implementa-tion of Tasmu Smart Qatar Programme.

The programme aims to lower road fatalities to six per 100,000 people, in addition to lowering car emissions by 10% among other goals. The ministry said in a report it issued on Sunday that

Qatar acknowledges the importance of having a modern transportation infra-structure in economic and industrial development, particularly in light of the high population growth and economic expansion. The report points out that the ministry’s work is part of the eff ort to transform the country into a knowl-edge-based digital economy. The con-tribution of the transportation sector to GDP in 2017 was around QR17.2bn, up from QR10.6bn in 2013. The state allo-

cated 7.9% of its 2019 budget expendi-ture to transportation and communica-tion. That is in addition to the QR1bn allocated this year to the expansion of Hamad International Airport, a QR10bn project. Moreover, QR3bn has been allo-cated to the public transport programme until 20021. The state will also increase highways to 8,500km.

The ministry is working on fi ve main projects related to public transport: elec-tric buses, establishing 17 public trans-

port infrastructure sites, 3,000 smart bus stops, developing the West Bay bus centre, water taxis and improved public transport buses. There are other projects that in-clude using Wi-Fi on street lighting poles.

Also, the Ministry of Transport and Communications has implemented, in co-operation with Qatar Rail and Karwa, a plan to integrate diff erent public trans-port means such as Metrolink and Metro-express. In aerial transport, Hamad In-ternational Airport launched phase two

of its smart airport programme, which uses facial recognition capabilities. The smart airport plan contributes to the im-provement of the operational processes and provides optimal use of the airport’s resources and facilities. It also provides the required information when making decisions regarding the future capacity of the passenger terminal and the fl ow of passengers, with the state targeting 53mn passengers a year by 2022. In maritime transport, Hamad Port began opera-

tions in 2016, before its offi cial inaugura-tion in September 2017. It links 50 ports regionally and internationally in three continents. The ministry is overseeing the second phase of the port, which will be fully automatic. Phase two is set to be completed in 2021. Doha Port for its part is undergoing a development process worth $550mn. The next Qatar IT Con-ference and Exhibition (Qitcom 2019), which will take place from October 20 until November 4, will see the minis-try review its latest developments in the fi elds of transportation.

‘Screen For Life’ to launch ‘Put Yourself First’ campaign

Screen For Life, Qatar’s Na-tional Breast and Bowel Can-cer Screening programme op-

erated by the Primary Health Care Corporation (PHCC), will launch a ‘Put Yourself First’ Breast Cancer Awareness campaign next month as part of International Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

The aim of the month-long cam-paign is to educate and raise aware-ness on the importance of early detection of breast cancer in Qatar and to promote early screening for breast cancer with a mammogram test being free for all women in Qa-tar aged 45-69 years.

Women take care of everyone around them; family, husband, kids and work. This big responsibility leaves no time for women to take care of themselves. Accordingly, the campaign tagline ‘Put Yourself First’ was a direct call for action asking ladies to think of them-selves as a priority especially when

it comes to their health. In October, ‘Screen For Life’ will conduct lec-tures, undertake training for phy-sicians, operate a mobile screening unit and mount information booths in malls and health centres while implementing social media con-tests and awareness campaigns to promote the early screening mes-sage.

Women in Qatar will also qualify for free screening at any of the three PHCC screening suites at Al Wakra, Leabaib and Rawdat Al Khail health centres. They need to make a prior appointment, which can be done by calling the dedicated call centre at 8001112.

“Early detection of breast cancer is vital as it can lead to up to 100% survival rate,” explained Dr Shaikha Abu Shaikha, manager, Screening Programmes at PHCC. “Women in the age range 45-69 years should take advantage of the screening op-portunity even if they don’t have symptoms.

Raising awareness of breast cancer is a year-round ‘Screen For Life’ objective. For this one month we are asking women to put themselves fi rst and take the time to get screened they can also help us spread the message of early screening and set an example to the younger generation.”

In October, ‘Screen For Life’ will conduct lectures, undertake training for physicians, operate a mobile screening unit and mount information booths in malls and health centres

South Africa has wide range of tourism off erings for Qataris, expatriatesBy Joey AguilarStaff Reporter

South Africa wants to attract more visitors from Qatar with a wide range of tourism products – from breathtaking scenery and

pristine beaches to active adventure and wildlife safari year-round, an offi cial of the South African Tourism Board (SATB) has said.

“South Africa has a vast tourism off ering and we want to ensure that we have the right product suited for the (Qatar) market,” SATB marketing and promotions manager for Middle East and Turkey Sadiq Dindar told reporters.

He was speaking at a travel workshop organ-ised by Qatar Airways and SATB in conjunction with the South African embassy in Doha, at the Doha Exhibition and Convention Centre re-cently. Dindar hopes to attract both Qataris and the expatriate community in Doha “who want to explore the beauty of South Africa with Qatar Airways”.

He said South Africa’s natural wonders include the 260mn-year-old Table Mountain, which was voted as one of the New 7 Natural Wonders of the World and dubbed as “a symbol of aspiration for people everywhere”. Dindar stressed that his country boasts of the best safari experiences with its world-renowned nature reserves and preser-vation areas in every province, as well as an array of national parks such as Addo Elephant, Garden Route, Golden Gate Highlands, Kruger and West Coast, among others. Skydiving, walking safaris, hot-air ballooning, windsurfi ng, treetop zip lin-ing and river rafting are some of the popular ad-ventures that travellers can enjoy, he added.

South Africa also off ers a bustling city life, fea-turing nightlife entertainment and an interna-tional jazz fest in Cape Town. Its scenic outdoors include the 2.5km red sandstone, whale and dol-phin watching, Blyde River Canyon and botanical gardens, among other attractions.

Tourists can also get the chance to aerial view of the Moses Mabhida Stadium on the Big Rush

Big Swing or try hiking the Tugela Falls. South African ambassador Faizal Mooza said his coun-try aims to further boost its tourism sector by providing visitors from diff erent countries, in-cluding Qatar, with unique and unforgettable ex-periences during their stay.

“We are looking very closely at the fi gures of tourism, our president has been very clear that tourism is going to be one of the driving factors of the economy,” he stressed.

The envoy added that Qataris can now visit South Africa visa-free while other expatriates in Doha such as Indian nationals can apply for a visa with ease online.

Tourists on a boat ride with South Africa’s 260mn year-old Table Mountain – voted as one of the New 7 Natural Wonders of the World – on the background. PICTURES: SATB

South Africa off ers unique safari experiences.

Shenzhen troupe dazzles audienceBy Ayman AdlyStaff Reporter

The renowned Shenzhen Art Troupe from China treated the audience to an

evening full of joy through their dazzling performance at the Na-tional Museum of Qatar (NMoQ) yesterday.

The troupe was brought to Doha in collaboration with the Chinese embassy as part of the museum’s innovative intercul-tural programme, ‘Meet Our Community’, which is dedicated to engaging Qatar’s diverse com-munities through cultural and artistic exchange.

The performance marked the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of Chi-na, and was attended by Chinese ambassador to Qatar Zhou Jian and other VIP guests.

On the occasion, Jian stressed that China boasts of an amazing cultural heritage and the 70th anniversary is a good opportuni-ty to share the joy of the occasion with the people — especially as there are many Chinese expatri-ates in Qatar working in diff erent fi elds to realise their dreams and simultaneously contributing to the development of Qatar.

“The Chinese people liv-ing here will never forget their

motherland and have been eager to be part of the special occasion. With this, we share with them the joy of the event alongside their Qatari friends and members of other communities,” the am-bassador said, adding that many Chinese expatriates in Qatar evinced keen interest to attend the performance.

The envoy noted that there would be more cultural exchang-es between Qatar and China in the future.

“Many artistes would come to show the richness of the Chinese culture to the audience in Qatar, and we are also planning to ask artistes from Qatar to come and perform in China.

Such arts and culture shows are messages of love and peace for people from diff erent coun-tries, and China has a long his-tory of artistic and cultural

achievements to share with the world,” he added. Comprising the Shenzhen Opera and Dance Drama Theatre, the Daweiwu Arts Troupe in Longgang Dis-trict of Shenzhen and an array of performing artists from across China, Shenzhen Art Troupe is a professional performing group with great expertise and artistic originality.

The show included a magic show by Xin Yafei, a pipa (tradi-tional Chinese musical instru-ment) solo by Li Ge, an accordion solo by Tan Jialiang, acrobatics by Gao Weixing and Li Jing, a tenor Solo by Calaf, and a duet by Ma Teng and Tian Siyingand.

The audience, both Chinese expatriates and members of oth-er communities, lauded the per-formance and expressed their joy and delight at having the oppor-tunity to attend such an event.

‘Meet Our Community’ off ers NMoQ visitors the opportunity to meet the members of various communities living in the coun-try and discover more about their heritage and culture, enjoy their food, listen to their music and enjoy their company, a museum offi cial said.

Snapshots from the event at NMoQ yesterday. PICTURES: Jayaram and supplied

Govt working on projects pertaining to electric buses, smart bus stops, water taxis, among others

QATAR9Gulf Times


Qatar will continue work-ing as an active part-ner in the international

community to enhance the goals related to humanitarian and de-velopmental work, calling for al-locating more resources towards these endeavours.

This came in the statement of Qatar read by HE the Minister of State for Foreign Aff airs Sultan bin Saad al-Muraikhi at a con-ference on investment in edu-cation and employment in the health sector, which took place at the headquarters of the United Nations in New York.

The minister said that Qatar plays a leading role in realising the UN Sustainable Develop-ment Goals (SDGs) on the local, regional, and international lev-els, through providing assist-ance in the face of humanitarian and economic challenges and crises.

HE al-Muraikhi said that Qa-tar appreciates the election of Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser as a UN SDG Advocate, one of 17 prominent persons.

The minister said that Qatar is fi rst among Arab countries in supporting the UN and humani-tarian organisations, provid-ing aid and gifts, including the fi nancing of UN organisations with $500mn, which was an-nounced in December 2018.

HE al-Muraikhi also noted the contributions by civil society organisations in Qatar to sus-tainable development eff orts at the regional and international levels, through providing basic services, humanitarian aid, re-construction eff orts, fi nancing, basic education, and employ-ment opportunities to millions of people around the world.

He noted that the contribu-tions of “Education Above All” and the Qatar Fund for Develop-ment reached $736mn to sup-port healthcare in Africa and the Middle East in the last six years.

The minster also praised Si-latech for the role it plays in em-powering youth through training and job opportunities, as well as

by empowering more than 1.3mn youths in 17 countries in the Middle East and North Africa region.

HE al-Muraikhi highlighted that Silatech and its partners committed to providing 5mn job opportunities to young people all over the world by 2022.

The minister noted that the world today faces many chal-lenges on the economic, hu-manitarian, developmental, and societal fronts.

He lamented the lack of jobs in the healthcare sector, saying that it is an obstacle to provid-ing good healthcare to people, leading to critical humanitarian crises.

HE al-Muraikhi stressed the

need to deal with this challenge, which could reach 18mn job openings in the healthcare sec-tor worldwide by 2030, in order to realise the SDGs.

The minister also stressed on the importance of ensuring the quality of workers in the health-care sector through education and training.

He expressed appreciation of the World Health Organisation (WHO)’s eff orts in dealing with that challenge through compre-hensive plans and programmes.

HE al-Muraikhi also wel-comed the co-operation be-tween the WHO and Silatech on the “Working for Health” pro-gramme, which aims to provide 1.9mn job opportunities by 2022 in Africa.

WHO director-general Dr Te-dros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the conference that universal health coverage is not achievable without an adequate healthcare workforce.

“But there is a danger be-cause of the huge gap” in needed workers.

This can only be solved with co-operation among many par-ties.

“At the WHO, we developed the SDG action plan, and 12 UN agencies have come together on it,” he said.

“All roads lead to universal health coverage,” Ghebreyesus said. “Half of the world’s popu-lation does not have access to essential health services.

“A hundred million people an-nually go into poverty because of out-of-pocket. This is a tragedy. And this has to be addressed.

“We have to honour the pledge of reaching universal healthcare by 2030.”

Ghebreyesus stressed that the central element of reaching that goal is increasing the workforce.

“We have to train more, and we have to retain them,” he said.

Norway’s Health Minister Bent Hoie said that “train-ing health workers is the key to achieving this goal the Sustain-able Development Goal of uni-versal healthcare”.

“But the statistics are alarm-ing,” he said. “There will be a defi cit of 18mn health workers in the world in 2030.”

“We need to work better in health prevention and health promotion, we need to use more technology and to fi nd new models to deliver health serv-ices,” Hoie said. “It is no option to leave people without the care they need because the doctors, nurses, and midwives are not there.”

“We cannot deprive people of healthy lives for the simple rea-son that we do not invest enough in health workers,” he added.

Hoie said that only 4% of global healthcare workers are in Sub-Saharan Africa.

“They care for 24% of the global disease burden,” he said. “This is an unacceptable situa-tion.”

“Spending on education and health workers is not a cost, it is an investment, with high re-turns,” Hoie said.

Investing in health workers can power economic growth and improved global security, the Norwegian minister said, as well as improve the lives of women, who make up the majority of health workers.

Hoie said that while the pri-mary responsibility for training health works rests with govern-ments, there must be an interna-tional response.

He said that with Silatech, Norway supported the creation of a global trust to help meet the goal of fi nancing training for the millions of new health workers needed.

Peter Salama, the execu-tive director of universal health coverage at the WHO, told the conference that the organisation is working on creating partner-ships with fi nancial institu-tions to drum up the investment needed.

He called health workers a “new generation of knowledge workers in the making”.

Salama said that the main reason why some countries are slow to pick up on the spread of an epidemic, such as Ebola, is because of the lack of primary healthcare workers.

“This is one of the best exam-ples of why we need to invest in the health force at rural, decen-tralised levels,” he said.

Qatar to remain active in humanitarian workQNANew York

HE al-Muraikhi: said that Qatar is first among Arab countries in supporting the UN and humanitarian organisations.

Darwish Holding hosted the “Bosch Distributors Day 2019” organised by

Bosch Home Appliances in ap-preciation of distributors of the brand across the world.

The event in Doha was attend-ed by the Bosch executive man-agement, represented by Bosch FZE chief executive Thomas Alonso, members of the Darwish Holding management, and lo-cal distributors of the brand who participated in various activities and discussions.

Bosch dedicated the event to celebrate the achievements and growth accomplished by dis-tributors in 2019 and to discuss the common plans and strategies to build on the growth for 2020.

Throughout this event, Bosch reiterated its continuous support to Darwish Holding as the exclu-sive distributor of Bosch in Qa-tar and one of its main partners in the region, a press statement noted.

The premium German engi-

neered brand praised “the ex-ceptional results” achieved by Darwish Holding this year com-pared with previous years, and demonstrated its “full commit-ment to further strengthen the mutual relation between both companies”.

Bosch Home Appliances are available in the brand’s dedicated showroom at Lagoona Mall and on Salwa Road, in addition to Fnac at Lagoona Mall and Doha Festival City, as well as major stores in Qatar.

“For over 130 years, the Bosch brand has been the worldwide embodiment of quality, techni-cal competence, reliability and consumer proximity,” the press statement said.

“Bosch’s home appliances have also committed to these values for the past 85 years.

“For Bosch, creating products that have been ‘Invented for life’ means focusing on the needs and challenges of the modern indi-vidual.”

Darwish Holding, Bosch host event for distributors

Company off icials with distributors who attended the event.

Coinciding with the new 2019-2020 academic year, Compass Interna-

tional School Doha welcomed parents and students on Satur-day to its fi rst “Open Day” event held at the recently-opened campus in Al Themaid.

Parents and their children were treated to a comprehen-sive tour of the campus and the facilities, and were encouraged to explore the many activities at their leisure.

Across the campus, families took part in a broad range of educational, creative and ath-letic activities and demonstra-tions aimed at Early Years-, Primary-, and Secondary-aged children.

Compass International School Doha, a Nord Anglia Education school, has multiple internationally-respected cur-ricula on off er, including the English National Curriculum, the International Primary Cur-riculum, the Early Years Foun-dation Stage, the IGCSEs (In-ternational General Certifi cate of Secondary Education), and

the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme.

A-levels and BTEC (Busi-ness and Technology Education Council) vocational credentials will be added in the coming years, the school has said in a statement.

The school also off ers a range of co-curricular and extra-cur-ricular activities that engage students across a diverse array of subject areas, in particular STEAM (science, technology,

engineering, arts, and mathe-matics) and the performing arts.

A Compass International School Doha education is en-hanced through collaborations with world leading organisa-tions, including the Massachu-setts Institute of Technology (MIT), the Julliard School and Unicef, the statement notes.

The Themaid campus in-cludes a swimming pool, foot-ball pitch, multi-purpose sports hall, an auditorium, science

laboratories, specialist areas for design technology and informa-tion and communications tech-nology (ICT), and music, dance and drama spaces.

Paul Holyome, executive principal at Compass Interna-tional School Doha, said: “This Saturday, we were excited to welcome prospective families to our new purpose-built campus in Al Themaid.

“Compass International School Doha has a built a strong legacy in Qatar for more than 12 years. and the Themaid campus continues that tradition.”

“Here at Compass Interna-tional School Doha, you will fi nd a British school off ering our students a truly international educational experience with over 70 nationalities enrolled,” he said. “We believe the Com-pass educational off ering as a Nord Anglia School is second to none in Doha, and we are ex-tremely pleased by the positive reaction and level of interest in the school, not only during our Open Day, but throughout the year.”

Compass School Doha hosts ‘Open Day’ at new campus

Visitors at Compass International School Doha’s ‘Open Day’ event.

Hamad Bin Khalifa Univer-sity (HBKU) will host its fi rst Qatar International

Cybersecurity Contest (QICC), in partnership with Qatar Air-ways, at Minaretein Building, Education City, from October 1-3.

The event aims to increase awareness among participants of complex cybersecurity threats.

Academics, experts, and stu-dents from Qatar and abroad will take part in a contest organised by fi ve of HBKU’s colleges.

It is expected that more than 130 participants, both local and international, will take part in the competition.

Activities include a series of interactive sessions designed specifi cally to tackle existing cy-ber-vulnerabilities and pave the way for future innovation.

Expert discussions and work-shops will also consider emerg-ing threats, as well as eff orts to foster sustainable technological development in the area of cy-bersecurity.

All HBKU contributions to the QICC are designed to highlight synergies between cybersecurity issues and key research interests.

Organised by HBKU, the Qatar

International Hacking Contest invites participants to engage in advanced and multidisciplinary research activities.

For instance, the College of Is-lamic Studies will stage the Em-power Cyber-Akhlaq Competi-tion, which looks at cyberspace through the lens of ethics and morality.

The College of Humanities and Social Sciences will deliver the fi rst international “Fake News Detection Contest”, a constantly evolving threat that requires suitably adaptable solutions.

At the same time, the Col-lege of Science and Engineering will provide a contest on ethical hacking activities.

The College of Law’s Cyber-security Moot Competition sees participants from law schools around the world presenting an oral argument in a simulated in-ternational court proceeding.

Teams will also go head-to-head in the College of Health and Life Sciences’ Genomics Cyber-security Contest, which raises awareness about the importance of securing genetic data.

QICC committee chair Dr Roberto Di Pietro said: “There are three very important reasons

why HBKU is excited to be host-ing the QICC.

“First, cybersecurity is a global issue, with Qatar being an inter-national leader in eff orts to es-tablish policies that promote best practice and co-operation and to foster research and technology innovation in Cybersecurity.

“Second, the contest is aligned with the Qatar National Cyber-security Strategy, which is part of Qatar National Cybersecurity Strategy.

“As a result, the QICC is the ideal platform for raising aware-ness among Qatari society of the importance of establishing and maintaining a secure cyberspace.

“Finally, our academic and in-dustry partners for this contest underscore HBKU’s growing glo-bal presence and reputation.”

“Qatar Airways is proud to support HBKU’s initiative of the “Qatar International Cybersecu-rity Contest”, where the partici-pants involved will help develop preventive measures and realistic solutions that will shape the fu-ture of cybersecurity here in Qa-tar,” said Salam al-Shawa, senior vice-president of marketing and corporate communications at Qatar Airways.

Qatar global cybersecurity contest to focus on emerging threats

Al Jazeera, Afghan media company sign deal

Al Jazeera Media Network has announced that it has signed an agreement with

Afghanistan Broadcasting Sys-tem (ABS) to launch Al Jazeera’s English and Arabic HD channels.

Abdulla al-Najjar, executive director of the network’s Global Brand and Communications Di-vision, said: “We are delighted to have signed a distribution agree-ment with Afghanistan’s fi rst linear satellite pay TV platform, ‘Oqaab’, launched by ABS.

“We hope making Al Jazeera’s Arabic and English channels ac-cessible will provide our viewers in the region with an opportu-nity to experience our credible, unbiased, in-depth news and award-winning programmes.”

ABS chief operating offi cer Andi Wilmers said: “We are de-lighted to have partnered with Al Jazeera Media Network and to be able to off er Al Jazeera English and Al Jazeera Arabic HD chan-nels to our Afghan audiences as part of our HD+ Sat subscription service.”

Kabul-based ABS launched the country’s fi rst Pay TV plat-form named HD+ Sat, allowing access to 250+ Premium chan-nels, of which 100 are broadcast in high-defi nition (HD).

ARAB WORLD/AFRICA


An unidentified assailant yesterday stabbed a policeman to death outside a court in northern Tunisia, the interior ministry said. The attack outside the appeals court in the city of Bizerte also wounded a member of the military, the ministry said in a statement. The assailant was immediately detained and investigations are ongoing as to the cause of the assault, it said, without providing further details. The attack comes as Tunisia is in the midst of the country’s second free presidential elections since the 2011 ouster of autocrat Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. A second round next month is to pit law professor and political outsider Kais Saied against jailed media tycoon Nabil Karoui.

The World Health Organisation is “rationing” Ebola vaccines in Democratic Republic of Congo, with access controls meaning too few people at risk are being protected in an outbreak of the deadly disease, the aid group MSF said yesterday. Medical charity Medicins Sans Frontiers (MSF) accused the WHO of using a rigid system of eligibility for vaccination, and said the restrictions are allowing the viral disease to resurge in communities previously thought to be protected. “The WHO is rationing Ebola vaccines and hampering eff orts to make them quickly available to all who are at risk of infection,” MSF said. “The outbreak keeps coming back to areas that have supposedly been covered by vaccination.”

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres yesterday announced the formation of a constitutional committee for Syria, in an effort to advance a peace process and resolve political disputes in the country after nearly eight years of war. “I strongly believe that the launch of the Syrian-owned and Syrian-led constitutional committee can, and must, be the beginning of the political path out of the tragedy,” Guterres said in New York. The process is to be run from Geneva. The UN chief noted that the committee is backed by Russia, Turkey and Iran, the main countries involved in the Syrian peace process.

Sudan’s transitional government will start a nine-month economic rescue plan next month aimed at curbing rampant inflation while ensuring supplies of basic goods and is asking the World Bank for $2bn, the country’s finance minister said yesterday. Shortages of bread, fuel and medicine coupled with hefty price rises sparked protests that led to the toppling of longtime ruler Omar al-Bashir in April. The economy has remained in turmoil as politicians negotiated a power-sharing deal between the military and civilians. Finance Minister Ibrahim Elbadawi told reporters the new plan would restructure the budget and tackle inflation but leave bread and petrol subsidies in place until at least June 2020.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his centrist rival Benny Gantz yesterday held their first formal talks since Israel’s deadlocked election and a politician with the power to broker a deal said they could be nearer agreement on a unity government. After failing last week to secure a clear victory in the polls for a second time in six months, Netanyahu seems to be reckoning he can stay in power only by sharing it. Neither he nor ex-general Gantz have enough support from respective allies for a 61-seat majority in the 120-member parliament. Gantz, head of the Blue and White Party, has been publicly resistant to the idea of allying with Netanyahu’s Likud, citing looming corruption charges against the incumbent.

Cop stabbed to death outside Tunisia court

Vaccine ‘rationing’ hampering Ebola fight

UN chief sets up panel for Syrian constitution

9-month Sudan plan to rescue economy

Israeli rivals eye rotating premiership in unity govt

CRIME HEALTHDIPLOMACY FINANCE POLITICS

Seven children killed in Kenya school collapseBy Fran Blandy, AFPNairobi

Seven children died and scores were injured yesterday when a school building collapsed in the

Kenyan capital Nairobi, in an accident blamed on shoddy construction.

“We can confi rm that we have seven fatalities,” said government spokes-man Cyrus Oguna.

Education Minister George Magoha said in a statement that 64 pupils had been admitted to Kenyatta National Hospital, most of them with minor in-juries, but two others required “more attention”.

Hundreds of angry residents of Dagoretti, a poor suburb where many live in makeshift homes, thronged the site where rescuers picked through the rubble until the search for victims ended in the afternoon.

An AFP reporter at the site said books and desks were strewn through the debris of the two-storey building, a semi-permanent structure made of concrete, iron sheeting and timber.

“I had just dropped my son to school, and heard screams on my way back, and that is when I found people assisting them out to hospital,” said Margaret Muthoni at Kenyatta Na-tional Hospital, whose four-year-old son was injured.

“I am just lucky my son survived with injuries. It is a very unfortunate

incident because some children have died,” said Muthoni.

Kepha Otieno said he had lost his fi ve-year-old daughter.

“I just can’t believe. It is too hard for me and the family,” he said.

The school was a private institution with around 800 registered pupils, said Magoha, adding that it would be closed for the next four days.

Dagoretti MP John Kiarie told KTN television that it appeared the fi rst fl oor had collapsed on children on the ground fl oor.

However details were sketchy.Kiarie said the area had no land on

which to construct a proper public school. He said the disaster high-lighted the lack of “regulation of edu-cational institutions, especially those in informal settlements...regulations that pertain to the construction and stability of educational institutions.

“It is the highest level of irresponsi-bility and greed when you look at this structure that came down, and even the ones standing. It is another disas-ter waiting to happen,” said Shadrack Okelo, a local resident.

Moses Nyakiongora, an offi cial with the National Building Inspectorate said at the scene: “This school was not properly constructed. It is totally substandard.”

Magoha visited the site and vowed to build a public school in the area.

“What has happened here today is regrettable but investigations have

been launched,” he said. “I have in-spected the rest of the classrooms and they look stable. But the one that col-lapsed was substandard, it should not have been allowed to be there.”

Numerous buildings have collapsed in Nairobi and other Kenyan towns with deadly results in recent years, as the country experiences booming growth in the construction industry.

Corruption has allowed contractors to cut corners or bypass regulations.

In April 2016, 49 people were killed in the collapse of a six-fl oor building in the north-east of the capital.

Rescuers clear debris where a classroom block collapsed at Precious Talents primary school in Nairobi’s Dagoretti suburb.

Boutefl ika brother stands trial with ex-spy chiefsBy Amal Belalloufi, AFPBlida, Algeria

The brother of Algeria’s deposed president Abdelaziz Bouteflika yesterday went on trial with

two former intelligence chiefs and a political party head accused of plot-ting against the military.

Said Boutefl ika, widely seen as the real power behind the presi-dency after his brother suff ered a debilitating stroke in 2013, faces allegations of “undermining the authority of the army” and “con-spiring” against the state.

Former defence minister Kha-led Nezzar has alleged that as protests mounted against the veteran leader in April, Said Boutefl ika had considered de-claring a state of emergency and fi ring army chief general Ahmed Gaid Salah.

His detention in May along with General Mohamed Mediene, who headed the all-powerful secret service for 25 years, and fellow ex-spy chief General Ath-mane Tartag was part of a wave of arrests targeting the ousted president’s inner circle.

They were brought before a

military court in Blida, south of Algiers, along with the head of The Workers’ Party, Louisa Ha-noune, according to Algerian media. If convicted they could face lengthy prison terms.

Security was tight with police blocking access by vehicles and pedestrians to the court’s two entrances, according to an AFP photographer.

State television reported from the courthouse that Mediene’s lawyer asked for the trial to be postponed. His family and law-yers have said the former spy chief is in poor health.

Mediene, known as Toufi k, headed the all-powerful DRS in-telligence agency from its foun-dation in 1990 up to his fall from grace in 2015.

Tartag, his deputy, succeeded Mediene and when the DRS was dismantled in 2016 he served as Algeria’s security coordina-tor under the supervision of the presidency.

Hanoune, a Trotskyist law-maker and three-time presiden-tial candidate, was detained in May on charges of involvement in “a plot against the army”.

Her lawyers have acknowl-

edged that she took part in a meeting with Said Boutefl ika and Mediene in March, a day after Gaid Salah publicly called for the ailing president to step down.

Tunisian academic Noured-dine Bekkis described the trial as “historic”. Algeria’s political leaders usually resolve internal disagreements inside a “black box”, he said.

But “the usual mechanisms to solve internal confl icts have bro-ken down”, he said.

In the Algerian capital, 60-year-old tradesman Abou-baker Dahmani said the trial of

the ex-president’s brother was almost too good to be true.

“I never thought one day I’d see the fall of Said (Boutefl ika) and these powerful generals,” he said.

Hassan, a 50-year-old taxi driver, was more sceptical.

“It could just be a show to calm the street,” he said.

A string of prominent poli-ticians and businessmen have been questioned or detained over alleged graft since Boutefl ika re-signed in April after two decades in power in the face of mass pro-tests.

In the latest such detention,

former transport and public works minister Boudjemaa Ta-lai, 67, was taken into custody on Monday, the national news agen-cy APS said.

Talai, who served under Boute-fl ika, appeared at the Supreme Court in Algiers to be questioned over alleged corruption in the public works sector.

Presidential elections have now been set for December 12, but protesters have kept up their demands for political reforms and the removal of the former president’s loyalists, including the army chief himself.

Hundreds arrested after rare protest in EgyptReutersCairo

Egyptian authorities have rounded up more than 400 people in re-sponse to an outbreak of protests

against President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi over the weekend and security forces stepped up their presence in central Cai-ro, human rights monitors said yesterday.

In a rare pubic display of dissent, hun-dreds took to the streets in the capital and other cities on Friday in response to calls for protests against alleged government corruption.

The protests spread to the Red Sea city of Suez on Saturday, residents said.

The demonstrators, shouting slogans calling on Sisi to give up power, were de-fying a ban on protests.

Gamal Eid, director of the Arab Net-work for Human Rights Information, said more than 400 people in diff erent parts of the country have been arrested in con-nection with the protests.

“Our lawyers can’t keep up,” he said.Mohamed Lotfy, director of the

Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms, put the number at more than 450 and the Egyptian Center for Eco-nomic and Social Rights said 516 had been detained.

Sisi, a former army chief who came to power after the overthrow of President Mohamed Mursi, an Islamist, in 2013, has overseen a crackdown on political dissent that has targeted liberal activists as well as Islamists.

Sisi’s supporters say the crackdown was necessary to stabilise Egypt after the 2011 uprising that toppled former strong-man Hosni Mubarak.

Security forces moved in to disperse the scattered protests on Friday and Sat-urday and have reinforced their presence in central Cairo.

Prominent human rights lawyer Ma-hienour El-Massry was arrested late on Sunday as she walked out of the state pros-ecutor’s offi ce in the capital city, where she was representing detainees, said Nour Fahmy, a lawyer with the Egyptian Com-mission for Rights and Freedoms.

“She was talking on the phone next to the national security prosecution, I passed by her...then I heard her shout-ing ‘I am being arrested’ so I turned and saw three plainclothes police pushing her into a microbus and then they drove off ,” Fahmy said.

Plainclothes security offi cials have been stopping people in central Cairo and checking social media content on their mobile phones, several witnesses said.

Internet monitoring group NetBlocks said some social media platforms and news sites had been disrupted starting on Sunday.

Arabic-language editions of interna-tional media which covered the protests appeared to be a target, said Alp Toker, executive director of NetBlocks.

Spokespeople at the interior and com-munications ministries could not imme-diately be reached for comment.

The protests took place after a former civilian contractor for the military, Mo-hamed Ali, posted videos accusing Sisi and the military of corruption.

Sisi dismissed the claims as “lies and slander”. Ali has called for mass protests on Friday.

Harare shuts main water plantReutersHarare

Zimbabwe’s capital yesterday shut its main water works citing shortages of foreign currency to import treatment

chemicals, the deputy mayor said, poten-tially leaving the city dry and raising the risk of water borne diseases like cholera.

Last year, the southern African na-tion suff ered its worst cholera outbreak in a decade, which killed at least 26 people mainly in Harare, due to burst sewers and inadequate water supplies.

An El Nino-induced drought has re-duced water levels in the country’s dams, including Kariba, which supplies the big-gest hydro electricity plant and hit the ca-pacity of cities and towns to supply water to residents.

Harare City Council deputy mayor En-ock Mupamawonde told reporters that the local authority required at least Z$40mn (US$2.7mn) a month for water chemi-cals but it was only collecting Z$15mn in monthly revenue.

He said the shortages of foreign ex-change for chemicals had forced the coun-cil to close its Morton Jaff ray treatment plant outside Harare for now.

He did not know when it would be re-opened.

“It (the shutdown) is due to the non

availability of foreign currency...it is dev-astating to say the least,” Mupamawonde told reporters, urging President Emmer-son Mnangagwa’s government to declare the water crisis a national disaster. “We are unlikely to see the situation improving if no urgent action is taken.”

July Moyo, the local government minis-ter who oversees the operations of councils, could not be reached for comment.

Zimbabwe is gripped by a severe short-age of dollars that has weakened the value of its local currency, introduced in June.

Last week, the Zimbabwe dollar tumbled by 23% on the black market but had recov-ered yesterday after the central bank at the weekend closed bank accounts owned by four companies it said were being investi-gated for money laundering.

The bank also tightened currency trading rules by bureax de change, limiting forex amounts that travellers could buy.

Mupamawonde said city residents owed Z$1bn in unpaid bills, constraining the council’s capacity to provide adequate services.

The Morton Jaff ray treatment plant is producing less than half of its installed ca-pacity of 704 mega-litres of water per day against demand of 1,200 mega-litres, leav-ing many residents without water.

A smaller treatment plant was closed last month after two smaller dams dried up, ac-cording to the city council.

Bread protest

People from Darfur and other Sudanese demonstrate yesterday in Khartoum against the way police handled a student protest over a shortage of bread the previous day in Darfur’s state capital Niyala. Protest movement Forces of Freedom and Change condemned the “violence”. “Hundreds of students protested against the shortage of bread and when they reached the government headquarters in Niyala, police used violence against them,” the FFC said in a statement.

ReutersNew York

President Donald Trump yes-terday shrugged off talk about impeachment over reports that

he had asked his Ukrainian counter-part to launch an investigation that could damage Democratic political rival Joe Biden.

Asked how seriously he was taking the threat of impeachment by Con-gress, Trump said, “Not at all seri-ously.”

On Sunday, Trump acknowledged that he discussed Democratic presi-dential hopeful Biden and his son in a July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times on Friday had said Trump repeatedly asked the Ukrainian leader in the call to in-vestigate the involvement of Bi-den’s son, Hunter, with a Ukrainian energy company.

He also asked Zelenskiy to work with his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, who had been urging Ukrainian offi cials to investigate Joe Biden and his family.

As he arrived at the United Nations for the General Assembly yesterday, Trump told reporters: “We had a perfect phone call with the president of Ukraine. Everybody knows it. It’s just a Democrat witch hunt.”

Trump did not provide evidence the allegations were politically mo-tivated.

Media reports about the phone call stemmed from a classifi ed whistle-blower report from the US intelli-gence community.

The call has sparked a political battle between Democrats warn-ing of a national security threat and Republicans turning it into an attack

on former vice president Biden, a frontrunner in the fi eld of Democrats seeking to challenge Trump in the 2020 presidential election.

Democrats are outraged that Trump may have sought help in the election from a foreign country, es-pecially after Special Counsel Robert Mueller concluded Russia waged a widespread infl uence and propa-ganda campaign to help Trump win in 2016.

“He thinks he can get away with it. The president thinks he can act with impunity,” Democratic Senator Chris Murphy said at a news conference in Hartford, Connecticut.

The Democratic leader of a key congressional panel had said on Sun-

day the pursuit of Trump’s impeach-ment may be the “only remedy” to the situation.

However, it is far from clear whether there is enough support for Democrats in the House of Rep-resentative to launch impeachment proceedings.

Any such eff ort would face a hur-dle getting through the Republican-led Senate.

The media reports about the phone call also said Trump repeat-edly asked Zelenskiy to investigate whether Biden misused his position as vice president under former pres-ident Barack Obama to threaten to withhold US aid unless a prosecutor who was looking into the gas compa-ny in which Biden’s son was involved was fi red.

Biden has confi rmed he wanted the prosecutor fi red but denies it was to help his son.

Biden said the wider US govern-ment, the European Union and other

international institutions also want-ed the prosecutor fi red for his alleged failure to pursue major corruption cases.

A top offi cial in Zelenskiy’s admin-istration told Reuters that Ukraine wants to stay out of the domestic po-litical battle in Washington and that any attempt by either side to take advantage of Ukraine would damage relations.

Ukrainian offi cials have been re-luctant to divulge details of the call.

“It was a conversation be-tween two presidents. Whatever was discussed, even if they spoke about spaceships, I am not going to comment on it, because this was a conversation between two presidents,” said Oleksandr Dan-ylyuk, the top official of the body responsible for coordinating na-tional security.

“It is the US internal aff airs and we have nothing to do with that,” he told Reuters.

AMERICAS11Gulf Times


Canadian premier pledges major drug plan boost after blow from blackface photosBy David Ljunggren, Reuters Hamilton, Ontario

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau yesterday pledged to create a na-

tional prescription drug plan if re-elected, moving back on the off ensive after blackface photos of him emerged last week and hurt his campaign.

After two days of profuse apologies, Trudeau has resumed making campaign announce-ments as polls show his Liberals trailing the opposition Conserv-atives of Andrew Scheer ahead of the October 21 election.

Trudeau, accusing the Con-servatives of planning major spending cuts, said he would make sure all Canadians had ac-cess to a family doctor and af-fordable medicine.

“No one should go without the care they need because they don’t have access to a family doctor. And no one should have

to give up food and heat to be able to pay for healthcare,” Trudeau told reporters in the southwest-ern Ontario city of Hamilton.

He also promised to expand Canada’s universal healthcare system to cover prescription drugs but gave few details of timing or cost, save to say Ot-tawa would be working with the 10 provinces and three northern territories.

Federal-provincial talks about funding can be acrimonious and lengthy and there is no guarantee the new system could be set up as outlined.

The ruling Liberals were knocked off course by old pho-tos of Trudeau in blackface that emerged last week.

The images were at odds with his oft-stated position that he wants to improve the lot of mi-norities in Canada and prompted international ridicule.

Trudeau took more questions about the photos yesterday, fi ve days after Time magazine re-

leased the fi rst picture.“I am continuing to be open

with Canadians about the mis-take I made...I should have known better but didn’t,” he said.”I will continue to work eve-ry day to fi ght racism.”

The healthcare pledge was his fourth major campaign an-nouncement since last Friday, when he vowed to ban military-style assault weapons.

On Sunday, he pledged to eliminate some taxes and slash cellphone bills by a quarter.

Pollster Frank Graves of EKOS Research said his polling, which he has yet to publish in detail, shows a shift toward Conserva-tive Party leader Scheer and away from Trudeau nationally over the past four days.

“It’s a body blow,” Graves said in an interview, referring to the blackface scandal.

“Will the Liberals be able to re-cover? Who knows?”

Conservatives would win 34.3% of the national vote and

the Liberals 33.1%, a Nanos Re-search poll for CTV and the Globe and Mail newspaper re-leased yesterday showed.

In Ontario, Canada’s most populous province and a key to any party’s hopes, the scandal has erased the 15-percentage-point lead the Liberals held, Graves said.

Liberal insiders are more opti-mistic, noting that relatively few voters are bringing up the topic.

A pollster noted that the elec-tion is still a month away.

“Ultimately, the blackface photos may be the campaign mo-ment that prevents the Liberals from being re-elected,” said Dav-id Coletto of the Abacus polling fi rm, which has Conservatives leading the Liberals by two per-centage points nationally, the same margin as last week.

“But the initial reaction and how voters are reacting so far suggests there’s way too much campaign left to make that con-clusion today.”Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau greets supporters in Stoney Creek suburb of Hamilton, Ontario.

Trump shrugs off impeachment talk

Representative Rashida Tlaib joins activists asking for impeachment of President Donald Trump at Capitol Hill in Washington, DC.

Jury sequestered in trial of ex-cop who shot black man in his homeBy Bruce Tomaso, Reuters Dallas

A judge yesterday took the rare step of sequestering the jury in the mur-der trial of a former off -duty Dallas

police offi cer charged with shooting and killing a black neighbour last year after the offi cer entered his apartment by mistake.

Former offi cer Amber Guyger, who is white, has told investigators in Texas that she mistook Botham Jean, 26, for a burglar intruder after she mistakenly entered his central Dallas apartment one fl oor above hers and he appeared in the darkness.

The shooting, one of a series of high-profi le killings of unarmed black men and teens by white US police, sparked street protests, particularly because prosecutors initially moved to charge Guyger, 31, with manslaughter, a charge for killing without malice that carries a lesser sentence than murder.

In contrast to high-profi le cases like the killings of Michael Brown in Missouri and Philando Castile in Minnesota, Guyger shot Jean, an accountant who was a native of the Caribbean island nation of Saint Lucia, while she was off duty, rather than while responding to a reported crime.

Before opening statements were to be-gin yesterday, state District Judge Tammy Kemp sequestered the jury of four men and 12 women for the entirety of the trial, shielding them from possible outside in-fl uence and local news coverage of the case.

US judges have moved away from se-questering juries because jurors fi nd the isolation stressful, and it may increase the

likelihood of jurors dropping out, raising the chances of a mistrial, legal experts say.

Some jurists also fear sequestration may cause jurors to rush their delibera-tions.

Sequestration is most common when there is heavy media coverage and height-ened public interest.

Kemp also denied a motion to exclude evidence from Guyger’s texts and phone calls and a motion for a mistrial from Guyger’s attorneys who claimed Dallas District Attorney John Creuzot defi ed a gag order by giving an interview about the case to a local television station over the weekend.

District Attorney Jason Hermus said he plans to display a photo of Jean in the courtroom as prosecutors make their case to show that he was “a living, breathing human being prior to this event.”

The district attorney’s offi ce reexam-ined the case after the public protests, and a grand jury in late November indicted the former police offi cer on murder charges, with the maximum punishment of life in prison.

Guyger, who had been on the force for over four years, walked into Jean’s apart-ment after returning from a work shift and was able to enter because Jean’s door was slightly ajar, according to Texas law en-forcement offi cials.

After the incident, she was initially placed on administrative leave but was fi red days later.

Guyger’s defense had pushed for a change of venue, arguing in court last week that media coverage had been so in-tense their defendant could not get a fair trial, but Kemp denied that request.

Two six-year-olds arrested in schoolA police off icer who arrested two six-year-old children in a Florida school has been suspended and the incident will be investigated, police said yesterday.The grandmother of one of the children, Kaia Rolle, said she was arrested after she threw a temper tantrum and kicked another student.The incident has revived the debate over the role of police off icers in public schools, 46% of which have an off icer present for at least one day a week.Reservist police off icer Dennis Turner arrested the two children last Thursday, the Orlando police department told AFP in a statement yesterday. Meralyn Kirkland, Kaia Rolle’s grandmother, told local media her granddaughter suff ered from sleep apnea and was acting up from a lack of sleep.She said she was contacted by the school

and that she tried in vain to dissuade the police off icer from arresting the little girl.“No six-year-old child should be able to tell somebody that they had handcuff s on them and they were riding in the back of a police car and taken to a juvenile centre to be fingerprinted, mug shot,” she said.Orlando police said the police van had turned back before reaching the juvenile centre and the girl returned to school because Turner had not obtained the necessary permission from a supervisor to arrest a child aged less than 12 years.The other six-year-old, however, was taken to a juvenile centre before being released to the child’s parents because the driver was not aware that he did not have the green light. Turner was immediately suspended following the incident, the Orlando police department said.

I deserve Nobel prize: TrumpPresident Donald Trump yesterday

aired one of his oldest grievances at

the United Nations: that it’s unfair he

never got the Nobel peace prize.

“I would get a Nobel prize for a

lot of things, if they give it out fairly,

which they don’t,” he complained.

Trump went on to raise the

surprise awarding of the one of the

world’s most prestigious accolades

in 2009 to his predecessor in the

White House, Barack Obama.

Obama was given the peace

prize for “extraordinary eff orts to

strengthen international diplomacy

and co-operation between people,”

even though he had only just be-

come president.

“They gave one to Obama im-

mediately upon his ascent to the

presidency and he had no idea why

he got it. You know what? That was

the only thing I agreed with him on,”

Trump said.

Stealth bomber for Area 51 crowd? Military unit apologises for tweet

A US military unit apologised over the weekend

and deleted a tweet that used the spectre of a

stealth bomber being deployed against any young

people who tried to break into the Area 51 base in

Nevada.

The tweet, posted on Friday on the Twitter ac-

count of the Defense Visual Information Distribu-

tion Service (DVIDS), took aim at UFO fans and

curiosity seekers who poured into the Nevada

desert this week, after an online campaign to

“storm” the US military base long rumoured to

house government secrets about extraterrestrial

life and spaceships.

Alongside a photo of military men and women

standing at attention in uniform in front of a B-2

stealth bomber, it read, “The last thing #Millennials

will see if they attempt the #area51raid today.”

On Saturday, DVIDS said on Twitter that an

employee of its DVIDSHub account posted a

tweet that “in NO WAY supports the stance of the

Department of Defense. It was inappropriate and

we apologize for this mistake.”

In Nevada, any fears about a serious attempt to

raid Area 51 appeared to have been unfounded.

About 150 people, some in alien garb, gathered

near the base on Friday in a festive atmosphere

with only a handful of arrests.

The US military has disowned previous social

media posts that some people also criticised as

threatening or insensitive.

On December 31, US Strategic Command, which

oversees the country’s nuclear arsenal, apologised

for a Twitter message that said it was ready if nec-

essary to drop something “much, much bigger”

than the New Year’s Eve ball in New York.

Judge allows lawsuit over politically ‘slanted’ wildlife board to proceed

By Jonathan Stempel, Reuters New York

A federal judge has rejected the Trump administration’s bid to dismiss a lawsuit by animal rights groups seeking to dis-

solve a wildlife advisory board they said was stacked with politically connected donors and pro-hunting enthusiasts.

US District Judge Alison Nathan in Manhat-tan said yesterday that the administration has not shown that its International Wildlife Con-servation Council served the public interest, having justifi ed it with “boilerplate” language rather than the required “reasoned explanation.”

She said the plaintiff s could try to prove that the 17-person board was not “fairly balanced” to incorporate diff erent points of view, refl ect-ing what they called its lack of scientists, econ-omists and wildlife conservation experts.

A spokesman for US Attorney Geoff rey Ber-man in Manhattan, whose offi ce defended the government, declined comment.

The lawsuit was fi led in August 2018 by the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Humane Soci-ety.

These groups said the wildlife board created in November 2017 by then-Interior Secretary

Ryan Zinke was “slanted” to promote “trophy hunting” and the importing of body parts from “imperilled species” such as African elephants, lions and rhinos.

They also said the board violated a federal law curbing White House use of “secretive” advisory panels to set national policy, and caused harm by forcing them to divert resourc-es to monitoring the board.

“The Trump administration has provided no reason for creating a trophy hunting council, stacking it with big game profi teers and operat-ing it behind closed doors,” the groups’ lawyers from Democracy Forward said.

“We will press forward in our eff orts to shut down this illegal committee for good.”

In seeking a dismissal, the administration had said the groups lacked standing to sue, having suff ered at most a setback to their “ab-stract social interests,” and could not litigate what was essentially a policy disagreement.

Nathan dismissed one claim involving a re-cordkeeping issue.

Zinke resigned as interior secretary last De-cember.

He had said the wildlife board would advise on the benefi ts of recreational hunting, includ-ing “boosting economies and creating hun-dreds of jobs to enhancing wildlife conserva-tion.”

Two new cases in measles outbreakReutersNew York

Two new cases of measles were re-ported in the United States last week, in the latest sign that health

authorities have yet to take control of the nation’s worst outbreak of the highly contagious and sometimes deadly disease since 1992.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also determined that two previously reported cases of the disease

were not in fact measles, keeping the to-tal number of cases for the year at 1,241 as of September 12. The outbreak, which began in New York on October 1 last year, has largely been linked to parents who de-clined to vaccinate their children.

It threatens to end United States’ mea-sles-free status.

More than 71,000 doses of MMR vac-cines have been administered in the New York counties aff ected by the outbreak since last October, which is a 70% in-crease from the previous year, the New York State Department of Health said.

CLIMATE SUMMIT


‘How dare you?’ Greta Thunberg asks world leaders at UN summitBy Issam Ahmed, AFPUnited Nations

A visibly angry Greta Thun-berg yesterday berated world leaders at a UN cli-

mate summit yesterday, accusing them of betraying her generation by failing to tackle greenhouse gas emissions and asking “How dare you?”

The impassioned speech set the tone for the meeting, called by UN chief Antonio Guterres to rein-vigorate the faltering Paris agree-ment, which 66 countries have responded to with vows to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.

It comes as humankind is re-leasing more emissions into the atmosphere than at any point in history, triggering global weath-er hazards from heat waves to intense hurricanes to raging wildfi res and rapidly acidifying oceans.

Yet the gap between carbon reduction targets demanded by

scientists to avert catastrophe and actions thus far taken is only widening.

“I shouldn’t be up here. I should be back at school on the other side of the ocean,” said Thunberg, 16, who has become the global face of a growing youth movement against climate inac-

tion that mobilised millions in a worldwide strike on Friday.

“You come to us young people for hope. How dare you?” she thundered, her voice at times breaking with emotion.

“We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is the money and fairy

tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you?”

In a surprising turn of events, President Donald Trump made a brief unscheduled appearance yesterday at the UN climate sum-mit, which he had been expected to skip entirely.

Trump, who has repeatedly expressed doubt about the over-whelming scientifi c consensus on man-made causes of global warming, spent a few minutes in the hall of the General Assem-bly where he applauded Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech then left.

Earlier, opening the summit, UN Secretary-General Anto-nio Guterres said: “The climate emergency is a race we are losing, but it is a race we can win.”

French President Emmanuel Macron invited his counterparts from Chile, Colombia and Bolivia to a meeting where $500mn in extra funds were pledged by the World Bank, Inter-American De-velopment Bank, and non-profi t

Conservation International to protect the world’s rainforests.

Fewer than half the 136 heads of government or state in New York this week to attend the UN General Assembly were present yesterday.

Among those absent are Presi-dent Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, un-der whose leadership the Amazon rainforest is continuing to burn at record rates, and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison whose government has pursued an aggressively pro-coal agenda.

China, the world’s biggest car-bon emitter by far but also a lead-er in renewables, was represented by foreign minister Wang Yi who called on developed countries to lead by example in reducing emissions — but also said China was respecting its climate change promises.

Laurence Tubiana, CEO of the European Climate Foundation and one of the architects of the Paris agreement, told AFP the summit represented a “moment of truth”

but was also taking place at a time of great political headwinds.

“There’s a tension between the countries that want to go ahead to translate their goals into real policies” and those that do not, she said.

“We can hope for the best, that this group of progressive coun-tries and actors and local author-ities prepare for the second wave, to demonstrate that this is where modernity is, where progress is, and even where economic growth could be.”

Macron made a clear reference to Thunberg and the other young speakers who preceded him.

“No offi cial can remain deaf to this demand for intergeneration-al justice,” he said.

“We need this youth to help us change things...and put more pressure on those who do not want to move.”

He also lauded Russia, which ratifi ed the Paris agreement yes-terday, and said Europe must do more, repeating a vow to close

coal-fi red plants by 2022.German Chancellor Angela

Merkel, who has been criticised by activists for not doing enough, said it was her government’s re-sponsibility to “take everyone along with them,” including those who doubt climate change.

Guterres has asked countries to bring “concrete, realistic plans” to enhance commitments made in 2015 in Paris toward the goal of limiting long-term warming to less than 2C — and ideally 1.5C — over pre-industrial levels.

These are deemed important to avoid hitting a number of so-called “tipping points,” like the melting of polar permafrost, that could trigger irreversible warm-ing and fundamentally alter weather events and ecosystems.

But offi cials have been careful to manage expectations and say yesterday’s summit is also a run-up event to the 2020 UN climate summit that the UK will host in Glasgow.

Climate activist Greta Thunberg speaks during the UN Climate Action Summit at the United Nations headquarters yesterday.

Climate activists block traffi c, chain themselves to sailboatBy Timothy Gardner, Reuters Washington

Activists seeking to pres-sure US politicians to tackle climate change yes-

terday blocked major traffi c hubs in the US capital, chaining them-selves to a sailboat in the middle of a street, while police arrested 26 protesters.

The activists were drawing at-tention to a UN Climate Action Summit in New York where more than 60 world leaders were ex-pected to appear, including ones from small island states most at risk from rising sea levels.

Companies were expected to make fresh pledges to cut emis-sions of greenhouse gases at the summit.

Activists targeted locations in Washington, DC including Far-ragut Square, Columbus Circle, near the Union Station train ter-minal and at Folger Park on Capi-tol Hill.

Just north of the White House, at 16th Street and K Street, activ-ists pushed a small sailboat into the middle of the intersection and chained themselves to it.

Police arrived with a power saw to free the protesters, drap-ing them with heavy blankets to protect them from fl ying sparks, and called a truck to haul the boat away.

About 200 protesters chanted nearby: “It’s dire, It’s dire, the house is on fi re!”

“I’m fi ghting for our future be-cause if things continue as they are with fossil fuel extractive industries...increasing green-house gases there’s not going to be a good future for anyone,” said Arielle Welch, 23, a volunteer for the Sunrise Movement, a non-profi t group.

The protest, called Shut Down DC, was backed by about two dozen groups, including the Metro DC chapter of the Demo-cratic Socialists of America, Ex-tinction Rebellion DC and Black Lives Matter DC.

Alaina Gertz, a spokeswoman for the Washington metropoli-tan police department, said the arrests were made for blocking traffi c.

Extinction Rebellion, which says it is backed by hundreds of scientists, promotes non-violent civil disobedience to press gov-

ernments to cut carbon emis-sions and avert a climate crisis it fears will bring starvation and social collapse.

Over 11 days in April, the group disrupted parts of London, stop-ping trains and defacing the building of energy giant Shell.

Protesters aim to pressure US offi cials who are helping to make Washington an obstacle in inter-national climate negotiations, said Kaela Bamberger, a spokes-woman for Extinction Rebellion, DC.

President Donald Trump who intends to pull the United States out of the 2015 Paris accord, has rolled back Obama-era rules on emission cuts and wants to max-imize US energy output.

Yesterday’s protest also seeks to support the climate strikes of Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old Swedish activist who travelled to New York in a sailboat and is participating in the UN sum-mit.

“I don’t want to be here re-ally, but I have to...I don’t have a choice,” said Maria, a 15-year-old high school student from Vir-ginia who skipped school and did not want to give her last name. Environmental activists block an intersection during a protest as part of global climate action week in Washington, DC, yesterday.

Poorest people getting world’s small change to cope with climate crisisBy Megan Rowling, Reuters Barcelona

The world’s poorest people, in-creasingly buff eted by storms, fl oods and droughts, have been

getting less than 1 cent a day each in in-ternational help to protect them from wild weather and rising seas as the Earth heats up, aid group Oxfam said yesterday.

Its analysis of global funding for de-veloping countries to adapt to climate change was released as world leaders gathered in New York for a UN summit where they have been asked to set out how they will do more to rein in global warming.

Poorer nations — many in places where climate change eff ects are hit-ting the hardest — have long demanded more fi nancial support so they can build stronger homes, plant hardier seeds on farms, put in irrigation and warn citi-zens of dangerous weather.

“Millions of people are already living with the threat of deadly storms, ris-ing fl oodwater and failed crops,” said Danny Sriskandarajah, chief executive of Oxfam GB.

“Wealthy nations...should take urgent action to reduce emissions and provide fi nancial support to the poorest commu-nities to cope with the impact of climate change,” he added in a statement.

In the past year, drought in the Horn of Africa has left more than 15mn people in need of aid in Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya, while in Mozambique, 2.6mn re-quire essentials after two powerful cy-clones caused devastation, Oxfam said.

Yet cash for poor communities and countries to stay safe from weather shocks including storms and fl oods, and to cope with chronic stresses like

drought has been slow to come.Oxfam calculated that, after exclud-

ing loans that must be repaid, the 48 least-developed countries received $2.4- $3.4bn in both 2015 and 2016 — the latest data available — equalling $2.50-$3.50 per inhabitant per year.

In 2009, wealthy countries at UN talks agreed to channel $100bn annually by 2020 to help poor nations develop in a low-carbon way and adapt to growing climate change impacts.

This month, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Develop-ment (OECD) said donor governments had raised just over $71bn in 2017, up from nearly $59bn in 2016, including investment they helped secure from the private sector.

OECD Secretary-General Angel Gur-ría said the goal of reaching $100bn by 2020 was still attainable.

“But we must urgently step up our ef-forts,” he added.

Another issue is that calls from de-veloping states and aid groups for half of international climate funding to back projects to adapt to a warmer world have gone largely unheeded.

Estimates of international climate fi -nance from the OECD and others show adaptation fi nance stuck at barely more than a fi fth of the total, with the bulk going to eff orts to cut emissions.

Leonardo Martinez-Diaz, director of sustainable fi nance at the World Re-sources Institute, said adaptation was “woefully under-funded”, and overall “a last big push” would be needed to ensure next year’s $100bn promise was met.

“Getting to $100bn isn’t just an arith-metical exercise to get the box ticked,” he said, explaining the money was vital for developing countries to implement more ambitious national climate plans.

Many are looking to yesterday’s UN climate summit to send a strong signal that money is coming, and off er a plat-form for governments to make new fi -nancing commitments.

The Green Climate Fund (GCF), set up under UN climate talks, is replenish-ing its coff ers this year, and is hoping for fresh contributions in New York.

So far, fi ve large donor countries have promised to put in nearly $6bn more — and up to 10 governments, including Sweden, are expected to step up with new pledges.

A GCF spokesman said those could help build confi dence among develop-ing states that they could aff ord to ramp up their national climate plans in 2020, as countries are supposed to do.

At the summit, the least-developed countries — including Bhutan, Ethiopia, Gambia, Malawi, Tanzania and Uganda — plan to ask for $450mn in investment over 10 years for a new adaptation ini-tiative as part of a “2050 Vision” to limit global warming to 1.5C and boost cli-mate resilience.

And at a meeting today, governments are due to announce new contributions to the Least Developed Countries Fund, which helps vulnerable nations adapt to climate change, the Global Environ-ment Facility said.

Nonetheless, Niranjali Amerasinghe, executive director of ActionAid USA, said rich countries were still “nowhere near close to pulling their weight” on climate fi nance.

She noted — as did Oxfam’s report — that the bulk of money is being given as loans that must be paid back.

“Many developing countries are al-ready heavily in debt, so giving them more debt in order to address climate change is not a viable solution in the long run,” she told journalists.

Vast urban forests to fi ght climate changeBy Thin Lei Win, Reuters Rome

The United Nations unveiled plans to plant urban forests over an area four times the size

of Hong Kong, seeking to make Af-rica and Asia’s rapidly growing cities greener.

The UN Food and Agriculture Or-ganisation (FAO) said the pace of ur-banisation on both continents was contributing to climate change and planting trees could improve air qual-ity, cut the risk of fl oods and heatwaves and halt land degradation.

It will discuss plans to create up to half a million hectares of new urban forests — more than four times the size of Hong Kong — by 2030 in New York this week.

“If you look at the urbanisation data, particularly in some parts of Asia and Africa, it is happening now,” said Si-

mone Borelli, an expert on urban for-estry with the FAO.

“For example, Chinese cities are growing very fast and in 20 years’ time, they may have 20% or 30% more peo-ple living there.

“Unless they start planting now, they’ll fi nd themselves in a situation where it’s too late. Trees take a long time to grow,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

If managed well, urban forests could reduce air temperatures by up to eight degrees Celsius and cut the cost of air conditioning by up to 40%, the FAO said.

The initial plan is to support 90 cities in 30 countries in Africa and Asia to create green areas, said FAO director-general Qu Dongyu in a statement.

The problem is particularly severe in dry areas, where climate change is expected to make cities and surround-ing areas more vulnerable to droughts,

heatwaves, extreme winds, fl oods and landslides, he said.

With almost 70% of the world’s population estimated to be living in cities by 2050, mainly in Africa and Asia, environmental impacts of ur-banisation could worsen without solu-tions, experts have warned.

The FAO will work on the project with the UN housing agency, Britain’s Kew Royal Botanic Gardens, and the C40, a global network of cities pushing for climate action.

It is also working with Stefano Boeri Architetti, the fi rm that designed a “vertical forest” in the Italian city of Milan by incorporating trees equiva-lent to two hectares of forests in two residential towers.

The architects said the towers helped create a microclimate that would produce humidity, absorb car-bon dioxide and dust particles and produce oxygen, calling them a model for sustainable residential building.

Climate change is challenge of civilisation: Pope FrancisPope Francis yesterday told world leaders gathered at the United Nations that climate change was a “challenge of civilisation” they had to tackle while a window of opportunity was still open.In a video broadcast to the UN Climate Action Summit, Pope called for honesty, responsibility and courage to face what he called “one of the most serious and worrying phenomena of our time”. Leaders had to conjure up the political will to tackle it.

“While the situation is not good and the planet is suff ering, the window of opportunity is still open. We are still in time,” he said. “Let us not let it close. Let us open it with our determination to cultivate integral human development, to ensure a better life for future generations. It is their future, not ours.”Pope Francis, who has called for the gradual elimination of fossil fuels, said the climate change crisis should make people re-think models of

consumption and production.“We are facing a ‘challenge of civilisation’ in favour of the common good. And this is clear, just as it is clear that we have a multiplicity of solutions that are within everyone’s reach, if we adopt on a personal and social level a lifestyle that embodies honesty, courage and responsibility,” he said.Pope Francis wrote an encyclical in 2015 on environmental protection, which was a main topic of his trip to Africa earlier this month.

ASIA13


20 killed, dozens injured in Papua unrest: militaryAt least 20 people were

killed and dozens more injured as fresh un-

rest erupted in Indonesia’s Papua region yesterday, with some victims burned to death in buildings set ablaze by protesters, authorities said.

Papua, on the western half of New Guinea island, has been gripped by weeks of violent protests fuelled by anger over racism, as well as fresh calls for self-rule in the impoverished territory.

Sixteen people were killed in Wamena city where hundreds demonstrated and burned down a government offi ce and other buildings, authorities said.

“Most of them died in a fi re,” said Papua military spokesman Eko Daryanto.

“The death toll could go up because many were trapped in burning kiosks,” he added.

Among the victims, 13 were non-Papuans and three were Papuans, Daryanto said, add-ing that a soldier and three civilians also died in provin-cial capital Jayapura, where security forces and stone-throwing protesters clashed yesterday.

The soldier was stabbed to death, while three stu-dents died from rubber bul-let wounds, authorities said,

without elaborating.About 300 people were ar-

rested in connection with yes-terday’s protests, Daryanto said, adding that about 65 people had been injured.

The clashes in Papua had qui-etened down in recent days, but fl ared up again as hundreds took to the streets - and houses and stores went up in fl ames.

Yesterday’s protests in Wa-mena - mostly involving high-schoolers - were reportedly sparked by racist comments made by a teacher, but police have disputed that account as a “hoax”.

Indonesia routinely blames separatists for violence in Pa-pua, its easternmost territory, and confl icting accounts are common.

Demonstrations broke out across the region and in other parts of the Southeast Asian ar-chipelago after the mid-August arrest and tear-gassing of doz-ens of Papuan students, who were also racially abused, in In-donesia’s second-biggest city, Surabaya.

A low-level separatist insur-gency has simmered for dec-ades in Papua, a former Dutch colony, after Jakarta took over the mineral-rich region in the 1960s.

A vote to stay within the ar-chipelago was widely viewed as rigged.

Earlier yesterday, authori-ties said the situation had been

brought under control in Wa-mena, while an AFP reporter there said Internet service had been cut.

“Security forces have also taken steps to prevent the riots from spreading,” said National

Police spokesman Dedi Prasetyo.The airport in Wamena was

shut with some 20 fl ights can-celled due to the unrest, local media reported, citing an air-port offi cial.

Indonesia has sent thousands

of security personnel to Papua to quell the recent unrest, and dozens were arrested for insti-gating the earlier riots.

At least fi ve demonstra-tors and a soldier were killed, but activists say the

civilian death toll is higher.Last week the military said

a toddler and teenager were among three people killed in a gunfi ght between security forc-es and independence-seeking rebels.

AFPWamena, Indonesia

People react as a building burns after fresh protests broke out in Wamena yesterday.

Free pads to tackle school skipping in BangladeshGirls in rural villages will get free sanitary pads to stop them skipping school during their periods as a result of social taboos around menstruation, a Bangladesh minister said yesterday.So-called “period shame” in the nation of 168mn people has caused more than 40% of Bangladesh schoolgirls to stay at home during menstruation, researchers say.“This is very alarming. We cannot put their future at stake,” Junior Information Minister Murad Hasan said.Hasan said the “unavailability of menstrual pads” and “cost of hygiene products” were mostly to blame for the absences in village schools where some 63% of the population lives.“Poor parents often prefer their girls to stay at home during their menstrual period rather than buying them hygiene products,” he added.Hasan, a doctor and former junior health minister, said the government planned to roll out the scheme by early next year in some 90,000 villages. Dhaka, together with aid agencies, has been trying to raise awareness about menstruation among parents and schoolgirls.Only 6% of schools in the South Asian nation include menstrual hygiene in their curriculum, according to a recent World Bank report.Leading women’s rights activist Maleka Banu welcomed the move.“We have been demanding it for a long time. It’s a positive thing that such initiatives are seeing the light tackling this social stigma,” Banu, general secretary of the female advocacy group Bangladesh Mahila Parishad, said.“This initiative will surely help the dropout rate to go down.” (AFP)

Bodyguard of exiled Cambodianleader attacked

The “most trusted body-guard” of Cambodian opposition leader Sam

Rainsy, who has vowed to re-turn to Cambodia in Novem-ber after years abroad, was left bloody by unknown attackers over the weekend, an offi cial of the outlawed opposition party said.

In a photo shared by Mu Sochua, vice president of the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), which was dissolved by the nation’s Su-preme Court in 2017, Pouk Chenda’s shirt collar and left hand are seen covered in blood.

Rainsy, CNRP’s co-founder, has lived abroad since 2015 to avoid a number of court convictions that he says are politically motivated.

He has promised to return to the country on November 9 with other exiled opposition

leaders in an eff ort to restore the main opposition party.

But long-ruling Prime Min-ister Hun Sen and other of-fi cials have said Rainsy would be arrested upon any attempt to re-enter Cambodia.

Chenda was attacked by two men on a motorbike on Sunday as he was walking in the capi-tal Phnom Penh, the Khmer Times reported yesterday.

“They approached me at about 10am and I was hit on the back of my head with a metal rod,” he said in a video posted to Facebook, accord-ing to the Times. “When I touched my head it was bleeding and the two men drove off .”

Sochua, who lives abroad, said no one knew the identi-ties of the attackers since they wore helmets that covered their faces.

Chenda has fi led a police complaint, she added.

A local police chief told the Times that authorities were investigating.

DPAPhnom Penh

Indonesia mulls harsher penalties for forest burners

Indonesian authorities are studying a plan to mete out harsher penalties to compa-

nies found burning forest and peat land, an environment min-istry offi cial said, as the country faces its worst forest fi res and haze problems since 2015.

The country has spent months battling fi res, often caused by slash-and-burn farming prac-tices, as the El Nino weather

pattern exacerbates the annual dry season and helps create a choking haze across the region.

Among the stricter punish-ments the government is con-sidering is the use of an anti-money laundering law against those burning down forest ar-eas, Rasio Ridho Sani, director general of law enforcement at the environment ministry, told reporters.

The rules will allow the sei-zure of profi ts from companies or individuals who have ben-efi ted fi nancially from the inten-

tional burning of land, he added.The government has sealed off

burned areas within concessions controlled by 52 companies, Sani said, and the authorities are in-vestigating fi ve companies for suspicion of starting fi res or be-ing negligent in containing fi res within their area.

Palm oil and timber compa-nies are often linked to forest burning.

Indonesia’s disaster miti-gation agency said more than 320,000 hectares (790,000 acres) of forest was burned down

from January to August this year, in what is seen as the worst such damage to the forests since 2015.

Authorities have deployed 29,000 personnel and 48 heli-copters to try to contain fi res, as well as deploying aircraft to con-duct cloud seeding in eff orts to trigger rainfall.

Sani said the environment ministry was also encouraging local governments who issued permits to revoke them for those responsible for the fi res.

“Administrative sanctions are quicker to do, while civil and

criminal law enforcement re-quires a long process,” Sani said. “We can use these administra-tive sanctions to give deterrent eff ects, and we expect support from regency heads, mayors, and governors to join forces.”

Following 2015 forest and peat-land fi res which cost the country $16bn in damages according to the World Bank, the government took 14 companies to court. Five are still on trial or in mediation talks, while three other compa-nies have not yet been brought to court, ministry data showed.

ReutersJakarta

Rohingya killed in landmine blast

A Rohingya man was killed by a suspected landmine blast along the Bangla-

desh-Myanmar border, offi cials said yesterday, the second such incident this month.

Nearly 1mn Rohingya live in camps in southeast Bangladesh after fl eeing a military crack-down in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, with some believed to use the porous border to travel back home.

Dhaka has previously accused Myanmar security forces of planting mines along the fron-tier to prevent the refugees from returning - a charge Myanmar rejects.

A loud explosion was heard early yesterday at Ghumdum border area, although the blast appeared to come from inside Myanmar, Border Guard Bang-ladesh regional commander Ali Haider Azad Ahmed said.

“Our men heard the sound which was apparently of a land-mine blast. The man’s body was lying near the border,” he said.

Offi cials said the victim was Abdul Majid, a refugee in his 20s from Kutupalong, the world’s largest refugee camp, in the Bang-ladesh district of Cox’s Bazar.

A Rohingya community leader who lives in the tiny strip of no-man’s land in a small settlement of 4,000 of the stateless minor-ity, said it took place near their makeshift homes.

“This is very frightening for us,” Dil Mohamed said.

AFPDhaka

Keeping the thread alive at Vietnam silk village

Cocoons bob in boiling water as silk is rapidly teased out, spinning

on reels skillfully operated by women in Vietnam’s Co Chat village, where households have been making thread for more than a century.

The village in Nam Dinh province, two hours south of the capital Hanoi, is nearing the end of silk production season.

Dozens of workers, mostly women, in the bustling work-

shops stir the vats, gently un-winding the fi bre from the co-coons through clouds of rising steam.

Once the yellow and white fi bres are spun onto wooden reels, workers hang them in the sun to dry.

“Production from the silk-worm cocoons depends 90% on the weather,” says workshop owner Pham Van Ba, whose family has been spinning thread for three generations.

“Our products will be ru-ined” if it’s not dried under the sun, he says, explaining that even good quality thread can be

marred by inclement weather. Around 30kg of cocoons are

processed by each worker every day, and the fi nal threads are sold to traders exporting to Laos and Thailand.

While a few households have invested in modern silk-reeling machines, the majority choose to unwind the cocoons using chopsticks, even if it means sweating through the summer heat in stuff y workshops.

Doing it manually makes it easier to salvage usable silk thread from cocoons even if they are not good, Ba says.

Each labourer earns around

$10 a day, but worker Tran Thi Hien describes the work as “precarious”.

“If the market price goes up, then we make some profi t. Other-wise, it’s only enough to cover our expenses,” the 37-year-old says, sitting next to baskets of yellow cocoons, waiting to be sorted.

Like others in the village, she worries about the future of the industry with many youngsters lured by a city lifestyle in nearby Nam Dinh.

“My kids tell me this job is too hard,” she says.

“They will fi nd other jobs in-stead.”

AFPNam Dinh

Bridging the gap: Yangon’s boom falls short across river

On her scruff y, downtrod-den bank of the river, teashop-owner Khin

works just a few hundred metres across the muddy water from Yangon and dreams of the riches promised by a new bridge linking to Myanmar’s commercial heart.

“The quicker, the better,” 58-year-old Khin Than Myint says of the construction of the $168mn bridge, from her shop in Dala township.

Spanning the Yangon River, the project is due to be complet-ed in 2022, easing the commute for thousands crossing the wa-ters by boat from rural, under-developed Dala.

Currently the sick sometimes cannot even reach hospital be-fore it is too late, Khin says.

But with the bridge, “people will be able just to walk to Yan-gon,” she says smiling.

Residents of Dala have wit-nessed the changes over the river as foreign investors poured billions of dollars into Yangon.

Five-star hotels and gleam-ing shopping malls, brimming with luxury brands, now punc-tuate the skyline, competing for space with Shwedagon Pagoda’s golden spire.

In Dala, goats wander be-tween rice paddies and resi-dents negotiate potholed roads on fume-belching motorbikes and tuk-tuks - forbidden in downtown Yangon.

A regular ferry service and a fl eet of small wooden boats have long been the only link between the two worlds.

After nearly half a century of military rule, Myanmar started opening up in 2011.

Over the next seven years, Yangon attracted almost half of the country’s foreign invest-ment, some $25.8bn, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers.

While living standards are im-

proving for many, a third of people languish in poverty, infrastructure remains patchy and much of the country is aff ected by confl ict.

Still Yangon’s boom has brought jobs for many of Dala’s residents too - including the boatmen ma-noeuvring vessels through the riv-er’s busy freight traffi c.

Aung Myo Win has spent 14 years shuttling people across the river and is torn about the new bridge.

The 45-year-old knows it will likely leave him - and dozens of others - jobless, but he also sees the bigger picture.

“The bridge is for the peo-ple,” he tells AFP at a jetty near the South Korean-funded con-struction site.

“We must sacrifi ce ourselves for the sake of development.”

Yangon’s southern districts were historically swampland, the reason the city grew northwards away from the river, says David Ney, urban specialist at The Asia Foundation. “Dala was kind of put on the backburner,” he says.

But this now looks set to change.

An enormous industrial zone spanning the area south and west of the river, largely funded by money from Korea and Chi-na, is under consideration.

But some are wary about the realities of rapid development.

Yangon taxi driver Chit Ny-unt, 68, says on the north bank the rich have got richer, leaving the poor behind.

“Rising costs of rent and food

mean families can barely cover their costs,” he says.

In Dala, however, Khin is pin-ning her hopes on the bridge.

“I want to build a nice house and I’ll open a bigger restaurant and some shops - just like in Yangon.”

AFPYangon

People from Dala township arriving by boat in Yangon after crossing the Yangon River.


ASIA/AUSTRALASIA

China sees Kiribati relations soon, no word on space tracking stationReutersBeijing

China will formally resume ties soon with Kiribati, the foreign ministry said

yesterday, following the Pacifi c island state’s decision to ditch relations with Taiwan. But it did not say what will happen to a space tracking station that China used to operate in Kiribati and is now closed.

Kiribati announced last week that it was cutting relations with self-ruled Taiwan in favour of China, which claims Taiwan as a wayward province with no right to state-to-state ties.

China and Kiribati had ties until 2003, when Tarawa es-tablished relations with Taipei, causing China to break off diplo-matic relations.

Until then, China had oper-ated the space tracking station in Kiribati, which played a role

in tracking China’s fi rst manned space fl ight in 2003, just before the suspension of ties.

Speaking in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang did not answer a question about what would hap-pen with the former space track-ing station.

On the timing of when China and Kiribati will formally resume diplomatic relations, Geng said: “What should happen will come sooner or later. Everybody should

remain patient.” “We look for-ward to resuming diplomatic re-lations with Kiribati and opening a new page in the two countries’ relations,” Geng said.

He said China also believed this would serve both countries’ people and would be benefi cial for peace, stability and prosper-ity for Pacifi c island countries.

China has welcome Kiribati’s decision though the two have not yet offi cially signed an agree-ment to resume ties. Last week

was a diffi cult one for Taiwan, as the Solomon Islands also ditched Taipei for Beijing.

The Solomon Islands foreign minister signed a deal on diplo-matic ties with Beijing in China on Saturday.

Both the Solomon Islands and Kiribati are small developing na-tions but lie in strategic waters that have been dominated by the United States and its allies since World War II, and China’s moves to expand its infl uence in the Pa-

cifi c have angered Washington. A former Taiwanese ambassador to Kiribati, Abraham Chu, told Tai-wan’s Central News Agency over the weekend that China had nev-er fully removed the tracking sta-tion in Kiribati and said China’s then-ambassador in Kiribati was a space expert.

The equipment was locked away and guarded by four fi sh-ermen, Chu said. “It seems it can come back at any time,” he added, referring to the tracking

station. The Kiribati government did not respond to a request for comment. China’s space pro-gramme is overseen by the mili-tary. China’s Defence Ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

Taiwan now has formal re-lations with just 15 countries, mostly small and poor nations in Latin America and the Pacifi c, including Nauru, Tuvalu and Pal-au. China has signalled it is com-ing for the rest of its allies.

Hong Kong readies for October 1 anniversaryReutersHong Kong

Hong Kong cleaned up yes-terday and train services in the city resumed, after

another weekend of sometimes violent protests that saw pro-democracy activists vandalise a railway station and a shopping mall.

Nearly 50 people were arrested in the weekend clashes, police said, bringing the total number of arrested in the protests since June to 1,556.

The territory is on edge ahead of the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Repub-lic on October 1, with authorities eager to avoid scenes that could embarrass the central govern-ment. The Hong Kong govern-ment starts an offi cial dialogue with community members this week in a bid to heal rifts in so-ciety and has already called off a big fi reworks display to mark Oc-tober 1 in case of further clashes.

The former British colony also marks the fi fth anniversary this weekend of the start of the “Umbrella” protests, a series of pro-democracy demonstrations in 2014 that failed to wrestle con-cessions from Beijing.

Activists plan to gather at so-called Lennon Walls, which fea-ture anti-government messages and are named after the original John Lennon Wall in Commu-nist-ruled Prague in the 1980s, in the heart of the fi nancial centre on Saturday and spread to diff er-

ent areas across Hong Kong is-land.Another rally is planned on Sunday in the bustling shopping and tourist district of Causeway Bay, the site of some fi erce recent clashes between police and pro-testers.

Police on Sunday fi red tear gas to disperse protesters in

the latest clashes in more than three months of unrest that has plunged the city into its worst political crisis in decades. Forty-seven people, 42 males and fi ve females aged between 14 and 64, were arrested. The biggest of several clashes took place in or near Mass Transit Railway (MTR)

stations, now a familiar target of attack because stations are often closed at the government’s be-hest to stop demonstrators from gathering.

Hundreds of protesters had gathered in the New Town Plaza in the New Territories town of Sha Tin on Sunday, chanting:

“Fight for freedom” and “Liber-ate Hong Kong.” Activists tram-pled on a fl ag near the train sta-tion and rounded on a man they believed had opposed them. Protesters also smashed video cameras and ticket booths in the station. Some started to trash fi t-tings at the entrance of the mall.

The protesters then spilled out-side where they set fi re to barri-cades made of cardboard, broken palm trees and other debris.

MTR said yesterday train serv-ices had returned to normal. China, which has a People’s Lib-eration Army garrison in Hong Kong, has said it has faith in Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam to solve the crisis.

Demonstrators are frustrated at what they see as Beijing’s tighten-ing grip over the Asian fi nancial hub, which returned to China in 1997 under a “one country, two systems” formula intended to guarantee freedoms that are not

enjoyed on the mainland. China says it is committed to the “one country, two systems” arrange-ment and denies interfering. Anti-government protesters, many masked and wearing black, have caused havoc since June, throwing petrol bombs at police, trashing metro stations, blocking airport roads and lighting street fi res.

Scores of airlines wrote jointly to the Hong Kong government earlier this month to seek air-port fee waivers as they struggle to deal with the fi nancial fallout from the protests that have led to a sharp drop in traveller demand.

Riot police react as they disperse crowds of protesters during a rally outside Mong Kok police station, in Hong Kong.

Workers clean graff iti at New Town Plaza in Sha Tin, Hong Kong.

Students gather at a shopping mall in the Lok Fu area of Hong Kong yesterday to sing a recently penned protest song titled Glory to Hong Kong which has been gaining popularity in the city.

Workers set up an installation depicting the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau bridge and Shenzhen skyline in preparation for the 70th founding anniversary of the People’s Republic of China, near Changan Avenue in Beijing, China.

Work in progress

Drugs war: Philippines to reject loans, grantsDPA Manila

The Philippines confi rmed yesterday, after an initial denial, that President Ro-

drigo Duterte ordered govern-ment agencies to reject loans and grants from 18 countries that backed an inquiry into killings in the country’s drug war.

Presidential Spokesman Sal-vador Panelo said in ANC news interview that Duterte’s earlier denial of such an order was due to a “lapse of memory.”

Panelo said last week that Du-terte “has not issued any memo-randum suspending loans and negotiations involving 18 coun-tries” that in July approved a

resolution on a drugs war probe in the United Nations Human Rights Council initiated by Ice-land.

He said Duterte told him that the Philippines was “insulted” by the resolution. Panelo said the memo was issued by Execu-tive Secretary Salvador Medial-dea. Police have reported 6,600 deaths in the anti-drug cam-paign.

Panelo said that human rights groups’ claims of between 12,000 and more than 20,000 deaths had come out of thin air. Foreign Aff airs Secretary Teodoro Locsin

Jr earlier said it was “not worth” seeking aid from countries that question the Philippines’ human rights record.

He called the reported memo “old stuff ,” saying the Philip-pines have long rejected what he termed “onerous” aid packages “long before the failed Iceland resolution.” The countries that backed the resolution were Ar-gentina, Australia, Austria, Ba-hamas, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Fiji, Iceland, Italy, Mexico, Peru, Slovakia, Spain, Ukraine, United Kingdom, and Uruguay.

Rodrigo Duterte

Two workers die during building demolition in Philippine capitalDPAManila

Two workers died after part of a budget hotel that was being demolished

prematurely collapsed in Manila yesterday morning.

Twenty-two demolition workers were on duty when the accident happened in the city’s Malate district. Manila Mayor

Isko Moreno, who rushed to the scene, said the body of Melo Ison was retrieved beneath the debris several hours after the collapse of the structure. Moreno said the accident was “sad” but that the least that could be done was to support the family.

Ison’s brother, Edson, was also injured when he jumped from the collapsing building. Retrieval operations contin-ued for the body of the second

worker killed, Joremie Fabello, who remained trapped beneath a slab. When Moreno noticed that the hotel’s adjacent build-ing was still accepting guests, he ordered management not to entertain customers for safety reasons.

The mayor said he ordered the Manila City Engineering Of-fi ce to investigate and pinpoint who should be held liable for the crash.

Australia resumes live sheep exports AFPSydney

Australia has lifted a tem-porary ban on controver-sial live sheep exports,

with the fi rst ship due to depart for the Middle East this week with about 60,000 animals on board.

The live export trade has been under scrutiny since horrifi c footage of dead and dying heat-stressed sheep on vessels bound for the Middle East was released in April 2018, prompting a public outcry and forcing sweeping re-forms to the industry.

Though the government re-sisted calls to outlaw the practice entirely, a review led to a tem-porary embargo on live exports during the northern-hemisphere summer from June to September this year. Rural Export and Trad-

ing WA, an exporter, said the ship is due to leave Fremantle, in Western Australia state, for the Middle East by Tuesday.

It is expected to be the fi rst of many to depart in the coming months, much to the chagrin of animal welfare campaigners.

New guidelines introduced in 2018 required exporters to sig-nifi cantly increase cargo space for sheep and to ensure inde-pendent observers travel on all ships carrying live animals, with penalties for non-compliance including fi nes and jail time.

But activists argue that the measures will do little to mitigate the animals’ heat stress and the trade should be further restrict-ed. The resumption of shipments was welcomed by the Australian Livestock Exporters’ Council, which said the moratorium had meant “competitors have en-tered some of our markets.”

S Korea, US to launch defence cost-sharing talks this week

South Korea and the United States will kick off fresh negotiations this week on sharing the cost for the upkeep of American troops in South Korea, the foreign ministry said yesterday. The first round of the 11th Special Measures Agreement will take place in Seoul today and tomorrow, the ministry said in a release. Chang Won-sam, who led the previous round of negotiations last year, will represent South Korea until his successor is picked, while a former charge d’aff aires of the US Embassy in Norway, James DeHart will lead the US delegation. the ministry said. “We’re at the final stage of the appointment process. The second round of the talks will be headed by the new chief negotiator,” a ministry off icial said. — QNA

Johnson playsdown Brexitbreakthroughchance at UNGuardian News and MediaLondon

Boris Johnson has cautioned against speculation that he could come signifi cantly

closer to a revised Brexit deal dur-ing a series of talks with European leaders at a UN summit this week, saying “a New York breakthrough” did not seem to be on the cards.

The prime minister, who is scheduled to meet the European Council president, Donald Tusk, and a string of leaders of EU na-tions over the next two days at the UN general assembly (UNGA), in-sisted that his overall “cautiously optimistic” stance of securing a deal remained unchanged.

But speaking to reporters on the plane to New York after sug-gestions of a possible compro-mise over the vexed issue of the Irish border seemed doused by EU scepticism, Johnson conceded there were “still gaps, still diffi cul-ties” over how to solve this.

“I would caution you all not to think this is going to be the mo-ment,” he said. “I don’t wish to elevate excessively the belief that there will be a New York break-through. I’m not getting pessimis-tic – we will be pushing ahead, but there is still work to be done.” The sticking point remains the seem-ingly irreconcilable demands of the two sides over the Irish border.

The EU insists it cannot not allow a deal which could even-tually see checkpoints between Northern Ireland and the Repub-lic of Ireland, potentially breach-ing the Good Friday peace deal, while Downing Street has vowed

to remove the backstop, which provides an insurance policy over a frictionless border if no perma-nent solution can be found.

The UK has fl oated the idea of some access for food and agricul-tural produce, with yet-to-be-fi nalised arrangements for non-frontier checks on other goods when a post-deal transition period would fi nish at the end of 2020, something the EU believes is far too woolly to be credible.

Johnson appeared to rule out the idea of extending to manufactured goods.

Johnson argued he had made considerable progress as prime minister, with EU leaders saying “they no longer necessarily have an attachment to the backstop”.

He said: “That’s very encour-aging. We’ve seen interest in the idea of treating the island of Ire-land as a single zone for sanitary and phytosanitary purposes, and that’s also encouraging. However,

there are clearly still gaps, still dif-fi culties. What we are working for – and we can see the way to do it – is a solution that enables the UK and the EU respect the principles of the single market, to allow an open border in Northern Ireland, to respect the achievements of the Northern Irish peace process, but also to allow the whole of the UK to come out of the EU.

“And there is a way to do that. I think colleagues around the table in Brussels can see how we might do that. What it will take is the po-litical will to get there, and I think it’s fair to say I’m still in the same position I was – I think cautiously optimistic is about right.”

As well as Tusk, Johnson is due to have a joint meeting with Em-manuel Macron of France and Germany’s Angela Merkel, as well as the Irish leader, Leo Varadkar, and the prime ministers of the Netherlands and Belgium, Mark Rutte and Charles Michel.

Labour pledges morespending, less workReutersBrighton

The opposition Labour Party yesterday pledged to mobilise fi nancial re-

sources on a scale not seen since the post-World War II recon-struction, promising a shorter working week and higher public spending with an eye on an early election.

Labour is hoping to use the Brexit chaos engulfi ng Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Con-servative government to win control of Britain’s $2.8tn econ-omy at a national election ex-pected to be called later this year.

Presenting himself as fi nance minister in waiting at Labour’s annual conference in Brighton, veteran left-winger John Mc-Donnell set out how he would reshape the pro-business, free-market orthodoxy that has guid-ed the country for decades.

“We’re mobilising fi nancial resources on a scale not seen

since the post-war reconstruc-tion to achieve the twin goals of a sustainable future and a better today,” he said.

The 68-year-old, once con-sidered to be at one extreme of Britain’s political spectrum after a lifetime spent campaigning to tear up the capitalist system, is now seen by investors as a pos-sible custodian of the world’s fi fth-largest economy.

The Labour Party’s plans for widespread nationalisation, higher public spending, higher taxes and forcing large corpora-tions to give workers shares, have provoked deep concern among investors and business lobby groups.

But with Johnson fi ghting a battle to keep his divided party together over Brexit and huge uncertainty over how and when Britain will leave the European Union — if it ever does — the re-sult of a national election is hard to predict.

McDonnell’s most eye-catch-ing policy announcement was

a pledge to reduce the average working week to 32 hours within a decade from its current level of about 37 hours, as measured by the Offi ce for National Statistics.

“It will be a shorter working week with no loss of pay,” Mc-Donnell said to loud cheers from party members gathered in the seaside resort.

Labour said this could be achieved by boosting the power of collective bargaining, raising holiday entitlements and ending a British opt out from European directives on how many hours people can work per week.

McDonnell repeated Labour’s promise to hold a second refer-endum on leaving the European Union, warning that Johnson’s government was fuelling uncer-tainty and undermining democ-racy with its Brexit policy.

He also pledged to pump bil-lions into the country’s social care system, primarily to provide the elderly with free assistance for basic tasks such as cooking meals and bathing.

BRITAIN

Gulf Times Tuesday, September 24, 2019 15

Climate change protest

Mothers protest outside BP’s global headquarters, ahead of the UN Climate Action Summit, in London, yesterday.

Top court to rule on PM’s parliament suspension todayReutersLondon

The top court will today rule on whether Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s decision to

suspend parliament was unlaw-ful, a judgment that could lead to the recall of the legislature and give lawmakers more chance to ob-struct his Brexit plans.

Johnson advised Queen Eliza-beth to prorogue, or suspend, parliament on August 28, a move his opponents said was made to

stymie challenges to his promise to take Britain out of the European Union on October 31 with or with-out a divorce deal.

Johnson says the aim of the suspension — from September 10 until October 14 — was to allow his Conservative government bring in a new legislative agenda and that few working days would be lost.

The Supreme Court said its 11 justices would hand down their judgment at 10:30am (0930GMT) today.

During three days of hearings last week, the Supreme Court was

told by lawyers for anti-Brexit campaigners, opposition lawmak-ers and even former Conservative prime minister John Major that the fi ve-week shutdown was the long-est in 50 years and simply a means to stop parliament doing its job.

Under Britain’s uncodifi ed con-stitution, the power to suspend or dissolve parliament formally re-mains with the monarch, a politi-cally impartial fi gure who acts in accordance with the advice of the prime minister.

The Supreme Court will have to decide if the issue is one that judg-

es should even be involved in or if it was simply a political issue.

The High Court of England and Wales ruled earlier this month that the issue was indeed not “justicia-ble” but Scotland’s top court con-cluded Johnson had acted illegally and that the prorogation should be declared null and void.

“As we have heard, it is not a simple question and we will now consider carefully all the argu-ments that have been presented to us,” Brenda Hale, the court’s presi-dent, said at the end of the hear-ings on Thursday.

If the top court agrees the sus-pension was illegal, it could say that Johnson should recall parliament or that as the prorogation was unlaw-ful, the legislature could simply be reconvened by its speakers.

In a legal document submit-ted to the court last week outlying what Johnson might do if the rul-ing went against him, his lawyers suggested that he could prorogue parliament again.

“I have the greatest respect for the judiciary in this country, and I think the best thing I can say at the moment whilst their deliberations

are continuing is that...I will wait to see what transpires,” Johnson told reporters on Friday.

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said on Sunday the government would respect the decision but asked whether a second suspen-sion was possible, he said: “Let’s wait and see what the fi rst judge-ment decides and then we’ll un-derstand the lie of the land.”

Before the suspension, Johnson suff ered repeated defeats in the House of Commons, where he now has no majority, and an early recall of lawmakers could see them at-

tempt to question, amend, or even block his Brexit plans.

Most lawmakers are opposed to a so-called “no-deal Brexit” scenario, predicting that it would cause economic damage and se-vere disruption, including to food and medicine supply chains.

A cross-party rebel alliance managed to force through a law aimed at stopping Britain leav-ing the EU without an agreement by requiring Johnson to ask for a three-month extension if he has not been able to strike a deal by October 19.

Party votes in favourof Corbyn’s Brexit stanceGuardian News and MediaLondon

Jeremy Corbyn has seen off an attempt by grassroots activ-ists to force Labour to adopt

an out-and-out Remain position ahead of a general election.

Amid chaotic scenes at Labour’s annual conference in Brighton, delegates rejected a composite motion, hammered out in a late-night meeting on Sunday, that would have seen Labour pledge to campaign for Remain.

Corbyn had made clear that he would prefer to defer the deci-sion about how Labour will cam-paign in a referendum, until after a general election.

That approach, as set out in a statement from the national ex-ecutive committee (NEC), was agreed on the conference fl oor with a show of hands – and “composite 13”, calling for a Re-main stance, was defeated.

A string of speakers through-out the debate at Labour’s annu-al conference in Brighton urged their colleagues to fall in behind Corbyn’s stance.

With just months, or perhaps

even weeks to go before a general election, there were fears that a show of disunity would harm the Labour leadership.

When the Remain motion fell, many stood and cheered, and broke into a chorus of “oh, Jer-emy Corbyn”.

The chair, Wendy Nichols, ini-tially appeared to say the motion had been carried – but then said it had lost, after a conversation with Labour general secretary Jennie Formby, who was sitting alongside her on the conference stage.

Nichols then rejected calls for a full card-vote – which would mean formally counting del-egates’ votes – to be held.

Frontbenchers including Emi-ly Thornberry and Clive Lewis have called for their party to de-clare its allegiance before a gen-eral election.

But Labour strategists fear an out-and-out Remain posi-tion would jeopardise the party’s chances of holding onto Leave constituencies.

Shadow Brexit secretary Keir Starmer, whose speech wound up the debate, did not explicitly call on Labour members to sup-port the Remain motion.

Premier mum on ‘funds for friend’ row

Boris Johnson has repeatedly declined to comment on reported allegations he failed to declare close personal links to an American woman who received thousands of pounds in public business funding while he was mayor of London. The prime minister, questioned by reporters on his plane en route to the UN general assembly (UNGA) in New York, refused to answer six questions about his links to Jennifer Arcuri, a US technology entrepreneur.Asked if he wanted to deny any part of the story, or to comment on the nature of his relationship with Arcuri, Johnson also declined to be drawn. According to the Sunday Times, a company run by Arcuri received access to money to assist her business, as well as places on trade trips, at times following the intervention of mayoral off icials.The paper also reported that Johnson was, at the time, a regular visitor to Arcuri’s east London apartment, and that she described him at the time as “one of my best friends”.Asked about the reports, Johnson said: “I’m here to talk about what we’re doing in the UN, and this country’s commitment to tackling climate change and stopping loss of biodiversity.”The report said Arcuri’s most recent company won a £100,000 government cyber skills grant intended to assist UK firms, even though she has now returned to live in the US. The department for culture, media and sport has confirmed to the Guardian it is investigating how the money was awarded.Asked whether a further inquiry might be merited into any potential conflict of interests, Johnson said: “I’m here to talk about, as I said, what we’re going to talk about at the UN.”Asked whether he and Arcuri had ever had a sexual relationship, Johnson said: “If you’ll forgive me, I’m going to talk exclusively about what we’re doing here at the UN.” He declined to answer three further questions, including being invited to deny any of the allegations made in the Sunday Times article, saying: “I’m going to talk about what we’re doing in the UN.”

‘Diffi cult to see solution with current UK position’

The European Union’s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier yesterday said London’s current position did not off er any “basis to find an agreement” on leaving the bloc. “Based on current UK thinking, it’s diff icult to see how we can arrive at a legally operative solution which fulfils all the objectives of the backstop,” said Barnier in Berlin after talks with German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas. “For the moment, we don’t have the basis to find an accord,” he added.

Barnier’s downbeat assessment of the state of negotiations between and Brussels came after his meeting last week with his British counterpart Stephen Barclay. “We remain open to talks, and to progress and to listen (to) the new ideas from the UK also regarding the future relationship,” Barnier told journalists. He stressed however that it was up to London to find a solution to the deadlock. “The ball is in the court of the British,” he said.

Labour MP John McDonnell speaks during the Labour party annual conference in Brighton yesterday.

400 homes‘being sold aweek to fundelderly care’Daily MailLondon

At least 400 pensioners sell their homes each week to pay for social care, a new

study says.It reveals that 21,120 owners

took the desperate step last year, compared with just 11,880 in 2000.

The fi gures lay bare the scale of a crisis in which anyone with more than £23,250 in savings, includ-ing their property value, is denied state help.

Published by the charity Inde-pendent Age, the report also found that only some councils off er “de-ferred payment agreements” that save people having to sell up be-fore their death. On his fi rst day in No 10 Boris Johnson vowed to make social care a priority and end the crisis “once and for all”. He has since admitted that action will be delayed, probably until next year.

Jeremy Hughes of the Alzheim-er’s Society warned that Johnson risks losing the next election if he fails to deliver on his pledge.

Despite two decades of reviews, commissions and proposals no government has come close to tackling the problem properly. The latest report reveals that since 1999, when a royal commission proposed making personal care free at the point of use, more than 330,000 elderly people have had to sell their homes to pay their bills.

And the scale of the problem has got worse as care costs have soared and the elderly population has grown. Independent Age estimates that 11,880 owners had to sell up in 2000. Since then the annual total has almost doubled, with 21,120 selling their homes in 2018.

The charity’s researchers based their calculations on de-partment of health data that suggests 30% of those who self-fund residential care have to sell

their homes to do so.The totals were produced by

then comparing the numbers for self-funders in care provided by Laing Buisson, a healthcare analy-sis fi rm.

The research assumes that the average stay in social care is two-and-a-half years. Morgan Vine, campaigns manager at Independ-ent Age, said: “Our fi ndings show exactly why free personal care is so badly needed.

“Our prime minister has an-nounced his intention to fi x the social care system, and it’s crucial that free personal care is part of that solution. Even arranging de-ferred payment agreements – a safety net to prevent people hav-ing to sell their homes within their lifetime – is proving to be a post-code lottery and doesn’t address the unacceptable situation where people are still required to spend a catastrophic amount on their care.”

A YouGov opinion poll com-missioned by the charity found that 78% of respondents would support free personal care for the over-65s.

The Government set up de-ferred payment agreements in 2015. However the report reveals that seven of the 93 councils that responded to freedom of informa-tion requests had no such schemes in place. Three had failed to accept any applications.

Of the remaining town halls, 54 had accepted only some of the ap-plications.

Sally Copley, director of policy at the Alzheimer’s Society, said: “These fi ndings show that the public want to see urgent ac-tion to reform our ailing social care system. No one should have to sell their home to pay for care, but the overwhelming cost of de-mentia care, which can be at least 15% more expensive than standard social care, means it’s something that happens far too often.”

Harry, Meghan startSouth African tourReutersCape Town

Prince Harry and his wife Meghan started their tour of South Africa yester-

day in a township known as the country’s “murder capital”.

The Duke and Duchess of Sus-sex, on their fi rst overseas tour since the birth of their fi rst child, are expected to meet anti-apart-heid cleric Archbishop Desmond Tutu and other dignitaries, but chose to begin in Nyanga, about 20kmfrom Cape Town, which recorded more murders — 289 — than any other police precinct in 2018-19.

Harry will later in the trip re-kindle memories of the couple’s courtship in Botswana and of his mother Diana in Angola.

Meghan, an American former actress, has had only one offi cial engagement since giving birth to Archie in May.

The royal couple visited The Justice Desk in Nyanga, a group that teaches self-defence and empowerment to vulnerable children, many of whom have suff ered trauma — key skills in a place where thousands live cheek-by-jowl in a squalid sea of tin and wood shacks, and where violence is a daily reality.

Activists have warned of an epidemic of violence against

women in South Africa after a spate of killings and rapes in a country with one of the world’s highest murder rates.

President Cyril Ramaphosa is seeking emergency measures to curb violence.

Harry and Meghan, holding hands, arrived at the non-gov-ernmental organisation to the sound of drum beats as children shouted out in excitement.

The couple greeted and chat-ted to women and children, with Meghan giving hugs to some, and danced to music.

“Meghan and I are truly in-spired by your resilience, your spirit, your sense of community and your belief in a better future

for everyone here,” Harry said to applause.

“Now is the time to come to-gether as a community, and we applaud those of you who are leading the way for South Af-rica’s ongoing transformation,” Harry told the crowd, which he greeted in the Xhosa language.

Meghan, who addressed the people after Harry, said advo-cating for the rights of women and girls was a cause very close to her heart.

“The work that’s being done here is to keep women and chil-dren safer, which is needed now more than ever,” Meghan said.

“I want you to know that for me, I am here with you as a

mother, as a wife, as a woman, as a woman of colour and as your sister,” she said to cheers.

Speaking at the Nyanga Meth-odist Church, whose windows are protected by heavy bars against burglars, Theodora Lu-tuli of The Justice Desk said be-fore Harry and Meghan’s arrival that the organisation was having a huge impact in the commu-nity by making children aware of their rights.

Ahead of the royal couple’s arrival, a small crowd of around 100 gathered outside the church, singing and dancing to the beat of a marimba band, while a throng of local and international media jostled for positions.

People urged to join masstree-planting campaignGuardian News and MediaLondon

Volunteers are being urged to do their bit to stop the climate emergency by

grabbing a spade and signing up for the biggest mass tree-plant-ing campaign in the UK’s history.

Plots in suitable sites around the country are being prepared for November 30, when the Big Climate Fightback campaign will start with pledges sought from 1mn people. Local groups are being encouraged to run tree-planting events and councils are being asked for permission to plant trees on their land, or out-side schools and other publicly owned properties. Businesses are also being urged to plant trees on their own premises if possible.

People without gardens or the means to plant their own trees are being encouraged to spot potential sites and ask their lo-cal council or the landowner for permission to plant.

By 2025, the Woodland Trust

– the charity behind the Big Cli-mate Fightback – hopes to have planted a tree for every person in the country. All of the trees pro-vided by the charity will be na-tive broadleaf varieties, such as oak, birch and hawthorn.

The writer and broadcaster Sandi Toksvig has pledged to plant a tree and called on others to do the same. “Climate change is a real threat and aff ects us all, but there is the simplest of all solutions: the humble tree,” she said. “I urge peo-ple to get off their sofas and plant a tree. It’s very simple and you could be one in a million.”

According to the Committee on Climate Change, the govern-ment’s statutory advisers on the climate crisis, the UK should have 1.5bn new trees by 2050 to meet the net zero carbon target, set in line with international sci-entifi c warnings on the climate crisis. The government has set a target of 5,000 hectares a year for England alone, but planting rates have fallen well short of that, with last year only 3,508 acres of new woodland planted.

However, trees will also need to be cared for after planting to en-sure they survive, so groups are encouraged to participate beyond the planting stage. The Woodland Trust also warned that tree plant-ing alone was not enough. “As in-dividuals, we all need to do much more to reduce our impact on the planet by cutting emissions and reducing pressure on resources,” said Darren Moorcroft, the char-ity’s chief executive.

A spokesperson for the depart-ment for environment, food and rural aff airs said: “Working with the Woodland Trust and other organisations, we also want to en-courage everyone to play a part and help us to plant more trees. We’ve already kick-started the creation of a Northern Forest, which will see 50mn trees planted from Liv-erpool to Hull, and we have set up two funds worth £60mn to drive up planting rates, including in our towns and cities. Later this year we will be consulting on a new Eng-lish Tree Strategy, focusing on how to accelerate woodland creation across the country.”

Man taken to hospitalafter ‘bomb’ scareGuardian News and MediaLondon

A man arrested at Manches-ter airport has been taken to hospital for assessment

after bomb disposal experts car-ried out a controlled explosion on a suspect package yesterday morning, and the airport inter-change and surrounding offi ces were evacuated.

Police offi cers rushed to the air-port’s transport hub in response to reports of a man acting erratically at around 7am. A witness told the Manchester Evening News that a naked man had been seen running in and out of the terminus, waving his arms in the air.

Bomb disposal experts de-stroyed a suspect bag found at the scene, in a controlled explo-sion just after 9.30am. Police later confi rmed that the bag had not contained a viable device, and said there was no evidence to suggest the incident was related to terrorism.

Chief inspector Andy Sutcliff e said: “Reports of the incident may have caused some concern but I can confi rm that the matter

has now been safely resolved and the area is returning to normal.

“Public safety is our top prior-ity so a controlled explosion of a bag was carried out as a precau-tion before an inspection of the contents confi rmed that there was no viable device or compo-nents inside.

“I want to stress that there is no evidence to suggest that this incident was terrorism related and I want to thank members of the public for their patience and support as we responded.”

Police cars and airport staff blocked off the roads leading to the transport hub and terminals one and two as trams, trains and buses were suspended for more than three hours.

An unmarked car and van ar-rived with sirens on at 9.34am, as traffi c backed up leading to the airport’s terminals one and two. There were chaotic scenes at the airport as passengers un-able to get close to the terminals owing to grid-locked traffi c got out of their vehicles and walked along the duel carriageways with their luggage, with some scram-bling down banks in an attempt to catch fl ights.

Boat on fire

A boat on fire is seen on the river Thames in Twickerham, Britain.

Salmonella alert issued as 100 people infected by UK eggsGuardian News and MediaLondon

The government has issued a salmonella warning after an investigation revealed

that at least 100 people had been poisoned by British eggs in three years.

Following the joint investiga-tion, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) issued a food alert, warn-ing consumers that eggs from a specifi c English fl ock could be

contaminated with salmonella. The eggs in question were marked with the British Lion stamp, which is supposed to guarantee they are safe.

Salmonella can cause food poi-soning, and in the most severe cases can be fatal. There have been no deaths in this outbreak. Previously the FSA had insisted British Lion eggs were safe to eat raw, even for pregnant women, children and the elderly.

It has now emerged that regu-lations designed to ensure high

standards in the UK egg sector were breached several thousand times by farms, packing stations and wholesalers over the last three years, according to records seen by the Bureau of Investiga-tive Journalism and the Guardian.

Inspection records have shown that more than a hundred tests for salmonella had been missed, or carried out too late, increasing the chance of contaminated eggs entering the food chain.

Over three years egg farms in England had more than 100

breaches of the rules around the government’s programme to pre-vent salmonella.

Some off ending farms were is-sued with penalty notices, which can result in a fi ne or other en-forcement action.

The records – compiled by the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) – also show that one in six of all inspections carried out in the past three years found infrac-tions on issues including hygiene, animal welfare and egg quality.

Ensuring farms are regularly

cleaned and disinfected, along-side strict pest control and bi-osecurity measures, is key to preventing salmonella, which can be spread by contaminated wild birds and animals, in water, and via farm workers.

A single lapse in hygiene could introduce salmonella on to a farm or enable the pathogens to spread, industry sources have said.

Last week an investigation re-vealed how a major outbreak of one of the worst strains of salmo-nella had aff ected several farms

and two egg-packing factories, including one that supplies major supermarkets.

More than 50 egg-laying fl ocks were found to have tested positive for salmonella since January 2018, 11 of them contaminated with the most serious strains of the bac-teria. Egg-packing factories were also found contaminated on fi ve occasions in the period.

Almost all of the 13bn eggs eaten in the UK come from Brit-ish farms. More than half of the market comes from free-range

hens, while most of the rest is from birds in “enriched cages” – indoor enclosures for dozens of birds with perching spaces and scratching areas.

The government confi rmed on Friday that it was “investigat-ing and taking action” to con-trol the outbreak along with in-dustry and local authorities. In its food alert the FSA said there was a “potential but low risk of illness” and advised people to cook their eggs thoroughly to eliminate the bug.


BRITAIN

Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, visit District Six Museum, on the first day of their African tour in Cape Town, South Africa, yesterday.

EUROPE17Gulf Times


Germany, France, Italy and Malta agreed yesterday on a redistribution mecha-

nism for migrants rescued in the Central Mediterranean, but their deal will not be eff ective without wider European Union agree-ment.

Maltese Home Aff airs Minis-ter Michael Farrugia said he and his German, French and Ital-ian counterparts had reached an “agreement on a common pa-per” to be presented as the basis for discussions at an October 8 meeting of EU interior ministers.

“We have started to make his-tory, but it all depends on the support of all or most of the other EU countries in accepting to par-ticipate in the disembarkation and distribution of migrants,” said Farrugia.

French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said that details of the plan would not im-mediately be made public.

“The document won’t be re-leased immediately ... because we prefer to share it with other member states fi rst,” Castaner told AFP.

However, German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer revealed that the agreement would apply for six months and would kick in once other EU nations came on board.

He said that he expected 12-14 of them to join, but noted that participating countries would be able to pull out at any time.

“I believe today was an impor-tant step for European coopera-tion on the issue of migration,” Seehofer told reporters.

The deal drafted in Malta stat-ed that all migrants rescued at sea, except those deemed to pose a security risk, would be eligible for redistribution, and that it should happen within four weeks of disembarkation, the German minister said.

The agreement was a victory for Italy and Malta, who wanted EU redistribution for all res-cuees, not just for those judged to have credible asylum claims.

That would have excluded so-called economic migrants, who make up the bulk of arrivals from North Africa.

The scope of the deal was lim-ited in other ways.

Namely, it does not cover migrants who reach European shores on their own, without be-ing intercepted by NGO, navy or coastguard units.

These kinds of migrants rep-resent more than 90% of recent Italian sea migrant landings.

Matteo Villa, a migration ex-pert at the ISPI think tank, said the agreement would be an in-centive for the Italian coastguard and navy to carry out more res-cues at sea.

Another sticking point was whether disembarkations should continue taking place in Ital-ian and Maltese ports, or also in French ones.

Ministers agreed that France could exceptionally open its ports to migrant vessels if Malta or Italy are overwhelmed.

Italian Interior Minister Lu-ciana Lamorgese said: “From today, Italy and Malta are not alone.”

“There is a recognition that

these two countries represent the gateway to Europe.”

Seehofer, who previously said his country was willing to take one-quarter of rescued sea mi-grants, indicated in Malta that quotas had not been fi xed and depended on how many other EU countries were going to take part in redistribution eff orts.

Over the past months, mi-grants rescued by charity ves-sels have been left waiting at sea for days and weeks because Italy and Malta refused to take them in until other EU nations agreed to take some of them.

This resulted in rows – usually fuelled by Italy’s far-right leader and anti-migrant former interior minister Matteo Salvini – and hastily arranged burden-sharing deals brokered by the European Commission.

Italy now has a more pro-EU government which has stopped refusing entry to migrant vessels, while Salvini has been sidelined.

Seehofer and others see this as a window of opportunity to end intra-EU rows on migration.

Italy and Malta have long com-plained that they have been left alone to deal with the hundreds of thousands of migrants who have crossed the Mediterranean in recent years looking for a bet-ter life in Europe.

EU leaders voted for a manda-tory relocation of rescued mi-grants in 2015 but the plan was never adopted, and only a hand-ful of those picked up at sea were given legal papers allowing them to go to other countries.

The infl ux helped fuel the rise of Italy’s far-right, anti-migrant League party, led by Salvini.

The League entered a coali-tion government last year and introduced laws blocking the country’s ports to migrant rescue ships, threatening the charities operating them with fi nes of up to €1mn ($1.1mn) if they tried to dock.

While around a dozen coun-tries have, in the past, off ered to take in the new arrivals, many central and eastern European states, such as Hungary and Po-land, have refused to help out, and they are not expected to sign up to the new deal.

It was not clear if the EU would off er fi nancial incentives to en-courage countries to sign up to the scheme.

“Europe has to be better pre-pared and stand with frontline countries like Italy, Greece, Mal-ta, Spain and Cyprus,” European migration commissioner Dimi-tris Avramopoulos said earlier as he arrived for the meeting in Malta.

The number of migrants reaching Europe via the Medi-terranean has dropped sharply in recent years.

The UN’s refugee body record-ed nearly 115,000 arrivals in 2018, down from 170,000 in 2017 and more than 1mn in 2015.

Key EU nations agree on migrant sharingDPA/Reuters/AFPValletta

French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner, Italy’s Interior Minister Luciana Lamorgese, European Commissioner for Migration Dimitris Avramopoulos, Malta’s Interior Minister Michael Farrugia, Finland’s Interior Minister Maria Ohisalo, and Germany’s Interior Minister Horst Seehofer address a press conference following a meeting of interior ministers from four EU countries yesterday at Fort St Angelo in Birgu, Malta.

Film buffs

Canadian actor Donald Sutherland poses for pictures on arrival yesterday at his hotel in the northern Spanish Basque city of San Sebastian. Sutherland will receive the Donostia Award during the 67th San Sebastian International Film Festival (SSIFF).

Left: Greek director Costa Gavras addressing the audience on Saturday after receiving the Donostia Award in recognition of his prestigious film career.

Five women went on trial yesterday over an alleged plot to detonate a car

bomb in front of Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris three years ago, when France was battling a wave of religious extremist at-tacks that since 2015 have killed over 250 people.

It is the fi rst high-profi le case involving women ac-cused of wanting to carry out a religious extremist attack in France, where authorities re-main on high terrorism alert.

Two of the women risk up to life in prison for their alleged roles in the plot, as do two oth-ers accused of later trying to help one of the women escape.

A fi fth woman faces a pos-sible 30-year sentence, while a sixth is being tried for not alerting authorities to the planned attack.

The women were arrested after a Peugeot 607 sedan was found parked near the bustling square outside Notre-Dame, where a bar employee noticed a gas cylinder in the back seat and alerted the police.

That cylinder was found to be empty but fi ve full cylinders were discovered in the car boot.

Prosecutors say in 2016 on the night of September 3-4, Ines Madani and Ornella Gil-ligmann parked the car after sending a video claiming re-sponsibility for the planned attack to Rachid Kassim, a no-torious French member of the Islamic State (IS) group.

Kassim, who is being tried in absentia, is also suspected of directing the brutal murder of a police couple outside their home in June 2016, a killing that was broadcast live on Fa-cebook, and another in which an elderly priest’s throat was cut.

Kassim is believed to have been killed in a coalition air strike near the Iraqi city of Mo-sul in February 2017.

For Jean-Charles Brisard of the Centre for the Analysis of Terrorism, the foiled plot marked “a tipping point: it’s the moment when people real-ised the role of women” in the religious extremist attacks on French soil.

Madani, now 22 and the youngest of the accused, ap-peared pale as she took her place in court next to Gillig-mann, a 32-year-old mother of three.

Prosecutors say they had doused the car with diesel fuel and tried to set it alight with a cigarette, but failed because the fuel is not easily fl ammable.

“Only the wrong choice of fuel ... caused this attempt to fail,” investigating magistrates said.

Gilligmann was arrested in southern France while trying to fl ee, and Madani holed up in an apartment in the Paris sub-urb of Essonne that belonged to Amel Sakaou, who is also on trial.

She was allegedly guided by Samia Chalel, who served as an intermediary between Madani and Kassim.

They were soon joined by Sarah Hervouet, who was also communicating with Kassim via the encrypted Telegram messaging app.

They were arrested a few days later after trying to leave the apartment armed with kitchen knives.

Hervouet stabbed one offi cer in the shoulder, while Madani was shot in the leg.

“She’s obviously intimi-dated,” said her defence lawyer Laurent Pasquet-Marinacce, as the trial got under way. “It is very daunting to be judged by a Court of Assize but she is quite confi dent because she believes in the possibility of a fair and not excessive trial.”

Marinacce rejected allega-tions her client orchestrated the plot, which she said was a “collective emulation”.

“The real people in charge are the men in Syria who were pulling the strings,” he said.

Madani was jailed for eight years last April for trying to re-cruit religious extremist fi ght-ers to fi ght in Syria or carry out attacks in France and Belgium.

She used pseudonyms and modifi ed her voice to appear as a man – prosecutors say that it was only after the failed attack that Gilligmann learned that a man she had fallen in love with on the Internet was in fact Madani.

Guillaume Denoix de Saint-Marc, spokesman and founder of the French Association of Victims of Terrorism, which is a civil party in the trial, said it showed that women could also be radicalised.

“We really have to follow this very closely to better under-stand them, to judge them, to obtain justice, because they re-ally wanted to kill,” he said.

The trial is expected to last until October 11.

Trial opens for fi ve women over ‘plot’ to bomb Notre-DameAFPParis

Spanish police have arrested nine people linked to Cata-lonia’s pro-independence

movement who prosecutors said were plotting violent acts and had been charged with terrorism and possessing explosives.

The Spanish High Court’s prosecutors said in a statement that the court had ordered the arrests to prevent the unspeci-fi ed actions which “could have caused irreparable damage due to the advanced stage of prepara-tions”.

They said the court was cer-tain the actions were planned for some time between the an-niversary of Catalonia’s October 1, 2017 independence referen-dum and the announcement of the verdict in a trial of separatist leaders in Madrid – widely ex-pected in the fi rst half of October.

The head of Catalonia’s gov-ernment hit back, accusing Ma-drid of creating a “false narra-tive” of Catalan violence, and saying that the pro-independ-

ence movement would “always be peaceful”.

The Catalan secession move-ment has been a major challenge for Spain for years, triggering its biggest political crisis in decades in 2017 when the region briefl y declared independence.

But it has largely been a peace-ful movement characterised by mass protests, in contrast to a Basque separatist campaign that was for decades marked by a violent insurgency until ETA (Basque Homeland and Liberty) ended their fi ght in 2018.

Police said the investigation and raids targeted local groups working under the name Com-mittees for the Defence of the Republic (CDR), which have staged periodic protests across Catalonia since separatist lead-ers were arrested after the 2017 independence declaration.

Police said they had seized documents, computers and ma-terials that could be used to make explosive devices.

Those arrested were charged with rebellion, terrorism and possession of explosives, the prosecutors said.

A spokesman for the Guar-dia Civil national police force in Catalonia said the arrests fol-lowed a year-long investigation by the High Court.

In Sabadell, near Barcelona, the CDR called on its members to gather in the evening to protest against the arrests.

“The repressive surge does not stop, it continues ... with the fi rm goal of breaking apart the demo-cratic aspirations of our people,” the organisation said on Twitter.

If confi rmed that the materi-als seized were to be used in ex-plosives, it would mark a fi rst for CDR, a police spokesman said.

Its members have been ac-cused of rebellions and terror-ism before but the charges were dropped.

In October 2018, in a bid to mark the one-year anniversary of the region’s referendum, mem-bers of the CDR occupied a train station in the Catalan city of Gi-rona and blocked highways, forc-ing train cancellations and snarl-ing traffi c.

They later attempted, but failed, to storm the Catalan par-liament.

Spain arrests Catalan separatists suspected of plotting violenceReutersMadrid/Barcelona

More than 165 suspected victims of modern slavery from Bulgaria

have been discovered working for French winemakers follow-ing a crackdown on an organised crime network, Europol said yesterday.

French offi cials arrested four suspects – three from Bulgaria, one from France – last week after identifying about 167 po-tential slaves employed by four

winegrowing companies near the eastern city of Lyon, accord-ing to Europe’s policing agency.

Labour traffi cking is rising on the continent and has overtaken sexual exploitation as the main form of slavery in many Euro-pean nations, the Council of Europe said last year.

“The Bulgarian members of the group were responsible for recruitment in Bulgaria while the French member arranged lo-gistics, including organising ac-commodation for the workers,” said a spokesman for Europol.

Europol did not respond to

a request to provide further details by deadline, while the French and Bulgarian police could not be reached by the Thomson Reuters Foundation for comment.

The workers were recruited by a legitimate employment agency in Bulgaria, told they would receive €60 ($66) per day, and have their transport and housing expenses covered, Europol said.

Yet they were made to live on a campsite, had money deducted from their wages for meals, and were denied the full sums they

had been promised when their contracts ended – leaving many unable to aff ord the return trip to Bulgaria – the agency added.

The criminal network laun-dered the proceeds through properties in France, accord-ing to Europol, which connects at least 1,000 law enforcement agencies from about 40 coun-tries.

About 25mn people globally are estimated to be trapped in forced labour – from farms and factories to fi shing fl eets – ac-cording to the United Nations’ labour agency.

Europol raids reveal suspected slavery casesReutersLondon

Man on boar hunt with his father kills him by mistakeAn Italian man shot dead his father on Sunday during a hunting expedition in southern Italy after mistaking him for a wild boar, according to media reports.Martino Gaudioso, 55, was shot in the stomach by his 34-year-old son as they stalked their prey separately through thick foliage in Sicignano degli Alburni, near Salerno, in a national park area off limits to hunters, the reports said.Italy’s environment minister called for a nationwide ban on hunting last October following the fatal

shooting of an 18-year-old after he was mistaken for a boar.Two months ago a hunter aged 67 was found dead in the woods after accidentally shooting himself in the head.Michela Vittoria Brambilla, leader of the national animal defence league, on Sunday slammed the transformation of Italy’s woods and countryside into a “wild west”, and called for harsher punishment for manslaughter by hunters.


INDIA

TDP chiefNaidu’shouse facesdemolition

IANSAmaravati

Authorities in Andhra Pradesh capital city of Am-aravati yesterday started

demolishing unauthorised con-structions on the banks of Krishna river, in a clear indication that their next target could be the resi-dence of former chief minister and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) presi-dent N Chandrababu Naidu.

Andhra Pradesh Capital Re-gion Development Authority (APCRDA) offi cials razed unau-thorised construction belong-ing to a TDP leader near Naidu’s residence in Vundavalli village.

The workers dismantled the cement ramp amid tight secu-rity. APCRDA offi cials said TDP leader P Koteswara Rao had con-structed the building in the river bed in violation of rules.

The construction was with-out any prior permission from authorities and from River Con-servator as per River Conserv-ancy Act (Andhra Area) 1884, APCRDA said.

Yesterday’s development came two days after Naidu’s res-idence was served a fresh demo-lition notice.

An order dated September 19 but pasted on September 21 has asked Lingamaneni Ramesh to re-move the unauthorised construc-tion within seven days, failing which APCRDA will remove the it.

The house owner was a issued a show-cause notice on June 27. The latest order said that the reply submitted to the notice was not to the satisfaction of the authority.

According to APCRDA, pro-visional notices were issued for 24 unauthorised constructions along the river. ‘Confi rmation orders’ were issued in respect of fi ve constructions as the Au-thority found that there is no merit in any of the grounds men-tioned in the explanation by the owners.

“For the remaining 19 con-structions, the explanation sub-mitted are under examination in which fi ve cases need to be dis-posed complying with the High Court Orders,” it said.

The Authority made it clear that strict enforcement action on unauthorised construc-tions in Krishna river bed as per APCRDA Act will be taken.

Will never allow NRCin W Bengal: CMIANS Kolkata

West Bengal Chief Min-ister Mamata Baner-jee yesterday attacked

the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for creating panic through a ‘fake campaign’ on the National Register for Citizens (NRC) is-sue, which she claimed led to the death of six people in her state.

“Shame on the BJP for creat-ing panic over the NRC in Ben-gal. It has triggered six deaths. Have faith in me, I will never al-low the exercise in Bengal,” Ban-erjee said.

She went a step further and asserted that no such process will be undertaken anywhere else in the country as the Assam NRC list was mandated by the Assam Accord of 1985.

The chief minister also asked

the people to get their names registered on the voters’ list as work on its update was on.

Addressing a workers’ rally at the Netaji Indoor Stadium here, Banerjee alleged that the BJP was carrying out a fake campaign on a future NRC list in West Ben-gal as part of its political propa-ganda.

“Leave out Bengal, NRC won’t take place anywhere else. The NRC list published in Assam was mandated by the Assam Accord of 1985. Just because somebody says it will happen, it doesn’t mean such an exercise will take place. They need it (NRC) for their politics, for their political propaganda,” she said.

Banerjee said the BJP was try-ing to divide Hindus and Mus-lims, and took a dig at the saff ron party for the deletion of names of 13 lakh Hindus from the fi nal NRC list brought out in Assam last month.

Court slams Kerala govt over Maradu fl ats; owners hopefulIANSNew Delhi/Kochi

The Supreme Court yester-day slammed the Kerala government for inaction

in the Maradu fl at demolition case, but the fl at residents are hopeful of getting a reprieve on Friday.

The Maradu complex com-prises 356 fl ats in fi ve buildings and houses 240 families. The court on September 6 ordered its demolition by September 20 for violating the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) rules.

Yesterday, the Kerala gov-ernment sought the help of top lawyer Harish Salve hoping that it could get a verdict in the resi-dents’ favour, but it failed to have any impact.

However, a fl at resident hoped for a positive outcome. “We are

waiting to hear what the court will say on Friday,” the resident said.

Meanwhile, Kerala Local-Self Government Minister A C Moideen said the state govern-ment had to abide by the court’s directive. “The due process of law has set in and we have noth-ing else but to abide by the apex court directive and will now wait for it,” said Moideen.

But Ernakulam Lok Sabha member Hibi Eden blamed the Kerala government for letting the issue reach this stage. “This has now become a humanitar-ian issue for the residents. But there was a lapse on the part of the government. It did nothing to get compensation for the resi-dents,” said Eden.

The top court linked the loss of lives in Kerala fl oods to the situation, saying the natural ca-lamity was due to the govern-ment failing to act against ille-

gal structures. “You are playing with nature; even in high tide area nothing is left,” observed a bench, headed by Justice Arun Mishra.

At one stage, the court said it could ask for a survey of the en-tire Kerala CRZ areas to ascertain illegal structures. “We will not spare any one responsible for killing people all over Kerala.”

The court also noted that dev-astation due to natural calami-ties was taking place all across leading to loss of lives. It’s the duty of the state to protect the people, it added.

The court told Kerala Chief Secretary Tom Jose, who ap-peared in person, that his affi -davit didn’t indicate the govern-ment’s intent to implement the demolition order. Apparently, it appeared the state government was acting in defi ance, the court added.

Parties yet to decide onMaharashtrapoll alliancesIANSMumbai

With barely 72 hours remaining before fi l-ing of nominations for

the Maharashtra assembly opens on September 27, the state’s two major coalitions are yet to fi -nalise their alliances, creating a pre-poll situation akin to 2014.

As the clock ticks both groups – the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party-Shiv Sena and the opposi-tion Congress-Nationalist Con-gress Party (NCP) – are throwing verbal darts at each other, con-tinuing the suspense over alli-ances.

Contrary to expectations, BJP chief and Home Minister Amit Shah didn’t have a meeting with Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray during his visit to Mumbai on Sunday.

But Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, state BJP chief Chan-drakant Patil and other federal ministers have proclaimed that the alliance with the Shiv Sena was “on”. Prime Minister Naren-dra Modi had also urged people at his Nashik rally last week to bring back the “Fadnavis gov-ernment” with full majority.

Even yesterday Fadnavis said: “We are concerned about the al-liance and it will happen at the right time”.

In contrast, the Shiv Sena has not been so warm or vocal in its response. It insists on being al-lotted a “respectable” number of seats, and also wants the BJP to honour the understanding ar-rived between Shah, Fadnavis and Thackeray in the past on the issue.

Thackeray said last week that as per the commitment, the two par-ties would contest the elections

with an equal number of 135 seats each and share the post of chief minister for 30 months each.

The BJP is hinting at giving around 110-115 seats to the Sena, but has avoided any mention of rotating the chief minister’s post, and has also dangled the spectre of former chief minister Narayan Rane joining the ruling party soon.

Shiv Sena’s newspapers Saa-mana and Dopahar Ka Saamana took a swipe at the BJP say-ing since it had already decided everything, only the formality remaining was to press the EVM button.

A harried and worried Shah is expected to pay another visit to Mumbai on September 26 to woo the Shiv Sena chief as the BJP hopes to make a winning elec-tion issue out of revocation of Article 370.

The situation is not so rosy on the other side with the Con-gress-NCP combine.

Last Monday, NCP chief Shar-ad Pawar said in Nashik the two parties would contest an equal number of 125 seats each and leave the remaining 38 to other allies in the 288-member as-sembly.

Much to the chagrin of the Congress, on Sunday senior NCP leader and former deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar went a step ahead and even ‘allotted’ specifi c seats to the Congress in the Pune district.

Congress circles have been protesting mutely at the NCP’s big brother attitude and state

Congress campaign chief Nana Patole has said “the alliance is yet to be ironed out”.

Prakash Ambedkar’s Van-chit Bahjan Aghadhi (VBA) and Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) could also pose problems for the two major coalitions.

The All India Majlis-e-Itte-hadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) uni-laterally snapped ties with the VBA, but Ambedkar yesterday said the alliance was very much on and it would contest all 288 seats.

“We have very good relations with the AIMIM leader Asadud-din Owaisi and are open to any dialogue with them for forging a pre-poll alliance. Those who are trying to create a divide between us will not succeed,” Ambedkar declared.

The VBA chief added it will announce the names of all its candidates, including the alli-ance partners by Thursday, a day before the fi ling of nominations open.

Ambedkar said the VBA had “off ered” 144 seats to the Con-gress but it has not responded.

He alleged that the Congress once called him the ‘B-team of BJP’ but was working out an understanding with the ruling party to avoid being investigated by government agencies in cor-ruption cases.

Despite enjoying a good rap-port with Pawar and sections of the Congress, Raj Thackeray is still standing at the doorstep with no party willing to open the doors for him.

Nevertheless, MNS circles claim the party may independ-ently contest 60-75 seats and is optimistic of being catapulted as a kingmaker in case the other al-liances fail to bag a majority.

Bollywood actor Salman Khan, who is the host of reality television programme Bigg Boss, dances during a press conference to unveil the 13th season of the show, at Metro Corp Yard in Mumbai yesterday.

Bigg Boss to return

Voting for a by-election to Kerala’s Pala assembly constituency ended peacefully at 6pm yesterday. The by-election was called following the death of sitting Kerala Congress (Mani) legislator K M Mani in April. The constituency will see a new legislator after 54 years, as Mani represented Pala since 1965. Despite heavy rains, people came out in good numbers to cast their votes. The counting of votes will take place on Friday. Among the candidates, Mani’s closest aide Jose Tom Pullikunnel is contesting as a candidate of the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF). The Bharatiya Janata Party has fielded its Kottayam district president N Hari, while the Left is backing Nationalist Congress Party’s local leader Mani C Kappen.

Punjab government yesterday asked authorities to take action against vendors selling illegally imported cigarettes and pan masala with flavoured chewing tobacco. Principal Secretary Anurag Aggarwal said it was a matter of grave concern that some manufacturers were selling pan masala (without tobacco) with flavoured chewing tobacco in separate sachets, which are often sold together by the same vendor. He said the sale of such products is illegal in the state. Aggarwal said the sale of cigarette packets without 85% pictorial warning is also a crime. Chandigarh and Panchkula have a market of 30mn and 6mn annually respectively, and the illegal market also has a share of 15-20%. Most of the illegal cigarette brands originate from China and Indonesia.

Odisha’s art, culture and heritage will be on display on the exteriors of New Delhi-Bhubaneswar Rajdhani Express. East Coast Railway (ECoR) and National Aluminium Limited Company (NALCO) yesterday signed an agreement on this. NALCO will sponsor high-quality designs on vinyl wrapping sheets to drape the Rajdhani trains. The ECoR has three sets of train rakes of Rajdhani Express. The designs have been made such that each coach will have a distinct display. The designs will adorn the exteriors of the train, an ECoR off icial said. The designs will promote three themes – dance forms, archaeological monuments and flora and fauna of the state. “This will go a long way in promoting tourism potential of Odisha and promote traditional Odishan art,” said Ajoy Behera, ECoR principal chief commercial manager.

In a move to enhance women’s safety in the capital, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal yesterday announced a new scheme for installing street lights. The scheme will ensure that 2.1 lakh street lights are installed across the city to light up dark spots from November 1 with a budget of Rs100 crore. Kejriwal said the street lights will be installed at locations on the lines of CCTV installation, unlike those installed by the local bodies. “Our aim is to ensure that there are no dark spots in the city so that women feel safe and protected. The way we installed the CCTVs, we will also install the street lights,” Kejriwal told reporters. He said no permission from the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) was required for installing street lights.

The Supreme Court yesterday asked a Muslim girl, whose marriage was nullified by the Allahabad High Court, her ‘husband’ and the father to be present in the court on October 1 for an interaction. Justice N V Ramana issued the order while hearing an appeal of the 16-year-old girl, who has been ordered to stay in a shelter home for women in Uttar Pradesh. Last week, the Supreme Court summoned the Uttar Pradesh home secretary to clarify the state government’s stand on her petition in which she questioned the high court’s decision to nullify her marriage due to her age. The high court said since she was a “minor” her case would be dealt with in accordance with the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection) Act, 2015 and as she didn’t want to join her parents, the order sending her to the shelter home was correct.

Voting for by-electionin Pala ends peacefully

Punjab gets tough on sale ofillegally imported cigarettes

Odisha’s art, culture to be on display on Rajdhani trains

Kejriwal launches new street light scheme in Delhi

SC to interact with Muslim ‘bride’, her husband, father

POLITICS CRACKDOWNHERITAGE INITIATIVE JUDICIARY

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee speaks at a meeting of the Indian National Trinamool Trade Union Congress (INTTUC) in Kolkata yesterday.

The BJP is hinting at giving around 110-115 seats to the Sena, but has avoided any mention of rotating the chief minister’s post

INDIA19Gulf Times


No clampdown inKashmir: army chiefIANSChennai

Army Chief General Bipin Rawat said yesterday that there was no clampdown in

the Kashmir Valley and that mili-tants were using it as a facade to create fear among the people.

Rawat said that communica-tion lines between militants and their handlers have been broken while there was ample connec-tivity among the local people.

“If you look at the ground situation, the killings are down and the violence is down. Ter-rorists have been kept at bay. We will gradually start easing the pressures on the people. But let me tell you one thing, there is no clampdown on people,” said General Rawat.

According to him, trade and businesses were functioning properly in the valley, although local shopkeepers were yet to open their outlets.

“The brick kilns near Srinagar are operational. People are work-ing in them. People are collecting sand on boats from the Jhelum river. In the orchards, apples are being collected in heaps, packed into boxes and loaded on trucks. Hundreds of trucks are moving out. Shops are, however, keep-ing their rear door open while their front shutters are being kept closed. Planes are fl ying in and out of the airport. That means taxis are also plying in which people are reaching the airport. Clampdown is a facade used by terrorists to create a fear psychosis among the people,” Rawat said.

He said the militants were misinterpreting the meaning of Islam in order to perpetuate and justify violence.

“I feel the interpretation of Is-lam by some elements who pos-sibly want to create disruption is being fed to a large number of people. I think we should also have preachers who convey the correct meaning of Islam,” he added.

Trouble for Nath as riots witness deposes before SITIANSNew Delhi

In more trouble for senior Congress leader and Mad-hya Pradesh Chief Minister

Kamal Nath, Mukhtyar Singh, a witness in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots case, appeared before the Special Investigation Team (SIT) to record his statement.

Singh arrived at the SIT offi ce in south Delhi’s Khan Market and shared details of the incidents that took place. This was the fi rst time that Singh appeared before the three-member SIT team to record his statement. After com-ing out of the SIT, Singh said he cannot reveal what he told them as the matter was under investi-gation.

According to sources, Singh briefed the SIT members con-sisting of a senior IPS offi cer, a deputy commissioner of police

and a retired district and ses-sions judge. The case pertains to the killing of Sikhs in Gurudwara Rakabganj on November 1, 1984 by a charged mob.

On September 9, the Home Ministry gave its nod for reopen-ing the case, as a result of which Kamal Nath will face a fresh in-quiry for his alleged role in the massacre of Sikhs in the after-math of then prime minister Indira Gandhi’s assassination in New Delhi on October 31, 1984.

Kamal Nath was an accused in the case initially, but a court found no evidence against him. The 72-year-old veteran Con-gress leader and a Gandhi fam-ily loyalist, is facing trouble as London-based journalist Sanjay Suri has also expressed readi-ness to depose in the case. Suri had written to the SIT on Sep-tember 15 asking it to give him the appropriate time and date to appear.

Suri’s letter was shared by Shiromani Akali Dal leader Man-jinder Sirsa on Twitter. The SIT is likely to consider fresh evi-dence against the veteran Con-gress leader, which allegedly mentions that he had instigated a mob near the capital’s Gurud-wara Rakabganj during the 1984 riots.

The government set up the SIT in 2015 to probe the riots.

Pressure on Kamal Nath has been building since last year after the conviction of Sajjan Kumar in the same case by the Delhi High Court. Kumar, after the assassination of Gandhi, was accused of inciting and orchestrating mob violence against the Sikh community across Delhi.

Kamal Nath’s name featured alongside other Congress lead-ers of the time - Kumar, H K L Bhagat, and Jagdish Tytler among others.

Manmohan,Sonia meetChidambaramat Tihar JailIANSNew Delhi

Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi and former prime minister Manmo-

han Singh yesterday met former fi nance minister P Chidambar-am at the Tihar Jail where he has been imprisoned since Septem-ber 5 in the INX Media case.

According to party leaders, the meeting lasted half-an-hour.

Chidambaram’s son Karti also met the two leaders.

After the meeting, Chidambaram, through his fam-ily thanked the party leadership and said as long as the Congress was strong and brave, “I will also be strong and brave”.

“I have asked my family to tweet on my behalf the following: I am honoured that Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh called on me today. As long as the Congress party is strong and brave, I will also be strong and brave.”

In an apparent jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his remarks in Houston that every-thing is fi ne in India, Chidambar-am said, “Everything is fi ne in India. Except for unemployment, loss of existing jobs, lower wages, mob violence, lockdown in Kash-mir and throwing opposition leaders in prison.”

Chidambaram was sent to ju-dicial custody by a Delhi court after his arrest on August 21 by the Central Bureau of Investiga-tion (CBI) for alleged irregulari-ties in granting Foreign Invest-ment Promotion Board (FIPB) clearance of Rs305 crore to INX Media, now known as 9x news, during his tenure as fi nance minister.

He is also being probed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in a money laundering case relating to INX Media.

Meanwhile, Chidambaram questioned the conspiracy

charges against him, asking: “Who have I conspired with?”

Senior lawyer Kapil Sibal, appearing for Chidambaram, yesterday asked before a single-judge bench of Delhi High Court why the former minister was be-ing “singled out” when “all six members of the Foreign Invest-ment Promotion Board (FIPB) have not been made accused”.

During arguments before the bench presided over by Justice Suresh Kumar Kait, Sibal asked on behalf of Chidambaram, “What is the 120-B (conspiracy charge) against me? Who have I conspired with?”

Sibal, himself a senior Con-gress leader and a former min-ister, said that there were “no proceedings against any of those FIPB offi cials, so was why Chidambaram being singled out?”

He said there was “no allega-tion that I (Chidambaram) am infl uencing them. I have also been confronted with them.”

Arguing on the point of the INX Media deal, Sibal said, “The FIPB granted ex-post-facto ap-proval. Nobody has siphoned money out of India. Money has come in the Indian company. What is the loss to the excheq-uer? The six FIPB members said that the approval was rightly given.”

Sibal told the court that nei-ther the SEBI, nor the RBI issued a notice to INX Media as far as valuation was concerned.

In his rejoinder to the CBI affi davit opposing his bail, Chidambaram has stated that Indrani and Peter Mukerjea, the co-founders of INX Media, are also accused in a murder case, which is being investigated by the CBI and hence, “no cred-ibility can be attached” to their statements.

Chidambaram has also denied that there was betrayal of public trust at large.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks during the 2019 United Nations Climate Action Summit at UN headquarters in New York yesterday.

World not doing enoughon climate change: PMAgenciesNew York

Prime Minister Naren-dra Modi yesterday said the world was not doing

enough to tackle the climate crisis, calling for “global behav-ioural change.”

Speaking at the United Na-tions Climate Action Sum-mit in New York, Modi said as part of its commitment to the cause, India will increase its renewable energy target to 450GW.

“We must accept that if we have to overcome such seri-ous challenges, then what we are doing today is not enough. What we need is global behav-ioural change. India is here to-day not just to talk about this

serious issue but to present a roadmap,” Modi said.

The prime minister said In-dia would increase the share of non-fossil fuel energy.

“We are going to increase our renewable energy capacity to 175GW by 2022, and are com-mitted to further increasing it to 450GW.”

India had set a 175GW target as part of its commitment to the 2015 Paris Climate agreement.

“The time for talks is over. The world needs to act now,” Modi said in the presence of US President Donald Trump, who made an unscheduled appear-ance at the UN summit.

The prime minister’s ad-dress comes a day after the two leaders shared the stage at a grand event in Houston and displayed close friendship and

a common vision on fighting terrorism.

But the US and India diff er on the issue of climate change. Trump withdrew from the Paris climate deal in 2017 and blamed India and China for his deci-sion, saying the agreement was unfair as it would have made the US pay for nations which ben-efi ted the most from the deal.

Yesterday, he reportedly left after listening to the speeches by Modi and German Chancel-lor Angela Merkel.

The prime minister also said India will invest $50bn in water conservation and announced a Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure.

“India is launching a coali-tion for disaster resilient in-frastructure. I invite all world leaders for this coalition,” the

prime minister added. Eighty countries have already joined India’s solar alliance imitative, he said.

Modi said India’s policy on climate change action has been guided by the principle of “need, not greed.”

“Need, not greed has been our guiding principle, and that is why India has not come only to speak but with a roadmap on combating climate change. We believe that an ounce of practice is worth more than a tonne of preaching,” Modi.

Meanwhile in New Delhi, the Congress slammed the prime minister, describing the slo-ganeering by Modi in favour of Trump in Houston as a violation of India’s foreign policy.

“We have a strategic partner-ship between India and the US,

which is bipartisan, which we fully endorse,” senior Congress leader Anand Sharma said.

“There is a time-honoured convention on India’s foreign policy that when we engage with foreign governments, the president of India or the prime minister are on their soil, and we do not take part in their do-mestic electoral politics.”

Sharma said the prime minis-ter should have “avoided” that.

“We have seen that India is taking positions or sides. And the prime minister using that moment to exhort and raising that slogan on ‘Abki Bar Trump Sarkar’ was better avoided,” he said.

His remarks came a day af-ter Modi during his address to a crowd of over 50,000 in Hou-ston cheered for Trump.

Digital census will help resolve vital issues, says ShahIANSNew Delhi

Home Minister Amit Shah yesterday said the Na-tional Population Regis-

ter (NPR) to be prepared under the 2021 census would be digital.

“A digital NPR will help in solving several issues, like law and order and gender equality,” Shah said.

The NPR, a register of ‘usual’ residents, will be prepared un-der the Citizenship Act 1955 and the Citizenship (Registra-tion of Citizens and issue of

National Identity Cards) Rules, 2003.

A usual resident is defi ned for the NPR purposes as a person who has resided in a local area for the past six months or more or a person who intends to re-side in that area for the next six months or more.

At Rs12,000 crore, the 16th Indian census would be the costliest exercise done so far. The 2021 census would con-clude on March 1 midnight, Shah said while laying the foun-dation stone of the Janganana Bhawan.

The census that began in 1865

would be digital in 2021 and a mobile app would be used for it. It’s eighth census after Inde-pendence.

It will be mandatory for every usual resident of India to register in the NPR.

“It would be a solution to multifarious problems facing the country - from eff ective main-tenance of law and order to ef-fi cient implantation of welfare schemes like MGNREGA, food security and nutrition cam-paigns,” Shah said.

He said constituencies would be delimited based on this cen-sus data, which would lead to

strengthening of the democratic process at all levels.

Giving an example of how the census 2011 data was used under the Ujjwala Yojana, Shah said, “The LPG connection benefi ci-aries were mapped digitally and based on the data analysis, the government got to know about the disparity in the spatial dis-tribution of LPG connections.

“Subsequently, an LPG con-nection distribution process was initiated. Eight crore LPG con-nections have been distributed in the last fi ve years and now over 95% of the people have gas connections,” he said.

Based on the 2021 fi gures, it would be ensured that no one was without an LPG connection when the nation celebrates the 75th anniversary of Independ-ence in 2022, he said and added 22 welfare schemes had been mapped on the basis of census fi gures.

Shah said under the “Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao” scheme, the task of saving the girl child and increasing female literacy were accomplished by the ef-fi cient targeting of awareness campaigns. Such accomplish-ments could only happen when the census process was fool-

proof and the data accurate, he added.

On the potential of the dig-ital census process, Shah said if efficiently done it could lead to the implementation of pub-lic services through one plat-form.

Appealing to the people to participate in the 2021 census with full enthusiasm, he said the exercise would be in 16 lan-guages to help people fi le their details properly. He said the census would help in long-term planning for growth and devel-opment.

Besides maintaining data in

paper form, the availability of data in digital format would help in its detailed multi-dimension-al analysis for public welfare, us-ing the latest software.

The seven-storey Janaga-nana Bhawan, to be built at a cost Rs44 crore, is expected to be ready by 2021. “This Bhawan would become the boiling pot of India’s economic growth, demo-cratic empowerment of people and removal of poverty”, Shah said.

According to Census 2011, In-dia comprises 2.4% of land area and resources and houses 17.5% of the global population.

Paramilitary troopers stand on a road as pedestrians pass by during a lockdown in Srinagar yesterday.


LATIN AMERICA

Two hurtas Haitisenatoropens fi reGuardian News and MediaPort-au-Prince

Two men including an As-sociated Press photojour-nalist have been shot and

injured by a Haitian senator who opened fi re outside the country’s parliament, amid chaotic scenes as the government attempts to confi rm the appointment of a new prime minister.

Chery Dieu-Nalio, an AP pho-tographer, and Leon Leblanc, a security guard and driver, were taken to hospital after the in-cident in the country’s capital, Port-au-Prince.

Before they left, Leblanc told reporters he had seen Jean Marie Ralph Fethiere, a senator from the north of the country, draw a handgun as he tried to leave the parliamentary precincts through a crowd of protesters.

Another senator, Patrice Du-mont, said Fethiere warned the crowd he would shoot if they did not let him leave. He said the woundings were not intentional.

The incident came as the Hai-tian senate attempted to meet for the second time in two days to confi rm the appointment of a new prime minister, Fritz-Wil-liam Michel.

Nicaragua group claimsresponsibility for blastsReutersManagua

A Nicaraguan opposition group claimed responsibil-ity for “military actions,”

after a series of small explosions struck the country, including one that damaged a bridge leading to Nicaragua’s most important port.

The blasts could mark a turn-ing point in the tactics of the Nicaraguan opposition, which have been largely peaceful since protests broke out in the central American country in early 2018.

At about 8pm on Saturday, a blast took place on the bridge to Port Corinto, leaving cracks in its structure, witnesses told Reuters.

The cause of the blast, and who was behind it, could not im-mediately be determined. The Nicaraguan government and police force did not respond to requests for comment.

In a statement distributed on so-cial media, the Nicaraguan Patri-otic Alliance (APN), a little-known group opposed to President Daniel Ortega, said it executed “a series of actions of a military nature.”

“All these actions are carried

out and will continue to be car-ried out the rest of the months of September, October and the months to come, until the dicta-torship is broken,” the group said.

Nicaragua has been gripped by a political crisis since demonstra-tions broke out against the Ortega government in April 2018 over planned cuts to welfare benefi ts.

The demonstrations spread into broader protests against Ortega, and subsequent clashes between pro-government forc-es and protesters have claimed more than 300 lives and prompt-ed thousands of Nicaraguans to go into exile, rights groups say.

Around the time the explosion occurred on the bridge, blasts could also be heard in the capital, Managua, and the nearby city of Masaya, according to local me-dia reports. No damage was re-ported in either of those cities.

The damage to the bridge has been repaired, according to a Reuters witness.

Cesar Acevedo, a member of the local branch of Ortega’s party, said he also witnessed the explosion on the bridge. “They (the opposition) are determined to destroy,” he said.

Colombia’s ex-rebels turnto fashion to make a livingAFPBogota

Once dressed to kill as they stalked the Colombian jungle, a group of young

former Farc rebels have shed their camoufl age fatigues, boots and guns to help ease their way back into society following a 2016 peace deal.

The ex-guerrillas held a fash-ion show in Bogota with colour-ful outfi ts and overt messages of peace pressed into service in the battle for Colombian hearts and minds, as the peace deal frays at the edges.

“This fashion parade is aimed at showing the clothes we make, and to demonstrate to Colombia our commit-ment to peace,” said former rebel Gonzalo Beltran, who has swapped his automatic rifle for a needle and thread.

The peace deal between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and the government of then-president Juan Manuel Santos has come under increas-

ing strain since the election of Santos’s conservative successor Ivan Duque.

Duque was elected last year on promises to renegotiate the peace accord on the grounds that it was too lenient toward ex-fi ghters guilty of serious crimes.

And last month, the man who negotiated and signed the deal on behalf of Farc, Ivan Marquez, announced he and dozens of fol-lowers were returning to arms.

The Farc hardliners accuse the government of betraying the ac-cord and failing to deliver rural reform.

Entitled “Pazarela” — a play on the Spanish word for peace, “paz”, and catwalk, “pasarela” — the fashion parade took place to the beat of electronic music.

A dozen models — students and former combatants — strut-ted in front of 200 spectators to show off the fi rst fashion col-lection designed in one of the country’s 26 rebel reintegration zones.

“We’re complying” was scrawled on a banner carried by

a young woman dressed in a yel-low kimono.

Other signs drove home the message: “Everyone for Peace”, “Nothing for War” and “Fashion is a political act”.

Designer Angela Maria Herre-ra worked with around 30 former fi ghters from Colombia’s moun-tainous Icononzo area.

“Our clothes carry messages of peace. Some were made by ex-combatants, but tailored by vic-tims of violence, so the message of reconciliation is intrinsic.”

Former guerrilla Melina Reyes presented a fl owered dress, car-rying a sign calling on the gov-ernment to fulfi l its promises under the deal.

“These are the clothes we are making, men and women who are betting on peace, that left their rifl es behind, who said ‘no’ to the war, and want to continue like this,” she said.

The private Andean Univer-sity of Bogota hosted the fashion event. Event organiser Leonardo Gonzalez said it underlined the young people around him “do not want to return to war.”

Rio governor’sshoot-to-killpolicy blamed for girl’s deathGuardian News and MediaRio de Janeiro

The photograph shows a smiling eight-year-old girl dressed as Wonder

Woman, beaming through gap teeth and crossing her small clenched fi sts into an X.

Shocked Brazilians shared the image of Agatha Felix online af-ter she was shot in the back in a Rio de Janeiro favela on Friday night by what residents said was a bullet from a police offi cer’s ri-fl e. She later died in hospital.

She was the fi fth young child to be killed in Rio favelas this year. Favela activists, politicians, the public defenders’ offi ce and the president of Rio’s bar asso-ciation blamed the shoot-to-kill policy of the Rio governor, Wil-son Witzel. “He is responsible for the murder,” tweeted Guilherme Boulos, a leftist politician.

An ally of the far-right presi-dent, Jair Bolsonaro, Witzel was elected last year after promising a “slaughter” of drug gangsters. On Saturday, as hundreds demon-strated in anger in the Complexo do Alemao favela where Agatha was shot, the hashtag #aculpae-dowitzel (it’s Witzel’s fault) led trending topics in Brazil.

Others shared cartoons show-ing the smiling governor wiping blood from his face.

On Sunday the favela news-paper Voz das Comunidades or-ganised a second demonstration. Led by beeping motorbike taxis, children waved yellow balloons as a small crowd marched behind a banner reading: “Stop killing

us.” The demonstrators walked through the rain chanting “We de-mand justice for Agatha” towards a nearby cemetery for her funeral.

“This is the death of a child whose only sin in her life was being poor. Why is the state se-curity policy an extermination policy?” Luciano Bandeira, the president of Rio’s bar associa-tion, told O Globo newspaper.

“There is no remorse, no ad-mission of fault, no will to re-think the policy to avoid other deaths like this happening.”

Agatha was travelling with her mother, Vanessa Sales, in one of the vans that serve as public transport in the winding lanes of the sprawling favela when she was shot in the back. Police said they responded to an attack from gang members. Residents said there was no gun battle; a police offi cer had fi red at two men on a motorbike and hit the girl instead.

“Everyone said the shot came from the police, there was no con-frontation,” said Thaina de Me-deiros, a member of the Complexo do Alemao’s Papo Reto collective, which documents police violence.

“A motorbike passed and he tried to hit it and hit the van. The space was very short, six to seven metres. The shot went through the van, it went through Agatha’s body,” he said. “This is part of a genocidal policy, of genocide of black people.”

In July, Witzel compared drug gangs that control favelas such as Complexo do Alemao to terrorist groups in an interview with for-eign journalists and defended his declaration that it was better to shoot armed gang members in

the head. “A bandit with a rifl e is a terrorist. How do you treat ter-rorists? With lethality,” he said.

The governor, who has said he plans to stand for president in 2022, has yet to comment publicly. Instead on Sunday he tweeted congratulations to the Rio town of Sao Gonçalo on its 129th anniversary. In a state-ment, his government said it “profoundly regretted” Agatha’s death, that police came under simultaneous attacks on Fri-day night in the favela and “re-sponded to the aggression”.

Outside the hospital where Agatha died on Friday, her dis-traught grandfather Ailton Felix challenged this version of events in an impassioned speech cap-tured by television cameras.

“Her mother was there and saw there was no confronta-tion … They shot at the van and killed my granddaughter. That was it. This is a confrontation? Was my granddaughter armed by any chance to get shot?” he said. “She was studious. She didn’t live on the street.”

Police said they would not change policy, pointing to a 21% fall in homicides across the state from January to August compared with 2018. “We will not back down. The state government is on the right track,” the police spokes-man Mauro Fliess told TV Globo.

Pedro Strozenberg, the om-budsman for Rio’s public de-fenders’ offi ce, said that this came at too high a price. From January to August, 1,249 people in Rio state were killed by police offi cers – 16% more than the previous year.

Residents march in memory of eight-year-old Agatha Sales Felix, who was killed by a stray bullet, at the Alemao complex slum during a police operation in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

A man walks on the San Isidro bridge in Corinto, Nicaragua, after an anti-government group tried to destroy it.

Ecuador tribes face choice between water and goldAFPQuimsacocha, Ecuador

The indigenous people of Ecuador’s wind-whipped alpine tundra of Quim-

sacocha face a stark choice, ac-cording to their leader, Yaku Pe-rez. “We have to decide between gold and water,” he tells activists at a meeting held to oppose a landmark mining project.

“What do we prefer, compan-eros?” demands Perez, his voice

rising. He knows there’s only one answer, and they shout back in unison: “Water!”

Ecuador’s government has put its weight behind a giant gold-silver-copper mining project in the wild, high grasslands of Quimsacocha.

Quito has conceded half of Quimsacocha’s 49,421 acres to Canadian miner INV Metals to develop a near billion dollar mine deep underground. The Loma Larga project is due to begin production in 2021 and

would mean thousands of jobs.For local indigenous commu-

nities however, the sweeping, cloud-scraping grasslands of Quimsacocha are a sacred, vital source of water.

Perez, his Canari Quechua peo-ple and other indigenous commu-nities are fi ghting the Loma Larga mine every step of the way.

In an unprecedented popular consultation held in March, local municipalities rejected mining in the southern Andes.

Perez sees local referenda “as

the way for Ecuador to be de-clared a territory free of metal mining and its water sources and fragile ecosystems.”

Just 3,200 hectares of the Quimsacocha is under protec-tion, forming part of a biosphere reserve.

The government, anxious to develop its mineral resources, is hoping the constitutional court will block further popular con-sultations and demonstrate the legal protections necessary to at-tract mining sector investment.

“Mining, wherever it goes, generates dispossession of terri-tories, violence in the communi-ty, destabilises democracy, gen-erates institutional corruption, pollutes the waters and poisons the rivers,” says Perez. “It takes the meat, and leave the bone, but the contaminated bone.”

Perez says this standing on the grassy bank of the Tarqui river, which hurries down from here to the city of Cuenca and into the Amazon. Squatting, he scoops a palmful of cold clear water to his

lips. “We can live without gold, but without water, never.”

A lawyer, Perez sees himself as a defender of the Quimsacocha and says he has been jailed on four oc-casions for “defending the water.”

High on the tundra, he vaults a fence surrounding the mining concession. Others with him cut through chains blocking a narrow road, a symbolic ges-ture in a constant war of attri-tion with the mining company.

“We are not going to allow the miners here,” said Maria Dorila

Fajardo, a 60-year-old indig-enous woman wearing a tradi-tional large red skirt, her head covered with a wool hat.

A large blue sign with white lettering says: “Private Property. No Entry.”

“This is not private property,” Perez fumes. “This is communal property. We have deeds dating back to 1893, our grandparents bought all this land.

“We don’t want to cultivate it, but keep it as the natural reser-voir it is.”

Honduras, Cuba tosign deal on migrantsHonduras will sign an agree-

ment with Cuba to deport

Cubans who arrive in the Cen-

tral American country illegally

en route to the US, Honduran

President Juan Orlando Hern-

andez said. The announcement

comes as the US presses central

American countries and Mexico

to do more to curb the waves of

migrants reaching the United

States’ southern border. “With

Cuba, we are about to sign an

agreement at this time that

if an irregular migrant Cuban

appears, we will immediately

return him to Cuba,” Hernandez

said during an interview on

local television.

PAKISTAN21Gulf Times


Prime Minister Imran Khan pressed US President Don-ald Trump yesterday to

restart talks with Afghanistan’s Taliban and said that Washington has a “duty” to calm the Kashmir stand-off with India.

“Stability in Afghanistan means stability in Pakistan,” Khan said at the start of a meet-ing with Trump on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.

He also pleaded for help in Kashmir, a disputed Muslim-majority territory, part of which has been placed under a mili-tary clampdown by neighbor-ing India, restricting many basic freedoms.

“The most powerful country in the world has a responsibility,” Khan said, calling India’s clamp-down “a siege” and warning that the “crisis is going to get much bigger”.

Trump responded that he would “certainly” help mediate between Pakistan and India as long as both governments asked for this.

On Afghanistan, the US presi-dent said that it was “ridiculous” that the United States had been fi ghting there for 19 years.

However he made no promises about restarting peace talks with the Taliban, saying only “we’ll see.”

Earlier, Prime Minister Khan said he planned to encourage Trump to restart talks with Af-ghanistan’s Taliban because there ultimately had to be a po-litical settlement.

“I am meeting with President Trump later on and I will tell that, look, there’s not going to be a military solution,” he told the Council on Foreign Relations before the two leaders’ meet-ing on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. “For 19 years if you have not been able to suc-ceed, you’re not going to be able to succeed in another 19 years.”

Trump has frequently called for an end to America’s longest war, launched after the Septem-ber 11, 2001 attacks, and a senior US diplomat reached a deal to pull troops after a year of negoti-ating with Taliban militants.

However, Trump abruptly ended talks earlier this month, revealing on Twitter that he had invited Taliban leaders to the United States but cancelled their

visit after a bombing in Kabul killed a US soldier.

Khan – whose government has sought to use its infl uence with the Taliban – admitted that Trump’s snapping off diplomacy caught him off -guard.

“We read it in the paper. It should have been at least been discussed with us,” he said.

Khan, a former cricket star who has long criticised military operations against extremists, discounted the possibility that the Taliban would topple the in-ternationally recognised govern-ment in Kabul without US troops.

“I don’t think the Taliban will be able to control the whole country. I think there will be a settlement,” he said. “I honestly believe that this is not the Taliban of 2001. There are lot of things that happened, and I believe they will be more accommodating.”

The Taliban imposed an aus-tere version of Islam on most of Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, banning music and girls’ edu-cation and giving refuge to Al Qaeda.

Khan also said earlier that he would make a new pitch to Trump to mediate on Kashmir, which is divided between Paki-stan and India.

The US president said he wants to be a mediator between India and Pakistan, stressing that he has a positive relationship with both countries and claiming that “I have never failed as an arbitra-tor”.

“I am ready willing and able. If both wanted it, I would be ready to do it,” Trump said, sitting next to Prime Minister Khan, a day af-ter he met Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The US president said that his predecessors had “treated Paki-stan very badly” before quickly adding: “I wouldn’t say Pakistan treated us very well either”, while noting that there might be “a reason for that”.

On Sunday Trump held a joint rally with Modi, a Hindu na-tionalist whose government last month revoked the Muslim-ma-jority region’s autonomy and cut off most ordinary people’s cellu-lar and Internet service.

During a meeting in New York with a delegation of Kashmiri leaders from both sides of the

Line of Control (LoC), led by Dr Ghulam Nabi Fai, Prime Minister Khan called for immediate lifting of curfew and other restrictions in Indian-administered Kash-mir and resolving the Kashmir dispute according to the wishes of Kashmiris and UN Security Council resolutions.

Offi cial sources said yesterday that Khan pledged to continue highlighting the Kashmir issue at every forum and will fulfi l his promise of being the “Ambassa-dor of Kashmir”.

The premier shared his con-cerns over the lockdown in Indi-an-administered Kashmir since August 5, and the human rights and humanitarian situation.

In their discussions, Khan and Fai noted with concern that the situation in Kashmir is grim and deteriorating by the minute.

The delegation informed the prime minister that the Kashmiri youth are being “taken” from their homes in the night and that their subsequent whereabouts are not known.

Imran presses Trump on deal with TalibanPM Khan calls for an urgent end to curfew and other curbs in Kashmir

AFP/InternewsNew York

This photograph released by Pakistan’s Press Information Department on Sunday shows Prime Minister Khan with US Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad in New York.

Prime Minister Khan with Norway’s Prime Minister Erna Solberg during the 2019 UN Climate Action Summit yesterday.

Many of Pakistan’s law-makers are unfamiliar with the UN Sus-

tainable Development Goals (SDGs), but their observations at the grassroots level are no diff erent from the global as-sessment of Islamabad’s slip-page in terms of world ranking.

Opposition members are normally known for criticis-ing the government of the day, and the current ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) is un-derstandably under attack be-cause of double-digit infl ation, slower economic growth, and the resulting pay cuts and lay-off s, along with poor showing on the development and social sector indicators.

Interestingly, however, PTI parliamentarians are also criti-cal of the government’s per-formance in the social sector, even though it has initiated re-forms in the health sector and aims to broaden the protec-tion to the vulnerable segments through Ehsaas.

Former fi nance minister Asad Umar also believes that income support programmes, like the Benazir Income Sup-port Programme and Ehsaas, may be a great service to the most vulnerable, but expect-ing the social sector indicators to improve without economic growth is not possible.

He has been struggling to help inhabitants of some new housing schemes in the federal capital to secure electricity and gas connections.

Recently, Umar threatened to revive the sit-in tradition of his party outside parlia-ment to mount pressure on the civic agencies that are forcing energy sector utilities not to extend electricity and gas con-nections.

PTI member of the National Assembly (MNA) from Pesha-war, Noor Alam Khan, said that his party had been unable to launch development schemes that improve social sector indi-cators as committed under the SDGs.

He admitted that he is not well-versed with each indi-cator, but said that some of the most important ones like health, education, clean drink-ing water and aff ordable elec-tricity and gas are deteriorating rather than improving.

Another ruling party parlia-mentarian from Rawalpindi, Shaikh Rashid Shafi que, said that he is well aware of the SDGs and also knew that Pa-kistan had slipped a few posi-tions on the world ranking, but pointed out that the govern-ment is in the process of for-mulating policies to improve them.

He said that he had received some funds from the gov-ernment recently for small schemes in his constituency to help address shortcomings.

Shafi que conceded that these funds are not enough, but hoped that things would improve once the government gets out of the current diffi cult economic situation and focus-es more on development and social sector spending.

Chaudhry Adnan, a member of the Punjab Assembly, said he is unaware of the SDGs, but remarked that social sector in-dicators were improving.

He said he recently received funding for clean drinking wa-

ter schemes and some facilities at schools in his areas.

Khan said there has been no improvement in health and education, even in the federal capital, so not much could be said about other cities and ru-ral areas.

Clean drinking water facili-ties and hospitals are deterio-rating.

He was at a loss to under-stand where all the public sec-tor investments were going.

He lamented that prominent hospitals in major cities like Islamabad and Peshawar were doing well only on paper.

“You walk around the Pa-kistan Institute of Medical Sciences in Islamabad, Lady Reading or Khyber Medical In-stitute Peshawar, and just see the fi lth lying around; you will not feel like going inside for any medical treatment,” Khan said.

“If this is the condition of cleanliness in big hospitals, how can diseases be contained? The spread of the dengue epi-demic is in front of you.”

He said that students in pub-lic sector schools in Peshawar are still sitting on gunny pieces and schools do not have shel-ters. “How can the poor popu-lation improve its conditions without proper education?”

Khan said that everything is going well if one believes the government reports presented in media, “otherwise every-thing sucks”.

MNA Ali Nawaz Awan said that he is well-versed with the SDGs and aware of the fact that its indicators in Pakistan were declining.

He said that he would prefer not to talk about gender equal-ity and climate change when the availability of even basic human necessities in Islama-bad was deteriorating.

For example, the drinking water being supplied in the capital is contaminated.

The federal capital faces se-rious health challenges and water supply shortages.

If Islamabad, small in terms of size and population, is en-during such conditions, imag-ine the state of other cities and villages, the lawmaker pointed out.

“You can see malnourished patients coming from rural ar-eas to hospitals in the capital,” Awan said.

“All members of the Nation-al Assembly recently received Rs150mn each that we are try-ing to eff ectively utilise for pro-vision of clean drinking water and health facilities,” he added.

Raja Khurram Shahzad and Ali Nawaz are also protesting over problems being faced by students being refused admis-sions in schools and colleges operated by the government.

“How can you ensure quality education for all when princi-pals and heads of educational institutions turn down stu-dents on one pretext or anoth-er?” they asked.

As a result, thousands of children were out of colleges and schools, they allege.

“Electricity has become dearer but no one is giving any explanation,” Alam Khan com-plained in the National Assem-bly last week when questioning the possibility of progress on aff ordable and clean energy – another SDG.

“Why are you hiking gas prices? Why have you increased the price of roti (bread)? How will a salaried class person sur-vive?” he demanded.

Lawmakers not familiar with UNdevelopment goalsInternewsIslamabad

Trump with Prime Minister Khan at their meeting on the sidelines of the annual United Nations General Assembly in New York.

Police have detained 20 sus-pects as they investigate the possibility of a serial

killer being behind the suspect-ed murder and sexual assault of three boys in a district which has a history of child abuse and ab-duction.

The body of eight-year-old Mohamed Faizan was found at an industrial estate, after he went missing on the way home from nearby shops.

The remains of two more boys were found nearby.

Local media reported three other children from the area had been missing since the middle of the year, and another child had disappeared late last week after the bodies were found.

“Recovering the three bodies from the same spot indicates that there might be a serial killer in-volved in this episode,” regional police offi cer Zulfi qar Hameed told Reuters.

District Police Offi cer Zahid Nawaz told Reuters yesterday that DNA samples of the 20 sus-pects had been sent for testing.

Hundreds of people demon-strated about the killings last week, blocking off streets and damaging shops.

“I nurtured my child for eight years ... I cannot bear this, I want justice,” Amtal Salam, the mother of Faizan, told Reuters on Thursday in the living room of her family home that overlooks the grave of her young son.

Chunian, where the bodies were found, is located in Kasur, a district just south of the city of Lahore, that has been hit by waves of sexual assault and vio-lence against children, which many locals say has continued due to a culture of impunity and lack of action in fi nding perpe-trators.

Videos of hundreds of local children being sexually assaulted were found circulating in 2015, which a senior child protection offi cial at the time called the worst child abuse incident in Pa-kistan’s history.

Last year, the body of a seven-year-old girl was found in a gar-bage dumpster, which police said was the 12th incident of a girl be-ing abducted, raped and killed in Kasur in a year, and sparked vio-lent protests.

A man was convicted of the murder and executed.

Child advocates say Pakistan has a serious problem with child abuse, with child protection watchdog Sahil reporting more than 3,800 cases of sexual abuse and violence against children

cases in 2018.“Child abuse is a huge, huge

challenge, not just in Kasur, but these cases are coming in a lot and are being reported in Punjab on a daily basis,” said Sarah Ah-mad, chairperson of the Child Protection and Welfare Bureau for Punjab, the province in which Kasur is located.

Locals say children are afraid of going outside.

“Announcements have been made that parents should es-cort their children to school,” said Shehnaz Bibi from a village near Chunian. “The children are afraid to go to the mosques; they are afraid to go to school.”

Prime Minister Imran Khan has vowed law enforcement will be held accountable and said a major overhaul of district police was under way as well as an in-vestigation into the incident.

20 suspects held in probe into suspected case of serial killerReutersChunian

This picture taken last week shows a shop that was damaged by protesters after the bodies of three children were found in Chunian.

Ahmad: Child abuse is a huge, huge challenge, not just in KasurPresident Alvi

spotted picking up trash during hikePresident Dr Arif Alvi was spotted on Sunday picking up trash during a hike in the Changla Gali in northern parts of the country, according to a photo shared by his son on the social networking platform Twitter.The president was also seen collecting the trash in a trash bag and then disposing of it in a trash bin on the side of a road.He advised tourists to act responsibly during trips to the mountainous north.“During our treks we usually take trash bags on our treks but accidentally forgot them, next time we’ll do more. Our citizens need to be educated to enjoy this beautiful county, but be responsible tourists,” he reportedly said.

China opens first visa application centre in LahoreChina has opened a visa application service centre in Lahore.Yao Jing, the Chinese ambassador to Islamabad, inaugurated the centre.Others who attended the ceremony included the Chinese Lahore Consul General Long Dingbin, Deputy Consul General Peng Zhengwu, and off icials from the Punjab government.Speaking with the media, Peng called the visa centre a landmark step.“Earlier, residents of Lahore had to travel to Islamabad to apply for a visa to China,” he said, “This new place will provide enormous relief to businessmen and visitors.

“Lahore is an important city and the new hub of economic activity in Punjab.”The visa centre in Lahore will handle ordinary visa applications to China, and to the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macao.However, the final approval will still be granted by the Chinese embassy in Islamabad.The Lahore off ice will only collect the necessary documents and forward the requests.“The Chinese embassy will not operate the visa centre in Lahore directly. It has outsourced it to a private company,” Peng added.Approximately 4,000 applications are processed by China’s embassy in Islamabad every month.

Pakistan launches countrywide anti-dengue campaignThe authorities kicked off a countrywide drive yesterday to contain a dengue epidemic as the number of cases surpassed 10,000.So far at least 16 people have died, said Sajid Shah of the country’s health ministry.Hospitals across all major cities are overwhelmed with dengue patients.

“At least 10,013 cases of dengue have been reported from across the country this year,” said Shah, adding that the number of dengue patients is likely to increase in the next 10 days.Preventive measures and arrangements for free treatment are part of the drive to contain the spread, he said.

By Timothy L O’BrienWashington

“Listen to me. Listen. Listen to me. Listen to me. Listen to me. I assume many people are on the line. I know that before I

make the call. And you have intelligence agencies, everybody listening. That call was a great call. It was a perfect call. A perfect call.” – US President Donald Trump, telling reporters on Sunday about a phone call in which he encour-aged Ukraine’s president to dig up dirt on Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.

When Trump moved into the Atlantic City gambling market in 1981, he contacted the Federal Bureau of Investigation seeking guidance. He wanted to know how best to keep organised crime out of his operation. Fair enough, but for the inconvenient fact that Trump’s fi rst two business partners there were, as he already knew, mobbed-up.

Two months later, Trump met again with the FBI and said he welcomed undercover operatives in his casino “to show that he was willing to fully co-operate,” according to an FBI memo from the time. He asked for advice about staying the course in Atlantic City, and called on the agents yet again a few months later. At some point during those chats the FBI agents discouraged him from visiting a fourth time and gambling regulators eventually forced Trump to buy out his early, tainted partners.

Law enforcement and regulators in Atlantic City never prosecuted or penalised Trump for any of this; other operators (Hugh Hefner, Barron Hilton) lost their licences for similar problems, but not Trump. Trump wore his transgressions on his sleeve – and he skated.

In 2005, while Trump was showing me the grounds of his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, he told me that one of the biggest mistakes he ever made was personally guaranteeing about $900mn of some $3.2bn in loans he couldn’t pay back in the early 1990s – recklessness that brought him to the brink of personal bankruptcy.

“My father was a pro, my father knew, like I knew, you don’t personally guarantee. So I wrote a book called ‘The Art of the Deal,’ which as you know is the biggest of all time,” Trump told me. “In the book, I say, ‘Never personally guarantee.’… And I’ve told people I didn’t follow my own advice.” The Trump talking to me in 2005 presented himself as a fi nancially chastened guy who wouldn’t overreach and imperil himself, his family, and his business ever again. Personal guarantees were like time bombs, he assured me. He had learned his lesson.

But he hadn’t.A month before telling me all of

this, Trump had already personally guaranteed $40mn of a $640mn Deutsche Bank loan he was using to build a new hotel and residential building in Chicago. That one was a time bomb too, and it exploded in 2008 when the global fi nancial crisis threatened to topple the project. Messy

litigation ensued, yet Deutsche Bank wound up deciding to spare Trump and continued doing business with him.

Openly fl aunting lawlessness – and sometimes convincing authorities that nothing was amiss because otherwise why would he have been talking about it so candidly? – is vintage Trump. Taking potentially self-destructive risks because he’s undisciplined, irrational, and narcissistic – while pretending to be otherwise – is also vintage Trump.

Here we are in 2019 and Trump is president. And the Trump of today strong-armed Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, reportedly asking him eight times – eight times – during a July 25 phone call to pair up with his attorney, Rudy Giuliani, to try to uncover improper dealings in the country by a political opponent, Joe Biden.

Just the day before, on July 24, former Special Counsel Robert Mueller had testifi ed for several hours before Congress, a day that essentially marked the end of Mueller’s probe into whether or not Trump and his team had been part of a criminal conspiracy with Russia to tilt the 2016 presidential election against Hillary Clinton. Mueller said there had been ample collusion between the Trump camp and Russia, but not enough evidence existed to prove a conspiracy. He presented evidence that Trump had obstructed justice but left that to Congress to adjudicate.

The end of the Mueller probe, an investigation that came close to ensnaring Trump, should have chastened him and left him acutely aware that seeking political backing from a foreign government can carry criminal charges. But that presumes the president is a rational actor. Instead he stuck to his time-worn pathologies (lawlessness, existential risk-taking) by hopping on the phone with Zelensky the very next day – and proceeded to run, broadly speaking, the same play Mueller

had examined: inviting a foreign power to interfere in a US election.

Ukraine had a $250mn aid package from the US in motion at the time of the call, and in late August the White House put it under review before fi nally releasing the package almost two weeks ago.

According to the Wall Street Journal, a person familiar with the July 25 call with Zelensky said that Trump didn’t mention the aid during the conversation or any other “quid pro quo for his co-operation on any investigation.” It’s unlikely that Zelensky wasn’t aware that the aid package might be imperilled if he didn’t go along. But did Trump need to specifi cally mention quid pro quos for this episode to be problematic? Legally, yes, of course – an explicit quid pro quo is exactly what you need if you’re going to tee up bribery and extortion charges in a courtroom.

From a pure abuse of power standpoint – the “high crimes and misdemeanours” that lead to impeachment – it’s not clear that a quid pro quo is essential. Trump muscled the leader of a foreign power to interfere in US aff airs so he could get something for himself: a second term as president. As George T Conway III and Neal Katyal wrote in an op-ed for the Washington Post last week, the framers of the constitution “believed that a president would break his oath if he engaged in self-dealing - if he used his powers to put his own interests above the nation’s.”

Giuliani and Trump have tried to paint their tag-teaming in Ukraine as an eff ort to establish that Biden, somehow, some way, was the one mucking with national security by trying to get his son out of harm’s way there years ago when a corruption probe was launched.

As my Bloomberg News colleagues Stephanie Baker and Daryna Krasnolutska reported in May, a Ukranian offi cial familiar with the corruption push said that no US offi cials

pressured anyone to close cases that might have involved Biden’s son. And Biden’s own focus on corruption in Ukraine came one to two years after Ukraine prosecutors had already dropped the case Trump and Giuliani are so interested in.

Adam Entous, a New Yorker reporter, drew the same conclusion, noting that “there is no credible evidence that Biden” did anything untoward. Politifact conducted a thorough fact-check of its own and concluded there was “no evidence to support the idea that Joe Biden advocated with his son’s interests in mind” in Ukraine.

The Biden stuff is a non-starter and the focus should stay on the president himself. Trump could clear this up by releasing the transcript of his call with Zelensky, something he said he would consider when he met reporters at the White House on Sunday and acknowledged that he had discussed a corruption probe of Biden with the Ukraine leader. His candour should be tested, because, just like decades ago in Atlantic City, Trump being candid doesn’t mean he’s being truthful.

The State Department co-ordinated Giuliani’s trips to Ukraine, so it probably has helpful records related to those events. Giuliani is ripe for an interview as well, possibly with federal law enforcement offi cials, though I don’t imagine Attorney-General William Barr is looking at all of this with “rule of law” on his mind.

The man in the Oval Offi ce is the same person who hurtled into the gambling business in Atlantic City decades ago and couldn’t stop playing chicken with his own well-being for years after. And Trump’s above-the-law presidency, riddled from the beginning with fi nancial confl icts of interest and animated by an executive branch charting a course outside Congressional scrutiny, is going to stay on the same path unless American institutions assert themselves. - Tribune News Serevice


COMMENT22

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EDITOR-IN-CHIEFFaisal Abdulhameed al-Mudahka

Deputy Managing EditorK T Chacko

Ferrari upbeat after Vettel’s Singapore win

Trump’s Ukraine call runs some impeachment traps

Millennials face serious problemsBy Perry Weed Washington

Four or fi ve years ago, having breakfast at the counter in a popular Annapolis, Maryland, eatery, I struck up a casual

conversation with a stranger sitting next to me. I remember it as if it happened yesterday. This father, for all the right reasons, had pushed his son to get a college degree and counselled him to borrow money to do so. The son had incurred a loan in excess of $100,000 and graduated into an economy of few job openings. He had no good job and no money to pay his debt. The father’s pain, guilt and sense of regret were palpable. This is what happened to millennials following the 2008 Great Recession.

Millennials are generally defi ned to be those born from 1981-1996, now 22-37 years old. Some refer to them as the generation who refuses to grow up: no mortgage, no career plan, no marriage, no children. Why is this? Why have they not done as well as their parents? Millennials came of age during a time of dramatic technological change, the proliferation of social media, globalisation and economic disruption. For a better life, a bachelor’s degree became all but prerequisite for an adequate wage. The Great Recession unloaded on millennials. They have lived through a slow 10-year recovery of a weak labour market and declining wages.

College tuition had risen sharply, and the federal loans incurred to repay it have been a considerable burden. Students can no longer work their way through college while taking classes the way they once could. Two-thirds of students who earned a four-year degree in 2017 borrowed to pay for school. Growing numbers of these loan debts are in arrears or in default. Among the total 45mn Americans signed up for the federal student loan programme, the debt is now $1.6tn.

Those in charge of these programmes - ageing politicians and policy-makers - favour the corporations, the wealthier and those over 65, the most reliable voters. This year’s expected $1tn defi cit will add to the national debt of $22tn. In

America’s rapidly ageing society, every day about 10,000 individuals become eligible for Medicare. The children and grandchildren of today’s adults are on the hook for these obligations.

We now face another possible recession, which would be the second to hit the millennials. To be employed in a stagnant and falling economy, a college education and technical training will be required, but these qualifi cations will not necessarily return an adequate salary.

According to a Deloitte study, millennials are doing far worse fi nancially than generations before them. Their average net worth is below $8,000, a 34% drop in average net worth since 1996. The study found millenials’

incomes have largely fl atlined.To pay off the lasting burden of the

$1.6tn student debt could take many borrowers a lifetime. These debts sap their life and career dreams. A Bloomberg Businessweek analysis found that US student loan borrowers as a group are paying down only about 1% of their federal student loan debt every year.

The fundamental problem is that tuition has far outpaced infl ation while wages have mostly stagnated. In recent years, the federal government has actually encouraged borrowers to stretch out their payments. According to the Bloomberg analysis, 60% of the balances of student loan borrowers rose in the fi rst year of their repayment period.

The Great Recession created a particularly daunting challenge for millennials entering the job market. It has left a hangover of uncertainty and lost opportunity. It has aff ected their future earnings and wealth. Millennials live in a world much less safe, predictable and prosperous than did their parents. Their work is much less secure and the pay less certain. Neither the US economy nor the government has delivered a better world for them than that experienced by their parents, the post World War II generation.

Millennials have displayed diff erent attitudes towards ownership. They support the idea of a sharing economy. Is it any surprise they enthusiastically support presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren? - Tribune News Service

Trump has acknowledged that he had discussed a corruption probe of Biden with the Ukraine leader.

Millennials came of age during a time of dramatic technological change, the proliferation of social media, globalisation and economic disruption.

After Sebastian Vettel’s win in Singapore, the mood at Ferrari is explosive amid a battle for supremacy between four-time F1 champion Vettel and teammate Leclerc.

The German has shown that suggestions he was on the wane following two victories by Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc were a little premature.

And his message after benefi ting from team strategy to put Leclerc’s nose out of joint at the Singapore Grand Prix was clear.

“I think you are very misled if you ever think that you are bigger than this team,” he said. “I don’t think any individual can be bigger than this team.”

The 32-year-old four-time Formula One champion ended a 13-month winless run by triumphing ahead of Leclerc at the Marina Bay street circuit.

Pole-sitter Leclerc had to swallow being beaten as a result of an early Vettel pit stop — the so-called undercut allowing the German to go on to take the chequered fl ag.

“It was frustrating,” Leclerc said. Team principal Mattia Binotto said the undercut was “more powerful than

expected” and the team had even considered swapping the two cars back.

“I understand Charles is disappointed,” he said. “He did his best to win the race and he could have won the race. We did consider to swap.

We are still discussing with the drivers whether it was the right

choice or not.” The driver duel for supremacy at the Scuderia, also with a view to their respective status next season, is likely to be a thread running through the remaining six races of the season.

Leclerc at 21 may well be the face of the future but Sunday’s third straight victory for Ferrari could be just the turnaround Vettel needs after a season of mistakes and misfortune. The season since the summer break is proving a renaissance for Ferrari.

Not only was Singapore a third win in a row, it was a fi rst Ferrari one-two fi nish since Hungary, and on a circuit widely expected to favour Mercedes and Red Bull.

“From ugly duckling to spaceship in just three weeks?” Italy daily La Repubblica wrote.

Vettel has won a record fi ve times in Singapore and will now head to Sochi and Sunday’s Russian Grand Prix with confi dence high and the doubters silenced for now.

His fi rst win of 2019 sees him close up on Leclerc and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen in the drivers’ standings. He is now six points from the third and fourth-placed pair, who are tied on 200 points.

World champion Lewis Hamilton had to settle for a disappointing fourth, feeling Mercedes team strategy let him down, but the Briton still has a clear lead in the standings.

He is 65 points ahead of teammate Valtteri Bottas, and 96 clear of Leclerc and Verstappen in the standings.

For the moment though, enjoy the Vettel-Leclerc battle.

His fi rst win of 2019 sees him close up on Leclerc and RedBull’s Max Verstappen in the drivers’ standings

COMMENT

Gulf Times Tuesday, September 24, 2019 23

Big tech’s move to fund local news a cynical ploy?By Emily Bell London

Anyone who has passed through Cambridge recently (the one in the English countryside, not the one in

Massachusetts), would have noticed that the ivory towers glint and sprawl with technological investment. “Silicon Fen”, as it is appropriately known, has been a key investment site for global technology companies wanting to tap into Cambridge Uni-versity’s research capacities. Google is one such company, and now it has an added interest in East Anglia as it is partnering with local news com-pany Archant to create three digital newsrooms in communities “cur-rently underserved by news”.

The venture, Project Neon, looks very much a carbon copy of Project Compass in the US, where Google is also partnering with a large local news chain, McClatchy, to set up digital outlets in news deserts.

The fi rst Project Compass experiment will be based in Youngstown Ohio, where the local newspaper, The Vindicator, printed its fi nal edition on August 31. It had succumbed to the pressures of falling revenues caused by a shift in newspaper reading habits and by the migration of advertising revenues to principally Google and Facebook.

The Neon Compass projects are fascinating in that they represent the most direct intervention to date of any technology company in providing news.

Both Google and Facebook are spending about $100mn a year each on journalism projects of a wide variety, but almost all of it is in grants or support to third parties.

Stepping into the arena of building newsrooms alongside commercial news organisations – albeit to “experiment” with new models –

brings with it obvious questions about potential confl ict of interest, as well as the possibility that the two decades of failing to fi x local news will soon be at an end.

This type of investment raises the theoretical, but not impossible, scenario that Archant newsrooms will be simultaneously working with Google, and reporting on the activities and investments of the company in East Anglia. If Google continues its charitable support for news projects this will be a dilemma editors are likely to face with increasing regularity.

As if to make the point, the outgoing Ofcom head, Sharon White, addressed the issue of tech company dominance in remarks made (coincidentally) in Cambridge at the Royal Television Society conference last week, where she expressed the personal view that online platforms needed to step up their side of the “social contract” and that one way or another contribute to the safeguarding of public service media, be it through payment or having public service content favoured by algorithms and promotional methods.

In Washington DC last week the Washington Post unveiled an initiative that is meant to compete with the advertising power of Google and Facebook. Keen observers will have noticed that the Post is owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, so there is at least room to interpret the launch of advertising platform, Zeus Prime, as being part of the growing influence of technology companies on news firms, rather than a bulwark against it.

The Post’s Jarrod Dicker told me the news company already has tens

of publishers waiting to join the platform, and that the potential exists for them to improve the advertising revenue they get from automated programmatic sales to increase by as much as fi ve times.

The Post’s heavy investment in software is unusual in the news business – most companies would struggle to employ 30 software engineers, let alone the 300 the Post has on its books. The hunt for a sustainable model for news in America stands in stark contrast to the government-led approach in the UK. While initiatives such as the Cairncross review and the current Ofcom review of public broadcasting are busy carving out recommendations and institutional reforms, there is a notable and deliberate government policy void in the US.

The constitutional separation of Congress from the free press is intentional and occasionally taken to the extreme, including spectating the near collapse of all local news holding companies and allowing a duopoly to dominate digital advertising.

Stepping into the policy void in America are a mix of philanthropists, billionaires, foundations and, latterly, corporate sponsors, chiefl y in the form of Google and Facebook both of whom have pledged to spend $100mn each per year over the next three years on journalism initiatives.

Last week the annual index from the Institute for Non-profi t News (INN) also revealed that charitable support from individuals was growing. In 2018 individual giving made up 39% of revenues, and foundation support 43%, the fi rst time that charitable foundations made up less than half of the total.

The growth of non-profi t news in the US has been one of the brightest spots for the media in a somewhat bleak landscape. Newsrooms have launched at the rate of roughly one a month over the past 12 years. But the

vast majority of these newsrooms are tiny. The total membership of the INN employs around 3,000 journalists and has revenues of about $450mn. This puts the total non-profi t news journalism head count at about double that of the New York Times, and total revenues at slightly less than a quarter.

The big fi ve technology companies – Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft and Amazon – spent a combined $64m on lobbyists in Washington alone last year. In the coming year there are already signs it will be much tougher (were that possible) for the news industry. The New York Times closed its Spanish-language edition last week, and there are murmurs again of digital startup news organisations still struggling to make a profi t. Bad news inevitably arrives in the autumn, as fourth quarter budgets and forecasting for 2020 make it clear to what extent businesses are sustainable.

It is heartening to see that there is a great deal of policy energy and both corporate and civic concern for what comes next in news. It is also important to keep an eye on the jousting between the privately-funded initiatives, such as Project Neon, and the public policy developments such as Ofcom’s forthcoming report on public service broadcasting. Call me a cynic but the two might just be related. Is it a coincidence that we are seeing an infl ux of cash into experiments to aid journalism at a time when there is pressure on the big tech companies in Europe, the UK and, should there be a change of administration in the US in 2020 perhaps there too. Democrat candidates Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have both been clear they see a need to curtail their power, and the latter has laid out plans to tax them to fund non-corporate media.

Both in the market and in policy, 2020 looks like being a critical year in deciding how our future media landscape might look.- Guardian News and Media

A device to regrow hair on bald head?

Reconciliation and development

Live issues

IANSNew York

There is good news for peo-ple experiencing hair loss as researchers have developed a wearable device that harnesses

energy from the wearer and delivers gentle electric pulses to stimulate dor-mant hair follicles and regrow hair.

Because the devices are powered by the movement of the wearer, they do not require a bulky battery pack or complicated electronics.

In fact, they are so low-profi le that they could be discreetly worn underneath the crown of an everyday baseball cap.

“I think this will be a very practical solution to hair regeneration,” said one of the researchers, Xudong Wang, professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the US.

In side-by-side tests on hairless mice, the devices stimulated hair growth just as eff ectively as two

diff erent compounds found in baldness medicines, said the study published in the journal ACS Nano.

Based on devices that gather energy from a body’s day-to-day motion, the

hair growth technology stimulates the skin with gentle, low-frequency electric pulses, which coax dormant follicles to reactivate hair production.

The devices do not cause hair

follicles to sprout anew in smooth skin.

Instead they reactivate hair-producing structures that have gone dormant.

That means they could be used as an intervention for people in the early stages of pattern baldness, but they would not bestow cascading tresses to someone who has been as bald as a billiard ball for several years.

Explaining the hair-growth technology, the researchers said that small devices called nanogenerators passively gather energy from day-to-day movements and then transmit low-frequency pulses of electricity to the skin.

That gentle electric stimulation causes dormant follicles to “wake up.”

“Electric stimulations can help many diff erent body functions,” Wang said.

“But before our work there was no really good solution for low-profi le devices that provide gentle but eff ective stimulations,” Wang said.

By Remy Rioux Paris

In a profoundly volatile world rid-dled with fractures, the temp-tation to embrace a seemingly reassuring path of withdrawal or

isolation may be strong.In fact, avoidance of potential

hazards seems only natural.For lack of a better alternative, we

may be instinctively inclined to look inward in order to circumvent or at least mitigate the risks of a world that feels like end times, in which children are telling us the truth.

Many of us have already decided to follow that route.

And yet the fi res which recently ravaged the Amazon rainforest are a stark – and tragic – reminder that this line of reasoning, albeit understandable, is misleading.

In fact, we should be moving in the opposite direction.

We live in a world in common, which means that we are all vulnerable to threats – be they environmental, social, or political – that know no borders.

Because direct or collateral eff ects can be felt everywhere, we should be nurturing a desire for reconciliation, not isolation.

These opposing views on the many challenges of an interdependent world – climate change, loss of biodiversity, deadly pandemics, social

fragmentation, insecurity, traffi cking of all kinds, and uncontrolled migration – underpin divergent strategies.

On one hand, proponents of openness and stronger co-ordinated action seek collaboration with other countries in a spirit of international solidarity.

On the other hand, advocates of distinct national trajectories endorse agendas designed to spread a subtle theory of withdrawal, including at the very centre of the fundamentally generous fi eld of development policy.

And the overall trend is unequivocal: an increasing number of leaders, from Russia to Brazil and the US, are unabashedly embracing nationalistic agendas and opposing eff orts to promote joint global governance.

Consider, for example, the “Journey to Self-Reliance” concept promoted by the United States Agency for International Development.

The phrase conveys the positive impression of encouraging countries that receive international assistance to take ownership of their development challenges through enhanced autonomy, as opposed to being dependent on aid.

And USAID deserves credit for breaking with the unrealistic idealism that pervades global development eff orts.

Nonetheless, the agency’s self-reliance approach – along with the US government’s aggressive trade policy

– essentially accepts and potentially exacerbates existing global fractures.

In particular, it promotes inward-looking perspectives, rejects the idea that a collective response to development challenges might be possible (let alone more eff ective), and justifi es aid in the name of US national security rather than international solidarity.

Such an approach cannot be the basis for our development eff orts.

Development policy should be open and collaborative.

It should not be diverted from its raison d’etre and stealthily promote isolationism.

But that is the risk facing development policy if it fails to reinvent itself and thus remains a noble yet insuffi cient instrument of global cohesion.

If an increasingly divided world is to meet the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, development policy needs renewed ambition.

Otherwise, it will end up helping to make the case for the self-reliance approach.

We therefore need a guiding concept to defi ne a new basis for collective action.

I believe that the idea and method of reconciliation can help.“Reconciliation” is perhaps a simpler and more dynamic way of expressing the collective global objectives refl ected in the SDGs.

It would amount to a new modus operandi that would help us transcend the simplistic binary division between local and global.

A reconciliation policy would fully mobilise the resources and stakeholders of all countries – including civil-society organisations, multinational companies, major cities, and development banks – and direct them towards concrete co-operation and reciprocal international aid.

This would bring about what I call a “polypolar” world.

To implement this policy successfully, we need to revitalise the traditional aid-centred paradigm and promote the concept of “sustainable development investment” (SDI) to guide as much global investment as possible toward fulfi lling the SDGs.

SDI would not substitute for offi cial development assistance, but would complement it as a form of investment that ultimately aims to provide public goods, rather than generate short-term fi nancial returns.

To meet these challenges and achieve the SDGs, we must not succumb to the siren song of self-reliance.

Instead, let’s embark on a journey of reconciliation.

Let’s choose hope. - Project Syndicate

Remy Rioux is Chief Executive Offi cer of the Agence Francaise de Developpement.

Front pages of newspapers and magazines are displayed on an iPhone during the grand opening and media preview of the new Apple Carnegie Library store in Washington on May 9, 2019 (file photo). Newspapers have succumbed to the pressures of falling revenues caused by a shift in reading habits and by the migration of advertising revenues to principally Google and Facebook.

Professor Xudong Wang (left) and colleagues developed a device - unobtrusive enough to fit under a cap - that harnesses energy from the wearer and delivers gentle electric pulses to stimulate dormant hair follicles and regrow hair.

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QATAR

His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani met yesterday with Prime Minister of Sudan Abdalla Hamdok at His Highness’ residence in New York on the sidelines of the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly. During the meeting, they reviewed bilateral relations and ways of enhancing them for the benefit of the two brotherly peoples. Also, the meeting touched on the latest developments in Sudan, where the Sudanese PM praised Qatar’s pivotal role in the Darfur peace process, appreciating its support and positions towards Sudan and its people, especially during the recent phase. For his part, His Highness the Amir aff irmed Qatar’s stance in support of the Sudanese people to achieve their aspirations for freedom, peace, and justice as well as the unity and cohesion of Sudan. The meeting was attended by a number of members of the off icial delegation accompanying the Amir. From the Sudanese side, the meeting was attended by members of the delegation accompanying the prime minister.

Amir meets Sudanese PM

His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani met yesterday with Chairman and CEO of Bank of America Brian Moynihan at His Highness’ residence in New York on the sidelines of the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly. Talks during the meeting dealt with prospects of co-operation between the two sides and ways of developing them. The meeting was attended by a number of members of the off icial delegation accompanying the Amir.

Amir meets chairman of Bank of America

His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani met yesterday with President of Rwanda Paul Kagame and his accompanying delegation at the headquarters of the Permanent Mission of Qatar to the United Nations in New York City on the sidelines of the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly. During the meeting, they reviewed bilateral relations and ways of enhancing them, in addition to a number of issues of common concern. The meeting was attended by members of the off icial delegation accompanying the Amir. It was also attended by members of the delegation accompanying the president of Rwanda.

Amir meets president of Rwanda

His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani met with Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase Bank Jamie Dimon at His Highness’ residence in New York yesterday on the sidelines of the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly. The meeting dealt with scopes of co-operation between the two sides and means of promoting them. The meeting was attended by a number of members of the off icial delegation accompanying the Amir.

Amir meets chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase

His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani met yesterday with US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, at the Permanent Mission of Qatar to the United Nations on the sidelines of the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. The meeting discussed co-operation ties and strategic partnership between Qatar and the United States and ways of enhancing them. The meeting was attended by members of the off icial delegation accompanying the Amir.

Amir meets US Treasury Secretary

His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani speaking at the UN Climate Action Summit 2019, which was held by the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres at the UN headquarters in New York yesterday.

Amir pledges $100mn to combat climate changeFrom Page 1

“In the same context, and to achieve our long-term environmental goals, Qatar has prepared a set of fi xed goals, the most important of which are those related to renewable energy to generat-ing 200MW from solar energy within the next two years which will increase to 500MW afterwards, and we are seeking to regulate carbon pricing as a means of reducing emissions and driving invest-ments towards cleaner options.

“We, as hosting country of 2022 FIFA World Cup, are committed to organising an environment-friendly tournament and the fi rst “carbon neutral” tournament through the use of solar-powered stadiums and the use of cooling and lighting technol-ogy that is water and energy-saving.

“I would also like to point out that Qatar Sovereign Wealth Fund assumes an active role in combating climate change, through Qatar Investment Authority, a founding member of the “One Planet” Global Sovereign Wealth Fund, which has been established in

accordance with the initiative of Presi-dent Macron to promote green invest-ments and accelerate eff orts to take into account climate change issues in the investment sector and manage-ment of sovereign wealth funds.

“Qatar Sovereign Wealth Fund will promote and encourage green invest-ments activities and adopt low-carbon economic growth, which helps realise climate goals of the Paris Agreement, support the Sustainable Development Goals and allocate investments in sus-tainable natural resources.”

“Within the framework of Qatar’s keenness to assume its role as an ac-tive partner with the international community I announce Qatar’s con-tribution of an amount of $100mn for the support of small developing island states and the least developed states to deal with the climate change, natural hazards, environmental challenges and to build the capacity to counter their destructive eff ects.” His High-ness the Amir wished the summit success and the achievement of its de-sired goals for the good of humanity.

Amir addresses UN Climate Action Summit

Amir pledges $100mn to combat climate change - Gulf Times

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