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GULF TIMES

published in

QATAR

since 1978SATURDAY Vol. XXXVIII No. 10424

April 15, 2017Rajab 18, 1438 AH www. gulf-times.com 2 Riyals

SPORT | Page 1

‘World’s tallest bubbleman’ graces Doha fest

QATAR | Page 16

Tabata nets fi ne hat-trick to end QSL season in style

QATAR

REGION

ARAB WORLD

INTERNATIONAL

COMMENT

BUSINESS

CLASSIFIED

SPORTS

14, 15

1 – 12

7, 8

1 – 8

2, 16

3

3

4 – 13

INDEX

Taxi drivers asking for dedicated parking spacesBy Ramesh Mathew Staff Reporter

Some taxi drivers want dedicated parking spaces for their vehi-cles on service roads along some

of Doha’s major roads, hospital com-pounds and government offi ces that receive a large number of visitors regu-larly.

Such dedicated parking zones, say some of the cabbies, are essential for them to carry out their operations in an effi cient and viable manner.

Apart from the state-run Mow-asalat’s Karwa taxis, four franchisees

are also operating taxis in Qatar at present.

Speaking to Gulf Times, some taxi drivers said they were facing severe competition from “other taxi opera-tors” - or the so-called limousines - and it was high time they were allotted dedicated parking spaces so that they can get passengers more easily.

“For passengers, too, it will be easier to fi nd a taxi if such a dedicated facil-ity is provided to us. They will not have to hunt or wait for a taxi,” said one of them, stressing that limousine opera-tors would not be able to “take away” passengers from the regular cabbies if such a facility existed.

Though taxis are allowed to freely en-ter mall premises in Doha or its outskirts, drop off and pick up passengers from there, dedicated parking spaces exist at only a handful of places, it is learnt.

“There are many customers who don’t like waiting for long for a taxi to arrive. If there is a dedicated parking area for taxis in such places, custom-ers could just walk down to catch a taxi parked there,” said a cabbie.

Similarly, the demand for taxis is al-ways high in the immediate neighbour-hood of both government and private clinics in Doha. Customers waiting for taxis is a common sight in such places.

Taxi drivers feel the allotment of ex-

clusive parking spaces around hospitals and clinics would go a long way in mak-ing travel easier for customers there.

Similar facilities should be provided around ministries and government agencies that are visited by a large number of people and many of whom rely on taxis.

“We would not have to waste our time - and fuel - looking for a parking space around all these places. A dedi-cated space will prove benefi cial to all,” said another driver.

Some of them said it would be good to have dedicated parking slots near embassies - particularly the busy ones - as well.Taxis waiting outside a hypermarket in Doha yesterday afternoon. PICTURE: Jayan Orma

China warns ofN Korea confl ict‘at any moment’US President Donald Trump has issued stark warnings that the threat posed by Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons programme “will be taken care of”

AFPBeijing

China issued a stern warning yesterday that a confl ict over North Korea could break out

“at any moment”, as Pyongyang vowed a “merciless” response to any US mili-tary action.

Tensions in the region have surged to fresh heights in recent days with speculation mounting that the North is preparing a sixth nuclear test.

A US naval strike force has been de-ployed near the Korean peninsula, and President Donald Trump has issued stark warnings that the threat posed by Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons pro-gramme “will be taken care of”.

A clearly rattled China, under pres-sure from Trump to prevent any North Korean provocation, said the situation had reached breaking point.

“One has the feeling that a confl ict could break out at any moment,” Chi-nese foreign minister Wang Yi said.

“If a war occurs, the result is a situ-ation in which everybody loses and there can be no winner,” he added dur-ing a joint press conference in Beijing with the visiting French foreign min-ister.

Wang’s comments mirrored a warn-ing from the North Korean foreign ministry’s Institute for Disarmament and Peace that “thermo-nuclear war may break out any moment”.

North Korea has invoked similarly dire scenarios on previous occasions when tensions on the Korean peninsu-la have spiked, but Beijing’s warnings have fuelled international concerns that the current situation is reaching tipping point.

The North’s Korean People’s Army (KPA) added its voice to the bellicose rhetoric with a statement threatening strikes against US military bases and other targets in South Korea.

“The closer such big targets as nu-clear powered aircraft carriers come, the greater would be the eff ect of mer-ciless strikes,” said the statement car-ried by the North’s offi cial KCNA news agency.

Citing the recent missile strike Trump ordered against Syria - which was widely interpreted as a warning to Pyongyang - the KPA denounced the US president for embarking on a path of “open threat and blackmail” against the North.

It also urged Washington to “come to its senses” and fi nd a “proper” so-lution to the current stand-off .

Trump’s military muscle-fl exing was on display again when the US on dropped the biggest non-nuclear bomb it possesses on Afghanistan, targeting a complex used by the Is-lamic State group.

The American president has repeat-edly said he will prevent Pyongyang from its goal of developing a nucle-ar-tipped ballistic missile capable of reaching the mainland United States.

A White House foreign policy ad-viser said that the US was assessing military options, and added that an-other provocative test was a question of “when” rather than “if.”

Satellite imagery analysis has noted activity at the North’s main nuclear test site ahead of today’s 105th an-niversary of the birth of the country’s founder leader Kim Il-sung.

The North’s sabre-rattling has en-couraged a rapprochement between Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, who met face-to-face for the fi rst time late last week at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.

Though his election campaign was marked with acerbic denouncements of China’s “rape” of the US economy, Trump dropped his anti-China bom-bast in Florida, afterwards hailing an “outstanding” relationship with Xi.

But he insists China - the North’s sole major ally and economic life-line - must exert more leverage on Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear am-bitions or suff er the consequences.

Beijing has long opposed dramatic action against the North, fearing the regime’s collapse would send a fl ood of refugees across its borders and leave the US military on its doorstep.

China’s state broadcaster CCTV announced yesterday that Air China - the only foreign carrier operating

commercial fl ights into North Korea - would suspend services to Pyongyang from next week.

The report gave no reason for the suspension, but noted that Air China has taken similar action in the past be-cause of low passenger volumes.

Despite the mounting tensions, there has been little sign of strain on the streets of Pyongyang in recent days, where the focus has been on preparations for today’s anniversary.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on Thursday unveiled the sprawl-ing Ryomyong street development, a prestige housing project repeatedly promised in time to mark the occasion.

Before the international press and tens of thousands of his adoring citizens, he cut a wide red ribbon to rhythmic cheers, before waving and returning to his Mercedes limousine.

A North Korean soldier looks through a pair of binoculars at a watch tower in Sinuiju, North Korea, just across from Dandong of China’s Liaoning province yesterday.

ARAB WORLD | Confl ict

Hundreds evacuated from four Syria townsHundreds of civilians and fighters who have been under crippling siege for more than two years left four Syrian towns in fleets of buses yesterday under a delayed evacuation deal. Men, women and children packed onto buses leaving government-controlled Fuaa and Kafraya and rebel-held Madaya and Zabadani, with many expressing despair at not knowing when they might return. The deal to evacuate the towns is the latest in a string of such agreements through Syria’s six-year civil war. Page 3

DPAIstanbul

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan aims to convene government offi cials to review the future of

Turkey’s relationship with Europe fol-lowing a key referendum on presiden-tial powers this weekend.

Erdogan told state-broadcaster TRT yesterday that Turkey, a candidate country to join the European Union, had been unduly left waiting outside the bloc.

“Turkey is not their scapegoat. Eve-ryone will know their place,” he said.

Tensions have been high between Turkey and Europe, especially Ger-many and the Netherlands, during the campaign, with Erdogan dubbing some leaders as “fascists” and accused them of behaving like “Nazis.”

Erdogan also predicted that the referendum on expanding his powers

would pass in tomorrow’s vote, saying polling research indicating a victory for the “yes” side.

“Some rates show below 55%, some show between 55 and 60%,” he said, with just one day left before cam-paigning closes.

Earlier in the day, Turkey’s EU Min-ister Omer Celik said he off ered to hold a summit with the bloc to discuss the future of bilateral ties after the ref-erendum.

“We have reached the lowest point in the crisis with the EU. To get out of that, what I have proposed to them is that a summit is needed,” he told Hab-erTurk channel.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu the day before was quot-ed by state-run news agency Anado-lu as saying the country would push ahead for a visa-free travel deal to Europe, adding this was tied to a mi-gration agreement reached last year. Page 8

Erdogan: Turkeyto review Europeties after vote

Duterte arrives in Doha

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte arrived yesterday in Doha on an off icial visit to the country. He was received upon arrival at Hamad International Airport by HE the Minister of Energy and Industry Dr Mohamed bin Saleh al-Sada, Qatar’s ambassador to the Philippines Ali bin Ibrahim al-Malki and Philippine ambassador Alan Timbayan.

AMERICA | Automobiles

Apple gets permit totest self-driving carsApple Inc has secured a permit to test autonomous vehicles in California, which allows it to conduct test drives in three vehicles with six drivers, the state Department of Motor Vehicles said yesterday. Although it has never openly acknowledged it is looking into building an electric car, Apple has recruited dozens of auto experts. The vehicles are all 2015 Lexus RX540h, according to the DMV. The permit does not necessarily mean Apple is building a car.

EUROPE | Migrants

Over 2,000 rescuedfrom MediterraneanMore than 2,000 migrants trying to reach Europe were plucked from the Mediterranean yesterday in a series of dramatic rescues and one person was found dead, off icials and witnesses said. An Italian coast guard spokesman said 19 rescue operations by the coast guard or ships operated by non-governmental organisations had saved a total of 2,074 migrants on 16 rubber dinghies and three small wooden boats.

AFGHANISTAN | Shock and awe

Huge US bomb killsdozens of IS militantsThe US military’s largest non-nuclear bomb killed dozens of Islamic State militants as it smashed their mountain hideouts, Afghan off icials said yesterday, ruling out any civilian casualties despite the weapon’s destructive power. The GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb - dubbed the “Mother Of All Bombs” - was unleashed in combat for the first time, hitting IS positions in eastern Nangarhar province on Thursday. Pae 11

Show of strength

North Korea’s military forces were massed in Pyongyang early today for a show of strength by leader Kim Jong-un as tensions mount over his nuclear ambitions. Hundreds of fl atbed trucks packed with soldiers lined the banks of the Taedong river in the predawn darkness for a parade through the North Korean capital. Ostensibly the event was to mark the 105th anniversary of the birth of Kim’s grandfather, the North’s founder Kim Il-Sung - a date known as the ‘Day of the Sun’ in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. But it is also intended to send an unmistakable message to Washington, Seoul, Tokyo and other capitals about the isolated, nuclear-armed North’s military might.

An ice-encrusted moon orbiting Saturn appears to have the conditions necessary for life, Nasa announced on Thursday, unveiling new findings made by its unmanned Cassini spacecraft.Cassini has detected hydrogen molecules in vapour plumes emanating from cracks in the surface of Enceladus, a small ocean moon coated in a thick layer of ice, the US space agency said.The plumes have led scientists to infer that hydrothermal chemical reactions between the moon’s rocky core and its ocean - located under the ice crust - are

likely occurring on Enceladus.On Earth, those chemical reactions allow microbes to flourish in hot cracks in the planet’s ocean floors - depths sunlight cannot reach - meaning the moon could also nourish life.“Now, Enceladus is high on the list in the solar system for showing habitable conditions,” said Hunter Waite, one of the study’s leading researchers.The new research, published on Thursday in the journal Science, “indicates there is chemical potential to support microbial systems,” he said.

Nasa fi ndings point to life on Saturn moon

QATAR

Gulf Times Saturday, April 15, 20172

Maid acquitted of theft

A Doha Criminal Court has acquitted a Sri Lankan maid accused of stealing

gold jewellery and cash from her employer.

Local Arabic daily Arrayah reported that the employer accused the maid of steal-ing QR4,500 from her hand-bag. She complained that when she searched the room of the maid, she found a bag hidden in the room. Inside the bag, there was QR4,800 and two bottles of expensive perfumes. Her daughter told her later that the perfumes belonged to her.

However, the employer did not report the maid to the po-lice, but when she went out-side the house with her family, the maid ran away after steal-ing some other pieces of gold jewellery, a branded medal and cash.

The lawyer of the maid argued that the case against the maid did not have any sold evidences oth-er than the claims of the employ-er, which were deemed doubtful as she waited six days before she submitted a complaint.

Court reviews case against ex-banker

The Court of Appeal has reviewed the case of an expatriate man con-

victed of misappropriating QR1.3mn while working as head of a department at a lo-cal bank, local Arabic daily Arrayah reported.

The Court of First Instance sentenced him to fi ve years in jail and subsequent deportation, and ordered him to repay the amount.

According to the case fi le, the defendant used a cheque belong-ing to a client of the bank and il-legally transferred QR1.3mn in US dollars to his personal account.

At the Court of Appeal his lawyer argued that the man could not be considered as an employee of the bank when the money was cashed as he had submitted his resignation two days earlier and the bank accepted it.

The lawyer also argued that the cheque was signed by the ac-count owner and approved by the bank. The case is still going on at the court.

Unesco ‘programmes with Qatar working very well’The United Nations Edu-

cational, Cultural and Scientifi c Organisation

(Unesco) offi ce in Doha is con-tinuously working with all the ministries in Qatar to imple-ment the sustainable develop-ment goals (SDGs), a senior of-fi cial has said.

Qatar is one of the two Arab countries that vol-untarily report their com-mitment and achievements on the SDGs, which has 17 goals, 169 targets and 229

indicators for measuring performance.

“Unesco’s joint programmes with Qatar are working very well, we bring technical knowl-edge and most of the substance around it but they make the facilitation to reach out the diff erent stakeholders on the fi eld,” Unesco representative for the Arab states of the Gulf and Yemen and Doha director Anna Paolini said.

These programmes cover education, natural sciences, so-cial, and human sciences, cul-ture; and communication and information; among others.

Paolini attributed some of

their recent achievements to the strong networks of local partners, including govern-ment bodies, universities, schools and the private sector in Qatar.

In education, Unesco Doha programme specialist Faryal Khan highlighted the co-oper-ation with national partners in developing policies and stra-tegic planning to monitor na-tional progress in implementing SDG 4, which focuses on quality education for all.

She said their education pro-gramme focuses on three stra-tegic objectives: high quality and inclusive lifelong learning

for all, empowering learners to be creative and responsible global citizens and leading and co-ordinating SDG 4 Education 2030 agenda.

“We provide technical and policy advice to the Ministry of Education to enable them to strengthen their capacity for educational policy and planning for Education 2030 agenda,” Khan said.

Unesco Doha education pro-gramme assistant Maricel Fern-andez explained the importance of Qatar National Research Fund-funded research on ex-ploring learning outcomes in the six GCC countries, includ-

ing Qatar, which will soon be published.

In culture, Unesco Doha cul-ture programme assistant Bo-jana Zivkovic focused on some of their initiatives that promote and preserve cultural heritage in Qatar, including the launch of the #Unite4Heritage campaign.

Some 50 World Heritage vol-unteers took part in the pro-gramme to protect and preserve the Al Zubarah World Heritage site.

In communication and in-formation, Unesco Doha senior programme assistant Marion Desmurger cited their Youth-Mobile project, which aims to

train youth in Qatar about mo-bile apps development and cod-ing for positive impact.

In natural sciences, Unesco Doha has been working with lo-cal partners, including the Min-istry of Municipality and En-vironment, to preserve natural heritage in the Al Reem Reserve, a protected area of 120,000 hec-tares in northwest Qatar.

“The fact that Unesco is host-ed in Qatar is a clear refl ection of the successful co-operation between our organisation and the multiple institutions here, including the Qatar National Commission to Unesco,” Paolini added.

By Joey AguilarStaff Reporter

350 complete disaster management campSome 350 trainees from

several Arab countries have completed Qatar

Red Crescent’s (QRCS) seventh Disaster Management Camp (DMC) at the Marine Scout Camp in Al Khor.

Organised under the pa-tronage of HE the Prime Minister and Interior Min-ister Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani and sponsored by the Social and Sport Contribution Fund, the camp aims to evaluate the preparedness and respon-

siveness of QRCS and other involved organisations.

In his speech, QRCS presi-dent Dr Mohamed bin Ghanem al-Ali al-Maadheed congratu-lated the trainees saying they were in touch with the underly-ing principles of our humani-tarian work over the past few days.

“Every one of you has a duty of educating society about all the knowledge that you have gained. Our message is centred around improving the lives of vulnerable people and alleviat-

ing their suff ering,” he noted.“One day, when you are in

the fi eld, you will feel the value of what you have learnt. As in medicine, humanitarian ac-tion involves treatment, reha-bilitation, and prevention,” Dr al-Maadheed added. “It is not enough to respond, you need to be proactive and ready for chal-lenges and this is possible only with training and education.”

After 10 days of practical training, the participants en-acted a disaster scenario that killed 3,000 victims, destroyed

Participants completed the 10-day practical training in Al Khor.

infrastructure and thousands of houses, and displaced nearly 120,000 people at an area al-ready hosting internally dis-placed people.

“The strong government sup-port added a regional and in-ternational dimension to this event. The active participation

by National Societies and non-governmental organisations helped make it such a distinctive success,” DMC manager Rashid Saad al-Mohannadi said.

DMC-7 was supported by several organisations and au-thorities, including the Ministry of Interior, the Permanent Com-

mittee for Emergency, Qatar Armed Forces, Lekhwiya, Fazaa, Doha Bank, General Directorate of Endowments, Ooredoo, Ha-mad Medical Corporation, Civil Defense, Qatar Scout and Guide Association, Doha Golf Club, Community Police, and Al Khor Sports Club.

Retrial of GCC man ordered

The Court of Appeal has ordered the retrial of a GCC man convicted by

the Court of First Instance for counterfeiting a cheque worth QR1mn.

Local Arabic daily Arrayah reported that at the fi rst level of litigation the defendant was convicted in absentia and sen-tenced to two years in jail and a bail of QR8,000 for temporary suspending the execution of the sentence.

The Court of Appeal accepted the appeal fi led by the defendant due to errors in the application of the law at the fi rst level. The de-fendant also asked the victim to submit the original cheque that he claimed to be counterfeited. The case is still going on at the court.

Students taking part in the second QU Math Championship.

QU-CAS engages 300 students in Math Championship

The Department of Mathematics, Statis-tics and Physics (MSP)

at Qatar University College of Arts and Sciences (QU-CAS) recently held the second QU Math Championship.

The initiative was aimed at providing students with a platform to help them discover their talents and build their analytical and creative skills, according to a statement.

Organised in collaboration with the QU Foundation Pro-gramme, the event engaged more than 300 students from across QU colleges. They had the opportunity to demon-strate their analytical and logi-cal skills.

Attendees included MSP Department head Dr Leena al-Sulaiti and faculty and staff from QU colleges of Arts and Sciences, and Business and Economics (CBE).

The event featured two lev-els according to the students’ background and competen-cies. The fi rst level was re-stricted to contestants from

the Foundation Programme, CAS and CBE, while the sec-ond was open to all QU stu-dents. Each level included one session for male contestants and two sessions for female contestants.

Commenting on the event, Dr al-Sulaiti said: “The main purpose of QU Math Champi-onships is to provide our stu-dents with a challenging and engaging mathematical expe-rience that is both competi-tive and educational. From the interest and participation of the students, I can say that the event turned out to be a great success.

“The event aligns with Qa-tar University’s role to produce graduates with increased ana-lytical and logical skills. With the introduction of Actuarial Mathematics through our BSc in Mathematics, we plan to build on the QU Math Cham-pionship experience to off er a wider service to the Qatari community by holding math activities open to high-school students in the State of Qatar.”

Delegation visits Bangladeshto inspect several QC projectsA delegation of Qatari

women benefactors or-ganised a visit to Bang-

ladesh, during which they found out about the situation in general, distributed gifts and income-generating projects among 2,000 people and in-spected a number of projects, multi-service centres, social care centres, schools and hos-pitals implemented by Qatar Charity (QC) in the country.

The delegation included Badriya al-Yaqout, QC’s direc-tor of the female department, Sheikha al-Muftah, female re-lations offi cer, and a number of women volunteers who had struggled to make it to the Bangladeshi villages and re-gions far from the capital to put a smile on the poor and needy people’s faces, according to a statement.

Upon the delegation’s arrival at Gouripur in Comilla district, they distributed among the poor vans, transport vehicles, sheep, farmland for some fami-lies, shops, 1,000 food baskets with several items, 200 men’s

shirts, 150 hoods, 150 shawls and 400 toys.

The delegation visited im-portant projects, including a medical camp for eye patients that conducted 500 surgeries that helped restore vision for a large number of people. Moreo-ver, the camp’s doctors provid-ed treatment to 300 patients, especially those suff ering from cataract disease, and distrib-uted glasses and free medicines for patients.

The delegation also visited Sheikha Noora bint Jassim al-Thani’s Training and Reha-bilitation Centre for Orphans, another training and rehabilita-tion centre for orphans owned by the family of Sheikh Ali bin Abdulaziz al-Thani, Eman Al Saad Centre and Noora Bint Rashid Al Nuaimi Mall.

“It is our great pleasure to pay a humanitarian visit in which we fi nd out about the living conditions of other peo-ples,” al-Yaqout said, assuring that the delegation was happy when they checked out QC’s projects implemented in dif-

Food bags among the items distributed by the women delegation.

ferent places, which helping the poor and needy, especially the humanitarian work done in the medical camp that treated eye diseases.

Besides, she expressed thanks and appreciation for mem-bers of the Qatari embassy in Bangladesh, headed by ambas-sador Ahmed bin Mohamed al-Dehaimi, who off ered sup-port and co-operation to the delegation for the visit. Further, she thanked the benefactors in Qatar for their eff orts and gen-

erosity, which resulted in the implementation of a number of charitable and humanitar-ian projects for those in need in Bangladesh.

Al-Muftah stressed that the visit “hit the highest point of success”, noting that the dele-gation was briefed on many QC projects. “It is such a pleasure to visit a country where you spot the magnitude of the aid off ered by the people of your country to the poor and the needy,” she said.

MIT professor to speak at HBKU’s climate seminarHamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU), in collaboration with MIT, will be hosting a seminar tomorrow on global climate change and its impact on the hydrology of the Nile and the ongoing water conflict. The lecture, titled “Hydrology and Climate of the Nile Basin: Past, Present, and the Future”, will be delivered by Dr Elfatih Eltahir, Breene M Kerr Professor of hydrology and climate and professor of civil and environmental engineering at

American university MIT. By reviewing the documented history of the regional climate over the Nile Basin, the lecture will delve into the role of the variations in the solar radiation in shaping regional climate over North Africa, which triggered the human migrations associated with the emergence of old pharaonic civilisation. The seminar will be taking place at the Cinema Hall of the HBKU Student Centre from 4pm to 6pm. Dr Elfatih Eltahir

QDA to host diabetes symposium today

Qatar Diabetes Association (QDA) will hold a symposium today on the topic ‘Fasting safely with Diabetes’ at Westin Hotel Doha at 6pm.The event is part of QDA’s annual activities prior to Ramadan and healthcare practitioners dealing with diabetes patients across the country are expected to take part in the programme.Dr Mohamed Hassanein consultant in endocrinology, Dubai Hospital, and senior lecturer, Cardiff University, UK, as well as chair of Diabetes and Ramadan International Alliance, will lead the symposium.According to the organisers, the symposium targets healthcare providers who are running diabetic clinics at Hamad Medical Corporation, Primary Health Care Corporation and private hospitals.The symposium will give inputs for the physicians and other healthcare professionals on advising diabetes patients to manage their health while fasting during Ramadan.

QNL organises workshop for ‘Books-Made in Qatar’ initiative

Qatar National Library (QNL), in collaboration with Hamad Bin Kha-

lifa University Press (HBKU Press), and the Goethe-Insti-tut Gulf Region, has conducted the second workshop of the ‘Books – Made in Qatar’ ini-tiative. The exercise, dedicated to the development of Qatari illustrators, was organised as part of the offi cial Qatar-Germany 2017 Year of Culture programme.

The fi ve-day workshop, which concluded on Thurs-day, gave participating illustra-tors the opportunity to work on sketches and storyboards with one of Germany’s best-known children’s and young adults’ book authors and illustrators, Ute Krause. The illustrators’

works were based on stories cre-ated and developed during the fi rst workshop of the initiative, which involved Qatari writers.

Workshop instructor Ute Krause shared her excitement in returning to Doha for the illustra-tors’ workshop, especially after the fi rst workshop, during which

she spent a wonderful week working with Qatari authors.

The completed illustrated stories from the project will be presented to the public at the Doha International Book Fair in December 2017 and one or more of the stories will be published by HBKU Press.

Krause with illustrators during the workshop.

REGION/ARAB WORLD3

Gulf Times Saturday, April 15, 2017

Buses evacuate hundreds from besieged Syria townsAFPRashidin, Syria

Hundreds of civilians and fi ghters who have been under crippling siege for

more than two years left four Syrian towns in fl eets of buses yesterday under a delayed evac-uation deal.

Men, women and children packed onto buses leaving gov-ernment-controlled Fuaa and Kafraya and rebel-held Madaya and Zabadani, with many ex-pressing despair at not knowing when they might return.

“When I fi rst went onto the bus, I broke down from sadness, I fell on the ground and they had to help me,” said Fuaa resident Abu Hussein.

“I just couldn’t bear it.”The deal to evacuate the towns

is the latest in a string of such agreements through Syria’s six-year civil war.

They have been touted by the government as the best way to end the fi ghting but rebels say they are forced out by siege and bombardment.

Critics say deals are perma-nently changing the ethnic and religious map, but in an exclusive interview with AFP this week President Bashar al-Assad in-sisted the evacuations were only temporary and people would return once the “terrorists” had been defeated.

At least 80 buses left Fuaa and Kafraya in Idlib province in the northwest, an AFP correspond-ent in rebel-held territory said.

They arrived at a marshalling point in Rashidin, west of sec-ond city Aleppo, followed by 20 ambulances.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 5,000 people had left the two towns, including 1,300 pro-government fi ghters.

The Observatory said 2,200 people from Zabadani and Ma-daya had left, among them 400 rebels.

Madaya resident Amjad al-Maleh, speaking from a depart-ing bus, said that rebels among the evacuees had been allowed to keep light weapons.

“It is a very bad feeling when you see those who besieged you and killed you with hunger and bombardment right in front of you,” Maleh said.

“Madaya cried today -- the ones who stayed and the ones who left.”

More than 30,000 people are expected to be evacuated un-der the deal, which began on Wednesday with an exchange of prisoners.

All 16,000 residents of Fuaa and Kafraya are expected to leave, heading to government-held Aleppo, the coastal prov-ince of Latakia, or Damascus.

Civilians from Madaya and Zabadani will reportedly be al-lowed to remain if they choose.

Those who opt to leave will head to rebel-held territory in Idlib.

The four towns are party to a longstanding agreement reached in 2015 that requires aid deliver-ies and evacuations to be carried out simultaneously.

But access has been limited, with food and medical shortages causing malnutrition, illness and even death among besieged resi-dents.

The UN says 4.72mn Syrians are in hard-to-reach areas, in-cluding 600,000 people under siege, mostly by the Syrian army, but also by rebels or the Islamic State group.

There has been a series of evacuations in recent month, mostly around the capital Da-mascus but also from the last rebel-held district of Syria’s third city Homs.

The rebels have charged that Assad’s regime is deliberately forcing civilians to leave to alter the country’s sectarian map.

But in Wednesday’s interview, the president said that it was the rebels who were driving people

from their homes.“We wish that everyone could

stay in his village and his city, but those people like many other civilians in diff erent areas were surrounded and besieged by the terrorists, and they’ve been killed on (a) daily basis, so they had to leave,” he said.

“But of course they’re going to go back to their cities after the liberation.”

Assad is facing renewed in-

ternational pressure after accu-sations his government carried out a suspected April 4 chemical weapons attack on a northern rebel-held town.

He said that reports of the at-tack were a “fabrication.”

French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault yesterday dis-missed Assad’s comments as “100% lies and propaganda.”

The Organisation for the Pro-hibition of Chemical Weapons is

probing the incident, but Rus-sian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov yesterday criticised the watchdog for failing to go to the site.

“We consider it unacceptable to analyse events from a dis-tance,” he said after meeting his Syrian and Iranian counterparts.

“They say still that it is not very safe, but they cannot put forward convincing arguments,” Lavrov said.

British woman stabbed to death

in JerusalemAFPJerusalem

A Palestinian man stabbed a British wom-an to death yesterday

near Jerusalem’s Old City, where thousands of Jewish and Christian pilgrims were gathered for religious holidays, police said.

The 23-year-old student was rushed to hospital with serious wounds but later died, according to the emergency services.

The attack took place on a tram close to the Old City, where thousands of Christians from around the world marked Good Friday as Jews marked the week-long Passover holi-day.

Israel’s domestic secu-rity agency Shin Bet named the man as Jamil Tamimi, a 57-year-old Palestinian resi-dent of east Jerusalem.

Israeli Prime Minister Ben-jamin Netanyahu blamed “ter-rorism” for the killing of the woman, whom he described as a student, in “cold blood”.

He said security forces had thwarted “several attempted attacks in recent days”, with-out giving details.

According to police, the as-sailant pulled a knife out of a bag and stabbed the woman several times in the chest.

An off -duty policeman trav-elling in the tram overpowered the attacker with the help of another passenger, the au-thorities said.

“I was travelling with my family when I heard the cries of ‘attack, attack’,” the offi cer said.

“I sounded the alarm then

rushed to the scene of the at-tack. We overpowered him.”

The Hebrew University re-leased a statement identifying the victim as Hannah Bladon, an exchange student from Britain’s University of Bir-mingham.

It said she had only started studying in Jerusalem in Janu-ary and had been due to com-plete a single semester.

Attacks targeting tourists are rare in Jerusalem and top Israeli offi cials voiced their dismay.

“I am fi lled with sadness, as I received the terrible news of the murder of a young girl in the terror attack in Jerusalem,” Israeli President Reuven Rivlin said.

“This week thousands have come through the ancient gates of Jerusalem, to celebrate the feasts of Passover and Easter throughout the city — while the security forces work to ensure the safety of the dear residents and visitors to the city.

And so we will continue to do. “Terror can never over-come us. Terror will never de-stroy our lives here.”

Police had been on high alert for Passover, when tens of thousands of Jews pray at the Western Wall inside the Old City and some visit the Al-Aq-sa mosque compound above it.

A wave of unrest which erupted in October 2015 has claimed the lives of 260 Pales-tinians, 41 Israelis, two Ameri-cans, one Jordanian, an Eri-trean, a Sudanese and a Briton, according to an AFP count.

Most of the Palestinians killed were carrying out knife, gun or car-ramming attacks, the Israeli authorities say.

Buses carrying Syrian evacuees are seen in the rebel-held town of Madaya leaving under a evacuation deal, yesterday.

Rouhani, hardline rival register for electionAFPTehran

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and hardline chal-lenger Ebrahim Raisi regis-

tered yesterday as candidates in next month’s election, setting up a bruising contest that could decide the future of the nation.

Rouhani, a politically moder-ate cleric, has won praise since his landslide win in 2013 for taming infl ation and reaching a groundbreaking nuclear deal with world powers that ended many sanctions.

But disappointment over Iran’s continued economic stagnation is palpable on the streets, creating an opening for conservative opponents, with judicial cleric Raisi emerging as their frontrunner.

Unemployment is stuck at 12%, the promised billions in foreign investment have not materialised, and Rouhani has failed to release political pris-oners, including reformist lead-ers under house arrest for their part in 2009 protests.

The aggressive stance of US President Donald Trump, who has slapped new sanctions on Iran and threatened to tear up the nuclear deal, has bolstered conservative claims that Rou-hani was duped by the West.

Rouhani, 68, hit back yes-terday, saying: “The preserva-tion of the (nuclear deal) is one of the most important political and economic issues in the Ira-nian nation. The stepmothers

who repeatedly tried to kill this baby cannot be good custodians for it.”

He said an “unprecedented” $20bn worth of new projects would be announced next week, which would also see gas pro-duction at the South Pars fi eld.

That follows government plans, outlined this week, to triple or even quadruple cash hand-outs to the poor — a move immediately criticised by oppo-nents as a transparent attempt to buy votes.

The conservatives remain divided, but Raisi appears to

have the most momentum. The 56-year-old judge, who currently runs the powerful charity-cum-business-empire Astan Qods Razavi, has em-phasised his concern for the poor and is seen as a close ally of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

He sought to reach across po-litical lines yesterday, saying: “I will be the candidate for the whole of Iran. I don’t limit my-self to a certain group, party or faction.

“Despite all the eff orts of pre-vious governments, the situa-

tion of the country is such that people ask why is there so much unemployment?” he said, add-ing that he would announce de-tailed economic plans at a later date. A potential spoiler ap-peared on Wednesday, when former hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made the shock move of register-ing for the election against Khamenei’s advice.

A clearer picture will emerge next week when the conserv-ative-controlled Guardian Council announces which of the near-1,000 registered can-

didates are allowed to run in the May 19 election.

Ardavan Amir-Aslani, a French-Iranian lawyer who advises European compa-nies setting up in Iran, said he would be surprised if Rouhani does not win re-election de-spite the economic malaise.

“He has at least stabilised the economy... and created a better business environment. But Rouhani has not been suc-cessful in opening up foreign investment,” he said.

“He inherited a bad situa-tion, but he created so much

expectation and nothing has changed for the guy on the street.”

Rouhani has also lost one of his main backers: heavy-weight former president Ak-bar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who passed away in January, played a key role in the surprising landslide victory in 2013.

But, crucially, Rouhani re-tains the unified support of moderates and reformists, who still see him as the best hope for change within the strict parameters of Iran’s re-ligious system.

A Syrian boy looks on as he receives treatment at a make-shift hospital following government shelling on the rebel-held town of Douma, on the eastern outskirts of the capital Damascus, yesterday.

US sanctions against commander’s brother ‘illegal’

Iran said yesterday that new US sanctions imposed against the brother of the high-profile commander of the Revolution-ary Guards’ foreign operations arm, Qassem Soleimani, were “illegal”.The US Treasury added So-hrab Soleimani, along with the Tehran Prisons Organisation which he recently oversaw, to its list of individuals and enti-ties facing sanctions on Thurs-day for alleged human rights violations. “The US govern-ment with its failed domestic and international record is not in a position to comment or

act on the human rights situa-tion in other countries,” foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi said.Sohrab is the younger brother of Major General Qassem Soleimani, who oversees Iranian operations in Iraq and Syria and has been repeatedly pictured visiting Iranian-led forces in both countries. The elder brother is already subject to US sanctions.Sohrab Soleimani was director general of the Tehran Prisons Organisation for 15 years, until he became a supervisor in the national prisons bureau in March 2016.

Reporters Without Borders said yesterday it was “appalled” at a death sentence handed to a veteran journalist by a court in Yemen’s rebel-held capital. The court in Sanaa, which is controlled by Iran-backed Houthi insur-gents, on Thursday found Yahya al-Jubaihi guilty of spying for a neighbouring country. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said it was the first death sentence issued against a journalist in Yemen.“This Houthi-imposed death sen-tence sets a dangerous precedent for journalists in Yemen,” said Alexandra El Khazen, the head of RSF’s Middle East desk. “Issued at the end of an unfair trial, it constitutes a grave violation of international law. We urge Houthi leaders to free this journalist at once,” she said.

Egyptian Copts observed a solemn Good Friday with prayers and fasting, as the community reeled from two church bombings that killed dozens on Palm Sunday. The government had declared a state of emergency and called in the army to protect “vital” installations follow-ing last week’s suicide bombings claimed by the Islamic State group. But in a reminder of sectarianism Copts often complain about, police off icials said some people fought with Christians who tried praying in an abandoned home in a southern village on Thursday then set fire to four nearby homes.

Rights group slams journo’s death sentence

Egypt Copts mark solemn Good Friday

CRITICISM

COMMEMORATION

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani registers to run for a second four-year term in the May election, in Tehran, yesterday.

Ebrahim Raisi, gestures after registering his candidacy for the upcoming presidential elections at the Ministry of Interior in the capital Tehran.

AFRICA

Gulf Times Saturday, April 15, 20174

Nigerians held rallies in major cities yester-day to mark three years

since the mass abduction of 276 schoolgirls by Boko Haram ex-tremists.

Spearheading the rallies was the Bring Back Our Girls move-ment, which has been urging the government of President Mu-hammadu Buhari to ramp up ef-forts to free the 195 girls still be-lieved held by the radical Islamic group.

One rally was being held in the capital Abuja, where Nigeria’s second most infl uential tradi-

tional Muslim leader, the Emir of Kano, was to make an address and lead prayers.

Parents of the missing were congregating at the school where their daughters aged 12 to 17 were kidnapped in the northeastern village of Chibok on April 14, 2014.

Participants were set to plant trees as a symbolic gesture in memory of the missing girls.

Another rally was due in the country’s commercial centre La-gos.

Fifty-seven girls escaped in the immediate aftermath of the kidnapping while three others were later found or rescued by the military.

Some had babies in captivity.

Last October, 21 were freed after negotiations between Boko Haram and the Nigerian gov-ernment brokered by the Inter-national Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Swiss gov-ernment.

The Chibok schoolgirls have become a symbol of the Boko Haram insurgency that began in 2009 and has left at least 20,000 people dead.

Despite a military fi ght-back, villages near Chibok, which is 125km (80 miles) by road from the Borno state capital, Maidug-uri, have seen a wave of suspect-ed Boko Haram attacks in recent months.

A presidential spokesman said on Wednesday that negotiations

were ongoing with “foreign enti-ties” for the release of those still held by the fundamentalist group active in Nigeria’s northeast and which has pledged allegiance to Islamic State (IS).

As the country prepares to mark the third anniversary of the mass kidnapping yesterday, Garba Shehu told the BBC in a radio interview that there were ongoing negotiations to release the 195 girls believed still be be-ing held by Boko Haram.

“Talks are ongoing through other means with the help of some foreign entities to free more schoolgirls,” Shehu said during an interview with BBC Hausa. “These talks are going on with the help of some countries.”

“You can recall the 21 school-girls were freed with the help of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and Swiss government offi cials who got in-volved in the negotiations. These two have not withdrawn their support in the negotiations,” Shehu said.

“There are also other countries that are lending support to the negotiations by being involved in the talks,” he added.

“(The) government is in con-stant touch through negotia-tions, through local intelligence to secure the release of the re-

maining girls and other abducted persons unharmed,” President Buhari said in a statement on Thursday. “On this solemn occa-sion, my appeal is that we must not lose hope on the return of our remaining schoolgirls.”

Having started as an extrem-ist sect, Boko Haram has mush-roomed in recent years into an ultra-violent Islamist militant movement which uses mass kid-napping as a recruitment tool.

In December, Buhari trium-phantly announced the “fi nal crushing” of the group, which he described as being “on the run”

after an army off ensive fl ushed them out of their stronghold in the huge Sambisa forest.

Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau denied the claim and said that some of the abducted girls were killed in Nigerian airstrikes against his group.

Support from abroad came in the shape of a British government statement on Friday.

“We are working side by side with Nigeria in the fi ght against Boko Haram and call for the re-lease of all those who have been taken,” a foreign ministry state-ment read.

Nigeria marks three years since Chibok kidnapsAFPLagos President Buhari and Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo receiving the 21 Chibok schoolgirls released by Boko

Haram, in Abuja on October 19 last year.

Congolese authorities have arrested two people sus-pected of involvement in

the murder of two UN workers in central Democratic Republic of the Congo, but one of the prisoners has escaped, a senior prosecutor said yesterday.

The announcement was the fi rst reported sign of progress in an in-quiry into the deaths of American Michael Sharp and Swede Zaida Catalan, investigators monitoring United Nations Security Council sanctions against individuals and

armed groups in the Congo.Their bodies were discovered in

a shallow grave on March 27, two weeks after they disappeared in the remote and sparsely populated Kasai-Central province.

Their Congolese interpreter and three Congolese motorbike drivers who accompanied them have not yet been found, according to the United Nations.

General Joseph Ponde, the ar-my’s top prosecutor, did not say when the two suspects were ar-rested, but said the remaining one had been transferred between fa-cilities on April 4 – meaning that the operation must have happened more than a week ago.

He referred to the one suspect in custody, Daniel Mbayi Kabasele, as an “insurgent”, without off ering further detail or suggesting a mo-tive.

Four police offi cers responsible for guarding the suspects had been arrested following the escape, he told journalists.

The UN mission in the Congo had no immediate comment.

Millions died in regional con-fl icts in eastern Congo between 1996-2003, most from hunger and disease, and dozens of armed groups continue to fi ght over re-sources and prey on the civilian population.

Hundreds have been killed and

more than one million displaced since last August in central Con-go’s Kasai region due to fi ghting between a local militia and security forces.

The United Nations has identi-fi ed at least 23 mass graves.

Meanwhile, the Congo has sus-pended its military co-operation with former colonial power Bel-gium in protest against criticism last week by Belgium’s foreign minister of President Joseph Ka-bila’s selection of a new prime minister, defence minister Crispin Atama Tabe told Reuters yesterday.

The move underlines grow-ing tensions between the Congo and international powers, who are

pushing for an election by the end of the year to replace Kabila after he refused to step down when his constitutional mandate expired in December.

Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders said the nomination of Bruno Tshibala violated the spirit of a December deal with the op-position to form an interim power-sharing government.

Belgian defence ministry spokeswoman Laurence Mortier confi rmed that the Congo had in-formed Belgium of its intention to end the co-operation, which in-cluded around 30 Belgian military trainers in the Congo who may be withdrawn as a result.

Two suspects in Congo murder of UN workers arrestedReutersKinshasa

The World Food Programme (WFP) has condemned the deaths of three contract

workers in fi ghting that engulfed South Sudan’s second-largest city Wau earlier this week.

At least 16 civilians were killed in clashes that started with a rebel ambush of government troops near Wau on Sunday before spread-ing into the city the following day,

according to the UNMISS peace-keeping mission.

The WFP said in a statement that three South Sudanese who had been contracted as porters were killed while trying to get through the fi ghting to a warehouse used by the food agency in the town.

Two were hacked to death with machetes and one was shot, the statement said.

“We are outraged and heartbro-ken by the deaths of our colleagues, who worked every day to help pro-vide life-saving food to millions

of their fellow countrymen,” WFP country director Joyce Luma said.

The clash in Wau was the latest spasm of violence to rock South Sudan since a power struggle be-tween President Salva Kiir and his former deputy Riek Machar led to a civil war in 2013.

In a statement yesterday, Hu-man Rights Watch (HRW) said that government soldiers carried out “collective punishment” in Wau against people of minority ethnic groups that are seen to be support-ing Machar.

Witnesses, including a local priest, had also told AFP that they saw targeted killings by govern-ment troops of civilians suspected of backing the rebels.

“The pattern of abuses by gov-ernment forces against civilians in Wau has become predictable, with soldiers taking revenge against unarmed civilians based on their ethnicity,” Daniel Bekele, HRW’s senior director for Africa advocacy said in a statement. “The South Sudan authorities need to call a halt to the killings, investigate, and

bring those responsible to justice.”The International Organisation

of Migration (IOM) said on Thurs-day that the clashes caused 8,000 people to fl ee the city, joining more than 3.5mn South Sudanese who have become internally displaced or who fl ed the country due to the crisis.

Aid workers have regularly come under attack or had their work im-peded in the civil war, contributing to a man-made famine aff ecting 100,000 people and threatening another one million in the country.

WFP says contract workers killed in South Sudan fi ghtingAFPJuba

An Ivory Coast court con-victed six former soldiers for the kidnapping, tor-

ture and murder of four foreign-ers in 2011 during a civil war that following a disputed election, the prosecution said.

Gunmen kidnapped the four victims – two Frenchmen, a Be-ninese and a Malaysian – from the Novotel hotel in Abidjan in April 2011 and took them to the presidential palace where they were tortured and killed, accord-ing to a court statement from the public prosecutor.

The former soldiers, sentenced on Thursday evening, were loyal to former president Laurent Gbagbo, who triggered the con-fl ict by his refusal in 2010 to ac-cept defeat in a run-off against current President Alassane Ouattara.

The soldiers’ victims included the Novotel’s French manager Stephane Frantz di Rippel and French citizen Yves Lambelin, then-president of agro-indus-trial company Sifca.

The other two were also busi-nessmen.

A month later, two corpses

were found in Abidjan’s lagoon, one of which was that of Lam-belin, who appeared to have been executed with a bullet to the head with a medical report showing multiple fractures to the limbs, the prosecution said.

“The verdict was exactly what we wanted: the chain of com-mand was recognised as respon-sible,” Pierre-Olivier Sur, lawyer for the families of the French vic-tims, told AFP.

Despite the trial, the prosecu-tion was unable to discover the location of the other victims’ bodies.

Former police chief Osee Loguey was sentenced to 20 years in prison while General Bruno Dogbo Ble, then-commander of

the elite Republican Guard, to 18 years.

Four other members of the military were handed sentences of 18 years or shorter for kidnap-ping, torture and complicity in murder.

A further four were acquitted.More than 3,000 people were

killed in the four-month confl ict, which ended when Ouattara’s forces, backed by the French army, arrested Gbagbo.

The former president is on tri-al at the International Criminal Court for crimes against human-ity allegedly committed during the confl ict.

Dogbo Ble’s lawyer Rodrigue Dadje said yesterday that his cli-ent would lodge an appeal.

Gbagbo ex-general jailed over 2011 murder of foreignersReuters/AFPAbidjan

Gbagbo: triggered civil war by his refusal in 2010 to accept his election defeat.

Crop-eating caterpillars known as fall army-worms have damaged

crops across southern Ethiopia, the latest country to be struck by the pests in a region already struggling with widespread drought and hunger, authorities said on Thursday.

In March, Uganda confi rmed

that the caterpillars had at-tacked crops on farms in about 20 districts in the country, while neighbouring Kenya has dis-patched a team of scientists and other experts to investigate re-ports of their appearance.

In a statement, Ethiopia’s farming ministry said the pests have so far damaged crops in nearly 10,700 hectares of land in the country’s Oromiya area and a region known as SNNP, which is short for Southern Nations,

Nationalities, and People.“Thirty-fi ve thousand litres

of chemicals have been pur-chased and distributed to spray aff ected areas with insecticide,” said Zebdios Selato, the body’s director for plant healthcare.

The attacks could further af-fect agricultural output in a country where a drought has left 5.6mn people needing food aid.

Drought and confl ict have put four countries in the region at risk of mass starvation – north-

east Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen – according to the UN refugee agency.

The caterpillar is native to North and South America, though it has already spread to other parts of Africa including Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, South Africa, Namibia, Mozam-bique and the Democratic Re-public of the Congo.

The United Nations fears it could reach Asia and the Medi-terranean in the next few years.

Armyworms ravage crops in EthiopiaReutersAddis Ababa

Tanzania orders ‘kingpin’ extraditedTanzania has ordered the extradition to the United States of an alleged drug kingpin said to have overseen a global network smuggling heroin and cocaine, a judicial source said yesterday.The ruling on Ali Khatib Haji Hassan, known as Shkuba, and two other Tanzanian associates came on Wednesday at a court in Dar es Salaam after a request from the US, according to the source who spoke on condition of anonymity.A judge “authorised the extradition of the three men to the United States to answer the charges against them.But they remain in Tanzania until the government organises their transfer”, the source told AFP.Hassan was designated a “major international drug kingpin” by the United States in 2016.The US accuses him of smuggling “multi-tonne shipments of heroin and cocaine to Africa, Europe, Asia, and North America via his East Africa-based drug traff icking organisation”.Hassan was arrested in Tanzania in 2014 for smuggling 210kg (462 pounds) of heroin seized two years earlier.According to a statement by US Treasury, since at least 2006 Hassan has directed members of his network to send shipments of heroin to China, Europe, the US and other destinations.According to the statement Hassan had frequently attempted to bribe African government off icials to avoid arrest and prosecution.

Gunmen kill eight police off icersGunmen have ambushed and killed eight police off icers in eastern Tanzania, the presidency said yesterday, the latest in a string of killings targeting politicians and security off icers in the country.“President John Pombe Magufuli is surprised and very sorry to learn of the news of the death of eight police off icers killed last night by armed people,” Tanzania’s presidency said in a statement.The police off icers came under attack in their vehicle on Thursday in the eastern region of Kibiti as they returned from patrol, and their assailants fled into a nearby forest, the statement said.Head of police investigations Nsato Mssanzya said that one off icer was wounded in the assault, which he blamed on “banditry”.Four people suspected of being involved in the attack were killed in a shootout with security forces later that night, he said.“Enough is enough. We have just launched a special operation to get our hands on the culprits,” Mssanzya said.The dead off icers were part of a unit deployed to pacify the region south of Tanzania’s largest city Dar Es Salaam.Local authorities say nine off icials belonging to Magufuli’s ruling Chama cha Mapinduzi (CCM) have been killed in the coastal districts of Kibiti and Rufiji since last October.A separate attack killed three police off icers in the area last month.The killings, and uncertainty over the motive, have spread fear throughout local government in the region.

AMERICAS5Gulf Times

Saturday, April 15, 2017

Brazil’s President Michel Temer has denied that he hosted a meeting in 2010

where an executive of engi-neering fi rm Odebrecht SA was asked to arrange an illegal pay-ment of $40mn to his political party.

The graft accusation, which Temer dismissed as “a lie”, was made in plea bargain testimo-ny by Marcio Faria da Silva, a former vice-president of the in-dustrial arm of scandal-plagued Odebrecht.

Though potentially damaging to his credibility, and eff orts to shore up Latin America’s big-gest economy, Faria’s allegation does not threaten Temer’s hold on power.

As president, he has tempo-rary immunity for anything that occurred before he took offi ce last year.

The accusation was made public on Wednesday as part of a rash of plea bargain deals by 77 Odebrecht executives caught up in a massive corruption scheme.

Faria said he met with Temer in 2010 in his Sao Paulo legal of-fi ce, together with former lower house speaker Eduardo Cunha and Congressman Henrique Ed-uardo Alves, all members of the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB).

At the meeting, the payment was requested as a 5% levy on a contract that Odebrecht was seeking from state oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA’s for the maintenance of assets in nine countries, Faria said.

Temer confi rmed in a video statement posted on social me-dia that he took part in a meet-ing with a company executive in 2010 but there was no talk of an illegal donation.

“It is a lie that in that meeting I heard any reference to money or any shady dealings between the company and politicians,” the president said.

Earlier on Thursday, Temer’s offi ce confi rmed in a separate statement that he met Faria in 2010 in the presence of Cunha for a “quick and superfi cial” meeting, but denied that Alves participated.

Representatives for Alves and Cunha, who is in prison pending trial on other charges, could not be reached for comment.

The testimony by Faria was among the dozens of plea bar-gain testimonies that have been released by Supreme Court Jus-

tice Luiz Edson Fachin.Based on the testimony,

Fachin ordered investigations into nearly 100 politicians as part of the Operation Car War probe into billions of dollars in bribes and illegal kickbacks on contracts with state companies, particularly Petrobras.

The allegations come as Te-mer is trying to push an over-haul of Brazil’s pension system through Congress, part of a business-friendly agenda that has sparked a rise in Brazil’s stockmarket and currency.

Congress is due to start dis-cussions of the reform next week.

Some lawmakers said on Thursday that the government would look to speed up the pass-ing of reforms now that so many politicians were under investi-gation, but admitted that such a move might prove diffi cult.

In his testimony, Faria alleged that, while Temer did not speak about any fi gures, Cunha made it clear that a payment was ex-pected.

“He explained that we were seeking a contract with Petro-bras. A commitment that it would be signed would require a very important contribution to the party,” Faria said, adding it was clear that a bribe was being sought.

Once the contract was won, the payment was made in cash in Brazil and to foreign bank ac-counts, Faria said.

He said the PMDB took 4% of the value of the contract, leaving 1% for the left-leaning Workers Party of then-president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Odebrecht’s former chief executive Marcelo Odebrecht, currently jailed for his part in the Car Wash scheme, said in a separate plea bargain deal that he had made available $40mn to Lula.

He said the payment was ne-gotiated via a minister, not with Lula himself.

Lula also denied any wrong-doing on Thursday while hint-ing that he was gearing up for presidential elections next year, despite fi ve court cases pending against him related to Operation Car Wash.

Elected as Brazil’s fi rst work-ing class president in 2002 and returned to offi ce four years lat-er, Lula is ahead in opinion polls for the 2018 vote.

“I will fi ght if they let me fi ght and I will prove that this country can be happy again,” Lula said, adding that “plea bargains have to be proved”.

Temer says $40mn bribe claim is a lieReutersBrasilia/Rio de Janeiro

Temer: It is a lie that in that (2010) meeting I heard any reference to money or any shady dealings between the company and politicians.

Not much about Donald Trump’s administration has followed presidential

tradition, and here’s another ex-ample: it is asking the American people what government depart-ments and agencies they would like to see reformed or even axed.

Options include the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the State Department, the Depart-ment of Homeland Security, and even the Executive Offi ce of the President.

A website created by the Direc-tor of the Offi ce of Management and Budget (itself among the choices) allows people to make suggestions as Trump moves to make good on a pledge to stream-line a bureaucracy he derides as bloated and ineffi cient.

A questionnaire on the White House website lists 20 depart-ments or agencies of the US fed-eral government and more than 100 offi ces within them.

Above this menu is the ques-tion, “What agency would you like to reform?”

Further down is the question “What agency would you like to eliminate?” and then a menu for people to give a reason.

The options include the idea

that such and such an offi ce is not necessary, duplicates the work of another department, or should not be the work of the federal government in the fi rst place.

People can also write in their own reasons.

Reorganising the government was one of Trump’s main cam-paign pledges.

In a video that features on this webpage, Mick Mulvaney, direc-tor of the Offi ce of Management and Budget, reaches out to peo-ple with “any experience with the federal government, if you’ve had good stories, or bad stories about how the federal govern-ment has served or failed to serve you”.

“President Trump calls it draining the swamp,” he said, adding “and we can’t do that without your help”.

After taking power, Trump im-posed a temporary hiring freeze on the federal government.

It was replaced this week by what Mulvaney calls a more stra-tegic plan that does a staffi ng analysis department by depart-ment.

Over the next 11 months the administration wants to carry out a complete overhaul of fed-eral departments and agencies, for example by merging some.

“This is really a blank sheet of paper,” Mulvaney told a news conference on Tuesday.

US government asks public which departments to axeAFPWashington

A man opened fire aboard a moving Atlanta metro train on Thursday, killing one man and wounding three other passengers before the suspected gunman was arrested at the next station, a police spokesman said.The gunfire erupted aboard a Blue Line train about 4.30pm shortly after it left a station on the city’s west side, Joseph Dorsey, deputy chief of the MARTA police, said at a news conference. MARTA is the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority.“As the train was in motion, the suspect fired several shots toward the victims,” Dorsey said.

The three people who were wounded are expected to survive, Dorsey said.A fifth person suff ered an ankle injury as passengers scrambled away from the gunman.All the victims, as well as the suspected gunman, were in their 30s, Dorsey said.The shooting was “targeted, but isolated”, MARTA’s police chief Wanda Dunham said, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution newspaper.Police detained the suspected gunman at the train’s next stop, West Lake Station, and recovered a weapon, Dorsey said.

One killed, three wounded in Atlanta metro shooting

A US doctor in Detroit has been arrested and charged with car-rying out female genital muti-

lation (FGM) on girls aged six to eight, prosecutors said on Thursday.

Emergency room doctor Jumana Na-garwala, 44, of Northville, Michigan, is accused of carrying out the widely con-demned practice – illegal in the United States – for 12 years from a medical of-fi ce in Livonia, Michigan.

She appeared in a US federal court in Detroit on Thursday and was remanded into custody until at least Monday, said a spokeswoman for the US attorney’s offi ce.

If convicted at trial she faces a maxi-mum sentence of life behind bars.

Congress passed a law in 1996 mak-ing it illegal to perform genital mutila-tion or cutting in the United States on anyone under than 18.

Twenty-fi ve US states also have laws prohibiting the practice.

Prosecutors in Michigan say they believe it is the fi rst case of its kind brought under the federal law.

Some of Nagarwala’s victims trav-elled from outside Michigan and were told not to talk about the procedure, prosecutors said.

“Dr Nagarwala is alleged to have performed horrifying acts of brutal-ity on the most vulnerable victims,” said acting Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Blanco. “The Department of

Justice is committed to stopping female genital mutilation in this country, and will use the full power of the law to en-sure that no girls suff er such physical and emotional abuse.”

“The practice has no place in modern society and those who perform FGM on minors will be held accountable under federal law,” said acting US Attorney Daniel Lemisch.

In 2006, a court in Georgia found a man guilty of sexually mutilating his two-year-old daughter with a pair of scissors, in what was then the fi rst re-corded case of female genital mutila-tion in the United States.

The Ethiopian immigrant was sen-tenced to 10 years in prison for aggra-vated battery and cruelty to children for the 2001 crime.

The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimated that 513,000 women and girls in the United States in 2012 were at risk of or had been subjected to female genital muti-lation or cutting.

The estimate was three times higher than one based on 1990 data, due to increased immigration from countries where genital mutilation is practised.

Globally, at least 200mn girls and women alive today have suff ered some form of FGM across 30 countries, ac-cording to the United Nations.

While concentrated in Africa, it is common in some communities in South Asia, Arab states and Latin America.

Half of those cut live in Egypt, Ethio-pia, and Indonesia, according to the UN.

US doctor held, charged with carrying out FGMAFPNew York

Ecuador’s electoral council approved late on Thursday night a partial recount of votes in the recent disputed presidential election, in a bid to highlight what it says was a fair process after the losing conservative candidate said there was fraud.The April 2 election was won by the government’s socialist candidate Lenin Moreno in a close contest, rebutting a tide of market-friendly governments that have recently come to power in South America.The recount of the equivalent of 1.2mn votes, which would account for 12% of the total votes cast, will take place on Tuesday in public in the capital Quito.The council has not disclosed what sort of ballots would be recounted.“We are going to open the polls ... to show the country the truth. We have nothing to hide,” said Juan Pablo Pozo, head of the electoral council.Despite winning, Moreno’s party has also disputed the results, saying that he won by a larger margin than the tally showed.Moreno won 51.16% of valid votes versus 48.84% for his opponent Guillermo Lasso, with 99.65% of votes counted, according to the electoral council.Lasso, a 61-year-old former banker, declared himself the winner of the vote before any off icial announcement was made.The Opec country’s new president is to be inaugurated on May 24.

Partial vote recount ordered in Ecuador

As United Airlines struggles to recover from the public rela-tions disaster sparked when a

passenger was violently removed from a fl ight in Chicago, the airport security offi cers involved in the incident are facing tough scrutiny.

Offi cials in the midwestern US city are looking at why the three offi cers – all now placed on administrative leave – were on the plane in the fi rst place, amid criticism from elected offi cials and the United pilots’ union.

The offi cers – who are unarmed and meant to back up local law enforce-ment – were called by airline employ-ees after the passenger, David Dao, re-

fused to give up his seat for crew that needed to be repositioned for other fl ights.

The resulting altercation left Dao with a broken nose, concussion and other injuries, according to his law-yers, who have said he is likely to sue.

But Jeff Redding, who is in charge of safety and security at the Chicago De-partment of Aviation, which operates O’Hare International Airport, says that airport security offi cers are not supposed to respond to such calls.

“If it is a customer service-related incident, then you don’t need to board the plane at all,” Redding told a group of Chicago city council members.

The offi cial however could not im-mediately say how his offi cers were in-structed about the use of force.

The agency did not immediately re-

spond to AFP’s request for comment.Once the offi cers were on the plane,

they bungled the situation, according to United’s pilots’ union.

The United Master Executive Coun-cil on Thursday accused the security offi cers of actions that were “grossly inappropriate”.

“For reasons unknown to us, instead of trained Chicago Police Department offi cers being dispatched to the scene, Chicago Department of Aviation per-sonnel responded,” the union said.

The airport security offi cers, while required to meet minimum police standards and go through academy training, are not in fact police, and cannot carry guns or arrest people.

“We are going to thoroughly review every aspect of our operation,” said Chicago’s aviation chief Ginger Evans.

Chicago airport security under fi reAFPChicago

6 Gulf TimesSaturday, April 15, 2017

ASIA/AUSTRALASIA

Jong-nam murder suspects fear ‘trial by ambush’: lawyerReutersKuala Lumpur

The two women charged with killing the estranged half-brother of North Ko-

rea’s leader appeared in a Malay-sian court in bullet-proof vests as one of their lawyers warned they feared “trial by ambush” with police not sharing evidence.

Indonesian Siti Aishah, 25, and Doan Thi Huong, 28, from Vi-etnam, face the death penalty if convicted of murdering Kim Jong-nam at Kuala Lumpur Interna-tional airport on February 13.

The two women have been accused of smearing Kim’s face with the toxic VX nerve agent, a chemical described by the United Nations as a weapon of mass de-struction.

Aishah and Huong have told diplomats from their countries that they had believed they were carrying out a prank for a real-

ity television show, and not a murder. US and South Korean offi cials say the murder was or-chestrated by the North’s leader, Kim Jong-un. Kim Jong-nam, the eldest son of the late North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, had spoken out publicly against his family’s dynastic control of the isolated, nuclear-armed nation.

Lawyers for Aishah and Huong told the court that police had not responded to requests to pro-vide evidence including CCTV

recordings and statements from three North Korean suspects al-lowed to leave Malaysia. The three were allowed to go home late last month, along with the body of Kim Jong-nam, as part of a swap deal with North Korea, which had banned nine Malay-sians from leaving there.

“We’ve lost an opportunity to cross-examine them ... There should be no trial by ambush,” Aishah’s lawyer, Gooi Soon-seng, told reporters outside the court. Gooi also said one of the three suspects who was allowed to leave Malaysia, Ri Ji-u, also known as James, was a key witness and his

departure had “compromised” the defence. Hisyam Teh, Huong’s lawyer, requested police to furnish evidence such as photos and com-munications from the two phones seized from her.

Malaysia’s inspector-general of police, Khalid Abu Bakar, de-nied that police had “compro-mised” the case or refused to co-operate with the defence, saying some evidence “can only be pro-vided during the trial”.

“We can’t be producing all evidence here now,” Khalid told a news conference. Four other North Koreans have also been identifi ed by Malaysian police as suspects. They are believed to have left Kuala Lumpur for Pyongyang on the day of the killing.

The magistrate court was set to hear a prosecutors’ request that the two women be tried jointly in a higher court, but the hearing was deferred to May 30 after the prosecution asked for more time to collect documents.

Kim Jong-nam.

Vietnamese national Doan Thi Huong is escorted by Malaysian police after a court appearance.

Indonesian Siti Aisyah, charged for the murder of Kim Jong-nam, is escorted by police as she leaves a Sepang court in Malaysia.

Japan’s Crown Prince Naruhito off ers a floral tribute at the National Monument in Kuala Lumpur yesterday. Naruhito is on a five-day visit to Malaysia.

Royal tribute

S Koreans not too concerned about possibility of warReutersSeoul

Many South Koreans marked “Black Day” yesterday, but it had

nothing to do with concerns that North Korea may conduct a weapons test, or that the United States, the South’s main ally, may launch a pre-emptive strike to stop it.

It had nothing to do with Good Friday or Black Friday ei-ther. “Black Day” in South Korea is a day for singles, marked by eating “jajangmyeon”, a noodle dish topped with a thick sauce made of black beans. It’s cel-ebrated by singles as a response to “White Day”, an Asian Valen-tine’s Day which falls a month earlier, on March 14.

As tensions grew to a fever pitch elsewhere over the likeli-hood of North Korea conducting a nuclear or long-range mis-sile test, possibly this weekend, there was little sign of concern in South Korea’s capital, Seoul, which lies within range of the North’s artillery. “Outside South Korea, some people are worried, but we don’t feel like that in our daily lives,” said Choi Na-young, an offi ce worker in

central Seoul. “All I can do is just try my best and work hard,” said Choi, as she queued for noodles with colleagues. “So no matter what the outside world thinks, I came here to enjoy Black Day”.

“Black Day” was trending on Twitter and was the lead-ing news item on the Naver web portal in South Korea, which has one of the world’s highest percentage of Internet users as a percentage of population.

The nonchalance about the possibility of confl ict with the North has grown in recent years in the South, which remains technically in a state of war with its neighbour.

The 1950-53 war between the two ended in an armistice, and no peace treaty was signed. In 1994, when North Korea’s founding president Kim Il-sung died, there was panic in South Korea that confl ict could be just around the corner.

And when North Korea shelled the South Korean border island of Yeonpyeong in 2010, some South Koreans stocked up on dried food and canned goods, fearing the skirmish could esca-late into a full-blown war.

Over time, however, senti-ment has changed and South

Koreans, especially young peo-ple, have become used to the bellicose rhetoric and nuclear bluster in the region.

Retailers in Seoul said there was no indication that people were hoarding food or goods in preparation for a confl ict. “There is no panic buying. None at all,” said a spokesman at the Lotte Mart supermarket.

After North Korea’s third

nuclear test in 2013, the most talked-about term on South Korean web portals and social media networks was “Innis-free”, a popular cosmetics brand which had just announced big discounts. “Usually, the farther one is from Korea, the more one expects there to be war,” said Andrei Lankov, a North Korea expert at Seoul’s Kookmin Uni-versity.

Japan discusses evacuation of citizens

Japan’s National Security Council discussed how to evacuate its nearly 60,000 citizens from South Korea in the event of a crisis, a government off icial said yesterday, amid rising concern over North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme.North Korea denounced the United States yesterday for bringing “huge nuclear strategic assets” to the Korean peninsula as a US aircraft carrier group headed for the region amid concerns the North may conduct a sixth nuclear test. Besides commercial ships and planes, Japan would want to send military aircraft and ships to

assist in the evacuation if the South Korean government agreed, the off icial, familiar with the discussion, said. He declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the topic.The NSC, in a meeting on Thursday, also discussed how to cope with a possible flood of North Korean refugees into Japan, among whom might be North Korean spies and agents, Japanese media reported.Tension has risen since the US Navy fired 59 Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian airfield last week in response to a deadly gas attack, raising concerns about US President Donald Trump’s plans for North Korea.

Refurbished and rental planes in vogue as China’s jet-set seek valueReutersShanghai

China’s rich are forego-ing fancy new private jets in favour of second-

hand planes or rentals, refl ect-ing how the country’s business elite are increasingly shunning fl ashy signs of wealth amid slower economic growth.

Planemakers such as Em-braer and Bombardier are shift-ing focus to after-sales services in response, while brokers are refurbishing older jets or hir-ing out planes as the once high-fl ying industry braces for its weakest growth in a decade.

Dealers at one of Asia’s top industry shows in Shanghai this week said second-hand jets now made up more than half of sales to wealthy Chinese entre-preneurs and corporations, up from under a third two years ago. Chinese buyers, who began purchasing new business jets 30 years ago, were also becom-ing more pragmatic about buy-ing cheaper, second-hand jets and giving them a makeover, they said.

“Now ... while you can still get a Gulfstream 550 for around

$50mn for a new one, you can get an extremely adequate aer-oplane for $30mn,” said David Dixon, president of business jet brokerage Jetcraft Asia. “So $20mn is a lot of money to any-body.”

In part the shift refl ects a broader trend that is making life tougher for fi rms selling luxury goods in the world’s second biggest economy, as Chinese buyers increasingly push for bargains on every-thing from high-end handbags to holidays. In such a market, where new planes quickly lose their value, dealers said sec-ond-hand jets were simply a less risky bet.

“When the economic climate is going down, there’s fewer buyers in the market honestly, so the depreciation rate is high-er,” said Jackie Wu, president of Hong Kong-based plane broker and charter fi rm JetSolution Aviation Group.

Greater China is the world’s second-largest business jet market behind the United States and had seen annual growth of up to 49% before 2012, when President Xi Jin-ping launched a fi erce crack-down on corruption that has

discouraged conspicuous dis-plays of wealth.

Owners include China’s richest man, Wang Jianlin, who fl ies a Gulfstream 550, and Tencent founder Pony Ma who has a Bombardier Global 6000, according to data compiled by Hurun Report which tracks China’s super-rich.

But growth has been slowing since 2012 and sales remain sub-dued. At the Shanghai show there was a distinct lack of new orders announced, while planemak-ers instead talked up their after-sales service. Consultancy Asian Sky Group estimates the private

jet fl eet across Greater China will grow just 1% this year — with a total of fi ve new plane deliver-ies— its weakest on record.

There are currently around 480 private jets in China, com-pared with 466 in 2015 and 67 in 2007. “The entire market is now experiencing a cold wind,” said Guan Dongyuan, president of Embraer China. Guan said, however, that the Brazilian planemaker was holding out for better days, given the potential of a market that is still a long way behind the United States, where there are around 12,000 private jets.

A VistaJet aircraft is seen at the Asian Business Aviation Conference and Exhibition (ABACE) at Hongqiao International Airport in Shanghai, China, earlier this week.

NZ escapes worst of tropical stormNew Zealanders began cleaning up yesterday after a powerful storm swept across the country, forcing families from their homes and leaving a trail of destruction in its wake. The remnants of Cyclone Cook, which battered New Caledonia earlier in the week, struck overnight Thursday. It caused widespread power outages and landslides, uprooted trees forcing road closures and disrupted air travel with the eastern coasts of the North and South Islands bearing the brunt of the extreme weather. “The worst is over,” meteorologist John Crouch at the off icial Metservice said just before dawn as more than 100 people who had sought shelter at an evacuation centre in Whakatane began to return to their homes in the Bay of Plenty region. The head of Civil Defence, Sarah Stuart-Black, said emergency crews were assessing the damage and it could take two days for the full extent to be known. “There are still flood waters, there will be challenges in terms of access to those areas, and with power down it also means that water and waste water could be aff ected as well,” she said. “So it’s still a risky time in that sense so we would still urge people to be really cautious about their activities over the next day or two.” There were fears it could be the worst storm to hit New Zealand since 1968 when Cyclone Giselle swept a ferry onto rocks in Wellington Harbour, killing 53 people, however initial reports indicated damage was not as severe as expected. There were reports of roofs ripped off , windows smashed and garden furniture flung through the air and police said many roads were closed disrupting traff ic as people headed away for the Easter holiday weekend. Many areas of the North Island were already sodden after the remnants of Australia’s Cyclone Debbie hit last week, forcing the evacuation of all 1,600 residents in Edgecumbe when the Bay of Plenty township’s main river burst its banks.

Eff orts on to reach stranded Polish sailorNew Zealand authorities have launched an operation to rescue a stranded Polish sailor on a round-the-world voyage after he activated his emergency beacon on Thursday afternoon. The 64-year-old, who left Auckland nearly four weeks ago headed for Cape Horn in his 10.6m (35-ft) yacht Reginar, was located by a New Zealand Air Force Orion plane. “Polish solo round-the-world sailor is okay after setting off a distress beacon,” the New Zealand Rescue Co-ordination Centre tweeted Friday after the Orion located the yacht. “Yacht’s helm (steering) is broken. A cargo ship has been diverted to rescue man.” He had set off his beacon 2,600km off the coast of New Zealand. The cargo ship is expected to reach the stricken yacht on Saturday morning.

Japan court upholds ‘black widow’ ruling

A Japanese “black widow”

convicted of murdering three

boyfriends she had met online

and dated for their money

faces execution after Japan’s

Supreme Court yesterday dis-

missed her final appeal. Kanae

Kijima, 42, who has married

twice since she was detained

in 2009, killed three men in the

space of eight months through

carbon monoxide poisoning,

by burning charcoal briquettes

after giving them sleeping tab-

lets. A spokesman for Japan’s

top court confirmed it had ruled

against an appeal lodged by

Kijima.

Her legal team has claimed

her innocence, saying the

three men were likely to have

committed suicide, according to

public broadcaster NHK.

The death penalty has over-

whelming public support in Ja-

pan, despite repeated protests

from European governments

and human rights groups.

Executions are by hanging,

however it can take years

before they are carried out.

The case has been closely

followed in Japan and major

media flashed news of the top

court decision across television

screens.

Kijima writes a blog from the

detention centre where she has

been held, detailing her life in-

side, the food and talking about

men she likes.

Charity behindgarden bridgehits back atMP’s criticismGuardian News and MediaLondon

The charity behind London’s garden bridge has accused a senior Labour MP of “dis-

regard for the facts” and selec-tive use of evidence after she said the project should probably be scrapped to avoid wasting more public funds.

A report by Margaret Hodge into whether the proposed foli-age-fi lled link across the Thames was value for taxpayers’ money said last week that the project had a woeful business case and was guided mainly by political motiva-tions.

In its response, the Garden Bridge Trust accused Hodge, who formerly chaired the Commons public accounts committee, of speaking primarily to opponents of the bridge and of going beyond the remit given her by the mayor, Sadiq Khan.

Lord Davies, the Labour life peer and former government minister who chairs the trust, has written a long letter to Hodge pointing out what he said were “a number of inaccuracies” in her report.

In a separate and strongly worded statement, Davies said: “It is a shame that Dame Margaret has shown disregard for the facts and been selective in her use of evidence to support her own opin-ions.”

The future of the bridge was in Khan’s hands, Davies adding. “Our message to him is that this report, with its many errors and ill-in-formed opinions, is no basis upon which to take decisions about a project that has been through the complex democratic processes by which decisions on development are made in this city.”

The response is something of a rearguard action by the charity, which has faced pressure about the rising costs of the much-de-layed structure, and worries over its ability to raise suffi cient private funds to build and maintain it.

Thus far, £40mn of public money has been committed to the proposed 367-metre-long bridge, designed by Thomas Heather-wick, from Temple, on the north bank of the Thames, to the south bank, with just over £37mn of that spent before any work has begun.

In her report, Hodge said an ini-tial cost estimate of about £60mn was now expected to be more than £200mn, and the Garden Bridge Trust still had at least £70mn in donations to raise, with no new pledges since August 2016.

Scrapping the project would push public liabilities to £46.4mn, Hodge’s report said, adding: “I believe it is better for the taxpayer to accept the loss than to risk the additional demands if the project proceeds.”

In its response, the trust said the lack of new donors had primarily been because of the uncertainty caused by the report being com-missioned, and that Hodge had not fully investigated the proposed fundraising eff orts. Davies’s letter also rejects the charge by Hodge that the trust did not consult or engage properly with local people, and was viewed locally as increas-ingly controversial.

He cited a 2015 survey show-ing that more than three-quarters of local people backed the bridge. The usefulness of this poll has been queried in the past as it did not mention the cost or the use of public money.

Davies argued that Hodge had opted “to focus almost entirely on speaking to known opponents of the project” and did not speak to any existing funders.

It is up to Khan to decide the future of a project he inherited from his predecessor, Boris John-son, identifi ed in Hodge’s report as a prime mover for a project she called “driven by electoral cycles rather than value for money”.

Khan has yet to respond to the report, but has previously said he will not permit more public money to be used on the bridge.

MPs blame Corbynfor by-election defeatGuardian News and MediaLondon

The Conservatives have won a council seat in Middlesbrough, usu-

ally considered a Labour strong-hold, sparking a row among MPs about whether Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership is undermining sup-port in the party’s heartlands.

Conservative candidate Jacob Young took the seat of Coulby Newham, with 38% of the vote, up 8.3% since 2015, while La-bour saw its share fall by 8.2%, to 35.5%.

Single council by-elections

are rarely scrutinised, but the loss of the seat came after many MPs went out canvassing, and amid fears that Labour is set for a tough night in the council and mayoral elections on May 4.

Tom Blenkinsop, the MP for South Middlesbrough and Cleveland, whose constituency contains Coulby Newhham, suggested Corbyn’s “far left” leadership had been a factor.

But neighbouring MP Andy McDonald, the shadow transport secretary, dismissed Blenkinsop’s claim. “Jeremy was on Teesside to campaign a couple of weeks ago, and he got an absolutely fabulous reaction,” he said.

Asked about the loss of the seat, he said, “I am loth to read too much into that. We know that the Tory party ploughed an awful lot of eff ort into that. They thought they were in with a chance to win it.”

He said the Conservatives would be unable to replicate such an intense campaign when all the council’s seats are up for grabs in two years’ time. “I would expect us to win it back,” he said.

A Labour source said: “La-bour has held or gained more seats in council by-elections this year than it has lost, in-cluding gaining a seat from the

Tories and another from Ukip. The Middlesbrough by-election was very close – only 33 votes separated Labour and the Con-servatives – and the turnout was extremely low, making it diffi cult to draw any meaningful conclusions. However, voters don’t like divided parties, pub-lic attacks and infi ghting. Unity is essential to delivering eff ec-tive opposition.”

Corbyn and his shadow cabi-net colleagues have announced a blizzard of policies over the past fortnight, with the latest being a pledge to legislate to prevent banks from closing lo-cal branches.

McDonald said: “We know that the policies are playing well; but we have still got some cut-through to make in terms of reputation, and confi dence, and competence.”

Other MPs report that Cor-byn’s leadership is a factor raised by voters on the doorstep. Jess Phillips, the MP for Birming-ham Yardley, who has been cam-paigning for Labour’s candidate in the West Midlands mayoralty, said: “There isn’t a canvassing session where someone doesn’t say, ‘I’ve voted Labour all my life, but I can’t vote for you at the moment because of Jeremy Corbyn’.”

Axed intern ‘sent abusivee-mails to Apprentice star’London Evening StandardLondon

A former intern bombarded The Apprentice star Clau-dine Collins with e-mails

in which she threatened to bring “rapists” to the TV celebrity’s London offi ce, a court heard.

Charlotte Ashton-Rickardt, 32, pleaded guilty to harassment after sending 50 e-mails to Col-lins. The businesswoman has been part of the BBC show since 2013 and grills contestants in the semi-fi nal interview round before reporting back on each candidate to Lord Sugar in the boardroom.

The court heard Ashton-Rick-ardt had been an intern at Medi-aCom, a £1bn media agency for which Collins is the UK manag-ing director.

But after the internship ended “prematurely” Ashton-Rickardt launched harassment campaigns. The fi rst series of messages, af-ter her internship in 2013 ended, led to a warning. She has pleaded guilty over another series of mes-sages, which she sent in February.

Penny Fergusson, prosecut-ing, told Highbury Corner mag-istrates’ court: “The defendant worked very briefl y as an intern in 2013. She never met Collins but she was her boss. It ended prema-turely and she sent a large number of e-mails to Collins which led to her calling the police. She received a harassment warning but the de-fendant sent another number of e-mails after it was issued.”

The court heard Collins re-ported this second batch, but did not proceed with the matter because she wanted the former intern to get “help” for ongoing mental health problems. “But on February 22, 2017, Collins report-ed the harassment had started again,” Fergusson said.

The court heard Ashton-Rick-ardt sent 50 e-mails between February 20 and 23 under a fake name and account.

Collins believed them to be from Ashton-Rickardt because the writing style was “very simi-lar” to previous e-mails. A large number were blank, the court heard. But one said: “I’m not out-side, but I can bring drug dealers and rapists outside... would you

like me to bring my friends?” Fergusson told the court Col-

lins was “alarmed and dis-tressed” by the latest barrage of e-mails and “wants this harass-ment to stop”.

Rebecca Manning, defending, told the court Ashton-Rickardt had been sectioned after being diagnosed with a “delusional disorder”.

The lawyer said: “Between 2013 and up to March of this year, things have happened which have seen her sectioned and go through a long process of being diagnosed with a delusional disorder. That would explain her behaviour.”

Ashton-Rickardt, from Ham-brook near Chichester, pleaded guilty to one count of harassment without violence. Her lawyer told the court she has an advertising and marketing degree and is one month into a treatment course which involves seeing a psychia-trist and taking medication. Dep-uty district judge Adrian Turner ordered her to continue with treatment. He ordered her to pay £105 costs and issued a restrain-ing order that she should not con-tact Collins.

New bin collectionscheme raises a stinkLondon Evening StandardLondon

A new fortnightly bin collec-tion scheme in north Lon-don has left wealthy neigh-

bourhoods looking like a “landfi ll site”, residents claim.

Camden council changed its refuse collections after signing a contract said to be worth up to £338mn over 16 years with French company Veolia.

But since the new system came into force this month residents have complained of over-fl ow-ing bins and rubbish left strewn across streets. Affl uent areas such as Hampstead and Highgate are among those aff ected but other parts of the borough have not had collection timetables changed.

Camden says recycling and food waste is still collected weekly — and that it chose street-level homes with facilities that can cope for fortnightly collections of non-recyclable waste.

But resident Jessica Learmond-Criqui — who launched a petition against the changes — said: “Why would you limit 40% of the bor-

ough? That’s not fair, that’s not right. This is not a situation where you just wave a magic wand and suddenly everybody will be recy-cling in the right way.”

Property developer Stacey Of-fer, of Belsize Park, now has a dif-ferent rota from her neighbour, who is technically on a diff erent street and has a weekly collection. She said: “It is crazy… Our rubbish already piles high.”

Newspaper columnist Julia Hartley-Brewer tweeted: “Cam-den’s fortnightly collections are going well. Just took out big bag of recycling ready for Tuesday. They collected a day early. Sigh.” Emily Whit said: “What’s the point? No one’s collecting it — Camden is a dump, an actual landfi ll site.”

And resident Claire-Louise Leyland tweeted: “Residents struggling to contact #Camden’s Veolia callcentre. When they did, staff told them they’re getting 3,000 calls a day about rubbish.”

Meric Apak, Camden cabinet member for sustainability and en-vironment, said: “We can assure residents that we will resolve any initial issues they are experiencing in what is only the second week of the changed service.”

BRITAIN/IRELAND

Gulf Times Saturday, April 15, 2017 7

Prime Minister Theresa May, representing Queen Elizabeth II, awards a sword to the best cadets at the Sovereign’s Parade at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, southwest of London.

Swords for cadets

Former soldiers protest

Veterans of the Northern Ireland Troubles and of conflicts around the world held a protest over what they describe as a ‘witch-hunt’ against soldiers, at the City Hall in Belfast yesterday. The protest was held in response to a number of recent prosecutions of former soldiers in relation to incidents during the region’s sectarian conflict.

An elderly woman whose bicycle was stolen while she was shopping has been overwhelmed by off ers of replacements. Mary Hampton’s bicycle was taken while she did her weekly shop in Waitrose. The 89-year-old from Berkhamsted in Hertfordshire admitted she was “very silly” not to have locked it, but in 85 years of cycling she “never had”. After news of the theft hit social media, dozens off ered to buy Mary a new one. Hampton was in the habit of cycling the three miles to the supermarket once or twice a week on her trusty Raleigh Shopper. But when she went shopping last Thursday, she returned to find her bike gone.

The fate of a town council moggy lies in the hands of its own members after a decision to evict her was deferred. Missy the cat is caught up in a row with Tewkesbury Town Council over whether or not it’s appropriate for a cat to be in a business environment. Town mayor Karen Brennan wants to ban the feline, described as the council’s “morale off icer and town cat” on its website. A complaints panel will meet next week to discuss Missy’s future. At a meeting on Thursday night, councillors were told a complaint had been made which needs to be investigated. It is not known who made the complaint

Three children have been taken to hospital on the Isle of Man after swallowing an unknown substance, police said. The children, thought to be aged between 11 and 12, were being treated in hospital after police were called to the National Sports Centre in Douglas on Thursday afternoon. They were taken to Noble’s hospital for treatment and are all now in a stable condition. Tests were being conducted to determine the substance involved, police said. Inspector Juan Kinley said: “There has been much speculation as to the condition of the children on social media which is incorrect. The children remain in Noble’s hospital in a stable condition receiving medical treatment.”

A murder investigation has been launched after the victim of a serious assault in Nottingham in the early hours of yesterday morning died of his injuries. Police found the man badly hurt at an address in Woodborough Road, in the city’s Mapperley Top area, just before 1am. He was treated at the scene but died shortly afterwards, they said. Detectives from the East Midlands serious operations unit cordoned off a wide area around the scene of the killing, leading to a number of public transport diversions. Photos from the scene published on local media showed police walking in lines along Woodborough Road, apparently searching for evidence.

Interpol has issued a red notice for a Scottish teacher wanted by police over the suspected murder of a colleague in Myanmar. Harris Binotti, 26, fled the south-east Asian country in November last year, hours before Gary Ferguson was found dead. Binotti, from Dumfries, has been at the centre of an international manhunt since Ferguson was found with fatal head and chest wounds five months ago. The Interpol notice, which gives the teacher’s full name as Harris John Italo Binotti, says he is wanted on a charge of murder. Ferguson and Binotti are believed to have gone out drinking two nights before neighbours reported hearing sounds of a fight and the victim’s body was discovered.

Woman, 89, delighted withnew bicycle after theft

Council defers cateviction decision

Children hospitalised aftertaking unknown substance

Nottingham assaultvictim dies of injuries

Interpol issues red noticefor teacher over murder

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Gulf Times Saturday, April 15, 20178

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan made a fi nal push yesterday for

votes in a referendum on expand-ing his powers, as the authorities said they had foiled a possible Islamist militant plot against the poll.

Opinion polls – usually treated with caution in Turkey – have predicted a tight outcome to-morrow despite the considerable advantages of the “Yes” cam-paign in both airtime and cam-paign resources.

The referendum will take place under a state of emergency that has been in place since last sum-mer’s failed coup, which has seen some 47,000 arrested in the big-gest crackdown in Turkey’s his-tory.

Analysts regard the referen-dum as a crossroads in the mod-ern history of the country that will aff ect not just the shape of its political system but also its rela-tions with the West.

“April 16 will be a historic turning point,” Erdogan told a rally in Konya, the Anatolian city seen as the heartland of conserv-ative supporters who have ben-efi ted from his rule.

The referendum is taking place after a bloody year of terror at-tacks in Turkey blamed on jihad-ists and Kurdish militants.

Adding to security concerns, police detained fi ve suspected Islamic State (IS) militants in Istanbul accused of planning a “sensational” attack targeting the weekend referendum.

Authorities on Tuesday de-

tained another 19 suspected IS supporters in the Aegean city of Izmir, accused of planning to sabotage the vote.

In the latest issue of its Al Naba magazine, IS called for attacks on polling stations in Turkey.

If the new system is passed, it will abolish the offi ce of prime minister, enabling the president to centralise all state bureaucracy under his control and also to ap-point cabinet ministers.

Supporters see the new sys-tem as an essential modernisa-tion step for Turkey to streamline government but opponents fear it risks granting Erdogan author-itarian powers.

in an earlier television inter-

view, Erdogan expressed confi -dence that the new presidential system would be approved, say-ing there were no longer unde-cided voters.

“’Yes’ has gone up consider-ably, while ‘No’ has gone down,” he said.

A poll by the Konda group showed “Yes” ahead at 51.5% but the Sonar group has projected a “No” vote of 51.2%, and with other polling companies produc-ing diff erent fi gures the outcome remains uncertain.

But while Erdogan has ap-peared confi dent and relaxed at his last campaign rallies, he re-acted quickly to stamp out a last-minute spat with his main politi-

cal ally in implementing the plan, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).

An adviser to Erdogan, Sukru Karatepe, suggested this week that Turkey could form a federal system if “Yes” won, in a move that would be an anathema to the nationalists as it may imply the creation of a Kurdish region in the east.

MHP leader Devlet Bahceli quickly responded saying that he would dismiss any adviser of his if they made similar remarks.

MHP votes are crucial to the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in pushing through the new system.

“I always have been and will

always be the biggest supporter and biggest defender of Turkey’s unitary structure,” said Erdogan, adding that concerning a federal system “none of this is on our agenda”.

The leader of the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) Kemal Kilicdaroglu has called for a “No” vote, arguing that there was too much uncertainty over the consequences of the new system.

“We will together write a leg-end of democracy (on Sunday) because our questions have been left unanswered,” he told report-ers in Istanbul.

Erdogan has raised hackles in the West throughout the cam-paign with his repeated denun-ciations of the European Union, which Turkey has sought to join for the last half century.

Ahead of the vote, United Na-tions experts accused Turkey of “massive violations” of the right to education and work, citing fi gures suggesting that since the emergency was declared, some 134,000 public servants had been dismissed.

The dismissals “cannot be justifi ed by reference to Tur-key’s longstanding international human rights obligations”, said four UN special rapporteurs in a statement.

However, Turkey’s foreign ministry rejected the “politi-cal statement”, adding it would diminish the value of the UN mechanisms.

Campaigning is allowed un-til 6pm (1500 GMT) today and voting in the country’s east gets under way at 7am (0400 GMT) tomorrow and an hour later else-where.

Erdogan makes fi nal push for ‘Yes’ votesAFPIstanbul

Erdogan delivering a speech to a rally of supporters in Konya yesterday.

French prosecutors have asked the European par-liament to lift the immu-

nity of Marine Le Pen over an expenses scandal, deepening her legal woes on the eve of a presidential election that is shaping up as a tight four-way race.

The prosecutors’ move comes just nine days before France heads to the polls in a highly unpredictable vote marked by widespread disillu-sionment with the traditional political class.

Le Pen, who heads the far-right National Front (FN), is leading the race with inde-pendent centrist Emmanuel Macron but polls show Com-munist-backed euroscep-tic Jean-Luc Melenchon and scandal-hit conservative Fran-cois Fillon closing the gap.

An Ipsos poll for the daily Le Monde out yesterday showed Macron and Le Pen on 22% for the fi rst round, both down two points in under a week.

Melenchon continued a spectacular surge, polling 20%, just one point ahead of Fillon, who has been regaining ground lost to a fake jobs in-vestigation.

The poll echoed a raft of surveys this week showing the four top contenders bunching together, creating six possible line-ups in the May 7 run-off of the top two candidates.

The slight dip in Le Pen’s poll numbers came as French prosecutors said they had pe-titioned the European Parlia-ment to lift her immunity so that she can be prosecuted over an expenses scandal.

Le Pen last month invoked her parliamentary immunity in refusing to attend questioning by investigating magistrates.

Yesterday she shrugged off the prosecutors’ move.

“It’s a totally normal step, I’m not surprised,” said the 48-year-old member of the European Parliament, who sees the investigation as a plot to derail her presidential bid.

The case against Le Pen has been dwarfed by the bigger scandal engulfi ng Fillon.

Former prime minister Fil-lon was revealed in January to have given his wife suspected fake jobs as a parliamentary as-sistant for which she was paid a total €680,000 ($725,000).

The aff air, which culmi-nated with the former “Mis-ter Clean” of the French right being formally charged last month, plunged his campaign into turmoil but in the past few weeks he has climbed back into contention.

“Of course Francois Fillon can win,” his spokesman Luc Chatel said yesterday, adding: “People are starting to believe again.”

Edging him in some opinion surveys is hard-left euroscep-tic Melenchon, who is famous for his mass rallies and fi ery speeches.

Surveys show Le Pen would be beaten by any of the other three main contenders in a run-off , but analysts have warned of a possible upset, af-ter Britain’s shock vote to quit the EU and Donald Trump’s election in the United States, both of which pollsters failed to predict.

The European Parliament accuses the FN of using funds allotted for parliamentary as-sistants to pay FN staff for party work in France.

In February, the assembly began withholding part of Le Pen’s pay to recover the mon-ey it says it lost to the alleged fraud.

Prosecutors also petitioned the parliament to lift the im-munity of Le Pen’s colleague, fellow National Front MEP Marie-Christine Boutonnet.

Le Pen, who has pledged to put France’s EU member-ship to a referendum if elected, has vehemently denied any wrongdoing.

In a TV debate last week, Ford worker Philippe Poutou, candidate of the New Anticap-italist Party tore into her.

“For someone who is anti-European, she doesn’t mind having her fi ngers in Europe’s till,” he said.

Investigators raided the FN’s headquarters outside Paris last month over the aff air.

Le Pen’s chief of staff Cath-erine Griset and Charles Hour-cade, previously a graphic designer at FN headquarters, were charged with conceal-ment.

Le Pen has already had her parliamentary immunity lifted over a separate aff air dating to 2015 when she shared graphic pictures of Islamic State atroc-ities on Twitter.

The pictures triggered an in-vestigation for “dissemination of violent images”.

Prosecutors target Le Pen immunity as election race tightensAFPParis

Le Pen is seen in this February 15 file picture at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France.

Moscow has denounced the decision by Eurovi-sion Song Contest or-

ganisers to drop Russia from this year’s contest, following a row with hosts Ukraine.

Russia’s state-run Channel One said yesterday that it would not broadcast the event, after re-jecting proposals for contestant Yulia Samoilova to take part via video link or be replaced, after Ukraine slapped her with an en-try ban over a concert she gave in annexed Crimea.

In response, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) then confi rmed Russia “will no longer be able to take part in this year’s competition”.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov lashed out at the organis-ers for failing to make Kiev accept the Russian performer.

“We express regret that the Eurovision organisers could not fulfi l the conditions of their own

rules and were unable to call upon the country that expressed willingness to hold the contest to observe the rules on hosting,” Peskov said.

The Kiev event organisers, the National Public Broadcast-ing Company of Ukraine, in turn slammed Russia’s actions, ac-cusing it of being more interested in undermining the event than in taking part.

“Russia’s aim right from the start was not taking part in the contest but creating an atmos-phere of negativity in coverage of the preparations and the holding of the contest,” the broadcaster said in a statement.

It stressed that it was “con-tinuing active preparations for Eurovision 2017”.

Kiev barred Russia’s 28-year-old entrant Samoilova from en-tering the country for three years for performing a concert on the Crimea peninsula in 2015 after it was annexed from Ukraine by Moscow.

Russia’s Channel One said on Thursday that it was dropping

the competition from its sched-ule, slamming Ukraine’s entry ban on Samoilova as “absolutely groundless” and intended to “politicise” the glitzy annual event.

The broadcaster, which select-ed Samoilova as Russia’s con-testant, said it had rejected an off er from the EBU for the singer to compete via video link or for Russia to choose another entrant.

However, the powerful direc-tor general of Channel One, Kon-stantin Ernst, vowed Samoilova would represent Russia at next year’s contest.

“We discussed this with the EBU and they know that Yulia Samoilova will represent Russia,” he told TASS state news agency.

Former Soviet neighbours Russia and Ukraine have been at loggerheads since Moscow seized Crimea in 2014 and was then ac-cused by Kiev and the West of fuelling a separatist confl ict in the east of the country that has killed some 10,000 people.

The EBU had earlier threat-ened to bar Ukraine from future

competitions and insisted it “strongly” condemned Ukraine’s ban on Samoilova since “it thor-oughly undermines the integrity and non-political nature of the Eurovision Song Contest”.

“However, preparations con-tinue apace,” the organiser said. “Our top priority remains to pro-duce a spectacular Eurovision Song Contest.”

Kiev will host the fi nal of the Eurovision Song Contest on May 13.

The contest, known for its kitsch but catchy pop songs, is avowedly politically neutral.

Samoilova has been in a wheel-chair since a bad reaction to a vaccine in childhood, according to the biography on her website.

The fi rst contestant in a wheel-chair to appear on Eurovision was Poland’s Monika Kuszynska in 2015.

Kiev will host the fi nal of the Eurovision Song Contest on May 13 after two semi-fi nals earlier that week.

Even without the Russia par-ticipant, 42 nations will be taking part in this year’s contest includ-ing, despite the “Euro” tag, Israel and Australia.

Kremlin raps Eurovision for dropping Russia this yearAFPMoscow

The logo of the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest is seen during a ceremony in Kiev on January 31 to hand over the Eurovision host city insignia to the Ukrainian capital.

Uzbekistan said yesterday that the suspect in last week’s deadly Stock-

holm truck attack had ties to Islamic State (IS) militants and the West had been warned about him.

Rakhmat Akilov, a 39-year-old Uzbek national, is in custody on suspicion of mowing down a crowd on a busy street in the Swedish capital, killing four people.

Uzbekistan’s Foreign Minister Abdulaziz Kamilov said Akilov was radicalised after moving to Sweden in 2014 and the Central Asian nation’s intelligence serv-ice had passed on information about him.

“During his stay abroad, he was recruited through the Inter-net by emissaries of the inter-

national terrorist organisation the Islamic State,” Kamilov said in quotes from a press briefi ng published by the ministry.

Kamilov said Akilov had “ac-tively encouraged compatri-ots to go to Syria to participate in military operations” for the group.

“He repeatedly propagated propaganda videos of terrorist content through internet mes-sengers to his relatives and other connections in Uzbekistan, try-ing to persuade them to commit violent actions against Uzbek authorities, government offi -cials and law enforcement agen-cies,” Kamilov said.

“Information about the wrongful acts of Rakhmat Ak-ilov was transferred via the spe-cial services to one of our West-ern partners to further inform the Swedish side,” he added, without giving more details.

A spokeswoman for Sweden’s

foreign ministry told AFP that it “had not received such infor-mation”.

Russian agency Interfax on Wednesday quoted an anony-mous security source in Uz-bekistan who said a warrant had been issued for Akilov’s arrest

for extremism in February.Swedish police are currently

holding Akilov, whose lawyer says he has already confessed to driving a stolen truck through the crowd and into the front of a department store in central Stockholm.

Uzbekistan: Stockholm suspect had ties to ISAFPBishkek

German police arrest three people suspected of helping plan violence against the state: report

German police have arrested three people on suspicion of helping a

suspected Islamist militant prepare a bomb attack on police or soldiers,

magazine Focus said on its website.

It cited the chief public prosecutor in the northern town of Celle as say-

ing yesterday that arrest warrants had been issued for the two men and

one woman suspected of helping to prepare a serious act of violence

against the state.

The prosecutor’s off ice was not immediately available for comment

when contacted by Reuters.

Three identical letters printed in German found near the scene sug-

gested a possible Islamist motive.

The magazine said the trio – a 27-year-old Afghan, a 27-year-old Turk,

and a 25-year-old German – were arrested on Thursday evening in three

diff erent German cities and were in custody.

An outbreak of panic sparked by troublemak-ers caused mayhem in

Seville’s nightime Good Friday processions, famed for their re-ligious fl oats, hooded penitents and hordes of spectators, seri-ously injuring one person, Span-ish authorities said yesterday.

Emergency services said eight people were detained in con-nection with the incidents that took place from 4am local time (0200GMT), sending people running in panic and leaving children in tears in diff erent parts of the processions.

In a statement, the Cecop cen-tre that oversees security during the processions in the south-ern Spanish city said those de-tained had variously “shouted”, used metallic objects to make

loud noise or made “wild ges-ticulations” to create panic in the thousands-strong crowds.

An AFP photographer present said she heard what sounded like a stampede of galloping animals, and then a mass of people pushed towards her.

Standing on the Isabel II bridge that goes over Seville’s Guadalquivir River, she climbed onto a lamppost.

“There were children, women with prams,” she said, adding some people rushed down steps towards the river, falling over themselves in panic. “The fi rst thing people think is that there is a terrorist attack.”

An initial probe showed that there were three initial move-ments of panic, which sparked a “domino eff ect” in other parts of the city, Cecop said.

It added that the diff erent in-cidents did not appear to be co-ordinated.

“These are isolated cases without any apparent connec-tion that are similar to cases of vandalism and hooliganism,” it said.

Cecop said three of those ar-rested were “common delin-quents”.

Some 17 people were taken to hospital for injuries and panic attacks, it said.

One of them was in intensive care in a serious condition, suf-fering from brain trauma.

Organised by religious broth-erhoods and featuring huge fl oats of wooden sculptures of religious scenes accompanied by hooded penitents, the proces-sions known as “La Madruga” are the high point of Easter Week festivities in Seville.

This morning’s early incident mirrors a similar outbreak of panic in 2000 in Seville’s Good Friday processions, which left 52 people injured.

Hooligans mar Good Friday events

AFPMadrid

9Gulf TimesSaturday, April 15, 2017

INDIA

Iraqi babywith eightlimbs getsnew leaseof life

Govt mulling revival of searoute option for Haj pilgrimsIANSMumbai

Union Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi yesterday said the government is

“actively considering” a plan to resume – after 22 years – the use of the Arabian Sea route to ferry Haj pilgrims to Saudi Arabia and consultations with the shipping ministry are already on.

He said the “revolutionary and pilgrim-friendly decision” of sea travel will cut down travel expenses by nearly half com-pared with air fares. The use of the sea route between Mumbai and Jeddah for Haj was discon-tinued in 1995.

“A high-level committee, formed by the government to frame the Haj Policy 2018 as per the Supreme Court’s 2012 order, is exploring the issue for sending pilgrims via the sea route to Jed-dah in Saudi Arabia,” the minis-ter of state for minority aff airs said at a training programme at the Haj House here.

The committee will soon submit its report to the govern-ment.

At present, Haj pilgrims travel by air from 21 points across the country.

The minister said another ad-vantage was that ships nowadays are modern and well equipped to ferry 4,000 to 5,000 persons at one go.

“They can cover the 2,300-odd nautical miles between Mumbai and Jeddah in just two-three days. Earlier, ships used to take 12 to 15 days to cover this distance,” the min-ister said.

He added the new Haj policy is aimed at making the entire pilgrimage process easier and transparent. Facilities for pil-grims will be the focus of the new policy.

In 2016, as many as 99,903 pilgrims went to Jeddah for Haj through the Haj Committee of India, besides nearly 36,000 persons who went through pri-vate tour operators.

This year a total of 170,025 persons will go for Haj from In-dia, including 125,025 through the Haj Committee and 45,000 through private operators. The minister said 129,196 applica-tions were received online this year.

The ministry of minority af-fairs along with other agencies has started preparations for the annual pilgrimage very early in co-ordination with various agencies, he added. The aim is to provide world class facilities to Haj pilgrims.

With an increase of 34,005 in India’s annual Haj quota an-nounced last year by Saudi Ara-bia, all Indian states will benefi t for this year’s pilgrimage, Naqvi said.

“The decision was taken dur-ing the signing of the bilateral annual Haj agreement between the two countries at Jeddah on January 11. It is the biggest in-crease in the Haj quota for India after many years,” the minister revealed.

More than 500 trainers from diff erent states are participating in the three-day training pro-gramme that deals with various dos and don’ts to be adhered to during the pilgrimage. They are briefed on transport, accommo-dation and laws in Saudi Arabia, among other things.

Offi cials from the Haj Com-mittee of India, Saudi Arabia consulate, Brihanmumbai Mu-nicipal Corporation, Saudi Air-lines, Air India, customs and immigration departments and doctors are involved in the en-deavour.

The trainers will educate the pilgrims at diff erent camps across the country.

EVMs can berigged in moreways than one,insists Kejriwal

AFPNew Delhi

A baby born with eight limbs, including two pro-truding from his stom-

ach, has undergone surgery in India to successfully remove the extra arms and legs, in an opera-tion being hailed as a world fi rst.

Seven-month-old Karam was born in Iraq with an extremely rare condition where a conjoined twin did not fully form and was partially absorbed, resulting in the additional limbs.

The boy’s father Sarwed Ahmed Nadar fl ew the infant to India for surgery, where doctors performed a three-stage operation to remove the unnecessary limbs.

There are just fi ve or six known cases worldwide of this condition, making the task more diffi cult for the doctors, said senior orthopaedic consultant Gaurav Rathore, who was part of the surgical team.

“He was brought to us when he was just two weeks old and his condition was quite unique. Most of the surgeries we per-formed had not been attempted before,” Rathore told reporters in Noida, a satellite city outside New Delhi.

“Till now our journey has been quite successful. Karam is a very courageous young baby. He is in fact a very happy child.”

The team of doctors at Jaypee Hospital conducted the surgery in three stages, fi rst removing the limbs sticking out from his stomach before correcting a car-diac complication.

The fi nal procedure saw doc-tors remove all the extra limbs, though he will require more pro-cedures as he grows older to cor-rect other anomalies.

IANSNew Delhi

Questioning the election commission’s credibility over the issue of “rigged”

EVMs, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal yesterday ac-cused it of being biased towards Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and hinted at the possibility of com-panies manufacturing EVMs be-ing involved in their tampering.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader, who has been vociferous about the vulnerability of the electronic voting machines, said unless the people fought against “BJP’s control over the EVMs”, democracy can’t be saved.

“I am an IIT Kharagpur graduate...I can tell you 10 ways how EVMs can be tampered,” Kejriwal told news channel NDTV.

“EVMs can be infl uenced if a bug or a Trojan horse is inserted in its chip. Only two companies – one in US and one in Japan – manufacture the chips. What can you do when the bug is in-serted in the source. What can you do if the company is infl u-enced,” he said.

He also claimed that the Elec-tion Commission, in its reply to a Right to Information (RTI) query has said that it “doesn’t have the capacity to read the code em-bedded in the chip of a EVM”.

Likening the poll panel to

blind King Dhritarashtra of the epic “Mahabharata”, Kejriwal dared the commission to make public its fi ndings on the tam-pering allegations.

“Wherever in India the EVMs have malfunctioned, there is only one issue – no matter which button you press, the vote goes to the BJP. And every time the commission says there is no problem with the EVMs.

“Why are they (EC) brushing everything under the carpet? Had the EC gone in for a techni-cal probe and put the fi ndings in public domain, people’s faith in it would have been restored,” he said.

Kejriwal alleged that the elec-tion commission was “enacting a drama in the name of elec-tions” to ensure BJP victory in all the polls.

“The BJP has total control over the EVMs and unless we include the media to fi ght it out, we will not be able to save de-mocracy, save the country,” said Kejriwal.

He also rejected assertions that the AAP was hiding behind tampering allegations to cover up its dismal performance in the recent polls including the Rajou-ri Garden assembly seat bypoll in Delhi, where its candidate faced the ignominy of forfeiting the deposit.

“We have made 100 mis-takes... 200 mistakes... we will introspect. But EVM tampering

is a fact and can we remain blind to that,” he said asserting the re-sults will have no impact on the party’s prospects in the April 23 elections to the three munici-pal corporations in the national capital.

He attributed his party’s drub-bing in the by-poll to people’s anger over party MLA Jarnail Singh resigning in the middle of his term to contest the February 4 Punjab assembly elections.

He also fl ayed the Delhi elec-tion commission for bringing “EVMs from the junkyard” for the Delhi civic polls.

Kejriwal also questioned the work done by the BJP in the three municipal areas in the last 10 year.

“I ask people – (tell) me one good thing the BJP has done in the municipal bodies in the last 10 years.

“For 10 years, the BJP has been in charge of the MCDs; you can see how much fi lth there is on the streets of Delhi. All the den-gue, malaria... and this is despite all the money they have. They are so short of cash that they can’t pay their employees. The MCDs under BJP rule did noth-ing. There is huge corruption in the MCDs,” Kejriwal alleged.

The Chief Minister pointed to the work done by the AAP government in Delhi and said that the April 23 civic polls will be a referendum on their “good work” in the national capital.

Iraqi Gufran Ali holds her eight month old son Karam during a press conference at a hospital in Noida yesterday.

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh yesterday rejected as “untrue” Pakistan’s claim that India had not responded to “specific information” sought on alleged Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadhav in January and said the military trial sentencing him to death was not transparent. “I feel he did not get a transparent trial,” Rajnath Singh said. Reacting to Pakistani foreign policy chief Sartaj Aziz’s statement that India has not responded to a “Letter of Assistance requesting specific information and access to certain key witnesses” regarding Jadhav, Rajnath Singh said: “No no, that’s not true.” The Home Minister said all eff orts were being made to ensure justice to Jadhav.

The wife of a software professional, who allegedly committed suicide in the US earlier this month, attempted to kill herself in Hyderabad after her husband’s family blamed her for his death. Swati consumed a disinfectant at her house in Kuthapet area. Family members rushed her to a hospital, where her condition was critical. Madhukar Reddy Gudur was found hanging from a fan in his house in Seattle on April 4. The couple, who recently moved to their new home, have a four-year-old daughter. The Gudur’s body was brought to his home town Bhongir in Telangana and cremated on April 11. However, his relatives attacked Swati, when she came to attend the funeral.

Rejecting BJP leader Subramanian Swamy’s call for a change in Goa’s beef-eating tradition, a state party spokesperson yesterday said the statement was Swamy’s “personal stand” and not the party’s position on the issue. Asked to react to a Congress party demand asking Goa’s BJP leaders to openly condemn Swamy’s comments, party spokesperson Dattaprasad Naik said: “I don’t think this is an issue at all in Goa. All communities live in harmony in Goa. It is probably his personal stand. It is not the party’s stand.” Last week during a national TV debate on the ongoing beef ban controversy, Swamy said that Goa had a beef-eating tradition, which needed to be changed.

A day after the selfie craze inside a running train led to the deaths of several youths, the Eastern Railway authorities yesterday appealed to passengers to be careful and issued guidelines. A railway spokesman said they have already launched campaigns in print, television and social media to make passengers aware of the risks of using phones while travelling. In a horrific turn of events, a youth fell from a running train between Bali and Liluah railway stations while trying to click a selfie on Thursday night. Four of his friends were hit by another train while rushing towards the accident spot.

Demonetised currency notes worth Rs300mn was eized from a former corporator’s house in Bengaluru city’s western suburb, police said yesterday. “We found the illegal cash in the house of ex-corporator Nagaraj, 54, during a search conducted on a court warrant in a criminal case and seized the banned notes in Rs500 and Rs 1,000 denomination,” a Hennur police station off icial said. Nagaraj was not present when the police arrived at his house around 5am, as he allegedly fled on learning about the search team. Police also faced resistance from Nagaraj’s family while entering the house and had to break open the main door.

Govt rejects Pak claimon Jadhav information

Wife of man who endedlife in US attempts suicide

Swamy call on beef-eatinghis personal stand: Goa BJP

Selfie deaths promptrailways advisory

Banned notes worthRs300mn seized

STANCE PEOPLECLARIFICATION TRAGEDY LAW AND ORDER

Sea travel will cut down travel expenses by nearly half compared with air fares, Naqvi said

Mahija’s protest ‘aplot by BJP, Congress’

CPI-M state secretary Kodiyeri

Balakrishnan claimed there was a

conspiracy behind the protest by Jishnu

Prannoy’s mother earlier this month in

front of the Kerala police chief’s off ice.

Balakrishnan said in an article yesterday

that the Congress and the Bharatiya Jana-

ta Party were hand-in-glove and termed

it a ‘grand master design’ to change the

course of the protest by Jishnu’s mother,

Mahija, against the Pinarayi Vijayan-led

Left government in Kerala.

“There was a calculated move to change

the course of the protest by Mahija

against the government and Vijayan who

took lot of personal interest in resolv-

ing the case. There was nothing wrong

in the police action of arresting people

who had no role in Mahija’s protest,”

Balakrishnan stressed.

On April 9, Mahija and her relatives

ended their five-day fast at the Medical

College hospital after the government

assured them that their demands, which

included the arrest of the remaining ac-

cused responsible for the Jishnu’s death

and action against police off icials who

roughed them up, would be addressed.

Since her son, an engineering student,

was found hanging in the college hostel

in January, Mahija has been demanding

justice. She claims her son was ‘killed’ by

the college authorities.

Senior Congress leader Ramesh Chen-

nithala dismissed Balakrishnan’s article

stating it was the standard norm of the

Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-

M) to blame all and sundry for the party’s

failures.

“We had no role in the protest and the

CPI-M always blames others for its own

failures. The stock word that the CPI-M

uses to divert attention is by banking on

the theory that there was a conspiracy.

Everyone knows this and none takes

them seriously,” Chennithala said.

10 Gulf TimesSaturday, April 15, 2017

INDIA

Digital transactionwins student Rs10mnIANSNagpur (Maharashtra)

Shraddha Mengshete, a 20-year-old electri-cal engineering student

from Maharashtra’s Latur, won the Rs10mn Mega Draw for Lucky Grahak Yojana.

Mengshete had made a trans-action of Rs1,590 through her RuPay card to pay the instal-ment for her new mobile phone.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi yesterday felicitated winners of a mega-draw of two national incentive schemes for digital transactions - Lucky Grahak Yojana and Digi Dhan Vyapar Yojana.

Mengshete, who received the Rs10mn prize from Modi, said she had not yet decided what to do with the money.

“I am the daughter of a gro-cery seller from Latur and study in Pune. First, I would like to concentrate and complete my studies,” she told media persons who wanted to know whether she would donate a part of her winnings to some worthy caus-es like another winner did.

Under the schemes, which have now ended, 1.60mn indi-viduals won prizes for a total of Rs2.58bn across the country.

The second prize of Rs5mn under the Lucky Grahak Yo-jana went to a 29-year-old primary school teacher, Hardik Kumar from Cambay, Gujarat, who used his RuPay card for a Rs1,100 transaction.

The third prize of Rs2.5mn was won by Bharat Singh of Sherpur village in Uttarakhand who made a transaction of only Rs100 on his RuPay card.

Under the Digi-Dhan Vyapar Yojana for merchants, Anand Ananthapadmanabhan of GRT Jewellers in Tambaran, Chennai, won the Rs5mn prize for accept-ing a Rs 300 digital payment.

Ananthapadmanabhan im-mediately announced it as a donation to the Clean Ganga Campaign amidst a thunder-ous applause by the audience.

The second prize of Rs2.5mn in this category was bagged by Ragini Rajendra Uttekar, who owns a small beauty parlour in Thane, Maharashtra, who had accepted a card payment of Rs510.

BHIM-Aadhaar willboost economy: ModiIANSNagpur (Maharashtra)

Prime Minister Narendra Modi yesterday said the BHIM-Aadhaar digital

payments platform has the po-tential to revolutionise the econ-omy while empowering com-mon Indians in the same way as did the Constitution, framed by B R Ambedkar, whose 126th birth anniversary was celebrated across the country yesterday.

Launching the new combined platform here, Modi said that by enabling each Indian to pay dig-itally using their biometric data on a merchant’s biometric-ena-bled device, the BHIM-Aadhaar will be like a SmartPhone with a biometric reader and boost digital payments in a manner unprecedented anywhere in the world.

It is a step towards a “less-cash” economy and combating the black money menace, he said.

“’DigiDhan’ is a ‘Safai Abhiyaan’ to free the nation from corruption

and black money,” Modi stated.The new app will enable pay-

ments with just a ‘thumb’ im-pression, which can be used by even an illiterate person to pay digitally with his/her biometric data on a merchant’s biometric-enabled device.

“Any citizen without access to SmartPhone, Internet, debit or credit cards will be able to trans-act digitally through the BHIM-Aadhaar platform,” Modi said.

“It will make digital pay-ments easy for people who can-not read or write, thus realising Babasaheb Ambedkar’s vision of social and fi nancial empower-ment for all. Nothing can stop its progress,” he said.

Modi said India’s unprece-dented digital payments revolu-tion has attracted the attention of the world with some countries even seeking India’s help to im-plement it for them.

The prime minister also launched two new incentive schemes for the BHIM-Cashback and Referral Bonus with an out-lay of Rs4.95bn for a six-month

period to ensure digital payments culture permeates down to the grassroots. Under the Referral Bonus Scheme, both the exist-ing user who refers BHIM and the new user who adopts it would get a cash bonus of Rs 10 credited di-rectly to their accounts.

Similarly, under the Cashback scheme, merchants will get a cash back of Rs25 on every trans-action using BHIM.

“I appeal to my young friends... I want the support of India’s youth in the movement towards increased digital trans-actions,” Modi said.

Both schemes will be admin-istered by the ministry of elec-tronics and information tech-nology (Meity) and implemented by the National Payments Cor-poration of India (NPCI).

Shortly after the prime minis-ter’s announcement, NPCI CEO and managing director A P Hota announced in Mumbai the launch of the BHIM-Aadhaar app which can be downloaded from Google Playstore and iOS as an updated version 1.3, in 12 Indian languages.

Cultural feston Yamuna river ‘causedhuge damage’Guardian News and MediaNew Delhi

A cultural festival held along Delhi’s Yamuna riv-er last year, despite warn-

ings by the country’s environ-mental watchdog, caused more than £5mn of damage that could take 10 years to fi x, according to a report.

One of India’s most celebrat-ed gurus, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, headlined the World Culture festival, drawing more than 3mn visitors including Prime Minis-ter Narendra Modi.

The three-day festival, which featured yoga sessions, per-formances and prayers for world peace, involved the construction of a seven-acre stage that or-ganisers boasted was the largest ever.

Pontoon bridges, portable cabins and parking facilities were also constructed over doz-ens of hectares in the fragile eco-system.

The country’s top environ-mental court had restricted building activity along the Ya-muna more than a year earlier, but found that preparations were “in full swing” by the time its of-fi cers inspected the festival site in February 2016.

Shankar was fi ned Rs50m as “environmental compensa-tion” before the event, a sum he initially refused to pay, insisting: “We have done nothing wrong. I will go to jail but not pay the fi ne.”

A committee appointed to assess the damage reported on Wednesday that the festival had destroyed the riverbed and ad-versely aff ected more than 170 hectares of the fl oodplains.

It estimated that rehabilitat-ing the river, which was this month granted the legal status of a “living entity”, would take 10 years and potentially cost Rs420mn.

The festival had led to a “change in topography and hab-itat diversity, loss of waterbodies and wetlands, loss of fl oodplain vegetation and biodiversity … and loss of ecosystem functions”, the report said.

Shankar is one of a number of gurus whose popularity – and political infl uence – have surged in recent years as a swelling In-dian middle class tries to remain connected to its cultural and re-ligious roots.

He was personally thanked by Colombia’s President, Juan Manuel Santos, for helping to negotiate the country’s recent peace deal with Farc guerrillas after a 52-year civil war.

Another ascetic, Baba Ram-dev, has turned his popularity into a £530mn retail empire sell-ing local alternatives to imported products.

Both the Modi-led nation-al government and the Delhi administration, normally at loggerheads, had supported Shankar’s event, and the Delhi Water Minister, Kapil Mishra, continues to defend it.

Shankar said in a statement the report was “completely fl awed, unscientifi c and biased”. “There is no evidence at all to justify their claims. We will fi ght for truth to triumph,” he said.

The Yamuna river originates in the Himalayas and is virtually unpolluted until it reaches Delhi, where it is diverted for use by the city’s residents.

Delhi takes the freshwater and replaces it with untreated sew-age and chemical effl uents from more than 20 drains, leaving the river unable to support life and barely fl owing.

Tens of millions of rupees have been spent in the past two decades to clean the river, with little improvement in water quality. Experts blame poor co-ordination between agencies and say too much water is being diverted for human use.

Video of youth tied toarmy jeep sparks angerIANSSrinagar

A video of a youth tied to the front of a mov-ing army jeep as a shield

against stone pelters has evoked anger and shock in Kashmir. Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh said the incident, if true, will be looked into, while the army said it is verifying the contents of the video.

Asked about the video that surfaced on social media yester-day, Rajnath Singh said in Kolka-ta: “Whatever and wherever any such thing happens, it will be looked into. I have not received any such information. When I

get the information, then I will answer this question.”

Minister of State for External Aff airs V K Singh questioned the veracity of the video, and said, “What is the video about? Who has posted the video?”

“Until the video’s veracity is established, it is diffi cult to re-act,” the former army chief said on the sidelines of a seminar in Mumbai.

Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, tweeting his shock over the vid-eo, wrote: “This young man was TIED to the front of an army jeep to make sure no stones were thrown at the jeep? This is just so shocking!”

Omar called for an inquiry.

“A warning can be heard (in the video) saying stone pelters will meet this fate. This requires an urgent inquiry and follow up NOW.”

Defence Ministry spokesper-son, Colonel Rajesh Kalia, in a statement said: “The contents of the video are being verifi ed and investigated.”

With internet services re-stored in Kashmir Valley on Thursday night after Sunday’s deadly violence that led to the death of eight civilians in fi ring by security forces, many such videos emerged on social media sites yesterday.

Commenting on the video, Wasim Dar, a Kashmiri youth, posted on Twitter: “A boy killed

from point blank range and an-other boy tied to the army jeep. What to do after seeing these videos.”

Another Twitter handle said the army’s actions were “dehu-manising a whole population to cultivate total submission”.

“The strategy, that has re-coiled back, spectacularly,” ProjectKashmir tweeted.

However, some twitter users defended the army’s action and said it helped to avoid the stone pelting.

“Find a pelter, tie him up, let his pelter brothers scratch their heads. What’s not to love? Should’ve thought of this since beginning,” said a tweet from “FrustratedIndian.

Rajnath Singh, asked about purported videos of human rights violation by forces in Kashmir, said: “I can say the security forces are providing security putting their own life at stake in the crisis situation in Kashmir.”

He said a charge-sheet has been fi led and action regard-ing the treatment meted out to the Central Reserve Police Force troopers who were carrying the Electronic Voting Machines during the election was being contemplated.

Video clips, which went vi-ral, showed a group of youths heckling and even pushing the troopers as they made their way to the polling centres.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses a ‘public meeting’ at Nagpur’s Indoor Sports Complex yesterday. after launching various projects and schemes.

An Islamic State (IS) activist from Kerala is believed to have been killed along with 36 IS militants when the US unleashed a massive GBU-43 bomb, also known as the “mother of all bombs”, on the terror group’s position in a cave network in Afghanistan. According to Indian intelligence off icials, Murshid Mohamed, in his 20s, who hailed from Kasaragode in Kerala, was among the IS militants killed after the US military struck the IS’ position in Nangarhar province on Thursday. A top intelligence off icer in Kasargode said they had received information of Mohammed being killed in the US military assault. A relative of Mohamed received a message that he was killed, the Kerala Police intelligence wing said.

Debunking the state government’s charge that the BJP was trying to incite violence by conducting armed rallies in the state in the name of religious celebrations, Union Minister Uma Bharti yesterday blamed West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for “intentionally” promoting fundamentalism in the state. “These allegations are baseless. They don’t make any sense. Mamata Banerjee is intentionally doing fundamentalist politics. She is propagating the politics of hatred,” the minister said after a mass rally in West Bengal’s Howrah district. Bharti also asserted that the BJP would form the government in West Bengal “with a clear majority” in the next assembly polls.

The government will not issue any order to hotels or restaurants to regulate food portions served to the customers, a union minister said yesterday. “We do not want to make any law or issue any order to hotels. We want the hotel industry to make arrangements by their own,” Union Food and Consumer Aff airs Minister Ram Vilas Paswan said. Paswan said, “the prime minister has in his radio address to the nation spoken on food wastage. Since customers do not know about the quantity of food being served, they cannot finish it and remaining portion goes waste. So we have asked hotels to tell customers about the quantity of food in each menu so they can order accordingly”.

A video of Punjab Cabinet minister Sadhu Singh Dharamsot shouting at a school principal went viral yesterday. The minister is seen and heard arguing angrily with a school principal in Nabha town after his name figured in the third place on school building’s inaugural plaque. Dharamsot not only used off ensive language but even threatened to get the principal suspended. Following the ruckus the Punjab chief minister issued new guidelines on the use of names of ministers, MLAs and off icers on foundation/inauguration stones. The inauguration stone also carried the names of two donors who had collected money for the construction of a building block in memory of their mother.

The husband and in-laws of a Ghaziabad teacher allegedly tried to set her on fire over dowry demands, police said. On Thursday, the victim Sangeeta was preparing dinner at her in-laws house in Vasundhara residential locality under Indirapuram police station, when her husband Sanjeev Nagar, father-in-law Rich Pal Nagar and mother-in-law Ram Bhuli Nagar tried to burn her by pouring diesel on her and trying to make it seem as a case of accidental fire. However, neighbours came to her rescue and soon her parents and brother took her to Safdarjung hospital in Delhi. Sangeeta told her mother that her husband had been demanding Rs2.5mn.

Keralite man among36 IS militants killed

Mamata promotingfundamentalism: Bharti

No law on food portions inhotels being issued: govt

Minister caught on tapethreatening school head

Ghaziabad teacher seton fire over dowry

MILITANCY ACCUSATIONCLARIFICATION CONTROVERSY CRIME

Three women cover their faces to avoid the scorching sun on a hot day in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, yesterday. Heat wave conditions also intensified across Punjab and Haryana yesterday with the maximum temperature crossing the 40-degree Celsius mark, officials said. Hisar town in Haryana was the hottest in the region yesterday with the maximum temperature hitting a high of 42.8 degrees Celcius. This was six degrees above normal, the Met Office said. Narnaul in Haryana recorded a high of 42.5 degrees, six degrees above normal.

Northern states sizzle

PAKISTAN/AFGHANISTAN11

Gulf Times Saturday, April 15, 2017

‘Right time’ to use huge bomb, says US generalThe top US military com-

mander in Afghanistan said yesterday that the

decision to deploy one of the largest conventional bombs ever used in combat was purely tac-tical, and made as part of the campaign against Islamic State-linked fi ghters.

As many as 36 suspected Islamic State militants were killed in the strike on Thursday evening in the eastern province of Nangarhar, Afghan defence offi cials said, adding there were no civilian casualties.

Amaq, the news agency af-fi liated with Islamic State in the Middle East, carried a statement denying that the group had suf-fered casualties in the attack, citing an unidentifi ed source who had been in contact.

The statements could not be independently verifi ed, and yesterday Afghan and foreign troops in the vicinity were not allowing reporters or locals to approach the scene of the blast.

The strike came as US Presi-dent Donald Trump prepares to dispatch his fi rst high-level delegation to Kabul, amid un-certainty about his plans for the nearly 9,000 American troops stationed in Afghanistan.

Nicknamed “the mother of all bombs,” the weapon was dropped from an MC-130 air-craft in the Achin district of Nangarhar, bordering Pakistan.

Nicholson said he was in con-stant communication with offi -cials in Washington, but the de-cision to use the 21,600-pound (9,797-kg) GBU-43 bomb was based on his assessment of mili-tary needs and not broader po-litical considerations.

“This was the fi rst time that we encountered an extensive obstacle to our progress,” he said of a joint Afghan-US operation

ReutersAchin/Kabul

John Nicholson speaks at a press conference in Kabul yesterday.

Smoke rises after an air strike on IS militants positions during an ongoing operation against the group in the Achin district of Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province yesterday, a day after the US military struck the district with its largest non-nuclear bomb.

that has been targeting Islamic State since March.

“It was the right time to use it tactically against the right target on the battlefi eld.”

Afghan and US forces were at the scene of the strike and reported that the “weapon achieved its intended purpose,” Nicholson said.

Afghan defence ministry spokesman Dawlat Waziri said no civilians were harmed in the massive blast that targeted a net-work of caves and tunnels that had been heavily mined.

“No civilian has been hurt and

only the base, which Daesh used to launch attacks in other parts of the province, was destroyed,” Waziri said in a statement.

He was using an Arabic term that refers to Islamic State, which has established a small strong-hold in eastern Afghanistan and launched deadly attacks on the capital, Kabul.

The GBU-43 is a GPS-guided munition that had never before been used in combat since its fi rst test in 2003, when it produced a mushroom cloud visible from 20 miles (32km) away.

The bomb’s destructive power,

equivalent to 11 tonnes of TNT, pales in comparison with the relatively small atomic bombs dropped on Japan at the end of World War II, which had blasts equivalent to between 15,000 and 20,000 tonnes of TNT.

In Achin village, about 3 miles (5km) from the remote, moun-tainous area where the bomb was dropped, witnesses said the ground shook, but homes and shops appeared unaff ected.

Qari Mehrajuddin fi rst saw “lightning like a thunderstorm” followed by the roar of an explo-sion, an all-to-familiar sound for

residents of the war-torn area.“I thought there was a bomb-

ing just outside my home,” he said. In reality, the blast was around three miles away, its massive impact bigger than any before seen in the region.

Some locals welcomed the strike.“If you want to destroy and

eliminate Daesh, then even if you destroy my home we won’t complain, because they are not human beings, they are savages,” said Mir Alam Shinwari, using an Arabic term for Islamic State.

Away from Achin, reactions were mixed.

“The fact is that America used their big bomb here to test its ef-fectiveness,” said Kabul resident Asadullah Khaksar. “If America wants to eliminate Daesh, it is very easy because they created this group.”

Residents of Achin said they had got used to seeing militants climbing up and down the moun-tain, making occasional visits to the village.

“They were Arabs, Pakista-nis, Chinese and local insurgents coming to buy from shops in the bazaar,” said Raz Mohammad.

Yesterday, the village was swarming with Afghan and in-ternational troops, as helicopters and other aircraft fl ew overhead.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s offi ce said in a statement the attack was a part of a joint operation by Afghan and inter-national troops.

“Afghan and foreign troops closely co-ordinated this opera-tion and were extra cautious to avoid any civilian casualties,” it said.

But former president Hamid Karzai condemned the use of the weapon on Afghan soil.

The Taliban, the main security threat to Afghan and Nato forces trying to quell their stubborn insurgency, also denounced the bombing.

“Using this massive bomb cannot be justifi ed and will leave a material and psychological im-pact on our people,” the Taliban, who compete with Islamic State in Afghanistan, said in a state-ment.

American offi cials said the bomb had been positioned for possible use in Afghanistan for

“some time” since the admin-istration of former president Barack Obama.

The United States has stead-ily intensifi ed its air campaign against Islamic State and Tali-ban militants in Afghanistan, with the Air Force deploying nearly 500 weapons in the fi rst three months of 2017, up from 300 in the corresponding 2016 period.

Thursday’s strike was not the fi rst time Islamic State fi ght-ers have been targeted by heavy American bombardment in Nan-garhar, where a US special forces soldier was killed battling mili-tants a week ago.

Last year, B-52 bombers fl ew at least two missions in Afghanistan for the fi rst time since 2006.

Such aircraft can carry as much as 70,000 pounds (32,000kg)of bombs, missiles, or other weap-ons on each mission.

In March, US forces conduct-ed 79 “counterterror strikes” against Islamic State in Nan-garhar, killing as many as 200 militants, according to the US military command in Kabul.

US military offi cials estimate there are about 600 to 800 Is-lamic State fi ghters in Afghani-stan, mostly in Nangarhar, but also in the neighbouring province of Kunar.

The United Nations has raised concerns that the American air campaign is swelling civilian casualties in Afghanistan.

Last year, air strikes by inter-national forces caused at least 127 civilian deaths and 108 inju-ries, up from 103 deaths and 67 injuries in 2015, the United Na-tions said.

Next week is likely to be year’s hottest

The heat wave grip-ping Pakistan’s Sindh province is expected to

spread to other parts of the country after mid-April. The Pakistan Meteorological De-partment (PMD) has issued alerts to all the departments concerned to adopt pre-emp-tive measures to avoid any un-toward situation.

PMD’s director general Ghulam Rasul said that usu-ally in mid-April temperature in most parts of the country, except in interior Sindh, rarely crosses 40 degree centigrade. “It is expected that the coming week is likely to be the hottest week of the year throughout the country,” he added.

He said that next week temperature in central Paki-stan will touch 45-46 degree centigrade, in interior Sindh it will reach 48-49 degree centigrade, in plain areas of Balochistan it will fl uctu-ate between 42 and 44 degree centigrade, in southern Pun-jab it will fl uctuate between 45 and 47 degree centigrade and in Islamabad it is expected to cross 40 degree centigrade.

He added that the mercury is also likely to touch 30 degree centigrade in Gilgit-Baltistan,

Chitral and other northern ar-eas.

He said that the last time the temperature crossed 40 degree centigrade in the capi-tal was in 2006 when the tem-perature was recorded at 40.6 degree centigrade on April 29 of that year.

“Therefore mostly temper-ature crosses 40 degree mark either at the end of April or in May, not in the mid of April,” he said.

While talking about the hu-midity level, Rasul said that it is expected to remain below 30 centigrade. He also clarifi ed that in such a situation things get worse only when the hu-midity level reaches 50.

Rasul further said that the week will remain dry and hot as there are no chances of rain.

“However, in coastal areas and in Karachi the tempera-ture will likely fall four to fi ve degree centigrade as the sea breeze will continue to blow,” said Rasul.

He suggested people to take precautionary measures in the upcoming week to avoid fall-ing victim to the heatwave.

“People should increase their water intake, avoid ex-posure to the sun, avoid going out during peak hours, wear light colour clothes, cover head with a wet cloth among others,” advised Dr Rasul.

InternewsIslamabad

Debate led to ‘blasphemy killing’, say witnesses

The ransacked university hostel room of slain Pa-kistani student Mashal

Khan has posters of Karl Marx and Che Guevara still hanging on the walls, along with scribbled quotes including one that reads: “Be curious, crazy and mad.”

The day before, a heated debate over religion with fel-low students broke out at the dorm and led to people accus-ing Khan of blasphemy against Islam. That attracted a crowd that grew to several hundred people, according to witnesses.

The mob kicked in the door, dragged Khan from his room and beat him to death, witness-es and police said.

The death in the northwest-ern city of Mardan is the latest violence linked to accusations of blasphemy in Pakistan.

Those who knew Khan de-scribed him as an intellectually curious student who openly professed devotion to Islam but asked many questions.

“Whatever he had to say, he would say it openly, but he didn’t understand the envi-ronment he was living in,” said one of Khan’s teachers at Abdul Wali Khan University, who de-

clined to be named for fear of retribution.

Aziz ur Rehman, a caretaker at the hostel who witnessed Khan’s debate with his fellow students, said he brought up arcane subjects.

Crimes related to blasphemy are a serious off ence in Mus-lim-majority Pakistan, and penalties range from small fi nes to the death sentence.

At least 65 people have been murdered over blasphemy al-legations since 1990, accord-ing to fi gures from a Center for Research and Security Stud-ies report and local media, and dozens more convicted of the crime are currently on death row in Pakistani jails.

The Pakistani government has yet to comment publicly on Khan’s killing.

In March, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif issued an order for the removal of blasphemous content online, and said any-one who posted such content should face “strict punishment under the law”.

Police say they have arrested 20 suspects involved in Khan’s murder and have found no evi-dence to substantiate blasphe-my allegations.

Rehman, the caretaker, said Khan was alive when the police arrived, but that they did not

approach the hostel until it was too late.

“They could have eas-ily saved his life but they stood away from the mob... I heard one offi cer say it’s good that they sent this non-believer to hell,” he said.

Mardan police chief Moham-mad Alam Shinwari denied the allegation that offi cers did not do enough to save Khan.

“When we entered the cam-pus, he had already been killed and the mob was trying to burn his body,” he said.

In Khan’s home town of Swabi, around 60km south of Mardan, his father, Iqbal Shaer, said the accusations of blas-phemy were unfounded. “First they killed my son and now they

are adding salt to our wounds.”Shaer, who runs a small busi-

ness selling biscuits and choco-lates to local retailers, said he had always been a lover of poetry and literature and encouraged his children to express them-selves and appreciate the arts.

He added: “My wife told me this morning that she spent her life taking care of her son, but those who killed him have wasted that long struggle.”

At Khan’s funeral, the imam at the local mosque refused to read the last rights, accord-ing to Swabi resident Salman Ahmed. A technician who was asked to do so in the cleric’s place was confronted by several people afterwards.

Khan has since been buried.

ReutersMardan

Police search the dorm room of Mashal Khan, who was killed by a mob at Abdul Wali Khan University in Mardan, yesterday

KP mulls dividing Hazara

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province government is mulling dividing Hazara

into two divisions to pave the way for creation of Hazara prov-ince, a political adviser to the chief minister said yesterday.

“As soon as the Kolai-Palas is notifi ed as a new district, the government would then divide Hazara into two divisions, Haz-ara and Abaseen,” Zargul Khan, who is also an MPA-elect from Kohistan, told reporters.

He said that the proposed new division would be named as Aba-seen and Shangla district which is presently part of Malakand division would also be incorpo-rated into it.

He said that after bifurcation, Mansehra, Haripur and Abbot-tabad districts would remain in Hazara division while the re-maining districts including Batt-agram, Kohistan, Torghar, Upper Kohistan, Lower Kohistan and Kolai-Palas would be made part of Abaseen division.

“Those who talk of mak-ing Hazara another federating unit couldn’t even create a un-ion council despite remaining in power for the last many decades. Only PTI would make Hazara a separate province,” he claimed. “Our party supports creation of more federating units on admin-istrative basis,” he added.

Zargul Khan said his party created seven more tehsils and a district in Hazara and it wanted to put backward areas of the province on path to prosperity and development.

The PTI chief Imran Khan supported creation of Hazara province, he pointed out. “A resolution has also been passed in the KP Assembly in support of Hazara province,” he said.

InternewsIslamabad

Top court orders review of promotion of 300 offi cers

The Supreme Court of Pa-kistan has ordered the establishment division

to reconsider the promotion of over 300 civil servants, who were elevated to higher grades

by the Central Selection Board (CSB) in 2015.

In a 22-page judgement, a three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar told the establishment divi-sion to complete the exercise of promotion within 10 weeks from March 13, adding that no discretion would be exercised

by the CSB and all those denied promotion in 2015 would be considered without any over-riding arbitrary fi ve marks.

The offi cers promoted in 2015 will also be reconsid-ered but they will continue to hold their elevated offi ces, yet they will be reconsidered for promotion on a par with

those not promoted in 2015.The matter of promotion,

deferment or supersession of a civil servant and that too of grade 20 and 21 is of enor-mous signifi cance having a bearing on the state structure and therefore cannot be left to be dealt with in an arbitrary, casual and capricious manner,

observed the judgement.The detailed judgement was

issued in response to the apex court’s March 13 short order of upholding the Islamabad High Court’s decision to promote 300 civil servants whose pro-motions had been deferred by the CSB in 2015.

Now after fresh board, 15th

common will not remain the senior most batch as several of-fi cers of 13 and 14 common will also be promoted.

They will get seniority as well as fi nancial benefi ts from back-date. Thus the 15th common offi cers will become junior and lose chance for grade 22 in June-July 2017, the verdict said.

InternewsIslamabad

PHILIPPINES

Gulf TimesSaturday, April 15, 201712

Duterte gets ‘very good’ rating in fi rst quarterBy Catherine S ValenteManila Times

President Rodrigo Du-terte has maintained a “very good” net satisfac-

tion rating for the fi rst quarter of 2017, according to the latest survey of the Social Weather Stations (SWS).

The poll, conducted from March 25 to 28, showed that Du-terte received a net satisfaction score of +63, unchanged from December last year.

In the survey, 75% of re-spondents said they were sat-isfi ed with the president’s per-formance, 12% were undecided and another 12% were dissatis-fi ed.

The SWS noted that Duterte’s

overall score was buoyed by the “excellent” +87 rating he received from Mindanao, his bailiwick. The president, how-ever, suff ered a signifi cant de-cline of nine points in Balance Luzon to +51 in March from +60 in December. He logged a “very good” +62 in the Visayas and +64 in Metro Manila.

Duterte also maintained “very good” satisfaction rat-ings across all socio-economic classes—a +56 from +52 among Class ABC respondents, +64 among Class D, and +60 from +61 in Class E.

First published on the Busi-nessWorld, the survey, con-ducted through face-to-face interviews among 1,200 adults, had error margins of ±3 points for national percentages, and

±6 percent each for Balance Luzon, Metro Manila, the Visa-yas and Mindanao.

In a statement, Presidential spokesman Ernesto Abella said Duterte was inspired by the sur-vey results.

“Although surveys are not his priority, it inspires the chief ex-ecutive and the national leader-ship to continue its top agenda of ridding Philippine society of drugs, criminality, and corrup-tion, or building a trustworthy government; prosperity for all; and peace within our borders,” Abella said.

“We value this public trust, and will continue to work hard to serve the best interests of the people and to fulfi l the vision of a nation worthy of the Filipino people,” he added. Duterte: encouraging ratings in first quarter.

Good Friday marked with prayer for drug victimsReutersManila

Catholics in the Philip-pines re-enacted the crucifi xion in a display of

devotion on Good Friday, with actors costumed as Roman sol-diers hammering nails of stain-less steel through their hands and feet into wooden crosses.

Nine Filipinos were nailed to crosses in three villages in the province of Pampanga, 80km north of the capital, Manila, drawing hundreds of tourists despite the Catholic church’s disapproval.

Ruben Enaje, who was nailed to a cross for the 31st consecu-tive time, said praying for those killed by criminals and drug ad-dicts in the country was his key motivation to participate this year.

“I am praying for the victims,

the victims of drug addicts,” said Enaje.

“These drug addicts can waste their life, but we should also still pray for them because they’ve done wrong.”

More than 8,000 suspected

drug addicts and dealers have been killed since President Ro-drigo Duterte launched a bloody war on drugs in June.

More than 2,600 of the deaths were in police operations, but many others were in mysteri-

ous circumstances. Enaje said he wished good health for the brash Philippine leader to “do what he thinks needs to be done in the country”.

The Philippines has Asia’s largest Catholic population, comprising 80% of a population of more than 100mn.

Penitents whipping them-selves and the series of cruci-fi xions are an annual feature of Good Friday.

Poor people in the province began the custom as a way of seeking forgiveness, cures for ill-ness and the fulfi lment of other wishes, although the Catholic church decries it as a “misinter-pretation of faith.”

“It was a pretty wild thing to kind of watch and experience,” said Canadian tourist Matt Ken-ic. “It’s very intense.”

“I pity them and I felt like cry-ing,” said Philippine tourist

Teresa Cruz.Participants dressed as centurions are seen during the annual observance of Lent on Good Friday called “Moriones Festival” in Boac town, Marinduque province, south of Manila, yesterday.

Devotees take part in a Good Friday procession in Mogpog, Marinduque, central Philippines, yesterday.

Suspected IS member deportedA Kuwaiti man suspected to be

a member of the Islamic State

group was yesterday deported

by the Philippines to face charges

at home, a justice department of-

ficial said. Hussein al-Dhafiri, one

of the two suspected IS mem-

bers arrested in the Philippines

last month, was flown out of the

country to Kuwait, undersecre-

tary Erickson Balmes said.

A statement from the Kuwaiti

embassy said Dhafiri was due to

be tried in his home country.

“Evidence obtained by Kuwait’s

state security agencies also

showed that he is planning to

carry out terroristic attacks in the

State of Kuwait,” the statement

said. Dhafiri was arrested along

with a Syrian woman Rahaf Zina,

also named as a member of the

militant group. Zina and Dhafiri

married after her high-ranking IS

commander husband was killed

in Syria, said Justice Secretary

Vitaliano Aguirre. He earlier said

the pair had entered the country

as part of plans for “a bombing

operation” in the Philippines or

Kuwait. Philippine President Ro-

drigo Duterte has warned that IS

members might make their way

into the country by infiltrating its

communities.

Survey reveals pay boost is top concern for Filipino workersBy Catherine S ValenteManila Times

Economic issues, not crime and corruption, are the top concerns of Filipinos,

according to the latest survey of major pollster Pulse Asia.

A survey conducted from March 15 to 20, 2017 showed that pay hike was the “leading urgent national concern” for Filipinos at 43%.

Second was controlling infl a-tion at 41% and third was job creation, 39%.

Fighting corruption and crime, the government’s priori-ty, came fourth and fi fth, at 31% and 28%t, respectively.

“Economic issues top the list of Filipinos’ urgent national concerns; public opinion on the matter remain essentially unchanged during the period December 2016 to March 2017,” Pulse Asia said in its “Ulat ng Bayan” survey report.

“For the most part, Filipi-nos’ sense of urgency as far as these national issues are con-cerned remains steady between December 2016 and March 2017. The only exceptions are the higher levels of concerns expressed by Filipinos about infl ation and job creation in March 2017 (41% and 39%, respectively) compared to the previous quarter (34% and 31%, respectively),” it added.

Other national concerns in-cluded in the survey were pro-moting peace (18%), enforcing the rule of law (16%), protect-ing the environment (15%), controlling rapid population growth (11%), reducing the

amount of taxes paid by citi-zens (11%), protecting the wel-fare of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs, 8%), and defending na-tional territorial integrity (6%).

Filipinos are least concerned about terrorism and Charter change, the survey showed.

Ernesto Abella, the presi-dent’s spokesman, said the people’s concerns are among the priorities of the government as highlighted in the 10-point socio-economic agenda of the president, embodied in the Philippine Development Plan 2017-2022, “to equalise oppor-tunities for human develop-ment.”

“The president is particularly

concerned for the poor, exclud-ed and underserved. To ensure that regionally and locally the economies serve the interests of the many and not just the few, the Administration is increas-ing spending on infrastructure and social welfare protection, improving ease of doing busi-ness and creating more jobs,” Abella said.

“The survey coincides with Duterte’s priorities of serving the nation’s interests which have been long neglected,” the Palace offi cial added.

The same survey also showed that the Duterte administration got majority approval ratings on most of the issues, except for an

eight-percentage point drop in the level of approval for its ef-forts to defend national territo-rial integrity.

The administration got high approval scores in its fi ght against criminality (79%) re-sponding to calamities (77%), protecting OFWs (71%), fi ght-ing corruption (70%), promot-ing peace (69%), protecting the environment (68%), enforcing the rule of law (68%), creating jobs (58%), defending the na-tional territory from foreigners (57%), and increasing workers’ pay (55%).

“It is only in the areas of re-ducing poverty and control-ling infl ation where the current

dispensation fails to obtain majority approval fi gures as it scores approval ratings of 50% and 45%, respectively. It may be noted that infl ation is one of the leading urgent national con-cerns of Filipinos in March 2017 (41%),” Pulse Asia said.

“Conversely, Filipinos are most critical of the adminis-tration’s initiatives to control inflation (22%) and least in-clined to disapprove of its dis-aster response efforts (3%),” it added.

The quarterly survey is based on a sample of 1,200 repre-sentative adults 18 years old and above. It has a ± 3% error mar-gin at the 95% confi dence level.

The survey has shown that pay hike is the “leading national concern” for Filipinos at 43%.

Groups slam Meralco’s new power rate hikeBy Dempsey ReyesManila Times

A consumer group has lashed out at the Depart-ment of Energy (DoE) and

the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) that last Monday announced a new round of power rate hike for this month.

The power fi rm said it will collect an additional 23 centavos per kilowatt hour because of “oil price hikes and the weakening of the peso exchange rate.”

Matuwid na Singil sa Kury-ente Consumer Alliance, Inc. (MSK) Executive Director Aya Jallorina said the decrease of the value of the peso, oil price hike and the series of quakes in Batangas do not justify a power rate hike.

“Distribution utilities like Meralco are regulated for public interest and as such, insulated from external business risks that normal businesses take, such as foreign exchange, fuel increases or damages from weather condi-tions,” Jallorina explained.

“Remember, the ERC (Energy Regulatory Commission) has regulated the DUs (distribution utilities). As part of the regula-tion, they are allowed to recover from normal business risks like the decrease of peso value or unexpected calamities. There are fl aws in some DOE and ERC policies, that is why the DUs, like the Meralco, should not imple-ment this kind of system that will make the Filipino people poor,” she added.

The MSK stressed the need for a national policy on whether electric DUs should be unregu-lated in their profi ts.

“Providing effi cient serv-ice to consumers is part of the

condition to any franchise, like Meralco. So why should the con-sumers pay for Meralco’s per-formance, whether it is orderly or not,” she said.

Science activist group Advo-cates of Science and Technology for the People, along with Bayan Muna and People Opposed to Warrantless Electricity Rates picketed in front of the Mer-alco offi ce at Kamuning-Edsa in Quezon City to protest the hike in electricity rates.

“The power rate hike already refl ected in the bill for March and will continually increase until May is another cross to bear by Meralco’s consumers, especially as it comes at a time when we can expect higher electricity us-age during the summer months,” Agham Secretary General and Power Co-Convenor Finesa Co-sico said.

Agham said that power con-sumers should not be made to pay for the scheduled shutdown of the Malampaya plant.

“Contrary to Meralco’s claim that the Malampaya shutdown is a force majeure, the shutdown is indeed scheduled, thus the com-pany had ample time to manage the possible eff ects of the shut-down to prevent circumstances that could lead to a power hike,” Cosico said.

She added that her group, along with two others, suspect “a connivance between Meralco and power generation compa-nies to manipulate market con-ditions to justify a power rate hike.”

“We should not let the private corporations succeed in their attempt to manipulate electric-ity prices. We demand the ERC to immediately order Meralco to stop charging the increased rate to its consumers,” Cosico said.

SRI LANKA/BANGLADESH/NEPAL13

Gulf Times Saturday, April 15, 2017

40 homes buried under garbage pile in LankaEmergency workers dug

through tonnes of gar-bage in Sri Lanka’s capital

yesterday after a massive rub-bish dump buried an estimated 40 homes during the country’s traditional New Year.

President Maithripala Sirise-na ordered hundreds of troops and police to join fi refi ghters in the Colombo rescue opera-

tion after the 300ft (91m) high dump caught fi re and collapsed, offi cials said.

Police said the true scale of the damage remained unclear.

“A search for survivors is un-der way,” the police statement said, adding six people had been taken to hospital.

Dozens of homes collapsed af-ter heavy rain caused the garbage mountain to shift, offi cials said. It became further destabilised after a fi re broke out, triggering landslides that buried dwellings.

Military spokesman Roshan Seneviratne said 100 soldiers were already digging through mounds of trash at Kolon-nawa on the northeastern edge of the capital, with more to join soon.

Heavy earth moving equip-ment was also being deployed, he added.

Local residents said many people had left the area after the night’s heavy rain.

“We think about 40 homes have been destroyed,” a disas-

ter management offi cial told reporters.

Roughly 800 tonnes of solid waste is added daily to the open dump, angering residents who live nearby.

Sri Lanka’s parliament was warned recently that the 23mn tonnes of garbage rotting at Kolonnawa was a serious health hazard.

Eff orts are under way to build an electricity plant that could transform the solid waste into fuel.

Yesterday’s fi re broke out as the country marked its tradi-tional Sinhala and Tamil New Year and most people were in their homes celebrating.

The local residents had been protesting about the environ-mental damage to the area as a result of the open dump where some 800 tonnes of solid waste was added daily.

The parliament was told re-cently that the Kolonnawa dump had over 23mn tonnes of garbage dumped over the years.

AFPColombo

Hasina to fl y with Druk as no Biman pilot can handle Paro

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is set to fl y to Bhutan with small Druk

Air plane instead of Biman Bangladesh Airlines as the latter does not have a certifi ed pilot who can handle Paro, one of the most challenging airports in the world.

The prime minister is scheduled to go to Bhutan on April 18 on a three-day visit.

Though Prime Minister Hasina stopped using Biman for a short period of time over two incidents - one involv-ing an emergency landing in Turkmenistan in January and the other was in June last year when the landing of a Biman fl ight carrying the premier was delayed by 45 minutes during her visit to Jakarta in March.

She also fl ew with Biman during her recently concluded India trip from April 7 to 10.

But, for her trip to the Himalayan kingdom, Hasina is not using Biman as there is no Bangladeshi certifi ed pilot to fl y into Paro, Bhutan’s sole international airport.

Only a handful of pilots are certifi ed to land at the air-port situated in a deep valley on the bank of the Paro River and about 7,920ft from the sea level.

Also surrounded by steep

By Mizan RahmanDhaka

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina ... flight precaution

peaks as high as 18,000ft, the airport is considered as one of the most challenging airports in the world for landing and takeoff .

According to experienced pilots of Biman, fl ights to and from Paro are allowed only under visual meteorologi-cal conditions meaning pilots have to make their judgements by their eyes rather than in-struments. And, fl ights to and from Paro are only allowed in daylight.

Only two Bhutanese airlin-ers – Druk Air and Bhutan Air-lines – operate to and from the airport with relatively smaller aircraft.

“Yes, the prime minister is fl ying to Bhutan on Druk Air, not Biman,” confi rmed a sen-ior foreign ministry offi cial while talking to newsmen in Dhaka.

Nobel laureate summoned for failing to pay duesA Dhaka court has summoned Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus in a case filed by a contractor from Savar, north of the capital Dhaka, for his failure to pay his dues.Yunus is chairman of Grameen Telecom Trust.Bahadur Islam filed the case on March 30 with the second joint district judge’s court in Dhaka. He alleged he had not been paid 70mn taka for land-filling work of Grameen Telecom Trust.The court issued the summons for Yunus and 11 other off icials of Grameen Telecom Trust. The court asked the respondents of the summons to submit their response by May 23.The contractor claimed that he had signed an agreement with Grameen Telecom Trust for the land-filling work in Zirabo area in Savar. He spent 50mn taka in land-filling from June 2015 to November 2016, but the company paid him only around 10.7mn taka.Grameen Telecom Trust was founded by Yunus in 2010 to implement and facilitate social business ideas.

Mahouts ride elephants past spectators in Piliyandala near Colombo yesterday, as part of traditional festival games held to celebrate the Sinhala and Tamil New Year. The new year which is common to both majority Sinhalese and minority Tamils dawned on April 14, but celebrations can go on for weeks.

New Year celebration

Dhaka-Kolkata train service upgraded

Bangladesh and India yes-terday formally inaugu-rated upgraded Dhaka-

Kolkata Maitri Express train services in an eff ort to further ease communication between the two countries with smooth journey.

Railways Minister Mujibul Haque and Indian high com-missioner in Dhaka Harsh Var-dhan Shringla inaugurated the service which fully air-condi-tioned coaches to provide com-fort to the passengers travelling by Maitree Express.

The Indian high commis-sioner said Bangladesh-India relations have scaled new heights presently under the

leadership of Bangladesh Prime Minister Shiekh Hasina and In-dian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

“We hope that this good re-lationship will continue for times immemorial,” he said.

The newly-inaugurated train consists of four coaches of air-conditioned fi rst class and four coaches of AC chair car.

A total of 456 passengers will now be able to travel in the comfort of air-conditioned coaches.

The coaches have been manufactured in India, using the latest technology and have been procured by the govern-ment of Bangladesh under the fi rst Line of Credit, said the Indian High Commission in Dhaka.

Maitree Express, which was

started on this very day of the Bengali New Year’s Day of 2008, has progressed from be-ing a once-a-week service to four days a week now.

In the year of 2015-16, more than 98,320 passengers availed of the Maitri Express service while in the year 2016-17(April to March), more than 115,060 passengers availed of the serv-ice, representing a growth of 17%.

Maitree Express is especially popular among the senior citi-zens and patients, who travel between India and Bangladesh.

On April 8, prime minis-ters of Bangladesh and In-dia fl agged off the trial run of Khulna-Kolkata Express and also formally inaugurated the fourth railway link between In-dia and Bangladesh.

By Mizan RahmanDhaka

Artistes perform against pollution in Nepal capital

With air quality dete-riorating and levels of fi ne particulate

matter (PM2.5) increasing, the pollution crisis in Kathmandu is on the verge of becoming the new capital punishment for the valley’s inhabitants, a media re-port said.

A group of 15 college students wrapped themselves in plas-tic sheets, wound ropes around their neck and stood at Tinkune, one of the busiest thoroughfares of the Nepali capital, on Thurs-day off ering quite a bizarre sight to passers-by and commuters alike.

They had but one aim: draw-ing the attention of the authori-

ties to the pollution crisis, the Kathmandu Post daily reported yesterday.

There has been widespread criticism from diff erent quar-ters of the government’s apa-thy towards addressing the crisis, while many have come out on the streets to raise awareness about the rising pollution levels and demand immediate measures to tackle the problem.

“All of us in the capital are fac-ing a hard time breathing these

days. But we can do nothing. So we are huddled here wrapped in plastic sheets and ropes wound around our necks, in an indica-tion how we are choked and our lungs are constricted by the air we breathe,” said Tanka Chaula-gain, who choreographed the act.

The students are from Kan-tipur Film Academy.

According to public group Drishti Kathmandu, which has placed air quality moni-toring devices at 17 diff erent locations in the Valley, the level of fi ne particulate matter (PM2.5) in the air on Wednes-day stood at 125 microgram per cubic metre.

The World Health Organisa-tion’s upper safe limit of daily PM2.5 concentration in the air is 25 microgram per cubic me-

tre while the standard set by the Nepal government is 40 μg/m3. PM2.5 includes pollutants that penetrate deep into the lungs and into the cardiovascular sys-tem, posing the greatest risks to human health.

“Pollution has emerged as one of the most serious problems in the capital. The ongoing road-widening drive and pipe-laying work for Melamchi water supply project have only added to the woes,” said Chaulagain.

“Our aim is to raise awareness and protest the government’s lack of interest in working to mitigate pollution. We, as fi lm academy students, wanted to do it diff erently.”

The students said they are planning more pollution-related performance art in the future, if the issue remains unresolved.

IANSKathmandu

“The ongoing road-widening drive and pipe-laying work for Melamchi water supply project have only added to the woes”

Bangladesh marks Pohela Boishakh

Bangladesh yesterday welcomed the Ben-gali New Year, Pohela

Boishakh, with much enthu-siasm and colourful celebra-tions, a media report said.

Octogenarian artiste-cul-tural activist Sanjida Kha-tun’s organisation Chhaya-naut held programmes at the Ramna Batamul in Dhaka yesterday morning to wel-come Boishakh where its in-house artistes have been per-forming since 6am, Dhaka Tribune reported.

Besides, the cultural or-ganisation is also celebrat-

ing its 50th anniversary. The fi rst day of the lunar calendar Boisakh marks the begin-ning of the Bengali New Year, and is celebrated with much enthusiasm.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina greeted the people on the occasion. She asked them not to get confused and to cel-ebrate the occasion peaceful-ly. The festival has nothing to do with any religion, she add-ed, bdnews24.com reported.

Security has been stepped up around the Ramna Bata-mul. Police are not allowing anyone to enter the area with any kind of bags, the Dhaka Tribune reported.

Dhaka Metropolitan Po-lice are giving out free bot-

tled drinking water to wom-en, children and the elderly people.

The police have ordered to wrap up open-air events in Dhaka before 5pm and said such programmes on the Dha-ka University campus must end before 6pm.

Ministries have this year taken initiatives to celebrate Pohela Boishakh with more importance after the Mon-gol Shobhajatra (auspicious procession of Pohela Boi-sakh) was inscribed by the Unesco as Intangible Cultural Heritage last year.

The government has or-dered all the educational institutions to bring out Shobhajatra.

IANSDhaka

Police escort a rally in celebration of the Bengali New Year or “Pohela Boishakh” in Dhaka yesterday.

As thousands of South Africans keep taking to the streets to pressure President Jacob Zuma to step down, it seems as if he were the only obstacle to the country moving forward.

“Zuma must fall” has become a popular slogan since demonstrations against corruption and unemployment gathered pace in 2015.

Even many members of Zuma’s African National Congress (ANC) party have turned against him.

Removing Zuma, however, may not be a panacea to solve South Africa’s problems.

The ANC is so dominated by people with ties or an outlook similar to Zuma’s, and the country’s economic problems are so intermingled with inequalities inherited from the apartheid era, that his ouster might in fact not change much, analysts say.

Zuma’s reputation has been tarnished by a string of corruption scandals, including one involving the use of taxpayers’ money to upgrade his country home, and his close ties to an infl uential business family.

Millions of South Africans meanwhile live in illegal settlements with hardly any services, while economic growth slowed to 0.3% last year and more than a quarter of the workforce is unemployed.

The country’s economic woes were worsened by Zuma’s decision to sack respected fi nance minister Pravin Gordhan, which sent the rand into free fall and prompted two ratings agencies to downgrade South Africa to junk status.

While the economic stagnation is partly due to external factors such as a drought and a slump in mineral prices, it

is also seen as being due to erroneous policies.

“Wastage and corruption together with the bailing out of a series of unproductive state-owned companies have squandered very precious tax resources that should have gone into infrastructure

development and service delivery,” said Frans Cronje, CEO of the think tank South African Institute of Race Relations (IRR). The problem is not only slow growth, but also the “gigantic inequality” between the rich elite and the poor masses, said Nicolas Pons-Vignon, senior economics researcher at Johannesburg’s Witwatersrand University.

South Africa has one of the highest inequality rates in the world, with the top decile accounting for 58% of the country’s income, while the bottom half accounts for less than 8%, according to the World Bank.

The whitewashed villas surrounded by security walls in Johannesburg’s leafy suburbs stand in contrast to townships with unpaved roads and shack dwellings.

More than two decades after the end of apartheid, the inequality still largely overlaps with the black-white divide, despite the emergence of a black middle class.

More than 70% of South Africa’s top managers are white, despite blacks making up 80% and whites only 8% of the 56-mn population, according to IRR.

Nearly all white children graduate from secondary school, compared to 67% of black children, IRR has said.

The liberation movement that gave the world the iconic Nelson Mandela and has ruled South Africa since the end of apartheid in 1994 saw its support dwindle in the August 2016 local elections.

It is, however, still expected to win the 2019 national elections, which Zuma can no longer contest after serving two terms.

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Zuma’s reputation has been tarnished by a string of corruption scandals

Saving Asia’s mothersfrom maternal deaths

Capital keeps fl owing into Latin AmericaBy Jose Antonio OcampoBogota

Latin America – and South America, in particular – has been in crisis for years. Yet foreign capital, both

direct and fi nancial investment, has continued to fl ow into the region. This is unprecedented.

In the past, the interruption of fi nancial fl ows – or “sudden stops” – has been an essential feature of crises in Latin America and elsewhere in the developing world. The Latin American debt crisis of the 1980s brought an eight-year interruption. The Asian fi nancial crisis that erupted in mid-1997 and subsequently spread across the emerging economies caused an interruption lasting six years. The interruption associated with the Great Depression of the 1930s lasted several decades.

Yet these dynamics seem to be changing. After the collapse of the US investment bank Lehman Brothers in 2008, capital fl ows were interrupted for only about a year. Indeed, despite the magnitude of the initial shock, capital fl ows and risk margins had essentially normalised by 2009, when bond fi nancing in Latin America began to surge, soon reaching triple the pre-2008 average.

The shocks that have occurred

since then have had an even smaller impact on fi nancial fl ows. In 2013, the US Federal Reserve began to roll back its bond-buying programme, and commodity prices collapsed in mid-2014. In late 2015 and early 2016, developments in China roiled fi nancial markets. More recently, Donald Trump was elected US president, and the Fed moved forward with its fi rst two interest-rate hikes.

Yet the longest interruption in bond fi nancing brought about by these shocks – which took place during the second half of 2015 – lasted just six months. The commodity-price collapse in 2014 caused Latin American risk spreads to grow, but only by 1.5 percentage points, which was about one-third the impact of the Lehman Brothers shock.

More remarkably, the Fed’s two recent interest-rate hikes have had no perceptible impact on risk margins and fi nancial fl ows, though higher rates have been transmitted to Latin America. Trump’s election increased Latin American risk margins by less than one percentage point, and that premium had disappeared by the end of the year.

At the same time, all Latin American countries, with the exception of Venezuela, have retained access to private external fi nancing. Brazil had access to capital markets even at the peak of its political crisis last year. Last

April, Argentina pulled off the largest bond issue in Latin America’s history, after a settlement with “holdout” creditors from an earlier debt rescheduling ended its pariah status in markets. Ecuador has carried out several bond issues as well. During the fi rst quarter of 2017, bond issuance in Latin America was up 53% year on year, and it came at a lower cost.

Even Mexico, one of the main targets of Trump’s protectionist rhetoric, has suff ered no adverse impact on its external fi nancing. While Trump’s victory did trigger a depreciation of the Mexican peso, the exchange rate soon normalised and has returned to pre-election levels.

Does this mean the days of sudden stops in external fi nancing and abrupt capital-fl ow reversals are over?

Not exactly. Latin America’s recent success at avoiding fi nancing interruptions can be attributed to two main factors. The fi rst is regional: Latin American countries experienced a sharp reduction in their debt ratios from 2003 to 2008. With the commodity boom during this period sustaining massive accumulation of foreign-exchange reserves, the region’s external debt, net of reserves, fell from more than 30% of GDP to less than 6%.

The second factor is global. Low interest rates in developed countries since the fi nancial crisis have made

those markets less attractive to investors, who have sought higher yields in emerging economies. Whether Latin America can continue to avoid sudden stops in the face of new shocks depends on whether these conditions persist.

As it stands, the region’s debt ratios are rising, but only moderately; on average, they remain well below the levels that prevailed at the beginning of this century. Adjustment policies have helped, no doubt at the cost of signifi cant growth slowdowns and even recessions. Similarly, though developed-country interest rates will continue to rise until they are eventually normalised, the process is occurring slowly, even in the US.

Latin America’s recent ability to avoid sudden stops in external fi nancing is good news, and it seems likely to endure. This gives the region’s governments some macroeconomic breathing room, allowing them to avoid further contractionary policies and enabling their economies to participate in the global recovery that is now underway. – Project Syndicate

Jose Antonio Ocampo, a Professor at Columbia University and Chair of the UN Economic and Social Council’s Committee for Development Policy, was Minister of Finance of Colombia and UN Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Aff airs.

The United Nations development agenda aims to reduce the maternal mortality rate (MMR) to 70 deaths per 100,000 live births by 2030

By Anderson Stanciole and Federica MaurizioBangkok

With all the talk about the impending “Asian century,” one might imagine that the

region had moved beyond what are often viewed as poor-country health challenges, like high rates of maternal mortality. The reality is very diff erent.

In 2015, an estimated 85,000 women died of complications related to pregnancy and childbirth across the Asia-Pacifi c region – 28% of the global total. Up to 90% of those deaths, which were concentrated in just 12 countries, could have been prevented through quality antenatal, obstetric, and perinatal care.

In the absence of such care, the average maternal mortality rate (MMR) in the Asia-Pacifi c region is extremely high: 127 per 100,000 live births, compared to the developed-country average of 12 per 100,000. The 12 countries with the highest MMRs, exceeding 100 deaths per 10,000 live births, are Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, and Timor-Leste.

These countries, together, accounted for about 78,000 known maternal deaths in 2015. The actual fi gure is probably higher. In fact, MMRs are notoriously diffi cult to estimate, with

confl ict, poverty, poor infrastructure, weak health systems, and inadequate resources causing many deaths to go unreported.

MMR data do, however, provide an indication of general trends, which are not promising. Indeed, if they persist, hundreds of thousands of mothers in those 12 high-MMR Asia-Pacifi c countries alone could lose their lives by 2030.

To be sure, substantial progress has been made in the last 15 years, and eff orts are being made to sustain it. The United Nations development agenda, underpinned by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), aims to reduce the MMR to 70 deaths per 100,000 live births by 2030. If that target is met, up to 100,000 lives could be saved across the Asia-Pacifi c region.

Achieving the goal presupposed faster progress, with annual rates of MMR reduction particularly low (2%) in Papua New Guinea and the Philippines. On current trends, only four of the Asia-Pacifi c region’s 12 high-MMR countries will be able to meet the SDG target for maternal mortality. The remaining eight will require an average of 26 years.

At a time when family-planning policies are becoming increasingly restrictive, accelerating the pace of progress could prove diffi cult. Indeed, for some countries, progress is at risk of slowing.

The UN Population Fund (UNFPA) is working hard to counter this trend. We are committed to ensuring that all pregnancies are safe and wanted, and that all women and girls are empowered not just to make their own choices about their own families and bodies, but also to contribute more to poverty reduction and economic development.

In the 12 high-MMR Asia-Pacifi c countries, the UNFPA advocates the development of responsive and

inclusive health systems with suffi cient numbers of trained personnel, from midwives to community-health workers. And we are already working to advance that objective.

In Afghanistan, the UNFPA and its partners have supported the expansion of community health services, including the creation of 80 family health houses and nine mobile support teams. Those initiatives had reached more than 420,000 people by 2015.

In Lao PDR, the UNFPA has helped the Ministry of Health train midwives and village health volunteers to provide basic sexual and reproductive care, providing the information that women need to avoid unwanted pregnancies. This contributed in a steep drop in the MMR, from 450 to 220 per 100,000 live births, between 2005 and 2015.

In Fiji, the UNFPA, with the support of the Australian government, pre-positioned thousands of dignity and reproductive-health kits. Following the devastation caused by Cyclone Winston in February 2016, these strategically placed supplies help to address women and girls’ immediate reproductive-health needs, saving the lives of mothers and children.

But, while such initiatives are already having a powerful impact, more investment must be channelled toward ensuring that comprehensive health services are available and accessible to all, especially the most vulnerable groups. In particular, additional resources must be allocated to sexual- and reproductive-health services – and to ensuring access to them. Strengthening the provision of antenatal care, ensuring safe delivery through skilled birth attendance, and expanding emergency obstetric care are all key interventions that can reduce MMRs across the region.

Of course, women also need access to family-planning services, to help them avoid unwanted pregnancies and

reduce the number of unsafe abortions. The rights of all women and their partners to choose the family-planning method that is appropriate for them must be respected, and a full range of quality contraceptives must be readily available to all.

When women have full control over their sexual and reproductive health, society as a whole reaps enormous benefi ts. In fact, every $1 invested in modern contraceptive services can yield as much as $120 in social, economic, and environmental returns. Such investment should come partly from international development assistance, which must place a higher priority on sexual- and reproductive-health services, and partly from national governments.

But money is not all governments can off er. They can and must develop inclusive policies that address the needs of vulnerable and marginalised groups, including in ways that go beyond the health sector. This includes fi ghting harmful practices such as child marriage and gender-based violence; removing legal barriers to contraception; and working with communities to address misconceptions around sexual and reproductive health.

Safe pregnancy and childbirth should be a top priority for all societies, as it is for the UNFPA. If we are to meet the SDG target for maternal mortality, we must work together to advance targeted, tailored interventions that respect the rights of women and girls to make decisions about their sexual and reproductive health. – Project Syndicate

Anderson Stanciole is a Health Economics Advisor at the United Nations Population Fund’s Asia-Pacifi c Regional Offi ce. Federica Maurizio is Health Economics and SRHR Fellow at the United Nations Population Fund’s Asia-Pacifi c Regional Offi ce.

South Africans wantZuma out, but wouldthat bring real change?

Chairman: Abdullah bin Khalifa al-Attiyah

Deputy Managing Editor: K T Chacko

COMMENT

Punishment for polluting water sourceBy Dr Nizar KocheryDoha

Question: Due to some misunderstanding with my neighbour, we are not in good terms.

Recently, I found that someone has put garbage in my water tank. I strongly believe that my neighbour is involved in it. If I lodge a complaint with the nearby police station what will be the punishment for such an act? I don’t want to trouble him, at the same time I need to take some action on this. Please advise.

HHJ, Doha

Answer: You can fi le a complaint in police station stating all the facts related to the incident. According to Article 254 of the Penal law, any person who purposely pollutes or spoils a well, public water supply, or any other water resource, or makes the water unusable in anyway shall be punished with imprisonment for a term not exceeding ten years and a fi ne not exceeding twenty thousand Qatar Riyals. If the act was by mistake or out of negligence, the imprisonment shall not exceed six months or a fi ne not exceeding two thousand Qatar Riyals or both.

Expiry of alitigationQ: There was a case against me in the civil court fi led almost two years back. The party who fi led the case passed away and the case was stopped for almost one year. But still the system shows case against me. How could I clear the matter legally? Please advise.

KH, Doha

A: According to Article 88 of the Civil and Commercial code of procedure, any concerned party to the litigation, in the event of non-proceeding of lawsuit due to the plaintiff ’s act or forbearance, may apply for a judgment declaring the litigation as expired upon expiry of one year from the last proper proceeding. The period of expiry of the litigation in cases of discontinuance shall not commence until the day on which the party applying for the expiry of the litigation, notifi ed the legal heirs of his deceased opponent that a lawsuit existed between him and the original party to the lawsuit. The period prescribed for the expiry of the litigation shall apply against all persons even if they have no capacity.

Application for the expiry of the litigation shall be submitted to the

court where the lawsuit is fi led, in accordance with the normal procedure for fi ling such lawsuits. The expiry of the litigation may be pleaded as a defence if the plaintiff applies to resume the proceedings after the expiry of one year. The application or the defence shall be against all plaintiff s or appellants, otherwise it shall not be acceptable.

Right to attendcompany meetingsQ: I hold a small percentage of shares in an MEP Company in Doha. Most of our partners are employed in other fi rms and they are not active in company management. Being the shareholder with small percentage, the management does not inform me of any of the annual meetings. Do I have the right to participate in the meetings and decision makings? Please advise.

TY, Doha

A: Every partner has the right to attend the assembly regardless of the number of shares he owns, and by virtue of a particular authorisation, he may be represented in the assembly by another partner other than the directors. Every partner shall have a number of votes equivalent to the number of shares he owns or represents. (Article 252 of the Companies Law – 11 of 2015)

Cancellationof lost chequeQ: Our company lost a signed cheque while shifting our offi ce last month. We came to know about this last week. What is the procedure to be followed if anyone loses a bearer cheque? What does the law stipulate?

HY, Doha

A: A complaint has to be lodged with the nearest police station and court proceedings are to be initiated to get

the cheque cancelled. According to Article 588 of the Commercial Law, if a cheque is lost or destroyed, the owner shall be entitled to submit an objection to payment of its value to the drawer. Such objection should include the cheque number, amount, name of its drawer and every other particular which may assist in identifying the cheque and the circumstances surrounding its loss or destruction. When the bank receives the objection, it shall refrain from payment of the value of the cheque to the possessor of the cheque and should set aside the value of the cheque pending decision on the matter. The bank shall, if requested by the objecting party and at his expense, publish the number of the lost or destroyed cheque, its amount, name of drawer, name of the objecting party and his address in a daily newspaper. Any disposal of the cheque subsequent to the date of such publication shall be null and void.

Please send your questions by e-mail to: leges@qatar.net.qa

Gulf Times Saturday, April 15, 2017 15

By Nina L KhrushchevaVienna

Last week’s chemical attack on the rebel-held Syrian city of Khan Sheikhoun compelled US President Donald Trump

to strike for the fi rst time at Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces.

With the bombing of an air base in western Syria, the Trump administration stepped into a gaping power vacuum in the Middle East.

But what, if anything, will Trump do next?

Coming after six years of civil war, in which some 400,000 civilians have been killed and millions displaced, Trump’s unexpected intervention was praised by most US politicians, though it was carried out without the requisite congressional approval.

Syrian rebel groups and America’s international allies (including those at the just-concluded meeting of G7 foreign ministers in Italy) welcomed the United States’ attack on Syrian government forces.

With 59 Tomahawk missiles, Trump sent a message to the Assad regime and its patrons, especially Russia and Iran, that he, unlike his predecessor Barack Obama, is willing to enforce “red lines.” Unsurprisingly, Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin condemned the US attack, claiming that it violated international law – a questionable proposition, given that Syria is a signatory to the international treaty banning chemical weapons.

But whatever statement Trump’s decision made, it seems destined to be drowned out by his administration’s subsequent babble of strategic incoherence.

While Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the United Nations, has suggested that Assad’s ouster is now a priority, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson insists that defeating the

Islamic State (ISIS) still tops America’s agenda.

Worse, Trump’s decision to take military action was reportedly infl uenced by his daughter, Ivanka, who claimed to be “heartbroken and outraged” by the images of the victims of the chemical attacks.

Impulsive actions driven by personal feelings are no substitute for a long-term foreign policy.

In fact, it is the lack of a clear and comprehensive approach that allowed Russia to embed itself in the Syrian confl ict in the fi rst place.

From Putin’s perspective, Obama’s reluctance to engage created a golden opportunity to get his foot in the Middle Eastern door.

Putin’s goal in the region is not to have long-term or positive infl uence.

Rather, he wants to wedge Russia between various actors that lack coherent policies toward one another, thereby boosting Russia’s own power and prestige.

Like any good KGB operative, Putin is playing all sides, in order to advance his own agenda.

And, already, a new kind of Warsaw Pact is taking shape.

As part of this strategic game, Russia has worked to increase its infl uence over America’s closest ally, Israel.

In the last year alone, Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu have held fi ve meetings and deepened bilateral ties.

Squeezed by sanctions imposed over Russia’s annexation of Crimea, Putin is looking to Israel’s technology sector to provide what the West no longer will.

Israel, for its part, hopes that Russia will help rein in Iran.

Contrary to some of Netanyahu’s public statements, Israel does not oppose Russia’s intervention in Syria; it believes that Assad is a lesser evil than a chaotic failed state, such as

Libya after the removal of Colonel Gaddafi in 2011.

Putin is also making inroads in Iraq.Last year, the Kremlin sent the

largest delegation in years – over 100 offi cials – to Baghdad to strengthen commercial and security ties.

The resulting exchanges have focused largely on military assistance, though Putin has also wooed Iraq’s new ambassador to Russia, Haidar Mansour Hadi, with the prospect of co-operation in the energy sector.

Then there is Afghanistan, where Russia has sought to forge a viable

relationship with the Taliban, replicating the US behaviour of the 1980s.

By courting the Taliban, Putin is helping to destabilise the already weak government in Kabul – and making himself indispensable to any US strategy to escape the longest war in its history.

In Egypt, Russia is also attempting to recapture its Soviet-era infl uence.

And it has had some success with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, an eager devotee of Putin’s model of strongman governance who also has

a strong interest in rebuilding Egypt’s tourism industry – an eff ort to which Russia can contribute.

Before terrorists blew up a plane carrying Russian tourists as it fl ew over Sinai in 2015, Russians accounted for 30% of visitors to Egypt.

While Russia recently restored commercial fl ight service to the country, the suicide bombings at two Coptic churches on Palm Sunday have called into question Sisi’s promise of security.

Egypt’s travails provide Putin with further opportunities to lend a hand.

Already, Russia has received

permission to expand its special industrial zone in Port Said, and the government has signed billion-dollar contracts for Russian military equipment, including missile systems.

Moreover, Egypt has given Russia access to air bases to deploy special forces in Libya in support of Khalifa Haftar, the warlord whom Putin is backing.

Putin’s foreign policy is based not on wielding Russian strength, but on capitalising on others’ weaknesses.

Winning the loyalty of failing regimes by pledging to prop them up may seem to be a successful strategy, but the house Putin is building is made of cards.

Russia has neither the wealth nor the military power to sustain failing regimes ad infi nitum.

Putin must know that.Tillerson certainly does.During his visit to Moscow this

week, Tillerson appeared to make it clear that, if Putin continues to be part of the problem in the Middle East, Russia’s relationship with the US will deteriorate further.

Because Putin respects strength, and wants to be treated by the US on equal terms, he could well be convinced to become part of the solution.

With the bilateral relationship at such a low point, it is somewhat promising that both sides agreed during Tillerson’s visit to establish working groups for improving it.

But persuading Putin to get on the “right” side in Syria in the long term will require the Trump administration to present a real solution – which, so far, it has not shown itself to have. - Project Syndicate

Nina L Khrushcheva is Professor of International Aff airs and Associate Dean for Academic Aff airs at The New School and a senior fellow at the World Policy Institute. — Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2017.

LEGAL HELPLINE

LEGAL SYSTEM IN QATARAccording to Article 54, nothing is an off ence which is done by a person who, at the time of doing it, is, by reason of unsoundness of mind or intoxication, incapable of knowing the nature of the act, or that he is do-ing what is either wrong, or contrary to law; provided that the thing which intoxicated him was administered to him without his knowledge or against his will.

If the insanity, mental illness, medicines, drugs, alcoholic and intoxicating materials or any other reason that causes only defi ciency or weakness in consciousness or in capacity when the off ence is com-mitted, it shall be considered an extenuating excuse.

In cases where an act done is not an off ence unless done with a par-ticular knowledge or intent, a person who does the act in a state of intoxi-cation shall be liable to be dealt with as if he had the same knowledge as he would have had if he had not been intoxicated, unless the thing which intoxicated him was administered to him without his knowledge or against his will.

As per Article 56, nothing is an off ence by reason that it causes, or that it is intended to cause, or that it is known to be likely to cause, any harm, if that harm is so slight that no person of ordinary sense and temper would complain of such harm.

Principal penalties are death sen-tence, life imprisonment, temporary imprisonment, fi nes and community

service. Death sentence passed by Court shall not be executed unless after ratifi cation by HH the Emir. Death sentence shall be executed by hanging or by gun fi re to death.

Imprisonment is to detain a convict in one of the penitentiaries legally designated for such a purpose, for life, if the sentence is life impris-onment, or for a specifi ed term if it is temporary imprisonment. The court may link imprisonment with hard labour, if the term of imprisonment is six years or more, and the off ence or its circumstances justify this. Whoever sentenced to imprisonment shall be charged to do work provided for in the Penitentiary establish-ments subject to any limitations due to their state of health. Fine penalty obliges the convicted person to pay the imposed amount to the State.

As per Article 64, the sub-penal-ties are either dependent or comple-mentary. The penalty is dependent if the law fi nds it an absolute conse-quence of the principal penalty. The penalty is complementary if impos-ing it is based on the verdict, whether mandatory or permitted by law. The dependent and complementary pen-alties are deprivation of some rights and privileges, prevention from practicing a profession, dismissal from public positions, exclusion from the place or the public establishment, placing under police surveillance, confi scation and deportation of a foreigner from the country.

Any judgment bearing a criminal penalty shall require automatically and by force of the law the depriva-tion of the convicted person from all the following rights and privileges: (1) to be in charge of a public offi ce or work as a contractor for the State; (2) to be a member of the legislative, consultative and municipal coun-cils, boards of directors committees, public establishments, joint-stock companies, associations, private establishments and associations, or be in charge of the administration of any of them or participating in the election of their members; (3) to be a guardian, custodian or proxy; (4) to bear national or foreign medals; and (5) to bear arms.

The period of deprivation shall not exceed three years from the date of the execution of the penalty or its earlier termination.

Trump steps into Putin’s Syrian backyard

US Navy guided-missile destroyer USS Porter (DDG 78) conducts strike operations while in the Mediterranean Sea which US Defence Department said was a part of cruise missile strike against Syria on April 7, 2017.

Three-day forecast

TODAY

MONDAY

High: 40 C

Low : 26 C

High: 35 C

Low: 25 C

Weather report

Around the region

Abu DhabiBaghdadDubaiKuwait CityManamaMuscatRiyadhTehran

Weather todaySunnyCloudySunnyM SunnyM SunnySunnyP CloudyS Showers

Around the world

Athens BeirutBangkok BerlinCairoCape Town ColomboDhakaHong KongIstanbulJakartaKarachiLondonManilaMoscowNew DelhiNew York ParisSao PauloSeoulSingaporeSydney Tokyo Clear

Max/min24/1219/1634/2711/0427/1422/1432/2734/2425/2221/1032/2534/2414/0536/2706/-241/2417/1316/0627/1721/0931/2520/1323/14

Weather todaySunnyShowersP CloudyRainSunnySunnyS T StormsSunnyM CloudyM SunnyT StormsSunnyP CloudyP CloudyM CloudySunnyM CloudyShowersM SunnyP CloudyT StormsP Cloudy

Fishermen’s forecast

OFFSHORE DOHAWind: NE-SE 03-12 KTWaves: 1-3 Feet

INSHORE DOHAWind: NE-SE 05-15/18 KTWaves: 1-2 Feet

High: 35 C

Low: 25 C

SUNDAY

Inshore: Hazy at places at first becomes hot daytime with slight dust at places and some clouds.

Sunny

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Max/min34/2428/1737/2437/2336/2537/2739/2322/15

Weather tomorrowSunnySunnySunnyCloudyCloudySunnySunnyShowers

Max/min34/2429/1737/2429/2129/2537/2734/22

Max/min23/1220/1435/2711/0328/1627/1632/2732/2326/2323/1132/2534/2415/0833/2604/-142/2528/1716/0729/1822/1132/2623/1323/11

Weather tomorrowSunnyShowersP CloudyShowersSunnySunnyT StormsS T StormsP CloudyM SunnyS T StormsP CloudyM CloudyShowersSnowSunnyP CloudyM CloudyI T StormsP CloudyT StormsP CloudyCloudy

19/12

16 Gulf TimesSaturday, April 15, 2017

QATAR

The Ministry of Municipality and Environment’s (MME) Agriculture Aff airs Department has taken part in the GCC Food Day, conducting a number of awareness lectures. The GCC Food Day is being observed today (April 15). The lectures on honeybees were conducted at Qur’an Botanic Garden, which comes under the Qatar Foundation. The aim was to introduce visitors on the importance of honeybees and their relation to the environment, in addition to its role in the pollination of flowers, increasing the spread of wild plants. The lectures also mentioned the best ways to raise honeybees and extract honey and wax. A number of schools around the country took part at the event. The MME is also taking part in the Family Day in Qatar celebrations, which falls on April 15 every year, adopting the topic “We stay in harmony even if we disagree”.

GCC Food DayRufaqaa model village draws attention of Sudanese govtThe Prime Minister of Sudan and senior off icial figures visited the Rufaqaa model village for orphans, which has been built at Ad-Damir in River Nile (state) and implemented by Qatar Charity (QC). Rufaqaa model village consists of 200 housing units and will provide medical, educational, religious and administrative services to about 5,000 orphans and widows who are “eagerly awaiting” the completion of the village, QC has said in a press statement. After being received by QC representatives and the local community, the visiting delegation got acquainted with the project through a detailed explanation of the model village and its objectives.The Sudanese government delegation was briefed on the progress of the implementation. They expressed their admiration, praising QC for providing an integrated environment and infrastructure in education, health and vocational training for the targeted families. The Sudanese Prime Minister stressed that the village is a “great example” of modern integrated housing, pointing out

that the project will contribute to providing stability to the beneficiaries.The Prime Minister also expressed thanks to the government and people of Qatar for their eff orts in the development of Sudan. He pointed out that the project demonstrated QC’s ability to create a comprehensive

development plan for the targeted people and provide them with health, education and professional services. It is an idea that should be adopted by all humanitarian institutions, he stressed.QC is implementing the Rufaqaa model village in a locality whose area spans 200,000 sq m at Ad-Damir in River Nile (state).

The village includes 200 houses, each consisting of two rooms, a lounge, kitchen and bathroom. It also includes a kindergarten, two primary schools, two secondary schools, a vocational training centre, medical clinic, mosque, market, children’s playgrounds and green areas, in addition to two wells to provide potable water to the whole village.

The visiting delegation got acquainted with the project through a detailed explanation of the model village and its objectives.

Larger new malls help promote active and healthy lifestyleBy Joey AguilarStaff Reporter

Eff orts to promote an active and healthy lifestyle among Qatar residents have got

a further boost with the recent opening of larger malls in the country, which also off er various entertainment and leisure op-tions to visitors.

Speaking to Gulf Times, a cy-clist and long-time expatriate in Qatar said people who usually walk and do physical workouts outdoor in the winter can now continue their fi tness activities in a safe and secured facility, also free of charge.

“People will enjoy walking at their own pace inside a temper-ature-controlled and larger area, coupled with wider and longer walkways and corridors,” he not-

ed, referring to the newly-opened Doha Festival City (DHFC).

While DHFC’s 3-km outdoor leisure trail is expected to attract bikers, skateboarders, runners, and walkers, he said the increas-

ing temperature nowadays could opt people to walk inside the mall. DHFC, which hosts more than 500 stores with over 100 dining outlets, off ers visitors nearly 4km of corridors for walk-

ing. “Summer is coming and we expect many people to shift from outdoor to indoor activities,” said the expatriate, who is also a longboard enthusiast. “Cy-cling, mountain biking, running, and football, among others, will slowdown.”

He stressed that malls not only provide residents only with a suitable environment for walking but also various ameni-ties for their families and chil-

dren. This was echoed by anoth-er expatriate who has been doing her regular walks in the malls in Doha saying that summer is not a hindrance to continue her fi t-ness workout.

After his mother died of dia-betes last year, Jhun Canlas told Gulf Times that he realised the importance of exercise in pre-venting such a disease.

“I prefer outdoor exercise, walking and running on the Doha

Corniche and Aspire Park but come summer, I walk in the mall,” he said. “Good thing another mall (DHFC) opened recently, it is just a few kilometres away from our home.”

On some days, he said he will do his walking at the Mall of Qa-tar. He also lauds both malls for having large parking areas free of charge.

However, he pointed out that it is always advisable to exercise

or walk in malls located near to one’s residence, to save more time.

Malls such as Hyatt Plaza, Al Khor, Villaggio, and Landmark partnered with Aspire Zone Foundation to encourage peo-ple to walk and exercise under its ‘Step into Health, Walk in the Mall’ programme. For adults, the recommended target is 30 min-utes of moderate activity fi ve days a week.

Enthusiasts try DHFC’s bike track.

More residents visit the malls to walk.

‘World’s tallest bubble man’ graces Doha fest

By Peter AlagosBusiness Reporter

The nine-day Souq Waqif April Festival brought to Doha a col-lection of spectacular perform-

ances from internationally-renowned artistes, including the ‘world’s tallest bubbleologist’— William Wiles.

Towering at 6’10”, Wiles claims to be the ‘world’s tallest bubble man’. His performances during the festival, which concluded yesterday, are among several roving shows held along Souq Waqif Alley. The festival was Wiles’ opportunity to perform in Qatar for the fi rst time. Asked about the audience’s

reception to his shows, he said: “It’s been great! And everyone loves bub-bles! I have had some lovely audiences, many of whom love to see their children interact and enjoy the show.”

Wiles, who hails from London, had been making bubbles professionally for the past eight and a half years.

“Bubbleology is the term coined to describe what I do: I study and play with bubbles for my job. The most im-portant part of my job is the ingredients that I use and the chemistry involved in making the bubbles.

“Most of the bubble is water and then you have concentrated soap and something that makes the evaporation process slower – it’s a secret ingredient

that no one can know,” he pointed out.He added: “Because it is held in the

outdoors, the biggest challenge during my performance is that the bubbles are so thin they could burst if there would be any wind. In a performance like this you have to be very careful and very spontaneous.”

Another challenge, he said, was the humidity: “I’ve spent quite a lot of my life living in hot countries so the weather didn’t come quite as a shock to me until last Thursday, which was very humid, especially at nighttime. I was completely soaked in three minutes.”

Aside from Wiles, the Souq Waqif Alley also saw performances from the ‘Apple Men’, a group of fi ve perform-

ers from Slovenia; the ‘Gaudy People’, a duo from Vienna whose costume is made up of a colourful mosaic design; and England-based ‘Titan the Robot’, who is in Qatar for the second time.

In another section of Souq Waqif, stage performances by an African cir-cus and the ‘Diabolo Comedy Show’ from Germany enthralled audiences with breathtaking acrobatics, singing and dancing, as well as exciting cho-reography and tricks. The festival also showcased several amusement rides and games, which were also crowd fa-vourites. ‘Titan the Robot’ will give an extra show (three, 30-minute perform-ances) today (April 15) from 4:30pm onwards along Souq Waqif Alley.

Some of the performers of the African Circus.

‘Titan the Robot’ interacts with the crowd.

Children enjoy one of the performances of the ‘world’s tallest bubble man’, William Wiles. PICTURES: Shaji Kayamkulam.