Education alone can lead to just societies - Gulf Times

GULF TIMES

published in

QATAR

since 1978MONDAY Vol. XXXX No. 11147

April 8, 2019Sha’baan 3, 1440 AH www. gulf-times.com 2 Riyals

Commercial Bankscores double win atAsian Banker’s awards

BUSINESS | SPORT | Page 1

His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani met the Speaker of the Kuwaiti National Assembly Marzouq Ali al-Ghanim and accompanying delegation, yesterday at his off ice at the Amiri Diwan, on the sidelines of the 140th General Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) in Doha. During the meeting, the Speaker of the Kuwaiti National Assembly conveyed the greetings of the Amir of Kuwait, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah to the Amir and his wishes for health and happiness and progress and prosperity for the Qatari people. The Amir conveyed his greetings to the Amir of Kuwait Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah, wishing him health and wellness and the Kuwaiti people further progress and prosperity. During the meeting, they reviewed the relations between Qatar and Kuwait, especially in the legislative and parliamentary fields. Page 5

Amir meets Speaker of Kuwait Assembly

His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani yesterday met the Speaker of the Consultative Assembly of Iran Ali Larijani and his accompanying delegation, at his Amiri Diwan off ice, on the sidelines of the 140th Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU). At the outset of the meeting, the Iranian Speaker conveyed the greetings of the Supreme Leader Sayyid Ali Khamenei and Iranian President Dr Hassan Rouhani, wishing the Amir health and happiness and to the Qatari people further progress and prosperity. The Amir reciprocated his greetings to the Supreme Leader and the Iranian president, wishing them health and to the Iranian people further progress and prosperity. During the meeting, they reviewed bilateral relations between Qatar and Iran, especially in the legislative and parliamentary fields.

Amir meets Iranian Speaker

Duhail aim to bounce back aft er surrendering QSL title

Education alone canlead to just societies

QNADoha

A number of leading parliamen-tarians participating in the In-ter-Parliamentary Union (IPU)

General Assembly and its associated sessions have underlined the impor-tance of education, which they said will eventually lead to more just and equita-ble societies by eradicating ignorance.

In their speeches at the session, “Parliaments as platforms to enhance education for peace, security and the rule of law”, they criticised the policies of some countries in terms of violating international law, creating chaos and

not respecting human rights and the rule of law, stressing that parliamen-tarians should not be silent about such violations.

They said parliaments should pro-mote the cause of education which is the best tool to create just and equi-table societies where the rule of law is respected, paving the way for interna-tional peace and development.

Vyacheslav Volodin, Chairman of the State Duma of the Russian Federa-tion, said many countries in today’s world are being ignored, violated and besieged, which requires parliamen-tarians to discuss these issues and not to remain silent.

Referring to such violations, he men-

tioned the US President recognising Is-rael’s sovereignty over the Golan, which he said requires the censure of the in-ternational community. He pointed to a number of violations that aff ect some countries and attempts to impoverish their people and push them to take to the streets, as in the Middle East, and Venezuela in Latin America. The waves of refugees witnessed by some regions and countries have a direct link to such interventions, he said.

“We know who was behind the crea-tion of the so-called terrorist state ISIS in Syria , which sought to overthrow the regime,” he said adding that the policy of non-intervention must be the norm in international relations. To Page 7

Parliamentarians urged to raise their voice against violators of international law and human rights

Doha IPU meet represents an important step to enhance co-operation among states and establish international law

Fighting rages near Tripoli as UN fails to reach truceReuters Tripoli/Benghazi

Eastern Libyan forces carried out air strikes on the southern part of Tripoli yesterday and made

progress towards the city centre, resi-dents said, escalating an operation to take the capital as the United Nations failed to achieve a truce.

The Libyan National Army (LNA) force of Khalifa Haftar, which backs a parallel administration in the east, last week launched an advance on Tripoli in the west, home to the internationally recognised government.

The off ensive intensifi es a power struggle that has fractured the oil and gas producer since the 2011 overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi .

The LNA reached the southern

outskirts of the capital on Friday and says it took the former inter-national airport, though the Tripoli

military officials deny this.At least one warplane carried out an

air strike in the area, a resident said.“The air force took part for the fi rst

time in the military operations,” said LNA spokesman Ahmed Mismari. “It conducted a very successful operation to secure the airport road (to city cen-tre),” he added.

The LNA moved up north from on the road from former airport in the district of Khalat Furgan, coming some 11km from the city centre, a resident said, adding he could see the troops as forces loyal to the Tripoli government withdrew.

The UN mission to Libya (UNSMIL) called yesterday for a truce for two hours in southern Tripoli to evacu-ate civilians and wounded, it said in a statement without giving details.

But the truce was not observed by

evening, one UN offi cial said.In another sign of the situation

worsening on the ground, a contingent

of US forces supporting the US Africa Command evacuated Libya for security reasons, a US statement said.

It gave no details.Forces allied to the Tripoli govern-

ment meanwhile announced their own operation called “Volcano of Anger” to defend the capital, a spokesman said, without giving details.

The off ensive has taken the United Nations by surprise, undermining plans to fi nd agreement on a road map for elections to resolve the protracted instability in Libya.

Lawless since Gaddafi was toppled by rebels backed by Nato air strikes, Libya has become the transit point hundreds of thousands of migrants trekking across the Sahara with the objective of reaching Europe across the Mediterra-nean Sea.

Haftar, 75, casts himself as a foe of extremism but is viewed by oppo-nents as a new dictator in the mould of Gaddafi.

Libyan National Army (LNA) members, commanded by Khalifa Haftar, head out of Benghazi to reinforce the troops advancing to Tripoli, in Benghazi, Libya, yesterday.

Spokesman for the Libyan forces of the Government of National Accord (GNA) Mohamed Gnounou holds a press conference in the capital Tripoli, yesterday.

‘Blockading states deny themselves chance to talk to rest of the world’By Joey AguilarStaff Reporter

The countries blockading Qatar – Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bah-rain, and Egypt – have denied

themselves the chance not only “to talk to their Qatari cousins” but also to the rest of the world by failing to participate in the Inter-Parliamenta-ry Union (IPU) Assembly in Doha, an MP in the UK, has said.

“It is far better to have a dialogue amongst countries, it (blockade) should be the very last resort,” Ni-gel Evans, who has been an MP for 27 years, said on the sidelines of the 140th IPU Assembly yesterday.

The event, taking place at the Sheraton Doha until April 10, brings together parliamentarians from vari-ous parts of the world under one roof to discuss an array of issues and fi nd ways to resolve them.

Evans stressed that “the blockade is a

shame” since it denied the four block-ading countries to have a dialogue and the chance to participate in what he de-scribed as “a brilliant conference.”

“Isolationism is not a clever policy and I do think that they ought to be looking at ways of bringing themselves together in order to sort out the prob-lems of the diff erences and that is where you make progress,” he said.To Page 6

Nigel Evans at the 140th IPU Assembly in Doha. PICTURE: Joey Aguilar

HE Ahmed bin Abdullah bin Zaid al-Mahmoud

Al-Mahmoud is elected president of 140th IPU AssemblyQNADoha

HE the Advisory Council Speaker Ahmed bin Abdullah bin Zaid al-Mahmoud was unanimously

elected as president of the 140th Assem-bly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and its accompanying meetings by the union’s governing council.

The council’s meeting, which was held yesterday, saw the attendance of IPU President Gabriela Cuevas Barron, IPU Secretary-General Martin Chun-gong, and parliament speakers.

The participants approved adding the parliament of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines to the membership of the IPU for the fi rst time.

The meeting began with a minute’s silence for the Tutsi victims of vio-lence in Rwanda, especially as yester-day marked the International Day of Refl ection on the Genocide in the Af-rican country.

They also adopted the agenda and the briefi ng minutes for the Geneva session that took place last October.

Afterwards, the Advisory Council Speaker was elected to preside over the current assembly.

The Speaker of the House of Assem-bly of St Vincent and the Grenadines Jomo Sanga Thomas noted that IPU represents an important platform for the world’s parliaments, where they can discuss enhancing co-operation with each other. Page 5

QATAR

Gulf Times Monday, April 8, 20192

HE the Minister of State for Foreign Aff airs Sultan bin Saad al-Muraikhi yesterday met the Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Aff airs of Vietnam Pham Binh Minh, during his visit as part of the delegation participating in the meetings of the Inter-Parliamentary Union hosted by Doha. During the meeting they discussed bilateral relations between Qatar and Vietnam and ways to develop them. In addition, they discussed topics of common interest. The meeting was attended by the ambassador of Vietnam to Qatar Nguyen Dinh and off icials from the Ministry of Foreign Aff airs.

HE the Attorney-General, Dr Ali bin Fetais al-Marri, yesterday met the Speaker of the Parliament of the Gambia Mariam Jack-Denton. During the meeting, which was attended by the Gambian Minister of Foreign Aff airs Mamadou Tangara, the two sides exchanged views on a number of issues of common concern and ways to strengthen co-operation between the two countries.

Qatar-Vietnam ties reviewed Attorney-general meets Gambian speaker

Crucial role of women in nation building underlinedBy Joey AguilarStaff Reporter

The growing number of Qatari women who take leadership positions in

public and private sectors in the country underlines the crucial role of women in nation build-ing, a graduate of Qatar Leader-ship Centre (QLC) has said.

“It is very rewarding to see Qatari female leaders in diff er-ent sectors and we have a great example of female leadership that empower not only Qatari females and those in the region but internationally as well,” Josoor Institute executive di-rector Afraa al-Noami told Gulf Times.

She was speaking on the side-lines of QLC’s recently-held

annual graduation ceremony, which honoured 118 Qataris who completed one of three (either the Executive, Government, or Rising leaders) programmes.

Al-Noami said she finds it inspiring to see herself and co-graduates walk on the footprints of Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, Chairperson of Qatar Foun-dation for Education, Science and Community Development (QF), and “two other strong female leaders” - HE Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, Chairperson of Qatar Museums; and HE Sheikha Hind bint Hamad al-Thani, Vice Chairperson and CEO of QF – who are leading prestigious organisations in the country.

“It’s an honour to have such

great leaders empowering us,” al-Noami stressed, citing the numerous opportunities the Qa-tar government provides for its citizens to further enhance their career for free.

“Coming from a sports in-dustry myself, there are equal opportunities out there for male and female, in the end, I think the senior managements will be looking at competen-

cies rather than gender on what we can bring to the or-ganisations,” she added.

QF deputy director Maha al-Rumaihi, who graduated from QLC’s 12-month executive lead-ers programme, shares the same view saying that the country and its leadership recognise the im-portance of women in the work-force.

In taking these courses, she said many Qatari women acquire new skills that reinforce existing ones, ensuring all work to imple-ment strategic plans aimed at achieving Qatar’s National Vi-sion 2030.

Al-Rumaihi said Qatar is elite in the region in empowering women as it provides free educa-tion for both gender and oppor-tunities to study either abroad or inside the country.

Qatar, she noted, has become a hub for education and research in the region with QF hosting many prestigious international universities, which off er dif-ferent courses – “and such op-portunities are open to men and women.”

“Many Qatari women now are either masters or doctor-ate degree holders, so that is why we see them occupy not just any position but leadership roles. I work in QF and many of our leaders are women,” the QF deputy director said. “They want to contribute in nation building and they know that Qatar needs them more than before.”

“This emphasises the coun-try’s vision for women and pro-tecting women’s rights,” al-Ru-maihi added.

Maha al-Rumaihi Afraa al-Noami

Kahramaa checks cooling plant at Mall of Qatar

QNADoha

A delegation of the District Cooling Services De-partment of Qatar Gen-

eral Electricity and Water Cor-poration (Kahramaa) recently checked the district cooling plant located at the Mall of Qa-tar.

The purpose of the visit was to see the functionality of the plant and adopted regulations in line with the prevailing guidelines. The delegation followed up the functioning of the plant that provides the mall with central cooling services embedded with the cooling capacity of 17,500 tonnes.

By organising and monitor-ing district cooling services, the Corporation aims at saving electricity and potable water, sustaining water resources, pre-serving environment and using all new technologies of district cooling services to be in line with the objectives of Qatar National Vision 2030.

Kahramaa emphasises the importance of ensuring wa-ter security in the state, using Treated Sewage Effl uent (TSE) and fi nding other alternatives of potable water replacing it with TSE and making manda-tory the use of it at all opera-tional District Cooling Plants/Stations and supporting under-construction plants to ensure timely implementation of the regulation.

Implementing district cool-ing system in residential and commercial projects contrib-utes in saving electricity con-sumption by 30-40% and de-salinated water by 98% through using TSE. It also cuts carbon emissions by reducing con-sumption of the natural gas that is needed in electricity produc-tion.

QATAR3


OFFICIAL

Amir issuesinstruments of ratification

Amir issuestwo laws onland transport

Qatari, French air force commanders meet

Nepal prime minister meets Qatar’s envoy

Decrees issued

His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani yesterday issued the following instruments of ratification:1. An instrument of ratification approving the ratification of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to co-operate in the sports field between the governments of Qatar and Cote d’Ivoire signed in Abidjan on December 23, 2017. 2. An instrument of ratification approving the ratification of an MoU to co-operate in the culture field between the governments of Qatar and Cote d’Ivoire signed in Abidjan on December 23, 2017. 3. An instrument of ratification approving the ratification of an MoU to co-operate in the youth sector between the governments of Qatar and Cote d’Ivoire signed in Abidjan on December 23, 2017. 4. An instrument of ratification approving a draft agreement on encouraging and protecting mutual investments between the governments of Qatar and Somalia signed in Doha on December 13, 2018. 5. An instrument of ratification approving a draft agreement on economic, trade and technical co-operation between the governments of Qatar and Somalia signed in Doha on December 13, 2018.

His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani issued yesterday Law No (8) of 2019 on the regulation of road transport and Law No (9) for the year 2019 on road transport of hazardous substances.The two laws will be implemented from the date of issue and published in the Off icial Gazette.

Commander of the Amiri Air Defence Forces, Major General (Pilot) Hamad Mubarak al-Dawai al-Nabit, yesterday met the French Commander of Defence and Air Operations, Lieutenant General Jean-Christophe, and his accompanying delegation during their off icial visit to Qatar. During the meeting, issues of common concern were discussed.

Prime Minister of Nepal K P Sharma Oli met the ambassador of Qatar Yousuf Mohamed al-Hail in Kathmandu yesterday. During the meeting, they discussed bilateral relations, means of boosting them, and issues of common concern.

His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani issued the following decrees yesterday:1. Decree No 17 of 2019 ratifying a memorandum of understanding to co-operate in the health field between the governments of Qatar and Somalia signed in Doha on May 14, 2018.2. Decree No 18 of 2019 ratifying an air services agreement between the governments of Qatar and Somalia signed in Doha on March 18, 2015. 3. Decree No 19 of 2019 ratifying the accession of Qatar to the 1988 Protocol to the International Convention on Load Lines, 1966.The decrees are eff ective starting from their date of issue and are to be published in the off icial gazette.

Qatar takes part in Rwanda genocide commemorationQNAKigali

Qatar participated yester-day in commemorating the 25th anniversary of

the genocide of the Tutsi tribes in Rwanda, in which about 1mn people were shot to death.

Qatar was represented by HE the Minister of State Dr Hamad bin Abdulaziz al-Kuwari.

The Minister of State met the President of Rwanda Paul Kag-ame and conveyed to him the greetings of His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani and his wishes for the development of relations be-tween Qatar and Rwanda. For his part, President Kagame con-veyed to Dr al-Kuwari his greet-ings to the Amir and wished the relations between the two coun-tries further progress. Page 9

HE the Minister of State Dr Hamad bin Abdulaziz al-Kuwari attending the ceremony to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide.

HE the Minister of State Dr Hamad bin Abdulaziz al-Kuwari with President Paul Kagame.

Qatar Visa Centres open in seven Indian citiesThe Ministry of Interior

(MoI) has opened all seven Qatar Visa Centres (QVC)

in Indian cities, as had been pre-viously announced.

The recent opening of QVCs in New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Lucknow, Hyderabad, Chen-nai and Kochi will facilitate and simplify the recruitment and work visa procedures for Indian expatriates travelling to Qatar for work before their arrival in Qatar, the MoI has said in a press statement.

The total number of QVCs opened has now reached 12 across four countries. Previous-ly, QVCs had been opened in Sri Lanka (1), Pakistan (2) and Bang-ladesh (2).

Eight more centres will be opened in Indonesia, Nepal, the Philippines and Tunisia, taking the total to 20 across eight coun-tries.

Major General Abdullah Salim al-Ali, adviser at the offi ce of HE the Minister of Interior; Major Abdullah Khalifa al-Mohanna-di, director of the Visa Support Services (VSS) Department at the General Directorate of Pass-ports, MoI; Captain Nasser al-Khalaf, head of the Visa Section; and Captain Khalid al-Nomani, head of the Technical Studies Section at VSS, and government offi cials from India attended the opening ceremonies held in the diff erent cities.

Major al-Mohannadi said these centres would help speed up the provision of various services by the authorities con-cerned in Qatar for expatriates, noting that India is the fourth country to have QVCs.

“QVCs provide expatriates with a wide range of services, including fi ngerprinting, bio-metric data recording, medical examinations and employment contract signing before their de-parture to Qatar. Besides, they ensure the protection of both

expatriates’ and employers’ rights. The QVCs will help avoid cases of an employee returning in case of ineligibility and will also enable employees to start working at the earliest once they arrive Qatar,” he explained, add-ing the new step has been initi-ated by the Qatar government in a bid to ensure the protection and safety of expatriates coming to Qatar for work.

The employer has to start the initial registration through the MoI website (www.moi.gov.qa)

or app, Metrash2. The recruit-ment procedures are the same as before, but have been trans-ferred from Qatar to the expa-triates’ own countries. The em-ployer has to pay all recruitment fees in Qatar to let the worker follow up on further procedures through QVCs.

Applicants need to get a visa reference number from the MoI and can then book an appoint-ment by visiting www.qa-tarvisacenter.com. They have to visit the QVC on the ap-

pointment date no earlier than 15 minutes before the sched-uled time.

At the reception, the iden-tity of applicant is verified, re-quired documents are checked and a token is issued. Once the token number is called, appli-cants are required to digitally sign their work contract, enrol biometric data and undergo the required medical checkup, in-cluding blood tests, X-ray and visual assessments along with physical examinations. Appli-cants will be able to track the status online or through their employer in Qatar.

Multilingual information services are available at QVCs.

Information on appointment scheduling, requirements and steps is available in English, Urdu, Arabic, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam at http://www.qatarvisacenter.com

The QVCs have been set up and operated in co-operation with the Ministry of Adminis-trative Development, Labour and Social Aff airs, Ministry of Foreign Aff airs and Ministry of Public Health.

The services will be available from Monday to Friday, 8.30am to 5pm, and customers can con-tact QVCs by telephone at 00 91 44 6133 1333 or e-mail at [email protected]

Off icials at the opening of one of the QVCs in India.

Locations of QVCs in IndiaNew Delhi: Unit No 2, lower

ground floor, Parsvnath Mall, Ak-

shardham Metro Station, Akshard-

ham, New Delhi - 110092

Mumbai: Hallmark Business

Plaza, Sant Dyaneshwar Marg,

Near Gurunanak Hospital,

Bandra East, Mumbai - 400051,

Maharashtra

Chennai: Shyamala Towers, first

floor, East Wing, 136 Arcot Road,

Saligramam, Chennai - 600093

Hyderabad: ground floor, South

Wing (Krishe Block), Krishe Sap-

phire Building, Hitech City Road,

Madhapur, Hyderabad - 500081,

Telangana

Kolkata: Bengal Intelligent Park,

Gamma Building, first floor, Block

EP and GP, Sector V, Salt Lake

Electronics Complex, Kolkata -

700091, West Bengal

Lucknow: BBD Viraj Towers,

second floor, TC G/1A - V/3, Vib-

huti Khand, Shaheed Path, Gomti

Nagar, Lucknow - 226010, Uttar

Pradesh

Kochi: Door No 38/4111/D,

ground floor, National Pearl Star

Building, near Changampuzha

Park Metro Station, Edappally,

Kochi - 682024, Kerala.

Al Wakra Hospital is HMC’s second-busiest facility

With more than 30,000 patients treated at Al Wakra Hospital’s

emergency department each month, and upwards of 20,000 patients cared for by the hos-pital’s various outpatient de-partments, Al Wakra Hospital is Hamad Medical Corporation’s (HMC) second busiest hospital.

Dr Sabah Alkadhi, medical di-rector of Al Wakra Hospital, said the general hospital was designed, built, and staff ed with the chang-ing needs and expectations of the growing community in the coun-try’s southern region in mind. He noted the importance of commu-nity-based hospitals in helping to improve access to specialised care and in turn the health of the popu-lation.

“Al Wakra Hospital is now HMC’s second-busiest hospital. We provide a full range of diag-nostic and treatment services for outpatients and inpatients in the growing communities of Al Wakrah, Mesaieed, and the South Doha Airport area, pre-venting these patients from hav-ing to travel to Doha for much of their hospital care,” explained Dr Alkadhi.

“Al Wakra Hospital is home to Qatar’s only dedicated Burns Unit, the region’s fi rst specialised Uri-nary Stone Centre, and the coun-try’s fi rst dental clinic for patients with special needs. Our Hernia Surgery Centre has been accred-ited by the Surgery Review Corpo-ration as a Hernia Centre of Excel-

lence, becoming the fi rst hospital in the Middle East to receive this award. In the last year, we have in-troduced a number of new servic-es and clinics, including a robotic surgery service for general surgery and urology. These services are helping to reduce waiting times and improve access to important care services. And we are continu-ing to focus on the future needs of our patients and are currently hosting our fi rst group of residents from Qatar University’s College of Medicine,” added Dr Alkadhi.

Earlier this year 46 fourth-year medical students from Qatar University’s College of Medicine (CMED), including 19 Qatari nationals, began a clini-cal rotation at HMC’s Al Wak-rah and Al Khor Hospitals. The rotation is part of a partnership between HMC and Qatar Uni-versity designed to help meet the

future healthcare needs of the country’s population. Mohamed al-Jaber, a fourth-year medical student at CMED, is currently completing the fi nal month of his fourteen-week rotation at Al Wakra Hospital.

“This rotation has allowed me to bring what I learned in the classroom to real-life medi-cal situations. I feel confi dent in my ability to communicate with and examine patients. Every day I am interpreting the informa-tion I acquired during my class-room studies and using this as a roadmap to reach an accurate di-agnosis for the health concerns of real patients, all under the supervision and guidance of ex-perienced doctors. I am grateful for this experience and the op-portunity to use what I learned during my pre-clinical years to help enrich the lives of real peo-

ple,” said al-Jaber.Fatima al-Mohannadi, also a

fourth-year medical student at CMED, is currently completing her clinical rotation at Al Wakra Hospital. She said the rotation has allowed her to gain impor-tant hands-on experience inter-acting with patients.

“The rotation at Al Wakra Hospital has provided me with the opportunity to implement what I learned during my aca-demic years in a clinical setting. HMC has given me the perfect atmosphere to ease myself into the clinical environment and to improve my skills under the guidance of competent physi-cians,” said al-Mohannadi.

Both al-Jaber and al-Mohan-nadi are part of the inaugural general medicine class from Qa-tar University’s medical college, graduating in 2021.

Opened in 2012, Al Wakra Hospital is one of HMC’s larg-est facilities and is spread across more than 300,000sqm. With over 325 beds, including 234 general and acute patient beds and more than 90 critical care beds for high-dependency and burns patients, the hospital also has 77 observation and daycare beds.

Dr Sabah Adnan Alkadhi Mohamed al-Jaber Fatima al-Mohannadi

HMC’s Al Wakra Hospital

HE the president of National Service Academy Staff Major General Saeed Hamad al-Nuaimi met the commander of the Military Partnerships Directorate (MPD) of Nato, Major General Odd Egil Pedersen, during a visit of the latter to the acad-emy. Following the meeting, HE Major General Saeed Hamad al-Nuaimi briefed the guest on the activities of the academy during a tour of its facilities.

President of National ServiceAcademy meets Nato official

QATAR


Doha Bank names winners of ‘Gold Rush Cards Campaign’Doha Bank hosted a mega

raffl e draw in February and announced 104 lucky

winners of its ‘Gold Rush Cards Campaign.’ Held for its debit and credit cardholders with a total prize of 7kg of gold, the three-month campaign came to a close on January 31.

The campaign enabled Doha Bank’s customers to enter the raffl e draw by using their credit or debit cards for purchases dur-ing the campaign period, which began on November 1, 2018. The fi rst winner of the lucky draw, which took place on February 27, walked away with 1kg of gold, while the next fi ve winners re-ceived 250 grams of gold and 98 winners took home 50 grams of gold.

Customers increased their odds of winning the gold prizes

after they had increased their purchases using Doha Bank’s payment cards. Credit and debit card received an entry against each spend of QR500, while the same amount spent at travel or hotel merchants or internation-ally off ered them three chances.

Meanwhile, card transactions at jewellery merchants fetched the highest number of chances where customers received fi ve chances to the draw against their QR500 spend. Furthermore, customers who applied for a new Doha Bank credit card automatically earned two chances to enter the draw.

Dr R Seetharaman, chief executive offi cer, Doha Bank Group, said, “At Doha Bank, we are thrilled that our Gold Rush Cards Campaign has concluded with tremendous success as refl ected in the signifi cant rise

in card transactions during the promotion period. This dynamic outcome demonstrates that our exciting campaign has resonated with our customers and the raf-fl e draw will further reinforce our commitment to off ering them rewarding experiences.

“We will continue to ex-plore new ways to provide our cardholders with products and solutions that exceed their ex-pectations, thereby promoting cashless and digital transactions that will contribute to Qatar’s transition into a burgeoning dig-ital economy.”

In addition to lucky draw entries, the Gold Rush Cards Campaign enabled Doha Bank’s cardholders to take advantage of six-month instalment plans at no fee for travel, hotel, international and jewellery spends. Gold bar from Doha Bank’s ‘Gold Rush Cards Campaign.’

Ooredoo accepting debit card for online service payment

Ooredoo announced yesterday that cus-tomers can now pay

for Ooredoo bills or subscrip-tions, recharge their Hala lines, and purchase devices via the eShop online with a debit card.

Previously, only customers with a Qatar issued credit card could make payments online via the website or Ooredoo App but thanks to this new update, anyone in Qatar with a Qatar issued debit card can make easy payments 24/7 online.

Ooredoo said it has invested

heavily in its self-service fea-tures over the past few years as part of the company’s dig-ital vision and with the new update customers can top up via the app or website, pay bills via the app or website and purchase devices or acces-sories via the eShop and pay with a debit card.

Customers can use the card to top up their services like Hala and Dawli, as well as data recharge.

Beauty entrepreneur visits Galeries Lafayette

Beauty entrepreneur Anastasia Soare visited the new Galeries Lafay-

ette Doha store in 21 High St, Katara - the Cultural Village, recently, much to the delight of makeup lovers in Qatar.

The chief executive offi cer and founder of Anastasia Bev-erly Hills, which is renowned for its beauty products, visited the brand’s counter in Galeries Lafayette Doha and conducted a special makeup training class for her staff members.

A beauty pioneer, creative visionary and powerhouse en-trepreneur, Anastasia also de-livered an inspirational speech and said: “Makeup has this in-credible, transformative pow-er to boost confi dence, inspire creativity and be personal to each and every user. Creat-ing products that resonate with you, become integrated into your routines and into your lives has always been the reason I do this.”

Anatasia’s fans were thrilled at the opportunity to meet her

personally and the brand’s lat-est Riviera Palette was exclu-sively signed by Anastasia and made available for the general public, Ali Bin Ali Holding said in a statement.

Speaking about the visit, Galeries Lafayette Doha gen-eral manager David Miller said, “At Galeries Lafayette, we try to make the retail ex-perience come alive. Interac-tion with the brands and their creators is part of our ‘retail-tainment’ philosophy and we are delighted to bring that spirit to Qatar.”

Anastasia launched her namesake brand with a Bev-erly Hills fl agship salon in 1997 and the company’s fi rst product line in 2000. Ever since, it has become one of the fastest-growing brands in the global beauty industry. Her audience spans the globe and comprises many of its most famous faces, who rely on her unique vision of indi-vidual beauty to amplify their own, the statement adds.

Anastasia Soare during her visit to Galeries Lafayette Doha.

QDA launches fifth diabetes course for educatorsQatar Diabetes Association (QDA), a member of Qatar Foundation, has launched its fifth diabetes education course for healthcare providers. The course which runs until August 2019 is delivered by the Canadian Michener Institute for Education at the University Health Network. This year, 28 healthcare professionals from the public and private sectors in Qatar have enrolled in the course, which includes workshops and lectures at QDA, as well as online teaching sessions and discussions with experts in Canada. At the end of the six-month course, participants will sit a final exam and receive a certificate.Dr Abdulla al-Hamaq, executive director, QDA, said, “The goal of the programme is to improve the skills of the participants who are currently off ering education services to people living with diabetes in Qatar. “QDA strives to enhance the quality of care delivered to people with diabetes through building the capacity of the medical education team. We are very pleased to collaborate with the experts in the field of diabetes education at the Michener Institute of Education to provide an International Diabetes Federation-accredited course. This course will off er a world-class certification program to diabetes educators in Qatar” To date, over 190 healthcare professionals have benefited from courses off ered by QDA.

Sidra Medicine to host epilepsy workshop for school nurses

Sidra Medicine will host free workshops on April 10 as part of Epilepsy

Awareness Day for school nurses and caregivers.

The Arabic session will be held from 8am to 11am while the English session will be from 12 noon to 3pm at the Sidra Auditorium in the main hospital.

Organised by the paediatric neurology division at Sidra Medicine, the workshops are aimed at educating school nurses and caregivers about caring for students with epi-

lepsy. The workshops are also open to healthcare providers interested in epilepsy among school age children as well as primary care nurses.

Epilepsy is a condition that aff ects the brain and causes repeated seizures. As a result, cells in the brain get disrupted during a seizure causing the body to behave in an unusual way.

Workshop organiser and attending physician in neu-rology, Dr Rana al-Shami, said, “Children with epilepsy should be able to enjoy the

same opportunities at school as any other student. We en-courage schools in Qatar to send their nurses and caregiv-ers to the three hour work-shops. They have been de-signed to ensure that school nurses are given the right information about students with epilepsy who are under their care and supervision. Each child will have diff erent needs and we have a segment related to instructions on giv-ing appropriate fi rst aid or emergency medicine if they have a seizure at school.”

Sidra Medicine’s Neurology and EEG team

Rolls Cullinan model recalled for software errorThe Ministry of Commerce and Industry, in collaboration with Alfardan Automobiles, has announced the recall of Rolls-Royce Cullinan model of 2018 over sunroof software malfunction.The recall campaign comes within the framework of the ministry’s continuous eff orts to protect consumers and ensure that car dealers follow up on vehicle defects and repairs.The ministry said that it will co-ordinate with the dealer to follow up on the maintenance and repair works and will communicate with customers to ensure that the necessary repairs are carried out.The ministry urges all customers to report any violations to its Consumer Protection and Anti-Commercial Fraud Department.

Porsche 911 Carrera models recalledThe Ministry of Commerce and Industry, in collaboration with Porsche Centre Doha Al Boraq Automobiles, has announced the recall of three Porsche 911 Carrera models of 2018 – 2019, over a potential defect that may require the re-installation of screws on side airbag sensors.The recall campaign comes within the framework of the ministry’s continuous eff orts to protect consumers and ensure that car dealers follow up on vehicle defects and repairs.The ministry said that it will coordinate with the dealer to follow up on the maintenance and repair works and will communicate with customers to ensure that the necessary repairs are carried out.

CRA attends summit on Information Society Forum

A high-level Qatari delegation headed by Communications Regulatory Authority (CRA)

president Ali al-Mannai is attend-ing the ‘World Summit on the In-formation Society (WSIS) Forum 2019’, which will run until April 12 in Geneva, Switzerland.

The forum is being held under the theme ‘Information and Commu-nication Technologies for achiev-ing the sustainable development goals’. The core aim of the forum is to align the UN Sustainable Devel-opment Goals (SDGs) that cover a wide range of social and economic development issues worldwide with WSIS Action Lines to accelerate the achievement of the SDGs.

The forum will include high-level

policy sessions, ministerial round-tables, and more than 100 work-shops on various topics, including artifi cial intelligence and data pri-vacy, blockchain and data protec-tion, the role of information and communications technology (ICT) in academia, cybersecurity and ar-tifi cial intelligence, smart cities, and fi fth generation (5G) technologies.

An exhibition will also be held on the sidelines of the forum along-side a WSIS Prizes ceremony, which aims to provide recognition to the projects that succeeded in implementing development-ori-ented strategies that leverage the power of ICTs as an enabler of the development.

The CRA ensures to attend and

participate in international semi-nars, conferences, and forums with the aim of enhancing partnerships and staying up-to-date with the lat-est developments and international best practices in the fi eld of ICTs.

This would provide additional valuable inputs during CRA’s de-velopment of innovative regulatory frameworks, which ensures ICT sector progress for the benefi t of consumers and stakeholders in the state of Qatar, and ensure contrib-uting to the achievement of sus-tainable development goals 2030 on both local and global levels.

This year WSIS Forum is cel-ebrating the 10th anniversary of its establishment, an event that represents the world’s largest an-

nual gathering of the ‘ICT for development’ community.

More than 30 international or-ganisations and unions are co-or-ganising WSIS 2019, including the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the Universal Postal Union (UPU), the United Nations Educational, Scientifi c and Cultur-al Organisation (Unesco), and the United Nations International Chil-dren’s Emergency Fund (Unicef), among others.

More than 3,000 participants will attend the forum from over 150 countries around the world, representing multi-stakeholders including government, civil soci-ety, private sector, academia, and international organisations.

IAP honours four staff members

Ibn Ajayan Project (IAP) has awarded the Em-ployee of the Month

honour for March to four staff members, it was an-nounced yesterday.

They are Nabile Lachhab (plumber at Asian City), Sambarani Satish (electri-cian at Plaza Mall), Sheik Jakaul (cleaner helper at Salwa Project), and Jotham Denis Mwakudua (security offi cer at Plaza).

Each winner was pre-

sented with a certifi cate of achievement and a special gift.

“The Employee of the Month programme rec-ognises staff members who demonstrate out-standing contributions to our customers through their work and exhibit a positive and supportive attitude,” according to a statement.

Four staff members each month receives the award

and all recipients of the monthly award in the year, become eligible for the Em-ployee of the Year award.

Mohamed bin Mahdi

bin Ajayan al-Ahbabi, IAP chairman and CEO, said: “They work hard, and as a facility team their job can stressful sometimes. We

are happy to recognise ex-ceptional behaviour and performance,and it is really valuable to us to make them feel appreciated.”

The ‘Employee of the Month’ winners with IAP off icials.

QATAR5Gulf Times

Monday, April 8, 2019

Advisory Council Speaker presides over 140th IPU General AssemblyQNADoha

HE the Speaker of the Shura Council Ahmed bin Abdullah bin Zaid al-

Mahmoud yesterday chaired the 140th Assembly of the Inter-Par-liamentary Union (IPU) in Doha.

The assembly is discussing parliaments as platforms to en-hance education for peace, secu-rity and the rule of law.

The session was attended IPU President Gabriela Cuevas Bar-ron, IPU Secretary-General Mar-tin Chungong, parliament speak-ers and heads of participating delegations.

Al-Mahmoud expressed his thanks and appreciation for the high confi dence shown by the IPU Governing Council in him after they unanimously elected him as president of the 140th As-sembly of the IPU, stressing the importance of cooperation to en-sure the success of these impor-tant meetings.

He pointed out that the choice of this year’s subject, parliaments as platforms to enhance educa-tion for peace, security and the rule of law, for discussion comes at a time of increasing calls for paying special interest to the quality of education.

He stressed the decisive and eff ective role of the IPU in dis-seminating science and sound knowledge and correcting cor-rupt concepts that threaten the principles of peace, security and the rule of law at a time when

wars and extremist ideas prevail, by calling for racial, sectarian su-premacy as well as genocide and exclusion of others.

He pointed out that addressing this vital issue represents the ba-sis and root of the current chal-lenges facing the world.

Al-Mahmoud stressed that just focusing on expanding the provi-sion of education is no longer suf-fi cient, if it can’t be linked to val-ues of love and tolerance.

He highlighted that parlia-mentarians have a role to play in that regard, by promoting edu-cation that celebrates diversity, whether cultural, religious, or ideological.

He pointed out that the State of Qatar has focused on educa-tion, thanks to unlimited sup-port from the country’s lead-ership in terms of curriculum development, the use of new technologies in the develop-

ment of teachers and students.This is a boost towards achiev-

ing the goals of the fourth ob-jective of the 2030 Sustainable Development agenda and Qatar National Vision 2030.

It also put Qatar in an advanced position in the fi eld of education, quality of mathematics and sci-ence, and the use of Internet technology in schools according to the Global Competitiveness Report of the World Economic Forum (WEC).

Al-Mahmoud discussed the speech given on Saturday by His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, in which he discussed the education ini-tiatives made by the State of Qatar not just on a national and regional level, but around the world in co-operation with the designated United Nations agencies.

Al-Mahmoud expressed the hope that upcoming meetings can help lay out a plan that all member parliaments can then help implement and discuss its progress in upcoming meetings.

He also hoped that this year’s assembly can succeed in helping people of the world have a more prosperous future and the help the world enjoy peace and security.

Ecuador’s Minister of Foreign Aff airs and President of the 73rd Ordinary Session of the United Nations General Assembly Maria Fernanda Espinosa Garces hailed the work of the IPU General As-sembly and the presence of hun-dreds of parliamentarians from around the world at an interna-tional forum that underlines the

importance of concerted eff orts to achieve peace and security through education.

In a televised message to the plenary session, Garces said that the issues dealt with at the current session of the General Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union are of great importance and re-quire cooperation at all levels to translate the promises into reality through the work of parliamen-tarians who have the responsibil-ity to communicate the voice of peoples to governments.

In this context, she stressed the importance of working at all levels, whether local, national or region-al or international, where these meetings move local and regional eff orts to international eff orts, bringing together all stakehold-ers to come up with clear visions about the future, especially on the theme of this session which is pro-moting education for peace and security and the rule of law.

Garces noted the importance of multilateral action and said that, after half a century and several global wars, the found-

ing fathers of the UN and the IPU had understood that multilater-alism was the only way to meet the challenges that were becom-ing more and more certain day by day, as climate change requires multilateral action.

She warned that collective ac-tion or multilateralism are cur-rently being subjected to fi erce attacks, with countries that want to undermine internationally-recognised borders and some who have lost faith in the ability of such organisations to promote and improve human life.

Garces said that in order to face such a threat, the logic of force-based policies must be overcome, parliaments must re-spond to these challenges and real partnerships should exist to benefi t the people.

She reaffi rmed the role of par-liamentarians in promoting mul-tilateralism and opposing the idea that such pluralism threat-ens national sovereignty while it actually strengthens it.

She added that parliaments can co-operate on issues common to

their peoples and can strengthen UN’s work and other interna-tional institutions in order for it to become more transparent.

She highlighted the parlia-mentarians ability to positively infl uence their governments to ensure that international deci-sions that contribute to develop-ment and others are implement-ed through legislation adoption or the allocating resources that lead to achieving sustainable de-velopment goals.

IPU President Gabriela Cuevas Barron touched on the impor-tance of choosing education as a main topic for the general assem-bly and the parliamentarians’ role in promoting it for peace, security and sovereignty.

She said that parliament mem-bers play a major role in address-ing the issue of education in a rapidly changing world with in-fl uences around the world that create many challenges, the most important of which is to make education inclusive and oppor-tunity-driven.

She reaffi rmed parliamentari-

ans’ role in the interest of peoples’ access to education regardless of age, gender and race all by making education for all, boys and girls, men and women, the poor and the rich, and for developing and de-veloped countries alike.

Barron also highlighted the im-portance of instilling the culture of gender equality in new generations by teaching these values in schools and through practice because it is diffi cult to change mindsets when children become adults.

She also touched on national values through education which should not lead to nationalistic tendencies which is hostile to the other or to extremism, as everyone in their countries are citizens and all peoples are citizens of this world.

She added that anti-Semitism must be rejected by teaching equality among human beings.

She added that education is an important way to solve the prob-lems and challenges of the world and to promote and achieve sus-tainability through the use of advanced models of education in several countries.

His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani met the President of the Consultative Council of Oman, Sheikh Khalid bin Hilal al-Maawali, and his delegation yesterday at his off ice at the Amiri Diwan, on the sidelines of the 140th Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) in Doha. At the outset of the meeting, the Omani Consultative Council president conveyed the greetings of Sultan Qaboos bin Said, wishing the Amir health and happiness and further progress and prosperity to the Qatari people. For his part, the Amir entrusted Omani Consultative Council president to convey his greetings to Sultan Qaboos bin Said, wishing him health and to the Omani people further progress and prosperity. During the meeting, they reviewed the close relations between Qatar and Oman especially in the legislative and parliamentary fields.

Amir meets Oman’s Consultative Council president

HE the Speaker of the Advisory Council Ahmed bin Abdullah bin Zaid al-Mahmoud addressing the Inter-Parliamentary Union General Assembly in Doha yesterday.

QATAR


HE the Prime Minister and Minister of Interior Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani yesterday met at the Sheraton Hotel with several parliament speakers participating in the 140th Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union hosted by Doha. The prime minister met the Speaker of the Shura Council of Oman Sheikh Khalid bin Hilal al-Maawali, Speaker of the House of Representatives of Jordan Atef Youssef Tarawneh, Speaker of the National Assembly of Vietnam Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan, President of the Senate of Nigeria Bukola Saraki, Speaker of the Parliament of Iran Ali Larijani, Speaker of the Council of Representatives of Iraq Mohamed Rikan Hadeed al-Halbousi, and the Chairman of the Assembly of Representatives in the Republic of Tajikistan Shukurjon Zuhurov. The meetings focused on reviewing co-operation between Qatar and the aforementioned countries, and ways to enhance them.

PM meets speakers participating in IPU General Assembly

Lawmakers seek suitable solutions for all the peopleQNADoha

HE the Advisory Council Speaker Ahmed bin Abdullah bin Zaid al-Mahmoud yester-

day welcomed his election as presi-dent of 140th Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), stressing that the more important concern is how to contribute in solving problems and providing suitable conditions for people who need support.

He said that the union represents the will of the people, highlighting that the number of participants reached a record for previous meetings, refl ect-ing the confi dence of the international community in Qatar and the leader-ship of His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani.

Al-Mahmoud recalled that the

parliamentary experience of Qatar began long ago, highlighting the Ad-visory Council’s major role on na-tional and international issues. The council’s eff orts have been praised by many parliamentarians, he added.

Al-Mahmoud also referenced the remarks made by the president of the Latin American and Caribbean Parliament, who said that this year’s participation is the highest he has seen since he fi rst participated in the meetings back in 1978. He said that such presence refl ects Qatar’s strong parliamentary presence.

Al-Mahmoud noted that Qatari women have become members of the Advisory Council, highlighting the large number of competent members, including Reem al-Mansoori, who was voted president of the 29th session of the Forum of Women Parliamentarians.

He pointed out that it is the fi rst

time for parliament speakers of ma-jor countries to take part, which re-fl ect their keenness to come to Qatar.

Al-Mahmoud expressed his de-light about this appreciation and the participation of the representatives of the people of the world, who came to see the major steps taken by Qatar taken on the path to sustainable de-velopment and progress.

He highlighted Qatar’s role in choosing the discussion theme for this year which focuses on enhanc-ing education to establish peace, se-curity, and the rule of law.

He highlighted that education was the foundation for development, noting that the State of Qatar’s wise policies chose that route with the goal of mobilising the international community to help advance educa-tion in order to address many of the great problems facing the world.

Use of mercenaries undermines peace, says draft resolution from IPU panelQNA Doha

The Inter-Parliamentary Union’s (IPU) Com-mittee on Peace and

International Security yester-day discussed a draft resolu-tion that would not accept the use of mercenaries as a way to undermine peace and abuse human rights.

Rapporteurs of the com-mittee Khalid Bakkar of Jordan and B Tarasyuk of Ukraine stressed that the big-gest threats are terrorism and confl icts as they undermine peace, security, sovereignty and territorial integrity of states.

The past 20 years have wit-nessed an increase in casual-ties as a result of both armed confl icts and terrorist attacks.

From 2011 to 2014, the

number of deaths from armed confl ict rose by 356%, while the number of deaths from terrorism rose by 353%.

They noted that the Unit-ed Nations and its member states are fi ghting terrorism and armed confl icts by ad-dressing mercenaries issues, such as private military con-tractors and foreign terrorist fi ghters.

The UN Charter stresses the importance of commit-ment to full sovereignty, po-litical independence, terri-torial integrity of states, the right of peoples to self-de-termination, the non-use of force or threat in internation-al relations, non-interference in the internal aff airs of states and the promotion of respect for human rights for human and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or re-

ligion, and that among other things.

The panel turned the spot-light on children and young people who have become the main recruiting target for ter-rorists.

With the development of technology, recruiting meth-ods are becoming increasing-ly complex, and so the fi ght against recruitment and its methods must be strength-ened at the national and in-ternational levels.

They said that since 2013, some 50 countries around the world have enacted laws and regulations to prevent their citizens from joining extrem-

ist armed groups such as ISIS. Most of these measures have been taken in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 2178 of 2014.

The two rapporteurs stressed on the importance of rejecting the use of merce-naries as a way to undermine peace, regional and interna-tional security, or violate hu-man rights.

The Jordanian rapporteur also highlighted the rise of state terrorism and whether there was a real will to fi ght off that development.

He highlighted that some countries now encroaching international resolutions, such as the Israeli occupa-tion’s practices against wom-en and children.

He questioned whether the UN has any real intention of providing protection to the Palestinian victims.

British MP lauds Qatar for bringing together lawmakers from around the worldIPU serves as an important platform for discussions and bilateral exchanges

By Joey AguilarStaff Reporter

A British Member of Parliament

(MP) has lauded Qatar and its

leadership for bringing parliamen-

tarians together in Doha to discuss

global issues and hold bilateral

talks with other delegates.

“We are superbly grateful to

the Qatari government and His

Highness the Amir for stepping

in to ensure that our conference

did take place,” Nigel Evans,

an MP for 27 years under the

Conservative Party, told report-

ers on the sidelines of the 140th

Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU)

Assembly at Sheraton Doha

yesterday.

The conference, which opened

on April 6 and runs until April

10, have started tackling several

issues of vital importance: climate

change, democracy, and human

rights, among others.

Evans thanked Qatar providing

one-of-its-kind facilities such as

“a high-grade hotel” like Sheraton

Doha for the delegates to meet,

hold panel discussions and meet-

ings, and have bilateral talks on the

sidelines.

“Incredibly courteous people

and the facilities are superb. Shera-

ton is actually ideal of what we do,

you got a number of what they call

presidential rooms,” he said. “Along

the way we were able to have bilat-

erals with diff erent countries such

as Ukrain and Armenia.”

“Just Argentina and we’ve got

lots of bilaterals where we can talk

about issues that are of common

concerns to us,” the British MP

added.

According to Evans, Qatar

announced it is ready to host

the conference days after it was

cancelled in Buenos Aires in

Argentina.

The agenda, he said it was aimed

mainly at facilitating dialogue with

diff erent countries from various

regions.

“We had a bilateral with the

North Koreans, and we were actual-

ly quite surprised they were blond

talking, they were diplomatic, and

we discussed the major issues in a

very civilised way,” Evans noted.

“Within the Middle East and

within Africa they do things diff er-

ently to us, and even within Europe,

and the only major country that

is not represented here is the US,”

he said. “In the 1980s they decided

to leave because they were fed up

being criticised by countries within

this orgs.”

Some of the items yester-

day included a forum of Young

Parliamentarians of the IPU, a

general debate on “Parliaments as

platforms to enhance education for

peace, security and the rule of law”,

Standing Committee on Peace and

International Security, and various

presentations, including the start of

drafting resolution on “The role of

fair and free trade and investment

in achieving the Sustainable Devel-

opment Goals, especially regarding

economic equality, sustainable

infrastructure, industrialisation and

innovation.”

Young Parliamentarians discuss youth role in formulating policyQNADoha

The Forum of Young Parliamen-tarians, meeting on the side-lines of the 140th assembly of

the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), focused on youth participation in par-liaments and the role they can play in policymaking.

Forum president Maureen Arua dis-cussed the outcomes of a study conduct-ed by the IPU on the progress made by youth in terms of contributing to policy making, and the challenges facing this progress.

It included stats on parliament mem-bers who are below 45, 40, and 30 years of age around the world.

According to the study, which covered 202 parliamentarians in 150 countries,

young people aged 30 are 2.2% of parlia-mentarians, up 0.3% from 2016.

This refl ected a slight improvement in the overall share of young people in par-liaments around the world.

The results also indicate that just over 30% of the world’s parliaments (with its two chambers) have no deputies under the age of 30, and about three per cent of those councils have no members under the age of 40.

Seventy-six per cent of the upper councils Parliaments do not include members under the age of 30.

About 76% of the upper councils of Parliaments do not include members un-der the age of 30.

Youth parliamentarians in the forum pointed out that the countries of the world have a long way to go to enhance the role of young people in political and parliamentary life.

They stressed the importance of for-mulating strategies and national visions to encourage young people to engage in parliaments and give them greater op-portunities in the electoral lists of politi-cal parties and entities, while consider-ing the share of women members in these lists as well.

The Forum heard national experiences and practices in enhancing youth par-ticipation in parliamentary life, while others put forward proposals to raise participation rates by raising awareness and developing political culture among young people, and revising laws that do not allow people under the age of 30 to run for parliament.

The Forum of Young Parliamentarians also discussed its work plan and activi-ties for 2018-2019 aimed at supporting youth participation in parliamentary life.

Rapporteur asks if the United Nations has any real intention of providing protection to the Palestinian victims

‘Blockading states deny themselveschance to talk to rest of the world’From Page 1

“Shutting yourself off , as if we are not talking, is not great.”

Citing the case of Argentina and Britain, he noted that the two coun-tries which were at war in the 1980s, are now sitting in the same room at the conference and having healthy conversations.

“It brings us together. Now we’re in a room chatting about every other issue because we have common is-sue.”

The IPU, he noted, serves as a platform for parliamentarians to voice out freely their concerns and issues, which are of vital importance throughout the world such as cli-mate change , democracy, and hu-

man rights, among others.“No organisation in the world (like

IPU) brings MPs together from every part of the world,” Evans stressed, adding that the US is the only coun-try that refuses to participate in the conference.

“I think they are the losers, when I meet American politicians, I tell them that you have created a vacu-um in this organisation and it is be-ing fi lled by some powers,” he said.

Evans said no other organisation globally that brings many parlia-mentarians together from such a diverse number of countries with diff erent backgrounds, ideologies, religions, thoughts, customs, and histories that allows them the op-portunity to say what they want

freely about the most important is-sues of the day.

The second day of the conference saw a panel discussion on “Ending poverty through access to renewable energies and inclusive public poli-cies: How can parliaments help?” taking place, as well as debates and committee meetings.

“Some countries get to hear for the fi rst time about what is going on in some part of the world,” Evans said, citing the agenda of this year’s IPU.

“Whether it is the way we do de-mocracy, the way they are tackling climate change, the way that we are trying to use the Sustainable Devel-opment Goals into eradicating pov-erty, we all do it in a diff erent ways,” he added.

QATAR7Gulf Times


UN offi cial praises Qatar’s counter-terrorism eff ortsQNADoha

Under-Secretary-General of the UN Counter-Ter-rorism Offi ce, Vladimir

Ivanovich Voronkov, has praised the support provided by Qatar to the United Nations Offi ce of Counter-Terrorism.

He made the remarks at a meeting of the Committee on Peace and International Security to discuss a draft resolution on the inadmissibility of the use of mercenaries as means of under-mining peace and violation of human rights, which was part of the 140th Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union.

The Under-Secretary-Gener-al of the UN Counter-Terrorism Offi ce thanked Qatar for provid-ing strong support to the United Nations Offi ce of Counter-Ter-rorism saying there is close co-operation between Qatar and the UN Offi ce in this area.

He also praised Qatar’s ac-tive contribution to eff orts of preventing violent intolerance, pointing to the role played by sport in this regard. He said that Qatar’s hosting of the 2022 FIFA World Cup and its eff orts in the

sports fi eld will contribute to prevention of violent intolerance.

Voronkov reviewed the role played by the United Nations Offi ce of Counter-Terrorism in this area, saying that the offi ce, although just two years old, had achieve considerable progress in its eff orts, explaining that there were 38 sections of the United Nations concerned with this area. However, the establishment of the Offi ce has contributed to the consolidation of United Nations eff orts in this regard.

He also stressed the impor-

tance of co-operation with par-liamentarians to implement the documents emanating from the United Nations and the Security Council in relation to countering terrorism, stressing the impor-tance of parliaments around the world in promoting these eff orts and enacting national legislation to combat terrorism.

He reviewed the main tasks of the Counter-Terrorism Offi ce, saying that it was to lead coun-ter-terrorism eff orts through the mandate given by the General As-sembly of the United Nations sys-

tem and to enhance co-ordination and coherence among the entities of the Global Counter-Terrorism Co-ordination (Former Counter-Terrorism Implementation Task Force), to ensure the balanced implementation of the four pillars of the United Nations counter-terrorism strategy, to strengthen the provision of UN assistance to member states in capacity-building in counter-terrorism, to improve visibility, advocacy and resource mobilisation for United Nations counter-terrorism ef-forts and, ensuring that due prior-ity is given to counter-terrorism across the United Nations system, and that the important work in preventing violent extremism is fi rmly rooted in the strategy.

He pointed out that the UN Offi ce aims to establish close relations with Security Council bodies, member states, and to strengthen existing and devel-oping new partnerships through regular travel and attendance at counter-terrorism meetings.

Member of the Advisory Council, Mohamed bin Ali al-Hanzab, said that Qatar plays an important and pivotal role in combating terrorism and sup-porting regional and interna-tional peace and stability.

HE the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Aff airs Sheikh Mohamed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani met yesterday with the Council of Representatives’ Speaker of the Republic of Iraq Mohamed al-Halbousi, on the sidelines of the Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) in Doha. During the meeting they discussed bilateral relations and means to develop them.

FM meets Iraqi official

HE the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Aff airs Sheikh Mohamed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani met yesterday with the Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Off ice Vladimir Voronkov on the sidelines of the 140th General Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union in Doha.

Key role of education in promoting peace stressedQNA Doha

A number of parliaments participating in the I n te r- Pa rl i a m e n ta ry

Union (IPU) General Assembly and the related meetings high-lighted the importance of edu-cation in promoting nations, disseminating knowledge and fi ghting ignorance as the cor-nerstone of all aspects of life, development and sustainable growth, which requires the de-velopment of the educational system for more just and equi-table societies.

In their speeches to the ses-sion, “Parliaments as platforms to enhance education for peace, security and the rule of law”, they criticised the policies of some countries in terms of vio-lating international law, creat-

ing chaos and not respecting human rights and the rule of law, stressing that parliamen-tarians should not be silent about such violations.

Chairman of the State Duma of the Russian Federation Vy-acheslav Volodin said that many countries today are being ignored, violated and besieged, which requires parliamentar-ians to discuss these issues and not to stand silent.

He reviewed many examples to violate the resolutions of international legitimacy, in-cluding the recognition by the US president of Israel’s sover-eignty over the Golan, which requires the international com-munity to criticise this policy.

He pointed to a number of violations that aff ect some countries and attempts to im-poverish their people and push them to take to the streets, as

in the Middle East and in Ven-ezuela. He pointed out that the waves of asylum seekers and displacement witnessed by some regions and countries of the world have a direct link to such interventions.

Volodin further added that we know who was behind the establishment of the so-called terrorist state in Syria “ISIS”, which sought to overthrow the regime, so the policy of non-intervention must be the norm in international relations.

The chairman of the State Duma of the Russian Federation stressed the great importance of the 140th IPU General As-sembly and the related meet-ings currently held in Doha, praising in this regard the ar-rangements and organisation of the meetings and the hospital-ity and goodwill received by the participating delegations.

IPU president highlights evolving scenarios in global educationBy Joseph VargheseStaff Reporter

The education scenar-io around the globe is changing in many ways

and countries are adopting new models, the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) president told a ses-sion of the 140th IPU assembly yesterday at Sheraton Doha.

Starting the general debate on ‘Parliament as platforms to en-hance education for peace, se-curity and the rule of law,’ Gabri-ela Cuevas Barron said that the world is facing several challenges in providing inclusive education.

Speaking on the occasion, HE the Speaker of the Advisory Council and the President of the IPU assembly, Ahmed bin Abdullah bin Zaid al-Mahmoud highlighted the growing impor-tance for the need to promote education.

“Education should promote the ideas of peace, security and the rule of law. It should address

the major concerns of the world. Education is based on the concept of love, co-existence and toler-ance. We have to make education the biggest value of basic human rights,” stressed al-Mahmoud.

Al-Mahmoud also highlighted the importance Qatar has given

to education by providing qual-ity education to its younger generation through great in-vestment, modern curriculum as well as the establishment of world-class institutions.

“There are several changes going around the world and

education is one very important subject in focus. No one should be left behind in education. We should look for education for all: Education for boys and girls, for women and men, for the rich and the poor and the de-veloped and the non-developed

countries,” exhorted Barron.“We should come out of the

barriers that prevent the peo-ple from having education. The values that we want to see in the world and in the generations to come, should be incorporated in the present education,” ex-plained the IPU president.

According to the offi cial, one important value that education should ensure is gender parity. “We are living in a more inclu-sive world where the gender of a person should not be an obstacle for any opportunities,” she high-lighted. The offi cial also pointed out that it was the responsibility of each one to take care of the environment.

“This planet is not just for us alone. We should make sure that the planet should be a sus-tainable one. It should exist for generations to come. We should uphold natural values with full responsibility and education systems should play a greater role in those responsibilities,” added the offi cial.

HE the Speaker of the Advisory Council and president of IPU Assembly, Ahmed bin Abdullah bin Zaid al-Mahmoud, IPU president Gabriela Cuevas Barron, secretary-general of the IPU, Martin Chungong, and the under-secretary-general for the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Off ice, Vladimir Voronkov along with other off icials yesterday. PICTURE: Noushad Thekkayil

Top researcher shines spotlight on neurotechnologyBy Joseph VargheseStaff Reporter

A renowned researcher discussed yesterday at the 140th Inter-Parlia-

mentary Union Assembly the eff orts by scientists to read the brain better as well as studies to augment the cognitive ca-pabilities of the human beings.

“A revolution is going on in brain projects in the last three to four years. There are several eff orts to read human brain better. Another technological revolution, Artifi cial Intelli-gence (AI) is happening along with it. The neurotechnology along with AI is changing the world,” said Dr Rafael Yuste, a researcher, Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies Initiative, told a session.

“We scientists do not be-long to any particular country alone. We work for the hu-manity which is our country. Technology and science are giving ground breaking ideas. These are used for the benefi t of humanity,” noted Dr Yuste.

According to the researcher, studies are going on in several areas about brain and its cog-

nitive aspects. He highlighted fi ve areas of study that will help understand brain and the humanity in a big way.

“Brain studies are focusing on personal identity, free will, mental privacy, use of tech-nology for augmenting cog-nitive process and inclusive-ness. These studies will help in fi nding more about how brain should be protected. The study will also guarantee protection for humanity against several bi-ases,” explained the offi cial.

Regarding the computer chip that can be implanted in the human brain, Dr Yuste said that a new technology is being developed and will be intro-duced very soon.

Dr Yuste described that the new developments will hap-pen at global level helping the entire humanity. “The out-comes will help humanity in a big way and make everyone act for new human rights. Educa-tion is entering into the most exciting times in the history. It could lead to new humanism,” he said.

“It could provide better in-sights to several topics. This will also lead to new percep-tions on human rights,” he added.

Parliamentarians’ delegation tours Doha

A delegation of 200 parliamentarians, in town for the 140th Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) assembly, toured yesterday the various educational, tourist and heritage sites of Doha.Their tour covered Qatar National Museum and Qatar Founda-tion for Education, Science and Community Development to get a closer look on the massive development being made in Qatar in all fields.The delegation was accompanied by HE Fahd Mubarak al-Khayareen, Secretary-General of the Shura Council.He stressed that Qatar’s original Arabic heritage has amazed the delegations taking part at the IPU 140 Assembly in Doha. In the meantime, a number of the visiting parliamentarians stressed that Qatar has become a distinguished and unique beacon of light in the region. They also highly appreciated the wonderful architectural design of Qatar National Museum and sophisti-cated educational system in the country.

Call for gender parity in education, focus on youthBy Joseph VargheseStaff Reporter

Some parliamentary offi -cials highlighted the need for gender parity in edu-

cation as well as addressing the needs of the young population with priority, during a general debate at the 140th Inter-Parlia-mentary Union ( IPU) assembly yesterday.

“About half of the popula-tion of the world is under 30 years. Despite this proportion, young people’s rights are rarely prioritised in several countries in the world. This must change and young people must be given more opportunities,” noted, S

Kihika, president of the Forum of Women Parliamentarians, IPU.

“About a third of the develop-ing countries have not achieved gender parity in education. En-rolment, especially of girl stu-dents in primary education in many developing countries is still way behind. We must en-sure primary school education for all the boys and girls. We must make sure that education reaches to the least privileged sections of the societies,” ex-plained Kihika.

According to the offi cial, peace, security and rule of law are more than ever important and relevant in the present world and education is the best tool to

achieve these goals. More oppor-tunities and actions are needed to make sure that everyone gets

empowered with the right skills and capabilities.

“Education is the tool to equip

the youth with the right skills and capabilities. There must be enough opportunities for the youth especially for the young women in the labour markets. More policies and practices are necessary to ensure gender parity in all the areas. There could also be incentives for the private sector to invest in education,” said Kihika.

M Osuru, president of the Fo-rum of Young Parliamentarians of the IPU highlighted that ac-cess to education is high on the agenda of the young parliamen-tarians.

“Education is the best way to achieve peace. It must update us for the needs of tomorrow and must ensure gender parity,” she said.

Dutch proposal approved as agenda topic

The IPU 140 General Assembly decided to put the Dutch proposal regarding financial support to the hurricane-hit Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe.The proposal was approved by 1,011 votes, which are more than two thirds of the IPU members. Accordingly, it was approved as an ad-ditional topic on the IPU 140 agenda to be discussed today. However, the proposal regarding the protection of the Palestinian people and rejection of the Israeli sovereignty on Jerusalem and Golan Heights got only 491 votes, which disqualified it from being put on the IPU 140 agenda. The statues and rules of the IPU stipulate that the proposed topic should have two-third majority votes by the member states to be approved as an additional topic on the agenda of the General Assembly.

Education alone can lead to just societiesFrom Page 1

Volodin stressed the impor-tance of the 140th IPU General Assembly and the related meet-ings being held in Doha, praising the arrangements made for the meetings and the hospitality and goodwill received by the partici-pating delegations.

The Duma chairman noted the important role played by parlia-mentarians in achieving the goals of the international community in security, peace, the rule of law, peaceful coexistence and non-in-terference in the aff airs of others.

He pointed out that dialogue, cooperation and lack of feeling of superiority are the qualities that distinguish educated people.

The Speaker of Iran’s Islamic Consultative Assembly Ali Lari-jani said the meetings of the IPU General Assembly being held in Qatar represent an important and eff ective step to enhance co-op-eration between states and their parliaments and to establish se-curity and international law.

Speaking at the General As-sembly’s general debate on the theme of “Parliaments as plat-forms to enhance education for

peace, security and the rule of law,” Larijani pointed out that se-curity and peace could not be es-tablished without the rule of law.

He reviewed the great chal-lenges in the area of the rule of law, peace and security, viola-tions of human rights and ethnic cleansing, as in Al Quds and oc-cupied Palestine, as well as the challenge of terrorism and hate speech, leading to the adoption of aggressive, expansionist and un-fair policies and the imposition of double and unilateral standards by many states, which threaten international peace and security.

Larijani criticised what he called the economic terrorism practised by the US adminis-tration against his country, in-dicating that this constituted a component of despair and loss of hope and isolation at the same time for this administration.

He said the Zionist attacks against Al Aqsa and Al Quds Al Sharif, ethnic cleansing, inhuman and illegal expansionist measures, double standards, and the ma-lignant approach to combating terrorism refl ect a fl agrant viola-tion of international law and the extraction of the US-Israeli policy.

REGION/ARAB WORLD

Gulf TimesMonday, April 8, 20198

Starved infants, wounded women crowd Syrian hospitals after IS defeatReutersHasaka, Syria

The paramedics’ log at al-Hol camp in eastern Syria lists the injuries and ail-ments of infants rushed from the bat-

tlefi eld to its crowded, dirty clinic: malnour-ishment, stunted growth, broken leg.

Those in critical need — mostly emaciated babies born in war to the wives of dead Is-lamic State militants — are taken to the near-est hospital, a bumpy two-hour drive away.

Other people cram into a waiting room with a tin roof in a growing queue for basic medical treatment.

At the hospital, staff have had to build two portacabins on the roof that serve as a make-shift ward for the treatment of malnourished babies, crammed sometimes two or three to a cot.

Lower fl oors are fi lled with teenagers missing limbs and women with shrapnel and bullet wounds.

The exodus during intense fi ghting of more than 60,000 people from Islamic State’s fi nal redoubt of Baghouz is overwhelming medical staff in eastern Syria who struggle to cope at the camp and ill-equipped hospitals.

Scores of people, mostly children, have died on the 150-mile (240km) journey to al-Hol or soon after arriving, aid groups say.

“My son has a dislocated hip. He needs an operation urgently,” said Umm Mohamed, a veiled 33-year-old woman holding an ex-pressionless six-month-old boy at the camp.

“Medics keep saying they have more ur-gent cases to deal with — wounds and shrap-nel injuries.”

In the waiting area, dozens of people who mostly left Baghouz during a brief truce last month, arranged for civilians and surren-dering militants to evacuate, sit on wooden benches or the concrete fl oor.

Children in wheelchairs watch while ba-bies scream as they are bandaged or given injections.

U.S.-backed forces declared the defeat in March of Islamic State’s self-proclaimed caliphate — the territory it once held in Iraq and Syria — after militants were driven out of the village of Baghouz where they made a months-long last stand.

The intense bombardment and fi ghting to dislodge the Sunni Islamist extremist group cost countless lives and wounded many more people, including the wives of fi ghters, their

children, IS supporters and other civilians trapped by the militants in the enclave.

Those who evacuated in recent weeks have strained healthcare in Kurdish-run areas of eastern Syria beyond capacity.

In the clinic at al-Hol, which is hosting more than 70,000 people displaced by vio-lence, many people wore crude casts.

One woman said she did not have enough painkillers for a wound to her hand — a long metal rod from the explosion that wounded her and killed three relatives was still lodged in her knuckle.

“I just want an X-ray at the hospital,” she said, giving her name as Umm Ahmed.

But local hospitals can take only the most severe cases.

In one room at the hospital in the nearby town of Hasaka, 19-year-old Baraa al-Kurdi, the wife of a Syrian Islamic State member, lay motionless next to a boy with third-degree burns covering his head.

“I was hit in the head by shrapnel,” Kurdi said quietly. “We were next to a car packed with ammunition and explosives, including suicide belts ready for fi ghters to use. “My husband was killed. My daughter is one month old — she’s upstairs in the babies’ ward.”

Kurdi’s daughter was one of the few non-foreign infants in the ward.

Others, many blond or with Asian features, lay quietly in their cots with cheekbones showing and eyes sunken into their sockets from malnutrition.

The patients’ register listed the names

their mothers gave the hospital — Ali Az-erbaijani, Ali al-Uzbeki, Mohamed Skramo, a Norwegian name.

Many who remained in Baghouz until the end of the fi ghting were die-hard supporters of Islamic State.

A number of European countries have re-fused to take back citizens who joined IS, putting additional strain on local authorities to deal with prisoners and patients.

“Children from the camp are arriving night and day. We currently have more than 70 ba-bies being treated for malnutrition,” a nurse in the ward said.

She and other hospital staff declined to be named or for the hospital to be identifi ed, fearing reprisals for treating the children of IS fi ghters.

“Most cases are treated and then returned to the camp. A few have died. We’re doing out best but had limited resources even before this infl ux.”

More than 200 people have died on their way to al-Hol or after arriving in the camp in recent months, according to the Interna-tional Rescue Committee.

It said this week that around 30 to 50 cases every day were referred to local hospitals.

“We get 30 ambulances arriving each day,” a local health offi cial said, also declining to be named.

“There’s aid from international organisa-tions for those from Baghouz. They’re mostly foreign. We can barely provide healthcare for our own.”

Flood-hit Iran getting no fi nancial aid from overseas ‘due to US sanctions’Reuters Geneva

US sanctions have prevented the Iranian Red Crescent from obtaining any foreign

fi nancial aid to assist victims of fl ooding that has killed at least 70 people and inundated some 1,900 communities, the group said yester-day.

US Secretary of State Mike Pom-peo said last week that Washington was ready to help via the Red Cross and Red Crescent, but accused Iran’s clerical establishment of “misman-agement in urban planning and in emergency preparedness”.

“No foreign cash help has been given to the Iranian Red Crescent so-ciety. With attention to the inhuman American sanctions, there is no way to send this cash assistance,” the Red Crescent said in a statement.

It said the group had received some non-fi nancial help from abroad which had been distributed to fl ood victims.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mo-hamed Javad Zarif said last week that US sanctions — reimposed after Washington quit a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers — were impeding aid eff orts to fl ood-stricken towns and villages.

“Blocked equipment includes relief choppers: This isn’t just eco-nomic warfare; it’s economic terror-ism,” he said on Twitter.

The fl ood disaster, arising from exceptionally heavy rainfall since March 19, has left aid agencies strug-gling to cope and seen 86,000 people moved to emergency shelters.

The government has told citizens, and especially fl ood-aff ected farm-ers, that all losses will be compen-sated.

Iran’s state budget is already stretched under US sanctions on en-ergy and banking sectors that have halved its oil exports and restricted access to some revenues abroad.

Iran acted on Saturday to evacuate more towns and villages threatened by fl oods after continued rain in the southwest.

Iraq asked to demand US troop withdrawalAFPTehran

Iran’s supreme leader Aya-tollah Ali Khamenei has called on Iraq to demand US

troops leave “as soon as possi-ble”, warning that Washington is plotting to remove the govern-ment in Baghdad.

The remarks came during a visit to Tehran on Saturday by Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi, whose country is under pressure from the United States to distance itself from Iran.

“You should take actions to make sure the Americans with-draw their troops from Iraq as soon as possible because wher-ever they have had an enduring presence, forcing them out has become problematic,” Khamenei told Abdel Mahdi.

“The current government and parliament in Iraq and the po-litical fi gures are not what the US desires; they plot to remove them from the political scene of Iraq,” he said, according to his offi cial web-site. Abdel Mahdi, on his fi rst offi -

cial trip to Iran, also met Saturday with President Hassan Rouhani, who visited Iraq last month.

Baghdad is under pressure from Washington to limit ties with its neighbour, particularly after the United States withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal last year and hit Tehran with sanctions. Iran has close but complicated ties with Iraq, with signifi cant infl uence among its political groups.

The two countries fought a bloody war from 1980 to 1988 and Tehran’s infl uence in Baghdad grew after the 2003 US-led inva-sion of Iraq toppled the govern-ment of Saddam Hussein.

Iran was the fi rst country to re-spond to Iraqi calls for help after Islamic State group militants cap-tured Mosul in 2014 and threat-ened to overrun Baghdad and Kirkuk.

Tehran dispatched “military advisers” and equipment along with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) elite Qods Force commander Qasem So-leimani to prevent IS militants from approaching its western borders.

A child, who suff ers from malnourishment, cries at a hospital in Hasaka, northeastern Syria.

Men clear away mud following floods in the Iranian city of Mamulan in Lorestan province, yesterday.

Sudanese protesters hold second day of sit-inReuters Khartoum

Thousands of protesters held a sit-in outside Su-danese President Omar

al-Bashir’s residence in central Khartoum yesterday, having camped there overnight after the biggest demonstration in months of protests against his 30-year rule, witnesses said.

There have been sustained protests against Bashir and his National Congress Party since Dec 19. Security forces have fi red tear gas, stun grenades and live bullets to disperse pro-testers and dozens have been killed during demonstrations.

Bashir has refused to step down, saying that his op-ponents need to seek power through the ballot box.

Sudan suff ered a total power blackout yesterday, the ministry of water resources, irrigation and electricity said without giving an explanation for the outage.

Electricity was later restored in some areas. Since the sit-in be-gan on Saturday, security forces have fi red tear gas several times in an attempt to clear the protest-ers, but thousands remained.

Apparently emboldened by the success of similar but much larger protests in Algeria, which forced ailing President Ab-delaziz Boutefl ika to step down last week, Sudanese activists called for Saturday’s protests.

The demonstrations marked the anniversary of the 1985 military coup that overthrew president Jaafar Nimeiri after mass protests against his rule.

The protesters urged the military to side with them once more in their bid to push Bashir out of power.

Apart from Bashir’s resi-dence, the compound — the most heavily-guarded in Su-dan — also houses the defence ministry and the headquarters of the powerful National In-telligence and Security Serv-ice. Thousands of protesters

also gathered in Khartoum’s Burri neighbourhood yester-day. where they blocked several main roads, witnesses said.

On Saturday at least one person died during protests in Omdurman, across the Nile from Khartoum, state news agency SUNA said without providing detail on the cause of death. The person killed was a laboratory doctor who succumbed to his injuries, ac-cording to a statement from an opposition doctors’ commit-tee. Medical staff have played a prominent role in the protests.

SUNA said other civil-ians and police offi cers were wounded on Saturday in Om-durman, the scene of protests late into the evening that sub-sided by yesterday morning.

The sit-in outside the com-pound appeared to mirror 2011 Arab Spring protests, in which demonstrators in Cairo and other Arab capitals camped out in public squares for days to de-mand a change in rule.

Sudanese protesters gather for a second day outside the military headquarters in Khartoum, yesterday.

Turkey slams Netanyahu’s remarks on settlements

AFPIstanbul

Turkey yesterday condemned what it called Benjamin Netanyahu’s “irresponsi-

ble” remarks after the Israeli leader said he planned to annex settle-ments in the occupied West Bank if he wins upcoming elections.

“West Bank is Palestinian ter-ritory occupied by Israel in viola-tion of int’l law,” Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Twit-ter. “Prime Minister Netanyahu’s irresponsible statement to seek

votes just before the Israeli gen-eral elections cannot and will not change this fact.”

Netanyahu’s comments came just days before the closely fought polls tomorrow and was widely seen as an appeal to right-wing voters, who do not believe in the feasibility of a peace agree-ment with the Palestinians.

“Yet another example of how Netanyahu uses electoral politics to justify occupation and undermine the two-state solution,” said Ibrahim Kalin, spokesman of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

More than 40 zoo animals evacuated from Gaza StripAFPRafah

More than 40 animals, including fi ve lions, were evacuated from

squalid conditions in a Gaza Strip zoo yesterday to be taken to Jordan, an animal welfare group said.

Thin and weakened, the 43 animals, including a wolf and monkeys, had been living in “terrible conditions,” said the Four Paws association, which organised the transfer.

The Rafah zoo in the south-ern Gaza Strip is the oldest in the enclave, which has been un-

der an Israeli blockade for more than 10 years.

The animals were not in great shape, but were stable enough to be transported to a reserve in Jor-dan, some 300 kilometres from the Palestinian enclave, said Martin Bauer, spokesman for the Vienna-based welfare group.

The animals were sedated to be put in cages for the transfer through Israel. Two of the li-ons would eventually be sent to South Africa.

Four Paws was supposed to move ahead with the transfer in late March, but the organisa-tion could not enter the enclave since the crossing was closed that week due to a fl are-up of

violence between Gaza fi ghters and Israel.

Bauer said the mission had

the support of the authorities in Gaza, run by movement Hamas, and of the zoo’s owner, who has

said he could no longer aff ord the upkeep for the animals.

Israel’s permission was also received for the mission.

He said it was the biggest such mission carried out by Four Paws and intensive ne-gotiations were required. The zoo received attention recently when the owner revealed he had declawed one of its lions so cus-tomers could pay to play with her. In January, four lion cubs died of cold in the zoo.

The Gaza Strip suff ers from a lack of infrastructure, includ-ing a severe electricity shortage. Israel and Palestinian fi ghters in the strip have fought three wars since 2008.

A Palestinian worker carries a Heron (Egretta Intermedia) at a zoo in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, during the evacuation by “Four Paws” from the enclave to relocate to Jordan, yesterday.

AFRICA9Gulf Times


Three killed in Nigeriasuicide bomb attacksAFPKano, Nigeria

Three people died and more than 30 injured in a twin suicide blast in the north-

eastern Nigerian city of Maidug-uri, militia sources and residents told AFP yesterday.

Two female bombers late Sat-urday detonated their explosives among a crowd in Muna Dalti on the outskirts of the city, the birthplace of the Boko Haram extremist group

“They came around 8pm (1900 GMT) and detonated their suicide vests,” Umar Ari, a local militia leader, said.

“They killed three people and seriously injured 33 others,” said Ari, who was involved in the evacuation of victims.

Residents gathered yesterday morning for the funeral of the three victims.

The scene of the bombings, a popular night time venue for

residents, has been repeatedly targeted by Boko Haram suicide attacks, said resident Gremah Umar.

The area houses a sprawling camp for thousands of people displaced by Boko Haram vio-lence.

The attacks there were largely blamed on the Boko Haram fac-tion loyal to longtime leader Abubakar Shekau, notorious for suicide attacks on civilian tar-gets including schools, mosques and motor parks.

Another faction affi liated to the Islamic State focuses on at-tacks against military targets.

Boko Haram’s decade-long violence has killed 27,000 people in the northeast and displaced another 1.8mn from their homes, creating a dire humanitarian cri-sis.

The confl ict has spread to neighbouring Niger, Chad and Cameroon, prompting a regional military response to combat the militant group.

Ethiopians bid farewell to slain rapper Nipsey HussleAFPAddis Ababa

With poems and speeches, Ethiopians have held an emotion-

al farewell for murdered rapper Nipsey Hussle, whose roots in neighbouring Eritrea won him admirers in both countries.

Known for his Grammy-nominated debut album, Hussle was shot dead last week in front of the clothing store he owned in the US city of Los Angeles, whose violence-plagued neigh-bourhoods he had tried to revi-talise.

On Friday, 29-year-old Eric Holder pleaded not guilty to murder and attempted mur-der over the shooting that also wounded two other men.

At the Saturday evening me-morial in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, Hussle was re-membered as a rare entertainer

who bridged his American up-bringing with his roots in the Horn of Africa.

“When we heard there’s an Eritrean rapper out there, we were fans before we heard his music,” said Ambaye Michael Tesfay, who eulogised Hussle at the event held in a darkened parking lot.

“He was an icon for us.”Before his 2018 debut album

Victory Lap scored a Grammy nomination for Best Rap Album, Hussle, born Ermias Asghedom, had won the attention of rap fans from both Ethiopia and Eritrea for his embrace of his father’s Eritrean heritage.

Eritrea was a province of Ethi-opia until 1993, when it voted for independence after a decades-long independence struggle, but both countries still have close cultural and family ties.

“It’s just really tragic what happened,” said Tezeta Solo-mon, an Ethiopian living in Los

Angeles who attended the me-morial in Addis Ababa.

“When he fi rst came out, we were all so excited. To know there was a habesha rapper out there defi nitely sparked some pride,” she said, using a common term to describe people from the Horn of Africa.

Hussle embraced his Eritrean heritage, visiting the country last year and telling state media, “More than anything I am proud of being Eritrean.”

The relationship between Ethiopia and Eritrea has often been tortuous, and the coun-tries were not on speaking terms for years following a 1998-2000 border war that ground into stalemate.

That ended with the signing of a peace agreement last year that restored ties between the neigh-bours.

The frosty relations did little to dampen Ethiopians’ pride in Hussle’s success.

Flood-ravagedZimbabwe nowfaces severewater shortageReutersHarare

As eastern Zimbabwe struggles with the after-math of fl oods that have

killed nearly 270 people and de-stroyed homes and roads, other parts of Zimbabwe are facing a very diff erent crisis: too little water.

Lake Chivero, the main source of water for the capital Harare, is at just 60% of its usual capac-ity at this time of year, following poor rains, said Richard Kuny-adini, Harare City Council’s wa-ter manager.

The city’s two other dams, Harava and Seke, are just 7% full, he said.

For residents such as Letwin Bhamusi, 43, that means water is now arriving through the pipes only once a week, under a new water rationing schedule put in place in early March by Harare’s authorities.

Water rationing is nothing new in Harare - but it more com-monly begins months later, resi-dents say.

Shortages, they say, hit the poor - who cannot aff ord to dig private wells - hardest.

The cutbacks mean Bhamusi can’t water her garden, a source of vegetables for her family, and must now spend valuable time each day looking for alternative sources of water.

“We are only in March. At this rate, we might soon never see a drop of water in our homes,” the resident of Hatcliff e, a high-density suburb of Harare, com-plained bitterly.

Climate change is bringing more weather extremes around the world, and Zimbabwe this year is suff ering from opposite crises at once: deadly fl ooding and bitter drought.

In far eastern Zimbabwe, Cy-clone Idai, which blasted ashore in Mozambique, has pounded Chimanimani and Chipinge dis-tricts and parts of Masvingo dis-trict, causing fl ooding and mud-

slides and forcing people from their homes.

But elsewhere in Zimbabwe, weak rains this season have left water reservoirs low in parts of the country, reducing produc-tion of hydropower from Lake Kariba - a major energy source for Zimbabwe and neighbouring Zambia - and water available to families and farmers.

“The capacity of our lakes is very low with two of our dams, Seke and Harava going dry at 7% (capacity). We can no longer ex-tract water from them,” said Kun-yadini, the Harare city offi cial.

“Until we get more water or rains, we must rely on Lake Chivero but that is not enough - hence the rationing,” he said.

Between last October and February, the level of Lake Ka-riba fell by over 3m, the Zim-babwe River Authority said in a statement, forcing cutbacks in power generation.

Meanwhile, offi cials feared some reservoirs in eastern Zim-babwe could burst after heavy rain and runoff .

“The cyclone has aff ected our dams in a negative manner. Most of them cannot withstand the highest water levels beyond their capacity,” Mutasa Tatenda, a cli-mate change scientist with the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Water, Climate and Rural Reset-tlement, told the Thomson Reu-ters Foundation.

He said the uneven distribu-tion of rainfall in Zimbabwe was aff ecting everything from farm-ing and households to power production, manufacturing and recreation.

Chipinge District Administra-tor William Mashava said ero-sion following heavy rains had fi lled three dams in the district with silt, threatening ongoing problems even after the fl ooding crisis abates.

Mutasa warned that warm-ing temperatures, and changes in precipitation as a result of climate change are aff ecting the country’s water supply and quality.

From left: African Union chief Moussa Faki, Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame, his wife Jeannette and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker light a remembrance flame for the 25th Commemoration of the 1994 Genocide at the Kigali Genocide Memorial in Kigali, yesterday.

Rwanda ‘a family again’, says President KagameAFPKigali

President Paul Kagame said yesterday that Rwan-dans had become a family

again, 25 years after more than 800,000 people were slaugh-tered in a genocide that shocked the world.

Kagame lit a remembrance fl ame at the Kigali Genocide Memorial, where more than 250,000 victims are believed to be buried, mainly from the minority Tutsi people, as the country began its annual 100 days of mourning that coincide with the length of the slaughter.

They are only some of those killed by the genocidal Hutu forces, members of the old army and militia forces called the “Interahamwe”, that began their bloody campaign of death on April 7, 1994, the day after the

assassination of president Juve-nal Habyarimana, a Hutu.

Some were shot; most were beaten or hacked by machetes.

“In 1994, there was no hope, only darkness. Today, light radi-ates from this place. How did it happen? Rwanda became a fam-ily once again,” Kagame said.

“The arms of our people, in-tertwined, constitute the pil-lars of our nation. We hold each other up. Our bodies and minds bear amputations and scars, but none of us is alone. Together, we have woven the tattered threads of our unity into a new tapes-try,” he said.

Kagame was speaking at the Kigali Convention Centre, a dome-shaped auditorium in the centre of the capital, a modern building emblematic of the re-generation of Rwanda.

“Our people have carried an immense weight with little or no complaint. This has made

us better and more united than ever before,” Kagame said.

“The fi ghting spirit is alive in us. What happened here will never happen again.”

The killings lasted until Kag-ame, then 36, led the mainly Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) into Kigali on July 4, ending the slaughter and taking control of the devastated country.

Kagame, now 61 and who has been in power ever since, is lead-ing the memorial to the dead.

Kagame will later preside over a vigil at the country’s main football ground.

The Amahoro National Sta-dium - whose name means “peace” in Rwanda’s Kinyar-wanda language - was used by the UN during the genocide to protect thousands of Tutsis from being massacred on the streets outside.

In past years, ceremonies have triggered painful fl ash-

backs for some in the audience, with crying, shaking, scream-ing and fainting amid otherwise quiet vigils.

For many survivors, forgive-ness remains diffi cult when the bodies of their loved ones have not been found and many killers are still free.

A quarter of a century on, the east African nation has re-covered economically, but the trauma still casts a dark shadow.

Kagame has kept an au-thoritarian hold as he steers the small, landlocked nation through economic recovery.

Growth in 2018 was a heady 7.2%, according to the African Development Bank (AfDB).

Some 10 leaders are expected to pay their respects, mostly from nations across the conti-nent.

Former colonial ruler Bel-gium is sending Prime Minister Charles Michel.

French President Emmanuel Macron is not attending, but expressed his “solidarity with the Rwandan people and his compassion to the victims and their families” in a statement yesterday.

The statement said Macron would like to make April 7 a “day of commemoration of the genocide” in France, without giving further details.

At the ceremony, France is represented by Herve Berville, a 29-year old Rwandan-born member of parliament in Paris.

Rwanda has accused France of being complicit in the geno-cide through its support for the Hutu-led government and of helping perpetrators escape.

Paris has consistently denied complicity in the bloodshed, though former president Nico-las Sarkozy in 2010 acknowl-edged France had made “serious errors of judgement”.

Residents are seen walking in Maiduguri, northeastern Nigeria, yesterday, a day after a double suicide attack, that killed at least three people and wounded more than 30.

AFP Abeche, Chad

The chief medical offi cer at Adre hospital takes a rou-tine phone call: a patient

has been admitted with gunshot wounds and needs emergency surgery.

A dusty town in eastern Chad, once part of the proud Ouaddai empire, Adre is caught up in a mounting conflict be-tween local farmers and no-madic camel herders from the

north of the sprawling country.Last year, the hospital treated

more than 100 patients with bullet wounds.

In a territory where almost everyone seems to have a gun - a legacy of rebellions launched from eastern Chad and of the brutal confl ict in Sudan’s Dar-fur - squabbles over grazing land and trampled crops swiftly lead to violence.

Such disputes are tragically familiar in many parts of Africa.

But in arid eastern Chad, near the border with Sudan, the

bloodshed is particularly acute, rooted in a bitter drought and population pressure sharpening rivalry over access to land.

The vicious circle of attack and retribution is running full tilt.

Admissions in Adre rise sharply during “times of ten-sion”, a source at the local hos-pital said.

Those times mirror the sea-sons.

At the end of the rainy season, in December and January, herd-ers drive their beasts northwards into the Sahel.

When water sources start running low, they return south, from about the end of June.

Local chief Abderahim Dahab, who supervises 136 villages in his traditional leadership role, said the modern-day bloodshed contrasted with long-estab-lished cohabitation.

“Movement of livestock has always happened peacefully, for decades,” he said.

Migratory herders benefi t from pasture on which to feed their animals, and farmers ben-efi t from the animals, whose

droppings fertilise the soil.And farmers and herders mu-

tually benefi t from trading with each other for food.

Historian Mahamat Saleh Ya-coub said two factors explained the breakdown between the two communities.

The fi rst is a drought that has gripped the Sahel since the 1970s and seems to be worsening.

Everyone who spoke to AFP agreed that the key issue is a lack of water.

“The herders are now coming earlier in the year and going back

later. The established ways have broken down,” said another dis-trict chief.

Saleh Yacoub, who is head of the ENS college of higher edu-cation in Abeche, near Adre, said the second cause was a population increase - “as much among people as among live-stock”.

Herds are getting larger, straining the fragile ecological resources of the Ouaddai.

The rivalry has “become in-tertwined with ethnic prob-lems”, added Yacoub.

“The herds all belong to the same people: colonels, generals, people in politics,” explained a village elder sitting on his mat with a glass of tea.

“We have had meetings, we write letters to the deputy pre-fect (district administrator), the prefect himself, but get nothing back,” he protested.

“The population has no power against them.”

Many cattlemen are members of the Zaghawa ethnic group, who come from the northeast of the giant country.

Farmers and nomads take to violence in drought-hit Chad

AMERICA


NY county measles outbreak spotlights vaccine religious exemptionsBy Catherine Triomphe, AFPHaverstraw, New York

Patricia Schnabel Ruppert, the health commissioner of an outlying New York sub-

urban county, is feeling “over-whelmed.”

Since October she has been waging an uphill fi ght to quell one of the worst US measles out-breaks in 20 years.

Among her daily battles: hav-ing to constantly repeat that the vaccine does not cause other diseases, that it does not lead to autism, and that the practice of using fetal tissue to produce the vaccine ended decades ago.

Pushing back against such “junk science” absorbs a good deal of her energy as she works to educate and persuade the 300,000 residents of Rockland

County to cooperate with health authorities and alert them to any new cases of disease.

In 27 years of practising medi-cine, Ruppert said, this is “one of the most challenging health cri-ses I have had to deal with.”

As of this weekend, measles — offi cially eliminated from the United States in 2000 — had struck 167 people in this county along the Hudson River, includ-ing nine new cases this week.

Among the six regional out-breaks of measles reported by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the leading public health institute in the US, Rockland County’s is the most concentrated.

And yet the county has not skimped in throwing resources at the problem.

Since October, each case has been systematically investigated to determine how many people

have been exposed to the ultra-contagious virus.

Those exposed are then con-tacted to ensure they have been immunised, and if they haven’t been, they are then vaccinated.

Dozens of free vaccination clinics have been organised around the county — including one Friday in the town of Haver-straw — with 17,654 doses of vac-cine administered to date.

The objective is to raise the vaccination rate from the current 72%, Ruppert said. A 95% vacci-nation rate is considered neces-sary to prevent epidemics.

On Today, county executives will meet with legal and health professionals to identify more possible new strategies to tackle the outbreak.

It comes after the county took the unprecedented measure on March 26 of banning unvacci-

nated minors from schools and public places for 30 days.

Several public health special-ists saluted the county’s deci-sion. But a dozen parents of public-school students sued the county, arguing that the meas-ure was disproportionate to the danger, particularly as there have been no deaths to date.

Last week, they obtained a partial victory: a judge issued an injunction requiring county offi -cials to drop the ban against any child with a “religious exemp-tion,” at least until April 19.

“Religious exemption” for many county residents, the words have become central to the debate over the resurgence of measles and the rise of the anti-vaccine movement.

Like most American states — all but three, including California — New York requires a series of vac-

cinations for school-age children but grants exemptions on both medical and religious grounds.

In Rockland County, the lo-cal Jewish community repre-sents about one-third of county inhabitants, including a large number of Orthodox Jews.

That fact places this com-munity at the heart of the vac-cination debate, raising the risk of fuelling anti-Semitism, said Gary Siepser, president of the Jewish Foundation of Rockland County.

He emphasizes that there are anti-vaccine proponents both in the Jewish community and elsewhere who invoke religion to justify themselves — but are motivated simply by their anti-vaccine convictions.

“You will not fi nd rabbis citing Jewish law to say people should not be vaccinated,” he said,

stressing that his federation, like other Jewish organisations, en-courages vaccination.

“It’s shocking that these things that I didn’t worry about with my kids because they could be vaccinated — all of a sudden parents have to worry about their children getting life-threatening diseases,” Siepser said.

“It’s like the clock has been turned back — it’s crazy!”

Several Orthodox mothers questioned this week by AFP lashed out at the anti-vaccine parents.

One of them was Cindy Scher, mother of four children aged seven to 17, all of whom have been vaccinated.

“It’s really scary out there,” she said. “We all share the same roads, we share the same stores, we all have to interact with each other. We can’t just be concerned

about my religious beliefs, your religious beliefs,” she said, as she walked out of a kosher super-market in Monsey, the epicentre of the county’s Orthodox com-munity.

Against this background, some New York state lawmakers this week proposed a law to end vac-cination exemptions.

“I think it’s a great idea,” said Ruppert, the health commis-sioner.

But the judge’s decision on Fri-day in favour of the anti-vaccine forces complicates an already diffi cult debate.

“This is a country that has an interesting relationship with reli-gion, the country was founded by people seeking some kind of reli-gious liberties,” Siepser said. “The question becomes at what point one person’s freedom ends and another person’s rights begin.”

Snake ‘boyfriend’ leads hunters to largest python in Florida EvergladesGuardian News and MediaMiami

Snake hunters have captured what they

say is the largest python ever found in

the swamps of the Florida Everglades: a

pregnant female 5.2m long and weighing

63.5kg.

The team from the Big Cypress National

Preserve posted news of their record-

setting catch in a Facebook post that also

noted the giant reptile was carrying 73

eggs.

Environmentalists have been strug-

gling to find ways to eradicate Burmese

pythons, a non-native species, from the

1.5mn acre wilderness since the 1980s,

when some were released into the wild as

overgrown pets.

Others escaped from a breeding facility

wrecked by Hurricane Andrew in 1992.

Populations of raccoons, opossums

and bobcats have fallen by between 88%

and 99% as the python population has ex-

ploded, studies have shown, while several

species of rabbits and foxes have all but

disappeared.

Experts believes tens of thousands

of the snakes are currently slithering

through Everglades waterways.

“All of the python work at Big Cypress

is focused on controlling this invasive

species, which poses significant threats to

native wildlife,”

the researchers wrote in the post.

They also said the record-breaking

python was snared after its position was

given away by a boyfriend — a so-called

Judas snake.

“Using male pythons with radio trans-

mitters allows the team to track the male

to locate breeding females,” they said.

“The team not only removes the inva-

sive snakes, but collects data for research,

develop new removal tools and learn how

the pythons are using the preserve.”

They said their teams had been able to

remove several other breeding females

from the same area in recent months

in partnership with the US Geological

Survey.

The record-breaking python outweighs

a female captured in Big Cypress in De-

cember 2017 by snake hunter Jason Leon,

which measured 5.2m and weighed 63.5,

according to the Miami Herald.

Agencies responsible for managing the

Everglades stage regular public python

hunts and last year recorded their 1,000th

kill, by a hunter who bagged more than

100.

Other eff orts to remove pythons have

proved less successful.

Everglades National Park scientists

trained a beagle puppy named Python

Pete to sniff out the snakes, but had to

abandon the venture when Pete wilted in

the heat of the Florida summer.

In 2017, two renowned snake catchers

from India’s mountain-dwelling Irula tribe

bagged only 33 pythons after chanting

across the Everglades for two months.

Big Cypress National Preserve volunteers pose with the 5.2m long female python. (Photo courtesy: Big Cypress National Preserve/Facebook)

AG under pressure to release evidence clearing TrumpBy Paul Hanley, AFPWashington

Two weeks after he cleared Presi-dent Donald Trump in the Russia meddling investigation, Attorney

General Bill Barr faces mounting pres-sure to show the full evidence behind his decision.

Allegations last week that the US Justice chief played down serious evi-dence of illegal obstruction by Trump in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s fi -nal report are fuelling demands that he release the entire, unexpurgated docu-ment to Congress.

“He is a biased person,” Jerry Nadler, chairman of the House Judiciary Com-mittee, said of Barr in an interview yes-terday on CBS’s Face the Nation.

“He’s a biased defender of the ad-ministration, and he’s entitled to be a defender of the administration, but he is not entitled to withhold the evidence from Congress,” Nadler said.

News reports, citing unnamed mem-bers of Mueller’s staff , said Barr ignored the summaries that Mueller’s team pre-pared for public release, and instead is-sued his own on March 24, in which he peremptorily cleared the president of any wrongdoing.

And Barr now says he will not release key evidence given to Mueller’s grand jury, a special panel used by prosecutors in politically sensitive cases.

Democrats suspect the evidence could be damning to the president — setting up a legal and political show-down.

Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said yesterday that Barr alone will decide what to release, and he bridled at the Democrats’ demands.

“If we give the Democrats all 400 pages unredacted, that’s not going to be the end of the inquiry. And they’re going to want another thousand pages that went into making that,” he said on Fox News Sunday. “This is a show by the Democrats.”

The Democrat-led House Judiciary Committee this week prepared to sub-poena the full report, a move Barr and the White House will almost certainly contest.

On Thursday, Nadler demanded that Barr turn over all communications be-tween his offi ce and Mueller’s, follow-ing the reports that Mueller’s staff were unhappy with the way Barr presented their conclusions.

At stake is the president’s ability to

put the Russia probe behind him and look to 2020 for re-election.

Trump, who declared a “complete and total exoneration” when Barr an-nounced Mueller’s conclusions, said this week that Democrats “are fi ghting hard to keep the Witch Hunt alive.”

“This is the highest level of Presiden-tial Harassment in the history of our Country!” he tweeted.

Tomorrow, members of Congress might get their fi rst chance to press Barr in public about the Mueller report, when he appears before the House Ap-propriations Committee in a hearing nominally focused on the Justice De-partment budget.

In his four-page summation of the 22-month investigation on March 24, Barr said that Mueller found no evi-dence of collusion between Trump’s campaign and the Russian government

in the 2016 election, and that there was insuffi cient evidence to charge Trump with obstruction.

Yet Barr also conceded that Muel-ler did compile evidence of obstruc-tion, and quoted the special counsel as saying that “while this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”

Suspicions are deep among Demo-crats that Barr took advantage of his po-sition to clear Trump and now wants to keep the most damaging parts of the re-port secret to protect the White House.

Trump chose the veteran Republican lawyer to lead the Justice Department after fi ring his predecessor Jeff Ses-sions, whom the president resented for recusing himself from oversight of the Russia probe.

In June 2018, with Sessions’s job al-ready known to be imperilled, Barr sent

an unsolicited legal memo to the Justice Department and White House strongly criticising the Mueller investigation and its impingement on the president’s prerogatives.

Then a Washington corporate attor-ney, Barr declared — without knowledge of the internal work of the Russia probe — that “Mueller’s obstruction theory is fatally misconceived” and based on “a novel and legally unsupportable reading of the law.”

The memo came to light in December only after Trump had sacked Sessions and chosen Barr to replace him.

So far, Barr has held fi rm to his stance that he will release this month more of the Mueller report, but a version stripped of evidence and of testimony given to Mueller’s grand jury.

The grand jury material is essential.As often done in such high-profi le

cases, Mueller used the panel of citi-zens to develop and hear the evidence and depose key witnesses behind closed doors.

Grand-jury evidence is usually kept secret by law unless a prosecutor ulti-mately decides to level charges in the case.

Democrats argue that Congress, in its constitutional responsibility to en-force the law against the president, has the right to review any evidence against him of wrongdoing, even that of a grand jury.

On Friday, the Justice Department, commenting on a fresh ruling in a case on grand-jury secrecy, signalled its stance against that.

“The Department of Justice will con-tinue to defend the long-established tradition of protecting grand jury infor-mation,” said spokeswoman Kelly Laco.

Activists participate in a ‘Release the Report’ rally in Times Square in New York City.

Trump WH says ‘never’ on release of tax returns

By Doina Chiacu, Reuters Washington

President Donald Trump’s tax returns will never be handed over to Democratic

lawmakers, White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney said yes-terday, defying an eff ort in Con-gress to learn more about the real estate mogul’s personal fi nances.

Asked on Fox News Sunday if congressional Democrats will succeed in obtaining the Re-publican president’s tax returns, Mulvaney said: “No, never. Nor should they.”

He dismissed an eff ort to ob-tain the returns, launched on Wednesday by US House of Representatives tax committee chairman Richard Neal, as a po-litical ploy from Democrats who will never stop attacking Trump.

“Democrats are demanding that the IRS turn over the docu-ments. That is not going to hap-pen, and they know it. This is a political stunt,” Mulvaney said.

Democrats countered that Neal’s request to the Treasury De-partment for Trump’s returns is grounded in law and a needed in-quiry, given Trump’s refusal to dis-close his tax records and to divest himself of his business interests.

“This is a legitimate author-ity that the Congress has. This president, by the way, is the least transparent president that we’ve had in half a century,” Demo-cratic Representative Dan Kil-dee, a tax committee member, told ABC’s This Week.

Democratic Representative Ben Ray Lujan noted that presi-dents for decades have volun-tarily released their income tax returns.

“This is not political, as our Republican colleagues are mak-ing it out to be,” he told Fox News Sunday.

An attorney for Trump on Fri-day blasted House Democrats’ request for six years of Trump’s personal and business returns as “a misguided attempt” to politi-cize the tax laws, accusing law-makers of harassment and inter-ference in IRS audits.

In a statement that mapped out the legal battlefi eld ahead, Trump lawyer William Consovoy said the request fi led by Neal fl outs “constitutional constraints.”

ASIA11


Maldives ex-leader makes comeback with poll winThe former Maldives presi-

dent yesterday vowed sweeping reforms and

an end to government corrup-tion after leading his party to a record landslide victory just fi ve months since returning from exile.

Mohamed Nasheed, 51, made a dramatic return to the top of the national parliament, with his Maldivian Democratic Par-ty (MDP) securing more than two-thirds in the 87-member assembly.

Nasheed promised to use his party’s mandate to usher in a new era of stability and de-mocracy in the Indian Ocean archipelago as it emerges from

years of strongman rule, politi-cal crises and corruption scan-dals miring the government and judiciary.

“Our foremost duty is to bring peace to the government,” Nash-eed told supporters in the capital Male yesterday.

Provisional results from the Elections Commission showed Nasheed’s party won 68 seats with the Jamhooree Party a distant second, securing just seven.

The party of former strong-man president Abudulla Yameen trailed with only four.

Nasheed’s comprehensive victory was another rebuke for his arch-rival Yameen, who was dumped in a shock election de-feat in September under a cloud of corruption and embezzlement allegations.

Yameen did not run, but his

party – the Progressive Party of Maldives – fi nished in third. The remaining seats were col-lected by minor parties and independents.

Nasheed was barred from running in the presidential election but his former deputy, President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, emerged triumphant over Yameen.

The former leader declared the days of “Rolex watches and Kohinoor are over”, referring to high-profi le scandals in the Maldives where MPs have al-legedly been bought with luxury gifts, including gems.

“The parliament you have elected today possesses integ-rity,” said Nasheed, who won a seat in the People’s Majlis, or parliament representing a con-stituency in the capital Male.

“You desired to reform the general well-being of the na-tion... Hopefully we will succeed in fulfi lling your wishes.”

Nasheed also vowed to trans-form the Maldives, a popular honeymoon destination home to 340,000 Sunni Muslims, into a parliamentary democracy.

An executive presidential sys-tem was adopted under political reforms in 2008, when dictator Maumoon Abdul Gayoom stood down after 30 years in power.

Two of Gayoom’s children contested this poll, but only one was successful in winning a seat.

As the results trickled in Sat-urday, and Nasheed’s victory was clearly within grasp, the dogged political veteran de-clared the Maldives was heading for “a golden yellow dawn”. Yel-low is the colour of his party.

Election offi cials estimated the fi nal turnout to be 80%, less than the September presidential election but a record for a parlia-mentary poll. The offi cial fi nal results are expected later.

President Solih, who has promised to investigate corrup-tion allegations against Yameen, thanked voters for delivering “a huge majority” for the MDP.

“While we celebrate, we must also not forget the immense challenges that lie ahead of us,” he said in a statement.

Election commissioner Ahmed Shareef told reporters there had been no complaints of irregularities in the run up to the vote, during balloting or at the count.

The thumping MDP victory caps a remarkable comeback for Nasheed, who until November

AFPMalé

Former Maldives president Mohamed Nasheed

was a fugitive in exile.Nasheed was sentenced to 13

years prison in 2015 but left the Maldives a year later, after being granted prison leave for medical treatment in Britain.

The charges were dropped by the Supreme Court after Solih toppled Yameen, with judges saying there was no basis for the charges.

International rights groups had decried the terrorism con-viction, imposed while Yameen was in power, as politically

motivated and unjustifi ed.The Maldives was on the verge

of being slapped with Western-led sanctions before Solih won the presidential election on a pledge to end corruption in the country, best known for its lux-ury tourism.

Nasheed has also opposed heavy borrowing from China under Yameen’s administration, accusing the former strongman of mortgaging the island para-dise to Beijing for infrastructure projects.

Thailand begins rituals for king’s coronation next month

Thailand has begun ritu-als for the coronation of King Maha Vajiralong-

korn next month, with offi -cials collecting water in cere-monies across the country for use in purifi cation rites.

The elaborate coronation for King Vajiralongkorn will take place over three days, from May 4 to 6, in the capi-tal Bangkok with many Bud-dhist and Brahmin rituals per-formed in the month leading up to the event.

The 66-year-old King Vaji-ralongkorn became Thailand’s constitutional monarch fol-lowing the death of his father, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, in 2016 following a 70-year reign.

His coronation was delayed until after the mourning pe-riod for Bhumibol, who was cremated in October 2017.

Reverence for the monarch, who is also the sworn patron of Buddhism in Thailand, is cen-tral to traditional Thai culture.

For most Thais, the corona-tion will be the fi rst in their lifetimes.

The water gathered on Sat-urday will be used for ablution of the king in the purifi cation and anointment ceremonies on May 4 before the crowning ritual.

The use of water is based on a Brahmin tradition that dates back to the 18th cen-tury coronation ceremo-nies, since the founding of

the Chakri dynasty.Saturday was Chakri Day in

Thailand, which observes the beginning of the dynasty.

King Vajiralongkorn holds the title Rama X, or the 10th king of the Chakri dynasty.

The waters were collect-ed simultaneously between 11:52am to 12:38pm on Satur-day – times deemed especially auspicious in Thai astrol-ogy – by senior offi cials from more than a 100 water sources across 76 Thai provinces.

The ceremony was broad-cast on all Thai television channels.

The water, stored in tradi-tional vases, will be blessed in Buddhist ceremonies at major temples around the country on April 8 to 9, before being combined in another conse-cration rite at Wat Suthat, one of Bangkok’s oldest temples, on April 18.

Vajiralongkorn is the second child of King Bhumibol and Queen Sirikit’s four children and their only son.

He was educated at private schools in Britain and Austral-ia before attending the Royal Military College Duntroon in Canberra.

According to the offi cial bi-ography, he is a qualifi ed heli-copter and fi ghter pilot, who saw action against communist insurgents in Thailand in the 1970s. He holds the honorary military ranks of general, ad-miral and air chief marshal.

Vajiralongkorn has spent a signifi cant amount of his adult life abroad, mostly in Germa-ny where he has a home.

ReutersBangkok

King Maha Vajiralongkorn

Manipulation suspicions mount in Thailand’s post-coup election

Thailand’s fi rst general election since a 2014 army coup has been touted by

the ruling military junta as a re-turn to democratic rule, but two weeks after the vote, results are still unclear and allegations of manipulation are mounting.

Since the March 24 vote, fi g-ures linked to a “democratic front” of opposition parties say they have come under increas-ing pressure from police and the military.

The Election Commission has also indicated it would use a complex allocation formula for 150 “party seats” in the House of Representatives in a way that would likely dilute the opposi-tion alliance’s seats in the 500-seat lower house.

The Election Commission has said it won’t announce even pro-visional winners of the 150 party seats until May 9, saying it needs time to order by-elections and vote recounts as well as to dis-qualify candidates who broke election laws.

But critics say the time gap al-lows the military-royalist estab-lishment to manipulate results and disqualify opponents of the pro-army Palang Pracharat par-

ty that seeks to keep junta leader Prayuth Chan-ocha in power as an elected prime minister.

The leading opposition Pheu Thai party, made up of loy-alists to army-ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, sees the delays and legal ac-tions as an attempt to deny the “democratic front” enough seats in the House needed to block the main junta-linked party from unrestrained lawmaking power.

“After the election... the ma-jority of the people feels a sense of hopelessness and distrust for the election process,” said Pheu Thai’s secretary-general, Phumtham Wechayachai.

The Election Commission’s secretary-general, Jaroongwit Phumma, said the body is not helping the pro-military party.

“The election commission is neutral and adheres to the law. We don’t take sides or help one particular party,” Jaroongwit said.

Palang Pracharat said it does not gain any advantages over opposition parties.

“It’s completely false to say that the election commis-sion is helping Palang Pra-charat. This is an attempt to discredit us,” the party’s dep-uty spokesman Thanakorn Wangboonkongchana said.

However, opposition fi gures say they are being targeted.

Thanathorn Juangroongru-angkit, the leader of the youth-oriented Future Forward Party which did surprisingly well in the vote, was charged on Sat-urday with sedition on a junta complaint dating back to 2015 – a case that could see his party disbanded.

Online campaigns have also cast Thanathorn as anti-monar-chy, a serious crime in Thailand, where the monarchy is revered without question.

Thanathorn denies being against the monarchy and all charges against him.

“It’s the establishment’s de-sire to stir hatred, fear, and mistrust among the people, creating legitimacy for the mili-tary to take over and stay on,” Thanathorn said last week.

The rules of the election were written in the 2017. Among the new provisions is that the Sen-ate, the 250-seat upper house of parliament appointed by the junta, must approve the prime minister in a combined vote with the House, which previously solely voted on the premier.

That means the junta-backed party and its allies have to gain only 126 seats in the House to install Prayuth as prime minis-ter, while the opposition would

need 376 votes for their potential candidate.

Still, days after the March 24 vote, the “democratic front” claimed through its own calcu-lations that it would gain at least 255 House seats – not be enough to form a government but po-tentially allowing it to block the military-backed party from having free rein.

Last week, however, the elec-tion commission indicated the complex formula to calculate allocation of the 150 “party list” seats will round up decimals to give seats to 11 small parties al-though their popular votes did not meet a previously described threshold required to earn even one seat.

“This is an irregularity that refl ects an eff ort to block the democratic front from forming the next government,” said Pheu Thai’s spokeswoman Ladawan Wongsriwong.

Widening the list would cut seats from top popular vote get-ters and could reduce seats for Future Forward from around 87 to 80, potentially hurting the democratic front’s claim of House majority.

“It’s an abnormal election from the outset. It’s a game where the junta wrote the rules and appointed the referee, who is also acting abnormally,” said

Yingcheep Atchanont, project manager at legal-monitoring group iLaw.

Palang Pracharat has repeat-edly said it reaps no benefi ts from the constitution.

Sonthirat Sontijirawong, the Palang Pracharat secretary-gen-eral, has said the party would be-gin talks to form the next govern-ment only after the king’s offi cial coronation on May 4-6.

The election comes after nearly 15 years of turmoil, during which confl icts between sup-porters of ousted former premier Thaksin and his establishment opponents manifested in street protests, violent clashes, and two military coups.

On the eve of the vote, King Maha Vajiralongkorn made an unexpected statement, recall-ing a comment made by his late father on the need to put “good people” in power and to prevent “bad people from... creating chaos.”

Six days later, the king re-voked royal decorations that had been awarded to Thaksin, citing his 2008 corruption conviction and for fl eeing the country to escape prison.

The military also stripped Thaksin of a pre-cadet school’s achievement award as well as deleting his name from the school’s hall of fame.

ReutersBangkok

BGB deployed at island near Myanmar

Bangladesh yesterday de-ployed heavily-armed border guards to an island

near its southern border with Myanmar for the fi rst time in 20 years, offi cials said.

Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) distributed images show-ing dozens of troops carrying as-sault rifl es disembarking at Saint Martin’s island, a small island in the Bay of Bengal that has caused diplomatic tensions between the neighbours.

The BGB said the troop de-ployment was part of “regular activities” to ensure border pro-tection and curb drug traffi cking.

But the force’s lieutenant colonel, Sarker Mohammed Mustafi zur Rahman, said it was the fi rst time since 1997 their men had landed there.

“After more than 20 years we felt we should deploy,” he said.

The deployment comes just two months after Bangladesh’s foreign ministry summoned Myanmar’s ambassador in Dha-ka to protest the inclusion of Saint Martin inside their terri-tory in some maps printed inside

the Southeast Asian country.He was also summoned in Oc-

tober last year, after a Myanmar government website depicted the island as within Myanmar’s territory.

Ties between the neighbours have soured since the Myanmar military launched a crackdown on the Rohingya minority in Ra-khine, a troubled western state bordering Bangladesh.

The operation has forced some 740,000 Rohingya Mus-lims into Bangladesh since Au-gust 2017, transforming parts near the border into the world’s largest refugee camp.

AFPDhaka

BGB personnel carrying assault rifles disembark for deployment on Saint Martin’s island, near the border with Myanmar, yesterday.

Rohingya rights group says air strike kills 20

A Rohingya rights group in Bangladesh yesterday said at least 20 people

were killed and 50 were injured during an air strike on April 3 by the Myanmar Army on members of the ethnic group in Rakhine state, contradicting the govern-ment version of the incident.

The Arakan Rohingya Soci-ety for Peace and Human Rights (ARSPH) said innocent Rohingya villagers were gathering bamboo in streams near Phon Nyo Leke when Myanmar military heli-copters fl ew low overhead and shot at ordinary Rohingya mak-ing rafts in the river, reports Efe news.

“At least 20 people were killed and over 50 were injured. Many people had arms and legs blown off by the bombs,” the ARSPH said in a statement.

Headed by former school teacher Mohammed Mohibul-lah, the ARSPH was formed by Rohingya following the exo-dus in 2017 to champion the cause of the persecuted Muslim community.

“The genocidal military is-sued a statement on April 5, say-

ing that only six Rohingyas were killed because they are work-ing with a terrorist group,” said ARSPH.

“This is completely false in-formation,” it said, adding that it was evidence that the military continues “to take every oppor-tunity to clear all Rohingya from their homeland and complete the genocide that they started 40 years ago”.

The Myanmar Army con-fi rmed the death of six Rohingya, who according to the military, collaborated with the rebels of the Arakan Army (AA), during an air strike against a bastion of insurgents in the west of the country.

The UN, which accuses the armed forces of “intentional genocide” for the operation against the Rohingya, indicated this week its “deep concern” about the recent clashes.

Most refugees live under harsh conditions in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar area, near the Myanmar border, that has become the big-gest refugee camp in the world.

Myanmar does not recognise the Rohingyas, a mostly Muslim minority, as its citizens and con-siders them Bangladeshi immi-grants, although Dhaka has also treated them as foreigners.

IANSDhaka

12 Gulf TimesMonday, April 8, 2019

ASIA/AUSTRALASIA

Indonesia’s presidential candidate Joko Widodo laughs as his running mate for the upcoming election Ma’ruf Amin gestures at a carnival during his campaign rally in Tangerang, Banten province, Indonesia, yesterday. Some 192mn Indonesians are set to cast a ballot on April 17 in the world’s third-biggest democracy, with a record 245,000 candidates vying for positions from the presidency and parliamentary seats all the way down to local council jobs.

Poll mania in Indonesia Taiwan demonstrators protest

mayor’s China-friendly visitDPA Taipei

Thousands of residents of Taiwan’s southern me-tropolis Kaohsiung took

to the streets yesterday to pro-test their newly elected mayor’s seemingly China-friendly visit to a pro-Beijing offi ce in the semi-autonomous city of Hong Kong.

Mayor Han Kuo-yu of the China-friendly opposition Chi-nese Nationalist Party (KMT), inaugurated in December, vis-ited southern China last month to sell agricultural products. On March 22, he secretly visited the People’s Republic’s liaison offi ce in Hong Kong, sparking criti-cism.

Beijing claims sovereignty over self-governing Taiwan and has threatened to retake the island by force if it makes any

clear moves towards independ-ence. The People’s Republic has integrated the former European colonies of Hong Kong and Macau under its so-called ‘One Country, Two Systems’ prin-ciple, which allows the cities to have a limited amount of free-dom not possible in mainland China; Beijing’s plan is to inte-grate Taiwan in the same way.

Lin Fei-fan, a prominent de-mocracy activist leading stu-dent protests in March 2014, said that, in Hong Kong, Han intended to confuse the interna-tional community.

“Han wanted to create a false image that Taiwanese people support the ‘One Country, Two Systems’ principle set by China,” Lin told to the crowd. In January, President Tsai Ing-wen said that Taiwan will never accept China’s plan to apply the ‘One Country, Two Systems’ principle to the island.

Yesterday’s Kaohsiung rally, themed ‘Rejecting One Country, Two Systems’ and ‘Building a new country,’ was attended by up to 5,000 demonstrators, includ-ing citizens, university students, rights activists, and political fi gures of diff erent parties, ac-cording to the organiser Taiwan Citizen Front. Responding to the demonstration, Mayor Han said yesterday that he respects diverse opinions in society.

Last week, Han told Kaohsi-ung city councillors that he op-posed the ‘One Country, Two Systems’ principle, stressing that his visit to China resulted in orders worth 3.8bn Taiwan dol-lars (US $123mn).

Taiwan has had its own gov-ernment since 1949, when the Chinese Nationalists fl ed there after losing a civil war to the Communists. Beijing considers the democracy part of its terri-tory.

Singapore’s ‘fake news’ laws upset technology giantsAFPSingapore

Tech giants have reacted with horror after Sin-gapore proposed laws

against “fake news” allowing au-thorities to order the removal of content and impose hefty fi nes, in what critics say is an assault on free speech.

The government unveiled a bill last week containing tough measures, including powers for ministers to order social media sites like Facebook to put warn-ings next to posts authorities believe to be false and in extreme cases take them down.

If an action is deemed mali-cious and damaging to Singa-pore’s interests, companies could be hit with fi nes of up to Sg$1mn ($740,000). Individuals could face jail terms of up to 10 years. Authorities in the tightly-con-trolled country — long criticised for restricting civil liberties — insist the measures are necessary to stop the circulation of false-hoods which could sow divisions in the multi-ethnic city-state.

But press freedom groups condemned the proposals, say-ing they could stifl e online dis-cussion, as did tech companies which have big investments in

the ultra-modern city. “As the most far-reaching legislation of its kind to date, this level of overreach poses signifi cant risks to freedom of expression and speech,” said the Asia Internet Coalition, an industry asso-ciation whose members include Facebook, Google and Twitter. Simon Milner, Facebook’s vice president of public policy in Asia-Pacifi c, said the social me-dia giant was concerned about potentially being compelled to remove content.

“Giving people a place to ex-press themselves freely and safe-ly is important to us and we have a responsibility to handle any government request to remove alleged misinformation carefully and thoughtfully,” he said in a statement.

The Internet is a relatively free space in Singapore and there are some local alternative news sites, which are typically more critical of the authorities than the tradi-tional, pro-government newspa-pers and TV.

Singapore is among several countries pushing legislation to fi ght fake news, and the govern-ment stressed ordering “cor-rections” to be placed alongside falsehoods would be the primary response, rather than jail or fi nes.

A government decision can

also be appealed to the courts. K Shanmugam, law and home aff airs minister, said in a Face-book post that “the proposed law targets false statements of fact — not opinions, not criticisms. “Ultimately, disagreement over truth and falsity will be decided by the courts”.

Google, Facebook and Twitter have their Asia headquarters in Singapore, a city of 5.6mn which is popular with expats as it is de-veloped, safe and effi cient.

But there were already signs of tensions with tech compa-nies as the government prepared to unveil the laws. During par-liamentary hearings last year about tackling online falsehoods, Google and Facebook urged the government not to introduce new laws.

In November, Facebook re-fused a request to remove an ar-ticle linking Singapore to a fi nan-cial scandal in Malaysia which the government said was untrue — prompting the law ministry to say the fi rm “cannot be relied upon to fi lter falsehoods”. Crit-ics say one of the most worrying aspects of the new legislation is that it is up to authorities to decide what is false and what is not. While authorities insist de-cisions can be appealed, Kirsten Han, the Singapore-based editor

of regional news site New Nara-tif, said most people do not have the resources or will to fi ght the government.

“Even if you are convinced that your Facebook post is in the right, how many average Singa-poreans would appeal to the min-ister, and then spend thousands of dollars to hire a lawyer and fi le an application in the court?” she told AFP. Human Rights Watch has described the bill as “sweep-ingly broad” while critics note Singapore already has tough laws against sedition, defamation and disturbing racial harmony, that can be used to police the web.

But it is not yet clear how the legislation — which is likely to pass easily through the ruling party-dominated parliament — will be used in practice, and some believe authorities will wield it cautiously. “I think that the gov-ernment will be very careful in their implementation of the law,” said Professor Ang Peng Hwa, from the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Informa-tion in Singapore.

“I think, in general, there’s a very high level of trust in the government and its institutions by foreign entities, and so I don’t see them... being too trigger-happy about the implementation of this bill.”

Dutchman ends ‘world’s longest electric car journey’ in AustraliaAFPSydney

A Dutchman completed an epic 95,000km journey by electric car in Syd-

ney yesterday in a bid to prove the viability of such vehicles in tackling climate change.

Wiebe Wakker drove his ret-rofi tted station wagon nick-named ‘The Blue Bandit’ across 33 countries in what he said was the world’s longest-ever jour-ney by electric car. The trip from

the Netherlands to Australia took just over three years and was funded by public donations from around the world, includ-ing electricity to charge the Ban-dit, food and a place to sleep.

Wakker drove across a variety of countries and environments including Turkey, Iran, India, Myanmar, Malaysia and Indo-nesia, with the route determined by the off ers he received on his website. “I wanted to change people’s opinions and inspire people to start driving electric by showing the advantages of

sustainable mobility,” Wakker said. “If one man can drive to the other side of the world in an electric car, then EVs (electric vehicles) should defi nitely be vi-able for daily use.”

Wakker said before the car was modifi ed, it would have used 6,785 litres of petrol to complete the journey.

The modifi ed vehicle can travel 200km on a single charge, with Wakker saying he spent just US$300 on electricity, much of it in the remote desert Outback of Australia.

Dutch adventurer Wiebe Wakker outside the Petronas Twin Towers, on his electric car journey from the Netherlands to Australia, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

China’s virtual reality arcades aim for real-world successAFPShanghai

Chen Jiuxiao puts on virtu-al-reality goggles and is immediately transported

to a snow-covered ski slope, down which she slaloms without ever leaving Shanghai. “I felt weight-less skiing down the mountain,” Chen, 25, gushes after re-emerg-ing in the material world.

“The scenery around me was so authentic,” she adds.

Chen, a hospitality worker, said she ventured into one of Shang-hai’s VR arcades due to word of mouth from her tech-savvy friends.

China had an estimated 3,000 VR arcades in 2016, and the mar-ket was forecast to grow 13-fold between then and 2021 to amount to 5.25bn yuan ($782mn), accord-ing to a joint report by iResearch Consulting Group and Greenlight Insights. Add in the profi ts to be made from headsets, equipment, games and other products, and it’s little wonder that augmented-

reality and virtual-reality indus-tries are excited about China.

“Chinese growth in the next fi ve years could see it dominate AR/VR long-term — and not by a small margin,” Silicon Valley consultancy Digi-Capital said in a report last year. “China has the potential to take more than $1 of every $5 spent” in the industry globally by 2022, it added.

One key factor is China’s gov-ernment. Tens of millions of Chinese have become obsessive players of mobile video games, causing concern that China was raising a generation of myopic youngsters addicted to battle games.

Authorities imposed curbs last year on the number of new game releases and playing time for youths, rattling the industry and shaving billions off the mar-ket value of big players including gaming giant Tencent. But the government is pushing hard for China to become a world leader in next-generation technologies including artifi cial intelligence and autonomous vehicles. VR has

been lumped into that favoured class, benefi ting from a slew of preferential policies. Chen Wei, manager of Shanghai VR arcade Machouse said VR was likely to avoid the fate of mobile video games in China.

He cites the relatively high cost of arcade play — up to 70 yuan ($10) or more for a 15-minute game — and of setting up home systems. “It’s hard for minors to get addicted,” he said.

The nascent VR games in-dustry suff ers from a shortage of high-quality games, however. At Shanghai’s VR+ Amusement Park, a new game lands only once every three months, offi cials there said.

Firms such as Tencent remain hesitant to dive in to the arcade scene until the sector reaches critical mass, analysts explained. But the company, along with fel-low Chinese giants Alibaba and Baidu, is investing in virtual on-line shopping and VR entertain-ment, all of which could trickle down into gaming.

Already a number of towns

and cities in China have declared themselves incubator zones that are integrating VR into research, manufacturing, education and other spheres, luring in capital, according to Chinese reports.

Seekers VR, which is based in the eastern city of Wenzhou and owns a franchised chain of 200 arcades in more than 70 cities across China, is working with the Wenzhou government to establish a college focused on educating students about VR and using the technology in lessons.

“There is no dominant com-petitor in the VR industry since it is so immature, and we will bring more and more opportunity,” said Seekers VR’s CEO Belle Chen.

The expected wide-scale adop-tion in China of ultra-fast 5G networks is expected to further boost VR development, and foster growth in areas such as education and training, said Chen Wei.

He said: “There is no better way to learn skills, and at a lower cost, than VR. Even though VR is still educating users about what it is, it could explode someday.”

Sanctions delay plans for North Korea beach resortNorth Korea has again pushed back the construction end-date of a massive beach resort — a move analysts say shows the regime is struggling from international sanctions imposed over its nuclear weapons programmes. The eastern seaside strip, known as the Wonsan-Kalma Coastal Tourist Area, is intended as a centrepiece of the isolated country’s nascent tourism industry as Pyongyang seeks to develop its economy despite the tough economic measures. The site’s construction has been closely overseen by leader Kim Jong-un, and was initially scheduled to open this April, to mark the birthday anniversary of the country’s founder Kim Il-sung. But in a recent visit to the site, Kim delayed the finish date for the second time, ordering construction to be completed by the same time next year, the North’s off icial Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported yesterday. The decision, would allow the workers “to perfectly finish it so that our people would fully enjoy themselves in the impeccable tourist area from the sea-bathing season next year”, KCNA quoted Kim as saying. The plan was first pushed back last August when Kim extended the project by six months to October 2019. The isolated North is under several sets of sanctions for its weapons programmes which analysts say has hampered eff orts to secure materials needed to finish the vast beach complex.

BRITAIN13Gulf Times


Long delaycould dealfatal blowto Tories:ministerGuardian News and MediaLondon

Theresa May has been warned that a long delay to Brexit could deal a fatal

blow to the Conservatives, with one minister claiming that par-ticipating in the European elec-tions would be a “suicide note” for the party.

The Education Minister Na-dhim Zahawi told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I think it’s important that parliament acts quickly now to decide what it is in favour of. We need to do that quickly because I think go-ing into the EU elections for the Conservative party, or indeed for the Labour party, and telling our constituents why we haven’t been able to deliver Brexit I think would be an existential threat.

“I would go further and say it would be the suicide note of the Conservative party.”

Zahawi said that if Labour and the government failed to fi nd a joint approach, then MPs should be forced to fi nd a compromise through a preferential voting system to fi nd a solution before the European elections.

Hopes of fi nding a Brexit deal with cross-party support faded after Labour claimed May had failed to off er “real change or compromise” during ongoing talks.

Labour issued a statement urging May to come forward with “genuine changes” so her deal could fi nally win support in parliament.

The Chancellor, Philip Ham-mond, has denied the govern-ment has any “red lines” in the talks.

At a meeting of EU fi nance ministers in Bucharest on Sat-urday morning, Hammond said: “We should be open to listen to suggestions that others have made. Some people in the La-bour party are making other suggestions to us; of course we have to be prepared to discuss them”.

Prince William spendsthree weeks with spiesAFPLondon

The name’s Windsor. Wil-liam Windsor. As one of the most recognisable public

fi gures in the world, Prince Wil-liam would not make as eff ective a 007 as legendary fi ctional spy James Bond.

But that did not stop the heir to the British throne spending the last three weeks working with the security services, including in Bond’s own foreign intelligence unit MI6. The Duke of Cambridge ended the top-secret attachment — which also included a week with domestic intelligence service MI5 and cybersecurity agency GCHQ — on Saturday, according to Ken-sington Palace.

“Spending time inside our se-curity and intelligence agencies, understanding more about the vi-tal contribution they make to our national security, was a truly hum-bling experience,” William said in a statement.

“These agencies are full of peo-ple from everyday backgrounds doing the most extraordinary work to keep us safe.”

The prince, who has a military background, began the second-ment at the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) — better known as MI6 — whose spies work around the world gathering information and furthering British interests.

William, 36, “got to see fi rst-hand how SIS helps the UK iden-tify and exploit opportunities as well as navigate risks to its na-tional security, military eff ective-ness and economy,” Kensington Palace said.

The father-of-three then switched over to the Security Service — MI5 — to observe how counter-terrorism teams conduct investigations, including surveil-lance. The duke fi nished his foray into spycraft at the communica-tions monitoring agency GCHQ in Cheltenham.

There he spent time “with those using cutting-edge technol-ogy, technical ingenuity and wide-ranging partnerships to identify, analyse and disrupt threats,” the palace added.

GCHQ’s head of counter-ter-rorism operations, whose name was given only as David, said the prince had worked “exceptionally hard to embed himself in the team”.

Nerve agent victim ‘meetsRussia’s envoy in London’AFPLondon

A British man poisoned along with his part-ner with a nerve agent,

amid an assassination attempt on a Russian ex-spy in Eng-land blamed on Moscow, met its top UK envoy, according to reports.

Charlie Rowley, 45, whose partner Dawn Sturgess died af-ter exposure to the toxin, held a 90-minute meeting with Am-bassador Alexander Yakovenko at Russia’s embassy in London, the Sunday Mirror said.

“I went along to ask them ‘why did your country kill my girlfriend?’” he told the tabloid newspaper.

“But I didn’t really get any answers. I just got Russian propaganda,” Rowley added, saying Yakovenko’s explana-tions of Russian innocence in the plot were “ridiculous”.

Rowley and Sturgess, a 44-year-old mother-of-three children, who lived near the

city of Salisbury, fell ill on June 30 last year.

Authorities determined they had been exposed to Novichok, a military-grade nerve agent developed by the Soviet Union during the latter days of the Cold War.

The poison was contained in a perfume bottle that Row-ley had found in Salisbury and given to Sturgess.

She died eight days later but after two weeks in an induced coma, he was discharged from hospital.

It followed former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia be-ing left in critical condition after they were targeted with Novichok in Salisbury three months earlier.

The pair survived and have made full recoveries, according to authorities.

Western allies accused Rus-sian President Vladimir Putin of being ultimately responsi-ble for the poisoning, which sparked dozens of diplomatic expulsions by both sides.

British prosecutors in Sep-tember issued arrest warrants for two alleged offi cers of Rus-sia’s military intelligence serv-ice, known as the GRU.

But the Kremlin has repeat-edly denounced the accusa-tions as “unacceptable.”

“The ambassador kept say-ing the substance defi nitely wasn’t the novichok they had made because if it was it would have killed everyone,” Rowley told the Mirror.

“He (Yakovenko) kept on saying the British won’t talk to him so he can’t tell us any-thing that he hasn’t read in the media, so he can only give his view.”

A Russian TV station also reported the meeting, saying Rowley was eager for answers that Britain had failed to pro-vide.

Yakovenko gave him a book on the “unanswered ques-tions” concerning the events in Salisbury and a tour of Russia’s grand west London embassy on one of its most exclusive streets, it added.

No-deal Brexitnext week wouldnot be so grim,says LeadsomGuardian News and MediaLondon

A no-deal Brexit at the end of next week would be “not nearly as grim” as

many believe, one of Theresa May’s senior ministers has said, as both the government and La-bour indicated that cross-party talks to resolve the situation re-mained deadlocked.

Andrea Leadsom, the Com-mons leader, said preparations would mitigate many adverse eff ects of no deal. She also said the idea of a departure extension long enough to require the UK to hold European elections was “utterly unacceptable”.

Her comments came as May used a video statement to talk up the hopes for ongoing cross-party Brexit negotiations with Labour, saying “compromise on both sides” could still deliver a solution.

There is currently very lit-tle sign that May will travel to next week’s emergency Euro-pean council summit with the coherent plan the EU says will be necessary to grant the UK a further delay to Brexit, which is currently scheduled to happen on Friday.

At the end of last week Labour said the talks called by May with Jeremy Corbyn and his team had achieved very little as the prime minister seemed unwilling to compromise on any of her Brexit red lines, notably on Labour’s key demand for a post-Brexit customs union with the EU.

The shadow business secre-tary, Rebecca Long-Bailey, who was among the Labour delega-tion, said yesterday that while the mood of the talks had been

“quite a positive and hopeful one”, little was achieved.

“The sad thing is at the mo-ment we haven’t seen, overall, any real changes to the deal, but we’re hopeful that will change in coming days and we are willing to continue the talks as we know the government are,” she told BBC One’s The Andrew Marr Show.

“But we are currently waiting for the government to come back to us now to state whether they are prepared to move on any of their red lines.”

Speaking later on the same show, Leadsom indicated that it was up to Labour to accept the customs “arrangement” already in May’s three-times-rejected deal, and that she and other Brexiter members of May’s min-isterial team could not accept a full customs union.

“There are various diff er-ent types of arrangements, and those discussions are still ongo-ing,” Leadsom said, calling May’s existing customs plan “an excel-lent proposal”.

Asked whether May could agree to a full customs union, Leadsom indicated not. “My expectation – and I’m not party to the discussions – is that the prime minister will only seek to agree those things that still con-stitute Brexit.” There has been speculation that MPs could force a vote to revoke Article 50 en-tirely if the EU refuses another Brexit delay this week and a no-deal departure looms on Friday. Leadsom said she would never agree to this, and that no deal would be manageable.

“It’s not nearly as grim as many would advocate,” she said. “The civil service have done an amazing job of ensuring that we minimise the problems. I’m

not an advocate for no deal, but it would not be nearly as bad as many like to think it would be.”

In her video posted yesterday on social media, fi lmed at her Chequers country retreat, May conceded her own Brexit deal seemed doomed as it had been re-jected by MPs three times. “Right now, as things stand, I can’t see them accepting it,” she said.

Given this, May said she was talking to Labour – despite disa-greements in many other areas. “Can we fi nd a way through this that ensures that we can get a good deal and a deal agreed through parliament?” she said.

“It’ll mean compromise on both sides but I believe that de-livering Brexit is the most im-portant thing for us.”

Under the plan for the talks, if Labour and the government cannot agree a consensus then MPs could be asked to vote on various options, with the choice seen as binding.

But Long-Bailey said Labour had heard nothing about how this could happen. “We haven’t had any discussions really as to what a next stage would be, and the government hasn’t con-fi rmed whether they want to adopt that approach or look at more fl exible approaches.”

Amid the impasse, the time-table ahead of Friday’s Brexit deadline is tightening greatly, with time seemingly too short to allow a process of government-sanctioned indicative votes by MPs before May goes to Brussels on Wednesday afternoon.

May could instead travel com-pelled by parliament to seek a longer extension to Article 50 than the new June 30 date she has sought, and which the EU has previously refused.

Prime Minister Theresa May arrives at church, as Brexit turmoil continues, near High Wycombe, Britain yesterday.

Prince William: goes undercover

Mum weeps as medicinal cannabis for epileptic daughter seizedGuardian News and MediaLondon

The mother of a nine-year-old girl with severe epilepsy wept as she had

an illegal supply of medical cannabis confiscated by cus-toms officials after entering the UK with the potentially life-saving medication that her daughter cannot access,

despite changes in the law.Campaigner Emma Appleby

fl ew to the UK from Holland on Saturday carrying three months’ worth of cannabis oil, valued at £4,500, for her daughter Teagan, who has a rare chromosomal dis-order as well as Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, which causes up to 300 seizures a day.

It follows a similar course of action by Charlotte Caldwell last year, whose audacious at-

tempt to challenge what she said were the UK’s unjust laws helped pressure the government into legalising medical cannabis. She had the medicine returned within a week after her son Bil-ly’s seizures returned and he was admitted to hospital.

Appleby, from Aylesham near Dover, said she was “devastated” that she was not allowed to en-ter the UK with the appropriate medicine for her child, adding

she had been “passed from pillar to post” trying to access it in the UK. This prompted her to secure a prescription in Rotterdam after her request for an import licence on compassionate grounds was refused.

“I’m devastated. I’ve always tried to do the right thing. I’ve jumped through all the hoops but ended up being passed from pillar to post and being met with a fl at ‘no’,” she said. “All I want is

the best thing for my daughter. To have the medicine taken in this way is deeply upsetting.

“But I will fi ght to get it back and fi ght so that other parents in the same situation as me don’t have to go through this.”

On Friday, she said that a succession of pharmaceuti-cal drugs and diets had failed to alleviate her daughter’s symptoms, with a number of the medicines causing severe

side-effects. “Whilst the NHS and the medical professions are having arguments over what constitutes evidence, my child is suffering every day,” she said. “I am at my wits’ end.”

Appleby has met the Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, who told her at a meeting in West-minster in March that he under-stood the frustration and pain among families and recognised something has to change, but he

conceded practical changes need to be clinician-led.

The law in the UK was changed last November to make access to medical cannabis legal, but par-ents have been struggling to se-cure prescriptions, in part due to reluctance within the medical community, with the Royal Col-lege of Physicians and the British Paediatric Neurology Associa-tion largely discouraging use of the medicine.

BRITAIN/IRELAND


Javid defendsremoval of words‘European Union’from passportsGuardian News and MediaLondon

Sajid Javid has defended the issuing of British passports without the words European

Union on the front cover despite the Brexit delay. The burgundy passports were introduced from March 30, the day after Britain was expected to leave the EU.

The home secretary said the move was “sensible and effi cient” because some passport centres had run out of the previous design.

The government started issu-ing British passports without the words “European Union” from March 30 even though the UK still remains a full member of the bloc. It removed the two words from passport covers issued this week on the working assumption that Brexit day would have been 29 March.

The move angered those apply-ing for new passports who were hoping to hold on to an emblem of EU membership.

Susan Hindle Barone, who was one of the fi rst to receive the new-look passports, said: “I was shocked because we haven’t left the EU yet. I assumed we would get the same old passport. It’s not so much about that but it’s the fi rst tangible sign of us leaving the EU.”

In response to a tweet from Bar-one, Catherine Sutherland said: “I don’t understand how the Home Offi ce can do this while still in the EU though.”

On Friday, the Home Offi ce is-sued a statement saying the re-moval of the words “European Union” was part of a two-stage redesign process that would cul-minate in the old blue British pass-ports being reissued from “late 2019”. “Burgundy passports that no longer include the words ‘Eu-ropean Union’ on the front cover will be introduced from 30 March 2019,” it said.

“Passports that include the words ‘European Union’ will con-tinue to be issued for a short pe-riod after this date. You will not be able to choose whether you get

a passport that includes the words ‘European Union’, or a passport that does not.

“You will not be issued with a passport that includes the words ‘European Union’ after the UK has left the EU.

“There will be no diff erence for British citizens whether they are using a passport that includes the words ‘European Union’ or a passport that does not include the words ‘European Union’. Both designs will be equally valid for travel.

The spokesman added that “in order to use leftover stock and achieve best value for the taxpayer, passports that include the words ‘European Union’ will continue to be issued for a short period” after the March 30 when the new design passports came in.

The Home Offi ce said the inclu-sion of the words “European Union” was part of the policy of the EU but was not legally binding, and con-sumers who receive the new-look passports in the coming months have nothing to worry about. “They are perfectly legal,” it said.

The decision to revive the old blue British passport became an em-blem of the government’s promise to “take back control” after the 2017 election despite the loss of Theresa May’s majority.

The then immigration minister, Brandon Lewis, said he was de-lighted to return to the “iconic” blue and gold design, which came into use almost 100 years ago. He said he knew many Remain vot-ers who still had an “attachment for” and spoke fondly of the blue passport. Dark blue passports are scheduled to be issued from the end of this year.

Javid said: “It’s true that some passport centres have run through their stock of UK passports with EU headers, and have started tran-sitioning to those without. It’s sensible and effi cient manage-ment.

“There shouldn’t be any sur-prises that almost three years after the country voted to leave, ukhomeoffi ce is getting on with implementing that decision.”

Car Wash app reveals 1,000potential slavery casesThomson Reuters FoundationLondon

British drivers uncovered almost 1,000 potential cases of modern slavery

at car washes in fi ve months us-ing the “Safe Car Wash App” yet less than a fi fth called the anti-slavery helpline to report their concerns, the creators of the app said yesterday.

The free mobile-phone app was launched by the Church of England and the Catholic Church in England and Wales last June amid growing concerns that some of the estimated 18,000 hand car washes operating around the country are exploiting workers.

The app — with at least 8,225 downloads to-date — allows drivers to enter their loca-tion then fl ick through a series of slavery indicators such as whether the car wash only ac-cepts cash, workers living on site or if some of them seem fearful.

If the answers indicate a high chance of slavery, users are di-rected to Britain’s helpline. But only 18 % of people who were asked to call the service between June and December last year — 126 users — did so, according to a study of the app.

The Clewer Initiative — the Church of England’s anti-slav-ery arm — described the number of calls as “disappointing” while

activists said the government rather than the public must take responsibility for combating la-bour exploitation at car washes.

“This kind of public aware-ness can be positive, although there can be some downsides in that the public isn’t trained in the way that public offi cials are,” said Caroline Robinson, director of Focus on Labour Exploitation (FLEX), a charity.

“The anonymity of an app is more appealing to people than a phonecall,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “If people are uncertain..which is under-standable for a member of the public, they might not be certain enough to make a phone call.”

Britain is home to at least

136,000 modern slaves, accord-ing to the Global Slavery Index by rights group Walk Free Foun-dation — a fi gure 10 times high-er than a government estimate from 2013.

While forced labour is rife among Britain’s building sites, nail bars, factories and farms, car wash slavery has grown over the past decade with un-regulated businesses sprouting up nationwide, according to charities and anti-slavery of-ficials.

A parliamentary probe was set up in April last year to inves-tigate modern slavery in Brit-ain’s hand car washes.

Thousands of workers in car washes are believed to be

slaves — mostly men lured from Eastern Europe then trapped in debt bondage, forced to work in unsafe conditions, stripped of documents and subjected to threats, abuse and violence.

Car washes are one of the most common cause of con-cerns for callers to Britain’s slavery helpline — accounting for more than 550 calls last year compared with about 200 in 2017, according to Justine Cur-rell of the charity Unseen that runs the service.

“I think what it suggests is that whenever we highlight a particular issue and it’s more in the public conscience, there’s more chance that people will pick up the phone,” Currell said.

Participants pose for photographs as they take part in a ‘Hat Walk’ during the London Hat Week in the capital yesterday.

Eighth ATM rippedfrom wall in N IrelandGuardian News and MediaBelfast

Police are appealing for in-formation after a cash ma-chine was stolen in Dun-

given yesterday, the eighth such robbery in Northern Ireland this year.

A digger, believed to be stolen from a construction site nearby, was used to rip the ATM from the wall of a garage in Co Derry, leaving substantial damage to the building. In other similar rob-beries, the digger has been set on fi re but in this case it was not.

CCTV footage shows three men in balaclavas attacking the shop in the early hours of yester-day morning.

The men are seen lowering the stolen ATM into a van in a theft that takes just four minutes. The Citroen Berlingo is then seen driving off with the cash machine protruding out of the top of the van, which has its roof cut off .

Police believe the series of thefts is linked to gang crime. Police Service of Northern Ire-land detective inspector Richard Thornton said: “Unfortunately, the public and the business com-munity are waking to the news that another ATM machine has been stolen; that another busi-ness has been targeted by these brazen thieves.

“The theft from the fi lling sta-tion on Feeny Road was reported to us just before 4.30am. On this occasion, the digger was not set alight and was located at the scene.” The digger was found at the scene.

Northern Irish police have set up a specialist team of detectives to investigate the thefts, the last of which took place on Wednes-day in Castleblayney.

Thornton warned that the at-tacks have stoked fear in the local community and local businesses.

“As in all of these ATM thefts, the actions of these criminals have not only caused immedi-

ate fi nancial harm to the busi-ness targeted, but they have un-derstandably caused fear in the community and impacted upon a vital service many local people rely on.

“We are doing all we can to catch the people responsible – it is a key priority for us – how-ever, I want to reiterate that the key to stopping these crimes and getting ahead of these criminals is information from the public.

“We need people to report an-ything suspicious, including see-ing any unusual activity or peo-ple in areas close to ATMs. For example, if you hear machinery late at night or in the early hours please let us know. If you see any cars being driven in a suspicious manner close to where ATMs are located, please let us know.

“No matter how insignifi cant you think it is, call us and we will investigate. It could be key to catching the criminals responsi-ble.”

Man confesses to killing girlfriendDaily MailLondon

A maths graduate has ad-mitted murdering the beautiful and talented

girlfriend he travelled the world with.

Joe Atkinson, 25, was living with university sweetheart Pop-py Devey Waterhouse, 24, in a Leeds fl at when she was stabbed to death.

Devey Waterhouse had a Mas-ter’s degree in statistics and was working as an analyst with book-makers William Hill when she was killed.

Atkinson, of Leeds, was due to go on trial later this year after initially pleading not guilty to murder, but appeared at Leeds Crown Court to plead guilty. Tearful relatives of Atkinson and Devey Waterhouse were in court to hear him change his plea.

He will be sentenced on Friday.The motive and circumstances

of the murder have not yet been revealed.

Photographs on their social me-dia accounts showed the young couple enjoying themselves on trips across the world. Last year alone they visited the Greek island of Santorini, Belgium, Morocco, Lithuania, Sweden and Denmark. In 2017, they went backpacking for six months in South America and the US and Devey Waterhouse also enjoyed trips to Australia, Thai-land and Indonesia.

The couple met while study-ing mathematics at Nottingham University and both graduated with fi rst-class honours degrees.

Devey Waterhouse, who grew up in Frome, Somerset, stayed on to do her Master’s degree before moving to Leeds with Atkinson in 2017.

Paramedics responding to a 999 call attended the block of fl ats where they lived shortly before 9am on December 14 last year.

Devey Waterhouse was pro-nounced dead at the scene after suff ering ‘head and neck trauma’. An inquest was told she had been stabbed. Atkinson was arrested at the fl at.

Members of the Cambridge men’s boat crew throw their cox, Matthew Holland, into the River Thames as they celebrate their win in the 165th annual men’s boat race between Oxford University and Cambridge University on the River Thames in London yesterday.

Celebrations

‘Hat Walk’

NHS patients’ cancer scans cancelled after supplier problemsGuardian News and MediaLondon

Concerns have been raised that problems related to the supply of a substance

used to screen for cancerous cells is causing delays for NHS patients in England, with many exposed to repeated cancellation of scans at short notice.

Choline is a radiotracer injected into patients an hour before PET-CT scans, predominately when patients are feared to have a recur-

rence of prostate cancer. Without it the scans cannot go ahead.

The worries surrounding its availability come as waiting times for cancer patients in England are at a record high, with almost one in four patients not starting treat-ment within the two-month target period.

Karen Stalbow, the head of poli-cy, knowledge and impact at Pros-tate Cancer UK, said: “Some men are facing lengthy delays in con-fi rming their prognosis, as scans are repeatedly cancelled at short notice due to the shortage.

“This causes major stress and anxiety for these men, leaving some with little choice but to pay around £1,500 for a scan which uses PSMA tracers as an alterna-tive to choline. These scans are currently only available privately, with some men even travelling abroad to get access.

“NHS providers must take im-mediate action to ensure that PET-CT scans are available to all men with suspected prostate cancer re-currence, starting fi rst with restor-ing the supply of choline and then progressing the commissioning of a

more eff ective tracer.” NHS England told the Guardian that problems with the supply of choline had been resolved.

But Richard Taylor, from west London, who is going through a cancer diagnosis for the third time in two years, initially had a scan at University College London Hospi-tal (UCLH) scheduled for the end of April, more than three weeks after his appointment with his oncologist – which should precede it – because of unavailability of choline.

Taylor said: “Someone in the NHS should be ashamed of the

unnecessary stress they’re causing patients through a lack of reason-able forward planning to ensure essential tracers are reliable, easily available, and – if a batch fails – an alternative is quickly available.

“When you hear there are likely to be lengthy delays in getting a scan, you feel like not coming out from under the duvet in the morning, as your worst fears may be realised in the near future by the cancer spreading in the time it takes the NHS to put measures in place that your treatment may rea-sonably progress.”

UCLH had off ered him a PMSA scan as an alternative, privately for £2,200, but after the Guardian contacted the hospital it off ered him the same scan the next day on the NHS.

A UCLH spokeswoman said: “It is well-known that choline is a fragile tracer and its produc-tion can be relatively unreliable, leading to unpredictable short-term cancellations. We have been working constructively with NHS England to address the choline production issues and they recently agreed to fund

PSMA scans for a limited period.” Prostate cancer is the most

common cancer in men. About one in eight men will be diagnosed with the disease at some point in their lives, according to Prostate Cancer UK.

Dr Wai Lup Wong, the chair of the NHS England cancer diag-nostics clinical reference group, said: “There is not a shortage of choline … however, some patient scans were delayed last year when a supplier experienced diffi culties whilst refurbishing one of its pro-duction sites.”

EUROPE15Gulf Times


Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s party said yesterday that it is

demanding a recount of all bal-lots cast in Istanbul, the coun-try’s economic capital, during last week’s mayoral election after an opposition candidate claimed a slender win.

The vice-president of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), Ali Ihsan Yavuz, made the demand for a recount going be-yond one already under way.

The AKP won most votes na-tionwide in the March 31 elec-tion, but results showed the rul-ing party lost Ankara and was also narrowly defeated in Istan-bul, in what would be one of their worst setbacks in a decade and a half in power.

“Today, we are going to take our case to the provincial branch of the YSK (supreme election board) to recount all the votes from all the (Istanbul) districts,” said Yavuz.

“We chose the path to elimi-nate numerical mistakes. But it’s not over,” he told reporters in tel-evised comments yesterday.

Electoral authorities are al-ready conducting a recount in scores of districts in Ankara and in Istanbul, where tallies showed the opposition CHP candidate Ekrem Imamoglu just edged out the AKP, represented by political heavyweight and former prime minister Binali Yildirim.

On Saturday, party spokesman Omer Celik insisted that the AKP would accept recount results in Istanbul as well as Ankara, no

matter which party is declared the winner.

Losing Istanbul, home to around one in fi ve Turks, would be a blow to Erdogan, who built his political career as mayor of the city before becoming prime minister and later president.

Most of the ballots currently being recounted are those which were listed as void in the March 31 poll.

AKP vice-president Yavuz of-fered a trenchant criticism of the count, complaining of “fl agrant irregularities” and “organised abuse – something going beyond

simple individual error”.Pro-government media had

already taken up that theme in recent days, denouncing what they termed a “ballot box putsch” and a “plot”.

Analysts put the AKP’s poor showing in Istanbul and An-kara primarily down to the poor health of the economy, as Turkey endures its fi rst recession in a decade, 20% infl ation, a slump in the value of the lira and jobless-ness of 13.5%.

Ekrem Imamoglu, candidate for the main opposition social democratic CHP, topped the bal-

lot with support of other anti-Erdogan factions.

Imamoglu’s margin was some 25,000 votes but Yavuz said that following a recount of 78% of void ballots, it had shrunk to less than 16,500.

Both candidates received more than 4mnvotes.

Imamoglu, now styling him-self as mayor, accuses the AKP of trying to play for time with its demands to revisit the results as a means of ensuring the spotlight is not turned in its stewardship of the municipal budget amid allegations that AKP supporters

benefi t from cash funnelled via charitable foundations.

Yesterday he urged the elec-toral board to remember that “you have a historic responsibil-ity – 82mn Turks have their eyes fi xed on you”.

“Take the right decision, the one which will reassure” voters,” he said.

AKP spokesman Celik rejected what he termed such “hollow conjectures” and said appealing results was “natural”.

After Yavuz’s revelation that the party was calling for all the Istanbul districts to be recount-ed, CHP offi cial Mahmut Tanal tweeted that “by multiplying their appeals ... the AKP is wast-ing time and energy and the time of Istanbul inhabitants”.

While the provincial election board probes Istanbul and Anka-ra’s poll outcome, further appeals could follow across the board.

Many opposition groups do not believe in the statutory neu-trality of electoral authorities – and have pointed, for example, that none of several appeals by the pro-Kurdish HDP party fol-lowing the election was success-ful.

Speaking shortly after Yavuz announced the AKP’s latest ap-peal, Imamoglu said it was time for the party to accept defeat.

He also promised “to recon-cile this city” and to work closely with the president.

“I understand the feeling of defeat of the people who de-manded a recount,” Imamoglu said. “You managed this city for 25 years.

It is not easy, you lost. But de-mocracy is like that – democracy is not a one-way path.”

AKP to seek recountof all Istanbul ballotsAFP/ReutersIstanbul

This file photo taken on March 31 shows an electoral off icial preparing the ballots during the local elections in Istanbul. The ruling AK party has said it will demand a recount of all ballots cast in Istanbul during the mayoral election won by an opposition candidate. A recount is already under way in several of Istanbul’s 39 districts.

Winter is ending

A snowboarder takes part yesterday in the comic competition ‘Californication 9.0’ as he jumps into the ice water to mark the end of winter, at an entertainment centre near the town of Logoisk, Belarus.

A Serbian court has sen-tenced four former in-telligence offi cers to

decades in prison for the 1999 assassination of journalist Slavko Curuvija, a fi erce critic of late strongman Slobodan Milo-sevic.

Reporters Without Borders welcomed the “historic deci-sion”, calling it the fi rst sentenc-ing by a Serbian court in recent history over the murder of a journalist.

The heaviest sentences of 30 years were given to former se-cret police chief Radomir Mark-ovic, who is already serving time for the killing of an opposition

leader the same year, and Milan Radonjic, who was in charge of Belgrade’s intelligence branch, Beta news agency reported on Friday.

The court also gave terms of 20 years to former intelligence offi cers Ratko Romic and fugi-tive Miroslav Kurak, who was sentenced in absentia.

The four men were found guilty of having “on the orders of an unknown person killed the journalist Slavko Curuvija”, Judge Snezana Jovanovic was quoted by Beta as saying.

Curuvija was shot dead 14 times in front of his home in central Belgrade in April 1999, during the North Atlantic Trea-ty Organisation (Nato) bombing campaign against Serbia aimed at stopping its crackdown on the

ethnic Albanian population in Kosovo.

At the time, he was the edi-tor and owner of Dnevni Tel-egraf and Evropljanin, two of the leading independent publica-tions in the country.

His family has accused Mi-losevic, who was notorious for eff orts to cripple critical media, of personally ordering the as-sassination.

“The justice system must continue its eff orts and con-demn all those involved, in-cluding the person who ordered Slavko Curujiva’s murder,” Pauline Ades-Mevel, who leads RSF’s EU and Balkan portfolio, said in a statement.

Milosevic died in 2006 in a prison cell while awaiting a verdict in a United Nations war

crimes trial for his role during the 1990s wars in Croatia, Bos-nia and Kosovo.

More than a decade later, in-dependent journalists are again facing threats and pressure in Serbia, whose current president, Aleksander Vucic, is accused of burgeoning authoritarianism.

Last year, seven Serbian jour-nalists were physically attacked and nearly 100 other media staff were threatened or put under pressure, according to the Inde-pendent Association of Journal-ists.

Reporters Without Borders dropped the Balkan state 10 spots in its 2018 Press Free-dom index, citing an “alarming number of attacks on journal-ists” as well as “collusion be-tween politicians and media”.

Serb spies jailed for journalist’s murderAFPBelgrade

Mayorof Latvian capitalsuspended

ReutersRiga

Latvia’s government has suspended Riga mayor Nils Usakovs, who is also

the opposition’s main candidate in next month’s European Par-liament elections, on suspicion of misusing more than $20mn of public funds.

Usakovs, the leader of the pro-Russian Harmony party, denied any wrongdoing and said he would appeal.

“This is absolutely a pure, clear political decision,” Usakovs told reporters.

The environmental protection ministry, which oversees Latvia’s local authorities, said that, as mayor, Usakovs had failed in his duty to ensure that public funds were properly spent, including €18.4mn ($20.66mn) related to the municipality’s public trans-port authority.

“The decision is about good governance in the public sector,” the environmental protection minister, Juris Puce, told report-ers.

In December last year, Latvia’s anti-corruption agency, KNAB, detained seven people on suspi-cion of corruption at Riga’s traf-fi c authority over the purchase of new trams, trolleybuses and buses.

At the end of January, KNAB agents also searched Usakovs’s offi ce and home in connection with the procurement deal.

Usakovs told reporters on Fri-day that he had not been notifi ed by KNAB that he was suspected of any crime.

Usakovs is the fi rst mayor of Riga of Russian descent.

He has tried to rebrand Har-mony as a Western-style Social Democratic Party, toning down the links to Russia and focusing on issues as education and social inequality.

The Social Democratic Party severed its offi cial co-operation agreement with Russian Presi-dent Vladimir Putin’s United Russia Party in 2017.

Seven convicted in French ‘Air Cocaine’ smuggling trial

A French court has sen-tenced seven people im-plicated in a drug smug-

gling operation to up to 18 years in prison each, with two ex-air force pilots getting six-year terms.

Pascal Fauret and Bruno Odos had fl ed the Dominican Republic following a raid on the private jet they were to fl y to Saint-Tropez, southern France, but were re-arrested in France in November 2015.

In what has become known as the “Air Cocaine” case, Fauret and Odos were accused along with seven other de-fendants of trying to smuggle 680kg (1,500 pounds) of the drug out of the country.

Two were acquitted follow-ing a seven-week trial.

Ringleader Ali Bouchareb was sentenced to 18 years in prison, while his right-hand man, Frank Colin, got 12 years.

Only Bouchareb was held in detention during the trial while the other eight got bail.

Colin was the only defend-ant who had admitted to taking

part in the smuggling operation but claimed he was in fact an “infi ltrated agent”.

Dominican police found the drugs packed into 26 suitcases onboard a Falcon 50 jet as it was about to fl y from the Domini-can beach resort of Punta Cana to Saint-Tropez in March 2013.

While out on bail, Fauret and Odos managed to fl ee the Dominican Republic to French territory in the Caribbean in mysterious circumstances, but were re-arrested upon their re-turn to the French mainland in November 2015.

They, along with two pas-sengers, were found guilty in absentia and sentenced to 20 years in jail for drug-traffi cking in the Dominican Republic in 2015.

On Friday, fi ve French mag-istrates deliberated for 11 hours before handing down the ver-dict.

“It’s a scandal! It’s political! There is no justice...” screamed people close to the defendants as the verdict was announced.

Former customs agent Fran-cois-Xavier Manchet was sen-tenced to fi ve years in jail and barred from working again as a civil servant.

AFPAix-en-Provence, France

131kg of cocaine found along coastMore than 300 police off icers backed by two helicopters yesterday mounted a massive search along Romania’s Black Sea coast after 131kg (286 pounds) of cocaine washed ashore, police said.Police spokesman Georgian Dragan told AFP that 14 boats and several frogmen were also involved in the search operation for more packets of the drug, which began arriving ashore on Friday.Romania’s organised crime unit urged local residents not to open packets appearing on the beach “whose contents could put their lives in danger”.On March 20, more than a tonne of cocaine packed into 36 plastic bags apparently from the same shipment were found in a boat that capsized in the Danube delta.Two Serbians were arrested in connection with that discovery.Around 200 more kilos were plucked out of the Black Sea last Tuesday, police said.

Final round of Ukrainian presidential poll set for April 21Ukraine’s election commission has off icially set the second and final round of presidential elections for April 21 after comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy emerged as the clear winner of the first round of voting.Zelenskiy, a 41-year-old famous for playing a fictional president in a popular television show, will take on 53-year-old incumbent President Petro Poroshenko.Both candidates support a pro-Western position for the Eastern European country.The first round of voting had a 62.8% turnout.Zelenskiy, a dark horse candidate who has never held political off ice, has distinguished himself from a political establishment that has struggled with corruption.Poroshenko has appeared slow in enacting expected reforms during his five-year term, as his government struggled with a pro-Russian separatist rebellion in Ukraine’s easternmost regions.A diff icult campaign is expected for both candidates as more than 50% of Ukrainians did not vote for either of them in the first round of voting.The 30mn eligible voters had 39 candidates to choose from in the first round – the most in the country’s history.

There will be no inde-pendence for Catalonia, nor a referendum on the

question if the socialists are returned to power, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez told supporters yesterday.

“No is no,” Sanchez told a Socialist Party meeting at Zaragoza, in the northeast re-gion of Aragon, ahead of the April 28 legislative elections.

“If there is a socialist gov-ernment, there will be no in-dependence in Catalonia, there will be no referendum for in-

dependence and the Spanish constitution in Catalonia will not be violated – that will not happen,” he added.

Sanchez’s speech came after the socialists’ leader in Cata-lonia, Miquel Iceta, said in a newspaper interview that 65% of Catalans wanted independ-ence and that “democracy must fi nd a mechanism to en-able it”.

Iceta’s remarks, to a Basque newspaper in late March, have been heavily-criticised by the right-wing opposition Peo-ple’s Party and led to allega-tions that Sanchez is preparing a deal with Catalonia’s separa-tists.

No independence for Catalonia: SanchezAFPMadrid

EUROPE


Will Russian trolls, American social media giants and opportun-

istic fake news merchants com-bine to poison Europe’s political landscape ahead of May’s conti-nent-wide election?

Brussels fears that online dis-information will fuel the populist wave offi cials believe skewed the Brexit referendum and carried Donald Trump all the way to the White House.

“There are external anti-Euro-pean forces, which are seeking – openly or secretly – to infl uence the democratic choices of Euro-peans,” EU leader Donald Tusk warned recently.

This was, he claimed, also “the case with Brexit and a number of election campaigns across Eu-rope”.

Between May 23 and 26, Euro-pean voters will go to the polls to choose around 700 MEPs to sit in the Strasbourg EU parliament and oversee continent-wide leg-islation.

In the fi nal weeks of the cam-paign, offi cials are on alert fear-ing that opponents – including Moscow – will attempt to spread fake news, amplifi ed by viral so-cial media.

This could in turn boost sup-port for various populist insur-gent parties, deepen existing divisions in the electorate and undermine faith in democracy or EU institutions.

Some go as far as to call the phenomenon a state-led attack.

“There is strong evidence pointing to Russia as a primary source of disinformation in Eu-rope,” said EU Commission vice-president and former Estonian premier Andrus Ansip.

“Disinformation is part of Russia’s military doctrine and its

strategy to divide and weaken the West,” he warned, in December.

Public trust in national and EU institutions and in the so-called mainstream media is already low, and web-users seeking cash from advertising clicks have found a market for fake news.

Add to this state-led covert propaganda and the viral eff ect of US-based media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Google’s YouTube and you have a recipe for disruption.

Mariya Gabriel, EU commis-sioner for the digital econo-my, brands this a an “invisible

scourge” that “intrudes into the lives of our citizens and infl u-ences our opinions and decision-making”.

In response to the perceived threat, the EU Commission has drawn up guidelines for member states, calling on them to support quality journalism or to work with independent fact-checkers.

In March, it also set up an “early warning system”, so capi-tals can share information on “co-ordinated attempts by for-eign actors to manipulate” the democratic debate in real time.

The European External Action

Service (EEAS), the Commis-sion’s foreign aff airs arm, has a team of around 15, to detect and analyse misinformation cam-paigns targeting the EU.

Their website, “EU vs disin-formation” (https://euvsdisinfo.eu/), claims credit for refuting more than 5,000 items of fake news, mainly related to Russia.

But the unit’s resources remain modest.

And, as Paul Butcher of think tank European Policy Centre observes, involving state intelli-gence services or ministries like the EEAS in the campaign can be counterproductive.

This fuels suspicions of cen-sorship and plays “into narratives of censorship and a culture war between ‘the establishment’ and ‘the people’”, he said, in a recent report.

Better than state-led counter-propaganda, he said, “structural resistance to disinformation can be built up through the eff orts of civil society, NGOs and the pri-vate sector”.

European authorities have in-creased calls for online platforms to be more accountable for the content they push in front of mil-lions of eyeballs.

While some member states, such as France, have decided to legislate, the Commission is talking to Internet giants.

Late last year Facebook, Goog-le and Twitter signed a code of best practice with the Brussels authorities – “a world fi rst”, ac-cording to Gabriel.

Under the code, the indus-try committed to transparency in political advertising, to close false accounts and to “demon-etise misinformation providers” – to stop paid adverts on suspect sites.

The initiative has produced results, but the fi rewall of truth is far from impregnable, as the Commission itself admits.

EU on fake news alert ahead of European pollsBy Cédric Simon, AFPBrussels

Right-wing populist parties are gearing up to campaign for European Parliament

elections next month, but policy diff erences and the Brexit drama threaten their dream to “unite the right”.

Many fear the May 26 vote will be a wake-up call for Brussels on the reality that Europe’s anti-immigration and blood-and-soil patriotic forces have moved from the fringes to the mainstream.

Once considered outsiders, they could now end up with one fi fth or more of the seats, allow-ing them to shift the tone of po-litical discourse and make a claim for legitimacy.

Key players are Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (NR) in France and the Italian League of Matteo Sal-vini, who is hosting a meeting of like-minded right-wing groups in Milan today.

In the EU’s top economy, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) has become the biggest oppo-sition party by railing against Chancellor Angela Merkel and her 2015 decision to allow a mass infl ux of asylum seekers.

The AfD launched its election programme in the southwestern city of Off enburg on Saturday, calling for “a Europe of father-lands” and opposing the EU’s immigration, fi nancial and cli-mate policies.

“This European campaign is a campaign about identity,” said Party co-leader Alexander Gauland.

“The European Union is not a state, it doesn’t need a parlia-ment,” he added.

Despite fi nancial scandals the AfD enjoys the support of 10% of voters, according to opinion polls, with its popularity highest in the former East Germany.

Today in Milan, Italian Deputy Prime Minister Salvini will follow up and gather allies from across Europe to try to lay the foun-dations for a future hard-right grouping in the now 751-member European Parliament.

Salvini and Le Pen also agreed to call another meeting in May, after they met in Paris on Friday, a NR source said.

“The leaders are considering a common manifesto to close the electoral campaign and announce

the start of a new Europe,” said a spokesman for Salvini.

So far, Europe’s right-wing nationalists have been divided into three blocs and a tangled web of alliances in the legisla-ture that moves between seats in Brussels and the French city of Strasbourg.

They are the Europe of Nations and Freedom (ENF) group, which includes the RN and League, the European Conservatives and Re-formists (ECR), and the Europe of Freedom and Direct Democ-racy (EFDD).

The dream of Salvini – and of Steve Bannon, the former adviser to US President Donald Trump – has been to unite the disparate patriotic forces and form an “in-ternational of nationalists”.

However, so far such eff orts have met with only limited suc-cess, in part because the parties’ nationalist focus runs counter to a multi-national approach.

Another problem for the groups has been that, despite their shared dislike for immigra-tion, multiculturalism, the left and the EU, they remain divided on other key issues.

On economic policy, the AfD and their Scandinavian allies tend to believe in the market economy, while the French RN favours a more protectionist and statist approach.

While Italy’s League, Poland’s PiS and Hungary’s Fidesz high-light Europe’s Christian cultural roots, the RN has shied away from taking a similar stance in a country where the majority is in favour of secularism.

And even on immigration, Sal-

vini’s League favours an EU-wide redistribution of asylum-seekers while others demand an outright stop to immigration.

On relations with Russia, Salvini has praised President Vladimir Putin, a view not shared by Poland’s governing party.

The AfD’s top candidate Joerg Meuthen said that he expects big gains for nationalist parties but that they will have trouble form-ing a “patriotic alliance” with a common agenda.

There are also strategic delib-erations.

Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban has voiced admi-ration for Salvini but was con-sidered unlikely to come to the Milan meeting given his Fidesz party still belongs to the centre-right European People’s party (EPP) group, despite its tempo-rary suspension.

Meanwhile, most parties have also toned down their anti-EU rhetoric as the Brexit debacle has made the prospect of leaving the bloc look far less appealing.

Le Pen renounced a “Frexit” after the 2017 presidential elec-tion and her disastrous debates against Emmanuel Macron, while Germany’s AfD has down-graded a “Dexit” scenario to a “last resort”.

Still, the potential of the far-right must not be underestimat-ed, said Sven Hutten, political scientist at Berlin’s Free Univer-sity.

He warned that such groups target “15% to 30% of the popu-lation” and that at the moment “the populist right is fi ghting for unity and to build a single bloc”.

Far-right parties kick off election campaignsBy Mathieu Foulkes, AFPBerlin

This picture taken on January 28, 2016 shows Salvini (right), Le Pen, and Austrian far-right leader Heinz-Christian Strache giving a thumbs up at the end of the ‘Europe of Nations and Freedom’ meeting in Milan.

Tusk: There are external anti-European forces, which are seeking – openly or secretly – to influence the democratic choices of Europeans.

A campaign by the Dutch railway infrastructure operator to shock young

people into responsible behav-iour near rail tracks using ripped clothes to symbolise the man-gled garb of victims hit by trains unleashed uproar over the week-end.

Operator ProRail said it used the controversial images to show the potential consequences of straying too close to railway lines.

But their “Victim Fashion – created by accident” strapline, accompanying ripped clothing was widely branded as shocking.

“I have expressed our sur-prise, displeasure and horror to the management of ProRail,”

the head of Dutch rail operator NS Marjan Rintel told ANP news agency, while drivers and politi-cians were also highly critical.

ProRail, which manages Dutch track infrastructure, launched the campaign on Thursday, showing replicas of badly ripped garments – some missing an entire shirt sleeve or trouser leg.

Other photos show shredded shoes and dresses.

ProRail says that the shocking images are necessary “to wake young people up and give them a shake”.

The company said: “Sadly, bad things still happen too often on and around railtracks because of lack of attention and reck-lessness.”

It added it had “deliberately” set out to shock in a campaign aimed at 12- to 18-year-olds.

Deaths on and around Dutch railtracks have steadily increased in recent years, doubling from six in 2016, to 12 in 2017, and 17 last year with minors among the fatalities.

ProRail said many accidents are down to people’s atten-

tion being fi xed on their smart-phones.

While Rintel notably said he felt the nature of the campaign went too far, the minister of in-frastructure, Stientje van Veld-hoven, was slightly more meas-ured in his criticism.

“Everyone favours less dan-gerous behaviour around rail-way tracks. And communication on this subject is important. But the campaign as it has been

organised is unduly harsh for drivers (notably those who have witnessed accidents) and the relatives of those killed on the tracks,” the minister said.

Uproar over Dutch rail ‘victim fashion’ warning campaignAFPThe Hague

These handout photos released by ProRail show replicas of torn clothing, worn by people killed and injured in railway accidents in the Netherlands, as part of a campaign to encourage young people to be safer around railways.

The Hungarian State Opera has come up with a dubi-ous way round a stipula-

tion that George Gershwin’s op-era Porgy and Bess be performed by an all-black cast: it is alleg-edly asking its white, Hungar-ian singers to sign a paper saying that they identify as African-American.

The company fi rst put on the opera a year ago, leading to a spat with the Gershwin estate, which

stipulates the opera should only be performed by a black cast.

The show is back for another run of six performances, the fi rst of which was performed on April 5.

Hungarian media have specu-lated that the opera house may be using illicitly made photo-copies of the scores that were rented for the original perform-ances last year, as they do not have permission to play the show with a non-black cast.

The Hungarian website Index reported that before the April 5 performance, singers had been

asked to sign a paper with the following text: “I, the under-signed, hereby state that Afri-can-American origin and iden-tity are an inseparable part of my identity.

“Because of this I am espe-cially glad to be able to perform in George Gershwin’s opera, Porgy and Bess.”

The source told Index that most singers had signed the paper and that while the man-agement saw it as a joke, some people were worried that not signing it could aff ect their fu-ture at the opera house.

Programmes on sale in the foyer had a red notice embla-zoned on them, which stated: “The manner in which this pro-duction of Porgy and Bess is be-ing produced is unauthorised and is contrary to the require-ments for the presentation of the work.”

The opera house’s contention is that in a country such as Hun-gary, enforcing the all-black cast rule essentially makes the work impossible to perform.

That justifi cation has won sympathy among many Hun-garians.

The debate has also become part of the culture wars over lib-eralism, a dirty word in Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s nation-alist Hungary.

The general director of the Hungarian State Opera, Szil-veszter Okovacs, declined to comment on the alleged request to singers, referring the Guard-ian to answers he gave to Index, which were in fact a series of his own questions about black identity.

They included: “What col-our is ‘black’ on the Pantone scale?”; “One of Barack Obama’s

grandparents was ‘white’, do you think it would be right if he per-formed in Porgy and Bess?”; and, “Would you remain calm if you paid for a product displayed in the shop window, but the shop assistant informed you that you cannot buy it because you are not black?’”

The opera house was also in the news last year when it can-celled 15 performances of the musical Billy Elliot, after right-wing media launched a cam-paign against the production, claiming it could “turn children gay”.

Opera cast ‘asked to say they identify as African-American’By Shaun WalkerGuardian News & Media

Tycoon at heart of spying scandal arrestedAFPMadrid

A fugitive Polish “multi-millionaire” at the heart of an eavesdropping

scandal that contributed to the ruling Civic Platform liberals losing elections in 2015 has been arrested in Spain, police said.

Marek Falenta was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in pris-on in Poland in December 2016 for setting up an eavesdropping system in swanky restaurants in Warsaw that saw waiters record conversations between busi-nesspeople and politicians.

That led to a major scandal that erupted in 2014 with media publishing extracts of incrimi-nating conversations including Poland’s then foreign minister who allegedly slammed War-saw’s alliance with the United States as “worthless”.

The scandal contributed to the ruling Civic Platform losing in 2015 to the conservative op-position Law and Justice party now in power.

While not identifying him by name, Spanish police said in a statement that they and some of their Polish counterparts had arrested a “multi-millionaire” wanted by Warsaw in a luxury apartment in the eastern seaside town of Cullera.

Poland’s Interior Minister Joachim Brudzinski confi rmed in a tweet that the man arrested was Falenta, a businessman.

Enforcementactions mustbe neutral,EC tells govtIANSNew Delhi

The Election Commis-sion yesterday told the central government that

all enforcement actions to curb electoral malpractices should be neutral, impartial and non-dis-criminatory and demanded that Chief Electoral Offi cers (CEOs) should be informed about the use of illicit money for electoral purposes.

The development comes against the backdrop of Income Tax Department teams yester-day carrying out raids at over 50 places in Indore and Bho-pal, including the residence of Chief Minister Kamal Nath’s aide Praveen Kakkar, and in New Delhi.

In a letter to the Revenue Secre-tary, the Commission said use of money power with the intention of infl uencing voter behaviour was the biggest challenge for conduct-ing free, fair, ethical and credible elections, thus undermining the very fabric of the democracy.

Saying all enforcement agen-cies must be working under the administrative control of the De-partment of Revenue, the Com-mission said it would “strongly advise” that all enforcement ac-tions during the election period should be “absolutely neutral, impartial and non-discrimina-tory”.

“Further, in case of suspected use of such illicit money for elec-toral purposes, the CEOs should be kept suitably informed during the MCC (Model Code of Con-duct) period,” the letter said.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi yesterday announced that his party will waive off in-terest on education loans issued before March 31, 2019 if it comes to power after the Lok Sabha elections.

He also promised to introduce the single-window system for education loans.

“Till the time the student has not landed a job, the banks will

not charge any interest,” Gandhi said in a Facebook post.

The Congress, in its recently-released manifesto for the 2019 polls, promised autonomy to universities, adequate funds, reservations and student rights to gain popularity among the young voters. But, it did not mention anything regarding stu-dent loans.

The latest announcement is indicatively targeted at the mid-dle class, which has the highest volume of student loans. It is also in sync with the claims of the manifesto that India needs more universities.

“Congress promises to es-tablish more public universi-ties in the country, especially in under-served areas. We promise to restore the autonomy of col-leges and universities,” said the manifesto.

The manifesto also promised that it will separate organisations to ensure the regulation, grading and funding of colleges and uni-versities. “We will provide the University Grants Commission or its successor with suffi cient funds to make liberal grants to colleges and universities, based on need and merit,” it said.

The Bharatiya Janata Party yesterday drafted a team of 52 magicians to crisscross all the 26 Lok Sabha constituencies in Gu-jarat to campaign for the party, backed up by an equal number of digital LED raths (chariots) which were set rolling with a message to elect Prime Minister Narendra Modi again.

“Phir ek baar, Modi sarkar” is the theme of the campaign which will focus on creating awareness about the works undertaken by Modi’s government.

According to state BJP spokes-person and former legislator Bharat Pandya, two teams of magicians each would travel through rural areas in all the 26 constituencies and highlight, through various ways of enter-tainment, the “people-oriented works and schemes of the BJP government”.

I-T raids on Kamal Nath’s aides raise political stormIANSBhopal

Pre-dawn raids at the homes and offi ces of Madhya Pradesh Chief

Minister Kamal Nath’s aides and relatives yesterday have raised a political storm in the state.

While Kamal Nath main-tained a stoic silence on the day’s developments, one of his former offi cers on special duty (OSD), Bhupendra Gupta, said the raids were obviously politi-cally motivated and that their timings could only recoil on the Bharatiya Janata Party.

BJP leaders, quite predictably, expressed happiness over the shock value of the action.

Former minister and BJP leader Narottam Mishra al-leged that “one person had earned Rs100 crore through his

100 days in office and the Lok Sabha elections would ensure the people bid goodbye to his party.”

However, Mishra did not re-veal how he arrived at the fi g-ures mid-way through the raids.

Searches were conducted on at least 50 premises in Delhi and Madhya Pradesh against people linked to Kamal Nath.

Raids were also carried out at Kamal Nath’s former OSD Praveen Kakkar’s residences in Indore and Delhi’s Green Park. Premises of another former OSD of Kamal Nath, Rajendra Miglaani, in Madhya Pradesh were also searched.

The homes of executives working for Moser Bayer, the maker of computer peripherals, owned by Kamal Nath’s broth-er-in-law, were also targeted.

Reports suggested the raids were linked to leaks by the En-

forcement Directorate (ED) over commissions paid in the Agus-taWestland VVIP chopper case.

Kamal Nath’s nephew Ratul Puri, questioned by the ED a couple of days ago, accepted the action without any fuss. He said he had no link whatsoever with the AgustaWestland deal. Even Kamal Nath was unruffl ed by the questioning.

Former police offi cer Kakkar and Miglani had resigned from their posts after the Lok Sabha polls were announced.

Kakkar’s residence in Indore’s Vijay Nagar was searched by 15 police offi cers from Delhi who landed there at about 3am. The offi cers claimed to have recov-ered some incriminating docu-ments, which were being scru-tinised, sources linked to the Indore police said. The state po-lice were reportedly kept in the dark about the raids.

Kakkar had earlier served as the OSD to former federal min-ister Kantilal Bhuria during the Congress regime. His family is associated with several busi-nesses, including hospital-ity. The police said the searches were conducted in Goa also.

Raids were also being car-ried out against a Kolkata-based businessman, Paras Mal Lodha. Kamal Nath has several busi-nesses in Kolkata.

Govind Singh, minister for General Administration in the Madhya Pradesh govern-ment, said the actions refl ected character of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Rash-triya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), which can’t tolerate those who oppose them.

He said one classic example of the Modi government’s vindic-tive nature was when its offi cials searched the premises of former

Himachal Pradesh chief minis-ter Virbhadra Singh during his daughter’s wedding.

Congress spokesperson K K Tiwari said yesterday’s raids showed that government agen-cies were being misused for po-litical reasons. But the top BJP leadership would not succeed in demoralising the state govern-ment, he added.

“The Congress would take appropriate action at the ap-propriate time to deal with such misadventure. This bunch of thieves should not try to teach us political conduct,” Tiwari said.

Meanwhile, Kamal Nath’s offi ce said the chief minister would continue to co-operate with the agencies.

It was the fi rst time that the tax offi cers were accompanied by Central Reserve Police Force troopers.

Visitors gather near the Jallianwala Bagh Martyrs’ Memorial ahead of the 100th anniversary of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in Amritsar yesterday. The Amritsar massacre, also known as the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre, took place on April 13, 1919, when British Indian Army soldiers on the direct orders of their British off icers opened fire on an unarmed gathering killing at least 379 men, women and children, according to off icial records.

Jallianwala Bagh massacre anniversary

INDIA17Gulf Times


Orders for armoured cars rise ahead of mother of all electionsAFPJalandhar

The mechanics retrofi tting cars with blast-resistant doors and bulletproof

windshields in a Punjab garage have been fl at out of late - elec-tions are looming, and politics can be a dangerous game in India.

In the past, prime ministers were assassinated, political mo-torcades ambushed and party of-fi cials attacked, and some candi-dates aren’t taking any chances.

Orders for specialised ar-moured cars have been piling up at Sunchit Sobti’s factory in Jalandhar, where his crew have already retrofi tted four SUVs for political bigwigs since the up-coming poll - the biggest election in history - was announced a few weeks ago.

It’s a pattern that repeats itself every election season, said Sobti, whose father started supplying armoured cars for politicians and

other VIP clients in the 1980s when an armed insurgency was raging in Punjab.

“This one is the mother of all elections,” he told AFP, as sparks fl ew from welding equipment on the factory fl oor.

“Like all big events, there are bigger risks involved and leaders want to ensure they are safe. We have been working on orders for months.”

It was not just political can-didates keen to bullet and blast-proof their cars but party bookkeepers and backroom heavyweights too, he added.

At least seven rival companies contacted by AFP, in northern Punjab, neighbouring Haryana and also Maharashtra state, have also experienced a spike in elec-tion-related orders for armour-plated vehicles.

The market for such cars in India is worth $150mn a year and growing by double digits, indus-try representatives said.

Companies like Mahindra &

Mahindra, and Tata Motors also off er a small range of pre-made armoured vehicles for civilian use.

The outlay is considerable for reinforcing a private vehi-

cle, costing anywhere between $7,000 and $70,000.

It can take weeks to bolster a car with imported ballistic glass and steel plates able to withstand grenade fragments and gunfi re,

and even longer for the permis-sion needed to put the car on the road.

But for some, it is a price worth paying.

“Success and jealousy knock at you together,” said one Punjabi state lawmaker who last year had his SUV armour-plated.

He declined to be named.“You can’t even trust your

friends, forget about enemies. I can’t compromise on my safe-ty.”

India has a history of political violence, with particular blood-shed around election time as competition intensifi es between the country’s hundreds of reg-istered parties, who fi eld thou-sands of candidates at state and national polls.

More than 100 politicians or party offi cials were murdered in 2016 alone, the latest fi gures from India’s National Crime Records Bureau show.

Armed insurgencies simmer in at least nine states, from Kashmir

to the jungles of the country’s in-terior, creating risky conditions for party offi cials and their can-didates on the hustings.

Twenty-fi ve Congress politi-cians were murdered in an am-bush on their convoy in 2013 by Maoist rebels in Chhattisgarh, as the restive central state prepared for regional elections.

Even in regions free of rebel uprisings, feuds between politi-cal rivals can turn deadly.

In February a regional law-maker in West Bengal was shot dead by unidentifi ed gunmen in the country’s east.

More than two dozen political fi gures from warring parties have been killed in Kerala in the past three years.

Sometimes politicians them-selves have violent records, with two dozen winning candidates in the last general election in 2014 possessing murder or attempted murder charges.

As campaigning gets under way for the 2019 contest - voting

starts on April 11 and spans nearly six weeks, with 900mn people eligible to cast ballots - security is again a central concern for the monumental poll.

In trouble spots, candidates are escorted by police as they drum up support.

But former Delhi police chief Maxwell Pereira said the over-whelming majority of politicians never faced any danger, and it was the state’s responsibility to ensure protection for at-risk of-fi cials.

“Only police should make a call on whether they require per-sonal protection or armoured cars, after assessing if there is a credible threat,” Pereria told AFP.

That is not stopping candi-dates from taking matters into their own hands and turning their cars into tanks as polling day draws near.

“We want our customers and leaders to be safe,” said Narind-er Singh, a mechanic at Sobti’s workshop in Punjab.

Mechanics work to make an SUV bulletproof at the Laggar Industries workshop on the outskirts of Jalandhar.

Facebook under fi re for physical verifi cation of user for his postIANSNew Delhi

Facebook, facing the elec-tion heat in India and un-able to stop misinformation

and fake news circulating on its platforms, is busy doing some-thing never heard of: Sending its representatives to users’ home to verify if the post with politi-cal content was actually written by them.

IANS has contacted one such Facebook user in New Delhi who

was recently visited by a Face-book representative for the veri-fi cation process related to the content the user had posted.

“It was like the cops com-ing to your door for passport verifi cation. The Facebook rep-resentative asked me to prove my credentials by asking for my Aadhaar card and other docu-ments to understand if I am the one who had posted the political content,” the person who did not wish to be named told IANS.

The user was left stunned to see a Facebook representative

landing at his home for inquiring about a post.

“It was a shocker for me. How come a social media platform does that to a user? What about a user’s privacy? I have never heard of any such incident anywhere. Was this at the behest of the government?” asked the user. IANS sent a couple of mails to Facebook for their ver-sion but to no avail.

This kind of behaviour has not been seen or reported earlier even at the global level as several countries have gone through the elections with Facebook trying

its best to curb misinformation.According to legal experts,

physically verifying a user is un-precedented and called for tough action against the social media platform.

“This action, if true, clearly infringes upon the privacy of a user. Sending a representative to physically verify a user is a bla-tant invasion of his or her privacy space. Only the state can act like this under proper laws,” Pavan Duggal, India’s top cyber law ex-pert and a senior Supreme Court lawyer, told IANS.

Facebook, Duggal said, can at best discontinue a page, group or delete the post, or remove the user from its platform as it has done in the past.

When it comes to those who want to run political ads on Fa-cebook, the company checks the residency of advertisers either by physical verifi cation (by sending someone to the address provided) or by sending a code in the post.

Facebook has partnered with external agencies for physical verifi cation of the location of the advertisers.

To be approved by Facebook, one needs to have a residency in India and the verifi cation proc-ess takes around four to fi ve days, says the company which has close to 30 crore users in India.

But physical verifi cation of a user is gross violation and unwar-ranted under the ambit of the In-formation Technology Act, 2000.

“In such a scenario, the user can sue Facebook and even the government for allowing such activities under its nose that in-fringes on the privacy of a user,” Duggal noted.

The world’s largest democracy goes to polls from April 11 and the social media giant is scrambling for solutions which are few.

Over 200 fake Facebook groups and pages with more than one lakh followers are currently infl uencing the group members and followers with biased politi-cal content, say social media ex-perts.

Facebook-owned WhatsApp is another platform where more than 87,000 groups are targeting millions with political messag-ing.


INDIA

‘No alliance with AAPin Haryana, Punjab’IANSNew Delhi

The Congress yesterday ruled out an alliance with Delhi’s ruling Aam Aad-

mi Party (AAP) in Haryana and Punjab and said it was yet to de-cide on a tie-up with the party in the national capital for the up-coming Lok Sabha elections.

“There is no alliance talk with AAP or any other party either in Haryana or in Punjab. We will soon announce our candidates for the two states,” Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala told reporters.

Surjewala also said the Con-gress has not yet reached a deci-sion on forging an alliance with the AAP in Delhi.

The AAP had said that it will enter into an alliance with the Congress in Delhi only if the main opposition party agreed for a similar arrangement in Harya-na and backed its demand for full statehood to Delhi.

These two conditions were decided on Saturday at a meet-ing between AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal and senior party lead-ers Sanjay Singh, Manish Sisodia and Gopal Rai.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday discussed the issue with senior party lead-ers, including Delhi Congress president and former chief min-ister Sheila Dikshit.

In other developments, former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister and National Conference (NC) president Fa-rooq Abdullah alleged that the central government knew about the terror attack in Pulwama, Jammu and Kashmir, but al-lowed it to happen so Prime Minister Narendra Modi could win the elections.

“It is their (the government’s) mistake. They knew that the at-tack was going to happen. Where did the explosives come from? Modi had to win the elections, so he did this ‘karnama’ (misad-venture),” said Abdullah.

PM has done nothing forus, say sanitation workersReutersMumbai

Five sanitation workers, all from the lowest rung of India’s caste system, were

chosen in late February to meet a very important guest: Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

As cameras fl ashed, Modi pro-ceeded to wash the feet of the workers, one by one, using water and his hands, a gesture intended to honour staff who clean toilets at the Kumbh Mela, a massive reli-gious gathering in north India.

But sanitation workers, scores of whom die each year from asphyxiation while removing waste from underground drains, have had enough, said Bezwada Wilson, the head of the Safai Karmachari Andolan (SKA), or Sanitation Workers’ Movement.

Ahead of general elections that begin on Thursday, the workers are reminding Modi of his prom-

ise to eradicate by this year the practice of manual scavenging.

“(Modi) has done nothing for us in the past fi ve years,” Wilson said.

India has laws banning the hiring of manual scavengers, but they have not been properly en-forced, mostly due to diffi culty collecting evidence and apathy by successive governments.

While government estimates peg the number of manual scav-engers at anywhere between 14,000 and 31,000, the SKA says the fi gure is closer to 770,000, with nearly 1,800 sewer cleaners asphyxiating to death in the last decade.

The community has little political power and Modi re-mains the front-runner to win the election, but critics point to their condition as another ex-ample of lofty promises undone and the empty symbolism of washing their feet.

Wilson has launched a hash-tag #StopKillingUs on Twitter

and demanded government help workers fi nd jobs that give them dignity.

Most sanitation workers fi nd it diffi cult to get other work be-cause of caste-based barriers, while many operate without for-mal contracts and are unaware of the terms of their employment, a study by US-based advisory fi rm Dalberg shows.

The workers whose feet Modi washed in February are not sat-isfi ed with their jobs and want an end to manual scavenging, they told the Indian Express newspa-per last month.

One said he was grateful for the honour, calling Modi a great man.

But, he added: “There is no diff erence in our lives. We were doing this cleaning work before too, we continue to do it.”

More than 90% of latrine cleaners are women, and all sanitation workers are Dalits, the social group at the bottom of In-dia’s caste system.

Modi and Yogiboth must go,says Mayawatiat alliance rallyIANSDeoband, Uttar Pradesh

Bahujan Samaj Party supre-mo Mayawati, Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Ya-

dav and Rashtriya Lok Dal’s chief Ajit Singh yesterday declared war on both the Bharatiya Janata Par-ty and the Congress saying they were two sides of the same coin.

Addressing their fi rst joint rally in Uttar Pradesh, the three leaders particularly warned Muslims against supporting the Congress, alleging that the grand old party would only end up splitting anti-BJP votes in the Lok Sabha elections.

Mayawati and Yadav were sharing a common public plat-form for the fi rst time in years.

Speaking fi rst at the Jamiya Tobbiya Medical College ground, former chief minister Mayawati was at her aggressive best as she said that removing Prime Minis-ter Narendra Modi alone was not enough and that Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath must also go.

“Our gathbandhan (alliance) is winning and the BJP is going, provided they don’t tamper with the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs),” Mayawati said, adding that the voters would end the “drama of chowkidari”.

Modi had not fulfi lled even one-fourth of the promises he made in the 2014 Lok Sabha bat-tle that brought him to power, she said. The prime minister had also failed to protect the borders, she added, citing increasing in-stances of terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir.

Mayawati did not spare the Congress either, calling its elec-tion manifesto ‘hawa-hawai’ (just air).

Akhilesh Yadav said that both the BJP and the Congress pur-sued the same policies.

“Not a single vote should be divided. Both these parties are the same. There is not much dif-ference between them.”

Speaking on the alliance, which has emerged as the most

potent challenger to the BJP, he said: “This coalition is to provide a new prime minister.” Yadav slammed the Congress, saying the party does not want change.

The SP chief raised questions about the promises made by the Modi government in the last Lok Sabha battle and accused the prime minister of speaking lies.

“In the last Lok Sabha elec-tions he (Modi) was a chaiwala (tea boy) and now he is a chowki-dar (watchman).” RLD’s Ajit Singh called the BJP “anti-farm-er” and alleged that it had come to power by creating communal tensions.

“The BJP has done nothing in the last fi ve years. Today even the farmers are saying that their crops are being gobbled up by Modi and Yogi. But the situation is changing and the ouster of the BJP is a certainty now.”

BSP’s Fazlur Rahman is con-testing the election from the Saharanpur Lok Sabha constitu-ency, which will go to the polls in the fi rst phase on April 11.

The BJP swept the 2014 Lok Sabha polls in Uttar Pradesh, winning a staggering 71 of the 80 seats. An ally won another two. The Congress won two seats and the Samajwadi Party fi ve. The BSP drew a blank.

In other election-related news, the Election Commission said yesterday that Malayalam actor Suresh Gopi, the BJP can-didate in the Thrissur Lok Sabha constituency, violated the model code of conduct by seeking votes in the name of religion.

After Thrissur District Col-lector T V Anupama on Saturday served a notice to the Rajya Sab-ha member for his Friday speech in an election campaign in which he allegedly sought votes in the name of the Sabarimala temple, Kerala’s Chief Electoral Offi cer (CEO) Tikka Ram Meena said he approved the collector’s move.

This irked both Gopi and the BJP.

BJP leader B Gopalakrishnan accused the collector of trying to appease Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi waves to supporters during a campaign rally in Cooch Behar in West Bengal yesterday.

BJP, Congress sharpenattacks as vote nearsAgenciesNew Delhi

The Bharatiya Janata Party and the main opposition Congress put the fi nish-

ing touches to their election campaigns yesterday, sharpen-ing their attacks before voting begins next week in the biggest election in history.

There are 900mn people eli-gible to vote in the poll, which starts on Thursday and lasts nearly six weeks, with results to be announced on May 23.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is seeking a second term but faces opposition from Con-gress Party chief Rahul Gandhi, who is urging voters to look at the prime minister’s economic record and turf him out.

But Congress faces a formi-dable opponent in Modi, with

polling showing support for him is higher now than in 2014 when the BJP won an outright major-ity.

A survey by the New Delhi-based Centre for the Study of Developing Societies found 43% of respondents wanted Modi back as leader, compared to just 24% for Gandhi.

The poll of 10,010 respond-ents, conducted in the last week of March and published on Fri-day, found support for Modi was buoyed in part because of India’s airstrikes on Pakistan in Febru-ary.

Modi picked up on the theme in West Bengal yesterday, telling supporters that before he took offi ce in 2014 the government ignored advice from the army about striking India’s foes.

“Now the situation has changed entirely. We now enter the homes of our enemies and

kill them,” he told a huge crowd in the battleground state of 90mn.

The BJP also released a cam-paign song yesterday and tel-evision commercials, including some promoting the Pakistan strikes.

The party’s slogan is “Phir Ek Baar Modi Sarkar” (Modi once more).

“The fi rst theme of our cam-paign will be ‘Kaam Karne Waali Sarkaar’ (A government that works). Our second theme will be ‘Imaandar Sarkaar’ (Honest government). Our third theme will be ‘Bade Faisle Lene Waali Sarkaar’ (A decisive government that takes big decisions),” Fi-nance Minister Arun Jaitley said adding that these sub-themes would combine the larger theme of “Modi once more”.

Other material also alluded to dynasty politics - a thinly-veiled

criticism of the Congress chief.Congress also unveiled its

theme song, a Bollywood-in-spired number by one of the fi lm industry’s superstar composers, Javed Akhtar.

The track – released with the slogan ‘Ab Hoga Nyay’ (Now, There Will Be Justice) – rein-forces the party’s campaign message that Modi has misman-aged the economy for struggling farmers, unemployed youth and ordinary families.

‘Nyay’ is the acronym of its minimum income guarantee scheme – Nyuntam Aay Yojana – under which the party has promised to give Rs72,000 a year to the 20% of India’s poorest.

“We are seeking justice or ‘Nyay’ against injustices com-mitted in the past four years. Those who promised ‘Acche Din’ (good days) only deliv-ered ‘Anyay’ (injustice),” said

Congress spokesman Anand Sharma.

“We advise Narendra Modi not to doubt the intelligence of the people of this country,” Sharma told reporters in New Delhi.

“They remember what you promised in 2014. He should speak about the real issues.”

Gandhi has also targeted Modi on corruption, suggesting he has misled the public over the Rafale fi ghter jet deal to benefi t a bil-lionaire friend.

“Your karma is about to catch up with you,” Gandhi posted on Twitter yesterday, challenging Modi to a debate on graft.

But the same poll by the Del-hi-based think tank found Con-gress had not gained traction over the issue, and voters were not broadly aware of Gandhi’s income guarantee scheme, a sig-nature election pledge.

Supporters of Trinamool Congress party drive a vehicle decorated with the portrait of West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee and her party colours, in Falakata in the eastern state yesterday.

Nizamabad to create history with 12 EVMs in each boothIANSHyderabad

Nizamabad in Telangana is all set to create history in India’s parliamentary

elections with polling to be con-ducted with 12 big-sized elec-tronic voting machines in every polling booth as the voters have to choose from a whopping 185 candidates.

Nizamabad, going to polls along with 16 other Lok Sabha seats on April 11, will become the

fi rst constituency in the coun-try to see polling with EVMs for such a large number of candi-dates.

Among the candidates are 178 farmers who entered the race to highlight the demand for remu-nerative prices for their produce.

It was thought the Election Commission (EC) would opt for ballot papers as an EVM can ac-commodate a maximum of only 64 names.

The poll panel, however, de-cided against the use of ballot paper and ordered Electronics

Corporation of India Limited (ECIL) to supply 26,820 EVMs, 2,240 control units and 2,600 Voter-Verifi ed Paper Audit Trails (VVPAT).

With just three days left, elec-tion authorities and engineers are racing against time to make fool-proof arrangements.

Each polling station will have 12 EVMs, all connected to a single control unit and a VVPAT. These EVMS will be arranged in ‘L’ shape with each machine carrying a maximum of 16 names.

Offi cials said arrangements would be made for the smooth conduct of polling in all 1,778 polling stations and they have set up a model polling station in the town to create awareness among voters about the polling system.

Engineers of ECIL and Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) were busy checking the EVMs and conducting mock-polling.

However, EVMs alone are not likely to solve the problem in conducting the polls as the farm-ers, contesting as independents,

complained that they were yet to be allotted the symbols.

They urged Chief Electoral Of-fi cer (CEO) Rajat Kumar to post-pone the polling as it would take a few days for them to popularise these symbols among voters.

Some farmers have also ap-proached the High Court seek-ing postponement of the polls to enable them to campaign and educate people about their re-spective symbols. Their petition is likely to come up for hearing today.

The authorities are allotting a

record 186 symbols including a symbol for None Of The Above (NOTA) option.

The farmers argue that the polling process can’t be com-pleted smoothly as it would take four-fi ve minutes for every voter to locate the symbol of the can-didate of his choice and press the button.

The constituency, with over 15 lakh voters, attracted national attention with over 200 can-didates fi ling nominations. A majority of them were turmeric and red sorghum farmers, who

wanted to register their protest over the failure of the state and central governments to ensure them higher remunerative prices and address other issues.

After scrutiny and withdrawal of nominations, 185 candidates remained in the race.

Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao’s daughter K Kavitha is seeking re-election from the constituency. The Congress Party’s Madhu Yashki Goud and the Bharatiya Janata Party’s D Arvind are the other major contestants.

LATIN AMERICA19Gulf Times


Bridge collapse ‘tohit grain shipments’ReutersSao Paulo

Part of a bridge over the Moju River in Brazil’s Para state collapsed on Satur-

day, potentially aff ecting ship-ment of grains such as soybeans and corn through northern ports, local authorities and an agribusiness consultant said.

The bridge fell after it was hit by a boat, Governor Helder Bar-balho said on Twitter, where he also posted videos of a large sec-tion of the bridge in the water.

He said this was not the fi rst time such an accident had oc-curred.

According to the offi cial Agência Brasil news agency, two vehicles were crossing the bridge at the time of the collision.

“At the moment, our prior-ity is searching for victims and giving complete support to their families,” Barbalho was quoted as saying in a statement from Para’s state news agency.

According to rescue workers, no crew or documents from the boat that collided against the bridge were found on the scene.

The number of casualties was unclear. Kory Melby, an agri-business consultant based in the city of Goiania, said the bridge was on the main route connect-ing Brazil’s farm country to its northern ports.

“It will probably take years for that bridge to be rebuilt,” he said by telephone.

The consultant noted the bridge was located some 50km from Belem, capital of Para state, where three major grain loaders operate, including Archer Dan-iels Midland Co, Bunge and Hid-rovias do Brasil SA.

The companies did not im-mediately reply to requests for comment.

Melby said barge traffi c would not be aff ected on the Tocantins and Amazon rivers, which use river ports including Vila do Conde and Barcarena.

Some 10% to 20% of the soy grown in Brazil’s centre west is delivered by road at those ports, he said.

Willians Ribeiro, a supervisor at Vila do Conde, told Reuters road traffi c to that port would be aff ected but there were alterna-tive routes.

No plan to expel Assangefrom embassy: EcuadorReutersQuito

Ecuador’s government said it rejected reports that it would imminently expel

Wikileaks founder Julian As-sange from its London embassy, where he has lived in asylum for nearly seven years.

Assange was “prepared” for expulsion from the building, a British friend of his said on Tuesday, after Ecuador’s Presi-dent Lenin Moreno said he had “repeatedly violated” the terms of his asylum.

Moreno accused Assange of harming Ecuador’s relations with other countries by intervening in their politics and said he did not have the right to “hack private ac-counts or phones.” WikiLeaks said Moreno’s remarks were in retribu-tion for WikiLeaks having reported on corruption accusations against Moreno, who denies wrongdoing.

In a statement, Ecuador’s foreign ministry denied it had reached an agreement with the British government to jail As-

sange if he left the embassy.Ecuador “categorically rejects

the fake news that have circulat-ed recently on social networks, many spread by an organisation linked to Julian Assange, about an imminent termination of the diplomatic aslyum granted to him since 2012,” it said.

The ministry said it reserved the right to terminate asylum when it considered it justifi ed.

“By releasing information that distorts the truth, (Assange) and his associates express once again their ingratitude and disrespect to Ecuador,” it said.

Assange took refuge in the embassy in 2012 to avoid being extradited to Sweden, where au-thorities wanted to question him as part of a sexual assault inves-tigation.

That probe was later dropped,

but Assange fears he could be extradited to face charges in the US, where federal prosecutors are investigating WikiLeaks.

Ecuador last year established new rules for Assange’s behaviour while in the embassy, which re-quired him to pay his medical bills and clean up after his pet cat.

He challenged the rules in lo-cal and international tribunals, arguing they violated his human rights.

Both courts ruled against him.Last month, the Inter-Amer-

ican Commission on Human Rights, which is linked to the Or-ganisation of American States, rejected Assange’s request that Ecuador ease the conditions it has imposed on his residence in the London embassy.

Assange says Ecuador is seek-ing to end his asylum and is putting pressure on him by iso-lating him from visitors and spy-ing on him.

Ecuador has said its treat-ment of Assange was in line with international law, but that his situation “cannot be extended indefi nitely.”

Cuba newsprintshortage sparks concern overeconomy growthAFPHavana

The newsprint short-ages which forced Cuba’s Communist daily to run

a trimmed-down edition on Friday would pass off as a sim-ple supply glitch in most other countries, but in Havana they carry chilling memories of the not-so-distant past.

The last time the government cut back on newspapers because of a lack of newsprint was in the early 1990s, when Fidel Castro ushered in a “Special Period” of drastic belt-tightening in the wake of the collapse of his main sponsor, the Soviet Union.

Today, the Caribbean state is facing diffi culties once again, with US President Donald Trump — who has lashed out at Cuba for its support of Vene-zuela’s socialist regime — deter-mined to tighten Washington’s six-decade trade embargo.

Meagre growth of 1.2% is not enough to cover the needs of an island nation that imports 80% of what it eats.

Amid shortages, the govern-ment is being forced to ration basics like fl our, cooking oil and chicken, leading to long lines outside stores.

Tania, a 49-year-old nurse, has come to buy rice at a Havana grocery store but she’s going away empty-handed.

“It’s like that with every-thing. Sometimes you look for a product and you can fi nd it in one place, then you go some-where else and you can’t get it,” she said, summing up the aver-age Cuban’s daily struggle to fi ll their shopping basket.

“What’s happening now doesn’t look like the Special Pe-riod, because at that time it was really a disaster,” she said.

Suddenly deprived of its big brother in Moscow — responsi-ble for 85% of Havana’s foreign trade — the economy on the Caribbean archipelago ground to a standstill as it struggled to ab-

sorb the shock of Soviet collapse in the early 1990s.

Cubans suff ered shortages of food and fuel and the emergence of diseases linked to malnutrition. Thousands fl ed, if they could.

For long since, the country has relied on medical and teaching services supplied to countries like Brazil and, in particular, Venezuela, in return for cheap oil imports.

But trade with Caracas has plummeted as sanctions-struck Venezuela’s economic crisis deepens. Tourism has been a bright spot but that has suff ered after hurricane damage and a new US sanctions squeeze.

“For three years, Cuba has been trying to off set the impact of the slump in trade with Ven-ezuela and the rise in tourism, private activity and foreign in-vestment projects have helped cushion the economic shock,” said Pavel Vidal, a Cuban econo-mist at the Javeriana University in Colombia.

“But the measures and threats of the Trump administration are posing obstacles to these three factors that have helped keep the economy afl oat.”

Cuba recently defaulted on a portion of its debt to Brazil, a big supplier of poultry. At the end of 2018, Havana had accumulated short-term debt of $1.5bn, ac-cording to former economy min-ister Jose Luis Rodriguez.

“There is a level of debt that we will not be able to pay (in 2019) and that’s aff ecting the smooth running of the econo-my,” the current portfolio-hold-er Alejandro Gil said.

In Havana, 90-year-old Le-andro Lopez has seen it all before and isn’t overly concerned, ex-pressing confi dence in President Miguel Diaz-Canel — elected in 2018, the fi rst of a new breed of leaders born after the revolution.

“Diaz-Canel is trying to strengthen the economy so where he can reduce costs, we reduce them, so much the bet-ter. I do not think it will hurt the news.”

Demonstrators attend a protest against corruption and in favour of the “Car Wash” corruption investigation, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, yesterday.

Anger at corruption

Bolsonaro struggles in fi rst100 days as Brazil leaderAFPRio de Janeiro

Since taking power on a pledge to trash corrupt “old politics,” Brazilian

President Jair Bolsonaro’s fi rst months have been marred by chaos and blunders that have eroded support for the far-right leader and put the brakes on his reforms.

The brash ex-army captain — nicknamed the “Trump of the tropics” for his admiration of the US president — is struggling to make good on his key election promises to kick-start Latin America’s biggest economy and stamp out corruption.

As Bolsonaro prepares to mark the symbolic milestone of

100 days in offi ce on Wednes-day, analysts say the euphoria of his October victory that ended decades of centre-left rule is evaporating.

“It wouldn’t be an under-statement to say that the presi-dent’s performance to date has been disappointing,” said Thomaz Favaro of the political risk consultancy Control Risks.

“There was a misperception that he was coming in with a very strong support base and I think we’re now beginning to see that maybe that support wasn’t strong.”

Condemned by opponents as racist, sexist and homophobic before the ballot, Bolsonaro’s message of toughness and an end to business-as-usual poli-tics resonated with voters fed

up with violence and industri-al-scale graft.

But Bolsonaro, who was better known for making insults rather than policy during his decades as a congressman, is fi nding that his uncompromising style and penchant for Twitter are not working in Congress where he lacks a ruling-party majority to push through legislation.

His signature policy to overhaul Brazil’s unsustain-able pension system, which he has warned would bankrupt the country if changes are not adopted, has stalled following a spat with key political allies and raised doubts about his ability to do the job.

“Over the last few weeks we’ve really seen the side people feared about Bolsonaro,” said William

Jackson, an economist at Lon-don-based Capital Economics.

“His lack of governing expe-rience, showing up in deterio-rating relations with Congress, and his struggles to keep his co-alition together seem to have led to a paralysis in policymaking.”

Bolsonaro appears to have adopted a more conciliatory tone in recent days, holding meetings with the leaders of several par-ties. He may have fi nally accept-ed the “give and take” of Brazil-ian politics, said David Fleischer, a political science professor at the University of Brasilia.

“It’s a make or break,” Fleischer warned.

If the pension reform bill fails then Bolsonaro “doesn’t get any tax reform, which is another important thing on the table,

and his government will just drift along until 2022.”

Bolsonaro has scored some wins since his January 1 inau-guration, including the relaxa-tion of gun ownership laws and the sale of concessions to 12 airports, which was seen as test of foreign-investor confi dence in his ability to privatise state-owned companies.

But more contentious poli-cies are going to be tough to push through the lower house of Congress where Bolsonaro’s ultraconservative Social Liberal Party only holds around 10% of the 513 seats.

That means he is relying on ad-hoc alliances with lawmak-ers in various parties who are part of his evangelical, pro-agribusiness, pro-gun base.

A boat approaches the damaged bridge over the Moju River in Acara, Para state, Brazil.

Anti-Maduro Venezuelan migrants fear expulsion from BoliviaReutersLa Paz

Dozens of Venezuelans who fl ed to Bolivia over recent months to escape

economic and political unrest at home say they fear being deport-ed from one of the few countries in the region that still supports the government of Venezuelan

leader Nicolas Maduro.Police last month arrested over

a dozen Venezuelans identifi ed as having led anti-Maduro protests in front of the Cuban embassy in the Bolivian capital La Paz.

Bolivia’s leftist President Evo Morales is an ally of both Havana and Maduro.

The protesters had demanded the end of what they called in-terference in Venezuelan aff airs

by Cuba, the Communist-party-led Caribbean nation that they blame for stoking Venezuela’s humanitarian crisis.

The protests brought them to the attention of local police, who arrested 14 protest leaders, pro-testers and human rights groups said. Six of them have been de-ported and eight were released, according to the Bolivian gov-ernment. Five fl ed to Peru for

fear of reprisals.“I’m a little afraid of being

expelled, because they already expelled Venezuelans,” Nelson, a 43-year-old civil engineer, told Reuters.

He asked that his last name not be used to avoid what he said were likely reprisals.

The Bolivian government is-sued a statement to explain the detention of Venezuelan migrants.

“It was determined that these citizens have no legal occupation or economic activity for their stay in the country,” the state-ment said. “They confessed to being involved in conspiracy and participating in political activi-ties that aff ect public order, in exchange for money,” it added.

Erika Guevara Rosas, the Americas director for Amnesty International, last month in a

statement called on the Boliv-ian government to “stop pros-ecuting and arbitrarily expelling Venezuelan refugees who need international protection”.

Last year, at least 3.4mn Ven-ezuelans left their country as it faced high infl ation, recession and acute food and medicine shortages, according to data from the Organisation of Ameri-can States. Most of the immi-

grants have sought refuge in Colombia, Peru, Chile, Ecuador, Argentina and Brazil.

“In Venezuela I am a civil en-gineer. I worked for many years as a bus and food truck driver. But now there is no work, food, security, medicine,” Nelson said. “The point came for us to either die of hunger, literally, in Ven-ezuela or leave the country with my wife and daughter.”

“By releasing information that distorts the truth, (Assange) and his associates express once again their ingratitude and disrespect to Ecuador”

PAKISTAN


Pakistan has “reliable intel-ligence” that India will at-tack again this month, its

foreign minister said, drawing condemnation from New Delhi which described the claim as ir-responsible.

Shah Mahmood Qureshi’s comments came after tensions over a February standoff be-tween the two countries had ap-peared to ease.

He said yesterday that an at-tack could take place between April 16 and 20, adding that Pa-kistan had told the fi ve perma-nent members of the UN Secu-rity Council of its concerns.

“India rejects the irresponsi-ble and preposterous statement by the foreign minister of Pa-kistan with a clear objective of whipping up war hysteria in the region,” a spokesman for India’s Foreign Offi ce said in a state-ment. “This public gimmick appears to be a call to Pakistan-based terrorists to undertake a terror attack in India.”

The Foreign Offi ce said that India reserved the right to re-spond fi rmly and decisively to any cross border militant attack, accusing Pakistan of being com-

plicit in such attacks on India.A suicide car bombing by

Pakistan-based militants Pul-wama, in Indian-administered Kashmir, killed at least 40 In-dian paramilitary police on Feb-ruary 14.

The risk of confl ict rose dra-matically on February 27, when India launched an air strike on what it said was a militant train-ing base inside Pakistan.

The following day, Pakistan shot down an Indian fi ghter jet and captured its pilot, who was later released.

Earlier yesterday, Pakistan summoned the Indian deputy high commissioner to protest against any “misadventure”, Pakistani Foreign Offi ce spokes-man Mohamrd Faisal said in a tweet.

“We have reliable intelligence that India is planning a new at-tack on Pakistan. As per our in-formation this could take place between April 16 and 20,” Min-ister Qureshi told reporters in his hometown of Multan.

He said that in order to justify its military action against Paki-stan and to increase diplomatic pressure against it, a new drama can be created in Indian-admin-istered Kashmir on the pattern of Pulwama.

Qureshi did not elaborate on

what evidence Pakistan had or how he could be so specifi c with the timing, but he said Prime Minister Imran Khan had agreed to share the information with the country.

The minister said that Paki-stan acted in a mature and re-sponsible manner after the In-dian actions on February 26, and made sincere eff orts to deesca-late the situation.

Qureshi said that Pakistan will act responsibly for peace in the world.

Prime Minister Khan has blamed India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for “whipping up war hysteria” over claims that India shot down a Paki-stani plane during the February standoff .

The Indian air force had dis-played pieces of a missile that it said was fi red by a Pakistani F-16 before it was downed.

Satellite images showing lit-tle sign of damage have also cast doubt on the success of Indian air strikes on a camp of the Jaish-e-Mohamed militant group in northwestern Pakistan.

The standoff led Pakistan to close its airspace but most com-mercial air traffi c has since re-sumed and major airports have opened.

As strains between the two neighbours apparently eased, Pakistan said on Friday that it would release 360 Indian pris-oners this month.

The fi rst hundred were re-leased yesterday (see report).

Pakistan has intelligence of new attack: QureshiReuters/InternewsKarachi/Islamabad

Qureshi: We have reliable intelligence that India is planning a new attack on Pakistan. As per our information this could take place between April 16 and 20.

Pakistan will release 360 Indian prisoners this month, the Foreign Of-

fi ce said on Friday, as the nu-clear-armed neighbours scale back from a confrontation that prompted world powers to urge restraint.

“Pakistan has decided that 360 Indian prisoners –355 fi sh-ermen and fi ve civilians – who have completed their term of sentence, will be released,” Mo-hamed Faisal, spokesman for Pakistan’s Foreign Offi ce, told reporters.

He said that the prisoners would be released in four batch-es.

Due to the rocky relations between the two sides, prison-ers who have completed their jail terms often languish in each other’s jails for months, if not years, afterwards.

According to the lists ex-changed by both sides in Janu-ary, there are 347 Pakistani prisoners in Indian jails, 249 of whom are what the spokesman described as civilians, and 98 fi shermen.

There are 537 Indian prisoners in Pakistani jails, 483 of whom are fi shermen.

“We hope that India will re-

ciprocate this,” the spokesman said.

Yesterday the fi rst 100 Indian fi shermen were released.

“These are 100 Indian fi sher-men released from jail as a good-will gesture by Pakistan,” Saad Edhi, an offi cial with Pakistan’s

largest charity, the Edhi Foun-dation, told Reuters at Karachi’s Cantonment Railway Station yesterday.

“They are going to Lahore from where they will be released into India across the Wagha bor-der crossing,” he added.

Authorities to release 360 Indian prisonersReutersKarachi

Indian fishermen show their travelling cards while waiting yesterday at a railway station in Karachi, after they were released from the Malir Jail. Yesterday Pakistan released 100 Indian fishermen, held for trespassing into its territorial waters, off icials said. Indian and Pakistani fishermen are frequently detained for illegal fishing since the Arabian Sea border is not clearly defined and many boats lack the technology to fix their precise location.

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government has almost fi nalised its

fi rst tax amnesty scheme, to pro-vide people with the means to le-gitimise all kinds of off shore and onshore undeclared assets, at the rates of between 5% and 10%.

Prime Minister Imran Khan would approve the new tax am-nesty scheme today, a senior fi -nance division offi cial said.

“After the prime minister’s formal approval, a summary will be sent to the cabinet for approv-al,” he added.

The next cabinet meeting scheduled for April 16 is expected to take up the summary.

This move coincides with the implementation of the Benami Act in March, in line with its ef-forts to document the economy – allowing tax offi cials to confi s-cate whole properties, expensive vehicles and bank accounts reg-istered with fi ctitious individu-als.

The new tax amnesty scheme also coincides with a new global anti-tax evasion scheme that is operational under a multilateral tax convention on the avoidance of double taxation and recom-mendations of Financial Action Task Force (FATF).

Finance Minister Asad Umar said that the scheme is being de-signed in a fashion to document the economy.

“We have several representa-tions from all quarters, asking for a one-time relaxation for those who have not declared their as-sets,” he said.

The minister also said that the government had done its home-

work to crack down on those who are not fi ling tax returns and those who did not exist on the tax roll.

“We have suffi cient data now regarding all such people from various sources,” Umar said, adding that the crackdown would be launched a day after the tax amnesty scheme ends.

“I am confi dent that more people will come under the tax net now,” he said, adding his gov-ernment had received 1.8mn re-turns this year.

In the next two years, the tar-get was to take this number up to 5mn.

In the past fi ve years, the pre-vious Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz (PML-N) government had off ered four tax amnesty schemes to people.

The last amnesty scheme of the PML-N government was de-signed in a fashion to encourage people to declare their assets, but avoided documentation.

Offi cial sources privy to the development said that the gov-

ernment had almost fi nalised the draft law of amnesty to be imple-mented by April 16.

“We are considering whether the scheme will be implemented through a presidential ordinance or laid before the parliament for implementation,” the sources said.

The most likely decision is to implement the scheme through a presidential ordinance, said one source while explaining that the passage of a money bill from the parliament could take several days.

Moreover, people also want the scheme at the earliest as delays may lead to uncertainty.

The government wanted to of-fer the amnesty scheme to people before going into the Interna-tional Monetary Fund (IMF) pro-gramme.

“The IMF is not in favour of any amnesty scheme,” a senior tax offi cial said. “We will share the scheme with the IMF after cabinet approval, to apprise them by giving last chance to those

people who have not declared their assets.”

Pakistan will also get clear-ance of the tax amnesty scheme from the FATF, which is currently reviewing Pakistan’s legislation and administration from the per-spective of anti-money launder-ing and terror fi nancing.

Under the proposed scheme, the government will off er three “slabs” for declaring all kinds of assets, both off shore and on-shore.

The proposed “slabs” are 5%, 7.5% and 10%, for “whitening” of the assets, though they could be changed before cabinet approval, the source said.

Moreover, the rates will also vary in cases of repatriation of assets to Pakistan and in cases of non-repatriation of foreign as-sets.

However, it is not yet clear whether the government would link the scheme with the repa-triation of wealth.

In the last scheme by the PML-N government, the link was not made with repatriation of assets.

The scope of the scheme was expanded this time with inclu-sion of all kinds of movable, im-movable assets, tangible and in-tangible and bank accounts.

Offi cial estimates of 20% to 40% of total bank accounts in the country are mandated.

“We have already made amendments in Section 165A of the income tax ordinance to ask banks about the mandated bank accounts details,” an offi cial said.

Similarly, the benami proper-ties, bank accounts, undeclared duty paid vehicles, and jewellery will also be covered in the pro-posed scheme.

Under the proposed scheme, the government will bar all those

holding any public offi ce since the year 2000 from availing of the tax amnesty scheme, in an attempt to address concern that former heads of government and state can avail the assets “whit-ening” package.

The scheme is not meant to off er amnesty to public offi ce holders who have piled up money through corruption and other il-legal means.

In the last scheme, the limit was fi xed for the year 2008.

One deviation from past schemes proposed in the new amnesty package is that those who “whiten” their money will be required to fi le a tax return.

However, these people will be given one-time complete immu-nity from tax authorities.

It is not clear whether other probing authorities, such as the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and the National Account-ability Bureau (NAB), will also be barred from investigating cases of such people.

In the last scheme, complete exemption was given from all probing agencies, and there was also no provision for people to fi le their tax returns.

The FBR estimates that it will be able to generate between Rs-300bn and Rs400bn through the amnesty scheme, a claim which is not substantiated because the past scheme shows poor com-pliance in terms of documenta-tion and raising tax on untaxed money.

They further suggest that the tax statutory period of fi ve years for probing past cases should be abolished and the penalty of non-disclosure after the am-nesty is announced be raised to 300% along with fi ve years of imprisonment.

PTI govt’s fi rst tax amnesty scheme ‘ready for launch’InternewsIslamabad

Finance Minister Umar: We have suff icient data now regarding all such people (non-tax filers) from various sources.

KP govt seeks $120mn loan for tourismInternewsIslamabad

As part of Prime Minis-ter Imran Khan’s reform agenda, the Khyber Pa-

khtunkhwa government has sought fi nancing of $120mn from the World Bank to im-prove tourism-enabling in-frastructure, enhance tourism assets, and strengthen destina-tion management for sustain-able tourism development in the province.

A World Bank team is current-ly evaluating the project, and it is expected that after getting the loan from the World Bank’s soft loan window, International Development Association (IDA), the project will be launched dur-ing the next fi scal year.

The bank is expected to ap-prove the loan for the project, estimated to cost $127 million, next month.

In line with the reform agen-da, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has put economic revitalisation, job creation and tourism destination develop-ment at the centre of its devel-opment roadmap.

To achieve these objectives, including through its Integrated Tourism Development Project (KITE), the provincial gov-ernment had approached WB through the federal government for assistance.

The proposed project will support activities to overcome infrastructure bottlenecks at popular sites in Kalam and Gal-yat, encourage higher tourist spending through the develop-ment of quality tourism prod-ucts in Chitral while lifting visi-tors’ pressure off the valleys that host the indigenous people of Kalash, and equip the authori-ties with the tools for visitors management and environmen-tal preservation, including in Naran.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) is endowed with natural re-sources shaped by Hindukush and Himalayas mountains, with stunning alpine landscapes, wildlife, lush forests and numer-ous glacial lakes.

It boasts historical and reli-giously signifi cant sites cover-ing over 2,000 years of Buddhist, Muslim, and Christian histories.

Who knew US actor Jada Pinkett Smith would be a fan of

legendary Sufi singer Abida Parveen and Qawaal maestro Rahat Fateh Ali Khan?”

The Gotham actor expressed her fondness in an Instagram post for the two legends.

“Abida Parveen and Rahat Fateh Ali Khan are two of my favourite vocalist of Sufi mu-sic.

“This song is called Chaap Tilak and you can go on YouTube to check out the lyr-ics. They are beautiful,” Pinkett Smith wrote.

The duo had collaborated for the song for Coke Studio’s season seven in 2014, with the song becoming one of the big-gest hits the programme has produced.

The lyrics is from a poem by Amir Khusro.

Of course, fans were left mesmerised and thanked

Pinkett Smith for introducing them to the song.

“OMG so beautiful, I don’t even know what they are say-ing yet I feel so emotional. Thank you for sharing,” one user wrote.

Another one wrote: “Wow this is amazing. I’m so thankful that you posted this. Such an uplifting gift to my soul.”

Other also expressed similar views and said that despite not understand what the singers are saying, the song sounded romantic. “Thank you for this. Major plug. Healing power.”

Another one thanked the ac-tor and said the song was really amazing. “I’m glad Sufi and South Asian music is reaching so many audiences.”

Locals also took to the sec-tion and recommended that Pinkett Smith listen to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.

Another one said: “Yay Jada! I speak for most, if not all South Asians, we love this song!”

Pinkett Smith is married to Hollywood superstar Will Smith.

Gotham actor reveals her love for legendary singer Abida Parveen

InternewsIslamabad

PIA doubles baggage charges on domestic fl ights

Flagship carrier Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) has raised its bag-

gage fees, nearly doubling it.

Starting from April 1, the PIA has fixed charges of Rs5,000 on extra

luggage amounting to more than 20kg on domestic flights.

The new increase means the airline is now charging Rs250/kg for bag-

gage in excess of 20kg.

The previous charges were less than Rs100/kg.

The new charges come as fuel costs surge, a PIA spokesperson said.

PHILIPPINES21Gulf Times


Plan for bigger motorcycle licence plates suspendedBy Catherine S Valente Manila Times

President Rodrigo Duterte has announced the sus-pension of a law requiring

bigger motorcycle licence plates and imposing stiff fi nes, follow-ing an intervention by Senator Joseph Victor “JV” Ejercito on behalf of motorists.

Ejercito said Duterte’s deci-sion, announced before mo-torcycle enthusiasts at the 25th National Federation of Motor-cycle Clubs of the Philippines’ National Motorcycle Conven-tion in Iloilo City, showed that the chief executive was a “lis-tening president.”

“For me, it’s more like an im-primatur for the conduct of a thorough study and discussion among stakeholders to fully understand the law, with the end view of coming up with a common formula to assure the safety of riders while the law’s anti-criminality objective is be-ing achieved,” Ejercito said.

Ejercito said prior to the president’s announcement, he gave Duterte — himself a mo-torcycle enthusiast — an over-view of motorists’ reaction to Republic Act (RA) 11235 or the “Motorcycle Crime Prevention Act,” which the senator said had become “a source of complaint and confusion among motorcy-cle groups.”

“With me was motorcycle legend, and the president’s very good friend, Butch Chase. We gave the president a situationer and the sentiments of the riders in general towards the recently signed law. The president lis-tened to us attentively,” he said.

“He is a listening president. The motorcycle community, like the rest of the Filipino peo-ple, wants the campaign against

criminality of the president to succeed,” Ejercito said.

In his remarks on Saturday, Duterte said he would talk to the Land Transportation Offi ce (LTO) and Sen.Richard Gordon, author of the Act.

“I will try to convince the LTO to maybe hang onto it, I will suspend it for the meantime, because it is not good. It is dan-gerous to place another gadget, because the plate number has sharp corners,” Duterte said.

“Instead, increase the size of the rear plate by one-fourth so that the number will be more visible. The rear is more impor-tant,” he added.

The president explained that he signed the measure into law upon the recommendation of

the police and military.He noted, however, that in

other countries, “There are no plate numbers in front, only at the back.” Duterte also said the law’s prescribed fi ne of between P50,000 to P100,000 for those caught without the bigger li-cence plates was “too high.” “Maybe as compromise, I’m willing to lower it to P10,000 to P15,000,” the president added.

The law, signed by Duterte on March 8, requires motorcycles to have bigger, colour-coded number plates readable from the front, back and side of the motorcycle from a distance of at least 15 metres.

A person who drives a mo-torcycle without a number plate or a readable number plate will

be punished by a jail term of six months and one day to six years, or a fi ne of not less than P50,000, but not more than P100,000 or both.

Motorcycle drivers’ groups have raised a howl over the law, saying its requirements were discriminatory and might place riders at risk.

They claimed that bigger front plates might be detached at high speeds or if there was a strong wind, and might cause injury.

Gordon said he would explain the objective of the law to the president, adding, “I’m only defending people getting killed by riding-in-tandem assassins.

They can no longer seek jus-

tice for themselves. How do we do justice to these people?”

He pointed out that motor-cycles had become “crime ma-chines” — used for killing or-dinary people, media workers, lawyers, judges, justices, politi-cians and even military and po-lice personnel.

The Philippine National Po-lice has reported that of the to-tal of 28,409 crimes committed by motorcycle-riding individu-als from 2010 to 2017, 46% or 13,062 involved fi rearms.

“And out of over 4,000 motorcycle-riding crimes or incidents in 2016, only eight cases (0.18%) were solved,” said Gordon, chairman of the Sen-ate Committee on Justice and

Human Rights. Transportation agencies were looking into al-ternatives to make plates visible from at least 15 metres away, an offi cial from the Toll Regulatory Board (TRB) said yesterday.

TRB spokesman Bert Su-ansing said at the “Balitaan sa Maynila” forum: “We are still studying how to make identifi -cation of plates from the front side in such a way that it would not cause obstruction.”

Suansing, however, backed the president’s decision to sus-pend the requirement for mo-torcycles to have larger and col-our-coded licence plates.

“As far as the plates are con-cerned, I agree with him,” Su-ansing said.

Senator Joseph Victor Ejercito: key role Motorcycle riders have heaved a sigh of relief after President Rodrigo Duterte, announced he would suspend the law for bigger licence plates and stiff er fines.

Personnel of the Department of Public Works and Highways dismantle campaign posters on an electric post in Manila. The Commission on Elections had warned politicians to take down illegal posters or face charges.

Crackdown against illegal posters

Climate change ‘will end sea row’By Bernadette E TamayoManila Times

Foreign Aff airs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr yester-day claimed rising sea levels

brought about by climate change would eventually wipe out structures and artifi cial islands built by China in the contested Kalayaan (Spratly) island group.

He made the remark on Twitter in response to a news article on the prospects of fl oating cities amid ris-ing sea levels in Antarctica due to cli-mate change.

“Rising sea levels will wipe out the issue of disputed reeds in the South China/West Philippine Sea. And good riddance,” Locsin said.

“At the UN (United Nations) Se-curity Council I said the Philippines would not regret climate change and rising sea level if it covers the disput-

ed reefs in the South China Sea and exposes the foolishness of taking and weaponising them,” he said.

President Rodrigo Duterte on Thursday warned China not to touch Pagasa (Thitu) Island in the South China Sea (West Philippine Sea), where hundreds of Chinese vessels have massed.

The president issued the warning following reports from the Armed Forces of the Philippines that hun-dreds of Chinese coast guard and fi shing vessels had “swarmed” the Manila-held Pagasa Island.

The military’s Western Command said the vessels were part of China’s maritime militia.

Chinese Ambassador to the Phil-ippines Zhao Jinhua, however, said the Chinese vessels seen near the is-land were not armed.

The Philippines had fi led a diplo-matic protest with Beijing over the matter.

Duterte slams drug war campaign criticsBy Ralph VillanuevaManila Times

President Rodrigo Duterte slammed anew critics of his rhetoric against drug

suspects, saying they had no right to control his speech.

“The human rights (groups) listening, it is my pleasure to repeat the warning. If you (drug traders) destroy the Republic of the Philippines, I will destroy you and if you make our sons and daughters inutile, I will kill you. Simple as that,” he said during the 25th National Fed-eration of the Motorcycle Clubs of the Philippines Annual Na-tional Convention in Iloilo City.

“Human rights groups said, it is not allowed. I am tasked with keeping order here in my country then you will ruin it with… in the name of human rights, you will make us inu-

tile?” he added.In a text message to Manila

Times, Karapatan Secretary General Cristina Palabay said that Duterte was “delusional” for uttering such statements.

“He deliberately fails to rec-ognise that he is mandated and obliged to respect, promote and protect the human rights of Filipinos under the Philippine Constitution and international human rights agreements,” Palabay said.

Palabay said Duterte could not dodge accountability for his actions through curses.

“No amount of cuss words or delusional statements can deny his accountability for extraju-dicial killings and numerous other rights violations because he is on record in countless oc-casions on his orders inciting and justifying these crimes,” she added. Last week, Duterte said his drug war was a “fail-ure” and that the drug situation in the country had worsened.

The death toll on suspected drug personalities since Presi-dent Duterte was elected in 2016 stood at 5,176, according to the February 2019 update of the government’s “Real Num-bers PH” information cam-paign.

The number came from the 119,841 operations conducted since July 2016.

The fi gure was much lower than the 12,000 to 27,000 fatal-ities claimed by human rights groups.

Duterte: silencing critics

Foreign Aff airs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr.

Military dares groups to debateBy Glee JaleaManila Times

The Armed Forces of the Philippines yesterday hit back at militant groups

under the Makabayan bloc, dar-ing them to a television debate over the latter’s supposed links to communist rebels.

Maj. Gen. Antonio Parlade Jr, the military’s deputy chief of staff for civil-military op-erations, was responding to pronouncements of Senate can-didate Neri Colmenares and of Bayan Muna party-list Rep. Car-los Zarate, accusing the military of “setting up” attacks against their group and the National Un-ion of People’s Lawyers (NUPL), think tank IBON Foundation, Gabriela women’s group, rights group Karapatan and labour group Kilusang Mayo Uno.

“Makabayan, take the chal-lenge. See who are propagandis-ing. Let’s see who is on the side of truth. On Monday, choose your TV station. That’s how simple it is,” Parlade said in a text message.

“We have treated you activists too well for too long. We don’t attack and maltreat activists and even capture NPA (New People’s Army) members as you claim,” he added.

Parlade said former Bayan Muna Rep. Saturnino “Satur” Ocampo was aware about this.

Ocampo, he claimed, was “surprised” after fi nding out that NPA members captured in Batangas were being fed fried chicken and ice cream for des-sert.

“They were brainwashed to believe the [Philippine] Army will skin them alive when cap-tured and it didn’t happen. Since then, these former rebels have been helping the government win over the NPA,” Parlade said.

Mamasapano massacre suspect held in Cotabato

Manila TimesManila

One of the suspects behind the encoun-ter in Mamasapano in

Maguindanao that killed 44 elite policemen in 2015 was arrested by the Philippine Na-tional Police (PNP) in Cotabato City over the weekend, two years after a warrant was issued for his arrest.

The Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), led by the Cotabato City police, arrested Tamano Esmail Sabpa or Tamano Sabpa Esmael on Saturday at 2 pm at the park-ing area of a regional hospital in

Cotabato City, a police report said.

Police said the apprehen-sion of the suspect was carried out by virtue of an arrest war-rant issued on January 25, 2017 by Judge Alandrex Betoya of Branch 15 of the Cotabato City Regional Trial Court.

The order stemmed from the massacre of 44 members of the Special Action Force (SAF) in Mamasapano in January 2015 by extremists while serving an arrest warrant against terror-ist Zulkifli Abdhir in the same town. Police said the case of Esmail was not recommended for bail and the arrest was also under the PNP’s nationwide “Oplan Pagtugis.”

Authorities also recovered an identification card.


COMMENT22

To Advertise [email protected]

Display 44466621 44418811

Classified 44466609 44418811

Subscription [email protected]

© 2019 Gulf Times. All rights reserved

GULF TIMES

P.O.Box 2888, Doha, Qatar

[email protected]

44350478 (News),

44466404 (Sport),

44466636 (Home delivery)

44350474

facebook.com/gulftimes

twitter.com/gulftimes_Qatar

CHAIRMANAbdullah bin Khalifa al-Attiyah

EDITOR-IN-CHIEFFaisal Abdulhameed al-Mudahka

Deputy Managing EditorK T Chacko

NMoQ refl ectsQatar’s originsand modernity

The recent opening of the iconic new National Museum of Qatar (NMoQ) has marked one of the most signifi cant cultural occasions in the country’s history. This is best illustrated through the words of HE Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, chairperson of Qatar Museums Board of Trustees. As she stated, the opening of the NMoQ comes at a historic moment after a decade of hard work that helped to build a lot of relationships and friendships with people in Qatar and in many parts of the world. Visitors to the NMoQ will be making a journey through the history of Qatar from ancient times to the modern era, refl ecting its diversity and vitality and openness to the world as the chairperson explained.

“The pieces and antiques from ancient times come together with modern collections that are becoming more glamorous and sophisticated in the spectacular interactive galleries that we envisioned with HE Sheikha Amna bint Abdulaziz bin Jassim al-Thani, director of the National Museum of Qatar, and her team, as well as Qatar Museums Trustees, members and experts from many universities in Qatar and beyond,” HE Sheikha Al Mayassa pointed out. True to her words, the NMoQ refl ects Qatar’s origins and modernity. The stunning building, designed by French architect Jean Nouvel, houses the renovated palace of Sheikh Abdullah bin Jassim al-Thani.

The roots of the Qatari people are deep in history. “But our country is still a young country, so it is not surprising, when building our national museum, to fl y away from the models of old museums, and to

build a monument speaking in the language of the present and the future,” HE Sheikha Al Mayassa noted. In the same context, she pointed out that the international museums of the 19th century used to house strategic collections. “We believe that the museums of the 21st century depend on a more creative way, turning from just a place to store holdings and exhibits to a platform to build relations and open the horizons of dialogue, adding that visitors will fi nd this vision applied in the National Museum of Qatar in a number of spaces such as garden and educational halls and museum programmes designed for all categories and cultures.”

HE Sheikha Al Mayassa also pointed out that the emphasis has been placed on the preparation of teachers to use the museum to teach all subjects including mathematics, history and geography. That the visionaries behind the NMoQ have succeeded in their path-breaking eff orts was evident on the fi rst day of public entry. Crowds of delighted visitors streamed in to the museum, with many staying for several hours to take in the multitude of experiences, sights and sounds on off er. The reaction from the public clearly indicated that the many months of painstaking work and precise planning had been a huge success as visitors were hugely complimentary about the living experience represented across the museum’s 11 galleries full of movement, sound and colour.

Right from the opening day, Qatari and expatriate residents have been able to immerse themselves in the museum’s unique, encompassing environments, each of which tells its part of the story of Qatar through a special combination of architectural space, music, poetry, oral histories, evocative aromas, archaeological and heritage objects, commissioned artworks, monumentally scaled art fi lms, and more. In short, NMoQ has added yet another feather to Qatar’s crown of achievements.

“The opening of the NMoQ comes at a historic moment”

08 - 04 -2019

By Andrew Sheng and Xiao GengHong Kong

In Washington, DC, a bipartisan consensus about China has emerged: the United States is facing a trade-manipulating,

authoritarian intellectual-property thief that represents a strategic threat to the US and its allies and deserves to be punished. But the consensus is wrong. In fact, China deserves recognition, if not appreciation, for its achievements.

In recent decades, China has made unprecedented contributions to global economic growth and green innovation, lifting more than 800mn people out of poverty since it began its “reform and opening up” in the late 1970s. China – and the world – owes this success to the authorities’ experimental approach to policymaking, characterised by trial and error and constant adaptation.

Contrary to popular belief in the West, where democratic elections are typically regarded as essential to holding governments responsible for their policies, China’s approach supports accountability. Indeed, the evidence shows that policymaking is responsive to feedback from both the Chinese people and the international community, with leaders correcting mistakes and updating outdated measures as they gain new information.

Such adaptation is supported by two annual meetings that have been held in Beijing every March since 1998: the National People’s Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).

At these gatherings, top offi cials from China’s State Council, including key ministers and the premier, create detailed reports, identifying the challenges China faces, as well as a blueprint for continued reform and opening up.

The results are shared with delegates attending the meetings and broadcast live to thousands of offi cial delegates and Chinese and foreign reporters. These gatherings thus represent an important window into evolving Chinese policymaking and governance.

At the most recent NPC and CPPCC, Chinese policymakers weighed the backlash against the standard neoliberal economic model, based on free movement of goods, capital, information, and sometimes labour. The advanced economies and the international institutions they lead have long assumed that expanding these freedoms naturally leads to better outcomes for all.

But the neoliberal model has had grave unintended consequences, such as environmental degradation, rising inequality, and the emergence of monopolies (especially in the tech sector). On a more emotional level, globalisation and openness has fuelled cultural insecurity. As frustration with the advanced economies’ approach has grown, so has mistrust of the experts and elites who championed it.

In response to these anxieties, rational homo economicus has morphed into emotional homo politicus – an agent susceptible to the sirens of nationalism, tribalism, protectionism, and populism. The result is escalating

trade confl icts, rising isolationism, surging anti-immigrant sentiment, and calls for massive increases in social spending, based on concepts like modern monetary theory.

For China, these developments imply a more hostile external environment. With the growth already slowing, policymakers at the NPC and CPPCC focused on how to ensure economic, fi nancial, and social stability while reviving dynamism.

Despite the challenges China faces – including a high debt-to-GDP ratio and volatile stock markets – the country’s leaders have proved adept at securing progress toward these goals. Consumer price index inflation stands at 2.1%. Last year, 13.6 million urban jobs were added, underpinning an unemployment rate of just 5%, and over 18,000 new businesses were launched every day, on average. China’s international trade and payment position is largely balanced.

This is the result of a comprehensive and ever-evolving strategy aimed at improving the quality of life and work, reducing poverty, lowering the tax and regulatory burden for small private businesses, and championing green, innovative, open, and sustainable growth. For example, last year, China reduced its average tariff rate from 9.8% in 2017 to 7.5%; opened another 4,100km of high-speed railways; granted permanent urban residency to 14mn workers from rural areas; and implemented tax and fee cuts that reduced business costs by some CN¥1.3tn ($193bn).

The Chinese authorities have now

announced their intention to reduce the tax and social-security burden for business by another CN¥2tn, and to increase the fi scal defi cit by 0.2 percentage points of GDP, to 2.8%, in order to counter the threat of protectionism-driven global defl ation. Moreover, the NPC adopted a new foreign investment law that will reduce barriers to market entry by foreign entities and improve substantially the protection of intellectual property rights.

While many in the West sacrifi ce homo economicus to appease homo politicus, China’s leaders are trying to satisfy both. They know that neglecting the needs of homo politicus could lead to social instability and fragmentation. But they also know that they must respond to internal pressures and rapidly evolving external conditions in ways that make good economic sense.

Not every decision will turn out to be the right one. But in China, when mistakes are made, adjustments follow. While this form of accountability is not perfect, it has produced a track record that is exceptional by any standard. – Project Syndicate

Andrew Sheng is Distinguished Fellow of the Asia Global Institute at the University of Hong Kong and a member of the UNEP Advisory Council on Sustainable Finance. Xiao Geng, President of the Hong Kong Institution for International Finance, is a professor at Peking University HSBC Business School and at the University of Hong Kong’s Faculty of Business and Economics.

China deserves recognitionfor its achievements

File photo of Chinese Premier Li Keqiang addressing delegates during the opening session of the National People’s Congress (NPC) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

COMMENT

Gulf Times Monday, April 8, 2019 23

What if zero interest rates are the new normal?By Adair TurnerTokyo

Ever since major central banks cut short-term interest rates close to zero in autumn 2008, and subsequently purchased

huge volumes of bonds as part of their quantitative easing operations, economists have debated about when and how fast the “exit” from these unorthodox monetary policies would be.

But, a decade later, developed-economy interest rates are stuck far below pre-crisis levels and likely to remain so. Germany’s ten-year bond yield of -0.02% (as of March 23) signals market expectations that the European Central Bank will maintain zero policy rates not just until 2020 (the offi cial ECB forward guidance) but to 2030. Japanese bond yields imply zero or negative interest rates for even longer. And while ten-year yields in the United States and the United Kingdom are just above 1% and 2.4%, respectively, both of these suggest minimal or no increases in policy rates for another decade.

The 2008 fi nancial crisis may have inaugurated a full quarter-century of dramatically lower interest rates. In this new normal, still more unorthodox policies – including forms of monetary fi nance – may in some countries be needed to maintain reasonable growth.

The fi nancial crisis occurred in 2008 because defi cient regulation allowed huge risks to develop within the fi nancial system itself. But the depth of the subsequent recession, and the long period of slow growth that followed, was the result not of continued fi nancial system fragility, but of the excessive leverage in the real economy that had developed over the previous half-century. Between 1950 and 2007, advanced economies’ private-sector debt (households and companies)

grew from 50% to 170% of GDP and adequate growth seemed attainable only if debt grew far more rapidly than nominal GDP.

After the crisis, loan growth turned negative and remained depressed for many years, not because an impaired fi nancial system lacked the capital to extend credit, but because overleveraged households and companies were determined to pay down debt even if interest rates were zero. The same pattern was observed in Japan in the 1990s.

In this environment, large-scale fiscal stimulus was the only way to achieve even anaemic growth. Britain’s public-finance deficit grew to 10.1% of GDP in 2009, the US deficit ballooned to 12.17%, and even the eurozone’s increased to 6.3%. But the inevitable rise in public debt led many governments to conclude that these large deficits must soon be curtailed. Fiscal austerity, combined with continued private deleveraging, led to inflation rates stuck below target, disappointing growth in real wages, and a populist political backlash.

By 2016, it seemed that governments and central banks were “out of ammunition,” monetary or fiscal, and economists debated whether any policies could avoid secular stagnation when interest rates were already zero and public debt levels were already high. Some, including me, broke the ultimate policy taboo and suggested that we might need to consider monetary finance of increased fiscal deficits. Former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke argued that as long as the quantity of such finance was determined by independent central banks, useful stimulus could be achieved without excessive inflation.

Just two years after the gloomy 2016 nadir, however, the skies seemed dramatically clearer. By 2018, forecasts

of global growth and infl ation had risen signifi cantly, and central banks and markets were again focused on the long anticipated “exit” from unorthodox policies. It is vital to understand what drove this sudden improvement.

The answer is simple: massive fi scal expansion, which in two major economies was partly or wholly fi nanced by central bank money. The US fi scal defi cit rose from 3.9% of GDP in 2015 to 4.7% in 2018 and a projected

5.0% in 2019: China’s grew from below 1% in 2014 to over 4%, and Japan’s remained around 4%, abandoning previous plans for a reduction to zero by 2020. And while the US fi scal expansion was fi nanced by bond sales to the private sector, in China the central bank indirectly fi nanced large bond purchases by commercial banks, while in Japan, the entire net increase in public debt is fi nanced by central bank purchases of government bonds.

The global economy recovered because the world’s three largest economies rejected the idea that high public debt burdens made further fi scal expansion impossible.

But the impact of that stimulus has faded. US growth is slowing as the one-off impact of President Donald Trump’s tax cuts wears off ; China is struggling to curb excessive leverage and manage the impact of Trump’s tariff increases on exports

and confi dence; and, in October, Japan will implement a long-planned sales tax increase which threatens to slow consumption growth. Eurozone growth, too, is slowing in the face of declining external demand.

So we are back to facing the same question as in 2016: What to do if stagnation threatens when interest rates are already close to zero? Among the proposed answers are variants of monetary fi nance. Proponents of “modern monetary theory” argue that money-fi nanced fi scal expenditure should be the normal mechanism for managing nominal demand: and the “Green New Deal” presents monetary fi nance as one option for fi nancing socially and environmentally desirable investment.

The valid insight behind these propositions – that governments and central banks together can always create nominal demand – was explained by Milton Friedman in an important 1948 essay. But it is vital also to understand that excessive monetary fi nance is hugely harmful, and it is dangerous to view it as a costless route to solving long-term challenges, rather than a demand-management tool for use in exceptional circumstances.

Faced with slow growth, political discontent, and large inherited debt burdens, monetary fi nance cannot be a taboo option. In Japan, permanent monetary fi nance is already occurring, even though the central bank denies it. The challenge is to ensure that it is used only within disciplines such as Bernanke proposed, rather than assuming that pre-crisis normality will return any time soon. – Project Syndicate

Adair Turner, Chairman of the Institute for New Economic Thinking and former Chairman of the UK Financial Services Authority, is Chair of the Energy Transitions Commission.

US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) hold a news conference for their proposed “Green New Deal” to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions in 10 years, at the US Capitol in Washington, in this February 7, 2019 file picture. The “Green New Deal” presents monetary finance as one option for financing socially and environmentally desirable investment.

Hospital staff errors spread bacteria

Springtime for nationalism?

Live issues

By Carolyn CristReuters Health

Healthcare workers car-ing for infectious patients sometimes make mistakes when removing personal

protective garments, resulting in con-tamination of clothes or equipment with antibiotic-resistant bacteria, a small study shows.

“No one is perfect and inadvertent healthcare worker contamination with multi-drug resistant organisms can occur and may be a key step in the spread of potential pathogens in healthcare settings,” said lead study author Dr Koh Okamoto of Rush University Medical Centre in Chicago.

“The more we understand how and why contamination happens, the better prepared we are to help healthcare workers avoid it,” he told Reuters Health by e-mail.

Over a six-month period, Okamoto and colleagues observed 125 healthcare workers, including 83 nurses and 24 doctors, in four adult intensive care

units at their hospital. Half of the doctors and nurses had received formal training in the use of personal protective equipment for the Ebola virus within the previous year, and 90% had received “donning and doffi ng” training within the previous fi ve years.

During the study, the workers oversaw 95 patients with contact precautions for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, as well as vancomycin-resistant Enterococci and multidrug-resistant gram-negative bacilli.

The research team collected 6,000 samples from 5,000 sites around the ICUs, including items that had touched the patient’s body and environmental surfaces such as blood pressure cuff s, call buttons and sinks. They also tested the healthcare workers’ hands, gloves and gowns before and after patient interactions. In addition, they watched the “doffi ng,” or removal process, and recorded errors based on Centre of Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, which recommends removing gowns and gloves together.

According to a report published

in Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, they found that more than a third of the healthcare workers acquired a multidrug-resistant organism during a patient encounter. Notably, four healthcare workers had it on their hands, four had it on their clothes or jewellery, three had it on their stethoscope, and two had it on their in-hospital mobile phones. About 70% of environmental sites had organisms, especially items that were close to patients such as blood pressure cuff s, call buttons and bed rails.

Overall, 49 workers, or 39%, made multiple doffi ng errors and were more likely to have contaminated clothes after a patient interaction. For instance, all four healthcare workers with hand contamination made errors while removing their gowns and gloves. In particular, hand contamination was 10 times higher when gloves were removed before gowns.

“Our study occurred in a real-world busy ICU setting where the rush of crisis care makes simple slip-ups more likely,” Okamoto said. “This allowed us

to better observe donning and doffi ng methods and potential errors of various healthcare workers.”

Simple interventions are needed that reinforce the preferred order of doffi ng, which could reduce contamination, he said. Removing gloves and gowns together as a unit, for instance, seemed most helpful in preventing self-contamination.

“While we need more research to better understand potential transmission risk, we can also focus on strategies to assist healthcare workers with properly removing gowns and gloves,” said Sarah Krein of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Krein, who wasn’t involved with this study, has researched infectious agent transmission precautions in hospitals.

For example, signs or cues inside patient rooms could remind healthcare workers of the proper procedures for removing gowns and gloves, she said. Some researchers are also working on a gown redesign that would use colour coding to better identify the outside of the gown, so workers can more carefully remove it, roll it up and dispose it.

By Bill EmmottLondon

Is populism still on the rise? That question will be looming over elections in Israel, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Spain, and the

European Union over the next two months. Yet it will be misplaced, for the real contest is between nationalism and internationalism.

To be sure, the nationalist-internationalist division is being prized open by populists themselves, particularly US President Donald Trump, whose instinctive disdain for international laws and institutions has long been clear. But it is also being exploited by more mainstream politicians, including some in that most multilateral of institutions, the European Union, which is experiencing a profound change in its internal political dynamics.

The term populism merely describes a campaigning technique used by insurgent politicians of all stripes. Hence, its power as a political epithet has diminished with use, especially in the years since the Brexit referendum and Trump’s election. Once in power, populists still have to govern to voters’ liking, or else risk defeat at the next election.

Consider the Five Star Movement

(M5S), which came to power in June 2018 as the senior partner in Italy’s governing coalition, but has since lost a string of regional elections, halving its vote from a year earlier. That decline does not refl ect voters’ disillusionment with M5S’s populist policy proposals; after all, it has succeeded in implementing its promised basic income for jobseekers. Rather, M5S’s participation in the coalition has been overshadowed by the strong nationalist rhetoric of its governing partner, the right-wing League party.

Now, consider Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, and that consummate survivor, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Unlike M5S, all three campaigned as populists but have governed as tough-guy nationalists. In elections on April 9 (Israel), April 11-May 19 (India), and May 13 (Philippines), it is that nationalist approach that will be tested.

Modi, Duterte, and Netanyahu have each used fear – of terrorist attacks from Pakistan, drug cartels, and Hamas rockets, respectively – and appeals to national pride. Their stated goal is to strengthen the nation-state against threats foreign and domestic, through both economic and political means. They have little regard for international institutions or laws, and if they consider the international context at all, it is

usually through the scope of bilateral relations with the United States and/or China, rather than multilateralism.

Similar issues are in play in the run-up to Indonesia’s April 17 presidential election, where the incumbent, President Joko Widodo (“Jokowi”), and his rival, Prabowo Subianto, can both be described as “populists.” The diff erence is that while Jokowi is running on his fi ve-year record of leadership in both Indonesia and Southeast Asia generally, Prabowo is positioning himself more as a Duterte-style nationalist, as he did in 2014.

In Europe, the politics are diff erent, but the key divisions are strikingly similar. The terms populist and euroskeptic do not truly capture the rise of far-right parties such as Vox in Spain, the Freedom Party of Austria, and the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in Germany; nor are they suffi cient for understanding the policies of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party.

To be sure, these parties are all nationalist, conservative, and generally opposed to immigration. But with constant reference to “law and order,” they are exploiting cultural rather than military or geostrategic fears. Hence, should the far-right make signifi cant gains in Spain’s general election this April, and then in the European Parliament elections in May, the right

way to think about it will not be as an anti-EU phenomenon.

A rebalancing of power toward the nationalist right would represent a changing view of the EU, but not an outright Brexit-style rejection of it. It would augur a further shift away from integration, and toward a more ad hoc intergovernmental approach for tackling issues related to immigration and the rule of law. The scope for top-down policies issued from Brussels would be signifi cantly narrowed. And as individual EU member states began to pursue their own policies toward Russia, Libya, and other third countries, there would be a broad retreat from eff orts to negotiate common foreign and security policies.

So, forget populism. The real contest in elections this year, as well as in the US presidential election in 2020, will be between nationalism and internationalism. Amid rising geopolitical tensions, increased migration fl ows, and the lingering stresses of past fi nancial crises, the question is whether appeals to a rules-based international order can still win voters’ hearts and calm their fears. In the absence of US leadership to lend that idea credibility, the answer is anyone’s guess. – Project Syndicate

Bill Emmott, a former editor in chief of The Economist, is the author of The Fate of the West.

WARNINGInshore : Expected thundery rain

at some places at firstOffshore : Expected thunder rain

associated with strong wind and high sea

WEATHERInshore : Cloudy with chance of

light rain at first at some places becomes partly cloudy later and slight dust at times

Offshore : P cloudy to cloudy with chance of scat-tered rain maybe thundery at times.

WINDInshore : Northerly-Northwester-

ly 08-18/24 KTOffshrore : Northeasterly-South-

easterly 08-18/28 KT Visibility : 4-8 KMOffshore : 3-5/9 FT

TODAY

TUESDAY

WEDNESDAY

Maximum Temperature : 320c

Minimum Temperature : 240c





BaghdadKuwait City ManamaMuscat Tehran

AthensBeirut BangkokBerlinCairoCape TownColomboDhakaHong KongIstanbulJakartaKarachiLondonManilaMoscowNew DelhiNew YorkParisSao PauloSeoulSingaporeSydneyTokyo

Weather

today

P Cloudy

M Sunny

P Cloudy

P Cloudy

P Cloudy

Max/min

29/15

30/22

28/22

33/28

19/11

Weather

tomorrow

P Cloudy

P Cloudy

Cloudy

P Cloudy

M Sunny

Max/min

30/17

28/21

29/23

32/27

21/11

Around the region

Around the world

Max/min

16/11

22/16

36/29

18/03

31/19

20/17

32/26

31/23

25/22

20/11

32/26

33/24

16/08

36/27

12/07

36/23

24/13

17/07

22/18

16/03

33/26

29/19

16/09

Weather

today

Rain

Sunny

P Cloudy

M Sunny

P Cloudy

P Cloudy

M Sunny

S T Storms

P Cloudy

S T Storms

S T Storms

M Sunny

S Showers

P Cloudy

Showers

P Cloudy

Cloudy

Cloudy

Showers

M Sunny

S T Storms

M Sunny

Cloudy

Max/min

18/12

22/16

36/29

12/01

29/14

23/16

32/26

29/23

24/22

17/11

32/25

33/24

12/07

35/28

14/07

38/24

15/08

17/07

21/17

14/05

32/26

23/14

17/07

Weather

tomorrow

S Showers

M Sunny

M Sunny

M Sunny

Sunny

P Cloudy

M Sunny

S T Storms

M Sunny

Cloudy

S T Storms

P Cloudy

Showers

P Cloudy

Showers

M Sunny

Cloudy

P Cloudy

Showers

S Showers

T Storm

S T Storms

Clear

Fisherman's forecast

Three-day forecast


QATAR

QU forum to focus on digital innovations in educationIn the presence of HE the

Minister of Transport and Communications Jassim Seif

Ahmed al-Sulaiti, Qatar Univer-sity (QU) president Dr Hassan al-Derham and the Ministry of Education and Higher Educa-tion undersecretary Dr Ibrahim bin Saleh al-Nuaimi launched the QU Digital Innovation Forum yesterday.

The two-day forum aims to

bring technology and industry leaders together to share ideas and insights on new technology trends and their impact on edu-cation. The forum also provides the university community a plat-form to explore the latest tech-nological developments related to education.

In his speech during the event, Dr al-Derham said, “The organi-sation of this forum enhances

our capacity to do more and how we can volunteer in the service of education to make the future brighter.”

“Digital innovation is a part of our lives, with its many benefi ts and also its many challenges. We are in a stage where there are many solutions provided by technology, in various ways such as in education, business, per-sonal lives and even our social

relations,” he stated. “We need to stop for a moment and ques-tion where are we headed? What are the implications of using such solutions in our everyday lives? More importantly, we need to ask, how we can use digital in-novations to build a knowledge economy to achieve sustainable development in line with the Qa-tar National Visions 2030. Such questions require a concerted

eff ort from all disciplines and extensive research and studies. I believe the QU Digital Innovation Forum is an important fi rst step for this.”

QU through its strategic plan 2018-2022, provides six key goals, including seven key strat-egies, that includes a digital transformation strategy, and a leadership and innovation strat-egy. This is in line with the state’s

keenness to achieve its national vision to transform Qatar into a knowledge economy, which re-quires a radical change in strate-gies, plans and goals.

College of the North Atlantic – Qatar’s vice-president (fi nance and administration) Dr Salem al-Naemi observed that QU’s or-ganisation of the forum was vital because of the importance of the issues and ideas being discussed.

He hoped that the participants through the various sessions can reach concrete results that en-hance the positive aspects of this “digital innovation.”

QU, in participation with the computer technology company Dell, is also hosting an exhibition on the sidelines of the event, fea-turing a number of leading insti-tutions in the fi eld. HE al-Sulaiti opened the exhibition.

HE the Minister of Transport and Communications Jassim Seif Ahmed al-Sulaiti inaugurating the exhibition on the sidelines of QU Digital Innovation Forum as other dignitaries look on.

United Development Company (UDC), the master developer of The Pearl-Qatar and Gewan Islands, concluded Medina Centrale Spring Festival yesterday. The outdoor event, which ran from April 4 to 7, featured a variety of entertaining programmes that attracted thousands of children and families to the most lively and dynamic community in the heart of The Pearl-Qatar. Throughout the four-day festival, retail outlets in Medina Centrale welcomed the high influx of residents and visitors who spent quality time between festival activities and the variety of retail and dining off erings that give Medina Centrale its casual feel. Visiting families specifically commended the mesmerising flower tunnel structure, which was erected especially for the event, in addition to the roaming parades, stage performances, graff iti artists, and caricaturists. Meanwhile, children were treated to fun train rides, mascot shows, remote-control car racing, face painting, and drawing activities at a dedicated area that featured a playground and a host of workshops.

Medina Centrale Spring Festival at The Pearl-Qatar concludes

Qatar Airways’ Al Darb programmeholds recruitment drive at Al Hazm

Qatar Airways’ Al Darb programme, the airline’s Qatarisation initiative,

held its recruitment event for nationals at Al Hazm in Doha on April 3.

The one-day event invited young nationals to meet with Qatar Airways’ recruitment staff and learn more about the airline’s Al Darb programme.

Meaning ‘The Pathway’ in Arabic, the Al Darb programme invites young nationals to ex-plore the many diff erent employ-ment opportunities available at Qatar Airways Group, including the National Scholarships pro-gramme, Cadet Pilot programme and Aircraft Maintenance Engi-neering programme, the airline said in a statement.

Programmes are tailored so that young nationals can choose their own career paths and iden-tify development opportunities, gaining experience in a cultur-ally diverse organisation. The Al Darb programme enables stu-dents and graduates to work on real projects, preparing them for a successful career at Qatar Air-ways Group. The diversity of the initiative allows nationals to ex-plore diff erent career paths that meet their interests, the state-ment notes.

Qatar Airways senior vice-president — Human Resources Nabeela Fakhri said, “At Qatar Airways, we believe that you make the most of yourself when you work somewhere that makes the most of you.

“Our Al Darb programme con-tinues to be tremendously suc-cessful in providing nationals with the opportunity to work for one of the world’s leading air-lines, choosing their own career path along the way.

“As the national carrier of Qa-tar, we are very pleased to have taken part in the initiative at Al Hazm, as we seek to be the em-

ployer of choice for nationals.” The Al Darb Qatarisation pro-

gramme, a government initiative that aligns with Qatar National Vision 2030, includes a variety of modules — from integrating new joiners into the world of avia-tion to developing high-calibre students into future professional airline pilots.

It provides fi nancial and aca-demic support to nationals studying at home and overseas. Students are provided with as-sistance during their studies and, upon completion, join Qatar Air-ways as Graduate Developees.

A multiple-award-winning

airline, Qatar Airways was named ‘World’s Best Business Class’ by the 2018 World Airline awards, managed by international air transport rating organisation Skytrax. It was also named ‘Best Business Class Seat’, ‘Best Airline in the Middle East’, and ‘World’s Best First Class Airline Lounge’.

Qatar Airways also won two awards at the Linkedin Talent Awards 2018: ‘Best Employer Brand’ and ‘Best Recruiter’. The airline currently operates a mod-ern fl eet of more than 250 aircraft via its hub, Hamad International Airport, to more than 160 desti-nations worldwide.

The Al Darb recruitment initiative at Al Hazm.

Programmes are tailored so that young nationals can choose their own career paths and identify development opportunities, gaining experience in a culturally diverse organisation

More rain expected, says Met

Thundershowers are ex-pected in some places in the early hours of today,

the Qatar Met department has said. The weather offi ce has also issued a marine warning for thundery rain, strong winds and high seas today.

The detailed forecast says northeasterly-southeasterly winds will blow at 8-18 knots off shore and reach a high of 28 knots during thundershowers before becoming northwesterly by the evening.

Cloudy conditions are ex-

pected in these places and there is a chance of scattered rain, which may become thundery at times. The sea level, meanwhile, may rise to 9ft. Inshore areas will see cloudy conditions to-day and there is a chance of rain in some places at fi rst. Partly cloudy conditions will prevail later and slight dust is also ex-pected occasionally.

Parts of the country received some rain yesterday, too, includ-ing Doha. Meanwhile, the mini-mum temperature is expected to be 21C in Dukhan and Abu Samra today, followed by 22C in Al Khor and Ruwais, 23C in Wakrah and Mesaieed, and 24C in Doha. The maximum, on the other hand, will range from 26C in Ruwais to 33C in Al Khor, with Doha expected to see a high of 32C.

Yesterday, the minimum tem-perature was 21C in Abu Samra and Sheehaniya, with Doha

recording 25C. The maximum went up to 38C in Shehaimiya, 36C in Dukhan and Abu Samra, 35C in Umm Bab, Batna and other places, 34C in Sheehaniya and Turayna, and 31C in Doha and the Qatar University area.

The Met department had on Saturday said in a report that unsettled weather conditions were likely to aff ect the coun-try until the weekend due to the extension of a low-pressure sys-tem over the region.

The skies are expected to be-come cloudy at times, especially in the evening and at night, and there is a chance of scat-tered rain of variable intensity – which may be thundery at times. The department urged people to be cautious and avoid going to sea in view of the expected con-ditions, and also follow the lat-est updates through its offi cial social media accounts.

A rain-soaked road in Doha yesterday. PICTURE: Shaji Kayamkulam

The skies are expected to become cloudy at times, especially in the evening and at night, and there is a chance of scattered rain of variable intensity – which may be thundery at times

Education alone can lead to just societies - Gulf Times

Documents

Transcript of Education alone can lead to just societies - Gulf Times