GULF TIMES

published in

QATAR

since 1978WEDNESDAY Vol. XXXX No. 11365

November 13, 2019Rabia I 16, 1441 AH www. gulf-times.com 2 Riyals

In brief

BUSINESS | Page 1 QATAR | Page 5

Minister opens 5th edition of Hospitality Qatar

Norwegian investments in Qatar stand at nearly $10bn

BUSINESS | Shares

Successful closureof Baladna IPOBaladna QPSC, a Qatari public shareholding company under incorporation has announced the successful closure of the IPO subscription period. The off ering comprised of 1,425,750,000 new shares representing 75% of the share capital of the company. The IPO subscription period (Oct 27-Nov 7), witnessed high demand from investors, with the off er shares being oversubscribed. Business Page 1

LATIN AMERICA | Unrest

Bolivia’s Morales seeksasylum in MexicoBolivia’s former leader Evo Morales landed in Mexico seeking asylum yesterday as security forces back home quelled violence over the long-serving leftist’s resignation and opponents sought an interim replacement to fill the power vacuum. Morales flew in a Mexican Air Force airplane from the town of Chimore. After his plane was denied permission to fuel in Peru, it stopped instead in Paraguay before arriving in Mexico City just after 11am. Page 19

Two senior Islamic Jihad leaders were targeted in Israeli air strikes in Gaza City and west of Damascus yesterday, sparking one of the worst rounds of Israeli-Gaza violence in five years.Baha Abu al-Ata, the 42-year-old leader of the Quds Brigades, which is the armed wing of the Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip, was killed alongside his wife in an aerial attack on their house.Palestinian militants responded by launching a barrage of rockets towards Israel.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described Abu al-Ata as the “main terrorist instigator in the Gaza Strip”.The Israel Defence Forces said Abu al-Ata was “directly responsible for hundreds of terror attacks against Israeli civilians and soldiers.” Page 8

Strikes on Jihad leaders spark Israel-Gaza clash

QATAR | Phone call

Amir holds talks withGuinea-Bissau leaderHis Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani held a telephone conversation with Guinea-Bissau President Jose Mario Vaz yesterday evening. During the phone call which the Amir received from the Guinea-Bissau president, they reviewed the bilateral relations and ways to enhance them, as well as issues of mutual concern.

Amir calls forrain-seekingprayer tomorrowHis Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani has called for Istisqaa (rain-seeking) prayer to be performed across the country tomorrow morning (17 Rabi’ al-Awwal 1441 AH). The Amir will perform the prayer with citizens at Al Wajbah prayerground. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Aff airs has also called on all Muslims in the country to perform Istisqaa prayer in line with the Sunnah of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) to pray for rainfall when rain is lacking.

Amir honours Legal Adviser

His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani yesterday awarded the Hamad bin Khalifa Sash to HE the Legal Adviser at the Amiri Diwan Adel Ahmad al-Sherbini for his valuable eff orts in serving the state for 40 years. This took place during a meeting with the Amir at the Amiri Diwan. For his part, the Legal Adviser expressed his thanks and gratitude to the Amir for the honour, expressing his great pride in it.

Sheikha Hind highlights AI’s role in educationThe importance of using artifi -

cial intelligence (AI) as a tool for personalised learning has been

emphasised by HE Sheikha Hind bint Hamad al-Thani, vice chairperson and CEO of Qatar Foundation, at the 2019 Paris Peace Forum yesterday.

As AI and technology become in-creasingly powerful global tools, their role in shaping the future of education is among the topics being focused on at the annual multinational platform for dialogue, which brings together thought-leaders and decision-makers to identify solutions to the world’s great challenges, and places the issue of global governance at the top of the in-ternational agenda.

The opening day of the forum saw HE Sheikha Hind participate in a dis-cussion on the role of AI in education, which called for the human touch to be retained in a changing technological environment – and saw her urge young

people not to simply “knock on the door and wait” in making their voice heard about the future of the world.

Speakers at the session – which was held at La Grande Halle De La Villette in Paris, and also saw Irina Bokova, former secretary-general of Unesco, share her perspectives – discussed the importance of guiding future gen-erations towards becoming true digital citizens by embracing the role educa-tion must play in helping to illustrate the risks and benefi ts of AI. The discus-sion was moderated by François Taddei, director of The Center for Research and Interdisciplinarity (CRI).

During the session, HE Sheikha Hind spoke of the potential for machines and AI to connect learning opportuni-ties and inspire young people. “We talk about AI and machine learning, and it scares us,” she said. “But, in the end, machines are tools that we have cre-ated.

“The question is: do I want my child to learn how to compute something that a machine can now do in a nano-second, or do I want them to be able to

design those things, so that tomorrow they could be creating something that is relevant and relates to the world we live in?”

One of the themes of the discus-sion focused on harnessing the power of technology to inspire passion for learning and make education more personalised. “We should ask our-selves how we can provide a system where you use AI for personalised learning – that’s the only way we can drive passion in young children,” said HE Sheikha Hind.

“It’s a shame that, globally, the edu-cation system today has not caught up to customisation and personalisation. I don’t want to wait until college for my children to be able to choose what they want to learn. Let’s do it at a much younger age.”

The speakers also focused on the power of education to allow ideas to grow and transform society, and em-power youth to make change happen, with HE Sheikha Hind calling on young people to make sure they use their voice. To page 3

Eff ective utilisation of region’s resources fordevelopment stressed

Finance minister opens 14th Enriching the Middle East’s Economic Future Conference

By Santhosh V PerumalBusiness Reporter

The Middle East has a huge natu-ral resource pool and fi nancial capabilities yet the region’s eco-

nomic conditions do not match its po-tential, leaving a “gap” that risks unrest and threaten economic development, thus requiring concerted multi-frontal eff orts, Qatar’s Finance Minister HE Ali Sherif al-Emadi said yesterday.

Although the Middle East has enor-mous natural resources, huge fi nancial capabilities and great human poten-tial, which are all essential elements to achieve the desired economic develop-ment, these capabilities have not been eff ectively utilised, he said, addressing the 14th edition of Enriching Middle East’s Economic Future conference, organised by the Permanent Commit-tee for Organising Conferences at the Ministry of Foreign Aff airs in partner-ship with the UCLA Center for Middle East Development.

The actual economic conditions in the region do not correspond with

the available potentials and that most countries suff er from declining eco-nomic performance, poor infrastruc-ture and public utilities, increasing unemployment, poverty and wide-spread corruption, which pose a high risk of further unrest and threaten security, stability and development ef-forts in the region.

Stressing on the need to fi ll impor-

tant “gaps” that hinder the develop-ment process, he said there was a need for integrated plans to develop voca-tional education and training, laws and legislation for the business environ-ment, as well as support innovation and small and medium-sized enter-prises and promote the participation of the private sector in economic ac-tivity.

He highlighted the importance of joint work to develop programmes and mechanisms to take advantage of the great potential in the region to achieve sustainable development and support security and stability for all countries of the Middle East.

The minister said the issue becomes all the more important considering the complex circumstances the world is witnessing. These include fundamen-tal challenges and transformations in the economic arena and increasing protectionist policies and trade dis-putes between “big powers”, which aff ect the development and economic growth eff orts in various regions of the world, including the Middle East.

To Page 7

HE al-Emadi addresses the conference.

HE Sheikha Hind bint Hamad al-Thani, vice chairperson and CEO of Qatar Foundation, and Irina Bokova, former secretary-general of Unesco, at a session at the 2019 Paris Peace Forum yesterday.

155 new plots to expand SME Zone: ministerHE the Minister of Commerce and Industry Ali bin Ahmed al-Kuwari yesterday announced the near-completion of construction works for the expansion of the Small and Medium Enterprises Zone, which will provide 155 new plots of land with the aim of encouraging investment in the industrial sector and enhance the ability of industrial companies to develop

national products that meet the needs of the local market and help achieve self-suff iciency. In a speech at the Qatar Entrepreneurship Award (Rowad Award 2019) ceremony yesterday, HE the minister said the plots coming under the expansion plans will be directed to sectors that make a qualitative addition to existing industries in the country. Business Page 12

PM opens Arabosai assembly session

HE the Prime Minister and Minister of Interior Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani with other dignitaries at the inauguration of the 13th session of the General Assembly of the Arab Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions (Arabosai) at the Doha Sheraton Hotel yesterday. The opening ceremony was attended by a number of heads of Supreme Audit Institutions from Arab countries, representatives of regulatory organisations and guests. Page 2

FM meets Pompeo

HE the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Aff airs Sheikh Mohamed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani met with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Washington yesterday. They discussed bilateral relations, the ways of enhancing them, especially in the fields of defence, regional security and the fight against terrorism, in addition to the situation in Syria, Iraq and Libya.

2 Gulf TimesWednesday, November 13, 2019

QATAR

PM sends message to Paraguay

Ministry training for school nurses

FM sends message to Greek counterpart

HE the Prime Minister and Minister of Interior Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani sent a written message to Paraguay’s Minister of Interior Dr Euclides Acevedo, pertaining to the bilateral relations and ways of developing them. The message was handed over by Acting Charge D’aff aires of the embassy of Qatar to Paraguay Saeed bin Hamad al-Marri, during his meeting with the minister of interior of Paraguay in Asuncion yesterday.

Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) in collaboration with Ministry of Education and Higher Education, recently organised a workshop in Low Vision Screening for School Nurses in collaboration with partners. The workshop targeted 133 new nurses. During the workshop the Blindness Prevention Programme team (MoPH) presented various lectures about the common eye diseases, eye trauma and a practical training to all participants on how to perform an accurate visual acuity measurement and to fill the electronic screening forms. - QNA

The Minister of Foreign Aff airs of Greece, Nikos Dendias, has received a written message from HE the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Aff airs Sheikh Mohamed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani pertaining to bilateral relations between Qatar and Greece.The message was handed by Qatar’s ambassador to Greece, Abdulaziz Ali al-Naama, during his meeting with the Greek foreign minister, in Athens.

Qatar takes part in Unesco conferenceQatar is participating in the 40th Unesco General Conference which began in Paris yesterday. The country’s delegation is headed by HE the Minister of Education and Higher Education Dr Mohamed Abdul Wahed Ali al-Hammadi. The minister will deliver a speech at the conference, during which he will review Qatar’s role and eff orts, including its development and humanitarian assistance eff orts, and its contributions to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, in particular the fourth goal of providing quality education for all. The Unesco general conference, which is held biennially, is the organisation’s highest decision-making body.

Envoy to Kazakhstan presents credentials

President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev received the credentials of Qatar’s ambassador Abdulaziz bin Sultan al-Rumaihi yesterday. The ambassador conveyed the greetings of His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani to the Kazakh president. President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev reciprocated the greetings of the Amir, and wished the people of Qatar further progress and prosperity. The president also wished the ambassador success in his new duties and in strengthening the relations and co-operation between Qatar and Kazakhstan.

Labour ministry signs pact with ILO

The Ministry of Administrative Development, Labour and Social Aff airs has signed a co-operation agreement with the International Labour Organisation (ILO) whereby four ministry staff are seconded to work in the ILO headquarters in Geneva. Commenting on the agreement, which is part of the technical co-operation programme between Qatar and the ILO, Assistant Undersecretary for Labour Aff airs at the Ministry of Administrative Development, Labour and Social Aff airs, Mohamed Hassan al-Obaidli, said that the agreement is in line with Qatar’s policy to enhance its presence in the international organisations, and the country’s keenness on participating in decision-making and the rehabilitation of the Qatari cadres, noting that the assigned employees will work in various departments in the ILO headquarters in Geneva, including the inspection, standards and international conventions departments. Al-Obaidli noted that the assignment aims to acquire Qatari staff international expertise to support the implementation of the projects adopted by the country. For his part, Head of the ILO Project Off ice in Doha Houtan Homayounpour said that signing the agreement aff irms the important partnership between the ILO and Qatar.

HE the Prime Minister and Minister of Interior Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani received a written message from Prime Minister of the UK, Boris Johnson, pertaining to bilateral relations and ways of developing them, especially in the fields of co-operation in organising the 2022 FIFA World Cup. The message was handed over by British ambassador to Qatar Ajay Sharma during a meeting yesterday with the prime minister and minister of interior.

PM receives message from Boris Johnson

PM opens 13th session of Arabosai assemblyQNADoha

HE the Prime Minister and Minister of Inte-rior Sheikh Abdullah bin

Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani in-augurated the 13th session of the General Assembly of the Arab Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions (Arabosai) at the Doha Sheraton Hotel yesterday.

The opening ceremony was attended by heads of Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) from Arab countries, representatives of regulatory organisations and guests.

HE the President of the State Audit Bureau Sheikh Bandar bin Mohamed bin Saud al-Thani de-

livered a speech on the occasion, explaining that the State Audit Bureau adopted a consistent re-form and development approach to embody Qatar’s policy under the leadership of His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Ha-mad al-Thani.

He pointed out that this ap-proach extended to include the institutional, organisational and professional aspects of its work and led in a short period to en-hancing the status of the Bureau within the institutional fabric of Qatar as an independent body to ensure the protection of pub-lic funds and work in order to strengthen the pillars of good governance in the country, while committing to the utmost objec-tivity and quality requirements

of international professional standards.

HE Sheikh Bandar bin Mo-hamed bin Saud al-Thani said that when the State Audit Bu-reau assumes the presidency of the Arabosai organisation during the next three years, it intends to adopt projects and development initiatives that contribute to consolidate the gains achieved by the organisa-tion. This is based on its belief in the importance of the value of the culture of reform and development in improving the institutional performance, he said, stressing that he is count-ing on the support of the heads of the SAIs members and their understanding about their or-ganisation.

HE Sheikh Bandar bin Mo-hamed bin Saud al-Thani said that the convening of the Gen-eral Assembly of Arabosai is the culmination of the progress of its activity during the past three years and an occasion to iden-tify the achievements made for the benefi t of the SAIs mem-bers in areas related to capaci-ty-building. It’s an opportunity to adopt future directions and programmes that will improve the performance of the organi-sation and increase the value of the services it provides to them, he added.

HE the President of the State Audit Bureau said that the or-ganisation’s position as an in-dependent professional body supporting the SAIs in the Arab countries has continued over the years thanks to the eff orts made to develop its profession, which is clear through the programmes that have become more consist-ent with the actual needs of de-velopment and reform and more responsive to emerging issues and challenges faced by SAIs.

He pointed out that the in-creasing international interest in the importance of the roles played by the SAIs in the fi elds related to promoting account-ability, transparency and integ-rity, protecting public funds, establishing trust in public in-stitutions, the rule of law and achieving sustainable devel-

opment goals stems from the pivotal position of these bodies within the institutional fabric of states, and, in turn, places signifi cant responsibilities on them to meet the expectations of the relevant parties, including the higher authorities, regulated bodies, the media and the public.

HE Sheikh Bandar bin Mo-hamed bin Saud al-Thani re-ferred to the proposal of the State Audit Bureau which as adopted by Arabosai that the theme of the scientific sympo-sium accompanying the meet-ings of the General Assembly should be on the subject of development projects of the SAIs, which the SAIs recognise their responsibilities require the adoption of development projects and initiatives aimed at establishing comprehensive institutional, organisational and professional reform in ac-cordance with the require-ments of international stand-ards and professional practices.

He expressed his conviction that the 13th session of Arabosai will reach resolutions and rec-ommendations that contribute to enhancing the capacities and performance of the SAIs and to strengthen their position as role models, and wished the session success and further co-opera-tion and partnership between the SAIs at the Arab and interna-tional levels.

HE the Prime Minister and Minister of Interior Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani with other dignitaries at the 13th session of the General Assembly of the Arab Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions (Arabosai) at the Doha Sheraton Hotel yesterday.

‘Event refl ects close ties between members’

Secretary-General of the Arab Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions (Arabosai) Najeeb al-Qattari said that the convening of the General Assembly is an important event that takes place every three years in one of the Arab countries as it embodies the noble goals and objectives on which Arabosai was founded, namely strengthening bond, promoting co-operation and encouraging the exchange of views, ideas and experiences among all Arab members.In his speech during the opening of the 13th session of the Arabosai General Assembly in Doha yesterday, al-Qattari said that the 13th session of the General Assembly represents a renewed opportunity to review the activities of the

organisation during the last three years, evaluating them from various aspects and foreseeing the future through the continued implementation and evaluation of the strategic plan for the three years up to 2022 and its programme of work.He expressed his pride at the achievements made by Arabosai in terms of planning and implementation of all practical and training activities included in its programme during the past three years. Al-Qattari appreciated the eff orts exerted by Arabosai through its multiple participation in the framework of co-operation with the International Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI), as well as the INTOSAI Development Initiative and other relevant regional organisations. - QNA

State Audit Bureau signs pact with INTOSAI initiativeQNADoha

The State Audit Bureau signed a grant agreement with INTOSAI Development Initiative, on the

sidelines of the 13th session of the Gen-eral Assembly of the Arab Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions (Arabosai) which kicked off in Doha yesterday.

The agreement was signed by HE the President of the State Audit Bureau Sheikh Bandar bin Mohamed bin Saud al-Thani and Director-General of the INTOSAI De-velopment Initiative Einar Gorrissen.

Under the agreement, the grant will be earmarked to fund support for the use of the SAI Performance Measurement Framework and the e-learning capabili-ties initiative.

The State Audit Bureau said that the grant aims to contribute to enhancing the perform-ance of the supreme audit institutions of the Arab Organisation, enhancing accountability, transparency and integrity in the governmen-

tal and public sectors in the Arab countries whose supreme audit institutions are mem-bers of the Arabosai, as well as strengthening the capacity of the supreme audit institutions in the Arab countries to measure their per-

formance on a regular basis and identifying the strengths and weaknesses objectively and showing them as an example for the public sector.

The grant also aims to enhance the ef-fectiveness of the training function of the supreme audit institutions in the Arab countries and increase their contribution to improving performance and transferring knowledge among them, as well as adopting the best practices in the control of develop-ment and improvement strategies.

The State Audit Bureau said that the agreement comes in the framework of its keenness to assist the members of Arabosai to measure their performance in accordance with the standards of the In-ternational Organisation of Supreme Au-dit Institutions (INTOSAI) and the good international as a basis for improving per-formance.

HE the President of the State Audit Bureau Sheikh Bandar bin Mohamed bin Saud al-Thani and Director-General of the INTOSAI Development Initiative Einar Gorrissen signing the agreement yesterday in Doha.

HMC develops Arabic version of diabetes management programmeQNADoha

Hamad Medical Corpora-tion (HMC) in collabora-tion with the University

of Leicester in UK, announced type 2 diabetes educational pro-gramme developed by research-ers from the UK, which has been adopted for Arab patients.

The programme, Diabetes Ed-ucation and Self-Management for Ongoing and Newly Diag-nosed (DESMOND), was devel-oped through evidence-based research and has been widely implemented across the UK dur-ing the past decade.

Based around physical activ-ity and healthy lifestyle changes, the programme was adapted from English to Arabic, a world-fi rst for the curriculum, as part of an ongoing eff ort to support patients

with type 2 diabetes in Qatar and other Arabic-speaking countries.

Director of Diabetes Educa-tion at HMC, Manal Othman says diabetes is one of the most pressing health conditions in Qatar. She says unless wide-ranging steps are taken to change behaviours and address diabetes risk factors, the number of fami-lies aff ected by the disease will continue to grow.

“We know that the majority of diabetes care is the responsibil-ity of the patient, so it is essen-tial that our patients are well-informed and skilled to manage this disease,” Othman said.

Othman and her team not only adapted the programme from English to Arabic, but they also made modifi cations to ensure it was culturally appropriate and the content relevant to the lo-cal population. The programme, which consists of six hours of

education and is generally deliv-ered in one-day or half-day for-mats, helps participants under-stand their diabetes, including risk factors and complications, and make food choices.

Senior Consultant and Head of the Endocrinology Depart-ment at Hamad General Hospi-tal, Dr Mahmoud Zirie says the program is signifi cant because diabetes is a progressive condi-tion. He says while traditionally treatment has centred on drug interventions, the benefi ts of educating people about how to manage their condition them-selves cannot be disputed.

“If not managed properly, type 2 diabetes can lead to dev-astating complications, includ-ing blindness, a lost limb or an increased risk of a stroke or heart attack, which is why introducing people to DESMOND is so cru-cial,” Dr Zirie said.

Qatar and Malaysia held a preparatory meeting on the establishment of a joint high-level committee, chaired by the foreign ministers of the two countries. Qatar’s delegation to the meeting was led by HE the Secretary-General of the Ministry of Foreign Aff airs Dr Ahmed bin Hassan al-Hammadi, and the Malaysian side was headed by the Secretary-General of the Ministry of Foreign Aff airs Dato’ Sri Muhammad Shahrul Ikram Yaakob.

Qatar, Malaysia discuss setting up joint high-level panel

3Gulf TimesWednesday, November 13, 2019

QATAR

Minister participates in second Paris Peace Forum

Qatar participated in the second Paris Peace Forum, which

kicked off in the French Capi-tal yesterday with the aim of enhancing international co-operation to face the dangers facing the world.

HE the Minister of Cul-ture and Sports Salah bin Ghanem bin Nasser al-Ali headed the delegation of Qatar to the forum, in the presence of Qatar’s ambas-sador to France Sheikh Ali bin Jassim al-Thani.

The two-day forum brings together delegates from more than 130 coun-tries with the participation of more than 30 heads of state and government, as well as heads and directors

of various international or-ganisations.

The forum was inaugu-rated by French President Emmanuel Macron who stressed in his opening ad-dress the importance of col-lective international action to fi nd solutions to the chal-lenges of global governance.

The forum includes more than 80 seminars, with a focus on the issue of cyber-space.

Qatar Foundation for Ed-ucation, Science and Com-munity Development is par-ticipating in the forum as a strategic partner in the work of the second Paris Peace Fo-rum, in addition to organis-ing many events on the side-lines of the forum. - QNA

HE the Minister of Culture and Sports Salah bin Ghanem bin Nasser al-Ali participating in the second Paris Peace Forum.

From Page 1

“I would encourage youth not to knock at the door and wait, but just barge right in – because that’s the way that they’re going to make a diff erence,” she told the session. “Our job is to en-sure the youth feel like they do have a voice, and to take their voice seriously.

“I hope that every child can fi nd a place in the world, and that they feel that they are productive in the world, because sometimes we lose hope as we think our voices aren’t heard or what we learn does not matter. As a person who has a role to play in education, I will take on as a responsibility to make sure that we provide that place in the world to as many children as possible.

“At Qatar Foundation, we believe in lifelong learning. We don’t just focus on the youth, but on making sure there is a place for every-

body who wants to learn and who has a passion for learn-ing. It’s important to instil that passion at a young age, because that will continue and change the mindset of individuals – even how they see the world.”

Bokova echoed the im-

portance of AI to today’s youth, saying: “It’s also about values, about the soft skills that nowadays are more and more impor-tant, about having empathy, about teamwork.

“It’s about a very diff er-ent world where we have to

have the right compass of what we want to achieve in a society that is highly tech-nological and interconnect-ed, but also very fragment-ed. I think AI should help us do this for our children, for the young generation. It’s a great tool.”

HE Sheikha Hind bint Hamad al-Thani, vice-chairperson and CEO of Qatar Foundation, with a group of delegates at the 2019 Paris Peace Forum.

AI’s role in shaping education stressed

QATAR

Gulf Times Wednesday, November 13, 20194

HE the Prime Minister and Minister of Interior Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani met Pakistan’s Chief of the Naval Staff (CNS) Admiral Zafar Mahmood Abbasi and his accompanying delegation on the occasion of their visit to Qatar. During the meeting, they reviewed relations between the two countries and ways of enhancing them in various fields, in addition to a number of issues of mutual interest.

PM meets Pakistan naval chief

Norway fi rms, Qafco mark 50 years of partnership A gala dinner event marking 50

years of partnership between four giant companies from

Norway and Doha-based Qafco was held at the National Museum of Qatar on Monday.

About 250 distinguished guests gathered in attendance, including the Crown Prince Haakon of Nor-way, the Minister of State for Energy Aff airs and Qatar Petroleum Presi-dent and CEO HE Saad bin Sher-ida al-Kaabi, Norway’s Minister of Trade and Industry Torbjørn Røe Isaksen, and Qafco CEO Abdulrah-man M al-Suwaidi to refl ect on the successes over the past half-cen-tury and the propitious future for the Qatari-Norwegian industrial partnership.

Guests and dignitaries were also treated to a special performance by Norwegian artist Eva Weel Sk-ram. The function not only com-memorated the semicentennial collaboration, but also celebrated the strengthening of a continued, strategic alliance between the two countries to further develop over the next 50 years to come.

After an abundance of gas re-sources were found in Qatar in the sixties, Yara, back then a part of Norsk Hydro, signed a joint ven-ture agreement with Qatar to build a production plant to produce ammonia and urea in Mesaieed.

This led to the truly pioneering establishment of Qafco or Qatar Fer-tiliser Company Progressive to both nations, the formation of Qafco was one of the fi rst large-scale venture into the petrochemical sector and was also the fi rst major investment a Norwegian company had contracted abroad.

Today, Qafco is a joint venture owned 25% by Yara and 75% by In-dustries Qatar (IQ). Qafco is oper-ating six integrated ammonia-urea plants.

With an annual capacity of 3.8mn tonnes of ammonia and 5.6mn tonnes of urea, Qafco is a key player in the global fertiliser market and one of the largest exporters of urea.

Crown Prince Haakon of Norway addressing the gala dinner event.

Yara is a major off taker of high-quality urea from Muntajat, the company that markets, sells and distributes major volumes of fertiliser out of Qatar.

Svein Tore Holsether, president and CEO, Yara International, said, “Half of the world’s population de-pends on fertiliser to have food on the table. The contribution from Qafco to global food security has been very important, and today the products are exported worldwide. We are committed to working to-wards sustainable mineral fertiliser production.

“Yara has taken the lead in devel-oping digital farming tools for pre-cision farming and we work closely with partners throughout the whole food value chain to develop more climate-friendly crop nutrition solutions.”

Today the collaboration has expanded into food production. On Monday, Yara, Hassad Food, and Qafco opened the fi rst high-tech greenhouse in Al Sheehani-ya to support eff orts to increase

food production in Qatar. The partnership seeks to increase

agricultural yields, in line with Qa-tar’s aim to achieve self-suffi ciency in a reliable and sustainable manner, with a focus on vegetables. Yara is a global leader in crop nutrition and fertigation.

The organisation off ers best-practice farming application meth-ods and leading technologies to support the Qataris in their eff ort to enable sustainable, local farming of high-quality food products. “Our joint eff ort will drive Qatari food-production at industrial scale with world class technology. This can inspire the rest of the food-indus-try, demonstrating what is possible with true collaboration,” expressed Holsether said.

Yara International ASA was di-vested from Hydro in 2004, making it a sheer fertiliser business. Hence Hydro’s ownership in Qafco was passed on to Yara.

Crown Prince Haakon said, “To-night we celebrate 50 years of suc-cessful business cooperation be-

tween Qatar and Norway. Although our two countries are far apart geo-graphically, it is great to see the ex-tent to which our cooperation has ex-panded over the past 50 years. Today, Norwegian companies are engaged in a variety of Qatari industrial sectors, including the energy, maritime, and defence sectors, as well as aluminium production and agriculture”.

HE the Minister of State for Energy Aff airs Saad bin Sherida al-Kaabi, Crown Prince Haakon of Norway and Torbjørn Røe Isaksen, Minister of Trade and Industry, Norway at the gala dinner.

HE the Commander of the Amiri Naval Forces, Major-General Abdullah bin Hassan al-Sulaiti, met Pakistan’s Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Zafar Mahmood Abbasi and his accompanying delegation, during his visit to the headquarters of the Amiri Naval Forces yesterday. After the reception, the two sides met to discuss topics of mutual interest and to strengthen military co-operation between the two countries in the presence of a number of senior off icers of the Amiri Naval Forces. After the meeting, the Pakistan naval chief toured the headquarters of the Amiri Naval Forces and visited the headquarters of the Mohamed Bin Ghanem Al Ghanem Maritime Academy.

Qatar, Pakistan review military ties

Ooredoo launches mobile data plan management system

Ooredoo has an-nounced the launch of the “world’s

fi rst” commercial mobile data plan management system that integrates with Google Assistant.

Using the Mobile Data Plan management system, Ooredoo’s prepaid Hala customers can “quickly and easily” check and re-charge their prepaid mo-bile data, while postpaid customers can buy add-ons to their postpaid plans, the company has said in a statement.

Hala and Shahry cus-tomers with Android smartphones “can con-veniently” use voice com-mands with Google Assist-ant or the settings on their Android phones.

Providing a new level

of customer convenience, Ooredoo will automati-cally notify Hala custom-ers when they are about to run out of mobile data, the statement notes.

Ooredoo Qatar initially made the Mobile Data Plan announcement at Mobile World Congress, when the service was in beta testing mode. The company also had the service on display at the recent Qitcom 2019 event. The Mobile Data Plan is now live for An-droid smartphone custom-ers across the country, and for any visitors who sign up for Ooredoo services.

Talking about the new

feature, Yousuf Abdulla al-Kubaisi, chief operating offi cer at Ooredoo Qatar, said: “Ooredoo’s world-fi rst commercial launch of the Mobile Data Plan management system is in response to demands from our customers who need to quickly and easily check and recharge their mobile data while on the go.

“Joining forces with Google is part of Oore-doo’s goals of leveraging the latest smartphone in-novations to enhance our customer experiences, and to elevate our global lead-ership in providing data experiences.”

Number of children diagnosed with diabetes rising every yearSevere thirst, frequent urina-

tion, extreme hunger, fatigue, and losing weight for un-

known reasons – all of these may indicate that a child has diabetes, but their family may not realise it.

Research conducted by the Inter-national Diabetes Federation (IDF) has revealed that many parents strug-gle to notice the warning signs of their child’s diabetes, and one in three sets of parents has never recognised them.

Dr Abdullah al-Hamaq, executive director, Qatar Diabetes Association (QDA) – a member of Qatar Founda-tion – says that the number of children diagnosed with both Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes is rising every year. “There is evidence that Type 2 diabetes in children and adolescents is increas-ing in some countries, including Qa-

tar, according to studies conducted by paediatric endocrinologists at Hamad Medical Corporation,” he said.

“These results underscore the need to raise awareness of diabetes in order to help people detect early signs of the condition, so we should urge families to learn more about these signs.”

World Diabetes Day, which is ob-served annually on November 14, by the IDF and more than 200 associa-tions around the world participate, including QDA. It is the world’s larg-est diabetes awareness campaign.

Dr al-Hamaq explained said that, since 1996, QDA has contrib-uted to the message of World Dia-betes Day annually through events that run throughout November. This year and in 2020, such events will refl ect the slogan Family and

Diabetes: Protect Your Family.Katie Nahas, programme man-

ager, QDA, said, “On World Diabe-tes Day, we are always keen to raise public awareness of the disease and how to live with it, by organis-ing a series of awareness events in schools, shopping malls, and many other places in Qatar.

“The annual Diabetes Walkathon will be held at Oxygen Park, Educa-tion City on November 15, from 2pm-5pm, and will be accompanied by a range of awareness and entertainment activities. Participants will also have a blood sugar test and an assessment to check risk factors for Type 2 diabetes, in kiosks located in the park.”

Global statistics indicate that there are more than 1mn children and adolescents with diabetes

around the world, including about 176,000 in the Middle East and North Africa, and that every eight seconds a person dies from diabetes.

Dr Amal Mustafa, head of the Education Department, QDA, said, “Diabetes is becoming increas-ingly prevalent among children and adolescents, and as with Type 1 di-agnoses, children and adolescents diagnosed with Type 2 are experi-encing complications in early adult-hood, which is a signifi cant burden on family and society.”

“The role of the family is very important in identifying signs that may indicate their children are diabetic, and this will help them to be diagnosed and get treatment early before they develop serious complications.”

Sidra Medicine saves life of syndromic baby

The multidisciplinary paedi-atric and surgical teams from Sidra Medicine have saved the

life of a baby born with multiple life-threatening malformations.

Komail was born with several complex congenital and craniofacial anomalies, such as cleft palate, bilat-eral microtia (both ears deformed), arrhinia (absence of the nose), and severe micrognathia (undersized jaw) resulting in an upper airway obstruc-tion. After birth, he was immediately transferred to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Sidra Medicine.

Komail’s mother Shaista Perveen said, “We were worried for Komail. Never had I felt so alone yet never had I felt so determined. As soon as we stepped through the doors at Sidra Medicine, little were we to know how this hospital and its peo-ple would change our lives.”

Dr Helmut D Hummler, division chief, NICU, Sidra Medicine, said, “When Komail fi rst came to the hospital, our multidisciplinary team of specialists immediately set about prioritising a treatment programme to save his life. Complex, multidis-ciplinary interventions were needed to ensure maximal quality of life.”

Over the course of eight months as an inpatient at Sidra Medicine, Ko-mail underwent multiple life-saving surgeries and procedures while he received round-the-clock care from the NICU team. Komail was on a ventilator for the fi rst six months because of breathing diffi culties due to severe upper airway obstruction.

Dr Mitchell Stotland, chief, Plas-tic and Craniofacial Surgery at Sidra Medicine, said, “Komail’s main is-sue that needed to be addressed was his inability to move air through his nose and mouth. For Komail, there were two obstructions – fi rst, the fact that he was born without a nose or nasal passages, and secondly, that his lower jaw bone was so severely underdeveloped it was causing his tongue to fall back into his pharynx – that is, right up against the back of his throat. While our colleagues in otolaryngology worked to create a nasal opening to accommodate a breathing tube, we went ahead to lengthen and advance his lower jaw bone enough to bring his tongue for-ward to help clear his upper airway for spontaneous breathing.”

At four weeks of age, Komail un-derwent a fi rst procedure in which the

Komail with his mother and Sidra Medicine audiologist.

bones on both sides of his jaw were cut and an implantable distraction device was inserted which allowed for twice daily lengthening of the jaw bone over a period of a few weeks.

After several months, the device was removed, the jaw was recut, and a second round of jaw advance-ment was carried out. Approxi-mately 35mm of length was added to Komail’s lower jaw. While this improved the aesthetic balance of his face markedly, the residual un-derdevelopment of the upper part of his face still made normal breathing too diffi cult for Komail to maintain.

“We initially remained hope-ful that he would be able to breathe properly by himself after the surgi-cal interventions, but it became more and more apparent that he needed to undergo a tracheostomy. This in-volved making a small surgical open-ing in his neck to place a tube into his

windpipe which would allow him to breathe properly and independently without a ventilator,” said Dr Patrick Sheehan, senior attending physician of otolaryngology, head and neck sur-gery, Sidra Medicine who performed Komail’s tracheostomy.

Following the tracheostomy, Ko-mail also needed to be fi tted with a hearing device as he wasn’t able to hear at normal levels.

After eight months at Sidra Medi-cine, and with the majority of his treatment complete, Komail was discharged from the hospital.

Perveen acknowledged the sup-port, “My family and I have now relo-cated to Europe. Our hearts are fi lled with joy to see how far he has come. He has started crawling. He claps, dances and enjoys music. I am lucky my son survived and to have had a hospital like Sidra Medicine beside me during the most critical time.”

QATAR5Gulf Times

Wednesday, November 13, 2019

Industry minister opens 5th edition of Hospitality QatarHE Ali bin Ahmed al-Kuwari,

Minister of Commerce and In-dustry, and HE Akbar al-Baker,

Secretary-General of Qatar National Tourism Council (QNTC) and chief executive of Qatar Airways Group, in-augurated the 5th edition of Hospitality Qatar at Doha Exhibition and Conven-tion Centre yesterday.

The “biggest tourism and hospital-ity event to date in Qatar” is being held in support of the country’s eff orts to accelerate world-class projects in the lead-up to the 2022 FIFA World Cup, the organisers have said in a statement. The event, which aims to strengthen Qatar’s position as a leading global destination for hospitality, leisure and recreation, is organised annually by IFP Qatar and held in partnership with QNTC for the second consecutive year.

The event is welcoming visitors eager to engage with 228 exhibitors and seven international pavilions from 33 coun-tries.

Leading innovative events are taking place throughout the three days, in-cluding new exhibition zones, a highly targeted B2B programme, an educa-tional certifi ed conference and training sessions, and Salon Culinaire’s lively events and activities, the statement notes.

The exhibition aims to help local, regional and international companies explore emerging opportunities in the hospitality industry in Qatar, bringing together hotel operators, food service providers, investors and industry ex-perts from across the region, the offi -cial Qatar News Agency (QNA) reports. Speaking to reporters after the inaugu-ration, HE the minister stressed the im-portance of Hospitality Qatar to high-light the great opportunities off ered by the country in the hospitality sector,

especially as the current edition of the exhibition is witnessing the large par-ticipation of countries and companies.

Noting that the national products featured in the event highlight the ef-forts exerted in this regard by the local sector, HE the minister said the ongoing exhibition can be considered one of the best editions of Hospitality Qatar due to the large participation and the events lined up.

HE al-Kuwari added that Hospitality Qatar also highlights the eff orts made and opportunities available in the hos-pitality sector in Qatar and is an op-portunity to display products and the relevant equipment in one place, QNA adds.

In a statement, Ahmed al-Obaidli from QNTC said Hospitality Qatar is one of the most important exhibitions focusing on the business events sec-tor, especially that the fi fth edition is the largest ever and witnesses the par-ticipation of 15 countries. He added that the exhibition features various kinds of specialised equipment pertaining to the hospitality sector, in addition to activi-ties such as cooking competitions and other important events - all of which will help promote the event.

Haidar Mshaimesh, general manager of IFP Qatar, the organiser of Hospital-ity Qatar, said: “We are proud to have reached new milestones as we unravel the activities taking place at Hospital-ity Qatar. We are set to witness another successful gathering of leading compa-nies and organisations keen to leverage their expertise during these three days and off er new solutions to fast-track the developments in Qatar’s tourism and hospitality sector.

“We are confi dent of the success of the fi fth edition as we continue to en-hance the experiences of exhibitors

and visitors alike and contribute to the eff orts to attract more tourists in the country.”

This year’s edition of Hospital-ity Qatar looks to expand its reach with the addition of new features such as a dedicated exhibition zone, ‘Destination Pavilion’, sponsored by Qatar Airways. The exclusive pavilion is showcasing the many destination points to which the airline fl ies.

Also, Hospitality Qatar, in associa-tion with the Luxury Trade & Marketing Group, is showcasing a ‘Luxury Tour-ism’ dedicated area featuring innova-tive technologies, services, solutions on luxury tourism and eco-friendly concepts.

Hospitality Qatar’s signature events, which include Salon Culinaire in part-nership with Qatar Culinary Profes-sionals, also started on the fi rst day and visitors were enthralled by the various new dishes presented during the show, the organisers said, adding that the live cooking competitions are attracting big audiences as food connoisseurs watch how gourmet dishes come to life right before them.

The Qatar Barista Championship, sponsored by Corona, “teases coff ee and tea lovers with the enticing aroma of these warm beverages presented by the country’s fi nest baristas”. Various aspects of the hospitality industry, such as hotels and facilities, interiors and de-sign, entertainment and leisure, travel and tourism, resorts and outdoor land-scape, Horeca (hotel/restaurant/café) technologies and equipment, ecologi-cally-friendly hotel systems and solu-tions, and food and beverages options, will continue to be showcased through related products and services at the event until tomorrow, from 1pm- 9pm.

HE Ali bin Ahmed al-Kuwari and HE Akbar al-Baker with other dignitaries and off icials at the inauguration of Hospitality Qatar yesterday. PICTURE: Jayan Orma

Dignitaries undertaking a tour of the exhibition. PICTURE: Jayan Orma

Conclave offers fresh outlook on latest trends

The agenda of the Hospitality Qa-tar Conference focuses on major interests for the hospitality sec-

tor and off ers a fresh outlook on major new developments in the industry.

The conference, certifi ed by CPD and part of Hospitality Qatar 2019, provides insightful knowledge of the sector, new strategies and innovations, and also features sessions and discus-sions on the opportunities and chal-lenges facing the sector.

The conference kicked off yester-day with a keynote speech by Ahmed al-Obaidli from Qatar National Tour-ism Council, who talked about the im-portance of continuous professional development for those working in the tourism and hospitality fi elds. “We are delighted to return as partners of Hos-pitality Qatar after noting a need and demand for knowledge exchange and a training platform for tourism profes-sionals,” he said.

“In developing the programme with IFP Qatar, we have worked to high-light the importance of creating a visi-tor experience that is unique to Qatar, modern and seamless yet rooted in authenticity, and refl ected across all the elements that make up that expe-rience, from F&B to hospitality, and from digital innovations to customer service.”

He added, “We hope that attendees will enjoy and benefi t from the train-

ing and discussions off ered through-out the conference, and that they will fi nd in them perspectives and tools to stay ahead of changes in the tourism market.”

The second session discussed the integration of brand standards and local design elements, as well as how storytelling can be eff ectively achieved through design and spaces, led by Khalid Hassan al-Neama, manager of Engineering and Technical Develop-ment from Katara Hospitality.

Another key theme of the confer-ence was the ‘The First Entertainment Island in Qatar – Qetaifan Contribu-tion to FIFA World Cup 2022’, high-lighted by Hesham Sharaf, chief op-erating offi cer of Qetaifan Projects. It provided participants with an update on the developments pertaining to Qetaifan Island and the current oppor-tunities for prospective partners.

Also in focus was ‘Curating En-tertainment for Families during their Visit to Qatar’, the Hospitality Qatar organisers said in a statement.

Meanwhile, the training session highlighted the leading best practices among industry practitioners. Partici-pants learnt about ‘Delivering Unique Experiences in the World of Sports and Entertainment’ to enhance visitor ex-periences by understanding fans, their behaviour and motivations and how to build unbreakable emotional connec-

tion to convert fans into loyal active clients. Javier Martinez, an interna-tionally renowned sports, leisure and entertainment expert, delivered the training.

Ahmad Nasser Sraiya al-Kaabi, chief operating offi cer of Al Sraiya Holding Group, said: “We commend the eff orts of Hospitality Qatar to host this event and provide an ideal platform for the sector to showcase cutting-edge serv-ices as well as promote insightful con-cepts that would increase engagement in the sector.

“The event continues to provide us with the ideal platform to meet new partners and pursue business oppor-tunities in line with our eff orts to con-tribute to the sustainable development of the country.”

Mahday Saad al-Hebabi, Voda-fone Qatar Business Services direc-tor, added: “At Vodafone Qatar, we are committed to support the growth of Qatar’s hospitality and tourism sector and are pleased to be the exclusive tel-ecommunication sponsor of Hospital-ity Qatar 2019. Thanks to our extensive 5G network rollout across Qatar, we expect this revolutionary technology to have a transformative eff ect on how the industry operates and engages with guests. This will be especially crucial in meeting the demands of visitors and tourists alike in the lead-up to the 2022 World Cup.”

Minister al-Muraikhi inaugurates Hall 19 at UN Palace in GenevaQNAGeneva

HE the Minister of State for For-eign Aff airs Sultan bin Saad al-Muraikhi inaugurated yesterday

‘Hall 19’ at the United Nations Palace in Geneva after it was renovated and mod-ernised with support from Qatar valued 22mn Swiss francs. The ceremony was attended by Director-General of the UN Offi ce at Geneva Tatiana Valovaya, HE Permanent Representative of Qatar to the UN Offi ce in Geneva Ali Khalfan al-Mansouri and a number of high-ranking offi cials and guests.

In a speech during the inauguration ceremony, HE al-Muraikhi underlined that the contribution of Qatar to the renovation of the Hall comes in the framework of promoting the strate-gic partnership with the United Na-tions, and to contribute eff ectively to enabling it to achieve its lofty goals of maintaining international peace and security, developing friendly relations among nations, promoting respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, achieving international co-operation to solve the economic, social, cultural and humanitarian problems, and fi nding appropriate solutions to the challenges and crises facing the world.

HE al-Muraikhi noted that impor-tant agreements were signed on the sidelines of Doha Forum in December 2018, including a fi nancial contribution of $500mn over several years to sup-port and fund the work of the United Nations and its bodies and agencies, in the framework of strengthening the relations and the strategic partnership between Qatar and the United Nations.

He said that Qatar endeavours to en-hance its hosting of the offi ces and mis-sions of the United Nations and other international organisations and to pro-vide all the necessary requirements to enable them to carry out their tasks and activities in the best possible manner, noting that eff orts are continuing to open the “UN House” in Doha, which includes representative offi ces for a

number of UN agencies. Director-Gen-eral of the UN Offi ce at Geneva Tatiana Valovaya praised the generous support provided by Qatar to the United Nations and the UN Palace in Geneva to renovate Hall 19 at the UN Palace in Geneva.

In a speech during the inaugura-tion ceremony, the Director-General of the UN Offi ce at Geneva said that the renovation of the Hall was the result of

the generosity of Qatar which aimed to express its commitment to support the organisation’s international eff orts to preserve and modernise the United Na-tions premises.

She looked forward that the Hall will host future meetings of the interna-tional community as part of its eff orts to fi nd lasting solutions to current and future challenges.

Hall 19 is the second largest meeting hall in the United Nations after the General Assembly Hall in Geneva.

HE the Minister of State for Foreign Aff airs Sultan bin Saad al-Muraikhi inaugurated yesterday Hall 19 at the United Nations Palace in Geneva.

QATAR

Gulf Times Wednesday, November 13, 20196

Students engage with experts at Total’s ‘Al-Reyada Energy Seminar’Total’s three-day ‘Al-Reyada En-

ergy Seminar’ came to a success-ful close at Sheraton Grand Doha

Resort & Convention Hotel last week.Nearly 70 students, professionals

and professors from Qatar University, Texas A&M University at Qatar, Ha-mad Bin Khalifa University, College of the North Atlantic - Qatar, Qatar Petroleum, North Oil Company, Dol-phin Energy, Qapco and Qatofi n par-ticipated in the seminar.

Throughout the three days, univer-sity students and young professionals engaged with Total’s experts who own wealth of experience, to gain insight on topics ranging from oil and gas challenges, renewables, petrochemi-cals to innovation, leadership, health and safety.

“Al-Reyada seminar is an opportu-nity for future leaders interested in the energy industry, to gain knowledge and advice on their future careers. The seminar provides guidance on rel-evant topics and promotes innovation — one of the most important elements to ensure the success and continuity

of any institution. We are thus build-ing a communication bridge between our industry and the academia”, said Wafaa al-Saff ar, Lead, Corporate So-cial Responsibility & Institutional Re-lations at Total, at the closing speech.

The closing ceremony was attended by Jacques Azibert, CEO, North Oil Company (NOC); Hassan al-Emadi, general manager, Dolphin Energy, Dr Awni al-Otoom, dean, CNA-Q School of Engineering and Industrial Trades, Amal al-Kuwari, manager (PR & Communications) at Muntajat, as well as other senior executives from Total’s partner companies and institutions.

Students were also interviewed about their thoughts on the seminar, and gave widely positive feedback.

“I really appreciate the diversity of background between the partici-pants. We were paired with beginner students, and technically experienced researchers, professors etc, and this gave us good exposure and insight”, said Fahad Binghorab, who works at Qatofi n.

Rayhaanah Bilal, a student at Col-

lege of the North Atlantic-Qatar, said: “The use of polymers is in almost everything that we do, and how we as chemical engineers are not just re-stricted to work in the oil and gas sec-

tor, but have a range of possibilities to work in other industries as well”.

Ahmed Elrahman, who is pursuing his degree from Qatar University, ex-pressed his appreciation to Al-Reyada

for “strengthening my communica-tion in the language of energy and science with professionals and others attendees with expertise”.

During the closing ceremony, Mo-

hamed al-Mohsin, Communications & CSR manager at Total indicated that similar initiatives for supporting hu-man development in Qatar will con-tinue in the coming years”.

Nearly 70 students, professionals and professors from Qatar University, Texas A&M University at Qatar, Hamad Bin Khalifa University, College of the North Atlantic - Qatar, Qatar Petroleum, North Oil Company, Dolphin Energy, Qapco and Qatofin participated in Total’s three-day ‘Al-Reyada Energy Seminar’ that concluded last week.

Es’hailSat talks technology at AfricaCom

Es’hailSat is participating at the annual AfricaCom ex-hibition, the “biggest and best” tech event in Africa that gathers senior decision-makers from the entire

digital ecosystem.The exhibition is being held at the Cape Town Interna-

tional Convention Centre, South Africa.Es’hailSat will be showcasing Es’hail-1, Es’hail-2 and

a wide range of services to be delivered through the new “state-of-the-art” teleport in Doha, the company has said in a statement.

Es’hail-1 and Es’hail-2 are currently transmitting high-quality, premium DTH television content from the 25.5°/26° E hotspot.

“Es’hail-2, a high-performance satellite with sophis-ticated anti-jamming capabilities located at the 26° East hotspot position for TV broadcasting, signifi cantly adds to the company’s ability to provide high-quality, premium DTH television content across the Middle East and North Africa (Mena),” the statement notes.

Es’hailSat stressed that its new teleport in Doha provides customers with “secure and independent satellite transmis-sion”. The facility supports satellite TT&C (telemetry, track-ing & command) and capacity management together with a wide range of services such as uplink, downlink, multiplex-ing, encoding, playout and other value-added services.

The high-tech teleport will also provide back-up studios for TV channels and serve as a disaster recovery facility for customers.

“We are pleased to be exhibiting for the fi rst time at Af-

ricaCom as we see this exhibition as an important part in our strategy to attract African customers who value broad-casting independence and quality of service,” Ali al-Kuwari, president and CEO of Es’hailSat.

“Africa has been a region of interest for Es’hailSat for some time. AfricaCom gives us the right platform to engage with customers and showcase our capabilities.”

The highlights of the participation include Es’hail-2 — new capacity for Mena; Ku-band for broadcasting in HD and Ultra HD; Ka-band for broadcasting, SNG, trunking and corporate services; coverage of the whole Mena region from a key orbital position; and a new teleport boosting broadcast-ing, broadband delivery and global connectivity.

The Es’hailSat stand at AfricaCom 2019.

Temporary access road to be closed

The Public Works Authority (Ashghal) yesterday announced the permanent closure from

tonight of the temporary access for traffi c heading from Doha Expressway and Rawdat Al Khail Street towards Al Wakrah and Al Weteyyat Interchange on Sabah Al Ahmad Corridor.

The closure, in co-ordination with the General Directorate of Traffi c, is to enable the works at Mesaimeer Inter-change where traffi c will be diverted to the next traffi c signals located under Mesaimeer Bridge on the Industrial Area Road.

Road users heading towards Sabah Al Ahmad Corridor can use the Indus-trial Area Road and then make a U-turn on the traffi c signals under Mesaimeer Bridge to reach their destination as shown on the attached map.

Commuters heading for Al Wakrah can go left at the traffi c signals under Mesaimeer Bridge and then use Sabah Al Ahmad Corridor and fi nally take the right turn at Al Weteyyat Interchange to reach their destination.

On the other hand, road users going to Civil Defence, Lekhwaya,

Qatar Meteorology and Qatar Sew-age Treatment Center can use the signal under Mesaimeer Bridge as well and U-turn to reach their des-tination.

Ashghal will install road signs ad-vising motorists of the closure and requested road users to abide by the speed limit and follow the road signs to ensure safety.

Science Mag to stream QF discussion today

A discussion, a part of a series of

events for Catalysing the Future,

held at Qatar Science & Technol-

ogy Park, part of Qatar Founda-

tion (QF) Research, Development,

and Innovation, will air today on

Science Mag. The streaming will

be on https://www.sciencemag.

org/custom-publishing/webinars/

water-dry-land-can-innovation-

drive-water-security from 8pm.

Qatar’s per capita use of water

is one of the highest in the world

– estimated at over 500 litres per

person per day, according to ex-

perts who recently spoke on the

topic of ‘Water in a dry land: Can

innovation drive water security?’

As Qatar continues its journey

of self-sustenance by growing its

own food, building its own indus-

tries, hiring a larger workforce,

the demands on this precious

resource is growing rapidly.

Local agriculture production

has jumped by 400% since 2017,

and the October population sta-

tistic stands at over 2.7mn.

Despite being a dry land, Qatar

is expected to keep up with the

rising demands of water.

“Qatar and other Gulf states

will always be dependent on

desalination as the prime solution

for a drought-free situation; how-

ever, this is an energy intensive

process. The question remains

what other alternatives can we

develop in the country,” said Dr

Samer Adham, manager, Cono-

coPhillips Water Solutions, Qatar.

Although 75% of the earth is

covered in water, only 3% of the

water is fresh water, and less than

1% of this water is accessible for

human use.

“There is enough water in the

world, but it is saline; therefore,

desalination should be given the

highest priority in research and

development,” Dr Ahmed Abdel-

Wahab, professor, Chemical Engi-

neering, Texas A&M University at

Qatar, a QF partner university, said.

“Countries that depend prima-

rily on rain can also benefit from

desalination as we experience the

eff ects of climate change in our

weather patterns. A major goal

of water security is to be able to

produce usable water in a cost-

eff ective manner.”

While the physical amount

of water available on our planet

is known, it is also known that

economic security can influence

water security.

“Although Qatar has a very

small natural resource base, and

because it is a wealthy country, it

is able to generate water. Every-

body in Qatar has water 24 hours

a day, seven days a week, here.

We don’t think of Qatar as being

water insecure,” said Dr Rachael

McDonnell, strategic programme

director, Water, Climate Change

and Resilience, International

Water Management Institute.

Dr McDonnell also highlighted

the advantages of generating

water resourcefully in a way that

can benefit the water-energy-food

nexus.

“Our religious texts urge us to

manage water because it is such

a precious resource. It is more of

a mental rather than a techno-

logical barrier when it comes to

treated waste water,” she said.

“Instead of saying treated

waste water is fit to be consumed

directly, let’s suggest, as a first

step that, treated waste water can

be used to irrigate agricultural

crops. This will mitigate the back-

lash from members of society

that can surround this issue,”

Abdel-Wahab said.

“A few international companies

are interested to demonstrate

their technologies in Qatar.

If these technologies work in

Qatar’s harsh environment, they

will most likely work elsewhere in

the world,” said Dr Huda al-Sulaiti,

director, Water Sciences and

Technology at Qatar Environment

and Energy Research Institute,

Hamad Bin Khalifa University.

The panellists discussing the topic of ‘Water in a dry land’.

Trees planted to mark Human Rights DayThe Public Works Authority (Ash-

ghal) yesterday observed the Qa-tar Human Rights Day by planting

trees on Al Khor Road Project.Joining hands with Newton Interna-

tional School-Lagoona students, Ashghal planted 60 trees as part of the ongoing ‘Qatar Beautifi cation and Our Kids Plant-ing Trees’ campaign being implemented by the Supervisory Committee of Beauti-fi cation of Roads and Public Places in Qa-tar in co-ordination with the Ministry of Municipality and Environment (MME).

Apart from the MME, the commit-tee works in co-ordination with several ministries and other entities such as the Ministry of Transport and Communica-tions, Ministry of Culture and Sports, Qatar Museums Authority, Qatar Railway Company and Private Engineering Bu-reau for project implementation.

The committee is responsible for fi ve major tasks including the construction of central public parks, provision of dedi-cated lanes for pedestrians and bicycles, development of the Doha Corniche, de-velopment of Central Doha and increas-ing aff orestation and greenery areas.

The event was attended by several gov-ernment representatives, including Na-tional Human Rights Committee’s assist-ant secretary-general Sultan bin Hassan al-Jamali, Administrative and Financial Aff airs Department manager Hamad Ma-jid al-Marzouqi and Public Relations and Media Department deputy manager Mo-hamed Safran. Ashghal’s Public Relations and Communications Department man-ager Abdulla Saad al-Saad, Al Khor and Al Thakhira Municipality Gardens Sec-tion acting head Mohamed al-Shahwani, and Newton International School-La-goona principal Trudy Masterson were also present.

Al-Jamali said that national institu-tions play an important role in the im-plementation and follow-up of the 2030 Sustainable Development Objectives.

“The Ashghal-led planting campaign is one of the eff orts to integrate disaster risk reduction measures into national strategies in light of the drought and de-sertifi cation that are sweeping the world at an alarming pace every year,” he said.

Al-Jamali praised the great eff orts ex-erted by all parties in the fi eld of envi-

ronmental protection pointing out that preserving the environment is an impor-tant part of the collective responsibility towards future generations.

Al-Saad said Ashghal is keen to focus on the environmental dimension of it’s projects in line with Qatar National Vi-sion 2030 by establishing a balance be-tween the economic, urban and social development and environmental sustain-ability.

“Treated water is used to irrigate the trees and green areas that we are plant-ing. This is an additional factor that contributes to the protection of the en-vironment and enhances sustainability

through the use of renewable sources and the conservation of water,” he said.

Al-Shahwani said that planting trees has an essential role in improving the quality of life both in terms of health as it contributes to the purifi cation of air and increasing oxygen level.

“It also aesthetically improves the overall image of the country. We hope to see more of these eff orts with the co-op-eration of all parties.”

Masterson said that the school is proud to get involved in tree planting within the program to contribute to the strengthen-ing of Qatar’s ecosystem.

The Al Khor road that was constructed

by Ashghal as part of the expressway pro-gramme is characterised by it’s vital location.

It serves more than 20 residential ar-eas such as Al Khor, Doha, Simaisma and Lusail.

The road is directly connected to major roads such as Tarfa Road, Al Majd Road and Qatar University Street.

Al Khor Road off ers direct links to Al Bait Stadium and Lusail Stadium as well as a railway track (Qatar Rail) along the road.

The project includes landscaping cov-ering 3.5mn sq m, more than 30,000 trees and street furnishings including 100 benches and 80 bicycles.

The project also off ers 33km of pedes-trian and bicycle paths, as well as a 33km Olympic cycle path.

The supervisory committee’s cam-paign will enhance sustainability through minimising environmental pollution and reducing the emission of CO2 through minimised consumption and conserva-tion of energy resources.

It also focuses on the provision of more public transport options aiming at re-duced use of private cars and improve lifestyle through clean and safe transpor-tation.

It also works for ensuring a healthy environment within residential neigh-bourhoods and places of public gather-ings through increased aff orestation and landscaping, which will greatly help in reducing the temperature in cities.

Newton International School-Lagoona students with off icials of Ashghal and National Human Rights Committee.

Newton International School-Lagoona attending “Qatar Beautification and Our Kids Planting Trees” campaign.

QATAR7Gulf Times

Wednesday, November 13, 2019

Fifty One East expresses support for Sony World Photography contestFifty One East, Qatar’s

leading department store, yesterday announced it is

proud to be associated with the much-anticipated Sony World Photography contest that aims at discovering, nurturing and supporting aspiring photogra-phy enthusiasts.

The jury for the 2020 Sony World Photography Awards was revealed earlier this month by the Awards’ creators, the World Photography Organisation.

Free to enter, the internation-ally acclaimed Awards present a vital opportunity for all levels of photographers from around the world to be seen, appraised and rewarded.

The 2020 jury includes a di-verse range of industry experts across the museum, gallery, art fair and media sectors. The Awards off er an unbeatable plat-form for its winning and short-listed artists to gain exposure and recognition, with past re-cipients going on to secure gal-lery representation, publishing deals and widespread press cov-erage.

The Professional competition, judged on a serious body of work and targeting artists working

across the breadth of photog-raphy across 10 categories, will be assessed by: Claudi Carreras Guillen, independent curator, editor, and cultural manager; Touria El Glaoui, founding di-rector of 1-54 Contemporary Af-rican Art Fair; Katie Hollander, director, Annenberg Space for Photography; Gwen Lee, direc-tor, Singapore International Photography Festival and Brent Lewis, photo editor, The New York Times/ Co-Founder, Di-versify Photo.

The Professional Jury will be

chaired for the third consecu-tive year by picture editor, cura-tor and consultant Mike Trow, bringing huge knowledge of the Awards’ history and develop-ment to the proceedings. Trow will also curate the 2020 Sony World Photography Awards Ex-hibition.

The Open and Youth compe-titions will be chaired by Gisela Kayser, managing director and artistic director, Freundeskreis Willy-Brandt-Haus e.V., Ber-lin. Tim Clark, curator, writer and editor-in-chief 1000 Words

completes the 2020 jury as the chair of the Student competi-tion.

All entries are free at http://www.worldphoto.org and the deadlines are: Youth competi-tion: Last day of each month from June - December, 2019; Student competition: Novem-ber 29, 2019; Open competition / National Awards: January 7, 2020; Professional competition: January 14, 2020.

The jurors will meet in London in January 2020 to debate the work, and the fi rst of the short-lists will be announced Febru-ary 4, 2020. All work is judged anonymously. The 2019 edition received 327,000 entries from 195 countries and territories.

Sony’s World Photography Awards continue to evolve and develop to connect photographic communities across the world and off er more opportunities to those working in photography, particularly in the emerging markets.

Lastly, a new Environment category has been introduced to Professional competition in recognition of the grow-ing importance of this topic in both fine art photography and

photojournalism. The work of the 2019 winning and short-listed artists, including the 2019 Photographer of the Year Federico Borella, continues to inspire audiences worldwide.

Providing a unique insight into contemporary photogra-phy from the last year, the 2019 exhibition opened in London to 25,000 people and moved to Spain and Korea. It will

now travel to Japan, France, Italy and Germany. For the full touring schedule please go to http://www.worldphoto.org/sony-worldphotography-awards/travelling-exhibition

Copyright: © Robert Bolton, United Kingdom, entry, Open, Landscape, 2020 Sony World Photography Awards. Copyright: © Valeriy Melnyk, Ukraine, entry, Open, Architecture, 2020 Sony World Photography Awards.

Competition to off er National Awards

Now in its 13th year, in conjunc-tion with Sony Middle East and Africa, the 2020 Sony World Photography Awards have also launched the National Awards. The competition is open to all entrants in Qatar, Kuwait and neighbouring countries in addition to South Africa. This competition will seek to recog-nise reward and expose talented photographers from these countries. One winner from each country will receive an

Alpha 6600 ILCE-6600M (Body + 18-135mm Zoom Lens).Young photographers aged 12-19 will also have more opportunity to be spotted in the refreshed Youth competition. Photogra-phers are now challenged to enter up to three images per month to diff erent themes. Running from June - December, one winner will be chosen each month and will go on to com-pete for the Youth Photographer of the Year title.

Copyright: © Francesco Pace Rizzi, Italy, entry, Open, Creative, 2020 Sony World Photography Awards.

Qatar Charity to sponsor AidEx expo in BrusselsQNADoha

For the second consecutive year, Qatar Charity will sponsor the AidEx 2019, an

annual event for aid and devel-opment, which will be held on November 13-14 in the Belgian capital Brussels.

This will have the participa-tion of a delegation headed by CEO of Qatar Charity Yousuf bin Ahmed al-Kuwari, .

The event will also witness the attendance of more than 2,500 dignitaries from UN agencies, the European Union, and inter-national governmental and non-governmental organisations

concerned with humanitarian aid and international develop-ment.

This year, AidEx, which is a leading platform for profes-sionals in humanitarian aid and international development, and the largest in Europe, will fo-cus on the importance of inclu-siveness to global progress and whether the aid and develop-ment sector is doing enough. Opinion leaders and policy-makers from the international humanitarian community will discuss the latest issues aff ect-ing this sector. Qatar Charity will also have a pavilion at the AidEx exhibition to show its hu-manitarian and development ac-tivities worldwide, in addition to

holding a panel discussion at the event. In addition, Yousuf bin Ahmed al-Kuwari, CEO of Qatar Charity, will deliver a speech at the opening session of the event on sponsoring AidEx by Qatar Charity and publicising QCs ef-forts in all humanitarian areas, especially in the water and sani-tation sector.

During its participation in the exhibition, Qatar Charity will showcase its contribution to overcome the global water and sanitation crisis through in-teractive screens. Through the Hand Pump Challenge, Qatar Charity will shed light on the importance of water, highlight the diffi culties faced by many communities to get water, and

attempt to garner support for water projects in an innovative way.

Qatar Charity will hold the panel discussion on WASH and Women: Gender-Inclusive Wa-ter, Sanitation and Hygiene Services, with the participation of the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) and Water Sup-ply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC).

Mohamed al-Ghamdi, assist-ant CEO for Governance and In-stitutional Development Sector, Qatar Charity, Sandie Blanchet, director of the Unicef Offi ce for Relations with EU Institutions, and Ruqaya Idara, advocate con-sultant, WSSCC will speak dur-ing the panel discussion.

QFFD organises workshop in co-operation with Global GoodQNADoha

Qatar Fund for Develop-ment (QFFD) organised a workshop entitled, “Us-

ing Innovation to achieve SDG targets 2030” with the partici-pation of relevant institutions and organisations.

Held in co-operation with Global Good, the workshop was attended by more than 60 rep-resentatives from Doha-based charities, academic and research organisations as well as govern-mental entities.

It is worth mentioning that

QFFD aims to lay the founda-tion for further co-operation in the future to achieve a common vision and to have a solid scope of collaboration with Glo-bal Good to benefit from their technologies to solve some of the most difficult human prob-lems.

It also aims to strengthen the strategic partnership between QFFD and international partners to achieve sustainable develop-ment goals with leading human-itarian organisations, supportive governments, research institu-tions and the private sector by focusing on two main goals re-lated to SDG3 and SDG8.

Deputy Director General of Projects Development at

QFFD Misfer bin Hamad al-Shahwani stated that the aim

of such co-operation was to co-ordinate and invest in in-

novations that could help to find cost-effective solutions to the health and development problems in resource-poor ar-eas.

The workshop aims at set-ting a platform for facilitating action with all national stake-holders and to exchange ex-periences with international institutions and explore possi-ble future co-operation on the use of advanced technologies and artificial intelligence in the global health and develop-ment sector as well as identify-ing specific initiatives and joint projects which are compatible with the priorities of the Qa-

tari NGOs. “Global Good ac-knowledges the evolving role of the State of Qatar in making progress against UN Sustain-able Development Goals and applauds its significant con-tributions to the development and humanitarian sectors, es-pecially in global health, edu-cation and economic devel-opment,” said Dr Peter Small, Senior Director of Global Health Technologies.

“With a focus on invention and innovation, Global Good is looking forward to exploring areas of technological collabo-ration with Qatar in health and agriculture.”

The General Authority of Customs (GAC) has foiled an attempt to smuggle 2.1kg of the illicit drug, hashish. The contraband was found hidden inside the shoes of two travellers coming from an Asian country, according to a tweet by the GAC.

Drug seizure

More than 60 representatives from Doha-based charities, academic and research organisations as well as governmental entities participated in the QFFD workshop.

Eff ective utilisation of region’s resources

From Page 1HE the Minister said crises and

serious challenges in the region won’t fi nd the desired positive solutions “unless there is dia-logue and consensus, and there is a sincere desire to meet with stakeholders and experts in order to develop a common vision to address the problems and crises escalating in the world, especial-ly the Middle East.”

Joyce Banda, former President

of Malawi, stressed the need for women empowerment, freedom of assembly, press and justice, in addition to addressing the chal-lenges of climate change, espe-cially as these things contribute directly to economic growth in the region.

Quoting a McKenzie Glo-bal Institute study, she said the global economy could grow by $28tn by 2025, a 26% increase, if women participated in the labour

force to the same degree as men.Edward Scicluna, Finance

Minister of Malta, said there was a lack of inclusive growth in Eu-rope, which also has to cope with a major issue of immigration as well as climate change.

“The fundamentals of Euro-pean economy are strong but headwinds are creating uncer-tainty,” he added.

Hani K Findakly of Potomac Capital highlighted the chal-lenges facing many countries in the Middle East such as the lack of job opportunities, the margin-alisation of youth, unemploy-ment, poverty, corruption and the failure to cope with the huge technological revolutions along with other factors that have a di-rect impact on economic growth.

He stressed on the need for countries in the region to benefi t from these developments and adopt new constructive policies that contribute to social welfare and economic growth.

REGION/ARAB WORLD

Gulf TimesWednesday, November 13, 20198

10 dead as military hit on Palestinian group chief sparks rocket barrageAFP Gaza City

Israel’s military killed a commander from Palestin-ian group Islamic Jihad in a

strike on his home in the Gaza Strip yesterday, triggering ex-changes of fi re in a violent es-calation that left another nine Gazans dead.

The targeted strike prompted a retaliatory barrage of almost 200 rockets fi red into Israel, fol-lowed by Israeli air raids.

Gaza’s health ministry re-ported a total of 10 people killed and more than 40 wounded in the Palestinian enclave.

Israel said its air strikes tar-geted Islamic Jihad group sites as well as rocket-launching squads.

The rocket fi re into Israel caused damage and a number of injuries, with at least one rocket hitting a house and another narrowly missing passing cars on a highway.

A factory in the city of Sderot was also hit, sparking a fi re.

Israeli medics said they had treated 46 people, 21 of whom had “stress symptoms” related to the rocket fi re.

Reports that a separate strike targeted an Islamic Jihad mem-ber in Damascus added to the day’s tensions.

Islamic Jihad confi rmed one of its offi cials, Akram Ajouri, was targeted, with Syrian state news agency SANA reporting an Israeli strike had hit Ajouri’s home in Damascus, “killing his son Muadh and another person”.Israel did not comment on that strike.

The initial Israeli raid in Gaza early yesterday, thought to have been carried out by a drone, killed Islamic Jihad commander Baha Abu al-Ata, 41.

Islamic Jihad confi rmed his death, along with that of his wife.

Israel blamed Ata for recent rocket fi re into its territory and said he had been preparing fur-ther attacks.

As the retaliatory rocket fi re

followed, air raid sirens rang out in various parts of Israel as residents took cover in bomb shelters.

Israel’s military said last night that some 190 rockets had been fi red at its territory throughout the day, with dozens intercepted by air defences.

More than half of the rockets fell in open areas, it said.

Footage posted online show-ing the rocket that hit the high-way near the central Israeli city of Gan Yavne, narrowly missing cars.

Islamic Jihad, allied to Ha-mas, the movement that rules Gaza, claimed responsibility for rocket fi re from the Strip.

Schools were closed in both the Gaza Strip and in parts of Israel, including in the com-mercial capital Tel Aviv.

The Israeli army ordered “non-essential” workers in Tel Aviv, central Israel and the Gaza border region to stay home, banning public gath-erings.Prime Minister Ben-jamin Netanyahu charged that Ata had over the past year “planned and executed many attacks” and “fired hundreds of rockets at communities ad-joining Gaza”.

“Israel is not interested in escalation, but we shall do everything necessary in order to defend ourselves,” he said in a televised statement from de-fence headquarters.

“I’m telling you in advance, it could take time.”

Damage from a blast could be seen at Ata’s home in the Shejayia district of eastern Gaza City.

Mosque loudspeakers rang out with news of Ata’s death early yesterday and crowds joined his funeral procession through the streets of the city, occasionally firing guns into the air.

A joint statement by Gaza’s fighter groups said Israel had crossed “all red lines” and would face consequences.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniya said “today’s crime and the Israeli bombardment in Gaza

are added to the Israeli crimi-nal record that is intended to liquidate the Palestinian cause”. The strikes and rocket fire raised the possibility of a severe escalation between Is-rael and Palestinian fighters in Gaza.They have fought three wars since 2008 and Gaza has been under strict Israeli block-ade for more than a decade.

Islamic Jihad is the second most-powerful fighter group in the Gaza Strip after Hamas.

The flare-up comes at a po-litically sensitive time for Is-rael. A September 17 general election ended in a deadlock and a new government is yet to be formed.

It was the second election since April, when polls also ended inconclusively.

Lebanese banks, schools shut as protesters push onAFP Beirut

Banks and schools in Leba-non were closed yesterday as protesters tried to pre-

vent employees from clocking in at state institutions, nearly a month into an anti-graft street movement.

Unprecedented protests erupted across Lebanon on Oc-tober 17, demanding the ouster of a generation of politicians seen by demonstrators as inef-fi cient and corrupt.

The government stepped down on October 29 but stayed on in a caretaker capacity as no overt eff orts have been made to form a new one.

Dozens of protesters gathered

near the Palace of Justice in cen-tral Beirut yesterday morning, demanding an independent ju-diciary, an AFP correspondent said.

They tried to prevent judges and lawyers from going to work, as a demonstrator in a panda suit made an unusual addition to the protest.

In the town of Aley east of Bei-rut, in the southern city of Tyre, and the eastern town of Baalbek, demonstrators held sit-ins out-side — or inside — the offi ces of the state telecommunications provider, local media reported.

Employees at the two main mobile operators, Alfa and Touch, started a nationwide strike.

Many schools and universities were closed, as were banks after

their employees called for a gen-eral strike over alleged mistreat-ment by customers last week.

The union of banks yesterday

said they were striving to ensure safe working conditions so em-ployees could return to work as soon as possible.

Banks have restricted access to dollars since the start of the protests, sparking fears of a de-valuation of the local currency and discontent among account holders.

The central bank on Monday however insisted the Lebanese pound would remain pegged to the dollar and said it had asked banks to lift restrictions on withdrawals.

Students, who have emerged as key players in the uprising, held further demonstrations later in the day.

An interview with the presi-dent was to be broadcast in the evening, after he met foreign ambassadors and the UN’s spe-cial co-ordinator for the coun-try, Jan Kubis.

The UN envoy urged Lebanon

to accelerate the formation of a new government that would be able “to appeal for support from Lebanon’s international part-ners”.

“The fi nancial and economic situation is critical, and the gov-ernment and other authorities cannot wait any longer to start addressing it,” he said.

The leaderless protest move-ment fi rst erupted after a pro-posed tax on calls via free phone apps, but it has since morphed into an unprecedented cross-sectarian outcry against every-thing from perceived state cor-ruption to rampant electricity cuts.

Demonstrators say they are fed up with the same families dominating government institu-tions since the end of the 1975-

1990 civil war. Protesters are demanding that a fresh cabinet include independent experts not affi liated to traditional political parties, but no date has yet been set for the required parliamen-tary consultations.

Forming a government typi-cally takes months in Lebanon, with protracted debate on how best to maintain a fragile balance between religious communities.

The World Bank says around a third of Lebanese live in poverty, and has warned the country’s struggling economy could fur-ther deteriorate if a new cabinet is not formed rapidly.

In July, parliament passed an austerity budget as part of con-ditions to unlock $11bn in aid pledged at a conference in Paris last year.

Relatives of a Palestinian group’s senior leader Baha Abu al-Ata mourn during his funeral in Gaza City, yesterday.

A Palestinian man inspects a damaged building in Gaza City, yesterday.

Iraqi demonstrators rally as UN steps up mediation eff ortsAFP Baghdad

Iraqi protesters shut down state institutions yester-day as the United Nations

stepped up pressure on the government to enact a raft of reforms in response to anti-government rallies.

Backed by the country’s top religious authority, the UN’s phased plan demands an im-mediate end to violence that has killed more than 300 people since protests erupted in Octo-ber.

It comes just days after Iraq’s infl uential neighbour to the east Iran brokered an agreement among Iraq’s main political forces to close ranks around the government.

As night fell yesterday in Baghdad, security forces fi red live rounds, tear gas canisters and stun grenades from be-hind concrete barriers to dis-

perse demonstrators near their main gathering place in Tahrir Square.

The mostly young demon-strators scattered briefl y then defi antly regrouped, some us-ing slingshots to fi re rocks or Molotov cocktails at security

forces. An AFP reporter and a security source said some two dozen people were wounded in the skirmishes, which have per-sisted in recent weeks as dem-onstrators resist eff orts to snuff out their movement.

They were bolstered by a

meeting Monday between the UN’s top Iraq offi cial Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert and senior cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali Sis-tani.

“We’re optimistic about the UN and I respect her visit to Sistani,” said one demonstra-tor, Ali Kadhem, 33, at the main protest site of Tahrir Square.

“Let them intervene more in Iraq. We want them here. Our people were starved, killed. We’ve been through every-thing.”

Across the country’s south, demonstrators shut down schools, government buildings and even state media offices.

In Amarah, crowds closed the local branch of Iraqi state television, accusing it of un-fairly covering the demonstra-tions.

Schools closed in the towns of Hillah and Kut, where hun-dreds hit the streets, as well as in the protest hotspots of Na-siriyah and Diwaniyah.

Young people make up 60% of Iraq’s population of nearly 40mn, and youth unemploy-ment stands at 25%, according to the World Bank.

The lack of employment is a key driving force behind the popular anger.

Demonstrators accuse the government, by far the coun-try’s biggest employer, of handing out jobs based on bribes or nepotism instead of merit.

Since the protests started in early October, they have swiftly escalated into de-mands for a sweeping overhaul of the entire system.

But political parties appear to have rallied around the gov-ernment of embattled Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi.

Sources said they closed ranks following meetings led by Iran’s Major General Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Is-lamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ foreign operations arm.

UN chief calls for international co-operation on Syria militantsUN chief Antonio Guterres called

yesterday for an international

accord on the fate of foreign

militants being held in the Middle

East, saying it was not up to Syria

and Iraq “to solve the problem for

everyone.” “We need interna-

tional co-operation to solve

the problem,” Guterres, who is

attending the Paris Peace Forum

alongside some 30 world leaders,

told France’s RTL radio.

“We cannot just ask Iraq and

Syria to solve the problem for

everyone. There must be real

international solidarity,” he said.

Ankara, which has criticised West-

ern countries for not taking back

Islamic State group (IS) fighters,

on Monday began deporting

foreign jihadists being held in

Turkish prisons to their countries

of origin. The deportations come

after Turkey came under fierce

criticism from some of its Nato

allies, including France and

Germany, over its off ensive last

month against a Kurdish militia

in northeast Syria that had been

helping the US combat IS.

Kurdish forces have warned that

the Turkish incursion could em-

bolden IS, helping the insurgents

to regroup after they lost their so-

called caliphate in Iraq and Syria.

“If everyone starts using these

people against each other, we will

inevitably see terrorists freeing

themselves and doing dangerous

things,” Guterres said.

Syrian Kurdish forces are holding

thousands of foreign militants in

prisons across northeast Syria,

and thousands more wives and

children of the fighters are being

kept in camps for the displaced.

European countries have so

far been reluctant to take back

militants or their families, fearing

they could pose a security threat,

even if jailed.

Meanwhile, around 10,000

Islamic State detainees and

their families in nearby camps

in northeastern Syria present a

big security risk, a senior State

Department off icial said, even

though the US-allied Syrian Kurd-

ish militia was fully capable of

keeping them secure.

“It’s not a particularly secure situ-

ation,” the off icial told reporters

in a conference call. “It’s a ticking

time bomb to simply have the

better part of 10,000 detainees,

many of them foreign fighters,”

he said, and repeated Washing-

ton’s stance that they should be

repatriated to their countries.

Tehran accuses Europeans of hypocrisy over N-deal

AFP Tehran

Iran accused European na-tions of hypocrisy yesterday for criticising its latest step

back from a nuclear deal while failing to fulfi l their commit-ments of relief from US sanc-tions.

President Hassan Rouhani made no mention of a new report from the UN nuclear agency that reveals its inspectors detected uranium particles of man-made origin at an undeclared site in Iran.

But Iran’s envoy to the Inter-national Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna said the UN watchdog had been given access to the site “with the utmost co-operation and clarifi cation”.

“Co-operation between Iran and the agency on this issue is

still ongoing. Therefore, any at-tempt to prejudge and present immature assessment of the situation would be aimed at distorting the facts for political gains,” Gharib Abadi said in a statement.

Britain, France, Germany and the EU have been trying to sal-vage the 2015 Iran nuclear deal since the US unilaterally with-drew from it in May last year and began reimposing sanctions.

A year after the US pullout from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Iran be-gan reducing its commitments to the deal hoping to win con-cessions from those still party to the accord.

Iran’s latest measure came last week, when engineers began feeding uranium hexafl uoride gas into mothballed enrichment centrifuges at the underground Fordow plant south of Tehran.

Lebanese demonstrators block the entrance of the Electricity company in the southern city of Sidon (Saida) yesterday.

Iraqis march with lit candles during the funeral of a protester killed in anti-government demonstrations, in the southern city of Basra.

AFRICA9Gulf Times

Wednesday, November 13, 2019

Suspected Ugandan rebels hacked five civilians to death in eastern DR Congo overnight as an off ensive against militia groups neared the end of its second week, local sources said yesterday. Suspected members of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) killed five people in the village of Mayi-Moya near the city of Beni, local administrator Donat Kibwana told AFP. “People are afraid and are leaving the village despite the army’s assurances,” Kibwana said. Regional army spokesman Major Mak Hazukay said a “small group” of assailants had carried out the attack. The army launched an off ensive on October 30, vowing to “definitively wipe out” armed groups in the lawless east.

President Alpha Conde of Guinea has confirmed that parliamentary elections will be held in February, despite violent protests over suspicions that he wants to prolong his rule. “Guinean citizens of voting age and duly listed on the electoral roll of the present year are called to the ballot boxes for the legislative elections on February 16, 2020,” a presidential decree read out on state television said on Monday night. The date for the vote was unveiled by the electoral commission on Saturday, but it had to be approved by the head of state and political uncertainty still hangs over the poll after previous delays.

British billionaire and Virgin founder Richard Branson yesterday apologised for posting a picture on Twitter he admitted “clearly lacked diversity” as he launched his new entrepreneurship development centre in South Africa. On Monday, he had tweeted a picture of himself and eight others, featuring no blacks in a country where they make up 80% of the population. That sparked outrage as racial tensions remain high and the majority black population is still economically marginalised 25 years after the demise of apartheid. Following the flurry of angry and sarcastic tweets, Branson deleted the tweet and apologised.

Mauritius’s incumbent Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth was yesterday sworn-in for a five-year term after elections in which his coalition consolidated its grip on parliament. Jugnauth, 57, took over from his father in 2017 without going through a vote, and the decisive victory of his centre-right Morisian Alliance in the November 7 elections has strengthened his legitimacy. Jugnauth’s swearing-in took place at the residence of President Barlen Vyapoory, an AFP journalist reported. He immediately proposed a new cabinet of 23 members which was approved by Vyapoory. It includes three women, including newcomer Kalpana Koonjoo-Shah who will take over the gender equality ministry.

Mauritius Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth (left) shakes hands with President Barlen Vyapoory during his swearing-in ceremony at the state house in Reduit.

Rebels kill five as DR Congo military off ensive continues

Conde approves February vote in turbulent Guinea

Branson apologises for racially-tinged tweet

Mauritius PM takes oath of off ice after vote win

CRACKDOWN POLITICSOFFENSIVE GOVERNANCE

Local anger fuels extremism in Burkina FasoBy Tim Cocks, Reuters Faube, Burkina Faso

When an Islamist preacher took up the fi ght in Burkina Faso’s northern borderlands almost a decade ago, his only weapon was a radio sta-

tion. The words he spoke kindled the anger of a frustrated population, and helped turn their homes into a breeding ground for extremism.

Residents of this parched region in the Sahel — a vast band of thorny scrub beneath the Sahara Desert — re-member applauding Ibrahim “Malam” Dicko as he de-nounced his country’s Western-backed government and racketeering police over the airwaves.

“We cheered,” said Adama Kone, a 32-year-old teacher from the town of Djibo near the frontier with Mali, who was one of those thrilled by Dicko’s words. “He understood our anger. He gave the Fulani youth a new confi dence.”

Mostly herders, young men like Kone from the Fulani people were feeling hemmed in by more prosperous farm-ers, whom they felt the government in Ouagadougou fa-voured. The preacher successfully exploited their confl icts over dwindling land and water resources, and the frustra-tions of people angered by corrupt and ineff ective govern-ment, to launch the country’s fi rst indigenous militancy.

That cleared a path for groups affi liated with Al Qaeda and Islamic State.

Since Dicko’s fi rst broadcasts, Burkina Faso has become the focus of a determined militancy campaign by three of West Africa’s most dangerous armed groups who have carved out infl uence in nearly a third of the country, while much of the world was focused on the crisis in neighbouring Mali.

Militant fi ghters close schools, gun down ordinary peo-ple in their places of worship and booby-trap corpses to blow up fi rst responders.

At least 39 people died last week in an ambush on a con-voy ferrying workers from a Canadian-owned mine in the country. There has been no claim for that ambush, but the modus operandi — a bomb attack on military escorts fol-lowed by gunmen unleashing bullets — was characteristic of Islamist groups.

Since 2016, the violence has killed more than 1,000 people and displaced nearly 500,000 — most of them this year. In 2019, at least 755 people had died through October in violence involving militant groups across Burkina Faso, according to Reuters’ analysis of political violence events recorded by the Armed Confl ict Location and Event Data Project, an NGO.

Actual numbers are likely higher — researchers aren’t always able to identify who is involved in the violence.

Kone is one of many of Dicko’s former supporters who regret their earlier enthusiasm. “We handed them the mi-crophones in our mosques,” he said. “By the time we real-ised what they were up to, it was too late.”

He fl ed to Ouagadougou two years ago, after armed Is-lamists showed up at his school.

More than 2,000 schools have closed due to the vio-lence, the UN children’s fund Unicef said in August.

A lean, bespectacled Fulani from the north, Malam Dicko broadcast a message of equality and modesty. He reportedly died of an illness in late 2017, but his sermons channelled deep grievances in Burkina Faso’s north where impover-ished people have long been frustrated by corrupt offi cials.

The province of northern Burkina Faso where Dicko lived scores 2.7 on the United Nations Human Develop-ment Index, compared with six for the area around the capital, Ouagadougou.

About 40% of its children are stunted by malnutrition, against only 6% in the capital, according to US AID.

From Ouagadougou to Djibo is a four-hour drive on a road which peters out into a sandy track. Sparse villages dot a landscape of sand and withered trees. Goats devour scrappy patches of grass. Residents complain that their few interactions with the state tend to be predatory: bu-reaucrats demand money to issue title deeds for houses, then never provide the papers; gendarmes charge up to $40 to take down a complaint; there are mysterious taxes and extortion at police roadblocks.

Lieutenant Colonel Kanou Coulibaly, a military police squadron commander and head of training for Burkina Faso’s armed forces, acknowledged that northerners “feel marginalised and abandoned by the central government.”

For some years Burkina Faso’s president, Blaise Compaore, had managed to keep good relations with Mali’s Islamists. But in 2014, he tried to change the constitution to extend his 27-year-rule. Residents of the capital drove him from offi ce. Without Compaore, Burkina Faso became a target.

Barely two weeks into a new presidency, in January 2016, an attack on the Splendid Hotel and a restaurant in Ouagadougou killed 30 people. It was claimed by Al Qae-da-linked militants based in northern Mali.

The European Union and member states have commit-ted 8bn euros ($9bn) over six years to tackling poverty in the region but so far, responses from Ouagadougou and the West have been predominantly military.

The United Nations has spent a $1bn a year since 2014 on a 15,000-strong peacekeeping force in Mali. Almost 200 members have been killed — its deadliest mission ever.

As Western forces rely increasingly on their Sahel part-ners, rights groups and residents say they sometimes overlook abuses by locals.

Four witnesses described to Reuters summary execu-tions of suspected insurgents during search operations.

These included an incident in the village of Belhoro on February 3, in which security forces ordered nine men out of their homes and shot them dead, according to two women who saw the killings.

New York-based Human Rights Watch documented 19 such incidents in a report in March, during which it says 116 men and boys were captured and killed by security forces.

Nigerian forces fi re in the air to quell protestAFPAbuja

Nigerian security forces used tear gas and fi red in the air yesterday to disperse pro-

testers seeking the release of an op-position fi gure held since August af-ter calling for a revolution.

Omoyele Sowore, the founder of local news site Sahara Reporters and a candidate in February’s presi-dential polls has been detained for “treason.”

At the end of September, the Nige-rian judiciary ordered his release but the authorities have not complied.

About 80 protesters gathered outside the headquarters of the De-partment of State services (DSS) in the capital Abuja, shouting slogans against President Muhammadu Bu-hari, an AFP journalist said.

Some 50 heavily armed DSS agents confronted the demonstrators on bikes and in armoured trucks fi ring tear gas and shooting in the air, the AFP reporter said, adding that they also attacked one journalist.

Some sustained injuries after be-

ing trampled by demonstrators fl ee-ing the scene.

The government of Buhari — who was re-elected this year — has ac-cused Sowore and his “Revolution Now” movement of “plotting to destabilise Nigeria.”

Sowore, who came tenth in the polls and has been a virulent critic of the government, has drawn the ire of Nigerian authorities.

In August, Sahara Reporters, which regularly reports on government cor-ruption, had called for nationwide protests against misrule in Nigeria.

Two days ahead of the planned protest, he was arrested on August 5 and has been in detention since.

The government’s handling of his case has sparked criticism from rights activists and prominent Nige-rians, including Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka, as well as rights groups like Amnesty International.

Last week, according to local me-dia reports, a spokesperson for the DSS admitted the agency had re-ceived a court order for Sowore’s release but said it was detaining him “because no person has turned up at the DSS to take delivery of him.”

Nigerians demonstrate to demand the release of activist and opposition politician Omoyele Sowore outside the Department of State Security headquarters in Abuja yesterday.

Zimbabwe releases new notes, weekly withdrawal limits stayAgenciesHarare

Zimbabwe’s central bank yes-terday injected new ban-knotes and coins into the

cash-strapped economy to ease chronic shortages but the weekly withdrawal limit per customer was still capped at US$18 — a sum which fetches less than 3kg of beef.

The Zimbabwean dollar is being gradually reintroduced after being rendered worthless by decades of economic mismanagement under former president Robert Mugabe.

A decade ago hyperinfl ation reached 500bn%, forcing the country to trash its own currency.

Zimbabwe had to rely on US dollars for a decade until June this year when authorities banned the use of the greenback.

New two- and fi ve- Zimbabwe-an dollar notes were disbursed by the central bank.

One Zimbabwean dollar is cur-

rently worth around six US cents.“Bond” notes — a legal tender

pegged to the US dollar — were introduced in 2016 to alleviate chronic cash shortages and ease a transition back to Zimbabwean dollars.

These were then supplemented with electronic dollars in June 2019.

But cash remains hard to come by and most people use mobile digital money and now-banned foreign currencies to pay for goods.

Account holders have to spend hours to withdraw cash.

Bank customers remained scep-tical in the capital Harare.

“There is no diff erence,” Mil-ton Mushangwe, 37, told AFP. “The withdrawal limits remain the same.”

“We are still getting the same small amount of Z$100 or less,” added Richard Govha, another customer.

Zimbabwe’s reserve bank said that only 31mn new Zimbabwean

dollars (less than US$2mn) had been disbursed so far, of a planned total of 1bn that is to be drip-fed into the system over the next six months.

But analysts believe that cur-rency shortages are not the source of the economic woes.

“Our challenge is not the cur-rency. Our problems are produc-tion and perception,” independ-ent economic analyst Gift Mugano told AFP.

Electricity is only available for around six hours a day, leaving the manufacturing sectors almost re-dundant.

Offi cially infl ation is around 300%, but prices of goods and services have gone up more than that.

“As long as we have infl ation in triple digits and still going up, the new currency will not hold. We are not solving anything when we are going to need a bunch of banknotes to buy a handful of groceries,” said Mugano.

Infl ation has eroded salaries so much that doctors and some pub-lic sector workers have stopped going to work because they just cannot aff ord to commute.

Many families live on one meal a day, with the southern Afri-can country in the grip of a major downturn that has provoked bit-ing shortages of basics such as fuel and medicine.

Hundreds of people, mostly pensioners, queued for cash out-side one bank in central Harare and were issued Z$150 (US$10) of the new 2-dollar bills and coins.

They were told to return tomor-rowif they wanted more.

“I managed to withdraw Z$150 but it is not enough to buy any-thing. The banks should do some-thing about the limit, maybe increase it to Z$1,000,” John Ka-muzunga, a 72-year-old pension-er, told Reuters after collecting his cash.

Central bank governor John Mangudya did not respond yester-

day to calls for comment.But he was quoted in the gov-

ernment-owned Herald news-paper saying the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe had disbursed Z$30mn in new notes to banks.

Tony Hawkins, a professor of business studies at the University of Zimbabwe, had said on Monday the new notes would not solve the country’s economic problems.

“What it means is that we will probably have more cash around to feed the black market for cur-rency,” he said.

Cash is the preferred method of transacting business in an econo-my where unemployment is above 80% and the majority of citizens earn a living from trading in the informal sector.

After the trauma of hyperinfl a-tion, when many were left impov-erished after losing savings and pensions, Zimbabweans tend to prefer to keep cash at home be-cause they have little faith in the country’s fi nancial system.

People queue to withdraw money from a bank in Harare yesterday.

AMERICAS

Gulf Times Wednesday, November 13, 201910

Former president Jimmy Carter is recovering in hospital after undergoing surgery to relieve pressure on his brain caused by recent injuries, his foundation said yesterday. Carter, 95, was hurt during “recent falls.” The surgery was said to have gone well and there were no reported complications. He is expected to remain in hospital “as long as advisable for observation,” the Atlanta-based foundation said in a statement. The former president was admitted on Monday to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia. Carter, who was president from 1977 to 1981, also is a cancer survivor, having been successfully treated for brain cancer which was diagnosed in 2015.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau yesterday reconvened parliament for December 5, when he will reach out to the opposition to back his minority government and its agenda, which includes tax cuts and measures to fight climate change. Liberal Party leader Trudeau held onto power in the October 21 election, but unlike his first term, the prime minister does not hold a majority of seats in the 338-member House of Commons. “Last month Canadians elected a parliament that they expect to work together, and that’s exactly what I’m going to be focusing on doing,” Trudeau said in his off ice just before a meeting with Andrew Scheer, the Conservative Party leader.

Hate crimes reported to the US Federal Bureau of Investigation fell slightly in 2018 from the previous year, according to an annual report released by the FBI yesterday. A total of 7,120 hate crimes were reported to the FBI by law enforcement agencies around the country last year, down from 7,175 in 2017, the FBI said. It said 59.6% of the reported hate crimes were motivated by race, ethnicity, or ancestry bias. Religious bias accounted for 18.7%. African-Americans were the leading target of crimes based on race, comprising 47.1% of the 5,155 victims of hate crimes based on race, ethnicity or ancestry, the FBI said.

A big launch yesterday for the Disney+ streaming service was marred by glitches which prevented many customers from accessing the on-demand television service. After a series of posts on social media from users unable to watch, Disney acknowledged the problem, saying it was the result of strong demand for the service launched in the United States and Canada. “The consumer demand for Disney+ has exceeded our high expectations,” the company said in a statement. “We are working to quickly resolve the current user issue.” The real-time web monitoring service Downdetector reported at least 8,000 problems accessing Disney+ by 1400 GMT.

About 60% of federal oil and gas drilling leases off ered since 2017 are located in areas that are at risk of shortages and droughts, according to a report released yesterday. The report from the left-leaning Center for American Progress argued an increase in drilling in these areas could worsen water shortages, a potential problem for ranchers, farmers, and municipalities, because it requires vast amounts of water. “Oil and gas leasing in water-stressed areas has been largely unscrutinised but poses threats to water users across the West,” report author Jenny Rowland Shea said. The report analysed leasing data from the Interior Department and a water risk map from the World Resources Institute.

Jimmy Carter recovering after brain surgery

Trudeau seeks backing for a minority government

FBI reports hate crimes down slightly in 2018

Disney+ streaming service launch marred by glitches

Drilling boom ‘adds stress to western water supplies’

HEALTH POLITICSOFFICIAL COUNT INTERRUPTION RISK ASSESSMENT

Supreme Court will not shield gun maker from Sandy Hook lawsuitReutersWashington

The US Supreme Court yes-terday dealt a blow to the fi rearms industry, reject-

ing Remington Arms Co’s bid to escape a lawsuit by families of victims aiming to hold the gun maker liable for its marketing of the assault-style rifl e used in the 2012 Sandy Hook school massa-cre that killed 20 children and six adults.

The justices turned away Rem-ington’s appeal of a ruling by Connecticut’s top court to let the lawsuit proceed despite a federal law that broadly shields fi rearms manufacturers from liability when their weapons are used in crimes.

The lawsuit will move forward at a time of high passions in the United States over the issue of gun control.

The family members of nine people slain and one survivor of the Sandy Hook massacre fi led the lawsuit in 2014.

Remington was backed in the case by a number of gun rights groups and lobbying organiza-tions including the powerful Na-tional Rifl e Association, which is closely aligned with Republi-cans including President Donald Trump.

The NRA called the lawsuit “company-killing.”

The December 14, 2012 rampage was carried out by a 20-year-old gunman named Adam Lanza, who shot his way into the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut and fi red on the fi rst-graders and adult staff before fatally shooting himself as police closed in.

The United States has expe-rienced a succession of mass shootings in recent decades, in-

cluding several that have stag-gered the public such as the 2017 attack at a Las Vegas concert that killed 58 and one at a nightclub in Orlando in 2016 that killed 49.

Assault-type rifl es have been a recurring feature in many of the massacres.

The US Congress has not en-acted new gun control laws in the wake of the mass shootings largely because of Republican opposition.

The plaintiff s have argued that Remington bears some of the blame for the Sandy Hook trag-edy.

They said the Bushmaster AR-15 gun that Lanza used — a semi-automatic civilian version of the US military’s M-16 — had been illegally marketed by the company to civilians as a combat weapon for waging war and kill-ing human beings.

The plaintiff s said that Con-

necticut’s consumer protection law forbids advertising that pro-motes violent, criminal behav-ior and yet even though these rifl es have become the “weapon of choice for mass shooters” Remington’s ads “continued to exploit the fantasy of an all-con-quering lone gunman.”

One of them, they noted, stat-ed, “Forces of opposition, bow down.”

Remington argued that it should be insulated from the law-suit by a 2005 federal law known as the Protection of Lawful Com-merce in Arms Act, which was aimed at blocking a wave of law-suits damaging to the fi rearms industry.

The case hinges on an excep-tion to this shield for claims in which a gun manufacturer know-ingly violates the law to sell or market guns.

Remington has argued that

the Connecticut Supreme Court interpreted the exception too broadly when it decided to let the case go ahead.

Though the case does not di-rectly implicate the US Constitu-tion’s Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, the NRA

told the justices in a fi ling that the lawsuit could put gun manu-facturers out of business, making the right meaningless.

A state trial court initially threw out the claims but the Connecticut Supreme Court revived the lawsuit in March, prompting Remington’s appeal.

The justices already have taken up one important gun rights case in their current term.

They are due to hear argu-ments on December 2 in a lawsuit by gun owners and the state’s NRA affi liate challenging New York City restrictions on hand-gun owners transporting fi re-arms outside the home.

The city had asked the justices to cancel the arguments because its measure was recently amend-ed, meaning there was no longer any reason to hear the dispute.

But the court decided to go ahead with the case.

An October 4, 2017, file photo of mourners hold signs during a solidarity vigil in memory of victims of Las Vegas’ Route 91 Harvest music festival mass killing, in Newtown, Connecticut.

Trump promises another transcript of Ukraine callReutersWashington

US President Donald Trump yesterday dangled a new line of defence a day before Congress’ im-peachment inquiry into his dealings with Ukraine

goes public, promising to release details about another call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

Trump over the weekend said he would likely release the transcript of that conversation, describing it to reporters as “very important,” before saying in a post on Twitter on Monday that he would release it “some time this week.”

Earlier yesterday, he continued to suggest it would be released “before week’s end” but gave no other details.

As the fi rst public hearings in the impeachment inquiry were set to begin today, the Republican president laid out his defence in a series of tweets yesterday morning, after slamming the probe and the Democrats conducting it in other posts Monday night.

“No Due Process Scam!” he wrote.The investigation, formally launched six weeks ago

by Democratic Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, has shadowed Trump’s presidency with the threat that he could be removed from offi ce even as he seeks re-election next year.

He is the fourth US president to face impeachment.None were removed from offi ce, although Richard

Nixon resigned as he faced almost certain impeachment in 1974 over the Watergate scandal.

Democrats are investigating whether there are grounds to impeach Trump over his July 25 request, in a phone call to Zelenskiy, that the latter investigate a domestic politi-cal rival, former vice president Joe Biden.

That call prompted a whistleblower complaint that led Democrats to launch the probe in September into whether Trump abused his power by withholding nearly $400mn in security assistance to Ukraine to pressure the vulnerable US ally.

The transcript Trump said he would release is from a call with Zelenskiy on April 12, after the Ukrainian was elected president but before he took offi ce.

The White House did not release a readout of that con-versation when it took place.

Meanwhile, congressional Republicans on the House panels conducting the impeachment inquiry, in a memo to party leaders reviewed by Reuters, said weeks of closed-door testimony have not established that Trump committed an impeachable off ence.

Witnesses in the probe so far, in hundreds of pages of testimony transcripts released in recent days, have high-lighted serious concerns raised by senior State Depart-ment and other offi cials over Trump and his administra-tion’s handling of Ukraine.

For the past two weeks, House investigators have been releasing transcripts of interviews conducted behind closed doors with witnesses, including diplomats and security aides, about dealings with Ukraine by admin-istration offi cials and the president’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani.

On Monday, the House Foreign Aff airs, Intelligence and Oversight committees released transcripts of inter-views with one offi cial from the Department of Defense and two from the State Department.

In her testimony, senior Pentagon offi cial Laura Coop-er detailed confusion and concern in the US national se-curity community after Trump’s White House blocked nearly $400mn in security assistance to Ukraine without explanation.

“All of the senior leaders of the US national security departments and agencies were all unifi ed in their — in their view that this assistance was essential,” Cooper said, according to the transcript.

House Democrats consider the open hearings that will start today as crucial to building public support for a vote on articles of impeachment — formal charges — against Trump.

Conservative judges lean toward Trump on DACAReutersWashington

Conservative US Supreme Court jus-tices yesterday appeared sympathetic to President Donald Trump’s eff ort

to rescind a programme that protects from deportation hundreds of thousands of im-migrants who entered the United States il-legally as children — dubbed “Dreamers” — part of his tough immigration policies.

Several of the fi ve conservative justices appeared sceptical that courts can even re-view the Republican president’s 2017 plan to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Ar-rivals (DACA) programme, which had been implemented in 2012 by his Democratic predecessor Barack Obama.

Even if the court fi nds that it can be re-viewed, conservative justices indicated they think Trump’s administration gave a reason-able explanation for its decision.

Liberal justices emphasised the large number of individuals, businesses and oth-ers that have relied on the programme.

The court’s 5-4 conservative majority in-cludes two justices — Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh — appointed by Trump.

The justices heard the administration’s appeals of lower court rulings in California, New York and the District of Columbia that blocked Trump’s move as unlawful and left DACA in place.

Trump’s administration has argued that Obama exceeded his constitutional powers when he created DACA by executive action, bypassing Congress.

Trump has made his hardline immigration policies — cracking down on legal and ille-gal immigration and pursuing construction of a wall along the US-Mexican border — a centrepiece of his presidency and 2020 re-election campaign.

Kavanaugh said there is no reason to think that the administration’s consideration of the impact its decision would have on indi-viduals, when weighed against its conten-tion that the DACA programme was unlawful from the beginning, was anything other than a “considered decision.”

Conservative Chief Justice John Roberts — who could be the pivotal vote in deciding the case — questioned whether there was much more that needed to be added to the admin-istration’s rationale even if the court were to rule in favour of the challengers and send the issue back for further review.

The challengers who sued to stop Trump’s action included a collection of states such as California and New York, people currently protected by the programme and civil rights groups.

Were the court to rule in favour of the challengers it would merely prolong the un-certainty for “Dreamers,” Gorsuch said.

“What good would another fi ve years of litigation...serve?” Gorsuch asked.

DACA currently shields about 660,000 immigrants — mostly Hispanic young adults — from deportation and provides them work permits, though not a path to citizenship.

Much of the administration’s reasoning

in trying to end DACA was based on then-attorney general Jeff Session’s conclusion in 2017 that the programme was unlawful.

Gorsuch pressed an attorney representing supporters of DACA about the limits on courts to second guess decisions by federal agencies that are within their discretion to make.

Gorsuch also seemed sceptical that the ad-ministration had not adequately addressed its reasons for rescinding the programme, as DACA advocates have argued.

Liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor demand-ed that US Solicitor General Noel Francisco, who argued the case for the administration, identify whether the administration consid-ered all the harm that ending the program would do, or if it was just a “choice to destroy lives.”

Francisco was repeatedly questioned as to why the administration has justifi ed end-ing the programme because of its purported unlawfulness instead of giving other reasons for why it wants to.

Toward the end of the argument Francisco pushed back, saying the administration was not trying to shirk responsibility for ending a popular programme.

“We own this,” Francisco said, referring to Trump’s decision to kill DACA.

The lower courts ruled that Trump’s move to rescind DACA was likely “arbitrary and capricious” and violated a US law called the Administrative Procedure Act.

The justices must determine whether ad-ministration offi cials failed to provide ad-

equate reasons for the decision to end DACA.The initial memo rescinding DACA, the

plaintiff s said, gave a “one-sentence expla-nation” and did not spell out why the admin-istration believes the program is unlawful.

The justices will also have to decide whether the administration’s action against DACA is even something courts can review.

Several hundred DACA supporters gath-ered yesterday outside the court on a gray and chilly morning, chanting, banging drums and carrying signs that read “home is here” and “defend DACA.”

Anel Medina, a 28-year-old DACA enroll-ee and oncology nurse in Philadelphia, was among the demonstrators.

“It changed my life. I was able to get a job...fi nish nursing school,” said Medina, who was born in Mexico City and brought by her mother to the United States at the age of fi ve.

Medina said she was a college student and living without legal status when Obama launched DACA.

Trump has given mixed messages about the “Dreamers,” saying in 2017 that he has “a great love” for them even as he sought to kill a program that protected them from depor-tation.

Ahead of the arguments yesterday, his tone was darker. “Many of the people in DACA, no longer very young, are far from ‘angels.’ Some are very tough, hardened criminals,” Trump wrote on Twitter.

Immigrants who had been convicted of a

felony or signifi cant misdemeanour crimes were not eligible to apply to the DACA pro-gramme and any DACA recipient can be stripped of the programme’s protections and deported if they commit serious crimes.

Trump added: “If Supreme Court rem-edies with overturn, a deal will be made with Dems for them to stay!” Trump off ered no details of any deal.

Trump previously has called on Congress to “advance responsible immigration re-form” but never proposed a detailed replace-ment for DACA.

Obama created DACA to protect immi-grants who as minors were brought into the United States illegally or overstayed a visa.

Obama acted after Congress failed to pass a bipartisan immigration policy overhaul that would have provided a path to citizen-ship to these young immigrants.

The young people protected under DACA, Obama said, were raised and educated in the United States, grew up as Americans and of-ten know little about their countries of origin.

The programme, which allows eligible im-migrants to obtain renewable two-year work permits, remains in eff ect for those already enrolled but the administration has refused to approve new applications.

The “Dreamers” moniker is based on the name of bipartisan legislation — never passed — called the DREAM (Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors) Act that would have granted these young immi-grants legal status.

Immigration rights activists take part in a rally in front of the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC yesterday.

ASIA11Gulf Times

Wednesday, November 13, 2019

16 dead, 58 injured in Bangladesh train crashTwo packed trains collided

in Bangladesh yesterday, killing at least 16 people

and injuring nearly 60 others, police said.

Three coaches were sent crashing off the tracks at Mon-dobhag station in the town of Kasba when a Dhaka-bound train collided with one heading to Chittagong.

“At least 16 people have been killed. And another 58 were in-jured. We have sent the injured to diff erent hospitals in the re-gion,” local police chief Anisur Rahman said.

Cranes and other lifting gear were brought in to res-cue trapped passengers, many of whom were asleep when the early morning crash took place.

“There was a loud noise, then I saw the train was complete-ly ripped apart,” one injured passenger told Somoy TV.

“All the people around me were crying. There was blood everywhere. Some people had broken hands and legs,” another told the broadcaster.

“My son was with me. I still don’t know what happened to him,” the man added.

Hayatud Doula Khan, a gov-ernment offi cial in the dis-trict, said the Dhaka-bound Turna Nishitha train, hit the Chittagong-bound Udayan Express at about 3am (2100 GMT Monday) as the Udayan was about to go through Mon-dobhog station.

Khan said that the Turna Nis-hitha train should have waited outside the station to let the other one pass. A Bangladesh railway offi cial told reporters faulty signals could be to blame.

“Three coaches were badly mangled and the victims are from these coaches,” Khan said, adding that train services out of Dhaka had been halted because of the accident.

Train accidents are com-mon in Bangladesh and are of-ten caused by poor signalling or other rundown infrastructure.

According to the Shipping and Communication Reporters Forum (SCRF), a private media research group, between January 1 and June 30 this year, at least 202 rail accidents took place in the South Asian country of 168

AFPDhaka

Bystanders look on after a train collided with another train in Brahmanbaria, some 130km from Dhaka, yesterday.

million people where some of the track is a century old.

In June, a train plunged into a canal after the bridge it was

crossing gave way. Five people were killed and 100 injured.

The SCRF said pedestrians us-ing mobile phones while crossing

tracks, negligence by railway em-ployees and poor maintenance of lines and bridges were the main cause of accidents.

Australian gets four months in jail over Bali rampage

An Australian tourist who fl y-kicked a mo-torcyclist and assaulted

a man in his own home during a drunken rampage was jailed for four months yesterday.

The ruling comes after Ni-cholas Carr’s antics were caught in a viral video that saw him carry out a campaign of destruction in Seminyak, a popular tourist area on the Indonesian holiday island.

“The defendant Nicholas Carr is found guilty and is sen-tenced to four months” in jail, presiding judge Soebandi, who goes by one name, told the Denpasar District Court.

A lawyer for Carr, charged with assault and property damage, said the 26-year-old would not appeal the ruling.

He is expected to be released next month because of time al-ready served.

In August, Carr ran barefoot on to a street and shouted exple-tives before the apprentice builder slammed into the bonnet of a moving car and then fl y-kicked an unsuspecting motorcycle rider.

The biker, who was thrown from the moving scooter, sustained mi-

nor injuries - later the pair em-braced during a court hearing as Carr apologised to the victim.

Carr also shattered a con-venience store’s glass door be-fore stealing a motorcycle.

Later, he broke into a house where he assaulted the sleeping homeowner, leaving him with injuries, police said earlier.

He was eventually caught by locals and police and taken to hospital.

Pictures that circulated on social media showed at the time showed Carr bloodied and bruised, and trussed with hosepipe and rope.

Shortly after his arrest, Carr apologised.

After a string of embarrass-ing incidents by tourists, Bali offi cials recently warned that boorish visitors may be kicked off the island, which attracts millions annually to its palm-fringed beaches, colourful nightlife and ancient temples.

Australian professional rugby league player David Fifi ta returned home this week after he was briefl y arrested in Bali for assaulting a nightclub security guard.

Several days after Carr’s ar-rest, a Czech couple who were slammed for disrespecting a Balinese temple took part in a ritual purifi cation ceremony.

AFPDenpasar, Indonesia

Rohingya issue threat to regional security: Hasina

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has urged the international commu-

nity to come together in resolv-ing the issue of the Rohingya and described the crisis as a threat to regional security.

“The Rohingya who fl ed to Bangladesh due to the military atrocities are not only a threat to Bangladesh but also to the re-gional security,” Hasina said as she inaugurated the Dhaka Glo-bal Dialogue 2019 on Monday.

More than 1.1mn Rohingya are currently residing in Bangladesh with 700,000 of them coming following the crackdown by the Myanmar army in August 2017, bdnews24 reported.

“I believe the issue should be resolved soon. I urge the in-ternational community to take necessary action to resolve it,” Hasina said on Monday.

She stressed the need for co-operation among the countries in the Asia Pacifi c region to en-sure socioeconomic develop-ment, security and peace.

“Poverty is a major problem in the region, but I believe we can overcome it if we work together,” Hasina added.

At the UN General Assembly in September, the prime minis-ter had highlighted the issue of Rohingya refugees becoming a regional problem.

IANSDhaka

Lanka prisoners demand freedom after Swede’s killer pardoned

Hundreds of inmates at Sri Lanka’s biggest high-security prison staged a

second day of protests yesterday, demanding their freedom after the president pardoned a well-con-nected man convicted of brutally murdering a Swedish teenager.

Jude Jayamaha, convicted of killing Yvonne Jonsson in Co-lombo in 2005, walked free on Saturday following the highly unusual pardon granted by President Maithripala Sirisena, whose term in offi ce ends this weekend.

Police said around 1,000 pris-oners had refused on Monday to return to their cells at Welikada prison in Colombo, while four inmates had clambered onto the prison’s roof.

An offi cial said police com-mandos were standing by

outside with orders to move in if necessary.

There were reports of a similar protest at another prison in the south of the island.

The prisoners are demanding their release on the same terms as Jayamaha, who hails from a wealthy Colombo family with political connections.

The victim Jonsson, 19, whose mother was Sri Lankan and fa-ther Swedish, was holidaying in Sri Lanka when she was beaten to death in a Colombo high-rise apartment after she and Jayamaha had an argument.

The trial heard her skull had been fractured into 64 pieces.

Sirisena announced the par-don last weekend ahead of Sat-urday’s presidential election, when he is leaving offi ce.

The announcement of the amnesty provoked an angry backlash on social media as well as from mainstream political parties.

The ruling party presidential candidate, Sajith Premadasa, said if elected he would con-sider legal options to overturn Sirisena’s pardon.

“I condemn the action of granting this amnesty,” Prema-dasa told reporters in Colombo yesterday. “We will examine all legal aspects.”

He added: “The release of a murderer does not conform to my set of ethics.”

Jayamaha was initially sen-tenced to 12 years in prison. He appealed to a higher court, which rejected his plea and in-stead sentenced him to death, which was reaffi rmed by the Supreme Court in 2014.

Jonsson’s sister Caroline wrote in a Facebook post about her concerns over Jayamaha’s pardon before the amnesty announcement.

“He showed and continues to show absolutely no remorse for what he has done,” she wrote.

AFPColombo

Prisoners display a banner on the roof of a building inside the Welikada prison in Colombo yesterday, to protest the pardon for man who murdered a Swedish teenager in 2005.

Bangladesh President Abdul Hamid receives flowers from Nepalese President Bidhya Devi Bhandari as he arrives at Tribhuwan International Airport in Kathmandu yesterday.

Bangladesh president arrives in Nepal

3 killed in Thai courtroom shootout

Three people were killed in a shootout at a Thai courtroom yesterday dur-

ing a hearing into an inheritance dispute, according to police, who said two of the victims were lawyers.

The gunman opened fi re on the opposing side in the dispute in Chanthaburi provincial court before a guard shot back and fatally wounded him.

National police offi ce spokes-man Krissana Pattanacharoen said

three people including the assail-ant were confi rmed dead, while others were injured in the melee.

“Two are lawyers another one is the shooter,” he said, adding that they are still investigating why the courtroom feud turned deadly.

The identities of the victims were not released.

Gruesome images of the bloody courtroom scene, some 250km (160 miles) southeast of Bangkok, circulated on social media.

Thailand has high rates of gun ownership and petty personal dis-putes, romantic and business rival-

ries are often resolved with bullets.But the incident is the latest in

a series of high-profi le courthouse shootings that have exposed fl aws in the legal system’s security.

A week ago three drug sus-pects - including an American - shot and stabbed their way out of a court in the seaside town of Pattaya before being tracked down by police.

Early last month a Thai judge in the insurgency-battered south shot himself in the chest in front of a packed court after ac-quitting several murder suspects and decrying the judicial system in an impassioned speech.

AFPBangkok

Indonesia urges public to report civil servants over ‘radical’ content

Indonesia launched a website yesterday that would allow the public to report “radical”

content posted by civil servants, as authorities in the world’s big-gest Muslim-majority country push to combat hardline ideol-ogy permeating government.

Indonesia is offi cially secular but has seen a rise of conserva-tism with some politicians de-manding a larger role for Islam, and some groups calling for an Islamic state.

Indonesian Communications Minister Johnny G Plate told re-porters the intention of the web-site was “to bring together and improve the performance of our civil servants, as well as to foster higher levels of nationalism.”

According to a frequently asked questions section, radical could refer to content containing elements of hate, misleading in-formation, intolerance or anti-Indonesian sentiment.

This could also include civil servants liking or commenting positively on content deemed radical on social media.

Users can set up an account

on the website - aduanasn.id - and report contents by providing screenshots or links.

Indonesia’s Security Ministry, the Administrative and Bureau-cratic Reform Ministry and the anti-terrorism agency helped develop the website.

Ismail Hasani, executive di-rector of the Setara Institute, a non-governmental organisa-tion (NGO) focused on human rights, expressed concern the move could threaten freedom of speech.

“It’s very dangerous if there are no agreed indicators. To this day, the government does not

have indicators for radicalism and tolerance,” he said, adding civil servants with non-violent “radical” opinions could still be sanctioned.

Plate said guidelines would be issued on what was permissible, without elaborating.

Indonesia’s Religious Min-istry has also announced plans to replace 167 Islamic textbooks deemed to contain radical or in-tolerant material in schools by the end of the year.

“The intention is so that re-ligious teachings can make stu-dents more tolerant and appre-ciate others who are diff erent

ReutersJakarta

from them,” said Kamaruddin Amin, director general for Is-lamic Education at the Ministry of Religious Aff airs.

Indonesia also plans to tighten vetting of senior public servants to ensure they do not hold radical views, according to documents reviewed by Reuters in June and a senior offi cial involved in the plan.

A 2017 survey by independ-ent Jakarta-based pollster Al-vara Research Center found one in fi ve civil servants and 10% of state enterprise workers did not agree with the secular state ideology Pancasila, and instead favoured an Islamic theocratic state.

Slamet Maarif, head of the Alumni 212, a conservative Is-lamic group, told reporters on Monday that it would monitor the government’s anti-radical-ism programmes.

“If the policy violates the val-ues of justice or disrespects the majority of Muslims, we’ll fi ght,” he said.

Nepal PM mulls cabinet reshuff leAfter directing his secretariat to step down, Nepal Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli will now be shuff ling his cabinet by the end of this week, according to leaders from the ruling Nepal Communist Party.The leaders said that Oli and his party co-chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal were mulling over a major overhaul, not just of the cabinet but also of provincial chief ministers and internal party positions including provincial chiefs, reports The Kathmandu Post.“The prime minister will decide on the reshuff le by Thursday,” said a ruling party leader.One of Oli’s aides, who is preparing to leave off ice, said that the premier and Dahal on Monday discussed the cabinet reshuff le and other major changes, including some key appointments to the party, ambassadorial positions and constitutional bodies.

The ongoing exercise is seen as an attempt to correct past mistakes and balance party dynamics by giving various state functionaries a fair shake. As many party leaders were idle, there was growing discontent within the party, which has led the two co-chairs to plan a major overhaul.Oli and Dahal have agreed to either replace or shuff le at least eight sitting ministers. At least two chief ministers were also likely to be relieved.Since being discharged from the hospital after two rounds of dialysis, Oli has gone on a decision-making spree, replacing provincial governors, asking his secretariat to step down and now, planning a Cabinet reshuff le. According to ruling party leaders, Oli wants to counter the public perception that he was infirm and wanted to send the message that he needed no rest. (IANS)

12 Gulf TimesWednesday, November 13, 2019

ASIA/AUSTRALASIA

Taiwan seeks return of ‘criminal income’ from frigate scandalAFPTaipei

Taiwan is seeking the re-turn of hundreds of millions of dollars in

ill-gotten funds linked to a con-troversial deal to buy French frigates over two decades ago, prosecutors said yesterday.

Taipei signed a $2.8bn deal to buy six Lafayette-class frigates

in 1991, a deal which strained French ties with China at the time and was later found tainted by up to $400mn in bribes.

Taiwanese arms dealer An-drew Wang was indicted for corruption in 2006 for reaping hundreds of millions of dollars from the deal, and his family were also found guilty as his ac-complices. Wang and his fam-ily were put on Taiwan’s most wanted list after they fl ed the

island shortly before the scan-dal broke in 1993. He died in London in 2015 aged 87.

During investigations, Tai-wanese authorities asked coun-tries including Switzerland, Lichtenstein, Luxembourg and Austria to freeze the suspects’ bank accounts.

Prosecutors now want that money returned. Yesterday’s announcement came after the Supreme Court made a fi nal rul-

ing last month ordering pros-ecutors to confi scate $312.53mn of “criminal income” linked to the Lafayette scandal.

“We will actively consult with countries including Swit-zerland over the return of the funds to ensure the universal le-gal value that ‘no-one can keep criminal income’ is upheld,” the Taipei district prosecutor’s of-fi ce said in a statement.

Prosecutors dropped the

charges against Wang after he died, but have continued to pur-sue family members to seek the return of ill-gotten funds.

Swiss authorities have al-ready returned around $35mn linked to the case from the ac-counts of former navy captain Kuo Li-heng and his brother.

Kuo — then working for the navy’s submarine building project — was convicted of tak-ing bribes to facilitate the deal,

and his brother was indicted on money laundering charges.

Allegations of backhanders emerged after the body of an of-fi cer who ran the Taiwan navy’s weapons acquisitions offi ce was found fl oating in the sea off the island’s east coast in 1993. A French judicial probe opened in 2001 to investigate claims that much of the money paid by Tai-wan went towards commissions to middlemen, politicians and

military offi cers on the island, as well as in China and France. Tai-wan’s highest anti-graft body concluded in the same year that as much as $400mn in bribes may have been paid throughout the course of the deal.

In 2011, Taiwan received $875mn from Thales after the French defence giant lost an appeal over wrongful payment of commission on the warship deal.

‘Catastrophic’ bushfi res hit Australia’s east coastReutersSydney

Fires raged across a swathe of Australia’s east coast yesterday, destroying some

homes and shrouding Sydney in smoke from a blaze authorities fear they will be unable to control until next week.

An aircraft was diverted to drop fi re retardants on bushfi res threatening homes in Sydney’s northern suburbs. Television footage showed some of the sub-stance overshot the blaze, col-ouring houses and vehicles pink and red.

Offi cials were responding to 11 emergency warnings in New South Wales (NSW) by evening as around half the 70 fi res across the state burned uncontrolled in conditions termed “catastroph-ic”.

“The task to bring these fi res properly under control, to con-solidate them, to get around them and mop them up is enor-mous,” New South Wales Ru-ral Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons told report-ers in Sydney.

“So we’ve got a long way to go yet before we can say we’re com-fortable with the state of the fi res ... particularly in northern New South Wales given the enormous size of the fi res that are burning still.”

The extent of damage was not known, with dangerous condi-tions expected to continue into the evening and then occur again on Friday and early next week. Fitzsimmons said some fi refi ght-ers suff ered injuries, including fractures and heat exhaustion.

Bushfi res are a common and deadly threat in Australia’s dry summers but the ferocity and early arrival of this outbreak in the southern hemisphere spring has caught many by surprise.

Blazes have been spurred by extremely dry conditions after three years of drought in parts of NSW and Queensland, which ex-perts say has been exacerbated by climate change.

The current outbreak, which killed three people and de-stroyed more than 150 homes at the weekend, has been fanned by an unprecedented combina-tion of high temperatures and strong winds. Most of the emer-gency warnings issued by au-thorities yesterday, including for the South Turramurra fi re 20km

north of central Sydney, told af-fected residents they must seek cover and that it was too late to fl ee their homes.

In the small town of Wau-chope, 400km north of Sydney, residents moved hundreds of livestock to the central show-ground as fi res approached. “We have at least 350 horses, maybe more. They are still coming, we have cattle and sheep and chooks (chickens) and dogs, you name it,” said Neil Coombes, president of the Wauchope Show Society.

Coombes, who lives about 10km outside town, said he would likely lose his home be-cause it was in the anticipated path of the fi re. “My wife went home earlier and said, ‘is there

anything you want me to get?’,” Coombes said.

“I said, ‘yes, I want you back here with me.’ If the house burns it burns, but I can’t replace her,” he said.

The worst of the weather was not expected until later in the evening or closer to nightfall, as winds whip up.

Firefi ghters were closely watching a blaze in greater Syd-ney, especially as aircraft opera-tions will be grounded at night.

In Sydney, home to 5mn people, health authorities urged people with respiratory issues to stay in-doors because the city was covered by a “hazardous” smoky haze.

Around 600 schools and col-leges were closed across the state. NSW Education Minister

Sarah Mitchell said nine public schools across the state’s north were evacuated. “Safety is fi rst and we need to evacuate to get the children out of there,” Mitch-ell told the Australian Broadcast-ing Corporation.

The fi res also forced organis-ers to cancel the season-ending Rally of Australia, which pitted Hyundai against Toyota. The danger was not quite as great in Queensland.

The threat level there was pegged at “severe”, two levels below the “catastrophic” condi-tions in NSW. Still, some 55 fi res were burning across the northern state on Tuesday afternoon.

The threat has sharpened at-tention on the policies of Aus-tralia’s conservative government to address climate change, which meteorologists have said was extending the length of the fi re weather season.

Prime Minister Scott Morri-son, a vocal supporter of Austral-ia’s coal industry, has declined to answer questions about whether the current fi res were a result of climate change.

“The government says this isn’t the time to talk about cli-mate change — I completely disagree, we should have been talking about this years ago,” said Carol Sparks, mayor of Glen Innes, north of Sydney, where two people died at the weekend.

“We are overwhelmed with the intensity of this fi re and climate change is responsible,” she said.

Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack sparked debate on Monday when he ac-cused activists, whom he called “woke capital city greenies”, of politicising a tragedy.

A firefighter doses a bushfire in the residential area of Sydney yesterday.

The Sydney Opera House is seen as smoke haze from bushfires drifts over the CDB in Sydney.

Residents defend a property from a bushfire at Hillsville near Taree, 350km north of Sydney, yesterday.

HK clashes rage on university campusAFPHong Kong

Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters fought intense battles with riot police

on a university campus and para-lysed the city’s upmarket busi-ness district yesterday, extending one of the most violent stretches of unrest seen in more than fi ve months of political chaos.

The confrontations fol-lowed a particularly brutal day on Monday, when police shot a protester and a man was set on fi re, prompting calls from west-ern powers for compromise but further fury in China against any challenge to its rule.

The city’s universities emerged as a new fl ashpoint throughout yesterday with sustained clashes at major campuses for the fi rst time.

The epicentre was the Chi-nese University of Hong Kong where the usually placid hillside grounds were turned into a bat-tlefi eld.

Police fi red repeated volleys of tear gas and rubber bullets at hundreds of protesters who had built barricades ending an hours-long stand-off between the two sides. Protesters responded with bricks and petrol bombs, while a vehicle used in a barricade was set alight.

After a brief hiatus in which faculty staff tried to mediate, new clashes broke in the evening with fl ames lighting up the night sky and fresh rounds of tear gas whiz-zing through the air. Police used a water cannon truck in an attempt to dislodge protesters but they remained behind their makeshift shield walls. There were smaller

clashes on at least three other university campuses throughout the day.

After months of largely con-fi ning their most disruptive pro-tests to the weekends, online groups used by protesters have been pushing new tactics target-ing the working week. For the last two days fl ashmob protest-ers have blocked roads during the morning rush hour, thrown ob-jects onto rail tracks and held up subway trains, sparking transport chaos throughout the city.

In Central, a district that is home to many blue-chip inter-national fi rms and luxury shops, thousands of offi ce workers oc-cupied roads for hours yesterday chanting: “Fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong!”.

Hundreds of hardcore pro-testers threw bricks and other objects before retreating when riot police fi red tear gas in the shadows of high-end stores. But the streets fi lled with protesters once more as people left work for

the evening, prompting police to carry out another dispersal oper-ation with tear gas. The scenes in Central were a vivid illustration of how ordinary people are continu-ing to back the pro-democracy movement – even as the radicals adopt more violent tactics.

Authorities have off ered re-peated condemnation but been unable or unwilling to fi nd a so-lution to the crisis. “Hong Kong’s rule of law has been pushed to the brink of total collapse,” police spokesman Kong Wing-cheung told a press conference yesterday as he defended the force against seething public anger.

China has ruled Hong Kong under a “one country, two sys-tems” framework, which allows the city greater freedoms than on the mainland, since its handover from the British in 1997.

The protest movement has been fuelled by Beijing’s tight-ening control over Hong Kong. Protesters are demanding a right to freely elect their leaders, as

well as an independent inquiry in what they see as police brutality. But China has steadfastly refused to give any concessions to the protesters, and instead warned of even tougher security measures.

Beijing has repeatedly sig-nalled that it would be prepared to send mainland security forces into Hong Kong. Chinese state media yesterday again raised the spectre of the People’s Libera-tion Army being deployed to end the crisis. The warnings were in response to Monday’s violence, in which a man was doused with a fl ammable liquid and set ablaze by a masked assailant following an argument with pro-democra-cy protesters. Chinese authori-ties, as well as state-run media, have said the attack was an ex-ample of protesters’ violent tac-tics, although the assailant has not been arrested and his identity remains unknown.

“This kind of hair-raising be-haviour has caused terror and anxiety among the broader Hong Kong public,” foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told re-porters in Beijing.

“We condemn violence on all sides, extend our sympathies to victims of violence regardless of their political inclinations, and call for all parties -- police and protesters -- to exercise re-straint,” US State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said in a statement.

They were reacting in fury to a police offi cer shooting a 21-year-old protester on Monday morn-ing, with that incident broadcast live on Facebook by a bystander. Both the man set alight and the shot protester remained in criti-cal condition on Tuesday, hospi-tal authorities said.

Land deal in Solomon’s Guadalcanal disrupts access to WWII siteReutersSolomon Islands

The battle fi elds of Guad-alcanal, in the Solomon Islands, draw visitors

from the United States and its war allies, as well as those from Japan, decades after the bloody campaign in the South Pacifi c ended.

But in recent weeks, some visitors say they have been pre-vented from accessing one of Guadalcanal’s most signifi cant World War II sites, which in-cludes a Japanese war monu-ment, after a deal handed con-trol of the land to a company controlled by a Chinese busi-nessman.

Tour operators and the Japa-nese ambassador to the Solo-mons say it appears to be a case of a lack of understanding of the signifi cance of the Alliga-tor Creek site by the new owner. The issue has stirred up debate in the Solomons concerning its new relationship with China, which was formalised in Sep-tember following the Pacifi c is-land nation’s decision to sever its diplomatic ties with Taiwan in favour of Beijing.

That decision has frustrated the now aligned United States and Japan, with US offi cials ex-pressing concern about China’s “use of economic and military

levers” to increase its infl uence in the South Pacifi c. “I would like the problem settled in a peaceful way,” Japan’s ambas-sador to the Solomons, Shigeru Toyama, told Reuters by phone from the capital, Honiara.

Toyama said he hoped to meet with the new owners, JQY Ltd, in the coming days. “I hope they will pay much attention to the monument and will reconcile how to preserve it,” said Toyama.

The new owner has built a fence around part of the Alliga-tor Creek site that takes in the Japanese monument, said tour operator Francis Deve, and ac-cess is dependent on whether security guards at the locked gate were present to take visi-tors in.

“There used to be local people sitting next to the site who put fl owers around the monument; they were chased out and they put up a fence,” Deve told Reu-ters on the phone from Guadal-canal.

A JQY representative in Hon-iara did not respond to repeated requests for comment. The Ministry of Culture and Tourism was liaising with the owner to discuss potential heritage plans for the area around the monu-ment, the Solomons govern-ment said in a statement.

Tourism is an important in-come-earner for the Solomons, with most visitors drawn by the

country’s diving spots and war relics, which are generally ac-cessible to the public, tour op-erators told Reuters. The archi-pelago is also heavily reliant on logging and fi sheries.

JQY is registered to Chinese businessman Yang Jiangqing, who was part of a delegation that accompanied Solomon Is-lands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare to Beijing last month where the two countries signed several commercial agreements.

Yang did not respond to inter-view requests. The bloody bat-tles that occurred near Alligator Creek -- sometimes referred to as the Battle of the Tenaru or Battle for Hell’s Point -- were part of a major American-led off ensive in 1942 to take con-trol of the island and its strate-gic airfi eld. A counter-off ensive proved disastrous for Japanese forces, and generations of rela-tives of the hundreds of fallen soldiers now regularly visit the battleground to pay their re-spects.

Solomons’ acting Commis-sioner of Lands, Alan McNeil, said the department had con-sented to the transfer of the land to JQY in January from Levers Solomon, a local company his-torically involved in the timber industry. “These land trans-fers are lawful and an everyday occurrence,” McNeil said in a statement.

A protesters throws a molotov cocktail during a standoff with riot police at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Farage facesbacklash from‘betrayed’ Brexit Party workersGuardian News and MediaLondon

Nigel Farage’s decision to unilaterally stand down more than half the Brexit

Party’s candidates has prompted fury from some of the hope-fuls, with one candidate saying he only learned the news when a passing driver asked him why he was still campaigning.

Darren Selkus, who was the candidate for Epping Forest, said Farage had “betrayed my incred-ible volunteers and thousands of constituents who will have no one to vote for” by pulling out of all 317 Conservative-held seats.

In a statement on his local party website, Selkus said that as soon as Farage made the an-nouncement at a rally on Mon-day in Hartlepool, he and other ex-candidates were immediately locked out of their Brexit party e-mails and supporter databases.

While a majority of the former candidates who took to so-cial media to express opinions seemed to back Farage’s argu-ment that the move was neces-sary to protect Brexit, a small but vocal group complained about the move.

Julian Malins, a barrister who was due to stand in the Tory-held seat of Salisbury, tweeted: “I thought I had enlisted in Caesar’s army but it turned out to be the Grand Old Duke of York’s.”

Although it is a registered party, the Brexit party is struc-tured as a company, with Farage and the party chair, Richard Tice, having near-total control. Those who have paid the party’s £25 joining fee become “registered supporters” rather than mem-bers, with no say over policy or

other matters.Farage had been under media

pressure to stand down many of the 600-plus selected can-didates, but his decision clearly came as an unwelcome surprise to some now ex-candidates.

Selkus, who was due to stand against Eleanor Laing, the long-time Conservative incumbent and deputy Speaker, said he was chatting to a voter at a party street stall when Farage made the announcement.

“A van driver pulled up next to us and asked what we were doing as he had just heard on the ra-dio we weren’t running,” Selkus wrote. “After a quick verifi cation online, myself and three volun-teers put the street stand away.

“I don’t understand why Farage has betrayed my incred-ible volunteers and thousands of constituents who will have no one to vote for. I don’t under-stand why dedicated (candidates) were the last to know they had been stood down and locked out of their Brexit party e-mail ac-counts and supporter database.”

Robert Wheal, who had been due to stand in Arundel and South Downs, said Farage’s ar-gument about protecting Brexit was “absolute codswallop”. He told LBC radio: “Brexit party supporters have worked their socks off for that party and he’s dropped them like a stone at 12 o’clock on Monday.”

Claire Mowbray, who was to have taken on Theresa May in Maidenhead, tweeted: “I can’t tell you how disappointed I am.” She added: “I will be closing this Twitter account.” However, one widely-reported set of angry comments from an ex-candidate appears to have been an elaborate fraud.

After Farage made the an-nouncement, a Twitter account named as being that of the party’s candidate for Crawley, Wayne Bayley, abused the Brexit Party leader, saying he had incurred £10,000 in costs and would now stand as an independent.

The account looked genuine and had been sending tweets in support of the Brexit Party since August. However, some posts appeared unlikely for a retired pilot, such as pro-Brexit lyrics sung to a tune by the Dutch Eu-rodance band Vengaboys.

Bayley told his local paper he was not responsible for the abu-sive tweets and the Brexit Party later confi rmed the account was fake.

Earlier Farage branded Con-servative calls for the Brexit Par-ty to stand down in Labour mar-ginal as “almost comical”, saying his party needs to get MPs into parliament to hold Boris John-son’s feet to the fi re.

The Brexit Party leader said he still intended to stand candidates in about 300 seats held by Labour and pro-Remain parties, having agreed to help the prime minister by withdrawing candidates in 317 seats won by the Tories in 2017.

However, he left the door open to holding back in other areas if Johnson made a further con-cession, such as standing down Conservatives in seats where they had no hope of winning.

“It’s almost comical. I’ve gifted the Conservative party nearly two dozen seats and I did it because I believe in Leave. If they believed in Leave, they would stand aside in Labour areas where the Conservative party hasn’t won in 100 years and will never win,” he told BBC Breakfast.

Trump fi rm settles legalbill over windfarm rowGuardian News and MediaLondon

The Trump Organisation has settled a £225,000 legal bill with the Scottish gov-

ernment after it lost a long court battle against a windfarm near its Aberdeenshire golf course.

The Scottish government said Donald Trump’s family fi rm had agreed to pay its legal fees before a dispute over those costs went to adjudication by a court-appoint-ed auditor.

The Guardian revealed last month that the government had accused the Trump Organisation of refusing to pay its legal costs despite a court order earlier this year, after Trump lost a UK su-preme court case in 2015.

Trump had sued ministers in Edinburgh in 2012 over the deci-sion to authorise and support the construction of an 11-turbine ex-perimental windfarm about two miles from the southern bound-ary of his coastal golf course north of Aberdeen.

He described the scheme as “monstrous” and claimed the decision to give it the go-ahead lay behind his decision to freeze further spending on the resort, which was originally due to cost at least £750mn and include a fi ve-star hotel, multi-storey timeshare fl ats, holiday villas, a golf acad-emy and large clubhouse.

He lost at every stage and in February this year three civil court judges sitting in Edinburgh ruled that he was liable to pay the Scottish government’s legal costs. After months of stalemate be-tween the two sides, the dispute was due to be settled by an inde-pendent auditor.

A Scottish government spokes-man said yesterday the dispute was now over. “We can confi rm that settlement has now been reached – and this has removed the need for the expenses to be determined by the auditor of the court of session,” he said.

“Expenses amounting to £225,000 will now be paid to Scottish ministers by the peti-tioners (the Trump Organisa-

tion).” Trump’s staff in Aberdeenshire

did not respond to a request for comment on the decision to settle but last month told the Guardian the company had not refused to pay the legal bill.

Sarah Malone, executive vice-president of the Trump golf re-sort, said in October: “This is not in our control. The matter is in the hands of the auditors of the court of session and the Scottish minis-ters.”

The company has recently ad-mitted the resort was never de-veloped along Trump’s original plans because of the global reces-sion in 2008 and the collapse in oil prices in 2014. Trump and his family fi rm have now loaned the business £43mn and it has yet to turn a profi t.

Last month, Trump Golf Re-sort Scotland won permission from Aberdeenshire council for a much-scaled down version of the resort, involving a second 18-hole golf course and a 550-home pri-vate estate, including holiday vil-las, on nearby farmland.

ReutersLondon

Hackers attacked the op-position Labour Party for the second time in

two days yesterday, sources said, fl ooding its web services with malicious traffi c in an attempt to force them offl ine just weeks ahead of a national election.

The party said earlier yes-terday it had “experienced a sophisticated and large-scale cyberattack on Labour digital platforms,” but that the attack was successfully repelled and no data was compromised.

Just hours later, the party’s website and other online serv-ices came under a second digital bombardment, according to two people with knowledge of the matter and documents seen by Reuters.

One of the sources said it was unclear if it was the same hack-ers or a copycat attack but there was currently nothing to link ei-ther incident to a foreign state.

A Labour spokesman had no immediate comment on the sec-ond attack, which the sources said was ongoing.

Britain’s security agencies have warned that Russia and other countries could use cyber-attacks or political messages on social media to attempt to dis-rupt the December 12 election.

Moscow has repeatedly denied Western allegations of election interference.

The National Cyber Security Centre, part of the GCHQ sig-nals intelligence agency, said the first attack was a distrib-uted denial-of-service (DDoS) attack — a technique used by hackers to take down websites by overwhelming them with traffic.

“DDoS attacks are a common form of attack used by a very wide range of attackers. Miti-gation techniques are available and worked in this case,” a NCSC spokesman said.

The nature of such attacks of-ten made it diffi cult to attribute responsibility to any particular group, he said.

HackersattackLabourwebsite

BRITAIN

Gulf Times Wednesday, November 13, 2019 13

Johnson accused of ‘outrageous’ lack of concern over fl oodsGuardian News and MediaLondon

Boris Johnson has been ac-cused of displaying an “ut-terly outrageous” lack of

concern about the severe fl oods that have devastated hundreds of homes and caused more than 1,200 properties to be evacuated in northern England.

The prime minister chaired a meeting of the government’s emergency committee Cobra yesterday after he was criticised

by Jeremy Corbyn for not declar-ing a national emergency.

That criticism was echoed in the towns badly aff ected by the downpours, where 30 fl ood warnings remain in place includ-ing fi ve “danger to life” alerts along the River Don in South Yorkshire.

In the Nottinghamshire town of Worksop, scores of residents were evacuated and more than 200 homes and businesses were fl ooded on Friday after a month’s worth of rain fell in 24 hours.

Simon Greaves, the Labour

leader of Bassetlaw district council, said Johnson had been “preoccupied with election-eering” when he should have been co-ordinating a national response to the disaster, which encompasses Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and South Yorkshire.

He said: “The government had a fantastic opportunity to step up to the plate and take emer-gency action. For me, they were concentrating more on the gen-eral election campaign than they were on people’s lives. They had an opportunity to take action

(and) they consciously chose not to. I think it’s utterly outrageous.”

Johnson was fi lmed mopping up in a branch of Specsavers when he visited fl ood-hit Mat-lock on Friday night after cam-paigning in nearby Mansfi eld. Earlier that day the body of Annie Hall, the former high sheriff of Derbyshire, had been found, after she had been swept away by the River Derwent at Darley Dale, not far from Matlock.

On his visit to Derbyshire, the prime minister said the govern-ment needed to invest in fl ood

defences but that the fl oods were not “looking like something we need to escalate to the level of a national emergency”.

Greaves, who showed the Housing Secretary, Robert Jen-rick, the damage in Worksop on Friday, said he had asked the government for new money to help rebuild the areas aff ected but that he had not yet received a response.

The Liberal Democrat leader, Jo Swinson, visited Fishlake near Doncaster yesterday, and Corbyn was expected to arrive later. Sue

Marshall, who has been unable to return to her house since she was evacuated on Saturday, said she hoped the political visits would lead to real help for those af-fected – and that she feared being fl ooded tomorrow, when more rain is forecast.

“I’ve just said to Jo Swinson that it’s all very well her doing this but in a month’s time we’re going to be old news,” she said. “What we need to know is that in two months’ time, the MPs will revisit this and look at what has been done to stop it happening

again. And my immediate con-cern is what are they doing now to stop it happening tomorrow.”

David Hughes, the mayor of Matlock, said it was right that the government had called an emer-gency meeting but he was sur-prised that Johnson had not yet visited the worst-aff ected areas. “Obviously if people are fl ooded for days and days on end then it is an emergency for them and it seems to be over a large area,” he said. “Given the persistency [of the fl oods], yes I think he prob-ably should make a visit.”

Singer has not owneda cellphone since ’06Guardian News and MediaLondon

Despite being one of the UK’s most successful pop stars, with millions of social

media followers to keep updated, Robbie Williams has revealed he hasn’t owned a phone since 2006.

Speaking on football talk show Back of the Net, Williams said: “I haven’t owned a phone since 2006. I’m always on my compu-ter, I’ve always got Wi-Fi … I got rid of my phone because I just don’t like them.”

Regarding social media apps, he added: “I don’t have my password to anything otherwise my ca-reer would be over … I tell several people what to put on there and then that gets vetted, and then it doesn’t go on.” It means that Wil-liams has never owned a smart-phone, as the industry-changing iPhone launched in 2007.

Williams isn’t the only celebrity to shun the mobile phone. In 2016, Elton John said he didn’t own one, and last year complained about their widespread use, saying that before cameras were installed in phones, “you can aff ord to be out

of your mind and behave extraor-dinarily badly in public and no one would be able to take a photograph – which I did many times! Unfor-tunately that’s all changed with the advent of technology. Going out now is an eff ort.”

Actor Shailene Woodley said in 2014 that she doesn’t use a mobile phone, citing “a bigger lack of ca-maraderie and community than there’s ever been”.

Nor does fi lm director Werner Herzog, who said in 2016: “I’m not delegating my examination of the world to, let’s say, applica-tions. I like not being available all of the time. And, at the same time, I like knowing that no hacker or no hostile government could track me down.” He added that he didn’t make his fi rst landline call until he was 17 years old.

Others have made slight con-cessions to modernity, like Oscar-winning actor Eddie Redmayne, who has said he rejected a smart-phone in favour of an old-fash-ioned handset without internet access. “The deluge of e-mails was constant and I found myself trying to keep up in real time, at the ex-pense of living in the moment,” he said.

Sturgeon campaigns

Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) leader Nicola Sturgeon visits the Blosson Tree children’s nursery in Edinburgh yesterday while on the campaign trail.

Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn meets flood aff ected residents during a visit to the Bentley suburb of Doncaster yesterday.

Former SpeakerBercow to publishmemoir soonGuardian News and MediaLondon

Two weeks after stepping down as Speaker of the House of Commons, John

Bercow has announced that he will publish his memoirs in Feb-ruary next year.

Titled Unspeakable, the book was acquired by Weidenfeld & Nicolson after signifi cant inter-est from publishers. The Guardi-an understands that the deal was “comfortably” into six fi gures.

The divisive former MP said the book would “describe as clearly as I can what moti-vated me”, while his publisher promised it would also include Bercow’s verdicts on figures including Tony Blair, David Cameron, Theresa May, and Boris Johnson.

If his comments since stepping down are anything to go by, read-ers are in for an eye-opener: last week Bercow said in an interview with the Observer that Cameron feels he is “born to rule” and that Brexit is “the biggest mistake of this country after the war”.

Unspeakable will also explain the ways in which Bercow, the son of a cab driver in north Lon-don, “has sought to democratise the business of Parliament, us-ing the Speakership to champion the rights of backbench MPs and hold the government to account”. It will also see Bercow tackle “head-on his regretted fascina-tion with defi nably right-wing attitudes”, and describe “his in-exorable march to more progres-sive thinking” since his election as the MP for Buckingham in 1997.

Bercow was elected Speaker of the House of Commons in June 2009. After presiding over one of the most febrile British par-liaments in years, he announced this summer that he would be standing down as Speaker and MP. His prominence during the Brexit debate split European me-dia.

The Daily Mail once called him an “egotistical preening

popinjay (who) has shamelessly put his anti-Brexit bias before the national interest – and is a disgrace to his offi ce”, but the press in Europe revelled in his behaviour.

The Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant once wrote that “no one on the British island can call ‘order, order’ more beautifully than John Bercow”, while Radio France Internationale named him its “European of the week”.

“I am delighted that Weiden-feld & Nicolson has agreed to publish my account of a life in politics,” said Bercow. “I made friends and enemies alike, but from start to fi nish I sought to do the right, rather than the con-venient, thing and to be a decent public servant. The story of a re-warding and fortunate career is told in my own words, and read-ers can make their own assess-ment of a journey that I enjoyed and they will judge.”

Weidenfeld chairman Alan Samson, who acquired the mem-oir from Andrew Gordon of David Higham Associates, said the memoirs were “both a grip-pingly candid narrative of a truly eventful political life, and also a wonderfully vivid tale of how the nation has reached this point in its history”.

“In the last decade John has made sure that Parliament has been able to stand up to the exec-utive by putting MPs before min-isters. Whether it is by accepting urgent questions or working hard to determine that the role of par-liament is more widely under-stood by the public, he has played a vital activist role in the govern-ment being held to account,” said Samson. “His book will be a hugely entertaining primer for anyone trying to understand the nature of our democracy and the processes of modern politics in this country.”

The announcement of Ber-cow’s book deal comes a week after he furiously denied claims that he had demanded £1mn to appear on reality TV show I’m a Celebrity, which he described as “utterly trashy”.

Unemployment ratedips to new 45-year lowReutersLondon

Britain’s employers cut more jobs from July to September than in any

quarter for four years, accord-ing to offi cial data, which high-lighted how the labour market is slowing as an election nears al-though the fall was smaller than economists forecast.

Strong jobs growth has been a silver lining of the Brexit crisis for British workers as compa-nies hired staff rather than make longer-term commitments to investment.

The unemployment rate fell back to 3.8%, its lowest level since early 1975, the Offi ce for National Statistics said.

But falls in the number of people in work, vacancies and the pace of wage growth added to signs of slowdown which prompted two Bank of England offi cials to vote for an interest rate cut last week.

“Granted, the employment data can be volatile, and the recent drop is being driven by part-time employment. But the drop...could be an early sign of a sharp softening in labour demand, and a broader turn-ing point in the labour market,”

HSBC economist Chris Hare said.

However Samuel Tombs, an economist at consultancy Pan-theon Macroeconomics, said the softening appeared gradual enough for the Bank of England to steer clear of any rate cut for now.

The ONS said the number of people in employment fell by 58,000 to 32.753mn, less severe than the median forecast of a fall of 94,000 in a Reuters poll of economists.

But it represented the biggest decline since the three months to May 2015.

Total and basic pay both rose

by 3.6%, weaker than all fore-casts, although still comfortably above infl ation.

Britain’s economy grew by a decade-low 1% in the 12 months to September, hit by US-China trade tensions and the approach of a now postponed Brexit dead-line on October 31.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson, seeking to break the Brexit im-passe, has called an election for December 12.

But many employers say the uncertainty is likely to continue even if Johnson wins the elec-tion as he must hammer out a new European Union trade deal before a deadline at the end of

2020. Labour leader Jeremy Cor-byn says he will renegotiate the Brexit divorce deal and call a new referendum.

The Brexit uncertainty has ag-gravated Britain’s weak produc-tivity record.

Output per hour was fl at in annual terms in the third quar-ter, an improvement from a 0.5% fall in the April-June period, the ONS said.

That measure of productivity has not grown since the second quarter of 2018, the longest such run in a decade.

Vacancies showed their big-gest annual fall since the end of 2009 to 800,000.

Fighter plane wreckgets protected statusGuardian News and MediaLondon

The skeletal remains of an American fi ghter plane that crashed during World War

II off the Welsh coast, and occa-sionally emerge ghost-like from the seabed, have been given pro-tected status.

Welsh government offi cials say the resting place of the Lockheed P-38 Lightning, nicknamed the Maid of Harlech, is the fi rst mili-tary aircraft crash site in the UK to be protected for its historic and archaeological interest.

The fi ghter aircraft is buried around two metres below the seabed off the coast at Harlech in north Wales. When sea and sand conditions are just right it be-comes visible in the sand.

Cadw, the Welsh government’s historic environment service, has given the plane scheduled status. It joins castles, abbeys and prehistoric sites as well as buildings and sites connected to the iron, coal and slate industries

in Wales that are protected.The plane crashed in Septem-

ber 1942. It was fl own by second lieutenant Robert F Elliott, 24, of Rich Square, North Carolina, from Llanbedr on a gunnery practice mission but got into diffi culties and had to crash land. The pilot walked away safely from the inci-dent but was reported missing in action a few months later.

His nephew, Robert Elliott, has visited the site and said he was pleased the wreck had been scheduled. “I am honoured and delighted that Cadw has given of-fi cial recognition of my uncle’s plane as a scheduled monument,” he said. “My uncle was among those brave and expert fi ghter pi-lots who served with distinction during World War II. My visit to the site in 2016 was very mov-ing and emotional.” The plane has been uncovered three times since it crashed – in the 1970s, in 2007 and most recently in 2014. There are no plans to salvage it.

Matt Rimmer, a local avia-tion historian, said: “I have been an advocate for the preservation

of historic military aircraft crash sites in Wales for over 20 years. I’m thrilled to see the Harlech P-38 scheduled by Cadw.

“I feel it not only acknowledges the signifi cance of this particular aircraft in a historical context, but also the important role played by Wales in the air war against Nazi Germany and the thousands of aircrew from many countries who trained here, many of whom lost their lives either in accidents dur-ing training or subsequently in combat.”

The deputy minister for culture, sport and tourism in Wales, Dafydd Elis-Thomas, said: “This site is of international signifi cance and I’m delighted that this designation un-derlines its special qualities as well as protecting it for the benefi t of fu-ture generations.

“As we have seen following re-membrance events over the week-end, sites such as this represent events which must not be forgot-ten. Wales will always remember and respect all those who contrib-uted to securing the peace we are so fortunate to enjoy today.”

Cost of dementia careto treble, warns studyDaily MailLondon

Dementia care costs for families will treble to £62bn a year within only

two decades, a major report sug-gested yesterday.

Relatives of the hundreds of thousands of people with demen-tia already foot a £9bn annual bill for social care and provide £14bn-worth of unpaid care themselves.

But this sum of £23bn is set to soar nearly three-fold by 2040, according to projections by the London School of Economics.

The fi gures lay bare the huge scale of the burden on the nation’s families. Anyone with more than £23,250 in savings, including the value of their home, is rejected for state-funded social care. This means many people have to sell their family homes to pay for the care of loved ones. Thousands of others give up work to look after relatives.

The LSE report, commis-sioned by the Alzheimer’s Soci-ety, projects the rise in costs if no political changes are made.

The cost of dementia care to the NHS will also soar from £5bn

in 2019 to £12.5bn in 2040.Meanwhile the 43% of the social

care bill paid by the taxpayer will rise from £7bn to £19.5bn.

In total, the cost of dementia care to the economy will reach an eye-watering £94bn, up from £35bn today. While the number of people with dementia is ex-pected to rise from 880,000 to 1.6mn by 2040, the cost of care will outstrip this as people live longer and become more frail.

Jeremy Hughes, chief execu-tive at the Alzheimer’s Society, said: “The cost should be spread between us like schools, the NHS and other public services. Every party must go into this election with a solid plan to radically re-form dementia care.

Age UK calculates one in seven elderly people – a total of 1.5mn over-65s – are living without as-sistance for severe care needs due to the scale of the crisis. Its char-ity director Caroline Abrahams said: “These fi gures have been getting worse as governments dither. Care is a fundamental service on which millions of us depend and it is high time the government took decisive action to stabilise provision and create a better system for the future.”

Official visit

Queen Elizabeth II greets Colombia’s ambassador to the United Kingdom, Antonio Jose Ardila, during a private audience at Buckingham Palace in central London yesterday.

Burglar jailed for murder after wife alerts policeDaily MailLondon

A burglar jailed for life for the ‘Midsomer murder’ of a grandmother was caught

when his wife tipped off police fi ve years later.

Father-of-two Cristian Sa-bou, a 28-year-old odd-job man, pleaded guilty to bludgeoning Valerie Graves to death with a claw hammer in her bed over Christmas in 2013.

Graves, 55, had just woken up as the killer was burgling the £1.6mn seaside home she was house-sitting.

Sabou had drunk alcohol be-fore cycling to the scene and walking through unlocked patio doors into the ground-fl oor bed-room in the dead of night. But he panicked when Graves woke – beating her to death with his hammer.

At Lewes Crown Court in Sus-sex, the Romanian was told that he would serve a minimum of 24

years for the killing in Bosham near Chichester, West Sussex. The crime became known as the ‘Midsomer Murder’ because the ITV crime mystery series had fi lmed an episode called Written in Blood at the idyllic coastal spot in 1998.

For nearly six years the mur-der remained unsolved, with the killer at large.

Speaking from her shack in ru-ral Transylvania, with their two daughters clutching her skirt, Sabou’s now-estranged wife

Claudia, 27, revealed it was her detective work, against threats from him, which solved the case.

But she said Sussex Police should have homed in on him ear-lier – revealing she sent e-mails to offi cers after outing the killer.

She said that last year she found he had been searching online for ‘murder in Bosham’ and ‘hammer’. She then rec-ognised a photograph of the weapon on Sabou’s phone as being his, and first confronted him. Then, in October last year,

she told British police.Astonishingly, Sabou returned

to England unchallenged and re-mained at large for nine months after she told the authorities.

He was eventually arrested liv-ing with a new girlfriend in July at his fl at on Vlad Tepes Street – named after Vlad the Impaler – in the town of Dej in Transyl-vania.

Claudia said: “I saw on the Google history (on his phone) ‘murder in Bosham’ and ‘ham-mer’. I showed him the phone

and asked him, ‘What is this all about?’ There was a picture of a hammer on there and I asked him, ‘Isn’t this the hammer you had in England?’ I knew it, I’d seen it there. I told him then and there, that I wanted to break up.

“He said, ‘Don’t break up with me – and keep your mouth shut’. I told him I would not break up with him, and waited until he left to return to England.”

She added: “I kept pressing the police, sending e-mails, asking, ‘How long is this going to take?’”

Claudia was fi nally visited by UK police in April, who collected DNA samples. She waited anx-iously until Sabou was arrested in July, a few miles from her.

He was fl own to Britain in handcuff s days later. Claudia and her husband moved to Chiches-ter six years ago, living in a cara-van at a scrapyard on the A27. She knew he had worked at the house where Graves was murdered, alongside a friend who was regu-larly hired by its owners Malcolm and Caroline Chamberlain.

14 Gulf TimesWednesday, November 13, 2019

BRITAIN

Royals visit Shout charity event

Prince William and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, leave Shout’s Crisis Volunteer celebration event at the Troubador White City Theatre in London, Britain, yesterday. Shout is the UK’s first 24/7 text service, free on all major mobile networks, for anyone in crisis anytime, anywhere.

EUROPE15Gulf Times

Wednesday, November 13, 2019

Spain’s Socialists and the far-left Unidas Podemos party agreed on the basis

of a coalition government yes-terday, just two days after a par-liamentary election delivered a highly fragmented parliament.

The unexpectedly fast prelim-inary agreement between two parties which recently refused to work together would require further steps, including agreeing cabinet positions and bringing in smaller parties, which means it is far from a done deal.

The election – the coun-try’s fourth in four years – left Spain’s parliament even more divided than a previous ballot in April, with the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) retaining its lead but further away from a majority.

“It’s a deal for four years,” Socialist leader Pedro Sanchez, who is currently acting prime minister, said after signing the pact alongside Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias.

The Socialists’ 120 seats, combined with the 35 won by Unidas Podemos, leave them short of a majority in the 350-seat parliament.

“Spain needs a stable gov-ernment, a solid government,” Sanchez said, adding that they would call on other parties to join the deal.

If they succeed, it would be Spain’s fi rst coalition govern-ment since the country’s return to democracy in the late 1970s.

Spain’s Ibex-35 index slipped by around 0.9% at 1715 GMT, having previously traded 0.3% higher on the day.

Nuria Alvarez, analyst at Madrid-based brokerage Renta 4, said that scepticism remains over whether the preliminary agreement would amount to a working government.

The market has always looked less favourably on a coalition be-tween the Socialists and Podem-os than a centre-right coalition, she added.

During its campaign, Podem-os opposed the privatisation of state-controlled lender Bankia, whose shares were trading 4.5% lower.

The Socialists and Podemos had tried and failed to strike a government deal after the April election, prompting Sanchez to call the repeat ballot.

The two men had been at odds for months and exchanged harsh words as acrimonious talks failed after the April election.

Yesterday they were all smiles, hugging after they signed the pact.

“We’ve reached a preliminary agreement to create a progres-sive coalition government in Spain, which combines the ex-perience of PSOE with the cour-age of Unidas Podemos,” Iglesias said.

Centre-right party Ciu-dadanos, which won 10 seats, said it would not back the deal, calling instead for a grand coali-tion between itself, the Social-ists and PP.

The small leftist Mas Pais party won three seats, so the two bigger leftist parties would have to draw others in to boost their combined 155-seat tally.

This means the Socialists and Podemos would need Catalan left-wing separatist Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC) to at least agree to abstain and all other non-separatist regional parties to vote in favour.

ERC, which won 13 seats in Sunday’s election, said that “right now” it would not sup-port the coalition but did not rule out modifying its position in future.

Calling on Sanchez and Igle-sias to sit down with separatist politicians to try to resolve the region’s political tensions, ERC

spokeswoman Marta Vilalta said the ball was now in their court.

The Catalan parliament pressed its case for independ-ence yesterday and protesters clashed with French riot police trying to clear them from the border.

Pablo Casado, leader of

Spain’s conservative People’s Party (PP) criticised the coali-tion agreement in Madrid and called on Sanchez to resign.

“A radical government is ex-actly the opposite of what Spain needs right now,” he said.

Local media, including news website eldiario.es, said that

Iglesias would be deputy prime minister, something which Sanchez had refused in the post-April election talks.

Sanchez had also at the time opposed a coalition government.

The two leaders said details would come later and did not comment further.

Spain’s Socialists reach govt deal with far-leftReutersMadrid

Podemos leader Iglesias listens as Prime Minister Sanchez speaks during a press conference in Madrid.

French, Spanish and Cata-lan police intervened yes-terday to clear a motorway

border crossing to Spain that had been blocked for more than 24 hours by Catalan pro-inde-pendence activists.

The Democratic Tsunami civ-ic group occupied the AP-7 mo-torway on Monday at the start of a three-day series of protests called to follow Sunday’s Span-ish general elections.

Hundreds of protesters were cleared from both sides of the French and Spanish borders, but they proceeded to temporar-ily block the N-II state highway, which runs parallel to the AP-7 motorway.

There were moments of ten-sion as a truck driver tried to force the blockade on the N-II.

The Catalan police, the Mos-sos d’Esquadra, said they ar-rested a man for trying to run over people.

French authorities wrote on Facebook that the A9 – the mo-torway’s number on the French side – had been reopened to traffi c in both directions as of shortly after 5pm (1600 GMT).

According to media reports, French police used tear gas against protesters.

The El Pais newspaper said 18 of them were arrested by French

police and one by the Mossos d’Esquadra.

Democratic Tsunami an-nounced another protest for later: the blockage of the Fran-co-Spanish border in Behobia, in the Basque Country.

On Twitter, protesters claimed that both Catalonia and the Basque Country, another region with a separatist move-ment, “are living an unsolved political confl ict with the Span-ish state”.

The Democratic Tsunami protests started after the Span-ish Supreme Court last month sentenced to jail nine Catalan secessionist leaders for organis-ing an illegal independence ref-erendum in 2017.

The group, which has no vis-ible leaders, uses a mobile phone app to co-ordinate its actions.

Prior to Monday, one of its most high-profi le protests was the occupation of Barcelona’s airport.

In another fl ashpoint of the Catalan crisis, the region’s par-liament approved a motion af-fi rming the right “to concretely exercise the right to self-deter-mination and to respect the will of the Catalan people”.

The Catalan motion was im-mediately invalidated by the Spanish Constitutional Court, which accepted an appeal pre-sented by the central govern-ment.

The northeastern region of Catalonia, including its capital Barcelona, is one of the wealthi-est and most dynamic parts of Spain, accounting for almost one-fi fth of the Spanish econ-omy.

Secessionist feelings in the region are boosted by a separate language and culture, but Cata-lans are deeply split on inde-pendence from Spain, with an apparent slight majority against it.

The Catalan crisis is likely to be a pressing priority for the federal government that may be formed after the socialist PSOE party announced yesterday a co-alition deal with the leftist Uni-das Podemos (see lead story, above).

Acting Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’ PSOE won the most votes on Sunday, but beyond the pact with Unidas Podemos, it needs the support or abstention of other parties to clear a parlia-mentary majority.

Police end Catalan blockade of motorwayDPAMadrid

Members of Catalan protest group Democratic Tsunami clash with French police off icers at the AP-7 highway on the French side of the Spanish-French border.

Authorities have closed beaches in southwest France as packages of co-

caine continue to mysteriously wash up along the country’s Atlantic coast, with more than 1,000kg discovered since mid-October, a prosecutor said yes-terday.

The packages are now being found farther north, with a 5kg parcel turning up at Camaret-sur-Mer on the western tip of Brittany yesterday, Philippe Astruc, the public prosecutor in Rennes, told AFP.

“It’s the same cargo,” he said, adding that “we’re going to still be fi nding them for a while”.

“Each tide brings in a batch. They are still fairly signifi cant with around 100kg arriving each day all along the coast,” he said.

Customs offi cers are also fi nd-ing some of the packages at sea, he said.

Offi cials in Rennes are co-ordinating the searches for the packages, which have appeared on hundreds of kilometres of coastline all the way south to the

posh resort town of Biarritz.Around 100 investigators are

working with European counter-parts as well as the US Drug En-forcement Agency to try to fi g-

ure out why the drugs have been washing ashore almost daily, Astruc said.

The cocaine is extremely pure, at some 83%, and therefore high-

ly dangerous, Astruc said, urging people not to touch the packages and to alert the police.

That has not stopped some from trying to get their hands on the drugs, whose street value would be in the millions of euros, prompting police to close some beaches and start carrying out patrols.

“We fear that people will try and fi nd these products and use them – which is incredibly dan-gerous – and that traffi ckers or would-be traffi ckers will say ‘we can make some money here’,” Astruc said.

On Monday, a 17-year-old was caught with 5kg of cocaine at Lacanau, a closed-off surfi ng beach near the southwestern city of Bordeaux – he had come from Toulouse, a three-hour drive away.

A half-dozen other beaches in the area have been closed as well, with police stopping walkers for searches and also checking cars leaving nearby parking lots.

A police helicopter was also

being used along the 125km stretch between Cap Ferret and Soulac-sur-Mer, which includes the Lacanau beach.

A woman who gave her name as Martine failed to notice the closure signs at the Porge beach on Monday, when offi cers told her and a friend to leave.

“When we turned around we saw a package next to the water,” she said, saying that they alert-ed the police, who estimated it weighed some 4kg before sealing it in a plastic bag.

“It would have been tempting to take it, but we’re honest!” she told AFP.

Astruc said 1,010kg (nearly 2,230 pounds) have been recov-ered so far, a sharp jump from just two days ago, when 763kg were reported.

“In this form it’s a very dan-gerous product that could cause an overdose,” his offi ce said on Sunday.

“There are several hypotheses, but for the moment we think it’s likely they were jettisoned be-

cause of a mechanical problem or during a storm,” Astruc said in a statement on Sunday.

Investigators are poring over maritime logs from mid-October for clues about where the drugs might have come from, he said yesterday.

The Sud-Ouest newspaper reported over the weekend that some packages found on the beach at Arcachon, southwest of Bordeaux, were marked “Dia-mante” or “Brillante”.

Packages of cocaine marked with the same words also washed up in Florida during hurricane Dorian in September, it said.

Police seized a record or more than 140 tonnes of cocaine across Europe in 2017, the most recent data available from the EU’s Eu-ropean Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, pub-lished in June.

Most was seized in Belgium and Spain, long the main port of entry for the drug, and its purity has increased markedly over the past 10 years, the agency said.

High tide: French authorities warn drug fortune hunters off beachesAFPRennes, France

A police car is seen on the Plage du Gressier in Le Porge, southwestern France, after a woman found suspect packages allegedly containing cocaine. Inset: A suspect package allegedly containing cocaine lies on the sand on the Plage du Gressier.

Moldova’s govt fallsReutersChisinau

A no-confi dence vote brought down Moldova’s government yesterday,

threatening more instability just fi ve months after pro-Western Prime Minister Maia Sandu took offi ce promising to fi ght corrup-tion.

Sandu had formed an uneasy coalition with the Russian-backed Socialist Party, but re-lations broke down over a pro-posed reform of how the top prosecutor is appointed.

“We will continue the strug-gle, we will not give up,” Sandu told hundreds of supporters gathered outside parliament. “The struggle is between those who want to control justice and the prosecutor, and those who want freedom and fair justice.”

Moldova, a country of 3.5mn situated between Ukraine and European Union member Ro-mania, has lurched from crisis to crisis since the disappearance of $1bn from its fi nancial system in 2014 tarnished the reputation of its political class.

The former Soviet state signed a political and trade agreement with the EU in 2014, angering Russia.

Brussels and the International Monetary Fund support Chisi-nau with aid.

EU Commissioner Johannes Hahn tweeted he was “deeply worried” about yesterday’s vote against Sandu. “Any change to her resolute action to reform the country over the last 5 months would have severe consequences on #EUsupport.”

Parties now have 90 days to try to form a new government.

If they fail, another parlia-mentary election would be called.

Sandu, a Harvard-educated former World Bank economist known for her tough stance on corruption, had formed an un-likely alliance with the Socialists to remove a party run by a tycoon from power after an inconclusive election in February.

Sandu’s ACUM bloc wants Moldova to join the EU while the Socialist Party formerly run by President Igor Dodon advocates closer ties to Moscow.

The coalition has tussled over who should have the power to appoint a new prosecutor gen-eral.

Sandu wanted to be able to make the choice herself, but the Socialists wanted a special com-mission under the justice minis-try to decide.

Sandu says the move is essen-tial for her to be able to deliver on a promise to fi ght corruption and claw back the $1bn that was sto-len from three banks in a scam known locally as the “theft of the century”.

Sandu: We will continue the struggle, we will not give up.

EUROPE

Gulf Times Wednesday, November 13, 201916

European Union defence ministers approved 13 new projects yesterday under

the bloc’s joint defence co-oper-ation programme, ranging from an unmanned anti-submarine system to a new medical training centre.

An overall 47 projects have now

been approved under the Euro-pean Union’s Permanent Struc-tured Co-operation (PESCO) framework, launched by member states in 2017 to overcome their traditional fragmentation on de-fence issues and reduce reliance on the United States.

No further projects will be approved in the next two years, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini told journalists, not-ing that the focus for now would

be on implementing what is al-ready in the pipeline.

The Maritime Unmanned Anti-Submarine System will use cutting-edge technology and artifi cial intelligence for anti-submarine warfare, according to the EU.

It will help protect “underwa-ter high-value infrastructures as well as sea-based energy sys-tems”, while warding off threats to underwater communication

lines, an EU project list states.The European Union also plans

to establish a cyber academia and innovation hub, to develop a technologically skilled workforce and a “cyber-savvy ecosystem”, it announced.

The project will be run by Por-tugal and Spain.

Meanwhile, Poland and Hun-gary will take the lead on set-ting up a medical training centre focused on supporting the EU’s

special operations forces.EU capitals have traditionally

been protective of their national defence industries, while rely-ing on the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) to provide an umbrella for collective defence activities.

In recent years, however, Eu-rope has been called upon to take on a greater share of the defence burden.

Meanwhile, the 25 EU member

states participating in PESCO have so far failed to agree on con-ditions for third countries such as the United States – and Brit-ain after Brexit – to participate in projects.

Countries such as the Neth-erlands stress the importance of bringing on board allied states with large defence industries and expertise, while France in partic-ular has argued that Europe must develop its strategic autonomy.

Yesterday’s meeting of defence ministers also focused on EU co-operation with Nato.

Mogherini refused to be drawn on recent comments by French President Emmanuel Macron de-claring Nato to be “brain dead”.

“This is a discussion that will take place in Nato, not within the EU,” she said, noting that rela-tions between the two organisa-tions are stronger than ever be-fore.

EU ministers approve 13 new joint defence projectsDPABrussels

French President Em-manuel Macron has la-mented an “unprecedent-

ed crisis” in the global political system and urged new alliances to solve the world’s problems, in a call backed by Chinese and EU leaders.

Macron hosted some two dozen heads of state and gov-ernment at a Peace Forum in Paris just days after he sent shockwaves through Western capitals by warning about the viability of multilateral bodies Nato and the EU.

“We are experiencing an un-precedented crisis in our inter-national system,” the president said, continuing the theme of an interview he gave to The Econo-mist, published on Thursday, in which he had warned that the North Atlantic Treaty Organi-sation (Nato) was experiencing “brain death” and that the EU risked becoming insignifi cant.

The president, who has

sought a prominent place on the international stage since coming to power in 2017, said “new ways of co-operation, new alliances” are needed between states and organisations.

The global political and eco-nomic systems constructed after the end of World War II, Ma-cron added, had brought peace to some regions and helped lift

many out of poverty.But new inequalities have

emerged between peoples and countries to cause the rebirth of nationalism and unilateral-ism “even among those who are the last-resort guardians of this international system”, said Ma-cron.

To face today’s challenges – poverty, war, unchecked popu-

lation growth, migration and dwindling natural resources – the world needed “more coop-eration”, not less, the president insisted.

And he warned that there should be no “squeamishness or hypocrisy” when it comes to questioning the workings of multi-national bodies such as the United Nations, which he said had become “blocked”.

Macron’s interview with The Economist caused much con-troversy, with German Chancel-lor Angela Merkel saying that his comments were “drastic” and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo insisting that Nato was “important, critical”.

However, the comments by Macron, who has made clear that he wants a dialogue with Russian President Vladimir Pu-tin, received warm backing from Nato non-member Russia.

Possibly taking aim at his crit-ics, Macron said yesterday that plain speaking was essential.

“I think we need the truth ... silence is not a solution,” he said.

German Foreign Minister

Heiko Maas agreed there was a “need for action in international co-operation”, including within Nato, adding that it was good that such issues “are discussed openly”.

At the same event yesterday, EU Commission President-elect Ursula von der Leyen insisted that tackling today’s challenges required “strong institutions and more eff ective multilateral co-operation”.

“However, far too often the opposite is the case; existing powers are going down new paths alone, new powers are emerging, reemerging and con-solidating.”

She also said the EU needed to throw a heavier political punch on the international stage.

Under her watch, Von der Leyen said, she hoped to make the commission “truly geopo-litical”.

“I want a more outward-look-ing European Union, a Europe which collectively defends our collective values and common interests in the world,” she said.

Von der Leyen said multilat-

eralism had created a post-war Europe fi nally “peaceful and united, settling our ... diff er-ences around tables rather than in between trenches”.

“We should never forget how far we have come, and why,” she said, joining Macron in warning against hegemony and nation-alism, which the French leader said had been tested before and “gave us war”.

China’s Vice-President Wang Qishan also joined the call for greater global unity.

“The spread of unilateralism, protectionism and populism, and the tendency of replacing rational thinking and actions with the outpouring of emo-tions are not helpful in resolv-ing problems,” he told the peace forum.

“We are hopeful that coun-tries can work together to reduce the peace defi cit by expanding convergent interests, reinforce the safeguards for peace by up-holding multilateralism ... and strengthen the bond of peace by encouraging dialogue among civilisations,” he said.

Macron rues global crisis, says new alliances neededAFPParis

Macron: We are experiencing an unprecedented crisis in our international system.

Powerful rainstorms hit Italy yesterday, with the worst aff ected areas in the

south and Venice, where there was widespread fl ooding.

The heavy rainfall closed schools in several southern cities including Taranto, Brindisi, and Matera, as well as the Sicilian cities of Pozzallo and Noto, ac-cording to the national weather service.

In Matera, this year’s Europe-an Capital of Culture, a tornado caused trees and lamp posts to fall, damaging numerous roofs and buildings.

No injuries were reported.Strong precipitation was seen

all along the western coast of the country from Tuscany to the southern region of Campania,

including the northeast of Sar-dinia.

In Venice, the famous St Mark’s Square was submerged due to the exceptionally intense “acqua alta”, or high waters, which were expected to exceed 4.5’ (1.4m).

The square is particularly af-fected by the high tides, as it is located in one of the lowest parts of the city.

The vestibule of the basilica was also inundated with wa-ter, and authorities planned to watch the building overnight.

Pierpaolo Campostrini, a member of St Mark’s council, said the scale of the fl ooding yesterday had only been seen fi ve times in the long history of the basilica, where construction began in 828 and which was re-built after a fi re in 1063.

Most worryingly, Campos-trini said, three of those fi ve

fl ooding episodes occurred in the last 20 years, most recently just last year.

The highest tide recorded in

Venice was in 1966, when the water reached 6.3’.

The city sits at between 3-4’.Since 2003, a massive infra-

structure project has been un-derway to protect the city, but it has been plagued by cost over-runs, scandals and delays.

The plan calls for the con-struction of 78 fl oating gates to protect Venice’s lagoon during high tides.

Italy hit by heavy rains, widespread fl ooding in VeniceAFPRome

People walk on a catwalk in the flooded St Mark’s Square in Venice.

Poland has complained to Netfl ix that a Holocaust documentary series on Nazi

German death camps “rewrites his-tory” by featuring an “incorrect” map.

Prime Minister Mateusz Moraw-iecki called on the popular US streaming and production website to correct the “terrible mistake” that he believed had been “com-mitted unintentionally”.

A Netfl ix consultant in Poland who only identifi ed herself as Mal-gorzata told AFP yesterday that the

company was “treating the issue as a priority” and that its headquar-ters would soon issue an offi cial statement.

“Netfl ix did not intend to off end anyone or compromise any values,” she added.

The Auschwitz memorial mu-seum also tweeted that historical and geographical information in the Netfl ix documentary about the locations of Nazi death camps was “simply wrong”.

A map that featured in The Devil Next Door documentary wrongly shows death camps built by Nazi Germany during World War II as being inside the borders of mod-ern-day Poland that were estab-

lished only after the end of the war.In reality, Nazi Germany estab-

lished the camps inside territory it occupied following its September 1939 invasion and takeover of Po-land.

“Not only is the map incorrect, but it deceives viewers into believ-ing that Poland was responsible for establishing and maintaining the camps, and for committing crimes therein,” Morawiecki said in the letter to Netfl ix boss Reed Hastings.

Morawiecki posted the letter on his offi cial Facebook page on Mon-day.

“As my country did not even ex-ist at that time as an independent state, and millions of Poles were

murdered at these sites, this ele-ment of The Devil Next Door is nothing short of rewriting history,” he said.

The map in question appears in a documentary focused on retired US autoworker John Demjanjuk, con-victed in a landmark 2011 German court ruling for serving as a guard the Nazi German Sobibor camp in occupied Poland.

Poland suff ered some of the worst horrors of the Second World War: nearly 6mn Poles died in the confl ict that killed more than 50mn people overall.

That fi gure includes the 6mn Jews who died in the Holocaust, half of them Polish.

Poland says Netfl ix’s The Devil Next Door documentary ‘rewrites’ Holocaust historyAFPWarsaw

Russia’s Aeroflot has stripped a passenger of

his air miles after he boasted online of sneak-

ing his overweight cat on board by switching

him for a slimmer cat during check-in.

Traveller Mikhail Galin wrote in a Facebook

post last week that his cat Viktor was judged

too fat to be taken into the passenger cabin

during a layover in Moscow on a trip from

Latvia to his home in Far Eastern Vladivostok.

“The weigh-in showed that the animal had

fattened up to 10kg, a level not allowed for the

cabin”, where the limit is 8kg, Galin wrote.

However, he could not abandon his nervous

feline friend to the cold luggage hold, so he

refused to fly and took a “strategic decision to

find a similar cat of a lower weight” in Moscow.

The next day Galin came to the airport

prepared with “the cat, the cat double, and its

owners” and successfully checked into busi-

ness class after “the operation to switch Viktor

the fat cat for Phoebe the miniature kitty was

successful”.

He posted a photo of happy Viktor sitting on

the plane with a glass of bubbly, becoming an

instant hero for Russia’s cat lovers.

Aeroflot however was in no mood for jokes

and told AFP that the incident had triggered an

investigation.

The probe into the cat swap showed that

Galin broke airline rules by switching Viktor

for “a similar animal weighing 7kg”, which

was confirmed on video surveillance footage,

Aeroflot said.

“Aeroflot has taken the decision to take this

passenger out of its frequent flyer programme.

All of the miles collected during his time in the

programme will be annulled.”

Some reports said Galin had nearly 400,000

miles on his account.

Many Russians were fuming over the deci-

sion, with some saying that it amounted to

fat-shaming and others attempting to start a

protest flash mob.

“Off ending a kitty! Nobody will forgive this,”

wrote socialite Bozhena Rynska.

Other owners of overweight pets feared that

Galin’s disclosures could prompt the airline to

tighten restrictions, making the trick impos-

sible to repeat.

“Many of us often quietly flew around with our

fat kitties, and now we won’t be able to,” Svet-

lana Pogorelskaya said to Galin on Facebook.

Cat-shaming: Russian loses airline miles over fat pet swap

Vatican panel urges tackling of food wasteReutersVatican City

An international panel of experts backed by Pope Francis has appealed to

governments to commit to halv-ing food waste and loss by 2030, saying it was morally, economi-cally and environmentally unac-ceptable.

The appeal came at the end of a two-day conference at the Pontifi cal Academy of Sciences attended by more than 50 sci-entists, academics, economists, corporate leaders and UN offi -cials from 24 countries.

“We call on our leaders, and on all of us, for deepened com-mitment to action toward halv-ing food loss and waste by 2030 – an achievable goal based on existing knowledge and technol-ogy,” a statement said.

As the conference began, the Pope tweeted: “We must put an end to the culture of waste, we who pray to the Lord to give us our daily bread. Food waste con-tributes to hunger and to climate change.”

Generally speaking, food loss refers to what is lost on the way from production to the consum-er, including damage in trans-port or storage.

Food waste is that which is discarded by the consumer, res-taurants or supermarkets.

In rich countries, households and restaurants prepare large portions, resulting in “plate waste”, leftovers that often go uneaten.

According to research by the British advocacy group WRAP using statistics from the UN Food and Agriculture Organisa-tion, 33% of all food produced in the world is lost or wasted.

“Because we know that 800mn people go to sleep every day without food, we have to admit that something is very wrong,” said Yolanda Kakabadse, a former Ecuadorian environ-ment minister.

Roy Steiner, senior vice-pres-ident of the Rockefeller Founda-tion, said that waste prevention programmes in the United States had identifi ed 100mn pounds of surplus food each year.

The fi nal statement called for better education, behavioural change by consumers, and al-liances among governments, business, environmental and re-ligious groups.

Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar and party leaders Ajit Pawar, Chhagan Bhujbal and others hold a meeting to discuss he government formation in Maharashtra, in Mumbai yesterday.

Why didn’tgovernorcall us, asksCongressIANSNew Delhi

The Congress yesterday slammed Maharashtra Governor B S Koshiyari’s

move to recommend president’s rule in the state without giving enough time to the stakeholders and not inviting the Congress when he called all the other par-ties.

“Governor Koshiyari has com-mitted a grave travesty of the democracy & made a mockery of the constitutional process in recommending president’s rule in Maharashtra. Four grave violations of the constitution-al scheme, as expressed in S R Bommai judgment, stand out,” Congress spokesman Randeep Surjewala said in a series of tweets.

“In the absence of any single party having majority in Mahar-ashtra, Guv should have called the single largest pre-poll alli-ance i.e BJP-Shiv Sena together, then second largest post poll al-liance i.e Congress-NCP.”

Surjewala also questioned the governor for not calling the Con-gress.

“In case Guv called individual parties, why did he not call INC? And above all; why the com-pletely arbitrary allotment of time? 48 hours to BJP, 24 hrs to Sena & not even 24 hours to NCP, before the president’s rule,” he said, terming the move “una-shamedly dishonest & politically motivated”.

Another Congress leader and senior lawyer Abhisehk Manu Singhvi said, “Governor of Ma-harashtra cannot give 48 hours to Shiva Sena for Maharash-tra govt formation but BJP can avail 5 weeks in other states is an arbitrary use of power by the governor. This is what happens when constitutional posts are used to further political moti-vations.”

The Shiv Sena has moved the Supreme Court, seeking a hear-ing against the governor’s deci-sion not allocating three days to

get letters of support from the NCP and the Congress to stake claim on formation of the gov-ernment.

The Sena, which has emerged as the second-largest party with 56 seats in the 288-member as-sembly, said that it was con-strained to move the top court seeking urgent relief against the “arbitrary and malafi de actions” of the governor.

The party sought quashing of the order of the governor and declaring the action “unconsti-tutional, arbitrary, illegal, void-ab-initio, and violative of Article 14 of the constitution of India”.

Also raising questions on the governor’s behaviour, it said that he cannot act in such a manner or act on the diktats of the cen-tral government.

In its petition, the Sena re-ferred to the step taken by the party including party MP Sanjay Raut meeting NCP chief Sharad Pawar and said that these talks have been in a positive direction. The party also mentioned the resignation of Arvind Sawant, the sole minister from the Shiv Sena in the central government on November 11.

It also informed the court about Sena chief Uddhav Thack-eray’s telephonic conversation with Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi.

Sena also said it has got the support of eight independent MLAs - Narendra Bondekar, Manjula Gavith, Shankar Rao Gadak, Chandrakanth Patil, Ashish Jaiswal, Bachhukadu, Ra-jkumar Patel and Rajendra Patel Vadraokar.

The party said that the gover-nor, as per the law, ought to have invited it to form the government and directed it to prove its ma-jority.

“...the factum of the majority cannot be decided by the Hon’ble Governor in his own ipsi dixit (an unsupported statement that rests solely on the authority of the indi-vidual who makes it) and the fl oor of the House is the only ‘consti-tutionally ordained forum’ to the test majority,” the plea said.

Maharashtra placedunder president ruleIANSNew Delhi/ Mumbai

Maharashtra was plunged into political uncertain-ty yesterday after the

central government imposed di-rect rule on the state after weeks of deadlock over who would form its government following fi ercely fought elections.

The state assembly was placed under suspended animation, with the central government saying it was “left with no alter-native”.

On a day of swift develop-ments, Maharashtra Governor B S Koshyari sent his recommen-dation to the federal Home Min-istry calling for imposing presi-dent’s rule around noon, saying his attempts to put a government in place in the state had failed.

Soon after, Prime Minis-

ter Narendra Modi convened a meeting of the cabinet which conveyed to President Ram Nath Kovind its recommendation for imposition of central rule on the state. The meeting was held just before Modi left for Brazil to at-tend the Brics Summit.

The president accepted the recommendation and signed the notifi cation for imposition of the central rule.

The Home Ministry said the president’s rule was imposed af-ter political parties failed to form a government even 20 days after the results of the assembly elec-tions were declared last month.

In a statement, the ministry’s spokesperson Vasudha Gupta said: “Governor (B S Koshyari) made the recommendation to the president in the noon explaining that he made all attempts but not succeeded in eff orts.”

In the 288-member assem-

bly, the Bharatiya Janata party emerged as the single largest party, winning 105 seats.

The BJP, along with its pre-poll alliance partner Shiv Sena, was in a comfortable position to form the government. But the Shiv Sena, with 56 members, insisted on rotational chief min-istership and because of diff er-ences on this issue, it refused to join the BJP in government for-mation.

On Sunday, the BJP announced it would not form government. The Shiv Sena has since been trying to form a government on its own with the help of the Con-gress and the Nationalist Con-gress Party, which won 44 and 54 seats, respectively.

Koshyari invited the BJP fi rst to form the government on Sat-urday, but after the saff ron party said it was not in a position to show majority, he invited Shiv

Sena on Sunday and gave a dead-line of 24 hours. The Shiv Sena could not present support of ad-equate number of MLAs during this time period.

Subsequently, Koshyari invit-ed the NCP to form the govern-ment on Monday evening, giving it time till 8pm yesterday to dem-onstrate its support. However, before the expiry of the deadline, the president’s rule was imposed.

However, hectic politicking continued among various con-tenders to cobble up a viable gov-ernment to the satisfaction of the governor.

Ranked among the most polit-ically stable, this is only the third time that Maharashtra has come under central rule in its 59-year old history.

The state witnessed spells of president’s rule for 112 days in Feb-ruary-June 1980, followed by 33 days in September-October 2014.

The latest move was sharply criticised by the Congress, and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena’s Raj Thackeray, while the Sena has moved the Supreme Court chal-lenging why it was not granted an extension of time to prove its majority.

Legal experts point out that since the newly-elected legis-lators have not been sworn in by a pro-tem speaker to be ap-pointed by the governor, there is no legislature in existence, so there’s no question of putting it under “suspended animation” for the period of president’s rule.

“Since the house has not been constituted, how can any other measures take eff ect? Things will move forward only after any party/group is able to prove its majority before the governor and convince that they can form a government,” one expert said.

US singer/songwriter Katy Perry sings at a press conference in Mumbai yesterday, ahead of her concert on November 16 at the OnePlus Music Festival.

Mobile theatres to screen child slavery fi lm in villagesReutersMumbai

A fi lm about a boy traffi cked to work in a carpet factory is to be screened in remote

villages to raise awareness about child slavery among families often targeted by human traffi ckers.

Due to be released tomor-row, Jhalki tracks a nine-year-old girl’s struggle to find her younger brother after their par-ents unwittingly sell him to a trafficker.

“We want to reach a large number of people to create aware-ness about child labour,” Brah-manand Siingh, director of Jhalki told the Thomson Reuters Foun-dation.

The fi lm was inspired by the Indian campaigner against child traffi cking and Nobel peace laure-

ate Kailash Satyarthi, Siingh said yesterday.

Figures released by India’s Na-tional Crime Records Bureau last month showed that about 3,000 human traffi cking cases were re-ported in 2017, a drop of about 60% from more than 8,000 re-corded in the previous year.

Traffi ckers target people in ru-ral villages - largely poor, women and children - luring them to cities with the promise of good jobs but then selling them into modern day slavery.

Picture Time, a startup that screens fi lms in villages using in-fl atable, air-conditioned theatres with high quality sound, will take Jhalki to rural India and charge Rs50 per ticket.

“The reach of Picture Time goes right down to interiors where there are no theatres. We can show the fi lm, create awareness,” Siingh said.

Campaigners at Kailash Sat-yarthi Children’s Foundation will also screen the fi lm in vil-lages where they work to alert residents to traffi ckers targeting their area.

India’s multiple fi lm industries churn out thousands of fi lms every year, yet it has the lowest number of cinema screens per capita in the world after China, the United States and Britain, consultancy KPMG said in a report this year.

Some of the poorer states of India such as Chattisgarh, Bihar and Jharkhand, record the highest numbers of children traffi cked for sex or work but have few cinema theatres.

Sushil Chaudhary, Picture Time’s founder, said they screened Padman, a fi lm on menstrual hy-giene, and Toilet-A Love Story about open defecation, in villages in the last couple of years.

Rat holds up fl ight for 12 hours in Hyderabad

DPANew Delhi

A domestic flight in In-dia was delayed nearly 12 hours after a rat was

spotted scampering around the aircraft, news reports and offi-cials said yesterday.

Air India flight AI-952 was preparing for takeoff from the southern city of Hyderabad for Vishakapatnam, a coastal city, early on Sunday, when the ro-dent was seen running around the cabin, the Times of India daily reported.

Helpless passengers for the flight were forced to stay put at Hyderabad airport all through the day until airline staff man-aged to get rid of the rat, the report said.

An Air India official con-firmed the incident to DPA, adding that it was being inves-

tigated but gave no further de-tails.

The passengers continued on their journey only after staff carried out a fumigation to san-itise the flight and searched for any possible damage caused by the rat.

The report said there were ugly scenes at the airport as infuriated passengers checked with airline staff when their flight would take off.

Several among them took to social media to express their amusement and anger over the incident.

Rats on planes are reported occasionally and are thought to enter the aircraft most fre-quently through catering deliv-eries.

In 2017, a New Delhi-San Francisco Air India fl ight was de-layed after a rodent was found on board while the aircraft was taxi-ing prior to takeoff .

SC to rule today on bringing CJI offi ce under transparency lawIANSNew Delhi

The Supreme Court will de-liver a judgment today on petitions challenging the

Delhi High Court verdict bring-ing the offi ce of the Chief Justice of India (CJI) within the ambit of Right to Information (RTI) Act.

A fi ve-judge headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and com-prising Justices N V Ramana, D Y

Chandrachud, Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna, will announce the verdict at 2pm.

The judgment was reserved on April 4 on the appeals fi led in 2010 by the secretary general of the top court and its central public information offi cer chal-lenging the Delhi High Court and the central information commis-sion’s (CIC’s) orders.

The court had observed that the judiciary cannot be destroyed for the sake of transparency,

though insisting that nobody wants a system of opaqueness.

“Nobody wants to remain in a state of darkness or keep any-body in the same...but the ques-tion which is before us is that in the name of transparency, you can’t destroy the institution,” the court had said.

In 2010, in an unprecedent-ed judgment, the Delhi High Court had ruled the RTI is ap-plicable to the chief justice. The high court observed that

the judicial independence was not a judge’s privilege, but a responsibility cast upon him. This judgment was construed as a personal attack on the then chief justice K G Balakrishnan, who had objected to divulging information about judges un-der the RTI Act.

RTI activist S C Agrawal ini-tiated the proceedings to bring the chief justice’s office under the transparency law. Prashant Bhushan, representing Agar-

wal, had contended in the top court it should not judge its own cause.

Bhushan insisted that the ju-diciary should not object to di-vulging the information, as the judges do not exist in a differ-ent universe, and instead sup-port transparency. He had said the public interest should be prioritised in comparison with personal interests if the person concerned is holding a public office.

Bhushan said the judiciary is not free from “public scrutiny”. He had also said deliberations of the Supreme Court Collegium should be brought under the RTI on a case-to-case basis keeping in mind the public interest.

Attorney General K K Venugopal, who was repre-senting Supreme Court’s Cen-tral Public Information Offi cer (CPIO), submitted that sharing information connected with the collegium, which is under the CJI

offi ce, would make judges and the government shy and destroy judicial independence. The CPIO is the authority tasked with re-sponding to RTI queries related to the court.

The issue arose from an appeal fi led by the Supreme Court sec-retary-general against the Janu-ary 2010 judgment of the Delhi High Court that declared the CJI’s offi ce a “public authority” within the meaning of Section 2(h) of the RTI Act, 2005.

Katy Perry in Mumbai

INDIA17Gulf Times

Wednesday, November 13, 2019

UK’s Labourparty changesKashmir policyafter backlashAgenciesLondon

Britain’s Labour party has responded to a backlash among voters of Indian

heritage in the UK by shifting its stance on the Kashmir dis-pute and insisting it is a bilateral matter between India and Paki-stan in which the party will not interfere.

The clarification has been made in a letter sent by the Labour party chairman Ian Lavery, in which he admits an emergency motion on Kashmir passed by Labour at its annual conference had caused offence to some British Indians and India itself.

The motion said there was a humanitarian crisis in the region and that the people of Jammu and Kashmir should be given the right of self-determi-nation. It also called for inter-national monitors to be allowed into the region.

The motion has led to some Indian groups in the UK to call on their community to vote Conservative.

More than 100 Indian groups wrote to Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn in protest, and more recently the criticism of Labour has spread to social me-dia. There have also been com-plaints that only one candidate of Indian heritage has been se-lected in a safe Labour seat, and none in a target seat.

In his letter Lavery promises “the Labour party will not take a pro-Indian or pro-Pakistan stance on Kashmir”.

The latest controversy fol-lows India’s decision in August to revoke the special status of Jammu and Kashmir, bringing it under direct rule from Delhi.

Since August political activ-ity in Kashmir has been cur-tailed, journalists have been refused free access, and NGOs have reported human rights abuses, claims denied by India.

Former UK national security adviser Mark Lyall Grant has predicted rising extremism in the UK unless the issue is set-tled.

Lyall Grant told a meet-ing at the security think-tank Chatham House that India’s decision to revoke Kashmir’s special status was likely to lead to greater extremism in the re-gion.

He said greater extremism in Kashmir would have a direct impact on the UK. “Therefore there is a risk of radicalisation in this country of Britain Kash-miris. We all know that diaspo-ras tend to be more radical than communities left behind and I do not see why this should be any diff erent.”

In his letter Lavery wrote: “We are adamant that the deep-ly felt and genuinely held diff er-ences on the issue of Kashmir must not be allowed to divide communities against each other here in the UK.

“Kashmir is a bilateral matter for India and Pakistan to resolve together by means of a peace-ful solution, which protects the human rights of the Kashmiri people and respects their right to have a say in their own fu-ture.”

Lavery also said “the La-bour Party holds the Indian diaspora community in the highest regard. We respect and celebrate the immense con-tribution which Indians of all backgrounds have made to the UK in business, medicine, the arts and so many other fields. I am proud that Labour counts many people of Indian origin at all levels of our party and the broader Labour move-ment.”

He added that Labour party’s offi cial position on Kashmir re-mains the same as was stated by its National Policy Forum in its annual report for 2019.

Attention will now turn to how Labour words its election manifesto on this issue.

In a sign of the controversy the issue creates inside Labour, former foreign secretary Jack Straw said he was “extremely sympathetic” to the plight of Muslim people in Jammu and Kashmir, and said the actions of India’s Prime Minister Naren-dra Modi in revoking the state’s special status were “outra-geous, preposterous, a complete breach of human rights and without any strategy attached”.

Under the new arrange-ment, Jammu and Kashmir is designated one territory, and Ladakh, which borders Chi-na, is separate. Almost 98% of the state’s population will be in the territory of Jammu and Kashmir, comprising two regions – the Muslim-ma-jority Kashmir Valley, which has about 8mn people, and the Hindu-majority Jammu, which has about 6mn.

Beant killer’s death sentencecommuted to life imprisonmentIANSNew Delhi/Chandigarh

The government has com-muted the death sentence of Babbar Khalsa terrorist

Balwant Singh Rajoana who was convicted in 2007 for the assas-sination of former Punjab chief minister Beant Singh.

The decision by the federal Home Ministry has been con-veyed to the Punjab government and Chandigarh administra-tion, sources said, adding the remission order will be pursued by the Chandigarh administra-tion.

“It is a case of the Union Ter-ritory (UT), and the Home Min-istry has sent the information to the UT administration. Since he’s lodged in our jail, we also got the information,” a Punjab gov-ernment offi cial told IANS.

“The UT administration will be the one following it up on his remission,” he added.

Rajoana, 52, who is currently lodged in Patiala Central Jail, is

the prime accused in the case and he will now serve life imprison-ment.

A former Punjab police con-stable, Rajoana was sentenced to death on August 1, 2007 by a spe-cial Central Bureau of Investiga-tion (CBI) court in Chandigarh and his execution was scheduled for March 31, 2012.

The Home Ministry in Sep-tember this year had approved the commutation of Rajoana’s death sentence to life term as a humanitarian gesture ahead of

the 550th birth anniversary of Sikhism founder Guru Nanak Dev, a decision which was criti-cised by Beant Singh’s grandson Ravneet Singh Bittu.

Besides Rajoana, the Home Ministry had granted special dispensation to eight other Sikh prisoners from various jails in the country on the occasion.

On March 28, 2012, the Home Ministry had stayed Rajoana’s execution following clemency appeals fi led by the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Commit-tee.

Beant Singh and 16 others were killed in an explosion outside the Civil Secretariat in Chandigarh on August 31, 1995.

Dilawar Singh, a Punjab po-lice offi cer, had acted as a sui-cide bomber to assassinate Beant Singh.

Rajoana was designated the second bomber if Dilawar Singh had failed to kill the Congress leader.

Rajoana had cited the 1984 an-ti-Sikh riots as the reason behind the killing of Beant Singh.

AgenciesSrinagar

Jammu and Kashmir yesterday marked 100 days since India stripped the region of its au-

tonomy and imposed a strict com-munications blackout, with local journalists protesting the Internet blackout.

Tensions have been high since August 5 when Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government moved to bring the region under direct rule, cut telecommunica-tions and detained thousands to quell any unrest.

Shops and businesses have re-mained shut to protest against the controversial decision, and children have not been going to school.

Dozens of journalists held a si-lent demonstration against the Internet ban, holding their laptops open with blank screens or held placards with the words “100 days no Internet” and “stop humiliat-ing Kashmir journalists”.

“The authorities have treated journalists too as potential trou-blemakers and choked journalism in the process,” a freelance jour-nalist said.

“Internet is so fundamental to journalism in this day and age. The authorities have choked our practices instead of enabling free press here,” said another journal-ist, Naseer Ganai.

“This is the worst situation the journalists are facing in Kashmir. It’s very humiliating. It does not even happen in a war-like situ-ation,” Majid Maqbool, an inde-pendent journalist, said.

“We are not asking anything out of the turn. It’s our basic right to demand Internet,” said Aakash Hassan, a journalist in Srinagar who was also part of the protest.

Post-paid mobile connections were restored in the Kashmir Val-ley on October 14 – 72 days after they were cut off . Pre-paid phones and all Internet services remain suspended.

On the 60th day of the restric-tions early in October, more than 100 journalists launched a silent sit-in protest against the commu-nication blockade.

JournalistsprotestInternetban inKashmir

18 Gulf TimesWednesday, November 13, 2019

INDIA

A Delhi court has asked police to preserve the CCTV footage of clashes between the police and lawyers at Tis Hazari court complex on November 2. Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (ACMM) Jitendra Singh also asked the police to file a compliance report stating the action taken by them. “The investigating agency is required to preserve all the relevant CCTV footages available in and around the place of incident, as, undoubtedly they are a crucial piece of evidence which can aid in verifying the allegations and counter-allegations of advocates and police,” the court said. The Delhi Bar Association alleged that a “proper” and “fair” probe was not taking place. However, the police denied the claims and said a “fair” probe was taking place.

A Kerala man who was beaten up reportedly over a relationship with a woman committed suicide in Malappuram. The woman, hearing the news, also attempted suicide and is now battling for her life in hospital. Shahir, 22, was beaten up on Sunday by a group of men known to the woman. Following the intervention of his mother and brother who arrived at the scene, he was freed and after reaching home he locked himself up in his room. Relatives later found Shahir unconscious and took him to hospital as he had taken poison. He died early yesterday. Hearing the news, the woman also took poison and is now battling for life at the state-run Medical College hospital in Kozhikode.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) yesterday said that it has registered a case against two IAS officers and some others in connection with the Shahranpur illegal sand mining case. A senior ED official told IANS that the agency has booked Ajay Kumar Singh and Pawan Kumar, former district magistrates (DM) of Saharanpur. According to the ED, Singh was posted as the Saharanpur DM between March 28, 2012 and February 12, 2014. He is now secretary of the Khadi and Village Industries Board. Kumar was posted in the district between July 20, 2015 and August 6, 2016 and now holds the post of special secretary in the Housing and Urban Planning Department of the Uttar Pradesh government.

At least 72% urban Indians believe that the country is headed in the right direction compared to 61% global citizens who feel their country is on the wrong track, says a survey by market research firm Ipsos. While people in China (93%) and India (72%) are the most optimistic about the future, those in South Africa (15%), Italy (17%) and Spain (21%) are the most negative about the prospects of their country. Among the issues that bother Indians the most are unemployment, financial/political corruption and crime and violence, according to the Ipsos “What Worries the World” survey. These are also the top three issues that bother global citizens as well – though not in the same order.

Preserve Tis Hazari clashfootage: court tells police

Man commits suicide over relationship with woman

Case filed against IASoff icers in sand mining case

72% Indians believe country headed in right direction

JUDICIARY TRAGEDY CORRUPTIONSURVEY

The Delhi University Students Union (DUSU) along with the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) has launched a protest against an under-construction 39-storey building, claimed to be the tallest building in Delhi when completed. The students have been joined by professors in a signature campaign against the proposed building. The students allege that once completed, the occupants of the building would have a clear view of the girls’ hostels on North Campus, infringing on the inmates’ privacy. “The ABVP demands new hostels at the proposed site instead of the building which will take away the privacy of our girl students living in six nearby hostels,” said a senior member of the group aff iliated to the Bharatiya Janata Party.

‘Tallest building’ roilsDelhi university students

PROTEST

Rajoana: to serve full life imprisonment

Tributes paid to late entrepreneur

Kerala’s Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan speaks at a commemoration meeting held in honour of the late C K Menon, a long-time Doha-based entrepreneur and renowned philanthropist, at his hometown Thrissur on Sunday. Kerala Legislative Assembly Speaker P Sreeramakrishnan, former governor of Maharashtra K Sankaranarayanan, LuLu Group chairman Yusuff ali M A and several other dignitaries were present at the function. Menon, a recipient of Padma Shri, India’s fourth highest civilian award, died in Chennai on October 1 aged 70.

Kashmiri journalists display laptops and placards during a protest demanding restoration of Internet service, in Srinagar, yesterday. Since August political activity in Kashmir has been curtailed, journalists have been refused free access, and NGOs have reported human rights abuses, claims denied by India.

LATIN AMERICA19Gulf Times

Wednesday, November 13, 2019

No end in sightto ChileunrestReutersSantiago

State workers in Chile launched a massive, na-tionwide walk-off early

yesterday, a sign protesters were not yet satisfi ed following the government’s decision to rewrite the country’s heavily critiqued dictatorship-era constitution.

The new round of rallies and strikes over inequality and social injustices follow almost a month of unrest in Chile.

The demonstrations have sometimes devolved into ar-son, riots and looting, leaving at least 20 dead and wreaking billions of dollars of damage to public infrastructure and private businesses. Santiago’s public transport system has been hobbled.

Truck drivers and protest-ers yesterday set up barricades on at least two major highways connecting the capital Santiago with outlying cities and ports, prompting huge back-ups on key regional arteries.

The road blockages prompted the Valparaiso-based upper and lower chambers of congress to suspend activities for the day.

Lawmakers said the move was “unprecedented” with one, Marcelo Diaz, a socialist, telling local TV: “Today more than ever congress needs to be making an eff ort to work at an accelerated pace because the people are de-manding that we fi nd concrete solutions.”

In downtown Santiago, the streets were unusually quiet as buses scaled back service and many people refrained from commuting to work due to the protests.

Schools and businesses throughout the capital of 6mn people were largely closed, and construction workers scrambled to board up shops and restau-rants in anticipation of contin-ued riots.

Valentina Donosa, 21, a uni-versity student who funds her education by selling bread on the street, said she was not in favour of the vandalism but that some-thing signifi cant had to change.

Ransomware attackhalts work at PemexReutersMexico City

A ransomware attack hit computer servers and halted administrative

work at Mexican state oil fi rm Pemex, according to employees and internal e-mails, in hackers’ latest bid to wring ransom from a major company.

Hackers have increasingly tar-geted companies with malicious programs that can cripple sys-tems overseeing everything from supply chains to payments to manufacturing, removing them only after receiving substantial payments.

An internal e-mail seen by Reuters said Pemex was tar-geted by “Ryuk,” a strain of ransomware that experts say typically targets companies with annual revenue between $500mn and $1bn.

“We are taking measures at the national level to fi ght Ryuk ransomware, which is aff ect-ing various Pemex servers in the country,” a company offi cial said in an e-mail.

The attack is the latest chal-

lenge for embattled Pemex, al-ready struggling to pay down massive debt, reverse years of declining oil production and fend off potential downgrades of its credit ratings.

Pemex said in a statement that attempted cyber attacks were “neutralised” in a timely matter and aff ected less than 5% of its computers.

Operations were normal, and oil production and storage were unaff ected, Pemex added, not-ing that it often received cyber attacks and threats but none had yet been successful.

The company said its compu-ter centre in the state of Mexico had detected an attack by ran-somware that could “block a computer screen or encode im-portant, predetermined fi les with a password.”

In a separate internal e-mail also seen by Reuters, Pemex told employees to disconnect from its network and back up critical in-formation from hard drives.

Three Pemex employees said work ground to a halt because staff could not access a range of computer systems, such as those dealing with payments.

Spain’s king startshistoric trip to CubaFelipe and his wife, Queen Letizia, arrived late on Monday for a three-day stay in Cuba, underscoring the rapprochement between the two countries

ReutersHavana

Spain’s King Felipe kicked off the fi rst-ever state visit by a Spanish mon-

arch to Cuba yesterday by lay-ing fl owers at the monument in Havana to Jose Marti, a symbol of the former colony’s struggle for independence.

Felipe and his wife, Queen Letizia, arrived late on Monday for a three-day stay in Cuba, underscoring the rapproche-ment between the two coun-tries in spite of US attempts to isolate the Cuban government.

Felipe held talks at the Pal-ace of the Revolution yesterday morning while his wife toured Old Havana.

The royal visit was timed so

that the couple could take part in the celebrations of the 500th anniversary of the founding of the Cuban capital.

Havana was once one of the most important cities in the Spanish empire, providing a port for its treasure fl eet.

“Spain remains our par-ent nation and we identify a lot with it, so their visit is very important to us,” said Havana resident Maria Pazos, whose paternal great-grandparents came from Catalonia. “It’s also a reaffi rmation that we are not alone, that we have support.”

In Havana, various Spanish provinces have associations which lay on social events and dance classes, refl ecting the enduring strength of cultural

ties, partly due to family bonds.The father of revolutionary

leader Fidel Castro himself was a Spanish immigrant.

Economic relations, mean-while, have picked up since Cuba started opening up its state-run economy in the 1990s.

Spain is now Cuba’s third-largest trading partner and one of its top investors.

“It’s an act of historic jus-tice,” said Xulio Fontecha, the head of the association of Spanish companies, the only foreign business group in Cuba. “The king and queen should have come before.”

Felipe’s father King Juan Car-los had travelled to Cuba twice to attend an Ibero-American summit in 2016 and Castro’s funeral, but he never made an offi cial state visit to the island.

Juan Fernandez Trigo, Spanish ambassador in Cuba, told Spain’s EFE news agency the visit’s con-tent was primarily cultural.

“Our idea is not to come to do politics, because the king does not do politics in Spain,” he said.

Bolivia seeksnew leader asfallen Morales reaches MexicoReutersLa Paz/Mexico City

Bolivia’s former leader Evo Morales yesterday landed in Mexico seeking asylum

as security forces back home quelled violence over the long-serving leftist’s resignation and opponents sought an interim replacement to fi ll the power vacuum.

Morales, who quit after weeks of protests over a disputed Oc-tober election, fl ew in a Mexican Air Force airplane from the town of Chimore, a stronghold where Bolivia’s fi rst indigenous presi-dent retreated as his 14-year rule imploded.

Opposition lawmakers want-ed to formally accept Morales’ resignation and start planning for a temporary leader ahead of a new vote.

But their plans looked at risk as Morales’ Movement for So-cialism (MAS) said it would boy-cott the meeting.

Residents of the highland cap-ital La Paz, rocked by protests and looting since the October 20 vote, said they hoped politicians would succeed in fi nally restor-ing order.

“Democracy has been at risk and hopefully it will be resolved today,” said resident Isabel Nadia.

Morales’ fl ight out was far from simple. Takeoff was de-layed, with supporters sur-rounding the airport, then the plane was denied permission to fuel in Peru, Mexico’s Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard told a news conference.

So it stopped instead in Para-guay before arriving in Mexico City just after 11am local time (1700GMT).

“His life and integrity are safe,” Ebrard said, tweeting a photo of Morales alone in the jet with a downcast expression, dis-playing Mexico’s red, white and green fl ag across his lap.

In a region divided along ideo-logical lines over Morales’ fall, Mexico’s leftist government has supported his accusations of a coup against him by political ri-vals.

In La Paz, roadblocks were in place after soldiers and police patrolled into the night to stop fi ghting between rival political groups and looting that erupted after Morales’ resignation.

The charismatic 60-year-old former coca leaf farmer was be-loved by the poor when he won power in 2006.

But he alienated some by in-sisting on seeking a fourth term, in defi ance of term limits and a 2016 referendum in which Boliv-ians voted against him being al-lowed to do that.

The government collapsed on Sunday after the Organisation of American States (OAS) deliv-

ered a damning report on irregu-larities during the October vote, prompting ruling party allies to quit and the army to urge Mo-rales’ departure.

With Morales’ deputy and many allies in government and parliament also gone, opposition politician and Senate second vice-president, Jeanine Anez, was theoretically in line to take the top job temporarily and said she would accept.

However, in a sign of the com-plex path ahead, Anez tweeted a memo from Morales’ MAS, which said she was part of a coup and that Adriana Salvatierra, the Senate leader who resigned on Sunday, should instead lead the transition.

“Don’t they know that the ex-president of the Senate publicly resigned?” she wrote.

In Bolivia and around Latin America, detractors have exulted in the fall of a “dictator” while Morales’ supporters are de-nouncing a coup by right-wing foes determined to put Bolivia’s capitalist elite back in charge.

Protesters march against the government of Chilean President Sebastian Pinera towards La Moneda presidential palace in Santiago yesterday.

Spain’s King Felipe and Queen Letizia attend a wreath-laying ceremony at the Jose Marti monument in Havana, Cuba, yesterday.

Ex-president Lula looks to fi ll leftist leadership voidAFPRio de Janeiro

Out of jail and full of rage, Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has put his far-right

nemesis President Jair Bolsonaro in the cross-hairs, as he takes up the mantle of leading the left.

Declaring “I’m back” in a fi ery speech to hundreds of supporters

near Sao Paulo on Saturday, Lula, 74, appeared energised by his year-and-a-half-long incarcera-tion for corruption as he spoke for nearly an hour in the heat, a day after walking out of prison.

Ripping apart Bolsonaro’s economic policies and accusing him of serving criminal groups in Rio de Janeiro, the former presi-dent signalled his intention to fi ll the left’s leadership void and

take them to victory in the 2022 election.

“The leader of the left has shown his willingness to try to awaken a leftist opposition lack-ing ideas and leadership,” the re-spected Folha de Sao Paulo daily said in an editorial.

Brazil’s left has fl oundered since Lula’s jailing in April 2018.

Without the charismatic leader at the helm, the Workers Party

(PT) that Lula helped found nearly 40 years ago lost the 2018 election to far-right Bolsonaro and has been largely rudderless ever since.

Lula’s release following a Su-preme Court ruling on Thursday could change that, said Vinicius Vieira, a professor of interna-tional relations at the University of Sao Paulo.

“He presents a great challenge in the midst of Bolsonaro’s de-

clining popularity,” Vieira said.“Lula is able to mobilise a lot

of people who recognise the PT’s corruption, but also remember the benefi ts of economic growth, income growth during Lula’s government.”

Known for his common touch, Lula plans to traverse the vast country, starting Sunday with a meeting in Recife, the capital of the northeastern state of Per-

nambuco, where he was born.“Lula will eclipse Bolsonaro in

the coming weeks and will be the focus of attention,” said Thiago Vidal, a political analyst at Pro-spectiva consultancy.

“The question is how Bolsonaro and his government will react.”

So far, Bolsonaro has branded Lula a “scoundrel.” General Au-gusto Heleno, the minister for institutional security and a close

adviser to the president, accused Lula of inciting violence after he praised the protests against Chile’s conservative President Sebastian Pinera.

Lula remains extremely pop-ular in Brazil after he led the country through a historic boom from 2003 to 2010, earning the gratitude of millions of Brazil-ians for redistributing wealth to haul them out of poverty.

Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard (left) receives Bolivian ex-president Evo Morales upon his arrival in Mexico City yesterday.

The royal visit was timed so that the couple could take part in the celebrations of the 500th anniversary of the founding of the Cuban capital

PAKISTAN

Gulf Times Wednesday, November 13, 201920

The government appears to have come under increas-ing pressure over the issue

of price hike as Prime Minister Imran Khan ordered creation of a special cell for integrated plan-ning on demand and supply of essential commodities to control their prices.

The prime minister directed that the special cell for formu-lation of integrated planning on demand and supply of essential items should work under the na-tional food security and research ministry, which should suggest measures for comprehensive administrative and planning on

demand and supply to help keep prices under control.

Soon after the prime minister presided over a meeting of his economic managers, his Advis-er on Finance Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh, accompanied by Minis-ter for Economic Aff airs Ham-mad Azhar, Finance Secretary Naveed Kamran, Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) chairman Shab-bar Zaidi, and Special Finance Secretary Omar Hameed Khan, appeared at a news conference to defend the government’s policies and explain the steps they could or have been taking on the pric-ing front.

More than their explanations, they faced question after ques-tion about the increase in prices of various kitchen items, partic-

ularly vegetables and fruits, and the policies that trigger infl ation from high policy and interest rates to hoarding, black market-ing and short supplies.

Some questions also pertained to record prices of tomato go-ing beyond Rs300 per kg in some cases, besides sugar, wheat fl our, onions and potatoes, to name a few.

Shaikh said the government was not taking any measure that led to the price hikes, and claimed credit for releasing wheat stocks in the market and for not bor-rowing from the State Bank of Pakistan, or zero currency print-ing over the past four months.

He was reminded by a jour-nalist that the record high policy rate of the central bank, peaking

interest rates and currency de-preciation had played the central role and asked as to why the gov-ernment was off ering discounts on interest rates to selected ar-eas instead of reducing the policy rate.

Shaikh said the discount rate setting was the role of an inde-pendent monetary policy com-mittee that comprised renowned independent economists, adding that there were also some people who had invested their lifetime savings in banks, like pensioners, with a hope of high returns.

The prime minister’s adviser said that the government is now focusing on reducing prices.

“Who do you think would be worried today, more than the prime minister who has been giv-

en votes by the people?” Shaikh said.

The adviser to the premier added that Prime Minister Khan was holding meeting after meet-ing to address the problem and asking the relevant quarters to do the needful.

He said that the government is taking four to fi ve instruments to control prices.

It took steps to improve sup-plies when prices went up, Shaikh said, recalling the government had released 650,000 tonnes of wheat from public sector stocks when fl our prices started going up and the move had a positive impact in the market.

Also, he said, there were cer-tain things that the provincial governments should take care of,

like making sure that the prices of produce did not go up as much as they had.

Then there were some items that were being smuggled out of borders to Afghanistan, Central Asian republics and Iran, and there was a need for an eff ec-tive mechanism to stop that, he added.

In the heat of arguments after the news conference, a question-er asked Shaikh why he was not moved by the knowledge that to-matoes are being sold for Rs300, and onions Rs120, per kg.

The prime minister’s adviser retorted: “From where [you] are quoting these prices, where the prices [are] increasing? The to-mato price in the Karachi vegeta-ble [market is] Rs17 per kg.”

According to an offi cial state-ment, the meeting chaired by the prime minister was informed that eff ective administrative and policy measures were being taken to control sugar prices, and that special focus was on discourag-ing hoarding and profi teering.

It was told that the provision of Rs6bn to the Utility Stores Cor-poration approved by the prime minister would go a long way in signifi cantly reducing the prices of essential commodities.

The prime minister was in-formed that sugar stocks avail-ability was satisfactory in the market.

PM orders special cell for price control to be set upInternewsIslamabad

Prime Minister Khan: had presided over a meeting of his economic managers.

It is one of the biggest birth-day celebrations in the world: millions of Sikhs

mark yesterday the 550th birth anniversary of the founder of their religion, the Guru Nanak.

The annual celebration has been given extra signifi cance this year with the opening of the Kartarpur Corridor, a se-cure, visa-free passage between arch-rivals India and Pakistan that gives Indian Sikhs access to the place where the guru died in 1539, now one of the religion’s holiest sites.

Interior Minister Ejaz Shah joined large numbers of Sikh re-ligion followers from world over for the ceremony.

Addressing ceremony, the minister said that Kartarpur Corridor is a great gift from the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government to the Sikh commu-nity, paving the way for peace and friendship in region.

He said that Pakistan will continue to look after holy plac-es of minorities, including that of the Sikh community.

Addressing the ceremony, Punjab Governor Chaudhry Mo-hamed Sarwar said that the PTI government is committed to protect religious heritage of mi-norities in country.

He said that the Pakistani people have opened their hearts for Kartarpur Corridor project.

Meanwhile, Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar, in his message on the occasion, said that opening of the Kartarpur Corridor has rejuvenated the joys of Sikh community and it is another historic step by the

PTI government to promote re-ligious harmony.

Sikhism is a monotheistic re-ligion born in the 15th-century in Punjab – meaning the land of fi ve rivers, a region spanning parts of what is now India and Pakistan.

Five and a half centuries lat-er, Sikhs number up to 30mn worldwide, with a rich diaspora in places such as Canada, the US and Europe – although the vast majority remain in India.

Guru Nanak was born in 1469 to a Hindu family at Nankana Sahib, a city about 80km (50 miles) from Lahore.

As he grew older the Guru be-

gan travelling, preaching a faith based on equality and one God.

He died in 1539 in the Punjabi town of Kartarpur, in modern-day Pakistan, where his remains are buried.

Nine gurus followed Guru Nanak and there is no living hu-man successor, but the Guru Granth Sahib – the Sikh holy book – is considered the 11th and eternal.

Sikhs around the world, but especially on the subcontinent, come together to sing, pray, eat and hold sprawling processions to diff erent gurdwaras.

In Pakistan, thousands of Sikhs marked the occasion at

Nankana Sahib and Kartarpur.Apart from it being the 550th

anniversary, this year also saw the opening of the Kartarpur Corridor – a secure land link al-lowing Indian Sikhs to visit the Gurdwara in the Pakistani town where the Guru died.

The Gurdwara at Kartarpur is so close to the India-Pakistan frontier that its white dome and four cupolas can be seen from across the border.

However, the perennial en-mity between the South Asian nations, arch-enemies since Pakistan was carved out of colo-nial India at independence from Britain in 1947, has meant that

for decades Indians could not visit – at least, not easily.

Many had likened it to Mus-lims being able to see Makkah or Madinah, but not able to visit.

India has long been asking for

Sikhs to be given access to Kar-tarpur, and last weekend their wish was fi nally granted with the opening of the corridor just days ahead of the birthday cel-ebrations.

Sikhs celebrate founder’s birth anniversaryAFP/InternewsIslamabad

Pilgrims gather yesterday around the Palki Sahib on the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev, in Nankana Sahib.

Pilgrims line up to take part in a religious ritual in Nankana Sahib.

Left: Pilgrims gathering in Nankana Sahib.

Pakistan has put on display a statue of an Indian pi-lot whose plane was shot

down over Kashmir earlier this year, invoking the ire of India’s media.

The life-sized statue of Wing Commander Abhinandan Var-thaman – complete with his sig-nature moustache – has been in-

stalled in an exhibit at a museum in Karachi run by the Pakistan Air Force.

Varthaman’s plane was shot down in a dogfi ght over the dis-puted Himalayan region of Kash-mir in February during clashes which brought nuclear-armed India and Pakistan to the brink of a new war.

Following his capture, the Pa-kistani military released video showing the Indian pilot sipping a cup of tea and politely refusing

to answer questions.His stoic and courteous de-

meanour – and comment that the tea was “fantastic” – catapulted him to hero status in India.

He was released several days later in a gesture from Pakistan aimed at defusing tensions.

The statue of the pilot stands in a gallery named “Operation Swift Retort”.

The exhibit includes what Pa-kistan says are parts of the fu-selage and tail of Varthaman’s

aircraft, a Mig-21, as well as a tea mug – though apparently not the same one the pilot was seen sip-ping from.

The gallery also contains im-ages re-enacting the moment his plane was shot down, and photographs showing him be-ing handed back to India at the Wagah border crossing.

A mess receipt jokingly charg-ing Varthaman for the tea – at the cost of one Mig-21 – is also framed in the exhibit.

The museum stands inside a recreational park for young peo-ple in Karachi, complete with decomissioned aircraft and other military hardware.

“I feel very proud of my coun-try seeing Abhinandan’s statue at the gallery,” said Samiullah Bari, a 10th grade student visiting the museum at a school trip.

Indians were less enthusiastic, however, with the Times of India newspaper calling the exhibit “a new low”.

Museum installs statue of pilot shot down over KashmirAFPKarachi

A student takes a selfie in front of the statue of Indian pilot Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman, on display at Pakistan Air Force Museum in Karachi.

Former prime minister Na-waz Sharif is expected to be fl own to a London clinic

today for treatment after a travel restriction on him was removed, offi cials said.

Yesterday the Pakistan cabinet allowed Sharif to seek treatment outside Pakistan and removed the restrictions on his travel abroad, Special Assistant to the

Prime Minister for Information and Broadcasting Firdous Ashiq Awan said.

Three-time former premier Sharif, 69, suff ers from several medical conditions, including chronic diabetes, cardiovascular issues and a dangerous drop in the platelet count of his blood.

He was serving a seven-year jail term on corruption charges emanating from the so-called Panama Papers leaked in 2017 and was on a so-called no-fl y list.

He was removed by the Su-

preme Court in 2017.A court last week approved his

bail on medical grounds after he was admitted to a hospital in La-hore for dangerously low level of platelet count in his blood.

An air ambulance is due today to transport the former leader to a clinic in London, where he un-derwent heart surgery two years ago, Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz (PML-N) spokeswoman Marriyum Aurangzeb said.

The party’s Twitter account quoted her as saying that doctors

have started preparing Sharif for his travels.

She added that the doctors will use steroids and other medicines to ensure that the former prime minister’s platelet count is up to the level required for travel.

Meanwhile, an accountabil-ity court in Islamabad has turned down an application submit-ted by former president Asif Ali Zardari, requesting that he be shifted to Karachi for treatment.

The former president had sub-mitted the application through

his lawyer, Farooq H Naek, dur-ing the proceedings of the fake bank accounts case, which per-tains to a massive money laun-dering scam that was previously being probed by the Federal In-vestigation Agency (FIA).

The application stated that Zardari’s health is “worrisome” and that he should be given per-mission to receive treatment of his choice, adding that he wants to be treated in Karachi.

Presiding over the hearing, ac-countability court judge Azam

Khan asked where the accused were and whether Anwar Majeed, one of the accused in the case, had been brought to court.

Majeed’s counsel said his cli-ent was unwell and will undergo a medical procedure in Karachi.

Zardari did not appear before the court either.

During the proceedings, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) prosecutor said that the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) has set two days for Zardari to meet his lawyers

and three days to meet his family.“There are fi ve days set for

meetings,” he said, in response to which Zardari’s counsel Naek re-marked that if there are fi ve days permitted, they could withdraw their application.

Zardari was brought to Pims from Adiala jail in Rawalpindi on October 22 and admitted to the cardiology department’s VIP ward.

He underwent a number of tests and was declared to be out of danger.

Cabinet approves ex-premier Sharif ’s trip to London for treatmentDPA/InternewsIslamabad

TLP chief chargedInternewsIslamabad

An anti-terrorism court (ATC) in Lahore has for-mally charged Tehreek-

e-Labbaik (TLP) chief Khadim Hussain Rizvi and others in a case concerning the violent pro-tests initiated by the TLP follow-ing a Supreme Court verdict ac-quitting Aasia Bibi last year.

Judge Arshad Hussain Bhutta announced the charges.

Strict security arrangements were made for the proceedings.

A total of 26 suspects – in-cluding Rizvi and TLP patron-in-chief Pir Afzal Qadri – were issued copies of the challan.

Some of the suspects ap-peared in court yesterday along with counsels Tahir Minhas and Nasir Minhas.

Additionally, the ATC issued summonses for the witnesses for the hearing today.

Violent protests had erupted in diff erent parts of the country soon after the Supreme Court’s verdict acquitting Bibi was an-nounced, as supporters of the TLP and other religious parties took to the street and blocked major roads and intersections through sit-ins and by putting up barricades.

The initial protest was dis-banded after the government provided assurances.

Rizvi was taken into protective custody by police on November 23, 2018 amidst a massive crack-down against TLP workers.

The crackdown had come two days before the TLP said it would resume its protest against Bibi’s acquittal.

PHILIPPINES21Gulf Times

Wednesday, November 13, 2019

Police open to possibility of ending drug war By Jan Arcilla Manila Times

The Philippine National Police (PNP) yesterday said it was amenable

to ending its drug war (Oplan Tokhang) if Vice President Maria Leonor “Leni” Robredo will or-der it.

“Yes, the PNP is open to the possibility of scrapping Op-lan Tokhang,” PNP spokesman Brig. Gen. Bernard Banac told Manila Times in a text mes-sage.

Banac said the PNP was be-hind Robredo in making the drug war “successful.”

“We support Vice President Robredo in her capacity as drug czar and co-chairman of ICAD (Inter-Agency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs),” he added.

Under Tokhang, policemen knock on houses and urge drug suspects to end their illegal ac-tivities.

But Tokhang operations however, have led to the killing of hundreds of drug suspects, leading Robredo to remark that it was a campaign against the poor.

The Philippine Drug En-forcement Agency (PDEA), the lead agency in the campaign against illegal drugs, was mum on the possible scrapping of Tokhang.

“We’d rather not to com-ment on that since Tokhang is a project of the PNP,” PDEA spokesman Derrick Carreon told Manila Times.

Robredo yesterday said she would let the PNP and the PDEA craft a new programme to fight illegal drugs.

“I’d rather have the law en-forcers conceptualise a more effective programme so they can own it.

It is hard if we will dictate on them,” she told reporters.

The vice president will meet with United States embassy of-ficials today to discuss the drug problem in the country.

She also plans to meet with members of international

groups to seek their advice.“I want to find out what re-

sources are available for intel-ligence. We need help in going after big-time drug lords,” Ro-bredo said.She also welcomed Malacanang’s decision allow-ing her to scrap Oplan Tokhang.

“If I will not be given the chance, why am I here? It was a big relief that the Palace said that publicly,” Robredo told re-

porters on the sidelines of the Women Influence Forum in Pasay City.

Palace spokesman Salvador Panelo on Monday said Robre-do could stop the implemen-tation of Oplan Tokhang if she had a better strategy to fight the drug problem.

The vice president said she was ready to appear at the House of Representatives to lay

down her plans as co-chairman of ICAD. “I really want that because it will be a platform to show the new direction of the anti-drug campaign,” she said.

Surigao del Norte Rep. Rob-ert Ace Barbers, who heads the committee, said they would invite Robredo to find out her “new strategies” on how to address the problem on illegal drugs.

Vice President Maria Leonor Robredo will meet with United States embassy officials to discuss the drug problem in the country.

Pacquiao ‘meets requirement to take part in presidential contest’By Catherine S ValenteManila Times

Senator Emmanuel Pacquiao, or anyone who meets the qualifi ca-tions laid down by the Consti-

tution, can run for president in 2022, Malacanang said yesterday.

“The Constitution gives require-ments. So, anybody, any citizen of this country passing those basic qualifi ca-tions can be president,” Palace spokes-man Salvador Panelo said.

He issued the statement after Presi-dent Rodrigo Duterte urged Pacquiao to carefully study any plan to seek the presidency.

“You must remember the housewife, Cory Aquino, became president,” Pan-elo said, referring to former president Corazon Aquino, who went up against then strongman Ferdinand Marcos in a snap presidential election in 1986.

When asked if Pacquiao would be a good or eff ective president, Panelo said, “Anybody can be a good president until he sits in the offi ce.”

Under Article VII, Section 2 of the 1987 Constitution, only a natural-born citizen of the Philippines may be elect-ed president.

A presidential candidate must also be a registered voter, able to read and write, at least 40 years of age and a resident of the Philippines for at least 10 years immediately preceding such election.

Pacquiao turned 40 on December 17, 2018.

The boxer-turned-senator earlier

said he was not eyeing the presidency. “I don’t have athat in my mind right now,” Pacquiao had said. “I have no plans to run for president.”

He has been a legislator since 2010, when he represented Sarangani prov-ince at the House of Representatives.

He was re-elected in 2013 and be-came a senator in 2016.

The Palace spokesman has said Emmanuel Pacquiao is eligible to contest for presidency as long as the Constitutional requirements are met.

Issued in Public Interest by

Duterte and Misuari to fi nalise peace talksBy Catherine S Valente Manila Times

President Rodrigo Du-terte and Moro Na-tional Liberation Front

(MNLF) founding Chairman Nur Misuari will meet anew next month to fi nalise the peace talks between the gov-ernment and the rebel group, Malacanang said yesterday.

Palace spokesman Salva-dor Panelo said Duterte and Misuari, during their meet-ing in Malacanang on Mon-day night, agreed to create a co-ordinating body between the two parties.

“It (Monday’s meeting) was a continuation of the meeting when Chairman Nur Misuari came, I think, last August. They agreed to meet again because there’s a sug-gestion that there should be a committee that will help in the peace process.

That’s the reason why a co-ordinating committee will be created,” he said in a news briefing.

Panelo would be part of the government panel, along with Presidential Adviser on Peace Process Carlito Galvez Jr, National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon Jr and a lawyer from the Department of Foreign Affairs.

“So, there will be a meet-ing again in Davao by De-cember to finalise (the talks).

The purpose of the course is to have peace with the MNLF and to ensure the success of the government,” he added.

In August, Duterte or-dered the creation of a co-ordinating committee with the MNLF to conduct peace talks.

The Palace said the com-mittee would aid the country in achieving peace by “help-ing in combating the Abu Sayyaf Group and convincing MNLF relatives to return to the fold of the law.”

In 1996, the MNLF forged a peace pact with the na-tional government that saw the creation of the now-de-funct Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), where Misuari ruled as gov-ernor.

The ARMM, however, was replaced by the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Mus-lim Mindanao (BARMM), following the ratification of the Bangsamoro Organic Law anchored on the peace agree-ment with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, a group that broke away from the MNLF several years before the 1996 peace deal.

The MNLF, under the leadership of Misuari, has questioned the supposed inequitable distribution of positions at the Bangsamoro Transition Authority, an in-terim governing body of the BARMM.

Rebels kill six troops in ambush

A communist rebel ambush

killed six Philippine soldiers

and wounded 20 others, the

military said yesterday, in one

of the deadliest assaults in the

nation’s five-decade-old Maoist

insurgency. Troops patrolling

on foot on the eastern island of

Samar were hit with homemade

bombs and fought a 30-minute

gunfight with New People’s Army

rebels on Monday. “They used

improvised explosive devices

(IEDs), leading to a large number

of casualties,” regional military

spokesman Captain Reynaldo

Aragones said, adding one rebel

was also killed. The NPA, the

armed wing of the Communist

Party of the Philippines, launched

its rebellion to create a Maoist

state in 1969.

According to the military, the

insurgency has claimed 40,000

lives. Samar is an impoverished

region that is fertile ground for

recruitment by the 4,000-mem-

ber NPA.

Lorenzana warns on infi ltration by IS militantsManila TimesManila

A Filipino is among IS terrorists expected to arrive in the Philip-pines from the Middle East af-

ter the group’s known territories in the war-torn region have dwindled, De-fence Secretary Delfi n Lorenzana said yesterday.

Lorenzana said the list, which foreign intelligence sources gave him, contained the names of terrorists with southeast Asian descent and one was identifi ed as a Filipino. Others were Malaysians and Indonesians.

“In that list that is so long, only one terrorist who is a Filipino is there. The danger here is that those return-ing to Malaysia and Indonesia may opt to transfer to Mindanao which is what we are guarding,” the Defence chief said in an interview over Radyo

Singko.“There are many of them (Ma-laysian and Indonesian terrorists) and recently, our troops have been ar-resting terrorists that are foreigners,” Lorenzana said.

IS terrorists from the Middle East have begun to return to their respec-tive home countries, according to Lorenzana, citing statements from European and Middle East-based experts. “While the IS’ territory is dwindling, the experts have warned that the terrorists may return to their home countries and that is only natu-ral for a Filipino terrorist to return home,” he said.

Aside from the foreign terrorists’ possible arrival in the Philippines, Lorenzana also fears the IS may use social media to recruit the youth to join its group. “We are fearing that because they may gain contacts here even if they are from afar while re-cruiting the youth,” Lorenzana said.

Gulf Times Wednesday, November 13, 2019

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CHAIRMANAbdullah bin Khalifa al-Attiyah

EDITOR-IN-CHIEFFaisal Abdulhameed al-Mudahka

Deputy Managing EditorK T Chacko

Falling demandtakes the shine off Indian gold market

Indian households stash almost $1tn worth of gold in a $2.7tn economy, making the nation the biggest buyer of the metal after China.

But gold consumption in India is forecast to drop to the lower end of the 700-tonnes-to-750-tonnes range this year, the lowest since 2016, as a surge in prices coupled with a weak economy keeps buyers away, according to the World Gold Council.

Indians bought 123.9 tonnes of gold in the July-September period, down 32% from a year earlier, pushing consumption during the fi rst nine months of this year 5.3% lower to 496 tonnes.

Net imports during July-September slumped 66% to 80.5 tonnes from a year-earlier period, according to the WGC.

This year sales on the most auspicious day in the country to buy the metal slumped even as jewellers lined up off ers to draw in buyers.

Slowing sales have seen profi t at Titan Co, India’s biggest jeweller by market value, miss estimates and prompted the Tata Group unit to slash its jewellery sales growth guidance.

Gold consumption in India faces increasing competition from other mainstream investment opportunities, the WGC said. Retail investors’ attention has been captured by equities, with the benchmark stock index fl irting with

record highs. A well-executed marketing campaign by local mutual funds groups has generated sustained infl ows into systematic investment plans by millennials.

Just a decade ago, India’s hunger for gold jewellery and bullion meant it accounted for about a quarter of global demand. Consumption has since fallen by about 24%.

Short-term pricing factors are the reasons, partly. Buyers tend to stay away when the bullion price in Mumbai rises above about Rs30,000 ($422.97) for 10 grams. Thanks to the rupee’s slump and the metal breaking through its long-standing $1,350-a-troy-ounce ceiling, it’s been in that territory now for the best part of two years, and is currently trading at Rs38,200.

There are longer-term issues, too. About two-thirds of the country’s gold is bought in rural areas. But rural population growth is grinding to a halt as people migrate to the cities and birth rates fall.

“Millennials in urban India are increasingly tempted by goods other than gold, particularly luxury fashion and smartphones,” according to the WGC.

India’s economy is growing at the slowest pace in six years. Consumption, the backbone in the Indian economy, remains sluggish. Sales of cars, usually seen as a good proxy for the appetite for big-ticket items, plunged 33% in September from a year earlier, down for an 11th consecutive month.

The share of consumers who think their current economic situation has worsened and is set to deteriorate over the coming year was its highest since 2013 in September, according to the Reserve Bank of India.

Is India’s golden age ending?For sure, the world’s most important gold market isn’t

what it used to be. But India’s outsize role in the world gold market isn’t going to disappear overnight as its consumers still account for more than one in six ounces bought globally.

Longer-term, however, India’s falling appetite for gold should be a warning to discerning investors, according to David Fickling, a Bloomberg Opinion columnist.

Gold consumption in India this year is forecast to drop to the lowest since 2016

While many countries around the world do not have a mental health policy, Qatar has had a

decade-long commitment to developing mental health services. The recent launch of a campaign to raise public awareness about mental health and well-being is key to this the next stage of development for the country.

The Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) and public sector healthcare providers are working together to tackle the stigma often associated with mental health. This stigma can act as a barrier to people seeking help. Tackling stigma, improving access and integrating physical and mental health

are key in delivering the priorities of the National Health Strategy 2018-2022 in Qatar.

Mahmoud al-Raisi, chief of Continuing Care at Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC), highlighted the importance of Qatar’s long-term commitment to improving mental health awareness and care provided to its population: “The early work done following the publication of the fi rst National Mental Health Strategy in 2013 has laid a solid foundation on which to build,” he said. “A recent study commissioned by the MoPH on attitudes about mental health in Qatar shows that people are increasingly prepared to talk about mental health and looking for ways to access help. We are fi rmly focused on building on this to improve access, reduce stigma and to integrate physical and mental health in settings that people are happy to use.

“We will continue to pursue international best practice and move away from providing predominantly institutional-based care to integrated community facilities, close to where people live. We are working closely with the Primary Health Care Corporation

(PHCC) to increase the range of access opportunities within primary health centres and there are new clinics operating across our hospitals in HMC, enabling the public to receive services in settings that are not associated with some of the more traditional psychiatric services.

“We will open a community service hub in the north of Qatar building on the comprehensive community services, which are already in place in south and west Doha.”

Dr Samya al-Abdulla, executive director of Operations at PHCC, noted the outstanding success of all mental health services provided by the corporation.

“Our corporation has launched the Support Clinic (Psychology Clinic) in a total of fi ve health centres – Rawdat Al Khail, Leabaib, Al Thumama, Al Wajbah and Qatar University. In addition to introducing the Integrated Psychiatry Clinic in three health centres at Al Thumama, Al Wajbah and Qatar University, plans are in place to gradually launch it in the rest of our specialised centres in the future,” Dr Samya al-Abdulla said. “All these activities are under the framework of implementing the goals of the National Health Strategy 2018-2022 that state 20% of mental health services in the country should be provided through primary care by 2020.

“We have witnessed high demand on mental services provided by PHCC, and this demand is a result of the increased awareness of the community and patients’ belief that we are the fi rst point of contact for them and their family. The easy access to our services through PHCC health centres and their strong and eff ective relationship with our family physicians are also very positive. Providing easy access for patients and their families in the

community is very important to reduce the stigma that prevent patients from seeking assistance, and will encourage a healthy dialogue between community members regarding their mental health and well-being.”

“The World Health Organisation states that one in four people in the world will be aff ected by mental or neurological disorders at some point in their lives. Our family doctors and nursing staff see a large cross section of the population and are generally the fi rst contact for people seeking help with issues that may have a mental health component,” added Dr Samya al-Abdullah added. “Stress, anxiety and depression are often fi rst noticed by the family doctor and we have made a concerted eff ort to provide targeted mental health professional development for our teams to ensure that they are more equipped to provide diagnosis and treatment options.”

Dr Majid al-Abdullah, senior consultant psychiatrist and acting chair of psychiatry at HMC, explained: “Mental health issues can affect many of us and this can have a significant impact on family, work and physical health. A key priority of the National Health Strategy 2018-2022 is healthy and safe employees, and have been working closely with this programme to promote mental health in the workplace. Within HMC, we have established two psychological support clinics in our Staff Clinic, to support our staff with any mental health concerns. We also offer this service to strategic partners, and have recently launched an integrated mental health service for Qatar Airways staff.

“We have established a series of integrated mental health clinics during this year. The purpose of these clinics is to improve access and to provide care

in settings that are free from the stigma often associated with mental health. We also launched a clinic in the Hazm Mebaireek General Hospital earlier this year to support craft and manual workers. Physical and mental health are intertwined, and we have established a clinic in the Heart Hospital to support cardiac patients with mental health problems.

“Similarly, in August 2019, an Eating Disorder clinic was opened in Hamad General Hospital, and an Obesity Clinic, running in Hamad Bin Khalifa Medical City, was expanded to a full-day clinic to cater to the growing demand for both services.”

Iain Tulley, CEO of HMC’s Mental Health Service and the National Health Strategy lead for the Mental Health and Well-being workstream, explained that while investment in new hospital facilities is part of the long-term expansion plan, greater focus will be placed on the development of community-based care and home treatment.

“We have come a long way in the last few years, which has resulted in the accreditation of our Mental Health Service by the Joint Commission International accreditation body – we are the fi rst mental health service in this region to achieve this. But we are also conscious that there is a lot more to be done in Qatar, both at a policy and a service provision level.

“The public awareness campaign we have launched is geared towards encouraging members of the public to engage in a dialogue with us to help develop the type of mental health services they wish to see for their community in the future.”

For more information about mental health and related services in Qatar, one can visit https://sehanafsia.moph.gov.qa

Public awareness central to mental health services in Qatar

Hamad Medical Corporation.

By Elizabeth DrewWashington, DC

The most dismaying thing about the impeachment proceedings against US President Donald Trump is

that they are falling so short of the constitutional gravamen of the issue. True, some Democrats in the House of Representatives, particularly Adam Schiff of California, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, do appear to understand the seriousness of the question before them. But most Republicans – egged on by Trump, who often complains that they are not doing enough for him – are on a search-and-destroy mission. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who had long been reluctant to proceed with im-peachment, lost control of her caucus over the issue this summer and has ended up where she feared: in a bitter partisan fi ght.

At the risk of setting an unfortunate precedent by allowing Trump’s numerous other abuses of power to go unpunished, Pelosi has narrowed the impeachment inquiry to presidential activity for which there is adequate proof, and that she and her Democratic allies think the American public can easily understand. That means Trump and his allies have a very limited target to shoot at.

The inquiry is thus focused on the fact that Trump withheld $391mn in congressionally mandated military aid to Ukraine and held out the prospect of a White House meeting greatly desired by that country’s new president, Volodymyr Zelensky, while he and his accomplices pressed for political favours to help in the 2020 US election. In particular, they wanted Ukraine to investigate former vice-president Joe Biden’s son Hunter, who unwisely accepted a lucrative seat on

the board of a Ukrainian gas company at a time when his father was in charge of Ukraine policy. (Both Bidens have denied wrongdoing and, thus far, none has been found.)

Although Democrats of course have strong feelings about Trump, they have lately tried to adopt a solemn tone. When Pelosi announced the impeachment inquiry in September, for example, she handed over leadership on the issue to the steady, tough-minded Schiff , removing it from the more openly partisan House Judiciary Committee, which has a weaker chairman (Jerrold Nadler of New York).

Hard as it may be to believe, the period since then has been one of relative calm, in which the Intelligence Committee gathered closed-door testimony. That will change when public impeachment hearings begin this week. To make sure that their side is suffi ciently tough toward witnesses, Republican leaders have added the rambunctious Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio to the Intelligence Committee.

The closed hearings – not unusual in investigative matters, and unlike in the cases of Presidents Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton, there’s now no special prosecutor to do their research – produced a strong case against Trump. That was partly because the format was more productive: committee members don’t gain by preening and being disruptive when no cameras are present. But the most important factor – one without modern precedent – was the courageous willingness of a number of fairly high-level, non-partisan government employees, most of them career foreign-service officers, to disobey White House orders not to appear. They risked their careers by going before the committee. Some quit

their jobs to be able to do so; another has been removed from the staff of the National Security Council.

Trump, who understands almost nothing about governing, made a major mistake in attacking career public offi cials from the outset of his presidency. He underestimated – or just couldn’t fathom – the honour of people who could earn more in the private sector but believe in public service. And he made matters worse for himself as well as for the government by creating a shadow group – headed by the strangely out-of-control Rudy Giuliani, once a much-admired mayor of New York City, and now a freelance troublemaker serving as Trump’s personal attorney – to impose the president’s Ukraine policy over that of “the bureaucrats.”

Such unbounded “off -the-books” operations – whether Nixon’s “White

House Plumbers” or the Iran-Contra scandal during Ronald Reagan’s administration – usually come to grief. I covered Nixon’s impeachment, and although Trump is theoretically guilty of more serious off ences, there’s one striking similarity: both men got in the deepest trouble for failing to recognise limits on seeking revenge against political opponents.

The sudden fi ring in May of Marie Yovanovitch, a longtime foreign-service offi cer and highly respected US ambassador to Ukraine who had tried to block Giuliani’s political meddling (she was ordered, without explanation, to take the next plane out) greatly upset the already demoralised State Department bureaucracy. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, whose ill-disguised political ambitions have led him to remain close to Trump, simply refused to protect her.

Congressional Republicans could see from the memorandum on Trump’s infamous July 25 phone call with Zelensky that Trump had pressured his Ukrainian counterpart to take actions that would benefi t him politically. Many also know that withholding congressionally approved aid to Ukraine likely constitutes an abuse of power, an impeachable off ence. But, desperate to protect the president, Republicans have careened from one frustrated defence to another.

As a diversion, they’ve tried to smear and even expose the whistleblower whose report triggered the impeachment inquiry. For example, Trump recently shouted to the press corps assembled on the White House driveway that the whistleblower’s charges were all “lies,” even though the charges have been broadly confi rmed by witnesses before the committees.

Exposing the whistleblower’s name – which Donald Trump, Jr, among others, has tried to do – could be a federal off ence (except if done by the president), and could put that person’s life in danger.

Although some cracks have appeared in the Republican front, Trump seems to be maintaining his grip on the party for now. He insists that the Republicans would have lost the 2016 presidential election but for him, and that he therefore is owed their fealty. For good measure, he’s off ered help to Republican senators – particularly Majority Leader Mitch McConnell – who are seeking re-election in 2020 (a loss of four Republican seats would lead to the Democrats taking control). Some major fundraising events are, of course, to be held at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, DC. At least one ethics expert says that Trump’s contributions to senators before the impeachment vote could constitute a “bribe” (yet another impeachable off ence).

Trump is becoming more confi dent in his own instincts, and now has almost no aides who will challenge his ideas. At the same time, he’s increasingly agitated about his likely impeachment in the House. As a result, the president is even more impulsive in his conduct of foreign policy, in particular regarding the calamity in Syria.

Almost all American presidents have honoured their constitutional duty to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” But Trump, with his l’état, c’est moi approach, views his role very diff erently. As a result, he is in the greatest trouble of his presidency so far. – Project Syndicate

Elizabeth Drew is a Washington-based journalist and the author, most recently, of Washington Journal: Reporting Watergate and Richard Nixon’s Downfall.

COMMENT

Gulf Times Wednesday, November 13, 2019 23

Pneumonia kills a child every 39 seconds

Disrupting climate change through innovation

Live issues

By Kate KellandLondon

Pneumonia killed more than 800,000 babies and young children last year – or one child every 39 seconds –

despite being curable and mostly preventable, global health agencies said yesterday.

In a report on what they described as a “forgotten epidemic”, the United Nations children’s fund Unicef,

the international charity Save The Children and four other health agencies urged governments to step up investment in vaccines to prevent the disease and in health services and medicines to treat it.

“The fact that this preventable, treatable and easily diagnosed disease is still the world’s biggest killer of young children is frankly shocking,” said Seth Berkley, chief executive of the GAVI vaccines alliance.

Pneumonia is a lung disease that can be caused by bacteria, viruses or fungi.

Its victims have to fi ght for breath as their lungs fi ll with pus and fl uid.

It can be prevented with vaccines, and treated with antibiotics and – in severe cases – with oxygen, but in poorer countries, access to these is often limited.

Nigeria, India, Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Ethiopia accounted for more than half the children who died of pneumonia last year – most of them babies who had not reached their second birthday.

“Millions of children are dying for want of vaccines, affordable antibiotics and routine oxygen treatment,” said Kevin Watkins, chief executive of Save the Children. “This is a forgotten global epidemic that demands an urgent international response.”

The report said pneumonia causes 15% of deaths in under-5s, but accounts for only 3% of spending on research into infectious diseases, lagging far behind other diseases such as malaria.

By Ambroise FayolleLisbon

Because it poses an existential threat to humanity, climate change represents the bad kind of disruption. But it

can – and must – be fought with the good kind of disruption: innova-tion. Since the Industrial Revolution, disruptive innovation has generated growth, created jobs, and opened new avenues for investment. And in the case of climate change, it could save humanity, by accelerating global efforts to reduce greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions. In fact, innova-tion will be absolutely necessary for a successful transition to a green economy that leaves no one behind. Without it, we have less chance of achieving genuine sustainability.

The alternative, of course, is unthinkable. To understand the extent of the threat posed by climate change in the event that we do nothing, consider where we are today. Average global temperatures have already risen by almost 1°C above pre-industrial levels, owing to the accumulation of GHGs in the atmosphere; and two-thirds of that increase has occurred since 1975. If the trend continues, global average temperatures could rise by 4°C by the end of this century.

If that doesn’t sound like much, remember that our climate is fragile. Small changes in surface temperatures will cause big problems. When average temperatures were 4°C below pre-industrial levels, much of Europe was buried beneath several kilometres of ice. Just imagine what a world that is 3°C warmer than today might look like.

Nonetheless, I am confident that effective, disruptive ideas are out there. Floating windfarms, for

example, can unlock clean wind power for the dozens of countries whose coastal waters are too deep for traditional offshore facilities. And advances in technologies based on waste-eating bioluminescent bacteria promise to illuminate our streets and factories. To bring these solutions to scale, we need to put more financing into the right hands. We also need to encourage industries to be more creative, and to pursue more breakthrough technologies. For example, the European Investment Bank (EIB), the European Commission, and Breakthrough Energy Ventures established a

€100mn ($110mn) fund in 2019 to support disruptive investments in clean energy.

Innovative disruption needs to happen fast. According to the International Energy Agency, only seven of the 45 energy technologies and sectors assessed in its most recent Tracking Clean Energy Progress report are on target to meet its Sustainable Development Scenario, which is aligned with the global commitments enshrined in the 2015 Paris climate agreement. Hence, for the policymakers, technologists, executives, and entrepreneurs, the question is: Where do we go from here?

Citizens across the European Union and around the world are demanding action to tackle climate change. This growing awareness

of climate risks is filtering into the public debate. Moreover, under its new president, Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission has proposed a European Green Deal to enshrine 2050 carbon-neutrality targets in law, with the goal of positioning Europe as a leader in the circular economy and clean technologies of the future. Europe could reap significant economic benefits as a first mover on climate action.

But European industries fi rst must show that they want to be part of the eff ort. They need to innovate, create new solutions, bring new

products to market, and get to work on breakthrough technologies. Investments are urgently needed to drive down the cost of new technologies, increase effi ciencies, support fi rst movers, and create new markets.

Of course, even if the private sector is committed fully to climate action, business leaders cannot ignore the bottom line. Putting money into new technologies and business models is risky, and the outcomes are never guaranteed.

This is where public investment banks have a key role to play. As Europe’s climate bank and a global leader in green fi nance, the EIB intends to expand its support for Europe’s transition to a sustainable, zero-carbon economy. When it comes to innovation, institutions like the

EIB can adopt a long-term view that isn’t always feasible for private-sector actors. By reducing risks and enabling multiple technological pathways, we can create new, greener opportunities for all sectors.

Identifying promising green projects and directing capital toward them is a major challenge. Yet, acting as incubators, development banks like the EIB can mobilise the private sector behind such investments. By offering innovative financial instruments, experience, and expertise to investment partners around the world, public institutions can empower inventors, entrepreneurs, and large companies to take on the climate challenge.

At the same time, we must not forget those who stand to be harmed the most by climate change, or those who could be left behind in the shift to a low-carbon economy. To ensure a just transition, we must increase support for vulnerable regions and communities. Support for innovation must also include backing for education and training, so that the next generation will have the skills needed to contribute to a low-carbon economy. We should be cultivating the talents and intelligence of our youth, because it is they who will be developing the technologies and creating the jobs needed for the future.

The EIB will be working closely with European firms and other partners around the world to spur disruptive innovations. The green economy offers many pathways for investors and companies, and the world’s international financial institutions should be paving the way toward even more opportunities. – Project Syndicate

Ambroise Fayolle is Vice President of the European Investment Bank.

The impeachment blues

Schiff leaves after a closed-door deposition from Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence Laura Cooper, as part of the US House of Representatives impeachment inquiry into Trump.

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Even if the private sector is committed fully to climate action, business leaders cannot ignore the bottom line. Putting money into new technologies and business models is risky, and the outcomes are never guaranteed

By Joey AguilarStaff Reporter

Broken Wings, a West End Mu-sical co-composed by notable Qatari musician, composer,

songwriter and artiste Dana Alfardan, marked a sold-out premiere in Doha. The famous musical opened with a special VIP night at the Katara Opera House on November 7 and ran for two days, November 8 and 9, enthralling the audience with matinee and soiree performances.

“I am thrilled to bring Broken Wings home to Doha. Through the musical I aspire to create a bridge be-tween the East and West by bringing cultures together and uniting people through music and art,” said Dana Al-fardan, known as Qatar’s only female contemporary composer and song-writer.

Adapted from Khalil Gibran’s poet-ic masterpiece, Broken Wings musical is composed by Middle Eastern duo: composer Alfardan and West End’s very own star, Nadim Naaman. It was

first performed in London in 2018 to a sold-out show, followed by a special Middle East debut in Lebanon dur-ing the famous Beiteddine Festival in July.

In a press statement, Dana Al-fardan said that Broken Wings does not only celebrate Arab heritage, but also celebrates women.

“Gibran’s mother was always a compass for him at times of uncer-tainty. This is the inspiration behind our song Spirit of The Earth. I hope that everyone will enjoy the out-standing performance by the London West End cast, and that it will in-spire the audience and fans in Qatar to learn more about the story of Bro-ken Wings and the arts and culture

in general,” she said. “I am grateful for the support we have received in bringing Broken Wings to Qatar and especially to our sponsors who have paved the way for future produc-tions such as ours to have a place here in Doha, we couldn’t have done this without them,” Dana Alfardan added.

The show in Doha witnessed Naa-man leading the Broken Wings cast as Gibran, Hanna Qureshi as Selma, and Sophia Foroughi as Mother. Directed by Bronagh Lagan, it showcased or-chestrations and musical direction by Joe Davison and performed by the Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra.

“I am very excited to be here in Doha to debut Broken Wings for the first time. I first visited Doha two

years ago when Dana and I were writ-ing songs for Broken Wings,” Naaman said.

“The decision of bringing the mu-sical to Doha was mutual as we both share a particular passion for creating synergy and understanding between cultures from the East and West. I hope Qatar’s multi-cultural audience will enjoy Khalil Gibran’s message of love, tolerance and acceptance and the amazing performance of the West End London cast,” he noted.

Darwish Ahmad al-Shaibani, di-rector of Marketing and Cultural Affairs at Katara, said: “After a long wait, Broken Wings is finally on our shores and we at Katara are honoured to be the host of this significant event.”

Alfardan and Naaman also hosted an exclusive masterclass with 35 stu-dents from Doha’s top International Schools’ music programmes with the cast on November 9, after which the students were invited to watch the matinee performance. During the workshop, the students had the op-portunity to learn Spirit of The Earth

as well as have a Q&A and meet the cast of Broken Wings.

Broken Wings partnered with Ka-tara – the Cultural Village, Qatar Air-ways, Virgin Megastore, Capital Part-

ners, Mondrian Doha, E-projects, BMW Alfardan Automobiles, BMW Group Importer in Qatar, Qatar Foundation and Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra as sponsors of the concert.

24 Gulf TimesWednesday, November 13, 2019

QATAR

32 short fi lms to be showcased thematically at AjyalAn inspiring selection of 32

powerful fi lms from across the globe are featured in

three programmes of short fi lms on the themes of ‘Feel’, ‘Over-come’ and ‘Experience’ at Ajyal Film Festival 2019, the Doha Film Institute’s (DFI) annual cinema event taking place from Novem-ber 18-23 at Katara – the Cultural Village.

Fatma Hassan al-Remaihi, fes-tival director and CEO of DFI, said: “Our carefully curated interna-tional short fi lms programme re-fl ects our commitment to develop and nurture our youth to under-stand that overcoming life’s chal-lenges is integral to one’s personal and creative journey.”

The Feel selection of fi lms, to screen at 12.30pm (November 23) at Vox Cinemas, will explore the power of intuition in shaping our sense of the world. Watch Belles etoiles (France/2017) by Naima Di Piero and Elhadj Sidib, a trib-ute to friendship and its power to overcome feelings of isola-tion; Like an Elephant in a China Shop (France/2017) by Louise Chevrier, Luka Fischer, Rodolphe Groshens, Marie Guillon, Estelle Martinez, Benoit Paillard, Lisa Rasasombat, about a nervous shopkeeper who is confronted with a giant elephant in his store; Hedgehog (France/2018) by Vaib-hav Keswani, Jeanne Laureau, Colombine Majou, Morgane Mat-tard, Kaisa Pirttinen, and Jong-ha Yoon, about a young boy’s infatu-ation with a family of hedgehogs in his garden; Maha’mel (Ships) (Qatar/2018) by Dhabya AlMu-hannadi explores the creation and engineering behind Qatar’s iconic Dhow boats; The Stained Club

(France/2018) by Melanie Lopez, Simon Boucly, Marie Ciesiel-ski, Alice Jaunet, Chan Stephie Peang, Beatrice Viguier, about the special bonds that can be formed from diff erences such as inexpli-cable spots; Beit Byoot (Jordan, Qatar/2019) by Mayar Hamdan follows a girl’s struggle to choose between fi tting in with the mean girls or embracing being diff erent with her new friend; The Unlucky Hamster (Qatar, Indonesia/2019) by Abdulaziz Mohamed Khashabi retells the adventures of Fluff y, a hamster dreaming of a new home; Child of the Earth (Swit-zerland, US/2018) by Claudio Fah, a portrayal of a young man whose journey takes him beyond the confi nes of his disability, to outer space and beyond; The Kite (Czech Republic, Slovakia, Po-land/2019) by Martin Smatana, an animated tale about a child and his grandfather, sharing precious moments together while fl ying a kite; and Nada Bedair’s Paper Kite (Qatar/2019), the story of two young girls who push against traditional boundaries in a strict catholic church.

The Overcome selection, screening at 3pm (November 23) at Vox Cinemas, is a testament to the ability of people to over-come any obstacles in pursuit of their dreams. The programme in-cludes: Layla (UK/2019) by Celine Cotran, the unlikely adventures of 60-year-old refugee Layla, who meets a young boy and learns how to skateboard; in Jolanta Bankowska’s Story (Poland/2019) a young girl has detached her-self from reality and observes the world through social media; Youth (Egypt, US/2019) by Farida

Zahran explores boundaries and the diffi culties that arise when we are pushed to re-evaluate our personal boundaries; Thermostat 6 (France/2018) by Maya Av-ron, Mylene Cominotti, Marion Coudert, Sixtine Dano, about Di-ane and her family whose struggle with a leaky roof soon uncovers deeper issues; Maradona’s Legs (Germany, Palestine/2019) by Firas Khoury, about two young boys in search of the last sticker to complete their World Cup Al-bum; Esperança (France/2019) by Cecile Rousset, Jeanne Patur-le, Benjamin Serero recounts a mother and daughter’s journey

from Angola to France and the beginning of their new life; Fault Line (Iran/2018) by Soheil Amir-sharifi tells the story of an Iranian schoolgirl, who must create a new version of the truth after breaking her arm in a motorcycle accident; in Baptiste Drapeau’s Half and Half (France/2018), a knight, who has been cut in half and stuck to a knight from the opposing side, must learn to work with his en-emy; The Helmet (Yemen/2019) by Osama Khaled thematises the country’s confl ict as one young tech genius dreams up an inven-tion to help him escape his harsh reality; Memo (France/2017) by

Julien Becquer, Elena Dupressoir, Jules Durand, Viviane Guima-raes, Ines Scheiber portrays the struggles of living with demen-tia; Refuge (Qatar/2019) by Maha Essid refl ects on the connection two Palestinian expats have to their home country; and Fragile (Qatar/2019) by Kholood Al-Ali, the story of a ceramic girl and her perilous adventure towards rein-vention and self-discovery.

The Experience selection, to screen at 9pm (November 22) at Vox Cinemas, showcases how valuable life lessons can be learned, even in hardship. The fi lms include: Patision Avenue

(Greece/2018) by Thanasis Neo-fotistos in which Yanni’s mother makes her way to audition as Shakespeare’s Viola, only to dis-cover her young son has been left home alone; Ostrich Poli-tic (France/2018) by Mohamed HouHouis, the story of an Os-trich society that discovered that burying their heads is not always reasonable; It’s a Long Way from Amphioxus (Germany/2019) by Kamal Aljafari refl ects on the long queues that refugees are faced with in German immigration centres; in Soudade Kaadan’s Aziza (Lebanon, Syria/2019), a Syrian refugee teaches his wife how to drive in a journey towards comedy and nostalgia; Ambience (Palestine/2019) by Wisam al-Jafari, about two aspiring musi-cians, who embrace the chaotic sounds of their environment and turn it into beautifully haunting music; For the Sake of Yousef (Ku-wait/2019) by Yousef Al Baqshi shows the power of imagination as young Yousef begins to imag-

ine events in a horror fi lm hap-pening to him; in A J al-Thani’s The Black Veil (Qatar/2019), one woman puts her life at risk to fi nd her freedom; Threads (Canada, Norway/2017) by Torill Kove is a refl ection on all the complexities and beauty of the bond of paren-tal love; In the Middle (Yemen, Qatar/2019) by Mariam al-Dub-hani follows the story of a young boy, stuck between picking up arms and his crushed dreams in Yemen; and End of the Road (Qa-tar/2019) by Ahmad al-Sharif chronicles a father’s struggles to decide whether to be a good Sa-maritan or reach home in time to celebrate his daughter’s birthday.

Tickets for the 7th Ajyal Film Festival are available for purchase at the Ajyal Main Box Offi ce lo-cated in Katara Building 10; at the Ajyal Box Offi ce at Vox Cinemas Doha Festival City for screenings taking place at Vox Cinemas; and from the Novo Cinemas Box Of-fi ce for screenings at Novo Cin-emas, the Pearl.

Like an Elephant in a China Shop

Kite

Broken Wings opens in Doha to sold-out shows

The famous West End Musical, composed by Dana Alfardan and written by West End star, Nadim Naaman, was launched with a special VIP night at Katara Opera House

Broken Wings cast receive a standing ovation in Doha.

The opening night of Broken Wings witnessed a full house with front rows of VIPs, who applauded and enjoyed the rich musical experience brought to Doha for the first time.

The Broken Wings Musical premiere in Doha enthralled the audience with matinee and soiree performances.

Dana Alfardan with the Broken Wings cast during the special VIP opening at the Katara Opera House.