Moroccan king's visit to Qatar successful - Gulf Times

In brief

WEDNESDAY Vol. XXXVIII No. 10638

November 15, 2017Safar 26, 1439 AH www. gulf-times.com 2 Riyals GULF TIMES

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SPORT | Page 1

Buff on quits as Italy suff er World Cup heartbreak

QATAR | Conference

Sheikha Moza to openWISE Summit todayHer Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, chairperson of Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development, will inaugurate today the World Summit on Innovation in Education (WISE) which takes place under the theme “Co-Exist, Co-Create: Learning to Live and Work Together” in the presence of Emine Erdogan, wife of the Turkish president, at Qatar National Convention Centre. During her speech at the opening session of the conference, Sheikha Moza will touch on issues and challenges facing the educational process. More than 2,000 attendees from nearly 100 countries will take part in the summit.

QATAR | Education

EAC aims to enrol 10mnout of school childrenEducate A Child (EAC), along with its partners, has invested $1.2bn for enrolling out of school children in quality primary education from around the world so far, disclosed a top off icial. Launched in 2012 by Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, EAC is a global programme of the Education Above All (EAA) Foundation. Page 4

QATAR | Met Dept

‘Expected earthquakes’information is falseThe Qatar Met department has cautioned residents that information being circulated about “expected earthquakes” is false as there is “still no scientific way to predict earthquakes.” “We urge all to get information from off icial sources only,” the department noted in a statement on social media.

ARAB WORLD | Politics

‘Hariri must return toprove he is free’Lebanon’s Saad al-Hariri can only prove he is free by returning home from Saudi Arabia where he went to announce his resignation as prime minister, Lebanon’s foreign minister said yesterday. Hariri said yesterday he would return to Lebanon within two days. “The only thing that proves he is free is that he returns,” Gebran Bassil said.Page 9

Qatar doing well despite blockade, says Emir

QNADoha

Qatar has successfully met the challenges posed by the unjust blockade and is continuing its

journey steadily toward the goals of all-round development and self-suffi -ciency, His Highness the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani yesterday said.

Delivering a speech at the opening of the Advisory Council’s 46th ordinary session, the Emir said the blockading countries have breached all norms of international relations and their ac-tions have made it now evident that they did not want to reach a negotiated settlement.

Sheikh Tamim said in the face of grave provocations, Qatar has pursued a policy of self-restraint out of “our

keenness to maintain the fraternal re-lations among the Gulf peoples”. He said Qatar’s approach has gained the respect of the whole world.

The Emir said the siege nations have erred in their judgment and are now themselves embroiled in the crisis.

Regarding the charges levelled against Qatar, they have failed to pro-duce any evidence, he said and added that Qatar has a well-documented counterterrorism record. Foreign of-fi cials who visit them know that their campaign against Qatar has nothing to do with terrorism, he said.

The Emir reiterated his call for fi nd-ing a solution to the Gulf crisis through the framework of dialogue based on mutual respect for sovereignty and joint commitments. “On the other hand, we are aware that the indicators we receive reveal that the siege coun-tries are unwilling to reach a solution.”

He said the crisis brought out the best talents and spirit of challenge inherent in the Qatari people, and contributed to crystallising its national identity, and enhanced cohesion between the people and the leadership.

Among the avowed tasks before the government are a productive society, self-suffi ciency in food and medicine and national security, and establishing balanced bilateral relations with other countries, he said.

The Emir called upon his country-men to continue to work more vigor-ously under the new circumstances and reminded them that there were a number of countries “that are thriving with sea and air routes, without having land crossings”.

He expressed confi dence that the Qa-tari society “knows how to lead a normal life, fl ourish and develop, whether the blockade is prolonged or not”.

Sheikh Tamim said: “We do not fear the boycott of these countries against us, we are a thousand times better off without them. But vigilance is re-quired.” He said the dispute is a no-win situation for all the parties.

The Emir thanked the Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah for his mediation eff orts and all the countries that supported “us in our stance during this crisis”.

Listing the many measures taken by the government to tide over the block-ade, the Emir said despite the fall in oil and gas prices in 2015 and 2016, per capita income in Qatar, according to purchasing power is still among the highest in the world and the country’s growth rate has improved.

“The negative impacts of the blockade were temporary and our economy has managed to contain most of them very quickly, while adapting and developing

itself in the course of the crisis manage-ment.” He said Qatar’s exports of oil and gas have not been aff ected. On the con-trary, the country’s credibility as a reli-able exporter of energy has been boosted.

To achieve Qatar’s national vision, steps have been taken to support small and medium industries, the private sector, establishment of storage facili-ties, development of logistics areas and introducing a number of food security projects. The State has also given spe-cial attention to water security.

As a result of the strong economy, Qatar has been able to maintain fi nan-cial and exchange rate stability and free remittances, he said.

Also Qatar has signed deals to con-nect the Hamad port with international ports in Turkey, China, Taiwan, Oman, Pakistan, Singapore, Kuwait and Aus-tralia. To Page 3(See also Pages 2, 3)

Turkish President Recep Tayyib Erdogan arrived in Doha yesterday on an off icial visit to the country. He and the accompanying delegation were received upon their arrival at Hamad International Airport among others by HE the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of State for Defence Aff airs, Dr Khalid bin Mohamed al-Attiyah. Page 27

Turkish president in Doha

Negotiated solution to Gulf crisis good for all as it is a no-win situation‘We don’t fear the boycott. We are a thousand times better off without them’Preparations underway for holding Advisory Council electionsDirectives issued to ensure judiciary’s independence, upgrade

His Highness the Father Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani attended the opening of the 46th session of the Advisory Council yesterday. The session was also attended by His Highness the Deputy Emir Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamad al-Thani, His Highness the Special Representative of His Highness the Emir Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad al-Thani, His Highness Sheikh Abdullah bin Khalifa al-Thani, His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Khalifa al-Thani and HE Sheikh Jassim bin Khalifa al-Thani.

His Highness the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani addressing the opening of the 46th ordinary session of the Advisory Council yesterday at the Council’s premises.

Qatar, Ethiopia cement ties

Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, accompanied by His Highness the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, reviews a guard of honour during the off icial reception ceremony at the Emiri Diwan yesterday. Page 28

Deputy PMs take oath

His Highness the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani issued yesterday Emiri order No 4 of 2017, appointing each of HE the Minister of State for Defence Aff airs Dr Khalid bin Mohamed al-Attiyah (left) and HE the Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohamed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani as Deputies to the Prime Minister, in addition to their posts. The Emiri Order is eff ective from the date of its issue and is to be published in the Off icial Gazette. HE Dr Khalid bin Mohammed al-Attiyah and HE Sheikh Mohamed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani took the oath before His Highness the Emir at the Emiri Diwan yesterday morning. Page 3

US deeply committed to Qatar ties, says diplomatThe US remains deeply committed to its bilateral relationship with Qatar, on a range of issues that includes military co-operation, trade and investment, education, and strengthening workers’ rights, the US embassy’s charge d’aff aires William Grant said yesterday.In a statement, he pointed out that His Highness the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani in his speech to the Advisory Council, referred to the memorandum of understanding between the US and Qatar to disable terror financing flows and intensify counterterrorism eff orts.

“Qatar has made considerable progress on this MoU – progress that was commended at last week’s US-Qatar Counterterrorism Dialogue in Washington, DC,” Grant stated. “His Highness the Emir also underscored Qatar’s determination to work with its neighbours to establish peace and security in the region – objectives the US also shares. “In the coming year, the US and Qatar will continue engaging in high-level forums and dialogues that touch upon many areas of this bilateral partnership,” added Grant, concluding the statement.

Moroccan king’s visit to Qatar successful

Director of the Government Com-munications Offi ce HE Sheikh Saif bin Ahmed bin Saif al-Thani

said that the offi cial visit of King Mo-hamed VI of Morocco to Qatar was successful by all standards and it con-tributed to the deepening of brotherly

relations between the two countries.HE Sheikh Saif expressed his regret

over the fabricated picture, which shows the Moroccan king carrying a scarf dur-ing a visit to an area in Doha.

He explained that this unaccept-able act will not succeed in thwarting

the visit. “An investigation will be con-ducted to fi nd out who tried to incite public opinion or to off end the symbols of the countries. Unfortunately, media fabrications have occupied a prominent space in some agencies and social net-working sites in the past,” he added.

King Mohamed left Doha yesterday after an offi cial visit to Qatar. The king and his accompanying delegation were seen off at Hamad International Airport by Qatar Olympic Committee (QOC) President HE Sheikh Joaan bin Hamad al-Thani. — QNA

QATAR

Gulf Times Wednesday, November 15, 20172

His Highness the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani met at his Emiri Diwan Off ice the former members of the Advisory Council. The Emir welcomed them and praised their eff orts in serving the nation throughout their term in the Council. He also praised their contributions to the Council’s agenda and discussions. The meeting was attended by His Highness the Deputy Emir Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamad al-Thani.

Emir meets former Advisory Council members

Advisory Council’s 46th session holds1st meeting, elects al-Mahmoud speaker

The Advisory Council’s 46th session held its fi rst regular meeting under the

chairmanship of the council’s oldest member Youssuf bin Mo-hammed Youssuf al-Obaidan.

During the meeting, the council unanimously voted HE Ahmed bin Abdullah bin Zaid al-Mahmoud as Speaker of the session and HE Mohamed bin Abdullah al-Sulaiti as Deputy Speaker.

Nasser bin Rashid al-Kaabi and Rashid bin Hamad al-Maad-hadi were elected as controllers of the council.

At the outset of the meet-ing, HE Secretary-General of the Advisory Council, Fahad bin Mubarak al-Khayareen, read out Emiri Decision No 22 of 2017 that renewed the membership of some Advisory Council mem-bers and appointed new mem-bers to the council.

The Emiri decision read as:Emiri Decision No 22 of 2017

to renew membership of some advisory council members and appoint new members to the council. We, Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, Emir of the State of Qatar, decided the following:

Article 1 – The following Ad-visory Council members shall have their membership renewed:

1. Rashid bin Hamad al-Farhoud al-Maadhadi 2. Nasser

bin Rashid Seraei al-Kaabi 3. Youssuf bin Rashid Youssuf al-Khater 4.

Mohamed bin Khalid Ab-dulaziz al-Ghanim al-Maadheed 5. Ibrahim bin Khalifa Ibrahim al-Nasr 6. Nasser bin Suleiman Haider Mohamed al-Haider 7. Mohamed bin Abdullah Yous-suf al-Sulaiti 8. Hadi bin Said

Abdulhadi Heleit al-Khyareen 9. Abdullah bin Khalid Mohamed al-Mana 10. Nasser bin Khalil Ibrahim Youssuf al-Jaidah 11. Saqr bin Fahd Saqr al-Meraikhi 12. Nasser bin Ahmed Mohamed al-Malki al-Juhani 13. Ahmed bin Khalifa Meteeb Rashid al-Rumaihi.

Article 2 – The membership

of Advisory Council members whose names weren’t men-tioned in the previous article shall be terminated.

Article 3 – The following names shall be appointed mem-bers of the Advisory Council:

1. Youssuf bin Mohamed Youssuf al-Obaidan 2. Ismail bin Mohamed Shareef al-Emadi

3. Ahmed bin Abdullah bin Zaid al-Mahmoud 4. Abdurrahman bin Youssuf Abdurrahman al-Khulaifi 5. Youssuf bin Ahmed Ali Omran al-Kuwari 6.

Abdullah bin Khalid Moham-ed al-Jaber al-Nuaimi 7. Mo-hamed bin Abdullah Abdulghani Nasser al-Abdulghani 8. Dahlan bin Jamaan Basheer al-Hamad 9.

Hessa bin Sultan Jaber Mohamed al-Jaber 10. Khalifa bin Ali Khal-ifa al-Hetmi 11. Aisha bint Yous-suf Omar al-Hamad al-Mannai 12. Abdulaziz bin Mohamed Abdullah al-Attiyah 13. Nasser bin Salmeen Khalid al-Suwaidi 14. Mohamed bin Mahdi Ajyan Mohamed al-Ahbabi 15. Ali bin Abdullatif Mohamed al-Misnad al-Mohannadi 16.

Nasser bin Sultan Nasser al-Humaidi 17. Mubarak bin Saif Hamdan Musif al-Man-souri 18. Khalid bin Mohamed Ajaj al-Kubaisi 19. Mohamed bin Mansour Khalil al-Khalil al-Shahwani 20. Khalid bin Abdullah Rashid al-Buainein 21. Mohamed bin Ali Jaber Hamad al-Henzab 22. Abdul-lah bin Fahad Abdullah Gho-rab al-Marri 23. Abdullatif bin Mohamed Abdullatif al-Sada 24.

Hind bint Abdurrahman Mo-hamed Mubarak al-Muftah 25. Fahad bin Mohamed Fahad Saad Buzweir 26. Saleh bin Abdullah Mohamed al-Ibrahim al-Mannai 27. Mohamed bin Ali Sultan al-Ali al-Maadheed 28. Reem bint Mohamed Rashid al-Hammoudi al-Mansouri.

Article 4 – All concerned en-tities, each in their power, shall implement the decision.

The decision is eff ective start-ing from its date of issue and is to be published in the offi cial gazette.

His Highness Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, Emir of

the State of Qatar, issued at the Emiri Diwan on 20/2/1439AH corresponding to 9/11/2017.

The secretary-general read out Decree No 88 of 2017 invit-ing the Advisory Council to hold the 46th ordinary session.

This was followed by the new members taking the oath before the council.

After that, Youssuf bin Mo-hamed Youssuf al-Obaidan, who chaired the meeting as the old-est member, delivered a speech in which invited the members to elect the speaker for this session.

HE Ahmed bin Abdullah bin Zaid al-Mahmoud was unani-mously elected speaker of the council for this session.

HE Mohamed bin Abdullah al-Sulaiti was unanimously elected deputy speaker. Rashid bin Ha-mad al-Maadhadi, Nasser bin Rashid al-Kaabi and Hadi bin Said al-Khyareen ran for the po-sition of the council’s controller, where the voting resulted in the victory of Rashid bin Hamad al-Maadhadi and Nasser bin Rashid al-Kaabi.

HE the speaker of the coun-cil gave a statement on this oc-casion thanking the members for electing him as speaker of the council for this session, and also expressed the appreciation of Mohamed bin Abdullah al-Sulaiti who was elected deputy speaker and Nasser bin Rashid al-Kaabi and Rashid bin Hamad al-Maadhadi who were elected controllers of the council.

QNADoha


Members attending the first meeting of the Advisory Council’s 46th session yesterday. Diplomats accredited to Qatar at the inaugural meeting of the Advisory Council’s 46th session yesterday.

Emir’s speech a roadmap to achieve Qatar’s goals

HE the Speaker of the Ad-visory Council Ahmed bin Abdullah bin Zaid

al-Mahmoud said the speech by His Highness the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani during the opening of the 46th ordinary session of the Advisory Council is a roadmap for the ex-ecutive body and the council, to achieve the desired goals out-

lined by the Emir.Speaking to the press af-

ter unanimously being elected speaker of the Advisory Council, HE al-Mahmoud said the coun-cil, through combining the ef-forts of its members, will be up to the challenges, especially in the current phase facing Qatar.

Al-Mahmoud added that, as outlined by the Emir, this stage requires greater contribution and eff orts to achieve the desires and goals of the State of Qatar, which include its prosperity and

development under the leader-ship of His Highness the Emir.

Regarding the future plan of the council, HE al-Mahmoud said the council is currently meeting, exploring and exchang-ing ideas in order to establish a clear work plan for the upcoming phase to achieve the goals.

The Advisory Council speaker added that the plans are clear, noting that there are new and old members evaluating the situa-tion and there will be a number of committees at the council.

He added that the members will review the issues in the committees to which they be-long and exchange ideas.

Meanwhile, the Advisory Council’s Deputy Speaker Mo-hamed bin Abdullah al-Sulaiti reaffi rmed the importance of the Emir’s speech and the vi-sions that it included for the next phase.

Speaking to the media after the opening ceremony, al-Sulaiti said that the speech of the Emir tack-led as usual many aspects that

refl ect the Qatari policy, pointing out that the speech was reassur-ing to the citizens in terms of the state’s ability to achieve develop-ment and manage and adapt to the fabricated crisis.

Al-Sulaiti noted that the speech is roadmap for the gov-ernment and other sectors of the society, highlighting in fi gures, the rates of economic growth and future aspirations, which are indicators of the stability of the development and economic path in the country.

The deputy speaker of the Advisory Council hailed Qa-tar’s position in calling for dia-logue to resolve the Gulf cri-sis since it started despite the slander and false claims made by the siege countries against it and even though these coun-tries are yet to prove their false claims.

He said that Qatar’s commit-ment to dialogue as an approach to settle crises won it the respect of the world, praising the stance of the coherence of citizens and

residents together in the face of the unjust siege and the emo-tional bond between them as they face the siege and tackle its challenges together.

For her part, Advisory Coun-cil member Dr Aisha al-Mannai said that the speech of the Emir was adequate in explaining the circumstances of the unjust siege that Qatar is currently undergoing and the systematic measures taken by the state to overcome its eff ects and reper-cussions.

QNADoha

QATAR3Gulf Times

Wednesday, November 15, 2017

Emir sendsmessage to Bulgarian leader

Deputy PMmeets Ethiopian defence minister

QMC chairman meets TRT chief

His Highness the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani has sent a written message to Bulgarian President Rumen Radev.Ambassador of Qatar to Bulgaria, Rashid bin Ali al-Khater, handed the message during his meeting with Atanas Krastin, the Bulgarian president’s foreign policy secretary in Sofia yesterday.

HE the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of State for Defence Aff airs, Dr Khalid bin Mohamed al-Attiyah, yesterday met the Minister of Defence of Ethiopia, Siraj Fegessa.During the meeting, both sides discussed bilateral relations between Qatar and Ethiopia in the defence and military fields, and ways of strengthening and developing them, as well as exchanging experiences and military training courses that serve the common interests between the two countries.The meeting also dealt with the current situation in the region, particularly the Gulf crisis and its repercussions on the region. Number of senior off icers of the Qatari armed forces attended the meeting.

HE the Chairman of Qatar Media Corporation (QMC) Sheikh Hamad bin Thamer al-Thani met with Chairman and General Manager of Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT) Ibrahim Eren in Doha yesterday. The meeting discussed the media relations between Qatar and Turkey. A memorandum of understanding will be signed between QMC and TRT today. The meeting was attended by HE the Chief Executive Off icer of Qatar Media Corporation Sheikh Abdulrahman bin Hamad al-Thani.

HE the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of State for Defence Aff airs Dr Khalid bin Mohamed al-Attiyah and HE the Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohamed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani with His Highness the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, after being sworn in as Deputy Prime Ministers, at the Emiri Diwan yesterday morning. The oath-taking ceremony was attended by His Highness the Deputy Emir Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamad al-Thani. It was also attended by HE the Prime Minister and Interior Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani.

Emir receives Deputy PMs

HE the Prime Minister and Interior Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani met the Premier of Papua New Guinea Peter O’Neill and the accompanying delegation in Doha yesterday. They discussed the promotion and development of bilateral relations in various fields, in addition to a number of regional and international issues of common concern.

PM meets PNG premier

Emir’s speech refl ects people’s aspirationsHE the Minister of

Justice and Acting Minister of State for

Cabinet Aff airs, Dr Hassan Lahdan Saqr al-Mohanna-di, praised the contents of the speech delivered by His Highness the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani yesterday at the opening of the 46th ordinary session of the Advisory Council.

In a press statement, he stressed that the historic speech of the Emir set a comprehensive programme for the work of the govern-ment in the coming period and expressed the aspira-tions of the Qatari people and the ambitions of every patriotic citizen whether in the fi eld of politics and con-fronting the unjust siege, the economy and keenness on the development and pros-perity of the country, or in other areas that integrate to lead Qatar to safety.

He pointed out that Qa-tar is on the way to an in-tegrated legislative renais-sance that embodies the directives of the Emir in his speech that the state shall guarantee in its legal and legislative branches the in-dependence of the judici-ary and justice through the modernisation and contin-uous development of legis-lation in various fi elds that meet the interests of Qa-

tar’s citizens and residents directly.

He noted that the list of future legislation will inter-pret the Emir’s directives by preparing and discussing the legislative tools to ensure the continued progress and prosperity of Qatar, its eco-nomic progress, the devel-opment of the judicial sys-tem, speeding up litigation procedures to consolidate the concept of accelerated justice, and completing the relevant draft laws so as to achieve this end.

The minister said that leg-islation on economic open-ness and investment facili-tation will be drafted so as to complete the reform of the legal and legislative system of Qatar. He added that, thanks to the wise leadership, the country has fi nished the

stage of building the state of law and institutions and has always aimed for the best in a way that consolidates the principles of justice, legisla-tive experiment and the ba-sics of good governance that the Emir stressed.

Dr al-Mohannadi ex-plained that some of these laws that aim at realising the vision of the Emir are the ex-pertise law that will enrich the judiciary as well as the arbitration law so as to help in forming a national list of competent people that play a role in reaching speedy justice. He also said that one of the laws is the national address law, which is in the process of being issued and will play a major role in re-ducing and speeding up litigation in accordance with the directives of the Emir as

it will have a signifi cant role in the issue of electronic no-tifi cation of litigation and will be legally binding.

The minister noted that Qatar off ers today the best model in all legislation and respect for international treaties and conventions, es-pecially with regard to fi ght-ing terrorism as it is con-sidered a leader in fi ghting terrorism in the region and makes tangible contribution to the global eff orts to defeat it, noting that the latest ef-forts of the state in this area was the memorandum of understanding signed with the United States in July to combat terrorism, and the United Nations Internation-al Convention for the Sup-pression of the Financing of Terrorism in 1999 and the full implementation of the listed requirements.

The minister told jour-nalists that he would like to commend Emiri Decision No 22 of 2017 regarding the renewal of the membership of some members of the Ad-visory Council and the ap-pointment of new members as a milestone in the history of the council since its establish-ment, especially as the deci-sion guarantees the appoint-ment of four Qatari women in recognition of the pioneering role of Qatari women and the status accorded by the Emir to Qatari women in the national development march and the achievement of the goals of Qatar National Vision 2030.

QNADoha

Emir’s speech transparent, balanced

HE the Minister of Development Planning and Statistics Dr Saleh Mohamed Salem al-Nabit said that His Highness the Emir’s speech yesterday at the opening of the 46th ordinary session of the Advisory Council was comprehensive, transparent and balanced in terms of touching on several national issues and interests, including the process of expanding public participation in

the Advisory Council elections.Speaking to QNA, HE al-Nabit said that the speech touched on all aspects of development in the country. He also pointed to the procedures that Qatar took to break the siege, stressing that the measures of the siege countries failed to achieve their goals and didn’t break the will of Qatar and its people.

Qatar doing well despite blockade: EmirFrom Page 1

Blockading countries are acting against Qatar hosting of the World Cup in 2022.

For strengthening the national economy, Qatar has initiated the nec-essary steps, the Emir said and high-lighted the important topics of the strategy in his speech.

“The government is currently pre-paring for the Advisory Council elec-tions, including drafting legislative measures necessary to ensure that these elections are conducted perfectly well,” the Emir said, adding the meas-ures will be submitted to the Council during the next year.

On developing the judicial system, the Emir said directives have been is-sued to ensure the independence of the judiciary, avoid prolonged litigation and to equip the courts and the prosecution with the necessary infrastructure, in ad-dition to opening new branches in vari-ous locations in the country.

The Emir voiced deep concern over the deterioration of the politi-cal situation at the regional level, and called for a de-escalation to spare the peoples of the region the perils of tension and emergence of axes. He said differences should be resolved through dialogue. “In the case of the Gulf and the region this is not only an option, but an urgent necessity. Rel-evant mechanisms must be found to address this.

He congratulated the “Palestinian brethren” on the unity which has been realised and called for the establish-ment of a Palestinian State on the bor-ders of 5 June 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

The Emir said Qatar supported the territorial integrity of Iraq.

On the Syrian issue, he said Qa-tar hopes that the international efforts will succeed in finding a just solution to “this tragedy” and reaffirmed support for the unity of

the Syrian territory.Regarding Libya, Qatar will continue

to support the international mediation eff orts, he said.

Concerning Yemen, the Emir said Qatar supports the efforts of the United Nations to end the crisis and called upon all parties to a genuine national reconciliation to put an end to the suffering of the Yemeni people.

The Emir also urged the government of Myanmar to put an end to the suff er-ings of the Rohingya and off ered Qatar’s full support to achieve this goal.

Sheikh Tamim reiterated his ap-preciation to the Qatari people and residents of the country for standing up with dignity and pride against the blockade.

Earlier, while thanking former mem-bers of the council for their services, the Emir welcomed the new members, wishing them every success in serving their country.

QATAR


EAC aims to enrol 10mn out of school childrenEducate A Child (EAC),

along with its partners, has invested $1.2bn for

enrolling out of school children in quality primary education from around the world so far, disclosed a top offi cial.

Launched in 2012 by Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, EAC is a global pro-gramme of the Education Above All (EAA) Foundation.

“We have an overall commit-ment of enrolling 10mn out of school children. So far we have completed funding for over 7mn children. Around 5.3mn have al-ready been involved in the sys-tem,” said Dr Mary Joy Pigozzi, executive director, EAC.

“Our fi rst commitment was 6mn children and the target for the fi rst year was half a million. We have achieved the target and changed the overall target to 10mn. We are working very hard to realise the target very soon,” added Dr Pigozzi.

“We have identifi ed 10mn out of school children but not completely funded them yet. We are in the process of fi nalis-ing the proposals for 3mn chil-dren. We will soon sign a few more agreements and complete the target. Some of the projects that we started in the fi rst years, have been completed already,” explained the offi cial.

EAC works to provide out of school children faced with ex-treme poverty, cultural barriers, and confl ict-aff ected environ-ments an opportunity to enrol

in quality primary education.Dr Pigozzi said that EAC

works with several UN agen-cies, international NGOs as well as local NGOs. “We have had so far 62 partners. Some of the projects have been completed already. We are working in 48 countries. Our partners include a number of UN agencies, lead-ing international NGos as well as local NGOs,” she stated.

“Most of our activities are in Sub-Saharan Africa as well as South Asia. Half of the countries we are working are in confl ict or post confl ict situation such as Yemen, Syria, Iraq among others,” noted the offi cial.

According to the offi cial, the amount of funding for education has not gone up though the number of out of school children has gone up

considerably in the recent years.“EAC has a co-funding mod-

el. Each partner has to bear at least 50% of the project. EAC works with the partners and provide programmes according to the needs of the community they are working. It always fo-cuses on quality programme un-der the national education cur-riculum for out school children. Our motto is to ‘fi nd them, enrol them and keep track of them’,” she added.

EAC also works on school re-habilitation, construction and training and support. It has built over 2,500 new schools and 6,600 classrooms; and re-furbished over 4,000 schools and 10,000 classrooms. Since its inception, EAC has also pro-vided over 3.5mn individual training days.

By Joseph VargheseStaff Reporter

Dr Mary Joy Pigozzi, executive director, EAC.

Education festival concludes todayDoha Learning Week, Qatar’s first education festival, launched by the World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE), an initiative of Qatar Foundation will conclude today. The final day will include activities such as football exercises, a textile workshop, and a concert. The Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy’s ‘Generation Amazing Football’ continues to promote football as a catalyst for social change through fun exercises and skills building, engaging all ages of students and parents at Katara, 10am - 9pm.SEK International School Qatar will host a workshop for its students and their parents inspired by the ‘Imperial Threads’ exhibition currently on at the Museum of Islamic Art. Students will guide their parents through the weaving process and collaborate to create a large rug of recycled textiles from 9:30 am - 11am.Msheireb Museums continues its ‘Educational Guided Tours’, teaching problem-solving skills to five to nine-year old students, at Msheireb Museums 9am - 5pm.China’s Central Conservatory of Music brings Doha Learning Week to a close with an evening concert of Chinese classical music titled, ‘Alliance of Music Education across the Silk Road’ at Katara Opera House, from 9pm - 10pm.

Qatar Airways welcomes delegates from 100 countries to Doha for WISEQatar Airways has part-

nered with the World Innovation Summit for

Education (WISE) as the offi cial carrier of the two-day global conference, which begins today.

WISE has invited some of the world’s greatest leaders in the fi elds of education, technology and media to Doha to facilitate discussions about the future of education.

Established by Qatar Foun-dation under the leadership of its chairperson, Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, in 2009, the bi-annual confer-ence is hosting 2,000 top edu-cation experts from 100 coun-

tries around the world at Qatar National Convention Centre (QNCC).

Qatar Airways Group chief executive Akbar al-Baker said, “Qatar Airways is delighted to welcome thousands of the world’s most creative educa-tion leaders and profession-als to Qatar for this important summit, which has implica-tions for the future of educa-tion. We strongly support any initiative that promotes learn-ing, as we believe education is vital to the world’s future. Qatar Airways is very pleased to bring people together for WISE, and to contribute to

the improvement of education across the globe.”

Chief executive offi cer of WISE Stavros N Yiannouka said, “We are very pleased to acknowledge Qatar Airways as the offi cial carrier for the 2017 World Innovation Sum-mit of Education, where dedi-cated leaders and education change makers from around the world will debate the future of education.”

This year’s conference theme, ‘Co-exist, Co-Create: Learning to Live and Work To-gether’, will see delegates dis-cuss the importance of global educational and social chal-

lenges in an uncertain world. The main speakers at the con-ference include infl uential journalists, professors, chief executives and senior univer-sity administrators, who will share their experiences and recommendations with dele-gates. Several hands-on work-shops and labs will also be run by international organisations for both adults and children to encourage interactive debates.

“Qatar Airways takes its re-sponsibilities as a corporate citizen very seriously, and since 2013 has been a proud supporter of the Educate A Child pro-gramme. Educate A Child was

launched in 2012 by Her High-ness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser as a global programme of the Education Above All Founda-tion to signifi cantly reduce the number of children worldwide who are denied their right to education,” the Doha-based carrier said in a statement.

Passengers on board Qatar Airways fl ights are encour-aged by cabin crew to contrib-ute what they can to this ini-tiative. The programme is also highlighted on Qatar Airways’ airline’s infl ight entertain-ment system, infl ight maga-zines, website and social media channels.

Qatar Museums holds innovative workshops

Qatar Museums (QM) has teamed up with Volkswagen Group, the

Goethe-Institut Gulf Region and the German embassy in Doha, to launch a series of inno-vative and inspiring workshops featuring some of the biggest names in design.

The initiative forms part of an ongoing commitment to bring one of the highlights of QM’s 2017 exhibition programme to the local community.

The series, initiated by Volkswagen Group, supports the Driven By German Design exhibition that opened at QM Gallery Al Riwaq last month.

“The response to Driven By German Design has been phe-nomenal and highlights the widespread enthusiasm in Qatar for innovative design and the in-fl uence of some of the industry’s leading proponents – from the historic past to the present day,” QM’s chief strategic planning offi cer Khalid al-Ibrahim said.

Focusing on theory and prac-tice, it brings together world-leaders in automotive and in-dustrial design to inspire Qatar’s young creatives, students and enthusiasts.

The fi rst event takes place to-day (November 15) at 5.30pm at Al Riwaq and will explore the fu-ture of automotive design.

Over the course of an hour-long lecture, Peter Wouda, head

of Volkswagen Group’s Future Centre, will address the evo-lution of German automotive design – from its beginnings through to today’s develop-ments, and look ahead to the future.

In a broad ranging discussion, he will also explore the future of mobility including self-driving vehicles, and provide insights into the current work of his team at the Volkswagen Group Future Center in Potsdam.

The second event takes place on November 20 at Al Riwaq and features renowned industrial designer Stefan Diez who has held a Professorship at Hochs-chule Kassel since October 2017.

In his lecture, Stefan Diez will give insights into the design process, share his experience working with diff erent materials and outline the importance of building prototypes.

He will also explain the im-pact of digitalisation on his work as a designer, exploring the challenges but also the opportu-nities this creates.

Diez is also inviting members of the community to join him for a guided tour through the exhibition after his lecture.

An event by Dr Mateo Kries, director of Vitra Design Muse-um, will take place on Novem-ber 27 at Al Riwaq. He will speak about his curatorial practice and collecting design objects.

Driven By German Design exhibition at QM Gallery Al Riwaq.

‘Support from allies cushionsthe impact of blockade’Turkey cemented its friendship

with Qatar after the Gulf crisis began and emerged as an im-

portant ally and strategic partner, Do-ha-resident Tek Raj Pandey told Qa-tar Urdu Radio’s live show Haqeeqat yesterday.

“The impact of the blockade of Qa-tar was minimal because of support from countries such as Turkey that sent food cargos and other supplies. We immediately started seeing Turk-ish products in the market and real-ised that Turkey is our friend,” Pandey explained.

He was of the view that the presence of Turkish troops in Qatar is impor-tant for the safety of the region. Both countries signed a defence agreement in 2014 after which Turkey set up a military base in Qatar.

“Turkish army is present here for a while now as per a pact signed earlier. This has helped maintain a balance as well as ensure the safety

of Qatar during the crisis,” Pandey asserted.

The future of the Gulf Co-opera-tion Council looks bleak if the crisis prolongs, he stated.

“There used to be free movement of people in the region and there were discussions going on about com-mon currency and other initiatives to strengthen GCC economies. All of these plans came to a halt because of the illegal siege, which is unfortunate for everyone in the region.”

Haqeeqat, which aims to engage and interact with the large South Asian expatriate community in Qatar, is a joint venture of the Gulf Times and Qatar Media Corp Urdu Radio. The show is hosted by Saif-ur-Rehman. It is broadcast from Sunday to Thursday on FM107.

Log on to Qatar Urdu Radio on Fa-cebook and ‘@QatarUrduRadio’ on Twitter for feedback and comments about the show. Tek Raj Pandey

AAB launches campaign for Toyota used vehiclesAbdullah Abdulghani &

Bros Co (AAB) has an-nounced the launch of

a campaign for Toyota used vehicles.

By availing of this off er, one can buy a Toyota Camry 2013 model starting from QR32,000, Corolla 2013 from QR25,000 and Prado 2013 from QR59,000, AAB has said in a statement. Among commercial vehicles, the Toyota Hilux starts from QR39,000 and the Coaster bus from QR82,000.

For in-house fi nance, cus-tomers can buy the vehicle

of their choice without any down-payment and at 5% interest rate, the statement explains, adding that custom-ers can also enjoy free third party insurance, free registra-tion and a free petrol voucher worth QR500.

A sales offi cer will provide a detailed explanation of the sta-tus of the vehicle concerned to the customer as well as infor-mation about the maintenance services carried out.

The client, meanwhile, has the right to get the car exam-ined at any specialised centre

and also to test-drive the car himself/herself.

AAB said it has increased the number of sales advisers and is also recruiting experienced staff to ensure that the sales process is carried out properly and with high quality standards. By do-ing so, it is upholding the ‘Cus-tomer First’ values of the Pre-Owned Vehicle Section as well as satisfying the customer and gaining his/her confi dence, the statement notes.

Abdullah Abdulghani & Bros Co had launched the Pre-Owned Vehicle Section in 1995

to “provide high-quality vehi-cles”. The section has been of-fering its services to customers over the last two decades by providing an “excellent range and models at competitive prices”.

Since the foundation of the Pre-Owned Vehicle Section, AAB has set “prime targets that refl ect the basic direction of the company, namely the ‘Custom-er fi rst’ policy’, the statement adds.

Toyota Camry, Corolla and Prado are among the vehicles on off er.

QATAR5Gulf Times


Katara Traditional Dhow Festival opensA diverse range of cultural

presentations and the un-veiling of Tamim Al Majd

image on a large mainsail marked the opening of the seventh Ka-tara Traditional Dhow Festival yesterday. The fi ve-day event is aimed at reviving the maritime heritage.

The event was graced by Ka-tara – the Cultural Village gen-eral manager Dr Khalid bin Ibra-him al-Sulaiti, prominent Qatari businessman HE Sheikh Faisal bin Qassim al-Thani, HE the Minister of Energy and Industry Dr Mohamed bin Saleh al-Sada, HE the Minister of Culture and

Sports Salah bin Ghanem bin Nasser al-Ali, diplomats and other dignitaries.

The 2017 edition, held under the patronage of His Highness the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Ha-mad al-Thani at the Katara beach until Saturday, has the partici-pation of Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Iraq, Turkey, India, Greece, and Zanzibar in this “one-of-a-kind edition.”

Some 85 Qatari traditional dhows, including one from In-dia displayed for sale, are docked and decorated with Qatari fl ags and Tamim Al Majd images on their mainsail at the Katara beach to welcome residents and visitors.

Small boats sailing along the Katara beach also served as an

attraction to many festival-goers, particularly families and children.

“Katara’s Traditional Dhow Festival has reached an impor-tant and prestigious stage on the local, regional and international levels with its diversifi ed activi-ties,” Katara general manager Dr Khalid bin Ibrahim al-Sulaiti said in a statement.

“This event highlights the de-tails of the rich GCC maritime heritage held with an aim to con-nect present generations with the legacy of Qatar’s past ances-tors’ traditions,” he stressed.

The fi ve-day festival features 32 maritime handicrafts from Oman, fi ve from Kuwait, and 10 from Qatar, according to Katara.

Participating countries, in

partnership with sea food res-taurants, will highlight their rich culture and traditions by provid-ing festival-goers with authentic maritime off erings such as an array of cuisines and traditional performances.

These include food kiosks set up by Turkey, Greece and Iraq while the “Iraqi corner” features cultural shows by a traditional ensemble.

The festival also holds daily competitions such as the tradi-tional dhow race (3.30pm) and the pearl-diving contest, one of the festival highlights, which starts today at 4pm.

Some of the events such as the Haddaq Al Seif, which takes place between 3pm and 5pm; ‘Preparing the Dhow and Dhow

By Joey AguilarStaff Reporter

Tamim Al Majd image is seen on a main sail as artistes perform in the foreground (supplied picture).

Lifting’ at 4pm; and Al Ghazl from 3.30pm to 10pm will run until the concluding day of the festival.

Other traditional activities are also expected to attract a large number of spectators, including the dhow exhibition, traditional per-

formances and crafts, fi sh market, dhow cruises, traditional café, and Operetta (Abshero bl E’zz).

The event also serves as a plat-form for visual artists to show-case their works, providing an area for them to draw and paint.

Katara also organised a

number of workshops for chil-dren and students like the Al Saliyah, a “throwing nets show” at the sea-shore.

Apart from miniature dhows, several stalls at the beach area are also selling Arabic and other local cuisines to visitors.

Several dhows greet visitors at the opening of the festival yesterday.

From left: HE the Minister of Energy and Industry Dr Mohamed bin Saleh al-Sada, prominent Qatari businessman HE Sheikh Faisal bin Qassim al-Thani, Katara general manager Dr Khalid bin Ibrahim al-Sulaiti, HE the Minister of Culture and Sports Salah bin Ghanem bin Nasser al-Ali, diplomats and other dignitaries at the opening of the 7th Katara Traditional Dhow Festival yesterday. PICTURES: Jayan Orma

QATAR


Aston Martin Vantage V8 models recalledThe Ministry of Economy and Commerce (MEC), in collaboration with Horizon Automobiles, has announced the recall of Aston Martin Vantage V8 models of 2010-2013 because of a transmission software problem.The MEC said the recall campaign comes within the

framework of its ongoing eff orts to protect consumers and ensure that car dealers follow up on vehicles’ defects and repair them.The MEC said that it will co-ordinate with the dealer to follow up on the maintenance and repair works. The MEC has urged all

customers to report any violations to its Consumer Protection and Anti-Commercial Fraud Department through the following channels: Call centre: 16001, e-mail: [email protected], Twitter: @MEC_Qatar, Instagram: MEC_Qatar, MEC mobile app for Android and IOS: MEC_Qatar

QNB holds ‘diabetes at work’ awareness dayQNB recently organ-

ised an awareness initiative, ‘diabetes at

work day’, for its staff in col-laboration with Qatar Dia-betes Association (QDA), a member of Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development

The awareness event, which coincided with World Diabetes Day, was held at both QNB’s Al-Mathaf Tower and head offi ce building.

Several health-related activities were organised as part of the initiative, which “witnessed a great turn-out from across the bank’s operations”, QNB said in a statement. These included blood sugar, blood pressure, and body composition tests for the staff by QDA medi-cal professionals, based on which they provided the participants with healthy diet and lifestyle tips to im-prove their health and com-bat this common chronic disease that is a leading cause for heart attacks, strokes, blindness, kidney

failure and amputation.The event was highly

praised by the staff , who also lauded the bank’s role in or-ganising such health initia-tives that spread awareness and provide them with op-portunities to undergo medi-cal examinations to help safeguard their well-being and protect them from ill-nesses, the statement noted.

“The bank’s eff orts in the healthcare fi eld, and its co-operation with QDA and various other healthcare organisations in Qatar and abroad, are testament to its continued keenness regard-ing the health and safety of its staff and its commitment to spreading health aware-ness locally and interna-tionally in societies across its international footprint,” the bank said.

‘Diabetes at work day’ is one of many initiatives which QNB Group fre-quently organises to support the development of the so-cieties in which it operates. The group continuously

QNB staff members being examined during the campaign.

undertakes these eff orts and initiatives as a socially responsible organisation as part of its CSR programme, which is considered an in-tegral part of its strategy and based on six main pillars, most prominent of which is the health sector.

‘Diabetes at work day’, which was fi rst implement-ed by the QDA in 2009, is a health initiative in which QDA’s specialised medi-cal team visits various or-ganisations in Qatar and off ers a diabetes awareness programme that serves to

provide screening to all em-ployees, provide awareness of the insurance coverage available to patients and whether it facilitates man-agement of diabetes, cov-ers meter and strips, and encourages prevention or treatment.

QDA to organise Beat Diabetes Walk on Friday

Qatar Diabetes Associ-ation (QDA), a mem-ber of Qatar Founda-

tion, and Landmark Group, the region’s leading retail and hospitality conglomer-ate, will host the 8th edition of the Beat Diabetes Walk on Friday at Oxygen Park in Education City at 3.30pm.

The walk, which is to

cover about 1.5km, will also feature fun-fi lled activi-ties such as children’s en-tertainment, face painting, an on-site DJ and special fi tness activities. Healthy snacks are to be served.

To raise awareness about diabetes, there will be free blood glucose testing for all participants. Registrations

can be completed online at www.beatdiabetes.me un-til tomorrow. All registered participants will receive a walkathon kit comprising a T-shirt and camp, which can be collected at the venue from 2.30pm.

QDA executive director Dr Abdulla al-Hamaq stated that diabetes is a lifestyle

condition that can be man-aged if detected early. “This year, along with the Inter-national Diabetes Federa-tion (IDF), we are focusing on women’s health, stressing that all women with diabe-tes require access to care and education in order to better manage their condition and improve health outcomes.”

Landmark Group COO Santosh Pai observed that more than half the peo-ple living with diabetes are not aware they have it. Ac-cording to the IDF, there are currently more than 35.4mn people living with diabetes in the Mena region and by 2040 this number is expected to exceed 72mn.

QATAR7Gulf Times


1mn vehicles enteredPearl in Oct, says UDCNearly 1mn vehicles en-

tered The Pearl-Qatar in October, a 37% in-

crease compared to the same month last year, which con-tributed to a revival of retail activity in the area, according to United Development Com-pany (UDC), the master devel-oper of the island.

The number of vehicles enter-ing the island is tracked through technologically-advanced mon-itoring devices installed at its entrance.

In a statement, UDC noted that these devices registered a daily average of 33,500 vehicles last month, including visitors, tourists, owners, residents and employees.

Based on the current traf-fi c fl ow, the number of vehicles entering The Pearl-Qatar is projected to grow annually from 10mn vehicles in 2016 to more than 11mn this year.

“This increase in vehicles has coincided with the opening of two new tunnels at The Pearl In-terchange on Lusail Expressway in September, which has greatly eased traffi c congestion coming in and out of The Pearl-Qatar,” UDC said.

UDC also noted that the time-ly construction of these tunnels was a directive of Prime Min-ister and Interior Minister HE Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani, who urged the com-pletion of construction works and delivery of the project ahead of schedule.

Since the inauguration of the two tunnels, UDC pointed out that travel time to and from the island was reduced signifi cantly.

“This development also added value to UDC and The Pearl-Qa-

tar, which would not have been possible without the support of the Public Works Authority (Ashghal),” UDC said.

“Ashghal envisages the de-velopment of the country’s in-frastructure through urban planning, which has positively aff ected the fl ow of traffi c to and

from the island and contributed to the real estate dynamics and com-munity life there,” UDC noted.

The demand for the leasing of shops, restaurants and other businesses is also on the rise, making The Pearl-Qatar a pre-ferred place to live, shop and dine and to experience a unique life-

style experience at one location.According to data showing

the infl ux of vehicles, weekends and holidays are the busiest days with up to 35,000 vehicles entering the island on a typical Thursday.

Traffi c usually peaks at 4pm daily before gradually declining

throughout the remainder of the day.

The data base also recorded a decrease in the rate of buses and heavy vehicles entering the island by an average 7%, thanks in part to the speedy completion of development projects on the island.

Commercial Bank to handle NU-Q’s cashmanagement services

Commercial Bank’s Trans-action Banking Depart-ment has been awarded

the exclusive cash management mandate for Northwestern Uni-versity in Qatar (NU-Q) follow-ing a competitive tender process with other Qatari banks.

Commercial Bank Group CEO Joseph Abraham said: “Com-mercial Bank’s Wholesale Bank-ing Department is delivering technology-based innovative new services to customers that not only improve the client ex-perience but they enhance their business operations too.”

Commercial Bank EGM, Head of Wholesale Banking, Raju Bud-dhiraju said: “Commercial Bank is a market leader for cash man-agement in Qatar and we are de-lighted to have won this prestig-ious mandate based on the bank’s experience and capability in cash management.

“We look forward to provid-ing Northwestern University in Qatar with our award-winning technology platform and servic-es, including corporate Internet banking, corporate credit cards, a sweep facility to pool funds and improve returns, and cash and cheque pick up facilities.”

In recognition of its market-leading position across a wide range of banking services, Com-mercial Bank has won numerous awards that underline its strate-gic objectives of creativity, in-novation, and providing the best client experience.

Commercial Bank was award-ed the ‘Best Retail Bank in Qatar’, and named the ‘SME Bank of the Year in the Middle East’ for 2017 by The Asian Banker based on its specialised banking services for small and medium enterprise business customers.

Commercial Bank won the ‘Best Cash Management Bank in Qatar’ award at The Asian Bank-

er Middle East & Africa Trans-action Banking Awards in 2016, adding to the same national award in 2014.

The bank’s Transaction Bank-ing Department has built strong relationships with Qatari corpo-rates. In 2017, Commercial Bank became the fi rst bank in Qatar to off er direct debit to a utility company (Qatar Cool) for online bill payments and the fi rst bank in Qatar to off er a bulk bill pay-ment service to Ooredoo.

The bank has also introduced a remote cheque deposit solu-tion for the corporates for faster cheque processing and collec-tion.

The opening of two new tunnels in September eased traff ic congestion coming in and out of The Pearl-Qatar.

The Commercial Bank has won numerous awards that underline its strategic objectives of creativ-ity, innovation, and providing the best client experience.

8 Gulf TimesWednesday, November 15, 2017

QATAR

Qatar, S Korea widen areas of co-operationBy Joey AguilarStaff Reporter

The fi fth session of the Qatar-South Korea high-level strategic co-opera-

tion committee is set to be held next month to further strengthen bilateral ties in various fi elds, South Korean ambassador He-ung Kyeong-park announced yesterday.

The event, which will be at-tended by Qatar’s Minister of Energy and Industry HE Dr Mo-hamed bin Saleh al-Sada, forms part of Qatari and South Korean co-operation beyond energy and infrastructure, the envoy ex-plained at the Korean National Day reception at their embassy in Doha.

The celebration was attended by HE Dr al-Sada, Ministry of Foreign Aff airs’ Chief of Proto-col Ibrahim Yousif Abdullah Fa-khroo, diplomats and other dig-nitaries.

Park stressed that the two countries are also expected to boost their relations in the fi elds of education, agriculture, sports and healthcare, among others. “Moving away from industry, I would like to mention that last November, the fi rst living donor liver transplantation in Qatar was conducted along with cardi-ac and orthopaedic surgeries on the occasion of the Korea – Qatar Medical Forum,” Park noted.

He added that the second edition of the medical forum, scheduled early next month, will witness new and advanced liver and heart artery surgical opera-tions.

Early next year will also pro-vide “fertile opportunities for exchange on the sporting front,”

Park said, citing the upcoming world sports events scheduled to take place in the Asian region. “The Winter Olympics will be held in Pyongchang, South Ko-rea, from February 9 to 25, 2018 while the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics comes not far behind,” he noted. “It will be followed by the 2022 Beijing Winter Olym-pics and, most importantly, the Qatar World Cup in the same year.”

The envoy hopes such “oppor-tunities will strengthen the ide-als of harmony and peace against a backdrop of geopolitical ten-sions and confl ict especially throughout Asia.”

“I also hope that South Korea and Qatar, as hosts of two of these global sporting celebrations, can pull their weight as champions of such causes,” he added.

About Qatar and South Korea trade relations, Park said Qatar continues to supply one third of South Korean natural gas con-sumption (12mn tonnes annual-ly) and one tenth of South Korea’s oil consumption (100mn barrels annually).

At least 15 South Korean com-panies are participating in the construction of various infra-structure projects in the country such as the Doha Metro, Lusail Expressway, Umm Haul power and desalination plant, and the Qatar National Museum, accord-ing to the envoy.

Meanwhile, a cake-cutting ceremony and a Korean B-Boy Group performance by Jinjo Crew marked the National Day, with a variety of Korean food served to guests at the event. Park also an-nounced that the South Korean

economic and political situation is stabilising after the presidential election last May. “Korean stock indices (KOSPI) increased from 1970 from the year before to 2,270 just after the recent presidential election to 2,526 today,” he said.

The envoy added that North Korea has not conducted a mis-sile test for two months, the longest such lull in testing this year.

The issue is still being closely monitored and discussed by the South Korean government with the governments of the US, China and other major countries to force North Korea to move in the right direction, according to Park.

“As long as we stand united I believe the situation in the Ko-rean peninsula and beyond can be stabilised further,” he added.

South Korean ambassador Heung Kyeong-park, Qatar’s Minister of Energy and Industry HE Dr Mohamed bin Saleh al-Sada, Ministry of Foreign Aff airs’ Chief of Protocol Ibrahim Yousif Abdullah Fakhroo and other dignitaries lead the cake-cutting ceremony at the Korean National Day reception yesterday at the embassy. PICTURE: Othman al-Samarrae

Qatar, Ethiopia sign pact on investment protectionBy Peter AlagosBusiness Reporter

Qatar and Ethiopia have finalised and signed an investment protec-

tion agreement yesterday, HE the Minister of Economy and Commerce Sheikh Ahmed bin Jassim bin Mohamed al-Thani said.

The minister made the an-nouncement in the presence of Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, who, along with a delegation of ministers, discussed invest-ment opportunities with of-ficials of Qatar Chamber and other Qatari businessmen.

Sheikh Ahmed said the agreement would help facili-tate investment co-operation between Qatar and Ethiopia in various sectors, particu-larly in agriculture and food security. It would also play a significant role in enhanc-ing business opportunities for the private sectors of both countries, he noted.

The economy minister also said a major property development firm in Qatar had announced plans to de-velop a real-estate project in Ethiopia. This, he continued, opens further investment op-portunities between both na-tions.

Speaking to Gulf Times on the sidelines of the business meeting, Fitsum Arega, the commissioner of the Ethiopi-an Investment Commission, said work on the project “is in its early stages” for the con-struction of a five-star hotel and a large office complex.

The Ethiopian prime min-ister emphasised the role of the Qatari business commu-nity in bringing in capital, skills and technical knowhow,

and management competence to Ethiopia. He invited the Qatari business community to explore investment oppor-tunities in renewable energy and power generation, infra-structure development and PPPs, industrial parks and real estate, agriculture and food security, livestock and commodities production.

“Ethiopia has 80mn hec-tares of arable land suit-able for agriculture, 3mn of which, have been allocated to investors. There are also sig-nificant investment opportu-nities in our tourism and hos-pitality sectors. Our country has a 25% annual growth in tourist arrivals,” he said.

During the meeting, Qatar Chamber vice-chairman Mo-hamed bin Towar al-Kuwari stressed on the role of laws and regulations in making the investment climate in both countries conducive to busi-ness, and called for a regular review of these investment

policies. He also underscored the “strong interest” of Qa-tari businessmen to explore the business and investment opportunities in Ethiopia. The vice-chairman said Qatar Chamber will also study plans to send a business delegation to Ethiopia.

Responding to al-Kuwari, the Ethiopian Prime Minister said: “Ethiopia always takes a pragmatic approach in un-derstanding the needs of the private sector and to make the business environment con-ducive to private investment. We have consistent meetings with concerned officials to readily address the needs of the private sector.”

Desalegn also said Ethio-pia is not only dealing with investors from the Gulf but also from Asian and Euro-pean countries such as India, China, and Turkey, who are among the biggest invest-ment communities in Ethio-pia. Page 28

HE the Minister of Economy and Commerce Sheikh Ahmed bin Jassim bin Mohamed al-Thani and delegates with Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn at a meeting held in Doha yesterday. PICTURE: Anas Khalid

QIB unveils new reloadable prepaid card

Qatar Islamic Bank (QIB) has an-nounced the launch

of a new reloadable prepaid card in partnership with Visa. The prepaid card is designed to empower cus-tomers with the right tool to effectively manage fam-ily or business expenses lo-cally and internationally.

The prepaid card caters to customers allocating money to family members, including children study-ing abroad, and domestic helpers responsible for the

daily household expenses and groceries. The card can also be used by corporate entities to manage the daily company expenses, bills, government fees or general expenses of their employ-ees.

The prepaid card en-courages proper expense management and allows customers to monitor their spending whether it is per-sonal or business-related. The prepaid card also ena-bles customers with instant access to reload it instantly

through QIB mobile App, Internet banking, call cen-tre, or any QIB branch. “At QIB, we are committed to provide our customers with payment solutions, which give them control over their expenses.

The prepaid card is an alternative to cash given to family members and employees for their dai-ly spends, which can be tracked in an efficient manner,” said D Anand, general manager QIB’s Per-sonal Banking Group.

Customers can load and reload the prepaid card with any amount between QR200 to QR15,000 and use the card for POS and on-line purchases only. These cards are issued instantly from any QIB branch, with individual customers be-ing able to issue up to 10 prepaid cards linked to their QIB accounts while corporates can apply for as many cards based on their business needs. The cards, which are valid for five years, can be personalised

and are available to all QIB customers.

Earlier this year, QIB had introduced the Hadiyati prepaid gift card, and with today’s launch of the re-loadable prepaid card, QIB is evolving its prepaid card category to meet the differ-ent needs of its customers by providing them differ-ent options to manage their daily financial needs in an efficient manner.

For more information on the prepaid cards, visit www.qib.com.qa .

Ooredoo launches Hala India Super Key

Ooredoo has announced the launch of its new Hala Saver Key, designed to off er the “most aff ordable rates for Qatar’s expatriates”. The new Hala Key – the Hala India Super Key – off ers Ooredoo’s “best rates to India yet”, with calls to any network in the country costing 9Dhs per minute, and calls to any local number in Qatar costing 25Dhs per minute, the company has said in a press statement. The Hala India Super Key is available now and costs QR2 per week. To subscribe, customers need to send

the SMS INS to 121, dial *121# or use the Ooredoo App. The subscription will automatically renew weekly, so customers continue to save. With a huge number of Qatar’s expatriates calling India daily, the new Hala Key has been “designed to save customers money on international calls, while off ering a great local rate as well,” the statement notes.The Hala India Super

Key will be available until January 31, 2018. Manar Khalifa al-Muraikhi, Ooredoo director of PR and Corporate Communications, said: “Communication is the most important thing when you’re away from home, and something as small as a daily ‘hello’ can make you feel connected to those you love. Thanks to the new Hala India Super Key, everyone calling India from Qatar can now do this.”

Hassad hands over food supply to private sectorHassad Food, Qatar’s premier

investor in food and agri-business sectors, has handed

over “the food supply mission” to the private sector, and announced the ar-rival of the company’s last shipment.

Since the start of the blockade un-til the arrival of Hassad’s fi nal ship-ment, the company supplied signifi -cant quantities of strategic products to the local market, via air freight on a daily basis, and through land-sea routes.

Hassad also played a major role in opening a new land-sea route from Turkey and Azerbaijan though Bushehr port in Iran. The amounts of strategic products supplied by Has-sad were always in line with the local market needs, a company statement yesterday noted. The company sup-plied poultry products, milk, dairy products, table eggs, fresh vegeta-

bles and fruits, juices and many other products that were needed for local market consumption.

The “range of high quality prod-ucts” supplied by Hassad to the lo-cal market was supplied from more than 10 countries including Turkey, Kuwait, Iran, Azerbaijan, Oman and Lebanon. Following the fourth week of the blockade, Hassad co-ordinat-ed with the private sector companies to gradually handover the food sup-ply mission entirely to them.

Hassad CEO Mohamed bin Badr al-Sadah said, “On the fi rst day of the blockade, Hassad was tasked with supplying the local market with the needed strategic products, without any shortages, and in a tight time-frame. “To provide the local market with a steady supply of high-quality products, we immediately started co-ordinating with a number of

friendly countries. Our fi rst ship-ment arrived to Qatar on June 6, fol-lowing that day, Hassad supplied the local market with shipments via air freight daily, and through sea, land-sea routes. During peak days Hassad supplied the local market with more than 1,000 tonnes of fresh vegetables and dairy products on a daily basis” al-Sadah added.

He also noted that starting the fourth week of the blockade, Hassad co-ordinated with the private sector companies, to gradually handover the food supply mission entirely to them. “The transition was successfully co-ordinated and completed, currently the private sector is providing the lo-cal market with all the needed prod-ucts without any shortages.”

To ensure products are delivered to the consumers in a timely manner, Hassad developed a robust distribu-

tion system that worked on 24/7 basis to ensure availability at retail outlets, especially during in the holy month of Ramadan. The distribution team managed to supply more than 40 de-liveries of milk, dairy products and juices per day to large supermarket chains, in addition to other distribu-tion deliveries to around 1,000 small stores spread across Doha.

“It’s time for us to resume our in-vestments’ plans, and continue to manage our local and international investments, which aims to support the Qatari local economy,” al-Sadah added.

Hassad CEO Mohamed bin Badr al-Sadah

More cases registered at Compensation Claims Committee

More local companies have approached the Compensation Claims Committee to seek redressal for their increasing losses due to the illegal siege imposed on Qatar by the Saudi-led bloc. Local Arabic daily Arrayah reported yesterday that the committee has recently received claims from diff erent business entities, particularly from the food import companies. Off icials of these companies aff irmed that their businesses have incurred losses, estimated in millions of riyals, as their

suppliers in UAE stopped exports to Qatar. Losses have also been incured due to the delay in shipments bound for Qatar. In particular, food shipments get adversely aff ected due to prolonged storage periods.Other complaints include the procrastination of the Emirati companies to abide by the obligations and conditions of their contracts with their Qatari counterparts, and their refusal to give clear response to the inquiries of Qatari business off icials in this

regard. UAE law firms and lawyers refuse to accept any case filed by a Qatari company or business against any of these companies fearing they might be prosecuted by the authorities there. Some tourist companies and hotel owners have submitted claims stating that their losses are increasing on daily basis as they used to receive a steady stream of business visitors and tourists from the neighbouring countries, which constituted a major source for

their revenue. However, due to the ongoing blockade their occupancy rate has fallen considerably while their operation costs are increasing. The committee continues to off er its support services to those aff ected by the blockade in any way. It also helps them to prepare the necessary documents to support and prove their claims, as there are legal experts and specialists at the committee, who classify each case accordingly in preparation to take necessary legal recourse.

REGION/ARAB WORLD9


Hariri set for Lebanon return in two daysReuters Beirut

Saad al-Hariri will return to Lebanon from Saudi Arabia within two days,

he said yesterday, 10 days after his shock resignation as prime minister in a broadcast from Riyadh.

His abrupt resignation on Nov 4 sent Lebanon spinning into political crisis and back onto the front line of the Middle East power struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Hezbollah holds major sway in Lebanese politics.

It has long been a foe of Har-iri but is part of the coalition government he formed last year and called for his return.

In his resignation he made bitter attacks on Hezbollah, and top Lebanese offi cials and politicians close to Hariri have said Saudi Arabia coerced him to resign, dictated his statement and have held him under house arrest.

Riyadh and Hariri have both denied that.

Hariri is a political ally of Riy-adh and holds Saudi nationality.

He cited a fear of assassina-tion and Hezbollah’s “sowing strife” in the Arab world as his reasons for stepping down.

Riyadh and Hariri both op-pose Hezbollah’s military role in Syria, fi ghting alongside Presi-dent Bashar al-Assad, and what they allege is its participation in Yemen’s civil war alongside the Houthi group against a Saudi-led coalition.

Hezbollah denies having a

role in the Yemen confl ict.Lebanese President Michel

Aoun has said he will not ac-cept Hariri’s resignation until he returns to Beirut to formally submit it.

Analysts say when Hariri does so, members of parliament will nominate him to serve as prime minister once again, and Aoun will ask him to form a new government.

That would open the door to a long period of political talks like those which preceded the formation of the national unity government that made Hariri prime minister a year ago.

Hariri is expected to call on Aoun to convene political dialogue on key issues facing

Lebanon, chiefl y on reaffi rm-ing the tiny country’s policy of staying out of regional confl icts and Hezbollah’s role in confl icts outside Lebanon’s borders, sen-ior political sources say.

Any attempt to keep Hezbol-lah out of the government, in line with Saudi wishes, will tor-pedo the talks, political sources say.

Hariri warned on Sunday in his fi rst interview since resign-ing of possible Gulf Arab sanc-tions against Lebanon and of the risk to the livelihoods of the 300,000-400,000 Lebanese in the Gulf.

Lebanese Foreign Minis-ter Gebran Bassil said in Paris yesterday that any punitive

sanctions by Saudi Arabia on Lebanon would impact the re-gion and Syrian refugees in the country.

Bassil is a member of Presi-dent Aoun’s political party.

He said Hariri needed to re-turn to Lebanon to prove he was free.

After Hariri’s resignation, Saudi Arabia accused the Leba-nese government of declaring war on it because of Hezbollah’s pivotal role in Lebanese politics.

The European Union High Representative Federica Mogh-erini said yesterday after a meeting with Bassil that she ex-pected Hariri and his family to return to Lebanon in the coming days.

On Twitter, Hariri said he was well but that his family was staying in Saudi Arabia.

Sources across Lebanon’s political divide have said Hariri struck a more compromising tone in his interview than in his resignation statement, at one point holding out the possibil-ity of rescinding his decision to quit.

They say this represents a re-treat by Saudi Arabia, attribut-ing it to Western pressure.

The Maronite Patriarch Be-chara Boutros al-Rai, head of Lebanon’s biggest Christian community, met Hariri and Saudi King Salman and Crown Prince Mohamed in Riyadh yes-terday.

Saudi’s Al-Arabiya television quoted him as saying he sup-ported the reasons for Hariri’s resignation.

His comments refl ect the views of some politicians in Lebanon’s divided Maronite community but not President Aoun. Echoing Saudi demands, MPs from Hariri’s Future Move-ment called for a UN resolution from 2006 that demanded all militias in Lebanon disarm to be respected.

Hezbollah is the only Leba-nese group with a militia, and says it needs weapons to secure Lebanon from Israel.

Hezbollah’s Lebanese op-ponents have long demanded it disarm.

Lebanese politicians have previously held talks on Hez-bollah’s arsenal as part of a dialogue on a national defence strategy, but have never seri-ously discussed disarming it.

Anger surges as PM stays put in SaudiLebanese Prime Minis-

ter Saad Hariri appeared live on television Sunday

night. This was his fi rst appearance

since his resignation more than a week back.

“I can leave Saudi Arabia whenever I want,” he told the interviewer, pledging to be back in Beirut “soon.”

Since Hariri stepped down on Nov 4, Lebanon has united in demands for him to return home, Time magazine report-ed. In Beirut’s central Martyr’s Square, billboards bearing the face of Hariri have been erect-ed, with the words “waiting for you.”

The website freesaadhar-iri.com satirically counts the seconds since he resigned in a televised address from the Saudi capital. “Free Lebanon’s Prime Minister Saad Hariri from Saudi Arabia jails!” the site demands.

BLAME FOR INSTABILITYIn his resignation speech,

Hariri blamed the Lebanese movement Hezbollah for the instability in his coun-try and the region. Hezbol-lah and Hariri have long been at odds; in fact, a UN-backed tribunal accused fi ve Hezbol-lah members of involvement in the 2005 assignation of his father, the former Prime Min-ister Rafi k Hariri. But since last year, Hariri has been lead-ing a coalition government in which Hezbollah is a part-ner, and which had managed to provide a little stability in Lebanon.

The week of silence that fol-lowed only fuelled rumours that he was forced to resign by his long-time supporters in Riyadh and that he is being held against his will. Lebanese President Michel Aoun told foreign ambassadors Hariri was “kidnapped.”

Fouad Sinora, a member of Hariri’s own political party, and a former Prime Minister himself, said he must return home. “The political party and its board members reaffi rm its support for Prime Minis-ter Saad Hariri,” he said. “The party stands by him under any circumstance.”

SPECULATIONFew in the Lebanese capital

believe Hariri stepped down on his own volition. Most specu-late that he’s being prevented from returning to Lebanon, which Saudi offi cials have de-nied.

While some celebrated, honking car horns in the streets of Beirut, after Hariri’s Sunday interview and pledge to return, many here remain skeptical that Hariri is a man of free will.

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” says Souheil Saade, a shopkeeper in one of Bei-rut’s Christian districts, of Hariri’s return. Pundits de-bated Hariri’s body language in the Sunday interview and speculated about a man who appeared briefly in the in-terview room, holding what seemed to be papers. Some said Hariri looked sad, on the verge of tears. All signs sug-gest he is under some kind of

house arrest, people here say.“I’m not with him politically

at all,” says Saade. “But I love him. He is my prime minister.”

Hariri might not have been a wildly popular prime minister across Lebanon’s sects and po-litical parties, but calls for his return have cut across party political lines.

The fi rst call was from his once-top political rival, Hez-bollah leader Hassan Nas-rallah. Known for his fi ery speeches, Nasrallah was unu-sually calm. “The resignation was a Saudi decision dictated to Prime Minister Hariri,” he said in a televised address. “He was forced into it. The resignation wasn’t his inten-tion, desire or decision.”

REASON UNCLEARWhat is still murky is why

Saudi Arabia, a long time sup-porter of Hariri, would want him to step down. The king-dom is an important patron for the tiny Mediterranean state and a supporter of Lebanon’s national army. Until Nov 4, Hariri had been their man in Beirut.

“They were dissatisfi ed with Hariri’s so-called ap-peasement of Hezbollah,” said Dr Bessma Momani, a Senior Fellow at the Centre for International Governance and Innovation. “They feel as though…what should be a cli-ent state, is acting far too in-dependently and Saad Hariri is the fall guy for that,” said Momani.

The fear is that Hariri’s absence is upsetting the fragile political balance that has been keeping the peace in Lebanon, despite the war raging next door in Syria. “Lebanon is a tinder box in an already troubled region,” Momani added. “Worst case scenario is a military conflict, perhaps more immediate is some sort of economic cri-sis.” Lebanon has one of the world’s highest debt to GDP ratios.

FRUSTRATION Like many here, Saade, now

in his fi fties, says Lebanese aren’t interested in a con-fl ict. “I fought here in 1975,” he says, pointing to the street outside his shop. “No one here wants another war.” But he also knows it may not be a Lebanese decision, saying his country has always been used as a “court” for regional and international powers to violently sort out their diff er-ences.

In his Sunday interview, Hariri indicated he could re-scind his resignation, laying out some vague conditions, mostly aimed at Hezbollah.

The fear is, that competition for infl uence—already fuel-ling the confl icts in Yemen, Iraq and Syria—may now play out in this Lebanese “court” to violent ends.

Many here are frustrated by the prospect. “Lebanon is the playground for all the countries. Everyone has its own Lebanese party,” says Elie Khoury in his sandwich shop in Beirut. “It’s enough. We want all the international interfer-ence to stop.”

A poster of Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri is seen on a giant billboard that reads in Arabic “Your dignity is Lebanon’s dignity” on the highway of Zouk Mosbeh, north of Beirut, yesterday.

Lebanese Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil (centre) delivers a press conference at the Embassy of Lebanon in Paris yesterday.

Saudi-led coalition raid shuts down Sanaa airport

ReutersAden

An air raid by the Saudi-led military coalition fi ght-ing against the Houthi

movement in Yemen shut down the airport in the capital Sanaa yesterday, further isolating the country where millions are on the brink of famine, the state news agency SABA reported.

The Saudi-led coalition said last week it had closed all air, land and seaports in Yemen to stem what it said was the fl ow of arms to the Houthis from Iran.

The air raid destroyed the Sanaa airport’s radio navi-gation station for aircraft, civil aviation authorities told SABA, which is controlled by

the Houthis. UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said yes-terday that there had been no humanitarian flights to Sanaa airport and no humanitarian or commercial shipments to Hodeidah and Salif ports since Nov 6.

“Without Sanaa airport and Hodeidah and Salif seaports ful-ly functioning and able to receive cargo, the dire humanitarian sit-uation in Yemen will continue,” Dujarric told reporters in New York. “Seven million people are already on the brink of famine and the blockade will only bring them closer to it.”

The Houthis control most of the north, including Sanaa and its international airport, while the Saudi-led coalition domi-nates the airspace.

Iran pledges swift aid after major earthquakeAFP Sar-e Pol-e Zahab, Iran

Iranian authorities scram-bled yesterday to bring help to thousands of people left

homeless by a major quake that killed more than 400 people.

As the country marked a day of mourning, President Hassan Rouhani promised swift help following the 7.3-magnitude quake that struck a mountain-ous region spanning the Iran-Iraq border late Sunday.

Volunteers also rushed to help the displaced after thou-sands of homes were destroyed in the quake, which rocked a region extending across Iran’s western province of Kerman-shah and neighbouring Iraqi Kurdistan.

Yesterday afternoon, the damage was visible in the town

of Sar-e Pol-e Zahab, Iran’s worst hit in the quake.

Residents helped police to evacuate an elderly man from a home at risk of imminent col-lapse.

His face was covered in caked blood and his hand was band-aged.

Several buildings and houses lay in complete ruins, while others stood disfi gured after their facades had collapsed.

But other structures ap-peared unscathed.

A team of rescue workers with sniff er dogs combed the ruins for survivors after at least

280 people were killed in the town of some 85,000.

The town centre was clogged with traffi c as people from the surrounding province rushed to help with rescue eff orts.

Some distributed blankets and others handed out water.

Tents, some provided by the Red Crescent, dotted green spaces turned into camps for the displaced.

But some did not have shelter from the cold.

“What we need is a tent and covers to be able to get through the night,” said Shima Maryami Kiani, 24, the mother of a three-year-old.

Earlier in the day, residents who had fl ed their homes awoke from a second night in the chilly outdoors as authorities strug-gled to get aid into the quake zone.

Rouhani was expected to

speak with local offi cials to evaluate the situation, after landing by helicopter in the city of Kermanshah where he prom-ised the government would move swiftly to help those left homeless.

“I want to assure those who are suff ering that the govern-ment has begun to act with all means at its disposal and is scrambling to resolve this prob-lem as quickly as possible,” he said.

Rouhani said all aid would be channelled through the Hous-ing Foundation, one of the charitable trusts set up after the Islamic revolution of 1979 that are major players in the Iranian economy.

Pir Hossein Koolivand, the head of national rescue servic-es, earlier said the priority was “to provide solutions for heat-ing, housing and food”.

Iranian medics tend to quake victims and survivors at a field hospital in the town of Sar-e Pol-e Zahab in the western Kermanshah province near the border with Iraq, yesterday.

REGION/ARAB WORLD

Gulf TimesWednesday, November 15, 201710

Erdogan holds co-operation talks in KuwaitAFPKuwait City

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan held talks with Kuwait’s emir yes-

terday, state media reported, as a crisis that has split Qatar from its Gulf neighbours enters its sixth month.

Erdogan and Kuwaiti ruler Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah discussed “regional and international developments,” the government-run KUNA news agency said.

A group of nations led by Sau-di Arabia and including Bahrain, Egypt and the United Arab Emir-ates cut ties with Qatar in June.

Qatar is the world’s largest ex-porter of liquefi ed natural gas.

Kuwait has led mediation ef-forts in the dispute, while Turkey has stepped in to support Qatar with food imports in the face of a blockade by the Arab states.

Yesterday, Erdogan and the Kuwaiti emir also discussed “means to improve co-operation on all fronts” between the two nations and also inked a direct investment agreement, KUNA said.

The report did not give further detail on the agreements.

Turkey and Kuwait’s military chiefs of staff held talks on the “developing and strengthening” military co-operation, accord-ing to KUNA.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan meets with the Emir of Kuwait Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah in Kuwait City yesterday.

A photo provided by the Kuwaiti news agency KUNA yesterday shows Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan posing for a group photo with Turkish construction workers, during his visit to the site of the new Kuwait International Airport project, in the capital Kuwait City.

More than 60 killed in air strike on Syrian townReutersBeirut

The death toll from air strikes on a Syrian town in a “de-escalation zone”

has risen to 61, a war monitor said yesterday, a demonstration of the fragile state of areas set up in attempt to ease the violence.

Rebels blamed Russian war-planes of carrying out Monday’s attack and said they would fi ght back against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces and his Russian and Iranian backers in the six-year-old confl ict.

The British-based Syrian Ob-servatory for Human Rights said three air strikes hit the market in Atareb, west of Aleppo, and killed at least 61 people.

Atareb is inside what is known as a de-escalation zone under an agreement between Turkey, Russia and Iran to reduce the bloodshed.

But despite the diplomatic ef-forts, fi ghting continues in many areas, including Aleppo, Idlib, Raqqa, Deir al-Zor and Hama.

“(The zones) did de-escalate fi ghting,” UN humanitarian ad-viser Jan Egeland told Reuters.

But lately, “there has been increased fighting also.” The zones were set up under the Astana process, a series of talks in the capital of Kazakhstan between Russia and Iran, and the rebels’ supporter Turkey.

They agreed in September to deploy observers on the edge of a de-escalation zone in Syria’s Idlib province, which is largely under the control of Islamist insurgents.

Following the air strikes, the Tahrir al-Sham alliance de-nounced the ceasefire talks and pledged to keep fighting gov-ernment forces and their Rus-sian and Iranian allies.

“This aggression and crimes confirms for us that there is no solution with the colonisers without fighting and strug-gling,” it said.

Tahrir al-Sham includes the group formerly known as the Nusra Front, which changed its name last year when it broke formal ties to Al Qaeda.

Meanwhile, Russia and Iran must do all they can to stop

air strikes targeting civilians in Syria and reach a definitive cessation of hostilities, France said yesterday after at least 61 people were killed in the bomb-ing of an outdoor market.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitoring group reported three air strikes hit the rebel-held town of Atareb in west of Aleppo on Monday.

Atareb is inside what is known as a “de-escalation” zone under a deal agreed be-tween Turkey, Russia and Iran to reduce violence in the area.

Turkey has backed some rebel groups while Russia and Iran are the Syrian govern-ment’s main allies.

“France condemns the bombings on 13 November in Atareb, which caused the deaths of dozens of civilians,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Agnes Romatet-Espagne told reporters in a daily briefing.

“We call on the allies of the Damascus regime to do their utmost to stop these unaccept-

able attacks and to bring about a definitive cessation of hos-tilities.”

Romatet-Espagne also said that an humanitarian aid con-voy that had reached the be-sieged rebel enclave of east-ern Ghouta on Sunday was not enough and indicated that Moscow should do more.

UN humanitarian adviser Jan Egeland said last week that the area of some 400,000 civil-ians faces “complete catastro-phe” because aid deliveries are blocked, and hundreds of peo-ple need urgent medical evacu-ation.

“The safe, comprehensive, unconditional and unhindered delivery of humanitarian as-sistance to all civilian popu-lations in need is an absolute necessity,” Romatet-Espagne said.

“It is the most demanding requirement in the discussions we have with our partners, es-pecially Russia. Deliveries that may have taken place are clear-ly insufficient.”

Shelves remain standing amidst the rubble yesterday following an air strike the previous day on the northern rebel-held Syrian town of Atareb.

Syrian children wait for treatment at a hospital in Kafr Batna yesterday after they were injured in shelling on the nearby town of Hazeh in the rebel-held eastern Ghouta area on the outskirts of the capital.

Car bomb kills 10 in Yemen govt bastionAFPAden

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for a car bombing that

security sources said killed 10 people, including civilians, at a security post in Yemen’s gov-ernment bastion of Aden yes-terday.

The militant group claimed the attack in the southern port city via the encrypted messag-ing app Telegram, adding that a Yemeni suicide bomber had detonated the vehicle.

Aden’s security chief said: “Eight members of the security forces and two civilians were killed in a car bombing in the central district of Abdul Aziz.”

“There are a large number of wounded, some of them in seri-ous condition,” Brigadier Shalal

Shaya said, attributing the blast to a car bomb.

Witnesses earlier said they heard a loud explosion followed by gunfi re at the main offi ce of UAE-trained security forces in charge of guarding state-owned facilities.

The Zayed bin Sultan mosque, which is located near the security offi ce and funded by the United Arab Emirates, was also damaged in the attack.

The United Arab Emirates, which has trained government forces in southern Yemen, is a

key member of a Saudi-led mil-itary coalition.

The coalition intervened in Yemen in March 2015 with the aim of rolling back gains made by Houthi rebels and restoring the government of Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi to power.

But the mission has ex-panded to include operations against militant groups, both IS and Al Qaeda, which have used the chaos of the war to gain footholds in government-held southern Yemen.

IS also claimed a major at-tack in Aden on November 5 that killed 35 people, sparking a hostage crisis in a city that had seen a period of relative calm in the war-torn country.

The Yemen war has killed more than 8,650 people, the majority civilians, and pushed the country to the brink of famine.

Yemeni firefighters douse flames following an explosion near a security post in the southern port city of Aden yesterday.

Iraq to act soon over border areas in stand-off with Kurds: AbadiReuters Baghdad/Erbil

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, seeking to up the pressure in a stand-

off with Iraq’s Kurdish region, said yesterday he would act soon over border areas under Kurdish control but predicted his government’s forces would regain them without violence.

The central government in Baghdad has cracked down hard on the Kurds since the government of the Kurdish autonomous region staged an independence referendum on Sept 25 that Baghdad consid-ers illegal.

The Iraqi armed forces have threatened to resume military operations against the Kurds, accusing them of delaying the handover of control of bor-ders and taking advantage of negotiations to bolster their defences.

“We will regain control on border areas without escala-tion. But our patience will run out. We will not wait forever. We will take action,” Abadi said at a news conference.

The independence vote de-fi ed the central government in Baghdad — which had ruled the ballot illegal — as well as neighbouring Turkey and Iran.

Abadi spoke a few hours after the Kurdistan Region-al Government (KRG) an-nounced a concession to Iraq’s central government by saying it would accept a court deci-sion prohibiting the region from seceding.

The announcement marks the Kurds’ latest attempt to re-vive negotiations with Bagh-dad over their region’s future after the central government imposed measures in retalia-tion against the independence vote. Among the steps was an off ensive by Iraqi government forces and the Iran-backed Popular Mobilisation Forces that took back the oil city of Kirkuk and other disputed ter-ritories from the control from the Kurdistan Regional Gov-ernment (KRG) last month.

The KRG said yesterday it would respect the Nov 6 ruling by the Supreme Federal Court, which declared that no Iraqi province could secede.

“We believe that this deci-sion must become a basis for starting an inclusive national dialogue between (Kurdish authorities in) Erbil and Bagh-dad to resolve all disputes,” the KRG said in a statement.

Abadi had previously urged the northern semi-autono-mous Kurdish region to abide by the court’s decision.

EU partnership with Libya to stem migrant fl ow ‘inhuman’: UNAFPGeneva

The European Union’s policy of helping the Libyan authorities intercept migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean and return them

to “horrifi c” prisons in Libya is “inhuman”, the United Nations said yesterday.

“The suff ering of migrants detained in Libya is an outrage to the conscience of humanity,” the UN human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein said in a statement.

“The European Union’s policy of assisting the Libyan Coast Guard to intercept and return mi-grants in the Mediterranean (is) inhuman,” he said.

Chaos-ridden Libya has long been a major tran-sit hub for migrants trying to reach Europe, and many of them have fallen prey to serious abuse there at the hands of traffi ckers and others.

Zeid warned yesterday that “the detention sys-tem for migrants in Libya is broken beyond repair.”

“The international community cannot continue

to turn a blind eye to the unimaginable horrors en-dured by migrants in Libya, and pretend that the situation can be remedied only by improving con-ditions in detention.”

According to Libya’s Department of Combatting Illegal Migration (DCIM), 19,900 people were being held in facilities under its control in early Novem-ber, up from about 7,000 in mid-September.

The increase came after authorities detained thousands of migrants previously held by smug-glers in Libya’s people-traffi cking hub Sabratha, to the west of Tripoli. Zeid said staff members had visited four DCIM facilities earlier this month and were “shocked” by what they saw.

There were “thousands of emaciated and trau-matised men, women and children piled on top of each other, locked up in hangars with no access to the most basic necessities, and stripped of their human dignity,” he said.

Migrants, including children, described hor-rifi c beatings by guards at detention centres, while many women said they faced rape and other sexual violence at the hands of smugglers and guards.

Greco-Roman mummy discovery in Egypt

A Russian archaeological team has discovered a well-preserved mummy from the Greco-Roman period in a wooden coff in south of Cairo, Egypt’s antiquities ministry said yesterday.The discovery was made near New Fayoum city, about 80 kilometres south of the Egyptian capital, the ministry said in a statement.The team “found inside the coff in a well-preserved mummy, wrapped in linen, with its face covered by a human mask with drawings in

blue and gold,” it said.While mummification is most-ly associated with ancient Egypt, the practice continued into the Greco-Roman era.The Russian team made its discovery near a monastery in the village of Qalamshah.“The expedition carried out an initial restoration of the coff in and the mummy, as the coff in was found in a bad condition,” the ministry said, citing the minister’s assistant Mohamed Abdel Lateef. The statement did not say when the discov-ery was made.

AFRICA11Gulf Times


A Kenyan mother who gave birth to extremely rare naturally-conceived quintuplets has lost all five babies, according to a hospital in the south west of the country. The mother, Jacintah Akinyi, 30 — who did not know she was carrying five babies — went into labour on Sunday and gave birth to two babies at home, who both died, before being transferred to the Kisii Teaching and Referral hospital. Nurse Manager Florence Ogero said a third baby died that night, due to being underweight and suff ering a condition caused by low levels of blood platelets. “The other one had severe pneumonia and from all those birth-related complications, these babies have succumbed,” she told AFP.

Tanzania yesterday off ered a reward of 10mn shillings ($4,500) for the arrest of a former chief accountant of its anti-graft watchdog, part of a new drive to root out corruption. President John Magufuli, in off ice since November 2015, has launched a crackdown on high-level corruption that has already seen thousands of public off icials losing their jobs. John Mbungo, deputy director general of the state-run Prevention and Combating of Corruption Bureau said the agency’s former chief accountant, Godfrey Gugai, is on the run after his assets were frozen in May as part of a graft investigation. The frozen assets include six vehicles and 40 apartments.

Off icials in the self-proclaimed state of Somaliland yesterday counted votes from a presidential election, with a social media blackout expected to last several days until results are announced. The counting process “may take a couple of days before it finishes and the result is announced, it can be between 16th and 18th of this month,” said election commission chairman Abdikadir Iman Warsame. No incidents of violence, unrest or disruption were reported during the day’s voting on Monday. Three candidates are vying for the state’s top off ice: seasoned politicians Muse Bihi of the ruling Kulmiye party and opposition leaders Abdirahman Iro and Faysal Ali Warabe, who was defeated in a previous election in 2010.

The United Nations yesterday called on DR Congo’s government to allow peaceful demonstrations on the eve of expected protests against President Joseph Kabila. In a statement, the UN peacekeeping mission MONUSCO urged the authorities “to respect the fundamental freedoms enshrined in the Congolese Constitution, including freedom of assembly and of demonstration.” The authorities, it said, should “instruct defence and security forces to respect the principles of necessity, proportionality and legality, consistent with international standards.” The Democratic Republic of Congo faces a feared flare-up of violence over Kabila’s decision to stay in off ice.

Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari receives honours during a tour of Ebonyi state yesterday.

Kenya mother loses entire set of rare quintuplets

Tanzania puts bounty on fugitive anti-graft off icial

Somaliland tallies votes amid social media blackout

UN urges Kinshasa to allow peaceful protests

TRAGIC CRACKDOWNBALLOT POLITICS HONOURED!

Tanks head to HarareReutersHarare

Four tanks were seen heading yesterday towards the Zim-babwe capital Harare, a day

after the head of the armed forces said he was prepared to “step in” to end a purge of supporters of the vice president who was sacked last week.

A Reuters witness saw two other tanks parked beside the main road from Harare to Chinhoyi, about 20km from the city.

One, which was pointed in the direction of the capital, had come off its tracks.

Witnesses said the tanks turned before reaching Harare, heading towards the Presidential Guard compound in a suburb called Dzi-varasekwa on the outskirts of Harare.

“There were about four tanks and they turned right here, you can see markings on the road,” one witness on the Chinhoyi highway said pointing to a road that links up to the Presidential Guard com-pound that houses the battalion that protects the president.

Government offi cials could not be reached for comment.

President Robert Mugabe, the only leader Zimbabwe has known in 37 years of independence, was yesterday chairing a weekly cabi-net meeting in the capital.

The capital appeared calm and there were no troops in the city as business continued normally.

In an unprecedented step, the

head of the armed forces, Con-stantino Chiwenga, openly threat-ened to intervene in politics on Monday, a week after Mugabe fi red Vice President Emerson Mnan-gagwa, long seen as 93-year-old Mugabe’s likely successor.

Mnangagwa, a veteran of Zim-babwe’s 1970s liberation wars, was popular with the military, which viewed his removal as part of a purge of independence-era fi gures to pave the way for Mugabe to hand power to his wife Grace, 52.

“We must remind those behind the current treacherous shenani-gans that, when it comes to mat-ters of protecting our revolution, the military will not hesitate to step in,” Chiwenga said in a state-ment read to reporters at a news conference packed with top brass on Monday.

Grace Mugabe has developed a strong following in the powerful youth wing of the ruling party.

Her rise has brought her into confl ict with the independence-

era war veterans, who once enjoyed a privileged role in the ruling party under Mugabe, but who have in-creasingly been banished from senior government and party roles in recent years.

Neither the president nor his wife responded immediately to the general’s remarks, but the head of ZANU-PF’s youth wing yesterday accused the army chief of subvert-ing the constitution.

“Defending the revolution and our leader and president is an ideal

we live for and if need be it is a prin-ciple we are prepared to die for,” Kudzai Chipanga, who leads the ZANU-PF Youth League, said at the party’s headquarters in Harare.

The rising political tension in the southern African country comes at a time when it is struggling to pay for imports due to a dollar crunch, which has also caused acute cash shortages.

Zimbabwe’s state media re-frained from publishing Chiwen-ga’s statement.

The Herald newspaper, which had initially posted some of Chi-wenga’s comments on its offi cial Twitter page on Monday, deleted the posts without explanation.

While Mugabe’s rule has been anchored by support from the military, the ageing leader does not tolerate public challenges.

As Mugabe has systematically dismissed veterans of the libera-tion struggle from party posts, the top echelons of ZANU-PF are now stacked with offi cials who did not fi ght in the independence war.

Mugabe could for the fi rst time go into next year’s elections without the active support of the military.

War veterans broke ranks with him in 2016 and have vowed to form a broad front with the oppo-sition to challenge his long rule.

Mnangagwa’s unexpected downfall last week followed months of sometimes vitriolic attacks by Grace Mugabe, who used national rallies organised by ZANU-PF youths to attack her party rivals.

Soldiers stand beside military vehicles just outside Harare.

EU pressures Liberia on vote delayAFP Monrovia

The European Union yester-day joined an international chorus urging Liberian

political parties and its electoral commission to end “unnecessary delays” and elect a new president.

A second round of voting to choose a successor to President El-len Johnson Sirleaf was suspended indefi nitely by the Supreme Court on October 31 pending the resolu-tion of a fraud complaint lodged with the electoral commission.

Charles Brumskine, the Liberty

Party candidate who came third in the fi rst round of voting on Octo-ber 10, fi led the complaint, but was soon backed by the ruling Unity Party’s candidate, Vice-President Joseph Boakai, who placed second.

The European Union delegation to Liberia, in a statement, said it would “encourage all concerned to work constructively and in good faith to conclude the current com-plaints process without unneces-sary delay.”

The runoff between former international footballer George Weah of the Coalition for Demo-cratic Change (CDC) and Boakai was originally set for November 7.

Hearings into the party’s griev-ances against the National Elec-tions Commission (NEC) are on-going with no decision expected for at least a week, after which the parties are expected to take the matter back to the Supreme Court.

International donors have poured billions of dollars into Li-beria since Sirleaf was elected in 2005, and are nervously monitor-ing what should be the country’s fi rst democratic transition in seven decades.

“The Liberian people demon-strated their commitment to de-mocracy through the high turnout of voters on 10 October who cast

their ballots in a peaceful atmos-phere,” the EU statement added, calling for a process “which re-spects the will of the people.”

Battered by back-to-back civil wars between 1989 and 2003 and an Ebola crisis that killed thou-sands between 2014 and 2016, the election is considered a crucial test of the west African nation’s stabil-ity.

The EU declaration follows a joint statement from the African Union (AU), Economic Communi-ty of West African States (ECOW-AS) and Liberia’s United Nations peacekeeping mission which fi red a warning shot to those calling for

an re-run of the whole election, dragging the process into the new year.

“We cannot but express concern over the prospects of a signifi cant delay in bringing the litigations to their closure, thereby thwarting completion of the election process before the constitutionally-man-dated date of government transi-tion in January 2018,” the state-ment released on Friday said.

The joint statement expressed hope that “the collective will and aspirations of the Liberian people will not be compromised for in-dividual ambitions,” an apparent barb at the losing candidates.

Tight security as Kenya court hears poll challengesReutersNairobi

Kenya’s Supreme Court yes-terday prepared to review petitions challenging Presi-

dent Uhuru Kenyatta’s victory in last month’s presidential election, in what may be the last chance for legal scrutiny of the vote.

Security was tight outside the courtroom, which has been cen-tre stage for Kenyan politics since it nullifi ed the results of August’s presidential election.

That decision led to the re-run election on October 26.

The court has not convened since the day before last month’s elec-tion, when it had been due to de-liberate on a last-minute request to delay the vote. But that hearing was cancelled because not enough judges showed up to make a quo-rum.

The judges had demanded more security after the bodyguard of the deputy chief justice was shot the day before the hearing and said they would refuse to attend hearings without it, a judicial source said.

The government turned them down, the source said.

The chief justice later denied the

Reuters report on the security issue and said the police had “enhanced” the judges’ security.

The seven-member bench is still missing one of its judges, who fell ill during the hearings related to the August election and has since been receiving treatment.

The judges are expected to an-nounce when proceedings will be-gin and whether it will hear all three petitions fi led — one by a former lawmaker and the other two by civil society organizations.

Kenyatta came to power in 2013 and won a second and fi nal term in August, defeating opposition lead-er Raila Odinga by 1.4mn votes.

Odinga did not contest the repeat vote on October 26, saying it would be unfair because the election com-mission had failed to implement reforms.

Kenyatta won with 98% of the vote, though opposition support-ers staged a boycott and prevented polls from opening in the west of the country.

Two of the petitions fi led with the court argue the poll’s outcome is void because the election board did not hold fresh nominations after the August 8 poll was invali-dated.

The third petition, fi led by a

civil society organisation, is a case against the opposition.

It seeks to hold them liable for losses incurred because of their demonstrations.

None of the petitions focus on whether the election board was ad-equately prepared to hold the repeat poll — a central reason cited by the opposition for boycotting the vote.

The week before the vote, the head of the commission said he could not guarantee the vote would be free and fair, citing interference from politicians and threats of vio-lence against his colleagues.

The court has until November 20 to rule on the petitions.

If the election result is upheld, Kenyatta will be sworn in on No-vember 28.

Kenya is a regional hub for trade, diplomacy and security and its pro-longed election season has disrupt-ed its economy.

Human rights groups say at least 66 people have died in bloodshed surrounding the two elections.

The Supreme Court was created by a 2010 constitution that fol-lowed a violent political crisis three years earlier.

Around 1,200 people were killed in ethnic clashes after a disputed election in 2007. Kenyan police shield themselves from the rain outside the Supreme Court in Nairobi yesterday.

Lagos govt urged to stop mass evictionsBy Phil Hazlewood, AFPLagos

Timu Elijah was heavily pregnant and asleep at her

shanty town home in the Otodo-Gbame area on the water’s edge of Lagos, Ni-geria, when she was woken up by her neighbours.

“People were running helter-skelter, shouting, ‘They’re shooting, they’re setting houses on fi re’,” she told AFP. In the confusion, her fi ve-year-old son went missing.

Timu, 30, is convinced the trauma of looking for her son made her go into early labour.

Yet even three days af-ter the birth, she too was evicted and her home de-molished.

“I escaped with the baby as people destroyed and burned down the houses,” she said, bouncing Faith-ful — the little girl who was born in the chaos — on her hip.

“I couldn’t carry any-thing from the house be-cause I had the baby,” she added.

Seven months on and with still no sign of her youngest son, Timu and her husband live with Faithful and their two other children in another slum, struggling to make ends meet.

“My husband is a fi sher-man but he can’t fi sh. We eat from what people give us,” she said.

Timu’s story is desper-ate but not unique: more than 30,000 people in Otodo-Gbame and the Il-ubirin areas of Lagos have been made homeless in the last year.

Now, on the eve of the fi rst anniversary of the removals, the Lagos state authorities are being urged to call a halt to what has been called a barely dis-guised land-grab.

Amnesty International yesterday published a new report into the evictions, branding them “unlawful” and calling for an investi-gation into claims of vio-lence.

At least 11 people are said to have died and 17 others disappeared as the bulldozers moved in, backed up by police and unidentifi ed men armed with machetes, guns and axes.

Schools and a health clinic were razed and resi-dents were forced into ca-noes to fl ee tear gas and live bullets.

Amnesty’s country di-rector, Osai Ojigho, said residents at the well-es-tablished informal set-tlements — most of them impoverished fi sherfolk — had lost everything.

“The Lagos state au-thorities must halt these attacks on poor commu-nities who are being pun-ished for the state’s urban planning failures,” she said.

“The instability and un-certainty created by forced evictions is making their lives a misery as they are left completely destitute.”

The 30,000 forced from their homes at night and with little or no notice in Otodo-Gbame and Ilubirin are among 50,000 evicted in Lagos state in the last four years.

The evictions in Otodo-Gbame and Ilubirin — in defi ance of a court order — were to make way for luxury waterfront hous-ing projects. Plots have since been seen selling for up to $500,000, according to Amnesty’s report, “The Human Cost of a Megacity. Forced Evictions of the Ur-ban Poor in Lagos, Nigeria.”

Those evicted say they have not received com-pensation or been re-housed, while no-one can aff ord to rent property via the state government’s low-cost housing scheme.

In Otodo-Gbame, former residents said rent was about 3,000 naira ($8) a month. On the Lagos state scheme the cheap-est one-room property is nearly 16,000 naira and requires a down-payment of 75,000 naira.

AFP contacted the state government but no-one was immediately available to comment.

AMERICA


High blood pressure is redefi ned as 130, not 140: guidelines

AFPLos Angeles

High blood pressure was redefi ned on Monday by the American Heart Association, which said the disease should be treated sooner, when it reaches

130/80 mm Hg, not the previous limit of 140/90.Doctors now recognise that complications “can occur

at those lower numbers,” said the fi rst update to compre-hensive US guidelines on blood pressure detection and treatment since 2003.

A diagnosis of the new high blood pressure does not necessarily mean a person needs to take medication, but that “it’s a yellow light that you need to be lowering your blood pressure, mainly with non-drug approaches,” said Paul Whelton, lead author of the guidelines published in the American Heart Association journal, Hypertension, and the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Healthy lifestyle changes include losing weight, exer-cising more, eating healthier, avoiding alcohol and salt, quitting smoking and avoiding stress.

The new standard means that nearly half (46%) of the US population will be defi ned as having high blood pres-sure.

Previously, one in three (32%) had the condition, which is the second leading cause of preventable heart disease and stroke, after cigarette smoking.

The normal limit for blood pressure is considered 120 for systolic, or how much pressure the blood places on the artery walls when the heart beats, and 80 for diastolic, which is measured between beats.

Once a person reaches 130/80, “you’ve already doubled your risk of cardiovascular complications compared to those with a normal level of blood pressure,” said Whel-ton.

“We want to be straight with people — if you already have a doubling of risk, you need to know about it.”

Once considered mainly a disorder among people 50 and older, the new guidelines are expected to lead to a surge of people in their 40s with high blood pressure.

“The prevalence of high blood pressure is expected to triple among men under age 45, and double among women under 45,” according to the report.

Damage to the blood vessels is already beginning once blood pressure reaches 130/80, said the guidelines, which were based in part on a major US-government funded study of more than 9,000 people nationwide.

The category of prehypertension, which used to refer to people with systolic pressure of 120-139, no longer exists, according to the new guidelines.

“People with those readings now will be categorised as having either Elevated (120-129 and less than 80) or Stage I hypertension (130-139 or 80-89).”

Medication is only recommended for people with Stage I hypertension “if a patient has already had a cardiovas-cular event such as a heart attack or stroke, or is at high risk of heart attack or stroke based on age, the presence of diabetes mellitus, chronic kidney disease or calculation of atherosclerotic risk.”

The proper technique must be used to measure blood pressure, and levels “should be based on an average of two to three readings on at least two diff erent occasions,” said the report.

“I absolutely agree with the change in what is consid-ered high blood pressure because it allows for early life-style changes to be addressed,” said Satjit Bhusri, a cardi-ologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York.

“It is important, however, to realize that the change in the defi nition does not give course to increase prescrip-tion of medications, rather that it brings to light the need to make lifestyle changes,” Bhusri said in an email to AFP.

The new guidelines were announced at the American Heart Association’s 2017 Scientifi c Sessions conference in Anaheim, California.

Sandy Hook families renew legal push against gun maker

AFPNew York

Families of victims in one of America’s worst mass shoot-ings pushed again yesterday to

hold gun manufacturers responsible for the 2012 massacre that killed 20 small children and six adults.

The killings at the Sandy Hook elementary school in Connecticut

— which claimed the lives of mostly children aged between six and seven in less than fi ve minutes shortly be-fore Christmas — shocked America and reignited the national debate about gun control.

But moves to even modestly tighten gun control laws fl oundered and a law-suit brought by some families of the vic-tims against the manufacturers of the semi-automatic gun used in the crime was thrown out by a judge last year.

Those families were back in court yesterday, asking Connecticut’s highest state court to reverse the decision, looking to hold the makers of the AR-15 Bushmaster liable for wrongful death and negligence.

Judges on the Connecticut Su-preme Court heard arguments from lawyers representing the families, gun manufacturer Remington, the Connecticut shop that sold the weapon to the shooter’s mother and

Massachusetts-based arms distrib-utor Camfour.

The families say 20-year-old killer Adam Lanza would never have been able to carry out his 264-sec-ond attack if he had not had access to a high-capacity weapon which had been “specifi cally engineered” for military use in combat.

US corporations, argued the plaintiff s, have a duty to look out for public safety.

A window washing scaff olding unit hangs precariously from a skyscraper at Colum-bus Circle in Midtown Manhattan in New York City yesterday.

Towering job!

Sessions vows quick decision on possible Clinton prosecutorAFPWashinton

Attorney General Jeff Ses-sions said yesterday that the Justice Department

would work quickly to decide whether to appoint a special pros-ecutor to investigate Hillary Clin-ton, President Donald Trump’s election rival.

Sessions’ comments indicated that Republicans were seeking to mount a counter-off ensive to the probe into Russian election meddling — and whether or not Trump’s campaign colluded with Moscow to sway the 2016 contest.

The Justice Department sent political shockwaves across Washington late on Monday when it revealed it was evaluating the possibility of naming a special counsel to probe the foundation of former president Bill Clinton and its ties to fi rms involved in a deal that sold US uranium rights to a Russian state company.

The letter also said it was review-ing the FBI’s handling last year of a probe into Hillary Clinton’s use of a personal server for offi cial and in some cases classifi ed e-mails, in breach of government rules, while she was secretary of state.

In the year since his election win, Trump has repeatedly sug-gested that the Justice Depart-ment should investigate allega-tions against the Clintons.

Sessions promised the com-

mittee that his department would move quickly to decide whether to take action on the cases, including appointing a special prosecutor.

“Do I have your assurance that these matters will proceed fairly and expeditiously?” committee chairman Robert Goodlatte asked him.

“Yes, you can, Mr Chairman, and you can be sure that they will be done without political infl uence and they will be done correctly and properly.”

Democrats said any such action would represent an unacceptable politicisation of the country’s

justice system.“If the AG bends to pressure

from President Trump and his al-lies, and appoints a special coun-sel to investigate Trump’s van-quished rival, it could spell the end of the DOJ as an independent institution,” Democratic Rep-resentative Adam Schiff said on Twitter.

In an appearance before the House Judiciary Committee that at times became contentious, Ses-sions walked back earlier testimony made under oath that he had no knowledge of contacts between Trump’s campaign and Russia.

Recent court documents and testimony revealed fresh infor-mation on relations last year between Russian offi cials and Trump’s foreign policy advisory team, which was led by Sessions.

He denied lying in past Capitol Hill hearings, but told lawmakers he had forgotten about a meeting in March 2016 with Trump, then a presidential candidate, and his foreign policy advisers at which such contacts were discussed.

“I do now recall the March 2016 meeting at Trump Hotel that Mr (George) Papadopou-los attended, but I have no clear

recollection of the details of what he said during that meet-ing,” Sessions testified.

“After reading his account, and to the best of my recollection, I believe that I wanted to make clear to him that he was not authorised to represent the campaign with the Russian government, or any other foreign government, for that matter.”

Papadopoulos has pleaded guilty to a charge of lying to the FBI in the matter, in a deal that made clear he is assisting inde-pendent special prosecutor Rob-ert Mueller, who is leading the Russian election meddling probe.

Sessions adamantly insisted that he was not changing his pre-vious testimony.

“My answers have never changed. I have always told the truth,” he said.

“I will not accept and reject ac-cusations that I have ever lied un-der oath. That is a lie.”

Separately, Sessions slammed leaks of classifi ed information that he said had reached “epi-demic proportions,” and con-fi rmed the existence of 27 probes into such leaks.

“It cannot be allowed to con-tinue and we will do our best ef-fort to ensure it does not contin-ue,” the attorney general said.

Trump has complained often and bitterly about leaks of sensi-tive information since he came to power, notably related to the probe being led by Mueller.

US Attorney General Jeff Sessions testifies before a House Judiciary Committee hearing on oversight of the Justice Department on Capitol Hill in Washington yesterday.

At least three killed in Calif. school shootingAFPLos Angeles

At least three people were killed and two young children suff ered gunshot wounds

when a shooting broke out yesterday at a school in rural northern Califor-nia, authorities said.

Assistant Sheriff Phil Johnston told the KCRA news network that the assailant was killed by police fol-lowing the shooting, which began around 8am at a home in Tehama County and continued at the Rancho Tehama Elementary School.

Area resident Brian Flint told a local newspaper the suspected gun-man was a neighbour of his, a former

convict in his 50s “who has been shooting a lot of bullets lately, hun-dreds of rounds, large magazines.”

“We made it aware that this guy is crazy and he’s been threatening us,” he told the Redding Record Search-light.

Johnston, of the Tehama County Sheriff ’s Offi ce, told reporters that three weapons - a semi-automatic rifl e and two handguns - had been recovered from the scene

He said he knew of at least three deaths.

“I know that we have mede-vacked (airlifted) a number of stu-dents, I know that the school has been cleared, I know that we have the children that were attending school in a safe location at this

time,” Johnston said.Some 100 law enforcement offi c-

ers responded to the shooting, and students at the school have been safely evacuated, he added.

The Redding Record Searchlight said among the wounded was a six-year-old who suff ered two gunshot wounds and another child shot in the leg.

It said initial reports indicated the shooter had barricaded himself in-side a building before being shot by police.

Katrina Gierman, who lives near the school, told the paper that she heard the gunshots and had barri-caded herself in her home with her newborn son.

“I have the right to bear arms, and

I will protect my son if I have to,” she said.

The elementary school is located on the outskirts of Corning, an olive oil-producing town of around 8,000 people about 160km north of the state capital Sacramento.

The shooting coincides with a new fl are-up of the long-running debate on America’s epidemic of gun violence and the ready accessibility of high-powered weapons, less than 10 days after a gunman shot dead 26 people in a church in Texas.

More than 33,000 people die an-nually in the United States from gun-related deaths — two thirds of them suicides — according to the Centers for Disease Control and Pre-vention.

AMERICA13Gulf Times


3,810 areas found with lead poisoning double that of Flint levelsBy M B Pell and Joshua Schneyer, Reuters Washington

Since last year, Reuters has obtained neighbourhood-level blood lead testing re-

sults for 34 states and the District of Columbia.

This data allows the public its fi rst hyper-local look at commu-nities where children tested posi-tive for lead exposure in recent years.

While the number of children with high lead levels has plum-meted across the US since lead paint and gasoline were phased out in the 1970s and 1980s, many communities remain exposed to the toxic heavy metal, the data show.

In all, Reuters has identifi ed 3,810 neighbourhood areas with recently recorded childhood lead poisoning rates at least double those found across Flint, Michi-gan, during the peak of that city’s water contamination crisis in 2014 and 2015.

Some 1,300 of these hotspots had a rate of elevated blood tests at least four times higher than Flint’s.

Reuters defi ned an elevated result as any test higher than the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s current refer-ence number of 5 micrograms per deciliter, the level at which the agency recommends a public health intervention.

The news agency obtained the data, broken down by census tract or zip code, from state health de-partments or the CDC through records requests.

US census tracts are small county subdivisions averaging 4,000 residents.

Zip codes have average popula-tions of 7,500.

This newest map refl ects addi-tional data obtained this year, and includes some changes to data initially published by Reuters in a map last December.

The map now includes testing data for additional states and cit-ies: Kansas, Georgia, Tennessee, Vermont, North Carolina, New York City and Washington, DC.

The newly identifi ed commu-nities with high rates of elevated childhood lead levels include a historic district in Savannah, Georgia, areas in Rutland, Ver-mont, near the popular skiing mountain Killington, and a largely Hasidic Jewish area in Brooklyn.

The updated map includes oth-er minor changes.

Recently, the CDC provided testing results to correct data it previously released to Reuters for Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Jersey, Virginia and Louisiana.

Responding to earlier records requests, the CDC mistakenly re-leased test results for all children under 16, though the news agency requested testing results for chil-dren under six — the age group most likely to be aff ected by lead exposure.

Still, even with the updated CDC data, the number of areas with high rates of elevated lead tests increased or remained about the same in each state.

The map now features zip code level data for Los Angeles County, California, provided by the state’s Department of Public Health.

An earlier version featured cen-sus tract level results, but report-ers discovered the county’s epide-miologist had misclassifi ed some of them.

The county has declined to pro-vide corrected data.

Lisa Bloodgood (left), a Brooklyn-based environmental advocate and former city council staff er, and Sabina Gilioli, a Barnard College research assistant test the soil for lead in the Brooklyn backyard.

Wisconsin allows kids younger than 10 to hunt with own gunsAFPChicago

One of America’s most permissive hunting laws takes eff ect Saturday, al-

lowing children younger than 10 years old to carry their own guns in Wisconsin’s forests.

The new law was signed last weekend by the midwestern state’s Republican governor Scott Walker, and goes into ef-fect almost two weeks after a mass shooting at a Sunday church service in Texas renewed debate over gun violence.

Dozens of states do not bar young children from hunting with adult supervision.

But many limit hunting of bigger animals such as deer and bear to older children, roughly 12 years or above depending on the jurisdiction.

The Wisconsin law eliminates a previous age restriction of 10, allowing any child to carry a hunting weapon if accompanied by a trained adult.

The youngsters will be able to use their own weapons, not just share one with the adult as many states require, and they will also be able to go after big game.

The National Rifl e Associa-tion (NRA) and the Wisconsin Bear Hunters’ Association were among the law’s proponents, ar-guing it will allow parents to pass on hunting traditions to future generations.

The law becomes eff ective at the beginning of the state’s an-nual nine-day period of deer hunting by gun in its millions of acres of woods, where white-tailed deer, bear, wild turkey and other animals are hunted.

“I have a 14-year-old daughter that has been going on hunting trips with me since she was in a car seat,” state representative Rob Stafsholt, the law’s co-author, told a legislative committee.

“I learned how to safely han-dle the gun I had in my hands by watching the people who men-tored me,” he said, adding that 34 other states permit “mentored hunting” under the age of 10.

The law’s opponents argued children under 10 were simply too young to carry dangerous weapons, even if an adult ac-companied them.

“If you sit in a booster seat on the way to the hunt, you prob-ably shouldn’t be handed a gun when you get there,” said gun control advocacy group Wiscon-sin Anti-Violence Eff ort.

The new law comes after two mass shootings in the last two months that shocked many in the US, where gun violence claims the lives of an average of almost 34,000 people a year, ac-cording to the prevention group Brady Campaign.

A gunman killed more than two dozen worshippers at a Tex-as church service on November 5, including eight children.

Cyclist, who gave Trump the fi nger, showered with cash

More than $70,000 in dona-

tions have poured into a

crowdfunding site set up for

the cyclist who was fired from

her job for making a rude

gesture to President Donald

Trump’s motorcade.

More than 3,000 dona-

tions — from $5 to $250 — have

rolled in since November 6,

when the GoFundMe campaign

was set up on behalf of Juli

Briskman.

Briskman’s raised middle

finger was caught by news

photographers as Trump’s mo-

torcade passed her on October

28 as he left Trump National

Golf Course in Sterling, Virginia.

The image immediately

went viral.

Three days later, the

50-year-old marketing execu-

tive was fired by her company,

government contractor Akima.

“Thank you Juli Briskman,”

wrote Rob Mello, who set up

the GoFundMe account, calling

her “an inspiration to us all.”

All the money raised goes

directly to Briskman, he says

on the site.

Court lets Trump travel ban go partially into eff ectReutersWashington

A US appeals court in California on Monday let President Donald Trump’s latest travel ban go par-

tially into effect, ruling the government can bar entry of people from six Mus-lim-majority countries with no connec-tions to the United States.

A three-judge panel of the San Fran-cisco-based 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals partially granted a Trump ad-ministration request to block at least temporarily a judge’s ruling that had put the new ban on hold.

Trump’s ban was announced on Sep-tember 24 and replaced two previous versions that had been impeded by fed-eral courts. The action means the ban will apply to people from Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia and Chad who do not have connections to the United States.

Those connections are defined as family relationships and “formal, docu-mented” relationships with US-based entities such as universities and reset-tlement agencies.

Those with family relationships that would allow entry include grandparents, grandchildren, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews and cousins of people in the United States.

“We are reviewing the court’s order and the government will begin enforcing the travel proclamation consistent with the partial stay.

We believe that the proclamation should be allowed to take effect in its entirety,” Justice Department spokes-woman Lauren Ehrsam said.

The state of Hawaii, which sued to block the restrictions, argued that fed-eral immigration law did not give Trump the authority to impose them on six of those countries.

The lawsuit did not challenge restric-tions toward people from the two other countries listed in Trump’s ban, North Korea and Venezuela.

US District Judge Derrick Watson in Honolulu ruled last month that Hawaii was likely to succeed with its argu-ment.

Hawaii Attorney General Douglas Chin said the court’s decision tracked what the Supreme Court said in June when it partially revived Trump’s sec-ond travel ban, which has now expired.

“I’m pleased that family ties to the US, including grandparents, will be respect-ed,” Chin added.

Separately on Monday, a group of refugee organizations and individuals filed a lawsuit in Seattle federal court challenging Trump’s decision to sus-pend entry of refugees from 11 coun-tries, nine of which are majority Mus-

lim, for at least 90 days.Trump issued his first travel ban tar-

geting several Muslim-majority coun-tries in January, just a week after he took office, and then issued a revised one after the first was blocked by the courts.

The second one expired in September after a long court fight and was replaced with another revised version.

Trump has said the travel ban is need-ed to protect the United States from ter-rorism by Muslim militants.

As a candidate, Trump had promised “a total and complete shutdown of Mus-lims entering the United States.”

Critics of the travel ban in its various iterations call it a “Muslim ban” that vi-olates the US Constitution by discrimi-nating on the basis of religion.

The 9th Circuit is due to hear oral ar-guments in the case on December 6.

In a parallel case from Maryland, a judge also ruled against the Trump ad-ministration and partially blocked the ban from going into effect.

An appeal in the Maryland case is be-ing heard on December 8 by the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia.

The Maryland case was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, which represents several advocacy groups, in-cluding the International Refugee As-sistance Project.

Bureau of Engraving and Printing director Leonard Olijar unveils the Year of the Dog 2018 product in celebration of the Chinese Lunar New Year, featuring a $1 Federal Reserve note with a serial number beginning with “8888”, during a press conference in Washington yesterday.

Money talk!

Senate committee questions Trump’s nuclear authorityReutersWashington, DC

A US Senate committee yesterday held the fi rst congressional hearing in

more than four decades on the president’s authority to launch a nuclear strike, amid concern that tensions over North Korea’s weapons program could lead to war.

Senator Bob Corker, Republi-can chairman of the Senate For-eign Relations Committee, held the hearing as President Don-ald Trump wrapped up a 12-day trip to Asia largely dominated by concerns about Pyongyang’s nu-clear ambitions.

Corker acknowledged that sen-ators, including Democrats and Trump’s fellow Republicans, have raised questions about Trump’s authority to wage war, use nuclear weapons and enter into or end in-ternational agreements.

Trump has traded insults and threats with North Korean Lead-er Kim Jong-un and used ex-pressions like “fi re and fury” to hint that any use of lethal force against North Korea would be overwhelming.

On Sunday, he again insulted Kim by calling him “short and fat.”

Corker himself warned last month that Trump might be putting the United States “on the path to World War Three.”

But yesterday Corker said the hearing was not intended to tar-get Trump. “This is not specifi c to anybody,” he said.

Democrats made clear they were concerned about Trump.

“We are concerned that the president of the United States is so unstable, is so volatile, has a decision-making process that is so quixotic, that he might order a nuclear weapons strike that is wildly out of step with US na-tional security interests,” Sena-tor Chris Murphy said.

During the hearing, retired General Robert Kehler, former commander of US Strategic Command, said the military can refuse to follow what it considers an illegal order, even a nuclear one.

But it was not clear after ques-tions from committee members how that process would work.

Some senators want legisla-tion to alter the president’s nu-clear authority.

Corker said he did not now support that idea.

“I do not see a legislative solu-tion today, but that doesn’t mean that over the course of the next several months one might de-velop,” he told reporters after the hearing.

Some senators seemed to bristle about the hearing’s tone, warning against comments de-picting Trump as unable to strongly retaliate for any attack.

Anti-nuclear war protesters sit in a hearing of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee about presidential authority to use nuclear weapons on Capitol Hill in Washington yesterday.

14 Gulf TimesWednesday, November 15, 2017

ASEAN

Tillerson to press Myanmar army chief to halt violenceReutersYangon

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will stress the need to halt violence and

stabilise Rakhine state when he meets the head of Myanmar’s military today in a bid to ease the Rohingya refugee crisis, a senior State Department offi cial said.

More than 600,000 Rohingya Muslims have fl ed to Bangladesh since late August. A top UN of-fi cial has called the operation a textbook case of “ethnic cleans-ing”.

Attending an East Asia summit in Manila yesterday, Tillerson met Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi, whose less than two-year-old civilian administration shares power with the military and has no control over its gen-erals. He will meet Suu Kyi again in the Myanmar capital of Nay-pyitaw today, and hold separate talks with the head of the armed forces, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing.

Asked what approach Tiller-son would take with Myanmar’s army chief, the State Department offi cial told journalists in a brief-ing by teleconference that the emphasis would be on restoring peace in Rakhine. “We are focus-ing on trying to stabilise areas in northern Rakhine so that peo-ple can return there, stopping the violence, making sure that the military would protect all populations in that area equally and that they conduct a credible investigation that leads to ac-countability for people who have perpetrated abuses,” said the of-fi cial, who was with Tillerson in Manila and declined to be identi-fi ed.

The offi cial said the conse-quences for the country, also known as Burma, if it failed to respond to the crisis with ac-countability could be part of the conversation with the military leader. “Burma made a lot of progress and we would not want to see that progress reversed,” the offi cial added. US senators in Washington are pressing for

economic sanctions and travel restrictions targeting the My-anmar military and its business interests.

“The secretary will reiterate support for Burma’s democratic transition and urge the Burmese government to protect the local population and allow unhindered humanitarian and media access, (and) support for a credible in-

vestigation of abuses,” the offi cial added.

Accusations of organised mass rape and other crimes against humanity were levelled at the Myanmar military on Sunday by another senior UN offi cial who had toured camps in Bangladesh where Rohingya refugees have taken shelter. Pramila Patten, special representative of the UN

secretary-general on sexual vio-lence in confl ict, said she would raise accusations against the Myanmar military with the In-ternational Criminal Court in the Hague. The military, known as the Tatmadaw, has consistently protested its innocence, and on Monday it posted the fi ndings of an internal investigation on the Facebook page of Min Aung Hla-ing. Human rights groups poured scorn on the military’s investiga-tion, branding it a “whitewash” and calling for UN and independ-ent investigators to be allowed into Myanmar.

“The Burmese military’s ab-surd eff ort to absolve itself of mass atrocities underscores why an independent international investigation is needed to estab-lish the facts and identify those responsible,” Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

Amnesty International also dismissed the military’s internal investigation. “There is over-whelming evidence that the military has murdered and raped

Rohingya and burned their vil-lages to the ground,” the Lon-don-based rights group said. The government in mostly Buddhist Myanmar regards the Muslim Rohingya as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

And Suu Kyi’s failure to speak out strongly over their plight has widely damaged the Nobel Peace Prize winner’s international rep-utation as a stateswoman. Many diplomats, however, believe My-anmar’s fragile transition to de-mocracy after 49 years of mili-tary rule would be jeopardised if she publicly criticised the armed forces.

“Both parts of the govern-ment will have to work together in order to solve this problem...Trying to get two of them to work together, to try to solve the prob-lem, is certainly going to be very important,” the US offi cial said.

The US offi cial said Suu Kyi had been forthcoming in her talks with Tillerson and others during the past few days about the steps that needed to be taken to improve the situation, in-

cluding plans for the voluntary repatriation of Rohingya. UN Secretary-General Antonio Gu-terres, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau were among those she met in Manila to discuss the Rohingya crisis. “This is a tre-mendous concern to Canada and to many, many countries around the world,” Trudeau told a news conference.

Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pledged up to 117bn yen (US $1bn) of development aid to My-anmar in his meeting with Suu Kyi. While world leaders wrung their hands, thousands of Ro-hingya remained stranded in Myanmar, on beaches around the mouth of the Naf river, hoping to fi nd a boat to make the short, sometimes perilous crossing to Bangladesh.

“They’re still coming, risk-ing their lives, driven by fears of starvation and violence,” Shariful Azam, a police offi cial in Bangla-desh’s Cox’s Bazar, a narrow spit of land where the world’s most urgent humanitarian crisis is un-folding.

Rohingya refugees walk with relief materials at Thankhali refugee camp in Bangladesh’s Ukhia district yesterday.

Rex Tillerson

Vietnamese researcher shows iPhone X facial software glitchReutersHanoi

A researcher in Vietnam has demonstrated how he apparently fooled Apple

Inc’s face recognition ID soft-ware on its new iPhone X using a mask made with a 3D printer, silicone and paper tape.

An announcement on Friday by Bkav, a Vietnamese cybersecurity fi rm, that it had cracked Apple’s Face ID, and a subsequent video apparently showing an iPhone being unlocked when pointed at a mask, were greeted with some skepticism. Ngo Tuan Anh, Bkav’s vice president, gave Reuters sever-al demonstrations, fi rst unlocking

the phone with his face and then by using the mask. It appeared to work each time.

However, he declined to regis-ter a user ID and the mask on the phone from scratch because, he said, the iPhone and mask need to be placed at very specifi c an-gles, and the mask to be refi ned, a process he said could take up to nine hours.

Apple declined to comment, referring journalists to a page on its website that explains how Face ID works. That page says the probability of a random person unlocking another user’s phone with their face was approximate-ly 1-in-a-million, compared to 1-in-50,000 for the previously used fi ngerprint scanner. It also

says Face ID allows only fi ve un-successful match attempts be-fore a passcode is required. Anh acknowledged that preparing the mask wasn’t easy, but he said he believed the demonstration showed facial recognition as a way to authenticate users would be risky for some.

“It’s not easy for normal peo-ple to do what we do here, but it’s a concern for people in the secu-rity sector and important people like politicians or heads of cor-porations,” he said. “(These) im-portant people should absolutely not lend their iPhone X to anyone if they have activated the Face ID function.”

It’s the fi rst reported case of researchers apparently being able

to fool the Face ID software.Cybersecurity experts said the

issue was not so much whether Face ID could be hacked, but how much eff ort a hack required.

“Nothing is 100% secure,” wrote Terry Ray, chief technol-ogy offi cer at US-based cyber-security company Imperva, in a note. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way. The questions are: How much trouble would some-one go to, and how much would they spend, to get your data?”

Bkav’s Anh said the research took about a week, and included numerous failures. The mask frame was made of plastic, cov-ered with paper tape to resemble skin, with a silicone nose and pa-per for eyes and mouth.

Ngo Tuan Anh, Vice President of Bkav, a Vietnamese cybersecurity firm, demonstrates iPhone X Apple’s face recognition ID software with a 3D mask at his off ice in Hanoi, Vietnam.

Freeport Indonesia closes mine access road again after shootingReutersTimika, Indonesia

The Indonesian unit of Freeport-McMoRan Inc closed the main access

road to its giant copper mine in the eastern province of Pa-pua yesterday for the second time in three days after another shooting incident.

A Freeport vehicle was hit by gunfi re while it was head-ing from Tembagapura to Ridge Camp, the company said in a statement, referring to an area where Freeport workers live.

One passenger in the vehicle “suff ered a bullet wound to his thigh” but was in a stable con-dition at a local clinic, accord-ing to the statement. Security

services were at the scene in-vestigating the incident, it said. It is the second time the access road to the Grasberg mine has been closed since Sunday, and follows a string of shooting in-cidents since mid-August that have injured at least seven peo-ple and killed one police offi cer.

The violence has escalated security concerns around the mine to their highest level in more than fi ve years.

The separatist West Pa-pua National Liberation Army (TPN-OPM), a group linked to the Free Papua Movement, has said it is at war with police, military and Freeport. It was not immediately clear if TPN-OPM were behind the latest shootings.

The employee of Puncak Jaya

Power, a contractor for Freep-ort that provides power to the area, was travelling in a light vehicle, armoured with kevlar panels on the inside, and bul-letproof windshields.

According to a statement from Papua Police, a mobile police brigade offi cer was es-corting employees in a patrol car from Tembagapura at the time of the shooting.

The vehicle was shot more than four times by an “armed criminal group,” it said, and the security offi cer returned fi re. A team of mobile police brigade offi cers has remained in the area to guard against further attacks, it said.

As of yesterday evening, the road from Timika to Tem-bagapura remained closed.

Malaysia bids farewell to giant panda cub Nuan Nuan

Four sperm whales die in Indonesia beach rescue

Hearts were heavy among animal lovers in Malaysia yesterday as the country said goodbye to the giant panda cub Nuan Nuan.Nuan Nuan, whose name means “warmth,” boarded Malaysia Airlines (MAS) flight MH6476 to China and is expected to land at the Shuanglin Airport in Chengdu. Nuan Nuan was born on August 15, 2015, at the Giant Panda Conservation Centre at the National Zoo in Kuala Lumpur.

The cub’s parents, Fu Wa and Feng Yi, came to Malaysia on a 10-year loan from China on May 21, 2014, to commemorate the 40-year anniversary of diplomatic relations between Malaysia and China. Under a 2012 agreement between the Malaysian and Chinese governments,a giant panda cub born in Malaysia must be returned to China after the cub turns two-years-old.

“It is with great sadness and a heavy heart that I wish Nuan Nuan ‘good bye,’” Environment Minister Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar said in an e-mailed statement. “I expect that she will find a life partner and produce children who will always be connected to Malaysia,” Wan Junaidi said. According to Malaysian newspaper The Star, the environment minister previously said the National Zoo would have had to expand its panda centre in order to keep the cub.

Four sperm whales stranded on a beach in Indonesia have died, a local off icial said yesterday, despite frantic eff orts to save the massive mammals. The whales were among a pod of 10 spotted by locals stranded along Ujong

Krueng beach in Aceh province Monday, with one seen farther out in the water. Rescuers tried to push the nine beached whales back out to sea as hundreds of curious locals looked on, some snapping pictures. Five were

pushed back and survived but four died, some with their mouth agape as small waves crashed over their giant bodies. Rescuers tied ropes to the tails of some of the mammals to pull them to deeper water.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte hands over the gavel to Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong during a transfer of Asean chairmanship at the closing ceremonies of the 31st Asean Summit and Related Summits, in Manila, Philippines.

Passing the baton

AUSTRALASIA/EAST ASIA15Gulf Times


Defecting North Korean soldier in critical conditionReutersSeoul

A North Korean soldier is expected to survive criti-cal wounds he received

when his old comrades fi red a hail of bullets at him as he made a defection dash to South Korea, the South’s government and military said yesterday.

The soldier had on Monday sped towards the border in a “peace village” in the heavily guarded demilitarised zone, in a four-wheel drive vehicle.

But when a wheel came loose, he fl ed on foot as four North

Korean soldiers fi red about 40 rounds at him, said Suh Wook, chief director of operations at South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff , briefi ng lawmakers.

“Until this morning, we heard he had no consciousness and was unable to breathe on his own but his life can be saved,” Suh said.

Surgeons had removed fi ve bullets from the soldier’s body, leaving two inside, Suh added, to murmurs from lawmakers who said the soldier’s escape was “right out of a movie”.

The soldier took cover behind a South Korean structure in a Joint Security Area (JSA) inside

the demilitarised zone between the two Koreas. South Korean and US soldiers, fearing more North Korean fi re, later crawled to him to rescue him, the Unit-ed Nations Command said in a separate statement.

North Korea has not said anything about the soldier. Its military had not given any in-dication of unusual movements yesterday, the South’s military said.

While on average more than 1,000 North Koreans defect to the South every year, most trav-el via China and it is unusual for a North Korean to cross the land border dividing the two Koreas,

which have been in a technical state of war since their 1950-53 confl ict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.

The UN Command, in place since the end of the war, said an investigation into the incident was being conducted.

South Korean Defence Min-ister Song Young-moo said it was the fi rst time North Korean soldiers had fi red towards the South’s side of the JSA, prompt-ing complaints from some law-makers that the South’s military should have returned fi re.

Moon Sang-gyun, the South’s defence ministry spokesman, said military operations at the

JSA were usually conducted un-der the orders of the UN Com-mand, which is in turn under orders from the US military.

The soldier, who was not armed, was fl own in a UN Com-mand helicopter to an operat-ing theatre where doctors began working to save him even before he was out of a uniform that indicated he held a lower rank, Suh said.

South Korean offi cials have yet to identify where the soldier came from or what his inten-tions were. Lee Cook-jong, the surgeon in charge of the sol-dier’s care at the Ajou Univer-sity Hospital, told reporters he

was suff ering from critical in-testinal damage.

Hospital offi cials where under strict security agency orders not to talk to media and all updates on the soldier had to be through the military, workers there told Reuters. Dr Lee had been “given a talking-to” after a brief ex-change with the media, the hos-pital workers said.

The UN military armistice commission said it had in-formed the North Korean mili-tary that the soldier, who was found about 50m (150ft) south of a Military Demarcation Line, was undergoing surgery for his wounds. Suh said the South

had also informed the North on Monday of the soldier and his treatment, via loudspeakers on the border. North Korea has in the past complained that North Korean defectors had been ab-ducted by South Korea, and it has demanded their release.

This month, the North de-manded that South Korea return 12 waitresses it said had been kidnapped while working in China in 2016. South Korea said the 12 women, and one man, had chosen to defect to the South.

Monday was the fi rst time since 2007 a North Korean sol-dier had defected across the JSA.

Rare flying foxes shot in ‘horrific’ Australia attack

Dozens of rare grey-headed flying foxes have been shot in remote bushland near Austral-ia’s eastern coast, authorities said yesterday, as locals told of a “horrific scene” when the carcasses were discovered. The alleged killings followed a spate of animal mutilations in Victoria state involving native species including the kanga-roo, wallaby and koala. The flying fox, Australia’s larg-est bat, is listed as a “vulner-able” species nationally with its survival ranked as a “critical priority” under local laws. Rescuer Sammy Ringer said she was alerted to the deaths last week when a local resident in Conondale, a small town in the south of Queensland state, heard some shots being fired. “As we got further into the colony, there was a pretty hor-rendous smell of bats that had been shot previously,” she told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation yesterday. “They had been lying on the ground for maybe a week or two.” Ringer, leading a small group of people into the bush, said it was a “horrific scene” and “we kept coming across more dead bats”. The rescuers tried to help baby bats whose moth-ers had been killed but only two were able to be saved, she added.

Eighth Australian lawmaker resigns over dual citizenshipAFPSydney

A constitutional crisis roiling Australian politics claimed a new victim yesterday

with the resignation of the eighth lawmaker to be felled by a once-obscure rule barring dual citizens from federal offi ce.

The departure of Jacqui Lam-bie, a colourful independent senator from the island state of Tasmania, comes after Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s centre-right government lost its grip on parliament as MPs were toppled by the citizenship issue. Lambie announced her resigna-tion in a tearful speech, telling MPs she had just learned she held British nationality from her Scot-tish grandfather and father.

“Anyone who knows my father will be shocked to think of him as anyone else than an Aussie,” Lambie told the Senate, adding, “My dad believed he renounced his citizenship years ago.”

But she said that following the resignations of other politi-cians who held dual citizenship by descent, she made enquiries with British authorities into her

situation. “It is with great regret that I have to inform you that I had been found ineligible by way of dual citizenship,” she said. The citizenship crisis came to a head on October 27 when Australia’s High Court reaffi rmed a provision in the country’s 1901 constitution that forbids dual citizens from serving in federal parliament.

The ruling has already sparked the resignation of several sena-tors and two members of Turn-bull’s coalition in the lower House of Representatives — deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce and former tennis star John Alexan-der. The loss of Joyce and Alexan-der cost the government its ma-jority in the 150-member house, although Turnbull has said he can continue ruling for now with the support of independents.

The two men will both run for re-election next month after re-nouncing their second citizen-ships. While Joyce is expected to face minimal opposition in his rural New South Wales constitu-ency, Alexander faces a tough fi ght for his Bennelong district in suburban Sydney as the opposi-tion Labor Party looks to capital-ise on Turnbull’s problems.

Labor yesterday made the

surprise announcement of Kris-tina Keneally, an American-born former NSW state premier and popular TV news personality, to run against Alexander. Kene-ally, who emigrated to Australia in the 1990s and renounced her US citizenship in 2002, said at a press conference the December

16 vote would be “an opportunity for the community in which I live to stand up and say to Malcolm Turnbull: ‘Your government is awful. Enough is enough’”.

Recent opinion polls have show a steady erosion in Turnbull’s popularity. The next general elec-tion is not due until 2019.

Senator Jacqui Lambie

Miss Indonesia Kevin Lilliana acknowledges cheers after being crowned 2017 Miss International at the Miss International Beauty Pageant final in Tokyo yesterday.

Meet Miss International

Tokyo Governor Koike steps down as party leaderAFPTokyo

Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike, once seen as a pos-sible fi rst Japanese female

prime minister, stepped down as leader of her party yesterday af-ter suff ering a crushing election defeat last month.

Vowing to do away with “old politics,” the charismatic former television anchorwoman launched a new party in Sep-tember that aspired to off er an alternative to the long-govern-ing Liberal Democratic Party and its leader Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in the October 22 snap elections.

Her new “Party of Hope” fi elded 235 candidates for the poll but won a mere 50 seats while Abe’s ruling coalition grabbed a two-thirds majority.

Koike’s support imploded partially because she failed to stand herself in the election — confusing voters who did not know who would be premier if she won. In opinion polls con-ducted by the Sankei Shimbun at the weekend, support for her party dropped to 3.9% from 9.5% last month, with more than 77% of respondents calling on her to concentrate on her job as Tokyo governor.

“Stepping down as the head, I want to support you in an ap-propriate capacity,” Koike told a party conference after it select-ed its executive members. Koike said she would stay within the

party while focusing on her job as governor of Tokyo, with the capital set to host the Summer Olympics in 2020.

“I have fi nished my responsi-bilities as the founder,” she told reporters. “As governor I will put the metropolitan adminis-tration fi rst and co-operate with lawmakers of a reborn Party of Hope,” she added.

The 65-year-old was elected Tokyo governor last year, one of several jobs the trailblazer has been the fi rst woman to fi ll. She once complained that Japan has not just a glass ceiling but an “iron plate” holding women

back. The creation of the “Par-ty of Hope” sent shockwaves through Japanese politics and caused the immediate implosion of the main opposition party, as scores of members pinned their colours to the Koike mast.

But critics attacked her both for lacking a clear policy plat-form and for taking a dictato-rial approach to the new party — she reportedly forced potential members to sign a pledge that was leaked to the media.

“It was a complete defeat,” Koike admitted after the elec-tion, acknowledging she had been guilty of “arrogance”. Since

she fi rst won an upper house seat in 1992, Koike has frequently changed political affi liations but always stayed close to powerful bosses.

She joined the LDP in 2002, and became environment min-ister in 2003 and the fi rst woman defence minister in 2007 during Abe’s fi rst short stint as a prime minister.

In 2016, she defi ed LDP lead-ers and won a landslide victory against the party’s candidate in the Tokyo gubernatorial elec-tion, portraying the long-gov-erning party as being controlled by secretive, wasteful bosses.

Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike.

Stalemate as refugees dig in at closed Australia camp in PNG

Some 400 refugees rebuff ed continued eff orts by Papua New Guinea authorities to convince them to move from a shuttered Australian deten-tion camp yesterday as the tense standoff over their future drags into a third week. The confrontation has drawn global attention to Canberra’s tough immigration policy, under which asylum-seekers who try to reach Australia by boat are sent to remote Pacific camps on PNG’s Manus Island and the island nation of Nauru. Most of the 600 refugees de-tained at the camp refused to leave when Australia off icially closed it on October 31 after the PNG Supreme Court ruled the site unconstitutional, citing fears for their safety outside. They are barred from reset-tling in Australia and Canberra has struggled to transfer them to third countries. Kurdish-Iranian detainee and journalist Behrouz Boochani told AFP yesterday that the detainees were going to dig another well, a day after police moved into the camp to punc-ture or remove tanks holding the refugees’ remaining sup-plies of drinking water. “It’s the moment to accept failure & let us go to a 3rd country,” Boochani, who has acted as a spokesman for the refugees, added in a tweet yesterday. Police, who have so far complied with orders from

higher authorities not to resort to force to remove the men, used loudspeakers to appeal to the detainees to move on Monday. Chief Inspector David Yapu issued a statement late Monday indicating growing impatience at the stalemate, after the refugees ignored sev-eral deadlines for the camp to be cleared. “Those refugees were sitting in their com-pounds and staring at us with-out any signs of moving out from the centre,” the Manus provincial police commander said in the statement. “Apparently my message went through deaf ears and into the brick wall.” Yapu added that he needed “some clear directives on our next course of action” to per-suade the men to leave. PNG police said they have man-aged to get about 180 men to voluntarily relocate to three nearby transition centres. Boochani said those who agreed to move to those new sites have complained about the harsh conditions there. Canberra has been hope-ful that up to 1,250 refugees on Manus and Nauru could be transferred to the United States under a resettlement deal struck last year. But so far, just 54 refugees have been accepted by Washington, with 24 flown to America in September.

BRITAIN


The last date for using the old £10 note featuring Charles Darwin will be March 1, 2018, the Bank of England has announced. After that date only the new £10 notes, featuring Jane Austen, will be legal tender. The plastic notes featuring Austen – the first female writer to feature on a banknote – were first issued in in September and by early October accounted for 55% of £10 notes in circulation. The Bank of England will continue to exchange the paper Darwin £10 notes, first issued in 2000, after March 1. The paper £10 is going the way of the old £5 notes, which ceased to be legal tender in May. Both new notes have encountered controversy because they contain tallow, an animal byproduct.

Moped raiders struck at a clothing store in Regent Street yesterday in the second smash-and-grab raid in the street in two days. The gang targeted the flagship Canada Goose shop days after it opened to protests from animal rights groups. Ten suspects on five mopeds smashed the plate glass window before stealing thousands of pounds worth of coats. A guard was threatened with a hammer as he tried to stop the suspects. He was not injured. Police are examining possible links with a raid at a clothing store in St John’s Wood High Street last night. Six suspects on three scooters smashed the front door but left empty-handed.

A teenage girl who nearly punched part of a Transport for London worker’s eye from its socket has been jailed for 18 months. Tashanna Mauge, 18, attacked Akinyika Oyedapo at Denmark Hill station when he stopped her from going through a ticket barrier without paying, Blackfriars crown court was told. Her punch left the lens of one of his eyes hanging out and he has been unable to work since the April 15 attack. Sentencing Mauge, of West Norwood, to 18 months in a young offender institution, judge Rajeev Shetty said the effect on the victim, who had previously had eye surgery, “has been devastating”.

A British Airways flight attendant who devel-oped a fear of flying after being caught up in a mid-air emergency is suing for £750,000 over the loss of her “wonderful” career. Lucy Sargeant, 29, was on board the May 2013 flight from Heathrow to Oslo when fires broke out in the plane’s engines, forcing the pilot to return for an emergency landing. Central London county court heard there was “complete panic” on board and that the crew and 75 passengers had to use emergency chutes to get out of the Airbus A319. Sargeant, who lives in Uxbridge, said she has “never been back to myself” and reluctantly ended her career last year.

Former pupils of one of Britain’s leading inde-pendent girls’ schools have made allegations of sexual abuse while in its care. Two ex-students have made claims about alleged historic off ences at St Paul’s Girls’ School in Hammersmith. Sarah Fletcher, high mistress of the £24,000-a-year school, has written to alumnae to alert them to claims of abuse made by ex-pupils, known as “Paulinas”. Yesterday she told the Standard saying the school has to be “open and honest” about what happened in the past. Two Paulinas passed on information about their personal experience from the Seventies to the Nineties, while others repeated allegations by friends.

Old £10 notes will expire on March 1: Bank of England

Moped raiderstarget clothing store

Teenage girl jailed foreye-socket punch

Flight attendant sues overmid-air emergency trauma

Top school hit byabuse allegations

CURRENCY CRIMERULING OFFBEAT SCANDAL

One in fi ve EU doctorsplanning to quit UK: pollGuardian News and MediaLondon

Almost one in fi ve of the NHS’s European doctors have made plans to quit

Britain, according to research that has raised fresh fears of a Brexit-induced medical brain drain.

And almost half of the health service’s 12,000 medics from the European Economic Area (EEA) are considering moving abroad, the British Medical Association survey of 1,720 of them found.

The fi ndings come amid grow-ing evidence that Brexit may ex-acerbate problems of understaff -ing in the NHS by making both retention and recruitment of EU staff more diffi cult.

In September NHS fi gures showed that more than 10,000 staff from EU countries had quit since the Brexit vote. And the number of EU nurses coming to Britain has dropped by 89% in the last year, Nursing and Mid-wifery Council fi gures released this month showed.

In total, 45% of respondents

to the BMA survey said they were thinking about leaving Britain fol-lowing the result of the EU refer-endum in June 2016 – three per-centage points more than when the BMA ran a similar poll in Feb-ruary – while a further 29% were unsure whether they would go.

Among those who were con-sidering going elsewhere 39% – or 18% of the whole sample – have already made plans to leave. The 12,000 doctors from the EEA (the EU plus Iceland, Liechten-stein and Norway) represent 7.7% of the NHS’s medical workforce.

Some of those leaving have been off ered jobs abroad, while others are applying for posts overseas. Some have begun the process of seeking citizenship elsewhere, while others are hav-ing their qualifi cations validated so they can work in another country, the BMA said.

“That so many EU doctors are actively planning to leave the UK is a cause for real concern. Many have dedicated years of service to the NHS and medical research in the UK, and without them our health service would not be

able to cope,” said Dr Andrew Dearden, the BMA’s treasurer.

The Labour MP Darren Jones, a supporter of the pro-EU Open Britain campaign, said: “The British people were told last year that Brexit would boost the NHS by £350mn a week. Now the evidence is piling up that it will break it instead.

“We all depend on the brilliant work done by doctors, nurses and other staff who come from the EU. There is no chance that we could replace their expertise if they continue to leave the UK.”

But the department of health said that fi gures released last week by the General Medical Council, showing a slight year-on-year rise in 2016-17 in the number of EEA doctors joining its medical register, showed the BMA’s fi ndings were inaccurate.

“This survey does not stand up to scrutiny. In fact, there are actu-ally more EU doctors working in the NHS since the EU referendum, more EU graduates joining the UK medical register and 3,193 more EU nationals working in the NHS overall,” a spokesperson said.

Olympic champion Mo Farah knightedLondon Evening StandardLondon

Olympic champion Sir Mo Farah has received his knighthood from the

Queen.The 34-year-old was accom-

panied by his wife Tania to re-ceive the honour at Buckingham Palace yesterday.

Quizzed on whether he had taught the Queen to do the Mo-bot, letting out a loud chuckle, he said no as it is “far too rude – not in Buckingham Palace”.

He was honoured at an inves-titure ceremony at Buckingham Palace for his services to athletics, and swapped his running kit for a top hat and a full morning suit.

“Over the years you dream of becoming something or doing something in your career, to take it to the highest level and become an Olympic champion – that was always the dream,” Sir Mo said.

“As an eight-year-old coming from Somalia and not speaking a word of English, to be recognised by your country, it is incredible.”

On being handed the honour by the Queen, Sir Mo said she

told him he has been “going too long” and asked him if he has re-tired.

“I said ‘no, I am going to run the London Marathon – I want to go into roads’. She said that’s marvellous,” Sir Mo said.

He retired from the track in August to focus on road racing and has been non-committal on his Olympic future so far having also hinted he may not wear the GB jersey again.

Sir Mo insisted he will only look to run the marathon at the 2020 Olympics if he believes he can reach the podium. “If I’m capa-ble of getting a medal or close to a medal (in Tokyo), you will see me,” said Sir Mo, now coached by Paula Radcliff e’s husband Gary Lough.

He has been retained on Brit-ish Athletics’ World Class Per-formance Programme despite doubts over his Olympic plans.

Sir Mo recently split from controversial coach Alberto Salazar and is eager to succeed in the London Marathon.

He said: “For me it is the big-gest marathon in the world, and it is going to be tough. Mo Farah ain’t going to turn up and win...it’s going to be hard to run.

Prime Minister Theresa May greets Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon outside 10 Downing Street in London yesterday.

Tory MPsfurious at‘threat’ inPM’s letterLondon Evening StandardLondon

Theresa May faced growing anger from Tory MPs yes-terday after the new chief

whip appeared to accuse senior backbenchers of trying to block Brexit.

In comments to a “stormy” private meeting, Julian Smith implied backbenchers trying to amend the EU Withdrawal Bill were in reality trying to keep Britain inside the European Un-ion.

His remarks were seen as an example of Downing Street us-ing “gratuitous” hardball tac-tics. They followed a letter from May that suggested MPs would be punished for trying to press pro-business amendments to Brexit laws.

It came as the Commons be-gan line-by-line scrutiny of the Bill, during which the govern-ment faces defeat on a range of amendments. Critics were mounting cross-party oppo-sition to a bid to set in stone a Brexit date of March 29, 2019.

Smith met about a dozen Tory MP critics to discuss the Bill, after the tabling of over 400 amendments. But he told them: “I know how strongly you feel about remaining in the EU.”

Some called out “no”, saying they accepted the referendum result but wanted a good deal. One said: “His remark soured the tone of the debate.”

Ex-minister Anna Soubry said the meeting was “stormy” and the number of rebels had risen as a result. Other MPs said the prime minister’s letter was an attempt to harness activists and party offi cials to intimidate po-tential rebels.

May wrote: “Let me be clear we will not tolerate attempts to use the passage of this bill as a way of slowing down or blocking our withdrawal.”

An MP said: “That letter went down very badly. It was seen as gratuitously threatening high treason.”

One Tory said: “It is the sort of language a teacher after losing control of the classroom.”

May accusesRussia of interferingin electionsGuardian News and MediaLondon

Theresa May has accused Russia of meddling in elections and planting

fake stories in the media in an extraordinary attack on its at-tempts to “weaponise informa-tion” in order to sow discord in the west.

The prime minister spoke out against “the scale and nature” of Russia’s actions during an address at the lord mayor’s ban-quet, saying it was “threatening the international order on which we all depend”.

Listing Russia’s attempts to undermine western institutions in recent years, she said: “I have a very simple message for Rus-sia. We know what you are doing. And you will not succeed. Be-cause you underestimate the re-silience of our democracies, the enduring attraction of free and open societies, and the commit-ment of western nations to the alliances that bind us.

“The UK will do what is nec-essary to protect ourselves, and work with our allies to do like-wise.”

Her speech is a serious escala-tion of the UK’s warnings about Russia as Boris Johnson, the for-eign secretary, prepares to visit Moscow before the end of the year as part of a strategy of cau-tious engagement with Vladimir Putin’s administration.

Since Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine, May said Russia had “fomented confl ict in the Donbass (eastern Ukraine), repeatedly violated the national airspace of several European

countries, and mounted a sus-tained campaign of cyber-espio-nage and disruption”.

“This has included meddling in elections, and hacking the Danish ministry of defence and the Bundestag (German parlia-ment), among many others,” she told the audience of City of Lon-don business fi gures.

“It is seeking to weaponise in-formation. Deploying its state-run media organisations to plant fake stories and photo-shopped images in an attempt to sow dis-cord in the west and undermine our institutions.”

She said the UK did not want to “return to the Cold War, or to be in a state of perpetual con-frontation” but the UK would have to act to protect the inter-ests of the UK, Europe and rest of the world if Russia continues on its current path.

A Downing Street source said May was not making the inter-vention in response to any spe-cifi c event but rather to a growing body of evidence that Russian agencies have been attempting

to interfere with western politics.The prime minister’s strong

criticism of Russia’s activities comes in contrast to comments this weekend by Donald Trump, who said on Saturday that he be-lieved Putin’s denials of having meddled in the American presi-dential elections.

Asked by reporters if he had raised the issue of Russian in-terference during conversations with Putin at a summit in Viet-nam during a tour of Asia, Trump said: “Every time he sees me, he says, ‘I didn’t do that.’ And I be-lieve – I really believe that when he tells me that, he means it.”

The US president appeared to contradict that stance on Sunday when he said he was “with our agencies” on the issue.

May did not say whether she was concerned with Russian in-tervention in any UK democratic processes, but Ben Bradshaw, a leading Labour MP, is among those to have called for a judge-led inquiry into the possibility that Moscow tried to infl uence the re-sult of the Brexit referendum.

Mo Farah holds his medal as he and his wife poses for a photograph, after he was knighted during an investiture ceremony at Buckingham Palace, in London yesterday.

Parties told to reveal identity of digital ad fundersPolitical parties will be told to dis-close to the public who is paying for digital adverts, the elections watchdog has announced, following the concerns raised by Theresa May that Russia has influenced UK elections. The Electoral Commission will also ask political parties to provide a detailed breakdown of how much money is spent on digital advertising, following concerns that the public needs more information about who is behind

adverts pushed on social media. It comes as MPs on the House of Commons media committee prepare to begin an inquiry into whether Moscow has tried to interfere in British politics, which is due to hear from representa-tives of Twitter and Facebook. The commission’s recommenda-tions include demanding that political parties and non-party campaigners should be required to include an imprint stating who has published an advertisement.

BRITAIN17Gulf Times


Police ‘to give upon minor crimeswithout major funding hike’Guardian News and MediaLondon

More police forces are poised to give up inves-tigating minor off ences

such as car crime and retail thefts without a signifi cant funding in-crease in the budget next week, police and crime commissioners have warned.

The home aff airs select com-mittee was told yesterday that forces across England and Wales will lose a further 6,000 offi cers by 2020 without an urgent cash injection.

Kathryn Holloway, the Con-servative police and crime com-missioner for Bedfordshire, told MPs her county risked becoming the “retail theft capital of the UK” because the local force could no longer aff ord to attend retail thefts of less than £100. Bedfordshire police will also not attend vehicle crime such as thefts from cars, she said.

Her warning came after Sussex police said on Monday that they would seek to resolve less serious crimes over the phone or online as the force plans to focus resources only on off ences that have the “biggest impact”.

The Metropolitan police have said they will no longer investigate thousands of “lower level crimes” such as burglaries. London mayor Sadiq Khan warned that funding cuts meant policing was at a tip-ping point in London.

“I am increasingly worried about our ability to keep London-ers’ businesses and visitors safe in the context of the cuts being made not just to the counter-terror budget, but the overall policing budget,” he said.

“We are at a tipping point; if the government proceeds with re-ductions in the next three or four years, I am seriously worried about our ability to keep our city safe.”

Police forces in England and Wales received a “fl at cash” settle-ment in the 2015 spending review, but in the run-up to the budget,

a succession of senior police fi g-ures have said they need an extra £440mn in 2018-19 and £845mn in 2019-20 to meet increased de-mands, including terrorism.

The Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, told police chiefs earlier this month that budget discussions had to be about more than lobby-ing the government for extra mon-ey and accused them of “reaching for a pen to write a press release” at the fi rst sign of an upturn in crime fi gures.

Nottinghamshire’s Labour police and crime commissioner, Paddy Tipping, told the commit-tee Rudd’s comments were a “bit rich” given that forces were al-ready in talks with ministers and had been asked to prepare funding submissions.

He said the 2015 settlement had left forces across England and Wales with a £350mn funding gap over the next two years that implied a loss of 6,000 police of-fi cers on top of the 20,000 gone since 2010. He said the push for an extra £440mn next year was to reinforce neighbourhood policing and increase the number of armed offi cers.

Tipping told MPs he accepted that forces had reserves of £1.6bn, but said they were expected to fall to £806mn by March 2020.

The Bedfordshire commissioner said her force was looking to see what it could not do because of the funding squeeze. “Two examples that have been suggested are that we would not be attending vehicle crime. I suppose there could be an argument that people are insured and shouldn’t be leaving valuables in cars, vans and so on,” she said.

“However, it’s also been sug-gested that we wouldn’t be going to retail thefts of £100 and under. I have no appetite whatsoever as the PCC for Bedfordshire in seeing my county become the retail theft capital for the UK.”

She said Bedfordshire had made nearly £35mn in cuts and faced a further reduction of £11.4mn-£12.5mn in the next four years “if things remain unchanged”.

Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge, visits the Hornsey Road Children’s Centre, in London yesterday.

Duchess visits children’s centre

Catherine’s uncle admitspunching wife in faceLondon Evening StandardLondon

The Duchess of Cam-bridge’s uncle has admit-ted punching his wife in

the face after a night drinking at a charity event.

Gary Goldsmith assaulted Jul-ie-Ann, leaving her unconscious, as they arrived by taxi at their central London home. They had spent the evening at the Home House private members’ club in Portman Square, Marylebone.

Julie-Ann fell to the fl oor after the blow, described by the taxi driver as a “left hook” that left her unconscious for several sec-onds.

Goldsmith, 52, appeared at

Westminster magistrates’ court yesterday morning to plead guilty to assault. He was freed on bail until a sentencing hearing on November 21.

Chief magistrate Emma Ar-buthnot told a probation offi cer who will assess him: “I’m re-ally looking at how to protect this lady from this man in the future, so it doesn’t happen again.”

Prosecutor Kate Shilton said the attack happened at about 1.20am on October 13. She said: “An argument took place during the taxi ride, Goldsmith began to shout at her and both parties were drunk, having been drink-ing throughout the evening. Julie-Ann said she couldn’t recall how it happened but her husband punched her in the face with a

closed fi st to the left side of her face. She was knocked straight to the fl oor and hit the back of her head on the fl oor.”

The taxi driver, Daniel Shep-herd, told police that he saw Julie-Ann, 47, slap her husband in the face before Goldsmith de-livered a “left hook” to knock her down to the pavement.

Shepherd said he rushed to Ju-lie-Ann’s aid as she came round and called police but Goldsmith then started to become aggres-sive. The driver said he told him “whoa mate, you can’t do that” and added: “Are you going to start on me now?”

Goldsmith, who was arrested on the night, apologised for his actions and said he was “hum-bled”. He pleaded guilty to assault

by beating. The businessman has a reported £30mn fortune after making his wealth in IT recruit-ment. He is the younger brother of Carole Middleton and was one of the guests at his niece’s wed-ding to Prince William in 2011. He was also a guest at his niece Pippa Middleton’s wedding to James Matthews in May this year.

He has been dubbed the “black sheep” of the family but has in-sisted: “People like to think I’m a bad boy. I’m not really.”

Chief magistrate Arbuthnot said she would adjourn sentenc-ing for Goldsmith to be inter-viewed by probation offi cers. Under the terms of his bail, he must not go to his Marylebone home or contact his wife. An ap-plication for a restraining order

will be considered at the next hearing.

Goldsmith was exposed in a tabloid newspaper story in 2009 in which he was shown appar-ently preparing cocaine at his villa in Ibiza and boasting of his connections with the royal fam-ily.

He was never charged with any off ence and later claimed that he had been “manipulated and set up”.

Julie-Ann is his fourth wife. The couple married in 2012. De-scribing his pride at seeing his niece marry Prince William, Goldsmith has said: “She is this confi dent, clever, caring girl who has taken her responsibilities in marriage and job incredible seri-ously.”

British forces no longer fi t for purpose: former service chiefsGuardian News and MediaLondon

Former service chiefs have launched a devastating cri-tique of the state of British

forces, saying they were no longer fi t for purpose and that the army was 20 years out of date.

General Sir Richard Barrons, who retired last year as com-mander of joint forces command,

said the armed forces were close to breaking point, with the navy un-derfunded and the air force at the edge of its engineering capacity.

Barrons, speaking alongside counterparts from the navy and air force, was giving evidence to a House of Commons defence com-mittee investigation into the latest defence review, which is sched-uled to announce its fi ndings next month and which will almost cer-tainly mean more cuts.

Although the defence budget is £38bn a year and the Treasury has promised above-infl ation annual rises, the ministry of defence has been hit hard by a sharp rise in the cost of US planes and other equip-ment.

Proposals being fl oated for fur-ther cuts include ending the abil-ity to mount amphibious landings and reducing the number of ma-rines.

Barrons described a cut in the

marines as “madness”, a view ech-oed by Admiral Sir George Zam-bellas, former fi rst sea lord, who also retired in 2016.

Zambellas said that while the marines, which he described as a “Premier League fi ghting force”, made up only a small proportion of the total number of troops they contributed up to half of the spe-cial forces.

He said the services had been under-resourced for years and

the choice being off ered to service chiefs amounted to whether to cut off a right arm or a left one.

Also giving evidence was Air Marshall Sir Barry North.

Service chiefs traditionally complain that budgets are never high enough but the warnings at the defence committee come against a backdrop of cuts that raise doubts about the UK’s ability to fi ght a major conventional war.

Barrons, the most outspoken

of the three, said the government faced hard choices but the secu-rity environment had changed, with threats posed by Russia, North Korea and groups such as Islamic State.

“So the fi rst discussion should be in government: ‘How much risk are we running in the world and what do we need to do to fi x it?’ We don’t seem to want to have that discussion.

“So you end up with risk of a

ridiculous, zero-sum discussion both within the service – the non-sense of culling marines to buy more sailors – and between the services, which is why you end up generally with a current navy structurally underfunded, air force that is holding together with a bunch of very good equipment but at the edge of their engineer-ing and support capacity, and an army that, broadly speaking, is 20 years out of date.”

Driver murderedyards from homeLondon Evening StandardLondon

A delivery driver died from a single stab wound to the heart yesterday after he

was ambushed as he headed home from a night shift, his family said.

Kaan Aslan, 21, was 100 yards from his front door in Clapton when he was murdered.

The Deliveroo driver, who was working to fund a college educa-tion, was in a car when he was at-tacked shortly after midnight on the Nightingale estate. His parents and younger brother were woken with the news.

His cousin Ugur, 33, said: “His dad is a chef, he had fi nished a shift and gone to bed. The next thing he knew was the police at the door, saying he had been stabbed once in the heart and died instantly. He always fi nished late and had only just started the job to get pocket money to fund a better life.

“He was a good person. He was a kind caring boy, no way was he ever in any trouble. He has a younger brother who is 11. Kaan was his role model, he is heartbro-ken.

“He was a big football fan and supported Turkish side Fenerbah-ce. He was so friendly and hard-working and respectful. He had a bright future.

“We have no idea if he was robbed or what the reason was for this attack.”

The family moved from Turkey 15 years ago and Aslan attended Hackney Community College. Ugur added: “The family came here for a better life and were working hard for better things. Nothing will be the same for us ever again. There are too many knives on the streets and lives lost here.” Another cousin, Nese, said: “He was a lovely boy. We are all devastated. He had lots of friends and was just a nice hardworking person.”

Police said ambulance workers called them to reports of a stab-bing at Monteagle Way. Paramed-ics treated Aslan at the scene but he died at 12.15am.

Forensic science offi cers were working at the location yester-day and there were road closures around the area. There have been no arrests and detectives said they were keeping an open mind on the motive.

Police arrest two peopleover missing teenagerGuardian News and MediaLondon

Detectives have arrested two people on suspicion of murder following the

disappearance of a vulnerable 19-year-old woman who went missing from the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset a week ago.

A 71-year-old woman and 19-year-old man, who were both known to the missing woman, Gaia Pope, were questioned by of-fi cers.

Dorset police later said the 71-year-old woman had been re-leased under investigation. The 19-year-old man remains assist-ing police with inquiries.

Searches are continuing to try to fi nd Pope, who is from the village of Langton Matravers on the Isle of Purbeck and was staying at an address in nearby Swanage when she disappeared on the afternoon of November 7. She suff ered from epilepsy and is believed to have vanished without her medication.

Search warrants took place

at two addresses in Swanage on Monda. The two people arrested have not been named but are from the Swanage area.

Hundreds of local people have helped the police, coastguards and other expert search and rescue teams look for the missing woman.

Investigations have also in-volved house-to-house inquiries and vehicle stop checks.

Senior investigating offi cer Neil Devoto, of Dorset police’s major crime investigation team, said the last reported sighting of Pope was at an address in Manor Gardens on Morrison Road at about 4pm on November 7. She was said to be wearing a red checked shirt with white buttons, grey and white wo-ven leggings and white trainers.

He said: “We have looked through CCTV that covers the Swanage area, including trans-port hubs, and there is nothing to suggest she has left the area. Her disappearance is completely out of character and, following our extensive inquiries, we sadly now believe that she may have come to harm.

“We have not yet found Gaia and our searches will continue. I would appeal to anyone who has information about her disappear-ance to please contact Dorset po-lice.

“Our specially trained offi cers have updated Gaia’s family and are supporting them at this very dif-fi cult time.”

Gaia’s older sister, Clara Pope-Sutherland, 21, made a spread-sheet listing nearly 70 locations including cliff s, woodland, nature reserves and beaches needed to be checked.

Speaking last week, Clara said: “Gaia is a home bird. She would never do anything like this. She’s just not the kind of person to go off like this. We’re all very worried about her as she has very severe epilepsy and is without her medi-cation.”

Her family also released a state-ment in which she said: “We are all frantic with worry, Gaia, and are desperate to know you are OK. You are not in any trouble and we just want to know you are somewhere safe.”

A man walks his dog on a weed-covered beach in Gorey, Jersey, Britain.

Weed-covered beach

EUROPE


Emmanuel Macron set out a raft of policies yester-day to fi ght poverty and

religious extremism in down-trodden French neighbourhoods in a riposte to critics who have labelled him a “president of the rich”.

Better policing, extra help for single mums and incentives for companies to recruit from poor districts are among Macron’s plans for tackling stubborn dep-rivation away from the bright lights in the centre of big cities.

“I want the face of our neigh-bourhoods to have changed by the end of my term,” the French leader said, expressing regret that gritty suburbs had become synonymous with crime and violence.

The major speech in one of France’s poorest towns – Tour-coing, on the Belgian border – comes as the former investment banker has faced repeated criti-cism for seeming out of touch.

He acknowledged that France’s industrial belt – where voters backed his far-right ri-val Marine Le Pen at this year’s presidential election – had been hard hit by globalisation.

Jobs, opportunities and safe surroundings should not be “reserved for the luckiest”, the 39-year-old centrist said.

And he said government fail-ures were partly to blame for religious radicalisation in de-pressed immigrant suburbs which has resulted in hundreds of young men setting off to join extremists in Syria and Iraq.

“In these neighbourhoods we have closed schools, cut aid for the oldest and youngest, and other groups have arrived tout-ing solutions for all of that,” he said, pointing to ultra-conserv-ative Muslim associations.

“I cannot ask a young per-son to believe in the republic when the republic isn’t up to it,” he added, promising more than a dozen anti-radicalisation schemes by the start of 2018.

Set out at a carefully chosen location – a former industrial centre renovated as a hub for tech fi rms – Macron’s plans in-clude tax benefi ts for companies hiring workers from deprived neighbourhoods.

The pilot scheme will from January exempt companies hir-ing people from target areas – including Marseille and the Paris suburbs – from thousands of euros of payroll taxes per em-ployee.

Poor neighbourhoods will also be fi rst in line for the 10,000 new police Macron has vowed to hire, as well as investment in trans-port links and trial schemes to combat discrimination.

The speech followed a similar trip on Monday to Clichy-sous-Bois – the north Paris suburb

where nationwide riots fi rst fl ared in 2005 – with the presi-dent facing scepticism from the left over his commitment to

helping the working class.“How you can you give a

speech on urban policy when you’re hitting social housing and

subsidised jobs?” said Martine Aubry, the Socialist mayor of Lille which counts Tourcoing as a suburb.

Macron has come under fi re from critics labelling him a “president of the rich” for slashing wealth taxes while cut-ting housing benefi ts and axing thousands of job contracts sub-sidised by the government.

A series of off hand comments – dismissing critics of his busi-ness-friendly labour reforms as “slackers”, for instance – have also landed him in hot water.

Macron insists that his wider programme of tax cuts will ben-efi t poor and middle-income families.

“I don’t know what that means, ‘having a policy for the rich’,” he hit back yesterday. “All I know is that when there is not an economy that moves every-one forward, neighbourhoods in diffi culty do not do well.”

Macron’s ratings have plum-meted since he stormed to power in May at the head of new cen-trist party Republic on the Move (LREM).

Some 40% had a positive opinion of him in October, ac-cording to a survey published by the Liberation newspaper on Monday, down 13 points from June.

Two-thirds consider them-selves to be losers from his poli-cies, according to the poll.

Two major trade unions, the CGT and FO, have called dem-onstrations tomorrow against his reforms, which include an overhaul of France’s famously complicated labour code.

Macron outlines policies to ‘reboot’ the suburbsBy Julia Pavesi, Jerome Rivet & Katy Lee, AFPTourcoing, France

Residents take selfies with Macron during his visit to Tourcoing, northern France.

Lawmakerstold off for partying in parliament

ReutersParis

The head of France’s par-liament has admonished newcomers from Presi-

dent Emmanuel Macron’s party for noisy partying in the assem-bly’s bar after late-night ses-sions.

In one such case, lawmakers from the centrist president’s Re-public on the Move (LREM) party improvised a party with music at the National Assembly’s bar af-ter a debate on the social security budget.

The bar staff were obliged to work late until the lawmakers had left, parliamentary sources said.

Macron’s 313 lawmakers, many of whom are new to poli-tics, were initially criticised after the June election for their inex-perience, though this has not stopped the swift adoption of wide-ranging reforms, including security and labour laws.

But the partying after late-night votes has to stop, the as-sembly’s president Francois de Rugy told them yesterday.

De Rugy also said lawmakers must stop brandishing objects in parliament, something its rules and regulations forbid.

That remark appeared aimed at lawmakers from the far-left France Insoumise (France Un-bowed), who in July piled up food on their bench in parliament to show how much students would lose out on with a €5 cut in hous-ing subsidies.

Spain’s Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said yes-terday that he hopes to de-

feat separatists in next month’s Catalan election, which will be dominated by regional lawmak-ers’ independence drive, calling for a “massive” turnout by vot-ers.

“We’re going to work so that independence groups don’t win,” Rajoy told Spanish radio.

The Catalan independence crisis has triggered alarm in Brussels as the European Union deals with the fallout of Brexit and more than 2,400 businesses have moved their legal head-quarters out of the region as un-certainty persists.

Rajoy dismissed the gov-ernment of Catalan ex-leader Carles Puigdemont last month over his independence bid, sus-pending the regional parliament and organising a new election.

The prime minister has been rallying support for his Popular Party (PP) in the December 21 election in Catalonia – a region

that remains deeply divided over independence despite its parliament’s declaration.

The PP only managed to fi nish fi fth in Catalonia’s 2015 elec-tion, which saw pro-separatist groups gain power in the region of 7.5mn people.

Yesterday Rajoy issued “a call for massive participation” from

voters on December 21 in the hope that parties in favour of keeping Catalonia part of Spain put in a strong showing.

Several former Catalan cabi-net members are currently in prison over their role in agitat-ing for independence, which is illegal under Spain’s constitu-tion.

Rajoy said that there was no ban on detained offi cials con-testing the regional vote but added that they “need to respect the law”.

“They can all run as candi-dates since they’ve not been declared ineligible” by a judge, Rajoy told COPE radio.

But he accused deposed Cat-alan offi cials of being “political delegitimised” after “tricking Catalan citizens” by claiming independence.

Puigdemont himself is in self-imposed exile in Brussels and has said he wants to run as a candidate next month.

With fallout from the cri-sis aff ecting his own PDeCat party’s standing in polling, he had hoped to form a united separatist ticket with his former government ally, the left-wing ERC.

But the ERC said last week that it would not allow its can-didates to run alongside PDeCat hopefuls.

Puigdemont accuses Madrid of readying a “wave of repres-sion” against separatists, but EU offi cials have staunchly backed Rajoy over the crisis.

Spain PM ‘hopes’ to defeatseparatists in Catalan pollsAFPMadrid

Rajoy waves to supporters during his visit to Barcelona over the weekend.

Russia would be able to list any foreign media outlet as a “for-eign agent” under new meas-

ures expected to be approved today, a lawmaker said, as Moscow responds to US pressure on the Kremlin-backed RT channel.

The move comes as Washington fi ghts what it calls a barrage of “fake news” from Russian media and online outlets aimed at interfering in US do-mestic politics.

Parliament is set to approve a number of amendments to an exist-ing media bill today, meaning that they could go into force as early as next week, deputy speaker of Russia’s lower house of parliament Pyotr Tol-stoy told Rossiya 24 channel.

“(The law) gives the relevant gov-ernment institution the opportunity to classify media outlets that receive money from abroad as foreign agents,” he said, when asked which outlets are

likely to be put on the list fi rst.Most likely the list will be main-

tained by the ministry of justice, which already keeps a similar data-base of non-governmental organisa-tions which have been designated as “foreign agents”.

The bill is a tit-for-tat response to Washington’s move to register T&R Productions LLC, a corporation which operates US studios of state channel RT, as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).

Russian ambassador to Washing-ton Anatoly Antonov called the move “unfriendly”.

“Is this good or bad? I think this is bad,” he said, adding that he went to RT’s offi ces on Monday to express support.

Asked to clarify exactly who could be listed as a “foreign agent” in Rus-sia, Tolstoy said they would be “media outlets that receive money from for-eign governments regardless of their ownership structure”.

Tass news agency however pub-

lished details of more sweeping amendments, according to which the measures could apply to any media outlets receiving money “from inter-national and foreign organisations, foreign citizens”.

Senator Andrei Klimov portrayed Washington’s measures against RT as proof that the US wants regime change in Russia.

“It’s an incident (showing) the plans of our partners across the ocean, whose goals are to crudely interfere in our domestic aff airs, containment of Russia and in the end changing our political regime,” Klimov said at an event in Moscow yesterday.

According to FARA’s website, the United States government received the relevant documents from RT on Saturday.

The documents say that T&R Pro-ductions renders services to ANO TV-Novosti, a non-commercial organisa-tion that serves as RT’s legal entity.

In one of the fi led forms, the com-pany said it does not engage in po-litical activity but works to “produce

news, talk shows and entertainment programmes”.

It stated that the Russian govern-ment fi nances RT “to a substantial extent” but provided no details.

FARA is aimed at forcing transpar-ency on lobbyists and lawyers work-ing on behalf of foreign interests in Washington, and specifi cally exempts US and foreign news organisations.

Applying the law to T&R Produc-tions, which operates US studios for RT and hires its staff , was seen as a way around that stipulation.

Tolstoy said outlets that are put on the list will be subject to similar treat-ment as “foreign agent” NGOs under the law that was adopted in 2012.

Such media will “have to fi le the relevant reports and most likely mark its product”, he said.

The law applying to NGOs forced many organisations to close.

Others have complained that gov-ernment institutions refuse to work with them following the acquisition of the “foreign agent” label, which in Russia is akin to being branded a spy.

Russia could target any foreign media under new legislation: MPBy Maria Antonova, AFPMoscow

A woman walks past the headquarters of Russia’s state-controlled Rossiya Segodnya news agency and Russia Today (RT) television company in Moscow.

Ukrainian investigators have said that they had opened a criminal case

into suspected extortion by offi cials at a sister anti-cor-ruption agency, based partly on information from a whistle-blower who also implicated the president’s offi ce.

The National Agency on Cor-ruption Prevention (NAZK) is a keystone of Western-backed reforms but has been criticised for making slow progress with its main task of verifying of-fi cials’ wealth declarations for evidence of ill-gotten gains.

NABU – a sister agency in-vestigating high-profi le cor-ruption cases – said that it opened the case against NAZK offi cials on suspicion that they received “undue benefi ts in especially large amounts, com-bined with the extortion of such benefi ts”.

Offi cials at other state bod-ies are also being investigated, a NABU spokeswoman said, without giving further details.

The NABU spokeswoman said the case was opened on November 10 partly due to information from the former head of NAZK’s fi nancial con-trol department, Hanna Solo-matina.

Earlier yesterday, Soloma-tina said she had decided to resign and hand over evidence to NABU after realising that an online wealth declaration tool managed by NAZK was com-promised.

“In reality, the e-declara-tions system is used to cover offi cials loyal to the authorities ... and for the self-enrichment of the head of NAZK and NAZK members,” Solomatina said in a briefi ng. “NAZK is not an independent body, but is com-pletely controlled by the au-thorities.”

She described how she had been summoned to the ad-ministration of President Pet-ro Poroshenko and told that NAZK’s decisions should fi rst be checked with the president’s offi ce.

In a statement, the presi-dential administration denied Solomatina’s allegations.

Ukraine’s anti-graft bureau opens case against sister agencyReutersKyiv

Italy probes statee-mail hackingItalian police are investigating a hack into the e-mail accounts of government employees by activist group Anonymous, which then published documents it had extracted.On its Italian blog Anonymous uploaded a screenshot of an e-mail purportedly sent from a government e-mail address to an employee of the prime minister’s off ice containing the names of a security detail that would accompany an off icial inspection at a site Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni is due to visit this week.Specialised police uncovered the attack on Saturday, the date of the Anonymous post, and immediately started investigating, state police said in a statement yesterday.E-mail addresses and documents were taken from the personal inboxes of an employee of the defence ministry and a member of the police, the statement said, but “technical investigations ... as of now have not turned up further compromises of institutional information systems”.Anonymous also published a letter containing radio frequencies to be used on a visit by Gentiloni to Brussels, and orders to Rome police on dealing with demonstrations.It also published several pay slips, copies of personal identification documents and details of military salaries.

EUROPE19Gulf Times


“I was wondering if it was a dream,” said Walter Edwin, who sells honey

from more than 50 beehives in Dennery on the Caribbean island of St Lucia.

He had just received a phone call telling him to go to the bank for an automatic insurance pay-out following the major hurri-cane that struck in 2014.

“I used that very same money to get some syrup to look after my bees,” he said.

Storms destroy the fl owers the bees need for food, and falling branches damage the hives.

Edwin is one of millions of people around the world vulner-able to the impacts of extreme weather already benefi ting from low-cost insurance schemes.

But yesterday, leaders at the UN climate change summit in Bonn, Germany, revealed a huge leap in ambition: to help protect 400mn poor and vulnerable peo-ple around the world by 2020.

The project, called the Insu-Resilience Global Partnership, aims to provide insurance against the damage increasingly being caused by global warming.

The issue of climate change impacts is perhaps the most sen-sitive among the 196 parties ne-gotiating in Bonn, with the po-tential to explode into a row that derails other issues.

Developing nations are ada-mant that rich nations, who they say caused climate change, should pay for the “loss and damage” that results.

This year’s series of huge storms and fl oods across the world has intensifi ed the debate.

The InsuResilience scheme, started in 2015 by the G7, is one response.

Patricia Espinosa, the UN’s climate chief, said: “People dev-astated by recent weather events and communities vulnerable to climatic impacts are looking to the nations meeting in Bonn for an answer.

“This new, higher ambition initiative represents one shining example of what can be deliv-ered.”

“Instead of only reacting to catastrophes we want to shift to planning, preparing and protect-ing,” said Thomas Silberhorn, a senior offi cial in the German government, which on Monday announced an additional $125mn of funding.

The UK donated £30mn in July and so far the $550mn raised means 160mn people could be covered by 2020.

But the scheme, which has now expanded to involve more nations like Ethiopia and Mada-gascar, insurers including Alli-

anz, Swiss Re and Munich Re and NGOs like Care International, expects to expand to reach the 400mn target.

Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, the economy minister of Fiji, which is running the climate summit, said: “When we had Cyclone Winston in 2016, 40,000 houses and 225 schools were devastated.

“We need to be able to get peo-ple back quickly to day-to-day living after disaster strikes.

“But at the moment only 10%

of homes in Fiji are insured.”Key to the scheme is slash-

ing bureaucratic assessment and claims procedures, with many, like Edwin’s, simply paying out when weather data passes trigger points.

In September, $55mn was paid to 10 Caribbean countries within 14 days of hurricanes Irma and Maria wreaking disaster on the islands.

The scheme is also active in Zambia, Paraguay and elsewhere.

However, the initiative has been met with suspicion by some delegates in Bonn.

“It pushes the poor people of the poor countries to pay the insurance premiums from their limited resources,” an African diplomat told Climate Home.

Julie-Anne Richards of the Climate Justice Programme said: “The insurance mechanism is a clever initiative of developed countries to pushing the devel-oping countries to pay for cli-

mate risk for which they are not responsible.”

Gebru Jember Endalew, the Ethiopian chair of the 47-strong Least Developed Countries ne-gotiating bloc at the climate talks, pointed out homes have to be resilient to be insurable at all.

“When you go for health in-surance, they ask you if you are already ill,” he said. “So fi rst we need to address the vulnerability of infrastructure.”

The disagreement about loss and damage could turn ugly, ac-cording to Prof John Schellnhu-ber of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Ger-many, who has advised both An-gela Merkel and the Pope.

“Loss and damage could turn into a bombshell,” he said.

But he is optimistic that this can be avoided and said disputes over damages were moving into lawsuits in the courts.

Silberhorn defended the insur-ance plan: “It is one tool among many others and it is a very ef-fective tool. It is a diff erent tool to loss and damage.”

The researcher said that action on cutting emissions and fund-ing adaption must also continue: “Insurance tools do not mean we do not have to change our behav-iour.”

Taking action like paying the $8 per month insurance pre-mium has been very important to Edwin, who is in Bonn to tell his story: “If we just stay sitting there our bees are going to suff er. It is a very good thing.”

Global insurance plan to defuse climate bombshellA scheme unveiled at the UN climate summit aims to help protect 400mn poor people from extreme weather by 2020 – but not everyone is convinced

By Damian CarringtonGuardian News & Media

This file photo taken on November 5 shows activists watching as police off icers prevent other environmentalists from marching further after they managed to enter the Hambach lignite open pit mine near Elsdorf, western Germany, during a protest against fossil-based energies like coal, which have a negative impact on the climate.

Syria offi cially signs up to Paris accordAFPBonn

Syria has offi cially signed up to the Paris Agreement, the UN said yesterday,

leaving the United States as the only country to reject the global climate-rescue pact.

“The Syrian Arab Republic deposited its instrument of ac-cession of the Paris Agreement on 13 November 2017,” said the UN climate secretariat UNFC-CC, hosting the annual round of global climate negotiations in Bonn, Germany.

War-torn Syria became the 169th of 196 countries that are members of the UN climate con-vention to take the legal step of ratifi cation.

After Nicaragua signed up in October, Syria was the only country not to have adopted the pact.

Another 27 nations that have signed the treaty have yet to pass domestic laws required for full accession.

The United States, which championed the agreement un-der Barack Obama, adopted it in the French capital in December 2015, signed it at the UN in April 2016, and ratifi ed in September last year.

But in June this year, Obama’s successor, Donald Trump, an-nounced that America would pull out of the agreement, which he said imposed “draconian fi -nancial and economic burdens” on the United States.

The US can only withdraw four years after the deal offi cially entered into force in November 2016, which means Novem-ber 2020 – two months before Trump’s term ends.

The hard-fought pact com-mits countries to limiting aver-age global warming to under 2° Celsius (3.6° Fahrenheit) over Industrial Revolution levels, and 1.5°C if possible, to avert calam-itous climate change-induced storms, drought and sea-level rise.

To bolster the agreement, na-tions submitted voluntary com-mitments to curb greenhouse gas emissions from burning coal, oil and natural gas.

But the 1°C mark has already been passed, and scientists say that on current country pledges, the world is headed for a 3°C warmer future, or more.

Many fear that America’s exit from the agreement will make the 2°C goal that much harder to reach.

On Monday, a White House delegation hosted a controver-sial event on the sidelines of the UN climate conference, pro-moting “cleaner” fossil fuel use to the chagrin of green energy campaigners and fellow negotia-tors.

Representatives for Norway, western Europe’s biggest oil producer, appeared in

an Oslo court yesterday after environmental groups including Greenpeace brought a case over drilling in the Arctic.

Greenpeace, along with envi-ronmentalist youth group Natur og Ungdom (Nature and Youth), has sued the Norwegian state over licences it awarded in 2016 for oil prospecting in the Barents Sea.

A third group, called the Grandparents Climate Cam-paign, has also joined the case against the state.

The plaintiff s accuse Norway of violating the Paris agreement on climate change and a section of the country’s constitution amended in 2014 that guarantees the right to a healthy environ-ment.

A lawyer for the plaintiff s, Cathrine Hambro, asked the

court in her opening remarks to determine whether the decision to carry out oil prospecting was “within the existing guidelines for decisions that can have ir-reversible consequences”, news agency NTB reported.

The organisations claim their lawsuit was the fi rst to be fi led against a state for violating the agreements signed at the COP21 climate change conference in Paris in December 2015, which came into force in November last year.

“It is clear to us that this new search for oil is in violation of the Paris Agreement and the Norwegian constitution, and we look forward to raising these ar-guments in court,” the head of Greenpeace Norway, Truls Gu-lowsen, said in a statement on the eve of the fi rst court day.

Norway’s oil revenues are dwindling, with crude oil pro-duction now half what it was in 2001.

In May 2016, it awarded 10 licences covering a total of 40 blocs to 13 oil companies, includ-

ing Norway’s state-owned mam-moth Statoil, US groups Chevron and ConocoPhillips, Germany’s DEA, Japan’s Idemitsu, Sweden’s Lundin, OMV of Austria and Russia’s Lukoil.

The NGOs are now calling for the concessions to be cancelled because of the environmental risks.

Norway has insisted that it is abiding by the constitution and the “validity of the licences can-not therefore be attacked on this basis”, energy ministry spokes-man Ole Berthelsen has said.

Three of the most contested licences are located in the im-mediate vicinity of a maritime border with Russia that has re-mained unexplored until now, in an area that the two countries long disputed before reaching an agreement in 2010.

One of these zones is the northernmost Norway has ever opened to prospecting, and the NGOs are concerned about its proximity to the ice fl oes.

“The Norwegian government, like every government, has an

obligation to protect people’s right to a healthy environment,” Ingrid Skjoldvaer, a spokeswom-an for Natur og Ungdom, said in a statement.

With drilling in the Arctic, “it is us in the younger generation, and our children, who will feel the worst eff ects of this oil being burned”.

Paradoxically, Norway is home to the world’s biggest fl eet of electric cars per capita.

It aims to end sales of new cars equipped with only combustion engines by 2025.

But Norway’s black gold has also enabled it to build up the world’s biggest sovereign wealth fund, today worth around $1.0tn.

In June, Norway proposed opening up oil exploration in a record number of blocs in the Arctic waters of the Barents Sea, despite opposition by environ-mentalists and some parts of its own administration.

Of the blocs the oil and energy ministry put on off er, 93 are lo-cated in the Barents Sea and nine others in the Norwegian Sea, also

above the Arctic circle.The Nordic country was one of

the fi rst to ratify the Paris agree-ment.

But the oil industry consid-ers the waters opened to pros-pecting, especially those close to Russia – ice-free thanks to the Gulf Stream – to be promis-ing, crucial for Norway at a time when its oil production has been in constant decline since peaking in 2000.

The case is being watched

closely around the world.“What happens in Norway

in this case will have an eff ect on how these issues are consid-ered elsewhere,” University of Oslo law professor Ole Kristian Fauchald told Norwegian public broadcaster NRK. “A decision in the environmentalists’ favour will be noticed and will set an important precedent. So there’s a lot at stake.”

The court case is expected to continue until November 23.

Environmentalists take Norway to courtAFPOslo

An environmental activist, dressed in a traditional Norwegian costume, is seen making a victory sign behind a screen in the district court in Oslo.

A German member of the European Parliament has said that refugees in the

Moria camp on the Greek island of Lesbos face a “humanitar-ian catastrophe” as winter ap-proaches.

“The population of 6,500 in camp Moria is at least three times its capacity, and 1,500 of them live in tents without heat-ing,” EU lawmaker Barbara Lo-chbihler told DPA yesterday after visiting the site.

The number of refugees on the Greek Aegean islands has crept upwards after a decline, with an average of around 200 people ar-riving across the sea from Turkey each day.

According to offi cial data, 15,200 refugees are stranded at camps on Lesbos, Samos, Chios, Leros and Kos – nearly double the camps’ offi cial capacity of 8,000.

In line with an agreement be-tween Turkey and the European Union (EU), all refugees who ar-rived after April 2016 are to be returned to Turkey.

Those who made the trip ear-lier and have been approved for asylum are to be distributed across the EU.

Both processes have been slow going, which has led to over-crowding.

The comments from Loch-bihler, a member of Germany’s Greens, came one day ahead of the European Parliament debate on a winter relief plan for refu-gees.

Greek island refugees face ‘catastrophe’: EU lawmakerDPAAthens

Refugees and migrants protest outside the Moria detention centre in Mytilene yesterday, demanding to be released from the Greek island of Lesbos.

5-year-old migrant rescued from trainA five-year-old migrant boy who risked dying from hypothermia while hiding in a freight train near the border with Austria has been rescued by Italian police and taken to a hospital.The boy, who told railway police that his name is Anthony and he is from Sierra Leone, was found on Monday at the Brenner station, where trains are routinely checked to prevent illegal border crossings.He was taken to a nearby hospital, where doctors said the boy was doing “well”, the Ansa news agency reported.The boy was alone, but he had a bag with him containing female accessories.

Denmark’s Supreme Court revokes citizenship for Islamic State volunteer

Denmark’s top court upheld yesterday an appellate court ruling that stripped a man of his Danish citizenship for volunteering to fight for the Islamic State (IS) group in Syria.The Supreme Court added that Danish-born Hamza Cakan, who also holds Turkish citizenship, is to be deported to Turkey after serving a six-year prison sentence.The 25-year-old Cakan, formerly known as Enes Ciftci, had travelled to Syria in 2013 and was registered as a “fighter” by IS.He also raised funds for the group, the court ruled.The Supreme Court found that Cakan did not have strong ties to Denmark, had visited Turkey several times and was once engaged to a Turkish-born woman. He is not married.Defence attorney Michael Juul Eriksen told public broadcaster DR that he and his client would consider an appeal to the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights.It was the second time the citizenship of a Danish national was revoked due to terrorism crimes.In 2016, the Supreme Court ruled that Moroccan-born Said Mansour was to lose his citizenship after he was sentenced to a four-year prison term for inciting terrorism and urging support for Al Qaeda.

Russia detains 69 from banned groupRussia said yesterday that it had detained 69 supporters of a religious organisation banned in the country, accusing them of being “extremists” attempting to carry out illegal activity.The FSB security service said it had detained in Moscow and the surrounding region followers of the Tablighi Jamaat – a global Muslim evangelical movement that Russia outlawed in 2009 as “extremist”.The FSB said those detained were “an extremist cell” led by people from Central Asia and including Russian citizens.It said it had “foiled unlawful activity of a deep-cover structure from an international organisation” – without giving details of the alleged activity.During a raid, off icers confiscated “communications devices as well as an electronic data storage device with reports on unlawful activity”, the FSB said.

An SOS to Modi from the citizens of DelhiRoyals from Britain and

Belgium got caught in it. America’s United Airlines

cancelled its fl ights. Diplomats are sending their families back home and even thinking of asking for hardship allowances. Mexi-co’s ambassador to India wrote an edit page article in a leading newspaper lamenting how Delhi refuses to learn, even from Mex-ico City. Schools have been shut. Hospitals are running woefully short of nebulisers.

The problem is more than se-rious – it’s life-and-death – but India’s politicians, as usual, are bickering and indulging their scatter-brained ideas. The prob-lem, yes you guessed it, is the ‘Great Smog of Delhi’.

Every year Delhi’s air goes up in smoke, as it were, during late October and early November. The local government, headed by Arvind Kejriwal, came up with a simplistic solution by banning cars on an odd-even number ba-sis on alternate days. While it put the citizens at great disadvan-tage, the air quality showed no change, simply because cars were not the cause of pollution.

Now the government has of-fered free bus ride to all citizens in the hope that those using cars and two-wheelers would switch over to public transport. That’s

wishful thinking because bus fare is hardly a factor for people who own vehicles. The result could only be further heavy fi nancial losses to an already bankrupt Delhi Transport Corporation.

Two years ago the government announced an ambitious road vacuuming programme to sweep the dust off the city state’s roads. An area of close to 1,500sqkm requires massive investment for such an initiative. Till today all that the government can show are six road-sweeping machines when even 600 would have fallen short.

The National Green Tribu-nal got into the act by banning construction activity all across the region hoping it will reduce pollution. But nobody told them that construction is a year-round activity and if that was the cause of pollution, then it should have been visible throughout the year. The result: massive loss to build-ers and joblessness to the poor labourer.

If construction is not to be blamed, the same goes for indus-tries, road dust and even vehicu-lar emissions all of which happen all the year through. So why does the air quality drop so badly only for these couple of weeks?

The real culprit is actually hiding in plain sight. The Indian

Express reported that as many as 40,760 fires have been lit by farmers in Punjab to burn post-harvest rice paddy stubble. In windless conditions the smoke drifts slowly to settle over Delhi. As they are in a hurry to sow for the winter wheat crop they have to resort to burning because modern methods of removing the stubble using ma-chines like combine-harvesters are beyond their pockets. Or so we are told! Several studies have pointed out that at least 70% of the pollution in Delhi’s air is the direct consequence of stubble burning.

To add insult to injury, Kejri-wal’s Aam Aadmi Party, which is the main opposition in Punjab, is giving the lead to stubble burn-ing. The AAP’s Sukhpal Singh Khaira, who is the leader of the opposition in the state assembly, himself went about lighting fi res to show his support for the farm-ers. So much for the ‘common

man’s party’s’ people-friendli-ness.

But the biggest shock is the one man who could have set things right almost overnight is sim-ply behaving sphinx-like. Prime Minister Narendra Modi could have - or should have - addressed the issue head on and settled it both for the farmers and the citi-zens of Delhi. If he is the cham-pion of the poor, as claimed, he should have felt for the homeless of Delhi who sleep on pavements across the city.

One estimate said it would cost about Rs500mn to supply the farmers with the required machinery. That’s chicken-feed for a country of India’s size. Soon the air-purifi er industry is going to make a killing, just like the one for power back-up made it in the face of constant load-shedding and power cuts. The healthcare industry will also be richer as more and more report with bron-chial and other related problems.

If only Modi could take the lead in clearing the air, literally!

Sun-singed Congress has no time to lose

Just when the Congress Party is showing signs of some resur-gence, especially in their election campaign in Gujarat, comes the news of wholesale indictment of Congress leaders of Kerala in a sleazy scandal of corruption and sex.

A loss in Gujarat may not hurt as much as the loss of face in Kerala where the party had a re-alistic chance of coming back to power as per the usual run of play in the state which has alternated between the Congress-led Unit-ed Democratic Front (UDF) and the Marxist-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) since 1977.

It could all be very diff erent the next time round, presumably in 2021. The ‘solar scam’, as it has come to be known, has delivered a body blow to the Congress. Its top leadership, including former chief minister Oommen Chandy and several ministers, have been found to have indulged in fi nancial and sexual gratifi cation and charges are likely to be pressed once an offi cial inquiry is complete.

A commission of inquiry had gone into allegations that Chan-

dy as well as his personal staff and several party big-wigs had favoured the main accused Sa-ritha Nair and her fi rm Team So-lar in return for bribes and other “illegal gratifi cation”. Team Solar had devised a plan to sell domes-tic solar power packs with offi -cial patronage and had allegedly trapped politicians and bureau-crats through bribery and sleaze.

The abiding irony is that the commission was set up by Chandy himself to set at rest all rumours and allegations but it has come up with a report saying the charges are worth an offi cial probe.

Either Chandy must have been quite confi dent that he and his fellow-Congressmen had done nothing wrong and, therefore, the commission was simply there to satisfy public curiosity or he must have been persuaded to be-lieve that being in power meant any adverse report, if it came to that, could easily be swept un-der the carpet. The fact that the commission was set up in 2013 and the assembly elections were more than two years away must have emboldened proponents of the latter argument.

But the 2016 election results came as a shock to the Congress Party. The run-away win of the LDF put paid to all hopes of

smothering any adverse report by the commission. And, as feared or hoped, depending on whose side you are on, the commission said the suspicions were genuine.

What next? If Chandy’s claims of innocence are true, he has nothing to fear. In fact he has de-clared he would leave public life if found guilty. He should extend all co-operation to the police units that have been formed to inquire into the matter. And he should insist they do their job without wasting time. The earlier things are resolved the better for Chan-dy and the Congress Party.

But will Chandy be allowed to co-operate is the big question. Even if Chandy himself was not involved, it is quite possible that a number of his partymen had received money and more from Nair. Will they let Chandy come clean at their own expense?

The other curious fact is that the whole episode in Thiru-vananthapuram happened while the ministers of the Congress-led government of Manmohan Singh were also indulging in freeloading of the worst order in New Delhi. It’s possible that Congressmen in Kerala must have got wind of what was happening at the centre and must have found no reason to hold themselves back. What is it that they say about making hay?

Delhi DiaryBy A K B Krishnan

Gulf Times Correspondent

SC in ‘crisis’over graftcase againstretired judgeBy Michael SafiNew Delhi

Senior lawyers in India say the country’s Supreme Court is in crisis over the

case of a former high court judge accused of off ering to infl uence decisions for cash.

Events in the case in recent days have led to extraordinary accusations of misconduct against India’s most senior judge and fi erce criticism of the Su-preme Court, considered one of the country’s most upstanding institutions.

Critics accuse the Chief Jus-tice of India, Dipak Misra, of in-tervening to ensure only judges of his choice can hear a sensi-tive case relating to corruption involving a retired Orissa High Court judge.

The retired judge, I M Qud-dusi, is accused of conspiring to bribe Supreme Court justices in a case over which Misra himself presided. It is not known which justices, if any, were allegedly of-fered bribes.

Quddusi was arrested in Sep-tember along with fi ve others accused of involvement in the al-leged judicial bribery ring. Inves-tigators have not alleged Misra or any other Supreme Court justice behaved corruptly.

Questions over how to handle the case have sparked an uproar in the ordinarily sombre institu-tion. The controversy is centred on a petition fi led in the Supreme

Court by a legal reform group, asking for the Quddusi case to be handled by an independent in-vestigative team.

Among the issues raised by the petitioners was a possible likeli-hood of bias if Misra was to con-sider a case with some connec-tion, however tenuous, to him or other judges.

The petition was fi rst lodged in the court last Wednesday and listed for hearing at the end of the week before the court’s second most senior justice, Jasti Chela-meswar.

Then, reportedly at Misra’s behest, this decision was over-turned, and the case was allo-cated to a diff erent bench.

The next day, another lawyer lodged the same petition with Jus-tice Chelameswar who, noting its “disturbing” allegations, ordered a hearing for Monday. He gave the order, despite a note being deliv-ered from Misra during the pro-ceedings, asking him not to make any decision in the case. Chela-meswar attached Misra’s note as an appendix to the case record, which is available to the public.

In a hearing called late on Friday, the chief justice again overrode the decision by Chela-meswar, ruling that the case would be heard by a bench of his choice early this week. Misra told the court that as chief justice he alone had the power to decide the schedule and roster of the Su-preme Court’s hearings.

The Friday hearing was a cha-otic aff air, with one lawyer argu-

ing the petition, Prashant Bhush-an, escorted from the court while fl anked by security after verbally remonstrating with Misra.

Bhushan later tweeted that the chief justice was guilty of “very serious misconduct”.

“He has violated basic prin-ciple of natural justice, that you can’t be judge in your own cause,” he said.

Shylashri Shankar, a fellow with the Delhi-based Centre for Policy Research, who has authored a book about the Su-preme Court, said judges on the 29-person bench had always had personal disagreements. But they had never before spilled over into the administration of the court.

“That’s something I haven’t come across,” she said.

The Supreme Court yesterday dismissed the petition to refer the Quddusi matter to an independ-ent investigative team, describ-ing suggestions of possible bias as “derogatory and contemptuous”.

Alok Kumar, a senior resident fellow at the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, said the episode was highly unusual and a “blow to the cred-ibility of the Supreme Court”.

Kumar, who also sits on the executive committee of the ju-dicial reform group that lodged the petition, said the chief justice had “completely mishandled” the case.

“It is unprecedented for a chief justice to assert this kind of power when his own conduct is in question,” he said. - Guardian News & Media

INDIA


In an audacious robbery, a gunman yesterday shot and injured a 63-year-old petrol station owner going to deposit Rs1.5mn in a bank in New Delhi and escaped with the money, police said. An auto-rickshaw driver who tried to resist the robber was injured in the incident. Police said the crime occurred at around 9.30am when Kamaljeet Sethi was going to the Federal Bank at Malviya Nagar in south Delhi. A man tried to snatch the bag containing the cash at gunpoint from Sethi when he stepped out of his car. As Sethi resisted, the man shot him around his waist and escaped with the money, the police said. Sethi was rushed to the Max hospital in Saket where he was said to be out of danger. The police said the suspect had been keeping an eye on Sethi, who yesterday was carrying three days of cash collection.

All eyes are on the Meghalaya governor who will decide on whether 17 legislators who quit as parliamentary secretaries after the state high court last week struck down a state law providing for such appointments can be disqualified as members of the state assembly. An off icial said that Governor Ganga Prasad is waiting for the reference of the state government and the assembly speaker on the court verdict on the appointment of parliamentary secretaries. On November 9, the Meghalaya High Court rejected the state law providing for appointment of parliamentary secretaries, but left it to the governor to determine if those who held the post should be disqualified from the assembly. Ten of the 17 legislators who quit as parliamentary secretaries have said there was no ground for their disqualification as members of the assembly.

Over 60% of urban Indian women do not follow a regular exercise regime, putting them at increased risk of diabetes, a new survey said yesterday. Released on the occasion of World Diabetes Day, the survey conducted by diabetes care company Novo Nordisk India also showed that 73% of urban women in the country are unaware of gestational diabetes and its related health risks for the next generation. For the survey conducted in partnership with market research firm Kantar IMRB, over 1,000 women, belonging to the age group of 18-65 years were interviewed to draw insights on the level of awareness on risks emerging from diabetes. The survey was conducted across 14 cities.

A 73-year-old woman was found murdered in her South Delhi home yesterday, police said. The victim was identified as Chandra Mukhi, who resided in Savitri Nagar area. Her son Kuldeep lived in a separate flat of the same building. According to the police, Mukhi was found dead with her mouth, hands and legs tied up with clothes. Kuldeep alerted the police after he woke up and found his mother dead inside her ground floor flat. Her son resides on the third floor of the building, the police said. “During investigation, the flat was found ransacked, equipment lying on floor and cupboards opened,” a police off icer said. Mukhi’s husband died a few years ago. Her two other sons live in Canada and the US. The off icer said “CCTV cameras in nearby shops and residences are being checked to gather clues.”

Janata Dal United (JD-U) leader Sharad Yadav yesterday said the lynching of a dairy farmer by cow vigilantes in Rajasthan was “unfortunate” and criticised the central government for failing to control the menace. “The government is unable to control cow vigilantes as again a man has been killed in Alwar while transporting cows and calves,” Yadav said in his tweet. It is “unfortunate that such incidents are increasing,” he said and added the “farming community is also being aff ected badly” by this “inhuman” act. The 35-year-old Umer Khan was allegedly shot dead by cow vigilantes in Govindgarh on suspicion of smuggling the animals while another person was injured. Khan’s dismembered body was found on the railway tracks in Govindgarh on Friday.

Petrol station owner shot, robbed in Delhi

Governor to decide on fate of 17 MLAs

Over 60% urban women at risk of diabetes: survey

73-year-old womanmurdered in Delhi

Govt unable to control cow vigilantes: Sharad

CRIMEPOLITICSHEALTH INVESTIGATION ALLEGATION

W Bengal celebrates ‘sweet news’after winning ‘rosogolla’ battleAgenciesKolkata

India has awarded a “geo-graphical indications” tag to rosogolla, the king of Indian

sweets, after a years-long bat-tle between two neighbouring states over the ownership rights.

Luscious rosogolla, or sweet cheese balls dripping with sugar syrup, have long been a favour-ite dessert across the subconti-nent and among the diaspora.

But two eastern states, West Bengal and Odisha, have been arguing over the origins of ro-sogolla, which means a ball of sweet.

They consulted historians and produced old documents to support their claims.

Yesterday, the federal com-merce and industry ministry ruled that the sweet originated from West Bengal, giving it the coveted “geographical indica-tions” tag.

West Bengal Chief Minister

Mamata Banerjee, now in Lon-don, called it “sweet news”.

“Sweet news for us all. We are very happy and proud that Ben-gal has been granted GI status for rosogolla,” Banerjee tweeted.

The World Trade Organisa-tion says “geographical indica-tions” defi nes a good as origi-nating in a particular territory of a member, or a region or lo-cality in that territory, where a given quality, reputation or other characteristic of the good is available.

West Bengal Food Processing Minister Abdur Rezzak Mollah expressed his “happiness and relief” and recalled the state had earlier secured the GI tag for ‘Joynagarer Moa’, a mouth-watering winter snack made of puff ed rice and palm jaggery.

Food Processing Secretary Nandini Chakraborty was all smiles as she talked about how the state had fi led a consolidat-ed application by following the various steps for GI tag and then followed it up.

“We took statements of those who make the sweet. We have been working on this for long. At one point of time we were apprehensive that it may go out of our state,” said Chakraborty.

As the news spread, celeb-rities and commoners alike seemed elated.

Veteran stage and screen per-sonality Soumitra Chatterjee said: “Historically, it feels good to know offi cially that rosogolla was invented in Bengal.”

“But I see nothing wrong in the battle between the two states. If people of Odisha also think and claim rosogolla as their own, that’s also good. Let them also enjoy rosogolla. I wish them all the best.”

Leading Bengali fi lm hero Prosenjit Chatterjee said: “I won’t call this a battle, but a sweet battle over rosogolla. We are all happy that now we can say with full rights that rosogol-la belongs to us.”

In North Dinajpur district’s Raiganj, a sweetmeat shop

treated children to rosogolla.The sweet recorded bumper

sales all over the state.But the Odisha government

said it would continue its battle to get the GI tag for ‘rasagola’, as it calls the iconic sweet.

The battle intensifi ed in 2015 when Odisha’s Science and Technology Minister Pradip Kumar Panigrahi said more than one committee set up to trace the origin of the sweet had pointed to “conclusive evi-dence” that it existed for about 600 years.

Odisha claimed that his-torical research proved that the sweet originated in Puri.

Asked about the order, Biju Janata Dal legislator from Puri, Maheswar Mohanty, said the fi ght was far from over.

“We will scrutinise the GI or-der. I shall hold a meeting with the ministers of Odisha govern-ment as well as with my party leaders to decide the future course of action. The door of the courts is always open.”

Customers buy ‘Rosogolla’, popularly known as the king of Indian sweets, at a sweet shop in Kolkata, yesterday.

21Gulf Times Wednesday, November 15, 2017

INDIA

Country can ask Jaitley to resign: SinhaIANSAhmedabad

Former fi nance minister and Bharatiya Janata Party veteran Yashwant Sinha

yesterday termed demonetisa-tion and the Goods and Services Tax (GST) as “failures” and said the country can demand Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s resigna-tion for the two moves that has led to a “slowed down economy”.

Though the BJP veteran re-frained from making any political comments, he claimed that it was of utmost importance to speak about the “worrying” economic situation of the country.

Sinha, who is on a three-day visit to poll-bound Gujarat, was talking about the eff ects of de-monetisation and GST on the Indian economy at a press con-ference organised by Lokshahi Bachao Andolan, a group formed in Gujarat.

“The people of India can de-mand the fi nance minister’s job for a slowed down economy and failures of the demonetisation and GST,” he said.

“The present government re-ceived some problems from the previous government, which badly needed to be addressed. Those were the non-performing assets (NPA) of the banking sec-tor and the stalled projects of over Rs2-25 lakh crore in the country,” he said.

“During the three-and-a-half years, the stalled projects have decreased a little bit, but projects worth Rs17-18 lakh crore are still stalled. Old projects have not moved forward and no new projects have been taken up. The NPAs of around Rs8 lakh crore still remain to be addressed. Due to this the growth rate has fallen. During the last quarter of the UPA government the growth rate was 4.7%, which according to the current modifi ed calculations is 6.5%. The present growth rate is 5.7%, which actually when cal-

culated as per the old method is 3.5%,” Sinha said.

“Instead of providing 2 crore jobs annually as promised by the government, 20 lakh people be-came jobless due to the ill eff ects of demonetisation,” Sinha said.

“It not only increased the problems of people economically but also socially. The very aim of demonetisation of removing black money, as the prime minis-ter repeatedly uttered during his November 8 night speech, was never fulfi lled. Then the goalpost was changed every other day but none of them were achieved.”

Referring to GST, Sinha said “it too is a very good scheme, but the way it has been implemented by the present government is a sheer failure. The Gujarat fi nance minis-ter during the meetings of the GST during the UPA government had vehemently opposed it, while the present NDA government while launching it termed GST as the biggest reform the country has ever seen. The economy after the ill-eff ects of demonetisation received another blow through the GST. Due to that despite being a good initia-tive it has been given a bad name.”

To improve the present eco-nomic situation, Sinha suggested some measures.

“A fundamental improvement in the GST is badly needed. And there should be an immediate break on the ad-hoc stance the government is taking on it every other day. A 4-5 member com-mittee should be formed under the chairmanship of Vijay Kelkar, a former secretary and a former chairman of the 13th Finance Commission and who recom-mended in 2003 that GST should be implemented in the country.”

Asked about Jaitley comment that Congress leader Rahul Gan-dhi’s demand for a single GST single was “childish”, Sinha said: “Jaitley himself had at some point in history said that GST needed a single tax rate. But now that the opposition is asking for it, he sud-denly fi nds it childish.”

Sugar mill under scrutiny for using cane harvested by bonded workersReutersChennai

An investigation into the rescue of 28 bonded labourers from a sugarcane fi eld in Karnataka

has led police to one of the biggest sugar companies in the region, ac-cording to investigators.

Police said they had registered a complaint against the supervisor of a sugarcane fi eld, his assistant and a factory run by Bannari Amman Sugars Ltd for traffi cking workers, using child labour and violating provisions of a law to end bonded labour.

Bannari Amman Sugars has de-nied any wrongdoing and asked for the case against the company to be dropped.

Campaigners said it was rare to in-clude a manufacturer in a complaint about bonded labour – in which people provide labour to pay of debts or other obligations – as only the

middleman or contractors are held accountable.

“We found clear evidence of bondage, with workers not being paid minimum wages and children below 14 years being used to cut the cane,” said Soujanya Karthik of the Mysore district administration that rescued the workers.

A spokesman for Bannari Amman Sugars said the company wrote to the state labour inspector on Octo-ber 12 making its side clear and de-clined to comment further.

The letter stated that the sugar-cane grower was responsible for har-vesting and transporting sugarcane to the factory gate and the price is fi xed by the national and state gov-ernment.

It said a notice by the labour in-spector asking to explain why legal action should not be initiated is based on “incomplete informa-tion” and asked for the case to be dropped.

The company’s factory near the

town of Nanjangud has denied any role in the abuse or bondage of work-ers.

The factory sources cane from nearby farms.

“Ensuring compliance on the fi elds is not our job. We only deal with the contractor supplying the cane,” said factory general manager Veluswamy, who declined to give his full name.

“Inside the factory we are main-taining labour laws and we have clarifi ed our stand to the labour de-partment as well. This is how it is done across India.”

India banned bonded labour in 1976 but the practice is widespread, with millions from the marginal-ised Dalit and tribal communities working in fi elds, brick kilns, mills, brothels or in domestic work to re-pay debts to employers or money lenders.

Gowramma Raja was one of the workers rescued from the sugarcane fi eld in Mysore in September.

In statements to the offi cials, the rescued labourers said that were be-ing paid up to Rs1,000 ($15) per fam-ily every week, for their expenses and food, while working up to 12 hours a day cutting, bundling and carrying cane.

“It was a life I hadn’t imagined,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foun-dation in a phone interview after her rescue.

“We had taken a loan of Rs20,000 ($300) and worked tirelessly for three years. But the supervisor wouldn’t even let me go home when my son died. I had to beg him to give me a few days off .”

There was clear evidence of ex-ploitation and abuse in the fi elds, said William Christopher of non-profi t International Justice Mission that assisted the government in the rescue.

“They were living in unsafe con-ditions in tarpaulin tents, without lighting, toilets or drinking water,” he said.

Puma accused of defacing Indian heritage for shoe commercialGlobal sportswear giant Puma was accused yesterday of irreversibly damaging 17th-century architecture in Delhi’s historic quarter as part of an advertising stunt to promote a new line of shoes.The facades of several buildings in Old Delhi have been spraypainted with large colourful murals for the shoe campaign that Puma said “captures the grit of Indian streets” on its website.

But the stunt – dubbed “Suede Gully” after the shoe material and the Hindi word for street – had infuriated conservationists who accused Puma of defacing the centuries-old quarter built by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan.“It’s a heritage area. You can’t just go and paint what you like,” Swapna Liddle from the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage said.“Permanent damage has been done to the carved sandstone, limestone

plaster and Lahori bricks.“Those who made and approved this advertisement, those who stood by while this was done, are all responsible for this insensitive treatment.”Puma in a statement said it was unaware that the building had heritage value, and has promised to restore the facades to their original condition.“The owner wasn’t aware that his

property is protected as a heritage property and hence we were not made aware,” a spokesperson said yesterday.In an advertising video for the Puma campaign, Indian rappers and hip-hop dancers perform at graff iti-covered locations including trains in Mumbai.Rules to protect Delhi’s neglected heritage sites from destruction are widely ignored, conservationists say.

By Michael Safi New Delhi

An ambitious plan to use helicopters to fi ght Del-hi’s air pollution has been

grounded because the aircraft cannot operate in the thick smog, underscoring growing frustra-tion at authorities’ inability to address the toxic haze engulfi ng the city.

Accusations that Prime Min-ister Narendra Modi’s govern-ment is failing to take the crisis seriously were further fuelled yesterday when Environment Minister Harsh Vardhan urged residents to remain calm, saying only “routine precautions” were needed, even though air quality levels remain “severe”.

The city authorities had en-gaged a state-owned helicopter company to spray water over Delhi in the hope of settling the thick haze of pollutants. But on Monday administrators were told they would be unable to help dissipate the smog until the smog itself had cleared.

“Right now, with the pre-vailing smog, it is not possible for the helicopters to carry out operations,” the chairman and managing director of the com-pany Pawan Hans, B P Sharma, told the Indian Express. “We have communicated the same to the Delhi government. There was a meeting regarding this on Monday.”

The other hitch is that many parts of Delhi – particularly its southern quarters where parlia-ment, the presidency and the prime minister are all based – are within a strictly policed no-fl y zone.

A spokesman for the city’s Aam Aadmi Party government could not be reached but told the Indian Express: “There are a few issues and these will be worked out … All stakeholders are being consulted.”

A 2015 study found that 52% of the particulate matter in the city’s air was from dust kicked up by the tens of thousands of cars on its roads. Uncovered sand and soil from construc-tion sites also contribute to

the choking atmosphere. In the last week, massive crop

burning in neighbouring states and slow winds have also been a factor in sending air pollution levels in parts of north India to more than 30 times the World Health Organisation standards for daily exposure.

Doctors have declared a public health emergency in Delhi, but Vardhan was blase, contrast-ing the pollution to the 1984 gas leak in Bhopal that killed at least 25,000 people.

Bhopal, he argued was “an emergency situation where you have to panic and you have to see what you have to do”, he said in an interview with CNN-18 news.

“I’m not saying we shouldn’t do anything about it (the Delhi smog), everyone has to respond to what he is supposed to do. But there is no need to spread panic among the people.”

Public pressure has centred on Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. His proposal to ration traffi c according to the last digit of number plates – odd numbers

one day, evens the other – has been blocked by judges since Fri-day.

Kejriwal wants to maintain a long list of exemptions to the odd-even rule, including single women, cars transporting chil-dren and two-wheelers. Even if implemented, studies of the last time Delhi attempted the meas-ure have found its impact was “abysmally small”.

The sprinkling helicopter pol-icy was also rubbished by experts who said it would make no diff er-ence.

Though Delhi gets the most attention, the haze has settled across the entire north Indian plain. A lasting solution would require a nationally co-ordinated response across state and inter-national borders.

A study on Monday found the air quality in Varanasi, in Modi’s home constituency, had even worse air than Delhi. The prime minister is yet to comment on the crisis.

Polash Mukherjee, an air pol-lution researcher from the Del-hi-based Centre for Science and

Environment, said there was a “sense of despondency” among the city’s residents, who were increasingly aware of the dangers associated with breathing dense particulate matter.

“They know it’s severe, and they know something should be done about it, but no one seems to be doing anything,” he said.

The head of the All-India Par-ents Association, Ashok Agraw-al, said the government was “not sincere” about the issue. “It hap-pened last year,” he said. “They could have taken steps so that it didn’t happen again, or so the density was lower.

“But they have done nothing to address the problem and it is a health emergency.”

With the city government unable to fi nd the right steps, and the central one reluctant to take any, Delhi residents have been left to rely on the heavens. Drizzle has been predicted for today, when forecasters say the city’s air will “recover” – albeit to levels still classifi ed as “very poor”. – Guardian News and Media

Smog grounds choppersdeployed to battle crisis

A firefighter sprays water onto trees to fight the air pollution in Delhi yesterday.

‘Minister was against CBI probe’The father of a seven-year-old boy who was murdered in a school alleged yesterday that a Haryana minister told the family not to demand a Central Bureau of Investigation probe. On September 14, Narbir Singh visited the home of Pradhuman Thakur, who was murdered in the Ryan International School on September 8, and spoke strongly

against a CBI probe, father Barun Chandra Thakur said. The “CBI is just a big name and nothing more. The agency already has lots of workload and it will not be able to probe the case even in a year or more. Haryana police is a better agency than the CBI and it will deliver its report within a stipulated time,” Thakur quoted the minister as saying.

LATIN AMERICA


Georgia contractor’s foodaid to Puerto Rico attackedTribune News ServiceAtlanta

When families in hurri-cane-ravaged Puerto Rico asked for food, a

Georgia company answered the call with candy bars.

Baby Ruths, to be exact. Also fruity Airheads candies. Cheez-Its and pop-top tins of barbecue-fl avoured potted meat came on the side. Photos of this box of disas-ter relief food – labelled as “meal modules” – went viral on Twitter in recent days, igniting outrage among thousands who are already angry over the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s response to Hurricane Maria, which made landfall in Puerto Rico on Septem-ber 20.

Government contractor Long-Branch Partners, which is stamped in red on the box with a location in Ellijay, Ga., 80 miles north of At-lanta, has been subject to particu-lar scorn.

Pedro Lugo, 32, of San Juan, said he received the sweet and salty snacks last Thursday as part of the

fi rst food aid his apartment com-plex has received from FEMA since Maria struck. The assistant librar-ian lives across the street from a FEMA headquarters and saw workers in FEMA T-shirts deliver the boxes, he said.

“How can people pass this off as nutritious?” said Lugo.

FEMA spokesman Ron Roth said in a written statement that the box’s contents are a “snack pack” and not meant to replace a full meal. “Meal module” is Long-Branch’s terminology, not FEMA’s, he said.

“We have cancelled future or-ders for these packs and the re-maining inventory will be distrib-uted to the portion of the survivor population that can use the snacks eff ectively,” Roth said.

Details on what LongBranch was paid to provide the food were not immediately available, Roth said.

Repeated attempts to reach LongBranch’s owner by telephone and through his company’s reg-istered agent were unsuccess-ful. The company is listed in an online database as a US depart-

ment of defence contractor that has received millions of dollars to provide supplies such as food and tarps.

The box of mostly junk food touched a raw nerve with Puerto Ricans who complain that they are being treated as second-class citizens in the aftermath of Maria. Power outages continue and some grocery store shelves remain bare.

Food aid is a recurring source of frustration. During an October 24 public appearance, San Juan may-or Carmen Yulin Cruz rummaged through chocolate pudding pack-ages in a box of FEMA rations and tossed it away in apparent disgust, according to a Washington Post report.

Twitter users retweeted one photo of Lugo’s relief food 12,000 times. One mistakenly posted a purported phone number for LongBranch’s owner that actually belongs to Steve Pigott, a Canton, Ga., man who said he sold the company in 2005 and has never been a part of the company’s gov-ernment contracts for disaster relief. Callers have harassed him repeatedly.

Air France indignantafter cabin crew heldReutersParis

The president of Air France-KLM Jean-Marc Janaillac has ex-

pressed “indignation” at the detention of members of a flight crew in Argentina and referred the matter to the French foreign ministry.

The incident, which oc-curred in late October, could further test relations after French complaints over the renewed imports of Argentine biodiesel to the European Un-ion and as French shipbuilding company Naval Group negoti-ates the sale of four ships to the South American country.

France’s SNPNC labour un-ion, which represents cabin crew, said the employees were detained over a two-day pe-riod after the daughter of a former Argentine justice min-ister, who was a passenger on the transatlantic fl ight, fi led a complaint.

“Chairman Jean-Marc Ja-naillac expressed his indigna-tion to the ministry of foreign

aff airs about the arbitrary de-tention conditions that the Air France crew were subjected to,” Air France-KLM said in a statement yesterday.

“Air France has asked the relevant authorities to shed light on this case.”

The SNPNC union said the passenger had demanded an upgrade to business class which was refused because the cabin was full.

The passenger then sought a diff erent seat, citing a neigh-bour with a disagreeable at-titude.

“They were arrested by po-lice and interrogated under conditions that fl outed fun-damental rights, before they were incarcerated and later released without explanation,” the SNPNC said in a statement on its website.

In a letter to the Argentine embassy in Paris, the union said the fl ight crew’s purser was separated from colleagues during questioning and held in a room measuring one square metre without food or water under the surveillance of two armed guards.

Central American migrants seeking asylum in the US, walk to the US-Mexico border at El Chaparral port of entry in Tijuana, northwestern Mexico. The self-called “Viacrucis Guadalupano Migrantes Solidarios” started their march on October 8 at the Guatemala-Mexico border.

Asylum seekers

Marcelo Odebrecht, the jailed former head of Brazilian builder Odebrecht SA, has told prosecutors that the scandal-plagued company hired Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski to work as a consultant a decade ago, daily newspaper El Comercio and other local media reported yesterday. The former chief executive has been providing details on bribes that the company paid to politicians across the region. According to El Comercio, Odebrecht said the company hired Kuczynski to mend ties with him after he had opposed highway contracts awarded to Odebrecht SA in 2005, when Kuczynski served in the cabinet of ex-president Alejandro Toledo.

A judge in Brazil has ordered the detention of several top political figures in Rio de Janeiro, including the president of the state assembly, federal prosecutors said yesterday. Police were also serving 10 arrest warrants in the capital Brasilia regarding more than $100mn in contracts involving state bank Caixa Economica Federal in a separate investigation, prosecutors said, suggesting a years-long anti-corruption push may be far from over. According to a prosecutors’s statement, Judge Abel Gomes has put out a bench warrant for Rio state assembly president Jorge Picciani, two other state assemblymen, and 10 other persons, including legislative aides.

A court in Brazil has decided to resume criminal proceedings, including consideration of murder charges, related to the 2015 Samarco mine disaster, throwing out a challenge from two defendants claiming that evidence was illegally collected. Vale SA and BHP Billiton, joint owners of the Samarco iron mine, are part of a group that includes 22 people and two other companies that stand accused of crimes related to a tailing dam that burst. The burst unleashed a torrent of toxic mud that killed 19 people. The court suspended proceedings in July to consider claims from two Samarco executives who alleged that phone data were illegally collected.

Two Haitian police off icers were shot dead and three others injured during an anti-gang operation launched in Port-au-Prince’s most disadvantaged neighbourhoods, the Haitian National Police said. Several police units entered the impoverished neighbourhood of Martissant, in western Port-au-Prince, as part of the fight against gangs in the “Grand Ravine” area, according to the PNH. In a statement posted on social media, Haitian Prime Minister Jack Guy Lafontant expressed his “deepest sympathies and sincere condolences” to the families of the off icers killed. Some local residents were also injured in the gunfire.

At least 14 charred bodies have been found in a 400-metre-deep ravine in southern Mexico, authorities said. “Human remains have been located” and are being retrieved from the ravine in Copanatoyac in the state of Guerrero, regional security spokesman Roberto Alvarez Heredia said. Police found people burning the bodies, the website Noroeste reported. Five police off icers were injured in a shoot-out while pursuing the suspects, according to the report, though no arrests were made. Sources with the forensic services in the city of Chilpancingo said the bodies were brought there late Sunday and early Monday.

Odebrecht ‘hired Perupresident as consultant’

Detention of Rio state congressmen ordered

Murder trial in Samarcomining disaster resumes

Two policemen killed inHaiti anti-gang operation

14 charred bodiesdiscovered in ravine

CLAIM LEGALDECISION LAW AND ORDER CRIME

Oppositionsays talks with govtdelayedReutersCaracas

Venezuela’s opposition yesterday said that this week’s planned political

dialogue in the Dominican Re-public with President Nicolas Maduro’s government was be-ing postponed because regional guarantors were not going.

“The international negotiation process cannot go ahead until the foreign ministers are invited,” op-position negotiator Luis Florido said, referring to the potential presence of Latin American for-eign ministers at the talks.

Negotiations to ease a bitter and long-running political crisis in the Opec nation had been scheduled for today.

Previous dialogue eff orts have ended in recriminations between the two sides with no concrete progress.

The opposition coalition had previously accused the Maduro government of blocking the pres-ence of foreign ministers at this week’s talks, but yesterday said it appeared to be more a scheduling problem.

There was no immediate re-sponse from offi cials.

The opposition’s principal de-mand is for free and fair condi-tions for the 2018 presidential election.

It also wants freedom for jailed activists, autonomy for the oppo-sition-led Congress, and a foreign humanitarian aid corridor to help alleviate Venezuela’s unprec-edented economic crisis.

Earlier US Ambassador Nikki Haley slammed Venezuela as an “increasingly violent narco-state” that poses a threat to world security at a UN meeting boycott-ed by Russia and China.

Haley said the informal Secu-rity Council meeting was to draw international attention to the po-litical and economic crisis in Ven-ezuela, which is teetering on the brink of default.

But key Security Council mem-bers Russia and China refused to attend as did Bolivia, a non-per-manent council member close to President Nicolas Maduro’s gov-ernment, and Egypt.

S&P declaresVenezuela indefault as debttalks ‘fruitless’ReutersCaracas/New York

Venezuela’s cash-strapped government insisted it had successfully begun

eff orts to refi nance some $60bn in bonds, though creditors disa-greed following fruitless talks and a ratings fi rm declared the nation in selective default.

Venezuelan bonds slid yester-day after S&P Global Ratings an-nounced that Venezuela was in selective default for failing to make $200mn in overdue coupon pay-ments on its 2019 and 2024 global issues within a 30-day grace pe-riod.

Investors, meanwhile, voiced concern after President Nicolas Maduro’s negotiators met briefl y with bondholders in Caracas on Monday but failed to present fi rm proposals to alleviate the Opec na-tion’s crippling foreign debt amid an unprecedented economic melt-down.

“The process of refi nancing Venezuela’s foreign debt began with resounding success,” the so-cialist government said late Mon-day, complaining about US fi nan-cial sanctions and what it called unfair assessments from interna-tional ratings agencies.

The government repeated pledges to honour all its foreign debt and said Monday’s talks were attended by 100 or so participants, including bondholders from Ven-ezuela, the US, Panama, Britain, Colombia, Chile, Japan and Ar-gentina.

However, attendees at the meet-ing came away confused over how Venezuela plans to avoid a default, given its parlous state fi nances, and how any refi nancing could

be worked out amid US President Donald Trump’s sanctions.

The US measures block the is-suance of any new Venezuelan debt and impose sanctions on the country’s chief negotiators, Vice President Tareck El Aissami and Economy Minister Simon Zerpa, on drug and corruption charges.

Venezuela has dismissed those accusations as politically motivat-ed fabrications by Washington to tarnish the country’s reputation.

“The bondholder meeting in Venezuela was a non-event, last-ing only 20-30 minutes with reports of only 10 non Caracas-based investors...and the only offi cial that spoke was drug king-pin VP Tareck El Aissami” said Siobhan Morden, head of Latin American fi xed-income strategy at Nomura, who did not attend.

Four years of recession in the South American nation, fuelled by failing socialist economics and a plunge in global oil prices, have hit Venezuelans hard.

Many skip meals or suff er from malnutrition and preventable dis-eases, due to severe shortages of food and medicine and triple-digit infl ation.

With some $9bn in payments looming for 2018, a default would be a short-term relief for the gov-ernment, enabling Maduro to spend on desperately-needed food and medicine imports ahead of next year’s presidential election.

But that strategy could also backfi re if it sparks aggressive legal challenges from abroad, includ-ing moves to seize assets of state oil company PDVSA, which is the cash-cow for Venezuela’s socialist system.

Despite concern that US sanc-tions could prevent Venezuela hiring advisors, the government

has appointed lawyer David Syed — a former partner at Orrick, Her-rington & Sutcliff e — to advise it, working alongside a team at glo-bal law fi rm Dentons, according to IFR, a Thomson Reuters news service.

On another fl ank of the coun-try’s creditworthiness, a commit-tee of the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) is looking into whether PDVSA trig-gered a credit event through late payment of its 2017N bond this month.

The group said it would recon-vene tomorrow to continue dis-cussions of whether or not PDVSA was in default.

ISDA yesterday also said it had received another request from in-vestors as to whether Venezuela had triggered a credit event due to the late payment of the coupon on its sovereign bonds.

Bondholders had told Reuters on Monday they had not yet re-ceived payments on the 2019 and 2024 bonds but were unconcerned about the delay, which they said was partly due to increased bank vigilance following the US sanc-tions.

In its statement on Monday, S&P Global Ratings said it could raise Venezuela’s ratings again if the government made payments on the overdue coupons and re-mained timely on other payments before the restructuring is com-pleted.

However, it said it saw a one-in-two chance that Venezuela could default again within the next three months and it listed a further four bonds with overdue coupon pay-ments due in the coming weeks, with unpaid obligations totaling $420mn.Venezuelan Vice President Tareck El Aissami speaks during a meeting with creditors and investors in

Caracas.

PAKISTAN23Gulf Times


Inayatullah Khan, senior minister for local govern-ment in Pakistan’s north-

west province of Khyber Pa-khtunkhwa (KP), said yesterday that the government had ini-tiated the second-generation reforms to remove bottlenecks from the local government (LG) system to make it more effi cient for improved service delivery.

“These reforms initiatives will guide the course correction process in the local government system established in 2015 un-der the Local Government Act, 2013,” he told a workshop on institutional assessment of LG system here.

The event was jointly organ-ised by the Local Government and Rural Development De-partment and the Department for International Development (DFID)-funded Sub-National Governance Programme, and attended by district nazims, deputy commissioners and senior offi cials of the relevant provincial government depart-

ments, said a statement issued here.

“The KP government is keen to continuously work on the im-provement of the LG system in order to streamline the business processes in the system for bet-ter and transparent utilisation of funds,” he said.

The minister said the govern-ment was committed to tracking development funds so that they reach the people on time and in an equitable basis.

“This is good time to look back and see what is working and what is not … and have a fair assessment of the situation on ground for designing a futuris-tic road map,” Inayatullah said.

The minister said that he is hopeful that the workshop would guide the course of second-generation reforms to deepen devolution reforms and accelerate the delivery of gov-ernment services for communi-ties and citizen.

Two reports on the perform-ance of the LG system were re-leased at the event before the participants discussed them in detail.

Focusing on institutional as-

sessment, the report on district governments and the other on village and neighbourhood councils (VCNCs) identifi ed a number of areas in the system to improve.

Input from the district gov-ernments and VCNCs were so-licited about the reforms being implemented by the provincial governments.

The reports suggested the creation of a district planning cadre, strengthening of the of-fi ce of district offi cer (fi nance and planning), establishment of a robust mechanism for increas-ing co-ordination among local government and the fi nance and planning departments.

The reports said that current-ly, the fi nancial system in local government faced challenges in terms of budget preparation to allocation and utilisation of funds.

The reports observed that fewer than the prescribed visits were conducted by the district supervisory offi ce, and that most of the visiting offi cers did not submit monitoring reports of their visits.

They said that as a corrective

measure, the already-formu-lated monitoring and supervi-sion rules for local governments should be enforced.

The reports also suggested the profi ling of projects for the visits of commissioners, nazims and deputy commissioners, and establishment of internal audit cells in the offi ce of local gov-ernment secretary.

They also suggested the development of a model tax schedule in almost all district governments and fi nding ways to generate revenue, mak-ing the regulatory framework more amenable, and devising a mechanism for tracking revenue funds.

Local government secretary Jamaluddin Shah said that with the political, social and eco-nomic role of local governments in KP growing increasingly im-portant, the assessment exer-cise was an important step to fi nd what made the offi cers de-liver less at the grassroots levels.

“We now have a clear set of priorities as the way forward to further strengthen the develop-ment planning at local level,” he said.

Initiatives to improve local govt launchedInternewsPeshawar

Once a common sight in the skies of Pakistan, today the white-backed

vulture is facing extinction – its population devastated by the use of industrial drugs to breed the cattle whose carcasses they traditionally feed on.

Bird numbers have plum-meted by more than 99% since the 1990s, according to the lo-cal branch of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), which is desper-ately attempting to ensure the species does not die out.

“Once vultures were found in a very good number in Pa-kistan,” explains Warda Javed, co-ordinator for the WWF backed Vulture Restoration Project.

But due to several threats – principally the use of the anti-infl ammatory drug Diclofenac, which causes kidney failure – the birds are dying out.

In a vast screened enclosure in the eastern forest of Changa Manga, about 100km from Pa-kistan’s cultural capital Lahore, some 20 Gyps Bengalensis – or the white-backed vultures – wait patiently for their dinner, traditionally made of donkey and goat meat.

With plumage of white and ash grey, their beaks fi tted to long pink necks, they watch from their wooden perches, some 10m above the ground.

They boast a wingspan of 2m and weigh up to 7.5kg.

Locked up, at least they are safe: The goal is to keep the species alive until outside con-

ditions improve enough for them to be released.

Diclofenac is used as a pain-killer by livestock breeders in Pakistan.

Vultures consume the meat off the carcasses of the cattle and so ingest the drugs, which wreak havoc with their systems.

The WWF is lobbying the authorities, veterinarians and pharmaceutical companies for the replacement of Diclofenac with an alternative, Meloxicam, which is safer for the birds.

Diclofenac was banned in neighbouring India in 2006 after it was also blamed for de-stroying the vulture population there, which went from mil-lions to just a few thousand in little more than a decade, but it remains in use in Pakistan.

At the Vulture Restoration Project in Changa Manga, they are playing the long game.

Four vulture babies were born in the last two years through the centre’s breeding programme, but it will be years before they are released into the wild.

“Up till 2020, we don’t have any release plans until we have a controlled environment outside this centre as well,” co-ordina-tor Javed explains, warning that even if Diclofenac is banned in Pakistan, other drugs used in cattle breeding can cause prob-lems for the birds.

There are eight species of vultures in Pakistan, two of which – the white-backed vul-ture and the Indian vulture – are critically endangered.

Principally scavengers that feast on carcasses, the birds have long been associated with death.

This is an issue compounded on the subcontinent as they have also been used to dispose of human remains as part of the centuries-old tradition of Da-khma, the funeral process of the Zoroastrian community known as the Parsis.

Bodies were fi rst put on top of mountains and later on placed on top of specially-built structures known as “Towers of Silence”, where the fl esh was

devoured by the birds.However, the Parsi commu-

nity is dwindling in India and Pakistan, and the custom is fading.

The association with death and misfortune, however, still lingers making it hard to gal-vanise public sympathy for the creatures’ dire plight.

Fatima Arif of WWF-Paki-stan concedes that for most people, vultures evoke negative

emotions, but is hopeful the charity can help them improve their image.

“We are trying to gather the general public to let them know that the myths that are gener-ally associated with this species are not really based on any fact but they are just folklore,” she says.

Arif adds: “Vultures are very shy birds, they are very caring parents.”

Help for vultures fi ghting for survivalBy Faisal Satti, AFPChanga Manga

In this photograph taken on September 20, an employee of the World Wide Fund for Nature-Pakistan (right) carries meat for white-backed vultures (below) in their enclosure at the vulture conservation centre in Changa Manga.

An anti-corruption court has issued an arrest warrant for Finance

Minister Ishaq Dar after the veteran politician failed to turn up for several court hearings.

The warrant comes at an awkward time for Pakistan, which wants to raise in excess of $1bn on international debt markets through a Sukuk and a Eurobond in coming months and has been trying to woo in-ternational investors.

Dar, who has been charged with amassing wealth beyond his known sources of income, has missed three weeks of court hearings conducted by the anti-graft agency the Na-tional Accountability Bureau (NAB).

Judge Mohammad Bashir issued the warrant on the grounds of “continued ab-sence” from the court, accord-ing to a court statement.

Dar, who has pleaded not guilty, is receiving medical treatment in London and now faces arrest upon his return to Pakistan.

The case has been adjourned until November 21.

The charges against Dar fol-lowed an investigation into the fi nances of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, who was ousted in July after the Su-preme Court disqualifi ed him for not declaring a small salary from his son’s off -shore com-pany.

The fi nance minister is one of Sharif’s closest political al-lies and Dar’s son has married Sharif’s daughter.

Both men deny any wrong-doing.

Dar has rejected growing calls to resign amid his legal woes and a worsening eco-nomic outlook for Pakistan, which is battling to stave off a balance of payments crisis due to dwindling foreign currency reserve and a widening current account defi cit.

Court issues arrest warrant for ministerReutersIslamabad

Dar: faces arrest upon his return to Pakistan.

Police have arrested dozens of members of an Islam-ist party that has blocked

a main entrance to the capital since last week, a provincial spokesman said, in the latest confrontation between religious activists and authorities.

Hundreds of supporters of the Tehreek-e-Labaik Paki-

stan party have blocked a main road to Islamabad since Friday, threatening violence if their de-mand that the minister of law be sacked is not met.

The group blames the min-ister, Zahid Hamid, for changes to an electoral oath that it says amounts to blasphemy.

The government puts the is-sue down to a clerical error.

Pakistan’s blasphemy law has become a lightning rod for Is-lamists, especially since 2011

when the liberal governor of Punjab province, Salman Taseer, was murdered by a bodyguard for questioning the law that mandates the death penalty for insulting Islam or the Prophet Muhammad.

A spokesman for the Punjab provincial government, Malik Muhammad Ahmed Khan, told Reuters that the protests and blockade were a “serious incon-venience for people and disturb-ing public life” in the province

that surrounds the capital.“The Punjab government has

detained dozens of Tehreek-e-Labaik’s activists from various districts,” he said.

Labaik spokesman Ejaz Ashrafi said in a statement that police arrested hundreds of its workers in a countrywide swoop, mainly in the party’s base in Punjab.

Late on Monday Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal urged the protesters to call off the sit-in,

saying that he hoped the gov-ernment “wouldn’t be forced to take extreme steps”.

One security source said the protesters detained several po-lice offi cers, seized their weap-ons and mistreated them.

“The abduction of the police is a heinous crime,” Iqbal said in a statement.

Police have accused the pro-testers, who are occupying the main artery between the capital and the nearby city of Rawalpin-

di, of throwing stones at them.Fearing violence, the govern-

ment has blocked several roads with shipping containers to cor-ral the protesters, but that has caused hours-long traffi c jams.

Minister of state for interior aff airs Talal Chaudhry said the government had refused to ac-cept the demand to sack the minister, and instead had or-dered police to block any more Labaik supporters or leaders from joining the protest.

Police arrest dozens from party blocking entrance to the capitalReutersIslamabad/Lahore

President okays fund for artistsPresident Mamnoon Hussain has approved applications to grant financial support to deserving artists across the country out of the Federal Government Artists Welfare Fund (FGAWF).Presiding over a meeting of the Steering Committee of the FGAWF, Hussain directed the government to take steps to mitigate the suff ering of the poor and deserving artists.He also ordered special arrangements for the treatment of ailing artists under the prime minister’s health programme.“The ministry of health was directed to take immediate steps after ascertaining the situation,” said the president’s spokesman.The meeting was attended by secretaries and representatives of the ministries of finance, cabinet division, information and health, and members of the fund’s steering committee.The president also ordered the welfare body to not approve screening of any foreign movie containing propaganda against Pakistan.Every three to four months, the grant panel will review and approve applications of artists seeking monetary assistance.The amount to be granted will be decided on the case-to-case basis.

Peshawar to host event on CPECThe provincial chapter of the Institute of Architects of Pakistan (IAP) will hold the third edition of annual three-day international conference on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) in northwest province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Friday, November 17.The announcement was made by IAP provincial chairman Mansoor Ahmad Khan at a news conference here yesterday.He said that professionals from Pakistan and abroad are invited to attend the annual Institute of Architects of Pakistan Exhibition (IAPEX).The conference will be inaugurated by the governor of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa while the chief minister would be chief guest at the closing ceremony.Khan said that building material and technology exhibition would also be part of the conference.He said that experts would present research papers at the conference to highlight significance of the CPEC.A three-day training workshop would also be organised on sidelines of the conference for the selected students from across the country.

Measures taken as Islamabad residents face water shortageInternewsIslamabad

Residents of the capital are facing a shortage of wa-ter, which has been partly

blamed on the negligence of the city’s managers and the decrease in the water level at the Simly and Khanpur dams.

Due to the decrease in wa-ter level at both the dams, from which most of Islamabad’s water comes, the city is only receiving 30mn gallons per day (mgd) of water – 24mgd from Simly and 6mgd from Khanpur – when the city’s water requirement is 211mgd.

An offi cial of the water direc-torate said that the Metropolitan Corporation Islamabad (MCI) area is receiving just 24mgd from Simly because one of the supply lines had been closed for repair work.

“We will open the second sup-ply line in a couple of days and we will then be getting 29mgd of water,” he said.

Meanwhile, MCI offi cials say that the water directorate has been receiving some 400 com-plaints every day due to the shortage.

However, the MCI’s water di-rectorate in unable to resolve the issues due to faulty water supply tankers.

The MCI offi cials explained that only 12 tankers are being used and just as many are parked due to developing repairable faults.

MCI and the Capital Develop-ment Authority (CDA) spokes-man Mazhar Hussein said the faulty water tankers will be re-paired and that more tankers will be added to the fl eet in order to supply water to residents.

He stressed that there is no crisis and that the MCI is man-aging the water shortage.

“We are addressing the com-plaints every day and if we re-ceive 400 complaints, we dis-pose of 300 that day,” he said.

Another offi cial said the fi le for funding repairs on the tank-ers has been approved and that the faulty tankers will be on the roads in a few days.

According to an MCI offi cial, the sectors facing a water short-age include G-9, G-10, F- 11, G-11, and I-10.

According to CDA documents, the entire federal capital requires 211mgd of water daily.

This means the urban popu-lation, which is looked after by MCI, requires some 105mgd be-cause half of the capital’s 2mn population lives in urban areas.

At present, the MCI provides the urban areas 56mgd from all sources, including tubewells, and offi cials say this can be in-creased to 70mgd as other op-tions are not being explored.

The Chira Dam project has been abandoned and the Ghazi Barotha Project remains at the planning stage.

The CDA and MCI have asked the federal government to in-clude this project in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), but there has been no development so far.

The CDA prepared this project, worth Rs37bn, in 2006 and sources in the civic agency say this has likely now increased to over Rs50bn.

If this project is complet-ed, the civic agency can bring 100mgd of water into Islamabad.

However, the MCI does not have funds for it as yet.

PHILIPPINES

Gulf TimesWednesday, November 15, 201724

Duterte berates Trudeau at end of summitReuters Manila

Philippines President Ro-drigo Duterte attacked Canada’s Justin Trudeau

at the end of a summit of Asian and Western nations for rais-ing questions about his war on drugs, a topic skirted by other leaders, including US President Donald Trump.

At the traditional news con-ference by the host nation at the end of the summit yester-day, Duterte was asked how he had responded to the Canadian prime minister raising the is-sue of human rights and extra-judicial killings in his anti-drugs drive.

“I said I will not explain. It is a personal and offi cial insult,” the Philippines president said in the course of a rambling answer, although he did not refer to Tru-deau by name.

“I only answer to the Filipino. I will not answer to any other ******, especially foreigners. Lay off .”

Earlier in the day, Trudeau told a news conference that during his meeting with Du-

terte “the president was re-ceptive to my comments and it was throughout a very cordial and positive exchange”. Human rights activists had been hoping that leaders at the summit, in-cluding Trump, would raise the issue of the thousands of users and small-time pushers killed in the campaign that was launched by Duterte after he took offi ce in mid-2016.

His government says the po-lice act in self-defence during drug-busts, but critics say ex-ecutions are taking place with no accountability.

There was no pressure from Trump on the drugs war when he met Duterte on Monday and the US president later said the two had a “great relationship”. A joint statement after the meet-ing only said the two sides “un-derscored that human rights and the dignity of human life are essential, and agreed to con-tinue mainstreaming the human rights agenda in their national programmes.”

Duterte cursed Trump’s pred-ecessor, Barack Obama, last year for raising concerns about the war on drugs and he sub-sequently declared that he was

breaking ties with the United States, a close ally of the Philip-pines since World War Two.

The relationship appears to have got back on track after the bonhomie between him and Trump.

Trudeau also said that he raised the issue of the exodus of Rohingya during a meeting with Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi, another sensitive topic by-passed by most other leaders, although he did not mention the minority by name.

“This is a tremendous concern to Canada and to many, many countries around the world,” he said.

The government in mostly-Buddhist Myanmar regards the Rohingya as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and does not recognise the term.

Over 600,000 Rohingya have fl ed to refugee camps in Bang-ladesh since military clearance operations were launched in re-sponse to attacks by Rohingya militants on Aug 25.

The plight of the Rohingya has brought outrage from around the world and the United Nations has called the operations ethnic cleansing.

Code of conduct talks on sea to be ‘stabiliser’ for regionReutersManila

China’s agreement to begin talks with the Associa-tion of Southeast Asian

Nations (Asean) on the fi ne print of a code of conduct framework for the disputed South China Sea will help to stabilise the region, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said.

“China’s greatest hope is for peace and stability in the South China Sea,” Li told Asean leaders in Manila.

The Chinese and South-east Asian foreign ministers in August adopted a negotiating framework for a code of conduct in the South China Sea, a move they hailed as progress but seen by critics as a tactic to buy China time to consolidate its maritime power.

While the South China Sea was not as dominant an issue at this summit at a time of rela-tive calm, there was an underly-ing acknowledgement amongst Asean members that the risk of a miscalculation in the dis-puted waterway could fl are up

at anytime. Li, addressing Asean leaders during a summit in the Philippines capital Manila on Monday, said there was a con-sensus on moving forward and

to try to peacefully resolve the issue. “We hope the talks on the code of conduct will bolster mu-tual understanding and trust,” Li said, according to a transcript of

his speech released by China’s Foreign Ministry yesterday.

He added that he hoped this would be a “stabiliser” for the region, while pledging that

China would “fi rmly safeguard” the freedom of navigation and overfl ight in the strategic water-way where $3tn worth of goods passes every year.

Critics, however, say the agreement to talk on the details of the code of conduct is only an incremental move, with a pos-sible fi nal agreement still years away.

While Li did not give a time-frame, Philippines’ President Rodrigo Duterte, who was chair-ing the regional summit, said China was being pressed to set a specifi c date and that Beijing responded it would “consider really fast-tracking” the code of conduct.

“China has graciously agreed to a code of conduct and it binds itself to the agreement,” Duterte said.

The framework seeks to ad-vance a 2002 Declaration of Conduct (DOC) of Parties in the South China Sea, which has mostly been ignored by claim-ant states, particularly China, which has built seven manmade islands in disputed waters, three of which are equipped with run-ways, surface-to-air missiles and radars.

All parties say the framework is only an outline for how the code will be established but crit-

ics say the failure to outline as an initial objective the need to make the code legally binding and en-forceable, or have a dispute reso-lution mechanism, raises doubts about how eff ective the pact will be.

Signing China up to a legally binding and enforceable code for the waterway has long been a goal for claimant members of Asean, some of which have sparred for years over what they see as China’s disregard for their sovereign rights and its blocking of fi shermen and energy explo-ration eff orts.

Malaysia, Taiwan, Brunei, Vi-etnam and the Philippines all claim some or all of the South China Sea and its myriad shoals, reefs and islands.

China claims most of the wa-terway and has been aggressively building and militarising artifi -cial islands.

China’s offi cial news agency Xinhua said in a commentary that the pact to hold consulta-tions on the code of conduct was “a new starting point to jointly build a sea of peace, stability and prosperity”.

Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau with Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte after their family photo during the Asean-Canada 40th anniversary commemorative summit in Metro Manila, yesterday.

There have been calls for de-mocracy champion Suu Kyi to be stripped of the Nobel peace prize she won in 1991 because she has not condemned the military’s actions.

Some countries in the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations

(Asean), particularly Muslim-majority Malaysia, have voiced strong concern over the issue recently.

However, in keeping with Asean’s principle of non-inter-ference in each others’ internal aff airs, it appeared to have been put aside at the summit, which

brought Southeast Asian na-tions together with the United States, Russia, Japan, China, India, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

The group also signed agree-ments on protecting migrant labour and fi ghting terrorism and cybercrime.

Comfort assured for Russian drug suspects

AFPManila

Philippine President Rod-rigo Duterte has pledged two accused Russian drug

traffi ckers will be detained in a “comfortable house”, rather than his nation’s badly over-crowded jails.

Duterte made the commit-ment at a meeting late on Mon-day with Russian Prime Min-ister Dmitri Medvedev on the sidelines of a regional summit in Manila.

“I would just like to say that we have a working functional justice system here and they will get a fair trial and that they will be detained in a comfortable house,” Duterte told Medvedev, according to an offi cial tran-script.

“Whether (the allegations are) true or not, we will fi nd out but I will see to it that they are treated fairly and no additional stress on their person that will happen.”

Yuri Kirdyushkin and Anas-tasia Novopashina were under investigation for drug smuggling but had not been convicted, Du-terte said.

Duterte’s 16-month rule has been dominated by a crackdown on illegal drugs in which police have reported killing 3,967 sus-pects.

Another 2,290 people have been murdered in drug-related crimes, while thousands of other deaths remain unsolved, accord-ing to government data.

Rights groups and domestic critics say the crackdown could be a crime against humanity, warning that police and hired assassins are carrying out mass murder.

Duterte has repeatedly railed against his critics and insisted human rights should take a backseat to eradicating drug traffi ckers.

He has also said he would be happy for all Filipino drug ad-dicts to be “slaughtered”.

Rights groups say the crack-down has also added pressure on the country’s extremely over-crowded prisons, with inmates forced to endure abject living conditions.

In many cases prisoners have to take turns sleeping while waiting for years for their cases to go through the courts.

Duterte did not provide details on the two Russians’ cases, and the Russian embassy and Philip-pine Drug Enforcement Agency spokesmen said they could not immediately comment on the case.Previous news reports have said Kirdyushkin was arrested with about 10 kilos of cocaine at Manila airport on October 5 last year.

Manila airport customs po-lice detained Novopashina in November last year after fi nding nearly 13 kilos of cocaine in her luggage, the reports said.

Trump hails ‘fantastic job’ on Asia tourAFP Manila

Donald Trump said he had done “a really fantas-tic job” on a fi ve-nation

tour of Asia in which he had made a lot of friends, but he ended it abruptly yesterday by skipping most of a Philippine summit.

The US president, who began his journey in Japan 12 days ago, said his trip had seen progress in his goal of narrowing America’s trade defi cits. “I’ve made a lot of friends at the highest level,” Trump told reporters shortly before boarding Air Force One in Manila, adding the trip was “tremendously successful.”

“I think the fruits of our la-bour are going to be incredible,” he said, later predicting an al-ready unveiled $300bn worth of trade deals “is going to be quad-rupled very quickly” to over a trillion dollars.

He off ered no evidence for this assessment.

“It’s been a really great 12 days,” he said. “I think we have done a really fantastic job.”

Before leaving, Trump gath-ered briefl y with 18 other world leaders ahead of the start of the East Asia Summit, the fi nal set piece of his trip. The former

reality TV star had initially planned to skip the summit, then backtracked after criticism it could be seen as a snub.

But he did not stay for the of-fi cial start of the summit yester-day afternoon, also missing the preceding group photo with his fellow leaders.

Secretary of State Rex Tiller-son sat in for him at the summit, which was scheduled to run into

the evening.The summit groups the

10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations with Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand and Russia, as well as the United States.

In a trip that was dominated by the North Korean nuclear crisis, Trump was treated to pomp and pageantry in Japan

and South Korea, where he re-peatedly blasted the regime of Kim Jong-un.

Aboard Air Force One, he claimed success “in terms of North Korea and getting every-body together. I think their acts are all together”. In China, where President Xi Jinping rolled out the red carpet for a “state visit plus” — a welcome Trump de-clared “people really have never seen anything like” — the White House trumpeted more than $250bn of trade deals.

Analysts say the headline fi g-ure hides a paucity of delivera-bles, with lots of the agreements being non-binding memoran-dums of understanding.

They say many will take years to yield results and some will never materialise.

En route to Hawaii, however, Trump was bullish, predicting a rapid closing of American trade defi cits.

“I think one of the things we really accomplished big is rela-tionship, and also letting people know that from now on, things are going to be reciprocal,” he said.

“We can’t have trade defi cits of $30, $40, $50bn; $300bn in the case of China. We can’t do that. We have to have reciprocal trade.

“You will see numbers that

you won’t believe over the years. Because over a period of years, they will be treating us much diff erently than they have in the past.” During a stop in Vietnam, the issue of alleged Russian in-terference in the 2016 US elec-tion reared its head again when Trump appeared to endorse President Vladimir Putin’s as-sertion that there had been no plot by Moscow.

In the Philippines, Trump

sparked headlines with his pally relationship with President Ro-drigo Duterte, a man who has boasted of personally killing people and whose drug war has claimed thousands of lives.

Speaking to reporters as he fl ew over the Pacifi c Ocean, Trump again made no mention of human rights or the extraju-dicial killings that campaigners say are part and parcel of Ma-nila’s drugs war.

US President Donald Trump gestures as he gives remarks to the media during the East Asia Summit in Manila, yesterday.

Philippines vital ‘for military reasons’

Donald Trump said yester-day strong US ties with the Philippines were vital for military reasons, as he ended a trip to Manila in which he ignored al-legations of mass murder under Rodrigo Duterte.The US president said he had repaired relations with the Philippines, which soured last year when the administration of former president Barack Obama criticised Duterte’s drug war.“The (Philippines’) relationship with the past administration was horrible, to use a nice word. I would say horrible is putting it mildly,” Trump told reporters.“And now we have a very, very strong relationship with the Philippines, which is really im-

portant: less so for trade, in this case, than for military purposes.”Duterte vowed during last year’s election campaign that he would wage an unprecedented crackdown to eradicate illegal drugs in society, which he said would claim up to 100,000 lives.Since Duterte took off ice 16 months ago thousands of peo-ple have been killed, with rights groups accusing police and hired assassins of mass murder.Then-president Obama urged Duterte to follow the rule of law in prosecuting the drug war.Duterte responded by branding Obama a “son of a *****” and us-ing the controversy as a reason for building closer ties with China and Russia.

(From left) US State Secretary Rex Tillerson, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, South Korean President Moon Jae-in and Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev attend a photo session for the 12th East Asia Summit on the sidelines of the 31st Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) Summit in Manila yesterday.

SRI LANKA/BANGLADESH/NEPAL25


New ‘islands could solve Bangladesh land crisis’Dozens of new islands

have emerged from the waters around Bangla-

desh over the last decade, pro-viding a possible solution to the existential threat that rising sea levels pose to the low-lying coastal nation.

The government said on Monday that 29 islands with a combined area of 125,370 acres (507sq km) had emerged from the Bay of Bengal since 2007.

Every year Himalayan rivers carry an estimated 1bn tonnes of silts and deposit them in the Bay of Bengal off the coast of Bangladesh, forming islands in the shallow waters.

Many of these islands, known as chars in Bangladesh, are al-ready inhabited and experts say they could mitigate the threat posed by global warming.

“Every year Bangladesh has new land emerging and new

land being devoured by rivers and sea,” said Maminul Haque Sarker, head of the Center for Environment and Geographic Information Services.

He said studies by the Dhaka research centre had shown a net gain of territory of around 12-14sq km.

Most of the new land is near the estuary of the Meghna river, which is the confl uence of the main tributaries of the two main Himalayan rivers of the Ganges and the Brahmaputra.

One of the islands has con-troversially been earmarked as a possible temporary base for the hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees from Myan-mar currently living in squalid - mostly makeshift - camps in southern Bangladesh.

The United Nations says 615,000 refugees from the Mus-lim minority have crossed into Bangladesh from its Buddhist neighbour since late August.

The infl ux has overwhelmed existing facilities in the densely populated country, and au-

thorities have struggled to fi nd alternative land to house them.

A recent World Bank study projected that 40% of produc-tive land in southern Bangla-desh would be submerged by the year 2080 due to a rise in sea levels.

A decade ago the infl uential Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said a 1m (3ft) rise in sea levels would fl ood 17% of Bangladesh and create 20mn refugees by 2050.

Local scientists, however, criticised the study for failing to take into account the silt is-lands, which are highly fertile.

Water expert Zahirul Haque Khan said dams could be set up to trap the vast amounts of sediment that fl ows from Bang-ladesh’s rivers into the sea every year.

“Bangladesh can gain hun-dreds of square kilometres of new land by trapping silt through cross dams and en-gineering interventions,” said Khan, director of Institute of Water Modelling in Dhaka.

AFPDhaka

This file photo shows fishermen working near a newly-formed land at Boyer Char in Bangladesh’s Noakhali district.

Man behind Facebook post held

Bangladesh police said yester-day they have arrested a man suspected of being behind a

Facebook post that triggered violent reprisals on the minority community.

Around 5,000 people went on the rampage on Friday after the post, which local media said was “defamatory”, torching Hindu homes and temples.

At least one person died when police opened fi re on the rioters.

Khandker Golam Faruq, re-gional police chief in Rangpur district where the violence oc-curred, said a man named Titu Roy had been arrested.

He said police had also arrest-ed at least 108 people suspected of involvement in the violence.

It is not the fi rst attack on the mi-nority community in Bangladesh, which has seen a rise in communal tensions in recent years.

In October last year a mob an-gered by another Facebook post smashed temples.

The country witnessed similar attacks on temples after the con-troversial 2014 elections when a secular party led by Prime Min-ister Sheikh Hasina won polls boycotted by the opposition.

AFPDhaka

Miss Nepal Niti Shah poses at the Sushi-Zanmai restaurant near the Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo. The 69 contestants competed for the Miss International crown in Tokyo yesterday.

Miss Nepal at Sushi jointBomb hurled at Nepal candidate

An unidentifi ed group hurled a crude bomb at a vehicle carrying an

opposition party candidate in eastern Nepal yesterday, less than two weeks before crucial general elections.

Sher Dhan Rai, a former in-formation minister and can-didate of the Unifi ed Marxist-

Leninist party, was in a jeep on his way to address an election rally at a village in Bhojpur district, police inspector Git Narayan Chaudhary said.

“The bomb missed its tar-get. It exploded on the road,” Chaudhary said.

The vehicle’s front wind-screen was broken. “Rai wasn’t hurt, but his bodyguard was wounded in the incident,” he added.

Nepal is holding its fi rst gen-

eral elections under its new constitution promulgated in September 2015.

The fi rst phase of the polls are to be held in the northern districts on November 26 while the second round -in the capital Kathmandu and the low-lying areas in the south - will take place on December 7.

Deuba hits campaign trail: Prime Minister and Nepali Con-gress president Sher Bahadur Deuba has started his campaign

trail in western Nepal yesterday, local media reported.

Bal Krishna Khand, NC’s central elections mobilisation committee co-ordinator, said that PM Deuba will hold dis-cussions with security offi cials and bureaucrats about the law and order situation in the re-gion, The Kathmandu Post has reported.

The PM will reach Dhangadi today, where he will meet lead-ers and cadres of NC and other

parties in the ‘democratic’ al-liance and take stock of the situation.

He will also hold meetings with regional security and ad-ministrative chiefs in Dhangadi before heading to his home dis-trict, Dadheldura tomorrow, according to the NC.

Deuba will launch his poll campaign from Dadheldura, with several elections rallies be-ing scheduled in the districts in the western region.

DPAKathmandu

Uber’s bike-sharing service in Dhaka

Ride-hailing app Uber an-nounced the launch of its bike-sharing service

UberMOTO in Dhaka yesterday.Mashrafe Bin Mortaza, skip-

per of the Bangladesh national cricket team, took the fi rst MOTO ride in the city yester-day, IANS reports from Dhaka.With the launch, Uber will take another step forward in its eff orts to redefi ne urban mo-bility in Dhaka that it started 11 months back with the launch

of UberX and more recent-ly with UberPREMIER, the company said.

It said the bike-sharing product will bring another op-tion to riders in Dhaka to get from point A to Point B at the tap of a button.

Arpit Mundra, general man-ager, Uber Dhaka, said, “We are excited to be able to use our technology to not only contrib-ute greatly towards improving urban mobility in Dhaka and in cutting congestion but also be instrumental to creating thou-sands of economic opportunities for the youth in the state.”

Soldiers try to control Rohingya refugees waiting for food aid at Thankhali refugee camp in Bangladesh’s Ukhia district yesterday. More than 600,000 Rohingya have arrived in Bangladesh since a military crackdown in Myanmar in August triggered an exodus, straining resources in the impoverished country.

Waiting for food aid

Lankan army extends amnesty for absentees

The Sri Lanka government has extended general am-nesty period for army ab-

sent without leave (AWOL) by another week (until November 22) in response to numerous re-quests made to the army.

The general amnesty began on October 23, and was expected to end on November 15. During this period a total of 8,052 army deserters including 10 offi cers, eight offi cer cadets and 8,034 other rankers have reached re-spective regimental centres to seek legal discharge.

The decision to extend an amnesty period was pro-posed by the commander of the army after considering their previous service to the country.

Provision of employment or harbouring any army absentee or deserter amounts to breach of exiting law in the country and is an off ence punishable under the penal code.

Upon expiry of the fi nal day of the extended amnesty (No-vember 22), law enforcing au-thorities have been advised to launch island-wide operation to nab the reminder of those AWOL.

The Sri Lanka army has ap-

pealed to the general public to educate and encourage the ab-sentees if known to make use of this opportunity and receive the discharge.

All those remaining absentees are advised to make use of this special amnesty, now in eff ect and receive their legal discharge before November 22.

The general amnesty on the directions of the president and the ministry of defence was declared on October 23, and respective regimental centres under the supervision of the Commander of the Army Lieu-tenant General Mahesh Sena-nayake began receiving those absentees.

IANSColombo

Many ‘fake’ freedom fi ghters receiving state allowances, minister tells parliament

Many people, who have falsely claimed to be freedom fi ghters,

continue to enjoy government allowances by obtaining court orders, Liberation War Aff airs Minister Mozammel Haque told parliament yesterday.

“It is shameful for our nation that fake freedom fi ghters are still receiving allowances. It is true. Because when we tried to drop their names from the list, the court stayed the scrutiny of freedom fi ghter lists before completion of the scrutiny process,” he said.

The court also ordered to continue the allowances to those people even though the government stopped the allow-ance initially after fi nding fake

names in the scrutiny process, he said, replying to a supple-mentary question from Jatiya Party lawmaker Nurul Islam Milon.

“So we’re obliged to provide the allowance; it is unfortunate and we continue the legal fi ght in the court to review and with-draw such order,” the minister said.

He said cases are being fi led with the court on grounds of violation of fundamental rights as the court considered rec-ognition as freedom fi ghter a fundamental right. “But it is not a fundamental right. Those who fought in the 1971 Lib-eration War and took part with arms will be freedom fi ghters. It is not an equal right to all citizens.”

“We’re in trouble due to misinterpretation of law. I would like to draw attention

of the court from the legisla-ture that becoming freedom fi ghter is not a fundamental right of any citizen. Only those who took part in the Liberation War will be freedom fi ghters,” Mozammel said.

In reply to another supple-mentary question from Jatiya Party lawmaker Kazi Firoz

Rashid, the minister said the court ordered him to include even a man, who had been only four years old in 1971, in the list of freedom fi ghters.

“We’ve asked the court how we can make a four-year-old child as a freedom fi ghter. The court even ordered to pro-vide him with the arrears of 23 years,” he said.

He hoped that they do not face such embarrassing situ-ation in the future as they continue their best eff orts contesting the legal battle.

Answering a supplementary question, the minister said the government is yet to prepare 12 sub-district-level lists of freedom fi ghters.

The government has decided to bring the grandchildren of freedom fi ghters under the 30% quota facility in government jobs.

By Mizan RahmanDhaka

Liberation War Aff airs Minister Mozammel Haque

IANSDhaka

What a dramatic turnaround for a region, which has been facing some existential threats!

The 19-nation eurozone is now enjoying the strongest growth in a decade and now some economists are arguing that it’s heading toward a golden period of low-infl ationary expansion.

The European Commission last week raised its 2017 growth forecast to 2.2% from 1.7% in May. The International Monetary Fund on Monday said growth across the European region – which includes the euro area as well as developing economies in central and Eastern Europe – is having a positive spillover eff ect on the rest of the world.

“Growth in the euro area has been positive for 18 quarters, lately around 2.5%. Many countries in Eastern Europe have seen growth around or above 3% for some time already. So this recovery has not only become broader but also stronger,” the IMF said.

For the eurozone, economists surveyed by Bloomberg have raised their growth forecasts eight times this year.

Make no mistake, all the upbeat estimates are for a region, which was seen exporting its political and fi nancial risks to the rest of the world as 2017 was drawing to a close.

Here’s an important question: What is at stake for the Gulf?

The Gulf Co-operation Council wealth funds have invested heavily in Europe. Gulf SWFs provided emergency fi nancing for a number of European banks after the 2008 crisis. As of data available in 2015, total assets acquired by GCC private investors and SWFs in

the European Union are estimated at more than €400bn, making them one of the largest foreign investor groups in Europe.

Risks remain, for sure, for Europe.

The bright prospects for the euro region stand in stark contrast to the outlook for the UK, where the uncertainty surrounding the imminent divorce from the EU is crimping investment and weakening the pound.

Recent wounds run deep in the eurozone, too. Productivity growth is nowhere near levels recorded at the start of the millennium; a quarter of young people can’t fi nd a job and unemployment in the region’s periphery still exceeds 10%. Infl ation of 1.4% in September remains below the European Central Bank target of just below 2%.

Support for the single currency has yet to reach its 2007 high and eurosceptic political parties have gained ground. Other political shocks such as Catalonia’s bid for independence from Spain have the potential to cause further ruptures.

Eurozone leaders say the common currency is now more resilient in the face of shocks.

No matter the concerns, the eurozone growth momentum is striking for a region that plunged from the global fi nancial crisis into its own sovereign debt turmoil, record unemployment and near-defl ation that threatened the very survival of the currency union. While still to make up most of the ground lost in the dark years, and with productivity still weak, the upturn at least holds out the hope that some scars will start to heal.

There are good reasons to think the eurozone growth will gain further traction in 2018; so will the risks. It still makes good news for the world.


COMMENT26

GULF TIMES

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Eurozone is now enjoying the strongest growth in a decade

Qatar confi dent of achievingits national goals: Emir

Europe: From sickman to globalgrowth driver

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QNADoha

His Highness the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani patronised the opening of the 46th ordinary session

of the Advisory Council yesterday morning at the Council’s premises.

His Highness the Father Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani attended the inaugural session.

The inaugural session was also attended by His Highness the Deputy Emir Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamad al-Thani, His Highness the Special Representative of His Highness the Emir Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad al-Thani, His Highness Sheikh Abdullah bin Khalifa al-Thani, His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Khalifa al-Thani and HE Sheikh Jassim bin Khalifa al-Thani.

It was also attended by HE the Prime Minister and Interior Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani and a number of Sheikhs, ministers, heads of the diplomatic missions accredited to Qatar and the State’s dignitaries.

His Highness the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani delivered the following speech on the opening of the Advisory Council’s 46th Ordinary Session.

In the Name of Allah the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate

Sisters and Brothers, Members of the Advisory Council,

I express to you my best greetings at the opening of the 46th session of the Advisory Council, and at the outset I want to extend sincere thanks to the brothers, the former members of the Council for their appreciated eff orts during their term of offi ce. I welcome also the brothers and sisters the new members, wishing them every success in serving their country.

Honourable Brothers and Sisters,Our annual meeting to which

we look forward to comes to assess activities in the preceding year, and to glimpse the future prospects of our development march that, thanks to God, is striding confi dently towards achieving our national goals.

The unjust blockade

As you know, Qatar has come under an unjust blockade, during which all established values and norms – not

only those prevalent among fraternal and friendly countries, but even among enemies – were breached. It was evident from the nature of the steps that were taken, as well as the accompanying behaviour and rhetoric, that their goal was not to reach a solution or settlement.

I will not elaborate on the repercussions of those steps, as they have already been discussed at every social gathering and household, especially since the blockading countries have left nothing without endangering it, i.e., the norms, values, consanguineous relations, private properties and interests. Accordingly, they provoked the condemnation and repulsion of the Gulf, Arab and global public opinion.

They have built their campaign on fabrications since the hacking of Qatar News Agency’s website. Their propaganda campaign drives them to get embroiled in more lies which hurt them alone.

As you know, Qatar has pursued a policy of self-restraint, moderate response, and has risen above all wrangles and misbehaviour in respect for our values and norms and out of our keenness to maintain the fraternal relations among the Gulf peoples. Qatar’s political approach and diplomacy have gained the respect of the whole world.

Captives of their own rhetoric

It seems that the countries which imposed the blockade on Qatar have been embroiled in it. They have become captives of their

own media rhetoric, as attempts made to give them a way out through mediations and dialogue as well as our declared readiness for settlements, etc., did not succeed. It also seems that, this has become their approach, as they became hasty in taking steps in other countries as well, without having any exit strategy from the situation they tend to implicate themselves in.

Qatar has well-known counter-terrorism record

The fabrications regarding supporting and fi nancing terrorism levelled against the State of Qatar have

failed to convince the international community, especially the major powers and active countries in this fi eld. Paradoxically, our originally good relations with these countries are now better than they were before the crisis. The State of Qatar has a well-known and documented counter-terrorism record. Qatar has acceded to the international and regional treaties in this respect, foremost of which is the United Nations Convention against the Financing of Terrorism of 1999, and has contributed to every international and regional eff ort in this regard. Recently, it has signed a detailed Memorandum of Understanding with the US administration on combating terrorism and its fi nancing.

Many foreign offi cials have asked the blockading countries to submit evidence for their claims; and you all know that they did not submit anything because they haven’t anything to submit. They know, and everyone who visits them from the politicians knows, that their campaign against Qatar has nothing to do with terrorism.

Siege has brought out the best in us

Brothers and sisters,

Here in Qatar, we are used to frankness between the leadership and the people, as is the case in a family.

I am addressing you very clearly that we mean what we say when we express our readiness for resolving issues within the framework of dialogue based on mutual respect for sovereignty and joint commitments. On the other hand, we are aware that the indicators we receive reveal that the siege countries are unwilling to reach a solution.

These countries began in their conduct a new phase in the relations between the Gulf states. We have benefi ted from this experience, as it brought out the best talents and spirit of challenge inherent us, and contributed to crystallising our national identity, and enhanced cohesion between the people and the leadership.

Our government knows that what we have said about the productive society, self-suffi ciency in food and medicine and the national security, and establishing balanced bilateral relations based on the mutual interests between Qatar and other countries, are tasks for implementation that cannot be delayed.

The blockading countries want to distract us in battlefronts they open against Qatar everywhere, so that our internal and external policies are disrupted. But this will not happen, as we continue to pursue our positive and eff ective foreign policy and meet

our humanitarian and international obligations, which contribute also to defending our people and our country. Domestically, we have to continue to work and produce more vigorously under the new circumstances. I do not need to remind you of the number of countries that are thriving with sea and air routes, without having land crossings.

We do not fear the boycott

The Qatari society knows how to lead a normal life, fl ourish and develop, whether the blockade is prolonged or not.

We do not fear the boycott of these countries against us, we are a thousand times better off without them. But vigilance is required. Their claims that they will only adopt boycott are not true, as they continue to interfere in the internal aff airs of our country and take collective punitive measures against the Qatari people, and practise incitement everywhere against the State of Qatar, thus wasting the energies and resources of their peoples although these eff orts hurt them. This dispute is a no-win situation. Its continuation will dent the reputation and interests of all the GCC countries.

On this occasion, I extend my sincere thanks to my brother His Highness Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah, Emir of the brotherly State of Kuwait, for all his commendable eff orts in mediating between our Gulf States and my special appreciation for his strong will, wisdom and keenness on the future of the GCC, which he expressed in his latest cautionary appeal on 24 October to heal the rift and halt the deterioration; a call which was promptly and positively responded to by the State of Qatar. I also extend thanks to all the countries who supported us in our stance during this crisis.

Steps to counter challenges

Brothers and sisters,

We have, of course, taken the necessary measures to counter the new challenges in areas

of air and maritime transport and to fi nd alternative sources of goods and services that had adversely been aff ected. These matters have, thank God, been restored to almost normal levels, and on stronger bases than before.

As you know, before the present crisis we were preoccupied with curbing the impacts of falling oil prices on our development plans, as oil and gas prices fell by 49% in 2015, and a further fall of 18% in 2016.

As expected, this cumulative decline, has led to low growth rates in all GCC countries, including Qatar, where GDP growth in fixed prices fell from 3.6% in 2015 to 2.2% in 2016.

Despite this decline, per capita income in Qatar, according to purchasing power is still among the highest in the world, according to international institutions’ reports such as the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund. However, this shouldn’t lead us to self-conceit, as this achievement was not easily achieved, and maintaining it requires redoubling the eff ort. It is not to be taken for granted.

It is reassuring that although the hydrocarbon share in GDP has fallen by about 1%, Qatar’s growth rate has improved, as the share in GDP from other sources has risen by about 5.6%.

Our achievement of this rate does not mean that we are satisfi ed with it, as it is less than our ambitions, and we

will strive to achieve higher growth rates in the future. Our commitment to implement prepared plans in the fi elds of industry, agriculture, trade, tourism and services, will contribute to that end.

Will of Qatari people underestimated

Brothers and sisters, members of the Advisory Council,

The measures taken by the blockading countries were aimed at creating a political shock, aff ecting Qatar’s

stability and forcing us to accept tutelage and cede our independence. Then they have moved on to a second plan that is still being applied. It could be summed up as an attempt to harm our economy. But they have erred in their evaluation of the will of the Qatari people and the State, as well as in their estimates of our economy.

The negative impacts of the blockade were temporary and our economy has managed to contain most of them very quickly, while adapting and developing itself in the course of the crisis management.

These campaigns have not aff ected our major exports of oil and gas. On the contrary, our respect for our gas export contracts – even to countries that have played a leading role in the campaign against our country – has boosted the confi dence of the international community in our credibility to honour our commitments, in addition to our keenness not to harm a brotherly people.

Eff orts exerted in previous years to achieve Qatar’s national vision have steadily proceeded. In continuation of eff orts to support small and medium industries, an industrial zone has been developed with state-of the-art basic services and facilities, in addition to the construction of industrial facilities which are ready for the private sector.

Projects to fortify our economy

Work is underway to implement economic development projects that would help in

fortifying our economy, these include establishing areas for storage, devel-oping logistics areas and introducing a number of food security projects.

The State has given special attention to water security and has constructed new desalination plants and mega storage reservoirs for potable water, the largest of its kind in the world. Its fi rst stage will be commissioned in the fi rst half of next year.

As a result of Qatar’s strong economy and its ability to withstand the crises rapidly and efficiently, the monetary authorities, in collaboration with the fiscal authorities, the banking and financial systems, were able to counter and foil attempts to harm the Qatari Riyal, thus maintaining the financial and exchange rate stability and free remittances.

As you know, Hamad Port, one of the largest and most modern ports in the Middle East, was opened and commissioned recently. Several agreements have been signed with important shipping lines to connect the port to international ports in Turkey, China, Taiwan, Oman, Pakistan, Singapore, Kuwait and Australia.

These achievements were realised despite that the blockading countries’ relentless eff orts to disrupt and obstruct them by various means, which started with the blockade itself, and included pressure on other countries in addition to even spreading rumours and fabrications, and acting against hosting of the World Cup in 2022 by Qatar.

To Page 27

His Highness the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani addressing the opening of the 46th ordinary session of the Advisory Council yesterday.

COMMENT

Qatari-Turkish ties... Strategic partnership at all levelsQNADoha

In his second visit since the unjust siege imposed on Qatar in June, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrived

in Doha yesterday to discuss bilateral relations, regional issues and the latest developments in the region. The Turkish president will also co-chair with His Highness the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani the third session of the Qatar-Turkey Supreme Strategic Committee.

Qatar-Turkey Supreme Strategic Committee was established under the leadership of the Emir and the Turkish President to act as an important mechanism for strengthening bilateral relations between Qatar and Turkey in all fi elds. Through joint meetings of the committee, the best ways to strengthen bilateral relations between the two countries are explored. The committee has played a major and catalytic role in the development of economic relations between the two countries since its inception. The committee meetings resulted in more qualitative relations between the two countries, which opened new horizons for co-operation between them at the offi cial level and between businessmen and investors as well as economic, commercial and industrial institutions in both countries.

Qatar is the third and last leg of a tour of President Erdogan which started at the beginning of this week with a visit to the Russian city of Sochi and followed by Kuwait. Turkish president is accompanied by a high-level ministerial delegation comprising Turkish ministers of transportation, agriculture, tourism and justice. It is expected that during the meetings of the Qatar-Turkey Supreme Strategic Committee about 14 agreements and memoranda of understanding between the two countries, including economic, cultural, defence, banking and cyber security as well as food and agricultural security will be signed.

In addition an agreement to protect investments and another related to twinning between Hamad Port and Turkish ports as well as other fi elds will be signed - taking the number of agreements signed between the two sides to about 40 covering all areas of vital co-operation.

President Erdogan’s visit to Qatar comes within the framework of the growing and distinguished relations of co-operation between the two countries in various fi elds. Turkey has taken the initiative since the outbreak of the Gulf crisis and the imposition of an unjust siege on Qatar and sent the rapid dispatch of foodstuff s and basic

needs to Qatar’s citizens and residents. Especially since a large proportion of foodstuff s were imported from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates through the only land port with the kingdom.

The Ministries of Economy and Trade of the two countries established a rapid operations room to provide the basic needs of the Qatari market to compensate for the shortage of these materials and their availability in the Qatari market. In less than 48 hours, the two countries were able to provide these needs through an airlift from Turkey to Qatar, where they reached markets, shops and supermarkets, which prevented any shortage of these materials in the Qatari market.

Qatari, Turkish and Iranian offi cials agreed to launch the Qatar-Turkey route through Iran in a move to boost trade between the two countries. The agreement will be signed soon between the transport ministers of the three countries, Turkish ambassador to Qatar Fikret Ozer said.

The ambassador said in a press statement to Qatari newspaper Arrayah that the motive behind this

agreement is to provide the basic needs of the people of Qatar. He stressed that the land route will save a lot in terms of time and price because the sea lines take more time, and the cost of airlines is higher and does not suit all the needs and goods. Fikret Ozer pointed out that the inauguration of the land route will have a clear impact on the price reduction of products, whereas this route will help facilitate the arrival of Turkish goods and products to the State of Qatar.

The Turkish exports to Qatar have increased three times more than usual to reach $32.5mn since the beginning of the unjust siege, where these exports increased during last June to 51.5% on month-on-month (MoM) basis. The food items, fruits, vegetables, animal products and water topped the Turkish export list.

The ambassador said no one has the right to blame Qatar, Turkey or Iran for their eff orts to provide the basic needs of the Qataris and the residents of Qatar, because they are daily food needs for more than 2mn people living in Qatar, which makes it a humanitarian issue that should not

be discussed. The relations between Doha and

Ankara have reached great levels thanks to the communication that has been achieved between both nations and the joint political will of both leaderships to work together. The Qatari investments in Turkey between 2011 and 2016 was valued at $1.29bn. In addition, there is a high desire for Qatari investors to invest in Turkey as a natural result of the great political relations between both countries, and the positive development that the Turkish economy has achieved in many aspects, as well as the role this economy plays regionally and globally during the past 15 years.

Turkey ranks 13th among the largest economies in the world, and is the fi fth largest economy in Europe on purchasing power parity, whereas in the fi rst and second quarters of 2017, the Turkish economy achieved growth rates of 5 and 5.1%, respectively. It is expected that these rates will double in the third quarter, and Turkey will achieve a yearly growth rate of 5.5% in the coming three years. Turkey enjoys a unique foreign investments feature as it has an open gate to Europe, Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia and is able to quickly reach to the biggest markets in the world.

In light of the latest updates and the developing relations between both countries, Turkey has become a strategic ally to Qatar, and it goes without saying that the Qatari government and people appreciate Turkey’s stance before and after the siege. Both countries have signed a defence agreement in 2014 to establish a Turkish base in Qatar, in aim to strengthen Qatar’s defence capabilities and promote the region’s security, without hostility against any party. The agreement was on the working agenda of the Turkish parliament since the signing date, and in last June it was ratifi ed by the parliament and signed by the President Erdogan and began to be implemented. The Qatari and Turkish visions agree on principles, foundations and understandings with handling international relations, which is a peaceful to settle crises and international disputes, including that of the GCC.

The Turkish president held a Gulf tour last July which included Qatar, within the eff orts exerted to settle the Gulf crisis using dialogue and diplomatic methods. Since the beginning of the crisis, Turkey has mediated for a solution through intensifi ed diplomatic calls held by the Turkish president with a number of countries, where he confi rmed the need to resolve the crisis through dialogue and negotiations.

Gulf Times Wednesday, November 15, 2017 27

From Page 26 Seven-point strategy to

fortify economyBrothers and sisters,

Based on our awareness of the new situation that must be addressed, our strategy to fortifying the national

economy must be based on the following:

First, completion of the necessary legislation and decrees to facilitate investment, reduce bureaucracy, and reform the banking system to be compatible with the major tasks that we face in the new stage of building the economy and the state.

Second, completion of food and water security projects over a specifi ed time frame, and development of new industries and services necessary to respond to any contingencies, and implementing constructions and facilities that are essential for oil and gas industry.

Third, expanding existing economic and trade relations and developing new bilateral relations.

Fourth, completion of the current infrastructure projects under construction now, as well as the 2022 World Cup projects in line with the National Development Plan and Qatar Vision.

Fifth, development of sea ports and the expansion in concluding agreements with international shipping companies to connect the ports of Qatar directly with international ports, and enhancing Qatar Airways’ cargo and passenger capacity.

Sixth, accelerating the implementation of tourism strategy over a specified time frame.

Seventh, encouraging the private sector to engage in these areas and facilitating them for it. Yet, the private sector has to acknowledge its responsibilities towards its country.

Advisory Council elections

Brothers and Sisters,

The government is currently preparing for the Advisory Council elections, including drafting legislative

measures necessary to ensure that these elections are conducted perfectly well, so as to avoid the need for further amendment in each stage. There are legal shortcomings and legal issues that must be addressed beforehand, in order to have fair Advisory Council elections. These measures will be submitted to your esteemed Council during the next year.

Upgrading justice system

Due to of the importance of achieving justice and keenness on developing the judicial system and

enhancing its abilities to cope with the rapid developments our society has seen in all fields, I have directed that it is necessary to upgrade our justice system to ensure the consolidation of the independence of the judiciary, avoiding prolonged litigation (as it is said: slow justice is tantamount to injustice), and taking the necessary measures to provide all human, administrative and organisational capabilities and necessary equipment for the courts of law, the prosecution and the assisting agencies, in addition to opening new branches for them in various locations in the State. The government will present to your esteemed Council soon the draft laws prepared for this purpose.

Balanced foreign policy Brothers and Sisters, Members of the

Advisory Council,With regard to our foreign policy, we

continue to draw our policies guided by our values and based on a bal-ance between our fi rm principles and the interests of our people, and the peoples of the region, and our political reality.

Resolve disputes through dialogue

We follow with deep concern the deterioration of the political situation at the regional level,

and call for de-escalation to spare the peoples of the region the perils of tension and emergence of axes. It is not plausible that the countries and societies be regarded as mere spheres of infl uence or spaces to settle old scores between regional countries. There is a geopolitical reality that forces

us to resolve our diff erences through dialogue. Qatar has been calling for that in line with its approach of resolving disputes by peaceful means. In the case of the Gulf and the region this is not only an option, but an urgent necessity. Relevant mechanisms must be found to address this.

We congratulate our Palestinian brethren on the unity which has been realised. We hope that ending the Palestinian rift will lead to lifting the siege on Gaza and unifying efforts to find a just and durable solution for the Palestinian issue based on the resolutions of international legitimacy and the two-state solution, and the establishment of a Palestinian State on the borders of 5 June 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

Qatar, as you know, has exerted extensive and long-term eff orts to achieve unity as part of its multifaceted support for the brotherly Palestinian people. Qatar’s diligent eff orts were characterised by no considerations other than the national interest of the Palestinians.

With regard to the brotherly Iraq, as terrorism receded from most of the areas it had controlled as a result of recent victories by the Iraqi Government, we hope that this plague will be eliminated from the rest of the regions in the near future. We also support the territorial integrity of Iraq, and call on the central government and the Kurdistan region to solve the lingering problems between them by constructive dialogue based on the Iraqi constitution, to preserve

the fraternal relations between all components of the Iraqi people and Iraq’s territorial safety.

On the Syrian issue, we hope that the international eff orts will be active in fi nding a just solution to this tragedy that fulfi ls the aspirations of the Syrian people after a lengthy inaction, and alleviates the suff ering of the brotherly Syrian people, and ends the breach of their inviolabilities and dignity. We reaffi rm the unity of the Syrian territory and people and reject any action leading to its partition.

Regarding Libya, the State of Qatar supports the Government of National Accord in its eff orts to bring about reconciliation between the confl icting Libyan factions and to counter terrorism. We will continue to support the international mediation eff orts in this brotherly country.

Concerning Yemen, Qatar supports the eff orts of the United Nations envoy to end the crisis in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 2216. We call upon all parties to a genuine national reconciliation to end this confl ict, preserve the stability, safety and territorial integrity of Yemen, and put an end to the suff ering of the Yemeni people, who are the major party to bear the whole brunt of the continuation of the war.

On this occasion, I also reiterate the call to the Government of Myanmar to put an end to the suffering of the Rohingya, and to resolve the crisis in a constructive dialogue that preserves the rights of all parties. Qatar will spare no effort in collaboration with friendly states and the international community in this regard.

In conclusion, I reiterate my appreciation to our pedigreed Qatari people and residents of the State for standing up with dignity and pride against the blockade.

God bless you with success, and may God’s peace, mercy and blessings be upon you.

Emir outlines strategy for fortifying economy

Three-day forecast

TODAY

FRIDAY

High: 31 C

Low : 23 C

High: 29 C

Low: 22 C

Weather report

Around the region

Abu DhabiBaghdadDubaiKuwait CityManamaMuscatRiyadhTehran

Weather todaySunnySunnySunnySunnySunnySunnySunnySunny

Around the world

Athens BeirutBangkok BerlinCairoCape Town ColomboDhakaHong KongIstanbulJakartaKarachiLondonManilaMoscowNew DelhiNew York ParisSao PauloSeoulSingaporeSydney Tokyo Cloudy

Max/min21/1524/1932/2609/0628/1718/1231/2529/2225/2218/1233/2531/1812/0933/2502/0128/1610/0811/0432/1906/-430/2522/1617/11

Weather todayRainSunnyS T StormsCloudySunnyS ShowersP CloudyS ShowersP CloudyP CloudyS T StormsSunnyCloudyP CloudyCloudyP CloudyM SunnyCloudyM SunnyP CloudyS T StormsCloudy

Fishermen’s forecast

OFFSHORE DOHAWind: NW 03-12/15 KTWaves: 1-3/4 Feet

INSHORE DOHAWind: NW-NE 05-15 KTWaves: 1-2 Feet

High: 29 C

Low: 24 C

THURSDAY

Inshore: Hazy at places at first becomes mild daytime with some clouds.

Sunny

Sunny

Max/min31/2428/1331/2129/1628/2329/2131/1618/08

Weather tomorrowSunnySunnySunnySunnySunnySunnySunnySunny

Max/min29/2427/1230/2230/1629/2429/2231/14

Max/min19/1225/1931/2509/0429/1620/1231/2426/2325/2317/1232/2530/1713/0432/2503/0028/1513/0312/0632/1906/-131/2523/1816/10

Weather tomorrowT StormsSunnyS T StormsP CloudySunnyCloudyP CloudyShowersP CloudyP CloudyS T StormsSunnyCloudyP CloudyRain & SnowP CloudyS ShowersP CloudyM SunnySunnyS T StormsCloudyClear

17/07

Turkish ambassador to Qatar Fikret Ozer.


QATAR


Qatar, Ethiopia sign accordsto cement bilateral relations

Qatar and Ethiopia yes-terday signed three agreements with a view

to further strengthening bilat-eral relations following a ses-sion of offi cial talks chaired by His Highness the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani and Prime Minister of Ethiopia Hailemariam Desalegn at the Emiri Diwan yesterday.

At the outset of the talks, the Emir welcomed the Ethiopian prime minister saying that the visit would contribute to ex-panding the bilateral relations between the two countries to a wider level.

The Ethiopian prime minister thanked the Emir for his invita-tion to visit Qatar, expressing the hope that the visit would result in further co-operation between the two countries at all levels. He un-derlined that Ethiopia stands with its principles and supports Qatar in establishing security and stability in the Gulf region and Africa.

During the talks, the Emir and the Ethiopian prime min-ister reviewed bilateral rela-tions and means of enhancing them in various fields, espe-cially in economy, tourism and investment sectors. The talks also tackled a number of regional and international is-sues of mutual interest, espe-cially the developments in the Middle East.

Following the session of talks, the Emir and the prime minister of Ethiopia witnessed the sign-ing of a number of agreements and Memoranda of Understand-ing between the two countries.

The Defence ministries of Qatar and Ethiopia signed a co-operation agreement. The two sides also signed an agreement on the abolition of visa require-ments for holders of diplomatic, private and service passports, and an agreement on mutual en-couragement and protection of investment.

The session of talks was at-tended by HE the Prime Minis-ter and Interior Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani and several ministers.

On the Ethiopian side, the talks were attended by the mem-bers of the offi cial delegation ac-

companying the prime minister.Following the agreement sign-

ing ceremony, the Emir hosted a luncheon banquet in honour of Ethiopian prime minister and his accompanying delegation, at the Emiri Diwan.

The banquet was attended by

HE the Prime Minister and Min-ister of Interior Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani and a number of ministers.

Earlier on arrival at the Emiri Diwan, the Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn was ac-corded an offi cial reception.

Emir holds off icial talks with Ethiopian prime minister

Qatar and Ethiopia sign agreements in defence co-operation, abolition of visa requirements for holders of diplomatic, private and service passports, and on mutual encouragement and protection of investment

QNADoha

His Highness the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani receiving Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn at the off icial reception ceremony at the Emiri Diwan yesterday.

His Highness the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani and Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn witness the signing of an agreement between Qatar and Ethiopia at the Emiri Diwan yesterday.

His Highness the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani and Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn at the off icial reception ceremony at the Emiri Diwan yesterday.

His Highness the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani holding talks with Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn at the Emiri Diwan yesterday.

Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, Chairperson of Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development, met yesterday with Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn. The meeting was attended by HE Sheikha Hind bint Hamad al-Thani, Vice Chairperson and CEO of Qatar Foundation. It discussed a number of topics related to co-operation in education and health, in addition to the ‘Education Above All’ foundation projects in Ethiopia. PICTURE: HHOPL/AR Al-Baker

HE the Prime Minister and Minister of Interior Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani yesterday met Ethiopian Premier Hailemariam Desalegn. The meeting reviewed means of developing co-operation between the two countries.

His Highness the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani meeting the members of the delegation accompanying the Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn at the Emiri Diwan yesterday.

Moroccan king's visit to Qatar successful - Gulf Times

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