New plan focuses on self-sufficiency, sustainable growth

In brief

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GULF TIMES

published in

QATAR

since 1978THURSDAY Vol. XXXIX No. 10758

March 15, 2018Jumada Il 27, 1439 AH www. gulf-times.com 2 Riyals

Ooredoo underpinsrole of cloud tech indiversifi cation drive

BUSINESS |

QATAR

REGION

ARAB WORLD

INTERNATIONAL

COMMENT

BUSINESS

CLASSIFIED

SPORTS

22, 23

1-6, 11-16

7-10

1-8

2-9, 24

10

10

11-21

INDEX

SPORT | Page 1

Mourinho under fi re aft er United’s meek exit

11-day culinary delight begins today QIFF Cooking Theatre

to feature 14 top celebrity chefs

By Joey AguilarStaff Reporter

Hollywood’s favourite chef, Wolfgang Puck, and Qatar’s very own Aisha al-Tamimi,

will take the centre stage today for an exchange of culinary insights “that spans from East to West,” marking the start of the 11-day Qatar International Food Festival (QIFF) 2018.

The discussion follows a live cook-ing demonstration by US Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto at the QIFF Cooking Theater, and a fireworks display above the Doha Corniche as a highlight of the event’s opening cer-emony.

“This year’s edition is not only the

culmination of months of prepara-tion but of the years of developing and growing the festival to be a platform that truly celebrates cultural diversity through food,” Qatar Tourism Author-ity’s (QTA) chief marketing and pro-motion offi cer Rashed al-Qurese said in a press statement.

“Qatar is now the most open coun-try in the region and QIFF is yet an-other echo of our message of welcome to the world,” he noted.

Al-Qurese cited the collaboration between the private and public sec-tors in organising this event, which will serve as a model for any future tourism-related initiatives QTA wants to do as part of the ‘Next Chapter of Qatar’s National Tourism Sector Strategy 2030’.

QIFF, the country’s longest-running food festival scheduled until March 25 at the Hotel Park, showcases a rich mix of fl avours, cultures and entertainment.

Qatar residents and visitors will

enjoy an array of gastronomic experi-ences, including a fresh farmers’ mar-ket, garden picnics and special festival menus at participating restaurants around the country.

The festival will be open from 4pm

to 12midnight on weekdays (Saturday to Wednesday) and extends to 1am on weekends (Thursday and Friday), ac-cording to QTA.

QIFF’s signature feature, the QIFF Cooking Theatre, returns this year to provide a space for connoisseurs and novices to learn how to handle, pre-pare, cook, present and even photo-graph food. It will feature a special theme, live competitions and demon-strations daily from 4pm to 10.30 pm.

US’ Christine Ha, Kuwait’s Sulaiman al-Qassar, Philippines’ Luis Rey ‘Nino’ Logarta, India’s Ranveer Barar, Leba-non’s Chef Ramzi, Turkey’s Murat Bo-zok and Qatar’s al-Tamimi are among the 14 internationally-renowned chefs who will share their secret ingredients and techniques.

Coff ee lovers will also envoy sipping their favourite drink at the coff ee zone, which will off er “a truly unique experi-ence.” To Page 24

Wolfgang Puck

New plan focuseson self-suffi ciency,sustainable growth

Building of human and institutional capacities highlighted

Stimulation of private sector, promotion of R&D stressed

By Santhosh V PerumalBusiness Reporter

Qatar yesterday unveiled its sec-ond fi ve-year national devel-opment strategy, amidst con-

tinuing economic blockade, focusing on building human and institutional capacities, developing an entrepre-neurial ecosystem and promoting research and development as part of eff orts to achieve sustainable develop-ment and self-suffi ciency.

Launching the 333-page second Na-tional Development Strategy 2018-22, HE the Prime Minister and Minister of Interior Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani said to achieve success and reach the goals of second NDS, “we must direct investments to meet the requirements of sustain-able development, continuously build human and institutional capacities, attract and retain high-skilled and productive labour force, support and develop entrepreneurial capabilities and promote research and develop-ment, inventions and creativity”.

The ceremony was attended by sev-eral ambassadors, ministers, offi cials in governmental and non-governmental sectors which are part of the strategy.

The premier said the fi rst national strategy had a positive impact and a rich planning experience at the na-tional level, has achieved multiple achievements.

HE Sheikh Abdullah emphasised sustainability as a principle in national development initiatives that stimu-lated important policy innovations, such as the development of a road

map to modernise the budget and the comprehensive development nation-al health policy, restructuring of the educational system, management of public investment, stimulation of the private sector and reform of the policy government support and guidance to target groups, rationalisation of public expenditure and conservation and de-velopment of natural resources.

One of the biggest challenges is cre-ating conducive conditions in which private sector activity can play a more active role in economic development and this issue has received renewed attention in the second NDS.

Elaborating on the new strategy, HE Dr Saleh Mohamed Salem al-Na-bit, Minister of Development Plan-ning and Statistics, said it requires all

government agencies to prepare their strategic and executive plans that are consistent with the second NDS and that can achieve their results within the specifi ed time frame.

“The national development priori-ties are the same priorities of the min-istries and government agencies. The interaction and partnership between the public and private sector needs to be increased and the role of civil so-ciety organisations in the implemen-tation of this strategy needs to be ex-panded,” he said.

As part of this wider reform eff ort, the second NDS sought to identify the ag-gregate resource envelope within which national development eff orts will have to proceed through to 2022, and the strate-gic considerations that ought to infl uence the allocation of those resources.

The MDPS led the comprehensive preparation process through the su-pervisory group – the highest au-thority in the governance structure of strategy preparation – chaired by al-Nabit and supported by relevant task forces.

The task forces reviewed the priori-ties in the fi rst NDS and the proposal for the sectoral development priorities. It also monitored the works and output of sectoral task forces, reviewed the draft of second NDS and endorsed the recommendations therein.Page 22

HE the Prime Minister and Minister of Interior Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani unveils Qatar’s second five-year plan in Doha yesterday.

Record deals signed at Dimdex 2018The Doha International Maritime

Defence Exhibition and Confer-ence (Dimdex 2018) concluded

yesterday, attracting close to 13,000 visitors over three days and witness-ing the signing of a ‘record’ number of agreements, the organisers said.

Dimdex 2018 was held under the patronage of His Highness the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, hosted and organised by the Qatar Armed Forces.

The sixth edition of Dimdex, which also marked its 10th anniversary, took place under the theme ‘World-Class Platform for Technology, Maritime & Defence Industry Capabilities’. It fea-tured four key elements, the exhibition, Middle East Naval Commanders Con-ference (MENC), visiting warships at Hamad Port and the hosting of VIP and senior offi cials from around the world.

The organisers said a ‘record’ number of agreements were signed at Dimdex 2018, with more than 35 partnerships being announced. Barzan Holdings (strategic partner), which was offi cially launched during the Dimdex opening ceremony, signed more than 20 memo-randums of understanding and partner-ship agreements with multiple regional and international defence companies, aimed at enhancing the military capa-bilities of the Qatar Armed Forces as well as the security and protection of the country’s natural resources.

The fi nal day of the exhibition saw HE the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of State for Defence Aff airs Dr Khalid bin Mohamed al-Attiyah visiting Hamad Port to thank the del-egations that accompanied the visit-ing warships for their participation in Dimdex 2018. Additionally, an agree-ment was signed in the presence of HE Dr al-Attiyah and the Italian Minister of Defence Roberta Pinotti for the pur-chase of 28 NH90 medium twin-en-gine multirole helicopters.

Commenting on the success of the event, Dimdex chairman Staff Brigadier (Sea) Abdulbaqi S al-Ansari said: “It was an honour welcoming and working with industry leaders and Qatar’s fore-most businesses that have ensured the continuous success of Dimdex. This year’s edition marked a special occa-sion as it celebrated its 10th anniver-sary. The highly anticipated industry event has once again proved itself as the Mena region’s premier maritime and defence exhibition.

“In addition to brand new techno-logical advancements that have been re-vealed at this year’s event, Dimdex also nurtures maritime and industry solu-tions and provides a collaborative des-tination to address current regional and international challenges, to advance and protect global defence and trade. We look forward to preparing for our next edition, Dimdex 2020.” To Page 5

Qatar, Italy sign helicopter deal

Qatar and Italy yesterday signed an agreement to purchase 28 NH90 helicopters through the Italian company, Leonardo. The two sides also signed a couple of agreements on aircraft long-range missile armament, and the purchase of automatic aircraft simulators for training purposes, QNA reported. The agreements were signed in the presence of HE the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of State for Defence Aff airs Dr Khalid bin

Mohamed al-Attiyah and Italian Minister of Defence Roberta Pinotti, in the course of the sixth Doha International Maritime Defence Exhibition and Conference (Dimdex 2018). Commander of the Emiri Air Force Helicopter Wing, Brig Mashout Faisal al-Hajri, said the three agreements would contribute greatly to enhancing the capabilities and eff iciency of the air force by owning the best and most modern aviation fleet in the world. Page 5

PM unveils 2nd National Development Strategy 2018-22

Italian minister praisesQatar’s anti-terror fi ghtQNADoha

Italian Defence Minister Roberta Pi-notti has underlined the signifi cant and pivotal role of Qatar in the fi ght

against terrorism and extremism in the region and the world.

In statements on the sidelines of Doha International Maritime Defence Exhibition and Conference (Dimdex 2018), the Italian minister expressed her great admiration for the Qatari efforts in this regard, noting that Qa-tar and Italy signed an agreement on the fight against terrorism and ex-tremism.

The minister also commended Qa-tar’s eff orts in combating violence by spreading science and culture and countering extremist ideology that

does not belong to any religion.Speaking about the repercussions

of the Gulf crisis, the Italian defence minister said her country is a friendly country for all and hopes that there will be an opportunity to restore har-mony to the Gulf family in the near future.

Commenting on the deals signed between Qatar and Italy in the fi elds of armament, training and military rehabilitation, the Italian minister ex-plained that the agreement signed con-tributes to strengthening the bilateral relations and enhancing bilateral and regional defence and security, noting that it includes important companies such as Leonardo.

She stressed the importance of strengthening co-operation between the two sides, especially in joint exer-cises.

3% economic growth expected in 2018

HE the Minister of Development Planning and Statistics Dr Saleh Mohamed Salem al-Nabit expected that Qatar’s economy to grow between 2 and 3% in 2018, while the non-oil sector is expected to achieve good growth rates, which are important growth rates under the current conditions in Qatar. This came in a press conference on the

sidelines of the launch of Qatar’s 2nd National Development Strategy (NDS2) 2018-2022. HE al-Nabit praised the role of the governmental and non-governmental bodies that participated in drawing up NDS2, which was formed following the eff orts of a team of about 150 people united in the endeavour, the goal, and the methodology.

QATAR | Offi cial

Emir condoles with Nepal, Bangladesh presidentsHis Highness the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani and His Highness the Deputy Emir Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamad al-Thani sent cables of condolences to Nepalese President Bidhya Devi Bhandari and Bangladesh President Muhammad Abdul Hamid on the victims of the Bangladeshi civil aircraft crash at the Tribhuvan International Airport in Nepal and wishing speedy recovery for the injured. HE the Prime Minister and Interior Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani also sent similar cables Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Nepalese Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Oli.

QATAR | Offi cial

Emir congratulatesNepal’s presidentHis Highness the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani and His Highness the Deputy Emir Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamad al-Thani sent cables of congratulations to Nepal President Bidhya Devi Bhandari on her re-election for a new term.

QATAR | Offi cial

Emir congratulatesGerman ChancellorHis Highness the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, His Highness the Deputy Emir Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamad al-Thani and HE the Prime Minister and Interior Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani sent cable of congratulations to German Chancellor Dr Angela Merkel on the occasion of her re-election for a new term.

QATAR

Gulf Times Thursday, March 15, 20182

HE the Prime Minister and Minister of Interior Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani met the Defence Minister of Italy, Roberta Pinotti, and the accompanying delegation in Doha yesterday. The two sides reviewed co-operation and the means to enhance it in all fields, particularly the security and defence. The Italian delegation was in Qatar to participate in the sixth Doha International Maritime Defence Exhibition (Dimdex 2018).

HE the Minister of State for Foreign Aff airs Sultan bin Saad al-Muraikhi yesterday met a high-level delegation from the Iraqi Foreign Ministry. During the meeting, they discussed the bilateral relations, means of enhancing co-operation and issues of common concern.

PM meets Italy’s defence minister

Qatar-Iraq ties reviewed

Qatar and Iraq sign MoU on enhancing security co-operation

Qatar and Iraq signed yesterday in Doha a Memorandum of

Understanding (MoU) to enhance security co-opera-tion between them.

Director General of Public Security Saad bin Jassim al-Khulaifi and Undersecretary of the Iraqi Minister of Inte-rior for Federal Intelligence and Investigations Maher Najm Abdul Hussein signed the MoU.

A large number of high-ranking security offi cers from the two countries at-tended the signing.

Al-Khulaifi said that the MoU aims at enhancing se-curity co-operation, co-or-dination, and the exchange of information and exper-tise between the two sides.

He highlighted the expe-riences that Iraq has accu-

mulated in the security fi eld, noting that they can also benefi t from Qatari expertise in using the latest technol-ogy in the security fi eld.

He noted in a press con-ference held after the sign-ing that the MoU covers al-most all fi elds from training and exchange of informa-tion in the fi eld of terrorism and its fi nance, to combat-ing drug and human traf-

fi cking, and money laundry.The MoU also covers se-

curity in airports and ports.The Director General of

Public Security said that the two sides are planning to form a joint committee of experts that will follow up on the im-plementation of the MoU, praising the strong co-opera-tion between the two sides in all fi elds.

For his part, Iraq’s Ministry

of Interior Undersecretary for Federal Intelligence and Investigations said that the MoU will create new oppor-tunities for co-operation that benefi t the two countries.

The Qatari and Iraqi side also held a talks session be-fore the signing ceremony where they discussed co-operation in the security fi eld and the means to en-hance it.

QNADoha

PM briefs Cabinet on outcome ofvisit to Morocco

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

bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani briefed the Cabinet yesterday on the outcome of his visit to Morocco on March 11 and 12, during which he chaired the the 7th meeting of the Qa-tari-Moroccan Joint Supreme Committee.

Giving details of yesterday’s Cabinet meeting, which was presided over by HE Sheikh Ab-dullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani at the Emiri Diwan, HE the Minister of Justice and Act-ing Minister of State for Cabinet Aff airs Dr Hassan Lahdan Saqr al-Mohannadi said:

The Prime Minister stressed that the Qatari-Moroccan Joint Supreme Committee and the agreements, programmes and Memoranda of Understanding signed on the occasion would boost the relations between the two countries and their bi-lateral co-operation in various fields for a strategic partner-ship that meets the aspirations of the two countries’ peoples, in accordance with the direc-tives of His Highness the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani and King Mohamed VI of Morocco.

After that the Cabinet re-viewed topics on its meeting’s agenda as following:

The Cabinet took the neces-sary measures to pass a draft

law on national service after it reviewed the recommendation of the Advisory Council on the draft law.

The Cabinet also took the necessary measures to issue a draft law amending some pro-visions of Law No 5 of 2015 regarding similar commercial, industrial and public shops and street vendors after it reviewed the recommendation of the Advisory Council on the draft law.

Pursuant to the amendment, a decision by the Cabinet, based on the proposal of the minister, shall determine the licence pe-riod according to the type of the shop.

The licence may be renewed for a period or other similar pe-riods after payment of the pre-scribed fee.

The competent department shall renew the licence accord-ingly at the request of the party concerned.

The Cabinet also approved the proposal of the Interior Ministry to amend some provi-sions of the Cabinet’s decision No 49 of 2013 on establishing the Standing Committee for Reviewing Recruitment Ap-plications at the Ministry of Interior.

It also approved a draft de-cision of the Minister of Mu-nicipality and Environment on the terms and conditions of the replacement procedure and the procedure of substituting and transferring the precondition of the government lands disposi-tion by the state to the benefi -

ciaries and the lands or housing owned by them.

The Cabinet approved the accession of Qatar to both the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

It also approved the hosting of the 14th edition of the World Islamic Economic Forum (WIEF) in 2018 in Doha and the partici-pation in the China International Import Expo (Shanghai — No-vember 5-10, 2018).

The Cabinet then reviewed the following topics and took the appropriate decisions:

1- The letter of the Minister of Development Planning and Statistics, and President of the Permanent Population Commit-tee on the annual report of the Committee.

2- The letter of the Minister of Economy and Commerce on the outcome of the 11th Minis-terial Conference of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) (Ar-gentina — December 2017). 3- The letter of the National Cyber Security Committee on the an-nual report of the Committee’s work in 2017.

The aim of this committee is to enhance the security of in-formation in the State to achieve comprehensive development plans in all areas through strate-gic guidance for the national ef-forts necessary to implement the goals set in the national strategy for cyber security and to co-op-erate with authorities concerned in this fi eld.

QNADoha

NHRC praises Qatari women’s achievements in various fi elds

The National Human Rights Committee of Qatar (NHRC) has

praised the positive steps taken by the Qatari govern-ment to develop women’s rights in education, such as the appointment of four women for the fi rst time as members of the Advisory Council and the appoint-ment of a woman as spokes-person of Qatar’s Foreign Ministry.

This came in a statement of the Secretary General of the NHRC, Maryam bint Abdullah al-Attiyah, on the occasion of the Commit-tee’s celebration of Interna-

tional Women’s Day.Al-Attiyah said that the

Committee, in turn, notes with deep regret the vio-lations suff ered by Qatari women because of the blockade imposed on Qa-tar since June 5, especially the right to education and family reunifi cation, point-ing out that these violations not only aff ected Qatari women, but also women in siege countries, as they were deprived of their most important rights, which constitutes a clear violation of international laws and charters of human rights.

She noted that the cel-ebration of International Women’s Day refl ects NHRC’s commitment to de-fend and protect women’s

rights for the development of a mature and well-in-formed society, stressing that the slogan of the cele-bration comes from the be-lief in the importance of ed-ucation of women as a solid foundation for any civilised and developed society.

Al-Attiyah added that NHRC noted the posi-tive steps taken by the Qa-tari government to protect women, in line with its commitment to the imple-mentation of the conven-tion on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women signed by Qatar.

In her statement, the secretary general of the NHRC reviewed the achievements made by

Qatari women in various fields, noting that in edu-cation, Qatar has achieved the principle of equal ac-cess to primary and sec-ondary education for both sexes, in addition to equal social security, while Qa-tari women enjoy full free-dom to participate in cul-tural and sporting events and receive full support and encouragement.

Al-Attiyah pointed out that the economic rights package for Qatari women is also witnessing remark-able growth by registering an increase in their presence in public and private sectors and in many jobs and non-traditional jobs, including civil aviation, police, mili-tary.

QNADoha

Director General of Public Security Saad bin Jassim al-Khulaifi and Undersecretary of the Iraqi Minister of Interior for Federal Intelligence and Investigations Maher Najm Abdul Hussein signing the MoU.

QATAR3Gulf Times

Thursday, March 15, 2018

MME and MEC launch ‘Qatar Farms’ programme to support local products

The Ministry of Munici-pality and Environment (MME), in co-operation

with the Ministry of Economy and Commerce (MEC), has launched “Qatar Farms” pro-gramme.

The programme – which is the largest in the country – is part of the government’s eff orts to support and stimulate national products.

Assistant Undersecretary for Agriculture Aff airs & Fisheries at the Ministry of Municipality and Environment Sheikh Dr Faleh bin Nasser al-Thani said that the “Qatar Farms” programme seeks to support the local agricultural products.

The local farms products are fresh and are of better quality than the imported ones. He said four supermarkets are partici-

pating in the “Qatar Farms” pro-gramme – Al-Meera, Carrefour, LuLu and Family Food Centre – to give an opportunity to local farmers.

He pointed out that high qual-ity local vegetables like tomato, cucumber, squash, pepper, egg-plant, cabbage, broccoli, and herbs will be available at reason-able prices during the event at these supermarkets.

“We are trying through such programmes and initiatives to reduce the interference of in-termediaries in the process of selling national agricultural products to benefi t both farmers and consumers,” the offi cial said, pointing out that the availabil-ity of local products has led to a 50% reduction in prices of the imported ones.

He said in February, about 300 tonnes of Qatari agricultural products were marketed.

In his statement, Sheikh Faleh said that various investment

opportunities in the agricul-tural sector await the private

sector, while the establishment of a new marketing centre for

the conservation, storage, and packaging of Qatari agricultural

products is underway. He noted that the Ministry of

Municipality and Environment is working to extend the local production season to 12 months instead of 9 months.

The Ministry of Economy and Commerce also played a promi-nent role in launching several initiatives aimed at boosting national production and sup-porting local factories, entrepre-neurs and companies.

The Ministry announced the launch of “National Product” initiatives in co-operation with major commercial and consum-er complexes.

The Ministry has also co-op-erated with the Bidaya Centre and Al Meera Consumer Com-pany to expand the National Product initiative through a partnership that provides the opportunity for emerging na-tional companies to showcase and market their food items at large consumer stores.

QNADoha

Assistant Undersecretary for Agriculture Aff airs & Fisheries at the Ministry of Municipality and Environment Sheikh Dr Faleh bin Nasser al-Thani visiting the ‘Qatar Farms’ section at LuLu Gharafa.

Assistant Undersecretary for Agriculture Aff airs & Fisheries at the Ministry of Municipality and Environment Sheikh Dr Faleh bin Nasser al-Thani inaugurating the ‘Qatar Farms’ programme at Al Kheesa Family Food Centre.

Assistant Undersecretary for Agriculture Aff airs & Fisheries at the Ministry of Municipality and Environment Sheikh Dr Faleh bin Nasser al-Thani cutting a cake to mark the launch of ‘Qatar Farms’ programme at LuLu Gharafa.

OFFICIAL

Qatar reported real estate transactions of QR276,706,186 from March 4 to 8, off icial data released by the Ministry of Justice showed yesterday.The types of real estate traded included plots of land, houses, multi-use buildings, a residential building and a residential compound.Most of the trading took place in the municipalities of Al Rayyan, Umm Salal, Al Da’ayen, Al Shamal, Al Wakrah, Al Khor and Al Dhakira.

Commander of the Joint Special Forces Brigadier General Hamad bin Abdullah al-Fetais al-Marri yesterday met South Korea’s Defence Attache to Qatar.During the meeting, they discussed bilateral relations in the defence and military fields as well as means of enhancing and developing them.

President of the Czech Republic Milos Zeman received the credentials of Sheikh Saoud bin Abdulrahman al-Thani Qatar’s non-resident ambassador to the country.During the meeting, the ambassador conveyed His Highness the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani’s greetings to the Czech president. The Czech president reciprocated the greetings of the Emir, wishing Qatar continuous progress, development and prosperity.The president also wished the ambassador success in his duties.

Qatar-South Koreadefence relations reviewed

Envoy presentscredentials

Real estate transactions


QATAR4

Recall of Compass, Patriot modelsThe Ministry of Economy and Commerce (MEC),

in collaboration with United Cars Almana, has

announced the recall of Jeep Compass and

Patriot models of 2016 over the power failure of

the motor shaft sensor. The MEC said the recall

campaign comes within the framework of its on-

going eff orts to protect consumers and ensure

that automobile 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 and will communicate with cus-

tomers to ensure that the necessary repairs are

carried out. The MEC has urged all customers to

report any violations to its Consumer Protec-

tion 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

Al Meera opens new outlet in Al KhorAl Meera Consumer Goods

Company has opened its 48th store in Al Khor in the frame-

work of its ongoing eff orts to bring its trademark shopping experience to residents across the country.

The opening ceremony took place in the presence of Al Meera chair-man Sheikh Thani bin Thamer bin Mohamed al-Thani, Al Meera vice-chairman Dr Saif al-Sowaidi, Al Meera board member Mohamed Abdula al-Mustafawi al-Hashemi, businessman Ahmad Siddiqi, Al Meera acting CEO Cobus Lombard, and Al Meera Deputy CEO Salah al-Hammadi, as well as a number of executives.

Measuring 3,549.28 sq m, the shopping centre is designed to ca-ter to family shopping experience. It adheres to world-class standards at the service of consumer needs, and will provide residents with all their requirements under one roof. The mall was built in line with the company’s objective of being the ‘Favourite Neighbourhood Retailer’.

Al Meera Supermarket is equipped with modern interior designs and shelving installations, state-of-the-art technology and facilities, along with providing the most popular fresh sections. Al-Hammadi said: “It’s great that more people than ever before have access to our high quality, fresh, and locally sourced products at incredible value, and as a result, we’re able to create more jobs for local communities in the country.”

He added: “As with every new branch that Al Meera opens, Al Khor branch is designed to exceed con-sumers’ expectations with a distinc-tive, integrated shopping experience that sets the benchmark for retail chains across the country. This dem-onstrates our tangible contribution to the real-estate development of every neighbourhood in the country.

“The new branch will provide consumers with a wide range of products, while following the high-est international standards for qual-ity assurance in processes, proce-

dures and services – synonymous with its objective of being every-one’s ‘Favourite Neighbourhood Re-tailer’”.

The opening of Al Khor branch follows the launch of Al Meera’s lat-est state-of-the-art stores through-out Qatar, as part of its plan to in-troduce a number of new shopping centres to consumers across ei-ther underserved regions or others witnessing a population boom. Al Meera is currently working on the setup of more branches in locations that have been carefully chosen in close co-ordination with the Min-istry of Municipality and Environ-ment (MME) to further contribute to the development and urbanisa-tion of more districts and territo-ries. The ambitious expansion plan has been set in motion as an answer to Al Meera’s strategic research and its mission to continue serving the diverse communities in Qatar wher-ever they are, while eff ectively con-tributing to the urban development of the country.

Al Meera off icials and dignitaries lead the ribbon-cutting ceremony of the newly-opened Al Khor branch.

CRA hosts events for ‘Consumer Rights Day’

The Communications Reg-ulatory Authority (CRA) is commemorating the

World Consumer Rights Day (WCRD) with a public outreach event to be held from today to March 18 at Katara – the Cultural Village. Throughout the event, CRA intends to empower con-sumers of communications serv-ices to understand their rights and responsibilities so they have a more satisfactory experience.

The CRA will engage with con-sumers and raise awareness of issues relating to the use of com-munications services in Qatar at the event in front of L’wzaar Restaurant at Katara’s Gate 14-15 from 4:30pm to 9pm.

During the event, there will be activities for kids and adults, and CRA’s team will provide tips to help visitors better understand their rights and responsibilities. A CRA team will also educate consumers on other topics re-lated to roaming and spam and scam calls.

The highlight of the event is an opportunity for visitors to lodge complaints against licensed serv-ice providers of communications services onsite and learn more about CRA’s complaints resolu-tion process.

“The CRA ensures to balance the rights of consumers with the needs of service providers there-fore it is important that consum-ers know their rights and respon-sibilities. This will help them make informed decisions. I would like to invite all consumers to join us at the event,” said Consumer Aff airs Department manager Amel Salem al-Hanawi.

Consumers are free to ap-proach the CRA if a complaint lodged directly to their service provider remains unresolved.

Consumers can lodge a com-plaint with CRA after 48 hours for mobile service disconnec-tions, after 72 hours for fi xed line disconnections, or after 30 cal-endar days for complaints that aren’t related to a service discon-nection.

They can also contact CRA any time if they are dissatisfi ed with the off ered resolution of the closed complaint. Special needs consumers can lodge complaints to CRA for service disconnec-tions or any other unresolved issues as long as a period of 48 hours has passed.

Complaints are assessed by CRA against a set of criteria to validate a complaint. The CRA receives and investigates com-plaints by working with both the complainant and service provid-ers to fi nd a fair and mutually ac-ceptable resolution. Consumers of communications services can contact CRA by calling the 24/7 hotline number (103), via [email protected], Twit-ter @CRAqatar, by visiting the CRA’s headquarters at Al Nasr Tower B, submitting online com-plaints form on CRA’s website, or through the ‘Arsel’ mobile App.

Consumer Aff airs Department manager Amel Salem al-Hanawi.

Signals to replace roundabouts in Wadi Al Salmiya Street

Three roundabouts are to be turned to signal-controlled in-tersections on Wadi Al Salmiya

Street which connects Al Kharaityat Interchange with Al Rufaa Street in Al Kharaitiyat Area, Ashghal announced yesterday. To facilitate the works, a diversion will be in place on Wadi Al Salmiya Street on dual carriageways as the vehicle movement will be shifted onto a 1500m-long parallel route com-prising three roundabouts and two lanes in each direction. The new layout will be in eff ect between March 16 and September 30.

There will be two signalised junc-tions replacing two roundabouts, one to link Zikreet Street with Wadi Al Salmiya Street and another to connect Gharrafat Al Rayyan Street with Wadi Al Salmiya Street.

The third roundabout on Wadi Al Salmiya connecting Wadi Al Mashreb Street and Barqa Al Hamil Street will be changed into a T-Junction. The

new reconstruction will increase the number of lanes at the new intersec-tions from two to three. The fresh revamp will largely improve traffi c leading to and from Al Shamal Road, notably Al Kharaitiyat Interchange, Al Kharaitiyat Area and local approaches

such as Zikreet Street and Gharrafat Al Rayyan towards Al Rufaa Street and Dukhan Road. Also, the upgrade will-boost traffi c to areas of Bani Hajer, Al Wajbah and Al Rayyan besides the key close facilities, including Mall of Qatar and Celebration Complex.

Traffi c Week from March 18-24

The 34th Traffi c Week will be held from March 18 to

24 at Darb Al Saai. The event will be entitled ‘Your life is a trust’.

Colonel Mohamed Radi al-Hajiri, direc-tor of Traffi c Awareness Department, told a press conference that the activ-ities will be open for the public from 8am to 9pm in two shifts.

More than 60 entities will join the celebration this year. There will be ac-tivities in diff erent parts of the country other than Doha under the Traffi c Departments in Shamal, South and Dukhan. Major Jabir Mohamed Odhaiba, assistant director of Traf-

fi c AwareAss Department said that the associated activities include events at Souq Waqif, Traffi c Fort and special areas for families.

The main venue in Darb Al Saai include ac-tivities for children and some youth initiatives through youth hostel centres and Qatar Uni-versity. The ministries, authorities and agen-cies concerned will take part in awareness pro-grammes. There will be a debate among high school students under the title “Driving with-out a licence between re-jection and acceptance”.

The seminar corner to be organised throughout

the week will address a number of traffi c issues.

There will be special counters for the traffi c licensing aff airs depart-ment to introduce licens-ing procedures, Metrash 2 services and theoreti-cal and practical tests of driving.

There will be traffi c-re-lated contests daily spon-sored by driving schools. The event includes ac-tivities and pavilions of Lakhwiya, a motorcycle circuit, Batabit Qatar, as well as the activities of Al Shaqab. It also includes a traffi c village in co-op-eration with Shell, which includes a range of aware-ness activities suitable for all ages.

Colonel Mohamed Radi al-Hajiri (right) explains a point as Major Jabir Mohamed Odhaiba looks on yesterday. PICTURE: Shaji Kayamkulam

QATAR5


Qatar signs deal to buy 28 choppersQatar yesterday signed an

agreement with Italy to purchase 28 NH90 heli-

copters through aerospace and defence group Leonardo. The two sides also signed two agreements on long-range missile carrier air-craft, and purchase of automatic aircraft simulators for training purposes.

The agreements were signed in the presence of HE Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of State for Defence Aff airs Dr Khalid bin Mohammed al-Attiyah and Ital-ian Defence Minister Roberta Pi-notti, at the Doha International Maritime Defence Exhibition and Conference (Dimdex 2018).

Emiri Air Force helicopter wing commander Brig Mashout Faisal al-Hajri said in statements that the three agreements will con-tribute greatly to enhancing the

capabilities and effi ciency of the air force by owning the best and most modern aviation fl eet in the world.

He explained that the aircraft agreement includes 16 NH90s in tactical transport (TTH) confi guration and 12 NH90s in naval (NFH) confi guration. “The acquisition will support the country’s plan to modern-ise the military helicopter fl eet. As part of the plan, Qatar will receive 16 H125 light single-engine helicopters in training confi guration.”

He noted that Leonardo will be the main contractor for the 28 aircraft, and the delivery and provision of logistics support for a total of 12 helicopters dedicated to marine applications, adding that this European aircraft is the newest in the world, and that the

receipt of new aircraft will be over the next three years. He said that the agreement includes the train-ing of pilots, technicians and arms operators.

Brig al-Hajri said that the sec-ond agreement was signed with MBA, one of the best companies in the world to arm helicopters, pointing out that the agreement includes the arming of aircraft with long-range missiles, Apache helicopter, while the third agree-ment includes the purchase of two of the automatic simulators of the NH90 aircraft for training.

He stressed that the three agreements will signifi cantly sup-port the system of modernisation and development at the Emiri Air Force, both in arming or training and rehabilitation, in accordance with the plans and strategies for the armed forces.

For his part, Leonardo chief ex-ecutive offi cer Alessandro Profumo said that the NH90 helicopter is the most versatile in its class. “The aircraft for Qatar will be equipped with a range of integrated systems developed and provided by Leon-ardo to meet the most challenging requirements.”

He expressed pleasure for sign-ing the contract which extends and continues Leonardo’s long and strong partnership with Qa-tar, through a wide range of ad-vanced technology, customised solutions in the military and secu-rity fi elds.

The medium-sized, twin-en-gine NH90 helicopters have the ability to carry out various tasks in diffi cult conditions and have proven eff ective and effi cient in many tasks and operations around the world. (QNA)

Barzan signs seven agreements at DimdexBarzan Holdings, the fi rst

defence and security com-pany responsible for em-

powering the military capabili-ties of the Qatar Armed Forces, has concluded its participation at Dimdex 2018 by signing a further seven agreements with leading international defence companies from around the world.

“According to military and civilian delegates visiting the impressive Barzan Holdings pa-vilion at Dimdex - the largest at the exhibition - Barzan Hold-ings’ presence has been a huge boost for the event, and Barzan Holdings acts as a new landmark for Qatar’s defence industry,” according to a statement.

On the third and last day of Dimdex, Rheinmetall Barzan Advanced Technologies (RBAT), which is Barzan Holdings’ joint venture (JV) with German de-fence company Rheinmetall AG, signed four agreements.

RBAT signed a notice to pro-ceed to build an ammunition production plant in Qatar to produce various types of am-munition, ranging from medium calibre rounds to aircraft bombs and missile assembly. It is ex-pected that over 200 skilled jobs will be directly generated in con-nection with the plant.

An MoU was signed be-tween RBAT, Barzan Holdings and other Ministry of Defence stakeholders to produce explo-sive ordnance in Qatar, and the formal training of specialists in explosive ordnance.

In the presence of the Com-mander of Qatar’s National Service, RBAT signed an agree-ment to establish a highly re-alistic laser training solution that will simulate live training scenarios within a mock urban environment to help ensure that Qatari National Service Cadets are prepared in the best possible way to serve the nation.

RBAT signed an agreement with the Qatar Emiri Naval Forc-es to provide critical infrastruc-ture protection to safeguard military and economic sites in Qatar, including fully integrated security and surveillance sys-tems for a new naval base.

Barzan Holdings signed two agreements with Qatar Science and Technology Park (QSTP), fi rst to develop research related to defence and security with the support of QSTP’s facilities, and second for Barzan Holdings to rent a 40,000sq m dedicated space for R&D at QSTP’s Tech 4 building, exclusively for the use of Barzan Holdings and its JV companies.

The signing ceremony was conducted in the presence of QSTP chairman Dr Hamad al-Ibrahim. He stated after the ceremony that: “We are in con-tinuous collaboration with dif-ferent military and security sectors in Qatar for experimen-tation in many specialised areas of research in line with Qatar’s present and future needs.”

Dr al-Ibrahim also stated that QSTP has a lot of communica-tion with various countries, in-cluding the US and Turkey and QSTP will continue all of its en-deavours to come out with the best practices and methodolo-gies related to research and de-velopment.

As a result, QSTP has launched its initiatives with the Ministry of Defence in co-ordination with Qatar Scientifi c Research Fund to support post-graduate schol-arship students for the benefi t of all parties.

Barzan Holdings signed an agreement with Italian company Beretta Holding, for Beretta to supply rifl es to Qatar for use by diff erent military sectors. The fi rst shipment will be made in April this year, and represents the fi rst phase in an agreement

with Beretta Holding to create a JV named “Bindig.” The second phase of the agreement will see Bindig manufacture pistols and rifl es under the Bindig name in Qatar at the Barzan Industrial Zone, a 26sq km area designated by the Ministry of Defence.

The Zone, designed based on the needs of the Qatar Armed Forces, is divided into three main parts: testing and evaluation; administration and residential; and the Industrial Military Area where Bindig’s production and manufacturing factory will be located in large hangers with safety perimeters.

The signing ceremony with Beretta Holding was attended by HE the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of State for Defence Aff airs Dr Khalid bin Mohamed al-Attiyah and the Italian Min-ister of Defence Roberta Pinotti.

Barzan Holdings managing director Nasser al-Naimi stated that the agreement with Beretta Holding represents a strategic deal between Qatar and Italy, and is fi rmly in line with Barzan Holdings’ objective of meeting Qatar’s long-term defence and security needs.

“By manufacturing pistols and rifl es in Qatar, Bindig is not only empowering the capabili-ties of the Qatar Armed Forces but also bringing new tech-nologies and industry to the economy, and is helping to build Qatar’s human capital through knowledge exchange,” he explained.

During the three days of Dimdex, Barzan Holdings has signed a total of 24 agreements with international partners, marking a new beginning in Qatar’s defence industry that will strengthen Qatar’s self-suffi ciency in defence through building human and technologi-cal capital, and facilitating new research and development.

HE the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of State for Defence Aff airs Dr Khalid bin Mohamed al-Attiyah and the Italian Minister of Defence Roberta Pinotti look on as top off icials of Barzan Holdings and Beretta Holding sign the agreement at Dimdex 2018.

HE the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of State for Defence Aff airs Dr Khalid bin Mohamed al-Attiyah has met with the commanders of warships that participated in the Doha International Maritime Defence Exhibition and Conference (Dimdex 2018).

Al-Attiyah meets commanders of warships

Chairman: Next Dimdex edition will be larger

Doha International Mari-time Defence Exhibition and Conference (Dim-

dex 2018) organising commit-tee chairman Staff Brigadier (Sea) Abdulbaqi Saleh al-Ansari has said the next edition of the event will be larger and more sophisticated.

This comes after exhibitors and heads of the participating offi cial delegations at Dimdex 2018 stressed their intention to actively participate in the next edition after they wit-nessed the size of the exhibi-tion, the organisation and de-mand, as well as the number of deals concluded.

Staff Brigadier (Sea) al-An-sari said in a statement that the organising committee was praised by all visitors, partici-pating delegations and offi cials of the pavilions and companies, both in terms of the size of the exhibition and its organisation.

He noted that the equipment presented by Dimdex were di-verse and not limited to maritime defence only. They also include land, air and electronic equip-ment, especially in the fi eld of cybersecurity, which adds to the comprehensiveness of this year’s edition, which features devices and equipment that are presented for the fi rst time.

He pointed out that the deals signed at the conference in-cluded international partner-ships, armament agreements and memorandums of under-standing with Barzan Holding, the Qatar Emiri Naval Forces and Joint Special Forces.

He expected a signifi cant in-crease in the number and value of agreements, thanks to the modernisation and development witnessed by the Qatari armed forces in all sectors.

Meanwhile, Emiri Air Defence Forces Commander Major Gen-eral Hamad Mubarak al-Douai said Qatar has one of the best air defence systems in the world, stressing that support from the

top leadership made them pos-sess the best and most modern defence systems in the world.

In a statement, he said work is under way to implement future projects within the framework of modernisation and develop-ment in arming and training and enhancing the capabilities of the Air Defence Forces and qualify-ing its personnel according to the plans and strategies of the Qatar Armed Forces.

He noted that the establish-ment of the Air Defence Train-ing Centre in 2016 contributed greatly to enhancing the capa-bilities of air defence personnel. It also graduated a number of batches to join their counter-parts in other branches of the armed forces.

He stressed that organising Dim-dex in the current circumstances, and amid the unjust blockade im-posed on Qatar, represents a major challenge that refl ects the extent of the support given by the State to this global event and the eff orts exerted by those responsible for its organisation.

QNADoha

Ecuador evinces interest in used ships, aircraft

Ecuador has evinced inter-est in buying used fi ghter aircrafts and battleships

from Qatar, Ecuador’s Defence Minister Patricio Zambrano Re-strepo said in Doha yesterday.

Restropo was leading an of-fi cial delegation at the Doha International Maritime De-fence Exhibition and Confer-ence (Dimdex 2018), that con-cluded at the Qatar National Convention Centre yesterday.

While expressing happiness at the discussions with his de-fence counterparts from Qatar and some other participat-ing countries at the exhibition, the Ecuadorian minister said he could realise that Qatar is in possession of some of the most sophisticated equipment, fi ght-er planes and battleships.

“We have adequate require-ments of battleships to provide protection and security to the seas around our country as there have been incidents of pirate ac-tivities,” he said, citing the rea-sons for showing interest in buy-ing ships and aircraft from Qatar.

Restropo described Dimdex as one of the most advanced

By Ramesh MathewStaff Reporter

exhibitions of naval and defence equipment he has ever came across. “The equipment show-cased at the expo were of ex-tremely good quality,” he said.

Restrapo also extended an in-vitation to a high-level defence delegation from Qatar to visit his country. A month ago, a ministe-rial delegation from Ecuador had met the Qatar Airways manage-ment and sought a direct service between Qatar and Quito.

Ecuadorian Armed Forces Commander Caeser Merizalde said he was highly impressed by the exhibits at Dimdex and high-level of participation by various delegations. “I am hopeful that our country would have a bigger delegation at the next edition of Dimdex,” he said.

Ecuador Naval Staff chief Re-nan Ruiz Cornejo said he visited the exhibition of warships at the Hamad Port and was ex-

tremely pleased to have toured some of the most equipped warships from the UK, the US, Italy, India, Pakistan, Oman and Bangladesh.

At the meeting yesterday, Re-strapo lauded the eff orts being made by Ecuador’s ambassador to Qatar Ivonne Juez ABaki in helping their country build ex-tremely good bilateral relations with Qatar in such a short period after her arrival in Qatar.

Minister of Defence from Ecuador Patricio Zambrano Restrepo (second from left) with Ecuadorian Armed Forces Commander Merizalde Caesar (left), ambassador Ivonne A-Baki and Chief of Naval Staff Renan Ruiz Cornejo yesterday: PICTURE: Ram Chand

From Page 1Acting as a platform for present-

ing state-of-the-art technologies, global industry giants utilised Dim-dex 2018 to debut their latest prod-ucts, including global fi rsts for Le-onardo showing the OTO Marlin 40 naval turret and BAE Systems design

of the Type 31e frigate, as well as for the fi rst time in the Middle East, Sofresud’s Intuitive Pointing Device naval gun.

As one of the four key elements of the show, the fi rst day of Dim-dex 2018 saw the arrival of 11 visit-ing ships from Qatar, Oman, Italy,

USA, the UK, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh at Hamad Port. These included the UK’s RFA Cardigan Bay, a Bay-class landing ship dock, and HMS Middleton, a Hunt-class mine countermeasures ves-sel, as well as India’s INS Kolkata, the lead ship of the Kolkata-class

stealth guided-missile destroyers. In addition, an offi cial gala dinner was hosted at the Sheraton Grand Doha Resort & Convention Hotel, where ceremonial shields were presented to naval ship command-ers of visiting warships and offi cial sponsors.

Record deals signed at Dimdex 2018

6 Gulf TimesThursday, March 15, 2018

QATAR

Indian schools toreopen on Sept 9Indian schools in Qatar will

reopen on September 9 af-ter the summer vacation as

the Ministry of Education and Higher Education has approved a request from the institutions.

The Ministry has also re-voked the decision to reduce the upper age limit for KG class admission by one year fol-lowing the request of Indian schools and allowed them to follow the existing practice.

Further, Indian schools have been exempted from a week-long break in April announced by the Ministry for all schools in the country. This is because the academic year of Indian schools ends in March and students get a break at the end of March.

K C Abdul Latheef, president of Shantiniketan Indian School, and Dr Subhash Nair, convener of Indian School Principals’ Fo-rum have expressed gratitude

to the Ministry for understand-ing the concerns and for the timely decision that supports them.

Indian schools had earlier had announced that they would reopen in the fi rst week of Sep-tember after the summer vaca-tion. However, a recent direc-tive of the Ministry asking the schools to reopen by the end of August had put the schools and parents under great stress as they had already made arrange-ments for their return after the vacation.

The new directive gives a great relief to the parents as they do not need to make changes and re-book their air tickets. This special permission is only for this year and all In-dian schools are committed to follow from next year the min-istry calendar for reopening af-ter the vacation.

CMU-Q alumni honouredfor academic excellenceThree Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar (CMU-Q) alumni received the Education Excellence Award from His Highness the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani at a recent ceremony. Omar al-Emadi received the platinum award, while Noor al-Mana and Alanood al-Muftah received the gold award. “It is a deep honour that three of our recent graduates were recognised with this award,” CMU-Q dean Michael Trick said. “At Carnegie Mellon, we strive to educate global citizens who will make a diff erence in their own, unique ways. Omar, Noor and Alanood are very deserving of the award and I wish them every success in their careers.” All three graduated from

CMU-Q in 2017. Al-Emadi, a business administration graduate is now a strategy and investment analyst at beIN Media Group. Al-Mana, also a business major, is a marketing finance analyst at Qatar Shell, and al-Muftah, an information systems graduate, is an information systems analyst at Qatar Central Bank.The Education Excellence Award is presented by the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, and given to students who have demonstrated achievement in the classroom and pass a rigorous interview process. Winners are also judged on their community involvement, extracurricular activities and leadership roles.

1,250 students takingpart in Money WeekA number of Qatari entities

and businesses, includ-ing Qatar Financial Cen-

tre (QFC), Qatar Stock Exchange (QSE), QNB, Injaz Qatar, Bedaya Centre and Qatar University, have launched Money Week Qa-tar 2018 under the motto ‘Money Matters Matter’.

The initiative is part of the Global Money Week, an annual worldwide campaign to raise awareness of the importance of fi nancial education and inclusion for children and youth. Some 137 countries are taking part in the week-long event, which runs un-til March 17.

Global Money Week aims to promote the importance of fi -nancial rights, especially for children and youth. Today, less than 1% of children in the world have access to fi nancial educa-

tion and fi nancial inclusion. Fi-nancial illiteracy results in many young people struggling with large amounts of debt, which re-sults in negative repercussions on their development and well-being.

For Money Week Qatar, spon-sored by QNB, as many as 1,250 primary school students from 15 schools across Doha is taking part in a range of activities with an aim to instil within them the value of money, saving for the future and spending money re-sponsibly.

QNB’s sponsorship of this event comes within its corporate social responsibility (CSR), long-term strategy and its ongoing ef-forts aimed at achieving human and social development, build-ing a knowledge-based economy, and achieving sustainable devel-

opment in line with Qatar Na-tional Vision 2030.

A variety of volunteers from across the community, includ-ing fi nancial professionals from international institutions, local businesses and senior students, are taking time throughout the week to teach the children in-teractive and engaging lessons in fi nancial management. In ad-dition, the children will have the opportunity to visit QSE.

The QFC, the main partner for Money Week Qatar, fi rmly believes that education, skills and training are the fundamen-tal pillars needed when forging a knowledge-based society capa-ble of positively contributing to and diversifying Qatar’s econo-my, a press statement notes.

As a part of its CSR, the QFC continues to take part in such in-

itiatives in an eff ort to give back to the local community, provide youth with the necessary tools to enter and prosper in the work-force, and help establish leaders of tomorrow.

Yousuf Mohamed al-Jaida, chief executive offi cer of the QFC Authority, said: “Children and youth are the next generation of change makers and through this initiative we can ensure that we are doing our very best to empow-er them to develop the right skills they need to make smart fi nancial decisions throughout their life.”

Rashid bin Ali al-Mansoori, CEO of QSE, noted: “We sub-scribe fully to the goals of Glo-bal Money Week and Child & Youth Finance International in providing our youth with the knowledge that will allow them to develop the necessary skills to

make smart fi nancial decisions throughout their lives.”

San Lie, project leader – Glo-bal Money Week Qatar, added: “Last year, I started off with only one school; this year, with the help of all volunteers and our new partners we grew it to 15 schools. Hopefully, next year all primary schools in Qatar will participate.”

Money Week was launched eight years ago by Queen Máxima of the Netherlands. Since then, it has grown into a worldwide initi-ative with over 130 countries and more than 7mn children partici-pating every year.

Dr Bahia Tahzib-Lie, ambas-sador of the Netherlands to Qa-tar, said: “It is never too early, or too late for young people to gain the fi nancial skills they will need to shape their lives and enhance their future well-being.”

Children participating in the Money Week Qatar programme.

QNB seeks to boost children’smoney management skills

QNB is participating as the main sponsor in Global Money Week Qatar 2018,

organised in Qatari schools by Qa-tar Financial Centre and the Neth-erlands embassy under the theme ‘Money Matters Matter’.

The bank has also conducted a number of interactive sessions and workshops in classrooms at 15 primary schools in Qatar, tar-geting 1,250 students aged 6-12 years.

These activities were aimed at developing the basic skills of chil-dren in the fi eld of money manage-ment and planning to ensure a sta-ble fi nancial future, QNB said in a statement.

“QNB’s sponsorship of this event echoes its keenness to support vari-ous initiatives meant to raise aware-ness among children in Qatar about the importance of fi nancial educa-tion, fi nancial inclusion and princi-ples of good fi nancial management as essential tools to help them plan a stable fi nancial future,” the state-ment noted.

Observed in 137 countries world-wide in the second week of March, the Global Money Week is an annual

fi nancial awareness campaign built to inspire children and young peo-ple to learn about money matters, livelihoods, fi nancial inclusion and entrepreneurship.

QNB Group’s presence through its subsidiaries and associate com-panies extends to more than 31

countries across three continents providing a comprehensive range of advanced products and serv-ices. The total number of employ-ees is more than 28,200 operating through more than 1,230 locations, with an ATM network of over 4,300 machines.

The activities are aimed at developing the basic skills of children in the field of money management and planning to ensure a stable financial future.

HMC stepping up colorectalcancer awareness campaign

Colorectal cancer is the third most commonly diagnosed cancer in Qatar and a leading

cause of cancer-related deaths in both men and women in the coun-try, according to the Hamad Medi-cal Corporation.

“Colorectal cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer-related deaths in Qatar. To reduce the number of cases we are doubling our educational and awareness ef-forts and highlighting preventive measures,” Dr Mohamed Abunada, lead colorectal surgeon at HMC said.

“We are also working hard to im-prove the treatment off ered to peo-ple diagnosed with the disease by

implementing the latest and best surgical techniques,” Dr Abunada said.

Statistics released by the Min-istry of Public Health’s Qatar Na-tional Cancer Registry indicate that among all male cancer cases in Qatar in 2015, colorectal can-cer was the second most common with 94 new cases reported, fol-lowed by leukaemia with 65 new cases.

Colorectal cancer is cancer that starts in the colon or rectum.

Also known as bowel or colon cancer, most colorectal cancers be-gin as a growth called a polyp on the inner lining of the colon or rectum.

Polyps are often non-cancerous,

but some can develop into cancer.He said colorectal cancer symp-

toms may not be immediately ap-parent but can include a change in bowel habits, for example, diar-rhoea or constipation, a change in stool consistency, rectal bleeding or blood in the stool, persistent ab-dominal discomfort and belly pain, weakness and fatigue, and unin-tended weight loss.

National Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month is held every year in March, and this year the National Centre for Cancer Care and Re-search (NCCCR) is using the occa-sion to host activities designed to raise public awareness of colorectal cancer.

QATAR7Gulf Times


‘Al Bidda Park SpringBazaar’ opens todayAl Bidda Park, in collabo-

ration with QSports, will officially open the

first ‘Al Bidda Park Spring Ba-zaar’ today, it was announced in a statement.

The Spring Bazaar will be the first public event to be held at the newly-opened park where over 60 exhibition booths have been setup, along with 15 food court kiosks and a variety of children’s games that include a 1,000sqm outdoor trampoline park, bike rentals, trackless train, and a 15m-high giant in-flatable slide.

The event will run for seven weeks until May 8.

The bazaar off ers a wide vari-ety of products and services such as handicrafts, abayas, jalabiyas, scarves, Arabic perfumes, ac-cessories and other products, targeting citizens, residents, and tourists.

Residents can also enjoy spe-cial weekend stage performanc-es and kids’ games with a chance to win prizes.

QSports, the offi cial event organisers, announced that the door is still open to entrepre-neurs, retailers, restaurants that wish to participate in the Spring Bazaar 2018.

Participating businessmen will benefi t from the importance of the event in promoting their products and services to a large number of people visiting the park daily.

Ghanim al-Mohannadi, dep-uty chairman of QSports, said the Spring Bazaar is part of the overall direction of QSports to promote outdoor activities “while taking advantage of near perfect weather in Qatar this time of the year.”

He said there are plenty of surprises with mini-weekend events being planned through-out the next seven weeks.

One such event sure to drive thousands of people to partici-pate is the fi rst ever ‘2K Infl at-able Run’ where families can join their children in conquering the “world’s largest infl atable ob-stacle course.”

More information on event dates and schedules can be found on www.springbazaar.qa or the event social media han-dles @springbazaar.qa

The bazaar is open to visi-tors from 4pm to 10pm from Saturdays to Wednesdays, 4pm to 12am on Thursdays and Fri-days.

Park visitors enjoy the food court.

Children participate in one of the weekend events.

Over 2,500Russians inQatar to vote in electionBy Joseph Varghese Staff Reporter

Russians in Qatar will to-morrow cast their vote at their embassy for elec-

tions to the next Russian Federa-tion president. The general day of voting in Russia is March 18.

“There are over 2,500 Russians in Qatar. The embassy has organ-ised voting for all citizens of Rus-sia who work and live in Qatar on Friday as it is their offi cial day off . The voting will take place from 8am to 8pm,” a Russian embassy offi cial told Gulf Times.

The election results will be an-nounced on March 29.

Election commissions are or-ganised in each of Russia’s prov-inces, as well as in foreign mis-sions, and observers are invited for the election.

The offi cial explained that eight candidates from various political parties have joined the pre-election race, including Russian President Vladimir Pu-tin.

“Such a high number of can-didates show that the population of Russia is becoming more po-litically active and is interested in the processes that are taking place in the country,” he noted.

“According to Russian legis-lation, detailed information on candidates, their pre-election programmes, as well as fi nan-cial information on income is provided on the offi cial Internet resources of the Central Elec-

tion Commission,” the offi cial disclosed.

“For those who are outside Russia on election day, polling places will be organised. More than 385 polling stations have been organised abroad and are ready to hold elections in ac-cordance with all accepted legis-lative norms,” the diplomat said.

The offi cial added that voters will be able to vote wherever he is comfortable, regardless of the place of his permanent registra-tion.

For the disabled, a special pro-cedure has been organised – spe-cial staff will arrive at the voter’s location and help them complete all necessary procedures allow-ing every citizen of Russia to ful-fi l their civic duty and make the choice.

“The embassy of Russia in Qatar welcomes every Russian citizen to come to the embassy for voting in a friendly and warm atmosphere. During the event, Russian nation-als can also get more information about Russian activities in Doha, future plans, meet with embassy offi cials and interact with the most active members of community,” he added.

“The embassy has organised voting for all citizens of Russia who work and live in Qatar on Friday as it is their offi cial day off . The voting will take place from 8am to 8pm”

QATAR9Gulf Times


Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9+ unveiled in QatarBy Joey AguilarStaff Reporter

Samsung Gulf Electron-ics Co has unveiled in Qatar the Samsung Gal-

axy S9 and S9+ on Tuesday at Shangri-La Doha, highlight-ing the smartphones’ advanced camera and enhanced enter-tainment features.

Redesigned with new dual aperture lens (F1.5 / F2.4), the tech giant’s latest version of its galaxy line allows users to take high quality pictures even in low light environments.

“Because camera is the sin-gle most used feature in any phone, and by understand-ing this we made sure that our cameras have always been de-signed to capture your favourite moments clearly and quickly,” Samsung Electronics Qatar managing director Andrew Shin

told visitors at the event.“Now the camera automati-

cally adjusts to lighting condi-tions,” he said. “We re-imag-ined the S9 camera to simply work like your own eyes.”

The smartphones’ dual ap-erture lens also enable ‘super slow-mo’ video, which can capture 960 frames per second to ensure users do not miss a moment.

With the ‘AR Emoji,’ the new devices allow users to create an emoji that looks, sounds and acts like them.

Having a hard time com-municating to people with a diff erent language? It will not be a problem anymore with Samsung’s intelligent platform ‘Bixby,’ according to Shin.

“Just hold up your camera, and Bixby will automatically detect the language and trans-

late it for you, live,” he said. “You can use Bixby to trans-late individual words or whole sentences from a variety of languages from 54 diff erent languages on input to 104 lan-guages on output.”

Users can translate foreign languages and currency in real time with Live Translation, learn about their surroundings and track calories throughout the day.

“We have reimagined the smartphone camera for today’s generation and the way they communicate, helping them unlock powerful experiences and share them eff ortlessly,” Tarek Sabbagh, head of IT and Mobile (IM) Division at Sam-sung Electronics Gulf.

The S9 and S9+ also fea-tures powerful stereo speakers tuned by AKG, immersive audio

with Dolby Atmos and a refi ned edge-to-edge Infi nity Display – a key staple in Samsung’s design heritage – providing a one-of-its-kind entertainment experience for users.

First introduced on the S8, the super Amoled Infi nity Dis-play lets users to use their new devices even in direct sunlight.

Besides maintaining its water and dust resistance and wireless charging features, the S9 and S9+ also support expandable memory of up to 400GB with a Micro SD Card.

The devices are equipped with the latest premium appli-cation processors for powerful performance and sophisticated image processing.

In addition, the S9 and S9+ support three diff erent biomet-ric authentication options – iris, fi ngerprint, and facial rec-

ognition – so users can choose the way they want to secure and protect their device and appli-cations.

Health-conscious users can also rely on the devices’ im-proved optical sensor, built directly into the device, which provide richer and more accu-rate information on their health status.

The S9 and S9+ will be avail-able across major retailers and Samsung brand shops in Qatar from March 16 and will be of-fered in Midnight Black, Tita-nium Gray and a new hue, Lilac Purple.

The price for both smart-phones will be dependent on memory size: QR2,999 (64GB), QR3,199 (128GB), and QR3,399 (256GB) for the S9, and QR3,399 (64GB), QR3,599 (128GB), and QR3,799 (256GB) for the S9+.

Samsung off icials and dignitaries at the event. PICTURE: Jayaram

Doha Bank’s new co-branded mobile app to off er cardholders ‘irresistible’ deals

Doha Bank has unveiled the latest release of the new co-branded mo-

bile application, ‘Doha Bank My Book Qatar’ on Apple App Store and Google Play Store.

The feature-packed mobile app brings hundreds of irresist-ible off ers at the fi ngertips of Doha Bank’s cardholders at more than 300 outlets in Qatar.

The new 2018 App is intro-ducing more than 900 ‘buy one, get one free’ vouchers and over 300 exciting off ers at hotels, fi ne dining restaurants, cafes, lei-sure spots and health and fi tness spas. The ‘Doha Bank My Book Qatar’ App is set to deliver un-precedented savings and gener-ate priceless moments for Doha Bank’s customers.

Doha Bank acting chief re-tail banking offi cer Braik Ali HS al-Marri said: “The launch of the ‘Doha Bank My Book Qatar’ mobile app came fi rst to de-liver more value for our clients’ spending through innovative off erings suited with their life-style. Last year the App had a massive success, especially the new generation of shoppers or millennials, who seek to discover new experiences at the click of a button.

“Hundreds of ‘buy one get one free’ deals have been re-deemed and this year we will ensure that our cardholders get the most value and the great-est savings while they experi-

ence the all-new Doha Bank My Book Qatar App while they share their moments of joy with loved ones.”

Chief operating offi cer Peter Roberts added: “The co-brand-ed App, which is available on both Android and iOS platforms, allows users to browse through off ers by location and service categories. An integrated map also enables users to spot deals that are nearest to their current location.

“Furthermore, the App gives Doha Bank customers insight into their total savings that re-sult from using the vouchers, which are instantly redeemable on the phone. What makes it even more exciting is the fact that up to 10 devices can have the same account as long as the payment is done with a Doha Bank card.”

Doha Bank Group CEO Dr R Seetharaman said: “As a trusted fi nancial institution with a long-standing reputation in the re-gion, we are committed to capi-talising on the current retail and consumer trends in the society, especially amongst the youth. The co-branded mobile App gives us a great platform to en-gage with our diverse customer base and reward them instantly for their loyalty.”

Download the Doha Bank My Book App at https://goo.gl/547oBR for Android and ht-tps://goo.gl/BBsknZ for iOS.

Confi dent Group promotes real estate projects

Confi dent Group, a leading housing brand of Kerala, is com-ing to Qatar to promote their new projects with ‘amazing prices and attractive off ers.’

Confi dent Group representatives will be available from March 16 to 18 at MovenPick Hotel, Corniche road, Doha, from 10am to 8pm. Customers can book villas and apartments at premium lo-cations of Kerala.

“The projects available at Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi, Thris-sur, Kozhikode and Kottayam are of international quality. The luxury villa projects in Kochi, Thrissur and Thiruvananthapuram are available from Rs79 lakhs and apartment projects from Rs33 lakhs,” according to a statement.

“First time home buyers can now avail a subsidy up to Rs 2.7 lakhs through Pradhanmanthri Awas Yojna Scheme. Three cus-tomers can win a fully furnished apartment in Kochi by buying a Confi dent group apartment or villa anywhere in Kerala,” the statement added.

Confi dent Group representatives can be contacted at 30647607 and 70632011 while they are in Doha.

Jamie’s Italian eatery opens at Doha Festival City

Fashion and lifestyle retail conglomer-ate, Apparel Group has announced the opening of Jamie’s Italian restaurant in

Doha Festival City (DHFC). Jamie’s Italian has opened for the fi rst time

in Qatar, giving diners and foodies an oppor-tunity to “indulge in some authentic Italian salads, grills, pizzas, pasta and desserts”, the Group has said in a press statement.

The restaurant, spread over 2,700sq m, was inaugurated by British ambassador Ajay Sharma recently.

Jamie’s Italian is a “rustic Italian casual dining concept” from British chef Jamie Ol-iver. The menu is “simple and classic; cel-ebrating fresh, sustainable and impeccably sourced ingredients”. The restaurant serves

fresh pasta made on site, every day, hand-stretched pizzas, rustic main courses and in-dulgent desserts, that the “whole family can enjoy”.

“With a relaxed neighbourhood feel, Jamie’s Italian restaurant is a true celebra-tion of the ‘Italian table’ where families and friends come together and enjoy delicious, authentic food,” the statement noted.

Apparel Group stressed that Jamie’s Italian is a “great addition” to the Group’s F&B divi-sion, adding another award-winning dining concept that “sits perfectly within our port-folio”.

Jamie’s Italian is open from 12noon to 11pm, Saturday to Friday, on the ground fl oor of DHFC.

British ambassador Ajay Sharma and other dignitaries and off icials at the opening of Jamie’s Italian in Doha Festival City.

Smartphones available at Ooredoo outlets

The new Samsung Galaxy S9

and S9+ device is available in

Ooredoo’s Villaggio, Landmark

and HQ2 Shop, as well as via the

eShop, it was announced.

Customers who pre-ordered their

device should follow the instruc-

tions given via SMS to collect

their new smartphone.

For anyone who did not pre-

order a Samsung Galaxy S9 or

S9+ device, all purchases will

include a free 20GB Data Card

(worth QR200), screen insurance,

and a 35% off discount voucher

for Clear-Coat.

CNA-Q event aims to develop STEM skillsCollege of the North Atlantic

- Qatar (CNA-Q) hosted its largest co-curricular event

of the academic year, the 9th annual CNA-Q Skills Competition, spon-sored by Qatar Petrochemical Com-pany (Qapco).

The CNA-Q Skills Competition off ers 50 diff erent competitions – in Engineering Technology, Informa-tion Technology, Health Sciences, Business Studies and Academics – simulating a variety of real-world tasks that students will perform in the workplace once they graduate. The CNA-Q Skills Competition is modelled after World Skills Interna-tional, a global initiative to promote the development of skilled trades.

The Winner of the Qapco High-est Achiever Award was presented to the student Abdulwahhab Saleh al-Shatef.

He was presented his award for achievements in the Skills Compe-tition and academic studies, while maintaining perfect attendance, by Abdulrahman Sultan al-Darwish, strategic Qatarisation manager at Qapco, who stated, “By supporting CNA-Q’s innovative educational programmes such as the CNA-Q Skills Competition, we believe we are making a diff erence to the future of vocational training in Qatar by nurturing talent and expertise.

This competition is important as it sharpens the skills of the students and ensures their marketability in an increasingly competitive work-ing environment”.

More than 550 college students competed against their peers to test the technical skills they are learning through their studies.

For the second year, the col-lege partnered with local second-ary schools to include hundreds of secondary students in the compe-tition, giving more young people the opportunity to be involved in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

Some competitions are com-pleted individually, while others are group competitions where stu-dents solve real-life scenarios. As in past years, pharmacy students from Qatar University, nursing

students from University of Cal-gary in Qatar and medical stu-dents from Weill Cornell Medi-cine - Qatar participated in group health care-related competitions to strengthen inter-professional learning opportunities.

“Most of the extra-curricular activities we host on campus are also co-curricular, and involve elements of experiential learn-ing, which is the learning method we are known for here at the col-lege. We believe in applied educa-tion and producing graduates to be knowledge workers for the future,” said Dr Ken MacLeod, president of CNA-Q.

Students engaged in an activity.

Canadian delegation ends Doha visit

A visiting Canadian par-liamentary delegation concluded its visit to

Doha, after conducting fi eld trips through which they learnt about the aspects of co-opera-tion between Qatar and Canada and ways to bolster and develop them.

The delegation was made up of Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Fayçal El-Khoury, Michael Cooper, Colin Fraser, Kelly McCauley and Ali Ehsassi.

During the visit, HE the Speaker of the Advisory Council Ahmed bin Abdullah bin Zaid al-Mahmoud met the delegation led by Wrzesnewskyj, member of the Canadian House of Commons’ Standing Committee on Foreign Aff airs and International Devel-opment.

The meeting discussed parlia-mentary relations between Qa-tar and Canada as well as ways to develop them. The two sides also discussed the unjust siege imposed on Qatar. The Advi-sory Council Speaker explained how the siege violated the in-ternational law and principles of good-neighbourliness.

The Canadian delegation con-veyed its rejection of the siege and its full understanding of Qatar’s stance and called for dia-logue to resolve the confl ict.

REGION/ARAB WORLD

Gulf TimesThursday, March 15, 201810

Hamas widens probe into Gaza bomb attackAFPGaza City

Gaza’s rulers Hamas wid-ened an investigation yesterday into a bomb

explosion that targeted Palestin-ian prime minister Rami Ham-dallah as he made a rare visit to the strip a day earlier.

The interior ministry in Gaza said it had launched a “high-level investigative committee” into the bomb attack, which was a further blow to reconciliation talks between Hamas and presi-

dent Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party.

It said a number of suspects were being questioned after the roadside bomb targeted Ham-dallah’s convoy shortly after he entered Gaza, leaving him un-injured but lightly wounding six guards.

It did not provide further de-tails on the investigation yester-day or release the identity of the suspects.

“The door is open to anyone who wants to participate in the investigation,” Tawfeeq Abu Naim, the head of the Hamas se-

curity services in Gaza, said in a statement.

After the attack, Abbas said he held Hamas responsible as the de facto power in the strip, though stopping short of direct-ly accusing the group of carrying out the bombing.

Hamas shot back, saying such rapid accusations were unhelp-ful before in turn pointing the fi nger of blame at Israel.

Other potential suspects in-clude smaller, more radical groups that are opposed to Ha-mas but operate in Gaza, or a Hamas splinter group.

There has been no claim of re-sponsibility. Hamdallah said the attack would not end his govern-ment’s commitment to continue with reconciliation and again called on Hamas to hand over all power in Gaza.

“We are talking about inter-nal security — the police and the civil defence,” he said. “Without security there won’t be a gov-ernment.”

Jamal al-Fadi, a political sci-entist in Gaza, said the aim of the attack was to “sabotage any chance for reconciliation.”

He said potential suspects are

those that have an interest in maintaining the split.

“It could be a group that split from Hamas for ideological rea-sons, such as a militant group,” he said.

In October, Abu Naim, the Hamas security chief who is-sued yesterday’s statement, was wounded by a car bomb after leaving a mosque.

Hamas offi cials privately ad-mit the assassination attempt was by others, rather than Israel, and like Tuesday’s attack the explosion was relatively small. The UN envoy to the Middle East

peace process, Nickolay Mlad-enov, condemned Tuesday’s attack and called on Hamas to hand over control in Gaza to the recognised government.

Mladenov has warned of the consequences of the desper-ate humanitarian suff ering in the strip, saying in January that Gaza “risks exploding in our face again.”

Hamas has fought three wars with Israel since 2008 while the Jewish state maintains a crip-pling blockade of Gaza.

Hamdallah travelled to Rome yesterday for a meeting of inter-

national donors aimed at raising funds for the United Nations’ agency for Palestinian refugees, which is facing desperate short-ages after the US froze tens of millions of dollars in aid.

The White House held a con-ference on the deteriorating hu-manitarian situation in Gaza on Tuesday, but no Palestinian of-fi cials attended.

They have refused to meet with President Donald Trump’s administration since he broke with longstanding US policy in December by recognising Jeru-salem as Israel’s capital.

UN Palestinian agency in urgent search for fundsAFP Ramallah

Global powers will gather in Rome today to dis-cuss the future of the UN

agency for Palestinian refugees, which faces an unprecedented crisis after the US froze tens of millions of dollars in funding.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) only has enough funds to keep schools and medical services open until May, its commissioner general Pierre Krahenbuhl said.

US President Donald Trump’s administration has so far com-mitted only $60mn to the agency this year, down from $360mn in 2017.

He has frozen two planned payments worth more than $100mn — one for UNRWA’s central budget and one for food aid.

Trump continues to pressure Palestinian leaders to end their boycott of his administration, sparked by his December recog-nition of the disputed city of Je-rusalem as Israel’s capital.

A major funding drive

launched by UNRWA after the US freeze has raised little new money and diplomats are not optimistic that the Rome meet-ing will produce major pledges.

UN offi cials want European countries to step in to fi ll part of the gap, but are focusing their fundraising eff orts on Gulf countries.

Fear is rife about the future of the organisation, which employs more than 20,000 mainly Pal-estinian staff and relies on the United States for nearly 30% of its funding.

UNRWA was established af-ter the war surrounding Israel’s creation in 1948, when around 700,000 Palestinians fl ed or were expelled.

The agency off ers vital sup-port for these refugees and their descendants in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, the West Bank and Gaza, reaching more than three mn people.

It provides education to around half a million students.

In January, Trump tweeted “we pay the Palestinians hun-dred of millions of dollars a year and get no appreciation or re-spect,” accusing them of walking

away from peace negotiations.Two weeks later his adminis-

tration confi rmed it would hold back tens of millions in aid to UNRWA, saying it wanted the rest of the world to pay more.

Krahenbuhl labelled it the

agency’s worst ever fi nancial cri-sis and launched a major funding drive, turning the front page of its website into a plea for dona-tions.

Senior offi cials travelled around the world to push for

funds, with UNRWA aiming to fi nd nearly half a billion dol-lars in new money. But since the launch of the “Dignity is Price-less” campaign, the only new funding was a $900,000 grant from Kuwait — although Eu-ropean countries have brought forward donations planned for the summer.

Private donations ran only into the “hundreds of thou-sands,” Krahenbuhl said, saying the amount was “not ground-breaking.”

The UN Central Emergency Response Fund released $30mn to UNRWA on Tuesday to keep the agency’s food aid programme afl oat.

Krahenbuhl played down concerns the world was not stepping up to fill the gap.

“It takes a lot of political dia-logue for these things to move forward, especially in light of the size of the shortfall,” he said.

“States were planning to contribute $20-25mn to UN-RWA and suddenly see a shortfall that has increased by $300mn. It is quite natural you will not have one single state

that will come forward and close that shortfall.”

But UNRWA employees have deep concerns about the sheer size of the gap. Nicola Jones, of the Overseas Development Institute think tank, said she expected UNRWA heads to be “really concerned” by the slow pace of new funds.

“They really did try to have a high profile public aware-ness campaign about the cost of withdrawing funding and I think it is clearly extremely disappointing that it hasn’t been fruitful,” she said.

Separately yesterday, the UN’s humanitarian co-ordina-tor for the Palestinian territo-ries called the US cuts to UN-RWA a “big problem”.

“Anything that is cut in terms of humanitarian assist-ance to the people of Gaza cre-ates a bigger problem for the people of Gaza.

We are struggling now to ad-dress those needs,” Jamie Mc-Goldrick said at the launch of a separate appeal for funds for Palestinians.

The Rome conference, co-hosted by Sweden, Egypt and

Jordan, will seek fresh momen-tum.

UN Secretary General An-tonio Guterres will attend, his office confirmed on Tuesday, while Acting Assistant Secre-tary for Near Eastern Affairs David Satterfield is expected to represent the United States.

Sweden’s ambassador to the United Nations, Olof Skoog, said it was “reasonable” the world would do more for UN-RWA “but we expect the United States to stay committed.”

Hugh Lovatt, Israel/Pales-tine analyst at the European Council of Foreign Relations think tank, said European countries were wary of being seen to bridge the funding gap for fear of vindicating Trump’s attempts to cut international aid funding.

Trump is due to announce his proposal for new Israel-Pales-tinian peace talks and Lovatt said observers were waiting to see its vision for UNRWA.

He said he expected Europe-ans in Rome to make a “con-certed eff ort to corner the Americans and convince them to reconsider.”

Jamie McGoldrick (centre), humanitarian response co-ordinator, arrives for a press conference in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip, yesterday.

Red Crescent says convoy to enter besieged GhoutaReutersBeirut/Geneva

A 25-truck convoy carry-ing food and medical aid will enter the besieged,

rebel-held town of Douma in Syria’s eastern Ghouta today, Ziad Msallati, a senior adviser in the Syrian Arab Red Cres-cent, told Reuters yesterday.

A convoy with food and medicine managed to get into eastern Ghouta last week amid a massive army assault to re-capture the enclave on the out-skirts of the capital Damascus.

UN Syria adviser Jan Ege-land, who is also head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, said the Syrian government had given its approval for a convoy today.

“This would be potentially a fairly large convoy with food and hopefully as much as pos-sible of the other material that is in desperate need there, in-cluding medical supplies,” he said.

But nothing was certain until the trucks unloaded, he added.

The last convoy to eastern Ghouta, like many previous aid deliveries in Syria, was stripped of medical items that the Syrian authorities did not want to fall into rebel hands, a move that appeared to breach humanitarian law.

Egeland said the fi ghting had diminished around Dou-ma after talks with the main insurgent group there, Jaysh

al-Islam, which had enabled the evacuation of 147 people to Damascus.

But he was not aware of any such talks with Faylaq al-Rahman, the main rebel group in the other rebel-held part of eastern Ghouta, Kafr Batna,

which has been split from Douma by a Syrian government off ensive.

Egeland said it was not too late to negotiate a peaceful end to the fi ghting there though many people were disillu-sioned with peacemaking after

seven years of war and assumed it was hopeless. “I don’t think it’s hopeless. We can have an agreement for Douma, we can have an agreement for Kafr Batna,” he said.

Such a deal would bring an immediate pause in the fi ght-

ing to stop the “rain of gre-nades and bullets” on civilians and to allow aid convoys in and evacuees and people needing medical treatment out, he said.

That would be followed by a deal “to end this senseless bat-tle in an area full of civilians”.

Rock icon Roger Waters has joined Palestinian artists for a new song billed as a response to the US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. To the sound of the oud lutes of Le Trio Joubran, one of the most prominent groups performing Palestinian traditional music, Waters recites verse from Mahmoud Darwish, considered the poet laure-ate of the Palestinians. Darwish’s poem, The Red Indian’s Penultimate Speech to the White Man, on the surface comes from the voice of a Native American mourning settle-ments that will permanently alter the land but clearly draws a parallel to the Palestinians and Israel.“Where, oh white master, are you taking my people — and yours?” the British rocker recites in the English translation over the lutes and an ambient backdrop. Waters, best known as a former member of Pink Floyd who conceived the rock opera “The Wall,” has long been a passionate supporter of the Palestinian cause and has angered Israelis by leading calls for a cultural boycott. Le Trio Joubran wrote on Facebook that the collaborative song, entitled “Supremacy,” was meant as a response to Trump. They called Jerusalem the “#Capi-talOfPalestine.” Trump has broken international precedent by recognis-ing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and ordering the US embassy’s move from Tel Aviv to the holy city.

Four people have been killed and thousands injured during celebra-tions of Iran’s annual fire festival ahead of the Persian new year, an off icial told state TV yesterday. “Two people died on Tuesday night, in addition to two others killed in recent days,” said Hassan Nouri, deputy director of the country’s emergency services. Nouri said some 3,450 people had been injured in this year’s festivities. The tradition remains popular among Iranians, who light and jump over bonfires while singing songs to mark the arrival of spring. At this year’s celebrations, young people set off fireworks as others lobbed gas-filled bottles into fires, causing explosions. But following police warnings, the number of festival-related deaths and injuries fell this year in comparison to 2017.

Waters teams up with band in Trump protest

Four dead, thousands hurt in Iran fire festival celebrations

SOLIDARITY

TRAGEDY

Turkey ramps up strikes on Kurdish enclaveAFPBeirut

Turkey turned up the heat on Syria’s Afrin yesterday, launching deadly strikes

on Damascus loyalists deployed around the Kurdish enclave and closing in on its main city.

The development — which could redraw the map of north-ern Syria as the confl ict enters its eighth year — came as Russian-backed regime forces pounded shrinking rebel pockets in East-ern Ghouta near Damascus, kill-ing 25 civilians.

Afrin’s encirclement “will have been completed by the evening”, a Turkish presidency source said yesterday, toning down President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s earlier statement say-ing it would fall by evening.

Afrin city lies in the heart of a Kurdish-majority enclave against which neighbouring Turkey launched a deadly ground and air off ensive on January 20.

Before the retraction, Erdogan had told supporters in Ankara he hoped “Afrin will, God willing, have completely fallen by the evening.”

A top official in the Kurd-ish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which controls Afrin, laughed off the claim.

Turkish and allied forces have almost encircled Afrin city, from which thousands started fleeing when it became apparent Ankara’s goal was nothing short of full capture.

Yesterday, Turkish bombing raids killed 10 fighters loyal to the regime, which last month deployed pro-government forces after the Kurds asked for help.

“The air strikes targeted a checkpoint on the only road leading from Afrin to regime-controlled territory to the southeast,” said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Tillerson dismissal shows US ‘determined’ to quit nuclear deal: TehranUS Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s sacking shows that Washington is set on quitting the nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers, Iran’s deputy foreign minister said yesterday.“The United States is determined to leave the nuclear deal, and changes at the State Department were made with that goal in mind — or at least it was one of the reasons,” Abbas Araghchi said in comments carried by state new

agency ISNA. US President Donald Trump announced Tillerson’s depar-ture in a tweet on Tuesday, saying he would be replaced by Central Intel-ligence Agency chief Mike Pompeo, who takes a much harder line on Iran than his predecessor. Trump has repeatedly slammed the 2015 nuclear deal, under which Iran agreed to freeze its nuclear programme in return for the lifting of crippling international

sanctions. Despite Tillerson’s determi-nation to stick with the deal, Trump has threatened to scrap what he has dubbed a “terrible” agreement unless tough new restrictions were placed on Iran by May 12. A US exit could kill the pact between Iran, Germany and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. The deal’s backers have presented it as a victory for diplomacy and nuclear non-prolif-

eration efforts.Tehran has repeatedly ruled out changing a single comma of the text. The UN’s nuclear energy agency, the IAEA, confirmed in Febru-ary that Tehran had met its obligations under the agreement.”If the US quits the nuclear deal, we will also quit it,” Araghchi said yesterday.”We have told the Europeans that if they can’t keep the US in the deal, Iran will also leave it.”

Members of the Syrian Red Crescent escort evacuated civilians from the rebel-held Eastern Ghouta enclave into the government side of the Wafideen checkpoint on the outskirts of Damascus, yesterday.

Zimbabwe’s main state hospitals yesterday turned away many patients and only attended to emergency cases as a strike by doctors escalated. The strike, which seek to pressure the government for salary increases and address drugs shortages in hospitals, has spread since starting two weeks ago among junior doctors. “We will only return to work when all issues raised have been fully resolved,” the Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors Association (ZHDA) said in a statement. “We note with concern the closure of almost all central hospitals, children’s units, provincial hospitals and cessation of emergency life-saving procedures throughout the country.”

South African police were yesterday probing one of their own off icers who was accused of molesting young girls while investigating sexual assault of scores of primary school pupils. The forensic investigator allegedly molested two girls aged seven and eight on Monday when he visited their school to prepare pupils for a court appearance. The girls are among up to 87 girls allegedly sexually abused by a security guard at a school in Johannesburg’s Soweto township last year. The guard is facing rape and sexual assault charges. Police provincial commissioner Deliwe de Lange said the allegations against the off icer were “receiving the necessary attention as a matter of priority”.

Pests and disease sweeping through Mozambique have destroyed at least a third of the country’s agricultural crops over the past 11 months, a government spokeswoman said yesterday. Ana Comoana, the spokeswoman, said more than 41,000 hectares of crops in Mozambique had been aff ected by pests including caterpillars and fruit flies. She said that more than 3,000 hectares of maize had been lost, and that coconut and banana production had also suff ered. Mozambique’s cabinet approved this week a 160mn metical ($2.6mn) action plan to combat pests and disease. The country is one of the world’s poorest countries and is in the throes of a debt and financial crisis.

The EU yesterday warned African and other countries that their citizens will find it harder to get visas to Europe if they refuse to readmit economic migrants under the bloc’s eff orts to curb migration. Brussels has been seeking greater cooperation from such countries to take back irregular migrants. “I cannot understand how a country can refuse to take back its nationals” when they have entered Europe illegally, said EU migration commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos in Brussels. “We will introduce stricter conditions for processing visas when a partner country does not co-operate suff iciently on the readmission of irregular migrants.”

Herders are believed to have killed 25 villagers in central Nigeria’s Plateau state, police said yesterday, in the latest violence linked to land, water and grazing rights. The killings happened on Monday in the Bassa area of Plateau state, just a few days after at least five people were killed in the area. “The people were returning to Zirechi (village) from Dundun when they were attacked by gunmen believed to be Fulani herdsmen,” state police commissioner Undie Adie told AFP. “I can confirm that 25 villagers were killed while two were injured. A number of houses were also burnt down by the attackers,” he said. No arrests have yet been made.

Doctors’ strike cripples Zimbabwe hospitals

SA police accused of abuse during child assault probe

Pests, disease destroy third of Mozambique crops

EU warns Africa of tougher visa policy over illegals

25 killed in fresh clashes in central Nigeria: police

WAGE DISPUTE INVESTIGATIONCRISIS MIGRATION LAND RIGHTS

With bottle walls and a recycled ship, Kenya’s coast takes on plastic wasteBy Benson Rioba, Reuters Watamu, Kenya

Like many places in the world, Kenya’s coast fac-es challenges with waste

plastic, from used shopping bags that block drains to throw-away water bottles that litter streets and wash into the sea.

But this Indian Ocean resort village, best known for its tropi-cal beaches and Swahili history, is taking on plastic waste, turn-ing it into homes, furniture — and maybe even a ship capable of sailing all the way to South Africa to raise awareness about plastic pollution.

Sammy Baya, for instance, one resident of the coastal communi-ty, now owns a house with walls made of stacked glass and plastic bottles.

“It just like living in any other house but this one, unlike other ordinary houses, allows more light to enter the house and therefore I don’t use my solar (panels) for lighting when there is a full moon,” Baya told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“You should see the inside of this house at night when there is a full moon. It’s mesmerising,” he said.

He said building his three-bedroom house last year in part with waste plastic and glass cut the costs by about 40%.

Justin Kitsao, chairman of the Watamu Marine Association, an environmental non-govern-mental group, said constructing houses using plastic and glass bottles reduces the need for oth-er building materials, particular-ly sand and concrete blocks.

Watamu’s not the only part of Kenya taking action on plastic waste.

The country has banned the sale and use of disposable plas-tic carry bags and last month Charles Sunkuli, Kenya’s envi-ronmental principal secretary, said his ministry will launch a plastic bottle buy-back scheme in April.

The move is a step back from an earlier proposed total ban on plastic bottles — but it has won the support of the key Kenyan Association of Manufacturers.

Waste disposal planning “needs to be coupled with the

instruments and infrastructure to help recycle and reuse waste material,” the association noted in a statement.

Because throw-away plastic creates environmental pollution and takes fossil fuels to produce, cutting back on its use is impor-tant to curb climate change and improve the environment, Ken-yan environmentalists say.

In Watamu, Eco World, a non-governmental organisation, has hired 17 local people to collect plastic along the Indian Ocean beach each week.

The group then separates the plastics according to weight be-fore grinding some of them into tiny pieces that are sold to ar-tisans, who use them to make chairs, poles and tables.

Intact plastic and glass bot-tles also are washed and bound together with sand and cement to create walls that can replace brick and block walls in homes and other structures.

Bottles of diff erent sizes and colours can be used to create dif-ferent eff ects.

Any plastic waste Eco World cannot sell is donated to an un-

usual eff ort to raise awareness about the problem: A plastic ship, being built in Lamu County, that is set to sail to South Africa to raise awareness on the impor-tance of recycling plastic to pro-tect the sea.

Ali Skanda, who hopes to cap-tain the voyage in June, said cut-ting the amount of plastic waste reaching the ocean is becoming increasingly urgent.

“If we continue to litter our water bodies, the marine life might disappear one day,” he predicted in a telephone inter-view with the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Melinda Ress, meanwhile, the operations manager at Heming-ways, a Watamu resort, said her facility has begun to replace palm leaf roofs on some structures with recycled plastic roofi ng.

For now the material is im-ported from Malaysia, but the re-sort hopes to begin using locally recycled plastic soon, she said.

“I fully support the ban on plastic bags and I wish they could extend it to the plastic straws. Plastic has been a menace to the marine ecosystem,” she said. A man walks past a gate made with plastic bottles at Eco World in Watamu, Kenya.

Ramaphosa vows faster SA land redistributionAFPJohannesburg

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, who came to power last month, yesterday vowed to “escalate the pace” of redistribut-

ing land from wealthy whites to poorer blacks.Land ownership is a sensitive subject in South

Africa, 24 years after the end of apartheid rule, and Ramaphosa warned the issue would “implode” unless it was addressed quickly.

“We must — given the history we have had — work with urgency to signifi cantly and sustainably escalate the pace of land reform,” Ramaphosa told parliament.

“If we do not do so, this problem that has stayed with us as a nation for hundreds of years...will im-plode in our hands.

“This is the historic task that we have as South Africans to address this question once and for all.”

Ramaphosa, an anti-apartheid trade unionist who became multi-millionaire businessman, faces growing frustration among landless blacks over lack of change since white-minority rule ended in 1994.

White people still own around 72% of individu-ally-owned farms in South Africa, with the black majority owning just 4%, according to an audit cited by Ramaphosa.

Land reform is set to be a key battleground in the 2019 general election, and the radical Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) opposition party has en-couraged supporters to seize property.

But Ramaphosa warned against illegal occupa-tion.

“We cannot have a situation where we allow land grabs because that is anarchy,” he said.

“We will not allow land grabs, we will not allow land invasions.”

The ruling ANC party has backed expropriation of land without compensation, and lawmakers last month backed a motion that could lead to consti-

tutional changes over land reform.Ramaphosa is seen as a pro-business reformist

after Jacob Zuma’s graft-tainted rule.But he must also boost support among ANC

grassroot voters after years of declining election results for the party.

Describing land dispossession as South Africa’s “original sin”, Ramaphosa said he was committed “to a comprehensive land reform programme that cor-rects the historical injustices of land dispossession”.

Botched and often violent redistribution of land in neighbouring Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe

left many farms in ruins, and the drop in produc-tion triggered an economic crisis that still haunts the country.

Ramaphosa has supported land expropriation without compensation as long as it increases food production.

A woman holds a tape as she marks vacant land in Olievenhoutbosch, near Centurion, South Africa.

South Africa rebukes Australian minister for white farmer commentsSouth Africa yesterday rebuked an Aus-

tralian government minister for suggest-

ing white South African farmers needed

help from a “civilised country” and should

get special visas due to the “horrific cir-

cumstances” they faced at home.

Commenting on a documentary about

violent rural crime in South Africa, Austral-

ian immigration minister Peter Dutton

said the farmers deserved “special atten-

tion”, according to Australian domestic

media reports.

“I do think, on the information that I’ve

seen, people do need help and they need

help from a civilised country like ours,”

Dutton said.

As another threat to farmers, he also

pointed to plans by new President Cyril

Ramaphosa to allow expropriation of land

as a solution to the massive land owner-

ship inequalities that remain more than

two decades after the end of apartheid.

Pretoria dismissed his comments out

of hand.

“That threat does not exist,” the foreign

ministry said. “There is no reason for any

government in the world to suspect that a

section of South Africans is under danger

from their own democratically elected

government.”

“We regret that the Australian govern-

ment chose not to use the available

diplomatic channels available for them to

raise concerns or to seek clarification,” it

added.

Although violent crime is a serious

issue across South African society, killings

on farms, the vast majority of which are

white-owned, has become a particularly

racially charged issue.

Afriforum, a rights group that mainly

represents the views of the white Afri-

kaner minority, describes being a white

farmer as one of the most dangerous jobs

in the country, saying a white farmer is

twice as likely to be murdered as a police-

men, and four times as likely as a private

citizen.

Reuters was not able to verify the

figures independently.

Afriforum says that in many cases, farm

murders also involve torture.

The government denies that whites

are deliberately targeted and says farm

murders are part of South Africa’s wider

violent crime problem.

Afriforum chief executive Kallie Kriel

applauded Dutton for highlighting the

issue but said his organisation was not

advocating mass emigration.

“Our future is in Africa, not elsewhere,”

he said. “But it’s good that there’s interna-

tional recognition that we have a problem

here.”

Speaking to parliament on Tuesday,

Ramaphosa said South Africa was not

heading down the road towards the type

of violent and chaotic seizure of white-

owned farms that triggered economic

collapse in Zimbabwe nearly 20 years

ago.

“We cannot have a situation where we

allow land grabs, because that is anarchy,”

Ramaphosa said.

“We cannot have a situation of anarchy

when we have proper constitutional

means through which we can work to give

land to our people.”

He has also said redistribution will not

jeopardise South Africa’s food supply.

Buhari vows return of kidnapped schoolgirls

AFPDamaturu, Nigeria

Nigeria’s president, in a visit to the country’s troubled northeast, pre-

dicted success in what he de-scribed as relentless eff orts to release more than 200 school-girls kidnapped by Boko Haram.

The extremists are still hold-ing 112 of the 219 students they abducted from the Borno state town of Chibok in April 2014, and also 110 pupils taken from Dapchi, in Yobe state, in Febru-ary.

On a visit to the Yobe state capital, Damaturu, President Muhammadu Buhari said he had “no doubt” the Dapchi girls would be rescued or released.

“I can reassure parents, Nige-rians and the international com-munity that we will do all that is within our power to make sure that the girls are brought back safely to their families.

“There will be no rest till the last girl, whether from Chibok or Dapchi, is released.

“The girls, like all our citizens, must enjoy unhindered freedom and pursue their legitimate aspi-rations.”

Similarities have been drawn between the two abductions, af-ter heavily-armed militants were able to take so many pupils with-out any resistance from security forces.

Buhari’s predecessor, Good-luck Jonathan, was lambasted for his delayed and lacklustre response to Chibok, which hap-pened as Boko Haram rampaged across the northeast, seizing ter-ritory.

The Dapchi kidnapping oc-curred despite repeated claims from Buhari, his government and the military that Boko Haram was a spent force, as a result of a sustained counter-insurgency.

Nigeria’s political opposi-tion has called into question the extent of those claims and also urged him to meet parents of the missing Dapchi girls.

His visit to Yobe was part of a tour of states hit by unrest.

On Tuesday, the #BringBack-OurGirls pressure group gave the government a seven-day dead-line to free the remaining 112 Chibok girls and 110 Dapchi girls or face court action.

AFRICA11Gulf Times


AMERICAS


Police yesterday stormed a riot-torn prison in Bolivia, killing six inmates in an operation that also left nearly two dozen people injured, authorities said. Deputy Interior Minister Jose Luis Quiroga said the six dead at the Palmasola prison were inmates “who resisted the police incursion.” Police said five police and 18 inmates were injured in the operation, which was launched to search the prison for weapons and drugs in the wake of a riot. About 2,000 police surged into the cell blocks before dawn, a week after an uprising triggered by a government order that bars children younger than six from visiting jailed relatives.

A Mexican judge on Tuesday sentenced a Catholic priest to 63 years in prison for sexually abusing a boy between 1994 and 1998, the victim and his lawyer said. Carlos Lopez Valdes, 72, was also ordered to pay 4,000 dollars in damages to Jesus Romero Colin. Lopez was found guilty of abusing Romero while he was between 11 and 16 years old. The boy was assisting the priest at a Mexico City church. Romero’s lawyer David Pena described the case as a “watershed” for being the first guilty verdict of a Catholic priest in a sex abuse case in Mexico City, one of the world’s largest Catholic dioceses, though there have been guilty verdicts elsewhere in the country.

Norwegian Joar Leifseth Ulsom became just the third international born musher to win the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race when he arrived in Nome, Alaska in the early morning darkness yesterday to the cheers of gathered spectators. Billed as ‘The Last Great Race on Earth’, Ulsom covered the nearly 1,600km of the annual endurance test through the Alaskan wilderness in nine days, 12 hours to claim a winner’s cheque of $50,000 and a new pickup truck. Ulsom made it to Nome first to end the reign of the Seavey family. Defending champion Mitch Seavey and his son Dallas had claimed every Iditarod since 2011.

Three men from a rural Illinois community were arrested on Tuesday and charged in the 2017 bombing of a mosque outside Minneapolis and the attempted bombing of an Illinois clinic, US prosecutors said. Michael Mcwhorter, 29, Joe Morris, 22, and Michael B Hari, 47, were accused of carrying out a pipe bomb attack on the Dar al-Farooq Islamic Center in Bloomington, Minnesota, on August 5 that damaged the building but caused no injuries, according to a statement from the Minnesota US Attorney’s Off ice. A representative from that off ice was not immediately able to identify lawyers who might be representing the men, who are in custody in Illinois.

The United Nations said Tuesday it is considering a request from Venezuela to help prepare the May 20 presidential election in which President Nicolas Maduro is seeking a new term. UN political aff airs chief Jeff rey Feltman met for two hours at UN headquarters with opposition candidate Henri Falcon, Venezuelan Ambassador Samuel Moncada and other opposition representatives to discuss the request. “The UN Secretariat is considering a request from the Venezuelan government for accompaniment of the electoral process in the run-up to presidential polls set for 20 May,” said Jose Luis Diaz, a spokesman for UN political aff airs.

6 inmates die as Bolivia police storm prison

Catholic priest jailed in Mexico for abusing boy

Norway’s Ulsom adds name to Iditarod winner’s list

Three men charged with Minnesota mosque attack

UN studying request to help in Venezuela vote

RIOT JUSTICESLED RACE HATE CRIME OPPOSITION APPEAL

Mystery of Texas bombs breeds fear, speculationReutersAustin

If police in Austin, Texas, see a pattern in the three package bombs that have struck fear in the state’s capital city since early this month, they are not revealing it, insisting they

do not know the motive or see a common thread among the victims. As a consequence, residents of the three neighbour-hoods where the bombs exploded quickly fi lled the vacuum with theories of their own.

The fi rst bombing on March 2 killed Anthony Stephan House, a 39-year-old black man.

A bomb on Monday morning killed Draylen Mason, a 17-year-old African American teenager, and injured his mother.

A few hours later, a third bombing injured a 75-year-old Hispanic woman.

The demographics of the victims has fuelled speculation that the attacks were racially motivated, but police say they do not know why the victims were targeted.

Perhaps local political rivalries, someone displaced by Aus-tin’s gentrifi cation or even a Unabomber-type attacker angry at city’s emergence as a technology centre may be responsible for the attacks, some residents have wondered aloud.

“You would think there would be a note, or a reason. At this point, it is just random maliciousness,” said Ryan Jones, 39, who runs the lunch program at a local charter school.

Jones lives with his wife and two children a few doors down from the 75-year-old woman who was injured, in a predomi-nately Hispanic neighbourhood of small homes with sporadic petty crime.

The Jones children used to run to the door when a package was delivered, but their parents have warned them to stop.

“Our children are very aware now. And they are scared as well,” said his wife Janet, 39, and a business owner.

The bombings have targeted three diff erent neighbour-hoods of Austin so far, both affl uent and not so much.

Each of them is miles away from the others.Police said the powerful devices were similar to one anoth-

er, all of them packed in parcels that were delivered at night, but not by the US Postal Service or any commercial package delivery company.

“We need to put a stop to this before anybody else in our community is seriously injured or killed,” Austin Police Chief Brian Manley told a news conference on Tuesday.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation and other US agencies are helping local police link the bombs to a suspect.

“It reminded me of the Unabomber,” said Brandon Ren-don, 27, a contractor who lives a few houses down from the 75-year-old woman.

Ted Kaczynski, better known as the Unabomber, was con-victed in 1998 of killing three people and injuring 23 others in a mail bombing campaign against modern technology that was waged for almost two decades.

Two of the bombings in Austin took place during the South by Southwest festival of movies, innovation and music that draws about half a million people to city, many to celebrate the latest technology developments.

Police have said there is no link between the parcel bomb-ing and the festival, but urged visitors to be vigilant.

“We need to be aware because ‘South by’ could be a target for something similar,” said Trent Koch, 22, a Colorado State University student who is taking part.

Jay Brewer, 52, an African-American security guard, lives a few doors down from the 17-year-old boy who was killed.

The block of stone ranch houses with manicured lawns is home to several black families, and he believes race could have been a motivating factor in the attacks.

“For most people of colour and Hispanics...this is par for the course. Sadly, you have insane people out there who tar-get you, and in their minds, your only crime is how you were born,” he said.

Students in nationwide walkout on gun reformReutersParkland, Florida

US students spilled out of classrooms by the thou-sands yesterday morning,

waving signs and chanting slogans like “We want change” in a coast-to-coast protest against gun vio-lence prompted by a deadly rampage at a Florida high school last month.

The #ENOUGH National School Walkout began in the Eastern time zone at 10am and was scheduled to last 17 minutes, though many pro-tests went longer.

The protest rolled westward, with students in other time zones walking out at 10am local time, in-cluding at Colorado’s Columbine High School, where two gunmen killed 13 people in 1999.

The announced duration of the walkouts was intended to com-memorate the 17 students and staff killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, on February 14.

The massacre was the latest in a series of shootings that have plagued US schools and colleges since the Columbine attack.

While many school districts gave their blessings for the pro-tests, others warned of discipline for any students who joined the walkout, though many defi ed the warnings and left school anyway.

In Parkland, thousands of stu-dents slowly fi led onto the Stone-man Douglas school football fi eld to the applause of families and supporters beyond the fences as law enforcement offi cers looked on.

News helicopters thrummed overhead.

Ty Thompson, the school’s principal, called for the “big-gest group hug,” and the students obliged around the 50-yard line.

“We want change!” students chanted on the sidewalks outside the school.

“Can you hear the children screaming?” read one of the signs.

At New York City’s Fiorello H LaGuardia High School, crowds of students poured into the streets of Manhattan, many dressed in or-ange, the color adopted in recent years by the gun-control move-ment.

“Thoughts and prayers are not enough,” read one sign, needling the rote response many lawmakers make after mass shootings.

At 10am, the hundreds of stu-dents sat down on the sidewalk, fi lling half a city block, and fell si-lent.

The walkouts were part of a burgeoning, grassroots movement that grew out of the Parkland at-tack.

Some survivors have lobbied state and federal lawmakers, and even met with President Donald Trump, to call for new restrictions on gun ownership, a right protect-ed by the Second Amendment of the US Constitution.

“We don’t feel safe in schools anymore,” said Sarah Chatfi eld, a high school student from Mary-land, standing in a crowd of hun-dreds protesting outside the White House, with some sitting silent with their backs turned.

“Trump is talking about arming teachers with guns,” the 15-year-old said. “That is not a step in the right direction.”

Some of the students began marching toward Capitol Hill.

“Hey hey, ho ho, the NRA has got to go!” they chanted, referring to the powerful gun-rights interest group, the National Rifl e Associa-tion.

Some Democratic lawmakers emerged from the Republican-controlled US Congress to praise the students.

The Parkland survivors’ eff orts helped bring about a tightening of Florida’s gun laws last week, when the minimum age for buying any kind of gun was raised to 21 years

from 18, although lawmakers re-jected a ban on the sort of semiau-tomatic rifl e used in the Parkland attack.

In Washington, however, plans to strengthen the background-check system for gun sales, among other measures, appear to be lan-guishing.

Students crammed into a packed hearing yesterday before the US Senate Judiciary Committee about gun laws and school safety, which was to include testimony from federal law enforcement offi cials and the father of one of the Park-land victims.

The House of Representatives is to debate and pass a bill to spend $50mn a year on training schools and law enforcement agencies to detect potential violent acts before they occur.

It would not, however, allow any of

the money to be used to arm teachers or other school offi cials. The measure has broad bipartisan support.

Students from more than 2,800 schools and groups are joining the walkouts, many with the backing of their school districts, according to the event’s organizers, who also coordinated the Women’s March protests staged nationwide over the past two years.

The protests took place a day after Florida prosecutors said they would seek the death penalty for Nikolas Cruz, who has been charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder and 17 counts of attempted murder in the Parkland attack.

In districts where school au-thorities warned against joining the protests, some students protested anyway. Some 200 students walked out of the Council Rock High School North building in Newtown,

Pennsylvania, despite warnings from school administration that doing so would bring discipline.

The district, citing safety con-cerns, had organized an alternative event, allowing students to walk out of their classrooms but remain in the building. “Students deserve the right to go to school feeling safe and comfortable, not feeling scared that their school will be the next target,” a student said into a megaphone to the group outside.

In Bentonville, Arkansas, a high school student was suspended on Tuesday after handing out unau-thorised fl yers promoting the walk-out, local news media reported.

Students reciting the names of the Parkland victims outside Lake-wood High School in Cleveland, Ohio, brushed off a heckle from a passing driver, who shouted out: “Go back to class.”

Thousands of local students sit for 17 minutes, in honour of the 17 students killed last month in a high school shooting in Florida, during a nationwide student walkout for gun control in front the White House in Washington, DC.

Democrats claim too-close-to-call Pennsylvania voteReutersCanonsburg, Pennsylvania

Democrats are claiming vic-tory in a special congres-sional election in a Penn-

sylvania Republican heartland, a vote seen as a referendum on Pres-ident Donald Trump’s perform-ance, although the vote yesterday remained offi cially too close to call.

In an ominous sign for Trump’s Republicans eight months before national midterm elections, mod-erate Democrat Conor Lamb led conservative Republican Rick Sac-cone by a fraction of a percentage point in the race for the seat in the US House of Representatives.

The fi nal result may not be available until tomorrow.

Republican Speaker Paul Ryan called the race a “wakeup call” in a meeting yesterday with Repub-lican House members and pushed them to raise more campaign funding.

He also urged them to do more to highlight tax cuts approved by the Republican-dominated Congress and signed by Trump.

Republicans have not conceded the race in Pennsylvania’s 18th congressional district and were not ruling out a recount or other legal action, a spokesman for the National Republican Congression-al Committee said.

Provisional ballots will not be counted until tomorrow.

Democratic sources said they expected the fi nal count will show Lamb won the election by more than 400 votes.

Trump had campaigned for Sac-cone, holding a high-profi le rally last Saturday in the district, which he won by almost 20 points in the 2016 presidential election.

Trump also announced tariff s on imported steel last week that had been expected to appeal to voters in Pennsylvania.

“It took a little longer than we thought but we did it. You did it,” Lamb, 33, a US Marines veteran, told cheering supporters late on Tuesday.

Speaking before Lamb claimed victory, Saccone, who has de-

scribed himself as “Trump before Trump was Trump,” said the con-test was not yet over.

“We’re going to fi ght all the way to the end. You know I never give up,” the 60-year-old state repre-sentative told supporters.

The strong showing by Lamb seems certain to buoy Democrats nationally as they seek to win control of the US House of Repre-sentatives from Republicans in the November elections.

Republican donors and strate-gies have been anxious about high levels of enthusiasm on the Demo-

cratic side and have pressed on the need to motivate Republican vot-ers to turn out to retain its grip on the US Senate and House.

Republicans had long domi-nated the Pennsylvania district, a patchwork of small towns, farms and Pittsburgh suburbs — so much so that Democrats did not even fi eld candidates in the previous two US House elections.

Saccone led the race by more than 10 percentage points in Janu-ary.

Democrats see 118 Republican-held districts in play.

If they fl ip 24 seats, they could reclaim a majority in the House.

Lamb’s win could vindicate a strategy Democrats are using in some races to enlist candidates whose positions and ideologies are well suited to the district even while confl icting in signifi cant ways with the positions of the Democratic leadership in Washington.

Lamb advocated for gun rights and campaigned against House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, and may be seen as a template for the Democrats to fl ip certain Republican seats that went for Trump.

Republicans found it harder than expected to mount eff ective attacks on Lamb’s positions on abortion, guns and the national Democratic Party.

Saccone, a former Air Force counter-intelligence offi cer, drew criticism toward the end of the cam-paign by saying that some of his op-ponents “have a hatred for God.”

The election, held to replace a Republican who resigned amid a scandal last year, was the lat-est good election showing for the Democrats, who also won a gov-ernor’s race in Virginia and scored a US Senate upset in conservative Alabama.

Saccone’s poor performance is worrying for Republicans who were sure that tax cuts, the party’s only major legislative achievement under Trump, would be a vote winner this year.

But that sweeping overhaul did little to energize local voters, some of whom dismissed it as a giveaway to the wealthy.

US President Donald Trump inspects border wall prototypes in San Diego on Tuesday. Trump — making his first trip to California as president — warned there would be “bedlam” without the controversial wall he wants to build on the border with Mexico, as he inspected several prototype barriers.

ASIA/AUSTRALASIA13Gulf Times


Myanmar urged not to drag out case against Reuters reporters

Some international observers urged Myanmar yesterday not to drag out legal proceedings against two Reuters journalists, as they appeared in court for the 10th time since they were arrested in De-cember and accused of possess-ing secret government papers.A Yangon court began preliminary hearings in January to decide whether reporters Wa Lone, 31, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 27, will face charges under the colonial-era Off icials Secrets Act, which carries a maxi-mum penalty of 14 years in prison.Denmark’s embassy in Yangon, which has closely followed the case, said ahead of the latest hearing that the journalists should be “thanked and not punished” for their reporting on northern Rakhine state – where they found evidence of security forces’ involvement in the killing of 10 Rohingya Muslim men.“Nor should they be subject to a dragged out trial that appears to be set to last for months while keeping Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo incarcerated, away from their families and their work,” the embassy said in a statement. Two civilians that police brought to wit-ness a search of Wa Lone’s family home the evening after the report-ers were arrested gave testimony yesterday.Min Min, a neighbourhood off icial in north Yangon, told the court he joined nine or 10 policemen searching the residence and signed a form to confirm a laptop with a charger and a bag, a hard drive and a notebook were discov-ered there.Asked by defence lawyer Than Zaw Aung during cross-exami-nation whether any government papers were discovered in the search, he said no. Min Aung, a ward administrator who joined the search and gave testimony, said he could not remember seeing police find off icial documents.

Defence lawyers slam Malaysian police over Jong-nam murder probeAFPShah Alam, Malaysia

The Malaysian police’s in-vestigation into the mur-der of the North Korean

leader’s estranged half-brother was “shoddy” and could result in an unfair trial, a court heard yes-terday. Defence lawyers for two young women – Indonesian Siti Aisyah and Vietnamese Doan Thi Huong – charged with the Cold War-style killing of Kim Jong-nam sought to discredit the man-ner in which the police conducted their probe.

Kim, the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, was poisoned at Kuala Lumpur’s international airport in February last year while

he was about the take a fl ight to Macau. The women are on trial for allegedly smearing the banned nerve agent VX on the face of Kim, who died in agony minutes later. Kim had been living in exile since a family fallout.

Defence lawyers have argued that the women were recruited to take part in what they thought were prank TV shows but were instead tricked into becoming in-advertent assassins, in an elabo-rate plot by a group of North Ko-rean agents.

The brazen daylight killing un-leashed diplomatic shockwaves and widespread condemnation of North Korea. Gooi Soon Seng, Ai-syah’s lawyer, told the court that police failed to investigate certain evidence and denied him access to his client during her initial 14-

day detention. He was question-ing the case’s chief investigating offi cer Wan Azirul Nizam Che Wan Aziz on the 32nd day of the trial.

Gooi at yesterday’s hearing criticised the offi cer for show-ing the court only bits of closed-circuit television footage related to the killing, which did not paint an accurate picture of what hap-pened.

“I put it to you that your fail-ure to copy all the footages from the CCTV server ... had com-promised the defence of Siti (Aisyah),” Gooi told Wan Azirul, who is being presented as a pros-ecution witness. He also pointed out that video footage in the af-termath of the killing showed his client adjusting her sunglasses after the attack on Kim, contrary

to a police report which said she was walking fast with her hands far apart.

This was important because if she had smeared VX on Kim’s face using her hands, she would

have also poisoned herself when when she touched her glasses, according to Gooi. Aisyah’s jeans and glasses were not sent for laboratory tests and the chemis-try department tests showed that

her fi ngernail cuttings, nail swabs and blood had no traces of VX, Gooi told the court. “The failure to investigate certain evidence and not to allow lawyers access to Aisyah during her initial 14-day police detention have resulted in a lopsided and shoddy investi-gation,” Gooi told AFP after the morning session.

The Vietnamese woman’s law-yer, Hisyam Teh Poh Teik, in the afternoon also fl agged lapses by police when he questioned the investigating offi cer for the fi rst time in the trial. Hisyam told the court the offi cer failed to inter-view Nguyen Bich Thuy, a key witness from Vietnam who said she was the one who introduced the suspect Huong to a Korean man in Hanoi. The man – be-lieved to be a North Korean agent

– was looking for actresses to play in short, funny videos just weeks before the assassination. Thuy’s testimony would have reinforced the defence’s argu-ment that Huong was in Malaysia thinking she was taking part in a prank show, the lawyer said.

“Because you as the investi-gating offi cer failed to question Nguyen Bich Thuy, you have prejudiced the second accused,” Hisyam told the court. I put to you that you are a biased offi cer and not independent.”

Hisyam said her client’s fi rst practice for the prank – with the Korean watching from the side-lines – was outside a theatre in Hanoi where she was supposed to say “hi” to a man the Korean picked and give him a kiss on the cheek.

Kim Jong-nam

With Tillerson out, Seoul awaits seasoned PompeoReutersSeoul/Tokyo

Japan’s foreign minister said yesterday he person-ally regretted the departure of

“frank, trustworthy” US Secre-tary of State Rex Tillerson ahead of a proposed summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

Trump fi red Tillerson on Tuesday after a series of public rifts over policy on North Korea and other issues, replacing him with loyalist Central Intelligence Agency Director Mike Pom-peo. “He (Tillerson) was a frank, trustworthy counterpart and I thought we would deal with the North Korea issue together, but personally, I feel that this situa-tion that has developed is unfor-tunate,” Japanese Foreign Min-ister Taro Kono told reporters in Tokyo.

“For sure, America holds the key, so I want to meet his succes-sor as secretary of state soon and exchange views on North Korea and other matters,” Kono said.

Critics expressed dismay at the decision to swap out top

diplomats so soon before the unprecedented potential meet-ing between Kim and Trump, and worried that Pompeo would encourage Trump to be hawkish on North Korea. South Korea’s Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha decided to go ahead with a planned trip to Washington to discuss North Korea despite Till-

erson’s departure, the ministry said in a text message. An offi cial had earlier said she would cancel the visit.

Other South Korean offi cials, also speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that while Pom-peo was known to have hardline views on North Korea, he was a seasoned politician and seemed

to know how to compromise. “We’re aware that Pompeo was one of the strongest voices in the talk of military action and fed Trump related assessments, but things have since changed a lot,” one senior offi cial said, referring to upcoming inter-Korean talks and the prospect of a Kim-Trump summit. “So, we will see.” Chi-nese Foreign Ministry spokes-man Lu Kang said China hopes the change in personnel will not

impact the development of rela-tions and important areas of co-operation.

“We of course hope that the positive momentum on the Ko-rean peninsula, including the political will for talks of both the United States and North Ko-rea, will be maintained,” Lu told a daily news briefi ng. Shares in Japanese defence equipment makers rose sharply on specula-tion that geopolitical tensions may rise after the fi ring of Tiller-son and Pompeo’s appointment. Ishikawa Seisakusho surged as much as 15%, while Howa Ma-chinery jumped 11%.

Jia Qingguo, an expert on Chi-nese diplomacy at Peking Uni-versity in Beijing, said China may see positive outcomes from the change when it comes to the US position on the Belt and Road initiative, Chinese President Xi Jinping’s signature foreign policy initiative.

“Tillerson has at times been quite critical of China, includ-ing of Belt and Road,” Jia said. “Trump is not as hawkish on China as many assume. He has tried to communicate and to cut a deal.”

Coming from the CIA, Pompeo

is more likely to see China as a threat but his views will probably soften, Jia said. “Once you are in the secretary of state position, you need to be more pragmatic and take into account the huge stakes involved, so the impact will not be as big as some people expect.”

Most important for China was that Pompeo makes contact with his Chinese counterparts to en-sure a smooth meeting between Kim and Trump as soon as pos-sible, said Ruan Zongze, a former Chinese diplomat now with the China Institute of International Studies, a think tank affi liated with the Foreign Ministry.

“Time is short. There are a lot things to do. Every day is very important,” he said.

Pompeo is also known for his hawkish views on trade. He takes over as the chief US diplomat as the United States is fi nalising the imposition of hefty tariff s on steel and aluminium that have upset a number of Asian trading partners.

Close ally Australia, which is working through an exemption

from the US tariff s, welcomed Pompeo’s appointment. “We know him very well,” Prime Min-ister Malcolm Turnbull told re-porters.

“He’s a great friend of Aus-tralia. The transition will be ab-solutely seamless. Our relation-ship with the United States, as you know, is outstanding at so many levels from the president and myself, right through the military, intelligence, diplomacy and business.”

South Korea is the largest sup-plier of steel to the United States not to have secured an exemp-tion from the tariff s and is facing pressure from Trump over the two countries’ free-trade deal.

“It is our joint understand-ing with the United States that strong co-operation be main-tained through close communi-cation between South Korea and the United States regardless of US personnel changes as there are important issues, including the North Korea nuclear issue, the US-South Korea alliance and trade matters,” South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said.

South Korea’s National Intelligence Service chief Suh Hoon waits for ar-rival of Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe prior to their meeting in Tokyo earlier this week.

Rex Tillerson

Mike Pompeo

A police dog takes part in a training session with an off icer in Shenyang, Liaoning province, China, yesterday.

Dog’s day out

South Australia poll off ers voters a choice of clean or cheap powerReutersMelbourne/Sydney

South Australians go to the polls on Saturday in a tight race with big implications for national politics

and foreign investment in a state with the most wind and solar power, but the highest electricity prices in the country.

While its outcome will not dislodge Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, the vote presents a choice between renew-able energy, pushed by South Australia’s centre-left Labor government, and coal, backed by Turnbull’s conservative gov-

ernment, which has mocked the state’s “big experiment” in wind and solar en-ergy.

South Australia’s economy has suf-fered blow after blow in the last six years, with mining giant BHP Billiton scrapping a $20-bn plan to expand its Olympic Dam copper mine in 2012, the collapse of steel maker Arrium and a state-wide blackout in 2016, followed by General Motors’ closure of its Holden car plant last year.

Labor, in power for 16 years, has turned to renewable energy luring for-eign investors, such as Elon Musk’s Tesla, which built the world’s biggest

lithium-ion battery at a windfarm run by France’s Neoen, and British billion-aire Sanjeev Gupta, who wants to revive steel works using solar power.

“We’re sending, really, a market sig-nal to the world to come to South Aus-tralia,” state premier Jay Weatherill said at the launch of a poll campaign that targets 75% of state energy to come from renewables by 2025. South Australia al-ready gets nearly half its electricity from renewables but has suff ered blackouts when back-up power from coal and gas is unavailable.

The plan is a potential bonanza for renewable energy developers as South

Australia has the nation’s highest power prices, which are a big deterrent to other investors, along with supply reliability concerns. “South Australians know that Jay Weatherill is like a problem gam-bler doubling down to chase his losses on energy policy,” Josh Frydenberg, the federal energy minister, said in an e-mail to Reuters.

If Labor wins an unprecedented fi fth term, it will be a blow to the federal gov-ernment’s plans for a national energy policy that has no renewable energy tar-get but sets requirements for emissions cuts and reliability. South Australia’s Liberal party promises to cut power bills

by cancelling Labor’s plan for a new gas-fi red power plant and fund instead a new power link to a neighbouring state, to back up wind and solar power. “The federal government has proposed its own plan but it requires all the states to sign up. South Australia has refused to go along, concluding it could inhibit their plans for higher renewables,” said David Blowers, an energy policy spe-cialist at the Grattan Institute think-thank.

“If the Liberals were to win in South Australia, you would expect the govern-ment will get the approval it needs to proceed.”

Japan PM Abe denies involvement by him, wife in discount land sale

Japanese Prime Minister Shin-zo Abe yesterday remained steadfast that he and his wife were not involved in a discount land-sale deal that has seen the opposition call for the resigna-tion of his ally, Finance Minister Taro Aso. Abe and Aso have come under fresh pressure over the ministry’s admission this week that it had altered documents related to the sale of state-owned land at a steep discount to a school operator with ties to Abe’s wife, Akie. Suspicion of a cover-up could slash Abe’s ratings and dash his hopes for a third term as leader of his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Victory in the LDP Sep-tember leadership vote would put him on track to become Ja-pan’s longest-serving premier.Copies of documents released by the finance ministry on Monday showed that refer-ences to Abe, his wife and Aso were removed from the ministry’s records of the sale to school operator Moritomo Gakuen.“When you look at the docu-

ments even before they were altered, it is clear that my wife and I were not involved,” Abe told an upper house budget committee, a statement ech-oed by chief cabinet secretary Yoshihide Suga. Abe has said he would resign if evidence were found that they had.According to the ministry documents, a comment from Moritomo Gakuen citing Akie Abe as telling him, “This is good land so please proceed”, was removed. Yasunori Kagoike, the former head of Moritomo Gakuen, and his wife remain in custody after being arrested last July over the deal.Asked about the reference yesterday, Abe said: “I checked with my wife and she says she said no such thing. My wife was neither the person in charge of establishing the school nor Mr Kagoike’s boss, so naturally she would not have made such a remark.” Abe and Aso told parliament they had never instructed off icials at the finance ministry to alter the documents.

BRITAIN/IRELAND


Brexit ‘threatens GoodFriday agreement’Guardian News and MediaLondon

Ireland’s prime minister has warned that Brexit threatens the Good Friday agreement

and could “drive a wedge” be-tween Britain and Ireland.

Leo Varadkar also sought to reassure unionists, who fear that his government is using the mo-ment to push for a united Ireland, that he does not have “a hidden agenda”.

The taoiseach was joined on Tuesday by the former Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams and the Brit-ish ambassador, Kim Darroch, at an event in Washington to mark the 20th anniversary of the peace deal.

Refl ections on the scale of that “historic achievement” fell under the shadow of Britain’s planned exit from the EU. Brexit had “undoubtedly changed the political weather”, Varadkar told an audience including US politi-cians at the Library of Congress.

“To me, Brexit is a threat to

the Good Friday agreement sim-ply because it threatens to drive a wedge between Britain and Ireland, between Northern Ire-land and the Republic of Ireland, and potentially between the two communities in Northern Ire-land. And that’s why we must do all that we can to make sure that those wedges, that that risk, does not become reality.”

Varadkar continued: “I think for unionists – and I take no pleasure in this – it also cre-ates risks for the union itself because it asks Scotland and Northern Ireland to leave the European Union even though the majority of people in both those countries voted not to do so.”

Brexit has raised fears of a re-turn to a hard border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland reminiscent of the Troubles. Last month it emerged that officials from the UK and the EU are devising a plan to, in effect, keep Northern Ireland in the customs union and single market to avoid this

outcome. But that led to calls from Scotland for a similar ar-rangement.

Meanwhile the Irish govern-ment’s efforts to maintain a soft border, in particular its demand that Northern Ireland contin-ues to align with many EU regu-lations, has spooked unionists. Last year the Irish Foreign Min-ister Simon Coveney said he would like to see a united Ire-land in his “political lifetime”.

The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) described the re-mark as “aggressive” and con-demned “the megaphone diplo-macy” of Dublin.

On Tuesday, in a message aimed at unionists, Varadkar said: “I know many are con-cerned, perhaps worried, per-haps even angry at some recent political developments and I want to recognise that recent statements and recent actions by Irish nationalists, including the Irish government, about Brexit have been seen by some as disre-spectful and by others as intru-sive or interfering”.

Corbyn ‘forced to ditchpeerage for key ally’London Evening StandardLondon

Jeremy Corbyn retracted the tacit off er of a peerage to a close ally to instead reward

the outgoing general secretary of the Labour Party, the Stand-ard revealed. Sources say Murad Qureshi, chair of the Stop the War Coalition and a former London Assembly member, had been on a shortlist of three Left-wingers whom the Labour leader planned to put in the House of Lords.

However, it is believed his name was withdrawn from considera-tion following Iain McNicol’s res-ignation as head of the Labour Party organisation.

McNicol, a former trade un-ionist, had clashed with Corbyn and was seen as a block to the Left taking full control of the party. “It looks like McNicol drove a hard bargain, with the peerage part of his price for leaving,” a senior par-ty fi gure told the Standard.

McNicol’s peerage is expected to be confi rmed shortly, possibly next week, alongside places in the Lords for nearly a dozen Brexit-backing Conservatives.

Corbyn’s remaining two choices are Tony Woodley, former co-leader of the powerful Unite un-ion, and former London councillor Martha Osamor, whose daughter Kate Osamor MP is the shadow international development secre-tary.

A source claimed Qureshi was approached by an aide to Corbyn and asked if he would step aside for McNicol. The Standard under-stands he said he would not “make life diffi cult for Jeremy”.

A senior Labour source, asked whether a peerage was withdrawn or if McNicol demanded one, said: “This is categorically untrue on both counts.” McNicol’s exit from Labour HQ was followed by the resignation on Tuesday night of executive director for governance and membership Emilie Oldknow.

A moderate who has been La-bour’s most senior female staff er for six years, she had been consid-ered a natural successor to McNi-col but said in a letter to colleagues she had decided to step down this summer to pursue “other oppor-tunities”. “With them both gone, Jeremy is now in complete con-trol,” said one senior Labour fi g-ure.

Don’t put away those winter hats and gloves just yet: parts of the UK are set for rain, high winds and more snow this week, forecasters have warned. A front moving from the south-west towards the north-east is set to bring heavy rain today along with strong winds. The latter part of the week will see a return to colder temperatures, according to the Met Off ice. Met Off ice spokeswoman Nicky Maxey said temperatures in London, which reached double digits on Tuesday, would fall as low as 5C by Sunday. In some rural areas temperatures may struggle to climb above zero. She said there was a higher risk of snow on Sunday as the cold air moved across the southern half of the UK.

The father of a Norwegian student who was murdered in London 10 years ago yesterday issued a plea for her suspected killer to return to the UK and face justice. Detectives have released fresh CCTV footage showing 23-year-old business student Martine Vik Magnussen leaving a Mayfair nightclub with the suspect, to mark the 10th anniversary of her death. Her body was discovered hidden in rubble in the basement of flats in Great Portland Street on March 14, 2008. She had been raped and strangled. Farouk Abdulhak, the son of Yemeni billionaire Shaher Abdulhak, fled to his native country after she disappeared and has never returned to face questioning.

Jim Bowen, the comedian and broadcaster best known for hosting the darts-based gameshow Bullseye, has died at the age of 80. Bowen, a former teacher whose entry into showbusiness came via standup comedy, became a household name when he began presenting the ITV show in 1981. A number of strokes – in 2011 and in 2014 – left him struggling to walk and talk for some time but did not aff ect his trademark sense of humour. “I’m very well and I’m expecting to make it! Between your ears you feel 35 but when it gets to your legs and arms your body doesn’t know,” he told the Daily Mirror last year. Bowen’s death was confirmed by his agent.

Britain’s privacy watchdog said it had dropped an investigation into WhatsApp after the messaging service signed an undertaking not to share the personal data of users with its owner Facebook. The decision by information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham means WhatsApp, which has 1.5bn monthly users, will not be fined and that any future sharing of user data would be governed by European privacy rules that enter into force in May. “I am pleased to state that WhatsApp has now signed an ‘undertaking’ wherein they have given a public commitment not to share personal data with Facebook,” Denham said in a blog post yesterday.

Barbara Judge, the chair of the Institute of Directors until she was forced to step aside last week after a raft of allegations of racism and bullying, told fellow guests at Downing Street reception that she will be suing the organisation. Asked what she was planning to do now that she has departed, the 71-year-old said: “I’m planning to take legal action.” Lady Judge stepped down last Friday after 41 accusations from 14 employees about her behaviour. In one instance she allegedly told the Director General of the IoD that “the problem is, we have one black and we have one pregnant woman, and that is the worst combination we could possibly have”.

Fresh snow, rainand winds forecast

New footage on 10-year-oldmurder case released

Bullseye presenter Bowen dies aged 80

WhatsApp probe endedafter compliance pledge

Judge to sue Institute ofDirectors over racism row

WEATHER INVESTIGATIONOBITUARY DECISION LEGAL

Teachers facetighter rules forsetting exams toavoid cheatingGuardian News and MediaLondon

Measures are being in-troduced to tighten regulation of classroom

teachers who help set public examinations in an attempt to avoid a repeat of the cheating scandal that hit two prestigious private schools last summer.

The exams watchdog Ofqual had considered banning teachers from instructing topics on which they have written exam questions but ruled this out, saying that keeping active teachers involved in preparing exams would ensure quality.

In future, teachers will not be told whether or when any of the exams they have developed will be used, and exam boards will be ex-pected to keep up-to-date records of all confl icts of interest.

Exam boards will have to pro-vide ethical training to teach-ers who write exam papers to support them “to do the right thing”. They will also be required to detect malpractice by looking out for any unusual patterns in the results of pupils taught by teacher-examiners.

The crackdown comes amid growing concern about exam malpractice, in particular teach-ers cheating to try to improve their pupils’ results. Last summer, pu-pils at Eton and Winchester had marks annulled in economics and art history papers for the Pre-U – an exam favoured by some schools as an alternative to A-levels – af-ter it emerged that students had prior access to material that later appeared in their fi nal exams.

The teachers responsible for leaking the material subsequently left their schools. The Eton head-master, Simon Henderson, later revealed to a committee of MPs that teachers at the school were involved in setting seven public exams taken by their own pupils.

It emerged in February that nearly 2,300 malpractice off ences were committed between 2012

and 2016 by staff in schools and colleges off ering OCR (Oxford, Cambridge and RSA) awarding body exams, according to data obtained through a freedom of in-formation request by the Sunday Times.

Ofqual’s chief regulator, Sally Collier, said: “Our rules on confi -dentiality and malpractice are al-ready demanding. The proposals we have put forward today build on them and provide greater clar-ity about our expectations and the implications for awarding or-ganisations if information about an assessment is disclosed by a teacher who has been involved in its development.

“There is no one-size-fi ts-all solution to the challenge of main-taining confi dentiality. How-ever, the events of summer 2017 showed how public confi dence in assessments and, in turn, quali-fi cations, can be damaged if con-fi dential information is wrongly used.”

This year’s summer exams have already been written so cannot be fully subject to the new safe-guards. But all exam boards are expected to have made signifi cant progress by summer 2019 and to have fully revised their safeguard-ing procedures by 2020.

The Joint Council for Qualifi -cations, which represents exam boards in England, said it would be writing to every school and college with guidance on how to identify and manage potential confl icts of interest for teachers who also set exams.

A spokesman said: “Malprac-tice undertaken by assessment setters involved in the produc-tion of question papers seriously damages the integrity of the entire examination system and under-mines public confi dence.

“The very low number of such instances is due to the profes-sional integrity of the vast ma-jority of assessment setters – and others involved in the preparation of examination papers – and the current system of support and safeguards”.

23 Russian diplomats expelled over spy attackReutersLondon

Britain is to kick out 23 Russian diplomats, the biggest such expulsion

since the Cold War, signalling a plunge in relations to their lowest point in decades in the wake of a chemical attack on a former Russian spy in southern England.

Prime Minister Theresa May pointed the finger of blame firmly at Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday as she outlined a series of retali-atory measures in parliament.

Russia denies any involve-ment in the attack on ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter

Yulia, who have been critical in hospital since they were found unconscious on March 4 on a bench in Salisbury.

May announced measures including the potential freez-ing of Russian state assets that pose a security threat, new laws to counter hostile state activity and a downgrading of Britain’s attendance at the soccer World Cup in Russia.

She had given Moscow un-til midnight on Tuesday night to explain how the Novichok nerve agent came to be de-ployed on the streets of Salis-bury, saying either the Russian state was responsible or it had lost control of a stock of the substance.

“Their response demon-

strated complete disdain for the gravity of these events,” May said in a statement to par-liament. “They have treated the use of a military-grade nerve agent in Europe with sarcasm, contempt and defi-ance.”

May said the only possible conclusion was that the Rus-sian state was culpable for the attempted murder of the Skri-pals and the harm to Nick Bai-ley, a police officer who is in a serious condition after being exposed to the nerve agent.

“This represents an unlaw-ful use of force by the Russian state against the UK,” she said.

The Russian embassy in London described the steps announced by May as “un-

acceptable, unjustified and shortsighted”. Moscow has repeatedly warned London to expect retaliation.

The two governments blamed each other for the cri-sis. “Many of us looked at a post-Soviet Russia with hope. We wanted a better relation-ship and it is tragic that Presi-dent Putin has chosen to act in this way,” said May.

Britain, which has received statements of support from the US, the European Union and Nato, has said it would seek to co-ordinate an international response to the attack.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said after May’s state-ment that she took the British findings on Salisbury seriously

and there would be a common European stance, although “we must still talk responsibly” with Russia despite differences of opinion.

A French government spokesman said Paris was awaiting proof before decid-ing if it would act in solidarity with London.

May said the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemi-cal Weapons has been notified of Britain’s findings and would verify its analysis of the sub-stance used in the attack.

Skripal betrayed dozens of Russian agents to Britain before being arrested in Moscow and later jailed in 2006. He was freed under a spy swap deal in 2010 and took refuge in Britain.

Military personnel wearing protective coveralls work to remove a vehicle connected to the March 4 nerve agent attack in Salisbury, from a residential street in Gillingham, southeast England, yesterday.

Corbyn: rewards outgoing general secretary

May leadstributes asHawkingdies aged 76ReutersLondon

Stephen Hawking, who sought to explain the ori-gins of the universe, the

mysteries of black holes and the nature of time itself, died yester-day aged 76.

Hawking’s formidable mind probed the very limits of human understanding both in the vast-ness of space and in the bizarre sub-molecular world of quantum theory, which he said could predict what happens at the beginning and end of time.

Ravaged by the wasting mo-tor neurone disease he developed at 21, Hawking was confi ned to a wheelchair for most of his life.

As his condition worsened, he had to speak through a voice syn-thesiser and communicating by moving his eyebrows — but at the same time became the world’s most recognisable scientist.

Hawking died peacefully at his home in the university city of Cambridge in the early hours of yesterday. “He was a great sci-entist and an extraordinary man whose work and legacy will live on for many years,” his children Lucy, Robert and Tim said. “His cour-age and persistence with his bril-liance and humour inspired people across the world.”

Hawking shot to international fame after the 1988 publication of A Brief History of Time, one of the most complex books ever to

achieve mass appeal, which stayed on the Sunday Times best-sellers list for no fewer than 237 weeks.

“My original aim was to write a book that would sell on airport bookstalls,” he told reporters at the time. “In order to make sure it was understandable I tried the book out on my nurses. I think they un-derstood most of it.”

The physicist’s disease spurred him to work harder but also con-tributed to the collapse of his two marriages, he wrote in a 2013 memoir My Brief History.

In the book he related how he was fi rst diagnosed: “I felt it was very unfair — why should this happen to me,” he wrote. “At the time, I thought my life was over and that I would never realise the potential I felt I had. But now, 50 years later, I can be quietly satis-fi ed with my life.”

Prime Minister Theresa May said: “Stephen Hawking was a brilliant and extraordinary mind - one of the great scientists of his generation. His courage, humour and determination to get the most from life was an inspiration. His legacy will not be forgotten.”

US space agency Nasa said: “His theo-ries unlocked a universe of pos-sibilities that we and the world are exploring.”

Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide

Web, said: “We have lost a colossal mind and a wonderful spirit.”

Hawking’s popular recognition became such that he appeared as himself on the television show Star Trek: Next Generation and his cartoon caricature appeared on The Simpsons.

He narrated a segment of the opening ceremony of the London Paralympic Games in August 2012, the year he turned 70.

A 2014 fi lm, The Theory of Eve-rything, with Eddie Redmayne playing Hawking, charted the on-set of his illness and his early life as a brilliant student.

He caused some controversy among biologists when he said he saw computer viruses as a life form, and thus the human race’s fi rst act of creation.

“I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive,” he told a fo-rum in Boston. “We’ve created life in our own image.”

Another major area of his re-search was into black holes, the re-

gions of space-time where grav-ity is so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape.

He married undergradu-ate Jane Wilde in July 1965

and the couple had Robert, Lucy and Timothy.

But Hawking tells in his 2013 memoir how Wilde

became more and more depressed as her

husband’s condi-tion worsened.

Hammond’s economicoptimism is savagedLondon Evening StandardLondon

Philip Hammond’s new “Tiggerish” economic outlook was clawed apart

yesterday by leading experts who warned of tax hikes as the govern-ment faces having to raise up to £41bn.

The respected Institute for Fis-cal Studies also said that Britain’s debt mountain could still be spi-ralling even after the chancellor has ended the Budget defi cit.

Hammond sought to brush off his “Eeyore” reputation with his Spring Statement, in which he proclaimed Britain was at a “turning point” and raised the prospect of more public spending in coming years.

The chancellor described him-self as “positively Tigger-like”, saying there was “light at the end of the tunnel”.

But in a scathing analysis of his statement, IFS director Paul Johnson said: “To listen to the suddenly Tiggerish Hammond you might think all was now

well. Well not so much.”In brutally stark terms, he added:

“Dismal productivity growth, dis-mal earnings growth and dismal economic growth are not just part of the history of the last decade, they appear to be the new normal.”

He said the economic forecasts were still considerably worse than before the 2016 Brexit vote and that the economy is at least £300bn smaller than expected based on 2008 forecasts. National income per person is £5,900 low-er on a similar basis.

Hammond on Tuesday gave a strong hint that austerity will be eased in November, telling MPs: “If, in the autumn, the public fi -nances continue to refl ect the improvements that today’s report hints at, then I would have capac-ity to enable further increases in public spending and investment in the years ahead while continu-ing to drive value for money.”

But the IFS believes he may have to choose between achieving his goal of ending the Budget defi cit by the mid-2020s or a hefty cash injection into public services.

Johnson said Hammond would

need to fi nd an additional £14bn a year by 2022-23 to avoid spend-ing falling as a fraction of national income.

In contrast, to eliminate the defi cit by the mid-2020s he would need to fi nd some £18bn extra of tax increases or spending cuts. He added: “Put these two together and on current forecasts, just keeping spending constant as a fraction of national income beyond 2019-20 and reaching budget balance by the mid-2020s would require tax rises of £30bn a year.”

On top of this, the ageing pop-ulation and other demographic pressures could mean another £11bn a year needed by 2025 to fund additional demands for health, pensions and social care.

Hammond hailed slightly im-proved GDP fi gures and said fore-casts confi rmed “the fi rst sus-tained fall in debt for 17 years”. But Johnson said public services like the NHS, prisons and councils were “struggling” and it was not clear how wage rises of more than one per cent for nurses and other public workers could be fi nanced.

Facebook removesfar-right group’s pagesAFPLondon

Facebook yesterday an-nounced it had removed the pages of far-right

group Britain First and its two leaders for posting content “de-signed to incite animosity and hatred” against minorities.

The move comes just days after Britain First’s leader Paul Golding and deputy leader Jayda Fransen, who hit the headlines last year after her posts were retweeted by US President Donald Trump, were jailed for hate crimes.

In a blog post, Facebook said: “Content posted on the Britain First Facebook page and the pag-es of party leaders Paul Golding and Jayda Fransen has repeatedly broken our community stand-ards.

“We recently gave the adminis-trators of the pages a written fi nal warning, and they have continued to post content that violates our community standards.

“As a result, in accordance with our policies, we have now removed the offi cial Britain First Facebook page and the pages of

the two leaders with immediate eff ect.

“We do not do this lightly, but they have repeatedly posted con-tent designed to incite animos-ity and hatred against minor-ity groups, which disqualifi es the pages from our service.”

The social media giant said it was an open platform for all ide-as, and “we are careful not to re-move posts or pages just because some people don’t like them”.

But it warned that “there are times though when legitimate political speech crosses the line and becomes hate speech”.

Facebook is regularly criti-cised over content which it bans or indeed content it allows to be published.

Prime Minister Theresa May has been particularly vocal in de-manding that social media com-panies act on extremist content.

Fransen, 31, was jailed for 36 weeks last week for religiously aggravated harassment, while Golding, 36, was given an 18-week term for the same off ence.

Britain First was a largely un-known marginal group before Trump retweeted three infl amma-tory videos it posted in November.

Parole Board hails courage of victims at Worboys hearingGuardian News and MediaLondon

The Parole Board has ac-knowledged the “serious suff ering” and “courage”

of the victims of the serial sex attacker John Worboys during a high court challenge brought by two women opposing his release from prison.

Ben Collins QC, representing the board, said: “We are acutely conscious that underlying this

forensic and analytical debate are stories of real and serious suf-fering on the part of the victims. I wish to acknowledge that on behalf of the board ... and also to acknowledge the courage of the victims in pursuing their claims.”

Lawyers for the two unnamed victims have argued that the Pa-role Board failed to take into ac-count the full extent of Worboys’ off ending and that the decision to free him on licence, even on the evidence considered, was “irrational”.

Worboys, 60, who used to drive a black cab, now goes under the name John Radford. He was jailed indefi nitely in 2009 with a mini-mum term of eight years after being found guilty of 19 off ences, including rape, sexual assault and drugging, committed against 12 victims. Police, however, believe he committed crimes against 105 women between 2002 and 2008 when he was caught.

Collins told the three judges hearing the judicial review – Sir Brian Leveson, Justice Garnham

and Justice Jay – that the board’s decision to release Worboys “was rational and lawful”.

The Parole Board could not be expected to investigate other al-legations made against inmates if the original trial judge had not found them proved in court, he said. “The board indeed does not have to determine whether there has been a crime, or what it is, because there has been a criminal trial and a sentencing exercise.”

Collins added: “It is impos-sible for the board to fi nd that a

prisoner is guilty of a crime for which he has not been charged, consistent with the requirements of fairness.”

But Leveson told Collins that the issues raised by the case were fundamental. “It’s a ques-tion of whether someone is safe to be released. That doesn’t de-pend just on (convictions) but on a whole raft of other mat-ters,” he said. Edward Fitzger-ald QC, representing Worboys, told the court that his client had completed his tariff and “is

therefore entitled to be released if it is not necessary for the pro-tection of the public that he be detained”.

He added: “The Parole Board had directed his release, he was entitled on their direction to freedom and he has had that tak-en away. I think it is a unique case in which someone who has been granted his freedom has then had it taken away from him.”

Throughout the two-day hearing, Worboys watched pro-ceedings via videolink from his

prison. He has now served more than 10 years in prison. He re-mains in custody pending the outcome of the case.

Part of the Parole Board’s proposed release conditions for Worboys, the high court was told, was that he would be ex-cluded from London and Sussex. He would also have to wear an electronic tag on his ankle with a GPS tracker.

At the end of the two-day hearing the judges reserved their decision to a later date.

BRITAIN


15

Students wait in line to sign a book of condolence opened at Gonville and Caius College, where Stephen Hawking was a fellow for over 50 years, at Cambridge University in Cambridge.

Cheltenham Ladies Day

Zara Tindall attends the Ladies Day at the Cheltenham Festival yesterday. The Queen’s pregnant grand-daughter, who is due three months after Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge, appeared in good spirits for her second day at the renowned racing event.

‘He was thegreatest scientist’

Tears fl owed at Stephen Hawking’s Cambridge University college as former students, fellow academics and admirers came to pay tribute to the world-famous physicist who died yesterday.The Gonville and Caius fl ag fl ew at half-mast over the 14th-century college, where Hawking had been a fellow since 1965.The college at the prestigious English university opened a book of condolence in its chapel and announced his death with a monochrome picture of him pinned on a notice board in the street. Hu Xiaohua, a teacher in China and a visiting scholar at the English faculty in Cambridge, broke down in tears as she looked at the image. “I read his books and was inspired. He said ‘never give up’ — and he never gave up,” the 49-year-old said, dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief.Hu said Hawking, who was confi ned to a wheelchair for fi ve decades by motor neurone disease, was one of the reasons why she came to Cambridge and had inspired her interest in quantum physics. “He was the greatest scientist of the 21st century...I prayed for him every day. I wished he could stand up,” she said. Hawking, who died aged 76, had a study at the college which he shared with other fellows. His name is painted in black and white on the stone arch entrance and above the room’s wooden door. “He was an amazing person,” said Edo Dzafi c, 26, a molecular biology doctoral student from Slovenia who came to sign the condolence book. Dzafi c said he “got people to think outside the box about what’s out there. It’s what we all wonder about”.Justin Hayward, who was Hawking’s doctoral student from 1991 to 1995, said the groundbreaking theoretical physicist had come to his wedding in 2006. “He was a fun person to work with and had a great sense of humour. For his students at the blackboard, sometimes a little scary,” Hayward said. Other former pupils, neighbours and people inspired to take up the pursuit of science paid tribute to the cosmology giant in the condolence book.“The greatest man leading us human beings through the whole universe,” said one comment, others calling him “an inspirational demonstration of human determination”, who “proved that no matter what, you can”.

The leader of Italy’s eurosceptic League said yesterday he was open to forming any sort of coalition government so long as it did not include the Democratic Party (PD), which has ruled for the past five years. “Barring the PD, everything is possible,” Salvini said at Rome’s foreign press club. The League is the biggest party in a right-wing coalition including former premier Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia (Go Italy!), which won the most seats at a March 4 election. However, no party or group won an outright majority, leaving Salvini jockeying for power with the 5-Star Movement, which emerged as the biggest individual party.

Some 23,000 people were evacuated overnight in the central Italian town of Fano due to the accidental discovery of a large British-made explosive dating to World War II. Fano is located on Italy’s eastern Adriatic coast, just under 300km north of Rome. The bomb was found Tuesday during hydraulic works on the city’s seafront, and prompted the local town hall to clear everybody within a 1.8km radius. The town hall said yesterday the bomb was neutralized in “a special and highly risky operation” by army and navy experts, who lifted it and dropped it in the sea. Mayor Massimo Seri announced that Fano was “out of danger and fully safe”.

Dozens of Greek protesters clashed yesterday with police as they tried to storm a notary’s off ice to prevent an e-auction of repossessed properties under the country’s international bailout. The protesters, led by the left-wing Popular Unity party, chanted “No home in the hands of bankers!” and threw eggs and garbage at a line of police guarding the off ice’s entrance. At least one protester was visibly injured in the scuff les, with blood around his eye. The auctions, a condition of the bailouts Greece negotiated with the European Union and the International Monetary Fund, have often been disrupted by leftist activists who say they are unfair and target the poor.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said yesterday his country is ready for a compromise over Kosovo since resolving a dispute with its former province is key to its EU bid. Serbia has refused to recognise Kosovo’s independence, declared unilaterally a decade ago. Brussels insists normalisation of ties between the former foes, who fought each other in a 1990s war, is a key condition they both must meet in order to join the European Union. “For us, the most diff icult hurdle on the European path is indeed the situation over Kosovo and that is why Serbia is....ready to talk about possible compromises,” Vucic told reporters.

Most schools and kindergartens in Slovenia were closed yesterday for the second time this year as teachers staged another one-day strike for higher wages. Some 40,000 teachers went on strike and around 15,000 attended street protests in 11 Slovenian cities at noon, according to their trade union SVIZ. In the largest protest, about 3,000 people gathered in front of the government building in Ljubljana. Teachers blew whistles and waved union flags and banners. “Teachers — big heart, small salary” one banner said. “The work of a teacher is undervalued. Our wages do not match our responsibilities,” geography teacher Ludvik Mihelic told Reuters.

Italy League open to any govt sans Democratic Party

23,000 evacuated in Italy after WWII bomb found

Greeks protest property repossession auction

Serbia ready for compromise over Kosovo: president

Slovenian school teachers strike for pay hikes

POLITICS BLAST FROM THE PASTAUSTERITY EU MEMBERSHIP WAGE WOES

Celebrated abroad, Macron struggles to fi nd love at homeBy Michel Rose, Reuters Paris

He may have won elec-tion on a promise to be “neither of the left, nor

the right”, but France’s mould-breaking young president is fi nd-ing out that enacting broad wel-fare and labour reforms without a traditional power base has its price.

In a by-election last month, the voters of the tidy market town of Pontoise, west of Paris, made clear their disenchantment with Emmanuel Macron by stripping his party of a parliamentary seat won only eight months earlier.

Chief among their complaints is cuts to pensions — one of the ways the 40-year-old former in-vestment banker has tried to pay for a reduction in taxes on sala-ries.

“For pensioners such as my-self, it’s a real catastrophe. It’s been presented as ‘only fair’, but it’s an injustice, pure and simple,” said Yvan Mary, a 71-year-old pensioner standing outside the bakery on the main square.

“It’s not what people expected, including those who voted for him. There’s a sense of betrayal.”

Despite economic growth at its

highest in six years, falling un-employment, and international newspapers and magazine cov-ers celebrating “Macronmania”, Macron’s approval rating is now at its lowest since his election, at around 43%.

And nowhere is the frustration more acute than among France’s over-65s — the age group where Macron found the strongest sup-port in the presidential vote last year.

In one survey, Macron suf-fered a nine-point fall in Febru-ary alone, after most pensioners noticed a decline in their pension payments in January.

Sensing an opportunity after several failed attempts to chal-lenge Macron’s reforms — which he says will galvanise a hide-bound economy — the French unions have called a day of pro-tests today on behalf of pension-ers.

That will provide an indication of what unions hope will become a “spring of discontent”, with na-tional strikes called for March 22 against the government’s plans to shake up totems of the French “social model”, such as jobs-for-life in public administration and the railways.

But as yet, Macron is show-ing no sign of following the path

trodden by several French leaders before him by backing off from economic reforms under pres-sure from the streets.

“I know I’m asking for an eff ort from the oldest, that sometimes some of them grumble,” Macron said this month on the sidelines of a visit in the Champagne re-gion, where a pensioner publicly complained to him.

“It doesn’t make me popu-lar — but I won’t apologise for it,” he later told reporters, in the combative — some say arrogant — manner that has become his hallmark.

Elysee insiders say they always knew there would be no honey-moon, since Macron decided to launch a whirlwind of reforms targeting vested interests right from the start of his mandate.

Apart from pensioners, his moves to make hiring and fi r-ing easier and slash a wealth tax, while putting off increases in welfare spending, have alienated many of the left-leaning voters who switched to him from the mainstream Socialists in 2017, making up almost half his vote.

Just over a third of left-wing sympathisers now support Ma-cron, according to an Ifop-Fidu-cial poll this month, compared with 43% of right-wing voters.

“It’s about his policy choices — but also his style,” Bruno Cautres, a sociologist at Paris’s Sciences-Po university who recently ran a focus group on perceptions of

Macron.“Some of the words used,

even by some who voted for him, are particularly negative: ‘He’s haughty, contemptuous, he likes

to show off in international con-ferences’,” he said.

But Cautres said Macron’s reformist zeal and his appar-ent resolve to break down “spe-

cial privileges” have also run up against a deeper, more en-trenched characteristic of the French psyche.

It is what French sociologist Philippe d’Iribarne called the “logic of honour” — the pride French feel about the system of rights and duties particular to each working group, inherited from the pre-Revolution era.

“In France, the feeling of hav-ing your honour besmirched is one of the strongest impedi-ments to reforms,” Cautres said, adding that it was especially in-grained among the 5mn public sector workers.

“It’s a French cultural trait, forged by history, which is very important. You can’t reform the public administration just by using managerial arguments, as Macron is doing.”

In the medieval alleys of Pon-toise, which has swung back and forth between left and right in re-cent decades, they put their view of the young centrist, as he would have it, more bluntly.

“To him, it’s: ‘I do what I say — live with it. Whether you agree or disagree — you voted for me, so that’s how it is,’” said 61-year-old Anita Deliers, a retired ad-ministrator. “He’s too much of a neoliberal for my liking.”

French President Emmanuel Macron poses for a selfie with Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo (left) during a visit to a site on the Pont Alexandre III in Paris.

Finland is world’s happiest countryReutersRome

Finland is the world’s happiest country, accord-ing to an annual survey issued yesterday that put Burundi at the bottom of the happiness index and

found Americans were getting less happy even as their country became richer.

The UN Sustainable Development Solutions Net-work’s (SDSN) 2018 World Happiness Report ranked 156 countries according to their scores for things such as GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, social freedom, generosity and absence of corruption.

Finland, rose from fi fth place last year to oust Norway from the top spot. The 2018 top-10, as ever dominated by the Nordics, is: Finland, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Switzerland, Netherlands Canada, New Zealand, Sweden and Australia. The United States came in at 18th, down from 14th place last year. Britain was 19th.

One chapter of the 170-page report is dedicated to emerging health problems such as obesity, depression and the opioid crisis, particularly in the United States where the prevalence of all three has grown faster than in most other countries.

While income per capita has increased markedly in the United States over the last half century, the happiness in-dex has been hit by weakened social support networks, a rise in perception of corruption in government and busi-ness and declining confi dence in public institutions.

“We obviously have a social crisis in the United States: more inequality, less trust, less confi dence in government,” the head of the SDSN, Professor Jeff rey Sachs of New York’s Columbia University, told Reuters as the report was launched at the Vatican’s Pontifi cal Academy of Sciences. “It’s pretty stark right now. The signs are not good for the US It is getting richer and richer but not getting happier.”

Poland’s Duda likens European Union membership to past occupations

Polish President Andrzej Duda has likened Poland’s

membership of the European Union to the successive

occupations of the country by Russia, Austria and Prussia,

press reports said yesterday.

He said that today, as during the 123 years between

1795 and 1918 when Poles answered to an occupying

power, “in faraway capitals, they make decisions for us...

and in reality we are working on behalf of others.”

Speaking at an event in southwestern Poland marking

100 years since the country’s sovereignty was restored

following World War I, Duda said: “We have today a sover-

eign and independent Poland where I believe...we will live

better and better. Talk about it to your children.”

To people who say the European Union is more impor-

tant than Poland, Duda said “everyone should remember

the 123 years of partitions” when the country answered to

occupying powers.

“People would say (at the time), maybe it’s better, there

won’t be any more quarrels, uprisings...we’ll finally have

peace,” he said.

But they “soon realised that while the wars continued...

we don’t decide for ourselves anymore, now somewhere

far away, in faraway capitals they make decisions for us,

they take the money we earn through our work, and in

reality we work on behalf of others.”

Merkel begins 4th term beset by challengesReutersBerlin

German lawmakers yester-day voted to re-elect Angela Merkel as chancellor for a

fourth, and likely fi nal, term that may prove her most challenging yet as she takes charge of a fragile coalition with her personal stand-ing diminished.

Lawmakers voted by 364 to 315, with nine abstentions, in favour of re-electing Merkel, a humbling start as the coalition of her con-servatives and the centre-left So-cial Democrats (SPD) has 399 votes in the Bundestag lower house of parliament.

“I accept the vote,” a beaming Merkel, 63, told lawmakers before being sworn in by Bundestag Presi-dent Wolfgang Schaeuble.

In offi ce since 2005, she has dominated Germany’s political landscape and steered the Europe-an Union through economic crisis.

But her authority was dented by her decision in 2015 to commit Germany to an open-door policy on refugees, resulting in an infl ux of more than 1mn people that laid bare deep divisions within the EU over migration.

While also being locked in a trade stand-off with the United States, Merkel must now juggle competing domestic demands from within her coalition.

Her conservative CDU/CSU al-liance only turned to the SPD to prolong the ‘grand coalition’ that has governed Germany since 2013 out of desperation, after talks on a three-way alliance with two small-er parties collapsed last November.

“It will not be an easy coalition, we have some diffi cult tasks ahead,” said Volker Kauder, parliamentary leader of the conservative bloc.

Ministers, younger and more di-verse than the last cabinet, take up their posts almost six months after last September’s national election in which both coalition partners lost support to the far-right Alter-native for Germany (AfD).

“I have the feeling that noth-ing good is going to be done for the country in this legislature period,” said Alice Weidel, the AfD’s leader

in parliament. “It will probably be Angela Merkel’s last term and at some point it will be enough.”

Merkel starts work with a full in-box.

Abroad she faces the trade ten-sions with Washington, pressure from France to reform Europe, and from Britain to stand up to Russia.

President Frank-Walter Stein-meier said it was “high time for a new government” to go to work.

“It is good that the time of un-

certainty is over,” he said at a cer-emony with Merkel’s cabinet min-isters.

Merkel’s spokesman said she would head to France tomorrow to discuss bilateral, European and in-ternational topics with President Emmanuel Macron.

On Tuesday, Merkel’s spokes-man said she spoke by phone with British Prime Minister Theresa May and condemned a nerve agent attack on an ex-Russian spy in

England for which May held Mos-cow responsible.

Despite that, Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated Mer-kel on her re-election in a telegram and emphasized the importance of further developing bilateral ties, the Kremlin said.

At home, the pressure is on both sides of the coalition to deliver for their rank and fi le.

Their deal includes a clause that envisages a review of the govern-

ment’s progress after two years, giv-ing each the opportunity to pull out then if it is not working for them.

Fault lines have emerged in the new government even before its fi rst cabinet meeting, with ten-sions evident over the sequencing and extent of reforms.

The SPD only agreed to ally with Merkel after promising a list of distinctive policies after the last four years in coalition damaged its standing among voters.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is off ered flowers after she was re-elected at the Bundestag in Berlin.

EUROPE


INDIA17


BJP suff ers jolt in by-elections

Akhilesh meets Mayawatito thank her for support

IANSLucknow/Patna

In results that can set the tone for the 2019 general elec-tions, the Bharatiya Janata

Party yesterday suff ered a se-vere jolt in the Lok Sabha and assembly by-elections in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

The BJP lost four of fi ve seats, including the prestigious Gora-khpur and Phulpur parliamen-tary constituencies, after rival parties teamed up in alliances in the two states.

The BJP also lost the Araria Lok Sabha constituency and the Jehanabad assembly seat while scoring a consolation win in Bhabhua assembly seat in Bihar. The results in both states trig-gered calls for a Grand Alliance all across India to take on the BJP in the next Lok Sabha elections.

After sweeping the Lok Sabha elections in 2014 and the assembly polls last year, BJP faced formida-ble rivals in Uttar Pradesh in the form of Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party who stitched a last-minute alliance. BSP supre-mo Mayawati had announced the backing of her party for SP candi-dates in both the constituencies in return for SP’s support to her party candidate in the Rajya Sabha biennial elections.

The BJP lost Gorakhpur seat to the SP by a margin of 21,961 votes. SP candidate Pravin Ku-mar Nishad got 456,437 votes while the BJP’s Upendra Dutt Shukla secured 4,34,476 votes. Congress candidate Sureetha Kareem polled 18,844 votes.

Yogi Adityanath, who had rep-resented Gorakhpur seat in the Lok Sabha for fi ve times, win-ning the last elections in 2014 with a margin of 313,000 votes, resigned from the seat after he

was became the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh. Before him, his mentor Yogi Avaidyanath was the MP from the seat for two terms, in 1991 and 1993.

In the Phulpur constituency, which was once represented by India’s fi rst prime minister Ja-waharlal Nehru, SP candidate Nagendra Pratap Singh Patel de-feated Kaushalendra Singh of the BJP by 59,613 votes.

The winner polled 342,796 votes while the BJP candidate got 283,183. Former mafi a don-turned politi-cian Ateeq Ahmed secured 48,087 votes while the Congress’s Manish Mishra polled 19,334 votes.

The SP was the runner-up in Gorakhpur many times, while it had won the Phulpur seat four times since 1996. The BJP won Phulphur Lok Sabha seat for the fi rst time in 2014 when Keshav Prasad Maurya, who is now the deputy chief minister won by a margin of over 300,000 votes.

In 2014, BJP and its ally Apna Dal had won 73 of 80 Lok Sabha seats and 325 out of 403 seats in the 2017 assembly elections.

“This is a rejection of both (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi and Yogi (Adityanath),” Sama-jwadi Party spokesman Anurag Bhaudauria said.

“They have been making tall promises but not delivering on the ground,” he said, explaining why the voters appeared to have turned against the BJP so dra-matically in these two seats since the 2014 Lok Sabha battle.

In a rare show of camaraderie, Samajwadi Party leaders admit-ted that the BSP decision to back their party played a critical role in the outcome.

In neighbouring Bihar, the opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) dealt a stunning blow to the saff ron party and its ally Ja-nata Dal-United headed by Chief

Minister Nitsh Kumar when it bagged the Araria Lok Sabha seat.

The RJD’s Sarfaraz Alam de-feated BJP candidate Pradeep Kumar Singh by over 60,000 votes in Araria.

In Jehanabad assembly con-stituency, Suday Yadav of the RJD defeated JD-U’s Abhiram Sharma by 35,036 votes while BJP’s Rinki Pandey scored over Sambhu Patel of the Congress,

an RJD ally, by 15,000 votes in Bhabua assembly constituency.

It was a direct fi ght between the BJP-led National Democrat-ic Alliance and the Grand Alli-ance of the RJD-Congress in Bi-har, a year ahead of the next Lok Sabha battle. With the original Grand Alliance having come apart after the JD-U deserted it and joined hands with the BJP, there was a lot at stake for eve-ryone in the by-elections: the

RJD, JD-U, BJP and Congress.Workers of SP and RJD cel-

ebrated across Uttar Pradesh and Bihar by distributing sweets and bursting fi recrackers.

RJD workers beat drums and raised slogans hailing party chief Lalu Prasad Yadav, who is in jail for corruption, and his son Te-jashwi Yadav, who asked opposi-tion leaders to join hands at the national level to take on the BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha battle.

IANSKochi

The Kerala High Court yes-terday stayed a Central Bureau of Investigation

probe into the murder of a Youth Congress worker in Kannur on February 12.

The stay came on a plea by the state government, exactly a week after a single-bench ordered a CBI probe into the murder of 30-year-old Shoaib Mohamed.

Senior Congress leader K Sudhakaran said his party will approach the Supreme Court

against the verdict.Young Communist Party of

India (Marxist) legislator A N Shamseer, who represents the Thalassery assembly constitu-ency in Kannur, welcomed the stay order.

“We have nothing to fear in this case even as four of the ac-cused belong to our party.

“We have ousted the four from the party. The one reason why we opposed the CBI probe is be-cause the state police have done a clean job and arrested 11,” said Shamseer.

The murder took place on February 12.

IANSAlappuzha, Kerala

The Bharat Dharma Jana Sena, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s strongest ally in Kerala, yesterday announced it won’t

back the BJP in the assembly by-election in Chengannur.

The BDJS is the political arm of the Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana, which works predominantly for the backward Ezhava community. It was formed in 2015 and got 4.47% votes in 2016 in the state assembly elections.

“We have also decided to call a meeting of all the allies of the NDA barring the BJP,” BDJS chief Tushar Vellapally said.

Court stays CBI probe into Kannur murder

Won’t back BJP,says Kerala ally

IANSLucknow

Setting aside bitter and historic rivalry of 25 years, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav yes-

terday evening drove to the residence of Bahujan Samaj Party president Mayawati to thank her for the support to his party candidates in the Phulpur and Gorakhpur parliamentary by-elections.

While Yadav had thanked the BSP chief whom he fondly calls ‘Buaji’ (aunt) at a hurriedly-called press con-ference in the evening, he created a fl utter in political circles here as his cavalcade drove from his Vikramadi-tya Marg residence to the sprawling bungalow of Mayawati at Mall Avenue, a kilometre away.

They were closeted for about 20 minutes.

What transpired between the two is not yet known but it is understood that they discussed the poll outcome in which their parties together routed the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

Sporting the ‘brand SP’ red cap, Ya-dav merely waved at the waiting media on his return and said nothing.

His security personnel had a tough time clearing the route as the media wanted to know the details of one of the biggest political developments in the state in the past two decades.

The meeting has triggered specula-tion about a possible tie-up between

the two parties on lines of a grand al-liance in the run-up to the 2019 gen-eral elections, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeks a second term for himself.

In New Delhi, Congress president Rahul Gandhi said the BJP’s defeat proves the electorate is very angry with the party.

“Congratulations to the winning candidates in today’s by-elections,” Gandhi tweeted.

“It is clear from the by-poll results that voters are angry with BJP and they will vote for the non-BJP candidate, who has a better chance of winning.

“The Congress will look forward to

‘Navnirman’ in Uttar Pradesh, it won’t happen overnight,” he added, indicat-ing at rebuilding his party in the coun-try’s most populous state.

Meanwhile, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee congratu-lated Akhilesh Yadav, Mayawati and Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Lalu Pras-ad Yadav.

“Great victory. Congratulations to Mayawatiji and Akhileshji... The beginning of the end has started,” the Trinamool Congress leader tweeted.

“Congratulations to Lalu Prasadji for winning Araria and Jehanabad. This is a great victory,” she said.

Samajwadi Party workers celebrate their party’s success in Phulpur yesterday.

Underestimated SP-BSP deal: Yogi AdityanathUttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath yesterday said the Bharatiya Janata Party under-estimated the Samajwadi Party-Bahujan Samaj Party alliance that led to its defeat and termed it a lesson for the party. “When the parliamentary by-elections were declared, all opposition parties including the SP, BSP

and Congress were fighting separately. Towards the end... in the midst of campaigning, the SP and BSP entered into an unnatural deal in view of the Rajya Sabha biennial elections and there was some shortcoming on our part in understanding its impact and over-confidence is a factor in this,” Adityanath said.

Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav arrives to meet BSP supremo Mayawati at her residence in Lucknow yesterday.

Samajwadi Party, RJD win key seats in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar

Bollywood actor Narendra Jha dies

No bail for MLA’s son in assault case

Hindu rightwing leaderarrested over caste riots

The Tamil Nadu government yesterday said it has set up a committee to probe the death of 11 trekkers in a forest fire in Kurangani Hills in Theni district on Sunday. The probe team will be headed by Atulya Misra, principal secretary, Revenue and Disaster Management. The team will find out the circumstances leading to the forest fire, as well as trekking activity without proper permission from Forest Department in a forest fire-prone area, off icials said. The committee’s terms of also reference include a review of the procedure established in the Forest Department for regulation and permission of trekking in reserved forest area, the role and lapses on the part of trekking organisers and forest off icials, and recommendations to avoid such incidents. The inquiry will be completed and the report sent to the government in two months, the off icials said.

Pune has emerged as the top city to show improvement in quality of governance, according to a survey released yesterday. The other cities that came in the top five include Kolkata, Thiruvananthapuram, Bhubaneswar and Surat. Bengaluru, Chandigarh, Dehradun, Patna and Chennai constituted the bottom five cities, said the survey conducted by Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy. According to the study, Bhubaneswar stood out for showing steady improvement and moving six positions to fourth this year from tenth position in 2016 while two new cities added this year – Guwahati and Vishakhapatnam – showed disappointing results. “The survey underlines the need for sharp focus on city-systems or institutional reforms to city governance in our cities,” the Centre said.

TN govt sets up panelto probe forest fire

Pune tops in improved quality governance

INVESTIGATIONSURVEY

Bollywood actor Narendra Jha, seen in films like Haider and Raees, died early yesterday due to a heart attack. He was 55. Jha was at his farmhouse in Nanegaon, Maharashtra, when he complained of chest pain, the actor’s driver said. Jha also acted in films like Mohenjo Daro and Kaabil. He worked with iconic filmmakers like Shyam Benegal in Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose: The Forgotten Hero. He also featured in a play Samvidhaan, in which he played Mohamed Ali Jinnah, and did shows on television. Jha was also signed up for the upcoming Salman Khan starrer Race 3.

PEOPLE JUDICIARY PROBE

Pune police yesterday arrested prominent Hindu rightwing leader Milind Ekbote, who is accused of instigating the Bhima-Koregaon caste violence of January 1, shortly after his anticipatory bail plea was rejected by the Supreme Court, off icials said. Significantly, the development came a day after Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis announced that all police cases pertaining to the caste riots of January 1 and later would be withdrawn. A team of Pune police picked up Ekbote, 60, from his home in Shivajinagar amid tight security. The arrest came in the wake of two cases lodged by Dalit activists Sushma Andhare and Anita Salve against Ekbote and another leader from Sangli, Sambhaji Bhide alias Guruji. Earlier, the police had summoned Ekbote on at least five occasions, but he appeared only once and then allegedly did not co-operate in the probe.

The Karnataka High Court yesterday rejected the bail petition of ruling Congress legislator N A Haris’s son Mohammed Nalapad, who was in judicial custody for allegedly assaulting a man at a cafe on February 17. “The bail petition has been dismissed,” Justice S Harish Kumar said. Nalapad and six others were sent to the central jail, after a court sent them to 14-day judicial custody. A sessions court had earlier his Nalapad’s bail plea on March 2. “The judge felt that the attack on the youth was ghastly and hence dismissed the bail petition after going through the evidence,” special public prosecutor M S Shyam Sundar said. Meanwhile, Nalapad’s lawyer C V Nagesh told reporters he would appeal against the order. Nalapad and the six accused were arrested on February 19 after they surrendered at the Cubbon Park police station.


INDIA18

Gujarat MLAstrade blows,2 suspendedfor three yearsAgenciesGandhinagar

Two Congress legislators were yesterday suspended for an unprecedented three

years from the Gujarat Assembly and another for one year after members came to blows over a demand for a discussion on the death of two children in Sabar-mati’s Asaram Ashram.

Speaker Rajendra Trivedi sus-pended Pratap Dudhat and Amr-ish Der for three years and Baldev Thakore for a year following acri-monious scenes in the assembly. The entire opposition Congress staged a walkout after the strong action by the speaker.

The disruptions erupted im-mediately after Question Hour as Congress legislator Vikram Mad-am sought to raise a point of order over the death of two children in the ashram in 2008, as the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s Pradeep-sinh Jadeja wanted a discussion on wasting time in the assembly.

Madam wanted to know wheth-er the government intended to ta-ble the report of a commission en-trusted to investigate the incident.

But the speaker ruled that such points of order were not allowed.

Another Congress member Am-brish Der joined Madam and start-ed questioning the speaker’s ruling. As other Congress MLAs also start-ed asking the same question, there was chaos in the assembly and the atmosphere became tense.

Apparently upset over some-thing BJP MLA Jagdish Panchal told him, Dudhat rushed from his seat towards the treasury bench-es, grabbed a microphone from the desk and threw it towards Panchal. Fortunately, the micro-phone missed Panchal.

Dudhat’s action created a fu-rore as almost everybody got agi-tated and started shouting. This forced the speaker to adjourn the assembly for 10 minutes, which was later extended till 2.30pm.

Deputy Chief Minister Ni-tin Patel later reporters: “This is a shameful incident which has never happened in the history of Gujarat Assembly. Misdoings of Congress MLAs Vikram Madam, Pratap Dudhat and Ambrish Der have been recorded by the CCTV cameras and we are going to re-quest the speaker to make it ac-cessible to the media.

“We are also going to request the speaker to take strict action against the violent behaviour by the three opposition members. None of our MLAs were such vio-lent or used any foul language.”

However, Dudhat said: “The BJP is trying to shift the people’s attention from public issues like the death of children in Asaram Ashram. We, as opposition, have every right to know about such public issues. But our voices are being gagged.

“For the last six to seven days, BJP MLA Jagdish Panchal has been uttering bad words and us-ing foul language against me in the assembly. Today also, he spoke something bad about my mother which infuriated me and, in a spate of anger, I rushed to-wards him.”

Later, the speaker suspended Dudhat for the entire budget ses-sion, but subsequently decided to suspend him and Der for three years, and Thakore for one year.

A day earlier the Telangana As-sembly too witnessed a ruckus and Speaker S Madhusudhana Chary expelled two Congress MLAs and suspended 11 others for the entire session.

Ayodhya parties free to settle dispute, says court

SC dismisses appeal to reviewverdict in Rajiv murder case

IANSNew Delhi

The Supreme Court yes-terday said that the parties to the Ayodhya

dispute were free to settle the contentious issue between themselves but it will not ask them take it as a way forward except for deciding the title is-sue.

A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra, Justice Ashok Bhushan and Justice S Abdul Nazeer said this as a number of applicants including the residents of Ayo-dhya and Faizabad urged the court to ask the parties to the dispute – the Sunni Wakf Board and Nirmohi Akhara – to arrive at a compromise.

“You say that they must com-promise, how can we issue a no-

tice on it,” asked Justice Bhush-an, making it clear that it was for the parties to settle the issue but as far the court was concerned it would not get into it except for deciding the title suit.

The court also said this to former federal minister Arif Mohamad Khan who said two experts have drawn a plan to convert the disputed site into a place of worship for all religions and teaching of their spiritual tenets.

“If anybody is a professor or academician, he can speak to both the parties and if he suc-ceeds, then he can approach us,” Chief Justice Misra said declin-ing the plea for court exercis-ing its extra-ordinary power. “Inherent power must not grow up to this. It has its own limita-tion,” he noted.

Rejecting about 20 interven-

tion applications including by Bharatiya Janata Party MP Sub-ramanian Swamy, 32 eminent people including Shyam Ben-egal, Aparna Sen, Anil Dharkar, Teesta Setalvad and others, the court said it would hear only those parties which were before the Allahabad High Court.

However, later the court revived the writ petition by Swamy saying that it would be listed before an appropriate bench. Swamy told the court that his contention was that the right of the worshippers is on a higher pedestal than the parties to the dispute to the title suit.

Having rejected all the inter-vention applicants, the court asked senior lawyer Rajeev Dhavan to address it on his plea that all the petitions should be heard by a larger fi ve-judge constitution bench.

IANSNew Delhi

The Supreme Court yes-terday dismissed an ap-peal by A G Perarivalan,

convicted in the conspiracy leading to the assassination of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, for a review of the 1999 judgment upholding life impris-onment to him.

A bench headed by Justice Ranjan Gogoi refused to recall its order while hearing Perar-ivalan’s plea, who supplied two 9-volt batteries used in the ex-plosive device that killed Gan-

dhi at Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu on May 21, 1991.

“We are satisfi ed that the or-der of this court doesn’t require to be reconsidered. We dismiss the plea for a recall of the order,” said the court.

The top court had upheld the conviction of Perarivalan and six others on May 11, 1998, and their review plea was dismissed on October 8, 1999.

Perarivalan is one of the seven convicts serving life imprison-ment in the assassination case.

Perarivalan had approached the apex court after Superin-tendent of Police V Thiyagarajan, who had recorded his confes-

sional statement under TADA, said in an affi davit that the Cen-tral Bureau of Investigation sup-pressed a part of Perarivalan’s statement that he was not aware of the conspiracy and the pur-pose for which the batteries sup-plied by him would be used.

Perarivalan had been con-victed on the basis of his confes-sional statement.

The CBI wanted the plea dis-missed as the agency said Per-arivalan sought to reopen the entire issue that has attained a fi nality after a gap of 17 years and also because it was devoid of both merit and law.

The CBI said: “... the in-

vestigation into the role of the petitioner was scrutinised at various levels of judiciary, leg-islative and executive authority and no fault was noticed on the investigation.”

The agency also told the court that the response was being fi led by the Multi-Disciplinary Mon-itoring Agency – looking into the larger conspiracy angle – as the Special Investigating Team that probed the assassination had ceased to exist.

The now-vanquished Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka were blamed for the Congress leader’s killing by a suicide bomber at an elec-tion rally near Chennai.

Dileep appears in court as trial beginsIANSErnakulam, Kerala

Malayalam actor Dileep and nine others ap-peared before the Er-

nakulam District and Sessions Court as the trial in the infamous actress abduction case began yesterday.

The accused stood in the dock as the victim’s lawyer actress said his client would prefer a woman judge and wished to have an in-camera trial.

Two other accused, however, failed to report on the opening day of the trial.

The court directed that all records of the case barring the visuals, which were shot when the actress was harassed, be handed over to Dileep, who is the eighth accused in the charge-sheet.

The case has now been posted for March 28.

Dileep was arrested after two rounds of questioning on July 10, 2017, for his alleged role in the conspiracy in the abduction of the young actress. Dileep’s former wife Manju Warrier is one of the witnesses in the case.

After remaining in jail for 85 days, Dileep was granted bail.

The actress was allegedly ab-ducted on February 17 last year when she was on way to Kochi from Thrissur.

Pulsar Suni, the prime ac-cused, drove her around for two hours before she was dropped near the home of director-actor Lal, who later called the police.

A British TV media company also was covering the day’s de-velopments as they have listed this case as one of the various high-profi le cases they are docu-menting.

Film director Kiran Rao Khan gives birthday cake to her husband Bollywood actor Aamir Khan during his 53th birthday celebration in Mumbai yesterday.

Aamir turns 53

IANSChennai

A court in Chennai yesterday acquitted Dravida Munne-tra Kazhagam leader and

former telecom minister Daya-nidhi Maran, his brother and Sun TV group head Kalanithi Maran and fi ve others in the alleged ille-gal telephone exchange case.

The seven had fi led a discharge petition which the Special Cen-tral Bureau of Investigation court allowed on the grounds of lack of prima facie material against them.

The Central Bureau of Investi-gation (CBI) had alleged a loss of Rs17.8mn to the government due to the installation of an alleged illegal telephone exchange at Dayanidhi Maran’s house which

was used for Sun TV operations.Bills were not raised for these

lines during the period 2004 to 2007, the CBI alleged. From June 2004 to December 2006, about 364 telephone numbers/lines were allegedly installed at Daya-nidhi Maran’s residence. After that, about 353 telephone lines were installed at his residence on Boat Club Road in Chennai, the CBI alleged.

Besides this, 10 BSNL postpaid mobile connections with vanity numbers were given to Sun TV Network Group on the verbal or-ders of Dayanidhi Maran through which huge data transfer, includ-ing voice, video and audio were made, the prosecution alleged.

The others who were acquitted were BSNL’s former chief general manager K Brahmanathan and former deputy general manager M

Velusamy, the former minister’s personal secretary V Gowthaman, and Sun TV network employees S Kannan and K S Ravi.

This is the second major legal victory for a DMK leader.

Some months ago, the party’s Rajya Sabha member Kanimozhi and former telecom minister A Raja were acquitted by a court in the 2G spectrum case.

The CBI had alleged that a

number of high-end telecom-munication facilities were in-stalled illegally at the residence of Dayanidhi in Chennai when he was the telecom minister under the service category.

But judge S Natarajan said: “There is no prima facie material against you. Hence you are dis-charged from case.”

A CBI spokesman said: “We are yet to receive a copy of the

judgment. We will examine the judgment and seek appropriate legal remedy.”

During the hearing, the Maran brothers and others argued they were innocent and did not com-mit any irregularities as alleged by the prosecution.

Senior lawyer Kabil Sibal, who appeared for the brothers, con-tended that the case was foisted on them.

Maran brothers, others acquitted in illegal telephone exchange case

President Ram Nath Kovind and his Madagascar counterpart Hery Rajaonarimampianina shake hands at the Presidential palace in Madagascar’s capital Antananarivo yesterday. The Indian president arrived in Antananarivo after a three-day visit to Mauritius.

Kovind starts Madagascar visit

PAKISTAN19


Anti-terror agency launches app to tackle hate contentIn order to report and fi ght

hate speech in the country, the National Counterter-

rorism Authority (Nacta) of Pakistan has launched a smart-phone app ‘Chaukas’ under its Tat’heer programme, a cyber counterterrorism drive that in-cludes mapping radical content available on the internet.

The app was launched at the Nacta headquarters on Mon-day by Interior Minister Ah-san Iqbal. The app has been launched under Tat’heer’s Surfsafe portal.

According to Nacta, the app aims to help people identify hate content, giving the user

options to send a photograph, video, banners and activities or written material which will then be passed on to the rele-vant law enforcement agencies.

Tat’heer, which means “to sani-tise”, has been conceived to coun-ter radicalism and extremism on the internet – which roughly 35mn Pakistanis have access to.

However it does not discuss privacy policies, data protection or even what hate speech is.

According to the app’s in-troduction page, it is an online reporting portal for Pakista-nis to report extremist online content freely, securely and anonymously.

Apart from the commu-nity, netizens and e-scouts, the academia, intelligentsia, NGOs/INGOs and independ-

ent consultants may also step forward.

However, Digital Rights Foundation’s Nighat Dad claimed that the app was not easy to use.

“When we heard about the app, we downloaded it and checked it out,” she said, adding that they were cautious while installing the app as it could not be accessed without shar-ing a phone number or signing

in through social media. [The Nacta website, on the other hand, suggests that users can log in anonymously].

Dad claimed that the app did not mention any privacy policies or data protection.

“Sure, someone can record an audio or send them a video these are good features but it doesn’t off er anything in terms of what describes hate speech or the law there’s nothing there about protecting the complainants.

“The user is very visible. They claim that they will for-ward complaints to LEAs. What if a person complains and they are called to the police station?

According to Dad, there is an option to log out but there is no option to delete

data from their database.“They can use my phone

number and give it to the tel-ecom company and fi nd my real time location and LEAs have the privilege to ask for these things in case it is related to national security,” she explained.

Nacta’s national coordina-tor Ihsan Ghani said that the procedure was pretty straight forward.

“Anything that is reported to us will then be passed on to a committee which will look at the content and see if it falls into the category of hate speech. Since we are not an en-forcement agency, we will then forward the complaint to the Federal Investigation Agency or others,” he said.

“Hate speech is a very real

problem here and it is also a part of the National Action Plan. I had been thinking about it in terms of our helpline [1717] which had an option for people to report hate speech, but we didn’t get that good a response.

I wanted to take report-ing hate speech into the pub-lic sphere and this is when the minister [Ahsan Iqbal] suggest-ed that we should come up with an app,” he said.

Discussing what constitutes hate speech, Ghani said that they were adhering to the Anti-Terrorism Act and a Supreme Court ruling which defi ned hate speech along with constitutional provisions on free speech.

The Chaukas app is available and free to download on the Google play and Apple stores.

InternewsKarachi

7 killed, 18 injured in blast

A bomb blast ripped through a police checkpoint in the eastern Pakistani

city of Lahore yesterday, kill-ing seven people and wounding 18, a rescue offi cial said.

Jam Sajjad Hussain, spokesman of a state-run rescue service, told Reuters that his offi cials had taken seven dead bodies to hospitals.

“Our rescuers are at work,” he said. “They have shifted so far seven bodies.”

Deputy Inspector General of Po-lice Haider Ashraf said the bomb exploded when the police were changing guards at the checkpoint just outside an annual religious congregation, where nearly 80,000 people were in attendance.

“I can at the moment say that police was the target,” he said.

No claim of responsibility was immediately made.

ReutersLahore

National Accountability Bureau to probe graft in motorway project

The National Account-ability Bureau (NAB) of Pakistan has decided

to probe into Rs14bn losses caused to the national excheq-uer allegedly by an award of a contract for Karachi-Lahore motorway’s Abdul Hakeem section (230km).

The decision was taken at a meeting presided over by NAB chairman Javed Iqbal yesterday.

The decision negated a claim of former prime min-ister Nawaz Sharif that not a single corruption case had sur-faced during the tenure of his government.

When the NAB chairman took up the case last month, the bureau had decided to summon former chairman of

the National High Authority (NHA) Shahid Ashraf Tarar and contractors of the project.

According to NAB, the in-quiry against NHA offi cers and the contractors has been start-ed on the basis of a complaint of the Transparency Interna-tional (TI) and some evidence collected by the bureau dur-ing its complaint verifi cation process.

“We have started the in-quiry into Karachi-Lahore motorway project after we found some evidences dur-ing the complaint verifi cation process,” a NAB offi cial said, adding that the inquiry was ordered into alleged corrup-tion in awarding the contract in violation of laws / rules at exorbitant rates.

Interestingly, Transparency International had lodged the complaint two years ago, but former NAB chairman Qamar

Chaudhry did not take any action.

The NHA had awarded the Rs148bn contract in August 2015, ignoring serious short-comings in the successful bid.

The meeting also approved a reference against former di-rector general of the Gilyat Development Authority Tariq Khan and others for allotting its precious land, causing Rs-90mon losses to the national exchequer.

NAB also accorded approval to investigations into the alle-gations against former manag-ing director of the Water and Sanitation Agency Hamid Latif Rana, Lt Gen (retired) Moham-mad Afzal Janjua, Brig (re-tired) Iftikhar Mehdi, former fi nance secretary Mehfooz Khan, former MNAs Mudassar Qayyum Nehra and Azhar Ne-hra and offi cials of the Sarhad Development Authority.

InternewsIslamabad

Health workers mark the finger of a child after administering polio vaccine drops during the polio campaign in Karachi yesterday. Pakistan is one of only two countries in the world where polio, a crippling childhood disease, remains endemic.

Polio vaccination campaign

Call for revitalising agriculture research

Pakistani Minister for Na-tional Food Security and Research Sikandar Khan

Bosan yesterday stressed the need for making wheat, maize and rice bio-fortifi ed to im-prove human health, besides ensure access to health and nutritious food for the people in the country.

Addressing the 42nd meet-ing of Pakistan Agriculture Re-search Council (PARC) board of governors, he called upon the members for utilising their vision and experience in revi-talising agricultural research in the country.

He said that PARC had played a vital role towards im-proving the agriculture sector in various ways over the past and lauded the eff orts of its scientists.

The minister highlighted various PARC new interven-tions and projects which in-clude olive initiatives and dis-cussed research priorities and various issues of agriculture

sector including production planning, cost of productions, crops scenario, policies for re-search, seed purity and quality.

The board of governors also discussed the future prospects of technologies, innovations future planning and the re-search agenda for 2017-18.

Federal Secretary National Food Security and Research Fazal Maken said that it was expected that the food policy implementation would help in promotion of value added food production while creat-ing a new class of agricultural businesspersons.

As a result the availabil-ity of diversifi ed food products will increase that will help to improve the economic ac-cess of food to the socially de-prived communities living in marginal and areas.

Yusuf Zafar, chairman, PARC, informed the board about various steps for im-provement of performance and effi ciency of PARC re-search system and said that achieving food security and nutrition was a high priority for the government.

InternewsIslamabad

Minister for National Food Security and Research Sikandar Khan Bosan

Chamber urges removal of tariff barriers

Smuggling is obstructing the legal trade between Pakistan and Afghanistan,

therefore, this issue should be tackled through rationalising and removing the tariff barriers.

This was stated by secretary general of Pak-Afghan Joint Chamber of Commerce and In-dustry (PAJCCI) Faiza Zubair while talking to LCCI acting president Khawaja Rashid, vice president Zeshan Khalil and executive committee members at Lahore Chamber of Com-merce and Industry yesterday. Awais Saeed Piracha, Fahim-ur-Rehamn Saigol and Lala

Pervez were also present on the occasion.

Zubair said that smuggling should be eliminated with iron hands as it was equally destruc-tive for the both countries.

She said that regulatory duty imposed by Afghanistan on Pa-kistani goods was 400 times more than duty imposed by Pa-kistan on Afghani products.

“Mutual trade could not grow in the presence of such duty structure,” she said, adding that there was a need of an export house for check and balance of the quality specifi cations of ex-port goods of both countries be-fore full payments to overcome trust defi cit.

She said that Afghan busi-nessmen wanted to work in La-

hore. “They needed progressive support of Lahore Chamber for work here.”

There were some hotel reser-vation issues in Lahore, assert-ing that a comprehensive pro-posal from the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry was required about bilateral trade problems and their solutions in Afghanistan and central Asia.

She viewed, “Economically and socially we can resolve the political issues of the two coun-tries. That is why we are going to arrange a grand combine meet-ing of all chambers of Pakistan very soon to discuss the export issue of the countries.”

On this occasion, LCCI acting president Khawaja Rashid said that bilateral relations between

Pakistan and Afghanistan were very important for the peace and development in the region. “If the relations between the two countries were not good due to some internal or external rea-sons, it directly aff ects their bi-lateral and transit trade.”

He said that Pakistan was the best option for exports and im-ports for Afghanistan. He men-tioned that in 2010-11, the to-tal volume of transit trade was $3.8bn which was exceeded to $3.5bn in 2015-16.

In 2016-17 with a decline the trade volume remains $2.9bn. But hopefully it would be $3bn by the end of fi scal year 2017-18.

He stressed the need to diver-sify trade patterns for the sake of bringing some innovation. LCCI

vice president Zeshan Khalil said that exchanges of business dele-gations could produce better re-sults in improving the trade links between two countries.

He said there was a dire need to develop deeper ties between the respective chambers of com-merce and industry so that peo-ple to people contacts could be built up further.

He said that there were is-sues that needed resolution and the two states were working to-gether to fi nd solutions to these problems.

This included possible de-fense co-operation and intelli-gence sharing as well as further enhancing the two-way trade and abolishment of visas for diplomats from the two nations.

InternewsLahore

‘KP spends Rs240mn on ads in three months’ The information secretary of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province yesterday informed the Supreme Court that the provincial government had spent Rs240mn on advertisements during last three months.A three-member SC bench headed by Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar and comprising Justice Umar Ata Bandial and Justice Ijazul Ahsan heard the suo moto case on hefty advertisement expenditure by provincial governments.The KP information secretary told the court that the provincial government had spent Rs1.63bn on media campaigns since its inception.He submitted the KP government’s record of advertisement expenditure over the last three months. From December 1, 2017 to February 28, 2018, the KP government spent

Rs240mn on advertisements, none of which carried photographs of Chief Minister Pervez Khattak or PTI chief Imran Khan, he added.Justice Bandial pointed out that the funds used for advertisements were taken from the national kitty.The chief justice remarked that the court would order the provincial government to return such funds to the exchequer.He also observed that the government ads should be distributed among media outlets without discrimination and the issue would be examined separately. “We don’t diff erentiate between Jang or Nawa-e-Waqt,” he added.A lawyer representing the All-Pakistan Newspapers Society also said that no provincial government should run an ad campaign using funds from the national kitty.

Man spends 25 years in India, returns

A Pakistani citizen was released from an Indian prison yesterday, after

spending 25 years in the neigh-bouring country.

The citizen named Sirajud-din Mohammad reached Paki-stan yesterday after obtaining his freedom from the prison. The Ansar Burney Trust played a major role in bringing Siraj to Pakistan.

Siraj erroneously made his way into India at the age of 11. After running from his home in Mansehra, Siraj reached Lahore and by mistake took Samjhota Express to India.

After spending a great deal of time in India, Siraj married a woman from a Muslim family in 2005.

In 2009, Siraj presented himself before police and ex-pressed the desire to go to Pa-kistan with his family.

Following which the police sent him to jail, from which he

gained freedom yesterday. An Indian NGO fought for

Siraj’s right to Indian citizen-ship, however, he was sent to jail again.

After Siraj’s plight made rounds on Indian media, the Ansar Burney Trust jumped into action to bring him home. After reaching Pakistan, Siraj was handed over to Edhi Wel-fare Organisation.

Despite reaching his home country, Siraj’s heart aches for his wife, two twin sons and a daughter back in India.

InternewsLahore

“Sure, someone can record an audio or send them a video these are good features but it doesn’t off er anything in terms of what describes hate speech or the law there’s nothing there about protecting the complainants”

PHILIPPINES

Gulf TimesThursday, March 15, 201820

Duterte to withdraw nation from ICC over ‘outrageous attacks’ReutersManila

The Philippines said yes-terday it is withdrawing from the International

Criminal Court (ICC) due to what President Rodrigo Duterte called “outrageous” attacks by UN offi cials and violations of due process by the ICC.

The decision marks a stun-ning about-face by Duterte, who has repeatedly dared the ICC to indict him and said he was willing to “rot in jail” or go on trial to defend a war on drugs that has killed thousands of his own people.

The mercurial former mayor had initially welcomed last month’s announcement by the ICC of its preliminary examina-tion into a complaint fi led by a Philippine lawyer accusing Du-terte and top offi cials of crimes

against humanity. But in a 15-page statement, dated March 13, Duterte said he was with-drawing from the ICC’s found-ing treaty, the Rome Statute, because of “baseless, unprece-dented and outrageous attacks” by UN offi cials, and ICC actions that he said failed to follow due process and presumption of in-nocence.

“There appears to be a con-certed eff ort on the part of the UN special rapporteurs to paint me as a ruthless and heartless violator of human rights who allegedly caused thousands of extrajudicial killings,” Duterte said.

The ICC’s examination was premature, he added, and “ef-fectively created the impression that I am to be charged...for serious crimes falling under its jurisdiction.”

He made no mention of the withdrawal in a speech yester-day.

Duterte’s chief critics said the move was a U-turn that showed the tough-talking leader was

now in panic mode. The Lon-don-based rights group Am-nesty International called the withdrawal “misguided” and “cowardly”. An ICC spokesman referred most questions to the court’s prosecutors, who could not immediately be reached.

According to ICC rules, a withdrawal is eff ective one year after receipt of notifi cation.

The Philippines comes under the its jurisdiction because it is a member, and pulling out can-

not impact jurisdiction retroac-tively.

Duterte’s bloody campaign has caused international alarm and fi erce criticism from some UN representatives, including High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, who on Friday said Duterte should submit himself for a psy-chiatric examination.

Duterte’s defi ance is among the traits that make him wild-ly popular in the Philippines,

where his crackdown has broad support.

He has refused to accept some police may be systemati-cally executing suspected deal-ers, as activists say.

Police deny allegations of murder and cover-ups and say they killed about 4,100 drug dealers in shootouts, but have nothing to do with an estimated 2,300 largely unsolved drug-related homicides.

Last month, he indicated he would co-operate with the ICC examination and even said he would prefer a fi ring squad to prison.

But he soon changed his tune, telling security forces not to co-operate in any international investigation, and that “not in a million years” would the ICC have jurisdiction.

Jude Sabio, the lawyer who fi led the ICC complaint last year, said Duterte’s move was predictable, futile and designed to appeal to his base.

“Looks like they are really afraid. Why? They feel that this

will proceed to an investiga-tion,” Sabio told Reuters, add-ing the withdrawal “will have no binding legal eff ect”.The ICC can only intervene when a member state is unable or un-willing to carry out investiga-tions and prosecute suspected perpetrators.

The Philippines says that is far from the case.

The ICC’s examination seeks to establish whether crimes have taken place, and such a process typically takes years.

Duterte’s spokesman, Harry Roque, said the ICC was “sid-ing with the enemies of the president”, while Duterte’s legal counsel Salvador Panelo said the accession to the Rome Statute in 2011 was never an-nounced in the Philippines official gazette, thus did not apply.

Panelo insisted Duterte was not afraid, but objected to the ICC becoming “a political tool to harass a particular country, like ours”. Duterte’s critics ar-gued otherwise.

Critics say withdrawal shows president in panic mode

Indigenous people hold a protest in front of the Chinese consular off ice, shouting against the building of mega dams in their ancestral territories under the Philippine-China deals in Manila, yesterday. Chinese Off icial Development Aid (ODA) will fund renewed plans to build mega dams in the ancestral territories of indigenous peoples.

Indigenous people protest over plan for damsBotched abduction ends in wedding vowsBy Ted Khan JuaniteManila Times/IliganCity

The City Police Offi ce re-ported that witnesses saw a young man being forced

into a car at the port area here on Tuesday.

A police patrol in the area chased the car until the suspects and the supposed victim were intercepted and brought to Po-lice Station 5 at Poblacion.

Senior Insp. Leony Roy Ga, city police director, said that upon investigation, it turned out that a Maranao family was forced to abduct the man, a 17-year-old student, since he was suspected of impregnating their daughter, reportedly 16 years old.

The young man and his ab-ductors are all from Lanao del Sur.

The supposed kidnap victim called up his parents to tell them that he would marry the girl, belonging to the irate Maranao family.

The fi ve-hour investigation into the abduction turned into negotiations for a wedding.

Investigators said the would-be kidnap victim and his ab-ductors had to wait it out, since the young man’s parents were making the trip from Marawi to Iligan.

Ga said the two families agreed to the marriage of the young man and the girl.

Since the young man and his abductors refused to consider the matter a police incident and requested that the matter not be placed in the station’s blot-ter, the police did not release the names of those involved in the incident to the media.

“No one wants to fi le charges,” Ga said.

The withholding of any infor-mation to the public is to protect the “maratabat” or pride of the Maranaos, the police added.

Senator reveals more anomalies in 2016 electionBy Bernadette E TamayoManila Times

Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto yesterday claimed nearly 4% of

election returns, representing at least 1.7mn votes, were “not transmitted electronically” during the 2016 polls.

Sotto, in a privilege speech, continued his expose of sup-posed irregularities in the 2016 elections, heaping two more issues on the Commission on Elections (Comelec) and its supplier Smartmatic—the in-complete transmission of elec-tion returns and the existence of four “queuing servers.”

On March 6, Sotto sought an investigation into the alleged irregularities in the May 2016 national and local elections, such as early transmissions of votes and “foreign access” to the election server.

The senator claimed there were “early transmission of votes” as well as “remote ac-cess” to the election server

from the United Sates. Sotto said the Comelec had assured the public that these

“un-transmitted votes” were included in the fi nal count by manually tallying of the con-tents of the SD (secure digital) data storage cards.

But he pointed to the re-port of the National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections or Namfrel, which said further clarifi cation was “needed as to the guideline that was observed by Comelec on the chain of custody of these SD cards.”

“Also, were the political par-ties, accredited citizen’s arm allowed or were asked to ob-serve the manual tallying of these 3.86% un-transmitted votes? These 1.7mn votes are very crucial to ongoing elec-toral protests,” Sotto said.

Former senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos has a pending election protest against Vice President Maria Leonor Robredo, who won the vice presidency by a mere 263,473 votes.

Former Metro Manila Devel-

opment Authority chairman Francis Tolentino is also ques-tioning Sen. Leila de Lima’s victory in the senatorial elec-tions. Tolentino landed outside the “Magic 12” with 12,518,891 votes, while de Lima ranked 12th with 13,793,947 votes.

“In the observance of fairness and due process, the Comelec and Smartmatic can fully and appropriately present their side in a full-blown Senate hearing. It is the proper venue to answer these allegations and to educate us on what really transpired in the 2016 national elections,” Sotto said.

Sotto also pointed to Comelec and Smartmatic’s use of “four queuing servers,” without the knowledge of political parties, candidates and watchdogs.

The senator said the technical process of voting results trans-mission was that the Smartmatic vote counting machines or VCMs would ask for the IP or Internet Protocol address – a unique ad-dress – of the recipient from the Domain Name Server (DNS) so it could transmit the data.

“To reiterate, there were two servers that were functioning during the elections, CNTADNS that is used by all VCMs and CCS (Consolidating Canvassing Sys-tem), and CNTBDNS used only by four IP addresses from May 10 to 11 only,” he said.

“Here, all VCM’s queries were communicated only to one serv-er, and that is CNTADNS server. The recipients are the Munici-pal/City Board of Canvassers, Provincial/Regional Board of Canvassers, Transparency Serv-ers and the Central Servers,” he said. This was the procedure done during the peak period of transmissions on May 9 to 10.

Suddenly, on May 10 to 11, the rules changed in the middle of the game, the senator said.

“For some unknown rea-son, the transmissions from the VCMs did not go straight to the Consolidating Canvassing Sys-tem (CCS) but instead, went through either one of the four ‘queuing servers’ before reach-ing the CCS. By then, two servers are now involved in the process,” he said.

Fishermen unload caught fish at the Bulungan fishport in Paranaque, Metro Manila, yesterday.

Daily life

Dismissed cop on ‘most wanted’ list for drugs arrestedManila TimesManila

A dismissed policeman on the “most wanted” list of drug personali-

ties in Quezon City has been arrested, authorities said.

Former Police Offi cer 3 Al-fredo Mabutol was presented to media yesterday after his apprehension on Tuesday in his house at Barangay Salva-cion, La Loma in a joint op-eration of the District Special Operations Unit and District Intelligence Division.

QCPD director Guillermo Eleazar said Mabutol was

No 1 on the “most wanted” list in the district level and of the La Loma Police Station.

Eleazar said Mabutol was the alleged leader of an ille-gal drug group operating in La Loma, and was responsible for the proliferation of illegal drugs along Calavite Street and Tagaytay Street.

The suspect worked at the QCPD Police Intelligence and Operations Unit from 2001 to 2002 and served the La Loma Police Station Anti-Illegal Drugs Unit from 2002 to 2004.

Between 2009 and 2016, Mabutol was transferred to the Manila Police District, South-ern Police District-Pasay Sta-

tion, and was a beat patroller at the Northern Police District in Malabon.

“I was transferred to several districts to escape from my bad records,” Mabutol told re-porters.

A warrant of arrest for rob-bery was issued against Mabu-tol when he took the personal belongings of complainant Reynaldo Miranda, which in-cluded a Tag Huer wristwatch, a wallet with P11,000 cash and identifi cation cards when he participated in an anti-drug operation in La Loma last May 27, 2007.

Eleazar added that the sus-pect was only issued a warrant in 2016 for his robbery case and was formally dismissed in July 2017, after his last assign-ment with the National Capital Region Police Offi ce Regional Holding and Accounting Unit.

Mabutol also had bench warrants of arrest between 2011 and 2013 for failure to tes-tify in court hearings in Pasay City where cases were fi led against drug suspects arrested during his term.

“He has been into diff er-ent units and areas that’s why we were not able to notice his record at once when we were trying to look for former po-licemen involved in drugs,” Eleazar said.

House postpones village pollsBy Llanesca T PantiManila Times

The House of Representatives has approved a measure postponing the barangay (village) polls from May 14, 2018 to October 8, 2018.

Rep. Sherwin Tugna of Citizens Battle Against Corruption party-list, chairman of the House Committee on Suffrage and Electoral Reforms, justified the move, saying it is aimed at syn-chronising the village polls with the conduct of a

plebiscite for the new constitution that will pave the way for the shift to a federal government. Rep. Antonio Tinio of Alliance of Concerned Teachers party-list however said the election should not be postponed.

This will be the third postponement of the vil-lage polls. Congress first moved the barangay elections to October 2017 from October 2016, and then to May 2018 from October 2017.

The House also approved the proposed Act of Absolute Divorce and Dissolution of Marriage on second reading yesterday via voice vote.

Indonesian held over alleged terrorist links

An Indonesian national has been

arrested in the southern Philip-

pines on suspicion of having links

with terrorist organisations such as

the Islamic State movement.

The suspect, identified as 32-year-

old Mushalah Somina Rasim, was

apprehended on March 10 in the

town of Palimbang in the province

of Sultan Kudarat, 980 kilometres

south of Manila. Rasim, who uses

the alias Abu Omar, was helping

a local terrorist group recruit

new members in the villages

around Palimbang, regional police

spokesman Superintendent Aldrin

Gonzales said yesterday, citing

intelligence information.

Rodrigo Duterte: defiant

SRI LANKA/BANGLADESH/NEPAL21


Lanka to lift social media ban: ministerSri Lanka is likely to lift a

ban on social media net-works this week, a govern-

ment minister has said, almost a week after blocking access to prevent the spread of communal violence.

At least two people were killed in clashes in early March when Sinhalese Buddhists, an-gered by a killing of a driver, attacked mosques and Muslim-owned properties in the central Kandy district, a popular tourist destination.

Some of the violence was instigated by postings on Fa-cebook threatening more at-tacks on Muslims, according to the government, which on March 7 cut access to Face-book, Viber and WhatsApp. It initially said the ban would last for three days, but us-ers say the services have re-mained blocked, indicating that in practice the ban has been extended.

Harin Fernando, the telecom-munication minister, told re-porters that senior Facebook company offi cials were expected to visit Sri Lanka on Thursday and the government was likely

ReutersColombo

Telecommunication Minister Harin Fernando: “Once we discuss with the Facebook off icials on Thursday, the ban is likely to be lifted on Friday.”

to lift the ban on both Facebook and WhatsApp access.

“Once we discuss with the Facebook offi cials on Thursday, the ban is likely to be lifted on Friday,” he said, adding Facebook had been ‘slow’ to address the government’s concerns.

The government said in a separate statement it lifted the ban on Viber from midnight on Tuesday. The government will lift the ban on WhatsApp from midnight, Austin Fernando, the head of the telecommunications regulator, said yesterday.

Communal tensions have grown over the past year with some hardline Buddhist groups

accusing Muslims of forcing people to convert to Islam and vandalising Buddhist archaeo-logical sites. Muslim groups deny these allegations.

Fernando said authorities would closely monitor the net-works for any hate speech that could damage ethnic harmony. He said without elaborating that two state-run institutions would be directly working with the Facebook company on the monitoring.

He added that the government could not control hate speech and fake messages on Facebook by both “extreme” Buddhists and Muslims and it had become

a major menace to national security.

“We have seen the destruction due to Facebook messages. We have requested the Facebook to help us to stop hate speech and the problems those messages have created,” he said.

In a statement to Reuters, Fa-cebook, which owns WhatsApp, said it had clear rules against hate speech and incitement to violence.

It was responding to the situ-ation in Sri Lanka and was in contact with the government and non-government bodies to sup-port eff orts to identify and re-move such content, it added.

“We are concerned with the way access to the internet is be-ing restricted and depriving peo-ple of important connections and expression, and we hope that access will be restored soon,” it said.

US ambassador Atul Keshap said on his Twitter feed that the longer Sri Lanka’s social media ban persisted, the greater the damage to tourism, the informa-tion technology sector, business, and its reputation for freedom and openness.

“So many Sri Lankans also rely on social media to connect with loved ones overseas,” he said.

Police are investigating

whether 10 suspected ringlead-ers of the wave of attacks on Muslims had outside funding or foreign help.

Police spokesman Ruwan Gu-nasekara said that the police’s terrorism investigation unit had found more than 10,000 leafl ets aiming to instigate communal clashes from one of the suspect’s offi ce in Kandy.

He also said 280 people have been arrested so far and the po-lice have been able to fi nd seven petrol bombs from the infor-mation supplied by some of those among the 10 arrested ringleaders.

A police curfew in Kandy was lifted on Saturday, but since then two isolated attacks on Muslim-owned properties have been re-ported from the country’s South and North Western district.

Sri Lanka’s Muslims make up about 9% of its 21mn people and mostly live in the east and centre of the island. Buddhist Sinhalese account for about 70% and eth-nic Tamils, most of whom are Hindus, about 13%.

Some Buddhist national-ists have protested against the presence in Sri Lanka of Mus-lim Rohingya asylum-seekers from mostly Buddhist Myanmar, where Buddhist nationalism has also been on the rise.

Facebook expresses concern over ban

Facebook said yesterday it was responding to Sri Lanka’s concerns over in-

cendiary material shared on its platform and hoped Internet re-strictions imposed during anti-Muslim riots last week would be lifted soon.

The government has re-fused to end an island-wide blackout on Facebook until the tech giant agrees to take quicker action to remove hateful content.

“We are responding to the situation in Sri Lanka and are in contact with the government and non-governmental organi-sations to support eff orts to identify and remove such con-tent,” a Facebook spokesperson said.

“We are concerned with the way access to the internet is being restricted and depriving people of important connec-tions and expression, and we hope that access will be restored soon.”

Facebook said it was increas-

ing staff numbers but gave no further details.

It is believed to have 14,000 staff across the globe tasked with reviewing off ensive con-tent and the number is tipped to rise to 20,000 by the end of this year.

Censorship and media op-pression was used widely by strongman president Ma-hinda Rajapakse, who for a decade in power ordered local internet providers to block anti-government sentiment online.

His successor President Maithripala Sirisena was elected in 2015 promising an end to dra-conian government restrictions, but some websites critical of the government were blocked even before the ban on Facebook.

AFPColombo

Newly elected Nepali President Bidhya Bhandari, right, is sworn in by Chief of Justice Gopal Parajuli, left, as Vice President Nanda Kishor Pun looks on at the presidential residence in Kathmandu yesterday.

President Bhandari takes oath of office

Nepal chief justice sacked for faking date of birth

Nepal’s divisive Chief Jus-tice Gopal Parajuli was sacked yesterday for fak-

ing his date of birth in order to remain in offi ce longer.

The controversy over Para-juli’s date of birth has been brewing for months after he charged a prominent activist and Nepal’s largest newspaper with contempt of court for rais-ing concerns about his multiple birthdays.

A judicial council concluded that Parajuli should have re-tired seven months ago when he turned 65, the age of retirement

for offi cial positions in Nepal.“He has been removed from

the post after the age of retire-ment was found to have been crossed last August in our inves-tigation,” the council’s secretary Nripdhoj Niraula said.

The decision came just mo-ments before Parajuli adminis-tered the oath of offi ce to Nepal’s President Bidya Bhandari, who was re-elected for a second term on Tuesday.

He administered the oath nonetheless. It is not clear if Bhandari will have to be sworn in again.

In late February, Parajuli sub-poenaed the Kantipur Daily – Nepal’s largest newspaper by circulation – on contempt of

court charges for a series of ar-ticles that said he had given up to fi ve diff erent dates of birth on various offi cial documents.

The charges were widely con-demned as an attack on press freedom, and Parajuli attracted further outrage when he said he would preside over the case himself.

In January, Parajuli also or-dered the arrest of anti-corrup-tion activist Dr Govinda K C, an orthopedic surgeon well-loved in Nepal for his philanthropic work, for raising questions about his date of birth.

Parajuli became chief justice last June after his predecessor Sushila Karki – the fi rst woman to hold the position – turned 65.

AFPKathmandu

Ties with India‘time tested’: Nepal minister

Nepal’s new Defence Min-ister Ishwor Pokhrel yesterday pledged to

strengthen military and defence ties with India.

He made the remarks during a meeting with Indian ambas-sador to Nepal, Manjeev Singh Puri. Pokhrel said that Nepal-India ties were “time tested” and thanked India for providing various kinds of assistance to the Nepal army for its capacity building, among others.

“My impression is that both the defence ministries of Nepal and India are very much eager to boost ties and work closely,” said Pokhrel.

Among other things, the up-coming 12th edition of Nepal-India military drills named Surya-Kiran, also fi gured in the meeting. India is hosting the joint military drill this time.

On his part, Puri highlighted the various facets of bilateral ties between the two coun-tries which are “unique” and “special”.

Puri appreciated the role of the Nepal army in providing glo-bal peace and security and as-sured that Indian assistance to Nepal army like imparting train-ing, providing military hardware and other kind of assistance will continue.

Currently, there are 39 bat-talions serving in 7 Gorkha regiments in the Indian army. The regiments comprise of both Indian and Nepali Gorkha soldiers. Also, there are about 90,000 Indian army pensioners in Nepal.

IANSKathmandu

“My impression is that both the defence ministries of Nepal and India are very much eager to boost ties and work closely”

Bangladesh to mourn victims of plane crash todayThe prime minister of Bangladesh has declared Thursday a day of mourning for the victims of a deadly plane crash in Nepal earlier this week, DPA reports from Dhaka.A flight operated by Dhaka-based private US-Bangla Airlines with 71 people aboard crashed and burst into fire at Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport on Monday.The death toll rose to 50 with the passing of a pilot at a Nepal hospital on Tuesday, according to the Bangladeshi foreign ministry.Twenty-six of those killed were from Bangladesh.Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who cut short a trip to Singapore to return home after the accident, declared the day of mourning at a meeting yesterday, PM’s press off icer Ashraful Alam Khokon said.Special prayers will be off ered at the mosques, temples and churches across Bangladesh on Friday to seek salvation of the departed souls, the off icer said.A delegation led by Bangladesh’s Civil Aviation and Tourism Minister Shahjahan Kamal left Dhaka for Kathmandu after the crash to bring back the bodies of the Bangladeshi passengers.Authorities in Nepal have launched an investigation to determine the causes of the accident.

Monsoon fl oods, landslides threaten Rohingya refugees

The Rohingya refu-gees who live in shacks clinging to these steep,

denuded hills in southern Bangladesh pray that the sandbags fortifying the slopes will survive the upcoming monsoon.

“They make it safer, but they won’t hold if the rain is really heavy,” said Moham-med Hares, 18. Cracks have already formed in the packed mud on which his shack is built.

Nearly 700,000 Rohingya Muslims have fl ed to Bang-ladesh since last August to escape a military crackdown in neighbouring Myanmar. Most now live in fl imsy, bam-boo-and-plastic structures perched on what were once forested hills.

Bangladesh is lashed by typhoons, and the Rohingya camps are clustered in a part of the country that records the highest rainfall. Compu-ter modelling by the United

Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) shows that more than 100,000 refugees will be threatened by landslides and fl oods in the coming monsoon.

The rains typically begin in April and peak in July, according to the Bang-ladesh Meteorological Department.

In Kutupalong-Balukhali, the biggest of the makeshift camps, up to a third of the land could be fl ooded, leav-ing more than 85,000 refu-gees homeless, according to the UNHCR. Another 23,000 refugees live on slopes at risk of landslide.

The UNHCR, Interna-tional Organisation for Mi-gration (IOM) and World Food Programme are using bulldozers to level 123 acres in northern Kutupalong-Balukhali camp in an ef-fort to make the area safer, said UNHCR spokeswoman Caroline Gluck.

IOM is putting debris-removal equipment and work crews throughout the camps, it said, and trying to

improve roads and stabilise slopes. It is also setting up emergency diarrhoea treat-ment centres and providing search and rescue and fi rst aid training.

Bangladesh disaster management secretary Shah Kamal said the gov-ernment was working with the UN to relocate 133,000 people living in high-risk areas. It is also launching a Rohingya-language ra-dio station that will act as a natural disaster warning system, he said.

Bangladesh govern-ment offi cials have also previously told Reuters they are pushing ahead with a controversial plan to turn an uninhabited is-land in the Bay of Bengal into a temporary home for the Rohingya and move 100,000 refugees there

ahead of the monsoon.Flooding increases the

risk of disease outbreaks. It could also threaten access to medical facilities, mak-ing them diffi cult to reach and restock, the modelling shows. Latrines, wash-rooms and tube wells may also be fl ooded.

The risk of landslides has been exacerbated by refugee families needing fi rewood to cook. Trees were cut down to make way for the refugees, who also dug up the roots for fi rewood, making the slopes even weaker and prone to col-lapse.

“This was a forest when I fi rst arrived,” said Arafa Be-gum, 40, who lives with her three children in a shack on a barren, vertiginous slope in Chakmakul camp. She said she wanted to move before the monsoon but must await the instruc-tions of the majhi, or block leader.

“The majhi’s name is Jahid Hussain. I don’t know what I’ll do when the rain comes,” he said.

ReutersChakmakul Refugee Camp

Bangladesh is lashed by typhoons, and the Rohingya camps are clustered in a part of the country that records the highest rainfall


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British PM Maystops well shortof bothering Putin

Prime Minister Theresa May’s response to Russia after a nerve agent attack on British soil is unlikely to trouble Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin unduly, despite the expression of outrage that greeted it in Moscow.

After the fi rst known use of a military-grade nerve toxin on British soil since World War Two, May expelled 23 Russian spies using diplomatic cover and promised to freeze Russian State assets if they were used to threaten British interests.

May also said Britain would work on new powers to defend against hostile state activity, beef up counter espionage powers and cut back offi cial participation in the soccer World Cup.

Other measures may be considered, she said.But her announcement, just days before an election in

which Putin, a former KGB offi cer, is expected to coast to a fourth term, gave no examples of Russian offi cials or companies that would be targeted or barred from London’s fi nancial centre.

London remains open to Russian investment, albeit with a political chill.

Other than the expulsions, May went no further than current EU sanctions which include travel restrictions and asset freezes against 150 people and 38 companies.

“The Kremlin will understand this as a very mild response,” said Mathieu Boulegue, a Russia expert at Chatham House think-tank in London. “Putin is unlikely to be worried by this.”

A senior British government offi cial said further options remained on the table: “Economic, diplomatic, legislative, and our security capabilities can all be brought to bear if needed.”

But after days of full-volume rhetoric from London about the suspected Russian attack and a midnight deadline that Moscow scorned, May has shown just how little appetite Britain has for a fi ght on the eve of Brexit.

While the United States and European Union joined criticism of Moscow — albeit with a delayed response from US President Donald Trump — there was little evidence of appetite in Paris, Berlin or Washington for anything beyond a scolding.

Russia denied any involvement in the attack and simply declined to say anything about how a Soviet-era nerve toxin ended up striking down a former double agent on the normally genteel streets of the English city of Salisbury.

The foreign ministry described May’s measures as a fl agrant provocation and promised a speedy response.

If Russia — or Russians — were behind the nerve attack, some of their aims may have been achieved: Britain has shown just how little power it is willing to exercise while every Kremlin opponent will be more nervous about retribution.

For many Russian experts, the attack on Sergei Skripal, a former GRU military intelligence offi cer who betrayed dozens of Russian agents to MI6, was a test for Britain after years of turning a blind eye to the reality of modern Russia.

Part of that policy is due to money.One of the biggest exports since the 1991 fall of the

Soviet Union was money and London, as one of the top two fi nancial capitals in the world, is a major benefi ciary.

London, or Londongrad as it is sometimes dubbed, is the Western capital of choice for the oligarchs and Russian offi cials who fl aunt their wealth across Europe’s most luxurious destinations.

Britain to work on new powers to defend against hostile state activity

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CHAIRMANAbdullah bin Khalifa al-Attiyah

EDITOR-IN-CHIEFFaisal Abdulhameed al-Mudahka

Deputy Managing EditorK T Chacko

Second National Development Strategy to ensure economic prosperity of QatarQNADoha

Qatar’s Second National Development Strategy (2018-2022), launched by HE the Prime Minister and

Interior Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani yesterday, has outlined a national strategic roadmap for the next fi ve years, after mobilising eff orts to guide the activities and resources available to meet the national priorities set for this period, and thus making it clear that the economic prosperity of Qatar will be sustained through the development of economic infrastructure, economic diversifi cation, private sector development, natural resources management, human development, sustainable social development and sustainable environment development.

The new strategy is characterised by the addition of a new chapter dealing with global partnerships for development, which aims to strengthen Qatar’s role at regional and international levels, raise the level of international partnerships and contribute eff ectively to regional and international peace and security.

The strategy also included a new chapter on strategic performance management, which is also considered as a compass to monitor implementation, ensure smooth and effi cient follow-up, and to know obstacles and work to overcome them in a timely manner, taking advantage of the lessons of the fi rst strategy to focus on results and outputs through monitoring key performance indicators

to determine the safety of their implementation.

According to the strategy book issued yesterday, effi cient implementation of the national development strategy will continue to be subject to modernisation of the public sector and upgrading its performance, in order to complement the eff orts exerted in this direction and the transition of the implementing government entities from the state of recognising the importance of planning as a tool to achieve the results, to the regular application of institutional practices in the preparation of the executive plans, medium-term strategy and annual output plans.

The new strategy book said that its preparation was infl uenced by the emerging conditions in terms of government structure and economic developments, the number of sectors was reduced from 14 sectors in the fi rst strategy to eight sectors in the second strategy, organised according to the four pillars of Qatar National Vision 2030.

The second national development strategy (2018-2022) addressed the most important challenges facing the fi rst national development strategy (2011-2016). Through a broad participatory process, the second national strategy, adopted the national priority development agenda for the coming years to the end of 2022, by emphasising and re-evaluating national development goals, identifying obstacles and re-evaluating priorities, lessons learned and what can be achieved on the ground.

According to the new strategy, Qatar will focus during the next fi ve years on reforms in the area of policy and motivation, and enhance

productivity at all levels, and devote eff orts of economic diversifi cation, and participants in the second national development strategy are expected to focus on strengthening their institutional and organisational capacities, formulating incentive frameworks and policies to attract the private sector, enhancing their contribution to the local economy and enhancing productivity in all its dimensions.

The new strategy seeks to achieve its objectives driven by expectations that the real economy will grow during the period (2018-2022) by the activities of the non-oil and gas sector, especially in the sectors of merchandise and traded services, while the rationalisation of government spending in this period will balance the public fi nancial balance of the country, and facilitates the creation of a wider space for private sector activities.

The second National Development Strategy stressed that maintaining the economic performance of Qatar to achieve the goals of its National Vision 2030 should be institutionally linked to sustainable development programmes and plans. The strategy noted that despite the great legislative and regulatory eff orts to consolidate these values, achieving sustainability requires continuous and integrated eff orts based on outstanding international experiences, as well as vigorous eff orts to build national economic capacities, both institutional and human, and to preserve them as a national wealth and heritage for future generations.

According to the strategy, the sustainability of the economic boom requires more investment in the

economic infrastructure, which in turn would raise the effi ciency of the economy and expand its absorptive capacity, avoid bottlenecks and increase its competitiveness.

It cautioned that although many achievements have been made in the economic infrastructure sector such as transport, communications and information and the supply of electricity, water, sanitation and construction networks, it is diffi cult to determine the extent to which they meet the economic and human needs and the effi ciency of operation and maintenance.

In this context, the strategy cited international indicators, including the infrastructure index, in which Qatar ranked 18th out of 138 countries in 2016, and the logistics performance index in which Qatar ranked 30th out of 160 countries in 2016. The strategy, however, called for action to overcome future challenges facing the economic infrastructure sector by developing a supportive infrastructure for the national economy that is sustainable, high quality and able to keep up with the latest technology systems.

This can be achieved through the provision of sustainable water, increasing the production of traditional and renewable energy, recycling of project waste, more co-ordination among relevant government agencies, particularly in the identifi cation of project priorities, the exact size of their investments, the expected demand and the issuance of appropriate legislation, as well as the provision of data and technical capabilities of human cadres, and addressing issues related to electronic security, according to the Strategy.

HE the Prime Minister and Interior Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani addressing the gathering at the launch of Qatar’s Second National Development Strategy (2018-2022) yesterday. PICTURE: Thaujdheen

COMMENT

Gulf Times Thursday, March 15, 2018 23

How the fl u aff ects your heart

What the Second Amendment says about guns

Germany’s dangerous political marriageBy Helmut K AnheierBerlin

More than fi ve months after Germany’s federal election last September, a new grand coalition

government – comprising Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union, the CDU’s Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), and the Social Democratic Party (SPD) – has fi nally been formed. But there is little reason to celebrate.

Germany has endured nearly six of months under a caretaker government (the longest in the Federal Republic’s history), a failed coalition agreement, weeks of arduous negotiations, painful internal party rumblings, and much politicking. Moreover, a recent national poll dealt yet another blow to the centre-left SPD, indicating that if elections were held today, the party would be outperformed by the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).

Add to that Europe’s ongoing right-wing backlash (exemplifi ed, most recently, by Italy’s election) and the threat of a trade war with the United States, and Germany’s new grand coalition reeks of desperation. Not surprisingly, reactions to its formation were subdued, with the public and political insiders alike mostly just relieved to have the long ordeal behind them.

Germany’s new grand coalition – the third in Merkel’s long chancellorship – is a marriage of convenience: loveless, largely unloved, and devoid of any overarching vision. It is a good outcome for Germany’s short-term stability, especially with regard to Europe. But it is an uncertain outcome in the longer term, given the coalition’s considerable political baggage, and it is a bad outcome for democracy, especially at a time when populist forces are a growing threat.

One might argue that it is good for democracy that Merkel’s coalition has shrunk. Because the government parties control barely more than half of the Bundestag, they no longer overwhelm the opposition, rendering it irrelevant. The problem is that the largest offi cial opposition party is now the populist AfD.

Moreover, the share of the Bundestag held by opposition parties

that are only semi-loyal to liberal democracy – the AfD and its left-wing counterpart Die Linke (the Left) – now approaches one-quarter. Not since the Weimar Republic has a far-right party been the largest opposition force, or have anti-liberal forces controlled such a large share of the Bundestag.

This illiberal result is a direct consequence of the SPD’s participation in Merkel’s government. Had the

SPD remained in opposition, as it vowed to do after its poor election result, it could have spent the next four years renewing its platform and membership, while acting as a strong challenger to both Merkel and the right- and left-wing populists. A Merkel-led CDU/CSU minority government would have meant open debate on all major policy issues and legislative proposals, enlivening the

Bundestag and showing the public that political parties matter, and that a grand coalition isn’t essential to progress.

Instead, Germany got a government that will implement a predetermined set of policies, contained in a 170-page agreement hammered out behind closed doors – one that promises more of the same. Its members will engage in all of the same professionally choreographed and well-rehearsed debates, the ritualistic display of legislative process that devalues parliament because the outcome is pre-determined.

For Europe, this means that no signifi cant shift in Germany’s approach – for better or for worse – should be expected. French President Emmanuel Macron will not see a German hand reaching out to work with him on European Union reform, though he might be able to grasp a fi nger or two.

To be sure, the new grand coalition’s policy approach will be diff erent in some respects from the last. In her determination to form a government, Merkel yielded to the SPD on important issues, including EU policy and labour-market matters. As a result, the overall legislative programme outlined in the coalition agreement is more social democratic than that of any previous grand coalition.

But, ultimately, Germany can expect more of the same for the time being. This will keep the government stable in the near term. But it is a feast for populists – and a missed opportunity for democracy.

In fact, whatever stability the CDU/CSU and the SPD think that they have secured, there are plenty of reasons for concern in the medium term. The CDU is increasingly impatient with Merkel and her policy approach. And, though it is the largest party, it has relatively fewer government posts than

the SPD, with no CDU cabinet minister hailing from eastern Germany, an AfD stronghold.

Unlike the CDU, whose members will soon feel short-changed, the SPD has rediscovered the virtues of internal democracy, which revealed a signifi cant disconnect between the party’s leadership and its base. Whatever success the SPD has had playing the coalition game, the party’s participation in yet another Merkel-led government stands to cost it growing numbers of lower- and middle-income voters.

Both the CDU and the SPD face a shrinking electoral base and a falling supply of leadership cadres. As a result, both parties and their coalition will become increasingly unstable over time, a trend that would be accelerated by their poor performance in the 2019 European Parliament election, not to mention in Germany’s upcoming state and local elections.

Meanwhile, in the absence of a crisis that demands political attention, all of the problems and risks that Germany’s previous coalition governments have failed to address will continue to be ignored. At a time when German leadership is so badly needed in Europe, the country is set to continue to play a passive role.

Until recently, the SPD seemed to prefer a loss to a half-victory, much as a person might decide that it is better to be alone than in a mediocre relationship. But now the SPD seems to think that being in power, by joining the ruling coalition, is automatically better than being in opposition, no matter the cost. And the cost could be very high indeed. Loveless marriages can last a long time, but they rarely end well. – Project Syndicate

Helmut K Anheier is President and Professor of Sociology at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin.

Live issues

Tribune News ServiceWashington, DC

Amid the most intense flu season in more than a decade, a new study published in

the The New England Journal of Medicine confirms that the flu virus significantly raises your risk of having a heart attack within a week of being diagnosed. The Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) still recommends all people over six months of age, with few exceptions, should get a flu shot.

Everyone should know that getting a flu shot helps prevent the flu. But that’s not all.

“It’s been shown that if you get a fl u shot, it will lower your risk of having a heart attack or stroke by about 50% during that fl u season,” says Dr

Stephen Kopecky, a Mayo Clinic cardiologist.

Seriously? Yes. You see, the influenza virus can cause an inflammatory reaction all over your body. That’s why you feel miserable. And, when that reaction happens, it also can irritate the lining of your arteries. If those arteries are already in trouble with plaque buildup, the inflammation can prompt a tear. A blood clot could form, blocking blood flow to your heart or brain, causing a heart attack or stroke.

“So I tell patients, get a fl u shot,” says Kopecky. “Not because I’m so concerned about them getting the fl u, but I’m concerned about them having a heart attack or a stroke. And patients, once you tell them that, they say, ‘Oh, I didn’t realise that. I’ll get my fl u shot this year.’“ – Mayo Clinic News Network

By Ron GrossmanChicago Tribune

Survivors of the massacre at a Parkland, Florida, high school have held vigils, angrily chanting “No more

guns!” They’ve demanded that state legislators outlaw the AR-15, the kind of rapid-fi re weapon with which 17 of their classmates and staff members were killed.

Other students added their voices to the anti-gun-violence chorus. In Washington, DC, they marched on the US Capitol, shouting: “Our blood, your hands!”

Similar expressions of pain and frustration, outrage and determination, have followed previous school shootings. But up until now, they have been drowned out by three little words: the Second Amendment.

Their Latin equivalent is “veto.” By proclaiming that word, an ancient Roman offi cial called the Tribune could halt debate in the Senate if he felt Rome’s legislature was headed in an unacceptable direction.

Now it’s pretty much the same with us. Invoking the Second Amendment eff ectively ends even modest proposals for gun control.

The knock-out power rests on the assumption that Americans’ right to keep a gun for their personal safety is embedded in the Second Amendment.

Yet if that is so, the Founding Fathers must have dug a really deep hole to house that entitlement.

Because for 220 years, no one uncovered it.

The Second Amendment went into eff ect with the ratifi cation of the US Constitution in 1788. It only gained a stranglehold over gun-control eff orts in 2008. That year, by a 5 to 4 vote, the US Supreme Court struck down Washington, DC’s gun regulations.

The court’s majority ruled that Washington’s law infringed on residents’ right of self-defence _ a right guaranteed by the Second Amendment, according to the justices.

That decision required a bit of legal gymnastics, since the term “self-defence” doesn’t appear in the Second Amendment. Its writers tied gun ownership to “a well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state.”

In fact, the Supreme Court used that militia phrasing to support gun-control laws, long before it decided that the words meant that Washington’s gun-control law had to go.

In the 1930s, a well-known bank robber claimed his Second Amendment rights had been violated by a federal regulation requiring that sawed-off shotguns be registered. The law had been enacted in response to Prohibition-era gang wars.

The Supreme Court rejected the fellow’s argument, saying it couldn’t

see how a “shotgun having a barrel less than 18 inches long has today any reasonable relation to the preservation or effi ciency of a well regulated militia.”

The court’s fl ip-fl op on gun control in 2008 wasn’t unique. Such reversals are usually explained as in line with an evolving body of jurisprudence, or some such explanation. But that leaves me with a vexing question about the judiciary:

You mean it took them 220 years to fi gure out that the Founding Fathers meant to say what they didn’t say?

I’m more comfortable with what the great humorist Will Rogers once observed: “The Supreme Court reads the election returns.” Crime rates soared in the run-up to the overturning of Washington’s fi rearms regulations. Politicians and the public demanded something be done, and so the court did something. Still, that posed an issue that is with us still: Does the right of self-defence entitle someone to own an AR-15?

The question was akin to the issue of cut-off shotguns, and again the court was wary.

Former Justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote the decision enshrining the Second Amendment, noted an important exception: The “historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons.”

In the years since, Scalia’s exception has been forgotten, for all practical

purposes. Gun-owners’ right to possess not just handguns and hunting rifl es but military-style weapons remains an article of faith for many conservatives and a few liberals. The National Rifl e Association preaches an apocalyptic vision of the government out to take away our guns en route to taking away our liberties.

Wary of the NRA, politicians are afraid to ban the AR-15.

Its availability is still protected by the right of self-defence. But does anyone really believe that’s why the suspect in the Parkland, Florida, massacre wanted one? Or the shooter who murdered 28 students and staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton, Conn.? Or the shooters who took a sawed-off shotgun and a semi-automatic handgun into Columbine High School in Colorado, and killed 12 students and a teacher?

How many more students will weep over murdered classmates before opponents and supporters of gun controls get beyond splitting hairs over what the Second Amendment says, or might have said, or should have said. The starting point for a more fruitful discussion of the issue is obvious. Just recall what Justice Scalia said about “dangerous and unusual weapons.”

And he wasn’t some dreamy-eyed liberal, but a conservative icon – an unfl inching champion of the Second Amendment. – Tribune News Service

Merkel: I look forward to working with the SPD again for the good of our country.

Preliminary data from five sites around the country suggest that people who got vaccinated this flu season reduced their risk of getting a serious case of influenza by 36%.

WARNINGInshore : Nil

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24 Gulf TimesThursday, March 15, 2018

QATAR

QM welcomes Ai Weiwei’s LaundromatBy Joey AguilarStaff Reporter

Renowned Chinese artist Ai Weiwei’s Laundromat ex-hibition opened yesterday

in Doha, displaying some 2,046 items of clothing, a wallpaper of 17,062 pictures relating to refu-gees and meticulously arranged shoes.

The Doha show, which will run until June 1 at the Fire Station’s Garage Gallery, is a response from Qatar Museums’ (QM) in-vitation for the artist to bring the powerful commentary on the global refugee crisis to the Gulf region for the fi rst time.

“My relationship with Qa-tar began when I fi rst visited the country last year. I had the chance to tour the Fire Station and meet with the artists who had residencies there,” Ai Weiwei said in a statement.

“It was a great experience to see the openness with which they practised their craft and I am pleased to have the chance to bring Laundromat to this space

and continue taking my message to people around the world,” he added. Laundromat highlights Qatar’s development as a creative and artistic hub that encourages dialogue through art, according to QM.

Such a unique exhibition, QM noted, refl ects the determination of QM and its Chairperson HE Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani to bring the world’s leading contemporary artists to the country aimed at

inspiring future generations of artists and engage the local com-munity.

The exhibition also off ers a regional platform to some of the world’s most unique and reso-nant voices.

“By bringing such interna-tionally signifi cant talent to Qa-tar, we hope to spark creativity for a young generation of artists and build an exciting future for Qatar,” QM’s Fire Station Artist in Residence Programme director Khalifa al-Obaidly said.

“An exhibition such as this, which brings attention to an is-sue that has preoccupied a gen-eration, is sure to be of interest

to the wider community as well. This is a show that should not be missed, and we urge all those who live in and visit Qatar to experi-ence it,” he noted.

Laundromat features thou-sands of articles of clothing col-lected from a makeshift refugee camp in Idomeni – a small village in northern Greece and offi cial border crossing to the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

The camp was shut down in May 2016 and the refugees that had been living there were evac-uated, leaving their possessions behind.

Apart from the clothing, QM added that Laundromat also fea-tures the fi lm Idomeni (2016) which captures the everyday con-ditions of the refugees up to now when the camp was evacuated; ‘1.12-09.08.2016’ – a wallpaper which consists of a selection of 17,062 images relating to refugees taken by the artist on his phone during the fi lming of his docu-mentary feature “Human Flow.”

Alongside Laundromat, QM said other projects by Ai Weiwei will be exhibited at the Fire Sta-tion, including Stacked Porcelain Vases as a Pillar (2017), which represents six themes of the refugee condition — War, Ruins, Journey, Crossing the Sea, Refu-gee Camps, and Demonstrations; and Tyre (2016), a traditional symbol of safety turned on its head by being crafted from mar-ble and representing the struggle faced by refugees crossing the Mediterranean Sea.

Laundromat exhibition features meticulously arranged shoes and thousands of clothing items, as well as 17,062 pictures relating to refugees. PICTURES: Jayan Orma

Khalifa al-Obaidly at the event.

Gout de/Good France to fete renowned chef Paul BocuseBy Joey AguilarStaff Reporter

Some 3,000 restaurants in more than 150 countries, including those in Qatar,

will be preparing a unique dinner on March 21 to mark the fourth edition of Gout de/Good France.

A one-of-its-kind culinary celebration, organised by the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Aff airs, and renowned chef Alain Ducasse, it highlights the art of living “a la francaise” (the French way of life), promotes French products and France as a tourism destination.

“We will have the largest din-ner in the world to celebrate French cuisine,” French ambas-sador Eric Chevallier told a press conference yesterday at his resi-dence in Doha. Gout de/Good France 2018, a global event which will also involve 1,500 chefs cur-rently registered in France, will pay tribute to renowned French chef Paul Bocuse who passed

away early this year, the envoy noted. Participating chefs from around the world can include a dish in their menus from the rep-ertoire of Bocuse or “one inspired by the spirit of his cuisine.”

The Gout de/Good France menu includes an aperitif with fi nger food, a starter, one or two main courses, a cheese platter and a dessert, accompanied by French beverages.

In Qatar, Chevallier said eight well-known restaurants will take part in Good France: Fauchon, Idam (Museum of Is-lamic Art – Alain Ducasse), La Villa (Mercure), Market by Jean Georges (W Hotel Doha), Olive Oil (City Centre Rotana) Por-cini (Ritz-Carlton Doha), Prime Steakhouse (Intercontinental Doha-The City), and Walima (Mondrian Doha).

He added that the Qatar Culi-nary Professionals in Doha, rep-resented by two French chefs at the press conference, is also sup-porting the culinary event. “Gas-tronomy is a pillar of France’s at-

tractiveness for tourists and is an active component of its cultural outreach,” Chevallier said.

“The richness and singularity of our cuisine, the diversity of our local producing regions, as well as the inclusion of the ‘gas-tronomic meal of the French’ on the Unesco list of intangible cul-tural heritage, are all key advan-tages that help keep France at the top of the list of the world’s tour-ist destinations,” he stressed.

IDAM executive chef Damien Leroux told reporters that he will dedicate his special menu to hon-our Bocuse: Red mullet, crispy potato scales and Tart Tatin. “It is an honour for me to create this plate for Bocuse because he is like one of the fi rst French chefs to export our knowledge to the world,” he said.

As part of the event, Leroux will also prepare a full French menu using special cheese, French bread and other tradi-tional French products such as wild lavender, healthy cucumber, seasonal rose and red harvest.

French ambassador Eric Chevallier (centre) with chefs from eight restaurants participating in Gout de/Good France 2018. PICTURE: Jayan Orma

AAB displays latest models of Toyota, Lexus at Mall of Qatar

Abdullah Abdulghani & Bros Co (AAB) is displaying the latest models of Toyota and Lexus in its gallery at Mall of Qatar.AAB is the exclusive dealer of Toyota and Lexus in Qatar.In a press statement yesterday, AAB said it was undertaking “new initiatives to think outside the box and reach its Toyota and Lexus fan base locally by opening promotional galleries outside the parameters of the conventional showroom”. “The new strategy is not for customers to come to the showroom but for the showroom to come to them,” the statement

noted. The latest models of Toyota and Lexus are on display in the gallery, ranging from small passenger vehicles to sports coupes and SUVs. AAB has stressed that it seeks to “make it easier for visitors to discover all the exceptional features and advantages via the gallery located in Mall of Qatar where the latest models are on display”. The gallery is open to customers and all visitors to the mall from 10am to 11pm on weekdays and from 10am to midnight on weekends. During these hours, the sales staff will welcome visitors to the gallery and

present the latest technology and unique selling points of the models displayed, including the “legendary” Toyota Land Cruiser and its history in the region, the “iconic” all-new 2018 Camry and the hybrid Prius, the “bestselling vehicle in its segment globally”. Lexus will have on display the “state-of-the-art” LC500 coupe with its futuristic design and sporty characteristics. The GS-F is also on display highlighting its powerful V8 engine and 471hp, making it a “true force to be reckoned with”. Visitors can also feast their eyes on the new seven-seater RX350.

Toyota models on display. Lexus models in the gallery.

Oryx Publishing and Advertising unveils Progress Qatar 2017-18

Oryx Publishing and Advertising unveiled the 2017-18 edition of its annual publication Progress Qatar yesterday under the patronage of the Ministry of Culture and Sports at a special event. The event, sponsored by Q-Auto, was held to mark Qatar’s achievements in various sectors last year in the face of the blockade imposed by some of its neighbours. Yousuf bin Jassim al-Darwish, chairman of Oryx Publishing & Advertising, and Faleh bin Hussein al- Hajri, director, Research and Cultural Studies Department, Ministry

of Culture and Sports, jointly released the publication at the event. Al-Hajri attended the event on behalf of HE the Minister of Culture and Sports Salah bin Ghanem bin Nasser al-Ali. A large number of representatives from several companies also participated. Al-Darwish thanked all the participants and said that Qatar’s economy had thrived despite the blockade by some countries since June last year. He also stressed the importance of the latest edition of Progress Qatar because it highlighted how well the nation had coped

with the situation. At the event, several awards were distributed to organisations that had excelled in their fields. Q-Auto, the off icial sponsor for the event, was presented an award which was received by the company’s general manager Ahmed Shariefi. Gulf Publishing and Printing Company was awarded the best printing and publishing house award. A special award was also given to Qatari artist Ali Hassan whose painting was used for the cover of Progress Qatar 2017-18. Al-Darwish and al-Hajri presented awards to the representatives

of the participating companies as well. Progress Qatar has been providing detailed analysis of the nation’s developments in various fields - sports, economy, infrastructure, education, health, etc – for over a decade. The inaugural edition of the yearly book was published in 2003-04. Oryx Publishing & Advertising has been one of Qatar’s leading media houses for 40 years. The major magazines under its banner are Qatar Today, Qatar Al Youm, T Qatar, and T Qatar (Arabic).

Winners of awards with Yousuf bin Jassim al-Darwish, and Faleh bin Hussein al-Hajri and other off icials. PICTURE: Jayan Orma

Qatar Airways is the off icial airline sponsor of food fest

Qatar Airways is the off icial airline sponsor of the ninth Qatar International Food Festival (QIFF), which kicks off today at Hotel Park. The airline will fly in a lineup of regional celebrity chefs to Doha for the festival’s Live Cooking Theatre, a highlight of the annual event.They include famed Michelin-starred chef Wolfgang Puck and Qatari chef and food programme presenter Aisha al-Tamimi; Lebanese celebrity chef Ramzi Choueiri; Filipino celebrity TV chef Nino Logarta; Food Network pastry chef Anna Olson; Turkish celebrity chef Murat Bozok; Kuwaiti celebrity TV chef Sulaiman al-Qassar; Indian chef Ajay Chopra; Kuwaiti chef Asmaa al-Bahar; US 2012 Masterchef winner Christine Ha, IDAM Executive Chef Damien Leroux, and Kuwaiti chef Fawaz al-Omaim. “We help bring the world to Qatar and off er visitors their first taste of Arabian hospitality when they arrive in Doha. Every year, QIFF is a celebration of Qatar’s extraordinary cultural and culinary diversity, and we could not be more proud to participate in this event,” Qatar Airways’ marketing and corporate communications senior vice president Salam al-Shawa said.“As our national carrier and award-winning airline, Qatar Airways is a key component of our eff orts to develop and promote unique end-to-end visitor experiences, that extend our message of welcome to the world,” Qatar Tourism Authority’s chief marketing and promotion off icer Rashed al-Qurese said.

11 days of culinary extravaganza kicks off in Doha today

From Page 1Cultural performances from

various countries, including Ethiopia, India, South Africa, Turkey and Vietnam, will be held at the main stage.

The second week of QIFF will witness Kuwaiti singer Abdulaziz Louis and Lebanese band Wahdon entertaining visitors for free on March 23 and 24.

Doha-based hip hop dance troupe Beats and Bytes, as well as Music Vending Ma-chine, The Doha String Quar-tet & Friends, Doha Jazz and

an American music band will perform throughout the fes-tival.

A fi ve-minute fi reworks dis-play will light up the sky above the Doha corniche at 8pm fol-lowed by daily fi lm screenings, courtesy of festival partner, Doha Film Institute (DFI).

The screenings include Made In Qatar Shorts Pro-gramme, Winnie the Pooh and Finding Nemo on rotation each evening. QIFF 2018 is organ-ised and delivered by QTA with the support of numerous part-ners representing the enter-

tainment, hospitality and food and beverage sectors in Qatar. The festival’s strategic partner is Katara Hospitality, the glo-bal hotel owner, developer and operator based in Qatar.

The award-winning fi ve-star national carrier Qatar Airways is the festival’s offi cial airline while other partners include Msheireb Museums, DFI, beIN, Qatar Culinary Professionals, Askar, Mini Zoo Events, AlRayyan Water, RAW ME, Zomato, Talabat, Uber, Qatar TV, Al Rayyan TV and Olive Radio.

Asma al-Bahr Murat Bozok Christine Ha

New plan focuses on self-sufficiency, sustainable growth

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