Qatar-Croatia talks focus on bolstering ties - Gulf Times

GULF TIMES

published in

QATAR

since 1978

TUESDAY Vol. XXXIX No. 11008

November 20, 2018Rabia I 12, 1440 AH www. gulf-times.com 2 Riyals

QCB may track Fedrates amid currencypeg: Fitch Solutions

BUSINESS | SPORT | Page 1

Oman National Day celebrated

The embassy of Oman celebrated the Sultanate’s 48th National Day at a reception held in Doha yesterday. Led by Oman’s ambassador Najib bin Yahya al-Balushi, the reception was attended by a large number of guests, including Qatari dignitaries, diplomats from various nations and other off icials. Pictured are al-Balushi with HE the Advisory Council Speaker, Ahmed bin Abdullah bin Zaid al-Mahmoud, HE the Minister of Justice Dr Issa Saad al-Jafali al-Nuaimi, HE the Minister of Commerce and Industry Ali bin Ahmed al-Kuwari, HE the Minister of Administrative Development, Labour and Social Aff airs Yousef bin Mohamed al-Othman Fakhro, HE the Minister of Municipality and Environment Abdullah bin Abdulaziz bin Turki al-Subaie and other dignitaries during the ceremonial cake-cutting. PICTURE: Jayan Orma

Qatar asks for WTO adjudication in Saudi Arabia piracy dispute

ReutersGeneva

Qatar has stepped up its fi ght for justice in a dispute against Saudi Arabia at the World Trade Organ-

isation (WTO), with a request for adjudi-cation of its complaint that Riyadh had violated its intellectual property rights.

Qatar launched the dispute in Octo-ber, saying Saudi Arabia was blocking Qatari-owned broadcaster beIN and refusing to take eff ective action against the piracy of beIN content by a sophis-

ticated pirate operation called “beoutQ”.Qatar’s latest WTO fi ling, dated No-

vember 9 and published on yesterday, said Saudi Arabia had refused to meet Qatari offi cials to try to resolve the dis-pute, as required by WTO rules.

A Saudi government communica-tions offi ce did not immediately re-spond to a request for comment.

Saudi offi cials have previously said that the country is taking action to combat piracy and is committed to protecting intellectual property rights.

The request for a WTO adjudication panel reiterated Qatar’s original com-

plaint, and also argued that beoutQ was violating not only Qatar’s rights but those of many other countries, whose TV programmes could now be watched for free in Saudi Arabia.

“The IPTV applications on beoutQ set-top boxes provide access, in the territory of Saudi Arabia, to hundreds of television channels and thousands of on-demand programs from around the world, without the authorisation of the intellectual property right hold-ers,” Qatar’s latest fi ling said, referring to applications for so-called Internet Protocol television. To Page 2

Saudi-based pirate channel beoutQ broadcasts beIN Sports programmes

His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani and Italian President Sergio Mattarella at the presidential palace (The Quirinale) in Rome yesterday.His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani being received by Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic at the Presidential Palace in Zagreb yesterday.

Amir, Italian president hold talks

His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani and Italian President Sergio

Mattarella held a session of offi cial talks at the presidential palace in Rome yes-terday.

The session dealt with the close bilateral relations and the means of developing co-operation between the two countries to broader and more comprehensive horizons, es-pecially in investment, education and health, to serve the interests

of the two countries and the two friendly peoples.

A number of regional and interna-tional issues were discussed, includ-ing the Gulf crisis, which both sides emphasised the need to settle through dialogue and diplomatic means, in ad-dition to the developments in Palestine and Libya.

The meeting was attended by the members of the offi cial delegation ac-companying the Amir.

On the Italian side, it was attended

by a number of ministers.His Highness the Amir arrived in

Rome yesterday evening for a two-day state visit.

He was welcomed upon arrival at the Fiumicino Airport by Minister for Parliamentary Relations and Di-rect Democracy Riccardo Fraccaro, Qatar’s ambassador to Italy Ab-dulaziz bin Ahmed al-Malki, Ital-ian ambassador to Qatar Pasquale Salzano and members of the Qatari embassy and consulate.

The Amir is accompanied by an offi -cial delegation.

His Highness the Amir met with the President of the Italian Senate, Maria Elisabetta Casellati, and a number of Italian senators in Rome yesterday. The meeting discussed bilateral relations and means to further develop them. The two sides also exchanged views on current re-gional and international developments. The meeting was attended by members of the accompanying offi cial delegation. Pages 3, 9

Ways to develop bilateral ties, Gulf crisis, Palestine and Libya figure prominently in discussions

Qatar-Croatia talks focus on bolstering ties

Taking Qatar-Croatia bilat-eral relations to new heights, His Highness the Amir Sheikh

Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani and Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic yesterday witnessed the signing of a number of agreements and memorandums of understanding at presidential palace in Zagreb, of-ficial Qatar News Agency (QNA) has reported.

The agreements are for co-operation in organising cultural events, mutual exemption of visa requirements for holders of diplomatic and private pass-ports, and for co-operation and news exchange between QNA and Croatian News Agency.

The memorandums of understanding are for co-operation in education, higher education and science, military co-op-eration between the defence ministries

of both countries, agricultural co-oper-ation to benefi t from joint experiences in food security, to exchange sport experi-ences and hold training camps, and for academic co-operation between Qatar University and the University of Zagreb in addition to student exchange and joint scientifi c research.

The Amir and President Grabar-Ki-tarovic held a session of offi cial talks. They discussed bilateral relations and means of developing them, especially in the areas of economy, investment, tourism, energy, education and health, apart from developments in the Middle East and international issues.

The Amir expressed his thanks and appreciation to the Croatian president for the warm welcome, expressing his happiness at visiting Croatia and hold-ing the third meeting with her this year. To Page 3

Several agreements signed for co-operation in education, science and military fields

Advisory Council discusses draft law on media cityThe media city will have an independent budget aimed at managing and developing media activity

The Advisory Council yester-day discussed a draft law on the establishment of a media

city in Qatar.

The discussion took place dur-ing the regular weekly session of the Council under the chairmanship of HE the Advisory Council Speaker, Ahmed bin Abdullah bin Zaid al-Mahmoud, the offi cial Qatar News Agency (QNA) reported.

Under the draft law, the media city has a “moral personality and an in-dependent budget aimed at manag-ing and developing media activity and attracting international media, technology companies, research and training institutions in the fields

of media and digital media”, QNA states.

It also aims to “achieve economic and professional integration with various state projects and provide an interactive environment by licensed companies working in the media city”, which have the authority to grant licences for television and ra-dio broadcasting as well as licences for the publishing and distribution of newspapers, magazines and books for eligible companies.

Following the discussion, the Ad-

visory Council decided to refer the draft law to the Information and Cultural Affairs Committee for con-sideration and report thereon to the Council.

In September, the Cabinet had ap-proved a draft law on the establish-ment of a media city. Besides the above-mentioned objectives, the es-tablishment of the media city is also aimed at supporting and encouraging projects and establishing investment funds in the media, according to re-ports. Page 2

QNADoha

Qatar shooters on gold spree at Arab

event

“We continue expanding the base of our relations with more world coun-tries. In Croatia, which I am offi cially visiting for the fi rst time, I have con-ducted fruitful talks with Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic. There is a common area between our two countries to build a system of successful co-operation relations, in particular in the fi elds of economy, tourism and sports,” His Highness the Amir tweeted after the visit.

QATAR

Gulf Times Tuesday, November 20, 20182

His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani has sent a written message to Lebanese President General Michel Aoun, pertaining to bilateral relations between Qatar and Lebanon and ways to develop them. Qatar’s ambassador to Lebanon Mohamed Hassan Jaber al-Jaber handed the message during a meeting yesterday with the president of Lebanon.

Amir sends message to Lebanese president Workshop discusses eff orts toestablish barcode offi ce in Doha

A workshop to discuss set-ting up a barcode offi ce to help Qatari companies

comply with international la-belling standards for local and global markets and to provide information on the source, loca-tion and sales of their products was held in Doha.

It was organised by Qatar De-velopment Bank (QDB) and Qa-tar Chamber with the support of the joint technical co-operation agency of the World Trade Or-ganisation (WTO).

Director General’s Assistant for Governmental and Interna-tional Relations at Qatar Cham-ber, Ali Busherbak al-Mansouri, said that digital barcoding for

products has become an impor-tant tool for developing trade and companies to reach new international markets through traditional distribution chan-nels, as well as rapid inclusion of products in e-commerce plat-forms.

In his opening speech at the workshop, Busherbak added that Qatari companies are buying their digital code from GS1 offi c-es in neighbouring countries or from GS1 headquarters in Brus-sels, stressing the need to launch a registered offi ce in Qatar that meets the increasing require-ments for safety and follow-up in international trade.

Executive Director of Ex-port Development & Promotion Agency, Tasdeer, Hassan Khalifa Busherbak al-Mansoor said that the new global trading system is

based on the organisation of trade transactions through the WTO, adding the reliance on informa-tion technology has increased to keep pace with developments and challenges, which is a priority for QDB in the next phase.

The QDB aims to expand the industrial base, increase Qatari exports and introduce advanced technology in the manufactur-ing and supply phases, he said.

Al-Mansoori highlighted the importance of Qatari exporters to keep abreast with the latest international technology to raise the quality of products, reduce costs and follow modern meth-ods of commercial exchange and marketing.

He pointed out that digital barcode is one of the most im-portant methods, where the product is defi ned by a code that

is easy to trade globally and is a global requirement in export op-erations, especially for EU coun-tries and the USA.

He explained that the QDB, in co-operation with Qatar Cham-ber, is organising a series of workshops on the advantages of having a digital barcode offi ce in Doha, in addition to introducing its services and benefi ts to Qatari business owners.

The application of universal coding standards using barcodes provides a common working language and expands business opportunities.

Supply chain standards save time and cost by reducing risk, reducing paperwork manage-ment, raising supply chain ef-fi ciency and combating coun-terfeiting, and promoting the sharing of best practices.

QNADoha

Advisory Council discusses two decrees

The Advisory Council at its regular weekly session, held under the chairman-

ship of HE the Speaker Ahmed bin Abdullah bin Zaid al-Mah-moud, yesterday discussed de-cree-law No 18 of 2018 amend-ing some provisions of the tender and auction law issued by law No 24 of 2015 and decided to refer it to the Economic and the Financial Aff airs Committee for study and report to the council.

The council also discussed de-cree-law No 19 of 2018 amend-ing certain provisions of the law on lawyers issued by law No 23 of 2006 and decided to refer it to

the Legal and Legislative Aff airs Committee for consideration and report to the council.

At the conclusion of the ses-sion, HE al-Mahmoud briefed the Council on his meeting with the Speaker of Iraqi Council of Representatives Mohamed al-Halboosi and his accompanying delegation. The meeting dis-cussed bilateral relations be-tween Qatar and Iraq and ways to support and develop them in various fi elds, especially the parliamentary sector, in addition to reviewing a number of issues of common interest.

The Speaker of the Advisory Council also briefed the Coun-cil on the participation of the Council’s delegation under his chairmanship at the third meet-

ing of heads of parliaments of European and Asian countries (Eurasia), which was held in Turkey’s Antalya from 8 to 11 October 2018 and the Antalya Declaration of the meeting.

HE al-Mahmoud also briefed the Council on the results of his meetings, held on the sidelines of the Eurasia meeting, with a number of heads of parliaments of fraternal and friendly coun-tries, during which they dis-cussed the existing parliamen-tary relations between Qatar and their countries.

The Speaker discussed his contacts and meetings with the heads of the participating del-egations regarding the invita-tion made by His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad

al-Thani in his address to the 73rd session of the United Na-tions General Assembly to hold an international conference on cyber security and the readiness of Qatar to host it.

He explained that these eff orts resulted in the approval and wel-come by all delegations of His Highness the Amir’s invitation.

The Speaker also briefed the Council on the participation of the Council’s delegation under his chairmanship in the meet-ings of the 139th General Assem-bly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), which took place in Geneva from 14 to 18 October 2018, and the results of his in-tensive meetings with senior IPU offi cials and heads of participat-ing delegations.

QNADoha

Sudan: Doha Document

is basis for peace in Darfur

The Sudanese government has reaffi rmed that the Doha Document for Peace

in Darfur has become the basis of the peace process with popular and international support.

The government noted that the vast majority of the armed movements in Darfur and those who did not join the Doha Docu-ment for Peace in Darfur, have shown a clear understanding of the success of the document and sought to make the most of that success in accordance with their respective frameworks.

Sudan’s Information Min-ister Bushara Juma’a Aror told Qatar News Agency (QNA) that the Doha Document for Peace in Darfur accommodates all and re-mains open for accession because

it enjoys international consensus, pointing out that several agree-ments and development projects have been implemented within the framework of the document in order to achieve peace in Darfur.

The information minister pointed out that the de facto policy of development and the Qatari support, assistance and follow-up is the basis of all the success that have been achieved.

He stressed that the document is comprehensive and inclusive, in that it met the wishes of the peo-ple of Darfur, and the internation-al community for a lasting peace in the region. He pointed out that the steps taken in the regional and international platforms with the armed movements are based on the Doha Document.

The Sudanese information minister praised the eff orts made by Qatar in the interest of peace and stability in Sudan.

QNAKhartoum

Qatar moves

WTO in Saudi

piracy dispute

From Page 1

Saudi Arabia was making it impossible for Qatari nation-als to protect their intellectual property rights, giving Qatari nationals less favourable treat-ment than Saudi and other na-tionals, and making it unduly diffi cult for Qataris to seek judi-cial remedies, Qatar said.

It also criticised “Saudi Ara-bia’s omission to prosecute, as a criminal violation, piracy on a commercial scale, of material in which copyright is owned by, or licensed to, Qatari nationals, and other rights holders from around the world.”

Global sports network beIN Sports is blocked in Saudi Ara-bia under a boycott the kingdom imposed on Qatar over a year ago.

QATAR3Gulf Times

Tuesday, November 20, 2018

His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani being received by Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic at the presidential palace in Zagreb yesterday.

His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, accompanied by Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, inspects a guard of honour at the presidential palace in Zagreb yesterday.

His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani and Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic chairing off icial talks between Qatar and Croatia in Zagreb yesterday.

Qatar-Croatia talks focus on bolstering tiesFrom Page 1

He also praised President Grabar-Kitarovic’s important visit to Qatar last year.

During joint press state-ments with the Croatian presi-dent after the offi cial talks, His Highness the Amir said that the Qatari-Croatian relations are strong and should be developed to a wider perspective in light of the regional challenges, stress-ing the importance of continu-ous co-ordination between the offi cials of the two countries. In this regard, the Amir pointed out that the talks focused on a

number of important areas, in-cluding energy, sports and tour-ism.

The Amir welcomed the Croatian community and com-panies to Qatar. He praised the Croatian team’s achievements in the 2018 World Cup in Rus-sia, wishing that they qualify for the 2022 Qatar World Cup and make more achievements. His Highness the Amir also thanked the Croatian president for her country’s contribution of a se-ries of valuable books to the Qa-tar National Library.

President Grabar-Kitarovic stressed the importance of the

Amir’s visit to Croatia, which will further develop the excel-lent bilateral relations. She ex-pressed optimism about the fu-ture co-operation, particularly in the fi elds of energy, indus-tries, defence, technology and tourism.

His Highness the Amir and his accompanying delegation attended a luncheon banquet hosted by the Croatian presi-dent at the Presidential Palace. Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic and a number of min-isters and senior offi cials were present.

The Amir also met Plenkovic

at the cabinet headquarters in Zagreb. The meeting reviewed the relations between the two countries and the prospects for their development in various fi elds, especially in the econo-my, industry, energy, tourism and food security.

His Highness the Amir visited the Croatian Parliament head-quarters where he was wel-comed by the Speaker Gordan Jandrokovic, Deputy Speaker Zeljko Reiner, chairman of Qa-tari-Croatian Parliamentary Friendship Group Stjepan Curaj and a number of Parliament members.

His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani and Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic witnessing the signing of agreements between the governments of Qatar and Croatia in Zagreb yesterday.

Amir accorded rousing reception in Croatia

His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani being received by Italian President Sergio Mattarella at the presidential palace (The Quirinale) in Rome yesterday.

His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani and Italian President Sergio Mattarella chairing official talks at the presidential palace (The Quirinale) in Rome yesterday.

His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani holding talks with Maria Elisabetta Casellati, President of the Italian Senate, in Rome yesterday.

Amir holds official talks with Italian president

QATAR


Sidra Medicine pioneers new diabetes management protocolSidra Medicine, a Qatar Foun-

dation (QF) member, has pioneered a new protocol to

help children with type 1 diabetes (T1D) in Qatar.

The new protocol developed by Dr Goran Petrovski, an attend-ing physician of paediatric endo-crinology/diabetes at Sidra Medi-cine and an assistant professor of clinical medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine – Qatar and his team, has almost reached the conclu-sion of a successful trial and off ers patients and their caregivers faster and simpler access to the latest diabetes treatment.

“Diabetes centres all over the world follow diff erent protocols in diabetes management tech-nology,” Dr Petrovski, said, add-ing, “The access to eff ective T1D treatment and the ease with which patients can use insulin to control the condition depends on that protocol.”

The latest protocol put forward

by Dr Petrovski and his team will help Qatar accelerate its diabetes management plan – the country, with around 1,200 T1D patients.

The eff orts of diabetologists, endocrinologists, and physicians all over the world have resulted in effi cient treatment modes for pa-tients with T1D that combine both glucose monitoring and insulin pumps such as the Hybrid Closed Loop system.

The system, also referred to as an artifi cial pancreas, uses a sen-sor and a controller-aided insulin pump both of which are attached to the body of the patient. The sensor reads the glucose levels in the body and sends the informa-tion to the controller in the pump; the controller, based on the read-ing, uses algorithms to calculate the amount of insulin that the patient needs and injects the rel-evant quantity into the patient.

While there are various models of such sensor-augmented insulin

pumps, the most advanced model, the Minimed 670G is off ered as a part of the treatment only in the US. Even then, patients often have to face a long wait before gaining access to the device.

“The effi cacy of 670G in pa-tients has been proven,” Dr Petro-vski said, adding, “But the long waiting period born out of the in-ability to closely and safely moni-tor patients and receive accurate

feedback, slower administrative processes, delays in educating parents and even complex insur-ance policies, are a concern.”

“If we had the pumps and a sin-gle centralised system to moni-tor patients in a systematic and accurate manner, why couldn’t patients use the 670G, right from the start, instead of going through various phases where they used other alternatives? And, more im-portantly, will those patients have the same or better results com-pared to those switching from an-other device?” he asks.

In order to test his theory, Dr Petrovski and his team needed ac-cess to a reliable hospital system where patients could be provided consistent and continuous infor-mation and support, and where his team could closely monitor pa-tients and get accurate feedback – such as Sidra Medicine.

In an ongoing pilot study, 30 patients aged from 7-18, and their

parents, were educated in us-ing the Minimed 670G, with the modifi ed protocol by Dr Petro-vski and his team. And the results have been positive; the cohort of patients in the study, who were previously on multiple daily injec-tions of insulin, have been able to better control their glucose levels and the quality of life.

According to Dr Petrovski, the results have, so far, proven his hy-pothesis correct: that as long as young children with T1D and their caregivers are provided with prop-er education and onboarding, the earlier they start using the Hybrid Closed Loop System, the better.

The team intends to expand the successful study both in Qatar and abroad. Dr Petrovski was recently in Europe to share his fi ndings with experts in countries where the 670G is yet to be introduced, and where the protocol developed in Qatar could potentially give pa-tients a better quality of life.

Dr Goran Petrovski explains the functioning of the new protocol.

QU alumni offi ce announces 2018reunion ceremony

Under the patron-age of Her High-ness Sheikha Moza

bint Nasser, honorary president of the Qatar University (QU) Alumni Association, QU Alumni Relations Offi ce organises a press conference to an-nounce the 2018 Reunion Ceremony

The reunion is consid-ered QU’s second biggest event of each year, coming second only to the annual graduation ceremony. The reunion is a great opportu-nity for QU to enhance its communication with grad-uates and to create a sense of loyalty and affi liation with them. The gathering also strengthens the con-tinuity of bonding between all parties including among university offi cials, in the spirit of co-operation.

Mohamed Hakim, alumni relations special-ist in QU, said the cer-emony would honour the graduates between the years 1990 and 1999. It is a yearly undertaking by the university to promote the spirit of cohesion and co-operation.

Hakim hopes that the graduates will be happy

and impressed with the event, and hopes it will be-come a basis for new com-munication between QU and its alumni.

The ceremony also pro-vides an opportunity for graduates to learn about the role and objectives of the QU Alumni Asso-ciation and contribute by engaging in the activities and events organised by all branches of the associa-tion, as well as encourag-ing graduates to take part in serving the university and community.

Mohamed al-Mohanna-di, director, Outreach and Engagement, told the press conference that QU has been organising this event for 10 years through the Alumni Relations Offi ce, which was established in 2007. “Currently, the uni-versity sponsors the cer-emony alongside the QU Alumni Association, which was established in 2012.”

The ceremony will in-clude many activities and events, such as honouring distinguished graduates, and will host spaces dedi-cated to the diff erent col-leges and research

centres. (QNA)

Woqod opens petrol station in Al Wakrah

Qatar Fuel (Woqod) opened Al Wakrah-2 yesterday, expanding

its network of various petrol stations to 79.

“We are pleased to open new fi xed petrol station on Bypass Road Al Wakrah-2,” Woqod chief executive offi cer Saad Rashid al-Muhannadi said.

Al Wakrah-2 is spread over an area of 15,000sq m and has three lanes with nine dispens-ers that will serve Al Wakrah and its neighbourhood.

The new petrol station off er round-the-clock services to residents, and include a Sidra

convenience store, manual car wash, oil change and tyre re-pair, sale of LPG cylinders, in addition to sale of gasoline and diesel products for light vehi-cles.

“Woqod is currently over-seeing the implementation of 18 new petrol stations, a large number of which are expected to be operational during the current year,” al-Muhannadi explained.

“There are nine stations in the bidding phase and 14 in the design phase. Woqod is target-ing a total of 130 fuel stations by the end of 2020,” he added. A view of the new Woqod Petrol Station, Al Wakrah -2.

Ooredoo tv now requires input of Purchase PIN

Ooredoo, Qatar’s leading telecom-munications pro-

vider, yesterday an-nounced all transactions carried out on Ooredoo tv will now require the input of a Purchase PIN in order to activate the request.

The new procedure means every time a customer at-tempts to make a purchase – whether a subscription to a service or an on-demand movie rental – the Ooredoo tv system will ask for a PIN number to be input in order to confi rm the purchase has been initiated and authorised by the registered account holder.

Manar Khalifa al-Mu-raikhi, director, public rela-tions and corporate commu-nications at Ooredoo, said: “Keeping our customers’ data safe and secure is of par-amount importance to Oore-doo, and we are committed to ensuring all transactions made through Ooredoo tv are safe, secure and initiated only by the authorised cus-tomer. We understand it’s an extra step when customers are accessing our services,

but we know they’ll appreci-ate it’s to keep them and their data as safe as possible, and to prevent any unauthorised transactions being allowed to occur.”

Customers who already have an existing Purchase PIN need only input it each time they initiate a transaction, while customers who have yet to set up their PIN will simply need to send an SMS to 115, from their registered mobile number, with the text ‘MPIN’ followed by their 8-digit landline number. So, if the landline number is 12345678, they should send ‘MPIN 12345678’. A personalised Purchase PIN will then be sent to them. Customers who are new to Ooredoo tv should follow the same procedure.

In order to ensure this new safeguard is not accidentally switched off , Ooredoo is also removing the option to deac-tivate Purchase PIN require-ment, further ensuring the security of all transactions initiated on Ooredoo tv.

MoPH holds workshops on WHO new growth charts

The Ministry of Pub-lic Health (MoPH) organised four

training workshops on the new growth charts of the World Health Organisa-tion (WHO) for public and private school students and community schools in Qatar aged 5-19 years.

The workshops were held in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, the Primary Health Care Cor-poration and Hamad Medi-cal Corporation.

Dr Kholood Ateeq al-Mutawa, head, of non-communicable disease sec-tion at the MoPH, said that the adoption and imple-mentation of the WHO new growth charts is an imple-mentation of the National Nutrition and Physical Activity Action Plan 2017-2022, which aims to reduce the burden of obesity and chronic diseases and re-lated diseases in Qatar such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes and some types of cancer.

She said that the pro-gramme contributes to promoting health and non-communicable dis-eases, activating the Qa-tar National Vision 2030 for human development and promoting the health of the entire Qatari soci-ety to build a new healthy generation.

She added that the pro-gramme represents an im-portant step towards realis-ing the right of every child to grow and enjoy good health based on scientifi c evidence

from diff erent countries of the world, pointing out that the main determinants of growth inequality have been environmental factors, which means that these charts can also be used to assess compliance with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Dr al-Mutawa noted that this programme has been applied to all public schools in starting from the academic year 2014-2015 and has been imple-mented in private schools and community schools in the 2015-2016 academic year, adding the aim of these programmes is to provide a database and build a monitoring system for the growth of students of private and government schools, boys and girls, in the three grades, as well as early detection of develop-mental disorders that may be related to nutrition.

The workshops were at-tended by about 190 new nursing staff in schools and programme supervi-sors from the MoPH and the PHCC. A working team was formed and trained on how to use the new WHO growth forms to achieve the objectives of the programme.

The analysis of the re-sults of the new growth monitoring charts 2016, which included 165,000 students aged 5-19, showed that a large proportion of students are overweight and obese, especially among 10-14 year-old students. (QNA)

Indian embassy holidayThe Indian embassy will remain closed tomorrow (Wednesday) on the occasion

of Milad-un-Nabi (Id-e-Milad), it was announced in a statement yesterday.

QATAR5Gulf Times


The 6th Ajyal Film Festival will celebrate Qatar – Russia Year of Culture Qatar 2018 with the

screening of six “Made in Russia” short fi lms, which present an insight into the country’s fi lmmaking trends, culture and people, it was announced.

Ajyal, Doha Film Institute’s (DFI) an-nual cinema event, will take place from November 28 to December 3 at Katara – the Cultural Village.

“Made in Russia” will screen on No-vember 30 from 8pm at the Ajyal Stage at Katara Esplanade, and includes a se-lection of short Russian narrative and documentary fi lms.

This follows the success of the DFI’s “Made in Qatar” screening earlier this year at the VII Saint Petersburg Inter-national Cultural Forum in Russia, in partnership with the Qatar’s Ministry of Culture and Sports.

“The ‘Made in Russia’ showcase at Ajyal marks Qatar – Russia Year of Cul-ture Qatar, and the signifi cant cultural

interaction between our countries,” said DFI chief executive Fatma Hassan al-Remaihi, who is also the Ajyal festi-val director.

“We have placed the focus on the work of up-and-coming Russian direc-tors that will stimulate dialogue among young fi lmmakers as well as audiences and drive a deeper understanding of Russian cinema – a country that has gifted the world with some of the fi n-est classics and bold new fi lmmaking statements,” she added.

Curated by Alexei Medvedev, the “Made in Russia” programme fi lms are: The Hymns of Muscovy (2018) by Dim-itri Venkov, The Return of Erkin (2015) by Maria Guskova, Aquathlon (2018) by Alexey Shabarov, What a Pest (2018) by Svetlana Chernikova, Hide and Seek (2018) by Anastasia Ostapenko, and The First Thunder (2017) by Anastasia Me-likhova.

Tickets for Ajyal screenings are priced QR25 for general screening.

Tickets are available for purchase 24 hours a day at http://www.dohafi lm-institute.com/fi lmfestival/ticketinfor-mation, or in-person at Ajyal FNAC ticket outlets (located at Doha Festival City and Lagoona Mall), or from the Ajyal Katara Main Box Offi ce in Katara Building 12.

Ajyal to screen six Russian fi lms

A scene from Maria Guskova’s The Return of Erkin.

The First Thunder is among the six ‘Made in Russia’ short films to be screened at Ajyal 2018.

QATAR


The Fire Station hosts 18 artistsThe Fire Station hosted an

‘Open Studio’ night yes-terday, giving the public

the chance to meet the 18 art-ists currently participating in the highly successful Artist in Residence programme.

The event was an opportunity for art enthusiasts to interact and speak with the artists about their work and explore the Fire Station – a hub for the country’s growing art community.

Artists displayed their works, which included a variety of me-dia, such as fi ne art, sculpture, and photography, among others.

Launched under the patronage of Qatar Museums’ (QM) chairper-son HE Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, the Fire Station off ers artists in Qatar the chance to immerse themselves in their work for a period of nine-months.

The residency provides them with individualised studios and the chance to collaborate with fellow

creatives and fi nd ways to develop and explore their own techniques. They also meet curators, access all QM exhibitions and are encouraged to join workshops and lectures.

The programme is part of QM’s commitment to nurtur-ing emerging talent in the coun-try and helping Qatar origi-nate art and culture from within by providing platforms where creativity can thrive.

“The Open Studio Night is one of our most popular events because it allows the public to directly interact with the artists and explore their worlds. Such events are not only a testament to the country’s growing art scene but are also a showcase of the incredible work that QM is do-ing to inspire audiences living in and visiting Qatar,” Fire Station director Khalifa al-Obaidly said.

“With every year, I am incred-ibly impressed with the works pro-duced by the artists in residence and I am looking forward to seeing what they come up with by the end

of the programme next year,” he added.

Participating artists include, Shaikha Jassim al-Hardan (Qa-tar), Sarah Hassan al-Ansari (Qa-tar), Mohamed Faraj al-Suwaidi (Qatar), Abdulla Najib al-Kuwari (Qatar), Maryam Masoud al-Ameri (Qatar), Federica Visani (Italy), Nayla al-Mulla (Qatar), Faisal Rashid al-Hajri (Qatar), Lolwa al-Solaiti (Qatar), Sara Ahmad al-Fadaaq (Qatar), Rouda Abdulaziz M A al-Khori (Qatar), Hassan Manasra (Jordan), Alaa Bata (Jor-dan), Jesse Payne (US), Guillaume Claude Felicien Rousere (France), Nourbano Feras al-Hejazi (Saudi Arabia), Sidra Zubairi (Pakistan), Eman Makki (Egypt), and Michael Perrone (US).

The Fire Station will announce the open call to the Artist in Resi-dence programme in February of 2019. All artists residing in Qatar are welcome to submit their appli-cations through the online submis-sions page. Visitors at The Fire Station’s ‘Open Studio’ yesterday.

Barwa Bank names draw winners of Thara’a

Barwa Bank has announced the names of the most re-cent round of draw win-

ners for Thara’a, its Shariah-compliant savings account, at the bank’s headquarters.

As the draw results showed, Hassan Mohamed Darwish and Arshad Karim each won a cash prize of QR10,000, Barwa Bank said in a statement.

Also, a cash prize worth QR5,000 was awarded to the following bank clients: Pris-ciliano Padua Villaviza, Bashaer Khalid al-Arfaj, Khalid Rahman Jaff ar, Aisha Ali Abu Alshwarib, Faisal Ali al-Anssari, Ibraheim Mahmoud, Fatima Mahmoud al-Mahmoud, Nasser Emair al-Naemi, Mubaraka Salem al-Wasmi, Sajid Atique, Mohamed Abdulla al-Kuwari, Nabseel Cadirikanakka Pillandagath, Abdulla Mohamed al-Hama-di, Aiman Hussein El-Taweel, Obaid Mohamed al-Mirri, Fat-ma Mohamed al-Naimi, Saed Mubarak al-Hajri, Abdulla Ajlan al-Kaabi, Muna Mohamed al-Shahri, Abdulghani Ali al-Saegh and Issa Ali al-Ansari.

The draw was conducted under the supervision of a rep-resentative from the ministry concerned.

Thara’a off ers account holders the chance to ben-efi t from cash rewards up to QR1,000,000. Based on several criteria, Thara’a account hold-ers are eligible for a number of periodic draws for cash priz-es. Totalling QR3,300,000, Thara’a cash rewards are dis-tributed on both a monthly and biannual basis to customers holding a minimum balance of QR10,000.

On a monthly basis, there are 21 winners per draw for the cash prize of QR5,000 each, as well as two winners per draw for the cash prize of QR10,000. Additionally, twice a year, there are two winners per draw for the cash prize of QR25,000, two winners per draw for the cash prize of QR50,000 each, and yearly there are two winners of the grand prize of QR1,000,000 for each winner - rewarding 194 winners in total with cash prizes up to QR3,300,000.

Vodafone showcases security expertise at QCB conference

Vodafone Qatar, Gold Spon-sors of the fi fth annual In-formation Security Con-

ference for the Financial Sector organised by Qatar Central Bank (QCB), showcased the company’s expertise in security solutions and the Internet of Things (IoT).

This is the fourth consecutive year that Vodafone has taken part in what has become one of the most important events in the country. This year’s event was themed ‘Se-curing Digital Assets’ and focused on information security in Qatar, infrastructure improvements and solutions for all vital sectors related to information security.

In a keynote presentation titled “Security in the IoT Era”, Vodafone Qatar chief business offi cer Mah-mud Awad gave an overview of how IoT was fuelling digital transfor-mation not only in the banking and fi nance industry but also across all industries, and the importance of security in order to keep connected devices and people’s data safe in a constantly changing world.

Addressing the audience, Awad said: “Security is a key concern for organisations globally. Protecting assets, devices, networks, data and applications is an essential compo-nent of doing business. Vodafone Qatar is committed to provide or-

ganisations in Qatar with the latest innovative security products and services.”

Vodafone also showcased its various security solutions at the conference, including Mobile Asset Tracking and the enhanced DDoS mitigation solution, which was launched in May this year to protect businesses and governmental sec-tors’ networks from being attacked, the company said in a statement.

Distributed Denial of Service attacks or DDoS is an attempt to make an organisation’s online serv-ice (websites, servers, mails, online payments and data transfer) una-vailable by overwhelming it with traffi c from multiple sources. This downtime results, among others, in a loss of productivity, visitor traffi c,

e-commerce transactions, reputa-tion and confi dential data. “Vo-dafone’s DDoS mitigation solution makes sure the customer network is protected from diff erent levels of DDoS attacks, including the DDoS attacks specifi cally targeted at cus-tomer applications,” the statement notes.

Mobile Asset Tracking enables monitoring the status of the key as-sets out in the fi eld to ensure that they are secure and are put to the best possible use at all times, and therefore reducing costs and in-creasing security. Vodafone’s Mo-bile Asset Tracking is an all-inclu-sive solution, with everything from tracking devices to wireless net-work, hosting and reporting tools, the statement adds.

The Vodafone booth at the Information Security Conference for the Financial Sector.

Qeeri to launch 13 solar radiation monitoring stations

Qatar Environment and Energy Re-search Institute

(Qeeri), part of Hamad bin Khalifa University, is de-veloping a network of 13 solar radiation monitoring stations which will enable precise mapping of solar resources across Qatar.

The project, in line with Qeeri’s mission to assist Qatar in tackling its grand challenges related to en-ergy and environment, will be implemented in collabo-ration with Qatar Meteoro-logical Department (QMD).

Solar Resource Assess-ment (SRA) is the analysis and study of the solar radi-ation potential at a partic-ular site or in a specifi c re-gion. The assessment helps decision-makers to esti-mate with high precision, how much energy can be produced from solar power applications positioned at the study location.

Qeeri fi rst launched its work on SRA in 2012 in Ed-ucation City in Doha, with one monitoring station measuring solar radiation and other meteorological parameters. Over the past fi ve years, Qeeri’s SRA ca-pabilities have evolved and expanded to include a sat-ellite receiving station to enable the spatial estima-tion of solar radiation and long-term modelling of solar resources across the country.

The information pro-vided by Qeeri SRA fa-cilities help stakeholders identify locations with high solar energy po-tential, deploy the most appropriate solar tech-

nologies, plan for grid inte-gration based on spatial and temporal variability, man-age solar energy integration in the grid and carry out an economic assessment of solar energy investments.

Dr Veronica Bermudez, senior research director at Qeeri, said, “Reliable and precise information on so-lar resource availability and associated meteorological parameters are essential to adopting and developing

solar energy power infra-structures. We believe that having a network of 13 sta-tions, and working closely with QMD will allow us to produce high-quality data which can contribute to-wards enhancing the adop-tion of clean and sustain-able energy sources such as solar power. Qeeer’s solar radiation measurement and modelling facilities will make high-quality and valu-able solar resource informa-

tion available to help reduce economic and fi nancial risks and ensure the introduction of cost-eff ective solar en-ergy power systems.”

“Qeeri, with its state-of-the-art facilities and sci-entifi c expertise, is a key collaborator for QMR. The SRA stations are not only of high value for solar power plant developers and op-erators, and grid manage-ment, but will also help us at QMD improve weather

forecasting,”Abdulla al-Mannai, director at QMD, added.

Solar radiation data has multiple applications which can help improve the qual-ity of life of the people liv-ing in Qatar: production of electricity, residential and industrial thermal heat, crop cultivation, meteorol-ogy, water desalination with concentrated solar power, eff ects on human health and climate change.

QATAR7Gulf Times


Katara to host Qatari women’s conference

Prominent Qatari scholar and academic Dr Aisha al-Mannai has been appointed as chairman of the Board of Trustees of the re-

cently-formed Qatari Women’s Pen Forum (Mul-taqa Qalam Al Mar’athil Qatariyya) functioning under the aegis of Katara – the Cultural Village.

Dr Mariam al-Naimi of Qatar University has been selected as vice chairman while Dr Hala Sultan al-Eisa, Dr Kultham Ali al-Ghanim and Dr Asma Abdullah al-Atiyyah are other members of the Board.

During his meeting with members of the Board, Katara general manager Dr Khalid bin Ibrahim al-Sulaiti stressed the important role being played by Qatari women in diff erent fi elds of culture, arts, knowledge and innovation, under the pa-tronage of the wise Qatari leadership.

He said that Katara was committed to support-ing Qatari women to develop their skills and tal-ents in various fi elds, considering their key role in family and society.

He hoped that the new Forum would promote communication and dialogue between the young and old generations, under the guidance of pio-neering Qatari women.

Dr al-Mannai expressed her appreciation to Katara for launching the Forum saying Qatar’s leadership has enabled Qatari women to reach vast horizons of knowledge, creativity and in-novation and make great contributions to Qatari society.

She added that Qatari women are living in a golden era under the wise leadership of His High-ness the Amir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani.

Dr al-Naimi said that the Forum has decided to organise its fi rst annual conference on March 8 next year to coincide with the International Women’s Day.

The conference will discuss and explore the leadership role played by Qatari women and her achievements in the intellectual, cultural and social fi elds so that the new generation will learn and benefi t from their success stories.

An exhibition on the sidelines of the conference will also take place, featuring the achievements and contributions of pioneering Qatari women in various fi elds, especially women who entered the job sector at an early age and served as teachers, nurses, doctors and even as ministers.

She said that the Forum will set up a data bank to document the achievements of Qatari women to preserve them for the future generations.

Qatari women scholars and writers who have carved a niche in various fi elds of knowledge have been brought together in the Forum.

Early Childhood Assistant Teacher programme graduates felicitatedThe Community College of

Qatar (CCQ) celebrated the graduation of the 7th and

8th cohorts of its “Early Childhood Assistant Teacher” certifi cate pro-gramme, under the patronage and in the presence of HE the Minister of Education and Higher Educa-tion, Dr Mohamed Abdul Wahed al-Hammadi.

The ceremony was attended by CCQ’s Board of Trustees, the college president Dr Mohamed al-Naemi, and the dean Dr Abdallah Haza-imeh, along with a number of faculty members, guests and dignitaries.

Dr al-Hammadi congratulated the graduates, praising the role of CCQ in introducing advanced aca-demic programmes, in line with the Ministry of Education and Higher Education’s strategy aimed at qual-ifying national competencies in the fi eld of education, providing a suitable learning environment, and developing advanced curricula that meet the requirements of the 21st century.

The minister also highlighted the importance of the Early Childhood Assistant Teacher programme as it addresses the child’s needs in many aspects, which contributes to en-hancing the capacity of assistant teachers to communicate with chil-dren and perform their duties to the fullest.

Dr al-Naemi said: “Since incep-tion, the Community College of

Qatar has been keen to provide edu-cation and training opportunities across diverse fi elds and disciplines in line with the labour market needs, all while maintaining the highest standards of academic excellence. To this end, the college has forged close partnerships with national in-stitutions, at the forefront of which comes the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, culminat-ing in the development of the Early Childhood Assistant Teacher cer-tifi cate programme in November

2014. Since then, the programme has achieved great success, with the total number of graduates reaching over 300 to date.”

Early Childhood Programme co-ordinator and instructor Dr Merfat Fayez said: “The physical, intellec-tual, social, and emotional develop-ment of children has a direct eff ect on the kind of adults and community members they grow up to become. Hence, early experiences are con-sidered the fi rst steps in the learning journey of the individual and hold

the key to subsequent school and professional success.”

During the event, the College also honoured 16 schools and kin-dergartens in recognition of their outstanding collaboration in the practical training part of the Early Childhood Assistant Teacher pro-gramme, and the resulting impact of this hands-on approach to teach-ing on achieving the objectives of the programme and raising the ef-fi ciency of assistant teachers across the country.

Additionally, CCQ recently start-ed off ering its students the Associate of Arts in Early Childhood Educa-tion degree programme.

The curriculum discusses theo-ries related to principles of child development, and equips educa-tors with the technological means and methods to stimulate children’s learning, manage classroom behav-iour, and utilise healthy, safe and age-appropriate educational prac-tices that support their growth and development.

The graduates with HE the Minister of Education and Higher Education, Dr Mohamed Abdul Wahed Ali al-Hammadi, and other officials.

Qatar Airways to deploy state-of-the-art A380 on Frankfurt sector from March

Qatar Airways yesterday an-nounced it will add the state-of-the-art Airbus A380 to one

of its two daily services from Doha to Frankfurt from March 31.

The move will increase the airline’s current daily capacity on the Doha to Frankfurt route by 23%, as well as off er passengers the option to choose from First Class on board the A380 or its patented, award-winning Qsuite Busi-ness Class experience off ered on the Boeing 777 aircraft, which will serve the route’s second daily fl ight.

Qatar Airways Group chief execu-tive, Akbar al-Baker, said: “We are thrilled to be able to bring the A380 to our passengers travelling to and from Frankfurt, one of our key gateways into Germany. The addition of this aircraft increases capacity on the route signifi -cantly, providing passengers with ad-ditional fl exibility and greater choice in making travel plans, and is further evidence of Qatar Airways’ on-going commitment to strengthening and expanding our European network. We

look forward to welcoming passengers travelling to and from Frankfurt on board.”

The A380 aircraft features a luxu-rious and exclusive First Class Cabin with ultra-wide seats, which recline into a flat bed, two-passenger ta-ble extension dining, and designer sleeper suits, flight slippers and amenities.

Passengers travelling in Qatar Air-ways’ award-winning Business Class can also enjoy direct aisle access with the 1-2-1 seat confi guration and a suite of entertainment options including on-board Wi-Fi, keeping them fully connected while up in the air.

In addition, passengers in First and Business Class can relax and socialise at the on-board lounge located on the upper deck of the A380 aircraft.

The 517-seat capacity is spread across twin decks in a tri-class con-figuration of eight seats in First Class, 48 seats in Business Class and 461 in Economy Class, featuring world-class amenities and first rate services

that set it apart from other aircraft.Economy Class passengers also ben-

efi t from the added spaciousness of the A380, with higher ceilings on the main deck and a wider seat confi guration and design to off er more leg room, plus contoured headrests.

A multiple award-winning airline, Qatar Airways was named ‘World’s Best Business Class’ by the 2018 World Airline Awards, managed by interna-tional air transport rating organisation Skytrax.

It was also named ‘Best Business Class Seat,’ ‘Best Airline in the Middle East’, and ‘World’s Best First Class Air-line Lounge’.Qatar Airways currently operates a modern fl eet of more than 200 aircraft via its hub, Hamad Inter-national Airport to more than 150 des-tinations worldwide.

As part of its continued expansion plans, Qatar Airways plans to launch an array of new destinations over the coming months, including Mombasa, Kenya; Gothenburg, Sweden and Da Nang, Vietnam.

QIB, QPAY launch first Islamic ‘Point of Sale’, online payment gateway

QIB has offi cially launched Qa-tar’s “fi rst Islamic Point of Sale (PoS) & Online Payment Gate-

way” solutions in collaboration with QPAY international, a Qatar-based Fintech company off ering a wide port-folio of electronic payment solutions.

This solution has been introduced to serve QIB’s corporate and SME clients and support their business banking needs.

The Islamic PoS solution developed by Android smart technology will pro-vide innovative, secure, and highly ef-fi cient payment processing services.

The new PoS supports contactless card transactions, E-Wallet, mobile PoS (mPoS), QR code scanner and on-line billing and settlement.

Mobile PoS (mPoS) is an innova-tive business solution, that services delivery-oriented businesses where the PoS is connected via Bluetooth to a smartphone that serves as a cash regis-ter (compatible with both Android and iOS), making card transactions port-able.

The PoS has a built-in camera that allows merchants to scan barcodes, which eliminate the need for SME’s and corporate clients to have a separate barcode reader as the new PoS machine will serve this dual function.

The PoS solution accepts VISA, Mastercard, American Express, and UnionPay international cards.

Online billing feature will enable

merchants’ real-time access to all transactions made on the PoS on an online platform eliminating the need for merchants to keep a log of all trans-actions made and fl exibility in time.

The PoS is available amongst QIB’s existing corporates including SME and prospective merchants.

For businesses that require e-com-merce solution to process payments online, QIB & QPAY are off ering a quick and secure online payment gateway to enable them to serve their clients bet-ter, save time, and increase the source of revenue.

It also helps in reducing excessive costs involved in physical transactions.

By having an online payment gate-way companies can give their clients an option to pay online at any time and make a hassle-free process.

It also helps in reducing the signifi -cant amount of paper.

QIB Corporate and SME clients can easily apply by submitting a request to their designated relationship manag-ers, or visit QIB Corporate branch and fi ll the agreement form.

A technical team will be handling the setup, the training, and support related to setting up the PoS machines across diff erent locations and the online pay-ment gateway.

A 24x7 support team will always be available to support the businesses on-site and online.

Tarek Fawzi, general manager, QIB’s Wholesale Banking Group said: “With the launch of the fi rst Islamic PoS & Online Payment Gateway Solutions reaffi rms QIB’s position as the leading Islamic Bank in Qatar.”

“As Islamic banking is currently witnessing a new era, QIB wants to reassure its corporate and SME clients that they will continue to leverage Fin-tech based solutions to provide new services and products to provide them innovative solutions that are Shariah-compliant to help them grow their businesses,” he said.

Nebil Ben Aissa, CEO and founder, QPAY said: “QPAY is very proud to work with QIB in order to help Qatari small businesses to be aligned with Qatar’s 2030 vision and 2022 World Cup with a cashless electronic society. Our advanced Financial Technology (Fintech) systems in partnership with world payment leaders such as the Nexxo Network; enables us to imple-ment, in Qatar, the latest innovation in mobile and e-payment services while promoting growth for a very healthy Qatari small business sector.”

Online registration to be compulsory for Indians coming on employment visaIndian citizens holding Non-Emigration Check Required (non-ECR or ECNR) passports will now to have to mandatorily register themselves online before travelling to 18 countries, including Qatar, on an employment visa, according to a new advisory issued by India’s Ministry of External Aff airs (MEA).

The decision has been taken to “provide protection and welfare to Indian emigrants abroad”, the advisory – which is available on the website of the Indian embassy in Qatar - states.The registration has to be completed on the portal, www.emigrate.gov.in, at least 24 hours

before departure. Those who fail to register will not be allowed to travel to these 18 countries – Qatar, Afghanistan, Bahrain, Indonesia, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Malaysia, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, South Sudan, Syria, Thailand, the UAE and Yemen – for employment starting January 1,

2019, the MEA has said.“Off -loading of unregistered non-ECR emigrants at the airports would be eff ected by the appropriate authority after January 1, 2019,” the advisory continues, adding that there is no change in existing procedures for all other visa categories.Some reports suggested that the

new rule applies only to those Indians who are flying to these countries for the first time on an employment visa.Earlier, only holders of Emigration Check Required (ECR) passports were required to get prior approval before travelling to these 18 countries.

QATAR8 Gulf Times


Application period extended for biomedical research training programme Mamas and Papas Kids Shoes recalledThe deadline for applying to the Biomedical Research Training Pro-gramme for Nationals, an initiative of Weill Cornell Medicine – Qatar (WCM-Q), has been extended to December 20.The initiative is a unique opportu-nity for Qatari college graduates with an interest in biomedical research to gain hands-on experi-ence in the laboratories at WCM-Q and in the diff erent administrative

and managerial responsibilities related to biomedical research.The programme was launched in 2011 and so far has helped 36 graduates take the first step on the path to a successful career in research. The programme will restart in January 2019.Although the programme is aimed at recent graduates who are interest-ed in pursuing a career as a bench or clinical researcher, or a research

administrator, applications from nationals are welcomed irrespective of their discipline.The training programme is a full-time, six-month employment commitment with trainees receiv-ing a graduation certificate upon completion. The trainees are paid a stipend as part of a comprehen-sive compensation package.The programme is fully funded by WCM-Q and is organised in part-

nership with the Qatar Research Leadership Programme at Qatar Foundation. Interested applicants can contact the research training team for more information at [email protected] can also find more information and submit their appli-cations online at https://qatar-weill.cornell.edu/research/research-train-ing-programs/biomedical-research-training-program-for-nationals.

The Ministry of Commerce and Industry, in collaboration with Mamas and Papas, has an-nounced the recall of Mamas and Papas Kids Shoes with the product numbers S912GE9, S912CN7 and S912300 over the potential detachment of tassels/pom poms, which could pose choking risk for children.The ministry said the recall campaign comes within the

framework of its ongoing ef-forts to ensure that suppliers follow up on product defects and repair defective items in a bid to protect consumers and has urged all customers to re-turn the item to the sales outlet for necessary action.The ministry stressed that it will co-ordinate with the shop to recall the product and will communicate with customers to ensure the im-

plementation of measures relating to defective products..The ministry has urged all cus-tomers to report any violations to its Consumer Protection and Anti-Commercial Fraud Depart-ment through the following chan-nels: Call centre: 16001, e-mail: [email protected], Twitter: @MEC_Qatar, Instagram: MEC_Qa-tar, MEC mobile app for Android and IOS: MEC_Qatar

9Gulf TimesTuesday, November 20, 2018

AMIR’S VISIT TO ITALY

Qatar-Italy ties built on strong friendship, strategic partnershipQNADoha

Following a successful of-fi cial visit to the Republic of Croatia, His Highness

the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Ha-mad al-Thani started yesterday a state visit to the Italian Republic, at the invitation of Italian Presi-dent Sergio Mattarella. During the visit, His Highness the Amir will hold talks on means of bol-stering bilateral relations in all areas, in addition to issues of mutual concern.

A number of agreements and memorandums of understand-ing (MoUs) will be signed dur-ing the visit, contributing to strengthening and developing the relations to serve the joint interests and the aspirations of the two friendly people.

The visit will certainly con-tribute to promoting co-opera-tion between the two countries and advancing them to wider horizons in all fi elds to boost the economic co-operation, in-crease trade exchange and en-hance co-operation in various

vital sectors between the two countries who share common political and economic views and joint interests.

The relations between Qatar and Italy had strengthened af-ter the opening of embassies of both countries in 1992. The re-lations are strong and have been witnessing a rapid growth at all levels, especially after the his-toric visit of His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani to Italy in January 2016 which resulted in several impor-tant agreements between the two countries.

Qatar’s successful participa-tion in Expo Milano 2015 con-tributed further to developing the mutual co-operation in all fields, mainly the economic and investment. Qatar’s pa-vilion organised important ac-tivities contributed greatly to highlighting the Qatari econ-

omy and its wide investment prospects.

The Qatari-Italian relations witnessed exchange of visits at the highest levels, topped by the offi cial visits of His Highness the Father Amir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani to Italy in 2005, 2009 and 2012, and the visit of then Italian president to Qatar in 2007. In November 2017, former Italian prime minister Paolo Gentiloni paid an offi cial visit to Qatar.

Moreover, several high-rank-ing offi cials of both countries, including foreign, interior and defence ministers, exchanged several visits in recent years. On the level of signed agree-ments and MoUs, Qatar and Italy signed an agreement to avoid double taxation, an agree-ment for cultural and tourism co-operation, agreements and MoUs in the diplomatic, politi-

cal, economic and sports fi elds, agreements between the invest-ment agencies in both countries, and MoU on combating crime, in addition to co-operation agree-ments in energy, climate change, education, higher education, scientifi c research, air trans-port and a memorandum of un-derstanding between the Qatar Chamber and the Italian Cham-ber of Commerce.

In addition, a joint Qatari-Italian Businessmen Council was established to promote economic relations and ex-plore areas of bilateral co-op-eration. The volume of trade exchange between the two countries witnessed a remark-able development in recent years. Italy is a distinguished destination for the Qatari in-vestments which have entered various sectors and economic activities. In the framework of

military co-operation between the two countries, Qatar an-nounced in August 2017 the signing of a deal with Italy to buy seven naval units worth 5bn euros. The two countries also signed contracts for the purchase of NH90 helicopters, the latest of its kind.

Qatar Airways launched its fl ights to Italy in 2002 when it fi rst arrived in Milan, launching one year later direct fl ights to Rome, and then Venice in 2011 and Pisa in 2016. Qatar Airways is now operating 42 direct fl ights a week from Hamad Interna-tional Airport to four destina-tions in Italy.

Qatar Airways last year also announced the acquisition of a 49% stake in AQA Holding, the new parent company of Air Italy. Italy’s long established privately owned airline was previously known as Meridiana, however,

in February this year, the air-line announced a new phase of growth and development, start-ing with its brand new identity and livery as Air Italy.

Italian companies focus on in-vestment in Qatar and are grow-ing continuously, covering many fi elds, including trade, con-struction and technology. There are dozens of Italian companies operating in Qatar, especially in the projects of establishing the stadiums of 2022 World Cup, metro lines, medical equipment in Sidra, Hamad International Airport and cooling towers in in-dustrial facilities.

Italy is a strategic partner of Qatar and is a unique destina-tion for Qatari investments in various sectors and economic activities. Qatar is keen on us-ing part of its resources to in-vest in strategic partner econo-mies, where there are promising

investment opportunities. The volume of trade exchange be-tween the two countries has witnessed remarkable develop-ment in recent years.

Trade between the two coun-tries reached 2.3bn euros in 2017, an increase of 9% over the previ-ous year. Qatar’s investments in Italy increased signifi cantly, and natural gas exports from Qatar to Italy accounted for the largest share of trade between the two countries. Italy was the world’s seventh-largest economy and the fourth largest economy in Europe in 2008. It is a member of the G8, the European Union and the OECD.

The main Italian industries are tourism, machinery, iron and steel, chemicals, food process-ing, motor fuels, textiles, cloth-ing, and ceramics. Its most im-portant agricultural crops are fruits, vegetables, grapes, po-tatoes, beets, soybeans, olives, meat, dairy products and fi sh. Italy’s most important exports are metals, textiles and clothing, machinery, motor fuels, operat-ing equipment, chemicals, en-ergy equipment, and tobacco.

The relations between Qatar and Italy had strengthened after the opening of embassies of both countries in 1992. The relations are strong and have been witnessing a rapid growth at all levels, especially after the historic visit of His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani to Italy in January 2016 which resulted in several important agreements between the two countries

Casa Italia opens today

Casa Italia is making its debut today at the eighth instalment of the Katara

Traditional Dhow Festival, which will run until November 24 at the Katara Beach, Italian ambassador Pasquale Salzano has said. For the fi rst time in Qatar, the ambassa-dor said Italy is proud to show-case maritime traditions from its world-renowned tourist destina-tions.

He said Italian artisans are in Doha to demonstrate skills in making diff erent handicrafts, including sandals from Capri, a symbol of the Dolce Vita donned by Jackie Kennedy and other Hollywood stars.

Casa Italia or “Italian home” will also pay tribute to the an-cient trades of former Italian seaside villages, which are popu-lar tourism destinations today. Salzano said a fi sherman from Sorrento, who hails from a fam-ily that makes fi shing nets using centuries-old technique, will be present during the event.

The ambassador added: “We certainly treasure these assets based on know-how and human

capacities as machinery cannot replace manual skills, creativity and genius,” said Salzano, who added that Italian handcrafted products serve as the pillars of the ‘Made in Italy’ brand and re-mains to be the country’s “unri-valled global asset”.

“Even though the economy of both countries is now based on new resources, the fi shermen’s nets of Sorrento – as those of Qa-tar – are still made with the same ancient techniques and passion.

“From Capri to Sorrento, from Taormina to Doha, once upon a time, the fi shermen’s lifestyle shared common patterns, with the men being out at sea for months, while the women tried to make a living by handcraft-ing artisanal products, waiting for them to come back,” Salzano pointed out.

The ambassador also said festival-goers will see gondolas from Venice near Casa Italia with a ‘gondolieri’ donning the tradi-tional striped attire. Also, Italian musicians will serenade visitors with popular Italian pieces, while chefs from the best Italian res-

taurants in Doha will prepare and serve an array of delicacies at the festival, Salzano continued.

The fi ve-day Katara Tradi-tional Dhow Festival will feature local, regional, and international participants, including Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Turkey, India, Greece, Italy, and Zanzibar, among others. The festival also features a wide range of cultural events, sea contests, and tradi-tional shows, as well as a com-bination of fi reworks display and laser show, according to Katara.

In a statement, Katara general manager Dr Khalid bin Ibrahim al-Sulaiti said this year’s edi-tion “stands apart in terms of the number of participants, diversi-ty of the competitions and relat-ed activities, the space allocated for the festival, and the expected number of visitors.”

Al-Sulaiti noted that since its inception, the annual event has grown popular, attracting many participants from a number of friendly countries and organis-ing various traditional marine competitions, which highlight Qatar’s rich heritage.

Defence agreements refl ectstrength of Qatar-Italy tiesDuring Dimdex 2018, Qatar and Italy signed an agreement for the purchase of 28 NH90 helicopters through aerospace and defence group Leonardo. Also, both countries signed two other agreements on long-range missile carrier aircraft, and purchase of automatic aircraft simulators for training purposes

By Peter AlagosBusiness Reporter

The signing of several deals be-tween Qatar and Italy during the Doha International Mari-

time Defence Exhibition and Con-ference (Dimdex 2018) is an indica-tion of the robust relations of both countries in the fi eld of defence.

During Dimdex 2018, Qatar and Italy signed an agreement for the purchase of 28 NH90 helicopters through aerospace and defence group Leonardo. Also, both coun-tries signed two other agreements on long-range missile carrier aircraft, and purchase of automatic aircraft simulators for training purposes.

The agreements were signed in the presence of HE the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of State for Defence Aff airs Dr Khalid bin Mo-hamed al-Attiyah and the then Ital-ian defence minister Roberta Pinotti during the event held in March.

In a statement, Amiri Air Force helicopter wing commander Brig Mashout Faisal al-Hajri said the three agreements will contribute greatly to enhancing the capabili-ties and effi ciency of the air force by owning the best and most modern aviation fl eet in the world. The air-craft agreement includes 16 NH90s in tactical transport (TTH) confi gu-ration and 12 NH90s in naval (NFH) confi guration, he continued.

Al-Hajri said the three agree-ments will signifi cantly support the system of modernisation and devel-opment at the Amiri Air Force, both in arming or training and rehabilita-

tion, in accordance with the plans and strategies for the armed forces.

On board the ITS Carlo Margot-tini at Hamad Port, Beretta Group and Barzan Holdings signed a joint venture (JV) agreement for the estab-lishment of a weapons production fa-cility in Doha. The signing ceremony was also held during Dimdex 2018.

Carlo Festucci, secretary-general of AIAD, a body that represents the Federation of Italian Companies for Aerospace, Defence and Security, said the project will address the weap-ons and equipment requirements of Qatar’s Armed Forces. Festucci said Beretta Group and Barzan Holdings have pooled their resources to launch a joint industrial project in Qatar in order to meet the requirements of the Qatar government’s Armed Forces to be equipped with state-of-the-art individual armaments.

He also said Italian fi rm Fincan-

HE the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of State for Defence Affairs Dr Khalid bin Mohamed al-Attiyah and former Italian defence minister Roberta Pinotti witness the signing of agreements between Qatar and Italy during Dimdex 2018.

tieri has lined up several development opportunities in Qatar such as a tender for a new naval base and for research and development, delivery, and test of Un-manned Fast Patrol Boat. “Fincantieri and its subsidi-aries, Seastema, will defi ne a co-operation agreement with Barzan Holdings, es-tablished by Qatar’s Minis-try of Defence to develop the necessary technology on the Unmanned Vessels and the relevant Shore Control Sta-tion…Fincantieri will also participate in a tender for design and construction of

civil infrastructures, includ-ing buildings in co-opera-tion with other important and specialised local part-ners,” Festucci said.

Last November 10, the Italian embassy and Le-onardo brought to Qatar the Frecce Tricolori, which demonstrated exciting and synchronised aerobatic ma-noeuvres together with the Qatari Display Team during a two-day air show in Doha. The airshow also featured Leonardo’s latest aeronau-tics technologies courtesy of the M-346 (T-346A) and the Eurofi ghter Typhoon.

Italy sees growth in food exports to Qatar by 2019Italy sees growth in food exports to Qatar by 2019By Peter AlagosBusiness Reporter

Italy, which is closely involved with Qatar’s initiatives in food security and in the agro-food

industry, is expected to boost its food exports by 2019, Italian am-bassador Pasquale Salzano has said.

In the fi rst six months of 2018, Salzano said Italy witnessed a 4% growth in food exports to Qatar. Food is among the major sectors that witnessed growth in the fi rst half of the year, including machin-eries, which saw a 2% increase, fashion (11%), and furniture (26%).

These fi gures contributed to the growth of Qatar-Italy trade exchange, which stood at €1.4bn from January to June 2018. Com-

paratively, total trade volume between both countries stood at roughly €2bn last year, Salzano told Gulf Times.

In July this year, a high-level delegation led by Italian National Coldiretti Union national presi-dent Roberto Moncalvo and Fili-era Agricola Italiana Inc national president Ettore Prandini were

in Qatar for a series of meetings, which were organised with the support of the Italian embassy in Qatar and the local offi ce of the Italian Trade Agency “to off er Doha a very signifi cant support in its food chain distribution.”

The visit will help in the in-crease of Italian food exports to Qatar by next year, according to Salzano, who notes that the agro-food industry is among “the most relevant interests we are working on” with the State of Qatar.

The Italian delegation, which also included main players of the Italian agricultural production and network, met with the then Minister of Municipality and En-vironment HE Mohamed bin Ab-dullah al-Rumaihi, Qatar Cham-ber board member Mohamed bin

Ahmed al-Obaidly and offi cials of Baladna and LuLu Group Qatar.

Several meetings were held on the next day with offi cials of the Ministry of Foreign Aff airs, Qatar Investment Authority, Hassad Food and Qatar Ports Manage-ment Company (Mwani Qatar), as well as private sector companies Agrotec and PRAS Qatar.

“We are currently co-ordinat-ing with Coldiretti, which is the most important association of farmers in Italy because food se-curity is one of the main issues Qatar is focusing on. So, aside from defence, we are also working on other major sectors, such as the agro-food industry, hence we are going to have Italian companies investing in Qatar in food and wa-ter security,” Salzano emphasised.

On Qatar’s food security pro-grammes, Salzano said Italy is participating in the construction of a food storage and processing facility at Hamad Port, which is capable of supplying stockpile for three main commodities – rice, sugar, and edible oils, for 3mn people for two-and-a-half years.

In a signing ceremony held in July last year, HE the Minister of Transport and Communications Jassim Seif Ahmed al-Sulaiti said the QR1.6bn facility will be built on a 530,000sq m area adjacent to Hamad Port.

He added that the project con-sists of specialised facilities for the processing, manufacturing, and the refi ning of rice, raw sugar, and edible oils, which “will be available for local, regional, and global use.”

Italian ambassador Pasquale Salzano.

The Qatari Amiri Navy carried out exercises in partnership with the Italian Naval Forces in the territorial and economic waters of the State of Qatar. The maritime exercise included marine communications, surface communication in addition to defence against air targets with the Qatari Amiri Air Force. These military exercises are part of the co-operation agreements signed between the two countries in the fields of training and planning on all tasks and duties required.

Qatar-Italy joint military exercises

QATAR

Gulf TimesTuesday, November 20, 201810

The first outlet of Malabar Gold & Diamonds in the US was inaugurated by Neeta Bhushan, Consul General of India – Chicago; in the presence of Debra Silverstein, Alderman for 50th Ward of the City of Chicago; Dr Gopal Lalmalani, Mayor of Oakbrook; Malabar Gold & Diamonds International Operations managing director Shamlal Ahamed; US Operations president Joseph Eapen; other directors, management members, and well-wishers.

Malabar Gold & Diamonds opens first US outlet

Germany mulls setting up higher education facility in Qatar: envoyGermany is exploring the

chances of setting up a higher level educational

institute or university in Qatar, ambassador Hans-Udo Muzel said yesterday.

He was addressing a press con-ference about the celebrations to be held in Doha today as part of the ‘Day of German Unity.’

Replying to a query from Gulf Times, ambassador Muzel and deputy head of mission Daniel Schemske recalled that there were some deliberations between of-fi cials of the two countries a cou-ple of months ago and they are expected to have further engage-ments on the matter in the coming months.

While Muzel highlighted the recognition the courses and pro-grammes at German universities are receiving at the global level, especially in the technical side, Schemske said there is consider-able demand from students across the world for higher level engi-neering and research programmes at some of the major German uni-versities.

“We are also accelerating our eff orts to attract more students from the Gulf region, including Qatar, to our universities,” said Schemske.

Schemske also pointed out that almost one-fourth of the students at German International School Doha are Qatari.

Later the ambassador said a lot

of eff orts are being made to boost cultural relations between the two countries and lauded the eff orts of Qatar’s ambassador to Germany Sheikh Saud bin Abdurahman al-Thani in initiating some major steps in this direction.

Muzel said the opening of the

Arab Cultural House “Al Diwan” in the German capital of Berlin in November last year aimed at spreading the Arab culture in the framework of the Qatar-Germany Year of Culture (2017) .

He also hoped the Arab Cul-tural House would be a platform

for vital cultural exchanges and development, and a testament to Qatar’s commitment to building bridges with nations around the world.

Al Diwan, he hoped, will con-tribute to the strengthening of the Arab-German relations and the

establishment of a broad strate-gic dialogue in the cultural fi eld, which will contribute to mutual understanding of cultures and strengthen bilateral institutional relations through partnership with other cultural institutions in Germany.

German ambassador Hans-Udo Muzel speaks as deputy head of mission Daniel Schemske looks on, yesterday. PICTURE: Ram Chand

Qatar ‘has weathered economic blockade’

With sheer determination and hard work, Qatar has weathered the adverse eff ects of the economic

blockade and is already back at where it had been before the embargo began in June last year, said Germany’s ambassador to Qatar Hans-Udo Muzel yesterday.

Singling out for praise such mega projects as the Doha Metro and also the signifi cant growth in the level of activities at the Ha-mad Port since the beginning of the block-ade, Muzel said these are some of the best examples of what one could produce in the face of adversities.

Equally remarkable is the ongoing work at the Free Economic Zones under devel-opment, said the envoy while recalling the

initiatives being made by Qatar for setting up joint ventures with global companies including those from Germany. The ambas-sador also indicated that talks were also held in recent months to attract Qatari entrepre-neurs to invest in the Small and Medium enterprises in Germany.

Answering another question the ambas-sador said more than 2,500 tourists from Germany arrived in Qatar earlier this month in a luxury cruise ship, “Mein Schiff 4. The fl ow of tourists from Germany is expected until the run up towards the 2022 FIFA World Cup and may be even after the event, he said.

German embassy’s deputy head Dan-iel Schemske recalled the fruitful discus-

sions senior health offi cials from Qatar and Germany had on the sidelines of the recent WISH Summit. “There would be greater levels of co-operation between health in-

stitutions in diff erent parts of Germany and Hamad Medical Corporation in the coming years,” he said, especially in such areas as oncology and higher research.

Qatari investments rise more than 25bn eurosQatari institutions and industries have invested

in Germany to the tune of more than 25bn Eu-

ros, German ambassador Hans-Udo Muzel said.

The most important event in Qatar-German

bilateral relations in 2018 was the visit of His

Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad

al-Thani to Germany in September, he recalled.

“Qatar has a made a commitment to invest

another 10bn Euros in the German economy.

Last year’s bilateral trade was worth 3bn Euros,”

he said. At the Doha Forum next month, there

would be further discussions on enhancing

trade and investments between both countries.

A government to government business

meeting has also been scheduled in Berlin in

February next year, the envoy added.

CNA-Q exhibition focuseson ‘National Inspiration’

College of the North Atlantic – Qatar (CNA-Q) formally opened its Art and Photogra-

phy Exhibition and Competition this week, with the two of Qatar’s best known and celebrated artists, Fahad al-Madadeed and Hameed al-Siddi-qi, in attendance.

The exhibition hosts over 100 works of art by students and staff under the theme “National Inspi-ration”. All members of the college community were encouraged to en-ter their works of art on the topics of what inspires them about being Qatari or living in Qatar, from archi-tecture to native animals to desert landscapes and famous landmarks to famous leaders of the country.

Submissions will be judged by a panel of experts to determine the winners. “As a national college, it is extremely important that we give

students the opportunity to express their national pride through art and photography,” said CNA-Q presi-dent Prof Khalifa al-Khalifa, who opened the event.

CNA-Q has opened an art exhibition.

Domasco off ers exclusive deals to mark Honda’s 70th anniversary

Doha Marketing Services Company (Domasco), exclusive distributor of

Honda in Qatar, is celebrating the Japanese brand’s 70th an-niversary by off ering custom-ers exclusive deals until No-vember 24.

The limited period off er will make it easier for customers to purchase select Honda models and the off er includes a cash back deal of up to QR45,000 along with free 20,000km service. Customers can also take advantage of the attrac-tive fi nance options off ered by Domasco.

Back in 1948, Honda made a mark in the industry by be-coming an incorporated entity. The company founder, Soichiro Honda, set the foundation for

the company’s wide range of products and quality crafts-manship.

Fuelled by his love for all things mechan-ical and comple-m e n t e d by a h u m b l e b e g i n -ning as an ap-prentice

at a repair shop, Honda was eventually built on the values of diverse products at aff ord-able prices, without sacrifi cing on quality.

“Honda has come a long way

in the past 70 years. From its modest beginnings of building spare parts to becoming one of the leading brands in con-sumer vehicles, motorcycles, aircraft and much more, Honda has always strived to realise its dreams and bring about a posi-tive change in the way people live. The 70th anniversary of-fers is our way to say thank you to our loyal customers for trusting the brand for so long,” Domasco managing director Faisal Sharif said.

Customers can purchase their new Honda at the show-room located on Khalifa street, near National mosque and TV R/A. Showrooms are open Sat-urday to Thursday from 8am to 8pm and on Friday from 4pm to 8pm.

REGION/ARAB WORLD/AFRICA11Gulf Times


Yemen peace push gathers pace ahead of UN envoy’s visitAFP Sanaa

Eff orts to end Yemen’s dev-astating war picked up pace yesterday as the gov-

ernment and rebels edged closer to peace talks and Britain led a push at the UN Security Council for an immediate truce.

The moves come ahead of a visit in the next few days to the Arabian Peninsula country by UN envoy Martin Griffi ths, who is once again trying to get all sides around the negotiating table.

“The government has in-formed the UN envoy to Yem-en...that it will send a govern-ment delegation to the talks with the aim of reaching a polit-ical solution,” Yemen’s foreign ministry said, quoted by the of-fi cial Saba news agency.

Earlier, Mohamed Ali al-Houthi, head of the Houthi rebels’ Higher Revolutionary Committee and an infl uential political fi gure, tweeted that he wanted his group to announce “readiness to suspend and halt all military operations” and stop fi ring missiles on Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia, which is lead-ing a coalition backing the Yemeni government, also lent its support to new talks.

A UN draft resolution on Yemen presented to the Secu-rity Council yesterday calls for an immediate truce in the bat-tleground port city of Hodei-dah, according to the draft seen by AFP.

The text, circulated by Britain to the 14 other council mem-bers, sets a two-week deadline for the warring sides to remove

all barriers to humanitarian aid.The proposed resolution

would signifi cantly ratchet up the pressure on the Saudi-led coalition and the Houthi rebels to seek a negotiated settlement in Yemen, where millions are on the brink of starvation.

It also calls for a large injec-tion of foreign currency into the economy through the central back to support Yemen’s col-lapsing currency and for sala-ries of civil servants, teachers and health workers to be paid within one month.

The Houthis have control-led Yemen’s capital Sanaa since capturing it in late 2014.

They also still hold Hodei-dah, home to a key port on the Red Sea.

The rebels have also fi red hundreds of ballistic missiles into neighbouring Saudi Arabia, which has since 2015 has led a military coalition to restore to power President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi’s government.

Residents of Sanaa, inter-viewed by AFP, welcomed the Houthi call to halt military op-erations.

“This initiative is not a sign of weakness but a sign of strength to prevent bloodshed and for life to go on,” Moham-ed al-Jouri said on the streets of the capital.

Griffiths also hailed the rebel move towards end-ing missile strikes, saying he “hopes that all parties contin-ue to exercise restraint to cre-

ate a conducive environment” for talks.

He is expected to visit the Yemeni capital of Sanaa this week to finalise arrangements for peace talks in Sweden, a date for which has not yet been set.

Yesterday, Saudi King Sal-man told the Shura Council, his country’s top advisory body, that Riyadh also sup-ported a “political solution” and a “comprehensive nation-al dialogue” in Yemen.

Multiple past attempts to hold negotiations between the government alliance and Houthis have failed.

Griffiths said he hoped the rivals would meet in Sweden “within the next few weeks”

to seek “an appropriate for-mula for the involvement of Ansarullah (the Houthis’ movement) and other politi-cal parties throughout Yemen in a government of unity”. He told Sky News an agreement had been reached to ensure Houthi delegates could at-tend the talks without fear of being prevented from return-ing to Yemen, an obstacle that doomed peace talks slated to take place in Geneva in Sep-tember.

The Houthis’ foreign minis-ter, Hisham Sharaf Abdallah, met UN officials late Sunday, and was quoted by the rebels’ news agency as saying that the UN and the international community should “adopt

the political path to stop the bloodshed”.

British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt arrived yester-day in Iran for the first time to discuss Tehran’s role in Yem-en, meeting with his Iranian counterpart Mohamed Javad Zarif.

“We are very, very keen to move towards peace in Yemen. That’s our number one prior-ity at the moment,” Hunt told British television after the talks.

Fighting in Yemen intensi-fied at the start of November as the coalition renewed an offensive aimed at seizing Ho-deidah, whose port serves as entry point for nearly all of the country’s imports and human-itarian aid. Pro-government forces announced a pause in their offensive last week as in-ternational pressure grew for a ceasefire.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees said yesterday that UNRWA has dramatically reduced its budget shortfall despite US funding cuts after Gulf and EU contributions. “You are all aware how diff icult this year has been for UNRWA in particular following the unexpected decision by the US to cut $300mn this year of UNRWA’s income,” commissioner general Pierre Krahenbuhl told a news conference in Jordan. At the start of 2018, the UN agency faced a $446mn budget deficit, he said.But after mobilising to tackle the unprecedented financial crisis caused by the US cuts, “we have now reduced the shortfall...to $21mn”, he added. “This is a very encouraging result at the end of a lot of work,” he told reporters after meeting with the agency’s advisory commission in Sweimeh on the Jordanian shore of the Dead Sea.

Israeli fire wounded a cameraman for the Associated Press news agency and 24 other Palestin-ians during protests yesterday in northern Gaza, the health ministry in the Hamas-run enclave said. Rashed Rashid was shot in his left ankle while filming hundreds of Palestinians who were protesting on a beach by the border fence near Beit Lahia, a spokesman for the ministry said. The cameraman was taken to hospital. His condition was not immediately known. Demon-strations have taken place in this area on Mondays since Palestinians began a wider protest movement in late March against a decade-long Israeli blockade of Gaza. An Israeli army spokesperson said yesterday that 750 Palestinians took part in “clashes” near the border and threw stones towards soldiers who responded “by using anti-riot meas-ures and firing in line with standard operational procedures”.

Libyan militia leader Salah Badi was placed on the US sanctions blacklist yesterday, days after the United Na-tions Security Council placed global restrictions on doing business with the Islamist commander. In the wake of fractious international talks last week aimed at stabilising the violence-torn country, the US State Department said Badi was being sanctioned because he had worked to undermine Libya’s government and stability since 2014. Badi is a senior commander of the armed Al-Sumud front and the Fajr Libya brigade, both of which have chal-lenged the UN-backed coalition Government of National Accord.

The World Health Organisation yesterday said global eff orts to fight malaria have hit a plateau as it reported there were more cases of the killer disease in 2017 than the previous year. The latest WHO report showed that the number of malaria cases climbed to 219mn last year, 2mn higher than 2016, while international funding has de-clined. “The world faces a new real-ity,” WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, warned as the UN agency launched the new report.

UNRWA says budget deficit slashed after Gulf, EU input

Israeli fire wounds cameraman, 24 Palestinians

US hits Libyan militia leader with sanctions

Global fight against malaria has stalled, WHO warns

AID

CONFLICT

CURBS

HEALTH

Nigeria’s pro-business opposition leader begins presidential campaignAFP Lagos

Nigeria’s opposition leader Atiku Abubakar launched his presiden-

tial campaign yesterday vow-ing to create millions of jobs to tackle rising inequality and in-security in Africa’s top oil pro-ducer.

Seated for a nine-minute address streamed live on Fa-cebook and Twitter, Abubakar laid out his plan to “get Nigeria working again”.

“The sad fact today, as you know, is that too many of our people are not working and are living in poverty and insecu-rity,” Abubakar said.

“The very fabric of our soci-ety is breaking down. We have never been so divided as a na-tion,” he said.

“The most important ques-tion in this election is: are you better off than you were four years ago, are you richer or poorer? That is why our prima-ry focus is to get Nigeria work-ing again.”

As a former vice president dogged by allegations of cor-ruption, Abubakar drew criti-cism and scepticism when he announced his intention to run in the February 2019 presiden-

tial polls. But his campaign for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is gaining momentum, with the 71-year-old political veteran casting himself as an antidote to lacklustre growth in Nigeria.

Abubakar laid out his plan to ramp up growth in his policy document, targeting a gross domestic product of $900bn

(788bn euros) by 2025 — more than double the current amount — and vowing to lift “at least 50mn people out of ex-treme poverty”. Under his plan to help businesses he would in-troduce tax incentives, improve availability of foreign exchange and accelerate the privatisation of the power sector.

He would partially privatise

the state-run oil company and “reconsider” the introduction of bidding rounds for marginal fi elds and oil blocks, and he plans to double refi ning ca-pacity to 2mn barrels of crude daily by issuing new licenses for greenfi eld investments in crude refi neries.

In response to Buhari, who in a misstep earlier this year said youth in Nigeria “do nothing”, Abubakar pledged to revive an apprenticeship programme which will recruit 100,000 ar-tisans to train 1mn people.

The opposition candidate promises to introduce liberalis-ing reforms in contrast to Bu-hari, a 75-year-old former gen-eral who has focussed instead on rooting out corruption.

Buhari’s anti-graft campaign has yet to secure any high-pro-fi le convictions while his oppo-nents accuse him of mounting a political witch-hunt.

Although Nigeria is Africa’s top oil producer, poverty is rampant and unemployment is high in the former British colony.

The government, approach-ing its 10th year fi ghting Boko Haram militants in the north-east, is also struggling to con-tain outbreaks of violence between herders and farmers across the country.

Members of the Yemeni pro-government forces walk through destruction in an industrial district in the eastern outskirts of the port city of Hodeidah, yesterday, during the ongoing battle for control of the city from the Houthi rebels.

Russia, West clash over chemical arms watchdog’s new powersAFP The Hague

Russia clashed bitterly with the West yesterday as it tried to block the world

chemical arms watchdog’s new ability to attribute blame for attacks like those in Syria and Salisbury.

Accusations of hypocrisy and lying erupted as the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons debated how to move ahead with plans agreed in June to give the body new teeth.

Backed by China and Iran, Russia called last-minute votes on the OPCW’s budget and on setting up an “expert group” to

scrutinise the OPCW’s new role in pointing the fi nger for toxic weapons attacks.

But the United States and Britain furiously accused them of trying to “turn back the clock of history”, and said the work to attribute blame for attacks in Syria should start as planned early next year.

The West pushed through the new powers after a string of chemical incidents in Syria, as well as a nerve agent attack on Russian former double agent Sergei Skripal in the British city of Salisbury in March.

Russian envoy Alexander Shulgin said Western claims of chemical weapons use by Da-mascus and Moscow were “out

and out lies” and an excuse for “raining down missiles” on Syr-ia.

He said the June decision was “illegitimate” and went beyond the Chemical Weapons Conven-tion, the 1997 agreement to rid the world of toxic arms, under which the OPCW was set up.

Syrian Deputy Foreign Min-ister Faisal Mekdad denied his country had ever used chemical weapons, in a fi erce broadside at the western allies.

“You have taught people to use chemical weapons, you have used chemical weapons in the fi rst two world wars.” he said.”Where is your morality? This is sheer hypocrisy and sheer lies.”

US Ambassador Kenneth Ward said Russia’s claims that the OPCW’s new powers were illegitimate were “pungent hy-pocrisy”, and warned against allowing a “new era of chemical weapons use to take hold”.

“What have they done for the last few years but to connive with their Syrian ally to bury the truth of what has happened in Syria, along with the dead killed by the use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime,” Ward said.

“And as if that wasn’t bad enough, Salisbury comes along.”

Britain accused Russia of car-rying out the Salisbury attack using a Soviet-era chemical called Novichok and the West has since imposed a series of

sanctions on Moscow.British envoy to the OPCW

Peter Wilson called any attempt to limit the watchdog’s power to attribute blame for chemical attacks “unacceptable”. French ambassador Philippe Lalliot meanwhile said the Russian plan “at best” would indefi nitely postpone the attribution role “and that is something we can-not accept”.

Member countries will now vote on the watchdog’s budget — the first such vote in its his-tory — and on the plans for an “expert group” today.

The OPCW is meeting for two weeks.

The meeting is also the first since the expulsion of four

Russians accused by Dutch au-thorities in October of trying to hack into the OPCW’s com-puter system, using electronic equipment hidden in a car parked outside a nearby hotel.

At the time the organisation was investigating the attack on Skripal as well as a major chemical attack in Syria.

The spying incident is not on this meeting’s agenda, how-ever.

The OPCW says the two-week meeting of the 193 member countries is meant to “discuss the future of the organisation”. New OPCW di-rector-general Fernando Arias warned in his opening address on Monday that the “interna-

tional norm against the use of chemical weapons has come under strain”. “Their repeated use poses a challenge that must be met with strong and unified resolve,” he added.

Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2013, the OPCW says it has overseen the destruction of 96.5 % of the world’s chemical arms stocks.

But in recent years it has seen its role expand to cover Syria and other attacks.

Arias said in the run-up to the meeting that he aimed to have a “very small but strong” investigative team start work early next year on attributing blame for all attacks in Syria going back to 2013.

Russia, Iran, Turkey to hold Syria talks next week: Kazakh FM

AFPAstana

Russia, Iran and Turkey will hold the next round of talks on Syria’s con-

fl ict on November 28-29 in the Kazakh capital Astana, Kaza-khstan’s foreign minister said yesterday.

“The participants plan to discuss the current situation in Syria, in particular in Idlib, creating conditions for the return of refugees and inter-nally displaced people, and post-confl ict reconstruction,” Kairat Abdrakhmanov said in Astana.

The meeting will be the 11th in the Astana peace process — set up in early 2017 by Russia and Iran, who support Presi-dent Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, and opposition backer Turkey.

Abdrakhmanov said rep-resentatives of Damascus and armed opposition groups would take part, but did not specify what level of offi cials from Russia, Iran and Turkey would attend.

The Astana process was launched after Russia’s mili-tary intervention in Syria

tipped the balance in the re-gime’s favour.

It has gradually eclipsed an earlier UN-sponsored nego-tiations framework known as the Geneva process.

This month’s meeting comes with continued vio-lence threatening plans for a buff er zone around Idlib, the last major opposition strong-hold in Syria.

Russia and Turkey agreed in September to set up the buff er zone to avert a Syrian regime off ensive, but militants who hold around 70% of the area have refused to withdraw.

Fighting in the area has continued, with militants on Friday killing 22 regime fi ght-ers in an attack on govern-ment forces in the northwest of Hama province near the planned zone.

Meanwhile, the Syrian army said Islamic State militants had been cleared from a rug-ged area in southeastern Syria, where they had been holding out for months against a cam-paign to defeat them.

In a statement, Syria’s army high command said it had tak-en full control of the Tulul al-Safa heights, a volcanic pla-teau east of Sweida province.

File photo shows Atiku Abubakar, a former vice president, at the national convention of Nigeria’s opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP), in the southern city of Port Harcourt in the Niger Delta.

Clashes, air strikes resume in Hodeidah

Saudi-led warplanes bombed

positions held by Houthi rebels

in Yemen’s port city of Hodeidah

late yesterday as clashes raged

in the suburbs, shattering a lull

in fighting that had raised hopes

for a ceasefire, residents said.

They said the Saudi-led coalition

carried out more than 10 air

strikes and that fierce battles

could be heard on the edges of

the Houthi-held city, 4km away

from its port. One resident said a

medium-range missile had been

fired from the city centre towards

the “July 7” district where ground

fighting was raging.

AMERICAS


The Fuego volcano erupts over Alotenango, a municipality in Sacatepequez department, 65km southwest of Guatemala City.

It was the Roaring ’20s. Calvin Coolidge was in the White House, the New York Yankees had just won their third World Series title and Mickey Mouse made his debut on the silver screen. On Sunday, Mickey Mouse, the brainchild of cartoonist Walt Disney that eventually came to symbolise a global entertainment empire, celebrated his 90th birthday. The iconic rodent launched his celluloid career in Steamboat Willie, at New York’s Colony Theater on November 18, 1928. In the eight-minute-long, black-and-white cartoon, Mickey pilots a steamboat and entertains his passenger, Minnie Mouse, by making musical instruments out of the menagerie on board, according to IMDB.com.

Nearly 4,000 people were evacuated yesterday from areas around Guatemala’s Fuego volcano, which began violently erupting overnight, the country’s disaster agency said. The volcano spewed out dangerous flows of fast-moving clouds of hot ash, lava and gas early yesterday and more than 2,000 people had taken refuge in shelters so far, off icials from the agency told reporters. There were no immediate reports of injuries. More dangerous flows of hot ash and lava could be expelled, said Juan Pablo Oliva, the head of the country’s seismological, volcanic and meteorological institute Insivumeh. In June, explosive flows from Fuego killed more than 190 people.

Former Peruvian president Alan Garcia entered the Uruguayan embassy and applied for asylum, hours after being banned from leaving the country while under investigation for corruption, the Peruvian foreign ministry said on Sunday. Garcia entered the embassy and home of the Uruguayan ambassador in a residential Lima neighbourhood on Saturday night and requested asylum, according to a statement from the foreign ministry. Garcia “has requested asylum from that country, in accordance with the provisions of the Convention on Diplomatic Asylum of 1954, of which Peru and Uruguay are parties,” the foreign ministry said, adding the request “should be evaluated by the government of Uruguay.”

Hot-air balloons take to the air during the XVIII International Balloon Festival in Leon, Guanajuato State, Mexico.

Mickey Mouse celebrates its 90th birthday

Thousands evacuated as Fuego volcano erupts

Peru ex-president Garcia seeks asylum in Uruguay

ANIMATION ICONNATURE’S FURY POLITICS HOT AIR RISING

Rain looms as search for California wildfi re missing continuesReutersParadise, California

Emergency services yester-day renewed their search through the charred

wreckage of California’s deadli-est ever wildfi re for the nearly 1,000 people still unaccounted for, with rain expected to help fi re crews fi ghting the blaze but com-plicate eff orts to fi nd its victims.

The remains of 77 people have been recovered, the Butte County Sheriff ’s Offi ce said late on Sun-day, as it cut the number of miss-ing to 993 from 1,276.

The number of missing has fl uctuated dramatically over the last week as reports have come in from rescue teams in the fi eld.

The sheriff ’s offi ce said that the number will continue to move up and down as remains are found, more missing reports come in and people who have been reported missing turn up safe.

Some people appear to have been added to the list more than once under variant spellings of their names, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The Camp Fire broke out in northern California on Novem-ber 8 and quickly all but obliter-ated Paradise, a mountain town of nearly 27,000 people around 150km north of the state’s capi-tal, Sacramento.

It has burned about 151,000 acres and was 66% contained early yesterday, up from 65% late on Sunday, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) said.

Up to 10cm of rain is expected to fall north of San Francisco be-tween tonight and Friday, said Patrick Burke, a forecaster at the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center in Maryland.

Heavy rain could aid with con-taining the fi re this week, but may also make it harder for teams sifting through ash and dirt look-ing for bodies.

Colleen Fitzpatrick, founder of the California-based consult-ing company Identifi nders Inter-national, said the expected rain will turn the site into a “muddy, mushy mess,” slick with wet ash.

“It’s going to coat things and stick to things and it’s going to

make it a lot harder to fi nd re-mains,” she said.

“There’s really nothing that can be done about this. The workers looking for remains are going to be stuck with this.”

Pathologists from the Uni-versity of Nevada, Reno, worked through the weekend as fi refi ght-ers peeled back debris, collecting bits of burned bones and photo-graphing everything that might help identify the victims.

The rain also could increase the risk of mudslides in areas where the fi re destroyed all veg-etation.

“While it isn’t an exceptionally strong storm, the recent burns make mud slides on hills and slopes a real danger,” the Nation-al Weather Service’s Burke said.

The storm, which is expected to carry moderate winds of about 24kph to 32kph, could also cause problems for evacuees, hundreds of whom are sheltering in tents and cars.

The number of people in need of shelter is not clear, but as many as 52,000 people had been ordered to evacuate.

Evacuees sleeping in tents in

a Walmart parking lot in Chico, west of Paradise, were moved to shelters on Sunday as that loca-tion is prone to fl ooding, accord-ing to local media reports.

About 650km south of Sacra-mento near Malibu, at least 5cm of rain are expected to fall on a second fi re, the Woolsey.

Known to have killed three people, it was 94% contained yesterday morning and full containment was expected by Thanksgiving on Thursday.

Malibu’s power supply was cut off yesterday to allow for repairs, the Los Angeles County sheriff ’s offi ce said.

The cause of both fi res is under investigation, but electric utili-ties reported localised equip-ment problems around the time they broke out.

PG&E Corp has said it could face liability that exceeds its in-surance coverage if its equipment were found to have caused the Camp Fire.

Many schools in the San Fran-cisco area were due to remain closed yesterday because of smoke from the Camp Fire, about 274km to the northeast.A sign warns looters in Paradise, California.

Democrats challenge Trump on WhitakerReutersWashington

Three Democratic sena-tors yesterday launched a new legal challenge

to President Donald Trump’s naming of Matthew Whitaker as acting attorney general, ac-cusing Trump of depriving the US Senate of its constitutional power to act on such appoint-ments.

The lawsuit was fi led in fed-eral court in Washington by Senators Richard Blumenthal, Sheldon Whitehouse and Sen-ator Mazie Hirono, all mem-bers of the Senate Judiciary Committee that customarily reviews attorney general nomi-nations.

Congressional Democrats have expressed concern that Whitaker, a Trump loyalist, could undermine or even fi re Special Counsel Robert Mu-eller, whose investigation of Russia’s role in the 2016 US election has cast a cloud over Trump’s presidency.

“Americans prize a system of checks and balances, which President Trump’s dictato-rial appointment betrays,” Blu-menthal said in a statement.

The lawsuit also accused Trump of violating a federal law that establishes the line of suc-cession if the attorney general post becomes vacant — giving full authority to the deputy at-torney general — and rejected the Justice Department’s legal reasoning in its support of the Republican president’s action.

Whitaker took over supervi-

sion of Mueller’s investigation when Trump appointed him on November 7 as the chief US law enforcement offi cial to replace Jeff Sessions, who the presi-dent ousted.

Whitaker in the past criti-cised the scope of Mueller’s probe and brought up the pos-sibility of undermining it by slashing the special counsel’s funding.

Whitaker has not recused himself from overseeing the probe despite calls by Demo-crats for him to do so.

Trump said in an interview on the Fox News Sunday pro-gramme that he would not in-tervene if Whitaker moved to curtail Mueller’s investigation and that his appointee is “go-ing to do what’s right.”

Trump has called the Mu-eller investigation a “witch hunt.”

The attorney general of Maryland last week brought a similar legal challenge, saying Trump violated the so-called Appointments Clause of the US Constitution because the job of attorney general is a “principal offi cer” who must be appointed by the president and confi rmed by the Senate.

A hearing on Maryland’s le-gal challenge is slated for De-cember 19.

A challenge to Whitaker’s appointment was also made last week as part of a Supreme Court case on gun rights.

The Justice Department last week issued a 20-page legal opinion declaring that Trump’s appointment of Whitaker was lawful under a 1998 law called

the Federal Vacancies Reform Act even though he was not a Senate-confi rmed offi cial.

Many legal experts have dis-agreed with the department’s view.

The Justice Department was able to cite only one instance in US history — in 1866 — in which a non-Senate confi rmed person was named acting at-torney general.

Kerri Kupec, a Justice De-partment spokeswoman, is-sued a statement yesterday de-fending Trump’s designation of Whitaker.

The appointment “is lawful and comports with the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, the Ap-pointments Clause of the US Constitution, Supreme Court precedent, past Department of Justice opinions, and actions of US presidents, both Republican and Democrat,” Kupec said.

“There are over 160 instanc-es in American history in which non-Senate confi rmed persons performed, on a temporary basis, the duties of a Senate-confi rmed position. To suggest otherwise is to ignore centuries of practice and precedent,” she added.

Democrats are preparing to take over control of US House of Representatives in January following gains in the midterm elections, though Republicans maintained control of the Sen-ate.

Top US House lawmakers have said they plan to scru-tinise Whitaker, including whether he should recuse him-self from overseeing Mueller’s investigation.

CNN seeks urgent hearing after White House again threatens to yank reporter’s accessReutersWashington

CNN yesterday called on a federal court to hold emergency proceedings

after the White House said it would again revoke press access to correspondent Jim Acosta de-spite a temporary restraining or-der on Friday to reinstate him.

Acosta’s credentials were re-voked after Trump denounced him as a “rude, terrible person” during a November 7 news con-ference.

CNN challenged the move in court and on Friday won a rul-ing that temporarily reinstated Acosta while the court considers the news network’s lawsuit over the ouster.

In a fi ling yesterday, CNN and Acosta asked for an expedited hearing next week after top White House communications offi cials told Acosta in a letter late on Fri-day that it had already decided to suspend his press once the two-week restraining order expires.

The White House opposed the request for an emergency hearing, writing in response to the court: “Not only is there no ‘emergen-cy’ right now, it is impossible to know at this point whether next

steps are necessary, much less what those steps should be.”

It said the White House ex-pected to make its fi nal decision on Acosta credentials by Friday.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders and White House communications chief Bill Shine had earlier told Acosta that it had made a “preliminary decision” backed by Trump.

When US District Judge Timo-thy Kelly temporarily restored Acosta’s credentials, he said the White House had failed to pro-

vide due process. He did not ad-dress any alleged violations of free speech, protected by the US Constitution’s First Amendment.

Trump, who has long blasted the media and often targeted Acosta, said on “Fox News Sun-day” the judge’s decision was “not a big deal” and that the White House would establish rules for the press.

Asked what they would entail, he said: “We’re going to write them up right now...we’ll have rules of decorum, you know, you

can’t keep asking questions.” Despite the fi ling, Acosta and

CNN said they “remain hopeful” the dispute could be resolved out-side of court, they wrote.

At the contentious news con-ference a day after Trump’s Re-publicans lost their majority in the US House of Representatives, Trump erupted into anger when Acosta questioned him about the investigation of Russian med-dling in the 2016 presidential election and a migrant caravan travelling through Mexico.

No comic turn at next White House correspondents’ dinner

The White House correspondents’

dinner will break with tradition next

year and forgo a comedian as its

featured speaker, opting instead for

a historian specialising in the lives

of US presidents.

The decision came after

stand-up Michelle Wolf delivered

a controversial star turn this year

— mercilessly sending up White

House press secretary Sarah Sand-

ers, who was seated on the podium

with her.

The guest speech at next April’s

black tie gala will come from histo-

rian and biographer Ron Chernow,

who has written books about

the lives of George Washington,

Ulysses S Grant and Alexander

Hamilton.

“While I have never been

mistaken for a stand-up comedian,

I promise that my history lesson

won’t be dry,” Chernow said in a

statement.

Since coming to power in Janu-

ary 2017, President Donald Trump

has shunned the annual gathering

of the Washington press corps, and

has dubbed the media “the enemy

of the American people.”

Trump did attend the event

as a guest in 2011, when he was

subjected to a blistering roast by

then-president Barack Obama,

who mocked the reality TV star for

peddling the conspiracy theory

that the Hawaii-born leader lacked

a valid US birth certificate.

“As we celebrate the importance

of a free and independent news

media to the health of the republic,

I look forward to hearing Ron place

this unusual moment in the context

of American history,” said Olivier

Knox, the president of the White

House Correspondents’ Associa-

tion.

The annual gala dates back to

1921, and from 1980 until 2017,

presidents from both parties had

attended, except for 1981, when

president Ronald Reagan was

recovering from being shot.

New migrant group sets out for US from El SalvadorAFPSan Salvador

Defying US pledges to turn back those seeking asylum at the bor-der, a caravan of about 200 mi-

grants set out Sunday from El Salvador seeking their American dream.

The group — separate from the larger one of Central American migrants that began its journey last month — gathered in a square in the west of the capital.

They then headed out together by bus to Sonsonate, citing gang violence and desperate poverty as their reasons.

From there, the migrants — including many families with children, decked out in warm clothes and backpacks — said they would travel to Guatemala by bus, and on to the United States.

They know it won’t be easy without a US visa.

“The truth is, I don’t have much choice. I don’t want to leave but what am I going to do here, alone with two children. No

help from anyone at all. And the gangs are threatening us. So we had better get out,” said Cecilia Bonilla, 36, with her boys Ste-ven, fi ve, and Daniel, 13.

The single mom without formal job training is leaving her tiny home in a poor area wracked by gang violence, Soyapan-go.

Javier Campos, 42, is an unemployed fi sherman and came from distant Usu-lutan and slept overnight with fellow mi-grants.

“What am I going to do. I don’t want to leave my family. But it’s because of them I decided to see if... I can get to the US and have hope for a better life,” he said, leav-ing his wife and three children at home for now.

“Here in El Salvador I cannot fi nd a job,” or hope for one, he stressed.

On October 13, thousands of Hondu-ran migrants set out in a caravan trying to reach the United States.

On their heels, in late October at least another 2,000 Salvadorans followed suit, citing joblessness and gang violence.

Michael Bloomberg donates $1.8bn for college education

Former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg said Sunday he’s giving $1.8bn for fi nancial aid at Johns Hopkins University, believed to be the

largest ever donation to a post-secondary institution.Bloomberg said he was making the gift to help

qualifi ed low- and middle-income students more easily aff ord access to university in a coun-try where post-secondary education fees at elite schools often exceed $50,000 a year, a prohibitive barrier for most families.

“I was lucky: My father was a bookkeeper who never made more than $6,000 a year. But I was able to aff ord Johns Hopkins University through a National Defense student loan, and by holding down a job on campus,” Bloomberg wrote in a New York Times op-ed. “My Hopkins diploma opened up doors that otherwise would have been closed, and allowed me to live the American dream.”

Bloomberg, who made his fi rst donation to Hopkins the year after he graduated — just $5 — has since already provided $1.5bn for research, teaching and fi nancial aid.

The new donation will come on top of that, and serve as fi nancial aid for qualifi ed students from lower family income levels.

He did, however, acknowledge that his donation was only helping one school in a country where more students come from the top 1% of earners than from the bottom 60% of the income scale at dozens of elite colleges.

ASIA13


Lanka new PM may lose budget as MPs plan to remove fundingSri Lanka’s newly appointed

Prime Minister Mahi-nda Rajapakse, who lost

two motions of no-confi dence last week, may lose his govern-ment’s budget even as he clings to power.

Lawmakers opposed to Ra-japakse said they intend to re-move funding for staff salaries and other costs in a vote on November 29. The opposition, which regards his administration as illegitimate, will also seek ap-proval to slash the government’s overall budget, they said.

It was the latest of several new twists yesterday in the politi-cal chaos that has embroiled Sri Lanka for the past few weeks.

Leaders of political parties backing Rajapakse and Presi-dent Maithripala Sirisena re-fused to allow a third motion of no-confi dence to be held through name call or electronic voting yesterday. The previous two motions passed through a voice vote but Sirisena said they hadn’t followed the proper pro-cedures. Sirisena appointed Ra-

japakse last month after fi ring Ranil Wickremesinghe as prime minister, setting off the political turmoil on the island off India’s southeast coast.

Rajapakse is seen as a close ally of China, though Beijing has denied accusations that it was instrumental in getting him ap-pointed.

Dinesh Gunawardene, a Ra-japakse loyalist, said Wick-remesinghe’s coalition had handed a motion “to suspend all government expenses” to the speaker and the parliament secretary.

“According to the previous no-confi dence motions, both Rajapakse and his government are out. There is no govern-ment, but there are MPs,” M A Sumanthiran, a lawmaker who had voted for the no-confi dence motion, said.

“The fi nance of the country is under the control of the parlia-ment. Now we have proposed a motion to stop government fi -nances for the prime minister’s offi ce,” he said.

Ananda Kumarasiri, the dep-uty speaker of the parliament, established a select committee to carry on parliamentary busi-

ReutersColombo

Civil activists demonstrate amid an ongoing political crisis, as rain falls in Colombo yesterday.

ness before adjourning the House to November 23.

Unlike last Thursday and Friday there were no physical altercations on the fl oor of parliament yesterday. On Friday, lawmakers supporting Rajapakse threw books, chilli paste and water bottles at the speaker to try to disrupt the second vote.

Parliament Speaker Karu Ja-yasuriya said in a statement

that investigations have begun into Friday’s events, including damage that was done to public property in the melee.

The political crisis has hit the economy. Yesterday, the rupee fell to a record low of 177.20 per dollar. Foreign investors have pulled out more than 30bn ru-pees ($169.5mn) since the crisis unfolded on October 26.

Wickremesinghe loyalists al-lege that Rajapakse’s party is try-ing to buy lawmakers for as much as $3mn each. Rajapakse loyalists have rejected the allegation.

Both Sirisena and many Ra-japakse loyalists have said they have the majority in parliament. How-ever, the no-confi dence motion against Rajapakse and his govern-ment was passed twice by 122 votes

in the 225-member parliament.Most foreign countries, in-

cluding Western nations, have yet to recognise Rajapakse as the prime minister.

Last week, eight Western countries stayed away from a meeting with the government to register their protest against Sirisena’s decision to dissolve parliament.

Top cop investigating Rajapakse removed

Sri Lanka’s president or-dered the removal of a police chief investigating

alleged crimes by the family and associates of his preferred can-didate for prime minister Ma-hinda Rajapakse, offi cials said yesterday.

In the latest twist in the on-going crisis, Chief Inspector Nishantha Silva was transferred from the Criminal Investigation Department on Sunday as he pursued inquiries into the close family and allies of Rajapakse, an offi cial said.

Since sacking Wickremesing-he, Sirisena has taken the police under his direct control.

Silva investigated the killing of 11 children between 2008 and 2009 and had secured an ar-rest order last week against the country’s top military offi cial when he was shifted on Sunday, an offi cial said.

“He was about to arrest Ad-miral Ravindra Wijegunaratne when his marching orders came,” a senior police offi cial said.

“This is a serious blow to half a dozen high profi le investigations.”

Wijegunaratne has remained the chief of defence staff .

Silva was also pursuing the killers of editor Lasantha Wick-rematunga and investigating Rajapakse’s former defence sec-retary brother Gotabhaya, who is accused of defrauding the state.

Gotabhaya Rajapakse was in-dicted in September on charges of siphoning off over $250,000 in state funds to build a memo-rial for his parents.

Silva was also investigating an alleged corrupt aircraft purchase from Ukraine when Gotabhaya Rajapakse was in power between 2005 and 2015.

Sacked PM Wickremesinghe has accused Rajapakse of seeking to grab power again in order to sabotage the court cases against his family and associates.

In August, a special court charged Rajapakse’s chief of staff with embezzling millions of dol-lars from a state insurance fi rm.

Rajapakse’s top civil servant, Lalith Weeratunga, was convict-ed of misappropriating $4mn and sentenced to three years in prison.

Two of the former presi-dent’s three sons have also been charged with money-laundering and other relatives face corrup-tion allegations.

The former president was questioned in August over the 2008 abduction and torture of a journalist.

AFPColombo

Russia pledges to expand energy ties with Vietnam

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev met his Vietnamese counterpart

Nguyen Xuan Phuc yesterday during a state trip to Hanoi.

While details of the talks were sparse, both sides said they hoped to expand co-oper-ation in the energy sector, with Medvedev saying that he expects state oil and natural gas fi rms Gazprom, Rosneft and Zarubez-hneft to expand operations.

Rosneft is currently drilling in the South China Sea in a joint venture with Vietnamese state oil fi rm PetroVietnam in waters contested by Vietnam and Chi-na, although Rosneft maintains it is staying within Vietnamese territorial waters.

Both sides also agreed to hold a Year of Russia and Year of Vietnam in their respective countries.

“Our people are genuinely in-terested in each other, each oth-er’s history, and are eager to get to know each other better,” said Medvedev.

The trip comes a year after President Vladimir Putin vis-

ited Vietnam for the 2017 Apec summit in Da Nang.

Medvedev last visited Viet-nam in 2015, while Putin’s last offi cial state visit to Hanoi was in 2013.

Moscow was Hanoi’s principle ally in the 1970s and 80s, with the Soviet Union providing key support to Vietnam as the US and China refused to recognise the South-East Asian country in the later years of the Cold War.

Although ties were downsized when the Soviet Union col-lapsed in 1991, the Vietnamese military still imports most of its weaponry from Russia.

DPAHanoi

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, second left, and his Vietnamese counterpart Nguyen Xuan Phuc, left, attend a welcoming ceremony at the Presidential Palace in Hanoi yesterday.

PM says Cambodia will not allow foreign bases

Cambodia will not allow foreign military bases on its soil, strong-

man premier Hun Sen said yesterday, swatting away US concerns about a possible Chinese naval site near hotly contested seas.

China has lavished billions of dollars in soft loans, in-frastructure and investment on the poor Southeast Asian kingdom, providing Prime Minister Hun Sen with a fast growing economy that he wields as justifi cation for his 33-year authoritarian rule.

In exchange Cambodia has been a staunch China ally.

It has seeded disunity among the 10-member Asean bloc of Southeast Asian nations over a diplomatic pushback to Bei-

jing’s aggression in the strate-gically pivotal South China Sea.

Rumours a Chinese naval base is under construction off Cambodia’s southwest coast have been swirling.

The area under scrutiny is in the Gulf of Thailand but gives ready access to the South China Sea.

Beijing claims most of the fl ashpoint area, infuriating the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Taiwan who all have com-peting claims to its islands and potentially resource-rich waters.

But in comments during a cabinet meeting, broadcast on Facebook live, Hun Sen denied military bases of any kind have - or will be - built on Cambodian territory.

“I have received a letter from Mike Pence, US Vice President, regarding concerns that there will be a China naval base in Cambodia,” he said.

“The constitution of Cam-bodia bans the presence of foreign troops or military bas-es in its territory.... whether naval forces, infantry forces or air forces.”

The US, once the region’s undisputed military power, is acutely aware of the strategic and trading importance of the South China Sea and insists it remains international waters.

US, Australian and British warships have increasingly conducted “freedom of navi-gation” operations through the sea to press that point, in-furiating Beijing.

Hun Sen dismissed reports of a Chinese base as “infor-mation that only tries to ma-nipulate the truth.”

“I will reply to the letter form US Vice-president Mike Pence to make him under-stand clearly about the issue,” he said.

AFPPhnom Penh

Khaleda seeks stay on graft case verdict

Former Bangladesh prime minister Khaleda Zia has sought a stay on the 10-

year prison sentence awarded to her in orphanage graft case, her lawyer said yesterday.

The petition to stay the ver-dict in the Zia Orphanage Trust graft case was fi led a day after Khaleda, also the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) chair-person, challenged the trial court’s verdict in the case.

Her lawyer Kaysar Kamal fi led a petition with the appellate di-vision chamber judge earlier in the day, reports bdnews24.

A bail petition has also been submitted alongside it, he said.

“Khaleda had been sentenced to fi ve years in prison in a false, fabricated and fake case,” Kamal told the media.

“The BNP chairperson then challenged the trial court’s verdict at the High Court. We believed the situation would be redressed.

“But, astonishingly, the date of the verdict was announced before the hearings came to an end. We could not even complete the hearings of the ACC (Anti-Corruption Commission) peti-tion to extend her sentence.”

The lawyer also claimed that the doubling of Khaleda’s sentence was unprecedented.

“Usually a sentence is reduced on appeal. But in Khaleda’s case it was increased. This is com-pletely motivated by politics.”

BNP leaders hope that by

IANSDhaka

Khaleda Zia ... sentence unprecedented.

staying the sentences of these two cases, the former leader will be able to participate in the up-coming general election.

The BNP leadership has bought nomination papers for three con-stituencies on her behalf.

On February 8, the trial court had convicted her of embezzling 21mn taka in foreign donations meant for the Zia Orphanage Trust. She was sentenced to fi ve years in prison.

The sentence was increased to 10 years by the High Court on October 30.

Maldives set to pull out of China trade deal: Nasheed

The Maldives’ new gov-ernment will pull out of a free trade agreement

(FTA) with China because it was a mistake for the tiny nation to strike such a pact with the world’s second biggest econo-my, the head of the largest party in the ruling alliance said.

It is the latest sign of a backlash against China in the Maldives, best-known for its luxury resorts on palm-fringed coral islands.

“The trade imbalance be-tween China and the Maldives is so huge that nobody would think of an FTA between such parties,” said Mohamed Nash-eed, the chief of the Maldiv-ian Democratic Party, which leads the ruling federal alliance. “China is not buying anything from us. It is a one-way treaty.”

On Saturday, as he took offi ce, the new President Ibrahim Mo-hamed Solih declared the state coff ers have been “looted” and warned that the country was in fi nancial diffi culty after racking up debt with Chinese lenders.

Former president Abdullah Yameen, who lost the election in September, signed the FTA dur-ing a visit to Beijing in December, and the same month his parlia-

ment ratifi ed the treaty despite opposition protests that he had rushed through the 1,000-page document in less than an hour without any debate.

Nasheed, a former president and now an adviser to Solih, said parliament would not pass the law changes required for the zero tariff s agreement to come into force.

“It was ratifi ed by parliament, but fortunately it calls for diff er-ent sets of legislation. We are not going to have this further leg-islation. We can’t go with that,” Nasheed told Reuters in an inter-view in the capital Male.

China’s embassy in Male did not respond to a request for a comment on the trade pact.

But China’s foreign ministry said in a statement that Cul-ture and Tourism Minister Luo Shugang, President Xi Jinping’s special envoy to the inaugura-tion, told Solih that China paid great attention to developing relations with the Maldives.

The Maldives is among a number of small countries where China has invested billions of dollars building highways and housing as part of its Belt and Road Initiative. Through that in-itiative, Beijing hopes to improve trade and investment fl ows with much of Asia and parts of the rest of the world.

China was willing to work

with the Maldives to consoli-date their traditional friendship, plan their practical cooperation and promote Belt and Road to inject “new impetus” into their future relationship, the foreign ministry cited Luo as saying during Sunday’s meeting with Maldivian president.

The statement cited Solih as expressing appreciation for China’s long-term support of the Maldives and that he was willing to further deepen coop-eration under the Belt and Road framework.

Critics in the Maldives say a China-led infrastructure boom has left the tiny country of a lit-tle more than 400,000 people debt-ridden, and a free trade pact would only make the situ-ation worse given the lopsided nature of the relationship.

Between January and August this year, the Maldives’ imports

from China were $342mn, while its exports to China were just $265,270, according to Mal-dives customs data. The island nation bought meat, agricul-tural produce, fl owers, plants, electronics and toys from China among many other items.

It imported $194mn worth of goods from India, its traditional partner, during the same period, while exporting $1.8mn of prod-ucts including scrap metal such as copper, aluminium and steel.

The Yameen administration said at the time that the FTA with China would help diversify the $3.9bn economy and boost fi sheries exports from the Mal-dives, crucial since the Euro-pean Union declined in 2014 to renew a tax concession on them.

The two countries would open up services such as fi -nance, healthcare and tourism, China said at the time. The Maldives has no free trade pacts with any other country.

If the Maldives turns away, it would be the latest setback for China, which is facing opposi-tion for its projects in countries stretching from Malaysia to Nepal, and even from its all-weather ally Pakistan.

A proposed free trade agree-ment has been held up in Sri Lanka over Colombo’s demand that it have the option to leave after 10 years.

ReutersMale

Mohamed Nasheed speaks during an interview with Reuters.

ReutersHong Kong

Three leaders of Hong Kong’s 2014 pro-democ-racy “Occupy” movement,

which paralysed parts of the Chi-nese-ruled city for nearly three months, denied public nuisance charges yesterday as interna-tional criticism of the erosion of civil liberties grows.

Law professor Benny Tai, 54, retired sociologist Chan Kin-man, 59, and retired pastor Chu Yiu-ming, 74, face charges of conspiracy and incitement to commit public nuisance, and incitement to incite public nui-sance.

The closely watched trial illus-trates the tensions in the former British colony as disaff ected democracy activists push back against attempts by Communist Party leaders in Beijing to tighten their grip on the city’s freedoms and autonomy. Each charge car-ries a maximum jail term of seven years. Six others, including two lawmakers, are also facing public nuisance charges in a trial that is expected to last around 20 days.

In a show of defi ance, the nine defendants and more than 100 supporters unfurled yellow um-

brellas, a symbol of the move-ment, outside the court, clapping and demanding an end to “politi-cal prosecution”.

“A movement can be crushed but not defeated,” the nine said in

a joint statement. “These charges enable the government to abuse the power of prosecution and in-fringe on the freedom of speech and peaceful assembly. The nine defendants unanimously

decided not to plead guilty.”Tai told Reuters he hoped the

trial would be an opportunity to “reboot the spirit of the people”.

Hong Kong returned to Chi-nese rule in 1997 under a “one

country, two systems” formula, with the guarantee of a high de-gree of autonomy and freedoms denied citizens in mainland Chi-na, including freedom of speech and the right to protest. However, critics, including foreign govern-ments, business groups and ac-tivists, say that the guarantee is ringing increasingly hollow.

The court heard how in 2013, Tai, Chan and Chu began prom-ulgating and planning a non-vio-lent civil disobedience campaign to occupy streets in the Central business district should China not allow a democratic vote for its next leader. The “Occupy” campaign germinated in Sep-tember 2014, ahead of schedule, and became part of what grew into the biggest populist chal-lenge to Beijing since the Tianan-men Square demonstrations in Beijing in 1989.

Hundreds of thousands of peo-ple, including many youngsters and students, took to the streets in sustained occupation of major

streets. Government prosecutor Andrew Bruce detailed in court how the three “Occupy” leaders had given speeches and inter-views urging more people to join the “unlawful occupations”. He said this had been a “joint en-terprise” to conspire with others to try to fuel the movement for a “prolonged and indefi nite” time.

Lawyers for the defendants, however, questioned the basis for this allegation. The six other defendants are veteran demo-cratic party member Lee Wing-tat, democratic lawmakers Tanya Chan and Shiu Ka-chun, activist Raphael Wong and former stu-dent leaders Eason Chung and Tommy Cheung. “Even if the court fi nds us guilty, history will show that we committed no crime,” Cheung, now a column-ist, told reporters.

Some critics say the case could have repercussions for hundreds of other protesters who have not been charged, and create a chilling eff ect on the Hong Kong

democracy movement. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission warned in a report to Congress last week that China had “ramped up its inter-ference” in Hong Kong and had “closed down the political space for pro-democracy activists to express discontent”.

Authorities have banned a political party advocating Hong Kong independence, barred de-mocracy activists from contest-ing local elections and disquali-fi ed six opposition lawmakers from the legislature. A senior ‘Fi-nancial Times’ journalist, Victor Mallet, was barred from the city this month after he helped host an independence activist at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club in what critics said was an attack on freedom of speech.

Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam has repeatedly stressed Hong Kong respects media and other freedoms but has so far refused to give an explanation for deny-ing Mallet entry.

14 Gulf TimesTuesday, November 20, 2018

ASIA/AUSTRALASIA

North Korea defector soldier is general’s son: reportAFPTokyo

The North Korean sol-dier who defected to the South in a hail of bullets

last year is a general’s son but says most Northerners of his age have no loyalty to Kim Jong-un, according to a Japanese newspa-per. Oh Chong-song’s dramatic dash across the border at the Panmunjom truce village in the Demilitarised Zone – under fi re from his comrades – made glo-

bal headlines last year, and saw him hospitalised with serious injuries.

It is very rare for the North’s troops to defect at Panmunjom, a major tourist attraction and the only place on the frontier where forces from the two sides come face-to-face.

The 25-year-old Oh is the son of a major-general, Japan’s Sankei Shimbun newspaper re-ported, in what it said was the defector’s fi rst media interview. But despite his privileged birth – he described himself as “upper

class” – he felt no allegiance to the North’s leadership. “Inside the North, people, and especial-ly the younger generation, are indiff erent to each other, poli-tics, and their leaders, and there is no sense of loyalty.”

He was “indiff erent” to the rule of Kim Jong-un, the third generation of the Kim family to lead the North, and had no in-terest in how his friends felt about it. “Probably 80% of my generation is indiff erent and has no loyalty,” he was quoted as saying. “It is natural to have

no interest nor loyalty since the hereditary system is taken as a given, regardless of its inability to feed people.”

Oh denied media reports in the South that he was wanted for murder in the North. After some unspecifi ed trouble with friends, the Sankei said, he started drink-ing. On his way back to his post he broke through a checkpoint and, fearing execution, decided to keep going.

“I feared I could be executed if I went back so I crossed the bor-der,” he was quoted as saying,

adding he had no regrets about defecting.

The newspaper said Japanese intelligence offi cials had con-fi rmed Oh’s identity. A short clip posted by the Sankei Shimbun on its website shows him wear-ing a black jacket and a white top, speaking with a slight North Korean accent. His face is not revealed.

Seoul’s unifi cation ministry – which handles inter-Korean af-fairs including the resettlement of defectors – declined to com-ment on the interview and said it

does not keep tabs on defectors after they are released from re-settlement centres.

Lee Cook-jong, the South Ko-rean doctor who treated Oh, told a radio interview last month that the defector had secured a job and bought a car, adding he had nearly lost his North Korean ac-cent. The geopolitical landscape around the Korean peninsula has shifted dramatically since last year when US President Donald Trump threatened to rain “fi re and fury” on the nuclear-armed North Korea.

“I really felt that we were on the verge of war with the US,” Oh was quoted as saying. “The ten-sion (that I felt) trickled down from the top.”

Now a rapid rapprochement has taken hold on the peninsula and troops in the border truce village where he defected are to be disarmed.

Oh said he understands the former comrades who shot him.

“If they didn’t shoot they would face heavy punishment,” he said. “So if I was them, I would have done the same.”

Hong Kong protest leaders deny public nuisance charges

From left: Baptist minister Chu Yiu-ming, law professor Benny Tai, and sociology professor Chan Kin-man shout slogans before entering the West Kowloon Magistrates Court in Hong Kong yesterday.

Sociology professor Chan Kin-man delivers his farewell speech at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, where he has been teaching for over two decades.

Xi in Brunei as oil-dependent sultanate seeks investmentsAFPBrunei

President Xi Jinping visited Brunei yesterday, with the sultanate turning to China

to boost its fl agging, oil-depend-ent economy as warnings mount about Beijing drowning small countries in debt. Xi, who ar-rived from a tense summit in Pa-pua New Guinea dominated by a war of words between China and the US, was treated to an offi cial welcome at Sultan Hassanal Bol-kiah’s enormous, golden-domed palace.

Like in many other parts of Asia, Chinese companies are in-vesting huge sums in the absolute monarchy on Borneo island, part of an infrastructure drive aimed

at extending Beijing’s economic and geopolitical clout.

Initiatives include a multi-bil-lion-dollar oil refi nery – Brunei’s biggest ever foreign investment project – a dam and a highway.

The wealthy former British protectorate, which is surround-ed by Malaysia, long depended on abundant oil deposits but was plunged into recession when prices fell several years ago, and crude reserves are also in a long decline.

“Brunei, whose income from hydrocarbons will decrease in the coming years, is looking for help from China in developing economic alternatives,” Mur-ray Hiebert, a Southeast Asia expert from think-tank the Center for Strategic and In-ternational Studies, told AFP.

After talks between the sultan and the first Chinese president to visit the country in 13 years, a joint statement said that Brunei “will continue to sup-port and jointly promote co-operation in the Belt and Road Initiative”, China’s infrastruc-ture drive, official news agency Xinhua reported.

Brunei, a conservative Mus-lim-majority country of about 400,000 people, is a rival claim-ant to China in part of the South China Sea – which Beijing claims in almost its entirety – but its criticism has been muted. There have as yet been few outward signs of unease at growing Chi-nese infl uence in tightly-con-trolled Brunei, where per capita GDP remains among the highest in the world.

Chinese President Xi Jinping walks with Brunei’s Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah at the Nurul Iman Palace in Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei.

At Apec, China, others woo Pacifi cReutersPort Moresby

After world leaders jetted out of Papua New Guinea following the acrimo-

nious end to the Asia-Pacifi c Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit, Pacifi c nation lead-ers gathered at Australia’s High Commission for kangaroo sau-sages and cold beer.

The fi nal function on Sunday in the capital Port Moresby fol-lowed a whirlwind of diplomacy for the leaders of the sparsely populated but strategically im-portant Pacifi c.

While they have been feted by both East and West in the build up to Apec, key issues aff ecting them – climate change and de-velopment – were largely side-lined at the summit by a war of words between the superpowers on trade policy.

With both giants unyielding, Apec leaders failed to agree on a communique for the fi rst time in the forum’s history. “Let them fi ght it out ... those are the issues that concern them,” Samoan

Prime Minister Tuilaepa Aiono Sailele Malielegaoi told in an in-terview in Port Moresby. “They absolutely have no importance to us. All we are interested in is to build a small road, a small hospital, a small school building and all these things about trade issues are well beyond our com-prehension.” The Pacifi c island nations command swathes of ocean, pivotal during World War II, and are home to fi sh stock and reserves of fossil fuels.

The emergence of China as a key aid donor and partner for Pacifi c countries has led to fric-tion between China and western allies. China is now the second-biggest aid donor to the region behind Australia, rising from nearly nothing a decade ago.

China’s emergence drew barbs from US Vice President Mike Pence, who said coun-tries should not accept debt that compromised their sover-eignty – a reference to China’s Belt and Road project. Such di-visive comments did not neces-sarily go down well. “I was just pleased with the message from the Chinese president. I thought

his views better represented how we feel,” Papua New Guin-ean Treasurer Charles Abel told Reuters.

He said he particularly ap-preciated Xi’s remarks that de-veloping countries are owed equal treatment as traders by developed countries. Abel, who is also deputy prime minister, added he felt Pence came across as a little too aggressive. “We’re not interested in taking sides, we’re just happy to work with all our good partners and we really appreciate the assistance that’s coming,” he said.

In Port Moresby, China had just added the fi nishing touches to a showpiece six-lane boul-evard running between a main road in Port Moresby and par-liament house.

Xi also pitched the Belt and Road initiative to eight Pacifi c leaders in a meeting. Tonga signed up and earned a reprieve from debt repayments to Bei-jing. For his part, Pence said the United States would join Aus-tralia and PNG in building a port on Manus Island. The United States, Japan, Australia and New

Zealand also announced an am-bitious $1.7bn plan to expand PNG’s electricity grid and In-ternet coverage.

The major economies also put on a show of soft power. Pence showed nine Pacifi c lead-ers a 400-year-old Bible that is in PNG’s parliament after he helped secure its donation by a missionary.

And on Sunday evening as sweltering heat gave way to a sea breeze, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison turned the sausages on the barbecue as he touted university scholar-ships and deeper ties with Aus-tralia.

Neither Pence nor Morri-son, though, matched China’s rhetoric on climate change, a major security issue for Pacifi c islands where rising sea levels are forcing people to move to live on higher ground. Climate change featured in Xi’s bilateral meetings with Pacifi c countries, which are concerned by Wash-ington’s withdrawal from the Paris climate accord and Aus-tralia’s soft pedalling on the is-sue.

Taiwan still welcomes China-made films after ceremony speeches rowTaiwan’s Golden Horse Awards still welcomes the inclusion of all Chinese-language films as long as participants show respect for the people of Taiwan, the island’s cultural minister said yesterday. The 55th Golden Horse Awards ceremony, held on Saturday night in Taipei, was overshadowed by politics after some winners and presenters mentioned Taiwanese independence and Chinese unification.Lawmakers raised concern

yesterday that, due to the controversy, China will boycott the awards, which have gained recognition over the years as the Oscars of the Chinese-language film industry, according to state-run Central News Agency. “We sincerely welcome all Chinese-language movies, as we have been doing,” Taiwan’s Culture Minister Cheng Li-chiun replied.That means all Chinese-language movies, including films produced in China, are still welcome. She said Taiwan is a free, democratic

country embracing diversity. “This is Taiwan, not ‘Taiwan, China,’” Cheng stressed. Cheng referred to the controversy sparked by award-winning Chinese actor Tu Men, who said at the ceremony he was honoured to present an award in “China, Taiwan” and that “both sides are like family.”The Chinese actor’s statement came after Taiwanese documentary director Fu Yu’s speech mentioning Taiwanese independence. “I hope one day

my country will be treated as an independent entity,” said Fu, whose film Our Youth in Taiwan won the best Documentary Award. The documentary focuses on leading characters in the island’s 2014 Sunflower Movement against a proposed services trade agreement with China. Taiwan has had its own government since 1949, when Chinese nationalists fled there after losing a civil war to communists in China.

BRITAIN15Gulf Times


Britain ‘wide open’ to Russian cyber menaceDaily MailLondon

Britain is at the mercy of Russian hackers who are plotting cyber attacks that

could bring the country to its knees, politicians have warned.

There are 10 attacks happen-ing every day, with many aim-ing to paralyse areas such as the NHS, the national grid and even Parliament.

And there is a ‘consistent rise in (Russia’s) appetite for attack’ on these sectors, according to the Joint Committee on National Se-curity Strategy.

Such is the severity of the problem that the committee is now calling for a designated cy-ber security minister.

It said the UK needed a min-ister ‘who, as in a war situation, has the exclusive task of assem-bling the resources... and ex-ecuting the measures needed to defend against the threat’.

The government is utterly fail-ing to respond to the cyber ‘arms race’, the committee heard.

In a report, the group said ministers had a “wholly inade-quate” grip on the danger hostile nations posed to UK’s critical na-tional infrastructure (CNI).

The past year has seen cyber at-tacks on the health, telecommu-nications, energy and government sectors. The head of the National Cyber Security Centre, Ciaran Martin, told MPs and peers in the committee that Russia has already established “a foothold (in the UK’s Internet infrastructure), an intrusion that you can use for on-going espionage purposes or can develop as the potential for a hos-tile, disruptive and destructive act in the future”.

He also warned that Russia has begun to diversify its targets to include “softer power democrat-ic institutions”. But it is not just Russia that poses a major threat, Britain is ill-prepared to fend off computer hacking attacks from other nations such as North Ko-rea and China.

State sponsored hackers are branching out from stealing se-crets and intellectual property theft and “starting to explore

off ensive cyber capabilities to damage, disrupt or destroy the systems or networks of their ad-versaries’, according to the Cabi-net Offi ce.

Organised crime groups are also becoming as sophisticated and dangerous as nation states in their cyber capabilities and it has never been so easy and cheap to launch a catastrophic attack, the report suggests. In the last two years there have been 1,000 sig-nifi cant cyber attacks – around 10 a week. Not all of these have targeted the UK’s CNI, but some such as the May 2017 WannaCry attack which crippled the NHS, have had a devastating impact.

Despite the escalating threat, Britain has not adequately pro-tected such infrastructure from attack and there is ‘no silver bul-let’ to solve the ‘wicked problem’, the committee concluded.

It found that “too many net-works are still insecure” and the operating systems in some areas such as electricity substa-tions and transportation control rooms were often old, vulnerable to attack and diffi cult to fi x.

Woman accused ofpoisoning patientsGuardian News and MediaLondon

Police have arrested a healthcare professional at a hospital in Blackpool on

suspicion of administering poi-son to patients.

Lancashire constabulary said they were contacted by Black-pool teaching hospitals NHS foundation trust on November 8 after concerns were raised about the mistreatment and neglect of patients on the stroke unit at Blackpool Victoria hospital.

A female healthcare profession-al was arrested last week on sus-picion of administering poison or a noxious substance with the in-tent to injure, and ill treatment or wilful neglect. Police said she had been bailed until December 6. The trust confi rmed that the woman had been suspended and sought to reassure patients that the hospital remained safe.

Detective chief inspector Jill Johnston from Lancashire po-lice said: “This arrest is part of an ongoing investigation into allega-tions of mistreatment of patients by a healthcare professional at

Blackpool Victoria hospital. The inquiry is complicated and we have a team of specialist detectives working on this case who are also off ering support to those families who have had loved ones identi-fi ed as potentially being involved.

“Our priority and the priority of Blackpool teaching hospitals NHS foundation trust is to en-sure the safety of patients. We are working closely with the trust as part of the investigation.”

Wendy Swift, chief executive of the foundation trust, said: “We can confi rm a healthcare profes-sional has been suspended in line with trust policy following allega-tions of mistreatment against pa-tients on the stroke unit.

“We take all allegations of this type extremely seriously and when the concerns were raised we immediately contacted the police. The trust is working with the police and co-operating fully with their investigation.

“We would like to reassure all our patients that all neces-sary actions are being taken. The hospital remains a safe and caring environment for patients and the provision of services will continue as usual.”

Brexit deal‘will set UKon path toprosperity’Guardian News and MediaLondon

Theresa May has told busi-ness leaders she will “una-shamedly” put the eco-

nomic success of the UK and the livelihoods of “real people” fi rst as she battles to bring her muti-nous Tory backbenchers to heel over her Brexit plans.

The prime minister warned Conservative MPs threatening to bring down her leadership that Brexit was not just an exercise in “political theory” as she battled to seize back the initiative from hostile Eurosceptics.

Her eff orts to keep control of her restless party were boosted when the Foreign Secretary, Jer-emy Hunt, speaking on a trip to Iran, said MPs seeking to oust May risked “the most appalling chaos” that could destabilise the country and even prevent Brexit.

“When people think about this, they will realise that back-ing her is the right thing to do.”

In a defi ant speech to busi-ness leaders at the CBI conference in London, May vowed to press ahead with her Brexit plans despite attempts to force the government to renegotiate with Brussels.

“It was never going to be easy or straightforward and the fi nal stage was always going to be the toughest,” she said.

“But we have in view a deal that will work for the UK. And let no one be in any doubt – I am de-termined to deliver it.”

As she began perhaps the most

perilous week of her premier-ship, May urged voters not just to “listen to politicians” but also to businesses providing jobs that “put food on the table for your family” and which have been supportive of her plans.

“We are not talking about po-litical theory, but the reality of people’s lives and livelihoods. Jobs depend on us getting this right. What we have agreed una-shamedly puts our future eco-nomic success, and the liveli-hoods of working families up and down this country, fi rst.”

However, May angered Tory Brexiters by signalling that the end of the Brexit transition pe-riod could be extended from December 2020 to the next gen-eral election, due in June 2022, with the extra payments and free movement that would involve.

The EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, has said Brussels is open to an extension to De-cember 2022, but May said: “It is important in delivering for the British people that we are out of the implementation period be-fore the next general election.”

Carolyn Fairbairn, the CBI’s director general, said May’s deal was signifi cantly better than “stepping off that cliff ” of no-deal Brexit next March, adding that plans for a future trade deal at least charted the route to fric-tionless trade with the EU.

She had harsh words for Tory rebels threatening to vote down May’s deal. “Our fi rms are spending hundreds of millions of pounds preparing for the worst

case – and not one penny of it will create new jobs or new products,” she said. “While other countries are forging a competitive future, Westminster seems to be liv-ing in its own narrow world, in which extreme positions are be-ing allowed to dominate.” How-ever, she criticised May over her plans to curb immigration after Brexit – a central demand of vot-ers at the 2016 referendum – and suggested the new system would stop EU workers being able to “jump the queue” over those from outside Europe.

“Government may be listen-ing to business when it comes to immigration, but they still aren’t hearing,” said Fairbairn. “The best way to build public confi dence is through a migration system based on contribution, not numbers.”

May told the business lead-ers they must “play their part” in creating a successful post-Brexit Britain, stressing their essential role once her fi nal deal was agreed. “It’s not just a job for politicians,” she said.

Meanwhile, on a trip to Te-hran, Hunt told the Guardian: “May has perhaps got the most diffi cult job of any prime min-ister or president in the western world at the moment. Somehow she has to fi nd a way of navigat-ing the shoals of Brexit in a way that allows us to have national closure on the issue and move on and deal with all the other issues we face. That means leaving the EU, but with a friendly trading relationship, and a friendly rela-tionship at all levels.”

Prime Minister Theresa May replies to questions after speaking at the Confederation of British Industry’s (CBI) annual conference in London yesterday.

Houseprices fallby £5,000 on averageGuardian News and MediaLondon

House prices fell by more than £5,000 on average in November, sliding fast-

est in Britain’s wealthiest towns as Brexit uncertainty gripped the property market, according to the website Rightmove.

In the largest November drop in prices since 2012, Rightmove said the average price of prop-erty coming to the market was down by 1.7%, or £5,222, on the month alone. It said the big-gest falls were in London, where the typical asking price fell by £10,793 (a fall of 1.7%) and in the south-east of England, where prices were down £8,647 (2.1%).

The “ripple eff ect”, where rising prices in London spread around the rest of the country during the boom years, has now reversed, said Rightmove, with falling prices in the capital now spreading across the south.

“Higher-end, former hotspot towns are now among the biggest annual fallers with Rickmans-worth (-7.1%), Esher (-6.4%) and Gerrards Cross (-6.0%) now cold spots following price rises of nearly 40% over the seven preceding years,” said Miles Shipside of Rightmove.

Rightmove’s price fi gures often diff er signifi cantly from the prices recorded in the Halifax and Nation-wide indices as they capture asking prices rather than mortgage data (from the lenders) or sold prices (from the Land Registry).

These fi gures suggest that the recent standoff between buy-ers and sellers – with sellers not willing to cut asking prices to fi nd a buyer – may now be over.

It said the average asking price for a home in the UK is £302,023, with the price of newly market-ed property now 0.2% (-£607) cheaper than 12 months ago.

Anecdotal reports that sell-ers are listing their property but receiving hardly any viewings and that it is taking much longer to fi nd a buyer are supported by the Rightmove data. It found that the average property takes 61 days to sell, up from 56 days earlier this year.

The serial sex attacker, John Worboys, must stay in prison after the Parole Board reassessed his case and decided he should not be released. The black-cab driver, who was convicted of assaults on 12 women in 2008, had been granted his freedom in January after the board accepted his claim that he no longer posed any risk to the pub-lic. But after a public outcry over the decision, the high court ordered the board to carry out a “fresh determination” into the case. The Parole Board chair, Nick Hardwick, was forced to resign over the issue. The board yesterday said the reassess-ment had been carried out and the serial rapist would remain behind bars.

Thousands of people do not have access to basic toilet facilities in their workplace in the UK, accord-ing to a major union. Unite said it had uncovered evidence of staff at branches of big high-street banks being required to urinate in buckets, and construction sites failing to provide any female toilets. Bus drivers had been denied toilet breaks for up to five hours, and workers in call centres for big financial institutions were told to log in and out to take a toilet break. In total, Unite said tens of thousands of workers across the UK suff er a lack of “toilet dignity”, where they are either not provided with proper toilets or have restrictions placed upon them in using facilities.

Former England footballer Paul Gascoigne has been charged with sexually assaulting a woman on board a train, British Transport Police said yesterday. Gascoigne, 51, was charged with “one count of sexual assault by touching”, said a spokeswoman for the force. The 51-year-old, who has struggled with alcoholism since he retired from top-flight football, was arrested at Durham station in northeast England on August 20. He is due to appear in a magistrates’ court on Decem-ber 11. Gascoigne made his name with Newcastle before going on to play for Tottenham, Italian giants Lazio and several other teams including Glasgow Rangers.

David Cameron’s former director of strategy has claimed his old boss could return to No 10, as ‘the best hope for Britain’. Steve Hilton suggested the man who called the Brexit referendum could replace Theresa May if the Tories forced her out. Cameron, 52, resigned as PM after losing the referendum in June 2016. He retired from politics a few months later when he stepped down as MP for Witney in Oxfordshire after 15 years. Hilton said he is convinced Cameron is still the best man for the job. He wrote in The Sunday Times: “If there is a Conservative Party leadership election... David Cameron’s return to No 10 could in fact be the best hope for Britain.”

The House of Lords should axe 200 peers within 11 years and limit the tenure of new arrivals to 15 years, MPs have demanded. The recommen-dations were made by the Commons public administration and constitutional aff airs com-mittee, which said the growing size of the Lords, which has 800 members, aff ected its eff ective-ness. The MPs claimed the cut in numbers could be achieved with a commitment by the prime minister to a ‘two-out-one-in’ policy. Sir Bernard Jenkin, chairman of the committee, said: “The House of Lords is of vital importance... but it is a problem that the size of the chamber continues to grow exponentially”.

Worboys must stay inprison, says Parole Board

Thousands of UK workersdenied toilet access: Unite

Ex-footballer Gascoignecharged with sexual assault

Cameron best hope forBritain, says former aide

Axe 200 peers from bloated Lords: MPs

DECISION CLAIMPEOPLE OPINION DEMAND

Volunteer Pam Michael collects plastic and other waste as she walks her dog George along New Brighton beach near Liverpool, Britain, yesterday.

Beach clean-up

Water cannon sold forscrap at £300,000 loss Guardian News and Media

London

Residents of a Salford block of fl ats stripped of its dangerous cladding fear

they will have to endure freezing temperatures and higher heating costs this winter.

Plane Court, managed by the company Pendleton Together, a PFI contractor with Salford coun-cil, had its cladding removed be-tween August and the end of Oc-tober this year after post-Grenfell tests found it to be fl ammable.

Since then residents have complained about cold tempera-tures in their homes and higher heating bills, because of the loss of the insulation that the clad-ding provides. The management company said the building’s “external works” were forecast to be fi nished by June 2021.

“A lot of older people are hav-ing to put the heating up that bit more and they are dreading their bills,” said a resident, who did not want to be named for fear of reprisals from the management company.

Tenants have said they want to be reimbursed for the extra heat-ing costs, but also warned that many wouldn’t be able to aff ord the short term costs of paying

higher bills. “You’ve got elderly people and people on low incomes and with card meters,” said one.

The replacement of the cladding on nine Salford blocks managed by Pendleton Together was delayed when the company was barred from accessing the £400mn fund set up by the government after the Gren-fell tower fi re.

The ministry of housing, communities and local govern-ment said the money was only available to local authorities and housing associations, prompting Salford council to accuse them of “washing their hands of the situation”.

Eight other blocks owned by Salford city council and man-aged by Pendleton Together are still covered in fl ammable clad-ding, with interim fi re safety measures – such as 24-hour fi re marshals – in place to keep peo-ple safe.

Pendleton Together said it would begin visiting Plane Court residents this week to discuss their heating issues and explain the proposed compensation ar-rangements. “While visiting residents we will discuss the opportunity to work with them to monitor their energy usage in order to ensure they receive ap-propriate compensation,” said a spokesperson.

Building residents fear freezing winter

Guardian News and MediaLondon

Three unusable water can-non bought by Boris John-son when he was mayor

of London have been sold for scrap, at a net loss of more than £300,000.

Johnson bought the crowd-control vehicles from the Ger-man police in 2014, in anticipa-tion of social unrest, without checking whether they could be used on London’s streets.

In one of his most humiliat-ing episodes as mayor the then home secretary Theresa May banned them from use any-where in England and Wales. It left the capital’s taxpayers with three expensive white el-ephants.

The current mayor, Sadiq Khan, pledged to claw back as much money as possible on the redundant vehicles by selling them. But after almost two years the mayor’s offi ce admitted de-feat in its attempt to fi nd a repu-table buyer.

It announced yesterday that it has agreed to sell the vehicles for just £11,025 to Reclamations

Ollerton, a scrap metal yard in Newark, Nottinghamshire.

The fee recoups 3.4% of the £322,834.71 spent on the vehi-cles since 2014.

The 25-year-old vehicles cost £85,022 in 2014, but they were found to be riddled with faults and required expensive modifi -cation to make them roadworthy. This included £32,000 to com-ply with the city’s low emission zone, and almost £1,000 on new stereos.

Offi cials had hoped to sell the vehicles for up to £43,000, but despite the improvement work, no buyer could be found.

Under conditions of the origi-nal sale by the German federal police, the vehicles could only be sold on to a European policing or civil protection organisation, as a guard against them being used by a repressive regime.

The ministry of defence has been trying to help offl oad the vehicles since December 2016 but no European authority wanted them. The mayor’s offi ce said: “The length of time they took to sell was due to lack in in-terest from potential buyers, in-cluding the UK government and overseas authorities.”

The failure represents a set-back for Khan, who had promised to sell the vehicles in his election manifesto and spend the money on youth services. The money he has recouped does not even cover the estimated £12,000 bill for insuring the vehicles since he was elected in May 2016.

But he still claimed that by selling the vehicles for £3,675 each for scrap he had met his election pledge.

Khan said: “For too long, Lon-don taxpayers have had to bear the brunt of Boris Johnson’s appalling botched water can-non deal. This has been another waste of taxpayers’ money by Boris Johnson. Londoners con-tinue to live with his vanity.

“I am pleased we have man-aged to fi nally get rid of them and I made an election promise to Londoners that I would claw back as much of this cash as pos-sible, and pump it into helping young people at risk of being af-fected by crime and giving them better life opportunities.”

The Green party joint leader and London assembly mem-ber Sian Berry said more money would have been saved if the ve-hicles had been scrapped sooner.


BRITAIN

Boris Johnson: plan backfires

3,000 doctors under probeafter fake psychiatrist case

Post Offi ce system glitch raises doubts over woman’s conviction

Guardian News and MediaLondon

The records of up to 3,000 doctors are being re-viewed after it emerged

that a woman worked as a NHS consultant psychiatrist for 22 years with fake qualifi cations before she was convicted of try-ing to defraud a patient.

Zholia Alemi, 56, was jailed for fi ve years last month for faking an 87-year-old patient’s will as part of an attempt to inherit her £1.3mn estate after they met at a dementia clinic in Workington, Cumbria in 2016.

Following the trial, an inves-tigation by the Cumbrian news-paper News and Star revealed

Alemi had been working in the UK for more than two decades with forged qualifi cations from the University of Auckland.

The convicted fraudster had failed the fi rst year of medical school in New Zealand in 1992, but subsequently managed to register as a doctor with the General Medical Council (GMC) with a forged degree certifi cate, forged primary medical quali-fi cation and a fake letter of rec-ommendation from her most recent job in Pakistan, under a visa scheme that has since been discontinued.

The investigation has prompted an urgent review of all doctors who registered with the GMC under the scheme, which allowed graduates of medical

schools in some Commonwealth countries to work in the UK without having to pass an exam.

The GMC said it was incred-ibly rare case but started a review after the News and Star made them aware of the details of Ale-mi’s faked qualifi cations.

In October, a court heard how Alemi befriended Gillian Bel-ham, then 84, who was strug-gling to deal with the recent death of her husband. Alemi re-drafted the pensioner’s will and fraudulently applied for power of attorney over her estate. The consultant psychiatrist was found guilty of four fraud and theft charges at Carlisle Crown court and was jailed for fi ve years.

In response to the cases,

Charlie Massey, the chief ex-ecutive of the GMC, said: “It is extremely concerning that a person used a fraudulent quali-fication to join the register and we are working to understand how this happened. We have brought this to the attention of police and other agencies, in-cluding NHS England, so that they may also take any neces-sary action to support patients and answer any questions they may have.

“Our processes are far strong-er now, with rigorous testing in place to ensure those joining the register are fi t to work in the UK. It is clear that in this case the steps taken in the 1990s were inadequate and we apologise for any risk arising to patients as a

result. We are confi dent that, 23 years on, our systems are robust and would identify any fraudu-lent attempt to join the medical register.

“Patients deserve good care from appropriately qualifi ed professionals and place a great deal of trust in doctors. To ex-ploit that trust and the respected name of the profession is abhor-rent.”

A Cumbria police spokesman told the News and Star: “Cum-bria Constabulary is liaising with the General Medical Coun-cil and will be commencing fur-ther criminal investigations re-lating to allegations of fraud and any potential further off ences. It would not be appropriate to comment further at this time.”

Daily Mail London

Post Offi ce chiefs watched a pregnant mother get jailed for ‘stealing’ from the post

offi ce she ran – while hushing up a major report revealing a com-puter accounts glitch.

Seema Misra was one of hundreds of sub-postmasters whose lives were ruined when they were blamed for cash loss-

es in their branches.She was convicted of theft and

sentenced to 15 months while eight weeks’ pregnant with her second child, after the computer in her village post offi ce recorded a shortfall that could not be ex-plained.

She was jailed on her son’s 10th birthday. Yet a secret in-ternal memo now reveals postal bosses knew at the time there was a problem with the compu-ter system but covered it up.

The explosive document has emerged during a High Court trial in which more than 500 former sub-postmasters, are su-ing the Post Offi ce.

They claim they were wrongly blamed for money going ‘miss-ing’ in their branches when the supposed shortfalls were caused by glitches in the Horizon com-puter terminals installed by the Post Offi ce.

Many were jailed, bankrupted or otherwise ruined, and at least

one suicide was blamed on the er-rors. The state-owned Post Offi ce has spent £5mn of public money defending itself in court and maintains there is no signifi cant problem with its computers.

But it has been forced to dis-close confi dential e-mails for the proceedings, including the internal memo in August 2010 which confesses a ‘bug’ in the Horizon software was causing discrepancies in the accounts of about 40 post offi ces.

The fi ve-page memo, cop-ied to IT experts and Post Offi ce executives, admits: “If widely known, (this) could cause a loss of confi dence in the Horizon system by branches”, adding there could be a “potential im-pact upon ongoing legal cases where branches are disputing the integrity of Horizon data”.

One such case was Misra’s. Two months after the secret memo, she went on trial accused of stealing £74,000.

The sub-postmistress, 43, and her husband Davinder, 47, had invested £200,000 to run their village post offi ce in West By-fl eet, Surrey.

They put in a further £20,000 of their own money to make up for mysterious shortfalls that plagued their accounts. But the Horizon computer system con-tinued to fl ag up baffl ing losses.

There was no direct evidence of theft. At her trial, Misra told jurors about the computer prob-

lems but was found guilty of theft without the jury knowing that the Post Offi ce had admit-ted internally to an IT ‘bug’ two months earlier.

Misra was given a 15-month sentence and spent the sec-ond trimester of her pregnancy behind bars. She was released on an electronic tag after four months. Her husband said he felt “ashamed of this country”, add-ing: “My wife is a good citizen. We are good people.”

Scotland’s First Minister and leader of the Scottish National Party, Nicola Sturgeon off icially opens the NHS Tayside Trauma Centre at Ninewells Hospital in Dundee yesterday. The Dundee unit is the second of four of Scotland’s new major trauma centres.

New trauma centre opensFacebook gives£4.5mn to fund 80 local newspaper jobsGuardian News and MediaLondon

Facebook will donate £4.5mn to fund 80 local newspaper jobs for the

next two years, as the compa-ny faces further questions over its relationship with the media and long-term impact on the news business.

The social networking com-pany will make the money available to subsidise the cost of trainee journalists based in newsrooms across Britain with the objective of providing “reporting from towns which have lost their local newspaper and beat reporters”.

Facebook has always previ-ously insisted it is more in-terested in working with pub-lishers to build their revenue rather than giving direct cash transfers to pay for journal-ists. This scheme, the fi rst time Facebook has attempted such a scheme anywhere in the world, is being arranged in the form of a cash donation to the National Council for the Training of Journalists, a reg-istered charity.

The organisation will then divide it up in co-ordination with the local publishers, with trainee journalists on the scheme given formal training and then employed directly by local newspapers for the duration of the two-year pilot scheme.

“Our experience of work-ing with Facebook has been a very positive one,” said the NCTJ chief executive, Joanne Butcher, who acknowledged there were concerns in the publishing industry about the company’s impact on the news business.

“The view I have is that Face-book is sincere in its hope that this will lead to the creation

of more relevant, timely local news. In times of our charita-ble objectives we are there to attract, train, and qualify out-standing journalists.”

As yet, there are no details of where the jobs will be based, although recruitment for the new positions is expected to start from January. The scheme will place an emphasis on fi nd-ing trainees from a range of socio-economic backgrounds and include school leavers, in a bid to make newsrooms more representative of the audiences they serve. Salaries are ex-pected to refl ect trainee status; the NCTJ says a typical wage for such a job is about £17,500 a year.

Regional newspaper groups insisted they would con-tinue to run their own trainee schemes and not simply use the new reporters – who are expected to focus on “com-munity” reporting rather than court or specialist journalism – to replace existing jobs.

Five of the largest regional publishers that covers outlets in most major cities will be invited to apply to the fund: Reach, Newsquest, Midlands News Association, Archant and JPI Media – the new owner of the defunct Johnston Press titles, which went into admin-istration at the weekend.

“We know that we’re in a diffi cult industry,” said Laura Adams, the content director at Archant, which publishes ti-tles including the Eastern Daily Press and Islington Gazette. “Our teams have shrunk and we’ve had to make many diff er-ent effi ciencies but this is posi-tive because we can invest.”

Google, which is separate-ly battling regulation of its Google News service, has giv-en cash sums to publishers for many years through its News Initiative programme.

EUROPE17Gulf Times


Protesters angered by higher fuel taxes blocked access to three oil depots in France

and sporadic unrest erupted in the overseas territory of Reunion, in a third day of demonstrations against President Emmanuel Macron’s economic reforms.

Up to 20,000 protesters clad in fl uorescent high-visibility jackets blocked highways across France with burning barricades and convoys of slow-mov-ing trucks, as the government showed no sign of backtracking on a further tax hike on January 1.

French oil and gas giant Total said it operated two of the three aff ected depots on mainland France, one in Vern, near the northwest city of Rennes, and the other in Fos-sur-Mer in the south.

A fourth depot was blocked on Reunion, a former French colony that lies between Mauritius and Madagascar.

The so-called “yellow vest” movement was born out of a backlash against higher fuel prices, but has tapped a broad-er frustration at the perceived squeeze in household spending power and mounting public dis-satisfaction with Macron.

The price of diesel at the pump has increased by about 20% in the past year to an average of €1.49 ($1.68) per litre, according to website www.carbu.com.

Some of the increase is due to rising global oil prices earlier in the year.

Further large-scale protests are being planned.

A call by a member of the right-wing Debout La France (Stand Up France) party for protesters to descend on Paris on Saturday and “block” the city has been viewed over 165,000 times on Facebook.

Another Facebook page call-ing for a mass rally on Saturday in Paris “because there is where the government is!!!” had also gar-nered widespread interest.

The government has warned that the anarchic nature of the roadblocks threatens the safety of both demonstrators and driv-ers.

A protester was killed at the weekend when a panicked driver ran her down at a blockade in the southeastern department of Savoie and more than 400 people were hurt in sometimes violent confrontations between drivers and demonstrators.

A handful of skirmishes were also reported on Sunday night, including in the northern port city of Calais where an Australian truck driver and a British motor-ist were detained after trying to force their way through a barri-cade.

In Reunion, looters ransacked a shopping mall in the south of the island and many businesses remained shuttered after mobs torched 70 cars at a dealership and trashed a fast-food outlet.

Roadblocks paralysed traffi c on some of Reunion’s main high-ways.

In 18 months in power, Macron has stared down trade unions and street protests as he loosened labour laws and overhauled the

heavily indebted state rail op-erator SNCF, unfl inching in his resolve to inject new energy into the French economy.

However, derided by political opponents and left-leaning vot-ers as a “president of the rich”, the former investment banker’s popularity has dwindled to new lows.

A survey for pollster IFOP published yesterday showed a four-point fall in the past month in his approval rating, with just one in four people satisfi ed with his performance.

In a sign the “yellow vest” pro-tests might impact the economy if they persist, shopping malls saw revenues fall by an estimated 35% on Saturday, according to consultancy group Nielsen.

Organisers have vowed to con-tinue their protests until the gov-ernment drops the taxes.

The grassroots movement emerged on social media last month over a surge in fuel prices this year, in particular for diesel, which many blame on taxes im-plemented in recent years as part of France’s anti-pollution fi ght.

It quickly snowballed into a broader protest over stagnant spending power under Macron.

“I earn €500 ($570) a month – how do you expect me to live on that? With what I earn I can only allow myself one meal a day,” said Jean-Luc, a 57-year-old protest-ing in Calais.

Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said on Sunday night that the government had heard the anger, but that it would maintain the fuel taxes, which are set to increase again in January.

French protesters target fuel depots

Reuters/AFPParis

People take part yesterday in a road blockade next to a replica of the Statue of the Liberty in Colmar, eastern France, as part of a nationwide ‘yellow vest’ protest against high fuel prices.

France wants to boost the number of foreign stu-dents at its universities by

more than half over the next dec-ade, and will off er more courses taught in English to attract them.

Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, announcing the plan yesterday, said that increasing the number of foreigners study-

ing in the country would help build French infl uence overseas.

Home to centuries-old uni-versities such as the Sorbonne in Paris and some leading business schools, France is the world’s top non-English speaking student destination, but it ranks behind the United States, Britain and Australia.

The number of foreign stu-dents at French universities fell by 8.5% between 2011 and 2016 and the country has seen in-

creased competition from Ger-many, Russia, Canada and China, the prime minister’s offi ce said.

“Many countries are already building global ‘attractivity’ strategies, linking studies, the job market, tourism, which explains the infl uence of Asia or monar-chies in the Gulf,” Philippe said in a speech unveiling the strategy.

“In this fi eld just as in other economic ones, the world’s bal-ance of power is shifting. That’s why we need to welcome more

foreign students,” he added.Under the plan, France will

simplify student visa regulations but will also increase tuition fees for students outside the Europe-an Economic Area in order to be able to provide better facilities.

However, fees will still be much lower than in Britain and other neighbouring countries.

From March 2019, foreign graduates with a French master’s degree will be able to get a resi-dence visa to look for work or set

up a business in France.“We are constantly compared,

audited, judged among 10 other possible destinations. In an age of social media, no one can rest on its reputation only,” Philippe said.

French offi cials said that cur-rent fees of around €170 ($195) a year for a bachelor’s degree in France or €243 for a masters’ – the same as those paid by French students – was interpreted by students in countries like China

as a sign of low quality.From September 2019, non-

European students will be charged €2,770 annually to study for a bachelor’s degree and €3,770 a year for masters and PhDs.

“That means France will still subsidise two-thirds of the cost of their studies,” Philippe said.

“And the fees will remain well below the €8,000 to €13,000 charged by the Dutch or the tens of thousands of pounds paid in

Britain,” the premier stressed.Some of the extra revenue will

be used to boost the number of scholarships off ered by the for-eign ministry.

The number of courses taught in English, which have already been increased fi vefold since 2004 to 1,328, will be boosted further, Philippe said.

More French classes will also be on off er for foreign students and student visa applications will be made available online.

French universities to off er more courses in EnglishReutersParis

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s minor-ity government, which

is struggling to pass its draft 2019 budget, would not rule out holding an early general elec-tion, a top cabinet minister said yesterday.

Asked about the possibility of the government calling snap polls to coincide with Euro-pean, regional and municipal elections on May 26, Transport Minister Jose Luis Abalos said: “Of course, we can’t rule out anything.”

“You can’t venture anything, between now and May there is a lot of time,” said Abalos, a heav-

yweight in the ruling Socialist party who is close to the prime minister.

Sanchez, who took over in June from the conservative Mariano Rajoy after a surprise no-confi dence vote, has up until now vowed to stay in offi ce un-til 2020 when the next general election is due.

However, conservative op-position parties have repeat-edly pressed for early elections, arguing that the government of Sanchez, whose party controls just 84 seats in the 350-seat parliament, is not viable.

“When we will have (elec-tions), and we will logically have elections because we are a democracy, will be known,” Sanchez said when asked about the transport minister’s com-

ments during a press conference in Morocco.

To pass his draft budget, Sanchez needs the support of the parties that brought him to power in June, including Cata-lan separatist parties which have so far steadfastly refused to back the spending plan.

Failure to pass the budget would force the government to roll over this year’s budget, which was drafted by the previ-ous conservative government, and try to pass some of the an-nounced measures by decree.

“Does it make sense that a government which has 84 seats governs by decree ... what would be sensible would be to hold elections,” Pablo Iglesias, the leader of the far-left Podemos party which is the Socialists’

main ally in parliament, said.Podemos leaders will hold an

extraordinary meeting on Friday to prepare for “any possibility proposed by the government, be it snap elections this year, next year, or whenever they decide”, said Podemos spokeswoman Noelia Vera.

Only the prime minister has the power to dissolve parliament and call a general election.

Under Spanish law, Sanchez would have to do so by April 1 at the latest for the vote to be held on May 26.

The Socialists are leading in the polls, with 31.6% support, more than 13 points ahead of the main opposition conservative Popular Party, according to a closely-watched survey by state pollster CIS last month.

Spain raises possibility of early electionAFPMadrid

The Swedish Academy, which has awarded the Nobel Literature Prize

since 1901, said yesterday that it would expand its prize jury to include outsiders for the fi rst time following a scandal that forced it to postpone this year’s award.

The venerable institution has been in crisis mode since November 2017, after a deep rift emerged among Academy members about how to man-age its longstanding ties to a Frenchman accused – and now convicted – of rape.

For the fi rst time in 70 years, the Academy postponed this year’s literature prize by a year while it attempts to sort out its problems.

Yesterday, the Academy said in a brief statement that its No-bel Prize committee – usually made up of fi ve members who recommend a laureate to the rest of the Academy – would in 2019 and 2020 also include “fi ve external experts”, includ-ing critics, publishers and au-thors ranging in age from 27 to 73.

The Academy’s permanent secretary, Anders Olsson, told news agency TT the two-year appointment was “temporary”.

The chairman of the Nobel Foundation, which manages the fi nances and administra-tion of the Nobel prizes, ad-mitted to daily Dagens Nyheter that it had forced the Academy to take in independent outsid-ers.

The Foundation has long been critical of the Academy’s handling of the crisis.

The scandal erupted during the #MeToo campaign in No-vember 2017, when 18 women claimed to have been raped, sexually assaulted or harassed by Jean-Claude Arnault, who is married to Academy member Katarina Frostenson.

The Frenchman ran the Fo-rum club, which he founded in 1989 as a meeting place for the cultural elite and which was popular among aspiring young authors hoping to make con-tact with publishers and writ-ers.

The Swedish Academy fund-ed his club for years.

Arnault’s accusers claim the Academy was aware of his be-haviour but ensured that “a culture of silence” reigned in cultural circles.

Arnault, 72, was found guilty in October of raping a woman in 2011 and sentenced to two years in prison.

He has appealed the convic-tion, and that verdict is due on December 3.

Nobel literature body expands jury after scandalAFPStockholm

Poland’s Catholic Church has asked victims of sex-ual abuse by the clergy

for forgiveness, a month after an appeal court upheld a ruling stating that the church was re-sponsible for the crimes of one if its priests.

The Catholic Church world-wide is reeling from crises involving sexual abuse of mi-nors, damaging confi dence in the church in Chile, the United States, Australia and Ireland and other countries.

The Polish court of appeal upheld last month a land-mark ruling granting 1mn zloty ($260,000) in compensation to a victim of sexual abuse by a Catholic priest, accepting that the church was responsible.

“We ask God, the victims of abuse, their families and the church community for for-giveness for all the harm done

to children and young people and their relatives,” the Polish bishops wrote in a statement after a conference dedicated to the issue.

They called on victims to re-port the crimes to church and state authorities.

“We note with sadness that in Poland too there are cases of sexual abuse of children and young people by some mem-bers of the clergy and those working in the church.

“We repeat after Pope Fran-cis: ‘The pain of the victims and of their families is also our pain’,” the bishops said.

Pope Francis will meet bish-ops from around the world at the Vatican in February to dis-cuss the matter of protection of minors.

More than 5mn people fl ocked to cinemas across Po-land in recent weeks to watch a movie called Clergy that de-picts Catholic priests in a high-ly unfl attering light, breaking box-offi ce records.

Polish church asks for forgiveness for paedophilia casesReutersWarsaw

A Catholic priest in Germany, lured by a get-rich-quick Internet scam, has admitted to embezzling a small fortune from his parish, a diocese spokeswoman said yesterday.The preacher in the central Harz Mountains region confessed to his congregants at this week’s Sunday mass that he had skimmed €120,000 ($137,000) from church funds.“I let myself get snared by crooks on the Internet” who were running a bogus lottery, the 64-year-old clergyman said. “They convinced me to transfer money to them several times.”The spokeswoman said the priest had turned himself in to the police and his bishop, Gerhard Feige.He is to pay back the total sum he stole and lost and “accept the consequences of the state and the church”, Feige said on Sunday.The bishop stripped the priest, whose name was not released, of his post on the parish board in the town of Ballenstedt and said he would take further disciplinary measures.But it was not immediately clear whether the priest would lose his job – a decision that will be taken by the parish after the bishop makes his recommendation.

Priest blows €120,000 in parish cash

A painting that Romanian prosecutors said on Sun-day might be a work by

Pablo Picasso stolen in 2012 is more likely a forgery created as a publicity stunt, Dutch media reported.

State broadcaster NOS cited author Frank Westerman, who helped locate the painting in Romania’s Tulcea county after an anonymous tip, turning it over to Romanian police on Sat-urday.

Westerman told NOS on Sunday that he had received an e-mail from a Belgian theatre company which is staging a play about a famed art forger.

He said the painting he recov-ered appears to have been a for-gery hidden as part of an elabo-rate hoax.

Separately a former curator of the museum that owned the real Tête d’Arlequin, or Harlequin’s Head, told Dutch television that based on photos he had seen of the painting found, it appeared to be a forgery.

Romanian prosecutors, who said on Sunday that they were

trying to verify the work’s au-thenticity, could not immedi-ately be reached for comment.

The BERLIN theatre company in Antwerp, Belgium, which is putting on the play about for-gery, said in a carefully-worded tweet that it had “brought back” Tête d’Arlequin in a new frame.

On its website it said it would “be back with more details on this issue within the next few days” and listed links to reports of the discovery of the painting.

The real Picasso was stolen from an exhibition in Rotterdam in one of the art world’s most dramatic heists.

The other paintings that were stolen were Matisse’s La Li-seuse en Blanc et Jaune, Monet’s Waterloo Bridge, London and Charing Cross Bridge, London, Paul Gauguin’s Femme devant une fenêtre ouverte, Meijer De Haan’s Autoportrait and Lu-cian Freud’s Woman with Eyes Closed.

A Romanian man and several accomplices were convicted of the theft in 2013, but none of the artworks have been recovered.

Romanian experts believed at least three of them were burned in an attempt to destroy evi-dence.

‘Picasso found in Romania may be hoax’ReutersAmsterdam

Swimming coach gets 12 years for abusing 37 girlsAn instructor who worked at swimming pools in the city of Baden-Baden in southwest Germany has received a 12-year prison sentence for the sexual abuse of 37 girls under his care from a court in the city.On completion of his sentence, he is to be placed in preventive detention.The sentence was in line with what prosecutors had called for.The man’s defence lawyer called for a six-year sentence and rejected the demand for preventive detention, saying there were no legal grounds for it.During the trial, the accused told the court that he had been blackmailed into making underwater videos of the girls aged as young as four.The lawyer of the 34-year-old accused read out a statement to the eff ect that his client had made the initial video out of curiosity using another man’s camera.He alleged that this man, his superior, had later threatened him, insisting that he should make more videos, but the court rejected this as a lie.The assault on the girls in the pools and in changing rooms went unnoticed for two years until parents became suspicious.The court considered as many as 200 separate incidents, and the police investigation turned up video recordings in the man’s home.The man, who has no previous convictions, worked as a freelance teacher for three diff erent swimming schools in the southwestern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg between 2015 and 2017.He has been in jail for more than a year pending trial.

70 protestersarrested asSabarimalarow deepens

Congress, NGOs to stage rally seeking Parrikar resignation

AgenciesPamba, Kerala

Police arrested at least 70 people taking part in pro-tests around the fl ashpoint

Sabarimala temple, as a plea was made to the Supreme Court yes-terday seeking more time to fol-low an order to let women enter.

The temple has become a ma-jor battleground between right-wing Hindu groups and gender activists.

Tens of thousands of pilgrims have thronged the hilltop shrine since it reopened on Friday amid unprecedented security.

“We arrested 70 devotees af-ter overnight protests around Sabarimala,” V N Saji, assistant commissioner of police, said.

The area has been increasingly tense with Hindu organisations and Prime Minister Narendra Mo-di’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) opposing the Supreme Court or-der to let girls and women in the 10-50 age group in the temple.

There have been several pro-tests and strikes.

Many pilgrims going to Sabarimala have also com-plained about restrictions on their movement during the new clampdown.

The Kerala government sent thousands of police to the region fearing a repeat of pitch battles around the temple in October, when the shrine fi rst reopened after the Supreme Court ordered the lifting of a longstanding ban on women.

Police said many of those ar-

rested late Sunday had been pro-testing against a ban on spending the night on the hilltop around the temple.

Devotees, many shirtless in line with the tradition followed by pilgrims, chanted mantras as they faced off with police.

“What the police has done is wrong. I am here with other lo-cals to protest against the arrest of devotees,” Raghunathan Nair, one demonstrator said.

He was one of more than 100 people who protested outside a police camp, where all the ar-rested devotees were being held before their court hearing.

Dozens of women took part in protests, all chanting mantras and slogans.

Federal minister K J Alphons criticised the state government for the action.

As news spread about the ar-rests, protesters assembled near Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s residence in Thiruvanathapuram and shouted slogans.

“I fail to understand why the Kerala police has clamped pro-hibitory orders. This is not the way things should be handled. Sabarimala pilgrims are not ex-tremists. You cannot use force in this place,” Alphons said in Nilackal, before heading to the shrine.

Minister for Devasoms (Tem-ples) Kadakampally Surendran said it was not pilgrims but right-wing Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) goons who had taken over the shrine, and defended the arrest of the protesters.

“Unlike Alphons who was a

senior IAS offi cer, who later be-came a legislator with us and then moved on to greener pas-tures, I am only a simple political activist. But he should not have said things without knowing facts,” Surendran said.

Alphons said he would inspect how the state has utilised the Rs-1bn relief fund from the central government. “I will go around the temple town to make sure how the funds have been used.”

Surendran said: “It’s true that the Centre has sanctioned Rs100 crore for various projects in Sabarimala and the deadline for implementing it ends in July 2019. Moreover the unprecedented fl oods saw close to Rs19 crore of work in progress in projects get-ting washed away in September. What happened in the temple premises last night was a takeo-ver by the RSS goons. The police pleaded with them to return as it’s against the law to remain there. It was only after they refused to move that the police acted.”

Opposition Congress leader Ramesh Chennithala said it was most unfortunate that pilgrims are held in police custody and the state government should re-lease them at the earliest.

“The prohibitory orders should be withdrawn immedi-ately as there is no need for it. Vijayan has made a complete mess of the Sabarimala pilgrim-age season as the police is cre-ating havoc and has turned the temple town into a terror zone. Vijayan has lost control and he should demit the Home portfo-lio,” said Chennithala.

AFPNew Delhi

Hundreds of “manual scavengers” die each year cleaning out sewers

in cities across India but a ma-chine unveiled for yesterday’s World Toilet Day could help to end that tragic record.

Thousands of mostly low-caste people are employed in one of the world’s dirtiest jobs unc-logging human waste from un-derground pipes.

More than 1,300 have died, mainly suff ocated, in the past three years, according to the Su-labh International charity.

The men are called “manual scavengers” because they mainly scrape the waste with their bare hands without any protective gear or masks.

The machine launched by Su-labh injects high pressure water into the tunnels and tanks and then collects the waste with a mechanical bucket operated from ground level.

A remote control inspec-tion camera generates high-resolution images of the sewer system.

Bindeshwar Pathak, the Su-labh International founder, said that forcing humans into

the sewers was “demeaning”.“We hear so often the tragic

news about sewer workers losing their lives,” he said.

“This machine can safely clean the waste matter and it will gradually make manual scaveng-ing redundant.

“With this machine we hope

no person will die in the sewers any more.”

Lawmakers have passed sev-eral laws aiming to stamp out the age-old practice of manual scav-enging, the latest in 2013.

But many scavengers are still used through subcontractors.

In rural areas, women “scav-

engers” clean out primitive non-fl ush toilets with basic tools, although the practice is now on the wane.

Pathak also unveiled a giant Indian-style toilet pot to raise awareness about sanitation in a country where some 150mn peo-ple do not have home toilets.

New machine aims to end sewer death shame

IANSPanaji

The opposition Congress and several NGOs will join a rally in Panaji to

demand the resignation of ail-ing Goa Chief Minister Mano-har Parrikar, an organiser of the march said yesterday.

“The march will be held to-morrow. Social activist Rajan Ghate, who is on an indefi nite hunger strike, will lead the march to Parrikar’s residence in Dona Paula. The march will be attended by NGOs, leading individuals and some politi-cal parties, including the Con-gress,” organiser Aires Rod-rigues, a lawyer, told reporters.

Goa Congress president Girish Chodankar confi rmed his participation.

Ghate has been on a hunger strike for the past four days at the Panaji city square, de-manding that Parrikar, who is suff ering from advanced pan-creatic cancer and has been un-able to attend offi ce for several months, resign and hand over charge.

Parrikar has been in and out of hospitals in Goa, Mumbai, New York and Delhi for nearly nine months.

He returned from New Del-hi’s All India Institute of Medi-cal Sciences on October 14 and has not moved out of his private residence.

Apart from the opposition, which has been demanding his resignation for several months now, cabinet ministers from the ruling alliance conceded on Saturday that Parrikar’s ab-sence from offi ce had brought the state administration to a standstill.

Meanwhile a ruling Bharatiya Janata Party legislator said Par-rikar will address the media in three days to clear the air over the ongoing mining impasse in the state.

“I think chief minister should come out and tell properly. He is the right person because he is the minister of mines and CM of state,” Michael Lobo, the as-sembly deputy speaker, said.

“In the next two, three days the chief minister will address a press conference and tell whether it (mining) is going to

happen or not,” Lobo added.Lobo’s comment comes on

a day when a leading national daily published a story quoting a letter from the federal Law Ministry to the Mines Minis-try, that the central Mines and Minerals Development and Regulation Act, which man-dates auctioning as the only route for allotment of iron ore mining leases, cannot be amended - as requested by the Goa government - to facilitate renewal of the state’s mining leases to existing lease holders.

The letter, according to the news report, was sent to the Mines Ministry last month.

The Congress has already upped the ante on the issue, accusing Parrikar as well as the state BJP of trying to hide the fact that the Law Ministry had already rejected the chief min-ister’s request for amendment.

Mining in Goa was banned in February this year by the Su-preme Court, faulting the state government for irregularities in granting second renewals of 88 mining leases, while also di-recting the state government to allot fresh mining licences.


INDIA

The liver and kidneys of a 13-year-old brain-dead girl were transported through a 170km-long green corridor to Kolkata, saving three lives, off icials said yesterday. “The organs of Madhusmita Bayen were transported from Durgapur Mission Hospital in West Burdwan district to Kolkata’s SSKM Hospital through a green corridor on Sunday night. The distance covered was nearly 170km,” a doctor said. While the two kidneys were transplanted into Abhishek Misra and Mithun Dalal early yesterday, the liver was received by Sanjit Bala, admitted in the same hospital, the doctor said. Madhusmita had slipped into coma a few days ago and was declared brain dead on Saturday. “The transplants were successful. The recipients have been kept under observation for the next 72 hours,” the doctor added.

The Delhi High Court yesterday allowed the Unique Identification Authority of India’s appeal seeking more time to file a response on a plea seeking exemplary damages for the losses caused due to leakage of Aadhaar data. A bench of Justice S Ravindra Bhat and Justice Prateek Jalan listed the matter for February 14 for further hearing. The court was hearing a plea filed by Shamnad Basheer through advocate Siddharth Aggarwal alleging that the dissemination of personal information of Aadhaar holders made it clear that the government was responsible for any breach of right to informational privacy. The petitioner has said his constitutional rights have been violated due to the negligence of UIDAI. Citing the Supreme Court’s judgment, the petitioner said when the state violates the constitutional rights of a citizen, courts may award compensation.

A Delhi court yesterday sought former railway minister Lalu Prasad’s presence through video conferencing in a money laundering case related to the 2006 IRCTC hotels maintenance contract. Special Judge Arun Bhardwaj asked the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Enforcement Directorate (ED) to present him on December 20 through video-conferencing. He is being treated for various ailments at the Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) in Ranchi. He was in Ranchi’s Birsa Munda Central Jail after being convicted in December 2017 in the fodder scam. Later, he was shifted to RIMS for treatment. The Delhi court was hearing a case related to alleged irregularities in the allotment of contracts of the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corp (IRCTC) hotels in Ranchi and Puri in 2006 to a private firm.

A New Delhi court yesterday dismissed Congress leader Motilal Vora’s plea seeking to restrain Bharatiya Janata Party leader Subramanian Swamy’s tweets on the ongoing National Herald case. Vora, in his plea, has alleged that Swamy is trying to influence the proceedings and doing character assassination of the accused by tweeting. Swamy denied the allegations. Swamy had filed a complaint about ‘cheating’ in the acquisition of Associated Journals Limited (AJL), which published the National Herald newspaper, by Young Indian, a firm in which Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi each own a 38% stake. Swamy had accused them of allegedly conspiring to cheat and misappropriate funds by paying only Rs50 lakh, by which Young Indian Pvt Ltd obtained the right to recover Rs90.25 crore which AJL owed to the Congress.

Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh yesterday asked some ministers and senior off icials to resign if they are not concerned about people’s welfare. Biren Singh was visibly angry as only a handful of ministers, MLAs and off icials were present at a function held at the banquet hall of 1 Manipur Rifles in Imphal. The spacious hall was empty except for some elected members and off icials. Biren Singh said that the government had started giving due respect to all those little known and unsung heroes who had done so many things for the country. He said that some Nagas from Manipur had been sent on exile to Kalapani along with prince Kullachandra of Manipur during British occupation. He also recalled the leadership of former prime minister Indira Gandhi in maintaining the country’s integrity and her role in “Operation Blue Star” to flush out Sikh militants from the Golden Temple in 1984.

Organs of brain dead girl save three lives

HC grants more time to UIDAI to file response

Court wants Lalu’s presence through video conferencing

Court rejects plea seeking to restrain Swamy’s tweets

Manipur CM hits out at ministers, off icials

TRANSPLANT

DATA BREACHTRIAL JUDICIARY POLITICS

Malaria cases dropby 24% in India, says WHOIANS New Delhi

India has been identifi ed as the top country marking maximum progress in reduc-

ing malaria cases among the 11 highest burden countries, reg-istering a 24% decrease in 2017 compared to 2016, according to a World Health Organisation (WHO) report.

According to the WHO World Malaria Report 2018, India is the only high-burden country moving in a positive direction, with Odisha emerging as the best performing state in its fi ght against the disease.

The report suggests that ma-laria cases declined from 323,800 in 2017 (January-September) to 55,365 in 2018 for the same dura-tion, along with a drop in deaths to single digits in Odisha.

“Through innovations, such as improving healthcare worker skills, expanding access to di-agnostics and treatment and strengthening data collection, Odisha is doing what it takes to fi ght this preventable but deadly disease,” the WHO report said.

However, the report suggests that 1.25bn Indians still remain at the risk of getting diagnosed with malaria.

According to the WHO, ap-proximately 70% of the world’s malaria burden is concentrated in 11 countries - 10 in sub-Saharan Africa (Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Democratic Repub-lic of the Congo, Ghana, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Uganda and United Republic of Tanzania) and India.

In 2017, 151mn malaria cases and 274,000 deaths were re-ported in these 11 countries.

The report also reveals a pla-teauing trend in the number of people aff ected by malaria - in 2017, there were an estimated 219mn cases of malaria com-pared to 217mn the year before. Hindu activists protest following the arrest of devotees at Sabarimala temple, in Kochi yesterday.

Workers scrub a sewer cleaning machine on a truck before its unveiling during an event to celebrate World Toilet Day in New Delhi yesterday.

19Gulf TimesTuesday, November 20, 2018

INDIA

Modi inaugurates new Haryana expresswayIANS Gurugram

Prime Minister Narendra Modi yesterday inaugu-rated the Kundli-Manesar

section of the Kundli-Manesar-Palwal (KMP) Expressway in Haryana, and said it would help in reducing traffi c pollution in the national capital.

The 136.65km long six-lane expressway, which will provide an alternative route to motorists to go towards Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, will help in easing traffi c fl ow, especially of heavy vehicles, through Delhi.

Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar said the expressway would lead to more development of the National Capital Region (NCR). He said the 83km Kundli-Manesar section was completed four months ahead of the revised deadline.

The 53km Palwal-Manesar section was inaugurated in April 2016.

Modi dedicated the KMP Ex-pressway, also called as Western Peripheral Expressway, to people from Sultanpur village in Guru-gram district.

“Our government has un-dertaken the massive expan-sion of highways and railways in the country to bring more development. Everyday, 27km of highways are being made,” Modi said.

Taking a dig at the previ-ous government, Modi said the Bharatiya Janata Party govern-ments (in the Centre and states) were determined to get work ex-ecuted and completed compared to earlier when projects would just linger on.

“Work was going on on this (KMP) expressway for 12 years. You should have got this ex-pressway 8-9 years back. It was to be used during the (2010) New Delhi Commonwealth Games. This shows the work culture of the previous govern-ment which encouraged delays and wastage of public money,” Modi said.

CBI offi cer alleges Doval, CVC link in bribery caseIANSNew Delhi

The Congress yesterday targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi after a

senior Central Bureau of Inves-tigation offi cial alleged in the Supreme Court that National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and Central Vigilance Commissioner K V Chaudhary had interfered in the investigation against CBI Special Director Rakesh Asthana facing bribery charges.

In his application seeking quashing of his transfer to Nagpur on the dramatic night of October 23, CBI offi cial M K Sinha , who was probing the Asthana case be-fore being shunted out, also alleged that a “few crore of rupees was paid to Union Minister of State for Coal and Mines Haribhai Parthib-hai Chaudhari” by Sana Sathish Babu, a witness in the case against meat exporter Moin Qureshi.

Detailing his interrogation of Manoj Prasad, a middleman arrested in the Asthana case, Sinha said in the petition: “As per Manoj Prasad, Dineshwar Prasad, father of Manoj, retired as Joint Secretary, R&AW, and has close acquaintance with... NSA Ajit K Doval.

“This was one of the fi rst things Manoj claimed on be-ing brought to CBI HQ and ex-pressed complete surprise and anger as to how the CBI could pick him up, despite his close links with the NSA Doval.

“Prasad claimed that recently his brother Somesh and Samant Goel helped the NSA on an im-portant personal matter. He further claimed that India opted out of a contest from Interepol. Regarding genuineness of this claim of Manoj, no attempt was made to verify the claim regard-ing the NSA,” said the petition.

Expressing alarm over the as-sertions made by Sinha before

the court, Congress spokesman Randeep Singh Surjewala said “democracy was in peril and constitution in danger”.

“Deeply shocking revela-tions have surfaced in public domain, which puts a question mark on Prime Minister Modi, the functioning of PMO, allega-tions of bribery against a minis-ter and NSA helping the accused and CVC being named in these murky dealings,” Surjewala told reporters.

“The assertions have been made under oath before the Su-preme Court by someone who has been privy to relevant docu-ments and they expose the stench of corruption that pervades the Modi government,” he said.

Besides urging the court to order a separate probe into the allegations made against the top Modi government offi cials and ministers, the Congress leader said the party will raise the issue in parliament.

Last phase ofChhattisgarh elections to be held todayIANSRaipur

A three-way contest is in the offi ng as Chhattis-garh goes for the second

and concluding phase of assem-bly elections today for 72 seats spread across 19 districts.

The ruling Bharatiya Janatga Party wrestling it out with the opposition Congress and the Ajit Jogi-Mayawati-led alliance emerging as a formidable third front.

A total of 1,079 candidates are in the fray, and both Congress and BJP are contesting all the 72 seats.

The Mayawati-led Bahu-jan Samaj Party (BSP) is in the fray for 25 seats and its ally and former chief minister Jogi’s Janta Congress Chhattisgarh (J) is contesting from 46 seats.

The Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has fi elded candidates in 66 constituencies.

Polling will be held from 8am to 5pm in all 72 seats where an electorate of over 15mn, includ-ing over 7.7mn male and over 7.6mn female voters are eligible to exercise their franchise. There are nearly 1,000 voters from the third gender.

Elaborate security arrange-ments including use of helicop-ters and drone have been put in place for the polls to take place at over 19,000 polling booths and over a 100,000 security person-nel have been deployed.

For the Maoist-aff ected Gar-iaband, Dhamtari, Mahasamund, Kabirdham, Jashpur and Balram-pur districts, extra security ar-rangements have been made.

Carved out of Madhya Pradesh in 2000, the state where the BJP is in power since 2003 is wit-nessing a three-way poll battle for the fi rst time.

Jogi - who ruled the state for the fi rst three years as a Congress

chief minister, later fl oated his own outfi t and aligned with the BSP and the Communist Party of India - is perceived to impact the poll battle where the vote share diff erence between the BJP and the Congress was less than 1% in 2013.

In 2013, the BJP with 41.04% vote share won 49 seats, while the Congress got 38 with a vote share of 40.29% in the 90-member assembly.

Among the prominent faces in fray in the last phase are state Congress chief Bhupesh Baghel (Patan), Leader of Opposition in the assembly T S Singh Deo (Ambikapur) and former fed-eral minister Charandas Mahant (Shakti).

For the BJP, the list includes state ministers Brijmohan Agrawal (Raipur City South), Rajesh Munat (Raipur City West), Amar Agrawal (Bilaspur), Prem Prakash Pandey (Bhilai Nagar), Dayaldas Baghel (Nawa-garh) and state party president Dharamlal Kaushik (Bilha).

For the alliance, Jogi is in the fray from Marwahi, his wife Renu Jogi is contesting from Kota, while his daughter-in-law Richa Jogi is a BSP nominee from the Akaltara seat.

The high-decibel poll cam-paign which ended on Sunday, saw Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP president Amit Shah, Chief Minister Raman Singh and his Uttar Pradesh counterpart Yogi Adityanath raising the pitch for the party.

For the Congress, which look-ing to unseat the BJP, president Rahul Gandhi led from the front targeting Modi and the Raman Singh government over corrup-tion and agrarian distress.

Besides fl aying Modi for de-monetisation, Gandhi also dared the prime minister to speak up over the Rafale deal which the Congress calls to be India’s “big-gest defence scam”.

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu speaks to reporters as West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and other leaders look on yesterday.

Opposition to meet beforeparliament session: NaiduIANSKolkata

The much talked about meeting of parties op-posed to the Bharatiya Ja-

nata Party to strategise against the ruling party in the next Lok Sabha elections has been post-poned, senior leaders said yes-terday.

The meeting may now be held after the current assembly elections and before the start of the winter session of parlia-ment, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu and his West Bengal counter-part Mamata Banerjee said in Kolkata yesterday.

Claiming that democracy in the country was in danger, Naidu, who is also the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) chief, said that there was a “democratic

compulsion” for the senior op-position leaders to join hands to protect the nation.

Echoing his views, Baner-jee said the meeting of anti-BJP parties would be held after campaigning in the assembly elections and before the start of the winter session of parlia-ment.

“The meeting to be held on November 22 has been post-poned due to the ongoing elec-tion campaign. We want to meet before the next parliamentary session. We are in discussions about it. The date of the meet-ing will be announced soon,” Naidu told reporters following the two leaders’ meeting at the state secretariat Nabanna here.

“Democracy in the country is in danger. So there is a demo-cratic compulsion for us to join together. It is the responsibility of us, the senior leaders to pro-

tect the nation. Those who are opposing BJP will join together, discuss everything and chalk out a programme to go forward,” he said.

Naidu, whose TDP was ear-lier an ally of the BJP, has met a spectrum of leaders includ-ing Congress president Ra-hul Gandhi, Nationalist Con-gress Party’s Sharad Pawar, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam’s M K Stalin, National Confer-ence’ Farooq Abdullah, former prime minister and Janata Dal (Secular) chief H D Deve Gow-da and Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati to forge a front against the ruling party and had proposed a meeting of opposi-tion parties to be held in New Delhi on November 22.

Terming the meeting with Banerjee as successful, Naidu said fi ghting together has be-come necessary as all major

institutions in the country in-cluding the Central Bureau of Investigation, the Income Tax Department and the Reserve Bank of India are under threat while the nation’s economy is at a standstill.

“We have to protect the in-stitutions...you name any in-stitution, they are under severe pressure and threat. Be it the CBI, Income Tax, RBI every in-stitution is under threat. Even the petrol and diesel prices are increasing, there is infl ation, the whole nation’s economy is at a standstill,” he said.

Asked if Mayawati, who has refused to be a part of the “ma-hagatbandhan” if the Congress is included, will be considered as an ally, Naidu said, “All these things, we are going to discuss. We are in touch with Mayawati ji along with everybody else.”

Banerjee, the Trinamool

Congress supremo, said she has invited Naidu for her proposed opposition party meeting here in January next year, which was confi rmed by the TDP chief.

“We are grateful that he has come here. I invited him also for the January 19 meeting. We are discussing the matters for the country’s interest and earlier, we also discussed so many things. Today, we discussed in detail about the next future plans. When the meeting will be decid-ed, we will discuss the plan of ac-tion. We are working and speak-ing together,” Banerjee said.

Responding to a question re-garding who would be the face of the proposed grand alliance of opposition parties, Baner-jee said, “Everybody will be the face of this mahagatbandhan (grand alliance).” Naidu inter-jected to say that “all of us are senior to Modi”.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurates the expressway yesterday.

CAG report on note ban to be ready before budget sessionIANSNew Delhi

The Comptroller and Audi-tor General (CAG) is au-diting the impact of the

controversial demonetisation on India’s economy and may complete its report on it before the budget session of parliament early next year.

However, sources said since it will not be a full-fledged budget session with 2019 be-ing an election year, it is not clear if the government would

table the report in parliament.Last week, 60 retired bureau-

crats had written to the CAG, alleging that the report on de-monetisation was being “delib-erately” delayed to not “embar-rass” the central government till next year’s Lok Sabha elections.

Calling it an “unconscionable and unwarranted delay”, they said there was no sight of the audit report on demonetisation promised by the previous CAG Shashi Kant Sharma over 20 months ago.

Sources in the CAG offi ce said that while it was outside the

ambit of the national auditor to audit the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) or even the public sector banks, it was looking at issues which had a bearing on demon-etisation and on the impact that arose out of the disruptive ac-tion, executed on November 8, 2016.

“We don’t audit RBI. That is out of the ambit of the audit. We don’t have a mandate to au-dit RBI or even the public sector banks. Issues which have a bear-ing on demonetisation, those are being looked at and that comes in the report which is usually

tabled in the budget session,” a source said.

He said the fi ndings will be a part of Report Number 1, which is always presented in the budget session.

“But there is no full-fl edged budget session this time. We will send it when the report is due. Whether they (the government) lay it (on the table) or not, that is a diff erent thing,” the source said.

Former CAG Sharma had said in March last year that while demonetisation per se was a banking and money supply issue

outside the CAG’s audit jurisdic-tion, it was well within its rights to seek audit of the fi scal impact of the decision, especially its im-pact on tax revenues.

He said the audit report would cover linkages of demonetisa-tion with the public exchequer, expenditure on printing of notes, RBI dividend to the Consolidat-ed Fund, and the huge amount of data generated by banks and the Income Tax Department in the wake of the ban on Rs1,000 and Rs500 currency notes.

“It is more than 20 months since the previous CAG made

the above statement but there is no sight of the promised audit report on demonetisation,” the former bureaucrats told the CAG in their letter.

“An impression is gaining ground that the CAG is deliber-ately delaying its audit reports on demonetisation and the Ra-fale deal till after the May 2019 elections so as not to embarrass the present government,” they said.

They added that the CAG’s failure to present the audit re-ports in time may be seen as a partisan action and may create

a crisis of credibility for the in-stitution.

“In the past, the CAG has been criticised for nitpicking and fo-cusing on trivial issues on the one hand, and for audit over-reach on the other. But there was never any occasion to accuse the CAG of being infl uenced by the government of India or having to remind it about the timely per-formance of its constitutional duties,” they said in the letter.

Apart from the audit report on demonetisation, the report on Goods and Services Tax is also due during the budget session.

PAKISTAN


Prime Minister Imran Khan hit back yesterday at US President Donald Trump’s

claim that Islamabad does not do “a damn thing” for the US, call-ing on the US leader to name an ally which has sacrifi ced more against militancy.

“Record needs to be put straight on Mr Trump’s tirade against Pakistan,” Khan, a former World Cup cricketer, wrote in a series of tweets defending his country’s record in Washington’s war on terror.

The US president gave an in-terview to Fox News Sunday in which he said he cancelled as-sistance worth hundreds of mil-lions of dollars to Pakistan earlier this year because “they don’t do anything for us, they don’t do a damn thing for us”.

The friction threatens to fur-ther worsen already fragile re-lations between Islamabad and Washington.

Washington has long pres-sured Islamabad to crack down on militancy, accusing Pakistan of ignoring or even collaborat-ing with groups which attack Afghanistan from safe havens

along the border between the two countries.

Pakistan, which joined the US war on terror in 2001, says it has paid the price for the alliance.

“Pakistan suff ered 75,000 cas-

ualties in this war & over $123bn was lost to economy. US ‘aid’ was a miniscule $20bn,” Khan tweet-ed yesterday. “Our tribal areas were devastated & millions of ppl uprooted from their homes. The war drastically impacted lives of ordinary Pakistanis.”

He also noted that Pakistan continues to provide the US with supply lines into Afghanistan, adding: “Can Mr Trump name another ally that gave such sac-rifi ces?”

Instead of making Pakistan “a scapegoat for their failures”, the US should do a serious assess-ment of “why the Taliban today are stronger than before”, he con-cluded.

Trump also told Fox News host Chris Wallace that Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden had lived “beautifully in Pakistan and what I guess in what they considered a nice mansion, I don’t know, I’ve seen nicer”.

“Living in Pakistan right next to the military academy, every-body in Pakistan knew he was there,” he said, according to a

transcript of the interview.Bin Laden was found to be hid-

ing in the Pakistani city of Ab-bottabad, where he was killed in a raid by US Navy Seals in 2011 in an incident that sent relations between the wayward allies to a new low.

Critics have said US aid over the years to Pakistan has not yielded desired strategy goals for Washington, something Trump seems to have taken on board as he moves to cut assistance, al-ready reducing payments worth some $800mn.

“They were just one of many countries that take from the United States without giving anything in return. That’s END-ING!” Trump wrote on Twitter yesterday.

Pakistan denies support-ing Afghan Taliban insurgents waging war against US-backed troops in Afghanistan, and Is-lamabad has also always rejected claims that offi cials aided bin Laden.

Khan did not respond to Trump’s bin Laden comments.

PM Imran hits backafter Trump ‘tirade’AFP/Reuters/DPAIslamabad/Washington

Prime Minister Khan: Can Mr Trump name another ally that gave such sacrifices?

In the past few weeks, thou-sands of shopkeepers of the Empress Market in Pakistan’s

Karachi have witnessed the de-mise of their livelihood after the Supreme Court directed the au-thorities to take action against encroachments, resulting in their shops being razed.

Now heritage experts have raised alarm over the govern-ment’s decision to start a mission of sandblast cleaning the stone materials of the heritage monu-ment.

Without any input from his-torians, urban planners, and heritage consultants, the “beau-tifi cation” plan of the iconic British-era structure to restore its original shape has been de-nounced and labelled as “vandal-ism and insensitive”.

Architect and heritage con-sultant Marvi Mazhar severely criticised the move by the gov-ernment: “Who are the people working on the building? Were they given workshops on how to deal with heritage? Is there a committee which knows and has a plan about what restoration will look like? Did they even docu-ment the building before this brutal ‘preservation’?”

She explained how the recent interventions seem to be devoid of archival and on-site research, which in no way will increase the lifespan of the building to last another 20 years.

It has been a few days since the government’s latest intervention to clean the building, she said, adding: “Gushing water was fi rst used to wash the building, which broke the windows. Even the

glass pane of the clock tower has been damaged. Also, stone is a porous material, and it ‘breathes’, so chemicals must not be used on it.

“There needs to be a step-by-step analysis of the building … immediate therapy is not needed as the building needs a proper in-vestigation.”

Sandblasting makes building vulnerable, she said.

“Cleaning an old building is not always bad, but the methods used can be disastrous. Sand-blasting is a particularly destruc-tive process, and has long been an ongoing discussion for peo-ple who are concerned with the preservation of old buildings.

“Studying precedents from South Asia, many projects have been denied approval because they used sandblasting or oth-er destructive techniques that damaged historic buildings,” she explained.

The current intervention boils down merely to beautifi cation, she said.

“There are just very basic guidelines and regulations in the law on how to go about with re-gards to preservation of heritage buildings in the province.

“With regards to Empress Market, was there a condition survey report developed post-encroachment removal drive? Do they have internal and external reports on the building which will help in developing preser-vation strategy? The question of minimal damage to historic fab-ric is critical at this point.”

Mazhar put forward sugges-tions on what the government must immediately do.

“They must develop an Em-press Market heritage consult-ant committee and appoint a

heritage consultant for legal and professional advisory for on-site interventions.

“There is a need to document and develop a condition survey report of the current condition of the building so that a strategy can be developed for its usage and project planning for the future.

“Also, workshops heritage awareness should be held to train artisans and craftsman to work on heritage buildings.”

Professor Anila Naeem, head of the architecture and planning department at the NED Univer-sity of Engineering and Technol-ogy, questioned the rushed inter-ventions by government offi cials at the Empress Market.

Naeem, who is also a member of the technical committee for heritage on Sindh, which comes under the culture department,

explained that such conserva-tion projects should be based on pre-intervention research and by evaluating the state of preserva-tion of the existing building.

However, none of this was done by the Karachi Metropoli-tan Corporation (KMC) or the Sindh government.

“According to the Sindh Cul-tural Heritage (Preservation) Act, listed heritage buildings, such as the Empress Market, require a scheme of interventions: a pro-posal needs to be sent to the her-itage committee for review, and then a no-objection certifi cate (NOC) has to be issued.

“In the case of the Empress Market, an NOC has not been is-sued. From the looks of it, there also seem to be no conservation architects involved, and the KMC team has no idea about the cor-

rect conservation methods.”Similar interventions have

been done before on the Empress Market as a result of which the problems of the stone have ag-gravated, she said, adding: “The approach is always cosmetic as with other heritage projects in Sindh. All over the province there has been bad restoration work done by government-based or-ganisations.”

The Empress Market in previ-ous interventions was plastered with cement which caused ex-tensive stone damage; a few years later the same was done again, arbitrarily, without involving ex-perts.

The recent interventions on the Flagstaff House saw similar restorations techniques in which a yellow colour was used which destroyed the look of the build-ing.

“Diff erent categories of stone deterioration need diff erent rem-edies; it is not the same for the entire building. Cleaning of stone technically needs mapping and analysis of stone damage.

“However, colour or sand-blasting tends to be the go-to conservation techniques for his-toric buildings in Karachi and other parts of Sindh,” she added.

The idea of a bazaar, which is a very signifi cant part of local cul-ture, is also being dissolved with ideas being fl oated by govern-ment offi cials that restaurants or art galleries will be established, apart from other commercial activities, within the Empress Market.

Instead of celebrating the con-cept of a bazaar, which is prac-tised in so many other parts of the world and attracts thousands of tourists, heritage experts say that an alien concept is being forced upon the cultural fabric of Karachi.

Scepticism over Empress Market ‘beautifi cation’ planInternewsKarachi

A worker uses a sandblasting technique to clean the British-era Empress Market building, constructed between 1884 and 1889, in Karachi.

As part of the grand operation to remove heavy

encroachments in Saddar and adjoining areas of

Karachi, the authorities demolished 200 more

shops, a restaurant and a bus terminal yesterday.

“No encroachment can be allowed on city pave-

ments, roads and parks after clear instructions of

the Supreme Court,” said Mayor Wasim Akhtar,

who is spearheading the anti-encroachment

operation.

He said the country’s worst and hardest en-

croachments were removed in Saddar with the

help and co-operation of various civic organisa-

tions, and law enforcement agencies.

“That is why this action is smooth and continues

without hurdles. The removal of encroachments

will continue in other neighbourhoods of the city

as well without any leniency and discrimination.”

He asked shopkeepers to take away their

belongings put on footpaths, or risk the wares

being confiscated, and “you, yourself would be

responsible for the loss”.

Metropolitan Commissioner Dr Saifur Rehman

said that 122 shops, illegally built on the storm-

water drain behind the Rainbow Centre along

Sohrab Katrik Road, were demolished.

Nearby, on the road connecting Preedy Street,

another 50 shops were razed.

He said more than 20 off ices along with an inter-

city bus terminal, called Shalimar Bus Adda, were

demolished.

A restaurant and eight shops built on the

footpath near Bambino Cinema on Aga Khan III

Road, and more than 20 shops near the Saddar

Fire Station, were also demolished.

“The operation continued for several hours

today, in which our teams have torn down more

than 200 shops, a restaurant and a bus termi-

nus,” Rehman said.

He said the operation entered its third week

yesterday, and “we still need a great deal to ac-

complish this task”.

Off icials said that the removal of encroachments

along both tracks of the Karachi Circular Railway

is also being planned.

They said the encroachers had created a mess

for pedestrians and earning millions of rupees.

“We will bring Karachi into its original shape for

which we already have the support of citizens

and traders community,” said an upbeat Mayor

Akhtar.

During his visit to various parts of Saddar, he

interacted with people in the area and inspected

the proceedings.

Off icials said the citizens thanked the mayor for

removing encroachments in Saddar and bring-

ing the iconic Empress Market to its original

shape.

Akhtar admits that there is resistance to the

eff orts, but noted that there is always opposition

when one did something good.

“Most shopkeepers and traders have co-oper-

ated in this campaign and vacated the space in

front of their shops or distanced from drains,

footpaths and parks after receiving notices from

the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC), for

which we are thankful to them.”

He said it is the duty of the KMC to bring the

glory of the teeming city back, which needed

joint eff orts from all citizens.

Rehman said that the removal of encroach-

ments is being carried out peacefully without

discrimination.

He said although there was some resistance at

some places, the situation was overcome with

the help of the police and paramilitary Rangers.

200 more shops razed in Karachi in city authority’s anti-encroachment campaign

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government plans to restructure the

Federal Service Tribunal (FST) in order to reduce burden on the high courts and the Su-preme Court.

The proposal to empower the FST to hear appeals against orders related to service peti-tions is among the 100-day agenda of the law and justice ministry.

The FST was constituted under Article 212 of the Con-stitution to adjudicate matters relating to the terms and con-ditions of civil servants.

The primary objective of the establishment of the tribunal was to provide an independent and autonomous forum for ad-judication of disputes relating to government employees.

The tribunal has its head-quarters in Islamabad, with two camp offi ces in Lahore and Karachi.

Headed by a chairman, the FST members, who are experi-enced administrators, district and sessions judges or senior advocates of high courts, are appointed by the president.

At present, a civil servant can only fi le a petition against an adverse order by their re-spective departments or min-istries.

Since the existing law is ap-parently not suffi cient to ad-dress grievances of civil serv-ants and employees working in corporations and autonomous bodies, they tend to approach the high courts for relief.

While the FST has no ap-pellate jurisdiction, the gov-ernment servants or the fed-eral government fi le appeals against the tribunal’s orders in the Supreme Court.

Clause 3 of Article 212 says: “An appeal to the Supreme Court from a judgment, decree, order or sentence of an admin-istrative court or tribunal shall lie only if the Supreme Court, being satisfi ed that the case involves a substantial question of law of public importance, grants leave to appeal.”

According to Federal Law Barrister Farogh Naseem, the government has proposed an amendment to the FST Act to empower the tribunal to hear appeals as well.

Naseem said the FST’s juris-diction would be expanded and

there would be two jurisdic-tions of the tribunal – original and appellate.

The FST will entertain rou-tine service petitions under its original jurisdiction.

A judgment, decree and or-der of sentence issued by the FST will be challenged in the tribunal.

Such a mechanism is already in place in the high courts, where a two-member division bench hears an appeal against an order of a single-member bench.

The minister expressed the hope that by providing the right to appeal within the FST, the burden on the Supreme Court would be reduced since the grievance of the petition-er or the federal government would easily be addressed in the tribunal.

Currently, 4,456 cases are pending adjudication in the FST headquarters in Islamabad and its camp offi ces in Lahore and Karachi.

An FST offi cial said that un-der the proposed amendment, the employees of corporations and autonomous bodies who approach the high courts may also fi le petitions in the FST.

The tribunal charges no fee from appellants/civil serv-ants for fi ling appeals or other documents.

However, a nominal of Rs100 as cash security and Rs60 per respondent as cost of service. The cash security is refund-able.

Litigants are also allowed to argue their cases themselves without hiring the services of an advocate.

The offi cial, however, said in case the law is amended, there would be a sharp increase in the number of cases, and in order to decide these cases, the sanctioned number of FST members would have to be in-creased.

At present, there are 10 members in the FST, including the chairman.

The Establishment Divi-sion has recently approved two more seats for the FST.

Lawyers who deal with FST cases termed the proposed amendment a positive devel-opment, but some senior bu-reaucrats are of the opinion that it would be counterpro-ductive since the FST members cannot make decisions with the same impartiality and in-dependence as judges of the superior courts.

Federal ServiceTribunal to be ableto hear appealsInternewsIslamabad

Former Sindh governor Mohamed Zubair has claimed that former

prime minister Nawaz Sharif and his daughter, Maryam Na-waz, are staying silent because they do not want any problems out of the court.

He said the two are fi ghting their cases in the courts and do not want any problems, adding that they do not want to off end certain stakeholders.

Zubair said that the silence should not be misconstrued as resulting from a deal.

He shared that Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz (PML-N) is giving the incum-bent government time so that it can function and deliver on promises made to the people before elections.

With regard to speculation of a change in Nawaz Sharif’s narrative, Zubair said that Sharif and Maryam would not change their narrative.

He said that that narrative

was adopted in view of the general elections.

Nawaz Sharif and Maryam Nawaz have kept out of the spotlight since the suspension of their sentence in the Aven-fi eld case back in September.

Their silence was perceived in political circles as an out-come of a “deal with certain quarters”.

The PML-N has associ-ated the duo’s silence with the death of former premier’s wife, Begum Kulsoom Nawaz, who died on September 11, explain-ing that the two would observe a 40-day period of grief.

However, Sharif and Mar-yam have remained silent be-yond the 40 days.

Senior PML-N Rana Sanaul-lah insisted that the two are not silent out of any fear, adding that leaders of their stature do not speak without reason.

He said they will address the public when the party runs a campaign against the govern-ment.

Sanaullah added that they would address the public when the time is right.

Sharifs’ silence to ‘avoid problems’InternewsLahore

Government to initiate mental healthprogramme for women in prison

The human rights ministry has decided to start female mental health programme for women in prisons.A ministry off icial said that the new programme would provide assistance to the female prisoners facing mental health issues.He said that the government is also planning a campaign to create awareness regarding the mental health issues.He said that by improving mental health and providing a conducive atmosphere to female prisoners, they would be able to become active, contributing members of society.

PHILIPPINES21Gulf Times


Duterte’s call to end ‘adventurism’ in South China SeaManila TimesManila

President Rodrigo Duterte has called on nations to desist “adventurism” in South China Sea, as he reaffi rmed the

importance of peace and stability in the dis-puted sea, Malacanang said a day before Chi-nese President Xi Jinping’s state visit.

Duterte made the call during the recently concluded 33rd Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) Summit and Related Summits in Singapore, where he urged his fellow Southeast Asian leaders and their dia-logue partners to refrain from carrying out acts that may further escalate tensions in the disputed sea.

“In his national statement, the president reaffi rmed the need to maintain and promote peace, stability, security, safety and freedom of navigation and overfl ight in the South Chi-na Sea and stressed the need to exercise self-restraint and avoid actions that may further complicate the situation,” Malacañang said in a statement.

“The president asserted that aggressive moves by nations can worsen the situation with damage that could be exponential. The president urged stakeholders to desist from adventurism in the South China Sea,” it add-ed. The Philippines is the country co-ordi-nator for the Asean-China dialogue.

Manila, one of claimants to a number of features in the disputed waters which it calls the West Philippine Sea, scored a victory against China in 2016 before a United Na-tions-backed tribunal that invalidated Bei-jing’s “nine-dash line” claim to the vital sea lane. Under Duterte’s leadership, however, the Philippines has refused to fl aunt the vic-tory and antagonise China, in exchange for better economic ties with the world’s second largest economy.

Duterte, as country co-ordinator for Asean-China dialogue relations, maintained that a code of conduct (CoC) in the South China Sea should be implemented at the soonest time possible.

“He (Duterte) reaffi rmed Asean and Chi-na’s shared commitment to the full and ef-fective implementation of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea,” the Palace said.

“While noting the steady progress in the negotiations on a code of conduct in the

South China Sea, President Duterte called on all parties to work together for the early con-clusion of an eff ective and substantive CoC,” it added.

In an op-ed piece published in Philippine newspapers ahead of his two-day state visit, President Xi said Manila and Beijing should “make the South China Sea a sea of peace, friendship and co-operation.”

“We need to deepen political mutual trust to sustain the growth of China-Phil-ippine relations. China wishes to work with the Philippines to draw up blueprints for our future relations with a broader per-spective, and strengthen strategic commu-nication on bilateral ties and major regional and international issues. We need to prop-erly handle differences through friendly consultations, enhance dialogue and co-operation on maritime issues, and make the South China Sea a sea of peace, friendship and co-operation that truly benefits our two peoples,” Xi said.

The Chinese leader noted that “Since President Duterte took offi ce, China and the Philippines have re-engaged in dialogue and consultation for the proper handling of the South China Sea issue.”

“Our relations have now seen a rainbow after the rain. In just a little more than two years, China has become the Philippines’ largest trading partner, largest export mar-

ket and largest source of imports, and the second largest source of tourists. There has been a surge of interest for private invest-ment in each other’s countries, and interac-tions between our cultural groups have been frequent,” he said.

“More and more Philippine fruits are com-ing to the dining table in Chinese households, and a growing number of Philippine scenic spots are being included in the itinerary of Chinese tourists. China fi rmly supports the Philippines’ fi ght against drugs and terror-ism and its post-confl ict reconstruction ef-forts in Marawi, thus contributing to peace in the country. In the face of disasters, our two peoples have stood together and come to each other’s help, writing new chapters of friendship between our two countries,” he added.

Malacanang noted that during the Asean meetings, “the Philippines clearly articu-lated its principled position on the need for a rules-based order in the region while under-scoring the imperative for security and sta-bility as necessary conditions for sustained growth and development.”

It said the president emphasised the need to sustain Asean eff orts toward building a “resilient and innovative” region, while un-derscoring the need for developing relations with dialogue partners based on “mutual re-spect for sovereignty.”

Duterte: wants nations to end adventurism

Members of the Manila Police District bomb squad take security measures in Manila for the upcoming state visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Courts, govt offi ces in Manila to suspend work over Xi visitManila TimesManila

Acting Chief Justice An-tonio Carpio has can-celled work in all courts

in Manila today, following the suspension of classes and city government work in the capi-tal for the state visit of Chi-nese President Xi Jinping.

Carpio’s order effectively cancelled work in the Su-preme Court, the Court of Appeals and all trial courts in Manila, including the Ma-nila Regional Trial Court and Manila Metropolitan Trial Courts. The regular en banc or full-court session of the Supreme Court today was also cancelled.

Several roads in Manila will be closed from 6am today.

The Manila District Traffic Enforcement Unit (MDTEU) warned motorists of heavy traffic and advised them to take alternate routes as the Chinese leader was scheduled

to lay a wreath at the Rizal Monument in Rizal Park upon his arrival.

All motorists from the northern part of Manila and intending to use the Roxas Boulevard’s southbound lane should take A Soriano, go straight Magallanes Drive, turn right to P Burgos, and go straight to Lagusnilad (Taft Avenue).

All vehicles from FB Har-rison Street should turn right to P Ocampo or go straight to Mabini. All vehicles from Jones, McArthur and Quezon bridges going to Roxas Boul-evard via P. Burgos should go straight to Taft Avenue. Other route diversions have also been issued.

Malacanang yesterday said the visit of President Xi to the country would be an oppor-tunity to “further strengthen and sustain our bilateral rela-tions with the foreign coun-try.”

Xi’s visit will be first time by a Chinese leader since

2005. In a statement, Palace spokesman Salvador Pan-elo said the visit would be a “turning point” in both coun-tries’ histories.

Panelo said the relations between Manila and Beijing “surged forward the vision-ary leadership of President Duterte.”

“China is now considered a top trading partner of the Philippines, a leading export market for the Philippines, and one of the largest tour-ist origins to the Philippines,” Panelo said.

He then lauded Xi’s efforts to promote peace and stability in Asia through dialogue and consultations in handling the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea) issue.

“Indeed, amity solves in-ternational disputes and even forges a more powerful alli-ance between both countries against threats to security, in-cluding terrorism, violent ex-tremism, criminality, and the drug menace,” he said.

Employees of the Department of Public Works and Highways clean a portion of the Araneta Underpass in Cubao, Quezon City, where the paint had been blackened by soot.

Clean-up campaignSuspected IS-allied militants killedDPA Manila

Two suspected Islamic State-allied militants were killed yesterday in

a shootout with police and sol-diers in the southern Philippines while transporting a homemade bomb, police said.

The shootout began when the suspects opened fi re at security forces as they passed a check-point in Tacurong City in Sultan Kudarat province, 967 kilome-tres south of Manila.

Troops chased the vehicle and cornered the suspects, trigger-ing the fi refi ght that killed the two militants, police said in a report. The military and police had set up checkpoints in the province after receiving infor-mation that militants allied with the Islamic State terrorist group would be transporting impro-vised explosive devices.

Police investigators confi scat-ed a homemade bomb, a pistol, a submachine gun and a black Islamic State fl ag from the sus-pects’ vehicle, the report said.

Last year, IS-allied militants laid siege to the southern city of Marawi, triggering a fi ve-month battle that killed more than 1,200 people and displaced over half a million people.

Troops killed the leaders of the siege, including Isnilon Hapilon, the head of the notorious Abu Sayyaf group and the reported leader of IS in South-East Asia.

The Abu Sayyaf group has been blamed for some of the worst ter-rorist attacks in the country as well as high-profi le kidnappings and hostage beheadings.

Rebel leader visits army HQDPAManila

The leader of the largest rebel group in the south-ern Philippines visited

yesterday the headquarters of the country’s military for the fi rst time since he joined the insurgency more than four dec-ades ago.

Ebrahim Murad, chairman of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), said his visit to Camp Aguinaldo in Manila was a “concrete manifestation” of

the partnership forged between the two forces while working for peace in the southern region of Mindanao.

The MILF has been fi ght-ing for an independent Islamic state in Mindanao since the late 1970s, but signed a peace agreement with the Philippine government in 2014 after dec-ades of confl ict which has left thousands dead.

“More than four decades ago, I walked out of a university without completing my engi-neering degree,” he said.

“Since then, I have avoid-

ed military installations and camps. And to be very candid, during those years of war, I have thought only of destroying or neutralising military camps,” he added. “I never imagined dur-ing those dark days that I will one day step inside a military camp and be feted with this ex-ceptional honour by what used to be our adversary.”

During his visit, Murad met with armed forces Chief of Staff General Carlito Galvez to discuss security co-operation ahead of a plebiscite next year to establish a new autonomous

entity in Mindanao. Galvez said he assured Murad that even if he is scheduled to retire soon, the military will remain committed to pursuing peace and develop-ment in Mindanao.

“The armed forces of the Philippines, being a dynamic organisation, will keep chang-ing leadership, but rest assured that it will continue to sup-port the peace process with the MILF,” he said.

The creation of the new Bangsamoro Autonomous Re-gion was a key provision of the 2014 peace agreement.

President dismisses three social welfare department offi cialsBy Ralph VillanuevaManila Times

President Rodrigo Du-terte has fi red three left-leaning undersec-

retaries at the Department of Social Welfare and Develop-ment (DSWD), the agency said yesterday.

In a statement, the DSWD said Undersecretary for Pro-tective Programs Mae Fe Templa and Undersecretary for Promotive Programs Mar-ia Lourdes Turalde-Jarabe stepped down from their posts on November 14 following “orders from Malacanang.”

Hope Hervilla, undersecre-tary for the department’s dis-aster response management group, resigned on the same day, the DSWD said.

Executive Secretary Salva-dor Medialdea, in a message to reporters, said Rolando Bautista, the former Philip-pine Army chief appointed as the new head of DSWD, re-quested the personnel chang-es.

“We expect the new secre-tary to bring his own team to provide better services to the public,” he said.

Medialdea denied that the exit of the three DSWD offi -cials had something to do with their political inclinations.

It was for the “formation of a good team,” he said.

Assistant Secretary Glenda Relova of the Offi ce of the Sec-retary assured the public that the delivery of DSWD services would continue.

Bautista replaced Judy Taguiwalo, a left-leaning former University of the Phil-ippines professor, whose

nomination was rejected by the Commission on Appoint-ments last year.

Last week, Duterte said he would sack a government of-fi cial upon his return from the Association of South East Asian Nations and the Asia-Pacifi c Economic Co-oper-ation Summits in Singapore and Papua New Guinea, re-spectively.

Just last month, Duterte sacked Labor Undersecretary Joel Maglunsod, a former Ana-kpawis party-list representa-tive and a political detainee during the Marcos regime.

National Anti-Poverty Commission chairman Liza Maza, a former Gabriela party-list representative, re-signed in August this year af-ter the president terminated peace talks between the gov-ernment and the Communist Party of the Philippines.

Former Kabataan party-list representative Terry Ridon was kicked out by Duterte from the Presidential Com-mission for the Urban Poor in December last year for alleg-edly excessive travels.

Duterte has fi red a number of government offi cials since June 2016 because of excessive foreign trips, as well as cor-ruption.

The list includes former De-partment of Interior and Lo-cal Government chief Ismael Sueno; National Irrigation Administration chief Peter Lavina; Social Security System commissioner Jose Gabriel “Pompee” Lavina; Maritime

Industry Authority Admin-istrator Marcial Quirico Am-aro 3rd and Commission on Higher Education chief Patri-cia Licuanan.


COMMENT22

To Advertise [email protected]

Display 44466621 44418811

Classified 44466609 44418811

Subscription [email protected]

© 2018 Gulf Times. All rights reserved

Zverev, Khachanov can challenge the big guns in 2019

It has been a long time since the world of tennis excitedly discussed the prospect of a young crop of tyros springing up to threaten the domination Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and to a certain extent Andy Murray and Stan Wawrinka have had on the game for more than 15 years.

Indeed there have been young players who have impressed occasionally, but most of them faded into obscurity after picking up a few titles without really making an impact on the Grand Slams. A few, like Marat Safi n, who won the Australian Open in 2005, and Juan Martin del Potro, who was the US open champion in 2009 are notable exceptions, having picked up a major each, but even they couldn’t reach their full potential for a variety of reasons.

But as we bid adieu to 2018 and prepare to welcome the new season, there are expectations that tennis fans can expect a tumult in the established order of things. While it can be argued that the “Big Four” are anyway on their way out due to age and health-related issues, there can be no denying that there are at least two players who can steal their thunder in 2019.

They are Alexander Zverev and Karen Khachanov, who this month created a sensation by winning two of the biggest tournaments outside of the Grand Slams.

While Russian Khachanov won the Paris Masters beating Djokovic in the fi nal, German Zverev last

Sunday, captured the season-ending ATP Finals, with Djokovic again the runner-up.

The 21-year-old Zverev has been talked of as the leader of a pack of hungry young tyros ever since he was a teenager.

But so far he has fl attered to deceive at the majors – with a run to the quarter-fi nals at this year’s French Open the only time he has made it past the fourth round of any of the four Slams.

He already has 10 titles under his belt including the ATP Finals and three Masters crowns but it was the manner of his win against Djokovic at London’s O2 Arena – overpowering the relentless Serb 6-4, 6-3 – that caught the eye on Sunday, a day after he triumphed in straight sets against Roger Federer.

“It’s quite astonishing, winning this title, beating two such players back-to-back, Roger and Novak, in semi-fi nals and fi nals,” he said.

Khachanov, 22, also had an excellent 2018, winning the Paris Masters and the ATP 250 events in Montpellier and Moscow. He was the fi rst alternate at the ATP Finals but couldn’t make it as none of the qualifi ers withdrew.

There can be no doubt that the emergence of Zverev and Khachanov is just what is needed to spice up men’s tennis.

Federer, Nadal and Djokovic have dominated the game for more than 15 years

GULF TIMES

P.O.Box 2888, Doha, Qatar

[email protected]

44350478 (News),

44466404 (Sport),

44466636 (Home delivery)

44350474

facebook.com/gulftimes

twitter.com/gulftimes_Qatar

CHAIRMANAbdullah bin Khalifa al-Attiyah

EDITOR-IN-CHIEFFaisal Abdulhameed al-Mudahka

Deputy Managing EditorK T Chacko

By Elizabeth Radin, Miriam Rabkin, and Wafaa El-SadrNew York

Global health is once again in the spotlight. In September, the United Nations General Assembly convened two

high-level meetings – one on ending tuberculosis (TB), and the other on fi ghting noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). It was the fi rst time ever that the UN featured two health crises so prominently on its annual agenda.

But with these discussions now over, the global health community must focus on securing the necessary political commitments to sustain international co-ordination and planning. One model worth emulating in the fi ght against both TB and NCDs is the approach taken to confront the HIV epidemic.

Since 2001, when the UN General Assembly hosted its fi rst meeting on HIV/Aids, the trajectory of the disease has shifted dramatically. Today, some 22mn people living with HIV are receiving treatment. As a result, annual Aids deaths have fallen by half – from 1.9mn in 2003 to 940,000 in 2017 – while the rate of new infection has decreased by nearly half in several of the hardest-hit countries. Eff orts to control TB and NCDs – which, like HIV/Aids, place a heavy burden on low- and middle-income countries – can leverage the lessons learned from the response to HIV.

Three lessons in particular stand out. First, as the global Aids response expanded, it faced the dual challenge of including hard-to-reach communities while continuing to support a growing number of patients receiving treatment. In response, HIV programmes have evolved to off er services shaped by the

preferences of patients. Such novel models of care also relieve the burden of large numbers of patients on health facilities and health workers.

For example, in several countries, stable patients who prefer to visit their health-care provider less often receive multi-month supplies of medications. In South Africa, where as many as 4.3mn people with HIV are receiving treatment, prescriptions can be refi lled at pharmacist-managed vending machines. In Lesotho, where people may live hours from a health facility, HIV testing is off ered in the home and, for those found to have HIV infection, community treatment is supported by local health workers.

A similar approach could be taken for TB and NCDs. For TB, this might mean longer gaps between checkups for patients who adhere to treatment and show no signs of drug resistance, while those experiencing side eff ects or who require more complex treatments could receive more intensive care. Likewise, patients with well-controlled NCDs who show no symptoms and are doing well on medications may need only occasional visits to a health-care provider, while those with more complicated cases could benefi t from closer medical monitoring and counselling.

Second, HIV programmes succeeded in part because they established goals for the entire “cascade of care” – from diagnosis to treatment.

For example, the “90-90-90” targets set by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/Aids (UNAIDS) – in which 90% of people living with HIV have been diagnosed, 90% of those diagnosed with HIV are on treatment, and 90% of those on treatment are virally suppressed – helped focus the global Aids response. In fact, models suggest that if these targets

are achieved, HIV will no longer be a public-health threat by the year 2030.

Setting targets is useful for benchmarking progress and identifying coverage gaps. For example, in many countries, the largest gap in the coverage of HIV services is in diagnosis, particularly of men and young people. As a result, many programmes now off er new options to reach these groups, such as confi dential workplace testing and self-testing. Another gap is among populations that are disenfranchised and stigmatised in some countries, such as men who have sex with men.

Targets along the cascade could be similarly benefi cial for controlling TB and NCDs. The Stop TB Partnership, for example, has proposed 90-(90)-90 treatment goals for the disease, although they have yet to be widely adopted. For NCDs, the focus is on achieving UN Sustainable Development Goal 3.4, which calls for a one-third reduction in premature deaths from such illnesses by 2030. But the latter goal is not disaggregated along the NCD care cascade of diagnosis and treatment. For example, it would be useful for programmes to monitor how many people with high blood pressure have been diagnosed and placed on treatment, what proportion of those on treatment have achieved blood-pressure control, and what treatment level would be required to reduce premature deaths by the desired target.

Finally, the Aids eff ort was able to expand as a result of strong advocacy and collaborations that reshaped markets for diagnostic and treatment programmes. By forecasting medication needs, aggregating orders, and promoting competition, in combination with intense advocacy, policymakers and providers were able to secure market effi ciencies. The resulting economies of scale allowed suppliers to shift from low-volume, high-

margin solutions to high-volume, low-margin profi t models. As a result, these eff orts reduced the cost of annual HIV treatments from more than $10,000 per patient in 2001 to less than $100 in 2016.

Likewise, controlling TB and NCDs will require making medications more convenient and aff ordable. While the TB response has leveraged strategic partnerships to expand coverage, large gaps remain, the largest being treatments for children and patients with drug-resistant TB. For NCDs, companies like Novartis, Pfi zer, and the Indian drug maker Cipla have made eff orts to bring aff ordable medicines to patients in Africa. But while donations may help stimulate initial demand, a more deliberate market approach will be needed to achieve price reductions. A multisectoral coalition launched in 2017 could help drive effi ciencies, but it will need additional support to succeed.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organisation, recently called on governments to increase their leadership and investments in health systems to fi ght TB and NCDs. But while more resources are no doubt needed, they must be accompanied by sound strategies that engage communities, guide programming, and scale up prevention and care. Best of all, with the Aids response blueprint already in hand, there is no need to reinvent the wheel. – Project Syndicate

Elizabeth Radin is Lecturer in Epidemiology and Technical Director of the PHIA Project at ICAP at Columbia University. Miriam Rabkin is a professor of medicine and epidemiology and Director of Health Systems Strategies at ICAP at Columbia University. Wafaa El-Sadr is Professor of Epidemiology and Medicine and Director of ICAP at Columbia University.

TB, NCDs, and thelessons of HIV

File photo of United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres addressing the opening segment of the Interactive Civil Society Hearing, part of the preparatory process towards the General Assembly High-level Meeting on Tuberculosis. PICTURE: Cia Pak / UN

COMMENT

Gulf Times Tuesday, November 20, 2018 23

Vaccinating against superbugsLive issues

By Seth Berkley and Jeremy FarrarGeneva

Whether you live below the poverty line in the slums of Karachi or work as a banker on Wall Street,

drug-resistant “superbugs” are among the gravest threats to your health. But while the problem is ubiquitous, we are not entirely defenceless. On the contrary, in the race to prevent antimicrobial resistance (AMR), the world has a potent if underused tool: vaccines.

One epidemic currently plaguing Pakistan illustrates vaccines’ potential. For two years, health professionals have been trying to contain an outbreak of extensively drug-resistant (XDR) typhoid. Cases linked to Pakistan have even been reported among travellers returning to the United States and the United Kingdom. Unfortunately, diagnosing XDR typhoid is diffi cult, and doctors

often prescribe antibiotics that are ineff ective. This, in turn, prolongs the length and severity of the illness, and can lead to death.

But what if doctors in Pakistan could prevent typhoid in the fi rst place? We believe they can. Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, is helping to distribute a new vaccine, and if the immunisation drive is successful, it will eventually lead to a reduction in unnecessary antibiotic use, which is the main factor fuelling the rise and spread of deadly superbugs everywhere.

Each year, some 700,000 people die from drug-resistant infections worldwide. But superbugs also pose a threat to the eff ectiveness of modern medicine; if left unaddressed, AMR could make more infections untreatable, cancer therapies ineff ective, routine surgeries impossible, and even childbirth unsafe.

We already know that vaccines help reduce the risk of AMR. For example, immunisations against bacterial

brain and lung infections – like childhood pneumococcal illnesses and Haemophilus infl uensae type b, or Hib – have dramatically reduced the disease burden in the US and around the world, lowering the need for antibiotics in the process. Most important, while superbugs develop resistance to medications, they do not become resistant to vaccines.

And yet, despite vaccines’ eff ectiveness in the fi ght against AMR, we are not taking full advantage of them. For example, global coverage for the Hib vaccine is 72%, but only about 44% of the world’s children receive the complete course of the pneumococcal vaccine. Universal vaccination for the pneumococcal vaccine alone would lead to an estimated annual reduction of 11.4 million days of antibiotics for children under fi ve.

Simply put, there is an urgent need to increase uptake of vaccines that are already available – including for typhoid – and to develop new ones. For existing vaccines, the top priority

should be to ensure universal access, which will require a huge expansion in international coordination. A new report commissioned by Wellcome highlights many further opportunities for vaccines to make a positive impact on global health and AMR.

The World Health Organisation has created a list of deadly pathogens that require new antibiotics, with those that cause salmonella, gonorrhoea, and shigella at the top. But vaccines are also needed to prevent these diseases in the fi rst place. To accomplish that goal – and stave off AMR in the process – signifi cantly more money must be spent on vaccine research and development. By increasing investments now, new vaccines will be available to help care providers stay ahead of superbugs. – Project Syndicate

Seth Berkley is CEO of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. Jeremy Farrar is Director of the Wellcome Trust, a global charitable foundation dedicated to improving health.

Rethinking animal agricultureBy Paul GildingTasmania

In mid-July, as a brutal drought decimated crops, some European dairy and meat farmers were forced to cull their herds early

to reduce the number of animals they needed to feed. Such desperate decisions will become routine in a world where heat waves will be longer, hotter, drier, and more frequent. That is why now is the right time to start a serious conversation about animal agriculture.

The animal agriculture industry is not only vulnerable to the observed and predicted eff ects of climate change; it is also a key contributor to the problem. In fact, the farming of animals for meat and dairy products accounts for 16.5% of global greenhouse-gas emissions.

Moreover, if we treated climate change as the emergency it is and were serious about slowing the pace of warming over the next 20 years, the proportional infl uence of livestock farming would be even greater. This is because the animal sector is responsible for a third of all anthropogenic methane and two-thirds of nitrous oxide emissions – both potent greenhouse gases that trap more heat than carbon dioxide.

Beyond climate pollution, a staggering 60% of all biodiversity loss is attributable to land-use changes

from animal cultivation, and as much as 80% of all land in farming is devoted either to raising animals or to growing their feed. There is also the stubborn reality that eating so many animals is making us less healthy.

We can do better without great sacrifi ce. According to recent research by Chatham House, for example, people in developed countries would accept reducing their meat intake if convenient and tasty alternatives were available for about the same price.

To be clear, I am not suggesting that everyone should become vegetarian or vegan (though it is indisputable that these diets are better for the environment, contribute less to climate change, and are healthier). Nor do I think that governments should mandate limits on meat consumption. But for policymakers who accept that there is little downside and signifi cant upside for most people in developed countries to reduce their meat intake, there are plenty of cost-eff ective solutions to nudge us in that direction.

For starters, governments can – and should – stop subsidising factory farming and the crops that fatten up factory-farmed animals for slaughter. By supporting polluting and inhumane practices, countries are literally paying companies to undermine the emissions targets set by the 2015 Paris climate agreement.

Instead, governments can – and should – shift subsidies to encourage the production of more climate-

neutral, protein-rich crops, like pulses and other legumes. By planting more beans, peas, and lentils, farmers would help combat climate change by lowering greenhouse-gas emissions, and would benefi t from crops that are more resilient to drier, warmer weather.

Government support can also be diverted from factory meat farms toward development of plant-based “meats” and other meat alternatives. The market for “clean meat” is nascent but burgeoning, and the public response has been overwhelmingly positive to some of the more advanced products on the market.

Still, just like the fossil-fuel industry, meat industry advocates have pushed policymakers to block the mainstreaming of alternatives. In many countries, lobbyists have even successfully championed the prohibition of meat-based names for plant-based products. For example, France recently banned terms like vegan “burger” and “steak” on the grounds that only animal meat could be either.

Such policies are a clear barrier to reducing meat consumption, and they contradict countries’ commitment to meet their Paris-agreement targets. The meat sector’s support for them puts it in the same role as the fossil-fuel industry, focused on nothing more than its own bottom line. Or can producers engage as a positive force in the transition away from meat?

When it comes to climate policy,

food and agriculture should be treated more like energy and transportation, both of which have clear guidance on how to address climate change and reduce emissions. Policies to limit the planet-warming eff ects of agriculture and food production are long overdue.

We are two years away from the fi rst major report to gauge progress under the Paris agreement. Countries will have to show what they have done and what they are doing to cut their emissions. But they will leave a huge part of the problem untouched if they fail to address the production and consumption of meat and dairy.

Meanwhile, European farmers will suff er through more droughts like the one they endured this summer, as will other food producers around the world. It will become harder and harder to farm meat and dairy products, and early culls will become the new normal. As with fossil fuels, our only choice is to overcome the industry’s defensive resistance and transform our food system so that it enables diets that are healthier, cleaner, and every bit as delicious. – Project Syndicate

Paul Gilding is co-founder of the Changing Markets Foundation, a fellow at the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, a former CEO of Greenpeace International, and author of The Great Disruption: How the Climate Crisis Will Transform the Global Economy.

The Dred Scott of climate change?By Robert DuggerWashington, DC

In 2015, 21 young people between the ages of 11 and 22 fi led a major lawsuit against the US government for failing to limit the

eff ects of climate change. In Juliana v. United States, the plaintiff s argue that because they will have to live with the repercussions of global warming for much longer than anyone else, on average, the government’s failure to protect the environment violates their constitutional rights to equal protection under the law and due process.

The philosopher Peter Singer points out that this case represents a historical turning point, because it addresses the rights of children and future Americans to a liveable environment. But the trial is about more than the environment; it will have far-reaching implications for intergenerational justice more broadly.

Consider the issue of public debt. There have always been moral objections to one generation burdening the next with excessive debt, eff ectively limiting young people’s future liberty by impinging on their ability to form families, educate children, and create wealth. With US federal defi cits rising toward $1tn a year, the issue is becoming cripplingly urgent.

In deciding Juliana v. United States, the Supreme Court must grapple with the fact that the US Constitution does not explicitly recognise future citizens. While it was the fi rst of many national constitutions to embody the Enlightenment principles that citizens are equal under the law and endowed with unalienable rights, it applies those principles only to living Americans. Future US citizens will have rights only after they are born.

That might sound reasonable. But if the interests of future Americans are not protected, powerful actors today can drain resources from the not-yet-born. The result is environmental degradation, unsustainable public debt, and generations of under-educated,

unemployable people who will have difficulty raising their own children to become productive adults.

One modern country does recognise this risk in its constitution: Germany. Article 20a of Germany’s Grundgesetz (Basic Law) stipulates that, “Mindful also of its responsibility toward future

generations, the state shall protect the natural foundations of life and animals by legislation and, in accordance with law and justice, by executive and judicial action…”

By demonstrating that younger living citizens suff er more than their older counterparts from short-sighted

fi scal and environmental policies, Juliana could be the fi rst step toward recognising a similar responsibility in the US. It is a small step, but one that could have far-reaching implications for policy, especially at a time when the president and his administration are actively pursuing policies that eff ectively loot the next generation. And, indeed, US President Donald Trump’s administration has resisted the case at every turn.

Earlier this year, a lower court ruled that the case could go to trial, and the trial was set to begin at the US District Court in Oregon, on October 29. But in late September, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts issued a temporary stay of the case to consider a request from the Justice Department to halt it altogether – a highly unusual move.

Fortunately, the Supreme Court decided to deny the government’s request and let the trial move forward. But the Trump administration is not giving up: it has now fi led dismissal appeals with the US District Court in Oregon and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

Trump administration attorneys insist that the case is “nonjusticiable,” meaning that the courts are not the proper venue to resolve the issues in Juliana; even if this was not the case, they continue, the plaintiff s lack standing to sue. The US federal courts from the district level up to the Supreme Court – all of which have already ruled that the case should go to trial – clearly disagree.

There are parallels between Juliana v. United States and the Supreme Court’s infamous decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford. Scott, a slave, sued for his and his family’s freedom in 1857 – eight years before the US Constitution’s 13th Amendment abolished slavery. Chief Justice Roger B Taney ruled that slaves and their descendants were “beings

of an inferior order” who had “no rights which the white man was bound to respect.” Scott, therefore, had no standing to sue in federal court.

Will Kelsey Juliana, the chief plaintiff in the federal suit, also be denied? Already, in the US Supreme Court’s comments about Juliana, there are echoes of Dred Scott.

Ultimately, however, the Dred Scott ruling was out of touch not only with basic morality, but also with the growing economic and cultural power of the North and the direction of US history. That is what we are seeing today, both in the Trump administration’s claims that Juliana is nonjusticiable, and in US law’s antiquated failure to recognise future Americans’ rights to a liveable environment, unburdened by excessive debt.

Opponents of Juliana, including the politically infl uential energy industry, cynically hope that they can succeed in getting the case dismissed and put generational rights in the hands of a deeply divided – and, for powerful vested interests, pliable – Congress. Like the opponents of emancipation in the 1850s, they count success in terms of the few months or years they can continue to benefi t from the Constitution’s lacunae. And they may well be able to hold onto the past a little longer. When it came to abolishing slavery, the US trailed the United Kingdom by more than 30 years – a delay that only made matters worse in the mid-1800s.

But the direction of history is clear. The tide is turning against permitting living citizens to exploit their children and grandchildren. In this sense, whatever the outcome, Juliana v. United States is just the beginning. – Project Syndicate

Robert Dugger is managing partner at Hanover Provident Capital.

US President Donald Trump surveys homes destroyed by the Woolsey fire with California Governor-elect Gavin Newsom, first responders and California Governor Jerry Brown in Malibu, California, US, in this November 17 file picture.

WARNING

Inshore : Strong wind expected at places at times

Offshore : Strong wind and high/ thunder rain at times

WEATHERInshore : Moderate temperature

daytime with sctd clouds & c of sctd rain at places at times.

Offshore : Partly cloudy to cloudy with sctd rain may be thundery at times

WINDInshore : Northwesterly 12-22/25

KTOffshrore : Northwesterly 15-25/35

KTVisibility : 4-8 KMOffshore : 4-7/13 FT

TODAY

WEDNESDAY

THURSDAY

Maximum Temperature : 270c

Minimum Temperature : 210c





BaghdadKuwait City ManamaMuscat Tehran

AthensBeirut BangkokBerlinCairoCape TownColomboDhakaHong KongIstanbulJakartaKarachiLondonManilaMoscowNew DelhiNew YorkParisSao PauloSeoulSingaporeSydneyTokyo

Weather

today

Sunny

P Cloudy

P Cloudy

Sunny

P Cloudy

Max/min

22/11

22/14

24/20

29/23

14/07

Weather

tomorrow

P Cloudy

Sunny

Sunny

Sunny

Sunny

Max/min

22/14

23/14

24/19

28/23

16/06

Around the region

Around the world

Max/min

21/16

23/18

32/26

02/00

28/16

19/13

28/24

29/18

23/21

16/13

32/26

33/21

06/02

32/26

-2/-4

29/14

09/01

03/-2

18/16

12/03

30/26

23/17

15/10

Weather

today

Cloudy

Sunny

S T Storms

Cloudy

Sunny

Showers

S T Storms

M Sunny

P Cloudy

Showers

T Storm

Sunny

Showers

P Cloudy

P Cloudy

Fog

P Cloudy

Snow

Cloudy

M Sunny

S T Storm

M Sunny

Clear

Max/min

21/12

23/18

33/26

02/-3

28/18

18/13

29/24

30/18

24/17

17/12

33/25

33/19

07/01

31/26

0/-4

28/13

06/-6

06/01

22/17

08/-2

29/25

27/18

16/09

Weather

tomorrow

P Cloudy

P Cloudy

P Cloudy

P Cloudy

P Cloudy

Cloudy

S T Storms

Sunny

P Cloudy

Rain

T Storm

M Sunny

Showers

S T Storms

Cloudy

Fog

M Sunny

P Cloudy

Cloudy

S Showers

T Storm

M Cloudy

Clear

Fisherman's forecast

Three-day forecast


QATAR

Qatar Shell inks pact to sponsor Company HouseBy Joey AguilarStaff Reporter

Msheireb Museums and Qatar Shell signed an agreement yesterday,

making the latter the sponsor of Company House, one of the four heritage houses that were reno-vated at Msheireb Downtown Doha (MDD).

The agreement was signed by Qatar Shell deputy general man-ager Rashid Majed al-Sulaiti and Msheireb Properties (MP) acting CEO Ali al-Kuwari, in the pres-ence of Msheireb Museums di-rector Hafi z Ali. “The agreement with Qatar Shell refl ects Msheireb Properties’ vision in preserving the national heritage, which is one of the missions of the com-pany,” al-Kuwari said. “In addi-tion to our mandate as a developer

of the sustainable MDD, Msheireb Properties is committed to social responsibility as a fi xture to the values of human civilisation in Qatar.”

He thanked Qatar Shell, a glo-bal leading energy company, for its valuable collaboration as MP looks forward “to building more partnerships with such prestig-ious national and international organisations”.

The agreement will see Qatar Shell supporting the Company House and the archive documen-tation of Qatar’s oil and gas his-tory. It will also contribute in or-ganising events and programmes aimed at raising awareness on the importance of this sector and its impact on the current genera-tions.

Four heritage buildings – Mo-hamed bin Jassim House, Rad-wani House, Bin Jelmood House

and Company House – form part of Msheireb Museums, which tell stories of human perseverance and hard work, and how domes-tic family life was transformed in Doha before and after the discov-ery of oil in the country.

Part of the of QR20.4bn MDD project, the museums use modern technology to narrate and share some of the ‘great tales’ of Qatar’s past and continue to document oral history from people who want to share their stories.

The Company House, which encompasses a collection of equipment and items that were used in the oil company at old times, was once used as the head-quarters for Qatar’s fi rst oil com-pany, and tells the story of the pioneering Qatari petroleum in-dustry workers and their families who helped transform Qatar into a modern society.

In this house, visitors saw fi rst-hand accounts of the men who la-boured in this industry, not just to provide for their families, but also to lay the foundations for their emerging nation.

According to MP, Qatar Shell’s sponsorship of this herit-age building adds great value to Msheireb Museums — the leading cultural destination at MDD. It was one of the fi rst international companies which started ex-ploitation of oil in Qatar and has strong eff ort in documenting this history.

Such sponsorship forms part of Qatar Shell’s Corporate Social Responsibility programme, sup-porting various segments and sectors, including education, sports, health, culture and the en-vironment. It aims to enhance the national capabilities and eff ec-tively contribute to the four pillars

of the Qatar National Vision 2030. “We have selected Qatar Shell

because of its successful record in documenting history and pre-serving the national heritage in the communities it has worked.

We highly appreciate this mission and that’s what motivated us to sign this partnership,” Ali said.

The Msheireb Museums direc-tor noted that this agreement will enhance the archive documenta-

tion eff ort of the Company House and activate their programmes of events to make this museum a major hub which preserves the important history of Qatar to the next generation.

Qatar Shell deputy general manager Rashid Majed al-Sulaiti, Msheireb Properties acting CEO Ali al-Kuwari and senior off icials of Msheireb Museums and Qatar Shell visit the Company House after the agreement signing yesterday. PICTURE: Jayan Orma

Eighth Katara Traditional Dhow Festival begins todayThe Eighth Katara Tradi-

tional Dhow Festival will begin at Katara beach to-

day, featuring a rich variety of cultural events, maritime con-tests and traditional shows, along with a spectacular fi reworks dis-play. The four-day event, under the patronage of His Highness

the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Ha-mad al-Thani, will witness the participation of Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Turkey, India, Greece, It-aly, and Zanzibar, among others.

In a press statement, Katara said the organising committee expanded the scope of the ac-tivities to make them suitable

for diff erent categories and age groups. There will be a variety of sea contests carrying traditional names such as Hadaq, Shoush, Tafreesh, Tajdeef, Bareekha, Al Shira, Sabaha, among others, in addition to folkloric shows.

Festival-goers will also see a massive display of traditional

sailing vessels and dhows at Katara, food outlets and other services at the festival. It will also feature pearl extracting from oyster, as well as games and workshops for children. Par-ticipating countries will show-case their traditional maritime craftsmanship and tools, in-

cluding shipbuilding, ropes, sail and dredging machine, at a mar-ket at the festival.

During the evenings of Thurs-day and Friday, visitors will be treated to traditional maritime dances such as Saliya, Kharkhour and Ghazal. In the mornings, the festival will be open to the

public and schoolchildren. An art competition focusing on sea traditions will be held on the sidelines of the festival, off ering impressive prizes. The fi rst prize winner will get QR30,000 while the second and third prizes of-fer QR20,000 and QR10,000, respectively. A cultural cafe with

interactive discussions on sea traditions involving experts will add more colour to the festival. Impressive fi reworks themed on marine traditions will illuminate the Katara sky on Thursday and Friday from 8pm to 8.30pm. The festival will conclude on Friday evening.

Qatar-Croatia talks focus on bolstering ties - Gulf Times

Documents

Transcript of Qatar-Croatia talks focus on bolstering ties - Gulf Times