In brief

22,340.71+56.39+0.25%

8,421.20-148.06-1.73%

52.05+0.17

+0.33%

DOW JONES QE NYMEX

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GULF TIMES

published in

QATAR

since 1978THURSDAY Vol. XXXVIII No. 10590

September 28, 2017Muharram 8, 1439 AH www. gulf-times.com 2 Riyals

Indonesia to open newinvestment doors toQatar and Middle East

BUSINESS | Page 1

Qatar bowling team cap Ashgabat 2017 with silver medal

SPORT | Page 1

QATAR

REGION

ARAB WORLD

INTERNATIONAL

COMMENT

BUSINESS

CLASSIFIED

SPORTS

22, 23

1-7, 12-16

8-11

1-8

2-9, 24

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INDEX

Record trade surplus growth in August Qatar beats economic

blockade

By Santhosh V PerumalBusiness Reporter

Qatar’s trade surplus stood at QR12.62bn this August, show-ing a healthy more than 45%

growth year-on-year (y-o-y), indicat-ing the futile trade and economic block-ade, led by Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

A double-digit expansion in exports helped Qatar post a healthy trade sur-plus in August amid trade and diplo-matic stir, according to the Ministry of Development Planning and Statis-tics. The trade surplus had seen a 5% rise on a monthly basis (m-o-m).

In absolute terms, Japan, South Korea,

China, Singapore and India were among the largest export markets of Qatar; while imports mainly came from the US, China, Germany, India and Italy in Au-gust 2017.

Fast expansion in shipments to Singa-pore and China mainly led Qatar’s total exports (valued free-on-board) reach QR21.3bn this August, showing a 17.7% and 16.6% yearly and monthly increase respectively.

The country’s total exports of domestic products amounted to QR20.53bn in August this year, showing 17.8% and 17.3% y-o-y and m-o-m rise respectively.

On a yearly basis, Qatar’s exports of non-crude in August soared 53.9% to QR1.3bn, crude by 18.3% to QR3.72bn, petroleum gases by 16.2% to QR13.1bn and other commodities

by 11.4% to QR2.42bn.On a monthly basis, Qatar’s exports of

crude surged 50.9%, petroleum gases by 15.2% and other commodities by 12.1%; while those of non-crude shrank 14.3%.

Petroleum gases were 63.89% of total exports of domestic prod-ucts in August 2017 against 64.7% a year-ago; crude 18.12% (18.08%), non-crude 6.33% (4.82%) and other commodities 11.79% (12.46%).

On exports destinations, Japan ac-counted for 16% of total exports from Qatar in August this year, South Korea 14%, China and Singapore 13% each, and India 12%.

Qatar’s exports to China and Singa-pore more than doubled year-on-year to QR2.73bn and QR2.71bn respec-tively, those to India grew 17.81% to QR2.56bn and South Korea by 8.15%

to QR2.92bn; while those to Japan was down less than 1% to QR3.38bn.

Against July 2017 levels, Doha’s ex-ports to Singapore skyrocketed 77.12%, Japan by 43.83%, India by 32.31% and China by 2.63%; whereas those to South Korea was down 7.3%.

The country’s re-exports expanded 14.8% y-o-y to QR0.77bn this August. On a monthly basis, it was up a mere 0.5%.

Qatar’s total imports (valued at cost insurance and freight) shrank 7.8% y-o-y to QR8.68bn in August this year. On a monthly basis, it however shot up 39.1%.

The US accounted for 15% of Qatar’s imports, China 11%, Germany 9%, In-dia 6% and Italy 5%.

On a yearly basis, imports from Ger-many plummeted 23.56% to QR0.81bn and India by 9.31% to QR0.56bn.

Qatar launches ‘bold and innovative’ tourism plan

Focus on ensuring favourable visitor experience in the next five years

By Joey AguilarStaff Reporter

Qatar launched the ‘Next Chap-ter of its National Tourism Sec-tor Strategy’ yesterday, which

will focus on developing more tourism infrastructures across the country and ensuring favourable visitor experience in the next fi ve years.

The country’s new tourism road-map, described as “a bold and innova-tive plan,” was announced by HE the Prime Minister and Interior Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani at the World Tourism Day cel-ebration.

Speaking at the event, HE Sheikh Abdullah said the fi ve-year plan, ap-proved by the Supreme Council for Economic Aff airs and Investment, is set to activate policies that will promote and boost tourism growth by opening new markets such as China, India and Russia.

“It (Next Chapter of its National Tourism Sector Strategy) will also strengthen our presence in Europe, America, Asia and diversify the diff er-

ent tourism products and provide new investment opportunities for the pri-vate sector,” HE Sheikh Abdullah said while commending the collective work of several sectors in the country.

Such eff orts, HE Sheikh Abdullah

stressed, resulted in the development of the fi ve-year plan set to acceler-ate tourism projects aimed at enticing more tourists from around the world to visit Qatar.

The Prime Minister also announced

that the sector’s governance is set to be re-organised in the coming months around a new National Tourism Coun-cil, in co-operation with other sectors. It will supervise and continuously re-view the implementation of the new strategy.

“The growth that is being achieved in the state of Qatar makes us very opti-mistic, that is why there are many op-portunities for innovators, entrepre-neurs, and businessmen to reinforce this sector and the diff erent experience that we can off er from now on,” HE Sheikh Abdullah said.

HE Sheikh Abdullah also thanked and honoured United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) sec-retary general Dr Taleb Rifai for his years in service in the organisation, and close co-operation between UNWTO and Qatar’s tourism sector.

Presenting the fi ve-year plan, Qatar Tourism Authority’s (QTA) chief tour-ism development offi cer Hassan al-Ib-rahim said they will develop and market Qatar’s tourism products globally, with focus on creating an enhanced end-to-end visitor experience.

The Next Chapter introduces a tour-ism blueprint for Qatar, which iden-tifi es six geographic zones across the country and ties each zone to tourism themes based on the area’s geographic characteristics and natural assets.

The senior QTA offi cial said local and international investors will be invited

to develop tourism products and serv-ices in each geographic zone, in line with its proposed theme.

Citing as an example, he explained that the zone of Al Khor and Al Tha-khira has been allocated the theme of eco-tourism due to its unique biodiver-sity and beautiful natural landscapes.

Investors will be invited to develop tourism products and services such as eco-lodges, nature tours, pearl-diving and water sports experiences.

To market these products, QTA will increasing the number of overseas of-fi ces around the world and the number of markets covered, run global cam-paigns, and work with destination management companies for product and events packaging – delivering complete Qatar experiences for pro-spective visitors.

“Together with our partners in the public and private sectors, we have ex-plored the most eff ective ways to build on the strong foundations that have been laid for the tourism sector since 2014, and to further develop the coun-try’s existing cultural and natural as-sets,” al-Ibrahim said.

“As a result, the Next Chapter posi-tions Qatar as a hub to discover – where cultural authenticity meets moder-nity, where the sand meets the sea, and where people of the world come to-gether to experience unique off erings in culture, sports, business and family entertainment,” he stressed. Page 8

Qatar will remain world’s top LNG producer: QP chiefQNADoha

Qatar will remain the leader and will maintain its position as the world’s largest producer of

liquefi ed natural gas (LNG), said Qatar Petroleum (QP) President and CEO Eng Saad Sherida al-Kaabi.

Delivering a lecture at Qatar Univer-sity, al-Kaabi pointed to growing global demand for gas, adding that Qatar pro-vides a large part of this need. “There is an expansion of our investments inside and outside Qatar.”

He stressed that the company has been able to overcome the siege and its repercussions since the early days, thanks to its strategies and plans in cri-sis management.

A team to manage the crisis was formed and included all QP’s compa-nies, he said. “We identifi ed problems and how to overcome them. The main problem was the import of some prod-ucts for day-to-day operations, but we were able to overcome them and fi nd alternatives in record time. Five days after the imposition of the siege, we announced that things are going on normally and that all problems have been overcome.”

Al-Kaabi pointed out that prices of some of the products needed for com-pany’s operations are now 30% lower than before the siege.

With clear plans and strategies and an able and co-operative team, QP could overcome all diffi culties, he said

On the Dolphin line which supplies the UAE with gas, al-Kaabi renewed the State’s commitment to all its pledges to supply oil and gas. Qatar has dealt with the gas pipeline to the UAE in a civilised and humanitarian manner, he said.

Qatar has not cut off gas to the UAE despite a force majeure clause it is enti-tled to, including the blockade, he said.

As for the joint fi eld with Iran, he said that there are agreements and clear borders and a joint committee in

this regard between the two countries. “We have our projects and they have their projects and nothing new in this regard.”

On the renewable energy sector, he pointed to the launch of Siraj solar energy, a joint venture between Qatar Petroleum and Qatar Electricity and Water Company.

Al-Kaabi highlighted Qatar’s ongo-ing eff orts to drive forward the edu-cation sector in line with the goals of Qatar National Vision 2030 and the Human Development Strategy. He said: “The State of Qatar continues in its eff orts to encourage the youth to develop their professional abilities and to assume leadership roles in various fi elds.”

He noted that QP provides Qatar’s youth with various activities and train-ing and professional development op-portunities to uplift their skills and competencies and to enable them to compete with their peers at inter-national well-renowned oil and gas companies. He also noted that QP is a leading national organisation fully managed by Qatari nationals and home to highly qualifi ed staff and distin-guished expertise in various technical and administrative fi elds. Page 9

HE the Prime Minister and Interior Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani at the World Tourism Day celebration in Doha yesterday. PICTURE: Nasar T K

Reforms ensure on-site safetyof expatriate workers: govtQatar is committed to its labour

reform programme and is con-stantly reviewing its policies to

ensure that expatriate workers receive the necessary on-site protections, the Government Communications Offi ce director HE Sheikh Saif bin Ahmed al-Thani said yesterday.

“Qatar was the fi rst country in the Gulf to implement restrictions on summer working hours, exceeding those of neighbouring countries,” he explained in a statement released by the offi cial Qatar News Agency (QNA).

In addition to issuing harsh fi nancial penalties, Qatar is also the only coun-try in the Gulf that shuts down com-panies that are found to be operating in violation of the ban, he pointed out.

Qatar continues to co-ordinate closely with the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and international NGOs to implement reforms that will improve the health, safety and rights of migrant workers.

In March, the Government of Qatar submitted statistics on all work-related

deaths in the country for 2016 to the ILO, and this data is publicly available on the ILO website, HE Sheikh Saif added.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy (SC) said yes-terday that it is committed to promot-ing and protecting the welfare, health and safety of all workers building stadi-ums for the 2022 FIFA World Cup.

In a statement on its website, the SC said it acknowledges the concerns raised by Human Rights Watch (HRW), which were discussed at length with HRW rep-resentatives over the last few weeks.

“However, we whole-heartedly re-fute the suggestion the SC has “ab-dicated responsibility” or that the SC has failed to protect the lives of work-ers on our projects.

“We have received constructive feedback from HRW on the Humidex system. We are continuously striving to enhance the system and are explor-ing new approaches, such as capturing data on a year-long basis. In addition, as we communicated to HRW, we are also considering their recommenda-

tions in relation to the Wet Globe Bulb Temperature system.

“However we remain of the view that the Humidex system, which is internationally recognised, is an ac-curate and eff ective method of moni-toring work conditions on site. Indeed, HRW has recognised the eff orts made to protect workers on our sites during hotter times of the year.

“To date there have been two work-related fatalities and nine non-work related deaths of workers engaged on our projects. The SC profoundly re-grets the death of any worker, and we treat every incident with the utmost seriousness.

“However, the SC does not have the authority or mandate to determine cause of death, which is refl ected in death certifi cates issued by the medical authorities in Qatar. HRW has received all information available from those death certifi cates. The role of the SC is to oversee health and safety on our sites and ensure our Workers’ Welfare Standards (WWS) are implemented.”

Eng Saad Sherida al-Kaabi

REGION | Diplomacy

Kuwait reiterates itssupport to ‘one Iraq’Kuwait reiterated yesterday its initial stance in support of “one Iraq’ with its independence, sovereignty, security and stability. According to Kuwait News Agency, an off icial source at the Kuwaiti Foreign Ministry hoped that the recent independence referendum in Iraqi Kurdistan would not impact Iraq’s great eff orts to liberate its territories from terrorism, and the ISIS group.

BANGLADESH | Refugees

UNHCR highlightsplight of RohingyasReturning from a visit to the region, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Filippo Grandi spoke movingly yesterday of the suff ering of thousands of Rohingya refugees fleeing violence in Myanmar to Bangladesh saying he had rarely seen such need. “I have just returned from Bangladesh, where I witnessed people fleeing unimaginable violence,” Grandi said in a press statement yesterday in Geneva, pin-pointing the challenges facing one of the fastest-moving and largest refugee emergencies of recent times. Page 21

AFGHANISTAN | Confl ict

US airstrike in Kabulcauses casualtiesAn American airstrike on insurgents in Kabul yesterday caused “several casualties” after a missile “malfunctioned”, Nato said, overshadowing a high-profile visit by US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg. The US strike was launched in support of Afghan security forces who had confronted militants after they fired a volley of rockets near the capital’s international airport hours after Mattis arrived in the country for talks. One person was killed and 11 others were wounded in the assault, according to the interior ministry.

EUROPE | Military

Thousands evacuated in Ukraine depot blastUkrainian authorities evacuated more than 30,000 people yesterday from the central Vinnytsia region after a huge arms depot storing missiles caught fire and exploded in what prosecutors said was a possible act of “sabotage”. It was the second major incident aff ecting a large Ukrainian weapons storage site this year. Kiev had blamed a deadly March munitions blast on Moscow and its Russian-backed insurgents fighting Ukrainian forces in the war-wracked east. Page 16

QATAR

Gulf Times Thursday, September 28, 20172

Al-Muraikhi: Siege undermines eff orts of Group of 77 and China HE the Minister of State

for Foreign Aff airs Sul-tan bin Saad al-Mu-

raikhi has said that the measures imposed by the siege countries on Qatar undermine the eff orts of the Group of 77 and China to strengthen the unity of the group and the co-operation between its countries.

This came in a statement of Qatar delivered by HE the Min-ister of State for Foreign Aff airs at the ministerial meeting held by the group in New York on the sidelines of the 72nd session of the United Nations General Assembly.

He pointed out that Qatar has been under siege for more than three months, in violation of the principles of co-operation on which the Group of 77 has been based, as well as the violation of the Charter of the United Na-tions and the right of peoples to self-determination and sover-eignty, the principles of friendly relations between states, hu-man rights and humanitarian principles.

He also referred to the unjust campaign of the fabricated accu-sations against Qatar aimed at tar-nishing its reputation, damaging its relations with friendly coun-tries and imposing guardianship on its foreign policy.

Al-Muraikhi said that while Qatar faces arbitrary measures against the unity of its peo-ple and their cohesion with the leadership of the state and be-cause of its distinguished posi-tion on the international scene, the support of the majority of

the international community for its position and its extensive regional-international part-nerships aimed at confronting the collective challenges, these measures undermine the eff orts of the Group of 77 and China to strengthen the unity of the group and the co-operation among its countries.

He reiterated that Qatar at-taches great importance to pro-moting South-South co-oper-ation, especially in the current international economic envi-ronment, as means of enhancing the participation of our states in the world economy.

The Minister of State for Foreign Aff airs expressed Qa-tar’s belief in the importance of international development co-operation and participatory responsibility for achieving sus-tainable development, stressing the importance of continuing to play a prominent and increas-ingly important role inspired by Qatar National Vision 2030, and provide a support through co-operation programmes in the fi eld of economic and social de-velopment, humanitarian aff airs and the fi ght against poverty.

In this context, He announced that Qatar is hosting a high-level meeting to prepare for the Eco-nomic and Social Council Forum concerned with following up the fi nancing for development in 2018 from November 18-19.

Qatar’s hosting of this meet-ing refl ects its partnership with the international community in this area, as Doha hosted in 2008 the International Follow-up Conference on Financing for Development to Review the Im-plementation of the Monterrey Consensus.”

QNANew York

HE the Minister of State for Foreign Aff airs Sultan bin Saad al-Muraikhi met with International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) president Peter Maurer on the sidelines of the 72nd session of the UN General Assembly in New York. He also met with the secretary-general of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Elhadj As Sy. HE al-Muraikhi also met with the executive director of the UN World Food Programme David Beasley. The meetings dealt with the assistance provided by Qatar to the international humanitarian organisations and the humanitarian situation in conflicts areas, especially in Syria, Yemen, Iraq among others.

He also pointed out to the in-creasing tension, division and instability in many parts of the world, which directly aff ected development and weakened the ability of countries to ad-vance development plans and prosperity of their peoples.

In the light of the chal-lenges faced by the member states of the group, he said that this required them to co-operate and refrain from any actions that might harm member states or aff ect soli-darity among them.

He also called for more joint eff orts towards economic and social development, peace and prosperity with a spirit of part-nership and solidarity in order to overcome obstacles and chal-lenges and create an enabling environment for the implemen-tation of the 2030 Sustainable Development Plan.

HE al-Muraikhi reiterated

the confi rmation of Qatar on the principle of the permanent sov-ereignty of peoples living under foreign occupation over their natural resources, in particular the inalienable rights of the Pal-

estinian people and the popu-lation of the occupied Syrian Golan, calling on Israel to desist from the exploitation of those resources.

He stressed Qatar’s commit-

ment to the goals and priorities of the Group of 77 and China and its keenness to be an active partner for achieving sustainable development for the benefi t of all mankind.

Qatar and China ink security deal

Qatar and China have signed an agreement to enhance security co-operation be-

tween the two countries, on the sidelines of the 86th session of the Interpol General Assembly, which is being hosted in Beijing from September 26 to 29.

The agreement was signed for Qatar by Staff Major General Saad bin Jassim al-Khulaifi , Di-rector General, Public Security and head of the state delegation to the meeting, and for Chi-nese side by Minister of Public Security Guo Shengkun.

The agreement focuses on the fi ght against terrorism and its fi nancing, and combating extremism in all its forms. The agreement also aims at enhanc-ing co-operation and co-ordina-tion between Qatar and China in various security fi elds.

The signing ceremony of the agreement was preceded by a session of talks held between the two sides to set up the appropri-ate mechanisms to activate the agreement.

Palestine’s entry into Interpol hailedQatar welcomed the admission of the State of Palestine to International Criminal Police Organisation (Interpol) during its General Assembly in Beijing.In a statement yesterday, the Ministry of Foreign Aff airs expressed hope that this achievement will help in tackling the dangers and challenges facing the Palestinian cause.The statement reiterated Qatar’s full support for the Palestinian people to regain their rights, self-determination and establish their sovereign independent state on the borders of June 4, 1967 with Jerusalem as its capital. Page 10

NHRC chairman briefs two USCongressmen on siege impact

Qatar’s National Hu-man Rights Com-mittee (NHRC)

chairman Dr Ali bin Smaikh al-Marri has underlined the urgent need to put an end to the suff ering endured by the citizens and residents of

Qatar as well as Saudi Ara-bian, Emirati and Bahraini citizens, as a result to the siege imposed on Qatar for more than 115 days.

During Dr al-Marri’s meeting with the two US Republican Congressmen Trent Franks and Gus Bili-rakis, he presented in detail the impact of the siege on the humanitarian status of

the civilians in Qatar and the three mentioned Gulf countries, especially the status of families, students, patients and other social categories.

He also praised the ef-forts of the US human rights institutions, organi-sations and activists to lift this inhumane siege, and their solidarity with the

humanitarian crisis it entails. He requested the two

Republican Congress-men to intensify the ef-forts, move quickly and take more fi rm actions to pressure the siege coun-tries and force them to respond to the global call to end the siege im-mediately and with no conditions.

Qatar Rail among finalists for ITA Tunnelling AwardsQatar Rail Metro is one of the five finalists for the ITA Tunnelling Awards 2017, an international competition for tunnelling and underground spaces projects exceeding 500mn euros. The award ceremony to be held between November 13 and 16 in Paris will see in attendance many international specialists in the global tunnelling sector. This includes a special one-day event on November 15. The awards will be given away on that day. According to a statement from Qatar Rail yesterday, the first two ITA Tunnelling awards attracted more than 450 participants and more than 200 entries. It said the jury scrutinises the applications months before

the event to select a list of finalists for each of the nine categories. Apart from Qatar Rail the other three finalists are 515mn euro Tehran Metro project, Delhi Metro (Phase 3 expansion works, which is estimated to cost 4.2bn euros, and Canada’s 1.4bn Confederation Light Rail Transit of Ottawa).The Qatar Rail Metro is a 16.2bn euro project, it said while adding that it is expected to be operational by 2020.The Qatar Rail Metro, being built in twin bored tunnels, consists of 31 stations. The first phase consists of the Gold, Red and Green Lines and the second phase includes an additional Blue Line.

Call for global support to Libyan Government of National Accord

Qatar has reiterated its full support for Libya’s Government of National Accord and for all international mediation eff orts aiming to complete the path of political transition, establish security and stability, combat terrorism and extremism in Libya and to support the Libyan people out of their crisis as well as achieving the desired consensus in order to preserve the unity and sovereignty of Libya.This came in the speech of Qatar, delivered yesterday by Qatar’s Permanent Representative to the UN in Geneva, ambassador Ali Khalfan al-Mansouri during the interactive dialogue on the situation of human rights in Libya, at the 36th session of the Human Rights Council.

Ambassador al-Mansouri stressed that the international community should continue to provide various kinds of support, especially technical assistance and capacity-building in the field of human rights, to the Libyan Government of National Accord in order to ensure the implementation of a roadmap to help Libya overcome its economic, social, humanitarian and security challenges and diff iculties and strengthen their capabilities to confront terrorist organisations. He noted that the world has witnessed the determination and ability of the Libyan people to defeat terrorism, which was culminated with the success in the city of Sirte and other areas.

QNAWashington, DC

QATAR3Gulf Times

Thursday, September 28, 2017

Brigadier al-Muraikhi speaking at the Expatriates’ Exit Grievances Committee meeting.

MoI reiteratespledge to protectrights of expatsQatar’s Ministry of Interior has

reiterated its keenness to guar-antee and protect the rights of

expatriate workers.The ministry also reiterated its com-

mitment to take care of the require-ments of expatriates on such issues as refusal on the part of their employers to grant them permission to leave the country.

Senior offi cials of the Expatriates’ Exit Grievances Committee of the MoI said this at a meeting of the Nepal, Fili-pino and Pakistani communities at the Offi cers Club of the General Directorate of the Civil Defence on Tuesday.

While addressing the gathering, committee chairman Brigadier Salem Saqr al-Muraikhi said their team was keen to address the needs and require-ments of the expatriates through the eff ective delivery of its services.

This is possible only because of the excellent co-ordination between au-thorities of various ministries, depart-

ments and institutions, he said while informing them that the committee has been in place for more than six months and it has handled a number of com-plaints to the total satisfaction of all parties concerned.

Brigadier al-Muraikhi is also the di-rector of Legal Aff airs Department at the MoI. He said the MoI is committed to re-specting the rights of expatriate workers and is maintaining a good balance be-tween the employees and employers.

Rapporteur and secretary of the Committee Captain Juma Ali al-Buain-ain said an expatriate has the right to exit from the country on leave or an emergency or any other reason after in-forming his employer as per the terms and conditions of his labour contract.

An expatriate also has the right for making a fi nal exit from the country before the expiry of the labour contract period after informing his employer, he added.

“If the recruiter or the competent

authority concerned refuses to grant exit permit or refuses the permission for fi nal leaving of the expatriate from the country, the aff ected person can approach and appeal to the Exit Permit Grievances Committee. The commit-tee has to take a decision on his appeal within three working days.”

Captain al-Buainain said the expa-triate should make his appeal to the secretariat of the committee in its pre-scribed form along with documents supporting his appeal.

On receiving the complaint the of-fi cer concerned at the secretariat of the committee will register it and the expa-triate will receive a notifi cation with a grievance number and date of appeal.

Lt Colonel Mohamed Ali al-Kubaisi of the Human Rights Department, Ministry of Administrative Development, Labour and Social Aff airs; Saleh Rashid al-Ku-wari and Nayef Musabih al-Shammari of the National Human Rights Committee were also present at the meeting.

QATAR

Gulf Times Thursday, September 28, 20176

Cabinet approves draft on labour dispute resolutionThe Cabinet has ap-

proved a draft deci-sion that lays down

the regulations and proce-dures to be followed by the labour dispute resolution committee. The decision was taken at the Cabinet’s regular weekly meeting yesterday, the offi cial Qa-tar News Agency (QNA) re-ported.

The draft includes provi-sions on forming commit-tees to settle labour disputes and the scope of their work, as well as the conditions that require the management concerned to refer a dispute between the employer and employee to the labour dis-pute resolution panel.

It also includes “provi-sions on the grace period in case the management refers a dispute to the committee, the method and procedures to be followed for referrals, appeals to cancel any pen-alty decision ordered against an employee, the determi-nation period for the fi rst hearing of the dispute, no-tifying the dispute parties, appearing before the com-mittee, dispute resolution procedures, notifying both parties of the procedures and decisions issued by the committee,” QNA explained.

In August this year, His Highness the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani issued Law No 13 of 2017 amending some provisions of the Labour Law promul-gated by law No 14 of 2004 and Law No 13 of 1990, by issuing the Civil and Com-mercial Procedures law. The law stipulates that a com-mittee or more shall be cre-ated at the Ministry of Ad-ministrative Development, Labour and Social Aff airs for

resolving labour disputes. This committee alone

shall have jurisdiction over resolving all the individual disputes resulting from the implementation of the stipulations of this law or the employment contract. The committee shall issue a decision on the dispute it re-views within three weeks of the fi rst session of reviewing it. The members of the com-mittee shall be independent, governed only by the law.

Earlier, in March this year, the Cabinet approved a draft law to facilitate the creation of the labour dispute reso-lution committee. The draft legislation was prepared in view of concerns over work-ers’ rights and to simplify litigation procedures in labour disputes, QNA had said.

After HE the Prime Min-ister Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani chaired the regular weekly Cabinet meeting at the Emiri Diwan yesterday, HE the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of State for Cabinet Aff airs Ahmed bin Abdullah bin Zaid al-Mah-moud said the Cabinet also took the necessary proce-dures to issue a draft law on regulating real estate regis-tration.

This came after the Cab-inet reviewed the recom-mendations of the Adviso-ry Council on the draft law.

The draft includes rules related to regulating the ownership of real estate, documents that require registration, procedures for registration and ratifi cation of signatures, the real estate registry data, and the real estate registration commit-tee and its work scope.

The Cabinet, meanwhile, gave its nod to a draft agree-ment on air services be-tween the governments of Qatar and Lebanon.

Further, it approved a draft memorandum of un-derstanding (MoU) in the youth and sports fi elds be-tween the governments of Qatar and Grenada, and a draft MoI on co-operation in endowments (Awqaf) and Islamic aff airs between the governments of Qatar and the Philippines.

The meeting also re-viewed its draft decision on issuing a national commit-tee for qualifi cations and academic accreditation.

The Cabinet reviewed

a draft decision of HE the Minister of Interior on forming an inspection and valuation committee at the Ministry of Interior, its work system and determining its remuneration.

Also, it reviewed a draft decision of HE the Minis-ter of Transport and Com-munications on forming a temporary inspection and valuation committee, as well as a report of the perma-nent emergency committee for April 1 and December 31, 2016.

The report includes a statement on the results of the committee’s work dur-ing this period and its rec-ommendations.

QATAR7Gulf Times

Thursday, September 28, 2017

Red Arrows spectacle to light up Doha skiesThe Red Arrows, of-

ficially known as the Royal Air Force

Aerobatic Team, will per-form a public display over the Doha Corniche on September 30 from 4pm, followed by a high-pro-file flypast.

This year, a Qatar Air-ways Airbus A350 will fly in formation with the Royal Air Force’s (RAF) iconic Red Arrows, the British embassy in Qatar has said in a statement.

The Red Arrows team’s last visit to Qatar was in 2013 and featured a spec-tacular display in Doha and also a mixed-forma-tion flypast with a Royal Air Force Typhoon multi-role combat aircraft.

A large crowd had watched this aerobatic performance by the Red Arrows from the Doha Corniche. The 20-minute Red Arrows aerobatic display uses nine fast-jets, sometimes flying as close as 6ft apart at more than 400 miles per hour.

The Red Arrows are known for flying their signature Diamond Nine shape formation.

The embassy has said Qatar residents and visi-tors are invited to come along and watch the dis-play.

This Red Arrows’ visit to Doha is part of a five-week overseas tour — known as Exercise East-ern Hawk — supporting UK interests and pro-moting the best of Brit-ish. The Royal Air Force Aerobatic Team will be carrying out a display and ground events across Qatar on September 30

and October 1. “Overseas tours such as this are one of the key roles of the Royal Air Force Aerobatic Team.

One of the Red Arrows’ key roles is as national ambassadors, support-ing UK trade, business, education and industry – most recently in con-junction with the GREAT Britain campaign.

The deployment will provide opportuni-ties for deepening com-mercial partnerships, strengthening defence engagement and promot-ing science, technology, engineering and maths (Stem) through events with students and edu-cational institutes,” the statement noted.

The team has been dis-playing since 1965 – en-tertaining and enthral-

ling hundreds of millions of people around the world. The Red Arrows have completed more

than 4,800 displays in 57 countries. 2017 is the team’s 53rd consecutive season.

The Red Arrows team’s last visit to Qatar was in 2013.

Did you know?

The Red Arrows have performed in Doha five times

before: September 1995, November 1999, October 2003,

November 2007 and November 2013

The Red Arrows planes are nearly 12m in length

and have a wingspan of 9.4m

The Red Arrows team has performed in some 57

countries since 1965 and there are more than 120 peo-

ple in the RAF Aerobatic Team, which includes the Red

Arrows support team, known as the ‘Blues’

The smoke used during the display has a safety

purpose, allowing the team to judge wind speed and

direction, to locate the other aircraft.

The Rolls-Royce engine in the aircraft produces

5,200lbs

Reds 1-5 complete the front end of the team’s

formation during a display, known as Enid

Reds 6-9 make up the rear part of a display, known

as Gypo. The two teams split up during the second half

of the display

QATAR

Gulf Times Thursday, September 28, 20178

Road in Mesaimeer to stay shut for 10 days

A section of Naslat Al Maa Street in the south west of Doha will be closed from today for 10 days in order to open a new underpass on the Rawdat Al Khail Street

Extension project. The new underpass will enable free-fl ow-ing traffi c between Industrial Area Road and Rawdat Al Khail Street in the Al Thumama area.

The planned closure of Naslat Al Maa Street has been de-signed in co-ordination with the General Directorate of Traf-fi c. During the temporary closure, the commuters who cur-rently use Naslat Al Maa Street to travel between Wholesale Market Street and Barwa City will be required to use Street 1117, Balhambar Street, Bu Samra Street and Industrial Area Road to reach their respective destinations.

Road users from Barwa City to Salwa Road also have the al-ternative option to travel east on Street 1117 and head towards the F Ring Road to head towards their destination.

Mercedes-Benz model recalled

The Ministry of Economy and Commerce, in collabo-ration with Nasser Bin Khaled Automobiles, has an-nounced the recall of Mercedes-Benz SLK-Class

model of 2017 because a fault may have occurred in the elec-tronic stability programme (ESP) software.

The MEC said the recall campaign comes within the framework of its ongoing eff orts to protect consumers and ensure that car dealers follow up on vehicles’ defects and re-pair them.

The MEC said that it will co-ordinate with the dealer to follow up on the maintenance and repair works and will communicate with customers to ensure that the necessary repairs are carried out.

The MEC has urged all customers to report any violations to its Consumer Protection and Anti-Commercial Fraud Department through the following channels: Call centre: 16001, e-mail: info@mec.gov.qa, Twitter: @MEC_Qatar, Instagram: MEC_Qatar, MEC mobile app for Android and IOS: MEC_Qatar

Indian expatriate Mohamed Shameem O K, 31, who has worked at the Hamad Medical Corporation since October 2013 as a staff nurse, declares his solidarity with Qatar on the highest motorable all-weather road in the world, the Khardung La pass, in Ladakh, India, recently on a motorcycle trip.

Show of support

Revised timings at Indian embassyThe Indian embassy has announced revised timings of its Consular section starting from October 3. According to an embassy statement, documents should be submitted between 9am and 12.15pm. The submitted documents can be collected from the relevant counters between 4pm and 5.15pm.

National Tourism Council to replace Tourism AuthorityBy Joey AguilarStaff Reporter

A National Tourism Coun-cil will soon replace Qatar Tourism Authority (QTA) as

part of Qatar’s eff orts to restruc-ture the sector.

Speaking at the World Tourism Day celebration in Doha yester-day, HE the Prime Minister and Interior Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani said the sector’s governance is set to be re-organised in the coming months.

The council will focus on stra-tegic planning, attracting invest-ments, developing and delivering festivals, regulatory aff airs, and enhancing the visitor experience at every touch point.

According to QTA, the council will report to a board of high-level representatives from relevant sec-tors and private sector entities, which will be chaired by HE the Prime Minister and Interior Min-ister.

The council will guide the over-all development of the sector, monitor tourism sector perform-ance, and ensure cross-sector col-laboration and focus, QTA added.

The board will oversee three new entities, which will be charged

with developing large-scale tour-ism products and experiences, promoting the experiences inter-nationally, and consolidating the eff orts of existing players in the business events sub-sector.

“This is an exciting journey. It involves further defi ning the posi-tion and products that make Qatar unique,” QTA said.

“Such move involves facilitat-ing the marketing and investments needed to realise rapid and sus-tainable growth. It also involves transforming the way that we regulate and operate the industry itself,” QTA added.

About Qatar’s new tourism strategy, United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) secretary general Taleb Rifai said these changes in the lead up to the

FIFA World Cup in 2022 will open a new era for development in the country.

“Over my eight years as secre-tary general, I have seen how Qatar has developed into a prime tour-ism destination. UNWTO is very happy to have been part of that process,” he added.

The event also marked the launching of Qatar’s ‘Next Chap-ter of its National Tourism Sector Strategy,’ which charts a fi ve-year plan of sustainable growth up to and beyond the 2022 FIFA World Cup.

“I trust that together – creat-ing true partnerships between all stakeholders – both public and private – you will achieve your na-tional objective to develop tourism as a tool for a better future for Qa-

tar,” Rifai said.He lauded the country’s deci-

sion to waive entry visa require-ments for citizens of 80 countries last month, saying that such travel facilitation forms an integral part of developing tourism and unlock-ing its socio-economic benefi ts.

UNWTO supported Qatar’s new visa policy, citing it as a com-mitment to position tourism as a sector to diversify the economy, enhance sustainability – environ-mental, economic, and cultural – and a national priority for the coming fi ve years.

Part of the new strategy involves further defi ning the position and products that make Qatar unique such as facilitating the marketing and investments needed to realise rapid and sustainable growth.

HE the Prime Minister and Minister of Interior Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani meeting tourism ministers and heads of delegations participating at the off icial celebration of World Tourism Day 2017 in Doha yesterday.

Five-year targets

According to QTA, the new

tourism strategy aims to attract

5.6mn visitors to Qatar annually

by 2023, doubling the number

which the country welcomed in

2016. It also aims to achieve a 72%

occupancy rate across all hotel

establishments, through a combi-

nation of increasing demand and

diversifying the country’s tourist

accommodation off ering.

Also by 2023, the strategy aims

to have increased tourism’s direct

contribution to Qatar’s gross

domestic product (GDP) from

QR19.8bn in 2016 to QR41.3bn,

representing a direct contribution

to the GDP of 3.8% (compared to

3.5% in 2016).

New tourism strategy to enhance experiences of visitors

Qatar’s new tourism

strategy is expected

to enhance visitor

experience over the

next five years.

According to

Qatar Tourism Au-

thority’s (QTA) chief

tourism develop-

ment off icer Hassan

al-Ibrahim, new

plans and measures

are being designed

to ensure favour-

able experiences at

every touch point of

the visitor’s journey

to, from and within

Qatar. This will be achieved through:

Creating tourism experience units in all rel-

evant public and private sector entities – these

will be tasked with ensuring that their organisa-

tions’ services are streamlined and accessible

to tourists.

Introducing programmes to facilitate inter-

actions and shared experiences between Qatar’s

residents and its guests.

Working with relevant authorities to ensure

infrastructure, both physical and digital, is in

place to facilitate visitors’ journeys to, from and

within Qatar.

Developing and running training programmes

for all employees in tourist-facing jobs.

Hassan al-Ibrahim at the World Tourism Day celebration yesterday. PICTURE: Nasar T K

Qatar achieves signifi cant tourism growth despite economic and security challengesBy Joey AguilarStaff Reporter

Qatar has achieved signifi cant growth in tourism despite the economic and security

challenges in the region, HE the Prime Minister and Interior Minis-ter Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani has said.

“We have taken a number of pro-cedures that are unprecedented in order to reinforce the performance of the tourism sector, making the state of Qatar the most open coun-tries in the region,” stressed HE Sheikh Abdullah, who was speaking at the World Tourism Day celebra-tion yesterday.

Highlighting the importance of what he described as “a vital sector” to achieve the comprehensive devel-opment of Qatar, the Prime Minister said the country launched various initiatives to further boost the tour-ism sector’s growth such as granting free-of-charge transit visas for 96

hours to all nationalities, e-visa, and visa-free entry for citizens of 80 countries.

Many visitors from diff erent countries included in the list have availed of the new facilitation policies to visit Qatar.

“There is no doubt that such kind of procedures are going to be a milestone to achieve development in the tourism sector in Qatar and also this is going to be a move forward for the coming strategy that is go-ing to be implemented,” Sheikh Abdullah said.

In 2016, Qatar Tourism Authority (QTA) recorded a 1,000% increase in cruise pas-sengers and saw the redevelopment of the Doha Port.

QTA’s chief tourism development offi cer Hassan al-Ibrahim said that the emergence of “a vibrant cruise tourism sub-sector” is expected to attract around 300,000 cruise visitors to Qatar in the 2019/2020 season.

QTA’s opening of nine international rep-resentative offi ces and more than 200 glo-bal media and trade campaigns in key mar-kets put Qatar in the global tourism map.

The tourism sector also contributed substantially to Qatar’s overall economy,

showing a total (direct and indirect) con-tribution to Qatar’s gross domestic product of 6.7%.

QTA also introduced new and entic-ing tourism festivals, creating a colourful year-round calendar of events and mak-ing signifi cant contributions to the local economy.

“When it comes to the markets, like any other destination, we targeted diff erent markets from diff erent geographic regions. Most of our markets are growing in double digit,” al-Ibrahim noted.

“The changes we introduced had a posi-tive impact and this has resulted to more openness.

“We believe that from a policy perspec-tive we are taking the right steps to diversi-fy our markets, yes, the numbers are drop-ping from certain markets but in the wrong run, we are doing well in other markets,” he stressed.

About the impact of the current Gulf cri-sis to the tourism industry, United Nations World Tourism Organisation secretary general Taleb Rifai pointed out that it will not have any long term eff ect in the region.

HE the Prime Minister and Interior Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani, HE the Minister of Economy and Commerce Sheikh Ahmed bin Jassim bin Mohamed al-Thani, HE the Minister of Energy and Industry Dr Mohamed bin Saleh al-Sada, and United Nations World Tourism Organisation secretary general Taleb Rifai attend yesterday’s event. PICTURE: Nasar T K

Qatar Airways to fly to Erbil as long as it is ‘safe’

Qatar Airways chief executive Akbar al-Baker said yesterday that the carrier will continue fl ying to Erbil

in Kurdistan in the northern Iraq as long as its airspace remains open and there are no security issues, QNA reports.

Al-Baker’s statement came on the sideline of his participation at the events of the of-fi cial celebration of the World Tourism Day, which held in Doha under the slogan ‘Sus-tainable Tourism — A Tool for Development’.

Al-Baker emphasised the role of the avi-ation sector in supporting and promoting tourism in all countries, pointing out that Qatar Airways is working on a clear strat-egy to promote tourism and travel, focus-ing on the direction of new and emerging markets.

The Qatar Airways CEO explained that over the past 20 years, the carrier has been able to enhance tourism in various desti-nations around the world and is now well placed to support Qatar as a desirable tour-ist destination.

He pointed out that Qatar is accelerat-ing the development of the tourism sector in the country since it received the honour to host the FIFA World Cup 2022, and Qatar Airways was able to contribute to fi nding a prominent place for Qatar on the world map of tourism.

He said Qatar Airways is continuing to expand and develop according to Qatar National Vision 2030, and that the com-pany’s achievements will continue around the world to make Doha a destination for tourists around the world.

The Qatar Airways chief executive point-ed out that the recent measures related to facilitating access to the country, launched by Qatar Airways with its partners Qatar Tourism Authority and the Ministry of Interior, are in the interest of developing the country’s tourism development and enhancing its status as a tourist destina-tion for 35mn passengers through Hamad International Airport, the headquarters of Qatar Airways operations.

Qatar Airways CEO Akbar al-Baker addressing the World Tourism Day event in Doha yesterday.

QATAR9Gulf Times

Thursday, September 28, 2017

IPFQ partners Ahli Hospital to mark ‘World Physiotherapy Day’Indian Physiotherapy Forum Qatar (IPFQ) and Al Ahli Hospital have joined hands to organise a seminar to commemorate “World Physiotherapy Day – 2017” at the Concorde hotel, Doha tomorrow from 1.30pm to 8.15pm.IPFQ is a non-profit organisation working with the Indian Cultural Centre under the aegis of the Indian embassy. They have been active in organising activi-ties for the benefit of physiotherapists and public in Qatar since 2011. This year to help the allied health professionals and nurses in Qatar to gain CPD (Continuous Professional Development) points for their licence renewal and help them understand the need of healthier lifestyle choices, IPFQ has partnered with Al Ahli Hospital

which is an accredited CPD provider in Qatar. The combined eff ort of these two organisations has made the seminar titled, “Physical Activity for Life” get ac-credited for five CPD points in Category – 1 by QCHP.Al Ahli Hospital applied for QCHP accreditation through Dr Loui al-Fakri, head of staff training and development. The chair of the scientific planning committee is Sheena Maria John, paediatric physiotherapist at Al Ahli hospital. The scientific planning committee has members representing various private and government hos-pitals in Qatar. They have chosen speakers who are experts in the field of exercises and physical activity prescription.

LNG will pave way for Qatar’s prosperous ‘clean energy future’HE Abdullah bin Hamad al-Atti-

yah, chairman of the Abdullah Bin Hamad Al-Attiyah Inter-

national Foundation for Energy and Sustainable Development, took part in the 17th Italian Energy Summit, held in the Italian city of Milan on Monday and Tuesday under the slogan: “New Inno-vation Strategy”.

The summit’s opening session was attended by Qatar’s ambassador to It-aly Abdulaziz bin Ahmed al-Malki al-Juhani, Qatar’s consul general in Milan

Fahad bin Ibrahim al-Mushiri and a number of chief executives of major Italian companies.

Al-Attiyah took part in the high-lev-el discussion panel, allocated for lead-ing international fi gures in the fi eld of energy industry.

Al-Attiyah is regarded as a leading international fi gure in the energy and sustainability aff airs as well as on the director board of international bodies concerned with energy aff airs and in-ternational co-operation.

Addressing the summit, al-Attiyah confi rmed that the State of Qatar has adopted the method of clean energy production through its international leadership of the production of Liq-uefi ed Natural Gas (LNG), which is regarded as the least source of carbon dioxide emissions by approximately 50%. This will pave the way for Qa-tar towards a most prosperous future with clean energy. In this context, al-Attiyah explained that Qatar started its energy march since a long time and at a low cost, referring to the economic power and the international status the state enjoys in the LNG production.

Concluding his speech, al-Attiyah referred to the humanitarian eff ects of the ongoing blockade against Qatar.

“The siege severed relations be-tween relatives, for example a mother carrying the nationality of a besieging country would not be able to remain with her Qatari husband and children and a Qatari man would not be able to visit his relatives in the besieging states.

“The eff ect of the siege also extend-ed to students as the besieging coun-tries forced Qatari students enrolled in their states to leave immediately with-out taking into account the period they already spent.

“A number of students from the siege countries and studying in Qatar were also forced to leave the country upon decisions by their states,” al-At-tiyah added.

The Abdullah Bin Hamad Al-Attiyah International Foundation for Energy and Sustainable Development chairman HE Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah addressing the 17th Italian Energy Summit in Milan, Italy.

The College of the North Atlantic-Qatar (CNA-Q) recently held an appreciation event for Wellcare Pharmacy Group, to celebrate the company’s 10-year com-mitment to the College’s Pharmacy Technician programme. For a decade, Wellcare has been accepting CNA-Q students for clinical and work term placements, so that students can re-ceive on-the-job training and mentorship, which will help boost their skill set as pharmacy technicians in Qatar’s health sector.

CNA-Q holds appreciation event

Aster’s free lipid profi le test for residents

Aster DM Healthcare has announced that it will conduct free lipid profi le tests to raise awareness about heart diseases among residents of Qatar to mark World Heart

Day 2017. The free lipid profi le testing facility (total cholesterol, trig-

lycerides, HDL, LDL and VLDL) will be available from 7am to 10am tomorrow, Aster DM Healthcare has said in a press state-ment.

This off er will be available at Aster Hospital in the Old Air-port area and all Aster Medical Centres, situated in Al Hi-lal (near the former Indian embassy), C-Ring Road (near the Ministry of Administrative Development, Labour and Social Aff airs offi ce), Industrial Area (near the foot overbridge), Al

Rayyan (near Shafi Masjid), Al Gharafa (near the immigration offi ce), Al Khor (near LuLu Al Khor Mall) and Old Al Ghanim (behind Al Watan Centre). Patients should fast for 10-12 hours before blood collection. No food or drink except water should be taken during these hours, the statement added.

World Heart Day is part of an international campaign by World Heart Federation to spread awareness about heart dis-ease and stroke prevention. Aster DM Healthcare is organising this event this year as a part of their 30th anniversary activities under the banner of Aster@30.

Aster DM Healthcare is a leading private healthcare provider operating in multiple GCC states. For more information, con-tact the Aster helpline at 44440499 or visit www.aster.qa

Mowasalat set for expansion spree ahead of 2022 World Cup

Mowasalat, the country’s sole ground transport service pro-vider is on an ambition ex-

pansion spree, incorporating an array of innovative programmes in its day-to-day operations.

“We are expanding in phases to at-tain the projected target for Qatar to successfully deliver the 2022 FIFA World Cup,” the company said in a statement yesterday.

The company’s Karwa Driving School (KDS), licensed by the Traffi c Department of the Ministry of Interior is accredited with a number of globally approved certifi cations.

The school is equipped with mod-ern training equipment and simulators with which it can train 490 trainees per day for light vehicle driving, interna-tional licence, and operations of heavy equipment, trailers and heavy vehicles.

The company is conducting profes-sional courses including those for de-fensive driving, safe loading and cargo handling.

Among the 63 courses at the school,

there are such courses as premium taxi driver courses and taxi driver refresher courses also.The company also has tie-ups with the Qatar Port Authority for organising training courses for truck drivers entering the port in line with the Ports Safety Standards, accord-ing to Mowasalat chairman Nasser bin Mohamed al-Malki.

Al-Malki said their company has added and updated many training programmes, including the new pro-gramme consisting of specialised modules for training drivers to handle major international events, forums and conferences of all types, hosted in

Qatar, as part of the country’s prepara-tions to host FIFA World Cup 2022.

“These programmes are held under the aegis of the Ministry of Transport and Communications and are in line with the goals and objectives of the Qatar National Vision 2030,” said al-Malki.

Managing director and CEO Khalid Nasser al-Hail said, “Karwa Driving School is upgrading and updating its training programmes at regular inter-vals in line with the standards stipu-lated by reputable international bodies. Our ‘Preparation of Drivers for Large Events’ training programme is accred-ited by Maybo UK, which has trained our trainers in delivering specialised programmes for our drivers”.

Al-Hail said, “KDS played a signifi -cant role and played a major role in fa-cilitating the timely opening of Hamad Port by His Highness the Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, HE the Prime Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani and HE the Minister of Transport and Communica-tions Jassim Seif Ahmed al-Sulaiti.

Motorcyclists charged with dangerous driving

The General Directorate of Traffi c has apprehended a group of bikers and charged them with driving their mo-

torcycles dangerously on the Shamal road.The riders had removed the number

plates of their bikes in order to conceal their identities.

Captain Mohamed Sefar al-Kuwari, of Patrols and Traffi c Investigations Depart-ment, said that soon after the incident was found in a video posted on social media

sites a probe was launched and the off end-ers nabbed.“Though there were no number plates on bikes in order to hide the identity

of the bikers, the police patrols successfully concluded the mission of rounding them up in less than 24 hours, seized the bikes and initi-ated legal action,” he explained.

Captain al-Kuwari stressed the need for motorcyclists to adhere to the rules and regu-lations of the road, not to drive their bicycles endangering their lives and the lives of others, and also not to expose themselves to legal ac-countability for violating the traffi c regula-tions established by law.

Nasser bin Mohamed al-Malki (left) and Khaled Nasser al-Hail.

Senior civil engineer Kamran Azmi (left) was a guest on Qatar Urdu Radio’s show Haqeeqat yesterday.

Captain Mohamed Sefar al-Kuwari. Right: The seized bikes.

Local plastic industry ‘meeting needs of construction firms’The plastic industry in Qatar is currently fulfilling all local demands of construction companies, senior civil engi-neer Kamran Azmi told Qatar Urdu Radio’s show Haqeeqat yesterday.“There is a high demand for building materials including plastic goods in the market and after the siege the local plastic industry is flourishing,” explained Azmi, the general manager of Al Khayarin Inter-national. Qatar Development Bank (QDB) has played a major role in growth of local industries, he recalled.“In the last three months, QDB has organised three exhibitions where local manu-facturers and construction companies met one another. Many companies were pleas-antly surprised to see the high quality of local products,”

Azmi said, adding that QDB is helping local manufactur-ers export their goods and materials outside Qatar.While PVC and other plastic and building related goods used to come from Saudi Ara-bia, the UAE and Bahrain prior to the siege, they are now being produced locally. “There are many advantages of booming local industries. The terms of payments are easy, the delivery of materials takes less time. Additionally, there are long term benefits such as the fact that you are always sure about the availability of products and ultimately, local entrepreneurs benefit from all of this.”Haqeeqat, which aims to engage and interact with the large South Asian expatriate community in Qatar, is a joint venture of the Gulf Times and Qatar Media Corporation

Urdu Radio. It is broadcast from Sunday to Thursday on FM107. Log on to Qatar Urdu

Radio on Facebook and ‘@QatarUrduRadio’ on Twitter for feedback and comments about the show.

REGION/ARAB WORLD

Gulf TimesThursday, September 28, 201710

Interpol nod for Palestine membershipReuters Jerusalem

Interpol voted yesterday to admit the State of Pal-estine as a member over

Israeli objections at the inter-national police organisation’s general assembly in Beijing.

The decision came despite Israeli eff orts to delay a vote and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement that the Palestinians’ joining the global police agency con-travened signed agreements with Israel. Shortly before the vote in the Chinese capital, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said Israel’s eff orts to delay the ballot until next year had failed.

“This victory was made possible because of the prin-cipled position of the ma-jority of Interpol members,” Palestinian Foreign Minis-ter Riyad al-Maliki said in a statement. Interpol said membership applications by the State of Palestine and the Solomon Islands were ap-proved at its annual general assembly by more than the required two-thirds majority of votes.

The organisation now has 192 members.

A Palestinian bid to join last year, at an Interpol conference in Indonesia, was foiled by what Israel said was its diplo-matic campaign against it. In 2012, the UN General Assem-bly upgraded the Palestinian Authority’s observer status at the United Nations to “non-member state” from “entity”, like the Vatican.

The step fell short of full UN membership, but it had

important legal implications in enabling the Palestin-ians to join the International Criminal Court and other world bodies.

Netanyahu’s statement said Palestinian member-ship of Interpol was one of the issues discussed during a meeting with US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, Jason Greenblatt, who is visiting the region.

Netanyahu also raised the Palestinian refusal to con-demn an attack on Tuesday in which a Palestinian fi ghter shot dead three Israeli guards in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. “The actions of the Pal-estinian leadership in the past few days directly harm the prospects of achieving peace and the Palestinian diplomatic off ensive will not go unan-swered,” the statement said.

Some Israeli media com-mentators have voiced con-cern that as an Interpol member, Palestine could ask the organisation to issue a “Red Notice”, an alert to po-lice worldwide to locate and provisionally arrest an indi-vidual, pending extradition.

But the procedure does not appear to pose serious legal problems for Israelis such as government officials and military officers whom pro-Palestinian groups have sought to have arrested by local authorities as sus-pected war criminals during overseas visits.

A red notice is not an in-ternational arrest warrant, and on its website Interpol notes that it cannot com-pel any member country to detain an individual named in one.

Baghdad piles pressure on Kurds to cancel voteReuters Baghdad/Erbil, Iraq

Baghdad piled pressure on Iraq’s Kurds yesterday, demanding they cancel

their overwhelming vote for in-dependence while parliament urged the Iraqi central govern-ment to send troops to take control of vital oil fi elds held by Kurdish forces.

Stepping up eff orts to iso-late autonomous Kurdish-held northern Iraq, which backed se-cession in a referendum on Mon-day that angered neighbouring countries, Baghdad demanded that foreign governments close their diplomatic missions in the Kurdish capital, Erbil.

Final results released yester-day showed nearly 93% in fa-vour of independence, and 7.3% against. More than 3.3mn peo-ple, or 72% of eligible voters, took part in Monday’s ballot, ac-cording to the electoral commis-sion. The referendum has fuelled fears of a new regional confl ict.

A delegation from Iraq’s armed forces headed to neigh-bouring Iran to co-ordinate mil-itary eff orts, apparently as part of retaliatory measures taken by the government in Baghdad fol-lowing the vote.

Iran and Turkey also oppose any move towards Kurdish se-cession and their armies have started joint exercises near their borders with Iraqi Kurdistan

in recent days. Iraq and Tur-key have also held joint military drills. Foreign airlines began suspending fl ights to Kurdish airports after the Iraqi Civil Aviation Authority said inter-national fl ights to Erbil and Su-laimaniya would be suspended at 1500 GMT on Tuesday.

Kurdish authorities rejected Baghdad’s demands that they should annul the referendum as a condition for dialogue and hand over control of their inter-national airports.

Turkey, which has threat-ened to impose sanctions on the Kurds, said its border with northern Iraq remained open, although it may not remain so.

The number of trucks passing through had however decreased.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and Russian Presi-dent Vladimir Putin, who have stressed the need for Iraq’s bor-ders to remain unchanged, will meet in Ankara today.

Russia’s interest in the re-gion is growing.Oil major Ros-neft is increasing investment in Kurdistan and the Kurds have been developing strong ties with Moscow.

The Russian Foreign Minis-try warned Iraq and the Kurds against taking any steps that might destabilise the Middle East after the referendum,

The Kurds consider Monday’s referendum to be an historic step in a generations-old quest for a state of their own.

Iraq considers the vote un-constitutional, especially as it was held not only within the Kurdish region itself but also on disputed territory held by Kurds elsewhere in northern Iraq.

The United States, major Eu-ropean countries and neigh-bours Turkey and Iran strongly opposed the referendum, which they described as destabilising at a time when all sides are still fi ghting against Islamic State militants.

Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani announced on Tuesday evening that the “yes” vote had won. The outcome has caused

anger in Baghdad, where parlia-ment, in a session boycotted by Kurdish lawmakers, asked Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to send troops to the Kurdish-held re-gion of Kirkuk to take control of its oilfi elds.

Kurdish Peshmerga forces took Kirkuk, a multi-ethnic region, in 2014 when the Iraqi army fl ed in the face of Islamic State militants who overran about a third of Iraq.

The Kurds prevented Kirkuk’s huge oil resources from falling into the militants’ hands.

“The government has to bring back the oilfi elds of Kirkuk un-

der the control of the oil min-istry,” the resolution backed by parliament in Baghdad said.

The area, long claimed by the Kurds, is also home to Turkmen and Arab communities, who op-posed the independence vote, although the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) included the area in the referendum.

Barzani, who is KRG presi-dent, has said the vote is not binding, but meant to provide a mandate for negotiations with Baghdad and neighbouring countries over the peaceful se-cession of the region from Iraq.

Baghdad has rejected talks.

Many states to suspend Kurdistan fl ightsAirlines from Turkey as well as Lebanon and Egypt said yesterday they will suspend operations to and from Iraq’s Kurdistan region following Baghdad’s threat to ban flights after the region’s independence referendum. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, whose government strongly opposed the referen-dum, had threatened on Tuesday to order a halt to all flights serving airports in Iraqi Kurdistan in response to the independence vote. Turkish carriers Turkish Airlines, Atlas and Pegasus, which off er fre-quent connections for Iraqi Kurdistan, will halt their flights from tomorrow, the Turkish consulate in Arbil said. Lebanon’s Middle East Airlines said it would also stop flights to and from Arbil from tomorrow while EgyptAir announced its flights would also halt that day “until further notice.” “The work has started in order to increase the capacity of the flights” to and from Arbil until Friday, the Turkish consulate in Arbil said in a statement, urging citizens to consider the “circumstances” in their travel planning.

Abadi had said he would ban “international flights to and from Kurdistan” from tomorrow unless the airports in Arbil and the city of Sulaimaniyah were placed under the control of the federal government in Baghdad. The transport minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government, Mawloud Bawah Murad, expressed baff lement at the move by Baghdad. “Arbil and Sulaimaniyah airports were built from the budget of the Kurdistan government,” he told a press conference in Arbil. Lebanon’s Middle East Airlines chairman Mohamed al-Hout said MEA would work to ensure Lebanese citizens could leave Iraqi Kurdistan through other Iraqi airports. “We will not leave any Lebanese stranded. They will be able to go to Baghdad, Basra or Najaf as transit points,” he said.Budget carrier flydubai also said it was temporarily suspending its flights to Erbil, complying with an Iraqi government demand following an independ-ence referendum in Kurdish-held northern Iraq.

Iranians pour onto streets to mourn soldier beheaded in SyriaReutersBeirut

Thousands of people took to the streets of Tehran yesterday to bury a soldier whose beheading by

Islamic State has come to symbolise the righteousness of Iran’s military involve-ment in Syria.

In what has become an iconic image on Iranian media, 25-year-old Revolu-tionary Guard Mohsen Hojaji is shown looking calmly into camera after his capture as he is led away by an insurgent with blood on his face, holding a knife.

The photograph was posted by Islamic State.

Even Iranians critical of their govern-ment’s military intervention in Syria to help President Bashar al-Assad have taken to social media to express their ad-miration for Hojaji, who was killed last month.

The Revolutionary Guards, Iran’s most powerful military force who also oversee an economic empire worth bil-lions of dollars, were initially quiet about their role in Syria.

But in recent years, as casualties have mounted, they have been more outspo-ken about their engagement, framing it as an existential struggle against the ex-tremists of Islamic State.

Guards killed in Syria and Iraq are touted as protectors of holy sites and la-

belled “defenders of the shrine” on web-sites linked to the Guards.

Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khame-nei prayed over Hojaji’s coffi n and met with his family yesterday, state media reported.

Large crowds carrying red fl ags, sym-bolising martyrdom, and pictures of Ho-jaji processed to the funeral in Tehran, pictures on state TV showed.

Parliament speaker Ali Larijani and former president Mahmoud Ahmadine-jad were among the dignitaries who at-tended, state media said.

“Look at what a stir the martyrdom of this youth has created in the country,” Khamenei said, according to his website.

Hojaji’s funeral comes only three days

before Ashura, an important religious event.

The Guards recovered Hojaji’s body through a deal between Islamic State, the Syrian army and Lebanese group Hezbollah.

More than 300 IS fi ghters and about 300 family members were allowed to evacuate Syria’s western border with Lebanon under the ceasefi re agreement.

On June 7, Islamic State claimed an attack on Tehran’s parliament and the mausoleum of Ayatollah R Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, killing 18 people.

The Revolutionary Guards fi red mis-siles at Islamic State bases in Syria on June 18 in response.

Members of Iran’s elite revolutionary guards Corps (IRGC) carry the casket of Mohsen Hojaji, a young member of the corps who was beheaded in Syria by Islamic State (IS) group fighters, as other mourners raise his portrait during a funeral procession at Imam Hossein Square in Tehran yesterday.

Iraqi forces defeat IS infi ltration near RamadiAFP Ramadi, Iraq

Islamic State group fi ghters seized areas around Ramadi, west of Baghdad, yesterday in an apparent

attempt at a diversion from off ensives on its last Iraqi footholds but were swiftly defeated, security sources said.

The militant infi ltrators briefl y oc-

cupied three areas near the city, which is the capital of Anbar province, long a bastion of insurgency, the sources said.

But after several hours of heavy fi ghting in which there were deaths on both sides, all three areas were retaken.

“The security forces and the tribes retook control of the Al-Tash, Majr and Kilometre Seven districts,” provincial police chief Major General Hadi Razij Kassar told reporters.

“All the Daesh members were killed,” he added, using an Arabic acronym for IS.

The operation was likely to have been an attempt to divert the security forces from an off ensive they launched last week against the militants’ last two footholds in Iraq, one of them a series of towns further up the Euphrates Val-ley from Ramadi.

A general who asked not to be iden-

tifi ed said government forces had killed 20 militants. A military source in Ramadi hospital said two security personnel were killed and 18 civilians wounded.

“A curfew has been imposed on the city of Ramadi and its surroundings to prevent any security breaches,” the general said. Troops and paramilitaries retook full control of Ramadi from IS in February 2016 but are still battling

to clear the jihadists from elsewhere in Anbar province.

Last week saw the launch of twin off ensives against the militants in the Euphrates Valley near the Syrian bor-der and around the northern town of Hawija.

IS is now under attack in all of its remaining bastions in both the Iraqi and the Syrian arms of the so-called caliphate it declared in 2014.

Since the militants’ defeat in Iraq’s second city Mosul in July after a nine-month off ensive, the territory they still hold has dwindled fast, with strong-hold after stronghold coming under assault on both sides of the border.

Their onetime Syrian bastion Raqqa, long a byword for gruesome atrocities, including public executions, is now on the verge of falling to US-backed fi ghters.

Palestinian protesters argue with Israeli soldiers during clashes at a protest near the West Bank town of Tubas yesterday.

Protest against Israeli soldiers

Libya threatens to seize NGO rescue boats

AFP Tripoli

Libya’s navy warned it will seize activists’ boats on migrant res-

cue missions that enter its waters unauthorised, after a run-in yesterday with a Ger-man vessel during which a warning shot was fired.

“This time we avoided an escalation. In future, we will seize the boats of NGOs that do not respect Libya’s sover-eignty,” said navy spokesman General Ayub Kacem.

The Libyan coastguard earlier boarded a boat oper-ated by Germany’s “Mission Lifeline” which had picked up 52 migrants at sea. “You are not welcome here,” a coastguard official said in a videotape posted on the In-ternet by the NGO.

“They threatened us by telling us to hand over the people, which we refused,” said the group’s head Axel Steier, contacted by AFP.

“It was a real act of piracy because they boarded our boat without any authorisa-tion,” he said.

AFRICA11Gulf Times

Thursday, September 28, 2017

Uganda MPs brawl over presidential age limit

ReutersKampala

Lawmakers yesterday brawled in Uganda’s parliament for a second day running over a fi ercely-dis-

puted move to change the constitution to let long-ruling President Yoweri Musev-eni run for re-election after age 75.

MPs exchanged blows and kicks, with some using microphone stands as crude weapons in the melee, and at least two female lawmakers were carried out of the chamber after collapsing, a Reuters journalist on the scene said.

At least 25 MPs opposed to the pro-posed constitutional amendment to prolong Museveni’s tenure were forci-bly ejected on orders of the speaker for involvement in fi ghting on Tuesday. All other like-minded MPs then walked out.

After calm returned, ruling party MP Raphael Magyezi introduced the contested motion authorising parliament to draft and present a bill that would lift the constitu-tion’s age cap on presidential candidates.

The motion passed, parliament com-munications director Chris Obore told Reuters, adding that Magyezi would have about a month to submit the bill to a fi rst reading in the House.

Under the existing constitution, eli-gibility to stand as a presidential candi-date in the East African country has an age ceiling of 75. That makes Museveni, 73, in power since 1986 and increasingly accused of authoritarianism and a fail-ure to curb corruption, unqualifi ed to seek re-election at the next polls in 2021. Removing the age cap would erase that barrier.

The proposal, echoing steps by other veteran African leaders to void legal lim-its on their rule, has stirred widespread resistance from rights activists, opposi-tion parties, religious leaders and even some members of Museveni’s party.

Fisticuff s fi rst broke out in the Kam-pala parliament on Tuesday, leading Uganda’s communication regulator to ban live broadcasts of events “inciting the public”.

In a notice yesterday, the Uganda Communications Commission said ra-dio and television stations should stop live broadcasts of events that “are in-citing the public, discriminating, stir-ring up hatred, promoting a culture of violence...and are likely to create public insecurity.”

No station aired yesterday’s proceed-ings, but some posted clips of the brawls on their Twitter feeds.

Uganda’s two major privately owned TV stations, including a local unit of Kenya’s Nation Media Group, and some radio stations carried Tuesday’s parlia-mentary session live.

Critics said the authorities’ action to ban live broadcasts underscored a crackdown on anyone questioning the planned constitutional amendment.

Since last week, when a motion to kick-start the amendment process was supposed to be read but never made it to the fl oor, both police and military per-sonnel have been deployed around the parliament and many parts of the capital.

Protests by students and opposi-tion activists and supporters in Kam-pala against the amendment, sometimes broadcast live, have been put down with tear gas and arrests of scores of people.

Ghanaian villagers profi t from monkey businessBy Stacey Knott, AFP Tafi Atome, Ghana

The villagers of Tafi Atome, in Ghana’s Volta Region, grew up listening to tales

of their spiritual links to the 1,000 or so mona monkeys that inhabit the surrounding lush for-est.

But they have also turned that reverence into revenue, by mak-ing the cheeky primates part of an eco-tourist attraction that benefi ts both animals and locals alike.

Francis Acquaye, the man-ager of the Tafi Atome Monkey Sanctuary and Cultural Village, said the monkeys and the forest were considered sacred until the 1980s, when the spread of Chris-tianity eroded traditional beliefs.

The red, brown and white monkeys, which are found be-tween Ghana and Cameroon, were soon hunted and trees were chopped down until the village became an eco-tourist attraction in 1996.

Now, thousands of people visit the sanctuary near the border with Togo each year.

Some stay in the village to learn about rural life.

The money earned has helped to build a health clinic, sink bore-holes and renovate school build-ings.

“People in the communi-ty treat the monkeys in a very friendly way just because of the benefi ts we derive from tourism,” Acquaye told AFP.

“Everybody supports what is here. So the monkeys are our friends, they are our brothers and sisters.”

At the sanctuary, monkeys wait in the trees, watching a group of young visitors.

When the bananas come out, so do the monkeys.

Both tourist and monkey squeal with delight as the food is taken.

Seventeen-year-old Melissa Fehr, from Canada who is among the visiting group, is just as en-thusiastic about the warm wel-come extended to them by the villagers.

“They all say ‘welcome’ to you, which is really cool,” she en-thused.

Villagers say they have never experienced or seen the monkeys attack.

Acquaye walks through the forest calling the monkeys with pursed lips.

When they see the halved ba-nanas in his hands, they bound over.

And when people carry food on their heads, especially if it’s bananas or corn, they need to be wary, he said.

“You need to give pieces of those to the monkeys otherwise you will be carrying monkeys on the load (too),” he added.

For Lydia Osei, a trader in the village who sits on the roadside selling drinks and snacks, shar-ing food with the monkeys is a normal part of life in Tafi Atome.

“We give them food when we have it. We give them banana and maize and other things and they are no longer afraid of us,” she said.

“Even though they are animals and we are humans, we are living together as one.”

The Tafi Atome sanctuary is one of a handful of success-ful eco-tourism projects across Ghana that aim to protect the region’s culture and environment while providing resources to local communities.

Others include a hippopota-mus sanctuary in the north of Ghana, guided hikes alongside waterfalls in the east and along the coast, turtle-watching tours

are set up to conserve the endan-gered species.

A recent report by the Oxford Business Group research con-sultancy said that even though it was still in its early stages, eco-tourism in Ghana had “signifi -

cant potential” as the number of overseas visitors to the country increases.

The World Bank said 897,000 international tourists visited Ghana in 2015.

But the World Travel and

Tourism Council (WTTC) esti-mates that the numbers could reach nearly 1.3mn this year and more than 2mn by 2027.

The travel and tourism sector directly generated 288,000 jobs in 2016 and is forecasted to grow

by 4.7% in 2017 to 301,500. By 2027, travel and tourism will ac-count for 366,000 jobs directly, it added.

Ghanaian tourism experts now want to see more emphasis on eco-tourism projects like Tafi Atome.

The co-founder of tour op-erator Sunset African Tours, Naa Oyoe Ofei-Aryeh, said people are currently more likely to visit the slave castles along Ghana’s coast or attend cultural festivals.

A push by local government could get more people involved, she added.

Apollo Panou, the founder of Jolinaiko Eco Tours, believes eco-tourism can help Ghanaians tell their own story.

The term has a broad defi nition but for Panou it’s simple: “Be proud of your culture, protect what you have and then add value to it instead of destroying what you have to create new things.”

Eco-tourism needs to be pro-moted, as it empowers commu-nities to make money from their own resources, he said.

“We need to let the commu-nity really understand what they are selling, why, what they have and then they need to be proud of who they are,” Panou said.

Ghanaian tourism experts now want to see more emphasis on eco-tourism projects like Tafi Atome.

Anti-Zuma protests harden ANC succession dividesReutersJohannesburg

Thousands of South Africans marched yesterday in anti-cor-ruption protests, in a rallying

cry against scandal-plagued Presi-dent Jacob Zuma and his powerful al-lies three months before a new ANC leader is chosen.

The African National Congress will pick its next leader in December with Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa expected to face off against Nkosa-zana Dlamini-Zuma, the former chair of the African Union and Zuma’s ex-wife.

The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), which has backed Ramaphosa and operates in an alliance with the ANC, led marches in major cities across South Africa.

Though the demonstrations were supposed to be against corruption, it became apparent protesters had come to vent their anger at Zuma and throw support behind his rivals.

Throngs of protesters marched to parliament in Cape Town singing songs and waving “Zuma must go” placards, although the crowds never got close to the tens of thousands promised by COSATU.

“Things are just going down under

President Zuma,” textile worker Flor-ence Titus told Reuters. “He needs to play a president’s role not just be there to fi ll his pockets and his family’s pockets. He must step down.”

Senior members of the ANC have also called for Zuma to quit in recent

months following a swell of allega-tions that his friends, the Gupta fam-ily, wield undue infl uence over the award of state contracts worth hun-dreds of millions of dollars.

The Guptas and Zuma deny wrong-doing and say they are victims of a politically-motivated witchhunt.

Zuma survived an attempt in par-liament to force him from offi ce in Au-gust, but was left politically wounded after some ANC members backed the opposition’s no-confi dence motion.

He can remain head of state un-til a parliamentary election in 2019, although the next ANC leader could edge him out next year.

Allegations of widespread corrup-tion and the raiding of taxpayer funds by outside interests — known locally as ‘state capture’ — have further dent-ed investor confi dence in an economy which fell into a recession earlier in 2017.

“We are marching against state capture. We are fi ghting the Guptas who are taking our money,” Ongeziwe Sisilana, a 26 year old teacher, said as

she walked with around 2,000 others in downtown Johannesburg.

Sisilana held up a sign reading “State Capture is a criminal off ense” as idle police cordons watched on.

Ramaphosa’s camp has prioritised fi ghting corruption, boosting econom-ic growth and winning back the trust of supporters who have become disillu-sioned with the party under Zuma.

Zuma’s faction, backed by a pow-erful patronage network, is likely to throw its weight behind Dlamini-Zu-ma, although other candidates could still come into contention.

“Today’s series of marches and protests that target corruption and state capture are also targeting Mr Zuma and his succession faction in the ANC,” said Gary van Staden, political analyst at NKC Research.

Some analysts say an opposition coalition could unseat the ANC at the next election, an unthinkable scenario a few years ago for a party that has led comfortably since it swept to power under Nelson Mandela at the end of apartheid in 1994.

Confederation Of South African Trade Unions members march through the streets of Johannesburg protesting against corruption.

Concern about tourism aft er 36 Dutch visitors robbed

South Africa’s tourism minister yester-

day expressed concern that an incident

in which Dutch tourists were robbed

could damage the country’s tourism

industry.

Thirty-six Dutch tourists, who ar-

rived in the country on Sunday, were

robbed in their tour bus after leaving

Johannesburg’s main airport, the Police

Ministry said in a statement.

The bus was stopped by a vehicle

with police markings, the statement

said, adding that one man was also

dressed in police uniform.

A group of armed men boarded the

bus, tied up the tour guide and driver,

and robbed the tourists of their belong-

ings, local media reported.

“That kind of a barbaric incident...

sends a very bad reputation about our

country,” Tourism Minister Tokozile

Xasa told local television network SABC

in an interview to mark World Tourism

Day.

“We want to market South Africa as a

safe destination,” she said.

The tourists cancelled the rest of

their trip and have now returned home,

according to Dutch media.

The Netherlands’ ambassador to

South Africa, Marisa Gerards, tweeted

about the incident on Tuesday, calling it

“a shocking, tragic & impactful robbery.

Very traumatic for these NL tourists.”

Puerto Ricopresses forshippingwaiverReutersSan Juan, Puerto Rico/New York

As Puerto Rico struggles with a lack of fuel, water and medical supplies follow-

ing the devastation of Hurricane Maria, it is pressing the Trump administration to lift a prohibition on foreign ships delivering supplies from the US mainland.

The island’s governor is push-ing for the federal government to temporarily waive the Jones Act, a law requiring that all goods shipped between US

ports be carried by US owned-and-operated ships.

President Donald Trump’s ad-ministration has so far not grant-ed his request. “We’re thinking about that,” Trump told report-ers when asked about lifting the Jones Act restrictions yesterday.

“But we have a lot of shippers and....a lot of people that work in the shipping industry that don’t want the Jones Act lifted, and we have a lot of ships out there right now.”

Many of the US territory’s 3.4mn inhabitants are queuing for scarce supplies of gas and diesel to run generators as the island’s electrical grid remains crippled a week after Maria hit.

Government-supplied water trucks have been mobbed.

Puerto Rico gets most of its fuel by ship from the US, but one of its two main ports is closed and the other is operating only during the daytime.

“We expect them to waive it (the Jones Act),” governor Ricar-do Rossello told CNN yesterday, noting there was a brief waiver is-sued after Hurricane Irma, which was much less devastating as it grazed past the island en route for Florida earlier this month.

Members of Congress from both parties have supported an emergency waiver, he said.

The US government has is-sued periodic Jones Act waivers following severe storms in the past, to allow the use of cheaper or more readily available foreign-fl agged ships.

Trump’s taxplan slashesrates for rich,businessesReutersWashington

US President Donald Trump yesterday pro-posed the biggest tax

overhaul in three decades — a plan that would slash rates on businesses and the wealthy — but it faces an uphill battle in Con-gress with his own party divided and Democrats hostile.

The plan off ered scant details about how to pay for the cuts without dramatically driving up federal defi cits.

It was forged during months of high-level talks among Trump’s aides and top Republi-cans in Congress.

The proposal would lower corporate income tax rates, cut taxes for “pass-through” busi-nesses, reduce the top income tax rate for individual Americans and scrap some widely used tax breaks including one that ben-efi ts people in high-tax states dominated by Democrats.

Big business embraced the plan, while Democrats voiced opposition.

Republicans have produced no major legislative successes since Trump took offi ce in Janu-ary even though they control the White House and both cham-bers of Congress.

The tax plan was outlined the day after the Republicans’ top legislative priority, an overhaul of the US healthcare system, col-lapsed in the Senate, while an-other key item on Trump’s wish list, infrastructure spending, has yet to materialise.

A comprehensive tax overhaul has eluded lawmakers for dec-ades. The last one was passed in 1986.

Trump has said the tax over-haul would provide tax relief to middle-class Americans, and the White House said that under the proposal typical middle-class families would have less of their income subject to federal income tax.

The plan foresees a 20% corporate income tax rate,

down from 35% now.Trump had initially proposed

a 15% rate.Companies in the US pay high

taxes by global standards and they have been seeking a tax cut for years, even though many of them pay much less than the headline rate due to loopholes and tax breaks.

“I think it’s a big step for-ward,” senator Pat Toomey, a prominent Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, told reporters. “This is very, very constructive, that the relevant parties are on the same page.”

Trump has appealed to Dem-ocrats to support the plan, al-though they were not consulted in drafting it.

Republicans hold a thin 52-48 majority in the senate and may need some Democrats on board to win passage. But Democrats said the plan would expand the federal defi cit in order to deliver tax cuts to wealthy Americans rather than the middle-class families that Trump and Repub-licans say they are trying to help.

“If this framework is all about the middle class, then Trump Tower is middle-class housing. It violates Trump’s tax pledge that the rich would not gain at all under his plan,” said senator Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the tax-writing Senate Fi-nance Committee.

Analysts have warned that huge tax cuts would balloon the federal defi cit and debt if the economic growth projected by Republicans fails to materialise amid rising interest rates.

The White House and con-gressional Republicans did not give an estimate on how much the tax plan would cost.

The non-profi t Tax Foundation policy group previously estimat-ed it would reduce federal revenue by up to $5.9tn in the next decade.

Trump was hitting the road yesterday to sell the plan with an appearance in Indianapolis. His proposal was embraced by the US

Chamber of Commerce busi-ness lobbying group and an organisation called the RATE

Coalition representing large American companies including AT&T Inc, FedEx Corporation, Home Depot, General Dynamics and Walmart Stores.

The coalition, which said it represents fi rms employing over 30mn workers in all 50 states, said America’s corporate tax rate is the highest in the industrial-ised world and “out of step with global reality.”

Wall Street opened higher yesterday partly on rising ex-pectations of a December inter-est rate hike, with a focus also on Trump’s tax plan.

Stocks later pared gains.The tax framework would es-

tablish a 25% rate for business income from pass-throughs.

The Brookings Institution think tank estimates that 95% of all US businesses are “pass-throughs,” which tend to be small, private enterprises.

Under current tax law, busi-ness profi ts are “passed through” to owners as personal income, which is often taxed at the top 39.6% individual income tax rate.

While it would lower the top individual rate from to 35% from 39.6%, the Trump plan would roughly double the standard de-duction, a set amount of income exempt from taxation, for all taxpayers.

The proposal aims to con-solidate the current seven tax brackets into three brackets of 12%, 25% and 35%.

Republicans proposed elimi-nating some existing tax deduc-tions, though they retain de-ductions for mortgage interest payments and charitable deduc-tions. They proposed scrapping the deduction for the amount a taxpayer pays in state and local taxes, which could hurt peo-ple in high-tax states including California and New York that tend to vote Democratic.

Republicans argue that the tax cuts would be off set by new revenues raised from eliminat-ing tax loopholes and would drive more robust US economic growth, predictions that critics are sure to question.

Family hurt in amusement park attackTribune News ServiceGurnee, Illinois

A family of three was hospi-talised after being attacked by an adult and eight teens

at Six Flags Great America in Gurnee, Ill., after members of the larger group apparently cut in line and were using foul language when the family exchanged words with them, according to police.

Gurnee police offi cer Daniel Ruth, the incident’s lead inves-tigator, said the family members – a 51-year-old man, 50-year-old woman and a 12-year-old boy – all were transported to an area hospi-tal by a Gurnee Fire Department ambulance with injuries that were not life-threatening.

Police arrested Gregory Battle, 18, of Waukegan, who was being

held on $20,000 bail on charges of aggravated battery causing great bodily harm, mob action and ag-gravated battery in a public place, Ruth said.

The other eight juveniles, rang-ing in age from 15 to 17, were named in juvenile petitions for mob ac-tion, a class 4 felony, and taken to the Robert W Depke Juvenile Complex Centre in Vernon Hills.

Seven of the suspects were from Waukegan and one was from Beach Park. Another juvenile addition-ally was charged with obstruction of justice for giving a false name, Ruth said.

Police are asking for any more witnesses to contact the depart-ment. “We urge anyone with video information to come forward,” Ruth said. Ruth added that while the park has cameras throughout, the footage they’ve seen has been

inconclusive.“We believe there were more

witnesses that did not come for-ward, and any video would be use-ful to the investigation,” Ruth said. “We urge anyone who may have witnessed the incident to come forward and make a statement.”

The incident was called in to po-lice at 8.50pm during the amuse-ment park’s Fright Fest in the Southwest Territory area, home of rides Raging Bull, Viper and Giant Drop.

The initial call was for a fi ght in progress involving approximately 10 people, Ruth said. Another 911 call reported that 10 people were sur-rounding and fi ghting one person.

According to Ruth, when po-lice arrived, they detained nine suspects who fi t the description provided by park security person-nel, which included people with

diff erent hairstyles and diff erent styles of clothing. They were not in costume.

Security and police both made contact with the suspects just south of Grand Avenue in the park’s entryway that is landscaped with hills and trees, Six Flags Avenue, and detained them, Ruth said. He added that witnesses told police there was an exchange of words over one of the victim’s thoughts on the group’s inappropriate be-haviour, which included foul lan-guage and a line issue for a ride.

“They were talking initially before a battery occurred to the child,” Ruth said. He added that the father went to his son’s aid and started to pull the off ender off the boy when the father was knocked to the ground, and the group sur-rounded him and hit him with “punches and kicks.”

At least 14 people were killed and eight injured in northern Mexico when an armed group opened fire in a drug addiction rehabilitation centre, local police said. In a statement security off icials in the city of Chihuahua said “an armed group entered the Uniting Families rehabilitation centre,” attacking those inside with assault rifles. First responders arrived on scene to care for the wounded in the centre, where some 25 people were estimated to have been during the attack. The state of Chihuahua, which borders the US, has endured some of the worst violence in Mexico’s decade-long militarised battle against drug traff icking.

Smoke, ash and red-hot rocks belched from the Popocatepetl volcano near Mexico City yesterday, heightening the anxieties of Mexicans still shaken by last week’s powerful earthquake that killed hundreds and severely damaged thousands of buildings. Popocatepetl showered a village at its base with ash, shook with the force of a 1.8 magnitude earthquake and spewed flaming rocks to distances of up to 1km, the National Disaster Prevention Center (Cenapred) said. Eruptions and exhalations take place on average about twice a year since the volcano reactivated 23 years ago and are not seen by disaster off icials as a major threat, but the activity has worried Mexicans.

Police removed a woman from a Southwest Airlines flight before it left Baltimore/Washington International Thurgo od Marshall Airport after she reported a life-threatening allergy to two animals aboard but refused to leave the plane The woman complained to the crew about an emotional support animal and a pet aboard Flight 1525, off icials said. While the woman said her allergy was life-threatening, she was unable to provide the necessary medical certificate. The airline’s policy says a passenger may be denied boarding if they report a life-threatening allergic reaction without a medical certificate and cannot travel safely with an animal, Southwest said.

President Donald Trump won’t be part of the group testing the expanded character limit for messages on the Twitter, the social network. “He’s not in the test group,” Twitter co-founder Biz Stone said in a tweet after a flurry of comments following the announcement of a test allowing some users up to 280 characters, or twice the current maximum. Stone was responding to a comment from one Twitter user who commented sarcastically: “Thank u @biz and @jack (chief executive Jack Dorsey) for giving Donald Trump two times more space instead of addressing the mess he was already doing with 140 characters.”

The acting chief of the US Drug Enforcement Administration, who has been critical of President Donald Trump, is stepping down at the end of the week, a spokeswoman said yesterday. Chuck Rosenberg, who was known to be close to fired former FBI director James Comey, has resigned “eff ective October 1,” spokeswoman Katherine Pfaff said. Rosenberg is a holdover from former president Barack Obama’s administration, and Trump had been expected to name his own person to head the agency. But Rosenberg, a former prosecutor who has led the DEA on an interim basis since 2015, had also been at odds with the president.

14 dead in attack onMexico drug rehab centre

Volcano near Mexico Citybelches burning rocks

Woman dragged off flight over dog allergy

Trump not to get expanded tweet space

Head of Drug EnforcementAdministration resigns

CRIME DISASTEROFFBEATCLARIFICATIONDECISION

12 Gulf TimesThursday, September 28, 2017

AMERICAS

Trudeau attends student science fair

Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau reacts while using a robot that fires plastic balls during a student science fair with chief science adviser Mona Nemer (second right) and Science Minister Kirsty Duncan in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, yesterday.

Moore wins AlabamaSenate primaryAFPWashington

Former Alabama chief justice Roy Moore’s victory over President

Donald Trump’s preferred candidate in the Senate Re-publican runoff sent shock waves through Washington, warning the party that con-servative fury will remain a disruptive force in US poli-tics.

The gun-toting, contro-versy-courting Moore is now the clear frontrunner against a Democratic candidate in the general election in December to fi ll the senate seat vacated by Jeff Sessions, now the at-torney general.

Moore beat Luther Strange, the incumbent senator who was appointed to the seat early this year, by about 10 percent-age points, a sign that Trump’s substantial popularity with his restless political base may not be transferrable to other political fi gures.

Perhaps sensing that, Trump quickly swung behind the winner, calling him to of-

fer congratulations.And several of Trump’s

past pro-Strange posts disap-peared from Twitter. “Sounds like a really great guy who ran a fantastic race. He will help to #MAGA!” Trump tweeted yesterday, referring to his “Make America Great Again” slogan.

The result, though, is an embarrassing setback for Trump that highlights the deep divisions within his par-ty and raises questions about its future direction as the GOP heads toward mid-term elec-tions in 2018.

It also signals that many in the grassroots conserva-tive movement that helped propel Trump to the White House are still fighting against the party leader-ship during a turbulent pe-riod in which Republicans have struggled to deliver on key campaign promises like health care reform.

Although stressing that he remained a Trump sup-porter, Moore hailed his win as a “conservative victory” for his Deep South state of Alabama.

Executive order onhealthcare eyed

President Donald Trump, faced with the latest congressional failure to undo Obamacare, yesterday said he was working on an executive order to expand access to health insurance and would negotiate with Democrats for a legislative solution by next year. Senate Republicans abandoned their latest eff ort to repeal President Barack Obama’s Aff ordable Care Act on Tuesday aft er failing to secure suffi cient support. Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump said Congress would return to the healthcare issue in the fi rst few months of 2018 and said he had the votes to get it done. In the meantime, he said he would work with Democrats to make the eff ort one that had support from both parties. “I am...going to meet with Democrats and I will see if I can get a healthcare plan that’s even better,” he said. “So I will negotiate with Democrats but from the Republican standpoint we have the votes. We’ll vote in January, February or March.” The executive order Trump is eyeing would allow individuals to purchase insurance across state lines through so-called health associations, a measure advocated by Republican senator Rand Paul.

ASIA/AUSTRALASIA13Gulf Times

Thursday, September 28, 2017

AFP journalist Kate Webb featured on Australian stampAFPSydney

A crusading Agence France-Presse (AFP) correspond-ent who enjoyed a storied

career covering wars and other historic events has been com-memorated on an Australian stamp.

Kate Webb, who died in 2007 at the age of 64, earned a reputa-tion as a fearless reporter during the Vietnam War and covering other momentous stories in Asia during a career spanning four

decades. She is featured on one of five new stamps unveiled yes-terday to mark Remembrance Day on November 11, when a minute’s silence is held to honour those who have fought and died for their country. The stamps will be issued on October 6.

“This stamp issue, the fourth in a series commemorating a century since World War I, ac-knowledges the important roles women have played in war and conflict,” said Michael Zsolt of Australia Post.

Webb, who was born in New Zealand but moved to Austral-

ia with her family as a child, is shown on a stamp marking the Korea and Vietnam wars, along with Red Cross worker Rosemary Griggs.

In 1971 while covering the Vi-etnam War, Webb was reported killed after she was ambushed and taken prisoner by North Vi-etnamese troops in Cambodia, who marched her and five others through the jungle in a 23-day ordeal.

A front-page obituary was published the New York Times and the body of another woman wrongly identified as hers – but

just as her family held a memorial service for her in Sydney, Webb and the other captives were freed.

World War I, World War II, the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, and Australia’s role in peace-keeping operations also feature in the stamp series. Prior to and including World War I, the in-volvement of Australian women in conflict zones was almost en-tirely limited to nursing.

By the Vietnam War, they held many roles, including as mem-bers of civilian medical teams, Red Cross support, entertainers, and journalists. Today, wom-

en are employed throughout the armed forces. AFP in 2008 launched the annual Kate Webb Prize to recognise exceptional Asian journalists doing difficult and dangerous work across the region.

The 2017 edition is currently welcoming applications, with the winner receiving 3,000 euros (approximately $3,575) in cash, which will be awarded at a prize-giving ceremony. The contest is open to locally hired Asian photo, video and text journalists, for work published during 2016. Ap-plications close on November 1.

Yingluck gets fi ve years for criminal negligenceAFPBangkok

Thailand’s top court yes-terday sentenced ousted premier Yingluck Shina-

watra in absentia to fi ve years in prison for criminal negligence, a verdict that likely ends the politi-cal career of a popular leader who fl ed the junta-run kingdom last month.

Yingluck’s administration was toppled in a 2014 coup and she was later put on trial for failing to stop corruption and losses in her government’s rice subsidy scheme, which the court said cost the country billions of dol-lars.

She pleaded innocent and ac-

cused the ruling junta of a politi-cal witch-hunt. But the Supreme Court in Bangkok deemed her guilty, saying she failed to stop graft and losses in the rice pro-gramme. “The court has sen-tenced her to fi ve years in prison and the court also unanimously agreed that the sentence will not be suspended,” a judge said.

The verdict, which makes Yingluck’s return to the kingdom increasingly unlikely, said the leader was aware of corrupt deals made by members of her admin-istration but did nothing to stop them.

She “should have designated reasonable and eff ective regula-tions that could concretely pre-vent loss from the beginning of the programme,” the verdict said,

adding that the policy cost Thai-land nearly $10bn in losses. After attending dozens of hearings in a trial that lasted more than one year, Yingluck failed to turn up for a ruling originally scheduled for August 25 — a day of high dra-ma that left the kingdom dumb-founded.

The 50-year-old, who still has the right to appeal, has not ap-peared in public since pulling the vanishing act.

Her once active social media accounts have also gone silent.

But there are widespread re-ports she joined her billionaire brother Thaksin, a former prime minister ousted in a 2006 coup, in Dubai.

Thaksin has kept a home in the city since he too fl ed Thailand in

2008 to avoid jail for a corruption conviction.

The Shinawatra siblings lie at the centre of a political battle that has gnawed at Thailand for more than a decade.

The clan fi rst emerged on the political scene in 2001 when Thaksin took offi ce and secured the loyalty of the rural poor with groundbreaking welfare schemes. Shinawatra-backed parties have dominated electoral politics ever since, infl aming Bangkok’s military-allied elite.

Unable to beat the Shina-watras at the polls, their rivals have turned to court rulings and coups to repeatedly knock their governments from power. Re-peated rounds of rival protests have ensued, often spilling into

bloodshed. Analysts say the lat-est coup, followed by Yingluck’s trial, was part of the ruling jun-ta’s eff ort to expunge her clan from politics for good.

The guilty verdict may not rub out the Shinawatras’ infl uence altogether but it spells “the end of Yingluck’s political career,” said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a politics expert at Chulalongkorn University.

It also sends a warning sign to would-be successors who might try and challenge the dominance of the military and its allies in Bangkok’s traditional aristoc-racy. “This is the fi rst time that a Thai prime minister is sentenced to jail for a policy from an election campaign,” said Thitinan, calling it “a tough and tricky standard

for future Thai prime ministers”.Thailand’s junta leaders deny

having any prior knowledge of Yingluck’s plan to escape.

But many inside the kingdom are unconvinced, given the jun-ta’s tight security net and round-the-clock surveillance of the former leader during the course of the trial. Analysts say Yingluck most likely cut a deal with the military leaders, who would have been eager to see off a popular politician poised to become a martyr for the kingdom’s mori-bund democracy movement.

“By getting Yingluck out of Thailand, the military gets rid of a potential thorn in their side who could become a martyr if jailed, or a powerful politician again if

she is not,” said Paul Chambers, an expert on Thai politics. On the eve of the verdict junta chief Prayut Chan-O-Cha declared his “spies” had informed him of Yingluck’s whereabouts, but said he would not reveal her location until after the judgement was de-livered.

The generals have promised an eventual return to democracy but the date for elections keeps slipping, as they extend their clampdown on dissent. Even if a poll is eventually held, it will be organised under a new junta-drafted charter that signifi cantly curbs the power of elected politi-cians and enshrines the military’s oversight of any future govern-ment for the next 20 years.

Yingluck Shinawatra

Kate Webb is featured on one of five new stamps unveiled to mark Remembrance Day on November 11, acknowledging the important roles women have played in war and conflict.

Tremors in Bali as volcano rumbles, tourism badly hitAFPKarangasem, Indonesia

Indonesian authorities are on standby to divert fl ights des-tined for the holiday island

of Bali as increasingly frequent tremors from a rumbling volca-no stoke fears an eruption could be imminent.

Mount Agung, 75km from the tourist hub of Kuta, has been shaking since August, threaten-ing to erupt for the fi rst time in more than 50 years and causing more than 96,000 people to fl ee their homes.

“The number of evacu-ees is expected to continue to rise,” Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, spokesman for the national dis-aster mitigation agency, said in a statement. Bali attracts millions of foreign visitors every year to its palm-fringed beaches and an eruption would be a blow to its tourism-dependent economy.

The airport in Bali’s capital Denpasar has not been aff ected, but several countries including Australia and Singapore have is-sued advisories warning travel-lers to exercise caution. In case of an eruption, Indonesia plans to divert fl ights headed for Bali to 10 other airports, including on nearby Lombok and the capi-tal Jakarta. “The planes will be diverted to their nearest location or where they originally took off from,” said transport minister Budi Karya Sumadi.

Airlines are watching the situation closely and 100 buses have been prepared to evacuate tourists. Virgin Australia said it would be making an extra fuel stop in Darwin for some of its fl ights between Australia and Bali in case it is forced to turn back. Singapore Airlines said

customers travelling between September 23 and October 2 could rebook fl ights or ask for a refund.

Offi cials announced the high-est possible alert level on Friday due to the increasing volcanic activity, and told people to stay at least 9km away from the cra-ter. They are still stressing the island is generally safe, but there are signs the volcano is starting to give tourists the jitters.

I Komang Nik Suantara, own-er of the Amed Beach Resort on Bali’s east coast, said business had collapsed since the alert level was raised.

“Amed is safe from the lava

but still the economy is very down, no customer, everyone cancelled,” he said. German tourist Christoph Lange, who is staying in Amed, said that de-spite frequent tremors he felt “pretty safe”. “We’ve got like 20, 30, 40 shakes where you could feel the earth shaking,” Lange, 30, told AFP. “While we were diving we had quite a few. Under water you can hear it, it’s pretty loud actually.”

Rahmat, who sells clothes from a stall in Kuta, said his income had halved in the past week because there were fewer tourists. The Indonesian Center for Volcanology and Geological

Hazard Mitigation said tremors were increasing and it had re-corded 480 between 12am and 12pm on Wednesday. A thin col-umn of smoke can be seen rising from the mountain’s summit.

“So far the activity of Mount Agung remains high, the alert level is on level 4 — the highest,” said Kasbani, head volcanologist at the centre who like many In-donesians has one name. Indo-nesia lies on the Pacifi c “Ring of Fire” where tectonic plates col-lide, causing frequent seismic and volcanic activity.

Mount Agung last erupted in 1963, killing nearly 1,600 peo-ple.

A villager transports a mattress back to his home in Kubu village near the base of Mount Agung volcano (in background), in Karangasem Regency on the Indonesian resort island of Bali.

Myanmar tightens travel restrictions on Muslims near border

Local authorities in Myanmar, citing security concerns, have imposed new travel restrictions on Muslims living in the east of the country, even as the govern-ment faces allegations of ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims on its western border. Muslims in the district of Hpa-an, close to the Thai border, have been instructed

to inform the authorities before travelling, according to govern-ment off icials and a local Islamic leader. A note sent by Kayin state Deputy Director Myo Chit to ward and village administrative off ices in mid-September said nine Muslims had “travelled without permission” in the area on September 9.“The authorities informed them

not to travel without IDs and docu-ments,” and that failure to do so would result in their arrest,Myo Chit’s note read. “Muslims should inform their general admin-istration departments if they want to travel,” Myo Chit wrote.Anti-Muslim sentiment has soared in Myanmar. The United Nations has described

the government’s actions as ethnic cleansing, with some 430,000 members of the persecuted Rohingya Muslim minority fleeing to Bangladesh. Myo Chit told the Myanmar Times the regulation was for the protection of the com-munity, and that those travelling without permission would be escorted home.

Tillerson to discuss N Korea crisis on China visit

US Secretary of State Rex Till-erson will visit China this week for talks that will include the cri-sis over North Korea’s nuclear and missile programmes and trade, the State Department said yesterday. Tillerson’s trip, from September 28 to 30, will also lay the groundwork for President Donald Trump’s visit to China in November, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said.Tillerson’s visit comes at a time of high tension between the United States and North Korea, China’s neighbour and ally, which is working to develop nuclear-tipped missiles capable of reaching the US mainland.President Donald Trump warned North Korea on Tues-day that any US military option against North Korea would be “devastating” for Pyongyang, but said the use of force was not Washington’s first option. China has urged a return to dialogue.Nauert called China’s steps to implement tougher UN sanctions on North Korea after

its recent missile and nuclear tests “significant.”“We have a good relationship with China,” she told a regular news briefing, adding that this was evidenced by what would be Tillerson’s second visit to China in nine months in off ice.“China has taken enormous steps in the right direction. There is always more that countries can do, but at this point we want to thank China for the steps it has taken in the right direction.” In Beijing yesterday, asked for details of Tillerson’s visit, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told a regular news briefing only that he would meet Chi-na’s top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, and Foreign Minister Wang Yi. While backing UN sanctions, China, North Korea’s main trad-ing partner, opposes unilateral US steps and has been worried Washington might move to freeze its banks out of the global financial system unless they cut ties to Pyongyang.On Tuesday, the US Treasury announced sanctions against

26 more individuals as part of its non-proliferation designa-tions for North Korea, as well as nine North Korean banks, including some with ties to China. Tillerson’s visit to Beijing follows one by US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who said on Monday China needed to guarantee fair and reciprocal treatment for US firms, as he tried to strike an upbeat tone amid bilateral trade tension.China-US ties have been strained by Trump’s criticism of China’s trade practices and by demands that Beijing do more on North Korea. Chinese President Xi Jinping and Trump met for the first time at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida in April. Trump has since played up his personal relationship with Xi, even while criticizing China over North Korea and trade. In August, Trump authorised an inquiry into China’s alleged theft of intellectual property – his first direct trade measure against Beijing, a move China called “irresponsible.”

‘Red Scare’ puts pressure on Indonesian presidentReutersJakarta

Indonesian police will deploy as many as 30,000 personnel to guard an anti-communist

rally tomorrow, as the coun-try’s military chief and Islamist groups stoke fears of a hard left revival in the world’s most pop-ulous Muslim nation.

Protesters will gather outside Indonesia’s parliament on the eve of the 52nd anniversary of the murder of six Army gener-als and a young lieutenant by rebel armed forces personnel, an incident that led to a retali-atory pogrom that killed at least 500,000 alleged communists.

The massacres ushered in more than 30 years of authori-tarian rule under Suharto, the former general who led the communist purge.

Earlier this month, Armed Forces Commander General Gatot Nurmantyo instructed military offi cers to screen a

Suharto-era propaganda fi lm depicting the deaths of the generals and the crushing of an alleged Communist coup to “prevent what happened in 1965 from recurring”.

The three-and-a-half-hour fi lm, criticised by historians for inaccuracies and failing to de-pict the massacre of leftists, has been widely shown in villages and mosques in the past week. During Suharto’s rule, it was broadcast annually on the night of Sept 30th, the date of the al-leged abortive coup. It was also compulsory viewing for stu-dents. Indonesia’s Communist Party, once one of the world’s largest, remains outlawed, and there appears to be little evi-dence of a Marxist ideology tak-ing hold in Indonesia.

Instead, analysts and govern-ment advisers said, the foment-ing of a “red scare” was aimed at Indonesia’s reformist president Joko Widodo, widely known as Jokowi, and long falsely accused of being the descendant of com-

munists. Indonesia’s growing economic ties with China are also frequently cited by those concerned about rising commu-nist infl uence in Indonesia.

“I see Jokowi being the factor behind the rise of communism in Indonesia because of the co-operative relationship with Chi-na,” said Yudi Syamhudi Suyuti, one of the protest organisers and a failed political candidate for the opposition Gerindra Party, in comments posted online. Fri-day’s rally has been organised by Islamist groups led by the Is-lamic Defenders Front (FPI).

“We reject and fi ght against the awakening of the Indone-sian Communist Party,” Slamet Maarif, the chairman of the rally’s organising committee and spokesman for the FPI, told Reuters.

The FPI led huge rallies last year that successfully demand-ed the jailing for blasphemy of Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, Jakar-ta’s then governor and an ethnic Chinese Christian.

BRITAIN

Gulf Times Thursday, September 28, 201714

11 men arrested on terrorcharges in neo-Nazi probeGuardian News and MediaLondon

Eleven men have been ar-rested across England and Wales on suspicion of ter-

rorism off ences as part of an in-vestigation into the banned neo-Nazi group National Action.

Six men from the north-west of England, including a prisoner, two men from south Wales, two men from West Yorkshire and one man from Wiltshire have been detained on suspicion of a range of off ences. The men are aged from 22 to 35.

Eleven properties were being searched as part of the investiga-tion, led by Counter-terrorism Policing North East and North West. National Action, an anti-semitic, white supremacist group, was banned as a terrorist organi-sation in December by the home secretary. Police said the arrests followed activity this month by the West Midlands counter-terrorism unit, which resulted in three men, including two British soldiers, ap-pearing in court accused of being members of National Action.

The ministry of defence said none of those arrested yester-day was military personnel. A spokesman said: “No serving armed forces personnel or vet-erans were arrested yesterday by civil police as part of their co-ordinated activity against pro-scribed organisations.”

Detective chief superintend-ent Martin Snowden, the head of counter-terrorism policing in the north-east, said: “The arrests are part of co-ordinated action by the national counter-terrorism net-work and UK policing. Those who promote extreme rightwing views are looking to divide our commu-nities and spread hatred. This will not be tolerated and those who do so must be brought to justice.”

The arrests include: A 24-year-old man from

Seaforth, a 23-year-old man from Newton-le-Willows, a 33-year-old man from Prescot, a 31-year-old man from Warrington and a 35-year-old man from Warrington on suspicion of preparation of a terrorist act, funding terrorism and membership of a proscribed organisation.

A 22-year-old prisoner from Lancashire on suspicion of prepa-ration of a terrorist act and mem-bership of a proscribed organisa-tion.

A 28-year-old man from Swansea on suspicion of member-ship of a proscribed organisation and possession of terrorism mate-rial or documents.

A 23-year-old man from Sowerby Bridge, a 23-year-old man from Swansea, a 26-year-old man from Leeds and a 30-year-old man from Wiltshire on suspicion of membership of a proscribed organisation.

Proscribing the group last year, Amber Rudd said National Action had no place in British society.

“National Action is a racist, anti-semitic and homophobic organisation, which stirs up ha-tred, glorifi es violence and pro-motes a vile ideology, and I will not stand for it,” she said. “It has absolutely no place in a Britain that works for everyone. I am clear that the safety and security of our families, communities and country comes fi rst.”

High pollution alerttriggered in LondonGuardian News and MediaLondon

The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has trig-gered the capital’s

emergency air quality alert as polluted air from the conti-nent combines with toxic air in London to create danger-ous levels of pollution.

The alerts will see warnings displayed at bus stops, road signs and on the underground. Khan has also asked TV and radio stations across the capi-tal to warn their viewers and listeners in news bulletins.

Anyone with lung or heart problems is advised to reduce strenuous exercise, especially outside. The young and elderly are particularly vulnerable.

Yesterday’s alert has been triggered by “high” levels of air pollution. It is the seventh time in 13 months that the mayor has used the alert system. One instance was because the level of pollution was deemed “very high”, and on six occasions be-cause it was “high”.

Khan said: “The shocking

and illegal state of London’s fi lthy air means once again I am triggering a high air pollu-tion alert under my new com-prehensive alert system.”

The government’s commit-tee on the medical eff ects of air pollutants advises adults and children with lung prob-lems, and adults with heart problems, to reduce strenuous physical exertion, particularly outdoors, and particularly if they experience symptoms. People with asthma may fi nd they need to use their reliever inhaler more often. Older peo-ple should also reduce physical exertion.

Khan is implementing a range of measures to try to tackle the air pollution crisis in the capital, and he called on the government to do more.

“I am doing everything with the powers I have at City Hall and it’s now time for the gov-ernment to step up by intro-ducing a national diesel scrap-page fund to rid our streets of dirty diesels, and to give me the powers I need to tackle non-transport sources of pol-lution,” Khan said.

Taintedbloodscandalvictims getright to sue

AFPLondon

Victims of a contaminated blood scandal in Britain which left at least 2,400

people dead, and their families will be allowed to seek damages following a high court ruling.

A high court offi cial said it was “appropriate” to issue immedi-ately a group litigation order al-lowing a potential 500 claimants together to seek compensation.

Lawyers acting for the health ministry had argued that the ap-plication to the court was “pre-mature”.

Thousands of people with haemophilia contracted hepa-titis C and HIV after receiving transfusions of blood, mainly from the US, through the state National Health Service (NHS) in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.

The ruling follows an an-nouncement by the government in July that Britain will launch a new inquiry into the scandal, after pressure from lawmakers to look into possible criminal ac-tivity.

Chris Smith, 39, was among those welcoming the court order.

His father Ray died in 1986 aged 32, a victim of contaminat-ed blood, when Smith was eight years old.

Smith accused the govern-ment of acting with deceit and trying to “bury” the truth be-hind “the biggest disaster of the NHS” and trying to get away with “very, very small” compen-sation schemes.

Smith said what had hap-pened to his father had been “a dirty secret”. “This is more about truth than anything else — my dad is in his grave, for what?” he said.

Following the announcement of the inquiry in July, Prime Minister Theresa May’s spokes-man said: “It is a tragedy that has caused immeasurable hardship and pain for all those aff ected and a full inquiry to establish the truth of what happened is the right course of action to take.”

Labour partyready to rungovernment,says CorbynReutersBrighton

Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn told Prime Min-ister Theresa May yester-

day to step aside and make way for the Labour party to lead Brit-ain’s Brexit talks, saying his left-ist ideas were now the “political mainstream”.

After taking the stage at his par-ty’s annual conference to a stand-ing ovation and chants of “Oh, Jeremy Corbyn”, the leftist leader, once written off by some lawmak-ers for driving the party into une-lectable territory, said Labour was ready for power.

Corbyn is keen to press home his advantage over May, who is struggling to unite her party over Britain’s negotiations to leave the European Union and to keep her own position.

She faces a threat from some in the Conservatives who cannot forgive her for the loss of their par-liamentary majority in a June elec-tion she called.

“Against all predictions, in June we won the largest increase in the Labour vote since 1945 and achieved Labour’s best vote for a generation. It’s a result which has put the Tories (Conservatives) on notice and Labour on the thresh-old of power,” Corbyn said in his speech.

“Yes, we didn’t do quite well enough and we remain in opposi-tion for now. But we have become a government-in-waiting. And our message to the country could not be clearer: Labour is ready.”

Labour is closing the gap in opinion polls to stand roughly level

with the Conservatives, putting it within sight of winning an elec-tion.

The Conservatives have said they have no plans to call a vote anytime before 2022.

The party is dependent on the support of the small Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) for a majority in parliament, however.

So far, there is little appetite in the Conservative Party to hold an early election, and no clear front-runner to replace May.

The party’s deal with the DUP, however, could be hurt by a trade spat involving Canadian plane-maker Bombardier, Northern Ire-land’s largest manufacturing em-ployer.

Most Conservatives do not want to open the way for Corbyn, whose promises to end austerity have won over many voters, par-ticularly the young, and who has focused anger over a deadly fi re in west London on what he called a government which sees itself “not as the servant of the people but of global corporations”.

Corbyn has tapped into discon-tent in Britain, a wider trend seen across western Europe where the dominance of traditional parties and their beliefs have been in-creasingly challenged.

With his aides working on the belief that May will be forced into an early election before Britain leaves the EU in March 2019, the party has started to develop their policies, ready to introduce them swiftly.

“It feels like we’ve won, it feels like we’re there, it feels like we’re in government. The only frustrating thing is we’re not, yet,” said Chris

Howes, an 18 year-old party activ-ist from central England.

“But we’re ready whenever the election comes.”

After being discounted for pur-suing what his critics said were policies harking back to the 1980s when Labour lost power to the Conservatives, Corbyn said Britain was ready for change and his party was ready to move further along its leftist route.

Adding to his policies on rena-tionalisation, ending university tuition fees and increased public spending, he said he would bring in a housing policy to make sure local councils would have to win a ballot of existing tenants and leaseholders before any redevel-opment plans could go ahead. “We need to build a still broader con-sensus around the priorities we set in the election, making the case for both compassion and collective aspiration,” he said.

“We are now the political mainstream.”

Turning the tables on May who before the June election said Corbyn would lead a “coalition of chaos” if voted in, Corbyn now said her Cabinet of top ministers were the ones who had failed so far to negotiate with the EU as one.

“This rag-tag Cabinet spends more time negotiating with each other than they do with the EU. A cliff -edge Brexit is at risk of be-coming a reality,” he said.

“That is why Labour has made clear that Britain should stay within the basic terms of the sin-gle market and a customs union for a limited transition period.”

Labour has also been divided on the issue of Brexit, however.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn holds a garland after delivering his keynote speech at the Labour Party Conference in Brighton yesterday.

Uber appeals against ruling on drivers’ rightsAFPLondon

Uber yesterday appealed before an employment tribunal against a ruling

that would give its drivers offi cial worker status, as the company also battles against a threatened ban in London.

The landmark case brought by

two Uber drivers could have far-reaching implications for people employed in Britain’s “gig econ-omy”, many of whom complain about precarious working condi-tions and low pay.

The US ride-hailing app may have to pay its drivers the national minimum wage of £7.50 an hour if it loses the case.

Uber drivers are currently paid for each ride and are considered

self-employed which means they are not entitled to benefi ts includ-ing paid holidays.

A ruling in the case is not ex-pected for weeks.

The Independent Workers of Great Britain (IWGB) trade union is representing the drivers, and staged a demonstration in central London.

Yaseen Aslam, one of the claim-ants, said drivers “face many

struggles” and “carry all the risks”.James Farrar, the other claim-

ant, called Uber’s business plan “brutally exploitative”. He called on London mayor Sadiq Khan to make workers’ rights a condition for renewing Uber’s licence.

Uber responded by saying that almost all taxi and private hire drivers “have been self-employed for decades before our app existed. With Uber drivers have more con-

trol and are totally free to choose if, when and where they drive with no shifts or minimum hours,” it added in a statement.

“The overwhelming majority of drivers say they want to keep the freedom of being their own boss.”

Transport authorities last week said they would not renew Uber’s licence to operate in London, ow-ing to concerns about public safety for passengers and the process of

registration for drivers.Uber, which has about 40,000

drivers and some 3.5mn custom-ers in the capital, has 21 days to lodge its appeal and can continue to operate until that process has concluded.

The company is having regula-tory issues in several countries, and threatened on Tuesday to stop services in Canada’s Quebec province in mid-October, saying

proposed new ride-sharing rules aimed at levelling the fi eld with taxis are too onerous.

Last week, the Quebec govern-ment imposed conditions that would require Uber drivers to un-dergo 35 hours of training — the same as taxi drivers — and a crimi-nal background check by police while vehicles would also be re-quired to undergo annual safety inspections.

Sadiq Khan: calls on government to do more

BRITAIN15Gulf Times

Thursday, September 28, 2017

Man dead after police shoot into car near BristolGuardian News and MediaLondon

A man has died after police opened fi re on a car close to the M5 near Bristol, with

one witness saying police vehicles boxed in the car and up to 10 shots were fi red.

Police sources said the incident was not terrorism-related and not believed to have been planned. It has been referred to the police watchdog, the Independent Po-lice Complaints Commission.

The shooting took place on the A369 about 330ft from junc-tion 19 of the M5 at about 9.30am yesterday. The road, the Portbury Hundred, is a few minutes’ drive from the Avon and Somerset po-lice headquarters.

A witness told BBC Radio Bris-tol that police fi red a number of shots into the car. “As I came out of Portishead … police were ahead of me. They surrounded it. They shot maybe fi ve, six or 10 times. Then they dragged a man from the car to resuscitate him,” David Ellison said.

“It came off the roundabout towards Portishead and then was boxed in by cars. They shot through the passenger window. There were one or two marked cars and two more unmarked ve-hicles.”

There has been no confi rma-tion of how many shots were fi red.

Frazer Phillips wrote on the Hello Portishead Facebook page: “I was right next to it when it happened and heard about four-fi ve shots.”

On the same page, Mark De Lancey wrote: “I got up on the roundabout as the police were smashing the guy’s windows and dragging him out. Wonder what was happening!”

Avon and Somerset police said: “We can confi rm a man died ear-lier yesterday morning in an inci-dent involving police fi rearms on

the Portbury Hundred (A369) in Portishead.

“We have referred the incident to the Independent Police Com-plaints Commission. This has been a fast-moving incident and is now under investigation by the IPCC.”

A tri-force specialist opera-tions unit car was parked at the police cordon. The unit is a col-laboration between the Avon and Somerset, Wiltshire and Gloucestershire forces, and deliv-ers an armed response in south-west England.

Pictures from the scene showed a man lying on the road covered in a blanket, which remained there for several hours. A right leg and white trainer could be seen. Bullet holes were visible on the car, a red Suzuki Swift, and what appeared to be a black handgun rested on the roof.

A police offi cer can legally use force if there is an honest belief that a suspect presents a threat to life: that they are acting in self-defence of their own life, or to pro-tect other people, based on what they believed at the time.

Among armed offi cers, one of the hardest tasks is dealing with a suspect believed to have a gun who is in a moving vehicle, because it presents a myriad of challenges.

A spokesman for the IPCC said: “We are investigating an incident involving police fi rearms this morning on the A369 near Portis-head, in which a man has died.

“IPCC investigators are at the scene gathering evidence and are attending the post-incident pro-cedures. Our investigation is in its very early stages.”

Police said the road was likely to remain closed for some time.

The police and crime commis-sioner for Avon and Somerset, Sue Mountstevens, cancelled a Face-book Live event, saying: “Due to unforeseen circumstances, we will be postponing the Facebook Live. We apologise for the cancellation at such short notice.”

Prince William sits with school children as he chats to Katie Hall, a producer at the BBC’s Natural History Unit while attending the premiere of Blue Planet II, at the BFI IMAX, in London.

William attends Blue Planet II premiere

A government contractor has been arrested by counter-terrorism police on suspicion of spying against the state. The 65-year-old woman was detained at an address in north London on suspicion of an offence under Section 1 of the Official Secrets Act, Scotland Yard said, which relates to disclosure of security or intelligence materials. It is understood the arrest, though made by Scotland Yard’s counter-terrorism command, was not related to terrorism but in connection with alleged state spying. She has been taken into custody at a police station in the south of the capital.

Game of Thrones actors Kit Harrington and Rose Leslie, who enjoyed an on-screen romance in the HBO television hit series, announced their engagement in the Times newspaper yesterday. Harrington met Leslie in 2011 while filming the second season of the Emmy-winning show in Iceland. “If you’re already attracted to someone, and then they play your love interest in the show, it becomes very easy to fall in love,” Harrington told Vogue magazine in an interview last year. The British duo, both 30, had only a brief on-screen romance before Leslie’s character died in season four.

A former manager at a Knightsbridge investment off ice has dropped her claim for unfair dismissal in which she alleged she was literally hit with her own contract. Maribel Montero, 40, alleged she was “belittled” by the chief executive of J Stern & Co, Jerome Stern. Central London employment tribunal heard Montero’s claim that managing partner Tom Price was also part of the campaign against her. She alleged he hit her on the shoulder with an employment contract as he tried to pressure her to sign it. However, questioned about the allegation, Price said: “I do not accept that.” Montero withdrew her claims before he completed his evidence.

A British banker jailed for life for the horrifying murder of two Indonesian women at his upscale Hong Kong apartment in a cocaine-fuelled rampage is seeking to appeal his conviction, his lawyer said yesterday. Cambridge University graduate Rurik Jutting tortured Sumarti Ningsih for three days – filming parts of her ordeal on his phone – before slashing her throat with a serrated knife and stuff ing her body into a suitcase. Days later, and with Ningish’s corpse rotting on his balcony, the former Bank of America worker picked up Seneng Mujiasih, intending to play out the same sick fantasies. But he killed her when she started screaming.

A man has been sentenced to five years in prison after a cache of weapons, including pistols, a bow and arrow, machete and knuckle-duster, was found hidden in his van. Jaromir Hrbek, 59, was stopped last month as he drove through the port of Dover in his Peugeot Expert. A magazine of ammunition was discovered in the driver’s door compartment, but Hrbek, who said he had been to visit his daughter in Edinburgh, denied there was anything else in the vehicle. He told the off icers that he had a gun for which he held a licence, but it was at his home in the Czech Republic. However, on searching the van, off icers discovered the cache of weapons.

65-year-old woman heldon suspicion of spying

Game of Thrones actorsannounce engagement

Manager drops unfairdismissal claim

British banker given life formurders seeks to appeal

Man found with guns andknives jailed for five years

SECURITY PEOPLELEGAL CRIME VERDICT

Ryanair lurches deeperinto cancellations crisisAFPLondon

Ryanair plunged deeper into crisis yesterday with the cancellation of

more fl ights that threatened the travel plans of another 400,000 customers, while the low-cost airline dropped its bid for Italy’s Alitalia.

The Dublin-based carrier has been plagued by a pilot shortage that has forced it to axe thou-sands of fl ights – and has now extended cancellation plans to early 2018.

Ryanair plans to fl y 25 few-er aircraft during its winter schedule, hitting less than 1% of its customers but more than

doubling the amount of passen-gers originally aff ected by a cri-sis plaguing the Irish no-frills airline since mid-September.

In addition, it will operate 10 fewer aircraft from April 2018, further aff ecting its growth plans.

The latest move will “elimi-nate all risk of further fl ight cancellations, because slower growth creates lots of spare air-craft and crews across Ryanair’s 86 bases this winter”, it said in a statement.

Taking more fl ights out of service means that Ryanair will be able to “roster all of the extra pilot leave necessary” in Octo-ber, November and December.

It also plans to roll out a se-ries of seat sales for winter 2017

as it is “confi dent that there will be no further roster related can-cellations”.

And the airline sprang anoth-er surprise with the withdrawal of its bid to buy Italian car-rier Alitalia, after announcing a non-binding off er in July.

“In order to focus on repair-ing this rostering problem this winter, Ryanair will eliminate all management distractions starting with its interest in Ali-talia,” it said in a statement.

“We have notifi ed the Alita-lia bankruptcy commissioners that we will not be pursuing our interest in Alitalia or submit-ting any further off ers for the airline.”

Meanwhile, yesterday’s fresh batch of cancellations will af-

fect 34 routes, including Lon-don-Belfast, Hamburg-Oslo and Bucharest-Palermo.

“While over 99% of our 129mn customers will not have been aff ected by any cancella-tions or disruptions, we deeply regret any doubt we caused existing customers ... about Ryanair’s reliability, or the risk of further cancellations,” said chief executive Michael O’Leary.

He added: “We sincerely apologise to those customers who have been aff ected by last week’s fl ight cancellations, or these sensible schedule changes announced yesterday.”

Ryanair had already canned 2,100 fl ights in the six weeks to the end of October as it strug-

gled with landing planes on time, reportedly mainly owing to a shortage of pilots.

Weather issues and strikes have also hampered the group’s performance.

The cancellations jeopard-ised the travel plans of 315,000 customers, but the carrier has now been forced to more than double the number of passen-gers aff ected.

Ryanair yesterday said it had e-mailed all passengers hit by the latest cancellations, off er-ing them alternative fl ights or a full refund. They have also re-ceived a 40 euro travel voucher.

There was no immediate in-dication of how costly the latest cancellations would be to the company.

Wife of vanishedlord found deadReutersLondon

The wife of aristocrat Lord Lucan, who vanished without a trace 43 years ago

after the murder of his children’s nanny, has been found dead, Lon-don police said yesterday.

The mystery of what hap-pened to Richard Lucan, a dap-per, moustachioed lord known as “Lucky”, has fascinated the pub-lic for decades and speculation about his whereabouts has long been a staple of the press.

Lord Lucan disappeared hours after nanny Sandra Rivett was found bludgeoned to death in his house in central London in 1974.

A car he was using was later found on the south English coast with a length of lead piping.

It was alleged the peer had mistaken the nanny for his es-tranged wife Veronica, who was also attacked and fl ed to a nearby pub covered in blood to raise the alarm.

She later identifi ed her hus-band as the assailant.

Police said yesterday they had found the body of 80-year-old

Lady Lucan after forcing entry to a house in the upmarket Belgra-via area of London.

“The death is being treated as unexplained but is not believed to be suspicious,” police said.

Over the years, the press have reported supposed sightings of Lord Lucan across the world, in-cluding in Australia, India, the Netherlands and South Africa — but his relatives believe him to be dead.

The London High Court de-clared him dead in 1999 and last year a judge issued a death cer-tifi cate allowing his son George Bingham to inherit his title.

“My own personal view, and it was one I took I think as an eight-year-old boy, is he’s unfortu-nately been dead since that time (of his disappearance),” Bingham said last year.

One of numerous theories about what became of Lucan, who would now be 82, was that he shot himself and was then fed to tigers at the zoo of his friend John Aspinall.

Aspinall himself said in 2000 that Lucan had weighted himself down with a stone and drowned himself in the English Channel.

‘Gunman’ on the looseafter storming nurseryGuardian News and MediaLondon

Police are hunting for a man who walked into a nursery in Liverpool car-

rying what appeared to be a gun.

Children were reportedly hurried to safety after he en-tered Childsplay nursery in Wa-vertree when it opened at about 8.10am yesterday.

The suspect approached a man inside the building before fleeing on a motorbike with an accomplice.

Detectives said the incident was “targeted” and the alleged gunman was believed to have been looking for another man who was in the building at the time.

No shots were fired and no one was injured, Merseyside police said.

The nursery, which looks af-ter 123 children aged from three months to five years, remained sealed off behind police tape as

forensics officers entered the premises.

Parents arriving to pick up their children said they were horrifi ed to think what could have happened and thankful no one was injured.

A mother with two sons aged two and four told the Liverpool Echo: “I’ve been on edge. I’m scared that they will come back. As far as I am aware it was tar-geted. I think it’s cowardly that they waited for the children to go in.

“I feel sorry for the nursery. I am sure my children haven’t been aff ected and they were moved to another room inside. But it’s not nice to know my children were inside when that was happening. I feel sorry for the nursery too, because this will give them a bad reputation.”

Merseyside police said patrols had been stepped up in the area to reassure the public in Waver-tree, which is three miles east of Liverpool city centre.

Detective chief inspector John Webster said: “I’m sure the vast

majority of people in the com-munity will be appalled to fi nd that two men have walked into a nursery reportedly carrying a fi rearm when children and their parents were arriving at the start of the day.

“We look to the community to help us by providing informa-tion to bring those responsible to justice. We need to identify the people responsible and put them before the courts before they cause any further harm in our communities.

“This is another reminder that criminals involved in gun crime have no regard for anyone else, and I would urge the local com-munity to come together to help us take a stand against the use of fi rearms and violence on our streets, and report anything they saw or heard to us so we can take action.

“If anyone witnessed the men before or after the incident, or saw anything suspicious that could help us investigate this in-cident, then please contact the police.”

Prince Harry greets competitors from Britain at a cycling event during the Invictus Games in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, yesterday.

Harry greets team

EUROPE

Gulf Times Thursday, September 28, 201716

Schaeuble to head BundestagReutersBerlin

Germany yesterday took a fi rst decisive step towards forming a new govern-ment when its veteran fi nance minis-

ter, conservative Wolfgang Schaeuble, agreed to become president of the parliament, clear-ing the way for another party to take his job.

Chancellor Angela Merkel will hope that Schaeuble, deeply respected in Germany for helping to steer the euro zone through its debt crisis, can stamp his authority on a frac-tious Bundestag lower house that comprises six parties after Sunday’s federal election.

Merkel must assemble Germany’s fi rst three-party coalition since the 1950s after her conservatives lost support and a far-right party, the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD), entered parliament for the fi rst time in half a century.

Schaeuble, 75, who emerged as one of Eu-rope’s most infl uential politicians during the euro zone crisis, would bring unprecedented weight to the role of Bundestag president, normally a low-profi le position.

His willingness to quit as fi nance minister after eight years in the post makes it easier for the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) to join a Merkel-led coalition.

The FDP, who are as fi scally hawkish as Schaeuble, have said they want his job.

“As an outstanding personality Wolfgang Schaeuble possesses a natural authority that is of particular importance in these times,” said FDP leader Christian Lindner, himself seen as a likely successor at the fi nance min-istry.

Carsten Schneider, the parliamentary group leader of the main opposition Social Democrats, told the Mitteldeutsche Zeitung newspaper that his party would also back Schaeuble, meaning his election is virtually guaranteed.

Criticised in southern Europe, especially Greece, for his insistence on tax hikes and spending cuts at a time of deep recession, Schaeuble is popular at home for balancing the books and presiding over an era of high growth and low unemployment.

Parliamentary sources said interior min-ister Thomas de Maiziere would take over as Germany’s interim fi nance minister as soon as Schaeuble was confi rmed in his new offi ce.

The Free Democrats, with a voter support base among Germany’s small and medium-sized businesses, are as committed to budg-etary discipline as Schaeuble but less pro-European, meaning yesterday’s news drew a mixed reception from the euro zone.

“I don’t think there will be radical changes in German economic policy if the FDP re-places him,” said one offi cial close to euro zone policy-making. “The FDP are also hardliners on defi cits.”

But another euro zone offi cial said the euro zone was losing “one of the most pro-Euro-pean politicians I know” and instead getting a party markedly cooler on political integra-tion.

Merkel emerged from Sunday’s election a weakened fi gure after her conservatives, still the largest bloc in the Bundestag, bled sup-port to the AfD.

But the exit of Schaeuble, the most power-ful counterweight to the long-serving chan-cellor, could paradoxically strengthen her position.

A deal with the FDP and the Greens is Mer-kel’s only realistic coalition option, but the parties disagree on issues including energy, taxation, Europe and migration, complicat-ing the path to a so-called ‘Jamaica’ coalition — a reference to the parties’ respective col-ours: black, yellow and green.

As Bundestag president, Schaeuble will not be involved in coalition negotiations, removing one strong-minded negotiator from the table and potentially giving Merkel a freer hand.

But Schaeuble, the longest serving mem-ber of the Bundestag and the only German politician with a stature comparable to Mer-kel’s, will technically outrank her in the state hierarchy. The president of the Bundestag ranks second after the president of the re-public and ahead of the chancellor.

Schaeuble ... respected

Ukraine evacuates thousands after arms depot explodesBy Andriy Perun, AFP Kalynivka, Ukraine

Ukrainian authorities yes-terday evacuated more than 30,000 people from

the central Vinnytsia region after a huge arms depot storing missiles caught fi re and exploded in what prosecutors said was a possible act of “sabotage”.

It was the second major incident aff ecting a large Ukrainian weapons storage site this year.

Kiev blamed a deadly March mu-nitions blast on Moscow and its Russian-backed insurgents fi ghting Ukrainian forces in the war-wrecked east — a charge both denied.

The ex-Soviet republic’s mili-tary prosecutor’s offi ce said it had launched an investigation into pos-sible “sabotage at a military facility”.

Initial reports mentioned no fa-talities and only two minor injuries from the raging explosions of heavy munitions and air defence missiles at the facility.

The Vinnytsia regional admin-istration said the depot contained 188,000 tonnes of munitions, much more than the 83,000 tonnes the military fi rst reported.

Various regional and military of-fi cials contacted by AFP could not explain the discrepancy or defi ni-tively say which fi gure was correct.

Military general staff spokes-man Vladyslav Seleznyov told AFP that the arms depot was “one of the country’s largest”.

Explosions at the depot in the town of Kalynivka, some 175km southwest of Kiev, could be heard every fi ve to 10 minutes and the streets were all but deserted by its 20,000 inhabitants, an AFP corre-spondent said.

“People suff ered heavy damage,” a local resident who gave just the name Antonina told AFP.

“Some homes had their windows and doors completely blown out,” she said.

President Petro Poroshenko un-derscored the seriousness of the situation by telling his top military

brass and Prime Minister Volody-myr Groysman to report to him di-rectly after visiting the site.

“This is the arsenal of the Ukrainian army, and I think it was no accident that it was destroyed,” Groysman said in televised remarks from the scene that hinted strongly at possible Russian or insurgent in-volvement.

The Ukrainian army’s high com-mand wrote on Facebook that the fi re broke out at around 10pm on Tuesday. The fl ames caused artil-lery shells at the facility to explode one after the other in spectacular but harrowing orange balls of fi re that lit up the night sky and shook the ground.

The national police said more than 30,000 people had been evacuated from areas immediately surrounding the storage site. “In addition, 180 patients were evacu-ated from Vinnytsia area hospitals,” Ukraine’s emergency ministry said.

Offi cials also shut down sur-rounding airspace as a precaution to keep exploding missiles from

hitting passing commercial jets.Ukraine’s emergency service be-

gan using two AN-32 military cargo planes to douse surrounding forests with water to localise the raging fl ames.

The last major arms depot explo-sion killed one person in the eastern town of Balakliya in March.

Authorities at the time pointed the fi nger at Moscow and Russian-backed militias fi ghting Ukrainian troops in a war that broke out in April 2014 and has claimed more than 10,000 lives.

Some offi cials in Kiev then mooted the possibility that the March fi re was caused by explosives dropped from a drone.

Both Moscow and the Russian-backed insurgents dismissed the charge outright.

Vinnytsia lies nearly 700km west of the war zone.

Russia vehemently denies plot-ting and backing Ukraine’s eastern confl ict and refers to the fi ghting as a “civil war” — a term that particu-larly irritates Kiev.

Explosions at a military munitions depot near Kalynivka light up the dawn sky yesterday.

Searing summers likely new normal in Europe

By Marlowe Hood, AFP Paris

Climate change has made the record-breaking tem-peratures that roasted parts

of Europe this summer at least 10 times more likely, scientists re-ported yesterday.

“We found clear evidence of hu-man infl uence on this summer’s record warmth, both in the overall summer temperatures and in the heatwave dubbed ‘Lucifer’,” said study co-author Geert Jan van Old-enborgh, a senior researcher at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute.

“Climate change made the sum-mer of 2017 at least 10 times more likely than it would have been dur-ing the early 1900s”, he said in a statement.

What used to be once-in-a-century calamity, in other words, is now to be expected every decade.

And if the greenhouse gas emis-sions which drive global warming continue unabated, a summer like 2017 will become the new normal along Europe’s Mediterranean rim by mid-century, the researchers added.

Scientists with World Weather Attribution, an international con-sortium focused on possible links between climate change and ex-treme weather, assessed the 2017 summer as a whole, as well as the Lucifer heatwave, which blasted southern Europe for three days in early August.

Starting in June, unusually hot weather rolled across France, Swit-zerland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain.

On July 13, Madrid hit 40.6 Cel-sius (105 Fahrenheit), tying a record set in 2012.

Early August saw an intense heatwave strike southeastern Eu-rope, with temperatures topping 40

C (104 F) for several days running in parts of Italy and the Balkans.

Daytime and night-time records were broken in France — Nimes hit 41.6 C (106.9 F) — as well as in Cor-sica and Croatia.

In France, the summer’s aver-age temperature ranked second only to the deadly heat of August 2003, which caused at least 15,000 deaths — mostly among the very elderly — in France, and 70,000 across Europe.

“There have been some reports of deaths associated with the Au-gust heatwave, but the full extent of the impact is only evident later,” the researchers said.

The scorching heat in 2017 ag-gravated deadly forest fi res in more than half-a-dozen countries, and ravaged agricultural yields in Bos-nia, Serbia and parts of Italy.

The researchers combined de-tailed, local temperature data with climate model simulations to de-termine the odds of seeing a sum-mer as hot as 2017.

Global warming, they concluded, has boosted those odds by a factor of at least 10.

For Lucifer, the team calculated that such lethal heatwaves are now at least four times more common than 100 years ago.

“If we do nothing to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, the kind of extreme heat we saw this past summer will be the norm when my young son is a grown man,” said co-author Friederike Otto, a scien-tist at the University of Oxford and deputy director of the Environ-mental Change Institute.

The 196-nation Paris agreement on climate change, inked in 2015, commits the world to cap global warming at “well below” 2 C com-pared to pre-industrial levels.

Compared to that benchmark, average global surface tempera-tures have already gone up by 1.0 C (1.8 F), and are certain to continue rising.

EU plans to take 50,000 refugees from Africa, MideastAFPBrussels

The EU yesterday unveiled plans to take at least 50,000 refugees directly from Africa, the Middle

East and Turkey to discourage migrant boats from making the risky Mediterra-nean crossing.

The proposal involves admitting refugees to European Union countries over the next two years under the bloc’s resettlement programme, which was introduced during the migration crisis that hit the continent in 2015.

“We need to open real alternatives to taking perilous irregular journeys,” Eu-ropean Union Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos told a news con-ference in Brussels.

The European Commission said in a statement that it was “recommending a

new EU resettlement scheme to bring at least 50,000 of the most vulnerable per-sons in need of international protection to Europe over the next two years”.

The EU has already resettled 23,000 people from refugee camps in countries outside the EU under the scheme, par-ticularly Turkey and Jordan, which were overwhelmed with people fl eeing the war in Syria.

Resettlement would continue from those areas but there would be “in-creased focus” on North Africa and the Horn of Africa — particularly Libya, Egypt, Niger, Sudan, Chad and Ethiopia, the commission said.

“This will contribute to further sta-bilising migration fl ows along the Cen-tral Mediterranean route,” which mainly involves people making the dangerous crossing from Libya to Italy, it said.

The resettlement programme is dif-ferent from the EU’s controversial refu-

gee quotas, which involved moving asy-lum-seekers who had already reached Italy and Greece to other EU countries, under compulsory quotas.

The latter scheme, which ended yesterday, saw just 29,000 people out of a planned 160,000 shared out around EU states to ease the pressure on the overstretched Greek and Italian authorities.

Brussels yesterday separately released plans to allow countries in the passport-free Schengen area to reintroduce bor-der controls for security reasons for up to three years.

Countries in the 26-country Schen-gen travel area can currently reintro-duce frontier checks for six months for security reasons, and two years if that is combined with a threat to borders such as Europe’s migration crisis.

“Under today’s proposals, member states will also be able to exceptionally

prolong controls if the same threat per-sists,” the European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, said in a state-ment.

Avramopoulos however said this should be a “last resort”, and that keep-ing the Schengen area open for travel should be a priority.

Several countries including France and Germany have called for the exten-sion after a series of terror attacks.

France reinstated the checks after the November 2015 Paris attacks.

Border checks introduced by Ger-many, Denmark, Austria, Sweden and Norway in May 2016 to deal with a huge infl ux of migrants into Europe from Syria and North Africa are set to expire in November.

The reintroduction of so many checks raised concerns about the collapse of the Schengen zone, seen by many in Europe as a symbol of unity and freedom.

Independence imbroglio

A Catalan police off icer stands in front of a protest against independence near Catalunya Radio headquarters in Barcelona yesterday. The regional police of Catalonia Mossos D’Esquadra are to decide if it applies the court order to seal schools that could be used as polling stations, to prevent the referendum on secession on October 1, while the agitation extends to the pro-independence students, who went on strike.

IANSChennai

The Madras High Court yesterday ordered a senior Election Commission of-

fi cial to depose before it on Octo-ber 6 in connection with affi xing of the thumb impression on poll documents by late chief minis-ter and All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam general sec-retary J Jayalalithaa while she was in hospital last year.

The Election Commission offi -cial would submit the documents relating to the permission given for the thumb impression of Jay-alalithaa and how it is in line with the provisions of the Representa-tion of Peoples Act and also the election conduct rules.

Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam’s candidate P Saravanan had ap-proached the court to cancel the election of AIADMK’s A K Bose from the Thirupparankundram

assembly constituency in the by-election held last year raising doubts on affi xing of the thumb impression by Jayalalithaa in his poll documents.

Jayalalithaa who was in Apollo Hospitals during October 2016 had an infl amed right hand as she had undergone a tracheostomy.

She had to affi x her left thumb impression in the poll documents submitted by an AIADMK candi-date.

As per the Representation of People Act, a candidate contest-ing on behalf of a political party has to submit Form B, where their party’s leader has to authorise the candidate to contest under the party’s election symbol.

The by-polls in Aravakurichi, Thanjavur and Thiruparankun-dram assembly constituencies in Tamil Nadu were slated for November 19 and the ruling AI-ADMK candidates had fi led their papers.

The three AIADMK candidates

submitted their papers on Octo-ber 28 to the Returning Offi cers.

The thumb impression of Jay-alalithaa was attested by a gov-ernment doctor – P Balaji, pro-fessor of Minimal Access Surgery, Madras Medical College.

In his comments, Balaji said: “Since the signatory has under-gone tracheostomy recently and has an infl amed right hand, she is temporarily unable to affi x her signature. Hence she has affi xed her left thumb impression on her own in my presence.”

Dr Babu K Abraham, working in Apollo Hospitals, signed as a wit-ness.

Tracheostomy is a medical pro-cedure whereby a direct airway is created by an incision in the windpipe enabling a person to breathe directly without the use of nose or mouth.

Jayalalithaa was admitted to the hospital with fever and dehy-dration on September 22 and died after over 70 days in December.

Court summons poll offi cialover Jaya’s thumb impression

IANSNew Delhi

The Enforcement Directo-rate (ED) yesterday issued fresh summonses to Rash-

triya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad Yadav’s wife Rabri Devi and their son Tejashwi Yadav in the 2006 Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corp (IRCTC) hotels’ contract case.

“We have issued fresh sum-monses to Rabri Devi and Tejas-hwi Yadav to appear before the agency on October 10 and 11 for questioning in the ongoing probe in the case,” an ED offi cial said.

The agency had registered a case on July 27 under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act against Lalu Prasad and others for alleged money transactions through shell companies. The Central Bureau of Investigation had registered a case against Lalu Prasad and his family members on July 5.

On September 7, the ED had questioned Ahluwalia Contrac-

tors and its promoter Bikramjeet Singh Ahluwalia and summoned Sujata Hotels owners Vikram and Vinay Kochhar for questioning.

As the then railway minis-ter in 2006, Lalu Prasad handed over maintenance contract for two IRCTC hotels at Ranchi in Jharkhand and Puri in Odisha to Sujata Hotels company of the Ko-chhars after allegedly receiving a bribe in the form of a plot of prime land in Patna in Bihar.

The CBI claimed that the kick-back was paid through a “benami” company owned by Sarala Gupta, wife of RJD MP Prem Chand Gupta.

The CBI alleged that Vinay Ko-chhar sold a commercial three-acre plot of land in Patna through 10 sale deeds on February 25, 2005, for Rs10.47mn to Delight Marketing Company, in which Sarla Gupta was a director.

The agency alleged that the land was sold at a price below the market rates and was falsely shown as agricultural land to evade stamp duty.

ED issues summonsesto Rabri, son Tejashwi

INDIA17

Gulf Times Thursday, September 28, 2017

IAF rescues injuredUS citizen in Ladakh

Retirement age of govtdoctors raised to 65

Govt distances itself from row over judge’s resignation

Chairing her first Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) meeting, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman yesterday cleared a project worth Rs2bn for buying indigenous sonars for Indian Naval ships, and another one for missiles for the navy. The minister has decided to hold meetings of the DAC, the highest decision making body for defence acquisitions in the ministry, every fortnight. Yesterday, the DAC cleared an Acceptance of Necessity for the Indian Navy for procurement of upgraded sonars for its destroyers and frigates under the Buy Indian category, Defence Ministry off icials said. These sonars are designed, developed and manufactured indigenously by the DRDO and the Naval Physical and Oceanographic Laboratory in Kochi. “It will provide a significant boost to the navy’s anti-submarine warfare capabilities,” a statement said.

India will assist Afghanistan in modernising its police force with state-of-the-art training and also help boost law enforcement in the war-torn country. The cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi yesterday gave its approval for signing an agreement with Afghanistan for technical co-operation in police training and development. “The memorandum of understanding (MoU) will help in capacity building of Afghanistan National Police and improving the security apparatus in the region,” the Home Ministry said. The MoU will be for five years and can be extended for another five years. Afghan police personnel regularly come to India for training at diff erent police training institutes. India and Afghanistan signed an agreement on strategic partnership in October 2011.

Sitharaman chairs first meeting of DAC

India to help Afghanistan modernise its police force

DEFENCECO-OPERATION

A US citizen stuck in Ladakh after getting injured during a trek was rescued by the Indian Air Force, off icials said yesterday. According to a statement, the rescue took place on Tuesday within hours of the US embassy sending a request to the IAF to help in locating and rescuing Margaret Allen Stone. She had gone for trekking to Ladakh and had been held up in Zhingchan area, 75km from Leh, since September 6 due to injury. “The US government informed IAF of the situation in the afternoon hours on 26 September,” the IAF said. Within hours, the exact location of Stone was ascertained with the help of the civil administration and by evening two IAF helicopters were able to locate her in the valley. Stone was brought to a Leh hospital on Tuesday evening.

RESCUE DECISION CONTROVERSY

The central government yesterday distanced itself from the developments that led to the resignation of Karnataka High Court’s most senior judge Jayant Patel, who had ordered a CBI investigation into the controversial Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case in Gujarat. “No proposal of his transfer has been received by us,” federal Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told reporters after a cabinet meeting. Patel resigned on Monday reportedly for not being elevated as chief justice. It is believed that Patel, who was acting chief justice of the Gujarat High Court before being posted to Bengaluru, resigned in a huff over his transfer to the Allahabad High Court, where he would be the third most senior judge. Patel had not only ordered the CBI investigation but had also monitored the probe, which included looking into the role of off icials of the Intelligence Bureau.

The retirement age of doctors employed in government ministries and departments will now be 65 years, up from 62, bringing them at par with the Central Health Service (CHS) doctors, it was announced yesterday. The age of superannuation of CHS doctors was last year enhanced to 65. Non-CHS doctors, including doctors of other systems of medicine of the central government, were also demanding enhancement of superannuation age from 62 years on the ground of shortage and parity with CHS. A government statement said the cabinet decision would benefit 1,445 central government doctors including those working in Indian Railways Medical Service, central universities and IITs and major port trusts under the Shipping Ministry.

Court quashesnepotism caseagainst formerKerala ministerBy Ashraf PadannaThiruvananthapuram

The Kerala High Court yes-terday allowed the state’s anti-corruption police

to withdraw corruption charg-es against former minister E P Jayarajan.

The senior Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader had to resign as industries minister af-ter 142 days in offi ce last year following a controversy over his appointment of his nephew and a close relative as heads of state-run enterprises.

The Vigilance and Anti-Cor-ruption Bureau (VACB), which accused him of nepotism, moved the high court seeking to with-draw the case saying it could not fi nd grounds to prosecute him.

It said Jayarajan had cancelled the appointment before his rela-tives assumed offi ce and they had not made any pecuniary benefi ts from it, and, hence, the issue would not come under jurisdic-tion of the VACB.

The court wondered why the bureau fi led a case in the fi rst place if it was not sure of defend-ing it legally.

The court’s decision has now cleared the way for Jayarajan to return to the cabinet.

Jayarajan was under fi re for doling out plum posts to his close relatives and cronies who lack prescribed educational qualifi -cations and professional expe-rience, including P K Sudheer Nambiar as the managing direc-tor of the Kerala State Industrial Enterprises.

Nambiar is the son of Jayarajan’s sister-in-law P K Sreemathy, who is also his col-league in the CPM central com-mittee and is a member of the Lok Sabha.

She had to cancel the appoint-ment of Nambiar’s wife as her aide when she was the health minister in the 2006-11 state government headed by V S Achuthanandan following public out-rage.

Deepthi Nishad,

the daughter-in-law of Jayara-jan’s brother who was appointed the general manager of Kerala Clays and Ceramics, had also re-signed following the controversy.

Jayarajan was at the centre of controversies ever since the CPM-led Left Democratic Front came to power with a massive mandate riding on a series of corruption allegations against the previous Congress-led gov-ernment in May last year.

Within a month of assum-ing offi ce, he replaced Sports Council chairperson Anju Bobby George accusing the ace ath-lete of corruption and nepotism with T P Dasan, a local party leader who was facing corrup-tion charges during his previous tenure.

The then minister’s action also forced Anju’s brother Ajith Markose, a well-known interna-tional coach, to quit.

The court yesterday dismissed the appeals of Congress leader Ramesh Chennithala and others for a probe under the Prevention of Corruption Act.

After his resignation in No-vember, the CPM central com-mittee member and one of the close confi dants of Chief Min-ister Pinarayi Vijayan who was considered the No 2 in his cabi-net, had accused the media of running a campaign against him.

“They (media) took money from the mafi a after I stopped their corrupt deals,” he had told the Kerala Assembly, in reply to Chennithala’s demand for a dis-cussion on the issue.

“I was working hard for the country, rooting out corruption. But the opposition was baying for my blood. There’s a big mafi a behind them.”

Jayarajan had ac-cused the former di-rector of the VACB, Jacob Thomas, who

is now heading the state’s train-ing institute for bureaucrats, of trying to indict him disregard-ing the stand of his colleague.

AgenciesNew Delhi

Former fi nance minister and senior Bharatiya Ja-nata Party leader mem-

ber Yashwant Sinha has warned that the Indian economy is on a downward spiral and poised for a hard landing.

The veteran leader’s op-ed ar-ticle in the Indian Express news-paper yesterday painted a grim picture of shrinking private in-vestment, a collapse of industrial production and distress in the farming sector.

The construction industry, a big provider of jobs, was in the doldrums, the service sector has slowed down, exports have dwindled and the demonetisa-tion and the hastily implemented new composite Goods and Serv-ices Tax had worsened the situa-tion, Sinha wrote.

Sinha’s comments come against the backdrop of the gross domestic product growth rate dropping to 5.7% in the April to June quarter, its lowest in three decades.

According to Sinha, the rate was calculated using a new method adopted in 2015, adding that GDP growth under the old method would have likely been 3.7% or less.

Sinha blamed Finance Min-ister Arun Jaitley for failing to handle the situation and pointed out that a worried Prime Minis-ter Narendra Modi had appointed a new economic advisory council on Monday.

The outspoken Sinha said that Jaitley, who also holds the Department of Disinvestment and Department of Corporate Aff airs and earlier held the De-fence Ministry, was carrying the “heavy burden” of many extra responsibilities and it was “per-haps too much to expect from” him.

Sinha said he was speaking about the mess after realising that “I shall be failing in my na-tional duty if I did not speak up even now”.

“I am also convinced that what I’m going to say refl ects the sen-timents of a large number of peo-ple in the BJP and elsewhere who

are not speaking up out of fear,” Sinha wrote.

Several opposition leaders, including Congress Party Vice President Rahul Gandhi, shared Sinha’s article on Twitter, saying it underlined the Modi govern-ment’s mismanagement of the economy.

Congress leader and former fi nance minister P Chidambaram lauded Sinha’s critique, saying he was absolutely correct when he wrote that “instilling fear in the minds of the people is name of the new game”.

Chidambaram said the Con-gress had assiduously exposed the “many weaknesses and a terrible mismanagement” of the economy.

“We are happy that Yashwant Sinha has echoed our criticism,” he said adding: “It is not often that from this platform the prin-cipal opposition party will wel-come a statement of a veteran leader of the ruling party.”

Chidambaram said Sinha’s views were not diff erent from what MPs belonging to the BJP and other parties “have told us since many months privately and in soft whispers”.

He said it was a sad commen-tary on the times that MPs were afraid to refl ect what they see and hear around them, especially in their constituencies.

“Yet we call ourselves a free country.”

Chidambaram said it was not only MPs who have become si-lent.

“We have witnessed numer-ous examples of news reports and articles being pulled out before publication; of television interviews being taken off air; of scheduled talks at universi-ties being cancelled; of social activists being investigated on trumped up charges; of editors

and reporters being unceremoni-ously sacked; of academics and scholars being threatened; of judges being indirectly punished; and, most tragically, of authen-tic voices of the people being si-lenced by brutal killings.”

Chidambaram said at least a dozen BJP MPs have “spoken to us” in the Central Hall of Parlia-ment and in committees about the economy.

“Nobody dares to ask ques-tions. An MP from Maharashtra who raised questions was asked to shut up. In this atmosphere of fear, if Sinha speaks up then he is speaking the truth.”

The government rejected Sin-ha’s criticism, saying the world acknowledged that India “is one of the fastest growing economies”.

“No one should forget it. Our image at the international level is very strong,” Home Minister Ra-jnath Singh said.

Railway Minister Piyush Goyal said Prime Minister Narendra Modi has given the “cleanest government” and had attacked black money and corruption like no one else has done.

Economy is in a mess,says Yashwant Sinha

“I shall be failing in my national duty if I did not speak up even now”

Traders stage a protest by burning an eff igy of demon king Ravana symbolising the Goods and Services Tax (GST) at Lalbagh in Lucknow yesterday. Former finance minister and senior BJP leader Yashwant Sinha has said demonetisation coupled with “a badly conceived and poorly implemented GST” has played havoc with businesses and sunk many of them.

Members of the National Students’ Union of India get their heads shaved in protest against police baton charge on students of Banaras Hindu University (BHU) in Varanasi, in Bengaluru yesterday.

Protest against police action

Men wade through a street after heavy rains in Mysuru yesterday.

Heavy rainsparalyseBengaluru,MysuruIANSBengaluru

Heavy rains crippled Ben-galuru and Mysuru and surrounding districts

yesterday, fl ooding roads and houses and causing traffi c snarls in many areas.

“The city received heavy rain-fall, with a few areas receiving a maximum of 196mm as recorded at 8.30am,” an offi cial from the Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre (KSNDMC) said.

Bengaluru has received nearly double the normal amount of rainfall for the month of Sep-tember. It received 295mm of rain from September 1 to 26 as against the normal of 148mm, according to the KSNDMC.

The heavy rains which began on Tuesday night led to drains overfl owing onto roads in several places, leading to water-logging. A number of trees were also up-rooted, blocking traffi c.

A 48-year-old man, Naray-anappa, reportedly died at Alur in the city’s north suburb when the tiled roof of his old house collapsed in the rains.

Even upscale suburbs like Ko-ramangala and Jayanagar wit-nessed fl ash fl oods as the drains, fi lled with silt and fi lth, failed to cope with the huge amounts of water. Rainwater also entered homes in many areas.

Fifty-fi ve-year-old Meen-amma, a resident of Krishnara-japuram, a suburb in the eastern part of the city, died yesterday after a night of incessant rain, police said.

“Her house was inundated af-ter the rainfall. It was a natural death as she had been suff ering from illness for weeks,” police said.

A few compound walls in the city also came crashing down due to the night’s rain.

“A compound wall in western suburb Chandra Layout col-lapsed due to the rain, crushing about eight cars that were parked close to it,” Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike spokesman Suresh said.

Thousands of chickens at a poultry farm in Nelamangala, a town in Bengaluru Rural district, about 30km from the city, died after the farm was fl ooded, an offi cial said.

Policy U-turns harming Makein India drive, say companies

I felt insulted, says oustedBihar Congress chief

ReutersNew Delhi

Surprise policy shifts, such as an apparent U-turn over a locomotive deal with

General Electric, risk undermin-ing Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s fl agship ‘Make in India’ initiative, which aims to cre-ate millions of jobs and boost growth, industry executives say.

GE won a $2.6bn contract in 2015 to supply 1,000 diesel lo-comotives - the biggest direct investment in India by a US fi rm and the fi rst deal awarded to a foreign fi rm after India allowed 100% foreign investment in its railways - part of eff orts to over-haul its creaking, colonial-era infrastructure.

But the railways ministry said last week it wouldn’t need die-sel after all – hoping to save on fuel and maintenance costs – and suggested GE might want to make electric engines instead.

Electric engines are usually used for passenger trains, while diesel is used for freight.

Around 25-30% of India’s lo-comotives are diesel-engined.

The policy shift could cost New Delhi in compensation – GE is already building a fac-tory for the diesel locos – but executives and investors say it is also an important test for a government that needs foreign investment to create jobs and reboot growth ahead of a 2019 general election.

“The GE case is very impor-tant symbolically because they have been among the earliest and most committed investors,” said Amitabh Dubey, a political analyst at research fi rm Trusted Sources.

“People will be watching to see how this plays out, par-ticularly because the railway

contracts were initiatives that the government pushed con-sciously and worked very hard to get these people in. To then turn around two years later and change your strategy will bother a lot of people,” he said.

GE has already shipped its fi rst diesel locomotive to India and is completing a factory in Bihar.

It has created around 1,000 jobs at the plant and a mainte-nance shed, and 5,000 jobs in the supplier network.

In a statement, the US fi rm said the government’s change would put future foreign invest-ment at risk.

“An alteration of this contract will have serious impact on job creation and skills development, and cause the government to in-cur substantial costs,” it said.

“This will also undermine government’s signature ‘Make in India’ initiative.”

Foreign direct investment (FDI) into India topped $60bn in fi scal 2016-17, almost double the levels before Modi came to power in 2014.

But after increasing by more than 20% in the fi rst two years of the Modi government, FDI growth was less than half that rate in the latest fi nancial year, hit by tax changes and a shock move to withdraw most of In-dia’s banknotes overnight.

Yashwant Sinha, a veteran leader of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and a former fi nance minister, said poorly executed policy shifts had stalled growth.

“Economies are destroyed more easily than they are built,” he wrote in a newspaper column yesterday.

India’s economy, Asia’s third-largest, grew at a three-year low of 5.7% in April-June.

In another example of shifting goalposts, India this month blindsided the auto

industry by almost doubling the maximum levy on luxury cars and sport-utility vehi-cles (SUVs) – just weeks after first setting the rate as part of a major tax change.

Rahil Ansari, head of Audi India, said sudden shifts aff ect companies’ ability to plan ahead, and could force changes.

“This is bound to adversely impact sales, by possibly a dou-ble-digit reduction, and will re-duce revenues for the company, dealers and perhaps also tax revenue for the government,” he said.

Rival Mercedes-Benz also said the luxury car industry has been at the receiving end of arbitrary policies, and a hike in levies would aff ect its future expansion plans under the ‘Make in India’ initiative.

For change to happen in a country like India, it sometimes has to be done in a disruptive manner, and foreign investors should expect that and plan for it, said Sandip Beri, partner at Delhi-based law fi rm Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas.

However, the government should give industry fair time to comply with new rules, and ana-lyse its own contractual obliga-tions, before changing policy, he added.

“There is no question that in-dustry wants stability and pre-dictability.”

India’s inability to make up its mind on its tax structure and how it responds to foreign com-panies predates the Modi gov-ernment, says Saurabh Mukher-jea, CEO of Mumbai-based brokerage Ambit Capital.

“I can understand why GE is peeved, but (I’m) not sure how one should take their broader point on the impact on the eco-nomic climate in India,” he told Reuters.

IANSPatna

A day after he was re-moved as Bihar Congress chief, Ashok Choudhary

yesterday said he felt “insulted” at the way he was ousted from the post without any prior in-timation.

He also targeted All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary C P Joshi for “misleading” the party high command about the party’s af-fairs in the state.

“I expected an honourable exit but feel insulted at the way I was removed. It is part of a conspiracy to install a par-ticular leader as Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee chief,” Choudhary told reporters here.

“The unceremonious ouster of a Dalit person, whose two generations have worked for the growth of Congress, is unfortu-nate and insulting. It is also an

insult to the Dalit community,” he said.

Choudhary said he welcomes the decision of the party but “I don’t deserve the way I was insulted and removed from the post. I was willing to off er my resignation.”

However, he thanked Con-gress vice president Rahul Gan-dhi for allowing him to work as the state party chief for four-and-half years. “I will soon meet Rahul Gandhi to apprise him about my side of the story.”

Choudhary refuted reports that he will leave the Congress and would join the ruling Janata Dal-United of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. “I am not going anywhere, I will fi ght against those who conspired against me within the party,” he said.

He alleged that Joshi, the party’s state in-charge, did not even have the courtesy to in-form him “offi cially” of the high command’s decision. “I came to know about my ouster from

media reports,” he said.“Joshi had been putting pres-

sure on me to quit as he wanted to make a particular person as state Congress chief. The party lost elections in Assam, Ma-nipur and West Bengal because of his ineffi ciency and compla-cency. Joshi was hardly visible in Bihar during the elections. He is now bent upon weakening the party in Bihar,” Choudhary said, adding he would continue to serve the party as a solider and struggle for its betterment.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday removed Choudhary as the Bihar Con-gress Committee chief with im-mediate eff ect.

The state unit vice president Kaukab Quadri has been ap-pointed as a working president of the party.

The Congress has 27 MLAs in the state. The party is part of the Grand Alliance with Rash-triya Janata Dal of Lalu Prasad in Bihar.

Soldiers kill rebelson Myanmar border

Govt launches online portal in bid to end child labour

AgenciesNew Delhi

Indian soldiers killed a large number of militants in a gunfi ght along the country’s

restive border with Myanmar, the army said yesterday.

A statement posted by the army’s eastern command on Twitter said its off ensive had resulted in “heavy casualties” to insurgents on the Indian side of the border.

“A column of Indian army, while operating along the In-do-Myanmar border, was fi red upon,” it said.

Indian troops fi red in retali-ation, killing “a large number” of militants.

No Indian soldier was killed in the fi refi ght, the statement added.

The military added that the insurgents belonged to the Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland-Khaplan, a radi-cal group seeking a ‘Greater

Nagaland’ for the Naga tribe within India and in neigh-bouring Myanmar.

The army has been battling dozens of separatist militant groups in the northeast for several years.

In 2015, some 20 soldiers were killed in a militant am-bush near the Myanmar bor-der, prompting a fi erce army counter-off ensive.

Much of India’s border re-gion with Myanmar is porous and government authority there is considered weak.

Myanmar is also plagued by multiple insurgencies in its border regions, most notably in Rakhine state where it has launched a violent crackdown against Rohingya Muslims over the past month forcing more than 450,000 to fl ee to other countries.

In recent years, the mili-taries of India and Myanmar have built close ties, with each pledging not to allow insurgent groups to shelter in its territory.

ReutersNew Delhi

The Indian government has launched an online portal to register, rescue and re-

habilitate child workers, as part of a drive to curb the exploitation of millions of minors.

India’s 2011 census found over 4mn labourers aged be-tween five and 14, out of 168mn

globally, but campaigners say millions more are at risk due to poverty.

The portal – Platform for Ef-fective Enforcement for No Child Labour, or PENCIL – aims to bring together offi cials, chari-ties and police at federal, state and district level to share infor-mation and co-ordinate on child labour cases.

“The PENCIL portal brings together stakeholders at all lev-

els so that anyone anywhere can register a case of child labour and that an investigation can happen quickly,” federal Home Minister Rajnath Singh said at its launch on Tuesday.

“But the existence of PENCIL is not enough to end child labour in India. I believe that we need to promote awareness at every level to ensure everyone knows about it.”

Since taking offi ce in 2014,

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has introduced sev-eral measures aimed at eradicat-ing child labour by 2025.

India has one of largest popu-lations of children in the world, with more than 40% of its 1.2bn people below the age of 18, ac-cording to its 2011 census.

The portal – which includes a child tracking system, com-plaints corner and standard op-erating procedures for offi cials,

police and charities – aims to boost weak enforcement of child labour prohibition laws.

Districts will be expected to designate an official to inves-tigate child labour complaints registered on the site within 48 hours and, together with local police, rescue the chil-dren, a labour ministry state-ment said.

The portal will also track sup-port given to victims, such as en-

rolment in school or vocational training, to ensure the child is not forced back into work.

An economic boom of the last two decades has lifted millions in India out of poverty, yet it is home to almost a third of the world’s 385mn poorest children, according to the World Bank and the United Nations children’s agency Unicef.

They make easy prey for traf-fi ckers, fed promises of work and

a better life but often ending up in forced labour.

More than half of India’s child workers are employed in agri-culture and more than a quarter in manufacturing - embroider-ing clothes, weaving carpets or making match sticks.

Children also work in restau-rants and hotels and as domestic workers.

Many girls are sold to brothels for sexual slavery.

Ousted Bihar Congress chief Ashok Choudhary speaks at a press conference in Patna yesterday.

INDIA

Gulf Times Thursday, September 28, 201718

PAKISTAN19

Gulf Times Thursday, September 28, 2017

Second LNG terminal to be ready by Nov 15Pakistan Prime Minister

Shahid Khaqan Abbasi yesterday said that the

country’s second LNG termi-nal will be commissioned by November 15.

Abbasi said that if anyone, whether a client or contractor, claims for damages on the basis of delay in the project, they will have to prove the consequential loss.

“Two or three weeks ago, we visited the site and wit-nessed a lot of work done al-ready,” the premier said. “Dur-ing the visit, the contractor told us to complete the project till November 1 or 15.”

The terminal, which was ear-lier scheduled to be completed by June, has been hit by delays and its commissioning has been moved forward from June to Au-gust, then again to September.

Now it has been reportedly planned to be functional by No-

InternewsLahore

Pakistani PM Shahid Khaqan Abbasi: “I am sure that the project completion will not be prolonged to December.”

Sharif likely to return to London

Pakistan’s ousted premier Nawaz Sharif might proceed to London this

week to see his ailing wife, sources said yesterday, as the former prime minister reached Lahore after his maiden ap-pearance before the account-ability court in Islamabad to face the three graft references.

Sources revealed that Sharif might leave for London with-in a few days but added that his sojourn would depend on Kalsum Nawaz’s medical re-ports, following her cancer treatment there. If the re-ports turn out to be positive, he would stay in Lahore, they said.

Sharif fl ew into Lahore from Islamabad. From the airport he went to his Jati Umra resi-dence in a large convoy amid tight security. According to

the Punjab government an-nouncement, Chief Minis-ter Shehbaz Sharif is also in London on a private visit.

Sharif returned to Paki-stan on Monday after spend-ing more than three weeks in London and went straight into several consultation sessions with party leaders about his future plans.

An accountability court in Islamabad allowed the former premier to leave after he brief-ly appeared before the court on Wednesday for hearing of references fi led against him by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).

A number of Pakistan Mus-lim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leaders, including federal ministers, accompanied the former prime minister, for his fi rst appearance before the accountability court, which had summoned him after his failure to appear at an earlier hearing on September 19.

InternewsLahore

2mn peoplesuff er from Alzheimer’s

With the population of elderly people in the country growing fast,

the incidence of Alzheimer’s is increasing alarmingly with around 2mn Pakistanis suff er-ing from the preventable condi-tion and their numbers continue to mount, health experts have warned.

Alzheimer’s is a type of de-mentia that causes problems with memory, thinking and be-haviour changes and the disease is rapidly spreading globally. Every three seconds a person falls prey to it.

Experts said at a press briefi ng on Tuesday held in connection with World Alzheimer’s Day that the cost to combat the disease globally had surpassed $818bn.

They said 7% of people aged 65 or more were aff ected by Alzhe-imer’s while up to 15% of those aged 75 or more were likely to be aff ected by it.

“If the disease is not timely treated, it becomes incurable,” Muhammad Wasay, president, Neurology Awareness and Re-search Foundation (NARF), warned.

He shared an estimate agreed upon by the experts globally that by 2050 people aff ected with the disease would be over 50mn worldwide and would upset un-limited numbers of families.

“Dementia is also called an-cestral disease and is one of the six reasons of deaths.”

He said mostly the disease was linked with ageing and, contrary to the prevailing perception, it could be prevented through re-medial measures.

“The average age in Pakistan is increasing, thus increasing the risk of the diseases linked with ageing. Alzheimer’s is much common among the people who are 65 or older,” he said.

He added that though no treatment of Alzheimer’s was available, its incidence could be controlled through remedial measures.

Experts said that, due to lack of awareness, people did not un-derstand its symptoms and asso-ciated it with old age.

IANSIslamabad

Finance minister denies corruption allegations

Pakistani Finance Minis-ter Ishaq Dar pleaded not guilty yesterday to own-

ing assets beyond his means, an offi cial from the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz said, amid a corruption investiga-tion into former prime minister Nawaz Sharif.

The Supreme Court in July disqualifi ed Sharif for not de-claring a small source of income and ordered an investigation into Sharif, his children and Dar, Sharif’s former account-ant. Dar’s son is also married to one of Sharif’s daughters.

“Dar told the court that he

was innocent and he will prove that his assets are legitimate,” Jan Achakzai, a PML-N offi cial, said.

Dar did not speak to the me-dia after his appearance in court in Islamabad but has dismissed all the allegations against him.

Sharif has also denied any wrongdoing and has been critical of the judiciary, calling the corruption proceedings

against him a conspiracy.Several senior PML-N fi g-

ures, including Sharif’s daugh-ter Maryam, have hinted that Pakistan’s powerful military were behind Sharif’s ouster. The army denies playing any role.

Dar was credited with steer-ing Pakistan’s economy to a sounder footing following a 2013 balance of payments cri-sis but over the past year those economic gains have begun to erode, according to the Interna-tional Monetary Fund (IMF) and analysts.

Growth in the $300bin econ-omy hit 5.3% last fi scal year (July-June), the fastest pace in a decade, but foreign currency reserves have dwindled and the 2016/17 current account

ReutersIslamabad

vember 28 after a delay of six months as per the contractors request sent to client Pakistan LNG Terminal Limited (PLTL)-a subsidiary of the petroleum division. Further delays in the

project could cause gas load-shedding in Punjab in the coming winter months.

“I am sure that the project completion will not be pro-longed to December” said the

PM. “It must be completed till November 15.”

Talking about the issue of $50mn penalty imposed on the contractor the PM seemed to suggest that penalties are not the way forward.

“For this we will have to go through the contract in detail. But I don’t think this penalty is justifi ed because the delay is from both sides,” he opined. Such penalties are always im-posed on the basis of consequen-tial damages.

And those claiming such con-sequential damages from anyone are required to prove the loss they faced due to negligence/delay on the part of other party. “So if you are not in a position to prove your loss due to negligence of anyone, you cannot claim damages,” he added.

In this particular case, Ab-basi said, the Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGPL) was not in position to off -take the LNG in June or so because of less demand. “But now they (the

SNGPL) through PLTL can claim damages from the contractor be-cause of increasing demand.

But for this even, it will have to prove consequential damages fi rst. Under this, the company will have to establish that failure of the contractor in completing the terminal led to failure of the client to meet the gas demand,” he explained. Therefore, it would have to go through the contract in depth to prove the claim, the PM concluded.

The state-owned PLTL has imposed a $50m penalty on Pa-kistan GasPort Consortium, which is the contractor for the LNG terminal coming up at Port Qasim, for delays in the commis-sioning of the plant.

PGPC claims the delays are due to government failure to complete the pipeline to carry the gas, as well as a host of other reasons. The dispute hit the news recently when sources in PLTL said that they were under pres-sure from the government to withdraw the penalty.

Pakistan’s Finance Minister Ishaq Dar is seen after a party meeting in Islamabad yesterday.

defi cit has more than doubled to $12.1bn.

Dar’s reluctance to let the rupee weaken to ease current account pressures has courted criticism from economists, who say the PML-N is mak-

ing economic decisions with one eye on the next general election, likely to be held in mid-2018.

Some analysts have warned Pakistan may need to go back to the IMF for another bailout

package if current trends continue.Under new Prime Minister

Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, Dar has been removed from the post of chairing the cabinet’s power-ful Economic Coordination Committee.

Dar was credited with steering Pakistan’s economy to a sounder footing following a 2013 balance of payments crisis but over the past year those economic gains have begun to erode

Production, sale of cigarettes may be against tobacco law

The registration of three police cases regard-ing the violation and

non-implementation of to-bacco laws has triggered debate on whether the hundreds of thousands of people involved in the production, supply, im-port, distribution and sale of cigarettes are violating the law and if they may be liable to be punished.

According to an offi cial of the ministry of health (NHS), the ministry issued an order on Oc-tober 23, 2009 which mandated that a 40% pictorial health warning be printed on both sides of a cigarette packet. The ministry amended the rules in 2015 and issued two fresh orders.

According to the offi cial, the orders directed that the picto-rial warnings be increased from 40% to 85% and the picture of lip cancer be changed with that of throat cancer.

The last date of the imple-mentation of order for the change of picture, was ex-tended every month. How-ever, the last date for im-plementation of pictorial warnings was never extended which means it is manda-tory to increase the size of the pictorial health warning on cigarette packs to 85%.

“The notifi cation could not be implemented for two years and according to section four of the tobacco law, all those involved in the manufacturing, distribution, storing and selling of cigarettes, including offi cials of the tobacco industry, will be punishable with imprisonment

for a term which may extend to two years or with a fi ne which may extent to Rs10,000 or both,” he said.

The offi cial said that three police cases have been regis-tered based on applications fi led by tobacco advocates and that a number of other appli-cations will be fi led across the country soon.

The ministry offi cial re-quested not to mention it as the tobacco industry may be-come active and try to stop the prosecution.

Lawyer Waheed Iqbal said the order has never been ex-tended which means ciga-rette packets with a 40% pictorial warning cannot be sold.

“All those involved in the process, from manufacturing to sale, are violating the law and action can be taken against

hundreds of thousands of people in the industry,” he said.

Khurram Hashmi, head of Coalition for Tobacco Control, a body with rep-resentation from over 200 non-government organisa-tions, said it is unfortunate that the order could not be implemented for two years and that no government de-partment has bothered to take action due to pressure from and the infl uence of the tobacco industry.

“However, lodging com-plaints against all those in-volved in the business is a good move because this is how the law may be implemented,” he said.

Tobacco consumption caus-es more than 100,000 deaths in Pakistan each year, which amounts to around 300 deaths a day.

InternewsIslamabad

Mango exports fetch $94mn in two years

Mango exports earned Pakistan $94.059mn in foreign exchange

during 2014-16, offi cials in the commerce division said yesterday.

Quoting fi gures com-piled by the Pakistan Bu-reau of Statistics (PBS), they said that 129,423 tonnes of mangoes were exported to various coun-tries in the last two years. Figures for the recently-concluded fi scal year were not discussed.

During 2014-15, Paki-stan exported 65,311 tonnes worth $45.672mn while in 2015-16, 64,112 tonnes were exported valued at $48.387mn.

Most importing countries require vapour heat treatment and irradiation before accept-ing exports, the offi cials said, adding that the government has taken steps to improve quality including establish-ing of standard operating procedures (SOPs) for grow-ers for eff ective farming and cultivation.

They said that 313 SOP-compliant mango orchards were registered for man-go exports to the United States, Australia, Ko-

rea, European Union (EU) member countries and oth-er markets after technical audit for quality.

Moreover, the offi cials said the government provided SOPs to fruit and vegetable exporters and established an irradiation facility and 34 Hot Water Treatment (HWT) and three Vapour Heat Treat-ment (VHT) facilities to en-sure quality compliance by exporters.

The offi cials said the gov-ernment has also established 34 ripening chambers along with banning the use of cal-cium carbide.

Packaging in wooden crates has also been banned to avoid damage incurred due to nails, rough surface of the wood and the latter’s po-tential for harbouring pests and insects.

The government has facili-tated sea-freighted export of fresh mangoes to lower trans-portation costs and makes the exported mangoes more competitive in the European market.

Cold storage facilities have been developed in Pun-jab and underdevelopment in Sindh will help to remove fi eld heat (pre-shipment) to carry the shipment to its destinations without any quality loss/deterioration, they said.

InternewsIslamabad

Power distribution companies to refund Rs1.82 per unit to consumersThe National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) of Pakistan yesterday ordered ex-Wapda distribution companies (Discos) to refund Rs1.82 per unit to electricity consumers for overcharging them in August with a total financial impact of about Rs23bn. At a public hearing presided over by Nepra’s member Himayatullah Khan, the regulator also expressed displeasure at the utilisation of four gas-based

eff icient power plants on the most expensive fuel high-speed diesel (HSD) with an average additional cost to consumers of Rs2bn per month and observed that around Rs24bn worth of relief might have been denied to consumers in a year.An off icial explained that even though the regulator ordered the refund of about Rs23bn, Discos would pass on only half of the amount to consumers and retain about Rs11.5bn as windfall saving.

This is because of the government policy that allows Discos to charge double the fuel cost of electricity as advance billing to consumers and refund only half of actual overcharged amount on the regulator’s orders. The relief will reach consumers in the coming billing month.Under the practice in vogue, Discos are charging a significantly higher estimated fuel charge to power consumers,

which is later adjusted against the actual cost in a subsequent month with the approval of the power regulator.The practice helps power companies generate billions of rupees (around Rs120bn a year) from consumers in advance and have better cash flows without financing costs. The relief in electricity rates will not be applicable to agricultural and residential consumers with less than 300

units of monthly consumption under a decision of the PML-N government on the grounds that these categories are already being provided subsidised electricity and hence do not qualify for the monthly fuel price cut. K-Electric consumers will not benefit from the relief either.At zero fuel cost, hydropower contributed most electricity to the overall basket with a 33 per cent share.

PHILIPPINES

Gulf TimesThursday, September 28, 201720

Most Filipinos don’t believe police accounts of drug war deaths: pollReutersManila

Around half of Filipinos believe many people killed in the country’s

war on drugs were neither drug dealers nor violently resisted arrest as police maintain, ac-cording to an opinion poll re-leased yesterday.

The survey of 1,200 Fili-pinos by Social Weather Sta-tions (SWS) conducted in late June also showed that 50% of respondents felt many vic-tims were falsely identifi ed by their enemies as drug users and pushers, and were then killed by police or shadowy vigilantes.

Thousands of mostly urban poor Filipinos have been killed during President Rodrigo Du-terte’s 15-month-old war on drugs, either during police op-erations or by mysterious gun-men.

The crackdown has come un-der unprecedented scrutiny in recent weeks, due largely to the high-profi le Aug 16 killing of a 17-year-old student, among the 90 people killed in less than a week of intensifi ed police raids.

The latest SWS poll predates those events.

About 49% of respondents believed many of those killed by police were not drug dealers, and 54% felt many victims had not resisted arrest.

The survey suggests doubts among Filipinos about the offi -cial stance of the Philippine Na-tional Police, which states those killed in anti-drugs operations were dealers, and had refused

to go quietly. Police say that has been the case in more than 3,800 incidents in which deaths occurred.

The poll also indicates some scepticism about the meth-ods and eff ectiveness of intel-ligence-gathering and com-munity campaigns to identify

drug users in need of rehabili-tation, some of whom, activ-ists say, have been killed after their names appeared on “watch lists”.

Duterte’s crackdown has caused international alarm, though domestic polls have shown Filipinos are largely sup-

portive and believe it has made the streets safer.

Duterte’s offi ce frequently cites polls, including SWS, as a sign of his public support.

But presidential spokes-man Ernesto Abella cast doubts about the accuracy of the lat-est survey, saying it contained

“leading and pointed questions that may have unduly infl u-enced the answers.”

“We expect pollsters to exer-cise prudence and objectivity to arrive at a closer approximation of public sentiment,” he said in a statement.

Activists accuse the PNP of

executing drug suspects under the guise of sting operations, or of colluding with hit men to kill drug users, allegations the PNP vehemently denies.

Duterte’s political opponents say he has made bellicose state-ments that incite police to com-mit murder, which he rejects, arguing that his instruction to security forces has always been to kill only when their lives were in danger.

Only a fi fth of those polled by SWS disagreed with the state-ment that police had killed many people who had posed no threat to them.

A quarter were undecided.About 23% of respondents

believed those killed were drug pushers, as police report, and 27% were undecided.

Half of those surveyed be-lieved false accusations of drug involvement were behind many killings by police, while 21% disagreed with that and 28% were undecided.

The survey showed higher percentages of those polled in Manila, which has borne the brunt of the drugs killings, felt many victims had neither sold drugs nor fought police, and were being falsely linked to the trade.

Phelim Kine, deputy Asia di-rector at Human Rights Watch, said the survey results were not surprising given the “critical mass of compelling evidence” gathered by his group and in-vestigative journalists, which had clearly demonstrated there was “an unlawful killing cam-paign under the cynical veneer of ‘anti-drugs operations’.”

File photo shows a man with his hands bound as male residents are rounded up for verification after police off icers conducted a large scale anti-drug raid at a slum community in Manila.

IS threat cools outsourcing boom in Philippines: industryAFP Manila

Prolonged fi ghting by Fili-pino militants supporting the Islamic State group

has put the brakes on the Philip-pines’ $10bn outsourcing indus-try, one of its key growth drivers, industry leaders said yesterday.

More than 900 people have been killed in the city of Marawi, where pro-IS militants have de-fi ed a months-long US-backed military campaign to fl ush them out, while the southern third of the country has been placed under martial law to contain the violence.

Although the lucrative out-sourcing industry is largely based in the northern and cen-

tral regions, the bloody confl ict has unnerved many potential investors, said offi cials of the In-formation Technology and Busi-ness Process Association of the Philippines (IBPAP).

“In the early part of the year, we had a lot of ‘wait-and-see’ attitude for the most part,” said IBPAP president Rey Untal.

Approved investments in the information technology serv-ices sector, which includes the outsourcing industry, fell 31.3 % from a year earlier in the three months to June, government data show.

“There is an element of (wait and see) still,” Untal told report-ers, though there were now signs that new players were coming in.

The outsourcing industry in-cludes call centres and offi ces

that carry out such functions for overseas companies like ac-counting, medical and legal transcription, software design, animation and even architec-ture.

It has become a major pil-lar of growth of the Philippine economy, bringing in $23bn in revenues last year and employ-ing 1.15mn people according to industry officials.

When the Marawi violence broke out in May, the industry was bracing for the fallout of the protectionist threats is-sued by US President Donald Trump, who has vowed to bring back jobs outsourced abroad, Untal said.

“Then suddenly we had to deal with that (Marawi) also. In every conversation I had, that

figured in,” said Untal. Industry leaders had to as-

sure investors that work would continue with “business as usual,” despite the fighting, he said.

Industry leaders also ob-tained government assurances that its employees would be exempt from martial law cur-fews in the south, IBPAP vice-chairwoman Cathy Ileto said.

Untal said that while the outsourcing industry employs almost 50,000 people in the southern Philippines, no one worked in Marawi or nearby areas.

The industry is hoping for growth to pick up with target revenues of $40bn and 1.8mn direct employees by 2022, the officials said. Employees at a call centre.

Duterte welcomes probe into allegations he hid wealthReuters Manila

Philippine President Ro-drigo Duterte welcomes an investigation by the

state’s anti-corruption agency into allegations by a senator that he failed to disclose his wealth when he was a city mayor, his spokesman said yesterday.

The Offi ce of the Ombudsman confi rmed on Tuesday it has ini-tiated an inquiry into activities in several of Duterte’s bank ac-counts prior to him being elected president in May 2016.

Duterte served as mayor, vice mayor and a congressman in Davao City for two decades.

“The president has nothing to hide,” his spokesman, Ernesto Abella, said in a statement.

“The president respects the internal processes of the Offi ce of the Ombudsman as an inde-pendent body and trusts its im-partiality in the conduct of its fact-fi nding duty.”

Deputy Ombudsman Arthur Carandang told reporters his of-fi ce had approved a request last month by anti-graft investiga-tors to obtain reports from the Anti-Money Laundering Coun-cil (AMLC). The investigation

was in response to a complaint by Senator Antonio Trillanes that Duterte had amassed 2.2bn pesos ($43.1mn) in three bank accounts between 2006 and 2015 when he was mayor, and had committed a criminal off ence by failing to report that in his offi -cial assets declaration.

Duterte has sparred repeat-edly with Trillanes, one of his staunchest critics, and recently alleged the senator had a number of secret overseas bank accounts.

Duterte read out one Singa-porean account number live on television.

After Trillanes took reporters to Singapore to prove no such account existed, Duterte admit-ted he had deliberately provided a false number, and gave a cryp-tic explanation for his reasons.

As president, Duterte has im-munity from prosecution, but an investigation could provide grounds for impeachment.

Political experts, however, say

that scenario is highly unlikely given his immense popularity and control of the legislature.

Duterte has repeatedly said he would resign if there was proof of his wrongdoing.

Deputy Ombudsman Caran-dang declined to provide details of the investigation but con-fi rmed his offi ce had received copies of Duterte’s bank trans-actions, which he said showed more than a billion pesos went through those accounts over several years.

The accusations by Trillanes that Duterte had concealed as-sets was among a long list of allegations contained in an im-peachment complaint against the president in March by an-other lawmaker, Gary Alejano.

That was thrown out by law-makers who found the complaint lacked substance.

Duterte, who claimed to be poor and of humble living when he campaigned for the presiden-cy, on Tuesday said he had wealth from the sale of landholdings in-herited from his father, a former governor and a Cabinet minister under late President Ferdinand Marcos.

It was the fi rst time Duterte had publicly mentioned such an inheritance.

Duterte: open to investigations

Navy sacks captain after death of fi shermen

DPAManila

The Philippines’ navy chief has relieved from duty the captain of a ship that fi g-

ured in a confrontation with a Vietnamese fi shing boat on the weekend, leaving two fi shermen dead.

The crew of the navy patrol ship BRP Miguel Malvar was placed under restrictive cus-tody aboard the vessel to make sure they are available during the investigation into the in-cident on Saturday off Bolinao town, over 200 kilometres north of Manila.

Navy chief Vice Admiral Ro-nald Joseph Mercado ordered a “thorough and impartial in-quiry into the unfortunate in-cident,” said Colonel Edgard Arevalo, a spokesman for the armed forces.

Mercado had also commis-sioned an independent third-party investigation, Arevalo said.

According to a police report, 49 officers and personnel were aboard the BRP Miguel Malvar when it tried to stop the Viet-namese fishing boat on suspi-cion of illegal fishing.

But the fishing boat fled, prompting the Philippine navy ship to chase it.

The Foreign Affairs Depart-ment said navy personnel fired warning shots during the chase when the Vietnamese boat “in-itiated dangerous manoeuvres” causing it to slam into the Phil-ippine vessel.

Hazing victim laid to rest but family prepares for legal battleBy Jaime PilapilManila Times

A freshman law student who died from haz-ing was fi nally laid to rest, along with his dreams of becoming a lawyer and eventu-

ally chief justice of the Supreme Court.Some 300 family and friends, came to bury Ho-

racio “Atio” Castillo at the Manila Memorial Park in Parañaque City yesterday afternoon in a tearful goodbye to a “good son”, a “good man” who loved helping others, who was “friendly” and “very kind” and fond of cartoons.

In a farewell message, the older Castillo told his son not to worry and that his family was letting him go.

An Agustinian priest who led the prayers dur-ing the funeral read a short message the young Castillo himself wrote for the school year book in Colegio de San Agustin (CSA) where he graduated elementary and high school.

“Many mistake me as very naughty but I really love helping others,” said the priest reading from a piece of photocopied paper.

He described the former CSA student as a “cheerful student who loved sports, music, and was very friendly.”

Castillo’s uncle, Dr Gerardo Castillo addressed the Aegis Juris, the fraternity his nephew wanted to join, saying: “To Aegis Juris, you lost a good man.”

He said that the fraternity would die also be-cause “no one will join you.”

He warned all those responsible that they “would have their day in court.”

Rosatio Guiang, who took care of Atio Castillo when he was three until fi ve years old described her former ward to Manila Times as “very kind,

very silent, and very fond of cartoons.” Atio’s dog “Lega”, whose video looking at his master inside the coffi n had gone viral on social media, was also at the burial.

“Justice for Atio” was printed on shirts worn by friends and schoolmates who launched a fund-raising campaign to raise at least P1mn to support a legal battle against the fraternity.

Castillo’s funeral took time because of a Mass at the Santuario de San Antonio Parish in Forbes Park in Makati City where his wake was held.

At the end of the ceremony, more than a hun-dred butterfl ies were released into air.

Castillo died from injuries he sustained during the intiation rites on Sept 16.

Hazing suspect John Paul Solano, a medi-cal technologist and a member of the fraternity, claimed initially that he found Castillo’s body in Tondo on Sept 17 and rushed him to the Chinese General Hospital where he was declared dead on arrival.

Horacio Castillo

SRI LANKA/BANGLADESH/NEPAL21

Gulf Times Thursday, September 28, 2017

Dhaka needs longer-term plan for Rohingya: UNThe nearly half a million

Rohingya refugees who have entered Bangladesh

since August will likely not be leaving soon, the UN said yes-terday, calling for longer-term plans to manage the infl ux.

The head of the United Na-tions refugee agency, Filippo Grandi, called the current camp set up “a recipe for disaster”, with overcrowding and un-hygenic conditions creating a breeding ground for “possible epidemics.”

“The important thing is to get people in places where they can be assisted more easily,” Grandi told reporters in Geneva, refer-ring to the estimated 480,000 mostly Muslim Rohingyas who have fl ed Myanmar violence.

“It is most likely that return will take time, if it happens, if the violence stops. It will be important also to fi nd in the medium term suitable solu-tions for the people that are in Bangladesh.”

“The fi rst challenge is to get people out of the mud and the despair which they are fi nding themselves in”, he added.

Grandi said he was in talks with Dhaka about forming a

“technical committee” with the UN to look at options for long-er-term Rohingya settlements.

“There are in reality many diff erent options that the Bang-ladesh government is studying, and understandably they are not easy”, he said, noting the strain placed on local commu-nities in the Cox’s Bazar area on the Myanmar border.

Aid agencies say that the largely makeshift camps in Cox’s Bazar are bursting at the seams, amid struggles to bring in adequate food and shelter.

Impoverished Bangla-desh has earned praise for its response so far.

Rohingya have been fl eeing Rakhine state in northeast My-anmar for decades. The new ex-odus began on August 25 when deadly attacks by Rohingya mil-itants on Myanmar police posts prompted a military crackdown.

The International Organi-sation for Migration has esti-mated that there are more than 800,000 Rohingya currently in Bangladesh, including those who fl ed Myanmar before the latest crisis.

Myanmar’s civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi has said the country was ready to verify the refugee status of those who have fl ed, but has not guaranteed the right of return for all.

AFPGeneva

A soldier stands guard near the Balukhali refugee camp near Gumdhum village in Ukhia, Bangladesh.

Hasina undergoes gallbladdersurgery in US

Bangladesh Prime Minis-ter Sheikh Hasina, in the US in connection with

the 72nd UN General Assembly session, has undergone a suc-cessful gallbladder operation in Washington, a media report said.

A statement by press sec-retary Ihsanul Karim said the surgery was performed around 8pm local time on Septem-ber 25 and it was successful. Hasina was resting on her doc-tors’ advice, the Dhaka Tribune reported.

The statement said Hasina was taken to hospital after she complained of stomach pain. After a diagnosis, the doctors decided to perform the surgery. The prime minister is in good health, it said.

She was released from the hospital a day after the surgery and she returned to her place of residence in Washington.

Her younger sister Sheikh Re-hana and son Sajeeb Wazed Joy were beside her.

Hasina will return to Bangla-desh on October 5.

Sheikh Hasina reached Wash-ington from New York on Sep-tember 22 after attending the UNGA session. After staying in Washington for a week, she was scheduled to return home on Oc-tober 2 via London.

She arrived in New York on September 17 to join the UN’s annual event.

IANSDhaka

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina

Seven get death for murder of teenager in Lanka

A Sri Lankan man based in Switzerland was sen-tenced to death yester-

day with six others for the gang rape and murder of a teenage girl in a case that sparked huge protests.

Mahalingam Shashikumar, a Swiss permanent resident, was also found guilty of leading a gang to abduct the 17-year-old schoolgirl and fi lming her gang rape in Jaff na district in May 2015.

A three-judge bench sen-tenced Shashikumar and his six accomplices to death and ordered them to pay Rs7mn ($46,000) as compensation to the family of the victim.

The case attracted interna-tional attention after residents complained that local police were trying to hush up the case and allow Shashikumar to escape to Switzerland.

Hundreds of people protested against the police, leading to the eventual arrest of the suspects.

Jaff na’s top police offi cer was later charged with subverting the course of justice and President Maithripala Sirisena vowed to ensure a speedy court hearing in the rape case.

The assailants will have their death sentences automatically commuted to a term of life in prison since Sri Lanka has an unoffi cial moratorium on capital punishment.

AFPColombo

Three held for trying to smuggle meth pills

Bangladesh police yes-terday arrested three Rohingya men and a

Bangladeshi who were trying to smuggle 800,000 meth-amphetamine pills into the country from Myanmar, an offi cial said.

The arrests come as Bang-ladesh struggles to deal with a massive infl ux of Rohingya Muslims fl eeing unrest in neighbouring Myanmar’s Rakhine state.

Offi cers from Bangla-desh’s elite Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) detained the four men on a fi shing trawler in the estuary of the Naf river, which divides the two countries.

“We caught four peo-ple traffi cking Yaba tablets. Three of them are Rohingya

from Myanmar and the other one is a Bangladeshi,” Ma-jor Ruhul Amin, an RAB area commander, said.

“They were carrying 800,000 Yaba tablets on a boat. They brought the Yabas from Myanmar. Two of the Rohingyas came here recently. And the other one is an old refugee,” he added.

Yaba, a Thai word meaning “crazy medicine”, is a con-coction of methamphetamine and caff eine that has become popular among young people in Bangladesh.

In recent years Bangla-deshi security forces have seized millions of Yaba tablets from traffi ckers at-tempting to enter Cox’s Bazar by land and sea.

Last week two Rohingya men were arrested from a boat in the Naf river by Bangla-desh border guards with some 430,000 Yaba pills.

AFPCox’s Bazar

Lanka govt slams monks over attack on Rohingya

The Sri Lankan govern-ment yesterday slammed a group of radical Bud-

dhist monks who attacked Ro-hingya refugees on the island as “animals”, pledging action against police who failed to protect them.

Rajitha Senaratne, a cabinet spokesman, said the govern-ment condemned Tuesday’s storming of a UN safe house where 31 Rohingya refugees, including 16 children and seven women, had been given shelter.

“As a Buddhist I am ashamed at what happened,” Senaratne told reporters.

“Mothers carrying very young children were forced

out of their safe house which was attacked by a mob led by a handful of monks,” he said.

The mob broke down the gates of the multi-storied building near the capital Co-lombo, smashing windows and furniture as frightened refugees huddled together upstairs.

There were no reports of casualties among the refugees, who were later taken to another location, but two police offi cers were wounded and admitted to hospital.

Senaratne said police had been ordered to take discipli-nary action against offi cers found to have failed to control the mob.

“This is not what the Bud-dha taught. We have to show compassion to these refugees. These monks who carried out

the attacks are actually not monks, but animals,” he said.

Sri Lanka’s extremist Bud-dhist monks have close links with their ultra-nationalist counterparts in Myanmar. Both have been accused of or-chestrating violence against minority Muslims in the two countries.

One of the monks who stormed the building posted a video on Facebook fi lmed by his radical group Sinhale Jathika Balamuluwa (Sinhalese Na-tional Force) as he urged oth-ers to join him and smash the premises.

“These are Rohingya terror-ists who killed Buddhist monks in Myanmar,” the monk said in his live commentary, pointing to Rohingya mothers with small children in their arms.

The 31 Rohingya refugees

were rescued by the Sri Lankan navy fi ve months ago after they were found drifting in a boat off the island’s northern coast

They had been living in India for several years before leaving a refugee camp in Tamil Nadu state.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees expressed alarm over Tuesday’s attack and urged Sri Lankans to show em-pathy for civilians fl eeing per-secution and violence.

Almost half a million Ro-hingya Muslims have fl ed My-anmar for Bangladesh since August 25.

They have been the target of decades of state-backed per-secution and discrimination in the mainly Buddhist coun-try, where many view them as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

AFPColombo

Nepal names 3-year-old as new Kumari

A three-year-old girl has been named the new Ku-mari of Nepal’s capital

Kathmandu after her predeces-sor retired, continuing an age-old tradition.

Trishna Shakya will be anointed as the new Kumari in a ceremony today, when she will be taken from her fam-ily home to live in a palace in Kathmandu’s ancient Durbar Square where she will be cared for by specially appointed caretakers.

She was selected from among four candidates, Uddhav Man Karmacharya, a priest who attends to the Kumari, said.

“She will take her place on the Kumari’s throne after we per-form prayers and tantric ritu-als,” Karmacharya said.

Once she is anointed a Ku-mari, Shakya – who, like her predecessors, belongs to the

Newar community indigenous to the Kathmandu valley – will only be allowed to leave her new home 13 times a year on special feast days.

She will be paraded through Kathmandu in ceremonial dress and elaborate makeup to be worshipped.

When outside, the Kumari, who is considered an embodi-ment of Taleju, is carried be-cause her feet are not allowed to touch the ground.

Selection criteria for aspiring Kumaris is strict and includes a number of specifi c physical at-tributes such as an unblemished body, a chest like a lion and thighs like a deer.

Even if a girl fulfi ls all the physical requirements, she must then prove her bravery by not crying at the sight of a sacrifi ced buff alo.

The Newar tradition blends several ancient ele-ments, with the most impor-tant Kumaris representing each of the three former royal

AFPKathmandu

kingdoms of the Kathmandu Valley: Kathmandu, Patan and Bhaktapur.

The practice was historically closely linked to the royal fam-ily, but has continued despite the end of Nepal’s monarchy in 2008.

The tradition has drawn criticism from child rights activists who say the Kumaris are denied a childhood and their isolation from society hinders their education and development.

In 2008, Nepal’s Supreme

Court ruled the Kumaris should be educated and they are now taught inside the palace where they live and are allowed to sit their exams there.

Many former Kumaris have spoken about the struggles they face reintegrating into

society after they are dethroned. The outgoing Kumari, Matine

Shakya, was anointed in 2008 at the age of three.

But the number of girls be-ing put forward by their families to be selected as a Kumari has dwindled in recent years.

Army soldiers fire a volley of shots during the ‘Fulpati’ parade held to mark the seventh day of the Dashain Festival in Kathmandu yesterday.

Twitter’s test of an expanded 280-character limit is aimed at luring new users, but some of the social network’s passionate loyalists fear the change will strip it of its unique appeal.

If implemented broadly, the longer tweets could profoundly change the nature of the one-to-many messaging platform which is popular with journalists and politicians but has struggled to boost its broader user base.

Twitter says the change may draw in more users and reduce the frustration faced by those who struggle to encapsulate their wit and wisdom within the 140-character limit.

But some members of the “Twitterverse” argue it would not be Twitter anymore if users are allowed to ramble.

“The 140-character limit has been a defi ning feature, forcing brevity and making streams of tweets very easy to consume,” Jan Dawson of Jackdaw Research said in a blog post.

“Even just looking at the fi rst few 280-character tweets I’ve seen from Twitter executives has broken up my feed and forced a mental shift in my consumption.”

Writing in The Guardian, Australian novelist and commentator Dominic Knight said, “Brevity is the soul of Twitter. We don’t need 280 characters to say that.”

Many Twitter users – already notoriously sceptical of previous updates to the platform – heaped scorn on the idea.

“Twitter can’t shorten my attention span for 8 years, then expect me to start paying attention to #280character tweets,” one user wrote.

Another tweeter commented: “The world is fi ghting enough wars already.@Twitter should not add a war between brevity and verbosity into the mix, please no.”

Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey off ered his defence of the move in a series of tweets.

Twitter expects and appreciates “all the snark & critique....Comes with the job,” Dorsey wrote.

“What matters now is we clearly show why this change is important, and prove to you all it’s better.

Give us some time to learn and confi rm (or challenge!) our ideas.”

Many comments focused on US President Donald Trump, who uses the platform for policy announcements and for spontaneous remarks on many topics.

Twitter indicated Trump won’t be part of the test group.“Do not give Donald Trump an excuse to tweet more

nonsense,” one user tweeted.Another user wrote: “This new Twitter 280 character

thing is huge – especially for Trump. Now he can say stupider things more bigly.”

Some users said the change could have a positive impact by allowing for more detailed and complex messages.

“I fi nd the character expansion on Twitter to be a great plus for the public sphere and activism,” said Zeynep Tufekci, a University of North Carolina sociologist who studies Twitter as a tool for social change.

“While the brevity has its advantages, 140 characters was too little, and often lent itself to needless misunderstandings as people could not put in more nuance and context.”

A “small group” of users will see the new limits before Twitter decides on rolling out the changes more broadly, the company said.

Some analysts said the change was unlikely to provide a major boost for Twitter, which has seen its user base stagnate and has failed to keep up with faster-growing social networks like Facebook and Facebook-owned Instagram.

Gulf Times Thursday, September 28, 2017

COMMENT22

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“Brevity is the soul of Twitter. We don’t need 280 characters to say that”

A test for Europe’sGerman anchor

Twitterverse atwitterover the expanded280-character limit

More heatwaves to scorch Europe: experts

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Deputy Managing Editor: K T Chacko

Whatever government emerges in Germany in the weeks ahead, its leaders will need to devote more eff ort to explaining their policy choices to citizens and international partners alike

By Daniela SchwarzerBerlin

The outcome of Germany’s federal election holds a crucial lesson for the European Union: even

the country that has been the EU’s bedrock of stability amid crisis is not immune to political fragmentation and polarisation. Although Chancellor Angela Merkel will almost certainly gain a fourth term, her new government is likely to be considerably weaker than the three that preceded it.

The Bundestag now counts six factions, compared to four in the previous electoral term. Merkel’s centre-right Christian Democratic Union took 33% of the vote, its worst result since 1949, though still enough to give the CDU the most seats in parliament. The centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) – Germany’s second-largest political party, and a part of Merkel’s last governing coalition – also hit a post-war low,

receiving just 20.5% of the vote.Meanwhile, the populist Alternative

für Deutschland (AfD) won 12.6%, making this anti-euro, pro-Russia, and staunchly xenophobic party the fi rst far-right party to enter the Bundestag in almost 60 years. And the SPD has thrown in the towel, vowing to spend the coming electoral term in opposition.

In this context, Germany is likely to be ruled by a so-called Jamaica coalition, named for the colours of the parties – the CDU, the Greens, and the Free Democrats (FDP) – that would comprise it. But such a coalition will be unruly, owing to the parties’ heterogeneous foreign-policy positions.

Similarly, the SPD-led opposition will be beset by deep divisions. Indeed, it is unlikely to co-operate on any issue at all with its fellow opposition party, the AfD. The SPD shares almost no values with the AfD, which has already declared that its main goal will be to hound the other parties with populist and nationalist bombast. As a result, decades-old parliamentary norms of decorum and collegiality are in jeopardy.

Given the Bundestag’s central role in shaping Germany’s EU policy, this could weaken the capacity of Merkel’s government to provide the kind of leadership Europe now needs.

To be sure, there is some good news. The victory of Merkel’s CDU, however weak, implies elements of continuity on which to build. Merkel’s prompt decision to take responsibility for forming a viable coalition government

means that her commitment to preserving the EU and her staunch defence of democracy and Western values will continue to guide German policymaking. Moderation, stability, and international openness will remain Germany’s watchwords, no matter how much ugly rhetoric the AfD spews.

But, in terms of action on international challenges, Germany’s partners will have to be patient. In particular, though Merkel is expected to co-operate closely with France’s pro-European president, Emmanuel Macron, to forge a new model of EU integration for the post-Brexit age, she is unlikely to do so right away.

The formation of a coalition alone – in particular, a conservative-liberal-green coalition – will likely take months. Next month’s state election in Lower Saxony, where the AfD secured signifi cant support, adds another element of uncertainty to the mix.

Even after that election, compromise may not come easily. The Bavaria-based Christian Social Union (CSU) – the CDU’s sister party – will face a state election next autumn. Feeling the hot breath of the AfD on its neck, the CSU has already sharpened its criticism of Merkel’s immigration policy, and is likely to try to push the chancellor further to the right in the coming year.

Perhaps the stickiest issue for the coalition parties will be the eurozone. The stances of the FDP and the Greens are opposed on this front, particularly when it comes to joint crisis management, mutual

insurance mechanisms, and fiscal tools. But this struggle to find common ground may prove useful for the wider EU, as its leaders attempt to strike a balance between the responsibility of member governments and the eurozone-wide institutions that the monetary union needs to function effectively.

It may turn out to be easier for Germany’s coalition parties – not to mention the French and German governments – to forge a new framework for bilateral and European security cooperation. Polls show that concerns about terrorism and internal security outweigh fears over immigration. If those pressing issues are addressed at the European level, as Merkel suggested in her victory statement, support for Europe could end up winning back the discontented voters who cast their ballots for the AfD.

Whatever government emerges in Germany in the weeks ahead, its leaders will need to devote more eff ort to explaining their policy choices to citizens and international partners alike. With the AfD in the Bundestag, the German public will be exposed to more radical positions on foreign aff airs – from EU leadership to relations with Russia – than have been heard in over a generation. While Germany’s centre has held, its consensus is about to be tested. – Project Syndicate

Daniela Schwarzer is Director of the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP).

The scorching temperatures across Europe’s Mediterranean nations this summer were made at

least 10 times more likely by climate change, according to scientists.

Furthermore, without action to tackle global warming, such summer heatwaves with temperatures soaring over 40C will become normal by 2050.

The new analysis by the World Weather Attribution (WWA) group also analysed the particular “Lucifer” heatwave which struck south-east France, Italy and Croatia in early August and found it was made at least four times more likely by human-caused climate change.

The Lucifer heatwave saw temperatures fail to drop below 30C for three days and nights in the hottest spots, and was linked to a 15% surge in emergency hospital admissions in Italy. Prolonged heat is known to be very dangerous to health and a severe heatwave in Europe in 2003 was linked to 75,000 deaths by subsequent analysis.

“Summers keep getting hotter,” said Friederike Otto at the University of Oxford, UK, also part of WWA. “Heatwaves are far more intense than when my parents were growing up in the 1950s. If we do nothing to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, the kind of extreme heat we saw this past summer will be the norm when my young son is a grown man.”

The fast-growing science of climate change attribution tackles

the question of what impact global warming is having on extreme weather and the people it aff ects. No event can be said to be caused by climate change because random extremes occur naturally. But by comparing extremes with historical measurements and computer models of a climate unaltered by carbon emissions, researchers can show how global warming is already heavily loading the dice of dangerous weather.

In June, WWA showed the extreme heatwave that saw deadly forest fi res blazing in Portugal and Spain was made 10 times more likely by global warming. In Portugal, 64 people died.

Previous work has demonstrated fl oods in England and France – even as far back as 2000 – were made more signifi cantly likely by climate change.

Research in Australia has shown the bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef was 175 times more likely due to greenhouse gas emissions, while the recent hot winter was made 60 times more likely.

Hurricanes are much more complex and time consuming to analyse than heatwaves and WWA is currently working on Hurricane Harvey. But scientists are clear that climate change is most likely to have made the giant storms that have ripped across the

Caribbean and the US this year more destructive. This is because greater heat means more storm energy and rainfall, while rising sea level means storm surges reach further inland.

The new research analysed this summer’s heat across Spain, southern France, Italy and the Balkans. It compared the measured temperatures with four diff erent groups of climate models in which the heating eff ect of the last century of carbon emissions were omitted. This showed the high level of heat in June, July and August was at least 10 times more likely than it would have been in the early 1900s.

The researchers did the same for the Lucifer heatwave, examining its three-day peak in early August. They found the intensity of such heatwaves has increased by 1C to 2C since 1950 and that overall climate change has quadrupled the change of them happening.

In June, the Guardian revealed that the UK government’s failure to update building regulations for homes, hospitals and schools could cause a tripling of heatwave deaths by 2040.

“It is critical that cities work with scientists and public health experts to develop heat action plans because such extreme heat will become the norm in the middle of the century,” said Robert Vautard, a researcher at the Laboratory of Climate and Environmental Sciences in France. “Climate change is impacting communities right now and these plans save lives.” – Guardian News and Media

German Chancellor Angela Merkel makes a speech during a Lower Saxony’s regional election campaign in Hildesheim, Germany yesterday.

Natan Cabral, 5, stands on the cracked ground of the Boqueirao reservoir in the Metropolitan Region of Campina Grande, Paraiba state, Brazil, February 13, 2017.

COMMENT

New test forCTE maybeon the wayBy Alex DobuzinskisBoston

Researchers have discovered a protein that could help diagnose a degenerative brain disease commonly found in

athletes, veterans of military service and others who have experienced brain trauma, a new study showed.

Scientists from Boston Univer-sity and the VA Boston Healthcare System, a group of hospitals run by the US department of veterans aff airs, discovered elevated levels of a protein called CCL11 in the brains of dead football players with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), but not in the brains of healthy people or people with Alzheimer’s disease.

Currently, CTE can only be diag-nosed in a dead person’s brain tissue.

According to the study, published in the journal PLOS ONE, because the protein CCL11 can be detected in the cerebrospinal fl uid, researchers could be moving closer to developing a method for diagnosing CTE in the living.

CTE is linked to repeated head trauma and can lead to depression, anxiety and memory loss.

The study noted that its symptoms are similar to Alzheimer’s disease, and doctors have struggled to distinguish between Alzheimer’s and CTE in patients.

Boston University released research this past summer that found signs of CTE in 110 out of 111 deceased former National Football League players.

The fi ndings were based on the broadest review yet of brains of former football players for signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy.

CTE is linked to the sort of head-to-head hits that were long part of the sport, although the NFL and school leagues have been adjusting the game to limit blows to the head.

The condition has been diagnosed in former players including Hall of Fame linebacker Junior Seau and Pro Bowl safety Dave Duerson, who both com-mitted suicide.

Former New England Patriots player Aaron Hernandez, who killed himself in prison in April, had a “severe case” of CTE, according to researchers at Boston University.

BU Today, the news division of Boston University which is the leading centre studying CTE, described the research as a potential step toward de-veloping therapies to treat the disease and better ways of preventing it.

Gulf Times Thursday, September 28, 2017 23

Adopted by the UN just a year before Trump’s election, the SDGs will require that countries co-operate on crucial global targets related to climate change, poverty, public health, and much else

By Andrew Sheng and Xiao GengHong Kong

US President Donald Trump’s recent speech at the United Nations has gotten a lot of attention for its bizarre and

bellicose rhetoric, including threats to dismantle the Iran nuclear deal and “totally destroy” North Korea. Underlying his declarations was a clear message: the sovereign state still reigns supreme, with national interests overshadowing shared objectives. This does not bode well for the Sustainable Development Goals.

Adopted by the UN just a year before Trump’s election, the SDGs will require that countries co-operate on crucial global targets related to climate change, poverty, public health, and much else. In an age of contempt for international co-operation, not to mention entrenched climate-change denial in the Trump administration, is achieving the SDGs wishful thinking?

The SDGs were always bound to meet strong headwinds, owing to technological disruption, geopolitical rivalry, and widening social inequality. But populist calls for nationalist policies, including trade protectionism, have intensifi ed those headwinds considerably. Simply put, populations are losing faith that the global development orthodoxy of good governance (including monetary and fi scal discipline) and free markets can benefi t them.

With all of the advanced countries confronting serious fi scal constraints, and emerging markets weakened by

lower commodity prices, paying for global public goods has become all the more unappealing. Budget cuts – together with accountability issues and new technological challenges – are also hurting those tasked with delivering good governance. And markets increasingly seem to be captured by vested interests.

Economic outcomes often have their origins in politics. Harvard Law School’s Roberto Unger has argued that overcoming the challenges of knowledge-based development will demand “inclusive vanguardism.” The democratisation of the market economy, he says, is possible only with “a corresponding deepening of democratic politics,” which implies “the institutional reconstruction of the market itself.”

Yet, in the US, the political system

seems unlikely to produce such a reconstruction. Harvard Business School Professors Katherine Gehl and Michael Porter argue that America’s two-party system “has become the major barrier to solving nearly every important challenge” facing the country.

Political leaders, Gehl and Porter continue, “compete on ideology and unrealistic promises, not on action and results,” and “divide voters and serve special interests” – all while facing little accountability. A forthcoming book by University of San Francisco Professor Shalendra Sharma corroborates this view. Comparing economic inequality in China, India, and the US, Sharma argues that both democratic and authoritarian governance have failed to promote equitable development.

There are four potential combinations of outcomes for countries: (1) good governance and good economic policies; (2) good politics and bad economics; (3) bad politics and good economics; and (4) bad politics and bad economics. Other things being equal, there is only a one-in-four chance of arriving at a win-win situation of good governance and strong economic performance. That chance is diminished further by other disruptions, from natural disasters to external interference.

There are those who believe that technology will help to overcome such disruptions, by spurring enough growth to generate the resources needed to mitigate their impact. But while technology is consumer-friendly, it produces its own considerable costs.

Technology kills jobs in the short term and demands re-skilling of the labour force. Moreover, knowledge-intensive technology has a winner-take-all network eff ect, whereby hubs seize access to knowledge and power, leaving less-privileged groups, classes, sectors, and regions struggling to compete.

Thanks to social media, the resulting discontent now spreads faster than ever, leading to destructive politics. This can invite geopolitical interference, which quickly deteriorates into a lose-lose scenario, like that already apparent in water-stressed and confl ict-aff ected countries, where governments are fragile or failing.

The combination of bad politics and economics in one country can easily produce contagion, as rising migration

spreads political stress and instability to other countries. According to the UN High Commission for Refugees, there were 65mn refugees last year, compared to just 1.6mn in 1960. Given the endurance of geopolitical confl ict, not to mention the rapidly growing impact of climate change, migration levels are not expected to decline anytime soon.

The SDGs aim to relieve these pressures, by protecting the environment and improving the lives of people within their home countries. But achieving them will require far more responsible politics and a much stronger social consensus. And that will require a fundamental shift in mindset, from one of competition to one that emphasises co-operation.

Just as we have no global tax mechanism to ensure the provision of global public goods, we have no global monetary or welfare policies to maintain price stability and social peace. That is why multilateral institutions need to be upgraded and restructured, with eff ective decision-making and implementation mechanisms for managing global development challenges such as infrastructure gaps, migration, climate change, and fi nancial instability. Such a system would go a long way toward supporting progress toward the SDGs.

Unger argues that all of today’s democracies “are fl awed, low-energy democracies,” in which “no trauma” – in the form of economic ruin or military confl ict – means “no transformation.” He is right. In this environment, refl ected in Trump’s embrace of the antiquated Westphalian model of nation-states, achieving the SDGs will probably be impossible. – Project Syndicate

Andrew Sheng is Distinguished Fellow at the Asia Global Institute at the University of Hong Kong and a member of the UNEP Advisory Council on Sustainable Finance. Xiao Geng, President of the Hong Kong Institution for International Finance, is a professor at the University of Hong Kong.

Are the SDGs achievable?

Three-day forecast

TODAY

SATURDAY

High: 40 C

Low : 29 C

High: 39 C

Low: 29 C

Weather report

Around the region

Abu DhabiBaghdadDubaiKuwait CityManamaMuscatRiyadhTehran

Weather todaySunnySunnyP CloudySunnySunnySunnySunnySunny

Around the world

Athens BeirutBangkok BerlinCairoCape Town ColomboDhakaHong KongIstanbulJakartaKarachiLondonManilaMoscow

Max/min25/1727/2232/2619/1232/2122/1329/2631/2632/2922/1732/2432/2620/1331/25

Weather todayP CloudyM SunnyS T StormsP CloudySunnyP CloudyShowersT StormsM SunnyCloudyS T StormsP CloudyP CloudyS T Storms

Fishermen’s forecast

OFFSHORE DOHAWind: NW-SW 03-12 KTWaves: 1-3 Feet

INSHORE DOHAWind: NW-NE 05-15 KTWaves: 1-2 Feet

High: 41 C

Low: 29 C

FRIDAY

Inshore: Hazy to misty at places at first becomes hot daytime with chance of some local clouds by afternoon and humid by night.

Sunny

Sunny

Max/min38/2937/2238/2842/2739/3134/2739/2330/17

Weather tomorrowSunnySunnySunnySunnySunnySunnySunnySunny

Max/min37/2938/2437/2842/2639/3134/2739/24

Max/min23/1627/2333/2619/1131/2117/1130/2629/2631/2821/1633/2532/2618/1031/26

Weather tomorrowP CloudyM SunnyT StormsP CloudySunnyP CloudyS ShowersT StormsS T StormsCloudyS T StormsP CloudyShowersS T Storms

26/16

QATAR

Gulf Times Thursday, September 28, 201724

Al Bahie auction sold out on season’s opening eventBy Ayman AdlyStaff Reporter

A Swiss-made wrist watch sold for $480,000 was the most expensive item at an

an auction titled ‘The Gentleman’s Sale’ yesterday at Al Bahie Auction House in Cultural Village Founda-tion – Katara. Unique and exquisite collections of time-pieces, fancy pens, intricately crafted daggers and swords, and high-quality oud incense and other luxury items went under the hammer at the event.

The fancy items on sale were submitted by multiple sellers with 135 online bidders taking part in the bidding process yesterday. There were 51 items on sale. Around 40% of the bidders were from the US,

while the others were from diff er-ent countries, including Qatar. In addition to the bidders who were physically present at the event, three bidders took part through tel-ephone calls.

Jennifer Bishop, director at Al Bahie, pointed out that almost 50% of successful bidders were Qataris. The most expensive item sold, a Swiss watch, is made by James Pel-laton with a unique royal marine skeleton, made of 18k red gold, with a brown hand-stitched alligator bracelet/strap. The watch is de-scribed as one-of-its-type.

The cheapest item sold, for $500, was a French mantel clock with a gilt-bronze and painted marble double columns surrounding gold dial with fi ligree, made in the early 20th century. Another wristwatch was sold for $280,000, also Swiss-

made. Described as the Artya, it has the fi rst worldwide three gongs minute-repeater, regulator, and double axis tourbillion wristwatch. It is made of quenched tungsten, gold, titanium grade fi ve and steel.

A Swiss clock made in 2014 was sold at $220,000. It is called L’Epee – a unique 175th anniversary two-hands fl ying double tourbillon clock with guilloche black dial and appliques. It is made of gold-plated massive brass with black enamel.

Regarding oud incense, the most expensive in this category was 800gm of triple super grade Cambodian oud, sold at $17,000. The cheapest oud, sold at $4,800, was Indian, from the state of Assam, weighing 500gm, and super grade.

For fancy pens, the most expen-sive one was sold for $6,000. It is a Mont Blanc, great character limited edition, Albert Einstein fountain pen and the cheapest pen at the col-

lection sold for $550. It is a vintage range Vendome De Cartier fountain pen, produced between 1981-1984.

Swords, daggers, a Mughal-style letter box, and an Ottoman cal-ligrapher’s box were on sale as well among the 51 items on display, which were all sold at the auction held in Katara yesterday.

The auction was considered the opening of this season with a number of similar events scheduled for the upcoming months.

Al Bahie is the fi rst-of-its-kind in the region. An auction house lo-cally-owned and operated, it aims to promote culture affi nity through artistic practices and mediums by off ering works in diverse sale cat-egories from arts of the Islamic worlds, watches, banknotes and coins, special plate numbers, orien-talist art, and rugs and carpets.

Swiss-made wrist watch sold for $480,000 was the most expensive item at the auctionUnique and exquisite collections of time-pieces, fancy pens, intricately craft ed daggers and swords, superior oud ... went under the hammer

A collection of swords at the auction. The auction in progress yesterday. PICTURES: Ram Chand A Mughal-style letter box at the auction.

The James Pellaton watch sold for $480,000.