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GULF TIMES

published in

QATAR

since 1978THURSDAY Vol. XXXVIII No. 10464

May 25, 2017Sha’baan 29, 1438 AH www. gulf-times.com 2 Riyals

SPORT | Page 1

Al-Attiyah tightens grip with stage win in Kazakhstan

Prospects for oil production cut extension brighten

BUSINESS | Page 1

QATAR

REGION

ARAB WORLD

INTERNATIONAL

COMMENT

BUSINESS

CLASSIFIED

SPORTS

30, 31

1-6, 9-12

7-9

1–8

8-13, 32

14

14, 15

16–29

INDEX

Qatar to trackdown, prosecutehackers of QNAQatar will investigate and pros-

ecute those responsible for the hacking of Qatar News

Agency’s (QNA) website, an offi cial at the Ministry of Foreign Aff airs (MoFA) said yesterday.

QNA’s website was hacked at 12:14am yesterday, with hackers pub-lishing false statements attributed to HH the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Ha-mad al-Thani.

The offi cial said authorities were able to regain control of QNA’s web-site four hours after the hacking took place, and that they continued to counter ongoing hacking attempts of QNA’s social media accounts.

“It is clear this shameful cyber crime was instigated and perpetrated with malicious intent,” the offi cial said.

He also said that Qatar was sur-prised by the stance of some media outlets and TV channels which con-tinued to publish and comment on the false statements, despite them having been denied by HE Sheikh Saif bin Ahmed al-Thani, Director of the Government Communications Offi ce in a statement yesterday. The state-ment explained that QNA’s website

was hacked and false statements were attributed to HH the Emir.

The MoFA offi cial pointed out that a team has been created to investigate the criminal act of hacking the web-site. “Several brotherly and friendly countries expressed their willingness to participate in the investigation, as part of the framework of international collaboration in cyber crimes.”

Stressing that Qatar will take all necessary legal measures and pro-cedures to prosecute the hackers of QNA’s website, the senior offi cial add-ed that the government would publish the fi ndings of the investigation as soon as it was complete.

According to Reuters, the hackers attributed the false news to a “speech made by the Emir at a military gradu-ation ceremony”, but a government spokesman told the news agency HH the Emir had not made any comments at the programme for Qataris doing national service.

Following the hacking QNA has decided to temporarily suspend the services of its official website as well as its accounts on social networking platforms (Instagram,

Tweeter, Facebook and others). During the temporary suspension,

QNA said it will continue to provide its services to subscribers only.

“This precautionary measure came after QNA website and its social net-working platforms were hacked by un-known entities and false fabricated news were published over the past hours.

“The suspension was also within the eff orts to allow competent au-thorities in the State of Qatar to inves-tigate the hacking case and to hold the perpetrators of this act accountable.”

QNA has apologised to the users of the website for the temporary sus-pension, and pledged that its serv-ices through the website and the social networking platforms would be re-stored as soon as possible.

The hacking happened days after Qatar complained it was the victim of an orchestrated smear campaign in sections of the media, in the run-up to US President Donald Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia. These critics had alleged that Qatar supported militant groups in the Middle East, a charge which Doha denounced as “absolutely and unequivocally false”.

Emir honours US envoy

HH the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani received the outgoing US ambassador to Qatar, Dana Shell Smith, at the Emiri Diwan yesterday. The Emir presented the US ambassador the Al Wajbah Medal as his appreciation for her eff orts and role in enhancing the relations between Qatar and the United States. The Emir wished the ambassador success in her future mission. Page 9

The Ministry of Economy and Commerce (MEC) has held a meeting with representatives of

shopping malls and large retail outlets across Qatar to discuss preparations for Ramadan, maintain price stability and ensure that basic consumer goods - food and non-food items - are sold at the same price throughout the holy month.

The meeting comes after the minis-try announced price caps on more than 50,000 food and non-food products throughout Ramadan in its latest ini-tiative, in co-operation with shopping malls and large retail outlets.

In a press statement yesterday, the MEC said the list of shopping malls and large retail outlets (and their branches) includes Al Meera Consumer Goods Company, Carrefour Hypermarket, LuLu Hypermarket, Family Food Cen-tre, Masskar Hypermarket, Qual-ity Hypermarket, Safari Hypermarket, Spinneys, Food Palace, Saudia Hyper-market, Megamart, Al Rawabi Super-market, Grand Hypermarket, Grand

Mart, Food World, Al Safeer and Al-Duhail complex.

The MEC urged all shopping malls and retail outlets across the State to maintain stable prices for food and non-food items and refrain from in-creasing prices without obtaining the approval of the committee that sets price caps and profi t margins in line with Article 2 of Ministerial Decision No 8 of 2013, which regulates price hikes on commodities and services.

The price caps are the latest in a se-ries of initiatives launched by the min-istry to mark the holy month under the theme ‘#Aqal_Min_Al_Wajeb’, Arabic for ‘#the_least_we_can_do’. The ini-tiative comes within the framework of the ministry’s eff orts to maintain bal-anced and stable prices, and prevent any unjustifi ed increases in the prices of commodities and consumer goods, the statement notes.

The list of capped prices covers more than 50,000 food and non-food items, including poultry, eggs and their deriv-atives, frozen meat and its derivatives,

milk (fresh, condensed and powdered), dairy products, tea, coff ee products, sugar, halawa, jam, legumes, cereals, rice and its derivatives, biscuits, potato chips, mineral water, fresh and canned juices, canned food, edible and cooking oil, milk, baby food, baby diapers and sanitary napkins of all kinds, personal

hygiene products and household de-tergents, tin foil, preservatives, tissue paper, and household items of all kinds.

The ministry stressed that it would not tolerate any violations of Law No 8 of 2008 on consumer protection and its regulations, and would intensify its inspection campaigns to crack down on

violations. The MEC said it would refer those who violated laws and ministerial decrees to the competent authorities, who would - in turn - take appropriate action against the perpetrators in order to protect consumer rights.

The initiatives marking the holy month of Ramadan have been designed to cover all aspects of the ministry’s activities in terms of organisation, partnership and support, and raise awareness on various consumer and commercial topics.

The MEC will also launch new initia-tives aimed at bolstering partnerships between consumers and merchants such as the ‘Ataa’ - Arabic for ‘giving’ - and ‘National Product’ initiatives.

It has launched the discounted con-sumer goods initiative and will unveil the outcome of the Al Baraka corpo-rate social responsibility programme launched last year, as well as other ini-tiatives to regulate markets and stimu-late commercial sectors.

The ministry has urged all consum-ers to report violations by submitting

complaints and suggestions through the call centre: 16001, e-mail: info@mec.gov.qa, Twitter: MEC_QATAR, Instagram: MEC_QATAR, and the MEC application for iPhone and Android de-vices: MEC_QATAR.

MEC urges stores to maintain Ramadan price caps

The meeting between off icials from the MEC and retail outlets.

Inspection drive

The Ministry of Economy and Commerce (MEC) has announced plans to carry out intensive inspection campaigns round the clock in the local market ahead of and during the holy month of Ramadan. The campaign will cover all parts of Qatar and the various commercial and service establishments located around the country, the MEC has said in a press statement. The objective is to ensure their compliance with the stipulations of Law No 8 of 2008 on consumer protection and Law No 5 of 2015 regarding commercial and industrial stores and street vendors, and other related ministerial regulations.

Move to regulate higher education aff airsThe Cabinet has given its nod to a

draft law that seeks to regulate the work of higher education in-

stitutions in Qatar and determine the mechanism for obtaining necessary li-cences to carry out their work.

The draft law was prepared by the Ministry of Education and Higher Edu-cation, the offi cial Qatar News Agency (QNA) reported yesterday.

Under the terms of the law, the ‘Higher Education Policy Council’ headed by HE the Minister of Edu-cation and Higher Education will be established at the ministry. It will in-clude a vice-president, nine members with due experience and high academic stature with regard to higher education aff airs, representatives of the ministry, and heads of state and private higher education institutions.

The council shall have a number of functions, including the adoption of policies and strategies pertaining to

higher education, proposals for the establishment of government institu-tions and programmes in accordance with the higher education policy of the State and its needs, the standards and procedures for licensing private insti-tutions as well as granting and revoca-tion of licences for private institutions and their programmes, according to QNA.

After chairing the cabinet’s weekly meeting at Emiri Diwan yesterday, HE the Deputy Prime Minister and Minis-ter of State for Cabinet Aff airs Ahmed bin Abdullah bin Zaid al-Mahmoud said the Cabinet took the necessary measures to pass a draft law on the ‘na-tional address’ after reviewing the Ad-visory Council’s recommendations on the matter.

The draft law defi nes the ‘national address’ as data obtained by a natural or legal person - a citizen or an expatriate - through which his/her transactions

with government and non-government entities are carried out.

Such a person has to submit his/her ‘national address’ to the competent administrative unit at the Ministry of Interior (MoI) in accordance with the method and period specifi ed by the MoI. Judicial declarations and offi cial notifi cations delivered to the national address shall be considered valid, the report states.

Last month, the Advisory Council was briefed on the report of the Inter-nal and Foreign Aff airs Committee on the draft law on ‘national address’. The council approved the draft law and de-cided to submit its recommendations to the Cabinet.

The Cabinet also approved a decision to establish the ‘Committee on Policies for Financing State Projects’ headed by HE the Minister of Finance, a repre-sentative of Qatar Central Bank and a representative each from Qatar Invest-

ment Authority and Qatar Petroleum.The committee shall be responsible

for examining fi nancing strategies and plans for securing the loans required by a number of entities, including minis-tries, government agencies and public bodies and institutions. It aims to avoid the negative eff ects of competition on the available liquidity to borrow from domestic and international fi nance markets as well as monitoring existing borrowings and following up on their repayment.

In order to do so, the committee shall undertake all necessary work to carry out its functions, especially by deter-mining the target size of loans, the time of entry into the fi nance markets, and developing methods and establishing fi nancing conditions to ensure liquidity required to cover projects at an accept-able cost.

The Cabinet also took the necessary measures to ratify an agreement on the

Promotion and Protection of Mutual Investments between the governments of Qatar and the Philippines.

A memorandum of understanding between the Foreign Ministries of Qa-tar and Serbia on the establishment of political consultations on issues of common concern was ratifi ed.

Also approved was a draft air serv-ice agreement between Qatar and the Netherlands concerning Saint Martin.

Further, the Cabinet reviewed a pro-posal of the Foreign Ministry to amend some of the provisions of Emiri Decree No 14 of 1998 on the Establishment of the Permanent Qatari Committee for the Support of Al-Quds and took the appropriate decision.

Also reviewed and decided was a let-ter from the Ministry of Transport and Communication on a report on the dig-ital services provided by government agencies until the end of the fi rst quar-ter of 2017.

QATAR | Phone call

Emir in talks withKuwaiti leaderHH the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani held a telephone conversation yesterday evening with the Emir of Kuwait Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah. During the phone call, they reviewed the consolidated fraternal ties between the two brotherly countries, and ways to boost them and discussed a number of issues of mutual interest.

BRITAIN | Manchester attack

UK, Libya maketerror arrestsBritain raced yesterday to track down a militant network suspected of orchestrating the Manchester concert attack, as the suicide bomber’s father and brother were arrested in Libya and grisly details emerged of how he killed young pop fans. British soldiers fanned out to guard key sites as investigators tried to piece together the last movements of bomber Salman Abedi, a Manchester-born university dropout who died in Monday’s explosion. Abedi’s bomb killed 22 people, one of whom was just eight-years-old. Page 20

Windy and dusty today

Strong winds are expected in most places today along with poor vis-ibility due to dust, the Qatar Met

department has said.Off shore areas, too, are likely to see

windy conditions and high seas today. In a report yesterday, the Met de-

partment said the marine warning would come into eff ect this afternoon and continue until the end of Friday. It

advised people to be cautious and avoid venturing into the sea during this pe-riod.

Today, it will be hot during the day in inshore areas and slight to blowing dust is expected in some places at times. Off shore, dusty conditions and some clouds are likely, with the sea level ris-ing to 12ft at times. The wind speed may reach a high of 35 knots.

Gulf Times Thursday, May 25, 2017

QATAR8

‘Mobile fablab’ to help discovertalents ofstudentsSanea Bus, a new initia-

tive that is expected to “enrich the making

and discovery culture” in Qatar, has been launched.

The bus, which is de-scribed as a ‘mobile fab lab’, contains 3D printers, mill-ing machines, electronic kits and other tools used in the prototyping and fabrica-tion process. It will provide interactive maker-oriented educational sessions to visitors in public areas and schools, according to a press statement.

Sanea Bus was launched by IbTECHar Digital Solu-tions in co-operation with the Ministry of Education and Higher Education and Qatar Scientifi c Club (QSC), and under the sponsorship of Occidental Petroleum of Qatar (Oxy Qatar) and Qatar Development Bank (QDB).

The bus project falls un-der the Sanea initiative and aims to “expose the com-munity to the maker’s phi-losophy by bringing the ‘fab lab’ to them”, the statement notes.

Fawzia al-Khater, As-sistant Undersecretary of Educational Aff airs at the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, said Sa-nea Bus is a “meaningful and purposeful beginning supporting the new direc-tion of the ministry, which signifi cantly encourages project-based education”. It will help discover the talents of students and give them a chance to innovate and cre-ate values in their society.

Hareb al-Jabri, CEO of QSC, said: “It was always necessary to have a mobile lab that can be used in dif-ferent places to contribute to spreading the culture of

making and discovery and provide the appropriate en-vironment to execute the creative ideas of youth.

“By having Sanea Bus, it becomes easy to organise workshops and transfer it to schools and youth clubs and create an inspirational envi-ronment for creativity and innovation.”

A ‘fab lab’– or fabrication laboratory – is a small-scale workshop off ering digital fabrication, according to in-formation available online. A ‘mobile fab lab’ is a com-puter-controlled design and machining ‘fab lab’ housed in a trailer or bus.

Andrew H Kershaw, pres-ident and general manager of Oxy Qatar, noted: “We are expecting that this mobile workshop will take students through an enriching pur-poseful journey of STEM (Science, Technology, En-gineering and Math) con-cepts. Oxy Qatar is proud to be a sponsor of this Qa-tari educational technology startup that will provide a great opportunity for visi-tors to discover fi rst-hand the journey of design, crea-tivity and production.”

Ibrahim al-Mannai, ex-ecutive director of Advisory Services at QDB, added: “Our sponsorship for ibTE-CHar’s Sanea Bus is a con-tinuation of our vision to spread the culture of entre-preneurship and innova-tion between students. The bus provides students with easy, mobile access to the latest technological devices that they may use as a tool to learn and bring their ideas to us. We are confi dent that Sanea Bus will achieve its goal and create a change in the society.”

Sanea Bus, the ‘mobile fab lab’.HE the Minister of Education and Higher Education Dr Mohamed Abdul Wahed Ali al-Hammadi visiting the bus.

Exhibition byFrench artistends on May 31

A major exhibition by the celebrated French artist JR is coming to

an end, with only one week left for visitors and residents to experience the show. The exhibition is on show at the QM Gallery (Building 10) in Katara until May 31.

Organised by Qatar Mu-seums (QM) under the lead-ership of its chairperson, HE Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, JR – Répertoire, features some of the key series that have made the artist famous around the world, and in-cludes a video lounge where selected video works can be viewed.

Khalid Yousef al-Ibrahim, chief strategic planning of-fi cer at Qatar Museums said: “We are very proud to have hosted an exhibi-tion by the internationally acclaimed artist JR and are impressed by its success. JR – Répertoire is another ex-

ample of our commitment to bring international art-ists and world famous works to Qatar, to enrich the lives of those living and visiting here. This exhibition has undoubtedly sparked crea-tivity amongst visitors, we therefore urge those that have not seen the show to not miss the chance.”

JR is a French artist-turned photographer who maintains anonymity. His work com-bines art and engaged actions through large-scale outdoor installations, fi lms, pho-tographs and videos, using the streetscape as his canvas and his inspiration, which he claims as the largest art gal-lery in the world.

JR – Répertoire, is made in collaboration with Galerie Perrotin.

Entry is free. The opening hours: Monday to Thurs-day and Saturday – 10am to 8pm. Friday – 3pm to 9pm. Sunday is closed.

A work by the celebrated French artist JR.

QATAR9Gulf Times

Thursday, May 25, 2017

HH the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, HH the Deputy Emir Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamad al-Thani and HE the Prime Minister and Minister of Interior Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani have sent cables of congratulations to the President of Eritrea Isaias Afwerki on the anniversary of his country’s Independence Day.

HE the Prime Minister and Minister of Interior Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani yesterday sent a cable of congratulations to Abdelmadjid Tebboune, on his appointment as prime minister of Algeria.

Emir sends cable of congratulations to president of Ertirea

Prime Minister greets Algeria’s new premier

HH the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani received the outgoing Malaysian ambassador to Qatar Ahmad Jazri bin Mohamed Johar at the Emiri Diwan yesterday. On the occasion, HH the Emir presented the Malaysian ambassador the Al Wajbah Medal as his appreciation for his efforts and role in enhancing the relations between Qatar and Malaysia.

HE the Minister of Transport and Communications Jassim Seif Ahmed al-Sulaiti yesterday received a written message from French Minister of Transport Élisabeth Borne. The message was delivered by the French ambassador to Qatar Eric Chevallier during his meeting with Minister al-Sulaiti. The meeting discussed bilateral relations between Qatar and France in the field of transport, and means of further enhancing them.

President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo of Somalia arrived in Doha yesterday on a working visit to the State of Qatar. Upon arrival at Hamad International Airport, the Somali president and his accompanying delegation were greeted by HE the Minister of Development Planning and Statistics Dr Saleh Mohamed Salem al-Nabit, Acting Chargé d’Affaires of the Qatari embassy in Somalia Hassan Hamza Asad and Somalia’s ambassador to Qatar Omar Sheikh Ali Idris.

Emir honours Malaysian envoyMessage from French minister

Somalia president arrives in Doha

Official

The Joint Committee on Human Food Control has affirmed that all imported vegetables and fruits available in Qatar are free from traces of insecticides. This was announced during a recent meeting at the headquarters of the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH).The committee highly appreciated the competence and accuracy of the scientific and technical procedures followed by the control entities concerned at both MoPH and the Ministry of the Municipality and Environment (MME). The Committee also reviewed the additional precautionary measures throughout the past period after receiving news on some neighbouring countries banning the imports of some groups of imported fruits and vegetables. The Committee further reviewed the risk assessment report by the department concerned at the MoPH, which included a scientific analysis of the laboratory report on insecticides traces on all imported vegetables and fruits throughout the past five months, taking into consideration the country of origin, the type of the product and the frequency of having such traces, in addition to other important risk factors. Based on this report, a number of executive decisions have been taken to seize any consignment of imported fruits and vegetables that contains traces of insecticides that exceed the maximum allowed rates.

In order to avoid traffic congestion at peak times and for the safety of road users including pedestrians and drivers during the holy month of Ramadan, the General Directorate of Traffic has announced restrictions on the movement of trucks during the days of Ramadan. Trucks will not be allowed in the peak hours from 8am to 9.30am and between 1.30pm and 3pm. The restrictions are also applicable between 5.30pm and midnight.

Imported fruits and vegetables safe to consume

Restrictions on movement of trucks

QATARGulf Times Thursday, May 25 , 201710

HH the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani received the credentials of five new ambassadors to Qatar at the Emiri Diwan yesterday. The ambassadors of Italy, Panama, Cyprus, Tanzania and Nepal – Pasquale Salzano, Oreste Del Rio Sandoval, Michaelis Rigolo, Fatma Mohamed Rajab and Ramesh Prasad Koirala, respectively – presented their credentials to HH the Emir. The new ambassadors conveyed to the Emir the greetings of their countries’ leaders. Earlier on arrival at the Emiri Diwan, the new ambassadors were accorded an official reception ceremony.

Emir receives credentials of new ambassadors

HMC received 26,962 voluntary blood donors in 2016

Hamad Medical Corpora-tion (HMC) had a total of 26,962 voluntary blood

donors in 2016, a senior official has stated.

“Additionally, throughout the year, 361 blood donation campaigns were hosted by corporate entities and organisations,” said Siddiqa Ismail al-Mahmoudi manager, HMC’s Blood Donor Centre.

HMC held a special event on Tuesday night to appreciate hundreds of volunteers who do-nated their blood during 2016. The event was held under the auspices of HE the Minister of Public Health Dr Hanan Mo-hamed al-Kuwari, ahead of the World Blood Donor Day (WBDD 2017) being observed worldwide on June 14 every year.

“The culture of blood dona-tion is now deeply rooted in Qa-tar as the country stopped blood imports in 1987 and has main-tained 100% blood sufficiency for seven years in a row,” recalled al-Mahmoudi.

“This annual event is meant to express gratitude to donors who

voluntarily give the gift of blood for no reason other than saving lives. It is also intended to boost awareness of safe blood and blood products and to shed light on the importance of blood do-nation as a life-saving solution for patients with life-threaten-ing ailments,” she stressed.

She added that the Blood Do-nor Centre and Corporate Com-munications Department have

begun to activate the objectives and theme of WBDD within the Qatari community.

More than 200 voluntary do-nors including 144 whole blood donors, 40 whole blood and platelet donors, and 20 female donors were recognised at the event. In addition, 38 mobile campaign organisers represent-ing various national, cultural, and youth organisations who

participated in awareness cam-paigns were also honoured.

The recognition ceremony coincided with the launch of a number of interactive, cultural and informative youth oriented and promotional programmes, being organised by the Blood Donor Centre in collaboration with HMC’s Corporate Commu-nication Department.

HE al-Kuwari lauded the work

of the Blood Donor Centre and said: “HMC appreciates the in-valuable contributions of all donors whose thoughtful giv-ing helps us to save lives every day. Our community and their support have helped us achieve 100% blood self-sufficiency. This makes HMC, our national health provider, the most reli-able healthcare facility in blood transfusion in the region.”

This year’s WBDD campaign with the slogan, “What can you do? Give blood. Give now. Give often,” focuses on blood dona-tion in emergencies and seeks to highlight blood transfusion as an essential component of emer-gency healthcare.

The platinum sponsor - Social and Sports Activities Support Fund (Daam) and gold sponsor - Qatargas, in addition to two

silver sponsors: Qatar Petro-chemical Company and Al Muf-tah Group, were recognised for financing the blood donor rec-ognition ceremony.

A promotional and documen-tary film on the culture of blood donation entitled “Knights of Giving” featuring the vision and objectives of the Blood Donation Centre was screened during the ceremony.

By Joseph VargheseStaff Reporter

Some of the donors who were honoured at the event, along with HMC officials. HMC honoured several blood donors ahead of World Blood Donor Day.

Ooredoo has an-nounced that it will launch three

dedicated Ramadan data promotions for the holy month, designed to high-light the year according to the Islamic calendar.

The new ‘Ramadan 1438’ data promotions will cover Hala, Shahry, and Ooredoo app users and will reward

customers with free data for recharging their data and staying in touch with their loved ones this Ram-adan.

Thanks to the promo-tion, Consumer Shahry customers who switch or upgrade to a 6GB or higher Endless Internet Pack from May 25 to June 30, 2017 will be eligible

to redeem an additional 1,438MB data allowance by sending ‘RDP’ to 114 or logging in to the Ooredoo app.

On top of the bonus data, Endless Internet Pack customers enjoy never-ending Internet ac-cess, with no additional charges or surprise bills at the end of the month.

Hala customers who use Ooredoo’s popular ‘Hala Daily Surprise’ service during the holy month will also be rewarded when accepting the *123# Ra-madan offer. Customers simply need to dial *123# or log-in to the Ooredoo app and accept the ‘Ra-madan 1438 Data Offer’, then recharge with a 6GB, 10GB, or 15GB data card to enjoy 1,438MB bonus

data, valid for three days from the day of top-up.

For all Ooredoo cus-tomers, the company is also boosting its free daily Ooredoo app data givea-way. Currently, Ooredoo app users can take advan-tage of Ooredoo’s free data giveaway daily, by logging into the latest Ooredoo app and redeeming 10MB dur-ing weekdays and 100MB every weekend.

During the holy month, Ooredoo will offer 14.38MB free data every weekday and 143.8MB on weekends. Ooredoo app free data will be valid un-til midnight on the day of activation.

Manar Khalifa al-Mu-raikhi, director, Commu-nity & Public Relations at Ooredoo, said: “As well as

a host of CSR activities, we’re hoping to ensure a truly digital Ramadan. With family and friends now spread across the world, being able to stay in touch and celebrate what truly matters is more im-portant than ever.”

This year, Ooredoo’s Ramadan campaign will come under the umbrella ‘Ooredoo Ramadan 1438’ and customers can follow all promotions, events, and competitions during the month on social media with the #Ramadan1438.

As well as dedicated promotions, Ooredoo will once again take part in a host of activities to give back to the community including hospital visits, children’s mall activities and more.

QATAR11Gulf Times

Thursday, May 25, 2017

DFI announces fi nancial support to Van Gogh fi lmStrengthening its ongoing

commitment to interna-tional fi lm production,

the Doha Film Institute (DFI) yesterday announced its latest co-fi nancing partnership on the world’s fi rst fully painted feature fi lm, Loving Vincent, a cinematic ode to the remarkable life of leg-endary artist Vincent Van Gogh.

Commenting on the partner-ship, chairperson of Doha Film Institute and Qatar Museums, HE Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Ha-mad bin Khalifa al-Thani, said: “We are especially delighted to support Loving Vincent, a fi lm that is truly unique in terms of genre, content, approach and craft. It brings to life the pro-found and inspiring story of one of the world’s most accom-plished fi ne artists Vincent Van Gogh, celebrating his life and works.

“At the DFI, we actively ex-plore opportunities to partner with such ambitious ventures that push the boundaries of fi lmmaking. Combining art and cinema like no other fi lm, Lov-ing Vincent will serve as an in-spiration for emerging and es-tablished fi lmmakers and artists alike.”

The fi lm brings the paintings of Vincent Van Gogh to life to tell his remarkable story. Lov-ing Vincent will have its world premiere at the 2017 Annecy In-

ternational Animation Film Fes-tival in France, competing in the Festival’s Offi cial Selection for feature fi lms. The DFI has been a long-term partner on the project since the early stages of produc-tion.

Loving Vincent, the fi lm is written and directed by Dor-ota Kobiela and Hugh Welch-man, and produced by Acad-emy Award winning studios, Poland’s BreakThru Films and UK’s Trademark Films. Each of the 65,000 frames of the fi lm is an oil-painting hand-painted by 125 professional artists who travelled from across the world to the studios of Loving Vincent

in Poland and Greece. The fi lm was fi rst shot as a live action fi lm with actors, who worked either on sets specially constructed to look like Van Gogh paintings or against green-screens.

The footage from the live ac-tion shoot then becomes the ref-erence for painting animators. The fi nal eff ect is the interaction of the performance of the ac-tors playing Vincent Van Gogh’s famous portraits and that of the painting animators, who bring the characters into the medium of paint.

Hugh Welchman said: “De-spite the grassroots support from people around the world,

it wasn’t easy to fi nd industry partners for Loving Vincent, as many fi lm funders were too cau-tious to risk being part of some-thing so new.

“Thankfully we found some special and courageous indi-viduals who believed in us. We thank HE Sheikha Al Mayassa and the team at DFI for their support to this passion project, that will not only entertain but also inspire and inform global audiences about the extraordi-nary paintings and no less ex-traordinary life of Vincent Van Gogh .”

Loving Vincent features ac-claimed actors Douglas Booth (Jupiter Ascending) as Armand Roulin; Eleanor Tomlinson (Pol-dark, Jack the Giant Slayer) as Adeline Ravoux; Jerome Flynn (Game of Thrones) as Doctor Gachet; Oscar nominee Saoirse Ronan (Brooklyn, Atonement) as Marguerite Gachet; Chris O’Dowd (Bridesmaids) as Post-man Joseph Roulin; John Ses-sions (Gangs of New York) as Vincent’s paint supplier Pere Tanguy; Aidan Turner (The Hobbit) as the Boatman from Bank of the Oise at Auvers; and Helen McCrory (Harry Potter) as Louise Chevalier. Theatre actor Robert Gulaczyk, in his fi rst fi lm role, plays Vincent Van Gogh.

The fi lm’s crew include ac-claimed cinematographers Tris-

tan Oliver (Fantastic Mr Fox, Chicken Run) and Lukasz Zal (Academy Award nominated for Ida).

Co-produced by City of Wro-claw – European Capital of Culture 2016, Odra-Film/The Lower Silesian Film Fund and CeTA, the fi lm is supported – in addition to the DFI – by Silver Reel, RBF Productions, Sevenex Capital Partners, The Polish Film Institute, MEDIA and Uni-bail-Rodamco.

Films co-financed by the DFI have gained international ac-claim, opening major film fes-tivals and securing prestigious award.

Some of these projects in-clude Academy Award winner The Salesman by Asghar Farha-di, Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet by Roger Allers, The Idol by Hany Abu-Assad, The Reluc-tant Fundamentalist by Mira Nair and May in the Summer by Cherien Dabis among others.

In addition to co-fi nancing, the Institute supports fi rst- and second-time fi lmmakers from around the world and es-tablished fi lmmakers from the Mena region through its Grants programme.

The Institute also nurtures national fi lm talent through the Qatari Film Fund dedicated to supporting short and feature fi lmmaking by Qataris.

Loving Vincent

The Pearl-Qatar sparkles with Ramadan festivitiesUnited Development Com-

pany (UDC), master de-veloper of The Pearl-Qa-

tar, has decorated the island with special lighting and structures that are underpinned with the authentic essence of Ramadan.

This has been done to welcome the holy month and create a joy-ful ambiance for the island’s resi-dents and visitors, according to a press statement.

As tradition goes at UDC, the company has decorated roads, palm trees and lamp posts and lit up The Pearl-Qatar’s main en-trance gate and main driveways leading to Qanat Quartier, Me-dina Centrale and Piazza Arabia – the facade of Porto Arabia – in addition to all main roundabouts.

Also throughout Ramadan, visitors and residents of the is-land will enjoy a variety of Iftar and Suhoor special menus served at restaurants across The Pearl-

Qatar in an atmosphere that combines modern and luxurious living with the holy month’s tra-ditions, the statement notes.

Visitors can equally shop for Arabic incense, fine dates, ori-ental perfumes, groceries, gift baskets and sweet hampers res-onant with the Ramadan spirit, around Qanat Quartier, Porto Arabia and Medina Centrale’s retail outlets.

The Pearl-Qatar’s shopping outlets will be open in the morn-ing from 10am until 2pm and in the evening from 8pm until mid-night with the exception of res-taurants that host Iftars.

Three mosques at The Pearl-Qatar have prepared to welcome the infl ux of devotees during Ramadan, including the Grand Mosque at the island’s entrance. The mosque, which has been undergoing renovation works, will be ready before Ramadan,

refl ecting UDC’s “keenness to off er residents and visitors of the island the possibility to perform their religious duties in total comfort and convenience”.

Taraweeh evening prayers will be led by Imams in the mosque located at the island’s main en-trance and the two mosques adjacent to the district cooling

plant – Qatar Cool – and Iso-la Dana precinct. The three mosques include women’s prayer facilities on the fi rst fl oor, with on-site parking available.

On the 14th day of Ramadan, The Pearl-Qatar will celebrate the Garangao tradition with a host of special activities for children that highlight the rich

cultural and religious heritage of Qatar, and will further mark the advent of Eid with a festival fi lled with fun and entertainment, the statement adds.

Ramadan decorations at The Pearl-Qatar.

QSE-Stenden to collaborate for education

Qatar Stock Exchange (QSE) and Stenden Uni-versity in Qatar (SUQ)

yesterday signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to col-laborate in the fi elds of educa-tion, training, capacity building and community development.

This is the fi fth MoU signed by QSE with a national educa-tional institution, as the local bourse had signed similar pacts with Qatar Finance and Busi-ness Academy, Faculty of Islamic Studies at Hamad bin Khalifa University, Qatar University, and Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar.

The latest MoU was signed by QSE chief executive Rashid bin Ali al-Mansoori and Dr Ivan Ninov, executive dean of SUQ.

The agreement recognises the value of educational co-opera-tion and practical training for the purposes of knowledge sharing and exploring placement op-portunities during the summer season for SUQ students within the fourth and fi nal year of their studies.

It also aims to explore volun-teer opportunities to have SUQ students participate and vol-unteer in events and activities hosted by QSE.

According to the MoU, the parties would engage in devel-oping training programmes/workshops to be provided by QSE to SUQ Students pertain-

ing to the Qatar stock market during the first and second year of their studies.

“This agreement comes with-in our social responsibility role and the mission and vision to support Qatar National Vision 2030, with a particular focus on the human development pillar and the commitment of QSE to continue what this vision is built upon starting from Qatar prin-ciples of openness to modernity, adopting new technologies to serve the goals of development and economic progress, and emphasising the role of QSE in serving the local community,” al-Mansoori said.

This co-operation is a con-tinuation and culmination of education and awareness eff orts undertaken by QSE in the local community.

Al-Mansoori and Ninov after singing the MoU.

Ooredoo unveils data promotions

Ooredoo upgrades latest My-Fi device for free

Ooredoo has announced that all Netgear My-Fi (AirCard 810s) device users with the latest model will get a free system upgrade.Ooredoo aims to update all the Netgear 810s devices to the latest CAT 11 technology giving users a faster connection of up to 600 Mbps on the Supernet. Netgear My-Fi (AirCard 810s) device users simply need to follow the pop-up instructions on their device screen to start the system update and enjoy a truly superior Supernet connection. By upgrading customers’ devices, Ooredoo aims to enhance the mobile broadband experience for Qatar’s communities, allowing

households to download, stream and share more than ever before with the boosted speed.The Netgear My-Fi (AirCard 810s) device offers a host of features, including the ability to connect up to 15 Wi-Fi devices simultane-ously, a battery life of up to 11 hours, jump boost feature to charge smartphones and more. To purchase an Internet device, new or exist-ing customers can visit any Ooredoo Shop or go to www.ooredoo.qa/eshp. The company said all new Netgear 810s device owners will be notified of the upgrade as soon as they activate the device.

QATAR

Gulf Times Thursday, May 25, 201712

Bitter Almonds wins IBA 2017 fi ction award

Bitter Almonds, written by Lilas Taha, and published by Hamad Bin Khalifa University Press (HBKU Press) has been announced

winner in the ‘Fiction: Multicultural’ category of the 2017 International Book Awards (IBA).

There were over 1,500 entries this year in the various categories of the award, which is in its eighth year. The IBA, sponsored by the Ameri-can Book Fest, highlights a wide variety of out-standing literary fi ction and non-fi ction works that are the best in their categories.

“The trials of the Palestinian diaspora provided motivation for my story, Bitter Almonds. I wrote the novel hoping to touch readers’ hearts and convey a message of respect. With this international rec-ognition, it gives me great pleasure to learn that I helped shine a needed light on the struggles of in-nocent refugees, and bring a measure of attention to the plight of Palestinians,” said author Taha.

“Lilas Taha is an extremely talented author, whose work we are proud to publish at HBKU Press,” said Rodolphe A Boughaba, acting ex-ecutive director of HBKU Press.

“This book has successfully brought a con-temporary crisis to the forefront of the literary world, in a way that humanises the refugee cri-sis and makes it tangible to anyone around the world. Taha’s gift in developing characters with compassion and very real emotions appeals to both young and adult readers.”

Set in Damascus, Syria, in the tumultuous decades of the 1960s and 1970s, Bitter Almonds follows the coming-of-age of two young refu-gees as they encounter political turmoil and personal sacrifi ce. A love story rooted in his-tory and Palestinian culture, Bitter Almonds is inspired by the tremulous events in the Middle East and author Lilas Taha’s family history.

Born in Kuwait to Syrian and Palestinian par-ents, Taha had to leave the country when it was invaded by Iraq in 1990. Moving and compel-ling, Bitter Almonds explores displacement and exile, family duty and honour, and the universal feelings of love and loss.

Bitter Almonds is currently being translated into Arabic by HBKU Press.

Honda models recalled

The Ministry of Economy and Commerce, in collaboration with Doha Marketing Services Company (Domasco), has an-

nounced the recall of Honda Odyssey models of 2011-2016 over malfunction in second row seat walk-in feature. The MEC said the recall cam-paign comes within the framework of its ongoing eff orts to protect consumers and ensure that car dealers follow up on vehicle defects and repairs.

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

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

‘Tips & Tricks’ for Ramadan safe driving

QIC Insured, QIC’s personal in-surance division, has shared fi ve vital ‘Tips & Tricks’ for

safe driving during the holy month of Ramadan.

Ramadan this year coincides with the hot summer weather, which is likely to have a physical as well as psy-chological eff ect, the company points out in a press statement.

“Fasting can result in dehydration and low blood sugar, which in turn can limit motorists’ attentiveness, concentration, vision and reaction while driving. In addition to fasting, the unusual eating and sleeping pat-terns can also cause fatigue, exhaus-tion, impatience and distraction,” it explains.

The fi rst of the fi ve ‘Tips & Tricks’ says people should be aware of their limitations.

Then, they should also “watch out for other traffi c participants poten-

tially under the same limitations”.Motorists should also “expect the

unexpected and we all must drive cautiously”, the advisory states, not-ing that people need to plan their schedule properly and leave early to avoid the need to rush and speed.

Finally, the advisory reminds mo-torists to always wear seatbelts, stressing that the holy month of Ram-adan is a good time to start this habit.

“As a responsible corporate citizen, QIC Insured strives to create aware-ness and promote a culture of safe driving, especially during Ramadan. We encourage all traffi c participants to follow fi ve easy ‘Tips & Tricks’ to ensure that they drive cautiously and reach home safe and sound,” said Sa-lem al-Mannai, deputy Group presi-dent and CEO of QIC — Mena region.

A complete list of Ramadan-related ‘Tips & Tricks’ is available at www.roadsafety.qic-insured.com

Salem al-Mannai, deputy Group president and CEO of QIC — Mena region.

90-day partial closure on Onaiza Street to lay underground pipes

A partial clo-sure for ap-proximate-

ly 400m will be in place on the right shoulder lane on the Onaiza Street leading to Cor-niche Street start-ing from Saturday.

It will continue for a period of 90 days on the Al Markhiya Intersection-bound traffi c from the Civil Defence Intersection.

Motorists should turn right, just after the 400m diver-sion, which is about 10m before Markhiya Intersection.

The left lane will also be closed on the other direction of Onaiza Street, heading towards Civil Defence Inter-section.

The closed lane will be compensated with a temporary lane, to maintain the three lanes carriage way.

Traffi c on all other directions will remain open (as shown on the map).

The partial closure is required to enable the pipe laying works of the fl ooding prevention scheme at several main intersections in Doha.

Father Emir attends daughter’s graduation from Qatar AcademyHH the Father Emir Sheikh

Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani yesterday attended the grad-

uation of his daughter HE Sheikha Mariam from the Qatar Academy Doha (QAD) Class of 2017.

The Qatar Academy Doha cel-ebrated the graduation of its Class of 2017 yesterday evening in an of-fi cial ceremony at the Qatar National Convention Centre (QNCC).

The ceremony was attended by the sons of HH the Father Emir, a number of VIP guests, public fi gures, Qatar Foundation leadership – in-cluding president of Pre-University Education (PUE) – QAD chairper-son, parents, faculty, and school ad-ministrators.

The ceremony celebrated the graduation of 85 students, including 44 Qatari nationals.

These students now join more than 750 QAD alumni since its es-tablishment in 1996.

Don MacIntyre, QAD director, told the graduates that “it is often easy to overlook the transition phases of our

lives and focus only on the next stag-es. However, what if it is during these periods of transition that we are pre-

sented with the most profound and enlightening experiences.”

QA alumna Lulwa al-Darwish, who graduated in 2012, returned as this year’s guest speaker and refl ect-ed on her journey.

“I grew up in this school, and the desire to give back to my society grew in me. I graduated in 2012, and, because of my teachers and Qatar Academy’s inspiring eff orts through education – one’s most powerful weapon – I chose to become a special needs educator. Specifi cally, for in-dividuals with autism, so thank you,” she said.

This year’s valedictorian, Ghada Khalifa al-Thani, gave an emotional speech, saying: “One individual cannot make a permanent change or development,” she said.“It requires the whole community to work to-gether to achieve this. It is useless to believe that one person can do eve-rything on their own; it requires the

eff ort of the entire community. I am proud of all those present with me tonight, and I am sure that you are all proud too.”

Commenting on QAD’s 17th Graduation Ceremony, Buthaina Ali al-Nuaimi, president of PUE, QF, said: “Since it was founded in 1996 by HH Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, the Father Emir, and HH Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, chairper-son of Qatar Foundation for Educa-tion, Science and Community De-velopment, Qatar Academy Doha has provided comprehensive and internationally recognised academic programmes.

“The school aims to create gradu-ates who are equipped with the nec-essary knowledge and skills to serve the local community.”

As part of the celebrations, the audience also enjoyed a musical col-laboration between QAD and Qatar Music Academy.

One of the speakers addressing the graduates, dignitaries and visitors at the convocation ceremony.

A graduate receives his certificate.

QATAR13Gulf Times

Thursday, May 25, 2017

Vodafone holding fundraising driveVodafone is holding the

third edition of its fund-raising campaign #Giv-

ingChallenge that will see three Qatari social media infl uencers using their social media follow-ers to raise funds for their chosen charity during the holy month of Ramadan.

Aqeel al-Janahi, Ahmad Ab-dullaa, and Ahmad Khalil al-Khaldi will use their social media channels to encourage their fol-lowers to vote for their chosen charities via Vodafone’s Giving Challenge website, Vodafone.qa/givingchallenge For each vote, Vodafone will donate QR10 to each charity by the end of the campaign on June 14.

“We’re delighted to bring back the #GivingChallenge for the third time this Ramadan. The

Vodafone fundraising challenge is an opportunity for the public to discover new ways to do good in the giving spirit of this holy month.

“I’m confi dent the charity ambassadors participating this year will raise signifi cant funds for their chosen charities while also raising awareness about the honourable work that these charities do,” said Dana Haidan, head of CSR at Vodafone Qatar.

Last year’s edition of Vo-dafone’s successful #Giv-ingChallenge raised more than QR1mn for charities in Qatar and reached over 5mn people via social media. The fundrais-ing challenge was heavily sup-ported by the charities and lead-ing Islamic scholars who used their own social media channels

and various events to encourage people to vote for the charities.

Al-Janahi is a media person-ality and an ambassador for a number of charities. He is one of the fi rst and leading media personalities in Qatar for over 30 years and is a social activist who’s passionate about doing charitable work having received several awards for his contribu-tion to humanitarian initiatives.

He has chosen to raise funds with Afi f Charity to support cat-aract surgery for 1,000 visually impaired patients in Niger. To learn more about Afi f Charity’s work, especially about its eye clinic in Niger, visit www.afi f.qa, and follow al-Janahi on In-stagram, Twitter and Snapchat at Aqeeljanahi.

Abdullaa is a Qatari actor and

writer who started his acting ca-reer in theatre, using it as a plat-form to address key social issues and was one of the founders of Qatari theatre arts. Abdullaa is an active supporter of several charities and plays a signifi cant role in supporting community development initiatives in Qatar.

He has chosen to represent Qatar Charity to make the wish-es of orphans come true through Qatar Charity’s ‘Omnyaati’ programme. With the confl icts in the region, the number of orphans is well over 13mn or-phans in the Middle East. For more information about Qatar Charity, visit qcharity.org, and follow Abdullaa on Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat at Ahmed Abdullaa.

Al-Khaldi is the former goal

Aqeel al-Janahi, Ahmad Abdullaa and Ahmad Khalil al-Khaldi will use their social media channels to en-courage their followers to vote for their chosen charities.

keeper of the Qatar National Team and one of Qatar’s football legends who has played a key role in the success of several Qatari football teams such as Qatar, Al Khor, Al Sadd, and Al Arabi earn-ing several local and regional titles in his football career.

He is supporting Sheikh Tha-

ni Bin Abdullah Foundation for Humanitarian Services (RAF) in the Giving Challenge, raising funds for the charity’s recently launched ‘Orphans City’ located by the Turkish-Syrian border. To learn more about RAF, visit raf-thani.com and follow al-Khaldi on Instagram, Twitter

and Snapchat at akakakak22.Voting for the above charities

and infl uencers starts from the fi rst day of Ramadan until mid-night of June 14, 2017. The results will be announced in a ceremony the following day. For more in-formation, visit www.vodafone.qa/GivingChallenge

A line-up of Maserati luxury sports cars.

‘Remarkable deal’ on Maserati sports carsThis Ramadan, Alfardan

Sports Motors, the offi cial dealer of Maserati in Qa-

tar, is off ering clients ‘a remark-able deal’ on its complete range of luxury sports cars.

When purchasing a brand new Maserati during the holy month, every client is entitled to a one year full comprehensive insur-ance scheme and warranty and service packages that protect the vehicle for fi ve years.

The off er also includes other services such as glass tinting, paint and leather protection, in addition to gift vouchers worth QR5,000 of Maserati’s stylish merchandise. Alternatively, cus-tomers can avail a choice of re-ceiving a cashback of QR50,000 when they purchase a new car.

“Ramadan is the perfect time to connect with our cli-ents and gift them the peace of mind when owning a Maserati

of their choice including added value benefi ts and services,” said Charly Dagher, general manager, Maserati Qatar, Alfardan Sports Motors.

The exclusive off er is valid until the end of Ramadan and includes the coupe GranTurismo models, the sports executive se-dan – Ghibli, the latest genera-tion of Maserati’s fl agship sedan – Quattroporte and its fi rst-ever SUV, the Levante.

HMC emergency services to operate 24-hourHamad Medical Corpo-

ration (HMC) has an-nounced its operating

hours for Ramadan. All emer-gency services across HMC’s network of hospitals will operate as usual 24/7.

Hamad General Hospital outpatient clinics will run from 8am to 1pm and evening clin-ics from 8.30pm to 11.30pm through Sunday to Thursday. The main Outpatient Depart-ment (OPD) pharmacy located on the ground fl oor will open from 8am to 10.30am and from 8.30pm to midnight, Sunday to Thursday.

Women’s Hospital OPD will be open from 8am to 1pm and in the evening from 7.30pm to 10.30pm, Sunday to Thursday. The OPD pharmacy will operate on the same timings.

Al Wakra Hospital OPD will be operational from 8am to 4pm, Sunday to Thursday. The Dental Clinic will open from 8am to 1pm and from 8pm to 11pm, Sunday to Thursday. The obstetrics /gynaecology clinic will operate from 8am to

4pm, Sunday to Thursday. The main pharmacy will be open from 8am to 4pm, Sunday to Thursday.

Communicable Disease Center OPD clinics will be open from 8am to 5pm, Sunday to Wednesday. On Thursdays, services will be available from 8am to 1pm. All supporting services including pharmacy, radiology and laboratory will be available during OPD operat-ing times. Qatar Rehabilitation Institute OPD clinics will oper-ate from 8am to 1pm, Sunday to Thursday. Pharmacy hours are from 8am to 1pm, Sunday to Thursday.

At the Cuban Hospital, there will be no change to OPD clin-ic and pharmacy timings and both will be open to patients from 7.15am to 3pm, Sunday to Thursday. The OPD den-tal services will operate as per booked appointments.

Heart Hospital OPD clin-ics will be open from 8am to 1pm, Sunday to Thursday and there will be no evening clinics throughout Ramadan. The OPD

pharmacy will operate from 8am to 1pm, Sunday to Thurs-day and from 11am to 4pm on weekends.

Al Khor Hospital OPD clinics will be open from 8am to 1pm, Sunday to Thursday and there will be no evening clinics. The pharmacy will be open from 7am to 3pm in the main OPD and from 7am to 11pm at the Paediatric Emergency Center.

Rumailah Hospital OPD clinics will be open from 8am to 1pm, Sunday to Thursday. Pharmacy hours are from 8am to 3pm, Sunday to Thursday.

At Hamad Dental Center, Or-thodontics and Paediatric Den-tistry Clinics will be open from 8am to 4pm and endodontics, periodontics, prosthodontics and dental, diagnostic services will operate from 8am to 1pm, Sunday to Thursday. Evening clinics are scheduled from 8.30pm to 11.30pm, Sunday to Thursday.

OPD clinics at National Center for Cancer Care and Re-search will open from 8am to 1pm, Sunday to Thursday and

evening clinics on Mondays be-tween 8.30pm to 11.30pm. The pharmacy will open from 8am to 3pm, Sunday to Thursday.

The OPD and the pharmacy at the Mental Health Services will open from 8am to 1pm and evening clinics will run from 8.30pm to 11.30pm at Hamad General Hospital on Sundays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays.

The Referral and Booking Management System will oper-ate from 7am to 10pm, Sunday to Thursday. Referrals for spe-cialist services will be collected as usual from centres through-out Doha.

Nesma’ak Customer Care will operate from 7am to 10pm, Sunday to Thursday and from 10am to 4pm on Friday and Saturday. Patients requir-ing any information can call 16060 during these times to inquire about or change their appointment.

Nesma’ak will continue to make appointment reminder phone calls to patients and send mobile text message reminders to patients during Ramadan.

QIB branches to have extended hours

Qatar Islamic Bank (QIB) announced that 14 of its branches will have ex-

tended working hours during the holy month of Ramadan.

QIB branches will serve customers Sunday through Thursday from 9am to 2pm with Al-Fanar, Salwa Road, Airport Road, Al Rayyan, Al Sadd, Al Wakrah, and Al Khor branches extending their working hours Sunday to Wednesday from 9pm to

11.30pm and Saturday from 9am to noon.

The recently opened Doha Festival City branch will join Dar Al Salam Mall, Al Gharrafa (Q-Mall), The Gate Mall, City Center Doha, The Pearl (Medina Centrale) and the Mall of Qatar branch which will be operat-ing Saturday to Thursday from 10.30am to 2.30pm and 9pm to 11.30pm and Friday from 9pm to 11.30pm.

The extended working hours

will enable QIB to provide an easily accessible and conven-ient banking experience to its customers throughout the holy month of Ramadan. In addition, the Bank’s services are available at all times (24/7) through QIB’s Internet and Mobile Banking, the QIB Call Centre (44448444) and more than 175 ATMs and Cash Deposit machines spread across the country.

QIB operates a network of 30 branches across the State of Qatar.

Qatar Museums announces show hours during Ramadan

With a diverse sched-ule of programmes and exhibitions

taking place during the holy month of Ramadan, Qa-tar Museums (QM) has an-nounced its 2017 Ramadan hours for its museums, galleries and institutions.

MATHAF: Arab Museum of Modern Art will be open Sunday to Thursday and Saturday from 9am to 4pm. Friday is closed.

Museum of Islamic Art and Al Riwaq Gallery: Sunday to Thursday and Saturday – 8pm to midnight. Friday is closed.

Fire Station Garage Gal-lery: Sunday to Thursday and

Saturday – 8am to 1.30pm and 8.30pm to 11.30pm. Friday – 8.30pm to 11.30pm.

Cass Art: Sunday to Thurs-day and Saturday – 9am to 2pm and 8pm to 1am. Friday – 8pm to 1am.

In Q store – Gate Mall (fi rst two weeks of Ramadan): All days – 10am to 3pm and 7.30pm to midnight.

In Q store – Gate Mall (third and fourth weeks of Ram-adan): All days – 10am to 4pm and 7.30pm and 1am.

More information on the exhibitions and programmes could be had from: http://www.qm.org.qa

Medical Commission to work from 9am to 6pm

During the holy month of Ramadan, the Medi-cal Commission will

receive customers from 9am to 6pm daily, the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) said yesterday in a statement.

The birth registration of-fi ce will receive applications for new born registrations and issuing birth certifi cates

in two shifts. The fi rst shift is from 9.30am until 1.30pm at Women’s Hospital, Al Khor Hospital, Al Wakra Hospi-tal, the Cuban Hospital in Dukhan, Doha Clinic, Al Ahli Hospital and Al Emadi Hos-pital. The afternoon shift will work from 2pm to 5pm at Women’s Hospital and Al Emadi Hospital.

Cebu Pacifi c Air to suspend Doha, Kuwait, Riyadh operationsCebu Pacifi c Air (CEB) has

announced that it will suspend its service to and

from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait.

CEB’s thrice-weekly Manila-Doha-Manila route will have its last fl ight on July 1, while its four-times-a-week service from Manila to Kuwait will be on June 13, and its Kuwait-Manila fl ight on June 14. CEB’s last fl ight from Manila to Riyadh will depart on July 2, while the Riyadh-Manila fl ight will leave on July 3.

In a route advisory, CEB said it is suspending operations to and from Doha “as these routes are no longer viable and sustainable.”

“Cebu Pacifi c will continue to operate its daily service between Manila and Dubai (UAE). We are contacting passengers who

are aff ected by the suspension of CEB service. Passengers with bookings beyond the last fl ight dates on these aff ected routes are strongly advised to contact their travel agents or the CEB hot-line at +632 7020 881 to discuss options.

“They may also message the offi cial Cebu Pacifi c Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/cebupacifi cair) or Twitter (@CebuPacifi cAir) accounts. The options include: transfer to an-other airline with the same route (subject to availability), rebook

to an earlier Cebu Pacifi c fl ight (subject to availability), refund in full, and get a travel fund in full,” the advisory said.

“The entry of Cebu Pacifi c into these markets benefi ted passengers with lower fares and more choices. Of late, other car-riers have aggressively added more fl ights, which has resulted in substantial oversupply of seats and fares that are so low, hence making the routes unsustain-able,” said lawyer JR Mantaring, vice president for Corporate

Aff airs of Cebu Pacifi c.“We have to continuously re-

view our routes to ensure their viability. At this point, it makes more sense for us to re-deploy the aircraft used for our Riya-dh, Doha, and Kuwait service to routes where we can further stimulate demand and sustain

our low fare off ers,” he added.CEB will retain its other long-

haul services to and from Dubai and Sydney, Australia, “with a view to increasing frequencies to these destinations in the fu-ture.” The airline also fl ies to 24 other international destinations across Asia and the US, as well as 37 domestic destinations.

From January to March this year, Cebu Pacifi c carried 4.8mn passengers, of which 1.3mn fl ew international destinations. Total revenues for the fi rst quarter of 2017 were up 4.7% to P16.9bn.

However, CEB said this was outpaced by the growth in ex-penses, driven by a weaker Phil-ippine peso versus the US dollar and rising fuel prices. CEB net income for the fi rst three month of 2017 was down 68% versus the same period in 2016.

QIB’s 14 branches will have extended working hours during the holy month of Ramadan.

CEB’s thrice-weekly Manila-Doha-Manila route will have its last flight on July 1.

REGION/ARAB WORLD

Gulf TimesThursday, May 25, 201714

Female Yemeni university students attend a graduation ceremony in the capital Sanaa yesterday. The war between pro-government forces and Houthi rebels who control Sanaa has devastated Yemen and pushed it to the brink of famine. According to the United Nations children’s agency Unicef, 3.5mn Yemeni children are out of school. The fighting has halted the education of nearly 2mn children on top of the 1.6mn already out of school before the conflict, it said.

Hope amid conflict

Top IS militant killed after clashes in northern SyriaAgenciesBeirut

The Syrian army said yes-terday it had killed Is-lamic State’s military

commander in Syria during operations in the north of the country, where the Russian-backed government forces are seizing more territory back from the militant group.

If confirmed, this would represent a major blow against Islamic State (IS) ahead of an attack which the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) — an alliance of Kurd-ish and other fighters — are expected to launch against the militants in their stronghold of Raqqa city.

A Syrian military source told

Reuters the IS commander, Abu Musab al-Masri, had been the group’s “minister of war” for Syria.

Syrian state media had ear-lier cited a military source as saying he was the organisa-tion’s “minister of war”, sug-gesting he was the overall IS military commander.

He was named among 13 sen-ior Islamic State figures killed in Syrian army operations east of Aleppo, according to the military source cited by state media.

Al-Masri was killed in the operations that got underway on May 10.

The military source did not say where he was killed.

Baghdad-based IS expert Hisham al-Hashimi said the death of Masri, if confirmed,

would be a “significant blow to the group ahead of the battle of Raqqa”. He said al-Masri was the fourth most senior figure in the organisation.

A previous IS minister of war, Abu Omar al-Shishani, was killed last year.

The Pentagon said Shishani was likely to have been killed in a US air strike in Syria.

The militant group con-firmed his death in July but said he had died fighting in the Iraqi city of Shirqat south of Mosul.

Islamic State faces separate campaigns in northern Syria by the Russian-backed Syrian army, the US-backed SDF, and Turkey-backed rebels fight-ing under the Free Syrian Army banner.

The six-year-long Syr-ian war has allowed IS to seize

swathes of Syria and to carve out a cross-border “caliphate” in both Syria and neighbouring Iraq. The SDF, which includes the Kurdish YPG militia, has been waging a multi-phased operation to encircle Raqqa with the aim of capturing it from Islamic State.

Meanwhile, at least 16 civil-ians were killed in bombing raids early yesterday by the US-led coalition near the Is-lamic State group’s Syrian bas-tion Raqqa, a monitor said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the toll in-cluded a woman and her five children, as well as three cou-ples.

“The coalition strikes hit Al-Baruda, a village about 15 kilo-metres west of Raqqa city,” said Observatory head Rami Abdel

Rahman.“Most of those killed had fled eastern parts of the province of Homs,” he added.

The strikes on Al-Baruda come after the Observatory reported the highest monthly civilian death toll for the coa-lition since it began bombing Syria on September 23, 2014.

Between April 23 and May 23 of this year, coalition strikes killed a total of 225 civilians in Syria, the Britain-based Ob-servatory said.

Earlier this month, the US military said that coalition air strikes in Iraq and Syria had “unintentionally” killed a total of 352 civilians since 2014.

More than 320,000 people have been killed and millions more displaced since Syria’s conflict broke out in March 2011.

Iraqi artist secretly chronicled brutalityAFP Hammam al-Alil, Iraq

Mustafa al-Ta’i worked in secret at night, us-ing his brushes and

pencils to record the violence he saw during the day under the Islamic State group’s bru-tal reign in Iraq.

The bloodied body of a man suspended by a foot, another lying in a pool of blood with his severed head on his back, a woman with her face burned by acid — these are just some of the scenes captured by Ta’i.

The 240 paintings and drawings — which Ta’i com-posed from the time IS seized his hometown of Hammam al-Alil, south of Mosul, in 2014 until Iraqi forces recaptured it in late 2016 — are an exhibition of horror.

“IS is the enemy of the arts, the enemy of life, so I told my-self that whenever I saw one of their crimes or something they did, I would relate it,” he said.

“There were no journalists and they did not allow photo-graphs, so I recorded the im-age in my head and at night at home, I painted,” said the 58-year-old, an oven and boil-er repairman by trade who has been “addicted” to drawing since childhood.

“The army is fi ghting against (IS) with weapons. Me, it’s with my brush, my colours, my drawings, my paintings,” Ta’i said as he sat cross-legged in his living room, drawing board in his lap.

At a time when art was banned by the militants — who view depictions of people as contrary to religion — and drawing materials could not be found, Ta’i drew from his old stocks of paints, papers and pencils to “resist.”

The pieces are simple and colourful, and each one tells a story. “This child is a Chris-tian,” he explained, pointing to a portrait of a weeping girl.

“They took her when she was 12 years old. She was mar-

ried to one of them, who left her to another, who married her” — something that hap-pened “four or fi ve times,” Ta’i said.

“I met her when I was in the hospital. She was cry-ing. She had bruises on her face, wounds on the hands and body. I took a sheet of my medical record. I drew on it.”

Another sketch depicts a man tied to a pole handcuff ed and blindfolded.

Ta’i said the man was cap-tured after fi ring at the mili-tants. “They tied him to an electric pole and they executed him after torturing him.”

Ta’i did not keep his works at home, instead leaving them with a friend who hid them be-hind the back seat of his car.

But he believes he was de-nounced to IS, especially when he made sketches at work during the day. IS “came to my house several times, they found nothing,” he said.

The religious police came one night: “They told me they wanted my paintings and cal-ligraphies. They took me away to the desert.”

The militants lashed him and tied his legs to a car and dragged him behind it.

“I was reciting the Qur’an in a loud voice...Then, they tied my hands and my feet, brought me back and threw me in front of my house. I was found the next morning,” he said.

Ta’i said he was detained for a total of 45 days because of his artworks, and twice sentenced to the lash.But each time, the grandfather of seven kept drawing.

“I cannot give up drawing. It is my addiction, it calms me. I don’t smoke — I draw,” Ta’i said. During one stint in jail, he broke open a battery and used its contents to draw on a wall.

A guard made him erase it by licking it off .

Today, he keeps his artwork in boxes as testimony to what he saw, and paints “what I have in front of me, what I fi nd beautiful.”

People walk through a heavy sandstorm which hit Kuwait City yesterday.

Heavy sandstorm in Kuwait City

Amateur Iraqi painter Mustafa al-Ta’i speaks during an interview in Hammam al-Alil, south of Mosul.

Libya arrests brother, father of Manchester bombing suspect

Libya has arrested a brother and

the father of the man suspected

of carrying out the bombing in

the British city of Manchester, a

relative and security sources said

yesterday.

The family source, asking not to

be identified, said intelligence

services had arrested Hashem

Abedi, who like his older brother

Salman was born in Britain, on

Tuesday.

One of the forces that supports

the GNA posted a picture on its

Facebook page of Hashem Abedi

after detaining him.

“The father, Ramadan Abedi,

has also just been arrested,” said

Ahmed bin Salem, a spokesman

for the police of Libya’s Govern-

ment of National Accord.

He said the brother was aware of

Salman Abedi’s attack plan and

that the two brothers were both

members of the Islamic State

group.

The relative said Salman had

travelled to Manchester from

Libya four days before Monday’s

bombing that killed 22 people.

“His father wanted his son to stay

in Libya but Salman insisted on

going to Manchester.”

The suspected bomber has been

identified as 22-year-old Salman

Abedi, born in Manchester to

Libyan parents who fled the

regime of slain dictator Muam-

mar Gaddafi.

Oman fl ies freed Australian out of YemenAFPMuscat

An Australian kidnapped in Yemen was evacuated from the war-torn country by

the Omani government yesterday after negotiations through tribal mediators led to his release.

Oman’s foreign ministry did not name the man and it was not immediately clear if he was Craig McAllister, who was ab-ducted in the rebel-held Yem-eni capital Sanaa in September.

The ministry said only that it had acted at the request of the Australian authorities.

Australian Minister of For-

eign Aff airs Julie Bishop con-fi rmed the release of “an Aus-tralian kidnapped in Yemen,” without naming him.

“The Government will not be making any further comment on this case in order to protect other Australians who remain captive overseas or face the risk of kid-napping. The family has asked

for privacy, and I ask others to respect their wishes,” Bishop said in a statement.Bishop thanked Sultan Qaboos for “Oman’s work to locate and receive the Austral-ian national in to Oman.”

Oman has mediated the release of several Western-ers, including an American in November.

UN concern over fasting PalestiniansReuters Geneva

The top United Nations human rights offi cial urged Israel yesterday to

improve conditions for Pales-tinians in custody, especially the more than 1,000 whose hunger-strike was into its 38th day.

The strike followed a call by Marwan Barghouti, the most high-profi le Palestinian held by Israel, for a protest against solitary confi nement and an Israeli policy of detention without trial that has been ap-plied to thousands of prisoners since the 1980s.

“I am especially alarmed by reports of punitive measures by the Israeli authorities against the hunger strikers, includ-ing restricted access to lawyers and the denial of family vis-its,” Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said in a statement.

The right to consult a lawyer is a fundamental protection in international human rights law that should never be violated, Zeid said.

He added that the health of

hundreds of the hunger-strikers had “deteriorated signifi cantly”.While hunger strikes are not uncommon among the 6,500 Palestinians in Israeli jails, many of whom were convicted of attacks or planning attacks against Israel, this is one of the largest.

It is likely to raise tensions between Israel and the Pales-tinians as the 50th anniversary of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem approaches in early June.

Zeid said his offi ce had re-ceived reports that the Israel Prison Service had evacuated at least 60 hunger-striking Pal-estinian prisoners to hospitals because their medical condi-tion had worsened. A further 592 had recently been moved for observation to infi rmaries set up in the prisons, he said.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which visits Palestinian detainees, urged Israel early this month to allow family visits.

Under international law, these “can only be limited for security reasons, on a case by case basis, but never for strictly punitive or disciplinary purpos-es”, it said.

ARAB WORLD15

Gulf Times Thursday, May 25, 2017

ONE SMOKER.TWO PATIENTS.

TOBACCO KILLS

Issued in Public Interest by GULF TIMES

Egypt rights lawyer to stand trial next weekReuters Cairo

An Egyptian human rights lawyer and would-be presidential election can-

didate is to stand trial next week charged with off ending public decency, his lawyer said yester-day.

Khaled Ali, 45, was detained on Tuesday in what rights group Amnesty International said was part of a campaign of intimida-tion aimed at discouraging par-ticipation in the election, due to take place next summer.

A prosecutor yesterday re-leased Ali on bail and set his trial for May 29, Ali’s lawyer Malek Adly said.

The charge he faces relates to a photograph in which he appears to make a rude hand gesture on the steps of a Cairo court house, according to Adly.

Ali denies the authenticity of the photo.

“This is all connected to his human rights and political work,” said Adly, a member of Ali’s left-wing Bread and Free-dom Party. “We are being pun-ished for practising clean poli-tics, and yes, we intend to run, which is why we are facing this campaign.”

If convicted, Ali could face up to two years in prison, a fi ne of up to 5-10,000 Egyptian pounds ($250-550), or both.

He would also be barred from running for the presidency.

Since replacing Mohamed Mursi of the Muslim Brother-hood in 2013, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has overseen a crackdown against conserva-tives and secular opponents in

which hundreds have been killed and thousands jailed.

Sisi, 62, says he is a bulwark of stability in a region that has slipped into chaos since the 2011 Arab Spring revolts, prioritising security over civil rights.

He is widely expected to stand for re-election next summer.

Dozens of lawyers gathered at the courthouse where Ali was being questioned yesterday in

a show of solidarity. The Bread and Freedom Party’s legal ad-viser has said that eight of its members have been detained since April on charges including “misusing social media to incite against the state” and “insult-ing the president”. Ali’s defence team paid bail worth 1,000 pounds ($55) after his release was ordered, his lawyer said.

Amnesty International said

detention and referral to trial were part of a crackdown on op-position activists ahead of the election.

“The Egyptian authorities seem intent on pre-emptively crushing any potential rivals to maintain their grip on power,” Najia Bounaim, Amnesty Inter-national’s campaigns director for North Africa, said in a state-ment. Separately yesterday, a

rights activist, Mohamed Zaree, was questioned in relation to a high-profi le case in which non-governmental organisations are accused of receiving foreign funding to foment chaos.

Zaree told Reuters he had been charged with “receiving funds from foreign entities to harm national security” before be-ing released on bail of 30,000 pounds.

Sisi rejects Sudan’saccusations on rebelsReutersCairo

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi rejected yesterday his Sudanese

counterpart’s accusation that Cairo backs rebels aiming to topple the government in Khartoum, saying Egypt does not conspire against anyone.

Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir accused Egypt on Tuesday of sup-porting rebels at war with his government, a week ahead of a visit to Cairo by Sudan’s foreign minister that is meant to ease tensions between the neighbouring states.

“Egyptian policy is con-stant, unchanging, and will not change; we do not inter-fere in the aff airs of others,” Sisi told a news conference held following a meeting with Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern in Cairo.

“The other point I must stress is that Egypt does not conspire,” he said, answering a reporter’s question.

“Would I conspire and let elements attack our brothers in Sudan? We practice hon-ourable politics at a time when honour is rare.”

Egypt and Sudan have been at odds in recent months on issues ranging from disputed land in southern Egypt to trade restrictions and burden-some visa requirements that

have threatened bilateral com-mercial relations.

In a speech to Sudanese military personnel, Bashir said on Tuesday that the military had seized Egyptian armoured vehicles from rebels in the country’s war-torn southern Darfur region.

Egypt’s foreign ministry de-nied supporting the rebels.

Sudan demands Egypt hand over the disputed Ha-layeb Triangle border area, but Cairo says it is Egyptian.

Egypt rejected last year a request from Khartoum to en-ter negotiations to determine sovereignty over the triangle or to seek international arbi-tration.

Sudanese Foreign Minister Ibrahim Ghandour is expected in Cairo on May 31 to discuss, among other issues, a sim-mering trade dispute that has blocked Egyptian agricultural imports.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry was in Khar-toum last month at the head of a delegation that took part in a bilateral political consultation committee meeting.

Sudanese Foreign Minister Ibrahim Ghandour is expected in Cairo on May 31 to discuss, among other issues, a simmering trade dispute that has blocked Egyptian agricultural imports

‘Most wanted’ Yazidi activist wants to keep focus on her people’s plightThomson Reuters FoundationOslo

An Iraqi parliamentarian and Yazidi activist known as Islamic State’s “most wanted woman”

wants other Yazidis to step onto the global stage to keep the plight of her people in the spotlight.

Vian Dakhil hit world headlines in August 2014 when she broke down in tears in Iraq’s parliament when she plead for help for the religious minority under attack by Islamic State militants in Sinjar, northern Iraq, home to about 400,000 Yazidis.

In just days about 3,100 Yazidis were killed and 6,800 kidnapped to become sex slaves or fi ghters for Islamic State, according to a report this month by John Hopkins University and the Lon-don School of Economics and Political Science.

The militants are still holding about 3,400 girls as sex slaves and 1,000 chil-dren, according to the United Nations, despite global condemnation for the campaign of rape and murder.

Since 2014 Dakhil, one of only two ethnic Yazidis in Iraq’s 328-member parliament, has campaigned tirelessly to keep world attention on her people, becoming, alongside former Islamic State sex slave Nadia Murad, the face of the Yazidis globally.

But Dakhil said she needed help and

urged other Yazidis to put themselves forward for Iraq’s 2018 election.

“At the moment trying to keep us in the spotlight is falling largely on my shoulders but I can’t be everywhere at the same time,” Dakhil told the Thom-son Reuters Foundation on the side-lines of the ninth annual Oslo Freedom Forum where her emotional speech re-ceived a standing ovation.

Dakhil was one of a list of speakers attending the three-day forum organ-ised by the US — based Human Rights Foundation that aims to promote and protect human rights globally.

“Nearly three years on people forget about us but the misery and tragedy is still there and just as real with 420,000 Yazidis living as refugees in Kurdistan in very miserable conditions and thou-sands of girls still in captivity and tor-tured.”

Dakhil, the fi rst and only female Yazidi in parliament, said she had no political ambitions before 2010 but found herself thrust into politics after stepping in as a university teacher in Mosul to help Yazidis and Christians coming under attack.

She said at that time no one could have imagined what the Yazidis were to face at the hands of Islamic State mili-tants.

“You’d never have thought in the 21st Century, in a world of technol-ogy, there would be people believing in death, kidnapping and torture like

this,” she said through an interpreter as she propped up one leg on a chair.

“Before 2014 most Yazidis did not feel the need to get politically active because they were living peacefully but now they want to be well represented in parliament.”

Her campaigning has taken its toll — not just mentally.

In 2014 Dakhil was on a helicop-ter carrying aid supplies to the Sinjar region that crashed when a crowd of Yazidis tried to board as it landed.

Dakhil survived with a broken leg, but the pilot and dozens of others were killed.

Dakhil said she hoped to run again for election next year to win a third term in offi ce but no matter what the outcome she would continue her cam-paign to get funding and assistance.

She voiced concern that funds raised internationally were not reaching those in need in Yazidi refugee camps in Iraq and Syria and is determined to get the Yazidis’ treatment declared offi cially as genocide and fully investigated.

The release of the girls still in cap-tivity was also a priority with progress slow.

Two days ago Dakhil received a call from someone who had found two Yazidi girls enslaved in Mosul.

“Our fi ght is not over. We aren’t even half-way through what we need to do. Staying in government gives me more power to help my people,” she said.

Tutankhamun’s chariot off ers museum hopeReutersCairo

A chariot and funeral bed belonging to ancient Egypt’s boy-king Tutankhamun were safely moved on Tuesday across Cairo to a new museum that

Egypt hopes will lure back wary tourists.Just beyond the Great Pyramids of Giza in the basement

of Cairo’s Grand Egyptian Museum, which is set to be the world’s largest archaeological museum when it opens in 2018, Egyptian and Japanese restoration experts unpacked the pharaoh’s treasured artefacts from sealed wooden boxes. Some of the world’s oldest relics, including dozens belonging to King Tut, who ruled Egypt more than 3,000 years ago, are being carefully shuttled from the old Egyp-tian Museum in central Cairo to the vast halls of the new one 23 kilometres away.

Egypt is hoping the splashy new museum will be a draw for tourism, a crucial pillar of its economy that has strug-gled since a 2011 political uprising drove away visitors who once fl ocked to ancient Pharaonic temples and pyramids.

Transporting the artefacts became an issue of interna-tional concern in 2014 after the beard of the ancient Egyp-tian king’s golden burial mask was accidentally broken off by workers changing the lights in its display case.

The workers later tried to crudely reattach the beard with a an epoxy glue compound that damaged the mask, prompting outrage among archaeologists.

King Tut ruled Egypt as pharaoh for 10 years until his death at age 19, around 1324 B.C.

His nearly intact tomb was discovered in the Valley of the Kings in Luxor in 1922 by British archaeologist Howard Carter. The king’s funeral bed is made of wood gilded with gold leaf and decorated with the head of the lioness god-dess Sekhmet.

Wrapped in foil to preserve its moisture levels, the an-cient relic was transported across the city in a pick-up truck fl anked by police cars, said Tarek Tawfi k, the mu-seum’s general supervisor.

“We will transfer over 1,000 objects from the old mu-seum in the next months to be restored and prepared for exhibition,” Egypt’s Antiquities Minister Khaled al-Anani told journalists.

Former Egyptian presidential candidate and rights lawyer Khaled Ali embraces a colleague upon his arrival at his political party’s headquarters in downtown Cairo yesterday, after he was released on bail.

AFRICA

Gulf Times Thursday, May 25, 201716

US President Donald Trump yesterday told Pope Francis he was committing more than $300mn to help prevent or tackle famine in several countries in Africa. Trump said he had “renewed” the US “commitment to fighting global famine”, with the United Nations warning that about 20mn people across Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen are at risk. The UN has described the situation as the biggest humanitarian crisis in its history, but donor funding is falling far short. “As he (Trump) relayed at the Vatican, the United States is proud to announce more than $300mn in anti-famine spending” for the area, a White House statement said.

Amnesty International said yesterday authorities in Cameroon were obstructing its campaign to obtain the release of three students jailed for 10 years over what they say was a private joke. The three were convicted of terrorist-related charges in November after sharing an SMS on militant group Boko Haram which they told the court was meant to be amusing. Amnesty collected 310,000 letters and petitions urging President Paul Biya to free them and had been intending to release the documents at a press conference. But “early this morning, around a dozen security agents, in uniform and plain clothes, entered the hotel and ordered the managers to close the press conference venue,” the group said.

East Africa’s smallest country Djibouti yesterday took a step towards realising its dream of becoming a continental maritime cargo hub with the inauguration of its newest and largest port. The $590mn facility is part of an infrastructure blitz by the country, sandwiched between Ethiopia, Somalia and Eritrea, that includes three other ports and a railroad to the capital of landlocked Ethiopia. “The Doraleh Multipurpose Port, Djibouti confirms its position as a major trading hub for the continent,” said Aboubaker Omar Hadi, chairman of the Djibouti Ports and Free Zones Authority, which split the cost of the port with Hong Kong-based China Merchant Holding.

President John Magufuli yesterday fired Tanzania’s mines minister after a government report found minerals exports had been understated, causing a loss in tax revenue. Mining minister Sospeter Muhongo, a friend and ally of the president, was dismissed along with the head of the Tanzania Minerals Audit Agency, Dominic Rwekaza. “The minister is my friend and I like him very much but I will not forgive him for this,” Magufuli said in a televised address after receiving the report yesterday. “I want him to reconsider his position and I am advising him to step down.” A later statement issued by the presidency confirmed that Muhongo had been fired.

Nigeria said yesterday it had intercepted an illegal cache of arms at the port in Lagos, five months after a similar seizure in the city, a spokesman told AFP. “Following intelligence reports, our operatives on Monday inspected a 40ft container at the Tin Can port in Apapa, Lagos, and found 440 pieces of assorted pump action rifles and other accessories of the guns,” said Joseph Attah. The consignment originated in Turkey and was covered with plaster of Paris to try to avoid detection, he added. One suspect was arrested and investigations were under way to determine the intended recipient of the illegal shipment, Attah said.

Trump commits $300mn to fight famine in Africa

Cameroon blocks Amnesty campaign to free students

New port boosts Djibouti’s dream to be maritime hub

Tanzania president sacks minister for lost revenue

Nigeria seizes illegal arms shipment at Lagos port

AID SILENCEDDEVELOPMENT FIRED RECIPIENT UNKNOWN

8 Kenyan cops killed in roadside bombingsReutersNairobi

Eight Kenyan security offi cers were killed yesterday in two separate roadside bombings

in eastern Kenya, senior offi cials said, underscoring the threat from Somali Islamist militants.

The biggest attack was on a gov-ernor’s convoy in Mandera, in the extreme northeast of the country near the border with Somalia.

The area is a frequent target of the Somali militant group Shebaab.

“Unfortunately, I lost fi ve of my security offi cers including my per-sonal bodyguard in an attack on my convoy,” Mandera Governor Ali Ro-bathe said in a Facebook post.

The Red Cross said on Twitter that the vehicle had hit a suspected landmine.

Shebaab has not yet commented on the incident, but it did claim an earlier attack in Liboi, further to the south but also in the extreme east along the border with Somalia.

The Liboi attack killed three policemen when their truck hit an improvised explosive device (IED), North Eastern regional commis-sioner Mohamud Ali Saleh said.

“The police car ran over an IED and we have casualties. All the dead offi cers are from one work station,” Saleh told Reuters, without reveal-ing the number of wounded offi c-ers.

“From past incidences, it is easy to see that even this one is the work of our enemy, Shebaab. They plant

these IEDs to target our security people.”

The Kenyan Red Cross said on Twitter eight offi cers had been wounded.

“We are behind the attack in Li-boi area. We destroyed the police car. Some died and others were in-jured,” Abdiasis Abu Musab, She-

baab’s military operation spokes-man told Reuters.

Garissa county, where the inci-dent happened, has suff ered several Shebaab attacks in recent years, in-cluding a 2015 assault on a univer-sity which killed 148 people.

Shebaab, which seeks to topple Somalia’s government and im-

pose its own harsh interpretation of Shariah, says it will continue to attack Kenya until Nairobi with-draws its troops from an African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia.

The police said on Tuesday they were on alert for an increase in vio-lence after Shebaab fi ghters were

detected moving into Kenya in small groups.

“These groups are dispatching operatives into parts of North East-ern Region to lay IEDs along the routes used by our security patrols in eff orts to frustrate our security operations at the border areas,” the police said in a statement.

A Kenyan security off icial walk past a police vehicle damaged by a blast, killing Kenyan police off icers, in Garissa county, eastern Kenya.

Mugabe daughter appointed to state censor boardAFPHarare

President Robert Mugabe’s daughter Bona Chikore has been appointed to the Zimbabwe board of censors, state media reported yesterday, the lat-

est family member to take up an offi cial role.The board “faces the colossal task of regulating pub-

lic entertainment in the digital age,” the state-owned Herald newspaper said, raising fears of further restric-tions on criticism of Mugabe’s regime.

The newspaper said the board would play “a critical role in controlling and regulating the media and fi lm industry and examining any article or public entertain-ment submitted to it”.

Chikore’s mother Grace is head of the ruling ZANU-PF party’s women league, and is seen by some observers as a potential successor when the 93-year-old presi-dent dies.

She has three children with Mugabe.Chikore, 27, who was educated in Hong Kong, is the

eldest, while two sons are still in school.Mugabe’s nephews Patrick Zhuwao and Walter Chid-

hakwa are ministers of youth and mining respectively, while several other relatives hold government posi-tions.

Chikore’s husband Simba was recently appointed the chief operating offi cer of the national carrier Air Zim-babwe.

In 2004, Zimbabwe’s censors banned a play called ‘Superpatriot and the Morons’ about an autocratic ruler kept in power by a small clique of allies and brutal security forces.

The new censors board is chaired by former cul-ture minister Aeneas Chigwedere and includes Regis Chikowore, deputy to Mugabe’s spokesman, police spokeswoman Charity Charamba and a traditional chief.

“The constitution of Zimbabwe has a provision for freedom of artistic expression,” The Herald quoted home aff airs minister Ignatius Chombo as saying in an address to the censors.

“In today’s environment where there is heightened scrutiny by members of the public, internet and social media use, you are going to face many challenges.”

Many Zimbabweans use social media platforms to circumvent tough media and security laws to express opposition to Mugabe, who has ruled since 1980.

IS claims fi rst suicide attack in Somalia

The Islamic State militant group has

claimed its first suicide attack in

Somalia that left at least five people

dead as it steps up activities in a

region dominated by the Al Qaeda-

linked Shebaab.

The group’s self-styled news

agency Amaq claimed the “mar-

tyrdom-seeking operation with an

explosive vest” in a statement car-

ried by the SITE Intelligence Group

which noted it was the first such

attack by the militants in Somalia.

The suicide bomber, named

and pictured in the statement,

detonated his explosives vest late

on Tuesday at a checkpoint in the

northeastern port city of Bosaso

in the semi-autonomous region of

Puntland.

“Security forces stopped the

suspect when he approached but

he detonated himself leaving five

people dead. One of the security

off icers and four civilians were

killed in the blast,” said local police

off icial Mohamed Dahir Adan.

The IS statement said seven peo-

ple were killed and 10 wounded.

The blast occurred near a hotel

often used as a meeting place for

local off icials, witnesses said.

Puntland set up its own govern-

ment in 1998, but unlike neighbour-

ing Somaliland, it has not declared

full independence.

The region has often come

under attack by Shebaab militants

and is also home to a breakaway

group of fighters who have de-

clared allegiance to IS.

However the group has so far

failed to gather much support

while the Shebaab have taken pains

to purge those expressing pro-IS

sentiment from their ranks.

The militants are led by former

Shebaab cleric Abdiqadir Mumin

who switched allegiance from Al

Qaeda to IS in October 2015 and

was named a “global terrorist” by

the US State Department in August.

Aside from issuing occasional

promotional videos, the group

seized the small fishing town of

Qandala before being ousted by

Puntland forces in December.

Ethiopian court convicts journalist for incitement to violenceReutersAddis Ababa

An Ethiopian court yesterday convicted a journalist of inciting violence against the state with a

dissident group, activists said, a judge-ment that an international rights group said was a bid to silence critics.

Getachew Shiferaw was arrested in late December 2015 and charged in May the following year with involvement in

the operations of the outlawed anti-government group Ginbot 7.

That charge was later dismissed by the court, but he was found guilty yes-terday of public provocation to commit “crimes against the external security and defensive power” of the state.

Getachew, formerly a freelance writer for several magazines, was also editor-in-chief of the opposition Se-mayawi Party’s Negere Ethiopia publi-cation at the time of his arrest.

He will be sentenced on May 26 and

faces up to 10 years in prison.“Today’s groundless ruling is a

further slap in the face for justice in Ethiopia and proof of the authorities’ continued willingness...to misuse the criminal justice system to silence dis-sent,” said Muthoni Wanyeki, Amnesty International’s regional director, in a statement.

Ginbot 7 was formed by opposition fi gures who took part in disputed polls in 2005. They subsequently fl ed into exile and launched an armed struggle

against the government of the Horn of Africa nation.

The government considers it a “ter-rorist” organisation, a designation is shares with two Ethiopian secessionist groups, Somalia’s Shebaab and Al Qaeda.

Critics say Ethiopia, sandwiched between volatile Somalia and Sudan, regularly uses security concerns as an excuse to stifl e dissent and clamp down on media freedoms.

Ethiopia’s 547-seat parliament does not have a single opposition politician and

opposition groups accuse the government of constant harassment and intimidation.

Yesterday’s conviction comes a week after the court in the capital Addis Ababa found a former opposition party spokesperson guilty of encouraging terrorist acts for a series of anti-gov-ernment posts on Facebook.

Yonatan Tesfay’s charges stem from a 2009 law that prescribes jail terms for anyone convicted of publishing in-formation that could induce readers to commit acts of terrorism.

Kenya fl our shortage stokes anger ahead of electionsBy Duncan Miriri, Reuters Nairobi

A Kenyan government scheme to sub-sidise staple maize fl our has hit problems over shortages, stoking an-

ger over high food prices ahead of a national election in August.

President Uhuru Kenyatta, seeking a sec-ond fi ve-year term, faces veteran rival Raila Odinga, who says the high food prices show Kenyatta’s government has failed poor citi-zens.

The government unveiled a 6bn shilling ($58.14mn) maize subsidy programme last week to lower the unit cost of fl our to 90 shillings, after it soared by a third to around 136 shillings during a regional drought.

“We are happy they have lowered the price but getting it is the problem. This fl our is like gold,” said trader Joseph Ouma, speaking in a Nairobi store that limited shoppers to two packs of fl our per customer due to high demand.

In the western city of Kisumu, major re-tail outlets did not have maize fl our, anger-ing shoppers who had travelled from rural homes to the city to look for it.

“It is sad that the government assures us that there is fl our yet we can’t fi nd it in the shops,” said Denish Owuor, who managed to buy only one pack of fl our.

The government is importing Mexican maize and distributing it to millers at sub-sidised rates.

The packets are stamped in bright red let-ters with the price of 90 shillings and the letters GoK (Government of Kenya).

The subsidies lower the cost of a 90 kg bag of maize to 2,300 shillings from a mar-ket rate of 4,600 shillings.

Richard Lesiyampe, principal secretary at the ministry of agriculture, blamed panic buying for the shortages, which he said were not widespread.

“Shoppers have decided to call all their relatives, their spouses, their mothers, their daughters, their sons and the house-helps so they can get as many packets as possible,” he told Reuters.

He said Kenya has 43,000 metric tonnes of maize and a ship carrying another 43,000 tonnes of Mexican corn is expected today. Further shipments are expected at the port of Mombasa on June 11 and 15.

Kenya uses 4,500 tonnes of maize daily, Lesiyampe said.

He rejected criticism that the government should have imported maize earlier, saying imports are used as a last resort to protect the market for local farmers.

The bulk of Kenya’s maize is produced in the populous Rift Valley region, a key voting bloc courted assiduously by the main politi-cal coalitions. An employee restocks packet of maize flour subsidised by government at a supermarket in Nairobi.

AMERICA17Gulf Times

Thursday, May 25, 2017

ReutersWashington

A Trump administration plan to sell off half the US emer-gency crude oil stockpile

to help balance the budget faces opposition in Congress, with law-makers from both parties worried the proposal would undermine the drilling industry and make the country vulnerable to supply shocks.

The White House’s 2018 budg-et proposal, sent to Congress on Tuesday, proposes raising nearly $16.6bn by 2027 by gradually sell-ing millions of barrels from the reserve, which now holds about 688mn barrels of oil in under-ground caverns in Texas and Loui-siana.

News of the proposal had briefl y sent oil prices tumbling on concern it would oversupply the market, but prices recovered and fi nished slightly higher on hopes that Opec and other countries would extend supply cuts.

“We should not be selling oil from the Strategic Petroleum Re-serve now,” said Senator John Ho-even, a Republican from North Dakota, a leading oil producer state.”We should use the SPR for

emergencies, and selling now would disrupt the markets.”

The SPR sell-off plan is part of a broader White House proposal to balance the US budget that is meant as starting point to debate policy with Congress — which will ultimately pass its own version.

Whether the SPR proposal will survive the budget process could depend in part on Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, a member of the appropriations committee and the head of the chamber’s energy panel.

In 2015, when Congress was considering selling a modest amount of oil from the reserve to help fund a transportation bill, Murkowski opposed the idea, say-ing the reserve should not be used as an ATM.

Murkowski did not directly ad-dress the SPR plan in a statement on Tuesday, but she said “a Presi-dent’s budget is more of a vision than anything else”. Eff orts to reach Murkowski on Tuesday were not successful.

Murkowski’s Democratic coun-terpart on the energy panel, how-ever, raised concerns that liquidat-ing half of the reserve would run counter to the original purpose of the facility, which Congress creat-ed in 1975 to protect against global oil disruptions that could harm the US economy.

“We are not going to let Donald

Trump auction off our energy se-curity to the highest bidder,” Sena-tor Maria Cantwell of Washington said in an e-mail.

The Arab oil embargo of the early 1970s led to chaos at US fi lling sta-tions and fears of long-term dam-age to the economy.

Much has changed since then: US oil production has surged in re-cent years and supply from Canada has increased, displacing a large portion of the imports from some less stable Middle Eastern suppli-ers.

US oil imports from the pro-ducer group Opec have fallen to less than 3.2mn bpd in 2016 from more than 5.4mn barrels per day in 2008, according to the US En-ergy Information Administra-tion.

Richard Newell, a former head of the EIA, noted that the plan could cause the United States to break its obligation as a member of the In-ternational Energy Agency to hold 90 days’ worth of oil imports on reserve.

Currently, the SPR holds about 145 days’ worth of oil imports.

“There are a number of possi-ble scenarios under which reduc-ing the SPR to the levels proposed would violate our IEA treaty obli-gations,” he said.

Lawmakers from both parties also said releasing oil from the SPR could dampen crude prices

and hurt drilling companies still recovering from a price crash in 2014. Trump had campaigned on a promise to revive the drilling in-dustry.

“Putting that much oil on the market, you will see a lot of layoff s in the energy business,” said Rep-resentative Gene Green, a Demo-crat from Texas.

Mick Mulvaney, the head of the Offi ce of Management and Budget told reporters on Tuesday, how-ever, there are ways to tap the SPR slowly and “telegraph it over the course of time” to avoid having a dramatic impact on prices.

Representative Pete Olson, a Texas Republican, said the SPR infrastructure needs improvement because tanks and other equip-ment are constantly exposed to corrosive salt air.

But he did not rush to embrace a sell-off of oil, saying that the larger budget deserves careful scrutiny.

Some oil industry representa-tives also came out against the proposal.

Randall Luthi, President of the National Ocean Industries Associ-ation said the plan to cut the SPR in half threatened national security.

He added he also opposed a pro-posal in the budget to cut federal oil royalty payments to US Gulf Coast states — funds meant to help them defend their coasts from hurricane damage.

Lawmakers gear up to block sale of oil stockpile

Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner, visit the Pantheon in central Rome yesterday.

Ivanka visits Pantheon

FB ‘signs BuzzFeed, Vox, others for original video’ReutersNew York

Facebook Inc has signed deals with millennial-focused news and enter-

tainment creators Vox Media, BuzzFeed, ATTN, Group Nine Media and others to make shows for its upcoming video service, which will feature long and short-form content with ad breaks, according to several sources familiar with the situ-ation.

Facebook is planning two tiers of video entertainment: scripted shows with episodes lasting 20 to 30 minutes, which it will own; and shorter scripted and unscripted shows with epi-sodes lasting about 5 to 10 min-utes, which Facebook will not own, according to the sources.

Facebook’s move to acquire and license original content is the latest in its push to at-

tract more advertising dollars, putting the company in head-to-head competition with Al-phabet Inc’s YouTube Red, Snapchat’s Discover feature, and traditional television net-works.

It is an attempt to deliver on Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg’s remarks to inves-tors earlier this month that the company was looking for so-called “anchor content” that would draw people to the video tab on Facebook’s app.

The world’s biggest social media company is set to pay up to $250,000 for the longer, scripted shows which will be owned by Facebook, taking a page from a strategy employed successfully by Netfl ix Inc and Amazon.com Inc, which both now own some of the content they sell to subscribers.

For the second tier of short-er shows, Facebook will pay $10,000 to $35,000 for each

show and give creators 55% of revenue from ads, the sources said.

Ads will run during both the long-form and short-form shows.

A Facebook spokeswoman declined to comment.

Facebook said in December it would buy original scripted and unscripted programming for its video service.

Earlier this year, it tapped former MTV executive Mina Lefevre to lead the eff ort.

Facebook currently off ers live video from a number of news publishers as well as its own us-ers.

It has begun testing the water with live sports video in the last few months.

Most recently it signed a deal with Major League Baseball to show 20 games live this season.

While Facebook will initially run short-form shows exclu-sively on its site, the creators of

the content will be able to run the shows on their own proper-ties after a negotiated period of time, and will be able to even-tually sell them externally, the sources said.

The company is focused on working with news and enter-tainment makers that are al-ready active on Facebook and have a large millennial follow-ing.

Vox, BuzzFeed, ATTN and Group Nine Media — the hold-ing company for Thrillist, NowThis and The Dodo — are all working on short-form con-tent for the new Facebook serv-ice, the sources said.

Advertisers are interested in learning more about Facebook’s service as they see it as another way to get in front of the grow-ing number of viewers watching their favourite shows on tablets and smartphones, said Mo-nique Lemus O’Brien, a media buyer at The Media Kitchen.

ReutersNew York

Faced with this summer’s partial shutdown of a key New York transit hub due

to track repairs, some employers in the largest US city are scram-bling to come up with “Plan B” off erings to allow their suburb-dwelling staff to avoid the large-ly shuttered hub.

Inquiries have spiked for tem-porary offi ce spaces that do not require travel through Pennsyl-vania Station, the busiest train station in the US, where weeks-long outages in July and August are expected to trigger a travel nightmare for employees living in New Jersey and Long Island suburbs, according to business-es and real estate specialists.

In the nation’s leading centre of banking, fi nance, and com-munication, major employers are off ering to let workers clock in from home or report to branch offi ces.

It is an eff ort to spare the sta-tion’s 600,000 daily commuters from what New York Governor Andrew Cuomo predicted could be a “summer of agony”, based on recent delays and cancel-lations triggered by a pair of derailments at the station infa-mous for its deteriorating tracks.

“People are trying to avoid the harrowing commute to get into that part of town,” said Marcus Moufarrige, chief operating of-fi cer at Servcorp Ltd, a landlord for shared workspaces. Calls in search of temporary offi ce space in lower Manhattan in July and August have risen 4% compared to the previous year, Moufarrige said.

“Some have mentioned the situation at Penn Station,” he said.

Investment bank Soci-ete Generale has off ered its 1,500-person Manhattan work-force, about half of whom com-mute from New Jersey through Penn Station, the chance to

work at home or in Jersey City, said human resources spokes-man Sean O’Brien.

“It obviously increases pro-ductivity so people aren’t stuck on trains for an hour or two,” O’Brien said. “It also reduces the amount of meetings that have to be cancelled because im-portant stakeholders are stuck on trains.”

Scott Rechler, chief executive of RXR Realty LLC said his $15bn development fi rm is contem-plating off ering more fl exible hours or allowing employees to work at offi ces outside Manhat-tan.

“We’re going to all have to fi nd ways to adjust, almost like we did post-Sandy,” said Rech-ler, referring to 2012 Superstorm Sandy, which left millions of train riders without service, on some routes for weeks.

Penn Station serves three commuter train lines: Amtrak, New Jersey Transit and the Long Island Rail Road.

Amtrak owns the station’s tracks and was responsible for two recent derailments that prompted it to speed up long-planned repairs.

The three railroads together are devising a scheme for which tracks to take offl ine for repairs, and where to reroute other trains. Summer outages are ex-pected from July 7 through July 25 and August 4 through August 28.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said on Tuesday that N J Transit trains on the popular Morris & Essex Midtown Direct line would be diverted to Hobo-ken, where ferries and alternate train lines connect to Manhat-tan. The overall changes may also have a longer term eff ect, observers said.

“If people believe it’s go-ing to be a chronic problem, then there’s probably going to be more meaningful structural changes relative to where people want to live and property val-ues,” said Rechler.

NY fi rms off er their‘Plan B’ for transit woes

ReutersAustin, Texas

The Texas House of Rep-resentatives gave pre-liminary approval on

Tuesday to a new bill on show-ing identifi cation when voting after a previous voter ID law was struck down by US courts which said it discriminated against black and Hispanic people.

The measure called Sen-ate Bill 5 is intended to rem-edy fl aws found by courts in the previous Republican-backed law.

It allows people who cannot produce an authorised photo ID to show other documenta-tion such as a utility bill or bank statement and sign an affi davit stating that they had a reason-able impediment in presenting an authorised ID.

Critics contend the meas-ure backed by the Republican-dominated lawmakers will still

exclude ethnic minorities, who tend to support Democrats, and imposes harsh penalties of up to 10 years in prison for lying on the affi davit.

Texas is the most-populous Republican controlled state.

For more than 20 years, the party has won every statewide race for offi ces such as governor or US senator.

But shifting demographics have given hopes to Democrats that they can one day turn the state to their column, which would alter the US political landscape.

The original voter ID meas-ure was signed into law in 2011 by then Texas Governor Rick Perry, a Republican.

It was considered one of the nation’s strictest and has been subject to years of court chal-lenges, with the laws oppo-nents saying it could exclude up to 600,000 voters.

In January, the US Supreme Court declined to hear an ap-peal by Texas seeking to revive

the state’s strict Republican-backed voter-identifi cation re-quirements.

Critics had said the Texas law and similar statutes enacted in other Republican-governed states were tailored to make it harder for minorities includ-ing black and Hispanic voters, who are less likely to have the authorised IDs, to cast ballots.

Backers of these laws have said they are necessary to pre-vent voter fraud, despite little evidence of such fraud.

Both the previous law and the measure in the Texas leg-islature list authorised photo ID to include: a driver’s license, US military ID, a US passport and a Texas concealed handgun license.

The Texas Senate approved SB 5 in March and on Tuesday the state House of Representa-tives preliminarily approved the measure.

Final votes on the bill were to be held yesterday, media re-ported.

Texas House approves new voter ID bill after court setbacks

ReutersNew York

A federal appeals court yesterday rejected a bid by Jonathan Pol-

lard, the former US Navy intelligence offi cer who served 30 years in prison af-ter being convicted of spy-ing for Israel, to relax his parole conditions.

The 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan said the US Parole Commis-sion acted within its discre-tion in requiring Pollard to wear an electronic tracking device, obey a curfew, and allow his computers to be monitored. Pollard pleaded guilty in 1986 to conspiracy to commit espionage.

Pollard loses bid to relax parole

Governor proposes freezein wages

Lawmakers are worried that prices would crash

ReutersConnecticut

Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy on Tues-day proposed a wage

freeze and higher employee contributions to pension and healthcare while reducing the state’s share, in a framework for an agreement with labour un-ions that could save the state over $1.5bn by 2019.

Malloy’s plan proposed to in-crease employee pension contri-butions by 2 % of pay from 2019 fi nancial year and reduce the state’s share of pension contri-butions by $400 mn to $500 mn per year.

The proposal aims to redesign the health insurance plan and to increase the employee share of premiums by 1 % a year for ex-isting employees from 2020 to 2022, raising the average contri-bution to 15 %.

The framework will reopen the contract currently in eff ect through June 30, 2022. If adopt-ed it could save the state up to $10 bn over the next decade.

Malloy, a Democrat, also pro-posed to freeze wages until 2019, before a 3.5 % wage increase a year in 2020 and 2021.

The wage freeze could result in savings of $385.2mn in 2019.

The governor said the plan would avoid the need for mass layoff s and provide the state greater fl exibility.

“This framework will surely create more aff ordable and more sustainable labour costs in a way that generates structural, long-term savings of over $20bn over the course of the next two dec-ades,” Malloy said in a statement.

Earlier this month, Fitch Rat-ings downgraded the state one notch to A-plus because of a dimming economic outlook and a lack of fi scal fl exibility, mak-ing it the third-lowest-rated US state on Fitch’s roster.

Connecticut is the wealthiest US state on a per capita personal income basis and its economic growth has been “unusually slow and uncertain” during the current national economic ex-pansion, Fitch said on May 12.

It said the state is expecting weak job growth in coming years.

ASEAN

Gulf Times Thursday, May 25, 201718

Cop dead in Indonesia terror attackAFPJakarta

A suspected suicide bombing rocked a busy bus terminal in the Indonesian capital Jakarta yesterday, killing one policeman in the latest terror attack to hit the Muslim-

majority country. Five police offi cers were also injured in the ex-plosion at the bus station in the east of the city.

“There has been a bomb, for now we suspect it is a suicide bombing,” deputy national police chief Syafruddin, who like many Indonesians goes by one name, told TV station TVOne.

He said the bomber was killed along with one police offi cer, adding that fi ve other policemen were injured. “The police per-sonnel had been providing security,” to people in the area, he added. The terminal, Kampung Melayu, is a local hub served by minibuses and buses. It is a working class district of the city, not popular with foreigners or tourists.

Police and witnesses said earlier they had heard two blasts during the attack. “At fi rst I saw smoke and shattered glass, the earth was shaking, I was shocked. After a few minutes there was another blast,” a woman at the terminal, Rosmala, a shopkeeper who goes by only one name, told AFP.

Another eyewitness, Sultan Mohamed Firdaus, told local tel-evision station Kompas TV that he had heard two explosions. “I was on a fl yover and then I heard the fi rst explosion...There was a 10 minute gap between the two explosions. The explosions were quite loud, I could hear them clearly,” he said. East Jakarta police chief Andry Wibowo said that the damage at the bus terminal indicated that the explosion had been “pretty big”.

Indonesia has long struggled with Islamic militancy and hun-dreds of radicals from the Southeast Asian state have fl ocked to fi ght with IS, sparking fears that weakened extremist outfi ts could get a new lease of life.

A gun and suicide attack in the capital Jakarta left four attack-ers and four civilians dead in January last year, and was the fi rst assault claimed by the Islamic State group in Southeast Asia.

Indonesia has suff ered a series of Islamic militant attacks in the past 15 years, including the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people, mostly foreign tourists. A sustained crackdown weakened the most dangerous networks but the emergence of IS has proved a potent new rallying cry for radicals.

Numerous recent IS-linked plots in Indonesia have been botched or foiled, with analysts saying that many of the coun-try’s militants lack the capacity to launch serious attacks.

Police patrol the scene of an explosion in Jakarta yesterday.

Suu Kyi seeks to revive peace process with talksReutersYangon

Myanmar’s leader Aung San Suu Kyi yesterday opened a new round of

talks with some of the country’s myriad ethnic groups, looking to revive a stuttering peace process after a tough fi rst year in power that saw the worst fi ghting with rebels in years.

The conference comes amid continued tensions between eth-nic armed groups, the military and Nobel Peace Prize winner Suu Kyi, and analysts said it was unlikely to see any new groups join a landmark ceasefi re accord negotiated by the previous ad-ministration.

Ending decades of near-per-petual civil war is Suu Kyi’s stated No 1 priority — a goal she sees as key to unlocking the resource-rich country’s potential and guaranteeing basic development for its more than 50mn people.

In an opening speech, Suu Kyi urged the gathered rebel repre-sentatives to join the National Ceasefi re Agreement (NCA) ne-gotiated by a quasi-civilian tran-sitional government that took of-fi ce after the end of junta-rule in 2011.

She said the NCA was not a goal in itself, but a fi rst step to-wards deepening dialogue.

“We recognise that ceasefi re negotiations can address sur-face problems, but only political dialogue can address underly-ing grievances,” Suu Kyi told the delegates gathered in the capital Naypyitaw.

The 71-year-old de facto leader of the country said that the “door to dialogue” with groups that have not yet signed the peace deal remained open, pledging she would strive to bring them “un-der the NCA umbrella”.

Some representatives of ethnic armed groups have complained in the past that Suu Kyi has tak-en a top-down approach to the process, unilaterally dictating the agenda, often ignoring their grievances and siding too closely with the military.

While several groups that have

recently clashed with govern-ment forces, and whose attend-ance had been in doubt, joined the negotiations, a handful of

other important groups pulled out at the last minute, local me-dia said.

Among issues on the agenda

are whether the states that make up Myanmar would be allowed to draft their own constitutions and the status of religion.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang told report-ers in Beijing that China sup-ported all eff orts to bring about peace and ethnic reconciliation in Myanmar and called for all sides to resolve their diff erences peace-fully via talks.

Several large rebel groups oper-ate on the rugged Myanmar-Chi-na border and Beijing’s special envoy, Sun Guoxiang, has quietly urged them to attend the confer-ence, amid a warming of relations between the two countries.

Myanmar army chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing told the conference that signing up to the NCA did not amount to surrender by armed groups, and pledged the military would play its part in seeking solutions to end con-fl icts.

But he also warned the groups against pushing for too much autonomy and going beyond the contours of the federal state.

“Such acts go against the de-sires and interest of the people who have high expectations of the democracy cause and peace process,” he said, adding that the military would “have to face any organization committing de-structive acts in line with its re-sponsibility”.

Several confl icts have reignite since Suu Kyi took power, dis-placing an estimated 160,000 people, according to data from the United Nations.

A coalition of four rebel groups comprising one of My-anmar’s most powerful militias, the Kachin Independence Army, staged attacks on security forces in the north of the country in No-vember.

In the spring, fi ghting with Kokang rebels in the hills along the Chinese border sent about 20,000 refugees fl eeing to Chi-na’s Yunnan province.

The conflict in northwestern Rakhine state, where an army crackdown on Rohingya Mus-lim insurgents forced 75,000 people to flee to Bangladesh amid allegations of widespread atrocities, is separate from the peace process and will not be discussed at the five-day con-ference.

Peace activists amongst 250 pardoned prisoners

Myanmar yesterday granted am-

nesty to more than 250 prisoners

ahead of peace talks yesterday with

ethnic rebel groups, including two

activists sentenced to hard labour

for their work promoting interfaith

peace.

The president’s off ice announced

late on Tuesday it would release

186 Myanmar nationals and 73 for-

eigners as a gesture of goodwill.

Among them were activists Zaw

Zaw Latt and Pwint Phyu Latt, who

were detained in 2015 after they

travelled to the headquarters of the

Kachin Independence Army to de-

liver a Christian cross and a statue

of Buddha as symbols of peace.

Last year they were jailed for

two years with hard labour in a

case that human rights activists

slammed as politically motivated

and pandering to a hate campaign

by Buddhist nationalists.

They were among some 40

political prisoners, land activists,

student activists and farmers

greeted by jubilant well-wishers as

they walked out of prison in Manda-

lay yesterday morning.

“I am very happy (but) they

should not have been in prison in

the first place,” said Harry Myo Lin,

director of human rights advocacy

group The Seagull, who went down

to meet them.

Myanmar has released more

than a thousand prisoners since

the former junta ceded power to a

quasi-civilian government in 2011.

Hundreds were pardoned

shortly after Nobel Peace Prize

winner Aung San Suu Kyi’s civilian

government took over in 2016 after

winning the first free elections in

generations.

The veteran democracy activist

spent more than 15 years under

house arrest ordered by the then-

military junta, and her party is

stacked with former political pris-

oners jailed for their activism.

But the initial wave of releases

has ebbed and a surge in prosecu-

tions under a controversial online

defamation law has raised concerns

about lingering curbs on free

expression.

Around 100 people are still being

held as political prisoners, while

more than 200 are awaiting trial for

political crimes, according to the

Assistance Association for Political

Prisoners watchdog.

Harry Myo Lin said the civilian

government’s hands were tied by

the military, which still controls key

levers of power under a junta-era

constitution.

“One of the diff iculties almost all

the time here is the government

doesn’t have control of the home

ministry,” he told AFP.

“Also, the judiciary is not as

independent as it should be.”

Activist Pwint Phyu Latt (centre) greets friends and family members after she was released from Oo Bo prison in Mandalay yesterday.

Three years after coup, junta is deeply embedded in Thai lifeReutersBangkok

On Friday evenings in Thai-land, sandwiched between the evening news and a popu-

lar soap opera, is a prime-time pro-gramme that has been running for three years, or ever since the military took power in a May 22, 2014 coup.

Called ‘Sustainable Development from a Royal Philosophy’, it stars jun-ta leader and former army chief Gen Prayut Chan-ocha speaking on a range of topics, from the virtues of modesty to the state of the economy.

The military has always played a prominent role in Thai life.

But Prayut’s show is just one of many examples of how embedded the junta has become in Thai society.

Thailand’s military government has acknowledged it wants to weaken po-litical parties and maintain permanent infl uence over future elected govern-ments, partly through a new constitu-tion approved by Thailand’s king last month.

But data compiled by Reuters shows the military is not just trying to infl u-ence Thailand’s political life.

It is leaving an imprint on nearly every institution of Thai society, with brass hats far more entrenched in sen-ior positions than under previous mil-itary governments.

The military now controls 143 out of 250 parliamentary seats. Under the previous junta after the 2006 coup, the military held 67 out of 242 seats.

The cabinet is stacked with soldiers.Out of the 36 cabinet members, 12

have a military background.In 2006, only four military offi cers

were among the 37 cabinet members.The military is also entwined with

the powerful monarchy — the name of Prayut’s show is derived from the philosophy of the late king Bhumibol Adulyadej, who died last October after seven decades on the throne.

More than half of the 13 members of the Privy Council, the body that ad-vises new King Maha Vajiralongkorn — himself a former soldier — are mili-tary men. It was just under half in the previous Council.

Cinema and television stations are increasingly showing pro-military themes and the school curriculum features military slogans.

“The military coup of 2014 off ered the armed forces the chance to put in place a wider footprint and they are doing so,” Paul Chambers, a professor at Naresuan University and an expert on the Thai military, told Reuters in an e-mail.

“A younger generation of retired military offi cers are, since the end of 2016, sitting on the Privy Council,” he noted.

The public does not appear too con-cerned.

The government says military re-cruitment numbers doubled in 2017 from the previous year and attribute that to public approval of their hard-line tactics in breaking a political im-passe that had persisted for years.

Polls backed by the military gov-ernment show Thais are content with military rule, although no such polls have been published in recent months.

Perhaps more revealing than a military government stacked full of military men is the number of orders issued by the junta: 358 in total since 2014.

The orders aimed to impose disci-pline on every aspect of Thai public life.

They ranged from making seatbelts mandatory for passengers in the back-seats of cars to holding parents ac-countable for student fi ghts.

The junta has also launched disci-

plinary initiatives such as a hotline to deal with misbehaving Buddhist monks and so-called “attitude adjust-ment” programmes for drunk drivers.

The campaign has covered every-thing from a crackdown on taxi gangs at airports to a clean-up of street food stalls, the latter with mostly mixed re-sults.

Army spokesman Winthai Suvaree said those eff orts by the junta, for-mally known as the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO), have im-proved Thailand.

“Overall, people are satisfi ed with concrete changes in the society,” Win-thai told Reuters.

He did not specifi cally address the militarisation of Thai society.

Thailand has been bitterly divided since a 2006 coup against then prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, a bil-lionaire businessman turned politi-cian who gained the adoration of rural voters through populist schemes but made many enemies among the mili-tary-royalist elite.

After the restoration of democracy, the military again intervened in 2014 to topple a civilian government led by Thaksin’s sister Yingluck Shinawatra.

Thailand’s military has staged 12 coups since the end of direct rule by kings in 1932.

The 2014 coup was partly the mili-tary’s way of trying to make right what it viewed as the mistakes of the 2006 coup, including a failure to get rid of Thaksin’s allies and subdue his sup-porters, political analysts say.

Prayut, then a major-general, was part of the junta that seized control of the government in 2006.

He led the 2014 putsch as army chief, saying the military needed to restore order following a cycle of mass protests and violence.

The junta has been under pres-sure from some Western countries to return to democracy after repeated delays to the general election, now scheduled for some time next year.

Thailand’s Prime Minister Prayut Chan-ocha (centre) attends the annual Royal Ploughing Ceremony in Bangkok earlier this month.

President Widodo okays extension of moratorium on clearing forestsReutersJakarta

Indonesian President Joko Widodo has approved a two-year exten-sion to a moratorium on issuing

new licences to use land designated as primary forest and peatland, the en-vironment and forestry minister said yesterday.

This is the third extension of the moratorium, which was established in 2011 under the previous administration of president Susilo Bambang Yudhoy-ono, in an eff ort to reduce emissions from fi res caused by deforestation.

The previous extension expired on May 20 and the latest rollover would give authorities more time to pin down regulations on forest use, environment and forestry minister Siti Nurbaya Bakar said in a text message.

“While we are gathering enough material to decide on licensing and pri-mary forest and peatland governance, the presidential instruction is extend-ed for now,” Bakar told Reuters.

By November 2016, the govern-ment’s forest moratorium covered an area of more than 66mn hectares.

Indonesia is prone to outbreaks of

forest fi res during dry seasons, often blamed on the draining of peatland forests and land clearance for agricul-ture.

The resulting choking smoke often blows across to neighbouring coun-tries such as Singapore and Malaysia, slashing visibility and causing a health hazard.

There were massive forest fi res in 2015, aff ecting mainly the island of Su-matra and Kalimantan, the Indonesian portion of Borneo island.

The World Bank estimated that 2.6mn hectares of land in Indonesia was destroyed at that time, causing $16bn of damage.

Indonesia is the world’s biggest palm oil producer and environmentalists blame much of the forest destruction on land clearance for the crop.

An executive at the Indonesian Palm Oil Association (GAPKI) said he hoped the government would provide more certainty for plantation industries such as palm oil.

“After completing all these (poli-cies), the government has to have a masterplan for national palm oil,” Eddy Martono of GAPKI said.

“The reality now is Indonesian palm oil has become an economic backbone.”

Stolen ancient giant coral found dumped back in the sea

An ancient giant coral specimen weigh-

ing 500kg was stolen from an island in

Thailand before being found dumped

back in the sea, a marine off icial told

DPA yesterday.

The 2m wide coral believed by local

tour operators to be 1,000 years old

was found missing when tourists went

snorkelling at Koh Wiang island on Mon-

day, said Wan Chatri, a marine off icer in

Thailand’s south.

Koh Wiang is located in the Gulf of

Thailand, just off the eastern coast of

the southern province of Chumphon,

460km south-west of Bangkok.

It is a popular spot among snorkel-

lers.

Following a tip-off , the giant coral

was found dumped back into the sea

on Tuesday, possibly because it was too

heavy for the thieves to carry, Wan said.

According to Wan, although coral

thefts in Thailand have occurred spo-

radically — or at least once a year — this

is the first such attempt to steal a coral

this big and this old.

Marine patrols have been intensified,

but it is still diff icult to prevent coral

thefts because the thieves kept chang-

ing where they strike, he added.

AUSTRALASIA/EAST ASIA19Gulf Times

Thursday, May 25, 2017

After US student’s speech, mockery and anger in ChinaReutersBeijing

When Chinese stu-dent Yang Shuping described how she

ditched her fi ve pollution masks upon discovering the “oddly lux-urious” air of the United States, she drew a fi erce online backlash, indignant newspaper columns and even a rebuttal from her hometown.

Yesterday, the official Xin-hua news agency’s English-language Twitter account broadcast a live-stream from Kunming, with two reporters interviewing passersby about air quality and whether they wore pollution masks. “As you can see, most of the people don’t wear masks, but some do,” one of the reporters said.

China’s foreign ministry also weighed in, saying it was aware the issue was being widely dis-

cussed online, and that any Chinese citizen should “make remarks responsibly”.

Delivering her commence-ment address at the University of Maryland on Sunday, the psychology and theatre gradu-ate said that back home, she was forced to wear a face mask every time she went outside to prevent falling sick.

“When I took my first breath of American air, I put my mask away.” she said. “The air was

so sweet and fresh, and oddly luxurious.”

“Democracy and freedom are the fresh air that is worth fighting for,” she said.

As the video went viral, and the online furore escalated over what was interpreted as an affront to China, netizens scoured Yang’s online presence for personal details, a proc-ess known in China as “human flesh search”.

They found Yang hailed from

Kunming, capital of the south-western province of Yunnan, a gateway to some of China’s most idyllic scenic attractions —and fresh air.

The revelation prompted a tongue-in-cheek retort from the city on its official Weibo social media account.

“We won’t take the rap for this! Up to May 8, the number of good quality air days in Kun-ming this year is 100%,” it said.

Netizens accused Yang of

pandering to her American au-dience.

“Freedom of speech doesn’t mean not respecting the facts,” said one person on Weibo. “Trampling on China to praise the US, sorry I can’t agree with that.”

Yang apologised on Monday. “The speech is just to share my overseas experience and comes with no intention to ne-gate or belittle my country,” she said on Weibo, deleting earlier

posts. At a daily foreign minis-try news briefing, spokesman Lu Kang said many students studying abroad would natu-rally experience a “develop-ment and change process” in how they see the world.

“As long as in the end they still ardently love the mother-land, and are willing to make contributions toward it, I be-lieve the Chinese government will encourage, support and welcome it,” he said.

China says no one should bring chaos to Korean peninsulaReutersBeijing

China said yesterday no one had the right to bring chaos to the Korean pe-

ninsula, a day after it pushed for full implementation of UN sanctions against neighbouring North Korea for its missile and nuclear tests and called for dia-logue.

The United States has been trying to persuade China, North Korea’s lone major ally, to do more to rein in Pyongyang, which has conducted dozens of missile launches and tested two nuclear bombs since the start of last year, in defi ance of UN Se-

curity Council resolutions.The North has proudly publi-

cised its plans to develop a mis-sile capable of striking the Unit-ed States and has ignored calls to halt its weapons programmes, even from China. It says the pro-gramme is necessary to counter US aggression. Its last missile test was on Sunday.

“No matter which party it is, no one has the right to bring war and chaos upon the peninsula,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told reporters after meeting German Foreign Minister Sig-mar Gabriel.

He said anyone who did that would bear “historical respon-sibility”.

US President Donald Trump

has said “a major, major con-fl ict” with North Korea is pos-sible and that all options are on the table, but that he wants to resolve the crisis diplomatically.

China has been infuriated by the US deployment of its Ter-minal High Altitude Area De-fense (THAAD) system in South Korea, saying it is a threat to its own security and will do nothing to ease tensions with North Ko-rea. The United States and South Korea, which hosts 28,500 US troops, have said the deploy-ment is aimed purely at defend-ing against the North Korean threat.

China fully implements its UN Security Council sanction commitments towards North

Korea and will continue to play a constructive role in negotia-tions, Wang said.

Almost a month ago, Wash-ington began discussions with China on strengthening UN sanctions. However, a week ago US UN Ambassador Nikki Haley said Beijing had gone quiet.

Traditionally, the United States and China have negoti-ated new sanctions before in-volving the other 13 UN Security Council members.

The Security Council fi rst im-posed sanctions on Pyongyang in 2006 and ratcheted up the measures in response to fi ve nu-clear tests and two long-range missile launches. North Korea is threatening a sixth nuclear test.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un inspecting the test-fire of a ground-to-ground missile Pukguksong-2.

Kim Jong-un ‘a madman with nuclear weapons’: TrumpPresident Donald Trump called North Korean leader Kim Jong-un a “madman with nuclear weap-ons” during a telephone call with Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, according to a transcript of the conversation released by US media on Tuesday. A White House readout of the April 29 call characterised it as a “very friendly conversation.” Days after the con-versation, Trump said publicly that he would be “honoured” to meet with Kim. But in the call, Trump hinted at a possible dramatic escalation on

the Korean Peninsula. “We can’t let a madman with nuclear weapons let on the loose like that. We have a lot of firepower, more than he has, times 20 -- but we don’t want to use it,” the US leader said, citing “two nuclear submarines” the Pen-tagon sent to the area last month. Transcribed by the Philippine government, the conversation was released by The Washington Post and The Intercept. Trump also queried Duterte about whether he believed Kim was “stable or not stable.” The Philip-pine leader responded that their

North Korean counterpart’s “mind is not working and he might just go crazy one moment.” Kim has a “dangerous toy in his hands that could create so much agony and suff ering for all mankind,” he added. But Trump appeared reassured that North Ko-rea’s recent missile tests had failed, saying that “all his rockets are crashing. That’s the good news.” Turning to China and its ability to counter the nuclear threat, Trump pressed Duterte to call Chinese President Xi Jinping to exert pres-sure.

Aussie billionaire uses land rights laws to keep prospectors off farm

ReutersSydney

Mining magnate Andrew Forrest has used laws designed to protect

indigenous land rights to stop prospectors searching for miner-als on his West Australian cattle farms, angering both traditional Aboriginal landowners and min-ing community members.

While tensions between the competing interests of in-digenous landholders, pasto-ral leaseholders and miners on government-controlled land are common, Forrest’s approach represents one of the fi rst known examples of a non-Aboriginal successfully using rights aff ord-ed to indigenous people to their own advantage.

Native title is a legal doctrine

in Australia that recognises in-digenous rights to certain parcels of land.

Forrest’s use of it is not illegal, but it adds to the fractious rela-tionship he has with some indig-enous groups. Diff erent groups have raised concerns over For-rest’s cattle interests and have battled over land rights with the company he founded and chairs — Fortescue Metals Group, the world’s fourth biggest iron ore miner.

A spokeswoman for Forrest said the issue was about comply-ing with mining regulations.

“It is neither a matter of using native title law nor objecting to prospecting,” said the spokes-woman.

She said there was support for Forrest’s position within the Thalanyji people who hold native title under some of his cattle sta-

tions. The farms operated with the utmost respect for the envi-ronment, she added.

But Matthew Slack, the head of the Buurabalayji Thalanyji Ab-original Corp which oversees na-tive title for the indigenous land-owners, said it was “pretty rich” for Forrest to use rights designed to protect indigenous interests.

Thalanyji were also concerned about cattle numbers and water use at Forrest’s 2,400 square km Minderoo pastoral lease in West-ern Australia’s Pilbara district, he said. “We are disgusted with Forrest and have been for some time. Slack said. “Our dreamtime creatures can’t survive because the river is so low.”

On May 31, 2016, two small prospectors lodged applications to search for minerals on Uaroo Station, where Forrest holds a similarly sized pastoral lease,

after physically marking out the territory with pegs.

Slack said Thalanyji had given the prospectors permission to be on that land. But before the gov-ernment approved the prospect-ing licences, a company called Red Sky Stations lodged an ob-jection in the state’s Warden’s Court, where mining-related disputes are held.

Red Sky is one of several com-panies that represent Forrest’s pastoral interests, a Reuters review of court and company documents found. Red Sky suc-cessfully argued the prospectors had not sought a specifi c permit from Thalanyji required to mark out the land and their applica-tions were rejected in a February decision.

The ruling caught Thalanyji by surprise. “If we’d been more aware, we would’ve had input

into the proceedings,” Slack said.Attempts to contact the two

prospectors were unsuccessful.While the prospectors could

re-start the process, the licence process has been frustrated and delayed. The move comes shortly after a separate analysis by Reu-ters found Forrest had covered large sections of his cattle sta-tions with mining and explo-ration applications by his own companies.

Forrest said his applications were for bone fi de exploration and mining, denying sugges-tions it was a tactic to block rivals gaining access. Forrest was one of Australia’s most prolifi c mining prospectors in the 2000s when he founded and built Fortescue, pressuring rivals to release land they weren’t actively exploring in the Pilbara, the world’s biggest iron ore precinct.

Agricultural drones being used to spray pesticide on crops in a village in Poyang, central China’s Jiangxi province.

Green drones Plane skids

off runway in

heavy rain in

Hong Kong

AFPHong Kong

A plane veered off the runway at Hong Kong airport yesterday after

heavy rain lashed the area, forc-ing the temporary closure of the airstrip and delaying scores of fl ights.

The China Eastern Airlines fl ight from Nanjing, which had 141 people on board, skidded onto a grass area as it was taxiing to the gate, Hong Kong’s Airport Authority said.

Two passengers reported feeling unwell and were sent to hospital, the authority said. The runway — one of two at the airport — was temporarily shut-tered, delaying 109 fl ights, both incoming and outgoing, the au-thority said, with local media reporting heavy stacking over the storm-soaked city.

Hard times: Japanese yakuza arrested for stealing foodstuff AFPTokyo

Life as a Japanese “yakuza” mobster is getting so hard that some are resorting to shoplifting food to stay in business. Two members of an organised crime gang were arrested for

allegedly trying to steal grocery items worth 76,120 yen ($683) at a mall in the central Japanese city of Nagoya, police said yesterday.

“They are members of an affi liated gang group of the Kobe Yamaguchi-gumi,” a police spokesman said, referring to an or-ganisation that split off from the country’s biggest yakuza crime syndicate, Yamaguchi-gumi, in 2015.

The gangsters, aged 52 and 59, reportedly tried to steal 198 items including a watermelon, rice, eel, and prepared dishes, in the com-pany of their gang boss, the Asahi and Mainichi dailies reported.

One of the men told police that “the group is so poor” members have to steal food, the Mainichi said.

Japan’s yakuza blossomed from the chaos of post-war Japan into multi-billion-dollar criminal organisations involved in eve-rything from gambling, drugs and prostitution to loan sharking, protection rackets and white-collar crime.

They were long tolerated as a necessary evil for ensuring or-der on the streets and getting things done quickly – however dubious the means. Unlike the Italian Mafi a or Chinese triads in other countries, yakuza have long occupied a peculiar grey area in Japanese society – they are not illegal and each group has its own headquarters in full view of police. But waning social tolerance, a weak economy and steadily falling memberships have hurt their bottom line.

South Korea ‘Rasputin’ daughter abandons appeal for extradition

The daughter of the woman at the centre of a corrup-tion scandal that led to the impeachment of South Ko-rea’s ousted president has cancelled her appeal against extradition, a Danish court said yesterday. Chung Yoo-ra, the 20-year-old daughter of the woman dubbed South Korea’s “Ras-putin”, is one of the figures in the influence-peddling scandal that sparked huge street protests demanding the removal of President Park Geun-hye. “Decision to extradite Korean Ms Chung is now final,” the court announced on Twitter. “She has cancelled (her) ap-peal to (the) High Court.” An extradition date has not been set, the court said. Chung was detained in Den-mark on January 1 for over-

staying her visa, after South Korean authorities issued a warrant for her arrest. Seoul then sought her extradition, which the Danish public prosecution authority approved in March. Chung took her case against extradi-tion to the Aalborg district court, but the court upheld her extradition, which she then appealed. Her lawyer Michael Juul Erik-sen told AFP last month that Chung’s main fear regarding extradition was losing contact with her infant son because she had been “pressured” and “threatened” by the Korean authorities to collaborate in the case. Eriksen argued in the Aalborg district court that his client had not committed any crime and that the extradition was politically motivated.

BRITAIN20 Gulf Times

Thursday, May 25, 2017

Messages and floral tributes left for the victims of the attack on Manchester Arena lie in St Ann’s Square in central Manchester yesterday.

Police hunts terror networkAFPManchester

The police yesterday raced to track down a militant network suspected of or-

chestrating the Manchester con-cert bombing, as soldiers fanned out to guard key sites under a maximum terror alert.

Investigators were trying to piece together the last move-ments of suicide bomber Sal-man Abedi, a Manchester-born university dropout whose par-ents had reportedly fl ed the now fallen regime of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi .

“It’s very clear that this is a network that we are investigat-ing,” Manchester police chief Ian Hopkins told reporters, with fi ve people now under arrest.

The government announced a nationwide minute’s silence for today morning in memory of the 22 people killed and doz-ens wounded in Monday night’s bombing.

A girl aged just eight was among the victims of the attack, which was claimed by the Islam-ic State group.

It was the latest in a series of deadly incidents across Europe claimed by IS militants that have coincided with an off ensive on the group’s redoubts in Syria and Iraq carried out by US, British and other Western forces.

Offi cials said the 22-year-old Abedi had been on the radar of the intelligence community be-fore the massacre at a concert by US pop star Ariana Grande, and warned another attack “may be imminent”.

After arresting a 23-year-old man on Tuesday, police said they had taken three more men into custody yesterday in south Man-chester, where Abedi lived.

A fi fth man who was carrying a suspect package was then de-tained in Wigan, west of the city.

An armed raid was also carried out in Manchester city centre yesterday, during which police said a nearby railway line had to be “briefl y closed”.

Hundreds of armed military personnel meanwhile fanned out to take up guard duties at the parliament and Buckingham Palace — a highly unusual sight on the streets of Britain since the end of the Northern Ireland con-fl ict in the 1990s.

Manchester police resources beefed up after attackReutersLondon

Hours after the Manches-ter suicide bombing, Prime Minister Theresa

May stood on the steps of her of-fi cial Downing Street residence and promised to give police the resources they needed to investi-gate the attack.

For police in the northern city, her assurance given in London on Tuesday off ered some hope and comfort after years of cost-saving cutbacks — many of them launched by May in 2012 when she was interior minister.

Some police say privately they believe security in the capital — 250km to the south of Manches-ter — has been prioritised at the expense of other cities, where staff cuts have hit hard, career

opportunities have been reduced and many offi cers fear for their jobs.

It is not clear whether the cut-backs — imposed as the govern-ment slashes spending across most departments to reduce its budget defi cit — did anything to make Manchester more vulner-able to an attack like Monday night’s bombing after a concert by US pop star Ariana Grande.

Nevertheless, they opened an old sore for some. “No one can tell what goes through the minds of radicalised individuals, it’s so unpredictable and hard to po-lice,” said a Manchester police offi cer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorised to speak to the media.

“However, a reason could possi-bly be that the diff erent level of se-curity between London compared with Manchester played a role.”

The offi cer describes fi ve years of attrition, seeing “fewer bob-bies on the beat” — a reference to frontline police whose presence on the streets off ers them insight into local aff airs and sometimes snippets of intelligence brought by people who would not neces-sarily pick up the phone.

Greater Manchester Police declined to comment and the Greater Manchester Police Fed-eration, the force’s de facto trade union, did not respond to a re-quest for comment by the time of publication.

Some offi cers said they would face hours of overtime work to

cover the additional demands.Addressing those offi cers on

Tuesday morning — just hours after 22-year-old Salman Abedi blew himself up in the foyer of the Manchester Arena, killing at least 22 people including children and teenagers — May promised to give them “all the resources they need to complete that task”.

It is a statement she has re-peated since as the police and se-curity services look into whether Abedi was part of a cell.

The police have said they now believe it is “very clear” they are investigating a network.

London has been the focus of additional security since an attack in March when Khalid Masood ploughed his car into people on Westminster Bridge leading to parliament, killing four before stabbing to death a police-man on guard at the building.

New barriers have been put outside Buckingham Palace and other high-profi le sites.

In parliament, armed police have become a more prominent fi xture.

Some police offi cers outside London have long criticised what they see as the capital getting the lion’s share of funding and per-sonnel — feeling less of the brunt of the cuts than forces in other cities and towns.

Since 2012, Greater Manches-ter Police has seen a steady de-cline in its workforce, with the steepest fall last year.

London’s Metropolitan Police has also seen a contraction over that time but at a slower rate.

May, who as a former home secretary was an architect of some of the cuts, has often been the focus for criticism.

In 2012, thousands of police

offi cers and supporters took to the streets to protest against the budget cuts of 20% in England and Wales, with May accused of everything from benefi ting from privatising some police functions to ignoring the plight of offi cers struggling with lower pay.

At the Police Federation con-ference that year, she was heck-led when she told members: “So let’s stop pretending the police are being picked on. Every part of the public sector is having to take its share of the pain.”

One police offi cer wrote a let-ter detailing some of the wide-spread criticisms of a two-year pay freeze and removal of some terms felt by many: “Morale is certainly the lowest I have ever known,” the offi cer, who was not named, wrote in an e-mail to the Greater Manchester Police Fed-eration.

US officials leak more details hoursafter being rebukedUS off icials disclosed fresh details of the investigation into the Manchester bombing to journalists within hours of Am-ber Rudd warning them to stop the leaking.The steady drip of details from the US – as well as from France – is hampering the investigation by British police, who are trying to control the release of informa-tion for operational reasons.The home secretary reflected the frustration and dismay of the UK security services in a series of interviews yesterday morning. She described the leaks as “irritating” and said she had made it clear to the US that it should not happen again.However, within hours, American reporter Richard Engel of NBC tweeted details not released by the UK. Engel said US intelligence off ic-ers told him family members of the killer, Salman Abedi, had warned UK security off icials about him and had described him as dangerous.Engel also reported that US intel-ligence off icials said Abedi had a bank card in his pocket showing his name, and his identity had been confirmed by facial recogni-tion. He added that Abedi prob-ably had help in making a “big and sophisticated bomb”.The intelligence community has long been uncomfortable about revelations from its recent past made in books and articles, but the release of details of a live investigation on the scale of those by the US and France is a relatively new phenomenon.It comes on top of Donald Trump’s release of intelligence to Russia.The leak of the British informa-tion, as well as demonstrating a lack of respect for a US ally at an emotional time, will have hin-dered the investigation, where it is essential to control the release of details.UK counter-terrorism specialists said this week they needed to keep secret the name of a per-petrator or suspect for at least

36 hours to ensure there was an element of surprise in approach-ing relatives, friends and others.American off icials in Washington briefed US journalists early on Tuesday about the number of dead, confirming that it was a suicide bombing and – hours later – the name of the killer. The UK had not been planning to release the name on Tuesday.The UK’s reluctance to iden-tify the assailant was evident because it took hours after his name was circulating in the US media before Greater Manches-ter police confirmed it.Rudd said: “The British police have been very clear that they want to control the flow of information in order to protect operational integrity, the element of surprise. So it is irritating if it gets released from other sources and I have been very clear with our friends that should not happen again.”Although her language was mild, it is rare for a UK politician to issue such a rebuke to the Americans.Adding an image of western security services as unco-ordinated and amateurish, the French Interior Minister, Gerard Collomb, then told French televi-sion yesterday that Abedi had been in Libya and possibly Syria, information UK police had not disclosed.Asked about the French leak, Rudd said: “We need to let the operation continue and for the intelligence services and the po-lice to make what investigations they can. Any new information is of course welcome for them, but I’m not going to comment any further on the actual operation.”UK security professionals are almost certainly appalled by what has happened, as will be their counterparts in the US and France.Anger about the extent of the leaks is not confined to the UK. Senior members of the US Con-gress also expressed concern.

Abedi ‘was known to security services’AgenciesLondon

Salman Abedi, the suicide bomber who killed 22 peo-ple in an attack in Manches-

ter on Monday, was a university dropout with “proven” links to the Islamic State group, according to France’s interior minister.

Born to a Libyan family in Brit-ain’s third biggest city, offi cials said he was known to security services. His father was report-edly a well-known fi gure.

Abedi “grew up in Britain and then suddenly, after a trip to Libya and then likely to Syria, became radicalised and decided to carry out

this attack”, French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb told BFMTV.

He said it was “possible” that Abedi had had assistance from other people, adding that his links with the Islamic State group which claimed responsibility for the carnage “are proven”.

“The perpetrator was Salman Ramadan Abedi, who was born and brought up in Britain,” Prime Minister Theresa May said in a tel-evised address from her Downing Street residence, condemning his actions as “callous and cowardly”.

Abedi’s family have lived in the Fallowfi eld area of south Man-chester for at least 10 years, ac-cording to The Daily Telegraph newspaper. Armed police raided

an address in the modestly well-to-do area. A 23-year-old man was also arrested in the south of the city in connection with the attack. Three more men were ar-rested in the area yesterday.

Fallowfi eld resident Peter Jones, 53, described the neigh-bourhood as “quiet and safe”. Jones said he was “shocked” and “surprised” when he heard that the suspect was from there.

Media reports said Abedi’s par-ents fl ed Libya to escape the re-gime of former dictator Muammar Gaddafi . Around 16,000 Libyans live in Britain and Manchester is home to the largest community, according to the BBC.

It was a focus of celebrations

when the Gaddafi regime fell in 2011. Reports said Abedi was the second youngest of four children, including another two sons and one daughter.

One member of Manches-ter’s Libyan community told The Guardian newspaper: “He was such a quiet boy, always very re-spectful towards me. His brother Ismael is outgoing, but Salman was very quiet. He is such an un-likely person to have done this.”

Abedi began studying business and management at Salford Uni-versity in Manchester in 2014, a source told the Press Association news agency, but he dropped out after two years and did not com-plete his degree.

A soldier patrols with an armed police off icer near the Houses of Parliament in central London yesterday.

A woman reads a poem during a multi-faith vigil for victims of the attack on the Manchester Arena, in Manchester.

A young woman reacts as she holds a rose while looking at the messages and floral tributes left for the victims of the attack on Manchester Arena, in central Manchester, yesterday.

A community support off icer carries flowers near Manchester Arena.

BRITAIN/IRELAND21Gulf Times

Thursday, May 25, 2017

Wahaca diners who fellill in line for payoutsLondon Evening StandardLondon

Diners who fell seriously ill after eating at Wahaca may be in line for sub-

stantial payouts after the res-taurant chain admitted liability in a number of cases.

About 160 customers and 200 staff complained that they had contracted norovirus last year, forcing nine of the Mexi-can restaurants established by Masterchef winner Thomasina Miers to close temporarily last November.

Lawyers acting for some of the victims say they hope to secure “swift justice”, with payments in excess of £15,000 expected for those left seri-ously ill or facing long-term complications.

One diner, Sarah Cousins, 16, of Wallingford, Oxfordshire, was hospitalised with severe gastric symptoms after visit-ing the Westfield branch in White City at the end of Octo-

ber. The A-level student, who has Type-1 diabetes, went on to develop the potentially life-threatening illness ketoacido-sis. She was absent from col-lege at a critical point in her studies.

Her father, Dr Mike Cous-ins, instructed lawyers in Irwin Mitchell’s public health team to investigate, and Wahaca’s in-surers have accepted blame for its seven clients. A letter from the insurer states: “Liability is admitted for this incident.”

Dr Cousins, 48, said: “Wa-haca’s admission of liability is a very welcome sign. It has been awful to see how this illness has affected Sarah. We were in-credibly worried when she was admitted to hospital and it was a shock to see the impact that the illness had on her diabetes.”

Amandeep Dhillon, of Ir-win Mitchell solicitors, who is representing the Cousins fam-ily and six other diners, said: “While many people do recover within days, such illnesses can have a lasting impact on vic-

tims and — in cases like Sarah’s — lead to further complicating and serious health problems.”

Five of the nine restaurants closed temporarily were in London — Westfield, Covent Garden, Canary Wharf, Soho and St Paul’s. Mark Selby, co-founder of Wahaca, said: “We were contacted by the Cousins family in November and spoke with them directly regarding their daughter Sarah. Follow-ing a claim from their lawyers, we are now in correspondence with them to ensure that Sa-rah’s case gets resolved swiftly and fairly.” A spokesman add-ed: “Any cases brought to Wa-haca’s attention are being dealt with on an individual basis, and are being treated as swiftly and fairly as possible.”

Public Health England said a report on the case would be published shortly. In an inter-view with the Standard earlier this year, Miers said she was proud of the way Wahaca had acted so swiftly to tackle the outbreak.

Kenny for review intocorporate watchdogReutersDublin

Ireland’s Prime Minis-ter Enda Kenny yesterday called for a review into fail-

ings by the country’s corporate watchdog in a criminal investi-gation into the former head of the failed Anglo Irish Bank.

Sean FitzPatrick was acquitted this week of charges of mislead-ing auditors about tens of mil-lions of euros in personal loans after a judge ruled that the inves-tigation which led to the trial fell short of the impartial, unbiased inquiry to which a defendant is entitled.

FitzPatrick had pleaded not guilty to the charges, which fol-lowed the jailing last year of two former Anglo bosses who were among the fi rst senior bank ex-ecutives to be jailed in relation to Ireland’s banking crisis a decade ago.

The judge in FitzPatrick’s trial criticised staff at Ireland’s offi ce of the director of corporate en-forcement (ODCE), in particular their coaching of two witnesses - audit partners from Ernst &

Young (EY) - that had contami-nated their evidence.

Anglo Irish, which was na-tionalised in 2009 and subse-quently liquidated, was synony-mous with the lending bonanza that drove Ireland into an inter-national bailout in 2010.

Ireland’s banking crisis cost the country’s taxpayers 64bn euros (£55.2bn), the euro zone’s most expensive state bailout at almost 40% of annual economic output.

“I want the minister to carry out an absolute review of what happened here. The minister has asked the director of the ODCE for a full report, including the role of all professionals involved in this case,” Kenny told lawmakers.

The ODCE said it fully accept-ed the judge’s criticism and that at the time, it was not equipped to undertake a probe of the scale involved. It said it had since un-dergone substantial organisa-tional changes, including the recruitment of several investiga-tive accountants and forensics specialists.

Some opposition parties called for the ODCE to be replaced and Kenny said “nothing is ruled out.”

The Chelsea Flower Show is not the only area of London in full bloom: neighbour Belgravia is showing what it can do. Shops, hotels and other businesses have been transformed by elaborate floral displays and installations as part of Belgravia in Bloom. The six-day festival, which began yesterday, is timed to coincide with the royal horticultural society’s event in Chelsea. Eye-catching entries include hanging baskets of pink roses and peonies at cake company Peggy Porschen. In total 56 businesses are taking part and the best displays will receive prizes.

Belgravia blooms

Five people died on the M6 yesterday after a crash involving a lorry and a car. The car’s driver and four passengers were killed in the collision which hap-pened between Stoke-on-Trent and Staff ord in the early hours. One other passenger in the car, a man in his forties, suff ered multiple serious injuries and has been taken to Royal Stoke University Hospital. West Midlands Ambulance Service said: “When emergency services arrived they discovered a car with six occupants inside that had been involved in a significant collision with a HGV. It quickly became apparent that nothing could be done to save the driver and four passengers. All five were confirmed dead on scene.”

Property expert Phil Spencer has warned house-hunters in the capital that searching for their dream home on the Internet can be “counter-productive”. The Location, Location, Location star urged people to only go online for research and instead “make good, solid contacts” with local estate agents. The pre-senter, 47, told the Standard: “There’s so much competition for houses for those wanting to get on the ladder. The ‘best in breed’ flats, as I call them, go before they are even online. The internet can be detrimental, counter-productive yes, and you will probably not find a property in London online.”

Former Premier League striker Nile Ranger has been jailed after admitting online banking fraud.The footballer, 26, was sentenced on Tuesday to eight months for conspiracy to defraud by obtaining bank details and transferring money. Wood Green crown court heard a woman lost more than £2,000 in the scam. Aseany Duncan, 19, from Enfield, was also jailed for eight months for the same off ence. The court heard Ranger, of Southend, conspired to use the bank details of Diane Bloss in 2015 and move £2,090 from one account to another. Ranger played for Newcastle United, Swindon Town and Blackpool. He moved to Southend United in August.

A burst water main flooded a busy road yesterday, leaving homes and off ices across parts of London without supplies. Residents in St John Street, Clerkenwell, were woken in the early hours by the noise of water gushing down the road. The force of the pressure from an old Victoria trunk main ripped up the surface. Thames Water said on Twitter some homes and businesses in E2, E8, EC1, EC4 and N1 had “no water and low water”. The utility giant said teams were “working to bring water supplies in from the surrounding area” and that supplies would “begin to return to normal”. It said one basement was flooded but otherwise water damage appeared to be minimal.

The UK Independence Party (Ukip) said it would re-start its election campaign with the launch of its policy pledges today, three days after a suicide bomber killed 22 people at a concert venue in Manchester. Political parties agreed to suspend campaigning for the June 8 election until further notice after Monday’s attack. While high-profile events remained cancelled yesterday and were not expected to re-start for several days, some in-dividual candidates have said they are resuming campaigning locally. Opinion polls, the publica-tion of which has also been paused, suggests the Tories are on track to win the election, although their double-digit poll lead has been narrowing.

Five dead as carand lorry collide

Internet wrong location forhome search, says expert

Ex-premier League star jailed for banking fraud

Homes, off ices left withoutwater as main bursts

Ukip to resume pollcampaign today

ACCIDENT ADVICEVERDICT CHAOS POLITICS

Tesco trialsphase-outof single-useplastic bags

Guardian News and MediaLondon

Shoppers at a handful of Tesco stores in the UK will no longer be able to

buy 5p “single-use” plastic carrier bags, in the first such trial by a supermarket.

If successful, it could lead to the bags being phased out completely, less than two years after the law was changed in England to force larger stores to charge for them.

Britain’s biggest retailer has launched the 10-week trial in three stores – in Aberdeen, Dundee and Norwich – to see how customers manage with-out the 5p bag option. Shop-pers who forget to bring their own bags will still be able to buy more expensive reusable bags which start at 10p. Online shoppers also have the choice of the 5p bags or no bags at all and 57% now choose bagless deliveries, Tesco has said.

“We are carrying out a short trial in a few stores to look at the impact on bag usage if we remove single-use carrier bags” said a Tesco spokesper-son.

The introduction of the 5p charge in England in October 2015 brought it into line with schemes already operating in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, as part of a drive to encourage a switch away from ‘thin gauge’ throwaway car-rier bags. The charge was part of a government scheme to reduce litter and protect wild-life, given that plastic bags can take hundreds of years to break down.

About 8mn tonnes of plastic makes its way into the world’s oceans each year, posing a seri-ous threat to the marine envi-ronment. Experts estimate that plastic is eaten by 31 species of marine mammals and more than 100 species of sea birds.

The charge in England has clearly worked – official fig-ures last July revealed that the number of single-use plastic bags used by shoppers plum-meted by more than 85% after the introduction.

NHS faces huge increase in cost of elderly care,warn expertsGuardian News and MediaLondon

The NHS and social care system in the UK is facing a staggering increase in

the cost of looking after elderly people within the next few years, according to major new research which shows a 25% rise in those who will need care between 2015 and 2025. Within eight years, there will be 2.8mn people over 65 needing nursing and social care, unable to cope alone, says the re-search – largely because of the toll of dementia in a growing elderly population.

The research, published by the respected Lancet Public Health medical journal, says cases of dis-ability related to dementia will rise by 40% among people aged 65 to 84, with other forms of disability increasing by about 31%.

The new fi gures follow a furore over the Conservative manifesto and Theresa May’s U-turn on so-cial care this week. In a bid to keep the costs of care down, the mani-festo said those needing care at home would have to pay until they had £100,000 in savings left, in-cluding the cost of their home.

After accusations that the Con-servatives were imposing a “de-mentia tax”, May promised a cap on the amount any person would pay for care – although without specifying what the cap would be.

The new analysis will make grim reading for whichever party gains power.

“The societal, economic and public health implications of our forecast are substantial,” say the researchers, led by academics from the University of Liverpool and University College London.

“Public and private expendi-

ture on long-term care will need to increase considerably by 2025, in view of the predicted 25% rise in the number of people who will have age-related disability. This situation has serious implications for a cash-strapped and overbur-dened National Health Service and an under-resourced social care system,” they added.

The fi gures take account for the fi rst time of the changing disease burden as well as the increasing elderly population and longer life expectancy. Cardiovascular dis-ease, which can cause heart at-tacks and strokes, has gone down, but dementia is rising as people live longer. This makes the re-search an advance on previous studies, says professor Stuart Gil-mour of the department of global health policy at the University of Tokyo in a commentary published alongside the paper.

“The results show starkly the growing burden of disability that the UK National Health Service and social care system will face over the next decade,” he writes.

“(It) faces a rapid increase in the number of elderly people with disabilities … at a time when it is uniquely unprepared for even the existing burden of disability in the UK population. This important re-search should be taken as a warn-ing and a strong call for action on health service planning and fund-ing, workforce training and reten-tion, and preparation for the age-ing of British society.”

The government urgently needs to consider the options, says the paper. Firstly, more care homes are needed, it says. Secondly, there must be more support for informal and home care – they suggest tax allowances or cash benefi ts. “Af-fected individuals and their fami-lies pay an estimated 40% of the

national cost of long-term care from income and savings,” they write.

But prevention is also vital. Poor diet, smoking, drinking heav-ily, high blood pressure, diabetes and little physical activity are risk factors for both heart disease and dementia, they say. Immediate investment in improving people’s lifestyles would pay dividends, they say. “We seriously need to protect the future of older citizens through prevention,” said lead au-thor Dr Maria Guzman-Castillo of the University of Liverpool.

She said political parties had not so far been looking at the true scale of the crisis to come. “We think they are not looking at this. There is a gap between the academic community and the government,” she said.

Professor Helen Stokes-Lam-pard, chair of the Royal College of GPs, said more investment in the NHS and social care was desper-ately needed. “It’s a great testa-ment to medical research, and the NHS, that we are living longer – but we need to ensure that our pa-tients are living longer with a good quality of life. For this to happen we need a properly funded, prop-erly staff ed health and social care sector with general practice, hos-pitals and social care all working together – and all communicating well with each other, in the best interests of delivering safe care to all our patients.”

Margaret Willcox, president of the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS), said: “As most people expect to need some form of care in their lifetime, there is an urgent need for the whole country to consider how best to ensure people with care needs are funded and how their care is delivered.”

Enda Kenny: slams failings in Anglo Irish Bank case

EUROPE

Gulf Times Thursday, May 25, 201722

Italian Tina Kunakey arrives for a screening at the 70th edition of the Cannes Film Festival in southern France.

Uncanned

ReutersParis

A morality campaign by France’s new government took a knock yesterday

when media disclosed that a minister had rented business of-fi ces from his female partner, though the government defended him and said there was no cause for resignation.

Richard Ferrand, a close ally of President Emmanuel Ma-cron, was reported by the satiri-cal weekly Le Canard enchaine to have rented offi ce space from his partner from 2011 for health insurance companies he headed. Ferrand denies any wrongdoing.

With Macron’s government about to unveil a draft law aimed at cleaning up French political life, which is frequently beset by corruption scandals, government spokesman Christophe Castaner

admitted: “This (the disclosure) comes at a bad time.”

“But one thing is certain. There is nothing illegal here. There is nothing that is not cor-rect morally,” Castaner told Eu-rope 1 radio, later telling jour-nalists there was no question of Ferrand resigning as minister for territorial cohesion.

The aff air follows a bigger scandal which torpedoed the presidential bid of conservative former prime minister Francois Fillon.

Fillon went from front-runner in the race for the Elysee to also-ran after Le Canard enchaine re-vealed he had paid public funds to his wife and two children for work as parliamentary assistants that they might not have done.

Fillon, who subsequently crashed out of the presidential race in the fi rst round, has denied wrongdoing but admitted an er-ror of judgment, as he did for a second scandal over several ex-pensive tailor-made suits he ac-cepted from a prominent African aff airs lawyer.

Critics of the new government, however, used the disclosures of Ferrand’s past professional ac-tivities to suggest hypocrisy, given its stated commitment to stamping out abuses of privilege in political life such as that ex-posed by the Fillon case.

Francois Bayrou, the new jus-tice minister, is gathering ideas for a new draft law on ethics in public life before parliamentary elections due in mid-June.

Among those quick to try to make political capital from the aff air was far-right leader Marine Le Pen, whom Macron beat for the presidency in the fi nal round of voting on May 7.

She called on him to quit, tell-ing franceinfo radio the case in question was “very similar” to the one that felled Fillon and amounted to “absolutely im-moral personal enrichment”. Fer-rand, 54, who was rewarded with a ministerial post after leading Macron’s successful presidential campaign, headed health insur-ance companies in Brittany be-tween 1990 and 2012 and from

2011 rented offi ce space in Brest from a company belonging to his partner, Sandrine Doucen.

Ferrand defended himself in a statement early yesterday, saying the rent paid had been lower than the market price.

He also denied trying to cover up the personal links he had with the person from whom he was renting on behalf of the insurers, saying the decision was made in full transparency.

“The decision was made in full knowledge of the ties that linked Richard Ferrand and the proprie-tor of the offi ces...,” he said.

French President Emmanuel Macron’s party is set to win as much as a third of the vote in legislative elections next month, giving it a solid majority, two polls showed yesterday.

Macron’s Republic On The Move (LREM) would win 33% of the vote in the fi rst round of vot-ing on June 11, an Elabe poll for BFM TV found.

A separate Ifop Fiducial poll for Paris Match magazine, CNews TV and Sud Radio found 31% of

those surveyed planned on vot-ing for LREM.

That was up from up from 22% the last time the poll was conducted on May 4-5, before Macron was elected president in a runoff vote against far right leader Marine Le Pen on May 7.

In the Elabe poll 20% of those surveyed said they would vote for the conservative Republicans party, which was seen winning 19% of the vote in the Ifop poll.

That would be just barely ahead of Le Pen’s National Front, which was at 19% in the Elabe poll and 18% in the Ifop poll.

The far left France Unbowed party was seen winning 15% in the Ifop poll and 12% in the Elabe poll.

In both cases that was well ahead of the Socialists at about seven %, far behind the 29.5% they won in the last legislative election in 2012, giving them a majority with their allies.

Neither poll off ered an esti-mate of how many seats parties could win in the second round of voting on June 18.

Macron govt denies misstep by minister

ReutersGeneva

Angry United Nations staff in Geneva pro-tested yesterday against

a proposed 7.5% cut to their salaries, the equivalent of al-most a month’s pay, and called for strike action if it is imple-mented.

The proposal came from the International Civil Service Commission (ICSC), a group of independent experts, which surveyed the cost of living in eight UN locations.

It said the salary cut for Ge-neva-based staff , due to take eff ect in August, would align them with colleagues in New York, where purchasing power has dropped.

Hundreds of personnel at the UN European headquarters raised their hands to support a resolution rejecting the plan and marched through the build-ing chanting “No Pay Cuts”. The staff resolution urged UN agen-cies such as UNHCR and the World Health Organization not to implement the pay cuts and called for “regular, protracted and escalating collective ac-tions including demonstrations and work stoppages”.

“If we play that last card of a strike, we need to be damn sure we can turn out everybody — I mean everybody,” Daniel Cork, vice chairman of the Interna-tional Labour Organisation (ILO) staff union, told a cheer-ing crowd.

“Right now we’re not sure if the ICSC is willing to negotiate with us. They won’t meet with us,” Cork said.

Alessandra Vellucci, UN

spokeswoman in Geneva, said: “UN Geneva is taking very seri-ously the actions proposed by the unions against the possible pay cuts.

We are exploring, in collabo-ration with the UN Headquar-ters, the best way forward.”

Heads of UN agencies based in the Swiss city, in joint let-ters to ICSC chairman Kingston Rhodes, have questioned the calculations and called for de-ferring the cuts.

“We see no proper justifi ca-tion for imposing such a signifi -cant real cut to the renumera-tion of our staff ,” said a letter seen by Reuters.

Staff federations argue that the experts lowered their cal-culations of the city’s cost-of-living by including rental prices from neighbouring France, adding: “The option to reside in France is only open to staff of certain nationalities.”

Ian Richards, executive sec-retary of the Staff Coordinat-ing Council, said the average monthly salary subject to the proposed cut was 10,000 to 12,000 Swiss francs ($10,000-12,000).

“The UN has said it needs top experts such as energy econo-mists, climate change scien-tists, patent lawyers and medi-cal practitioners so it can help countries reach the Sustainable Development Goals,” Richards told Reuters. The world body has invoked public service to attract such experts from the private sector, he said.

“However, no-one in their right mind will leave their job for an organisation that from one day to the next can cut pay by one month a year for existing staff ,” he added.

UN staff angry over salary cut plan

AFPWarsaw

Activists chained them-selves to logging equip-ment in Poland’s ancient

Bialowieza forest yesterday, ac-cusing authorities of felling trees in protected areas of the Unesco World Heritage site.

The move comes after a “fi nal warning” by the European Com-mission sent to Warsaw in April saying it could take legal action to halt large-scale logging in Eu-rope’s last primeval woodland.

Dawid Kazmierczak, an activ-ist with Wild Poland said that their patrols “proved that log-ging had started in the oldest and most valuable parts of the forest” that are protected.

“Stop the logging in the Bi-alowieza Forest” read a banner protesters strung up between two trees over heavy logging equipment standing idle, pho-tographs issued by the activists yesterday showed.

“We’re in the forest to stop its destruction caused by the scan-dalous decisions of (Environ-ment) Minister Jan Szyszko,” Greenpeace Polska activist Rob-

ert Cyglicki said in a statement adding that the minister “treats the forest like a tree plantation”. The Polish government began logging in May last year, saying it was clearing dead trees to contain damage caused by a spruce bark beetle infestation, and insisting the policy was entirely legal.

Scientists, ecologists and the EU protested the move in the ancient woodland and activists now allege that it is being used as a cover for the commercial logging of protected old-growth forests.

In late April, the EU’s ex-ecutive branch — the European Commision — gave Polish au-thorities one month rather than the usual two to address its con-cerns about the forest or face be-ing summoned by the EU’s top court, citing the “urgency of the situation”. The EU is also con-cerned the logging will cause irreparable loss of biodiversity in the woodland that belongs to the EU’s Natura 2000 network of protected areas.

Poland defends the wood-cutting, calling it “protective” or “salvage” logging to stop an insect infestation, preserve road traffi c and fi ght forest fi re risks.

Protest over logging in ancient forest

AFPMilan

Italian businessman Adriano Riva, whose family owned the bankrupt Ilva steel fi rm, was

handed a two-and-half-year term yesterday after transferring 1.3bn euros ($1.5bn) siphoned off from the company.

Heavily indebted and short of cash, Ilva was taken over by the Italian state in 2014.

The year before it had been placed under special adminis-tration after the Rivas were ac-cused of failing to prevent toxic emissions including carcinogen-ic particles from spewing out across the town of Taranto in the Puglia region of southern Italy. Prosecutors say that more than 400 deaths were caused by the toxic emissions.

The family admitted to having saved over 1.3bn euros between 2009 and 2013 by delaying work

to bring the steel plant into com-pliance with safety and environ-mental norms, and agreed to res-titute the funds to help clean up the facility and keep it running.

Adriano Riva, whose brother Emilio ran the company until his death in 2014, yesterday signed the documents to transfer to Ita-ly 1.3bn euros from Switzerland, where the funds had been frozen as part of the investigation into the company.

Swiss authorities are ex-pected to clear the transfer next week. After the transfer papers were signed a judge validated a deal with prosecutors for Riva to serve two and a half years in prison. Cases against two of Emilio’s sons, Nicola and Fabio, are still at a preliminary stage.

The Italian state launched last year an appeal for off ers for Ilva. Two binding off ers were submit-ted in March, one by Arcelor-Mittal and the other by India’s JSW Steel.

Steel magnate to end up behind bars

ReutersKiev

The head of a Ukrainian software fi rm tasked with building a landmark anti-

corruption computer programme is suspected of stealing Western funds from the project and fun-nelling the cash overseas, Gen-eral Prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko said yesterday.

The boss of the software com-pany, Yuriy Novikov, strongly de-nied the accusation and a leading anti-graft non-governmental or-ganisation also expressed doubts about the case.

The database of lawmakers’ and offi cials’ asset declarations was meant to be a cornerstone of the government’s Western-backed reform drive.

But the scheme has been mired in scandal, and activists say vest-ed interests have tried to sabo-tage it.

Novikov’s company Mi-randa won the tender to create the database, but prosecutors say he subcontracted a univer-sity teacher and his students to

build the software and stole the project’s funding that had been given by the Danish government.

“Novikov decided to embez-zle the funds and evade taxation,” Lutsenko told lawmakers during a report to parliament.

“The funds that had been provided to Miranda were trans-ferred to an account in Estonia through a fi ctitious company,” he said.

When contacted by Reuters, Novikov said the accusations from the general prosecutor’s of-fi ce (GPU) were “groundless.”

“Such a performance by the general prosecutor shows the prejudice and bias of the inves-tigation and creates the means to pressure the court with the aim of obtaining benefi cial judgements for the GPU,” he said in emailed comments.

Transparency International Ukraine also expressed doubts.

“We are pretty sceptical of such statements because if they had grounds for such an inves-tigation they would have stated it almost a year ago,” TI Ukraine senior policy analyst Oleksandr Kalitenko told Reuters, referring

to the period when the database fi rst went online.

The fraught launch in October, after months of delay, under-scored the patchiness of Ukrain-ian eff orts to deliver reforms promised to allies and the Inter-national Monetary Fund as part of a $40bn bailout.

Government ministries and state anti-corruption bodies have traded blame for the project’s de-lays and software glitches.

At its launch, Novikov rejected criticism of the website, saying a “fairly large” group of offi cials did not want the system to suc-ceed. The scheme attracted fresh controversy when lawmakers approved legislation requiring NGOs to declare their wealth and income.

Ukraine’s Western backers and human rights groups said the new law could hamper the work of anti-corruption activists. Yesterday, the Council of Eu-rope Commissioner for Human Rights, Nils Muiznieks, pub-lished a letter addressed to the Deputy Head of the Administra-tion of the President of Ukraine, criticising the amendments.

Creator of Ukrainian anti-graft database accused of fraud

Montenegrin court examines October plot caseA former Serbian police commander denied involvement in an alleged Russia-backed plot to kill Montenegro’s prime minister and overthrow the government in 2016 as the authorities opened deliberations on the indictment of suspected conspirators. Montenegro earlier said it had evidence that Russian state agencies and local pro-Serb and pro-Russian parties were involved in a plot at the time of an election in October 2016. The aim of the alleged plot was to halt Montenegro’s Nato accession, assassinate former Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic and bring an opposition figure to power, authorities in Podgorica said. The Kremlin dismissed that as absurd. On election day last October, Montenegrin authorities arrested 20 people, including Bratislav Dikic, a former commander of an elite Serbian police unit, in connection with the alleged plot. A total of fourteen people had been charged. They later also issued international arrest warrants against two Russian nationals as masterminds of the conspiracy, including an intelligence off icer who had previously worked at the Russian embassy in Poland.

Czech president appoints new finance ministerCzech President Milos Zeman appointed Ivan Pilny as finance minister yesterday, ending a political spat that nearly brought down the government just months before an election.The former Microsoft executive replaces Andrej Babis, a billionaire businessman whose dismissal Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka had sought, sparking a battle between the two main parties in the centre-left government. Pilny, 72, has the task of completing the 2018 central state budget draft, aiming to cut the deficit to 50bn crowns ($2.12bn) from this year’s 60bn crown target. Pilny has said he would not seek any major changes at the ministry and that the planned deficit was sensible.He has said he would be happy with more emphasis on investments in spending.Babis, founder of the ANO party, leaves after pressure from Sobotka, a Social Democrat, amid allegations he dodged taxes by buying tax-exempt bonds from his company Agrofert, which gave him untaxed interest income from the firm.Babis, who has devoted much attention at the Finance Ministry to fighting tax evasion, has denied any wrongdoing.

A close ally of President Macron has been accused of wrongdoing

EUROPE23Gulf Times

Thursday, May 25, 2017

Queen Mathilde of Belgium, US President Donald Trump, King Philippe - Filip of Belgium and US First Lady Melania Trump stand during a reception at the Royal Palace in Brussels.

ReutersVatican City

Pope Francis urged US President Donald Trump to be a peacemaker at their fi rst meeting yesterday after

they exchanged sharp words last year, and Trump promised he would not forget the pontiff ’s message.

Under clear blue skies, Trump received a tribute from the Swiss Guard in a Vatican courtyard when he arrived.

He entered a small elevator taking him to the third fl oor of the Apostolic Palace and, after a long ceremonial walk past frescoed corridors, shook the Pope’s hand at the entrance to the private study that the frugal pontiff uses only for offi cial oc-casions.

Before the door of the wood-lined el-evator closed, a Vatican protocol offi cial was heard quipping to the president that it was not “like Trump Tower in New York”. Pope Francis smiled faintly as he greeted Trump outside the study and was not as outgoing as he sometimes is with visiting heads of state.

Trump, seeming subdued, said, “It is a great honour”. Even when the two were sitting at the Pope’s desk in the presence of photographers and reporters, the pope avoided the small talk that usually occurs before the media is ushered out.

The two spoke privately for about 30 minutes with translators.

Both men looked far more relaxed at the end of the private meeting, with the Pope smiling and joking with Trump and his wife Melania.

Pope Francis’s interpreter could be heard translating a comment by the Pope to the First Lady: “What do you give him to eat?”

Pope Francis then gave Trump a small sculptured olive tree and told him through the interpreter that it symbolised peace.

“It is my desire that you become an ol-ive tree to construct peace,” the Pope said, speaking in Spanish.

Trump responded: “We can use peace.”Pope Francis also gave Trump a signed

copy of his 2017 peace message whose title is “Nonviolence — A Style of Politics for

Peace”, and a copy of his 2015 encyclical letter on the need to protect the environ-ment from the eff ects of climate change.

“Well, I’ll be reading them,” Trump said.During his election campaign, Trump

said scientifi c fi ndings that human eco-nomic activity contributed to global warming were a hoax.

As president, he has proposed deep cuts for the Environmental Protection Agency and the elimination of many environmen-tal regulations.

Trump gave the Pope a boxed set of fi ve fi rst-edition books by murdered US civil rights leader Martin Luther King.

As Trump and the Pope said goodbye at the door of the study, Trump told him: “Thank you, thank you.

I won’t forget what you said.”Asked how the meeting with the Pope

went, Trump said: “Great. He is some-thing. He is really good.

We had a fantastic meeting.”A Vatican statement said the meeting

was “cordial” and that the Vatican hoped there could be “serene collaboration” be-tween the US government and the Ameri-can Catholic Church, including “assist-ance to immigrants”. The US Catholic

Church hierarchy opposes Trump’s at-tempt to cut federal assistance for cities that give sanctuary to illegal immigrants.

It also opposes his plan to build a wall on the US border with Mexico. The Pope said last year a man who thinks about building walls and not bridges is “not Christian”.

Trump, who was a candidate at the time, responded that it was “disgraceful” of the Argentine-born Pope, who represents just over half of the world’s 2bn Christians, to question his faith.

The meeting with the Pope was the third stop on Trump’s nine-day foreign tour, and part of his world tour of religions af-ter meeting leaders of Muslim nations in Saudi Arabia and visiting holy sites in Je-rusalem.

Trump at fi rst did not plan to stop in Rome during his visit to Europe, which some in the Vatican saw as a snub.

When he changed his mind, the Vati-can squeezed him in at 8.30am yesterday morning, an unusual day and an unusually early time.

He later fl ew to Brussels where he was to meet Belgium’s king and prime minister yesterday evening before a day of meetings

with European Union and Nato leaders to-day.

Rome Ivanka Trump spoke with African women who were traffi cked into prosti-tution and discussed ways to tackle the problem at a meeting yesterday in Rome that she described as a “privilege”. The daughter of US President Donald Trump, who as a White House adviser is seen as having increasing infl uence, met the women while accompanying her father on his fi rst foreign trip.

On her way to the closed-door encoun-ter, Trump said she was looking forward to hearing how the 11 women, originally from Nigeria and the Horn of Africa, had rebuilt their lives.

“(They) are testament to strength, faith, perseverance in the face of unspeak-able adversity and challenge,” she said in a leafy courtyard at the headquarters of the Sant’Egidio Christian charity and peace group, which hosted the meeting.

The 35-year-old, who hosted a discus-sion on human traffi cking last week at the White House, spoke for around 45 minutes with the women, some of whom now live under protection from the Italian judiciary after reporting their traffi ckers to authori-ties.

“She asked what could be done at the level of government and legislation, and how it would be possible to block human traffi cking, particularly regarding wom-en,” said Daniela Pompei, who is in charge of Sant’Egidio’s services for immigrants.

The number of Nigerian women brought to Italy among the migrants res-cued from fl imsy boats launched by smug-glers into the Mediterranean has increased almost eight-fold in the past three years, Sant’Egidio estimates.

At least 80% of the almost 1,600 who arrived in the fi rst three months of 2017 are destined to be forced into prostitution, the group says.

Representatives of Sant’Egidio, which has organised the transfer of Syrian and Iraqi refugees to Italy, also held a separate meeting with Trump at which they discussed how to inform would-be migrants before they left Africa of the risks of traffi cking.

Along with her father and stepmother Melania, Trump met Pope Francis yester-day morning, and Pompei said she told the traffi cking victims the pontiff was “a great advocate for your stories”.

Pope asks Trump to be peacemaker

A girl takes a selfie with US first lady Melania Trump at the Bambino Gesu hospital in Rome.

ReutersBerlin

Police arrested four suspected Islamists in dawn raids in Berlin yesterday as the Ger-man capital geared up for a long weekend

of mass gatherings, capped by a joint appear-ance by Chancellor Angela Merkel and former US president Barack Obama.

Police said the raids targeted a gang of armed drug smugglers and nine arrests had been made, four of which were men from the “violent Is-lamist” scene.

None were linked to the Manchester bomb at-tack which killed 22 people on Monday.

However, a senior politician promised secu-rity would be reviewed in the wake of the attack, as the German capital braces for some 100,000 extra visitors over the next few days, but that plans were in place for any such eventuality.

“We’ll take another look, but our security plans are designed so we’re well prepared for events like that in Manchester,” Berlin’s interior aff airs senator, Andreas Geisel, told RBB radio yesterday.

With the city hosting Germany’s football cup fi nal, a mass religious meeting as well as Obama, huge crowds are expected throughout the spring weekend.

Memories are still fresh of the Berlin Christ-mas market attack last December, in which 12

people were killed, and fl ags hung at half-mast across Germany yesterday to express solidarity with Manchester after the attack.

Geisel said some 6,000 police will be de-ployed on Berlin’s streets over the Ascension Day long weekend, which begins with the Ger-man protestant church’s biennial four-day Kirchentag festival.

Security at events elsewhere in Germany over the long weekend would be adjusted following events in Manchester, interior minister Thomas de Maiziere said.

“We mustn’t focus exclusively on access con-trols,” he told Bild newspaper. “The Manchester events have shown that the situation at the end of the event have to be looked at carefully, when

people leave the hall or stadium.”Obama, a close ally of Merkel while he was in

offi ce, was due today to address crowds from the spot where his predecessors John F Kennedy and Ronald Reagan stood when the city was on the front lines of the Cold War.

His visit, seen as lending a hand to Merkel’s campaign to be returned to offi ce in September, will be followed on Saturday by the German Cup fi nal, when Eintracht faces Dortmund.

Police also seized electronic devices, drugs and weapons after searching six locations in four diff erent districts of Berlin.

German authorities have drawn criticism since an Islamic State-claimed Christmas mar-ket attack in the capital in December when Tu-

nisian Anis Amri ploughed a truck into a crowd of shoppers.

It has since emerged that several months be-fore the attack, German police had ceased in-vestigating Amri, even though he had been sus-pected of preparing an attack.

Police could also have arrested him months earlier for commercial-scale, organised drug traffi cking, the Berlin minister in charge of se-curity, Andreas Geisel, has claimed.

Instead police later claimed Amri had just been a small-scale drug traffi cker, he added.

Geisel said that he has launched a criminal complaint against police in Berlin for having falsifi ed a document after the attack in order to defl ect blame.

Germany detains suspected Islamists in drug raids

ReutersBrussels

France and Germany will agree to a US plan for Nato to play a bigger role

in the fi ght against Islamic militants at a meeting with President Donald Trump today, but insist the move is purely symbolic, four senior European diplomats said.

The decision to allow the North Atlantic Treaty Or-ganization to join the coalition against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq follows weeks of pres-sure on the two allies, who are wary of Nato confronting Rus-sia in Syria and of alienating Arab countries who see Nato as pushing a pro-Western agenda.

“Nato as an institution will join the coalition,” said one senior diplomat involved in the discussions.”The question is whether this just a symbolic gesture to the United States.

France and Germany believe it is.”

All 28 Nato ambassadors agreed in Brussels yesterday on Nato joining the coalition, paving the way for leaders to endorse the decision today, a second diplomat said.

Flying to the Nato meeting in Brussels with Trump, US Secretary of State Rex Tiller-son said yesterday it would be an important step for the or-ganisation to join the US-led, 68-nation coalition.

“I think they’re going to sup-port Nato joining and becoming a formal member,” he said, re-ferring to “a couple of countries that are still thinking it over” but not giving details.

Trump has said he wants to focus on fi ghting Islamic ter-rorism and, in a brief encounter

with the Belgian prime minis-ter, referred to a suicide attack claimed by Islamic State that killed 22 people in Manchester on Monday.

“It’s a horrible situation...unthinkable. But we will win,” Trump said. “We are fi ghting very hard, doing very well un-der our generals... We will win this fi ght.”

A senior French diplomat said Paris was ready to accept Nato joining the coalition fi ght-ing Islamic State, but that its role would be limited to train-ing and intelligence, things al-lies were already involved in.

US and other European offi -cials want to show Trump, who called Nato “obsolete” because he said it was not doing enough against terrorism, that the alli-ance is responding.

While Islamic State is on the verge of defeat in its Iraqi stronghold of Mosul and brac-ing for an assault against its de facto capital in Raqqa, Syria, US offi cials are concerned fl eeing militants could leave a vacuum that could prompt Arab tribal fi ghters to turn on each other to gain control.

All 28 Nato allies are mem-bers of the coalition, but the alliance as a formal member could become more involved, contributing equipment, train-ing and the expertise it gained leading nations against Al Qae-da and the Taliban in Afghani-stan.

Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has also made the case for a non-combat role for the alliance in Syria and Iraq.

“Nato joining the coali-tion will also provide a bet-ter platform for coordinating the activities of Nato allies...in the fi ght against terrorism,” Stoltenberg said.

France, Germany to agree to Nato role against IS

AFPMoscow

Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin’s theatre director grandson Alexander Bur-

donsky has died at 75, the Mos-cow theatre where he worked for 45 years said yesterday.

Burdonsky kept a low profi le and used his mother’s surname.

He said he had never visited Stalin’s grave by the Kremlin wall.

Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky marked Burdonsky’s death with a telegramme prais-ing his “many-faceted talent” and “artistic taste.”

Burdonsky was the son of Stalin’s youngest son Vasily, an airforce pilot who spent years in prison after the dictator’s death and suff ered from alco-holism.

Burdonsky’s mother Gali-na Burdonskaya came from a humble background.

The couple separated in 1945 and their two children were taken away from their mother for eight years.

Vasily Stalin was sentenced to eight years in jail in 1955 for “anti-Soviet propaganda and agitation” after criticising the Soviet leadership following his father’s death in 1953.

“I’m sorry for my father be-cause he was a very talented person,” Burdonsky said in a 2014 interview with First Edu-cational Channel.

But he said he also witnessed his father beating his mother and his other partners.

“Mum loved him and felt sorry for him. I had a confl ict with her about this,” he said.

Burdonsky used the surname Stalin as a child but changed it as a teenager. “I immediately switched to Mum’s surname because I planned to work in the theatre, and what does that surname have to do with the arts?” he said. He worked from 1972 at the Russian Army The-atre and in 1996 was decorated as a People’s Artist of Russia, a prestigious award.

He was married to another theatre director Dalia Tam-uleviciute, who predeceased him and they had no children.

“I’ve never been at Stalin’s grave,” he said in a 2014 inter-view.

Asked what he inherited from Stalin, he said “brains, I think...

and maybe some willpower.”“As time passes and you get

older, you understand that he was of course a person with great abilities, today I don’t doubt that for a second.

“I don’t want to justify Sta-lin or whitewash him,” he said. “There was cruelty too but in Russia unfortunately there is always cruelty.”

One of Stalin’s other grand-sons, Yevgeny Dzhugashvili, died last year. He was born out of wedlock to the dictator’s elder son Yakov Dzhugashvili.

Stalin’s theatre director grandson dies at 75

Trump had harsh words for the pontiff during the electioncampaign

Miniature artist presents hyperreal portrait of PM

Ministers to meet public without appointment

ED arrests suspect in money laundering

A newly-married man died in an acid attack by a girl, with whom he had an alleged aff air before the marriage, in Andhra Pradesh’s Guntur district, police said. The shocking incident took place in Venigandla village on Tuesday but came to light yesterday. Sheikh Mohamed Ilyas, 24, who suff ered serious injuries in the attack, died at the Government Hospital in Guntur. Ilyas had an alleged aff air with Hema Bindu but he married another girl two days ago in his Pamulapaduku village in the same district. On Tuesday, Hema with the help of friend Qasim called Ilyas to a house to collect her photographs. As he reached the house, she threw acid on his face and escaped. Ilyas was taken to a hospital in Guntur, where he died on Tuesday evening.

Bollywood actor and Bharatiya Janata Party MP Paresh Rawal has deleted his controversial tweet suggesting that instead of a Kashmiri stone-thrower, author Arundhati Roy should be tied to an army jeep. “Instead of tying (a) stone-pelter on the army jeep, tie Arundhati Roy,” Rawal tweeted, triggering an online outrage. Roy has been a vocal supporter of Kashmir separatist campaign and alleged human rights abuses in the state. However, the tweet is no longer visible in Rawal’s account. It came days after an army major in Kashmir trussed up a civilian, Farooq Dar, on his jeep bonnet using him as a human shield against a stone-throwing mob. The incident sparked a huge uproar, particularly after the off icer was commended by army chief General Bipin Rawat for his counter-insurgency service in Jammu and Kashmir.

Andhra man dies in acid attack by woman

Paresh Rawal deletes tweet on Arundhati Roy

CRIMECONTROVERSY

In an attempt to revive miniature painting in India, renowned painter and fashion designer Suvigya Sharma discussed with Prime Minister Narendra Modi the need to introduce art to the weaker sections of the society. Sharma, 34, presented a 3.5ft x3ft hyperreal miniature painting of Modi at his off ice on Monday. The painting features a brooch gilded in 24 carat gold. The oil painting on canvas also displays Modi as a visionary. “It was a proud moment when Modiji explicitly expressed how much he loved the painting. I was truly heartened when he said that the painting will be placed in his own cabin at his off ice”, Sharma said. During the meeting, Modi and Sharma discussed the unique aspect of miniature painting, the techniques used in it and how the art is slowly dying in India.

ART ADMINISTRATION INVESTIGATION

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) said in Chennai yesterday it has arrested B Madan of Vendhar Movies under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA) for cheating the public of Rs910mn in the guise of medical admission in the SRM Group of Institutions. The ED in a statement said it has registered a case under PMLA against Madan and others for cheating under Section 406 and 420 of IPC, 1860. It said Madan had collected millions of rupees for admission into SRM Medical College, and then absconded. At least 135 parents have filed complaints against Madan and it is estimated that about Rs910mn has been collected by him for securing medical college admission during 2016.

Delhi’s Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia yesterday said all government ministers and off icials will meet the public without appointment in their off ices. “Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has ordered all the Delhi government ministers and off icers except field staff to meet public without appointment between 10 and 11am from Monday to Friday,” Sisodia said. “The decision has been taken by the chief minister in response to feedback from diff erent quarters about disconnect between people and the government,” Sisodia said. “Kejriwal has also directed the chief secretary to ensure no meeting is scheduled from 10 to 11am and off icers are available for one-to-one interaction with the public,” the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader added.

Gulf Times Thursday, May 25, 2017

INDIA24

20 killed asbus plungesinto river inUttarakhandAgenciesDehradun

At least 20 people were killed and six were injured after a bus they were trav-

elling in fell into a gorge in the mountainous northern state of Uttarakhand, offi cials said yes-terday.

The accident took place near the town of Dharasu on Tuesday night when the driver lost con-trol of the bus.

The bus plunged some 150m into the Bhagirathi river, police said.

Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Rawat said 20 bodies had been found during rescue operations at the site.

Authorities were making ef-forts to airlift six injured to hos-pitals in the state capital Dehra-dun, Rawat said.

“The victims died of injuries as the bus rolled down the hill before falling into the river. The dead included the driver and the conductor,” local police chief R K Yadav said.

“According to the witnesses, the bus was carrying 29 people. Rescue operations are on to fi nd three more passengers who are unaccounted for”.

Police said the victims, from the central state of Madhya Pradesh, were returning from Gangotri, a popular Hindu pil-grim town in the Himalayan state.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi sent his condolences for the loss of lives in the bus crash and fed-eral and state governments an-nounced monetary compensa-tion to the families of the victims.

Offi cials have been asked to identify danger zones on routes of the annual ‘Chaar Dham Yatra’ and put up speed monitors.

Meanwhile, a pall of gloom has enveloped Betma and Hatod, in Indore district of Madhya Pradesh, after the accident .

The bodies of the pilgrims will be brought back by train, offi cials said.

A large number of grief stricken people assembled out-side Betma Police Station since morning for news of their rela-tives who were in the bus.

Madhya Pradesh Chief Min-ister Shivraj Singh Chouhan met his Uttarakhand counterpart to discuss the rescue operations.

Chouhan also met Railways Minister Suresh Prabhu and sought help in bringing back the bodies of the pilgrims from Dehradun to Indore by a special coach.

In another accident in Mahar-ashtra, seven people were killed when their jeep crashed into a divider and then collided with truck near Dhangarwadi early yesterday.

Around 4am, the jeep headed from Pune to Buldhana via Au-rangabad, went out of control, crashed into the divider and hit the truck bound for Ahmedna-

gar on the busy Aurangabad-Ahmednagar highway, police of-fi cer Vilas Kanawade said.

All seven, including the driver, died on the spot.

The passengers, on a pilgrim-age in Buldhana district, were sleeping at the time of the acci-dent.

The driver of the truck fl ed the scene of the accident.

“As per preliminary investiga-tions, the jeep driver apparently dozed off at the wheel as the speeding vehicle climbed onto the road divider. It then collided head-on with the truck coming in from the opposite direction,” Kanawade said.

The police are searching for the absconding truck driver, Kanawade said.

India has the highest number of traffi c fatalities in the world. An average of 135,000 people die on the country’s roads each year, according to government data.

Many accidents are reported from mountainous regions like Uttarakhand and are usually caused by reckless driving, bad roads or the poor condition of vehicles.

Seven die in hospital asdoctors go on strikeIANSPatna

At least seven patients at the Patna Medical College and Hospital (PMCH) died

yesterday due to lack of treat-ment following a fl ash strike by junior doctors that started after midnight, offi cials said.

The doctors have threatened to stay away from work for 24 hours if action was not taken against police offi cials who caned them a few days back injuring some of them.

“Seven critical patients died due to lack of treatment follow-ing the strike by PMCH junior doctors today morning which has badly hit emergency and Out Patient Department (OPD) serv-ices,” an offi cial said.

Over 500 striking doctors left hundreds of patients unattended

from early yesterday morning despite a large number of them being referral cases by local doc-tors from across the state requir-ing urgent attention.

“There is a panic-like situ-ation among relatives of the patients,” a PMCH offi cial said adding, “particularly those who are lying in serious condition in emergency ward and those oper-ated in diff erent wards as junior doctors have not attended them.”

Junior doctors were adamant that they would not resume work unless action was taken against the police offi cials involved in the caned charge during a counsel-ling session.

Rowdy incidents during the session had prompted the police action.

The striking doctors have also demanded withdrawal of cases fi led against innocent medical students.

Meanwhile, hundreds of pa-tients, mostly the poor, who ar-rived at the hospital from across the state, were worried that no medical facilities were being pro-vided to them.

“We are the real victims of the strike because there is no doctor to attend to our patients,” said Mahesh Kushwaha of Vaishali district, who came here two days ago to get his wife treated at the PMCH.

Most patients were forced to shift to private nursing homes.

Satender Yadav, a parent wor-ried over his son’s health, said: “There is no doctor to attend to the patients.”

“Those who cannot aff ord treatment outside have been left in the lurch,” an offi cial said.

Medical brokers have become active and were taking advantage of the situation, a patient’s rela-tive at PMCH said.

TN CM’s meeting withModi sparks rumoursIANSNew Delhi

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi Palaniswamy met Prime Minister

Narendra Modi yesterday and is understood to have discussed the political situation in the state in the wake of the split in the ruling All India Anna Dravi-da Munnetra Kazhagam follow-ing J Jayalalithaa’s death.

The meeting came close on the heels of the meeting former chief minister O Panneerselvam had with Modi here last week.

Both meetings assume signif-icance in view of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s eff orts to garner maximum support for the Na-tional Democratic Alliance can-didate in the upcoming presi-dential election due in July. The chief minister’s faction in the AIADMK enjoys the support of 122 MLAs in the 134-member

assembly while the Panneersel-vam factions has 12 MLAs. Sim-ilarly, the parliamentary party with over 50 MPs is divided be-tween the two factions with the chief minister’s faction having a majority.

Neither faction has made public their stand on the presi-dential election but both of them are said to be inclined to support an NDA candidate.

Replying to reporters’ ques-tions including whether his fac-tion would have a tie-up with the BJP in the coming local bod-ies elections, Palaniswamy said nothing political was discussed with the prime minister.

He said he has invited Modi to participate in a function in which Jayalalithaa’s portrait is to be unveiled in the state as-sembly and in the grand fi nal celebrations of late chief min-ister M G Ramachandran’s birth centenary be held in December in Chennai.

Army personnel carry the bodies of three soldiers of Nepalese origin, who were killed in a gunbattle with militants in Jammu and Kashmir, before cremation at the 14 Gorkha Training Centre in Subathu in Solan district of Himachal Pradesh yesterday. They were cremated with full military honours.

Final journey

Uttarakhand minister Madan Kaushik speaks to a victim of the bus accident in a hospital in Dehradun yesterday.

Ashraf PadannaThiruvananthapuram

Former Kerala chief minis-ter Oommen Chandy has dismissed the Comptrol-

ler and Auditor General’s report that his government’s deal with Adani group for the development of Vizhinjam Port was prepared without verifying facts.

“I have no regrets for entering into the deal (to build the port), but take pride in the achieve-ment, after 22 years of eff orts by successive governments,” he told reporters here yesterday.

Chandy was also respond-ing to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s statement in the as-sembly earlier in the day that the CAG’s fi ndings were “most serious”.

India’s national auditor said the deal heavily favoured Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Private Ltd, ignoring the state’s interests in the Rs75.25bn

deepwater multipurpose seaport project.

The former chief minister said the agreement was based on the model concession agreement of the federal government which included the extension of the concession period to 40 years.

“Its benefi ts are multifold. The port will be competing with Colombo and other foreign ports in the region. You cannot com-pare it with Colachel, which had not even prepared an estimate, or other Indian ports, as the CAG did,” he said.

“I’m proud that I could do a good thing for the state. I would take its full responsibility and I would not pass it on to the offi -cials (who negotiated and fi nal-ised the deal). The chief minis-ter is free to have a relook into it, but he should not delay the project.”

The port, located close to the busy international shipping route, will enable ships with a capacity of even 18,000 TEU

(20-foot equivalent units) to dock. It will handle 4.1mn con-tainers annually.

This is India’s second interna-tional container transshipment terminal (ICTT) after the Cochin ICTT operated by Dubai’s DP World, also in Kerala.

Adanis are already in talks with major shipping companies to at-tract enough container volume to the port from the beginning of its operations by the end of next year.

Adani Ports is also developing a port city in the land allotted to it on a long-term lease, which reportedly includes luxury hotels and shopping malls.

The government had also an-nounced a Rs2.2bn package, with federal assistance, for the rehabilitation of the traditional fi shermen who are likely to be af-fected during construction, but they say the promise was not met.

Chandy said the state and federal government were sup-porting the project only in the fi rst phase and the port operator

would develop the second phase without state funding.

Though he was voted out last year, Chandy had received a lot of appreciation for this achieve-ment after bids by successive governments failed to rope in a credible private partner.

The current Left Democratic Front (LDF) government has also been listing it as one of its three prestigious projects, others be-ing Kochi Metro and Kannur air-port, all initiated by Chandy.

Vijayan is to inaugurate the piling of the port complex on June 1 as the project enters its second phase. But the CAG report which came a day after Communist Party of India (Marxist) veteran V S Achuthanandan demanded a total revamp of the project, came as a huge setback for Chandy.

“I don’t have any objection if any changes could be made in the agreement. That’s up to the gov-ernment of the day,” he said. “I’m open to any investigation that the government feels required.”

Chandy terms CAG report on Vizhinjam project immature

Forest off icials try to rescue an injured elephant which fell into a pond at the Amchang Wildlife Sanctuary on the outskirts of Guwahati in Assam yesterday.

Elephant rescued

INDIA25Gulf Times

Thursday, May 25, 2017

New defence policy to boost local companiesAgenciesNew Delhi

India yesterday approved a long-awaited policy to boost local defence manufacturing

by eff ectively picking indus-try champions that would tie up with foreign players to make submarines, fi ghter jets, heli-copters and armoured vehicles.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has vowed to end India’s role as the world’s largest arms importer by asking foreign fi rms to share technology with local players and then manufacture in India – in return for a slice of the $250bn analysts estimate New Delhi will spend on its military over the next decade.

Under the “Strategic Partner-ship” model, the government will shortlist and then pick Indi-an companies to join forces with foreign fi rms.

The winners will be guaranteed billions of dollars of orders to in-centivise them to manufacture.

“For each platform, one pri-vate sector strategic partner will be chosen,” Defence Minister Arun Jaitley told reporters after a cabinet meeting.

“You don’t set up a manufac-turing facility if you don’t have any hope of getting orders.”

Government and industry representatives have been hag-gling over the details of the model for more than a year, de-laying discussions for tens of billions of dollars worth of deals.

Indian defence manufactur-ing is small and dominated by state-run outfi ts, many of which have been criticised for poor performance.

Private fi rms such as Larsen &

Toubro, Mahindra Group, Tata Group and recent entrants Reli-ance Group and Adani Group are desperate to muscle in on their business.

Foreign manufacturers such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, BAE Systems, Airbus and Saab also see India as one of the big-gest sources of future growth.

Modi was keen to get the project approved before he trav-els next Monday to Germany, France, Spain and Russia, where buying weapons will be high on the agenda.

Among the long-awaited or-ders that executives hope the new policy could kick-start are a multi-billion-dollar submarine tender and another for a large number of single-engine fi ghter jets the Indian Air Force says it needs.

Lockheed Martin and Saab are in the race for the fi ghter jets, while companies in Germany, Spain, Russia and France are likely to be interested in the sub-marine tender.

Actual orders could still be years away, as India’s procure-ment process often moves slow-ly and specifi c details of how the policy will work have yet to be released.

In June, Modi is also expected to visit the United States, which has emerged as one of the top arms suppliers to India in recent years.

India wants to replicate other countries that have used state policy to build leading defence fi rms.

Some executives and ana-lysts have said the new policy could undermine competition

and hand winning Indian fi rms a virtual monopoly, but the gov-ernment decided it has reached enough of a consensus to push the policy through.

“We see the policy as do-ing something good for indi-genisation,” Jayant Patil, Head of Defence and Aerospace at Larsen & Toubro, India’s larg-

est private sector engineering firm, said.

Patil said that industry repre-sentatives had raised concerns in recent meetings about how the policy would be structured, specifi cally on the fi nancial and technical criteria used for se-lecting partners.

“The fi nal details are still awaited. We discussed some roadblocks but we hope they will be addressed,” he said.

L&T’s “unmatched compe-tency” lay in submarines, Patil said, suggesting it would focus on winning that strategic part-nership.

Some Indian companies are unhappy with a rule restricting them to becoming a strategic partner in just one of four sec-tors that will be the fi rst cov-ered by the policy – submarines, fi ghter jets, helicopters and ar-moured vehicles.

Companies such as Reliance, a newcomer to defence, had laid out ambitious plans to build anything from submarines to helicopters and missiles, but the strategic partnership model will likely force it to narrow its focus.

Tata, Mahindra and Reli-ance have all invested money in building helicopters.

Letting cameras into family life didn’t come naturally: Sachin

I’d never make it in Bollywood: PittAFPMumbai

Hollywood actor Brad Pitt told Shah Rukh Khan that he doesn’t have the moves to star

in Bollywood fi lms as he promoted his new movie War Machine in Mumbai yesterday.

“I wouldn’t make it Bollywood be-cause I can’t dance or sing,” said the American actor during an event with Khan in front of journalists in Mumbai.

Bollywood movies are renowned for elaborate dance sequences and high-energy songs and Khan responded by

telling Pitt he could easily learn.“We can make anyone dance. I just

spread my arms and do nothing, that’s a step,” joked the actor known as “King Khan”.

Pitt, who recently split from An-gelina Jolie, arrived in Mumbai from Japan early yesterday for the latest stop on a promo-tional tour for Netflix movie War Machine.

The satirical war fi lm, in which Pitt plays a hubristic United States general, releases on the popular streaming site to-morrow.

Pitt, 53, attended a screen-

ing of the fi lm, directed by David Mi-chod, in Mumbai later yesterday.

It was the star’s second high-profi le visit to India after he accompanied ex-wife Jolie during her fi lming of A Mighty Heart in 2006.

Earlier this month Pitt opened up on his divorce from Jolie, admitting that heavy drinking had contributed to the break-down of his marriage.

The Hollywood A-lister told GQ Magazine that he is now teetotal and in therapy.

Jolie, 41, fi led for divorce in September, citing irrecon-

cilable diff erences.

AFPMumbai

A hotly anticipated fi lm about the life of cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar hits cinemas this

week but the batting great says he might fi nd watching it an unsettling experience.

“I am used to seeing myself on a big screen inside the stadium, not inside a movie theatre,” Tendulkar said ahead of tomorrow’s release of Sachin: A Bil-lion Dreams.

The docudrama, directed by Emmy-nominated British fi lmmaker James Erskine, took four years to make and traces Tendulkar’s life from an aspiring cricketer to arguably the greatest bats-man of all time.

It features real footage, including clips from his matches and interviews with colleagues and family and present day stars including Virat Kohli and Mahendra Singh Dhoni. It uses ac-tors to recreate some scenes from the 44-year-old’s childhood in Mumbai.

Tendulkar, who played 200 Test matches and enjoys an almost god-like status in cricket-mad India, consented to the biopic but admitted that letting the cameras into his family life didn’t come naturally.

“Being a private person I always be-lieved I should let my bat do the talk-ing, stay focused on the game and give all my energy over there,” said the “Lit-tle Master” in an interview.

“There are personal moments in the fi lm and some family footage. I know

fans want to see something more than what they have in the last 24 years.

“Nobody knows what was going on in my mind at that time so we have spoken a lot about highs and lows and the line between me, my family and fans,” he added.

The right-hander made his de-but for India aged just 16 in 1989 and broke almost every batting record pos-sible before retiring from professional cricket in 2013.

The former Indian captain is the only cricketer to have scored 100 in-ternational centuries and is the highest run scorer in international cricket with more than 34,000 runs.

Tendulkar published his autobiogra-phy in 2014 and there isn’t much that

cricket fans don’t know about him.But Erskine, who has made several

acclaimed sports fi lms, insists the do-cudrama will reveal new aspects about his life.

“You might know the stats, you might know how he performed in certain matches, but you don’t know what hap-pens when he goes off -stage, in his house – his private life, his hopes, dreams, his highs and sorrows,” he said.

“You know little of his family except perhaps their names. This fi lm really is the story of the man, and while cricket is a huge part of his life, it is just one chapter,” Erskine added.

The Brit has made a number of well-received sports biopics including The Battle of the Sexes, about a tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs, and Pantani: The Acci-dental Death of a Cyclist, about Tour de France winner Marco Pantani.

He also made One Night in Turin, a documentary about England’s run to the semi-fi nals of the 1990 football World Cup.

Sachin: A Billion Dreams is being produced by a company called “200 NotOut”, a reference to the number of Tests Tendulkar played, leaving some movie critics wondering if the fi lm will be little more than hagiography.

“My purpose was to make a fi lm ex-ploring three clear strands – how did this boy become perceived as a god, who is the real man behind the god, how was Sachin’s journey (and iconic status) a result of the massive shifts in Indian culture, cricket and media over the past 30 years.

Sachin: A Billion Dreams releases tomorrow.

Foreign Investment Promotion Board abolishedIn a major decision aimed at further easing doing business in India, the cabi-net yesterday abolished the 25-year-old Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB), obviating the need for prior clear-ance for Foreign Direct Investment in more than

90% cases. Industry laud-ed the move as a “bold” step that would add to the healthy inflow of foreign investment. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley told reporters that after yesterday’s move, only 11 sectors would require prior approval for FDI.

Sonu Nigam quits Twitter over action againstanother singerIANSMumbai

Bollywood singer Sonu Ni-gam quit Twitter yester-day, urging all “logical and

sensible patriots” to do the same after singer Abhijeet Bhattach-arya’s account on the site was suspended for posting off ensive tweets.

“I quit Twitter today in defi -ance of this one sided sham,” Ni-gam tweeted.

“One could disagree with Abhijeetda’s language but isn’t Shehla’s accusation that BJP has a sex racket, provocation enough to supporters?”

He was referring to Jawaharlal Nehru University student-activ-ist Shehla Rashid’s accusations that some BJP leaders were in-volved in sex scandals.

“If his account is deleted, why not her? And the other mo-rons who hurl... abuses to every achiever?” Nigam questioned.

In a series of 24 posts, Nigam opened up about various remarks made by people on Twitter, in-cluding veteran actor and BJP MP Paresh Rawal’s controversial comments on author Arundhati Roy.

Twitter on Tuesday suspend-ed the account of Abhijeet over sexist and off ensive remarks, which stirred up a storm online.

In a series of tweets, Abhijeet abused some women users, par-ticularly Rashid, following which Twitter took the action.

When Rashid openly discussed about sex scandals involving BJP leaders, she was “abused by Ab-hijeet and hundreds of Sanghi trolls”.

In reply to her statement, Ab-hijeet posted an off ensive tweet about Rashid.

Nigam wrote: “I have no reli-gion. I follow my own religion, choosing the best from every-where. Those who understand, know; those who don’t, my con-dolences.”

Abhijeet meanwhile said Twitter was anti-national, anti-Prime Minister Narendra Modi and anti-Hindu.

He said with the ban, Twitter was suppressing the “voice of the nation”.

Abhijeet is known to be an ac-tive right-wing supporter and clashes with liberal voices on social media. In the recent past he courted controversy with his comments and Twitter posts on issues of political importance.

“Twitter is a platform for an-ti-nationals, anti-Indian Army, anti-Modi, anti-Hindu and for terrorist supporters. I would say all are Naxals, they should be punished severely. It’s jihadi Twitter,” Abhijeet said.

“We are not only singers... We are the voice of our nation and come out openly against anti-nationals. So, Twitter is trying to shut our voice,” he said.

“All Arundhati and JNU group (are) behind this (suspension and deletion), after Paresh Rawal and me tweeted against Arundhati for her anti-India stand.”

Last year, Abhijeet was ar-rested and released on bail by the Mumbai police following a com-plaint against him for harassing a woman journalist on Twitter. He has also relentlessly spoken out about how Bollywood “breeds and feeds” Pakistani artistes in the country.

Defence and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley speaks with Power Minister Piyush Goyal as Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Off ice Jitendra Singh looks on after the cabinet meeting yesterday.

LATIN AMERICA

Gulf Times Thursday, May 25, 201726

Thousands protest againstTemer, reforms in BrasiliaAFPBrasília

At least 25,000 people massed in Brasilia yes-terday to demand new

elections and an end to austerity reforms in a protest fuelled by anger over a corruption scan-dal swirling around President Michel Temer.

Organised by leftist groups and trade unions, the protesters poured into the centre of Brazil’s capital.

Brazil’s left is smelling blood just over a year since Temer took over from Workers’ Party presi-dent Dilma Rousseff after she was impeached for illegally manipu-lating government accounts.

Temer, from the centre-right PMDB party, is reeling from a probe into his alleged corrup-tion.

The future of his market-friendly reforms package — es-pecially cuts in the country’s generous but unaff ordable pen-sion system — is equally unclear.

“It’s the end of this putch-ist government. That’s why the people have taken to the streets,” said Francisca Gomes, 59, who came from Sao Paulo for the protest and carried a funeral ribbon carrying the image of the president and the words: “RIP Temer.”

Brasilia’s security service said that 500 buses had con-verged on the capital, with some 25,000 protesters.

Organisers claimed there were far more, but an independ-ent estimate was not immedi-ately possible.

“In a democracy, no govern-ment can resist when the people take to the streets,” said Dorival Pereira, 60, who travelled 18 hours from Mato Grosso do Sul.

Like many demonstrators, she wore a T-shirt with the slo-gan “Elections now!”

Temer says the austerity re-forms are already working and that more measures, especially pension reform, are needed.

Latin America’s biggest economy has been stuck in deep recession for two years and is just now showing the fi rst signs of returning to growth, although unemployment is at nearly 14%.

However, Temer has been fi ghting for his political life since last week after allegations that he attempted to pay hush money to a jailed politician and was involved in bribery.

The scandal follows a land-slide of other corruption allega-tions against much of Temer’s government and Congress in a huge probe known as “Opera-tion Car Wash.”

For now, the president is try-ing to shore up his congressional alliance to resist calls for his im-peachment.

He has said he did nothing wrong and will not resign.

But analysts say that intense negotiations are going on be-hind the scenes to fi nd the least traumatic way possible for Te-

mer to be eased out.Because he has no vice presi-

dent, the constitution would require a 30-day period led by the speaker of the lower house, followed by an indirect elec-tion in which Congress picks a new president to rule until after scheduled elections in October 2018.

Congress is riddled with its own corruption scandals, how-ever, and popular sentiment is growing in favor of moving up the presidential election — which would require Congress to approve a constitutional amendment.

“Temer will fall. Everyone says this is government is dead,” Senator Gleisi Hoff man, from the Workers’ Party, said

Oil fi rm executiveheld in graft probeReutersCaracas

Venezuela has arrested the manager of the Petropiar heavy crude upgrader,

owned by state oil company PD-VSA and US major Chevron Cor-poration, for alleged “irregulari-ties” in contracts awarded in the oil-rich Orinoco Belt.

Francisco Velasquez was de-tained on May 13 and he remains behind bars in the city of Barcelo-na, in the eastern state of Anzoat-egui, the prosecutor’s offi ce said in a statement.

“The investigation began in 2015, after a complaint by PDVSA employees, who pointed out cer-tain irregularities in the awarding of contracts with over-pricing of goods or services,” the statement read.

Reuters was unable to obtain comment from Velasquez.

President Nicolas Maduro’s so-cialist government and Petroleos de Venezuela SA, familiarly known as PDVSA, have repeatedly vowed to take steps to combat corruption, which has aff ected Venezuela and its oil industry for decades.

Opposition leaders have said PDVSA has been particularly crip-pled by malfeasance under 18 years of socialist rule.

They say sporadic arrests are more the result of infi ghting among rival government factions than a concerted eff ort to root out wrongdoing.

A probe last year by the opposi-tion-run Congress said $11bn had gone missing from PDVSA.

The government dismissed that as part of a right-wing smear campaign.

PDVSA and Chevron, which has a 30% stake in Petropiar, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Local media last year published photos from Velasquez’s Insta-gram account that appear to show him and his partner enjoying a lav-ish life, complete with holidays in Rome and Aruba, a house in the Dominican Republic, and a pink sports car.

The opposition says corrupt of-fi cials have enriched themselves on the back of a decade-long oil boom, while the majority of Ven-ezuelans now struggle to eat three square meals a day amid food shortages and spiralling infl ation.

Maduro presses

on with plans to

rewrite charterReutersCaracas

Faced with mounting unrest, Venezuela’s unpopular left-ist President Nicolas Madu-

ro has vowed to push ahead in July with the formation of a “constitu-ent assembly” to rewrite the con-stitution before regional elections in December.

The South American Opec member has been racked by strife, with 55 people killed during un-rest in the past two months as public anger boiled over due to an economic meltdown that has left many Venezuelans scrabbling to aff ord three meals a day.

In an apparent bid to show the government was seeking a demo-cratic solution, the head of the pro-government electoral coun-cil said voting for a controversial “constituent assembly” would be held in late July. Regional guber-natorial elections, meant to have been held last year, would take place on December 10, he said.

The opposition reacted with fury, convinced that these moves were Maduro’s way of clinging to power.

Maduro’s rivals fear that a new constituent assembly could re-write rules or exclude opposition parties, making a sham of future elections that would likely van-quish the ruling socialists if the polls were free and fair.

“The decision is nothing more than an evil announcement meant to divide, distract, and confuse Venezuelans further,” said Con-gress president Julio Borges, the opposition leader whose coali-tion is pushing for early elections, humanitarian aid to alleviate food and medicine shortages, and free-dom for jailed activists.

“We have entered a new stage and that means more struggle and more street action,” Borges said in a video.

Riots and looting have raised risks that protests could spin out of control, given the widespread hunger, anger at Maduro and easy access to weapons in one of the world’s most violent countries.

A Supreme Court magistrate

decried the planned assembly, saying it was “not the solution to the crisis” and called on Maduro to “think carefully” to avoid more bloodshed.

Maduro was undaunted pre-senting the proposed 540-mem-ber “constituent assembly” as a way to defuse anti-government protests, which he says are part of a US-backed conspiracy to over-throw “21st Century socialism.”

“Votes or bullets, what do the people want?” Maduro asked a crowd of red-shirted supporters waving Venezuelan fl ags at the Mirafl ores presidential palace.

“Let’s go to elections now!” he said, before detailing how the new assembly will be partially elected by votes at a municipal level and partially by diff erent groups, in-cluding workers, farmers, stu-dents, and indigenous people.

In a telling sign of internal dis-sent, Venezuela’s state prosecutor warned that Maduro’s plan for a grassroots congress risked deep-ening the crisis.

“Persistent and increasingly violent unrest will eventually prompt key stakeholders to aban-don Maduro and negotiate a rapid transition that sets a timetable for new elections; the precise timing is impossible to predict, however,” the Eurasia Group political con-sultancy said in a note to clients.

Enraged by the economic crisis and perceived lack of democratic solutions, some Venezuelans have taken out their ire by publicly shaming government offi cials or knocking down statues of Hugo Chavez, the late fi rebrand leftist leader who governed Venezuela from 1999 to 2013.

In the southeastern city of Puerto Ordaz, the president of a state-run company was “kid-napped,” beaten up, and stripped naked by protesters, the govern-ment said.

In the lower middle-class Cara-cas neighbourhood of El Paraiso, masked men on Monday night shot up an apartment building and parked cars in what one resident, who asked not to be named out of fear of reprisals, said was retalia-tion for barricades set up nearby by opposition sympathisers.

Woman jailed for food theftas tainted offi cials go freeGuardian News and MediaSao Paulo

Even for a country numbed by injustice and inequality, Brazil has been shocked by

revelations that a poor mother who stole an Easter egg for her children was condemned to a harsher jail sentence than corporate execu-tives and politicians who cheated the public of millions of dollars.

The woman – who is referred to only by her fi rst name, Maria – was sentenced to three years, two months and three days in prison for shoplifting a chocolate egg and a chicken breast from a supermar-ket in Matao, Sao Paulo in 2015, according to local media.

She was kept in detention for fi ve months before her trial, then found guilty of a fi rst-degree crime. Although she was briefl y remanded during her appeal, a second judge sent her to prison pregnant in November 2016. She has since given birth – to her fourth child – behind bars, and is now nursing her baby son in a overcrowded cell. Once the child

is six months, it will be taken from her care.

The case is far from unusual, but it has drawn public attention because of an appeal by a legal ombudsman and a newspaper ar-ticle that drew damning compari-sons with the laxer punishments handed down to those convicted of far greater crimes in the Lava Jato (Car Wash) case, a sprawling corruption investigation which has implicated a string of major fi gures in Brazilian politics and business.

The ombudsman, Maira Cora Diniz, said the penalty for Maria was “absurdly” disproportionate to the crime, which did not in-volve violence, damage or social disturbance. The public defender also noted that the sentence would also punish the baby, which would be wrenched from its mother at a point when it still needed breast-feeding.

Commenting on this case in the the Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper, columnist Monica Bergamo con-trasted this to the penalties given to those convicted in the Lava Jato investigation, which uncovered a

vast network of bribes and kick-backs from public contracts that were channelled through major corporations, including Petrobras and Odebrecht, to the major po-litical parties and secret accounts held by dozens of senior politi-cians.

At least seven of those found guilty of such crimes – which de-frauded taxpayers of hundreds of millions of dollars – have received lighter sentences than Maria be-cause they have cut deals with prosecutors or their lawyers have cited extenuating family or health circumstances. Several have been released. Others have been put un-der house arrest, where they can live in relative luxury.

Several other newspapers have picked up on the story as have many social network commenta-tors. One typical post on the Extra news website sarcastically called for applause for the Brazilian jus-tice system because “if you steal millions or billions, almost noth-ing will happen to you.”

“’All are equal before the law’” is the biggest lie ever told in Brazil,” tweeted another.

Colombian indigenous people take part in the march “For the protection of territory, life and dignity of the towns”, in Cali, Colombia. Natives denounced threats against their leaders and demand compliance with the pacts made with the government.

Colombia unrest

The United Nations is proposing that $40.5mn from the unspent budget of the UN mission in Haiti be poured into a special fund to help its cholera victims, according to a report. UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres made the proposal to the UN General Assembly to address a major shortfall in the $400mn needed to help Haiti recover from the epidemic. Cholera was introduced by infected Nepalese UN peacekeepers who were sent to Haiti after the devastating 2010 earthquake. The $40.5mn would be drawn from unspent funds from the UN peacekeeping mission’s budget for 2015-2016 and would provide a major boost to the eff ort to help Haiti recover from the outbreak.

Brazil is concerned about growing numbers of refugees spilling over its border from Venezuela and is creating a plan to deal with a possible mass influx if the crisis in Venezuela worsens, Brazilian Defence Minister Raul Jungmann said. “Evidently we are worried and our biggest concern is the humanitarian situation,” Jungmann told reporters. More than 6,000 Venezuelans cross the border every day looking to buy food and medicine, and most go back but others stay and look for work, the minister said. Last month, Brazilians were shocked by the sight of indigenous women and children from Venezuela begging in the streets of Manaus, the biggest city in Brazil’s Amazon region.

Ecuador’s new president Lenin Moreno took off ice yesterday. Congress swore in Moreno, 64, as the quieter successor to one of the feistiest personalities in Latin American politics: Rafael Correa. Moreno is the first wheelchair-user to become Ecuador’s leader, and one of few such leaders in the world ever to serve as president. His legs have been paralysed since he was shot during a robbery in 1998. He went on to lead a task force on disability rights as vice-president in Correa’s government. That earned him a nomination for a Nobel Peace Prize in 2012. Moreno has pledged to boost business through loans and try to spur consumption.

A Brazil central bank source said that Banco Original’s liquidity was solid, and that it had placed an analyst inside the bank to speed up obtaining answers to prosecutors’ questions about a corruption scandal involving JBS SA, whose controlling shareholders control the bank. The source spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorised to discuss the situation. Market speculation about the health of Banco Original was stoked by news on Tuesday that the central bank had sent the analyst to work inside it, prompting the bank to issue a statement denying any liquidity problems.

Chileans are increasingly growing their own cannabis for medical purposes as the South American nation begins loosening legal prohibitions on the formerly illegal plant. In 2015, Chile legalised the use of medical marijuana, following a wave of other Latin American nations that are slowly making the cultivation, distribution, and consumption of cannabis easier. Earlier in May, pharmacies in the capital city of Santiago began selling cannabis-based medicines, the first time such treatments have been off ered by drugstores in Latin America. Chile’s pro-cannabis Daya Foundation hosted a workshop teaching those with medical conditions how to grow the plant.

UN wants to shift $40mnto Haiti cholera fund

Brazil fears influx of Venezuela refugees

New leftist Ecuador president takes off ice

Banco Original’s liquidityis solid: Brazil top bank

Chileans grow marijuanafor medical purposes

PROPOSAL CRISISEVENT ASSURANCE TREND

A demonstrator shows a sign that reads “Temer, Federal trash” during a protest against President Michel Temer and the latest corruption scandal to hit the country in Brasilia, Brazil, yesterday.

PAKISTAN/AFGHANISTAN27Gulf Times

Thursday, May 25, 2017

Islamabad to present its case at ICJ ‘forcefully’

Pakistan’s National Assem-bly Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq has said that Paki-

stan will forcefully present its case on Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadhav during the next hear-ing at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) scheduled for June 8.

Sadiq was talking to the me-dia yesterday after a meeting of the Parliamentary Committee on National Security discussed Pakistan’s performance at The Hague court.

The international court had stayed Jadhav’s execution till a fi nal outcome of the hearing.

Jadhav was awarded death sentence by a military court in Pakistan for spying and subver-sive activities in the country.

The speaker told the media that all members of the parlia-mentary committee discussed the case as a national issue, leaving aside their political af-filiations.

“The judicial process of the case will be discussed in the next meeting of the committee on May 30,” he added. During the meeting, Sadiq said, the mem-bers gave their input and criti-cally reviewed the situation.

He said no political talk was made during the discussion.

“It’s an issue of national inter-est, and everybody has concerns and wants Pakistan to win this case at the ICJ,” he said.

During the meeting, however,

the government failed to remove reservations of the opposition members over Jadhav’s case at the ICJ.

Attorney General for Pakistan Ashtar Ausaf Ali had briefed the committee members on the per-formance of Pakistani lawyers at the ICJ.

The opposition members ex-pressed dissatisfaction over the government performance and the briefi ng given to them.

Sheikh Rasheed of the Awami Muslim League, while leaving the committee’s meeting, said the At-torney General of Pakistan faced critical questions at the ICJ on the judicial process of the case.

“The government was not prepared to brief the members properly over the issue,” he said, adding that the government had assured them of satisfactory re-plies to their queries at the next meeting of the committee.

MQM-Pakistan leader Dr Farooq Sattar also seemed dis-satisfi ed over the briefi ng by the government.

Those also participating in the meeting included Aftab Sher-pao, Shireen Mazari, Ghulam Ahmed Bilour, Dr Farooq Sattar, Sherry Rehman, Saeed Man-dokhel, Mushahid Ullah Khan, Zahid Hamid and Ministry of Foreign Aff airs secretary Teh-mina Janjua.

InternewsIslamabad

“The judicial process of the case will be discussed in the next meeting of the committee on May 30”

Two Chinese nationalskidnapped in Pakistan

Armed men pretending to be policemen kidnapped two Chinese language

teachers in the Pakistani city of Quetta yesterday, provincial of-fi cials said, a rare attack on Chi-nese nationals that is likely to worry Beijing.

China has pledged to invest $57bn in Pakistani road, rail and power infrastructure in a fl ag-ship project of its vast Belt and Road initiative for a network of modern-day “Silk Road” routes connecting Asia with Europe and Africa.

China’s ambassador to Pa-kistan and other offi cials have often urged Islamabad to im-prove security, especially in the province of Baluchistan, where China is building a new port and funding roads to link its western regions with the Arabian Sea.

Anwar ul Haq Kakar, a Balu-chistan government spokesman, said men pretending to be police offi cers kidnapped the Chinese teachers and wounded a pas-serby who tried to stop them.

“A Chinese couple has been

kidnapped,” Kakar said, adding that offi cials had earlier mis-taken the wounded passerby for a security guard.

“(The passerby) inquired why

they were doing this and they said they were from a law en-forcement agency, but when he asked for their identifi cation cards, they shot him,” added

Kakar. No group has claimed re-sponsibility for the kidnapping, but in the past Islamist militant groups have kidnapped foreign-ers in Pakistan to seek ransom

or drum up publicity for their cause.

China’s embassy in Islamabad confi rmed two of its nationals had been kidnapped, Chinese

state news agency Xinhua said.China’s foreign ministry did

not immediately respond to a faxed request for comment sent after offi ce hours.

Quetta police chief Razza Cheema said the teachers did not work on the Beijing-funded China-Pakistan Economic Cor-ridor (CPEC) as they did not have guards.

Pakistan provides security for all Chinese workers on CPEC projects in Baluchistan.

“Armed men took the couple into custody at gunpoint when they were coming out from the centre,” Cheema said.

Another Chinese woman nar-rowly evaded the kidnappers outside a language centre in Jin-nah, on the city’s outskirts, he added.

The numbers of Pakistanis studying Mandarin has skyrock-eted since 2014, when President Xi Jinping signed off on the vast CPEC funding plans.

Security in Baluchistan has improved in recent years but separatists, who view the project as a ruse to steal natural resourc-es, this month killed 10 Pakistani workers building a road near the new port of Gwadar.

Pakistan faces pressure to keep Chinese workers safe and reassure Beijing about its vast investments, said Vahaj Ahmed, a research analyst at investment bank Exotix Partners.

But the Quetta kidnappings were unlikely to “put the Chi-nese interests off track,” he add-ed.

Abductors pretended to be policemen, provincial off icials say; China helping to build new port and roads in the area; No group has yet claimed responsibility; Policeman says teachers not working on “Silk Road” project

ReutersQuetta/Islamabad

A man injured during kidnapping of two Chinese language teachers by unidentified gunmen lies on a hospital bed in Quetta yesterday.

Pakistan has arrested a Taliban militant leader authorities de-scribe as the “mastermind” behind three major attacks in Baluchistan, a spokesman for the government of the restive southwestern prov-ince said yesterday.Militant and separatist violence has long riven Baluchistan, which has rich reserves of natural gas, copper and gold, and is at the heart of a $57-bn Chinese-funded “Belt and Road” trade and devel-opment initiative.Pakistan blames neighbours Afghanistan and India for foment-ing an ethnic insurgency in the province, besides aiding the Pakistani Taliban, a movement separate from, but allied with, the Afghan Taliban aiming to topple the Afghan government.The arrested man, Saeed Ahmed Badani, was among the planners of three attacks in 2016 that killed more than 180 people, the spokes-man, Anwar ul Haq Kakar, said.“He was involved with a team in all the attacks, but I can describe him as a mastermind, because he was the lynchpin in providing targets and facilitating suicide bombers,” he said.During interrogation, Badani con-fessed to receiving funding from Indian and Afghan intelligence agencies, the province’s home minister, Safraz Bugti, told a news briefing on Tuesday.The arrested militant leader had also encouraged an attack by a suicide bomber last year on a provincial hospital that killed at least 70 people, Kakar added.“He encouraged and convinced the suicide bomber in the lawyers’ attacks because he was his madrassa mate, he knew him since childhood,” Kakar added, referring to a religious school the two attended.

A woman allegedly threw acid on her husband for contracting second marriage yesterday at Banglow Fazal Wah in Luddan police precincts, some 25-km from Islamabad. Reports said 35-year-old Imran, a labourer, contracted second marriage with Asma of Gujranwala a few days back without getting permission from his first wife Yasmeen (30). Yesterday, when he visited Yasmeen at Luddan, she threw acid on Imran after an exchange of argument. Imran received critical burns and was admitted to Nishter Hospital, Multan, for treatment. Vehari Saddar DSP Imran Rasheed told Dawn that Imran received 40% burns. He said the family of the victim didn’t want to get a case registered against her. He said: “Imran had married Yasmeen 12 years ago and he is the father of 10-year-old daughter Alisha.”

United Bank Limited (UBL) of Pa-kistan inaugurated its first ‘Branch of the Future’ in Karachi on May 21, 2017. Consistent with the bank’s progressive and innovative brand attributes, this spacious facility is uniquely futuristic in its off ering, providing customers with state-of-the-art facilities enclosed within a cutting-edge modern design. The branch was inaugurated by UBL Board of Directors and Bestway Group UK Chairman Sir Mohamed Anwar Pervez. Also present at the event were UBL Director Zameer Mohammed Choudrey, UBL Presi-dent and CEO Wajahat Husain, UBL Deputy CEO Sima Kamil and senior executives of the bank.Speaking at the occasion, Husain said, “UBL believes in putting the customer at the heart of every-thing it does.”

Pakistan captures Taliban leader blamed for attacks

Woman attacks husband over second marriage

UBL bank opens ‘Branch of the Future’

SECURITY

CRIME

FINANCE

In this photograph taken on May 23, 2017, Afghan children carry bags as they walk through dense fog on the outskirts of Jalalabad.

Fog hits visibility

Pakistan plans to draw ‘red lines’ for social media

As the controversy over the crackdown against online anti-army cam-

paigners heats up, the govern-ment yesterday revealed its plan to draw red lines for the social media service providers for operating in Pakistan.

“There will be no restrictions on social media.

But, yes, there will be red lines in accordance with the law and Constitution of the country,” Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan told a press conference, after a meeting with a representative delegation of the All Pakistan Newspapers Society (APNS), the Council of Pakistan News-paper Editors (CPNE) and the Pakistan Broadcasters Associa-tion (PBA).

However, he said nothing illegal was being done and ad-vised critics of the crackdown not to create hurdles or hurl threats.

He said the country’s social, moral and cultural values and law and dignity of people, not social media, were under at-tack. “Those attacking our val-ues will be brought to book,” he warned.

Referring to the posts on social media following the withdrawal of an ISPR tweet rejecting the prime minister’s directive for implementation of recommendations of an inquiry committee formed to probe a media report, he said such

posts were unacceptable, par-ticularly at a time when a “war against terror is being waged” to secure the country’s future.

He said action should be taken against individuals be-longing to any political party or group, including the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-N, if they were found to be behind the malignant campaign.

The minister said 27 identi-fi cations and eight individuals had been identifi ed and six of them interrogated so far.

He said no arrest had been made yet and nobody had been harassed.

The individuals were even allowed to bring their counsel with them.

He said a forensic analysis of computers and mobile phones of those suspected of being behind the campaign would be carried out following which they would be formally charged and arrested.

Replying to a question, Nisar said he would ask the National Assembly speaker to convene a meeting of political parties to seek their views on the pro-posed standard operating pro-cedures (SOPs) for the social media service providers.

He said systems of diff erent countries were being exam-ined to follow the best practices with respect to the code of con-duct and SOPs for the service providers.

The interior minister said the service providers would be asked to open their offi ces in Pakistan, which would be facil-itated by the government, and

help develop some rules of the game with consensus.

He said those using fake identities for unleashing mali-cious propaganda had no point in claiming that it was freedom of expression.

He said the government sup-ported the freedom of expres-sion but it was not at all appli-cable to those attacking values, decency and the law.

He said one of the propos-als discussed during the meet-ing was linking social media accounts with mobile phone numbers of the users.

He said the meeting agreed to the need for framing a code of conduct for the media on (issues related to) national security and the media rep-resentative organisations de-cided to set up a committee for this purpose.

He said the proposed code of conduct would be submitted to the government during a speci-fi ed period and then would be fi ne-tuned to give it a fi nal shape.

He said the meeting also decided that senior federal ministers would regularly hold meetings with the media or-ganisations to address ongoing issues and defuse any burning issues.

About social media, the min-ister said it was an un-organ-ised concept where anybody could create a fake or real ac-count and write something on the wall having no boundaries.

He said the free-for-all sys-tem had blatantly been misused in the past.

InternewsIslamabad

Karachi bans swimming for six months after drownings

Pakistanis in the port meg-acity of Karachi have been banned from swimming in

the sea for six months, authori-ties said yesterday, after a recent spate of drownings as residents sought relief from the scorching heat.

Rescue workers and media have reported some 15 cases of drowning at beaches along the city’s Arabian Sea coast over the past week, including eight on Tuesday alone, alarming au-thorities as summer intensifi es.

“The six month ban has been

imposed on swimming, wading or diving in the sea to ensure the safety of public,” a government statement said.

Karachi’s beaches are popular with its population of roughly 25mn people, many of whom suff er from power outages and water shortages in the swelter-ing summers.

The city is a sprawling me-tropolis with few green areas and, while it often enjoys cool-ing sea breezes, has scant facili-ties for coping with intensely hot weather.

In 2015, more than 1,200 people died as June tempera-tures reached 45 degrees Cel-sius (113 Fahrenheit). But safety

standards on the beaches are low, with the few lifeguards on duty often unable to exert any authority.

“In absence of any eff ective guards at the beach, it is in the interest of the people to stay away from the beaches to pre-vent any untoward incident,” said Anwer Kazmi, a spokesman for the Edhi Foundation, the ambulance service which takes responsibility for the bodies of drowning victims.

Dozens of people drowned off the Karachi’s shore in 2014 after defying a ban on swimming dur-ing the monsoon season, which comes later in the summer, bringing with it rougher seas.

AFPKarachi

PHILIPPINES

Gulf TimesThursday, May 25, 201728

Duterte pledges harsh measuresas thousands fl ee unrestAFPManila

Philippine President Ro-drigo Duterte threatened yesterday to impose mar-

tial law nationwide to combat the rising threat of terrorism, after militants beheaded a po-liceman and took Catholic hos-tages while rampaging through a southern city.

Duterte declared martial law on Tuesday for the southern region of Mindanao — which makes up roughly one third of the country and is home to 20mn people — in an immedi-ate response to the attacks by the gunmen, who have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group.

The roughly 100 mili-tants roamed through Marawi city, killing fi ve soldiers, tak-ing a priest and an unspecifi ed number of other people hos-tage from a church, setting fi re to buildings and fl ying black IS fl ags, according to Duterte and his aides.

Duterte said they also behead-ed a local police chief after cap-turing him at a road checkpoint they had set up, as he expressed outrage at what he called the growing threat from militants allied to IS in Mindanao.

“I will not hesitate to do any-thing and everything to protect and preserve the Filipino na-tion,” the president said.

“I might declare martial law

throughout the country to pro-tect the people.”

Duterte, who has waged a controversial war on drugs that has claimed thousands of lives, warned martial law would be “harsh” and similar to military rule imposed by dictator Ferdi-nand Marcos a generation ago.

Marcos’s two-decade rule ended in 1986 when millions of people took to the streets in a “People Power” revolution.

Thousands of critics were jailed, tortured or killed during the dictatorship, according to historians and rights groups.

“Martial law of Mr Marcos was very good,” Duterte said, as he railed against human rights campaigners and other critics of his drug war.

Duterte said his own version of martial law meant security forces could conduct searches and arrest people without war-rants.

He also said there would be curfews for some provinces in Mindanao, and that martial law would remain until the terrorism threat had ended.

The fi ghting in Marawi erupt-ed on Tuesday after security forces raided a house where they believed Isnilon Hapilon, a lead-er of the infamous Abu Sayyaf kidnap-for-ransom gang and Philippine head of IS, was hid-ing.

The United States regards Ha-pilon as one of the world’s most dangerous terrorists, off ering a bounty of $5mn for his capture.

The militants responded to the raid by burning buildings and conducting other diversion-ary tactics in Marawi, a city of 200,000 people, according to Defence Secretary Delfi n Loren-zana.

Five soldiers and 13 militants were killed, national military spokesman Colonel Edgard Arevalo said yesterday night.

However he said the bodies of only two militants had been re-covered and the other reported deaths could not be independ-ently verifi ed.

The gunmen also raided a church in Marawi and took the local priest, Father Chito Suga-nob, plus an unspecifi ed number of other people hostage, accord-ing to the head of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Phil-ippines, Archbishop Socrates Villegas.

“They have threatened to kill the hostages if the government forces unleashed against them are not recalled,” Villegas said in a statement.

Thousands of residents fl ed Marawi, according to an AFP photographer at a military checkpoint near Iligan, the next biggest city about 40 kilometres away.

It was unclear yesterday night how many militants were still in the city or if they had escaped into nearby mountains and for-ests that they have long used as hideouts.

There were no reports of ma-jor clashes yesterday.

Residents fleeing from Marawi city, where gunmen who had declared allegiance to the Islamic State group rampaged through the southern city, are cramped on a truck as they traverse a traff ic gridlock near a police checkpoint at the entrance of Iligan City, in southern island of Mindanao yesterday.

Government troops check a vehicle evacuating residents from their hometown of Marawi city in the southern Philippines, as it drives past a military checkpoint in Pantar town, Lanao del Norte, yesterday.

The Abu Sayyaf, based on the most southerly islands of Mind-anao, has kidnapped hundreds of Filipinos and foreigners since the early 1990s to extract ransoms.

Security analysts say Hapilon has been trying to unite Filipino militant groups behind IS.

These include the Maute group, which is based near Ma-rawi.

Separately, the rebels have been waging a rebellion since the 1970s for an independent or autonomous homeland in Mind-anao, with the confl ict claiming more than 120,000 lives.

These main rebel groups are involved in peace talks with the government.

But the Abu Sayyaf, Maute and other hardline groups want to set up an Islamic caliphate in the south for IS, according to se-curity analysts.

Trump praises president for an ‘unbelievable job’ on drug issueReutersManila

United States President Donald Trump praised Philippine President

Rodrigo Duterte for doing an “unbelievable job on the drug problem” during a telephone conversation last month, the New York Times reported, quot-ing a transcript of the call.

The two leaders also talked about North Korea and China’s potential infl uence, the New York Times said, quoting parts of a Philippine transcript of the April 29 call that was circulated on Tuesday, under a “confi den-tial” cover sheet, by the Ameri-cas division of the Philippine Department of Foreign Aff airs.

The Times said a senior Trump administration offi cial in Washington, who was not au-thorised to publicly discuss the call and insisted on anonymity,

confi rmed the transcript was an accurate representation of the telephone call.

Almost 9,000 people, many small-time drug users and deal-ers, have been killed in the Phil-ippines since Duterte took offi ce on June 30.

Police say about one-third of the victims were shot by offi cers in self-defence during legiti-mate operations.

“I just wanted to congratu-late you because I am hearing of the unbelievable job on the drug problem,” the New York Times

quoted Trump as saying, based on the transcript.

“Many countries have the problem, we have a problem, but what a great job you are do-ing and I just wanted to call and tell you that.”

Duterte won a May 2016 elec-tion by a huge margin and is of-ten compared with Trump, hav-ing himself been the alternative candidate from outside main-stream politics.

Reuters could not immedi-ately verify the Times’ account.

But on May 2, after the phone call, Duterte’s spokesman, Er-nesto Abella, said Trump was very much aware of the criti-cism of Duterte, but had praised him for “doing a great job, con-sidering the weight and the enormity of the conditions in the Philippines”.

The end of the phone conver-sation, according to the Times, centred on a fi rst meeting be-tween the two leaders.

Trump plans to attend an As-sociation of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) summit in Ma-nila in November.

In the conversation, Trump twice invited Duterte to “come to the Oval Offi ce,” the Times reported.

In a statement, the Philip-pines foreign ministry said it had no comment on the New York Times story, but added that under Philippine law there was “criminal and civil liability attached to the hacking, unau-thorised disclosure and use of illegally or inadvertently ob-tained confi dential government documents”.

The ministry said it valued the need for transparency, but the release of some information could aff ect national security and regional stability.

“As such, we appeal to the sense of responsibility and pa-triotism of all concerned,” it added.

Little-known militants becoming formidable forceReutersManila

A tactically smart, social media savvy group eager to align with Islamic State

has emerged from the glut of bandit and separatist groups in the southern Philippines, and so far has proved to be more than a match for the military.

Maute guerrillas seized large parts of Marawi, a city in the Mindanao region, on Tuesday after a botched raid by security forces on a hideout of the group.

Fighting abated yesterday, but residents said fi ghters were in control of the city, 1,400km south of the capital Manila.

They allowed many civilians to leave, although they had taken a Catholic priest hostage.

President Rodrigo Duterte has imposed martial law across Mindanao, saying he would use tough measures to prevent a “contamination” by extremists in the region, which compris-es one-third of the sprawling, Catholic-majority Philippines.

“The Philippines is facing a dangerous group with more solid international connections,” se-curity expert Rommel Banlaoi said of the Maute.

“This will be a game-changer in the fi ght against extremism, we haven’t seen anything like this before.”

The Philippines has long fought a simmering insurgency in Mindanao, but it has signed peace deals with some of the main militant groups and con-tained others.

The region is also home to

Marxist guerrillas as well as ban-dit gangs. Based in Lanao del Sur, the Mindanao province which includes Marawi, the Maute sur-faced around 2013 with a bomb-ing of a nightclub in Cagayan de Oro, a mainly Christian city in a neighbouring province, which killed six people.

The little-known group has raised its profi le since Duterte took offi ce 11 months ago, most notably with a September 2016 bombing of a street market in the president’s hometown of Davao City.

Fourteen people were killed and dozens wounded.

It was blamed for a foiled bomb attempt near the United States embassy in Manila in No-vember.

The group is named after its leaders, the Maute brothers,

both Filipinos with extensive ties to the Middle East, according to the military.

Egypt-educated Omarkhay-an Romato Maute married an Indonesian, the daughter of a conservative cleric, while his brother Abdullah studied in Jor-dan and has links to extremists in that region.

A third brother Hashim was arrested but escaped from a Ma-rawi jail last year.

Last year, the group sought recognition from the Islamic State, pledging allegiance and calling itself as the IS-Ranao.

The Maute brothers are cous-ins of the second wife of Alim Abdulaziz Mimbantas, a leader of the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) who is now dead.

The government signed a

peace deal with the MILF in 2014.

Military intelligence said the Maute brothers also had links to two of the region’s most danger-ous militants — Indonesian Us-tadz Sanusi and Malaysian bomb maker Zulkifl i bin Hir, alias Mar-wan.

Both were killed by Philippine security forces, Sanusi in 2012 and bin Hir in 2015.

In an October 2016 report, regional security expert Sidney Jones said the Maute “has the smartest, best-educated and most sophisticated members of all of the pro-ISIS groups in the Philippines”.

Jones said the Maute group was sophisticated in its use of social media and was able to at-tract students and teachers from the Mindanao State University in

Marawi.The Philippines had un-til this year denied it was home to groups with Islamic State ties.

In February, Defence Secre-tary Delfi n Lorenzana told Reu-ters there was credible intelli-gence showing Islamic State was providing funds and sounding out the Philippines as a base.

The military has not had much success in battles with Mau-te fi ghters, despite far greater numbers and use of planes, at-tack helicopters and artillery.

“The Mautes have shown an ability to absorb what would seem to be major losses in clash-es with the police and military, suggesting that their organisa-tion is larger and better organ-ised that perhaps they have been given credit for,” Jones said in the report.

Military offi cials say it is not

possible to estimate the number of Maute fi ghters — some reports have put the number of at over 100, but others say there could be about 1,000.

What is troubling the secu-rity apparatus is that radical ele-ments of another Islamic State-linked group, Abu Sayyaf, appear to be collaborating with Maute, far from its island strongholds of Basilan, Jolo and Tawi Tawi, all off Mindanao.

The military says Isnilon Ha-pilon, a leader of the Abu Sayyaf group notorious for kidnappings and piracy, sought an alliance with the Maute brothers and was wounded in air strikes in January in Lanao del Sur.

Hapilon, who is also wanted by the United States, was the tar-get of Tuesday’s attempted raid in Marawi, but was not captured.

Duterte: earning praise from US president

30 inmates ‘died due to overcrowding in jails’By Roselle AquinoManila Times/Camp Vicente Lim

Thirty inmates died in vari-ous lock-up cells in the Calabarzon region from

January to May due to high blood pressure and respiratory dis-eases because of overcrowding in the jails.

The region is composed of Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal and Quezon.

Records of Police Regional Of-fi ce (PRO) Calabarzon showed that 20 of these inmates were from Cavite while 10 were from Laguna.

In addition, 556 inmates re-gion-wide are sick: 377 from Cavite, 150 from Rizal, 23 from Laguna and three each from Ba-tangas and Quezon.

Because of this, PRO Calabar-zon Regional Director and Chief Supt. Ma-o Aplasca met with judges and fi scals recently to fi nd a solution to overcrowding in the region’s jails.

Records also show that there

are 4,958 drug users and pushers jailed in 240 lock-up cells whose total capacity is for 3,371 inmates only.

Aplasca appealed to the judges and fi scals to speed up issuance of commitment orders to decon-gest the jails.

The judges and fi scals said as much as they want to, they cannot just issue such orders as provincial jails are also crowded beyond capacity.

In an earlier statement, Bu-reau of Jail Management and Pe-nology Director Serafi n Barreto said as of April, there are 135,052 inmates in 466 BJMP jails na-tionwide or a congestion rate of 558%.

In Binan City Jail in Laguna, there are 602 inmates in lock-up cells that have a holding capacity of only 22 or a congestion rate of 2,635%.

The same condition was noted in Cabuyao City Jail (La-guna) with 2,516% over capac-ity; Imus City Jail (Cavite) with 2,215%; and Santa Rosa City Jail (Laguna) with 2,212%.

SRI LANKA/BANGLADESH/NEPAL29

Gulf Times Thursday, May 25, 2017

Nepal PM Dahal resignsNepal Prime Minister

Pushpa Kamal Dahal yesterday announced

his resignation, in keeping with his agreement with the Nepali Congress, which had propped up his coalition government since last August.

Nepali Congress leader Sher Bahadur Deuba, who has also been the prime minister earlier, is likely to succeed him.

Dahal, who made the an-nouncement of his resignation in a televised address to the nation from his offi ce, said it would end “a long drought of trust in Nepali politics”.

There were several examples in Nepal’s politics that leaders made commitments but never honoured them, he said.

“But today I am going to set an example and as per the ac-cord reached with Nepali Con-gress, I am going to announce my resignation,” he said.

Dahal had earlier decided to announce his resignation in parliament but changed his mind after the main opposition Communist Party of Nepal-Unifi ed-Marxist-Leninist ob-structed the house proceeding on Tuesday against the govern-ment decision to increase local units in various Tarai/Madhes districts. That would bring the Madhes-based parties in the lo-cal polls scheduled to take place in June 14.

After approving the resig-nation, President Bidhya Devi Bhandari will call on political

parties to form a new govern-ment on the basis of two-thirds majority as per the constitu-tional process. If parties fail to garner two-thirds votes, the president will call for formation of the new government on the basis of majority votes.

It is likely that Deuba will contest for the prime minis-ter’s post on the basis of ma-jority votes on the support of Dahal’s Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist Centre and take over probably by the end of next week.

He is likely to hold the second round of local polls on June 14 and will stay in power in Febru-ary until periodic elections take place.

The agreement between Da-hal and Deuba was to run the government on a rotational basis until the next parliamen-tary elections in February 2018. Dahal was to hold offi ce till lo-cal polls are held and remaining two elections - provincial and central - were to be conducted under Deuba.

In his address, Dahal said he was leaving as a “successful prime minister”, highlighting the achievements of his gov-ernment in 10 months in offi ce. The achievements included balancing ties with India and China, ending years’ long power outrage and some good beginning in the fi elds of econ-omy, health, infrastructure, education and, most impor-tantly, holding the local elec-tions which was considered challenging and crucial.

In his second stint in power, Dahal was elected the 39th

IANSKathmandu

Pushpa Kamal Dahal gestures as he leaves after announcing his resignation during an address to the nation in Kathmandu yesterday.

prime minister after forging al-liance with the Nepali Congress on August 3, 2016.

He had become prime min-ister for the fi rst time in August 2008 after his party emerged as the largest political party

from the constituent assembly elections in the same year.

After then president Ram Baran Yadav turned down the cabinet decision to remove the then army chief Rookmangud Katawal and ordered Katawal to

remain in the offi ce, Dahal had resigned on May 4, 2009.

Nepal held the fi rst phase of local elections on May 14 in three provinces, mostly in hills, where the CPN-UML is report-ed to be ahead.

The second phase is to be held in four provinces, mostly in the plains known as Tarai or Mad-hes, where the number of local bodies is almost twice as those that went to polls in the fi rst phase.

Sirisena in Australia, talks trade

Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena yes-terday began his visit to

Australia, aimed at boosting trade and co-operation.

Australia imports around $127.38mn (A$171mn) of Sri Lankan goods every year, with apparel, rubber products, clay construction materials and the nation’s renowned tea making up the majority of purchases, Xin-hua news agency reported.

For the Sri Lankans, $209.34mn of cargo is imported annually with the most popular items including dairy, vegetables, paper, animal feed and lentils.

“Our deep and enduring friendship is anchored in shared history as Commonwealth coun-tries and through our shared in-terests as Indian Ocean nations,” Australian Prime Minister Mal-colm Turnbull said in a state-ment.

The discussions will focus on new areas like education, de-fence, science, technology and broader economic development.

Also said to be high on the agenda are talks focused on com-bating human traffi cking in the Indian Ocean.

It’s the fi rst time a Sri Lankan head of the state has made an of-fi cial visit to Australia.

It follows Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s visit in Feb-ruary, in a year marking the 70th anniversary of diplomatic rela-tions between the two nations.

IANSSydney

Four climbers found dead on Everest

Authorities in Nepal have been unable to confi rm the identities of four bod-

ies found on Mount Everest, of-fi cials said yesterday, raising speculation the climbers may have died years ago.

The climbers were found at camp four - at 7,950m (26,085ft) - on Tuesday by a rescue team who were there to retrieve the body of a Slovak climber who died on the mountain on Sunday.

“Our rescuers found bodies of four climbers in a tent at camp

four yesterday. We don’t have the details of who they are or how they died yet,” said Mingma Sherpa, head of Seven Sum-mit Treks, a Kathmandu-based agency that runs expeditions and rescue operations on the mountain.

Local media reported that two of the dead were foreign climbers and two were Nepali guides.

Nepal’s tourism department said late yesterday they had been unable to identify the bodies.

“Our sources at the base camp were not able to con-fi rm if any teams were miss-ing members. We suspect that maybe they found bodies from years before,” depart-

ment spokesman Durga Dutta Dhakal said.

Tashi Sherpa, also of Seven Summit Treks, later said that some of the bodies were found inside a tent, while others were discovered outside.

Strong winds hit Everest on Tuesday, forcing many to aban-don their summit attempts and remain in tents at camp four.

This fuelled speculation that the four climbers discovered on Tuesday may have died of car-bon monoxide poisoning after using their camp stoves in the confi nes of their tents.

If the bodies are confi rmed as new fatalities, it would bring the season’s death toll to 10.

Four people perished on the 8,848m peak over the week-end, including American doctor Roland Yearwood and Slovak climber Vladimir Strba.

Both died above the 8,000m mark - an area known as the mountain’s “death zone” where oxygen levels fall to dangerously low levels, heightening the risk of altitude sickness.

The body of Indian climber Ravi Kumar, 27, was spotted on Monday two days after he sum-mited and then lost contact.

An Australian climber died on the Tibet side of the mountain on Sunday.

This season has also claimed the lives of legendary Swiss

climber Ueli Steck and 85-year-old Min Bahadur Sherchan, who died attempting to reclaim his title as the world’s oldest person to climb Everest.

More than 382 climbers, both foreign and Nepali, have suc-cessfully reached the summit from the south side so far this season, with at least 120 doing so from the Tibet side.

Many are still waiting to make their fi nal push to the summit before the monsoon arrives in early June, marking the end of the short spring climbing sea-son.

Last year Everest claimed the lives of fi ve climbers. In all, 640 people reached the summit.

AFPKathmandu

Lanka police ‘failing to stop hate crimes’

Rights groups accused Sri Lankan police yes-terday of failing to stop

a wave of hate crimes against Muslim businesses and mosques in the Buddhist-majority country.

Police are yet to make any arrests in connection with more than a dozen arson at-tacks against Muslims shops, mosques and a burial ground in the past month.

Prominent rights activist Victor Ivan said the inaction risked a repeat of anti-Mus-lim riots in 2014 that left four dead.

“Police are responsible for allowing this situation to continue by not taking action against the perpetrators,” Ivan told reporters in Colombo,

adding that an extremist Bud-dhist group was believed to be behind the violence.

Only property has been damaged so far in the latest spate of attacks.

The government said yes-terday the violence had been addressed in a cabinet meet-ing and police and security forces had been instructed to maintain law and order.

“The president directed the inspector general of police to instruct all offi cers in charge of police stations to be responsi-ble for preventing such inci-dents,” the government said in a statement.

The riots in mid-2014 - led by a hardline Buddhist group - were widely seen as the cata-lyst that led to then president Mahinda Rajapakse’s downfall in January 2015.

Muslims account for 10% of Sri Lanka’s 21mn population.

AFPColombo

Oil fi rm threatens to fi re protesting staff

A US oil major has threat-ened to fi re staff pro-testing against the

planned sale of its assets in Bangladesh to Chinese inves-tors, according to a letter seen by Reuters, in a row that could delay the estimated $2bn deal.

Chevron in April announced the sale of its stakes in three Bangladesh gasfi elds to Hima-laya Energy, which is owned by a consortium made up of state-owned China ZhenHua Oil and CNIC Corp, a Chinese govern-ment investment platform.

Six hundred staff at Chev-ron’s subsidiary have halted work related to the transi-tion because the deal has not been approved by the govern-ment, said Shahriar Abedin, secretary general of Chevron Bangladesh Employees Un-ion (CBEU), who called the process illegal.

Chevron said in the letter, dated May 23, that all em-ployees must comply with requests to do work related to the transition to ensure a smooth and effi cient move to new ownership.

“A refusal by any employee

to comply with such requests by their supervisor will be subject to disciplinary ac-tion, including up to a termi-nation of employment,” the letter said.

Chevron sells all the out-put from its Bangladeshi fi elds, which amounts to 16mn tonnes a year of oil equiva-lent and is more than half the country’s total gas produc-tion, to state-run Petrobangla.

The Bangladesh govern-ment has the right of fi rst refusal in any sale of Chev-ron’s assets in the country. Mahbub Sarwar, a director at Petrobangla, said the US com-pany needed Petrobangla’s approval for a sale to proceed.

“We need security and guarantee of our job at least for three years after the hando-ver to the new company. We also wanted guarantee of our achieved gratitude money and compensation,” Abedin said.

Chevron Bangladesh said it had off ered a generous compensation package for staff .

“The package included guaranteed employment for two years and a goodwill bo-nus payment equivalent to nine-month salary,” Chevron said in an emailed response to Reuters.

ReutersDhaka

Hillary Step intact: Nepali climbers

The Hillary Step - a rocky outcrop near the top of Mount Everest - is still

intact, Nepali climbers said yesterday, rejecting a widely re-ported claim by a British climberthat it had collapsed.

The condition of the rock face has been the source of in-tense speculation among the climbing community since six-time Everest summiteer Tim Mosedale declared it had crumbled.

“The Hillary Step is no more,” Mosedale wrote on Fa-cebook the day after he made the top on May 17.

“Not sure what’s going to hap-pen when the snow ridge doesn’t form because there’s some huge blocks randomly perched hither and thither which will be quite tricky to negotiate.”

But experienced Nepali climbers said the rock feature - named after the fi rst climber to summit the world’s highest peak, Sir Edmund Hillary - was unchanged.

“The Hillary Step is as it was before, but a large stone above it has fallen,” said Pemba Dorje Sherpa, who reached the peak last Saturday and has summited on 15 other occasions.

“It was easier to reach the summit because of that, but perhaps that confused people into thinking that the step is no more.”

Nine-time Everest sum-

miteer Mingma Tsiri Sherpa, who runs a climbing company and is currently at base camp, said an alternative route be-ing used by climbers could be leading to confusion.

“The fi xed lines are more to the right of the step (than be-fore). We’re now walking on the snow whereas before we had to walk on the rocky side. That is the reason for the confusion.”

Mingma has not climbed Everest this year but nine of his Nepali guides and eight clients have made it to the top.

Questions surrounding the condition of the step - the last major obstacle before the summit - emerged last year, with some suggesting that it had been damaged in the earthquake that hit Nepal in April 2015.

The 7.8-magnitude quake triggered an avalanche that fl attened base camp, killing 18, and brought the climbing sea-son to a premature close.

Geologist Amod Mani Dixit, who heads the Kathmandu-based National Society for Earthquake Technology, said it was unlikely the earthquake would have shifted rocks on Ev-erest, which stands 450km east of the epicentre.

Dixit said a much more powerful force would be need-ed to alter a rock formation like the Hillary Step.

The Nepal Mountaineering Association said yesterday it was investigating the confl ict-ing claims about the condition of the Hillary Step.

AFPKathmandu

Bangladesh supporters arrive ahead of the Tri-Series One Day International (ODI) cricket match between Bangladesh and New Zealand at Clontarf cricket ground in Dublin, Ireland, yesterday.

Bangladesh cricket supporters

Polish climber accused of ‘illegal’ Tibet-Nepal traverseA Polish climber who claims to have traversed from Tibet to Nepal at the summit of Mount Everest may have crossed “illegally”, authorities in Nepal said yesterday, AFP reports from Kathmandu.Janusz Adam Adamski posted on Facebook on Sunday that he had summited the world’s highest peak via the northern route in Tibet before descending on the southern side into Nepal.“Janusz made it to the top of Mt Everest from the north and then descended to the south, making him the first Polish, and 15th in the world, to traverse the mountain,” read a post on his Facebook page.Authorities in Nepal said that the Pole only had permission to climb on the Tibet side of Everest, making his traverse and descent

into Nepal illegal.“The agency has informed us. If true, it is an illegal crossing,” Tourism Department chief Dinesh Bhattarai said, adding that they had begun an investigation.The Pole is the second foreigner to land himself in trouble with Nepali authorities on Everest this month.South African Ryan Sean Davy was caught on Everest two weeks ago attempting to climb the mountain without paying the $11,000 permit fee.Davy could be hit with a $22,000 fine - a figure that he says he cannot aff ord - or face up to four years in prison.The company organising the Pole’s climb said that they were last in touch with him last week before he made a bid for the summit.“All his arrangements are for a

summit from the North and descent from the North. There was no indication of him planning to come down the Nepal side, we had never discussed it. He only has a permit for the north side,” said Bodha Raj Bhandari, chairman of the Kathmandu-based Snowy Horizon Treks and Expedition company.“He had support staff until camp 2 and then he climbed solo. We were very shocked to see his post on Facebook. Our support staff is still waiting for him at the base camp in the north,” Bhandari added.In his most recent post on Facebook, Adamski said he was now trekking to Lukla, the main gateway to the Everest region on the Nepal side.Adamski has not responded to requests for comment.

Monday’s Manchester Arena suicide bombing, which killed 22 people and injured more than 60, has left the United Kingdom shocked, with the attack prompting swift condemnation and calls for unity from leaders across the political spectrum in the country and beyond.

It also led them to halt campaigning for the upcoming election.

The identity of the bomber has been revealed, and the country’s terror threat level raised to its highest level of “critical”. Even as more details emerge about the attack and how it was orchestrated, one question that political observers and analysts have started asking — and deliberating upon — is that whether the terror strike would have an impact on the election.

Prime Minister Theresa May’s Conservative Party is expected to win the election despite some recent reverses seen in opinion polls.

The Tories’ lead has been halved to 9%, according to one such poll.

While it is not easy to establish the impact of terror attacks — direct or indirect — on election results, they do infl uence public sentiments to a certain extent, feel analysts.

One of the views put forward is that terror strikes immediately preceding elections generally benefi t parties to the right and candidates with more aggressive national security policies.

Something similar is likely to happen in this case as well, according to some analysts, hinting that the Conservatives are more likely to gain than the Labour Party under Left-leaning Jeremy Corbyn.

Any terror attack is followed by mixed reactions – some call for a united but restrained response, while others seek a more direct and pointed action.

The “strong and stable” poll pitch of the Tories, who project themselves as the defenders of Britain’s borders, national sovereignty and cultural identity, may fi t in well

with the post-attack narrative supporting a strong response.

The Manchester attack which deliberately targeted children is likely to have a profound emotional impact on the British public and the campaign.

Also, the PM’s demeanour after the

attack suggested cold, hard anger and she appeared more emotional than the tone she struck after the Westminster attack in March, according to some observers.

On the other hand, some analysts suggest that the attack may not have much of an impact on the election as there doesn’t seem to be much public enthusiasm for any measures similar to France’s state of emergency.

Also, the rise of the right and ultra-right in Europe seems to have slowed down of late, the recent French election being an example.

France rejected Marine Le Pen for the centrist Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s Angela Merkel looks set for a positive election outcome later this year for a fourth term as chancellor.

Even some of those who say the Manchester attack may infl uence the June election acknowledge that the impact would be limited.

The national mood over terrorism does not seem to be dominated by fear, they feel.

A poll last summer revealed that only 43% believed the government should do more to combat extremism, and 32% thought it was doing as much as could be expected.

These numbers may increase now, but may not be enough to have a defi ning impact on election results, it is felt.

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Gulf Times Thursday, May 25, 2017

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The attack is likely to have a profound emotional impact on the British public

Pakistan’s cutting edge in China’s ‘new world order’

Understanding today’s stagnationBy Robert J ShillerNew Haven

Ever since the “Great Recession” of 2007-2009, the world’s major central banks have kept short-term interest

rates at near-zero levels. In the United States, even after the Federal Reserve’s recent increases, short-term rates remain below 1%, and long-term interest rates on major government bonds are similarly low. Moreover, major central banks have supported markets at a record level by buying up huge amounts of debt and holding it.

Why is all this economic life support necessary, and why for so long?

It would be an oversimplifi cation to say that the Great Recession caused this. Long-term real (infl ation-adjusted) interest rates did not really reach low levels during the 2007-2009 period. If one looks at a plot of the US ten-year Treasury yield over the last 35 years, one sees a fairly steady downward trend, with nothing particularly unusual about the Great Recession. The yield rate was 3.5% in 2009, at the end of the recession. Now it is just over 2%.

Much the same is true of real interest rates. During the Great Recession, the ten-year Treasury Infl ation-Protected Security yield reached almost 3% at one point, and was almost 2% at the recession’s end. Since then, the 10-year TIPS yield has mostly declined and stayed low, at 0.5% in May 2017.

The fact that people are willing to tie up their money for ten years at such low rates suggests that there has

been a long trend toward pessimism, refl ected in the recent popularity of the term “secular stagnation” to describe a perpetually weak economy. After former US Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers used the term in a November 2013 speech at the International Monetary Fund, the New York Times columnist Paul Krugman picked it up, and it went viral from there.

Although secular stagnation became a meme fi ve years after the 2008 fi nancial crisis, the term itself is much older. It fi rst appeared in Harvard University economist Alvin Hansen’s presidential address to the American Economic Association, in December 1938, and in his book published the same year.

Hansen described the “essence of secular stagnation” as “sick recoveries which die in their infancy and depressions which feed on themselves and leave a hard and seemingly immovable core of unemployment.” When Hansen delivered his speech, he expected the US economy’s economic stagnation to persist indefi nitely. The depression that had started with the stock-market crash of 1929 was approaching its tenth year, and World War II had not yet arrived. Only after the war began, in 1939, did the stagnation end.

Hansen’s Great Depression-era theory of secular stagnation was based on an observation about the US birth rate, which was unusually low in the 1930s, after having already declined dramatically by the late 1920s. Fewer births perpetuated the stagnation, Hansen surmised,because people did not need to spend as much on children, and felt less need to invest in

the future. Indeed, according to World Bank statistics, the global average birth rate has also fallen since the 2008 fi nancial crisis. But low fertility had nothing to do with that crisis in particular, given that birth rates have been steadily declining for the better part of a century.

Another explanation is that the 2008 crisis is lingering in our minds, in the form of heightened fear that rare but consequential “black swan” events could be imminent, despite moderately strong consumer-confi dence measures and relatively low fi nancial-market volatility (with some exceptions). A recent paper by New York University’s Julian Kozlowski, Laura Veldkamp, and Venky Venkateswaran argues that it is rational to harbour such fears, because once a formerly unthinkable event actually occurs, one is justifi ed in not forgetting it.

My own theory about today’s stagnation focuses on growing angst about rapid advances in technologies that could eventually replace many or most of our jobs, possibly fuelling massive economic inequality. People might be increasingly reluctant to spend today because they have vague fears about their long-term employability – fears that may not be uppermost in their minds when they answer consumer-confi dence surveys. If that is the case, they might increasingly need stimulus in the form of low interest rates to keep them spending.

A perennial swirl of good news after a crisis might instil a sort of bland optimism, without actually eliminating the fear of another crisis in the future. Politicians and the

media then feed this optimism with rosy narratives that the general public is in no position to sort through or confi rm.

Since around 2012, the equity and housing markets have been hitting new records. But the same sort of thing happened regularly in the Great Depression: the news media were constantly reporting record highs for one economic indicator or another. A Proquest “News and Newspapers” search for the 1930-1939 period fi nds 10,315 articles with the words “record high.” Most of these stories are about economic variables. In 1933, at the very bottom of the depression, record highs were reported for oil production; wheat, gold, and commodity-exchange-seat prices; cigarette consumption; postal deposits; sales or profi ts of individual companies; and so forth.

Such rosy reports may give people some hope that things are improving overall, without allaying the fear that they could still suff er an economically catastrophic event. Barring exceptionally strong stimulus measures, this sense of foreboding will limit their spending. Narrative psychology has taught us that there is no contradiction: people can maintain parallel and confl icting narratives at the same time. When people are imagining disaster scenarios, policymakers must respond accordingly. – Project Syndicate

Robert J. Shiller, a 2013 Nobel laureate in economics and Professor of Economics at Yale University, is co-author, with George Akerlof, of Phishing for Phools: The Economics of Manipulation and Deception.

The $1tn OBOR plan envisages the kind of development spree not seen since the end of the Second World War

By Kamran Rehmat Doha

The other week, China sent out the strongest message yet of its ambition to carve out what has the makings

of a ‘new world order’ — something that had until now been considered the sole preserve of the United States, especially since the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

With the unfancied Donald Trump winning the election on the pivot of “Making America Great Again” — designed around an inward policy — and one that is cast in a protectionist mould, a confi dent China fi nds itself free to pursue an economic zeitgeist that has the potential to turn it into the world’s leading power.

In this larger scheme of things, it fi nds heavyweight Russia on its side quite simply because their strategic interests converge.

The One Belt, One Road — or OBOR, to be more succinct — saw heads of state and government from 29 countries, representatives from more than 40 other countries, and heads of UN and multilateral fi nancial agencies, including IMF and World Bank, turn up in Beijing.

An eye for a pie in the trillion dollar infrastructure development project that links the old Silk Road with Europe was palpable.

Even the US and Japan sent delegations.

The who’s who were keen on getting to know what’s what of the phenomenal juggernaut that, at the moment, binds 68 countries from Asia and Africa to Europe and even South America — accounting for up to 40 trillion of the world’s GDP — in a potential partnership whose gravitas for a windfall is lost on no-one.

The OBOR initiative is a manifestation of the shifting sands in global geopolitics, where look-East will hoist Eurasia at the centre of economic and trade activity away from the US-led transatlantic regime.

To be certain, Chinese President Xi Jinping has made the OBOR initiative the centrepiece of his infrastructure behemoth, the sheer scale of which, the world has not seen since the end of the Second World War.

According to Chinese government estimates, nearly $1tn has been invested in the OBOR with multiple trillion more to come in the next decade.

Beijing is also pumping a collective $150bn in development projects in the 68 countries that are part of the project.

The only major regional country to abstain from the epoch-making summit in Beijing was India, which has serious reservations about the project owing to its competing interests with China and the OBOR fl agship project — China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) — which pitches Pakistan right at the fulcrum of the path leading to South and Central Asia.

Both China and Pakistan have off ered India to join the profi table engine of economic growth, but so far

it remains wary of the geographical bind that has Pakistan sitting pretty with a bilateral engagement (CPEC) estimated at approximately $57bn, and which, is expected to grow exponentially in the coming years.

It has seen a surge of nearly $11bn in the last three years alone from an initial projected $46bn!

For Islamabad, of course, this is more than a prized venture that promises to turn its fortunes around.

Once it materialises, it will have insulated Pakistan from any untoward economic downturn and largely addressed the perennial issue of capital.

From initial misgivings at home about unequal distribution thanks to political bickering, CPEC has now assumed a certain unity of purpose four years down the road, which was evident in how Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif invited chief ministers of two provinces where his political rivals rule, and both not only accepted the invitation but were a prominent presence in an offi cial delegation led by Sharif that easily outscored every other country at the summit!

The CPEC has elevated a more than fi ve-decade-old strategic partnership based largely on security cooperation — famously dubbed as being “Higher than the Himalayas and Deeper than the Oceans” — into a dynamic economic relationship whose reach and potential entwines them in an unbreakable bond.

While China would literally, expand its economic might thousands of miles across the region, Pakistan can hardly complain about being the gateway for two routes — the continental Eurasian Silk Road Economic Belt and a Southeast Asian Maritime Silk Road!

Prime Minister Sharif had plenty

to smile about as he oversaw the signing of new wide-ranging accords amounting to $500mn, including an airport in Gwadar — the site of a deep water port that opens into the Arabian Sea from the far western Chinese province of Xinjiang; the setting up of a dry port in Havelian in northern Pakistan; and economic and technical co-operation for the East Bay Expressway linking Gwadar to Pakistan’s highway network.

Addressing the plenary session of the two-day powerhouse of a show in Beijing, Sharif called for fi nding a connect in line with the offi cial theme entitled ‘Co-operation for Common Prosperity’.

“It is time we transcend our diff erences, resolve confl icts through dialogue and diplomacy and leave a legacy of peace for future generations,” he emphasised, before driving home the imperative of peace and security through economic progress.

“The OBOR signifies that geo-economics must take precedence over geo-politics, and that the centre of gravity should shift from conflict to cooperation,” he said, and rejected the notion of encirclement of any country.

President Xi underlined this by allaying concerns that OBOR was designed to manipulate geopolitics for Beijing’s vested interest.

“China is willing to share its development experience with all countries. We will not interfere in the internal aff airs of other countries. We will not export our social system and development model, and will not impose our views on others,” he concluded.

The writer is Community Editor

Manchester attackmay have limitedinfl uence on polls

Chairman: Abdullah bin Khalifa al-Attiyah

Deputy Managing Editor: K T Chacko

GRAND PARTNERSHIP: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, left, with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the OBOR summit in Beijing.

COMMENT

How you should be exhaling

Low vitamin D levels if you’re lactose intolerant

Japanese envoy wishes Happy Ramadan

By Alison BowenTribune News Service

Much has been taught in the realm of relaxation around taking deep breaths.

But how much do we think about ending a breath well?

The exhale is the most important part, says Belisa Vranich, author of “Breathe: The Simple, Revolutionary 14-Day Program to Improve Your Mental and Physical Health.”

Her book (and Breathing Class workshops for athletes, new moms

and businesses) focuses on how teaching your body to breathe better can improve health.

Many people don’t breathe correctly, said Vranich.

“Start with the exhale when you’re thinking about your breathing,” she said.

Often, when people are stressed, they don’t breathe mindfully. In fact, they can stop breathing altogether.

“It’s a reaction to fear and stress,” Vranich said. “It’s also a reaction to being on very tight deadlines and stressed out in front of your computer.”

Taking shallow breaths can mean not getting enough air.

“You’re holding your breath like you’re underwater,” she said. “It wreaks havoc on your body and your brain. All of a sudden, you’ll realise, or your body will alert you. You’ll take a few breaths, and then you’ll do it again.”

If you fi nd yourself feeling tired throughout the day, this could be the culprit. It’s exhausting, Vranich said. “You’ll spend your entire day with your body trying to catch up.”

Try to think through exhaling throughout the day.

“We have this obsession with the

inhale,” she said. “You can’t inhale well unless you’ve exhaled well.”

Here’s how to become a pro. Exhale the entire way out. Activate the entire middle self of your body; you should feel the area around your ribs narrowing.

“You should feel like your entire middle is being wrung out,” she said.

Most people haven’t exhaled deeply enough recently to get rid of stale air.

“Their next inhale is really bad, because you end up always trying to gasp for air and trying to fi ll up,” she said. “You’ve never actually dumped all of the air out.”

Tribune News ServiceWashington

Those with a genetic intolerance to lactose may suff er from a vitamin D defi ciency. That’s according

to a recent study conducted at the University of Toronto and published in the Journal of Nutrition.

“The fi ndings in this study are not surprising because dairy products (primarily milk) that contain lactose

are fortifi ed with vitamin D and one of the primary sources of vitamin D for many people,” says Mayo Clinic Healthy Living Program Medical Director Dr Donald Hensrud.

He adds that this should be put into context of overall vitamin D insuffi ciency. “It aff ects a large proportion of the population, perhaps 20-50% depending on the cutoff for vitamin D levels. So, people with lactose intolerance may be at particularly increased risk of low vitamin D status which may lead to suboptimal bone health and possibly other consequences.”

Hensrud says there aren’t a lot of foods that contain high amounts of vitamin D.

“In addition to milk, some of them are fatty fi sh such as salmon and tuna, egg yolks, and fortifi ed foods such as some cereals and orange juice,” he says.

“For this reason, most people do not obtain an adequate vitamin D intake from food. We can also get vitamin D from sun exposure, but this increases the risk of skin cancer. Therefore, to obtain adequate vitamin D many people may want to take a vitamin D3 supplement.” – Mayo Clinic News Network

By Seiichi OtsukaAmbassador of Japan

Happy Ramadan!I am pleased to say

congratulatory words at the outset of the holy month of

Ramadan.Japanese people recognise Ramadan

fasting as one of the most important religious duties of Muslims. We

respect such a practice itself and the people who fast strictly.

I like the atmosphere in Ramadan. We spend a quiet daytime and bustle at night. After breaking the fast, people are busy eating, chatting, shopping and meeting. All of a sudden, streets and towns are fi lled with people. Brisk daily life returns to us. This is the moment that we feel that we are living together with our neighbours. It might be similar to New Year’s Day that is thrilling to Japanese people when we pray at temples and shrines.

I was always invited to Iftar when I was in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon. I was also fascinated by the moment of silence just before the sunset. Before feasts, people are patient not to drink even a glass of water, resisting temptation until the break of fasting. They look solemn, rather to say, philosophical.

The Arab and Islamic civilisations

have a long and glorious history and were the front-runners in introducing new technology and knowledge and wisdom. The Gulf region has long been endowed under Islam. Currently Qatar contributes to the spread of the Arab and Islamic civilisation to other parts of the world. The Government of Qatar is committed to propagation of Islamic culture and education in Japan.

The Muslim population in Japan has been steadily increasing due to the swelling population of Muslim expatriates and foreign residents. We estimate that more than 800,000 Muslims, including around 1,000 Japanese who have converted to Islam, mainly for the reason of marriage, live in Japan. In line with increased Muslim population, there exists more than 90 mosques and prayer places across Japan. Also we have a considerable number of companies and shops and restaurants which

deal with ‘Halal’ food licensed by Malaysian organisations.

In October 2016, a farmed Bluefin tuna weighing 47kg was shipped to Malaysia for the first time after winning halal certification for its farmed Bluefin and small tuna.

In January, 2017, the fi rst facility in Japan capable of producing meats to Halal standards began operation in Honjo city, outside of Tokyo. The centre is the only facility in Japan to have installed specialised machinery, which is widely used in Europe.

We understand the Muslim people in Japan are living their religious lives just like living in their home countries. The Japanese Prime Minister has hosted Iftars to celebrate Ramadan by inviting Arab and Islamic countries’ diplomats every year.

I am looking forward to having a Happy Ramadan with Qatari people. Let’s see you at Iftar.

Gulf Times Thursday, May 25, 2017 31

Five years before 2022 FIFA World Cup, Khalifa International Stadium sells out at inauguration - 45th Emir Cup Final match

By Shaikha al-ThaniDoha

In September 2016, during a visit abroad with HH the Emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, in Los Angeles, a question was

raised by students during the event in which major Qatari projects took part, including the Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy (SC), the entity in charge of the delivery of the infrastructure for the 2022 FIFA World Cup: “Is it worth it?”

Since winning the bid in 2010, there were various elements to this question – did we deserve the press that targeted us with false headlines? Were we supposed to fi ght fi re with fi re? Were we losing the community – who were asked all over the world about corruption, safety concerns, workers’ rights and the expanding growth at the expense of cultural and traditional norms?

The answer may not please everyone, but there is something we all agree on: the common language of sport. Football may not be what you love, but an event like the World Cup is undoubtedly supportive of what HH Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, the Father Emir, said in the bid book: “Hosting the world’s most prestigious sporting competition here in an Arab country for the fi rst time would make incredible strides in further uniting the Middle East with the rest of the world and forging links between people of all backgrounds.”

In 1976, Khalifa International Stadium opened its doors for the fi rst time to welcome the GCC for the fourth edition of the Gulf Cup of Nations. Since then, it has hosted the same event again in 1992, the 2006 Doha Asian Games, the 2011 Asian Cup and various other major friendlies and competitive matches. The proposed renovation for Khalifa International Stadium was fi ttingly revealed during the Gulf Cup in November 2014 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. No other sporting facility in Qatar has seen the amount of legends, historic or momentous occasions as Khalifa, the national stadium.

For the past fi ve months, the country has been asking the same question: “Will it be revealed at the Emir Cup Final?” To non-engineers,

various opinions fl oated around (“It doesn’t look fi nished.”) None of which mattered when you’re around 2,000 days away from the tournament. The only thing that mattered was that it was done right.

For the estimated 5,000 people who worked on Khalifa, and the hundreds of engineers and designers, the decision always revolved around one conclusion: it has to be done right. On the other hand, for the past few months, while the Technical Department Offi ce worked tireless nights on the delivery of the venue, the Local Organising Committee did the same on the match organisation, venue operations, marketing and ceremonial reveal of the fi rst stadium ready for the tournament.

“Who said that this can’t be

achieved? This is the future of football, this is Khalifa International Stadium.” The ceremony team was led with incredible support from the SC’s Assistant Secretary General, Nasser al-Khater, who never took the credit, but worked twice as hard as everyone. He gave the best piece of advice when I felt like I was losing sense of the plan for the reveal: “Your only aim should be delivering a successful event.” It’s easier than it seemed at that moment, but was one of the hardest lessons to learn – do your best, and that will be good enough.

The aim was the same for all members of the team: a World Cup-worthy experience. Anyone who walked away and asked the question asked in the beginning (is it worth it?) can make up their own mind based

on facts, based on the experience and based on a sold-out stadium. The speech of His Highness that night followed a narrative of Khalifa’s journey by the legendary commentator Youssif Saif, a solo violinist and a joint ribbon-cutting ceremony by the Emir and 47,000 people.

“On behalf of every Qatari and every Arab, I declare Khalifa International Stadium ready to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup,” said HH the Emir. Behind the scenes, His Highness was aware of the ribbon-cutting ceremony, but he spoke from his heart when he said that, insisting on what the fi rst World Cup essentially is in the Middle East, a tournament for the region.

His Highness also honoured the Chairman of the Technical Delivery Offi ce at the SC, Engineer Hilal al-Kuwari to join him in cutting the ribbon. Al-Kuwari was one of the children that took part in the 1976 Gulf Cup Opening Ceremony at Khalifa Stadium. He also led on the Khalifa International Stadium project and Aspire Zone Foundation since 2002, the SC’s stakeholder and the entity of the SC to which Khalifa International Stadium belongs. If anyone deserved to be next to His Highness during the cutting, it would have been Hilal. He was something of an icon of

encouragement during the tough days at the SC, even when things weren’t perfect – he would always be the fi rst person at work, and long after the last person to leave.

“I can make it snow, you know,” said Dr Saud Abdul Ghani, the engineer leading the team behind the cooling technology at Khalifa International Stadium, where it is 42C outside and could go down to 9C inside. He was one of the many at the SC who worked hard for the love and passion of the project – never for the credit.

At various times during the experience of working on the May 19th Emir Cup Final inauguration of Khalifa International Stadium, where the team entered the stadium at 7am and left at 1am, the bid team’s message during the 2010 win became very relevant: “we won’t let you down.”

Which aims to answer the original question. If it wasn’t worth it – then we wouldn’t have fought this hard to prove our critics wrong. With fi ve years left to the tournament, there is far more to come, but it has proven to be a worthwhile journey so far.

The writer is Public Relations Senior Offi cer in the Marketing and Communications department of the SC.

World Cup-worthy Khalifa stadium

Live issues

HH the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani cutting the ribbon to open Khalifa International Stadium, declaring it ready to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup.

Three-day forecast

TODAY

SATURDAY

High: 39 C

Low : 30 C

High: 42 C

Low: 31 C

Weather report

Around the region

Abu DhabiBaghdadDubaiKuwait CityManamaMuscatRiyadhTehran

Weather todaySunnySunnySunnySunnyCloudySunnySunnySunny

Around the world

Athens BeirutBangkok BerlinCairoCape Town ColomboDhakaHong KongIstanbulJakartaKarachiLondonManilaMoscowNew DelhiNew York ParisSao PauloSeoulSingaporeSydney Tokyo Cloudy

Max/min26/1723/1832/2621/1233/2019/1229/2636/2728/2624/1533/2434/2825/1332/2718/1042/2917/1427/1427/1624/1031/2719/0924/19

Weather todayP CloudyM SunnyS T StormsP CloudyP CloudyP CloudyT StormsP CloudyP CloudySunnyM SunnySunnyM SunnyS T StormsRainM SunnyRainSunnyM SunnyP CloudyS T StormsSunny

Fishermen’s forecast

OFFSHORE DOHAWind: NW 15-25/35 KTWaves: 2-4/5 Feet

INSHORE DOHAWind: NW 10-20/30 KTWaves: 2-4/5 Feet

High: 40 C

Low: 30 C

FRIDAY

Inshore: Expected strong wind at most places and poor visibility.

Sunny

Sunny

Max/min38/3036/2239/2838/2736/3138/3441/2631/19

Weather tomorrowSunnySunnySunnySunnySunnySunnySunnySunny

Max/min36/2840/2538/2741/3036/3139/3442/29

Max/min24/1423/1931/2623/1136/2318/1129/2736/2728/2625/1434/2634/2926/1632/2719/0945/3024/1529/1627/1624/1131/2719/0922/17

Weather tomorrowS T StormsSunnyT StormsP CloudySunnyShowersT StormsP CloudyP CloudyM SunnyM SunnySunnySunnyT StormsS ShowersSunnyRainSunnyM SunnyM SunnyS T StormsSunnyCloudy

33/21

QATAR

Gulf Times Thursday, May 25 201732

Hypermarkets across Qatar all set for RamadanBy Peter AlagosBusiness Reporter

Decorations for the season are in place, and rows of shelves display an as-

sorted range of food products used to observe the holy month. Hypermarkets in Qatar are all set for Ramadan.

Store offi cials who spoke to Gulf Times collectively said early

preparations were made to ca-ter to the needs of their respec-tive customers during the holy month, such as importing large volumes of consumer products sourced from local and interna-tional suppliers.

Krishna Kumar R, general manager of LuLu Hypermarket along D-Ring Road, said aside from the 418 discounted con-sumer products announced by the Ministry of Economy and

Commerce, LuLu is also of-fering products at “reduced prices” to support the MEC’s initiative.

“We are also off ering a wide range of imported items that can only be found in LuLu stores. These include baking and special fresh items, sugar-free, gluten-free, organic foods, and other healthy foods that address the needs of diabetics,” said Mo-hamed Rasheed al-Hashmi, who

Customers view the Ramadan-themed novelty items, a large incense burner and hot pot, available at LuLu D-Ring Road. PICTURE: Jayan Orma

Popular consumer products for Ramadan on display at Safari Mall’s hypermarket.

manages LuLu’s D-Ring Road hypermarket.

Kumar also said LuLu has also launched several promotions, in-cluding a raffl e draw for 10 cars, and appliances and diamonds promos. He said LuLu is also of-fering novelty products like a large incense burner set and the Sanjana hot pot, a popular item for many Qataris.

Sayed Emam, Security, Fire & Safety manager, added that LuLu has increased the number of its security in preparation for the infl ux of many customers during Ramadan, and “to improve serv-ice level and shopping conven-ience of customers.”

B M Kasim, senior purchase manager at Safari Mall, said the hypermarket is off ering Iftar combo kits for QR12 during Ram-adan. Safari off ers around 200 to 500 Iftar combo kits (with food, water and juice), a day, on top of the 20 varieties of snacks avail-able at the hot food section.

“We make sure to prepare our food according to our customer requirements,” said Kasim, who noted that 80% of Safari’s customer are Asian expatriates. During the holy month, Kasim said Safari ex-pects a 20% to 25% increase in customer footfall.

“We are constantly trying to

come up with innovations to fur-ther serve our customers better considering that our customer base is growing each year. We al-ways study our customer profi le and their requirements to im-mediately address their needs. That also helps us when sourcing high-quality products from our local and international suppliers to guarantee customer satisfac-tion,” he added.

As part of its Ramadan cam-paign, Al Meera Consumer Goods Company is off ering 1,438 consumer goods at cost price in 35 branches across the country, in addition to its Géant Hyper-market.

In a statement, Al Meera said 1,438 high-quality products have been selected to cater to specifi c needs of shoppers during Ram-adan. The products are strate-gically-placed on “special shelf talkers.”

“As part of our unwavering commitment towards the welfare and prosperity of the community we serve, every year, Al Meera makes sure to run massive pro-motions on hundreds of food and non-food items catering to the needs of all families celebrating every Iftar and Suhoor,” Cobus Lombard, Al Meera acting CEO, Sales and Operations Director, said.