The Bone and Joint Center at hamad Medical Cooperation (hMC) has opened a multidisci-plinary clinic to provide health-care for orthopaedic patients suffering from complications of haemophilia and reduce complications of musculoskel-etal diseases. Senior Consult-ant and head of Orthopedic Surgery Department at hMC Mohamed Mubarak al Ateeq al Dossary said that haemo-philia is a chronic disease that needs treatment by a multidisciplinary medical team, adding that the importance of the new clinic provides the patient with health care by a team with extensive experience in treating musculoskeletal and associated diseases in a highly organised environment that is hardly found in elsewhere. (QNA) PAGE 2

Bone and Joint Center opens specialised clinic

SATYENDRA PATHAK DOhA

FORBES Middle East magazine has placed four Qatari real estate compa-nies in its recently published report on the top 50 listed real estate companies in the Middle East for the year 2019.

Ranked by market value as of Oc-tober 21, 2019, two of the Qatari com-panies have found space in the top 10 of the report that features the top 50 companies listed on the region’s stock exchange.

Ezdan Holding Group, which has been ranked at the fourth place with a market value of $4.5 billion, has emerged as the top Qatari company in the list.

Barwa Real Es-tate Group with a market value of $3.6 billion has been ranked sixth among all companies as part of the report.

United Develop-ment Company (UDC) and Mazaya Real Estate have been ranked 12th and 38th, respectively in the list.

While UDC has a market value of $1.3 billion, Mazaya Real Estate’s mar-ket value reached $229 million as of October 21, 2019.

Qatar’s real estate sector is closely linked to its economy with the industry contributing heavily to growth.

Over the last one decade, Qatar has become world-renowned for erect-ing architectural masterpieces such as the Pearl-Qatar, Msheireb Downtown Doha, Lusail City and various other projects currently under construction.

According to the report, FIFA World Cup in 2022 is expected to fur-ther brighten the outlook of Qatari

market by buoying real estate sales while supporting the hospi-tality sector.

The Middle East region in general and the Qatar in particu-lar has also emerged at the forefront for adapting proptech, an emerging field that implements the use of technology in real estate to produce the best results.

The four listed Qatari real estate companies finding place in Forbes top 50 list indicate the

strength of the local property mar-ket.

To find the market value of listed real estate firms in the Middle East as of October 21, 2019, Fores multiplied the share price on that day by the total number of issued shares.

4 Qatari companies among Forbes ME top 50 realty firmsEzdan Holding Group & Barwa Real Estate Group find place in the top ten realty firms

TRIBUNE NEWS NETWORKDOhA

UNDER the patronage of Prime Minister and Minister of Interior HE Sheikh Abdul-lah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al Thani, the Qatar General Electricity and Water Corpo-ration (Kahramaa) will sign an agreement for the Al Khar-saah solar power plant project on Sunday.

Minister of State for En-ergy Affairs and President and CEO of Qatar Petroleum

HE Saad Sherida al Kaabi will attend the agreement signing ceremony.

The solar power plant, which is being built near the Al Kharsaah district with an area of 10 square kilometres, is the first project for a solar energy plant in Qatar to pro-duce electricity using photo-voltaic technology.

The total capacity of the solar power project is esti-mated at least 700 MW and 350 MW will be connected to the grid in the first quarter of

2021. The commercial opera-

tion is expected to begin in the first quarter of 2022.

Kahramaa has received five offers from international developers who are qualified to bid for the project, and it has reviewed and evaluated the offers submitted in tech-nical, legal and commercial terms.

The plant is part of Kah-ramaa’s plans to reduce de-pendence on fossil fuels, re-duce carbon emissions and

increase energy efficiency by diversifying sources of elec-tricity production, besides increasing the proportion of renewable energy in line with the Qatar National Vision 2030 within the pillars of eco-nomic development and envi-ronmental development.

Kahramaa is the sole own-er and operator of the net-work of electricity and water distribution systems in Qatar. Kahramaa was established in July 2000 to regulate and provide electricity and water.

Deal for Qatar’s first solar power plant project to be signed today

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs HE Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al Thani met with Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General of the United Nations in Iraq, in Doha on Saturday. During the meeting, they reviewed a number of issues of common concern, especially the develop-ments in the region. (QNA)

FM MEEts UN spEcial REpREsENtativE FoR iRaQ

Afghan Taliban aim to sign deal with US by month-end (PG 8)

TurkiSh President recep Tayyip erdogan has warned europe it could face new threats from terrorist organisations if Libya’s uN-recognised government in Tripoli were to fall.

in an article, published on Saturday on the eve of a Libya peace conference in Berlin, erdogan said the eu’s failure to adequately support the Government of National Accord (GNA) would be “a betrayal of its own core values, including de-mocracy and human rights”. “europe will encounter a fresh set of problems and threats if Libya’s legitimate government were to fall,” erdogan wrote. (AFP) PAGE 7

Europe will face terror threat if Tripoli govt falls: Erdogan

Qatar tops MENA in digital skills among active population rankingQATAr has secured the top rank in the Middle east and North Africa (MeNA) region for digital skills among the active popula-tion, according to World index. Qatar has also secured 11th spot globally. in the MeNA re-gion, Qatar is followed by Saudi Arabia (13th globally) and the united Arab emirates (14th). Among the top 10 countries in the world are Finland, iceland, Sweden, Switzerland and Denmark. Digital skills are essential for career growth in today’s world. (TNN)

TRIBUNE NEWS NETWORKDOhA

THE traffic court has delivered ver-dicts in 98 percent of cases last year and the judgments were given in most of the cases in a single session.

More than 6,000 traffic cases reached the court last year and the court delivered judgments in ap-proximately 5,900 cases. Most of the traffic cases related to speeding, reckless driving, signal jumping and misdemeanors due to accidents.

The Supreme Judicial Council has established a traffic court build-ing in the northern city of Khalifa to expedite the settlement of traffic cases, implement the traffic law and confront the violators.

The court has two halls for view-ing traffic cases. The traffic court building has an office of the Public Prosecution that specialises in in-

vestigating cases before they are transferred to the court, offices for investigation of accidents and an arrest office in the event of rulings against one of the litigants and the court announcements office con-cerned with announcing the liti-gants for the sessions.

The Traffic Prosecution has re-cently announced that there will be no complacency at all in dealing

with cases of reckless driving and it will not allow them to endanger their lives as well as that of others.

On Friday, the Ministry of In-terior announced that the General Traffic Department had seized 407 vehicles, the drivers of whom had committed various grave traffic violations in the Sealine area and would be presented to the compe-tent public prosecutor to complete the legal procedures.

Recently, the MoI, represented by the General Directorate of Traf-fic, intensified its efforts to curb reckless driving by apprehending the violators and confiscating their vehicles in the Sealine area.

According to traffic authorities, major traffic violations at Sealine area include reckless driving, drift-ing, hiding vehicle’s number plates among others and this behaviour endangers lives and property of road users.

The General Traffic Department has called on motorists and road users to adhere to the law, exercise caution and avoid committing vio-lations that endanger the lives and property of road users.

Traffic court delivers verdicts in 98% casesCourt hears over 6,000 traffic cases in 2019

● The solar power plant project is spread over 10 square kilometres

● The total capacity of the solar power project is estimated at least 700 MW

● A total of 350 MW will be connected to the grid in the first quarter of 2021

● The commercial operation is expected to begin in the first quarter of 2022

Traffic cases

● Most of the traffic cases related to speeding, reckless driving and signal jumping

Over the last one decade, Qatar has become world-renowned for erecting architectural masterpieces such as the Pearl-Qatar, Msheireb Downtown Doha, Lusail City and various other projects currently under construction

sundayJanuary 19, 2020

Jumada al-awwal 24, 1441

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Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs HE Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al Thani met with Minister of Foreign Affairs of Burundi Ezechiel Nibigira in Doha on Saturday. The Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs also met with Minister of Foreign Affairs of Pakistan Shah Mahmood Qureshi. During the meetings, they reviewed bilateral relations and other topics of mutual interest. (QNA)

02 Sunday, January 19, 2020

Urdu book on Qatar blockade launched at Doha book fairTRIBUNE NEWS NETWORK

DOhA

AN Urdu version of Arabic book ‘Hassar Qatar’ (Qatar Blockade) by Al Jazeera Center for Studies was launched on the sidelines of the 30th Doha International Book Fair at the Doha Exhibition and Conven-tion Center.

The book launch ceremony was attended by Mohamed Hassan al Kuwari, director of Translation and Publica-tion at the Ministry of Culture and Sports; Sheikha Rashid al Kuwari, head of Translation and Publication Department; Khaled Mohamad al Oudah al Fazli, editor Doha Magazine; Ashraf Siddiqui, publisher; Na-

deem Maher, translator; Adil Akbar, general secretary, Pa-kistan Arts Society, a Pakistani community literary forum; Obaid Taher, renowned Radio Urdu presenter and writer; and members of Indian and Paki-stani communities.

Fazli, editor of Doha Maga-zine, a literary portal of the Ministry of Culture and Sports, welcomed and introduced the publisher of the book, Ashraf Siddiqui.

In his remarks, Siddiqui, a renowned Pakistani writer, journalist and social worker, thanked the Ministry of Culture and Sports for the encourage-ment and support to writers and publishers on their literary works.

Siddiqui lauded the extraor-dinary leadership skills Qatar witnessed in handling the illegal blockade, at both internal and external fronts, with great suc-cess.

Siddiqui said that being part of the Qatar society, he felt his responsibility to bring to the knowledge of large Urdu speaking community living in Qatar and Gulf States as well as countries of South East Asia in-cluding Pakistan, India, Bangla-desh and Nepal, the causes and impact of blockage not only on Qatar but also on the other Gulf States.

He thanked the Al Jazeera Center for Studies for permit-ting Urdu translation and pub-lication of ‘Hassar Qatar’.

The publisher said the Urdu translation ‘Qatar Ki Naka Ban-di’ (Hassar Qatar) is available at Jarir Book Store branches and in the racks of Qatar National Library, other major libraries, and research institutes in Paki-stan and India.

Nadeem Maher, a renowned Doha-based Indian writer and poet, who translated Arabic book ‘Hassar Qatar” into Urdu language, thanked Siddiqui for the opportunity given to him to translate the book and play his role towards the host country in forwarding the message into literary circles wherever Urdu is spoken.

Complimentary copies of the book were presented to Urdu lovers on the occasion.

Mohamed Hassan al Kuwari (3rd from right), Ashraf Siddiqui (centre), Nadeem Maher (second from left), Mohamad al Fazli (third from left), Adil Akbar (left), and obaid Taher (right) at the book launch.

Contact US: Qatar tribune i EDitoRial i Phone: 40002222 i aDMiNistRatioN & MaRKEtiNG i Phone: 40002155, 40002122, Fax: 40002235 P.O. Box: 23493, Doha.

MiNiSTer of Administrative Development, Labour and Social Affairs he Yousef bin Mohammed al Othman Fakhroo met Minister of Foreign Affairs of Burundi ezechiel Nibigira and his accompanying delegation in Doha on Saturday. They reviewed cooperation between the two countries and ways to boost them, especially in the field of labour. (QNA)

Qatar slams somali town bombing

The State of Qatar has strongly condemned the bombing that targeted a security point and a tax collection centre at Afgooye town in Somalia, causing injuries. in a statement on Saturday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs reiterated Qatar’s firm position rejecting violence and terrorism whatever the motives and rea-sons. The statement also expressed Qatar’s wish of a speedy recovery for the wounded. (QNA)

fakhroo meets Burundi’s foreign minister

Quick read

TRIBUNE NEWS NETWORKDOhA

A specialised multidisciplinary clinic that is helping individuals with hae-mophilia to prevent musculoskeletal complications, has cared for more than 25 patients since its establish-ment last November.

The clinic, which is located at Hamad Medical Corporation’s (HMC) Bone and Joint Center, is the first of its kind in the country and its estab-lishment has meant that patients with haemophilia now have access to a more streamlined pathway when ac-cessing orthopaedic care.

According to Dr Mohamed Mubarak al Ateeq al Dosari, senior consultant and head of the Orthopedic Surgery Department and director of the Bone and Joint Center, the estab-lishment of the new specialised clinic is significant as it enables patients with haemophilia to receive all their orthopaedic care in a single location.

“Haemophilia is a condition that requires lifelong medical care from a multi-specialty team of healthcare professionals. The establishment of this clinic is noteworthy because we offer patients a unique depth of ex-pertise in addressing their musculo-skeletal system care needs and all of the care they need can be accessed in a more organised manner,” said Dr Ateeq.

Dr Hasan Azzam Abu Hejleh, as-sociate consultant, Surgery, Bone and Joint Center, said haemophilia is a rare and typically inherited bleeding

disorder in which the blood doesn’t clot normally.

He said the severity of the condi-tion depends on the amount of factor VIII or factor IX in the blood, with the disease being classified as mild, mod-erate or severe.

“Patients with haemophilia may bleed for a longer time than others after an injury. They may also experi-ence bleeding inside their body (inter-nally), especially in the knees, ankles and elbows. People with severe hae-mophilia usually experience spontane-ous frequent bleeds into their muscles or joints and this bleeding can damage the organs and tissues and may be life-threatening. Chronic musculoskeletal complications

and joint damage caused by pro-longed bleeding is one of the major complications of haemophilia,” said Dr Abu Hejleh.

While haemophilia is rare, with type A haemophilia affecting around one in 10,000 people and type B haemophilia affecting approximately one in 50,000 people, Dr Abu Hejleh said the major-ity of adult patients with the condition

will experience chronic degenerative changes in multiple major joints.

He said preventative orthopaedic care can help improve their prognosis and noted that the new clinic will help those living with haemophilia to ac-cess individualised treatment in a more streamlined way.

“Most adults with severe haemo-philia suffer from damage in the knees, ankles and/or elbows. Chronic joint damage causes pain and limits range of motion. When the pain is severe and interferes with the activities of daily living, orthopaedic surgery is often the best option,” said Dr Abu Hejleh.

He added, “While there have been many successful outcomes for indi-viduals with haemophilia who have had orthopaedic surgery – specifically, reduced pain and discomfort, and sig-nificantly improved quality of life, coor-dinated, specialised multi-disciplinary preventive treatment (prophylaxis/prophylactic treatment) can help re-duce or delay the need for surgery.

“Our new clinic provides dedicated, multi-specialty care and involves sev-eral specialties, including orthopaedics

and physical therapy, all in one loca-tion. This new clinic will greatly benefit Qatar’s haemophilic population and re-sult in better health outcomes for those managing this lifelong condition.”

Muhammed Rafeeque, a specialised physiotherapist trained to care for hae-mophilia patients, said physiotherapy is also an important part of the puzzle.

He said, under the guidance of Noora al Mudahka, chief of Physiother-apy, physiotherapists working at Ham-ad General Hospital can help patients identify joint function deterioration, provide pain relief, increase joint range and improve strength and flexibility.

“For many patients, physiotherapy offers the best chance to return to a functional level of activity and has a major role in rehabilitating patients after orthopaedic interventions. For patients with haemophilia, special functional scores are designed to eval-uate their condition to detect func-tional loss early so it can be addressed as soon as possible. This offers pa-tients the best chance to regain their function and prevent further dam-age,” said Rafeeque.

Patients with haemophilia now have access to a more streamlined pathway when accessing orthopaedic care

Bone and Joint center specilaised clinic helps improve haemophilic patients’ care

fm meeT Burundi and PaKisTani cOunTerParTs

Dr. Hasan Azzam Abu Hejleh Dr. Mohamed al Ateeq al Dosari Mohammaed Rafeeque

Ooredoo continues with Plug and Play tie-up to drive digital innovationTRIBUNE NEWS NETWORK

DOhA

OOREDOO, the region’s lead-ing enabler of digital business innovation, has announced partnership contract renewal for 2020 with Plug and Play, the Silicon Valley-based world’s largest innovation ecosystem, which aims to connect major corporations, start-ups and investors.

Since March 2019, Oore-doo and Plug and Play have evaluated more than 200 start-ups and built seven Minimum Viable Projects.

Currently, Ooredoo has two projects in production -- the Ooredoo Virtual Store and Digital Opportunities for People with Physical Dis-abilities in partnership with the accessible travel start-up Wheel the World.

Sheikh Nasser bin Hamad bin Nasser al Thani, chief business officer at Ooredoo Qatar, said, “Our partner-ship with Plug and Play is delivering great insights and co-creation results, while making our digital trans-formation journey a reality. With the world’s newest tech-nology and most innovative companies, we are quickly implementing new customer-centric products and services. We are also exchanging glob-al best practices to both Qa-tar and our internal teams to support Qatar’s innovation-led economy of the future.”

In Qatar, Ooredoo is con-tinuing to leverage new and emerging technologies from

Plug and Play’s start-ups to pioneer innovations that can solve business and customer challenges.

For example, the Oore-doo Digital portfolio includes working with Caban on ar-tificial intelligence and so-lar power, reducing up to 75 percent of diesel opexspend, with Onfido on facial recogni-tion and ID fraud detection for online purchases on the Ooredoo website, and with Startup Sentiance on geo-fencing and machine learning for targeted messaging cam-paigns.

MJ Cootsona, partner-ships director, Plug and Play, said, “Ooredoo has been a valued addition to our diverse Internet of Things ecosystem, with engagement that is of-ten double that of our global average. Ooredoo has intro-duced 25 start-ups in Qa-tar, and has also made major pushes in deal flows, proofs of concept and commercialisa-tion, catalysing Ooredoo’s in-novation and Qatar’s diversi-fied economic growth.”

nation 03Sunday, January 19, 2020

MADLSA & ACTA organise training on ‘public service ethics’

QNADOhA

THE Institute of Public Ad-ministration of the Ministry of Administrative Development, Labour, and Social Affairs (MADLSA) and the Adminis-trative Control and Transpar-ency Authority (ACTA) recently organised two training courses on ‘public service ethics’.

The training courses were held at the headquarters of the General Tax Authority and at-tended by 50 employees from various departments of the General Tax Authority.

The two sessions aimed at establishing behavioural and ethical standards, basic rules and principles for public of-fice etiquette, as well as pro-moting professional values and culture based on honesty

and loyalty.It also aimed to clearly de-

fine job duties and prohibited works by setting proper and responsible career behaviour within a specific framework, and delve into concepts of in-tegrity and transparency and their relationship to perfor-mance and effective career in the context of national and in-ternational references and the United Nations Convention against Corruption.

The two training sessions come as part of extended co-operation and partnership between the ACTA and the Ministry of Administrative Development, Labour and So-cial Affairs represented by the Institute of Public Administra-tion, for capacity building of public officials on public office ethics and related topics.

Qnl lecture explores history ofindian communities in the GulfTRIBUNE NEWS NETWORK

DOhA

A FASCINATING insight into the little-known history of In-dian communities in the Gulf was provided at a lecture at Qatar National Library (QNL) recently, as part of the Qatar India 2019 Year of Culture.

Delivered by the li-brary’s Director of Histori-cal Research and Partner-ships Dr James Onley, the lecture highlighted the earliest evidence of their presence in the region approx-imately 4,600 years ago and explored their continuous existence in the region.

After the talk, the partici-pants enjoyed a guided tour

of the ‘Qatar, India & the Gulf’ exhibition at the library, which opened last October and will run until the end of February.

Gerd Nonneman, profes-sor of International Relations and Gulf Studies at George-town University’s School of Foreign Service in Qatar, said, “I have always been in-terested in the connectedness of the Gulf with the wider world around it, particularly with the Indian Ocean space. The lecture was very informa-tive and supported by thor-ough research, which showed how strong the connection between the present-day Gulf region and India was during the pre-oil period.”

Enjoy up to 70% discount at Doha Festival City shopsTRIBUNE NEWS NETWORK

DOhA

DOHA Festival City (DFC) has collaborated with Qatar National Tourism Council (QNTC) as a retail partner for Shop Qatar 2020 to offer shopping and entertainment experience with up to 70 per-cent discount for residents and visitors.

The partnership will bring visitors and shoppers super deals from retailers at the DFC, whereby they can par-ticipate in the second grand raffle draw scheduled for Jan-uary 24, 2020.

Prizes come in five cat-egories. The first will have five people win QR10,000; the sec-ond will be for four winners to receive QR20,000; the third is QR50,000 for three people, while two lucky winners will get the Mini Cooper and the BMW 730 Li, exclusively.

The grand raffle draw cel-ebration will take place from 7pm to 9:30pm in the Centre Court on the first floor of Fes-tival City.

The draw and the event are open to the public, and anyone who shopped at Doha Festival City can enter for a chance to win. Vouchers for customers can be exchanged at the Shop Qatar info desk, located on the ground floor next to Monoprix hypermar-ket, from Sunday to Wednes-day from 10am to 10pm, and Thursday to Saturday 10am to 12am.

During the Raffle Draw ceremony on January 24, visitors to Doha Festival City will also get to enjoy a variety of entertaining shows for the whole family, including Ardha dancers, violin players, mod-ern Jazz Band performance and a Confetti moment.

The annual Shop Qatar mega shopping event will last until January 31, 2020 and

will see retailers in Festival City offer fantastic deals and discounts up to 70 percent on a wide range of goods, in-cluding clothes, electronics, cosmetics and accessories for men, women and children.

Major participating re-tailers include Harvey Nich-ols luxury store in Doha, M MISSONI, Bugatti, Pasa-bahce, Momento, Cole Han, Nest home Living, Karisma, Samosonite offering up to 50 percent discounts, followed by Pandora, Hour Choice, Topshop, Timberland, Tis-sot, Sun Fashion, Diva On and Zara.

With 420 retail outlets and 100 food and dining op-tions, Doha Festival City is

the number one choice for everyone to enjoy the events and offerings of Shop Qa-tar. The mall is known to be home to the best local, regional and international brands, some of which are exclusive to Festival City with no other branches anywhere else in the country.

Robert Hall, general man-ager of Doha Festival City, said: “This is the third year for us to participate in Shop Qatar as a retail partner. We are very happy to partner with QNTC to make Doha a desti-nation for shopping and tour-ism in the region. Our variety of offerings makes us unargu-ably the one and only destina-tion in shopping, dining and entertainment for all.”

“The raffle draw ceremo-ny will include a fantastic show and we invite everyone to make the best out of the discounts and offers available at Doha Festival City and to join us for a chance to win, and also to celebrate with us these unforgettable mo-ments,” he added.

The lecture highlighted the presence of Indian communities in the region approximately 4,600 years ago

Director of Historical Research and Partnerships at Qatar National library Dr James onley delivers a lecture as part of the Qatar India 2019 year of Culture.

High school students experience ‘A Day in the Life’ at GeorgetownTRIBUNE NEWS NETWORK

DOhA

GEORGETOWN Univer-sity in Qatar (GU-Q) held its annual ‘A Day in the Life’ Open House recently, which gave prospective students a chance to experience col-lege life first-hand, helping them choose their path to academic success.

The event was the fi-nal student recruitment drive before the univer-sity’s upcoming February 1 application deadline. It provided the students with key information about the school’s degree programmes and applica-tion requirements for the

2020-2021 academic year.An annual tradition, the

Day in the Life Open House gave high school and trans-fer students the unique op-portunity to have a real col-lege experience by attending a sample lecture delivered by a member of the faculty, and to ask current students and alumni about their ex-perience at Georgetown and career path following gradu-ation. They also learned about newly expanded fi-nancial aid options, student services, sports, housing and more.

Assistant Director of Admissions Mariam La-chin shared how important admissions events are for

Qatar’s educational land-scape, saying, “We always look forward to hosting the next class of committed and enthusiastic learners, and to share with them the un-paralleled opportunities for inquiry, education, service and personal enrichment they have at GU-Q and as part of the Qatar Founda-tion family. We also love to hear from students about their education interests and career goals. Ultimately, we want them to see them-selves here.”

GU-Q’s unique inter-disciplinary Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service degree programmes, which use the same internation-

ally-ranked curriculum as Georgetown’s main campus in Washington, DC, include majors in International Economics, International History, International Poli-tics, and Culture and Poli-tics. Newly added minors in Arabic, Economics, Gov-ernment, History, Philoso-phy and Theology, allow students to customise their majors and expand their ar-eas of interest and expertise as graduates.

More information about the application process and future admissions events can be found on the uni-versity’s website or through a visit to the Admissions Department at GU-Q. The event was the final student recruitment drive before the university’s upcoming February 1 application deadline.

During the Raffle Draw cere-mony on January 24, visitors to Doha Festival City will also get to enjoy a variety of entertaining shows for the whole family, including Ardha dancers, violin players, mod-ern Jazz Band performance and a Confetti moment

Winners walk away with two cars, QR330,000 cash prizesTRIBUNE NEWS NETWORK

DOhA

THE first of Shop Qatar’s three raffle draws was held at The Pearl-Qatar on Friday in the presence of representatives from the Ministry of Commerce and Industry (MoCI).

The winners walked away with two cars and QR330,000 in cash.

The draw was broadcast

live by Qatar Television (QTV).

The event also featured a performance from Qatar’s own Siwar Choir.

Visitors and residents still have two chances to win by shopping or dining at any of the festival’s 12 mall partners.

For every QR200 spent at any participating retailer or restaurant, shoppers can enter a weekly raffle draw for a chance to win cars and cash

prizes with a combined worth of more than QR2 million.

The next Shop Qatar Raf-fle Draw will be held on Fri-day, January 24 at Doha Fes-tival City at 8pm.

To enter the raffle draws shoppers should keep re-ceipts after shopping at stores in the participating malls, show the receipt at the Shop Qatar info kiosk in the mall, collect a voucher for every QR200 spent and drop the

voucher(s) in the Shop Qatar raffle box

Running until January 31, Shop Qatar 2020 includes fashion shows by regional and local designers as well as makeup masterclasses with leading beauty experts and influencers. It also includes mall entertainment for the whole family, music concerts and special Chinese New Year celebrations in the festival’s colourful schedule.

shOP QaTar 2020

04 Sunday, January 19, 2020 nation

TRIBUNE NEWS NETWORKDOhA

FNAC, the leading cultural destination, in partnership with the French Embassy in Qatar and L’Institut Français du Qatar, paid tribute to the theme of the ‘Era of Enlight-enment, the 18th Century in France’, while presenting France as the Guest of Honour at the 30th Doha International Book Fair, which concluded at Doha Exhibition and Conven-tion Centre on Saturday.

Besides, with partners like Qatar National Library (QNL), Histovery, Centre des Monu-ments Nationaux (Center of National Monuments in France) and the BnF (Biblio-thèqueNationale de France / National Library of France) to mark the Qatar-France Year of Culture 2020, the French pavilion had a rich presence at the exhibition boasting of a huge collection of a wide va-riety of books and an array of activities.

In paying tribute to the theme of the ‘Era of En-lightenment, the 18th Cen-tury in France’, the FNAC, the French Embassy and L’InstitutFrançais du Qatar displayed a large number of books related to arts, culture and philosophy as well as a selection of children and edu-cational books.

The French pavilion rec-reated the historic Parisian architecture and also extend-ed within the exhibition to feature different cafés and a library. Workshops discussed different topics related to preserving and protecting heritage, the use of modern

technologies to attract young generations and foreigners to explore and discover France’s heritage and historical monu-ments.

Furthermore, the pavil-ion displayed a collection of books by the Center of Na-tional Monuments, the entity

responsible for administrat-ing over 100 French histori-cal sites. It had a dedicated display by BnF and QNL as well.

To add an artistic touch, FNAC hosted a piano con-cert entitled ‘An Evening of French Musical Delights’ fea-

turing world-class artistes, Sonja Park, LyonelSchmit and Hassan Moataz El Molla. Guests also experienced a Histovery virtual visit of the Conciergerie in Paris, which is the oldest remaining part of the Palais de la Cité, the royal residence of the kings of France and the prison of Marie Antoinette during the French Revolution.

Moreover, the French pavilion hosted a number of interesting talks, meet and greets and book signings with renowned French figures who have made a huge impact on the cultural scene in France, including Philippe Bélaval, president of the National Monuments Center; Sliman-eZeghidour, editor-in-chief at TV5 Monde; Bruno De Sa Moreira, director of the Histovery, designers of the virtual tour of the Concier-

gerie; Nicolas Roche, director of the Bureau International de l’ÉditionFrançaise and AnaïsHalard and Bastien-Quignon, authors of ‘Sacha et Tomcrouz, tome 2 : La Cour du roi’.

The French pavilion was graced by the presence of the Vice Chairperson and CEO of Qatar Foundation (QF)Her Excellency Sheikha Hind bintHamadal Thani, Speaker of the Shura Council HE Ah-mad bin Abdulla bin Zaidal Mahmoud, Minister of Cul-ture and Sports HE Salah bin Ghanemal Ali,Minister of Education and Higher Edu-cation HE Dr Mohammed Abdul Wahedal Hammadi, Minister of Transport and Communications HE Jassim bin Saifal Sulaiti and minis-ter of State for Foreign Af-fairs HE Dr Sultan bin Saadal Muraikhi.

The dignitaries were re-ceived by French Ambassador to Qatar HE Franck Gellet, FNAC Darty Store Network Director Benoit Jaubert and Chairman and Managing Di-rector of Fifty One East Bader al Darwish.

FNAC has had remark-able participation at the Doha International Book Fair in partnership with the French Embassy in Qatar and L’InstitutFrançais du Qatar since 2015.

The Doha International Book Fair is considered to be the largest international book fair in the region with exten-sive participation from differ-ent countries worldwide. It is a platform to exchange cultural diversity and a space to inspire dialogue and share knowledge.

french Pavilion, with variety of collections, stands out at diBfFNAC pays rich tributes to the subject of the ‘Era of Enlightenment’ of the 18th century in France’

MES students visitDIBF, learn about France’s heritage

TRIBUNE NEWS NETWORKDOhA

SOME 25 students of MES Indi-an School studying French lan-guage from grades six to eight visited the Doha International Book Fair (DIBF) at Doha Ex-hibition and Convention Cen-tre, to learn more about French heritage.

The students saw the royal kitchen, the original menu and the cooking utensils that were used to cook for the royal fam-ily. They also had the oppor-tunity to have a glimpse of the imposing royal annex build-ings which housed the Queen of France, Marie Antoinette, before she was executed. The students also participated in an illustrated drawing workshop.

The French culture was highlighted through a recon-

stitution of the typical atmos-phere of a French plaza, with emblematic cafés and book-shops.

Thanks to a digital device called ‘Histopad’, the students were able to travel through time and have a 360-degree view of ‘La Conciergerie’, a former pris-on in Paris.

The French pavilion of the fair includes a digital exhibition ‘Enlightenment’ presented by the National Library of France.

Ancient books in French language from the Qatar Na-tional Library were also on dis-play. The pavilion showcased a selection of beautiful coffee table books on French histori-cal sites.

Radhika Rajendran, coordi-nator of Department of French, and Cherifa Sahraoui accompa-nied the students.

TRIBUNE NEWS NETWORKDOhA

QATAR Charity (QC) held many workshops attended by thousands of children along with their parents, friends and relatives, at it pavilion at the 30th Doha International Book Fair.

The workshops were held under the themes ‘Read, Learn and Help’, ‘Read A Story’ and ‘Story and Picture’.

Qatar Charity organised the workshops as part of its educa-tional and cultural responsibil-ity towards society to promote the culture of voluntary work and humanitarian action, and acquaint participants with its efforts that contribute to build-ing an educated and civilised society in accordance with the Qatar National Vision 2030.

The ‘Read, Learn and Help’ workshop was held for elemen-tary school female students by telling a story and hold-ing accompanied educational activities to make participant aware of the importance of an adequate shelter in preserving human dignity, shedding light on the suffering of homeless people.

The workshop drew a simi-larity between birds fleeing gardens due to hunters target-ing their nests with guns and the people displaced owing to disasters such as wars and earthquakes forcing the vulner-able to flee their homelands to-wards the unknown.

The participating girls un-derstood the concept of dis-placement and asylum, the reasons that lead to these cri-ses, as well as the meanings of displaced, homeless, refugees, suffering of these people and the importance of safe housing.

The workshop included many activities such as reading

a story, drawing, colouring and discovering the reasons of the suffering.

The workshop concluded by linking female students with a project that enables them to participate in a voluntary work to help those deprived of shel-ter.

The workshop was based on the book ‘Spring without Trees’ published by the Media Depart-ment of Qatar Charity within its publications for children.

Another significant four-day workshop held by Qatar Charity at the Qatar School’s pavilion was titled ‘Read A Story’, which received an over-

whelming response from the visitors.

The workshop was by pre-sented by winners in Qatar Charity’s ‘Future’s Writer-3’ programme by reading their stories.

Qatar Charity also held a workshop for children to teach them to recycle paper waste and make other products like paper dividers, in addition to another workshop titled ‘Story

and Picture’ that required put-ting a set of similar pictures in order, with the aim of creat-ing a love of innovation in the child.

Through the workshops, Qatar Charity aims to simulate the reality of those suffering from displacement and pov-erty, and develop the capabili-ties and skills of participants for a positive competition in humanitarian action.

Thousands of children attend QC workshops at book fair

More than 12,000 book lovers visit Qatar Foundation boothsTRIBUNE NEWS NETWORK

DOhA

MORE than 12,000 people visited the Qatar Foundation booths at the Doha Interna-tional Book Fair, which con-cluded on Saturday.

The fair, which saw Vice-Chairperson and CEO of Qatar Foundation (QF) HE Sheikha Hind bint Hamad al Thani at-tend the first day, allowed QF to showcase its literary excel-lence through its national read-ing initiative ‘Qatar Reads’.

Qatar Reads’ Project Man-ager al Jazi al Henzab said, “Participating in the Doha In-ternational Book Fair was a great way to build bridges with the community, which is key to

designing our programmes. It’s important to listen to the needs of the nation, so we can inte-

grate reading into their daily lives and create positive habits.”

Other QF entities and pro-

grammes that participated in the book fair included the Akhlaquna Award, Hamad

Bin Khalifa University Press, Qur’anic Botanic Garden and Qatar National Library.

MES Indian School students at the French pavilion to learn about French heritage, at the Doha International Book Fair Doha.

Embassies share knowledgeon their nations at book fair

TRIBUNE NEWS NETWORKDOhA

THE 30th edition of the Doha International Book Fair con-cluded on Saturday at the Doha Exhibition and Conven-tion Center with the participa-tion of the US Embassy, the Japanese Embassy, the Pal-estinian Embassy, the Kyr-gyz Embassy, the Philippines Embassy and the Syrian Em-bassy.

Pavilions from from Ku-wait and Oman also partici-pated in the fair in the frame-work of exchanges with the Gulf Exhibitions.

The embassies welcomed book lovers and bookworms

to their booths as an opportu-nity to share knowledge and cultures about their countries through a collection of books on their booths and pavilions.

The highlight of this year’s participation was the visit to the US Embassy Pavilion from HH the Father Amir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani. He was welcomed by the Book Fair volunteers from the embassy.

The Doha International Book Fair is known to be one of the largest international book fairs to be held in the region due to the high demand seen in Arab and foreign countries, which has increased since its first edition in 1972.

HE has worked with two of biggest television networks in the Phil-ippines, has rubbed shoulders with famous

Filipino and international person-alities and has been an eyewitness to many significant events and in-cidents that have unfolded in his home country.

Filipino expat Stephen Aquino Sales brings with him a wealth of experience and stories as he con-tinues his career journey in Qatar as the only Filipino cameraman currently working with Al Rayyan Satellite Channel.

In an interview with Qatar Tribune, the mediaperson with 28-year experience in the field ani-matedly shared his most memora-ble experiences in his line of work and while in the middle of action when he was in the Philippines.

Recalling his most memorable field experiences, Stephen said that aside from beating deadlines and catching flights from one place to another, his profession brought him to places, people and situations he never thought he would ever encounter.

“The most memorable assign-ment I have covered in my career so far was a documentary on gun running in the Island of Basilan, the largest and northernmost of the major islands of the Sulu Archipelago in the Philippines. It is memorable to me not only because of the nature or the way we documented the persons in-volved in the lucrative business but how in multiple times we were in most dangerous zones in the area. While in terms of the most memorable personality I was for-tunate to meet in my line of work, I consider it to be Hollywood ac-tor Martin Sheen because I am a huge fan of the classic 1979 Viet-nam war movie Apocalypse Now,” said Stephen.

Stephen started his career in 1992 with ABS-CBN Alto Broad-casting Service – Chronicle Broadcasting Network as camera-man/ EFP (electronic field pro-duction) cameraman. He worked with ABS-CBN, a major Filipino media and entertainment group, until 2002.

After ABS-CBN he briefly

worked as videographer with a digital production house. And in 2004, he got a chance to work with another giant television net-work in the Philippines, GMA7, where he continued to work be-fore he left the Philippines to work in Kuwait in 2008 and later in Qatar.

Working on documentaries is one of the expertise that Stephen said have come to loved and en-joyed working on. He is part of the team behind the documen-

tary titled Batang Kalakal (Child Scavengers) produced by GMA7’s Reporters Notebook show which bagged the Gold World Medal award for Best Human Interest Story in the 2008 New York Film Festivals for Television. Similarly, his team produced another nota-ble documentary of GMA7 titled Bakal Boys (Metal Scraps Scav-engers) which was named a final-ist for Best Human Interest Story category in the 2005 New York Festivals for Television.

“In the course of my 28-year career, I have been with different people from the highest leaders of the land to the poorest members of the society. Indeed, I have de-veloped a deep love and passion for my craft. I would say respect and appreciation of my work and resilience in the field are essential for me to be able to contribute productively to my team.

I have witnessed all walks of life which have opened my eyes to different layers of realities of living. I have also travelled to dif-ferent places and countries and experienced various opportuni-ties which I consider as part of the perks of my work,” Stephen said.

Bringing his expertise over-seas, he added, is another mile-stone in his career life. In Ku-wait, he worked as videographer and editor with Hadath News and Documentary Company Al Rumaithiya. In Qatar, he is once again turning a new leaf in his life with hope of enriching more his wealth of experience especially being the only Filipino camera-man in his workplace.

He said, “Being the only Fili-pino cameraman in my current workplace is a humbling experi-ence for me. There was an instance when we were shooting at the sea in a speedboat while struggling to maintain our balance. The direc-tor praised my shot which really humbled me considering all of us, including my Arabic colleagues, did our best to get the best shots despite the challenging situation.”

Stephen looks forward to broadening more his experience and knowledge while in Qatar. He also hopes to inspire other Fili-pinos with interest in his line of work to pursue their interest.

“Follow your hearts desire and pour that overwhelming love to your chosen field because it will lead to your success. You will surely be rewarded and those in the top management of your or-ganisation will notice your work if you have the uniqueness in shar-ing and giving your all. You can become the brightest star if you continue your passion, serving God and helping others by being an inspiration,” he fondly said in parting shot.

Kabayan cornerReports by Ailyn Agonia For events and press releases email qatar.editor@gmail.com or call (974) 4000 2222

Filipino mediaperson Stephen Aquino Sales, who has spent most of his time beating deadlines and catching flights from one place to another, shares his fascinating 28-year career experience

‘My profession took me to places, situations i would have never encountered otherwise’

With Hollywood actor Martin Sheen.

Stephen with former UK prime minister Tony Blair.

Stephen with security escort during a shoot for a documentary in the Philippines.

Stephen during a shoot for a documentary.

EVENTS

KmP group organises outreach programme

Kaagapay ng Manggagawang Pilipino (KMP) distributed gifts and

food to their compatriots temporarily housed at the Philippine overseas labour office (Polo) shelter recently. The programme was part of the out-reach initiative of the Filipino group which is an active member of Bayani-han Qatar, an umbrella organisation of more than 20 community groups mainly from the grassroots sector. About five big boxes containing gifts for about 220 Filipinos at the Polo shelter and meal packs were distrib-uted during the gift-giving activity. It was led by KMP President Bernardo A. Dijamco Jr, Bayanihan Qatar Presi-dent Jerry Ronquillo, HSW Chairman Bayanihan Domestic Workers leith Daño, John Christopher Vera and other officer-bearers and executive commit-tee heads and members of KMP and Bayanihan Qatar.

Pice Qatar holds General assembly, elects new leaders

The Philippine Institute of Civil Engineers (PICE) Qatar Chapter

held their 13th General Assembly and Technical Convention recently. The two-day event showcased the technical convention where technical lectures were given on various topics as well as the election for the New Board of Directors and the oath-tak-ing of new Civil Engineers took place.

About 300 members of PICE Qatar selected the leaders to lead the organisation in the year 2020. The 2020 PICE Qatar Board of Directors are: President Sheila l. Medel, 1st Vice President Elvin D. Fajutagana, 2nd Vice President Newcesar T. Tem-plonuevo, Secretary Mark Anthony P. Abendan, Treasurer Rolan E. Nevado, Auditor Elizabeth M. Beltran, Business Manager Alnovar S. Abubakar, Public Relations officer Jerick A. lising and Sergeant-At-Arms Emmanuel Ger-

man V. Boceta. While the Committee Heads are: Rogel B. Banal, Alfonso Belito C. Betita, Rolando A. Concep-cion, loraine C. Radan, Maria Michelle A. Revillosa and Arman A. Tolentino.

During the General Assembly, 21 new civil engineers took their pro-fessional oath before Dr. Romeo A. Estañero, Sr – Member, Professional

Regulatory Board for Civil Engineering and Chairman of CPD Council of Civil Engineering. They were handed their Board Certificates and their Profes-sional Identification Cards during the event. These new Civil Engineers were the product of the recent Special licensure Examination given in the Middle East last August 2019.

05Sunday, January 19, 2020

Stephen Aquino

Sales

WHAT family of a 35-year-old man wouldn’t welcome the news that he intended to leave home and make his

own way in the world with his wife and son?What family, or group of friends and

peers, would begrudge such a young man seeking a better life for his family and a more meaningful vocation for himself?

Prince Harry, sixth in line for the Brit-ish throne, and his wife, the former Meghan Markle, sparked a bonfire of outrage when they took to Instagram to announce their plans to step back from their duties as senior royals.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex say they plan to split their time between the United Kingdom and North America as they raise their son, 8-month-old Archie.

And this, somehow, is a scandal. The British press is in an uproar. Various pundits have de-nounced Harry for shirking his duty and Meghan for being a social-climbing manip-ulator. Reportedly, wax figures of Harry and Meghan have been removed from the Mad-ame Tussauds wax museum — the ultimate cancellation in the cancel culture wars.

Queen Elizabeth II responded by sum-moning Prince Harry to a meeting with her, his brother and their father over his future, his freedom and his obligations to the mon-archy. The result was a measured statement in which the queen said that while she pre-ferred Harry and Meghan to continue with the status quo, she would allow the couple more independence. Details, her majesty said, would be worked out later.

The prince and his partner have also in-dicated that they hope to become financially independent, which means, presumably,

work of some kind. This is a bad thing?The critics need to calm down and ad-

mit that these two people are entitled to find their own path and follow their bliss — like anyone else. What’s going on here is not nefarious, selfish or strange. The fa-mous and beautiful young couple do not want to spend the rest of their lives wav-ing and smiling, being waited on and being hounded by tabloid ghouls and celebrity trolls. Being a minor royal — senior is still minor — is not a powerful or substantive

job. Harry will never be king. He will never make national policy. His royal title entitles him to endless receiving lines and appearances, for years and years to come. It’s a good job for a person who doesn’t want much from life.

Harry wants more. He is a bright and idealistic young

man who has served his county in the Brit-ish army and did two tours of duty in Af-ghanistan. He wants to do something use-ful and important with his life. Meghan can surely resume her career as an actress, if she wishes. Both Harry and Meghan are inter-ested in philanthropy and supporting chari-ties that they believe in. One is a mentoring programme for at-risk young people in the rougher parts of London. Together they have selected some 18 charities they wish to support, with their own earnings.

Prince Harry did not marry a fellow royal from some other land. And he did not marry a “commoner.” We don’t have commoners in America. Meghan is an American.

Maybe it takes an American to affirm that it is every human soul’s right to seek a better life for himself and his loved ones. It’s not only OK. It is human and noble.

Harry And Meghan Have Chosen A Better Life

The royal couple doesn’t want to spend the rest of their lives waving and smiling, and being hounded

by tabloid ghouls and celebrity trolls

(Tribune News Service)

Opinion

PETA’s 2020 Vision: An End To Speciesism

IT’S obvious when you think about it: Most conflict stems from the idea of “us vs them.” Our family vs theirs. Our country vs theirs. Our religion vs theirs.

Our species vs theirs.In the ranking of species, humans have

conveniently put Homo sapiens not only at the top but also in its own category sepa-rate from the rest of the animal kingdom — a ranking as inaccurate and arbitrary as declaring that men are more important than women or white people more impor-tant than people of colour. Is the human race really separate from and above all the animal races? PETA doesn’t think so, and that’s why, in 2020 and beyond, we have our sights set on ending the toxic mindset known as ‘speciesism’ — prejudice or dis-crimination based on species.

If you’ve ever wondered how some-one can be moved to tears by a news story about an abused dog yet think nothing of eating a bucket of chicken wings that caused multiple birds to suffer and die, that’s speciesism. It’s speciesist to con-

vince ourselves that we have the “right” to experiment on animals in laboratories because it might help humans. It’s specie-sist to tell ourselves that it’s OK to eat ice cream made from cow’s milk because our desire for the dessert outweighs a mother cow’s need to care for her calf. That it’s OK to steal sheep’s wool for sweaters and scarves and to deny orcas their freedom for our “entertainment.”

It may be convenient for humans to ig-nore animals’ interests, but it’s not right. Animals aren’t objects for us to use; they’re individuals, just like us. When we look into an animal’s eyes, there’s someone — not something — looking back at us. Someone who feels hunger, thirst, pain, fear, joy and love and who makes decisions, has prefer-ences, overcomes challenges and uses lan-guage (even though we may not be able to understand it).

Anyone who has carefully observed an-imals knows this is true. Think of the clev-er sheep in the UK who learned that they could cross hoof-proof cattle grids by lying on their sides or backs and simply rolling over them. Their reward was tasty flowers and vegetables in neighbouring gardens.

Think of the octopuses who — though col-ourblind themselves — can, within a split second, elude capture by “becoming” part of the sandy ocean floor, or the pearlfish who use oyster shells as speakers to help amplify the volume of their communica-tions. Think of the elephants who mourn

their dead, the female orcas who stay with their families for life, the puffins who use sticks to scratch their backs and the rats who willingly put themselves in harm’s way to save others.

These other animals aren’t just like us: They are us. So how do we end speciesism

in our own lives? We can start by valu-ing other animals as individuals, not for the ways they can be exploited. And then we must act, by rejecting anything that causes harm to other living beings. It can be as simple as choosing personal care and household products that aren’t tested on animals; leaving animal-derived foods off our plates; buying sustainable vegan clothing instead of items made from wool, leather, reptile skin or feathers; shunning SeaWorld, roadside zoos and other facili-ties that imprison animals for entertain-ment; and always referring to animals as “he” or “she” instead of “it” (the same pro-noun you’d use for a sofa or table).

PETA’s vision for 2020 is that we all break free of our prejudices and see our-selves in everyone else — animals includ-ed. Are you ready? Visit PETA.org to find out how you can end speciesism in your own life.

(Tracy Reiman is the executive vice president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals,

501 Front St, Norfolk, VA 23510; www.PETA.org)

TRACY REIMAN TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE

We can start by valuing other animals as individuals, not for the ways they can be exploited

THE VIEWS EXPRESSED ON THE OPINION AND ANALYSIS PAGES ARE THE AUTHORS’ OWN. QATAR TRIBUNE BEARS NO RESPONSIBILITY.

A DRAMATIC election that produced a stunning victory for democracy got too little attention in the United States last weekend, as Americans focused on Iran and impeachment.

In a blow to Beijing, Taiwan’s voters decisively reelected Tsai Ing-wen, a tough female president who rejects China’s de-mand that her island democracy unify with the mainland.

Angry Chinese officials insisted the uni-fication of the island with the communist mainland was “inevitable.” This, despite the failure of military intimidation, economic incentives and rampant election meddling to convince the Taiwanese public.

US policy since 1979 has been to dis-suade Beijing from forcefully seizing the island, and to provide Taiwan with defen-sive weapons to make that less likely. But Taiwan’s fate is the issue with the most potential to spark a military confrontation between Washington and Beijing. So it’s time for Americans to pay more attention to Taiwan’s ongoing struggle to preserve its democracy against an authoritarian Beijing regime.

On a trip to Taiwan and Hong Kong in November, I was impressed at the impact Hong Kong’s pro-democracy struggle had made on Taiwan, despite differences in population and history.

Taiwan was never part of the People’s Republic of China, although the PRC has always claimed it. Known as The Repub-lic of China, Taiwan’s government was formed when Chinese nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek and his army fled to Taipei in 1949 after his mainland govern-ment was defeated by the Communists.

Initially a military autocracy, that gov-ernment evolved into a raucous democra-cy. The capital, Taipei, is far less ostenta-tiously wealthy than Beijing or Shanghai, but rich in good eateries, universities and a great national museum. Skilled at small business and advanced technology, its 23 million people have lived in a gray zone, considering themselves separate from China, but never declaring full independ-ence lest Beijing attack.

Tsai Ing-wen has walked a careful line, insisting the self-governing island was sovereign, but not declaring independ-ence. “We don’t have a need to declare ourselves an independent state,” she told the BBC after her reelection. “We are an independent country already and we call ourselves the Republic of China (Taiwan).”

The far more glitzy and multination-al Hong Kong was returned to China by

Britain in 1997 under a formula known as “one country, two systems” by which Bei-jing was supposed to permit Hong Kong to retain rule of law, an independent ju-diciary and increasingly free elections for 50 years. But China has consistently re-duced Hong Kong’s freedoms, leading to the ongoing protests.

Tsai’s campaign was faltering before the Hong Kong demonstrations — with pro-Beijing politicians gaining. But her polls soared as China cracked down on young Hong Kongers. “China was trying to use Hong Kong as a model, but we see it is a fake,” I was told by Wang Ting-yu, chairman of the Foreign and Defence Committee of the Taiwanese parliament. “Taiwanese don’t believe in ‘one country, two systems.’ Democracy cannot exist un-der the Chinese system.”

Adds Ketty Chen, vice president of the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy: “Tai-wanese are not necessarily pro-independ-ence. But they do not want to be part of the People’s Republic of China, especially looking at what is going on in Hong Kong. The PRC is not capturing the hearts and minds of the people here, not from what it is doing in Taiwan and Hong Kong.”

Of course, Beijing has shown no in-terest in winning hearts and minds. Had it done so, the situation in Hong Kong could have been calmed months ago, with the appointment of a truly independent commission to look into police violence against protesters.

Now the question is whether Xi Jin-ping will pay any attention to hearts and minds in Taiwan — and the young people there who increasingly identify there as

Taiwanese rather than Chinese.So far no sign he will do so, prefer-

ring to flaunt military might designed to intimidate Taiwan. Beijing will also pres-sure or bribe the remaining 15 nations that still recognise Taiwanese sovereignty to withdraw their embassies. And it is unlikely Xi will renew a cross-straits dia-logue with Tsai’s government that Beijing broke because she would not recognise “one China.”

Xi has pledged to “reunify” the island with the mainland by 2049, the centen-nial of the PRC’s establishment, but some analysts believe he might use force to do so, sooner, while he is president. Others believe China has so many more pressing problems he will refrain.

The Trump administration has sold Taipei billions worth of defensive weap-ons, and effusively congratulated Tsai on her reelection. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo commended her for maintaining stability with Beijing “in the face of unre-lenting pressure.”

But the United States has no formal defence pact with Taiwan, and no one is certain what President Trump would do if China attacked the island. The United States, along with other democracies, must make clear to Beijing that any such attack would make it a pariah. They must also encourage Tsai Ing-wen to stay in the gray zone: a sovereign democracy short of independence that gives Beijing no pre-text to attack.

(Trudy Rubin is a columnist and editorial-board member

for the Philadelphia Inquirer)

Never Mind impeachment, iran: pay attention to taiwan

TRUDY RUBIN TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE

The United States, along with other democracies, must encourage Taiwan to preserve its sovereign democracy short of independence

that gives Beijing no pretext to attack

ESTABLISHED SEPTEMBER 3, 2006

hamad bIn suhaIm al ThanI CHAIRMAN

adel alI bIn alI MANAGING DIRECTOR

dr hassan mohammed al ansarI EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

The critics need to calm down and admit that these two people are entitled to find their own path and follow their bliss — like anyone else

06 Sunday, January 19, 2020

AFPBeiruT

TENSIONS flared in Leba-non’s capital on Saturday as angry protesters flung stones, traffic signs and tree branches at security forces, who re-sponded with water canons and tear gas.

The protest movement rocking Lebanon since Octo-ber 17 has revived this week, over delays in forming a new cabinet to address the coun-try’s growing economic crisis.

No progress appears to have been made towards a fi-nal lineup, which protesters demand be comprised of inde-pendent experts and exclude all traditional political parties.

On Saturday afternoon, demonstrators set out from various spots in Beirut in a march towards the city centre under the slogan “We won’t pay the price”.

But before they all con-verged near the road leading to parliament, dozens of protest-ers flung rocks and plant pots

filled with earth at the police guarding the institution, local television channels showed.

Security forces sprayed young men with two water cannons and lobbed tear gas over a metal fence to disperse remaining protesters on the wet tarmac.

“A direct and violent con-frontation is taking place with anti-riot police at one of the entrances to parliament,” the Internal Security Forces said on Twitter. “We ask peaceful protesters to keep away from

the site of the rioting for their safety.”

An AFP photographer saw young men uproot parking metres. He also saw around 10 people faint from the tear gas.

A female protester named Maya, 23, said she was attend-ing the protest because politi-cians still seemed to be ignor-ing demands for an overhaul of the old political class.

“I’m here because after more than 90 days in the streets, they’re still squabbling over their shares in govern-

ment... It’s as if they didn’t see our movement,” she told AFP.

“Popular anger is the solu-tion,” the young protester said.

Forming a new cabinet is often convoluted in Lebanon, where a complex system seeks to maintain balance between the country’s many political parties and religious confes-sions. But protesters say they want to scrap the old system, and demand only impartial technocrats staff a new gov-ernment to address their growing economic woes.

Lebanon protesters lob traffic signs, branches at security forces

news in Brief

MOGADiShu: At least seven people were killed and several wounded in a suicide car bombing south-west of Somalia’s capital of Mogadishu on Saturday, authorities confirmed.

Turkish health Minister Fahrettin koca confirmed that six Turkish nationals were among the wounded, with two in critical condition and undergoing surgery. “The terrorists wanted to kill Turkish nationals constructing the road between Mogadishu and Afgoye,” Somali government spokesman ismael Mukhtar Omar told DPA. Omar said that Al-Shabaab militants were behind the attack and had claimed responsibility on their media outlet radio Andalus. (DPA)

at least seven killed and several wounded in somali bomb blast

OuAGADOuGOu: Six Burkina Faso soldiers were killed on Friday when their vehicle was hit by a roadside explosive in a northern province, security sources said, in the latest attack on the coun-try’s armed forces.

No group claimed immediate responsibility for the bomb, but jihadist violence in Burkina Faso has been blamed on militants linked to both Al-Qaeda and islamic State groups.

“A homemade bomb killed six soldiers and inured another” during a patrol in a wildlife reserve in Soum province, the army said in a statement. (AFP)

six Burkina Faso troops killed in roadside bomb attack

AFPiSTANBuL

TURKISH President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has warned Europe it could face new threats from terrorist organi-sations if Libya’s UN-recog-nised government in Tripoli were to fall.

In the article, published on Saturday on the eve of a Libya peace conference in Berlin, Er-dogan said the EU’s failure to adequately support the Gov-ernment of National Accord (GNA) would be “a betrayal of its own core values, including democracy and human rights”.

The GNA led by Fayez al-Sarraj has been under attack since April from strongman Khalifa Haftar’s forces based in the east of the country, with fighting killing over 280 civil-ians and 2,000 fighters.

“Europe will encounter a fresh set of problems and threats if Libya’s legitimate government were to fall,” Er-dogan wrote.

“Terrorist organisations such as IS and Al-Qaeda, which suffered a military de-feat in Syria and Iraq, will find a fertile ground to get back on their feet.”

In a joint initiative, Tur-key and Russia have brokered a ceasefire but Haftar walked away from talks in Moscow this week aimed at finalising the truce agreement.

A furious Erdogan has ac-cused Haftar of fleeing Moscow and said he would “teach (him) a lesson” if he resumed fighting.

Erdogan’s government backs Sarraj and the Turkish parliament earlier this month approved the deployment of troops to Libya after the sign-ing of controversial security and maritime deals between Tripoli and Ankara.

“To leave Libya at the mer-cy of a warlord would be a mis-take of historic proportions,” he said, in a veiled reference to Haftar.

World powers are trying to mediate a lasting ceasefire at the international conference in Ber-lin on Sunday which the warring

parties are expected to attend. “We hope what comes out

of Berlin is renewed demon-stration of international unity in supporting the intra? Lib-

yan political process, ending foreign interference, leading to full respect of the UN arms embargo,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said at a

press briefing on Friday.The conference will aim to

agree six points -- including a permanent ceasefire, imple-mentation of a much-violated

UN arms embargo and a return to political efforts for peace.

Erdogan, who is also due to attend the Berlin talks, wrote in Politico that the Libyan civil war served as a “litmus test” for the EU to show whether its leaders would abdicate their re-sponsibilities and watch the cri-sis uphold from the sidelines.

“The EU needs to show the world that it is a relevant ac-tor in the international arena,” he said. “The upcoming peace conference in Berlin is a very significant step toward that goal. European leaders, howev-er, ought to talk a little less and focus on taking concrete steps.”

An interim truce that came into force in Libya last Sunday has mostly held, despite accu-sations of violations from Haf-tar’s forces and the rival GNA.

The fighting has spurred a growing exodus of migrants and refugees, many embark-ing on rickety boats from Lib-ya towards Europe.

europe will face terror threat if Tripoli govt falls: erdogan

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan gestures as he delivers a speech during the Annual Evaluation Meeting for the 2019 year at the Bestepe National Congress and Culture Center, in Ankara, recently. (AFP)

’To leave libya at the mercy of a warlord would be a mistake of historic proportions’, says erdogan, in a veiled reference to haftar

Russia strike kills five civilians in northwest SyriaAFP

BALA, SYriA

AN airstrike on Saturday by Syrian regime ally Russia killed five civilians, includ-ing four members of the same family, in an opposition bas-tion in the country’s north-west, a monitor said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said three chil-dren were among those killed after midnight on Friday in the village of Bala in the jihadist-run Idlib region.

“A man, his wife, and their two little girls were among those killed,” said the head of

the Britain-based monitoring group, Rami Abdel Rahman.

An AFP correspondent at a hospital in the area saw the bodies of two of the children wrapped up in thick winter blankets. The strike created a massive crater of rubble near a two-storey home flanked by an empty outdoor swimming pool, the correspondent said.

A rescue worker found a stuffed toy cockerel inside the building. Another first re-sponder retrieved two slain rabbits.

The Observatory says it determines who carried out airstrikes according to flight

patterns as well as aircraft and ammunition involved.

The Idlib region has wit-nessed an uptick in violence this week, as the Syrian gov-ernment presses a deadly of-fensive despite a ceasefire ar-ranged by its Russian ally and rebel backer Turkey.

Home to three million peo-ple, the jihadist-run bastion is made up of a large part of the Idlib province, as well as sliv-ers of the neighbouring Alep-po and Latakia provinces.

Fighting there since Wednesday has killed 28 civil-ians including eight children, according to the Observatory.

AFPBerLiN

FORCES loyal to Libyan military strongman Khalifa Haftar blocked oil exports from the war-ravaged coun-try’s main ports on Satur-day, raising the stakes on the eve of an international sum-mit aimed at bringing peace to the North African nation.

The move to cripple the country’s main income source was a protest against Turkey’s decision to send troops to shore up Haftar’s rival, the head of Tripoli’s UN-recognised government Fayez al-Sarraj.

It comes ahead of a con-ference in Berlin on Sunday that will see the United Na-tions try to extract a pledge from world leaders to stop meddling in the Libyan conflict -- be it through sup-plying troops, weapons or financing.

“All foreign interference can provide some aspirin effect in the short term, but Libya needs all foreign interference to stop. That’s one of the objectives of this conference,” UN Libya en-voy Ghassan Salame told AFP in an interview.

Leaders of Russia, Tur-key and France are due to join the talks, held under the auspices of the UN.

Both Haftar and Sarraj are also expected at the gath-ering, the first of such scale on the conflict since 2018.

After months of combat, which has killed more than 2,000 people, a ceasefire took effect on January 12 backed by both Ankara and Moscow, which is accused of supporting Haftar.

But Saturday’s blockade raised fears over the conflict.

The disruption to oil exports is expected to more than halve the country’s daily crude production, to 500,000 barrels from 1.3 million barrels, translating to losses of $55 million a day, warned Libya’s Nation-al Oil Company.

“Our line at the UN is

clear. Don’t play with petrol because it’s the livelihood of the Libyans,” warned Sala-me just hours before the blockade.

“Don’t play with pet-rol, be it by turning it into a weapon of war or a way to cause divisions or as a bidding tool.” The oil-rich North African country has been torn by fighting be-tween rival armed factions

since a 2011 NATO-backed uprising killed dictator Moamer Kadhafi and top-pled his regime.

More recently, Haftar’s forces launched an assault in April on Sarraj’s troops in Tripoli.

Although Sarraj’s gov-ernment is recognised by the UN, some powerful players have broken away to stand behind Haftar -- turning a domestic conflict into what is essentially a proxy war with international powers jostling to secure their own interests from global influ-ence to oil and migration.

Alarm grew internation-ally when Ankara ordered in troops early January to help shore up Sarraj, while Mos-cow is suspected of providing weapons, financing and mer-cenaries to Haftar -- some-thing Russia has denied.

“We must end this vi-cious cycle of Libyans calling for the help of foreign pow-ers. Their intervention deep-ens the divisions among the Libyans,” said Salame.

Libya oil exports blocked, raising stakes for Berlin peace summit

libyan strongman Khalifa Haftar

Gulf / middle east / africa 07Sunday, January 19, 2020

Anti-government protesters walk through clouds of tear gas during clashes with security forces in the central downtown district of Beirut near the parliament headquarters on Saturday. (AFP)

iran’s rouhani calls Trump a ‘global agitator’TehrAN: iranian President hassan rouhani has followed the lead of iran’s supreme leader in speaking out against uS Presi-dent Donald Trump, calling him a “global agitator” and accusing him of worsening the situation in several regions of the world.

“in the past two years, he and the American government have only brought about unrest,” rouhani said in a speech in the south-eastern city of Zahedan on Saturday. There are more crises now than there were prior to the start of Trump’s term, rouhani said.

“Not only in iran, but also in iraq, in Syria, in Lebanon, in Afghanistan - he has brought about more trouble everywhere,” rouhani said in comments carried by broadcaster Chabar.

On Friday, iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali khame-nei called Trump and uS Secretary of State Mike Pompeo “clowns” while leading prayers in Tehran for the first time in eight years. (DPA)

Members of the Syrian Civil Defence, also known as the White Helmets, dig through the rubble of a building, hit by airstrikes, in the town of Baleh, in the western countryside of the northern province of Aleppo on Saturday. (AFP)

Turkey determined to protect Tripoli government by all means, says Erdogan

iSTANBuL: Turkey is determined to use “all means of its political, diplomatic and military power” to safeguard Libya’s uN-recog-nized government, President recep Tayyip erdogan says.

“Turkey will continue to stay in Libya until the legitimate gov-ernment is brought to safety,” erdogan says in istanbul ahead of his visit to Berlin on Sunday for Libya peace talks.

“i am in Germany tomorrow. ... We will discuss these [issues] with all those [parties] in the Mediterranean who are interested in Libya,” the Turkish president says, without elaborating.

Turkey supports a uN-backed government of Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj in Tripoli against General khalifa haftar, based in the country’s east, and has dispatched troops to bolster al-Sarraj.

Ankara will side with its “brothers and sisters” in Libya, erdogan adds, citing “very deep historical links” between Turkey and the North African nation. (DPA)

Turkey says inviting Libya’s Haftar to Greece ‘sabotages’ peace efforts

iSTANBuL: Turkey on Saturday lashed out at Greece for host-ing Libyan strongman khalifa haftar ahead of an internation-al conference in Berlin, saying that the move by Athens would “sabotage” peace efforts. “inviting haftar to Greece and highlighting the Greek national agenda sabotage the efforts to bring peace to Libya,” Turk-ish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu wrote on Twitter. “We would like to remind our Greek friends that these futile efforts are in vain.” (AFP)

AFPPAriS

FRENCH police fired tear gas under a rain of projectiles and arrested several people on Saturday as thousands of “yellow vest” anti-government protesters returned to the streets of Paris.

Demonstrators shouted slogans denouncing the po-lice, President Emmanuel Macron and his pension re-forms that have triggered the longest French transport strike in decades.

This was the latest of the weekly demonstrations held every Saturday by the yellow vest movement since Novem-ber 2018, and which have been boosted by opposition to the pension reforms.

The night before Macron and his wife Brigitte had to be rushed briefly from a paris theatre after protesters tried to burst in and disrupt the performance.

With sirens wailing, riot police drove across the French capital in dozens of vans Sat-urday to the route where thou-sands of protesters marched.

The police said 32 people had been arrested by the early afternoon. At times under a hail of projectiles, riot police fired tear gas and stun grenades.

Young people wearing masks shouted “revolution” as tear gas drifted by the Bastille, the square where the French revolution erupted in 1789.

“The street is ours,” some protesters chanted. “Macron, we’re going to come for you, in your home.”

Saturday’s clashes came on the 45th day of a strike that has hit train and metro traffic and caused misery for millions of commuters in paris especially.

Trains are becoming more frequent however, and paris’s metro drivers voted to sus-pend their action from Mon-day, their union UNSA an-nounced Saturday.

Annie Moukam, a 58-year-old teacher, said too many people in France were suffer-ing. “We’re suffocating with this government who wants to put us on our knees,” Moukam said.

“It’s out of the question that he (Macron) touches our pensions. We have worked all our lives to be able to leave with a dignified retirement,” she said. “It’s exactly that that he is challenging.”

Macron’s reforms aim to forge a single pensions system from the country’s 42 separate regimes.

The various systems cur-rently in place offer early re-tirement and other benefits to some public-sector workers as well as lawyers, physical thera-pists and even paris Opera em-ployees.

Critics say the reforms will effectively force millions of people to work longer for a

smaller pension.The transport unions have

joined forces with the yellow vests, who accuse Macron of ruling on behalf of an urban elite while ignoring people in the provinces and the country-side, many of whom struggle to make ends meet.

The unions are looking for a second wind as their move-ment starts to flag, with the proportion of striking workers at national railway operator SNCF falling to less than five percent on Friday.

There was no sign of an end to the strike at the paris Opera, which has lost 14 mil-lion euros ($15 million) with the cancellation of 67 perfor-mances.

The paris Opera orchestra on Saturday gave renditions of Carmen and other works to parisians and tourists on the steps of the Palais Garnier to show support for the strike.

Tear gas, arrests in latest anti-macron rally in Paris

Demonstrators wave green and yellow flares during a protest called by the ‘Yellow Vest’ anti-government movement as part of a nationwide multi-sector strike against the French government’s pensions overhaul, in Nantes, western France. (AFP)

AFPkABuL

THE Taliban are aiming to reach a withdrawal agree-ment with the US by the end of January and are prepared to “scale down” military op-erations ahead of signing the deal, according to their chief spokesman.

The statement by Suhail Shaheen to Pakistani daily Dawn comes as the group and the US held discussions in Doha this week, after insurgent sources told AFP they had of-fered to initiate a brief ceasefire.

“We have agreed to scale

down military operations in days leading up to the signing of the peace agreement with the United States,” Shaheen told Dawn in a report pub-lished on Saturday.

He added that the Taliban were “optimistic” a deal with Washington could be signed before the end of the month and that the reduction in fight-ing across the country would also include the targeting of Afghan forces.

“It’s now a matter of days,” said the spokesman.

Washington has for weeks been calling on the militants to reduce violence, posing it as a

condition for resuming formal negotiations on an agreement

that would see US troops be-gin to leave the country in re-

turn for security guarantees, after a near two-decade fight.

The Taliban and the US had been negotiating the deal for a year and were on the brink of an announcement in September 2019 when Presi-dent Donald Trump abruptly declared the process “dead”, citing Taliban violence.

Any agreement with the Taliban is expected to have two main pillars -- an Ameri-can withdrawal from Afghani-stan, and a commitment by the insurgents not to offer sanctuary to jihadists -- and would ultimately have to be given final approval by Trump.

Afghan Taliban aim to sign deal with US by end of month

BANGkOk: Thailand’s king Maha Va-jiralongkorn presided over an elabo-rate military parade on Saturday where soldiers and police officers pledged allegiance to the monarch.

The event, which spanned around two hours, took place at a military base in Saraburi province, around 100 kilometres north of Bangkok. it included a big show-case of military hardware such as aircraft, heavy artillery, cavalry, tanks, and other armoured vehicles. Soldiers and police officers recited an oath of undying fealty to Vajiralongkorn, who thanked them for their solidarity in a brief speech. it was the first time police officers joined soldiers in reciting the oath. (DPA)

Thai king presides over elaborate military parade

SeOuL: ri Yong ho, North korea’s foreign minister since 2016, has been replaced, the Seoul-based news site Nk News reported on Saturday.

The report did not say who would be replacing ri, though it said that his successor would likely be un-veiled on or before Thursday, when an event for diplomats is set to take place. ri at-tended the failed nuclear talks in hanoi with uS Presi-dent Donald Trump in Febru-ary and acted as spokesman.

Citing a source in Beijing, South korea’s Yonhap new agency reported on Saturday that North korea’s top envoys to China and the united Nations had returned to Pyongyang. The ambassadors to Angola and Singapore had also been seen at the airport, Yonhap reported. (DPA)

North Korea replaces its foreign minister, says report

kAThMANDu: Four South koreans and three Nepalis are missing and about 200 people have been rescued af-ter an avalanche hit trekkers on the Annapurna region in the himalayas, officials said on Saturday.

South korea was to send an emergency team to Nepal to help in a desperate search operation.

The incident occurred at an altitude of about 3,230 metres (10,600 feet) close to Annapurna base camp follow-ing heavy snowfall on Friday.

Six of the missing are from one trekking expedition while one Nepali porter is from a different group.

“A search operation is underway for the seven out of contact,” Mira Acharya of Nepal’s tourism department said. (AFP)

South Koreans among seven missing in Himalayan avalanche

news in brief

australia bush fires continue to burn; rain wreaks havoc in some area

CANBerrA: Dozens of bush fires continue to burn in south-eastern Australia on Saturday while torrential rain and thun-derstorms have wreaked havoc in many areas of the coun-try’s north-east. Several major highways have been cut off, while theme parks have closed in south-east Queensland due to heavy rain early Saturday with standing water as high as 330 millimetres in some areas.

Local media showed video footage of dozens of vehicles being swept away in flash flooding.

“100+ mm of rain for many locations across south-east Queensland overnight and early this morning. heavy, intense rainfall has eased, but showers and thunderstorms still pos-sible through the weekend. Take care on the roads - if it’s flooded, forget it,” the weather bureau said on Twitter. (DPA)

mexico’s new plan to sell presidential jet: a raffleMexiCO City: Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who has been struggling to find a buyer for what he considers the overly luxurious presidential jet, proposed a novel idea on Friday: hold a raffle.

The leftist austerity crusader has been vowing to sell the Boeing Dreamliner since his 2018 election campaign, saying “not even Donald Trump has a plane like that.” But it turns out it’s not easy to find a buyer for a massive jet customised with an executive bedroom, private bath, seating for 80 people and valued at $130 million. The few prospective buyers so far have all fallen through, leaving the government to search for creative ideas to offload the plane.

Speaking at his daily news conference, Lopez Obrador pro-posed selling six million raffle tickets at a cost of 500 pesos each (about $25) and awarding the plane to one lucky winner. “That would give us about $150 million, and we’d give the plane to the winner with a year or two of operating services,” he said. (AFP)

Filipinos turn volcano’s ash, plastic trash into bricks

AFPBiNAN, PhiLiPPiNeS

ASH spewed by a Philippine volcano is being mixed with plastic waste to make bricks in an inventive response to the country’s persistent problems of pollution and frequent nat-ural disasters.

The Taal volcano burst into life nearly a week ago, sending towering dust columns into the sky and leaving nearby Binan city coated in fine grey powder.

Environment officials did not just clean up the mess but decided to combine the ash with sand, cement and dis-carded plastic to form about 5,000 bricks per day for local building projects.

“Instead of just piling up the ashfall somewhere, we are able to turn it into something useful. And it includes plas-

tics, too,” said city environ-mental officer Rodelio Lee.

The Philippines faces a waste crisis, with a report last year saying it uses a “shocking” amount of single-use plastic, including nearly 60 billion throwaway sachets per year.

With volcanic ash and plastic both in plentiful sup-ply, the officials in Binan see their project as a silver lining.

“During these times, our creativity becomes apparent,” said the mayor of Binan, Ar-man Dimaguila.

In this file photo taken on June 6, 2019, a US military Chinook helicopter lands on a field outside the governor’s palace during a visit by the commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, in Maidan Shar, capital of Wardak province. (AFP)

Workers at the Binan City Materials and Recovery Facility monitor the brick making process from collected volcanic ash from the recent Taal volcano eruption, in Laguna province, on Friday. (AFP)

louvre museum reopens after being blocked by strikers

PAriS: The Louvre in Paris, the world’s most visited museum, reopened on Saturday after being shut down by workers striking over government plans to overhaul pension system.

On Friday, hundreds of disappointed visitors had massed outside the Louvre, some hurling insults at strik-ers who had blocked the en-

trance. it was the first time since the strike began on December 5 that the museum had shut completely although it was forced to close some galleries last month.

The Louvre, which lies near the banks of the Seine, received 9.6 million visitors last year, most of them foreigners including Americans, Chinese and europeans. (AFP)

China stands with Myanmar despite Rohingya genocide accusations

AFPNAYPYiDAW, MYANMAr

CHINA’S Xi Jinping doubled down on his support for fallen rights icon Aung San Suu Kyi on Saturday, signing dozens of infrastructure and trade deals and meeting with the Myan-mar army chief accused of overseeing a genocide against Rohingya Muslims.

The Chinese president’s state visit to Myanmar’s pur-pose-built capital came as Western investors give a wide berth to the country due to the Rohingya crisis.

A 2017 military crack-down on the minority, which UN investigators called geno-cide, forced around 740,000 people from western Rakh-ine state over the border into Bangladesh.

Beijing has stood by the increasingly isolated nation and reaffirmed its position in a joint statement in Chinese state media as Xi’s plane left the capital after two days, es-corted by fighter jets.

China “firmly supports My-anmar’s efforts to safeguard its legitimate rights and interests and national dignity in the in-ternational arena” and for it to advance “peace, stability and development in Rakhine State”.

The Asian giant is now My-anmar’s largest investor even as distrust of its ambitions lin-gers among the public.

More than 30 agreements were signed on Saturday on Xi’s final day of his visit -- with Suu Kyi and Xi seated across from each other on long tables alongside related ministers.

Details were scant but among the 33 deals was a concession and shareholders agreement on the $1.3 billion Kyaukhphyu deep-sea port and economic zone, located in a part of Rakhine state left largely unscathed by the 2017 violence.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Myanmar State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi after signing a memorandum of understanding at the presidential palace in Naypyidaw on Saturday. (AFP)

33 infrastructure and trade deals were signed on final day of Xi’s visit to myanmar

● unions seek to widen oppn to govt’s pension reforms ● Police arrest at least 32 ‘Yellow Vest’ protesters

world08 Sunday, January 19, 2020

TRIBUNE NEWS NETWORKDOhA

PROGRESS towards a “Phase 1” trade deal first hit the head-lines in early October when the US cancelled a planned increase in tariffs in return for Chinese commitments to purchase more US goods and agricultural commodities in particular.

Further progress was made in December, when the US cancelled another planned increase in tariffs and low-ered some tariffs from 15 per-cent to 7.5 percent. More re-cently, on January 13 the US removed the “currency ma-

nipulator” label from China ahead of the planned official signing of the Phase 1 deal on January 15.

Progress towards the Phase 1 deal means that the headwind for global GDP growth from the US-China trade war appears to be abat-ing, Qatar National Bank (QNB) said in its weekly re-port.

“Therefore, our assess-ment of the balance of risks to the global economic out-look has shifted. That is not to say that downside risks have gone away, rather we judge that global GDP growth is now more likely to be slightly

above the base case, rather than slightly below.

“Before the Phase 1 deal, our view was that growth was more likely to be slightly be-low the base case rather than slightly above,” the report noted.

The US Treasury Depart-ment undertakes a semi-annual review of “Macroeco-nomic and Foreign Exchange Policies of Major Trading Partners of the United States”.

The review defines three criteria to “consider whether countries manipulate the rate of exchange between their currency and the United States dollar for purposes of

preventing effective balance of payments adjustment or gaining unfair competitive advantage in international trade.”

The QNB report sheds light on the three criteria and put China’s progress into con-text by looking at how they have evolved over time.

The first criterion is whether the country has a sig-nificant bilateral goods trade surplus with the US. The US reports that China had a goods trade surplus with the US of $401 billion in the 12 months to June 2019. That is around four-times larger than Mexico’s surplus, which is the

next highest. It is also clearly above the $20 billion thresh-old set by the US Treasury Department.

The second criterion is a material current account sur-plus. China’s current account surplus widened from 0.4 percent of GDP in 2018 to 1.2 percent of GDP ($88 billion) in the first half of 2019.

Slower Chinese GDP growth reduced both goods and services imports, par-ticularly outbound tourism. Whereas, Chinese goods ex-ports have remained steady, which has resulted in a wid-ening goods surplus despite a continued deficit in services.

Despite the widening goods surplus, China’s cur-rent account surplus remains below the 2 percent threshold set by the US Treasury De-partment.

The third criterion is whether a country engages in persistent one-sided currency intervention. China does not publish data on currency in-tervention and manages the exchange rate using a range of tools.

However, official Chinese foreign exchange reserves are broadly unchanged at around $3.1 trillion. Therefore, the US judges that the Chinese have “refrained from inter-

vention” in the past year.QNB report said, “So, in

conclusion, the Chinese have been careful not to intervene and cause the Renminbi to depreciate, which has al-lowed China’s bilateral trade surplus with the US to ease back, despite the Chinese cur-rent account surplus picking back up.

“Taken together this means that China only meets one of the of US’s three cri-teria, allowing the US to remove the “currency ma-nipulator” label from China ahead of the planned official signing of the Phase 1 deal on January 15.”

Easing trade tensions may become tailwind for global economy

TRIBUNE NEWS NETWORKDOhA

AHLIBANK has reported a net profit of QR675.2 million for the year ended 2019 with an increase of 1.5 percent over 2018, the bank announced in a statement on Saturday.

The board of directors of Ahlibank has proposed a cash dividend of 15 percent (QR0.15 per share) and a bonus share of 5 percent (1 new share for every 20 shares held) as the dividend distribution for the year 2019.

Sheikh Faisal bin Ab-dulAziz bin Jassem al Thani, Chairman and Managing Director of Ahlibank stated, “We are very pleased with our performance for this year, as the key growth drivers were positively reflected in the overall business growth.

“The bank has success-

fully met one of its key stra-tegic objectives of improving stable funding by completing the third bond issuance for $500 million under its $1.5 billion EMTN programme in the international debt capital

markets. “The issue was oversub-

scribed by more than three times with orders from more than 85 investors from Asia, MENA and Europe. This demonstrates the continued vote of confidence from in-ternational investors in both Qatar and Ahlibank.

He said, “As a further tes-timony to our performance, Ahlibank continues to en-joy higher credit ratings A2/P1 from Moody’s and is the second highest rated con-ventional bank in Qatar after Qatar National Bank (QNB). Fitch Ratings has also af-firmed Ahlibank’s long term issuer default rating (IDR) at ‘A’.”

The bank’s balance sheet grew by 8.7 percent over De-cember 2018 to QR43.91 bil-lion.

Loans and advances was up by 14.8 percent to QR31.59

billion. Investment securi-ties grew by 27.1 percent to QR7.52 billion, and customer deposits by 17.2 percent to QR25.5 billion.

Cost to income ratio for 2019 improved to 27.3 per-cent from 28.1 percent in

2018 reflecting efficient man-agement of the bank’s opera-tions.

The Return on Average Assets (ROAA) and Return on Average Equity (ROAE) stood steady at 1.7 percent and 11.9 percent respectively, despite an increase in balance sheet size and equity base.

Total capital adequacy ratio as of December 2019 stood at a healthy 17.1 per-cent, reflecting strong capital position of the bank.

The chairman further added, “On behalf of the board of directors I would like to thank our customers for their loyalty, the share-holders for their confidence in our mission, the manage-ment and staff for all their dedication and hard work, and extend a special gratitude to the Qatar Central Bank for their uninterrupted guidance and support.”

The board has proposed a cash dividend of 15 percent (Qr0.15 per share) and a bonus share of 5 percent

ahlibank 2019 net profit up 1.5% to Qr675.2 mn

Ahlibank headquarters.

TRIBUNE NEWS NETWORKDOhA

VODAFONE Qatar will an-nounce its 2019 financial results on February 3, the company said in a state-ment on Saturday.

“The board of directors will meet on February 3, 2020 to approve the com-pany’s financial results for the financial year ended

December 31, 2019. “The board will also

consider other items in-cluded on the agenda for the meeting,” the state-ment said.

The company’s finan-cial results will be made publicly available on Voda-fone Qatar’s website at www.vodafone.qa and on the Qatar Stock Exchange website www.qe.com.qa.

Vodafone Qatar 2019 results on February 3

TRIBUNE NEWS NETWORKDOhA

QATAR National Bank (QNB) Group has held its personal loan monthly draws on Janu-ary 15, announcing the names of winners for the month of December 2019 in the pres-ence of representatives of the Ministry of Commerce and In-dustry.

The draws included all loans disbursed during the promotion period, which started on December 11 until December 31, 2019.

The three winners who received prizes of QR50,000 each were AlAnoud Saeed J Y al Kuwari, Jassim Mohd A M al Sayed and Jimmel Dela Rosa Santos, QNB said in a statement on Saturday.

QNB’s customers can still avail a personal loan with a grace period of up to six months and a chance to win a cash prize, the statement added.

All customers who avail a personal loan during the pro-motion period are automati-cally enrolled in the monthly draws. The second monthly draw will be held on February 6, 2020.

Furthermore, customers will be granted free interna-tional remittances and up to 200,000 welcome life rewards

points upon transferring their salaries and availing a per-sonal loan, while customers obtaining a new credit card during the promotion period will benefit from interest-free purchases for up to 90 days.

Heba al Tamimi, General Manager, QNB Group Retail, said, “At QNB we are com-mitted to providing our val-ued customers with the best financial solutions, products and services, as well as excit-ing offers. On behalf of QNB, I would like to congratulate the winners.”

QNB Group’s presence through its subsidiaries and associate companies extends to more than 31 countries across three continents, pro-viding a comprehensive range of advanced products and ser-vices. The total number of em-ployees is more than 29,000 operating through 1,100 loca-tions, with an ATM network of more than 4,300 machines.

QNB announces winners of National Day promotion on personal loans

Sheikh Faisal bin AbdulAziz bin Jassem al Thani, Chairman and Managing Director of Ahlibank

The bank has successfully met one of its key strategic objectives of improving stable funding by completing the third bond issuance for $500 million under its $1.5 billion EMTN programme in the international debt capital markets

Sheikh Faisal bin AbdulAziz bin Jassem al Thani, MD and Chairman of Ahlibank

Positive year● Loans and advances was up by 14.8 percent to Qr31.59 bn. investment securities grew by 27.1 percent to Qr7.52 bn, and customer deposits by 17.2 percent to Qr25.5 bn

● Total capital adequacy ratio as of December 2019 stood at a healthy 17.1 percent, reflecting strong capital position of the bank

all customers who avail a personal loan during the promotion period are automatically enrolled in the monthly draws. The second monthly draw will be held on February 6, 2020

sunday, January 19, 2020

Direct business communication link with MoCI needed: Kuwari PaGe 11

Microsoft vows to be ‘carbon negative’ by 2030 PaGe 10

DOW QE GOLD

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economy & Business

TCA/DPA reDMOND, WAShiNGTON

IN the latest move by Big Tech to address climate change, Micro-soft has promised to be “carbon negative” within the decade and to use its technology, money

and influence to drive down carbon emissions across the economy.

Microsoft’s initiative, rolled out on Thursday morning, commits the company by 2030 to removing more carbon from the environment than its own operations and its supply chain emit each year. By 2050, Mi-crosoft says it will have eliminated as much carbon as the company has generated since its founding 45 years ago.

Microsoft says it also will push suppliers, customers and policy-makers into more carbon-cutting actions and will invest 1 billion dol-lars over the next four years to speed the development of technology that can remove carbon from the atmos-phere - “technology that doesn’t fully exist today,” President Brad Smith said on Thursday during the company’s presentation at its Red-mond campus.

Microsoft’s carbon “moonshot,” as Smith called it, puts the software and cloud-computing giant at the head of the tech sector on climate policy. Rival Amazon, for example, has given itself until 2040 to be-come merely “carbon neutral.” That moonshot didn’t satisfy some cli-mate policy advocates.

Greenpeace reacted to Thurs-day’s announcement by pointing to Microsoft’s cloud-computing con-tracts with oil and gas companies and other carbon-intensive busi-nesses.

“Teaming up with Exxon, BP, Chevron and others to extract more oil and gas is a major disconnect” with its carbon targets, the environ-mental group said in a statement.

Although Microsoft has adopted other climate initiatives - the com-pany has been purchasing so-called carbon credits to offset all its emis-sions since 2012, and it penalizes its internal divisions for all the carbon they generate - its latest move rep-resents a substantial step-change in reach, some climate experts say.

For starters, instead of rely-ing primarily on offsets to reduce its carbon footprint, Microsoft will ramp up efforts to physically reduce emissions produced directly and indirectly by its operations. One ex-ample: by 2025, it plans to use only renewable energy for the global net-work of data centers that supports Microsoft’s cloud service, which is second in market share only to Am-azon’s.

Microsoft will also expand its carbon-reduction efforts into its supply chain, which, as Smith not-ed, accounts for most of the 16 mil-lion metric tons the company is re-sponsible for emitting each year.

Microsoft’s commitment to use its technology, political influence and “balance sheet,” as Smith put it, may be the most significant ele-ments of the initiative, some experts say.

For example, Microsoft will offer its suppliers new data tools to meas-ure their own carbon emissions so they can meet Microsoft’s new supply-chain requirements. The company will also lobby for policies - such as national laws that mandate a per-ton price on carbon emissions - that could help drive deeper car-bon reductions.

With its 1-billion-dollar climate innovation fund, Microsoft hopes to spur the development of nascent cutting-edge technologies that could slow global warming.

“It’s a unique capability we have as a long-term investor to be able to participate in more risky scenarios,” said Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood, who joined Smith, CEO Satya Nadella, and Chief Environmental Officer Lucas Joppa at the presenta-tion.

These broader moves, observers say, could have a much larger effect on overall carbon reduction than anything Microsoft does internally.

Microsoft’s “own emissions, in the grand scheme of things, are relatively very small,” said Elizabeth Sturcken, who works with compa-

nies on environmental initiatives at the Environmental Defense Fund. “So it matters more, in terms of creating the changes that the plan-et needs, that (Microsoft) is using their money to spark new technol-ogy, (and) that they influence their customers and push their suppliers to lead.”

Thursday’s announcement adds to a growing movement by the tech sector to get more involved in tack-ling climate change and other social issues, such as affordable housing and cybersecurity _ and comes amid stepped-up scrutiny of the sector by policymakers and activists.

In September, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos announced a plan to make the

company carbon neutral by 2040, which he said would be a decade earlier than the 2050 deadline set by climate scientists working to avoid a catastrophic increase in global tem-peratures.

“We’re done being in the mid-dle of the herd on this issue,” Be-zos said at a news conference an-nouncing the initiative.

Google has rolled out a series of environmental initiatives, includ-ing providing analytical tools to cities that let them calculate their own carbon emissions.

As with other business-backed climate initiatives, Big Tech’s car-bon-cutting strategies are often met with skepticism.

Some industry analysts worry that ambitious efforts to cut emis-sions could hurt tech firms’ profit-ability or ability to grow. That’s an important concern for Microsoft at a time when it is rapidly expanding its lucrative cloud-computing busi-ness as it competes with Amazon and other tech giants.

“It’s a very tough balancing act,” said Daniel Ives, a Wedbush Securities analyst who follows Mi-crosoft. “They need to make sure that they target a date (for carbon reductions) that gives them room and flexibility and doesn’t negative-ly impact their business model.”

Some environmental activists

- including many of the tech firms’ own employees - have complained that the industry’s carbon initia-tives often don’t go far enough. By selling services to the oil and gas industry, activists say, Microsoft, Amazon, and other data companies are encouraging the production of hydrocarbons, which many climate experts say must be dramatically curtailed to avoid catastrophic global warming.

Although Microsoft’s an-nouncement Thursday largely ignored questions about the com-pany’s relationship with oil and gas companies, Smith addressed the issue in an interview afterward. By working with oil and gas com-panies, Smith said, Microsoft is “helping (these) companies tran-sition from producing one kind of energy product to producing new or additional kinds of energy prod-ucts” that are less carbon intensive.

If critics fear that Microsoft’s cloud technology will help oil com-panies keep the price of oil low, thereby encouraging consumers to burn more of it, he said, there are plenty of ways to counteract that _ for example, by charging consum-ers for every ton of carbon they emit.

“If somebody wants to see an increase in the price of oil, there’s about 10 ways that you can do it,”

Smith said. “And, you know, cut-ting off technology doesn’t even make the list of the top 10.” Nardia Haigh, an associate professor at the University of Massachusetts-Boston and an expert in corporate climate initiatives, said that Micro-soft deserved praise for its goals, especially its promises to push for stronger policies and to invest $1 billion in new climate technologies.

“Jointly, these could have a lasting effect on societal climate mitigation and adaptation,” Haigh said.

But Haigh, author of “Scenario Planning for Climate Change,” wanted more details about how Microsoft aims to achieve its ambi-tious goals.

For example, Haigh wondered if Microsoft will link bonuses and other executive compensation to the company reaching its climate targets.

Although that topic wasn’t raised during Microsoft’s presentation _ a company spokesperson said later that it had “nothing to share on this at the moment” _ Haigh said such a policy would impact Microsoft as well as its corporate peers.

“A company as powerful as Microsoft has the opportunity to change executive incentives _ and corporate priorities _ throughout the industry,” she said.

Microsoft will expand its carbon-reduction efforts into its supply chain, which accounts for most of the 16 million metric tonnes the company is responsible for emitting each year.

By 2050, Microsoft says it will have eliminated as much carbon as the company has generated since its founding 45 years ago

Tech giant microsoft vows to be ‘carbon negative’ by 2030

AFP BeiJiNG

CHINA’S economy grew last year at its slowest pace in three decades, hit by weak domestic demand and trade tensions, but while officials warned of further headwinds, separate figures Friday sug-gest the downward trend is bottoming out.

The 6.1 percent rate is a sharp drop from the 6.6 per-cent the year before and marks the third straight drop, though it met the government’s target and analysts said leaders were unlikely to open up the stimu-lus taps just yet.

The reading was also in line with AFP analyst fore-casts.

And while the world’s number two economy had been gradually losing steam

over the first three quarters, growth held steady at 6.0 per-cent in October-December -- the same as the previous quarter, according to the Na-tional Bureau of Statistics.

Ning Jizhe, commissioner of the NBS, said momentum remained generally stable through the year and said the same could be expected in 2020.

“However, we should also be aware that the global eco-nomic and trade growth is slowing down,” he said at a news conference, adding that there were more sources of instability and risk, with the economy facing “mounting downward pressure”.

The figures were released days after Vice Premier Liu He and Donald Trump signed a much-vaunted “phase one” pact that marks a truce in

their nearly two-year-old trade war.

The agreement will see the US slash import duties on Chinese goods worth bil-lions of dollars, though levies remain in place on two-thirds of more than $500 billion of products.

- ‘New normal’ -The World Bank said in a report this month that weakening exports from China had com-pounded the impact of a slow-down in domestic demand. Policy uncertainty and higher tariffs on exports to the US also cast a pall on manufac-turing activity and investor sentiment, it added.

Other data released Fri-day showed while industrial production and retail sales slowed over the year, both in-dicators outperformed in De-cember, with the NBS point-

ing to a particularly strong showing in consumer spend-ing.

“The latest ... data pro-vides a very positive start to the Chinese New Year for Chi-na’s economy,” Rajiv Biswas, of IHS Markit, said. “The out-look for 2020 is for continued robust growth, boosted by the phase one trade deal with the US and the continued positive impact of government mone-tary and fiscal policy stimulus measures.”

But analysts note that China’s slowdown is struc-tural, as it becomes a more developed economy and faces demographic challenges such as a shrinking number of peo-ple of working age.

The NBS said China’s birthrate fell to 10.48 per 1,000 people last year -- the lowest since the People’s Re-

public of China was founded in 1949.

Faced with an ageing population, Beijing relaxed its one-child policy in 2016 to allow people to have two children, but it has not led to more births.

Still, Louis Kuijs, head of Asia economics at Oxford Economics, told AFP that Bei-jing considers the slowdown part of a “new normal” and that major easing is unlikely, given the improving global outlook and the US trade deal.

He noted policymakers likely want to keep their pow-der dry, aiming for a stabili-sation rather than reigniting growth, adding: “What they don’t want to see is a too-rap-id slowdown.”

- Stabilisation in 2020 -Analysts and officials are ex-pecting the economy to level

out this year.Kuijs noted the trade deal

bodes well for exports, as well as sentiment on business in-vestment and consumption. It also reduces the risk of es-calation and “severe decou-pling” in other dimensions such as restrictions on com-panies and finance.

But UOB economists Ho Woei Chen and Peter Chia said in a recent note that the deal is unlikely to catalyse a strong rebound in growth for China as the bulk of US tariffs remain in place.

Tommy Xie, head of Greater China Research at OCBC Bank, said more sup-portive state policies such as tax incentives have helped stabilise national growth.

But he noted a tailing off in the growth of infrastruc-ture investment, which could

prove problematic. With property investment slow-ing, the strength of China’s growth this year will depend on whether infrastructure in-vestment is able to offset this decline, he said.

Last month, the NBS said China would revise its histori-cal regional GDP data under a unified accounting mecha-nism to be introduced early 2020.

This is expected to close a discrepancy between national and regional figures and en-hance the credibility of gov-ernment statistics, according to state media.

Economists have long sus-pected that Chinese economic data is massaged upward, of-ten noting that full-year gross domestic product hits Bei-jing’s targets with suspicious regularity.

China GDP grew 6.1% in 2019, slowest in three decades

10 Sunday, January 19, 2020

$1 bn investment Microsoft says it also will push suppliers, customers and policymakers into more carbon-cutting actions and will invest 1 billion dollars over the next four years to speed the development of technology that can remove carbon from the atmosphere

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11Sunday, January 19, 2020

TRIBUNE NEWS NETWORKDOhA

MINISTER of Commerce and Indus-try HE Ali bin Ahmed al Kuwari has further enhanced the possibility of set-ting up a committee to facilitate direct communication between the ministry and the Qatar business community.

The committee formation was part of the several topics the minis-ter discussed with the members of the Qatari Businessmen Association (QBA) at an event held at the QBA headquarters in Doha recently. QBA hosted the event to honour the min-ister and facilitate increased com-munication and cooperation among the Qatari business community.

The committee is supposed to act as a platform to discuss economic initiatives and to enhance coopera-tion in a way that helps in the imple-mentation of initiatives undertaken by the Ministry and its proper deliv-ery to the business community.

Hailing Qatar’s private sector for efforts to expand its footprint across the world, Kuwari said Qatar’s eco-nomic institutions and companies have become globally competitive and exist in major European and American markets through success-ful investments.

These foreign investments, he added, served the goals of develop-ing the national economy and trans-ferring expertise and knowledge to the local market.

Kuwari stressed the importance of the Qatari Businessmen Asso-ciation and the role of the business community in promoting Qatar as a centre for investment in the region.

He also highlighted QBA’s role in attracting investors and expertise through economic activities such as conferences and workshops and its cooperation with business and eco-nomic entities in most of the mar-

kets around the world. He said the development of the

private sector in developed coun-tries was a main indicator of the development of the state and a key driver of economic development.

The minister also thanked QBA Chairman Sheikh Faisal bin Qas-sim al Thani and other members for their welcome.

QBA members, in turn, discussed with the minister several economic ideas and aspirations and a number of state-led economic initiatives

The meeting was headed by QBA Chairman Sheikh Faisal bin Qassim al Thani and was attended by QBA First Deputy Hussein al Fardan and QBA Secretary General Issa Abu Issa.

QBA Board members Sheikh Hamad bin Faisal, Sheikha Nawaf bin Nasser, Sherida al Kaabi, Saud al Mana and QBA members Nasser al Haider, Khaled al Mannai, Nabila Abu Issa, Ashraf Abu Issa, Sheikh Mohamed bin Faisal, Sheikh Faisal bin Fahad, Maqbool Khalfan, Ramez al Khyat, Mohamed Althaf, Hamad al Hedfa and Ihsan al Khiyami at-tended the meeting, besides Sheikh Turki bin Faisal, Abdulsalam Abu Issa, Sheikh Nasser bin Nawaf and QBA Deputy GM Sarah Abdallah.

The meeting highlighted the im-portance of joint and close coopera-tion between the public and the pri-vate sectors.

The QBA members also discussed economic initiatives, legislation and projects that were put into force un-der the guidance of the Amir HH Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al Thani.

These initiatives were adopted by the Qatari government led by Prime Minister and Minister of Interior HE Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khal-ifa al Thani through its ministries.

At the end of the meeting, Sheikh Faisal bin Qasim al Thani presented the QBA honorary shield to the minister.

Kuwari stresses importance of direct business communication link with Moci

Minister hails Qatari private sector for efforts

to expand its footprint across the world

Minister of Commerce and Industry HE Ali bin Ahmed al Kuwari receives the QBA honorary shield from QBA Chairman Sheikh Faisal bin Qasim al Thani, in presence of other QBA members.

Minister of Commerce and Industry HE Ali bin Ahmed al Kuwari with QBA Chairman Sheikh Faisal bin Qassim al Thani and other members of the association at an event held to honour the minister, at the QBA headquarters recently.

QaTari Businessmen assOciaTiOn hOnOurs minisTer Of ecOnOmy and cOmmerce

economy & Business

AFPMeLBOurNe

ROGER Federer demanded better communication about air quality at the Austral-ian Open on Saturday after smoke from bushfires hit the tournament’s build-up, as of-ficials announced new guide-lines on pollution.

Federer, the 20-time Grand Slam champion, said a lack of information made matters worse for players who were forced to stay on the courts on Tuesday and Wednesday, when air quality in Melbourne was among the worst on the planet.

Slovenian Dalila Jakupovic was forced to retire during qualifying after a distressing coughing fit, while Britain’s Liam Broady claimed “mul-tiple” players needed asthma medication.

“I think communication is key from the tournament to the people, to the media, to the fans, to the players, be-cause you do hear it’s not safe to be outside, keep your pets

inside, close your windows,” Federer said.

“You have court calls, then you look at the haze and every-thing, it doesn’t look good. How far are we from that threshold of playing, not playing?”

World number six Ste-fanos Tsitsipas was another player who was troubled by the smog, saying he had difficulty breathing even after practising indoors in Melbourne.

“I was coughing a lot, had troubles breathing for a cou-ple of hours,” Tsitsipas said Saturday, while Canadian young gun Denis Shapovalov claimed “I wouldn’t play” if conditions deteriorated dur-ing the tournament.

“I’m 20 years old, I don’t want to risk my life, risk my health being out there playing in this condition,” he added.

In the wake of the backlash, Australian Open organisers on Saturday unveiled a five-step air quality rating to determine when play should be halted, based on pollutants meas-ured by monitoring stations throughout Melbourne Park.

Play will be stopped if the particulate matter rating (PM2.5) – the solid and liquid particles suspended in the air – hits 200, or five on the air quality scale.

Between 97 and 200 – a four rating – will trigger a discussion between medical staff and officials about halt-ing play, with the match ref-eree able to suspend a match if he sees fit.

The rules will apply to all outside courts and the Grand Slam’s three arenas with re-tractable roofs, where play will be halted until the roof is closed.

Some players in qualify-ing questioned why influential stars like Federer didn’t do more to speak up on their be-half during the choking haze, but the Swiss great, who is on the ATP player council, insist-ed he did everything he could.

“What can I do? I can go to the office, speak to them. I went to them the first day when it was bad on Tuesday, the next day on Wednesday when it was still bad,” he said.

“I told them, ‘Look, I just think communication is key for all of us, for everybody’. We just need to do more be-cause I feel like I hadn’t gotten enough information.

“Can I go on court and say, Everybody stop play? I can try. I don’t think that’s going to do much. Maybe it was all a bit late. But I don’t think I can do more than what I did.”

The Australian Open gets

underway on Monday, when rain is forecast. Air quality in Melbourne on Saturday was rated ‘moderate’, one step below ‘good’.

The 38-year-old said the air quality scale was a step in the right direction, and that he was not worried about playing in smoke haze.

“From what we were told yesterday in the player meet-ing, the Olympic Games and other competitions have the (particulate matter) numbers set at 300. Ours is set at 200,” he said.

“From that standpoint, I think we’re moving in a very safe range. We’re not here for six months straight at over 200, 300, you know. That’s when maybe effects really be-come bad.”

Australian Open chief Craig Tiley told reporters on Thursday he “absolutely un-derstands the anger”.

“I do think air quality for sport and for tennis is a conversation we’re going to have more of in the future,” he added.

Roger Federer of Switzerland hits a return during a practice session ahead of the Australia open in Melbourne on Saturday. (AFP)

“Communication is key from the tournament to the people, to the media, to the fans, to the players, because you do hear it’s not safe to be outside, keep your pets inside, close your windows”

sunday, January 19, 2020

Palace hold city to a drawCrystal Palace force Manchester City to settle for a 2-2 draw in the Premier League PaGe 14

Teen star Haaland bags hat-trick on Dortmund debut PaGe 14

CRICKET ODIINDIA VS AUSTRALIA

Qatar roll past Japan to zoom into the main round of asian men’s handball championship

Qatar’s handball team defeated Japan 36-28 in their second Group B match of the 2020 Asian Men’s Handball Championship at the Sheikh Saad Al Abdullah Sports Hall in Kuwait on Saturday. Qatar had started their campaign with a thumping win over China on Thursday. The win saw the 2015 World Championship finalists Qatar top the group with 4 points from two matches to qualify for the main round. Japan with 2 points with one win also made the grade. Qatar will now play South Korea in Group 2 of the main round on Monday (January 20). The Asian championship, which concludes on January 27, is also a qualifying meet for the World Championships that will take place in Egypt in 2021.

‘No regrets’ as Wozniacki embarks

on swansongAFP

MeLBOurNe

CAROLINE Wozniacki said Saturday that she has no re-grets and it is “the right time” to walk away from tennis with the former number one set to retire after the Austral-ian Open.

But the Dane, whose only Grand Slam triumph came in Melbourne in 2018, ad-mitted that she will be “a bit emotional” when the moment finally comes over the next fortnight.

Wozniacki announced in December that she would re-tire from tennis to focus on other things, including start-ing a family with husband and former NBA star David Lee.

“There’s been a lot of thoughts. It’s (retirement) been something I’ve been thinking about for a long time, for a while,” the 29-year-old, now ranked 35 in the world, told media in Melbourne.

“I just looked at my life, at my career, everything else, and I just had a look inside of myself and it felt right. It felt like the right time for many reasons.”

Wozniacki was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis in 2018 but says that has nothing to do with her decision to quit.

The Dane, who begins her final tournament against Kristie Ahn of the US, added: “I’ve achieved a lot, I’ve given it my all. Every single day I go out and I work so hard to stay at the top or to get back to the top, whatever it may be.

“It doesn’t feel the same. I still want to work hard, but I want to do something dif-ferent. Honestly, I’m leav-ing with no regrets at all be-cause I’ve worked so hard my whole life, my whole career,” Wozniacki added.

Wozniacki, who finished 2010 and 2011 on top of the rankings but had to wait until 2018 to finally win a Major, does not anticipate emulat-ing Kim Clijsters, the former number one who is set to re-turn to tennis seven years af-ter retiring.

The 36-year-old Belgian will not be at the Austral-ian Open, having delayed her comeback because of injury, and Wozniacki warned that returning after so long out will be tough.

“I personally don’t think so,” Wozniacki said, asked if she expects Clijsters to chal-lenge once more for Grand Slams. “She can prove me wrong. I think tennis has changed in seven years. I don’t think it’s as easy – I don’t know if she thinks it’s easy – I know it’s not as easy as it looks from the outside.”

Wozniacki played doubles with close friend Serena Wil-liams last week at the Auck-land Open, where they were beaten in the final.

“It’s probably the most fun I’ve had on court, we had a blast,” she said. “We would pretend to talk tactics – we really would talk about every-thing else,” Wozniacki added, laughing. “Just went out there and had fun, enjoyed ourselves.

Denmark’s Caroline Wozniacki addresses the media ahead of the Australian open in Melbourne on Saturday. (AFP)

australian Open

federer blasts lack of communication on smog

Roger Federer speaks at a press conference ahead of the Aus-tralia open in Melbourne on Saturday. (AFP)

Honestly, last year was the toughest year of my life, so I would hope it gets better. I feel like now I appreciate more every single win because I know what it took to get it

AFPMeLBOurNe

DeFeNDiNG Australian Open champion Naomi Osaka said Saturday that 2019 was the “toughest year of my life” after the Japanese ploughed

through several coaches and suffered a major dip in form.

The 22-year-old began last year in spectacular fashion, winning in Melbourne for back-to-back Grand Slam titles and soaring to the top of the world rankings.

But she then exited roland Garros in the third round and Wimbledon in the first round, and her defence of her uS Open crown similarly fell flat.

The Japanese roared back with titles in her native city of Osaka and then in Beijing in the autumn, and in December hired the Belgian Wim Fissette as her coach -- her fourth in

less than a year.The world number three,

who faces Marie Bouzkova of the Czech republic in her opener in Melbourne, said she was “in a better head space” compared to 12 months ago, and playing better tennis.

“But honestly, last year was the toughest year of my life, so i would hope it gets better,” Osaka added.

Pushed as to what she meant, she said: “i guess just be-fore everything (success), if i lost, it wouldn’t be an (news) article.

“Now if i lose, like, there’s news. it was tough adjusting to that.”

Osaka described herself as “a bit more seasoned” compared to a year ago and hopes feeling more relaxed can bring success, starting with the defence of her Aus-tralian Open crown.

“Last year i feel like i was

young,” the Japanese said was a smile.

“i was just this young kid that was going out. My goal was to win and i wasn’t going to let anything stop me.

“i feel like now i appreciate more every single win because i know what it took to get it.

“Of course i want to win every match and i want to go out there and do that.

“That’s what i’m here for. i think maybe last year i was a little bit more fearless.”

Osaka, who has been open about her struggles with the pres-sure that comes with success, says she is trying to ignore what is said and written about her.

“i’ve been training my whole life for this (tennis),” she told reporters.

“i shouldn’t let outside noise – no offence to you guys, love you guys – but outside noise dictate how i’m feeling.”

AFPhOBArT (AuSTrALiA)

INDIA’S former doubles world number one Sania Mirza made a winning return to tennis Tuesday at the Hobart Inter-national after more than two years on maternity leave.

The 33-year-old last played at the China Open in October 2017 before injuries and then the birth of son Izhaan in Oc-tober 2018 meant an extended spell on the sidelines.

Mirza, who is married to the former Pakistan cricket captain Shoaib Malik, part-nered Ukraine’s Nadiia Kiche-nok to a 2-6, 7-6 (7/3), 10-3 victory over Georgia’s Oksana Kalashnikova and Japan’s Miyu Kato in the doubles.

“Today was one of the most special days of my life to have my parents and my little

baby boy with me in my first match after so long... and we WON our first round,” Mirza tweeted after her win.

“Feel very grateful for the love I am receiving.. BELIEF!! Takes you places YES my baby boy, we did it.”

Mirza, regarded as her country’s greatest women’s tennis player, became the first Indian to win a WTA singles title in 2005.

She reached the fourth round of the US Open in the same year, and by 2007 was among the women’s top 30. But a wrist injury caused her to concentrate on doubles, forging a partnership with Swiss great Martina Hingis which pro-duced three Grand Slam titles.

She is due to partner American Rajeev Ram in the mixed doubles at the Austral-ian Open next week.

Sania enjoys winning return with Nadiia

AFPADeLAiDe (AuSTrALiA)

ASHLEIGH Barty ended a nine-year Australian home ti-tle drought on Saturday with a 6-2, 7-5 victory over Ukraine’s Dayana Yastremska at the Ad-elaide International.

The world number one became the first Aussie wom-an to lift a trophy on a home court since Jarmila Wolfe won Hobart in 2011.

Barty beat 24th-ranked teenager Yastremska in 87 minutes at Memorial Drive to gain a boatload of confidence heading into Monday’s start of the Australian Open in Mel-bourne, where she is top seed.

She was presented the carved wood trophy by a painted Aboriginal elder who blessed with a chant it before it was handed over.

“The best part about this week is I fought and scrapped my way through and got better and better in each situation, in each match,” Barty said.

“I just put myself in the position to play for another title, which is really exciting. It’s been incredible to play at home... I can’t wait to get start-ed in Melbourne next week.”

Barty will take to the court at Rod Laver Arena on Mon-day night.

Rublev wins second

title of the season

Russian Andrey Rublev se-cured his second title in a week on Saturday after beating Lloyd Harris 6-3, 6-0 to win the Adelaide International.

The 18th-ranked third seed is the first man since Dominik Hrbaty in 2004 to lift two trophies during the first two weeks of an ATP season.

He won the Qatar Open in Doha last weekend. The victo-ry was Rublev’s 12th in a row since November as he heads into the Australian Open.

Barty fights to title at Adelaide

longines Qatar equestrian Tour hathab 2019-2020: Big Tour

sports 13Sunday, January 19, 2020

TRIBUNE NEWS NETWORKDOhA

SALMAN Mohammed al Ema-di, who missed the first two rounds of the annual Longines Qatar Equestrian Tour Hathab 2019-2020 national series, pro-duced a telling showjumping performance on his bay gelding The Toymaker on Saturday to top Big Tour in Hathab 6 at the Al Shaqab Indoor Arena.

The Qatar Equestrian Fed-eration rider, excelled on his 15-year-old horse in the Table A, One round against the clock with jump off, Art. 238.2.2 | 130/145cm class.

Al Emadi returned a fault-less routine in 71.50secs which saw Salmeen Sultan al Su-waidi, riding Cantaro 32, set-tle for the second place having gained 4 penalties despite a time of 68.10secs.

Nasser al Ghazali, who had won the fifth leg on Quel Homme, was pushed to the third spot having picked up 4 penalties in 70.26secs.

The triumph will see Al Emadi pick up another at least 20 points to add to his tally, which stood at 64 points be-fore this competition.

Five more rounds remain in the 12-leg annual domestic series which has now entered an exciting phase and which concludes in April.

Earlier, in the Open Class (Ride & Drive) event saw Faris Saad al Qahtani on Godette claim the top po-dium clocking 55.68secs and 59.16secs faultlessly.

Mirdef Ali al Qashouti, riding Deja Vu 84 (59.88 & 61.48secs) was second, and Mohammed Saeed Haidan on Ziezo (51.72secs & 64.04secs) finished third.

The Dressage competi-tion on Saturday morning had some impressive and foot tapping presentations in both the Level 1 (Elementary) and Level 2 (Prelim) competitions.

Ali Mohammed al Marri, combining with his horse Fernhill Friendly Touch, col-lected the maximum 70.028 points to emerge as the win-ner ahead of the seasoned Jes-sica Waldon, riding Lusso Del Castegno (67.931), in Level 1.

Maryam Ahmad al Boinin on Vol De Nuit Tardonne (69.545), and Faris Saad al Qahtani, riding Golden Grove Solataire (67.727), stood out in the Level 2 dressage.

Salman Mohammed al Emadi on his mount The Toymaker after being crowned as the longines Hathab Round Six Big Tour winner at the Al Shaqab Indoor Arena on Saturday. He was the only rider to complete a clear round.

salman al emadi shows his class on The Toymaker

Badr al Darwish, organizing Committee Member, Al Sahqab Showjumping Competition, with Big Tour podium finishers Salman Mo-hammed al Emadi, Salmeen Sultan al Suwaidi and Nasser al Ghazali.

oliver Walter, dressage event judge from the UK, with Dressage level 1 (Elementary) Test C top two finishers Ali Mohammed al Marri and Jessica Waldon.

bIg Tour

Table A, One round against the clock with jump off, Art. 238.2.2 | 130/145 cm | Prize-Money QR35,0001. Rider: Salman Mohammed al Emadi; Horse: The Toymaker; Faults: 0;

Time: 71.50secs; Prize:QR8,750

2. Salmeen Sultan al Suwaidi; Cantaro 32; 4; 68.10; QR7,000

3. Nasser al Ghazali; Quel Homme; 4; 70.26; QR5,250

oPen Class

Ride & Drive | 115/125cm | Prize-Money QR15,0001. Faris Saad al Qahtani; Godette; 0; 55.68; 0; 59.16; QR3,750

2. Mirdef Ali al Qashouti; Deja Vu 84; 0; 59.88; 0; 61.48; QR3,000

3. Mohammed Saeed Haidan; Ziezo; 0; 51.72; 4; 64.04; QR2,250

dressage

Level 1 (Elementary) Test C | Prize-Money QR10,0001. Ali Mohammed al Marri; Fernhill Friendly Touch; Score: 70.028; Prize:

QR2,750

2. Jessica Waldon; Lusso Del Castegno; 67.931; QR2,250

3. Ali Mohammed al Marri; Juste D’Adaelle; 67.241; QR 1,500

Level 2 (Prelim) Test C | Prize-Money QR5,0001. Maryam Ahmad al Boinin; Vol De Nuit Tardonne; Score:69.545; Prize:

QR1,250; 2. Faris Saad al Qahtani; Golden Grove Solataire; 67.727;

QR1,000. 3. Iris Nijboer; Rose Alsulaimi; 67.273; QR750.

Results

Osaka vows to block out negatives after ‘toughest year’

India’s Sania Mirza (left) and Nadiia Kichenok of Ukraine after winning the women’s doubles at the Hobart International in Australia on Saturday. Mirza returned to court after 2017.

Kyrgios shuts down Zverev in Slam row

AUSTRALIA’S Nick Kyrgios dismissed criticism from

Alexander Zverev on Saturday after the German said he was a step behind some of his main rivals when it came to chal-lenging for Grand Slams.

Zverev said some of the other young players were “just better” than Kyrgios, who provocatively dropped and did push-ups when the world number seven served double faults during Germany’s clash with Australia at the ATP Cup.

“I’m not going to entertain that too much. With every-thing going on, that’s the least of my worries,” said Kyrgios, who has been at the forefront of fundraising efforts for Aus-tralia’s bushfire crisis.

“He’s a great player. I’m not quite sure where those comments come from. I’m sure he didn’t mean them in a bad way. But if he did, then I’m sorry for whatever I’ve done to you.” (AFP)

Ashleigh Barty of Australia poses with the winner’s trophy at the Adelaide International tourna-ment on Saturday. (AFP)

Naomi osaka of Japan in Melbourne on Saturday. (AFP)

AFPLONDON

PEP Guardiola’s 49th birth-day celebrations went flat as Fernandinho’s late own goal forced Manchester City to settle for a 2-2 draw against Crystal Palace, while Totten-ham’s hopes of finishing in the top four were dented by a goalless stalemate at Watford on Saturday.

On a busy day of top-flight action, the pitchside VAR mon-itor was used in the Premier League for the first time at Nor-wich and Arsenal were held to a 1-1 draw by Sheffield United.

It was the drama at the Etihad Stadium that took the spotlight as Fernandinho’s last-gasp blunder left Guar-diola in no mood to party after City’s faint hopes of retaining the title suffered another ham-mer blow.

The champions trail Liv-erpool by 13 points ahead of the runaway leaders’ clash with rivals Manchester Unit-ed on Sunday.

“It was a tight game. It’s difficult to analyse when they shoot from one corner and have no more chances,” Guardiola said.

“I told them to put more

balls into the box and try to con-trol Zaha on the counter-attack. We had many chances, unfortu-nately we could not win.”

Cenk Tosun marked his first league start since his loan move from Everton with his maiden goal for the Eagles, the Turkish striker netting a close-range strike from Martin Kelly’s flick in the 39th minute.

Sergio Aguero appeared to have turned the game on its head in the 82nd minute when the Argentine striker bagged his 250th goal in 360 games for the club.

Aguero put City ahead in

the 87th minute with a typi-cally predatory header from Benjamin Mendy’s cross.

But there was a sting in the tale for Guardiola as Fernand-inho turned Wilfried Zaha’s cross into his own net in the 90th minute to end second-placed City’s run of three suc-cessive league wins.

At Vicarage Road, Troy Deeney’s 70th-minute spot-kick was saved by Paulo Gaz-zaniga before Tottenham’s Erik Lamela was denied a last-gasp winner by Ignacio Pussetto’s goal-line clearance.

With England captain

Harry Kane sidelined after hamstring surgery, Tottenham have gone three league games without scoring.

Jose Mourinho’s side are without a win in four league matches since December 26 and sit eight points behind fourth-placed Chelsea, who visit Newcastle in Saturday’s late game.

Toothless Tottenham thought they had stolen the points in stoppage-time when Lamela flicked Serge Aurier’s cross towards goal, but Wat-ford’s new signing Pussetto cleared off the line, with goal-

line technology showing just 10.04mm of the ball had not gone over.

“I know it was only a cou-ple of millimetres but goal-line technology does not make mistakes like VAR. We have to accept it was not a goal,” Mour-inho said.

Arsenal are 10 points adrift of the top four after the Blades continued their superb first season back in the Premier League.

Gabriel Martinelli broke the deadlock in first-half stoppage-time at the Emirates Stadium.

The 18-year-old Brazilian striker claimed his ninth goal of the season with a clinical fin-ish from Bukayo Saka’s cross.

But Chris Wilder’s side snatched an 83rd-minute equaliser when John Fleck lashed home after Arsenal failed to clear.

Bottom of the table Nor-wich’s vital 1-0 win over fellow strugglers Bournemouth saw the pitchside monitor finally used to decide a red card call.

Norwich took the lead when Bournemouth defender Steve Cook was sent off after flinging himself across the goal to block Teemu Pukki’s shot with his hand.

Pukki fired home the re-sulting penalty in the 33rd minute, but the Canaries had to survive a tense finish after Ben Godfrey was sent off in the 76th minute.

Godfrey’s foul on Callum Wilson was ruled a red card by referee Paul Tierney after he checked with the monitor, a move that followed advice to officials from Premier League chiefs this week to use the screen more often.

Wolves climbed to sixth after a thrilling fightback in their 3-2 win at Southamp-ton, with Pedro Neto start-ing a second-half revival that saw Raul Jimenez’s brace seal the points.

Everton drew 1-1 at West Ham after Dominic Calvert-Lewin cancelled out Issa Di-op’s opener for the hosts.

Aston Villa’s Jack Grealish rescued a 1-1 draw at Bright-on, who had taken the lead through Leandro Trossard.

Fernandinho scores late own goal for City; Norwich beat Bournemouth

Crystal Palace players celebrate after Manchester City’s Fernandinho scored an own goal during their English Premier league match in Manchester, England, on Satruday. The match ended in a 2-2 draw. (AFP)

Pep’s birthday ruined as Palace snatch point; spurs held to draw

AFPBerLiN

NORWEGIAN rising star Er-ling Braut Haaland came off the bench to claim a hat-trick in-side 20 minutes on his Borussia Dortmund debut and inspire a 5-3 comeback win at Augsburg in the Bundesliga on Saturday.

The 19-year-old showed why Dortmund paid Salzburg 20 million euros ($22 million) for him last month when he came on in the 56th minute with his new team 3-1 down.

“I am pretty relaxed about it... I don’t really know why,” the laid-back teen admitted af-ter his stunning display.

“I came here to score goals and it was a good debut for me.”

Having already scored 28 goals in 22 games for Salzburg this season, the teenager need-ed just 183 seconds to open his Dortmund account, then add-ed two more in quick succes-sion for his his sixth hat-trick of the campaign.

Dortmund scored two goals in as many minutes as Haaland fired in off the post, before England winger Jadon Sancho netted from a tight an-gle to equalise.

Haaland put Dortmund ahead for the first time with 18 minutes left when he tapped home after Thorgan Hazard got in behind the Augsburg defence, with the goal awarded despite a VAR review for offside.

Haaland completed his tre-ble when captain Marco Reus played him into the area, slam-ming the ball home to make it 5-3. It had been a vastly differ-ent game until Haaland’s stun-ning entrance.

Augsburg deserved to be in control, taking advantage of poor Dortmund defending with the opening goal from striker Florian Niederlechner before Marco Richter’s stunning long-range strike 20 seconds into the second half.

The shock of falling two goals down woke up the Dort-mund attack as Germany winger Julian Brandt fired home their first goal off the crossbar just four minutes into the second half.

The game became an end-to-end affair and Nieder-lechner grabbed Augsburg’s third by tapping in. But it was one-way traffic thereafter as Dortmund coach Lucien Favre brought on Haaland for de-fender Lukasz Piszczek.

He wasted little time in making his presence felt to give Dortmund a victory which leaves them fourth in the table.

Elsewhere, South Korean Kwon Chang-Hoon and Nils Petersen scored Freiburg’s goals in a 2-1 win at Mainz which moved their side sixth.

Werder Bremen kept a clean sheet for the first time this season as an own goal by Florian Kastenmeier secured a 1-0 win at Fortuna Duesseldorf.

Dortmund’s Erling Braut Haaland with the match ball after scoring a hat-trick against Augsburg in the Bundesliga on Saturday. (AFP)

Teen star Haaland bags 20-minute hat-trick on

Dortmund debut

Immobile hat-trick as Lazio thrash Sampdoria

AFPMiLAN

CIRO Immobile scored a hat-trick as Lazio thrashed ten-man Sampdoria 5-1 on Saturday to close in on Juventus and Inter Milan and consolidate third place in Serie A.

In-form Immobile was om-nipresent, playing a role in Fe-lipe Caicedo’s opener after just seven minutes in the Stadio Ol-impico.

He added two more in a three-minute first-half spell, the first from the spot after a Nicola Murru handball.

The 29-year-old striker ran rings around the Sampdoria de-fense after picking up a Franc-esco Acerbi to put the Romans three goals up after 20 minutes.

Immobile converted a sec-ond penalty on 65 minutes af-ter Angolan defender Bastos tapped in nine minutes after the break, bringing his tally to 23 goals this season.

Karol Linetty pulled a goal back for the Genoa side after 69 minutes, but Claudio Ranieri’s side are 16th, five points above the relegation zone.

TRIBUNE NEWS NETWORKDOhA

CURRENT Wales manag-er and Manchester United legend Ryan Giggs is set to make his punditry debut on January 19 live and exclusive on beIN SPORTS.

Giggs will take part in beIN SPORTS’ English stu-dios for the Burnley vs. Leicester City match at 17:00 Mecca Time before mov-ing to beIN SPORTS’ Arabic studio for the North West

derby between Liverpool and Manchester United at 19:30 Mecca Time.

Joining Ryan Giggs in the Arabic studio will be beIN SPORTS presenter Ayman Jadah, beIN SPORTS analyst and Egyptian legend Mo-hammed Abutrika as well as Tareq Al Jalahma.

Along with analysing the two matches, Giggs will be sharing his illustrious expe-riences in football as well as his UEFA Euro 2020 expec-tations with Wales.

The thirteen-time English Premier League winner is re-garded by many as one of the best players ever to play for Manchester United. His part-nership with players such as Paul Scholes, Wayne Rooney and Ruud Van Nistelrooy as well as his consistency and loyalty are widely recognized in the world of football.

Ryan Giggs signed his first professional contract with Manchester United on his 17th birthday in 1990 and hasn’t looked back since

– winning thirteen Eng-lish Premier League titles, four FA Cups, three Foot-ball League Cups, two UEFA Champion Leagues, one UEFA Super Cup and one FIFA Club World Cup.

The Manchester United legend appeared 632 times in the English Premier League before becoming an Interim player-manager for the Red Devils in 2014 and then moving to manage the Welsh national football team in 2018.

Giggs to make punditry debut on bein today

Ryan Giggs.

al Gharafa sign ivorian striker Kodjia from aston Villa

Al Gharafa have signed French-born Ivory Coast striker Jonathan Kodjia from Aston Villa, the club confirmed on twitter. The 30-year-old joined Villa in 2016 and had six months left on his current con-tract. Al Gharafa will unveil the former Bristol City striker on Monday.

Klinsmann’s coaching licence valid ahead of Bayern clash

DPABerLiN

JUERGEN Klinsmann can coach Hertha Berlin in their Sunday Bundesliga match against champions Bayern Munich as his licence has been determined to be valid by the German Football Asso-ciation (DFB) and the German Football League (DFL).

“The coaching licence of Juergen Klinsmann has been renewed. His engagement as Hertha Berlin head coach is in accordance with DFL stat-utes,” the DFB tweeted.

The former Germany cap-tain and coach Klinsmann ob-tained the coaching licence in 2000 but had reportedly not renewed it since 2012, miss-ing further training courses that are mandatory for the re-newal.

But the DFB said it received the last missing documents on these courses from the Ameri-can federation US Soccer.

Klinsmann, who was ap-pointed Hertha coach in No-vember until the end of the season, had been upbeat Fri-day that the issue would be solver quickly.

Casemiro double sends Madrid top but VAR leaves Sevilla fuming

DPABArCeLONA

REAL Madrid moved to the top of La Liga with a 2-1 vic-tory over Sevilla at the San-tiago Bernabeu on Saturday.

But the win was not with-out controversy after the vid-eo assistant ruled out an early Sevilla goal.

The visitors thought they had taken the lead when Luuk de Jong powered in a header from an Ever Banega corner but the goal was ruled out for a push in the build-up.

Referee Juan Martinez Munuera was advised to re-view the goal pitchside for a possible foul on Eder Militao.

He adjudged that when Militao had tried to follow the run of De Jong he had his path blocked deliberately by Nemanja Gudelj.

Sevilla coach Julen Lo-petegui said: “Logically I’m sad. We were very good in the first half and we took the lead with a perfectly legal goal.

“I don’t think you can sep-arate that from what happens in the rest of the game.

“I do not understand why they rule out the goal and that is after seeing it calmly afterwards. Sincerely I do not know why they ruled it out.”

Sevilla’s sporting director Monchi was even more critical.

He said: “We are very up-set, very indignant. I refuse to analyse the game after the ruled out goal.”

Asked if things had evened out in the second half when in the build-up to Sevilla’s goal the ball struck Munir’s elbow as he lay on the turf, Monchi added: “If they rule the sec-ond goal out maybe I would have gone down to the pitch and taken the players off.”

Casemiro scored the first goal on 57 minutes, running onto a fine back-heel pass from Luka Jovic.

De Jong equalized on 69

minutes with a curling shot past Thibaut Courtois.

But Casemiro had the last word, heading in a Lucas Vazquez cross on 69 minutes.

“Their coach knows what he wants and they are a very difficult team to beat,” said Casemiro of Sevilla coach Lopetegui, who was back the club that sacked him last season.

Madrid are now three points clear of Barcelona, who face Granada at home on Sunday.

Earlier on Saturday, Ala-ves beat Levante 1-0 away.

Real Madrid’s Casemiro shoots to score against Sevilla in the Spanish league at the Santiago Bernabeu Stadium on Saturday. (AFP)

lazio’s Ciro Immobile celebrates after scoring against Sampdoria on Saturday. (AFP)

sports14 Sunday, January 19, 2020

TRIBUNE NEWS NETWORKDOhA

CENTRE Mikheil Berishvili fired Al Shamal to the top with a brilliant 42 individual points as the defending champions outplayed Al Wakrah 109-80 for their ninth victory in the QBF League on Saturday.

At the Al Gharafa Club Indoor Hall, Berishvili hardly did anything wrong. He col-lected eight three-pointers off as many attempts and sank 16 two-pointers from 17 shots. He converted his both free throws as well.

As a result, Al Shamal dominated the opening and closing quarters – 31-18 and 35-23 – and shot to the top with 21 points from 12 games. George Tsintsadze shone to post 18 points and 16 assists.

Faris Avdic gained 17 points, while Aaron Mitchell and Emir Mujic added 14 and 11 points, respectively for the winners, whose biggest lead stood at 29 points (100-71) in the final 10 minutes.

Musa Muhajareen Abdul Aleem shot 31 for Al Wakrah. He was followed by Julius Coles with 24 points and Te-vin Glass, who has nine points and 11 rebounds. This was the fourth loss for Al Wakrah, tak-ing them to 20 points from 12 games. Al Arabi also have 20 but they have played only 11

games so far. In another match, Al Rayy-

an also put in a strong show and cantered past Al Sadd 99-89. Trailing by 41-56 at the in-terval, Al Sadd staged some re-covery and managed to reduce the margin with better perfor-

mance in the pos-interval play. Eric Lockett had a match-

high 27 points, along with 11 rebounds for Al Rayyan. Guard Mohamed Hassan Mohamed also excelled and chipped in with 22 points, while veteran forward Tanguy Ngombo

notched up 13. For former champions Al

Sadd, who are holding eighth spot now, Juan’ya Green and Babacar Dieng accounted for most of the points with 22 and 21, respectively. Justin Baker secured 18.

Al Shamal’s Mikheil Berishvili receieves the Player of the Match award after his 42-point contribution in his team’s 109-80 victory over Al Wakrah Club during the QBF league in Al Gharafa on Saturday.

Brilliant Berishvili fires al shamal to top of QBf league

TRIBUNE NEWS NETWORKDOhA

HOSTS Qatar had a mixed day when they won one match and lost other in the QCA Women’s T20I Triangular Tournament at the Asian Town Stadi-um, Industrial Area on Friday.

The Qatar Cricket Association (QCA), headed by Yousef Jeham Al-Kuwari, is hosting the event to pro-vide exposure and opportunity to not only the local players but also that of the region.

With China withdrawing due to some technical issues, the hosts had to change the status of the four-nation event to the triangular series. There will be double round robin for-mat and two top teams will play the final on January 21.

Both the matches on the opening day were full of thrills and excite-ment as Oman got the better of Qatar by three wickets in the first one and the home team edged Kuwait by a wicket off the penultimate ball in the second fixture.

In the inaugural match, Oman, asked to bat first, made 114 for three. Fiza hit a run-a-ball 34 with three boundaries. Sakshi struck two fours in her 31-ball 24 and Priyanka Edan chipped in with 22 not out in 21 de-liveries.

Fiza and Priyanka were involved in an unbroken 39-run stand for the fourth wicket as well. Rochelle Sher-lene Quyn, Shahreennawab and Na-han Arif shared three wickets.

Qatar had a good start and reached 48 for one but two wickets at this stage stalled their progress. Also three Qatar players got run out, which proved a big setback to their chase.

Captain Aysha hit an unbeaten 27 with a four in 28 balls, while Shah-reennawab got 18 in 34 balls and opener Saachi Dhadwal added 12 in

14 balls with two fours. Bhakti Shetty picked two wickets.

Qatar, chasing a challenging 116-run for victory in the second match of the day, stepped up the pace after being down three for 35 in six overs. Captain Aysha, who smashed four boundaries in 31, and Aleena Khan

(25 with a four) collected 47 runs for the fourth wicket to provide the much-needed momentum.

As a result, Qatar needed only four runs in the final over by Madeena Zubari. Off the first three balls, Trupti Kale (eight not out) and Sabah Nawab (one not out) got three runs. Then

off the fifth delivery, Kale struck a boundary to seal the pulsating victory and keep Qatar on track for a place in the final.

Earlier, Zeena Jilani got two fours in 24, Siobhan Lee added 21 and Pri-yada hit 18. Maryam made 10 not out. Rochelle and Nahan Arif shared four wickets.

Oman, hosts Qatar record close victories

Participating teams and QCA officials before the start of the QCA Women’s T20I Tournament at the Asian Town Stadium on Friday.

AFPPOrT eLiZABeTh (SOuTh AFriCA)

ROOKIE off-spinner Dom Bess claimed his first Test five-wick-et haul as England moved into a strong position on the third day of the third Test against South Africa at St George’s Park on Saturday.

Bess took the first five wick-ets as South Africa struggled to 208 for six in reply to England’s 499 for nine declared, still 291 runs in arrears - and 92 short of avoiding the follow-on.

Joe Root’s side would have been in an even stronger position had it not been for a lengthy rain interruption which wiped out the after-noon session and some defi-ant South African resistance, notably from Quentin de Kock, unbeaten on 63 and dropped three times by Ben Stokes, and nightwatchman Anrich Nortje.

The 22-year-old Bess, play-ing in his fourth Test after be-ing called up as cover for his sick Somerset teammate Jack Leach who has since flown

home, finished the day with five for 51.

He might have had more as Root dropped a regulation slip catch to reprieve the stubborn Nortje who bravely defied the hostility of Mark Wood and the guile of Bess.

He had batted for 193 min-utes and faced 136 balls when he edged a ball from Stokes to Root at second slip. This time the England captain held on.

De Kock showed the famil-iar muscularity which brought him half-centuries in the first two Tests, clubbing nine fours in his 63. He had added 54 for the seventh wicket with Vernon Philander, 27 not out, when stumps were drawn.

In spite of the poor weather forecast for the next two days, England remain well-placed to take a 2-1 lead in the four-match series. The second new ball was taken for the last three balls of the day, bowled by Bess at a time when fading light al-lowed only spinners to be used.

Bess places England in box seat in third Test

Qca women’s T20i Tournament

sports 15Sunday, January 19, 2020

oman beat Qatar by three runs

oman: 114 for three (Sakshi 24 in 31 balls, Fiza 34 not out

in 34 balls, Priyanka Edan 22 not out in 21 balls; Nahan Arif

1/16, Rochelle Sherlene Quyn 1/18, Shahreen Nawab

1/17)

Qatar: 111 for six (Shahreen Nawab 18 in 34 balls, Aysha

27 not out in 28 balls; Bhakti Shetty 2/15, Snehal Nair

1/13)

Player of the match: Fiza (Oman)

Qatar beat Kuwait by one wicket

Kuwait: 115 for seven (Priyada 18 in 22 balls, Zeena Jilani

24 in 32 balls, Siobhan Lee 21 in 23 balls; Rochelle

Sherlene Quyn 2/19, Nahan Arif 2/22, Aleena Khan 1/18)

Qatar: 119 for nine in 19.5 overs (Aysha 31 in 29 balls,

Aleena Khan 25 in 36 balls, Nahan Arif 13 in 12 balls; Maria

Jasvi 2/16, Priyada Murli 2/19, Madeena Zubari 1/23,

Amna Shareef 2/25)

Player of the match: Aleena Khan (Qatar).

Results

al rayyan beat al sadd 99-89 (half-time 56-41)

main performers – al rayyan: Eric Lockett 27 pts &

11 rebounds, Mohamed Hassan Mohamed 22 pts,

Tanguy Ngombo 13 pts

al sadd: Juan’ya Green 22 pts, Babacar Dieng 21

pts, Justin Baker 18 pts

al shamal beat al Wakrah 109-80 (half-time

45-33)

main performers- al shamal: Mikheil Berishvili 42

pts, George Tsintsadze 18 pts & 16 assists, Faris

Avdic 17 pts, Aaron Mitchell 14 pts, Emir Mujic 11

pts

al Wakrah: Musa Muhajareen Abdul Aleem 31 pts,

Julius Coles 24 pts, Tevin Glass 9 pts & 11 rebounds

Results

england (1rsT InnIngs): 499-9 deCl

souTh aFrICa (1sT InnIngs, oVernIghT 60-2):

D. Elgar c Pope b Bess 35

P. Malan c and b Bess 18

Z. Hamza c Pope b Bess 10

A. Nortje c Root b Stokes 18

F. du Plessis c Pope b Bess 8

H. van der Dussen b Bess 24

Q. de Kock not out 63

V. Philander not out 27

extras (b4, w1) 5

Total (6 wkts, 82 overs) 208

Fall of wickets: 1-50 (Malan), 2-60 (Hamza), 3-63

(Elgar), 4-71 (Du Plessis), 5-109 (Van der Dussen),

6-154 (Nortje)

bowling: Broad 11-4-30-0, Curran 9-1-31-0, Bess

31-12-51-5, Wood 11-4-31-0 (1w), Denly 4-1-10-

0, Root 11-4-25-0, Stokes 5-1-26-1.

To bat: K. Maharaj, K. Rabada, D. Paterson

Toss: England.

scoreboard

oman’s Fiza (left) and Qatar’s Aleena Khan pose with Player of the Match trophy.

TRIBUNE NEWS NETWORKDOhA

AL Rayyan Club piled scripted a straight-set victory against Qatar Sports Club to complete their first leg of the QVA League in Doha on Saturday.

Al Shamal however started the new leg with a 3-2 upset win over Al Wakrah in another match with Henrique Costa and Rabel William collecting the bulk of points for the winners.

Al Rayyan Club were not able to finish the first leg earlier as some of their players were on the national team duty. They resumed the League action and built early gaps, before working on them to cruise to a 25-15, 25-20, 25-19 win in 68 minutes.

Outside hitter Marko Vuka-sinovic netted 13 points for Al Rayyan. Marcus ad 11 and mid-dle player Belal Nabel Abunabot was also in double digits with 10. Marco Ferreira logged nine.

For Qatar Sports Club, Oughlef Youssef had a game-high 16. Samuel Walker con-tributed 11.

With their sixth win in nine matches, Al Rayyan have 20 points, the same as Police and Al Wakrah. Al Arabi lead the table with 25 points after winning all their nine games in a row. Al Ahli round out the top five with 15 points from

five wins in nine matches. Al Shamal piled a great

deal of pressure on Al Wakrah, who had seven wins from 10 games prior to this one. Af-ter winning the first two sets at the same 25-23, Al Shamal faced a furious comeback bid from Al Shamal.

With Ivan Jose Fernan-dez Anez leading the fight-back, supported by Hector Salerno, Tamsir Samb and Nikola Vasic, Al Shamal reeled off the next two sets to force the tie-breaker.

Al Shamal shot from 10-8 to 12-8 and moved along quickly to seal the set and their second victory in 10 matches so far. For Al Wak-rah, this was their third loss in 10 games.

Costa was the best scorer for Al Shamal with 27, while William and Issa added 16 and 19 useful points.

For Al Wakrah, Anez was the leading contributor with 28. Salermo secured 16, while Vasic and Samb had 13 each.

Rayyan triumph; Shamal shock Al Wakrah in QVA League

Al Rayyan and Qatar Sports Club in action during their QVA league match in Doha on Saturday.

First leg

Al Rayyan beat Qatar Sports Club 3-0

(25-15, 25-20, 25-19) in one hour &

eight minutes

second leg

Al Shamal beat Al Wakrah 3-2 (25-23,

25-23, 25-20, 25-18, 15-9) in one hour

& 51 minutes

Results

Don’t panic, Kohli tells fansAFP

BANGALOre (iNDiA)

AFTER overcoming “panic” among fans, Indian captain Virat Kohli has tried to assure supporters it will be service as normal when his side take on Australia in a tense deciding match in their One-day series on Sunday.

Many Indian fans had a near seizure after Australia hammered their side by 10 wickets in the first 50-over game on Tuesday. But Koh-li’s team dominated Friday’s second match and won by 36 runs, with opener Shikhar Dhawan hitting 96 and KL Ra-hul smashing 80 off 52 balls.

That helped to settle nerves and Kohli looked calm after the win in which he also made 78 in India’s 340-6.

“We live in the days of so-cial media and a panic button being pressed too early,” Kohli said after the game in Rajkot.

“We know exactly what we’re doing in the change room. On the outside there’s a lot of panic that we don’t really focus on.”

There are worries though as Dhawan did not return to field after being hit on the rib cage by a Pat Cummins bounc-er during his 90-ball knock.

Vice captain Rohit Sharma also walked off after injuring his arm diving to prevent a

boundary.“It’s that left shoulder that

has popped out a few times. There’s no tear so hopefully he should be back for the next game,” Kohli said.

Steve Smith stood out for Australia with his defiant 98 and stood guard with his team’s new-look middle-order before chopping a Kuldeep Ya-dav delivery on to the stumps.

He put on a threatening 96-run third-wicket stand with Marnus Labuschagne, making his ODI debut in this series.

“I thought Marnus played really well in his first bat in one-day international cricket,” Smith said.

Eric lockett of Al Rayyan is being honoured for his superb performance against Al Sadd on Saturday.

England’s Dom Bess celebrates his five-wicket performance.

TRIBUNE NEWS NETWORKDOhA

QATAR Automobiles Com-pany (QAC), the authorised general distributor of Mitsubi-shi Motors in Qatar, welcomed a group of students from the Youth Club at Shatharat Edu-cational Training Center at its Mitsubishi Service centre in the industrial area.

The visit aimed to introduce the students to the different sections of the centre, allow-ing them to get familiar with its daily procedures starting from receiving the customers and the car, through to completing maintenance and delivering the car back to the customers.

Sheikh Faleh bin Nawaf al Thani, operations director – Auto, at Nasser Bin Khaled Group, said, “The visit of Sha-tharat educational training centre students to the Mitsubi-shi service centre is part of our ongoing collaboration with na-tional entities through which

we provide young people with information and experience. It is part of our mandate as an organisation and central to our corporate social responsibility strategy to support the human and social development of our community, enhancing the capabilities of our human re-source and preparing them to build Qatar’s future.”

Frank Zauner, after sales manager for QAC, comment-ed, “The visit was successful

in offering the students a real-life experience, which helps them to better understand the administrative and technical ways of working in the service centre. This was an important opportunity from which they each gained practical expertise and upgraded their skills. The Mitsubishi service centre is well equipped, and the staff are extremely professional, pro-viding premium customer ser-vice that exceeds the expecta-

tions of our customers. Overall, the feedback was very positive and we are looking forward for another visit.”

Mitsubishi technicians and staff escorted the students on the tour and provided detailed information about the various stages of work at the centre. The visit of Shatharat Educa-tional Training Center aligns with their ambition to deliver regular activities that endeav-our to introduce students to

various national institutions and organisations to hone their skills and capabilities. Each ac-tivity is intended to provide them with real life experience which will be invaluable to their future.

Shatharat Educational Training Center is a non-profit organisation licensed by the Ministry of Education and Higher Education. It aims to build key skills and general career knowledge of

students in various fields of profession.

Qatar Automobiles Com-pany and Mitsubishi service centres provide premium maintenance services for all Mitsubishi vehicles, by highly-skilled professional staff who undergo regular training. Cus-tomers can now book their service appointment at QAC service centres by phone or by email, saving time and ef-fort. The main QAC Mitsubishi

service centre is located in the Industrial Area Wakalat, Street 10, while other centres are lo-cated in Abu Hamour, Duhail and Wakra.

The centres welcome customers from Saturday to Wednesday, from 7am to 10pm, and on Thursdays from 7am to 5.30pm. Al Khor service cen-tre welcomes customers from Saturday to Wednesday from 7am to 8pm, and on Thursdays from 7am to 3.30pm.

ASHRAF SIDDIQUIDOhA

THE mutual political trust between Qatar and China got strengthened further to reach a new level in 2019, the Am-bassador of China to Qatar HE Zhou Jian has said.

Talking to Qatar Tribune on the sidelines of an event held at Hotel Intercontinental Doha

to celebrate the Chinese New Year, also known as Spring Festival, the ambassador said that the Amir HH Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al Thani and Chinese President Xi Jin-ping met twice during the year to deepen strategic partnership between Qatar and China and to build solid foundations for the relations between the two countries to grow fast.

He said the leaderships of the two countries have drawn the blueprint for strong bilat-eral relations.

The ambassador added that cultural exchanges be-tween the two countries have also increased significantly in the recent past creating better mutual understanding.

According to Jian, the mu-tual exemption of entry visa for citizens of both countries is a significant step to boost bilateral ties between Qatar and China.

Elaborating on cultural ties, he remarked that Chinese mar-tial arts, acrobatics and music

are getting increasingly popu-lar in Qatar, while pointing out that many Qataris are learning Chinese language today.

The Chinese envoy noted that the Qatari pavilion at Hor-ticulture Expo in Beijing was one of the major attractions at the event receiving several thousand visitors.

In the field of sports, he said Qatar’s football team has a large fan following in China.

The ambassador added that in 2019, Chinese residents in Qatar worked hard to chase their dreams in various sectors

while actively contributing to Qatar’s economic development and serving as a bridge to pro-mote cooperation between the two countries.

Jian said that during 2020, attempts will be made to deep-en bilateral relations in differ-ent fields, promote people to people contact and enhance connectivity through the Belt and Road Initiative of China to bring benefits to the people of both countries.

Meanwhile, members of the Chinese community, both adults and the children, en-

joyed wide ranging cultural and acrobatic performances held on the occasion.

The ambassador said that China recently celebrated 70 years of magnificent achieve-ments, adding that the Chinese people were determined to strive together to achieve their national goals.

Addressing the community members clad in traditional colourful attires, he said that China’s GDP is expected to edge close to Yuan 100 trillion with the per capita income of $10,000 in future.

mutual political trust between Qatar & china reached new level in 2019, says ambassador

Chinese community marks New Year with traditional zeal and fervour

Ambassador HE Zhou Jian

QAC service centre hosts students from Shatharat Educational Training Center

The students learned about the centre’s daily procedures starting from receiving the customers and the car, through to completing maintenance and delivering the car back to customers.

Katara Global Art Fair Preview offers a peek into diverse cultures, traditions and histories

AILYN AGONIADOhA

A SECTION that gives a feel of be-ing in a mini Chinatown adorned with dozens of paintings shipped all the way from China and a dis-play of sculptures made of spoons and forks by a Doha-based Filipino artist are among the crowd draw-ers at the Katara Global Art Fair (KatArt) Preview which opened in Building 19 and 22 of Katara Cul-tural Village on Friday.

The event provides a peek into the first edition of Katara Global Art Fair taking place in October. It offers a slice of different history, cultures and traditions of various countries across the globe to art enthusiasts in Qatar.

The preview organised by Pal-las Arts, in partnership with Ka-tara, was led by Pallas Arts CEO Mariame Farqane and attended by Ambassador of Argentina to Qatar HE Carlos Hernandez, Ambas-sador of France HE Franck Gellet and Ambassador of Italy HE Ales-sandro Prunas.

According to Farqane, KatArt aims to be a landmark arts and culture event that will bring to-gether local and international art-ists, collectors, designers and oth-er art professionals to showcase numerous paintings, sculptures and photographs, among many other art pieces.

“It is undeniable that the arts and culture scene in Qatar has been flourishing to the extent of drawing the world’s attention. Doha’s cultural environment today makes it an ideal location for an in-ternational art fair. Qatar is indeed poised to become a major interna-tional hub for art and culture and join the ranks of many centres in Paris or New York”, the organisers further said in a statement.

The tour around the world through KatArt started in Build-ing 19 of Katara, where the first art item on display is a sculp-ture titled ‘Bike Quad’, made of spoons and forks by Filipino ex-pat Danny Ponce.

It was followed by a display of paintings by other artists includ-ing abstract paintings inspired by nature by Argentine artist Mariana Pereyra; an artwork titled ‘Friend-ship’ and ‘Kingdom’ by French artist Smail Kanoute, paintings of interesting shapes by Turkish art-ist Murat Kurt and a painting titled ‘Girl With Black Coat’ by Hungar-ian artist Sara Vizy.

At the centre of the gallery are three sculptures by Australian artist Emad Dhahir. Another Ponce mas-terpiece inspired by a transformer robot concludes the trip in the first gallery for the KatArt preview.

In Building 22, works of Qatari artists are on display. Among the

featured paintings are by Moham-med Faraj, Mahmoud Almasri, Maryam al Tayer, Hana el Leithy, Wadha al Sulaiti and Hanadi al Darwish. Another Qatari tal-ent Asya al Qahtani presents two sculptures at the event. Also part of the collection, are photographs taken by popular Qatar expat Bosco Menezes.

The section dedicated to Chi-nese artists Guo Jianyuan, Bokui and Li Zhongjun features dozens of artworks reflecting the rich history and traditions of China. Adorned with decors and music reminiscent of a Chinatown, the section excites most of visitors as they feast their eyes on the colourful paintings.

NU-Q lecture explores aspectsof AI and Machine Learning

TRIBUNE NEWS NETWORKDOhA

DAVE Senior, partner and strate-gist at Toronto-based digital agency Playground Inc., at a lecture at North-western University in Qatar (NU-Q), explained the difference between Ar-tificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning, and the role each plays in transforming expe-riences and professions.

Senior explained that machine learning is the “ac-quisition of knowledge or skill by a computer, where the knowledge is provided and fed by an expert”, while AI is where a machine can “apply knowledge and con-tinue to optimise” using al-gorithms and logic to make decisions and come up with solutions, without the need for an expert.

AI is continuing to reshape all as-pects of everyday life. From driverless cars and supermarkets with no cash-iers to factory automation and e-learn-ing, the roll-out of machine-driven data and automated processes are redefin-ing how the world operates, especially across the media industry.

“The differences between AI and machine learning are fairly stark,” said Senior. “While AI cares about the suc-cess of the outcome, machine learning cares about how accurately it repre-sents the data that has been provided. AI performs the work for you and de-cides what to show you, machine learn-ing can analyse the data, but does not

make decisions on how it is applied.” As an example, Senior explained

how media corporations such as Netf-lix or Instagram may use AI to per-sonalise experiences and “make rec-ommendations that amplify certain values”. He pointed out that by using AI, these services offer suggestions and recommendations by “continuing to

optimise, which helps you to break out of your bubble and creates opportunities to explore new content, or highlights other things that might be of interest based on previous activity”.

He added that ma-chine-driven data and AI are also being used by the media corporations to make business deci-

sions such as “deciding how and what content gets produced”, based on the popularity of similar shows or on using headlines that can achieve higher click-through rates.

On the future of the digital era, Sen-ior noted two main areas of concern for media and communication profes-sionals -- data bias and ‘deepfakes’. Be-cause data are input into the system to provide machine learning with knowl-edge and AI with guidance to develop algorithms, it is essential that the data are “collected in a way that eliminates bias”. Computer scientists and media experts are being challenged when confronted with fake news, images and videos, he said, adding that it is then “our responsibility to analyse and iden-tify what is real and what is not”.

Dave Senior

A wide range of cultural and acrobatic performances was held as part of the Chinese New year celebrations, in the presence of Chinese community members and Ambassador of China to Qatar HE Zhou Jian.

The event provides a peek into the first edition of Katara Global Art Fair taking place in october.

The last word16 Sunday, January 19, 2020