Two new fuel stations set to open this month - Gulf Times

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FRIDAY Vol. XXXVII No. 10255

October 28, 2016Muharram 27, 1438 AH www. gulf-times.com 2 Riyals

BUSINESS |

Qatar Airways Airbusdeal not dead: CEO

SPORT | Page 1

Lekhwiya aim for clean sheet against Arabi

QATAR

ARAB WORLD

INTERNATIONAL

ISLAM

COMMENT

BUSINESS

CLASSIFIED

SPORT

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3, 4

5-16

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18, 19

1-12

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INDEX

QATAR | Mourning

Condolences from Prince Bandar, GeageaHH the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani received yesterday telephone calls from Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdulaziz al-Saud of Saudi Arabia and Dr Samir Geagea, chairman of the Lebanese Forces party, in which they expressed their condolences on the death of HH the Grandfather Emir Sheikh Khalifa bin Hamad al-Thani.

QATAR | Violation

MEC shuts beautycentre for a monthThe Ministry of Economy and Commerce (MEC) has closed a beauty centre in New Salata for a month over displaying and using various expired products. The MEC stressed it will not tolerate any violations of the Consumer Protection Law and its regulations, and will intensify its inspection campaigns to crack down on violations. The MEC has urged all customers to report any violations to its Consumer Protection and Anti-Commercial Fraud Department through the following channels: Hotline: 16001, e-mail: [email protected], Twitter: @MEC_Qatar, Instagram: MEC_Qatar, MEC mobile app for Android and IOS: MEC_Qatar.

Emir meets Palestinian president

HH the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani yesterday met Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at Al Bahr Palace. The meeting reviewed bilateral relations between the two fraternal countries and the latest developments in the Palestinian arena. In addition, the meeting discussed Qatar’s eff orts to achieve reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas movements in order to unite the Palestinian front in the face of Israeli actions of aggression as well as achieve the ambitions of the Palestinian people in restoring their legitimate national rights. During the meeting, the Palestinian president hailed Qatar’s firm and unwavering support for the Palestinian issue and its humanitarian eff orts and relief initiatives for the Palestinian people. He also praised the constant eff orts of HH the Emir to end the division and achieve the national Palestinian reconciliation.

Two newfuel stationsset to openthis monthTwo new fuel stations, at Old

Ghanem and Al Thameed, will be opened this month itself, Wo-

qod CEO Ibrahim Jaham al-Kuwari said yesterday.

The fuel station at Hamad Interna-tional Airport (HIA) will open “very soon”, he explained in a statement is-sued to announce Woqod’s third-quar-ter results.

In November, three more fuel sta-tions will start operations. They are located at Mushaireb (on Al Rayyan Road), Al Mashaf (North of Al Wukair) and Al-Rayyan (Qadeem).

Eight fuel stations at Al Muntazah, North Al Wakrah, Madinat Shamal, Abu Nakhla (Salwa Road), Wadi Abu Saleel, Al Wukair, Al Khor and Lusail have almost been completed and are expected to start operations by the year-end.

The work on four other fuel sta-tions –Um Ghwalina, Salatah Jadeed, Al Thumama and Jabal Teilib in Lu-sail City is progressing fast and these are expected to be completed in 2017.

Currently 40 fuel dispensing sta-tions including the mobile terminals were operating in the country, and work was under way on a number of new projects across Qatar.

Woqod said four projects relating to fuel stations are in the “tendering and award” stage. These projects – Salata Qadeema, Khaleej West, Al Kurana and Umm Qarn – are expected to be com-pleted next year.

Three projects are in the “design and bidding stage.” They will be located at Madinat Mawatir, Education City and Ras Laff an. These projects are expected to be completed next year.

Woqod said the process of allocating

land for more fuel stations is underway across the country. Woqod is co-ordi-nating with the Ministry of Municipal-ity and Environment to allocate some 34 suitable locations to set up fuel sta-tions so that most parts of Qatar are covered. The focus will be on the South Motorway and Doha Express road, Wo-qod said.

Seven more vehicle inspection cen-tres will come up at Shehaniyah, Al Khor, Al Wukair, Al Mazrooah, Madi-nat Shamal, Al Wajba and Mesaimeer South. These are expected to be com-pleted next year.

Recently, three vehicle inspection centres were opened at Wadi Al-Banat, Al Mamoora and Al Wakrah.

LPG sales (refi lling and new) during the period (third quarter) grew by 5.7% and reached 1.2mn (metallic cylinders) and 646,000 (Shafaf cylinders -6 and 12 Kg).

The total volume of sales of petro-leum products (diesel, gasoline and jet fuel) has increased by 11.4% during the third quarter of this year and reached 2.4mn litres compared to the same pe-riod last year. Business Page 1

Qatar National Day BarwaSports Championship set

The Barwa Group, in associa-tion with the Qatar National Day Celebrations Associated

Activities Organising Committee, will hold sports competitions at the Barwa Workers Recreation Complex in Al Khor Industrial Area for communities and companies.

The Qatar National Day Barwa Sports Championship will include cricket, football, volleyball, basket-ball, and tug of war competitions every Friday evening until December 16. The semi-final and finals will be held on December 17-18 while the tug

of war final is set for December 18.The cricket and football champions

and runner-up will receive QR5,000 and QR3,000, respectively, while vol-leyball and basketball champions will be awarded QR3,000 and the runner-up QR2,000. The tug-of-war winning team will receive QR1,500 and the run-ner-up QR1,000.

Only 32 teams will be allowed for cricket and soccer and 16 teams for volleyball and basketball. Registra-tion may be done by sending e-mail to [email protected] before No-vember 1.

By Pratap JohnChief Business Reporter

Some 4.5mn cheques valued at QR345.6bn were processed in Qatar last year, Qatar Central

Bank (QCB) data show.During 2015, the total volume of

cheques processed showed an increase of 3.71%, while the value of cheques processed increased by 3.54%, QCB said in its latest Financial Stability Re-view.

Even though the number of cheques in the low denomination (below

QR250,000) category comprised 96.5% of total cheques processed, in value terms, it accounted for 26.8% of the total.

Cheques above QR1mn made up 58.2% of the total value of cheques, al-though their volume was only 1% of the total number processed.

“From this viewpoint, it was im-perative for the banks to maintain ade-quate clearing account liquidity for the smooth processing of the high-value cheques without causing any delays/gridlock to the payment and settlement system,” QCB said.

According to QCB, the cheque clear-

ing system processes cheques above QR250,000 on a real-time basis, whereas cheques below QR250,000 are processed on a net basis by the end of the clearing day.

The real-time gross settlement system (RTGS) processed on an av-erage around 1,320 SWIFT transac-tions and some 635 high value (above QR250,000) cheque transactions on a daily basis last year.

In case of Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunica-tion (SWIFT) transactions, while the number of transactions grew by nearly 34% in 2015 as compared to the previ-

ous year; in value terms, the increase was only around 14%.

In contrast to SWIFT transactions, the increase in the number of cheque transactions was around 26.5%, but the value of cheque transactions increased by 23%.

The analysis of the volume and value of transactions through various modes illustrates that transactions via electronic means took precedence over the medium of cheques in the past year.

Further analysis of month-wise volume and value of transactions via SWIFT and cheques suggests that

SWIFT transactions remained active across the months, refl ective of robust interbank market activity as compared to cheque transactions.

The volume of SWIFT transactions on a daily average basis was almost double that of cheque transactions, whereas in value terms, SWIFT trans-actions were nearly 13 times that of the cheque transactions.

Qatar Central Bank said it strives to provide “safe, reliable and fast” electronic solutions for making a wide range of business and personal payments supported by flexible and cost-effective means for payment

clearing and settlement systems to settle transactions smoothly and with finality.

Towards this goal of developing a sound “Financial market infrastruc-ture”, QCB has been consistently bring-ing about signifi cant improvements in the fi nancial infrastructure of the country.

The payment and settlement system has been modernised, the governance system streamlined, the liquidity infra-structure upgraded and the regulatory infrastructure strengthened to meet the demands of a modern market econ-omy, QCB noted.

Some 4.5mn cheques worth QR345.6bn processed in 2015: QCB

Qatar, Pakistan review military tiesQNAIslamabad

Pakistan’s Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, met yesterday with HE the Minister of State for Defence Af-

fairs Dr Khalid bin Mohamed al-Attiyah, who is currently visiting the country. They reviewed bilateral relations and the means to enhance them, focusing in par-ticular on military co-operation.

They also discussed the latest region-al and international developments. HE al-Attiyah also held separate meetings with Pakistan’s Defence Minister, Kha-waja Muhammad Asif; Chief of Staff of Pakistani Army General Raheel Sharif; Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee of Pakistan Rashad Mah-mood and Minister of Defence Produc-tion Rana Tanveer Hussain.

The meetings dealt with bilateral relations, particularly in the military fi eld, and the means to enhance them.

HE the Minister of State for Defence Aff airs Dr Khalid bin Mohamed al-Attiyah with Pakistan’s Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, in Islamabad yesterday.

900 IS militants killedin Mosul battle: USAFPArbil, Iraq

The United States said yesterday up to 900 Islamic State group militants have been killed in

the off ensive to retake Iraq’s Mosul, as camps around the city fi lled with fl ee-ing civilians.

Iraqis who fl ed their homes ex-pressed joy at escaping IS’s brutal rule as they were given shelter and assist-ance, in some cases reuniting with rel-atives they had not seen in more than two years.

The off ensive, launched on October 17, is seeing tens of thousands of Iraqi fi ghters advancing on Mosul from the south, east and north in a bid to retake the last major Iraqi city under IS control.

Backed with air and ground support from a US-led coalition, federal forces allied with Kurdish peshmerga fi ghters have taken a string of towns and vil-lages in a cautious but steady advance.

General Joseph Votel, who heads the US military’s Central Command, said the off ensive was infl icting a heavy toll on the militants.

“Just in the operations over the last week and a half associated with Mo-

sul, we estimate they’ve probably killed about 800-900 Islamic State fi ghters,” Votel said in an interview.

There are between 3,500 and 5,000 IS militants in Mosul and up to another 2,000 in the broader area, according to US estimates.

Votel also said he had spoken with Iraqi military leaders late Tuesday who told him that as of that time, 57 mem-bers of the Iraqi security forces had been killed and another 255 or so wounded.

For the Kurdish regional peshmer-ga forces, numbers were lower, with about 30 killed and between 70 and 100 wounded. Page 4

AMERICA | Election

Michelle Obama hitstrail with ClintonMichelle Obama, surprise star of the 2016 White House campaign, hit the trail yesterday with Democrat Hillary Clinton as the former and current first ladies fight to conquer battleground states before Election Day. Michelle and Hillary joined forces on the trail for the first time to headline a rally at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina – a key swing state where early voting is already under way before the November 8 election. Page 6

INDIA | Tension

India, Pakistan toexpel diplomatsIndia and Pakistan yesterday announced they would each expel one of the other’s diplomats amid growing tension between the two countries over the disputed region of Kashmir. India said it would expel a Pakistani diplomat who allegedly ran a spy ring that collected sensitive information about Indian security operations along its border. Pakistan declared an Indian diplomat, Surjeet Singh, persona non grata and given him 48 hours to leave the country. Page 11

QATAR

Gulf Times Friday, October 28, 20162

HE the Minister of State for Foreign Aff airs Sultan bin Saad al-Muraikhi received copies of the credentials of ambassadors of Uruguay and Singapore to Qatar, Jorge Antonio Sere Sturzeneg-ger and Jai Sohan Singh, respectively, in Doha yesterday. The Minister of State for Foreign Aff airs wished the two ambassadors success in their mission, assuring them support to upgrade the relations between Qatar and their countries.

HE the Prime Minister and Minister of Interior Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani met a senior Arab Labour Organisation (ALO) off icial who is currently visiting Qatar to participate in the meetings of the 85th Session of ALO’s board of management, which began in Doha yesterday. Talks dealt with areas of co-operation between Qatar and the Arab Labour Organisation. HE the Prime Minister and Minister of Interior wished success for the ALO’s meetings.

Envoys present credentials PM meets ALO officialAnti-doping lab board revamped

Emir issuesdecree

Instrumentsof ratification

Emir approvesCabinet decision

New ambassadorsappointed

Emir issuestwo laws

Emiri decree onAdvisory Council

HH the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani yesterday issued Emiri Decision No 48 of 2016 re-forming the Board of Trustees of the Anti-Doping Laboratory. The Emiri decision stipulates that the Council shall be re-formed as follows:1. Dr Mohamed Ghanem al-Ali Maadheed, President 2. Dr Hamad Abdul Rahman Ibrahim, Vice-president 3. Dr Makoto Youeqi, Member 4. Dr Jordi Segura, Member 5. Dr Mohamed Saleh Guenbaz, Member 6. Dr Mariam Ali Sultan Ali Maadheed, Member 7. Dr Talal Mubarak Abdullah al-Sabah, Member. The Emiri Decision also stipulates that the membership of the Council shall be for four years, renewable for a similar period.

HH the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani yesterday issued the Decree No 42 of 2016 ratifying a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in the field of higher education, research, vocational education and vocational training between the governments of Qatar and Australia signed in Doha on 25/01/2016.

HH the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani yesterday issued the following instruments of ratification:1. Approving a draft agreement on co-operation and mutual assistance in customs matters between the governments of Qatar and India signed in Doha on 5/6/2016.2. Approving a draft Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for co-operation in the field of health between the governments of Qatar and India signed in Doha on 05/06/2016.3. Approving a draft Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for co-operation in the field of skills development and recognition of qualifications between the governments of Qatar and India signed in Doha on 05/06/2016.

HH the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani approved yesterday the Cabinet’s decision No 29 of 2016 on forming the permanent committee for industrial area aff airs.

HH the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani issued yesterday the Emir Decree No 46 of 2016 appointing Saad Nasser Abdullah al-Humaidi as ambassador to Tunisia. He also issued the Emiri Decree No 47 of 2016 appointing Abdullah Nasser Abdullah al-Humaidi as ambassador to Romania.

HH the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani issued yesterday Law No.11 of 2016 on State Audit Bureau. He also issued Law No.12 of 2016 on the Off icial Gazette.

HH the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani yesterday issued the Decree No 41 of 2016 inviting the Advisory (Shura) Council to hold its 45th Ordinary Session on Tuesday 1st of Safar 1438 corresponding to the November 1, 2016.

Labour Minister elected Chairman of ALO board

The 85th session of the Arab Labour Organisa-tion (ALO), which began

its meetings in Doha yesterday, has elected HE the Minister of Administrative Development, Labour and Social Aff airs Dr Issa Saad al-Jafali al-Nuaimi, as chairman of the ALO board of directors.

Sheikh Osman Mustafa, who is a board member, has been elected as vice-chairman representing employers, and Jebali Maraghi, the president of Egypt’s federation of labour unions, as vice-chairman repre-senting labourers.

The meeting’s participants extended their condolences to Qatar on the death of HH the

Grandfather Emir Sheikh Khalifa bin Hamad al-Thani.

The 85th session is to discuss several important issues, includ-ing the rising unemployment in the Arab world and the proposed solutions, fi nding mechanisms to support micro and small and medium-sized enterprises, pro-moting the contribution of the private sector in supporting the work of the ALO, in addition to reviewing a report on the situa-tion of labourers and the people of Palestine in the occupied Arab territories, among others.

In his opening speech, HE the Minister of Administrative De-velopment, Labour and Social Aff airs Dr Issa Saad al-Jafali al-Nuaimi, the ALO Chairman, ap-preciated the precious trust given to him by members of the ALO board and valued their role and eff orts in the organisation’s de-

velopment and its national role at the Arab and international levels.

He pointed out that the meet-ing is taking place under ex-tremely complicated circum-stances, where unemployment rates continued to rise steadily in most Arab countries.

He stressed the need to pro-vide the private sector with a conducive working environment to ensure that it becomes an ac-tive partner in achieving the desired balanced development, underling the importance of activating the role of entrepre-neurship and small and medium enterprises and improving voca-tional training.

He also reiterated the ALO’s full support for the Palestinian people in the face of the inhu-mane practices of Israel, point-ing out that the meeting will dis-cuss this important issue.

QNADoha

Pakistan embassy observes‘Kashmir Black Day’

The Pakistan em-bassy yesterday observed ‘Kashmir

Black Day’ at a programme attended by a large number of community members including people of Kashmiri origin.

Ambassador Shahzad Ahmad asserted that ‘Pa-kistan will continue to support people of Jammu and Kashmir politically and diplomatically.’

“We urge the internation-al community, especially the United Nations, to resolve the issue in accordance with its resolutions,” he said.

The envoy also read out the messages of president and prime minister of Pa-

kistan issued on the occa-sion of Kashmir Black Day.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was quoted as saying that the ‘implementation of the UN resolution was the only plausible, peaceful, log-ical and conceivable solution to the Kashmir dispute.’

A number of speakers, including Mohamed Khan, Rana Mohamed Anwar

and Zahid Awan high-lighted that Kashmir was one of the most important issues of the era, a fl ash-point for a bigger disaster.

“The international community should pay immediate attention to the issue and work towards its resolution,” said Khan.

Anwar said ‘the Kash-miri people’s struggle for their right to self-deter-mination would bear fruit and it could not be denied.’

“The international com-munity should play its due role in getting the people of Kashmir their right to self-determination,” he added.

A short documentary on the alleged atrocities being committed by the Indian Armed Forces in the disputed province was also screened.

By Umer NangianaStaff Reporter

Pakistan ambassador Shahzad Ahmad addressing the gathering.

A view of the gathering at the event.

Poor visibility due to fog; motorists cautioned

Poor visibility is ex-pected at some places in the early hours to-

day, the Qatar Met depart-ment has said.

Visibility may drop to 2km or less during this peri-od, according to the weather report.

The detailed forecast for inshore areas today says hazy to misty/foggy con-ditions are likely in some places at fi rst, followed by mild conditions during the

day along with some clouds.Hazy to misty conditions

are also expected in some off shore areas at fi rst along with clouds.

Thick fog with poor vis-ibility was reported from a number of places early yesterday morning. These included Abu Samra, Al Ghuwairiyah, Al Karana, Al Sheehaniya, Al Ruwais and Dukhan, according to a tweet by the Met depart-ment, which advised people

to exercise caution in view of the prevailing conditions.

On its part, the Ministry of Interior, too, urged motorists to be cautious while driving in the morning as mist and thick fog had been reported from diff erent parts of the country.

Meanwhile, a maximum temperature of 37C was re-corded in Jumayliyah yes-terday, followed by 36C in Al Sheehaniya, Batna, Al Khor and other places. In the capital, mercury level

reached a high of 35C in the Qatar University area and 34C in the Doha airport area. The minimum tem-perature, on the other hand, was 20C in Ghuwairiyah.

Today, the maximum temperature is expected to be 35C in Wakrah and Me-saieed, and 34C in Doha, while the minimum will be 22C in Al Khor, Dukhan and Abu Samra. The minimum temperature will be relative-ly higher in Doha at 26C.

REGION/ARAB WORLD3Gulf Times

Friday, October 28, 2016

US blocks 4 Iran arms shipments to YemenAFPDubai

Warships from the US Navy and allied na-tions have intercepted four weapons shipments from Iran to war-ravaged

Yemen since April 2015, a US admiral said yesterday.Yemen has been rocked by confl ict since Iran-

backed Houthi rebels overran the capital Sanaa and other large parts of the country in 2014, prompting military intervention by a Saudi-led coalition in March last year in support of the in-ternationally recognised government.

“Either US ships or coalition ships...intercept-ed four weapons shipments from Iran to Yemen,” said US Vice Admiral Kevin Donegan.

“We know they came from Iran and we know the destination,” he told reporters at an undis-closed military base in Southwest Asia.

Donegal said the shipments contained thou-sands of AK-47 assault rifl es, anti-tank missiles, sniper rifl es and “other pieces of other equip-ment, higher-end weapons systems”.

Naval offi cials were able to determine the des-tination of the boats’ by analysing GPS settings and interviewing the crew.

One of the shipments had been validated by the United Nations as being an illegal weapons ship-ment, said Donegal.

His comments come after the US military’s Central Command chief General Joseph Votel said last week Iran may have played a role in suspect-ed Houthi missile attacks this month against US warships in the Red Sea.

“We believe that Iran is connected to this in some way,” Donegan said.

Given the heavy volume of traffi c around the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf, the three-star admiral said “plenty” of other shipments would have gone through to Yemen.

The arms seizures came after Iran in April 2015 tried to send a convoy of seven ships, guarded by two Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps vessels, to Yemen.

Donegan said these were fi lled with coastal-defence cruise missiles, explosives and other weapons.

The Houthi rebels are believed to be behind this month’s attacks in which surface-to-surface missiles were fi red at the USS Mason on at least two occasions. In response, US cruise missiles on October 13 struck Houthi radar sites believed to have been used to target the weapons.

The Mason and two other warships were likely targeted in a third missile attack on October 15, but offi cials have not conclusively confi rmed what the threat was or where it was coming from.

UN plan seems to sideline Hadi

A UN peace proposal to end a 19-month war in

Yemen appears aimed at sidelining exiled Presi-

dent Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi and setting up a

government of less divisive figures, according to a

copy seen by Reuters.

Hadi fled the armed advance of the Iranian-al-

lied Houthi movement in March 2015 and has been

a guest of neighbouring Saudi Arabia ever since.

A UN Security Council resolution a month later

recognised him as the legitimate head of state and

called on the Houthis to disarm and quit Yemen’s

main cities.

But the Houthis and their allies in Yemen’s army

have said he will never return, accusing him and

his powerful vice president, Ali Mushin al-Ahmar,

of corruption.

The latest peace plan submitted by UN envoy

Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed suggests Ahmar would

step down and Hadi would agree to become little

more than a figurehead after a Houthi withdrawal

from the capital Sanaa.

It was not immediately clear if the men had

been consulted on the plan.

But their supporters have in the past insisted

that past agreements recognising Hadi as leader

must be respected.

“As part of the signing of a complete and com-

prehensive agreement, the current vice president

will resign and President Hadi will appoint a new

vice president,” the document says.

“After the completion of the withdrawal from

Sanaa and the handing over of heavy and medium

weapons (including ballistic missiles) Hadi will

transfer all his powers to a vice president, and the

vice president will appoint a new prime minister...

(who will form) a national unity government,” it

added.

The proposal would technically confirm Hadi in

off ice, as stipulated by the UN resolution, but leave

him in reality with only a symbolic role.

Yemeni Prime Minister Ahmed Obeid bin Daghr

said that the government had not received a draft

of the peace proposal from the United Nations,

according to state news agency Sabanew.

There was no immediate comment from the

United Nations, or from Saudi Arabia.

Some of the children among 50 Syrians, living in the rebel-held side of Aleppo, entering a government-controlled area as part of a ceasefire.

Safe, for now!

Lekhwiya participates in Gulf Security 1 exerciseQNADoha

The Internal Security Force (Lekhwiya) is participating in the Gulf Security 1 military exercise for security bodies

of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), that got underway in Bahrain and will continue for three weeks.

Lekhwiya spokesman Abdullah Sultan

al-Ghanem said that the aim of the exercise is to enhance the effi ciency of security bod-ies in GCC member states and increase their ability to combat terrorist acts, in addition to enhancing the exchange of experiences in security fi elds, especially in the fi ght against terrorism.

The Lekhwiya spokesman added that the exercise will raise the level of security readi-ness between the GCC interior ministries by promoting and raising the level of coordina-

tion and cooperation to cope with crises and emergency situations.

The implementation of the exercise is within the security agreement between GCC coun-tries, he said, pointing out that the exercise will contribute to increasing the ability to make ap-propriate decisions in emergency situations where the security teams will conduct fi eld trainings to deal with any possible terrorist threat facing the region and raise the effi ciency of the security services in addressing them.

Dubai deports Briton for breaking charity rulesAFPDubai

Dubai’s appeal court has fi ned a British woman and ordered her deportation

for violating the emirate’s strict rules on charity fundraising, a lo-cal daily reported yesterday.

The 41-year-old executive, whose identity was not dis-

closed, had been acquitted by a lower court in June of the charge of promoting a charity without a licence and making fi nancial gains through it, The National said.

But after prosecutors ap-pealed, the higher court fi ned her 5,000 dirhams ($1,362) and or-dered her deportation.

The prosecution charged the woman had “fraudulently ob-

tained benefi ts from individuals who were passionate about vol-unteer work”, after she was re-ported to police by the emirate’s Department of Islamic Aff airs and Charitable Activities, the paper said.

The defendant had used a false name and launched a website and a Facebook page on which she asked for donations to treat two young brothers suff ering

from a liver condition, it said.Last month, prosecutors

dropped charges against a Brit-ish-Australian man who used so-cial media to highlight the work of an Afghan refugee charity.

Dubai and other emirates of the United Arab Emirates have introduced strict controls on charity work for fear that raised funds could end up in the coff ers of extremists.

US off icial calls for vigilance against IS refinancing

Vigilance must be main-tained against the Islamic State group’s ability to fi -

nance itself even as it loses terri-tory in Iraq, a senior US treasury offi cial said in Riyadh yesterday.

“It has the ability to, with relatively small amounts of fi -nancial resources, to rebuild ca-pability,” said the offi cial, who sought anonymity to speak more freely during a meeting with for-eign reporters.

Tens of thousands of Iraqi fi ghters are advancing on the city of Mosul, the last major city un-der control of the extremists in that country.

If Mosul falls, Syria’s Raqa will be the only signifi cant city in either Syria or Iraq under IS control, the vestige of a cross-border “caliphate” the jihadists declared after seizing large parts of both countries in mid-2014.

IS, which inspired attacks around the world and whose atrocities included the behead-ing of foreign hostages and en-slaving Yazidi women, derived illicit proceeds from its occupied territory.

A report last year by the inter-governmental Financial Action Task Force said those sources included bank looting and extor-tion, control of oil fi elds and re-fi neries, robbery of economic as-sets, and kidnapping for ransom.

“Our sense is that we have made considerable progress lim-iting ISIL’s access to multiple forms of ongoing fi nancial sup-port,” the offi cial said, using an-other acronym for IS.

But he added “we are very con-scious of the fact that it’s a very resilient organisation and a crea-tive one that fi nds new pathways”.

Tunisia denies providing base for US dronesAFPTunis

Tunisia yesterday denied a US news report it has allowed Wash-ington to operate unmanned

planes from its territory for missions in neighbouring Libya against the Islamic State group.

“As part of Tunisian-US bilateral co-operation, we have acquired drones to train our military personnel to use this technology and to control out south-eastern border with Libya and detect any suspicious movement” there, a de-fence ministry spokesman said.

But “Tunisian soil has never been and never will be used to strike targets in Lib-ya. The drones are used by Tunisians and no one else,” Belhassen Oueslati said.

The Washington Post on Wednesday reported that the Pentagon had “se-cretly expanded its global network of drone bases to North Africa, deploying unmanned aircraft and US military per-sonnel to a facility in Tunisia to conduct spy missions in neighbouring Libya”.

The “drones began fl ying out of the Tunisian base in late June” and “played a key role in an extended US air off en-sive against an Islamic State strong-hold” in Libya, the newspaper said.

Since August 1, the United States has carried out 351 air strikes in Libya in support of loyalist forces fi ghting to retake the coastal city of Sirte from IS, US Africa Command (AFRICOM) said yesterday.

Tunisia’s Defence Minister Farhat Horchani told the Mosaique FM radio station yesterday: “We were one of the few fi rst countries to oppose a foreign military intervention in Libya.”

“We don’t — and won’t — have a for-eign military base in Tunisia,” he said.

An AFRICOM spokesman did not deny that US drones had taken off from

Tunisia but said: “There are no US bases in Tunisia.” “There are US service mem-bers working with the Tunisian security forces for counter terrorism and they are sharing intelligence from various sources, to include unarmed aerial plat-

forms,” Colonel Mark R Cheadle said.Tunisia “requested additional mili-

tary equipment and training from Washington after deadly militant at-tacks last year in Tunisia and the US has provided more than $250mn in security

assistance”. Tunisia has suff ered from a wave of jihadist violence since the 2011 revolt that ousted longtime dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

IS claimed brazen attacks last year on the National Bardo Museum in Tunis

and a beach resort that killed a total of 59 foreign tourists.

In March, dozens of extremists at-tacked security installations in the town of Ben Guerdane on the border with Libya.

A member of Libyan forces allied with the UN-backed government fires a weapon on a pickup truck during a battle with Islamic State militants in Giza Bahreya, in Sirte.

ARAB WORLD


Libya Coast Guard gets EU trainingAFPBrussels

The European Union has be-gun training the Libyan coast guard as part of eff orts to curb

the growing infl ux of irregular mi-grants from North Africa, EU foreign aff airs head Federica Mogherini said yesterday.

“Today we are starting the train-ing of the Libyan coast guard in Operation Sophia which is a very important step,” Mogherini said as she arrived for a meeting with Nato defence ministers in Brussels.

“I think co-operation also in that respect with Nato would be im-portant and we welcome that very much,” she said.

The EU and Nato have been dis-cussing increased overall coopera-tion in the face of new security chal-lenges, such as in Ukraine and Syria.

“We are together here because a stronger Europe means a stronger Nato,” alliance head Jens Stoltenberg said in opening remarks.

Stoltenberg said Nato had just launched its own Operation Sea Guardian in the Mediterranean to help support Operation Sophia.

“Today we will discuss how to deepen Nato-EU co-operation and partnership further...

including in areas of countering hybrid threats, cyber defence, exer-cises,” he added.

The EU launched Operation Sophia last year after hundreds of migrants died when their rickety boats sank off southern Italy, spark-ing popular outrage at their plight.

The central Mediterranean route has seen more migrants risk their lives in recent months after the EU reached an accord with Turkey in March to halt an infl ux of more than a million refugees who crossed the Aegean Sea to reach Europe last year.

A separate Nato mission in the Aegean will meanwhile continue, at least until the end of the year, Ger-man Defence Minister Ursula Von der Leyen said.

Diplomatic sources said the fu-ture of this operation was uncertain given that key ally Turkey was un-happy at seeing Nato in waters so close to home and which are in some cases disputed with traditional rival Greece.

Operation Sophia is restricted to international waters in the Mediter-ranean so the engagement with the UN-backed administration in Libya represents an important step.

Sophia currently comprises fi ve vessels and three helicopters charged with intercepting smugglers’ boats and destroying them.

Yazidi survivors awarded top European rights prizeAFP Strasbourg

Two Yazidi women who survived a nightmare ordeal of kidnapping, rape and slavery at the hands of

Islamic State extremists yesterday won the European Parliament’s prestigious Sakharov human rights prize.

Nadia Murad and Lamia Haji Bashar have become fi gureheads for the ef-fort to protect the Yazidis, followers of an ancient religion with more than half a million believers concentrated in northern Iraq.

“They have a painful and tragic sto-ry” but “they felt compelled to survive to bear witness,” European Parliament chief Martin Schulz told the assembly in Strasbourg.

“The courage of these two women, the dignity they represent defi es all de-scription.”

Murad hailed the prize as a “pro-found message to the ISIS terrorist group that their criminal inhumanity is condemned and their victims are hon-oured by the free world”.

In a statement she said the award told “our people and particularly to the more than 6,700 women, girls, and children who became victims of slav-ery and human traffi cking under ISIS, that the genocide will not be repeated”.

According to UN experts, around 3,200 Yazidis are currently being held by IS, the majority of them in war-rav-aged Syria.

Bestowed annually, the award is named after the dissident Soviet scien-tist Andrei Sakharov, who died in 1989, and honours individuals who combat intolerance, fanaticism and oppres-sion, often falling foul of their govern-ments as a result.

The prize, worth 50,000 euros ($55,000), will be presented at a cer-emony on December 14 in Strasbourg.

Murad, a slight, softly spoken young woman, was taken by IS from her home village of Kocho near Iraq’s north-ern town of Sinjar in August 2014 and brought to the city of Mosul.

As a captive of the reviled extrem-ist group, Murad, now 23, said she was tortured and raped.

Bashar, who was just 16 when she was taken and is also from Kocho, witnessed family and friends being slaughtered by IS militants before be-ing enslaved and sold.

After 20 months in captivity she es-caped but then fell into the hands of an Iraqi hospital director who also abused and raped her and several other victims.

In a fi nal tragedy, Bashar suff ered horrifi c burns to her face and lost her right eye when one of her friends

stepped on a landmine following their fl ight from the hospital director.

The 2014 massacre perpetrated against the Yazidis by IS fi ghters in Sinjar forced tens of thousands to fl ee and left an already vulnerable commu-nity under perilous threat.

UN investigators have said the IS as-sault on the Yazidis was a premeditated

eff ort to exterminate an entire commu-nity – crimes that amount to genocide.

In speeches and interviews, Murad has voiced deep frustration with the international community for aban-doning her people in the hands of gro-tesquely violent criminals.

Bashar said in a voicemail message left with Mirza Dinnayi, founder of

the German-Iraqi aid group Air Bridge Iraq: “I am so happy about the prize because I won it in the name of the Yazidi victims.

“It is important that the world does not forget the women and children im-prisoned by IS and that such crimes are not perpetrated against anyone,” she said in Kurdish.

Dinnayi, who has been looking after Bashar since her arrival in Germany in April, translated the message into Ger-man.

Past winners include Pakistani edu-cation campaigner Malala Yousafzai, late South African rights icon Nelson Mandela and Myanmar activist Aung San Suu Kyi.

A June 21, 2016, file photo of Nadia Murad testifying during the US Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Aff airs Committee hearing in Washington, DC.

Villagers forced to walk to Mosul as IS human shieldsReutersBaghdad

Islamic State fi ghters forced women, children and the eld-erly to walk alongside them

for days as human shields to cov-er their retreat to Mosul, separat-ing out older boys and fi ghting-aged men along the way for an unknown fate, villagers said.

Reuters spoke to a woman and an elderly man inside the Islamic State-held city, who were part of group of families forced to leave the villages of Safi ya and Elleza-ga, about 30km and 50km to the south.

Children and the elderly were released when they arrived in Mosul on Tuesday and told to stay with relatives, they said, speaking by phone from one of the few places where there is still mobile coverage, on the city’s edges.

A resident of Mosul, Rayyan, said he saw the families when they arrived in the city, “their bare feet bleeding and covered with dust as if coming from un-der the rubble.”

“We cried when we saw them,” he said.

Reuters could not independ-ently verify the villagers’ ac-counts, but they echoed reports from advancing Iraqi forces that Islamic State fi ghters have been taking civilians with them as they pull back towards the city.

Mosul is by far the largest city Islamic State fi ghters have ever held and now the group’s last stronghold in Iraq.

The ground off ensive, now 11 days old, is expected to be the biggest battle in Iraq since the US-led invasion in 2003.

Islamic State, also known as

Daesh, ISIS or ISIL, has a history of seeking protection by holding civilian hostages in other cities its fi ghters have defended.

For the men, the walk ended in Hammam al-Alil, a town about 15km south of Mosul where Iraqi offi cials say Islamic State is kill-ing former members of the police and army who had lived in areas under its control.

They haven’t been heard of since, their relatives said.

“The members of Daesh called on the population of the village to gather in the school from the mosque’s loudspeakers,” said the woman, who gave her name as Fatima.

“Then they separated the women, the elderly and the boys over 14 from the families,

and made us walk to Mosul.“One of them was shouting:

‘Quick, quick, otherwise the unbelievers will kill your chil-dren and rape your women’,” she said. “Another was repeatedly warning that anyone caught making a phone call would be shot dead.”

Abu Ahmed, in his early six-ties, said the militants didn’t use

cars in their retreat, fearing air strikes.

He walked with his daughters and his grandchildren from Ella-zaga, sleeping two days in the open.

The militants took away one of his sons.

“We know nothing about him, he said, and we’re worried that he could have been executed.”

As many as 1.5mn people are still believed to be trapped inside Mosul, and the United Nations fears for a humanitarian disaster, forecasting up to 1mn could be uprooted and thousands of oth-ers held in peril by the militants.

UN human rights spokesman Rupert Colville said earlier in the week that Islamic State fi ghters had reportedly killed scores of

people around Mosul in the last week.

Colville said security forces discovered the bodies of 70 civil-ians a week ago in houses in Tu-loul Naser village, further south from Hammam al-Alil.

Islamic State also reportedly killed 50 former police offi c-ers outside Mosul on Sunday, he said.

Children welcome Kurdish Peshmerga fighters after peshmerga recaptured Fadiliya village in Nawaran, north of Mosul, from Islamic State militants.

AFRICA5Gulf Times


Nigeria launched a $10bn infrastructure pro-gramme yesterday in its

restive Delta region as part of a plan to end an insurgency that has hobbled oil production.

President Muhammadu Bu-hari will meet representatives of militant groups and community leaders from the Niger Delta in Abuja next week in a bid to end the attacks, Oil Minister Em-manuel Ibe Kachikwu said.

Speaking to a forum in Abuja aimed at outlining strategy for

the petroleum industry, Kachik-wu described bringing the in-surgency to an end as the fi rst goal of a seven-point plan.

“Our target is to ensure zero militancy in the area,” he said. “This planned meeting shows the level of interest the president has to ensure peace in the area.”

The $10bn investment is “not necessarily” going to come from the federal government, but rather from “oil companies, in-vestors, individuals”, he said.

Militants fi ghting for a great-er share of the Opec member’s wealth complain of poverty and a lack of development across the Niger Delta region, where most

of Nigeria’s oil is pumped.The seven-part strategy also

envisages passing a long-de-layed Petroleum Industry Bill by December.

The bill, which covers every-thing from an overhaul of state oil company NNPC to taxes on upstream projects, was delayed by violence in the Delta, which at one point cut production to 30-year lows.

The fi rst part of the bill is al-ready pending in the senate, and Kachikwu said the second part, which deals with fi scal aspects of the petroleum industry, is “almost completed” and will be presented to the oil industry in

the next week or two.While the government has

emphasised diversifying the economy, Buhari said yesterday that it would be impossible to move forward without the oil industry.

“Oil and gas resources still remain the most immediate and practical keys out of our present economic crisis,” Buhari said, and the plan for the industry is “a national imperative and a core thrust of our economic policy”.

To drum up fi nancing and oil investments, Nigeria will hold a roadshow in the Gulf in January and in the United States by mid-2017, Kachikwu told reporters.

One area of investment would be in improving outdated re-fi neries to stop costly fuel im-ports, he said. “We are going to be licencing private refi neries, to look at investing in private refi n-eries.”

Kachikwu said Nigeria’s oil output stood at 1.8mn barrels a day (bpd), compared with the 1.9mn bpd that the petroleum ministry announced earlier this week.

Still, he added that the gov-ernment hoped to get back to 2.2mn bpd next year – the level seen at the start of 2016.

“We have a capacity to pro-duce 3mn,” he said.

Nigeria launches $10bn plan for peace in DeltaReutersAbuja/Lagos

Kachikwu: Our target is to ensure zero militancy in the area.

Complex diverse political agendas are driving Af-rican nations to quit the

International Criminal Court (ICC), with leaders seeking to cloak the move by reigniting age-old anger at the West, ana-lysts say.

Gambia’s announcement that it would be the third country to withdraw from the court is all the more frustrating as it comes at a time when the tribunal is beginning to probe some of the world’s most intractable con-fl icts, in places such as the Pal-estinian territories and Afghani-stan, experts say.

Set up in 2002, the ICC’s mis-sion is to try the world’s most heinous crimes which national governments are either unable or unwilling to prosecute.

And most of the ICC prosecu-tions, such as in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, have been requested by the countries themselves.

But Gambian Information Minister Sheriff Bojang charged that the ICC had been used “for the persecution of Africans and especially their leaders”.

“Not a single Western war criminal has been indicted,” he said late on Tuesday, as his country followed Burundi and continental heavyweight South Africa in announcing it intends to leave the tribunal.

It is a “very worrying de-velopment,” said analyst Mark Kersten, from the University of Toronto. “The ultimate eff ect of this will be to protect high-level senior perpetrators of mass atrocities.”

In his online blog, Kersten predicted while there would not be a mass exodus, as many as fi ve to 10 nations could with-draw from the court based in The Hague, including Kenya, Namibia and Uganda.

But he said ironically that showed the tribunal was more relevant than ever.

“Why is the ICC in the African states as it is? If you look at all of them, I think what you’ll see is

that the ICC has justifi ed inves-tigation in all those situations,” he told AFP.

The three African nations involved so far have diff erent reasons for trying to avoid any international spotlight on their domestic issues.

Burundi, where ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda opened a probe in April, has been mired in 18 months of political violence since President Pierre Nkurunziza announced his suc-cessful bid for a third term.

Former ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo high-lighted repeated fears from the UN and the African Union of “a possible genocide” in Burundi.

“Who will defend the vic-tims?” he asked.

“Escaping the ICC is a way to come (with) free hands to com-mit genocide,” Moreno-Ocampo told AFP, adding all “dictators are against” the court.

It seems Bujumbura’s decision sparked a kind of “withdrawal race”, said Kersten, while insist-ing Pretoria’s decision “was not made in solidarity with Burundi

nor was it to protect or promote Nkurunziza”.

And Gambia, Bensouda’s home country where President Yahya Jammeh is seeking a fi fth term having ruled with an iron-fi st for decades, may have tried a preemptive strike amid fears of an opposition crackdown.

Experts warned of the “polar-ised debate” which has become symptomatic of everything that has gone wrong with the court.

Of the 124 nations which have ratifi ed the Rome Statute under-pinning the court, 34 are cur-rently African.

But with the United States, Russia and China all absent from the ICC’s signatories, real dis-cussion is needed on boosting the tribunal’s legitimacy.

“There’s a strong African lobby pro-ICC, in the sense that they want to improve the ICC. So they are critical,” said Marieke de Hoon, assistant professor in public international law at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

“It’s those voices that we need to assist by giving them a voice, rather than denying it,” she said,

highlighting Mali, Niger, Sen-egal and Gabon, which recently asked the ICC to open an inves-tigation into election unrest.

In part the ICC is hampered by its own rules. It can only in-vestigate alleged crimes in states which have signed up to the Rome Statute, or if it is given a UN mandate.

That has hamstrung its ability to bring to justice those involved in the wars in Iraq and Syria.

“It’s crucial to understand the political playing fi eld the ICC

is trying to operate in,” said De Hoon. “It has limited resources, limited jurisdiction.”

She suggested the withdraw-als could be part of an orches-trated strike – coming only a few weeks before the members’ an-nual meeting next month.

But member states should take the criticism seriously and work to overcome the setback.

“Because if they don’t, then it is the dictators that are trying to run from justice” who will win, she warned.

ICC ‘bias’ handy cover-up for detractors, say expertsBy Sophie Mignon, AFPThe Hague

African group urges leaders to stick with ICC

A group of African legal and rights experts have called on Burundi, South

Africa and Gambia to reconsider their plans to withdraw from the Inter-

national Criminal Court (ICC).

The African Group for Justice and Accountability (AGJA) – consisting of

lawyers, prosecutors, judges, academics and human rights activists –

called on the countries’ leaders to “reconsider and recommit themselves

to the Rome Statute”, the treaty that established the ICC, a global court

headquartered in The Hague.

The AGJA was set up a year ago aiming to improve relations between the

international court and Africa’s leaders, some of whom say the continent

has been unfairly targeted for prosecution or investigation.

Last week Burundi became the first country to declare its intention to

leave the ICC, after the court’s prosecutor said she might open a case

against the government.

South Africa and Gambia followed suit, raising fears of an exodus of Afri-

can countries, many of which are founding members of the court.

“Withdrawals from the ICC constitute a serious obstacle to the rights of

victims to justice and the duty of states to ensure accountability for mass

atrocities. They close an important recourse to justice and undermine

the global fight against impunity,” said AGJA member Hassan Bubacar

Jallow, former prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for

Rwanda and, like the ICC’s current chief prosecutor, a Gambian national.

The AGJA noted that African countries including Botswana and Senegal

had voiced their concern at the announced withdrawals and encouraged

others to remain committed to the court.

A man was shot and killed by Kenyan police outside the US embassy in the

capital Nairobi yesterday after stabbing an offi cer with a knife.

“The man was shot after stab-bing a GSU offi cer in the hand and left him with injuries,” said local police chief Vitalis Otieno.

The police offi cer involved in the shooting was a member of the paramilitary General Services Unit (GSU) deployed to guard the embassy.

He was said to be “in good condition” in hospital.

Otieno said the dead man was a 24-year-old Kenyan from Wajir in the country’s northeast close to the border with Somalia, but did not give a name.

According to police, the man had been walking towards the US embassy and was close to the

public entrance to the visa sec-tion when he attempted to grab a gun from one of the offi cers.

A scuffl e ensued during which the man reportedly pulled out a knife and stabbed one offi cer before being shot in the head by another.

A photograph shared on social media showed the body of a man of apparently Somali ethnicity lying on the pavement, a pool of blood staining the tarmac by his head, and surrounded by police offi cers.

Five US Federal Bureau of In-vestigation (FBI) offi cers were also present at the scene along-side around a dozen Kenyan of-fi cers.

Soon after the incident the busy road was opened to traffi c which drove slowly past the body still lying prone on the ground.

A statement from the US em-bassy confi rmed the “shooting incident”, adding that “no em-bassy personnel were involved”.

The well-guarded US embassy in Nairobi is located opposite the main UN complex in Gigiri, an upmarket suburb in the city’s north popular with expatriates.

Additional UN security staff were deployed along the road, called UN Avenue, after the in-cident.

The motive for the man’s ac-tions remains unknown with police saying “investigations are still ongoing”.

“We are investigating to know if there are other accomplices, and if he had been sent by any-one, so that we can get to appre-hend them,” Otieno told report-ers at the scene.

The US missions in both Nai-robi and Dar es Salaam in Tanza-nia were hit by near simultaneous car bombings in August 1998.

The twin bombings, claimed by Al Qaeda, killed a total of 224 people and injured some 5,000 – almost all of them Kenyans and Tanzanians.

Kenyan offi cers kill knife attacker outside US embassyAFPNairobi

A US security off icer stands guard near the body of a man after he was shot and killed by Kenyan police outside the US embassy in Nairobi.

South African Finance Min-ister Pravin Gordhan de-clined yesterday to say

whether he was confi dent of the ruling party’s support, less than a week before he appears in court to answer fraud charges in a saga that has rocked the government.

Speaking a day after present-ing his mid-term budget to par-liament, Gordhan said he had tried not to let his November 2 court case distract him while

outlining measures to help kick-start an economy that he forecast would barely grow this year.

Gordhan is accused of fraudu-lently approving, in a previous post as head of the revenue serv-ice, early retirement for a deputy tax commissioner and re-hiring him as a consultant, costing the tax agency 1.1mn rand ($79,000).

He has denied any wrongdo-ing, saying that the case is po-litically motivated, a sentiment echoed by opposition parties, business leaders and some sen-ior African National Congress (ANC) party fi gures.

Asked whether he was con-fi dent he had political backing, Gordhan said: “I’m not trying to duck, but I’m not going to answer it.”

The ructions in government have weakened the rand and bonds in an economy struggling to create jobs.

Some analysts say that Presi-dent Jacob Zuma’s allies are driv-ing the investigation in a bid to oust Gordhan, something the president denied.

“He (Gordhan) is well aware that while he does have some support inside the ANC, the fac-

tion that’s supporting him is not winning,” NKC Africa Econom-ics analyst Gary van Staden said. “If you’re asked if you have sup-port and you say I’m not answer-ing that question, obviously he thinks he doesn’t.”

Gordhan, who on Wednesday slashed growth forecasts for the next three years and predicted wider budget defi cits than previ-ously expected, said he was not preoccupied with whether he had done enough to stave off credit rating downgrades.

“Our preoccupation is not rat-ing agencies. Our preoccupation

is putting the country on the right footing,” Gordhan said. “If we build confi dence to the point where we get investment going ... everybody including ratings agencies will believe that we as a government are doing the right thing.”

Moody’s, Fitch and S&P, who are due to review the credit rating of Africa’s most industrialised country in November and De-cember, have warned of down-grades if growth remains weak and Pretoria’s commitment to fi scal prudence is in doubt.

Gordhan told parliament on

Wednesday that the economy was suff ering infrastructure bottlenecks, volatile labour re-lations, regulatory constraints and red tape, ineffi ciencies in state-owned enterprises and un-certainties in the policy environ-ment.

Moody’s senior analyst Zuzana Brixiova however said yesterday that South Africa would continue to be challenged by slow progress and uncertainty around struc-tural reforms meant to support growth.

She also warned that spending pressures were likely to rise in the

run-up to the 2019 elections.In the budget, Gordhan urged

public servants to work with in-tegrity, honesty and accountabil-ity, a plea that his deputy Mcebisi Jonas said referred to rampant corruption in state departments.

“Corruption is real, it’s palpa-ble, you can feel it, and you can see it in most agencies,” Jonas told the post-budget briefi ng also at-tended by Gordhan. “That’s why sometimes Treasury gets the fl ak. The public fi nance management act requires that we intervene in institutions and try and correct some of the problems.”

Gordhan declines to comment on ANC backingReutersCape Town

IS-linked group abandons Somalia port townAFPMogadishu

A breakaway group of around 50 Somali mili-tants who declared loy-

alty to the Islamic State (IS) militants abandoned a small port town yesterday, a day after occu-pying it, residents and an offi cial said.

“The militants left town early this morning but they are not far away,” said Abdiweli Adan, an elder in a town close to Qandala which the IS-linked group occu-pied on Wednesday.

He said the group’s black fl ag still fl ew over government build-ings in the small seaside town on the Gulf of Aden coast of Punt-land, a semi-autonomous state in northern Somalia.

“Some fi shermen saw them staying close by in mountainous enclaves,” said Adan, who added that the militants left as they had arrived, peacefully.

A security offi cial in the re-gional capital Bossaso said the threat of an arriving force of Puntland soldiers had scared the militants off .

“Puntland sent hundreds of special forces to deal with the terrorists. Unfortunately, they have run away even before the forces reached the town,” said Cabdirisak Mohamed, a security offi cial in the capital Bossaso, about 70km west of Qandala.

Mohamed dismissed the take-over of Qandala as “a desperate attempt to draw attention”.

The militants – led by former Shebaab cleric Abdiqadir Mu-min – switched allegiance from Al Qaeda to IS a year ago but have done little since apart from issuing occasional promotional videos.

Nevertheless, in late August the US State Department named Mumin a “global terrorist” mak-ing him a potential target for US drone strikes which are regularly carried out against jihadists in Somalia.

Abdukadir Said, a trader from Qandala said aircraft fl ying over the town may have spooked the militants.

“There were aircraft hovering over Qandala during the last six hours” before they left, he said.

Once a pirate stronghold, Qandala is an ancient trading and fi shing town whose main signifi cance is its proximity to Yemen, across the Gulf of Aden, where Al Qaeda and IS groups both operate.

Germany ready to aid Mali missionGermany has agreed in principle to send military helicopters to Mali to help a UN peacekeeping mission seen as vital to counter Islamist militancy and tackle the migration crisis, it said on Wednesday.It will provide the aircraft if no other country comes forward to replace seven transport and attack helicopters being withdrawn by the Dutch military early next year, defence ministry spokesman Jens Flosdorff said.UN peacekeepers, including 570 Germans, are deployed across northern Mali, a vast region that was occupied by separatist Tuareg rebels and Al Qaeda-linked militants in 2012 before a French military intervention in 2013.

AMERICA


President Vladimir Putin has slammed as “hysteria” claims that Russia has at-

tempted to interfere in the up-coming US presidential elections by hacking American political institutions.

“The number of mythical, dreamt-up problems includes the hysteria – I can’t think of an-other word – that has broken out in the United States about the in-fl uence of Russia on the current elections for the US president,” Putin said at a Valdai Discussion Club meeting of political scien-tists in Sochi.

“Does anyone seriously think Russia can somehow infl uence the choice of the US people? Is the US some kind of banana re-public? The United States is a great power. Please correct me if I’m wrong,” Putin said to laugh-ter in the audience.

Washington last week for-mally accused the Russian gov-ernment of trying to “interfere” in the 2016 White House race by hacking US political institutions, charges that the Kremlin has re-peatedly dismissed.

Putin has vehemently rejected the accusations, saying that they are meant to divert American voters from domestic problems.

“It’s a lot easier to distract people’s attention towards Rus-sia’s so-called hackers, spies, agents of infl uence, and so on,” Putin said yesterday.

The Kremlin strongman how-ever adopted a hard line against cyber attacks, saying that these are “unacceptable”.

Russian authorities have slammed Washington for “un-precedented” threats after US Vice-President Joe Biden told NBC this month that Putin would receive a “message” in re-sponse to the alleged hacking.

NBC later reported that the CIA was preparing a retaliatory cyber attack “designed to harass and embarrass the Kremlin lead-ership”.

Russia’s foreign ministry at the weekend said that an old ver-sion of its website had apparently been attacked after a US hacker claimed he broke in and posted a mocking message.

The Kremlin was propelled to the heart of US politics in July after Hillary Clinton’s campaign blamed Moscow for a damaging

leak of emails from the Demo-cratic National Committee.

Russia has been accused of favouring Republican candidate Donald Trump – who has praised Putin and called for better rela-tions with Moscow – over the more hawkish Clinton.

Putin has off ered what appears to be veiled support for Trump, but he said yesterday that claims the Kremlin would like to see the Republican candidate win were “absolute nonsense”.

“This is just a method of polit-ical struggle, a way to manipulate public opinion on the eve of the US elections,” he said.

Putin nonetheless praised Trump for appealing to disen-chanted American electors.

“He represents the views of a signifi cant part of society in the United States that is tired of those elites who have been in power for decades,” he said. “He just represents the interests of such ordinary people, and he presents himself as an ordinary guy who criticises those who have already been in power for decades.”

He accused the West of build-ing up a “mythical and made-up” threat of Russian aggression to justify increasing military spending and bolstering Nato forces in countries neighbouring Russia.

“It’s very pleasant and profi t-able to make yourself out to be defendants of civilisation from some new barbarians, but the thing is Russia doesn’t plan to attack anyone,” he said.

“It’s unthinkable – simply stupid and unrealistic,” he added. “It’s just funny to talk about it.”

Putin also took a jab at the West for its “mistakes” in its mil-itary interventions in Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan and now, Syria.

“The fi ght against terrorism has not yielded a global result while the threats are only grow-ing,” he warned, complaining that Russia’s calls to unite forces against terrorism have been ig-nored.

He pointed the fi nger of blame at the United States for the on-going violence in Syria, saying that “stopping bloodshed and launching a political process (in Syria) has not been possible”.

“Our personal agreements with the US president did not work,” Putin added, accusing forces in Washington of “doing everything for these not to be implemented”.

Putin slams claims of meddling by Russia as ‘hysteria’AFPSochi, Russia

Putin: Does anyone seriously think Russia can somehow influence the choice of the US people? Is the US some kind of banana republic?

Democrat Hillary Clinton hit the campaign trail yesterday with Michelle

Obama, surprise star of the 2016 White House race, as the former and current fi rst ladies fi ght to lock in battleground states ahead of November’s election.

Obama has emerged as a com-pelling force in the hard-fought campaign, delivering powerful arguments against Republican Donald Trump and in support of Clinton’s bid to become the fi rst female president in US history.

But Michelle and Hillary are joining forces on the trail for the fi rst time when they headline a rally at a university in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, a key swing state where early voting is underway.

The 52-year-old wife of Presi-dent Barack Obama has energised the Democratic camp with a se-ries of speeches taking Trump to task for his strident rhetoric and for what she brands his “fright-ening” attitude towards women.

And in the closing two weeks of the unprecedented race, Clinton is capitalising on one of the most popular Democrats in America to help make her case.

Clinton holds the momen-tum as the clock ticks down to November 8, the polls crediting her with a compelling lead over Trump, but her Republican ri-val has pledged to pour millions more of his own dollars into his teetering White House bid (see accompanying report).

The latest rolling poll average compiled by tracker RealClear-Politics showed Clinton with a 5.4-point lead in a national race

against Trump and two outsid-ers – pointing to a likely electoral college victory.

“I feel really good, energised, working hard,” the former sec-retary of state told reporters aboard her plane on Wednesday, her 69th birthday. “We built this campaign over a year and a half, now we see the results of all that hard work.”

Trump’s standing has been hit hard, particularly among fe-male voters, since this month’s release of a 2005 video in which he boasts that his celebrity al-lows him to grope women with impunity.

But the 70-year-old Manhat-tan real estate mogul took heart from a new survey that shows him with a two-point lead in ear-ly-voting Florida, a state where presidential races are often won and lost.

“We are going to have, I think, a tremendous victory,” he told CNN.

Pressed on whether he’ll open his own wallet to match an on-slaught of Clinton ads, Trump said he will have spent $100mn of his own money by Election Day, a sum which would imply him dig-ging much deeper than he has so far.

Today President Obama will campaign for Clinton in Florida – a state he won, albeit narrowly, in both 2008 and 2012.

A Bloomberg poll out on Wednesday put Trump up 45% to 43% among likely voters in the Sunshine State, where Clinton has been campaigning, a close margin in what is a must-win state for him.

The RealClearPolitics poll av-erage still puts Clinton ahead in the state by 1.6 percentage points.

But Bloomberg’s survey shows Trump doing somewhat better than Clinton with independents, who may hold the key to vic-tory in a state that was famously deadlocked in 2000, when the Supreme Court decided the out-come, giving the win to George W Bush.

Trump also appears to have clawed back ground in Nevada, where a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll has the west-ern state in a dead heat.

And the provocative billion-aire may have found a useful card to play in the fi nal hand: Obamacare.

Republicans have attacked the outgoing president’s signature health care reform since it was passed, but they have found new traction after offi cials confi rmed this week that voters’ premiums will jump an average of 25% next year.

“Real change begins with immediately repealing and re-placing the disaster known as Obamacare, and Hillary wants to double up and triple up. What a disgusting situation,” Trump said.

“Job-killing Obamacare is just one more way the system is rigged. System is rigged, folks,”

he told cheering supporters in North Carolina.

North Carolina voted for Re-publican nominee Mitt Romney in 2012, but the southern state has been leaning Democratic in the current White House race.

Clinton is relying on strong turnout from the state’s sub-stantial African-American population, and a rally featuring Michelle Obama could inspire them to head to polling stations.

Clinton holds a 2% lead there and the state’s Republican lead-ers worry that Trump’s slow col-lapse will hurt them in congres-sional races.

Michelle Obama hits the trail with ClintonAFPWhite Plains, US

Clinton talks with members of her staff yesterday aboard her campaign plane at Westchester County Airport in White Plains, New York. With less than two weeks to go before the election, Clinton is campaigning in North Carolina with First Lady Michelle Obama.

Donald Trump pledged on Wednesday to pour mil-lions of his own dollars

into his presidential bid, in defi -ance of the seemingly unstoppa-ble momentum building behind Hillary Clinton.

With less than two weeks be-fore polling day, and with early voting under way in some states, the Democratic nominee remains comfortably on course to become America’s fi rst female president.

And Wednesday’s headlines were a telling tale of two build-ings: Clinton revealed that she will hold her likely victory party under a vast glass ceiling while Trump unveiled an alterna-tive Washington address – just in case the White House eludes him.

“We are going to have, I think, a tremendous victory,” Trump told CNN.

Pressed on whether he’ll open his own wallet to match an on-

slaught of Clinton ads, Trump said he will have spent $100mn of his own money by election day, a sum which would imply him digging much deeper than he has so far.

But fi rst he set aside pre-cious time on Wednesday for the grand opening of his new hotel in Washington, the Trump Interna-tional.

Hundreds of journalists cov-ered the grandiose re-opening of the former post offi ce, a stone’s throw from the White House, but many mocked Trump for focus-ing on his business so close to polling.

“This election isn’t over before it’s actually over,” Clinton said. “And I was struck today that Donald Trump is actually paying more attention to his business than to the campaign.”

At a speech later, Trump in-sisted that he had wanted to cut the ribbon on his hotel with his children “who had worked very hard” and boasted the building was “under-budget and ahead of schedule”.

Trump digs deepAFPWashington

Trump gesturing at a campaign event on Wednesday night on the tarmac of the airport in Kinston, North Carolina.

A man who admitted to defacing Donald Trump’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in protest at the Republican presidential candidate’s treatment of women was arrested yesterday, police said.James Otis had planned to hold a news conference in the early morning at the site of Trump’s star and then surrender to police, but he was arrested beforehand.Otis, who had his misdeed filmed on Wednesday, said he initially wanted to remove the star and auction it in New York on Election Day.The proceeds, he said, would go to nearly a dozen women who have accused the 70-year-old Trump of sexual misconduct.Otis ended up taking a sledgehammer and pickaxe to the star but could not totally remove the slab, as the “stone was like marble”, he told the news agency.The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce quickly moved to repair the star, which was awarded to the billionaire businessman in 2007 for his work on his reality television show The Apprentice.

“When people are unhappy with one of our honorees, we would hope that they would project their anger in more positive ways than to vandalize a California state landmark,” chamber head Leron Gubler said. “Our democracy is based on respect for the law. People can make a diff erence by voting and not destroying public property.”Gubler said the chamber planned to pursue the case against Otis, who was charged with one felony count of vandalism.This is not the first time Trump’s Walk of Fame star has been targeted.In July, a Los Angeles street artist built a tiny wall of wooden planks topped with barbed wire around it, in protest at Trump’s campaign vow to build a wall on the Mexican border.Last year, excrement was left on the star and someone drew a large yellow X over it.A swastika was also drawn on the red tile earlier this year.

Man who defaced Trump’s Hollywood star arrested

Donald Trump’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Los Angeles, is seen after it was vandalised.

Bill Clinton ‘for profit’ income of more than $50mn detailed in hacked e-mailFormer president Bill Clinton took in more than $50mn from “for profit” activities over the years as he led the Clinton family foundation, a close aide said in a hacked memo released by WikiLeaks.The aide, Douglas Band, detailed his own moneymaking eff orts both on behalf of Bill Clinton personally and on that of the foundation, in a 2011 memo sent in response to complaints by the Clintons’ daughter Chelsea.The latest disclosures have added to a drip-drip of WikiLeaks revelations plaguing Hillary Clinton in the final stretch of her run for the White House as the Democratic nominee.They come from a trove of e-mail stolen from the account of John Podesta, who played a leading role in the foundation before becoming Clinton’s campaign chairman.Podesta has refused to authenticate the e-mails, which US intelligence believes were stolen by Russian hackers to disrupt the US elections.But neither he nor the Clinton campaign has challenged their authenticity.They show the foundation had become a source of tension between aides to Bill Clinton and his daughter Chelsea, who accused them of taking “significant sums of money from my parents personally” and hustling clients for their own business at foundation events.In the memo, Band defends his use of his private consultancy Teneo to raise funds for the foundation, saying that it brought in large corporate donations from Coca-Cola, Dow Chemical, and Swiss bank UBS among others.“Independent of our fundraising and decision-making activities on behalf of the Foundation, we have dedicated ourselves to helping the President secure and engage in for-profit activities – including speeches, books, and advisory service engagements,” he said.“In support of the President’s for-profit activity, we also have solicited and obtained, as appropriate, in-kind services for the President and his family – for personal travel, hospitality, vacation and the like.”Band said he had received no fees or percentages of “the more than $50mn in for-profit activity we have personally helped to secure for President Clinton to date or the $66mn in future contracts, should he choose to continue with those engagements”.

Lawyers in New Jersey’s “Bridgegate” trial began delivering closing argu-

ments yesterday, seeking to sway jurors deliberating the fate of two former allies of Governor Chris Christie.

Jurors heard more than a month of testimony in the trial of Bridget Anne Kelly, Christie’s former deputy chief of staff , and

Bill Baroni, former deputy exec-utive director of the Port Author-ity of New York and New Jersey, operator of the bridge.

Closing arguments were scheduled to begin at 9.30am (1330 GMT) in federal court in Newark, New Jersey, and are ex-pected to last into the next day.

The two former offi cials are charged with abusing their gov-ernment positions by scheming in 2013 to shut down lanes lead-ing to the George Washington Bridge, said by the Port Author-

ity to be the busiest bridge in the world.

The scandal damaged Chris-tie’s political standing as he was beginning a campaign for the Re-publican nomination for presi-dent.

Christie is now an ally of the nominee Donald Trump, and is leading Trump’s transition plan-ning.

Federal prosecutors said dur-ing the trial that Christie knew about the lane closings ahead of time.

Christie maintains that is not true. He has not been charged with wrongdoing.

The lane closures caused sev-eral days of massive gridlock on the New Jersey side of the bridge and hurt local businesses.

Christie’s aides ordered the shutdown of the lanes as payback for the Democratic mayor of Fort Lee, New Jersey, who would not support Christie’s re-election in 2013, prosecutors say.

Baroni and Kelly have pleaded not guilty to wire fraud, civil

rights deprivation and conspira-cy charges.

If convicted, they face poten-tial prison terms.

Both defendants took the wit-ness stand in their defence.

Kelly was asked about an e-mail that set the scheme in mo-tion in which she wrote: “Time for some traffi c problems in Fort Lee.”

She said she was simply “par-roting” the language another of-fi cial used in describing the pos-sible gridlock from a traffi c study.

‘Bridgegate’ jury in New Jersey to hear closing argumentsReutersNew York

ASEAN7Gulf Times


Male inmates pay their respects to the late Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej at the Central Correctional Institution for Young Off enders in Pathum Thani province, on the outskirts of Bangkok.

Reuters Bangkok

More than 3,000 prison inmates lined up yesterday

to form the Thai symbol for the number nine, in hon-our of late King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who died on Oc-tober 13 after reigning for seven decades.

Thailand has entered a year-long mourning pe-riod for the king, formally known as King Rama IX and the ninth of the 234-year-old Chakri Dynasty, who was seen as a unifying fi gure in the politically fractious country.

As many as 3,699 male inmates of the Central Cor-rectional Institution for Young Off enders in Pathum Thani province, 40km north of the capital, Bang-kok, stood in the grounds of the prison complex and sang songs dedicated to the late king.

The men, many of them jailed for drug convictions, were accompanied by a marching band.

The activity, which was compulsory for inmates, is part of many similar events

across Thailand amid an outpouring of grief.

“Many inmates wanted to do something to show their loyalty to His Majesty,” pris-on commander Narongsak Sompat told Reuters.

Crown Prince Maha Vaji-ralongkorn, 64, is the king’s designated successor, but junta chief Prayuth Chan-ocha told the country hours after the king’s death that the prince had informed him he was not yet ready to as-sume the throne.

Prayuth said last week the prince could become king in seven to 15 days after the king’s death, or later.

His coronation, however, cannot take place until af-ter the royal cremation, in a year’s time.

The government has moved to quash uncertainty surrounding the succession and to reassure the country that the king’s death will not derail plans for a return to democratic rule, which include a general election in late 2017.

It has also gone after crit-ics of the monarchy and en-forced tighter censorship of Internet comments per-ceived to be insulting to the royals.

Myanmar Muslim, Khin Yadanar Myint, 25, poses with a dress pattern at a dressmaking class at an interfaith vocational training programme in Yangon.

Interfaith training

AFP Jakarta

An Indonesian woman was jailed for 20 years yester-day for murdering a friend

from an Australian college with poisoned coff ee in a “sadistic” fashion, capping a sensational trial that has gripped the coun-try.

Jessica Kumala Wongso, 28, who is also an Australian perma-nent resident, was found guilty of murdering Wayan Mirna Sa-lihin by slipping cyanide into her drink at an upmarket Jakarta cafe, sparking applause in the packed courtroom.

The soap opera-style tale of two members of Indonesia’s wealthy elite having a dramatic fallout that culminated in murder has captivated the country, with the trial dubbed the “poisoned coff ee” case and broadcast live on national TV for months.

The murder, which Wongso carried out in January after be-coming angered at 27-year-old Salihin’s criticism of her boy-friend, also generated huge inter-est in Australia, where the wom-en studied together at a Sydney design college.

After hours reading the ver-dict in a courtroom overfl owing with hundreds of journalists and

members of the public, a three-judge panel declared Wongso guilty of premeditated murder and handed down the lengthy jail sentence.

“The defendant’s action was deplorable and sadistic because it was committed against her own friend,” presiding judge Kisworo, who like many Indonesians goes by one name, told the court.

“The defendant did not regret her action and claimed she did not do it.”

Wongso, who denies carrying out the crime, was emotionless as the ruling was handed down, then told the court: “I cannot ac-cept the verdict, it’s very unfair.”

Her legal team said they would fi le an appeal.

Some of Salihin’s relatives sobbed with relief after the ver-dict, with her twin sister Sandy telling journalists: “This is very hard, I am grateful.”

The victim’s supporters had rallied outside court throughout the day waving signs that read “Justice for Mirna”, and when the hearing concluded gave out white roses to police and journalists.

After drinking the iced Viet-namese coff ee at the cafe in one of Jakarta’s fanciest malls, Sali-hin collapsed and began convuls-ing, then died soon afterwards in hospital.

Prosecutors said Wongso de-cided to murder Salihin after she advised the defendant to break up with a boyfriend as he was us-

ing drugs, saying that the “cruel” crime was planned “meticulous-ly”.

Police say that she placed bags on the table to prevent CCTV cameras in the cafe from fi lming her slipping the poison into the coff ee.

Wongso had vehemently de-nied murdering her friend, breaking down in tears as she took the stand during the trial to reject the allegations.

She had testifi ed that she could not remember key details about the day and her defence team asserted the case against their client was weak and lacked evi-dence to prove guilt.

During the months-long trial, which began in June, three foren-sic experts called by the defence testifi ed there was no proof Sa-lihin’s death was caused by cya-nide poisoning.

Australian authorities assisted with the case after receiving as-surances that Wongso would not be handed the death penalty if found guilty of murder, a capital crime in Indonesia.

Woman jailed 20yrs in Indonesia’s ‘poisoned coff ee’ murder case

Jessica Kumala Wongso gestures after her trial at the Central Jakarta Court.

ReutersKuala Lumpur

Malaysian Prime Min-ister Najib Razak heads to China next

week to build closer ties and seek investment, which may further dent US aims in South-east Asia after a push by Presi-dent Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines to bolster China ties.

Najib is travelling to China with dozens of government leaders and business people.

In statement on Wednesday, he said Malaysia was commit-ted to strengthening friend-ship with China and pushing ties to “new highs”.

“We will be signing many new agreements and under-standings that will elevate the relationship between our two nations to even greater heights,” the prime minister said.

The October 31-November 6 visit comes days after Du-terte’s Beijing trip, where he declared a “separation” with old ally the United States and said he had “realigned” with China.

Both Malaysia and the Phil-ippines are in dispute with China over rival claims in the South China Sea but Duterte has softened the Philippine position in his push to build China ties and China could ease the dispute with Malaysia by off ering economic benefi ts, an analyst said.

“If it wields its cheque-book diplomacy shrewdly, it may ei-ther tie Malaysia’s hand on its dispute over the South China Sea, or even split Asean further on the South China Sea,” said Yang Razali Kassim, senior fel-low at the S.

Rajaratnam School of In-ternational Studies (RSIS), of Nanyang Technology Univer-sity in Singapore.

The 10-member Associa-tion of South East Asian Na-tions, which both the Philip-pines and Malaysia belong to, has struggled in recent years to present a united front to China on the South China Sea.

Vietnam and Brunei are also Asean members and also have South China Sea claims.

“There are implications should Najib move to get deep-er into Beijing’s embrace,” said Yang Razali.

Najib is eyeing more Chi-nese investment in infrastruc-ture and manufacturing.

Defence deals may also be discussed.

China’s increased assertive-ness in the South China Sea has heightened US-China ten-sion, with the two trading ac-cusations of militarising the waterway through which some $5tn in trade passes each year.

Last week, a US navy ship undertook the fourth of what the United States calls freedom-of-navigation op-erations in the past year, to challenge what it sees as over-reaching maritime claims by China in the South China Sea.

The United States has seen the Philippines as an impor-tant ally in its “rebalance” to Asia in the face of a rising China but Duterte’s threats to cut US ties while making over-tures towards China has raised questions over the US strategy.

Ties between Malaysia and China reached a new peak in December when China came to Najib’s rescue with a $2.3bn deal to buy assets of scandal-hit state fund 1Malaysia Devel-opment Berhad (1MDB), help-ing ease Najib’s concern over the fi rm’s mounting debt.

China has since been pump-ing more funds into Malaysia.

For the fi rst three months of 2016, Chinese investment in Malaysia’s manufacturing sector reached 1.5bn ringgit ($356mn), making it the larg-est foreign investor in its man-ufacturing.

Malaysia’s China push comes amid strained US ties after the US department of justice fi led lawsuits linked to a money-laundering investi-gation at 1MDB, the advisory board of which Najib chaired until recently.

Najib dismissed foreign in-terference in Malaysia’s aff airs and questioned why the Unit-ed States publicised the issue.

“The lawsuits were a strate-gic mistake by the US... China will look at this situation with glee,” said a person familiar with the matter but not au-thorised to speak to the media.

Malaysia’s PM aims to take China ties to ‘new highs’ The defence claimed the case

against Jessica was weak

Thai prisoners honour late king

AUSTRALASIA/EAST ASIA


A nine-year-old boy was killed in a car accident in central Japan involving a truck driver playing the popular Pokemon Go game while driving, authorities said yesterday. The 36-year-old driver was arrested late Wednesday after his vehicle hit the boy who was crossing a street in the city of Ichinomiya, Aichi prefecture, local police said. “I did not keep my eyes to the front as I was playing the Pokemon Go game while driving,” the man told police. It was the second fatal accident in Aichi prefecture linked to the augmented-reality mobile game since its release in Japan in July, local police said.

An orangutan at Perth Zoo has been named the world’s oldest Sumatran orangutan in captivity by the Guinness Book of World Records, as she celebrated her 60th birthday yesterday. Puan celebrated with a birthday breakfast of rambutans from her childhood home in Malaysia, Perth Zoo spokeswoman Danielle Henry said. She was gifted to the zoo in 1968 by the Sultan of Johor who received some native Australian animals in return. Female orangutans in the wild do not generally live past 50, Henry said. “But due to the care she receives here and the veterinary and keeper care she’s obviously well surpassed that life expectancy.”

Australia will experience more extreme hot and dry days and a longer and fiercer fire season, while parts of the country will see worse droughts, as well as more flooding rains, a report by the country’s top government scientists has said. The biannual report, State of the Climate, released yesterday, said surface temperature has increased about one degree Celsius since 1910, since the government started recording data. Between 1910 and 1941 there were 28 days when the national average temperature was in the top extremes recorded, while the year 2013 alone saw 28 such days, said the report, prepared by the Bureau of Meteorology and Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization.

A state minister in Australia who told a taxpayer-funded driver to chauff eur his two pooches while at work apologised yesterday after massive criticism. Steve Herbert, corrections minister for the state of Victoria, had his two dogs, Patch and Ted, driven a distance of some 120km between his home in Trentham and Parkdale to his off ice in Melbourne city on several occasions. Herbert did not say how many times the dogs were taken in the state car, but said that this “mistake” was due to his “tough job.” He said he has now made other arrangements for the dogs and would repay the transportation costs.

A three-year-old female polar bear kept in a shopping mall aquarium in southwestern China, at the centre of an animal rights controversy, is showing signs of mental decline, animal welfare groups said. The bear, named Pizza, attracted the attention of international news media after Hong Kong-based Animals Asia posted a video on its website in July that showed visitors at the Guangzhou mall taking photos of her as she lay on her side in the blue-themed enclosure. Humane Society International on Tuesday released a video of Pizza, which it said showed “worrying stereotypical behaviour such as head swaying and repetitive pacing, evidence of frustration and mental decline.”

Pokemon Go-related accident kills 9-yr-old

60-year-old Puan now world’s oldest orangutan

Australia will get hotter, drier, and see more fire

Politician tells driver to chauff eur his dogs

Polar bear at mall shows signs of ‘mental decline’

MISHAP LONG LIFEWEATHER WOES APOLOGISES INHUMANE

Party declares Xi ‘core’ leaderAFPBeijing

China’s ruling Communist Party yesterday declared its General Secretary Xi Jinping

the “core” of its leadership, elevating his already powerful status.

A communique issued by top party leaders after a four-day meeting in Beijing called on all its members to “closely unite around the CPC Cen-tral Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core”, said the People’s Daily, the party’s offi cial mouthpiece.

The announcement followed a gathering of 400 top party leaders in Beijing for a meeting known as the Sixth Plenum to discuss changes to party structure and discipline.

Scenes of the meeting shown on state broadcaster CCTV showed a relaxed but businesslike Xi, clad in a black windbreaker, lecturing a ball-room of rapt party members.

He has sought to bend the party to his will since taking its helm in 2012, and has already taken control of more levers of power than any leader since Mao Zedong.

Regional cadres began using the term “core” for Xi last December, but it then disappeared, suggesting that the Chinese president had en-countered resistance to his eff orts to further consolidate his power.

Analysts have speculated that Xi could seek to stay in power beyond the traditional 10-year term.

The declaration was “very signifi -cant”, Willy Lam, professor of politics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, told AFP, because in Chinese politics the “core” has traditionally denoted a degree of individual au-thority unconstrained by term limits.

“The core of leadership can last forever,” he said. “There’s no idea of tenure, retirement age associated with the core.”

China has a constitutional limit of two fi ve-year terms for the national president, another of Xi’s titles, but no formal rule on tenure for the general secretary of the ruling party, the post from which he derives his power.

Deng Xiaoping, the economic re-former who was China’s paramount leader throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s, was referred to as the “core” of the leadership.

But his successor Jiang Zemin was only called the core of the third gen-eration of leaders, eff ectively limit-ing the duration of the description, Lam said.

Xi’s immediate predecessor Hu Jintao never achieved the status.

“A core leader is critical for a na-tion, for a political party,” the People’s Daily said in an editorial published shortly after the meeting ended.

“Formally” anointing Xi “refl ects the common aspirations of the whole party, the whole military, the whole country and all of its people,” it said.

The plenum confi rmed that the Communist party will hold a con-gress late next year, when a new po-litburo standing committee, its most powerful body, will be selected, giv-

ing Xi an opportunity to promote fa-voured allies.

Xi’s elevation comes as he exerts increasing pressure on the party to clean up its act.

Since coming to power, he has presided over an anti-corruption campaign that has punished more than one million offi cials in what some say resembles a political purge.

Casualties have included ranged from so-called “fl ies”, minor offi -cials, to “tigers”, major fi gures in-cluding top generals in the People’s Liberation Army and seemingly in-vincible former security czar Zhou Yongkang.

The drive has eliminated poten-tial rival bastions of power, but it has also laid waste to the party’s organi-sational chart, paralysing grassroots bureaucrats petrifi ed of making a mistake, a problem compounded by unclear and contradictory signals on what policies to pursue.

While some had speculated the party might use the opportunity of this week’s conference to dial back its anti-graft campaign and give cadres some room to breathe, the communique suggested the oppo-site, calling for a “zero tolerance” at-titude towards misbehaviour.

The party must “persevere in constructing a system where (party members) do not dare to be corrupt, cannot be corrupt and do not think about corruption,” it said.

To that end, the communique called for strengthening the party’s internal controls, including increas-ing ideological conformity and more strictly monitoring individual mem-bers’ behaviour, the People’s Daily said.

But it sought to allay concerns about overzealous implementation of the rules, allowing for forgiveness in the event that an error was made in the pursuit of “reform and innova-tion”.

President Xi ... elevated status PNG rejects resettlement of asylum seekers in AustraliaReutersSydney

The Papua New Guinea Supreme Court yesterday dismissed an ap-plication to send asylum seekers

held on an isolated island to Australia on a paperwork technicality.

A ruling in favour of the 302 detainees would have ordered the PNG and Austral-ian governments to transfer them to Aus-tralia within 30 days, a political nightmare for Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

Under Australia’s tough immigration laws, asylum seekers intercepted trying to reach the country by boat are sent for processing on PNG’s Manus island and the tiny South Pacifi c island nation of Nauru.

The policy has won past elections and has bipartisan political support.

Lawyer Ben Lomai confi rmed the case had been dismissed and that the detain-ees planned to refi le the application.

The case was dismissed because the court fi lings were signed by the princi-

pal lawyer, Lomai, instead of the direct claimants, Ian Rintoul, a spokesman for the Refugee Action Coalition, who was present at the hearing, told Reuters.

“The reality is the refugees are facing longer in detention and that’s extremely disappointing,” he said.

“The legal issues have not been re-solved and it does not change the fact that these men are detained illegally.”

The group will go back to Manus next week to collect the signatures but get-ting a hearing at the Supreme Court may be diffi cult, Rintoul added.

“We lost trust in any court or lawyer or justice,” Behrouz Boochani, an Iranian who has been on Manus for more than three years, told Reuters.

Australia has vowed the asylum seek-ers will never set foot in the country after being intercepted by its navy and shipped to Manus.

Many of the asylum seekers have spent three years in the centre, which the Supreme Court ruled in April was unconstitutional and must close.

For men like Abdul Aziz, 24, who fl ed his home in Sudan amid a bloody civil war, the court case had stirred hopes of fi nally leaving the centre after 38 months.

“I’m optimistic that after the court case, I will be sent back to Australia. We are keeping our fi ngers crossed,” Aziz told Reuters by telephone before the case was dismissed

“We sought asylum from Australia, not PNG.”

A ruling in favour of the 302 detainees would have set a precedent for all 823 detainees, asylum seekers predominate-ly from Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The United Nations and human rights groups have condemned Australia’s im-migration policy, citing human rights abuses in the centres.

Many asylum seekers on Nauru are being driven to attempt suicide to escape the prison-like conditions they face in indefi nite detention, Amnesty Interna-tional said last week, amid reports of as-saults and sexual abuse.

Refugee advocates hold placards and banners during a protest in central Sydney calling for the closure of the Australian detention centres in Nauru and Manus Island.

Chinese govt slams Japan ‘provocation’ReutersBeijing

China’s Defence Min-istry yesterday ac-cused Japanese air

force jets of locking their radars on to Chinese mili-tary aircraft, acting pro-vocatively and endangering safety, after Japan said it is scrambling a record number of fi ghter jets.

China and Japan have long been mired in a terri-torial dispute over a group of tiny, uninhabited East China Sea islands, called the Senkaku in Japan and Di-aoyu in China.

Patrol ships and fi ghter jets from Asia’s two biggest economies have been shad-owing each other on and off near the islets, raising fears that a confrontation could result in a clash.

In the six months end-ing in September, Japanese fi ghters scrambled to chase Chinese planes 407 times compared with 231 times in the same period last year, the Japanese Air Self-De-fence Force said in mid-Oc-tober, an increase of about three-quarters.

Chinese Defence Minis-try spokesman Wu Qian said Chinese air force activities accorded with international law and norms, and that it was Japan which was increasing its monitoring and interfering in normal training exercises.

“What is more, when aircraft of the Japan Self-Defence Forces encounter Chinese aircraft, their ra-dars light up, they let off infrared jamming projectiles and show other unprofes-sional, dangerous provoca-tive behaviour,” Wu said at a monthly briefi ng.

“This endangers the safe-ty Chinese aircraft and per-sonnel and is the root of the China-Japan maritime and air problem.”

China urges Japan to adopt a responsible attitude and prevent such incidents from happening, he added.

Japan worries that as Chi-na increases its control over the South China Sea, it is turning its attention to ex-panding its infl uence in the East China Sea and into the western Pacifi c.

China insists regular pa-trols in the region are its right and intended to pro-tect national security and sovereignty.

Tokyo’s support for a July ruling by an arbitration court in the Hague that in-validated China’s sweeping claims in the disputed South China Sea, a case brought by the Philippines, has also an-gered Beijing.

China refuses to rec-ognise that decision and says countries not directly involved in the disputes, namely the United States and Japan, should not get involved.

Theme park defends safety normsAFPSydney

An Australian theme park yesterday defended its safety standards follow-

ing the deaths of four people on a malfunctioning ride, while admit-ting it had not been in touch with grieving relatives of those killed.

Two women and two men died when rafts on the Thunder River Rapids ride at the hugely popular Dreamworld tourist attraction on the Gold Coast collided Tuesday, tipping one backwards and crush-ing or drowning those on board.

A boy and a girl, aged 10 and 12, on the six-person raft miracu-lously survived the tragedy.

The Australian Workers Union said it had voiced concerns about the operation and maintenance of some equipment at Dreamworld last year, while media reports claimed to have uncovered safety mishaps.

The Sydney Morning Herald al-leged the rapids ride had malfunc-tioned twice in three days recent-ly, while The Australian reported mechanical problems just hours before the accident.

Dreamworld said in a statement that safety was its priority, with the Thunder River Rapids ride passing an annual mechanical and structural test on September 29.

“Dreamworld would like to as-sure the public and park guests that at the time of the incident the park was fully compliant with all re-quired safety certifi cations,” it said.

“All our procedures and systems are constantly benchmarked against international best practice and ride manufacturer specifi cations.

“Our rides and slides are checked and tested by our ex-perienced team before the park opens every day. If it’s not tested, it doesn’t open.”

It added that the park, Aus-tralia’s biggest, had hosted 30mn people since opening in 1981 and had never seen a death until this week.

Police are conducting an in-vestigation and have said that if there was any criminal negligence, charges would be brought.

Dreamworld’s parent company Ardent Leisure held its annual general meeting in Sydney with chief executive Deborah Thomas forced to defend herself after ad-mitting she had yet to speak with the relatives of those killed, saying “we didn’t know how to contact them”.

A journalist told Thomas the mother of two of the victims was watching her live news conference and had sent the reporter a text message saying she was furious

no-one from Ardent had been in touch. Thomas replied: “I am very happy to call her very soon after this meeting.

“And on behalf of the staff and management at Ardent and Dreamworld, that our hearts and our thoughts and prayers are with you and your family at this diffi -cult time,” she added.

The Ardent chief announced yesterday she would donate a cash bonus of A$167,500 (US$128,000) that she was awarded at the an-

nual meeting, to the Red Cross, which is supporting people af-fected by the tragedy. That pay-ment is separate to a more than A$800,000 bonus that Thomas is also due to receive over the next four years, pending her perform-ance.

The park, which has been closed since the incident, was scheduled to reopen today for a memorial day but this was later cancelled on the advice of police who are still conducting their investigation.

Mourners leave floral tributes outside the main entrance to Dreamworld on the Gold Coast.

BRITAIN/IRELAND9Gulf Times


Brown takes crownas Bake Off bows out

Candice Brown yesterday spoke of her joy at being crowned the winner of

The Great British Bake Off after the show bowed out on the BBC with record-breaking viewing fi gures.

The 31-year-old said she was “thankful and honoured” after a peak of 14.8mn people tuned in to watch her triumph in the royal-themed fi nale.

Brown, who is now tipped to earn £1mn, wrote online: “I am grateful thankful and honoured! What a crazy few months! You will never know what this means to me!”

Jane Beedle, 61, who lost out to Brown with fellow fi nalist An-drew Smyth, 25, tweeted: “Huge congrats... you smashed it! Enjoy every minute, you deserve all the love.”

The BBC revealed the fi nale, the last before the show’s con-troversial move to Channel 4, at-tracted an average of 14mn view-ers, the highest ever, beating last year’s 13.4mn average, according

to overnight fi gures.Charlotte Moore, head of BBC

Content said: “BBC1 brought over half of the British viewing public together to watch the fi -nal of the Great British Bake Off , delivering the highest ever rat-ings. Congratulations to Candice and the Bake Off team, and a big thank you to all the loyal fans over the last seven series.”

Brown is poised to win en-dorsements and TV deals and has also set her sights on opening a tea shop. The PE teacher, who grew up in London but lives in Hertfordshire with partner Liam Macaulay, 30, said it was the “biggest moment of my life”.

She said: “When they an-nounced the winner, I almost didn’t hear it, and was in com-plete and utter disbelief. I was aware of it but I couldn’t take it in. (Judges Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood) came over and I thought my knees would give way.

“When I got home after the fi lming I went straight to bed and got up for work... I couldn’t talk about it and nothing had changed. I questioned whether it happened!”

Scottish NHS ‘is failing to keep up with rising demand’

Scotland’s NHS faces mas-sive cuts as the health serv-ice fails to keep pace with

increasing demand, rising costs and the needs of an ageing popu-lation, according to the public fi -nances watchdog.

The damning report from Au-dit Scotland warns that some NHS boards may not be able to balance their books next year, and reveals that the service met only one of its eight key waiting time targets last year.

But Nicola Sturgeon insisted the health service was perform-ing better against tougher tar-gets, and that there was “nothing unique about the challenges fac-ing the NHS in Scotland”, with the performance of accident and emergency departments 8% higher than those in England and Wales.

She told the Holyrood chamber during fi rst minister’s questions: “There is now more than £3bn extra investment in the health service compared to the time we took offi ce. There are 11,000 more medical professionals working in our health service. That’s why Audit Scotland says that staffi ng levels are at an all-time high.”

During a bruising session, Sturgeon was challenged by the Scottish Conservative leader, Ruth Davidson, about her gov-ernment’s “outrageous” failure to get a grip on the NHS, while Scottish Labour’s Kezia Dugdale presented individual illustrations of what she described as the “hu-man cost of a decade of SNP mis-management”.

The criticism of government ministers for failing to outline a coherent vision for the healthcare system was echoed by the direc-tor of the Royal College of Nurs-ing Scotland, Theresa Fyff e, who said health boards trying to make savings “often fi nd themselves

caught in the crossfi re of political and public opinion”.

She called for a “decisive re-sponse” from the Health Secre-tary, Shona Robison.

“Clarity is needed from gov-ernment on how they will sup-port health boards to deliver the changes needed, and also how all the various health strategies and reforms currently under way will be delivered coherently across Scotland. All politicians need to set aside their diff erences and work together in order to get this right.”

Audit Scotland reports that the country’s 14 health boards made total savings of £291mn last year, which left some needing to use short-term measures to break even. It forecast that the fi gure would nearly double to £492mn in the current fi nancial year.

The report says there is a “need for NHS boards to make unprec-edented levels of savings in 2016-17, and a risk that some will not achieve fi nancial balance”.

The total health budget in 2015-16 was £12.2bn. Although this in-creased by 2.7% in real terms from the previous year, major expenses have risen more sharply, with staff costs increasing by 6.4% and pension costs up by 18.6% in the past six years.

Failure to keep pace with rising demand and costs strengthened the case for changing the way services are delivered, according to the auditor general for Scot-land.

Caroline Gardner said: “The Scottish government has had a policy to shift the balance of care for over a decade but, despite multiple strategies for reform, NHS funding has not changed course.

“Before that shift can occur, there needs to be a clear and de-tailed plan for change, setting out what the future of the NHS looks like, what it will cost to deliver and the workforce numbers and skills needed to make it a reality.”

N Ireland court to rule

on Brexit challenge today

Northern Ireland’s High Court will today rule on a challenge against British4

plans to leave the European Union without a vote in parliament, the fi rst judgment in legal cases that are being closely watched by poli-ticians and markets.

A cross-party group of politi-cians, including members of the British province’s largest Irish na-tionalist parties, brought the chal-lenge earlier this month, arguing that a vote in the Northern Ireland regional assembly should also be required.

Justice Paul Maguire told the three-day hearing that he would consider the case and reconvene at an unspecifi ed date.

One of the plaintiff told Reuters the judge had notifi ed them that he was ready to give his ruling.

“The legal teams have to come down to court Friday morning at 10am for the judgment,” said Ray-mond McCord, the father of a man

killed by loyalist paramilitaries in 1997 whose case was heard in par-allel with the politicians’.

“We are confi dent. I believe and my legal people believe we have a very strong case.”

The politicians pursuing the High Court case argue that the British government is legally obliged to maintain the statutory recognition of the 1998 Good Fri-day Agreement between Britain and Ireland, which contains refer-ences to the EU.

The agreement ended three decades of tit-for-tat killings be-tween Catholic Irish nationalists, who want the province to unite with Ireland, and Protestant un-ionists, who want to remain part of the United Kingdom.

The confl ict left 3,600 dead.

While overall, 52% of the UK voted in favour of leaving the EU in June’s referendum, a majority – 56% – of those voting in North-ern Ireland backed remaining in the bloc. Lawyers for the British government told the court that it was not “illegitimate” for Britain’s prime minister to begin the proc-ess of leaving the EU without par-liamentary approval.

Campaigners have taken similar action in London to argue Prime Minister Theresa May and her ministers do not have the author-ity to invoke Article 50 of the EU Lisbon Treaty, the mechanism by which a nation can leave the bloc, without the explicit backing of parliament.

One of the applicants in that challenge, Northern Irishman Fergal McFerran, told Reuters that he understood that the judgment in the London case was expected next week.

Whatever the result in either case, the losing side will almost certainly appeal to the Supreme Court, the UK’s highest judicial body.

Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Charles, Prince of Wales and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall look at food hampers during a visit to a Waitrose supermarket in the town of Poundbury yesterday. Poundbury is an experimental new town on the outskirts of Dorchester in southwest England designed by Leon Krier with traditional urban principles championed by The Prince of Wales and built on land owned by the Duchy of Cornwall.

Royals visit Poundbury

A teenager charged after an explosive device was found on a London Underground train intends to plead not guilty on the grounds that it was a prank, his lawyer told a court yesterday. Damon Smith, 19, appeared at Westminster Magistrates Court in London over the incident on October 20 which sparked a security alert. He entered no plea to a charge of unlawfully and maliciously making or possessing an unspecified explosive substance with an intent to endanger life or cause serious injury to property. But his lawyer indicated that Smith, who has a form of autism, would at a later date plead not guilty on the grounds that it was a prank.

Transport Secretary Chris Grayling faces a grilling by MPs over whether a Heathrow third runway will cause more air pollution over London. The Commons environmental audit committee is also to question the Cabinet minister over the methods used to conclude that expansion of the west London airport can be done without breaching legal air quality rules. Committee chairwoman and Labour MP Mary Creagh said: “We will be looking carefully at the department for transport’s analysis on Heathrow’s air quality impact. We will be pressing the government for assurances that they have used the latest methodologies in the coming weeks.”

Despite his unrivalled record for single-handedly saving the world from disaster while seducing beautiful women along the way, James Bond would not get a job as a British spy, the head of external intelligence agency MI6 has said. Alex Younger said real spies had to cope with complex moral and physical challenges in the most forbidding environments on Earth, which would rule out the agent known as 007 because he lacked a strong ethical core. “In contrast to James Bond, MI6 off icers are not for taking moral shortcuts,” Younger said. “It’s safe to say that James Bond wouldn’t get through our recruitment process,” said Younger.

A teenager was stabbed to death in the street in an attack in east London early yesterday. The 19-year-old was found collapsed suff ering from knife wounds near the station in Goodmayes and rushed to hospital but later died. Scotland Yard launched a murder hunt amid reports that the attack took place outside a shisha club near the station. Ten teenagers aged between 16 and 19 have lost their lives in knife attacks in London so far this year. Police said off icers were called to Goodmayes Road in Ilford at about 12.40am. Paramedics found the teenager suff ering from a number of stab wounds. He was taken to an east London hospital and underwent emergency surgery but died at 1.45am.

The only journalist successfully tried in the mammoth police probe into alleged corrupt payments to public off icials for stories had his conviction quashed yesterday. The Sun newspaper’s crime reporter Anthony France had his conviction overturned by the Court of Appeal. France was sentenced to 18 months in jail, suspended for two years, after being found guilty of cultivating a “corrupt relationship” with a policeman between 2008 and 2011. But three judges accepted the appeal against his conviction for aiding and abetting a police off icer to commit misconduct. They said the jury had not been properly directed. He will not face a retrial.

Teen claims explosivedevice on Tube ‘a prank’

Grayling faces grilling over runway pollution issue

I wouldn’t hire James Bond,says real spy chief

Teenager dies afterbeing stabbed in street

Last journalist clearedin mammoth police probe

LEGAL AVIATIONOFFBEAT CRIME VERDICT

ReutersBelfast

London Evening StandardLondon

Guardian News and MediaEdinburgh

Model Naomi Campbell poses for a photograph with Baroness Amos, after Amos received her Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour at Buckingham Palace, in London yesterday.

Baroness honoured

Ukip backs Goldsmithin Richmond Park pollsUkip has endorsed Zac

Goldsmith, the former Conservative MP who is

now standing as an independ-ent in the Richmond Park by-election.

The party’s interim leader, Nigel Farage, said Ukip would not put up a candidate against Goldsmith, who backed Leave in the EU referendum, and its supporters should vote for him to stop the pro-EU Liberal Democrats from winning the seat.

Goldsmith, who was the Conservative candidate for mayor of London in May’s

election, resigned as an MP earlier this week after the gov-ernment’s decision to approve expansion at Heathrow, which he opposes. The Conservatives have said they will not put up their own candidate against Goldsmith.

The LibDems, who held the west London seat until 2010, have high hopes of winning it back, thanks to their opposi-tion to Heathrow expansion and their support for the EU. A large majority of voters in Richmond Park voted to remain on June 23.

Ukip, which came fi fth in the seat at last year’s general elec-tion, said it respected Gold-smith’s decision to fi ght Heath-row expansion.

“Goldsmith has resigned on

a matter of principle and Ukip admire him for having the cour-age to do so,” a spokesman said. “Ukip have always believed that Gatwick was a preferred option to Heathrow.

“Recognising Zac as a princi-pled man, who was fully com-mitted to helping get Britain out of the European Union, Ukip leader Nigel Farage, in conjunc-tion with our national executive committee, have agreed that we will not be fi elding a candidate in the upcoming by-election for Richmond Park.”

The spokesman said the LibDems were “committed to overturning the result of the 2016 referendum and ignoring the will of the British people. This must not be allowed to

happen.”The LibDem leader, Tim

Farron, said the endorsement showed Goldsmith was “the Ukip candidate”.

“Goldsmith claimed Brexit has nothing to do with this by-election,” he said. “The very public endorsement he has picked up from the party of Ni-gel Farage nails that lie.

“This by-election presents a golden opportunity to defeat one of the leading Brexiteers, who is determined even (to) take Britain out of the single market. He might be able to aff ord the huge damage this would do to our economy, but many people in Richmond Park are worried about the eff ect on their jobs and livelihoods as a result of the

Conservative government play-ing Russian roulette with the British economy.

“Goldsmith can get as many hard-right candidates to give him a clear run as he likes: he knows he faces a major battle with a Liberal Democrat party determined to keep Britain open, tolerant and united.”

On Wednesday, the Labour frontbenchers Clive Lewis and Jonathan Reynolds, as well as the former shadow minister Lisa Nandy, suggested their party should not contest the seat, where Labour came third in 2015. The trio said it would be preferable not to split the pro-gressive vote, with the LibDems standing a chance of reducing Theresa May’s majority.

Guardian News and MediaLondon

The politicians argue that the government is obliged to maintain the statutory recognition of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement between Britain and Ireland

EUROPE


The world’s whaling watchdog voted yester-day to conduct stricter

reviews of whales killed under an exemption to a 30-year-old moratorium which Japan’s crit-ics say it abuses to hunt for meat.

The resolution, opposed by Japan and fellow whalers Nor-way and Iceland, was adopted by 34 “yes” votes to 17 against, at the 66th meeting of the Inter-national Whaling Commission (IWC).

It is not legally binding on members of the commission, which has no policing or penalty function.

Submitted by Australia and New Zealand, the resolution seeks to “improve” the review process for scientifi c whal-ing programmes – which Japan alone conducts, netting more than 15,000 of the marine mam-mals since 1986.

“We welcome this result as an important reaction to Japan uni-laterally issuing its own permits for so-called scientifi c whaling,” said Matt Collis of the Interna-tional Fund for Animal Welfare.

“We all know that scientifi c whaling is sham science, and simply commercial whaling by another name,” he added.

Japan defended its annual Southern Ocean whale hunt, saying that it was gathering sci-entifi c data.

The country insisted that its actions were in keeping with a 2014 ruling of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which found that permits issued by Japan were “not for purposes of scientifi c research” and in-structed the country to halt its JARPA II programme.

“Reports oftentimes say (that) irrespective of the ICJ judgment Japan started the research, or in violation of the ICJ judgment ... and that’s not true,” Japan’s commissioner to the IWC, Joji Morishita told fellow delegates.

In the judgment of the court itself, “it is clear that the ICJ assumes there can be future re-search activities”, he insisted.

“The ICJ also said ... that the use of lethal sampling per se is not unreasonable in relation to the research objectives,” Moris-hita added.

After the court ruling, Japan cancelled its 2014-15 hunt, only to resume it the following year under a new programme called NEWREP-A (New Scientifi c Whale Research Programme in the Antarctic Ocean).

It killed 333 minke whales in the Southern Ocean – many of them pregnant, according to ob-servers.

The Southern Ocean hosts one of two whale sanctuaries in the world.

The issue is a deeply divisive one at the biennial meetings of the IWC, which turned 70 this year.

The meat from Japan’s hunts ends up on supermarket shelves and in restaurants, in line with an IWC stipulation that whales taken for research must be eaten.

Under the IWC moratorium, all whaling other than for abo-riginal subsistence, or science, is prohibited.

Japan hunts under the science exemption, while Norway and Iceland lodged formal objections to the moratorium and continue commercial hunts.

New Zealand’s commissioner Amy Laurenson expressed her country’s “deep disappoint-ment” with Japan’s resumption of whaling without IWC ap-proval.

Japan had referred NEWREP-A to the IWC’s scientifi c com-mittee, but started whaling be-fore it could complete a review, she said, and accused Tokyo of sidelining the commission.

“On the basis of the informa-tion the commission has before it, it is clear that NEWREP-A is not in fact for purposes of scien-tifi c research,” the commissioner argued, and called on Japan to “cease the lethal component of NEWREP-A”.

For Kitty Block of the Humane Society International, yester-day’s vote shrank the scientifi c whaling “loophole”.

“With its continued defi ance and its unfettered whaling, Ja-pan is not just killing whales but making itself a true outlier in the community of nations,” she said.

IWC seeks to curtail ‘science’ huntsAFPPortoroz, Slovenia

Earthquakes caused wide-spread damage and ter-rifi ed residents in central

Italy overnight, two months after a strong quake left nearly 300 dead and razed villages in the same area, but no-one was killed.

Several people were slightly injured, but only a few needed hospital treatment, the Civil Protection Agency said.

In Visso, one of the larger hill towns hit, the mayor said most of the damage had been to build-ings already weakened by the August 24 earthquake.

“The situation is ugly and you can see the noticeable damage, but luckily I can say it’s better than it looks. We don’t have vic-tims or seriously injured people or anyone missing,” Giuliano Pazzaglini said.

The quake was nonetheless a shock to a town that had started to work on rebuilding after the last tremor, Pazzaglini said, and the hours following it were full of anxiety for people in the bor-der area of the Marche and Um-bria regions.

Many people slept in their cars.

“Given the strength of the shocks the absence of any deaths or serious injuries is miracu-lous,” Interior Minister Angelino Alfano said.

Marco Rinaldi, mayor of the village of Ussita, described “apocalyptic” scenes.

“People were in the streets screaming. Many houses have collapsed. Our town is fi nished,” he said. “I’ve felt a lot of earth-quakes but that was the strong-est I’ve ever felt. Fortunately

everyone had already left their homes after the fi rst quake so I don’t think anyone was hurt.”

In Campi, a town of about 200, rescue workers set up some 50 beds in a quake-proof build-ing for people who could not sleep in their homes.

“I can’t shake off the fear,” said Mauro Viola, 64, who said he had not slept and had spent the night outside. “I am afraid to see what my house looks like.”

Police had blocked off the road to his home with a bench, and Viola said a chapel nearby had collapsed.

Boulders tumbled down the valley into roads around Visso.

Offi cials restricted access to its historic centre, awakening grim memories of the levelling of the hilltop town of Amatrice in August.

“The only time I have cried today was when I wasn’t allowed to go into the historic centre,” said Visso restaurateur Elena Zabuchynska, 43. “I thought of Amatrice, all fallen down, and I thought our city centre might

look like Amatrice.”Yesterday the government

set aside €40mn ($44mn) for immediate costs related to the earthquakes, and Prime Minis-ter Matteo Renzi visited the area aff ected.

“The whole of the population is by your side,” he told local of-fi cials in the town of Camerino, adding that the latest tremors underlined the need for invest-ments to make Italy’s buildings earthquake proof.

Renzi has said spending under a plan to reinforce the country’s schools should be excluded from European Union limits on budg-et defi cits.

“We will rebuild everything, 100%, that is the government’s commitment,” said Vasco Erra-ni, the reconstruction supremo appointed after the August dis-aster.

The three main overnight quakes came about two hours apart.

Close to Visso, the rose-windowed facade of a late 14th century church, San Salvatore a

Campi di Norcia, was reduced to rubble.

The fi rst tremor measured magnitude 5.4, causing many people to fl ee their homes and the second was stronger at 6.1, according to the US Geological Survey.

A 4.9 aftershock came a cou-ple hours after that, and dozens of weaker ones followed.

Quakes rattle Italy but no deaths are reportedReuters/AFPVisso, Italy

A collapsed house is seen after an earthquake in Borgo Sant’Antonio, near Visso, central Italy.

Right: A woman makes a phone call after an earthquake in Ussita.

Renzi: The whole of (Italy) is by your side.

Spain’s opposition parties warned acting Prime Min-ister Mariano Rajoy that

he will face a challenging sec-ond term if, as expected, he wins a parliamentary confi dence vote tomorrow after losing a fi rst ballot yesterday.

The Socialist party has agreed to abstain in the second vote, which was called automatically after Rajoy fell six votes short of the majority he needed in yesterday’s fi rst parliamentary vote.

The Socialists’ planned ab-stention tomorrow evening,

when Rajoy only needs more votes in favour than against, should allow him to form a mi-nority conservative government and end more than 300 days of political paralysis.

Socialist leaders made it very clear during a heated debate yesterday, in which fellow op-position party Podemos at one point stormed out of the cham-ber, that they would not give Rajoy a free hand to govern and would fi ght his austerity poli-cies.

Rajoy’s People’s Party (PP) won two national elections in December and June but without a majority, and eff orts to form a coalition in a fragmented parlia-ment failed.

On Wednesday, he urged op-ponents to work with him to avoid yet another election in the near future.

During a second term, Rajoy, who has led the PP since 2004, will need support from opposi-tion parties to pass legislation to tackle mounting challenges and restore Spain’s international stature.

A top priority will be shrink-ing Spain’s budget defi cit to meet the 2017 target agreed with Brussels, which requires at least €5bn ($5.46bn) of either cuts or extra revenues.

“You will not dominate par-liament, the majority you lack will triumph and a lot of the time it will align with the PSOE

(the Socialists),” said Antonio Hernando, a senior Socialist member.

The Socialists remain deeply split over their abstention in tomorrow’s vote, approved by a majority of their senior mem-bers last Sunday.

The party’s Catalan wing has already said it will vote “no” to-morrow.

The former Socialist leader, Pedro Sanchez, who resigned on October 1 after a party re-volt over his refusal to enable a Rajoy-led government, could resign from his seat in parlia-ment before tomorrow’s vote to avoid having to break with his party’s line on abstaining, a par-ty source close to Sanchez said.

Rajoy looks to tomorrow’svote to form governmentReutersMadrid

Rajoy gets up to leave after the investiture debate yesterday.

Bulldozers cleared mounds of debris and demolished makeshift shelters in the

“Jungle” migrant camp yester-day, and French authorities said more than 6,000 people had been evacuated from the squalid site.

Charities said hundreds of migrants might have fl ed the camp rather than take part in a programme to rehouse them in towns across the country.

Yesterday a Reuters reporter saw dozens of migrants, includ-ing children, still in the western part of the camp, where the dis-mantling had not yet started.

The Jungle, a ramshackle, overcrowded shanty town, came to symbolise Europe’s diffi culty in dealing with record infl ows of migrants from impoverished and war-torn regions of Africa, the Middle East and Asia, many of them bent on crossing the sea from Calais to Britain.

Socialist President Francois Hollande, facing an election six months from now, decided under local pressure to close the Jungle and relocate its in-habitants in towns and villages throughout the country pending

examination of their cases.“By next Monday, the camp

will be no more. It is already gone but the (demolition) job will be fi nished by Monday evening,” local government prefect Fa-bienne Buccio told reporters as

earthmovers fl attened the camp, where the evacuation started on Monday.

She said more than 6,000 mi-grants had signed up to be taken to other parts of the country as planned, and that matched the number of people who had been living there.

One high-ranking local offi -cial, speaking on condition that he not be identifi ed, said the camp was not totally empty.

“There was panic over the un-accompanied minors, we knew we’d be back today to try to sort this out,” he told Reuters. “And I think some migrants are still go-ing to remain inside the camp in coming days.”

A British charity called Help Refugees said police had arrest-ed some minors yesterday.

Police patrolled the camp and other parts of Calais, where doz-ens of migrants were wandering.

“Lots of children are sleeping outside. We had a group of Eri-trean boys, 13 and 14 years old, last night, who slept outside,” said Dorothy Sang, a worker

with the Save the Children char-ity. “Other children fl ed. They lost faith in the system.”

A young man from Sudan who said his name was Clinton told Reuters that he had arrived overnight from Germany and was “here for England” as a fi nal destination.

“But it is also okay if I can fi le an (asylum) request in France. It doesn’t matter where I sleep to-night,” he said.

Buccio said she wanted to make clear to any would-be new arrivals in the French port that the camp was shut for good and the rehousing exercise fi nished.

“It is not Calais’ role to receive all the migrants of Europe,” she said.

There were signs that some migrants might have fl ed from Calais to Paris to avoid being roped into offi cial processing of asylum requests.

Heloise Mary, working to help migrants at a smaller camp un-der a bridge in north Paris, said numbers there had suddenly shot up.

“We’ve gone from 2,000 to 3,000 in two days with the clo-sure of Calais,” she told BFM TV of the makeshift camp, where a railway bridge provides cover for hundreds of tents and mat-tresses.

The numbers of irregular migrants reaching Europe are sharply down on the 1.3mn who arrived in 2015.

But more than 300,000 have made the hazardous Mediter-ranean crossing in 2016 so far, and many are likely to head for Britain for work, language and family reasons.

The British referendum vote this year to quit the European Union was in large part driven by worries over immigration, and stoked by scenes of the Cal-ais migrants trying to force their way in.

Now that Britain is leaving the EU, right-wing French politi-cians with an eye on next year’s election want to tear up the agreement under which Britain’s border controls are conducted in France.

France tells migrants to forget Calais ‘Jungle’ReutersCalais

An aid worker provides assistance near a group of migrants claiming to be minors using blankets to protect themselves from the cold as they prepare to spend the night after the dismantlement of the ‘Jungle’ camp in Calais.

11Gulf TimesFriday, October 28, 2016

INDIA

Tycoon to gift cars and fl ats to workersAFPAhmedabad

A generous diamond tycoon in Gujarat is once again giving away

hundreds of cars and fl ats to his employees as a bonus for meeting company targets.

Savjibhai Dholakia, who runs a diamond export fi rm in Surat, announced his company will give 1,260 cars, 400 fl ats and pieces of jewellery to his employees ahead of the festi-val of Diwali which falls on the weekend.

“Our aim is that each em-ployee must have his own home and car in the next fi ve years. So we have decided to gift cars, homes and jewellery to employees,” Dholakia, own-er of the Hare Krishna Exports, said.

He said the rewards were in recognition of the outstanding performance and dedication shown by employees in the last fi ve years.

The company will be spending an estimated Rs500mn ($7mn) under the loyalty programme to reward an unknown number of staff from a total workforce of 5,500.

Most employees receive presents of some kind from their bosses during Diwali, the festival of lights, but they are usually boxes of Indian sweets.

But Dholakia has been mak-ing headlines by giving ex-pensive gifts to his employees since 2012, when three em-ployees received cars for their performance.

The generous boss gave 491 cars and 207 fl ats to his em-ployees under a similar pro-gramme in 2014.

The company will exclude previous year’s benefi ciaries from the new scheme.

His fi rm is one of the lead-ing polishing companies in India’s diamond hub Surat and exports diamonds to some 75 countries.

Cultural gaff e: minister callsNew Zealand PM ‘McCullum’IANSNew Delhi

It seems India’s minister of culture does not know who the prime minister of New

Zealand is especially at a time when he is visiting New Delhi and was present at a meeting to talk about the tourism potential between the two countries.

Mahesh Sharma addressed John Key as “His Excellency Prime Minister McCullum,” be-traying his inability to distinguish between him and the other guest, former New Zealand cricket skipper Brendon McCullum.

The federal minister for cul-ture and tourism repeated the name at least twice during his address, attracting gasps from the audience.

Bollywood star Sidharth Mal-hotra, who is the tourism am-bassador for New Zealand, gave back to the minister when he mumbled a diff erent name while addressing him.

“It’s payback,” he said, prob-ably with his tongue fi rmly in his cheek.

New Zealand’s prime minister, of course, ignored the minister’s gaff e saying that a direct fl ight between India and his country would be the next step to lift the number of tourists both ways.

Key, who addressed the gath-ering with a warm “Namaste, Sat Sri Akaal”, said he was happy about having a “young ambassa-dor” like Malhotra who connects with the youth.

With around 43,000 tourists coming to New Zealand from In-dia every year, Key said he hopes the numbers increase.

Malhotra presented a home-made statue of a lion to the prime minister saying it represented power, pride and confi dence.

“I hope this fi nds a place at your workplace or home, Sir,” the actor said. He also invited Key for a “home cooked meal” at his residence.

During his maiden visit to New Zealand as tourism ambas-

sador last year, Malhotra had met Key at his offi ce and the prime minister had gifted the actor a jersey of the famous All Blacks rugby team.

Malhotra, who has done half a dozen films in Bolly-wood, is planning to leave for a 10-day tour to New Zealand next month to shoot for new tourism-related campaigns. He calls New Zealand his “third home” after Delhi, where he was born, and Mumbai where he now lives. Amid a raging controversy

over Indian student visa fraud, a New Zealand agency for interna-tional education has advised po-tential applicants to go through government-recognised educa-tion agents.

Education New Zealand (ENZ), the country’s govern-ment agency for international education, stressed that such a process will ensure that the stu-dents and parents realise they are ultimately responsible for the repercussions.

US targets Indian callcentres overtax racketAgenciesWashington

US justice authorities an-nounced action yester-day to shut down a group

of Indian call centres that had cheated victims in the United States of hundreds of millions of dollars.

The Justice Department said tens of thousands of victims, most of them from South Asia, were extorted by callers pre-tending to be US tax or immigra-tion offi cials threatening them with arrest and deportation if they did not remit money to the government.

But the victims were then di-rected to people working with the call centres in the United States to collect the “fi nes” through prepaid debit cards or wire transfers, and the money was quickly laundered out of the country, according to the Justice Department.

The agency said it had ar-rested 20 people and unveiled charges against fi ve call centres and 32 individuals in India in the Ahmedabad-based operation.

The charges lodged by the US attorney in the southern district of Texas sets charges against a total of 56 people and fi ve In-dian companies for conspiracy to commit identity theft, false impersonation of an offi cer of the United States, wire fraud and money laundering.

“These individuals demanded immediate payments from the people they called to avoid de-portation, to avoid arrest or to cover supposedly unpaid income taxes,” said Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell.

“In the process, these crimi-nals took hundreds of millions of dollars from this scam alone. The victims include people all over the United States and tar-geted primarily immigrants and the elderly.”

The call centre racket made use of informal money transfer businesses known as hawalas to move the money.

Many of the people contacted did not know the money being transferred was part of an extor-tion scheme, according to the Justice Department.

Caldwell said the fi ve call cen-tres and individuals targeted in yesterday’s announcement were apart from the arrests early this month of some 70 people by In-dian authorities also involved in call centre scams.

“We want to comment the Indians for having done that because we think it’s important that they come in, in addition to our enforcement eff orts,” said Caldwell.

She said the call centres worked together on the scam but did not identify any one individ-ual or group leading the scheme.

She said it was unlikely any of the victims, most of them cheat-ed between 2012 and 2015, would get their money back.

“Often once the money’s paid, its gone,” she said.

Caldwell warned that the ar-rests do not mean the end to such scams.

“These people are persist-ent. If you get phone calls, and I do expect these people are re-silient and will not give up, my advice to you is just hang up,” she said.

Caldwell said the US will be seeking the extradition of those based in India and warned others engaged in similar schemes.

“It’s really important for the scammers in India to know that the US is looking at this, is watching them and they could, if they engage in that activity, be extradited to the United Sates and could sit in jail ... for several years,” she said. The investiga-tion involved Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Treas-ury, Homeland Security, US Se-cret Service and police offi cials, the Justice Department said.

Police officials pose with Subhash Jangir and Maulana Ramzan in New Delhi yesterday, after they were arrested for alleged espionage activities for Pakistan.

India expels Pakistanoffi cial for ‘espionage’High Commission staff er given 48 hours to leave country; Islamabad denies charges

AgenciesNew Delhi

India announced yesterday it was expelling a Pakistani visa offi cial for suspected

spying after he was briefl y de-tained carrying sensitive de-fence documents, with tensions between the neighbours already running high.

New Delhi police said the of-fi cial had been recruiting Indian nationals for two-and-a-half years to spy for Pakistan’s pow-erful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in return for cash.

“Delhi police crime branch has busted an espionage racket run by a kingpin working in the Pakistan high commission,” said Ravindra Yadav, joint com-missioner of police on crime.

The offi cial, named as Meh-mood Akhtar, was detained on Wednesday with documents in

his possession on Indian troop deployment along the border, Yadav told a press conference in Delhi.

“They used to meet once in a month at a pre-decided place to exchange documents and mon-ey,” he said.

Akhtar was later released, he added.

Foreign Secretary Subrah-manyam Jaishankar summoned Pakistan’s High Commissioner Abdul Basit to inform him of the decision to expel the offi cial within 48 hours.

“FS (foreign secretary) sum-mons Pak High Commissioner to convey that Pak High Com-mission staff er has been de-clared persona non grata for espionage activities,” foreign ministry spokesman Vikas Swarup said on Twitter.

“We have defi nitely busted an espionage ring and the ring-leader has been asked to leave within 48 hours,” Swarup later said at a press conference.

Akhtar initially posed as an Indian national and produced a fake identity card, but later ad-

mitted he worked for the Paki-stan High Commission.

In Islamabad, the Pakistan foreign ministry said the offi cial was detained for three hours on “false and unsubstantiated” charges of espionage before he was returned to the mission.

“We condemn the detention and manhandling of our diplo-matic offi cial,” a statement said.

“This act clearly refl ects In-dian actions to shrink diplo-matic space for the working of the Pakistan High Commis-sion,” the statement added.

It noted that Akhtar’s deten-tion violated the Vienna Con-vention.

But Indian spokesman Swarup said: “He was treated with ut-most courtesy” in keeping with diplomatic norms and handed over to a diplomat of the Pakistan mission on Wednesday itself.

Akhtar reportedly said that he joined the Pakistan Army’s Baloch Regiment in 1997 and was deputed to the Inter Serv-ices Intelligence

in 2013, according to the In-dian spokesman.

Akhtar was placed at the mis-sion in New Delhi in September 2013 where he was working as assistant to the trade counsellor.

Tensions between India and Pakistan have soared since a raid last month on an Indian army base in Uri in Jammu and Kash-mir near the de-facto border killed 19 soldiers, the worst such attack in more than a decade.

India blamed militants in Pa-kistan and said it had responded by carrying out strikes across the heavily-militarised bor-der, although Islamabad denies these took place.

Indian and Pakistani troops regularly exchange fi re across the Line of Control in Kashmir, but sending ground troops over the line is rare.

Yadav said two Indian nationals from Rajasthan were also arrest-ed, and that Akhtar had planned to meet his Indian co-conspira-tors at the Delhi Zoo to exchange the information and cash.

He said Akhtar was carrying maps that showed the deploy-ment of Border Security Forces (BSF) and army soldiers.

“A list of jawans (soldiers) posted at the border along with soldiers who had retired from service was also recovered,” Ya-dav said.

Another Indian national was arrested late yesterday from Jodhpur in Rajasthan on charges of helping the Pakistan offi cial, a senior police offi cer said.

High Commissioner Basit lodged a “strong protest” yes-terday with the Indian foreign ministry and said the detention of the offi cial contravened dip-lomatic conventions, a Pakista-ni diplomatic source said.

“The High Commissioner denied the accusation and said we (the commission) never engage in activity that is in-compatible with its diplomatic status,” the source said on con-dition of anonymity.

The offi cial has been given 48 hours to leave the country, the source said.

The expulsion comes as two Indian soldiers died yesterday during two separate gunfi re in-cidents on the border with Pa-kistan in Kashmir.

India’s Tourism and Cultural Minister Mahesh Sharma watches as Bollywood actor and Tourism New Zealand Brand Ambassador Sidharth Malhotra (right) and New Zealand Prime Minister John Key light a traditional lamp during an event in New Delhi yesterday.

Govt approves setting up of National Academic Depository planIANSNew Delhi

The central cabinet yester-day approved establishing and operationalising the

National Academic Depository (NAD) which envisages doing away with the use of paper cer-tifi cates for verifi cation of aca-demic records, an offi cial said.

The NAD will be operation-alised within the next three

months and will be rolled out fully throughout the country in the next fi scal year, said an offi -cial release issued here following a meeting of the union cabinet.

Minister for Human Resource Development Prakash Javadekar called the development an “im-portant milestone in higher edu-cation.”

“It brings transparency and rules out any possibility of tampering. The issue of fake degrees will now become a

thing of the past. It will help students immensely. (Under NAD) the records can be shared easily and obtained by stu-dents, especially those abroad, or employers at just one click,” Javadekar said.

He added that several institu-tions had already started digiti-sation of their documents.

The NAD will develop an on-line portfolio of all education certifi cates across academic in-stitutes (universities/institutes/

boards) which can be submitted easily for employment, higher education and loans and are eas-ily trusted and verifi ed.

It will integrate directly with boards/universities which issue certifi cates and hence ensure authenticity of the records.

Academic awards can be veri-fi ed and authenticated, accessed and retrieved from the digital depository.

In this year’s general budget, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley

had incorporated the plan of NAD for school learning cer-tifi cates, degrees and other aca-demic awards of higher educa-tion institutions, on the lines of a Securities Depository.

The NAD will be operational-ised by two depositories – NSDL Database Management Lim-ited (NDML) and CDSL Ven-tures Limited (CVL) – which are registered under the Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI) Act, 1992.

Academic institutions will be responsible for the authenticity of records uploaded by them into the integrated system. The NAD will extend support to them to upload data digitally. The up-loaded data from various insti-tutes will be integrated in the NAD by the depositories.

It will register institutions, boards, eligibility assessment bodies, students and verifying entities like banks, employer companies, government agen-

cies and academic institutions.It will provide digital or a

printed copy of the academic awards with security features to students or other authorised users. It will verify academic awards, certifi cates online on the same day of request by any authorised user.

However, it will allow access of academic awards to potential employers and academic insti-tutions only after receiving con-sent of students.

SC to hear plea against making bridge toll free

No need for panic over avian flu: Kerala minister

DCW issues summonses to CBI, Delhi police

A Nigerian national was arrested for allegedly staying illegally in India, police said yesterday. Wilsan Oeochukwu, 28, came to India on an education visa and was earlier staying in Vasant Kunj area of New Delhi. He was staying as a paying guest in Gurgaon for the last two months from where he was arrested. Oeochukwu hails from Nigeria’s Benin city, the police said. “Oeochukwu was arrested during a routine search operation. His visa expired in 2004 and he was staying illegally since then,” police off icer Surender Singh said. The accused was yesterday produced before the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) Gagandeep Mittal and was sent to jail under judicial custody for 14 days.

The Supreme Court yesterday stayed a summons issued by an Uttar Pradesh court to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Aam Aadmi party leader Kumar Vishwas and issued a notice to the state government. A bench headed by Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar granted the stay on the summons issued by a Sultanpur court in a case in which both leaders were accused of violating prohibitory orders by holding an unscheduled roadside meeting during the 2014 Lok Sabha election. Both leaders sought the quashing of the criminal proceedings that followed an FIR filed by an election off icer on April 20, 2014. In pursuance to the summons, Kejriwal and Vishwas were to appear before the Sultanpur court yesterday.

Nigerian national held for staying illegally

SC stays UP summons to Kejriwal, Vishwas

CRIMEJUDICIARY

The Supreme Court will today hear a plea by the Noida Toll Bridge Company (NTBCL) challenging the Allahabad High Court order making the Delhi-Noida-Direct (DND) Flyway toll free. A bench headed by Justice Anil R Dave passed the order yesterday after senior counsel Shyam Divan mentioned the plea for an early hearing. The DND has become toll-free following the high court order on Wednesday. The verdict had come on a PIL, filed by the Federation of Noida Residents’ Welfare Association in 2012, challenging the “levy and collection of toll in the name of user fee by the Noida Toll Bridge Company Ltd.” It is estimated that about 150,000 vehicles use DND toll bridge daily.

CONTROVERSY SCARE SUICIDE

The Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) yesterday again issued summonses to the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Delhi police in the suicides of senior bureaucrat B K Bansal and his family and expressed shock why an FIR had not been filed so far. Asking them to appear on November 2, the Commission also asked the police to provide copies of the suicide notes written by Bansal’s wife and daughter, and sought reasons for not registering an FIR. “It’s shocking that no FIR was registered in the case till date and the CBI and Delhi police violated the law by refusing information to the DCW – a statutory body,” DCW chief Swati Maliwal said.

Kerala Animal Husbandry Minister K Raju yesterday said there was need to panic over reports of ducks dying due to avian flu (H5N1 virus) in Alappuzha. “It has been confirmed that the virus that caused the death of the ducks will not aff ect human beings and hence there need be no panic,” said Raju. In the past few days, ducks have been found dead in four Alappuzha villages. Bodies of 1,500 ducks were burnt yesterday. “It has been decided to compensate the farmers for the loss they have suff ered. They will be given Rs200 for each dead duck more than two months old while Rs100 will be given for those younger. Rs5 will be paid for each egg that had to be destroyed,” Raju added.


INDIA12

Govt, tobaccoindustry faceoff ahead ofWHO meetingHealth off icials say won’t bow to “pressure tactics”

ReutersNew Delhi

India’s $11bn tobacco industry has urged the government to take a softer line on tobacco

control eff orts when it hosts a WHO conference in New Delhi next month, but offi cials say the government will not bow to “pressure tactics.”

Delegates from about 180 countries will attend the Novem-ber 7-12 World Health Organisa-tion conference on the sole global anti-tobacco treaty: the Frame-work Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC).

In force since 2005, the treaty aims to deter tobacco use that kills around 6mn people a year.

The industry in India, the world’s third-biggest tobacco producer, wants Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government to soften its stance on what it says are tough FCTC measures that threaten livelihoods among the estimated 46mn people linked to the sector.

In documents obtained un-der India’s Right to Information law, industry and farmer groups wrote to offi cials across govern-ment asking to attend the WHO FCTC conference and be part of India’s delegation, in an eff ort to protect their interests.

Global tobacco fi rms have criticised the biennial event for not being transparent, in part because proceedings have in the past not been open to the public, including industry representa-tives.

The tussle comes at a time when the Indian industry is smarting from measures im-posed this year forcing compa-

nies to print bigger health warn-ings on tobacco products.

A tobacco farmers’ group this month questioned the legality of India implementing the FCTC treaty, and asked the Delhi High Court to compel the government to allow farmers to attend the WHO FCTC conference.

A judge last week asked the government to “consider” the plea, but did not rule on the other requests.

“If we take them in the del-egation, the government of In-dia may feel embarrassed,” said one health ministry offi cial, who didn’t want to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter.

“We will not act on these (lob-bying documents).”

Around 1,000 tobacco farmers staged silent protests yesterday outside the federal health minis-try and the WHO regional offi ce, both in New Delhi, appealing to the government to boycott the conference.

The WHO FCTC Convention Secretariat in Geneva said it wel-comes India’s decision, saying its guidelines state that no country should have delegation members linked to the tobacco industry.

Conference decisions on treaty provisions – designed for eventual implementation at na-tional level by signatories – have a direct bearing on the global to-bacco industry that Euromonitor International estimates is worth $784bn this year.

Topics for debate at the WHO FCTC conference include alter-native livelihoods for tobacco farmers, e-cigarettes and trade and investment issues.

The nation’s main cigarette industry body, the Tobacco In-stitute of India (TII), and farmer groups wrote to the agriculture ministry demanding to have their views represented and to

be allowed into the WHO FCTC conference.

In a September 28 letter, the TII said “there is no obligation on any signatory to the FCTC to comply with or implement any provision of the FCTC.”

The WHO, however, says the treaty is legally binding on its member countries.

The ministry also received a near-6,000-page petition signed by more than 100,000 farmers seeking protection from FCTC rules.

The TII - which represents cigarette makers including ITC, which is part-owned by British American Tobacco; and God-frey Phillips, the local partner of Philip Morris International - also sent the health ministry a ‘handbook’ detailing how FCTC proposals are a threat to farmers’ livelihoods.

It asked the government to ensure that “unreasonable and impractical” proposals are not adopted at the WHO FCTC con-ference.

The TII did not respond que-ries on the make-up of the Indian delegation or the legality of the FCTC.

In another letter, a group rep-resenting traditional Indian cig-arette makers urged Modi to en-sure the health ministry does not make any anti-tobacco commit-ments before or after the confer-ence, fearing the potential im-pact on those tied to the industry.

The health ministry offi cial said the government would con-sider farmers’ views, but there was “no soft corner for the in-dustry.”

Smoking kills more than 1mn people a year in India, BMJ Glo-bal Health estimates.

The WHO says tobacco-re-lated diseases cost the country $16bn annually.

Court puts off hearingpetition on Sonia’selectionIANSNew Delhi

The Supreme Court yes-terday deferred hearing an appeal challenging the

election of Congress president Sonia Gandhi to the Lok Sabha from Rae Bareli in May 2014 al-leging that it was at her instance that the Shahi Imam of Del-hi’s historic Jama Masjid Syed Ahmed Bukhari had sought votes for the party.

The bench of Justices Anil R Dave, R K Agrawal and A M Khanwilkar said the issue raised in the petition was the one being examined by a seven-judge Con-stitution bench and its outcome should be awaited.

The seven-judge Consti-tution bench is examining whether restriction on seeking votes in the name of religion, caste, community and lan-guage under Section 123(3) of the Representation of People’s Act, 1951, is limited to the con-testing candidates or includes election agents and third par-ties as well.

As Hari Shankar Jain, lawyer for petitioner Ramesh Singh – a Rae Bareli voter – urged the court to hear the plea, Dave said: “Let the Constitution bench de-cide the issue.”

The judge said that seeking votes in the name of religion is one of the issues fl agged by the petitioner in his plea.

Jain said that besides rais-ing the issue of Imam Bukhari’s appeal, the petitioner has also raised the issue of Gandhi still retaining her Italian citizen-ship.

Singh moved the top court challenging the July 12 verdict of the Allahabad High Court dis-missing his plea on both counts.

The high court had ruled that Singh did not have suffi cient grounds to sustain the peti-tion and hence it was being dis-missed.

Gandhi had told the high court that she was a lawfully elected member of the Lok Sabha, and denied that she had indulged in corrupt practice on the ground of religion. She also told the high court that she had renounced her Italian citizenship.

Women have the highest status in Islam: former CECIANSNew Delhi

Women have the highest status in Islam and the Muslim community

must see things with a liberal in-terpretation now, former chief election commissioner of India S Y Quraishi said yesterday.

Speaking in the backdrop of an ongoing debate about triple talaq, Quraishi said: “Muslim women have the highest status in Islam and no other religion has such a concept of equality.”

Giving examples of property rights of women in Islam and right to education, he said: “There is a perception that women are sup-pressed. The government must think that the laws are sacred within a community as they are seen with liberal interpretations now.

“We all (Muslims) should also unite together and not give any-

one a chance to interfere with our religious laws,” Quraishi said.

Speaking at a function on the 96th foundation day of Jamia Milia Islamia, Vice Chancel-lor Talat Ahmad said there was a need to focus on the education of minority communities in the country, especially the Muslims, for them to progress in society.

“The community will progress only when everyone receives edu-cation.”

“Given the circumstances, we do not have to let any community remain backward in any aspect,” he added.

University Grants Commission (UGC) chairman Ved Prakash said the country needs to place its ed-ucation system right. “We need to sit together and interpret in terms of curriculum and ensure diver-sity there in,” Prakash said.

The function was held to inau-gurate a “Talimi Mela” (educa-tional fair) on the campus.

Various other programmes,

including art and photography exhibitions, lectures by academ-ics, fi lm screenings and cultural shows were also held in the ongo-ing three-day celebrations.

The Goa Congress expressed support for the triple talaq and criticised Prime Minister Naren-dra Modi for “trying to meddle with Shariah law and polarise votes by attacking the minority community.”

“Modi is trying to create a com-munal issue by trying to interfere with the Shariah... He has no right to interfere in matters relat-ed to the Muslim religion,” Con-gress spokesperson Urfan Mullah said in Panaji yesterday.

“Had triple talaq been such a bad thing, women from our community would not have pro-gressed so far right from Uttar Pradesh to here,” he said.

Asked if the Congress Party in Goa supported the practice of tri-ple talaq, Mullah said: “Of course we support triple talaq.”

Jayalalithaa ‘recoveringfast’, says AIADMK

IANSChennai

Tamil Nadu Chief Minis-ter J Jayalalithaa is on the road to full recovery and

it is for doctors at Apollo Hospi-tals to decide on her discharge, the state’s ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam party said yesterday.

“Our leader is recovering fast. She is interacting with others. She speaks and it is all rumours that she communi-cates only by sign language,” party spokesperson C R Saras-wathi said.

She said it was for the doctors to decide on Jayalalithaa’s dis-charge.

Meanwhile, the hospital con-tinued to maintain silence on Jayalalithaa’s health condition for the sixth consecutive day.

The last bulletin on Jayala-lithaa was issued on October 21

which said she continued to be under treatment and observation for all vital parameters, respira-tory support and passive physi-otherapy.

The hospital said Jayalalithaa “is interacting (with people) and progressing gradually.”

The 68-year-old was admitted to the hospital with fever and de-hydration on September 22.

Doctors later said she needed a longer stay at the hospital as she had an infection and was put on respiratory support.

According to the hospital, a team of specialists including cardiologists, respiratory physi-cians, consultants for infectious diseases, diabetologists and en-docrinologists was treating Jay-alalithaa.

Meanwhile, prayers were held outside the hospital by AI-ADMK cadres for Jayalalithaa’s speedy recovery. Similar prayers were also held in several temples across the state.

Tobacco farmers under the banner of the Federation of All India Farmers Association stage a demonstration against the upcoming WHO conference, in New Delhi yesterday.

A vendor checks and arranges used jeans for re-sale at a second-hand clothes market in Kolkata, yesterday.

Jeans junction

13Gulf TimesFriday, October 28, 2016

LATIN AMERICA

Panama Canal gearsup for rise in tonnageReutersCopenhagen

The Panama Canal is likely to attract up to 15% more tonnage next

year after an upgrade which means it can now accommo-date gas tankers previously too large to transit, its operator said yesterday.

The expanded canal opened in June, fi tted with new locks that allow ships three times bigger than previously to pass through. “We expect to get more tonnage specifi cally because of the expansion,” Panama Canal Authority chief executive Jorge Quijano said in an interview at the Danish Maritime Forum conference in Copenhagen.

“Hitting those targets will of course depend on the (global) economy. But in the worst of cases I think we will see 10% and in the best of cases 13-15%.”

Container shipping tonnag-es were up, “but we also have LNG shipments that we didn’t have before.”

Both liquefi ed natural gas and liquefi ed petroleum gas (LPG) carriers were contribut-ing to the increase, he said.

Shipping industry experts said in August that many large tankers were having to under-go inconvenient retrofi ts to pass through the canal’s new locks.

The authority acknowl-edged at the time that some vessels would probably need new chocks and bollards add-ed. “We’ve only had three bulk carriers that are larger than Panamax going through the expanded canal,” Quijano said.

Quijano said it was far from certain that Egypt would suc-ceed in eff orts to persuade container shipping fi rms to agree to advance toll payments in exchange for discounts.

He said the Panama Author-ity would not rule out some-thing similar. But it already operated a ‘frequent fl yer’ sys-tem for container vessels and would take time to assess how the expanded version was op-erating in terms of tonnage and effi ciency before making any changes to its toll structure.

Brazil carbon emissionsrise despite recessionReutersSao Paulo

Increased deforestation led to a 3.5% jump in Brazil’s greenhouse gas emissions in

2015 despite an economic reces-sion that reduced levels of the gases produced by the energy, transportation and industrial sectors, researchers said.

An annual report released by Brazil’s Climate Observatory said emissions last year reached 1.92bn tonnes of carbon dioxide equiva-lent (CO2e), with deforestation contributing 884mn tonnes.

Brazil is going through its worst recession since the Great Depression. The economy shrank by 3.5% last year and is expected to contract 3% this year.

The rise in emissions despite the sharp economic slowdown raised questions by analysts about the government’s ability to meet its commitments under the Paris climate agreement.

Brazil pledged to cut emis-sions by 43% by 2030, compared to 2005 levels.

“If emissions rose during a recession, if deforestation in-creased while the economy was contracting, we wonder what could happen when Bra-zil resumes economic growth,” Climate Observatory’s execu-tive secretary Carlos Rittl told reporters.

Heat-trapping gases from the energy sector fell 5.3% in 2015, as power consumption in Bra-zil dropped for the fi rst time in years.

Emissions from transporta-tion, in a country that moves most of its freight by truck, fell 16% as the recession impacted the use of diesel and gasoline.

Greenhouse gases from the industrial sector fell 1.2%, with carbon intensive cement pro-duction largely contributing to

the result as builders put the brakes on new projects.

Deforestation in Brazil jumped 24% last year, when 6,207 square kilometres of forests were de-stroyed. It was the fi rst large increase in deforestation in four years.

“Deforestation in the Amazon should fall to around 3,000 square kilometres per year if we want to be in a position to meet our cli-mate commitments,” said Tasso Azevedo, a forest and climate ex-pert who co-ordinated the study.

Destruction of Amazon for-ests was in the past often linked to clearance of land for the culti-vation of crops such as soybeans or for ranching.

But Marcio Astrini, Ama-zon campaign co-ordinator for Greenpeace, said deforestation was less and less related to food production or commodities prices.

According to him, land grab-bers boosted forest destruction seeking to guarantee possession of vast swathes of public land in the Amazon before a new rural register enters into force in 2017.

Brazil senate,judiciary riftcould derailfi scal reformReutersBrasilia

The president of Brazil’s senate has urged the Su-preme Court to halt an in-

vestigation into the use of senate police to protect senators from a corruption probe, stoking ten-sions between the judiciary and the legislative branch.

The row threatens to cast a shadow over President Michel Temer’s eff orts to push through legislative reforms to restore fi scal discipline to Brazil’s over-drawn budget accounts.

Senate president Renan Cal-heiros, who faces several cor-ruption investigations, fi led an injunction requesting that the Supreme Court respect boundaries between the diff er-ent branches of government and stop an operation that “invaded” the jurisdiction of the senate.

The injunction requests the suspension of the police opera-tion and the immediate return of the equipment seized from senate police that was used to sweep the homes of senators to see if they were bugged, according to a copy provided by Calheiros’ offi ce.

The dispute erupted last Fri-day when federal police arrested the head of the senate police force for counter-intelligence eff orts to protect senators impli-cated in a sprawling graft scan-dal, mostly by sweeping their homes for bugs.

Calheiros then blasted the lower court judge who issued the arrest warrant.

In an apparent response, Su-preme Court chief justice Car-men Lucia Rocha rebuff ed the senator, declaring that any attack on a judge was an attack on her.

Calheiros has also criticised Temer’s justice minister, who is responsible for law enforcement and the federal police, for al-lowing the operation that seized

counter-espionage equipment from senate police offi ces.

Senate policemen detained in the operation told investigators they were ordered to sweep the homes of three senators and a former president of Brazil, who are under investigation in the sprawling graft scandal centred on state-controlled oil company Petrobras.

The Temer administration is worried that the dispute will spill over onto the senate fl oor and upset the passage of the spending ceiling that cleared the lower house by a comfortable margin on Tuesday..

The constitutional amend-ment limits federal spending to the rate of infl ation for up to 20 years, a measure to plug Brazil’s widening budget defi cits that have fuelled infl ation, expand-ed the public debt and cost the country its prized investment grade credit rating.

Temer attempted to calm ten-sions by inviting the heads of both chambers of Congress and Chief Justice Rocha to a meeting on Wednesday, but she refused to attend.

Calheiros said he would not let the dispute delay two rounds of voting on the spending cap set for November 29 and Decem-ber 13. “The voting dates will be maintained. I will not give in to any pressure to change the timetable of such an important measure for Brazil due to diffi -cult political circumstances,” he told reporters.

Calheiros has been accused of receiving bribes from defend-ants in the Petrobras investiga-tion. He denies any wrongdoing.

He is also being investigated for having a private company pay child support for a daughter he had out of wedlock with a jour-nalist, a scandal that forced him to resign as head of the senate in 2007 and is now being taken up by the Supreme Court.

Opposition lawmakers protect themselves while they try to reach the National Assembly in Caracas yesterday.

Parliament seeks to pushahead with Maduro trialReutersCaracas

Venezuela’s opposition-dominated Congress convened yesterday to

push forward a political trial of socialist President Nicolas Ma-duro, a day after dozens were injured in protests demanding a vote to recall the unpopular leader.

The opposition has intensi-fied demonstrations since au-thorities last week effectively scuttled its drive for a plebi-scite, with a national strike and march to the presidential

palace set for coming days.The National Assembly voted

on Tuesday to open a largely symbolic trial against Maduro for violating democracy, but the government dismissed the move as meaningless.

The opposition had urged supporters to rally outside yes-terday’s session to show sup-port.

But government supporters and security forces appeared outside, impeding access for some, witnesses said.

Congressional leaders also denounced early in the morn-ing that power had been cut off to the legislative palace, forcing

them to rely on an emergency backup generator.

“The federal legislative pal-ace was built (in the 19th cen-tury),” wrote parliament ad-ministrator Roberto Marrero in a tweet directed at state-run power company Corpoelec. “In that era there was NO electric-ity. And they held sessions any-way!”

The opposition says the Ma-duro government eff ectively staged a coup by blocking a re-call vote that polls suggest he would lose.

Maduro says it is the oppo-sition that is seeking to over-throw the government illegally.

He notes that the combination of a national strike, set for to-day, and a march to the Mi-rafl ores presidential palace, scheduled for next week, mir-rors the situation in the run-up to the 2002 coup that briefl y toppled late socialist leader Hugo Chavez.

“We urge the Democratic Unity lawmakers to refl ect. Do not head down the road of a coup,” said Hector Rodriguez, who leads the minority govern-ment faction in the National Assembly.

Global oil prices rose yester-day, in part in response to the renewed unrest in the Opec na-

tion that holds the world’s larg-est crude reserves.

But there was no evidence the demonstrations could aff ect operations at state oil company PDVSA, which has been fi rmly under the control of the ruling Socialist Party.

The opposition rallies on Wednesday, dubbed the “Take-over of Venezuela,” drew hun-dreds of thousands of people and triggered dozens of inju-ries and arrests as protesters clashed with police in provin-cial cities.

State prosecutors said 80 people would be presented in court on charges of violence.

US fugitive Edward Lee Leblanc, wanted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for the murder of a woman in the state of California in 2008, waits to be registered by the National Civil Police in Guatemala City following his arrest in Cuyotenango, 110km southwest of the capital.

US fugitive arrested

“If emissions rose during a recession, if deforestation increased while the economy was contracting, we wonder what could happen when Brazil resumes economic growth”

In Cuba, online media pry open state grip on newsAFPHavana

Abraham, Elaine and Jose are under 30, and they’ve pulled off the unthinkable

in Cuba – they are producing on-line news, prying open the state’s half-century grip on the media.

The Castro government cre-ated a crack in the Cuban media wall, allowing this small revolu-

tion, when it opened up Internet access to the public in 2013.

What followed was a progres-sive rollout of 200 Wi-Fi hotspots across the Caribbean island of 11.2mn people. Access is limited.

Few Cubans can aff ord the sky-high connections fees of $2 per hour and the government only rarely authorises an Inter-net connection at home.

Still, the US-based Commit-tee to Protect Journalists counts

about 3,000 blogs and portals dedicated to Cuba that are pub-lished on the island or by Cubans living abroad.

Sites like The Sneeze (El estor-nudo), Neighborhood Journalism (Periodismo de Barrio), El Toque and the most well-known, On-Cuba, are key voices in this fl our-ishing cyber-media fi eld.

Some of the journalists were educated at the University of Ha-vana’s communications school,

the traditional launch pad for ca-reers at state media and the Com-munist Party newspaper Granma.

“We all came from classes at the University of Havana, and we were kind of left homeless, in the sense that for us, the state press isn’t an option,” Abraham Jimenez, the 27-year-old who heads The Sneeze, said.

Jimenez and his colleagues launched the portal in March. Like other independent media, they

chase a variety of funding sources, including selling what they can to survive month-to-month.

“Internet access is very expen-sive, we don’t have an offi ce or an-ything,” Jimenez explained, saying that articles and photos are sent by e-mail abroad to be put online.

“Without state economic support, we must look for oth-er ways to manage fi nances,” said Elaine Diaz, 30, director of Neighborhood Journalism.

“Some turn to paid advertis-ing, or payment for content or a service, or partnerships with other media or non-profi t or-ganisations, or a co-operative fi nancing group,” she said.

At times, like at The Sneeze, it takes another job to survive – the price of realising the dream of being an independent journalist in Cuba. With sleek homepages, full-screen photos, polished writing and reporting that tends

toward features rather than hard news, the publications for the most part are trying to depict the reality of Cubans’ everyday lives.

But unlike others, such as 14yMedio launched in 2014 by journalist-dissident Yoani Sanchez, or independent portals published in Spain, like Cuba Daily, or in Miami, Cubanet and CiberCuba, these new media eschew confrontation with the authorities.

PAKISTAN/AFGHANISTAN


Pakistan bans protests ahead ofdemonstration

Pakistan yesterday banned all public gatherings in Is-lamabad for two months,

setting the stage for confronta-tion ahead of a major protest aimed at paralysing the capital and unseating Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

The premier is under growing pressure from opposition parties over his children’s off shore bank accounts that were revealed in the Panama Papers leak.

Former cricketer turned op-position leader Imran Khan, who is due to lead the protest on No-vember 2, has demanded Sharif stand down over the revelations.

“This will be a decisive and historic gathering, people will come together with resolve to hold the prime minister ac-countable,” Khan told reporters.

However, there will be a heavy police presence in Islamabad to deter protesters with confronta-tion now appearing inevitable.

Khan led a previous mass protest in the summer of 2014 that lasted four months, allying himself to populist cleric Tahir-ul-Qadri to back a sit-in in front of parliament calling for the gov-ernment to resign over election rigging allegations.

A notifi cation banned gath-erings for two months because protests were “likely to threaten public peace and tranquility, cause public annoyance or injury, en-danger human life and safety”.

The planned protest comes at a sensitive time for Sharif, with Pakistan’s Supreme Court due to start hearing a case into the Pan-ama Papers revelations about Sharif’s family involvement on November 1.

Sharif government’s relation-ship with the all-powerful army is also at a low ebb following the publication of an embarrassing report this month that said civil-

ian offi cials had clashed with the military over its alleged covert support for proxy fi ghters.

The army has used the pretext of civil unrest to unseat govern-ments three times in Pakistan’s history and some analysts be-lieve Sharif may be forced to strike a deal that would appease the military to ensure his sur-vival.

“The severity of the threat to Sharif is a product of the civil-military divide,” said The News columnist Mosharraf Zaidi, add-ing the military would like to see the government fi re offi cials re-sponsible for the leaked report.

“If he survives with his cabi-net as is, it will represent a major victory for him. If he is forced to sacrifi ce members of cabinet to assuage challengers to his gov-ernment - he will be seen as hav-ing been weakened,” said Zaidi.

Security analyst Imtiaz Gul said the military would also like Sharif to pick a successor to army chief Raheel Sharif it ap-proves of when his term ends in November.

AFPIslamabad

“The severity of the threat to Sharif is a product of the civil-military divide”

Chief of the United Jihad Council, Syed Salahuddin (second right) walks with Jaish-e-Mohamed chief in Kashmir, Mufti Mohamed Asghar (second left) and Harkat-ul-Mujahideen chief, Farooq Kashmiri (left) after a conference in Muzaff arabad, capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir yesterday. Pakistanis are observing ‘Black Day’ to express solidarity with those in Indian-administered Kashmir, who they alleged suff er brutality from the Indian armed forces.

Kashmir ‘Black Day’

Pakistan radio show confronts harassment of women

For many women in Pa-kistan, the simple act of leaving the house can be

uncomfortable, even intimidat-ing — the probing gaze of the op-posite sex is never far away.

Fed-up with the constant un-wanted attention, broadcaster Anila Ansari decided to bring the touchy subjects of harassment to the airwaves, by launching an “anti-ogling campaign” on her national radio show.

The idea — unprecedented in this country — came to her at the start of the year when she returned to her country after living for two decades in Great Britain.

Everywhere she went in public spaces, she felt endlessly intimi-dated by the male gaze — and found she was far from alone.

“I went to diff erent offi ces, restaurants: everywhere I went I could see these eyes following me,” she told AFP from the Ra-dio99 offi ce located in the centre of Islamabad.

“So I came to my offi ce and started asking my female col-leagues and said ‘Is it just me or do you experience that as well?’, and every woman I spoke with said ‘Oh don’t even talk about it, it’s so endemic.’”

When it came to the men, though, many didn’t even realise there was a problem.

“They either laugh it off or they get really upset or even an-noyed,” she explained, adding that some even blamed women

for encouraging such attention by their choice of outfi t or make-up.

Ansari says she launched the campaign to highlight “how it impacts on a woman’s mental health and well being and even her opportunities, academic or employment opportunities.”

And her radio station, which claims a listenership of up to 25mn across the country, backed the idea.

As part of the campaign, she hosts regular debates on the subject encouraging listeners to call in.

She also makes proclamations to underline her point such as:

“You wouldn’t like it if someone was staring at your sister!”

Najib Ahmed, the radio’s di-rector, said he the project had his full support from the outset.

“In our country we put these kind of issues under the carpet, we don’t discuss them,” he said.

“It is the basis of everything, the basis of the economy, the women go out of their home and if (women) are not comfortable they won’t be able to do their jobs properly with their other colleagues.”

One afternoon in September, Anila and her colleagues gath-ered on the pavement outside Radio99’s headquarters to spread

their message on the streets.Journalists handed out leafl ets

and made speeches. “Say no to staring. It’s unethnical!” shout-ed one of the DJs.

Sana Jaff ry, a young woman wearing a pink hijab and sun-glasses, said the project had her support, adding she too suff ers from daily ogling by men on her way to work.

“These men who keep their sisters locked up at home, why do they stare at others?” she said. “They need to appreciate that women who go out are also respectable.”

Radio99’s campaign is a “fi rst step” she says.

But, to truly change things, “the matter will have to be taken up by the government”.

Nearby, Ayyan Ali, a young man dressed in traditional garb, is far from convinced.

Girls, he says “are the honour of their parents”. If they don’t wear the burqa or clothes that completely cover the body, “they can’t complain if someone is staring at them”.

“If they go out in the street in inappropriate clothes, we can’t help ourselves,” he adds.

According to Ali, most men share his views. “Nobody has come out for this campaign,” he said.

“Everyone is watching the journalists from head to toe.

Nobody is looking at them with good intentions because they are not covered properly.”

Women in Pakistan face huge discrimination in all aspects of their lives, with the country ranking 144 out of 145 on the World Economic Forum’s 2015 Gender Gap report.

Ansari hopes her show can open the door for discussions on other issues facing women and girls such as honour kill-ing, forced marriages, and child brides.

For lawyer and feminist Rafi a Zakaria, the issue of harassment

brings to the fore the place of women in a profoundly patriar-chal society.

Staring is an act of intimida-tion aimed at “pushing women out of the public sphere,” she said, adding that the aim has been validated by the clergy.

“They believe wrongly that it is required by Islam,” Zakaria said.

She urged women to take out their phones and record evi-dence to shame men who ogle and harass.

Zakaria explained: “When this form of harassment is made visible and is debated, moral pressure is created to stop it.”

AFPIslamabad

Anila Ansari, a programme manager at Islamabad-based Power 99 FM radio, launches an on air “anti-ogling campaign” at the off ice of the station in Islamabad.

Najib Ahmed, director of Islamabad-based Power 99 FM radio, speaks during an interview with AFP at the station in Islamabad.

Al Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan killed in US drone attack

Two top Al Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan were killed in a US drone attack, the

nation’s spy agency confi rmed yesterday, in a major blow to the group as it seeks to re-establish safe havens in the country.

Washington said the strikes on Sunday targeted Farouq al-Qahtani, Al Qaeda’s emir for northeastern Afghanistan, and his deputy Bilal al-Utabi, calling it the most signifi cant attack against the group in several years.

Multiple Hellfi re missiles “levelled” two diff erent com-pounds in Kunar where the men were believed to be hiding, US offi cials said on Wednesday, without confi rming if the strikes were successful.

Afghanistan’s National Direc-torate of Security off ered confi r-

mation of their death on Thurs-day, adding that a third senior member of the group had also been killed.

“The attack was carried out in coordination with NDS,” the spy agency said in a statement, without naming the third leader.

Pentagon press secretary Pe-ter Cook had earlier said their demise would deal a blow to the militant group’s presence in Af-ghanistan.

“Eliminating these core lead-ers of Al Qaeda will disrupt ef-forts to plot against the United States and our allies, reduce the threat to our Afghan partners, and assist their eff orts to deny Al Qaeda safe haven in Afghani-stan,” Cook said.

Another US offi cial said the attack represented the “most signifi cant strike” against the Al Qaeda leadership in Afghanistan in years.

The Pentagon had been ac-

tively hunting for Qahtani for four years.

He had longstanding ties with Osama Bin Laden before his death in the 2011 US raid on his Pakistan compound.

Qahtani has operated in Af-ghanistan since at least 2009 and led an Al Qaeda battalion since at least mid-2010, offi cials said.

“He was seeking to re-estab-lish (Al Qaeda’s) control in Af-ghanistan,” the US offi cial said.

“He was charged with the re-quirement to establish AQ safe-havens throughout Kunar and Nuristan provinces.”

His deputy Utabi, was seen as the second- or third-most sen-ior Al Qaeda leader in Afghani-stan, the offi cial said.

In October 2001, in response to the 9/11 attacks, the US launched military operations to dislodge the Taliban from Afghanistan and capture or kill Al Qaeda militants they were harbouring.

AFPKabul

Pakistani police yesterday said they had arrested six men suspected of strangling a couple to death in the latest so-called honour killings to hit the country, weeks after the government passed long-awaited legislation to combat the crime. The victims had been married for a year and were living in Karachi’s eastern Malir district after the woman left her previous husband and fled her home in the city’s west.

A Pakistani court yesterday ordered the closure of all liquor shops in the southern province of Sindh, off icials said, cutting off one of the few legal alcohol sources in the country.Although Pakistani Muslims are banned from drinking alcohol, the country’s minorities, mainly Hindus and Christians, face no such prohibition.However, critics argue that the licensed liquor shops also sell to Muslims.It is not clear how the minori-ties will now buy liquor in the province, home to the teeming financial capital Karachi, with some 20mn people.

Six arrested for honour killing

Court closes liquor shops

CRIME

PROHIBITION

Death warrant issued for Pakistani mentally ill man

Pakistani authorities is-sued a death warrant for a mentally ill condemned

prisoner on Wednesday after the country’s Supreme Court ruled that his schizophrenia is “not a permanent mental dis-order”.

Lawyers and rights groups say convicted murderer Imdad Ali, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia while in prison in 2012, cannot be executed as he cannot understand his crime and punishment.

Ali’s death warrant was is-sued by a criminal court on the request of the provincial Pun-jab government, said a state-ment by The Justice Project Pa-kistan (JPP), which is providing Ali with counsel.

It follows a ruling last week by Pakistan’s top court that said schizophrenia was a “re-coverable disease” that could be treated by drugs, and not a mental disorder.

He will now be executed on November 2 in a prison in the

city of Vehari, the JPP said.Ali, aged 50, was sentenced

to death for the murder of a re-ligious cleric in 2002.

He had been sentenced to hang last month, but received a last minute stay of execution by the Supreme Court, before that expired last week.

Rights groups have slammed the ruling, with Amnesty call-ing it “a deeply worrying devel-opment”.

Maya Foa, a director of Re-prieve, last week called the Supreme court ruling “out-rageous” and said it fl ies in the face of accepted medical knowledge — including in Pa-kistan.

“It is terrifying to think that a mentally ill man like Imdad Ali could now hang because judges are pretending that schizo-phrenia is not a serious condi-

tion,” Foa said, demanding Pa-kistan’s president intervene.

Pakistan reinstated the death penalty and established mili-tary courts after suff ering its deadliest-ever extremist at-tack, when gunmen stormed a school in the northwest in 2014 and killed more than 150 people — mostly children.

Hangings were initially rein-stated only for those convicted of terrorism, but later extended to all capital off ences, with over 400 people hung from more than 8,000 death row prisoners.

The JPP has already sent a mercy petition to President Mamnoon Hussain along with testimony from medical ex-perts.

It remains pending with his offi ce since September 19.

Ali has spent 14 years on death row, with three years in solitary confi nement in the jail hospital due to his schizophre-nia.

“Imdad’s hanging will sig-nal to the world that Pakistan does not take its human rights commitments and treaty ob-ligations seriously,” said Sarah Belal, JPP executive director.

AFPIslamabad

“It is terrifying to think that a mentally ill man like Imdad Ali could now hang because judges are pretending that schizophrenia is not a serious condition”

PHILIPPINES15Gulf Times


Manila Times Makati

The Philippines now has six Miss International titlists with the crowning of the

country’s bet Kylie Versoza yes-terday in Tokyo, Japan.

Versoza’s win comes at the heels of President Rodrigo Du-terte’s fruitful visit to Japan.

An early favourite, Versoza was ranked No 5 in the Miss Interna-tional Hot picks in July.

Landing at the pageant’s Top 15, the Ateneo De Manila Uni-versity Business Management graduate confi dently said she is prepared to take on the responsi-bility of Miss International 2016.

“Three things come to mind when I think of Miss Interna-tional – culture, education and international understanding.

These three work together to make the brand of the Miss Inter-national Beauty Pageant relevant to the global community and to our time.

If I become Miss International 2016, I will devote myself to cul-tural understanding because I believe that it is with developing in each of us sensitivity to other

cultures that we expand our ho-rizons, tolerate diff erence, and appreciate diversity.

All these enable us to achieve international understanding.

And I believe I’m prepared to take on this responsibility,” she said.

Miss Australia was named fi rst runner-up, with Miss Indonesia, Miss Nicaragua, and Miss USA, placing second, third and fourth runners-up, respectively.

Versoza now joins the exclusive club of Gemma Cruz who won in 1964, Aurora Pijuan in 1970, Mel-anie Marquez in 1979, Precious Lara Quigaman in 2005, and Bea Rose Santiago in 2013.

Shortly after Versoza’s win, Binibining Pilipinas posted the following message for the na-tion’s latest pride: “Congratula-tions to the new Miss Interna-tional 2016 Kylie Verzosa, besting over 69 other candidates in the pageant held in Tokyo, Japan.

Your journey of fi nding true beauty and strength is an inspi-ration to every Filipina; and your advocacy is a shining example of selfl essness and true humanity that many should emulate.

BPCI is proud to have support-ed you every step of the way.”

Newly elected 2016 Miss International Kylie Verzosa from Philippines with 3rd runner-up Miss Nicaragua Brianny Chamorro (L), 1st runner-up Miss Australia Alexandra Britton (2nd L), 2nd runner-up Miss Indonesia Felicia Hwang (2nd R) and 4th runner-up Miss USA Kaitryana Leinbach (R) during the Miss International beauty pageant final in Tokyo.

Kylie Verzosa crowned Miss International ’16

Manila Times Makati

Secretary Regina Lopez of the depart-ment of environment and natural resources (DENR) could be facing a

series of court cases in relation to ongoing audit of mining operations in the country.

Yesterday, Benguet Corp said its whol-ly owned nickel subsidiary Benguetcorp Nickel Mines Inc (BNMI) has fi led a case before the Pampanga regional trial court, while another mining company is mulling a separate case.

BNMI, according to its parent fi rm, is left with no other viable administrative remedy, and is constrained to elevate to the courts the matter of the unlawful sus-pension of its nickel mining operations in Santa Cruz, Zambales.

“After careful consideration, BNMI is constrained to take this judicial recourse in order to protect itself, its workers and the aff ected communities, which depend on the corporation for their livelihood and support,” it said.

The mining fi rm fi led a petition for cer-tiorari with injunction to assail the sus-pension order jointly issued last July 8, 2016 by concerned regional offi ces of the

Mines Geosciences Bureau, Environmen-tal Management Bureau and DENR re-gional offi ces for grave abuse of discretion, in an arbitrary manner, without due proc-ess and ahead of the conduct of a nation-wide mining audit.

“BNMI availed of said legal remedy to prove that despite its full compliance with remediation conditions under the previ-ous lifting order dated August 24, 2015, the said regional government agencies unjus-tifi ably refused to reverse the suspension order,” it noted.

BNMI said it earlier exerted earnest ef-forts to assure the DENR and the anti-mining groups of its continued undertak-ing to conduct responsible and sustainable mining activities and its willingness to be an active partner of the government in protecting the environment.

“To this end, BNMI reached out to the DENR and the anti-mining groups to present a proposed arrangement that would have ensured that the environment in Santa Cruz would not only be protected, but would even be improved, through a partnership between the mining corpora-tions, the people and the government,” it added.

“These eff orts, however, proved to be unsuccessful, as the anti-mining groups, and even the DENR representatives, re-jected BNMI’s fair and reasonable proposal and continue to appear bent on endorsing an unjust arrangement which will deprive

the mining companies of any recourse against the results of the audit and, worse, will require them to summarily acknowl-edge alleged liabilities for compensation and rehabilitation, without immediate prospect of resuming operations,” the company said.

The unjustifi able suspension, according to BNMI, is taking its toll not only on the corporation but on its workers, contrac-tors and suppliers, and its scholars and surrounding communities.

BNMI said it was forced to temporarily lay off more than 1,000 workers since its unwarranted suspension.

The mining fi rm “comes to court with the knowledge that its operations have been, and will continue to be, compliant with national regulatory and international certifi cation standards.

It is confi dent that its operations, once allowed to resume, will not pose any threat to the environment”. Benguet’s wholly owned subsidiary, along with two other nickel operators in the province, was sus-pended because of complaints about en-vironmental degredation as a result of its nickel ore extraction.

MGB director Leo Jasareno clarifi ed that the preventive suspension against BNMI was in view of a writ issued by the supreme court and a newly signed executive order by the local government unit of Zambales, suspending all mining operations in the province.

Ronald Recidoro, vice president for le-gal and policy of the Chamber of Mines of the Philippines (COMP), said another mining company recently suspended by the DENR is mulling to fi le a case before the courts.

The country’s big mining lobby earlier scored the DENR’s “reckless” public pro-nouncement on results of the mine audit.

“The audit findings have serious im-pact not only on our present mining projects but also upcoming projects,” COMP vice president for policy Ronald Recidoro said.

Among those recommended for sus-pension are: Libjo Mining Corp, AAM-Phil Natural Resources Exploration and Development Corp.– Parcel 1 and Parcel 2B, Krominco Inc, Carrascal Nickel Corp, Marcventures Mining and Development Corp, Filminera Resources Corp, Strong-built Mining Development Corp, Sinos-teel Philippines HY Mining Corp, Oriental Synergy Mining Corp and Wellex Mining Corp

Also included in the recommendation for suspension are Century Peak Corp.– Rapid City Nickel Project and Casiguran Nickel Project, Oriental Vision Mining Philippines Corp, CTP Construction and Mining Corp, Agata Mining Ventures Inc, Hinatuan Mining Corp, Benguet Corp, Lepanto Consolidated Mining Co, Ocean-aGold Phils Inc, Adnama Mining Resourc-es Inc and SR Metals Inc.

Mining fi rm fi les case against DENR

Manila Times Makati

Ma Fatima Valdes, a former offi cial of the Philippine Char-ity Sweepstakes Offi ce, has pleaded not guilty to the plunder charge fi led against her before the anti-graft

court Sandiganbayan in connection with alleged misuse of the PCSO’s confi dential and intelligence funds from 2008 to 2010.

Valdes, who was among those charged along with former president and now Pampanga representative Gloria Macapa-gal-Arroyo in 2012, had been at large but resurfaced last Octo-ber 11 and was arraigned yesterday before the Sandiganbayan’s First Division.

Following her return, her arraignment was twice deferred af-ter she was admitted to the intensive care unit of a hospital in Makati City (Metro Manila). In asking the court to let her post bail for her provisional liberty, the defence cited her age and medical condition.

It also asked the court’s permission to let her adopt the pro-ceedings conducted for bail petitions fi led by several former respondents.

Plunder, being an off ense punishable by life imprisonment, is not bailable as a matter of right but bailable at the court’s dis-cretion when evidence is not strong.

The defence has also fi led an urgent motion asking the court to allow Valdes’ detention at the Makati Medical Center (MMC) pending resolution of her bail petition, and considering her age and medical condition.

Based on the urgent motion, Valdes’ son, who accompanied her, asked upon arrival at the airport if it would be possible for her to be brought to the hospital.

It said that even before the fl ight landed, she “has already been complaining to her son that she was not feeling well”. The National Bureau of Investigations (NBI) personnel “could not decide” whether Valdes should be brought to the hospital, so they brought her to the bureau’s offi ce on Taft Avenue in Ma-nila, and her family brought her cardiologist there instead.

After examination, the doctor and later the NBI’s medico-legal offi cer recommended that Valdes be brought to the hos-pital and she was then brought to the MMC where she “is still under the custody of the NBI”.

“Operatives of the NBI are with her in the hospital 24/7,” the defence said in the urgent motion.

In asking the court to allow Valdes’ detention at the hospi-tal, it said her continued stay there “would allow her doctors to continuously monitor her medical condition and will allow such doctors to immediately perform the appropriate medical treatment, as may be necessary.

This would not be possible if [she]will be placed in a normal detention facility”. The possibility of her escape “is likewise non-existent since she is currently under the custody of the NBI and would be contrary to the essence and purpose of her voluntary surrender.”

In September 2015, the court acquitted the following on de-murrer: Former PCSO directors Manuel Morato, Raymundo Roquero and Jose Taruc 5th as well as former Commission on Audit chairman Reynaldo Villar.

But it struck down Arroyo’s move to dismiss the plunder case on demurrer.

Last July, the Supreme Court dismissed the plunder case fi led against Arroyo for lack of evidence.

It also granted Aguas’ demurrer. Former PCSO general man-ager Rosario Uriarte remains at large.

Ex-PCSO offi cial pleads not guilty to plunder rap

Free shuttle to cemeteries in MuntinlupaManila Times Makati

The local government of Muntinlupa City (Metro Manila) will be providing free shuttle services to and from pub-

lic and private cemeteries from October 31 to November 2. Public information offi cer Tez Navarro yesterday said locals can avail of free rides in JRF E-jeepneys that will ply the na-tional road and also in government trucks and buses going to memorial parks.

Pick-up points for the free shuttle services going to cemeteries are: Those visiting Ever-est Hills Memorial Park – in front of Susana Heights Bus Terminal; Japanese Cemetery – in front of a government offi ce under con-struction on Rizal Street; and Muntinlupa City Public Cemetery and Aglipay Cemetery – Caltex Station.

For those visiting San Nicolas de Tolentino Cemetery, free shuttle routes will be from Su-cat East Service Road to Alabang, Montillano Street to M.L Quezon Street to Meralco Road Loop.Navarro said water stations and assist-ance desks will be put up.

The assistance desks will be manned by personnel from Muntinlupa Police Depart-ment, Rescue Department, City Health Offi ce, Community Aff airs and Development Offi ce and other city government departments.

Mining firms are feeling the pinch of being denied permission to resume work

Manila Times Makati

Claiming that most of those benefi ting from the Value-Added Tax

(VAT) exemption for senior citizens are the rich and the middle-class, the department of fi nance (DOF) has proposed to limit the tax break to medi-cines.

At a hearing of the senate ways and means committee headed by senator Juan Edgar-do Angara, DOF undersecre-tary Karl Kendrick Chua said they are looking at lifting VAT exemption of senior citizens on non-essentials, which only the rich and middle-class sen-ior citizens can aff ord to buy.

A proposed tax reform pack-age of the DOF presented dur-ing the hearing seeks to remove VAT exemption of senior citi-zens and people with disabili-ties (PWDs) on other purchas-es aside from medicines.

Chua said that by remov-ing the exemption, the gov-ernment could generate P3 to P6bn. He said the current VAT leakage is between P6bn and P10bn.

“For senior citizens, we are proposing to retain the exemp-tions on medicine in our new proposal.

We, however, fi nd that the expenses in restaurants, travel

air fare, for instance, mostly are [within reach only] by the rich who can aff ord to pay and go to these restaurants.

So we’re proposing to re-move the exemption,” Chua told the committee.

The money to be generated from removing the VAT ex-emption of senior citizens and PWDs he said, could be used to directly benefi t the poor and vulnerable among them.

Angara said the DOF should not view the issue as only a “mathematical” issue because thousands of senior citizens are expected to be aff ected by the proposal.

“It’s an emotionally charged issue, not a purely mathemati-cal issue.

Seniors feel it is something they have earned having served for so long.

You might not want to spend your political capital there,” he also told the DOF offi cial.

Chua pointed out that they are fi ghting more for the prin-ciple of equity.

“There is also the principle of compassion.

One of the reasons [that enabled the president [to come to]power was that people saw other candidates as not as compassionate.

“He wanted to have more working people have more money in their pockets,” An-gara said.

VAT break ‘favours’ rich and middle-class

Manila Times Quezon City

The government should stop treating indig-enous peoples (IPs or

lumad) poorly if it wants to combat poverty, vice presi-dent Ma Leonor Robredo said yesterday.

She made the statement during the IP Leaders Assem-bly in General Santos City, a week after the violent disper-sal of protesting IPs at the US Embassy in Manila wherein a police car tried to run over the lumad at least four times.

The police were also caught on video grabbing a driver of one of the jeepneys used by the protesters, mauling him until

he bled. The IPs were demand-ing their right to self-determi-nation and that their ancestral land be free from militarisa-tion by Philippine and Ameri-can armed forces.

“The summary of poverty is how does the entire govern-ment view the IP community. Because we should view the IP community as an equal part-ner on everything that we do and… looking back, it seems that it is not what is hap-pening,” Robredo said in her speech.

Prior to her stop in General Santos, she visited the IPs be-longing to the Mangyan com-munity in Mindoro, the seven tribes of Bukidnon, as well as the IPs in Ifugao and Mountain Province.

Robredo warns govt on treatment of IPs

SRI LANKA/BANGLADESH/NEPAL


Sheikh Hasina formally launching the ‘Child Helpline — 1098’ yesterday from her Ganabhaban residence in Dhaka via videoconferencing.

By Mizan Rahman Dhaka

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yes-terday launched Bangladesh’s fi rst-ever toll-free ‘Child Helpline-1098’

putting emphasis on creating mass aware-ness to stop child repression.

Sheikh Hasina called upon all to build a beautiful society by awakening their latent human qualities.

“Awareness should be raised so ood in-tentions fl ourish instead of beastly atti-tude...and the social welfare ministry will have to play the leading role to this end,” she said.

Sheikh Hasina formally launched the ‘Child Helpline — 1098’ from her Gana-bhaban residence in Dhaka through vide-oconferencing to provide a free telephone service to children who are facing vio-lence, abuse and exploitation.

The prime minister also talked to the victims of Faridpur Safe Home and Rajbari Safe Home through the videoconferenc-ing.

The Child Helpline 1098 enables any-one to report child rights violations, child abuse and exploitation by calling a toll free number ‘1098’ from any corner of the country, through any mobile phone opera-tor.

State minister for social welfare Nuruz-zaman Ahmed, secretary of the minis-try Zillar Rahman, judge of the Supreme Court justice Iman Ali and on behalf of the Unicef Sara Bordas Eddy spoke at the function.

The prime minister said parents will have to be convinced that problems won’t

vanish by marrying off their children. “Rather they will have to be given the ability to stand on their own feet,” she said.

Sheikh Hasina said everybody will have to think that they have children, mothers and sisters. “Every male has a responsi-bility to ensure security for mothers and sisters, while he should also look after the safety of others,” she said.

Describing the Child Helpline-1098 as very important for the Bangladesh soci-ety, Sheikh Hasina hoped that it would help reduce child repression in the coun-try.

Sheikh Hasina said those who misuse the helpline by giving false information would also be punished.

Sheikh Hasina opened the helpline by making a call to the call centre set up at the department of social services at Agargaon.

When the operator asked her identity, Sheikh Hasina said, “I’m not a child, but I could be called a 70-year-old child.

I’m the Prime Minister.”Urging those who work at the call centre

to take care of child victims properly, the premier said: “You will have to be careful so that they get proper help.”

She spoke about online trials and said there will be a court room adjacent to the jail and trial of the accused would be held at that jail as there are problems in trans-porting such criminals from jail to the courts.

Sheikh Hasina said she has already in-structed the authorities to start online trial and it’s the most important aspect of the child court.

Child Helpline 1098 has been initiated in accordance with Article 90 of the Chil-dren Act 2013 to provide a means for chan-nelling information from vulnerable chil-dren, children in confl ict or contact with law as well as information of child rights

violation, to an appropriate authority and simplify the process of providing informa-tion.

The child sensitive social protection in Bangladesh project under the department of social services, ministry of social wel-fare, and supported by Unicef Bangladesh, had started the Child Help Line 1098 as a pilot initiative all over the country in De-cember 2015.

To date, Child Helpline 1098 has sup-ported the prevention of 379 child mar-riages and 2,070 children have been pro-vided with health and education support as well as legal aid and reintegration serv-ices throughout the country through a re-ferral mechanism.

The Child Helpline operates a 24-hour telephone line and provides emergency support to children at risk, as well as to concerned citizens who need to raise the alarm about certain children.

The service also links children with ex-isting social protection services through rescue, safe shelter, referral and network-ing, offi cials said.

Newly-elected ruling Awami League (AL) general secretary Obaidul Quader yesterday said the next general election will be held on time.

“Our party (AL) has already started pre-paring for the election following prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s call,” he told re-porters after a meeting with Indian high commissioner in Dhaka Harsh Vardhan Shringla at the secretariat.

Quader’s remarks clearly indicate that the next parliamentary election in 2019 will be held under the Awami League gov-ernment with Hasina as the prime minis-ter.

About Teesta issue, he said it will be resolved very soon and prime minister Sheikh Hasina may visit India in Decem-ber next.

Responding to a question about BNP’s participation in the next national elec-tion, Quader, also the road transport and bridges minister, said they had the chance to participate in the previous election but they could not take the right decision at that time.

“If they can’t take the right decision about the upcoming polls, it’ll be a big mistake for them,” he said adding, “We’re now trying to organise our party (AL) re-moving all the internal problems.

We also need a strong team work to strengthen the party.”

Quader further said they need to be alert about ‘hybrid leaders’ so that they cannot isolate the dedicated party leaders.

The Indian high commissioner greeted Quader on being elected the general secre-tary of Awami League.

Meanwhile, Obaidul Quader yesterday termed BNP “a frustrated and devastated party” and said the activities of the party are now limited to holding press confer-ences.

“Their (BNP’s) activities are now lim-ited to holding press conferences sitting at home.

They’ve no relation to the country’s people,” he said.

Quader was talking to reporters after placing wreaths at the grave of Bangamata Fazilatunnesa Mujib and other martyr members of Bangabandhu’s family at Ba-nani graveyard in the city.

The ruling party general secretary said: “ The BNP should prove fi rst that they be-lieve in democracy.

There’s no democracy within the party itself but it talks a lot about it.

But, Awami League is a big and disci-plined political party.”

The newly elected members of the Awami League central working committee were present.

Premier Hasina opens toll-free child helpline

vening commuters in Colombo.

Colombo after dark

By Mizan Rahman Dhaka

An alarming 40mn peo-ple in Bangladesh are still food-insecure and

hungry, and most of them do not have a suffi ciently nutri-tious and wholesome diet, a World Food Programme (WFP) report has said.

The report—Strategic Re-view of Food Security and Nutrition in Bangladesh—re-leased in Dhaka was commis-sioned by the UN World Food Programme.

The WFP report was pre-pared by independent ex-perts to foster a shared understanding of the food security and nutrition situ-ation in the country, and to better align the plans of the government and partners to achieve SDG2.

According to the report, more than one in three children are still affl icted by stunted growth.

Acute malnutrition has not decreased signifi cantly over many years.

The report emphasised that the Bangladesh government and its partners must rally to end hunger and improve nu-trition to sustain the country’s remarkable economic trajec-tory.

Led by a team of national experts and guided by a wide range of stakeholders across the country, the study identi-fi ed substantial challenges to achieving zero hunger in Bang-ladesh and made recommen-dations on how to overcome them.

Speaking at the programme, fi nance minister AMA Muhith said: “The study fi ndings will be useful for Bangladesh in achieving the SDG2 within the time span we have set to end hunger in 2024 and tack-ling malnutrition defi nitely by 2030.” Presided over by the secretary of disaster manage-ment and relief,

Shah Kamal, the additional secretary of economic rela-tions division, Shahidul Islam, chief of staff WFP James Har-vey, and WFP representative Christa Rader addressed the programme, among others.

Siddiqur Rahman Osmani, professor of developmental economics at Ulster Univer-sity in Northern Ireland, gave a short description of the re-port.

Muhith said early marriage aff ected future generations due to lack of proper nutri-tion.

He said women and children were the victims of malnutri-tion.

“So, we will focus on this problem in the budget to ad-dress the issue,” he added.

“Under-nutrition already costs Bangladesh more than $1bn in lost productivity every year and even more in health costs,” said Osmani.

“No country can expect to build a thriving economy on the backs of hungry and undernourished people,” he added.

Osmani, who has pub-lished extensively on pov-erty, hunger and nutrition in South Asia, spent the past 10 months leading a team of senior experts with decades of experience in nutrition, agriculture, social protection, gender, food security and cli-mate change to produce a thor-ough and holistic assessment of food security and nutrition in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh has made signif-icant progress since the 1970s when there was not enough food for everyone in the coun-try.

Since then, it has achieved overall food self-suffi ciency and has had one of the fastest prolonged reductions in child under-nutrition in recorded history.

The report lauded such gains as impressive, but cau-tions that they must not lead to complacency.

Moreover, the report said there were emerging concerns with food security and nutri-tion as a result of socioeco-nomic and climate change.

Consequences such as obesity and lack of food safe-ty may become particularly evident in urban slums, it added.

To free all people of Bangla-desh from the burden of food insecurity and under-nutri-tion, the battle must be si-multaneously fought on many fronts, with suffi cient funding and accountability, the report stated.

It called for a more diver-sifi ed agriculture sector and an enhanced social protec-tion system that leaves no one behind, and pointed out that empowering women is the key to achieving sustainable food security and nutrition.

40 million hungry inBangladesh, says WFP

Scrub typhus claims another in Chitwan

A woman died of scrub typhus during treatment in Chitwan district yesterday. With this, the death toll due to the disease in the district this season has reached five. This as reported by the himalayantimes.com’All of the deaths were reported from the Bharatpur-based Chitwan Medical College. Of them, three were women and two were girl children. Shital Adhikari of the college said that a 51-year-old woman from west Chitwan died of the disease today.She had been admitted to the hospital three days ago though it has been learned that she was sick for last 12 days.Adhikari said it would be really diff icult to heal patients if they went to the hospital only after their major organs stopped functioning.Ram KC, bacteria control inspector at the Chitwan District Public Health Off ice, informed that as many as 307 were found infected with the disease out of 1,042 who had approached diff erent health facilities in the district till mid-October. Currently, nine are undergoing treatment at the Chitwan Medical College; and two of them are critical, according to the health facility.

Lanka to sell white elephants to cut debtSri Lanka said yesterday it will reduce its foreign debt by $1bn by selling off former strongman president Mahinda Rajapakse’s vanity projects. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe told parliament he wanted to privatise a $1.3bn port and a $210mn airport in Rajapakse’s home constituency which have become huge white elephants.“By turning the debt into equity and forming a public-private partnership to run the airport and the harbour, we will reduce our foreign debt by a billion dollars,” Wickremesinghe said.He did not disclose whether any investors had been lined up for the facilities in Rajapakse’s home constituency of Hambantota in the island’s deep south, which were built with Chinese loans and named after the former leader.Only one airline operates flights to the airport in the sparsely-populated area while the harbour is also one of the emptiest in the world.The new government which came to power in January last year has been trying to renegotiate terms of its $8bn Chinese debt, which includes the construction costs of the airport and the harbour, but with no success.

The child helpline helps children break free of exploitative relationships

THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH17Gulf Times


The necessary components of the marital process

Entering the marital bond

This article discusses some of the important issues to consider when entering the bond of marriage. This includes

the marriage contract and witnesses to the marriage. It is imperative to remember that whatever endeavour a person engages in, his or her intention should be purely for the sake of Allah, Almighty. For something as serious as marriage, this should be obvious. The correct intention will ensure that the union is blessed by Allah and protected from diffi culty and tribulation. Our sole purpose in life should be to seek the pleasure of Allah in all that we do. If this goal were the focus, we would see many happy, smiling married couples.

1. The marriage contractThe marriage contract is a necessary

component in the marital process. Marriage itself is actually considered to be a contract agreed upon by the two parties. It is a binding, permanent agreement that can only be broken through the process of divorce.

It should be entered with seriousness, and as with any contract, the best attempt should be made to fulfi l the obligations and responsibilities due to the other party.

All scholars agree that the off er by one party and acceptance by the other is an essential part of the marriage contract. Most of these scholars also say that the off er must be from the woman’s side (the Wali - the guardian or one who represents him) and the acceptance from the man during the process of the contract. The majority of the scholars also say that it is necessary to have the presence of both the prospective husband and the Wali during the process. The actual presence of the woman to be wed is external to the whole process.

It is essential to mention here that the consent of the Wali is a condition without which the contract is void.

The marriage contract itself may simply be in spoken form, although it may also be completed through writing. Any wording that clarifi es

the intention and goals of the contract would be acceptable. It is important to mention that when the contract is entered into, the aspects pertaining to marriage in the Shari’ah (Islamic Law) become binding upon each person, regardless of whether or not they are stated in the contract. These aspects would include the rights and responsibilities of each party, such as the husband providing sustenance for his wife and the wife being obedient toward her husband and so forth.

Certain customs that are known and accepted by everyone can also take the status of law and be considered binding on the parties. These, of course, would only be acceptable if they do not contradict the Shari’ah. Some examples may be the custom of the husband providing furniture for the house or the bride being taken to the home of the groom.

Other stipulations may be added to the marriage contract if both parties agree. These conditions cannot contradict the Shari’ah nor can they

bring harm to anyone. The primary purpose of these additions should be to avoid any confl ict or hardship in the future.

Those who accept the stipulations must complete the condition or the husband or wife has right to nullify the marriage. Allah says (what means): “O believers, fulfi l the contracts.” [Qur’an; 5:1]

The Prophet (sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam) said: “The Muslims must act upon their stipulations.” [Abu Daawood and Al-Haakim]. It is necessary to mention that some scholars are of the opinion that additional conditions cannot be added to the marriage contract.

2. Presence of witnessesThe majority of scholars agree

that the presence of two witnesses is an obligatory aspect of the marital contract. The Prophet said: “There is no marriage save with a guardian and two (just) witnesses.” [Al-Bayhaqi]

The witnesses must be just and

righteous, and also adult, mature and sane. Most scholars state that the witnesses must be male, although Abu Haneefah is of the opinion that it is allowed to have one male and two females. The witnesses must also be Muslim between two Muslims. (Abu Haneefah allows for non-Muslims witnesses if the marriage is to a non-Muslim woman).

The reason for having Muslim witnesses is that the contract is a serious one and is considered to be a religious contract.

ConclusionAs a woman eagerly prepares for

her wedding day, buying clothes and accessories, beautifying herself, informing family and friends, she should refl ect on the serious nature of the contract that she is about to enter. It is a lifelong, binding contract that entails many duties and responsibilities. She should become aware of the elements that are necessary for completion of this bond

(as outlined above article) as detailed in Shari’ah, and learn about her role as a wife and companion. She should also be informed about the rights that are due to her from her husband. It is a beautiful reciprocal relationship in which the rights of one party become the responsibility of the other.

There are many books available on this topic and it would be wise to read some of these as part of the preparation. In Islam, it is not enough to just get married. One must have the knowledge to enter the union with wisdom and understanding and a deep commitment to making it successful.

Equipped with the right intention and knowledge, there should be little room left for Satan to nudge between the man and woman who have promised to love and honor each other all the days of their lives… and in the Sight of Allah.

Article source: http://www.islamweb.net/emainpage/

Marriage is one of the most serious and impor-tant commitments an individual will make in

his lifetime. It is a bond that once established, cannot be easily broken. It is one of the most important relation-ships in a society, as it is the building stone of the overall structure. Mar-riage is so important in Islam that the Prophet (sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam) said: “Whoever marries has completed half of his faith. So let him have fear of Allah in the remaining half.” [At-Tabaraani]

As an act of worship, Muslims should make the intention to please Allah, Almighty, during this process and act in accordance with His laws.

Unfortunately, in this time, more and more Muslim marriages are crumbling, primarily due to the fact that they were not in conformity with the laws established by Allah. The intention to please Allah was not there from the beginning.

As this is a rather immense topic, it will be spread out over several issues. Some of the initial components in the process are considered in the following, with the focus on women who are entering the marital bond.

The presence and guidance of a Wali (guardian - father or whoever takes his place) is one of the conditions required for soundness of a marriage contract. The Prophet (sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam) said: “There is no marriage except with a Wali.” [Ahmad, Abu Daawood and At-Tirmithi] He also said: “If any woman marries herself without the permission of her Wali, then her marriage is void, then her marriage is void, then her marriage is void.” [Ahmad, Abu Daawood and others]

The Wali is the one who will be responsible for fi nding a suitable spouse for his ward, one who is religious and an appropriate match. The Wali must be male, mature, of good moral character, and of the same religion as the woman.

In the ideal situation, the Wali should be the closest male relative of the woman, so fi rst it has to be the father, if not then it passes to the closest male relative on the father side, her grandfather, then her son, then her full brother, then her half brother, then his sons, then paternal uncles, then their sons, then the father paternal uncles, then the Muslim judge. For women who have entered Islam from another religion, however, it is not acceptable for her non-Muslim father or other non-Muslim relative to act as her Wali. In this case, the responsibility falls upon the leader of the community. A woman cannot choose any person for her Wali. The Prophet (sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam) said: “There is no marriage but with a Wali. And the ruler is the Wali for one who does not have a wali.” [Ahmad and others]

A woman should never be forced to accept a marriage proposal. This is very clear in Islam. If a woman is forced to accept a marriage proposed against her will, she would have the right either to annul the marriage or accept and remain in it.

Ibn ‘Abbaas (may Allah be pleased with him) narrated that a young virgin woman came to the Prophet (sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam) and stated that her father had married her and she disliked it. So the Prophet gave her the option (to annul the marriage or remain in it). [Abu Daawood and Ahmad]

The relationship between the woman and her Wali is ideally one of

co-operation involving mutual respect and consideration.

Finding a Spouse with Faith and Piety:

The Prophet (sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam) said: “If someone whose religion and character you are pleased with comes to you (to marry your daughter or ward) then marry (her off to) him. If you do not do so, there will be commotion on the earth, and a great deal of evil.” [At-Tirmithi and Ibn Maajah]

The Wali should assist the woman in fi nding a spouse who has strong faith and piety, which is refl ected in behavior.

The happiness of the marriage often rests upon this important element. One of the goals of marriage is to fi nd

comfort, repose, and security in the relationship. This goal is more likely to be achieved if each spouse has fear of Allah and adheres to Islam.

Unfortunately, women often look for a man who has wealth and letters behind his name (M.D., Ph.D., etc.) assuming that this will bring them happiness. Although there is no harm in considering these things, yet it should not be given fi rst priority. How helpful will that wealth and those letters be when the person is being disrespectful and uncaring towards his wife? How benefi cial will he be in helping her to fulfi ll her obligations to Allah?

Women should carefully arrange their priorities when it comes to selecting a spouse, for the success and happiness of the marriage may depend on this.

Payment of Mahr (dowry):

Payment of the Mahr is also a necessary condition for soundness of a marriage contract. It is given to the wife as a way of honoring and respecting her and as a symbol of the husband’s commitment to provide for and take care of his wife.

Allah Says (what means): “And give the women (upon marriage) their bridal gifts graciously.” [Qur’an; 4:4]

This verse and others establish the obligatory nature of the Mahr. There is no minimum or maximum amount of Mahr stated explicitly in either the Qur’an or Hadith.

Anything of value is acceptable as Mahr, regardless of whether it is something material or something non-material (if the person lacks wealth). The prophet said: “Search for something, even if it just be a ring made from iron.” [Al-Bukhari and Muslim] In fact, the Mahr could be knowledge of the Quran as related in a popular narration. The Prophet accepted the dower of a person’s knowledge of Quran. He said: “Go for I have put her under your charge (in marriage) due to what you have of the Qur’an.” [Al-Bukhari and Muslim]

There is no maximum amount of dower as Allah Says (what means): “But if you want to replace one wife with another and you have given one of them a Qintaar (great amount of gold) in gift, do not take (back) form it anything.” [Quran; 4:20]

A Qintaar is a very large amount of gold, which implies that it is allowed to give such large amounts. The Caliph Umar (may Allah be pleased with him) however, did advise the people at one time not to be excessive with regard to a woman’s dower. The Prophet also encouraged people to be easy in this area. He said: “The best Mahr is the one which is easiest (to be paid).” [Al-Haakim and Ibn Maajah]

Some women request enormous amounts of money, jewelry, and goods from their prospective husbands, oftentimes making it impossible for the men to fulfi l these requests. Men are actually foregoing or postponing marriage because they are unable to pay the “going rate” or to fi nd a woman who is willing to accept a lesser amount.

This creates a great deal of corruption, trial and temptation not only for individuals, but also for society as a whole. Women should look beyond their own personal desires and interests and consider loftier values and benefi ts.

Article source: http://www.islamweb.net/emainpage/

Whom one is allowed to marryMarriage is the most essential social bond that

maintains human society. It is the key step to establishing a family, which is the nucleus of society. Since the ultimate goal of creating

human beings is to worship Allah Almighty, a Muslim has to look at marriage as a means of ‘producing’ human beings who will be future worshippers of Allah, which is a religious commitment, apart from being a physical, social and psychological need.

When planning for marriage, one has to ask himself who he should marry. Allah mentions most of the categories of women involved in this question in the following verses, (which means): “And do not marry those [women] whom your fathers married, except what has already occurred. Indeed, it was an immorality and hateful [to Allah] and was evil as a way. Prohibited to you [for marriage] are your mothers, your daughters, your sisters, your father’s sisters, your mother’s sisters, your brother’s daughters, your sister’s daughters, your [milk] mothers who nursed you, your sisters through nursing, your wives’ mothers, and your step daughters under your guardianship [born] of your wives unto whom you have gone in. But if you have not gone in unto them, there is no sin upon you. And [also prohibited are] the wives of your sons who are from your [own] loins, and that you take [in marriage] two sisters simultaneously, except for what has already occurred. Indeed, Allah is ever Forgiving and Merciful. And [also prohibited to you are all] married women except those your right hands possess [i.e., slaves or war-captives who had polytheistic husbands]. [This is] the decree of Allah upon you. And lawful to you are [all others] beyond these, [provided] that you seek them [in marriage] with [gifts from] your property, desiring chastity, not unlawful sexual intercourse...” [Qur’an 4:22-24]

Those who are Permanently Forbidden in Marriage

This category includes those whom one is forbidden to marry due to a blood relationship as well as those who are forbidden due to marital relations:

Those Permanently Forbidden due to Blood Relations

Descendants due to a relationship with a woman, regardless of how far (a man’s daughter, granddaughter, etc.).

Ascendants of women, regardless of how far (mother, maternal and paternal grandmother, etc.).

Descendants from a man’s parents, regardless of how far (sisters, half sisters, sister’s children, etc.)

Siblings of male and female ascendants, regardless of how far (paternal and maternal aunts, great aunts, etc.).

One may notice that of these, the grandmother was not explicitly mentioned in the verse. This is because frequently in Arabic and in the Qur’an (as in some of the verses on inheritance), the term ‘mother’ includes the grandmother and all her ascendants.

Those Permanently Forbidden due to Marital Relations

Wives of ascendants, regardless of how far (the father’s wife, grandfather’s wife, etc.). Consummation is not a condition; the mere completion of the marriage contract makes this marriage forbidden forever.

Wives of descendants, regardless of how far. Again, the mere marriage contract is what is considered here with or without consummation.

Ascendants of wives (such as the mother-in-law), regardless of whether the marriage was consummated or not.

Descendants of wives (step-daughters and their children) only if the man consummated the marriage with the wife in question. The phrase (which means) ‘…Under your guardianship…’ was mentioned here only to portray the usual case and not as a condition. The ruling holds whether the step-daughter was ever under his care or not. This is the opinion of the majority of scholars.

Those Permanently Forbidden due to Breast Feeding

The verse actually mentions ‘mothers’ and ‘sisters’ by breast feeding. From these two, others can be derived based on the Hadeeth (narration) of the Prophet : “Breast feeding makes forbidden what is forbidden through blood relations.” [Muslim]

The Prophet (sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam) was asked to marry the daughter of his uncle Hamzah but his

response was to say: “She is not permissible for me. She is the daughter of my brother through breastfeeding. And breastfeeding forbids what is forbidden through blood relations.” [Al-Bukhari & Muslim]

The brother of a woman who had breastfed ‘Aa’ishah (may Allah be pleased with her) came to visit her. She refused to let him in until she asked the Prophet if it was permissible to do so, and he said: “Give him permission, for he is our uncle.” [Al-Bukhari & Muslim]

The Minimum Requirement for Breastfeeding

There is a wide variety of opinions on how many ‘sessions’ of breastfeeding create the prohibition including one, three, fi ve, seven and ten sessions. A common opinion is that the child must have nursed on three separate occasions; this is based on the Hadith: “The prohibition is not established by one suck or two.”

The strongest opinion is that of Imaams Maalik and Abu Haneefah and ‘Ali bin Abu Taalib, ‘Abdullaah bin ‘Umar, and ‘Abdullaah bin ‘Abbaas and others, which is that a single session is suffi cient. This is the strongest opinion because it is consistent with the apparent meaning of the word Ridhaa’ah (breastfeeding) in the above-mentioned verses as well as the related Hadiths; also, the above Hadith could be easily taken to refer to ‘sucks’ and not ‘sessions.’ So, in other words, if the baby merely sucks once or twice, it does not count unless the baby completes the ‘session’, drinking to satisfaction.

Women Included in this CategoryOne’s female ascendants through nursing. This

includes the woman who nursed him and her mother, etc. The husband of the wet nurse is considered the ‘cause’ of the milk involved. So, for example, if a girl is nursed by a woman, that woman’s husband becomes forbidden to her just as her own biological father is.

Descendants through nursing. The man who is the ‘cause’ of the milk is forbidden from marrying the one his wife nursed or their children, etc.

Descendants of ‘parents’ through nursing, (i.e., the ‘sisters’). One cannot marry any of the children (either by blood or nursing) of the wet nurse or her husband.

Siblings of ascendants by nursing (i.e., brothers and sisters of the wet nurse or her husband). This does not include their children (‘cousins’ by nursing).

Note the following important point as stated by Shaykh Ibn ‘Uthaymeen : “The relatives of the child that is nursed, except for his/her children, have no relation to the breastfeeding mother [or her husband] and there is no eff ect on them from that nursing. So, it is allowed for a boy’s blood brother to marry his brother’s wet nurse or her daughters. However, the children of the child who was nursed will become like the children of the wet nurse and her husband in the same way that their father (the one originally nursed) was a ‘child’ (by nursing) to those two.”

Those Forbidden for Temporary Reasons

The second category of women a man is forbidden to marry consists of those forbidden for temporary reasons. If the reason ceases to exist, marriage between them becomes lawful. They include the following:

While being married to a woman, a man cannot marry her sister or any of her aunts (paternal or maternal). The fi rst was mentioned in the verses previously mentioned and the second is mentioned in the following Hadith:

“The Prophet prohibited joining (in marriage at the same time) a woman and her paternal aunt or a woman and her maternal aunt.” [Al-Bukhari & Muslim]

If a person divorces his wife three times, it is not allowed for him to marry her again until and unless she marries someone else (but not as a trick in order to marry him again), consummates that marriage and that marriage is subsequently legally ended.

Any woman if a man already has four wives. Marrying a slave girl when one is already married to a

free woman. Marrying a woman who is already married or who is

in ‘Iddah (waiting period). A woman in ‘Iddah due either to her husband’s death or divorce is not allowed to marry until it is fi nished.

A woman upon whom a man has made Li’aan, unless he confesses to having made it up. Al-Li’aan in Arabic is when the husband accuses the wife of adultery but cannot bring witnesses, so he swears that it occurred and the two are separated after the wife swears that she is innocent. He can never marry her again unless he confesses that he was lying about it.

A woman who is neither Muslim nor Jewish nor Christian.

The election contest has exposed deep fault lines within American society and damaged the country’s global reputation

By Richard N HaassKiev

The ongoing presidential campaign in the United States stands out for its lack of civility and the vast

diff erences between the candidates: the anti-establishment businessman Donald Trump on the Republican side and the polished politician Hillary Clinton representing the Democrats.

The contest has exposed deep fault lines within American society and damaged the country’s global reputation.

No surprise, then, that one of the few things Americans seem to agree on is that the campaign has gone on for too long.

But soon it will be over.The question is: what comes next?Polls suggest that Clinton, a former

senator and secretary of state, will defeat the controversial Trump.

But polls are not to be confused with reality.

After all, going into June’s Brexit referendum, most observers believed that a victory for “Remain” was a sure thing.

More recently, Colombian voters rejected a peace accord that was widely expected to receive popular approval.

All of this is to say that, while a Clinton victory may be likely, it is no certainty.

The only poll that counts is the one on November 8. Until then, all we can do is speculate. Yet some predictions can be made with greater confi dence.

There is little doubt that the US will emerge from this election a divided country with a divided government, regardless of who is president or which party has a majority in either chamber of Congress.

Neither Democrats nor Republicans will be able to realise their objectives without at least some support from the other.

But no one should think that the only divide in American politics is between Republicans and Democrats.

In fact, splits within the two major parties are just as deep, with large and highly motivated factions pulling each to their respective extremes – Democrats to the left and Republicans to the right.

This makes compromise on centrist positions all the more diffi cult to achieve.

The rapid resumption of presidential politics will undermine compromise further.

If Clinton wins, many Republicans will assume that it was only because of Trump’s fl aws, and they will judge her likely to be a one-term president.

A country favouring change, they will conclude, is unlikely to keep a Democrat in the Oval Offi ce for a fourth term.

Many Republicans (especially those who deny the legitimacy of a Clinton victory) will thus seek to frustrate her administration, lest she be able to run again in 2020 as a successful incumbent.

Similarly, if Trump manages to win, most Democrats (and even some Republicans) will – after recovering from their surprise and dismay – make it their highest priority to ensure that

he does not have an opportunity for a second term.

Given how much of Trump’s agenda his fellow policymakers would likely fi nd objectionable, governing would be very diffi cult during his administration.

In either scenario, it may still be possible to make progress in a few key areas.

The next US government might manage to enact legislation to fund the modernisation of America’s ageing infrastructure, a policy that both candidates and many in Congress favour.

It might also be able to cobble together a majority to reform the US tax code – in particular, lowering the high rate for corporations and raising taxes on the wealthy.

There could even be some reform of healthcare, President Barack Obama’s signature achievement, owing to serious implementation problems with the current system.

But other issues requiring co-operation between Congress and the president are unlikely to be addressed any time soon.

One is immigration reform, which is as controversial in the US as it is in Europe.

Another is trade: because the domestic political environment makes policymakers wary of supporting positions with dedicated opponents, both Trump and Clinton oppose the Trans-Pacifi c Partnership, even though its ratifi cation would benefi t America’s economy and strategic standing.

Meanwhile, America’s defi cit and debt are certain to rise, as there seems to be little or no will to reduce entitlement spending.

The foreign-policy implications of the election are somewhat diff erent, because, under the US Constitution,

the president enjoys considerable latitude.

While only Congress can offi cially declare war or ratify treaties, presidents may use (or refuse to use) military force without explicit congressional approval.

They can also enter into international agreements other than treaties, appoint powerful White House staff , and change US foreign policy by executive action, as Obama recently did regarding Cuba.

Under Clinton, this discretion could translate into establishing one or more safe areas in Syria, providing more defensive arms to Ukraine, and taking a tougher line toward North Korea as it continues its nuclear and missile buildup.

It is more diffi cult to guess what Trump would do.

He is, after all, a political outsider, so no one knows how much of his campaign rhetoric would be translated into policy.

Still, one could anticipate a Trump administration distancing itself from some traditional allies in Europe and Asia and standing mostly aloof from the Middle East.

What exactly will happen to America after the presidential election remains an open question.

Though some outcomes can reasonably be expected, the only genuine certainty is that the 96% of the world’s population that does not vote in US elections will feel the eff ects no less than Americans will. – Project Syndicate

Richard N Haass, a former director of policy planning for the US State Department, is President of the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of the forthcoming book A World in Disarray.

The United States said yesterday up to 900 Islamic State group militants have been killed in the off ensive to retake the Iraqi city of Mosul.

Iraqis who fl ed their homes expressed joy at escaping IS’s brutal rule as they were given shelter and assistance, in some cases reuniting with relatives they had not seen in more than two years.

The IS will eventually lose its chokehold on Mosul. The ongoing Iraqi military off ensive, buttressed by US-led coalition airstrikes, has the militant group outmanned and outgunned. Driving out the Islamic State dead-enders won’t be easy, and it could take months – but eventually, Iraqi forces likely will regain control over the country’s second-largest city.

When that happens, it will be a victory for Iraqis. It also will be a shot in the arm for America’s anti-Islamic State strategy.

Insurgencies have a way of melting into civilian life, lying low for a spell and eventually regrouping.

“So it’s defi nitely not over” once Mosul has been retaken, a Canadian general who oversees training of Iraqi security forces told reporters at the Pentagon earlier this month. “If anything, it’s going to be more diffi cult.”

With that in mind, it will be incumbent on Obama’s successor to commit the US to a robust counterinsurgency presence in Mosul long after Iraqi and US generals have declared victory in the city. That

presence should entail intelligence-gathering to ferret out any signs of an IS resurgence, as well as the training and equipping of Mosul’s decimated police force.

We’ve seen what happened when the US left Iraq too early. Obama withdrew US troops in 2011. In that vacuum, the Islamic State was able to seep in from Syria and take root throughout northern and western Iraq.

Iraqis shouldn’t wait to forge a plan for Mosul’s governance after the IS is gone. That needs to be done now, and it should include a prominent role for Sunnis. Carving out such a role will require reining in Iran-backed Shia militias, which have a notorious history of treating all Sunnis – whether or not they are linked to the Islamic State – as one amorphous enemy.

Two other immediate problems loom. First: Already the fi ghting on the outskirts of Mosul has generated legions of refugees. The UN predicts that as many as a million Iraqis may be forced out of their homes because of the off ensive. The UN is scrambling to provide enough short-term shelter and humanitarian assistance, but that exodus will be seen as ideal cover by IS militants looking to escape the fi ghting. It’s not far-fetched to think some of those militants may trek to Turkey and, eventually, Europe. A strict, comprehensive vetting process needs to be established to ensure IS fi ghters don’t fi nd their way to the West, where they can establish sleeper cells.

Which sets up the second immediate problem: Yes, the Islamic State eventually will get run out of Mosul. But the group still holds sway with who-knows-how-many followers around the globe. And no matter where they hunker down, they will continue to be living threats of future terror attacks.

Outmanned, outgunned:IS will eventually loseits chokehold on Mosul

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Iraqis shouldn’t wait to forge a plan for Mosul’s governance

What comes next afterelection in America?

Education innovation in Middle EastBy Gordon BrownLondon

Supporting the millions of newly displaced people of the Middle East demands resources far beyond the capacity of the

United Nations, and is a continuous humanitarian-aid challenge for companies, foundations, and public-sector donors.

While UN peacekeepers are fi nanced by a system of “assessed contributions,” humanitarian aid depends on voluntary donations.

Education, which is prioritised below basic survival needs like food and shelter, all too often gets left behind.

This failure is far more dangerous than it might seem at fi rst glance.

In fact, we now confront an education crisis that threatens to leave a lost generation of young people without any hope for a better future.

The majority of Syria’s 6mn displaced children remain out of school, while around 250,000 young people miss out on a college education.

In war-torn Yemen and Iraq, millions more children are also missing out on school.

Some may go through all their school-age years without ever entering a classroom.

But thanks to the Platform for Education in Emergencies Response, charities, philanthropists, and foundations can unite to help refugee students fi nd higher-education opportunities, and to provide safe havens for lecturers and professors

persecuted by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

PEER will connect college-ready Syrian refugees with refugee-ready colleges, and it will eventually be a web-based higher-education conduit for displaced students at all grade levels worldwide.

PEER is being supported by the Institute of International Education and the Catalyst Foundation for Universal Education, an education charity founded by former New York University President John Sexton.

Beyond PEER, the Catalyst Foundation is also looking at projects to improve school auditing, spur social-impact investing in the education sector, and introduce curricula to encourage inter-faith coexistence in the Middle East and worldwide.

Schools are the fi rst places where we can promote inclusive citizenship in Middle Eastern countries.

With this in mind, the Catalyst Foundation is assessing pilot civic-education projects in the region – as well as in Eastern Europe, Africa, and the United States – to determine how school curricula can best cultivate inter-faith understanding.

A large generation of young people growing up in the Middle East and North Africa – soon to number 200mn – would be well served by an educational model that fosters cultural coexistence, especially during a time when certain politicians in the West deny that coexistence is possible.

A model curriculum need not be limited to teaching the Golden Rule or

making optimistic appeals to universal religious axioms.

It should also support courses that teach pupils that diversity is a strength and a public good for their societies.

That is what the Catalyst Foundation hopes to do.

The proposal is to work with some half-dozen pilot schools, including a secondary school in the United Arab Emirates, high schools in the US and Europe, and a secondary school in Lebanon that is taking in Syrian refugee students.

Lebanon is a particularly important participant in this project.

Despite its long history of political, social, and religious divisions, all nine-year-old pupils are introduced to a school curriculum that emphasises to all children – whether Shia, Sunni, or Christian – the worth and dignity of all faiths and the common ground between them.

The Lebanese model is a good starting point for developing a framework that can be used worldwide.

The Catalyst Foundation’s curriculum is likely to include universal themes to prompt youths from very diff erent national, religious, and cultural backgrounds to interact with one another, online or in person, by sharing their own insights and experiences.

The goal is to foster cultural and religious understanding and dialogue among young people at a critical stage of their education, with the hope that they will grow up to become their countries’ and communities’ leaders.

Indeed, reformers have many

opportunities to create new virtuous cycles across the Middle East’s education sectors, and they should take a lesson from Sir Ronald Cohen’s pioneering work in social-impact investing, and social enterprise as a whole.

Education-sector social entrepreneurs now have more fi nancing tools at their disposal than ever before – from venture capital to targeted-investment funds and other new asset classes – and they can play an important role in bringing the Middle East’s classrooms into the 21st century.

Too many past ideas that have emerged from the nonprofi t sector have stalled, owing to a lack of fi nance.

The Catalyst Foundation aims to provide seed capital for education start-ups and to help them scale up successful programmes.

For anyone who cares about education in the Middle East, our task is clear: to furnish millions of poor and vulnerable young people with the support they need to transform and improve their lives through learning.

As the Catalyst Foundation intends to show, a little social enterprise can go a long way. – Project Syndicate/Mohamed Bin Rashid Global Initiatives, 2016.

Gordon Brown, former prime minister and chancellor of the Exchequer of the United Kingdom, is United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education and Chair of the International Commission on Financing Global Education Opportunity. He chairs the Advisory Board of the Catalyst Foundation.

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Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton: the election campaign has gone on for too long

Gulf Times Friday, October 28, 2016 19

COMMENT

Live issuesLaser treatment an option for cataract removal

Theresa May’s nasty BritainTheresa May has launched attacks on “international elites” and decided to prioritise immigration controls over single-market access in negotiating the UK’s withdrawal from the EU

By Mark LeonardLondon

British Prime Minister Theresa May once warned her fellow Conservatives of the perils of being known as the “nasty

party.” But after 100 days in offi ce, she is in danger of going further, turning the United Kingdom into the nasty country.

In just a few months, May has launched attacks on “international elites” and decided to prioritise immigration controls over single-market access in negotiating the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union.

At one point recently, companies faced the threat of being compelled to furnish a list of their foreign workers.

And the 3.5mn European citizens who are settled in the UK were left to worry about whether May’s government would guarantee their residence rights.

It did not take long for the normalisation of nationalist rhetoric to aff ect the daily lives of Britain’s immigrant population.

Indeed, hate crimes began to proliferate almost immediately after June’s Brexit referendum – even before May took power.

Her government’s attitude seems to be a symptom, rather than a cause, of a broader nativist revival in Britain.

This revival has come on fairly quickly.

As recently as the 2012 Olympic Games in London, the UK was showing a very diff erent face to the world: welcoming, connected, and self-confi dent in its diversity.

The current surge in identity politics seems to refl ect a backlash against all that openness.

In fact, Britain seems to be oscillating between inclusion and exclusion – and has been for four decades.

When Margaret Thatcher was prime minister in the 1980s, she promoted exclusion, defi ning British identity with reference to its enemies – and not just external foes, like the Soviet Union

or the European Commission.There was no shortage of domestic

villains: trade unions, miners, teachers, doctors, the BBC, ethnic minorities, the Scots, the Welsh, and Irish Catholics.

By the time John Major took over the premiership in 1990, there was a sense of national malaise, fuelled by anguish about Europe and frustration with the declining prestige of British institutions.

In 1995, opinion polls showed that only a minority of the country felt “British,” while many groups – namely young people, ethnic minorities, Londoners, Scots, and Welsh – felt poorly represented.

It was around that time that I, a

precocious 23-year-old, became embroiled in the debate about national identity.

In 1997, a few months after the election of Tony Blair and a few days after the death of Princess Diana, I wrote a report arguing that, instead of mourning the death of the old narratives, we should celebrate the birth of new ones, refl ecting pride in our past successes, while touting our creativity, diversity, and openness to business.

The point of my report, which was credited with spawning the political and media eff ort to rebrand the UK known as Cool Britannia, was to recognise Britain as a “silent revolutionary” that constantly renews

itself, rather than basking in tradition.I was advocating a kind of

progressive patriotism – one that was soon embraced by Britain’s political class, beginning with Blair himself.

To my surprise, when the Conservative Party started to renew itself under May’s predecessor, David Cameron, it focused on celebrating an inclusive national identity.

Cameron and former London Mayor Boris Johnson, who now serves as foreign secretary, represented the modern, outward-looking, multiracial, multi-ethnic Britain that was broadcast to the world in the electrifying Olympic opening ceremony in 2012.

To be sure, within a couple of years, Cameron was calling for the Brexit referendum in a bid for votes, and Johnson was stepping up as a leader of the “Leave” campaign.

Nonetheless, they did not unravel the progress of the previous years.

A major opinion poll recently showed that almost a third of England’s people feel “very positive towards our multicultural society,” up from 24% in 2011.

Meanwhile, the proportion of Britons who are most strongly hostile to immigration and a multicultural society has declined, from 13% to 8%. As The Economist’s Jeremy Cliff e argued in a 2015 paper, factors like rising racial diversity, a more educated citizenry, urbanisation, and increased variety in family structure seems to be giving rise to “an emerging cosmopolitan majority” in the UK.

As with any major social shift, diversity has its detractors.

White, English, working-class men over the age of 55 feel particularly excluded from the progressive version of patriotism, and fear becoming a minority in their “own” country. (According to data cited by Cliff e, the majority of the UK’s population will be non-white by 2070.) So they are

revolting against cosmopolitanism – and May is playing to the crowd.

Some fear that this is the new normal.

When May’s government fi rst threatened to force companies to list foreign workers, I was dining with tech entrepreneurs from other EU countries who are settled in the UK.

They joked darkly about being forced to wear blue stars on their clothes, speculating that the 1990s could one day be seen as an Anglo-Saxon version of Germany’s ill-fated Weimar period.

That may be a stretch, but concerns that May’s decision to vacate the political center could represent a long-term reversal of Britain’s political moderation are very real.

Fortunately, however, the long-term trend seems to be toward inclusion, even if the UK takes a couple of steps backward today.

Even May herself, in her recent attack on cosmopolitanism, inadvertently celebrated Britain for precisely the achievements that its cosmopolitanism has enabled, from its outsize share of Nobel Prizes to the City of London’s fi nancial clout.

Nonetheless, as the Brexit vote highlighted, Britain’s success is fragile.

And the surge in hate crimes shows that the emerging cosmopolitan majority cannot simply sit back and wait for history to do its work.

It must off er a new kind of politics that places a wedge between genuine fears and isolationism.

It must show how Britain can reinvent its economy and state to deliver equitable growth, thereby regaining its agency in the world.

And it must off er new ways to build solidarity and advance inclusion.

Britain must not be allowed to become the nasty country. – Project Syndicate

Mark Leonard is Director of the European Council on Foreign Relations.

The secret success of AbenomicsBy Koichi HamadaTokyo

Tokyo is in the midst of a construction boom, with old high-rise offi ce and apartment buildings being

rebuilt in more modern and elegant forms, all while maintaining stringent environmental standards.

So bright is Tokyo’s gleam – which is sure to impress visitors at the 2020 Olympic Games – that the city might seem like an anomaly, given gloomy reports that, after decades of stagnation, Japan’s GDP growth remains anaemic.

In fact, even the small cities of Kushiro and Nemuro in Hokkaido, located near the disputed islands between Russia and Japan, are being rebuilt and modernised at a brisk pace, as is apparent to any tourist (as I was this summer). What explains this divergence between disappointing national economic data and visible progress in Japanese cities?

It may be a problem of calculation.According to offi cial data, Japan’s

economic growth slowed by one percentage point, in real terms, in the 2014 fi scal year.

Yet, according to Bank of Japan researchers, tax data suggest that growth was more than three percentage points higher than the official figure, implying that GDP

was some ¥30tn (about $300bn) larger than officially reported.

There is good reason to believe that it was.

Tax data account for distributed GDP and cover a broader swath of economic activity than traditional measures of output.

And, because few taxpayers have incentives to infl ate their reported income, the resultant fi gures are unlikely to be overestimates.

More insights into Japan’s real progress can be derived from another source: the new System of National Accounts 2008, the latest international statistical standard for national accounting by the United Nations Statistical Commission.

Tentative calculations using Japanese Cabinet Offi ce data suggest that, according the standard of the 2008 SNA – which counts research and development, including intellectual property, among fi rms’ capital assets – Japan’s 2011 GDP exceeded the published data by 4.2%, or ¥19.8tn.

A third failing of traditional GDP measurements for Japan lies in the fact that they account only for what is actually produced within the country’s borders.

But we live in a globalised world, and nowadays, Japan’s citizens are acquiring considerable income from Japanese activities abroad.

Given this, gross national income (GNI) might be a more accurate

representation of Japan’s economic circumstances.

In the 2015 fi scal year, Japan’s GNI grew by 2.5%, while its GDP grew by only 0.8%. Because Japan’s nominal GDP is now close to ¥500 tn yen, the 1.7-percentage-point diff erence between GNI and GDP amounts to ¥8.5tn.

To be sure, foreign activities are not the only reason why GNI is growing more quickly than GDP.

Even within Japan, many fi rms have lately been earning revenues at record rates, thanks largely to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s economic revitalisation eff orts.

In fact, the gradual economic growth spurred by so-called Abenomics, together with the low exchange rate that has prevailed until recently, has helped to spur the tourism that has enabled cities like Kushiro and Nemuro to fund their reconstruction.

Taken together, the growth of Japan’s GNI and the implications of tax data and 2008 SNA suggest that Japan’s economy has been doing signifi cantly better lately than the national statistics seem to suggest.

Though each new calculation focuses on a diff erent year, we can use them heuristically to estimate unaccounted-for economic progress in Japan.

The result is substantial: a ¥30tn annual adjustment for distributed income and ¥19.8tn adjustment for R&D and intellectual property.

Add the GNI adjustment of over ¥8.5tn, and Japan’s economy is nearly ¥70tn, or 14%, larger than offi cial data suggest.

While this is only a rough calculation, it is impossible to deny the potential diff erences that more comprehensive calculations can make.

This has important policy implications.

According to offi cial statistics, which place Japan’s GDP at ¥500tn, Japan is still ¥100tn away from achieving a key goal of the second iteration of Abenomics: to achieve a ¥600tn economy.

The revised reading of the statistics would reduce that shortfall by 70%. Simply put, Abenomics is not getting enough credit.

The incompleteness of the offi cial view can be frustrating, especially as Japanese stocks suff er setbacks, even as Chinese stocks increase, despite the fact that, unlike Japan, China faces considerable hidden economic risks.

A more comprehensive and accurate representation of Japan’s economic progress is vital to give investors the confi dence that Japan’s economy merits.

That, in turn, would bolster the impact of Abenomics even further. – Project Syndicate

Koichi Hamada is Emeritus Professor of Economics at Yale University, and a special adviser to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Tribune News ServiceWashington

For many, clear vision is not possible without spectacle correction, and proper eyewear is important to enjoy

vision to its fullest. While glasses or contacts can help render clear vision, sometimes your eye exam will reveal other conditions that can impact eyesight.

“Cataract, or opacity of the lens inside the eye, can keep properly focused light from fully reaching the retina,” says Mayo Clinic Health System ophthalmologist Dr Ronald Hessler. “Occasionally occurring in children or younger adults for genetic or medication reasons, this lens opacifi cation aff ects most of us to some degree in later life.”

Age-related cataracts aff ect more than 22mn Americans. Fortunately, cataract removal surgery can restore vision by removing the hazy lens and

replacing it with a clear intraocular lens (IOL) implant.

IOL implants are prescription lenses that are specifi cally chosen for your eye’s degree of nearsightedness or farsightedness, often reducing your need for glasses to see in the distance and, for some, resulting in only the need for inexpensive reading glasses. Also, IOL implant technology has advanced to allow premium lenses to neutralise astigmatism, which is irregular focusing of light into the eye, and even multifocal IOL implants to yield clear vision at distance and for reading at near.

“A question I’ve often been asked is: ‘Can cataract surgery be done with laser?’ Until recently, the answer was no,” says Hessler. “Laser refractive surgery, known by names such as Lasik (laser-assisted in-situ keratomileusis) and PRK (photorefractive keratectomy), has been popular in recent years. This technology reshapes the cornea – the clear domed windshield on the surface of the eye – to better focus light through the lens inside the eye and onto the retina, eliminating or reducing the need for glasses.”

While a viable solution for many, this treatment will not correct an eye with cataract, since the focused light still passes through the hazy cataract lens inside the eye. Your cataract surgeon must enter the eye through the cornea to access, then fragment and remove the cataract using ultrasound energy before placing the IOL implant.

Modern cataract surgery allows the incisions to be tiny (only slightly larger than the diameter of a toothpick),

resulting in speedy recovery and discharge home after the procedure lasting only about 20 minutes.

Until now, the surgeon has had to create the corneal and lens access incisions manually using blades and instruments. While a practiced surgeon can accomplish this with great skill, new laser technology enables even greater precision in creating the incisions required in cataract surgery.

The laser treatment, called femtosecond laser surgery, is performed at the beginning of the procedure, is painless and only lasts about 30 seconds. It enables more effi cient cataract removal, requiring less energy and less stress to the eye. It also results in faster recovery and getting you back to enjoying life with the best eyesight possible.

“If new glasses alone aren’t enough to correct your vision, ask your eye care provider if you have cataracts and if you are a good candidate for femtosecond laser surgery,” says Hessler. – Mayo Clinic News Network

Theresa May: 100 days in off ice

Three-day forecast

TODAY

SUNDAY

High: 34 C

Low : 26 C

High: 35 C

Low: 24 C

Weather report

Around the region

Abu DhabiBaghdadDubaiKuwait CityManamaMuscatRiyadhTehran

Weather todaySunnyP CloudySunnyP CloudySunnySunnySunnyM Sunny

Around the world

Athens BeirutBangkok BerlinCairoCape Town ColomboDhakaHong KongIstanbulJakartaKarachiLondonManilaMoscowNew DelhiNew York ParisSao PauloSeoulSingaporeSydney Tokyo Clear

Max/min17/1327/2132/2512/0729/1926/1629/2630/2430/2614/1131/2435/2217/1133/2601/-133/1811/0416/0821/1117/0631/2417/1617/11

Weather todayCloudyM SunnyT StormsCloudySunnyCloudyP CloudyS T StormsM SunnyCloudyT StormsSunnyM CloudyP CloudyCloudySunnyCloudyP CloudyP CloudyCloudyT StormsShowers

Fishermen’s forecast

OFFSHORE DOHAWind: NW 05-15/18 KTWaves: 2-4/5 Feet

INSHORE DOHAWind: NE-NW 05-15 KTWaves: 1-2 Feet

High: 34 C

Low: 23 C

SATURDAY

Hazy to misty/ foggy at places at first becomes mild temperature daytime with some local clouds.

Sunny

Sunny

Max/min37/2435/2135/2435/2033/2331/2532/1826/15

Weather tomorrowSunnySunnySunnySunnySunnySunnySunnyM Sunny

Max/min35/2233/1734/2437/2133/2433/2433/18

Max/min19/1127/2231/2511/0830/1921/1329/2631/2429/2214/0831/2432/2215/1033/2600/-133/1719/1316/0818/1311/0131/2420/1720/11

Weather tomorrowSunnySunnyT StormsP CloudyP CloudyP CloudyS T StormsI T StormsP CloudyP Cloudy T StormsSunnyP CloudyP CloudySnowSunnyM SunnyP CloudyM CloudyP CloudyT StormsShowersCloudy

26/14

20 Gulf TimesFriday, October 28, 2016

QATAR

Bangladesh’s ambassador to Qatar, Ashud Ahmed, and his wife recently hosted an Asian Ambassadors’ Group Dinner in Doha. The event was attended by the ambassadors of diff erent Asian countries and their spouses. Ibrahim Yousif Abdullah Fakhro, director of the Department of Protocol at the Ministry of Foreign Aff airs, also participated in the gathering.

Bangladesh envoy hosts Asian ambassadors’ dinner

The Apple Fest was launched at all LuLu Hypermarket outlets in Qatar yesterday. The week-long festival features more than 20 varieties of apple from Spain, France, Italy, New Zealand, the US, Portugal, South Africa, China, Sri Lanka and Iran.

Apple Fest begins at LuLu outlets

28 trucks seized in crackdownIn a crackdown on overloaded

and uncovered trucks, Al Khor and Al Thakhira Mu-

nicipality has seized 28 such ve-hicles from the Umm Al Baraka area, the Ministry of Municipal-ity and Environment (MME) said in a tweet.

The MME also informed that Doha Municipality had issued a violation report and initiated legal action against a shop in the Thumama area for selling rotten fish.

Meanwhile, the authorities concerned have conducted a clean-up drive in the play area of Al Wakrah family beach. The MME has also urged all visitors to the beach to properly dispose of garbage, including charcoal, before they leave.

The Health Control Section of Al Wakrah Municipality has destroyed 120kg of rotten fi sh at the Al Wakrah fi sh market. The fi sh was examined and found unfi t for human consumption, according to a press statement from the MME.

Meanwhile, Doha Munici-pality’s Health Control Section detected the manipulation of expiry dates of food products at a restaurant located in a hotel in the Al Rafaa area.

Labels mentioning the origi-nal expiry dates were replaced with new ones, it was found. Ac-cordingly, a violation report was issued against the restaurant for fl outing provisions of Law No 8 of 1990 on the regulation of hu-man food control.

A violation report was also is-sued against a supermarket in Madinat Khalifa South for not abiding by food safety regula-tions.

The Health Control Section of Doha Municipality found food products being stored in un-healthy conditions by the super-market inside a room behind the

shop, the MME said. The viola-tion was registered in accord-ance with Law No 8 of 1990.

The Health Control Sec-tion also issued a violation re-port against a fast-food joint in New Al Mirqab for storing and preparing food inside a labour camp, away from public view.

Further, the section issued a violation report against a cafete-ria in the Industrial Area for pre-paring and storing meals at room temperature without observing the necessary health regulations. Besides, meat of unknown origin was also found there.

In another development, sev-en boxes of imported fi sh (black Zubaidi) and one box of import-ed shrimps – collectively weigh-ing 170kg – were destroyed at the Central Market in Abu Hamour as they were found unfi t for hu-man consumption.

Meanwhile, the MME stressed that Health Control inspectors from diff erent municipalities in Qatar were continuing with their inspection campaigns at food establishments around the country to ensure compli-ance with the relevant laws and ensure the health and safety of consumers.

Such campaigns would con-tinue across Qatar in order to detect violations of food safety regulations and the erring par-ties would be dealt with strictly

in accordance with the regula-tions, the statement added.

The MME’s General Clean-liness Department (Beaches and Islands Section) has con-

ducted a clean-up campaign in the Al Ruwais fish market area. Garbage and abandoned boats were removed during the ini-tiative.

Katara to continue staging authentic Qatari cultural programme

Residents will have the op-portunity to watch and enjoy authentic Qatari

musical arts and folk singing every weekend until April 28, 2017 at the Katara – the Cultural Village esplanade.

The second edition of the cul-tural show, dubbed ‘The Revival of Qatar’s Musical Heritage and Qatari Folk Singing Programme’, is in line with Katara’s continu-ous eff orts to preserve the her-itage of Qatar’s ancestors. It will be staged between 6pm and 10pm every Thursday and Fri-day.

Some sideline activities at the event include training ses-sions, competitions, exhibi-tions, documentary research, publications, and lectures and seminars.

The previous weekend at Ka-tara saw stunning Qatari tradi-tional performances on stage, which enthralled the diverse au-dience.

Katara will also focus on showing the extent of Qatari pride and heritage, especially in documenting the various phases

of time and referring back to the lives of ancestors and the tough circumstances they went through.

Last week, a number of work-shops were organised in col-laboration with Katara Art Stu-dios, such as engraving henna on wood and canvas by Qatari artist Aisha al-Mohannadi.

The paper pulp workshop, which concludes today, has been attracting a large number of children while a live art painting expo at the Village’s Alleys will continue to amuse visitors throughout October during the weekends. Visitors will also enjoy a QatArt hand-made market today from 3pm to 8pm.

Katara Art Studios will also organise a number of art work-shops for diff erent age groups in November, including paper quilling by Shuarra Iqbal Hus-sain on the 18th, 19th and 25th; arcket art by artist Ahmad Fa-rouq on the 13th and 16th; and Art of Islamic Geometry by Azi-za Iqbal, which will take place on the 10th, 17th and 24th.

Host of activities at ‘Family Fun Fridays’ today

The ‘Family Fun Fridays’ series contin-ues today at The Pearl-Qatar.

Organised by United Develop-ment Company (UDC), master developer of The Pearl-Qatar, today’s activities include balloon twisting, games for children, face painting and drawing.

Mascots, stilt walkers and clowns will roam around Qanat Quartier 6A (boardwalk level near Salik rent a car and Eskisehir) to welcome and entertain visitors from 5pm to 9pm. Popcorn, cotton candy and ice cream will also be distributed free at the event, which has been attracting dozens of families every week.

The next ‘Family Fun Fridays’ will take place at Qanat Quartier 5A (near The Furr Camp and Evergreen Organics Café) on No-vember 4 and at Qanat Quartier 7 (near The Breakfast Club) on November 11.An artist participating in an activity at Katara.

Clean-up at Al Ruwais. The crackdown on overloaded and uncovered trucks.

The play area at the Al Wakrah family beach.

Food items stored inside a room behind a supermarket in Madinat Khalifa.

Food stored and prepared inside a labour camp by an eatery in New Al Mirqab.

Inspection at the Al Wakrah fish market.

Organised by UDC, master developer of The Pearl-Qatar, today’s activities include balloon twisting, games for children, face painting and drawing

Two new fuel stations set to open this month - Gulf Times

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