Iraqi channel faces month-long banBaghdad

Iraqi authorities have ordered the closure for a month of Al Dijla television, which

has aired intensive coverage of anti-government protests in re-cent months, media and police sources said on Tuesday.

“Interior Ministry forces fully shut down Al Dijla’s offices in Baghdad last night and respect-fully asked the staff to leave,” a source from the broadcaster said. An Interior Ministry of-ficial confirmed that security forces had stormed the offices in the Jadiriyah neighbourhood of east Baghdad late on Monday.

At least 80 employees work at the Baghdad bureau and an-other 50 work at the station’s headquarters in Amman, from where it broadcasts.

The Al Dijla employee, speak-ing on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the press, said the main office had been ordered

by Jordanian authorities to stop broadcasting for a month.

The Iraqi government re-quested from Jordan that it halt the station’s broadcasting for a month based on an Iraqi com-plaint,” the source said.

Starting on Monday, the fre-quency on which Al Dijla typ-ically broadcasts has showed a still image of its logo.

Al Dijla has provided daily coverage of the anti-government protests sweeping Baghdad and the Shi’ite-majority south since Oct 1, despite pressure on its staff.

02Al Azhar Al Sharif ‘a true symbol of Islamic unity’

03CBB issues warning over ‘fraud’ cryptocurrency trading platform

04Asian trio given death sentence in Al Daih hammer murder trial

8

US recovers remains from Afghanistan plane crash 5WORLD

OP-EDS P O R T S

Stage set for horseracing spectacleOne of the highlights of the horseracing season is scheduled to take place on Friday at Rashid Eques-trian and Horseracing Club (REHC) in Riffa. P16

WEDNESDAYJANUARY 2020

210 FILS ISSUE NO. 8371

The history and havoc of the desert locust

When Sienna Miller cried on reading a film script 14 CELEBS

29WHATSAPP38444692

TWITTER@newsofbahrain

MAILmail@newsofbahrain.com

WEBSITEnewsofbahrain.com

FACEBOOK/nobmedia

LINKEDINnewsofbahrain

INSTAGRAM/nobmedia

P R O T E S T C O V E R A G E

DON’T MISS IT

210 fils (includes VAT)

Muharraq were last night crowned champions of the 2019/2020 Bahrain First Division Volleyball League. They clinched the title after defeating Al Ahli 3-1 (25-18, 26-24, 18-25, 25-17) in yesterday’s second game of their best-of-three championship series. The result secured Muharraq’s sweep of the finals. It was the 15th title for the club in the history of the national league. Following the match, Bahrain Volleyball Association president Shaikh Ali bin Mohammed Al Khalifa and Bahrain Olympic Committee secretary general Mohammed Al Nusuf awarded the top two teams their trophies and medals. Dar Kulaib finished the league as bronze medallists after overcoming Al Najma in their final classification match-up. Above, Muharraq players, club members and fans celebrate during the award ceremony with Shaikh Ali and other officials.

Two Iraqis were killed and dozens wounded in protest-related violence on Tuesday.

Muharraq crowned

Birthday wishes to His MajestyManama

His Majesty King Ham-ad bin Isa Al Khalifa

received a congratulatory message from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, and Chair of the Commonwealth, on the occasion of His Majes-ty’s birthday, yesterday.

Queen Elizabeth ex-pressed her sincere con-gratulations to His Majesty the King on the occasion, wishing His Majesty the well-being and happiness.

Caribbean tremor triggers tsunami warningsFlorida

A powerful 7.7-magnitude earthquake has struck

in the Caribbean, prompting brief tsunami warnings for parts of the region, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said on Tuesday.

The quake hit between Jamaica, the Cayman Is-lands and Cuba at a depth of 10 km (6.2 miles), the USGS said.

Buildings shook and tremors were felt as far away as Miami, but there were no immediate reports of casualties.

Warnings by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) were later with-drawn.

The PTWC initially said “hazardous tsunami waves” were possible for coasts lo-cated within 300km (186 miles) of the earthquake’s epicentre.

‘Feeble’ peace plan Trump plan calls for Palestinian state with capital in eastern Jerusalem

• Trump unveiled his plan at the White House alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Washington, DC

US P r e s i d e n t D o n a l d Trump yesterday un-veiled a long-awaited

Middle East peace plan that broadly favoured Israel, as ex-pected, but also defied expecta-tions by offering the Palestinian people a path to statehood.

Trump proposed a Palestini-an state double the size of the existing Palestinian territories, with East Jerusalem as its cap-ital and a US Embassy there; high-speed rail links between Palestinian areas and a tun-nel linking the West Bank and Gaza; a four-year ban on Israeli settlement building on land earmarked for a Palestinian state; $50 billion in economic aid; and continued oversight by Jordan of Al Aqsa mosque compound.

However, major Israeli set-tlements would remain, punc-

turing large parts of Palestine, Israel would take control of the

whole Jordan Valley, and the refugee issue must be “settled

outside Israel.” He admitted the plan was

good for Israel, but said it also had to benefit the Pales-tinians “otherwise it wouldn’t be fair.”

However, Abbas immediately rejected the plan on Tuesday night. Visibly angry on Palestin-ian TV, he said: “No, a thousand times no.”

That the plan was based on a unified Jerusalem as the undi-vided capital of Israel is “enough for us to reject it,” he said.

The plan report contains two “conceptual maps” for the states of Israel and Palestine.

I am saddened by the fate of the

Palestinian people. They deserve a far

better life. TRUMP

02WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29, 2020

Customer Care: +973 1722 8224 | customer.care@bh.uaeexchange.com | corp.uaeexchange.com/bhr

His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the Crown Prince, Deputy Supreme Commander and First Deputy Prime Minister, yesterday received Iqbal Khan, member of the Executive Board and Co-President of Global Wealth Management at UBS Group AG, at Gudaibiya Palace. HRH the Crown Prince highlighted the Government’s commitment to continue diversifying Bahrain’s economic base, in line with the Kingdom’s comprehensive development led by HM King Hamad. In this regard, HRH the Crown Prince underlined the important role financial and banking institutions play in propelling growth and creating quality job opportunities for citizens. For his part, Mr Khan welcomed the efforts of HRH the Crown Prince to ensure the continued strength of Bahrain’s financial sector. Shaikh Salman bin Khalifa Al Khalifa, Minister of Finance and National Economy, and Rasheed Al Maraj, Governor of the Central Bank of Bahrain and a number of officials, also attended the meeting.

President of the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (SCIA) Shaikh Abdulrahman bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Khalifa yesterday took part in Al Azhar Al Sharif’s international conference on renovation in Islamic thought and sciences which kicked off in Cairo under the auspices of Egyptian President Abdelfattah El Sisi, with the participation of high profile delegations from all over the world. Addressing the conference, the SCIA President called to fathom the depth of the Holy Quran, Sunnah and jurisprudence to determine the religious stance from crucial contemporary issues. He lauded the efforts of Al Azhar Al Sharif and its historical role over ten centuries in promoting Islam and its noble values as well as renovating thought and discourse while relying on the invariables.

Adviser to His Majesty the King for Media Affairs, Nabeel Al Hamer, received Maestro Waheed Alkhan, who presented to him a copy of his book “Dive Songs in Bahrain” the third edition. The book contains the most important songs and popular music in Bahrain, it has won the Scientific Research Award for the year 1990. Mr Al Hamer praised the maestro’s effort in preparing this valuable book, noting that it is the only book specialised in folk music and includes an analytical study of diving songs, which is an important addition to enrich national libraries.

Al Azhar Al Sharif ‘a true symbol of Islamic unity’

Cairo

President of the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (SCIA), Shaikh

Abdulrahman bin Moham-med bin Rashid Al Khalifa, met here yesterday the Grand Imam of Al Azhar Al Sharif, Dr Ahmed Al Tayib.

Shaikh Abdulrahman Al Khali fa conveyed greet-ings from His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, His Royal Highness Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa and His Royal Highness Prince Sal-man bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the Crown Prince, Deputy Su-preme Commander and First Deputy Premier, to Al Azhar Grand Imam, as well as HM the King’s wishes of further progress and prosperity to brotherly Egypt’s leadership and people.

Dr Ahmed Al Tayib ex-

pressed deep appreciation for the Kingdom of Bahrain and HM King Hamad for the great role he is playing in serving Islam and promoting moder-ation, co-existence and peace.

SCIA President congratu-lated Dr Ahmed Al Tayib on the outstanding success of the “Al Azhar International Conference on Renovation of Islamic Thought,” praising the event’s theme.

S h a i k h A b d u l r a h m a n Al Khalifa affirmed that Al Azhar Al Sharif is the symbol of moderation, a beacon of knowledge and a centre for Muslims’ unity, citing its his-torical role in spreading tol-erant values of Islam, as well as renewing Islamic thought and discourse, which gained it respect from all Islamic sects, lauding the depth of the relations between Bahrain and Al Azhar Al Sharif and its scholars.

He also commended the efforts exerted by Al Azhar Grand Imam in promoting the values of moderation and co-existence, wishing him abundant health and further success.

Dr Ahmed Al Tayib ex-pressed pride in Al Azhar Al Sharif ’s good relations with the Kingdom, in general, and the SCIA, in particular, valuing highly Bahrain’s participation in Al Azhar’s international conference.

He also praised SCIA Pres-ident’s speech at the confer-ence, wishing the fraternal Bahraini-Egyptian relations further progress.

Chairman of the Jafari En-dowments Council Yusef bin Saleh Al Saleh and the SCIA’s Chairman Office Director Mohammed Jalal Al Sayed, in addition to several offi-cials from Al Azhar Al Sharif attended the meeting.

The US Embassy Chargé d’Affaires Margret Nardi has opened the “Mujawara” Art Exhibit at Bait Al Salmaniya. The US Embassy sponsored the exhibit, which was organised by the Mashq Art Gallery. The art exhibit showcased the results of “Mujawara,” a mentorship programme organised by the Mashq Art Gallery, where talented and professional artists come together in one place, to exchange knowledge, experiences, and expertise. In her remarks at the event, Chargé d’Affaires Nardi expressed admiration for the beautiful works of art. Mashq Art Gallery owner Ali Al Bazzaz, Bait Al Salmaniya, owner Elham Fakhro and her and staff, as well as young, professional artists and Bahrainis interested in art attended the opening.

Dr Ahmed Al Tayib receives Shaikh Abdulrahman.

03WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29, 2020

CBB issues warning over ‘fraud’ cryptocurrency trading platform

‘bahrain.bitcoin’ claims to have been licensed by CBB as cryptocurrency trading platform

• The CBB also stressed the need for consumers to ensure the utmost care and caution, and take into consideration the risks, when investing.

• The Ministry of Interior has warned the public to exercise alertness and not be scammed by such fraudsters.  

TDT | Manama

A fraudulent organisa-tion is targeting the Kingdom’s citizens and

residents in an attempt to sell cryptocurrency.

A fraud institution under the name ‘bahrain.bitcoin’ claims to have been licensed by the Central Bank of Bahrain (CBB) as a cryptocurrency trading platform, which was yesterday denied by the CBB.

“The CBB wishes to empha-sise that the above-mentioned entity is not licensed by the CBB

and that the activity of pro-moting financial services to residents in the Kingdom falls within the scope of regulated financial services in accord-ance with the CBB and Finan-cial Institutions Law of 2006,” the CBB stated in a statement issued.

The CBB also stressed the need for consumers to ensure the utmost care and caution, and take into consideration the risks, when investing, dealing or trading any amounts with any person, persons, institu-tions, companies or websites, including social media, and en-suring that they hold the neces-sary licenses from the Central Bank of Bahrain to engage in such activities.

“Consumers are encouraged to visit the register of licensed financial institutions on CBB’s website to verify the authentic-ity of such institutions.”

Recently, the public were being warned that SMS mes-sages being sent to them by fraudsters imitating the au-thorities.

Text messages were sent to citizens and residents by fraud-sters who are claiming to be Bahraini security authorities.

The fraudsters are sending messages to the public about bank transactions claiming to be from the Crime Investiga-

tion Department. The Ministry of Interior has

warned the public to exercise alertness and not be scammed by such fraudsters.  

Tribune recently reported about an unlicensed financial institution that has been cheat-ing customers in the name of marketing investments in se-curities in the Kingdom.

The CBB issued the warning as a result of unlicensed activ-ities by the institution under the name of “United Invest-ment Bank”, which provides asset management, brokerage and investment banking ser-vices. 

The so-called bank claims to be a multi-award winning financial services company lo-cated in the Kingdom, which provides its clients with a range of diverse, innovative

and Shariah compliant finan-cial products and services.

Tribune found that the bank was allegedly operating un-der a different name in Saudi Arabia.

However, no contact num-bers were available for the bank in Bahrain as well as Sau-di Arabia.

Meanwhile, there were no social media accounts associ-ated with the institution. 

“Capitalising on the world-class experience and through the expertise of its investment teams, the United Investment Bank is a market leader in the delivery of bespoke financial and investment solutions, which address the ever-chang-ing needs of clients, institu-tional customers and high-net-worth individuals,” the institu-tion states on its website.

The website even lists a com-mercial registration number in Saudi Arabia while mentioning itself as a closed joint stock company.

The CBB emphasised that the entity was not licensed by it and that the activity of pro-moting financial services to residents in the Kingdom falls within the scope of regulated financial services in accord-ance with the Central Bank of Bahrain and Financial Institu-tions Law of 2006. An advertisement posted by the accused company on Instagram.

Consumers are encouraged to visit

the register of licensed financial

institutions on CBB’s website to verify the

authenticity of such institutions.

CBB

Bahrain-UK space ties discussed

London

Minister of Transpor-tation and Telecom-

munication Kamal Ahmed, the Board Chairman of the National Space Science Agency (NSSA), headed the Kingdom’s delegation on an official visit to the United Kingdom, which was co-or-dinated in co-operation with the UK Space Agency.

The minister was accom-panied by NSSA Chief Execu-tive Dr Mohammed Ibrahim Al Asiri and Board of Direc-tors Adviser Dr Mohammed Jassim Al Othman.

The visit’s programme in-cluded holding official meet-ings with public institutions and centres specialising in the space field and related ap-plications. The Bahraini del-egation got informed about technical equipment, logistic facilities and the latest tech-nologies in operating land and space control stations.

The delegation also held meetings with private sector companies to get updated on the latest developments and global trend in the space sector.

Mr Kamal Ahmed

Expatriate diagnosed with spinal stroke seeks help

TDT | Manama Pradeep Puravankara

A 20-year-old expatriate, who is undergoing treat-ment at King Hamad

University Hospital after suffer-ing a spinal stroke, is seeking help from generous individuals.

Muhsin, Indian national was employed with a restaurant in Segaya and had come to the Kingdom only six months ago.

He belongs to a low-income family in Thrissur district of Ker-ala state.

Even after recovery, Muhsin will have to undergo further treatments in India to lead a normal life, according to doc-tors here.

Many expatriate social work-ers have formed a committee to raise funds for helping Muhsin to continue treatment in India.

The initiative is headed by Dr P V Cherian while social workers Subair Kannur, K T Salim and Nasser Manchery are part of it.

Those are interested to help Muhsin, please give a ring to 35476523 (Saifuddin, general convenor of the committee).

Muhsin is currently undergoing treatment at King Hamad University Hospital.

Lawmakers vote to build mosque in Amwaj Islands

TDT | Manama

MPs yesterday unan-imously voted for a proposal to oblige the

government build a mosque in Amwaj Islands.

This came during the regular weekly meeting of the Council of Representatives, held yesterday in Gudaibiya.

During the session, the MPs reviewed a report submitted by the Legislative and Legal Affairs Committee in the council on the proposal.

Submitted by five MPs, the proposal stipulates building a mosque in Amwaj Islands, which “has been constructed around 20 years ago and still lacks a mosque”, according to the MPs who submitted the proposal.

The MPs demanded the gov-ernment in their proposal to

build a mosque in the area, as they referred to the importance of prayers considering that Bahrain is an Islamic country and all areas must have mosques in them.

“Residents and visitors of Amwaj Islands are forced to go to the nearby areas to pray. Amwaj Islands is a tourist at-traction and receives most of the Kingdom’s visitors. Bahrain

is an Islamic country and this must be reflected across all of its areas,” the MPs said.

The five MPs who submit-ted the proposal were Khalid Buanq, who’s the parliamentary representative of the area, Ibra-him Al Nefai’ee, Zainab Abdu-lameer, Adel Al Assoomy, who submitted a similar proposal in 2014 but it was shelved, and Mohammed Al Abbasi.

“We hope to see more mosques constructed in Amwaj Islands, which is a big area of around 11 square kilometres, and especially that more people are moving in this area to live,” Mr Al Assoomy commented during yesterday’s session.

All the attending 29 MPs voted for the proposal, which is now referred to the government for reviewal. 

Amwaj Islands is a tourist attraction and receives most of the Kingdom’s visitors. Bahrain is an

Islamic country and this must be reflected across

all of its areas. LAWMAKERS

An aerial view of Amwaj Islands.

04WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29, 2020

Theatre producer convicted of forging visa application, illegal entry loses appeal  

TDT | Manama

The Supreme Court of Appeal recently upheld a three years imprison-

ment sentence issued against a stateless man who forged a visa application to enter Bah-rain on several occasions.

The appellant, who is a film and theatre play producer liv-ing in a fellow GCC state, re-portedly falsified a visit visa application to enter Bahrain using a  fake  stamp that be-longs to a registered Bahraini movie production company and counterfeited the signa-ture of its owner. 

The case was filed against the producer by the owner of the Bahraini movie pro-duction company, revealing that he, the producer, had previously agreed with him to produce a theatre play here, but failed to live up to the agreement.

According to the complain-ant, the company faced claims amounting to BD9,000 owing to the producer’s failure to meet the contract conditions.

The owner mentioned in his statements that he had met the producer back in  2017  through a Bahraini actor, adding that the pro-ducer expressed his desire to present a  theatre play  in the Kingdom.

“He told me he wanted to co-operate with my company because it was involved in the production and distribution

of  theatre plays and movies. He also mentioned that he wasn’t a GCC national, hence requested the company’s sup-port in this regard,” the owner told Prosecutors. 

“The agreement states that he would bear all the losses in case the play wasn’t a success. He showcased the  play  and I was paid BD500. Howev-er, the club which hosted the play  filed a case against my company demanding us to pay BD9,000 in compensation of arrears he failed to settle. I called him over the phone and informed him, and he prom-ised me to pay the amount,” he added. 

The owner later travelled to India with his wife for treatment. Then, he found out that the producer entered Bahrain on several occasions using the company’s stamp and the owner’s signature af-ter forging it to submit visa applications.

Asian trio given death sentence in Al Daih hammer murder trial

Defendants carried out the murder following a dispute over BD1,000

• The results of the criminal investigation indicated that the three men had beaten the victim to death using hammers and cement blocks.

• The trio told the interrogators that they had requested the victim to meet them after he apparently cheated them by selling them a work permit.

TDT | Manama

The First High Criminal Court yesterday sen-tenced three Asian men

to death after finding them guilty of killing a fellow na-tional using a hammer in the Capital Governorate last year.

Tribune reported earlier that the motive behind the murder was a dispute over an amount of BD1,000 the victim owed to the trio, who killed him after luring him to an abandoned land in Al Daih village.

The results of the criminal investigation indicated that the three men had beaten the vic-

tim to death using hammers and cement blocks, after an argument over the amount he owed them had apparently gone out of control.

The case was first reported when the General Directorate

of Criminal Investigation and Forensic Science was notified about a severely injured man found in a farm in Al Daih, a couple of kilometres to the west of the Capital.

The victim was rushed to Sal-maniya Medical Complex after informing the cops that he was attacked and robbed by three individuals. The man soon succumbed to his wounds and passed away in the hospital.

The authorities launched a manhunt to nab the three suspects, who were eventual-ly arrested after investigators acknowledged that they are related to the victim.

The trio told the interroga-tors that they had requested the victim to meet them after he apparently cheated them by selling them a work permit (employment visa) for BD1,000, promising that it is valid for two years, while it was actually only valid for one year.

On May 14, 2019, the Public Prosecution accused the three men of pre-mediated murder and robbing the victim. The Prosecution ordered to detain them and referred the case to the First High Criminal Court, which deliberated the case and announced its verdict yes-terday.

New CEO appointed Manama

His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa issued

Decree 2 for 2020 appoint-ing Noof Abdulrahman Jam-sheer as the Chief Executive Officer of the Urban Planning and Development Authority.

 The Minister of Works, Municipality Affairs and Ur-ban Planning will implement the Decree that takes effect on the day of its issuance and is published in the Official Gazette.

Infra projects discussed Manama

Southern Governor Shaikh Khalifa bin Ali bin Khalifa

Al Khalifa and Minister of Works, Municipality Affairs and Urban Planning Essam Khalaf discussed the ongoing work in many services and development projects being implemented in the Southern Governorate.

 The Southern Governor affirmed that the civilisa-tional image of the Southern Governorate reflects coop-eration and coordination be-tween the governorate and various ministries, includ-ing the Works, Municipality Affairs and Urban Planning Ministry, to achieve citizens’ aspirations.

The Minister of Works, Municipality Affairs and Ur-ban Planning praised coordi-nation between the ministry and the Southern Governo-rate in implementing various infrastructure projects that meet citizens’ needs.

Al Qulai’a’ housing unit second phase distribution beginsManama

Following an order by His Royal Highness Prince Sal-man bin Hamad Al Khal-

ifa, the Crown Prince, Deputy Supreme Commander and First Deputy Prime Minister, to dis-tribute 5,000 housing units, in line with the royal directives, the Housing Ministry announced that the distribution of the units of the second phase of the “Al

Qulai’a” district in East Hidd, has started.

 In this regard, Housing Min-istry’s Undersecretary, Shaikh Abdulla bin Ahmed Al Khalifa said that efforts are in full swing to complete the East Hidd Hous-ing Project in order to implement His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa’s order to build 40,000 housing units, noting that the “East Hidd” residential town is essential for the Housing Min-

istry’s plans to implement the royal order.

He asserted that the units of the second phase of the “Al Qulai’a” district are being distributed following the completion of the construction and infrastructure works there, noting that the units of the first phase of the 740-unit project was distributed marking the kingdom’s celebrations of the glorious National Day.

Including 4036 units and 496

housing plots, the East Hidd Town Project can accommodate up to 28,000 people.

It features basic facilities and services, including schools for all stages, houses of worship, health centres and clinics, in addition to 58,000 square metres of public gardens, 300,000 square metres of green spaces, 35 kilometres of marine parks and four-kilo-metre-long walkways and bicy-cle lanes.

‘Cultivate hope among child cancer patients’ TDT | Manama

During an open session organised by the “Smile” initiative, Ibrahim Al

Tamimi, a well-known speaker and journalist highlighted the importance of the full support from parents to their children who suffer from cancer, and the need to motivate them to face the disease with courage, and confront their peers and the reality as it is.

“The external side effect in any cancer patient such as hair loss or changes in body shape should be a mark that distin-guishes the particular person from others, a mark to be proud of and never to hide,” said Mr Al Tamimi.

Mr Al Tamimi spoke during an open session organised by “Smile” initiative of the Future Youth Society for providing psychological and social sup-port for children with cancer in the Kingdom of Bahrain, in the presence of several families

of children with cancer who are sponsored by the society.

“Chronic diseases that affect a person’s life such as cancer, diabetes, alopecia, autism, and

others are judgments destined by the Lord of the worlds, but he stressed the need for the patient to receive societal support to helps him to overcome difficult stages of the disease, especially the first shock, and then move to acceptance stage of the new situation, then moving on to a more advanced stage during which the patient realises that he is positively distinguished from his peers, due to his great ability to give. 

Mr Al Tamimi warned that surrendering to such disease considered the fastest path to isolation and death, “We must view disease as a temporary stage from which we can over-come stronger and more deter-mined to move forward in the path of life and success until

God decides what to be done.”He also advised getting ac-

quainted with the paths of great people throughout history whose diseases or disabilities were a reason for their distinc-tion, noting that Arab, Islam-ic and international history is full of characters that exceeded their physical crisis and gave humanity so much.

Mr Al Tamimi discussed with the attendees the cases of their children, and also the parents of recovered children whom have passed the stages of the disease for years, and addressed them by saying, “Your children are now in good health, they are special, and you must cultivate hope in them and push them towards excellence and achieve-ment”.

The suspects were charged with pre-mediated murder and robbing the

victim. PROSECUTORS

28,000people are expected to

be accommodated under East Hidd Town Project.

Mr Al Tamimi being honoured at the event.

Mr Al Tamimi speaks at the open session.

The club which hosted the play filed

a case against my company demanding

us to pay BD9,000 in compensation of arrears he failed to

settle.FRAUD VICTIM

05

world

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29, 2020

KNOW WHAT

US recovers remains from Afghanistan plane crash

• US officials have not said how many people were on board

• The Pentagon has confirmed the aircraft belonged to US forces

• What appeared to be at least two bodies could be seen at the crash site

Reuters | Washington/Kabul

The United States yes-terday recovered the remains of individuals

from a US military aircraft that crashed in Afghanistan and was in the process of confirming their identities, US and Afghan officials said yesterday.

On Monday, the US mili-tary said an E-11A aircraft had crashed in the province of Ghazni, but disputed claims by the Taliban militant group that they brought it down.

Earlier yesterday, Afghan forces and Taliban fighters clashed in a central region where the US military plane crashed as the government tried to reach the wreckage site in a Taliban stronghold.

The US defence official, speak-

ing on condition of anonymity, said multiple attempts had been made to recover the remains but they had been hampered by the terrain and weather.

The official said the remains were believed to be of two ser-vice members who were on the plane.

The Pentagon declined to comment.

Ghazni provincial police chief, Khalid Wardak, said that two bodies were airlifted by US forces from the crash site yes-terday.

Zabiullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, said Afghan forces backed by US military support had tried to capture the area

around the crashed aircraft and clashed with fighters of the Is-lamist militant group.

The attempt was repelled, he told Reuters, but the Taliban would allow a rescue team ac-cess to recover bodies from the crash site.

“Taliban fighters on the ground counted six bodies at the site of the US airplane crash,” he said, adding that while there could have been more, the mili-tant group could not be certain, as fire had reduced everything to ashes.

Speaking on condition of an-onymity, US officials said the plane was carrying fewer than five people when it crashed,

with one official saying initial information showed there were at least two.

The crashed jet, built by B o m b a rd i e r I n c , i s u s e d t o p r o v i d e c o m m u n i c a -tion capabilities in remote locations.

The incident came as the Tal-iban and the United States have been in talks to end the 18-year war in Afghanistan.

Trump has long called for an end to US involvement in Af-ghanistan, which began with an American invasion trig-gered by the Sept. 11, 2001, at-tacks that al Qaeda launched f ro m t h e n -Ta l i b a n - r u l e d Afghanistan.

The wreckage of a US Bombardier E-11A jet after it went down in Taliban-controlled territory in eastern Afghanistan

Court paves way for African cheetahs to be shipped to India

New Delhi

Cheetahs could return to the wild in India after the

Supreme Court yesterday gave approval for the spotted big cat to be introduced from Africa on an experimental basis.

The majestic Asiatic chee-tahs once roamed India, with historical records suggesting Mughal emperor Akbar kept hundreds as his hunting com-

panions.But it was hunted close to

extinction during the British colonial era before disappear-ing in the 1950s.

In 2013 the Supreme Court had rejected a proposal by the environment ministry to im-port the animal from Africa, stating that there was no sci-entific study to back the move.

However on Tuesday the court ruled the world’s fastest land mammal could be brought to India as part of a trial to find out if it can adapt.

T h e c o u r t s e t u p a three-member committee to guide the National Tiger Con-servation Authority on the is-sue, the Press Trust of India reported.

India’s former environment minister Jairam Ramesh wel-comed the decision.

“Delighted that Supreme Court has just given OK to reintroducing cheetah from Namibia. This was something I had initiated 10 years ago,” he tweeted.

“Cheetah which derives from the Sanskrit ‘chitra’ (speckled) is the only mam-mal hunted to extinction in modern India.”

Representative picture

The cheetah is consid-ered vulnerable under

the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, with

a declining population of less than 7,000 found primarily in African sa-vannas. A small Asiatic

population is also found in Iran where it is criti-

cally endangered.

New Zealand PM Ardern calls September electionWellington

New Zealand Prime Min-ister Jacinda Ardern has

called a general election for September, in a vote that will test whether her widespread popularity overseas is matched by support at home.

The centre-left leader on Tuesday announced Kiwis would go to the polls on Sep-tember 19, two months ahead of the last possible date for the ballot, when she will seek a second three-year term.

“I will be asking New Zea-landers to continue to support my leadership and the current direction of the government, which is grounded in stability, a strong economy and progress on the long term challenges facing New Zealand,” Ardern said.

The 39-year-old’s first term won her international fame -- she became a mother while in office and received praise for her sensitive handling of the Christchurch mosques killings and the White Island volcano tragedy.

But while she has been feted overseas, opinion polls show her standing at home has slipped.

Opposition leader Simon Bridges has led the cen-

tre-right National party into more populist territory, at-tacking Ardern over a land dispute with Maori groups and attacking Ardern’s gun buy-back scheme introduced after Christchurch.

Ardern has also come under fire for her party’s long-run-ning KiwiBuild scheme, which was designed to make owning a home more affordable by constructing 100,000 homes, but has so far failed to match expectations.

Meanwhile, the New Zea-land economy has struggled under low growth, while the cost of living has risen.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s first term won her international fame

John Bolton revelations roil Trump trialWashington

Pressure mounted on Re-publicans on Monday to

call former national security advisor John Bolton as a wit-ness at Donald Trump’s Senate impeachment trial following explosive new revelations about the US president’s dealings with Ukraine.

As Clinton impeachment in-vestigator Ken Starr resumed the White House defense of Trump on the Senate floor, at least three Republican sena-tors indicated they would fa-vor hearing testimony from the 71-year-old Bolton.

According to The New York Times, Bolton, in a draft of his upcoming book, says that Trump told him in August that he wanted to freeze military aid to Ukraine until Kiev opened an investigation into his poten-tial November election rival Joe Biden.

The allegation that Trump withheld the aid for his own political purposes is at the heart of Trump’s impeachment by the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives for abuse of power and obstruction of Con-gress.

Four Republicans would need to join forces with Democrats in the Senate -- where Republicans hold a 53 to 47 seat edge -- to allow testimony from Bolton

and other witnesses sought by Democrats.

Republican Senator Mitt Romney of Utah said he be-lieved there may be enough Republican backing to compel Bolton to testify.

“It’s increasingly apparent that it would be important to hear from John Bolton,” Rom-ney told reporters. “I think it’s increasingly likely that other Republicans will join those of us who think we should hear from John Bolton.”

Susan Collins, a Republican senator from Maine, said the Bolton reports “strengthen the case for witnesses.”

Lisa Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska, said she has always

been “curious as to what John Bolton might have to say.”

Chief Democratic prosecu-tor Adam Schiff welcomed the news that Republicans were considering calling Bolton to testify at what is just the third impeachment trial of a presi-

dent in US history.“You can’t have a trial, a

meaningful trial, without wit-nesses and you certainly can’t have one without John Bolton,” Schiff said. “Senators should not wait until March 17 when the book comes out. They should demand this information while it would still be pertinent to their decision.”

While just 51 senators are required to allow further trial witnesses, 67 senators -- a two-thirds majority -- are needed to remove Trump from office.

‘Age of impeachment’Trump lashed out at Bolton

on Twitter, denying he had ever told his former aide that mili-tary assistance to Ukraine was tied to Kiev investigating Biden or his son Hunter, who served on the board of a Ukrainian gas company.

“I NEVER told John Bolton that the aid to Ukraine was tied to investigations into Demo-crats, including the Bidens,” Trump said.

“In fact, he never complained about this at the time of his very public termination. If John Bol-ton said this, it was only to sell a book.”

Speaking later to reporters, Trump said he had not yet seen the manuscript, which was sub-mitted to the White House last month for security clearance.

John Bolton’s revelations came as White House lawyers prepared to resume their defense of President Donald Trump (pictured left)

06WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29, 2020

C o u n t r i e s e v a c u a t i n g n a t i o n a l s

f r o m C h i n a v i r u s a r e a s

India says gearing up

India is preparing to evacuate citizens from China’s Hubei province following the coronavirus outbreak, a Foreign

Ministry spokesman said yesterday. Local media reported earlier that an Air India plane

was on standby to evacuate an estimated 250 Indians from Wuhan, a city in Hubei province that is at the epicentre of the virus.

“We have begun the process to prepare for evacuation of Indian nationals affected by the situation arising out of Corona-2019 virus outbreak in Hubei Province, China,” spokesman Raveesh Kumar said in a tweet.

Authorities were working out the logistics of moving people out of the city which is under a lockdown, he said.

Japan will send a charter flight

Japan will send a charter flight to Wuhan on Tuesday night. Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi said the

flight can carry around 200 passengers, but added about 650 citizens hope to return to Japan. Motegi said Tokyo is making arrangements for extra flights to Wuhan as early as Wednesday. Those with symptoms such as fever will be sent to hospital on landing at Tokyo’s Haneda airport, while those with no signs of virus can go home and then to work or school, but will be advised to avoid crowds and take their temperatures twice a day.

98 Kazakh students

Kazakhstan has asked Beijing to allow 98 Kazakh students to leave the city of Wuhan, deputy foreign

minister Shukhrat Nuryshev said.

Germany, Morocco, France, Spain

Germany will evacuate 90 citizens living in China’s Wuhan region.

Morocco will evacuate 100 citizens, mostly students, from the Wuhan area.

France expects to repatriate up to a few hundred of its 800 citizens living in the Wuhan area. Evacuees will have to spend 14 days in quarantine to avoid spreading the virus in France.

Spain’s government is working with China and the European Union to repatriate Spanish nationals from the Wuhan area, Foreign Minister Arancha Gonzalez Laya said.

US, Britain, Canada

The U.S. State Department said it will evacuate person-nel from its Wuhan consulate to the United States and

offer a limited number of seats to private U.S. citizens on a flight. Some private citizens will be able to board the “single flight” leaving Wuhan on Jan. 28 for San Francisco, it said.

Britain is talking to international partners to find solu-tions to help British and other foreign nationals leave Wu-han, a spokesman for Prime Minister Boris Johnson said.

Canada has about 167 nationals in the Wuhan area, Foreign Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said on Monday, and eight people have sought consular assistance, which is being provided. While the minister did not rule out possible evacuations, he did not indicate there were any planned at the moment, adding that each consular request would be evaluated on a “case by case basis”.

Russia, Netherlands, Myanmar

Russia has been in talks with China about evacuating its nationals from Wuhan and Hubei province, Russia’s

embassy in China said.The Dutch government is assessing ways to evacuate 20

Dutch citizens from Wuhan, press agency ANP reported.Authorities in Myanmar said they had cancelled a

planned evacuation of 60 students who were studying in Wuhan. Kyaw Yin Myint, a spokesman for the Mandalay municipal government, told Reuters that a “final decision” had been made to send them back after 14 days, once the virus’ incubation period had passed.

Security personnel stand in front of a disaster relief tent at a checkpoint in Yunxi county, Hunan province, near the border to Hubei province, on virtual lockdown after an outbreak of a new coronavirus, in China

China virus toll tops 100• Number of confirmed infections doubled to over 4,500

• The government has sealed off Wuhan and other cities in central Hubei province

• Medical facilities have been overwhelmed in Wuhan

• The World Health Organization last week stopped short of declaring the outbreak a global emergency

Wuhan | China

The United States and oth-er nations raced to get their citizens out of the

locked-down Chinese city at ground-zero of a virus epidem-ic yesterday, as the death toll surged to 106 and the number of confirmed infections doubled to over 4,500.

The deadly virus, which ex-perts believe emanated from a wild animal market in the city of Wuhan last month, has trig-gered a desperate Chinese con-tainment effort after spreading nationwide and to more than a dozen other countries.

The government has sealed off Wuhan and other cities in central Hubei province, ef-fectively trapping more than 50 million people, including thousands of foreigners, in a bid to contain the virus as the high-travel Lunar New Year hol-iday unfolds.

As those trapped in Wuhan have become increasingly anx-ious, governments have scram-bled to devise ways to safely get their citizens out of the city of 11 million.

The virus can be transmitted between people, although scien-tists have yet to determine how contagious it is and exactly the way it is spread.

In bids to stop huge numbers of people coming into close contact with each other, China has imposed tight transport re-

strictions in other parts of the country.

It has extended the Lunar New Year national holiday into next week.

The education ministry on Tuesday also said the spring semester for schools and uni-versities nationwide would be

postponed, without giving a re-sumption date.

Death toll climbsDespite the unprecedented

measures, the virus has showed little sign of slowing down.

The national health commis-sion on Tuesday said 26 new deaths occurred in the preced-ing 24 hours, bringing the na-tionwide total to 106.

Confirmed infections in Chi-na also jumped to 4,515, it said, up from 2,744 on Monday.

There were nearly 7,000 more cases suspected and awaiting confirmation, according to the commission.

The virus has also continued to spread around the world.

On Monday, the first infec-tions were confirmed in Germa-ny, Canada and Sri Lanka.

Fears over containment were heightened on Sunday when Wuhan’s mayor, wearing a med-ical mask, revealed at a press conference that five million people had left the city for oth-er parts of the country during the massive travel rush that precedes the New Year holiday.

President Donald Trump said the United States has offered Beijing “any help that is neces-sary” in combatting the virus.

But the United States, Tur-key and Germany were among nations urging their citizens to “reconsider” all travel to China.

Malaysia on Monday banned visitors arriving from Hubei.

Landlocked Mongolia -- which is heavily dependent on trade with China -- took the drastic step of closing the bor-der with its huge neighbour to cars. Mongolia also cancelled classes until March 2 and sus-pended large public gatherings.

Desperate effortsMedical facilities have been

overwhelmed in Wuhan, which has become a near ghost-town.

China has deployed hundreds of military medics to ease the pressure, and started building two hospitals with the aim of finishing them in just 10 days.

Reporters saw hundreds of mask-wearing workers toiling around the clock to assemble one of the pre-fab field hospi-tals. Construction began just days ago but the outline of a floor was already taking shape and electrical switchboards were up on Monday.

“We have to work fast to com-bat the epidemic,” a worker in his 30s, who refused to give his name, told AFP.

Stressed Wuhan residents living under the quarantine ex-pressed fears for the health and dwindling supplies at home.

“I’m getting more concerned every day,” Do Quang Duy, a 32-year-old Vietnamese masters student in Wuhan, said.

A woman in Beijing wears a protective mask to help stop the spread of the coranavirus, which has killed more than 100 people

China is racing to build two hospitals in Wuhan, the epidemic of the deadly virus

Japan confirms virus in man who had not been to ChinaTokyo

Japanese authorities said yes-terday a man with no recent

travel to China has contracted the novel strain of coronavi-rus -- apparently after driving tourists visiting from Wuhan, where a deadly outbreak began.

The man in his sixties from Nara in western Japan drove two groups of Wuhan tourists earlier in January and was hospitalised on Saturday with flu-like symptoms, the health ministry said.

Health Minister Katsunobu Kato said the country had con-firmed two new cases, bringing the total so far in Japan to six.

“One of them has no record of visiting Wuhan, and drove tourists from Wuhan on a bus twice in January,” he told re-porters.

A health ministry official confirmed to AFP that there was “no information” that the

man had been anywhere in Chi-na recently, including Wuhan.

“If this is true then he might have been infected by tour-ists from Wuhan. And if so, this would be the first per-son-to-person transmission in Japan,” the official added.

The other cases so far con-firmed in Japan all involve peo-ple who have been to Wuhan.

Japan has imposed new checks on travellers arriving from China

Some experts be-lieve the virus is not as dangerous as the

2002-03 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome

(SARS) that killed nearly 800 people, or the Middle East

Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), which has

killed more than 700 people since 2012.

The virus has caused alarm because it is still too early to

know how dangerous it is and how easily it spreads between peo-ple. Chinese officials say its incubation pe-riod could range from

one to 14 days, and it is infectious during

that time.

China sure of slaying ‘devil’ virusBeijing

President Xi Jinping said yesterday that China was

sure of defeating a “devil” coronavirus that has killed 106 people, spread across the world and rattled financial markets. “The virus is a devil and we cannot let the devil hide,” state television quoted Xi as saying.

“China will strengthen in-ternational cooperation and welcomes the WHO partic-ipation in virus prevention ... China is confident of win-ning the battle against the virus.” World Health Organ-isation (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and Xi met in Beijing to discuss how to protect Chinese and foreigners in areas affected by the virus and “possible” evacuation alternatives, a WHO spokesman said.

07WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29, 2020

Feds probe helicopter crash that killed BryantLos Angeles

Friends, colleagues and fans mourned Kobe Bry-ant on Monday as federal

investigators sifted through the wreckage of the helicopter crash that killed the basketball legend and eight other people, hoping to find clues to what caused the accident that stunned the world.

Bryant, 41, was traveling Sun-day with his 13-year-old daugh-ter Gianna and seven other passengers and crew when the Sikorsky S-76 slammed into a rugged hillside in thick fog in Calabasas, northwest of LA. There were no survivors.

A five-time NBA champion for his only team, the LA Lakers, and a double Olympic gold medalist, Bryant was widely regarded as one of the greatest basketball players in history.

He was traveling on his private helicopter from Orange County, where he lived, to his Mamba Sports Academy in Thousand Oaks where his daughter was set to play.

Jennifer Homendy, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board, told a press con-ference that investigators would remain at the site of the crash throughout the week to collect evidence.

“It was a pretty devastating accident scene,” she said, adding that the wreckage was strewn across about 600 feet (180 me-ters).

“We will be here about five days on scene to collect perish-able evidence,” she said. “We are not here to determine the cause of the accident. We will not de-termine that on scene.”

Homendy said the aircraft did not have a black box, which was not required on that type of hel-icopter.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva told reporters it would “take a while” to recover the remains of the victims be-cause of the force of the crash and the rugged terrain.

He added that given the num-ber of people trying to access the site unlawfully, his agency has had to resort to police on horseback or all terrain vehicles to secure the area.

Philippe Lesourd, a helicop-

ter pilot and instructor who has been flying in California for 29 years, told AFP the heavy fog likely caused the pilot to lose control of the aircraft.

He said the pilot most prob-ably suffered “spatial disori-entation” after losing sight of the ground upon entering the clouds.

The fog was heavy enough on Sunday that the Los Ange-les Police Department and the sheriff ’s office grounded their

helicopters for part of the day.Witnesses told local media the

helicopter appeared to be flying very low and seemed to struggle before it slammed into a hillside.

‘LA feels empty’Apart from Bryant and his

daughter Gianna, the other pas-sengers on the flight included baseball coach John Altobelli, his wife Keri and their daughter Alyssa, who played basketball at the same club as Gianna.

Christina Mauser, an assis-tant coach of the Mamba girls’ basketball team, was also killed along with Sarah and Payton Chester, a mother and daughter.

News of the crash reverber-ated across the globe and hun-dreds gathered at the Staples Center in downtown Los Ange-les, where Bryant wowed fans for 20 years, placing flowers, candles and messages for their fallen hero.

“It’s unbelievable that he is gone,” said Esmeralda Cisneros. “Everyone feels empty. Califor-nia and LA feel empty without

him.”Tributes have also flooded in

from former US presidents, pop stars and athletes from different sports, a sign of how the man known as the “Black Mamba” had transcended basketball.

The NBA said it had postponed Tuesday’s Lakers game against the Los Angeles Clippers follow-ing the tragedy.

Monday evening, NBA super-star LeBron James said he was “heartbroken and devastated” over Bryant’s death in an emo-tional Instagram post, while also vowing to continue his friend’s championship legacy with the Lakers.

“Man I sitting here trying to write something for this post but

every time I try I begin crying again just thinking about you, niece Gigi and the friendship/bond/ brotherhood we had!” James wrote.

“I promise you I’ll continue your legacy man!” he said.

“Please give me the strength from the heavens above and watch over me! I got US here!”

Bryant’s career began in 1996, straight out of high school. On top of his NBA championship wins, he helped the US squad of all-stars to Olympic titles in 2008 in Beijing and 2012 in Lon-don.

Fairytale farewell

Bryant bowed out of the NBA in 2016, scoring 60 points in a fairytale farewell appearance at the Staples Center.

The son of former NBA player Joe “Jellybean” Bryant, the Lak-ers legend was born in Philadel-phia while his father played for the 76ers.

The elder Bryant played from 1984 to 1991 in Italy, giving young Kobe a global worldview as he grew up dreaming of fol-lowing his dad into the NBA.

He would eventually join the ranks of professionals at the age of 17, jumping directly into the NBA, only the sixth player to make such a leap.

At 18, Bryant became, at the time, the youngest player or starter in an NBA game and the youngest winner of the NBA Slam Dunk Contest.

With Bryant alongside Shaq-uille O’Neal, the Lakers captured three straight NBA crowns from 2000-2002, returning the team to glory days unseen since 1988.

Bryant’s career was almost derailed in 2003 when he was arrested in Colorado over a sex-ual assault complaint filed by a 19-year-old hotel employee.

He admitted to adultery but denied an accusation of rape and the case was dropped in 2004 af-ter the accuser refused to testify.

A separate civil suit was set-tled under terms kept private.

After his playing career, Bry-ant branched out into the enter-tainment industry.

In 2018, he won an Oscar for his animated short film “Dear Basketball”, a love letter to the sport which brought him fame and fortune. The film was made available online for free on Mon-day.

French national and longtime US resident Natalie Burle blows a kiss in direction of Kobe Bryant mural in downtown Los Angeles

Fans react at a memorial for NBA legend Kobe Bryant outside the Mamba Sports Academy in Thousand Oaks, California on January 27, 2020 after the helicopter crash that killed nine people including Bryant and his daughter Gianna Maria

Investigators will be at the site of the crash throughout the week to collect evidence

UK’s Prince Andrew urged to cooperate with US over Epstein• Andrew, who is eighth in line to the British throne, has long been dogged by his links to the convicted paedophile

• He stepped back from royal duties in November

London

Lawyers representing alleged victims of the late sex of-

fender Jeffrey Epstein yesterday urged Britain’s Prince Andrew to help US investigators, after a prosecutor said he had given “zero cooperation”.

US lawyer Gloria Allred, who represents five women alleg-edly assaulted by Epstein, said the Duke of York has “a moral obligation” to meet with the FBI and that his failure to do so was “a disservice to the victims”.

“It’s long overdue for him to

do it, or to explain why he will not do it, and he’s done neither,” she told BBC Radio.

“If he’s done nothing wrong, which appears to be what he has claimed, then why won’t he talk to law enforcement?”

Andrew, 59, has strenuously denied claims he had sex with a 17-year-old girl procured by Epstein, a disgraced financier found dead in prison last August while awaiting charges of traf-ficking minors.

Queen Elizabeth II’s second son, who was a long-time friend

of his, said in November he was “willing to help any appropriate law enforcement agency with their investigations, if required.”

But New York attorney Geof-frey Berman, who is leading an investigation into possible co-conspirators of Epstein, said Andrew was yet to respond to a request by the FBI and his office for an interview.

“To date, Prince Andrew has provided zero cooperation,” Ber-man, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, told reporters.

Berman made the comments during a news conference out-side Epstein’s former Manhattan mansion, which Andrew has ad-mitted staying at.

He said he would not normally comment on whether individu-als were cooperating but made an exception for the prince be-cause of his statement offering help.

“It’s fair for people to know whether Prince Andrew has fol-lowed through with that public

commitment,” said Berman.Buckingham Palace has not

immediately respond to request for comment.

‘Have you seen this prince?’Epstein, a multi-millionaire

hedge fund manager, was con-victed in Florida in 2008 of pay-ing young girls for massages but served just 13 months in jail un-der a secret plea deal.

The 66-year-old, who be-friended countless celebrities over the years including US President Donald Trump, killed himself in a New York jail in Au-gust while awaiting trial on new sex-trafficking charges

He had denied the charges and was facing up to 45 years in jail if found guilty.

Determined to obtain jus-tice despite his death, dozens of women who say they were abused by Epstein have sued his estate while prosecutors have pledged to pursue any accom-plices.

Andrew, who is eighth in line

to the British throne, has long been dogged by his links to the convicted paedophile, having stayed at his various homes around the world.

He stepped back from royal duties in November after facing outrage over an unconvincing interview with the BBC in which he defended the friendship with Epstein.

The scandal has engulfed An-drew at a difficult time for the royal family, following Prince Harry and Meghan’s decision to withdraw as frontline royals and other crises.

British newspapers on Tues-day prominently featured the latest turmoil.

“FBI: Why won’t Andrew speak to us?” screamed the front page of the Daily Mail, while the Daily Mirror said: “Andrew snubs FBI”.

Meanwhile best-selling tab-loid The Sun mocked up an FBI “missing person” report for An-drew on its front page, asking: “Have you seen this prince?”

US justice officials are investigating how Jeffrey Epstein, one of America’s most high-profile on-remand detainees, was able to kill himself when he was supposed to be under close watch

Prince Andrew has strenuously denied claims he had sex with a 17-year-old girl procured by disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29, 2020

The FAO has called for $70 million in emergency funds to help tackle the problem. It seems a very achievable

figure, if we can summon the necessary spirit of co-opera-tion. There are reports that

we might, in fact, be the ones exacerbating the effects of the plague; climate change

might be making the locusts’ numbers greater.

Hon. Chairman Najeb Yacob Alhamer | Editor-in-Chief Mahmood AI Mahmood | Chairman & Managing Director P Unnikrishnan | Advertisement: Update Media W.L.L | Tel: 38444692, Email: sales@newsofbahrain.com | Newsroom: Tel: 38444680, Email: news@newsofbahrain.comSubscription & circulation: Tel: 36458394 | Email:subscription@newsofbahrain.com | Website: www.newsofbahrain.com | Printed and published by Al Ayam Publishing

SULAIMAN HAKEMY

Generations have passed since East Africans have seen a plague of desert lo-

custs comparable to the one rav-aging their crops this week. One of the swarms – there are several – is said to be the size of Moscow, con-suming its own weight in crops every day. The Food and Agricul-ture Organisation, a UN agency, estimates the number of insects invading Kenya alone to be around 200 billion, covering an area of 2,400 square kilometres. Their or-igin remains the subject of much perplexity for local authorities – they hatched in Yemen, or maybe Oman, or perhaps even the Indian subcontinent. Beleaguered FAO officials warned on Friday that, if unchecked, the locust popula-tion could be 500 times greater by June. That would be a figure more easily expressed through the use of exponents.

It is difficult to overstate the scale of calamity that such a mul-titude of pests would bring upon the economies of the countries facing it. Farmers in Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Uganda and Sudan face a nerve-wracking season.

But to better understand the desert locust, it is worth, for a moment, removing humankind from the equation. In fact, there is a name for a locust that does not affect our lives by joining a swarm and making short work of our crops. It is called a grasshopper.

In the biologist’s art of taxon-omy, there is no nominal distinc-tion between the grasshopper and the locust. A grasshopper becomes a locust when it swarms. (You could even say that the phrase “a swarm of locusts” is redundant.) It is one of the few species of animal that we assign a different name on the basis of its behaviour (and its impact on us), rather than the position it occupies on the evolutionary tree. There are 12,000 species of grass-

hopper. Twenty of them are capa-ble of expressing the behaviour that turns them into locusts. They do not sit on a different branch from their cousins, perhaps just a different twig.

The cause of the behaviour-al change is simply population density. Studies on Schistocerca gregaria – as the desert locust is known to science – show that when members of the species come into close physical contact with one another, their bodies overload with serotonin (the same neurotransmitter responsible for feelings like euphoria in humans), and they become stronger, more aggressive and more social. In science-speak, they become more “gregarious” – hence the species name “gregaria”. Gregariousness is the emotion that promises the swarm.

The desert locust plague is a spasmodic horror. Last year, it travelled from Egypt across the Red Sea into Saudi Arabia and the eastern UAE, and in the ear-ly 2000s, it devoured many of the date palms in the southern Emirati city of Al Ain. Recorded incidences of the desert locust plague stretch back to pharaonic Egypt. It has been a harbinger of sorrow for the nations of the Middle East and North Africa for as long as they have been nations.

Like most insects, Schistocerca gregaria predates us by millions of years. In all those millennia, the locust co-existed with other an-imals without causing any harm because, of course, we were the first animal to farm. Ten thou-sand years ago, when humans pulled their first crops from the ground, we turned the humble grasshopper into the dreaded lo-cust. What was previously just a normal part of the ecosystem became a plague, because we had something to lose.

Although the locust frequently demolished their harvests, an-cient Egyptians only ever depict-ed it in their paintings in its singu-

lar, grasshopper form – never the swarm. Some scholars speculate that this is because they were too terrified to depict such a bad omen. The locust is in some ways the grasshopper plus fear. It is a state of mind.

The American entomologist Jeffrey Lockwood famously (in entomology circles) refers to the locust as not a species but a “pro-cess”. He also points out that if the body size of a grasshopper was scaled up to that of a human being, in its gregarious, locust state it would travel a distance of nearly 60,000 kilometres, father than our civilisation-expanding ancestors travelled when cir-cumnavigating the globe and

conquering all of the land in be-tween.

THE QUALITY, NOT THE LONGEVITY, OF ONE’S LIFE IS WHAT IS IMPORTANT.MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

The history and havoc

of the desert locust

As billions of locusts descend upon East Africa, UN

agriculture officials are sounding the alarm

HUSSEIN IBISH

The first week of US Presi-dent Donald Trump’s im-peachment trial concluded

on Saturday morning, and none of the main players seem poised for a meaningful victory. The ques-tion is rather how much each stands to lose.

The Democratic “managers” (in effect, prosecutors) from the House of Representatives, which impeached Mr Trump in Decem-ber, presented the case against the president on two counts: abuse of power by allegedly attempting to leverage military aid to Ukraine to secure an investigation an-nouncement into the son of one of his rivals, Joe Biden; and obstruc-tion of Congress for withholding documents and trying to block major testimony.

Because of that obstruction, there were significant holes in the prosecution’s case, but, overall, the factual narrative against Mr Trump was overwhelming and largely unchallenged.

On Saturday, the president’s defence team began its own pres-entation, which was strikingly thin on facts but long on categor-ical declarations and misleading

claims – for instance, the allega-tion that Republicans were not allowed to participate in House hearings in secured areas when, in fact, they were.

Public opinion remains about equally divided for and against convicting Mr Trump. Conse-quently, Republican senators don’t seem prepared to resist Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s push for a trial with-out witnesses, documents or any fact-finding.

The Senate appears unwilling to demand testimony from key figures, such as former national security advisor John Bolton – whose unpublished memoir re-portedly confirms that Mr Trump withheld Ukraine aid to secure a smear against the Bidens – acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and others, or to demand the docu-mentary paper trail that would irrefutably demonstrate what happened.

Republicans are adamantly op-posed to such evidence because the case is already extremely strong and most of the factual assertions are not being chal-lenged. Instead, they are simply denounced and dismissed.

The last thing Republicans

want is to confront the mounting evidence, including text messages and recordings recently released by Lev Parnas, which seem to corroborate the case against Mr Trump.

House managers’ arguments that by withholding military aid to Ukraine Mr Trump was acting in his own interests, and not those of the United States, were almost irrefutable. This is not a legit-imate policy dis- pute, as his lawyers claim, but the hijacking of policy by personal poli-tics.

But Republicans do not want Mr Trump removed and, unless compelled by public opinion, will acquit him as soon as possible. The danger posed to them by the existing evidence explains why they want no further in-formation whatsoever. It cannot possibly help them.

Yet this will not be a victo-ry for Mr Trump. He will have been exonerated not in fair or open proceedings, but through the modern-day US equivalent of Stalin-era Moscow political

show trials in which the verdict is a foregone conclusion and most factual evidence is prohibited.

He will claim vindica-tion, but under the circumstances, it will be hollow. He will live under the shadow, not only of impeachment, but of acquittal through farce. If Mr McConnell gets h i s

way, this will be the first of scores of impeachment trials of US offi-cials – including those of Presi-dents Andrew Johnson and Bill

Clinton – that excludes any witness testimony.

Mr Trump will enjoy a technical, legal acquittal, but face a moral, and probably historical, conviction.

Many Senate Republicans are also worried. Several are facing re-election in swing

states that may not reward

t h e i r a d a -m a n t refus-

a l

By rushing to impeach because of their own

election calendars,

Democrats are

committing a significant

blunder

There will be no winners in the US impeachment proceedings

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29, 2020

The FAO has called for $70 million in emergency funds to help tackle the problem. It seems a very achievable

figure, if we can summon the necessary spirit of co-opera-tion. There are reports that

we might, in fact, be the ones exacerbating the effects of the plague; climate change

might be making the locusts’ numbers greater.

Hon. Chairman Najeb Yacob Alhamer | Editor-in-Chief Mahmood AI Mahmood | Chairman & Managing Director P Unnikrishnan | Advertisement: Update Media W.L.L | Tel: 38444692, Email: sales@newsofbahrain.com | Newsroom: Tel: 38444680, Email: news@newsofbahrain.comSubscription & circulation: Tel: 36458394 | Email:subscription@newsofbahrain.com | Website: www.newsofbahrain.com | Printed and published by Al Ayam Publishing

SULAIMAN HAKEMY

Generations have passed since East Africans have seen a plague of desert lo-

custs comparable to the one rav-aging their crops this week. One of the swarms – there are several – is said to be the size of Moscow, con-suming its own weight in crops every day. The Food and Agricul-ture Organisation, a UN agency, estimates the number of insects invading Kenya alone to be around 200 billion, covering an area of 2,400 square kilometres. Their or-igin remains the subject of much perplexity for local authorities – they hatched in Yemen, or maybe Oman, or perhaps even the Indian subcontinent. Beleaguered FAO officials warned on Friday that, if unchecked, the locust popula-tion could be 500 times greater by June. That would be a figure more easily expressed through the use of exponents.

It is difficult to overstate the scale of calamity that such a mul-titude of pests would bring upon the economies of the countries facing it. Farmers in Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Uganda and Sudan face a nerve-wracking season.

But to better understand the desert locust, it is worth, for a moment, removing humankind from the equation. In fact, there is a name for a locust that does not affect our lives by joining a swarm and making short work of our crops. It is called a grasshopper.

In the biologist’s art of taxon-omy, there is no nominal distinc-tion between the grasshopper and the locust. A grasshopper becomes a locust when it swarms. (You could even say that the phrase “a swarm of locusts” is redundant.) It is one of the few species of animal that we assign a different name on the basis of its behaviour (and its impact on us), rather than the position it occupies on the evolutionary tree. There are 12,000 species of grass-

hopper. Twenty of them are capa-ble of expressing the behaviour that turns them into locusts. They do not sit on a different branch from their cousins, perhaps just a different twig.

The cause of the behaviour-al change is simply population density. Studies on Schistocerca gregaria – as the desert locust is known to science – show that when members of the species come into close physical contact with one another, their bodies overload with serotonin (the same neurotransmitter responsible for feelings like euphoria in humans), and they become stronger, more aggressive and more social. In science-speak, they become more “gregarious” – hence the species name “gregaria”. Gregariousness is the emotion that promises the swarm.

The desert locust plague is a spasmodic horror. Last year, it travelled from Egypt across the Red Sea into Saudi Arabia and the eastern UAE, and in the ear-ly 2000s, it devoured many of the date palms in the southern Emirati city of Al Ain. Recorded incidences of the desert locust plague stretch back to pharaonic Egypt. It has been a harbinger of sorrow for the nations of the Middle East and North Africa for as long as they have been nations.

Like most insects, Schistocerca gregaria predates us by millions of years. In all those millennia, the locust co-existed with other an-imals without causing any harm because, of course, we were the first animal to farm. Ten thou-sand years ago, when humans pulled their first crops from the ground, we turned the humble grasshopper into the dreaded lo-cust. What was previously just a normal part of the ecosystem became a plague, because we had something to lose.

Although the locust frequently demolished their harvests, an-cient Egyptians only ever depict-ed it in their paintings in its singu-

lar, grasshopper form – never the swarm. Some scholars speculate that this is because they were too terrified to depict such a bad omen. The locust is in some ways the grasshopper plus fear. It is a state of mind.

The American entomologist Jeffrey Lockwood famously (in entomology circles) refers to the locust as not a species but a “pro-cess”. He also points out that if the body size of a grasshopper was scaled up to that of a human being, in its gregarious, locust state it would travel a distance of nearly 60,000 kilometres, father than our civilisation-expanding ancestors travelled when cir-cumnavigating the globe and

conquering all of the land in be-tween.

THE QUALITY, NOT THE LONGEVITY, OF ONE’S LIFE IS WHAT IS IMPORTANT.MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

The history and havoc

of the desert locust

As billions of locusts descend upon East Africa, UN

agriculture officials are sounding the alarm

HUSSEIN IBISH

The first week of US Presi-dent Donald Trump’s im-peachment trial concluded

on Saturday morning, and none of the main players seem poised for a meaningful victory. The ques-tion is rather how much each stands to lose.

The Democratic “managers” (in effect, prosecutors) from the House of Representatives, which impeached Mr Trump in Decem-ber, presented the case against the president on two counts: abuse of power by allegedly attempting to leverage military aid to Ukraine to secure an investigation an-nouncement into the son of one of his rivals, Joe Biden; and obstruc-tion of Congress for withholding documents and trying to block major testimony.

Because of that obstruction, there were significant holes in the prosecution’s case, but, overall, the factual narrative against Mr Trump was overwhelming and largely unchallenged.

On Saturday, the president’s defence team began its own pres-entation, which was strikingly thin on facts but long on categor-ical declarations and misleading

claims – for instance, the allega-tion that Republicans were not allowed to participate in House hearings in secured areas when, in fact, they were.

Public opinion remains about equally divided for and against convicting Mr Trump. Conse-quently, Republican senators don’t seem prepared to resist Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s push for a trial with-out witnesses, documents or any fact-finding.

The Senate appears unwilling to demand testimony from key figures, such as former national security advisor John Bolton – whose unpublished memoir re-portedly confirms that Mr Trump withheld Ukraine aid to secure a smear against the Bidens – acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and others, or to demand the docu-mentary paper trail that would irrefutably demonstrate what happened.

Republicans are adamantly op-posed to such evidence because the case is already extremely strong and most of the factual assertions are not being chal-lenged. Instead, they are simply denounced and dismissed.

The last thing Republicans

want is to confront the mounting evidence, including text messages and recordings recently released by Lev Parnas, which seem to corroborate the case against Mr Trump.

House managers’ arguments that by withholding military aid to Ukraine Mr Trump was acting in his own interests, and not those of the United States, were almost irrefutable. This is not a legit-imate policy dis- pute, as his lawyers claim, but the hijacking of policy by personal poli-tics.

But Republicans do not want Mr Trump removed and, unless compelled by public opinion, will acquit him as soon as possible. The danger posed to them by the existing evidence explains why they want no further in-formation whatsoever. It cannot possibly help them.

Yet this will not be a victo-ry for Mr Trump. He will have been exonerated not in fair or open proceedings, but through the modern-day US equivalent of Stalin-era Moscow political

show trials in which the verdict is a foregone conclusion and most factual evidence is prohibited.

He will claim vindica-tion, but under the circumstances, it will be hollow. He will live under the shadow, not only of impeachment, but of acquittal through farce. If Mr McConnell gets h i s

way, this will be the first of scores of impeachment trials of US offi-cials – including those of Presi-dents Andrew Johnson and Bill

Clinton – that excludes any witness testimony.

Mr Trump will enjoy a technical, legal acquittal, but face a moral, and probably historical, conviction.

Many Senate Republicans are also worried. Several are facing re-election in swing

states that may not reward

t h e i r a d a -m a n t refus-

a l

By rushing to impeach because of their own

election calendars,

Democrats are

committing a significant

blunder

There will be no winners in the US impeachment proceedings

Hon. Chairman Najeb Yacob Alhamer | Editor-in-Chief Mahmood AI Mahmood | Chairman & Managing Director P Unnikrishnan | Advertisement: Update Media W.L.L | Tel: 38444692, Email: sales@newsofbahrain.com | Newsroom: Tel: 38444680, Email: news@newsofbahrain.comSubscription & circulation: Tel: 36458394 | Email:subscription@newsofbahrain.com | Website: www.newsofbahrain.com | Printed and published by Al Ayam Publishing

TOP

4TWEETS

01

@NitishKumar what a fall for you to lie

about how and why you made me join JDU!! Poor attempt on your part to try and make my colour same as yours! And if you are telling the truth who would believe that you still have courage not to listen to someone recom-mended by @AmitShah

@PrashantKishor

03

Addressed the Glob-al Potato Conclave

at Gandhinagar via vid-eo-conferencing. Shared how Indian farmers are taking rapid strides in in-creasing production. Also urged our scientific com-munity to provide solu-tions to ensure further innovation in agriculture.

@narendramodi

04

BREAKING: On 5-4 vote, Supreme Court

lets Trump administra-tion start enforcing new immigrant wealth test, designed to screen out green card applicants seen as being at risk of becoming “public charg-es”.

@GregStohr

02

Are you better off now than you were three

years ago? Almost every-one say YES!

@realDonaldTrump

Disclaimer: (Views expressed by columnists are personal and need not necessarily reflect our

editorial stances)

In the Middle East, we are proud of the region’s role in in-venting agricultural civilisation. We, too, began gathering as a great collective, consuming and transforming the world around us. How poignant that nature should project that behaviour back at us, reminding us of the price.

Perhaps we can overcome the locust, and permanently evade this tax from nature. But as gen-erations of agricultural officials can attest, that is a daunting task with several obstacles. For one, chemical fumigation of their nests is likely to have even more devastating effects on the wider ecosystem. For another, finding

these nests is notoriously diffi-cult. They are often in remote, hard-to-reach places.

In the Middle East and North Africa, the locust’s natural range is more than 29 million square kilometres, and the region lacks the infrastructure and political cooperation necessary to mount a coordinated response.

These obstacles, too, are very old in this part of the world. The first recorded locust control cam-paign occurred in the year 710BC, under the reign of King Sargon II in modern-day Iraq. In a se-ries of letters, he notes that the only way to deal with the locust problem is for his governors to cooperate across their regional

borders. The FAO, in a 2017 re-port commemorating 50 years of its anti-desert locust operations, references the letters, implying that the organisation is merely our modern torchbearer in this millennia-old struggle between man and nature.

Then there is the question of whether or not we should seek to exterminate the locust en-tirely. Perhaps we should. The Rocky Mountain locust, a North American species that in 1875 created a swarm almost 3,000km long and less than 200km wide, went extinct in the early 20th century in circumstances that remain mysterious to many en-tomologists. Or perhaps, some speculate, the loss of its nesting grounds through the expansion of American settlements simply subdued it to its passive, grass-hopper state.

In any case, the loss of the species does not appear to have caused any major knock-on ef-fects in the wider ecosystem.

One of the great benefits of civilisation, however, is that we can summon the ingenuity to find another way forward. There is hope among some researchers for developing a chemical that could inhibit serotonin production in grasshoppers, effectively drug-ging the species into submission.

The FAO has called for $70 mil-lion in emergency funds to help tackle the problem. It seems a very achievable figure, if we can summon the necessary spirit of cooperation. There are reports that we might, in fact, be the ones exacerbating the effects of the plague; climate change might be making the locusts’ numbers greater. Many of us are waking up to the fact that, in civilising ourselves and multiplying our numbers, human beings might not have been the great custo-dians of the planet we once told ourselves we were. Perhaps our own species has become a little too gregarious.

1845“The Raven” is published in The Evening Mirror in New York, the first publication with the name of the author, Edgar Allan Poe.

1850Henry Clay introduces the Compromise of 1850 to the U.S. Congress.

1856Queen Victoria issues a Warrant under the Royal sign-manual that establishes the Victoria Cross to recognise acts of valour by Britishmili-tary personnel during the Crimean War.

1861Kansas is admitted as the 34th U.S. state.

TODAY DAY IN

HISTORY

to face the facts or consider the truth. Mr McConnell may

not care, but a number of these Republican senators probably realise they are helping to badly damage the US constitution and

political system.It is not just that they are con-

ducting a sham of a trial. Worse is that they will be effectively endorsing Mr Trump’s behaviour regarding Ukraine and the elec-tion, and essentially greenlighting future presidents to leverage all manner of foreign policy tools for their personal political benefit.

Mr Trump’s lawyers claim a

statutory crime is required for impeachment and are casting the whole process as an attack on democracy and elections. That’s not only constitutional nonsense, it is an unprecedented assault on the impeachment powers of Congress.

If affirmed, Mr Trump’s ac-tions would constitute one of the most astonishing expansions of the power of the presidency, at the expense of Congress, in the country’s history.

Republicans surely tell them-selves they will just reverse their position if a Democratic president ever did something like this. But it is not that simple. Like it or not, they are setting a precedent that could hardly be more dangerous or less attuned to the spirit of the Constitution.

But by rushing to impeachment because of their own primary and election calendars, Demo-crats are committing a significant blunder.

Their political hastiness has contributed mightily to this constitutionally cancerous de-velopment, as I have repeatedly warned in these pages, and many others also foresaw.

Unless there is a sudden re-

versal by Senate Republicans, in which they vote to hear testimony and examine documents, the only thing that could recuperate this impeachment trial for the Dem-ocrats would be if it can be said to have contributed to a victory in November.

But the political impact of this process is extremely hard to predict. It might, and certain-ly should, further tarnish Mr Trump’s image with many vot-ers. But it also might enrage and rally his base, and stoke the bitter national divisions on which he depends.

This is only the third presi-dential impeachment trial in US history, and seems set to be the shortest, least credible and most insubstantial. It may not have any long-term political impact at all, especially if the lack of movement in the opinion polls over the past week is anything to go by.

The president will almost cer-tainly remain in office, but he will be badly tarnished. Senate Republicans could hardly appear more compromised and cynical. And the Democrats, yet again, will look like losers.

If there are any winners in this fiasco, they are hiding brilliantly.

There will be no winners in the US impeachment proceedingsUnless there is a sudden

reversal by Senate Repub-licans, in which they vote to hear testimony and examine

documents, the only thing that could recuperate this impeachment trial for the

Democrats would be if it can be said to have contributed to a victory in November.

Wide Angle

JOEL INDRUPATI

Indian population: A discussion on demographics

“You, Indians. Just look at the number of your population.”

My non-Indian friend looks at me, and laughs mockingly. As if I was a major contributor to the ginormous number.

I deny all responsibility. And there are giggles from peo-ple around. They ask me why India is so densely inhabited.

But, before we answer that question, let us look at some demographic statistics.

With 1.326 billion people, India is second only to China which has 1.388 billion. And India is poised to overtake China’s population, by 2022.

World Population is estimated to have already reached 7.5 billion, in April 2017. And the United Nations estimates it will further increase to 11.2 billion by year 2100.

Now, with China and India together constituting 37% of the world’s population, you are sure to meet an Indian, or a Chinese, anywhere you go!

One of the things that the British left to Indians, when they left the country in 1947, is the English language.

Armed with English - often throwing pronunciation, ac-cent and grammar to the wind, along with any embarrass-ment it causes - Indians are more likely, than the Chinese, to venture out into the brave new world.

So, hang on there, dear world. Indians are arriving. More Indians, I mean.

After all, many Indian executives are already heading global businesses. As CEOs of companies and conglom-erates such as Microsoft, Google, PepsiCo, MasterCard,

Adobe Systems, Cognizant and Nokia.Now, coming back to my friends’ ques-

tion, why are some countries so thickly populated, while some are not?

Simple. Man has always moved to plac-es where he could farm or fish to sustain his family. Man has always migrated to places where he can protect his family, feed his family, and raise his children.

He always aimed to develop, and live in, physical and social environs which are conducive to human well-being. And habitable places like river banks, fertile plains, verdant deltas, lush mountains, fruitful trees and calm seashores are what he always sought.

History tells us that if Mesopotamian Civilization flour-ished on the banks of River Tigris and River Euphrates, it was on the banks of River Indus that Indus Valley Civili-zation thrived.

If Egyptian Civilization flourished on the banks of River Nile, it was along the fertile shores of the 6380 kilometre long Yangtze River that Chinese Civilization thrived.

No wonder then that these regions, especially in China and India, have longer history, culture and heritage. And, needless to say, greater population numbers.

The heat of the arid Arabian Gulf did not attract many people. Not until recently.

And I attribute the current growth of population here - in cities like Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh, Jeddah, Doha and Muscat – mainly to two factors. The invention of air-con-ditioning and the discovery of oil.

If it were not for the new technological possibility of houses, offices, cars, supermarkets and malls being kept cool, this region would not have attracted the migrant work force. It includes Indians who have the ‘close-proximity advantage’.

Another vital factor for the growth of qualified doctors, engineers, chartered accountants and others within India, and the diaspora, is the effectiveness of India’s Human Resources Development planning. Skill sets for the rap-idly growing workforce in a rapidly changing world were carefully addressed by India’s HRD Ministry.

A shining example is the phased manner in which uni-versities were made to introduce computer courses from late 1980s. It led to India becoming a software super-power.

Yes. There is still poverty in India. But, we cannot deny that, over the years, India has – at least to a good extent - turned its population from being a liability to becoming an asset.

(The writer’s twitter handle: @joelindrupati)

Yes. There is still poverty in India.

But, we cannot deny that, over the years, India has – at least to a good

extent - turned its population from

being a liability to becoming an asset.

10

business

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29, 2020

Maruti Suzuki India quarterly profit falls short as promotions rise

Reuters | Bengaluru

Maruti Suzuki India Ltd reported lower-than-ex-

pected third-quarter prof-it yesterday as the country’s biggest carmaker spent more on promotions during a wider industry slowdown.

Net profit rose to 15.65 bil-lion rupees ($220.21 million) for the three months ended Dec. 31, compared with 14.89 billion rupees a year earlier.

Analysts on average had ex-pected a profit of 16.47 billion rupees, according to Refinitiv data.

The results come as the auto industry faces tighter credit,

higher insurance costs and a pile-up of inventory.

Some carmakers have halted production to adjust inventory levels, leading to massive lay-offs of workers at automakers, parts makers and car dealers.

Shares of the Mumbai-based company fell as much as 1.5% in afternoon trade, compared with the broader Mumbai market which was flat.

Maruti sold 437,361 vehicles during the December quarter, up 2pc from a year earlier.

Revenue from operations rose more than 5pc to 207.07 billion rupees, said the com-pany which is majority-owned by Japan’s Suzuki Motor Corp.

Maruti sold 437,361 vehicles during the December quarter, up 2pc from a year earlier.

Corporate earnings lift UAE• First Abu Dhabi Bank gains on Q4 profit

• Tabreed jumps on Q4 earnings, FY dividend

• Saudi’s Metlife slides on merger approval

• Telecom Egypt sees biggest surge in a decade

Reuters

Stock markets in the United Arab Emirates rose yester-day as positive corporate

earnings outweighed pessimism about the coronavirus outbreak in China, while other major markets extended losses.

The Abu Dhabi index ended 0.2pc higher, supported by a 7.2 per cent surge in International Holding Company before its board meeting on Wednesday to approve fiscal-year earnings.

First Abu Dhabi Bank add-ed 0.3pc after posting a 5pc in-crease in fourth-quarter profit. The United Arab Emirates’ larg-est bank recorded a net profit of 3.08 billion dirhams ($838.60 million) in the fourth quarter, compared with 2.93 billion year ago.

Dubai’s main share index edged up 0.1pc, ending four days of losses as National Central Cooling Co (Tabreed) jumped 6.3pc, its biggest intraday gain since December 2018.

Tabreed’s annual profit rose

more than 10pc to 472.5 million dirhams and proposed a cash dividend of 10.5 fils per share for the year 2019.

In the previous session, Gulf stocks saw sharp declines as worries mounted about the possible economic impact of the coronavirus. Declines were more modest on Tuesday.

Chinese President Xi Jinping told the visiting chief of the World Health Organisation that he was confident of winning the battle against a “devil” corona-virus that has killed at least 106 people and spread across the world.

Saudi’s benchmark index slipped 0.2pc as Jarir Marketing

declined 2.6pc. Arab National Bank was down 1.7pc.

Metlife AIG ANB plunged 5.2pc after its shareholders ap-proved a merger with Walaa

Cooperative Insurance. Walaa advanced 3.7pc.

The Qatari index eased 0.6pc. Qatar National Bank retreat-ed 1.4pc. Industries Qatar was down 0.9pc.

Egypt’s blue-chip index was down 0.1pc, hurt by a 1.3pc drop in Talaat Mostafa Holding.

The index got some support from Telecom Egypt, which soared 10pc, its biggest gain since April 2009, on reports that Vodafone Group might sell its stake in its Egyptian unit, Voda-fone Egypt.

Telecom Egypt said on Sun-day it had no intention of sell-ing its 45pc stake in Vodafone Egypt.

Closing BellSAUDI 0.2pc to 8,166 pts

ABU DHABI 0.2pc to 5,178 pts

DUBAI 0.1pc to 2,880 pts

QATAR 0.6pc to 10,423 pts

EGYPT 0.1pc to 13,621 pts

BAHRAIN 0.1pc to 1,646 pts

OMAN 0.4pc to 4,088 pts

KUWAIT 0.4pc at 7,025 pts

Traders on the floor of Bahrain Bourse (file)

OPEC aims to extend oil output cuts through JuneReuters | London/Dubai

OPEC wants to extend cur-rent oil output cuts until

at least June from March, with the possibility of deeper re-ductions on the table if oil de-mand in China is significantly impacted by the spread of a new coronavirus, OPEC sources said.

Oil futures yesterday broke a five-day losing streak but Brent crude stayed below $60 per barrel. On Monday it hit a three-month low of $58.50, as the virus outbreak triggered a global selloff of riskier assets.

Saudi Arabia joined by key oil producers such as the Unit-ed Arab Emirates, Algeria and Oman, sought to calm market jitters on Monday - urging cau-tion against gloomy expecta-tions on the impact of the virus on the global economy and oil demand.

But OPEC officials have also started weighing their op-tions and intensified internal discussion on how best to re-spond to the price slump, the sources said.

“A further extension is a strong possibility and a deep-er cut is a possibility,” said one OPEC source, adding that the impact of the China virus on oil demand would be clearer over the coming week.

“Extension is highly possible ... until June,” another source said, adding that an additional preferable option is to extend the pact until end of 2020 and that a deeper cut was “possi-ble” if there was a need for it.

A source familiar with Russian thinking, said that

although Moscow had been keen earlier to exit from cuts, it would stay on board if oil prices continued to trade be-low $60 a barrel

OPEC+, which includes Rus-sia, has been reducing oil sup-ply to support prices, agreeing in December to hold back 1.7 million barrels per day (bpd) of output until the end of March.

Russia had insisted it want-ed the current deal to last only until March, while Saudi Ara-bia has been keener for the deal to last longer, according to OPEC+ sources.

This year, OPEC expects its world market share to fall further as output booms in non-OPEC rivals including the United States, Brazil, Canada, Australia, Norway and Guyana while global demand is rising.

Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said on Friday all options were open when OPEC+ meets next in Vienna in early March, when asked about the possibility of a further output reduction.

The logo of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) sits outside its headquarters ahead of the OPEC and NON-OPEC meeting, Austria

India’s budget likely to raise spending to revive growth• Sitharaman is expected to announce a plan in the budget to invest 105 trillio n rupees ($1.48 trn) in infrastructure over the next five years.

Reuters | New Delhi

Indian Prime Minister Nar-endra Modi’s government is

expected to raise spending on infrastructure and cut some personal tax in its 2020/2021 budget, government sources and economists said.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, who will present her second full-year annual budget to parliament, could defer the earlier target of cut-ting fiscal deficit to 3 per cent of gross domestic product in 2020/21 by at least two years, government sources said.

This will be on top of roughly $28 billion of expenditure out-lay from off-budget borrowings, as she seeks to keep the deficit in check.

Sitharaman is expected to an-nounce a plan in the budget to invest 105 trillion rupees ($1.48

trn) in infrastructure over the next five years. By then it hopes to make India a $5 trn economy, compared with $2.8 trn now, government sources have said.

Since taking charge in 2014, Modi has increased state spend-ing on roads, railways, airports and ports, and has pruned state subsidies.

The budget could push pri-vatisation and set a target of 1.5 trn rupees, the sources said.

The government has already announced plans to sell nation-

al carrier Air India and oil re-tailer Bharat Petroleum Corp. Ltd, along with a few others.

The budget is also expected to increase import duties on more than 50 items, including electronics, electrical goods, chemicals and handicrafts, tar-geting about $56 bn worth of imports from China and else-where.

Domestic investors expect some relief on income tax rates after a cut in corporate tax rates in last September.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman arrives to present the 2019 budget in Parliament, New Delhi

Defying Trump, UK’s Johnson refuses to ban Huawei from 5GReuters | London

Prime Minister Boris Johnson granted Hua-

wei a limited role in Brit-ain’s 5G mobile network yesterday, frustrating a global attempt by the Unit-ed States to exclude the Chi-nese telecoms giant from the West’s next generation communications.

Defying Britain’s closest ally in favour of China on the eve of Brexit, John-son ruled that “high-risk vendors” such as Huawei would be allowed into the non-sensitive parts of the 5G network.

Yet such high-risk com-panies’ involvement will be capped at 35 per cent, they will be excluded from the sensitive core, where data is processed, and they will be banned from all critical net-works and locations such as nuclear sites and military bases.

5G, which will offer much faster data speeds and be-come the foundation stone of many industries and networks, is seen as one of the biggest innovations since the birth of the in-ternet itself a generation ago.

11WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29, 2020

We see great support from those

empowering the society’s initiatives

and projects that seek to develop the

ICT sector in BahrainUBAYDLI UBAYDLI

CHAIRMAN OF BAHRAIN TECHNOLOGY COMPANIES SOCIETY (BTECH)

Investing in the development of the ICT sector is crucial

to raise productivity rates and developing the National economy

RASHID AL-SNAN

CEO AND DIRECTOR OF ETISALCOM

Investing in the development of the ICT sector is crucial

to raise productivity rates and developing the National economy

TAREQ FAKHRO

A BOARD MEMBER OF FAKHROO INFOR-MATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES

We need to urge the training centres to focus on modern technology, such as data science,

artificial intelligence and blockchain

technologyNAWAF ABDUL RAHMAN, DIRECTOR OF IT AT THE MOHAMED BIN KHALIFA SPECIAL-

IST CARDIOLOGY CENTRE

More than 30 per cent of the jobs currently known will disappear in the next ten years,

to be replaced by other jobs due to

modern technologiesAHMED AL HUJAIRI

CEO OF GFB

Tata launches ‘ecosystem’ to kickstart Indian clean vehicles• The Nexon E is one of four electric car models that Tata Motors plans to launch over the next 2 years

Reuters | Mumbai

India’s Tata Group is making its biggest push yet toward clean

vehicles with plans to make elec-tric cars and batteries, set up charging stations and build a battery recycling plant, senior executives said yesterday.

To try to curb pollution and reduce its fuel import bill, India is pushing automakers to pro-duce electric vehicles, but has faced resistance from some that say the charging infrastructure needs to be set up first and bat-tery costs are too high to allow the manufacture of affordable EVs.

Companies from the steel-to-autos Tata conglomerate plan to address some of these issues.

Tata Motors, Tata Chemicals, Tata Power and Tata Croma, a chain of stores selling consum-er electronics, are pooling re-sources and expertise to build

an electric vehicle ecosystem, the executives told reporters in Mumbai.

The plans were announced ahead of the launch of Tata Mo-

tors’ electric sport-utility ve-hicle (SUV) Nexon EV, which was attended by N Chandrase-karan, chairman of Tata Sons, the automaker’s parent group,

and family patriarch Ratan Tata.

“This is the launch of an eco-system, which is the real need, not just another vehicle launch,” Guenter Butschek, managing director at Tata Motors, which also owns the British luxury car brand Jaguar Land Rover, said.

Tata Power, which has set up 100 charging stations, will add another 650 in more than 20 major Indian cities over the next year, the company’s CEO Praveer Sinha said.

All stations will support fast charging and will be linked to a mobile application, which has been developed with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), for payments and to check the availability of chargers, Sinha said.

Tata will use its chain of Cro-ma stores to display digitally its EVs, and some stores could offer test drives and charging stations and may even sell cars.

Battery manufacturingThe Nexon EV, priced starting

at $19,700, is one of four elec-tric car models that Tata Motors plans to launch over the next 2 years. The others will also be an electric version of its existing cars and will include a hatch-back, sedan and SUV.

The EV will be sold through Tata dealers and its retail Croma stores, Butschek said during the launch, adding the company will offer an 8 year warranty on the battery.

One of the biggest hurdles to building affordable EVs in India is the cost of the batteries, which are typically imported making them expensive.

Tata Chemicals has built a battery recycling center and ac-quired land to set up a battery manufacturing plant that is ex-pected to be ready in 3 years, CEO Ramakrishnan Mukundan said.

It plans to invest $113 million in the plant, which will have in-itial capacity of 200 megawatts with potential to scale it up to 2 gigawatts, depending on domes-tic and global demand, he said.

Ratan Tata, former chairman of Tata Sons, attends the launch of Tata Motors electric sport-utility vehicle (SUV) Nexon EV, in Mumbai, India

Tamkeen leading digital transformationExperts say Tamkeen’s support of technology sector crucial for national economy

TDT | Manama

Experts and stakeholders in the ICT sector stressed the importance of Tamkeen’s

role in supporting the sector as it accelerates business, provides quality jobs for Bahrainis and supports the process of digital transformation in the Kingdom of Bahrain.

They pointed out that Tam-keen’s support for the ICT sector was reflected in many aspects, from the establishment of ICT support service for more than three thousand Bahraini insti-tutions, as well as introducing of ICT professional certificates for 7800 Bahrainis, in addition to the continuous work of Tam-keen to build an effective part-nership with global technology companies such as Amazon and Microsoft to establishing tech-nology incubators and acceler-ators.

Strategic partnershipThe Chairman of Bahrain

Technology Companies Society (BTECH) Ubaydli Ubaydli ex-plained that BTECH is working to keep up with the rapid devel-opments of the ICT sector and how they can implement such advancements in Bahrain.

Ubaydli stressed that BTECH plays a key role in bridging the gap between technology com-panies in the private sector and government and semi-govern-ment entities in Bahrain. He added, “We see great support from those empowering the so-ciety’s initiatives and projects that seek to develop the ICT sector in Bahrain, and help its companies grow, enabling them to strike fruitful partnerships with their counterparts in Bah-rain, the region and the world, and to export their services and products to various markets.”

He pointed out that the Bah-rain Economic Development Board positioned the ICT sector as one of the five main sectors targeting support and growth, and that the aspects of a national plan for the transition towards

the digital economy are being planned out, considering that all of this confirms the importance of moving forward in supporting and developing this sector.

Keeping up with job marketAhmed Al Hujairi, CEO of

GFB, mentioned that the World Economic Forum indicated that more than 30 per cent of the jobs currently known will dis-appear in the next ten years, to be replaced by other jobs due to modern technologies. He also said that the need for a driver’s job will gradually decrease be-cause cars will drive themselves, depending on the Internet of Things and smart applications, and the smart interactive white-board will replace the school teacher, and robots will take over firefighters.

Al-Hujairi emphasized that training and qualifying more Bahrainis to learn how to use modern technologies would en-sure the localization of those applications in the Kingdom of Bahrain. This would depend on the expertise of these Bahraini

individuals, creating a national vision and leading the digital transformation of the Kingdom.

He also pointed out the im-portance of Tamkeen’s support for the professional certification in ICT and called for expanding this support so that professional training is not limited to those studying or graduating from col-leges of information technolo-gy, but to everyone, especially as ICT has become an essential element in various business institutions.

“Today we are talking about food technology, and even the taxi driver has to deal with applications such as Uber. En-trepreneurs are turning not to-wards investing in technology, but also developing it by build-ing applications and information systems that help them acceler-ate their businesses in the in-dustrial, commercial, or service field. Therefore, we believe that the more we can qualify Bahrai-nis in the ICT sector, the more we can achieve national goals in supporting the private sector and building the digital econo-

my,” said Al Hujairi.

Responsibility of training centres

Nawaf Abdul Rahman, direc-tor of IT at the Mohamed bin Khalifa Specialist Cardiology Centre, explained that Tam-keen has come a long way in empowering the various sectors, particularly the emerging insti-tutions, with a special interest in ICT companies.

Nawaf pointed out the im-portance of training centres to develop their professional certif-icates with Tamkeen’s support, including new science from the ICT, offering progressive pro-grams and opening the field to anyone interested in any specific science or specialization.

“We need to urge the train-ing centres to focus on modern technology, such as data science, artificial intelligence and block-chain technology, which is the backbone of the digital econo-my,” Nawaf added.

Technology in various sectorsCEO and Director of Etisal-

com, Rashid Al-Snan said: “The ICT sector has become the main bearer of development. Today we see more integration of tech-nologies in the banking sector such as financial technology (Fintech), in the logistical sector we see it via Blockchain technol-ogy, and in the tourism sector through customer service ap-plications. Thus, investing in the development of the ICT sector is crucial to raise productivity rates and developing the Nation-al economy.”

Al-Snan called for directing a greater part of Tamkeen’s budget to support the ICT sector in Bah-rain, including Bahraini com-panies and individuals, ICT sys-tems, technology applications, etc.

He added: “In the past, Tam-keen has played a major role in supporting this sector, and we stress today the importance of strengthening this role, espe-cially in this era of digital trans-formation.”

Maximizing BahrainisationTareq Fakhro, a board member

of Fakhroo Information Tech-nology Services, pointed out that Tamkeen was able to make a clear positive change in the na-tional economy, by continuously developing its programmes and services through successful stra-tegic plans every three years, and by providing suitable ser-vices that are appropriate to the company’s requirements and size.

Fakhro said that Tamkeen’s support for the ICT sector evolves with the development of the needs of this sector. Moreover, Fakhro highlighted the importance of maximizing the percentage of Bahrainisa-tion in this highly competitive sector.

“Wherever we can build Bah-raini companies that offer com-petitive services, products, soft-ware and information systems, we can reduce the deficit in what we might call the digital trade balance, export digital products, and raise the contribution of the technical sector to the GDP of the Kingdom of Bahrain,” said Fakhro.

12WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29, 2020

Brazil businesses hope for simpler tax system in 2020Sao Paulo

Alex Serodio struggles to find enough superlatives to de-

scribe Brazil’s cumbersome tax system. “I think rocket science might be easier,” quips the on-line beauty products retailer in Sao Paulo.

That could change this year, as lawmakers consider various proposals to simplify one of the world’s most complicated and time-consuming tax regimes.

President Jair Bolsonaro, who came to power in January 2019 on a promise to slash red-tape for businesses, has made tax re-form a priority this year.

It is an ambitious goal that previous governments have failed to achieve.

While tax cuts are not an op-tion for the cash-strapped coun-try, modernizing the system is seen as key to spurring economic growth, boosting foreign invest-ment and enabling the private sector to flourish.

“It’s really, really, really, really, really complex,” says Serodio, whose company Beleza na Web, or Beauty on the Web, employs a team of accountants and lawyers to navigate the labyrinthine tax rules that are constantly chang-ing.

“This is why you don’t have

many (foreign) retailers in Bra-zil... it’s too complicated.”

An average of 31 tax rules are introduced or amended every day, according to the Brazilian Institute of Planning and Taxa-tion, making compliance almost impossible for many companies.

“It’s so complex that we spend a lot of our decision-making time on this and not how to add more value to consumers,” Serodio adds.

He is not alone. A medi-

um-sized company in Brazil spends more than 1,500 hours a year preparing and paying taxes, according to the World Bank’s latest Doing Business report.

It ranked Brazil among the 10 worst countries for paying taxes -- only slightly better than the Congo and Venezuela.

That compares with 175 hours in the United States and 114 hours in Britain.

“I often joke that even when we sleep, we’re paying taxes,”

Gabriel Kanner of Brasil 200, a business lobby group, told local media recently.

Brazil has 63 different tax-es, including multiple levies on goods and services.

These consumption taxes, which unfairly hurt the poor and are a nightmare for businesses to calculate, are in the cross-hairs of lawmakers.

Their rates can vary wildly across Brazil’s federal district, 26 states and 5,570 municipalities,

depending on the product or service and jurisdiction.

“It’s totally irrational,” a vexed Flavio Rocha, chief executive of retail giant Riachuelo, tells AFP.

“A big industry in Brazil is the tax fight industry.”

In the northeastern state of Maranhao, for example, 12 dif-ferent tax rates apply to milk depending on its fat content and the animal it came from, accord-ing to Sao Paulo-based Endeav-or, which assists startups.

“It is a system that is old, oner-ous, very expensive and complex for companies,” says Monica Bendia, a tax specialist at UHY Bendoraytes, an auditing firm in Rio de Janeiro.

Winners and losersSeveral proposals for stream-

lining the system for taxing goods and services are on the table.

Two plans in Congress pro-pose combining several munici-pal, state and federal taxes into a value-added levy. They also push for a selective tax on goods such as alcohol and cigarettes.

The chance of getting one of the proposals through the lower and upper houses seems higher than in the past, experts say.

But it will not be easy.

Some taxes are included in the Constitution and changes to those have to be approved by 60 percent of lawmakers in both houses.

“We have a federal district, 26 states and more than 5,500 mu-nicipalities and each of them has a tax authority,” says Linneu de Albuquerque Mello, a tax lawyer in Rio de Janeiro.

“When you talk about over-hauling the tax system because it’s not efficient, if you change anything, someone will lose and someone will gain.”

The government’s success in winning congressional support for its pension overhaul last year -- something previous admin-istrations had also failed to do -- has raised hopes for the pos-sibility of tax reform.

“We have a very special mo-ment to do this, so it would be terrible if we lost this opportuni-ty because we don’t know when we will have another one,” says Marina Thiago of Endeavor.

Serodio does not favor a par-ticular proposal. He just wants lawmakers to make the system “very simple.”

“Do that and we are going to be able to get more traction and pay more than we pay today,” he says.

There are several proposals for streamlining Brazil’s tax system, one of the world’s most complicated and time-consuming, but it will not be easy to get one through Congress

Brexit’s new chapter: the ‘impossible’ trade dealAFP | Brussels

With just days to go be-fore Brexit, European diplomats are already

hard at work for the next phase: negotiations to hammer out a future with Britain after its EU divorce.

In the words of EU negotiator Michel Barnier, during the next phase of Brexit, Brussels and London will “have to rebuild everything”.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson seems reinvigorated after a clear electoral victory in December, but intense talks lie ahead.

Here are the main battle lines for the coming weeks:

No extensionThroughout his campaign,

Johnson said he would seal a trade deal by December 31, the deadline set by the EU-UK di-vorce agreement.

London could request an ex-tension of one or two more years if it decided to do so before sum-mer, but Johnson insists it will not. This marked the EU’s first reality check -- only reluctantly accepted -- and Brussels officials no longer expect Johnson to ask for a delay.

That leaves only eight months, from late February to October, to reach an agreement and allow time for ratification.

“It ’s an impossible task,” warned one European diplomat.

“By the end of the year, we could get the skeleton of a trade agreement plus something on internal and foreign security, but there is no guarantee,” the diplomat added.

Talks can begin as soon as EU ministers agree their joint man-date on February 25.

Johnson is not MayJohnson’s campaign prom-

ised “to get Brexit done” and to do away with his predecessor’s goals of close ties with Europe and minimal disruption to the cross-Channel economy.

Theresa May’s government had proposed a “dynamic align-ment”, where London would find a way to match EU rules on the environment, state aid and other standards to guarantee UK companies easy access to Europe.

Johnson has pledged to in-stead pursue a far more minimal trade deal that will seek zero tariffs and quotas on goods, but make no binding commitment on standards.

“The prime minister has been clear that he wants a Cana-da-style free trade agreement with no alignment,” a UK official told AFP.

This refers to the EU’s trade deal with Canada that Europe-ans consider ambitious as a trade deal, but too narrow for an im-portant neighbour like Britain.

“This is probably not the best time for them to make that de-cision,” warned Ian Bremmer, president at Eurasia Group.

“The UK does not have the size, does not have the technol-

ogy does not have the compet-itiveness, does not have the di-plomacy to really choose their future.”

Threat to unityA tariffs-only trade deal would

be a blow to Britain and a chal-lenge to the UK’s closest trad-ing partners -- such as Ireland, France, Belgium and the Neth-erlands.

No alignment on EU standards means custom checks, paper-work and all sorts of new limits to trade.

“Our first choice is that noth-ing changes,” lamented a dip-lomat. “But that is not going to happen, so we must now be re-alistic.”

Many in Brussels fear that Johnson’s low-bar strategy could be the biggest challenge to European unity since the Brexit referendum in 2016.

Member states will be pulling in different directions with some -- like France, Belgium and Den-mark -- concerned about fishing

access while eastern Europeans and Germany will want a deal on cars.

‘Zero-dumping’Referred to as keeping a lev-

el playing field, member states with the most trade with Britain want to ensure that British com-panies gain no unfair advantage after Brexit.

When British goods and ser-vices come knocking on Eu-rope’s door, they will insist that UK goods are subject to checks like those from any other non-EU country.

“Zero tariffs, zero quotas, zero dumping,” Barnier said.

Diplomats warn there were not many ways to enforce the level playing field in a simple trade deal, except through threatening tariffs that can take months or even years to impose.

The EU 27 have begun to draw up an elaborate arbitration pro-cess that could mean fines and suspension of any EU-UK accord if either side fell out of line.

‘Negotiation tables’Months of intense discussions,

to alternate between London and Brussels, will be coordinat-ed by Barnier and his UK coun-terpart, probably David Frost.

The tight deadline allows “about 40 days of pure negoti-ation” in eight to ten-week ses-sions, an official warned.

This is a far cry from the years devoted to trade deals with Can-ada, Japan or South Korea.

Barnier said negotiators would open about ten “negoti-ating tables” in parallel.

“We will give each subject two or three weeks and see what is possible. If the divisions are too

great, we move on,” a diplomat said.

Big deal?One question nagging Europe-

ans, notably France, is the future structure of the EU’s relationship with Britain.

Will it be something formal, with clearly set joint institu-tions, or a looser arrangement structured by separate deals on trade, security and other topics as necessary?

Many European capitals abhor the latter, spooked by the EU’s confused ties with Switzerland, which are governed by over 100 deals.

Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he would seal a trade deal with the EU by December 31, the deadline set by the EU-UK divorce agreement

Months of intense discussions, to alternate between London and Brussels, will be coordinated by EU’s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier (C) and his UK counterpart

THE GENTLEMEN (15+)(CRIME/ACTION) OASIS JUFFAIR: 11.15 AM + 1.45 + 4.15 + 6.45 + 9.15 + 11.45 PMOASIS JUFFAIR (VIP): 12.30 + 5.45 + 11.00 PMCITY CENTRE: 11.30 AM + 2.00 + 4.30 + 7.00 + 9.30 + 12.00 MN + (1.00 AM THURS/FRI)CITY CENTRE (VIP I) : 10.45 AM + 1.15 + 3.45 + 6.15 + 8.45 + 11.15 PMSEEF (I): 11.00 AM + 1.30 + 4.00 + 6.30 + 9.00 + 11.30 PMSEEF (II): (12.30 MN THURS/FRI)WADI AL SAIL: 10.45 AM + 1.15 + 3.45 + 6.15 + 8.45 + 11.15 PM

MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY, CHARLIE HUNNAM, HENRY GOLDING

THE TURNING (15+)(HORROR/THRILLER)OASIS JUFFAIR: 1.45 + 6.45 + 11.45 PMCITY CENTRE:10.30 AM + 12.45 + 3.00 + 5.15 + 7.30 + 9.45 + 12.00 MN + (1.00 AM THURS/FRI)SEEF (II):11.30 AM + 1.45 + 4.00 + 6.15 + 8.30 + 10.45 PM + (1.00 AM THURS/FRI)WADI AL SAIL:10.30 AM + 3.00 + 7.30 + 12.00 MN

MACKENZIE DAVIS, FINN WOLFHARD, BROOKLYNN PRINCE

JUST MERCY (PG-13)(DRAMA)CITY CENTRE: 11.30 AM +2.30 + 5.30 + 8.30 + 11.30 PMSEEF (II): 12.15 + 5.45 + 11.15 PMWADI AL SAIL: 2.30 + 8.00 PM

BRIE LARSON, MICHAEL B. JORDAN, JAMIE FOXX

THE LAST FULL MEASURE (PG-15)(DRAMA/WAR) CITY CENTRE: 12.30 + 3.00 + 5.30 + 8.00 + 10.30 PMSEEF (II): 3.15 + 8.45 PMWADI AL SAIL:12.00 + 5.30 + 11.00 PM

CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER, SAMUEL L. JACKSON, SEBASTIAN STAN

PANGA (PG-13)(HINDI/ROMANTIC/DRAMA/SPORT) From Thursday 23rd 7.00 PM onwardsOASIS JUFFAIR: 12.00 + 2.45 + 5.30 + 8.15 + 11.00 PMCITY CENTRE: 11.45 AM + 2.45 + 5.45 + 8.45 + 11.45 PMSEEF (II): 12.15 + 3.00 + 5.45 + 8.30 + 11.15 PMWADI AL SAIL: 12.00 + 5.45 + 11.30 PM

KANGANA RANAUT, JASSIE GILL, RICHA CHADHA

STREET DANCER 3 (PG-15)(HINDI/DANCE/MUSIC/COMEDY) OASIS JUFFAIR:11.00 AM + 2.00 + 5.00 + 8.00 + 11.00 PMCITY CENTRE:11.15 AM + 2.15 + 5.15 + 8.15 + 11.15 PMSEEF (II): 11.30 AM + 2.30 + 5.30 + 8.30 + 11.30 PMWADI AL SAIL: 2.45 + 8.30 PM

VARUN DHAWAN, SHRADDHA KAPOOR, RAGHAV JUYAL

TOY GUARDIANS (G)(ANIMATION/ACTION/ADVENTURE) CITY CENTRE: 11.00 AM + 1.00 + 3.00 + 5.00 PMSEEF (II): 10.30 AM + 12.30 + 2.30 + 4.30 PM

MITCH SANDRINGHAM,JULIA NOBLES,CATIA NATHANSON

AL NIHAYA (PG)(KUWAITI/ACTION/COMEDY) SEEF (II): 6.30 + 8.30 + 10.30 PM

EBRAHIM AL-SHEAKHLI, MESHAAL ALFARHAN, MOHAMMED ALHMLY

BAD BOYS FOR LIFE (PG-15)(ACTION/COMEDY/CRIME)OASIS JUFFAIR: 12.30 + 3.15 + 6.00 + 8.45 + 11.30 PMOASIS JUFFAIR (VIP): 3.00 + 8.15 PMCITY CENTRE (IMAX 2D): 3.15 + 6.00 + 8.45 + 11.30 PMCITY CENTRE: 11.15 AM + 2.00 + 4.45 + 7.30 + 10.15 PM + (1.00 AM THURS/FRI) CITY CENTRE (ATMOS): 10.30 AM + 1.00 + 3.45 + 6.30 + 9.15 + 12.00 MN CITY CENTRE (VIP II) : 12.00 + 2.45 + 5.30 + 8.15 + 11.00 PMSEEF (II): 10.30 AM + 1.00 + 3.45 + 6.30 + 9.15 + 12.00 MN + (12.30 MN THURS/FRI)WADI AL SAIL: 12.45 + 3.30 + 6.15 + 9.00 + 11.45 PM

WILL SMITH, MARTIN LAWRENCE, VANESSA HUDGENS

DOLITTLE (PG)(ADVENTURE/COMEDY/FAMILY) OASIS JUFFAIR (KIDS CINEMA): 10.45 AM + 1.00 + 5.30 + 7.45 + 10.00 PMCITY CENTRE (IMAX 2D) :11.00 AM + 1.00 PMCITY CENTRE: 12.00 + 2.15 + 4.30 + 6.45 + 9.00 + 11.15 PMSEEF (II): 11.45 AM + 2.00 + 4.15 + 6.30 + 8.45 + 11.00 PMWADI AL SAIL: 12.45 + 5.15 + 9.45 PM

ROBERT DOWNEY JR., ANTONIO BANDERAS, MICHAEL SHEEN

1917 (PG-15)(WAR/ACTION/DRAMA) 1917 CITY CENTRE:11.00 AM + 1.30 + 4.00 + 6.30 + 9.00 + 11.30 PMSEEF (II): 10.30 AM + 1.00 + 3.30 + 6.00 + 8.30 + 11.00 PM

GEORGE MACKAY, DEAN-CHARLES CHAPMAN, MARK STRONG

JUMANJI THE NEXT LEVEL (PG-15)CITY CENTRE: 12.45 + 3.30 + 6.15 + 9.00 + 11.45 PM + (12.45 MN THURS/FRI)SEEF (II): 12.30 + 3.15 + 6.00 + 8.45 + 11.30 PM

DWAYNE JOHNSON, JACK BLACK, KEVIN HART

AL FELOUS (THE MONEY) (PG-15)CITY CENTRE: 11.15 AM + 1.45 + 4.15 + 6.45 + 9.15 + 11.45 PMSEEF (I):10.45 AM + 1.15 + 3.45 + 6.15 + 8.45 + 11.15 PM

TAMER HOSNY, ZEINA, KHALID EL-SAWI

FROZEN 2 (PG)(ANIMATION/ADVENTURE/COMEDY) CITY CENTRE: 11.30 AM + 1.45 + 4.00 + 6.15 + 8.30 + 10.45 PMSEEF (II): 11.00 AM + 3.30 + 8.00 PM

KRISTEN BELL, IDINA MENZEL, JOSH GAD

SPIES IN DISGUISE (PG)OASIS JUFFAIR (KIDS CINEMA):3.15 PMCITY CENTRE: 11.15 AM + 1.30 + 3.45 + 6.00 + 8.15 + 10.30 PMSEEF (II): 1.15 + 5.45 + 10.15 PM

WILL SMITH, TOM HOLLAND, KAREN GILLAN

UNDERWATER (PG-15)CITY CENTRE:7.00 + 9.15 + 11.30 PM

KRISTEN STEWART, T.J. MILLER, JESSICA HENWICK

MASAMEER: THE MOVIE (PG)(ANIMATION/COMEDY) CITY CENTRE: 10.45 AM + 3.45 + 8.45 PM

ABDULAZIZ AL-MUZAINI, ABDULAZIZ AL-SHEHRI, MAZROA AL-MAZROA

MALEFICENT 2: MISTRESS OF EVIL CITY CENTRE: 1.15 + 6.15 + 11.15 PM

ANGELINA JOLIE, TERESA MAHONEY, MICHELLE PFEIFFER

CHHAPAAK (PG-15)(HINDI/DRAMA) SEEF (I): 10.45 AM + 1.15 + 6.45 + 9.15 + 11.45 PM

DEEPIKA PADUKONE, VIKRANT MASSEY, MADHURJEET SARGHI

TANHAJI:THE UNSUNG WARRIOR OASIS JUFFAIR : 11.00 AM + 4.00 + 9.00 PMSEEF (I): 3.00 + 8.30 PM

AJAY DEVGN, SAIF ALI KHAN, KAJOL

BIG BROTHER (PG-15)(MALAYALAM) OASIS JUFFAIR:10.45 AM + 4.45 + 10.45 PM

MOHANLAL, ARBAAZ KHAN, ANOOP MENON, SARJANO KHALID, HONEY ROSE, SIDDIQUE

ALA VAIKUNTHAPURRAMLOO (PG-15)(TELUGU) OASIS JUFFAIR: 1.45 + 7.45 PMSEEF (I):12.00 + 5.30 + 11.00 PM

ALLU ARAVIND,S. RADHA KRISHNA, ALLU ARJUN, POOJA HEGDE, TABU, NIVETHA PETHURAJ

DISCO RAJA ()(TELUGU) From Friday 24th SEEF (I): 3.45 PM

RAVI TEJA, PAYAL RAJPUT, SATYA

ANJAAM PATHIRA (PG-15 )(MALAYALAM) OASIS JUFFAIR:12.00 + 2.45 + 5.30 + 8.15 + 11.00 PMSEEF (I) : 12.15 + 3.00 + 5.45 + 8.30 + 11.15 PMWADI AL SAIL: 3.15 + 8.30 PMAL HAMRA : 12.00 + 6.00 + (12.00 MN THURS/FRI)

KUNCHACKO BOBAN, SHARAFUDHEEN, INDRANS

SHYLOCK (PG-15)(MALAYALAM)OASIS JUFFAIR: 11.00 AM + 1.30 + 4.00 + 6.30 + 9.00 + 11.30 PMSEEF (I): 11.30 AM + 2.00 + 4.30 + 7.00 + 9.30 + 12.00 MNWADI AL SAIL: 12.45 + 6.00 + 11.15 PMAL HAMRA : 3.00 + 9.00 PM

MAMMOOTTY,MEENA,SIDDQUE,RAJKIRANA

13 WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29, 2020

Knives Out: a deliciously entertaining whodunit• Rian Johnson’s homage to Agatha Christie delivers laughs, twists and thrills with aplomb

Whodunnits in the vein of Agatha Christie — like Knives Out,

a romping delight from gen-re-bending Last Jedi auteur Rian Johnson — require a degree of prejudice in the reader in order

to work properly. Characters are slotted into a type, usually owing to their occupation, na-tionality, or social standing, and then the fun of the story comes from how people act against (or within) type, subverting our guesses.

Christie, of course, was work-ing in England a century ago; Johnson’s story is set in contem-porary, richly autumnal patri-cian Massachusetts, in the home of a hugely successful mystery writer who has, unfortunately, turned up dead. And because

this is America in 2019, the prejudices and privileges dis-played by the family vying for his money are uniquely American, too.

But Knives Out, being a whodunnit, is best if you go in knowing as little as possi-ble. The twists aren’t aids to telling the story, they are the story.

It ’s the most finely tuned version of a murder mystery you could hope for, with joy-ous performances and style in spades.

Rian Johnson’s star-studded thriller pays homage to clas-sic detective stories but gives the genre a

timely twist

M O V I E R E V I E W

DON’T MISS IT

Jamie Lee Curtis, Christopher Plummer, Don Johnson and Michael Shannon in the film

14 TUESDAY, JANUARY 28, 2020

C R O S S W O R DAcross1- Exclamation to express sorrow; 5- Bear up there; 9- Western Native Americans; 13- “Goldberg Variations” composer; 14- Freedom from war; 16- Swabbies; 17- Reflected sound; 18- Appropriate; 19- Split; 20- Antlered animal; 21- Single unit; 22- Brings out; 24- Furniture wood; 26- Faucet problem; 27- Like some bears and icecaps; 29- Unselfish; 33- Lustful deity; 34- “David Copperfield” wife; 35- Neighbor of Sask.; 36- Singer Garfunkel; 37- Experiment; 38- Skid row woe; 39- Will of “The Waltons”; 41- ___ She Sweet; 42- Weeps; 44- Incoming; 46- Less outgoing; 47- Tyler’s successor; 48- Pass the breaking point; 49- Ring combo; 52- Loss leader?; 53- Portfolio; 57- Actress Moore; 58- Summarize; 60- Minerals; 61- “Ars Amatoria” poet; 62- Brazilian ballroom dance; 63- Tears; 64- Network of nerves; 65- Exam used to measure aptitude or intelligence; 66- Go out with;Down1- In the sack; 2- Ornamental fabric; 3- Dull pain, often in the head or back; 4- Soon; 5- Turmoil; 6- Freshen, as a stamp pad; 7- Saltimbocca seasoning; 8- Essen exclamation; 9- As above; 10- Baby powder; 11- HOMES part; 12- Fast fliers; 15- Endless; 23- Decease; 25- Musical ability; 26- Clear of vermin; 27- Kitchen gadget; 28- Sleek swimmer; 29- Departing; 30- Blast from the past; 31- Say; 32- Cheek; 33- Narrative of heroic exploits; 34- Imbibe; 37- Suit makers; 40- Swimmer’s fear; 42- Chinese tea; 43- It opens your parachute; 45- Pledge; 46- Be short with; 48- Runs through; 49- Scent; 50- Campbell of “Scream”; 51- Send forth; 52- Pinnacle; 54- La Scala solo; 55- Equinox mo.; 56- “___ quam videri” (North Carolina’s motto); 59- Absorb, as a cost;

Yesterday’s solution

How to playPlace a number in the empty boxes in such a way that each row across, each column down and each 9-box square contains all of the numbers from one to nine.

Yesterday’s solution

S U D O K UAcross1- Petty quarrel, ejected saliva; 5- Watery animal fluid; 10- Zip; 14- Chantilly product; 15- Shut; 16- Self-images; 17- Weapons; 18- Senior; 19- Flying stinger; 20- False show; 22- Van Gogh masterpiece; 24- Greek nickname; 25- Lyric poems; 26- Kind of license or justice; 29- Soft metallic element; 33- Nahuatl speaker; 34- Moon of Jupiter; 36- Compass dir.; 37- Bud’s bud; 38- Kind of kitchen; 39- French connections; 40- Denouement; 41- Immoral habit; 42- Seine spot; 44- Go in again; 47- In some degree; 48- Seemingly forever; 49- Leb. neighbor; 50- Squirts; 53- Arm of the sea?; 58- Knee-slapper; 59- ___ Mio; 61- Arrest; 62- Archipelago part; 63- Lowest point; 64- Elation; 65- Hammer head; 66- Viscid; 67- Differently;

Down 1- Hit with an open hand; 2- Young salmon; 3- Peak; 4- Having a valid will; 5- Attractive route; 6- Building wings; 7- Got on; 8- Application; 9- Longitude; 10- Rather recent; 11- Turkish titles; 12- Prescribed amount; 13- Nile biters; 21- Actor Stoltz; 23- Not emp.; 25- Blast from the past; 26- More wan; 27- Form of oxygen; 28- Piece of music written for a solo instrument; 30- Like helium; 31- Pending; 32- Unordered; 34- Retreats; 35- List-ending abbr.; 38- Vesper; 42- Gone by; 43- Place in order; 45- Tidy up; 46- Plaything; 47- Certain forest; 50- Pack and send; 51- Prepare to be shot; 52- Portrayal by an actor; 53- Commotion; 54- Writer Wiesel; 55- Equal a bet; 56- Falsehoods; 57- Gen. Robert ___; 60- ___ Paulo;

14 WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29, 2020

31st January, 2020

Please Call / WhatsApp: +973 38862215, 33784481, 33911860

C L A S S I F I E D S

‘1917’ crosses $200 million at global box-office

Los Angeles

Reliance Entertainment and Amblin Partners

war drama “1917”, directed by Oscar-winning director Sam Mendes has crossed over a whopping $200 million at the global box-office.

Starting out at the No. 1 slot at the US box office in its wide opening weekend, the film, based on World War I, has now grossed over US$ 200 million (Rs 1,400 crore) worldwide in theatrical sales.

“1917” has also been on an incredible award-winning spree besides the 10 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director, at the forthcoming 92nd Acad-emy Awards, and 9 nomina-tions for the BAFTA awards.

The film has won three awards at the Critics Choice Awards 2020 for Best Direc-tor, Best Cinematographer and Best Editing. It is also the 77th Golden Globes winner in the Best Picture-Drama category, and was feted with the Best Director’s award for Mendes.

Adding to the accolades, Mendes won the ‘Best Fea-ture Film’ at Directors Guild of America Awards recently. The film also won Best Pic-ture at the Producers Guild of America Awards, and Rog-er Deakins won Top Feature Award from the American So-ciety of Cinematographers for his spectacular work in ‘1917’.

Selena Gomez felt ‘emotionally abused’ while dating singer

Justin BieberLos Angeles

Singer Selena Gomez has revealed that she experienced

“e m o t i o n a l a b u s e ” while dating former beau and pop singer Justin Bieber.

In an interview with the portal NPR, Gomez discussed her ups and downs while

being in relationship with Bie-ber, and their split in March 2018, reports cnn.com.

She said: “I’ve found the strength in it,” she said. “It’s dangerous to stay in a victim mentality. And I’m not being disrespectful, I do feel I was a victim to certain abuse.”

When asked if she specifically meant “emotional abuse”, she replied saying “Yes.” She continued: “I had to find a way to understand it as an adult. And I had to understand the choices I was making. As much as I definitely don’t want to spend the rest of my life talking about this, I am really proud that I can say I feel the strong-est I’ve ever felt and I’ve found a way to just walk through it with as much grace as possible.”

Gomez shared that her song “Lose you to love me” was about the pain of getting over their split.

When Sienna Miller cried on reading a

film scriptLos Angeles

Actress Sienna Miller has revealed that she wept everytime she read the

script of her upcoming film “Wander Darkly”.

Speaking in Deadline’s Sundance Studio, Miller spoke about how the drama, which sees a couple forced to confront their rela-tionship issues following a traumatic accident, provoked strong reactions in her, reports femalefirst.co.uk.

She said: “(When I first read the script) I found myself really emotional at the end, and actually, every time I went back and read the script, there were these beats, and I couldn’t help but cry.

“I felt like if that was happening in a reading of a piece of material, it was some-thing I had to do.”

Miller’s co-star Diego Luna admitted he had an equally strong reaction and praised the movie for talking about love and rela-tionships in a “very smart way”.

He said: “I think it’s a very smart way to talk about love. I think it’s really sad, but I have kids, and I don’t see stories of love that I want them to see. Everything is about the im-mediate thing. This (relationship) is quite interesting because they’re willing to look back. I don’t think we do that often in life.”

Sara Ali Khan’s before transformation video goes viralMumbai

Bollywood actress Sara Ali Khan shared a video of herself be-fore her transformation

which has gone viral.Sara took to Instagram,

where she shared a video in which she is seen playing a prank on her friends in an aircraft, way be-fore her weight loss transformation.

She captioned the clip: “Presenting Sara ka Sara Sara. Let’s make ‘light’ of what it was… Let’s also make it lighter than what it was. Vid-eo and transformation

credit: @namratapurohit.”In the video, which has

“Sar jo tera chakraye” playing in the back-ground”, Sara is the only one awake during the flight as her friends are

seen taking a power nap while sitting besides her.

The video currently has 34,99,817 views on Instagram.

Fans praised her hard work in the comment section.

One wrote: “Inspiration for many.”Another commented: “Aww you are

too cute inner beauty is important and you have that. Size doesn’t matter.”

One lauded her confidence and said: “Hats off to you girl, this really needs guts to show these videos or pictures, what a journey you had.”

Justin Bieber shares adorable post with wife Hailey BaldwinLos Angeles

Giving out some ma-jor cou-

ple goals, singer Justin Bieber on Tuesday shared an adorable pic-ture with wife Hailey Baldwin on his social media handle.

The 25-year-old singer hopped on to Insta-gram and shared a lovely picture of them and wrote: “ Love u tons bubz.”

The photograph has Justin looking at his wife in the utmost affectionate manner, while

Hailey is all smiles.Earlier the day, the global pop star released the

first episode of the 10-episode YouTube docuse-ries titled ‘Justin Bieber: Seasons’.

The docuseries is a documentary series chron-icling the making of Bieber’s first album in four years.

The ‘Baby’ singer posted the first episode, ‘Leav-ing the Spotlight - Justin Bieber: Seasons’ on You-Tube.

‘A look back at Justin’s life after cancelling the last leg of his Purpose Tour,’ read the captioned of the episode.

Margot Robbie would love to see Poison Ivy join DCEULos Angeles

Actor Margot Robbie said she would love to

see Poison Ivy join Harley Quinn, her character, in the DC Entertainment Universe in future.

T h e d u o have often been es-tablished a s c l o s e f r i e n d s , with some ve r s i o n s o f the relation-ship even being portrayed as being romantic.

Asked which which other DC characters she would love to see interact with films going ahead, Robbie said she always wanted Harley Quinn to reunite with Poison Ivy.

There are days I wake up and I’m like

falling apart: Irina Shayk on being a

single motherLos Angeles

Su p e r m o d e l I r i n a Shayk says there are days when she finds

it hard to balance between being a single mother and being a working woman.

The 34-year-old model, who co-parents her two-

year-old daughter Lea De Seine with her ex-partner, Hol-lywood star Bradley Cooper, said she sometimes feels like everything is crumbling around her.

“It’s hard to find a balance between being a single mum and being a working woman and provider. Trust me, there are days I wake up and I’m like, ‘Oh my god, I don’t know what to do, I’m falling apart’,” Shayk told British Vogue magazine.

She also opened up about her split from Cooper, whom she dated for four years be-fore they decided to go their

separate ways in 2019.Shayk said life with-

out the actor is a “new ground” for her.

Emily Blunt was ‘gobsmacked’

by ‘A Quiet Place’ successLos Angeles

Actress Emily Blunt was ‘gobsmacked’ on seeing the audiences response to her 2018 horror hit, “A Quiet Place”.

Blunt starred opposite husband John Kra-sinski, who also directed the film. She was

not only taken aback by how popular the film proved to be, but also how much conversation it sparked off over theories surrounding deeper themes, reports femalefirst.co.uk.

She said: “I was gobsmacked. Not only by just how many people went to see it and then told their friends to see it, and then it had this meteoric life that was not expected by me. But also the very deep metaphorical themes that people pulled

out of it, some of which were intended and

some of which re-ally weren’t. They

found it really involving and

exciting.”

Margot Robbie

Justin Bieber and Hailey Baldwin

Emily Blunt

Selena Gomez

Irina Shayk

15

sports

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29, 2020

BAS ladies’ team excel in endurance kartingTDT | Manama

The all-ladies’ squad of Bahrain Airport Services (BAS) Motor Sport Team

are continuing their rapid de-velopment in karting, but it is not only happening on the track.

Each time they step into a kart either for a race or for practice, their love for the sport contin-ues to grow as well.

The fearless group of BAS staffers were back in action re-cently for a gruelling 12-hour challenge, held as part of the Bahrain Karting Enduro Cham-pionship (BKEC) at Bahrain In-ternational Karting Circuit in Sakhir.

Once again, they showed that they can hold their own in kart-ing races of a high level, and enjoy doing it in the process.

“Today I realised that I have fallen in love with karting,” said Alya Adel, who competed with the ladies’ team for the very first time. “It was really amazing; I never felt this thrill before.”

Alya was one of six drivers in the Milla Smith-managed ladies’ squad, who completed 515 laps between them over the half-a-day duration of the race.

The team’s other members included Christina Anieliesa, Alanoud Alaiwi, Sujusha Bakaal, Fatima Mohammed and Mar-yam Al Qassim.

“I always wanted to join but I never had the confidence to go for it, but my colleagues told me to just try it and that it’s going to be amazing, and so I did and now I realise they are right,” Alya added. “I hope I can be a part of the racing all the time.”

Sujusha was also making her debut with the team and she shared Alya’s enthusiasm. “It was a great experience,” she said. “We enjoyed it very much and we worked really hard as a team for it.”

For young team members Christina and Alanoud, it was their third time out competing with BAS after also being racing

in the BKEC season’s three-hour and six-hour rounds. They too felt the immense thrill despite double the challenge this time around.

“We really enjoyed compet-ing once again as a team, even with the bigger challenge of 12 hours,” said Christina. “At the beginning of the season, I did not have much interest in taking part, but now I am really loving it and I am always looking for-ward to every opportunity we have to race.”

Alanoud concurred. “Before I was really scared, but now I am really enjoying it, especial-ly in being a part of the team,”

Alanoud said. “Everyone sup-ports each other and we are also able to get better and better each time.”

For Fatima, the unique ele-ments of the long 12-hour race were particularly pleasing, such as the transition from night to morning, which was another first for her in the BKEC. “I went in the kart in the night and came out in the morning, and I was able to see the sun rise; it was really amazing,” she said.

“It was a completely different race from the first two rounds but I enjoyed it more. I can’t wait to be a part of the next race over 24 hours!”

BAS Motor Sport Team Man-ager Tony Smith expressed his pride in seeing the all-ladies’ team break down barriers in yet another race. “We are all so very proud to have the only Bahraini ladies’ team in the event, which shows true courage and dedi-cation to the sport and to BAS,” he said.

BAS CEO Salman Al Mahmeed stated how proud he is of the team and wishes the team the best of luck and success in the forthcoming event, with his full support. He said: “We now move forward for the teams to start their training for the ever-so-long, 24-hour challenge in Feb-ruary and to finish the season on a high.”

BAS ladies’ team members in action during the race

BAS ladies’ team members with their trophies

BIC’s NHRA strip all set for Rolling Drag Nights

TDT | Manama

Bahrain International Cir-cuit (BIC), “The Home

of Motorsport in the Middle East”, keeps things busy at its world-class NHRA drag strip with the Kanoo Motors Rolling Drag Nights tomorrow.

Similar to BIC’s Ebrahim K Kanoo Drag and Drift Nights, Rolling Drag offers partic-ipants the chance to power their very own cars or motor-bikes down the circuit’s quar-ter-mile strip, which is a mem-ber of the US-based National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) Worldwide Network.

The major difference in Rolling Drag is that those who take part do not start from a standstill, but from a rolling speed of 80kph.

Rolling Drag is therefore the perfect activity to invite a

friend or more and then chal-lenge them for a series of head-to-head battles within a safe and controlled environment.

Thursday’s Kanoo Motors Rolling Drag Nights is sched-uled to take place between 7pm and midnight. Registra-tion will be held at BIC’s car park no. two, and it will be open from 5pm until 9pm.

The cost to participate is BD20 for each driver or rider. There is an additional fee of BD5 for a service car and BD7 for an accompanying passen-ger. Spectators can watch all the action for a nominal entry fee of BD2. Tickets are sold at Car Parks 4 and 2.

Just as in every BIC activity, safety standards of the highest level are followed at all times during the evening’s events for both drivers and spectators alike.

A car in action at BIC

Bayern bosses urge Loew to recall Mueller for EuroAFP | Berlin

Ba y e r n M u n i c h bosses are urging

Germany head coach Joachim Loew to recall Thomas Mueller to the national team and take the in-form forward to

the Euro 2020 finals.L o e w d r o p p e d a

bombshell in March 2019 by axing Mu-

eller, plus fellow 2014 World Cup winners Jerome Boateng and Mats

Hummels.

Loew ditched the trio to re-build the Germany team after the debacle at the 2018 World Cup, when the defending cham-pions finished last in their group and failed to reach the knock-out stages in Russia.

“The game is not over yet,” was Mueller’s response after his dismissal last March.

He blasted Loew at the time, saying the way he was informed of the decision was “not in good style - it had nothing to do with appreciation” after 100 appear-ances and 38 goals for Germany.

Loew’s squad face world champions France and reigning European champions Portugal

in their group for the Euro 2020 finals.

There are calls to reinstate Mueller for March’s friendlies against Spain and Italy and the 30-year-old’s current form makes Loew’s decision hard to justify. He has set up 12 goals in the Bundesliga this season, the most assists in Germany’s top tier, scoring four goals in Bay-ern’s last seven league games.

Mueller hit the net and had another goal disallowed in Sat-urday’s 5-0 rout of Schalke and is thriving since Hansi Flick re-placed Niko Kovac as Bayern head coach in November.

“Thomas is enjoying an Indi-

an summer, which is important for us, we need his goals and assists,” said Bayern chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge.

“As a matter of principle, I don’t want to give Jogi Loew any advice.

“I always say if somebody plays well -- and I hope that Thomas will continue to play at this top level -- then maybe there will be a rethink.”

Bayern president Herbert Hainer was more blunt.

“Every team needs a Thomas Mueller and it doesn’t matter whether that is in Munich or at the European championships,” said the 65-year-old.

Inter Milan sign Christian Eriksen from TottenhamAFP | Milan

Inter Milan completed the signing of Danish interna-

tional midfielder Christian Eriksen from Tottenham Hot-spur on Tuesday.

Eriksen, 27, has signed a con-tact until 2024 with the Italian giants after the clubs reached an agreement for a reported transfer fee of 20 million euros (£17 million, $22 million).

“We can confirm the depar-ture of Christian Eriksen who has today completed a transfer to Inter Milan,” Tottenham said in a statement. “We wish you all the best for the future.”

Eriksen made 305 appear-ance for Spurs after joining from Ajax in 2013, scoring 69 goals.

Tottenham also confirmed the permanent signing of Gio-vani Lo Celso from Real Bet-i s to replace Eriksen on

Tuesday.Eriksen was a

key part of the side that reached l a s t s e a s o n ’ s

Cham-pions

League final and finished in the top four of the Premier League for the past four seasons under Mauricio Pochettino.

However, a contract standoff with the club meant a depar-ture was inevitable either this month or on a free transfer at the end of the season.

Eriksen expressed his desire to move at the end of last sea-son and was jeered by some Spurs fans in recent games as speculation over his future grew.

Tottenham manager Jose Mourinho praised the Dane’s professionalism, but expressed frustration at the timing of the move after weeks of negotia-tions between the clubs.

“The only thing I can say is Eriksen, since I arrive, he is behaving in a very, very pro-fessional way, with me and the team,” Mourinho said after Saturday’s 1-1 draw at South-ampton.

“Tottenham is the last one to blame for this situation.”

Eriksen becomes In-ter’s third signing of the January window after the arrivals of Ashley Young from Man-chester United and Victor Moses on loan from Chel-sea as they aim to end Juven-tus’ stranglehold on the Serie A title.

Christian Eriksen Thomas Mueller

16WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29, 2020

Stage set for horseracing spectacleTDT | Manama

One of the highlights of the horseracing season is scheduled to take place

on Friday at Rashid Equestrian and Horseracing Club (REHC) in Riffa.

Seven thrilling races are on the card, with three of them being for the Cups of His Royal High-ness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, Crown Prince, Dep-uty Supreme Commander and First Deputy Prime Minister.

All are welcome to attend. The meeting will be held between 1pm and 5pm. There will also be plenty of side attractions for the whole family, including carnival games, kids’ rides, entertain-ment and food stalls. Entrance is free.

A staggering BD35,000 com-bined prize will be shared amongst the winners in the three Cups of His Royal High-ness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, which will be offered in the day’s seventh, sixth and third races.

The seventh and final race on Friday is over 10 furlongs with a BD15,000 total prize. Nine im-ported horses aged three years old and above are entered in the event, all of whom are owned either by Al Adiyat Racing or Victorious.

Two of the three horses tipped

to have a chance are from Al Adiyat, including Thorkhill Star and Rustang. Both are trained by Alan Smith, while Thorkhill Star is to be ridden by Frankie Det-tori and Rustang is to be ridden by James Doyle.

Port Lions competing for Vic-torious is the other horse with a chance. Trained by Hesham Al Haddad, Port Lions is to be ridden by Adrie De Vries.

Five of the other competing horses are owned by Victori-ous, including Jazeel, Macaque, Vale Do Sol, What a Welcome and Albert Finney; while the other competing horse is Laid-back Romeo, owned by Al Adiyat Racing.

The sixth race of the day is also over 10 furlongs with an-other BD15,000 total prize up for grabs. Eight locally bred hors-es aged three and up are set to battle it out, with Retort, News Breaker and Pulsar all tipped to have a chance at victory.

Retort and News Breaker are both owned by Victorious and trained by Alan Smith. Jockey James Doyle will be riding Re-tort while Frankie Dettori will be on News Breaker.

Pulsar is owned by Abdulla Fawzi Nass, trained by Hesham Al Haddad and is to be ridden by Adrie De Vries.

The five other horses taking part are Parchment for Vic-

torious, Al Nimra for Abdulla Fawzi Nass, Good News for M and E Racing, Daleel for His Highness Shaikh Hamad bin Abdulla bin Isa Al Khalifa and Dushanbe for His Highness Shaikh Isa bin Abdulla bin Isa Al Khalifa.

Race three will be over seven furlongs with a BD5,000 total

prize. Five horses are entered in the event, with those tipped with a chance being Kuheilan Afas 1708 and Al Jellaby 1544, both competing for Victorious; and Kuheilan Afas 1695 for Al Wasmiya.

Meanwhile, the four other races on the day are also set for some exciting battles.

The fifth race is the Bahrain Derby and it is over 10 furlongs with a BD6,900 prize. Five hors-es are entered, with Al Tariq, Shawwash and Raed all with a chance.

Race four is the Bahrain Oaks (Sponsored by Al Muzdaher Stud), set for nine furlongs with a BD4,500 prize. Four horses are

set to compete, with Sabreena, Sadara and Valentine all tipped with a chance.

The second race is for the Stewards’ Cup, set over eight furlongs with a BD5,000 prize; while the opening event is for the High Committee Cup, set over a straight of six furlongs with a BD5,000 prize.

Participants in action during a race (file photo)

Federer sets up Djokovic semiRoger Federer fights off seven match points to advance to Australian Open semi-finals

• Novak Djokovic storms past Milos Raonic

• Australia’s Ashleigh Barty beat Petra Kvitova to reach the semi-finals

AFP | Melbourne

Swiss great Roger Federer said “I believe in miracles” after he saved seven match

points in a five-set nail-biter against 100th-ranked Tennys Sandgren to go into an Austral-ian Open semi-final with Novak Djokovic on Tuesday.

The six-time champion, struggling physically, saved three match points at 4-5 in the fourth set and four more in the tie-breaker to scrape through 6-3, 2-6, 2-6, 7-6 (10/8), 6-3.

Federer, 38, now goes into an unmissable semi-final with Djokovic, who blunted Milos Raonic’s razor serve to win 6-4, 6-3, 7-6 (7/1) and move two wins from an eighth Melbourne title.

Djokovic, despite trouble with his contact lenses, ended Raon-ic’s run of 63 straight games in the tournament without a break of serve and moves smoothly into the semis for the loss of just one set so far.

He paid tribute to the great escape by Federer, ahead of a semi-final that reprises his epic win over the Swiss in last year’s Wimbledon decider.

“What he did today was really amazing, to come back and save seven match points at his age,” Djokovic said.

“He’s still playing such a great

tennis and proving that he de-serves to be up there. He’s a great fighter. Obviously I have lots of respect for him.”

Federer’s match was inci-dent-packed and he received a rare warning for an audible obscenity before going off-court for treatment on a groin injury.

Still hampered by the inju-ry, he somehow forced a fifth set and began to regain control against the big-serving Amer-ican.

“I believe in miracles,” Feder-

er said, revealing that he thought his groin strain had ended his chances. “There could be rain, there could be all kinds of stuff.

“(I thought) just let him finish me off in style, and he didn’t do that. I’m incredibly lucky tonight, today -- I don’t even know what time it is.”

Sandgren, achingly close to becoming the lowest-ranked player to beat Federer at the Australian Open, can count him-self unlucky especially after a ball girl accidentally collided with him during the pivotal tie-breaker, which he lost.

Federer has made heavy weather of reaching his 46th Major semi-final. He was two points from defeat by John Mill-man in a fifth-set tie-breaker in round three, and dropped a set against 67th-ranked Marton Fucsovics in round four.

‘Quiet little life’ In the women’s draw Austral-

ia’s world number one Ashleigh Barty dismissed two-time Wim-bledon champion Petra Kvitova in impressive style to reach the semis for the first time.

The unflappable Barty beat

the Czech 7-6 (8/6), 6-2 and will be favourite in her semi-final against America’s Sofia Kenin -- sending hopes soaring of a first home winner in 42 years.

The French Open champion, who once quit tennis to play cricket and has been steadily rising since her return, is the tournament’s poster girl with her image plastered all over Melbourne.

But she said: “I’d prefer to just be sitting at home just living my quiet little life.”

Kenin, whose career is also on the up, made her first Grand Slam semi-final and with it will rise to at least 12 in the rankings -- making her the second-high-est American behind Serena Williams.

The feisty 21-year-old was a 6-4, 6-4 winner over Ons Jabeur, halting the Tunisian’s historic run which made her the first Arab woman to reach a Major quarter-final.

“She’s a really tough player, I knew she’s going to come out playing strong,” Kenin said. “She’s had really good matches, good wins. It wasn’t an easy bat-tle -- all respect to her.”

Switzerland’s Roger Federer hits a return against Tennys Sandgren of the US

Novak Djokovic of Serbia in action against Milos Raonic

KNOW WHAT

Novak Djokovic and Rog-er Federer will square off for the 50th time in their careers, a rivalry the Serbian leads 26-23

Manchester United’s Norwegian manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer (L) and Manchester City’s Spanish manager Pep Guardiola (R) shout instruction to their players (file photo)

Solskjaer seeks spirit of PSG as United prepare to face CityAFP | London

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer says Manchester United need

to harness the spirit of Paris Saint-Germain and put in a “perfect performance” if they are to overcome Manchester City and reach the League Cup final.

United face an uphill battle after losing the first leg of their semi-final against Pep Guardi-ola’s men 3-1 at Old Trafford.

Marcus Rashford’s goal gives United a glimmer of hope heading to the Etihad Stadium on Wednesday and Solskjaer said the stunning comeback win against PSG in the Cham-pions League last March can be an inspiration.

United were 2-0 down after the first leg and then 3-1 down on aggregate in Paris before storming back to win on away goals.

“Well, it looked like it was over at half-time,” he said, re-ferring to the first leg of the City match. “I have to say the second part of that first half, they outplayed us for a while

and it’s hard.“But then when we got the

goal, of course you’re back in it, we hope for another one.

“But now we’ve got to go into the memory bank and think PSG because we’ve done it against good teams before and it gives us some hope, and the game in December (when United won 2-1 against City) of course gives us hope that we can do something there.”

Solskjaer confirmed Neman-ja Matic is a doubt for the sec-ond leg in a press conference that included plenty of transfer talk but no updates.

Sporting midfielder Bruno Fernandes reportedly remains a target for the club, while a number of enquiries have been made as United look at possi-ble attacking options.

Alexis Sanchez would have been an option but does not have a recall clause in his loan deal, although Solskjaer ex-pects him to have an Old Traf-ford future when he returns from Inter Milan at the end of the season.