new transit visa rules to boost qatar tourism - gulf times

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TUESDAY Vol. XXXVII No. 10224

September 27, 2016Dhul-Hijja 25, 1437 AH www. gulf-times.com 2 Riyals

QATAR | Page 4

QATAR

REGION

ARAB WORLD

INTERNATIONAL

COMMENT

BUSINESS

CLASSIFIED

SPORTS

26, 27

1–8, 13–16

9–12

1–12

2-10

11

11

12–25

INDEX

Confi dent El Jaish take on Al Ain

SPORT |

Lusail to host International Boat Show in December

Sash of Merit for envoy

HH the Deputy Emir Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamad al-Thani yesterday met with Indian ambassador Sanjeev Arora who is ending his tenure in the country. HH the Deputy Emir presented the outgoing ambassador with the Sash of Merit in recognition of his role in enhancing relations between the two countries, wishing him success in his future assignments and for the bilateral relations further progress and prosperity. Page 2

New transit visarules to boostQatar tourismThe new visa structure now allows passengers with a minimum transit time of five hours in Hamad International Airport to stay in Qatar for up to 96 hours, without applying for an entry visa ahead of time

A revised, free-of-charge tour-ism visa scheme for passengers transiting through Doha was

announced yesterday by Qatar Tourism Authority (QTA), Qatar Airways (QA) and Qatar’s Ministry of Interior (MoI) in a move to promote the country as a world-class stopover destination.

The new transit visa structure now allows passengers with a minimum transit time of fi ve hours in Hamad International Airport (HIA) to stay in Qatar for up to 96 hours (four days), without applying for an entry visa ahead of time.

This is a signifi cant increase from the previous transit visa scheme, which al-lowed travellers with a minimum layo-ver of eight hours and a maximum of 48 hours (two days) in Qatar.

The transit visa will be available on arrival at HIA to passengers of all na-tionalities upon confi rmation of on-ward journey and completion of pass-port control procedures. All visas are approved and issued at the sole discre-tion of MoI.

The move is designed to make stopo-vers easier and more attractive to QA’s global passengers. It aims to deliver additional value to the local economy while strengthening Qatar’s position as an attractive tourist destination.

“Whether travelling for business or leisure, we want to enrich the journey of all of our passengers and are restruc-turing our fares to refl ect this initiative and to promote stopovers to travellers,” QA Group chief executive Akbar al-

Baker said in a press statement. The development, announced on the

eve of World Tourism Day (WTD), is the third in a series of enhancements that Qatar has made to facilitate entry into the country for visitors. It aims to promote the country as a world-class stopover destination.

Last week, offi cials announced a new process to quicken the entry of tourists arriving on board cruise ships, and ear-lier, representatives signed an agree-ment with VFS Global, which will see the development of a new, faster and more transparent tourist visa applica-tion mechanism.

United Nations World Tourism Or-ganisation (UNWTO) secretary-gener-al Taleb Rifai commended Qatar on its rapid advancement in this area saying that promoting visa facilitation is a pri-ority for tourism development world-wide and a key element in the competi-tiveness of tourism destinations.

Brigadier Abdullah Salim al-Ali, di-rector general of the General Directo-rate of Nationality, Borders and Expa-triates Aff airs at MoI said they strive to support the country’s growth and de-velopment while maintaining security for all visitors and residents.

“We are pleased to further facilitate the movement of the 30mn passengers who pass through HIA every year,” he said. “We welcome them to spend time in Doha and discover Qatari hospital-ity.”

QTA’s chief tourism development offi cer Hassan al-Ibrahim echoed these statements saying that by off ering an enhanced transit visa to passengers travelling through HIA, Qatar is pro-viding its visitors a welcoming expe-rience from the moment their planes touch down in Doha until they begin their onward journeys to their fi nal destinations.

“As we celebrate WTD’s ‘Tourism for All’ theme, we are delighted to make Qatar more accessible to people from around the world and invite them to discover our country, our cultural heritage and our natural treasures,” he noted.

The introduction of a new transit visa scheme is also a step towards po-sitioning Doha as a turn-around port for cruise ships, al-Ibrahim added.

He said that in the near future, in-ternational cruise passengers could fl y to Qatar, enter using a transit visa, and begin and end their cruise in Doha.

“This will increase the length of stay in Qatar of a growing segment of visi-tors, and allow them to further explore our country’s tourism off ering, while increasing the economic impact of cruise tourism,” the QTA offi cial ex-plained.

To maximise on their transit through Qatar, visitors can explore Discover Qatar stopover packages off ered by QA Holidays. These include, desert safaris, city tours, visits to Katara - the Cultural Village, Souq Waqif and The Pearl-Qatar island, museum and art gallery visits, architectural tours, and hotel bookings.

The new tourism visa scheme aims to promote Qatar as a world-class stopover destination.

Annual cost for diabetes care could rise to QR5bn in 2035By Joseph VargheseStaff Reporter

Qatar’s annual cost for diabetes care could rise from QR1.8bn in 2015 to QR5bn in 2035 and

QR8.4bn by 2055, if no immediate ac-tion is taken to combat the problem, according to a report presented at the International Diabetes Leadership Fo-rum yesterday.

The net present cost for treating dia-betes over the next 40 years is estimat-ed at QR130bn. The report also points out that if current behaviour and prac-tices remain the same, there could be a signifi cant increase in the burden of the disease in the coming decades.

If nothing is done to fi ght the prob-lem, the number of people suff ering from diabetes in Qatar could go up from 200,000 in 2015 to 299,000 in 2035 and 368,000 by 2055. Similarly, the number of people suff ering from complications due to diabetes is 48,000 presently and could rise to 124,000 in 2035 and 182,000 by 2055.

The two-day forum was opened yesterday in the presence of HE the Prime Minister and Interior Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Kha-lifa al-Thani, HE the Minister of Public Health Dr Hanan Mohamed al- Kuwari,

a number of ministers as well as several leading international experts on diabe-tes from diff erent parts of the world.

Speaking at the opening session, HE al-Kuwari stated that diabetes is one of the fastest growing diseases in the

world and Qatar has not been spared from this trend.

“Indeed, one in six (17%) of the Qatari adult population suff ers from diabetes. Today as a health system, we spend an estimate of QR1.8bn on treat-ing diabetes and its complications in Qatar.”

“An estimated 50% of all dialysis provided in Qatar is due to diabetes, half of acute coronary disease is asso-ciated with diabetes and close to 70% of all stroke patients have diabetes or pre-diabetes. Our projections show that without any change, the number of people suff ering with diabetes is likely to double in the next 40 years,” high-lighted the minister.

The minister also called for collective eff orts to fi ght diabetes. “Tackling dia-betes is not – and cannot be – a chal-lenge for doctors, nurses and health offi cials alone: it’s all of our collective responsibility. Our greatest challenge – and our biggest opportunity – is to work together to transform the way we address preventing the disease in the fi rst place.”

According to the minister, Qatar’s National Diabetes Strategy 2016-2022 off ers a real opportunity to focus the attention on one of the most important health challenges for Qatar.

“We all know that lifestyle changes can have a massive impact on diabetes - regular exercise, a balanced diet and stopping smoking are just a few of the steps people can take to signifi cantly reduce their chances of getting the dis-ease,” she added.

The two-day forum is discussing the most prominent health challenges of diabetes and means of combating them with a broad participation of interna-tionally-recognised experts. It aims to highlight the size of the problem in tackling diabetes and the urgent need to reduce its prevalence in Qatar.

With several keynote speeches, case studies and workshops run by leading international experts, the forum will promote dialogue and ideas exchange, to help develop practical recommen-dations for the implementation of the country’s National Diabetes Strategy. Page 2

HE the Minister of Public Health Dr Hanan Mohamed al-Kuwari addressing the forum yesterday. PICTURES: Nasar T K

HE the Prime Minister and Inteior Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani along with other ministers and senior off icials at the forum yesterday.

QA set to meet ICAO fl ight-tracking recommendations

Qatar Airways will be the global launch customer of GlobalBea-con (sm), a technology solu-

tion by Aireon LLC and FlightAware, designed to provide up-to-the minute global tracking of all aircraft equipped with Automatic Dependent Surveil-lance-Broadcast (ADS-B) in 2018.

The national carrier is thus meet-ing, three years in advance, the Inter-national Civil Aviation Organisation’s (ICAO) recommendation for compli-ance by 2021.

Announced by ICAO in March of 2016, Global Aeronautical Distress Safety System (GADSS) was created to help improve the ability to detect com-mercial aircraft in remote locations. The key components of GADSS recom-mend that aircraft report their position to the airline’s operations centre at a minimum of once every 15 minutes un-der normal fl ight circumstances.

However, if an aircraft should become in distress, position reports are then to

be provided every minute. GlobalBea-con will provide a permanent minute-by-minute reporting capability, far ex-ceeding the ICAO recommendation.

Qatar Airways Group Chief Execu-tive Akbar al-Baker said: “As one of the fastest growing airlines in the world, both our needs, and our drive to deliver the very best services for our global passengers, are continually evolving. GlobalBeacon will seamlessly integrate with our existing ICAO 2018 compliant fl ight watch technology (Total Opera-tions System), and further enhance our fl eet management by providing up-dates every minute.

“I am proud of Qatar Airways’ lead-ership in this vital area of aviation safety and awareness. We will be the fi rst airline in the world to have the capability to use worldwide satellite air surveillance to support our airline operations and to achieve the highest level of fl ight tracking standards ahead of the ICAO 2021 mandate.” To Page 9

QATAR | Diplomacy

Erdogan meetswith al-AttiyahTurkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan yesterday met with Qatar’s Minister of State for Defence Aff airs, HE Dr Khalid bin Mohamed al-Attiyah, who is visiting Ankara. HE al-Attiyah conveyed the greetings of HH the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani to the Turkish President and people, wishing them further progress and development. For his part, the Turkish president asked the Qatari minister to convey greetings to HH the Emir and the people of Qatar. The meeting focused on bilateral relations and ways to enhance them. They also discussed a number of issues of joint interest, particularly in fields relating to military co-operation. HE al-Attiyah also met with Turkish Defence Minister Fikri Isik. The meeting was attended by Qatar’s ambassador to Turkey, Salim bin Mubarak al-Shafi.

ARAB WORLD | Reaction

Palestinians slamTrump’s standPalestinian leaders yesterday accused Donald Trump of abandoning any hope of a two-state solution after the Republican candidate said he would recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s “undivided” capital if he won the US presidential election. “Trump’s statement shows disregard for international law (and) longstanding US foreign policy regarding the status of Jerusalem,” Saeb Erekat, secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, said in a statement. “Previous statements delivered by his adviser on Israel show a total abandonment of the two-state solution, international law and UN resolutions.”

ENERGY | Discussions

Oil prices rally as producers gather Oil settled up 3% yesterday as the world’s largest producers gathered in Algeria to discuss ways to support prices. The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and other oil producers led by Russia are meeting informally on the sidelines of the International Energy Forum in Algeria from September 26-28 to tackle a crude glut that has battered prices for two years now. Business Page 2

New evidence of water plumes on Jupiter’s moon EuropaAFPMiami

More evidence of possible wa-ter plumes erupting from the surface of Jupiter’s icy moon

Europa has been spotted using Nasa’s

Hubble Space Telescope, the US space agency said yesterday.

Europa, one of more than 50 moons circling the gas giant, is con-sidered by Nasa as a “top candidate” for life elsewhere in the solar sys-tem because it is believed to possess a massive, salty, subsurface ocean

that is twice the size of Earth’s. The latest finding has given sci-

entists fresh hope that a robotic spacecraft could one day fly past these potential plumes and learn about their contents without having to drill miles deep into the moon’s icy shell.

QATAR

Gulf Times Tuesday, September 27, 20162

Features-packed credit cards will benefi t customers: QIIB

Arbitration conferenceto be held on Oct 18, 19

QIIB has announced the launch of the “latest and distinctive features” on credit cards, al-

lowing customers to avail themselves of a monthly payment plan equivalent to 5% of the due amount on the credit card.

Users can also collect QIIB Points that may be redeemed for travel tickets on more than 900 airlines worldwide, the bank said in a press statement.

Mohamed AlMawlawi, GM, chief of business development and mar-keting at QIIB, said: “The launch of the 5% monthly payment plan for QIIB’s credit cards comes within the framework of innovation and in re-sponse to customer requirements. We hope the features-packed QIIB credit cards will meet the various needs of our customers in different categories and that they will find these easily accessible and most convenient.

“The advantages and benefi ts of QIIB credit cards are many. Besides the option of a monthly payment plan, equivalent to 5% of the total due amount on the credit card, our cus-tomers can also earn QIIB Points that

may be redeemed for tickets on more than 900 airlines worldwide. Also, QIIB credit cards are accepted world-wide.”

AlMawlawi explained that the hold-ers of QIIB credit cards with the 5%

monthly payment plan need to pay 1% as monthly profi t rate. They are entitled to Takaful coverage of up to QR100,000 at “competitive charges in the sad event of a death,” he noted, adding that QIIB customers have the option to settle credit card payments by instalments or as a lump sum. In case they choose to settle the whole amount, the 1% monthly profi t rate will not be applied.

The offi cial urged the bank’s cus-tomers to make use of the features of the QIIB credit cards, which would “help them fi x their priorities and set-tle their obligations at the lowest cost possible.”

Flexible payment options will help customers who due to various reasons may not be able to pay and clear their outstanding amount immediately.

AlMawlawi also expressed confi -dence that the various innovative fea-tures of the credit cards would be ac-cepted and acclaimed by a wide range of QIIB customers.

Existing customers or newer cus-tomers who wish to avail themselves of the features may visit any of the bank’s branches.

Qatar Chamber (QC) is continuing its prepara-tions to host the 2nd In-

ternational Arbitration Confer-ence scheduled to be held in Doha on October 18 and 19.

Sheikh Thani bin Ali bin Saud al-Thani, board member of Qatar International Centre for Concili-ation and Arbitration (QICCA), which comes under QC, said that the conference will bring togeth-er a number of legal experts and specialists in arbitration at the global, Arab and GCC levels, as well as specialists in arbitration from Qatar.

The aim of the conference, which coincides with the cel-ebration of QICCA’s 10th an-niversary, is to promote the use of commercial arbitration as a practical means to settle dis-putes.

The conference is held under

the patronage of HE the Prime Minister and Interior Minister Sheikh Abdulla bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani.

The QICCA board member pointed out that the confer-ence would focus on a number of main subjects including a review of the Qatari arbitra-tion texts and related court rul-ings, the role of GCC arbitra-tion centres in developing an investment-friendly environ-ment, modern trends in arbitra-tion, updating Qatari legislation to create an attractive ground for investments, integration between Qatari laws and inter-national treaties to protect the rights of Qatari investors abroad and the role of the national ju-diciary in supporting and con-trolling commercial arbitration and implementation of the arbi-trators’ rulings.

Indian embassyopen house onSeptember 30The Indian embassy will hold an Open House on September 30 to address any urgent consular and labour problems of Indian nationals in Qatar.The Open House will be held from 5.30pm to 6.30pm. Written information on issues/cases pro-posed to be discussed with the embassy may be given from 5.30pm to 6pm. This will be followed by a meeting with embassy off icials from 6pm to 6.30pm.

Network monitorsJordan electionsThe Doha-based Arab Network for National Human Rights Institutions took part in moni-toring the recent parliamentary elections in Jordan at the invitation of the Jordanian National Centre for Human Rights in Jordan (NCHR), a member of the Network. Chair-man of the National Human Rights Commit-tee (NHRC) and member of the Executive Committee of the Arab Network Dr Ali bin Samikh al-Marri represented the Network in monitoring the elections. A number of the Network’s Arabic national institutions members also participated as international observers.

HE the Prime Minister and Interior Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani yesterday met outgoing Indian ambassador Sanjeev Arora. The Prime Minister wished the ambassador success in his future tasks and further progress and prosperity to ties between Qatar and India. Also yesterday, HE the Minister of Justice Dr Hassan Lahdan Saqr al-Mohannadi separately met Arora and Turkey’s ambassador Ahmad Dimerok (below and bottom).

PM, justice minister meet envoys

Conference calls fordiabetes educationThe International Diabetes

Leadership Forum that got underway in Doha

yesterday, with a broad partici-pation of internationally rec-ognised experts, discussed the most prominent health chal-lenges of diabetes and means of combating them.

The two-day forum is be-ing held in co-operation be-tween the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) and ‘Action on Diabetes’, a major public-private partnership between Hamad Medical Corporation ( HMC), Primary Health Care Corpora-tion (PHCC), Qatar Diabetes Association, Novo Nordisk and lead sponsor Maersk Oil Qatar, in collaboration with the Qatar Metabolic Institute, and spon-sors - the World Diabetes Foun-dation, International Diabetes

Federation, and Qatar Airways.Dr Mariam Ali Abdulmalik,

managing director of PHCC, highlighted the need for diabe-tes education.

“If we are to successfully tackle the challenges that dia-betes presents to our society, it is vital that we focus on pre-ventive measures by educat-ing the public on how to live a healthy life, for example by eating healthy food and being active. This will help prevent the onset of diabetes and will also reduce obesity.”

Diabetes is currently one of the greatest health challenges facing the Gulf region. If left undiagnosed or untreated, it can be a debilitating illness, causing a strain not only on individual suff erers, but on society as a whole.

Sheikha Dr Anoud bint Mo-hamed al-Thani, manager of Health Promotion and Non Communicable Diseases, MoPH said: “Diabetes is becoming pervasive in our society and we must act now to overcome its challenges. By assembling the world’s greatest experts in dia-betes, healthcare leaders, policy makers, private companies and NGOs to share ideas and best practices, we can accelerate our understanding of the issue to better tackle this disease.”

Prof Abdul-Badi Abou-Samra, chairman of Internal Medicine at HMC and co-chair of the National Diabetes Com-mittee, said: “The national dia-betes strategy was developed in consultation with the public, patients and healthcare profes-sionals and is focused on the

prevention, early diagnosis and management of diabetes and its complications. This forum is a catalyst to now be able to de-velop the dedicated healthcare and research programmes, in-frastructure and collaborative frameworks to align activities across both the public and pri-vate sector to tackle this pan-demic together.”

Lewis Affl eck, managing di-rector of Maersk Oil Qatar, the lead sponsor of the forum said: “This forum is the culmina-tion of over fi ve years of hard work and dedication with our Action on Diabetes partners to achieve that - and we’re incred-ibly proud of the role we’ve been able to play in making this event possible - and of the legacy that it will create in the fi ght against diabetes in Qatar.”

A panel discussion during the forum. PICTURE: Nasar T K

Mohamed AlMawlawi

3Gulf Times Tuesday, September 27, 2016

QATAR

31 to take part in WISE Learners’Voice ProgrammeThe World Innovation Summit for

Education (WISE), a global ini-tiative of Qatar Foundation for

Education, Science and Community Development, has announced a new cohort of outstanding young people who will be participating in the 2016-2017 Learners’ Voice Programme.

A total of 31 young education advo-cates from diverse backgrounds and disciplines have been selected to join the international Learners’ Voice com-munity and engage in global dialogue on pressing issues in education.

The WISE Learners’ Voice Pro-gramme brings the voice of young peo-ple to the challenge of rethinking edu-cation, and equips them with the skills to take on leading roles in their fi elds.

The initiative focuses on building

knowledge, as well as communication, entrepreneurship and leadership skills.

In addition to their participation at the WISE Summit 2017, the Learners will participate in two intensive resi-dential sessions delivered by experts, as well as in a variety of online and on-site activities.

In a key component of the Learn-ers’ Voice Programme, due to start next January, the participants will form teams in order to conceive and design innovative projects that address criti-cal education challenges.

After thorough evaluation by the Learners’ Voice team, selected mem-bers will have an opportunity to pitch their proposals to an audience of po-tential investors, donors, and partners at the WISE Summit 2017 in Doha.

“WISE is very excited to introduce the new cohort of the Learners’ Voice Programme for 2016-17,” said Stavros N Yiannouka, CEO, WISE.

“The WISE team has worked hard to bring together a group of young people with diverse backgrounds and experi-ence who nevertheless share a com-mitment to education as a means of individual empowerment and social transformation.”

“A number of these young people were refugees and immigrants to new countries, and have already faced life-changing experiences and challenges. I am confi dent that they and their peers will bring to the WISE community powerful perspectives toward building the future of education,” Yiannouka added.

HE the Prime Minister and Minister of Interior Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani yesterday met off icials of the UN Off ice on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). Talks dealt with co-operation between Qatar and the UNODC, particularly in the field of combating terrorism and cybercrimes.

PM meets UNODC officials

QATAR


HE the Minister of Endowments (Awqaf) and Islamic Aff airs Dr Ghaith bin Mubarak al-Kuwari yesterday met with the ambassador of Kazakhstan to Qatar Askar Shokybayev. The Minister met separately with the ambassador of the Kyrgyz Republic to Qatar, Nuran Niyazaliev. Talks during the meetings addressed viewpoints on issues of common concern.

Envoys call on Awqaf Minister

AG holds talks with UK deputy chief crown prosecutor

HE the Attorney General (AG) Dr Ali Bin Fetais al-Marri yesterday

met with the UK Deputy Chief Crown Prosecutor, CPS Pro-ceeds of Crime, Gary Balch.

During the meeting, they exchanged views on a number of issues of common concern and ways of co-operation in the legal and judicial fi elds.

This meeting was held on the sidelines of the opening of a training course organised by the Public Prosecutor in co-operation with its counterpart in the United Kingdom on ju-dicial assistance and the pro-ceeds of crime and extradition margin.

During the session, a number of specialists present-ed lectures on ways and means to facilitate judicial co-opera-tion between the United King-dom and the State of Qatar in the fi eld of recovery of funds and extradition as part of the consolidation of the legal and judicial relations between the two friendly countries.

The workshop was also at-tended by a number of spe-cialists from the Ministry of Foreign Aff airs, the Ministry of Interior, fi nancial information unit of Qatar Central Bank, the Supreme Judicial Council and the Administrative Control and Transparency Authority.

HE Dr Ali bin Fetais al-Marri during a meeting with Gary Balch.

Minister meets WHO regional director

HE the Minister of Pub-lic Health Dr Hanan Mohammed al-Ku-

wari yesterday met with World Health Organisation (WHO) regional director for the East-ern Mediterranean Region, Dr Aladdin Alwan, on the side-lines of the International Dia-betes Leadership Forum being held in Doha.

Talks during the meeting dealt with areas of co-oper-ation, the most prominent topics on the agenda of the fo-rum and a number of issues of common interest.

The minister also met with a number of senior participants in the forum and discussed with them various topics of common interest.

Lusail to host International Boat Show in DecemberDoha is set to host the

fourth edition of Qatar International Boat Show

(QIBS 2016) at Lusail Marina, Lusail City from December 7 to 10 under the patronage of HE the Prime Minister and Interior Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani.

Following on the show’s suc-cess, which attracted more than 50,000 visitors from 88 coun-tries last year, QIBS 2016 will witness the participation of ma-jor manufacturers and exhibi-tors, leading international and GCC companies currently active in boat and yacht manufacturing and marketing, and local Qatari companies specialising in this

key sector and its related supply industries.

“For the fourth consecutive year, QIBS has become a princi-pal annual fi xture on the sector’s calendar of specialised regional and international exhibitions, which underlines the remarkable success it has achieved over this short period of time and its abil-ity to attract the industry’s key players. QIBS also consolidates Doha’s position as a vibrant global destination to organise shows of this calibre,” said Ah-mad Abdulla al-Hammadi, ex-ecutive director, marketing and sales at Qatari Diar.

“Lusail City hosts QIBS in line with Qatar National Vision

2030, which seeks to diversify income resources and promote sustainable activities. Besides, the city will stand out as always in attracting residents and visi-tors of all walks of life, becoming an icon for green, sustainable

cities in Qatar and the region, particularly Lusail Marina that has established itself as one of the region’s most popular des-tinations for boat and yacht lov-ers,” added al-Hammadi.

Since inception in 2013, QIBS has brought together thousands of the world’s distinguished boat and yacht manufacturers, ex-hibitors, and specialists from the UAE, Bahrain, Canada, France, the UK, Germany, Italy, Mo-naco, Turkey, Lebanon, Swit-zerland, Poland, the Czech Re-public, and the US, as well as the several other highly-esteemed countries in this fi eld.

Khalid Essa al-Mannai, chair-man, Al Mannai Events, QIBS

organisers, noted that the show enjoys the support of the State of Qatar.

“QIBS contributes to supporting the tourism and exhibitions sector in Qatar, attracting investments to the country. This highlights gov-ernment’s relentless support to the private sector that drives the econ-omy’s competitiveness and helps in the diversifi cation of income re-sources, including the vital sectors of tourism, exhibitions and marine services.

“To ensure the complete suc-cess of the show, a team of highly-skilled specialists has been formed, spearheaded by Nader Samaan, director, Qatar International Boat Show 2016,” al-Mannai said.

Ahmad Abdulla al-Hammadi, executive director, Qatari Diar.

QATAR


Stenden ‘entrepreneurs’ train at top US varsityA group of students from

Stenden University, Qa-tar, have completed a

training course at DePaul Uni-versity, Chicago, as part of the entrepreneurship and business development programme off ered by the Sheikh Faisal Centre for Entrepreneurship in the Middle East.

The two-week programme involved eight students, major-ing in International Business and Hospitality and Tourism Man-agement, learning from Chica-go’s entrepreneurship ecosystem.

During the course, the stu-dents learned how to develop and enhance business ideas from the DePaul faculty, from Chicago entrepreneurs, and from promi-nent local businesspeople.

The students also visited en-trepreneurship incubators, met with business leaders, learned from successful DePaul alumni, and received advice from the De-Paul faculty.

The goal of this programme was to ensure that aspiring young students are able to start their entrepreneurial journeys from the strongest foundations and armed with the knowledge need-ed to be able to face challenges, overcome them and succeed.

HE Sheikh Faisal bin Qassim al-Thani with the students.

Met forsees winds, dust over weekend

The country is likely to experience another spell of strong winds, dusty conditions and low visibility from this Thursday until Saturday, the Met depart-

ment has said.The sea level is also expected to rise during this period,

according to the weather offi ce.In view of the expected conditions, the Met department

has urged people to remain cautious and avoid venturing into the sea during the spell of strong winds.

Citing weather charts, the Met department yesterday said fresh-strong northwesterly winds would aff ect Qatar between Thursday and Saturday, blowing over most parts of the country during the daytime in this period.

The wind speed will range from 15-25 knots, reaching 35 knots in some places at times, which will result in blow-ing dust.

This, in turn, will lead to a drop in visibility to 2km or less, especially in open areas, while the sea level may rise to 8-10ft and sometimes going up to 13ft.

Meanwhile, the maximum temperature is likely to range from 36-38C and the minimum from 26-29C in diff erent parts of the country during this period.

Dusty and windy conditions have been reported from diff erent parts of Qatar over the past couple of days along with high seas in off shore areas.

Today, the Met department has said low visibility is ex-pected in some areas in the early hours of the day.

Hazy to misty/foggy conditions are likely in these plac-es at fi rst, followed by a hot day with some clouds.

Visibility may drop to 2km or less.Off shore areas, meanwhile, are likely to experience

hazy to misty conditions in some places today.A maximum temperature of 39C was recorded yesterday

in Turayna, followed by 38C in the Qatar University and Doha airport areas, Al Rayyan, Sheehaniya and other places.

Meanwhile, the minimum temperature dropped to 22C in Al Khor yesterday.

Today, the mercury level is expected to reach a high of 36C in Doha, Al Khor and Dukhan.

The Met department has advised people to follow lat-est weather updates through its offi cial social media ac-counts.

Volvo truck sets world records

The Doha Marketing Services Com-pany (Domasco) has announced that Volvo’s Iron Knight truck broke

world speed records for 500m and 1,000m.Reaching a top speed of 276kph, Volvo’s

Iron Knight set the new unoffi cial world record for trucks, covering a distance of 1km in 21.29 seconds.

The record is being reviewed by interna-tional motor sport association FIA, accord-ing to a press statement from Domasco, the authorised distributor for Volvo Trucks in Qatar.

The tests were carried out on an air-plane runway in Sweden and the driver was former European Truck Racing champion Boije Ovebrink.

The truck covered 500m in 13.7 seconds.After starting, the 4,500kg Iron Knight

can reach 100km/h in just 4.6 seconds, the statement notes.

Specialists from diff erent Volvo Trucks departments worked together to develop this “one-of-a-kind truck with unsur-passed performance”.

Apart from Volvo Trucks’ powertrain, which is the heart and soul of the Iron Knight, they have hand-built the truck from the ground up just for this special test.

The vehicle’s diesel engine is based on Volvo’s normal design for tractor-trailer trucks, but was modifi ed to enhance the usual power and performance.

The truck was also designed to reduce wind resistance in order to increase speed and reduce fuel use.

The truck’s transmission was made to give the driver smoother control when changing gears.

This helps the truck perform better un-der extreme conditions, such as carrying a heavy load up a steep hill.

The previous record for 1km — 21.59 sec-onds — was set in 2012 by Volvo’s Mean Green truck.

Faisal Sharif, managing director of Do-masco, said: “Combining good drivability with fuel-effi ciency is a great achievement.

“For many of our customers, maintaining a high average speed is important in order to save time — time that may be crucial to the transport mission.”

“In the same way, it’s important to mini-mise fuel costs.”

“What Volvo Trucks off ers is an engine and gearbox that utilise their full combined potential to deliver more effi cient transpor-tation.”

Mohamed Majeed, sales and marketing manager of commercial vehicles at Do-masco, added: “Our customers constantly demand new solutions that are both pro-ductive and cost-eff ective.”

“Volvo trucks are brawny steel titans that can take on any extreme road condition or climate variances while guaranteeing maxi-mum fuel effi ciency and smooth driving.”

A handout photo of the Volvo Iron Knight.

During their visit, the stu-dents shared several busi-ness ideas and discussed them with the DePaul Faculty, they were also given guidance on how to enhance those ideas

and turn them into reality.At the end of the programme,

the students presented those ideas to the dean of DePaul’s Driehaus College of Business, Dr Ray Whittington.

key to enriching our economies.” Dr Mandy Terc, director of the

Sheikh Faisal Centre for Entre-preneurship in the Middle East, DePaul University, stated that it was a great experience to have young entrepreneurs visit Chi-cago from Qatar.

“This programme was very intensive and benefi tted the stu-dents in several ways,” she said.

“The students’ enthusiasm for entrepreneurship was re-fl ected through their astounding ideas and ambitions.”

“The DePaul faculty was gen-uinely impressed by the poten-tial the students have, and what great success they can achieve given the right tools, which is what we, at the Sheikh Faisal Centre for Entrepreneurship hope to achieve; preparing youth to become leading prominent entrepreneurs.”

The Sheikh Faisal Centre for Entrepreneurship is committed to delivering its objectives through promoting knowledge transfer between Qatar and the US.

Considering the increasing demand for SMEs in the region, the aim of the programme is to provide future entrepreneurs with the necessary tools and knowledge that can help them run a successful business.

The ideas were discussed amongst students and profes-sors, and the students received certifi cates acknowledging their completion of the programme.

HE Sheikh Faisal bin Qas-sim al-Thani, chairman of The

Sheikh Faisal Centre for En-trepreneurship in the Middle East, said it is pleasing to see the progress the Centre has achieved through the unique range of pro-grammes it has been off ering.

“The signifi cant rise in the

number of programme partici-pants refl ects the high entre-preneurial spirit amongst our youth. Entrepreneurship rep-resents innovation, fi nding new possibilities and seeing unmet market needs, all of which are

QATAR


CRA ‘Decision and Orders’ disappointing: OoredooOoredoo has “expressed

its disappointment” with the “CRA Decision and

Orders”, issued on September 8, in relation to access to its duct infrastructure.

In the view of Ooredoo, “the CRA has not given suffi cient consideration to Ooredoo’s input or the evidence it has presented.”

Ooredoo said it “has been ful-ly co-operating” with the CRA and has been sharing its mobile sites with Vodafone Qatar since 2009. It opened its ducts net-work to QNBN in 2012 and today the majority of the QNBN net-work in Qatar passes through the Ooredoo network.

“We are a responsible organi-sation that abides by the rules. However, for the good of the people, the industry and Qatar’s vision for growth, it is essential for all parties to do the same,” Ooredoo said.

Ooredoo has been in discus-sions with the CRA at various levels throughout the year and said it believes things are pro-

gressing well to reach a fi nal agreement on this matter.

“However, the CRA has opted to make this commercial dis-pute into a public discussion, so Ooredoo is compelled to make the facts public,” a company statement yesterday said.

The fact of the matter is that Ooredoo has not refused access to its network infrastructure. In Ooredoo’s opinion, the CRA De-cision and Order includes grave errors:

• The CRA inserted modifi ca-tions in the fi nal Reference In-frastructure Access Off er (RIAO) without consulting Ooredoo. Such modifi cations may expose our network to mismanagement and would negatively impact the quality of services that we off er to our customers, in particular government and public-critical services. We have a duty to pro-tect our customers and ensure service continuity. Our experi-ence with QNBN shows that we need to be very careful in allow-ing third parties to utilise our networks.

• The Order requiring the adoption of the RIAO in its current form is not balanced and favours our competitors, including:

• Excluding technical stand-ards that Ooredoo has adopted for many years;

• Requiring Ooredoo to bear the full cost of the auditors alone;

• Forcing Ooredoo to off er ac-cess to ducts that are not owned by Ooredoo;

• Making modifi cations to economic sections, which mean providing services that are sig-nifi cantly below cost.

In its ruling, the CRA has not suffi ciently considered QNBN’s illicit use of Ooredoo’s infra-structure – the deliberate breach of the Infrastructure Access Agreement (IAA) referred to as “The Sheraton Matter”.

“The Sheraton Matter dem-onstrates that QNBN is prepared to breach the IAA – the issue that led to its partial suspension, which the CRA has ignored in its ruling,” Ooredoo said.

Ooredoo said its “conduct has been in accordance” with the IAA and agreements on opera-tional matters agreed by parties outside of the IAA. Unfortu-nately, QNBN seems unwilling to take the steps necessary to abide by the IAA. It has not adhered to mutually-agreed safeguards, so that it could rush commercial services into the market.

QNBN’s conduct has not been limited to a one-off breach of the IAA, but multiple instances that QNBN had repeatedly failed to rectify. These breaches have not been investigated by the CRA and are not mentioned in the Decision and Orders.

Ooredoo has “consistently stated that it is happy” to resume the IAA with QNBN, once QNBN rectifi es its breaches. Ooredoo is also happy to publish the RIAO and enter into agreements with other service providers on the basis of the RIAO, once the RIAO accords with the law. This in-cludes Ooredoo’s right to be fairly compensated for providing access to its infrastructure.

Ooredoo believes an under-lying problem is also the lack of rigour applied by the CRA in its decision-making. Ooredoo has engaged in the develop-ment of the RIAO in good faith, and was close to fi nalising the whole process. It was the CRA that then amended the RIAO, in a manner that appears contrary to the nation’s Law and Licenses.

Ooredoo reiterates its belief that there is a confl ict of interest in the CRA adjudicating com-mercial agreements relating to QNBN, which is affi liated to and ultimately operated by the CRA.

The CRA assertion that there is very limited competition in the fi xed market cannot be at-tributed to Ooredoo. Vodafone Qatar was granted a fi xed license in April 2010 with strict rollout obligations, and QNBN entered into the IAA in April 2012.

“The CRA has failed to enforce compliance by either of these parties, which has denied Qatar the diversifi ed and second net-work that it deserves, and that other countries enjoy.”

QF signs MoU with 500 StartupsQatar Foundation (QF)

has signed a memo-randum of under-

standing (MoU) with 500 Startups, a leading global venture capital seed fund and startup accelerator, to stimu-late and advance innovation in the Mena region.

Through the partnership, the two organisations will provide seed funding, train-ing and mentorship to star-tups across the Mena region over the next fi ve years. The initiative aims to help startups achieve market traction and scale, using customer acqui-sition and scaling strategies mastered by high-growth tech companies in Silicon Valley, such as Facebook, Salesforce and others.

QF will become an anchor investor in the 500 Startups Mena region microfund. It will also organise the annual world-class 500 Distro Dojo growth marketing accelera-tor programme, and make its incubation centre at Qatar Science & Technology Park (QSTP), part of Qatar Foun-dation Research and Develop-ment (QF R&D), available to all startups.

QF will help startups gain access to the cutting-edge re-search and technology devel-

opment currently underway within its research institutes and labs, and enable them to benefi t from the skills and ca-pabilities of graduates from universities in Education City.

Dr Hamad al-Ibrahim, exec-utive vice president, QF R&D, and chairman of the Board of Directors of QSTP, said QF’s re-search and development eff orts demonstrate its commitment to building the nation’s innova-tion and technology capacity.

“Supporting entrepreneurs in developing products that address national priorities, have regional relevance, and provide global benefi t is a key aspect of this commitment,”Dr al-Ibrahim added.

Dave McClure, founding partner at 500 Startups, said the organisation provide en-trepreneurs with global access to expert mentorship, hands-on support, networking op-portunities, and resources that will not only kick-start ideas, but help take companies to the next level.

“We aim to inspire, devel-op and lead by example. The Mena region is continuing to experience steady growth and through this partnership with Qatar Foundation, we want to help unleash the potential within the region.”

McClure and Dr al-Ibrahim shaking hands after signing an MoU.

QNA director general visits Xinhua offi ceDirector-General of Qa-

tar News Agency (QNA), Ahmed Saad al-Buainain,

met with Xinhua news agency president Cai Mingzhao in the Chinese capital Beijing yesterday.

During the meeting, they dis-cussed media relations between the two agencies and ways of boosting co-operation in the fi eld of news exchange and other areas of interest to the two news agencies.

Al-Buainain toured the Xin-hua departments, including the Arabic service, television stu-dios, social media sites, edit-ing and the Silk Road website, where he listened to a detailed

explanation by those in charge of these sections.

Earlier in the day al-Buainain met with the editor-in-chief of

China Radio International (CRI) Ma Bohui. Following the meeting the QNA director general toured the CRI departments.

QATAR9Gulf Times

Tuesday, September 27, 2016

Eight landmarks to welcome World Tourism Day visitors

HE the Minister of Transport and Communications Jassim Seif Ahmed al-Sulaiti, HE the Minister of Culture and Sports Salah bin Ghanem bin Nasser al-Ali, Chinese ambassador Li Chen and other dignitaries and off icials cutting the ceremonial cake at an event held in Doha on Sunday evening, to mark the 67th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. PICTURE: Nasar T K

China’s 67th anniversary celebrated

Qatar destinations in online spotlightBy Peter AlagosBusiness Reporter

Scenic spots and other tourist destinations in and around Qatar are taking

the global spotlight as residents take advantage of slowly cool-ing temperatures to travel and capture the country’s stunning views in photographs, which are uploaded online.

Aside from favourable weath-er conditions, Qatar Tourism Authority’s (QTA) social media competition to celebrate World Tourism Day (from today until October 1) and other activities slated next month have raised the level of excitement, espe-cially among amateur and pro-fessional photographers.

“The variety of scenic des-tinations in Qatar get interna-tional exposure every time resi-dents upload their travel photos on social media thus, the whole world gets a view of the beautiful places Qatar has to off er,” Doha resident and professional lens-man Leo Bautista told Gulf Times yesterday.

He said the weather is now slowly becoming suitable again for landscape photography, street photography, and other types of outdoor fashion and

“fun shoots,” as well as “photo walks.” Most of the photos taken during these shoots, he noted, fi nd their way to diff erent social media sites, giving Qatar “free, instant promotion” online.

“Many people have started going to beaches in Al Shamal, Wakrah, Mesaieed and Fuwairit not only for a swim but to take

pictures. But there are also oth-ers who trooped to historic places in Qatar as far as Fort Zu-bara or the singing sand dunes for landscape photography, or at nearby Souq Waqif, Museum of Islamic Art or along the Cor-niche,” he said.

Bautista also said shutter-bugs from diff erent photography

clubs in Qatar are “hyped” over QTA’s WTD competition, many of whom, he said, “cannot wait to start taking pictures of Qatar and upload them online.”

Earlier, the QTA encouraged residents to take photos of dif-ferent parts of Qatar as part of its social media competition to cel-ebrate WTD. The pictures must

be taken using the life-size pho-to frames installed at eight dif-ferent landmarks around Qatar. Using the hashtags #WTD2016 and #ShowcaseQatar, partici-pants can upload their photos on social media for a chance to win prizes.

Bautista, who is the president of Doha Pinoy Shooters Club,

lauded the QTA’s initiative and said the event not only helps pro-mote Qatar and its destinations to the world, but provides partic-ipants time to enjoy the country “and bond with each other.”

“Photo sessions need not be expensive. Even the latest smartphones are now equipped with higher megapixels; and the

quality is similar to those taken using DSLRs. So photo oppor-tunities such as the WTD are great for bonding and having fun,” said Bautista, who added that photography clubs in Qatar are also gearing up for the Scott Kelby Worldwide Photo Walk starting from Muglina Unit Park to the Corniche on October 1.

A different view of Al Khor. PICTURES: Leo Bautista The singing sand dunes attract a number of visitors.

By Joey AguilarStaff Reporter

Qatar residents participating in a social media competition for the 2016 World Tourism Day celebration can now start

taking pictures at life-size photo frames in-stalled at eight landmarks in the country.

The Qatar Tourism Authority (QTA)-or-ganised competition, which runs from today until October 1, requires participants to take and upload a photo on social media using the hashtags #WTD2016 and #ShowcaseQatar.

Winners will receive prizes, including a weekend stay at a local fi ve-star hotel.

The eight landmarks where life-size pho-to frames have been installed are the Muse-um of Islamic Art (MIA), East-West/West-East by American artist Richard Serra at the Brouq Nature Reserve near Zekreet, Katara – the Cultural Village, Al Zubarah Fort; Sheikh Faisal Bin Qassim Al Thani Museum, Souq Waqif, Imam Mohamed ibn Abd Al Wahhab (Grand) Mosque and Aspire Zone.

QTA also included a brief description and history of the landmarks as part of pro-moting the country’s tourist destinations this WTD dubbed as “Tourism For All – Promoting Universal Accessibility.”

On its Facebook page, QTA said Katara, which merges culture with recreation, “is an impressively built development off ering

a range of theatres, galleries and cultural venues along with an abundance of dining options facing the marvellous seaside.”

Residents can also visit the Imam Mo-hamed ibn Abd Al Wahhab Mosque. An-other Qatar landmark to look into is the As-pire Zone. Participants are also encouraged to visit the Unesco World Heritage site in Qatar, the Al Zubarah Fort to get a big pic-ture of what the past looked like.

For those who want to see the “vastness of the desert,” the East-West/West-East public art installation would be the right destination. It is made up of two 66.5m-long and 4.1m-tall steel curves “that snake diagonally through the exhibition space”. Residents are also ex-pected to visit MIA, which features more than 14 centuries of “the fi nest Islamic art and ar-tefacts” from diff erent parts of the globe.

Besides MIA, QTA also cited the Sheikh Faisal Bin Qassim Al Thani Museum as an interesting place to visit. “It features a fasci-nating collection of more than 15,000 exhib-its covering a spectrum of arts, artefacts and historic equipment.” Souq Waqif is another attraction. Many tour operators and hotels will off er special packages at discounted prices for visitors such as touristic activities and excursions during the celebration.

Qatar joins other countries in celebrating WTD today aimed at fostering awareness in the international community on the im-portance of tourism.

World Tourism Day locations in Qatar.

Qatar Airways set to meet ICAO fl ight-tracking recommendationsFrom Page 1

GlobalBeacon combines FlightAware’s worldwide fl ight tracking information, including origin, destination, fl ight plan route, position, and estimated time of arrival with data from Aireon’s space-based ADS-B aircraft surveillance system, due to be operational in 2018. The solution will provide Qatar Airways with state-of-the-art technology to meet and exceed GADSS requirements and rec-ommendations.

In May, Qatar Airways an-nounced the successful com-pletion of its TOPS fl eet man-agement system, designed to optimally schedule aircraft and manage fl ights. TOPS, which stands for Total OPerations System, integrates data from

multiple sources and produces a holistic view of the airline’s operation, from the global scale to the individual fl ight level, in order to anticipate and notify operations staff of any poten-tial issue and provide solution options. Specifi c tasks that can now be carried out due to this integration include, but are not limited to: tail assignment opti-

miser, whereby aircraft are as-signed to specifi c lines of fl ying with respect to the operational needs of the route, based on the specifi c aircraft’s capabili-ties; NOTAM manager, where Notice to Airmen are imme-diately communicated to the specifi c dispatchers and opera-tions staff for more perfect sit-uational awareness; and Flight

Watch, which consolidates all fl ight data into a single graphi-cal source for ease of tracking, communicating with and man-aging the airline’s more than 500 daily fl ights to more than 150 destinations in six conti-nents.

In addition to aircraft track-ing and location reporting re-quirements, GADSS requires aircraft to provide immedi-ate notifi cation of abnormal events, regardless of air traffi c unit boundaries and without a degradation of baseline search and rescue services. Fur-ther, distressed aircraft status tracking under GADSS can be activated by the pilot, auto-matically by the aircraft and remotely by the operations control centre.

QATAR


Ambassadors and other diplomats at the European Day of Languages celebrations yesterday. PICTURE: Jayan Orma

Diplomats gather for European Languages Day celebrationsBy Ramesh MathewStaff Reporter

A number of European ambassadors and diplomats serving in Qatar met yesterday at the French Cul-

tural Centre to mark the European Day of Languages, celebrated under the aegis of the European Union National Institutes of Culture (EUNIC). The European Day of Languages is celebrated on September 26.

As part of the celebrations, classes in 12 languages were formally held in diff erent sessions for invitees and other visitors.

Speaking on behalf of the envoys present, French ambassador Eric Cheva-lier said the day was signifi cant for all Eu-ropeans as it was an opportunity for the representatives from each of the EU mem-ber countries to showcase the diversity of their cultures and traditions to others not familiar with the continent.

Speaking to Gulf Times, Croatian am-bassador Tomislav Bosnjak said the day is special for the European nationalities as it shows the number of languages spoken by diff erent linguistic groups across Europe.

Bosnjak said events like the Languages Day celebrations would help others from outside Europe to understand better the diversity of European culture, traditions and above all languages spoken by its pop-ulace.

To mark the occasion basic lessons of 12 European languages were conducted yesterday. The languages were Bulgarian, Croatian, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish and Swedish.

Besides Chevalier and Bosnjak, ambas-sadors Guido de Sanctis (Italy) Christophe Payot (Belgium), Ewa Polano (Sweden), Cristian Tudor (Romania), Charalambos

Panayides (Cyprus), Bahia Tahzib (The Netherlands), Metin Kazak (Bulgaria), ambassador designate of Greece, Con-stantinos Orphanides, deputy head of the German mission Peter Ziegler, chief eco-nomic and commercial attache of Portugal embassy Alexandra Sousa Esteves were among others present.

Panayides, the longest serving European ambassador Qatar, is now the chair of am-bassadors from Europe, posted in Qatar.

Some of the participants expressed the hope that there would be speakers of more languages when they meet for the celebra-tions next year. They were also glad about the increased awareness among the coun-try’s residents about the languages spoken in the European continent.

The EUNIC members are engaged be-yond their national boundaries and op-erating with a degree of autonomy from their respective governments. It has a

membership of 33 organisations from all 27 member states of the European Union.

The main mission of the EUNIC is to form eff ective tie ups and networks be-tween the participating organisations, to improve, develop and promote cultural diversity and understanding between Eu-ropean societies. It is also hoped that such associations would strengthen interna-tional dialogue and co-operation with countries outside Europe.

By Joseph VargheseStaff Reporter

Close on the heels of the successful introduc-tion of the smart diabetes clinic in Wakra Health Centre, the Primary Health Care

Corporation (PHCC), is planning to launch clinics for comprehensive screening of several diseases at some of its health centres.

Speaking to Gulf Times on the sidelines of Inter-national Diabetes Leadership Forum, Dr Samya al-Abdulla, director of operations, PHCC, said that the clinics will be launched sometime next year.

“The comprehensive screening will include sev-eral diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, cancer,

cholesterol, mental health and thyroid among oth-ers. This will help to understand if a person has any of these diseases or the possibility of developing any of them,” explained Dr al-Abdulla.

“This is a pilot programme and therefore it will be introduced only in one or two health centres in the beginning. We will identify the health centres and announce the details very soon. After the piloting, if it is successful,we will hopefully roll it out in other health centres,” she stated.

As for the modalities of inviting the people for screening, al-Abdulla said that several procedures are still to be developed. “When we started the smart diabetes clinic in Wakra, we selected people with risk factors. Until now, we have not fi nalised

the process of getting people for screening for this programme. Most probably, we might select the people based on our data,” she said.

Regarding the smart diabetes clinic in Wakra Health Centre, Dr al-Abdulla said that PHCC had collected the details of over 10,000 Qatari patients registered under the health centre. “Among them, we found that a total of 3,343 could be at the risk of developing diabe-tes. We invited them for screening at the clinic.”

“Over 1,100 have gone for screening from Janu-ary to August this year and out of them, 62% were found to be normal. 365 were found pre-diabetic and 55 were found to be diabetic. At present the fa-cility is only for Qatari nationals but later we will open it for other residents too,” she concluded.

PHCC to launch screening clinics

Some of the attendees at the International Diabetes Leadership Forum yesterday.

The Diplomatic Institute of the Ministry of Foreign Aff airs has launched its Second Constitutive Pro-gram for 2016 which will involve 30 trainees from

the Ministry staff and some relevant institutions.HE Secretary-General of the Ministry of Foreign Aff airs

Dr Ahmed bin Hassan al-Hammadi inaugurated the new programme in the presence of HE Director of the Diplo-matic Institute Dr Hassan bin Ibrahim al-Mohannadi, and HE Director of the Human Resources Department Ab-dulaziz bin Abdul-Qader al-Ahmad.

HE the Secretary-General stressed the importance of preparing diplomats in a scientifi c and well-studied way for better performance, and for an honourable and eff ective representation of the State of Qatar that refl ects its status of excellence and its vital role in the international community.

He noted that the training courses are designed to in-crease the diplomats’ knowledge of the concepts of inter-national relations, and introduce them to the grounds in dealings between states and international organisations and bodies, and others.

He underlined the importance of active participation, self-learning and the acquisition of foreign language skills along with the importance of developing Arabic language skills as the mother tongue.

Diplomatic Institute launches Constitutive Program 2016

A class at the Diplomatic Institute.

Qatar Rail moving tonext phase of projectLaying of tracks and com-

pletion of station interi-ors are among the works

that are to be carried out fol-lowing the completion of tun-nelling for the Doha Metro project, a senior Qatar Rail of-fi cial has said.

On Sunday, the comple-tion of tunnel digging works was celebrated at an event attended by HE the Prime Minister and Minister of In-terior Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani; HE the Minister of Transport and Communications Jassim Seif Ahmed al-Sulaiti, who is also vice-chairman of the Rail Steering Committee, Qa-tar Rail; Qatar Rail managing director and chairman of the Executive Committee, Abdulla al-Subaie; Qatar Rail CEO Dr Saad al-Muhannadi; as well as other VIPs and members of the management and staff .

The tunnelling milestone was achieved three months ear-lier than planned by 21 tunnel boring machines (TBMs), with minimum disruption to Doha’s residents, Qatar Rail said in a press statement yesterday.

Dr al-Muhannadi stressed that while tunnelling had been completed, much still remained to be done. “Now that tunnelling has been com-pleted, we are moving to the laying of the tracks, awaiting the arrival of train mockups and working on the comple-tion of the interiors of stations with mechanical, electrical

and plumbing works,” he said.“Completion of tunnelling

on the Doha Metro is yet an-other major milestone for the project and one we are delight-ed to have achieved on plan and to schedule,” Dr al-Muhannadi observed. Until now, 7.5km of above-ground tracks and via-ducts have been installed and base slab and foundations have been completed at 33 stations, he informed, noting that roofs have been completed at eight stations and roof slabs are pro-gressing at 27 diff erent stations.

“We are delighted to have been able to achieve all this within the timelines and budg-ets allocated and this is due to the hard work and dedication of all parties involved. We look forward to sharing many more milestones with you, especially the arrival of the Doha Metro train mockup later this year,” he added.

Tunnelling on the Doha Metro project was completed with the fi nal breakthrough taking place at Terminal 1 of Hamad International Airport (HIA). The fi rst TBMs started tunnelling in July 2014 and the fi nal, 111th kilometre was crossed by TBM Msheireb on the southern part of the Red Line of the mega project.

Some 470,497 concrete seg-ments were required to pro-duce 70,071 tunnel rings to make the 111km of tunnels. The overall completion of Doha Metro now currently stands at 50%.

REGION/ARAB WORLD11Gulf Times


Sisi vows more jobs to deter migrants ReutersCairo

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi yester-day pledged more jobs for Egyptians to help dissuade them from making dan-

gerous voyages to Europe after more than 160 migrants died when a boat capsized off the country’s Mediterranean coast.

Rescue workers and fi sherman recovered fi ve more bodies on Sunday, taking the death toll in the September 21 shipwreck to 169, with another 169 migrants having been res-cued.

Security sources and the state MENA news agency initially said up to 600 people may have been abroad the boat, suggesting hun-dreds more may be lost at sea.

But some survivors have estimated the number of people on the vessel at closer to 400.

Survivors and their families said poverty and a lack of jobs and opportunity along with political repression in Egypt have driv-en thousands to embark on perilous journeys in rickety boats across the Mediterranean to Europe.

More and more migrants have been try-ing to cross to Italy from the African coast over the summer months, particularly from Libya, where people-traffi ckers operate with relative impunity.

But boats have increasingly departed from Egypt as neighbouring Libya has slid deeper into anarchy.

Speaking at the opening of a housing

project in the coastal city of Alexandria, Sisi said there was no “justifi cation or excuse” for the loss of life in last week’s shipwreck but that securing the coastline and borders was a tough challenge.

He said factories and fi sheries were being built in the Kafr al-Sheikh area, from where the doomed boat departed, to create jobs and hope for locals.

Kafr al-Sheikh, in Egypt’s Nile Delta, has emerged as a hub for a trade smuggling mi-grants to Europe.

“There is hope..especially in this place where the migrant boat sank, but we can’t overcome all obstacles and put an end to them in one, two or four years,” Sisi said at the event.

“A project will be set up for fi sh farming. It may be the largest in Egypt, but putting a project into action takes time.”

About 400 people gathered yesterday on the shores of Burg Rashid, near where the boat capsized, waiting for the bodies of about 50 missing Egyptians to be recovered, a Reuters witness said.

It was not clear how many non-Egyptians remained missing but the International Or-ganization for Migration has said the mi-grants included Sudanese, Ethiopians and Eritreans.

The IOM says more than 3,200 migrants have died while trying to traverse the Medi-terranean this year, while nearly 300,000 had reached European shores safely.

More than 1mn migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East entered Europe last year.

Jordan imposes media blackout after writer killedAFPAmman

Jordan’s judiciary yes-terday slapped a media blackout on the murder

of a Christian writer who was gunned down outside an Amman court where he faced charges over an anti-Islam cartoon.

The information ministry said the aim was to preserve “the secrecy of the investiga-

tion” and that the blackout applied to both social and traditional media.

Nahed Hattar was hit by three bullets before the al-leged assassin was arrested at the scene of Sunday’s shoot-ing in Amman’s central Ab-dali district, offi cial media said.

The assailant shot the a 56-year-old as he made his way up the steps outside the court. The gunman, identified as a 49-year-old

Jordanian, gave himself up to police, a security source said.

A judicial source said on Sunday that the assailant was remanded for 15 days and charged with premedi-tated murder, meaning that he could face the death pen-alty if convicted. The sus-pect had acted alone and was not linked to any “terrorist” group, a source close to his interrogation said, asking not to be named.

Protesters hold portraits of Jordanian writer Nahed Hattar during a demonstration in Amman yesterday.

Facebook faces Palestinian ire after pages blocked on FridayAFPRamallah

Facebook yesterday apologised after temporarily disabling accounts linked to two Palestinian news sites critical of

Israel, a move that drew concern over poten-tial online censorship.

Facebook pages of a number of editors of Quds News Network were suspended for several hours last Friday, a campaigner said, in what the social media giant later called a “mistake”.

Pages linked to the Shehab News Agency were also disabled, an editor there said.

Quds has 5.2mn likes on Facebook, while Shehab has 6.35mn.

“The pages were removed in error and restored as soon as we were able to investi-gate,” Facebook said in a statement.

“Our team processes millions of reports each week, and we sometimes get things wrong. We’re very sorry about this mistake.”

The US-based company did not respond to a request for more details on what prompted the closures. Israel has been in discussions with Facebook to stop what it calls online incitement, including at a meeting of top of-fi cials earlier this month.

The country’s justice and public security

ministers are also seeking legislation ban-ning the use of Facebook to advance “terror” and outlawing incitement from the Internet.

Israeli authorities say such incitement is a main cause of a wave of Palestinian knife, gun and car-ramming attacks over the past year.

Palestinians say they fear the Israeli cam-paign will lead to censorship of legitimate information and suspect last week’s closures were linked to it.

Activists called on Palestinians to boycott Facebook activity for two hours on Sunday in protest.

The hashtag #FBCensorsPalestine was also being used on Twitter.

“We fear that Facebook will assist the oc-cupation and close the only space for free expression for the Palestinians,” said Iyad al-Rifai, spokesman for a campaign against such closures.

Hussam al-Zaygh, managing editor at the Gaza-based Shehab, called the closures “a political decision dictated by the Israelis”.

“It is our right as Palestinian journalists to make our voice heard,” he said.

Israeli and American victims of Palestin-ian attacks fi led a $1-billion lawsuit against Facebook in July over allegations it was used by the Palestinian Islamist movement Ha-mas to organise violence.

Aleppo is battered as ‘allies’ quibbleAFPAleppo

Residents of Syria’s Aleppo yesterday faced worsening food and medical shortages

as warplanes again pounded the city after Western powers at the UN ac-cused Russia of war crimes.

A fresh wave of intense air strikes battered Aleppo’s opposition-controlled east, said an AFP corre-spondent in the city facing its worst violence in years.

During an emergency session of the UN Security Council, US am-bassador Samantha Power accused Russia of “barbarism”, while the British and French envoys went even further.

“War crimes are being committed here in Aleppo,” Francois Delattre of France said, while Britain’s envoy spoke of bunker-busting bombs and more sophisticated weaponry un-leashing a “new hell” on Syrians.

“It is diffi cult to deny that Russia is partnering with the Syrian regime to carry out war crimes,” said Brit-ain’s Matthew Rycroft.

The Kremlin hit back.Spokesman Dmitry Peskov de-

nounced “the overall unacceptable tone and rhetoric of the representa-tives of the United Kingdom and the United States, which can damage and harm our relations”.

Despite the exchange, the vio-lence showed no signs of abat-ing on the ground, with people in Aleppo saying food and vital medical supplies were dwindling to nothing.

The Syrian Observatory for Hu-man Rights monitor said the latest raids killed four civilians in the dis-tricts of Al-Mashhad and Sukari.

The Observatory said at least 132 people, nearly all civilians, had been

killed in Syrian and Russian raids on eastern Aleppo since late on Thurs-day.

Among them were 20 children and nine women, Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said yesterday.

It was the fourth day of intense bombardment since a defi ant Syrian regime launched a new assault to re-take all of Aleppo following the col-lapse early last week of a short-lived ceasefi re brokered by Moscow and Washington.

A Syrian military source told AFP regime forces had no intention of letting up on rebel-held areas.

“The air force will bomb any ter-rorist movements, this is an irre-versible decision,” the source said, reiterating that the regime’s goal was to “recapture all regions of Syria” outside its control.

A medical source in rebel-held Aleppo said hospitals were strug-gling to deal with a huge number of casualties.

“Hospitals that are still in service

are under a lot of pressure due to the signifi cant number of wounded in recent days, and the major shortage of blood,” the source told AFP.

“Because of this, serious injuries are requiring immediate amputa-tions.”

With Aleppo back under siege since regime forces again fully sur-rounded the city in early September, residents were left reeling from food shortages and skyrocketing prices as well as intensifying violence.

Several charity kitchens in Alep-po’s rebel-held east were closed in fear of strikes, while water remained cut after pumping stations were damaged at the weekend.

“We endured through years of bombardments and did not leave Aleppo. But now there is no bread, no drinking water, nothing in the markets.

The situation is getting worse every day,” said Hassan Yassin, a 40-year-old father of four.

Dozens of rebels and their families

yesterday quit the last opposition-held district of central Homs city as part of a deal struck with the regime last year.

A total of 131 fi ghters and 119 fam-ily members were bussed out of Waer, devastated after a three-year regime siege, to rebel-held Dar al-Kubra further north, said a source from Homs governorate.

An estimated 600,000 Syrians live under siege, according to the UN, with most encircled by regime forces though rebels also use the tactic.

The UN’s World Food Programme said it delivered food aid on Sunday to civilians in four besieged towns in Syria for the fi rst time since April.

Madaya and Zabadani, near Da-mascus, are encircled by govern-ment forces while Fuaa and Kafraya in the northwest are besieged by hardline rebels.

A convoy of 53 trucks entered Ma-daya and Zabadani, with another 18 to Fuaa and Kafraya, according to the International Committee for the Red Cross.

At Sunday’s Security Council meeting, US envoy Power voiced some of the strongest criticism yet of Russia’s support for President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

“What Russia is sponsoring and doing is not counter-terrorism. It is barbarism,” she said.

Russia’s year-long air war has helped Assad’s forces regain ground lost to a wide range of opposition forces.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has also warned the use of advanced weaponry against civilians could amount to war crimes.

Ban called on world powers to “work harder for an end to the nightmare” in Syria that has killed more than 300,000 people and driv-en millions from their homes.

A man rides a bicycle past damaged buildings in the rebel-held Tariq al-Bab neighbourhood of Aleppo.

Saudi Arabian govt slashes ministers’ pay, cuts bonusesReuters Riyadh

Saudi Arabia will cut ministers’ salaries by 20% and scale back

fi nancial perks for public sector employees, accord-ing to a Cabinet statement and royal decree broadcast yesterday on state-run Ekhbariya TV.

It was the fi rst an-nouncement of pay cuts for government employees, who make up about two-thirds of working Saudis citizens.

“The Cabinet has de-cided to stop and cancel some bonuses and fi-nancial benefits,” read a line of text on Ekhbariya, as a minister read to as-sembled ministers and royals, including King Salman, a list of cuts in various grades in the civil service.

The decision comes as low oil prices have pushed energy-rich Gulf Arab states to rein in lavish pub-lic spending.

The kingdom racked up a record budget defi cit of $100bn last year, forcing it to fi nd new savings and ways to raise money.

A royal decree read di-rectly after the broadcast on the TV channel an-nounced the cut in minis-ters’ pay.

Housing and car allow-ances for members of the appointed Shura (Advi-sory) Council will be cut by 15%.

Overtime bonuses were curbed at between a quar-ter and half of basic sala-ries, while annual leave may now no longer exceed 30 days.

An exception to the curbs would be made for troops involved in combat opera-tions along the southern border and abroad as part of an 18-month military intervention led by the kingdom in neighbouring Yemen.

Saudi Arabia unveiled an economic reform plan this year to wean the king-dom off its addiction to oil, on which it depends for the overwhelming share of government rev-enue.

The so-called “Vi-sion 2030” initiative aims to jumpstart the private sector, provide jobs for a growing population and collect more non-oil rev-enue.

AFRICA


Union backs Ramaphosa as next South Africa presidentReutersJohannesburg

Deputy President Cyril Ramapho-sa’s chances of becoming the next leader of South Africa got a

boost yesterday when a powerful min-ing union backed him to succeed Presi-dent Jacob Zuma.

Debates over who should follow Zuma, either when his term ends in 2019 or before, are heating up after the ruling African National Congress (ANC) suff ered its worst local election results last month, exposing deep party divi-sions.

Ramaphosa, 63, would be the fi rst choice for many investors because he is more likely to support pro-business policies than many in the traditionally left-leaning ANC.

A decision has been taken “to support the candidacy of Cyril Ramaphosa for president” (of the ANC), the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), one of South Africa’s biggest unions, said in a statement.

“It is not only NUM that is gunning for Cyril for president,” general secre-tary David Sipunzi added, without giv-ing details.

However, Sipunzi said NUM wanted Zuma to see out his second term which runs until 2019.

NUM has around 200,000 members

and plays an important role in galvanis-ing public support for the ANC at elec-tions.

Its endorsement of Ramaphosa could encourage other infl uential trade un-ions to join its campaign.

The ANC rules in an alliance with the South African Communist Party and trade union group, COSATU, both of which will be infl uential in lobbying for Zuma’s successor.

COSATU, which played a key role in the fi ght against white-minority rule and says it represents 2 mn workers, has yet to publicly back any candidate.

“COSATU has not come up with an offi cial position. We must speak to all the unions and come with a clear man-date,” Matthew Parks, COSATU’s Par-liamentary Coordinator, told Reuters.

“It is tradition that the deputy takes the position but it is an ANC decision. Unity is paramount, both inside the ANC and between the alliance part-ners,” Parks added.

Zuma is expected to stand down as ANC president at a party conference late next year, ahead of national elec-tions in 2019 when his tenure as the country’s leader will come to an end.

The ANC has dominated since the end of apartheid in 1994 and is widely expected to retain control at the 2019 vote, making its next leader almost cer-tain to succeed Zuma as president.

Ramaphosa, a wealthy business-

man and founding member of NUM, is likely to face strong competition if he does compete for the ANC leadership, including from Zuma’s ex-wife, Nko-sazana Dlamini-Zuma, who is currently head of the African Union.

“It’s the start of the campaign and it will gain momentum,” said Gary van Staden, a political analyst at NKC Eco-nomics.

“Other COSATU members should line up soon behind Cyril. His prospects are good.”

Dlamini-Zuma, 67, is a Zulu, the larg-est ethnic group in South Africa, and would likely have the support of Zuma’s powerful voting block within the ANC were she to run.

Ramaphosa comes from the minority Venda tribe.

Around one in fi ve South Africans are Zulu and politicians from Zuma’s home Kwa-Zulu Natal province, a key ANC stronghold, have infl uence over top party decisions.

Despite their separation, Zuma backed her for the AU job and gave her a position in his cabinet.

Analysts say she would be unlikely to follow up on several high-profi le cor-ruption cases that have plagued his ten-ure.

Zweli Mkhize, a Zulu and the current ANC Treasurer-General, has also been mentioned as a potential party leader.

No ANC member has declared their

intention to run for leadership.Zuma has faced calls to quit from sev-

eral members of the ANC and promi-nent business leaders following losses in local elections in August and a string of graft scandals but the party’s top echelons have backed him.

Zuma’s younger brother Michael be-came the latest to call for his resigna-tion, urging him to quit or risk being killed, without elaborating on any death threats.

Michael Zuma told the Sunday Times people had “robbed” his brother after he was ordered by the constitutional court to repay 7.8mn rand ($571,700) in state funds inappropriately spent on upgrading his country home.

Anti-apartheid campaigner Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, a former fi rst lady and wife of the late Nelson Mandela, said last week that South Africa needed fresh leadership, but did not mention Zuma by name.

Ramaphosa ... endorsed.

Uganda takes on the ‘world’s most dangerous road’By Michael O’Hagan, AFPMpigi, Uganda

Wearing pristine white with her woollen socks pulled high, Ugandan traffi c police offi cer

Edith Nanteza exudes natural authority at the roadblock, barely lifting a hand as she waves motorists over.

This is no routine exercise.Nanteza is on the frontline of opera-

tion “Fika Salama” — Swahili for “ar-rive safely” — a high-profi le attempt by the government to regain control of what the country fears has become the planet’s deadliest highway.

From the top of a hill, Nanteza sur-veys the road, a heat haze shimmering over the tarmac highway stretching into the distance.

“Over 200 people have died on this road since January. It’s been a massa-cre,” she says.

By comparison, Bolivia’s Yungas Road, a notorious mountain pass better known as “Death Road”, averages be-tween 200 and 300 deaths per year.

That would put the 130km Kampa-la-Masaka highway on at least similar

ground with its 200 dead in the fi rst eight months of 2016.

Witchcraft, poor roadwork and dan-gerous driving — all have been blamed for the killer highway whose users will often turn to prayer before taking the road.

In the local police station in Mpigi,

Nanteza points to the mangled wreck-age piled up in the yard.

“Recently 21 people, including a child, died in a single accident,” she says while shooing away a goat.

“A car tried to overtake the vehicle in front but collided with a trailer truck which lost control and crashed into two full minibus taxis.”

Nsubuga Shabal, who was travelling to Kampala with his wife and seven-year-old son, was caught up in the carnage.

“My wife died on the spot. Our child is now living with relatives. He’s still injured and needs treatment but I can’t provide anything since I’m still recov-ering,” he says.

“And I lost my job because I can’t walk properly due to my injuries.”

Assistant Commissioner of Police Sarah Kwibika is in charge of operation Fika Salama.

“In all, 90% of the accidents are due to human error,” she says.

“Speeding, risky overtaking on bends, overloaded trucks, unroad-worthy vehicles and driving while drunk are the main causes. It’s all about driver behaviour.”

Others claim the road itself, which was

upgraded with the help of international donors, is dangerously inadequate.

The busy highway was resurfaced in the late 2000s, then widened with extra lanes to reduce accidents.

Kristian Schmidt, who heads the EU offi ce in Uganda, this month demanded action after a government-commis-sioned report found that more than $1bn had been misappropriated in cor-rupt roadwork deals in the last seven years.

Last year, all 900 road authority em-ployees were sacked on the instructions of Uganda’s President Museveni.

Now, with the death toll rising, the concern is people might avoid the ‘highway to hell’ altogether.

The Kampala-Masaka road provides essential access from the Kenyan coast through Uganda to Democratic Repub-lic of Congo, Rwanda and Burundi.

But despite its importance as a con-duit for local traffi c, regional transpor-tation and tourism, people are increas-ingly afraid to travel on it.

Last month, a UN trailer which was carrying crucial food relief to Burundi crashed off the road, destroying a house.

And tourists on safari who are hoping

to see rare mountain gorillas near the Uganda-Rwanda border are now opting to fl y there by light aircraft rather risk travelling on the ill-fated highway.

The high stakes have even compelled some religious groups to take extreme action.

By the roadside, Reverend Bibiru pours oil over the painted lines as 15 of his followers chant and pray.

“This is the fi rst time we have con-ducted a road exorcism,” he says.

“A lot of witchcraft took place while the highway was being built, that’s why so many people are dying here,” he ex-plains.

“It is the devil who has made this road so dangerous.”

Commissioner Kwibika prefers a more earthly solution.

“We will prosecute, without mercy, every driver we fi nd breaking even the smallest regulation,” she vows.

“No exceptions.”Penalties for off ences such as driving

without a permit tend to be around $50, so not a strong disincentive, while pros-ecution for more serious off ences is very slow, meaning none of the recent lethal cases have gone to trial yet.

A May 12, 2015, file photo of a bus on fire on the infamous Kampala-Masaka road in Buwama village. The passengers luckily had time to get out of the vehicle but they lost their belongings.

Nigeria set to get $4.1bn loan for power, farmingReutersAbuja

The African Development Bank is looking to provide a total of $4.1bn to Nigeria over 2016 and 2017, its president said yesterday, as Africa’s biggest econ-

omy seeks to bridge its budget defi cit and improve weak infrastructure.

Akinwumi Adesina said the funds would be used to de-velop the power and agriculture sectors in the west African country, which has slipped into recession for the fi rst time in over 20 years, largely due to low oil prices.

He was speaking after holding talks with the fi nance minister, Kemi Adeosun, and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo in the capital, Abuja.

Oil sales, the economy’s mainstay, generate 70% of government revenues. Attacks on energy facilities in the Niger Delta have cut crude production by around a third since the start of the year. The Opec member has been left struggling to fund a record 6.06tn naira ($18.6bn) 2016 budget that aims to stimulate growth by tripling capital expenditure.

Adeosun said Nigeria had asked for a $1bn loan to help cover its 2016 budget defi cit.

She said it would be concessional and carry an interest rate of 1.2%. Adesina later said the pan-African lender was looking to provide $4.1bn over 2016/2017.

He said “deepening the level of diversifi cation in critical sectors” such as agriculture, solid minerals and manufac-turing, was of particular importance.

Aside from a wealthy elite who have profi ted from oil wealth, most of the 180mn people in Africa’s most popu-lous nation live on less than $2 a day.

Development has been held back for decades by a poor power, road and rail network.

“I expect that our portfolio in Nigeria will not decrease — it will actually grow. We expect to invest in Nigeria, by 2019, a total of $10bn,” said Adesina, a former Nigerian ag-riculture minister.

Bongo to be sworn in today as Gabon PresidentAFPLibreville

Ali Bongo will be sworn in today as Gabon’s presi-dent for a second seven-

year term, his offi ce announced, three days after his election victory was controversially validated by the constitutional court.

The ceremony will be held at the seafront presidential palace in Libreville, the presidency told AFP yesterday.

It gave no details of who had been invited or the time of the event.

Bongo’s victory in the August 27 vote was confi rmed on Satur-day by the country’s top court, which dismissed opposition claims of vote fraud.

Violence erupted on August 31 after Bongo, 57, was initially de-clared winner.

Demonstrators set parliament ablaze and clashed with police, who made a thousand arrests.

Opposition fi gures say more than 50 people were killed.

The government has given a toll of three dead.

Jean Ping, 73, Bongo’s main election rival, lashed the court’s ruling as a miscarriage of justice and declared himself “president elect”.

Ping, a career diplomat and a former top offi cial at the African Union, had fi led a legal challenge after Bongo was declared winner by a mere 6,000 votes.

Ping had asked for a recount in Haut-Ogooue province, where 95% of voters in the Bongo fam-ily stronghold were reported to have cast their ballots for the president on a turnout of more than 99%.

The Constitutional Court up-held Bongo’s victory and put the winning margin higher at around 11,000 votes.

In its fi nal tally, the court ruled Bongo had won 50.66% of the vote (172,990 votes) and Ping 47.24% (161,287 votes).

The European Union’s elec-toral observer mission said Sun-day it “regretted” that Gabon’s Constitutional Court “had been unable to satisfactorily rectify anomalies observed during the count”. Bongo’s family has exer-cised a long grip on power in the oil- and mineral-rich country of 1.8mn people.

Ali Bongo took over from his father Omar Bongo, who ruled Gabon for 41 years until his death in 2009.

AMERICAS13Gulf Times


ReutersHouston

A troubled lawyer opened fi re on morning commut-ers in Houston yesterday,

injuring at least nine people be-fore being fatally shot by police, authorities said.

Six victims were taken to hos-pitals and three were treated at the scene after being shot at while inside their vehicles in the wealthy neighbourhood of West University Place, acting Houston police chief Martha Montalvo told reporters.

One of the victims was in criti-cal condition and another was in serious condition.

Montalvo declined to iden-tify the suspect but said he was a lawyer.

She said the FBI was assisting with the investigation and did not mention terrorism as a mo-tive.

Houston mayor Sylvester Turner, in Cuba on a trip to de-velop trade relations, told re-porters, “The motivation ap-pears to be a lawyer whose relationship with his law fi rm went bad.”

The police bomb squad was securing the suspect’s car, a black Porsche, which had numerous weapons in it.

Police were planning to search his house.

Broken glass from shattered car windows littered a parking lot in an upscale shopping centre near where the suspect fi red 20 to 30 shots.

An unidentifi ed woman, standing next to a car with two bullet holes in the windshield, told a local television station she heard “the bullets literally whiz by my window”.

Live video streams showed

numerous police cars and ambu-lances in the area.

There were also a few vehicles seen with bullet holes.

The police chief said there were no indications of any others involved, and that investigators were checking the man’s social media accounts to help in deter-mining his motive.

Police responded to reports of a shooting at 6.29am local time, and engaged in a shootout with the suspect.”The individual was

fi ring actively at the offi cers,” Montalvo said.

The shooter was killed, after which police examined his body for explosives.

They then examined his car and found numerous weapons, Montalvo said.

Authorities also planned to check his apartment, and asked residents in a three-block area to remain in their homes while po-lice continued their work.

Witnesses told local media

that the shooter fi red onto mov-ing cars from an area near an apartment complex.

“The shots were coming al-most non-stop.

Four, fi ve, six at a time,” said Jaime Zamora, a cameraman for Houston television station KTRK who witnessed some of the shooting. He estimated that be-tween 30 and 50 shots were fi red.

Local stations broadcast im-ages of cars with bullet holes and broken windows.

Lawyer shoots nine people in Houston

Investigators looks over the scene where nine individuals were shot at a strip mall along Weslayan St in Houston, Texas.

AFP Washington

Hillary Clinton and Don-ald Trump were neck and neck yesterday as they

girded for their fi rst presidential debate, an intensely anticipated clash of opposites that could set the tone for the last six weeks of the White House race.

An estimated 90mn people were expected to watch the Dem-ocratic and Republican candi-dates go toe-to-toe for 90 min-utes starting at 9pm (0100 GMT Tuesday) on the stage at Hofstra University in New York.

Surrogates have been out in force trying to manage expecta-tions, and preempt public per-ceptions of their respective can-didates, two of the least admired contenders for the White House in contemporary US political his-tory.

Clinton, 68, enters the fray as a polished former secretary of state and ex-senator, who after almost 40 years of public service is steeped in the issues.

Trump, a 70-year-old billion-

aire and former reality TV star, is good on his feet, and unpredict-able — more comfortable in the limelight than on issues.

The battle of wits, egos and big personalities comes with the No-vember 8 elections just six weeks away and the race in a virtual dead heat.

Moderated by NBC anchor Lester Holt, it will revolve around three themes: “America’s direc-tion, achieving prosperity, and securing America.”

The candidates are under im-mense pressure, with any slip of the tongue holding the potential for disaster.

In a close race, the debaters’ real prize may be the estimated 9% of voters who have yet to make up their minds.

A Washington Post-ABC News poll on Sunday found Clinton tied with Trump at 41% among registered voters.

On Monday, a national poll by Quinnipiac University also found them in a virtual dead heat, with Clinton at 43% to Trump’s 42 among likely voters.

The poll found that, by a mar-gin of 41 to 32%, likely voters ex-

pect Clinton to win the debate.And 84% said they intend to

watch.Expectations may be higher for

Clinton because she is a veteran of 34 primary debates, having run for president in 2008 when she lost to now-president Barack Obama in a long, hard-fought Democratic primary.

“When the spotlights are at the brightest and the pressure is the most intense, that’s when she brings her A-plus game,” her running mate Tim Kaine has said.

Kelleyanne Conway, Trump’s campaign manager, dismisses Clinton’s reputation as a debater, however.

“She’s smart, but this isn’t her sweet spot,” she said yesterday on MSNBC, adding that Trump has prepared and is ready for her.

“He’s a natural debater.I have been in politics for 28

years,...

and I think Donald Trump has gifts and skills that sometimes escape typical politicians.”

The candidate’ son, Eric Trump, said his father “will be presiden-tial, passionate, and resilient”.

The Clinton campaign ex-pressed concern Sunday over what it called a double standard, saying the bar has been raised higher for her.

“It’s unfair to ask that Hillary Clinton both play traffi c cop with Trump, make sure that his lies are corrected, and also to present her vision for what she wants to do for the American people,” Clin-ton campaign manager Robbie Mook told broadcaster ABC.

Her team is concerned that moderator Holt will toss simpler “softball” questions in Trump’s direction while pressing Clinton with a much more challenging quizzing.

“All that we’re asking is that if Donald Trump lies, that it’s pointed out,” Mook said.

But Trump has already stated that he does not believe Holt’s role as moderator is to police each candidate.

Mind games were also on dis-

play as Trump threatened to in-vite Gennifer Flowers, a former lover of Bill Clinton, to watch the high-stakes battle from a front-row seat.

Conway on Sunday said it was meant to show the New York bil-lionaire had ways “to get inside the head of Hillary Clinton” but she told CNN there were no plans to actually invite Flowers.

Both Clinton and Trump go into the debate with high nega-tive ratings, which they hope to alter with their performance.

The Washington Post/ABC News poll found that both Clin-ton and Trump were viewed un-favourably by 57% of registered voters.

Only 38% had a positive impres-sion of Trump, to Clinton’s 39%.

While voters fi nd both candi-dates lacking in honesty overall, Clinton’s ratings were worse, with just 33% of voters fi nding her honest and trustworthy and 66% saying she is not.

Trump, on the other hand, suff ers from the fact that 53 % of voters do not believe he is quali-fi ed to be president, lacking the temperament and knowledge.

Clinton, Trump neck and neck

Cheerleaders before the first presidential debate at the Hofstra University, in Hempstead, New York, yesterday.

In a close race, the debaters’ real prize may be the estimated 9% of voters who have yet to make up their minds

ReutersNew York

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump picked up the endorse-

ment yesterday of the union rep-resenting 5,000 federal immigra-tion offi cers, a boost of support for his immigration policy ahead of his fi rst debate with Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Trump has laid out a hardline position on illegal immigration, proposing to build a wall along the US

southern border with Mexico and take other steps to crack down on the fl ow of undocu-mented people crossing into the United States.

With immigration likely to be discussed at the debate, the National Immigration and Customs Enforcement Coun-cil, a union representing 5,000 federal immigration officers

and law enforcement sup-port staff, announced it would support Trump, in what was described as its first endorse-ment of a candidate for elected office.

The union’s president, Chris Crane, outlined in a state-ment why his group is back-ing Trump, saying his union members are “the last line of defence for American commu-nities” and that his members “are prevented from enforcing the most basic immigration laws”.

A CNN/ORC poll released on September 7 said that among registered voters, 49 % said they trusted Clinton to handle immigration, a slight advan-tage over Trump, who was at 47 %.

Crane said the endorsement was conducted by a vote of the union’s membership and that Clinton received only 5% of the vote.

GoP candidate gets endorsement from immigration offi cers

Reuters Toronto

A Canadian diplomat’s teenage son has been deported from the

United States following his involvement in a fatal drug-related shooting, eff ectively nullifying the house arrest and probation he had been sentenced to serve, a national news agency reported on Sun-day.

Marc Wabafi yebazu, 15 at the time of the Miami shoot-ing, was deported on Septem-ber 6, according to the Cana-dian Press.

The news agency did not clearly cite its source, but quoted the teen’s mother, Roxanne Dube, Canadian consul general in Miami at the time of the incident, as say-ing: “It’s done. It’s done. It’s done.... He has his life ahead of him.”

Wabafi yebazu was sen-tenced this year to nine months of boot camp, fol-lowed by two years of house arrest and up to eight years of probation.

Under a deal with the pros-ecution, Wabafi yebazu plead-ed no contest to two counts of third-degree murder, aggra-vated assault and attempted armed robbery involving the botched March 2015 marijuana deal.

Wabafi yebazu’s older brother, 17-year-old Jean Wa-bafi yebazu, and a suspected drug dealer, died in the inci-dent, and under Florida law, anyone who participates in a violent felony in which some-one dies can be charged with murder.

Wabafi yebazu’s mother and lawyer and US authori-ties could not be immediately reached for comment.

Canada’s foreign affairs department, which employs Dube, declined to comment, calling the matter “person-al”.

The Canadian Press re-ported that US federal offi cials started deportation proce-dures against Wabafi yebazu as he was completing boot camp, against the protests of Florida state authorities who wanted him to complete his full sen-tence.

According to the foreign ministry, Roxanne Dube is now director general of its Cana-dian Foreign Service Institute in Ottawa. An agreement signed

between Canada’s border agency and China will re-sult in the faster deportation of Chinese citizens deemed inadmissible by Canadian

authorities, a Liberal gov-ernment spokesman said on Sunday.

The deal will allow Chi-nese officials to travel to Canada to interview Chi-nese citizens considered inadmissible, with the aim of verifying their identities and documents, said Scott Bardsley, press secretary to Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale.

Bardsley said the verifi-cation process could oth-erwise take a long time and had often delayed deporta-tions.

According to Canada’s im-migration department, those deemed inadmissible include people with criminal records, serious health or fi nancial is-sues or who have lied on their visa applications.

The agreement, a one-year pilot programme, was part of law enforcement accords signed during Premier Li Ke-qiang’s Canadian visit last week.

The border agency agree-ment, which will not be in place immediately, is similar to one China has with the Euro-pean Union, and offi cials from both countries will revisit the matter in November, said Bardsley.

The Chinese embassy in Canada did not immediately respond to a request for com-ment.

Both countries are also talking about an extradition treaty, which China has long wanted so it can press for the return of what it says are corrupt offi cials who fl ed to Canada.

Human rights advocates are opposed, citing what they say is a fl awed Chinese justice sys-tem.

Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau, elected last year, is trying to improve ties and increase trade with China, the world’s second-largest economy, after a decade of rocky relations under his Conservative predecessor.

The countries on Thurs-day settled a trade dispute and said they would start ex-ploratory talks on a free trade pact.

The countries also signed a memorandum of understand-ing under which the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Ministry of Public Secu-rity of China will co-operate to combat a broad range of crimes.

Bardsley said the memo-randum was a renewal of a similar one signed in 2010 that called for broad coop-eration.

Canadian diplomat’s teenage son deportedThe lawyer appears to have

fallen out with his firm

ASEAN

Gulf TimesTuesday, September 27, 201614

Fishermen swamp Vietnam court to sue Taiwan fi rm

ReutersHanoi

Hundreds of Vietnamese fishermen travelled to a small provincial court

yesterday to sue one of the country’s biggest investors for compensation over an accident

at its $10.6bn steel plant, ac-tivists and a court official said.

Tens of millions of fish died in April, in one of Vietnam’s biggest environmental disas-ters, which the government blamed on a discharge of toxic waste into the sea by Formosa Ha Tinh Steel, a subsidiary of Taiwan’s Formosa Plastics.

Formosa Ha Tinh Steel has promised $500mn in com-pensation and admitted its steel plant caused massive fish deaths along a 200km stretch of coastline.

A total of 545 people are su-ing the company, Dang Huu

Nam, a priest leading the group that journeyed 200km by bus to a town in the central province of Ha Tinh told Reuters in a text message. “The court is receiv-ing their files,” an official at the Ky Anh People’s Court said by telephone.”

It is very crowded here.” In a video posted on social media site Facebook, Nam said fish-ermen still feared the sea was polluted and were suffering hardship.

“They cannot go to sea and cannot catch fish while they face the prospect of hunger be-cause of bank debts,” he added.

The disaster unleashed a public outcry on social media and on the streets of big cities.

Demonstrators vented their fury at both the government and Formosa, accusing them of a cover-up.

Such protests have been a headache for the authorities, who have accused anti-gov-ernment groups of trying to exploit the disaster and stir up anger, with the aim of over-throwing the ruling Commu-nist Party.

Yesterday’s mass lawsuit captured attention on Face-book but was not covered by

state-run media.Activists said yesterday’s convoy of more than 10 buses was closely mon-itored by police, with military also deployed around Formo-sa’s project in Ha Tinh.

Several thousand Christians gathered around the court and sang songs in support of the fishermen, the priest said, adding that the court was only able to process half the lawsuits filed but would receive more today. Formosa is one of Tai-wan’s biggest conglomerates.

Its listed units include For-mosa Plastics Corp and For-mosa Chemicals & Fiber Corp.

Formosa Ha Tinh Steel has promised $500mn in compensation and admitted its steel plant caused massive fish deaths along a 200km stretch of coastline

Thais hold placards in protest against what they claim are transmission problems in a few models of Ford cars, in Bangkok yesterday. Ford later issued a statement saying they were working to move negotiations forward, after what was a rare protest in post-coup Thailand.

Protest against auto firm over defectsMyanmar’s Bagan set to make World Heritage list after quakeAFPYangon

Myanmar’s ancient city of Bagan is “very likely” to be listed

as a World Heritage site, a Unesco offi cial said yesterday, promising a boon to a tourist attraction battered by a recent earthquake.

Bagan is home to more than 2,000 ancient Buddhist mon-uments that are among Myan-mar’s most venerated religious sites and is a major attraction for its nascent tourist indus-try.

The former military junta tried to get Bagan listed as a World Heritage site some 20 years ago but was rebuff ed, seemingly because of haphaz-ard renovations under its rule.

An earthquake last month destroyed many of those botched restorations.

That will allow fresh work more in keeping with the original design, Unesco said, boosting Bagan’s chances of taking a coveted place on the list of the world’s most prized cultural artifacts.

“The chances are very like-ly” that Bagan will be recog-nised as a World Heritage site in 2019, according to the head of Unesco’s Yangon offi ce, Sardar Umar Alam.

“The experts that are work-ing on the site, they are confi -dent that yes, the site stands a good chance,” he said.

The plan start the lengthy application process next year with an eye on making the list by 2019. Experts said the bungled junta-era restoration, much of it hastily done with modern materials, signifi -cantly altered the original ar-chitecture and design of some monuments.

“They just used bricks and steel and started fi xing them just like normal buildings and it really, really created an is-sue,” said Alam.

Unesco Myanmar is now co-ordinating an internation-al team to work on the monu-ments and is supporting the government in its bid to ap-ply for World Heritage status next year. The renovation of the fi rst group of 41 “priority monuments” is expected to take around two years.

Suu Kyi unwell after trip to US, UKAFPYangon

Myanmar’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been forced

to take a rest from her state duties after becoming unwell during a state trip abroad, her offi ce said yesterday.

The 71-year-old was diag-nosed with gastritis after re-turning from a visit to Britain and the US, her fi rst trip to her Western allies since taking of-

fi ce in March.Pictures of her being pushed through Yangon airport in a wheelchair posted on social media sparked con-cern about the Nobel Laure-ate’s health and quickly went viral.

“She feels weak as she did not have much time to rest during the trip,” her offi ce said in a statement.

“She has a stomach ache as she did not have time to have regular meals,” it added, add-ing that she “just needs to rest for a while”.

Dutchman held after ‘pulling plug’ on sermon

AFPYangon

A Dutch tourist has been detained in Myanmar for insulting religion after

being accused of pulling the plug on a speaker relaying a late-night Buddhist sermon in Mandalay.

Klass Haytema, 30, has been held since Friday night when he allegedly disconnected the cable linking an amplifier and a speaker at a hall playing the sermon after he complained that it was disturbing him, po-lice said.

“The religious hall is not far from the hotel where he was staying... he said he did it because it was too noisy for him,” Kyi Soe, police chief at Maha Aung Myay township, said.

An angry crowd followed the man back to his hotel, where he was taken into cus-tody by police and later trans-ferred to a Mandalay prison.

“We detained him for in-sulting religion,” he said, add-ing it was under section 295 of Myanmar’s penal code.

He is yet to be charged but the law carries up to a two year jail term and fine.

Singapore scion buys 49% stake in Rolling StoneAFPSingapore

A Singapore fi rm headed by a scion of one of Asia’s richest families

has bought a 49% stake in Roll-ing Stone, with plans to diver-sify the iconic magazine into new business including live events and merchandising.

BandLab Technologies, a music and technology start-up headed by 28-year-old Kuok Meng Ru, bought the stake for an undisclosed sum and will partner current owners Wen-ner Media, the fi rms said in a statement late Sunday.

Rolling Stone International, a new subsidiary to be headed by Kuok, will organise events including concerts, and de-velop merchandising and hos-pitality services, Bloomberg News reported.

Rolling Stone Internation-al will “build on the brand’s worldwide appeal and recogni-tion”, the statement added.

BandLab will have no in-volvement in the editorial side of the magazine, and will not have a stake in Wenner Media, Bloomberg reported.

Kuok is the son of Singapore palm oil magnate Kuok Khoon Hong — founder of Wilmar In-ternational, the industry’s big-gest trader — and grand-neph-ew of Robert Kuok, Malaysia’s richest man who is worth more than $11bn according to Forbes.

“Rolling Stone’s impact on culture over the years has been immeasurable and I’m truly honoured to be joining the team on the next phase of its

journey,” said Kuok, a Cam-bridge graduate.

BandLab Technologies’ portfolio already includes a cloud platform and social net-work for musicians, a music-making website, an instrument accessory design studio and Swee Lee, Southeast Asia’s largest distributor of audio equipment and musical instru-ments.

“We are thrilled to have

found an extraordinary partner for Rolling Stone as we focus on the brand’s global expansion,” Gus Wenner, Wenner Media’s head of digital, said in a state-ment.

“We see an enormous op-portunity to diversify the brand into new markets and new ar-eas of business.”

An information and com-munications technology ana-lyst said the deal was another

case of a traditional print brand with a struggling business model attempting to survive in the digital age by diversifying.

“All the money in the music industry now is related to an-cillary services like concerts, merchandise, digital, all these kinds of things,” Marc Einstein from business consultancy Frost & Sullivan said.

But Einstein noted that ven-turing into digital marketing

comes with its own challenges.“When competing as a mag-

azine, Rolling Stone only had so many competitors. But when it’s competing on YouTube or on a website basis, there are millions of competitors,” he said.

Music and pop culture mag-azine Rolling Stone was found-ed in 1967 by Gus Wenner’s fa-ther, Jann S Wenner, and Ralph Gleason with a $7,500 loan from friends and family.

According to Singapore daily The Straits Times, the deal has been in the works for some 15 months after Kuok was intro-duced to Gus Wenner.

Bloomberg said the two struck up a friendship over their common interest in gui-tars and Bob Dylan.

At the time, the Wenners were looking for a way to ex-pand their reach in Asia, home to more than half the world’s population.

“It became much bigger than what we began with,” Kuok told Bloomberg.

“It was really more of a meeting of minds and visions and long-term partnership that made it possible.”

In addition to its focus on pop music, Rolling Stone forged its reputation by featuring some of the best American writers — such as Tom Wolfe and Hunter S Thompson — and by turning its covers into showcases for top photographers and contro-versial subjects.

New York-based Wenner Media owns and publishes 12 international editions of the magazine, as well as Us Weekly and Men’s Journal.

The Rolling Stone magazine (second row) are displayed on the shelves for sale in Singapore.

Govt raises volcano alert for Mount BromoDPAJakarta

Indonesian authorities raised the alert level for a volcano in East Java province yesterday

after it showed signs of increased activity, an offi cial said.

Mount Bromo has created small earthquakes and spewed thick smoke from its crater since earlier this month, said Sutopo Nugroho, spokesman for the National Dis-aster Management Agency.

The national volcanology agency heightened its alert level on the mountain to three, on a scale from one to four, according to Sutopo.

Tourists have been warned against climbing the mountain, he said.

The 2,329-metre volcano spewed ash and hot gas in April, forcing authorities to close the airport in the city of Malang.

Mount Bromo has created small earthquakes and spewed thick smoke from its crater since earlier this month, said Sutopo Nugroho, spokesman for the National Disaster Management Agency

AUSTRALASIA/EAST ASIA15Gulf Times


In a blow to Australia, an international arbitration court has agreed to take up

a decade-long maritime border dispute between East Timor and Canberra which cuts through lucrative oil and gas fi elds in the Timor Sea.

The Permanent Court of Ar-bitration (PCA) “held that it was competent to continue with the conciliation process” initiated by East Timor against Australia in April, the court based in The Hague said.

East Timor last month urged the body – the world’s oldest

arbitration tribunal – to help end the dispute that has soured relations between the two coun-tries, saying negotiations had so far failed.

Australia in return had argued that the PCA had no jurisdiction in the battle as Canberra had al-ready signed a treaty with Dili ruling out any recourse to the court.

Yesterday Dili welcomed the PCA’s decision.

“Just as we fought so hard and suff ered so much for our inde-pendence, Timor-Leste will not rest until we have our sovereign rights over both land and sea,” the country’s independence re-sistance hero and former prime minister Xanana Gusmao said.

The country’s offi cial name is the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste.

Australian Foreign Aff airs Minister Julie Bishop said that Canberra “accepts the commis-sion’s decision and will continue to engage in good faith as we move to the next phase of the conciliation process”.

“We are committed to work-ing together to strengthen our relationship and overcome our diff erences in the Timor sea,” she added.

Canberra’s lawyers had also sought to argue that it had ini-tiated talks with Dili through an exchange of letters in 2003 to try to solve the dispute.

But the panel said the ex-

change of letters between Can-berra and Dili “did not consti-tute an agreement ... because the exchange was not ... legally binding”.

And the PCA’s fi ve-member Conciliation Commission ruled that the dispute should be set-tled under the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea, rather than the 2006 treaty – called Certain Maritime Arrangements in the Timor Sea (CMATS) – which covers the vast Greater Sunrise gas fi eld lying between the two nations.

East Timor has also called for CMATS to be torn up after ac-cusing Australia of spying to gain commercial advantage dur-ing the 2004 negotiations.

Dili however offi cially dropped its spying case against Canberra before the UN’s Inter-national Court of Justice in June 2015 after Australia returned sensitive documents.

The PCA has not shied away from stepping into complex dip-lomatic battles.

Earlier this year it sparked fury in Beijing by ruling in a case brought by the Philippines that China’s claims to a vast swathe of the resource-rich South Chi-na Sea were invalid.

The PCA, which was set up in 1899, is dedicated to resolving international disputes through arbitration, mediation and other means, by referring to interna-tional and bilateral treaties.

East Timor, which only gained its independence from Indo-nesian occupation in 2002, is an impoverished nation that is heavily dependent on oil and gas exports.

Negotiations between Timor and Australia will now continue over the next year, the tribunal based in The Hague said, but it stressed the meetings will be “largely in a confi dential set-ting”.

The commission will be in-volved “in a process for creating a positive relationship between the two sides to try and bring them together to the table”, said Aaron Matta, senior researcher at the Hague Institute for Global Justice think-tank.

E Timor-Australia case taken up by global courtAFPThe Hague

Taiwan evacuated thou-sands of tourists from outlying islands yes-

terday and set up nearly 100 shelters across the island as it braced for its third typhoon in two weeks.

The east coast is still reeling from damage caused by Super Typhoon Meranti earlier this month – the strongest storm for

21 years to hit Taiwan – followed by Typhoon Malakas.

The same part of the island is in the fi ring line again from approaching Typhoon Megi, which is already bringing strong winds and waves.

The typhoon is due to make landfall on the east coast today and forecast to bring almost a metre of rain to some areas over three days.

Ferries to Taiwan’s Green Is-land and Orchid Island were halted yesterday after more than

3,700 visitors were evacuated over the weekend.

A 700-tonne crane was blown over yesterday at a harbour in the eastern area of Hualien.

It crushed a nearby building but no one was injured.

More than 35,000 soldiers are on standby to help with disaster relief and 92 shelters are open for residents.

At 0715 GMT Megi was 530km (329 miles) east-southeast of Hualien, packing gusts of up to 191kph (119mph).

“The storm eye will be closest around noon tomorrow, aff ect-ing Taiwan the whole day,” Lin Chih-hui, a forecaster at Tai-wan’s Central Weather Bureau, told AFP. “There is still a chance it might strengthen.”

Mountainous regions in the northeastern county of Yilan and Hualien – already hit by the previous storms – could be lashed by up to 900mm (35”) of rain through to tomorrow, in-creasing the risk of landslides, the bureau said.

Taiwan evacuates thousands from outlying islands ahead of typhoonAFPTaipei

Taiwan coast guard personnel patrol the Wushih harbour at Yilan county, eastern Taiwan, as Typhoon Megi approaches.

A 17-year-old surfer was attacked by a shark off Australia’s east coast yes-

terday, with locals saying that he was lucky his board bore the brunt from a suspected great white.

The teenager, named as Coop-er Allen in local media, was bitten on the leg while surfi ng at Ballina Shire’s popular Lighthouse Beach – the scene of several attacks in recent years.

Fellow surfers rushed to his aid, helping him back to the beach where he received fi rst aid from off -duty nurses.

Surf Life Saving New South Wales said the teen suff ered “se-vere lacerations” but police said his injuries are not considered life-threatening.

“But obviously, with a shark wound, they’re always quite se-vere,” New South Wales police chief inspector Nicole Bruce told

reporters. “(He) received lacera-tions and bite marks to his up-per-thigh area, he was assisted into the shore and off -duty nurs-es treated him.

“We’ve got the surfboard and the bite marks will be analysed by the DPI (the Department of Pri-mary Industries).”

With school holidays in full swing, police declared beaches across Ballina, some 740km (460 miles) north of Sydney, closed for 24 hours.

Of the 14 unprovoked shark attacks off the New South Wales coast in 2015, most occurred along a 60km hotspot from Evans Head to Byron Bay which includes the town of Ballina.

Bruce said it was too early to say what kind of shark was re-sponsible, but a 3.5m great white was spotted at Lighthouse Beach by aerial surveillance after the attack.

It was chased out to sea by life-savers on jet skis.

“There has been (a) sighting of a great white, a 4m shark, further

off the shore but no-one actually saw which shark it was that’s bit-ten him,” she said.

Eff orts to contain the marine predators have so far proven dif-fi cult, with a shark eco-barrier trial at Lighthouse Beach and nearby Lennox Head recently scrapped due to rough condi-tions.

“You can never be in the clear, I suppose, it’s just one of those things, you share the water with them, it could happen any day, anywhere,” said Bruce.

Craig Nolan, president of the Ballina Lighthouse and Lismore Surf Lifesaving, told the Aus-tralian Broadcasting Corpora-tion that the timing of the attack, ahead of the start of southern hemisphere summer, was unfor-tunate.

But he added: “Apparently the prime attack was on the board, so it took the brunt.”

As the injured teenager re-mained in a stable condition in Lismore Base Hospital, Ballina Mayor David Wright said he un-

derstood the shark was a great white and that it had come up from behind.

He said that it had wrapped its jaws around the rear of the surf-board, including its fi n, and over the victim’s leg.

He added that the board had helped prevent more serious in-jury.

Wright said despite the latest incident, surfers would still fl ock to the north coast beaches.

“It certainly won’t stop surf-ers,” he told AFP.

17-year-old surfer mauled by sharkAFPSydney

This handout photo released yesterday by New South Wales Department of Primary Industries shows life savers chasing a shark off the Ballina’s popular Lighthouse Beach following a shark attack that injured a 17-year-old surfer.

The North Korean gov-ernment is urging in-ternational aid groups

to provide fl ood relief while spending hundreds of millions of dollars to develop nuclear weapons and missiles at the same time, according to a re-port in the Washington Times newspaper.

The US newspaper said that Jong Kwon, North Korea’s counsellor at the UN mission in New York, had sent an e-mail appeal for the aid earlier this month – fi ve days before Pyongyang set its fi fth under-ground nuclear test.

“Kwon wrote to several NGOs providing aid to North Korea on September 5, explain-ing that heavy rains and subse-quent fl oods hit two provinces in the northeastern part of the country,” the report said.

“Writing on behalf of Choe Son-Hui, the new president of the Korea-America Private Exchange Society (KAPES), a Pyongyang front group that lobbies for foreign aid, Kwon stated that North Korea ‘would like to appeal to you all for an emergency support to the dev-astating fl ood damage area in (North Korea)’,” according to an e-mail sited by the weekly column called Inside the Ring in Washington Times.

The North Korean counsel-lor said heavy rains destroyed 17,180 houses and left 44,000 people homeless.

A total of 10 people died and 15 are missing.

“KAPES kindly requests you to fi nd potentiality in your re-

sources of supporting those people with whatever you can make,” Kwon said. “It has been known that the primary neces-saries for them are food, shel-ter tent, blanket and medicine, etc.”

A second North Korean e-mail told foreign groups that Pyongyang would allow moni-toring of aid distribution.

The e-mails coincided with a rare public appeal for fl ood relief published in North Ko-rea’s offi cial KCNA news agen-cy.

News reports from the re-gion stated the fl oods are ex-pected to cause more food shortages.

South Korea’s Yonhap re-ported that North Korean food shortages will amount to some 600,000 tons less than is needed by the population.

North Korea’s appeal for hu-manitarian aid comes at a time when the government is accel-erating its nuclear and missile programmes.

The nuclear test carried out on September 9 was the fi fth underground blast and the second this year.

Last Friday, North Korea vowed to further strengthen its nuclear weapons capability, in spite of UN condemnation and sanctions, and said it would never abandon its deterrence while it was threatened by nu-clear-armed states.

In an address to the United Nations General Assembly, North Korean Foreign Minis-ter Ri Yong Ho described his country’s nuclear weapons as “a righteous self-defence measure” against “constant nuclear threats of the United States”.

North Korea seeks fl ood relief amid nuke programmeAgenciesWashington

China fl ies military planes over strait near JapanAFPBeijing

China has sent fi ghter planes for the fi rst time over a strait near Japan,

the two governments said yes-terday, after Tokyo announced it may patrol alongside the US in the disputed South China Sea.

More than 40 Chinese mili-tary aircraft on Sunday traversed the Miyako Strait between Ja-pan’s Miyako and Okinawa Is-lands, to carry out training in the West Pacifi c, according to a statement on China’s defence ministry website.

The Sukhoi Su-30 fi ghters, bombers and refuelling aircraft did not violate Japanese air-space.

Japan’s defence ministry said it was the fi rst time Chinese fi ghters had passed over the strait.

The drill is aimed at “testing far sea combat capabilities”, the Chinese statement said.

It follows China’s fi rst military fl ight, carried out by surveil-lance planes, over the Miyako Strait last year.

The move comes after Japa-nese Defence Minister Tomomi Inada said earlier this month that Tokyo would increase its engagement in the South China Sea through joint training cruis-es with the US Navy, exercises with regional navies and capaci-ty-building assistance to coastal nations.

Beijing asserts sovereignty over almost all of the South Chi-na Sea, dismissing rival partial claims from its Southeast Asian neighbours.

It rejects any intervention by Japan in the waterway.

In recent months Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has criticised China for rejecting a July ruling by an international tribunal, which said Beijing’s ex-tensive claims to the waters had no legal basis.

Tokyo, a key US ally, is also strengthening defence ties with other countries in the disputed region.

Japan and China are already at loggerheads over a longstanding territorial row in the East China Sea.

That dispute relates to un-inhabited islets controlled by Japan known as the Senkakus in Japanese and the Diaoyus in Chinese.

Abe said yesterday that Japan would “never tolerate attempts to unilaterally change the status quo” in the disputed waters, or “wherever else in the world”, in an apparent response to the Chi-nese move.

“We pledge to protect Japan’s territory, and in the sea and air,” he said in a speech to open a new parliamentary session.

Mooning and streaking off icially made criminal in Victoria state

Exposing bare buttocks in public and running naked in a public place to shock or amuse have been off icially made a crime in the Australian state of Victoria, it was revealed yesterday.“Mooning or streaking,” which was previously punishable under other laws, has now been specifically named as off ence in the amendment of legislation that also includes sexual crimes.The revised Summary Off ences Act 1966 states that “behaviour that is indecent, off ensive or insulting includes behaviour that involves a person exposing (to any extent) the person’s anal or genital region” and mentions “mooning or streaking” as an example of such an off ence.First-time off enders could face two months in jail while repeat off enders could be locked up for six months, according to the legislation.Victoria’s Attorney General Martin Pakula told local 3AW radio that it was always an off ence but the legislation separates less serious indecent exposure from more serious sexual exposure.“Sexual exposure is of course a much more serious off ence. We don’t want a situation where someone who might streak at the cricket is funnelled into the same category as someone who might jump out in front of a 13-year-old girl and flash,” Pakula said yesterday. “They are very diff erent types of off ences and the legislation for the first time makes that clear,” he added.Pakula said if it was not mentioned as an off ence, “you could have people simply doing it everyday with no possibility of any kind of sanction”.The same act also outlaws singing “an obscene song or ballad” and behaving in a “riotous, indecent, off ensive or insulting manner”.At an annual event in February, local residents of the town of Livingstone in Australia’s Northern Territory welcome visitors coming by the luxury Ghan train from Adelaide to Darwin by “mooning” them.

Corbynprospectsof winningelectionsbleak: pollLondon Evening StandardLondon

Millions of voters say La-bour has virtually “zero chance” of winning the

next election after Jeremy Corbyn was re-elected leader, a new poll revealed yesterday.

The exclusive BMG Research survey for the Standard also found:

The Conservatives have al-most doubled their lead over La-bour from six percentage points in August to 11 now.

Nearly three-quarters of adults believe Labour will have to wait until at least 2025 before be-ing back in government.

Almost a quarter of people aged 35 to 44, and 55 and over, think Labour will “never” win power again.

Nearly a third of 2,026 adults quizzed say they are less likely to vote Labour after Corbyn’s vic-tory to stay as Labour leader, compared to 15% who said they are now more likely to do so.

Far more people (34%) say Labour has been taken over by Far Left infi ltrators than those who disagree with this view, 13%.

However, the poll is not all doom and gloom for Corbyn, who was at Labour’s annual confer-ence in Liverpool yesterday.

Nearly seven out of 10 Labour voters believe his win against Owen Smith gives him a mandate to reshape the Labour party to his own vision including with party members having a say over who is in the shadow cabinet.

Highlighting the political mountain Corbyn faces to get an-ywhere near No 10, the poll found 38% of the public, including 29% of Labour voters, believe the par-ty has “close to zero chance” of winning the next general election with him at the helm.

A further 20% say he has a “modest chance”, making a clear majority who believe it is pretty unlikely he will get into Downing Street.

Governmentmust spell outBrexit plans,says LabourReutersLiverpool

The main opposition La-bour party called on the government to spell

out its strategy for negotiating Britain’s exit from the Europe-an Union, saying it had no brief to “do whatever the hell they like with our country”.

Just over three months since Britons voted 52% to 48% to leave the EU, Prime Minister Theresa May’s Conservative government has given little away about its Brexit plans.

It has said it needs more time to prepare before triggering formal divorce talks and that it will not give a “running com-mentary”.

While holding the June 23 referendum was a Conservative re-election pledge, little was said during the campaign about what a post-Brexit relationship with the EU would look like and the government banned pub-lic servants from contingency planning.

“They had that referendum but in my view it does not give them a democratic mandate to put themselves into a locked room and do whatever the hell they like with our country,” Emi-ly Thornberry, Labour’s foreign aff airs and Brexit spokeswoman, told an event on the sidelines of its annual conference.

“It is about time they start-ed telling us what their ne-gotiating position is going to be...because we, the opposi-

tion, want to scrutinise it.”Labour has been embroiled

in a divisive internal power struggle since the referendum. Many of the party’s lawmakers have criticised leader Jeremy Corbyn for not doing enough to persuade Labour voters to back remaining in the EU.

The veteran leftist Cor-byn’s re-election as Labour leader last week has fanned fears among some that a move to drive the party further left will make it unelectable indefi -nitely and allow the Conserva-tives free rein over the terms of Brexit.

Labour strongly promoted immigration during its 13 years in power until 2010.

But it saw many of its tra-ditional heartlands support Brexit on June 23, with the pressure on jobs and public services blamed on EU im-migrants a central driving factor.

Thornberry said Labour also needed more time to establish its stance on Britain’s future re-lations with the EU.

“We are still considering it. We need to consider it with some care. We need to consider the messages that we got from the referendum... We have to get the best deal possible but it is unclear what the British pub-lic wants.”

May has said the June 23 vote showed immigration from the EU cannot continue as before but she will be under pressure to seek to balance curbs on immigrants with maintaining

British access to the lucrative EU single market.

Addressing the Labour con-ference, Thornberry said a La-bour government would make up any shortfall in EU structural funding for deprived British re-gions beyond 2020, and would fi ght to protect workers’ rights after a departure from the EU.

The Labour Party yesterday also promised to take on big business and borrow to pro-tect struggling industries, set-ting out a left-wing economic agenda it hopes will re-engage with working class voters who backed leaving the European Union.

Finance spokesman John McDonnell, a veteran left-wing lawmaker, said Labour would raise the minimum wage, change company law to prevent fi rms taking on excessive debts to benefi t shareholders, and re-double eff orts to clamp down on tax avoidance.

“We will rewrite the rules to the benefi t of working people on taxes, on investment, and how our economic institutions work,” he told the party’s an-nual conference.

He said Labour wanted to use low interest rates to borrow £100bn and leverage it to cre-ate a £250bn investment fund focused on reviving British manufacturing.

McDonnell has previously said Britain needs £500bn of infrastructure investment over the next 10 years, pledging to increase direct government spending by £250bn.

Soaring realty pricesforce many out of capitalLondon Evening StandardLondon

The exodus of “30-some-things” from London is accelerating as sky-high

property prices and rents force ever more of them to relocate outside the capital, according to a new analysis.

Last year, 65,890 Londoners in their thirties moved to other parts of Britain, while 35,480 moved in, the latest government data reveals.

This resulted in a net outfl ow of 30,140 — the equivalent of the population of a town the size of Windsor — up by almost half on the 20,590 net move out of London three years previously.

Over that period the average price of a home in London rock-eted by 37% from £299,065 to £410,445, compared with a 16% rise for the country as a whole, according to fi gures from the Land Registry analysed by cam-paign group Generation Rent.

There has been a similar rise

in the number of children be-ing moved out of London with their parents, with 26,920 more under-10s leaving for another part of the UK in 2014-15 than arriving — up from 19,980 in 2011-12.

Separate research from estate agents Humberts shows the big-gest outfl ows in central London are from Greenwich and Wands-worth, two boroughs popular with young families in areas such as Blackheath and Clap-ham, but where the yawning pricing gap between fl ats and houses makes it hard to step up to the next rung of the property ladder.

Jeremy Campbell-Harris, head of Humberts’ London country house department, said: “We all understand the at-

traction of the big city but when faced with insurmountable af-fordability pressures many Lon-doners are pleasantly surprised at the range of options they have beyond the Tube network.”

Betsy Dillner, director of Gen-eration Rent, said: “These peo-ple are leaving friends and fam-ily in order to fi nd a home they can aff ord, and some are leaving their jobs. This should worry everyone in London.”

The fi gures were released as the group issued a report calling for huge reforms, including the introduction of indefi nite ten-ancies in the private rented sec-tor to help make renting a long-term, stable option.

Of the people leaving the cap-ital for another part of the UK, 64% are moving into the South-East and East of England com-muter belt. The rest are break-ing their links with London altogether, with 12% moving to the Midlands, 11% to the North, 9% to the South-West and 5% to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland combined.

Sacked actor sorryfor racist tweetsAFPLondon

A Pakistan-born UK ac-tor yesterday apologised for using “unacceptable

language” about Indians, which saw him fi red from Britain’s most popular TV soap.

Marc Anwar, 45, joined Coro-nation Street, the world’s long-est-running TV soap opera, in 2014 as a member of the show’s fi rst Muslim family.

But he was sacked from the show after the Sunday Mirror newspaper published screen-shots from his private Twitter account, which hit out at India over the Kashmir dispute.

“Indians killing our Kashmir brothers and sisters,” he wrote. He also referred to Indians in in-sulting terms.

“I would like to off er my sin-cerest apologies to anyone that I may have off ended with my tweets on Friday evening, and especially people from India,” he said in a video he uploaded to YouTube yesterday. “This was never my intention. The lan-guage was unacceptable. I feel I’ve let a lot of people down: my

family, my friends and my former colleagues. This I again very sin-cerely apologise for. ”

“On Friday evening I saw, on the news, children being pulled out of rubble, people being pelt-ed with pellets, women mourn-ing their dead in Kashmir. This upset me very deeply and in a moment of madness I ranted out. I vented my anger.

“My feelings were very sincere for the people of Kashmir,” he said.

“I hope that everyone that I have off ended can fi nd it in their hearts to forgive me.”

His character, love cheat gym boss Sharif Nazir, will still appear in scenes that have already been fi lmed for upcoming episodes.

The actor has appeared in Hol-lywood fi lms including Captain Phillips and 51st State.

Coronation Street, which be-gan in 1960, became the longest-running soap opera in the world in 2010.

Set in a fi ctional suburb of Manchester in northwest Eng-land, it remains one of Britain’s most-watched programmes with around 8mn viewers. Guest stars have included Prince Charles, the heir to the British throne.

Shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry stands besides Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn after delivering her speech on the second day of the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool yesterday.

Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond, greets Hong Kong’s chief secretary for administration, Carrie Lam, at Number 11 Downing Street in London yesterday.

Official visit

A man claiming to be able to treat autism has been recorded on camera screaming and threatening violence against an undercover reporter who he believed was a vulnerable patient. A BBC London investigation secretly recorded the supposed healer treating the journalist, who pretended to be a young man with the condition. The footage shows a London-based physiotherapist for a Hungarian firm asking the “patient” to choose between being slapped or punched. Richard Mills, director of the charity Research Autism, said such an encounter would send the stress levels of an autistic person “through the roof”.

Notorious gangster John “Goldfinger” Palmer was under electronic surveillance by a secret police intelligence unit for 16 years until his assassination by a hitman last year, according to a BBC investigation. Palmer, 65, once described as Britain’s richest criminal, was shot dead in the grounds of his Essex mansion in June last year in what police believe was a contract killing. Now a documentary reveals police had run an intelligence operation on Palmer from the RAF Spadeadam base in Cumbria since 1999. A former intelligence officer said the National Crime Agency had gathered intelligence on Palmer in an operation codenamed Alpine.

A suspected hacker was bailed by police following reports that 3,000 photographs had been stolen from Pippa Middleton, sister-in-law of Prince William, and were up for sale. The pictures were reported by The Sun and Daily Mail newspapers to have been stolen from Middleton’s iCloud account and included shots of her sister Kate, plus her and William’s children Prince George, three, and Princess Charlotte, one. The Sun said it had been asked for £50,000 for the shots, after someone contacted the newspaper. The Metropolitan Police said on Sunday a 35-year-old man arrested a day earlier had been released on bail, to return to a police station in the capital in late November.

Detectives investigating the murder last week of Zdenek Makar in east London have charged a 29-year-old man. Raymond Sculley, of Sherman House, Poplar, appeared at Thames magistrates court yesterday charged with 31-year-old Zdenek’s murder in East India Dock Road on September 21. Two others arrested on Friday – a 19-year-old man and a 16-year-old boy – have been released on bail pending further inquiries. Makar, 31, was pronounced dead in the street near the All Saints Docklands light railway station in Poplar on Wednesday night, the Metropolitan police said. His death reportedly followed a row in a chicken takeaway shop in east London.

Police started excavations on a Greek island yesterday, saying they were armed with new leads into the disappearance of a British toddler there 25 years ago. South Yorkshire Police, who are leading the investigation, said they would focus their attention on two sites on the island of Kos, close to where the child, Ben Needham, was last seen near his family’s holiday home on July 24, 1991. Detective inspector Jon Cousins, the lead investigator, said new information on the case surfaced in May, following a public appeal to Kos residents. He would not comment on newspaper reports of speculation that the child may have been crushed by a digger in an accident.

Healer’s abusive therapyfor autism caught on tape

Secret police unit tracked‘Goldfinger’ for 16 years

Royal photo ‘hacker’bailed by police

Suspect charged withmurdering Czech man

New search for toddlermissing 25 years ago

EXPOSED DISCLOSURECRIMELAW AND ORDERINQUIRY

16 Gulf TimesTuesday, September 27, 2016

BRITAIN

“Faced with insurmountable aff ordability pressures many Londoners are pleasantly surprised at the range of options they have beyond the Tube network”

BRITAIN17Gulf Times


Operator ‘to blame’ forrollercoaster crashLondon Evening StandardLondon

The operator of Alton Tow-ers was at fault for last year’s Smiler rollercoaster

crash despite “human errors”, a court heard yesterday.

Merlin Attractions Opera-tions has already been warned by a judge this year to expect a signifi cant fi ne for admitting a health and safety breach which led to a full 16-seater carriage on the £18mn ride smashing into an

empty car on June 2, 2015.Yesterday, Leah Washington

and Vicky Balch, who each lost a leg in the crash, were at Staf-ford crown court for a two-day sentencing hearing, with fellow front-row passengers Joe Pugh and Daniel Thorpe.

Chandaben Chauhan, who was in the second row, also attended. All three were badly hurt. Open-ing the case, barrister Bernard Thorogood said the kinetic energy involved in the crash was equiva-lent to “a family car of 1.5 tons having collided at about 90mph”.

He said on the day, a test car-riage had been sent around the 14-loop ride but had stopped, known as “valley-ing”, in the bot-tommost part of the Cobra Roll area of the ride, unseen by staff .

Engineers who arrived then overrode a computer system “block-stop” which they believed had halted the ride in error.

Thorogood, speaking for the Health and Safety Executive, which brought the prosecution, said: “Engineers who came to remedy the situation, regard-ing the indicated block-stop,

thought it was a false one refl ect-ing a recently corrected issue and did not see the stalled train, and proceeded to reset and restart the ride, overriding the computer-generated block-stop.”

“The subsequent collision was plain to see to some in the train, and I refer to those in the front row’s statements, where they speak of their disbelief and horror as they saw ahead up the track the train.”

The victims were then left for a “signifi cant period of time” at least 20ft above ground, waiting

for medical attention because of the inaccessibility of that part of the ride, according to Thorogood.

But although there had been “a number of human errors”, the barrister said, the “fault here is with the employers”. Engi-neers, responding to a fault, were “without guidance from above”, and had not been given a system to follow to deal safely with the problem on the track.

“The fault is with the defend-ant for not devising a scheme for not guiding the work of the engi-neers,” he said.

Prince George snubs Trudeau’s high-fi veReutersToronto

Blame it on jet lag or maybe a precocious knowledge that his great-grandmoth-

er is Canada’s head of state but Britain’s three-year-old Prince George just wasn’t going to be charmed by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Landing in Canada on a week-long offi cial visit with parents Prince William and Kate Middle-ton, George, holding his father’s hand, ignored Trudeau when he squatted down to the toddler’s level to off er a high-fi ve variation, the low-fi ve.

Trudeau then switched his palm for a high-fi ve and subse-quently off ered a handshake, both of which were seemingly rebuff ed, creating an awkward moment on the airport tarmac in the western province of British Columbia.

Canadians felt the princely snub acutely, accustomed as they are to seeing their young premier win over millions of fans around the world and attain social media star status.

“My heart broke 15 times for

trudeau in this,” said a Twitter user with the handle @OhAlex-aandra.

“Justin Trudeau getting denied a high fi ve by a toddler (even if it was the son of the prince) is a great analogy for modern global aff airs,” said a Twitter user with the handle @EmMcCon.

George did shake hands with Barack Obama on his visit to Eng-land in April, when the prince was allowed to greet the US president dressed in natty pajamas and a robe before he went to bed.

William and Kate yesterday vis-ited the Immigration Services So-ciety of British Columbia to meet staff and volunteers who help re-cent migrants to the area.

The couple also is scheduled to meet young leaders of various industries in Canada and some of Vancouver’s fi rst responders.

Before leaving Canada on Oc-tober 1, the couple is expected to have more than more than 30 en-gagements, including with abo-riginal Canadian communities.

William is second in line to suc-ceed his grandmother Queen Eli-azabeth, who has been Canada’s head of state since she ascended to Britain’s throne in 1952.

May’s alliesreject claimon role in EUvote campaignGuardian News and MediaLondon

Allies of Theresa May have rejected claims that she failed to pull her weight in

the campaign to stay in the EU, after David Cameron’s former media chief said she declined to help on 13 occasions.

Sir Craig Oliver, who was No 10 communications director until July, writes in his book that May frustrated the Remain campaign by pursuing a “submarine strat-egy” of disappearing from view.

He said Will Straw, the director of the Remain campaign, had been so uncertain where her true loyal-ties lay, he sent a text asking: “Are we sure May’s not an agent for the other side!?” May, who was then home secretary, came out for re-maining in the EU early on but kept a low profi le in the referendum and made only one public intervention in favour of the In campaign.

Since becoming prime minister, she has been adamant that “Brexit means Brexit”, signalling she is fully committed to taking the UK out of the EU.

Oliver’s book, serialised in the Mail on Sunday, said May stood aloof during the referendum as Cameron was fi ghting for his po-litical life. The former communi-cations chief was strongly criti-cised by Iain Duncan Smith, the former work and pensions secre-tary, who said he should not blame May for the failure of the Remain campaign and called on him to “stop carping” and show humility in the face of defeat.

Oliver’s intervention comes at a time of deteriorating relations be-tween those close to the new prime minister and allies of Cameron, who are furious at her distancing herself from his premiership and ditching key aspects of his legacy. Downing Street had no response to Oliver’s book but sources said it had not elicited much of a reac-tion in No 10, as it was going over history rather than current events.

Duncan Smith said: “In the past, a knight of the realm who had failed in battle and lost would have quit the fi eld and retired in humil-ity to better understand their own failings. How surprising then to fi nd that far from that, Sir Craig Oliver, one of the leading lights of Remain, has decided to instead try to pin the blame for his failure on others, particularly the new prime minister.”

Patrick McLouglin, the Con-servative chairman appointed by May, also rejected the idea that she had let Cameron down during the campaign. “I don’t think that is true at all. May during the referen-dum campaign made her position very clear,” he said on Sky News’s Murnaghan programme.

“This is a book that has been written after the event. You have got to have certain spicy things in a book to sell it. I don’t blame Craig for doing that. At the time, Theresa was very much part of the Remain campaign.”

However, Theresa Villiers, the former Northern Ireland secretary, who campaigned for Leave, said she believed May might have had a foot in both camps. “There were times that I did wonder,” she told BBC One’s Sunday Politics pro-gramme. “Her major speech of the referendum campaign expressed real concerns about the possibil-ity of Turkey joining the EU. It also said that the sky is not going to fall in if we leave. I think she was gen-uinely listening to both sides.”

Oliver writes: “Amid the mur-der and betrayal of the campaign, one fi gure stayed very still at the centre of it all – Theresa May. Now she is the last one standing.”

He describes one conversation after Cameron had sounded out May about her views on the EU. “It sounds like she refused to come off the fence. From her point of view it’s a smart strategy, trying to demonstrate she is her own per-son, allowing her to have her cake and eat it, but it doesn’t seem fair on DC, who has treated her well,” he wrote.

Man stabbed to death bygang armed with knivesLondon Evening StandardLondon

A man was murdered by a gang armed with base-ball bats and knives

who left him in a pool of blood and fled with his trainers, wit-nesses said yesterday.

He was ambushed by a group who followed him to a housing estate in Dagenham at 7.30pm on Sunday night.

Police who were called to Braintree Road after reports of a disturbance found the man, who was in his thirties. He died at the scene minutes later.

A witness said he saw a group in a 4x4 swoop on three men who were in another car before chasing and killing one of them. “The 4x4 hit the car, three guys ran away out of the car and the gang caught one. I could hear chains dragging on the floor, they had a load of weapons,” he added.

“This was a targeted at-tack, no doubt. I heard the guy

scream, ‘Help me, help me.’ It was terrible, I couldn’t sleep last night. The group jumped back in their vehicle and drove off fast.”

A woman whose son saw the attack said: “Eight men pulled up in two cars. He didn’t stand a chance. He was stabbed mul-tiple times and beaten with baseball bats. They even took his shoes as he was bleeding to death.”

Businessman Astrit Muz-liukaj, 25, said: “There was po-lice tape everywhere. I spoke to a man who saw the whole thing. He said six guys came out of a car with baseball bats or pipes and knives. You could see glass smashed all over the floor. I saw something lying on the floor.”

One resident said: “There was screaming and shouting and what sounded like a car crashing or being smashed up. It was pandemonium — there was a police helicopter above us and dozens of officers. It was shocking. It is rough here but I have never seen anything like this.” Another said drug dealers operated in the area.

A smashed-up blue car re-mained outside a Costcut-ter supermarket off Braintree Road, where the attack started. Forensic offi cers were preparing to search the crime scene.

Parents on the school run had to shepherd children through the site. One said: “To walk through a crime scene to school is something no one should have to do. It makes you fear for your kids being brought up around here.”

A Metropolitan police spokesman said: “We are in the process of informing the victim’s next of kin and a post-mortem examination will take place.” No arrests have been made.

A young pearly princess looks toward her aunt Charlotte Bennett , the Pearly Princess of Woolwich, during the Pearly Kings and Queens Harvest Festival service at Guildhall in London. Pearly kings and queens are a working-class charitable tradition in London. The “pearly” tradition was started by a 19th century street sweeper who decorated his suit with “pearl” buttons to draw attention to his charity fund raising activities. Since then many groups and associations were formed to carry forward the charitable “pearly” tradition with each London borough having its own pearly king or queen to act as a focal point for fund raising and charitable giving. The harvest festival celebrates the autumn harvest and is a major date in the pearly calendar.

‘Pearly’ tradition

Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, tour the Kitsilano Coast Guard Station in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

“This was a targeted attack, no doubt. I heard the guy scream, ‘Help me, help me.’ It was terrible, I couldn’t sleep. The group jumped back in their vehicle and drove off fast”

Hospitals and care homes fail food safety inspectionsGuardian News and MediaLondon

More than 500 care pro-viders in the UK, in-cluding 19 hospitals and

other NHS facilities, have failed hygiene and food safety inspec-tions, Guardian analysis reveals.

Food Standards Agency (FSA) data shows that care homes fail to

meet food hygiene standards more than any other type of care provid-er, with more than 200 residential, nursing and care homes receiv-ing low grades at their latest food safety inspections.

This was closely followed by nurseries, childcare centres, play-groups and out-of-school care providers, more than 200 of which failed to meet hygiene standards, as well as a handful of hospices,

homeless shelters, churches and youth centres.

The FSA ranks all food provid-ers, giving them a score of zero to fi ve. Zero means the establishment “urgently requires improvement”, one or two is considered a failing grade, and three to fi ve is satis-factory. An overwhelming major-ity (more than 98%) of hospitals and other care providers achieve a food hygiene rating of three or

better. Despite this overall success, Michael Harding, a food hygiene rating scheme support offi cer at the FSA, said any instance of a care organisation receiving a low score was “a cause for concern”, due to the fact that vulnerable people, in-cluding children, older people and people who are ill, were more likely to use their services.

“The food safety offi cer will be taking the necessary action to en-

sure that the issues identifi ed at caring premises with a lower rating are addressed and that vulnerable people are not put at risk,” he said.

Eight care providers still in op-eration scored zero, including six residential care homes, one nurs-ery and one after-school care fa-cility, which has since stopped preparing food for children.

A ninth, Fairy Tales day nurs-ery in Glen Parva, Leicestershire,

received a score of zero in May after inspectors found a mouse infestation. The nursery closed and has since reopened under new management. The new busi-ness is yet to be inspected, but a spokesman from Blaby district council, which conducts inspec-tions in the area, said Ofsted vis-ited the site in mid-August and confi rmed that it was clean and tidy with no evidence of mice.

The Stay and Play after-school care service at Millbrook primary school in Newport, south Wales, scored a zero rating in June after it provided high-risk food and salad wraps despite not having the facil-ities to safely prepare them, New-port city council’s environmental health team said. The centre has since stopped serving food that re-quires preparation and gives chil-dren cereal or biscuits instead.

EUROPE


The European Union has launched a scheme worth almost €350mn providing

mainly Syrian refugees in Turkey with pre-paid debit cards, the biggest project yet under a land-mark deal between the bloc and Ankara.

EU Humanitarian Aid Com-

missioner Christos Stylianides, in Ankara for the start of the programme, said the debit cards will help give vulnerable refugees a “sense of normality” in their lives.

The refugees will be able to use the cards in shops or institutions to pay for food, education, hous-ing and clothing or also to with-draw cash from ATMs.

Each card will be automatically topped up with 100 Turkish lira

($33.50) a month, giving people the chance to choose their own purchases.

Stylianides said the pro-gramme was an “unprecedented response” to an “unprecedented crisis”.

“This (scheme) is, in our hu-manitarian fi eld, a game-changer in the delivery of humanitarian aid. Refugees can choose what they spend money on.”

Turkey is home to some 3mn

refugees, most of them Syrian.The vast majority live in cit-

ies without direct support from non-governmental organisations and aid groups.

Supported with €348mn ($392mn) from Brussels and its member states, the scheme will be rolled out by Turkish Red Crescent and the UN World Food Programme supported by the Turkish authorities.

Applications are due to start

next month for the scheme.Families who have children

going to school will receive more cash.

All refugees registered in Tur-key, including Iraqis, are eligible to apply.

Stylianides suggested that the programme would also benefi t Turks.

“The money will be spent in local shops, boosting local busi-nesses and encouraging social

cohesion between citizens and refugees.”

The project is part of a €6bn ($6.75bn) deal struck in March between Brussels and Ankara to curb the migrant infl ux into Eu-rope, which saw more than a mil-lion arrive in the EU last year.

There have been fears the deal could collapse with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan complain-ing that the promised money was not handed directly to Turkey.

In exchange for cutting the fl ow, Brussels also off ered Tur-key visa liberalisation for its citi-zens to visit EU countries in the Schengen area as well as acceler-ated membership talks.

But Ankara has threatened to withdraw from the agreement if Europe does not allow visa-free travel for Turks by next month, though the numbers coming to Europe have dropped signifi -cantly since March.

EU launches debit cards for refugees in TurkeyAFPAnkara

French President Francois Hollande said yesterday that the sprawling “Jun-

gle” migrant camp in Calais would be dismantled by the end of this year under a plan to spread asylum seekers around the country.

“I have come to Calais to confi rm the decision that I took with the government ... to dis-mantle (the camp) defi nitively, entirely and rapidly, that means by the end of the year,” Hollande said on his fi rst visit to Calais as president.

The French president called on British authorities to help in assisting the migrants, most of whom are desperate to reach Britain.

“I am determined to see the British authorities play their part in the humanitarian eff ort that France is undertaking” in Calais, Hollande said, fl anked by security forces.

Between 7,000 and 10,000 migrants are currently living in the Jungle, the launchpad for their attempts to stow away on lorries heading across the Chan-nel to England.

Hollande met police, local politicians, NGOs and business leaders in the northern port city but was not expected to visit the camp itself.

The Socialist president has been under pressure from right-wing rivals to close down the Jungle.

A fl urry of preparations in Calais suggest the operation to raze the collection of makeshift shelters may begin shortly.

The government has said the migrants, who are mostly from Sudan and Afghanistan, will be moved to 164 reception cen-tres around the country “before winter”.

Hollande said Britain’s vote to exit the European Union did not diminish its responsibility for

the migrants camped across the Channel.

“Just because the United Kingdom has taken a sovereign decision, it does not mean it is freed from its obligations to-wards France,” he said.

Hollande said the vote also had no eff ect on the bilateral Le Touquet agreement which ef-fectively means that the British border extends to Calais’s ferry ports, where British immigra-tion offi cials check passports and inspect vehicles.

Hollande’s visit comes just days after his conservative pred-ecessor Nicolas Sarkozy – who is hoping to return as president in next year’s election – visited Calais to promote his tough line on migration.

Migration has been a low-key issue of Hollande’s four-year presidency.

But he has been forced to take a stronger stance on the issue, under pressure from Sarkozy and far-right leader Marine Le Pen.

Both Sarkozy and Le Pen have

made immigration and national identity key themes in early campaigning for next year’s election, which has echoes of the US race for the White House.

On a visit to one of the new reception centres in the central city of Tours at the weekend Hollande said France would not

be a “country of camps”.Calais has become a symbol

of Europe’s failure to resolve the migration crisis that continues to divide the continent, after people fl eeing war and misery across the Mediterranean began pouring into Europe in unprec-edented numbers.

Plans to relocate the Calais migrants have sparked con-troversy and protests, with residents in some parts of the country vehemently opposed to taking them in.

Several hundred people dem-

onstrated at the weekend in Versailles, west of Paris, against plans to move a group of mi-grants there.

The Jungle camp has also be-come a sore point in relations between France and Britain.

Last week, building work be-gan on a British-funded wall to clamp down on repeated at-tempts by migrants to stow away on trucks heading for Britain.

Rights groups have criticised the hardship and dangers facing the migrants living in the camp, particularly the hundreds of

unaccompanied minors (see ac-companying report).

A 14-year-old Afghan boy was killed by a car earlier this month as he tried to climb aboard a truck.

Under EU rules, under-18s travelling alone are allowed join family in Britain.

Around half of the unaccom-panied minors in Calais are esti-mated to have family across the Channel.

But the process of trying to reunite them with their relatives has been dogged by delays.

Calais camp to be razed by year-end: HollandeAFPCalais

Hollande: I have come to Calais to confirm the decision that I took with the government ... to dismantle (the camp) definitively, entirely and rapidly, that means by the end of the year.

Migrants living in the ‘Jungle’ migrant camp walk past a sign posted along a road that leads to Calais.

Calais migrant camp demolition raises child traffi cking fears, says UN children’s agency

Lone children living in the shanty town near

Calais are likely to go missing or risk being

traff icked when France dismantles the migrant

camp, the United Nations said yesterday, urging

authorities to speed up the reunion of children

with families in Britain.

The UN children’s agency, Unicef, said it

was concerned for the safety and future of

unaccompanied minors living in the so-called

“Jungle” camp, on the outskirts of the northern

French port town.

“Before the bulldozers arrive, there must be

robust plans to safeguard the hundreds of

unaccompanied children currently stranded in

the camp,” said Lily Caprani, Unicef UK’s deputy

executive director.

Clashes with police broke out in February when

authorities began evicting refugees.

“If mistakes from the first eviction are repeated,

we will see more children going missing, falling

prey to traff ickers and facing the winter without

a home,” said Caprani in a statement to the

Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Rape, forced labour, beatings and death are just

some of the dangers faced by children travel-

ling without their parents, Unicef says.

“The UK must work with the French authorities

to get children into appropriate accommoda-

tion, where they can have access to care and

legal support, so they can reach their families

(in Britain) safely,” said Caprani.

Thousands of migrants fleeing war and pov-

erty in the Middle East, Africa and Asia have

converged on Calais over the past year, hoping

to find a way of getting across the Channel to

Britain.

About 7,000 migrants are living in the remain-

ing northern half of the camp, up from 4,500 in

June, according to local authorities, although

humanitarian groups put the number closer to

9,000.

Most attempt to climb onto lorries or trains us-

ing the Channel Tunnel, and police have had to

be deployed permanently in the area.

London and Paris have struck agreements on

issues such as the recently begun construction

of a giant wall on the approach road to Calais

port in an attempt to try to stop migrants who

attempt daily to board cargo trucks bound for

Britain.

“What happens in the Jungle is ultimately a

matter for the French authorities, what they

choose to do with it,” a British government

spokesman said.

EU warns Swiss after localvote on migrant curbsAFPBrussels

The EU has warned Swit-zerland over a vote by one of its cantons backing

curbs on migrants, an issue be-ing closely watched in London as a possible template for Brexit negotiations.

A measure making it more dif-fi cult for foreign workers to be employed won 58% of the vote in a referendum on Sunday in the Italian-speaking canton of Ti-cino, which borders Italy.

Brussels said the vote would further complicate thorny ne-gotiations over a national vote in early 2014 in which Switzerland voted for similar curbs, despite them violating the EU’s free movement rules.

“The EU and Switzerland have been in intense talks for months now in order to fi nd a solution on how to implement the Swiss popular vote on free movement in a way that respects obligations under the free movement agree-ment,” said Margaritis Schinas, spokesman for commission head Jean-Claude Juncker.

“Yesterday’s vote will not make the already diffi cult talks any easier,” he told a daily brief-ing.

EU Commission President Juncker will visit Switzerland at the end of October to continue discussions in order to fi nd “an agreement acceptable to both sides”, said Schinas.

Switzerland is not an EU member but is signed up to the bloc’s Schengen agreement, which allows passport-free travel and free movement of workers.

The referendum in Ticino was presented by the conservative Swiss People’s Party.

The vote’s result still requires approval from the Swiss federal government.

However Bern is unlikely to look kindly at the Ticino vote, as it struggles to repair frayed rela-tions with the EU and fi gure out how to apply the 2014 vote.

The EU is keen to take a hard line on Switzerland shirking its duties from bilateral agreements ahead of the bloc’s negotiations with London over its departure from the bloc.

Pro-Brexit campaigners want Britain to limit migration from EU countries but keep access to the single market – a combina-tion that EU leaders have repeat-edly warned is impossible.

Federal Justice Minister Heiko Maas said yester-day that the German gov-

ernment could take legal action against Facebook and other so-cial media groups if they do not intensify their fi ght against ille-gal hate speech or Islamist “ter-ror fantasies”.

Maas said Facebook, Twitter and Google, a unit of Alphabet Incorporated, were removing il-legal content from the Internet more frequently and quickly, but more work was needed.

He said the social media groups responded mostly to re-

quests by government-funded organisations but did not take private complaints as seriously.

“Of the illegal content re-ported by users, Twitter deletes about 1%, YouTube just 10%, and Facebook about 46%,” Maas said.

Those rates were too low, he said.

Maas said he would decide on next steps after government study was completed in March, with legal measures possible.

German political leaders and regulators say the world’s larg-est social network, with 1.6bn monthly users, has been slow to respond to hate speech and anti-immigrant messages.

European Union Commis-

sioner Vera Jourova told the news conference with Maas that she was counting on voluntary steps by social media fi rms and preferred to avoid deadlines.

Konstantin von Notz, dep-uty leader of the Green party’s parliamentary group, said the German government had ig-nored the problem for too long, and Maas’ deadline only put off any real action for another six months.

“This problem is too impor-tant for our society. The chan-cellor should take the issue in hand herself. Her justice minis-ter is clearly in over his head,” he said in a statement.

Mathias Doepfner, who heads Germany’s Axel Springer media

group, told newspaper execu-tives that media organisations should be regulated like tel-ecommunications fi rms, which are “not held responsible if peo-ple use their phone to talk about stupid or dangerous stuff ”.

“If these quasi-monopolistic technology platforms are also responsible for content, the consequences will be grave – for business and society,” he said.

Facebook touched off a fi re-storm earlier this month when it deleted an iconic Vietnam War photo of a naked girl fl eeing a napalm attack, saying that it violated restrictions on nudity.

The company later reinstated the photograph after it received multiple complaints.

German deadline in fi ght against online hateReutersBerlin

Sister of killed militant arrested and charged in BelgiumThe sister of a Islamist militant killed in a terror raid in Belgium last year has been arrested and charged, a prosecutor said yesterday.Chaimaa Amghar, 20, was arrested in the Brussels district of Molenbeek on September 21 after police traced social media messages indicating she was attempting to “commit acts of terror-linked crimes in a conflict zone”, the source said.The suspect is the sister of Sofiane Amghar, one of two suspected Islamic State (IS) members killed in a raid in the eastern city of Verviers in January 2015.

Prosecutors later said the group was under the orders of Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the ringleader of the terror cell that attacked Paris on November 13, 2015.The two men killed in the Verviers raid, Sofiane Amghar and Khalid Ben Larbi, went to Syria to join IS in April 2014.They then slipped back into Belgium to the Verviers hideout.Authorities have said the November Paris and March Brussels attacks were the work of the same cross-border militant group with deep roots in the Belgian capital.Azerbaijan voted yesterday

on whether to extend the president’s term in offi ce,

with opposition groups attack-ing the referendum as a ploy to boost Ilham Aliyev’s long grip on power.

Polls across the former Soviet republic of 9.4mn closed amid little doubt that the amendments would be passed.

The changes would extend the president’s term in offi ce from fi ve to seven years and create a powerful position of fi rst vice president.

The Central Election Commis-sion said turnout was 63.3% as of 5pm (1300 GMT).

Opposition groups staged protests ahead of the ballot, de-nouncing it as a bid to extend the Aliyev family’s more-than two-decade grip on the levers of power.

The proposal would axe the current age minimum of 35 for standing as president of the oil-rich Caucasus nation.

That change has been criti-cised by Aliyev’s opponents as

a scheme to pave the way for his children to take the helm one day.

Aliyev has two prominent so-cialite daughters Leyla, 32, and Arzu, 27, and a student son, Hey-dar, 19.

“The constitutional changes are aimed at further concen-trating the power in one family’s hands,” opposition leader Isa Gambar told AFP. “The amend-ments would allow young mem-bers of Aliyev’s family to inherit power.”

The authorities have dismissed the criticism, arguing that con-stitutional reform would stream-line running of the country.

“One of the main reasons for holding the referendum is the need to create an eff ective system of governance and to get rid of a number of bureaucratic mecha-nisms that still exist within the state system,” Aliyev’s top aide, Ali Gasanov, told journalists.

In contrast, the Council of Eu-rope’s constitutional law experts said the draft changes to the con-stitution “would severely upset the balance of power” and give the president “unprecedented” authority.

Amnesty International said the amendments would lead to

violations of the right to freedom of association.

“The referendum has been accompanied by arrests and in-timidation,” the rights group said in a statement. “Those who have attempted to criticise and cam-paign against these proposals have faced assaults and harass-ment by the authorities.”

Aliyev, 54, has led the country since his father Heydar, a former Communist-era boss, died after a decade in power in 2003.

He won a landslide election victory in 2013 despite Organisa-tion for Security and Co-opera-tion in Europe observers point-ing to signifi cant problems with the vote.

The next elections are in 2018.He is allowed to stand for an

unlimited number of presidential terms after a previous disputed referendum in 2009 scrapped a two-term limit.

If passed, the referendum would also introduce a new posi-tion of fi rst vice-president, who would rule in the president’s ab-sence.

That duty is currently held by the prime minister, whose ap-pointment requires the approval of parliament.

Azerbaijan organises referendum expected to boost President AliyevAFPBaku

EUROPE19Gulf Times


Our planet may grow intol-erably hot even if green-house gases in the atmos-

phere remain at current levels, according to the fi rst 2mn-year reconstruction of surface tem-peratures, published yesterday.

“Stabilisation at today’s greenhouse gas levels may al-ready commit Earth to an even-tual total warming of 5° Celsius (9° Fahrenheit) over the next few

millennia,” said a study in the peer-reviewed science journal Nature.

This was the middle of a pre-dicted warming range of 3° C (5.4° F) to 7° C (12.6° F).

Even 3° C would, in the long-run, unleash a maelstrom of cli-mate change impacts including storm surges engorged by rising seas, deadly heat waves, and se-vere fl ooding, said the study.

The UN’s Intergovernmen-tal Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has said that current at-mospheric concentrations of the

main greenhouse gas CO2 – just over 400 parts per million (ppm) – would, over the next century, push average global temperatures 2° to 2.4° C above the pre-indus-trial era benchmark.

The IPCC had concluded that global warming of 2° C was a rel-atively safe limit for humanity for most regions.

But a recent crescendo of cli-mate-enhanced extreme weather pushed world leaders to inscribe an even more stringent tem-perature cap of “well under two degrees” in the Paris Agreement

inked by 195 nations in Decem-ber.

The planet has already heated up 1.0° C (1.8° F) above the pre-industrial benchmark, and could see its fi rst year at 1.5° C within a decade, scientists reported at a conference that took place in Ox-ford last week.

The new study, by palaeocli-matologist Carolyn Snyder of Stanford University’s Interdisci-plinary Programme in Environ-ment and Resources, is the fi rst to piece together a continuous record of average surface tem-

peratures stretching back 2mn years.

Some parts of Earth’s climate history have been relatively easy to reconstruct: there is broad agreement, for example, on car-bon dioxide levels, sea surface temperatures and sea level go-ing back hundreds of thousands – sometimes even millions – of years.

But evidence of the change in air temperatures has been harder to come by.

In what a climate expert not involved in the study called “an

original approach”, Snyder ex-tracted 20,000 bits of data from 59 ocean sediment cores, to build a temperature timeline at 1,000-year intervals.

She then used climate models to infer wider trends.

The result agreed with a well-established link between global temperature and atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, especially over the last 800,000 years of cyclical ice ages, occur-ring roughly every 100,000 years.

The new data suggests that a doubling of CO2 levels in the

atmosphere would drive global temperatures up by 9° C, an in-crease that would melt away ice sheets and raise sea levels by doz-ens of metres.

This is considerably higher than most estimates.

Researchers not involved in the study also cautioned that it relied on numerous assumptions that may turn out to be wrong.

Extrapolating land tempera-tures based on what’s going on in the oceans, for example, is rife with uncertainty, the researchers said.

Earth’s climate past points to overheated future: studyBy Marlowe Hood, AFPParis

Regional elections in Spain on Sunday have strength-ened acting Prime Min-

ister’s Mariano Rajoy’s con-servatives and weakened the Socialists, who are now under pressure to let him form a gov-ernment and end a months-long political impasse.

The country is being run by a government without full powers following inconclusive elections in December and June that saw Rajoy’s Popular Party (PP) win without an absolute majority and other parties fail to forge a rival coalition.

The polls in the northern re-gions of Galicia and the Basque Country have thus been seen as a possible game-changer, refl ect-ing the public mood as an Octo-ber 31 deadline looms.

If no government emerges by then Spain, the eurozone’s fourth largest economy, will face an unprecedented third election around Christmas.

The PP renewed its absolute majority in Rajoy’s northwestern home region of Galicia, a long-time party stronghold.

And the Popular Party lost just one seat in the independence-minded Basque Country where its strong defence of a united

Spain has never been popular.Rajoy’s conservative PP won

41 out of 75 seats in the regional parliament in Galicia – equal to its share in the outgoing assem-bly – with over 95% of ballots counted.

In the verdant Basque country in northern Spain, the PP came in fi fth with nine seats in the 75-seat assembly, down from 10 seats in the outgoing assembly, after 99% of the ballots had been counted.

The moderate nationalist PNV party was once again the most-supported party in the Basque region as expected, winning 28

seats, but without an absolute majority.

In both regions, the Socialist party (PSOE) lost seats from pre-vious elections four years ago and lost votes to new anti-austerity party Podemos, which is seeking to replace it as Spain’s main party on the left.

The PSOE fi nished fourth in the Basque region, behind Po-demos, and was tied in Gali-cia with the En Marea coalition which includes Podemos with 14 seats each.

“These results are not good for the Socialist party,” said Cesar Luena, one of the most senior

offi cials in the formation. “It is a negative result in both regions.”

The Socialists’ poor showing follows bad results in December’s general election and again in the June repeat vote.

It is expected to increase pres-sure on Socialist leader Pedro Sanchez to allow Rajoy to form a new government at national level.

Sanchez had voted against a Rajoy-led government in a par-liamentary vote of confi dence earlier this month.

He is seeking to negotiate a leftwing coalition alternative with arch-rival Podemos.

But a weak result could wreck this strategy, either forcing Sanchez out or pressuring him into allowing the rightwing coa-lition government through by abstaining in another vote of confi dence.

“The Socialists have sunk here and in Galicia, and it should take note of the message of the ballot box,” said former health minister Alfonso Alonso, who headed the PP’s list in the Basque region.

The Socialist will hold a lead-ership meeting on Saturday to decide their next steps in the na-tional impasse in the light of their regional showing.

Sanchez is unpopular among many so-called barons, or re-gional party leaders, who think the party should help end to Spain’s nine-month deadlock by admitting defeat and allowing Rajoy to come to power.

Poor results at regional level could re-open an internal leader-ship war.

Spain has never had a coali-tion government since its return to democracy after the death of dictator Francisco Franco in 1975.

This lack of experience has been blamed in part for the fail-ure of talks to create a governing alliance.

Voters, though, are starting to get frustrated with the political vacuum.

“We are making fools of our-selves,” said 61-year-old civil servant Mercedes Solana, as she cast her ballot in the fashionable Basque resort of San Sebastian.

Regional poll results boost Rajoy’s partyAFPSan Sebastian

Rajoy at a press conference following the Popular Party’s national executive committee in Madrid yesterday, a day after regional elections in the Basque Country and Galicia.

Sanchez: The ‘no’ to Mr Rajoy ... has never been more justified.

Spain’s Socialist leader stands by refusal to allow conservative govt

Spain’s Socialist leader stood by yesterday his refusal

to let conservative acting Prime Minister Mariano

Rajoy form a new government despite heavy losses for

the centre-left party in regional elections.

“The ‘no’ to Mr Rajoy ... has never been more justified,”

Pedro Sanchez told reporters after the Socialist party

(PSOE) lost ground in polls in Galicia and the Basque

country on Sunday.

Sanchez’s refusal to endorse his longtime rival height-

ens the chances of an unprecedented third general

election in a year, analysts said.

Sanchez repeated his desire to form a “government

of change” that ousts the PP from power and said he

wants the PSOE to hold primaries on October 23 in

which he will stand again as leader.

“There is enough time for the debate to be held ... and

for us to form an alternative government,” he said.

In Sunday’s elections, the PSOE lost ground to new

anti-austerity party Podemos, which is seeking to

replace it as Spain’s main party on the left.

Strollers and cyclists can breathe easy on the banks of the Seine after Paris ap-

proved yesterday a plan to ban cars on a long stretch of riverside road cutting across the city.

Socialist Mayor Anne Hidalgo hailed the move as a “historic de-cision, the end of an urban mo-torway and the taking back of the Seine”.

A centrepiece of her battle against pollution, the plan has divided opinion in the French capital.

“We need to slow down a bit, let go, stop and relax,” said Vio-letta Kolodziejczak, a restaurant greeter.

“If you’re in a car, who has time to appreciate all this?” asked the Polish 56-year-old, sweeping an arm towards the turret-topped stone facades on the riverside, with the Eiff el Tower in the dis-tance. “It’s magnifi cent.”

A recent opinion poll found 55% support for the plan among Parisians.

Nearly 19,000 people signed a petition in favour, while a motor-ists’ association gathered 12,000 signatures of members who op-pose it.

The car ban applies to 3.3km

(two miles) of an expressway on the Right Bank of the Seine.

The project, with a cost esti-mated at €8mn ($9mn), will add wooden walkways and greenery while leaving a lane for emergen-cy vehicles.

As expected, left-wing and environmentalist members of the city council approved the plan yesterday, while the minor-ity right-wing opposition voted against it.

The right-dominated greater Paris region has been hostile to the plan, citing fears that bottle-necks on alternative routes will hurt businesses and delay com-muters.

Pensioner Veronique Gryson, out walking along the Seine with her husband, said that the car ban could be “an expensive privi-lege” for pedestrians.

“For us, it’s very pleasant,” she said. “But during the week if there are 200 pedestrians and at the same time you have 20,000 disgruntled motorists up there (on another road), that might be a problem.”

Opponents have also com-plained of a lack of consultation and insuffi cient testing of the plan.

Paris police chief Michel Ca-dot, whose remit includes en-suring smooth traffi c fl ows,

said yesterday that a committee would track the impact of clos-ing the road previously used by around 43,000 cars each day.

The banks of the Seine, a mag-net for lovers as well as tourists thronging to the Notre Dame Ca-thedral or the Louvre museum, have been classed as a Unesco World Heritage Site since 1991.

The newly pedestrianised section has been car-free for a month every summer since 2002, for the hugely popular Paris Plages riverside beach bonanza.

This year, it remained closed to traffi c for an exhibition after the sand was cleared away.

Hidalgo’s “Paris Respire”

(Paris Breathes) anti-pollution programme has also included banning cars from the Champs-Elysees avenue on the fi rst Sun-day of every month.

Another nine new routes are reserved for pedestrians and bi-cycles every Sunday and public holiday.

The mayor is determined to fi ght pollution in a city where air quality regularly violates EU norms, sometimes rivalling that of heavily polluted cities such as Beijing and Shanghai.

Medical experts blame air pollution for 2,500 deaths each year in the city, and 6,600 in the greater metropolitan area.

On Sunday, a large part of cen-tral Paris was closed to cars, re-peating an exercise fi rst carried out a year ago, when nitrogen oxide emissions dropped by be-tween 20% and 40%.

Socialist Environment Min-ister Segolene Royal has praised Hidalgo’s “courage” for the latest initiative, saying that banishing cars from the Right Bank puts Paris “on the right side of his-tory”.

To ensure its eff ectiveness, the city plans to monitor traffi c on other main arteries, as well as noise and emissions levels in the area – as well as use of the river bank by pedestrians, cyclists and rollerbladers.

Paris bans cars along part of the SeineAFPParis

A traff ic jam is seen as the banks of the Seine river are closed to the traff ic in Paris yesterday.

A referendum over Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s fl agship constitutional

reform will be held on Decem-ber 4, a government offi cial said yesterday, with the fate of the Italian government likely to hinge on the outcome.

Renzi says the reform will bring much-needed politi-cal stability to Italy and has repeatedly pledged to resign if voters reject his proposals to cut the powers of the upper house Senate and reduce the number of parliamentarians.

However, some recent opin-ion polls have put the “No” camp ahead and Renzi now refuses to be drawn on his fu-ture, saying that he does not want the issue to dominate the referendum debate.

Renzi originally said he wanted to hold the ballot in early October, but he has pushed back the vote to one of the last practicable dates al-lowed to him by law to give the government more time to win over a sceptical electorate.

“This date gives us time to carry on a conversation with citizens about the reform,” cabinet undersecretary Clau-dio De Vincenti told reporters.

The constitutional reform, which was approved by par-liament in April after almost two years of fi erce debate, ef-fectively abolishes the Sen-ate as an elected chamber and prevents it from bringing down a government via a vote of no-confi dence.

Under the current system, the upper and lower houses of parliament have equal powers and critics say this is one of the reasons why Italy has had 63 governments since World War II, none of them strong enough to survive a full fi ve-year term.

Renzi was highly confi dent

that he would win the referen-dum six months ago when he staked his political career on the result, but the backdrop has since changed drastically.

The economy has unexpect-edly slowed after growing just 0.7% last year and Britain vot-ed in June to quit the European Union, sending a shockwave through the 28-nation bloc.

There has also been a sour-ing of opinions regarding the 41-year-old Renzi.

His swagger was welcomed by voters at fi rst, bringing his Democratic Party more than 40% in the 2014 European election, but now many see him as too arrogant and his ap-proval rating has dropped to around 30%.

In the meantime the anti-establishment 5-Star Move-ment (M5S) has gained ground, winning the mayorship of Rome in June.

Beppe Grillo, the comedian who founded the movement, announced at the weekend that he would return to running the group full time after giving up management two years ago.

All opposition parties have lined up to denounce the con-stitutional reform, with some critics arguing that it strips Italy of vital democratic checks and balances put in place after World War II to prevent the emergence of a new strong-man.

An opinion poll by Eumetra Monterosa published yesterday said 55% were set to vote “No” against 45% backing “Yes”.

By contrast, a survey by poll-ster Ixe Institute also released yesterday said “Yes” was at 44%, “No” at 38%, with some 18% of people undecided.

Italy is not due to hold a na-tional election until 2018, but one could be called sooner if Renzi’s government were to fall and President Sergio Mat-tarella failed to fi nd a stop-gap solution.

December 4 vote on Italian reformReutersRome

Man gunned down in south SwedenPolice in the southern Swedish city of Malmo said yesterday that a man died after being wounded in a drive-by shooting, while the suspected gunmen remained at large.The deceased, who was not identified, was one of four men injured on Sunday evening when shots were fired at a car the men were in.The assailants reportedly fled the scene on two scooters.Two stray bullets were later retrieved from a flat in the neighbourhood of Fosie in southern Malmo.The incident was being investigated as murder, but police investigator Calease-Arne Hermansson said “neighbours were unwilling to talk to the police as they were afraid”, SVT reported.Many police off icers were on duty Sunday evening due to a local football derby, and were redeployed to help with the probe.Some were dispatched to the hospital where the men were taken for treatment.

Tourist bites chunk out of man’s earA Norwegian tourist took a bite out of the ear of a man who tried to intervene when he was verbally assaulting a black man on a Berlin train, police said yesterday.The 43-year-old Norwegian was “verbally attacking and provoking” the German man on a commuter train near Berlin when another passenger tried to intervene, a police spokesman told DPA.The Norwegian then turned on the other passenger and bit off a large chunk of his ear, the spokesman added.Several passengers on the train restrained the Norwegian man until police arrived on the scene to detain him.The victim was taken to hospital.

German broadcaster files complaintGerman broadcaster Deutsche Welle said yesterday that it had filed a complaint with a civil court in Ankara seeking the return of a confiscated video interview with Turkey’s youth and sports minister.Turkey confiscated the tape after reporter Michel Friedman asked the minister, Akif Cagatay Kilic, in the September 5 interview about a range of sensitive issues including July’s attempted military coup and the mass layoff s and arrests it prompted.“This is an event that has nothing to do with the rule of law and democracy,” Peter Limbourg, director general of Deutsche Welle, said yesterday.In Ankara, sports ministry spokesman Ubeydullah Yener referred Reuters to an earlier statement, which requests that the interview not be aired and refers to “presumptuous comments and allegations” made by the presenter in the interview.

Man held for killing his mother, sister

Irom Sharmila to attend global peace fest

Kerala’s Vigilance Bureau yesterday questioned the wife and brother of former Kerala excise minister K Babu. The authorities are investigating the assets of the former minister said to be more than his known sources of income. In September, the Vigilance Bureau had seized CCTV visuals from a bank where Babu’s wife has lockers, after it came to light that she had emptied its contents. The bureau also submitted several files revealing that former Kerala finance minister K M Mani gave exemptions to a trader dealing in importing poultry products. Both Babu and Mani have been under the Vigilance scanner ever since there were reports of their involvement in the 2014 bar scam.

The Supreme Court yesterday said it will hear tomorrow a petition by the Bihar government challenging the grant of bail to Rashtriya Janata Dal strongman and former Siwan legislator Mohamed Shahabuddin in a murder case by the Patna High Court. As the defence counsel sought a week’s time alleging that Shahabuddin has become a victim of trial by the media, the bench of Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose and Justice Amitava Roy said they would not like to postpone the hearing even by a day. However, later the judges indicated they will adjourn the matter until tomorrow at the request of the defence counsel that Ram Jethmalani, who will represent Shahabuddin, is yet to be briefed on the matter.

Another photograph has surfaced of Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad’s sons - Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejaswi Yadav and Health MiniDalster Tej Pratap Yadav - with a suspect in the murder of journalist Rajdeo Ranjan. The photograph of Tejaswi and his elder brother Tej Pratap with Jawed Bhath who is on the run went viral on the social media yesterday. A Central Bureau of Investigation team had visited Bhath’s home in search of him last week. Bhath and another accused Jimmi are absconding. Under increasing police pressure, two other suspects, Mohamed Kaif and Sonu had surrendered in court. Earlier, a photograph of Kaif with Tej Pratap surfaced and went viral on the social media.

Vigilance questions former minister’s relatives

SC defers hearing on bail to Shahabuddin

Picture of Lalu’s sons with murder suspect surfaces

CORRUPTION JUDICIARYCONTROVERSY

A 22-year-old man was arrested for killing his mother and sister over alleged prostitution in Gurgaon, police said yesterday. On September 19, Sumit Kumar along with Dharamveer and Pradeep Kumar, fatally shot his 38-year-old mother and 16-year-old sister, as he objected to his mother’s prostitution business which she operated from their home. “Sumit objected to his mother’s prostitution business. She had dragged her daughter too into prostitution,” Deputy Commissioner of Police Sumit Kuhar said. Sumit Kumar told the police that his mother had killed his father in 2000 by poisoning him. He was arrested along with his accomplices on Sunday from Manesar on Delhi-Jaipur National Highway.

CRIME EVENT

Manipur’s Irom Chanu Sharmila and other civil rights activists, as well as youth from war-ravaged countries like Syria, Afghanistan and Libya, will participate in the 11th edition of the Global Youth Peace Festival (GYPF), which opens in Chandigarh tomorrow. “Over 200 young change-makers will participate in this unique festival to make an ardent appeal for peace. Joining them in this mission would be the ‘Iron Lady’ of Manipur, Irom Chanu Sharmila. The festival will bring together peace crusaders from across the world, including the war-torn countries of Syria, Liberia, Libya, Afghanistan, Pakistan and others, to celebrate the spirit of global citizenship and universal peace,” organiser of the festival Pramod Sharma said.


INDIA20

Uttar Pradesh, Bihar haveIndia’s youngest populationIANSLucknow

Uttar Pradesh and Bihar’s populations have the lowest median ages - or

youngest populations - in India while Kerala and Tamil Nadu have the highest median ages, accord-ing to Census 2011 data, compiled by Bengaluru-based think tank Takshashila Institution.

The median age is the age which divides the population into two equal halves, i.e., there are as many people older than the medi-an age as there are people younger than it. A low median age would suggest that a country’s popula-tion has more young people than older people.

The median age in India rose from 22.51 years in 2001 to 24 in 2011, according to Census data. The median age of India’s popula-tion will be 37 years in 2050 - low-er than that of China, which will

have a median age of 46 years, but higher than Pakistan, which will have a median age of 30.9 - ac-cording to data from the United Nations.

There is wide variation within India: Kerala’s median age of 31 years is close to Argentina’s medi-an age (30.8), and Uttar Pradesh’s median age of 20 is similar to Kenya’s (18.9).

The median age is broadly cor-related with the level of develop-ment within the state in India. Southern states with a higher per capita income such as Andhra Pradesh (27), Tamil Nadu (29), Karnataka (26) and Kerala (31) and the western states of Maharashtra (26) and Gujarat (25) have higher median ages.

Less developed states in the north including Uttar Pradesh (20), Bihar (20), Jharkhand (22), Madhya Pradesh (23) and Rajas-than (22) have lower median ages.

In 2026, Uttar Pradesh (26.85), Madhya Pradesh (28.83), Bihar

(29.05) and Rajasthan (29.51) will continue to have low median ages, while Kerala (37.67) and Tamil Nadu (37.29) will likely have the highest median ages in the coun-try.

Over the next century, 60% of the population increase in India will come from the four states of Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan while only 22% will come from Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karna-taka and Maharashtra, according to a 2003 study published by The Economic and Political Weekly.

This young population will form India’s working-age popu-lation, and give India an advan-tage over countries with a smaller working-age population. But productivity could depend on how states, with the bulk of In-dia’s population, improve health and education levels, and provide employment opportunities, ac-cording to a 2013 study by Asia and Pacifi c Policy Studies.

Two-in-oneISRO missionputs India inunique leaguePSLV deploys eight satellites in separate orbits in complex mission

AgenciesSriharikota, Andhra Pradesh

India’s space agency yesterday inserted eight satellites into two diff erent orbits in one

of its most complex and longest missions.

A Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) rocket took off from the Sriharikota spaceport at 9.12am (0342 GMT) and placed the pay-loads in their prescribed orbits some two hours and 15 minutes later, Indian Space Research Or-ganisation spokesman D P Karnik said.

Besides being a complex mis-sion, it was also the space agen-cy’s workhorse rocket, the PSLV’s, longest fl ight, he added.

Most countries launch satel-lites in a single orbit and even if multiple satellites are inserted, it is in sequence in the same orbit, NDTV news channel reported.

A twin-orbit manoeuvre was accomplished by the European Space Agency Vega rocket, it said.

“This is a challenging two-in-one mission which puts India in a unique league of nations having the capability to achieve two dif-ferent orbits in a single mission,” ISRO chief A S Kiran Kumar said.

“Our scientists keep scripting history,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrote on Twitter.

While the main weather fore-casting SCATSAT-1 satellite was placed in a 720km, two more sat-ellites from India, three from Al-geria and one each from Canada and the United States were insert-ed in a 670km orbit.

With this success, India has successfully launched 79 satel-

lites for international customers.Interestingly, this was also

PSLV’s longest launch spread over two hours and 15 minutes.

ISRO also put into commercial use its multiple burn technol-ogy in PSLV. Simply put multiple burn technology is the switching off and on of a rocket’s engine in space mainly to deliver satellites in two diff erent orbits.

Vikram Sarabhai Space Cen-tre (VSSC) director K Sivan said: “The mission was exciting and the longest one. The other land-mark mission to be done this year will be the GSLV-Mk 3 rocket.”

Exactly at 9.12am the PSLV rocket standing 44.4m tall and weighing 320 tonnes tore into the morning skies with fi erce orange fl ames at its tail.

Gathering speed every sec-ond the rocket raced towards the heavens amidst the cheers of the ISRO offi cials and the media team assembled at the rocket port here.

At the rocket mission control room, the ISRO scientists were glued to their computer screens watching the rocket escaping the earth’s gravitational pull.

Seventeen minutes into the fl ight the rocket’s main cargo, the 371kg SCATSAT-1 - for ocean and weather related studies - was injected into a 730km polar sun synchronous orbit.

The remaining seven satellites were also placed in a 689km polar orbit after a long time lag.

Although SCATSAT-1 is a fol-low-on mission for Oceansat-2 improvements have been made in the satellite’s hardware con-fi guration based on lessons learnt from Oceansat-2 instruments.

Also SCATSAT-1’s payload has been characterised with the ob-jective of achieving data quality for Climate Data Records, apart from facilitating routine mete-

orological applications, the ISRO said.

The ISRO said, SCATSAT-1’s scatterometer will provide wind vector data products for weather forecasting, cyclone detection and tracking services to the users.

The satellite carries Ku-band scatterometer similar to the one fl own onboard Oceansat-2.

The mission life of the satellite is fi ve years.

After slinging SCATSAT-1 into its orbit the rocket’s fourth stage was restarted one hour 22 minutes into the fl ight and cut off around 20 seconds later. Two hours and 11 minutes into the fl ight the fourth stage was again restarted to be cut off one minute later.

Following that in three min-utes all the seven satellites were ejected putting an end to PSLV’s longest mission till date.

The PSLV rocket is a four stage/engine rocket powered by solid and liquid fuel alternatively.

On Sunday, Sivan had said that the long time gap between the cutting off of the engine and its restart was not an issue.

The director said the multiple burn technology was fi rst tested by ISRO while fl ying its PSLV rocket on December 16, 2015 and in June 2016, the technology was again demonstrated.

About the challenge, Sivan said: “After cutting off the engine, its condition should be brought to such a stage that it could be re-started again. The next challenge is to control the engine and bring it so as to eject the remaining sat-ellites into a diff erent orbit.”

He said the rocket has GPS aided navigation system so that data generated by the rocket’s in-ertial navigation system and the one provided by the former will be blended to erase errors and to generate a precise data.

Protestagainst fee hike inmedicalcollegesBy Ashraf PadannaThiruvananthapuram

The Kerala Assembly yes-terday witnessed up-roarious scenes over the

steep hike in medical colleges fee structure while opposition stu-dent groups clashed with police outside demanding its rollback.

The protests ended after the government off ered to hold talks with Youth Congress lead-ers who are staging an indefi nite hunger strike which entered the seventh day yesterday.

The opposition members be-longing to the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) sat in the well of the assembly raising slogans after Speaker P Sreeramakrishnan rejected their demand to adjourn the regular business to discuss the issue.

Congress leader Ramesh Chennithala alleged that the gov-ernment led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) raised the fees in private medical colleges after taking bribes. They returned to their seats after an hour when Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan agreed to hold talks.

He said Health Minister K K Shylaja would hold discussions with leaders of the Youth Con-gress and warned medical col-leges against bypassing the Na-tional Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) merit list.

Congress leader and former health minister V S Sivakumar said while the previous Con-gress-led government increased the fee by 7% annually on aver-age, the current administration hiked it by 35% this year.

“The increase in the cost of education has dashed the hopes of ordinary students,” he said. “Now the medical education is accessible only to the wealthy.”

The six legislators of Kerala Congress (M) led by former fi -nance minister K M Mani also staged a walkout in protest.

Shylaja’s remarks that chil-dren of some opposition mem-bers were studying in private medical colleges without paying the mandatory fees triggered a heated exchange of words be-tween opposition and treasury benches.

People photograph the launch of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C35), carrying equipment which will be used to monitor oceans and weather at Sriharikota yesterday. The rocket also deployed satellites from Algeria, Canada and the US.

Ministry approves3 greenfi eld airportsIANSNew Delhi

The Civil Aviation Ministry has given ‘in principle’ ap-proval to three new green-

fi eld projects in Andhra Pradesh, it was announced here yesterday.

According to the ministry, the Steering Committee on Green-fi eld Airports, headed by Civil Aviation Secretary R N Choubey, met here yesterday and consid-ered the proposals for four new airport projects.

“The committee recom-mended ‘in principle’ approval to three projects in Andhra Pradesh viz., Bhogapuram, Da-gadarthi (Nellore) and Orvakallu (Kurnool),” the ministry said in a statement.

“The committee also approved ‘site clearance’ to the project of Kothagudem in Telangana.”

The ministry said the new international airport at Bhog-apuram will be developed by the state government under PPP

(Public Private Partnership) mode at an estimated cost of Rs22bn to cater to 6.3mn pas-sengers per annum (mppa) in the initial phase.

“The other two airports in Andhra Pradesh will be devel-oped as domestic no-frills air-ports with an estimated cost of Rs88 crore each,” the statement said.

“Dagadarthi will be developed under the PPP mode while the project at Orvakallu will be de-veloped by the state government itself.”

Referring to the new greenfi eld airport project at Kothagudem , the ministry said: “With this, Telangana is getting a second greenfi eld airport besides Hy-derabad international airport.”

“These clearances are ex-pected to enhance the aviation infrastructure facilities in newly created states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana and will also boost the regional connectivity scheme announced recently by the government of India.”

Over the next century, 60% of the population increase in India will come from the four states of Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan.

21Gulf TimesTuesday, September 27, 2016

INDIA

SC asks expelled MP to join probeIANSNew Delhi

The Supreme Court yes-terday asked expelled All India Anna Dravida

Munnetra Kazhagam Rajya Sab-ha member Sasikala Pushpa to join a probe into two criminal cases relating to alleged sexual harassment, ill-treatment of her former maids and forging docu-ments in her anticipatory bail case.

A bench headed by Chief Justice T S Thakur asked Pushpa to ap-pear on October 3 at a police sta-tion in Tamil Nadu’s Thoothukudi in alleged sexual harassment case lodged against her and some of her family members.

She was also asked to appear on October 7 before K Pudur po-lice station in Madurai in alleged forging of documents for her

anticipatory bail case. The court also continued its order of Au-gust 26 granting protection from arrest to Pushpa.

The court, taking note of the submission of her counsel that there was threat to her life, asked the Tamil Nadu police to ensure full protection to her so that no harm is caused when she appears in police stations.

The state government assured the court that it would ensure protection provided she joins the investigation.

Pushpa’s former maids ac-cused her husband and son of alleged sexual harassment. A case was lodged against her and some of her family members for alleged sexual harassment under the Indian Penal Code and the stringent Protection of Children from Sexual Off ences (POCSO) Act, claiming that the victims were minors.

Dalit woman attacked in Gujarat over dead cowAFPAhmedabad

An angry mob attacked a pregnant Dalit woman and her family in Gujarat

for refusing to clear away a cow carcass because of a weeks-long strike against such work, police said yesterday.

Sangita Ranawasia, who is five months’ pregnant, was re-covering in hospital after she and seven family members were beaten with sticks in their vil-lage.

“Six persons of the upper-caste Darbar community were arrested for assault on a preg-nant woman and her family members,” deputy police super-intendent B A Chavda said.

“The accused are in judi-

cial custody and charges will be framed against them soon,” Chavda said in Gujarat’s Ba-naskantha district.

The attack late on Friday comes as Dalits continue their strike against collecting car-casses in Gujarat in protest at the public fl ogging of four Dalit vil-lagers in July.

Dailts are commonly tasked with removing dead cows from streets, where the animals often roam freely.

Anger has mounted among the Dalit community and vio-lent protests have erupted over the fl ogging of the villagers by cow-protection vigilantes who accused them of killing a beast they were removing.

Cows are considered sacred by Hindus and killing them is banned in most Indian states.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has urged a halt to attacks on Dalits, who lie at the bottom of India’s deeply entrenched so-cial hierarchy.

Cow carcasses can be seen on roadsides in Gujarat as Dal-its demand an end to deep-rooted discrimination and violence.

Police officer Chavda said the mob was angry at the Dal-its’ refusal to remove the car-cass due to the strike, and ten-sions have been running high in the village.

Ranawasia, whose unborn child was unharmed in the attack, and her family have since been given police pro-tection.

The upper-caste mob faces initial charges of assault and criminal intimidation, he said.

Kashmir anintegral partof India, says SushmaAgenciesThe United Nations

External Aff airs Minister Sushma Swaraj yesterday said Jammu and Kashmir

is and will always remain an in-tegral part of India.

In a strong reply to Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s address to the UN General As-sembly last week, Swaraj hit out at the neighbour on the issue of terrorism and raked up the “hu-man rights violations” in Balo-chistan.

She told the world body that India had off ered an uncon-ditional hand of friendship to Pakistan but got in return cross border terror attacks.

“And what did we get in re-turn? Pathankot, Bahadur Ali, and Uri,” she said in her speech in Hindi.

In his address to the Gen-eral Assembly, Sharif last week praised Burhan Wani, the Hizbul Mujahideen commander, whose killing triggered a fresh wave of deadly unrest in Jammu and Kashmir. The Pakistan prime minister said his country wanted to have better ties with India and was open to an unconditional dialogue to resolve all issues, in-cluding Kashmir.

But Swaraj rebutted the claim that India had put any condi-tions for talks “which are not ac-ceptable to him.”

“What pre-conditions? Did we impose any pre-conditions before extending an invitation for the swearing-in ceremony of our government? We took

the initiative to resolve issues not on the basis of conditions, but on the basis of friendship. We conveyed Eid greetings to the prime minister of Pakistan, wished success to his cricket team, extended good wishes for his health and well-being.

“Our prime minister went to Lahore to wish Nawaz Sharif on his birthday. Did all this come with conditions attached?”

She claimed the confession of Bahadur Ali, who was captured after a shootout in Kashmir, “is a living proof of Pakistan’s com-plicity in cross-border terror.”

India has claimed Ali con-fessed that he was trained by the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militant group.

“But when confronted with such evidence, Pakistan remains in denial. It persists in the belief that such attacks will enable it to obtain the territory it covets,” she said on the fi nal day of the annual gathering of world lead-ers at the United Nations.

“My fi rm advice to Pakistan is: abandon this dream. Let me state unequivocally that Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of India and will always remain so,” Swaraj said.

“We need to forget our preju-dices and join hands together to script an eff ective strategy against terror,” Swaraj said. “And if any nation refuses to join this global strategy, then we must isolate it.”

Prime Minister Narendra Modi vowed on Saturday to mount a global campaign to isolate Paki-stan. Last month US Secretary of State John Kerry urged Pakistan to join other nations in fi ghting terrorism.

Pakistan’s UN Ambassa-dor Maleeha Lodhi dismissed Swaraj’s statement as “a litany of falsehoods and baseless allega-tions”.

“For the Indian foreign min-ister to claim that her country has imposed no preconditions for talks with Pakistan is another fl ight from reality. India sus-pended talks more than a year ago, and has refused to resume these despite repeated off ers from Pakistan,” Lodhi said.

College students hold placards during a rally to condemn terrorism, at a railway platform in Mumbai, yesterday.

India is set to reviewIndus Waters TreatyBlood and water cannot flow together, says Modi

IANSNew Delhi

As India decided to revisit the 56-year-old Indus Waters Treaty with Paki-

stan in the wake of the Uri army camp terror attack, Prime Min-ister Narendra Modi yesterday bluntly said that “blood and wa-ter cannot fl ow together”.

The government also decided there would no meeting of the Permanent Indus Commission set up to overlook the implemen-tation of the treaty till “terror is in the air”, and that India would take a fi nal call on the unilateral part of the suspension of the Tulbul wa-ter navigation project in Jammu and Kashmir depending on what Pakistan did next.

The two major steps were de-cided at a meeting of senior of-fi cials chaired by Modi here.

The meeting also decided that

an inter-ministerial commission would be set up to look into vari-ous provisions of the bilateral water treaty that was signed in Karachi on September 19,1960, out of Pakistan’s fear that since the source of rivers of the Indus basin is in India, it could poten-tially create droughts and fam-ines in Pakistan during times of war.

The meeting was attended, among others, by National Se-curity Adviser Ajit Doval, For-eign Secretary S Jaishankar, Wa-ter Resources Secretary Shashi Shekhar and Principal Secretary to Prime Minister Nripendra Mishra.

“Blood and water cannot fl ow together,” offi cial sources quoted Modi as having said during the meeting.

The attack at an army camp in Uri on September 18 claimed the lives of 18 soldiers and India has blamed the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohamed (JeM) for it. The attack came amid large-scale violence in Jammu and

Kashmir in which 90 lives have been lost in the wake of the kill-ing of Hizbul Mujahideen com-mander Burhan Wani.

Yesterday’s meeting decided to look at the full utilisation of the waters of the Indus, Chenab and Jhelum, the three western rivers of the Indus water system that fl ow through Jammu and Kashmir.

Around 95% of the waters of the three eastern rivers of Sutlej, Beas and Ravi is being utilised by India.

Signed after 10 years of dis-cussions, the Indus Waters Treaty was designed to gener-ate goodwill between the two countries and has survived three wars.

The meeting, according to the sources, decided that with things being “rather diffi cult” with Pakistan in the past few weeks, India should revisit the treaty.

It was also decided that there would be no meeting of the Per-manent Indus Commission that

oversees the implementation of the treaty for the time being. The commission has held 112 meet-ings till now at an average of two a year.

According to the sources, the government will look into re-viving work on the Tulbul water navigation project on the mouth of the Wular Lake in Jammu and Kashmir.

Work on the project was sus-pended in 1987 after Pakistan objected to it, saying it violated the provisions of the Indus Wa-ters Treaty.

The inter-ministerial com-mission that will be set up will be tasked with reaping maximum benefi ts from the Indus water system for farmers.

At present 900,000 hectares of land has been harvested with these waters in India, the sourc-es said and added that there was potential to harvest 800,000 acres more.

Though India as of now has no storage facilities for these waters, the government is now

looking at the full utilisation of the 3.6mn acre feet of water it is entitled to.

The meeting also decided to look at the possibility of gener-ating the full potential of 18,000 MW of power from these rivers.

As of now, India is generat-ing only 3,034 MW. Projects are under construction for generat-ing 2,526 MW, while projects for generating 5,046 MW are at an advanced stage of approval.

The Salal hydroelectric project was constructed on the Chenab river.

The Pakal Dul hydroelectric project on the Marusadar river, a tributary of the Chenab, is under construction in Kishtwar district of Jammu and Kashmir while the Bursar project on the Chenab in Kishtwar district is to be implemented by the National Hydro Power Corporation.

The sources also said the Jam-mu and Kashmir assembly has also voiced dissent at the Indus Waters Treaty and called for its scrapping.

Demonstrators shout slogans as they are detained by police during a protest organised by the Dalits against what they say are increasing atrocities against their community in Ahmedabad yesterday.

Indian farmers can meet agricultural demands of Gulf: PMIANSNew Delhi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi yesterday urged sci-entists to draw up focused

targets in agriculture to boost exports, and said Indian farmers can benefi t by meeting the de-mands of the Gulf countries.

“Due to water crisis in the Gulf countries they have to import all their food items which leaves

them worried about an ever-increasing population. Can’t we keep the requirements of the Gulf in mind and fulfi l them through export,” Modi said at an event marking the platinum jubilee function of the Council of Scientifi c and Industrial Re-search.

He said there’s a huge demand of agricultural products in the Gulf and Indian farmers could provide them a cheaper alterna-tive to capture that market.

“Scientists should focus on developing new varieties. We should not be limited to produc-tion and consumption locally but also focus on export,” Modi said, adding that the country was proud of its scientists.

No nation could progress without scientifi c innovation, the prime minster said, calling for a “talent hunt” for scientists, innovators and entrepreneurs.

“Just like the reality shows go on talent hunt and come up

with best talents of the country, a similar talent hunt is required for scientists and innovators,” Modi said.

Modi highlighted the CSIR’s 75 years as a “journey dedicated to nation.”

He expressed his gratitude to the CSIR for the range of do-mains where the institute has left an “indelible mark.”

“From agriculture to aero-space, chemicals to climate change, drug development to

deep sea explorations... from health to housing, from UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) to underwater vehicles CSIR has registered its presence,” Modi said.

“Sometimes I think that I have very high expectations from you... but one asks from only those who can deliver,” he said. Minister for Earth Science Dr Harsh Vardhan also praised the eff orts of the nation’s scientists.

Calling for technology inter-

vention in waste management, Modi said: “We can turn waste to wealth through technology ... There is a huge opportunity to grab in that sector, which would not just generate businesses but also keep the nation clean.”

The prime minister also dedi-cated seven new indigenously developed varieties of plants to the nation and interacted with farmers through videoconfer-encing.

The farmers were from Hy-

derabad, Jammu, Cuddalor in Tamil Nadu, Jorhat in As-sam and Palampur (Himachal Pradesh).

The new varieties of the plants that have ornamental and me-dicinal qualities were developed by the CSIR laboratories, espe-cially the Central Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants (CIMAP).

The plants include new vari-eties of lemongrass, citronella, vetiver and canna lily plant.

External Aff air Minister Sushma Swaraj addresses the United Nations General Assembly yesterday.

22 Gulf TimesTuesday, September 27, 2016

LATIN AMERICA

Poll candidate shotdead in Rio suburbReutersRio de Janeiro

A candidate for town council in upcoming municipal elections was

shot to death in a Rio de Janeiro suburb on Sunday, the latest in a wave of killings of local poli-ticians in the city’s outskirts in recent months.

The fatal shooting, which coincided with an increase in violent crime in the Brazilian metropolis despite the mostly safe staging of the Olympic Games in August, took place shortly after the candidate, seeking a council seat in the town of Itaboraí, attended a campaign event a week before municipal elections.

Rio’s military police force, which confi rmed the shooting in a statement, declined to give the victim’s name, but local media identifi ed the slain can-didate as Jose Ricardo Guima-raes, 49.

The shooting, carried out by assailants as the victim sought to fl ee them by motor-cycle, was the latest killing of

a municipal candidate in Rio’s suburbs, where drug traffi ck-ers and militia groups compete for dominance and routinely use violence to intimidate or eliminate anyone suspected of threatening their interests.

Police said the gunmen in Sunday’s shooting were still at large.

On Friday, a mayoral can-didate in the Rio suburb of Japeri survived an attack by gunmen.

In July, assailants killed candidates planning to run for town council in the suburbs of Duque de Caxias and Mage.

Last month, according to state crime statistics released on Friday, 386 murders were reported in the state of Rio de Janeiro, a region of about 16mn people that comprises the city of the same name and many suburbs.

That represented an in-crease of 15%, or 50 killings, compared with August 2015.

For the year so far, the state reported 3,224 murders, a 17% increase from the 2,747 mur-ders through August a year ago.

Drug lord ‘serene’ aheadof US extradition rulingAFPMexico City

A Mexican judge is ex-pected to rule whether Joaquin “El Chapo”

Guzman can be extradited to the US, but the drug kingpin’s lawyers vow to appeal if he loses.

One of Guzman’s lawyers, Jose Refugio Rodriguez, said that the Sinaloa drug cartel leader was “very serene” as he waits for the decision by a court in Mexico City.

The foreign ministry gave the green light to Guzman’s extra-dition in May, but the former most wanted man won a tempo-rary injunction in June, which the judge must decide whether to make permanent or strike down.

“We hope that the result will be favourable,” Refugio Rod-riguez said, adding Guzman’s defence team would only be no-tifi ed a day after the judge passes his verdict.

If the judge approves the ex-

tradition, Guzman would have 10 days to appeal to a higher court of appeals, which would take several weeks to rule, the lawyer said, warning that he would take the case to the Supreme Court if necessary.

A US government offi cial on condition of anonymity that Guzman could be in US custody before the end of the year.

He faces charges ranging from murder to drug distri-bution in courts in Texas and California.

Guzman was captured in Feb-ruary 2014 after 13 years on the lam, but he escaped a year later from the Altiplano maximum-security prison near Mexico City under a 1.5km tunnel, humiliat-ing President Enrique Pena Ni-eto.

After he was recaptured in January in his northwestern home state of Sinaloa, he was sent back to the same prison.

But he was abruptly trans-ferred in May to another prison in Ciudad Juarez, a city bor-dering Texas that was once the scene of brutal turf wars be-

tween his gang and a local car-tel.

Pena Nieto had balked at ex-traditing Guzman before his escape in July 2015, preferring to put him on trial in Mexico. But after he was recaptured, the president ordered the attorney general’s offi ce to speed up the extradition process.

Refugio Rodriguez said his client’s health has “deteriorated a lot” while in prison. “He’s do-ing very badly. He’s isolated. He lost a lot of hair because he takes a lot of medicine. He lives in constant physical stress,” the lawyer said.

Guzman’s extradition would set up a major trial in the US for a man whose cartel has been accused of murdering count-less people in Mexico while providing tonnes of cocaine and other drugs to addicts in the US.

But another Guzman lawyer, Andres Granados, said that if his client is “judged according to the law, he won’t be extradited this year or during the six-year term” of Pena Nieto.

Parents of missing Mexicostudents livein classroomsAFPAyotzinapa, Mexico

They turned classrooms at their children’s college into dormitories, sleep-

ing on the fl oor, but parents of 43 Mexican students missing since 2014 won’t rest until they fi nd them.

The mothers live in one class-room that still has a whiteboard, while fathers bunk in another.

Mosquito nets hang over their mattresses, but that didn’t stop one mother from being infected with Zika.

They pray to see their sons alive again, two years after they disappeared in a case that re-mains unsolved, causing wide-spread anger at the failure of President Enrique Pena Nieto’s government to fi nd the students.

Around 20 parents have made the teacher training college in Ayotzinapa, southern Guerrero state, their home since September 27, 2014, the day after their sons vanished from the city of Iguala.

The night before, dozens of young men from the school had gone to Iguala to seize buses for a protest in Mexico City, but they were attacked by local police.

Prosecutors say the offi cers handed 43 of the students to a drug cartel, but what happened next has been the subject of heated debate.

The attorney general’s offi ce initially said the cartel killed the students after confusing them with a rival gang, incinerated their bodies at a garbage dump and tossed the remains in a river.

Only one student has been identifi ed through a bone frag-ment found at the river.

But independent experts from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights rejected that conclusion, saying there was no scientifi c proof of such a massive fi re at the landfi ll.

The parents always doubted the government’s conclusions and the report helps them cling to hope

that their sons can still be found.The attorney general’s offi ce

says it will soon use laser scan-ning technology to look for clan-destine graves in other locations and investigate if police from other towns were involved in the mass disappearance.

The parents moved to the col-lege because they live in remote parts of the impoverished state, and travelling is expensive for them. They wanted to be closer to the protests, and fi ght to fi nd their children.

Maria Elena Guerrero’s voice shakes when she says she be-lieves her son, Giovanni Galindo, who would be 21 years old now, is still alive.

A cardboard hangs on the wall with verses written by Uruguay-an poet Mario Benedetti: “Don’t give up. Please, don’t give up, even if the cold burns, even if fear bites, even if the sun sets and the wind goes silent.”

Before the tragedy of Septem-ber 26, 2014, Maria Elena Guer-rero was a stay-at-home mom, caring for her two children and her husband, Alfredo Galindo, a primary school teacher who studied at Ayotzinapa.

She returns to her real home once a month to see her 18-year-old daughter, Sandra, “because she feels lonely,” said Guerrero, 45.

But it’s her own daughter who sends her back to the college, saying “you have to fi ght for my brother.”

Since they left their jobs, the parents receive donations in a shared bank account. A paper hanging on a door says they must attend protests to earn the aid.

Nicanora Garcia Gonzalez has been working since age fi ve. She’s a baker who made bread in a wood oven back at her home on the Pacifi c coast of Guerrero.

But her job now is to fi nd her son, Saul Bruno Garcia. A picture of him rests on the table next to her mattress alongside medicine.

She also has a photo of her daughter-in-law’s brother, who is also missing.

Fidel Castro appeared in the state-run media yesterday for the third time in less than a week, which is extremely rare for the father of the Cuban revolution. Castro, 90, who ceded power to his brother Raul in 2006, received visiting Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang at home on Sunday. In three photos published yesterday in state media, Castro is wearing his traditional sweat suit and looks fit for his age. Over the past week Castro was also seen in separate photos with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, both of whom were visiting Havana.

Back in the limelight

Former minister held in Brazil graft probeAFPSao Paulo

Brazilian police yesterday arrested Antonio Palocci, a former fi nance minis-

ter and senior fi gure in the last two governments, as part of the Petrobras corruption probe, prosecutors said.

Palocci, 55, served as fi nance minister under former presi-dent Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and as chief of staff for his suc-cessor Dilma Rousseff , who was impeached this month.

Palocci was also a key fi gure in the leftist Workers’ Party.

Like Lula, he has joined the

long list of top offi cials accused of taking part in a huge corrup-tion scheme linked to state oil company Petrobras.

“He was detained in Sau Pau-lo on a temporary detention or-der for fi ve days and left for Cu-ritiba,” the southern city where a judge is leading the probe, an offi cial in the state prosecution service said.

Palocci was arrested on sus-picion of being linked to bribes paid by the construction com-pany Odebrecht, one of the main fi rms involved in the huge Petrobras pay-to-play scandal.

Evidence from e-mails and mobile telephones shows “that the ex-minister Antonio Paloc-

ci...acted in favour of the Oder-brecht group between 2006 and late 2013,” a statement from the prosecution service said.

Police said in a statement they were investigating “negotiations between the Oderbrecht group and the ex-minister to try to pass a law” that would bring “im-mense fi scal benefi ts” to the fi rm.

They said they were probing suspected irregularities linked to Petrobras deep-sea oil explo-ration contracts. Last week the police briefl y detained Palocci’s successor as fi nance minister, Guido Mantega, also in connec-tion with the Petrobras scandal.

Last week a judge also ruled that Lula himself must stand

trial for corruption in the Petro-bras case.

Lula thus became the high-est-profi le fi gure to face trial in a case that has taken down some of the country’s most powerful business executives and politi-cians. The charges allege that Lula, 70, masterminded the corruption racket and received the equivalent of 3.7mn reais ($1.1mn) in bribes.

Among the accusations are charges that the former union leader and his wife received a beachside apartment and up-grades to the property from a major construction company, OAS, which was one of the play-ers in the Petrobras scheme.

The arrests are the latest phase of “Operation Car Wash,” the federal probe into the Petro-bras scheme, which has upend-ed Brazilian politics since it was launched in 2014.

Dozens of politicians and some of Brazil’s richest busi-nessmen have been charged or convicted. Under the corrup-tion scheme, Petrobras alleged-ly gave infl ated contracts to big construction fi rms in exchange for hefty bribes.

Brazil’s new president, Michel Temer, and the PMDB were allied with the Workers’ Party before splitting in March, a prelude to Rousseff ’s im-peachment.

Daniel Macas a parkour practitioner does a back-flip at a park in Quito, Ecuador.

Parkour practitioner

Venezuela’s opposition yesterday called for a nationwide protest on October 12 to push for a recall referendum against President Nicolas Maduro that it says must take place this year despite the election board’s insistence it could only be in 2017. The opposition urged Venezuelans to protest daily against “anti-constitutional” conditions by the board, including a stipulation a signature drive next month must meet a threshold of 20% of voters in every state rather than nationally. “It is time for civil disobedience,” former presidential candidate Maria Corina Machado said on Twitter.

The bodies of five men and a woman were found in the northwestern Mexican state of Sinaloa, state prosecutors said. The corpses were found at dawn in a parking lot in the Pacific port of Mazatlan, said Guadalupe Martinez, a spokesman for the state attorney general’s off ice in Sinaloa. The prosecutors’ off ice for the cartel-plagued state of Sinaloa says the killers wrapped the victims’ heads in duct tape, covering their mouths and noses and smothering them. The victims were residents of Mazatlan. Three were abducted from a store parking lot Saturday by armed men in two vehicles, and the others were kidnapped from a street in front of their home.

Peruvian off icials reported two new oil spills in the country’s Amazon on Sunday, bringing this year’s total to seven. Both spills happened in the northern Loreto region, one on Saturday in the Andoas district and the other on Sunday in the Urarinas district, the Agency for Environmental Appraisal and Audits (OEFA) said in statements posted on Twitter. Specialty staff are investigating whether each of the companies responsible for the two sites — Pacific Stratus Energy of Peru SA and state-owned Petroperu — followed contingency plans. They are also assessing the environmental impact the spills may have caused.

A Mexican priest was found murdered in the central state of Michoacan, the state attorney general said, the third to be killed in the country in less than a week. The priest in Michoacan, identified as Jose Alfredo Lopez Guillen, was found on a highway between Puruandiro and Zinaparo, the state attorney general’s off ice said. Autopsy results, which revealed gunshot wounds to be the cause of death, suggested the priest was killed five days before his body was found. The murder comes after a decade of drug violence in Mexico that has frequently touched the Roman Catholic church, with 31 priests killed in the 10 years to 2015, according to Christian Solidarity Worldwide.

A community of Orthodox Jews living outside Guatemala’s capital moved out on Sunday, claiming persecution because of their faith. The 500-strong group hails from the US, Israel, Canada, several European countries, Mexico and El Salvador. The leader of the Lev Tahor community, the US rabbi Uriel Goldman, said his people are moving to a village in eastern Guatemala because of harassment including a raid of the group’s buildings on September 13 on the outskirts of the capital. Guatemalan authorities said that search was carried out at the request of Israeli authorities to search for a girl who was barred from leaving Israel.

Opposition calls for anti-Maduro protest

Six bodies foundin Sinaloa state

Peru authorities reporttwo oil spills in Amazon

Priest found slainin Michoacan

Jewish communityclaims harassment

POLITICS CRIMEPOLLUTION LAW AND ORDER PEOPLE

PAKISTAN/AFGHANISTAN23Gulf Times


Accounts of 8,400 terror funding suspects frozenThe Pakistan government

has launched a crack-down against over 8,400

individuals allegedly involved in terror fi nancing in a fi rst appar-ent sign of state acting decisive-ly to track the money supply to extremists.

From the controversial cleric at Islamabad’s Lal Masjid to the mover and shaker of Lyari Aman Committee are among the top suspects whose bank accounts have been frozen under the National Action Plan (NAP).

“Over 8,400 terror suspects are on fi nancial monitoring

unit’s radar. We’ve frozen es-timated Rs1.2bn in suspicious funds so far,” said a senior of-fi cial of the National Counter Terrorism Authority (Nacta) yesterday.

“Over three dozen banks on our request have also blocked around Rs101mn in suspicious funds owned by 177 madaris,” said the offi cial.

“All bank accounts of Lal Mosque’s top cleric Maulana Aziz and gangster Shahid Bikiki of Lyari Aman Committee have been frozen. Their travel docu-ments have also been cancelled,” said a senior offi cial of the min-istry of interior, who is involved in the process.

Authorities at the National

Database Registration Authority (Nadra) and Directorate of Pass-port and Immigration offi ce have blocked travel documents of over 3,111 terror suspects whose names were listed in Schedule IV recently, he said.

The government is in the process freezing bank accounts and blocking travel documents of over 8,400 terror suspects whose names have been included to 4th Schedule under the An-ti-Terrorism Act 1997, interior ministry offi cials said.

Around 2,021 accounts of prominent individuals have been blocked by various banks on the order of the State Bank of Paki-stan, revealed the offi cials.

The Nacta is also in regu-

lar contact with the counter-terrorism forces in Sindh and Balochistan where almost 75% militants on terror watch list are untraceable.

The top body co-ordinating with provinces to clamp down on terrorists wants to get their accounts frozen as soon as possible.

Six most wanted militants belonging to proscribed organi-zations have shifted to Holland, Bangladesh, Dubai, Ethiopia, the United Arab Emirates and Afghanistan, revealed offi cial documents.

Offi cials claimed that they would successfully trace ac-counts of around 38 militants put on watch list and also listed

to Schedule IV and now are in various jails of Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan and Punjab.

Security experts, however, said that the government’s late directions to freeze accounts of suspected terrorists might not be helpful to stop terror fi -nancing. “It should have been done earlier. It was a key point of NAP. Why did it happen too late,” opined an Islamabad based security expert Imtiaz Gul. Terrorists never trans-fer money through banks, so government would come hard on militants by blocking their fi nances which they receive through “hawala and hundi,” Gul said.

InternewsIslamabad

Human rightsgroup calls forurgent reforms

Human Rights Watch yesterday accused Pakistan’s police of

routinely carrying out extra-judicial killings, torture and arbitrary arrests, and called on Islamabad to implement urgent reforms of its under-resourced forces.

The fi ndings were contained in a new report based on in-terviews with more than 30 police offi cers and 50 victims or witnesses of abuse across three of the country’s four provinces.

In addition to noting habit-ual rights violations – includ-ing more than 2,000 so-called “encounter” killings in 2015, which are often believed to have been staged – the report said police often found them-selves in thrall to powerful in-dividuals who subvert the law for their own purposes.

“Pakistan faces grave secu-rity challenges that can be best handled by a rights-respect-ing, accountable police force,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch.

“Instead, law enforcement has been left to a police force fi lled with disgruntled, cor-rupt and tired offi cers who commit abuses with impunity, making Pakistanis less safe, not more.”

In the biggest city Karachi, encounter killings have surged since 2013 as paramilitary forces and police have stepped up raids against Taliban mili-tants, criminals and armed political activists.

The term is used to de-

scribe staged confrontations in which police or troops kill suspects and later claim they were acting in self-defence.

The report found that those from marginalised groups – refugees, the poor, religious minorities, and the landless – are at particular risk of violent police abuse.

It said: “Torture methods include beatings including with batons and leather straps, stretching and crushing legs with metal rods, sexual vio-lence, prolonged sleep dep-rivation, and mental torture, including witnessing others being tortured. ”

“Senior offi cials told Hu-man Rights Watch that physi-cal force is often threatened and used because the police are not trained in professional investigation and forensic analysis methods, and thus resort to unlawfully coercing information and confessions.”

Local politicians mean-while are able to halt investi-gations against suspects with political connections, and to harass or fi le charges against opponents.

In addition to being on the frontline of the country’s battle against homegrown Islamist terror, Pakistan’s police forces contend with high-levels of organised and violent crime – including kid-nappings for ransom and drug traffi cking.

A recent wave of high-profi le murders of women in the name of family honour has cast a spotlight on blood-money laws which allow the relatives of victims to forgive perpetrators in exchange for money.

AFPIslamabad

Unpaid Pakistanis to fl y home from Saudi

Hundreds of Pakistani con-struction workers are to fl y home from Saudi Arabia

this week but without the salaries they have waited months to receive, embassy offi cials said yesterday.

A total of 405 Pakistanis owed wages by once-mighty Saudi Oger will fl y home from tomor-row courtesy of the Saudi gov-ernment, said Abdul Shakoor Shaikh, the Pakistani embassy’s community welfare attache.

They are among more than 6,500 Pakistanis who, he said, have not been paid by the construction giant for that past eight or nine months.

Shaikh said 275 Pakistanis have already fl own home un-der an aid plan announced last month by King Salman.

The 100mn-riyal ($27mn) fund helps stranded workers with food, medical needs, a trip home, exit visas or, if they want, transfer to another employer in Saudi Arabia.

Shaikh said the Saudi labour ministry “has facilitated a lot” in caring for the workers and has also helped to fi le court claims against Saudi Oger.

The embassy is authorised to receive the back wages for most of the workers and, when it ar-rives, will forward the money to those who return home, offi cials at the mission said.

“But the problem persists. We cannot say that Saudi Oger has started paying the salaries,” Shaikh said.

Exit visas for more than 2,000 of the Pakistanis have been com-pleted, and the rest must decide whether to also go home.

A relatively small number, more than 70, have transferred to other companies in Saudi Arabia but Shaikh said other sectors do not pay as much as construction.

Shaikh was confi dent the workers would eventually receive their delayed wages. “The judi-cial system is good compared to other countries,” he said.

AFPRiyadh

Polio vaccination drive begins

Pakistan yesterday launched a three-day national anti-polio campaign to vacci-

nate around 37mn children aged fi ve or below to stamp out the crippling disease by the end of this year, offi cials said.

Thousands of security per-sonnel – military, paramilitary and police – were escorting over 100,000 teams of vacci-nators across the country, said Rana Safdar, national coordi-nator for the polio eradication programme.

“We hope to reach 95% of kids under fi ve this time,” said Safdar as the drive kicked

started from Monday morning.Pakistan is among two coun-

tries along with Afghanistan where polio – a disease that cripples kids for life – is still an endemic, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). The Taliban militants oppose vaccination because they blame it to be a West’s conspiracy to sterilise Muslims.

More than 100 vaccina-tors working on an immunisa-tion drive funded by the World Health Organisation and secu-rity men escorting them have been killed in bomb and gun attacks since 2012.

Pakistan has made pledges at several international forums that the poliovirus will be erad-icated by the end of the year.

DPAIslamabad

A health worker administers polio vaccine drops to a child during a door-to-door polio campaign in Karachi yesterday.

The number of infected kids has dropped from 306 in 2014 to only 14 so far this year as the

military pushed back militants from the area they previously controlled near Afghan border.

Afghan forces claim freeing 101 Taliban captives

Afghan security forces have freed 101 prisoners from three Taliban jails in

three districts of the embattled southern province of Helmand, offi cials claimed yesterday.

The operations were con-ducted on Sunday night in the districts of Marja, Nawzad and Nahr-e Saraj by special units of the Afghan security forces.

All freed prisoners were brought to Lashkargah, the capi-tal of Helmand province.

“The freed prisoners are not identifi ed yet,” Ministry of De-fence spokesman General Mo-hammad Radmanesh said, add-ing that security force members and civilians were among the freed captives.

“The Taliban suff ered heavy casualties, however numbers are not clear at the moment,” Radmanesh said.

The Ministry of Defence says that there are possibly more Taliban prisons.

“Our eff ort is to free all cap-tives immediately after we iden-tify covert Taliban prisons,” Radmanesh said.

Afghan Special Forces freed 60 prisoners in Helmand’s Nawzad district in early May.

Helmand is one of the most volatile provinces in southern Afghanistan, with several dis-tricts heavily contested and controlled by the Taliban.

DPAKabul

Altaf-led MQM to have new set-up

Highly disappointed with the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-

Pakistan (MQM-P), the Lon-don-based MQM led by its founder Altaf Hussain has for-mally decided to form a new organisational set-up of MQM Pakistan.

The announcement of the new set-up is expected to be made in the next a few days, credible sources within the MQM said.

“There is no place for those who ditched the party and its founding chief Altaf Hussain,” the source said.

According to a key MQM-London leader, those who showed allegiance to the

MQM chief, who believes in the party’s philosophy and ideologies of Altaf Hussain would be given important po-sitions and portfolios in the revamped party.

The decision of revamping the party was taken following the resolution adopted in the Sindh Assembly against MQM supremo Altaft Hussain.

The MQM-London has strongly taken notice of the MQM-Pakistan endorsing the resolution moved by the law-makers of the provincial as-sembly and said that “enough is enough”.

The source said when the party members united for their own vested interests against the founding chief, nothing remained in it and it was high time to part ways with them.

Under the given circum-

stances, the party chief him-self distanced himself and en-dorsed the MQM-P’s decision and announced his full support to Dr Farooq Sattar.

But now the MQM London has reached the conclusion that over two dozen leaders within the MQM are not strug-gling for the survival of the organisation but have become part of a conspiracy to elimi-nate the party once and for all. So it was immediately decided to establish a new organisa-tional setup of the party, the sources said.

Political pundits in the country, especially those who think about MQM, opined that a large number of MQM leaders and parliamentarians of 1992 were confused over the situ-ation and waiting for the dust to settle. They have adopted a

wait and see policy so that fi nal shape of the MQM could be-come clear.

According to them, despite all actions and assurances, the MQM has failed to win the heart of the establishment and remained unsuccessful in its attempt to secure its workers, followers and get them re-leased and recover them. Even its Mayor Waseem Akhter is under detention.

In the prevailing circum-stances, they believe that MQM’s future is bleak. The source in London said that Altaf Hussain had no con-nections with these ‘so-called MQM Pakistan’ lead-ers but was in constant touch with those who proved their loyalties to the chief.

The party leaders in London are having discussions with

those in Pakistan who were ei-ther inactive or were sidelined.

The source claimed that soon after the announcement of a new organisational setup, a large number of people would disassociate themselves with the MQM-P led by Dr Farooq Sattar.

It must be mentioned here that Sathi Ishaque, who quit the Pakistan People’s Party and joined the MQM, had al-ready resigned from the Cen-tral Executive Committee of the MQM citing reason that he had joined the party un-der the Quaid’s leadership and not those who are running the party now.

An MQM-London based leader, Wasay Jalil, on phone said that all these lawmakers who reached Parliament were due to Altaf Hussain.

InternewsIslamabad

Lawmakers in hiding after court orders

In a unique case, two par-liamentarians – who are also brothers – have ‘gone

into hiding’ after a lower court declared them proclaimed of-fenders (POs) for their alleged involvement in a monetary dispute.

A Rawalpindi court has is-sued non-bailable arrest war-rants against MNA Bilal Reh-man and his brother Senator Hilal Rehman and their father Malik Abdul Rehman and uncle Naeem Jan. The MPs, who be-long to Mohmand Agency, are not affi liated with any political party.

Apart from charges of fraud, the lawmakers are also accused of sheltering a crimi-nal and his family in the Par-liament Lodges for more than two years in a bid to prevent their arrest in the same mon-

etary dispute, according to documents.

The petitioner, Abdul Wa-heed Khan, submitted before Judicial Magistrate Asim Mur-taza Cheema that he had paid Rs250mn to the two lawmak-ers, who, in return, promised him a Senate seat during the elections to the upper house of parliament held on March 3, 2012. “However, later they reneged on their promise,” he alleged.

According to the deal, the amount – paid in cash – was to be refunded to Waheed one hour after the Senate election results if the lawmakers failed to secure a seat for him. The deal was cut in the presence of two witnesses.

“I got only four votes in the Senate elections instead they [the accused lawmak-ers], showing ill intention, secured a Senate seat for Hilal Rehman neither did I become a senator nor was I

paid back my money,” reads a copy of his written state-ment.

The petitioner also claimed that he had borrowed the money from his acquaint-ances who have lodged a le-gal case against him after he failed to return the amount. Resultantly, multiple cases were registered against him [Waheed] and presently he is in jail, facing trial.

The documentary evidence suggests that Rehman broth-ers sheltered Waheed, his wife, two sons and a daughter for over two years at a suite in the Parliament Lodges.

The court issued three sum-mons for the Rehman brothers to defend themselves, but they did not show up. On Septem-ber 19, Civil Judge Chaudhry Waqar Mansoor Baryar de-clared the two lawmakers pro-claimed off enders and ordered the Rawalpindi airport police to arrest the accused.

InternewsIslamabad

Pakistani Kashmiris shout anti-Indian slogans during a protest in Muzaff arabad, the capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, yesterday. The protest was held to show solidarity with those living in Indian-administered Kashmir.

Showing solidarity

PHILIPPINES

Gulf TimesTuesday, September 27, 201624

President keen on ‘open alliances’ with Russia, ChinaReutersManila

Philippine President Rod-rigo Duterte said yester-day he would visit Russia

and China this year to chart an independent foreign policy and “open alliances” with two pow-ers with historic rivalries with the United States.

Duterte said the Philippines was at the “point of no return” in its relations with former co-lonial ruler the United States, so he wanted to strengthen ties with others, and picked two global powers with which Washington has been sparring with on the international politi-cal stage.

He last week declared he would soon — and often — visit China, with which ties remain frosty over a South China Sea arbitration ruling won by the Philippines in July.

He said Russian Prime Min-ister Dmitry Medvedev was ex-pecting him in Moscow.

China claims most of the South China Sea, through which more than $5tn of trade moves annually.

Brunei, Malaysia, the Philip-pines, Taiwan and Vietnam have rival claims.

An arbitration court in The Hague in July invalidated Chi-na’s claims to the waterway in a

case brought by the Philippines, a ruling that Beijing refuses to recognise.

“I am ready to not really break (US) ties but we will open alliances with China and...

Medvedev, he is awaiting there for my visit,” Duterte told re-porters, adding he would open up the “other side of the ideo-logical barrier”.

He welcomed investment

and shrugged off rating agency Standard and Poor’s concerns last week about the Philippine economy on his watch and his unpredictability.

“Never mind about the rat-ings,” he said.”I will open up the Philippines for them to do business, alliances of trade and commerce.”

The peso fell to its lowest since 2009 yesterday and for-eign investors have dumped lo-cal shares for six straight weeks, worried about Duterte’s anti-US rhetoric and brutal war on drugs, which has alarmed rights groups at home and abroad.

Duterte also said he would open up telecoms and airlines, which are two domestic sectors long controlled by local players and criticised for being uncom-petitive. He did not elaborate.

The volatile leader’s vitriol against the United States has become a near-daily occurrence and source of both amusement and concern.

Yesterday he accused Wash-ington of “hypocrisy” and said Americans were still “lording it over us”.

His latest swipe included ruling out participation in a

maritime confl ict should it be initiated by the United States, despite a 1951 treaty between the two countries under which Duterte said Manila was legally obligated to back Washington.

“I am about to cross the Rubi-con between me and the US,” he said,” without elaborating. “It’s the point of no return.”

It is unclear whether Du-terte’s outbursts will impact re-lations between the two coun-ties.

Militaries of both sides are due to carry out joint exercises in the fi rst half of October.

The US embassy in Manila yesterday announced two-week deployment of a pair of C130 planes and 100 troops at an air base in the central Philippines, the third of its kind this year, as part of a rotational troops agreement.

Separately, Duterte said the United Nations, European Un-ion and United States would get a free hand to investigate the killings in his anti-narcotics campaign, but only under Phil-ippine laws.

Deaths in the campaign have averaged over 40 a day since Duterte took offi ce on June 30.

Duterte: set for independent foreign policy.

First case of Zika pregnancy reportedAFPManila

The Philippines yesterday reported its fi rst known case of a pregnant woman

infected with the Zika virus that threatens unborn babies, as au-thorities warned people to avoid mosquitoes.

Health Secretary Paulyn Ubial said 12 cases of Zika had been de-tected across the Philippines this month, including a 22-year-old woman from the central island of Cebu who is 19 weeks’ pregnant with her fi rst child.

“Initial ultrasound did not detect any foetal abnormalities. She will be monitored regularly during the entire period of the pregnancy,” the health depart-ment said.

Zika-infected pregnant wom-en can give birth to babies with microcephaly, a deformation marked by abnormally small brains and heads.

Of the country’s 12 Zika cases, eight were female and ranged in age from nine to 55, the depart-ment said.

None of those infected had travelled a month before testing positive and all had since recov-ered, it said.

Special teams have been dis-patched to all the aff ected areas to investigate where the infec-tion came from and recommend measures to deal with the virus, which can be spread by the bite of a mosquito or via sexual con-tact.

Ubial called on the public to destroy mosquito breeding plac-es, use insect repellent and wear condoms during sex.

Scientists warned this month that the world should prepare for a “global epidemic” of micro-cephaly due to Zika as there is no cure or vaccine for the disease.

UN rights expert plans to probe killingsAFPManila

A United Nations rights rapporteur said yester-day she intended to visit

the Philippines to investigate President Rodrigo Duterte’s deadly war on crime, but was seeking security guarantees for people she planned to speak with.

Duterte last week said he would allow UN and EU ex-perts to look into the thou-sands of killings since he took offi ce on June 30, however he also challenged them to face him in public debates.

While the government has yet to issue formal invitations, the UN rapporteur on extra-judicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Agnes Callamard, said she would solicit one.

“I welcome the reports re-cently (conveyed) through the media that the president and government of the Philippines will invite a UN mission to in-vestigate the alleged extraju-dicial executions,” Callamard said in a statement e-mailed to AFP.

Callamard said that she would insist on a range of measures to ensure that those who spoke with her did not face retribution.

“The date and scope of the fact-fi nding mission will be discussed and negotiated with the government, along with essential guarantees,” she said.

Those would include “my freedom of movement and

freedom of inquiry, and the assurance that those who co-operate with me will not be the object of retaliation, such as intimidation, threats, harass-ment or punishment,” she said.

Duterte won the presiden-tial election in a landslide in May after promising to kill 100,000 criminals as part of a campaign against illegal drugs.

More than 3,300 people have been killed since Duterte

took offi ce, police fi gures show. Duterte has in recent

months urged police and even civilians to kill drug addicts as well as traffi ckers, and vowed to protect lawmen from pros-ecution.

However he has also insisted that he has not encouraged an-ything illegal.

Police say they shot dead about a third of the people killed so far in self defence,

while the others were victims of intra-gang wars.

However rights groups say police are conducting extraju-dicial killings and unleashing hired assassins, and that peo-ple with no links to the drug trade are being murdered as the rule of law crumbles.

The United Nations, the European Union, the United States and international hu-man rights groups have all

condemned the killings. But Duterte has insisted

he must continue his bloody crackdown to stop the Philip-pines from becoming a narco state.

He often responds to criti-cism with abusive and defi ant language. Targets of his foul-mouthed tirades have included US President Barack Obama, UN chief Ban Ki-moon and the European Union.

Philippine airliners abort

fl ights due to problems

AFPManila

A Philippine passenger jet heading to Japan was forced to turn back yes-

terday after smoke was detected in the aircraft, while the wheel of a second plane caught fi re after it aborted taking off from a sepa-rate airport, an aviation offi cial said.

The fi rst incident involved a Philippine Airlines fl ight to Haneda which had just taken off from Manila, said Eric Apolonio, spokesman for the civil aviation authority.

“Apparently there was infor-mation that the pilot detected smoke in the cabin. So as part of safety measures, the pilot had to return to the ground,” he said.

The Airbus A340-300 plane, carrying 222 passengers and 13

crew was forced to return to Ma-nila 20 minutes after taking off , a PAL statement said.

PAL said there was no panic and the passengers all disem-barked safely and would travel to Japan on another aircraft.

Meanwhile, an ATR 72-500 aircraft from budget carrier Cebu Pacifi c was taking off from the central island of Cebu when instruments warned of an oil problem in one of the two tur-boprop engines, Apolonio said. As it was taxiing off the runway after aborting take off , one of the plane’s wheels burst into fl ames and the 67 passengers and crew were forced to evacuate, he add-ed.

One passenger suff ered a slight leg injury during the evac-uation, he said.

The cause of the incidents are still being investigated, the two airlines said in separate state-ments.

Workers carry the dead body of an alleged drug pusher in Manila.

Trillanes claims to have proof backing MatobatoBy Jeff erson AntipordaManila Times

Senator Antonio Trillanes on Sunday said he was ready to present evidence

that could show confessed “Davao Death Squad” member Edgar Matobato was telling the truth.

Trillanes claimed that while his colleagues in the Senate were focused on trying to dis-credit Matobato during two Senate inquiries, he was busy gathering information and doc-uments that would validate the witness’ testimony.

“There are pieces of the in-formation given by Matobato that can be easily verifi ed, but instead of doing it, they (col-leagues) tried to fi nd a hole on his testimony,” Trillanes said in a radio interview.

Matobato had claimed before the Senate justice committee that President Rodrigo Duterte was behind the summary killings

of enemies and crime suspects in Davao City from 1988 to 2013.

Trillanes said he would present the new evidence in the coming days. “This is to show to my colleagues that there are other ways of validating the testimony of the witness aside from badgering the witness and try to look for inconsistencies in his testimony,” he added.

The senator lamented that some of his colleagues were de-termined to discredit Matobato by accusing the witness of lying in his testimony on the basis of what he said were “trivial in-consistencies.”

He cited as example the sup-posed inconsistencies in Mato-bato’s narration regarding the killing of Sali Makdum, whom

the witness claimed was an in-ternational terrorist.

Trillanes noted that one sen-ator had insisted that Matobato told the Senate justice com-mittee inquiry it was Presi-dent Duterte, back then mayor of Davao City, who ordered the terrorist killed.“Matobato never said that it was President Duterte who ordered the killing of Makdum and I can show it in transcripts of the hearing,” the senator added.

He said there were many in-stances wherein Duterte direct-ly or personally gave orders, but the Makdum killing was not or-dered by the former Davao City mayor.

Trillanes also said he was able to obtain verifi able information that would prove that Matobato was telling the truth when he claimed he was employed as a contractual worker of the Davao City government when he was with the so-called Davao Death Squad. The senator pointed out that a denial from the local gov-

ernment of Davao City would have shown that Matobato was lying. But there has been no de-nial, he said.

“So now we were able to get information regarding that matter which I would be pre-senting along with other infor-mation,” he added.

Trillanes insisted that Mato-bato’s testimony was important because the witness was claim-ing that the former Davao City mayor, now the president of the Philippines, was a murderer.

If the Senate is willing to look into allegations of corruption involving certain public offi cials, it should be more interested in fi nding out if the president was really involved in summary kill-ings in Davao City, he argued.

Trillanes noted there was even a time when the president bragged about ordering the kill-ing of more than 1,000 people in Davao.

Thus, Matobato’s statement can help in fi nding out the truth, he said.

Joint naval drill with US from Oct 4By Fernan MarasiganManila Times

The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the battle-tested Philippine

Marines are set to hold joint na-val exercises with their Ameri-can counterparts beginning Oc-tober 4, offi cials announced on Sunday.

The war games are pushing through in Luzon and Palawan near the disputed West Philip-pine Sea (South China Sea) even as President Rodrigo Duterte has expressed a desire to become less dependent on US military assist-ance.

Duterte has called for a stop to joint patrols in the disputed wa-ters and a pullout of US troops in Mindanao, although the lat-ter statement has been clarifi ed by Malacanang as a mere warn-ing or expression of concern for the security of American sol-diers amid the presence of terror groups in the south.

On Sunday, offi cials said at least 500 Filipino soldiers and 1,400 US troops based in Okinawa, Japan will be partici-pating in the 33rd iteration of the Philippines Amphibious Land-ing Exercise (Phiblex 33), on October 4 to 12 at multiple loca-tions in Luzon and Palawan.

Court martial

for theft of

ammunition

Manila TimesManila

Two Philippine Army per-sonnel are facing court martial charges for alleg-

edly stealing government-issued ammunition, Major General Ra-fael Valencia, Army’s 10th In-fantry Division (10th ID) com-mander said.

He identifi ed one of the sus-pects as Sergeant Jeff rey Ordono of the 10th ID who was arrested on Friday by the police in Ma-wab, Compostela Valley. Ordono had some 1,000 rounds of as-sorted ammunition, which he sold to “lawless elements.” Also facing court martial proceedings is Army Tactical Sergeant San-tiago Caasi of the command’s Mechanised Infantry Division.

Matobato: getting support?

SRI LANKA/BANGLADESH/NEPAL25Gulf Times


Body of murdered Lankan journalist to be exhumed

The body of a celebrated Sri Lankan journalist gunned down in the fi nal months

of the country’s brutal civil war in 2009 will be exhumed today as part of a fresh investigation into his death.

Lasantha Wickrematunge’s grave in Colombo has been un-der armed guard since the new autopsy was announced earlier in September, two months after a military intelligence offi cial was arrested in connection with the killing of the former editor of the Sunday Leader newspaper.

Wickrematunge had foreseen his impending murder and wrote

an editorial that was published three days after he was shot dead by gunmen on motorcycles while driving to work in January 2009.

“When fi nally I am killed, it will be the government that kills me,” he wrote, in a 2,500-word piece that was republished by the Guardian and New Yorker and attracted international scrutiny of the harassment faced by Sri Lankan journalists.

Directly addressing the then-president, Mahinda Rajapaske, the slain editor predicted an in-quiry would swiftly follow his death, “but like all the inquir-ies you have ordered in the past, nothing will come of this one, too”. The investigation did in-deed languish, until Rajapakse’s surprise election defeat in Janu-ary 2015, when his successor, the current president Maithripala Sirisena, promised to fi nd the journalist’s killers.

Sirisena in March appointed a secretary to examine violence against journalists under Ra-

japakse’s near decade-long rule, including Wickrematunga’s murder and the disappearance of Prageeth Ekanaligoda, a car-toonist last seen being bundled into a white van near his offi ce in January 2010.

An army intelligence offi cer identifi ed in local media as P Udalgama was arrested in July as part of the investigation and re-mains in custody.

According to court docu-ments, investigating authorities requested that Wickrematunge’s body be exhumed again because two separate medical examina-tions at the time of his death produced contradictory results: one fi nding he had died due to gunshot injuries, the other fi nd-ing no evidence of gun wounds at all.

Press freedom was “ severely restricted “ under the former president according to watch-dog groups, particularly in the months surrounding the end of the civil war between the

government and the separatist Tamil Tigers in May 2009.

Under Wickrematunga, the virulently anti-establishment Sunday Leader closely scruti-nised the army’s conduct of the civil war, often in the face of cen-sorship orders, armed raids and arson attacks on the newspaper’s offi ces.

Wickrematunga himself was beaten twice and had had his home sprayed by machine-gun fi re.

His fi rst wife, Raine, fl ed to Australia with their children after threats against the family.

Media colleagues of the late editor were reluctant to welcome news of the fresh exhumation as a sign his killers might soon be found.

“The (investigation) has been very slow, too slow, given the pledges made by this govern-ment before it came to power,” said Lasantha Ruhunage, the president of the Sri Lanka Work-ing Journalists’ Association

New autopsy ordered for Lasantha Wickrematunge, who was gunned down during the civil war after predicting he would be killed by the government

Guardian News ServicesDelhi/Colombo

Activists and members of civil societies light candles in front of a portrait of Lasantha Wickrematunge in a silent vigil condemning his killing in Colombo.

The union has been lobbying for a presidential commission to investigate Rajapakse-era at-tacks on journalists, and Ruhu-nage said he was concerned the appointment of a secretary in March meant “the government will bear the fi nancial respon-sibility for such attacks but no convictions will be forthcoming”.

“We feel that is because mem-bers of the government armed forces could be implicated is some of these attacks,” he added.

“Even in (Wickrematunge’s) case we feel that the chances of any convictions is still remote, it could happen, but right now, I am not optimistic.”

Raine Wickrematunge, who was divorced from her ex-hus-band before his death, said news his body would be re-examined was “a huge shock”.

“We have gone through so much, the children have had their hearts broken and now the band-aid is going to be ripped out and the wound re-opened,” she said.

But she expressed faith the “process of uncovering the murderers is not happening in a half-hearted manner any-more” and was no longer the subject of

political interference.“This is such a welcome

change after the years of sham investigation we had to endure for several years after the mur-der,” she said.

Rajapakse’s election defeat in 2015 - a result he reportedly re-sisted by trying to order a state of emergency as results came in - has ushered in signifi cant positive reforms in the island

nation, according to human rights groups.

Restrictions on media, includ-ing Internet censorship, have been largely lifted, and the con-stitution has been amended to restore the independence of the police, judiciary and public

service commissions.The country has also estab-

lished a South Africa-style truth and reconciliation commission to examine crimes committed during

the three-decade civil war.Abuses by security forces re-

main an issue, advocates against torture say, recording at least 17 cases under Sirisena’s adminis-tration, including Briton Velau-thapillai Renukaruban, who says he was and beaten in June while visiting the north of the country to be married.

Nepal Airlines jet makes emergency landing after smokeA Nepal Airlines jet carrying 163 people from New Delhi yesterday made an emergency landing at Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu after the aircraft emitted smoke at 12,500ft. The crew detected smoke in the Airbus A320-220 named Lumbini as it entered Nepal’s airspace this afternoon, off icials said. The pilots sought permission with the airport’s air traff ic control tower for an emergency landing of the flight 9N-AKX after the smoke was detected while they were flying at 12,500ft. The smoke alarm went off at the cockpit, local media reports said. “Following the detection, the captain asked permission for an emergency landing with the control tower,” Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) spokesperson Premnath Thakur said. “Then, we closed the airport as a precaution. All the passengers and crew members are safe.” According to off icials at the airport, there were 163 people on board the aircraft including nine crew members and have been safely evacuated. Several aircraft flying in and out of the airport were put on a hold and the runway was cleared for allowing the plane to land. The aircraft has been placed at the airport’s parking way after there was no threat of blaze and is under the inspection of Nepal Airlines Corporation’s technical team.

Six Jamaat militants nabbed

Six Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) activ-ists, including three of

Bangladeshi origin, have been arrested from Assam and West Bengal states of India, police said yesterday.

“Special Task Force of Kolkata police has arrested six Jamaatul Mujahideen Bang-ladesh (JMB) terrorists,” Joint CP (crime), Visal Garg, told reporters.

All of them are actively in-volved with JMB, said the police offi cial.

Garg said four of them are wanted in connection with the Khagragarh blast case in

Burdwan district in 2014.Police have seized laptops,

mobile phones, wire, deto-nators, a powder like sub-stance and fake ID proofs from them.

“We had information that these people were hiding in the northeastern states and in some parts of south India. They were under physical and technical surveillance of the STF. We were able to crack their encrypted communica-tion system,” Garg said.

The arrested activists in-

IANSKolkata, India

Suspected JMB activists who were arrested from Assam and West Bengal being taken to a Kolkata court for hearing yesterday.

cluded Anwar Hossain Farook of Jamalpur, Bangladesh, who was the head of the JMB unit in Bengal. Another nabbed militant was Moulana Yusuf alias Abu Khetab from Man-galkot of Burdwan district,

the second in command in JMB.

The other four are Shahidul Islam, the head of JMB’s North Eastern unit, Mohammad Ru-bel - an expert in improvised explosive devices - hailing from

Jamalpur, Bangladesh, Abul Kalam from Burpeta, Assam and Jahidul S alias Jabirul from Bangladesh.

Two suspected terrorists were killed and a third injured in the Burdwan blast.

Court freezes assetsof factory owner

A Bangladesh court yes-terday ordered banks to freeze the assets of

the owner of a factory hit by a deadly blaze, as fi refi ghters pulled three more bodies from the rubble to take the toll to 39.

The High Court made the order after rights organisa-tions fi led a writ alleging ba-sic safety measures had not been taken and demanding compensation for workers and bereaved relatives.

The three bodies recov-ered yesterday were charred beyond recognition.

Around 100 people were working at Tampaco Foils Limited factory on Septem-ber 9 when a fi re caused by an explosion in the boiler room tore through the four-storey building.

It was Bangladesh’s worst such disaster since the col-lapse of the Rana Plaza gar-ment complex in 2013 that killed more than 1,100 people.

“The court asked that the Tampaco owner’s accounts be frozen for three months,” said Mahbuba Akhter, spokes-

woman for one of the rights groups, Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust.

Relatives of the victims have already fi led a private murder case against the owner, who remains at large, and the gov-ernment has launched an in-vestigation into what caused the fi re.

The deputy district police commissioner S M Alam said most of the workers listed as missing had now been accounted for.

“I think we are almost near to an end of the operation and soon we will call it off ,” he said.

The blaze was the latest in a series of deadly accidents to hit impoverished Bangla-desh, whose $27bn garment industry is the world’s second largest behind China’s.

The Rana Plaza collapse triggered international out-rage, forcing US and European clothing brands to improve deplorable safety conditions at the factories that supply them.

But labour rights groups say much more needs to be done and have urged the Bangla-desh government and West-ern companies to work harder to protect workers in their supply chains.

AFPDhaka

Diminishing democratic space in Bangladesh, says EU report

Bangladesh witnessed a diminishing democratic space and a steady dete-

rioration in civil and political rights, including extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearanc-es and restrictive action against opposition and human rights ac-tivists last year, according to the ‘Human rights and democracy: EU annual report 2015’.

“Intimidation of journalists and editors also increased, while measures were taken to under-mine the economic viability of some prominent newspapers,” it said.

As per the report, the main European Union (EU) priorities in the area of human rights and democracy remained judicial re-form, a death penalty moratori-um, implementation of the Chit-tagong Hill Tracts Peace Accord, support for Rohingyas, the rights of persons belonging to minori-ties, human rights defenders,

women’s and children’s rights, support for civil society and im-plementation of labour rights.

“Attacks on freedom of ex-pression multiplied in 2015. The killings of four ‘atheist’ bloggers and one publisher in 2015 proved that the country was not im-mune to the threat of rising reli-gious extremism.

The deteriorating security situation was underlined by the killings of two foreign citizens,” it said.

“On the positive side, some progress was achieved on social and economic rights,” it added.

“The EU and its member-states regularly followed the hu-man rights situation in Bangla-desh through political dialogue, public diplomacy, development assistance and projects, engag-ing with Bangladeshi represent-atives, meeting human rights activists or organising fi eld visits to get acquainted with the situ-ation on the spot. The EU heads of mission issued several state-ments on incidents of violence,” said the report.

On January 15, 2015, it said that the heads of mission also met with the Bangladesh foreign minister to express their regret at the political violence and the resultant casualties.

“The EU strongly condemned the murders of bloggers in sev-eral statements and called on the authorities to undertake proper investigations in order to bring the perpetrators to justice. …. issued a statement condemning the killing of an Italian aid work-er and calling for those responsi-ble for the crime to be brought to justice,” said the report.

“As regards the death pen-alty, Bangladesh continued executions and passing death sentences. On April 9, 2015, fol-lowing confi rmation by the Su-preme Court of the death sen-tence in the case of Muhammad Kamaruzzaman, the EU spokes-person issued a statement con-demning the death penalty. The lack of fairness and transparency of the proceedings of the Bang-ladeshi International Crimes Tribunal was criticised by legal

experts and by the chair of the European Parliament Delegation for relations with the countries of South Asia,” it said.

“In response to the poor per-formance of the Election Com-mission in three consecutive elections (most recently, the April 2015 city corporation elec-tions in Dhaka and Chittagong were marred by many irregulari-ties witnessed by EU ‘watchers’), and pursuant to Article 1 of the 2001 Co-operation Agreement under which respect for human rights and democratic principles is an essential element, the EU decided together with other do-nors to terminate a programme supporting the election com-mission,” the report stated.

Co-operation under the framework of the sustainability compact continued in 2015 with the aim of improving labour rights, occupational health and safety conditions in the garment industry in Bangladesh, it said.

The long-awaited imple-menting rules for the revised Bangladesh labour act were

published in September 2015 and factory inspections in the ready-made garment sector continued at a steady pace, it added.

“These issues were discussed at a conference entitled ‘Re-membering Rana Plaza: The road ahead’ at the European Parlia-ment in April 2015. At the 104th International Labour Confer-ence, the EU contributed to the examination of compliance of Bangladesh with the ILO Free-dom of Association Convention 87,” said the report.

To advance implementation of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) Peace Accord, the EU fi -nanced two projects: the CHT Development Facility project, which received EUR 24 million, and a project to strengthen basic education in the CHT,” it said.

The EU continued its dialogue with civil society organisations and human rights defenders. Continuous support was pro-vided to human rights NGOs through the European Instru-ment for Democracy and Human Rights, said the report.

By Mizan RahmanDhaka

3 killed, former minister missing in Nepal crash

Three people were killed and three others, in-cluding Nepal’s former

home minister, were miss-ing after a car veered off a busy highway approximately 100kms west of Kathmandu, local police said yesterday.

Madhav Prasad Ghimire, who was Nepal’s home min-ister in 2013, was returning from a pilgrimage in northern Nepal on Sunday, when the car he was in plunged into the Trishuli river, said Chitwan district senior police offi cer.

A police search and rescue team on Sunday found the bodies of Ghimire’s 80-year-old mother, a policeman and a male relative, the police offi cial said.

The driver of the car sur-vived the crash and was being

treated in a local hospital, he added.

“We are still searching for Ghimire and his two brothers. (An) increase in water levels in the river has hampered our operation,” the police offi cial added.

“A Nepal army team has joined us in the operation. We have also asked locals of the districts that the river passes through to look out for the missing,” he said.

The highway on which the accident occurred belongs to the main road artery which connects Kathmandu with other parts of the nation.

Last month 30 people were killed in Nepal when a passenger bus crashed on a mountain road.

Poorly maintained vehicles coupled with reckless driving and bad roads result in nu-merous fatal road accidents in Nepal every year.

DPAKathmandu

By Mariette Le Roux/AFPParis

Europe’s Rosetta spacecraft, due to switch off on September 30 after a 12-year odyssey, carried 11 scientifi c

instruments to sniff , smell and photograph a comet from all angles.

After arriving in orbit around comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, it launched Philae, a separate lander, which had another 10 hi-tech gadgets, including a drill that never deployed, but also cameras, X-ray scans and radio wave probes.

Together, the robot explorers have advanced our understanding of comets, of which there are billions, believed to be leftovers from the birth of our Solar System some 4.6bn years ago.

“Nobody had any idea comets can be so weird until Rosetta got there,” said Fabio Favata of the European Space Agency’s (ESA) robotic exploration directorate.

67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko is currently 710mn kilometres from Earth.

Expecting to encounter something roughly the shape of an American

football, scientists were fl abbergasted to observe through Rosetta’s cameras that 67P resembled a rubber bath duck with a distinct “body” and “head”, and a crack through its “neck”.

Some scientists have since postulated that this shape was not created by erosion, but a low-velocity impact billions of years ago between two objects which fused.

This all suggests the comet was formed in a young, outer part of our Solar System that was much less densely packed with bodies than previously thought.

If not, 67P “is so fragile it should have been clobbered by something else and broken apart”, ESA senior science advisor Mark McCaughrean told AFP.

This aff ects our understanding of planetary formation, thought to have happened when ice and dust debris, swirling around in a proto-planetary disk around an infant Sun, collided and stuck together, growing bigger and bigger over time.

The comet’s surface was another surprise. It was less “fl uff y” and much harder than expected, which contributed to Philae bouncing several times after its harpoons failed to fi re on landing.

The comet had much less water ice than thought, was littered with pebbles and rocks ranging in size from a few centimetres across to fi ve metres, and pocked with deep craters. The surface is rendered super-dark and non-refl ective by a thin layer of dust.

Scientists were astonished to fi nd oxygen molecules in the gassy halo around the comet, and said they appeared to be older than our Solar System.

Scientifi c models had previously calculated that oxygen as a molecular compound on its own would not have existed at the time the comet was formed, as it would have bound with other elements like hydrogen.

So, how the comet got its oxygen remains a mystery. 67P has organic molecules, many diff erent ones — including amino acids which are the building blocks of life as we know it.

This discovery supports the hypothesis that comets may very well have helped spark life on Earth by delivering organic materials when they slammed into a young planet that was basically molten iron.

Water, on the other hand, is unlikely to have come from comets of 67P’s type, the mission found.

The water on Rosetta is of a very diff erent “fl avour” than that on our planet, with three times more deuterium, a heavy hydrogen isotope.

Analysing the comet’s chemical signature, Rosetta scientists concluded it probably smells like a noxious mix of rotten eggs, horse urine, alcohol and bitter almonds.

“If you could smell the comet, you would probably wish that you hadn’t,” the ESA team said at the time.

Philae’s magnetometer found that, surprisingly, 67P has no measurable magnetic fi eld — throwing into question another key theory on the formation of solar system bodies.

It implied that magnetism played no part in debris in the early Solar System clumping together to form planets, comets, asteroids and moons.

Scientists expect that the data extracted by Philae and Rosetta will keep them busy for decades to come.

“The metaphor I used at the beginning, was Rosetta would be the key that would unlock the treasure chest to the secrets of the Solar System. I think... we found the key, it’s on the fl oor and it’s in pieces. We need to assemble the key fi rst before we can unlock the treasure chest,” said McCaughrean.

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COMMENT26

GULF TIMES

There’s a great picture available on the Internet of two great golfers contemplating their next move during one of the rounds at the 1966 Masters. Both are wearing blue, leaning on their golf clubs and looking ahead into the horizon as hundreds of elegantly dressed fans watch, eagerly waiting for them to decide on their shots.

The golfers look intense, as if their life depended on the next shot, but that is not what would strike most people at fi rst. In fact, what would initially draw fans’ attention to the picture is the fact that both have cigarettes on their lips, unmindful of the cameras or the viewing public at Augusta National.

Their demeanour could have been that of gun-slinging cowboys planning an ambush, but they were only sportsmen. Fifty years ago, you would imagine that golf was a sport characterised by exaggerated politeness and refi ned public behaviour, but while that was true to a large extent, these two epitomised the very opposite. For them, golf was almost a matter of life and death.

The two, of course, were Ben Hogan and Arnold Palmer, who passed away on Sunday at the age of 87. Palmer, Jack

Niclaus and Gary Player were collectively known as the “Big Three” during the 50s and 60s, while Hogan was from the previous generation when he ruled along with Sam Snead and Byron Nelson, all born in 1912.

Palmer is credited with making golf more appealing to the public. With his dashing looks

and working class background –his father was a greenkeeper before becoming a club pro in Pennsylvania – Palmer is considered the fi rst golfi ng superstar of the television era when golf was beamed live into living rooms across America.

His all-out, carefree approach on the golf course combined with his looks earned him a loyal fan following known as Arnie’s Army.

A seven-time major winner, Palmer was in declining health for a few years, but he still made appearances at big tournaments and made it a point to interact with the younger lot and inspire them.

Palmer won only $3.6mn in prize money during a career that lasted more than fi ve decades, but he made almost a billion dollars from endorsements, appearances and golf course design, second only behind Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods, according to Forbes.

Although Presidents and Hollywood stars queued up to play a round of golf with him, he is credited with taking the golf to the common man. An avid pilot and the author of several books, he was also a philanthropist, touching the lives of the less fortunate.

“I can spend the rest of my life being thankful that golf has given me the opportunities to make signifi cant contributions throughout the world,” Palmer said during an interview in 2009.

Yesterday, golfers and presidents were paying their respects to the man from Latrobe, Pennsylvania.

“Here’s to The King, who was as extraordinary on the links as he was generous to others. Thanks for the memories, Arnold,” said President Obama. “Thanks Arnold for your friendship, counsel and a lot of laughs,” Tiger Woods added.

The ‘King of Golf’ is no more, but he left his subjects with priceless memories and a fulfi lled life to draw much inspiration from.

Palmer credited with taking golf to the public

Rosetta: What did Europe’s comet mission uncover?

Managing the economic consequences of nationalism

His all-out approach on the golf course combined with his looks earned him a loyal fan following

Britain’s ability to restore a sense of calm amid far-reaching uncertainty about its economic and fi nancial future shows how, with the right approach, political actors can manage shocks and surprises

By Mohamed A El-ErianLaguna Beach

The aftermath of the United Kingdom’s unexpected vote in June to leave the European Union is being monitored

closely. People all over the world – and particularly in Europe – want to know how Brexit will unfold, not just to manage its specifi c eff ects, but also to gain insight into what is likely to happen if other upcoming votes tip in favour of nationalist agendas.

Those agendas are certainly making a political comeback. In Germany, which will hold a general election in 2017, support for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is on the rise, exemplifi ed in the party’s strong showing in recent state elections. In France, the National Front’s leader, Marine Le Pen, hopes to ride nationalism to power in next year’s presidential election.

The trend is not exclusive to Europe. In the United States, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has promised to impose trade tariff s on China, build a wall on the border with Mexico,

and bar Muslims from entering the country.

So what economic consequences would a vote for nationalism have? Judging by the Brexit referendum, the immediate eff ects could include fi nancial-market turmoil and a shock to consumer and investor confi dence. But this could give way rather quickly to an economic and fi nancial calm. The real question is what comes next.

To be sure, the calm that has set in in Britain is tenuous. Pre-referendum predictions that a vote for Brexit would lead to substantial economic pain and fi nancial volatility remain likely to materialise. The severity of the eff ects will depend on how the UK and its European partners negotiate their tricky separation, particularly the extent to which free trade and fi nancial passporting are upheld.

But, for now, volatility remains contained. That can be attributed partly to Prime Minister Theresa May’s new government, which has purposely adopted a gradual approach to the Brexit process. May has also made it clear that she and her Cabinet members are not in the business of providing regular progress reports.

The Bank of England has also helped, by injecting liquidity into the economy almost immediately. Moreover, the BoE has convincingly

reassured market participants that it is committed to maintaining fi nancial stability and avoiding the disorder that malfunctioning markets can cause.

The BoE’s vigilance, together with the fact that economic and fi nancial arrangements with Europe have yet to be altered, has convinced companies and households to postpone plans to change their behaviour. They are now waiting to see whether the UK negotiates a “soft” or “hard” Brexit before they make any signifi cant moves.

Britain’s ability to restore a sense of calm amid far-reaching uncertainty about its economic and fi nancial future shows how, with the right approach, political actors can manage shocks and surprises. Had Britain’s leaders rushed to dismantle long-standing trading systems and other economic and fi nancial arrangements with the EU, before developing a credible and comprehensive alternative, the situation could be much more volatile. Others aspiring to advance similarly inward-looking agendas – be they nationalistic European parties seeking to roll back international connectivity or US presidential candidates proposing tariff s that could well trigger retaliation from trading partners – should take note.

Of course, under the current circumstances, there are limits to the benefi cial eff ects of sound UK leadership. When the details of Britain’s divorce from the EU are eventually announced, companies and households will respond, particularly if the country’s trading, economic, and fi nancial linkages with the EU change considerably. That response, it seems almost inevitable, will hurt economic

growth and spur fi nancial volatility.But here, too, a measured and

cautious approach can help. The UK government should do its utmost to conduct the most sensitive parts of the negotiations with its European partners in secret. When it is time to announce changes, it should do so in the context of a larger program of credible domestic reforms that target strong, inclusive growth and improved fi nancial stability.

It is not easy to keep an airplane fl ying smoothly while changing the engines. And that is precisely the challenge the May government faces. It is now preparing for this ultra-delicate manoeuvre by identifying and arranging the components of the new engine, and planning for their quick assembly; only then will it be able to dismantle the engine of European trade without risking heavy turbulence, or even a painful crash.

But even with a carefully sequenced plan in place, May’s government will need to show a level of resilience and agility far beyond what has been required of its predecessors, in order to manage the transition without veering off the path of growth and stability. The same would be true for any other nationalist political fi gure or party that came to power. The question is whether any of them would be equal to such a complex challenge.- Project Syndicate

Mohamed A El-Erian, chief economic adviser at Allianz, is Chairman of US President Barack Obama’s Global Development Council and author of The Only Game in Town: Central Banks, Instability, and Avoiding the Next Collapse.

It is not easy to keep an airplane fl ying smoothly while changing the engines

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This handout file photo released on September 5 by the European Space Agency shows images of the landing craft Philae, viewed for the first time since its crash landing, taken by ORIS narrow-angle camera. European spacecraft Rosetta will end its mission on September 30 after travelling almost7bn kilometres to probe the secrets of comets, with help from a high-tech robot named Philae.

COMMENT

Setting conversational boundariesLive issues

Gulf Times Tuesday, September 27, 2016 27

Despite their grim fi nancial performance, many of China’s state-owned enterprises have a lot going for them

By Yao YangBeijing

China’s economic slowdown has been the subject of countless debates, discussions, articles and

analyses. While the proposed remedies vary considerably, there seems to be a broad consensus that the illness is structural. But while structural problems, from diminishing returns to capital to the rise in protectionism since the global economic crisis, are certainly acting as a drag on growth, another factor has gone largely unnoticed: the business cycle.

For decades, China’s economy sustained double-digit GDP growth, seemingly impervious to business cycles. But it wasn’t immune: in fact, the six-year slowdown China experienced after the 1997 Asian fi nancial crisis was a symptom of precisely such a cycle.

Today, China’s business cycle has led to the accumulation of non-performing loans (NPLs) in the corporate sector, just as it did at the turn of the century. While the rate of NPLs is, according to offi cial data, lower than 2%, many economists estimate that it is actually more like 3-5%. If they are right, NPLs could amount to 6-7% of China’s GDP.

Most of this debt is held by state-owned enterprises (SOEs), which account for just one-third of industrial output, yet receive more than half of the credit dispensed by China’s banks. Though the debt-

equity ratio of the industrial sector as a whole has declined over the past 15 years, the SOEs’ has increased since the global fi nancial crisis, to an average of 66%, 15 percentage points higher than that of other kinds of fi rms.

A looming recession undoubtedly spurred this debt accumulation, possibly aided by former prime minister Wen Jiabao’s massive 2009 stimulus package. But it was lax fi nancial discipline that enabled the debt buildup. Banks feel safe lending to SOEs, no matter how indebted, because the government implicitly guarantees the debt.

As a result, the SOEs, not surprisingly, have developed a habit of debt-fi nanced growth.

That may not have been a problem when China’s economy was growing, but it represents a serious economic risk today, which is why the government has set deleveraging as one of its major tasks for this year. But execution has been slow, owing partly to China’s failure to enforce its bankruptcy law fully.

The fact that commercial banks are not allowed to hold shares in companies has also impeded deleveraging, as it prohibits the use of direct debt-equity swaps to reduce SOE debt. This should change.

China has employed debt-equity swaps to reduce NPLs in the state-sector before. In 1999, it established four asset-management companies (AMCs) to take on the weakest loans of the four largest state-owned banks, thereby improving those banks’ fi nancial stability. Given China’s high growth rates in 2003-2012, the AMCs made handsome profi ts from those shares.

Today, too, debt-equity swaps may be the only viable solution to the NPL problem. But the government does not need to rely on government-

owned entities to assume the debt. Instead, it should allow private equity funds, which have accumulated large amounts of savings as they await good investment opportunities, to act as AMCs, bidding for the NPLs at a discount.

Such an approach would not

just address the NPL problem; by giving the private sector a stake in the SOEs, it would also help to spur performance-enhancing reforms. After all, despite their grim fi nancial performance, many of China’s SOEs have a lot going for them, including state-of-the-art equipment, fi rst-

rate technical staff , and competitive products. Their problem is bad governance and poor management – a problem that, as China’s top leaders recognised in 2013, private-sector involvement can help resolve.

Of course, there are some obstacles to introducing debt-equity swaps

between the public and private sectors, beginning with concern about the loss of state assets. Given the severity of SOEs’ debt problem – the National Railway Company alone holds CN¥3tn (over $40bn) in debt – discounts are inevitable when SOE debts are transferred to private AMCs. This could cause some to assert that the private fi rms are realizing unjust gains.

In order to overcome this obstacle, China should engage in local experimentation – a tried-and-tested approach that has long guided the country’s reform eff orts – beginning in the regions where the SOE debt problem is the most acute. The resulting revitalisation of SOEs would also help quell any doubts about debt-equity swaps with the private sector.

Another obstacle is the fear that, by allowing SOEs, yet again, to escape market discipline, debt-equity swaps would set a dangerous precedent. But the improvements to corporate governance that would follow from the introduction of private shareholders would reduce substantially the likelihood that SOEs would continue to abuse the fi nancial system. Moreover, their NPLs are essentially sunk costs; debt-equity swaps are pretty much the only way to claw back anything at all.

By allowing private-sector participation in debt-equity swaps, China could kill three birds with one stone: advance SOE deleveraging, strengthen corporate governance in the state sector and enhance economic effi ciency. With local experimentation, Chinese authorities map out that stone’s most eff ective trajectory.— Project Syndicate

Yao Yang is director of the China Centre for Economic Research and Dean at the National School of Development at Peking University.

A new strategy for China’s SOEs

By Marie G McIntyreTribune News Service

QUES-TION: I’m new to being

a business owner, and unfortunately, in the short time I’ve been running my own fi rm, I’ve encountered a number of male customers who seem to view me as an available female rather than a professional accountant. Although I wear modest, conservative attire and do nothing to project an “on the market” vibe, these customers have focused on my social circum-stances instead of my abilities.

Recently, for example, I met with a potential client who asked several overly personal questions. Because I didn’t want to be rude, I wound up providing more information than I would have liked. As a result, he off ered

a lot of advice about my personal relationships. This seemed very disrespectful, so how do I keep it from happening again?

ANSWER: While a few creepy customers might have lecherous intentions, some of these guys may simply be trying to fill a conversational vacuum. So the first step in solving this problem is to maintain control of the discussion in a pleasant, professional manner. Since you’re just starting out, this might require a bit of practice.

When meeting with prospective clients, you must be prepared to initiate the conversation and then move it forward in a productive direction. If you start with a concise description of your services, followed by some targeted business questions, customers are less likely to drift off track.

With those who like to chat, keep the topics appropriate by diff erentiating between what’s friendly and personal. Talking about pets, sports, or travel is friendly, while

discussing family matters or social relationships is personal. And sexual banter is in a category all its own.

Once you have mentally defi ned your conversational boundaries, try to recognizse when things are about to take an inappropriate turn. At that point, one helpful strategy is the “nonresponsive response,” in which you reply to a question with an answer that is both uninformative and redirecting.

For example, if a customer were to say “Do you enjoy being single?” you might reply, “My real focus is on work. By the way, how many diff erent product lines do you have?” This approach can be useful whenever a direct answer could lead you down an undesirable path.

To summarise, begin your client meetings with a businesslike opener and remain focused on your goal. If “getting to know you” conversations begin to cross the line, tactfully shift direction. And should you encounter any creepy-crawlers, immediately delete them from your client list.

Jabbering colleaguesQ: I sit between two co-workers who chatter to each other all day long. When they talk across me, I can’t concentrate on my work or hear phone conversations. After I spoke to our supervisor, the talking stopped for a couple of days, but then it started up again. How can I get these chatterboxes to shut up?

A: The solution to this problem seems so simple that surely someone has considered it. But perhaps not, so here goes. Since you’re located in between these jabbering colleagues, why not just switch places with one of them? Once you’re no longer in the middle, their chatter might still be annoying but it’ll be signifi cantly less disruptive.

Marie G McIntyre is a workplace coach and the author of Secrets to Winning at Offi ce Politics. Send in questions and get free coaching tips at http://www.youroffi cecoach.com, or follow her on Twitter @offi cecoach.

Experts restore fi rst-ever computer music recordingAFPWellington

New Zealand researchers said yesterday they have restored the fi rst recording of computer-generated

music, created in 1951 on a gigantic contraption built by British genius Alan Turing.

The aural artefact, which paved the way for everything from synthesisers to modern electronica, opens with a staunchly conservative tune – the British national anthem God Save the King.

Researchers at the University of Canterbury (UC) in Christchurch said it showed Turing – best known as the father of computing who broke the WWII Enigma code – was also a musical innovator.

“Alan Turing’s pioneering work in the late 1940s on transforming the computer into a musical instrument has been largely overlooked,” they said.

The recording was made 65 years ago by a BBC outside-broadcast unit at the Computing Machine Laboratory in Manchester, northern England.

The machine, which fi lled much of the lab’s ground fl oor, was used to generate three melodies; God Save the King, Baa Baa Black Sheep and Glenn

Miller’s swing classic In the Mood. But when UC professor Jack

Copeland and composer Jason Long examined the 30.5 centimetre acetate disc containing the music, they found the audio was distorted.

“The frequencies in the recording were not accurate. The recording gave at best only a rough impression of how

the computer sounded,” they said. They fi xed it with electronic

detective work, tweaking the speed of the audio, compensating for a “wobble” in the recording and fi ltering out extraneous noise.

“It was a beautiful moment when we fi rst heard the true sound of Turing’s computer,” Copeland and

Long said in a blog post on the British Library website.

The two-minute recording can be heard here: http://blogs.bl.uk/fi les/fi rst-recorded-computer-music---copeland-long-restoration.mp3

It features short snippets of the tunes rendered in a slightly grating drone, like electronic bagpipes.

There are also a number of glitches and when the music halts during the Glenn Miller number, a presenter comments: “The machine’s obviously not in the mood”.

While Turing programmed the fi rst musical notes into a computer, he had little interest in stringing them together into tunes.

That work was carried out by a school teacher named Christopher Strachey, who went on to become a renowned computer scientist in his own right.

Strachey recalled that Turing’s taciturn response upon hearing his machine play music was “good show”.

Turing was a computer scientist, philosopher and cryptologist who played a crucial role in breaking the Nazi’s Enigma Code.

As depicted in the Oscar-winning movie The Imitation Game, he was prosecuted for homosexuality and forced to undergo chemical castration, killing himself in 1954 at the age of 41.

He was offi cially pardoned by Queen Elizabeth II in 2013.

A container area is seen at the Yangshan Deep Water Port, part of the Shanghai Free Trade Zone, in Shanghai.

University of Canterbury alumni composer Jason Long and professor Jack Copeland. New Zealand researchers say they have restored the first recording of computer-generated music, created in 1951 on a gigantic contraption built by British genius Alan Turing.

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