In brief

20,933.43-20.91-0.10%

10,416.89-205.65-1.94%

53.11-0.09-0.17%

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GULF TIMES

published in

QATAR

since 1978WEDNESDAY Vol. XXXVIII No. 10386

March 8, 2017Jumada II 9, 1438 AH www. gulf-times.com 2 Riyals

BUSINESS | Page 1

Ahlibank EGM okaysrise in bank capital

SPORT | Page 1

Ashwin spins India to victory over Australia

QATAR

REGION

ARAB WORLD

INTERNATIONAL

COMMENT

BUSINESS

CLASSIFIED

SPORTS

26, 27

1-6, 12-16

7-12

1–8

2-9, 28

10

10, 11

12-25

INDEX

March 2017March 2017

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THE SECRET OF CARB CYCLING THE RISE OF SOCIAL ENTERPRISES INCREDIBLE ICELAND

TODAY’S EDITION INCLUDES SOCIETY MAGAZINE

MARCH2017

Ooredoo topower droneproject forsaving livesBy Peter AlagosBusiness Reporter

A life-saving drone project devel-oped by a Qatari startup aims to revolutionise emergency and

rescue operations, specifi cally near coastal areas around Qatar, using state-of-the-art connectivity solutions from Ooredoo.

Dubbed ‘Ooredoo Rescue’, the project utilises a solar-powered buoy that alerts a drone once it detects an emergency such as drowning incidents. Tech startup n-GON has proposed to deploy as many as 30 buoys around the country to assist the coast guard in monitoring marine activities.

n-GON CEO Amr Abdelhady said Ooredoo is sponsoring the buoys, which will maximise the strength of the telecommunications company’s 4G network via the Ooredoo Supernet to communicate with the rescue drone and command control centre.

The buoy, 5m in diameter, is equipped with infra-red sensors, cam-eras, and night vision cameras. Once it detects an emergency within its range, the buoy will send a distress signal to the command control centre at the Ministry of Interior (MoI), which will receive a live video of the incident be-fore the drone is deployed.

The drone is equipped with an infl at-able life raft, which will be released once it reaches the victim. After deploying the life raft, the drone will return to the command control centre to get another life raft. It will then return and land on the buoy, which is equipped with a wireless charging station and a water turbine, Abdelhady explained.

“We have signed an agreement with Ooredoo, and we are the fi rst Qatari drone startup to present this type of

project. Ooredoo is sponsoring the buoy by providing Wi-Fi connectivity to the drone and the buoy via the Ooredoo Su-pernet,” Abdelhady told Gulf Times.

Next month, Abdelhady said n-GON will work on the proof of concept with the MoI, which will identify the coastal areas where the buoys would be de-ployed. The proposed target date to launch the project would be “in the be-ginning of 2018,” he said.

“We are currently waiting for ap-provals from the MoI and discussions are still ongoing before the project goes online,” he said.

Citing statistics from the World Health Organisation, Abdelhady said there are at least 15 drowning incidents around the Gulf region per year. “The ‘Ooredoo Rescue’ project could help minimise these incidents,” he said, adding that the proposed Phase 2 of the project is geared towards border patrol and anti-smuggling operations.

“Currently, the drone is manufac-tured in the UK but we are planning to start manufacturing it in Qatar very soon,” he added.

‘Ooredoo Rescue’ is among the latest technologies showcased at the Oore-doo booth during ‘Qitcom 2017’, which concludes today.

Aside from showcasing its data ex-perience leadership with a range of ad-vanced solutions, Ooredoo presented its 5G technology, data centre and cy-bersecurity solutions, smart stadium concepts, the latest mHealth and con-nected home technologies, and smart technology for residences in Qatar.

Shah A M Kamaly, assistant director – Ideation Management at Ooredoo, told Gulf Times that Ooredoo’s ‘Con-nected Health’ and ‘Smart Screening System’ would help enhance health-care and medical services in Qatar. Pages 9, 28

n-GON CEO Amr Abdelhady presents the drone used for the ‘Ooredoo Rescue’ project during ‘Qitcom 2017’. PICTURE: Jayan Orma.

HE the Prime Minister and Interior Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani met yesterday with the visiting Pakistan Chief of Army Staff Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa and his accompanying delegation. Talks during the meeting covered bilateral relations and ways to enhance them, as well as issues of mutual concern.

PM meets Pakistan’s army chief

Citizens’ residences scheme makes progress in Doha, suburbsBy Ramesh MathewStaff Reporter

About 85% of the infrastructural development works of the new residential developments being

executed in Al Mashaf West and North Wukair are completed, Ashghal and Qatar Electricity and Water Corpora-tion (Kahramaa) announced yesterday.

All works are expected to be over in the second quarter of this year in the projects areas, offi cials explained dur-ing a media tour of the construction sites off Wukair area on the south west-ern side of Doha yesterday.

As many as 10,400 plots were al-lotted as part of an ambitious citizens’ residences scheme in some 17 loca-

tions, mainly in Doha neighbourhoods and some locations on its outskirts.

Al Mashaf and North Wukair areas together accounted for 1,829 plots. Of this 1,186 land plots are in Al Mashaf West (Package 3) and remaining 643 in Al Wukair North.

Already access roads have been laid and electricity and water networks have been built in the two areas where plots have been earmarked for citizens. A number of residences are already un-der construction in the allotted plots.

The projects in Al Mashaf include the construction of a local roads network of about 70km, which includes 92 main and local streets .

There would be 13 signalled intersec-tions, besides three interchanges and provision of street lighting in Al Mashaf

project. Drainage and communication networks are also part of the projects being executed. In Wukair, nearly 23km of roads and eight signal-controlled in-tersections are also being built.

About QR2bn is earmarked every year for infrastructural works to be carried out in similar sites in diff erent areas, in-formed Ashghal offi cials yesterday.

Speaking to journalists earlier at a site offi ce of the contractors in Wukair, Ashghal president and senior engineer Saad bin Ahmed al-Muhannadi said lo-cal agencies were in good co-ordination to ensure that works are completed at a fast pace so that the plot owners would be able to start construction in their al-lotted sites on time.

Also speaking, Kahramaa president and senior engineer Issa bin Hilal al-

Kuwari said the corporation is execut-ing its works to provide utilities’ con-nections to the plot owners on a war footing.

At the meeting the authorities also briefed on the delivery of infrastructure projects for citizens over the fi ve years until the end of 2021.

Ashghal’s Road Projects Department director Saoud al-Tamimi explained the delivery schedule over the next few years.

After the works covering 1,829 plots in Al Wukair North and Al Mashaf West areas, infrastructure facilities will be completed to serve 1,303, 2,511, 2,487 and 2,270 plots during 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021, respectively. Kahramaa’s Wa-ter Networks director Abdulla al-Diyab was also present during the tour. Page 5

Ashghal and Kahramaa off icials during their visit of the project site in Wukair North yesterday. PICTURE: Ram Chand

QATAR | Statistics

MoI conducts 71.5mntransactions in 2016Qatar’s Ministry of Interior said yesterday that it completed more than 71.5mn transactions in 2016. The figure amounts to a monthly average of 5,963,781 and daily 198,793 transactions. The average number of transaction per hour was 8,283 with 138 transactions every minute. The number of electronic services was 47,948,796 which amounts 67% of entire transactions and the number of transactions through the service centres were 23,616,571 that marked 33%. The figure reflects the progress the ministry has made in providing services electronically. Page 8

Stiff penalties for foodsafety violationsThe Advisory Council has ap-

proved a draft law to amend some of the stipulations of Law

No 8 for 1990 on the Regulation of Human Food Control.

These modifi cations include a pen-alty of a minimum six months in jail and a maximum of one year in addition to a fi ne ranging from QR7,000 and up to QR15,000, or any of such penal-ties for handling food products unfi t for human consumption. The penalty shall be doubled in case of repeat of-fence.

In the event of causing a perma-nent disability due to the consump-

tion of bad or expired food, the pen-alty shall be imprisonment of two to four years, with a fi ne of QR15,000 and up to QR30,000. The penalty shall be doubled if the crime resulted in death. Also, attempt of committing such crimes will be punishable by the same penalties.

For violating the regulations of importing or handling food prod-ucts, the penalty shall be a maxi-mum of one year in jail and a fine of QR15,000 maximum or any of such penalties.

In case of releasing seized food products without the prior approval of

the authority concerned, the penalty shall be from two weeks and up two months in jail and a fi ne of QR300 and up to QR2,000 or any of such penal-ties.

Food unfi t for consumption will be confi scated and destroyed at the expense of the violator. Besides, the erring outlet shall be closed for a pe-riod ranging from one to three months, with the penalty doubled in case of repeat off ence. The closure decision shall be published in two local dailies with the cost paid by the violator. Also, the convict shall be deported in case of non-Qataris.

ARAB WORLD | Confl ict

Iraqi forces retake govtHQ, museum in MosulIraqi forces said yesterday they had seized the main government off ices in Mosul and its famed museum as they made steady progress in their battle to retake the city’s west from militants. The advances, which also included the recapture of three neighbourhoods, were announced on the third day of a renewed off ensive against the IS group in west Mosul - the largest remaining urban stronghold in the “caliphate” IS declared in 2014. Page 11

AFRICA | Disaster

UN chief’s aid plea toavert Somalia famineUN Secretary General Antonio Guterres yesterday launched an urgent appeal to avert a famine in drought-stricken Somalia, calling for $825mn in international aid. “Urgent action is needed from the international community,” Guterres said after meeting Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed Farmajo in Mogadishu. The UN chief said the money was needed to support 5.5mn people for six months and prevent “suff ering that is absolutely unacceptable in the modern world.” Page 12

Turkey asks Germany notto preach about democracyAFPHamburg

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu asked Berlin not to preach about democracy and

human rights amid a mounting row sparked by Germany’s refusal to allow meetings aimed at gathering votes to extend the Turkish president’s pow-ers.

“Please, don’t give us lessons in hu-man rights and democracy,” the min-ister said, as he spoke to a crowd of some 200 Turkish government sup-porters gathered at the residence of their country’s consul in the northern city of Hamburg.

The comments came after German

local authorities banned rallies that Turkish offi cials were due to address to raise support among expatriate vot-ers for a referendum in April on boost-ing President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s powers.

“Germany must not intervene in our elections and out referendum,” he said. “Those who want to say ‘Yes’ in the referendum are being blocked and that is not right.”

Local authorities had called off a rally in Hamburg where Cavusoglu was due to speak, citing fi re safety concerns.

Police said about 250 opponents of Erdogan gathered near the consulate.

Cavusoglu said he would meet today with his German counterpart Sigmar Gabriel, whom he called a “friend”, at

a breakfast in Berlin and visit a tour-ism fair.

Tensions have been rocketing be-tween Nato allies Turkey and Germany over the past week after the cancella-tion of several rallies where Turkish cabinet ministers were due to whip up support for a “yes” vote in the April 16 referendum.

Erdogan escalated the crisis over the weekend, likening the cancellations to “Nazi practices,” drawing a sharp re-sponse from Berlin.

He also warned Germany not to block him from making an appearance if he wished.

Cavusoglu said the rally cancella-tions were “unacceptable” and remi-niscent of practices in the run-up to World War II. Page 18

QATAR

Gulf Times Wednesday, March 8, 20172

HE the Emiri Guard Commander Major General Hazza bin Khalil al-Shahwani met yesterday at Barzan Camp with Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa. During the meeting, they discussed issues of common interest in the military field and ways of enhancing them.

Military ties reviewed

Sudan ministerpraises Qatar

Sudanese minister Ahmed Saad Omar has praised Qatar’s eff orts for realising peace and stability in Darfur Region. The minister said in remarks to QNA that the Doha Document for Peace in Darfur (DDPD) withstood many chal-lenges, thanks to the Darfurians’ strong will and adherence to the DDPD, which contributed to bringing security and stability in the region. The Sudanese people in general, and Darfurians in par-ticular, appreciate the great eff orts that Qatar has been making

UN off icial meetsNHRC chiefUN High Commissioner for Human Rights Prince Zeid bin Ra’ad met in Geneva yesterday with Chairman of the Qatar National Human Rights Committee (NHRC) Dr Ali bin Smaikh al-Marri. They discussed mechanisms for implementing the recommendations of the Interna-tional Conference on Human Rights Approaches to Conflict Situations in the Arab Region organised by the NHRC and the Off ice of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in collaboration with the General Secretariat of the Council of Arab Interior Ministers and the Arab Network of National Human Rights Institutions in Doha on February 20 and 21.

Registration for pearl-diving eventThe organisers of the ‘Senyar Championship’, a pearl-diving and fishing competition, has announced that registration for the event will continue until March 30. The popular festival has already attracted over 50 teams for the fishing category and another 12 teams for pearl-diving, the organisers said in a press release yesterday. The festival, which is in its sixth edi-tion, stems from Katara’s efforts to preserve Qatari culture and heritage, by promoting crafts-men, traders and practitioners of activities unique to the region.

Solar-powered cooled helmet ‘generatingglobal interest’The solar-powered cooled

helmet designed and de-veloped in Qatar by Qatar

University, the Supreme Com-mittee for Delivery & Legacy (SC) and Aspire Zone has generated global interest since making the news earlier this year.

The innovative concept can reduce the skin temperature of construction workers by up to 10C, it had been announced.

“There is a global demand, be-cause there is a worldwide need for such technology,” said Dr Saud Abdul-Aziz Abdul-Ghani, professor at the College of En-gineering at Qatar University, according to a report on the SC website.

“The safety of workers in hot climates is a priority in coun-tries across the world, and it is very rewarding to see that the research we have conducted in Qatar together with the SC can fulfil a global need,” he ex-plained.

Dr Abdul-Ghani revealed a company from Spain, special-ised in kit for the protection of workers, and another from Hol-land have shown interest in the concept.

“Locally in Qatar a lot of com-

panies have approached us, in the region as well as there was interest from the UAE in the oil and gas sector, where they were looking to combat heat stress for workers and wanted to make them work in safer conditions,” he said.

With the first batch of the helmets to be issued to work-ers on construction sites for the 2022 FIFA World Cup Qa-tar this summer, the professor who has taught at a number of prestigious UK-based univer-sities sees the development as a tangible legacy of the tour-nament.

“A construction company

from South Korea got in touch, saying they were really interested and wanted to trial the helmet and give us their feedback. We have had companies in Egypt, India and Mexico reaching out to us.

“I believe this could revolu-tionise the industry globally, and change the way in which construction work in hot cli-mates is conducted. This is al-ready proving to be a legacy of 2022, because the impulse of the tournament is helping to drive innovation forward in the region.”

This week, the cooled hel-mets are on display at the Qit-com summit ‘Qatar – Towards a smart future’, and Dr Saud con-cluded that the digital confer-ence was another opportunity to showcase the technology and interact with leading industry experts.

“Qitcom is a fantastic oppor-tunity to display this innovation and get more stakeholders to see the cooled helmets,” he said.

“We can also look to take the next step with these helmets and make them smarter, so that they can also incorporate extended healthcare.”

Translation conference to focus on human and social responsibility

Hamad Bin Khalifa Uni-versity’s Translation and Interpreting Insti-

tute (TII), part of the College of Humanities and Social Sci-ences (CHSS), will host its 8th Annual International Transla-tion Conference at the Qatar National Convention Centre (QNCC) on March 27 and 28.

This year’s event focuses on ethics and social responsibility in practice for a profession that very often deals with sensitive domains such as law, politics, healthcare, socio-economics, and activism.

Dr Amal Mohammed al-Mal-ki, founding dean of CHSS, said: “Translation and interpretation are going to take centre-stage in coming years within the broader fi eld of communications. Our conference aims to help govern-

ment institutions, private enter-prise, and non-profi t organisa-tions develop an understanding of how to solve challenges facing the profession. Human and so-cial responsibility is at the fore-front of these challenges today. It is our responsibility to build bridges between diff erent cul-tures and viewpoints and retain a sense of a responsible global community, based on a univer-sal value-system.”

Renowned regional and in-ternational infl uencers in the fi eld will be taking part in the conference as panel members. Among them will be Khaled al-Maeena, editor-in-chief of Arab News and renowned Sau-di television news anchor and talk show host. Al-Maeena’s commentaries on society and politics are highly regarded

and widely published, both lo-cally and globally, and his ex-perience is guaranteed to en-rich the debate.

Over the course of the two days, the conference will hold eight separate panel discus-sions on a wide range of topics dealing with social responsi-bility. Some of the topics cov-ered will include citizen media, audiovisual translation, role of interpreters within the media serving in confl ict zones, and conference interpreting.

Two individual workshops are also scheduled for partici-pants on the subject of “Trans-lation Ethics: Identifi cation, Analysis and Response to Ethical Issues in Translation” and “Practices and Benefi ts of Translation in Legal, Health Care and Community Areas.”

Cityscape Qatar to heldfrom March 13 to 15Cityscape Qatar 2017 will be held

from March 13 to 15 at Doha Exhibition and Convention

Centre under the patronage of HE the Prime Minister and Minister of Inte-rior Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani.

Now in its sixth year in Qatar, City-scape Qatar is the largest real estate development and investment exhibi-tion in the country.

Speaking on behalf of Cityscape Qatar, exhibition director Ahmed Zakaria said they were honoured to have the contin-ued support of HE the Prime Minister and Minister of Interior. “This clearly empha-sises the importance of the property mar-ket to the Qatar government, underlines the State’s support for the industry and the integral role Cityscape Qatar plays in bringing regional and international indus-try professionals together.

“We have been overwhelmed by the response from key international and regional industry players with more than one-third of last year’s exhibitors

reconfi rming their participation in the 2017 edition. Qatar holds great poten-tial for both investors and developers and it clearly has the fi nancial stabil-ity to induce confi dence from even the most cautious investors.”

With an expected attendee fi gure of more than 7,000, Cityscape Qatar 2017 will bring together the real estate community from around the globe to enhance and support the growth of the industry under Qatar National Vision (QNV) 2030 while enabling all par-ticipants to see the country’s future and the opportunities arising from the 2022 FIFA World Cup, the organisers said in a press statement.

Several projects will be discussed and highlighted during the exhibition.

The high-profi le three-day exhi-bition and conference will feature a wide range of real estate opportunities, leading local real estate companies such as Al Bandary Real Estate, Ezdan Real Estate and Retaj Real Estate, and regional and international heavy-

weights such as gold sponsors Regus and Kohler, Al Qaseer Investment and Property Development, Kleindienst, Copperstones, Etqan, and the Eco-nomic Group. Also involved will be homebuyers, private and professional investors as well as key industry pro-fessionals from Qatar, the region and around the globe, the statement notes.

Cityscape Qatar 2016 attracted 92 of the world’s leading real estate compa-nies exhibiting along with 6,633 par-ticipants over the course of the event, the statement added.

Cityscape Qatar 2017, which is ex-pected to be the “largest-ever real estate event in the country”, is well-positioned to build on the success of previous events and will include a three day exhibition, learning and networking features, along with a number of landmark deals that are due to be struck throughout the upcom-ing event.

To fi nd out more about Cityscape Qatar 2017, one can visit www.city-scapeqatar.com

Retail group joins hands with online ride-hailing service

Quality Retail Group has joined hands with online ride-hailing service Careem to bring to-

gether an exclusive line of promotions from tomorrow.

To begin with, Careem will be of-fering a 25% discount on the fi rst two rides for all Quality Retail customers

who sign up using the promo code, available at all Quality Retail Customer Care Service Counters.

The Careem app, available on Goog-le Play Store and the iOS App-store, provides transportation choices via a mobile app, on the web and through a call centre.

“A customer can book a ride in 10-15 seconds and be on their way within 5-6 minutes,” it was claimed in a statement.

“More off ers are on the charts, to be made available to the customers on a regular basis,” added Quality Retail Group, which operates seven outlets across Qatar.

Cooled helmet: fulfilling a global need

HE the Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohamed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani has sent a written message to the Adviser to the Pakistan Prime Minister on Foreign Aff airs, Sartaj Aziz, dealing with bilateral relations and means to bolster them. Qatar’s ambassador to Pakistan Saqr bin Mubarak al-Mansouri delivered the message during a meeting with Aziz in Islamabad yesterday.

Message for Pakistan

QATAR3Gulf Times

Wednesday, March 8, 2017

35 varsities to attend ‘Study in UK’ exhibitionBritish Council has an-

nounced that it will host its annual ‘Study in the

UK’ exhibition on March 12 and 13 in Doha under the theme “Time to invest in your future”.

The event, taking place from 4.30pm to 8.30pm at Al Wa-jba Ballroom, La Cigale Hotel, will connect students in Qatar with representatives of 35 vis-iting UK universities, colleges and English language providers who can answer their questions about UK education.

During the two-day event, students in Qatar will have the opportunity to fi nd out all they need to know about founda-tion courses, English Language courses, career-based diplomas, fi rst degree and postgraduate degree courses. The UK repre-sentatives will also deliver talks and seminars about diff erent aspects of UK education.

In addition to the talks and seminars, parents and stu-dents can speak directly to representatives from Cardiff University, the University of Birmingham, King’s College London, University of Derby, NCUK – The University Con-

sortium and other well-known UK institutions.

Meanwhile, a statement from the British Council noted that new data released by the Higher Education Statistics Agency in the UK showed that the number of students from the Gulf studying in the UK went up by 7% for the 2015/16 academic year to more than 23,000 students. In Qatar, this growth was even greater with a 16% increase, showing that a UK education remained “as popular as ever”.

The theme for this year’s exhibition, “Time to invest in your future”, will shed light on what international students love about studying in the UK through talks by successful UK alumni living in Qatar who will share inspirational stories about their UK experience and subsequent career path.

Dr Frank Fitzpatrick, direc-tor of British Council in Qatar, said: “I am proud to see that the UK continues to be the most popular destination for Qataris for overseas studies.”

British ambassador Ajay Sharma added, “British educa-

tional institutions remain the best in the world and students who graduate from the UK are equipped with highly sought-after skills, which are imme-diately applicable in the global workplace.”

Students not able to attend the exhibition can consult the new Study UK website for in-formation about living and studying in the UK: https://study-uk.britishcouncil.org/

Admission to the event is free, but online registra-tion has been recommended in order to gain faster access and enter a draw for a chance to win prizes such as a GoPro camera, gift vouchers, free IELTS premium preparation course and more.

An opening ceremony for the exhibition will take place on Sunday morning at La Cigale, attended by local edu-cation stakeholders. Opening speeches will be delivered by the guests of honour, Dr Kha-lid al-Horr, director of the Higher Education Institute at the Ministry of Education and Higher Education; and Dr Fitzpatrick.

HE Sheikh Joaan bin Hamad al-Thani, president, Qatar Olympic Committee (QOC), crowned yesterday the winners of the fifth day of the annual festival of Arabian Thoroughbred Camel Race for the Sword of HH the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani. The event took place in Al Shahania. HE Sheikh Joaan awarded sons of HH the Emir, HE Sheikh Hamad bin Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani and HE Sheikh Jassim bin Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, with the golden shelfa (arrow) and golden dagger for their win. Crown Prince of Dubai Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, Prince Turki bin Mohammed bin Fahd bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, and organising committee chairman HE Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Faisal al-Thani were present.

Winners of camel racing festival crowned

MEC opens online application for patents

The Ministry of Economy and Commerce (MEC) has launched “online appli-

cation for patents” through its website.

The service is available for the public, and the agents of intellectual property rights.

“Through this service the ap-plicant can submit the applica-tion electronically and it would be checked online as well to ac-complish the necessary proce-dures in the shortest possible time,” MEC said.

To be issued a patent the in-vention should be original and new, with no previous his-tory of application for the same whether inside or outside the country, whether in part, of as a

whole. It should be also “indus-trially implementable” whether through material products, in-dustrial processes or the method of manufacture. Besides, the invention should be innovative and unknown to the specialists in its fi eld.

MEC says applicants could log on https://services.me.gov.qa , then the user register his entry on the system, and de-termine the type of his request; the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), or the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property (WIPO), and fi ll in the form. The name of the inven-tion and inventor should be supplied in addition, its main details and information of the

agent (if available). These will be accompanied by the nec-essary attachments. The ap-plication will be checked ac-cordingly to see whether all the necessary information and requirements are all supplied with the possibility of going back to the applicant.

When the set fees are paid successfully, a confi rmation email will be sent to the ap-plicant including the applica-tion number and the neces-sary requirements that should be supplied within the grace period, alongside the date for paying the annual renewal fees.

MEC stressed the importance of patent registration in keeping

the legal rights of the inventors and patent owner.

Regarding the patent reg-istration fees, it is free for students, QR1,000 for indi-viduals, QR2,000 for educa-tional and research institutes, and QR2,000 for companies and organisations. The fees for technical inspection of the invention are QR100 for stu-dents, QR2,500 for individu-als, QR5,000 for educational and research institutes and QR5,000 for companies and organisations.

Such initiative is meant to make MEC services easily ac-cessible for the public, in addi-tion to speeding up the related processes.

Qatar Chemical Company (Q-Chem) has celebrated the graduation ceremony of 14 sponsored students who have been recognised for completing Certificate II and III for the Technician Preparatory Programme at College of the North Atlantic - Qatar (CNA-Q). Organised by CNA-Q, the ceremony was held at the Diplomatic Club recently. A Q-Chem delegation led by Ahmed al-Sulaiti, human capital manager, attended the event. With enhanced technical skills and key competencies following their graduation, the students will be able to work at several departments within Q-Chem facilities located in Doha, Mesaieed or Ras Laff an. Addressing the students, al-Sulaiti said: “You have a world of opportunities to discover and have a rewarding career within Q-Chem companies.”

Q-Chem holds graduation ceremony

Doha centre to host event on role of women in mediaThe Doha Centre for Me-

dia Freedom (DCMF), United Nations Educa-

tional, Scientifi c and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) and Al Jazeera Media Network are or-ganising an event – ‘Women Make the News’ – today to celebrate the role of women in the media on the occasion of International Women’s Day.

The event, which will be held from 5.30pm to 7.30pm at Al Jazeera Café, Katara-the Cultural Village, will feature prominent speakers from the media, fi lm and academic sector to highlight success-ful stories, share inspirations with the public and discuss the representation of women in the media and women in the newsrooms.

Speakers include Mostafa Souag, acting director-general of Al Jazeera Media Network; Dima Khatib, managing direc-tor of AJ+; Asma al-Hamadi, Al Jazeera presenter; Sarah al-Derham, fi lmmaker and assistant professor at Qatar

University; Reem al-Harmi, columnist; Latifa al-Darwish, cartoonist; Christina Paschyn, assistant professor at North-western University in Qatar; Hanan al-Yafei, monitor-ing and advocacy manager at DCMF; and Amal al-Habani, journalist.

Attendees will also be invited to take part in hands-on work-shops at the Al Jazeera Café Studio to learn more about techniques to present and fi lm news through video recordings under the guidance of women journalists and fi lm-makers.

Held annually on the occa-sion of International Women’s Day, ‘Women Make the News’ is a global initiative led by Unesco that aims to fi x global attention on an issue relat-ing to gender equality in and through the media, driving de-bate and encouraging action-oriented solutions until global objectives are met.

International Women’s Day is celebrated on March 8 every year around the world.

Qatar Media Corporation (QMC) chief executive off icer Sheikh Abdulrahman bin Hamad al-Thani met yesterday with Romania’s ambassador to Qatar, Cristian Tudor. They discussed bilateral relations in the media field and ways to enhance them.

QMC chief meets envoy

70% of Qatar population is either overweight or obese: HMC expert

There has been tremen-dous progress in the bariatric surgery process

at Hamad Medical Corpora-tion (HMC) in the recent years, according to an offi cial.

“We have conducted over 4,000 cases since we started the process at HMC some fi ve years ago. We started with Ha-mad General Hospital and we expanded it to Wakra Hospital two years back and to Cuban Hospital six months ago,” said Dr Moataz Bashah, consult-ant, bariatric medicine surgery, HMC.

Dr Bashah was speaking at a press conference to announce World Kidney Day programmes organised by HMC. Dr Wahiba M Elhag, consultant bariatric medicine surgery, HMC; and Dr Buthina Ibrahim, senior consult-ant, endocrinology and diabetes and a member of Qatar Metabolic Institute, were also present.

By Joseph VargheseStaff Reporter

Dr Moataz Bashah, Dr Wahiba M Elhag and Dr Buthina Ibrahim at the press conference yesterday.

“We work almost seven days a week in order to reduce the number of patients on waiting list. Still we have about 1,000 people on the waiting list. We conduct about 1,000 bariatric surgeries a year, which is a huge number. Qatar ranks either third or fourth internationally in the number of bariatric surgeries done a year,” said Dr Bashah.

Dr Elhag noted, “Surgery is not the only solution. It is just part of

the programme. Any patient will lose weight for the fi rst two years but the long-term impact will depend on the patient’s lifestyle. Healthy diet and exercises are the solutions for maintaining long-term impact of the surgery.”

Dr Ibrahim said that obesity is now considered a disease and ac-companied by mental, mechani-cal and metabolic complications.

“Over 70% of Qatari popula-tion is either overweight or obese

and 40% is obese considering the BMI Index. These are the fi gures released by Qatar Biobank. The more the body size, the more the burden on the kidneys,” she said.

According to Dr Elhag, there is a close relation between obesity and kidney diseases.

“Obesity causes kidney mal-function. Even if a patient is looking for the renal transplant, the weight of the person must be reduced. There is a possibility of

renal rejection in obese people,” she added.

Dr Bashah told that 70% of the bariatric surgery patients are female and most of them are in the age category of 30-40. The highest weight of the patient who underwent the bariatric surgery in HMC was 450kg, done in January 2012.

According to Dr Bashah, en-doscopic treatment for obesity has been in practice at HMC for a long time and helps reduce the weight of the patient by 25%.

“It is done by using balloons fi lled with saline or water or air or other gases. Some of these balloons can be swallowed and some balloons are inserted and removed by endoscopy process. They are kept from three months to one year depending on the process.”

“Almost 25% of excess weight can be lost with the help of these balloons. The complica-tion of the process is that it can cause ulcer in the stomach and at times lead to obstruction in the bowels,” he added.

QATAR

Gulf Times Wednesday, March 8, 20174

Simpsons writer regales audience

Mike Reiss, winner of four Emmy Awards and famed for writing The Simpsons for three decades, took the audience through his il-

lustrious career at a packed auditorium in the Muse-um of Islamic Art, as part of this week’s Qumra Talks.

The session, On writing and Pro-ducing with Mike Reiss, saw him de-scribe the lessons that he has learnt along the way, d e m o n s t ra t i n g how all these skills came together in The Simpsons, the internationally-renowned ani-mated comedy.

The self-dep-recating writer immediately en-amoured the au-dience to him by stating, “Please remember, I’m a comedy writer not a comedian.”

However, the talk itself was full of great humour bringing his points about writing comedy to home by playing some of his favourite scenes from The Simpsons.

Imparting advice to attendees who are starting out in their career, Reiss said: “In this job you have to make your own luck, and work on as many ideas and projects as you can. When I started working with The National Lampoon, I had fi ve other projects on the go.”

Reinforcing the advice, Reiss also suggested writ-ers and fi lmmakers should take any job that comes their way as one never know what it will turn into.

Reiss was off ered the role of writer of The Simpsons, a new show in 1988, on TV network Fox Broadcasting Company, which was also a newcomer to audiences.

Rounding up the lively event, which was attended by students, upcoming writers and vloggers, Reiss said: “You can’t teach comedy, or how to craft it. It just comes from observation. You have to watch a lot of good comedy. Watching good work inspires you to do good work.”

The session touched upon topics such as charac-ter development, ‘What makes a good joke?’, and the writing process of The Simpsons.

It was the second in the series of Qumra Talks or-ganised as part of Qumra, the industry event by the Doha Film Institute, in partnership with the North-western University in Qatar.

Reiss addresses the audience at the Qumra Talks.

Farhadi gives an insight into his movie makingOscar-winning fi lmmaker

Asghar Farhadi delivered his Master Class at Qumra

2017 yesterday through an online appearance, his fi rst public speak-ing event since his Best Foreign Language Film victory at the recent Academy Awards.

In front of a packed house, of fi lmmakers, industry guests and delegates, he shared his thoughts and insight on fi lmmaking, includ-ing techniques he borrows from his theatre background, that en-able him to create fi lms and stories refl ecting the realities of everyday life.

The highly anticipated discus-sion, exemplifi ed Farhadi’s abil-ity to master the ordinary, which has gained the fi lmmaker two Best Foreign Language Film Oscars — his fi rst for The Separation (2012) and the second, last month for The Salesman (2017) which was sup-ported by the Doha Film Institute (DFI).

The Oscar wins are among nu-merous international awards and accolades he has received over the last few years.

Sharing details about how he sources inspiration, to stressing the importance of rhythm within dialogue, combined with the use of music, Farhadi underlined the fact that the key to presenting insightful storytelling is an eye for detail.

Turning his attention to the real-ism in his fi lms, Farhadi went on to discuss how the placement of the camera can hugely aff ect the audi-ence’s interpretation, and singular perspective, of a scene.

He elaborated on his belief that it is the director’s responsibility to tell the whole story. “If your camera al-ways follows one actor, you are cre-ating a biased viewpoint. We give the

audience all the information. It is up to them to make the judgement.”

He expanded on this, stressing it is not his characters that deter-mine the story, but often one initial thought or a scenario that drives the fi lm forward.

On summing up his own unique way of working Farhadi concluded by saying “My process for writing is usually in two parts: the conscious and the unconscious. The con-scious is much like the password that can unlock the bank of your unconscious. This fi rst idea sparks all those bits and pieces in the back of your mind.”

Farhadi’s fi lms rely upon strik-ingly naturalistic performances.

His characters are developed much later together with the actors, who come together for the initial rehearsals to develop a back story about their past and their relation-ships to each other.

Before shooting any footage, the actors act out scenes from their ‘past’, from the time they may have studied together or from early childhood.

Farhadi says these details help the couples and cast form believable relationships, from subtleties such as the way they look at each other to the nuances in conversation, and the audience feels the connection and believes this is real life.

His latest fi lm, The Salesman al-

lowed Farhadi to return to his the-atrical roots.

The fi lm tells the story of a couple who are acting together in Arthur Miller’s play Death Of A Salesman.

Farhadi chose specifi c scenes from Miller’s play to explicitly con-vey the emotional journey each character goes through after the wife is assaulted in her own apart-ment.

Creating this play within a play blurs the lines of reality for the audience, making them question whether they are watching a fi lm or real life.

Farhadi’s fourth feature-length fi lm About Elly (2009) employs the same respectful but unsettling

examination of interpersonal re-lationships that characterises his works.

The fi lm was screened at Qumra 2017 as part of the Modern Masters Screening.

Qumra hosts leading interna-tional fi lmmakers, producers, in-dustry experts and professionals, for intense brainstorming, knowl-edge-sharing and nurturing ses-sions with talents associated with 34 fi lms from 25 countries.

Directors and producers attached to 18 narrative feature fi lms, 7 fea-ture documentaries and 9 short fi lms are participating in the event that concludes today at Souq Waqif and the Museum of Islamic Art.

Farhadi speaks online at Qumra yesterday.

QATAR5Gulf Times

Wednesday, March 8, 2017

Ashghal president Saad bin Ahmed al-Muhannadi (second right), Kahramaa president Essa bin Hilal al-Kuwari (second left), Kahramaa’s Water Networks director Abdulla al-Diyab and Ashghal’s Technical Committee manager Abdulla al-Attiyah at the meeting in Al Wukair yesterday: PICTURE: Ram Chand

Ashghal to develop more residential plotsBy Ramesh MathewStaff Reporter

As part of the Citizens Residences Develop-ment scheme being

implemented in diff erent parts of the country, more works would be executed be-tween 2018 and 2021.

While briefi ng journal-ists on the progress of works being executed in Al Wu-kair North and Al Mashaf projects, Ashghal president Saad bin Ahmed al-Mu-hannadi said the next four years would witness a series of works in other similar projects as well.

Of the remaining works, the largest project would be in the south of Wukair where more than 3,500 plots would be allotted, it is learnt.

According to the informa-tion provided by the Ashghal authorities, infrastructural development works would be carried out in a phased manner in such locations as the West of Abu Hamour/Ain Khalid (255 land plots), South of Sheehaniya (280 plots),

West of Umm Slal Ali (216 plots), Rawdat Egdaim and Izghawa (592 plots), North of Nassriya (461 plots), Al Froosh/Al Kharaitiyat (619 plots), Al Kheesa (197 plots), West of Al Khor/Al Edga (679 plots), West and South

of Smeisma (1,122 plots), Al Wukair South (3,508 land plots) and Rawdat Al Jihaniya (637 plots).

It is also learnt from Ash-ghal offi cials that almost 90% of the allotted plots are of the same measure-

ment and provisions would be made for amenities other than residences in the areas where projects are under-taken. Mosques, green areas, recreational areas and other facilities including schools would also be made.

Residences being built alongside a newly laid road as part of the Citizens Residences Project in Al Mashaf area. PICTURE: Ram Chand

QATAR7Gulf Times

Wednesday, March 8, 2017

SMEs among top IoT users: Vodafone execBy Peter AlagosBusiness Reporter

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are among the leading sectors

in Qatar that are benefi ting from the advantages provided by the Internet of Things (IoT), an of-fi cial of Vodafone Qatar has said.

“IoT initiatives and solutions are cost effi cient, which is why many SMEs are relying on tech-nology in order to save and bring costs down. This is why Voda-fone is catering to many SMEs on a daily basis and providing them the necessary solutions that meet their business needs,” Vodafone Qatar’s Enterprise Sales director Sheikh Hamad bin Abdullah al-Thani told Gulf Times yesterday on the sidelines of Qitcom 2017.

“Since their businesses are small, they are agile and it makes it easy for them to adapt to the constant changes in technology…I am sure that Qatar is adapting very quickly to these technologi-cal advancements.”

Sheikh Hamad stressed that Vodafone is helping organisa-tions of all sizes optimise, au-tomate, and innovate using IoT technologies.

“This is a technology revolu-tion that Vodafone is bringing to Qatar to support eff orts to build a knowledge-based economy with a vibrant ICT sector that works as an enabler of Qatar National Vi-sion 2030.

“In essence, this technology opens up a range of exciting pos-sibilities for businesses regard-ing how they operate, how they grow, and how they can provide superior customer experience. By analysing relevant data and immediate feedback on how their

assets are being used, businesses can improve performance and reduce their costs.”

Yesterday, Vodafone offi cially launched its ‘Asset Tracking’ and ‘Connected Cabinets’ solutions in Qatar, in partnership with Zelitron.

Zelitron Business Develop-ment director Dimitris Flokos said with Vodafone’s mobile as-set tracking solution, custom-ers can follow where their assets go “with complete visibility and control.”

“Mobile assets are critical to all businesses, whether they are de-livery trucks or plant machinery, shipping containers, or pallets. By monitoring the status of these key assets in the fi eld, a customer can ensure that they are put to the best possible use.

“And Vodafone’s connected cabinets solution will help cus-tomers optimise the perform-ance of their remote retail cabi-nets such as drinks, fridges, and freezers, transforming them into intelligent, connected as-sets that can report on their location, operating conditions and stock levels in real time,” he explained.

‘Asset Tracking’ and ‘Con-nected Cabinets’ follows the Jan-uary 2017 launch of Vodafone’s ‘Fleet Management’ solution, a telematics service designed to track and perform logistics man-agement for companies aiming to enhance productivity and tackle road safety issues.

Similarly, Vodafone show-cased its global provisioning of managed IoT connectivity for Philips Lighting, real-time fa-cial image matching solutions for Video Surveillance Systems in partnership with Hitachi, and the latest evolutions in network technology with VoLTE and 5G showcases.

Vodafone chief technology of-fi cer Ramy Boctor said 5G will be the next generation of mobile technology, which the Interna-tional Telecoms Union expects to be formally defi ned by 2020. He added that Vodafone “is at the forefront of making 5G a com-mercial reality” with 5G tech-nologies research underway to prepare its networks for a tran-sition towards the new mobile standard.

Vodafone Qatar’s Enterprise Sales director Sheikh Hamad bin Abdullah al-Thani. PICTURE: Jayan Orma

WCM-Q annual research retreat focuses on successWeill Cornell Medicine — Qa-

tar’s (WCM-Q) seventh An-nual Research Retreat looked

at the transformation of biomedical re-search in Qatar and the accomplishments of WCM-Q’s scientists over the past year.

Delegates attended from a broad range of biomedical institutions to hear of the latest developments in bio-medical research, and to examine the work of students, research specialists and post-doctoral scientists.

Dr Khaled Machaca, associate dean for research at WCM-Q, said that the mission of the biomedical research programme was to create a centre of research excellence in Qatar.

He explained, “Our goal was to become a beacon of knowledge creation, contrib-uting to Qatar’s drive towards a knowl-edge-based economy, while also focusing on the health needs prevalent in Qatar.

“To be successful, we have had to create the infrastructure and develop the research workforce, thereby adding research capacity to the wider industry.

“Over a six-year period, our scien-tists had their work published in 587 publications, and this culminated in an annual citation rate of 3,411 citations in 2016 alone.”

Dr Machaca noted that the college now has 32 active laboratories, centred around eight research cores, and em-ploys 181 researchers, the vast majority of whom are recruited locally.

In addition, Research Division has trained 130 research specialists – 28 of whom are Qatari nationals.

The Nationals Training Programme

is also allowing WCM-Q to retain some of the extremely talented individuals as permanent employees.

Dr Javaid Sheikh, dean of WCMQ said, “Qatar has, in a very short time, established a robust research infra-structure and is conducting signifi cant basic research.

“This will support the commerciali-sation pipeline in the long term and will contribute towards Qatar transitioning to a knowledge-based economy.

“Multiple research institutions in Qatar are well on their way toward es-tablishing collaborative programmes in the fi elds of basic, translational, clinical and population research.”

The Research Retreat also featured a total of 92 poster presentations by research specialists, students, post-doctoral fellows and research associ-ates from WCMQ, highlighting a broad spectrum of scientifi c areas.

The event closed with the an-nouncement of the winners of the poster presentation in three categories.

Dr Javaid Sheikh

Faculty and staff pose with the winners and runners-up in the poster exhibition.

Caution against ‘unoffi cial’ weight loss supplementsBy Joseph VargheseStaff reporter

Any oral tablet or supplement from unoffi -cial sources should not be used for weight loss purposes without proper direction or

prescription from doctors as they could be harm-ful, some offi cials from Hamad Medical Corpora-tion (HMC) have cautioned.

“Take medications only through prescriptions from doctors. There is a growing practice among people to get such supplements either ordered online or brought in from other countries. When such items are checked clinically, we fi nd that they contain several elements which cause dam-age to the body,” said Dr Buthina Ibrahim, senior consultant, endocrinology and diabetes at HMC.

Recently, it has been noticed that people are selling such products under the banner of dietary supplements. These are supplements to be taken

orally and it is claimed that they could reduce body weight considerably within a short period.

“Such supplements are multi-billion dollar business all over the world. They are sold under diff erent names and most of them claim that they are herbal. Some of them can be harmful as they cause diarrhoea and people lose weight. Some of them make people dehydrated and cause kid-ney failure,” said Dr Wahiba M Elhag , consultant bariatric medicine surgery, HMC .

Dr Moataz Bashah, consultant, bariatric medi-cine surgery, HMC said that such supplements are not approved either by HMC or the Ministry of Public Health.

“Some of these products can have have adverse eff ects caused by bacteria. Many such medica-tions are claimed to be herbal and people feel that all herbal produces are safe. If people are al-ready taking other medications they should not use these supplements as they can cause serious complications,” he added.

Volvo recalls model

The Ministry of Economy and Commerce (MEC), in collaboration with Doha

Marketing Services Company (Domasco), has announced the recall of Volvo V40 2017 model over a potential malfunction in the driver airbag.

The MEC said the recall cam-paign comes within the frame-work of its ongoing eff orts to protect consumers and ensure that car dealers follow up on ve-hicle defects and repairs.

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

The MEC has urged all cus-tomers to report any violations to its Consumer Protection and Anti-Commercial Fraud De-partment through the follow-ing channels: Hotline: 16001, e-mail: info@mec.gov.qa, Twit-ter: @MEC_Qatar, Instagram: MEC_Qatar, MEC mobile app for Android and IOS: MEC_Qatar

QEWC’s Lusail tower to be ready by 2020

The Qatar Electricity and Water Company’s (QEWC) adminis-

trative tower, to be built in Lusail, will be ready in De-cember 2020, according to information provided by the company at its annual gen-eral meeting on Monday.

A technical committee of the board members had been constituted and 18 proposals received when the design and consultancy services were tendered. The committee has shortlisted two designs and one will selected.

The tender for construc-tion will be fl oated by August 15 this year and approvals are expected by October.

The tower is expected to be completed in August 2020 and may be handed over to

the company management by December that year.

Besides the administrative tower, the complex would have adequate space which would be utilised as an in-vestment for the company.

It was also announced that the power and water purchase agreement for Ras Abu Fontas B between QEWC and Qatar General Electricity and Water Corp (Kahramaa) will expire in October this year and the company has proposed the extension of the agreement for 12 years until the end of 2029.

It has also been informed that the deal for acquiring 35% share of the 2045 MW Paiton Power Plant of Indo-nesia by the QEWC-owned Nebras Power was completed in December 2016.

Forum on Palestine from today

In association with about 75 organi-sations, Qatar Charity (QC) will organise the Humanitarian and

Developmental Forum for Palestine (HDFP) from today at The Westin Doha Hotel.

As part of the forum, to be held with the attendance of many experts and specialists, a number of technical ses-sions and workshops will be conducted

and developmental and humanitarian initiatives launched.

The forum is sponsored by Qatar Fund for Development and a number of other International Organisations Over the last fi ve years QC has carried out projects worth approximately $148mn for the benefi t of the Palestinian people.

It is expected that the forum would make recommendations with regard to

launching projects to support the in-terests of the Palestinian people.

The OCHA (Offi ce for the Co-or-dination of Humanitarian Aff airs), UNRWA, Organisation of Islamic Co-operation, The United Nations De-velopment Programme in Palestine (UNDP), Doctors without Borders, and Welfare Association-Palestine are also supporting the event.

QATAR

Gulf Times Wednesday, March 8, 20178

Porsche accepting orders for Panamera Sport TurismoPorsche Centre Doha has started accepting or-

ders for the all-new Panamera Sport Turismo which is celebrating its world premiere at the

2017 Geneva Motor Show that opened yesterday.The Sport Turismo, with up to 550hp, off ers the

perfect combination of everyday usability and maxi-mum fl exibility, with its large tailgate, low loading edge, substantial luggage compartment volume and a 4+1 seating concept.

“The Panamera Sport Turismo is a step forward into a new segment, but retains all of those values and attributes that are characteristic of Porsche”, says Michael Mauer, director of Style Porsche.

From a technological and design perspective, the Sport Turismo utilises all the innovations introduced with the latest Panamera model line. These include the digital Porsche Advanced Cockpit, chassis sys-tems, such as rear axle steering, and the Porsche Dy-namic Chassis Control.

In addition, all Panamera Sport Turismo vehicles feature the standard Porsche Traction Management, an active all-wheel drive system with electronically controlled multi-plate clutch. For all S- and Turbo-models, adaptive air suspension with three-chamber technology is also part of the standard equipment.

Beginning from the B-pillars (start of the rear doors), the Sport Turismo features a completely unique rear design. Above the pronounced shoulder, an elongated window line and equally long roof con-tour lend the vehicle its striking appearance. At the rear, the roof drops less dramatically than the window line, resulting in a distinctive D-pillar which transi-tions into the shoulder section in a coupé-like fash-ion.

The roof extends into an adaptive spoiler with three angles of deployment, depending on the driving situ-ation and chosen vehicle setting. The system gener-ates additional downforce of maximum 50kg on the rear axle.

Up to a speed of 170 km/h, the spoiler stays in its retracted position with an angle of minus seven de-grees, reducing drag and optimising fuel consump-tion. Above 170km/h, the roof spoiler automatically moves to the performance position with an angle of plus one degree, thereby increasing driving sta-bility and lateral dynamics. When Sport and Sport Plus driving modes have been selected, the spoiler automatically moves to the performance position at speeds from 90km/h. The angle of inclination is automatically adjusted to plus 26 degrees, when the panoramic sunroof is open at a speed of 90 km/h or above. In this case, the spoiler helps to minimise wind noise.

The new Sport Turismo is the fi rst Panamera to feature three rear seats. The two outside seats take the form of individual seats, producing a 2+1 confi gu-ration. As an option, the Panamera Sport Turismo is also available in a four-seat confi guration with two electrically adjustable individual seats in the rear.

The usability of the luggage compartment benefi ts from the electrically operated, wide tailgate, and a loading edge height of just 628mm.

The backrests of the three rear seats can be folded down together or individually and are unlocked elec-

trically from the luggage compartment. When all backrests are folded down, the loading fl oor is virtually level and off ers a storage volume of up to 1,390 litres (Panamera 4 E-Hybrid Sport Turismo: 1,295 litres), resulting in a total gain of 50 litres when compared to the luxury se-dan.

Porsche off ers a luggage compartment management system for the Panamera Sport Turismo on request. Among other things, this variable system for the secure transportation of goods includes two rails integrated in the

loading fl oor, four lashing points and a luggage compartment partition net. An optional 230-V electrical socket can also be provided in the boot.

The fi rst models of Panamera Sport Tur-ismo are expected to arrive early next year. Basic retail prices in Qatar are: Panamera 4 Sport Turismo (330hp) – QR422,000; Pan-amera 4E-Hybrid Sport Turismo (462hp) – QR470,300; Panamera 4S Sport Turismo (440hp) – QR497,300 and Panamera Turbo Sport Turismo (550hp) – QR695,800.

Be content with what you have: Sheikh Faisal

HE Sheikh Faisal bin Qassim al-Thani with Dr César O Malavé and associate dean Dr Hassan S Bazzi during the talk.

Texas A&M Univer-sity at Qatar (Tamuq) recently hosted HE

Sheikh Faisal bin Qassim al-Thani, founder and chair-man of Al Faisal Holding, during a Dean’s Leadership Series lecture in the branch campus’ building at Educa-tion City.

During his talk, HE Sheikh Faisal praised the mission of the branch campus in con-tributing to the development goals of Qatar by educating exemplary engineers.

“Having a degree, getting an education in Qatar is bet-ter than getting one abroad. Here, you are actively par-ticipating in the culture and building connections that will serve you in your profes-sional life. Upon graduation, you are a step ahead to build a career and you also have the knowledge to build your country better than how you found it,” he said.

His closing words were “to be content with what you have in order to build a bet-

ter, sustainable future and seek out a virtuous circle of friends from whom you can benefi t and grow from, and engage in lifelong learning with”.

Tamuq dean Dr César O Malavé said: “Leadership is a core value instilled in every student at Texas A&M Uni-versity, and His Excellency is an inspirational business and cultural leader in Qatar. We are honoured to have him share his experience and wisdom with our students, who will be the next genera-tion of engineering leaders in Qatar.”

Born in Al Markhiya in 1948, HE Sheikh Faisal is one of Qatar’s most successful businessmen and has played a signifi cant role in the de-velopment of the business sector in Qatar. The story of Al Faisal Holding’s growth and development refl ects the same entrepreneurial vision, drive and innovative think-ing that has seen the trans-formation of Qatar into one

of the world’s strongest and fastest-growing economies, according to a press state-ment from Tamuq.

Originally created with modest start-up capital in 1964 as a small, local trad-ing company, founder and chairman HE Sheikh Faisal has built that business over the past fi ve decades into one of Qatar’s largest pri-vately held diversifi ed in-dustry groups with opera-tions that continue to grow across local, regional and international markets, the statement adds.

HE Sheikh Faisal has also pioneered the establish-ment of a heritage venue, the Sheikh Faisal Bin Qassim Al Thani Museum, with the objective of reviving public interest and appreciation of local culture.

This window to the beauty and splendour of the past of Qatar and the Islamic world has been opened for people from all walks of life to view and experience.

Panamera Turbo Sport Turismo

Most transactions of MoI’sservices done electronicallyAround 90,694 vehicles were registered

and 94,680 driving licences issued in 2016, according to statistics issued by the

Ministry of Interior (MoI). A majority - or 67% - of the total transactions conducted last year to avail of diff erent services provided by the MoI was carried out electronically.

The data also showed that the number of transactions conducted through the Metrash2 application in 2016 - 2,267,698 - marked a 75.3% increase as compared to 2015.

The MoI provided details of transactions car-ried out in 2016 in a report yesterday.

Noting that it “achieved substantial devel-opment in enhancing its services for the pub-lic through its various departments”, the min-istry said it implemented a number of plans and strategies in order to simplify procedures and save the time and effort of service seek-ers.

These included expansion of its services net-work in diff erent parts of the State and trans-forming manual services to electronic ones through the Metrash2 application as well as the website of the ministry, Hukoomi or self-service kiosks.

In all, the MoI completed more than 71.5mn (71,565,367) transactions in 2016, the report noted.

This translated to an average of 5,963,781

transactions monthly and 198,793 daily.Also, the average number of transactions per

hour was 8,283 with 138 transactions conducted every minute.

Around 67%, or 47,948,796, of the total trans-actions were conducted electronically, while service centres accounted for the remaining 33% with 23,616,571 transactions.

Meanwhile, the number of Metrash2 sub-scribers reached 303,527 in 2016, the report said, adding that some 96 services are now available through the application.

Using Metrash2 helps users save time and ef-fort to a “great extent”, the MoI added.

Further, the ministry said an analysis of these statistics points to the progress it has made in providing services electronically to the public.

These advancements are “based on the con-cept of transforming into ‘a paperless ministry’,

with all sections of the ministry doing their best to develop their services through constant scien-tifi c studies, research and statistics”, according to the report.

In terms of emergency services, a total of 3,389,606 calls were made to 999 in 2016, which included requests pertaining to traffi c, injuries, illnesses, complaints, enquiries, fi re reports and other personal services.

The number of visa services amounted to 6,857,124 in 2016, while residency-related trans-actions reached 3,245,873.

Also, 18,583,651 entry and exit movements were recorded through diff erent ports.

A total of 46,947 Police Clearance Certifi cates were issued last year along with 56,265 building permits.

Besides, 972,007 vehicular inspections were conducted, the MoI report said.

MoPH vaccinates 3,527 students against TdaPAs many as 3,527 students have been vaccinated in 58 schools against tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis (TdaP) as part of the Ministry of Public Health’s (MoPH) annual campaign to vaccinate 10 graders from private schools in the country. Vaccination in private schools will continue until early next week. In government schools, medical teams from Primary Health Care Corporation will hold vaccination from March 12 to 16. The TdaP vaccination campaign is organised by the Health Protection and Communicable Diseases Control Department at MoPH through its vaccination section. It is organised for the seventh year in collaboration with the Primary Health Care Corporation and the Ministry of Education and Higher Education. The campaign is targeting grade ten students as these diseases and considered dangerous and can cause disability or even death among young adults. Health protection and Communicable Diseases Control Department at the MoPH has advised all parents to urge their sons and daughters to take advantage of the opportunity.

Satisfaction survey

A public satisfaction survey conducted to as-

sess people’s opinion about diff erent services

off ered by the Ministry of Interior (MoI) in 2016

showed that the satisfaction level had reached

95%, marking an improvement over the previous

years.

Informing this yesterday, the MoI said the

eff iciency of the services it provides to the public

is assessed through diff erent mechanisms, one of

which is the satisfaction survey.

These eff orts have helped improve the ef-

ficiency levels through its service centres in diff er-

ent parts of the country and electronic systems

with accuracy and speed, the ministry added.

QATAR9Gulf Times

Wednesday, March 8, 2017

Q-Post, QMIC ink pact for new delivery platformBy Joey AguilarStaff Reporter

Local delivery services in Qatar will soon become easier and faster with Tasleem, a new plat-

form designed to meet the rapidly ex-panding e-Commerce market in the region.

“Tasleem (which means delivery) will optimise the delivery process to meet expanding customer expecta-tions and do it in an economically effi cient manner,” Qatar Mobility In-novations Centre (QMIC) executive director Dr Adnan Abu-Dayya said yesterday.

QMIC signed an agreement with Qatar Postal Services Company (Q-

Post) at the fourth Qatar Informa-tion and Communication Technol-ogy (ICT) Conference and Exhibition (Qitcom) to support on-demand local delivery services in the country and in neighbouring GCC countries.

The two national entities will work jointly in using Tasleem in the next few months as a standalone local de-livery platform, paving the way for a potential large-scale launch at a later stage.

In addition, Q-Post and QMIC will collaborate to further evolve Tasleem to tackle diff erent use cases and ad-dress diff erent deployment scenarios. This will ensure it is fully tailored to meet the needs and growing demands of local and regional markets.

Tasleem is the latest addition to

QMIC’s expanding set of locally-built platforms and services in the area of intelligent mobility, according to Dr Abu-Dayya.

He said Tasleem compliments tra-ditional delivery methods and off ers many advantages by reducing delivery time, optimising effi ciency by better utilising the available resources and using extra ones, and by enhancing the customer experience and satisfac-tion.

Described as an “enterprise-centric solution,” he pointed out that Tasleem is set to fi ll an important market gap in terms of enabling large-scale crowd logistics services to support local e-commerce businesses, enterprises, and government.

“Q-Post is embarking on a major

digital transformation initiative to broaden the set and enhance the qual-ity of services we deliver to our cus-tomers,” chairman and managing di-rector Faleh Mohamed al-Naemi said. “We are excited to work with QMIC to explore the potential of its new in-novative local delivery platform that can complement our existing delivery channels,” he noted.

Tasleem will aid these enterprises by off ering an end-to-end technology platform to organise and better man-age the local delivery demand. It will also provide additional pool of drivers only when needed so that enterprise can optimise the delivery process to meet expanding customer expecta-tions and do it in an economically ef-fi cient manner.

Dr Adnan Abu-Dayya and Faleh Mohamed al-Naemi after signing the agreement to implement Tasleem. PICTURE: Jayan Orma

MoI’s digital services showcased at QitcomThe General Directorate of In-

formation Systems (GDIS) and the Telecom Department at

the Ministry of Interior showcased their modern equipment and digital services yesterday at Qitcom 2017. In its pavilion, the GDIS displayed sev-eral systems for using and completing transactions on smart phones and the Ministry’s web portal through its Me-trash2 app.

Statistics of the MoI’s achievements in 2016 and guidelines on using its services are also shown at the pavil-ion at the Qatar National Convention Centre. Brigadier engineer Abdul Rah-man Ali al-Maliki, assistant director of GDIS, said that they are demon-strating nearly 211 electronic services, which are accessible through the Min-istry’s website or Metrash 2.

In 2016, more than 2.1mn transac-tions have been completed through Metrash 2 and 6.7mn transactions through other electronic services.

“It is notable that almost 67% of all transactions are now done electroni-cally without visiting the government agencies concerned,” he noted.

Meanwhile, the Telecom Depart-ment has exhibited state-of-the-art devices and equipment used to en-hance function and communication of diff erent departments of MoI.

Captain engineer Abdullah Qaid

Saleh, head of Wireless Services, said that the pavilion is highlighting its functions of providing 4G telecom services between diff erent MoI de-partments and patrolling units such as Al Fazaa, Traffi c and Lekhwiya.

“The shared communication de-pends on the fi bre-optic infrastruc-ture, which supports high-speed communication, and provides high-level security for these communica-tions, he explained.

The Telecom Department has also exhibited a number of modern tech-nology systems such as connecting the cameras on patrolling cars to the oper-ations room, as well as other services, which enhance follow-up of security patrols using a map that can deter-mine their locations and availability. The Telecom Department also facili-tates video conference service, which enables meetings without commuting to various places.

MoI showcases its state-of-the-art devices and equipment at Qitcom 2017.

Global experts discuss mobility and challenges

Mobility and connectedness have been the focus of discussion at four panel sessions yesterday at the fourth Qatar Information and Communication Technology Conference and Exhibition (Qitcom), which concludes today at the Qatar National Convention Centre.Ministry of Transport and Communica-tion assistant undersecretaries Rashid al-Nabit and Hassan al-Sayed were joined by senior executives from Lusail Real Estate Development Company, Qatar Ports Management Company, and Qatar Development Bank on stage during the session.Azerbaijan’s Minister of Communications and High Technology Elmir Velizadeh introduced the theme of connected-ness, citing his country’s strategic plan to become a leading media hub as part of Asia – connected by the ‘one belt, one road’. Dr Allan James, vice president of Worldwide Business Development at Hyperloop One, talked about the future of mobility, giving the audience an idea about the implications of hyperloop travel.He said hyperloop will create ‘transfor-mation economics’, which will enable

the developing world to skip public transformation infrastructure as it is known today. “This could result in the creation of super regions like ‘Stocksinki’ and ‘Talksinki’, where cities are able to optimise and share services and social infrastructure,” he added.Ooredoo Qatar CEO Waleed al-Sayed talked about human and social develop-ment enabled by technology, followed by Smart Dubai director general Dr Aisha bin Bashr, who spoke about the importance of prioritising ‘happiness’ and creating a ‘happiness’ agenda. Antoni Vives, former mayor of the city

of Barcelona, urged those involved in urban development to adopt a ‘first city, then technology’ approach.The transport and logistics panel saw a lively discussion on challenges and op-portunities for Qatar and other regional countries. Dr Ulrich Koegler, partner at PwC, pointed out that productivity is increas-ing, and this can be capitalised by government through the introduction of standards, forward looking and adap-tive regulation, and the incentivising of experiments.Silvester Prakasm of the Land Transport

Experts during a panel session at Qitcom yesterday.

Authority of Singapore reminded the audience that sometimes, “the biggest barrier to technology is human acceptance and hard work is required to win trust.”Speakers on the panel tack-ling digital clusters agreed on the importance of an existing community with a clear specialty and insights. Steve Fifita, executive direc-tor at City Digital UILabs USA, stressed the need for government funding and frameworks. Cross-sector collaboration and public-private-start up engagement to deliver on both digital clusters and smart cities was a point strongly made by Spain StartUp founder and CEO Maria Benjumea and Director of the Internet of Things and City Digisation North Europe for Cisco Bas Boorsma.Panel sessions also covered the importance of cyberse-curity, data privacy, regula-tion, and interoperability.

REGION/ARAB WORLD

Gulf TimesWednesday, March 8, 201710

Top brands set for showcase at Dubai Watch Week in November

Dubai Watch Week (DWW) re-turns for its third edition in No-vember 2017, under the patron-

age of Sheikha Latifa bint Mohamed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, vice chairman of Dubai Culture & Arts Authority.

Organised by Ahmed Seddiqi & Sons in partnership with the Fondation de la Haute Horlogerie (FHH), Dubai Watch Week will once again host key industry spokespeople and leading horological

personalities during the fi ve-day cul-tural and educational event.

DWW’s objective is to educate the public on the skills and knowledge of mechanical watchmaking as well as raise awareness surrounding some of the watch industry challenges.

The event has been recognised as a significant meeting point for the watch industry as it creates an inti-mate platform for collectors, brands,

watchmakers and the members of the media to interact and share knowl-edge.

DWW is a non-commercial event that will continuously foster the in-terests of its regional watch commu-nity by promoting Dubai as a plat-form for horological enthusiasts and experts.

Known as ‘curators of time’ since 1950, Ahmed Seddiqi & Sons is one of

the Middle East’s most trusted desti-nation for luxury watches and jewel-lery.

The family owned and run com-pany represents more than 60 luxury timepiece brands across 65 locations in the UAE.

Ahmed Seddiqi & Sons has an ex-clusive partnership with the largest luxury watch and jewellery after-sales centre of its kind, the Swiss

Watch Services. Established in 2005, the objective of the FHH is to pro-mote the values of fine watchmaking worldwide. Created in 2005 at the in-itiative of its three founders – Aude-mars Piguet, Girard-Perregaux and the Richemont group – the Founda-tion has grown with the years, gain-ing in size and scope.

There are 28 partner brands that fund the FHH’s projects. They are A

Lange & Sohne, Audemars Piguet, Bovet 1822, Bulgari, Cartier, Chanel, Chopard, Christophe Claret, De Bet-hune, F P Journe, Girard-Perregaux, Greubel Forsey, H Moser, Hermes, Hyt, Iwc, Jaeger-Lecoultre, Louis Vuitton, Mb&F, Montblanc, Officine Panerai, Parmigiani Fleurier, Piaget, Richard Mille, Roger Dubuis, Tag Heuer, Vacheron Constantin, Van Cleef & Arpels.

US govt pledges ‘great strictness’on Iran N-dealReutersVienna

US President Donald Trump’s administra-tion pledged yesterday

to show “great strictness” over restrictions on Iran’s nuclear activities imposed by a deal with major powers, but gave little indication of what that might mean for the agreement.

The 2015 deal between Iran and six major powers restricts

Tehran’s nuclear programme in exchange for the lifting of in-ternational economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

Trump has called the agree-ment “the worst deal ever ne-gotiated”. His administration is now carrying out a review of the accord which could take months, but it has said little about where it stands on specifi c issues.

The Trump administration also gave few clues about any potential policy shift yester-day in a statement to a quar-

terly meeting of the UN nuclear watchdog’s Board of Governors.

“The United States will ap-proach questions of JCPOA in-terpretation, implementation, and enforcement with great strictness indeed,” the statement to the International Atomic En-ergy Agency’s (IAEA) 35-nation board said, citing the deal’s full name: the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

But the US statement, the fi rst to the Board of Governors since Trump took offi ce in Janu-ary, also repeated language used by the administration of former US president Barack Obama, for whom the deal was a legacy achievement.

“Iran must strictly and fully adhere to all commitments and technical measures for their du-ration,” it said — wording identi-cal to that used in the US state-ment to the previous Board of Governors meeting in Novem-ber. The IAEA, which polices the restrictions on Iran’s nuclear ac-tivities under the deal, last month produced a quarterly report say-ing that Iran’s stock of enriched uranium had halved after coming close to a limit imposed by the agreement.

That report was the fi rst to specify how much enriched ura-nium Iran has, thanks to a series of agreements between Tehran and major powers clarifying items that would not count towards the stock.

Some major powers had criti-cised previous reports for not be-ing specifi c enough on items such as the size of the enriched uranium stock, and the US statement called for future reports to be as detailed.

“We welcome inclusion of the additional level of detail, and ex-pect it will continue in the future,” it said.

Two Yemeni boys were killed in a drone strike while walking on a road in central Yemen used by Al Qaeda militants who have been subject to repeated strikes by US forces in recent days, residents said yesterday. They named the boys as Ahmed and Mohamed al-Khobze, two brothers both under 15, and said they were killed on Monday on a road used by mili-tants in Yakla, an area in Al-Bayda province.

Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Housing has set up a 98mn riyal ($26mn) partnership with a private devel-oper to build 462 housing units in the east of the capital, it said yesterday. It is the ministry’s first public-private partnership and could become a model for the kingdom’s home construction plans, which aim to make home ownership more accessible for Saudis. The government is strug-gling to meet demand for homes for its young and growing popula-tion of 21mn nationals, while also cutting back on its traditionally generous public spending after a sharp fall in oil prices since 2014.The ministry will hold 13.63% in the new venture with Al-Tahaluf Real Estate Company, which is jointly owned by Saudi Arabia’s Hamad bin Mohamed bin Saedan Real Estate Investment Group and US-based Hovnanian Enterprises Inc.

Two children killed in Yemen drone strike

Saudi ministry sets up venture to build homes

UNREST

HOUSING

Army captures water station supplying Aleppo from ISReuters Beirut/Ankara

The Syrian army and its allies have captured the main water pumping

station that supplies Aleppo in a sweeping advance against Islamic State that has brought them to the bank of the Euphra-tes, a group that monitors the confl ict said yesterday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the army and allied forces made rapid gains east of Aleppo city, as Syrian and Russian planes pounded the rural areas.

They recaptured the Al-Khafsa area on the western bank of the Euphrates River, where the water treatment and pumping plants are located, af-ter the militant group withdrew the Observatory said.

A Syrian military source had said earlier yesterday that the army had advanced to areas “very close” to both.

Aleppo’s main water supply has been cut off for nearly two months, and the city’s residents now rely mainly on ground wells or water purchased from private vendors.

A military media unit run by Hezbollah, a Lebanese ally which is fi ghting alongside President Bashar al-Assad’s government forces, also quoted a military source as saying the army had advanced and re-gained the Al-Khafsa area.

Islamic State is losing ground in northern Syria to three separate campaigns — by the Russian-backed Syrian army, by US-backed Syrian militias, and by Turkey and allied Syrian rebel groups.

Aleppo was Syria’s most

populous city before the war began nearly six years ago and has been entirely in govern-ment hands since December when the last rebel enclave in its eastern districts was overrun following months of intense fi ghting.

The United States appears to have decided to enlist the help of Kurdish YPG militia in a campaign to push Islamic State out of its stronghold in Raqqa, Syria, thwarting Turkey’s am-bitions, a senior Turkish offi cial said.

Meanwhile, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said Turkey, the United States and Russia must co-ordinate to clear Syria of terrorist groups.

The three countries’ chiefs of staff were working to prevent clashes between the diff erent parties.

Yildirim spoke as Turkey’s

military chief of staff met his US and Russian counterparts in the southern Turkish province of Antalya to discuss co-ordi-nation in Syria.

The official said the results of the meeting “could change the whole picture”.

“...It appears that the US may carry out this operation with the YPG, not with Tur-key. And at the same time the US is giving weapons to the YPG,” the official said.

“If this operation is carried out in this manner there will be a cost for Turkey-US rela-tions, because the YPG is a terrorist organisation...”

Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Dunford attended the three-party meeting at the invi-tation of his Turkish coun-terpart, a spokesman for Dunford said.

A Syrian child stands in a school that was partially damaged in an air strike yesterday, in the rebel-held town of Utaya, in the eastern Ghouta region on the outskirts of Damascus.

Tehran rejects moves to seize 9/11 compensation

Iran said yesterday it was “com-pletely unfair” for US lawyers to try to seize its overseas assets as compensation for the victims of the September 11, 2001 at-tacks.In 2012, a New York judge ordered Iran to pay $7bn in damages to the families and estates of victims from the at-tacks, arguing that the country had aided Al Qaeda by allowing the group’s members to travel through its territory.Since Iran rejects the accusation and refuses to pay the money, the lawyers are now trying to access $1.6bn of Iranian money frozen in a Luxembourg bank, according to a report in The New York Times on Monday.“Some opponents of the Islamic republic of Iran...have tried to broaden a US domestic law — which is completely unfair and baseless — to apply outside America,” said deputy foreign minister Majid Takht Ravanchi, according to the IRNA news agency.The Iranian central bank’s legal aff airs director Ardeshir Ferey-

douni said Tehran’s assets can-not be touched before a verdict. Quoted by IRNA, he also called the US eff orts “against interna-tional law” and “unenforceable”.Billions of dollars in Iranian as-sets were frozen in the US and Europe as part of eff orts to push Tehran into a nuclear deal with world powers, which was finally signed in July 2015.Some Iranian assets remain fro-zen despite the deal, in part due to ongoing compensation cases — not just for the 2001 attacks but also the bombing of a US Marines barracks in Lebanon in 1983 that killed 241 Americans.“Iran’s frozen money in Luxem-bourg belongs to the period before the (nuclear) negotiations and Iran’s (central bank) lawyers are engaged in consultations to obtain it,” Ravanchi said.He said there had been no new developments in recent days.Default judgements from various cases against Iran have so far added up to more than $50bn in compensation, al-though no money has yet been delivered.

Iran said yesterday it would continue its retalia-tory measure of barring US visitors in response to President Donald Trump’s updated travel ban on predominantly Muslim countries.“Our earlier counter-measure against Trump’s previ-ous order is still in place,” said deputy foreign minister Majid Takht Ravanchi at a conference entitled “What to do about Trump’s America”.“There is no need for a new decision,” he said, accord-

ing to the ISNA news agency. Iran’s foreign ministry announced in January it would ban Americans from entering the country in response to Trump’s “insult-ing” order restricting arrivals from Iran and six other Muslim states.It called the decision “illegal, illogical and contrary to international rules”. The White House re-issued the ban on Monday — this time excluding Iraq but still targeting Iranians — following legal challenges.

Ban on American visitors in response to Trump orderRESTRICTION

Fearing bread subsidy cuts, Egyptians hold protestsReutersAlexandria, Egypt

Hundreds of Egyptians protested around the country yesterday, blocking roads and surrounding

government offi ces, after a change to the way bread rations are managed raised fears that the government was cutting food subsidies by the back door.

Bread subsidies are an explosive issue in Egypt, where over 70mn receive state rations. Core infl ation in the country has soared above 30% since Egypt fl oated its currency in November, securing a $12bn loan package from the International Mon-etary Fund (IMF) to support a government austerity programme.

Protests began on Monday after chang-es to a bread subsidy scheme left some people without their ration.

Unrest grew yesterday, with angry crowds gathering in the port city of Alex-andria, in at least one poor Cairo neigh-bourhood, and several other cities across Egypt. Supply_Uprising became the top trending Twitter hashtag for Egypt as

Egyptians posted pictures of confused people outside bakeries and in the street.

“We were surprised when the bakers refused to give us bread with the excuse that the Supply Ministry reduced their rations,” said Ahmed Faraj, an Alexandria resident.

Most protests drew small crowds and dissipated quickly, but off ered the fi rst major evidence of public anger over rising living costs.

“We are suff ering from high prices. We have nothing left to live on but bread and now the government wants to deprive us of it,” said Samia Darwish, a 50-year-old homemaker in Alexandria. Egypt operates a system in which each family receives a plastic card to buy fi ve subsidised loaves per person per day. The government then pays bakeries a subsidy per loaf.Bakers also receive “gold cards” to sell bread to individuals without a smartcard — gener-ally those waiting for cards.

The Supply Ministry issued a state-ment on Monday denying it planned to cut bread subsidies after local media reported that rations would go from fi ve to three loaves a day.

Etihad advises checks with missions aft er new Trump order

Etihad Airways is advising some passengers to check with US diplomatic missions before travel-ling after US President Donald Trump signed a revised executive order banning visits by nation-als of six Muslim-majority nations.Monday’s order, which takes eff ect on March 16, keeps a 90-day ban on travel to the US by citizens of Iran, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. It applies only to new visa applicants, meaning

about 60,000 people whose visas were revoked by the previous order will now be permitted to en-ter. Etihad, based in the United Arab Emirates, said it was strongly encouraging nationals of the listed countries “to consult with their nearest United States embassy or consulate to ensure they are legally entitled to enter the United States.” Fellow UAE carrier Emirates said it was aware of the new order and would adhere to it.

ARAB WORLD11

Gulf Times Wednesday, March 8, 2017

Iraqi forces retake govt HQ, museumAFPMosul, Iraq

Iraqi forces said yesterday they had seized the main government offi ces in Mosul

and its famed museum as they made steady progress in their battle to retake the city’s west from militants.

The advances, which also in-cluded the recapture of three neighbourhoods, were an-nounced on the third day of a renewed off ensive against the Is-lamic State group in west Mosul — the largest remaining urban stronghold in the “caliphate” declared by the militants in 2014.

Supported by the US-led coa-lition bombing IS in Iraq and Syria, Iraqi forces began their push against west Mosul on Feb-ruary 19.

The advance slowed during several days of bad weather but was renewed on Sunday.

The latest gains have brought government troops and police closer to Mosul’s densely popu-lated Old City, where hundreds of thousands of civilians are be-lieved to still be trapped under IS rule.

Iraq’s Joint Operations Com-mand (JOC) said in a statement that federal police and the elite Rapid Response unit had been able to “liberate” the headquar-ters for the Nineveh provincial

government. They also seized control of the Al-Hurriyah bridgehead, it said, in a step to-wards potentially relinking west Mosul with the city’s east, which government forces seized from the militants earlier in the of-fensive.

All the bridges crossing the Tigris in Mosul have been dam-aged or destroyed, and Iraqi forces would either have to re-pair them or install fl oating bridges to reconnect the two banks of the river which divides the city.

Offi cers said yesterday that security forces had also managed to recapture the Mosul museum, where the militants destroyed priceless artefacts, releasing a video of their rampage in Febru-ary 2015.

The video showed militants at the museum knocking statues off their plinths and smashing them to pieces.

In another scene, a jackham-mer was used to deface a large Assyrian winged bull at an ar-chaeological site in the city.

The militants’ attacks on an-cient heritage in Iraq and Syria have sparked widespread inter-national outrage and fears for some of the world’s most pre-cious archaeological sites.

The museum was on a police list released yesterday of sites recaptured from IS, which also included Mosul’s central bank

building, which the militants looted along with other banks in 2014, seizing tens of millions of dollars.

The JOC announced yesterday that Iraqi forces had regained complete control of the west Mosul neighbourhoods of Al-Dawasa, Al-Danadan and Tal al-Ruman, bringing the total number of recaptured areas to 10.

In Al-Danadan, streets were left strewn with rubble and win-dows blown out of many houses.

“There was mortar rounds falling on us, they fell on the roof and in the courtyard,” said Man-hal, a 28-year-old resident of the area.

The recent fi ghting in west Mosul has forced more than

51,000 people to fl ee their homes, according to the Inter-national Organisation for Migra-tion. But the number who have fl ed is still just a fraction of the 750,000 people believed to have stayed on in west Mosul under IS rule.

Emerging from the chaos of the civil war in neighbouring Syria, IS seized control of large parts of Syria and Iraq in mid-2014, declaring its “caliphate” and committing widespread atrocities.

The US-led coalition launched air strikes against the militants in both countries several months later and has backed both Iraqi forces and fi ghters in Syria bat-tling IS.

The militants have been

pushed from most of the territo-ry they once seized but remain in control of key bastions including west Mosul and the caliphate’s de facto Syrian capital Raqa.

In Syria, they have faced of-fensives by three rival forces.

Turkish troops and their Syr-ian rebel allies have pushed south from the Turkish border and driven IS out of the northern town of Al-Bab.

Syrian government troops have driven east from second city Aleppo with Russian sup-port and seized a swathe of countryside from the militants.

The Syrian Observatory for Hu-man Rights, a Britain-based mon-itor of the confl ict, said yesterday that regime forces had neared a key water pumping station for Aleppo and a military airport un-der IS control.

“Regime forces are now on the outskirts of the Jarrah military air-port and the town of Al-Khafsah and the water pumping station,” it said.

A US-backed alliance of Kurd-ish and Arab fi ghters has been ad-vancing on Raqa and on Monday reached the Euphrates River cut-ting the main road to the partly IS-held city of Deir Ezzor down-stream. World powers have vowed increased co-operation in tackling the global threat from IS, which from its base in Syria and Iraq has organised or inspired a series of deadly attacks in foreign cities.

Tunnels uncover Assyrian winged bullsAFPMosul

Crawl through a labyrinth of narrow tunnels in near total darkness and

suddenly they appear: two great winged bulls dating from the Assyrian empire found intact under the ground of Mosul.

But as fi ghting rages to evict the Islamic State (IS) group from the main city in northern Iraq, it will be a race against time to save the archaeologi-cal treasures uncovered in the tunnels. The militants dug the network of tunnels to plunder artefacts under a hill reput-edly housing the tomb of the Prophet Jonah, the Nabi Yunus shrine which they dynamited in July 2014.

“We fear it could all collapse at any time,” entombing the treasures, said Layla Salih who is in charge of antiquities for Nineveh province.

“There are cave-ins in the tunnels every day.”

Iraqi authorities discovered the underground labyrinth, from which IS plundered to sell on the black market, after they recaptured east Mosul at the end of January.

Miraculously, several choice

pieces survived the looting and appear as the crouched visitor winds through the maze of tun-nels with its scent of damp clay.

Salih said the artefacts date back to the eighth century BC in the Assyrian period and hail from the palace of King Es-arhaddon whose existence in

the area was known to Iraqi ar-chaeologists.

Two mural sculptures in white marble show the winged bulls with only the sides and feet showing.

The tunnels lead to bas-re-liefs with inscriptions in cunei-form alphabet and two mural

sculptures of four women’s fac-es from the front. “These fi nds are very important. They teach us more about Assyrian art.

In general, their sculptures show people in profi le, whereas here we have women face on,” said Salih.

She said IS had not been able to extract many of the treasures for fear of the hill collapsing al-together but other removable artefacts, especially pottery, were certainly plundered.

Iraqi authorities found 107 items of pottery in a house east of Mosul that were in good con-dition and most likely exhumed from the tunnels of Nabi Yunus.

After their capture of swathes of Iraqi territory to the north and west of Baghdad in 2014, the militants carried out a widespread campaign of de-struction of archaeological and religious sites.

Many shocking scenes were fi lmed and posted on the Inter-net, such as the destruction of Nimrud, jewel of the Assyrian empire founded in the 13th cen-tury BC, with a bulldozer, pick-axes and explosives.

The hilltop of Nabi Yunus is a picture of desolation, the once elegant Jonah’s tomb reduced to a ruin of smashed and twisted columns.

In the Mosul region alone, “at least 66 archaeological sites have been destroyed, some of them transformed into parking lots.

Muslim and Christian places of worship have suff ered mas-sive destruction, thousands of manuscripts have disappeared”, Iraq’s Deputy Culture Minister Qais Rashid told a Unesco-or-ganised conference in Paris last month.

Salim Khalaf, a ministry offi -cial, said at the forum that more than 700 archaeological items had been exhumed from the tunnels of Nabi Yunus and sold on the black market.

The priority at the site is to carry out studies on how to sta-bilise the tunnels and save the hill from collapse, explained Salih.

“The security situation in the eastern sector of Mosul is still unstable. There’s fear of (IS) drones and terrorist attacks,” she said.

“We need foreign expertise, but to have that, security must be improved.”

As if to underline her point, columns of black smoke wafted into the sky over west Mosul as Iraqi forces kept up their anti-IS assault with shelling and

air strikes.

Hamas gets tough on drug smugglers in Gaza StripReutersGaza

Marijuana and pre-scription painkill-ers are fl ooding into

the Gaza Strip as never be-fore, prompting offi cials from the ruling group Hamas to seek tougher punishments for smuggling drugs into the blockaded territory.

The quantity of drugs seized in Gaza in January was as much as for the whole of 2016, offi cials said.

Eight major dealers were arrested in one of the biggest police stings to date.

Palestinian and Egyptian gangs move marijuana and an opioid painkiller called tra-madol from Egypt into Gaza, where

2mn Palestinians live in a territory about 45km long and up to 12km wide and where four in 10 young men have no job, pushing some towards drugs.

“They think tramadol will change the reality and will make them feel at peace,” said Fadel Abu Heen, a psy-chiatrist. “They want to lose awareness and any feeling of reality.”

In their latest raid, police seized more than 100kg of marijuana, worth as much as $5mn on the streets of Gaza, and 250,000 tablets of trama-dol, which sells for between 130 and 170 shekels ($35-$45) for 10 pills.

Until 2013, most smuggling was through a network of tun-nels Palestinians and Egyp-tians had built under the bor-der to move everything from food and consumer goods to cars, cattle and rockets.

But Egypt destroyed the tunnels — blowing them up or fl ooding them — in 2014 and 2015 to crack down on the trade.

Since then, smugglers have found new ways of shifting

merchandise. Drugs are moved inside cooking gas canisters or washing machines.

Sometimes, small quanti-ties are thrown or catapulted from Egypt into Gaza.

There are kilometres of tubes used to move small packages, and in some cases drugs are shipped inside goods imported from Israel.

“It is a problem but not a phenomenon,” said Ahmed al-Qidra, head of Gaza’s anti-drug squad.

“We suff er from it just as most countries all over the world.”

But sentences for drug deal-ing had become more lenient over the years and may have helped spur a resurgence, he said.

The law allows life sentenc-es and even the death penalty for drug smugglers, but many manage to escape long prison terms, he said.

Yehya al-Farra, an aide to Gaza’s attorney-general, said the courts needed to get at least tough as they were in 2009 when one dealer got 15 years in prison.

“The dealer who sells poi-son is a killer of the soul, he is the same as the killer who uses a gun or a knife,” Farra told Reuters.

“Therefore, the law states that a punishment up to the death penalty can be applied.”

He and Qidra want more re-cruits to the anti-drug squad and more medical facilities to treat addicts.

Inside a Gaza prison, con-victs urged men to reject drugs.

A 26-year-old barber said he started taking half a trama-dol a day after a friend off ered him some.

Soon he was addicted.“I urge young people...to

give up bad friends, otherwise they will be destroyed like me,” he said. “I was a respected man who knew a loser friend and I became a loser myself.”

Displaced Iraqis flee their homes while security forces battle with Islamic State militants, in western Mosul yesterday.

A government building is pictured during a battle with Islamic State militants in Mosul, Iraq yesterday.

A drug addict stands behind bars at a Hamas-run prison in Gaza City.

Tunisia PM praises Ben Guerdane battle as ‘turning point’AFPBen Guerdane, Tunisia

The battle against militants in Ben Guerdane a year ago was a “turning point”

for Tunisia, Prime Minister Youssef Chahed said yesterday during a visit to commemorate the anniversary.

Militant groups mounted a co-ordinated assault on security installations in the town on the border with Libya last March 7, aiming to win over residents and establish an “emirate” of the Is-lamic State group, according to Tunisia’s authorities.

At least 55 assailants were killed, along with 13 members of the security forces and seven civilians.

Tunisia, which was the tar-get of several IS attacks in 2015 in which 72 people were killed — 59 of them foreign tourists — has since been spared any major militant violence.

“March 7 is no longer an ordi-nary day in Tunisia. It has a sym-bolic value,” the prime minister said at a ceremony held under

tight security. “To the inhabit-ants of Ben Guerdane, the town of resistance, your victory in the March 7 battle, the victory of security agents, of our sol-diers, marked a turning point in the struggle against terrorism,” Chahed said.

An analyst with the Inter-national Crisis Group, Michael Ayari, said residents and se-curity forces in Ben Guerdane had shown “resilience, but that doesn’t mean Tunisia is im-mune” to the militant threat.

The attacks in 2015 and on Ben Guerdane in 2016 were fol-lowed by stronger security co-operation with Tunisia’s West-ern allies, especially in military equipment and on supervision of the 500-kilometre border with Libya.

Defence Minister Farhat Hor-chani backed up Chahed’s point.

“We showed that terrorism has no future in Tunisia...So long as the state is united, that the population is united, we will defeat this scourge,” he said.

During his visit, the premier announced several projects for Ben Guerdane.

A member of the Iraqi troops stands next to archaeological findings inside an underground tunnel in east Mosul.

AFRICA

Gulf Times Wednesday, March 8, 201712

UN Secretary General An-tonio Guterres has urged the international com-

munity to take action to avert famine in Somalia where a biting drought has left three million people going hungry.

Somalia is facing its third famine in the 25 years that it has been embroiled in civil war and anarchy.

A 2011 famine left 260,000 people dead in the Horn of Af-rica nation.

“There is a chance to avoid the worst ... but we need massive support from the international community to avoid a repetition of the tragic events of 2011,” said Guterres. “It justifi es a massive response.”

After a stop in Mogadishu, Guterres visited a camp of dis-placed people in the central city of Baidoa which has been hard-hit by the drought.

“The major factor for coming here was the drought. There is a lack of water, a lack of food. Our livestock has died,” said mother-of-six Mainouna, who arrived in the camp last month.

She only brought three of her children, the youngest of which

is one year old, and left the oth-ers with her family in the south-ern region of Middle Juba.

Guterres said the world had a “moral obligation” to help peo-ple like Mainouna.

Guterres earlier met Presi-dent Mohamed Abdullahi Mo-hamed, a popular leader whose recent election has sparked hope among Somalis of a more stable future for a country notorious for being the world’s foremost failed state.

“We have a drought which could result in a famine if we don’t receive any rain in the coming two months,” said the president, better known by his nickname Farmajo.

While Somalia is inch-ing closer to stability, Farmajo warned after his election that there would be no quick fi xes for the country after decades of repeated cycles of drought and insecurity.

African Union (AU) troops forced the Al Qaeda linked She-baab group out of the capital in 2011 but the Islamist militants still control parts of the coun-tryside and carry out attacks against government, military and civilian targets, seemingly at will, in Mogadishu and regional towns.

“It is the dramatic situation

of countries like Somalia that has created terrorism,” said Gu-terres.

The Horn of Africa nation is one of three countries – along with Yemen and Nigeria – on the verge of famine which has already been declared in South Sudan.

Confl ict and severe drought are the common denominators that have led to an unprecedent-

ed number of famine alerts at one time around the world.

The United Nations said last month that $4.4bn (€4.1bn) in emergency funding is needed to address the crisis in the four countries, where more than 20mn people face starvation.

In South Sudan, 100,000 peo-ple are already suff ering from a “man-made” famine due to three years of civil war.

An offi cial declaration of fam-ine is made when 20% of the population in the aff ected area has extremely limited access to food, acute malnutrition is higher than 30%, and more than two per 10,000 people are dying every day.

In Somalia, the drought has led to a spread of acute watery diarrhoea, cholera and measles, and nearly 5.5mn people are at

risk of contracting waterborne diseases.

On Saturday Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire said at least 110 people had died in 48 hours from “droughts and acute wa-tery diarrhoea” caused by lack of food, medicine and access to safe drinking water.

“The combination of con-fl ict, drought, climate change, diseases and cholera is a night-mare,” the United Nations chief told journalists during the fl ight to Mogadishu.

Several failed rainy seasons have also severely impacted oth-er east African nations such as Ethiopia and Kenya, and much of southern Africa.

East Africans are holding their breath just weeks ahead of the main annual rains.

If they fail, the situation will turn from crisis into catastro-phe.

Guterres’ visit to Somalia is only the third by a UN secretary general since 1993 – two years after then-president Siad Barre was overthrown, plunging the country into civil war.

Guterres’ predecessor Ban Ki-moon visited in 2011 just months after the country’s last famine which was Africa’s worst in 20 years.

He returned in 2014.

‘Massive response’ call to avert Somali famineAFPMogadishu

Guterres addresses a news conference after his meeting with President Mohamed (left) in Mogadishu.

A South African court has issued an order banning radical political leader

Julius Malema from calling on supporters to seize land, as he faces two charges for ordering illegal occupations.

The High Court in the capi-tal Pretoria ruled that Malema, head of the radical Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party, could face arrest if found guilty of contravening the order.

The ruling followed an ap-plication by an Afrikaner lobby group, AfriForum, which voiced concern over Malema’s calls for seizure of white-owned land.

Malema was not in court to hear the order.

The fi rebrand leader of the leftist EFF is facing two charges related to encouraging party

supporters to illegally occupy agricultural land.

In November 2016, during one of his cases, he repeated his call for land grabs and accused the government of failing to re-

distributed land, 22 years after the fall of apartheid.

“You like it, occupy it, it be-longs to you ... it is the land that was taken from us by white peo-ple by force through genocide,”

he told supporters gathered out-side the court.

He said that he was not fazed by the threat of imprisonment.

Malema, who was expelled from the ruling African National Congress (ANC) in 2012, is due back in court on May 5.

He also faces another charge for a similar statement he made in 2014.

The EFF, which won 6% of the national vote in 2014, advo-cates land redistribution with-out compensation.

Last week the ANC voted against a proposed amendment of a land ownership law to allow expropriation of land.

Malema’s EFF was in favour of the amendment.

The government has in the past admitted that progress in land redistribution, which al-lows the state to buy back prop-erty from willing sellers, has been slow.

Malema banned from making land grab callsAFPJohannesburg

Malema: has previously told his supporters that if ‘you like it, occupy it, it belongs to you ... it is the land that was taken from us by white people by force through genocide’.

A former South Sudanese general has announced the formation of a new

rebel group aimed at overthrow-ing the government after more than three years of civil war.

Lieutenant General Thomas Cirillo Swaka quit last month,

issuing a stinging indictment of President Salva Kiir’s regime, accusing it of carrying out a “tribally engineered war”.

On Monday Swaka declared the creation of his National Salvation Front, abbreviated as NAS, and called on the people of South Sudan “to rise up and top-ple the Kiir regime”.

“The National Salvation Front is convinced that to restore san-

ity and normalcy in our country, Kiir must go; he must vacate of-fi ce without further bloodshed,” his statement said.

Swaka, former deputy chief of the general staff for logistics, said Kiir should be “removed by all means necessary”.

A South Sudan army spokes-man, Brigadier General Lul Ruai Koang, dismissed the new rebel-lion as “another armed group

that will never see the light of day”.

The resignation of the general was a blow to Kiir’s government and army, which are increasingly dominated by the president’s Dinka tribe.

Swaka is from Equatoria, a previously peaceful part of the country that has come under government attack in recent months.

He has accused Kiir of pursu-ing “ethnic cleansing” and loot-ing the country.

The extent of the former gen-eral’s political and military sup-port – both in South Sudan and in the wider region – is unclear.

South Sudan’s civil war began in December 2013 when Kiir ac-cused his deputy, Riek Machar, of plotting a coup.

The fi ghting that followed ini-

tially split the country between Kiir’s Dinka and Machar’s Nuer groups, but as the war spread so did cracks between other ethnic groups.

An August 2015 peace deal failed to end the confl ict, and after an outbreak of fi ghting in Juba, the capital, in July last year, Machar fl ed into exile in South Africa, leaving the rebels with-out an active fi gurehead.

Former general forms group to topple South Sudan leaderAFPJuba

No excuses for Ghana poverty after 60 years, says president

ReutersAccra

Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo has said that the country had run out

of excuses for failing to end pov-erty and corruption, 60 years after it became the fi rst in sub-Saharan Africa to win independ-ence from colonial rule.

Akufo-Addo said Ghana must not sacrifi ce its environment as it pursues development, in an anniversary speech delivered in the capital where Kwame Nk-rumah became the country’s founding president after Britain departed.

Akufo-Addo triumphed over his predecessor John Mahama in December elections and his advisers say that he must im-plement his election promises quickly to retain the support of voters who have ejected the gov-ernment of the day three times since 2000.

He has vowed to stabilise na-tional fi nances, help create pri-vate sector jobs, cut taxes and promote development with a dam in every village and a fac-tory in every district.

Last month, he appointed a special prosecutor for corrup-tion cases.

“We assumed ... rapid eco-nomic development would fol-low the political freedom that we had won. Sadly, the economic development that was meant to accompany our freedom has still not materialised,” Akufo-Addo said.

“The challenge before us is to build our economy and generate a prosperous ... and dignifi ed life for the mass of our people,” he said.

“Hard work, enterprise, crea-tivity, discipline and a consist-ent and eff ective fi ght against corruption in public life will bring the transformation that we seek,” Akufo-Addo said.

Ghana’s independence in 1957 was a milestone in the struggle against colonial rule under na-tions including France, Britain, Belgium, Portugal and the Neth-erlands, opening the fl oodgates to independence by most of the continent.

Nkrumah’s support for lib-eration across the continent and African unity inspired other leaders, some of whom thought his socialist vision of develop-ment could be a template for the rest of the continent.

But the economy fl oundered and Nkrumah was toppled in a 1966 coup that was followed by several others.

Ghana has held six peaceful elections since 1992 but its lead-ers say that the country of 27mn people has yet to live up to its promise.

Ghana has avoided corrup-tion scandals on a scale that has been seen in Kenya and Nigeria, but many voters say that graft is a growing problem.

Its per capita gross national income stood at $250 in 1966 and $1,480 in 2015, according to World Bank data.

Journalists in Gambia have urged the country’s new leadership to uphold its

pledge to respect media free-dom following a violent assault on a reporter by supporters of President Adama Barrow.

Kebba Jeff ang from Foroyaa newspaper was attacked at a press conference on Sunday held by ministers from three parties in Barrow’s new coali-tion government.

Barrow has made press free-dom a pillar of his reforms since taking power earlier this year from Yahya Jammeh, whose authoritarian 22-year rule was marked by arrests and intimidation of reporters.

“We condemn the attack on Kebba Jeff ang and call on the leaders of the three politi-cal parties to take appropriate action to address this matter,” said Gambia Press Union sec-retary general Saikou Jammeh.

Eyewitnesses said Jeff ang was attacked for asking point-ed questions to the ministers about whether their parties would continue to maintain their coalition in Gambia’s up-coming legislative elections.

“The journalist’s only ‘of-fence’ is to pose questions to Ousainou Darboe and Mai Ah-mad Fatty, the respective lead-ers of United Democratic Party and Gambia Moral Congress,” said witness Amadou Bojang.

Darboe is Gambia’s foreign minister while Fatty currently serves as interior minister.

Outrage over attack on Gambia journalistAFPBanjul

Cyclone Enawo batters MadagascarTropical cyclone Enawo struck Madagascar yesterday, buff eting the island with powerful winds, heavy rain and high seas and threatening to cause chaos in the capital, the country’s weather agency said.“Enawo made landfall and struck ... with terrible winds of 210kph (130mph) with some gales of 290kph” from around midday (0900 GMT) yesterday, according to the head of the Madagascar’s Weather Service, Samueline Rahariveloarimiza.She warned that the capital Antananarivo was in “imminent danger” with the cyclone expected to reach the city of 1.4mn people today.The entire north of the island nation, which lies 400km (250 miles) east of mainland Africa, is on “red alert”, Rahariveloarimiza told AFP.Reports of injuries or damage caused by the cyclone’s arrival were not immediately available.

Zuma picks woman for appeal courtSouth African President Jacob Zuma has named Mandisa Maya to become the first woman president of the Supreme Court of Appeal, the nation’s highest court on non-constitutional matters.Maya is currently deputy president of the court, which made world headlines in December 2015 when it upgraded the verdict on Paralympic “Blade Runner” Oscar Pistorius to murder from manslaughter for shooting his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.Her appointment will have to be confirmed by the Judicial Service Commission.

AMERICAS13Gulf Times

Wednesday, March 8, 2017

The US is considering separating immigrant children from their parents in a bid to deter illegal migration, Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said Monday. Kelly, in an interview with CNN, was asked whether DHS was weighing an initiative that would split children from their parents if they were caught trying to enter the US illegally. “I would do almost anything to deter the people from Central America to getting on this very, very dangerous network that brings them up through Mexico into the United States,” Kelly said. “We have tremendous experience in dealing with unaccompanied minors,” he said. He noted the DHS turns them over to the Health and Human Services department.

A Canadian police off icer has been charged with manslaughter for the death of a mentally ill black man following an arrest last year in Ottawa. The Special Investigations Unit (SIU) said in a statement it has laid charges against Ottawa Police Service Constable Daniel Montsion, 36, in relation to the death of Abdirahman Abdi, who was of Somali descent. Abdi, 37, died in July last year after being hospitalised in critical condition following his arrest. Witnesses told local media he was beaten by Ottawa police off icers who responded to calls of a disturbance. The man’s brother then told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp that Abdi had been “sick” and rarely spoke to other people.

Canada’s foreign aff airs minister said on Monday that her country should be prepared for Russia to try to destabilise its political system, saying it would be similar to its eff orts in the US. Chrystia Freeland, who is a critic of Russia and is barred from entering that country, was asked whether Russia had engaged in a smear campaign against her after negative articles appeared in pro-Russian media about her Ukrainian grandfather. “It is public knowledge that there have been eff orts, as US intelligence forces have said, by Russia to destabilise the US political system,” Freeland told reporters in Parliament. “I think that Canadians and, indeed, other Western countries should be prepared for similar eff orts to be directed at us.”

The head of Canada’s national police force will retire on June 30, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said on Monday, as the country faces potential security challenges from asylum seekers illegally crossing the US border. Commissioner Bob Paulson has served in the top spot for more than five years. A spokesman for the RCMP did not comment on Paulson’s reasons for retiring. Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale in a tweet thanked Paulson for his service and “dedication to protecting the safety of Canadians.” Hundreds of people have defied winter weather to walk across the border after the new Trump administration in the United States started tightening immigration policy.

Canada will continue to provide weapons, tactical and survival training to Ukrainian troops through March 2019, off icials announced Monday. “We will continue to advance democracy, human rights and rule of law and military assistance to the end of March 2019,” Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan told a press conference. “This assistance is crucial for a sovereign, secure and stable Ukraine,” he said, joined by Foreign Aff airs Minister Chrystia Freeland. The joint military training mission with Britain and the US started in 2015, in response to a more assertive Russia’s seizure of Crimea. Canada deployed 200 military trainers to Starychi, Kamyanets-Podilsky and other locations in western Ukraine.

Immigrant children may be taken from parents

Police off icer charged in death of mentally ill man

Russia ‘may attempt to destabilise Canada’

Head of RCMP to retire at end of June

Ottawa extends Ukraine troop training mission

MIGRATION LAW AND ORDERPOLITICS SECURITY DEFENCE

US President Donald Trump points to child in the crowd as he surprises visitors during the off icial reopening of public tours at the White House in Washington.

Trump surprise

ReutersWashington

US President Donald Trump yesterday backed a draft Republican pro-

posal to dismantle Obamacare that was unveiled Monday, say-ing the proposed healthcare leg-islation was “out for review and negotiation”. Trump, in a tweet yesterday morning, described the bill proposed by fellow Re-publicans in the House of Rep-resentatives as “Our wonderful new healthcare bill”.

The plan, released late on Monday, would undo Democratic President Barack Obama’s 2010 healthcare law, removing the penalty paid by Americans with-out insurance coverage and roll-ing back extra healthcare funding for the poor.

The plan was swiftly criticised by Democrats.

Although Obamacare has long been a common target of Repub-licans, the proposal also met with

scepticism from some in the par-ty who are concerned about the replacement plan’s tax credits for buying health insurance and changes to coverage under Med-icaid, the government health in-surance programme for the poor.

The plan must pass both the Republican-led House of Repre-sentatives as well as the Senate, where it faces a higher bar for passage, making its future un-certain.

Trump was due to meet with the team of House lawmakers charged with tracking support for legislation later as lawmak-ers on two key House commit-tees prepare to review the bill on Wednesday.

White House Offi ce of Budget and Management Director Mick Mulvaney, speaking in a round of television interviews yester-day, said he expected the plan to pass the House before lawmakers leave for recess in mid-April.

Still, Obamacare remains pop-ular with many Americans.

Some 20mn previously un-insured Americans gained cov-erage under the law, although higher insurance premiums have

angered some. Nearly half of those gained insurance under an expansion of Medicaid, which would end in 2020 under the Re-publicans’ new plan, then face funding caps. Polls have shown most Americans want to main-tain Medicaid’s expansion.

Some industry groups have also expressed concern that lawmakers are moving forward without knowing how much the new proposal will cost or how it will aff ect healthcare coverage.

Mulvaney told CBS he ex-pected the Congressional Budget Offi ce’s review of the bill in a few days.

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said on CBS pro-gramme This Morning that the Republican plan would take mil-lions of people off health insur-ance rolls. “Show us the numbers about what the impact is person-ally on people,” she said.

President Donald Trump and fellow Republicans in Con-gress have repeatedly promised to repeal and replace former Democratic president Barack Obama’s signature domestic policy achievement known as

the 2010 Affordable Care Act.The proposal would freeze

enrolment in Obamacare’s ex-panded Medicaid programme on January 1, 2020.

States that expanded Medicaid could still sign up individuals un-til the end of 2019, and continue to receive enhanced federal funds for them thereafter, Republican aides said.

But going forward, federal funds for Medicaid would be capped.

While eliminating the income-based subsidies for purchasing insurance under Obamacare, the proposal would instead off er age-based refundable tax credits.

Those would be capped at upper-income levels, Republican aides said.

“Our legislation transfers power from Washington back to the American people,” House Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady said in a statement.

President Donald Trump said yesterday he is developing a plan that will encourage competition in the drug industry and bring down prices for medicines, as the House of Representatives leader-

ship unveiled a new healthcare plan.

“I am working on a new system where there will be competition in the Drug Industry.

Pricing for the American peo-ple will come way down!” Trump said in a Twitter post.

Republicans in the US Senate passed a measure to eliminate an Obama administration rule that would require prospective federal contractors to report violations of more than a dozen US labour and employment laws.

On a 49-48 vote, the Senate endorsed a joint resolution under the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to overturn the contractor disclosure rule.

The US House of Representa-tives approved it last month, so all that is left to kill the regula-tion is President Donald Trump’s signature on the resolution.

The resolution targeting the contractor regulation, dubbed the “blacklisting rule” by critics, is a part of a larger Republican eff ort to use the CRA to rollback a swath of federal regulations fi -nalised in the last seven months of the Obama administration.

Trump backs House plan on healthcare

ReutersWashington

Transgender students at US public schools were left in legal limbo on Monday

about whether a federal anti-discrimination law enables them to use the bathroom of their choice after the Supreme Court sidestepped a major ruling on the issue.

In cancelling planned argu-ments in a bathroom access lawsuit brought by a Virginia transgender high school student, the justices declined to resolve whether transgender students are protected by a law, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, that bars discrimination on

the basis of sex in education.Bathroom access has become a

key issue in the intensifying bat-tle over transgender rights.

North Carolina last year be-came the fi rst state to require people to use bathrooms match-ing their gender at birth in public schools and government build-ings.

About a dozen other states are considering similar measures.

President Donald Trump’s administration last month re-scinded guidance given to public schools last year by former presi-dent Barack Obama’s adminis-tration to permit transgender students to use bathrooms that correspond to their gender iden-tity.

“We had emphasised this is an

urgent situation for transgender students,” said Joshua Block, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union who represents Gavin Grimm, the student who brought the case that the Su-preme Court dodged.

Block said the justices’ ac-tion, which threw out a lower court ruling favouring Grimm and instructed that court to re-consider the matter in light of the Trump administration’s stance, was “justice delayed not justice denied”. In the meantime, the question of whether Title IX pro-tects transgender students will continue to be litigated in lower courts and mostly likely will be decided by the Supreme Court in the coming years, perhaps as early as 2018.

A handful of cases are pend-ing in federal courts, including Grimm’s, all of which could reach the Supreme Court.

Courts are also set to decide the related legal question of whether school policies that lim-it access to bathrooms violate the US Constitution’s equal protec-tion guarantee.

In Grimm’s case, the Rich-mond-based 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals will now take a second shot.

Its earlier ruling had been based on the Obama adminis-tration’s interpretation, now re-versed by Trump, that Title IX protects transgender students.

The 4th Circuit separately is due to hear arguments in May in a challenge brought to the North

Carolina law, which still may be repealed following a public out-cry against it.

In the most recent ruling, a federal district judge in Pennsyl-vania on February 27 decided in favour of three transgender stu-dents who attend Pine-Richland High School in the Pittsburgh suburbs.

The court ruled that the school’s refusal to allow the stu-dents to use the bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity violated their constitu-tional rights.

Other cases are pending in Il-linois, Ohio and Wisconsin.

“We expect and urge all schools to meet their moral and legal responsibility to fully re-spect and include their trans-

gender students, as thousands of schools around the country have already been doing for years,” Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Trans-gender Equality advocacy group, said after the high court’s action.

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council Christian conservative advocacy group, said the Supreme Court’s action “provided good news to parents and students con-cerned about privacy and safety in school showers, locker rooms and bathrooms”.

“State and local offi cials work-ing together with parents are best equipped to design policies that respect the dignity, privacy, and safety concerns of all students,” Perkins said.

By the time the transgender bathroom issue returns, the Su-preme Court, which has been down one justice for nearly 13 months, likely will have its full complement of nine justices.

If Trump’s high court nomi-nee, conservative appellate judge Neil Gorsuch, is confi rmed by the US Senate, the court would once again have a conservative major-ity.

Gorsuch’s confi rmation hear-ing is due to start on March 20.

Transgender rights advocates remain hopeful that conservative Justice Anthony Kennedy, the court’s regular swing vote who ruled in favour of gay marriage in 2015, will side with the court’s liberals on upholding transgen-der rights.

Court action leaves transgender students in limbo

ReutersWashington

Ben Carson, the new sec-retary of the US Depart-ment of Housing and

Urban Development (HUD), on Monday referred to slaves brought to the United States against their will as “immi-grants”, drawing quick con-demnation from civil rights groups who cast his remarks as off ensive.

It was Carson’s fi rst address to the staff at HUD.

He was confi rmed by the US Senate last week.

By way of introduction, Car-son shared anecdotes from his past career as a neurosurgeon and praised immigrants who worked long hours to build a better life for their children.

“There were other immi-grants who came here in the bottom of slave ships, worked even longer, even harder for less,” said Carson, who is Afri-can-American.

“But they too had a dream that one day their sons, daugh-ters, grandsons, granddaugh-ters, great-grandsons, great-granddaughters might pursue

prosperity and happiness in this land,” he said.

Enslaved Africans did not voluntarily come to the United States and were denied free-dom for hundreds of years.

“This is as off ensive a remark as it gets,” said Steven Gold-stein, executive director of the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect.

The remarks sparked outrage on Twitter, including from the actor Samuel L. Jackson.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) also criticised Carson.

A HUD spokesman later called the tempest “the most cynical interpretation of the secretary’s remarks to an army of welcoming HUD employees.

No one honestly believes he equates voluntary immigration with involuntary servitude”. Carson was well received by the hundreds of HUD employees in the room and got a standing ovation at the close of his re-marks.

As housing secretary, Car-son is in a position to play a leading role in reviving poor neighbourhoods, as Republican President Donald Trump has

Ben Carson calls slaves ‘immigrants’

Slain soldier’s father says travel rights reviewedReutersWashington

The father of an Ameri-can soldier killed in Iraq who came under criti-

cism last year from then-can-didate Donald Trump said he has cancelled a speaking en-gagement in Toronto after be-ing notifi ed that his US travel privileges were under review.

Khizr Khan, an American citizen born in Pakistan, said he had not been given a reason as to why his travel privileges were being reviewed.

He did not say what kind of review he was subject to, which US agency ordered it or who told him of the change.

“This turn of events is not just of deep concern to me but to all my fellow Americans

who cherish our freedom to travel abroad,” Khan said in a statement issued by the en-gagement organiser on Mon-day. “I am grateful for your support and look forward to visiting Toronto in the near future.”

Khan had planned to speak at a luncheon in Toronto on Tuesday in a discussion about President Trump’s admin-istration, according to Ram-say Talks, a Toronto-based speaker series hosted by Bob Ramsay.

Khan declined to comment further in an email exchange with Reuters.

The organisation said in the same statement that Khan, a US citizen for over 30 years, was notifi ed Sunday evening that his travel privileges were being reviewed.

Trump is keeping a promise he made to his constituency

ASEAN

Gulf Times Wednesday, March 8, 201714

Two Vietnamese children have died after eating poisonous toad eggs in central Vietnam, local media reported yesterday. Ho Van Nam and Ho Van Ngoc, who were in school grades six and eight respectively, died shortly after cooking a meal of fish and toad eggs, the Tuoi Tre newspaper reported. The fish and eggs had apparently been fished out of a nearby stream in their home province of Quang Tri. The two died at home after suff ering from nausea, rapid heart rates, and abdominal distention, while a third child is in a stable condition after he was taken to hospital. A local health care off icial found the eggs in a cooking pot and bowls.

Teenage Singapore blogger Amos Yee was yesterday set to face a closed-door hearing in Chicago’s immigration court as part of his bid for political asylum in the United States. The publicly atheist teen received widespread backlash in Singapore over comments criticising Muslims and Christians. He has served two jail terms for wounding religious feelings. Yee was allegedly sent to solitary confinement for criticising Islam in a Muslim studies class while in the US jail but has since been released, said Yee’s mother Mary Toh in a Facebook post last month. If he fails in his bid for asylum, Yee will be deported to Singapore where he is due to serve his two-year military conscription.

A leader of Thailand’s “red shirt” opposition group was jailed yesterday for two years for insulting the monarchy during a street protest in 2010. The Supreme Court said it had upheld the ruling of a lower court that Yosvaris Chuklom, also a comedian, was guilty of the crime of lese majeste, which can carry a penalty of up to 15 years for each off ence. Although Yosvaris did not name the king in his speech in 2010, at a time the red shirts were in opposition, the court ruled that his gestures had made the insult clear. He had said he no intention of insulting the king.

Cambodian authorities have arrested more than 4,800 people in a two-month-old campaign against drugs and that number could more than double, the country’s drug czar said yesterday. Giving the latest arrest figures at an event in Phnom Penh, Deputy Prime Minister Ke Kim Yan said there were off icially estimated to be more than 12,000 drug users in Cambodia, but the real number could be much higher. Kim Yan, who also chairs the National Authority for Combating Drugs, said: “In just two months, more than 4,000 people were arrested so the arrests may reach 10,000.” Kim Yan did not say how many people had been charged.

A Buddhist monk takes a selfie with dancers before they perform at ceremony to commemorate Women’s Day in Phnom Penh.

Poisonous toad egg meal kills children in Vietnam

Singapore blogger seeks political asylum in US

Thai ‘red shirt’ leader jailed for insulting monarchy

Cambodia cracks down on drugs, over 4,800 held

DEADLY LUNCH HURTIING RELIGIOUS FEELINGSLESE MAJESTE CLAMPDOWN SELFIE TIME!

Malaysia says it foiled attack on Arab royalty

ReutersKuala Lumpur

Malaysia said yesterday suspected mili-tants from Yemen arrested late last month ahead of a visit by Saudi King

Salman were planning an attack on “Arab royal-ties”.

A senior police source said the four Yemenis belonged to a Houthi insurgency group that has been fi ghting Yemeni forces backed by a Saudi-led military coalition for two years.

The Saudi monarch arrived in Kuala Lumpur on February 26 with a 600-strong delegation for a four-day visit, at the start of a month-long Asia tour.

He is currently in Indonesia.Between February 21 and February 26, Ma-

laysia arrested one Malaysian and six foreigners — one Indonesian, four Yemenis and one East Asian — for suspected links to militant groups including Islamic State, police had said in a statement.

Malaysia’s police chief said yesterday the four Yemenis were plotting an attack on Arab royalties.

“Four Yemenis, apart from their role involv-ing in producing false travel documents they are also involved in distributing drugs...and they are also planning to attack the Arab royal-ties during the visit in Kuala Lumpur, so we got them in the nick of time,” Inspector General of Police Khalid Abu Bakar told reporters.

The Yemenis were arrested in Serdang and Cyberjaya — near the capital Kuala Lumpur — for suspected links to a Yemeni insurgent group, Malaysian police had said on Sunday.

Police seized multiple international pass-ports from the four, along with 270,000 ringgit ($60,742.41) in diff erent currencies which were suspected to be channelled to the insurgent group.

The United Nations has said Yemen now pos-es the largest food insecurity emergency in the world, with an estimated 7.3mn people needing immediate help, while more than 10,000 people have been killed in the confl ict.

Malaysia has arrested hundreds of people with suspected militant links during recent years.

The Southeast Asian nation has been on high alert since suicide bombers and gunmen linked to Islamic State launched multiple attacks in Ja-karta, the capital of neighbouring Indonesia, in January 2016.

A grenade attack on a bar on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur in June last year wounded eight people. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack.

Two of the seven arrested in late February — a Malaysian and an Indonesian — were planning to launch a large-scale attack using a “vehicle-borne improvised explosive device,” the police have said.

Thousands fl ee rebel raid in MyanmarAFPYangon

Thousands were yesterday fl ee-ing a Myanmar town bordering China after at least 30 people

were killed in fi ghting between the army and ethnic rebels as Beijing called for an immediate ceasefi re be-tween the two sides.

The violence is some of the most intense to rattle the Chinese-speak-ing Kokang region since clashes in 2015 left scores dead and forced tens of thousands to fl ee into China.

The area is in northeastern Shan state, which has seen repeated bouts of heavy fi ghting between the army and a band of well-armed ethnic mi-nority militias since November, un-dercutting a government peace bid.

The fi ghting has also raised fears of a repeat of 2015, when the displaced fl ooded across the border into China, raising tensions with Beijing.

In a statement yesterday, the army said it used heavy artillery to repel rebels who swept into Laukkai, the capital of the Kokang region, before dawn on Monday.

Insurgents from the Myanmar Na-tionalities Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) “failed” in their attempt to take Laukkai, the army said, adding ci-vilians and “some army offi cers” died in a series of clashes around the town.

An army source requesting ano-nymity told AFP that “about 7,000 local residents are fl eeing to the Chi-na side because of fi ghting”.

Beijing yesterday appealed for both sides to halt the fi ghting.

“Relevant parties should cease fi re

immediately and restore order to the border areas as soon as possible,” for-eign ministry spokesman Geng Sh-uang told reporters.

The rebels, who were said to be wearing police uniforms when they made the surprise raid, suff ered the heaviest losses with the military re-covering 20 charred bodies it says be-longed to fallen insurgents.

Communications have been cut around Laukkai but fi ghting contin-ued yesterday morning, according to the leader of another rebel group al-lied with the insurgents in Kokang.

“Almost all residents from Laukkai town are fl eeing,” said Brigadier Gen-eral Nyo Tun Aung from the Arakan Army (AA), estimating that thou-sands had left.

Many rebel groups in the border region share close cultural ties with China, speaking Chinese dialects and using the country’s yuan currency.

Observers believe Beijing holds signifi cant sway over the ethnic fi ght-ers and has a key role to play in peace talks that Myanmar’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi has tried to revive since coming to power in 2015.

The next round of negotiations is slated for March, but the date has slipped several times.

The Northern Alliance, a coalition of armed ethnic groups that includes the MNDAA and AA, has yet to join the peace process or sign a ceasefi re that was reached with a myriad of other militias in 2015.

A burnt car is left on a street in Laukkai, Myanmar, after fighters of the Chinese Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army launched an attack on police, military and government sites in the border town.

Thai customs and forensic off icials inspect pieces of ivory after the ivory haul was shown to the press at the airport in Bangkok yesterday. Thailand has seized more than 300kg of ivory from Malawi on flights into Bangkok’s main airport, authorities announced yesterday, underscoring the country’s continued role as a regional smuggling hub.

Illicit haul

N Korea blocks Malaysians, in a ‘diplomatic meltdown’ReutersKuala Lumpur

North Korea yesterday barred Malay-sians from leaving the country, spark-ing tit-for-tat action by Malaysia, as

police investigating the murder of Kim Jong-nam in Kuala Lumpur sought to question three men hiding in the North Korean embassy.

Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak ac-cused North Korea of “eff ectively holding our citizens hostage” and held an emergency meeting of his National Security Council.

The moves underscored the dramatic de-terioration in ties with one of North Korea’s few friends outside China since the murder of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s estranged half-brother at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on February 13.

Malaysia says the assassins used VX nerve agent, a chemical listed by the United Nations as a weapon of mass destruction.

Police have identifi ed eight North Koreans wanted in connection with the murder, in-cluding two of the three believed to be hiding in the embassy — a senior North Korean diplo-mat and a state airline employee.

The only people charged so far are a Viet-namese woman and an Indonesian woman, accused of smearing the victim’s face with VX.

He died within 20 minutes.North Korea’s foreign ministry issued a tem-

porary ban on Malaysians leaving the country, “until the incident that happened in Malaysia is properly solved,” state-run Korea Central News Agency said.

“In this period the diplomats and citizens of Malaysia may work and live normally under the same conditions and circumstances as be-fore.”

Najib denounced the travel ban in a state-ment as an “abhorrent act” that was in “total disregard of all international law and diplo-matic norms”.

He said he had instructed the police “to pre-vent all North Korean citizens in Malaysia from leaving the country until we are assured of the safety and security of all Malaysians in North Korea”.

Najib returned from Indonesia and held an emergency meeting of his National Security Council.

There was no statement after the meeting, but the prime minister addressed Malaysians’ concerns on social media.

“I understand the feelings and concerns of the family and friends of Malaysians held in North Korea. We assure that we are doing eve-rything we can to make sure they come back to the country safely.”

Euan Graham, Director, International Se-curity at the Lowy Institute in Sydney, called the latest events “a classic own goal of North Korea’s making”, triggered “by the most outra-geous public murder than you can image, using a chemical weapon in a crowded international airport”.

“You’d have to go back a long way for this kind of wholesale diplomatic meltdown.”

The Malaysian murder and the four bal-listic missiles North Korea test-launched on Monday “creates a more supportive climate for even tougher rounds of sanctions and coercive measures” against Pyongyang, Graham added.

Before the murder, North Korea could count Malaysia as one of its strongest friends.

But Malaysia has since stopped visa-free travel and on Monday it expelled North Korea’s ambassador for questioning the impartiality of the murder investigation.

Last week, Malaysia said it would investigate North Korea front companies after a Reuters report showed that Pyongyang’s spy agency

was running an arms network in the country.There are 11 Malaysians in North Korea, ac-

cording to a Malaysian foreign ministry offi -cial, including three embassy staff , six family members, and two others.

Hundreds of North Koreans are believed to be in Malaysia, most of them students and workers.

The focus, however, was on its embassy staff .

“We are trying to physically identify all the embassy staff who are here,” deputy home minister Nur Jazlan Mohamed told reporters outside the North Korean embassy.

He said staff would not be allowed to leave the embassy “until we are satisfi ed of their numbers and where they are”.

By early afternoon, Malaysian police had re-moved tape and a police car blocking the North Korean embassy driveway.

Speaking at a news conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s police chief Khalid Abu Bakar said police would not raid the embassy

building to get the three North Koreans sought in connection with the murder.

“We will wait for them to come out,” the po-lice chief said. “We have got all the time.”

Aside from those three suspects, police have said four other wanted North Koreans left Ma-laysia in the hours after the murder.

The only North Korean suspect to be appre-hended was deported on Friday, released due to insuffi cient evidence.

US offi cials and South Korean intelligence suspect North Korean agents were behind the assassination of Kim Jong-nam, who had been living in Macau under China’s protection.

He had spoken out publicly against his fam-ily’s dynastic rule of North Korea.

North Korea has refused to accept the dead man is leader Kim Jong-un’s half brother, and has suggested the victim died of a heart attack.

No next of kin have come forward to claim the body, but the Malaysian police chief said he was confi dent of obtaining DNA samples to formally identify the murdered man.

Journalists crowd around a North Korean embassy car leaving the embassy in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.

ASIA/AUSTRALASIA15Gulf Times

Wednesday, March 8, 2017

US starts deploying THAAD system in S KoreaReutersSeoul

The United States started to de-ploy the fi rst elements of its ad-vanced Terminal High Altitude

Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system to South Korea following North Korea’s test of four ballistic missiles, US Pacifi c Command said yesterday.

The announcement came as North Korean state media said leader Kim Jong-un had personally supervised Monday’s missile launches, stepping up threats against Washington as US troops conduct joint military exercises with South Korea.

“Continued provocative actions by North Korea, to include yesterday’s launch of multiple missiles, only con-fi rm the prudence of our alliance de-cision last year to deploy THAAD to

South Korea,” US Pacifi c Commander Admiral Harry Harris said in the state-ment.

The move by the US military is likely to deepen the brewing confl ict between South Korea and China, which has an-grily opposed the THAAD deployment as destroying regional security balance.

The four ballistic missiles landed in the sea off Japan’s northwest, angering Seoul and Tokyo, days after North Ko-rea promised retaliation over the mili-tary drills which it sees as preparation for war.

US President Donald Trump and Jap-anese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe dis-cussed the launches during a phone call yesterday. “Japan and the US confi rmed that the latest North Korean missile launches were clearly against UN reso-lutions and a clear provocation against the regional and international commu-nity,” Abe told reporters. “(North Ko-

rea’s) threat has entered a new phase.”Trump also spoke to South Korea’s

acting President Hwang Kyo-ahn to discuss the North’s missile launches, Hwang’s offi ce said. The missile test was undertaken by an army unit com-missioned with attacking US military bases in Japan, the North’s offi cial KCNA news agency said.

“In the hearts of artillerymen ... there was burning desire to mercilessly retaliate against the warmongers going ahead with their joint war exercises,” KCNA said.

“He (Kim) ordered the KPA Strategic Force to keep highly alert as required by the grim situation in which an actual war may break out any time, and get fully ready to promptly move, take po-sitions and strike so that it can open fi re to annihilate the enemies.”

The missiles North Korea fi red on Monday were unlikely to have been

intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), South Korea said, which can reach the United States.

They fl ew on average 1,000 km and reached an altitude of 260km. Some landed as close as 300km from Japan’s northwest coast, Japan’s Defence Min-ister said earlier. The United States and Japan have requested a United Na-tions Security Council meeting on the launches, which will likely be sched-uled for today, diplomats said.

The planned installation of the US anti-missile defence system, which South Korea has said would be opera-tional by the end of the year, has led to a diplomatic standoff between China and South Korea.

Chinese authorities have closed nearly two dozen retail stores of South Korea’s Lotte Group that approved a land swap with the country’s military last week to allow it to install the sys-

tem. China objects to the THAAD de-ployment, saying its territory is the tar-get of the system’s far-reaching radar.

South Korea and the United States have said the missile system is aimed only at curbing North Korean provocations.

The first elements of the US-built Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense arriving at Osan US Air Base in Pyeongtaek, south of Seoul.

Missile drills for strike on US bases: N KoreaAFPSeoul

Nuclear-armed North Korea said yesterday its missile launches were

training for a strike on US bases in Japan, as global condemna-tion of the regime swelled.

Three of the four missiles fi red Monday came down pro-vocatively close to US ally Japan, in waters that are part of its ex-clusive economic zone, repre-senting a challenge to US Presi-dent Donald Trump.

In separate phone calls, Trump — whose rhetoric on the campaign trail had raised doubts about the issue — reaffi rmed Washington’s “ironclad com-mitment” to Japan and South Korea. The US will demonstrate to Pyongyang that there were “very dire consequences” for its actions, the White House said in a statement.

The United Nations Security Council scheduled an emergen-cy meeting for today after a re-quest by Washington and Tokyo to discuss additional measures following the launch.

Under UN resolutions, Pyongyang is barred from any use of ballistic missile technol-ogy, and the US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, said on Twitter that the world “won’t allow” North Korea to continue on its “destructive path”.

But six sets of UN sanctions since its fi rst nuclear test in 2006 have failed to halt its drive for what it insists are defensive weapons. Kim Jong-un gave the order for the drill to start, the North’s offi cial Korea Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. “Feasting his eyes on the trails of ballistic rockets”, he praised the Hwasong artillery unit that car-ried it out, it said.

“The four ballistic rockets

launched simultaneously are so accurate that they look like ac-robatic fl ying corps in forma-tion, he said,” the agency added, referring to Kim.

The military units involved are “tasked to strike the bases of the US imperialist aggressor forces in Japan in contingency”, KCNA said.

The Korean version of the KCNA report said the North’s missile launch demonstrated its readiness to “wipe out” enemy forces with a “merciless nuclear strike”.

A series of photographs pub-lished by the North’s Rodong Sinmun newspaper showed Kim watching the missiles rise into the air and another of him smiling gleefully, clapping with other offi cials.

Seoul and Washington last week began annual joint military exercises that always infuriate

Pyongyang. It regularly issues threats against its enemies, and carried out two atomic tests and a series of missile launches last year, but Monday was only the second time its devices have come down in Japan’s EEZ.

The launches came ahead of a

trip by new US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to the region.

Choi Kang, an analyst at the Seoul-based Asan Institute for Policy Studies, said the launch was a warning to Tokyo.

“North Korea is demonstrat-ing that its target is not just

limited to the Korean peninsula anymore but can extend to Japan at anytime and even the US,” he said.

Trump has described North Korea as a “big, big problem” and vowed to deal with the issue “very strongly”.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Monday the administration was taking steps to “enhance our ability to defend against North Korea’s ballistic missiles”.

The New York Times report-ed at the weekend that under former president Barack Obama the US stepped up cyber at-tacks against North Korea to try to sabotage its missiles before launch or just as they lift off .

The US military has begun deploying the THAAD anti-bal-listic missile defense system to South Korea to protect against threats from the North, US Pa-cifi c Command said, with its fi rst elements arriving on Mon-day.

Pyongyang wants to de-velop an intercontinental bal-listic missile (ICBM) capable of reaching the US mainland — something Trump has vowed would not happen.

It has undoubtedly made progress in its eff orts in recent years, although questions re-main over its ability to master re-entry technology and min-iaturise a nuclear weapon suf-fi ciently to fi t it onto a missile warhead.

The North’s missile launch could have been an attempt to distract attention from the mur-der of Kim Jong-nam at Kuala Lumpur International Airport last month, South Korea’s acting president Hwang Kyo-Ahn said yesterday.

Seoul has blamed Pyongyang for the killing of the half-broth-er of the North’s leader by two women using VX nerve agent.

Ballistic missiles being launced during a military drill from an undisclosed location in North Korea.

Kim Jong-un supervising the launching of missiles.

A backpacker was repeatedly raped, beaten and choked during a two-month hostage ordeal in Australia, police alleged yesterday after she was rescued during a random traff ic stop. The 22-year-old, who court off icials said was British, was visibly distressed and had injuries to her face when police pulled over the car she was driving on Monday near Mitchell in outback Queensland, 560km west of Brisbane. A 22-year-old man was found hiding in the back of the vehicle. Authorities say she had been “held against her will and seriously assaulted over a period of several weeks”. Police said the pair met three months ago and agreed to go on a road trip, but it all went horribly wrong with the woman repeatedly attacked between January 2 and March 5 at various locations. The man has been charged with a string of off ences including four counts of rape, eight of assault, four of strangulation, and two of deprivation of liberty. “The victim was treated for non-life threatening injuries including facial fractures, bruising and cuts to her body,” police said, with the man remanded in custody to appear in court at a later date. Australia is a popular destination for young backpackers, with around 600,000 touring the country every year. They occasionally run into trouble, most famously in the early 1990s when seven were murdered by Ivan Milat in a series of killings that terrified Australia. Milat is serving consecutive life sentences after the remains of two Britons, three Germans and two Australians were found buried in a forest southwest of Sydney.

New Zealanders and visiting nationals will receive alerts about earthquakes and potential tsunamis on their mobile phones by the end of the year, the country’s Civil Defence Minister said yesterday. All mobile phones in a specific area would receive the so-called cell broadcast messages without downloading an app or subscribing to a service, Gerry Brownlee said in a statement. “The alerts are received automatically and for free,” Brownlee said. “An alert will be sent out to mobile phones through the cell towers in the aff ected areas in the event of an emergency.”The service is not only for phones equipped with New Zealand SIM cards but is expected to work on all phones that are enabled to receive cell-broadcast alerts.“We can’t be 100 per cent sure in advance, but European tourists will probably be able to see the alerts, since they would likely have a phone enabled for the EU alert scheme,” a spokeswoman told dpa.“The SIM card is less relevant than the software version on the phone itself in terms of its ability to receive cell broadcasts,” she said.As no technology is fail-safe, radio, television, websites, various social media, smartphone apps and sirens would continue to be used in the case of emergencies, Brownlee said in the statement. New Zealand sits on the “Ring of Fire,” an arc of seismic faults around the Pacific Ocean where earthquakes are common.

British backpacker ‘raped repeatedly’ in Australia

New Zealand to introduce mobile phone quake alerts

CRIME

DISASTER CONTROL

Foreign ‘pressure’ good for Chinese fi lms: ChanAFPBeijing

Action star Jackie Chan said opening up China’s heav-ily-restricted fi lm market

to more foreign works would put positive pressure on local fi lm-makers, as rumours swirl Beijing will expand its quota on import-ed movies.

Since 2012, China has permit-ted 34 fi lms to be imported from overseas each year, but the state-run Global Times’ newspaper re-ported last month that Chinese and US offi cials are renegotiating the limit.

A shakeup in domestic movie off erings would challenge Chi-

nese fi lmmakers to produce bet-ter work, Chan told reporters during the annual gathering of China’s political advisory com-mittee, of which he is a member.

“Their technology is more advanced than ours, but on the other hand, we will have more opportunities to watch their films and learn from them,” he said.

“We are concerned — very afraid — but I believe that this kind of pressure is a posi-tive thing...the more films that come in, the more we will our-selves improve.”

Hollywood fi lms accounted for more than half of China’s 45.3bn yuan ($6.6bn) in ticket sales last year.

Jackie Chan (centre) arriving at the Great Hall of the People before the opening session of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) in Beijing.

China’s new civil code light on rights reformsReutersBeijing

China’s Communist lead-ers will this week intro-duce sweeping new laws

that codify social responsibili-ties for the country’s 1.4bn citi-zens while also providing some modest new protections.

The preamble of what state media is calling China’s “dec-laration of rights” will be an-nounced today and is expected to be passed by the close of the National People’s Congress (NPC) on March 15, paving the way for more detailed laws ex-pected to be passed in 2020.

The changes are part of Presi-dent Xi Jinping’s wider push to align the legal system with the country’s social and economic modernisation and for some le-gal reformers, the code is a test of how far China will go in al-lowing civil liberties that might impinge upon state power. “Civil law is the fundamental doctrine for a country’s legal system, the source of its basic essence,” Liang Ying, head of the NPC

Legislative Aff airs Research in-stitute, told state media on Sun-day.

“A foundational civil (law) system is an important sign of whether a country’s legal system is mature.”

Xi has made governing the nation by law a top priority of his tenure though he has drawn a line at allowing the courts to ex-pand their power at the expense of the Communist Party’s con-trol. Since pledging to reform and open in 1978, China has been gradually shifting its legal system away from a socialist law towards something closer to a European-style legal system.

In 2011, China declared that “socialist legal system with Chi-nese characteristics” had been established, but offi cials them-selves say China’s laws remains a work in progress.

The preamble, which was re-leased in draft form to the public in June last year, seeks to address some of the legal issues that have gnawed at public conscious-ness in recent years, such as who is responsible for China’s abandoned children and elderly,

or what protections cover so-called “Good Samaritans”.

China’s incomplete legal sys-tem was heavily criticised for an incident in 2011 when multi-ple passersby ignored a toddler knocked to the ground in a hit-and-run.

Shocked observers said the lack of clarity on civil rights leaves helpers at risk of liability when coming to the aid of stran-gers.

Reformers also hope the code will resolve the issue of guardi-anship for “left behind” children whose parents work away from home and “empty nest” eld-erly folk who are similarly aban-doned by their children.

One issue that lawyers say re-mains mostly unresolved in the draft code is that of property rights. Most Chinese homeown-ers do not legally own the land on which their homes are built.

Instead, they lease the rights to use the property for a limited number of years from the gov-ernment, an arrangement that creates uncertainty for buyers.

“Whether farmers or city folk, businessman or scientists, an inability to guarantee your own property in the way that other nations allow will impact social stability,” said Li Shu, a lawyer at Anli Law Firm in Beijing.

But Philip Cheng, a lawyer at Hogan Lovells in Shanghai, said a provision in the current draft requiring civil activities to be carried out in a “fair” and “reasonable” manner could help with certain property disputes.

It may, for example, allow companies and individuals to be paid market rates for land that is rezoned to produce new housing in major cities or make way for industrial development, he said.

Many legal experts say the latest draft of general rules that form the basis of the code falls short of enshrining sweeping private rights and makes little progress in key areas including property and civil liberties.

Another issue: how far the

code will go in defending the rights of individuals, known as “personality rights”, a broad term Chinese legal experts use to talk about the basic rights each individual should enjoy.

Health, reputation, image, name and freedom are included, but the term is signifi cantly nar-rower and de-politicised com-pared to human rights, accord-ing to Chinese academics.

Proponents of individual rights have called for a dedicated section of the code, while others worry granting too many private rights could lead to revolution.

The current scope of per-sonality rights in the draft rules makes them “seriously imbal-anced”, according to Xu Xian-ming, deputy chairman of the National People’s Legal Associa-tion, an advocate for more per-sonal freedoms being included in the code.

“First, the list of rights is in-complete; second, the number of rights is insuffi cient; third, the civil rights system is curtailed,” Xu wrote last year in an essay for the offi cial magazine of China’s parliament.

One issue that lawyers say remains mostly unresolved in the draft code is that of property rights

BRITAIN

Gulf Times Wednesday, March 8, 201716

Court to hear case of boykept in cell 23 hours a dayGuardian News and MediaLondon

A legal challenge over a boy locked up for 23 hours a day in a London

prison has been given the go-ahead.

The high court has agreed to hear a judicial review brought by the Howard League for Pe-nal Reform on behalf of the boy, who is being held in pro-longed solitary confi nement in Feltham young off enders prison in west London.

A judge has agreed that the challenge should be heard ur-gently after the penal reform charity successfully applied for a judicial review of the case involving the boy, who court documents only identify as AB.

A statement of grounds pre-pared for the court argues that the removal of the boy from as-sociation and the lack of educa-tional provision is unlawful.

The grounds say that the practice of informally removing children from association with

other prisoners and keeping them in solitary confi nement is without any statutory basis. It adds that the practice appears to be common at Feltham as well as other juvenile prisons.

“If the claimant is correct that such a practice is unlaw-ful, and indeed if it constitutes cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of children, it is a matter of real importance that it be remedied by the courts,” the statement continues.

Howard League lawyers have supported at least six teen-age boys under the age of 18 who have been in conditions of solitary confi nement for pe-riods ranging from weeks to more than six months. This is believed to be the fi rst judicial review of the practice.

Frances Crook, the chief ex-ecutive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said: “Cag-ing children for over 22 hours a day is unacceptable. All the ev-idence shows that it can cause irreparable damage. This prac-tice must cease.”

The Supreme Court ruled

in 2015 that there were “well known” risks involved with solitary confi nement and that prolonged solitary confi nement – defi ned as lasting for longer than 15 days – was particularly harmful.

A chief inspector of pris-ons report in 2015 of Feltham found that a quarter of the imprisoned children were be-ing managed on units under a restricted regime that meant they were unlocked for less than an hour a day. The in-spectors described it as “in ef-fect, solitary confinement on their residential units”.

The children’s commis-sioner and another watch-dog, the National Preventive Mechanism, have criticised the widespread use of solitary confinement for children in prisons in England and Wales. They found that one third of imprisoned children spent time in isolation and criticised the “worrying number of in-stances where isolation was not subject to formal govern-ance”.

Corbyn is a disasterfor Labour: HawkingGuardian News and MediaLondon

Stephen Hawking has said Jeremy Corbyn should resign as Labour leader,

adding that although he be-lieves in many of his policies, he cannot win a general elec-tion.

“I regard Corbyn as a dis-aster,” the renowned physicist told the Times. “His heart is in the right place and many of his policies are sound, but he has allowed himself to be portrayed as a left-wing extremist.”

Hawking said he would still vote Labour but did not believe the party would win at the next general election. “I think he should step down for the sake of the party,” he said.

Hawking, a long-time Labour supporter, publicly endorsed his local Cambridge Labour candidate, Daniel Zeichner, at the 2015 election. Zeichner, who went on to defeat the Lib-Dems’ Julian Huppert, has said: “I think he fully appreciates the huge investment that the last Labour government made in

science and you can see that in a lot of the buildings and labora-tories around Cambridge.”

Hawking, who was diagnosed with motor neurone disease aged 21, is a staunch defender of the NHS, having previously said the health service “must be preserved from commercial in-terests who want to privatise it”.

During the interview, the professor also expressed some fears that the human disposi-tion towards aggression was becoming more of an existential threat with each technological advancement.

“Since civilisation began, ag-gression has been useful in as much as it has defi nite survival advantages,” he said. “It is hard-wired into our genes by Darwin-ian evolution. Now, however, technology has advanced at such a pace that this aggression may destroy us all by nuclear or biological war. We need to con-trol this inherited instinct by our logic and reason.

“We need to be quicker to identify such threats and act be-fore they get out of control. This might mean some form of world government.”

Prime Minister Theresa May talks with head teacher Dan Abramson (centre) and students Felan Ragana (left), Harsimrat Singh (second left) and Charles Kanda (right) during her visit to King’s College London Mathematics School in central London.

May makes school visitGCSE gradingsystem revamp‘is causinguncertainty’Guardian News and MediaLondon

The new GCSE grading system in which students sitting exams this sum-

mer will be awarded a number instead of letter is creating un-certainty for pupils and teach-ers alike, a schools’ leader has warned.

Geoff Barton, the next gener-al secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ACSL), said the replacement of A* to G with 9 to 1 (9 being the highest) had left everyone in the dark over what would be considered a “good pass”.

He said: “The whole idea of changing the grading system is it will differentiate at the top end. That may well be the case, I suppose. The problem is the vast majority of students by definition will be in the middle.

“Inevitably people are ask-ing ‘what’s the equivalent of a grade C?’ and we’re waiting to hear what it is. It’s probably a 4 but there’s talk of a good pass being a 5.”

The government has said that broadly the same propor-tion of students will get 4 and above as those who currently get C and above (considered a good pass), but that a grade 5 will equate to the top third of the marks for a current C and the bottom third of the marks for a current B grade.

Barton, who becomes gen-eral secretary of the ASCL on April, said pupils and teachers were in murky waters due to the absence of straightforward equivalence between the two grading systems.

He said that schools were being judged on the number of pupils who achieved a grade 5 or better in English and maths and in the EBacc (English Bac-calaureate), but the govern-ment also says that grade 4 is sufficient for pupils to progress to the next stage of their edu-

cation if sixth forms and col-leges decide it meets their re-quirements.

Adding to the confusion, he claimed, was the government’s intention that pupils who failed to achieve at least a grade 5 in English and maths from 2019 would have to resit them in sixth form or college.

Barton, the headmaster of King Edward VI School in Suf-folk, said the school had re-ceived fewer admissions which he believed could be connected to the uncertainty, with pupils opting for sixth form colleges where they believe the require-ments may be less taxing.

He believes students could be potentially selling themselves short, while the school faces un-certainty over funding, which is related to student numbers.

“What we’re seeing is the consequence of seeing very rapid introduction of an entire-ly new grading system at a time when teachers are dealing with massive reform; it’s another thing to navigate,” he said.

He called for a definitive statement on what constituted a good pass, while stressing that he disliked the negative connotation the term had for lower grades.

“If we get an announcement that for this year the good pass grade is a 4 because of the uncer-tainty in the fi rst year but in fu-ture it will be a fi ve, while others would welcome it, they (pupils with a 4) might end up being dis-criminated against down the line because they’re deemed not to have a good pass. It’s uncertainty at a time when they should be focusing on revising.”

A department for education spokeswoman said the GCSE reforms would create “gold-standard qualifications”.

She said: “We will of course continue to engage with all in-terested parties to ensure the changes are understood ahead of them coming into eff ect later this year.”

Lords vote down callsfor second referendumAgenciesLondon

The House of Lords has voted against a second Brexit referendum, but

peers are likely to support an amendment forcing Theresa May to give parliament a more meaningful vote on the UK’s fi -nal deal at the end of two years of negotiations.

Peers voted by 336 votes to 131 – a majority of 205 – against let-ting Britain vote again on wheth-er to leave the EU at the end of divorce talks in 2019, with the archbishop of Canterbury among those speaking against having an-other nationwide poll.

Justin Welby said the govern-ment should not oversimplify the result of the referendum but holding another one would not be sensible. “It will add to our divisions, it will deepen the bit-terness. It is not democratic. It is unwise,” he said.

A large number of LibDem peers and more than a dozen La-bour members disagreed, voting for a second referendum to make sure the UK really does want to leave the EU in 2019.

Peter Hain, the Labour peer and former Cabinet minister, ar-gued a second referendum would be about ensuring a fair proc-ess, “not disputing the outcome of June 23. This is not about re-running that referendum.

This is about making sure that the democratic process remains democratic. That voters have a fi -nal say on the eventual negotiated outcome.”

Dick Newby, the LibDem leader in the Lords, said his amendment was “based on the principle that having asked the people whether they wished to initiate the Brexit process, only the people should take the fi nal decision”.

But the vast majority of peers voted against the idea. George Bridges, a Brexit minister, dis-missed the idea of a second refer-endum as “misguided in practice and in principle”.

“There was nothing on the bal-lot and no suggestion from par-

liament that there would have to be another referendum if the UK were to vote to leave”, he said.

He also warned that to hold an-other referendum would “merely encourage divisions to fester” rather than bring the country to-gether.

“Where does this end?” he asked. “Will we continue to hold the same referendum until we get the result those supporting this amendment would prefer?”

Meanwhile, Downing Street yesterday rejected a call by former Tory leader Lord Hague for an early general election to enhance Theresa May’s ability to push through a Brexit deal.

The prime minister’s spokes-man said she believed an early

election was “not in the interests of the country” and that there was no public desire for one.

“The prime minister has been very clear and consistent on her position on an early election,” said a No 10 offi cial. “She does not think there should be one and it is not in the interests of the coun-try to have one. She is focused on delivering the government’s agenda.”

Hague argued that a general election victory “would strength-en the government’s hand at home and abroad”. He said a man-date would improve May’s posi-tion in negotiations with other EU leaders and empower her to face down opponents of Brexit in the House of Lords.

Chancellor ‘to unveil bailout plan for London businesses’London Evening StandardLondon

London will get the biggest share of a bailout for busi-ness rates losers as Philip

Hammond fi nds “new money” in this week’s Budget to buy off fu-rious protests from small fi rms, it was revealed yesterday.

Traditional retailers and fi rms

facing crippling increases of 50% or more are expected to be fa-voured in funds totalling “hun-dreds of millions” of pounds. The chancellor will also use his big speech today to signal that the en-tire system of business rates need a fundamental overhaul to cope with the rise of online commerce.

The cash injection will be main-ly drawn from the Treasury’s re-serves, refl ecting the huge priority

in government to appease leaders of hard-pressed small businesses. A government source said: “Philip Hammond knows that this is a major political problem that must be dealt with.”

The Evening Standard under-stands that the bailout will include diff erent forms of help. According to well-placed sources, the key features are likely to be:

Special help for fi rms facing

“cliff edge” hikes in their rates, al-lowing local government to reduce the bills sent out.

Sectoral funds for industries such as retail and offi ces that are suff ering the biggest hit follow-ing steep rises in property values in town centres, especially within the M25.

A fi rm commitment to hold business rate revaluations more regularly in future, to avoid this

year’s jump caused by the fi rst re-valuation since 2010.

The London region will be the biggest benefi ciary in the bailout, but will continue to be the biggest loser overall among the regions be-cause of its property boom.

London Tory MPs had private meetings last week with Com-munities Secretary Sajid Javid and Treasury minister Jane Ellison, who is MP for Battersea, to express

their concerns and are said to have found the ministers “in listen-ing mode”. Bromley & Chislehurst MP Bob Neill said: “Ministers have met London backbenchers and made the case that we need action to ameliorate the disproportionate cost of business rates in the capital. It was very positive.”

The government source said Hammond would say the rates system has become out of date:

“Since 2010 the world of retail has been transformed. There needs to be longer term reform that ad-dresses the bricks and mortar ver-sus online shopping.”

Revaluations are likely to be held every three years. “That applies especially to London where the property market has exploded,” said the source. “It may be okay for the rest of the country but not for London.”

Hawking: calls for Corbyn resignation

BRITAIN17Gulf Times

Wednesday, March 8, 2017

Two people are fighting for their lives after a car hit a group of pedestrians in a hospital car park in Greater Manchester. The women are being treated for life-threatening injuries following the incident outside Withington Community Hospital. Greater Manchester Police said the crash hap-pened just after 2pm yesterday. The driver of the vehicle, a man in his 80s, remained at the scene and is speaking with police. The car, believed to a Ford Focus, is understood to have crashed into barriers in a pedestrianised area outside the hospital. A force spokesman said: “Two women have been taken to hospital with life-threatening injuries.”

Londoners have been urged to plant more trees, shrubs and hedges to create a “green filter” to absorb the poisonous gases and soot belched out by the capital’s traff ic. Scientists at the Royal Horticultural Society have calculated that even a medium-sized front garden shrub can trap the equivalent of 30 diesel cars’ worth of harmful dust and soot particulates a year. Trees with rougher or hairier leaves are especially eff ective at remov-ing toxins from London’s air. The holm oak is best at reducing nitrogen dioxide — associated with diesel pollution — while conifers such as Leyland cypress and pines are best for absorbing larger particles.

A scheme to compensate the victims of an NHS blood contamination scandal is to be scaled back under government plans. Ministers believe the reforms are necessary as more people are now considered likely to develop serious health issues – and be entitled to higher payouts – pushing the programme as much as £123mn over budget. The government has proposed measures that would cut predicted costs, including limiting the availability of the higher level of financial support under the scheme. The Haemophilia Society said it was not confident that the government would achieve its aim of ensuring no one who received an annual payment would be left worse off .

A violent passenger was dragged off a bus by members of the public after he allegedly attacked a ticket inspector. Fellow passengers grabbed the man and threw him off the 149 bus in Stoke Newington. The ticket inspector had asked the man to leave the bus after he refused to pay his fare towards Manse Road at 1.20pm on March 5. The man, who refused to give his details, then allegedly attacked the victim, punching him in the chest and head while kick-ing his legs. As members of the public grabbed the man and pushed him off the bus, he is said to have shouted: “Next time I see you, you will be a dead man.”

The big four supermarkets have been caught breaking the law banning knife sales to juveniles, chief constable Alf Hitchcock revealed. The breaches were discovered during undercover test purchases carried out by under-age police cadets in areas where there was a known blade problem. He said that smaller shops had also been found making unlawful sales and that those caught continuing to do so this year will face prosecution rather than further warnings. The off icer said that one in five of 391 recent test purchases by under-age police cadets had resulted in a shop breaking the law by selling a blade. The 78 occasions when the law was broken included 23 in London.

Plant more trees to cut carpollution, urge scientists

Payout in contaminatedblood scandal scaled back

Two critical after car hits pedestrians

Thug thrown off bus afterattack on ticket inspector

Big four stores ‘flout banon blade sales to minors’

ACCIDENT APPEALPOLICY CRIME LAW AND ORDER

ReutersLondon

The government said it was “prepared to act” if markets fail consumers,

as E.ON yesterday became the latest of the country’s big six en-ergy providers to announce price hikes.

The government is under pressure to help households struggling with bills, while higher energy costs could con-tribute to an increase in infl ation which has already risen sharply this year, leading to a cut back in spending.

“Wherever markets are not working for consumers, this government is prepared to act,” said a spokesman for the depart-ment for business, energy and industrial strategy (BEIS), re-sponding to the E.ON price rise.

“We expect energy companies to treat their customers fairly and continue to be concerned by these price rises which will hit millions of people already pay-ing more than they need to,” he said, without giving any further details on what the government could do.

E.ON UK, the British arm of German utility E.ON, said its standard dual fuel bill would rise by 8.8% from April 26.

This follows similar rises an-nounced last month by Innogy-owned Npower and Iberdrola-owned Scottish Power.

E.ON said the rise in gas and electricity prices was due in part to the escalating costs of gov-ernment schemes to support renewable electricity generation and to help customers use less energy.

“It is an announcement we never want to make but is due in large part to the fact that many of the costs we don’t directly control,” E.ON UK chief execu-tive Tony Cocker said in a state-ment.

The government says its poli-cies only make up a small por-tion of household bills, and that by the 2020s bills will be lower on average than they would have been without the initiatives.

George Michaeldied fromnatural causes,coroner statesAFPLondon

British pop icon George Michael who was found dead at his home on

Christmas Day, died of natural causes, a coroner announced yesterday.

The cause of death was di-lated cardiomyopathy with myocarditis and fatty liver, ac-cording to Darren Salter, senior coroner for Oxfordshire, west of London.

The investigation is now closed with no need for an in-quest, he added.

An initial post-mortem ex-amination on the 53-year-old, who enjoyed a 35-year career punctuated by years of drug-taking, proved “inconclusive” pending further tests.

Dilated cardiomyopathy, which can be caused by sub-stance abuse, affects the heart’s ability to pump blood due to the muscle becoming enlarged and weakened.

Myocarditis is an inflamma-tion of the heart wall.

Michael’s partner Fadi Fawaz said he had found the star “lying peacefully” in bed at his home in the village of Goring on the River Thames west of London.

The singer’s funeral can now take place after three months of tests.

Michael’s publicist had been keen to quell reports of foul play, saying “there were no sus-picious circumstances”.

Fawaz, tweeted a black and white photograph of the him with Michael with the caption: “The Truth is out...”

Fawaz also hit out at the neg-ative publicity he endured in the weeks following Michael’s death and in particular the leaked 999 call of his attempt to revive the singer after finding him lifeless in bed.

He tweeted: “All the nasty comments, press and 999 were very cruel and unnecessary whatsoever, Now I hope to re-ceive some real LOVE x.”

Former partner Kenny Goss told Sunday Mirror that he thought “his body just gave up,” adding that “all these years, it was just weak.”

Born Georgios Kyriacos Pa-nayiotou to a Greek Cypriot father and English mother in north London in 1963, Michael shot to fame with the band Wham! and sold more than 100mn records in his career.

He met Andrew Ridgeley at high school and the pair went on to form Wham! in 1981.

With their good looks, per-ma-tans, highlighted hair and carefree image, the duo cap-tured the spirit of the 1980s and fast became one of Britain’s biggest pop acts with a string of hits including Last Christmas and Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go.

They split up in 1986, and Michael began a solo career with his album Faith, released in 1987. His final studio album featuring new songs was Pa-tience in 2004.

Showpiece industry ceremo-ny the Brit Awards remembered Michael last month with a mov-ing tribute from Ridgeley, who said his death “felt like the sky had fallen in”.

Chris Martin from Coldplay

performed Michael’s A Differ-ent Corner, his voice interwo-ven with that of the late British singer-songwriter, receiving a standing ovation from the au-dience.

Michael only revealed in public that he was gay in 1998. He went on to become a major campaigner and donor for gay rights and HIV charities.

The star later said he had not wanted to come out while his mother was still alive because she would be concerned he had contracted HIV.

Michael notched up po-lice cautions for cannabis and crack cocaine possession in his final years and in 2010 was sentenced to eight weeks in jail after crashing his 4x4 into a London shop while under the influence of cannabis and pre-scription medication.

In 2011, he spent several weeks in hospital in Vienna after contracting pneumonia while on tour, later saying he had come close to death.

Stories about Michael’s quiet philanthropy for children and HIV charities have been shared widely since his death, as well as a report of his anonymous £15,000 donation to a woman who could not conceive to get IVF treatment.

“He was the sweetest person. People talk about him giving away £50,000 but he gave away millions,” said Goss.

On Monday, Michael was cel-ebrated at Paris Fashion Week when the designer Stella Mc-Cartney closed her show with a procession of models dancing to his song Faith and chanting the words “love” and “faith.”

Para-equestrian Anne Dunham poses with her medal after she was appointed a Off icer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to para-equestrianism during an Investiture ceremony at Buckingham Palace, London, yesterday.

Honoured

Government defeats bidto restart Dubs schemeGuardian News and MediaLondon

The government has narrow-ly avoided a Commons de-feat on a Tory MP’s amend-

ment which would have forced councils to reveal how many lone child refugees they had the capac-ity to take, in an attempt to restart the Dubs scheme.

The amendment to the Children and Social Work Bill, introduced by the Conservative MP Heidi Al-len, was defeated by 287 votes to 267 yesterday.

More than two dozen Tories were thought to have been con-sidering voting in favour of the amendment, which would have required every local authority in England to declare their capacity for resettling children, with fi gures collated at least once a year.

In the end, despite nine Tory MPs signing the amendment, it was backed by just three: Allen, the former education secretary Nicky Morgan and Tania Mattias.

Ministers announced last

month that the numbers arriv-ing under the system, introduced through an amendment by the Labour peer Alf Dubs, a former kindertransport refugee, would be capped at 350.

This was despite campaigners’ insistence they had been promised that around 3,000 lone refugee children from camps in Europe would be brought to the UK.

The government had argued that councils had no more space to accommodate child refugees from Europe, which has since been dis-puted by several local authorities.

Debate ahead of the vote was tense, with Theresa May seen ap-proaching David Burrowes, an MP who had previously spoken out about the closure of the scheme, to ask him to vote with the govern-ment.

At the announcement of the vote, Labour MPs shouted “shame” across the benches, watched by child refugee campaigners in the public gallery, including the actors Juliet Stevenson and Toby Jones.

Before the vote, Allen had said she hoped the government would

reach a compromise, with minis-ters promising that a survey would be carried out but would not spe-cifi cally identify the places availa-ble for child refugees from Europe.

“This is not hard to do,” she said. “This is not forcing capacity that doesn’t exist. It’s OK for areas like Kent to say ‘no more’, I understand and respect that. But this is a na-tional solution that diff erent parts of the country can respond to dif-ferently.”

A report published by the home aff airs select committee on Monday called on the government to change its mind over the Dubs scheme.

It said it was unclear how thor-oughly the government had con-sulted councils, suggesting that as many as 4,000 extra children could be sheltered if central fund-ing was provided.

The prime minister’s spokes-man told reporters yesterday morning that the government was not in favour of the audit, but it was committed to publishing re-gional breakdowns showing where unaccompanied child asylum seekers were being looked after.

Cost of tea, fi sh up asstores end price warsLondon Evening StandardLondon

The long era of supermarket price wars is coming to an end as more expensive im-

ports and fewer promotions start to push up the cost of food sta-ples, fi gures revealed yesterday.

Basket favourites such as but-ter, tea and fi sh all rose in price by more than 5% over the past 12 weeks, pushing overall food infl ation up to 1.4%. Imported fruit and vegetables were also more expensive.

At the same time groceries sold through a promotion, such as a multi-buy, dropped from a peak of just over 40% in 2015 to 34.3% during the past 12 weeks — the lowest level since Octo-ber 2009, says market researcher Kantar Worldpanel.

Fraser McKevitt, its head of retail and consumer insight, said: “Staples such as butter, tea and fish all saw prices rise by more than 5% during the past 12 weeks, as fruit and veg-etables — many of which are imported — also saw an uptick

in price. However, it’s impor-tant to point out inflation is still far from universal, with prices actually falling across a number of categories.

Prices began rising again in the run-up to Christmas after more than two years of defl ation from September 2014 to December 2016 caused by aggressive com-petition from discounters such as Aldi and Lidl as well as the squeeze on consumers’ spending power.

With wages now running ahead of infl ation shoppers are better off and supermarket sales are now rising at their fastest rate, 2.3%, since June 2014.

Of the “big four” supermarket giants Morrison did best with sales ahead by 2.6%, its fastest growth in fi ve years. Lidl was Britain’s fastest growing super-market with sales up by 13% — while Aldi grew almost as quick-ly, increasing sales by 12.9% to reach a record market share of 6.3%.

While multi-buy style promo-tions were sharply down, meal deals off ering dinner for two for £10 remain popular.

Actors Toby Jones (left) Rhys Ifans (second left), Juliet Stevenson (centre) and Joely Richardson (right) with faith leaders and supporters stand in front of the Houses of Parliament in London yesterday as they urge the government to re-consult local authorities on their ability to accommodate vulnerable refugee children from Europe, eff ectively keeping the “Dub’s scheme” open.

Govt readyto act overenergyprice hikes

EUROPE

Gulf Times Wednesday, March 8, 201718

German Finance Minis-ter Wolfgang Schaeuble stepped up Berlin’s criti-

cism of Ankara yesterday after Turkey’s chief diplomat drew on Germany’s Nazi past to again at-tack the country.

Schaeuble said Berlin viewed political developments in An-kara with “considerable con-cern” after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan compared the cancellation of rallies across Germany for next month’s refer-endum on constitutional reform in Turkey to “Nazi practices”.

Echoing comments on Mon-day by Chancellor Angela Mer-kel, Schaeuble told foreign correspondents in Berlin that Erdogan’s remarks were “unac-ceptable” and “irresponsible”.

“It would be wise if President Erdogan quickly found a way to make this go away,” Schaeuble said. “We can’t accept that Ger-many is being talked about in such a way.”

But in an interview with the Turkish daily Hurriyet, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu hit out again at Germany.

“That is a totally repressive

system,” Turkey’s chief diplomat said, repeating Erdogan’s claims that the cancellation of rallies by Turkish ministers in Germany as “reminiscent of the Nazi era”.

He criticised Germany and other European countries in-cluding the Netherlands, where politicians including Prime Minister Mark Rutte have con-demned Cavusoglu’s plans to at-tend a similar rally in Rotterdam.

“We are in a state of great fear,” Cavusoglu said. “If we cannot stop the advance of racist parties, Europe will head (back) to the pre-World War II period.”

As tensions between the two nations escalated, Turkey’s Minister for Economic Aff airs Nihat Zeybekci said he was launching legal action against Germany’s daily Bild after the newspaper referred to him as Er-dogan’s “loyal attack dog”.

Zeybekci described the Bild report as “primitive insults” di-rected against the whole of Tur-key.

“We cannot accept this outra-geous attack,” he said.

Bild’s publisher, the Springer Group, said only that any legal action against the newspaper would be examined.

Turkish EU Aff airs Minis-ter Omer Celik spoke yesterday

with Michael Roth, state secre-tary at Germany’s foreign min-istry, sources in Celik’s ministry said.

“Turkish-German rela-tions are not local authorities’ responsibility but that of the German state,” Celik told Roth, according to the sources. “We believe this is a systematic ob-stacle to our government.”

Cavusoglu said yesterday that he would go ahead with a planned visit to Germany de-spite local authorities’ banning him from making a speech on safety grounds.

“I am going to Hamburg to-day,” Cavusoglu told foreign

countries’ chief consuls, includ-ing Germany’s, in Istanbul. “I will meet this evening with our citizens in Hamburg.”

He added: “Nobody can and should prevent us from meeting with our citizens.”

Local authorities in Germa-ny had called off a rally in the northern city of Hamburg where Cavusoglu was due to speak, cit-ing fi re safety concerns.

But the Turkish foreign min-istry told AFP that a new venue had been found, and Hamburg police confi rmed Cavusoglu would meet 150 people from the Turkish community at the resi-dence of the consul general.

A demonstration calling for a “No” vote in the referendum has meanwhile been planned nearby.

Cavusoglu said he would meet his German counterpart Sig-mar Gabriel, whom he called a “friend”, at a breakfast in Berlin today and visit a tourism fair.

Diplomatic relations between Turkey and Germany have tak-en a turn for the worse over the last week after the cancellation of the rallies aimed mobilising

support for the April referendum among the 1.4mn Turkish voters living in Germany.

Cavusoglu also claimed in the interview that Germany was ap-plying pressure to get a “no” vote in the referendum, which if approved would vastly expand Erdogan’s powers and weaken parliament.

The foreign minister is a member of Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP).

Germany hits back over Turkish Nazi commentsDPA/AFPBerlin/Ankara

Cavusoglu speaking during a meeting with foreign diplomats in Istanbul.

Schaeuble: We can’t accept that Germany is being talked about in such a way.

Births in Italy hit record low in 2016, says stats offi ceReutersRome

The number of babies born in Italy hit a record low in 2016, the population

shrank and the average age crept higher, national statistics offi ce ISTAT said on Monday.

Births dropped by 12,000 to 474,000 last year, the lowest level since the unifi cation of It-aly in 1861, while deaths totalled 608,000, ISTAT said.

The average Italian is now 44.9 years old, up 0.2 years from 2015, while some 22.3% of the population is over 65, the high-est ratio in the 28-nation Euro-pean Union.

The total population fell by some 86,000 to 60.58mn, with new migrants helping to off set the falling birth rate.

ISTAT said fertility rates fl uc-tuated wildly between the in-dustrialised north and the poor-er south.

On the island of Sardinia, women had 1.07 children on av-erage, while the only province where births rose was in Bol-zano, near the border with Aus-tria, where the fertility rate was 1.78.

If applied to the whole coun-try, Bolzano’s fi gures would put Italy among the most fertile countries in the European Un-ion, ISTAT said, whereas with Sardinia’s rate, “dangerously close to one child per woman, Italy would be in last place in Eu-rope, and likely the world”.

The overall national average was 1.34 children per woman.

Consumer group Codacons blamed families’ fi nances for the fall in births, saying in a state-ment that people struggled with rises in the cost of food, prams and nurseries.

“The uncertainty and gen-eral impoverishment among the middle class in Italy in recent years has made it ever more dif-fi cult for families to bring a child into the world,” the group said.

Meanwhile, the number of Italians moving abroad rose 12.6% year-on-year to 115,000, almost triple the rate of six years ago.

Facebook clinched vic-tory yesterday in a Ger-man court case brought

by a Syrian refugee whose selfi e with Chancellor Angela Merkel had made him the target of rac-ist trolls.

The court ruled that the US so-cial media giant was not obliged to actively search out and delete defamatory posts, like those that had falsely linked the claimant to Islamist attacks and violent crimes.

Anas Modamani, 19, had sought an injunction demanding that the company, represented by Facebook Ireland Limited, stop the spread of such slander-ous fake news, which have been shared countless times.

Modamani and his lawyer Chan-jo Jun had demanded that Facebook actively search out and take down all libellous posts us-ing the famous selfi e images – not just those they had fl agged to the company.

They argued that Facebook could use its algorithms to auto-matically identify them, just as it does to take down copyrighted music or images with nudity.

The court however judged that

Facebook had not “claimed own-ership” of the posts in question – suggesting primary responsibil-ity lies with those who wrote and posted them.

In cases of “serious personal injury”, it was justifi ed to demand an “increased search eff ort” by Facebook, the court in the south-ern city of Wurzburg found.

However, it also said it was unclear whether Facebook could reasonably conduct such pro-active searches “without major technical hurdles”.

The court said this question may have to be settled by another court hearing that could ask IT experts to testify.

Jun, the IT lawyer, declared himself “disappointed” and said he would not pursue the case further as he had himself become the target of personal threats on social media.

He also said that if German law could not prevent such online vitriol against his client, then “we need new laws”.

Jun has demanded stiff fi nes in cases where Facebook spreads content illegal under German law, such as incitement of racial hatred, arguing that “it must become more costly to break the law”.

Facebook voiced sympathy for Modamani’s “diffi cult situation”

but greeted the court’s position that legal action was “not the most eff ective way to resolve the situation”.

It said that, just as it had blocked previously reported hate posts targeting the Syrian man, “we will continue to respond to all legitimate reports by Mr Mo-damani’s legal representatives”.

A Facebook spokesman added that, “in terms of the content people share on our platform, we are continuing to comply with our obligations under German law”.

Modamani arrived in Germany in 2015, along with a mass infl ux of almost 900,000 migrants.

When Merkel visited his Berlin refugee shelter in September that year, he took two selfi e images with her in jubilant scenes also captured by news photographers.

Since then, those emblem-atic images have been reposted in diff erent, often false, contexts, at a time when xenophobic fury fl ared online against Merkel’s liberal stance on refugees.

Often anonymous users have cut and pasted Modamani’s pic-ture into “wanted” posters and fake reports, typically alleging that the refugee made famous by the Merkel selfi e had later turned out to be a terrorist.

Other posts have falsely linked

Modamani – who is now taking German language courses and working in a fast food restaurant – to delinquents who tried to set fi re to a homeless man in Berlin last Christmas.

A surge of far-right and other hate speech on Facebook and other social media in Germany has raised political heat on the companies in recent years.

Justice Minister Heiko Maas has warned that they could be punished if they do not comply with German law.

Facebook and other Web gi-ants pledged in 2015 to examine and remove within 24 hours any

hateful comments spreading on-line, in particular over the mass infl ux of migrants.

This January – in the wake of the US presidential election when Facebook was accused of helping the spread of fake news – the company pledged measures to take down “unambiguously wrong reports” being shared on its platform.

It also said it would off er a simpler reporting process for fake news, display warnings next to statements identifi ed as false by independent fact-checking organisations, and cut off adver-tising revenue to fake news sites.

Facebook wins German case against Syrian in Merkel selfi eAFPWurzburg, Germany

This picture taken on September 10, 2015 shows Modamani taking a selfie with Merkel outside a refugee camp.

Hungary’s parliament has approved the systematic detention of all asylum-

seekers in container camps, in a move that Prime Minister Viktor Orban said will make all of Eu-rope safer from terror attacks.

Calling immigration the “Tro-jan Horse of terrorism”, Orban said: “If the world sees that we can defend our borders ... then no one will try to come to Hun-gary illegally.”

The legislation will see asy-lum-seekers entering Hungary as well as those currently in the country confi ned in camps at Hungary’s southern borders while their applications are proc-essed.

Anyone who passed through a “safe third country”, including the main entry point Serbia, will be refused.

Appeals against rejections will be fast-tracked in three days.

Migrants whose applications

are unsuccessful may also have to cover the costs of their own de-tention.

Unaccompanied minors under 14 will be placed in care as before.

EU member Hungary previ-ously systematically detained all asylum applicants but suspended the practice in 2013 under pres-sure from Brussels, the UN refu-gee agency and the European Court of Human Rights.

The UNHCR said yesterday that the new legislation “will have a terrible physical and psy-

chological impact on women, children and men who have al-ready greatly suff ered”.

The Hungarian Helsinki Com-mittee said it was the “last step-ping stone in completely dis-regarding (Hungary’s) asylum obligations under EU and inter-national law and trampling the rights of asylum-seekers”.

“We are urging the EU to step up and show Hungary that such illegal and deeply inhumane measures have consequences,” Amnesty International said.

The Tunisian suspect in the December 19 truck attack on a Berlin Christmas market that left 12 people dead was an asylum-seeker whose application had been refused.

But most other recent attacks in Europe were carried out by people who were born and/or grew up in Europe.

Some of those in the 2015 Paris attacks had however posed as refugees.

Hungary’s government says the new camps will comprise converted shipping contain-

ers built onto existing “transit zones” erected in 2015 at the southern border with Serbia.

EU member Hungary’s bor-der is also an external frontier of Europe’s border-free Schengen zone.

As well as building militarised razor wire fences on its borders with Serbia and Croatia in 2015, Hungary has handed thousands of migrants expulsion orders for “illegal border-crossing” and even jailed some.

It has also gradually been clos-ing down its network of refu-gee camps, while allowing only a trickle of asylum-seekers into the existing transit zones.

Hungarian prisoners are also building a second “smart fence” complete with night cameras and heat and movement sensors.

At the height of Europe’s mi-grant crisis in 2015, over 400,000 people, many fl eeing the Syrian civil war, passed through Hun-gary on their way to western Eu-rope.

This has since slowed dramati-cally, with 1,004 people apply-

ing for asylum in Hungary this year and 105 people crossing the border illegally, according to the government.

But Orban said yesterday that this was just a temporary lull.

“The pressure on the border will not end in coming years, as there are still millions of people preparing to step out on the road in hope of a better life,” he said.

The 53-year-old Orban, a strong admirer of US President Donald Trump, has long taken a hard line on immigration.

He has said that a large infl ux of Muslim migrants into Europe poses a security risk and endan-gers the continent’s Christian culture and identity.

Budapest has refused to take part in an EU scheme to share around the EU the hundreds of thousands of migrants who en-tered the bloc in recent years.

“Those readying for the jour-ney do not want to live according to our ways and culture but ac-cording to their own – only with a European quality of life,” Orban said yesterday.

Hungary to detain all asylum-seekersAFPBudapest

Orban: Those readying for the journey do not want to live according to our ways and culture but according to their own – only with a European quality of life.

European Union states do not have to admit peo-ple on humanitarian

grounds, even if they are at risk of torture or inhuman treat-ment, the EU’s top court ruled yesterday, cutting off a possi-ble channel for asylum-seekers into the bloc.

The decision by the Euro-pean Court of Justice (ECJ) goes against advice from its advocate general, who said last month that such visas had to be issued under EU law.

It spares EU states a new headache at a time when they are pushing to stem immigra-tion by cutting off asylum-seekers and labour migrants alike after taking in 1.6mn peo-ple arriving across the Medi-terranean in 2014-2016.

The court ruled on the case of a Syrian family from the city of Aleppo who applied for a visa to stay with acquaintances in Belgium in October.

Belgian authorities had re-fused the visa, leading to a court battle.

“Member States are not re-quired, under EU law, to grant a humanitarian visa to persons who wish to enter their terri-tory with a view to applying for asylum, but they remain free to do so on the basis of their na-tional law,” the court said.

While EU member states can now issue such visas if they choose, an EU-wide legal ob-

ligation to do so would have paved the way for many new applications they would then have been unable to reject.

Some European lawmak-ers, as well as aid groups, have called for such a solution, say-ing that EU embassies and consulates outside of the bloc should handle such requests.

“NGOs (non-governmental organisations) wanted to move the EU border to the embassies but the ECJ has reined them in. A good thing,” said Belgium’s migration minister, Theo Francken.

EU states have struggled to accommodate the migrants and refugees who made it into the bloc, ensure suffi cient se-curity screening and agree be-tween themselves on how to share out the responsibility.

They have waged political battles over that for two years now, with no sign of agreement emerging on the horizon.

The bloc has hence increas-ingly started to turn to coun-tries south and east of the Mediterranean to have them block people on their way to Europe and be able to send them back more easily.

“Had the court ruled other-wise, it would have been a huge problem,” said a diplomat in Brussels who is involved in EU migration policies.

Other politicians and NGOs criticised the verdict, saying that it ignored the EU’s com-mitments to human rights and continued to put refugees in harm’s way.

‘EU member states don’t have to issue humanitarian visas’ReutersBrussels

EUROPE19Gulf Times

Wednesday, March 8, 2017

An avalanche forced skiers to jump out of their skis yesterday at the popular

French Alps resort of Tignes but no one was seriously injured, a local offi cial said.

Twenty-fi ve “more or less shocked” people sought help from rescue workers, Nicolas Martrenchard told a news con-ference.

“Four skiers were buff eted by the impact” of the rush of snow and had to abandon their

equipment on the slope, added Martrenchard, deputy prefect of nearby Albertville.

An initial report that several skiers were engulfed by the ava-lanche sent alarm bells ringing through the sprawling resort just three weeks after an avalanche claimed four lives nearby.

Up to 200 people took part in search eff orts, all arriving over-land because poor visibility pre-vented the use of helicopters.

Rescue workers and sniff er dogs were deployed along with fi refi ghters’ vehicles and ambu-lances.

The slopes gradually began

reopening after the rescue op-erations.

The fast-moving “powder snow” avalanche was made of light, recently fallen snow that fell away “naturally”, experts said.

Yesterday’s avalanche risk – which is normally assessed only for off -piste and closed slopes – was at four on a scale of fi ve.

At level fi ve, all slopes are closed.

The area had 50cm (nearly 20”) of snow overnight fol-lowing regular snowfalls since Saturday, avalanche risk expert Cecile Coleou told AFP.

“That meant an accumula-tion of a metre over three days, which represents a thick layer of unstable snow,” she said, adding however that it was “extremely rare” for an avalanche to reach an active ski slope.

Tignes is one of the biggest ski stations in the Alps, off ering 480 hectares (1,200 acres) of slopes served by around 80 ski lifts.

The deadly avalanche on February 13, which hit during school holidays, was a “slab” avalanche, caused when dense wind-packed snow breaks off from a slope.

Rescuers quickly retrieved the

bodies because the victims were carrying transmitters designed to assist in locating them.

They had been only a few dozen metres from a ski lift when the 400m-wide avalanche ripped down the mountain.

That incident brought to 14 the number of accidents record-ed in the French Alps and Pyr-enees so far this winter, claiming a total of seven lives.

Last winter there were 45 ac-cidents and 21 fatalities.

One of the worst avalanches in the Alps in the past decade took place in the summer of 2012 in the Mont-Blanc range.

Nine climbers from Britain, Germany, Spain and Switzerland were killed as they tried to scale the north face of Mont Mau-dit, which translates as Cursed Mountain.

Avalanches can travel at speeds of up to 400kph (250mph).

In January, 29 people died in Italy after an avalanche buried a hotel in the central town of Rigo-piano.

The force of that impact was calculated by police as being equivalent to the three-storey stone and wood structure being hit by 4,000 fully loaded trucks.

Avalanche rattles skiers in Alps but no lives lostAFPTignes, France

Poachers broke into a French zoo, shot dead a rare white rhinoceros and

sawed off its horn in what is be-lieved to be the fi rst time in Eu-rope that a rhino in captivity has been attacked and killed.

The four-year-old male white rhino called Vince was found dead in his enclosure by his keeper at the Thoiry zoo and wildlife park about 50km (30 miles) west of Paris yester-day morning after an overnight break-in, the zoo said.

Police, who were investigat-ing the crime, said the rhino had been shot thrice in the head and one of its horns had been sawn off , probably with a chainsaw.

“Staff left the rhino enclosure on Monday. When they returned on Tuesday, an animal had been killed and its two horns had been sawn off ,” a police spokes-woman told AFP. “Only the main horn was stolen.”

Global trade in rhino horn is banned by a UN convention and its sale is illegal in France.

But demand for the horn is strong in newly-affl uent Asian countries such as Vietnam, where it is prized as an ingre-dient in traditional medicines, and African authorities have struggled to counter rampant poaching.

The Thoiry zoo said it be-lieved it was the fi rst time a rhi-no had been killed in a European zoo.

The zoo is equipped with vid-eo surveillance, but cameras are

not installed in the area where the rhinos live.

“This was carried out despite the presence of fi ve members of staff who live on the site and (despite) security cameras,” the zoo said.

A kilo of rhino horn fetched €51,000 ($53,900) on the black market in 2015, it said in a state-ment.

The poachers broke through a gate at the wildlife park during the night and forced the metal door of the enclosure where the rhino lived, the zoo said.

The two other rhinos living at the park, 37-year-old Gracie and fi ve-year-old Bruno, were unharmed.

Vince’s second horn was partially cut, leading the zoo to believe that the intruders were disturbed while performing the

deed or their equipment failed.The zoo had security meas-

ures in place, including surveil-lance cameras, and fi ve mem-bers of staff live on site.

Vince was brought to Thoiry in March 2015 after being born in a zoo in the Netherlands in 2012.

The world population of southern white rhino, once on the brink of extinction, has recovered to around 20,000 thanks to intensive conservation eff orts, according to conserva-tion group Save the Rhino.

Rhino poaching rates in South Africa, home to more than 80% of the world’s rhino popula-tion, surged from 83 in 2008 to a record 1,215 in 2014, but have fallen for the last two years, ac-cording to South African gov-ernment data.

Poachers kill white rhino in French zooReuters/AFPParis

Vince, the four-year-old male white rhino, is seen in this handout picture released by the Domaine de Thoiry (Thoiry zoo and wildlife park) yesterday. The rhino was found dead in his enclosure by his keeper at the Thoiry zoo, about 50km west of Paris, yesterday morning after an overnight break-in, the zoo said.

A four-month-old polar bear cub born in captivity in Berlin has died of com-

plications from a liver infl am-mation, offi cials at the city’s Tierpark zoo said yesterday.

Named after a contest that drew more than 10,000 entries from Germany and around the world, Fritz had been celebrated across the nation as an heir to Knut, who was born in a rival Berlin zoo in 2006.

Knut turned into a global sen-sation for surviving against long odds when he was rejected by his mother at birth.

He was reared by keepers but died in 2011.

“We’re speechless, saddened

and depressed,” said Tierpark zoo director Andreas Knieriem of Fritz’s death. “It’s astonishing how the little polar bear capti-vated our hearts.”

Fritz was born on November 3, the fi rst polar bear birth in eastern Berlin’s Tierpark zoo in 22 years.

He had a twin sibling which died shortly after birth.

Zookeepers had found him ly-ing listlessly next to his mother Tonja on Monday morning.

A series of checks found the cub to be suff ering from a severe case of liver infl ammation.

He was given antibiotics and painkillers, but the seriousness of his condition became clear when the Tierpark said on Mon-day that they hoped he would survive the night.

But by around 7.30pm (1830

GMT) his breathing became ir-regular, and he was pronounced dead around half an hour later.

An autopsy on the polar bear cub was being carried out.

“Fritz did not make it,” said top-selling Bild daily on its on-line homepage and in a tweet.

The chancellery joined in mourning, with Angela Merkel’s chief of staff Peter Altmaier at-taching Bild’s tweet and adding: “Anyone who remembers little Knut is sad. But above all, we must protect polar bears in na-ture!”

Polar bear cub Fritz, heir to Knut, is deadReuters/AFPBerlin

This photo taken on February 16 and released by Tierpark Berlin (Berlin zoo) on February 24 shows polar bear Fritz, then three months old, with mother Tonja in their enclosure in Berlin.The Tierpark zoo said yesterday that Fritz has died.

Italian farmers from regions ravaged by earthquakes brought sheep to central

Rome yesterday to protest what they say are serious delays in re-construction eff orts.

More than 10,000 farm ani-mals have been killed or injured by quake damage and subse-quent freezing weather, farm-ers’ association Coldiretti said.

Outside parliament, a make-shift paddock housed three sheep rescued from areas struck by tremors while farmers waved fl ags and banners reading “Bu-reaucracy is more deadly than earthquakes”.

Thousands of farming busi-nesses are housed in the cen-tral regions of Lazio, Marche, Abruzzo and Umbria where tremors have rumbled since Au-gust.

Prime Minister Paolo Gen-tiloni has approved a draft law to help quake victims, including €35mn ($37mn) to compensate farmers for lost income.

The law also aims to make it

easier for regional governments to buy temporary stalls.

Farmers say about 85% of their livestock need shelter.

“Breeders still don’t know where to put their surviving cows, pigs and sheep, which are

either stuck out in the cold, at risk of death and disease, or in derelict buildings,” the farm as-sociation said.

Stress caused by cold and fear has reduced milk production in the region by 30%.

Local crops like lentils are also at risk as seeds cannot be sown on fractured land, it added.

The agriculture ministry said the process of releasing emer-gency funds to farmers was un-der way.

Farmers bring sheep to Rome protestReutersRome

Sheep are seen in front of Rome’s Montecitorio Palace during a protest yesterday by farmers from the earthquake zones of Amatrice.

Scandal-plagued French presidential hopeful Fran-cois Fillon was hit by a new

revelation yesterday, this time over an interest-free, undeclared loan he received from a billion-aire friend.

The conservative candidate “did not deem it necessary” to report the €50,000 ($53,000) loan he received from Marc Ladreit de Lacharriere in 2013 to a state transparency watchdog, Le Canard Enchaine weekly said in its edition to appear today.

“The ‘oversight’ may be costly for the presidential candidate,” said the investigative and satiri-cal newspaper, which also made the allegations in January about the fake jobs scandal that has threatened to derail Fillon’s can-didacy.

Le Canard Enchaine reported that Fillon’s lawyer Antonin Levy had confi rmed the loan had been repaid in full, but did not say when.

Once the frontrunner to be-come France’s next president in May, 63-year-old Fillon has had to battle to stay in the race be-cause of the revelations that he had paid his wife Penelope hun-dreds of thousands of euros from public funds, allegedly for fake jobs.

The former prime minister is to be charged later this month.

Ladreit de Lacharriere is the chief executive of Fimalac, a fi -nancial services holding compa-ny, and owns the literary maga-zine La Revue des Deux Mondes.

The publication paid Penelope Fillon some €100,000 in 2012-13

but there is little evidence of her work.

Investigators are looking into a possible link between this job and the bestowal of France’s high-est civilian honour, the Grand Croix of the Legion of Honour, on Ladreit de Lacharriere in 2011 when Fillon was prime minister.

The Canard Enchaine also said investigators were looking into a consultancy fi rm called 2F Con-seil that Fillon set up in 2012 after he left offi ce as prime minister, which the paper says has paid him hundreds of thousands of euros.

Fillon has denied any wrong-doing with his consultancy work.

With just seven weeks to go before France goes to the polls in the April 23 fi rst round of a two-stage vote, Fillon has remained as the right-wing candidate despite calls for him to allow rival Alain Juppe to stand in his place be-cause of the scandal.

On Monday, he won the “unanimous” backing of his Republicans party after Juppe, 71, adamantly rejected the calls while lamenting the state of Fillon’s candidacy, calling it a “waste”.

Juppe also chastised Fillon for the disdain that he has shown the justice system and his swipes at the media.

Fillon, campaigning as a sleaze-free candidate, was the surprise winner of the right-wing primary in November, be-sting Juppe who was convicted in 2004 over a party fi nance scan-dal.

The infi ghting among Repub-licans and Fillon’s chaotic cam-paign have made an already un-predictable election even harder to call.

Centrist candidate Em-manuel Macron, 39, has gone from strength to strength, with the latest poll putting him neck-and-neck with far-right leader Marine Le Pen with 25.5% to 26.5% for her.

Fillon is lagging behind in third place with 18.5%, according to the Ifop-Fiducial poll yesterday.

Meanwhile, friends and foes in Fillon’s corner sought to set-tle their diff erences and get the conservative candidate’s presi-dential bid back on track.

Even as Fillon languishes in third place in opinion polls, a member of his team said recon-ciliation talks would begin with discontented centrists of the UDI party, who announced last week that they were withdrawing sup-port for the candidate and his party, The Republicans.

Others members of Fillon’s team took to the airwaves to de-liver a call for unity, saying that victory was still feasible.

“The page has turned,” Bruno Retailleau, Fillon’s campaign co-ordinator, told Radio Classique.

Key members of The Repub-licans party, who thrashed out the deal to rally behind Fillon on Monday, secured a pledge that he would temper his attacks on the judiciary and media, sources close to the party told Reuters.

In legal terms The Republicans have no way to stop Fillon from standing despite the damage his campaign has suff ered from the scandal, which has prompted some key aides to resign.

France’s constitutional court on Monday issued a reminder that once a candidate has reg-istered the necessary sponsors, only he or she has the power to withdraw.

The 63-year-old Fillon has al-ready secured that support.

Senate leader Gerard Larcher, one of the group of right-wing politicians behind Monday’s pro-Fillon announcement, called for unity, saying failure would open the doors of power to Le Pen.

“I cannot resign myself to the idea of a second round where it’s Le Pen versus Macron,” he said.

Republican lawmaker Luc Chatel said consolidating Fillon’s position would involve win-ning back the UDI centrist group which deserted him last week.

See also page 27

Fillon hit by new revelationAFP/ReutersParis

This file photo shows then-prime minister Fillon with Ladreit de Lacharriere during an award ceremony in Paris.

Police hunt for killer braggart

German police launched a manhunt yesterday for a 19-year-old male suspected of stabbing a nine-year-old boy to death and bragging about the murder in an online video.Police said they were alerted on Monday by people who had viewed the clip on the encrypted darknet, an online space criminals use to trade weapons, drugs and child pornography.A team of police discovered the child’s corpse around 1930 GMT on Monday in the basement of the suspect’s house in the town of Herne, North Rhine-Westphalia state.The suspect was named as Marcel Hesse, described as an unemployed and socially withdrawn man not previously known to police.Trained in martial arts, the 1.75m tall, slim, blonde man was thought to be wearing military style clothing and possibly armed.Authorities have released a photo of the suspect, but warned the public not to approach him.Police launched a large-scale search of the town on Monday night, using sniff er dogs and helicopters.

Putin pardons jailed womanRussian President Vladimir Putin has pardoned a 46-year-old female sentenced to seven years in a penal colony for sending a text message to an acquaintance about the movement of Russian military equipment.An order from the president published by the Kremlin said Oksana Sevastidi, sentenced for treason in March 2016, would be relieved from completing the rest of her sentence, citing humanitarian principles.Sevastidi was found guilty of treason after she sent a text message describing the movement of a train which carried Russian military hardware near the border with Georgia’s breakaway region of Abkhazia not long before a war broke out in 2008.

Modi most talked about politician on Facebook

Bhatkal not in solitary confinement, court told

Tension in Assam town following clash, vandalism

India yesterday refuted Pakistan’s allegation that New Delhi and Kabul have joined hands to create unrest in that country. Reacting to the allegation by Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif, Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju said that New Delhi and Kabul believe in peace. “Both India and Afghanistan believe in peace but are victims of terrorism emanating from Pak,” the minister said in a tweet. Rijiju also denied that India indulges in unprovoked firing at the Line of Control. “Indian forces never indulge in unprovoked firing,” he added. On Monday, Asif alleged in the National Assembly of Pakistan that India and Afghanistan have joined hands to create unrest in Pakistan.

India has already conveyed its concerns to the US over its move to curb H-1B visa processing, IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said yesterday. “Our concerns had been conveyed to the US government. Indian IT companies are giving very good value addition to the American companies. They are servicing more than 75% of the Fortune 500 companies. They are making them more competitive and giving them extraordinary value addition,” Prasad said at the inaugural session of the three-day conference on the ‘ICEGOV 2017-10th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance’ in New Delhi. “They (Indian IT companies) have created more than 400,000 jobs,” he said.

India denies charge of creating unrest in Pakistan

Concern over H-1B conveyed to US: Prasad

ALLEGATIONSBUSINESS

As the assembly elections in five states are at a crucial stage, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has emerged as the most talked about politician on Facebook from February 19 to 28 followed by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav. According to the rankings compiled by Facebook, which are based on the number of unique people engaging in conversation related to leaders, Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah was placed in the third spot, while Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi was fourth. These politicians were followed by Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati and Akhilesh’s wife and MP Dimple Yadav. The BJP was the most talked about political party with 64%. Congress with 45% and Samajwadi Party (SP) with 15% completed the list.

POLITICS JUDICIARY VIOLENCE

Tension prevailed in Silapathar town in Assam yesterday after members of a linguistic minority organisation attacked and vandalised the off ice of the All Assam Students’ Union on Monday. Dhemaji district administration on Monday imposed a night curfew and the army carried out a flag march in and around the town yesterday to instil confidence among people. A rally by Nikhil Bharat Bengali Uddastu Samannay Samiti (NBBUSS) turned violent and hundreds of its members raised slogans against Assamese people and the Assam Accord before attacking the AASU off ice in Silapathar. The rally was organised after some NBBUSS leaders reportedly made inciting speeches in a meeting earlier on Monday.

Tihar Central Jail officials yesterday told a Delhi court that Indian Mujahideen co-founder Yasin Bhatkal has not been kept in solitary confinement as there is no such cell in the prison. During on-camera proceedings, the jail officials also told the court that Bhatkal is kept under surveillance since there are several cases against him. The court was hearing Bhatkal’s plea in which he has alleged that he cannot be kept in a high security cell as per previous rulings of the Supreme Court. Bhatkal’s counsel M S Khan also claimed in the application that his solitary confinement amounts to contempt of court. The court has listed the matter for March 25 for further hearing.

Modi battles for hearts and minds in VaranasiAFPVaranasi

Varanasi boat owner Prab-hu Sahani backed Naren-dra Modi as his MP in the

2014 general election.But the minister will not be

getting his vote when the ancient city on the Ganges goes to the polls again today.

“He doesn’t understand Vara-nasi,” complained Sahani, 34, whose boats ferry tourists and pilgrims along the holy river.

“We run the oldest transpor-tation in the city, going back generations, and he didn’t con-sult us about his plans (to clean up the Ganges and modernise the city).”

Modi’s decision to stand in the sacred Hindu city in Uttar Pradesh rather than his home state of Gujarat in 2014 paid off with an overwhelming victory that he celebrated with a prayer on the banks of the Ganges.

Now his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is trying to consolidate its grip on power by seizing control of India’s most populous state, which stretches from the high-rise outer edge of the national capital in the west to the city on the Ganges.

It faces stiff competition from the ruling Samajwadi Party (SP) in a state where caste, family and religious affi liations run deep.

Uttar Pradesh Chief minister Akhilesh Yadav has rejuvenated the SP’s image since he toppled his ageing father this year, forg-ing an alliance with the Congress Party, and campaigning along-side its vice president Rahul Gandhi.

Today’s vote will be the fi nal stage of a bitter weeks-long bat-tle for the state that analysts say is too close to call.

It is a key test of Modi nearly three years after he came to offi ce pledging inclusive government and a “shining India” that would provide jobs for a growing youth population.

As voting day approached in Varanasi, one of the world’s old-est cities, the once putrid banks of the Ganges were certainly shining brighter.

Locals said cleaners now came four times a day to sweep the ghats, where bodies are brought

to be cremated according to cen-turies-old Hindu tradition.

Modern changing cabins have sprung up along the river, al-though most stood empty as ritual bathers stripped off next to them in the open, just as they have always done.

“You used to see dead bodies of animals and sometimes even people fl oating in the river. Now that has decreased,” said boat-man Suresh Sahani, who planned to vote BJP, as he touted for cus-tomers in the hot sun.

Away from the river, how-ever, there were few signs of the “smart heritage city” that Modi promised.

Work has begun on under-ground cables to replace the tan-gle of electricity wires that hang precariously over the city’s nar-row streets.

But for now that only worsens the congestion, forcing honking cars, rickshaws and bicycles into an angry single lane of traffi c that is often brought to a standstill by a stray cow.

Varanasi’s BJP Mayor Ram Gopal Mohley blamed the state government for the pace of progress, saying hundreds of millions of rupees had been pro-vided from federal coff ers to de-velop the city’s infrastructure.

“They have been creating all the hurdles, but not for long. We will form the government on March 11 and things will change,” he said.

“Whatever Modiji is doing for his constituency is good.”

With all to play for, party lead-ers fl ocked to Varanasi over the weekend to rally support.

Modi touted his party’s in-vestment in the city and said the weavers of its famous silk had been given “modern facilities”.

But there was little sign of that in the impoverished Muslim neighbourhood where much of the silk is made.

“Water supply is a problem, power supply is a problem, and we have fl oods every monsoon,” 75-year-old Abdul Azib said as the clack-clack of automated silk looms resounded through the narrow alleys.

“All the candidates come to this area, they say a lot, but nothing happens,” said Azib, who scrapes a meagre living making saris.

AI sets record with all-female round-world fl ightAFPNew Delhi

India’s national airline on Monday claimed to have set a new record with the fi rst round-the-world fl ight

staff ed entirely by women.Air India said its Boeing 777 travelled

from Delhi to San Francisco and back again with an all-female crew last week, the fi rst time such a fl ight has circum-navigated the globe.

The airline, which has faced criticism in the past for grounding dozens of fe-male cabin crew over their weight, said it had applied to Guinness World Records to validate the claim.

Smiling members of the crew, wearing saris and jackets, posed for selfi es in San Francisco International Airport before setting off on the fi nal leg of the trip.

Every member of staff – from the fl ight’s captains to the cabin crew, check-in and ground handling staff –

were women. Even the engineers, who certifi ed the aircraft, and air traffi c con-trollers, who cleared its departure and arrival, were women, the airline said.

“Everyone involved in the fl ight op-eration – from pilots to check-in staff to cabin crew – were from our female staff ,” spokesman G P Rao said.

Rao said even the air traffi c controllers at the Delhi end of the fl ight, which re-turned on March 3, were women.

The airline will operate more all-fe-male fl ights this week to celebrate Inter-national Women’s Day today, Rao said.

Last year the state-owned carrier said it had fl own a non-stop fl ight for 17 hours to set a record for the longest all-female crew trip.

In recent years Air India has taken several initiatives to improve its record on gender equality.

In January it announced designated female-only seats on its domestic fl ights after a spate of sexual harassment com-plaints by passengers.

8 hurt in MPtrain blast

In a suspected terror attack, at least eight people were injured, two of them seriously, in an explosion on a Bhopal-Ujjain passenger train in Shajapur district of Madhya Pradesh yesterday, off icials said. Three men arrested from a bus in Piparia in Hoshangabad district had made a “big disclosure” during police questioning on the blast, state Home Minister Bhupendra Singh said later. Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan ordered a probe and announced Rs50,000 each to the seriously wounded and Rs25,000 to those who suff ered minor injuries. Police earlier said a coach on the train caught fire after the explosion near Jabri railway station. The injured were taken to the Kalapipal hospital. Shujalpur Sub-Divisional Off icer Amit Mishra said the coach was detached from the train after the blast.

Last phase of UP pollscrucial for all partiesIn Poorvanchal, poverty is a dominant theme; in his speeches, Modi spoke a lot on joblessness and poverty

IANSVaranasi

The seventh and last phase of polling to pick a new Uttar Pradesh assembly

will be held today in seven dis-tricts of poverty-struck Poor-vanchal region.

Around 10.4mn voters are eli-gible to take part in the balloting in the sprawling region that in-cludes Varanasi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Lok Sabha con-stituency.

The other districts which will see voting are Sonebhadra, Chandauli, Mirzapur, Ghazipur, Bhadohi and Jaunpur.

While the onus is on the ruling Samajwadi Party to retain 24 of the 40 seats it won in 2012, a lot is also at stake for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Modi him-

self as the party swept the Poor-vanchal in the 2014 Lok Sabha battle.

The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), trying hard to regain pow-er in the country’s most populous state, has put in all its might to add to its 2012 tally of fi ve seats.

The Congress, now a Sama-jwadi ally, won three seats in 2012, the Quami Ekta Dal one and three independents too made it to the outgoing assembly.

In Poorvanchal, poverty is a dominant theme. In his speech-es, Modi spoke a lot on jobless-ness and poverty.

The BJP did not win a single seat in fi ve of the districts in 2012.

The last phase of election is a litmus test for BJP stalwarts.

Former chief minister and now federal Home Minister Rajnath Singh comes from Chandauli. Mahendranath Pandey, an MP, is a member in the Modi govern-ment. Ghazipur MP Manoj Sinha is minister of state for railways.

Apna Dal leader Anupriya Pa-tel, a BJP ally, has a lot at stake too.

Her parliamentary constituency Mirzapur goes to the polls today.

BJP leader Vijay Bahadur Pathak says the party was confi -dent of doing “exceedingly well” in Poorvanchal.

“We have performed beyond our expectations in the last six phases. We are sure of getting the maximum number seats in the fi -nal phase,” Pathak said.

The Samajwadi Party expelled most of its powerful Poorvanchal leaders after an internal party feud involving Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav and his estranged uncle Shivpal Singh.

Senior cabinet minister and Akhilesh Yadav aide Rajendra Chowdhary says the region has always stood by the Samajwadi Party.

The BSP is banking heavily on the appeal of Mukhtar Ansari and his family. The region is home to hundreds of thousands of weav-ers, many of whom are Muslims.

BSP chief Mayawati speaks of a groundswell in her party’s favour.

“People have tried and tested

both Modi and Akhilesh Yadav and there is nothing but disap-pointment. Poorvanchal, like other parts of the state, is looking to the BSP for good governance,” the Dalit leader says.

Some areas are home to Mao-ists while some of the candidates have a criminal background. Security has been stepped in Sonebhadra, Mirzapur and Chandauli.

It is a triangular fi ght in Mughalsarai, Sakaldeha, Sayye-draza and Chakia seats in Chan-dauli. So is the case in Mirzapur, Chunar, Majhwa, Chanbe and Madihan in Mirzapur district.

Sonebhadra – Robertsganj, Ghorawal and Duddhi – will see a close contest between the BJP and BSP.

Political strongmen who are ei-ther in the race or have fi elded fam-ily members include Sigbatullah, Vineet Singh and Atul Rai (BSP), Dhananjay Singh (Independent), Alka Rai and Sushil Singh (BJP), Dinesh Kant (RLD) and Manoj Ku-mar (Samajwadi Party).

Varanasi has hogged the maxi-mum limelight.

It has eight assembly con-stituencies of which the BJP won three. In all 127 candidates are in the fray in Varanasi. Modi, Akhilesh Yadav, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi and Mayawati extensively cam-paigned in the city.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal yesterday said Modi was seeking votes in Uttar Pradesh in the name of “shamshan ghat” and not on the basis of his work.

Saying he had listened to all speeches of Modi in the Uttar Pradesh election campaign, Kejri-wal told the Delhi Assembly that there was a diff erence in his and the prime minister’s approach.

“Modiji seeks votes in the name of ‘shamshan ghat’,” the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader said, referring to Modi’s remarks that the Samajwadi Party-led Uttar Pradesh government should not diff erentiate between Muslim graveyards and Hindu cremation grounds.

A Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) election campaign hoarding displays an image of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Varanasi.

Air India Chairman and Managing Director Ashwani Lohani stands with the pilots and crew members of an all-women Delhi – San Francisco – Delhi flight as they pose for a photograph during an event on the eve of International Women’s Day in New Delhi yesterday.

Gulf Times Wednesday, March 8, 2017

INDIA20

INDIA21Gulf Times

Wednesday, March 8, 2017

Protests in TN after fi sherman is shot dead by Lanka navy

Six men arrested over rape of orphans

DU professorsentenced tolife in jail forMaoist links

AgenciesThiruvananthapuram

Six men have been arrested for allegedly raping teen-age girls from an orphan-

age in Kerala, police said yester-day.

The girls were lured into a shop near their orphanage in Wayanad district by the suspects who off ered them chocolates.

The men were arrested on Monday night following a com-plaint by the orphanage.

“There are a total of seven vic-tims, who were sexually abused over the last two months,” dis-trict police chief Rajpal Meena said.

Police said the girls alleged that the men fi lmed the rapes and used the footage to black-mail them into further sexual acts.

The suspects have been charged with rape as well as of-fences under the Protection of Children from Sexual Off ences (POSCO) act.

Media reports said medical tests had confi rmed rape.

Statements of the students of Classes 8 and 9 were recorded by a magistrate earlier in the day.

Lok Sabha member from Kan-nur P K Sreemathi met the vic-tims yesterday. She instructed the authorities that all residents of the orphanage be given coun-selling.

Offi cials of the orphanage said when they came to know about what had happened to the girls, they reported the matter to the police, which led to the arrest of the six men.

Kerala Minister for Social Justice K K Shailaja told re-porters in the state capital Thiruvananthapuram that very soon all orphanages would be inspected to find out their con-dition.

“Strict action would be taken against the violators of rules and regulations,” said the minister.

Women’s right activists ex-pressed the shock at the “hor-rifi c” crimes and demanded the strongest possible action against the accused.

Agencies New Delhi

A Tamil fi sherman was al-legedly shot dead by the Sri Lankan Navy trig-

gering protests in Tamil Nadu yesterday, following which New Delhi raised concerns over the killing with Colombo.

The shooting took place on Monday evening when the fi sh-ermen were fi shing in the Kat-chatheevu islet in the Palk Strait that divides India from Sri Lanka.

A fi sherman identifi ed as K Britjo, 22, died from gun-shot wounds and two more were in-

jured, the leaders of the fi sher-men told reporters.

More than 1,000 people had gathered at the victim’s village in Tamil Nadu’s Rameswaram dis-trict in protest, while his family refused to accept the body, de-manding action from the Indian and Sri Lankan governments.

The Indian High Commission in Colombo had taken up the matter with Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, All India Radio reported citing government sources.

Sri Lanka said it would con-duct a joint investigation into the killing, but denied its navy was responsible.

Fishermen from the two coun-tries often stray into each others’ waters, creating diplomatic diffi -culties, though most are detained.

It was the fi rst death in six years.

“Initial investigations indicate that the Sri Lanka Navy is not in-volved in this alleged incident,” the Sri Lankan foreign ministry said in a statement.

“If in fact a shooting has taken place, it is a matter of grave con-cern and all possible action will be taken, in co-operation with the relevant Indian authorities, to investigate into this incident.”

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister K Palaniswami urged Prime Minis-

ter Narendra Modi to act to curb what he said was Colombo’s “ag-gression” against innocent In-dian fi shermen.

The sea near the island is rich in marine life, leading to frequent clashes between Indian and Sri Lankan fi shermen as well as navy.

In a letter to Modi, Palan-iswami urged him “to intervene personally in this sensitive liveli-hood issue of our fi shermen and use all means at the command of the government of India to curb the unacceptable aggressive ac-tions of the Sri Lankan Navy and to protect the life, limb and lib-erty of our innocent fi shermen”.

Palaniswami said the Sri

Lankan High Commissioner to India should be summoned and told about the strong feelings of the Indian and Tamil Nadu gov-ernments about the unprovoked fi ring on Indian fi shermen.

The dead man had set sail in a vessel with others from Rameshwaram on Monday.

Sri Lankan Navy spokesper-son Lt Commander Chaminda Walakuluge said in Colombo that the navy personnel had been or-dered not to fi re at Indian fi sh-ermen but to only arrest them if they entered Sri Lankan waters.

The Tamil Nadu chief minister announced a compensation of Rs500,000 to the family of Britjo

and Rs100,000 for the injured fi sherman Saron.

The attack comes a day after Palaniswami wrote to Modi seek-ing the release of 85 fi shermen and their 128 boats in Sri Lankan custody.

Pattali Makkal Katchi lead-er Anbumani Ramadoss con-demned the killing and said New Delhi should stop terming Sri Lanka as a friendly nation.

“They were fi rst attacked by the Sri Lankan Navy with gre-nades and then were shot at,” he said in Chennai.

He said attacks on the Indian fi shermen by the Sri Lankan Navy have been happening for

the past 30 years, leaving more than 800 fi shermen dead.

Ramadoss said India and Sri Lanka had agreed that fi shermen crossing the maritime boundary by mistake should not be attacked but handled in a humane manner.

“It seems Sri Lanka is not will-ing to abide by any agreement,” he said.

The latest incident is the worst since two Indian fi shermen were shot dead in Sri Lankan waters in January 2011.

In 2014 Sri Lanka passed the death penalty on fi ve Indian fi sh-ermen convicted of drug smug-gling, but they were later released to Indian custody.

Court says Saibaba and others conspired “to create violence and cause public disorder

IANSMumbai

Delhi University profes-sor G N Saibaba, who is wheelchair-bound, was

yesterday sentenced to life im-prisonment by a Maharashtra court for his links with Mao-ists.

The Gadchiroli Sessions Court also handed out life imprison-ment to four others while their sixth accomplice was jailed for 10 years.

The suspended English pro-fessor of Ram Lal Anand College was arrested in May 2014 from Delhi.

The prosecution claimed that incriminating documents, compact discs and pen drives containing literature about the banned Communist Party of In-dia-Maoist were recovered from him.

The court noted that the ac-cused had conspired “to create violence, cause public disorder and spread disaff ection towards the central government and the state government”.

“In pursuance of the said criminal conspiracy, the ac-cused were found in possession of printed Naxal literature” that was to be circulated “amongst the members of banned CPI-Maoist and its frontal organisa-tion RDF (Revolutionary Demo-cratic Front) and other persons

for creating violence and causing public disorder.”

Judge S S Shinde convicted Saibaba, 47, under the Unlaw-ful Activities (Prevention) Act and found him and his associates guilty of conspiring and being a member of the terrorist outfi t and off ences relating to support given to the Leftist rebels.

Saibaba was in April last year granted bail by the Supreme Court and exempted from per-sonal appearance on the grounds of his deteriorating health.

Besides the DU teacher, the court also convicted Jawaharlal Nehru University student Hem Mishra and former journalist Prashant Rahi – both arrested in 2013 for their nexus with the Left wing extremists.

Saibaba came under police scanner after the JNU student confessed to police that he was acting as a courier between the English professor and Maoist leaders, including Puppalla Lax-man Rao alias Ganapathy.

Hours after the verdict, Saiba-ba’s wife expressed her shock and accused the central govern-ment of following an RSS agenda in pressuring the judiciary for a favourable outcome.

“This judgement is shocking. In the history of Maharashtra this is the fi rst case in which all the

persons chargesheeted were convicted in all the sections with life imprisonment,” Vasanta Ku-mari said in a statement.

“No evidence has been proved by the prosecution... electronic evidence was not sealed. It seems the state and central govern-

ments have put a lot of pressure on the judiciary to implement anti-people and undemocratic policies at the behest of corpo-rates and MNCs,” she said.

Vasanta Kumari said that she will fi ght for her husband’s free-dom in the higher courts and urged civil society members to condemn the “undemocratic character of the government”.

“Honouring the court, Saiba-ba has been attending it in all these years including today, de-spite his deteriorating health. As a wife I will fi ght in the higher courts to seek justice.

“The government has been putting relentless pressure on my family for the last four years by raiding my house in Delhi. I appeal to democracy champions, peoples’ organisations, intellec-tuals, students to condemn such undemocratic character of the government,” she said.

She noted that after the ver-dict was announced, her appeal seeking co-operative behaviour towards Saibaba – who is wheel-chair-bound and 90% disabled – was also rejected by the judge.

“The judge refused to issue any order on the appeal of our advocate... (who) asked him to issue an order directing the jail authorities to give required medicines, help of assistants for Saibaba’s movement, operation to be performed for gall bladder, etc,” she added.

Meanwhile, the Akhil Bharati-ya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) welcomed the verdict, say-ing Saibaba played a big role in spreading Maoism in urban ar-eas.

Fat-shamed cop gets free surgery

Curfew needed to protect‘hormonal’ women: Maneka

DPANew Delhi

A tweet by a popular writer fat-shaming a policeman thrust the

cop into national limelight and got him a free weight-re-duction surgery.

Inspector Daulatram Joga-wat was discharged from Mumbai’s Saifee Hospital on Monday following a bariatric surgery, spokeswoman Amrita Datta said.

The cop thanked Shobhaa De for her tweet, widely seen as humiliating him, but one which had the unintended consequence of drawing at-tention to his plight.

De had tagged the police-man’s photograph in a tweet last month that said Mumbai had planned “heavy security” for local elections.

The tweet went viral with critics trolling De for being in-sensitive.

The Saifee hospital off ered to treat Jogawat following De’s comment, Datta said, adding the cop, who weighed 180kg before the operation, could lose up to 80kg over the next 18 months.

The hospital has been in the news after it began treat-ing an Egyptian woman, re-portedly the world’s heavi-est, at 500kg.

Jogawat earlier said he was hurt by De’s tweet and that he was not obese because of overeating but due to medical issues.

Following the surgery, Joga-wat told the Hindustan Times that he had got the “oppor-tunity to come all the way to Mumbai for treatment” be-cause of De.

De appeared apologetic as she took to Twitter again yes-terday.

“What a positive and won-derful response from Daulat-ram Jogawat. Salute. God bless the cop.”

AgenciesNew Delhi

Female students need cur-fews to protect them from their own “hormonal out-

bursts”, Women and Child De-velopment Minister Maneka Gandh has said, sparking ridi-cule on social media.

Many Indian universities in-fl ict curfews on women while allowing their male students freedom to stay out at night, a policy that critics say is sexist and outdated.

Asked about the practice on a television talk show, Gandhi said it was necessary to protect young women from their own hormones.

“To protect you from your own hormonal outbursts, per-haps a certain protection, a Lak-shman Rekha (red line) is drawn,” she said in comments broadcast on the NDTV news channel on Monday.

“You can make it (the curfew) six,

seven or eight, that depends on col-lege to college but it really is for your own safety,” she told the studio au-dience of college students during a special show to mark International Women’s Day today.

Gandhi said a similar deadline should be put in place for male students, but many social media users ridiculed her for her com-ments.

“You know what would be safest? Lock hormonal men in, instead of denying women the right to lead a full life,” tweeted one critic.

“Maneka Gandhi seems to be having a “hormonal outburst” herself. Did she really say that? Curfew for girls? Happy Inter-national Women’s Day,” tweeted author Shobhaa De.

“Madam Menaka Gandhi, I am having a ‘hormonal outburst’ right this moment after listening to you. Please help,” said another Twitter user.

While several of them made personal remarks against the

minister, one user suggested “strategic introduction of sex education to save the youth from hormonal outburst”.

“Dear @Manekagandhibjp we can handle ‘hormonal outburst’ but your ‘patriarchal outburst’ was too much to take,” said Dipsita.

“Verbal outburst is doing more damage than Hormonal Outburst, better control former one,” tweet-ed Haroon Rashid Bhat.

“Maneka Gandhi’s ‘hormo-nal outburst’ comment makes her sound like a khap panchayat representative,” posted Kunal Majumder.

Another twitter user posted: “Hostel curfew are required but don’t give such pathetic reasons for some serious issues.”

Gandhi is no stranger to con-troversy.

Last year she angered wom-en’s rights campaigners arguing for a law against marital rape by saying that could not apply in India because society viewed marriage as sacrosanct.

Students pose with their faces painted at a college in Chennai yesterday on the eve of International Women’s Day.

A celebration of women

Trinamool Congress workers stage a demonstration against the central government in Kolkata yesterday.

Protest against govt

NoriegaundergoesbrainsurgeryAFPPanama City

Panama’s former military dictator Manuel Noriega yesterday underwent sur-

gery to remove a benign brain tumour, with his family hoping the 83-year-old’s recovery will prevent his return to prison.

His daughter Thays Noriega said the surgeon had sent her a message before he began surgery at the Santo Tomas Hospital, in Panama City.

“We understand the opera-tion had to be done given that his quality of life was steadily di-minishing,” she said.

Manuel Noriega was a mili-tary intelligence offi cer who long worked for the CIA and who ruled his Central American country from 1983 until US forc-es invaded in 1989 to topple and capture him.

Relations between Noriega and the US deteriorated as he de-fi ed pressure from US president Ronald Reagan to stand down, and as he appeared to shift alle-giance to the then-Soviet Union, at the height of the Cold War.

After his ouster Noriega was taken prisoner to the US, where he was tried and imprisoned on drug traffi cking and money laundering charges.

In 2010 Noriega was extradited to France, where he was convict-ed on money laundering charges, then extradited to Panama in 2011, where he was sentenced for the disappearance of political op-ponents during his reign.

The former dictator is cur-rently serving three 20-year prison sentences in Panama for those rights abuses.

Noriega was being held in El Renacer prison, on the banks of the Panama Canal.

But in January he was granted temporary release into home detention to prepare for sur-gery, which had originally been scheduled for February.

Noriega is suff ering from a benign meningioma, a tumor on membranes that cover the brain and spinal cord just inside the skull.

Brazilianssuff eringworst everrecessionAFPRio de Janeiro

Brazil is suff ering the worst recession of its history, offi cial fi gures showed

yesterday, but Finance Minister Henrique Meirelles insisted that Latin America’s biggest econo-my will soon bounce back.

The government statistics offi ce said the economy shrank 0.9% in the last three months of 2016, the eighth consecutive quarterly dip.

That meant an overall fall of 3.6% in 2016, following a 3.8% fall in 2015.

The two straight years of eco-nomic decline mark the deepest recession since records began.

Brazil used to be an emerging markets poster child under pres-ident Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva between 2003 and 2010, riding booming commodity prices and Chinese demand.

It also won praise for far-reaching social policies aimed at lifting tens of millions of people from extreme poverty.

But the country was unpre-pared for a slump in prices for its oil, soy, metals and other commodity exports, as well as political instability and a huge corruption scandal.

By 2014 the economy was fl at-lining and in 2015 entered negative territory.

Unemployment recent-ly reached a record 12.6%, amounting to around 13mn peo-ple out of work.

Speaking in Brasilia, Meirelles acknowledged Brazil “faces its worst crisis in history.” However, he said the problems refl ected in plummeting GDP fi gures were linked to past mistakes, which today’s government is fi xing.

“The GDP announced today refers to the past. It’s looking in the rearview mirror,” he said. “It’s the result of a series of poli-cies.”

“Brazil is already a country returning to normal,” Meirelles said. “The country is clearly al-ready growing.”

President Michel Temer is working to get austerity and structural reforms through Congress with a view to restor-ing fi scal responsibility to the debt-laden government.

Reacting to the latest GDP fi g-ures, Temer also promised im-provements and cited a steady slackening in the long stubborn infl ation rate.

“We want to put the coun-try on the rails so that whoever comes after can simply drive the train,” he said. “The priority is to create jobs.”

Temer took over last year after his predecessor Dilma Rousseff was impeached for illegally ma-nipulating government accounts with unauthorised loans.

However, Temer’s hand has been weakened by enormous unpopularity and a spreading corruption scandal.

Several of his chief allies are mired in a probe looking at a sprawling bribery and embez-zlement network.

The probe is due to pick up pace soon with the expected release of damaging testimony against senior political fi gures and opening of new criminal cases.

Temer also faces scrutiny in the Supreme Electoral Court which must decide whether his 2014 election as then vice presi-dent to Rousseff should be an-nulled due to alleged use of bribe money during the campaign.

According to the statistics of-fi ce, the fourth quarter of 2016 — October through December — saw the economy slump 0.9% compared to the previous quar-ter.

The picture was even gloomi-er compared to the fi nal quarter of 2015: a decline of 2.5% year on year.

The latest quarterly declines were led by the agricultural sec-tor, which saw a 6.6% fall, 3.8% in the industrial sector, and 2.7% in services, the statistics offi ce said.

This rapid retreat by the econ-omy took place despite a hoped for boost from the Olympics, which Rio de Janeiro hosted in August.

However, market analysts and the government expect better news soon, predicting the econ-omy will fi nally exit the reces-sion this year, albeit ending 2017 with the most tepid of growth rates — 0.49%.

Meirelles forecast that last quarter growth in 2017 would see 2.4 % compared to the same period last year.

Mexico cancels sugarexport permits to USReutersMexico City

Mexico has cancelled existing sugar export permits to the US to

avoid penalties in a dispute over the pace of shipments, a docu-ment seen by Reuters said, partly blaming the issue on unfi lled po-sitions at the US department of commerce.

It was not immediately clear what impact the cancellation would have on exports to the US.

The document, sent by Mexi-co’s sugar chamber to mills said existing permits would be reis-sued in April.

Mexico’s sugar mills are cur-rently in full swing at the height of the harvest.

The amount of sugar sent to the US varies from season to sea-son, with the document referring to a quota of 820,000 tonnes in 2016-2017.

Ties between the US and Mex-ico have frayed under Donald Trump, who sees trade skewed

to favour the southern neighbour and is seeking to renegotiate the North American Free Trade agreement.

The document made no sug-gestion that the present dispute was related to the wider poli-tics, but described as “absurd” an interpretation by “low-level” commerce department offi cials of a clause in so-called suspen-sion agreements, which have regulated the sugar trade be-tween both countries since the end of 2014.

In the document, chamber president Humberto Jasso says the interpretation relating to how much sugar Mexico can send in the six months up to March 31 means it would only be able to export 40% of the quota allocat-ed by the US in the period, caus-ing a concentration in the second half of the season.

The economy ministry said it could not immediately com-ment.

Offi cials from Mexico’s sugar chamber could not be reached for comment.

It was not immediately clear how many sugar export permits were cancelled or what penalties Mexico had faced.

The Mexican economy min-istry decided to cancel the per-mits since it has no counterparts at the commerce department to resolve the issue, the document said.

“Because the ministry can-not resolve the issue with the department of commerce, since offi cials in charge of making de-cisions have not been appointed, economy ministry attorneys in Washington insisted on send-ing a statement to the commerce ministry acknowledging the problem and cancelling existing exports, so that they can be re-issued as of April 1,” the docu-ment adds.

Mill owners should consider legally challenging the decision, it said.

Trump has not fi lled staff po-sitions in several departments, a situation Mexican offi cials say has made it hard to negotiate on trade issues.

Honduras ex-presidenttook bribe: gangsterAFPNew York

A former Honduran drug lord currently being held in the US said he

paid large bribes to his coun-try’s ex-president and his son in exchange for protection from prosecution.

Devis Leonel Rivera Madariaga — a former boss of the notorious Los Cachiros cartel who has con-fessed to killing 78 people — said he paid former president Porfi rio Lobo (2010-2014) and his son Fabio hundreds of thousands of dollars.

He was speaking in testimony in a New York court in a case against Fabio Lobo, who is ac-cused of drug traffi cking to the US.

Rivera Madariaga said his group’s contacts with the Lobos, other politicians — some still ongoing — and the police and military helped the cartel receive tonnes of cocaine in Honduras, a country with one of the world’s highest homicide rates.

The drug was shipped from Colombia and Venezuela before

it was sent on to Guatemala, Mexico and the US.

Former president Lobo ap-pointed his son Fabio as an in-terlocutor with Los Cachiros — one of the country’s largest drug gangs — Rivera Madariaga said, adding that he was put in charge of helping the gang with security.

Porfi rio Lobo denied what he called “absolutely false accusa-tions” in comments to AFP, say-ing he never met with drug traf-fi ckers or received bribes from them.

Fabio Lobo, who was in court dressed in a navy blue prisoner uniform, listened in silence, sometimes shaking his head at Rivera Madariaga’s statements.

The US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) arrested Rivera Madariaga in December 2015 on charges of drug traffi cking. He faces up to life in prison plus 30 years.

The DEA also arrested Lobo in Haiti in 2015.

He pleaded guilty to conspir-ing to import and distribute co-caine in the US in May 2016. He faces up to life in prison.

New cable car line

Cable cars run along the recently inaugurated blue line, an urban ropeway, in El Alto city, on the outskirts of La Paz, Bolivia.

On the campaign trail

Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who is running to be the presidential candidate for the ruling Partido Nacional (National Party), delivers a speech to supporters during a rally ahead of the March 12 primary elections in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.

22 Gulf TimesWednesday, March 8, 2017

LATIN AMERICA

Bolivian President Evo Morales will return to Cuba in early April for an operation to remove a nodule in his vocal cords, Cuban state media said. The leftist former coca farmer went to Cuba for treatment on Wednesday after a sore throat robbed him of his voice, causing him to cancel public appearances. The state outlet Cubadebate reported that Morales met Cuban media before leaving the country and told them he had been diagnosed with a virus and was now recovering. Doctors had also detected a small nodule that they could only remove once he was off medication, in an operation that would last no more than 15 minutes, he was cited as saying.

The former president of El Salvador’s soccer federation, who is wanted in the US for alleged corruption, was sentenced to eight years in Salvadoran prison for labour fraud, the country’s attorney general’s off ice said. Reynaldo Vasquez, head of FESFUT between 2009 and 2010, was found guilty of improperly appropriating insurance discounts, provisions and union dues from 204 workers of a family-owned bed-manufacturing company between 2012 and 2014, the attorney general’s off ice said. “It’s surprising; it is not based on law,” Vasquez said at the courthouse, referring to the sentence, which also forces him to pay $400,000 to resolve his civil liability.

Peruvian prosecutors ordered investigations into President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski’s possible links to an international corruption scandal involving construction firm Odebrecht. State corruption attorney Katherine Ampuero said she had ordered a “preliminary investigation over alleged suspect operations” involving payments by Odebrecht to Latin America Enterprise, a company linked to the president. She also said the authority had ordered similar investigations into former president Alan Garcia, suspected of accepting a bribe for awarding Odebrecht a contract to build an underground train line. Kuczynski has previously denied taking bribes from Odebrecht.

Peru recalled its ambassador in Caracas for consultations as the countries’ governments traded insults over the crisis in Venezuela and ties with Washington. In a protest note to the Venezuelan embassy in Lima, Peru expressed “total rejection of the insolent comments” against its President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski. Kuczynski had annoyed Venezuela’s government by calling for Latin America to intervene in what he termed a “humanitarian crisis” in the country. Venezuela’s Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez retorted by calling Kuczynski a “coward,” during a speech in Caracas on Monday.

Workers represented by Argentina’s main labour union gathered on the streets of Buenos Aires yesterday to protest job cuts and pay raises that have not kept up with inflation, challenging the government seven months ahead of key congressional elections. The one-day picket, which attracted tens of thousands of workers, was the first march by the CGT umbrella labour group this year. Mauricio Macri became Argentina’s president in late 2015, vowing to jumpstart the economy through fiscal reforms aimed at attracting sorely-needed investment. But the promised wave of foreign direct investment has been slow to manifest itself.

Morales ‘to return toCuba for small operation’

Ex-head of Salvadoransoccer federation jailed

Kuczynski targeted inOdebrecht bribery probe

Peru, Venezuela rowover US ties grows

Top Argentina labourgroup pickets over wages

PEOPLE JUSTICESCANDALDIPLOMATIC AFFAIRSINDUSTRIAL ACTION

PAKISTAN/AFGHANISTAN23

Gulf Times Wednesday, March 8, 2017

CPEC creates 13,000 jobs in Pakistan: envoyProjects under the China-

Pakistan Economic Cor-ridor (CPEC) are moving

ahead of schedule and so far these schemes have generated 13,000 local jobs, China’s am-bassador to Islamabad Sun Wei-dong told participants at a forum organised by the Express Media Group yesterday.

Developments in relation to CPEC were occurring rap-idly and both countries recently made minor adjustments to the priority list by upgrad-ing schemes placed under ‘ac-tively promoted projects’, said ambassador Sun.

Speakers highlighted chal-lenges and opportunities that the $54 billion investment package brought for Pakistan.

Last month, the Energy Ex-pert Group agreed to upgrade another 660-megawatt (MW) Hubco coal-fi red power plant

to the prioritised list but down-graded the 1,320MW Rahim Yar Khan power project on its ac-tively promoted list, which cata-logues projects to be completed over the next fi ve years. The group also upgraded the Oracle power project to the priority list.

The CPEC was ‘open and in-clusive’ and other countries could benefi t, said ambassador Sun Weidong while responding to a question about linking Gwa-dar port with Iran’s Chabahar port.

Before the ambassador’s ad-dress, Ports and Shipping Min-ister Hasil Bizenjo said that Pa-kistan had proposed building an 85-kilometre-long road, creat-ing a road link between Gwadar and Chabahar ports.

“Chabahar port cannot sur-vive without Gwadar and both ports can complement each other,” said Bizenjo. The min-ister also underscored the need for prioritising railways projects, which are not progressing at a quicker pace. “Without

a rail connection, CPEC is incomplete”, said Bizenjo.The Chinese ambassador said

that CPEC had already entered the implementation phase, and so far 18 under-construction projects generated 13,000 new jobs for local people.

Sun said in its last meeting of Joint Co-operation Committee (JCC) of the CPEC, both coun-tries had agreed upon a new list of priority projects, medium- and long-term plans.

He said this had given a new im-petus to the CPEC implementation.

The ambassador said that many energy projects would be-come operational this year and the next year while construc-tion of industrial zones was also set to begin soon. He said that a medium-term plan would be fi nalised this year.

However, the ambassador pointed out that action was key to CPEC construction.

Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal stressed upon the need for early groundbreaking of the New

Gwadar International Airport and Eastbay Expressway both projects are critical for making Gwadar port fully operational.

The Chinese authorities have not yet cleared these two projects, although they are part of the priority list.

Iqbal said that the groundbreak-ing ceremonies of the Gwadar In-ternational Airport and Eastbay Expressway would take place in a few months – this was also stated by the minister last year.

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s lawmaker Asad Umar highlight-ed risks to the CPEC and the im-plications of the CPEC fi nancial deals on the country’s economy.

The repayments of the CPEC loans may expose the country to yet another balance of pay-ments crisis, if Pakistan did not improve its competitiveness, said Umar. He said that the loans obtained for CPEC projects were more expensive than other in-ternational loans obtained for various purposes.

Asad Umar said that Pakistan

had become extremely uncom-petitive in the world and projects initiated under the CPEC like energy and infrastructure schemes cannot help improve competiveness. “The signs of chronic external imbalances have already started appearing,” said Umar.

The CPEC is not solution to all the ills of Pakistan’s economy, he added.

Umar said that Pakistan’s businesses have also started feeling that the Chinese com-panies that are very competitive might overtake them.

The involvement of Pakistani companies and labour is very less, which has given an impres-sion that Pakistani companies are not part of the CPEC devel-opment, said Umar, who also heads National Assembly Stand-ing Committee on Industries and Production.

However, the planning min-ister termed concerns of the business community “another conspiracy against the CPEC”.

InternewsIslamabad

90% displaced people from tribal region return home

Fata Disaster Manage-ment Authority (FDMA) director general Kha-

lid Khan said yesterday that about 90% of displaced fami-lies from the tribal areas had returned home so far.

He said the remaining fami-lies would reach native areas by April 30. The offi cial said the temporarily displaced persons from Kurram and Orakzai tribal agencies had al-ready returned home through g o v e r n m e n t - s p o n s o r e d programmes.

Khan said some 17,000 fam-ilies from North Waziristan and about 21,000 from South Waziristan were yet return to native areas, adding that some 2,500 families of Bara tehsil in Khyber Agency would be facilitated to return home by April 30.

The offi cial said the fed-eral government had set April 30 the deadline for the return of all displaced families from tribal areas.

Khan said the return proc-ess was delayed due to harsh and unpleasant weather. He

hoped the remaining families would return home in April this year.

The offi cial said some 1,650 families had come back from Khost and other provinces of Afghanistan. He added these families had gone to Afghani-stan due to military operation in North Waziristan.

“The return process of refugees from Afghanistan has been delayed due to the closure of border between Pakistan and Afghanistan,” he said, adding that it would resume with the reopening of the border.

To a question, the FDMA chief said the survey for all damaged buildings including houses, shops and other prop-erties had been completed in the areas, which had been cleared by the security forces and according to government policy, the aff ected people would be compensated for losses.

“The survey and esti-mates of completely and par-tially damaged houses are in progress in some parts of tribal areas,” he added. He said schools, hospitals, govern-ment buildings and other in-frastructure would be rebuilt.

InternewsIslamabad

Over 22,000 Afghans displaced since Jan

Ongoing confl ict in dif-ferent parts of the country has forced

more than 22,600 Afghans to leave their homes since the beginning of 2017, a Unit-ed Nations report revealed yesterday.

The UN said it saw displace-ment in 20 of the country’s 34 provinces, while 36% of those displaced were in areas not able to be easily reached by aid workers.

The report also included new fi gures on Afghans forced to move due to confl ict last year.

More than 650,000 civilians fl ed their villages and homes in 2016.

This year, the UN expects 450,000 displaced persons inside the country.

According to the report, last week fi ghting was regis-tered across the country in at least 12 provinces.

This week started with fi ghting in southern Kanda-har province, as the Taliban attacked Afghan security posts in Nish district early on Monday morning.

According to Kandahar police spokesman Ahmadzia Durani, six members of the Afghan security forces were killed while 13 others were wounded.

DPAKabul

A handout picture released yesterday by Kuwaiti news agency (KUNA), shows Kuwaiti Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber al-Mubarak al-Sabah, right, and Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, reviewing the honour guard at the Bayan Palace in Kuwait City.

Sharif visits Kuwait CPEC tower coming up in Islamabad to be the tallest

A China-Pakistan Eco-nomic Corridor (CPEC) tower will be con-

structed in Pakistani capital of Islamabad, which will be the tallest in the city.

Minister for Planning, De-velopment and Reforms Ah-san Iqbal said the iconic tower would attract investors and serve as a symbol of branding Pak-China Friendship, says a release issued by the Planning Commission of Pakistan.

It said the decision was taken at a meeting chaired by Minister Ahsan Iqbal. A com-mittee to be headed by Malik Ahmed Khan, Member Infra-structure, will work on the proposed tower.

Speaking on the occasion, Ahsan Iqbal laid down the tasks for the committee. Di-rections were given to conduct a feasibility study after iden-

tifying a suitable site. The ac-quisition of land in the light of the feasibility study was also ordered.

“The committee should sit with relevant departments to resolve issues of building codes and regulations” said the minister. The initiative will provide facilitation to Chi-nese and other investors from around the world.

He said the tower would help in the image building of Islamabad as a sustain-able and vibrant city thriving upon entrepreneurship, sci-ence and technology, research and development, fi nance and culture.

An offi cial of the CDA said it was yet to be decided where the tower would be constructed.

“The project is at the initial stage, various sites are under consideration. We are also looking for a site in Mauve Area near Kashmir Highway and sector G-6,” he said.

InternewsIslamabad

Afghan police in volatile south complain of not being paid

Police in parts of volatile southern Afghanistan have not been paid for weeks,

offi cials say, undermining morale at a time when Taliban militants traditionally increase attacks on security forces.

The Nato-led coalition in Afghanistan has repeatedly warned that the eff ectiveness of police and soldiers to fi ght the insurgency has been un-dermined by irregular pay and leave, exacerbated by corrup-tion and weak leadership from commanders.

Dost Mohammad Nayab, spokesman for the governor of Uruzgan province, said local offi cials had spoken “repeat-edly” with the interior ministry about wage arrears, but had re-ceived no satisfactory response, echoing comments from other offi cials in the region.

“Our police forces haven’t been paid for a month,” said Ghulam Farouq Sangari, police chief in the neighbouring prov-ince of Zabul. “When we speak with the interior ministry, they just say there are some prob-lems with the system.”

An interior ministry spokes-man said there had been prob-

lems with salary payments in Uruzgan and the eastern prov-ince of Nuristan due to a failure with the transfer system at one large Afghan bank.

“We are now working on fi nding another way of trans-ferring money to them,” said spokesman Najib Danish.

However, another govern-ment offi cial said the problem was also caused by concerns in some areas that payrolls were being infl ated by non-existent “ghost police” and exacerbated by delays in getting the national budget approved in parliament.

“When that happens, it de-lays all the payments,” said the offi cial, who spoke anony-mously because he was not au-thorised to talk to the media.

Police units, usually worse paid and equipped than the military, are a core part of Af-ghanistan’s security forces, taking on much of the fi ghting against Taliban insurgents and often suff ering higher casual-ties than the army.

Their pay has been a problem for years, despite eff orts by the government and international partners to cut “ghost police” from payrolls and ensure that wages are not lost through in-accurate records or skimmed off by corrupt offi cials.

Funds from foreign donors

to pay police are disbursed through the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to the Afghan govern-ment and mainly paid direct to individuals’ bank accounts.

However, while eff orts con-tinue to integrate personnel data electronically, offi cials say they do not know how many among authorised force strength of 157,000 are actually serving, or whether they are all being paid properly.

In testimony to a US Senate committee last month, General John Nicholson, the top Nato commander in Afghanistan, said corruption and poor sup-port for troops and police in the fi eld was among the main prob-lems facing Afghan forces.

Southern Afghanistan, in-cluding the key Taliban heart-lands of Helmand and Kandahar, as well as neighbouring Uruzgan and Zabul, is likely to see some of the heaviest fi ghting in the tradi-tional spring off ensive.

Last year Taliban forces walked into the middle of Tarin Kot, cap-ital of Uruzgan, after demoral-ised police abandoned dozens of checkpoints without a fi ght.

A dispute between rival po-lice commanders was said to be one of the main factors that prompted the abandonment.

Despite that, local and nation-

al police in the province say they have not been paid since Septem-ber. In Kandahar, local police in eight districts have not been paid since October, Zia Durrani, a po-lice spokesman said.

“We have given them weap-ons, ammunition and territo-ries but cannot pay them their salary. This is dangerous,” he said.

The problem has been partly linked to diff erences between the Afghan National Police and local police units.

A recent statement from the interior ministry said reports that police in Kandahar and Uruzgan had not been paid did not concern national police but rather local units that did not come under its authority.

“The local police were cre-ated by the government but the government does not co-operate with us any more,” Shamsullah, a local police commander in Zhari district of Kandahar, said by telephone.

“We do not have food, am-munition, fuel and now even our salary,” he said. “If the gov-ernment wants to eliminate lo-cal police, they should and let us go our way. Not paying us is not a solution.”

Local elders fear that unpaid police and militia could under-mine security further.

ReutersKabul/Kandahar

Pakistani soldiers check the identity of citizens returning from Afghanistan at the border town of Chaman, yesterday.

On home ground

Centre launched to protect women journalistsReporters Without Borders yesterday launched a centre to protect women journalists in Afghanistan, the second most dangerous in the country for the profession after Syria.The centre will aim to lobby the government for better working conditions and rights for women reporters.It will also talk to families to try to change perceptions that journalism is no job for a woman.“We want to support women journalists both in war zones and

within the news organisations for which they work to defend both their rights and their physical safety,” the centre’s president Farideh Nikzad said.The biggest challenges are security and sexual abuse in the workplace, Nikzad said.RSF’s secretary-general Christophe Deloire added: “By protecting women journalists, we are defending media freedom in Afghanistan.”The country currently has some 300-400 women journalists,

mainly in the big cities.They find themselves caught between Taliban militants on the one hand and their own families on the other, who often do not consider the job to be a suitable profession for a woman. Four women journalists have been killed by their own relatives since 2002 for this very reason, according to RSF.Afghanistan suff ered its deadliest year on record for all journalists in 2016, according to a recent Afghan Journalists’ Safety Committee report.

PHILIPPINES

Gulf TimesWednesday, March 8, 201724

Govt edges closer to death penalty returnReutersManila

Philippine lower house law-makers overwhelmingly approved the re-imposi-

tion of capital punishment for serious drug off ences yesterday, clearing another hurdle in Presi-dent Rodrigo Duterte’s drive to use death as a deterrent against crime.

Voting 216 to 54 with one ab-stention, lawmakers passed the third and fi nal reading the bill to bring back the death penalty, but in a watered-down draft that ex-cludes crimes like rape, kidnap-for-ransom and plunder.

The bill, which permits death by hanging, fi ring squad and le-thal injection, must now go to the Senate.

A return of the death penalty, over a decade after it was abol-ished under pressure from the church, has been a top priority for Duterte, who was swept to power on promises of a merciless war on drugs and crime.

More than 8,000 people have been killed since Duterte took offi ce eight months ago, mostly drug users killed by mysterious gunmen in incidents authori-ties attribute to vigilantes, gang members silencing informants,

or unrelated murders.Re-imposing capital punish-

ment was Duterte’s fi rst piece of draft legislation and was sub-mitted on his inauguration on June 30.

It argued the justice system had been “emasculated” and tough measures were needed.

Duterte has questioned why lawmakers excluded serious crimes other than drugs, saying it runs counter to his law and

order agenda. He has spoken repeatedly of his desire to hang criminals, as many as 20 per day.

Robert Ace Barbers, who heads the house committee on dangerous drugs, said death for those who manufacture and possess large volumes of nar-cotics was appropriate because of the “irreparable damage” drugs had caused to society.

“The entire future of our country has been compro-

mised,” he told reporters.Human rights groups and

Catholic bishops oppose the bill and have protested outside Congress and warned politi-cians supporting it to expect a backlash from their constitu-ents.

Opponents spoke out strong-ly in the house, describing the measure as barbaric, regressive and no deterrent against crime.

Representative Jose Chris-

topher Belonte said lawmakers voting in favour would have “blood on our hands”.

Congressman and former Manila mayor Joselito Atienza said the bill would put “a curse on our predominantly Catholic nation”.

The passage through the Senate is not guaranteed to be smooth.Some Duterte loyal-ists in the chamber oppose it.

Deliberations by the 24-seat upper house on its own version of the bill were sus-pended last month after the justice department reminded senators the Philippines is a signatory to a United Nations treaty that prohibits execu-tions. The death penalty has been imposed and repealed on and off in the Philippines since after World War Two.

Dozens of convicts were ex-ecuted by electric chair from 1950 to 1986.

The death penalty was abol-ished a year later and restored in 1993 under President Fidel Ramos, before being scrapped again in 2006.

The International Commis-sion on Jurists condemned the house and urged the Senate to block a bill that “puts the Phil-ippines in direct conflict with its international obligations”.

Activists kneel as they pray behind a barbed wire during a protest rally against the passing of the death penalty bill, at the gate of House of the Representatives in Quezon city, Metro Manila, yesterday.

Poor portrayal of president

in US drama criticisedAFP Manila

Manila yesterday “strongly protested” about an American

television drama which shows a fi ctional Philippine president making a sexual advance on the US secretary of state.

In the trailer for the latest edition of Madam Secretary, the lead character punches “the Philippines’ unconven-tional new president” in the face and gives him a bloody nose in reaction to his unwant-ed pass.

“I clobbered a world leader instead of saving a major re-gional agreement,” the secre-tary of state says.

The Philippine embassy in Washington said in a statement it had written to the producers of the show, the CBS network, to urgently request it “take the necessary corrective actions”.

“This highly negative por-trayal of our Head of State not only casts doubt on the re-spectability of the Offi ce of the Philippine President but also denigrates (the) way our nation navigates foreign aff airs,” the statement said.

While the description for the trailer used a fi ctional name for the Philippine president, the embassy said the show mir-rored current events.

The real Philippine presi-dent, Rodrigo Duterte, has previously caused controversy with comments seen as sexist and off ensive.

Yesterday he added to that list when he addressed a fe-male guest while giving a na-tionally televised speech at the presidential palace.

“I am distracted. You close your legs, God damn,” said Duterte, 71, drawing laughter from the crowd.

“Is this on national TV? Your dad’s listening.”

The president had previ-

ously been criticised for wolf-whistling at a woman journal-ist at a press conference and joking about looking at his fe-male vice president’s legs.

During last year’s presiden-tial campaign, the Australian and American ambassadors in Manila criticised Duterte for saying he had wanted to rape a “beautiful” Australian mis-sionary who was murdered in a prison riot.

Duterte reacted angrily to that criticism, saying the re-marks had been misinterpret-ed.

Duterte also boasted on the campaign trail about having two mistresses but said the women would not cost taxpay-ers much because he kept them at cheap boarding houses and took them to by-the-hour ho-tels for intercourse.

However Duterte has won praise for a range of policies promoting women’s rights, in-cluding reproductive health.

His spokesman Ernesto Abella also criticised the show yesterday while making an ap-parent reference to womanis-ing American leaders.

“I think they are project-ing something they would re-ally like to say about their own situation.

I think they should use a fi ctional US president,” Abella told reporters.

“It’s their business. It’s their craft. You cannot deny them their craft, their taste perhaps.”

On social media, some Fili-pinos pointed out that thou-sands of people had been killed under Duterte’s controversial drugs war and questioned why Philippine authorities should be outraged at a fi ctional tel-evision show.

“So it’s not OK for a TV show to punch the fi ctional Presi-dent of the Philippines but it’s OK for 7,000+ people to be shot without trial? The hypoc-risy is particularly juicy,” one Facebook user posted.

Members of the Philippine Congress attend the third and final reading of the death penalty bill inside the House of the Representatives in Quezon city, Metro Manila, yesterday.

Four suspects killed as police resume drugs warReutersManila

Philippine police killed four suspected drug dealers in three separate incidents

yesterday, a provincial police commander said, just hours af-ter a relaunch of anti-drugs op-erations that the national police chief said he hoped would be “less bloody”.

The incidents were the fi rst reported deaths of drug sus-pects since Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Ronald dela Rosa announced the restart of operations he hoped would be less bloody “or even bloodless”.

About 8,000 people had been killed since President Rodrigo Duterte declared war on drugs upon taking offi ce on June 30, more than 2,555 in what the PNP says were shootouts during raids and sting operations.

The PNP insists it had no in-volvement in the rest of the kill-ings and deny activists’ allega-tions that many of the deaths, most unsolved and in mysteri-ous circumstances, were assas-sinations of drug suspects with police complicity.

Three suspected drug ped-

dlers were shot dead in the early hours of yesterday when they resisted arrest after sell-ing packets of “shabu” meth-

amphetamine to undercover offi cers in two towns in Bula-can, north of Manila, accord-ing to Senior Superintendent

Romeo Caramat. A fourth man was killed when he confronted police manning a checkpoint, he said, adding three handguns

and drugs were recovered.The PNP’s reinstatement

came just over a month after a furious Duterte pulled police back from his crackdown in the wake of the killing by rogue drugs squad police of a South Korean businessman.

Dela Rosa said “clean, dedi-cated and patriotic” offi cers would form the new drug en-forcement unit under his com-mand. The PNP has defended its role in the drugs war, amid growing criticism from human rights groups that they have op-erated with impunity and sys-tematically abused their power.

The crackdown is an issue of concern among Western gov-ernments and the United Na-tions.

The PNP points to some 40,000 people it has arrested in drug operations and more than a million drug users and peddlers that have surrendered and vol-unteered to undergo drug reha-bilitation.

Duterte recalled the police for the campaign because the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) lacked man-power to stem what the PNP says are signs of drugs returning to the streets.

Relatives of a suspected drug pusher, who was shot and killed by unidentified men, react upon learning that their kin was killed in Quezon city, Metro Manila, yesterday.

Call for ‘compromise’ over mining, environment

ReutersManila

Philippine President Rod-rigo Duterte said yester-day he hopes there will be

a “happy compromise” between the mining industry and pro-tecting the environment, throw-ing support once more to an em-battled minister who shut half of the country’s mines.

Environment and Natural Re-sources Secretary Regina Lopez will appear before Congress for her confi rmation hearing today, and will likely have to defend her decisions on mine closures amid concerns over job and revenue losses.

Lopez is among just a few of Duterte’s appointees yet to be confi rmed by lawmakers.

The Philippines is the top nickel ore exporter and Lopez’s approval would probably sustain worries over supply disruptions that could lift global prices of the stainless steel ingredient.

“I know that we need the dol-lars but somehow we have to look at the other way,” Duterte told an agricultural industry event.

“She has a good case. Hope-fully we can strike a happy com-promise there,” he said.

Lopez, a fi ery environmental crusader, last month ordered the closure of 23 of the country’s 41 mines and suspended fi ve oth-ers to protect watersheds after a months-long review by the en-vironment agency.

Duterte, who last year said the country can survive without a mining sector, has largely backed Lopez’s mining crackdown, and did not appear to deviate from his stance yesterday.

“You just cannot ignore the cries of Gina Lopez,” he said, add-ing that she has clearly pointed out the environmental harm mining has caused in nickel-rich southern Mindanao island.

“We cannot be allowing dig-ging forever in every nook and cranny of the mountain ranges. It will spell disaster,” said President Duterte, also the former mayor of Davao City, the biggest city in Mindanao. Earlier yesterday, Lopez said she had asked Duterte to halt a second review of the 28 mines that she ordered closed or suspended, challenging its legal-ity after fi rst supporting it.

Two Korean inmates fl ee detention centre

Two Korean fugitives escaped from the tightly guarded Bureau of Immigra-tion (BI) Detention Centre located inside Camp Bagong Diwa, the headquarters of the Philippine National Police-National Capital Region (PNP-NCR) command, Manila Times reported.The escapees were identified as Park Wang Yeol and Jung Jaeyul, both 38 years old. The two, who were await-ing deportation, were facing

murder and fraud cases, respectively.The incident has left another black mark on the BI, which has yet to recover from the P50mn extortion scandal that led to the dismissal of former Associate Commis-sioners Al Argosino and Michael Robles and acting intelligence chief Charles Calima. Immigration sources did not discount the possibil-ity that the two Koreans paid for their freedom.

SRI LANKA/BANGLADESH/NEPAL25

Gulf Times Wednesday, March 8, 2017

Nepal imposescurfew in two regions hit by charter clashCurfew was imposed in

Nepal’s Terai and Madhes regions yesterday in view

of the prevailing tension there since the death of three Mad-hesi Morcha cadres in a clash between security forces on the previous day.

Sporadic protests and dem-onstrations took place in sev-eral parts of Nepal’s southern region yesterday in reaction to the deaths. An alliance of Madh-es-based parties has called for a two-day strike to protest against the killings.

Public transport, factories,

industries and educational in-stitutions were badly hit, as irate Morcha cadres held demonstra-tions and burned tyres in Rajbi-raj - the headquarters of Saptari district. Markets in Bhardaha, Kanchanpur, Rupani and Kaly-anpur areas remained shut dur-ing the day.

Hundreds of protesters took to the streets and chanted slogans demanding compensation to

the kin of the deceased, medical treatment to the injured, decla-ration of the deceased as martyrs and action against the guilty.

They vandalised the Com-munist Party of Nepal (Unifi ed Marxists-Leninists) [CPN-UML] regional offi ce at La-han Municipality-1, gheraoed Saptari district administration offi ce (DAO), ransacked Rajbiraj Municipality and Nepal Telecom offi ce, and also damaged a Na-tional Human Rights Commis-sion vehicle, police said.

In view of the violent protests, security has been beefed up at the district court, DAO, district police offi ce and the district land revenue offi ce.

Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal

IANSKathmandu

Riot police run for cover as Madhesi activists hurl stones at them in Saptari district of Nepal. Picture taken March 6.

Dahal, meanwhile, called a meet-ing of Home Minister Bimalendra Nidhi and security chiefs and urged them to exercise restraint while using force.

After the meeting, the Home Minister called the chief district offi cer and local security chiefs of Saptari district to the national capital for clarifi cation.

“I am really saddened by the tragic incident that took place in

Saptari. The government will pay compensation to the deceased and bear all costs incurred on the treatment of the injured,” said Prime Minister Dahal.

Three Morcha cadres died and at least two dozen were injured in police fi ring on Monday when the alliance of the Madhes-based parties attempted to disrupt the Mechi-Mahakali campaign of the second-largest party, CPN-

UML, in the Rajbiraj industrial zone.

As tension grew, the Saptari administration clamped curfew in Rajbiraj.

According to the Morcha, sev-en of the injured demonstrators were in critical condition. They were undergoing treatment at the Dharan-based B.P. Koirala Insti-tute of Health Sciences, while others were being treated at the

Gajendra Narayan Singh Sagar-matha Zonal Hospital in Rajbiraj.

Meanwhile, the main opposi-tion CPN-UML at a press confer-ence in Kathmandu on Tuesday alleged that the attack on their offi ce was a plot to kill all the top leaders of the party.

The Monday clashes took place immediately after the top CPN-UML leadership concluded a mass meeting.

Public transport, factories, industries and educational institutions were badly hit, as irate Morcha cadres held demonstrations and burned tyres in Rajbiraj - the headquarters of Saptari district

Sri Lanka police chief Pujith Jayasundara, right, launches the first online service delivery by the Sri Lankan police at the headquarters in Colombo yesterday. For the first time, the police will allow applications for security clearance to be issued online.

Police launch online serviceHigh Court stays trial of Zia in Niko graft case

The High Court (HC) yes-terday stayed the trial proceedings against Bang-

ladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) chairperson and former PM Kha-leda Zia in Niko graft case.

An HC bench comprising Justice Sheikh Abdul Awal and Justice Md Khashruzzaman passed the order following a petition fi led by Zia seeking a stay on the trial proceeding of the case.

The court also issued a ruling asking the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) to explain why the trial proceedings against the BNP chief should not be scrapped.

The HC stayed proceed-ings of the graft case at the trial court until the disposal

of the ruling, said Zia’s lawyer Mahbub Uddin Khokon.

The ACC fi led the case on December 9, 2007 accusing Zia and several others of abusing power to award a gas explo-ration and extraction deal to Canadian company Niko when she was prime minister be-tween 2001 and 2006.

Later on May 5, 2008, it sub-mitted charge-sheet against 11 people.

In the meantime, police sub-mitted charge-sheets against Zia and 77 others in two cases of arson attacks which killed sleeping passengers on a bus at Chauddagram in Comilla.

The Chauddagram police sub-mitted the charge-sheets to the ju-dicial magistrate court of Comilla.

BNP senior leaders M K An-war, Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, Rafi qul Islam Mia and Shaukat Mah-mood and Bangladesh Jamaat-

e-Islami’s leader Abdullah Mo-hammad Taher are among the accused in the cases.

Rizvi at the briefi ng alleged that plain-clothes police again arrested BNP joint secretary general Habib-un-Nabi Khan Sohel at jail gate soon after he got released completing all legal formalities from higher court.

He said BNP is yet to be of-fi cially informed by the law en-forcers about the arrest of Sohel.

Rizvi sought intervention of the chief justice in the matter.

During the anti-government movement, on February 3, 2015, protesters hurled petrol bomb on a running bus at Miar Bazar at Chauddagram.

At least 20 people were in-jured in the attack. Eight of the injured later died.

Police fi led two cases of arson in this connection. Zia was named as an instigator in both the cases.

By Mizan RahmanDhaka

Daring ambush fails to free top militant in Bangladesh

Suspected Islamist militants hurled bombs at a prison van in a daring attempt to

free Bangladesh’s most-wanted militant leader from death row, police said yesterday.

Police arrested a 24-year-old man at the scene and launched a hunt for his accomplices after the gang threw bombs at the van carrying Mufti Abdul Hannan in the town of Tongi just outside Dhaka on Monday.

“Their aim was to snatch Mufti Hannan,” local police chief Fi-roz Talukder said, referring to the high-profi le ringleader of the Harkatul Jihad Al Islami group.

Several of the bombs went off but the van was able to return to prison with Hannan and 18 other prisoners, he added.

Police recovered a range of weapons from the scene, in-cluding a grenade and Molotov cocktails, along with a pistol and butcher’s knife.

The man captured following the brazen attack was a former student at an Islamic boarding school, police said.

In a separate incident yes-terday, two men described as Islamist extremists attacked a police checkpoint in the eastern town of Chandina.

“They shouted “Allahu Ak-bar” (God is Great) and hurled two homemade bombs at police during a routine check,” local police chief Nasiruddin Mridha said.

“We fi red back with shotguns and arrested both as they tried to escape,” he said, adding the pair were injured in the fi refi ght.

Bangladesh has suff ered a spate of attacks on secular ac-tivists, foreigners and religious minorities in recent years.

Al Qaeda and the Islamic State group have claimed responsi-bility in some cases but Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s secu-lar government has pinned the blame on local outfi ts.

Security forces launched a crackdown on extremists fol-lowing a shooting at a Dhaka

cafe last year in which 22 people, including 18 foreign hostages, were killed by gunmen.

Police have since arrested scores of suspected extremists and killed several top leaders of homegrown militant cells.

Hannan was sentenced to death in 2008 for his role in sev-eral atrocities, including a gre-nade attack that wounded the then-British high commission-er, and could be executed within months.

He led a campaign of deadly bombings in Bangladesh in the mid-1990s, masterminding at-tacks on churches, secular gath-erings and mosques used by Is-lam’s minority sects.

By the time he was arrested in late 2005, more than 100 people had been killed in attacks he or-chestrated across the moderate Muslim-majority nation.

Hannan fought against the Soviets in Afghanistan before returning to join Harkatul Jihad Al Islami, a group founded for jihadists who fought in that war.

It was the fi rst Islamist mili-tant outfi t to emerge in Bang-ladesh, and rose to prominence as Hannan escalated its deadly operations under his leadership.

AFPDhaka

A gang throws bombs at the van carrying Muft i Abdul Hannan in the town of Tongi to free him

Hasina seeks Indonesia’s help on Rohingya crisis

Terming the Rohingya ref-ugee crisis a big problem, Prime Minister Sheikh

Hasina yesterday urged the In-donesian government to play a role in repatriating the Myanmar refugees from Bangladesh.

“The Myanmar refugee issue is a big problem for Bangladesh and it needs to be resolved,” the prime minister said at a meet-ing with Indonesian President Joko Widodo held at Jakarta Convention Centre on the sidelines of the IORA Leaders’ Summit.

The Indonesian foreign min-ister recently visited Bangla-desh and Myanmar to take ac-count of the Myanmar refugee crisis, foreign ministry sources said in Dhaka yesterday.

Foreign secretary Shahidul Haque said co-operation in the areas such as railway, pharma-ceutical and energy between Bangladesh and Indonesia also came up for discussions at the meeting.

The prime minister also in-vited the Indonesian President to visit Bangladesh.

Widodo told Hasina that a ministry-level delegation will visit Bangladesh within two months to set the agenda of

his visit after discussions with Bangladesh offi cials.

“We’re hopeful that the visit of the Indonesian president to Bangladesh will take place by this year,” the foreign secretary said.

Mentioning that his country has made great strides in the railway sector, the Indonesian president said they want to make contributions to the de-velopment of Bangladesh’s rail-way sector.

At this point, the prime min-ister expressed her satisfaction

over the supply of 250 rail-way carriages by Indonesia to Bangladesh.

Highlighting Bangladesh’s development in the pharma-ceutical sector, Hasina said it is now exporting world class medicines to over 70 countries, including the United States and the European Union.

Widodo underscored the need for collaboration be-tween the two countries in the pharmaceutical sector.

Shahidul also said a dis-cussion was held on possible

co-operation in the fi eld of liquefi ed natural gas (LNG) as Indonesia produces and exports the natural gas.

He said the Indonesian presi-dent highly appreciated Bang-ladesh’s tremendous socio-economic development under Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s leadership.

Foreign Minister Mahmood Ali, PM’s principal secretary Kamal Chowdhury, and Bang-ladesh ambassador to Indo-nesia Azmal Kabir were also present at the meeting.

By Mizan Rahman Dhaka

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina holding talks with Indonesian President Joko Widodo in Jakarta yesterday.

Pakistan hosts high profi le ECO summit, PSL fi nal, four days apart, in a bold gambit to lay the ghosts of isolation at rest

By Kamran RehmatDoha

After a spate of terrorist attacks across Pakistan last month that left more than 100 people dead, and also

induced a swift rearguard from the country’s security forces, two epoch-making developments have infused a new hope in what is being seen as a symbolic victory against the forces of darkness.

The 10-member Economic Co-operation Organisation (ECO) summit in Islamabad brought together heads of state and government, including presidents of Turkey and Iran - the fi rst time such a meeting was being held in fi ve years. The milestone assumes signifi cance given the lead-up to the high profi le event with a general air of cynicism surrounding the very viability of the showpiece event.

However, save for Afghanistan, which chose not to make a high-level representation amid deteriorating ties with Pakistan, the rest proceeded to breathe a new life into the economic bloc that makes up 16% of the world’s population and is inherent with a rich trade potential.

Recently, Pakistan blitzed a number of terrorist camps on the Afghan side and closed the border when Kabul failed to meet its demand to hand over the most wanted terrorists accused of orchestrating the recent attacks in Pakistan.

Kabul’s decision to under-represent only served to undermine its own interests since the ECO is a regional forum and Islamabad was only playing a host. Attempts to foist bilateral disputes that work against the larger interests of nations is not new. The scuttled Saarc summit in Islamabad last year is a case in point.

Pakistan will therefore, take heart from managing successfully to thwart such a repeat spanner-in-the-works. While much was made of Kabul’s choreographed snub, the fact is that Afghanistan is not the only game in town for potential Pakistani investors. The opening of the Central Asian markets with the evolving China-Pakistan Economic Corridor means Islamabad will have plenty of opportunities and routes to make it good.

After working through a preceding Council of Ministers meeting, the ECO produced the Islamabad Declaration and Vision 2025 that calls for doubling intra-trade in the next fi ve years.

The Declaration calls for

development of transport and communication infrastructure, facilitation of trade and investment, promotion of connectivity with other regions, eff ective use of energy resources and undertaking measures for making the ECO eff ective and effi cient. Vision 2025 underpins co-operation among member states.

Intra-regional trade in the ECO bloc currently stands at 8% of their cumulative external trade. The aim is to increase it to more than 20%.

Even as Islamabad basked in the glory of hosting an array of international leaders, thus steadfastly negating attempts to isolate it, there was only one takeaway from the ECO summit: the only road to salvation lies in engagement, dialogue and co-operation.

Three days after the landmark summit, Pakistan received a massive confi dence boost when it also successfully hosted the fi nal of its celebrated international T20 franchise tournament - Pakistan Super League - with a select few international stars on hand against the run of play.

Currently, the talking point of the sporting world’s imagination, the high-octane encounter was a year-

in-the-making but its fate almost hit a dead-end when two blasts, including a suicide attack, inside 10 days hit Lahore where it was to be staged.

The art and cultural capital of Pakistan was at the centre of how the script went haywire back in 2009 when a security lapse led to an attack on the touring Sri Lankan cricket team, where but for the presence of mind shown by their Pakistani bus driver, who sped them to safety in a hail of bullets, their goose had been cooked.

As cricket-mad fans - deprived of seeing both their national heroes and international stars at home - convulsed at the misfortune, the government with the backing of the military defi ed the odds to take the highly risky decision to go ahead with the fi nal premised in the pledge not to let terrorists dictate the state.

The decision followed massive popular sentiment in favour of taking that stand in the face of present and clear danger. Even though most international stars had deserted ship and with just four days to go, a robust plan was put in place with a 5-tier security cover, for, what seems in

hindsight, like a do-or-die roll of the dice. One lapse and it could all have gone kaput!

As it turned out, Pakistan won and terrorism lost: for once, it didn’t really sound like a cliché. That message was manifest in the electric atmosphere at the jam-packed Gaddafi Stadium, the headquarters of Pakistan cricket, as fans soaked in every moment of national euphoria. And, then some action!

The undying resolve, resilience and eventually, celebration were visible by miles as evident in the near-blanket coverage of the event what with the boisterous television circuit going bonkers. As Ivy League entertainers rocked the stage before the real McCoys got down to business in shimmering lights, there was much to draw from the studied attempt to restore the Lahore of yore: everyone went home content, but more importantly, safe and secure.

The scorecard? Two events, four days apart, is all it took to make Pakistan one happy, united nation, again. It’s a cinch the chorus for more will grow. Even glow.

The writer is Community Editor.

It may still be too early to talk about the start of a solid recovery for Egyptian economy even after more than six years of political and economic turmoil that have scared off investors and tourists. But some green shoots of hope are emerging.

Economic activity in the country’s non-oil private sector accelerated the most since 2014, a sign that growth may be picking up after authorities abandoned currency controls and secured a $12bn International Monetary Fund loan deal.

The Emirates NBD Purchasing Managers’ Index for the whole economy climbed for the third month in a row to 46.7 in February from 43.3 in January. While readings below 50 indicate the economy is still in contraction, the magnitude of the gain signals an improvement in business confi dence after the pound was fl oated in November to ease a crippling dollar shortage.

The Egyptian currency has lost about 40% of its value since the fl oat, causing annual urban infl ation to accelerate to 28% in January. The benchmark stocks

index has gained more than 44% in local currency terms since November 3.

Authorities have also cited rising dollar infl ows in the

banking system and an infl ux of foreign investments in government debt. They expect the economy to expand 4% in the current fi scal year, which ends June 30, down from 4.3% last year.

But here is the other side of the narrative. Anchoring infl ation expectations remains a key challenge for the central bank amid the price pressures brought about by subsidy cuts, value-added-taxes and expanding money supply. The cost of capital is also rising after the 300-basis-point interest rate hike in November. Infl ation worries will also test the government’s willingness to carry through with the painful reforms.

For sure, Egypt is taking a raft of measures to revive an economy weakened by years of turmoil, but analysts caution that wooing foreign investors will take time.

The 2011 revolution that ended Hosni Mubarak’s three-decade rule, the mayhem that followed, the downing of a Russian airliner in 2015 and the crash of an EgyptAir aircraft into the Mediterranean in May 2016 have all brought down the economy to its knees.

Egypt looked like the poster child for the Arab Spring in 2011 but the euphoria soon faded. The revolution has come a full circle now, having taught the country the painful lesson that when people are starving societies tend to unravel, no matter they are ruled by a military regime or an elected government.

Egypt, the Arab world’s most populous nation with half its 85mn people under the age of 25, has an economy in which the military plays an overarching role with commercial interests from food manufacturing to real estate. But the priority now should be to build on the fl edgling recovery with meaningful structural reforms that will help attract direct investment, create jobs and improve living standards.

For longer-term recovery, authorities should try to restore social order and economic stability as well as build trust and transparency.

Egypt needs to buildon green shoots ofeconomic recovery

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Gulf Times Wednesday, March 8, 2017

COMMENT26

GULF TIMES

Egypt is taking a raft of measures to revive its economy

A welcome return to hope as resilience wins the day

Germany’s misunderstood trade surplusBy Marcel FratzscherBerlin

Now that Germany’s current-account surplus has reached a record €270bn ($285bn), or close to 8.7%

of GDP, the ongoing debate about its economic model has intensifi ed. Eurozone politicians and Donald Trump’s administration in the United States are each blaming the other for the economic imbalance; and all are blaming the euro.

Trump’s administration, for its part, has attacked Germany for exporting too much, and accused it of manipulating the euro. In fact, Germany’s trade surplus has little to do with the euro; which has become a convenient scapegoat – a stand-in for other policy mistakes.

Many Germans view the latest wave of criticism as a sign that others are merely envious of their country’s success, and they have angrily refuted arguments that Germany has tried to gain an unfair competitive advantage. Germany, they point out, does not engage in price dumping or direct export promotion, and its leaders do not target the euro.

On the contrary, prior to adopting the common currency, Germany had for decades pursued a strong-Deutsche Mark policy, because it wanted to encourage domestic exporters to maintain competitiveness through innovation, rather than reliance on the exchange rate. This was the central feature of Germany’s economic model after World War II, and the main reason its long Wirtschaftswunder (“economic miracle”) could be sustained.

The criticism of Germany’s trade surplus suff ers from three fallacies. For starters, many of the critics seem to believe that Germany’s trade balance can be systematically manipulated with the exchange rate. But, owing to the integration of global value chains, industrial exports now comprise many imported inputs, which means that the eff ect of exchange-rate movements on domestic prices and the trade balance has decreased substantially over time.

In fact, Germany’s bilateral trade surplus with the US has barely changed, despite substantial swings in the euro-dollar exchange rate – which was as high as €1:$1.60 in 2011, and as low as €1:$1.04 more recently. Germany owes its export success not to currency manipulation, but to its strong market position and the pricing power of its highly specialised manufacturing champions.

A second fallacy is the belief that politicians and central banks can actually set exchange rates. In most advanced economies, the exchange rate cannot simply be decreed; rather, it is endogenously determined by the underlying real economy and the state of the fi nancial system. Currency markets are too deep for direct intervention to be worth the risk, as the Swiss National Bank discovered a few years ago when it tried to stem the franc’s appreciation. The US Treasury abandoned currency-market interventions in the 1990s; and the European Central Bank has tried to intervene only once, very briefl y in 2000.

Accusations that the US Federal Reserve and the ECB have pursued unconventional policy measures to weaken their respective currencies

miss the fact that exchange-rate movements have only a limited, short-lived eff ect on domestic infl ation, exports, and growth. Both central banks are guided by their mandates, not by an implicit or explicit exchange-rate objective.

A third fallacy – which one often encounters on the German side of the debate – is the belief that a country’s current-account balance refl ects the competitiveness of its exports. In reality, a country’s external balance is determined by its preferences and its intertemporal saving and investment decisions. Fundamentals such as Germany’s demographics alone probably account for only about three percentage points – or one-third – of its current-account surplus.

As these three fallacies show, the debate over Germany’s external surplus should not be about the euro exchange rate or German exports. The euro is not too weak, and German exports are not too high. Rather, the problem is that Germany’s imports are too low, owing to its huge investment gap.

Germany has one of the lowest public-investment rates in the industrialised world. Its municipalities, which are responsible for half of all public investment, currently have unrealised investment projects worth €136bn, or 4.5% of GDP; Germany’s school buildings alone need another €35bn for repairs. Meanwhile, private investment in Germany’s ageing capital stock has been weakened by many German companies’ desire to invest abroad.

The gap is the result of policy failures – namely protectionist policies in the non-tradable services sector. The International Monetary Fund, the

European Commission, and the OECD have long tried to convince Germany to deregulate services, curtail vested interests, and improve competition. But, as it stands, wages, productivity, and investment remain high in the German export sector, and low in the non-tradable services sector.

The international debate about Germany’s current account should thus focus on measures to liberalise the country’s services and remove other barriers to investment. To that end, Germany should improve its digital and transportation infrastructure; strengthen market mechanisms to encourage more renewable-energy development; address its shortage of skilled labour; change its tax system to strengthen incentives to invest; and reform its regulations to reduce uncertainty.

Germany is an increasingly important political and economic power in Europe and on the world stage. But, until now, the debate about Germany’s current-account surplus has been counterproductive. Criticism of Germany’s export prowess, and accusations of currency manipulation, are just as wrong-headed as Germany’s own defence of its excessive surplus. Ultimately, Germany can serve everyone’s best interests – including its own – by reducing its surplus, and thus the harmful economic imbalances that lie just beneath the surface. – Project Syndicate

Marcel Fratzscher, a former senior manager at the European Central Bank, is President of the think tank DIW Berlin and Professor of Macroeconomics and Finance at Humboldt University, Berlin.

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TWIN BOOST: Leaders and representatives of the ECO member states pose for a family portrait with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, centre, in Islamabad; below, Pakistani fans make a statement during the PSL final in Lahore.

COMMENT

Yellow cabs are safer, study fi nds

‘America fi rst’ fi nancial regulation?By Howard DaviesLondon

As US President Trump struggles to staff his administration with sympathisers who will help

transpose tweets into policy, the exodus of Obama appointees from the federal government and other agencies continues. For the fi nancial world, one of the most signifi cant departures was that of Daniel Tarullo, the Federal Reserve governor who has led its work on fi nancial regulation for the last seven years.

It would be a stretch to say that Tarullo has been universally popular in the banking community. He led the charge in arguing for much higher capital ratios, in the United States and elsewhere. He was a tough negotiator, with a well-tuned instinct for spotting special pleading by fi nancial fi rms. But crocodile tears will be shed in Europe to mark his resignation. European banks, and even their regulators, were concerned by his enthusiastic advocacy of even tougher standards in Basel 3.5 (or Basel 4, as bankers like to call it), which would, if implemented in the form favoured by the US, require further substantial capital increases for Europe’s banks in particular. In his absence, these proposals’ fate is uncertain.

But Tarullo has also been an enthusiastic promoter of international regulatory cooperation, with the

frequent fl yer miles to prove it. For some years, he has chaired the Financial Stability Board’s little-known but important Standing Committee on Supervisory and Regulatory Co-operation. His commitment to working with colleagues in international bodies like the FSB and the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, to reach global regulatory agreements enabling banks to compete on a level playing fi eld, has never been in doubt.

Already, some of those who criticised him most vocally in the past are anxious about his departure. Who will succeed him? The 2010 Dodd-Frank Act created a vice-chair position on the Federal Reserve Board – which has never been fi lled – to lead the Fed’s work on regulation. Will that appointee, whom Trump now needs to select, be as committed as Tarullo to an international approach? Or will his principal task be to build a regulatory wall, protecting US banks from global rules?

We do not yet know the answers to these questions, but Fed watchers were alarmed by a January 31 letter to Fed Chair Janet Yellen from Representative Patrick McHenry, the vice chairman of the House Committee on Financial Services. McHenry did not pull his punches. “Despite the clear message delivered by President Donald Trump in prioritising America’s interest in international negotiations,” McHenry wrote, “it appears that the Federal Reserve continues negotiating

international regulatory standards for fi nancial institutions among global bureaucrats in foreign lands without transparency, accountability, or the authority to do so. This is unacceptable.”

In her reply of February10, Yellen fi rmly rebutted McHenry’s arguments. She pointed out that the Fed does indeed have the authority it needs, that the Basel agreements are not binding, and that, in any event, “strong regulatory standards enhance the stability of the US fi nancial system” and promote the competitiveness of fi nancial fi rms.

But that will not be the end of the story. The battle lines are now drawn, and McHenry’s letter shows the arguments that will be deployed in Congress by some Republicans close to the president. There has always been a strand of thinking in Washington that dislikes foreign entanglements, in this and other areas. While Yellen’s arguments are correct, the Fed’s entitlement to participate in international negotiations does not oblige it to do so, and a new appointee might argue that it should not.

Such a reversal would generate tensions within the Fed, and where it would leave the FSB, or indeed the Basel Committee, is unclear. In the early days of the Bank for International Settlements (where the Basel Committee’s secretariat is located) in the 1930s, the US government declined to take a board seat, and the US was represented by

JP Morgan. It is a little hard to see that arrangement working well today.

These questions are of more than passing interest in Europe. European capital adequacy directives typically transpose Basel Accords into EU law. If the Basel process stalls, transatlantic deals, which are the crucial underpinning of Western capital markets, will be far harder to reach.

There is a further complication arising from Brexit. Absent any special deal between the EU27 and the United Kingdom, British and EU regulators will come together in Basel, not in the European Banking Authority. If Basel becomes a talking shop, without the ability to set fi rm standards, another key link in the chain will be broken, and it will be harder for the UK to argue that if London’s banks meet international standards, they should be granted equal treatment in the EU.

As central bankers bid farewell to the devil they know, fi nancial regulation has entered a period of high uncertainty – and high anxiety for policymakers as they await an announcement from Mar-a-Lago. No likely Federal Reserve Board candidates have been spotted at poolside, or being interviewed on the golf course, but a decision cannot be far off . Nothing can be taken for granted. The fi nancial world is holding its collective breath. – Project Syndicate

Howard Davies is Chairman of the Royal Bank of Scotland.

By Marlowe Hood/AFPParis

Yellow taxi cabs have signifi cantly fewer accidents than cabs of a darker hue, according to research that

scientists say could end up saving lives and money.

A study published on Monday in the journal PNAS showed canary yellow cabs in Singapore were 9% less likely to get into fender-benders or serious smash-ups than taxis that were deep blue.

“Yellow taxis are safer to travel in because yellow is more visible than blue,” lead author Teck-Hua Ho, a professor at the National University of Singapore, said.

Accident rates diverged even more at night, probably because street lighting accentuates the contrast, he said.

The fi ndings “should play a major

role in determining the colours used for public transportation vehicles,” the study concluded.

While this might seem like common sense, up to now there has been scant scientifi c evidence that dark-coloured cars are more dangerous.

To test their hunch that colour matters when it comes to safety, Ho found a real-world laboratory in his own backyard.

The fl eet of Singapore’s largest cab company, it turned out, was divided between light- and dark-toned vehicles.

The researchers compared

accident records covering a 36-month period for more than 4,000 yellow and 14,500 blue cars belonging to the company.

To make sure there was no discrepancy in driver skills, they also analysed background data and work histories of 3,341 randomly selected professional cabbies.

“Some drivers also had experience driving taxis of both colours, and we showed that they had higher accident rates when they drove blue taxis,” Ho said.

The risk, they found, is especially dangerous for the drivers.

Over a typical, 40-year career, a cabbie in a dark-toned vehicle will, on average, get into three additional accidents, 34 instead of 31.

Any of those extra smash-ups, of course, might be fatal - for the driver or the passengers.

The Singapore taxi company’s 16,700 cars could avoid 900 accidents per year if the entire fl eet were

painting yellow, the researchers calculated.

Assuming an average repair cost of $700 (670 euros) per car and a down time of six days, switching colours would also generate annual savings of $1.4mn (1.3mn euros).

The Yellow Cab Company of Chicago set what was to became a global trend in 1907 after commissioning a study on what colour would be most visible for people trying to hail a cab.

During the fi rst two decades of the 20th century, almost all cars plying city streets were black.

Yellow cabs spread across the United States, most famously in New York City, where they remain an icon and an institution to this day.

As often happens in science, Ho and his colleagues did not set out to study the link between colour and car crashes.

“We were engaged in a general study on the accident rate of taxi drivers,” ho explained by e-mail.

Live issues

Gulf Times Wednesday, March 8, 2017 27

The conservative ex-premier has been in torment since January 24 when revelations fi rst emerged that he had paid his wife and children hundreds of thousands of euros from public funds

By Adam Plowright/AFPParis

Rightwing presidential candidate Francois Fillon appears to have won his battle to stay in France’s

election, but his fake job scandal will have a lasting impact on the vote and beyond.

Fillon, 63, won unanimous backing from leaders of his Republicans party on Monday night giving him hope he has fi nally silenced those who have consistently called on him to step aside over the last six weeks.

The conservative ex-premier has been in torment since January 24 when revelations fi rst emerged that he had paid his wife and children hundreds of thousands of euros from public funds - with little evidence of their work.

1) Fillon prospects dimmed At the end of January, before the

scandal broke, the conservative ex-prime minister was the clear favourite to win the two-stage election on April 23 and May 7.

Shortly afterwards, according to a tracker of polls compiled by AFP, he fell behind the centrist Emmanuel Macron and only one voter survey out of more than 20 since has shown him ahead of the 39-year-old.

A poll at the weekend of 1,027 voters showed only 29% of voters wanted the

veteran politician with a nearly 40-year career to remain in the race.

“He’s got some breathing space, but he needs to ask himself if he can still win the election,” one sceptical MP from his party told AFP on Monday, asking not to be named.

2) The Republicans split The party’s divisions have

exploded again after a bitter bout of infighting in 2012 sparked by the defeat of ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy who unsuccessfully sought re-election.

Fillon has been hit by a blizzard of criticism from lawmakers close to Sarkozy and ex-premier Alain Juppe, as well as ex-prime minister Dominique de Villepin who warned him about taking the party into an “abyss”.

On the ground, Republican activists and lawmakers say they have found it diffi cult to go out campaigning to face often hostile voters.

“To say it’s been easy would be lying,” an MP from the eastern city of Lyon, Dominique Nachury, told AFP last month as she and fellow activists handed out leafl ets in the centre of the city.

3) The outsiders gain The disarray appears to have

benefi ted centrist, pro-business candidate Macron in particular, as well as far-right leader Marine Le Pen, polls and interviews with voters suggest.

Macron only founded his party “En Marche” (“On the Move”) last April but events have reinforced his message of the need to overthrow the “same men and the same ideas.”

Recent polls show Macron now closing in on Le Pen in the fi rst round of the vote on April 23, with around 25% of the vote.

They would both progress to the run-off on May 7 - breaking the post-

war monopoly of France’s traditional parties - with Macron seen as the most likely winner.

The Fillon spectacle has led some voters to give up hope on the political class, favouring Le Pen and her

National Front (FN) party’s anti-elite message - or choosing to abstain.

“I’m tempted to vote National Front even though I don’t share a lot of their ideas,” unemployed worker Michel Travigne, 51, told AFP in a bar in a

village near Fillon’s home region of Sarthe last week.

“It’s just to get rid of everyone,” he explained.

4) Institutions under attack

Fillon and his wife Penelope are set to be charged for suspected embezzlement of public funds later this month.

In press conferences and speeches, he has repeatedly denounced a politically motivated investigation, suggesting it was ordered by the government and abetted by a biased media.

His attacks have shocked some observers.

“The way that (US President Donald) Trump has defi ed the justice system and attacked the media, calling them ‘fake news’, I think in a way it’s encouraging Fillon and Marine Le Pen to copy,” Herve Le Bras, a veteran political watcher and demographer, told AFP last week.

5) Everyone else drowned out “It has dominated all the space.

There’s a feeling of frustration to put it mildly,” Jerome Guedj, a spokesman for Socialist party candidate Benoit Hamon, told AFP.

Senior Socialist fi gure Jean-Christophe Cambadelis worries that “the winner will be elected by default without there being the possibility to ever really subject their programme to scrutiny.”

Candidates such as the hard-left Jean-Luc Melenchon have continued campaigning but largely out of the public eye.

6) Morbid fascination Though polls show growing distrust

for both politicians and the media, television viewing fi gures and newspaper sales have surged as voters tune in to an extraordinary election campaign.

Little has gone to script so far in the campaign in which France’s future as well as the European Union’s is in play.

“Viewers are passionate about this election. The news is unprecedented, audience fi gures are too,” said Alain Weill, head of SFR Media which owns rolling-news channel BFMTV.

Fillon’s woes shake up election

French presidential election candidate for the right-wing Les Republicains (LR) party Francois Fillon listens during a debate at the French Confederation of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (CPME) union’s headquarters in Puteaux, west of Paris, on Monday.

Three-day forecast

TODAY

FRIDAY

High: 27 C

Low : 17 C

High: 28 C

Low: 17 C

Weather report

Around the region

Abu DhabiBaghdadDubaiKuwait CityManamaMuscatRiyadhTehran

Weather todaySunnySunnySunnyM SunnyM SunnySunnyP CloudyP Cloudy

Around the world

Athens BeirutBangkok BerlinCairoCape Town ColomboDhakaHong KongIstanbulJakartaKarachiLondonManilaMoscowNew DelhiNew York ParisSao PauloSeoulSingaporeSydney Tokyo Clear

Max/min16/0819/1433/2610/0428/1825/1832/2528/2218/1718/0732/2429/1814/0832/2304/-227/1417/0613/1127/1906/-433/2320/1711/03

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Fishermen’s forecast

OFFSHORE DOHAWind: NW-N 05-15/18 KTWaves: N 2-4/6 Feet

INSHORE DOHAWind: NW-NE 05-15 KTWaves: 1-3 Feet

High: 29 C

Low: 17 C

THURSDAY

Inshore: Hazy at places at first becomes mild daytime with scat-tered clouds.

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Max/min24/1924/0927/1926/1324/1826/2131/1313/03

Weather tomorrowSunnySunnyP CloudySunnySunnySunnySunnyM Sunny

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28Gulf TimesWednesday, March 8, 2017

QATAR

Ooredoo Supernet to power Red LineOoredoo and Qatar Rail-

ways Company (Qatar Rail) signed an agreement

yesterday at Qitcom 2017 that will see Ooredoo implement its next-generation In-Building So-lution (IBS) across the Qatar Rail Red Line Metro network.

The agreement was signed by Ooredoo Qatar CEO Waleed al-Sayed and Qatar Rail CEO Engineer Abdulla al-Subaie at Qatar Rail’s Qitcom stand in the presence of HE the Minister of Transport and Communications Jassim Seif Ahmed al-Sulaiti.

As part of the agreement, Ooredoo will work closely with Qatar Rail and their systems contractor to complete the

project, which will include the planning, designing, installing, and commissioning of the Oore-doo IBS service. As construc-tion of the stations continues, Ooredoo will install the network infrastructure required to pro-vide voice and data services for passengers during their travel on the Doha Metro Red Line.

Once in place, the Ooredoo IBS service will enable travellers to connect to Ooredoo’s Super-net network at any of the Qatar Rail Metro Red Line stations.

Al-Sayed said the project will demonstrate the power and reach of the Ooredoo Supernet at Qatar Rail Metro Red Line buildings, including under-

ground areas, at grade and el-evated stations.

“Ooredoo continues to be the technology provider of choice for Qatar’s most prestigious projects, as we work to provide the very best services for the people and companies of Qatar.”

The Qatar Rail Metro Red Line will cover 17 stations span-ning 40km, including a link to Legtaifi ya Station to allow pas-sengers to transfer over to the Lusail Light Rail Transit. It also connects to the central point of Msheireb, which will serve as transit point and main intersec-tion for the Red, Green, Gold, and Blue Lines.

Al-Subaie said: “Ooredoo

has demonstrated its experi-ence and expertise in connect-ing Qatar with world-class ICT infrastructure in the past and we are confi dent that this partner-ship will enable us to provide the smoothest connection for our customers.

“The agreement is designed to support our vision to provide customer-centric integrated railway services that are acces-sible, effi cient, safe, and reliable while maximising social, eco-nomic, and environment ben-efi ts for Qatar.”

Qatar Rail is currently driving the development of one of the largest rail projects in the world, and this is the latest phase in the

two companies’ partnership and collaboration. Last year, Oore-doo signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to estab-lish a collaboration framework to provide next generation ICT

solutions for the design, con-struction, and operation of the Qatar Rail Development Pro-gramme.

The agreement was one of the “most far-reaching” and “com-

prehensive” deal by Ooredoo and Qatar Rail. Under the terms of the agreement, Ooredoo is providing Qatar Rail with the latest infrastructure and solu-tions.

Ooredoo Qatar CEO Waleed al-Sayed and Qatar Rail CEO Engineer Abdulla al-Subaie shake hands after signing the agreement in the presence of HE the Minister of Transport and Communications Jassim Seif Ahmed al-Sulaiti.

HIA exhibits Smart Airport applications

Hamad International Airport (HIA) has ex-hibited cutting-edge

technology providing visitors unique opportunity to experi-ence the ‘Smart Airport’ pas-senger journey at the ongoing Qitcom Exhibition and Confer-ence.

HIA is the offi cial sponsor for this year’s annual digital event, which is Qatar’s biggest, con-necting smart technology with international expertise, indus-try specialists, key government decision makers, innovators and entrepreneurs. Under the theme of ‘Qatar — towards a Smarter Future’, Qitcom 2017 brings together a diverse eco-system of stakeholders from all sectors to exchange ideas and collaborate towards achieving the vision of a smarter Qatar.

A “digital transformation programme” is currently un-derway at HIA to ensure that it continues to set benchmarks in customer experience, while continuously improving effi -ciency, safety and security.

Underpinning the transfor-mation are some of the most innovative and leading-edge technologies. As the offi cial

sponsor of Qitcom 2017, HIA has carefully chosen the op-portunity to showcase how its Smart Airport Programme is

transforming the passenger journey; and to launch its new smartwatch app and augment-ed reality off ering, which will

enable visitors to discover the unique art exhibits on display at HIA. HIA Chief Operating Offi cer Badr Mohamed al-Meer

said, “Strategic investments in technology are at the heart of our mission to continuously improve effi ciency and to pro-vide great customer experi-ence. At Qitcom, we are dem-onstrating how technology is being used by HIA to become the ‘connected’ airport of the future.”

Visitors to HIA’s exhibition have an opportunity to experi-ence the Smart Airport concept fi rst-hand through a simulated journey.

At the beginning of the journey, each visitor is given a smartphone, a smart watch and travel information and encouraged to experience un-assisted interaction at various airport touch points, including self-check-in, self-bag-drop, immigration/border control, e-gate and self-boarding gate; while observing how the air-port measures its service levels in real-time.

The simulated journey also showcases HIA’s unique bea-con-enabled mobile app, which provides live fl ight notifi ca-tions, turn-by-turn navigation and information of ongoing re-tail off ers.

Senior HIA executives at the event. From left: Hareb Ibrahim al-Mohannadi (off ice manager), Abdulaziz al-Mass, vice-president (Commercial and Marketing), Badr Mohamed al-Meer, chief operating off icer, Suhail Kadri, vice-president (IT), Saeed Yousef al-Sulaiti, vice-president (Security), Gaush Mohamed, manager (Business Systems).

QNB unveils new ATM technology

QNB unveiled the new ‘Ac-tivate technology’ from NCR, which operates the

new age of ATM machines, dur-ing the 2017 Qatar Information Technology and Communica-tions (Qitcom) conference, the biggest digital event in Qatar. QNB will gradually adopt the technology for ATMs, which will present customers with a whole new experience to securely ac-cess their bank accounts us-ing their cards or the biological traits of their irises.

The ATM’s interface will pro-vide customers with seamless experience that makes it easier and more convenient to use the popular ATM channel. It is more aligned with the latest interfaces familiar to customers from on-line and tablet devices applica-tions. Also, the new technology will provide all types of services provided to customers online such as international money transfers and Western Union on ATMs for more convenience.

The new technology, the fi rst of its kind in Qatar, will be soon available on QNB’s largest ATM network in Qatar, as it was an-nounced during the conference. Qitcom hosts Qatar’s corporates, government ministries and agencies to showcase their in-

novation and latest digital trans-formation for the future.

This advanced technological solution is yet another milestone in QNB’s customer experience excellence across all channels, and it represents the bank’s con-tinuous endeavour to look for more innovative ways to serve its customers through the ubiqui-tous delivery of premium prod-ucts and quality services.

One of QNB’s core values is constant improvement through innovation and refi nement of its off erings and services. Custom-ers will enjoy more convenience and the highest fi nancial secu-rity, protecting them in every transaction they make.

The transformation to ‘NCR APTRA Activate’ will commence this month to off er many new services that will improve cus-tomer interactions, QNB said.

The group’s presence through its subsidiaries and associate companies now extends to more than 30 countries across three continents providing a compre-hensive range of advanced prod-ucts and services.

The total number of employ-ees is more than 28,000 operat-ing through more than 1,200 lo-cations, with an ATM network of more than 4,300 machines.

QNB unveils the new ‘Activate technology’ from NCR.

Mwani Qatar highlights latest technology at ports

Qatar Ports Management Company (Mwani Qatar) is showcasing its latest technology in managing ports, as well as the technical methods used in its operations, at the fourth Qatar Information and Communication and Technology Conference and Exhibition (Qitcom).In a statement, Mwani Qatar said such technology off ers integrated information about Hamad Port and provides an ideal opportunity for visitors to get closely acquainted with the ship handling through a special device simulation available in the stand.In line with its continuous support to such important events, Mwani Qatar’ noted that its sponsorship of Qitcom 2017 focuses on one of the most important sectors – the ICT.“The company is constantly striving to promote the ideas and technologies that

will have a positive impact on all economy sectors,” Mwani Qatar noted, as it seeks to adopt the best and latest technology that will help achieve economic diversity and improve the level of services in the state.Hamad Port’s “Largest smart and environment-friendly project in the region” award by the Seatrade Middle East, Indian Subcontinent and Africa Awards 2016 is also showcased at Mwani Qatar’s stand. Qitcom 2017, Qatar’s biggest digital event, promotes entrepreneurship, innovation and learning to help the country generate and sustain a vibrant knowledge-based economy.Qitcom 2017 includes some 70 public and private partners, 15 sponsors, more than 120 local and global exhibitors in the field, and more than 20 visiting international delegations representing global smart cities.Mwani Qatar’s stand at Qitcom 2017.

Qatar Rail signs MoU with Ooredoo, QNBN, Vodafone

Qatar Rail has signed three memoranda of under-standing with Ooredoo,

Qatar National Broadband Net-work (QNBN), and Vodafone Qa-tar yesterday at Qitcom 2017.

The signing ceremony, held in the presence of HE the Minister of Transport and Communica-tions Jassim Seif Ahmed al-Su-laiti, was led by Qatar Rail CEO

Engineer Abdulla al-Subaie, Ooredoo Qatar CEO Waleed al-Sayed, QNBN CEO Ahmed al-Sulaiti, and Vodafone Qatar CEO Ian Gray.

Al-Subaie said: “We are pleased to fi nalise the MoU with Ooredoo, QNBN, and Vodafone and we look forward to building on the strong and fruitful part-nerships that will benefi t this

landmark project that is set to have a transformational eff ect on the transportation sector. We understand that in today’s fast paced world, people want to stay connected and we are working with our partners, utilising their knowledge and expertise to en-sure the very best telecommuni-cation services possible.”

He added: “Qatar Rail was

keen on establishing strategic partnerships with each of these leading telecommunications providers in Qatar to ensure that future users of the Doha Metro can stay connected while using the railway network.”

The MoU with Ooredoo will ensure the availability of high-quality telecommunications services to the general public

using the Doha Metro Red Line from the commencement of rail-way services.

The MoU with QNBN aims to utilise opportunities for co-op-eration in managing, operating, and maintaining the fi bre-optic cables and related technologies located in Qatar Rail stations, en-suring the highest international standards are met to provide the

proper infrastructure for a high-quality telecommunications net-work for metro users, therefore providing vital support to this landmark economic project.

The MoU with Vodafone will ensure the availability of high-quality telecommunications services to the general public using the Doha Metro Green and Gold Lines from the com-

mencement of railway services. Al-Subaie said the Doha Metro project “is progressing well” and that Qatar Rail, in working with “the very best entities” in Qatar, will provide metro users “with a sustainable and world-class public railway transportation system.” The fi rst phase of the Doha Metro project is expected to be complete in 2020.

Ooredoo Qatar CEO Waleed al-Sayed and Qatar Rail CEO Engineer Abdulla al-Subaie exchange the agreements in the presence of HE the Minister of Transport and Communications Jassim Seif Ahmed al-Sulaiti. Al-Subaie shakes hands with QNBN CEO Ahmed al-Sulaiti. Al-Subaie with Vodafone Qatar CEO Ian Gray.