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TUESDAY 24 MAY 2016 • 17 SHA’BAAN 1437 • Volume 21 • Number 6806 thepeninsulaqatar @peninsulaqatar @peninsula_qatar

Reuters

BEIRUT: Bomb blasts killed nearly 150 people in Jableh and Tartous on Syria’s Med-iterranean coast yesterday and wounded many others in the government-controlled territory that hosts Russian military bases, monitors and state media said.

Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibil-ity for the attacks in the cities that have up to now escaped the worst of the violence in the five-year-old conflict, saying it was targeting members of President Bashar Al Assad’s Alawite minority.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 145 people were killed in attacks by at least five suicide bombers and two devices planted in cars. State media said 78 people had been killed in what is Assad’s coastal heartland.

The attacks were the first of their kind in Tartous, capital of Tartous province and home to a Russian naval facility, and Jableh in Latakia province, near a Russian-oper-ated air base. The Kremlin said the bomb blasts underscored the need to press ahead with Geneva peace talks after a Feb. 27 ceasefire collapsed in April as violence intensified in a war that has killed at least 250,000 people.

“This demonstrates yet again just how fragile the situation in Syria is. And this one more time underscores the need for new urgent steps to continue the negotiating

Nearly 150 dead as IS bombs Syrian cities

AFP

KUWAIT CITY: Yemen’s warring parties held their first face-to-face meeting in nearly a week yesterday after the government delegation ended a boycott, the UN envoy said.

Yemen’s President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi had agreed to end the boycott after mediation by the Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and UN chief Ban Ki-moon, the UN special envoy said.

“A joint meeting between the two delegations to the Yemen peace talks has started in the morning,” Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed said on Twitter.

The troubled negotiations which began on April 21 broke off on Tuesday when the government delegation suspended its participa-tion accusing Iran-backed rebels who control the capital of failing to keep their word.

The government demanded a written pledge from the Huthi Shiite rebels and their allies rec-ognising an April 2015 UN Security Council resolution calling for their withdrawal from the capital and other territories they have over-ran since 2014, as well as the legitimacy of President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi.

Foreign Minister Abdulmalek Al Mikhlafi said on Twitter on Sunday that the government had agreed to give the peace talks a “last chance.”

“We have fixed all the refer-ences. This is a first step on the path for a real peace that leads to implementing Resolution 2216 beginning with withdrawals, surrender of weapons and the restoration of state institutions,” he said.

→ See also page 7

The Peninsula

DOHA: The Traffic Department has opened five traffic investigation offices at insurance companies to simplify the procedures for motorists involved in traffic accidents.

The new service is provided as part of the integrated link between Traffic Department and insurance companies to help motorists complete all acci-dents-related procedures at one place, the Ministry of Interior said yesterday on its Facebook account.

Now the drivers involved in accidents can directly go to the insurance company of the party who caused the accident and approach the traffic investigation office there to register the incident.

Once it is registered, the other party can approach the insurance company staff to complete the procedures for repairing the vehicle. Motorists are no more required to go to the investigation

sections at Traffic Department’s serv-ice centres.

Traffic investigators deployed at insurance companies will register the accident electronically using tablet PCs , take the picture of the vehicles and com-municate directly with the insurance companies. Meanwhile, the accident victim will receive a text message with details of the case and he can approach the insurance company straight for repairing his vehicle.

Earlier, motorists involved in acci-dents had to wait until the patrol police reaches the site or move to the traffic investigation sections to register the inci-dent and get a report to approach the insurance companies.

Now, all phases of traffic inves-tigation services are completed electronically, from registering the incident until issuing the report. The accident reports can also be printed from MOI website or Metrash2 mobile app without approaching the traffic inves-tigation sections as was the case before.

Emir’s mediation helps resume Yemen govt’s talks with rebels

The Peninsula

DOHA/ISTANBUL: H H Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, Chairperson of Education Above All, yesterday called on the international community to “fight back” to deter attacks against

schools and bring the perpetrators to book.

“The destruction of schools are not just ‘accidents’ of war. Educa-tion is under attack. Our schools are the battlefield. It is time to fight back,” Sheikha Moza told the World Humanitarian Summit which opened in Istanbul yesterday.

“What is missing are the mecha-nisms and the political will to enforce (existing international laws). We must hold the perpetrators of these crimes responsible and accountable. Only when the perpetrators are shamed and punished will we deter oth-ers from attacking education. Only then, can we break this vicious cycle of building and destroying, building and destroying,” Sheikha Moza added.

The Prime Minister and Inte-rior Minister H E Sheikh Abdullah

bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani led the Qatari delegation at the opening session of the summit at Istanbul Con-gress Center.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan opened the two-day summit.

Representatives of 175 countries, including 57 heads of states or govern-ments and more than 6,000 officials and representatives of international bodies and civil society organisa-tions and media are discussing ways

to better tackle the current situation in the world, what the United Nations describes as the worst humanitarian crisis since World War II.

→ Continued on page 2

Five traffic investigation offices at insurance firms

The Peninsula

DOHA: Qatar Foundation Interna-tional (QFI) has awarded two separate grants – worth a total of $115,000 – to schools in Austin, Texas and Chagrin Falls, Ohio as part of efforts to bridge the cultural gap between the US and the Arab world through language edu-cation and cultural-exchange.

Arabic has seen an explosion of interest among American students over the past decade, as many young people yearn to appreciate a culture

that is so often misunderstood in the US However, in-school programmes have struggled to keep pace, QFI said yesterday. QFI has awarded a grant of $100,000 to the Austin Independent School District (AISD) to support their Arabic programming during 2016-2017 and a grant worth $15,000 to Chagrin Falls High School (CFHS) aimed at expanding their Arabic programme.

With the grant award, AISD will establish the first and only Arabic program in the school district. The grant supports two teachers who will teach at three schools: Burnet Mid-dle School, Austin High School, and

International/Eastside Memorial High School.

The programme will start by offering level 1 Arabic at all three schools, and increase the number of levels offered each year at the high schools in response to student enroll-ments. The grant includes funding for teacher salary, curriculum develop-ment, and materials/resources.

Since the CFHS high school Arabic teacher retired last year, the school’s Arabic program was put on hold, as no one qualified was found to take the position. Thanks to QFI’s sup-port, CFHS will re-start their Arabic

program in the fall. CFHS teacher Anita Boumitri is both a French and Arabic teacher, and this grant will provide partial salary and teach-ing materials, as well as training for Ms Boumitri, who will be attending the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) convention through QFI’s support. “With this gen-erous grant funding from QFI, we will be able to grow Ms. Boumitri’s existing part-time teaching position to a full-time position in the 2016-17 school year,” said Director of Curriculum, Becky Quinn.

“We are pleased to support the launch of Arabic in Austin and the

relaunch of the Arabic language program at the Chagrin Falls School District and to provide opportunities and access to critical language educa-tion for young adults across the US,” said Maggie Mitchell Salem, QFI’s Executive Director.

“For the past seven years, QFI has partnered with a number of schools across the US to advance access to Arabic, a critical language in the US, to K-12 public and public charter school students and we welcome the great addition of Chagrin and Aus-tin Schools to our growing network,” Salem added.

process,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a conference call with journalists.

Russian President Vladimir Putin reiterated his readiness to fight with the Syrian government against “the terrorist threat” sent his condolences to Assad, the Kremlin said. One of the four blasts in Jableh hit near a hospital and another at a bus

station. The Tartous bombs also targeted a bus sta-tion, the Observatory and state media reported.

Younes Hassan, a doctor working at the Jableh hospital, said he heard an explosion at the bus sta-tion, followed less than a minute later by the blast at the hospital. “Everything went into emergency mode, wounded people began arriving,” he said.

Qatar gives US schools $115,000 to promote Arabic

Defeat attacks on schools: Sheikha Moza

People inspecting the damage at the site of car bombing in a bus station in the Jableh city, Lattakia province in Syria, yesterday.

H H Sheikha Moza bint Nasser at the special session “Education in Emergencies and Protracted Crises,” at the World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul, yesterday. Pic: A R Al Baker

“Our schools are the battlefield. It is time to fight back,” H H Sheikha Moza told the World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul yesterday.

et

Today’s edition includes a 12-page special supplement on Qatar Tourism.

Minister of Municipality and Environment H E Mohamed bin Abdullah Al Rumaihi (right) and Hungarian Ambassador Istvan Elter (centre) cut the ribbon to inaugurate the new Monitoring Van of Akusztika Environmental Doha W.L.L. in the presence of other officials at Katara yesterday. Pic: Kammutty VP / The Peninsula

Akusztika Environmental Doha van launched

HOME02 TUESDAY 24 MAY 2016

The Peninsula

DOHA: Ooredoo has thanked its Shahry Smart customers for helping make the service the most successful post-paid communications solution in Qatar.

Recent results have shown that Shahry Smart is the top post-paid service in the country, with hundreds of thousands of people enjoying the incredible value that each pack offers with its bundle of minutes, data and SMS every month.

About the service, Yousuf Abdulla Al Kubaisi, Chief Operat-ing Officer, Ooredoo Qatar, said: “Over the past few years, our Shahry Smart plans have evolved to satisfy the changing needs our customers have for data, international minutes and more.

“When we launched Shahry Smart we designed it to be a one-stop-shop for everyone’s needs, and it is delivering great value for our customers.”

Shahry Smart has proved to be particularly successful as demand for mobile data has grown in recent years. As of April 2016, Ooredoo’s data revenue represented 51 percent

of total revenue in Qatar, estab-lishing the company as one of the leading operators in the data space. The success of products like Shahry Smart has played a key role in this process.

To ensure that as many custom-ers as possible can enjoy Shahry Smart, the company is giving one month of unlimited data for free to new customers who switch to Shahry Smart 55 bundles or above.

The promotion has been designed to enable customers the chance to try the Ooredoo Super-net on their smartphone, as well as encourage more people to try the number one postpaid service in the country.

Customers who want to keep their old number can do so at any Ooredoo Shop, by simply filling out a Mobile Number Portability appli-cation and a Shahry 55 or above Service Application form.

The promotion is available now for all new Ooredoo customers switching to the network, as well as existing Hala and Shahry stand-ard customers upgrading to Shahry Smart 55 or above for the first time.

For details, customers can visit the Ooredoo website or any Oore-doo shop.

One-month unlimited data

for customers switching to

Shahry Smart 55 and above

The Peninsula

DOHA: The Ministry of Development Planning and Sta-tistics has started a field survey to measure satisfaction of recipients of services provided by ministries and other government agencies.

The survey, which is being conducted under the patronage of Prime Minister and Interior Minister H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani, started on May 16 and will continue until June 2.

The aim of the survey, as stated by the ministry, is to measure the level of public satisfaction with serv-ices provided by ministries and government institutions and collect feedback from recipients by listening to their views and evaluation of the services.

The outcome of the survey is expected to help improve and develop services to come up with required levels and meet public aspirations. It will also help over-come difficulties service recipients may face from government agencies, the Ministry said.

The survey methods include visits to service provi-sion areas, public places and families. A survey-related web page has been launched on the Ministry’s website (www.mdps.gov.qa) and websites of ministries and uni-versities in the state. Several researchers have begun to collect data by interviewing service recipients in government agencies and are filling out an electronic questionnaire on palm devices at every counter. The questionnaire is designed to evaluate the services pro-vided by ministries and government institutions. The Ministry called on citizens and residents to cooperate with the surveyors in the service areas to complete the survey. It said data collected will be treated with full confidentiality and only for the purposes of improving the quality of government services.

Ministry begins survey to

assess public satisfaction

with govt services Continued from page 1

“Money is not enough to fulfil our obligations to provide every child with their right to educa-tion that they deserve. Without protection and prevention, what we spend years building can be destroyed in minutes,” said Sheikha Moza, speaking at a spe-cial session, alongside Gordon Brown (UN Special Envoy for Glo-bal Education), Julia Gillard (Chair, Global Partnership for Education) and Helle Thorning-Schmidt (Chief Executive, Save the Chil-dren International).

She urged the international community to take an approach based on provision, protection, and prevention so that education is placed at the heart of efforts to address humanitarian crises around the world.

Sheikha Moza also highlighted the ongoing work of Education Above All, noting its investment in “providing quality primary educa-tion to almost seven million out of school children.”

She added that Education Above All (EAA) remained on track to enrol 10 million out of school children in education programmes by the end of the year.

EAA’s Educate A Child pro-gramme has enrolled 3.3 million children in education programmes and has commitments in place to reach its goal of 10 million children by September 2016. Among these

10 million will be at least 1.1 mil-lion Syrian refugees.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called on world leaders to fix the gap in humanitarian funding and share the burden of helping people in need across the globe.

In his opening remarks, Ban called on world leaders to align themselves with the five core responsibilities, such as preventing and ending conflicts and respect-ing the rules of war.

In 2014, the UN reported that around $540m of the roughly $135bn global aid budget was spent on decreasing disaster risk.

“I call on humanitarian organ-isations to work more closer together based on shared priori-ties to meet the needs of millions of people in crisis,” Ban said.

At the summit, at least 50 heads of governments will announce several commitments to reduce humanitarian disas-ters. These include: preventing and ending conflict; respecting the rules of war; addressing forced displacement; achieving gender equality; responding to climate change; ending the need for aid; and investing in humanity, media reports said.

The Prime Minister visited the Qatari Pavilion at the sum-mit which hosts Qatar Computing Research Institute, Qatar Charity and Sheikh Thani bin Abdullah Foundation for Humanitarian Services (RAF).

The Peninsula

DOHA: The 16th Doha Forum under the theme ‘Stability and Prosperity for All’ concluded yesterday.

It was attended by high-level regional and international experts.

The three-day event discussed means of achieving regional stabil-ity and global prosperity in light of challenges in the areas of defence, security, economy, energy and civil society.

Addressing the concluding ses-sion, Assistant Foreign Minister for Foreign Affairs H E Sultan bin Saad Al Meraikhi said the sessions high-lighted participants’ keenness to exchange ideas and visions and pro-pose solutions to meet political and economic challenges and enhance collective cooperation to make our world safer and more stable, said Al Meraikhi.

He praised the ideas presented,

particularly with regard to contain-ing security deterioration, terrorism, armed conflicts in different parts of the world and deterioration of oil prices and stressed team work to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sus-tainable Development.

The closing session saw a pres-entation on ideas and proposals put forward during the plenary and special sessions. A large number of heads of states and governments, ministers, politicians, decisionmak-ers, businessmen and civil society activists from around the world took part.

Dr Hassan bin Ibrahim Al Mohannadi, Director, Diplomatic Institute at the Foreign Ministry, hailed participation and said the event enriched debates on key issues.

Qatari economic expert Ahmed Abdullah Al Kuwari presented a summary of the session on ‘Realising the international agenda of sus-tainable development in light of the current global economic conditions.

By Raynald C Rivera

The Peninsula

DOHA: Reach Out To Asia (ROTA) will mark a decade of its Ramadan Project with activities to give back to the community and promote vol-unteerism.

Ramadan 2016 Project, ‘10 Years of Service’, will include activities for construction workers, the elderly and other local groups.

“This year we look forward to giving back to the community in Qatar. ROTA volunteers will again reach out to groups to make a pos-itive and tangible impact in their lives,” Mohammed Al Naama, Act-ing Executive Director, ROTA, told a press conference yesterday.

“Through their service, they will continue to demonstrate the value of volunteerism, which is a great source of pride for us.”

The project will feature volun-teer-led activities to contribute to community development. ROTA is collaborating with local partners, including Social Development Center, Hamad Medical Corporation, Qatar Autism Center & Special Needs and Bangladesh MHM School & College.

Over 200 people have signed up to volunteer and the number is

expected to increase with more than 10 days before Ramadan starts, Al Naama said, adding last year saw the participation of about 350 volunteers.

Volunteers will share Iftar with residents of Qatar Foundation for Elderly People Care; and Rumailah Hospital Residential Care Com-munity. ROTA will coordinate similar events for construction workers of Al Shamal and Al Khor municipalities.

“Oxy Qatar is honoured to

support the project, as it is an impor-tant part of our corporate social responsibility programme. Oxy Qatar has been working with ROTA for five years and we have seen the project grow and achieve impressive results.

“Our employees have been part of the volunteer programme, with new participants signing up every year,” said Stephen Kelly, President and General Manager, Occidental Petro-leum of Qatar (Oxy Qatar), which is exclusive sponsor of the project.

FROM LEFT: Hassan Al Malki, Deputy General Manager, Occidental Petroleum of Qatar Limited; Mohammed Al Naama, Acting Executive Director, ROTA; and Steve Kelly, President and General Manager, Oxy Qatar, at a press conference at Qatar Foundation yesterday. Pic:

Kammutty VP / The Peninsula

ROTA to celebrate a decade of its Ramadan Project

By Sidi Mohamed

The Peninsula

DOHA: The Ministry of Munic-ipality and Environment celebrated World Turtle Day at Al Faisal Social Responsibility Center headquarters yesterday, under the theme ‘Sea turtles and efforts to protect them’.

The annual event observed on May 23, was attended by directors of several departments at the Min-istry, residents and students from Al Hekma International School.

Khalaf Ajlan Al Anzi, Direc-tor, Public Relations Department, said through this occasion, Qatar shows keenness to maintain envi-ronmental heritage and protect natural resources, especially sea turtles.

Mohsin Abdullah Al Yafei, former director of Environmental Studies Centre at Qatar University, said turtles have been present in Qatar for a long time and stressed that these species are endangered.

He said Qatar has three types of sea turtles, and all have environmental and economic importance.

Waste left on the beach and the noise created by visitors drive the turtles away from the beach and the animals are forced to have nesting sites in unsuitable condi-tions, said Al Yafei.

The Ministry is exerting efforts by closing temporary turtle nests areas to the public, transferring some nests to proper places and monitoring them and increas-ing awareness about their importance.

Al Yafei said there is a large number of turtle nests in Halul Island and a small number in Shiraouh Island.

In its efforts to save threatened sea turtles, Qatar has launched ‘Save Turtles’, an initiative in collaboration with the Ministry, Qatar University and Qatar Petro-leum to implement projects and programmes to save turtle.

250kg of sweetsdestroyed DOHA: Officials from the Health Monitoring Section at Doha Munic-ipality destroyed 250kg of sweets found unfit for human consump-tion.

The stock was seized during an inspection campaign ahead of Ramadan.

World Turtle

Day marked

Doha Forum concludes

Leaders for reducing humanitarian disasters

ISTANBUL: Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met Prime Minister and Interior Minis-ter H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani at Istanbul Convention Center on the sidelines of the World Humanitarian Summit.

The Premier conveyed the greetings of Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani to ther President, wishing him and the peo-ple of Turkey further development and growth. Erdogan entrusted the Premier to convey his

greetings to the Emir, wishing him good health and happiness and Qatar continued progress and prosperity. The Premier also attended a dinner banquet hosted by Erdogan in honour of heads of delegations. Qatar and Organisation of Islamic Cooperation signed a deal regarding the headquarters of OIC’s humanitarian fund secretariat. It was signed by Foreign Minister H E Sheikh Mohamed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani and OIC Secretary-General Iyad Ameen Madani.

Premier meets Turkey’s President

Prime Minister and Interior Minister H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani with Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Istanbul.

HOME 03 TUESDAY 24 MAY 2016

The Peninsula

DOHA: H E Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, Chairperson, Qatar Museums (QM), presented 18 QM employees with diplomas during the graduation cer-emony for the Qreation Generation programme at Museum of Islamic Art.

The employees comprised the third batch of graduates who com-pleted the high-level professional development programme designed to shape the future arts and cultural

leaders of QM, Qatar and the region.The latest Qreation Generation 3

programme involved employees from departments, including National Museum of Qatar; Mathaf Arab Museum of Modern Art; Orientalist Museum; Archaeology; Marketing; and Finance.

The graduates, 13 of whom were Qatari, were awarded two certif-icates: one by Center for Creative Leadership, a renowned global pro-vider of leadership development, and the other by QM.

Sheikha Al Mayassa said:“I would like to congratulate every single one of our talented employees that com-pleted this esteemed course with us. QM is a destination employer for eve-ryone wishing to work in the creative industries, and our future success requires new generations of leaders with ambitious, bold ideas as well as the commitment and energy to help realise our country’s potential.

“These successful and thriving arts, heritage and museum pro-fessionals are critical to helping us achieve our vision of promoting and sustaining the cultural sector to the highest standards.”

Qreation Generation was initi-ated by Sheikha Al Mayassa in 2013 and is overseen by QM’s Depart-ment of Education. The Master’s level programme held every year, covers Management of Cultural Institutions and Leadership Studies curriculum, custom-tailored for QM.

It was created in consultation

with international experts Gold-smiths University, London and The Center for Creative Leadership from Brussels. It covers arts management lectures, discussions, hands-on workshops and case studies covering key issues facing cultural institutions today.

Leadership workshops, consisting

of individual work with leadership experts, advance one’s self-aware-ness, while group discussions and debates probe into the essence of leadership efficiency.

The two programmes comple-ment each other, revolving around and addressing specific challenges and projects of QM.

QM staff graduate from Qreation Generation 3 course

H E Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, Chairperson, Qatar Museums, with other officials at the graduation ceremony at Museum of Islamic Art.

The Peninsula

DOHA: Qatar Red Crescent Society (QRCS) is launching projects worth QR96m during and after Ramadan in 15 countries, including Qatar.

QRCS has earmarked QR11m for projects in and outside Qatar. Local Ramadan projects include ‘Iftar tents’; ‘Eid clothing’; ‘This is My Wish’; and ‘Recite and Ascend’; among others at a cost of over QR3.1m.

Ramadan projects abroad include Iftar tents and distribution of food at a cost of over QR7.8m. Some 126,130

families in Syria, Lebanon (Syrian and Palestinian refugees), Pales-tine, Jerusalem, Jordan, Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, Somalia, Niger, Chad, Central African Republic and Ethiopia will benefit.

Details were given by QRCS officials during a press conference yesterday. Saleh bin Ali Al Mohannadi, Secretary-General, QRCS; Ahmed Ali Al Khulaifi, Head, Resource Mobi-lisation; social and public media representatives and QRCS officials and volunteers were present.

The year-round projects include shelter, healthcare, food and non-food aid, water and sanitation, education,

family support and health and social awareness at a cost of QR85m, said Al Mohannadi. Local post-Ramadan projects include health, social, reha-bilitation and development initiatives at a cost of QR33m. Global year-round projects and programmes will be implemented in 15 countries at a cost of over QR51.5m.

Donations could be sent through SMS, 92740 (QR1,000); 92770 (QR500); and 92766 (QR100). Donors could specify charity sectors by sending SMS. For surface water well digging projects, send ‘Charity’; for health projects, send ‘Treatment’; for Syria projects, send ‘Syria’; and for

Yemen projects, send ‘Yemen’.Hotlines are available on

44027700 – 44027883 – 44027875 – 66666364 – 66644822 for donations.

Donation collection booths are set

up at Villaggio; Landmark Mall; Gulf Mall; Ezdan Mall; The Mall; Meera Stores; Lulu Hypermarket; Quality Hypermarket, Hayatt Plaza; and Al Khor Mall.

The Peninsula

DOHA: The Ministry of Munic-ipality and Environment has conducted biological tests on four species of fish to fix a minimum length for catch to protect fish reserve in Qatar’s waters. A mini-mum length limit means that fish below it must be returned to the water unharmed immediately after being caught.

The tests have been conducted by the Fisheries Department at the Ministry. Samples of 201 fish were taken and test results will be used to make rules for fish-ing, said a monthly report issued by the Ministry. The department studied 12,549 fish of 25 species to find the impact of fishing on fish reserve. Fish supply to the local market was 1,548 tonnes in March, including 1,386 tonnes produced locally. Sheirii or span-gled emperor, was caught in large quantities and accounted for 20.6 percent of local production, fol-lowed by kingfish (Chanad) at 10.3 percent and bakhsheena at 7.1 per-cent. Bakhsheena is commonly known as pinkear emperor and looks like sheirii.

Open House at Indian EmbassyDOHA: The Indian Embassy will hold Open House on Friday to address any urgent consular and labour problems of Indian nation-als in Qatar. The Open House will be held from 5.30pm to 6.30pm.

Written information on issues/cases proposed to be discussed may be given from 5.30pm to 6pm. This will be followed by meeting with officials from 6pm to 6.30pm.

Salient information would be sent to the media after the event.

Fish length limit

soon for catch to

protect reserves

H E Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, Chairperson, Qatar Museums, presented diplomas to 18 QM employees.

QRCS plans QR96m Ramadan projects in 15 countries

QRCS officials at a press conference.

HOME04 TUESDAY 24 MAY 2016

The Peninsula

DOHA: Qatar Duty Free and Doha Bank have united again to offer customers a special shopping promotion to enjoy across QDF’s exceptional selection of fashion, beauty and gourmet food boutiques at Hamad Inter-national Airport (HIA). Travellers holding a Doha Bank credit card will enjoy 10 percent savings when they shop at QDF stores between May 10 and July 31.

Passengers will discover a tempting array of prod-ucts inside the departure terminal, from cosmetics to designer labels, all perfect purchases for those ventur-ing on summer vacations,and business travellers keen to benefit from the offer.

QDF’s shopping emporium was recently announced as the world’s fifth ‘Best Airport for Shopping’ at the 2016 Skytrax World Airport Awards. The wide selection of luxury and affordable brands available, together with the competitive prices and the retailer’s outstanding customer service levels, were recognised.

Luis Gasset, Senior Vice-President, QDF, said: “Sum-mer is a key time for travellers, and as such an important time for QDF to reward customers with an offer on one of the most extensive collections of brands and lux-ury boutiques available. As one of the world’s leading shopping airports, QDF is committed to offering our customers added value by working with partners to deliver generous promotions and the very best in qual-ity, service and variety.”

Dr R Seetharaman, Group CEO, Doha Bank, said: “The bank and QDF have worked in partnership to deliver promotions for passengers at HIA over the years. While last year’s 10 percent cash back promo-tion was an immense success, we expect this year to be a greater success. Our loyal cardholders will be able to have convenient and privileged payment experiences and continue to enjoy loyalty points on these transac-tions, and what better way for travellers from Doha to embark on their summer vacations.” Passengers can choose from a wide variety of duty-free products at amazing prices, from Tiffany, Burberry, TAG Heuer, Cho-pard, Bulgari, Harrods, Michael Kors, Coach, perfumes, cosmetics and skincare, Godiva chocolates, Swarovski jewellery and gifts from Marmalade Market.

QDF and Doha Bank reward customers with discounted summer shopping

A customer completing her purchases at Qatar Duty Free.

The Peninsula

DOHA: Qatar Airways (QA) is lead-ing an aviation conference bringing together experts from across aviation and software fields to promote the use of operations research in the airline industry.

The Airline Group of the Inter-national Federation of Operational Research Societies (AGIFORS) event is exploring the use of sophisticated mathematical methods found in sci-ence, engineering, business, computer science, and within the aviation indus-try for improved efficiency and more effective crew management.

More than 80 conference delegates representing eight international air-lines and leading software vendors from around the world, are meet-ing in Doha to discuss new ideas and

the latest concepts such as the bene-fits of using applied mathematics to streamline operations, including man-power planning, crew rosters and the

impact of industry changes on crew management.

Dr Hugh Dunleavy, Chief Commer-cial Officer, QA, officially opened the

conference and delivered the key-note address. “As one of the fastest growing airlines in the world, QA has a responsibility to manage its grow-ing workforce in the most effective manner, ensuring that we continue to attract and retain pilots and cabin crew of the highest calibre. By utilising the very latest in operations research, technical developments and innovative analytics, and by sharing knowledge both within and beyond the avia-tion industry, QA can ensure that it is implementing the latest state-of-the-art practices as well as driving further advancement for the benefit of both our staff and our passengers.”

Crew Management is one of spe-cific aviation working groups formed by AGIFORS and its partner airlines, which together arrange forums to discuss reservations and yield man-agement, strategic and schedule planning, cargo, and airline operations.

Qatar Airways hosts aviation conference

Dr Hugh Dunleavy, Chief Commercial Officer, Qatar Airways, opens the AGIFORS aviation industry conference.

The Peninsula

DOHA: Fifty-seven students from University of Calgary in Qatar (UCQ) obtained nursing degrees during the 2016 Convocation, attended by Minis-ter of Education and Higher Education H E Dr Mohammed Abdul Wahed Ali Al Hammadi on Sunday.

Professors, family, friends, and dignitaries from Qatar’s health and education spheres celebrated 52 Bachelor of Nursing (BN) and five Master of Nursing (MN) graduates at UCQ’s seventh convocation. The graduates will join the university’s growing alumni base in contributing to the health goals of Qatar National Vision 2030.

Dr Robert Thirsk, Chancellor, UCQ, said, “Our University, with the generous support of the State of Qatar, strives to provide our students with the knowledge and resources necessary to become leaders in this honourable profession. This is the beginning of a journey for our graduates.

“As some initiate and others

continue their nursing careers in Qatar, we have no doubt that they will be exemplars of the Universi-ty’s values of honesty, integrity and responsibility while advancing this country’s goals,” he added.

To date, 277 graduates have earned BN degrees while 14 have graduated from MN programme. Qatari nationals make up 21 percent of the 291 graduates. The MN pro-gramme, first of its kind in Qatar, celebrated its second class of grad-uates this year.

“As Qatar’s sole provider of

nursing education, UCQ has long aimed to foster a true culture of serv-ice that unites our students, faculty, and staff in the spirit of Qatar’s goals. I am proud to see 57 more graduates become active contributors to the development of Qatar’s healthcare sector,” said Dr Kim Critchley, Dean and CEO, UCQ.

“Our graduates deserve this recognition for their exceptional per-formance and hard work,” Critchley added.

University of Calgary leaders, dip-lomats, academics, dignitaries and

representatives from Hamad Medical Corporation, Qatar University, Qatar Red Crescent Society and Sidra were present.

UCQ also honoured two graduates with its highest academic distinction — the Gold and Silver medallions.

The Gold Medal for academic achievement in the BN, Regular Track programme was awarded to Eve-lyn Anna Edwards while Shaikhah Mohsen Abdullah Al Keldi won the Silver Medal for academic achieve-ment in the Post Diploma Bachelor of Nursing programme.

The Peninsula

DOHA: A group of expert organisa-tions has developed new guidelines on diabetes management during Ramadan.

The Diabetes and Ramadan International Alliance (DaR), in part-nership with International Diabetes Federation (IDA) and Qatar Diabe-tes Association announced the ‘New Guidelines on Diabetes Management during Ramadan’ during the fourth DaR International Alliance congress.

The updated guidelines are based on learning from previous years, offering improved man-agement strategies and newer evidence-based medicine to help people fast with minimal risk.

These will ensure effective com-munication with and education of all those involved, including patients, religious leaders and the wider com-munity. Emphasis has been laid on the importance of individualisation within a diabetes management plan. For instance, the Ramadan Nutri-tion Plan aims to provide people with information to help them individual-ise nutrition for people with diabetes during the holy month.

The conference also brought forth key challenges associated with diabetes management during the holy month, while raising aware-ness about the need for minimising health risks through increased edu-cation and guidance.

“Many people with diabetes are keen to fast during Ramadan. Awareness about diabetes man-agement and structured diabetes education are essential for the management of the condition in preparation for the fasting period. Medical professionals, religious lead-ers and healthcare providers need to work in harmony to ensure a safe and healthy holy month for all,” said Dr Shaukat Sadikot, President, IDA.

IDF, in collaboration with DaR, gathered 31 experts from across the US, the UK, France, Turkey, Sudan, Egypt, South Africa, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE, Iran, Pakistan and Malaysia to combine their voluntary efforts in creation of the guidelines.

“Qatar Diabetes Association is endorsing the new guidelines to ensure maximum uptake among the healthcare community and people living with the condition.

“With these guidelines, we aim to ensure that people with diabetes are aided with the best tools to manage their health throughout Ramadan,” said Dr Abdullah Al Hamaq, Execu-tive Director, QDA.

Experts at the conference stressed that the decision to fast must be taken while maintaining a balance between the guidelines for religious exemptions and assessment of the risks involved, in consultation with healthcare providers. Following a highly individualised management plan and follow-up are essential to avoid development of complications.

New guidelines to manage

diabetes during Ramadan57 graduate with UCQ nursing degrees Minister of Education and Higher Education Abdul Wahed Ali Al Hammadi attends the 2016 Convocation.

Officials with some of the graduates at the convocation .

Sri Lankan mission seeks donations for flood victims

Safari Hypermarket Group yesterday launched Mango Festival 2016 at its outlets across Qatar. The festival features over 60 varieties of the fruit from India, Pakistan, Brazil, Thailand, Ivory Coast, Sri Lanka, Yemen, Sudan and Bangladesh as well as mango-based products which are bakery and hot food items available at Safari Mall in Abu Hamour and Safari Hypermarket on Salwa Road. Aboobacker Madappat, Managing Director, Safari Group, inaugurated the festival at Safari Mall in Abu Hamour by cutting a cake in the presence of other officials from the Group.

Safari Group launches Mango Festival 2016

HOME 05TUESDAY 24 MAY 2016

The Peninsula

DOHA: Katara Hospitality, the lead-ing global hotel owner, developer and operator, marked the success-ful partnership between the world’s renowned Chef Nobu Matsuhisa and Le Royal Monceau — Raffles Paris, at an event at Matsuhisa Paris; a Japa-nese fine dining restaurant and the newest addition at Le Royal Monceau.

Matsuhisa was the Guest of Hon-our at the ceremony, which welcomed 300 guests, including VIPs and culi-nary enthusiasts. The event was characterised by the sound of Jap-anese drums, floral décor with elaborate cherry trees by florist Bap-tiste Pitou, and a unique masterpiece titled “Wish on a Wing”, designed by TSUYU. Guests were entertained by a musical programme handled by French DJ The Avener.

Matsuhisa Paris opened its doors in February at Le Royal Monceau — Raffles Paris, just steps away from the iconic Champs Elysée and Arc de Triomphe. Hosting hundreds of guests who enjoyed a tantalis-ing gastronomic encounter that is

emblematic of Nobu’s excellence in creating bespoke Peruvian-Japanese inspired signature and traditional dishes, Paris’ newest Japanese fine dining restaurant exudes unique cos-mopolitan charm in the heart of one of the world’s most remarkable cities.

Le Royal Monceau — Raffles

Paris, owned by Katara Hospitality, is the European flagship of Raffles Hotels & Resorts, having been an icon in Europe’s most stylish capital since 1928.

The hotel reopened in October 2010, entirely transformed by French designer Philippe Starck.

The Peninsula

DOHA: The College of Medicine at Qatar University (CMED-QU) has collaborated with a US-based organ-isation which evaluates healthcare professionals.

The National Board of Medi-cal Examiners (NBME) will support CMED-QU in aligning its standards with those of the US by leveraging CMED’s student assessment system, supporting the establishment of a

CMED student examination items bank, and conducting regional bench-marking studies on test design.

The agreement was signed by Dr Egon Toft, Vice-President for Medical Education, QU; and Dr Donald E Mel-nick, President, NBME.

Dr Brownell Anderson, Vice-Pres-ident for International Programme, represented NBME.

As a first step in what is aimed to be a long-term collaboration, a team of specialized experts from NBME, will engage CMED faculty and admin-istrators in various activities that aim to further enhance medical educa-tion and establish an assessment system that maximizes the quality of the College’s graduates. The college’s curriculum and current assessment framework will also be reviewed by the NBME team to ensure their align-ment with international standards. College administrators will be pro-vided with recommendations on a range of topics including possi-ble curriculum revision; timing and nature of locally-developed assess-ments; the most appropriate use of the portfolio of NBME assessment instru-ments available to North American and International medical schools; potential NBME assistance on the development of assessments to meet

the needs of CMED curriculum, and development of an item bank.

Recommendations will also be made on development of faculty expertise in teaching, curriculum design and design, construction, and interpretation of valid and reli-able formative and summative examinations.

Prof Hossam Hamdy, Associate

Dean for Academic Affairs, CMED, said, “The College of Medicine’s focus on quality, safe medical practice and optimal patient care is in line with NBME’s mission to “protect the health of the public through state of the art assessment of health professionals”. Based on the US Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) introduced by NBME in 1992, the College prepares its

students for this and similar interna-tional licensing exams to ensure that the quality of its graduates is aligned with the best international standards in medical practice. This agreement is an important step for the College’s development and progress as Qatar’s first national medical college and its stated ambitions towards a knowl-edge-based economy.”

Deal to assess healthcare professionals

FROM LEFT: Dr Egon Toft, Vice-President for Medical Education, Qatar University; Dr Brownell Anderson, Vice-President for International Programme, National Board of Medical Examiners; and Prof Hossam Hamdy, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, College of Medicine, at the deal signing ceremony.

The College of Medicine at Qatar University signs deal with US-based National Board of Medical Examiners to support the college in aligning its standards with those of the US.

The Peninsula

DOHA: Doha Centre for Media Freedom (DCMF) will hold a seminar on the right to access information, at its headquar-ters tomorrow. Local journalists, experts and lawyers will high-light the importance of ensuring the right to access information and its challenges at the event titled ‘Right to access to information: Legal framework and challenges’.

It is in line with this year’s Unesco’s World Press Freedom Day’s theme ‘Access to informa-tion and fundamental freedoms: This is your right’. It will focus on the safety of journalists and access to information in three main areas — the right to media freedom as a fundamental human right; pro-tecting media from censorship and excessive surveillance; and ensuring the safety of journalists working online and offline.

The right of access to informa-tion is one of the most important pillars for sustainable development and an essential tool to advance dialogue on the subject.

The Peninsula

DOHA: Doha International Family Institute (DIFI) recently co-hosted a comprehensive seminar discussing the issue of family disputes affect-ing children.

‘Protecting the Best Interests of the Child in Cross-Border Family Disputes’ was held in collaboration with the Ministry of Justice, Global Affairs Canada and the Hague Con-ference on Private International Law.

It aimed to promote dia-logue and consolidate interaction among regional government offi-cials, judges, independent experts, and other regional authorities and stakeholders.

Participants explored the topic of children’s rights in cross-border family disputes, especially those that result in the illegal transfer of chil-dren across international borders. The event aimed to provide informa-tion on child protection agreements under the auspices of the Hague Conference on Private International Law, and how it relates to countries in the GCC.

The seminar examined existing alternative means of dispute res-olution, such as family mediation relating to the Shariah legal sys-tem and how it can be used to solve

cross-border family disputes and strengthen international legal coop-eration, while taking into account the child’s best interests.

Noor Al Malki Al Jehani, Exec-utive Director, DIFI, said, “Qatar ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1995. Protecting the wellbeing of the child is recognised by Qatar as a key issue, and guides the work of its institutions in terms of taking into account the child’s best interests in legal and institutional procedures. Since the endorse-ment of the Convention, Qatar has amended legislation to provide greater protection for children, and established entities that provide services to protect them from vio-lence, abuse and exploitation.”

Representatives from the GCC Ministries of Justice also partici-pated in the seminar, along with judges, law professors and those concerned with family and child protection issues.

Dr Christophe Bernasconi, Sec-retary-General, Hague Conference on Private International Law, said, “The seminar increased awareness of the Child Abduction Convention, the Child Protection Convention, and other relevant Hague conventions in Qatar and the wider region. It also served to further strengthen the ties between the region and the Hague Conference in general.”

Ministry hosts seminar on

family disputes affecting kids

Seminar to focus

on right to access

information

The Peninsula

DOHA: The Obstetrics and Gynaecology Depart-ment at Al Wakra Hospital is running a campaign until Thursday to raise awareness about the ben-efits of breastfeeding.

The campaign is being held in collaboration with the Mother and Child Education Clinic to raise awareness about the importance of breast-feeding and how it can benefit future generations.

The public can visit the hospital’s Outpatient Department to ask experts questions and attend educational workshops in English and Arabic that will outline the 10 steps to successful breastfeed-ing and highlight difficulties breastfeeding women can face.

“Breastfeeding creates a strong bond between the mother and the child and holds significant health benefits for both,” said Dr Mohamed Alloub, Senior Managing Consultant in Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the hospital.

“For mothers, these benefits include burning

extra calories allowing them to lose pregnancy weight faster, reducing uterine bleeding after birth and lowering ther risk of suffering from breast and ovarian cancer.

“Breastfeeding will also lower the baby’s risk of having asthma or allergies and babies breast-fed exclusively for the first six months, without any formula, have fewer ear infections, respiratory ill-nesses and diarrhoea.

“We hope members of the community will join us to learn more about the importance of breast-feeding and its benefits.”

Hospital highlights breastfeeding benefits

Le Royal Monceau Raffles Paris - Matsuhisa Paris.

Katara Hospitality’s Le Royal Monceau-Raffles Paris

welcomes France’s first Matsuhisa restaurant

By Fazeena Saleem

The Peninsula

DOHA: As thousands in Sri Lanka are displaced from their homes in the aftermath of floods and land-slides, the Sri Lankan Embassy has called on residents to send dona-tions to help with the relief effort.

A list of ways to donate for the victims of the floods has been issued by the mission. Residents can donate cash or items. Through a circular, the Sri Lankan Ministry of Foreign Affairs has directed its missions to encourage monitory assistance rather than collecting materials.

Severe flooding in Sri Lanka has forced half a million people to flee homes across the country, officials said, as the death toll from days of torrential rain and landslides rose to more than 70, while at least 127 were reported missing.

Around 300,000 people have been moved to shelters and 200,000 are staying with friends or family. President Maithripala Sirisena urged people to pro-vide shelter and donate cash or food. Residents intend to support with money are advised to hand over cash at a special counter at the embassy. The counter is open between 8am and 4pm.

“Donation in financial terms or

cash can be given to the embassy and a receipt will be issued,” a sen-ior official said.

Residents who wish to contrib-ute dry food items and new clothes could hand them over to commu-nity representatives appointed by the embassy. All goods will be transported to Sri Lanka by ship.

Members to collect mate-rial donations include Abdul Rahman (55907867), Zaheer (33337935 ), Ranjith (50409246), Palitha (77441194 ) and Sriyantha (31008877)

According to the ministry, equipment such as generators, emergency lights, life jackets, mobile toilets, tapeline, tents,

toilet cleaning tablets, water fil-ters, water purification tablets, outboard motors (25.40hp), out-boats, tents for health service provision, emergency lamps, boots, raincoats, umbrellas, torches and mobile water purification plants are required for post- flood relief work.

The worst-hit areas were Colombo’s northeastern sub-urbs along the Kelani river. Three people have been killed in flood-related incidents in Colombo but the national toll stands at 71 dead and many injured. The district of Kegalle, about 100km northeast of the capital, has been worst-hit, with the toll from two landslides rising to 34.

MIDDLE EAST06 TUESDAY 24 MAY 2016

AP

BAGHDAD: Iraqi government forces yesterday pushed Islamic State (IS) militants out of some agricul-tural areas outside Fallujah as they launched a military offensive to recapture the city from the extrem-ists, officials said.

Backed by US-led coalition air-strikes and paramilitary troops, Iraqi government forces launched the long-awaited military offensive late on Sunday. The city, located about 40 miles west of Baghdad, has been under the militants’ control since January 2014.

The commander of the Fallujah operation, Lt. General Abdul-Wahab Al Saadi, could not say how long the

offensive would take, citing the ter-rain, the number of civilians in the city and bombs planted by the mil-itants. Al-Saadi added that the first phase aims to surround and bomb IS positions.

Federal police battalion com-mander, 1st Lt Ahmed Mahdi Salih, said ground fighting was taking place around the town of Garma, east of Fallujah, which is considered the main supply line for the militants. IS holds the center of Garma and some areas on its outskirts.

Col Mahmoud al-Mardhi, who is in charge of paramilitary forces, said his troops recaptured at least three agricultural areas outside Garma. Al Mardhi added that airstrikes and artillery shelling intensified against IS positions inside Fallujah. In the early

days of the Sunni-led insurgency fol-lowing the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, Fallujah emerged as the main stronghold for different militant groups opposed to American forces. The main group was Al Qaeda in Iraq, which later spawned IS. The city was also the site of two bloody battles against US forces in 2004.

Since August, Fallujah has been under siege by government troops, who have prevented the entry of food and medicine into the city. Residents seeking to flee the city have some-times found themselves trapped by the militants, who aim to retain Fallujah’s civilian population as human shields against a full-scale government assault. As of yester-day, there was no evidence of mass

displacement from the city or sur-rounding areas, but the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, said in a statement that around 80 families are reported to have fled Fallujah over the past few days. UNHCR says it has emergency stocks in Baghdad of 10,000 tents and 10,000 core relief items — such as sanitary kits and food and water supplies — that can assist families.

Flanked by senior military com-manders, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi announced the beginning of military operations in a televised speech late Sunday night. He vowed to “tear up the black banners of stran-gers who usurped this city” and hoist the Iraqi flag. Wearing the black uni-form of Iraq’s counter-terrorism forces, Al Abadi visited the Fallujah Operation Command and met with

commanders the following morning.Addressing the military lead-

ers, he said the offensive achieved “more than what was planned for” and hailed the “big successes” by the troops on the ground, without elab-orating on the operation. He added that the offensive had been planned to start more than two months ago, but was delayed due to the political infighting and the deteriorating secu-rity situation inside Baghdad.

The Shia-led government has to deal with deepening political and social unrest in the capital over cor-ruption and lack of public services. On Friday, clashes erupted between pro-testers and Iraqi security forces inside Baghdad’s highly fortified Green Zone, home to key Iraqi government min-istries and foreign embassies, killing

two people and wounding more than 100. The offensive comes a week after Iraqi forces pushed IS out of the western town of Rutba, located 240 miles west of Baghdad, on the edge of Anbar province. Last month, Iraqi forces cleared territory along Anbar’s Euphrates river valley after the pro-vincial capital Ramadi was declared fully liberated earlier this year.

IS extremists still control signif-icant areas in northern and western Iraq, including the country’s sec-ond-largest city of Mosul. The group declared an Islamic caliphate on the territory it holds in Iraq and Syria and at the height of its power was esti-mated to hold nearly a third of Iraqi territory. Iraq’s Prime Minister says the group’s hold has since shrunk to 14 percent of Iraq.

AFP

TEHRAN: India agreed yesterday to finance the development of an Iranian port as a trading hub, as Prime Min-ister Narendra Modi sought to revive economic ties with Tehran after the lifting of sanctions.

The Indian leader met Iranian officials including supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Presi-dent Hassan Rowhani during a visit that he said would mark “a new chap-ter in our strategic partnership”.

Modi and Rowhani oversaw the signing of a memorandum of

understanding for the provision of a line of credit from India’s EXIM Bank to develop Iran’s southern port of Chabahar, on the Gulf of Oman.

Rowhani hailed the project, say-ing it could become a “great symbol of cooperation between Iran and India”.

Modi’s visit, the first by an Indian premier to Iran in 15 years, comes after international sanctions against Tehran were lifted in mid-January following an agreement with world powers over its nuclear programme.

Since that long-awaited agree-ment was reached in July, officials from dozens of mainly Asian and European countries have visited Iran to seek a share of its 80m strong mar-ket. Rowhani said Iran and India had decided to transform their trading links to the level of “comprehensive economic relations”.

He and Modi witnessed the signing of 12 memorandums of under-standing, two of them on Chabahar port, on the Gulf of Oman. They include a deal between Iran’s Mar-itime and Ports Organisation and India’s EXIM bank to work out the details of a line of credit to develop Chabahar. “With India’s investment in the development and equipping of Chabahar port and also the cred-its intended from this country for

Chabahar, this port can turn into a great symbol of cooperation between Iran and India,” Rowhani said.

India, China’s greatest eco-nomic rival in Asia, is among the last regional powers to arrive in Iran.

Chinese President Xi Jinping vis-ited Iran only days after the sanctions were lifted and pledged to expand trade to $600bn in the next 10 years.

Xi’s visit was in line with his sig-nature foreign policy initiative known as “One Belt One Road”. The first train to connect China and Iran arrived in Tehran in February loaded with Chi-nese goods, reviving the ancient trade route known as the Silk Road.

President Park Geun-Hye of South Korea visited Iran at the beginning of this month.

Iran and South Korea decided to triple their annual trade volume to $18bn and Woori Bank opened an

office in Tehran, becoming the first South Korean lender to do so.

Modi and Rowhani were joined by Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to sign a three-way transit accord.

The deal, bypassing Pakistan to connect Iran, India, and Afghanistan to central Asia, would boost economic growth in the region, Modi said.

“We want to link to the world, but connectivity among ourselves is also a priority,” he said.

“The corridor would spur unhin-dered flow of commerce throughout the region. Inflow of capital and tech-nology could lead to new industrial infrastructure in Chabahar.”

The port, “when linked with the International North South Transport Corridor, would touch South Asia at one end and Europe at another.”

Rowhani said it was “not merely an economic document but a political

and regional one” with a message of regional opportunities for develop-ment. He cautioned the agreement was not against any other country, but to the benefit of “peace and sta-bility in the region”.

“Other countries too can join this document of partnership in future.”

The volume of trade between Iran and India in the past 11 months reached $9bn, according to Iran’s offi-cial Irna news agency.

India is reportedly seeking to dou-ble its imports of oil from the Islamic republic. Tehran was New Delhi’s sec-ond largest oil supplier until 2011-12, when the sanctions cut its depend-ence on Iranian oil. India still owes Iran $6.5bn that Tehran was unable to recover because of the international sanctions. India has begun paying back the debt. In the evening, Khame-nei received Modi.

AFP

JERUSALEM: A Palest inian woman tried to stab an Israeli border policeman at a check-point nor th of Jer usa lem yesterday and was shot dead, Israeli police said.

No injuries were reported among the police in the incident at the Biddu checkpoint. Bor-der police fired in the air before shooting her when she continued to move toward them with a knife, authorities said.

A wave of such attacks have occurred since October, though the violence has steadily declined in recent weeks.

Violence since October has killed 205 Palestinians and 28 Israelis.

Most of the Palestinians killed were carrying out knife, gun or car-ramming attacks, Israeli authorities say.

Many analysts say Pales-tinian frustration with Israeli occupat ion and set t lement building in the West Bank, the complete lack of progress in peace efforts and their own fractured leadership have fed the recent unrest.

Israel says incitement by Pales-tinian leaders and media is a main cause of the violence.

Iraqi forces battle IS militants outside Fallujah

Iranian President Hassan Rowhani (centre), Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (left), and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani during a trilateral meeting in Tehran, Iran, yesterday.

India in deal to turn Iran port into trade hub

AP

JERUSALEM: Israel’s leader gave a cool reception yesterday to a French peace initiative, telling the visiting French prime minister that peace cannot be forged through international conferences but only through direct negotiations.

France is hosting an interna-tional conference in Paris in June aimed at reviving the Israeli-Pal-estinian peace process. French

Prime Minister Manuel Valls is vis-iting the region in a bid to rouse support for the initiative.

Speaking alongside Valls, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said direct talks “are the only way to proceed toward peace.”

“Peace just does not get achieved through international conferences,” Netanyahu said. “It doesn’t get to fruition through international dictates, committees from countries around the world who are sitting, seeking to decide

our fate and our security when they have no direct stake.”

Netanyahu said he would be willing to accept a French initiative that brought him and Palestin-ian President Mahmoud Abbas together in a room alone to dis-cuss the conflict’s most intractable issues. Valls said he would deliver the message to the French presi-dent. “We support anything that can contribute to peace and direct negotiations,” Valls said.

On June 3, Paris plans to host a ministerial meeting of 20

countries, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, as a first step to discuss the peace process. Israel and the Palestinians have not been invited.

The Palestinians have wel-comed the French proposal.

The most recent peace negoti-ations, mediated by US Secretary of State John Kerry, collapsed in April 2014, and the period since has been fraught with conflict, including a war in Gaza and an ongoing eight-month spell of unrest.

Israeli police shoot dead Palestinian woman

Netanyahu rejects French peace initiative

Modi’s visit, the first by an Indian premier to Iran in 15 years, comes after international sanctions against Tehran were lifted in mid-January.

Anatolia

TUNIS: Rachid Ghannoushi, leader of Tunisia’s Ennahda movement, was reelected as party chairman yesterday.

“Ghannoushi was reelected by a landslide,” Ali Al Arid, Ennahda secretary-general and a former prime minister, said shortly after the vote.

According to Al Arid, Ghan-noushi won 800 of the votes cast by leading party members while the two runners-up, Fethi Ayadi

and Mohamed Al Akrud, won 229 and 29 votes, respectively.

The vote was held following a party congress that kicked off Fri-day in capital Tunis.

Tunisia’s Ennahda movement was founded in 1972.

Since its establishment, it has held nine party congresses, including five secret ones between 1979 and 1991 — when it was banned by the authorities — and three held abroad between 1995 and 2011.

Its ninth congress was held in Tunisia in 2012, when it led a ruling government coalition

after winning legislative polls in late 2011 following the ouster of

longstanding president, Zine Al Abidine Ben Ali.

Ghannoushi reelected chairman of Ennahda

Tunisian Islamist Ennahda Party leader Rached Ghannouchi holds a press conference after being reelected as the head of the party, in Tunis, yesterday.

MIDDLE EAST 07TUESDAY 24 MAY 2016

AFP

ADEN: Twin bombings claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group hit Yem-eni forces in Aden yesterday, killing at least 45 people in the latest of a spate of attacks in the southern city.

The attacks in Aden — which is serving as the temporary gov-ernment headquarters after rebels forced authorities from the capital — follow a major military operation against militants in parts of southern and southeastern Yemen. Backed by a Saudi-led coalition, forces loyal to

President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi are battling both Sunni extremists and Iran-backed Shia rebels.

In the first attack, a suicide bomber killed 38 people queueing to enlist at a recruitment centre near the Badr base in Aden’s Khormaksar dis-trict, said Brigadier General Nasser Al Sarei, the commander of Yemen’s special security forces.

A subsequent explosion inside the base killed seven soldiers, he said. In a statement posted online, IS said one of its fighters detonated an explo-sives belt among “apostate soldiers” at a recruitment centre, followed by the bombing at a gate of the Badr base. The militant group, which has seized control of large parts of Syria and Iraq, also claimed responsibil-ity yesterday for a wave of bombings in Syrian coastal cities that killed more than 100 people. A local resi-dent in Aden described the scene of the Badr explosions as “horrible”, say-ing body parts had been blown dozens of metres away.

“They came to complete the procedure of their recruitment and receive their first salary,” he said, speaking of the young men who had gathered outside the army centre.

Abandoned slippers and sandals, apparently from the victims, covered

the area, television footage showed.Aden resident Ramzi Al Fadhli

said “wailing filled the air” as women identified the remains of relatives at Al Jumhuriyah Hospital, where at least 32 bodies were taken.

Aden has seen a wave of attacks in recent months claimed by Al Qaeda or its rival IS after government forces drove Shia Houthi rebels out of the port city in July with support from the Saudi-led coalition.

The coalition launched operations in Yemen in March last year after the rebels seized control of Sana’a and other parts of the country, forcing Hadi’s government to flee the capital Sana’a. Al Qaeda — which has a long presence in the Arabian Peninsula

country — and IS have exploited the power vacuum created by the con-flict to expand their zones of control in the south and southeast.

Over the past two months, gov-ernment and coalition forces have hit back, driving Al Qaeda militants out of the Hadramawt provincial capital of Mukalla, which they had control-led for a year. But attacks on security forces have left scores dead.

On May 1, four guards were killed in a bombing that targeted the convoy of Aden’s police chief General Shallal Shayae, in the second such attack on him in a week. Several attacks have also targeted troops in Hadramawt since government forces ended Al Qaeda rule in Mukalla. Earlier this

month, 47 police were killed in a series of bombings near Mukalla.

UN-sponsored peace talks between the government and rebels resumed yesterday in Kuwait after they had broken off a week ago.

The government had demanded a written pledge from the rebels and their allies recognising an April 2015 UN Security Council resolution calling for their withdrawal from the capital and other territories, as well as the legitimacy of Hadi.

Fighting since the coalition inter-vention in March 2015 has killed more than 6,400 people, displaced about 2.8 million and left 82 percent of Yemen’s population in need of aid, the United Nations says.

Reuters

TRIPOLI: Libyan coast-guards intercepted about 850 migrants off the coast near the western city of Sabratha, a spokesman said.

Ayoub Qassem said the migrants were from vari-ous African countries and among them were 69 women, including 11 who were preg-nant, as well as 11 children. They were travelling in inflatable rubber boats, he said.

Libya is a major depar-ture point for mainly sub-Sa ha ra n A f r ic a n migrants trying to reach Europe through cross-ings arranged by people smugglers.

Migrants are often given flimsy boats that are ill-equipped for travelling across the Mediterranean.

45 dead in IS bombings on Yemeni forces

AP

ANKARA: German Chancellor Angela Merkel told Turkey’s pres-ident yesterday that Ankara must fulfill all the European Union’s conditions to secure visa-free travel for its citizens, but Turkey responded that it would suspend agreements with the EU if the bloc does not keep its promises.

The EU says Turkey must narrow its definition of “terror-ist” and “terrorist act.” The bloc is concerned that journalists and political dissenters could be tar-geted. But Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said that is out of the question. Speaking to report-ers after a meeting with Erdogan on the sidelines of the World Humani-tarian Summit meeting in Istanbul, Merkel said that she doesn’t expect the visa waiver to be implemented at the beginning of July as was orig-inally hoped.

Merkel, who is facing pressure at home to be tough with Erdogan, also expressed concern about a move to strip legislators in Turkey of their immunity from prosecu-tion. The EU has offered Turkey a visa waiver as incentive — along with up to ¤6bn ($6.8bn) for Syr-ian refugees and fast-track EU membership talks — to get it to stop migrants leaving for Europe.

As part of the agreement, the EU planned to accelerate the introduction of visa-free entry for Turks, with a target date of June 30

Turkey has fulfilled most of 72 conditions but Erdogan’s refusal to revise anti-terror laws has emerged as a stumbling block..

Reuters

ISTANBUL: A crisis fund has been launched to raise $3.8bn to help mil-lions of children missing out on school because of war or natural disas-ters, UN special envoy Gordon Brown announced yesterday at the first ever World Humanitarian Summit.

Nearly 75 million children living in areas affected by war or natural disas-ter had their education disrupted last year, leaving them prey to child labour, trafficking and extremism, according to research published in March.

The fund aims to help more than 13 million children and young people over the next five years, and 75 million by 2030. “For the first time, we have a humanitarian fund targeting educa-tion,” said Brown, the former British prime minister and now U.N. Special Envoy for Global Education.

“A fund that plans - not just for weeks or months - but for years in sup-port of a child’s development. And a fund with a contingency reserve allow-ing us to act when a crisis hits ensuring no begging bowl has to be circulated,” he added. On average, only two per

cent of global humanitarian appeals are dedicated to education. Despite growing needs, funding for education in emergencies has almost halved since 2010, according to the London-based Overseas Development Institute (ODI).

“Without school, young children

caught up in emergencies are at risk of becoming the youngest labour-ers in the field, the youngest brides at the alter, the youngest soldiers in the trench, and in some cases, the youngest recruits vulnerable to extremism and radicalisation,” Brown said.

Education is one of the items on a broad agenda for government and busi-ness leaders, aid groups and donors gathered in Istanbul for the two-day summit. They want to try to develop a more coherent response to what UN chief Ban Ki-moon has called the worst humanitarian situation since World War Two, with 130 million peo-ple affected by war or natural disaster.

Nobel peace laureate Malala Yousafzai urged world leaders ahead of the conference to match their words with action. “I call on world leaders in Istanbul to be generous and back up their words with politi-cal will,” she said.

“They must deliver on each and every commitment they make, includ-ing fully funding the new Education Cannot Wait initiative.”

An average of four schools or hospitals are attacked or occupied by armed groups every day, the U.N children’s agency (Unicef) said ahead of the summit. In Syria alone, more than 6,000 schools are out of use - attacked, occupied by the military or taken over as an emergency shelter.

UN launches $3.8bn fund for schools in war zones

Yemenis inspect the site of a suicide bombing targeting a gathering of young men seeking to join the army in the southern port city of Aden, yesterday.

Turkey-EU fight intensifies

A suicide bomber killed 38 people at a recruitment centre near the Badr base in Aden and a subsequent explosion inside the base killed seven soldiers.

Anatolia

PARIS: The pilot of EgyptAir flight MS804, which went down in the Mediterranean Sea last Thursday with 66 people aboard, requested an emergency landing from Egyptian air-traffic controllers moments before it crashed, France’s air accident investigation agency (BEA) announced. A BEA official told France’s M6 television channel that pilot Mohamed Said Shoukair had complained of smoke in the cock-pit before asking to make an emergency landing.

On Saturday, BEA spokesman Sebastien Barthe had said that data transmissions from the plane had revealed the presence of smoke in the flight cabin. The smoke, the cause of which remains unknown, may have been indicative of fire, Barthe added.

On Thursday, EgyptAir flight MS804 -- flying from Paris to Cairo with 66 people on board -- disappeared shortly after enter-ing Egyptian airspace. On Friday morning, Egyptian state television announced that the army had found the wreckage of the plane in the eastern Mediterranean.

EgyptAir pilot requested emergency landing

Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev (front row L-R), Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, and Kuwait Emir H H Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmed Al Jaber Al Sabah at a family photo session during UN Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul, yesterday.

Libya coastguard intercepts 850 migrants at sea

ASIA08 TUESDAY 24 MAY 2016

AFP

BANGKOK: Seventeen girls died after a fire swept through the dor-mitory of a school for children of hill tribes in northern Thailand, offi-cials said yesterday, with a survivor describing fleeing as flames engulfed the building.

The fire started late Sunday night, meaning many of the children at the school run by a Christian charity were asleep as flames spread through the two-storey wooden building.

“The fire broke out at 11pm on Sunday. Seventeen girls were killed, with five injured,” Colonel Prayad Singsin of the police in the town of Chiang Rai said.

Two of the injured are in a serious condition, he said, but initial fears that two more girls were missing had been discounted after rescuers picked through the charred debris.

The school in Wiang Pa Pao dist-trict is home to girls aged between six and 13. Those in the dormitory on Sunday night were drawn mainly from the deprived local hill tribes, who live too far away to travel to school every day. Television inter-viewed one girl aged around 10 who escaped with several friends.

“I woke up and saw a lot of smoke. It was dark. The fire had broken out downstairs so I called to my friends” she said, describing her flight. But those who did not wake up in time died.

“There were 38 students inside the dormitory when the fire broke out. Some were not yet asleep so they escaped,” deputy provincial governor

Arkom Sukapan said, confirming the death toll. “But others were asleep and could not escape, resulting in the large number of casualties.”Photographs on the school’s Facebook page showed firefighters struggling to douse the flames as they tore through the building.

Thai media showed a fire truck spraying water onto the blaze as the upper storey was consumed by the fire. Thailand is home to a patchwork

of hill tribes who mainly live in the remote northern area bordering Laos and Myanmar. Many are descend-ants of refugees from Myanmar or China and exist within subsistence farming communities with their own distinctive dialects and rituals. They mostly live beyond the reach of state resources, meaning hill tribe chil-dren suffer at school as well as in their health and development. Pov-erty means adults are easy prey for

drug gangs who pay them to smug-gle narcotics -- including heroin and amphetamines -- across the zone, known as the “Golden Triangle”.

Thai security forces frequently engage in deadly gunbattles with hill tribe drug mules. That link engenders prejudice among many Thais and hill tribes are often portrayed negatively. Chiang Rai town and the surrounding hills are popular with foreign tourists for hiking and adventure sports.

Reuters

COLOMBO: Britain has granted refugee status to Mohamed Nash-eed, the former president of the Maldives who was jailed in 2015 after a trial that drew international criticism, his lawyer said yesterday.

Nasheed, the Maldives’ first democratically elected president, was allowed to go to Britain in Jan-uary for medical treatment after President Abdulla Yameen came under international pressure to let him leave.

Nasheed was jailed for 13 years on terrorism charges in after ille-gally ordering the arrest of a judge in a trial that put a spotlight on instability in the Indian Ocean archipelago known as a paradise for wealthy tourists.

“Nasheed has been granted political refugee status in the UK,” Hasan Latheef, Nasheed’s lawyer, told Reuters from the capital, Male.

A British High Commission official in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo said it did not comment on individual asylum cases.

Yameen, whose half-brother lost power to Nasheed in 2008, has rejected accusations Nasheed’s trial was politically motivated and said the legal process was fair.

Tourists visit Mount Wilson to see autumn leaves along the road in the Blue Mountains region, yesterday.

Enjoying Autumn

AFP

KUALA LUMPUR: An international network of MH370 next-of-kin said yesterday that it was “gravely con-cerned” that the search for the missing jet could end by August, call-ing instead for it to be extended and expanded.

The grouping, known as Voice370, appealed to countries involved in the expensive opera-tion, aircraft manufacturer Boeing and the International Civil Aviation Organisation to commit resources to continue the search in the south-ern Indian Ocean.

“We are gravely concerned about the impending completion of the search in the current targeted area,” the group said in a statement.

“It has always been, and still remains, in everyone’s best interest that this plane is found.”

Australian Transport Safety Bureau chief Martin Dolan, who is in charge of the search, said last week that deep-sea sonar scan-ning of a designated 120,000-sq-km (46,332-sq-mile) area was likely to finish by early August.

In comments to The Australian newspaper, he added there was no indication the search zone would be enlarged.

The Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 vanished on March 8, 2014 en route

from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, with 239 people -- including 152 from China -- aboard.

The cause of the disappearance of Flight MH370 is still unknown and it remains one of the greatest mys-teries in aviation history.

Australia, Malaysia and China have said their joint search would likely be abandoned if nothing is found in the current designated zone.

Many family members still sus-pect a cover-up in the mystery and have repeatedly called for the most expensive search operation in his-tory to continue until something is found. Authorities have said the cost of the search could be up to $130 million.

Five pieces of debris which have been identified as either definitely or probably from the jet have been discovered thousands of kilome-tres from the search zone -- in South Africa, Mauritius, Mozambique, Mauritius and the island of Reun-ion -- likely swept there by currents.

Voice370 said it was “appalled” at the lack of a concerted interna-tional effort to round up more such debris and piece together what happened.

“A highly concerted effort must be made to find more pieces if the authorities are interested to solve the mystery,” it said.

“The biggest, most unprece-dented aviation mystery of all time warrants unprecedented action.”

AFP

INDONESIA: Indonesian rescuers searched for survivors in scorched villages and devastated farmlands yesterday after a volcano erupted in clouds of searing ash and gas, killing seven and leaving others fighting life-threatening burns.

Witnesses have described sheer panic as waves of gas and fine rock were unleashed from Mount Sinabung on Sumatra island on Sat-urday, consuming farmers trying to flee the slopes of the highly active volcano.

The fast-moving flows -- reach-ing temperatures of up to 700 degrees Celsius -- incinerated homes and left

livestock blackened and peeling. Agustatius Sitepu, the head of the local military in Karo district where the volcano is situated, arrived to scenes of chaos as rescue crews raced to reach those left alive. “The villag-ers who managed to survive were running around in panic, trying to save themselves,” he said.

“There were only a few dozen. They were terrified. They were cov-ered in ash.”

The eruptions were so violent that townships as far away as 12km were covered in thick layers of ash, he added.

Villagers are trying to recover from Saturday’s eruption.

Abdi Putera, an orange farmer, was busy getting rid of the volcanic ash which covers his oranges, despite

the government warning the area is still dangerous.

“If I don’t blow off the ashes, it will get thicker and thicker and will eventually damage my oranges. If that happens, I wouldn’t be able to sell my crops and make a living for my family,” Putera explained.

Those worst affected were all farming within the “red zone” -- an area four kilometres from Sinabung declared off limits by authorities -- when the volcano erupted.

Six bodies were recovered Sun-day, with three others rushed to hospital suffering horrific burns. One of the victims succumbed to their wounds by nightfall, taking the official toll to seven, local dis-aster mitigation agency chief Nata Nail said.

Reuters

ALMATY: Tajikistan’s pres-ident Imomali Rakhmon will be able to run for an unlimited number of terms after a series of constitu-tional amendments were backed in a weekend ref-erendum. The changes won support of 94.5 percent of voters, Central Election Commission chairman Bakhtiyor Khudoyorzoda said citing preliminary results, adding that turn-out was 92 percent.

“May 22 became a his-torical date in the country’s political life,” he said.

The amendments will allow Rakhmon, head of state since 1992 and pres-ident since 1994, to run again when his current term ends in 2020.The minimum age for pres-idential candidates was also lowered, so Rakhmon’s elder son Rustam could also run at that time. Rakhmon enjoys sweeping powers amid a flourishing personality cult, and few doubted that referendum results would show land-slide popular support for the proposed amendments.

AFP

HONG KONG: A new art instal-lation on Hong Kong’s tallest building highlighting growing fears about the city’s freedoms under Beijing has been cancelled, authorities announced, saying the artists showed “disrespect”.

The artwork was a giant dig-ital countdown to 2047, the year an agreement guaranteeing Hong Kong’s semi-autonomous status, made when Britain handed the city back to China in 1997, will come to an end.

“We regret to announce that the work... would no longer be part of the exhibition,” the Hong Kong Arts Development Council said in a statement

It was added that the display “demonstrated disrespect”.

The artwork had run down the sides of the 484-metre tall Inter-national Commerce Centre, which occupies a prime harbour front location, each night for around a minute since it opened Tuesday.

The display coincided with a highly charged three-day trip by Zhang Dejiang, a top Chinese official who chairs China’s com-munist-controlled legislature.

Zhang stayed at a waterfront hotel diagonally opposite the ICC tower, on the other side of the city’s famous Victoria Harbour.

17 girls dead in fire at Thailand school for poor

Britain grants

refugee status

to Nasheed

Villages in ashes after deadly Indonesia volcano eruption

Hong Kong axes

provocative art

installation

Plan to end of MH370

search worries kin

Tajik president

‘can’ rule for

life

Yupin Saw-wa, (left) cries as she holds a picture of her daughter, who died after a fire swept through the Christian Pitakiatwittaya School in the northern province of Chiang Rai, in Thailand, yesterday.

The fire started late Sunday night, meaning many of the children at the school run by a Christian charity were asleep.

ASIA / PHILIPPINES 09TUESDAY 24 MAY 2016

Anatolia

ZAMBOANGA CITY: A Daesh-affiliated group that one month ago beheaded a Canadian hostage in the jungles of the southern Philip-pines has released a “final” video of the man’s traveling companions, in which they beg President-elect Rod-rigo Duterte to save them.

The video uploaded late yester-day to the SITE Intelligence group website, shows Canadian Robert Hall requesting Duterte’s assistance in saving him and two other hostages before a June 13 deadline, adding that the Philippine government can communicate with his Abu Sayyaf kidnappers through a woman at the Canadian Embassy.

“I came into your beautiful coun-try in good faith and in peace and here I am,” Hall says. “We hope that you can work on our behalf as soon as possible to get us out of here, and please, the sooner the better.”

Hall -- abducted last September with Norwegian Kjartan Sekkingstad,

a Filipina woman and fellow Cana-dian John Ridsdel (later killed by the group) — accuses the Canadian gov-ernment of abandoning him and his family during the ordeal, and asks Duterte to “negotiate or communi-cate with them” through the embassy intermediary he names as “June”.

He describes a humiliating, fear-filled daily existence.

“We live like this every day, go to bed like this. We have 100 people heavily armed around us all the time that dictate to us and talk to us like children,” he says.

“One of us has already been mur-dered. We hope that you can work on our behalf as soon as possible to get us out of here. Please, the sooner the better. We’re three-quarters dead right now.”

Hall goes on to thank his family and friends for their efforts to free him and apologises for the “mess” he got them in.

Norwegian hostage, Sekkingstad — like Hall clad in an orange T-shirt — appeals to his own government, the Canadian and Filipino govern-ments and Duterte.

“Please try to help us. Contact this group through ‘June’ at the Cana-dian embassy and try to negotiate with this group. We will be executed on June 13 at 3 o’clock [0700GMT], unless there is an agreement made with this group.”

The group had earlier demanded a 300m pesos ransom ($6.37m) for each of the victims to be paid by April 25.

But after beheading Ridsdel, the group raised the amount to 600 mil-lion pesos and reset the deadline to June 13.

The Abu Sayyaf is believed to still be holding several other captives, including a Dutch birdwatcher and four Malaysians believed to be held captive in the jungles of Sulu.

Since 1991, the group -- armed with mostly improvised explosive devices, mortars and automatic rifles — has carried out bombings, kidnap-pings, assassinations and extortions in a self-determined fight for an inde-pendent province in the Philippines.

It is notorious for beheading vic-tims after ransoms have failed to be paid for their release.

Reuters

MANILA: Philippine President-elect Rodrigo Duterte (pictured) said he will defy the Roman Catholic Church and seek to impose a three-child pol-icy, putting him on a new collision course with the bishops.

The southern mayor has yet to be declared the May 9 poll winner, but an unofficial vote count by an elec-tion commission-accredited watchdog showed him ahead over his four rivals,

three of whom conceded defeat. Duterte assumes office on June 30.

Duterte’s often outrageous com-ments have won him huge support and his tirades about killing criminals and a joke about a murdered victim do not appear to have dented his popularity in the largely Catholic country.

“I only want three children for every family,” Duterte said yester-day in Davao City. “I’m a Christian, but I’m a realist so we have to do some-thing with our overpopulation. I will defy the opinion or the belief of the Church.”

About 80 percent of the Philip-pines’ 100 million population are Catholics, the largest concentration of any Asian country.

On Saturday, he criticised the Church as the “most hypocritical institution”, meddling in government policies and said some bishops were enriching themselves at the expense of the poor.

“Monsignor Oliver Mendoza, spokesman for the Archdiocese of Lingayen, whose head is the president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, said the Church respected Duterte’s opinion but that it would continue to speak against government policies that are con-trary to Church teaching. “Because if

we fail to do that, if we close our eyes, if we close our lips, we close our ears, what will be the role of the Church?” he said.Political analysts said they were not surprised at Duterte’s state-ments because some bishops spoke out against him during the election campaign.

“Like most liberal, secular politi-cians, Duterte is a deist,” said Joselito Zulueta of the University of Santo Tomas. “This in itself is a self-serving position conceived out of human con-ceit. He will do as he pleases except when he’s stopped by public criticism.”

Stuffed Sumatran tigers, ivory and other wildlife trophies seized during recent raids are set on fire by Indonesian officials in Banda Aceh, yesterday.

Blazing beasts

Reuters

MANILA: Philippine President-elect Rodrigo Duterte said yesterday that he would allow the burial of late dictator Ferdinand Marcos at the Philippine

heroes’ cemetery, despite strong opposition.

The southern mayor has yet to be declared winner of the May 9 election, but an official vote count by an elec-tion commission-accredited watchdog showed him six million votes ahead of his closest rival. He is due to assume

office on June 30. “I will allow Marcos burial in Libingan ng Mga Bayani, not because he was a hero but because he was a Filipino soldier,” Duterte said in Davao City, referring to the 142-hec-tare cemetery in Manila where some of the country’s leaders are buried.

Marcos fled to Hawaii in 1986

following a popular revolt. He had ruled the Philippines for 20 years, during which time his family amassed an estimated $10bn.

He died in exile in 1989 and his embalmed body is currently on dis-play in a mausoleum in his hometown in the northern Philippines.

The government has recovered less than $5bn in cash, stocks, real estate, artworks and jewellery from the Marcoses and their cronies.

Past governments have refused to allow Marcos’ family to bury him at the heroes’ cemetery, amid oppo-sition from tens of thousands of

Filipinos, including the victims of human rights abuses under his rule and their families.

Earl Parreno, analyst at the Insti-tute of Political and Electoral Reforms, said Duterte’s decision to bury Mar-cos at the heroes’ cemetery would be divisive.

A woman carries her pet white cockatoo on a pier after sunset in Hong Kong, China, yesterday.

Close companion

Reuters

BEIJING: A Chinese government bureau is planning a base station for an advanced rescue ship in the disputed Spratly Islands, state media reported yesterday, as China contin-ues its push to develop civilian and military infrastructure in the con-tentious region.

The ship, which would carry drones and underwater robots, is set to be deployed in the second half of the year, said Chen Xingguang,

political commissar of the ship, which is under the South China Sea Rescue Bureau of the Ministry of Transport, according to the official China Daily.

The civilian bureau has 31 ships and four helicopters conducting res-cue missions in the South China Sea, and officials from the department told the China Daily they work with the military on such efforts.

Officials said the rescue ship base station would enable rescue forces to aid fishing boats in trouble, and shorten the distance they need to travel.

It is unclear on which island the

ship will be based, but China has carried out land reclamation and construction on several islands in the Spratly Archipelago, parts of which are also claimed by the Phil-ippines, Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia and Taiwan.

China claims most of the South China Sea, through which $5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes every year. Washington has accused Bei-jing of militarising the South China Sea after creating artificial islands, while Beijing, in turn, has criticized increased US naval patrols and exer-cises in Asia.

AFP

TOKYO: Barack Obama will not apologise for the atomic bombing of Hiroshima when he this week becomes the first sitting US presi-dent to visit the city, he told Japanese television. The comments are the clearest yet from his administration over an issue that raises hackles in the United States and has been the subject of heated debate for decades.

Asked if an apology would be included in remarks he plans to make, he said: “No, because I think that it’s important to recognise that in the midst of war, leaders make all kinds of decisions.

“It’s a job of historians to ask questions and examine them, but I know as somebody who has now sat in this position for the last seven and a half years, that every leader makes very difficult decisions, particularly during war time.”

American airmen launched the world’s first atomic strike on Hiro-shima on August 6, 1945, causing the deaths of about 140,000 people.

Tens of thousands were killed by the fireball that the powerful nuclear blast generated, with many more succumbing to injuries or illnesses caused by radiation in the weeks, months and years afterwards.

The southern city of Nagasaki was hit by a second bomb three days later, killing 74,000 people, in one of the final acts of World War II.

Obama travelled to Vietnam at the weekend and is due in Japan

later this week. He will visit Hiro-shima after attending the Group of Seven summit hosted by Japan. “My purpose is not to simply revisit the past, but to affirm that innocent peo-ple die in a war, on all sides, that we should do everything we can to try to promote peace and dialogue around the world, that we should continue to strive for a world without nuclear weapons,” Obama said in the inter-view with NHK, aired Sunday. US officials have consistently said in the weeks leading up to the visit that there would be no apology.

Obama’s upcoming visit has reignited an emotive debate over former US president Harry Truman’s epoch-making decision to drop the atomic bombs.

The speed, circumstances and repercussions of Truman’s deci-sion remain contentious. In Japan, a majority believe the mass bomb-ing of civilians was unnecessary and perhaps even a crime. Many Ameri-cans believe that it avoided an even bloodier ground invasion of Japan. Nearly 80 percent of survivors of the atomic bombings are not seeking an apology from Obama, as opposed to 16 percent who want one during Obama’s visit, according to a Kyodo News survey of 115 people.

Some thought it best that Japan not seek an apology for fear it would be an obstacle to Obama making the trip to Hiroshima, Kyodo said.

But Terumi Tanaka, the head of a survivors’ group, said that survivors want an apology from Obama “to those who died, bereaved families and parents who lost their children”.

AFP

TAIPEI: Taiwanese prosecu-tors indicted a man yesterday for murder over the public decapita-tion of a four-year-old girl, saying they would seek the death penalty for the “extremely cold-blooded” attack.

Wang Ching-yu, 33, is accused of overpowering the mother of the child near a metro station in cen-tral Taipei, and beheading the young girl with a kitchen knife.

The mother and a number of bystanders tried to intervene but were pushed away and unable to save the child, who police have identified only by the surname Liu.

Prosecutors at the Shihlin Dis-trict Court in Taipei said that it was an “extremely cold-blooded” crime which had deeply shocked the gen-erally peaceful island.

“It has caused indelible pain to her mother, who witnessed the cruelty,” prosecutors said in a statement at the close of their investigation, which took less than two months.

“The suspect has never repented... so we suggest the court sentence him to death,” they said, adding that capital punishment in this instance was important to maintain society’s faith in law and justice. Taiwan resumed cap-ital punishment in 2010 after a five-year hiatus. Executions are reserved for serious crimes such as aggravated murder.

I will defy Church with three-child policy: Duterte I only want three children for every family. I’m a realist so we have to do something with our overpopulation. I will defy the belief of the Church: Duterte

Hostages beg for help in ‘final’ video

Duterte to allow burial of Marcos at heroes’ cemetery

China plans base station in Spratly Islands Taiwan indicts

man over child’s

beheading

No apology for A-bomb

on Hiroshima visit: Obama

VIEWS10 TUESDAY 24 MAY 2016

Sedentary and dietary are two overused and abused words that pop up in lifestyle and health literature as frequently as the bulge shows up on a midsection. Years of discourse on the obesity epidemic has lent itself to numerous diet theories and ways of slimming

down. From Atkins to a Mediterranean diet and lifting weights to swinging ropes, number of prescriptions on cutting down flab only rival the number of ways of fighting terrorism.

Fat in the diet has been a vexed issue. Theories over the much reviled lipid has hovered around more fat, less fat or no fat at all. A fat-free diet has been promoted internationally with big corporations not only making low-fat products but also propagating a diet low in fat. The low-fat epidemic spawns milk, cheese, and even potato chips that are purportedly baked and not fried.

Now, UK’s National Obesity Forum and Public Health Collaborative have come out with results of a research that supports the theory sometimes put forward: eating fat does not make you fat.

Taking from the truism ‘you are what you eat’, one realises the importance of a balanced diet, which is supposed to include some fat and carbohydrates — both food groups much reviled for contributing to piling up the pounds on the human body.

When it comes to food consumption, it is satiety that matters. But so less has been said about satiety. Dieticians and other experts harp more on the type of food being consumed

than talk about satiety, which is a function of the brain. Eating and feeling full is related to neurology as much as it is to the digestive system. A frugal diet rich in fruits, vegetables and low fat products can’t keep one full for long. Fat in the form of full fat milk, cheese and butter can go a long way in bringing about satiety so that snacking in-between meals is prevented.

The report — Eat fat, cut the carbs and avoid snacking to reverse obesity and Type 2 diabetes — says low fat and lower cholesterol messages have had harmful consequences on health.

The low fat and fat free diet also has health consequences for many among the younger generation who aim to look emaciated than healthy.

It is proven that the so-called good fat that contains unsaturated fatty acids works to bring down harmful fat with saturated fatty acids. The report by the British groups, though unconventional, seems accurate. The public — usually quarter baked on issues about health — needs to be better educated on dietary guidelines.

Fat fracas

British campaign groups’ research on eating more fat skims the obesity debate.

Quote of the day

The sudden (EU border) closure and the action by unilateral states was inhumane vis-a-vis many vulnerable people.

Melissa FlemingUNHCR Spokeswoman

E S TA B L I S H E D I N 1996

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The global humanitarian sys-tem is cracking under the weight of perpetual crisis. There are some 125 million

people in need of humanitarian aid this year, a staggering scale of misery on the edge of survivabil-ity. Of those in need, 60 million have been displaced by conflict and oppression. And the average length of “displacement” for a refugee is now 17 years. It’s a multi-genera-tional catastrophe.

There are currently more “Level 3” humanitarian emergencies - the UN’s most severe designa-tion - than at any one time ever before. But those headline-grab-bers (Iraq, South Sudan, Syria, and Yemen) account for just a fraction of those in need. There are hundreds of thousands of people displaced by conflict in Ukraine, Central Afri-can Republic, and Somalia - and Ethiopia is facing its worst drought in 50 years due to El Niño, putting nearly 20 million people in need of food and other aid.

The costs of crisis are, needless to say, escalating rapidly as well. The international donor community is spending 12 times on humanitar-ian assistance today than it did in 2000, but overall foreign aid has not even doubled in the last 15 years. No wonder the UN says there was a $15 billion funding shortfall to cover current humanitarian need across the globe last year.

There has long been an admi-rable consensus among public and private donors that humanitarian crises require robust responses - wherever they occur. Typhoon in pre-transition Myanmar? Send in rescue boats. Earthquake in Iran? George W. Bush sent Air Force cargo planes to deliver hundreds of thou-sands of pounds of relief supplies into the so-called “axis of evil.” But 80 percent of the humanitarian need is for man-made crises, not natural disasters, and that’s where things get tricky. Violent conflicts with millions of civilians caught in the crossfire are a little more

complicated than feel-good logis-tics operations after a flood.

So with more people and more calamities costing more money - what’s the UN to do? Well, call a conference, of course. This week, the first-ever World Humanitar-ian Summit takes place in Istanbul, close to the action. Turkey is cur-rently hosting more than 3 million refugees and asylum-seekers from Syria and Iraq, the most of any country in the world, accord-ing to the UN refugee agency. And that number is likely to rise fol-lowing a deal with the European Union to stop further out-migra-tion through Turkey.

The summit has big ambitions: a global recommitment of basic humanitarian principles (i.e., don’t bomb hospitals); more predictable funding goals to respond to crises; and more investment in early warn-ing and risk analysis. And those are the easy ones.

These are noble goals. But as it stands, the summit is more con-fab than treaty convention, likely resulting in some great voluntary commitments but no real bind-ing agenda for change. And that’s causing some frustration. Doctors Without Borders - a leading medical emergency organization - pulled out in advance because the conference didn’t have enough real member-state commitments. In a statement noting that 75 of its medical facili-ties were bombed last year - a gross violation of international human-itarian law - it called the summit “a fig-leaf of good intentions.” And on the other side of the spectrum, Russia’s Vladimir Putin isn’t going because he argues those pesky NGOs have too much say - and therefore might prevent UN member states from watering down the outcome.

So is there anything real to be achieved in Istanbul? The biggest difference anyone could make in the lives of the millions of peo-ple forced from their homes by savagery is to stop intentionally bombing and starving civilians and let them return and rebuild. But that won’t come out of a voluntary summit. The humanitarian expense of keeping refugee and internally displaced people camps on life support not only diverts resource spending from long-term develop-ment, but also drives the costs of lost infrastructure and economic growth into the trillions of dol-lars. While the summit will raise these issues, it is unlikely to make any progress in resolving them. As David Miliband, president of the International Rescue Committee and a former British foreign minis-ter, said recently, “There is never a bureaucratic answer to a political

problem.”The next most important thing

is the reform of the international humanitarian system itself. The col-lection of UN agencies and NGOs that sprung up over the last half-century was largely created to provide short-term emergency assistance, usually after a natu-ral disaster, to keep people alive until they could get back home and rebuild. And this line of busi-ness has been largely successful. Investment in logistics, coordi-nation, rapid deployment, and fundraising has made for very effective responses. Even more importantly, huge advances in reducing the risk of disaster in developing countries have been transformational in some places. In Bangladesh, in 1970, an average of 35,000 people died every year from storms and floods. Today, that number is approaching zero. A con-sistent, long-term investment in risk reduction by the United States and the UN, combined with the political will and commitment to reform by the Bangladeshi government, has shown what is possible over time.

But the international humani-tarian system is not really built for what it is mostly called on to do today - address long, slow, man-made crises. Can we really continue to think of Afghan or Somali refu-gees sitting in dusty border camps in Pakistan, Iran, and Kenya for several decades as a primarily humanitarian problem? We need to think about these populations as a longer-term development chal-lenge. For hundreds of thousands of children who want an education, a job, or any semblance of a life with dignity - these camps are the only life they’ve ever known. For every Syrian refugee who has made the perilous journey to Europe, there are another nine who are refugees in poorer neighbouring countries and millions more inside Syria who will have a rough road to recovery if the war ever ends.

There are two big changes being discussed in Istanbul that could really make a difference - and that the assembled NGOs, donors, and states could actually do something about. The first is to increase resources while shifting more of the spending toward help-ing people help themselves. There remains a vast need for rapid, life-sustaining action - but once people are out of immediate harm’s way, they need to get on with life. That means ensuring quality education and health care, access to training and work, and decent housing. This is particularly a political challenge for the countries hosting refugees, as they are almost always reluctant

to see these populations putting down roots. Ironically, there is evi-dence that putting refugees to work increases economic growth and decreases criminality and other problems that arise from forced idleness and an identity in limbo.

One of the best ways to do this is to take some of the lessons from the big development changes of the last few decades - like using public funds to attract private investment - and apply them in humanitarian con-texts. For example, the World Bank recently announced a $100 million investment to create 100,000 jobs in Jordan, split between Jordanian job-seekers and Syrian refugees. Or take Hamdi Ulukaya, the founder of yogurt giant Chobani and an out-spoken humanitarian activist, who has advocated for a jobs-focused agenda to address the displacement crisis. He also hires refugees to work in his own factories.

The second is to make the humanitarian community itself more effective, more subject to trans-parency, and better coordinated. There have long been concerns about competition among the UN agencies and NGOs in emergency settings: that needs assessments and costs of delivering aid vary enormously, sowing distrust and confusion. In exchange for these improvements, the donor community may be more inclined to allow for longer-term planning and staffing of complex operations, rather than dribbling out funding commitments for only urgent necessities. This so-called “grand bargain” - proposed by the High-Level Panel on Humanitarian Financing - would bring the rigor of evidence-based decision-making and evaluation that has transformed the traditional development sector in recent years. Given that most of the money comes from a few donors, and most of the implementation is done by a few large organizations, an agreement among key actors could go a long way.

But let’s be real. There will be no peace agreements signed in Istanbul this week. The countries intentionally bombing civilians aren’t showing up to announce they will stop. In the months to come, the number of displaced people worldwide is likely to go up, not down. And the root causes of these global catastrophes will not be pruned at the summit.

But there is more money going from more organizations to more people in need than ever before in history, and preparation for the World Humanitarian Summit has forged a consensus that the inter-national community can, and must, do better. It’s not a cure-all, but an important first step.

Istanbul summit a positive first step

By Alex Thier

The Washington Post

OPINION 11TUESDAY 24 MAY 2016

Tumult in Israeli politics triggers unease

By Luke Baker

Reuters

A military affairs commenta-tor interrupts his broadcast to deliver a monologue: I’m alarmed by what’s happening in Israel, he

says, I think my children should leave.Former Prime Minister Ehud Barak

warns of “the seeds of fascism”. Moshe Arens, who served as defence minister three times, sees it as a turning point in Israeli politics and expects it to cause a “political earthquake”.

The past five days have produced tumult in Israeli politics, since conserv-ative Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu unexpectedly turned his back on a deal to bring the center-left into his coalition and instead joined hands with far-right nationalist Avigdor Lieberman, one of his most virulent critics.

Lieberman, a West Bank settler, wants to be defence minister. So on Friday, Netan-yahu’s former ally and confidant, Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon, resigned and quit Netanyahu’s Likud party in disgust.

After a weekend to digest the develop-ments, which are expected to be finalised in an agreement between Netanyahu and Lieberman on Monday to form the most right-wing government in Israel’s 68-year-old history, commentators have tried to put it in perspective and found themselves alarmed. Arens, who has served as defence minister, foreign minister and ambassador to the United States, and is one of Netan-yahu’s early political mentors, said the machinations would have far-reaching repercussions.

“Yaalon’s ouster is likely to be a turning point in Israel’s political history,” he wrote in the left-leaning Haaretz newspaper. “A political earthquake is in the offing. It may take a little time, but it is coming. The law of unforeseen consequences is at work.”

The decision to jettison Yaalon in favour of Lieberman was all too much for Roni Daniel, a veteran military affairs com-mentator on Channel 2.

“I cannot urge my children to stay here,

because it is a place that is not nice to be in,” he said in his monologue, going on to name a number of far-right politicians.

By bringing the Yisrael Beitenu (Israel Our Home) party into the fold, Netanyahu strengthens his coalition from 61 to 67 seats in the 120-member parliament.

Lieberman’s brand of politics -- pro-settlement, wary of peace negotiations, tough on the Palestinians -- sits far more comfortably with Netanyahu and his right-wing partners than the center-left does.

But it means there is no countervailing voice in the government, and the person in charge of defence -- the most important portfolio in Israel after the prime minister -- is a civilian with little military experience.

At a time when the command of the Israel Defence Forces is already at odds with the government over policies it feels are too hard-line, Lieberman’s appoint-ment risks creating more tension between the political leadership and the military. Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank are on edge too.

“What has happened is a hostile

takeover of the Israeli government by dangerous elements,” Ehud Barak, Isra-el’s most decorated soldier and a former defence minister following his spell as head of government, told Channel 10 TV.

Israel has been “infected by the seeds of fascism”, he said, adding that it should be “a red light for all of us regarding what’s going on in the government.”

Netanyahu sought to quell the rising criticism at a new conference on Sunday, describing himself as in charge and as hav-ing the nation’s interests at heart.

“I’m looking out for the country’s future. I have proved that as prime minister. I hear a lot of voices; many things are said in pol-itics,” he said.

“Ultimately, it’s the prime minister who directs everything together with the defence minister, with the chief of staff, and appar-ently I haven’t done such a bad job during my years as prime minister -- that’s the way it is going to be now.”

Some allies leapt to Netanyahu’s defence, saying the appointment of Lie-berman was a sound decision and that he

would offer “fresh thinking” as defence min-ister, but the focus of commentary was on the broader direction that Israel is taking.

Netanyahu has held power for more than 10 years, spread over four terms. In that time, politics has moved steadily to the right, with his coalition now hinging on support from Orthodox religious and ultra-nationalist parties.

There has been no progress in efforts to negotiate peace with the Palestinians, with Netanyahu saying Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is not the right partner because he rejects Israel’s demand to rec-ognize it as a Jewish state.

At the same time, the building of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians seek for their own state together with Gaza, continues apace.

Ties between Israel and the United States, its closest ally, have become strained, with Vice President Joe Biden saying last month that the US adminis-tration felt “overwhelming frustration” with the Israeli government. For Daniel,

who is regarded as a stalwart of the right, something has changed fundamentally.

“It’s over. I will not persuade my chil-dren. They will decide where they want to live. But if that once looked like a terrible tragedy to me, today it doesn’t,” he said.

Israel has been “infected by the seeds of fascism”, he said, adding that it should be “a red light for all of us regarding what’s going on in the government.”

A partial view shows the east Jerusalem Israeli settlement of Har Homa (top) from the biblical West Bank town of Bethlehem, in the occupied West Bank.

Obama’s fatal fatalism in the Middle East

By Fred Hiatt

The Washington Post

Surveying the wreckage of the Mid-dle East and the fraying of Europe, President Obama understand-

ably would like us to believe that no other policy could have worked better.

The United States has tried them all, his administration argues: massive invasion, in Iraq; surgical interven-tion, in Libya; studied aloofness, in Syria. Three approaches, same result: chaos and destruction.

So why bother? Why get sucked into “a transformation that will play out for

a generation,” as Obama described it in his State of the Union address this year, “rooted in conflicts that date back millennia”?

Even setting aside the offensiveness of such a sweeping dismissal of Arab potential, the formulation is wrong on two counts, one prescriptive and one analytical.

It offers no plausible path for Obama’s successor -- who, as Obama’s own fitful, reluctant re-escalation shows, will not be able to ignore the region. Instead, it invites the kind of demagogic promises we have heard during the campaign, to “carpet bomb” Islamic militants until we find out whether “sand can glow in the dark,” as Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, threatened, or, in Donald Trump’s words, to “quickly, quickly””knock the hell out of” the Islamic State and then “come back here and rebuild our country.”

More fundamentally, the admin-istration’s fatalism ignores a fourth policy option that Obama, from the beginning, was determined not to try: patient, open-ended engagement using all U.S. tools - diplomatic as well as military -- with a positive outcome,

not a fixed deadline, as the goal.That is an approach that has

worked before. In Korea, the United States forged an intimate alliance more than a half- century ago, and today U.S. soldiers and diplomats are still present. U.S. support deterred an external foe while -- and people for-get this, given South Korea’s stability today - helping steady a society torn by civil war as its people gradually built a democracy.

Obama came into office deter-mined to avoid this approach. In Afghanistan, he set a timetable for troop withdrawal, untethered to condi-tions. In Libya, he bombed the Gaddafi regime out of power but did not stay to help a new government get on its feet. In Iraq, he overrode his civilian and military advisers and declined to keep in the country the 15,000 or 20,000 troops that might have helped preserve the stability the U.S. surge had helped achieve.

The president did not defend that withdrawal because millennia-old hatreds made Iraq a hopeless case. Just the reverse, in fact: Success had made a U.S. presence unnecessary.

“This is a historic moment.A war is ending. A new day is upon us,” he said in 2011.”People throughout the region will see a new Iraq that’s deter-mining its own destiny - a country in which people from different religious sects and ethnicities can resolve their differences peacefully through the democratic process.”

It does not require hindsight to appreciate the recklessness of his decision. True, few foretold just how completely the nation would fall apart, with a vicious caliphate occupying much of the country and a return of frequent bombings in Baghdad. But The Post’s editorial page was not alone in warning at the time that “a complete withdrawal sharply increases the risk that painfully won security gains in Iraq will come undone.”

I understand why Obama and so many other Americans reject persist-ent engagement, often derisively called “nation-building.” It is difficult, and the United States often does it badly and sometimes doesn’t succeed; Americans can’t impose democracy; we often end up doing work that we wish the locals or their neighbors would do. Obama

is right, too, that other regions, such as the Pacific, are more important to the global economy and more cen-tral to U.S. strategy.

But against all that wisdom stands one stubborn fact, again proved by Obama’s re-escalation: The United States does not have a choice. The unraveling doesn’t stay put, but spreads to Syria and Paris and Brussels and the skies over the Mediterranean and, eventually, the United States. Under conditions far more difficult than they might have been, the presi-dent finds himself unleashing bombers over Syria and dispatching soldiers into Iraq.

He cannot acknowledge, maybe even to himself, that disengagement was a mistake. That is why, even as Americans are, once again, being killed in Iraq, Obama insists that no service members are in combat.

But it would be healthy for the country, and the next president, to move beyond make-believe. There is no “quickly, quickly” defeating Islam-ist terrorism - and there is no safe way to retreat from the challenge of com-bating it for the long term.

The United States has tried them all, his administration argues: Massive invasion, in Iraq; Surgical intervention, in Libya; Studied aloofness, in Syria. Three approaches, same result: Chaos and destruction.

All thoughts and views expressed in these columns are those of the writers, not of the newspaper.All correspondence regarding Views and Opinion pages should be mailed to the Editor-in-Chief.

A political earthquake is in the offing. It may take a little time, but it is coming. The law of unforeseen consequences is at work.

ASIA / AFRICA12 TUESDAY 24 MAY 2016

Reuters

HANOI: The United States announced a end to its embargo on sales of lethal arms to Vietnam yes-terday, an historic step that draws a line under the two countries’ old enmity and underscores their shared concerns about Beijing’s growing military clout.

The move came during President Barack Obama’s first visit to Hanoi, which his welcoming hosts described as the arrival of a warm spring and a new chapter in relations between two countries that were at war four decades ago.

Obama, the third US president to visit Vietnam since diplomatic relations were restored in 1995, has

made a strategic ‘rebalance’ towards Asia a centrepiece of his foreign policy.

Vietnam, a neighbour of China, is a key part of that strategy amid wor-ries about Beijing’s assertiveness and sovereignty claims to 80 percent of the South China Sea.

The decision to lift the arms trade ban, which followed intense debate within the Obama admin-istration, suggested such concerns outweighed arguments that Vietnam had not done enough to improve its human rights record and Washing-ton would lose leverage for reforms.

Obama told a joint news con-ference with Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang that disputes in the South China Sea should be resolved peacefully and not by whoever “throws their weight around”. But he insisted the arms embargo move was not linked to China.

“The decision to lift the ban was not based on China or any other considerations. It was based on our desire to complete what has been a lengthy process of moving towards normalisation with Vietnam,” he said. Obama later added his visit to a former foe showed “hearts can change and peace is possible”.

The sale of arms, Obama said, would depend on Vietnam’s human rights commitments, and would be made on a case-by-case basis.

Human Rights Watch reacted with dismay to Washington’s deci-sion .

Reuters

KENYA: Kenyan police fired tea gas yesterday to disperse hundreds of protesters in Nairobi and the port city of Mombasa who were demonstrat-ing against an electoral body which opposition parties say is biased.

The police said they had arrested seven people in Mombasa while busi-nesses in the city stayed closed for fear of looting, a witness said.

About three hundred protesters demonstrated with placards reading “IEBC must go home now”, a refer-ence to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission.

Protests called by the opposition Coalition for Reforms and Democracy

(CORD) are now in their fourth week. In similar previous protests in the capital Nairobi, police have used tear-gas and water cannon against stone-throwing crowds.

“The demonstrations are illegal and the organisers have been clearly warned. If they insist on rioting, they will meet us there,” Lucas Ogara, Mombasa’s police chief, told Reuters.

Some protesters re-grouped after they had been dispersed, and were led by Mombasa County Governor Ali Hassan Joho to the local IEBC office where they handed over a petition peacefully. Kenya’s next presidential and parliamentary polls are not due until August 2017. But politicians are already trying to galvanise their sup-porters in a nation where violence erupted after the 2007 vote and the

opposition disputed the outcome in 2013.

CORD, led by Raila Odinga who lost the 2013 vote and unsuccess-fully challenged the result in court, has accused the IEBC of bias and said its members should quit. IEBC offi-cials have dismissed the charge and say they will stay.

The government has called on the opposition not to stage street protests against the IEBC and asked them to pursue other peaceful means to bring about change. But CORD on Sunday vowed to keep up the protests in Nairobi and other regions. “Ken-yans will be doing this, as we have done in the past, in exercise of their right to assemble peaceably and to direct the widest possible attention to a great national issue,” it said

AFP

BEIJING: Chinese authorities are exploring new ways of impos-ing controls on the Internet, state-run media cited experts as saying yesterday, after reports said state-owned enterprises may be encouraged to take stakes in video streaming websites.

The Communist country restricts access to foreign web-sites including Google, Facebook and Twitter with a vast control net-work dubbed the Great Firewall of China, and under President Xi Jinping it has tightened its grip on broadcast, print and online media.

Content deemed politically sensitive, violent or morally “unhealthy” is regularly blocked.

New regulations being con-sidered by China’s censorship authority would allow a select list of SOEs to buy “special manage-ment stakes” of up to 10 percent in the country’s popular video streaming websites, giving them the right to oversee production and decision-making, respected busi-ness magazine Caixin reported.

The Chinese-language report was later removed from Caixin’s own website, although the text was widely reposted elsewhere.

The move showed that the gov-ernment hopes to tighten its grip on websites—mostly privately run—over which they have had “little influence” in the past, the state-run Global Times newspa-per on Monday cited Xiang Ligang, CEO of telecommunication indus-try portal cctime.com, as saying.

AFP

PRETORIA: South African state prosecutors said yesterday that they would appeal against a court ruling that President Jacob Zuma should face almost 800 corruption charges, trig-gering accusations that he was being protected from justice.

Zuma has endured months of crit-icism and growing calls for him to step down after a series of corruption

scandals and as the country battles falling economic growth and record unemployment.

National Prosecuting Author-ity (NPA) director Shaun Abrahams announced the decision to challenge a High Court order to reinstate 783 charges against Zuma, but denied any political pressure. The charges, relat-ing to a multi-billion dollar arms deal, were dropped in 2009, clearing the way for Zuma to be elected president just weeks later.

At the time, state prosecutors

justified dropping the case by saying that tapped phone calls between offi-cials in then-president Thabo Mbeki’s administration showed undue inter-ference. But the Pretoria High Court last month dismissed the decision to discontinue the charges as “irra-tional” and said it should be reviewed by the NPA.

“The judgement affects... the dis-cretionary powers of the prosecutor,” Abrahams told a press conference yesterday. “It is so important that I believe it needs a decision of an

appeal court.”The tapped phone recordings, which became known as the “spy tapes”, were kept secret until they were released in 2014 after a legal battle fought by the main oppo-sition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA). The DA dismissed the prosecu-tors’ appeal bid as “a blatant delaying tactic to shield Jacob Zuma”.

“Abrahams is preoccupied with protecting president Zuma at all costs... The DA will not let this mat-ter rest. President Zuma will face justice,” it said.

AFP

COLOMBO: Sri Lankans camped out in shelters in the capital face an uncertain future after massive flooding from torrential rain struck the island, forcing them to flee their inundated homes.

Water levels in Colombo are slowly falling after the Kelani river running through the city of 650,000 burst its banks early last week, and a cleanup is under way.

But many of the 100,000-odd residents still sheltering in schools and other relief centres in Colombo say they have lost everything and are unsure how to rebuild.

“We have no shortage of food, but the issue is how do we go back home?” said single mother Dine-sha Devi, who has spent five days camped in a classroom at the Vidyawardena school on the city’s outskirts.

“We have lost everything we had. I don’t even have any change of clothes for Nilakshan let alone for myself,” Devi said of her 21-month-old toddler.

Devi was one of thousands who clambered onto rubber dinghies and makeshift rafts after the rains hit, triggering huge landslides north-east of the capital that buried two villages. More than 90 people are so

far known to have died across the island, although that number could rise with more reported missing, the national Disaster Management Cen-tre said.

The government called a special session of parliament for Wednes-day to discuss how best to respond to the floods, which the finance min-istry estimates has caused $2 billion worth of damage.

The government has promised compensation to those affected in 22 of Sri Lanka’s 25 districts, but no details have yet been announced. Most people outside Colombo have already returned home.

Joyce Patricia told AFP waters raced through the small shop that she owns with her family and they have no money to restart the busi-ness. Fareena Shahul, a travelling saleswoman, voiced similar con-cerns, saying her entire stock of clothing had been destroyed.

“I used to sell clothes, but today I am left with what I am wearing and I have to ask for clothes from others,” the 45-year-old said as she also shel-tered at the Vidyawardena school in a poor Colombo suburb.

Housewife Sanuja Ratnayake, 37, said she had tried to return home but found it filled with about two feet of stinking black sludge.

“We will not be able to do the cleanup ourselves,” she said at the school. “We will need a lot of help.”

An elephant statue stands next to the Kerio View, a hotel and training camp mostly used for foreign athletes training in Iten, western Kenya.

Giant replica

Reuters

SEOUL: South Korea dismissed yes-terday a North Korean proposal for military talks as “a bogus peace offensive” and said it was formally rejecting the overture because it

lacked a plan to end the North’s nuclear programme.

“The dialogue proposed by the North does not mention its nuclear programme, which is the fun-damental issue for peace on the Korean peninsula and South-North ties,” South Korean Defence Ministry spokesman Moon Sang-gyun told a

briefing. “Proposing dialogue with-out an expression of its position on denuclearisation is a bogus peace offensive for bogus peace that lacks sincerity.” Moon said the South had sent a message over a military hotline on Monday expressing regret over the North’s proposal and asking it to state its position on denuclearisation.

US lifts arms embargo on Vietnam

China mulls

new ways to

control video

websites

Kenyan police break up protests against election body; seven held

S Africa to appeal ruling on Zuma’s graft charges

Flood-hit Sri Lankans

face uncertain future

S Korea rejects North’s talks proposal

Supporters of Kenya’s opposition Coalition for Reforms and Democracy (CORD) run away after riot police lobbed tear gas canisters to disperse them during a protest in Nairobi, yesterday.

US President Barack Obama (left) with Vietnam’s Communist Party General-Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong in Hanoi, Vietnam, yesterday.

The decision to lift the ban was based on our desire to complete what has been a lengthy process of moving towards normalisation with Vietnam: Obama

AFP

COLOMBO: The ex-police chief in the Sri Lankan capital was arrested yesterday amid allega-tions that he suppressed evidence in a murder case to protect mem-bers of the former government.

Anura Senanayake was remanded into custody until tomorrow pending further inves-tigations into the May 2012 killing of national rugby skipper Wasim Thajudeen. The Criminal Investi-gations Department told Colombo judge Nishantha Peiris it had evi-dence to suggest Senanayake, who retired last year, had conspired to suppress the investigation.

Police initially said Thaju-deen had died in a road accident after his charred body was found inside his car in Colombo. The body was exhumed in August last year, seven months after the new government came to power, and forensic experts ruled he had been tortured and killed. Thaju-deen’s body was exhumed after new evidence emerged that he had been abducted in a car owned by the Sri Lanka Red Cross Soci-ety, police told a court last year. The Red Cross said the Land Rover Defender belonged to the organi-sation, but it was being used at the time by a charity of the then-first lady, Shiranthi Rajapakse.

Ex-top cop held

over murder

in Colombo

PAKISTAN 13TUESDAY 24 MAY 2016

Top Taliban meet to regroup after leader’s death

Reuters

KABUL/HANOI: Senior Afghan Tal-iban figures met yesterday to agree on a successor to Mullah Akhtar Mansour, the leader of the militant movement who US President Barack Obama confirmed had been killed in an American air strike at the week-end.

The Taliban have so far made no official statement on the fate of Man-sour, who assumed the leadership only last year. But senior members have confirmed that their main shura, or leadership council, has been meet-ing to discuss the succession in a bid to prevent factional splits from frag-menting the movement.

Obama, on a three-day visit to Vietnam, reiterated support for the Western-backed government in Kabul and Afghan security forces, and called on the Taliban to join stalled peace talks. The president authorised the drone strike that killed Mansour in a remote region just on the Pakistani side of the border with Afghanistan on Saturday.

Pakistani authorities have said the drone strike was a violation of the country’s sovereignty and an offi-cial from the foreign ministry told the US ambassador in Islamabad that the attack could “adversely impact” peace talks. But reaction from Islamabad has otherwise been relatively muted and a number of questions remain over what exactly happened.

An undamaged Pakistani pass-port in the name of Wali Muhammad, which Pakistani authorities said con-tained a visa for Iran, was recovered next to the burned-out car at the scene of the attack and is believed to have belonged to Mansour.

But it is unclear what he may have been doing in Iran and why he was apparently travelling in Pakistan without a security detail.

A spokesman for the Iranian for-eign ministry was quoted on state media denying that such an individ-ual had crossed the border from Iran to Pakistan at the time in question.

Calling the death “an important milestone”, Obama said Mansour had rejected peace talks and had “con-tinued to plot against and unleash attacks on American and Coalition forces”. “The Taliban should seize the

opportunity to pursue the only real path for ending this long conflict —joining the Afghan government in a reconciliation process that leads to lasting peace and stability,” he said.

However, he stressed that the operation against Mansour did not represent a shift in US strategy in Afghanistan or a return to active engagement in fighting, following the end of the international coali-tion’s main combat mission in 2014.

The US currently has 9,800 troops in Afghanistan, divided between a Nato-led mission to train and advise local forces and a separate counter-terrorism mission fighting militant groups such as Islamic State and Al Qaeda.

A decision is expected later this year on whether to stick with a time-table that would see the number of troops cut to 5,500 by the start of 2017.

The Taliban, which have previ-ously rejected ouvertures to join talks with President Ashraf Ghani’s gov-ernment, have been pushing Afghan security forces hard since the launch of their spring offensive in April.

The attack on Mansour has thrown the movement into disar-ray at least temporarily, but Afghan authorities have braced for an upsurge in violence as rival candidates posi-tion themselves to succeed him.

Although some individual Taliban members have been quoted in media reports saying that Mansour was killed, the group’s leadership, keenly aware of the need to limit splits, has not issued its own confirmation.

“The leadership is being very

careful because one wrong step could divide the group into many parties like former mujahideen,” one Taliban official from the eastern province of Nangarhar said, referring to guerrilla leaders who fought the Soviets in the 1980s before splitting into warring factions. Serious divisions emerged last year when it was confirmed that Mullah Mohammad Omar, the group’s

founder, had been dead for two years, leaving his deputy Mansour in effec-tive charge of the movement and open to accusations he deceived his commanders.

One senior member of the Shura, which is based in the western Paki-stani city of Quetta, said that the choice for the next leader appeared to be shaping around Mansour’s deputy,

Sirajuddin Haqqani, or a member of the family of Mullah Omar, such as his son, Mullah Mohammad Yaqoob.

Haqqani, leader of an affiliated network blamed for a series of high-profile suicide attacks in Kabul, had the backing of Pakistan, while Yaqoob had support among members of the Afghan Taliban, the shura member said.

Pakistani civil society activists shout slogans during a demonstration in Multan yesterday, against the US drone strike in Balochistan.

One senior member of the Shura said the choice for the next leader appeared to be shaping around Mansour’s deputy, Sirajuddin Haqqani, or a member of the family of Mullah Omar, such as his son, Mullah Mohammad Yaqoob.

PPP to seek disqualification of PM and his four relativesInternews

LAHORE: Unwilling to provide res-pite to the ruling party on Panama Papers, the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) plans to submit an application to the Election Commission of Paki-stan (ECP) seeking disqualification of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif (pic-tured) and four of his relatives under Articles 62 and 63 of the Constitution.

PPP Secretary General and former Punjab governor Sardar Latif Khosa said yesterday that a legal team of his party had formulated a draft of the application on the instructions of its chairman, Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari.

The decision to move the ECP to disqualify the premier shows that Bhutto-Zardari is in no mood to con-tinue the reconciliation policy of his father (Asif Ali Zardari) towards the PML-N, according to analysts.

The application seeking the dis-qualification of Nawaz Sharif, Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, federal

Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, MNA Muhammad Safdar and MNA Hamza Shahbaz would be filed with the ECP this week, Khosa said.

“Nawaz Sharif has not only con-cealed his assets in a declaration (submitted) to the ECP but also com-mitted perjury during an address

in parliament. He did not speak the truth about his own assets and those of his family members abroad, thus misleading parliamentarians as well as the people of Pakistan,” he said.

The former attorney general said the premier’s loyalty to the state had become questionable because he had transferred his own wealth and that of his family abroad. The premier also did not give full tax on the income of his family.

“Similarly, Finance Minister Dar, CM Sharif, MNA Safdar and MNA Hamza Shahbazwilfully concealed their assets both inside the country and abroad in their declarations to the ECP. There has also been a con-fessional statement from Dar about money laundering,” Khosa said.

He said the PPP would attach to its application a letter written to the late Benazir Bhutto by the prime min-ister’s cousin, Khalid Siraj, in which he had divulged details of the Shar-ifs’ wealth abroad.

In its application the PPP would be taking the plea that the prime

minister and his four relatives did not meet the criteria laid down under Articles 62 and 63 of the Con-stitution. Therefore, the Election Commission of Pakistan should dis-qualify them from holding public office forthwith.

In response to a question about the PML-N’s efforts to persuade the PPP not to take a tough stance on the Panama leaks, Khosa said: “There will be no compromise on investigations into corruption scandals, particu-larly Panamagate. Bhutto-Zardari has made it clear that there is no sacred cow and the country cannot have two sets of laws - one for the influential and another for the poor.”

According to a source in the PPP, the PML-N leadership has requested Zardari to stop Bhutto-Zardari from issuing harsh statements about PM Sharif over Panamagate.

In his public statements, the young PPP chairman has not only called for the premier’s resignation but also described the latter as a friend of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Afghan governor sees

more fighting and

attacks in coming weeks

Reuters

KABUL: Power struggles among the Taliban following the death of their leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour will probably lead to more fighting and suicide attacks in the coming weeks, a powerful Afghan provincial gov-ernor said yesterday.

Atta Mohammad Noor, governor of the northern Balkh province, said authorities had to brace for a surge in violence as rival candidates established their claims to the leadership of the insurgency.

He pointed to a spate of suicide bomb-ings as well as the intense fighting that led to the temporary fall of the northern city of Kunduz last year as Mansour looked to con-solidate his newly won position.

“Fighting may well pick up in some parts of the country after the killing of the Tali-ban leader, with suicide and bomb attacks (used) as a means of downplaying the impor-tance of losing their leader,” he told Reuters in an interview.

Balkh, a province previously considered one of the most secure in Afghanistan, has

recently seen a marked pick up in fighting, and, for the first time, the appearance of fighters claiming allegiance to the militant Islamic State movement, once confined to the eastern province of Nangarhar.

The killing of Mansour in a US drone strike on Saturday appears to have dashed any hopes of a quick resumption in stalled peace talks which the United States, Paki-stan and China had been attempting to broker.

Noor, a former commander in the anti-Soviet “mujahideen” resistance movement who later fought against the Taliban, was critical of President Ashraf Ghani’s handling of what he called a “failed” peace process.

But he said there was scope for the gov-ernment to exploit a likely fracturing in the insurgency.

Already, a potential split in the Taliban is developing between supporters of Sira-juddin Haqqani, leader of the notorious network blamed for a spate of bombings in Kabul, and supporters of Mullah Moham-mad Yaqoob, son of the movement’s founder Mullah Mohammad Omar.

Unless the leadership issue is resolved quickly, some fighters could drift away to

rival militant groups such as Islamic State or the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. “If the government works well, some of them might surrender,” said Noor.

Atta Mohammad Noor, governor of the Balkh province, speaks during an interview in Kabul, yesterday.

Police information

network launched

in KP province

PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province police have established an incentive-based Police Information Network (PIN) to serve as a platform for the citizens to win significant amounts of cash reward for sharing cred-ible information about terrorists and their facilitators.

The network is initially being launched in Peshawar and will later be extended to other parts of the province. With the launch of PIN, citizens of Peshawar will be able to earn up to Rs100,000 with-out compromising their identities as reward for informing police about terrorists, extortionists, tar-get killers and their facilitators.

According to a statement issued here on Monday, the deci-sion to launch PIN was taken at a high-level meeting held here the other day chaired by IGP Nasir Khan Durrani.

It was decided that a lot of valuable intelligence could be obtained from the citizens pro-vided they were confident that their identities would remain con-fidential. The meeting also chalked out the SOP for the working of PIN.

Nishtar nominated

as WHO head

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has nom-inated Dr. Sania Nishtar as its candidate for the post of World Health Organisation (WHO) direc-tor general (DG).

According to an official state-ment issued yesterday, National Health Services (NHS) Minister Saira Afzal Tarar introduced and solicited support for Dr. Nishar, who was also present during a meeting of the health ministers of the Commonwealth in Geneva.

Dr. Nishtar has extensive experience in public healthcare including working on government initiatives.

She has also had a career as a civil society leader and founded the non-governmental organisa-tionHeartFile in 1999.

An official at the NHS ministry said that elections for WHO head will be held by May 2017 and that campaigning for the elections has started.

He explained that the WHO Constitution required the DG be appointed by the World Health Assembly on nomination by the WHO Executive Board.

Panel on Panama Leaks waiting for notificationInternews

ISLAMABAD: The Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) of the Parliament members of the divide to determine appropriate forum to probe Panama Papers and cor-ruption of serious nature would start function once its official notification is issued.

Federal Finance Minister Senator Muhammad Ishaq Dar who would be part of the committee on behalf of the government is hopeful that the committee would start its working within this week while Federal Min-ister for Law and Justice Zahid Hamid who is viewed as the legal brain of the government has declared agree-ment of the two sides as an achievement since the two have consented the terms of reference (TORs) for the JPC.

He said Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has approved the list of members of the JPC on behalf of the treas-ury and he is keen to see the initiation of the scrutiny as soon possible. In a brief chat with on Monday late evening, the minister said that he hasn’t been informed as yet about being designated as ex-officio member of the Joint Parliamentary Committee. “I am fully pre-pared to contribute for the committee provided I was asked by leadership,” he said. He maintained that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has asked his team to not permit any delay in choreographing TORsfor the commission.

Meanwhile, the Opposition leadership is fac-ing resistance from smaller groups which have been ignored by the opposition leadership for the member-ship of the JPC.

INDIA14 TUESDAY 24 MAY 2016

IANS

ARRAYSRINAGAR: Three Kashmir policemen were killed by suspected Hizbul Mujahideen militants in two separate shoot-and-run terror attacks yesterday, tearing through a lull in Sri-nagar that last witnessed such a strike three years ago.

Police sources said that two motor-cycle-borne assailants opened fire from a point-blank range at “unarmed” policemen in the old Srinagar City.

The policemen, the sources said, were regulating traffic at a busy crossing near the crowded Zadibal

area, some 10km from the city centre Lal Chowk. The crossing leads to the only multispecialty hospital, SKIMS, of Srinagar and is usually crowded throughout the day.

Assistant sub-inspector Nazir Ahmed and Head Constable Bashir Ahmed were shot in their heads. They were taken to the hospital where they were declared brought dead, the sources said.

Barely an hour later, militants struck again and shot dead a police-man in the upscale Tengpora area, some five km from the city centre.

The attackers ran away with the dead cop’s service rifle, a police officer said.

The policeman, who was guard-ing an unnamed politician, received severe gunshot wounds and was taken to a hospital where he succumbed, the officer said.

The Hizbul Mujahideen that has terror bases in Pakistan-administered Kashmir claimed responsibility for the twin attacks that comes nearly three years after militants killed two police-men on June 22, 2013, at the crowded Hari Singh High Street market - the city’s main business hub near Lal

Chowk. Hizbul Mujahideen spokes-person Burhanuddin called a local news agency and said the outfit had carried out the attacks on Monday.

The attacks in Srinagar city are the first major strikes carried out by militants after the Mehbooba Mufti-led Peoples Democratic Party and Bharatiya Janata Party formed a

coalition government in the state last month.

Security officials said they had intelligence inputs that militants were planning to strike in Srinagar in the wake of increasing incursion attempts from across the border dur-ing summer months in the Kashmir Valley .“(The) army, police, and other

agencies are fully prepared. We won’t let these terrorists succeed,” Satish Dua, GOC 15 Corps, told the media here.

Dua described the deaths of policemen as “unfortunate” and sought “to assure that the army, police, and CRPF are ready to face such threats”.

IANS

RANCHI: A three-member team of the Press Council of India (PCI) visited Jharkhand’s Chatra district yesterday to probe the murder of a TV journalist on May 12.

The team members met the district administration officials and representative of a journal-ists association to enquire about the murder. The cause of the mur-der is turning into a mystery.

Akhilesh Singh alias Indradeo Yadav, a local TV journalist, was shot dead on May 12. In another development, a Maoist organisa-tion Tritiya Prastuti Committee (TPC) has denied its role in the murder, saying that the police was wrongly implicating its cadre in the crime. Police on May 17 arrested three people, includ-ing an aide of ruling BJP legislator Ganesh Ganjhu.

Police claimed that Rs.7 lakh was demanded from the scribe as one of his relatives was involved in construction work. The denial of levy led to the killing. BJP legis-lator from Simria, Ganesh Ganjhu, has demanded a CBI probe into the killing. Of the five accused, Suraj Sao, representative of Ganjhu, and Jhaman Sao and Birabal Sao have been arrested.

Tibetans living-in-exile in India gather after concluding the cycle rally which began from Dehradun on May 17 to commemorate the day when spiritual leader the Panchen Lama was allegedly abducted by China, in New Delhi, yesterday.

Historic day

AFP

KATHMANDU: An Indian mountaineer has died on Mount Everest and two of his team-mates are missing, expedition organisers said yesterday, as the death toll from the Hima-layan climbing season rose to five.

Subhash Pal reached the 8,848-metre (29,029-foot) summit on Saturday but col-lapsed while descending the Hillary Step ice wall and died the following day.

He was the third to die on Everest in recent days, after an Australian and a Dutch climber succumbed to altitude sickness. Another two climbers have died on other peaks.

“He died while the guides were bringing him down,” said Loben Sherpa of Trekking Camp Nepal, which organised the Indian team’s expedition to Mount Everest.

Expedition officials made contact with Pal and teammate Sunita Hazra on Sunday

and helped them descend to Camp 3, but the whereabouts of the remaining two climbers are still unknown.

“Sunita has been rescued and brought to a hospital in Kathmandu for treatment. We still don’t have any update on the missing two,” said Sherpa. Another Indian climber died after falling ill while descending from Mount Dhaulagiri in the Himalayas.

On Thursday a Nepali guide was killed when he slipped and fell 2,000 metres down Mount Lhotse, the world’s fourth-highest peak.

The number of deaths brings the dangers into focus but is not unusual -- according to the authoritative Himalayan Database, 34 people died on Everest in the five years to 2013. As climbers ascend above 8,000 metres, they enter the “death zone” -- notorious for its difficult terrain and thin air -- where oxy-gen supplies fall to dangerously low levels and make mountaineers susceptible to alti-tude sickness.

“There are mixed feelings with the recent

deaths, frostbite and rescues as it brings into focus the danger of climbing Everest,” said veteran mountaineer and blogger Alan Arnette.

“However, there is a sense of relief that in many ways, it was a ‘normal’ season.”

A tourism official said more than 30 climbers had been rescued this season after suffering altitude sickness or frostbite.

More than 350 climbers including 140 foreigners have successfully scaled Everest this season after two consecutive years of deadly disasters that led to almost all attempts being abandoned. Since the first summit of the world’s highest peak in 1953 more than 300 people have died on Everest and Lhotse, which share the same route until Camp 3 at 7,200 metres.

The last year in which no deaths were recorded on the mountain was 1977.

Despite the risks and recent disasters, Everest’s allure remains undimmed, with Nepal issuing 289 permits to foreigners for this year’s spring climbing season.

IANS

PANAJI: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) yesterday crossed swords over fund-ing of their public meetings and events, and demanded details about the money they have spent on these in recent past.

BJP St. Andre legislator Vishnu Wagh had questioned the source of money used for AAP convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s public meeting in Pan-aji on Sunday. On Monday, the AAP retorted by demanding that the BJP disclose all its expenditure and the Goa government can investigate the AAP’s accounts.

“AAP challenges the Bharaitya Janata Party to come on a pub-lic platform with its accounts and expenditure. We will come with our accounts. We also challenge the BJP government to investigate our accounts,” AAP state co-ordinator Valmiki Naik said.

Aiming to counter the AAP charge, BJP state unit president Vinay Tendulkar later reiterated the par-ty’s demand that the AAP must come clean on the funding of its meeting here held on Sunday.

However, when queried, Ten-dulkar refused to share financial details about the mammoth pub-lic meetings of Narendra Modi, then an aspiring prime minister, in 2014 hosted by the party, and

Defence Minister Manohar Parri-kar in December 2015.

“Last 15 days, around 1,000 AAP’s workers were moving around Goa, speaking in Hindi. Where have they collected thousands of rupees from and who has given the money (to organise the public meeting on Sunday). First, they (AAP) should come clean on this before com-menting on the Goa government,” Tendulkar told a press conference here.

On Sunday, the AAP organised a meeting which was addressed by Kejriwal. Around 8,000 peo-ple attended. Tendulkar said that when it comes to a public meeting, the BJP spends around Rs.15 to Rs.20 per person in attendance.

But he refused to respond to questions from the media about the money spent by the party to organise the ‘Vijay Sankalp’ rally of Narendra Modi, then a prime minis-terial aspirant, in January 2014 and Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar’s public felicitation on his birthday in December 2015.

When specifically asked about the cost incurred by the BJP and the mode of funding for the Modi rally, Tendulkar said: “I don’t know. Peo-ple came on their own. We spent but I don’t remember. You are asking me after several years.”

About the cost incurred on Par-rikar’s public felicitation, Tendulkar said: “The birthday rally was not organised by the party. People had organised it”.

AFP

LUCKNOW: Its gleaming white marble walls have for years been yellowed by India’s air pollution and now the Taj Mahal faces a fresh threat -- from green insect excrement.

Authorities have ordered an investigation after green-tinged patches began appearing on the back wall of the monument to love, which stands on the banks of the heavily polluted Yamuna river.

Environmentalists believe the pollutants in the river have caused a rise in levels of algae, which has in turn led to a surge in the num-bers of the insects which feed on it.

India’s National Green Tribu-nal, which hears cases related to environmental protection, raised the issue last week. Now the state government of Uttar Pradesh, home to the world’s most famous tomb, has ordered an inquiry.

“The state government is extremely concerned about this issue. People can rest assured that we will let no harm come to the Taj Mahal,” the chief minister’s spokesman Rajendra Chaudhary told AFP on Monday in the state capital Lucknow.

He said the chief minister, Akhilesh Yadav, had ordered offi-cials to find urgent solutions.

The alert was sounded by environmental activist DK Joshi.

AFP

MUMBAI: An Indian airline has grounded two pilots for attempting to land their plane on a road which they mistook for a runway, the airline and reports said yesterday.

The IndiGo flight from Ahmeda-bad in Gujarat state to Jaipur in

Rajasthan was close to touching down until the pilots were alerted by a “too low terrain” warning in the cockpit, IndiGo said in a statement.

“The captain in command imme-diately took a precautionary measure and carried a go-around. The air-craft landed safely on subsequent approach,” added the statement.

The incident, the latest to high-light safety concerns in India’s rapidly

expanding aviation sector, happened on February 27 but has only just come to light in Indian media. The Hindus-tan Times quoted an aviation official as saying the plane was at an altitude of around 900 feet and 90 seconds away from landing on a road run-ning parallel to the runway. IndiGo said the pilots were made aware of their mistake by an enhanced ground proximity warning system.

Three policemen dead in Kashmir shoot & run attack

Press council team

visits Chatra over

scribe’s murder

Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti lays a wreath on the coffin of a police officer during a ceremony in Srinagar, yesterday.

A view of Mount Everest in the Kumbh region of northeastern Nepal.

Probe into

bug droppings

on Taj Mahal

BJP and AAP spar over

funding of rallies in Goa

Pilots grounded for mistaking road for runway

Mountaineer dies on Everest and two others missing

Two motorcycle-borne assailants opened fire from a point-blank range at “unarmed” policemen in the old Srinagar City.

INDIA 15TUESDAY 24 MAY 2016

IANS

SRIHARIKOTA: India yesterday successfully tested its home-grown winged reusable launch vehicle (RLV), demonstrating its space tech-nology prowess and joining an elite club of space-faring nations like the US, Russia and France.

“We have successfully tested the first delta-winged-body aerospace vehicle operating in hypersonic flight regime,” the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said in a statement after accomplishing the mission as a technology demon-strator (RLV-TD).

“We have successfully accom-plished the RLV-TD mission. The lift-off was at 7am from the first launch pad here,” ISRO director Devi Prasad Karnik said after the shuttle returned to the Earth.

President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi con-gratulated the Indian scientists.

Mukherjee, in a message, said: “Heartiest congratulations to ISRO Team on successful launch of India’s first indigenous space shuttle RLV-T.”

Modi said in a tweet: “The dyna-mism and dedication with which our scientists and ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) have

worked over the years is exceptional and very inspiring.”

The sleek 1.7-tonne RLV was latched on top of a 15-tonne rocket with a booster for lift-off from the spaceport here in Andhra Pradesh, about 80km north of Chennai, off the Bay of Bengal coast.

“We started the countdown for lift-off at 11 p.m. on Sunday and the rocket blasted off at 7am, as the wind and weather conditions were good for launching the vehicle,” ISRO’s Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSS) director K. Sivan told IANS later.

After 91.1 seconds into the flight, the burn out occurred while the rocket along its vehicle coasted to an altitude of 56km and separated to ascend to 65km above the earth in sub-orbital space.

From 65km height, the vehicle began its descent followed by atmos-pheric re-entry at Mach 5 (five times speed of sound).

“Navigation, guidance and con-trol system steered the vehicle for safe descent to the defined landing spot over the Bay of Bengal, about 450km from Sriharikota on the east coast,” the statement said.

The entire flight duration from launch to landing in the sea was 13.3 minutes.

Critical technologies such as autonomous navigation, guidance and control, reusable thermal pro-tection system and re-entry mission management have been validated.

The vehicle was tracked during its flight from ground stations at Sri-harikota and a ship-borne terminal.

“We have located the place where the vehicle is floating. The landing was soft as the vehicle was intact and did not break up on impact,” Sivan claimed.

The Indian Coast Guard and National Institute of Ocean Tech-nology extended support for the mid-sea wind measurement and ship-borne telemetry in the mission.

The space agency’s telemetry, tracking and command network

(Istrac) centre in Bengaluru recorded the data of the vehicle’s hypersonic speed, autonomous landing and pow-ered cruise flight using air-breathing propulsion.

The maiden mission has qualified

India to enter the elite club of space-faring nations like the US (NASA), Russia (Roscosmos), France (Euro-pean Space Agency) and Japan (Jaxa), which developed and used RLVs for their space missions over the years.

IANS

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court will hear on Thursday the Italian government’s plea for relaxation of bail conditions of its marine, Ser-geant Major Salvatore Girone, so that he can return to his country.

Girone is held in India, being one of the two Italian marines who are accused of killing in 2012 two Indian fishermen off the Kerala coast.

Chief Master Sergeant Mas-similiano Latorre and Sergeant Major Girone were then serving as security personnel on an Italian oil tanker MT Enrica Lexie crossing the Indian Ocean.

An apex court vacation bench of Justice Prafulla C. Pant and Jus-tice D.Y. Chandrachud agreed to hear the plea.

It was after Additional Solici-tor General Pinki Anand supported the plea by the Italian government for relaxing the bail conditions so that Girone can travel to Italy while remaining under the court’s authority.

The Italian government sought the relaxation of bail conditions in the wake of April 29 order of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) asking India and Italy to cooperate in relaxing the bail conditions so that Girone could return to his country during the pen-dency of the arbitration proceedings before it.

“Italy and India shall cooperate, including in proceedings before the Supreme Court of India, to achieve a relaxation of bail conditions of

Sergeant Girone so as to give effect to the concept of consideration of humanity, so that Sergeant Girone, while remaining under the author-ity of Supreme Court of India, may return to Italy during the present Annex VII arbitration,” Annex VII arbitral tribunal had said in its April 29 order.

The tribunal had also said that Italy was under obligation to return Girone to India in case it holds that India has jurisdiction over him in respect of the Enrica Lexie incident.

The international arbitral tri-bunal has been established under Annex VII of the United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea (UNC-LOS) for adjudicating on the dispute between India and Italy over their jurisdiction to try Latorre and Girone.

India and Italy are engaged in compulsory and binding arbitra-tion proceedings over the dispute of jurisdiction to try the Italian marines under the provisions of the UNCLOS.

The April 29 order of the arbi-tral tribunal came on an application by Italy.

The proceedings in the matter in both the countries have been put on hold following an ITLOS order of August 24, 2015.

The ITLOS is holding an inter-national arbitration to decide the question of jurisdiction between India and Italy as to who will try the two Italian marines for killing two Indian fishermen off Kerala coast in February 2012 mistaking them as sea pirates.

Latorre is already in Italy on the grounds of indifferent health and treatment.

Reusable launch vehicle tested Supreme Court to

hear Italian govt’s

plea on marine

AFP

AHMEDABAD: Thirteen endangered Asiatic lions that only live in a forest in western India have been caught and caged after three villagers were killed in recent months, a wildlife official said, yesterday.

The pride of lions has been rounded up from Gir sanctuary in Gujarat state after at least one of the animals last week dragged a teen-ager from his village while he was sleeping and killed him.

Gujarat’s chief conservator of forests, J A Khan, said the lions were captured in recent days from an eastern part of the protected for-est in a bid to find the “man-eaters” responsible. Khan said it was unclear why or how many of the cats had ventured outside of the sanctuary, their last remaining natural habitat, to find prey, describing the attacks as rare. “Lions that have preyed upon humans will be analysed in detail, while the rest will be slowly intro-duced back into the wild,” Khan said.

“We will be doing a scat analysis

which includes testing the animals’ faeces for human tissues, chemi-cal analysis of their blood and even genetic analysis,” he said.

The cats, slightly smaller than their African cousins and with a fold of skin along their bellies, have been increasing in numbers in Gir, with 523 recorded in the latest census.

Conservationists have sug-gested some of the lions be relocated to a different sanctuary, to reduce human-animal conflict and avoid being wiped out by disease or nat-ural disaster.

In the latest attack, the 14-year-old boy was dragged from his sleeping spot in a mango orchid in Ambardi village near the forest on May 20. His father was also injured while trying to scare the animal away. A lion also killed a 50-year-old woman on April 10 in a nearby village as she slept in an open field. At least one of the predators dragged and killed a 60-year-old man as he slept in his hut in Ambardi village on March 19. The Asiatic lion was listed as endangered in 2008, up from critically endangered in 2000, after numbers improved in the forest.

13 endangered lions

caged in Gujarat

IANS

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The CPI-M ministers in Kerala Chief Minister-designate Pinarayi Vijay-an’s cabinet ministers were named without much problem, but the process was more difficult in the CPI and two other constituents of the Left Democratic Front.

It was decided on Sunday that the Vijayan cabinet would have 19 members (including the chief min-ister) and the Communist Party of India-Marxist will have 12 berths, the Communist Party of India 4 and three other LDF constituents - the Janata Dal-S, the Nationalist Congress Party and the Congress-S - would get one each.

The CPI-M named its min-isters, including three - Thomas Issac, A.K.Balan and G.Sudhakran - who were ministers in the V. S . Achut ha na nda n c abi-net (2006-11), while new faces are E.P.Jayarajan, K.K.Shailaja, A.C.Moideen, Kadakampally Surendran, T.P.Ramakrishnan, C.Raveendranath, J.Mercykutty Amma and K.T.Jaleel (who won as a CPI-M-backed Independent).

However it was high drama at the state party headquarters of the CPI when the party leaders met to select their four ministers.

C.Divakaran and Mullakara Ratnakaran, who were part of the Achuthanandan cabinet, tried their level best to get a sec-ond term, but it was shot down by the party state secretary Kanam Rajendran, who instead nom-inated E.Chandrasekheran, P.Thilothaman, V.S.Sunil Kumar and P.Raju. “Like in 2006, we selected new faces for the post of minister, this time also, we have followed that,” Rajendran told reporters while announcing their ministers. The new cabinet would be sworn in tomorrow.

CPI-M names

ministers;

trouble

breaks out

The Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV)-TD taking off from Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh, yesterday.

Reuters

NEW DELHI: India was bracing yes-terday for another bout of extreme heat after temperatures smashed records in some parts of the coun-try, while weather officials warned against more frequent heat waves.

Temperatures in parts of the western region breached 50 Celsius (122°F) last week, causing a spike in cases of people suffering dehydration and heatstroke, and triggering wide-spread power cuts as surging demand overwhelmed supply grids.

Television channels in Gujarat state showed residents struggling to cross a street as their shoes became stuck in what appeared to be the melting surface of a road. May and June are typically India’s hottest months, when temperatures regularly

exceed 40 Celsius in the run-up to the monsoon rains, but the severity of the heat this year has caught many off guard.

“There are usually thunderstorms this time of year, but these rains have not been occurring,” said B.P. Yadav, head of the national weather forecasting centre of the India Mete-orological Department.

“Hot winds have been blowing in from Afghanistan and Pakistan, lead-ing to these extreme temperatures.”

The mercury hit a record 51 degrees Celsius last week in Pha-lodi, a city in the western desert state of Rajasthan, beating a previous national high of 50.6 degrees in 1956.

The heat should ease with the arrival of clouds and light showers this week, Yadav said, but his office forecast a return to elevated temper-atures in late May or early June.

Possible reasons for the

rising temperatures ranged from global warming to greater urbani-sation, leading to taller buildings and increased pollution, Yadav added.

The heat wave has struck as India grapples with a major drought, wors-ening water shortages that have hit an estimated 330 million people.

“We are praying to the gods for an early monsoon so that people get some relief, as the heat has taken a toll on our bodies,” said Neeraj Kumar, a resident of the northern industrial city of Kanpur.

“We are not even able to do our daily chores properly.”

The number of heat waves had nearly doubled in the 10 years to 2010 from earlier decades, the meteoro-logical office said.

The number in the last six years had also risen from prior to the year 2000, but identifying clear trends requires more data.

Parts of country brace for more heat

after temperatures break records

Vendors sell bottles of drinking water to passengers at a bus stop on a hot day in Allahabad yesterday.

Asiatic lion ‘Ambar’ inside an open enclosure at the Kamla Nehru Zoological Garden in Ahmedabad.

The sleek 1.7-tonne RLV was latched on top of a 15-tonne rocket with a booster for lift-off from the spaceport here in Andhra Pradesh off the Bay of Bengal coast.

EUROPE / UK16 TUESDAY 24 MAY 2016

Reuters

EASTLEIGH, ENGLAND: Leaving the European Union would be economic self-destruction for Britain, shatter-ing stability, Prime Minister David Cameron said yesterday , presenting a finance ministry report warning of recession, a tumble in the pound, and half a million job losses.

Cameron and finance minister George Osborne, who are campaign-ing for Britain to stay in the EU in the June 23 referendum, have warned that households would be hurt by a fall in the value of their homes and face costlier foreign holidays if they voted “Out”.

“It would be a DIY recession,” Cam-eron said in a speech at the offices of the B&Q retail chain, a popular centre for do-it-yourself home improvement, in Eastleigh in southern England.

Speaking a month before the vote, Cameron said that leaving the EU

would jeopardise Britain’s recovery from the economic damage caused by the world financial crisis.

“It would be like surviving a fall and then running straight back to

the cliff edge. It is the self-destruct option,” Cameron said.

Recent opinion polls have shown voters are leaning towards an “In” decision on June 23, but pollsters say

the outcome remains too close to call. Betting odds indicate 80-85 percent probability of an “In” vote.

Some polls have also shown the economy growing in importance as

an issue for voters, something the “Out” campaign has sought to coun-ter by stressing that only leaving the EU can slow high levels of migration and avoid future economic stagnation.

A new analysis of short-term risks from the referendum published by the finance ministry yesterday said the economy could be as much as 6 per-cent smaller two years after a Brexit vote than if it the country decides to stay in the EU. Osborne said Britain would lose at least half a million jobs within two years of a vote to leave and a fall in the value of the pound of between 12 and 15 percent would push up inflation sharply.

The campaign backing a British EU exit said the Treasury had consistently produced flawed reports and the latest analysis was biased as it provided noth-ing on the upside of leaving the bloc, nor on the potential negatives caused by a crisis in the euro zone.

“What they’ve done is they assumed a disaster and then spelled out the details,” Nigel Lawson, a finance minister under the late Con-servative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s, told BBC TV.

“They’ve done this in order to scare the pants off the British people because they can’t find anything posi-tive to say about the European Union.”

Osborne defended the credibility of the report, saying it had been reviewed by Charlie Bean, a former deputy gov-ernor of the Bank of England.

London metro

to run all night

at weekends

Reuters

LONDON: Trains will run all night at the weekend from August 19 on two lines of the London Under-ground metro network in what new Mayor Sadiq Khan (pictured) said yesterday would be a boost to the British capital’s night-time economy.

Plans to introduce all-night services on the Tube, as Lon-doners call the Underground, were one of the main causes of a long-running dispute between the management and the RMT rail workers’ union that involved several strikes.

“The Night Tube is absolutely vital to my plans to support and grow London’s night-time econ-omy, creating more jobs and opportunities for all London-ers,” Khan, who was elected mayor earlier this month, said in a statement.

The RMT said there were still unresolved issues concerning the Tube’s engineers and it urged man-agement to move quickly to reach a settlement with that group of workers that did not leave them disadvantaged on conditions and pensions.

“All parties have to be clear that Night Tube, a development that RMT supports, cannot be delivered on the cheap,” the RMT’s General Secretary Mick Cash said in a statement.

The 24-hour weekend serv-ices will start on the Central and Victoria lines, with the Piccadilly, Jubilee and Northern lines to fol-low in the autumn.

The statement from Khan’s office said hundreds of thou-sands of late-night revellers and shift workers would benefit, with journeys cut by an average of 20 minutes and some by more than an hour.

Reuters

PARIS: France’s hardline CGT and FO unions launched a 24-hour strike at the Fos-Lavera oil terminals and blockaded a fuel depot in the south-ern port city of Marseille yesterday as they toughened their stance against labour market reforms.

The rolling strikes, which began in March have disrupted fuel supplies in France since Friday with protest-ing workers blockading petrol depots and halting production at refineries.

French oil and gas company Total, which operates five of the eight refineries in France, has started the process of shutting down three —at Normandy, Donges and Feyzin — while its Grandpuits refinery was

running at minimum output.Rival ExxonMobil said the strike

has not affected output at its two refineries but striking workers had blockaded the oil terminal at Fos-sur-Mer in Southern France.

Oil sector workers in the CGT, which is France’s biggest trade union, and at the third biggest FO, said yes-terday they planned to intensify the action until the government with-draws a labour reform law, because they say it will hurt workers.

As part of efforts to force the gov-ernment to withdraw the bill, the union launched a strike at the Fos-Lavera oil terminals yesterday.

“No ship is operating at the instal-lations,” Pascal Galéoté, CGT Secretary General at Marseille port said.

The terminals supply PetroI-neos Lavera, Total’s La Mede and

Exxon’s Fos refineries on the south-ern coast. They also supply Total’s Feyzin; Varo’s Cressier in Switzerland and the MiRO refinery in Karlsruhe, Germany, via pipelines.

A similar prolonged strike at French refineries in 2010 led to a glut of crude in Europe because it could not be delivered, and a spike in refined prod-uct prices due to low output.

The French government has moved to reassure the public that France was not running out of fuel after shortages at hundreds of petrol stations in several regions sparked panic buying.

Finance Minister Michel Sapin accused CGT of holding France hos-tage, saying the government would take the necessary action to end the blockades and restart production at refineries.

AFP

BRUSSELS: Belgian trade unions have called for mass protests today against government’s proposed work reforms as they plan rallies and strikes over the next few months.

The unions claim the rally will draw more than 100,000 people who protested in November 2014 against austerity policies of Prime Minister Charles Michel’s government, which had come to power a month earlier.

However, organisers expect tens of thousands of people to rally in the capital Brussels today morning.

It is designed to pave the way for a mass public services rally and a rail strike on May 31, as well as

general strikes on June 24, Septem-ber 29 and October 7. The FGTB, CSC and CGSLB unions oppose proposed reforms from Employment Minister Kris Peeters allowing employers to impose 45-hour work weeks.

“Everybody will be hurt very much by the abandonment of the 38-hour week, the increased recourse to temporary workers, the absence of coordination, the under-financing of (public services) or pensions,” FGTB official Michel Meyer told Le Soir newspaper.

A month after the mass anti-austerity protest in November 2014, trade unions brought Belgium to a standstill as the biggest general strike in years grounded flights, cut international rail links and shut ports.

Reuters

LONDON: Hollywood actress Ange-lina Jolie is to join the London School of Economics (LSE) as a visiting pro-fessor on a new masters course on women, peace and security, the school announced yesterday.

The LSE said the course, which starts next year, is the first of its kind globally and will be run by the LSE Centre for Women, Peace and Secu-rity which was launched last year by Jolie and Britain’s former foreign sec-retary, William Hague.

“It is vital that we broaden the discussion on how to advance

women’s rights and end impunity for crimes that disproportionately affect women, such as physical violence in conflict,” Jolie, a special envoy for the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), said in a statement issued to the media yesterday.

“I am looking forward to teach-ing and to learning from the students, as well as to sharing my own expe-riences of working alongside governments and the United Nations.”

Hague will also be joining LSE as a visiting professor.

The Oscar-winning actress and Hague have become an unlikely dou-ble-act on campaigning to end sexual violence against women in conflict.

The partnership was sparked

by Jolie’s 2011 directorial debut “In the Land of Blood and Honey” that was set against the backdrop of the 1992-95 Bosnian war in which an estimated 20,000 women were believed to have been raped.

The pair co-founded the Pre-venting Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative in 2012 to rally global action on such crimes, increase the numbers of perpetrators brought to justice and ensure better support for survivors.

They co-hosted the first global conference on the issue in London in 2014.

Hague said the new course would help underpin their work by develop-ing research to help tackle the culture of impunity.

AFP

LONDON: Britain has a “lost genera-tion” with no gardening skills, the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) warned yes-terday, as its sprawling Chelsea Flower Show got under way with an inaugura-tion by Queen Elizabeth II.

“The lost generation are the ones from their mid-twenties to forties,” RHS director-general Sue Biggs was quoted as saying in The Times newspaper.

“For a lot of them, their parents just didn’t teach them gardening and we lost a lot of the skills.”

Fewer than one percent of parents were taught gardening at school, com-pared with 55 percent of grandparents

and 40 percent of children, accord-ing to a survey conducted by the RHS in 2011.

This year’s Chelsea Flower Show in London features a “modern slav-ery garden” by the show’s first black designer, Juliet Sargeant, as well as a garden watered, lit and heated with a mobile phone app and an “acous-tic garden” which plays musical notes to visitors.

A field of some 300,000 knitted red poppies was also unveiled as a tribute to Britain’s war dead, along with interlock-ing portraits of the queen made using 10,000 flowers in purples, pinks and oranges.

One of the most talked-about gardens was the “Harrods Eccen-tric British Garden” that “puts on a

performance with mechanical buzz-ings and whirrings, a tower that erects, box balls that bob up and down and conical bay trees that begin to twirl,” the RHS said.

The RHS is using the Chel-sea Flower Show to promote its “Greening Grey Britain” campaign, warning that too many gardens are being paved over by Britons to make car parking spaces or patios for barbecues.

The number of traditional front gardens that have no vegetation has trebled in the past decade to five mil-lion, the RHS said.

“What happened to our nation of gardeners?” Biggs asked.

Some 160,000 visitors are expected at the Chelsea Flower Show this year.

Brexit: Cameron warns of recession

British Chancellor of Exchequer George Osborne (right) listens as Prime Minister David Cameron delivers a speech on the economic impact of the UK leaving the European Union, at a B&Q Store Support Office in Chandler’s Ford, southern England, yesterday.

Jolie to teach at London School of Economics

Unions dig in heels to disrupt fuel supply in France

Striking workers pile debris to block access to an oil depot near the Total refinery of Donges, western France, yesterday.

Belgian unions call massprotest over work hours

Flower show bemoans gardening ‘lost generation’

Water drops off a floral design garden sculpture at the Chelsea Flower Show in London, yesterday.

Recent opinion polls have shown voters are leaning towards an “In” decision on June 23.

Farmers demonstrate with their cows against the government’s agriculture policy in the centre of Budapest, Hungary, yesterday.

Bovine protest

Rights groups criticised the March migration deal as immoral and against humanitarian law that bans arbitrary, mass deportation of asylum-seekers.

EUROPE 17TUESDAY 24 MAY 2016

Reuters

BRUSSELS/ATHENS: The European Union said yesterday a Syrian asy-lum seeker’s successful appeal against deportation to Turkey proved the bloc’s deal with Ankara to limit migra-tion was legal, while rights groups said the ruling exposed its “funda-mental flaws”.

A Syrian national last week won the second and final appeal to Greece’s asylum committee, which ruled the person would not be safe if returned to Turkey under an accord obliging Ankara to take back refugees

and migrants who use people-smug-gling gangs to reach Greek islands by boat from the nearby Turkish coast.

Should more asylum seekers secure similar decisions, it would undercut the rationale behind the EU pact with Turkey, meant to deter people from risking the sea voyage to Greece by showing they have lit-tle chance of being allowed to stay.

Rights groups criticised the March migration deal as immoral and against humanitarian law that bans arbitrary, mass deportation of asy-lum-seekers and says everyone must have an effective chance to have their requests individually assessed.

Despite that criticism, EU lead-ers—under heavy pressure from grassroots anti-migration sentiment growing across the bloc after some 1.3 million people entered the Euro-pean continent last year— pushed that deal through. Arrivals on the Greek islands near Turkey have since slowed to a trickle.

Margaritis Schinas, spokesman for the executive European Commission, said the successful appeal proved the migration accord did not flout the law. “We made it very clear that all asy-lum applications would be treated on a case-by-case basis.”

“In all cases there are individual

interviews, individual assessment and rights of appeal so there will be no blanket, no automatic return of asy-lum seekers. This is happening,” he said.

Schinas said 51 people who did not apply for asylum in Greece were sent back to Turkey on Friday, raising the total of returns under the March agreement to 441.

He added that Germany took in 103 Syrians directly from Turkey on last Thursday under a provision of the pact obliging EU states to resettle one Syrian for every Syrian sent back. So far 280 Syrians have been brought into the EU under the clause.

Among the most important goals of the pact is to deter migrants from paying human traffickers for boats to take them from Turkey to Greece, as hundreds of thousands did during a mass influx last year.

Greek authorities have not dis-closed details of the appeal. The government’s spokesman for migra-tion, Giorgos Kyritsis, said each case was assessed individually. “A positive or a negative decision does not pre-judge the decision regarding another individual,” he said.

But Amnesty International said it highlighted “fundamental flaws” of the EU’s migration collaboration with Ankara.

“Turkey is not safe for refugees, it does not offer them full protection, and assurances on paper are sim-ply not good enough,” said Gauri van

Gulik, AI’s deputy director for Europe.“Until Turkey ends all violations

against refugees and guarantees them full protection, nobody else should be

sent back under this deal. Instead, Europe should focus on its part of the deal by accepting refugees for reset-tlement from Turkey.”

AFP

ATHENS: Greece this week will “step up” evacuation efforts at the squalid Idomeni border camp, officials said yesterday as police were reportedly gearing up for a major operation.

“The transfer of refugees trapped at Idomeni to hospitality areas prob-ably begins tomorrow (Tuesday),” Yiorgos Kyritsis, the government’s migration spokesman, said.

Former industrial facilities near Thessaloniki will be utilised for the purpose and the operation should be over in ten days, Kyritsis added.

A government source earlier told reporters: “We will carry out a broader transfer operation as we have 6,000 available places in reception centres,” adding that the operation would be gradual and that authorities hoped to avoid the use of force. “There will be a police pres-ence and we will be persuasive, but we do not foresee pervasive use of force to make all these people leave in one go,” the official said, indicat-ing that there are currently 8,400 people at the camp.

Another government source said loudspeakers were already warning camp residents to prepare to leave.

State television ERT yesterday said additional translators were also being dispatched to Idomeni to assist the operation.

Over the past two weeks, some 2,500 people have left Idomeni fol-lowing efforts to persuade them to relocate to more organised camps in the Greek interior, many of them converted former army bases, a police source said.

“In the last two weeks, there has been a ‘mild’ evacuation effort (through persuasion) that has already seen 2,500 people move out... this will continue,” the officer said.

Thousands of migrants flee-ing war, persecution and poverty in the Middle East and Asia have found themselves stranded at Idomeni after Macedonia and other Balkan states denied them passage to northern Europe.

They spent a miserable winter in the freezing rain and mud, with aid groups struggling to keep them fed and healthy, prompting several attempts to force their way across the border.

Last month, some 260 people were injured when Macedonian police fired tear gas in a bid to pre-vent a large group from storming the border.

Doctors at the scene said rub-ber bullets were also used, but the Macedonian authorities denied this.

Local authorities and farmers have been for weeks pressing the leftist government of Prime Min-ister Alexis Tsipras to evacuate the camp, pointing to an alleged rise in petty crime.

The governor of central Macedo-nia region Apostolos Tzitzikostas last week filed a complaint over the issue with judicial authorities, accusing the government of allowing the area to descend into lawlessness.

The government was also crit-icised as the camp’s sprawling size had effectively put of action Greece’s main commercial rail link through Macedonia, forcing companies to reroute their goods via neighbour-ing Bulgaria at higher cost.

Reuters

VIENNA: Austria has elected a 72-year-old former leader of the Greens party to be its next president, narrowly avoiding becoming the first country in the European Union to vote in a far-right candidate as head of state.

After an election on Sunday that was too close to call, Austrian offi-cials spent most of yesterday counting hundreds of thousands of postal ballots which ended up vaulting Alex-ander van der Bellen past Freedom

Party rival Norbert Hofer and into the ceremonial post of president.

The Interior Ministry gave van der Bellen 50.3 percent of the vote, compared to 49.7 percent for Hofer, who had run on an anti-immigration platform. Hofer conceded defeat in a post on his Facebook page, thanking his supporters and telling them not to be despondent. “Of course I am sad today,” he said. “I would have liked to take care of our wonderful coun-try for you as president.”

Hofer’s defeat averts an embar-rassing setback for Europe’s political establishment, which is increasingly

under threat from populist parties that have profited from concerns about the region’s refugee crisis and years of weak growth and high unemployment.

“It’s a relief to see the Austrians reject populism and extremism,” French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said in a Twitter post. “Everyone in Europe must draw lessons from this.”

Austria is a relatively prosper-ous country, but it has been at the centre of a record influx of migrants from the Middle East, fanning public resentment towards the two centrist parties - the Social Democrats (SPO)

and the conservative People’s Party - that have dominated politics since the end of World War II.

Sunday’s provisional result, which did not include the postal ballots, showed Hofer ahead with 51.9 per-cent to van der Bellen’s 48.1 percent.

But the SORA institute, a poll-ster, had said that mail-in ballots were likely to favour van der Bellen because they are traditionally used by more educated voters. The institute’s election-day polling showed 81 per-cent of voters with a university degree had backed van der Bellen and 86 percent of workers voted for Hofer.

World’s longest

railway tunnel

a boon for

Europe: Official

AFP

GENEVA: The new Gotthard Base Tunnel (GBT), set to become the world’s longest railway tunnel when it opens on June 1, is a boon for Europe”, EU transport com-missioner Violeta Bulc told Swiss media yesterday.

The 57-km tunnel, which runs under the Alps, was first conceived in sketch-form in 1947 but con-struction began 17 years ago.

Since then, some 28.2 million tonnes of mountain rock have been excavated and an estimated $12 bn (€10.6bn) spent to construct a tun-nel that should trim travel times through the heart of Europe.

The GBT “will be a vital link connecting Rotterdam (and) Antwerp with the ports of the Adriatic,” Bulc said. It will make north-south travel more fluid, curb air pollution and “will be a driver of growth in Europe,” he said.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Fran-cois Hollande and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, along with Swiss officials, are due to attend the grand opening next week.

A series of test runs are sched-uled for the coming months, with full service starting in December.

Among other benefits, the GBT aims to save travel time between Zurich and Milan down to two hours and forty minutes, roughly an hour quicker than the trip cur-rently takes by rail.

The GBT will displace Japan’s 53.9-km Seikan tunnel as the world’s longest train tunnel, and bump the 50.5-km Channel Tun-nel that links England and France into third place. Austria’s delayed Brenner Tunnel could however slot into second place when it opens in about a decade at an estimated length of 55km.

AFP

BRUSSELS: The EU said yester-day it was in “ongoing” talks with Poland’s rightwing government to try to reverse an overhaul of the top Polish court that critics say endan-ger its independence.

The European Commission had set yesterday’s deadline for War-saw to make “significant progress” on rolling back legislation that has paralysed the constitutional court or face unspecified EU action. But there was no sign such action was imminent.

“Talks are ongoing with a view to still finding a solution,” a Commis-sion spokesperson said.

Commission vice president Frans

Timmermans has been empowered to adopt an “opinion” on the state of the rule of law if Warsaw fails to make progress.

Although it would be an unprece-dented step, issuing opinion would be just one aspect of a long and drawn-out procedure which could eventually see Warsaw having its voting rights suspended in European council of ministers.

However, Poland’s regional ally Hungary is likely to torpedo any pos-sible sanctions, which would require the unanimous approval of all 28 EU members. Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party plunged the country into political crisis in December when it pushed through legislation that has paralysed the constitutional court by modifying its decision-making rules.

AFP

NICOSIA: Cypriots disaffected by three years of economic downturn have protested at the polls, stay-ing away in droves and electing two far-right lawmakers in an echo of the populist wave sweeping Europe.

Final results released yesterday showed that 3.7 percent of voters backed the National Popular Front (ELAM), a party which defends the Athens-inspired coup of 1974 that triggered a Turkish invasion that has left the island divided to this day.

Turnout in Sunday’s election was a record low of 67 percent on an island where voting is in theory compulsory.

The rightwing Democratic Rally (DISY) of President Nicos Anastasi-ades, who negotiated a 2013 bailout for the island with international

creditors, took 30 percent of the vote and 18 seats in the 56-seat parlia-ment, down two on the last election in 2011.

The main opposition communist party AKEL fared worse, taking just 25 percent of the vote and 16 seats, a loss of three, as a protest vote hit both the major parties.

An unprecedented eight parties won seats in the new parliament, mak-ing it potentially the most fractious ever and posing a major challenge for the president in pushing through unpopu-lar reforms promised to lenders.

The centre-right Democratic Party (DIKO), which gave key back-ing to Anastasiades on the reforms demanded by the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund, won an unchanged nine seats.

The right-wing Solidarity Move-ment (KA) took three.

The Movement for Social

Democracy (EDEK), the leftwing pop-ulist Citizens Alliance (SYPOL) and the Ecological and Environmental Alliance (KOP) all also won seats. Half of the new members of the House of Representatives are first-time law-makers, and the number of women MPs has jumped from four to 11.

The president had issued a poll-ing day plea for voters to turn out, insisting the economic austerity of three years had been worth it to res-cue the island’s economy. “I believe that the decision of much of the elec-torate abstaining from the elections should trouble everyone,” he said.

His party leader Averof Neo-phytou was more upbeat. “We are the only governing party in Europe that introduced the toughest bailout programme and we are still the first party,” he said, while also acknowl-edging that politicians needed “to win back the trust of the voters”.

EU claims deal legal; cites asylum seeker’s appeal

(FROM LEFT): Polish Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski, Slovak Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajcak, and Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto at the EU Foreign Affairs Council meeting in Brussels, yesterday.

Far-right candidate loses Austrian presidential voteGreece to step up Idomeni

border camp evacuation

Cyprus far right enters parliament EU and Poland in talks

to settle top court row

A Greater Los Angeles County Vector Control District worker searches for mosquitoes in a backyard in Los Angeles, California, where increasing numbers of mosquitoes have tested positive for West Nile virus.

Mosquito menace

AMERICAS18 TUESDAY 24 MAY 2016

The Democratic Party is about running around to rich people’s homes and raising obscene sums of money from wealthy people, the Vermont Senator said.

Reuters

WASHINGTON: Democratic pres-idential candidate Bernie Sanders cranked up his fight with party leaders, backing a challenger to the Democratic National Committee’s chairwoman and accusing the party’s establishment of trying to anoint Hil-lary Clinton as nominee for president.

In a series of television

interviews, Sanders remained defi-ant despite what he acknowledged was an uphill fight to overtake front-runner Clinton. Clinton has said she already considers herself the de facto nominee and is increasingly turning her attention to Donald Trump, say-ing that the rhetoric of presumptive Republican nominee was dangerous.

Sanders told ABC’s This Week programme that Americans should not have to choose between “the lesser of two evils” in the Novem-ber 8 election.

Sanders said that if he won the White House, he would not reappoint US Representative Debbie Wasser-man Schultz as DNC chairwoman. He also endorsed law professor Tim Canova, who is challenging the Flor-ida congresswoman in the August Democratic primary.

“Do I think she is the kind of chair that the Democratic Party needs? No, I don’t,” Sanders told CBS’ Face the Nation.

“Frankly, what the Democratic Party is about is running around to rich people’s homes and rais-ing obscene sums of money from

Hillary email probe

in final stages

AP

WASHINGTON: FBI agents prob-ing whether Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server imperiled government secrets appear close to completing their work, a process experts say will probably culminate in a sit-down with her. the former sec-retary of state.

The FBI has already spoken with Huma Abedin, a Clinton confidant who was among the Democratic presidential front runner’s closest aides at the State Department. Former chief of staff Cheryl D Mills is also cooperating with the investigation, according to her lawyer.

That signals that agents will prob-ably seek to interview Clinton soon, if they haven’t already, former Jus-tice Department officials said. The FBI’s standard practice is to save questioning the person at centre of an investigation for last, once it has gathered available facts from others.

“With a person like Clinton, the FBI probably assumes they are going to get one chance to interview her, not only because she is a prominent person but because she is busy with presidential campaign,” said David Deitch, a former Justice Department prosecutor. “It makes sense they would defer interviewing her until late in their investigation.”

On CBS’s “Face the Nation” , Clin-ton said the FBI had not yet reached out to her, but she was “more than ready to talk to anybody, anytime.”

“I hope that this is close to being wrapped up,” she said.

wealthy people. What we need to do is to say to working-class people - we are on your side,” he said.

The defiant tone by Sanders, a US. Senator from Vermont, has worried some Democrats anxious to see Clin-ton begin to unify the party and turn her attention to an election showdown with Trump.

Clinton painted Trump as a risk of the sort voters had not seen before in an interview.

“I do not want Americans, and, you know, good-thinking Republicans, as

well as Democrats and independents, to start to believe that this is a normal candidacy,” she said. “It isn’t.”

Trump has gained ground in opin-ion polls as Republicans begin to rally around his candidacy. A Washington Post-ABC News showed Trump with a 2-point lead over Clinton, within the margin of error. In early March, Clinton led Trump by 9 points in the same poll.

But Sanders has ignored growing Democratic calls to step aside and repeated his vow to stay in the race

until the party’s July 25-28 nominat-ing convention in Philadelphia despite Clinton’s nearly insurmountable lead in pledged convention delegates who will choose the nominee.

He said he wanted to do away with superdelegates—party leaders who are free to support any candidate. Their rush to back Clinton even before votes had been cast amounted to “an anoint-ment process,” Sanders said.

He promised to influence party platform and party rules even if he was not the nominee.

Reuters

BOGOTA: Colombian military and police forces are searching for a Spanish journalist who disappeared while reporting a story in Norte de Santander province, the Defence Min-istry said in a statement.

Military sources and local media feared Salud Hernandez (pictured), 59, who has worked in the country for almost two decades, could be in the custody of Marxist rebels operat ing in the area but the Colombian government would not say whether the case was a

kidnapping and called it a “pos-sible disappearance.”

Hernandez, a journal ist with Spain’s El Mundo and local

newspapers, was last seen on Sat-urday in the town of El Tarra in the northeastern province, along the bor-der with Venezuela, the ministry said in a statement.

“I order priority and dedication from the armed forces in estab-lishing where the journalist Salud Hernandez is,” President Juan Manuel Santos said from his Twit-ter account yesterday.

Hernandez reportedly was work-ing on a story on illegal drugs and had been in the area for about 20 days. She is known for opinion columns highly critical of Colombia’s insur-gent groups.

Both the Revolutionary Armed

Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN) have presences in Norte de Santander. The ELN has continued taking people hostage even while it seeks to begin peace talks with the government.

The armed forces and the police are working with local authorities and intelligence officials to find Hernandez, the Defense Ministry the statement said.

The country has been in peace talks with bigger rebel group the FARC since the end of 2012 and recently agreed to start negotiations with the ELN.

Santos has said no talks will begin

until all ELN hostages are freed.The 2,000-strong ELN has

increased oil pipeline bombings in recent months and continued kid-nappings in what many see as an attempt to pressure the government into beginning talks.

Inspired by Cuba’s 1959 revo-lution, the ELN has battled a dozen Colombian governments since it was founded by radical Catholic priests in 1964.

While many Colombians are suspicious of peace talks with both groups, they are tired of the violence that has killed more than 220,000 people and displaced millions over more than half a century.

Five dead and

one kidnapped

in Mexico

AFP

VERACRUZ: Gunmen in Mexico’s Veracruz state shot dead four men hours after police killed an alleged criminal elsewhere in the region and another man was kidnapped at church, authorities said.

Three armed men stormed into a nightclub called in the regional capital Xalapa early yesterday, shooting four victims at a table inside. “Four elderly men were killed,” the state government said. Several more were injured, an offi-cial said. Local media reported that the attack injured 12 people.

Xalapa, a city of 525,000 res-idents, lies 290km east of Mexico City near the Gulf of Mexico.

A group of armed and masked men entered a church in the port of Veracruz, west of Xalapa, dur-ing a religious ceremony and dragged away a man before flee-ing in two vehicles. The church was packed with families gathered for the confirmation of several chil-dren, including the daughter of the kidnapped man, whom officials named as Agustin Urena Estrada.

Security forces are working to find him, Veracruz Governor Javier Duarte tweeted.

Authorities believe he belongs to an organised criminal group and is nicknamed El Chango, security officials said.

Moreover, yesterday morning, police killed another member of an organised criminal group dur-ing a clash in a hotel in the city of Orizaba, south of Xalapa, the Veracruz government said in a separate statement.

Reuters

WASHINGTON: The US Supreme Court yesterday effectively over-turned a black man’s 1987 conviction for murdering a white woman, rebuking Georgia prosecutors for unlawfully excluding black poten-tial jurors in picking an all-white jury that condemned him to death.

The 7-1 ruling handed a major victory to Timothy Foster, who is 48 now and was 18 at the time of the 1986 killing of Queen Madge White, a 79-year-old retired schoolteacher, in Rome, Georgia. Prosecutors, how-ever, still could seek a new trial.

Black convicts make up a dis-proportionately high percentage of death row inmates in the United States. Opponents of capital pun-ishment assert that the American criminal justice system discrimi-nates against black defendants.

During jury selection, all four black members of the pool of potential jurors were “struck” by prosecutors, meaning they were removed from consideration. Prosecutors gave reasons not related to race for their decisions to exclude them.

Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote the ruling, said prosecution notes introduced into evidence that shed light on the jury selection “plainly belie the state’s claim that it exercised its strikes in a ‘color blind’ manner. The sheer number of refer-ences to race in that file is arresting.”

The notes showed that prosecu-tion marked the names of the black prospective jurors with a “B,” high-lighted them in green and circled the

word “black” next to the race ques-tion on juror questionnaires.

The prosecution gave reasons for excluding potential black jurors including that they “did not make enough eye contact” during ques-tioning and were “bewildered,” “hostile,” “defensive,” “nervous” and “impudent.”

Roberts said prosecutors “were motivated in substantial part by race” when two of the potential jurors were excluded. Two such strikes based on race “are two more than the Constitution allows,” Rob-erts added.

The Supreme Court ruled in 1986, the same year as this murder, that it is unconstitutional to take race into account when excluding poten-tial jurors.

Prosecutors said Foster broke into the elderly woman’s home in the middle of the night, broke White’s jaw, beat and strangled her, and stole items from her house. Foster later confessed to killing White.

At the time of trial, Foster’s argu-ments regarding jury selection failed. But in 2006 his lawyers obtained access to prosecution’s jury selec-tion notes, which showed the race of the black potential jurors was highlighted, indicating “an explicit reliance on race,” according to Fos-ter’s attorneys.

According to court documents, the lead prosecutor said of his exclu-sion of potential black jurors: “All I have to do is have a race-neutral rea-son, and all of these reasons that I have given the court are racially neutral.” Foster’s lawyer, Stephen Bright said the legal challenge would not have suc-ceeded without the notes.

AFP

CARTAGENA, COLOMBIA: The ashes of Nobel literature laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez were laid to rest in Cartagena, the jewel of colonial architecture on Colombia’s Caribbean coast, following a tribute to the author. “There is joy mingled with sadness,” his 85-year-old sister Rosa Aida Garcia Marquez, one of the author’s ten siblings, told reporters.

His ashes will be kept in a former convent near the home where he liked to stay.

Huge yellow butterflies, a symbol of magical realism—the genre Garcia Marquez helped make famous—graced the cloister’s trees for the ceremony, which was attended by his widow and some 400 guests, most dressed in white.

“It’s an honour for the city of Cartagena to host such an event,” Gonzalo Garcia Barcha, a son of the celebrated Colombian writer, said.

Garcia Marquez, author of One Hundred Years of Solitude, died at 87 on April 17, 2014 in Mexico, where he lived with his wife Mercedes Barcha.

“The family is here,” Garcia Bar-cha said; relatives had arrived in

recent days from France and the United States. Edgar Parra Chacon, president of the University of Carta-gena, to which the cloister is attached, expressed what he said was a “great honour to receive ‘Gabo,’” the affec-tionate nickname given to the writer.

The Claustro de la Merced, or Cloister of Mercy, is about 100 meters from the family’s seafront home.

Garcia Marquez’s two sons, Gar-cia Barcha, a designer who lives in Paris, and Rodrigo Garcia Barcha, a US-based filmmaker, unveiled a bronze bust of the author by British sculptor Katie Murray, which stands in the courtyard.

The family placed the ashes inside stonework under the bust earlier dur-ing a private ceremony.

Only a portion of Garcia Mar-quez’s ashes are being held in Cartagena, however. The rest will remain in Mexico, where he lived since the 1980s.

President Juan Manuel Santos, who once saluted Garcia Marquez as “the greatest Colombian of all times,” was absent from the funeral, despite being on the invitation list.

Garcia Marquez earned wide-spread admiration for his fervent defence of the rights of victims of Latin American dictatorships.

Colombian authorities search for missing Spanish journalist

Sanders steps up feud with party leaders

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders shakes hands with a supporter after a campaign rally in Irvine, California, early yesterday.

US top court rules for black death row inmate

Garcia Marquez’s ashes laid to rest in Cartagena

AMERICAS 17TUESDAY 24 MAY 2016

Father Emir H H Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani witnessed last evening the arrival of Fath Al Kheir 2 at Katara Cultural village beach. The event was also attended by H H Sheikh Jassem bin Hamad Al Thani, Representative of the Emir. Pic: Qassim/The Peninsula → See also page 26

Ayyayayayayayayyyy

People look at footprints as shoes of relatives of missing people with messages printed on their soles hang from the roof of the “Casa de la Memoria Indomita” museum during the opening of the “Huellas de La Memoria” (Memory Tracks) exhibition in Mexico City.

Missing souls

19

AFP

BRASÍLIA: Brazil’s interim govern-ment was rocked yesterday by a new corruption scandal in which a key minister allegedly discusses using impeachment of president Dilma Rousseff to halt a massive probe into embezzlement.

Folha newspaper published what it said were excerpts of secretly taped conversations in March between Plan-ning Minister Romero Juca and Sergio Machado, an ex-president of Trans-petro oil company, both of whom

have been caught up in the corrup-tion probe.

In the conversations, Juca allegedly calls for a “national pact” to stop the probe, known as Operation Car Wash, in which dozens of top ranking poli-ticians and business executives have been charged or already convicted for participation in a giant bribery and embezzlement scheme centered on state oil company Petrobras.

Transcripts of the conversations show him urging impeachment of Rousseff, saying “we need to change the government to stop this bleeding.”

In comments immediately taken up by Rousseff supporters as evidence for her claim that the impeachment proc-ess is a coup in disguise, Juca says: “I am talking to the generals, the military commanders. They are fine with this, they said they will guarantee it.”

According to transcripts, he also says that he has been clearing his plans with justices on the Supreme Court, which oversees impeachment proceedings.

Ricardo Berzoini, a former Rous-seff minister, said the revelations “show the true reason for the coup against democracy and against Dilma Rousseff’s legitimate mandate.”

“The object was to halt Car Wash and push the investigations under the carpet,” he said in a post on the sus-pended president’s Facebook page.

The senior member of Rousseff’s Workers’ Party in the lower house of Congress, Afonso Florence, claimed the scandal could “lead to the cancel-lation” of the impeachment process.

But Juca—a key figure in the new cabinet set up by acting President Michel Temer after the suspension May 12 of Rousseff—denied that his comments referred to halting Oper-ation Car Wash.

He did not deny the authenticity of the recording but said his comments had been in reference to stopping the “bleeding” of Brazil’s recession-struck economy. In a hastily called press conference, Juca said he backed the Car Wash probe and said that Folha had taken “isolated phrases” out of context. “I consider Car Wash as bringing positive change to Brazil-ian politics,” he said.

“There is nothing wrong in being investigated—there’s something wrong in being convicted,” he said. “I have never done anything that could complicate an investigation.”

The report meant fresh scandal for Temer, who took power 10 days ago after the Senate voted to suspend Rousseff for six months pending her impeachment trial on charges of breaking government accounting rules. Temer, a vice president who had already broken ranks and turned

Reuters

TORONTO: Authorities in Canada have announced the reopening of eight shuttered work camps south of the wildfire-ravaged oil town of Fort McMurray, paving the way for energy firms to restart production. Municipal authorities announced early yester-day morning a “phased re-entry” for camps near Nexen’s Long Lake and ConocoPhillips’s Surmont facilities, both of which have stopped produc-tion due to the fire.

“Assessment work to return ...

camps to operations may begin immediately,” the Regional Munic-ipality of Wood Buffalo, which oversees Fort McMurray, said in a statement.

The municipality is also reo-pening camps near Enbridge Inc’s Cheecham terminal, which the com-pany has said was returning to full service.

It is not immediately clear when any of the oil facilities themselves will be fully operational. A ConocoPhil-lips spokesman said the company does not yet have a timeline. Nexen and Enbridge did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The inferno in northern Alberta, which by Sunday evening was more than 500,000 hectares, has caused the evacuation of Fort McMurray’s entire population of nearly 90,000 since it began early this month.

It also caused the evacuation of oil facilities and work camps around the city and triggered a prolonged shutdown that has cut Canadian oil output by a million barrels a day.

Producers have since signaled a gradual increase in operations as rain and cold weather helped firefighters beat back the flames.

The announced re-opening of the work camps came two days after

the municipality lifted the evacu-ation orders on Suncor Energy Inc and Syncrude oil sites and some nearby work camps north of Fort McMurray.

It is unclear when either will resume full production, though Sun-cor has said a limited number of staff will be back at some of its sites on Monday at the earliest and that all will return “in a phased manner over the next few weeks”.

Some of the evacuees from Fort McMurray may be allowed to return as soon as June 1, if air quality improves and other safety condi-tions are met.

Reuters

BALTIMORE: Baltimore police officer Edward Nero (pictured) was acquitted yesterday of all charges in the 2015 death of black detainee Freddie Gray, an incident that trig-gered rioting and protests and fueled the Black Lives Matter movement.

Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Barry Williams, who heard the case in a bench trial, issued the verdict before a packed courtroom. Nero, 30, had faced misdemeanor charges of second-degree assault, reckless endangerment and two counts of misconduct in office.

There were no initial signs of rioting after the verdict but a group of protesters chased members of Nero’s family into a parking garage, yelling, “No justice, no peace.”

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake issued a statement urging calm and said Nero would face an administra-tive review by the police department.

“In the case of any disturbance in the city, we are prepared to respond,” she said.

Nero had been charged with arresting Gray, 25, without justifi-cation in April 2015 and failing to secure him in a police van, where he suffered a fatal spine injury.

Williams said prosecutors had failed to prove their case. During a 25-reading of his decision, he said that Nero acted as a “similarly situ-ated” officer would.

He said Nero’s partner, Garrett Miller, had testified that Nero had not handcuffed Gray.

Gray’s death a week after his arrest sparked a day of riot-ing in which nearly 400 buildings were damaged or destroyed in the

majority black city of 620,000 peo-ple. The case helped stoke the Black Lives Matter movement and national debate over policing in minority communities.

Nero was among six officers charged in Gray’s death and the sec-ond to go to trial. The trial of the first officer to be tried, William Porter, ended in a hung jury in December.

Nero’s lawyers had argued that Gray’s arrest was justified and that the officer had little to do with it. He never touched Gray except when he tried to help him find an asthma inhaler and helped lift him into the van once he was shackled, they said.

The hashtag #FreddieGray began trending on Twitter in the United States after news of Nero’s acquittal and some black activists on Twit-ter expressed their disappointment.

“#FreddieGray should be alive today,” wrote DeRay Mckesson, a key figure in the Black Lives Mat-ter movement who unsuccessfully ran for mayor of Baltimore in April.

“With yet another clearance of an officer in the death of #FreddieG-ray - the justice system completely fails us,” tweeted Shaun King, a col-umnist for the New York Daily News.

Police fatally

shoot alleged

Florida car

burglar

AP

HALLANDALE, FLORIDA: A police officer fatally shot a man who was trying to flee from authorities who were investigat-ing reports of car burglaries in the South Florida community of Hal-landale Beach, authorities said yesterday.

Police were called after reports of possible car break-ins and a sus-picious person looking into cars in a residential neighbourhood filled with condos. Police found two men sitting in a car. Major Sonia Qui-nones, a police spokeswoman, says the driver, 27-year-old Michael Eugene Wilson, attempted to speed away and the officer fired at least one round. Wilson later was pro-nounced dead at the hospital.

Quinones said the officer feared for his life and was forced to fire his weapon. The Sun Senti-nel reports that Wilson’s car had several bullet holes in the driver’s door and that spray-painted mark-ings on the street indicated at least eight shots were fired.

The second suspect, 23-year-old Tyler Shuman, jumped out of the car, but was caught hours later after a manhunt involving several police agencies and a helicopter.

Police said Wilson was black and the officer involved in shoot-ing, Corey Clark, also is black. Clark will be placed on admin-istrative leave with pay while the investigation continues.

According to court records, Wilson had an extensive crimi-nal history including grand theft and aggravated assault. Shuman is in custody and faces criminal charges. Police said they found evidence of several car break-ins.

Reuters

LIMA: Peruvian presidential con-tender Keiko Fujimori widened her lead over rival Pedro Pablo Kuczyn-ski in an Ipsos poll, despite a scandal involving Fujimori’s top aide.

Fujimori was seen winning 52.6 percent of valid votes in the June 5 run-off election compared to Kuc-zynski’s 47.4 percent, according to the results of a mock voting exercise by Ipsos broadcast on local television show Cuarto Poder.

The poll was conducted May 19 and 20, a few days after Univision and Cuarto Poder reported that the secretary general of Fujimori’s center-right party, Joaquin Ramirez, was under investigation by the US Drug

Enforcement Administration (DEA).A man identified as a DEA inform-

ant in the report said he had recorded audio of Ramirez affirming that Rami-rez laundered $15m for Fujimori in 2011.

“One would have thought that as a consequence...there would be a spike in mistrust of Keiko Fujimori. That didn’t happen,” Alfredo Torres, the head of Ipsos in Peru, said.

Fujimori, the 40-year-old daugh-ter of imprisoned ex-president Alberto Fujimori, has denied any wrongdoing and portrayed herself as the victim of a smear campaign.

Ramirez, who has also denied wrongdoing, offered his resignation letter to keep the scandal from hurt-ing her campaign.

The results of the Ipsos survey, which showed Fujimori climbed 2.4 points in a week, were broadcast just

before a presidential debate in which she confidently attacked Kuczynski as “elitist” and uncommitted to helping the country’s poor.

Kuczynski, a 77-year-old former World Bank economist, narrowly moved onto the second-round election after coming in second to Fujimori ahead of a leftist rival.

“Kuczynski’s plan is made for defending the interests of big busi-nessmen,” Fujimori said in her closing comments in the televised debate. “His vision...belongs to the transna-tional corporation.”

Kuczynski, who tends to shy away from direct confrontation, pointed to widespread corruption in the 1990-2000 government of Fujimori’s father and urged Peruvians to vote for a candidate without any links to drug trafficking.

A newspaper published ‘secretly tapped conversations’ between Planning Minister Romero Juca and an ex-official of an oil company, both of whom have been caught up in corruption probe

Corruption scandal rocks Brazil’s interim govt

Members of the group Movement of Workers Without Shelter protest against the interim of government Brazilian President Michel Temer, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, yesterday.

rival, automatically took over.In his first reaction, Temer told a

columnist at O Globo newspaper that Juca “has a right to defend himself.”

The Petrobras probe has seen pros-ecutors go after many of Brazil’s most powerful figures. Rousseff herself is

suspected of obstruction of justice, although she has not been accused of corruption for personal gain.

Temer has promised a fresh start for Brazil after growing economic and political paralysis under Rouss-eff. However, he has suffered a series

of setbacks including an uproar over his naming of a cabinet composed entirely of white men. He has rowed back on an initial decision to axe culture ministry, reinstating the post after an outcry from several of Bra-zil’s best known actors and singers.

Eight shuttered work camps reopen in Canada Baltimore cop acquitted

in Freddie Gray’s death

Peru’s Fujimori widens lead over Kuczynski despite scandal

Peruvian presidential candidates Pedro Pablo Kuczynski (left) of “Peruanos por el Kambio” and Keiko Fujimori of Fuerza Popular shake hands after a televised nation-wide debate in the northern city of Piura.

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Seven-year-old Chantal (left) and five-year-old Sarah (right) have medical student Paula Tannert (centre) examine their stuffed animals at the teddy bear clinic of the university hospital in Halle/Saale, Germany, yesterday. The project is aimed at helping children aged 3 to 8 overcome their fear of visiting physicians by allowing them to see a consultation from a doctor’s perspective.

Teddy clinic

Former Yugoslavia’s iconic

film star Zivojinovic is dead

AP

B E L G R A D E : Velimir Bata Zivo-jinovic (pictured), former Yugoslavia’s best known film star who was also popular in China, has died, Serbian state television reported yester-day. He was 82.

Zivojinovic died late on Sunday in a Belgrade hospital, according to state TV. He was suffering from several chronic conditions and recently had a leg amputated.

Top Serbian officials expressed condolences over Zivojinovic’s death, describing the famous actor as a “legend.” President Tomislav Nikolic said it was “unthinkable that titans such as Bata, are mortal after all.” The news of Zivojinovic’s death also resonated in other former Yugoslav republics that were part of the Communist-run multi-ethnic federation, but are now independent states.

Zivojinovic is said to have played the biggest number of film roles in the ex-federation, mostly portraying partisan fighters battling the German Nazi occupation during World War II.

His most famous movie, “Walter Defends Sarajevo,” made Zivojinovic a star in China. The 1972 film about partisan resistance in the city was one of few foreign films shown in China at the time, offering a glimpse into the outside world.

Iconic “Walter” was seen by hundreds of millions of people in China, turning Zivojinovic into a nation-wide star. Each time Zivojinovic visited the country, fans turned out in large numbers to greet him.

Zivojinovic also appeared in Chinese commercials and on posters and was offered Chinese citizenship. Years later, when Chinese investors started building a bridge over the Danube in Belgrade, Zivojinovic was greeted with joy as he went to see the Chinese work-ers at the site.

Reuters

LOS ANGELES: From Walt Disney’s hand-signed Mickey Mouse doll to his animator’s desk and chairs, a trove of the late animation entrepreneur’s memorabilia will go up for auction next month and offers a glimpse into the origins of the “mouse house.”

The “Collecting Disney” auction, held by Van Eaton Galleries on June 18 in Los Angeles, will offer more than 700 lots from the Disney archives, expected to fetch between $2m and

$3m. Among the items on sale, which are coming from the collections of private owners, is one of the first dolls ever made of the anthropomorphic Mickey Mouse, one foot signed by Dis-ney and given as a gift to a woman, estimated to fetch between $50,000 and $70,000, said gallery owner Mike Van Eaton.

“This particular doll was given to woman that he drove an ambulance with in 1917 in World War One. A life-long friend of his, he gave her one of his most cherished possessions and he signed it on the bottom in French ded-icated to her,” Van Eaton said.

A set of furniture from Disney’s office, designed by Kem Weber, is estimated to fetch between $60,000 and $80,000, while an original score of the first ever song written about Mickey Mouse is expected to fetch between $15,000 and $20,000.

Disney co-founded an animation studio in 1923, which eventually grew into a feature film production studio with films such as “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” “Bambi” and “Cin-derella.” He died in 1966 aged 65.

The Walt Disney Company is now one of Hollywood’s top players, producing live action and animated

feature fare. The auction is centered on the history of the Disney stu-dio, Van Eaton said. The items will be exhibited ahead of the sale from tomorrow through June 17 at the Van Eaton Galleries. “It wasn’t the films that made the studio so much, it was the merchandise, the marketing of the characters that really made Dis-ney what it is today and that’s what we’re trying to show in this auction,” Van Eaton said.

Other highlights from the sale include early original draw-ings of the first two Mickey Mouse cartoons.

Disney’s memorabilia up for auction

The Washington Post

LAS VEGAS: R&B star the Weeknd was the big winner at the Billboard Music Awards on Sunday night, taking home eight awards out of a field-leading 16 nominations. However, following in the proud tradition of music award shows everywhere, no one really cared about the winners. As usual, it was all about the performances and poten-tial viral moments — here are 10 moments you missed.

1) Kesha’s must-discussed song“You may have heard a lot of stories this past week

about whether or not our next artist would perform on this show,” host Ludacris informed the audience, just before Kesha appeared to sing an emotional cover of Bob Dylan’s “It Ain’t Me, Babe.”

It’s true: First, it was announced that the Billboard Music Awards would feature Kesha in her first televised performance since her lawsuit against uber-producer Dr Luke went public. (She alleges he drugged and assaulted her; he’s denied all allegations and countersued.)

Then, word got out from Billboard that her Dr Luke-owned record label wouldn’t allow her to perform because of rumours she might make a statement about the legal fight.

Finally, after Kesha promised she just wanted to sing a tribute to Dylan, Dr Luke “allowed” her to perform again. And so she did, with a big standing ovation at the end.

2) Celine Dion’s emotional speechThe powerhouse singer belted out Queen’s “The Show

Must Go On” before producers presented her with the Icon Award. And who did they enlist to carry out the trophy? Dion’s 15-year-old son, René-Charles, which meant Dion broke down crying on stage.

Dion, whose husband and brother both died within days of each other this year after battling cancer, pro-ceeded with a very emotional speech as her son stood next to her. She thanked her late husband, René Ange-lil, “who I know will continue to watch over me from up above.” “René, this one’s for you,” she said.

3) Ludacris’ crack about the Oscars.Ludacris, who co-hosted with Ciara, boasted about the

show’s prestige. “The Billboard awards is like the Oscars of music,” he started. “Except, unlike the Oscars, we actually have black nominees this evening.” The audience didn’t

quite know how to react to that one.4) Demi Lovato’s shirtThe 23-year-old pop star, known for her social

activism, sported a T-shirt in support of the transgender community with a sparkly, gender-inclusive bathroom symbol as she performed her hit “Cool for the Summer.”

5) Nick Jonas being a very supportive brotherNick played the part of Very Serious Singer as he

crooned his solemn duet “Close” with Tove Lo. But when his big brother Joe’s band DNCE performed “Cake By the Ocean,” Nick had a full-out dance party in the audience.

6) Pink singing from a trapezeAs she tends to do at award shows, Pink defied gravity

with some terrifying aerial stunts, courtesy of her new sin-gle “Just Like Fire.” Reaction from some viewers: Bor-ing!

7) Rihanna’s show-stopperRihanna didn’t need any fancy choreography or

back-up performers for “Love on the Brain,” a ballad that showcased the star’s powerful voice as she was surrounded by a set that looked like a haunted cave.

8) Questlove and Madonna’s Prince tributeBefore Madonna took the stage, Questlove, drummer

for the Roots, gave a touching monologue about Prince, who died almost exactly a month ago. “No matter our race, our colour, our creed, orientation, all of us live in the land of music. And his departure from it was an earthquake,” Questlove said.

“But his departure leaves behind so much work still to do: We can follow his example, we can be fierce, we can be uncompromising, we can be experimental. We can also listen to all those songs that he left for us.”

Cue Madonna sitting on a purple throne, as she belted out “Nothing Compares 2 U.” Afterwards, Stevie Wonder joined her on stage for a rendition of “Purple Rain.”

9) Ariana Grande’s “Dangerous Woman”Grande is hit or miss during awards, but she looked

like she was having a blast during her set of “Dangerous Woman” and new single “Into You” — and her energy was infectious.

10) The Britney Spears medleyThe highly hyped show opening featured Spears

going rapid-fire through her multiple hits, from “Circus” to “Toxic”. Curiously, there was no sign of “... Baby, One More Time” or “Oops! ... I Did It Again,” the two hits that launched her to pop superstardom back in the day.

What you missed at the Billboard Music Awards

Internet personality Josh Ostrovsky attends the 2016 Billboard Music Awards at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, late on Sunday.

New Mexico tries

to revitalise

historic theatres

AP

RATON: For years, the Shuler The-atre in this once-booming New Mexico mining town sat empty in a desolate downtown. It had long passed its heyday as a hot spot for Italian immigrants and Hispanic workers who visited to take in a travelling show or a newly released movie.

But today the 101-year-old Raton venue again is attracting audiences from as far as Trini-dad, Colorado just across the state line for variety shows and will soon be ready to screen any Star Wars movie. That change comes as New Mexico is joining other states in pushing an initiative to revitalise downtown districts in isolated, small towns by rehabili-tating aging, historic theatres.

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TUESDAY 24 MAY 2016 • 17 SHA’BAAN 1437 @peninsulaqatar @peninsula_qatarthepeninsulaqatar

By Mohammad Shoeb

The Peninsula

DOHA: Qatar Business Incubation Centre (QBIC), a joint initiative of Qatar Development Bank (QDB) and Social Development Centre (SDC), has successfully incubated and supported over 52 startups within two years since its inception, and is committed to play a proactive role in developing the local private sector and SMEs in Qatar to diversify the economy.

This was announced by Abdulaziz bin Nasser Al Khalifa, CEO, QDB, who is also the Chairman of QBIC, yester-day at its sixth wave of LeanStartup winners, marking their two-year suc-cess in a celebratory, special edition Demo Day.

In addition to highlighting some of the QBIC entrepreneurs’ most prominent success stories, 16 star-tups pitched to a panel of judges, investors and key partners yester-day at the Qatar National Convention Centre (QNCC). Under the sponsor-ship of QNB for the third consecutive time QBIC incubated eight start-ups, two of which will be incubated under the specialised QBIC Tourism incubator.

Demo Day marks the end of the 10-week LeanStartup Programme, giving successful entrepreneurs a chance to be further supported and incubated at QBIC.

The event witnessed busi-ness ideas varying from tourism to technology, IT, fashion and educa-tion from competing entrepreneurs. Specialised incubator, QBIC Tourism, which was established in partner-ship with QTA, officially launched in January this year, continues to offer

entrepreneurs with tourism-related business ideas specialised support to develop products and services that enhance the Qatar tourism experi-ence, by providing them with unique business development tools and access to insight and guidance from QTA decision-makers.

Al Khalifa said: “We’re pleased for not only announcing brand new incu-batees who successfully completed our renowned LeanStartup Programme, but for being able to share the success of our existing entrepreneurs in this spe-cial celebration of Demo Day.”

He added: “QBIC’s pivotal and encompassing role proves that it is greater than a center that provides specialised incubation services; QBIC stands as an educational platform, actively involved in enlightening

entrepreneur’s in Qatar by hosting regular Speaker Series sessions, open days, trade fairs, and common pur-pose programs, aligning itself with Qatar’s wider national development.”

The celebratory event offered a space to existing QBIC startups in an effort to maximise their exposure and network opportunities. Emerging com-panies showcased their products and services in a trade fair to visitors and passers-by. It also gave the podium to some of the most successful, existing entrepreneurs who shared their per-sonal experiences and entrepreneurial journeys with the audience.

Aysha Al Mudahka, QBIC CEO, said: “It’s an overwhelming feeling to witness the successes achieved by QBIC startups throughout the two short years since our first Demo

Day commenced. We’re thrilled and proud to be expanding as a leading entrepreneurial hub in Qatar and the region, responsible for the growth and development of the private sector. We anticipate that soon, entrepreneur-ship will be comfortably viewed as a legitimate career-choice amongst many Qataris of all ages, bringing us one step closer to achieving our mis-sion of developing the next QR100m companies in Qatar.”

Khalid Majed Al Naemi , AGM SME Banking Group Corporate and Insti-tutional Banking at QNB said: “We’re always pleased to be the official spon-sors of QBIC’s Demo Days; after our participation in three consecutive Demo Days, it’s not surprising to see the range of ideas evolve to better serve our local economy.”

The Peninsula

DOHA: H E Abdullah bin Hamad Al Attiyah, Chairman of Abdullah Bin Hamad Al Attiyah Foundation for Energy and Sustainable Development, has called on countries that rely on oil and gas revenues to accelerate their economic diversification process.

Addressing the keynote session on ‘Energy: Global Status and Challenges’ at the Doha Forum here yesterday, Al Attiyah pointed out that the global energy market has been witnessing volatility over the past 40 years. The

supply and demand have always been dictating the market prices. With Opec controlling just 30 percent of global oil production, the oil cartel has its own

limitations in influencing the market price, he added.

The session was chaired by Paki-stan’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Geneva, Dr. Syed Tauqir Shah.

Dr Antonio Isa Conde, Minister of Energy and Mines of the Dominican Republic, said his country is increas-ingly reducing its dependency on oil revenues. The decision is part of the government’s ambitious sustainable development programme.

The drop in oil prices has forced the Dominican Republic not only to diversify its energy sources but also

to keep crude oil in reserves and move forward in using various types of renewable energy resources-such as wind and solar energy. In fact, the country is in the process of diversi-fying its energy portfolio, Dr Antonio said.

The Dominican Republic has also developed a legal framework to open the way for new investment oppor-tunities along with other reform measures, he added.

The Minister For Power, Energy and Mineral Resources of Bangla-desh, Nasrul Hamid, said that relying on ‘free’ solar energy is the future. The country uses this clean and renewable

energy on a large scale. However, we are not in favour of launching giant projects due to lack of vast lands to be used for this purpose.

Bangladesh relies on natural gas, which reserves are running out, he explained, noting that the decline in oil prices helps some economies at the expenses of other, a fact that must be taken into consideration by Opec.

He stressed the need to put in place a new global renewable energy system and urged the Petroleum Exporting Countries to support it.

Dr. Ibrahim al Ibrahim, Economic Adviser to the Emiri Diwan, said Qatar

was anticipating the fall in oil prices. It was taking this reality into account that the country launched its ambi-tious National Vision 2030.

Director-General of the Opec Fund for International Development (OFID) in Vienna, Suleiman J Al-Her-bish, said oil will continue to remain the primary source of global energy.

In 2011, Opec agreed to allo-cate $1bn for the distribution of energy among the world’s poor in 134 countries through a number of rehabilitation of electricity distri-bution, hydro power projects and distribution of solar lamps in Afri-can countries.

Doha Forum energy session calls for diversificationGlobal energy market witnessing volatility over the past 40 years and supply and demand have been dictating prices.

QBIC incubates 52 start-ups in two years

Abdulaziz bin Nasser Al Khalifa (centre), Chief Executive Officer of Qatar Development Bank, and Chairman of QBIC, Aysha Al Mudahka, and other officials at the Demo Day Special Edition celebrating two years of success at the QNCC yesterday. Pic: Baher A/The Peninsula

Kaspersky Lab expands product portfolio in QatarThe Peninsula

DOHA: Kaspersky Lab has announced expansion of its enter-prise security product portfolio in Qatar with a solution designed to detect targeted attacks. The Kasper-sky Anti Targeted Attack Platform is a premium solution based on the most advanced technology to date that draws on Kaspersky Lab’s expertise in the detection and analy-sis of the world’s most sophisticated threats.

“Nowadays businesses need to overcome many cyber threats, including some of the most advanced ones, for which they need knowledge of possible attack vectors, indicators of compromise, and the ability to distinguish nor-mal operations from malicious activity,” said said Ovanes Mikhay-lov, Managing Director in the Middle East, Kaspersky Lab.

“This requires strong security expertise combined with technology that is capable of spotting a criminal act in the avalanche of daily activity in a large corporation, This challenge is being addressed with the Kasper-sky Anti Targeted Attack Platform, together with the security services aimed at sharing security intelli-gence with our customers faster than

ever before,” he added. The Middle East as a whole has

faced numerous targeted attacks, including those advanced persist-ent threats discovered by Kaspersky Lab.

Convent iona l protect ion technologies are very good at preventing generic threats and attacks from breaching the cor-porate perimeter.

Although the number of such threats is still growing, businesses are becoming more concerned about targeted attacks and advanced cyber-weapons used for the pur-poses of cyber-espionage or the disruption of business activity.

While these threats represent a tiny fraction (less than one per-cent) of the entire landscape, they present the highest risk to compa-nies worldwide.

The number of such attacks is growing steadily, and the price-per-attack is diminishing.

Solving the “one percent” prob-lem requires advanced technology and proper security intelligence that has either been accumulated within the company or requested from a security vendor.

The Kaspersky Anti Targeted Attack Platform is designed to iden-tify and highlight unusual actions that constitute strong evidence of malicious intent.

The Peninsula

DOHA: The Financial and Economic Cooperation Committee (Finance Ministers) in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) will hold an extraor-dinary meeting at the GCC General Secretariat headquarters in Riyadh today.

The meeting will address a number of topics including the

recommendations of the joint meet-ing of the Finance Undersecretaries, Customs Union and the committee of heads of tax bodies, Qatar News Agency reproted.

The meeting will also discuss the recommendations related to the establishment of a tax information centre in the GCC General Secretar-iat, in addition to some proposals submitted by the Member States on activating economic cooperation and integration.

GCC Finance Ministers meet in Riyadh today

Ministry finalises process for IT Awards nominationsThe Peninsula

DOHA: The Ministry of Transport and Communications has finalised the assessment and arbitration proc-ess for the Qatar IT Business Awards 2016 nominations. Results and win-

ners are to be unveiled by the end of this month at a special event.

The Awards reflect the Ministry’s commitment to honouring the busi-nesses that have added a significant value to Qatari ICT market. The aim is to recognise not only businesses’ unre-mitting efforts to attract local promising

talent, but also the local accomplish-ments, in addition to the key objective of supporting innovation in that field. The awards will be sponsored by Qatar Development Bank (QDB), Vodafone Qatar, the Qatar Railways Company (Qatar Rail) and Microsoft Qatar.

“The Ministry always supported

and encouraged entrepreneurs in the ICT sector, as well as invigorat-ing and enabling the breakthrough innovations that reflect positively on all sections and segments of the soci-ety,” said Reem Al Mansoori, Assistant Undersecretary for Digital Society Development at the Ministry.

Too low rates for too long ‘risky’: Bullard

PAGE | 22 PAGE | 25

Qatar Airways Cargo marks 10 years of

Kenya service

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The Peninsula

DOHA: Qatar Airways Cargo, the world’s third largest international cargo carrier, recently celebrated its 10 years of services in Kenya. A gala reception to commemorate this milestone achievement was held on 19 May and attended by the cargo carrier’s customers and business part-ners, including Ibrahim Mohamed Al-Abdulla, Qatar’s Ambassador to Kenya, and Yatich Kangugo, Acting Managing Director of Kenya Airport.

Qatar Airways Cargo commenced services to Nairobi in 2006 with two Airbus A330 freighters. Today, Qatar Airways Cargo operates seven Air-bus A330 freighters and transports

belly-hold cargo on 21 passenger air-craft to Nairobi each week, offering a total capacity of 232 tonnes into Nairobi and 362 tonnes out of Nai-robi each week. Over the past decade, Qatar Airways Cargo has established itself as a trusted air freight service provider in Kenya, connecting the city of Nairobi to a global network of more than 150 destinations on its young and modern fleet. The cargo carrier is constantly innovating and introduc-ing effective air transport solutions to meet its customer and market needs in the East Africa region.

Ulrich Ogiermann, Qatar Airways Chief Officer Cargo said: “We are proud to have completed 10 successful years of freighter operations to and from Nai-robi. Kenya is an important market for us, and we are a great partner with the businesses that need high quality, reliable cargo services. We anticipate continuous growth as we begin our sec-ond decade of freighter operations into the country. We owe our success to our customers, business partners and local stakeholders for their tremendous sup-port over the years.”

Qatar Airways Cargo has seen remarkable expansion to its opera-tions in the African continent. Today, the cargo carrier operates freighters to seven destinations (Accra, Djibouti,

Entebbe, Johannesburg, Khartoum, Lagos and Nairobi) and provides belly-hold cargo capacity to 23 cities in the world’s second largest conti-nent. Perishables such as flowers, fruits, vegetables and meat remain the top exports from Nairobi, des-tined mainly for Europe and Middle Eastern countries.

Kenya is among the top three largest flower exporters in the world and the highest exporter of flowers in Africa. Qatar Airways Cargo’s QR Fresh solution provides a seamless cool chain service for perishables from the origin airport through to the final destination via its fully-automated hub in Doha. The use of refrigerated trucks at the carrier’s cargo terminal in Doha ensures the cool chain is unbroken.

QR Charter utilises the cargo car-rier’s most modern freighter fleet in the sky, comprising Boeing 777 and Airbus A330 freighters as well as the popular Boeing B747-400BCF nose loader freighter. It offers quality, reli-able and cost-effective global charter solutions through the cargo carrier’s extensive network of more than 150 passenger and over 50 dedicated freighter destinations.

In April this year, the cargo carrier introduced QR Express, a solution to

deliver airport-to-airport air freight service for time-critical shipments. QR Express is the latest addition to the cargo airline’s expanding portfolio

of specialist services and products.The cargo carrier recently won

the prestigious All-Cargo Carrier award at the 33rd Cargo Airline of

the Year event and the International Award for Excellence in Air Cargo at the Air Cargo India 2016 exhibition and conference.

Qatar Airways Cargo marks 10 years of Kenya serviceQatar Airways Cargo operates seven Airbus A330 freighters and transports belly-hold cargo on 21 passenger aircraft to Nairobi every week.

FROM RIGHT: Peter Penseel, SVP Cargo Sales & Network Planning; Ibrahim Mohamed Al Abdulla, Qatar’s Ambassador to Kenya; Mohd Azim, Senior Manager Cargo Business Support and Nicolas Danton, Regional Cargo Manager for African Region, cutting a cake to mark the occasion.

BAM and AGPCA sign agreementThe Peninsula

DOHA: A Memorandum of Under-standing (MoU) has been signed recently between Bait Al-Mashura Finance Consultations (BAM) and Ahmed Khaled Al-Ghanim & Part-ner Chartered Accountants (AGPCA).

It was the first of its kind in the domain of coordination within the fields of financial and Shari’ah auditing.

Dr Khalid Al-Sulayti, the vice chairman of BAM’s Board of Direc-tors, said that the MoU is part of BAM’s endeavours towards improving its products and work mechanism besides extending coop-eration and coordination with Qatari organizations.

The MoU aims at upgrading the audit operations in line with the international standards, as well as harmonizing them with the Sha-riah-based audit review standards and financial standards related to

Islamic Financial Institutions. Mohana bin Khalid Al-Ghanim,

Managing Partner AGPCA, said that the organisation strives hard to offer the best and authentic services related to all the accounting streams, feasibility studies as well as internal and external auditing.

AGPCA is a newly established Qatari company applying the best standards, as it has gathered pro-fessional expertise and accumulated scientific experience of international entities.

The Peninsula

DOHA: RasGas Company Limit-ed’s (RasGas) Offshore Production Department (Shorebase) has com-pleted 19 years of operations without a Lost-Time Incident.

RasGas Shorebase has served as a hub supporting the offshore gas production operations and drilling operations. Its contribution towards supporting the logistics involved with the production of 9 billion cubic feet

per day of natural gas and the drilling of over 150 offshore gas production wells. Company’s Chief Operations Officer, Fahad Mohammed Al Khater, praised the Offshore Production Department’s success.

“I am extremely proud that we continue to demonstrate RasGas’ industry-leading safety perform-ance. RasGas has a long-established culture of safety awareness, and our rigorous and systematic approach to reducing and eliminating workplace risk has made the company an indus-try leader in safety performance. This

significant milestone is a testament to our focus on accident prevention and our commitment to maintaining an injury-free workplace,” he said.

Al Khater also congratulated the company’s contractor workforce for playing a critical role in ensuring safety is a priority and maintaining a secure work environment in all Ras-Gas locations. “These accomplishments demonstrate that working together as a team and embedding safety as a core value in everything we do, brings Ras-Gas closer to our goal where ‘Nobody Gets Hurt’,” said Al Khater.

RasGas Offshore achieves safety milestone

BUSINESS22 TUESDAY 24 MAY 2016

The Peninsula

DOHA: GCC economies must go for structural reforms to successfully end their reliance on oil, according to accountancy and finance body ICAEW.

The GCC countries need both revenue and economic diversifi-cation, but in order to achieve this economic policy has to change. This would require greater private sec-tor participation and retention of human capital within the region in order to ensure long-term sustaina-ble growth prospects and economic development. This was the outcome of ICAEW’s ‘Corporate finance fac-ulty roundtable on the GCC’s capital funding needs’ held in Dubai.

ICAEW members and experts discussed whether private sector investment pools can bridge the gap in the GCC’s capital funding needs. The panellists and invited guests dis-cussed what GCC countries could do to diversify their economies away from oil. According to the experts, economic policy in the GCC coun-tries must move to countercyclical fiscal policy and countercyclical monetary policy. The former policy could include removing subsidies, privatization, public–private part-nerships (PPP), and structural reforms to remove current invest-ment barriers and make the private sector more active.

At the same time, these efforts must be supported by countercy-clical monetary policy changes

that stop GCC countries from being pegged to the US currency only, which has been appreciating over

the last three years by 20 per cent. GCC countries need to move towards a “basket of currencies”, which include the US dollar, Euro, Yen and Renminbi. This will enable each country to have a more flexi-ble exchange-rate system, they said.

Michael Armstrong, FCA and ICAEW Regional Director for the Middle East, Africa and South Asia (MEASA), said: “GCC countries have started making fiscal reforms, such as introducing taxes and reduc-ing subsidies. However, in order to get greater buy-in from the private sector and attract foreign inves-tors, there must be more structural reforms which include initiatives like 100 per cent foreign ownership, long-term residency, investment frameworks, PPP frameworks, and improved transparency and corpo-rate governance. If these reforms are made GCC countries will build and retain their human capital within the region.”

According to the experts the cen-tral economic challenge facing the countries in the region is job cre-ation. The region requires 6-7 per cent economic growth just to keep unemployment rates where they are now. By 2020 the region will have to create around 130 million new jobs. Failure to do so risks more extrem-ism and poverty. Speakers agreed countries must invest in infra-structure projects as these create a substantial number of jobs.

Speakers included Dr Nasser Saidi, President & Founder of Nasser Saidi & Associates, and Former Chief Economist at the DIFC; Richard Dal-las, Senior Managing Director at Gulf Capital; Martin Jacobs, UK Partner, Head of Corporate Finance Privati-sation at PwC; Sanjay Vig, Managing Director of Alpen Capital and Philip McCrum, Director Economic Advi-sory at EY. The discussion was moderated by Chris Hawley, Man-aging Director and Head of Middle East at Rothschild.

GCC countries need structural reforms: ExpertsGulf nations need both revenue and economic diversification and to achieve this economic policy has to change.

The Peninsula

DOHA: A high-level delegation rep-resenting Qatar is participating in 27th Meeting of GCC Committee for Under-Secretaries of Post and Tele-communications in Riyadh.

The Qatar delegation is headed by Mohammed Ali Al Mannai, President of the Communications Regulatory Authority (CRA).

The Qatar delegation comprises Khalid N Sadiq Al Hashmi, Assistant Under-Secretary of Cyber Secu-rity Sector, Ministry of Transport & Communications, Ali Al Suwaidi, IT Section Head, CRA and Faisal Al Shuaibi, Institutional Relations Officer, CRA.

During the meeting, the GCC Under-Secretaries Committee will discuss several topics related to the developing of postal and tele-communications sectors in the GCC member states and means of boost-ing cooperation.

The meeting agenda includes discussions about the recom-mendations by several other committees and working groups including Committee Meeting for Posts Under-Secretaries and

Chief Officers, Telecommunication Legislations and Regulations Com-mittee, Roaming Working Group, GCC Technical Office of Technical Com-mittee, and the Working Group of OTT

Legislations and Regulations. The Committee will also discuss matters related to cooperation between GCC countries and the Hashemite King-dom of Jordan.

The decision on the date and location of the 28th Meeting of GCC Committee for Under-Secretaries of Post and Telecommunications will also be taken at the Riyadh meeting.

Qatar delegation attends GCC Post and Telecom meet

The meeting of GCC Committee for Under-Secretaries of Post and Telecommunications held in Riyadh.

The Peninsula

DOHA: Domasco, the authorized distributor for Honda in Qatar,has made the first delivery of the new ‘Honda Africa Twin’ motorbikes recently.

The much anticipated new Honda CRF1000L Africa Twin meets the extraordinarily high expectations set by adventure rid-ing enthusiasts. The strong 1000cc parallel twin has 4-valve Unicam head design. It delivers handfuls of torque so satisfying and addic-tive, it will tempt riders to break free from the tarmac at the earliest opportunity.Dual spark plugs per cylinder, a lightweight camshaft – made from the same material proven in the Fireblade – and a 270° phased crankshaft, give this bike a

distinctive feel and character all of its own.

Wrapped in a steel double-cra-dle frame, the engine’s compact dimensions allow other compo-nents to be mounted closer to the center of machine; centralizing the mass and lowering the center-of-gravity. With a class leading 250mm ground clearance for off-road excursions, riding this bike feels like second nature.

Greig Roffey, Head of Sales & Marketing for Domasco Honda wel-comed the customers at the Honda showroom said: “The Africa Twin is a bike that’s as impressive as the desert itself. This unique, light and agile combination of power and handling sets new standards for adventure bikes.”

Commenting on the occasion, Faisal Sharif, Managing Director at Domasco said: “The legend lives on!

A Domasco official launching the new motorbike.

Domasco delivers ‘Honda Africa Twin’ motorbikes

The new Honda CRF1000L Africa Twin will revolutionize the way we look at motorcycles and specifically those with off-road capabilities. We are delighted to make our first deliv-ery to our passionate customers that seek the true spirit of adventure and the ability to go anywhere.”

Frank Grobler, who has

purchased the DCT (Dual Clutch Transmission) version, said “This is the bike that I have been long await-ing. The automatic version with DCT does have the option to do man-ual shifts via paddle switches or an optional electronic gear lever. It offers a drive mode with three addi-tional sport modes.”

The Peninsula

DOHA: The Commercial and Indus-trial Division of Abdullah Abdulghani & Bros Co (AAB) held its Annual Cus-tomers Meet at the Sheraton Hotel Doha recently. The occasion wit-nessed the launch of the Toyota 8FBE Series, 3 Wheel Electric Counter-balance Forklift along with Godrej’s Mobile Shelving systems.

During the event, AAB also announced its partnership with KardexRemstar (automated storage solutions), Switzerland & Endress Industrial Generators, Germany.

AAB has consistently focused on providing effective solutions to its customers by delivering the latest technological advancements in the

field of Material Handling and Stor-age Solutions.

AAB’s Annual Customers Meet Event was attended by leading companies from a wide spectrum of industries, ranging from manufactur-ing and distribution to warehousing and logistics.

Serdar Toktamis, CEO, Abdullah Abdulghani & Bros. Co. said: “We thank our customers for their trust and support and we assure them our commitment to provide supe-rior products and services. Also, we are very proud to be partnering with world renowned companies. Our relationship with Toyota Mate-rial Handling Company goes back to around 5 decades and we have been successful in achieving mar-ket leadership in the Qatari Market. Our focus is to provide our clients

with comprehensive warehous-ing solutions and to be the partner of choice for all their warehousing requirements.”

Toyota Material Handling Inter-national, Godrej Storage Solutions, Kardex Material Handling &Endress Generators provided the attendees of the event with a presentation to dem-onstrate their background and history, capabilities and product ranges.

Yazan Mustafa, COO of the Com-mercial and Industrial Division of AAB, said: “Our success started with Toyota forklifts where we are now holding a very strong leadership position. We appreciate our cus-tomer trust and support during the last years. Our key focus and fun-damental principle today that guide our activities is to maintain and strengthen this trust.”

The Commercial and Industrial Division of AAB’s and other officials at the meeting.

AAB division holds customers meet

By Sachin Kumar

The Peninsula

DOHA: Know-your-customer (KYC) check of a customer by banks should be an ongoing process and not just one time exercise, said Gary Collyer, Managing Director, Collyer Consult-ing Global -a banking consultancy firm speaking at a workshop in bank-ing. KYC is the process, used in many industries including banking, of a business verifying the identity of its clients.

International Chamber of Com-merce (ICC), Qatar Chapter yesterday organised a workshop on ‘Documen-tary Credits in Today’s Challenging Environment’.

Addressing the participants, Col-lyer shed light on confirmation and amendment of documents, issuance, letters of credit, documentary credit financing and document manage-ment by banks.

Speaking about the impact of financial crime and anti-money laundering, he said there are a number of techniques that are used by money launderers to achieve their goal of defrauding one or more banks. These include over-invoicing, under-invoicing, multiple-invoic-ing, short-shipping, over-shipping, phantom-shipping and deliberate ambiguity in describing (or hiding) the intended type of goods.

Under the over-invoicing, money launderers fraudulently increase the price of goods, services or perform-ance while in under-invoicing they attempt to reduce applicable tariffs or taxes, he said.

Multiple-invoicing has aim of

receiving multiple payments. In case of short-shipping, the shipping is less than the stated on the invoice while in over-shipping, shipping is more than invoiced to avoid tariffs or taxes. Under phantom shipping, false documentation with no actual underlying shipment is done. In case of deliberate ambiguity in describing the intended type of goods, money launderers disguise information in order to hide the true nature of the goods, added Collyer.

He said that there are three

distinct phases to the act of money laundering- placement, layering and integration. Placement is the initial entry of the ‘dirty’ money or proceeds of crime into the financial system, exchanging for clean money. Layer-ing is electronic movement of funds in multiple constant transaction in order to obscure the audit trail and cut the link with original crime. In Integration, funds are invested or merged in legitimate non-criminal activities and subsequently re-redi-rected back to the criminal as clean.

Know-your-customer check must be ‘an ongoing process’

Gary Collyer, Managing Director, Collyer Consulting Global, giving a presentation at a workshop on “Documentary Credits in Today’s Challenging Environment” at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Doha yesterday. Pic: Salim M/The Peninsula

BUSINESS 23TUESDAY 24 MAY 2016

A worker checks the dyed threads at the Zolnavari carpet factory in the city of Shiraz, south western Iran. The Iranian carpet industry is seeking revival after the lifting of sanctions and is anticipating a boost in exports.

Iran carpet industry revival

BUSINESS24 TUESDAY 24 MAY 2016

Reuters

LONDON: Oil discoveries in 2015 fell to their lowest since 1952 as energy companies slashed exploration budgets in the wake of the oil price fall, creating a gap for meeting future demand, analysts at Morgan Stanley said yesterday.

The oil and gas industry dis-covered 2.8 billion barrels of oil outside the United States last year, the equivalent of one month of glo-bal consumption, the US bank said, quoting data from consultancy Rys-tad Energy.

Including the United States, where the rapid expansion of the onshore shale industry unlocked major resources over the past dec-ade, global discoveries rose to 12.1 billion figure - but still the lowest since 1952, when the oil industry was one-seventh of its current size.

Oil discoveries are vital to replace resources, meet still-grow-ing demand and offset the depletion of existing fields.

The sharp drop in oil prices over the past two years has led companies including Exxon Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell to sharply reduce budgets, particularly for exploration, where spending fell in 2015 to around $95bn from

$168bn two years earlier, accord-ing to Morgan Stanley. Despite a big increase in exploration spend-ing since the start of the decade, when oil demand rapidly rose, there have been few major hydro-carbon discoveries, such as Statoil’s Johan Sverdrup field off Norway’s coast or Eni’s giant Zohr gas field off Egypt.

BP last week announced the surprise departure of its explora-tion boss, and a shift in its oil search strategy that is focusing mainly on expanding existing fields rather than venturing expensively into the unknown.

A big increase in new oil fields in recent years and the ramp up of Iran’s production following the lift-ing of international sanctions mean that in the short term, the impact of the low exploration record will be limited. But even under the most modest demand forecasts, driven by a drive to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius, where con-sumption will decline to around 86 million barrels per day in 2030, only around two thirds of the demand can be met by currently producing fields or resources under develop-ment, Morgan Stanley said.

“Building this capacity over the next 25 years will require ongoing investment. Our strong suspicion is that this will be higher than what companies are currently spending, even relative to the 2 Degrees sce-nario under which demand is falling.”

The outlook for exploration remains challenged, the bank said.

“The return on exploration dol-lars spent has clearly deteriorated in recent years. On top of this, oil com-panies increasingly need to consider scenarios for oil demand in which there may not be much need for fur-ther exploration.”

Reuters

BRASILIA: The Brazilian government plans to host a round of investor meet-ings to market a broad plan of asset sales, a key initiative to help raise cash and reduce a record budget deficit, a senior official and people familiar with the matter said.

According to Wellington Moreira Franco, the head of a government agency to draw foreign investment to Brazil, a round of so-called road-shows is seen as a necessary step to

advertise the assets and the legal and regulatory framework behind the pro-gram. He did not give a timetable nor say which assets will be sold.

Still, five sources with knowledge of the plan told Reuters over the past week that Moreira Franco and For-eign Affairs Minister José Serra will lead the roadshows, which may take place in New York, London and other financial hubs. Two of the sources said the presentations are scheduled for mid-July.

The list of ready-for-sale assets is still in the making. Yet, interim Pres-ident Michel Temer’s government

wants to sell majority stakes in the fuel distribution unit of oil producer Petróleo Brasileiro SA and in power utility Furnas Centrais Elétricas SA, and some of the facilities that airport authority Infraero runs, the sources said.

Moreira Franco said the program’s goal is to help create jobs as Brazil wrestles with a two-year long reces-sion and slumping commodity prices. Still, the plan could help Brazil raise extra funds to narrow a deficit that most economists forecast to top 10 percent of gross domestic product this year.

“It’s time to end with the govern-ment monologue and start building solutions with our partners,” Moreira Franco said late on Friday, adding that the legal and investment framework will be designed in a way that bidders “feel safe and confident.”

The state asset sale program offers more evidence of Brazil’s policy shift since the Senate’s decision earlier this month to try the impeachment of left-ist President Dilma Rousseff. Temer, her replacement during the trial and afterwards if she is found guilty, has vowed to streamline Brazil’s bloated state and open room for more private

investment activity.It could become Brazil’s most

ambitious privatization drive in two decades.

Qatar Investment Authority, Abu Dhabi Investment Co PJSC, and Mubadala Development Co PJSC are among the sovereign wealth funds invited to attend the roadshows, three of the sources said. Canadian investment firms and European infra-structure companies have already been contacted too, the same sources added.

Moreira Franco declined to give an estimate of how much the

government could fetch from asset sales, although two of the sources said proceeds could range between $10bn and $20bn over the next two years.

Some of the largest investment banks operating in Brazil will also attend the meetings, many of them representing potential buyers, the sources added.

In a statement to Reuters, Tem-er’s office said the government “plans to transfer to private investors sev-eral assets, stakes and companies, although it is still analyzing which and which others will remain in the hands of the state.”

Oil discoveries lowest in 2015:Morgan Stanley

AFP

LONDON: Business growth across the eurozone dipped to a 16-month low in May but stronger showings from Germany and France suggest it is the smaller member countries that may be struggling.

Offering the latest evidence that a strong acceleration in growth in the first three months of the year was only temporary, Markit’s flash Com-posite Purchasing Managers’ Index edged down to 52.9 from April’s 53.0.

While essentially stable - and still indicating growth - the reading was the lowest since the start of 2015. It ran against expectations in a Reuters poll, which had predicted a tick up to 53.2 in one of the earliest reported broad indicators of growth during the month.

Markit said the PMI pointed to

quarterly GDP growth of 0.3 percent, in line with forecasts in a Reuters sur-vey published earlier this month, but short of 0.5 percent in the first quar-ter, which was initially reported as 0.6 percent. Individually, surveys showed growth in Germany’s private sector accelerated to hit the fastest rate so far this year.

French business activity also grew faster than expected, return-ing to a rate not recorded since before the November 13 attacks in Paris.

“That suggests that the PMIs for the other major euro zone econo-mies such as Italy and Spain will be soft when released next week,” said Stephen Brown at Capital Economics.

Germany and France are the only individual euro zone countries for which Markit publishes flash PMIs. May surveys for other euro zone members will be published early next month.

Markets were unmoved after

the data as they were still digesting last week’s surge in expectations for a rate hike in the United States fol-lowing a more hawkish tone from the Federal Reserve.

While the headline composite PMI was above the 50 mark that sep-arates growth from contraction, the index measuring prices businesses charge remained below it at 49.0, although that was an increase from last month’s 48.3. This may concern policymakers at the European Cen-tral Bank who have been battling to get inflation up to their 2 percent tar-get ceiling. Consumer prices fell 0.2 percent in April, despite the Bank’s ultra-loose monetary policy.

Even with price discounting, new order growth slowed and there was no acceleration in activity in the bloc’s dominant service indus-try. A Reuters poll had predicted an increase to 53.3 but the PMI held steady at April’s 53.1.

Oil discoveries are vital to replace resources, meet still-growing demand and offset the depletion of existing fields.

Eurozone business growth slows

AXA becomes first major insurer to cut tobacco tiesAFP

PARIS: The AXA group yesterday became the first global insurer to cut ties with the tobacco industry, saying it would sell about €1.8bn worth of investments in the sec-tor, to cheers from anti-smoking campaigners.

“This decision has a cost for us, but the case for divestment is clear: the human cost of tobacco is tragic; its economic cost is huge,” said Thomas Buberl, deputy chief executive of the French giant.

The group took the decision “as a responsible health insurer and investor,” AXA said in a statement, urging other insurers to follow its lead. “Smoking poses the biggest threat to public health in the world today,” AXA said.

“Its cost, estimated at 2.1 tril-lion euros per year, equals the combined expenses of war and terrorism,” said the company, which a year ago also said it was pulling out of the coal sector.

The company said it would begin by selling its equity holdings in tobacco companies, which are currently valued at about 200 mil-lion euros. AXA will also run down its existing bond holdings in the tobacco industry, valued at about €1.6bn, it said. Buberl said that, by dropping the tobacco industry, the company was doing its “share to support the efforts of governments around the world.”

AXA, whose revenues from its health care business reached almost €12bn last year, is the first global insurer to take this step, a spokesman for the group said. The company said that as a major investor it wanted to be “part of the solution, and our hope is that others in our industry will do the same”.

AXA warned that without urgent action to curb the rise in smoking-related deaths, tobacco was expected to kill one billion people worldwide during the 21st century.

Ryanair predicts slower profit growth this yearAFP

DUBLIN: Irish no-frills airline Rya-nair yesterday forecast rising annual profits on higher traffic and lower fuel prices but at a slower rate than its last financial year.

The company said net profit was set to rise by around 13 percent in the 12 months to the end of March 2017, as it predicted that passenger traf-fic would grow by 9.0 percent. Profit after tax had surged 43 percent to ¤1.242bn ($1.395bn) in 2015/16, Rya-nair added in an earnings statement.

Ryanair repeated its support for Britain remaining part of the Euro-pean Union, noting that a vote to leave the EU in the June 23 referen-dum “will damage economic growth and consumer confidence in the UK for the next two to three years”.

It added: “As the UK’s largest air-line, Ryanair strongly believes that the UK economy and its future growth prospects are stronger if it remains a member of the European Union.

“One of Europe’s great success stories was airline deregulation in the late 1980s which allowed Rya-nair to break up the high fare cartel

of Europe’s flag carrier airlines, and has enabled us to transform air travel, tourism, economic growth and jobs all over Europe.”

Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary meanwhile said that growth in traffic and profit at the airline in 2015/16 had risen strongly despite the company having to pay an average

of $90 for a barrel of oil -- far higher than the market value -- as a result of the hedging policy it had adopted in 2014.

The final quarter of its last finan-cial year was hit also by the terrorist attacks in Brussels and strikes by air traffic controllers across Europe that resulted in the cancellation of more

than 500 flights. It added that such strikes would impact its latest first-quarter performance.

But the airline still managed to carry more than 100 million passen-gers internationally during its last financial year that ended in March, a first for an airline according to Ryanair.

A Ryanair plane prepares to land at Manchester airport in Manchester, northern England.

German group calls for new probe of VW scandalReuters

FRANKFURT: German investors’ association DSW called yesterday for an independent audit of Volkswa-gen’s emissions test-rigging scandal in addition to the carmaker’s inter-nal probe.

DSW asked that a shareholder vote on an independent investiga-tion be included on the agenda for Volkswagen’s (VW) annual general meeting on June 22.

In September, Europe’s largest carmaker admitted it had cheated diesel emissions tests in the US.

“When you have an independent investigation you can be sure that the findings will be publicised. With internal investigations you do not know whether everything has been made transparent,” DSW spokesman Juergen Kurz said yesterday.

VW has retained law firm Jones Day and has some 450 internal and external experts looking at proc-esses, reporting and control systems to find those responsible for the scandal which has already forced VW to set aside €16.2bn ($18.2bn) to pay for the scandal.

But Kurz said there was no guar-antee small shareholders would receive access to all of Jones Day’s findings. VW has created a Special Committee on Diesel Engines headed by Wolfgang Porsche, head of the family clan which controls VW, to investigate the scandal.

The company has declined to comment in detail about initial find-ings of the probe, as part of which Jones Day is interviewing manag-ers and employees close to the diesel issue, because it is not yet completed.

It said so far there were no signs that current management was involved in the scandal but that there were process deficiencies on the technical side as well as mis-conduct on the part of unidentified individuals.

It has said it was reorganis-ing the processes and structures used for approving the software for engine control units with more clearly defined and binding responsibilities.

DSW acknowledged the chances of forcing an independent investi-gation at VW were slim, given the company’s large shareholders may not back the proposal.

Brazil organises investor meetings for sale of state assets

Chairman of the Board of Directors of French marine, subsea and offshore oil industry services group Bourbon, Jacques de Chateauvieux, presenting the group’s future perspectives in Paris. Bourbon is open to mergers or partnerships to complement its services in this period difficult for the oil industry.

Bourbon seeks partnerships

BUSINESS 25TUESDAY 24 MAY 2016

Reuters

FRANKFURT: German drugs and crop chemicals group Bayer has offered to buy US seeds company Monsanto for $62bn in cash, defy-ing criticism from some of its own shareholders in a bid to grab the top spot in a fast-consolidating farm sup-plies industry.

The unsolicited proposal, which includes debt, would be the largest foreign takeover by a German com-pany if accepted.

The move, which would eclipse a planned combination of Dow Chem-ical and DuPont’s agriculture units, comes just three weeks after Werner Baumann took over as Bayer CEO,

and was condemned by a major shareholder as “arrogant empire-building” when news of the proposal emerged last week.

Giving details for the first time, Bayer said on Monday it would offer $122 per share, a 37 percent premium to Monsanto’s stock price before rumours of a bid surfaced.

“We fully expect a positive answer of the Monsanto board of directors,” Baumann told report-ers on a conference call, describing criticism from some investors as “an uneducated reaction in the media” when deal terms were not yet known, and driven by an element of surprise.

Monsanto, which said last week it had a received an approach from Bayer but gave no details, has yet to comment on the offer. The US com-pany’s shares jumped 9.5 percent to $111.17 in pre-market trading.

Global agrochemicals compa-nies are racing to consolidate, partly in response to a drop in commod-ity prices that has hit farm incomes and also due to the growing conver-gence between seeds and pesticides markets.

ChemChina is buying Swit-zerland’s Syngenta for $43bn after Syngenta rejected a bid from

Monsanto, while Dow and DuPont are forging a $130bn business.

With German rival BASF also looking into a possible tie-up with Monsanto, Bayer has moved to avoid being left behind.

Baumann rejected suggestions from some investors that Bayer should instead try to forge a joint venture with Monsanto, saying this would have tax disadvantages.

Sources close to the matter have said BASF is unlikely to start a bid-ding war with Bayer. BASF declined to comment yesterday. But analysts say Bayer might still have to pay more to persuade Monsanto and its share-holders to sell up.

That could be a problem, with some saying Bayer’s proposal, at 15.8 times its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation for the year ended Feb. 29, is already a stretch for the German company.

“The price that has now been dis-closed is at the upper limit and it is just about economical. Should it rise further, which is to be assumed, the takeover will become increasingly unattractive,” said Markus Manns, a fund manager at Union Investment, Bayer’s 14th biggest investor.

Shares in Bayer, which had

Bayer defies critics with $62bn Monsanto offer

The Bayer headquarters in Leverkusen, western Germany.

already fallen 14 percent since rumours of a bid emerged last week, dropped as much as 3.6 percent on Monday to a new 2-1/2 year low of 86.3 euros.

Bayer said it would finance the bid with a combination of debt and equity, primarily a share sale to exist-ing investors. Equity would account for about a quarter of the deal value.

Equinet analyst Marietta Miemi-etz, who has a ‘buy’ rating on Bayer

stock, said the extra debt appeared manageable but could limit Bay-er’s ability to invest in its healthcare business, which some analysts think needs a boost to its drugs pipeline.

Baumann said Bayer would continue to develop its healthcare arm, which includes stroke preven-tion pill Xarelto and aspirin, the painkiller it invented more than a century ago.

“We are not feeding Peter by

starving Paul here,” he said, adding no asset sales were planned to help pay for the deal.

Bayer also forecast synergies from a deal with Monsanto would boost annual earnings by around $1.5 billion after three years, plus addi-tional future benefits from integrated product offerings - a reference to its push to combine the development and sale of seeds and crop protec-tion chemicals.

The unsolicited proposal, which includes debt, would be the largest foreign takeover by a German company if accepted.

Too low rates for too long ‘risky’: BullardReuters

BEIJING: US interest rates being kept too low for too long could cause financial instability in future and stronger market expectations for a rate rise are “probably good”, St Louis Federal Reserve President James Bull-ard (pictured) said yesterday.

A relatively tight labour market in the United States may also exert upward pressure on inflation, rais-ing the case for higher interest rates, Bullard added.

His comments come as financial markets have increased expectations for a US interest rate hike in June or July and a range of policymakers are now stating that a rise is firmly on the table for the next policy meeting in June.

“I do worry that keeping rates too low for too long could feed into future financial instability even if it doesn’t look like we’re in that situa-tion today,” Bullard, a voting member

of the Fed’s policy-setting committee, told reporters.

Market assessment for a Fed rate rise had been close to zero, and the idea it has come off zero is “probably good”, he said. “It does depend on the data and it’s certainly not 100 percent, but it’s not zero either. Some proba-bility in between is the right thing to think at this point.”

Bullard said the US labour mar-ket was performing well and global headwinds that had partly prevented the Federal Reserve from raising rates again may have waned.

The Federal Open Market Com-mittee has laid out a data-dependent “slow normalisation” of rates, he said, thereby the nominal policy rate would gradually rise over the next several years provided the economy evolves as expected.

“Labour markets are relatively tight. This may put upward pressure on inflation going forward,” he said. “This is an important factor support-ing the FOMC view on the expected

path of the policy rate.”Expectations for a June rate hike

rose last week following minutes from the central bank’s April policy meet-ing released on May 18 that showed Fed officials felt the US economy could be ready for another interest rate increase.

A possible British exit from the

European Union in a vote next month will not affect the Fed’s upcoming decision on rates, Bullard said.

“Even if it’s a vote to exit the EU, the next day nothing happens, because you have two years of negotiation during which new trade arrangements have to be set up,” he said. “I also see the probability of an exit vote has fallen somewhat lately.”

Some policymakers at the April meeting had said they were con-cerned financial markets could be roiled by Brexit or by China’s exchange rate policies.

In deciding whether to raise rates, the Fed looks for improvement in the economy and jobs, and evidence inflation is moving toward its 2 per-cent target.

The Fed last month kept its target overnight interest rate in a range of 0.25 percent to 0.50 percent. It raised interest rates in December after keeping them near zero for nearly a decade to help the economy recover from a steep recession.

Reuters

LONDON: A flurry of new issuance has swept the Gulf but arranger slots on trades are becoming increasingly bloated as there is still not enough volume to support the number of banks vying for the business.

The number of banks hired to run deals in the Middle East is shoot-ing up from the typical five or six arrangers.

Qatar has hired 10 banks for an upcoming trade, DP World and Emir-ates Islamic Bank nine each while Noor Bank has a more modest seven.

“We’re not happy at all with the practice,” said a debt capital markets banker based in the region.

Issuers are engaging in the age-old trade-off of rewarding banks with bond mandates for providing cheap loans.

All 10 firms on Qatar’s bond, for example, were part of a 14-bank syn-dicate that lent the sovereign $5.5bn in January.

Gulf borrowers have signed $21.6 billion in syndicated loans this year, according to Thomson Reuters LPC. Only $13.5bn of bonds have been issued.

Compare this with 2013 and 2014, when $34bn and $37bn of bonds were placed by Gulf issuers, against syndicated loan volumes of $17bn and $21bn respectively.

“In busier times, issuers can rotate mandates between lenders,” said a second debt capital markets banker. “Now we don’t have that.”

Large arranger groups are becoming an issue for some fund managers too, with one interna-tional investor at a recent roadshow directly questioning a Gulf issuer about why it needed so many banks for what was likely to be a fairly

standard deal, according to a banker present. “The issuer didn’t really have an answer,” the banker said.

Abu Dhabi showed in April that an issuer can use far fewer arrang-ers and still get a good outcome, after raising $5bn with three banks run-ning the trade.

For investors, having so many banks makes deals more cumber-some and potentially cuts into the allocation if each bank brings its own buyers.

For bankers, having so many houses involved in a deal eats into league table rankings and fees, even though some do more work than others.

“There will only be three or so banks that run the trade,” said another DCM banker. “On DP World, only a few banks are arranging the tender, which gives a good signal about who will run the trade.”

Of the nine banks on the books, four are involved in a tender on the company’s 2017 sukuk.

Those four also arranged the roadshow for the new potential transaction.

Bankers worry that future deals will continue to have big syndicates. The market is likely to stay busy throughout the year.

Abu Dhabi state fund IPIC has mandated for a euro offering.

That deal is likely to include all nine banks that lent 3.6bn euros to IPIC subsidiary Aabar Investments in March.

And then there’s Saudi Arabia’s mooted debut in the international bond market.

The kingdom took its first steps towards the transaction last week after sending out RFPs.

The fall in oil prices has affected the economies of oil producing coun-tries and governments are struggling to find alternative resources to sup-port their economies.

Gulf bond issuance fails to satisfy arranging banks

Dubai’s EIB launches $750m sukukReuters

DUBAI: Dubai-based Emirates Islamic Bank has launched the sale of $750m in sukuk with five years duration, which will be completed later yesterday, a document from lead managers showed.

Pricing for the instrument has been set at 220 basis points over midswaps after attracting orders from investors worth more than $2.2bn, the document showed.

The pricing is tighter than the 225 bps over the same benchmark indicated earlier in the day, and well inside initial guidance of the 240 bps area.

The sharia-compliant bank, owned by lender Emirates NBD, hired itself and its owner to arrange the issue, as well as Stand-ard Chartered, Al Hilal Bank, Bank ABC, Dubai Islamic Bank, HSBC, Maybank and Noor Bank.

Meanwhile, Dubai-based Noor Bank is expected to price a capital-boosting sukuk issue of benchmark size today, a document from lead managers said.

Pricing guidance for the trans-action, which has an order book currently worth more than $1bn, has been revised to the area of 6.5 percent the document said.

An earlier update from lead arrangers yesterday had said ini-tial guidance was set in the mid- to high 6 percent area.

Chinese investors to build industrial park at Oman’s Duqm portReuters

MUSCAT: A group of Chinese inves-tors have signed an agreement to build an industrial park at Oman’s southern port of Duqm in a project that could attract billions of dollars of investment, government and com-

pany officials said yesterday.The Omani government is work-

ing to develop the area around Duqm, on a stretch of barren coast 550km south of the capital Muscat, into a major business zone as part of efforts to diversify the economy beyond oil.

The industrial park deal, signed during a visit to Oman by Wang Yong, a member of China’s State Council or

cabinet, could provide a big boost to that project and reduce pressure on Omani state finances, which have been hurt by low oil prices.

Yahya al-Jabri, chairman of the Omani state authority developing Duqm, predicted the 1,172-hectare industrial park would attract $10bn of investment by 2022, including $370m which the Chinese side would spend

on infrastructure. “The Chinese com-panies will be responsible for building the infrastructure, and then will be allowed to lease the land to Chinese investors. Almost all the projects will be financed by Chinese banks,” Jabri told reporters.

Ali Shah, chairman of Oman Wanfang, the Chinese-owned com-pany that will manage investments

at the industrial park, said it would include light and heavy industry as well as a $150m, five-star hotel, a $100m hospital and a school. Planned investments include an oil refinery, a cement plant, a factory making pipes for the petroleum industry, an automobile assembly plant, and a 1-gigawatt solar power generation facility, officials said.

AFP

LONDON: European stock mar-kets retreated yesterday following a largely downbeat performance by Asia, as Wall Street trod water.

“It was a directionless start to the new week for European mar-kets as investors digested more hawkish Fed speak, a drop in the price of oil, improved French and German economic data and another mega-merger facing reg-ulatory headwinds,” said Jasper Lawler at CMC Markets UK.

European stocks have pitched back and forth over the past week as investors have begun to take more seriously the probability the US Federal Reserve could raise

interest rates in June.Yoav Nizard at FXCM cur-

rency brokerage said the “market is indecisive, torn between a possible increase in rates by the Federal Reserve and

expectations of new supportive measures from the ECB follow-ing increased deflationary risks in the eurozone”.

Moreover, “the drop in oil prices puts under pressure Euro-pean stock exchanges which do not gain from a weak euro,” he added. Yesterday’s big corporate news came from German drugs and chemicals giant Bayer, which said it had offered $62bn (€55bn) for US agriculture group Mon-santo as it seeks to create the world’s biggest supplier of seeds, pesticides and genetically-mod-ified crops.

Bayer shares fell 5.7 percent to 84.42 euros on Frankfurt’s DAX 30 index, which closed down 0.7 percent.

Monsanto shares climbed 4.9

percent to $106.52 in trading on Wall Street.

London’s benchmark FTSE 100 index eased 0.1 percent after the government warned Monday in a report that Britain could be plunged into a year-long recession and lose hundreds of thousands of jobs if it voted to leave the EU next month.

Meanwhile the Paris CAC 40 shed 0.7 percent, with AXA also dropping 0.7 percent after it became the first global insurer to cut ties with the tobacco industry, saying it would sell about 1.8 bil-lion euros worth of investments in the sector

In the foreign exchange, the euro fell against the dollar, which in turn was down versus the yen.

Tokyo’s main stocks index

closed down 0.5 percent also after Japan published fresh data show-ing exports had faltered in April.

A stronger yen hurts Japa-nese exporters, a key driver of the world’s third largest economy, by making their products relatively more expensive overseas.

Japan had hoped its G7 coun-terparts—the United States, Britain, Germany, Italy, France and Canada—would at a week-end meeting give it some wiggle room to tame the unit as it threat-ens Japan Inc’s profits.

Japan last intervened in cur-rency markets around November 2011, when it tried to stem the yen’s rise against the dollar to keep an economic recovery on track after the quake-tsunami disaster earlier that year.

BUSINESS26 TUESDAY 24 MAY 2016

QE Index 9,681.54 0.45 %

QE Total Return Index 15,664.09 0.45 %

QE Al Rayan Islamic Index 3,809.28 0.38 %

QE All Share Index 2,711.04 0.40 %

QE All Share Banks & Financial Services 2,608.94 0.52 %

QE All Share Industrials 3,023.01 0.26 %

QE All Share Transportation 2,482.36 0.49 %

QE All Share Real Estate 2,392.48 0.92 %

QE All Share Insurance 4,177.52 0.55 %

QE All Share Telecoms 1,061.79 0.57 %

QE All Share Consumer Goods & Services 6,503.86 1.09 %

QE INDICES SUMMARY QATAR STOCK EXCHANGE

QE MARKET SUMMARY COMPARISON

GOLD AND SILVER

WORLD STOCK INDICES

23-05-2016 Today 22-05-2016 Previous day Index 9,681.54 9,638.26

Change 43.28 175.70

% 0.45 1.79

YTD% 7.17 7.59

Volume 4,870,942 4,198,523

Value (QAR) 178,440,502.61 136,289,425.42

Trades 3,742 2,833

Up 24 | Down 13 | Unchanged 04

GOLD QR146.6490 per grammeSILVER QR1.9236 per gramme

Index Day’s Close Pt Chg % Chg Year High Year LowAll Ordinaries 5384.88 -30.299 -0.56 5483.7 4762.1

Cac 40 Index/D 4322.25 -31.65 -0.73 4607.69 3892.46

Dj Indu Average 17500.94 65.54 0.38 18229.8 15370.3

Hang Seng Inde/D 19809.03 -43.17 -0.22 21794.84 18278.8

Iseq Overall/D 6263.82 34.67 0.56 6791.68 5611.89

Karachi 100 In/D 36723.35 29.85 0.08 36848.02 29785

Nikkei 225 Index 16654.6 -81.75 -0.49 18951.12 14865.77

S&P 500 Index/D 0 0 0 2132.82 1810.1

EXCHANGE RATECurrency Buying Selling

US$ QR 3.6305 QR 3.6500

UK QR 5.2425 QR 5.3160

Euro QR 4.0577 QR 4.1152

CA$ QR 2.7444 QR 2.7987

Swiss Fr QR 3.6532 QR 3.7071

Yen QR 0.0330 QR 0.0336

Aus$ QR 2.6024 QR 2.6536

Ind Re QR 0.0535 QR 0.0545

Pak Re QR 0.0344 QR 0.0352

Peso QR 0.0771 QR 0.0787

SL Re QR 0.0244 QR 0.0251

Taka QR 0.0459 QR 0.0469

Nep Re QR 0.0336 QR 0.0342

SA Rand QR 0.2310 QR 0.2356

Reuters

DUBAI: Saudi Arabia’s stock index sank 3.1 percent yes-terday as investors sold shares indiscriminately, while the United Arab Emirates and Qatar held onto small gains. Egypt fell as foreign funds exited the market.

Saudi shares were dumped across the board in the largest single-day decline since the government announced sweeping economic reforms in late April.

“Investors are cashing out and keeping cash avail-able on hand before the extended low-volume season of Ramadan and summer vacations,” said Sebastien Henin, head of asset management at Abu Dhabi’s The National Investor.

Henin said there was now “no positive news” sup-porting Gulf equity markets since oil prices had stopped climbing in recent days and equity valuations in the Gulf had adjusted higher, in line with other emerging stock markets, during a strong rebound from their January lows.

Saudi Basic Industries, the biggest petrochemical producer, dropped 3.0 percent. Retail industry shares, which have been advancing since late last week, also succumbed to the sell-off and Fawaz Alhokair slumped 4.1 percent, ending a three-day winning streak.

Cairo’s main index lost 1.0 percent as international fund managers sold Egyptian shares for a second straight session, bourse data showed.

In the United Arab Emirates, investors bought shares that had dipped over the past week but trading volumes remained lethargic.

Dubai’s index added 0.2 percent with most trade con-centrated in small and mid-cap shares. Builder Drake & Scull and amusement park developer Dubai Parks and Resorts rose 0.9 and 0.8 percent respectively.

Investment bank Shuaa Capital climbed 2.8 percent after sources told Reuters it had cut about 15 percent of its workforce, ahead of a possible sale of a stake in the company by Dubai Group.

Abu Dhabi’s largest listed stock, Etisalat, rebounded 0.3 percent from Sunday’s losses and Dana Gas added 1.9 percent. This helped the main Abu Dhabi index edge up 0.3 percent.

In Qatar, the index rebounded from early losses and added 0.5 percent. Qatar Gas Transport, a constituent of the MSCI emerging market index, jumped 2.4 percent.

Saudi slumps over 3%; other bourses mixed

INTERNATIONAL MARKETS - A LIST OF SHARES FROM THE WORLD

A C C-A/D 1420.35 24.65 17040

Aarti Drugs-B/D 474.1 -7.65 3685

Aban Offs-A/D 197.25 -7.85 692336

Ador Welding-B/D 290.9 4.2 8709

Aegis Logis-B/D 110.15 -0.75 38172

Alembic-B/D 35 -0.7 40002

Alok Indus-A/D 3.87 -0.01 803930

Apollo Tyre-A/D 151.45 -0.5 130787

Asahi I Glass-/D 148 1.7 5709

Ashok Leyland-/D 99.95 0.55 538241

Ballarpur In-B/D 17.3 0.15 245560

Bata India-A/D 554.5 -11.05 38453

Beml Ltd-A/D 850.5 -12.6 29080

Bh Electronic-/D 1099.95 -1.6 24631

Bhansali Eng-T/D 20.3 0.4 30640

Bharat Bijle-B/D 830.35 -23.65 7149

Bharatgears-B/D 80.3 -0.75 2715

Bhartiya Int-B/D 510 -5.5 6033

Bhel-A/D 118.55 -0.7 303380

Bom.Burmah-B/D 366.45 -42.85 15156

Bombay Dyeing-/D 45.55 -0.85 50023

Camph.& All-B/D 580 10 2047

Canfin Homes-B/D 1160.2 -24.2 1943

Caprihans-Xc/D 83 -11.5 26766

Castrol India-/D 370.4 -3.5 111985

Century Enka-B/D 202.7 -1.2 10526

Century Text-A/D 594.5 0.85 65128

Chambal Fert-B/D 62.65 -2.55 79289

Chola Invest-A/D 871.55 -6.9 301014

Cipla-A/D 497.4 -9.85 201463

City Union Bk-/D 102.2 4.3 228481

Colgate-A/D 810.95 0.95 23389

Container Cor-/D 1371.5 34.05 9889

Dai-Tichi Kar-/D 386.1 0.9 1135

Dcm Financia-T/D 0.7 -0.02 10050

Dcm Shram Ind-/D 125 -3.5 2811

Dhampur Sugar-/D 86.45 -0.05 62480

Dr. Reddy-A/D 3030.7 -4.3 18319

E I H-B/D 109.6 0.45 6334

E.I.D Parry-A/D 231.95 -6.15 40677

Eicher Motor-A/D 18285.65 -1.3 3186

Electrosteel-B/D 18.2 -0.1 27639

Emco-B/D 25 0.05 1130

Escorts Fin-B/D 4.94 0.82 113214

Escorts-A/D 167.2 -4.15 190751

Eveready Indu-/D 235 -0.8 2234

F D C-B/D 182.8 -0.15 1300

Federal Bank-A/D 49.5 -1 615421

Ferro Alloys-B/D 4.6 0.04 33234

Finolex-A/D 400.55 4.95 85948

Gail-A/D 371.6 0.55 78628

Gammon India-T/D 11.1 -0.2 24034

Garden P -B/D 25.3 -0.4 10009

Godfrey Phil-B/D 866.5 -5.7 15097

Goodricke-B/D 171.95 -6.45 20142

Goodyear I -B/D 527.95 26.2 18042

Hcl Infosys-B/D 40.15 -0.05 237630

Him.Fut.Comm-T/D 16.1 -0.1 593381

Himat Seide-B/D 222.45 0.75 80920

Hind Motors-T/D 4.87 0 9181

Hind Org Chem-/D 15.25 -0.5 10711

Hind Unilever-/D 819.55 6.9 43070

Hind.Petrol-A/D 829.9 -1.45 71203

Hindalco-A/D 86.95 -0.15 658950

Hous Dev Fin-A/D 1160.6 -19.5 159820

I F C I-A/D 23.25 -0.2 371757

Idbi-A/D 64.45 0.35 597803

Ifb Ind.Ltd.-B/D 350 -18.7 98207

India Cement-A/D 84.1 -0.5 231789

India Glycol-B/D 83.1 -1.85 3637

Indian Card-B/D 240.5 -1.7 1385

Indian Hotel-A/D 114.5 1.7 49961

Indo-Tcount-T/D 898.1 -10.5 14312

Indusind-A/D 1056.3 -15.15 39455

J.B.Chemical-B/D 248.1 -6.3 20311

Jagson Phar-B/D 33.15 -1.4 16314

Jamnaauto-B/D 148.4 4.4 180092

Jbf Indu-B/D 202.5 -1.55 8174

Jct Ltd-B/D 4.66 0.35 1071197

Jenson&Nich.-B/D 7.88 -0.04 21180

Jindal Drill-B/D 165 -1 5961

Jktyre&Ind-A/D 80.1 -1.7 87487

Jmc Projects-T/D 274 3.8 2409

Kakatiya Cem-B/D 529.1 -27.8 10260

Kalpat Power-B/D 222 -2.95 7437

Kalyani Stel-T/D 160.1 2.6 17551

Kanoria Chem-B/D 67.3 -0.8 5132

Kg Denim-B/D 94 -2.3 11453

Kilburnengg-Xd/D 57.2 -0.7 1705

Kopran-B/D 50 -0.5 19693

Lloyd Metal-B/D 24.95 -0.5 8231

Lumax Ind-B/D 496.2 -5.4 4631

Lupin-A/D 1466.5 -38.65 185250

Lyka Labs-T/D 71.3 -1.35 15569

Mafatlal Ind-B/D 329.55 -5.65 8718

Mah.Seamless-B/D 226.05 3.15 24620

Maha Scooter-B/D 1245 -23.5 6299

Mangalam Cem-B/D 240 -6.1 8180

Maral Overs-B/D 27 -0.2 1922

Mastek-B/D 135.4 0.7 7618

Max Financial-/D 370.9 1.2 4215

Mrpl-A/D 65.5 0.65 188974

Nahar Spg.-B/D 117.9 1.5 8131

Nation Alum -A/D 41.9 1.45 324985

Navneet Edu-B/D 88.6 -0.15 23487

Nepc India-T/D 1.36 -0.04 2906

Neuland Lab-B/D 781 -58.75 17553

Nrb Bearings-B/D 113.05 -1.55 373985

O N G C-A/D 208.3 -4.65 215286

Ocl India-B/D 590 -7.3 1544

Orchid Pharm-B/D 38.15 -0.05 37801

Orient Hotel-T/D 21.6 -1.9 4888

Orient.Carb.-T/D 462.35 -11.05 1755

Orient.Carb.-T/D 462.35 -11.05 1755

Oudh Sugar-B/D 80.35 -2.65 79815

Punjab Chem.-B/D 167.6 -2.4 1193

Radico Khait-B/D 85.65 -1.55 11847

Rallis India-A/D 205.2 -0.9 26158

Rallis India-A/D 205.2 -0.9 26158

Reliance Indus/D 397.45 -1.25 44009

Ruchi Soya-B/D 21.95 -0.45 159732

S Bk Bikaner-B/D 468.9 -7.75 3508

Saur.Cem-B/D 67.35 0.6 136036

Sterling Tool-/D 461.6 -45.4 2011

Tanfac Indust-/D 32.1 -0.7 6746

Tanfac Indust-/D 32.1 -0.7 6746

Thirumalai-B/D 251.55 -0.75 10671

Til Ltd.-T/D 289.5 -1.8 1375

Timexgroup-T/D 34 0.35 14572

Tinplate-B/D 71.25 1.75 94825

Ucal Fuel-B/D 106.6 -3.4 3274

Ultramarine-B/D 139 3.9 21715

Unitech P -A/D 3.96 0 5280011

Univcable-B/D 82.5 -3.95 16813

Uppergsugar-T/D 177.25 0.65 29242

3I Group/D 514.5 9 1204182

Assoc.Br.Foods/D 2913 -7 152726

Barclays/D 176.85 0.95 15191195

Bp/D 358.6 -2.9 7695863

Brit Am Tobacc/D 4116 -31 704803

Bt Group/D 442.05 -0.95 7038567

Centrica/D 201.3 -0.2 8092997

Gkn/D 273.1 -2.1 1969492

Hsbc Holdings/D 429.95 0.7 8263790

Kingfisher/D 359.5 -1.7 2511302

Land Secs Grou/D 1181 6 941147

Legal & Genera/D 224.5 -0.9 3871688

Lloyds Bnk Grp/D 70.6233 0.29 44998440

Marks & Sp./D 439.8 -4.9 2948054

Next/D 5360 15 396666

Pearson/D 812.5 -4 719395

Prudential/D 1322 -12 1213620

Rank Group/D 247.7 0.2 19023

Rentokil Initi/D 177.7 1 580753

Rolls Royce Pl/D 638 -5 1034677

Rsa Insrance G/D 480.66 0.2 449733

Sainsbury(J)/D 259.3 -1.3 2166132

Schroders/D 2570 -5 100911

Severn Trent/D 2213 3 117264

Smith&Nephew/D 1161 10 524477

Smiths Group/D 1097 2 282177

Standrd Chart /D 524.4 -1.8 2148257

Tate & Lyle/D 611 2.5 152353

Tesco/D 161.75 -2.55 4398531

Unilever/D 3067 -14 624922

United Util Gr/D 955 0 506616

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LONDON

European stocks have pitched back and forth over the past week as investors have begun to take more seriously the probability the US Federal Reserve could raise interest rates in June.

European stocks retreat on lacklustre trading in Asia

BUSINESS VIEWS 27TUESDAY 24 MAY 2016

BP’s oil search strategy shrinks with budget cutsBy Ron Bousso and Dmitry

Zhdannikov

Reuters

The surprise departure of BP’s explo-ration boss has turned the spotlight on an oil search strategy that, after

years of spending cuts, is focusing mainly on expanding existing fields rather than ven-turing expensively into the unknown.

That caution reflects a firm chastened by the $55bn cost of its 2010 Gulf of Mexico spill, and needing to squeeze every last drop out of a sharply reduced exploration budget at a time of low oil prices.

“Exploration doesn’t necessarily have to look like (nature broadcaster) David Atten-borough standing on a brand new frontier,” a BP source told Reuters.

While BP’s total reserves and fields com-ing onstream in the next four years look healthy compared to the other majors, its long-term project pipeline is the slimmest among its peers and its break-even costs are the highest, according to some analysts, among them Macquarie.

Several BP sources said Chief Executive Bob Dudley and his team were hammering out a new long-term strategy, with investors expecting an update on its post-2020 plans later this year or early next. The plan is likely to chime with a phrase that Dudley is fond of using: “Big is not necessarily beautiful.”

After asset sales forced on it by the Gulf disaster shrank the company by a third, BP is today focusing its operations on five regions — Angola, Azerbaijan, Egypt, the Gulf of Mex-ico and the North Sea.

It was in Angola, Egypt and the North Sea, already BP core regions, that Richard Her-bert notched up his main successes during his two years as head of exploration. BP said his departure followed its decision to bring exploration and field development under one upstream team, headed since February by Bernard Looney. But Herbert, who worked with Dudley in Russia in the 2000s, had also seen his annual budget shrink from $3.5bn in 2013 to $1bn this year — not enough to drill even a dozen complex deep-water wells, and certainly not enough to throw at a fron-tier exploration with potential high gain, but also a high risk of coming out empty-handed. Royal Dutch/Shell sank $7bn into an Alaskan

exploration that it abandoned last year — something BP simply cannot afford. While BP’s existing resources are not small com-pared to its peers, analysts say the lack of a long-term project pipeline is a worry.

BP’s reserves-to-production ratio, the number of years reserves can sustain cur-rent production, is the third highest among oil majors at nearly 13 years, excluding out-put from Russia’s Rosneft, in which BP has a near-20 percent stake. It trails only Exxon-Mobil’s 17 years and Total’s 13.5, but is more than Shell, Eni or Chevron.

By 2020, the startup of projects such as the West Nile Delta in Egypt and the Clair Ridge field in the North Sea will have added 800,000 b/d of oil equivalent to its oil and gas output capacity, Dudley told Reuters last year.

In the short term, that appears to be com-fortably enough to offset shrinking output from mature fields and maintain or increase a current output level of around 2m b/d.

But another indicator, the reserves replacement ratio (RRR) new proven but unex-ploited discoveries as a proportion of annual production - reveals a less rosy picture. BP’s RRR fell last year to 61 percent, its lowest in many years, from 129 percent in 2013.

The RRR reflects not only a failure to unlock new deposits — a problem for all the multinationals — but also a reluctance to commit investment as oil prices languish about 60 percent below mid-2014 levels.

Among BP’s rivals, Shell’s RRR was neg-ative last year, while that of Eni, fresh from discovering the giant Zohr field off Egypt, was 148 percent. Some of the seemingly promising projects that Herbert inherited from his pred-ecessor, Mike Daly, have proved disappointing.

In Brazil, a corruption investigation has slowed projects for other majors as well as BP. Turmoil in Libya has forced it to write off some investments there, while low oil prices have hurt development of the Canadian oil sands.

Australian authorities have also refused so far to allow BP to explore the Great Aus-tralian Bight, an untapped basin off the southern coast, amid environment protests.

BP has said it plans to make further acquisitions to build its resource base, such as the doubling of its stake in the North Sea Culzean field announced this week.

But Macquarie analyst Iain Reid said BP’s pipeline of new projects, totalling 1.8bn bar-rels of oil equivalent, was the lowest among the world’s top five oil companies.

By Mark Shenk

Bloomberg

Investors have some sad rea-sons to be optimistic about oil prices. Outbreaks of vio-lence in Nigeria, export

troubles in a divided Libya and wildfires ripping across the Cana-dian oil sands are reviving wagers that crude markets will tighten. Speculators’ net-long position in benchmark US crude, a measure of how bets on a price increase outnumber bearish ones, climbed by the most contracts since March, according to data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

“The main bullish factor has been the outages,” said Michael Wittner, the New York-based head of oil-market research at Societe Generale SA. “There are many outages, led by Nigeria and Can-ada. We’re missing a lot of crude.”

West Texas Intermediate futures are heading for a fourth-straight monthly gain, which would be the longest rally in five years, as evidence mounts that demand may soon outpace sup-plies. Investors’ net-long position in WTI futures climbed 14 percent in the week ended May 17, accord-ing to the CFTC. Short positions, or bets crude prices will drop, shrank while longs advanced.

WTI futures surged 8.2 per-cent on the New York Mercantile Exchange during the CFTC report week, while the June contract on Friday dropped 0.9 percent to close and expire at $47.75 a bar-rel. WTI for July delivery slid 0.9 percent to $47.98 at 10:34am Lon-don time yesterday.

Nigerian crude output has tumbled as militants resumed blowing up the pipelines that crisscross the mangrove swamps of the Niger River delta, ending years of relative peace. A wave of attacks this month is pushing production to a 27-year low of 1.4 million barrels a day.

“The new wrinkle is Nigeria,” said John Kilduff, a partner at Again Capital LLC in New York.

“It’s been a long time since we’ve worried about the supply of West African crude.”

In Libya, competing adminis-trations of the state-run National Oil Corp have brought exports to a halt, the latest setback to sup-plies from a nation devastated by conflict. In the five years since the ouster of Muammar al-Qaddafi, Libya’s oil installations have been attacked and ports shut down as groups vie for influence.

The Canadian wildfire dou-bled to an area more than five times bigger than New York City in about a week, threatening oil-sands mines. More than 80,000

people around Fort McMur-ray in northern Alberta fled the inferno earlier in the month, and the industry shut down more than 1 million barrels a day of output. Cooler weather is now helping to control the blaze.

The oil market has moved into a production deficit earlier than expected following supply disrup-tions and an increase in demand, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Other banks such as Morgan Stanley, Barclays Plc and Bank of America Corp. have also noted that supply losses are lead-ing markets to rebalance.

“The disruptions are get-ting people thinking that supply may soon trail demand,” Again Capital’s Kilduff said. “This is especially true given the the-sis that the market was going to come into balance later this year anyway.”

The net-long position in WTI rose by 30,475 futures and options combined to 246,996, the biggest gain since March, CFTC data show. Short positions tumbled 24 per-cent, while longs rose 3.6 percent.

US crude output fell to 8.79 million barrels a day in the week ended May 13, the least since September 2014, an Energy Infor-mation Administration report showed. Gasoline use averaged 9.56 million barrels a day in the four weeks ended May 13, the highest seasonal level in at least a decade, according to EIA data.

In other markets, net bullish bets on Nymex gasoline surged 53 percent to 23,756 contracts. Gaso-line futures increased 10 percent in the period. Net bullish wagers on U.S. ultra low sulfur diesel more than doubled to 5,862 con-tracts, the highest since July 2014, as futures climbed 9.7 percent.

Managed money bets will shift if the disruptions are reduced, SocGen’s Wittner said. Cana-dian output would rebound in weeks if the weather coop-erates, said Michael Lynch, president of Strategic Energy & Economic Research in Winches-ter, Massachusetts.

Alberta officials are count-ing on cool, humid weather in the coming days to help them better contain the wildfire. More success in keeping the flames at bay and improved air quality are needed before workers will be allowed to return to facilities, including some of Suncor Energy Inc. and Syn-crude Canada Ltd’s mines north of Fort McMurray, officials said in a media briefing on Friday.

“There’s a high probability that Canadian production will recover rather quickly,” Lynch said. “Nigeria and Libya will prob-ably take a lot longer. There’s no telling whether it will take weeks, months or years for their produc-tion to rebound.”

Oil supply cuts from

Nigeria to Canada renew

bets on price rally

The power cutters shaking up Britain’s energy market

By Karolin Schaps and Susanna

Twidale

Reuters

Britain is turning to a new way of making sure it doesn’t run out of power, one that could turn the energy market on its head: rather than paying utilities to produce

more electricity, it is paying firms that guar-antee to cut industrial demand.

So-called aggregator firms secure com-mitments from businesses across the country to reduce power usage; supermarkets can turn down refrigerators by a few degrees for a short period without any impact, for example, while water treatment plants can turn off pumps at certain times.

The aggregators then sell the megawatt reduction they secure to power network operator National Grid, which is increas-ingly favouring this “demand-side response” (DSR) method to paying big utilities to ramp up power generation. Aggregators pass on

the revenue to the busi-nesses, taking a cut.

Aggregators, like Flexitricity, Kiwi Power or Open Energi, have gained traction in the past year after National Grid launched a promotional campaign to raise aware-ness among businesses about the commer-cial benefits of DSR and reducing energy usage.

They present a threat to the revenue of big power generation firms like Centrica, SSE and EDF Energy , who are being undercut by these newcomers and losing business in Britain’s £1bn

($1.5bn) electricity balancing market.The challenge could grow rapidly in

coming years; National Grid, which seeks to match supply and demand on a second-by-second basis, wants to see 30-50 percent of capacity in the electricity-balancing mar-ket coming from DSR by 2020, compared with just 4 percent now.

How the rise of aggregators plays out in Britain could offer a guide for other Euro-pean countries, and will be closely watched by power companies and regulators across the continent. Britain and France are the most advanced countries in using DSR, and have a regulatory framework in place. Other countries like Germany are still shaping rules on how to deal with reducing power demand, which can cut the use of fossil fuel power stations and help cut carbon diox-ide emissions.

“DSR is a really exciting area,” National Grid Chief Executive John Pettigrew told Reuters. “It allows us to balance the system much more economically, which benefits customers.”

Utilities, already under pressure from weak electricity prices, are being forced to respond by pushing into the DSR business themselves.

Ronan O’Regan, director in the energy strategy team at advisory PwC, said growing renewable energy output and tighter supply margins due to closing coal and gas plants would increase the need for balancing serv-ices. “The potential growth in demand-side response in the balancing services market is likely to be significant over the coming years,” he said.

Large factories and offices consume around two-thirds of Britain’s electricity. Demand aggregators sign contracts with National Grid to reduce electricity demand from clusters of business and industrial customers.

“We can link up gigawatts and gigawatts of capacity from air conditioners, heaters, refrigerators across tens of thousands of sites,” said Yoav Zingher, CEO and founder

Utilities, already under pressure from weak electricity prices, are being forced to respond by pushing into the DSR business themselves.

While BP’s existing resources are not small compared to its peers, analysts say the lack of a long-term project pipeline is a worry.

of Kiwi Power.Businesses signed by such firms earn

revenue from National Grid contracts, passed on by their aggregators who take a cut, while also saving money by cutting consumption at the most expensive times.

Open Energi has signed up large customers like supermarket chain Sains-bury’s and water supplier United Utilities.

“National Grid doesn’t want to deal with thousands of small DSR providers, that’s where we come in,” said its business devel-opment director David Hill.

The aggregators that Reuters spoke to declined to disclose the size of the cut they took because the figures are commer-cially sensitive. Open Energi, a six-year old company, said its clients receive most of the revenue generated from National Grid contracts. It promises them returns of 5-10 percent of their annual energy bill through the National Grid revenue.

Its client United Utilities said it expects to make £5m in revenue from DSR by 2020 by reducing power usage, includ-ing by turning off pumps at its treatment works. Utilities, which own most of Brit-ain’s power plants, acknowledge the power market is changing and are responding to the new reality.

RWE’s npower, one of Britain’s “big six” electricity providers, said it was develop-ing its own in-house capability to offer automated DSR products and services to customers. “DSR is a key growth mar-ket within the UK energy market,” said Michael Byrne, head of marketing for npower’s business solutions unit.

Britain’s biggest energy supplier, Centrica, has brought demand-reducing products to the household energy mar-ket and said it wants to expand further in this area.

SSE, another one of the big six, has struck a deal with Kiwi Power to offers some of its commercial customers DSR services through the aggregator.

BUSINESS28 TUESDAY 24 MAY 2016

Luxury brands’ Chinese binge is showing signs of slowing

By Andrea Felsted

Bloomberg

It’s already happened to middle-of-the-road stores across high streets and main streets. Now the

world’s biggest luxury stores are starting to shutter outlets. The culprit is the Chinese con-sumer, who is starting to rein in spending at home and abroad. The effect will be no less severe: expect more closures to come.

Over the past decade, Chi-nese consumer demand and new store openings together turbo-charged luxury sales. New store space accounted for 55 percent of global luxury revenue growth over the past eight years, accord-ing to analysts at Mainfirst.

As for Chinese nationals, they powered about two-thirds of luxury market’s growth over the past decade, according to Exane BNP Paribas.

Now both of these forces are running out of steam. Given the slump in Hong Kong and the slowdown in China, stores there are the main focus of atten-tion. Hugo Boss has already announced plans to close 20 of the 131 stores it directly owns on the mainland. It’s reviewing as many as 20 of its least-profita-ble 430 stores globally.

The company is in talks with its landlords, so not all of these outlets will close—but it expects to announce a sizeable number of exits later this year. Prada won’t say where its selec-tive store cuts might fall, but as it expanded aggressively in Asia, it’s a good bet that some will be there.

And last week, Richemont, maker of Cartier jewelry and Jaeger-LeCoultre watches, said it was also reviewing its retail net-work in Hong Kong and Macau.

This could include closures, moving to cheaper premises or lease renegotiations. Indeed, seeking rent reductions is an alternative to outright closure.

Bloomberg Intelligence’s Patrick Wong says rent reduc-tions of as much as 50 percent are possible in some locations in Hong Kong. But demand remains strong for space in pre-mium malls, limiting the scope for discounts.

In mainland China, tenants have most bargaining power in new malls, particularly in sec-ond-tier cities, hit by a slump in demand and plentiful new sup-ply, Wong notes.

While the most attention might be on China, globally, brands are focusing on mak-ing their existing stores work harder. Rather than planning large scale openings, existing outlets are being refurbished.

The luxury groups are right to halt their dizzying expansion, and start to cut back. As they do, there could be opportunities for more niche upmarket brands to expand. Kering’s Saint Lau-rent, LVMH’s Givenchy Fendi and Celine, and Swatch’s Harry Winston could all open stores at more attractive rents.

Pandora, the affordable lux-ury chain, is one retailer that is still growing its store base, including in China. And here’s another trend that mirrors what is happening on high streets and main streets. As mid-market brands retrench, discount play-ers move in.

By Se Young Lee

Reuters

From the way it chooses smartphone components to the models it brings to market, Samsung Electron-ics has undergone a painful

process of breaking from its past to reverse a slide in its handset business.

For example, the world’s largest smartphone maker agonised over camera specs for its flagship Galaxy S7 until the last moment - ultimately defying industry convention by opt-ing for fewer pixels in exchange for improved autofocus features and low-light performance, a move that contributed to early success.

It also pared back its product line-up, overcoming internal resistance, enabling it to streamline produc-tion, an executive said. The handset business has now stabilised, and had its best profit in nearly two years in January-March, though historically low smartphone industry growth still leaves Samsung looking for the “next big thing”. “We’ve now gotten to a point where we can secure a baseline profit even if the market stagnates, so long as we don’t make a bad mistake,” said Kim Gae-youn, vice president in charge of Samsung’s smartphone product planning. “I’m confident we can hold our ground.”

After peaking in 2013, a sharp drop in mobile profits exposed Sam-sung as slow to adjust to the changing market: its budget devices were overpriced and unappealing versus Chinese offerings, and the 2014 ver-sion of its Galaxy S flopped.

That prompted a cull among exec-utives and stoked investor worries Samsung might not be able to recover as rivals including Apple and China’s

Huawei Technologies and Xiaomi gained market share at its expense.

There was no sweeping, across-the-board fix. Rather, Samsung embarked two years ago on an overhaul that included a shift from a phone-for-all-needs approach towards a line-up that emphasized economies of scale.

It revamped design, using metal frames and curved screens, and gave high-end features such as organic light-emitting diode (OLED) screens to its low- and mid-tier products.

As Samsung prepared to launch its Galaxy S7 phones this year, exec-utives went back and forth over whether to use a 12-megapixel rear camera that shoots better in the dark and has improved auto focus, or stay with a 16-megapixel count. At the last moment, they opted for 12-megapix-els - a rare step down in an industry fixated on higher numbers.

This meant a change in approach for a company known to tout the highest specs for its flagship products, and executives required convincing, Kim said. They were swayed by data showing consumers want more than

just a high pixel count.“In the past, based on our past

decision-making process, we never would have gone back,” Kim said in an interview at Samsung’s headquar-ters campus in Suwon, south of Seoul. The move worked. More than half of US S7 buyers surveyed cited camera quality as a key selling point, com-pared with a third of all smartphone buyers in the first quarter, according to Kantar US Insights.

The same mindset shift gave Sam-sung confidence to release a Galaxy 7 series that looks similar to its pred-ecessor. This incremental upgrade drew initial scepticism, but the S7 phones have beaten expectations and could set a new first-year sales record for the South Korean firm.

Samsung must still convince investors its recent improvement is sustainable, and that innovative prod-ucts are in the works to grow revenue. Some attribute its rebound partly to Apple’s weaker performance, and cost-cutting.

Long-time mobile chief J K Shin ceded day-to-day management in December when Dongjin Koh became

president of the handset unit in the biggest leadership change to date under the conglomerate’s heir-appar-ent Jay Y Lee. Samsung’s operating profit is expected to be flat this year and grow just 3 percent next year, according to 43 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Slimming down its product port-folio was another departure from the past, when Samsung launched varia-tions to soak up as much demand as possible. As market growth stalled, that approach was no longer cost effective. It phased out unpopular models and created common plat-forms, with more phones using the same parts. Researcher Counter-point says Samsung has shed close to a third of its product portfolio. That move also had to overcome internal resistance. The product cull paid off; the revamped models helped Sam-sung recover in big markets such as India. “There was a feeling the sheer number of phones in the market was confusing for customers,” said a Sam-sung India executive.

Despite a solid first quarter, ana-lysts remain cautious about Samsung’s outlook, with researcher Gartner predicting global smartphone sales growth will slow to 7 percent this year.

Samsung has also yet to recover in China, the world’s top smartphone market, where it ranks sixth with 7 percent market share, according to Strategy Analytics, well behind local rivals such as Huawei, Xiaomi and OPPO.

Samsung’s Kim says his focus now is on premium-end smartphones - those costing $600 and above - where not all industry players have the mus-cle to compete. “There’s still room for growth in the market,” he said. “This segment wants innovation, which has turned it into an area that requires huge capital equipment investments.”

Samsung rewrites playbook to halt smartphone slide

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Samsung Electronics’ new smartphone Galaxy S7 Edge during its launch ceremony in Seoul.

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ASIAN OILFIELDS: Oli-max Energy To Buy Asian Oilfield Shares At `32.40/share

Global M&A revenue falls YoY but #Asia is the only region to increase

Al Falih says #Saudi National Plan includes #industrial initiatives

“The US lodging indus-try is in the twilight of the up-cycle that began in 2009.

No one knows how corporate

Europe will use its bond

market binge — including the

ECB.

Blackstone Exec thinks it would

be an “interesting” time to

invest more money with hedge

fund manager who recently told

clients “I’ve failed”.

Vardy misses Australia game to get married

PAGE | 31 PAGE | 32

Czech Stepanek thrives as the

character actor

TUESDAY 24 MAY 2016 • 17 SHA’BAAN 1437

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@peninsulaqatar @peninsula_qatarthepeninsulaqatar

2016 Road World Championship, Official Mascot ‘Khaz’ unveiledThe Peninsula

DOHA: The Organising Committee of the UCI Road World Championship, Doha 2016, unveiled the official mascot for the event, Khaz, who is a young Arabian hare.

Khaz has been chosen because he represents many of the values that the organizers expect to portray at the world class event which is expected to feature the best in the world competing for top honours.

“Khaz is a brave, independent, gen-tle young Hare who represents the Qatari

values of peace, hope and community. He is proud of his country, loves his extended family and respects all other creatures who share his land. He captures the spirit of the Event in his optimism, determination, generosity and exuberance. His passion for cycling and playful nature make him an ideal symbol for Qatar’s historic role in hosting the UCI Road World Champion-ships, Doha 2016”, a press release issued by the organizing committee read.

The event which has a history of more than 95 years, will be held from October 9 to 16, 2016 and more than 1000 cyclists from 75 countries are expected to com-pete in Doha.

The Peninsula

DOHA: Qatar Stars League (QSL) champions Al Rayyan will con-tinue to receive the services of their award-winning Uruguayan coach, Jorge Fossati. The club yes-

terday confirmed that their head coach has signed a new three-year deal to stay with the club till the 2017/2018 season.

Fossati, who is no stranger to football in Qatar after stints with Al Sadd and the Qatar national team, lead Al Rayyan to their first QSL title in twenty one years this term after being hired last summer.

“It is easy to say that I changed the style of football at Al Rayyan when I took over at the beginning of this season. But that would be unfair to the previous coach and the team, who had a good run in the second division in the second half of last season,” Fossati said in an interview with www.sc.qa.

“It would have been crazy to

set a target at the beginning of the season to be 18 points ahead at the top of the standings after 20 rounds,” he added.

“Initially the target was to bring back the smiles to the fans and to improve our standards game by game. Then we revised it to a top four finish. It was only three rounds ago that we upgraded to winning the league.”

The former Uruguay coach was declared ‘Coach of the Year’ at the prestigious Qatar Football Awards which was held few days back, and the charismatic coach compared the award to winning the QSL title.

“I am with the same feeling that I got when we won the QSL title. This is my third time and my

emotions are same. It was very difficult because of the quality of our sides and other coaches,” Fos-sati said after receiving the Coach of the Year award.

“This is something I must not receive alone. My full team should be here, my players, the staff, the managers,” he added.

Al Rayyan’s star striker Rod-rigo Tabata won the ‘QFA Player of the Year’ award for the second time as Qatar’s football giants accounted for two major awards at the glittering ceremony.

After helping the Lions to bag the QSL title with five games to spare, the Uruguayan tactician will now begin preparation in earnest for Al Rayyan’s presea-son training.

Fossati extends stay with Al Rayyan for 3 more years

Khaz, the official mascot of the UCI Road World Championship, Doha 2016.

The Uruguayan tactician to remain with the Qatar Stars League champions until 2018

Van Gaal sacked: Reports AFP

LONDON: Louis Van Gaal’s time as man-ager of Manchester United appeared to be nearing its end yesterday, amid reports that agreement on a severance package was all that stood in the way of his exit from Old Trafford.

Both Van Gaal and leading employ-ment lawyer Paul Gilroy were seen entering United’s Carrington training ground on Monday following reports that former Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho was poised to replace the Dutchman.

Gilroy’s clients have included David Moyes, whose sacking as United manager paved the way for Van Gaal’s appointment.

There has been no official confirma-tion as yet from United, 20-times English champions, about the position of Van Gaal, who still has a season remaining on his three-year contract.

But James Ducker, the northern foot-ball correspondent of Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper, tweeted Monday: “Paul Gilroy QC finalising Van Gaal’s sev-erance package now...£5m pay off.”

Meanwhile The Times’ Paul Hirst said United executive vice-chairman Ed

Woodward had already informed Van Gaal of his dismissal.

“Sounds like Woodward actually told LVG in person last (Sunday) night that he was sacked,” Hirst tweeted.

The BBC said United would make a statement about Van Gaal at 1:00pm local time (1200 GMT) but several hours later there was still no word from the club.

British media have been awash with reports of Van Gaal’s demise, after a leak from an unknown source spread as Manchester United lifted the FA Cup on Saturday.

The Dutchman cryptically com-mented, “It’s over” as he left the squad’s Cup final hotel on Sunday, but it was not clear whether he was referring to his ten-ure or United’s season.

The BBC said Van Gaal had not been informed whether he was staying for next season, although it said Saturday’s 2-1 win over Palace at Wembley was believed to have been his last game in charge of United.

Despite winning the club’s first trophy since the great Alex Ferguson’s retirement in 2013, Van Gaal’s United didn’t challenge for the Premier League title and failed to qualify for the Champions League.

M a n c h e s t e r United manager Louis van Gaal looks dejected during their UEFA Champions League Group Stage match against VfL Wolfsburg in this file photo.

Wawrinka escapes historic blow, Italian veterans crashAFP

PARIS: Stan Wawrinka avoided becoming the first defending champion to lose first round at the French Open yesterday when he battled past combative Lukas Rosol in five tough sets.

Third seed Wawrinka fired 56 win-ners but committed 46 unforced errors and needed to save eight break points to book a second round clash against Japan’s Taro Daniel.

Wawrinka, 31, had defeated 59th-ranked Rosol in the semi-finals of the Geneva clay-court tournament just last Friday.

But Rosol went into the match on a chilly Court Philippe Chatrier with the ped-igree of having famously stunned Rafael Nadal at Wimbledon in 2012.

That free-swinging masterclass almost paid dividends again yesterday but once he had let slip two break points at 2-2 in the fourth set, his hopes slowly slipped away.

Japan’s fifth seed Kei Nishikori reached the second round with a 6-1, 7-5, 6-3 win over Simone Bolelli of Italy.

Nishikori goes on to face Russia’s Andrey Kuznetsov after finishing off a first-round tie which had been suspended overnight with him leading 2-1 in the third set.

It was a 50th career Grand Slam match win for Nishikori who made the quarter-finals in Paris in 2015.

Spanish fourth seed Garbine Mugu-ruza struggled on Court Suzanne Lenglen, coming back from a set down to defeat Slo-vakia’s Anna Karolina Schmiedlova 3-6, 6-3, 6-3.

Muguruza, who has made the quarter-finals for the last two years, will next take on French wildcard Myrtille Georges, the world number 203.

But the 22-year-old Wimbledon run-ner-up was far from impressive.

After dropping the first set, Muguruza had to save nine break points just in the opening game of the second.

She then allowed her 37th-ranked opponent, who has won just one match all year, to claw her way back from 0-4 down to 3-4 in the decider before the Spaniard settled herself to see out the win.

Muguruza fired 44 winners but hit 53 unforced errors and had to save 17 of 21 break points.

Seeds falling by the wayside included seventh seed Roberta Vinci, the Italian who stunned Serena Williams at the US Open semi-finals last year.

The 33-year-old suffered a third suc-cessive first-round exit in Paris going down 6-1, 6-3 to Kateryna Bondarenko who hadn’t won a match at the French Open since 2010.

Vinci’s Italian 16th seeded compatriot Sara Errani, the 2012 runner-up, lost to 2010 Wimbledon semi-finalist Tsvetana Pironkova 6-3, 6-2.

Also heading out was Czech 17th seed Karolina Pliskova who lost 3-6, 6-4, 6-3 to 108th-ranked Shelby Rogers of the United States.

Second seed Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland, however, brushed aside Serbia’s Bojana Jovanovski 6-0, 6-2.

Radwanska, a quarter-finalist in 2013 but who lost in the first round to Germa-ny’s Annika Beck last year, goes on to face Caroline Garcia of France.

Yesterday’s result left Jovanovski, the world number 120, without a win in 2016.

Romanian sixth seed Simona Halep, the 2014 runner-up, also progressed, tak-ing just 43 minutes to defeat Japan’s Nao Hibino 6-2, 6-0. Play started two and a half hours late yesterday because of more rain with 12 of the 66 scheduled matches pushed back to Tuesday.

Al Rayyan players throw coach Jorge Fossati in the air during the celebrations after winning the Qatar Stars League in this file photo.

Ce to

SPORT30 TUESDAY 24 MAY 2016

Athletics: Ayana close to Dibaba record at Rabat Diamond debut

AFP

RABAT: Ethiopia’s Almaz Ayana came close to beating Tirunesh Dibaba’s 5000m world record and world best times of the year were set as Morocco hosted its first Dia-mond League meeting on Sunday at a windy Rabat.

Also at the meeting on Sun-day, seven-time world champion American LaShawn Merritt never looked in any danger as he tore round the track for an impressive time of 44.66sec in the 400m.

But in the very last race of the inaugural night, world 5000m champion Ayana blamed the wind after she came over five seconds short of Dibaba’s 2008 record of 14min 11.15sec set in in Oslo with a pace setter.

Despite blazing to victory in 14min 16.31sec ahead of Kenya’s Viola Kibiwot, who was some 13 seconds adrift with another Ethio-pian Senbere Teferi in third, Ayana was clearly disappointed with the performance on Sunday.

“The wind was too much, I’m sure that I’ll beat the record in one of my upcoming outings though,” said Ayana, who aims to race both the 5000m and 10000m at the Rio Olympics.

Other highlights of the night came as Kenyan Conseslus Kipruto, his face twisted in a grim-ace over the home straight, won the 3000m steeplechase ahead of three compatriots.

He also set a season’s world best time of 8min 02.77sec, beat-ing the previous one he himself had established at Doha.

The 21-year-old double world silver medallist from 2013 and 2015 was under pressure from Jairus Kipchoge Birech, but even-tually ran over a second faster for his seventh Diamond League win after taking the lead on the last turn.

Frenchma n Ma hiedine Mekhissi returned to competition after two bouts of surgery on his foot and then heel and 18 months out of racing, but the evening turned sour for the two-time Olympic silver medallist when he pulled up injured again.

Another Kenyan victory came in the 1500m with Timo-thy Cheruiyot winning in 3min 33.61sec ahead of compatriot Silas Kiplagat and Australian Ryan Gregson.

Ukrainian Bogdan Bondar-enko boosted his Diamond Race hopes in the high jump on Sunday, beating leader Erik Kynard with a jump of 2.31m to cut the gap to just six points.

Caster Semenya was on fly-ing form, also setting a world best time for 2016 of 1min 56.84sec in the 800m as she eased ahead of Burundi’s Francine Niyonsaba and the up-and-coming Frenchwoman Renelle Lamote.

In the men’s 800m France’s 24-year-old Pierre-Ambroise Bosse booked himself a date at the Rio Games when he clinched victory in 1min 44.51sec, narrowly edging reigning 1500m Olym-pic champion, Algerian Taoufik Makhloufi (1:44.91). Bosnia’s Amel Tuka was third.

Another South African, Rushwai Samaai, won the men’s long jump on Sunday with a per-sonal best effort of 8.38 metres, albeit with a favourable wind, beating world indoor champion Australian Fabrice Lapierre into second by 2cm.

Poland were all smiles in the discus after world champion Piotr Malachowski won the event with an effort of 67.45m to fend off com-patriot Robert Urbanek, who was second with 65.04.

Jamaican sprinter Elaine Thompson ran into a 1.3sec head-wind to register a 100m victory in 11.02sec.

There was some home cheer as world and Olympic 1500m bronze medallist Abdelaati Iguider won the 3000m with a world best time for the year of 7:38.85 over the non-Olympic distance.

Elsewhere at the meeting on Sunday, Panama’s Alonso Edward won the men’s 200m in 20.07sec ahead of Ivory Coast sprinter Wil-fried Koffi.

Qatar national team player Hassan Al Haydos (left) is seen with a team-mate during a training session at Aspire Academy in Doha. Qatar coach Daniel Carreno talks to players at same training session. Qatar national squad has resumed training ahead of their international friendly against Albania in Austria later this month. Qatar will also play friendlies in August before turning their attention to 2018 FIFA Wolrd Cup qualifying game against Iran on September 1.

Qatar squad hits the training pitch

Reedie says meldonium found in 47 of 49 failed tests

AFP

LONDON: World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) President Craig Reedie has disclosed that most of the Rus-sian sportsmen and women who have failed drug tests in the last six months did so because meldonium was detected in their system.

Reedie said the drug, which Rus-sian tennis player Maria Sharapova told a news conference she had used for health reasons after she failed a drugs test earlier this year, was responsible for 47 of the 49 adverse analytical findings in Russia between November 2015 and May 2016.

Meldonium, a Latvian drug which helps to adjust the body’s use of energy and can boost stamina and aid endurance, was added to WADA’s list of banned substances at the start

of this year. Since then, Russians from several sports, including rugby sevens, biathlon, speed skating, vol-leyball and athletics, have returned positive tests for the drug.

“This drug is not licensed for Europe, not licensed for the United States. It doesn’t fit within our sys-tems. Clearly it is an issue,” Reedie said in a wide-ranging interview with insidethegames website.

WADA said last month that doubts over how long meldonium stayed in the body meant athletes who had tested positive for it before March 1 could have their bans overturned.

Reedie said the WADA task force investigating Russian drug use was arranging to meet the former Sochi Olympic laboratory director Grigory Rodchenkov, who alleged in a recent interview that Russian authorities were involved in a cover-up in which samples were switched to avoid doz-ens of their athletes being exposed as drug cheats at the 2014 Winter Games.

“We are arranging to meet Mr. Rodchenkov because we need all his information,” the WADA Presi-dent said.

“Part of that investigation will have to be a forensic examination of the containers that have been used,” he added.

“We will want to speak to the manufacturers and we will inevita-bly at some future and probably fairly

early date want to look at the sam-ples he claims he has altered which are held in the Lausanne laboratory. The IOC (International Olympic Com-mittee) have agreed to assist us in that task.”

Reedie said the seven percent failure rate of athletes at the Beijing Olympics in 2008 was disappointing, adding that he would be very inter-ested to see the figures for London 2012 which will be announced shortly.

He said the Brazilian government had invested heavily in the anti-dop-ing services for August’s Rio Games and a WADA-IOC task force had found the laboratory was perform-ing satisfactorily.

“The athletes should be satisfied that the sample they give at the Games will be properly analysed by accred-ited experts ... much effort is going into delivering exactly that.”

Reedie said he planned to ask the

IOC soon to match the money he had raised from governments to fund anti-doping work.

“My guess is that by roughly the end of June I will have raised about $600,000 from governments and I will then formally write to the IOC and ask them to match it.

“If that comes about, I then have obviously up to $1.2 million as an investigations fund,” Reedie told reporters.

This drug is not licensed for Europe, not licensed for the US. It doesn’t fit within our systems. Clearly it is an issue, says Craig Reedie

A look at the retests of Olympic drug samplesAP

GENEVA: Inside a non-descript concrete build-ing in a Swiss parking lot lies evidence that could take down dozens of Olympic athletes.

The anti-doping laboratory in Lausanne holds the stored urine and blood samples from the 2008 and 2012 Olympics that are being retested with improved techniques to catch drug cheats who escaped detection at the time and to keep them out of this summer’s games in Rio de Janeiro.

So far, 31 unidentified athletes in six sports from 12 countries have been caught during retests of samples from the 2008 Beijing Games. Results on tests of 250 samples from the 2012 London Olympics will be known soon.

Some things to know about the retesting program:

THE LAUSANNE LABIt’s officially called the Swiss Laboratory for

Doping Analyses, or by its French acronym LAD. It’s one of 34 labs around the globe accredited by the World Anti-Doping Agency and is affili-ated with the University Hospital of Lausanne.

The lab is located in a drab building near a small Coop supermarket, beside a main road and at the end of the M2 metro line. Visitors have to be buzzed in to take the elevator up the three-story building. The lab director is Martial Saugy, a Swiss scientist with long hair and a soul patch

above his chin that gives him the look of a jazz musician. Saugy and his lab have often been caught up in major doping cases.

Lawyers for Lance Armstrong tried to under-mine Saugy’s evidence about the cyclist’s suspect samples from the 2001 Tour de Suisse. Saugy also met with Armstrong’s entourage ahead of the 2002 Tour de France when he was a witness for anti-doping authorities in their case against the American rider.

THE RUSSIAN CONNECTIONLinks between Russia and the Lausanne

lab were questioned by the World Anti-Doping Agency inquiry team that detailed state-spon-sored cheating in a report last November.

Panel chairman Dick Pound said the lab did not have a convincing explanation for destroying 67 samples that were sent from Moscow in 2013.

An inquiry witness in Russia implicated Mos-cow lab director Grigory Rodchenkov in a plot to retain clean samples for 67 athletes ahead of the London Olympics. If any of the athletes later produced a positive sample, it would be replaced by their clean sample and the athlete would pay Rodchenkov.

In late 2012, WADA asked for all 67 samples to be retested in Lausanne. One tested positive for low levels of a banned substance, 54 were clean and 12 had too little volume for proper testing.

The Lausanne lab destroyed the samples after a standard three-month storage period

despite a request from WADA to keep them.An investigation by the Lausanne hospital,

opened within days of the Pound report, cleared the lab of wrongdoing. Rodchenkov is now at the center of a scandal over Russian doping at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. He says he helped Russian athletes dope before Sochi and switched their tainted samples for clean ones during the games. Sochi samples are also stored at the Lausanne lab and the International Olym-pic Committee says it plans to retest those as well.

SAMPLE PROCESSBy the end of any Olympics, IOC testers are

in control of as many as 5,000 urine samples. Samples are divided into “A’’ and “B’’ bottles, and the “B’’ samples are available in case they’re needed to corroborate a positive result in the “A’’ bottle.

The initial tests take place in the lab located in the Olympic city. Because of the huge number of samples and tests that need to be conducted in a short period of time, not every sample is tested for every drug. Experts take educated guesses on which set of athletes are more likely to use certain drugs and run the according tests.

After those tests, the leftover urine is placed into a cargo container that’s refrigerated, then loaded on an airplane that goes to Geneva. From there, the samples are transported to the lab in Lausanne and stored in a large vault, where they can be stored in a locked freezer at one of two

temperatures — minus 20 or minus 80 Celsius, depending on the type of freezers the lab buys.

“Chain of custody” is a critical part of the anti-doping process, and every time the bottles change hands, or locations, forms must be filled out to acknowledge who has been in contact with the bottles. A missing link in that process can invalidate a positive test.

Under new rules, the IOC can hold the bot-tles for up to 10 years, and can thaw the urine for a retest any time during that window.

MEDAL REALLOCATIONThe IOC is notifying the 12 national Olympic

committees whose athletes have been caught in the Beijing retests. Names and details have been kept confidential for legal reasons. If ath-letes are found guilty of doping and stripped of medals, any reallocation won’t take place imme-diately. The IOC will retest the samples of those athletes who stand to move up in the medals to make sure they were clean.

BY THE NUMBERSThe 31 new cases from Beijing represent by

far the highest number of positive tests from a single Olympics. Beijing had already produced 14 doping cases during the games, plus six cases involving doping of horses. Retests of Beijing samples in 2009 produced five more cases for the blood-boosting drug CERA. The new retests bring the overall total to 56. The previous high was held by the 2004 Athens Olympics, with 26 cases.

An athlete trains in Iten, near the town of Eldoret, western Kenya. In Kenya’s

western town of Iten, known

as the “Home of Champions” for

drawing runners to train from around the world, athletes rise to pound the

track and dirt roads at dawn.

SPORT 31TUESDAY 24 MAY 2016

New India boss says ‘not running away’ from reformsAFP

MUMBAI: The new chief of India’s embattled cricket board said the body was not “running away” from reforms following corruption scan-dals, but he remained opposed to a key recommendation from the country’s top court.

Lawmaker Anurag Thakur, 41, was elected as the youngest-ever president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) follow-ing a special meeting in Mumbai.

Thakur, a member of par-liament for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and a close ally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is charged with reforming one of the most powerful organisations in world sport.

He told a packed press con-ference after the meeting that the reforms were a continuous proc-ess, and the cash-rich BCCI was ready to take them to “the next level”.

“Whatever is possible and practical and is required, we are implementing that from time to time.

“I see an opportunity here, it’s time to deliver,” he added.

However, he followed his predecessor Shashank Mano-har in remaining intransigent on a Supreme Court recommenda-tion calling for a ban on television adverts between overs during live broadcasts.

Thakur, who was previously secretary of the BCCI, was the sole nomination on Sunday for the top post, seen by many as the most powerful in global cricket.

He will have his hands full as the BCCI is under enormous pressure to introduce reforms after being tarnished by scandals including accusations of corrup-tion and match-fixing in the glitzy Indian Premier League.

In the wake of those scan-dals, the Supreme Court ordered a retired judge to draw up a report on the BCCI’s governance to try to avoid future conflicts of interest.

Justice Rajendra Mal Lodha’s report recommended the BCCI introduce age limits for its office-bearers and bring in the advert ban.

Manohar quit the BCCI pres-idency earlier this month, saying the reforms were not in the BCCI’s best interests and he felt he could no longer carry on in his role.

On Saturday Manohar, who then became the first independ-ent chairman of the International Cricket Council (ICC), told report-ers that the recommendations on no adverts between overs “would destroy the financial structure” of the BCCI.

Thakur, a three-time MP in Himachal Pradesh state, pointed out to journalists that newspapers run adverts beside stories about the Indian Premier League.

“The BCCI gets its revenue from advertisements and that is how we pay our employees and our state association,” he said.

But he insisted the BCCI was “not running away from the recommendations”.

“We understand our respon-sibility towards the most popular sport in India and we will give our 100 percent,” Thakur said.

Thakur has been involved with the BCCI since he was elected president of his state association aged just 25. Last year he pipped the incumbent to the secretary’s post by a single vote.

The BCCI benefits from huge TV deals that allow it effectively to run the world governing body -- the ICC -- along with its allies, Australia and England.

However under reforms that Manohar had himself supported, it is no longer possible to be both ICC chairman and to head the national board of a member country.

Manohar had been serving as head of the ICC in his role as pres-ident of the BCCI in line with the organisation’s previous system of rotating chairmanships.

But under the reforms, the ICC has amended its constitution to bring in direct elections for the position. It will now be officially an independent post, a move designed to ensure the incumbent no longer feels obliged to promote his own country’s interests.

Frustrated French Open chief confident of roof by 2020

AFP

PARIS: French Open chief Guy Forget insisted yesterday that the showpiece Court Philippe Chatrier will have a roof by 2020 as a wet and chilly Roland Garros endured another frus-trating day of rain delays.

After just 10 of 32 matches were completed in a little over four hours of play on Sunday, the second day of the tournament was hit by another two and a half hour delay.

That in turn pushed 12 of the scheduled 66 matches back to today.

It once again brought into sharp focus that the French Open is the only one of the four Slams not to have a covered court. Both the Australian Open and Wimbledon have stadi-ums with roofs while the US Open’s cavernous Arthur Ashe stadium will be covered for the first time this year.

“I think it’s a question of respect to the crowd, to the people, to you guys from the media and the play-ers that are waiting hours and hours

in the lounges, in the locker rooms,” said former Davis Cup winner Forget.

“We wait and wait and wait and wait. While Wimbledon, Melbourne, and New York now have the roof, you know, we’ll have to wait until 2020.”

The historic Roland Garros site is the smallest of the four Slams and when it rains, it becomes terribly con-gested with thousands of fans jostling for the few areas of cover.

The planned €350m expansion of

the grounds set in the leafy and plush western district of Paris has, how-ever, hit trouble. A new 5,000-seat stadium is planned for the neigh-bouring Serres d’Auteuil but work has come to a halt due to ongoing pro-tests over the impact the work will have on the botanical gardens his-toric greenhouses which date back to the 19th century.

That stadium will only be com-pleted at 2018 at the earliest.

“I think this is the perfect exam-ple of why we need to get bigger, so the stadium is not as congested as it is today. We need to modernize our facility for these reasons. It’s a neces-sity,” added Forget.

“It’s an ongoing process which will take us in 2020 where hopefully eve-rything will be done. And the roof is actually the last piece of that puzzle.”

Heavy rain brought more havoc to the French Open yesterday with the

scheduled 1100 (0900GMT) start time delayed by 90 minutes leaving organ-isers’ hopes of playing 66 matches looking decidedly optimistic.

Temperatures also plummeted to a chilly 12 degrees although forecast-ers expect highs of around 24 degrees by the weekend. If the rain relents, Andy Murray and defending cham-pion Stan Wawrinka are due to start their campaigns against a pair of fiery Czechs.

We wait and wait and wait and wait. While Wimbledon, Melbourne and New York have the roof, we will have to wait until 2020, says Guy Forget

30 the new 20 as veterans

flood the French Open AFP

PARIS: Once littered with a gen-eration of teenage Grand Slam champions, the balance atop the tennis pyramid has since shifted markedly in favour of the sport’s more experienced pros with a record 51 men aged 30 or over in the 2016 French Open main draw.

That figure, just a shade under 40 percent of the 128-man field, easily eclipses the previous high of 41 from this year’s Australian Open and could have been higher if not for the with-drawal of 17-time Grand Slam winner Roger Federer.

But while the likes of Mats Wilan-der, Stefan Edberg, Boris Becker and Pete Sampras all claimed their first major titles before turning 20, Rafael Nadal remains the only teenaged champion in the past 25 years.

The Spaniard, who himself turns 30 on June 3, downed Federer in four sets to win the 2005 French Open on his tournament debut -- the begin-ning of Nadal’s remarkable clay-court

reign. However, just four teens are present in the first round of Roland Garros this year with promising Ger-man youngster Alexander Zverev the highest-rated of the quartet at 41 in the world.

Zverev is joined in the draw by Borna Coric, Quentin Halys and 2015 boys’ singles finalist Taylor Fritz, with Croatia’s Coric, who reached the third round in Paris last year, the only one to have registered multiple wins at a Grand Slam event.

At the other end of the spectrum is 37-year-old Radek Stepanek, the oldest player in the field, who came through three rounds of qualifying to set up a first-round match against second seed Andy Murray.

“These young guys, that’s a chal-lenge for me. It’s three generations of players I’m meeting on the courts, and I’m still able to beat them, which is giving me confidence,” Stepanek, the former world number eight, told rolandgarros.com.

“To be compared with guys like Jimmy Connors is very special because I was always keen to learn

from the past generation. I always say that history proves everything and now it’s only repeating in a differ-ent way.”

Even the average age of the top 10 seeds without the 34-year-old Fed-erer is 28 years and six months, with defending champion Stan Wawrinka aiming to become just the fifth man in the Open era to win two or more Grand Slams after turning 30.

As for Nadal, bidding to become just the second player since Marga-ret Court to win 10 titles at any Grand Slam event, age is just a number for the world number five.

“No, I’m not feeling old. On court is true that I had a lot of years here on the tour, but in terms of mental-ity and in terms of life I feel myself young,” said Nadal, who would also break Guillermo Vilas’ record for most clay-court titles with another victory in the French capital.

“I don’t think about going to be 30. You know, time never stops. Nobody stops the time. That’s not a good thing, but at the same time, I am happy with my life.”

Czech Stepanek thrives as the character actor AFP

PARIS: He’s been described as the Don Juan of tennis as well as the sport’s least likeable man, but at 37 years old, Radek Stepanek (pictured) is just happy to still be playing.

The colourful and controversial Czech is one of the few devil-may-care characters left in tennis even if his antics often leave opponents feel-ing cold. From leaping over the net, performing his ‘worm’ dance, exag-gerating celebrations or even facing down potential physical altercations with rivals, the Czech is hard to ignore -- on or off the court.

S te p a n e k w a s engaged to Martina Hingis, married and then divorced fellow tour professional and top 10 player Nicole Vaidisova and more recently dated two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova.

But he insists his personal life is taking a different direction these days.

“It’s two people living different lives together...you can be sure that I am done dating tennis players,” said Stepanek who is due to face second seed Andy Murray at the French Open. Having turned pro in 1996, he prefers to spend time on extending a career which is enjoying something of an Indian summer.

In 2013, he teamed with India’s Leander Paes -- who he described as a ‘brother’ -- to win the US Open men’s doubles. Since then, he has suffered a crippling back injury which sent his ranking down to its current 128 and forced him into the qualifying tournament at Roland Garros for the first time since 2002.

“It’s three generations of players I’m meeting on the courts, and I’m

still able to beat them, which is giv-ing me confidence,” the former world number eight told rolandgarros.com.

“I’m feeling 25 again and enjoy-ing every second of my tennis.”

However, not everyone would be pleased to see Stepanek, who last year became the oldest man to win a match in Paris since 38-year-old Jimmy Connors in 1991, still playing.

In a 2012 Davis Cup tie against Serbia, he was accused by Janko Tip-sarevic of giving him the finger and calling him names at the end of a five-set, five-hour duel.

“After five hours and 10 min-utes instead of shaking my hand, he gave me he the middle finger and told me I am stinking -- something bad, it’s a swear word,” said Tip-sarevic, who had to be restrained by his team captain from taking the matter further.

Even a teenage Mur-ray took a dislike to the Czech when they met at Wimbledon in 2005 and where his opponent theatrically bent over and kissed the net and played up to the crowd.

“I was annoyed at him because he tried to put me off,” said Murray.

“He knew I was young and that’s why he was trying to put me off -- but I got the better of him. I don’t know if he said anything to me -- I wasn’t listening. I don’t like him.”

The relationship between the two men seems to have thawed since then.

In 2008, Stepanek played as an alternate at the Shanghai ATP season-ending championships but arrived in China without his playing gear which hadn’t cleared customs.

He was without his contact lenses and had to borrow tennis racquets from Novak Djokovic and socks -- from Murray.

A picture taken yesterday shows the

court covered with a tarp

after play was interrupted due to rain during the

Roland Garros 2016 French

Open in Paris.

An illustration photo shows a

tennis ball which drops into water during rainfall.

SPORT32 TUESDAY 24 MAY 2016

Ten-man Barcelona claim double with King’s Cup win

AFP

MADRID: Jordi Alba and Neymar struck in extra-time as Barcelona completed a league and Cup double by lifting the Copa del Rey for a 28th time after a 2-0 win over Sevilla in a fiery game that saw three red cards on Sunday.

Javier Mascherano’s dismissal just before half-time for pulling down Kevin Gameiro put Barca on the back foot and they were further depleted when 59-goal top scorer Luis Suarez limped off early in the second period.

However, they resisted Sevilla’s pressure after the break and Barca’s numerical disadvantage was can-celled out in stoppage time when Ever Banega saw red for chopping down Neymar.

Barca dominated the extra 30 minutes, but needed just six to finally make the breakthrough when Lionel Messi’s sumptuous pass picked out Alba to volley into the far corner.

Neymar then slotted home a second in the dying seconds from another brilliant Messi assist after Daniel Carrico had also been dis-missed for two bookable offences.

“It was a great intense and excit-ing final,” said Barcelona captain Andres Iniesta.

“It was a last push for the club to complete a magnificent season.”

Sevilla were looking for a dou-ble of their own after winning a third consecutive Europa League by beat-ing Liverpool 3-1 on Wednesday.

However, just as in a thrilling 5-4 defeat to Barca to open the season in the European Super Cup in August, they fell just short as Luis Enrique’s men claimed their fourth trophy of the season, having also won the Club World Cup in December.

“It has been a spectacular end to the season,” added Barca boss Luis Enrique.

“The team has known how to compete marvellously despite the dif-ficulties we have faced this season.”

And Sevilla coach Unai Emery believes his side’s exertions in mid-week robbed them of the energy

needed to make their numerical advantage count.

“We lacked freshness. If we had have been fresher we would have been able to create more chances,” said Emery.

“Barca didn’t have many opportu-nities, but they were efficient.”

The political fallout over an ini-tial ban on Catalan separatist flags by the Madrid authorities that was eventually overturned on appeal in the courts continued before kick-off as Barca fans jeered the Spanish national anthem.

The game appeared to swing Sevilla’s way nine minutes before half-time when Mascherano hauled down Gameiro just outside the box as he bore down on goal.

Banega nearly doubled Barca’s punishment as his sweet strike from the resulting free-kick was brilliantly tipped over the bar by Marc-Andre ter Stegen.

Sevilla roared back from a goal down at the break to outclass Liv-erpool in midweek and started the second-half with intent once more as Banega’s low drive came back off the post. Barca were then dealt another huge blow just before the hour mark when Suarez pulled up with a mus-cle injury before leaving the field in tears with his chances of representing

Uruguay at the Copa America next month now in jeopardy.

Sevilla were camped in the Barca half for much of the second half, but struggled to create clear-cut chances.

Grzegorz Krychowiak saw a deflected effort flash just wide, whilst Vicente Iborra’s appeals for a penalty after he clashed with Dani Alves were waived away.

Parity was restored in numbers on each side in stoppage time when Banega saw red for tripping Neymar on the edge of the area, but Sergio Rico tipped over Messi’s resulting free-kick to take the game into extra time.

However, the Spanish interna-tional was left flat-footed when Alba latched onto Messi’s ball over the top six minutes into extra-time and vol-leyed across goal into the far corner.

Rico kept Sevilla in the game with brilliant saves from Pique and Ser-gio Busquets, whilst Dani Alves also hit the post from distance as Barca threatened a second.

Sevilla’s hopes of an equaliser were ended when Daniel Carrico was also sent-off for a second book-able offence.

And Messi promptly teed up Ney-mar to round off Barca’s fourth Cup triumph in eight years in stoppage time.

Barcelona celebrate after winning the Copa del Rey Final against Sevilla FC at Vicente Calderon Stadium in Madrid, Spain, on Sunday.

Extra-time goals from Alba and Neymar help Catalan club register 2-0 victory over Sevilla in the Copa del Rey

Barca’s double hailed in Spanish mediaAgencies

BARCELONA: Spain’s sports press hailed Barcelona yesterday after the La Liga champions beat Sevilla to lift the King’s Cup for the 28th time and clinch a second successive domes-tic double.

Goals from Jordi Alba and Ney-mar in extra-time gave their team a 2-0 triumph in Madrid’s Vicente Calderon S0tadium on Sunday, eight days after they won La Liga for the sixth time in eight years.

Barcelona-based El Mundo Deportivo highlighted 10-man Bar-ca’s impressive resilience after Javier Mascherano was sent off in the 36th minute,

They kept the score at 0-0 before Sevilla had Ever Banega dismissed in added time at the end of 90 minutes.

“Heroics!” the paper’s headline said. “A warrior Barca resist ....to win the 28th Cup title.”

The Blaugrana were made to work hard to clinch their seventh domestic double.

“Barca proved they know how to suffer,” AS newspaper wrote on their front page.

Barca have amassed 28 titles since winning the Spanish Super-cup in the 2005-06 campaign. That includes four European Cups, seven La Liga titles, four King’s Cup tro-phies, three FIFA Club World Cups, three European Super Cups and six Spanish Supercups.

EL Mundo Deportivo editor Santi Nolla applauded Barca in his column on Monday.

“This Barca, that accumulates 28 titles in the 21st century, never gave up. “Luis Enrique and this team have achieved seven titles out of nine in two years, which indicates that they continue to be the reference and the best in the world.”

Not since the 1952-53 campaign when Barca clinched the league and

the King’s Cup, had a Spanish team managed to defend the domestic double, with Athletic Bilbao being the only other club alongside Barca to do so in the 1930s.

Sport, another Barcelona-based daily, lauded Barca’s achievement.

“Heroes!” screamed its headline. “Barcelona achieves a historic dou-ble after an epic exhibition.”

Barcelona did miss out on a second consecutive treble-winning campaign after losing to Atletico Madrid in the Champions League quarter-finals but Alba insisted that Barca had had a great season.

“You cannot always win three titles. Two is very good and we are thrilled,” he said.

Spain’s biggest-selling paper Marca’s front page included a pho-tograph of Barca captain Andres Iniesta lifting the King’s Cup with King Felipe VI behind him.

“King Iniesta!,” screamed the headline.

Meanwhile Barcelona striker Luis Suarez will join up with his Uru-guay team for the Copa America on June 1 despite doctors diagnosing that he had suffered a hamstring injury, the Catalan club announced yesterday.

Suarez hobbled off in tears mid-way through the Copa del Rey final win over Sevilla Sunday after sus-taining the injury to a muscle in the back of his thigh.

“Tests on Monday morning have confirmed that FC Barcelona striker Luis Suarez has suffered an injury to the semimembranosus muscle in his right leg,” Barca said in a statement.

“Following the recommenda-tions of the Club’s medical services team, the 2015/16 Golden Shoe win-ner will begin his rehabilitation in Barcelona.

“On 1 June, Suarez will join the Uruguay national team in the United States, where he’ll continue with the second phase of his recovery.”

Barcelona’s Uruguayan forward Luis Suarez leaves the field after being injured during the Copa del Rey final match against Sevilla FC at the Vicente Calderon Stadium in Madrid on Sunday.

Vardy misses Australia game to get marriedAFP

LONDON: Jamie Vardy is to skip England’s final friendly before man-ager Roy Hodgson puts the finishing touches to his Euro 2016 squad in order to get married.

The 29-year-old striker, who enjoyed a remarkable campaign for Leicester, inspiring their run to the Premier League title, was on the mark for his country for the third straight time in Sunday’s 2-1 friendly win over Turkey.

Harry Kane’s opener was quickly cancelled out by Hakan Calhanoglu at the Etihad Stadium, where Fatih Terim’s men threatened to secure a first win against England.

However, a second-half change in system saw Vardy move from a wider position to form a two-pronged strike force with Kane - a move that quickly paid dividends as his pace and direct-ness earned a penalty.

Hodgson later said that the Tur-key game would be Vardy’s last England display before the 23-man squad for the European Champion-ship is named.

“Vardy won’t be involved on Friday because he is getting mar-ried on Wednesday,” Hodgson said, referring to the friendly against Aus-tralia at the Stadium of Light. “That, you could say, is unfortunate but you must bear in mind last year his wedding was planned during the month of June and I called him up

for the international matches and he cancelled his wedding.“I think he deserves that possibility to get married here.” The England boss also highlighted the fact that Vardy is not desperately needed for the Aus-tralia match, considering his recent displays and the fact his squad is boosted by a clutch of players.

Turkey’s midfielder Selcuk Inan (right) vies with England’s striker Jamie Vardy during the friendly match at the Etihad Stadium in Manchester, northwest England, on Sunday.

MLS: San Jose and Galaxy

draw in ‘California Clasico’Agencies

LOS ANGELES: Fatai Alashe headed a late equalizer as the San Jose Earth-quakes snatched a 1-1 draw against the Los Angeles Galaxy in Major League Soccer’s “California Clasico” on Sunday.

Alashe glanced in a Chad Barrett cross on 87 minutes to give San Jose a share of the points at the StubHub Center in Carson just four minutes after the Galaxy had taken the lead through a Marvell Wynne own goal.

It was a disappointing result for the Galaxy, who had been hop-ing to continue their march up the Western Conference standings with a victory.

The Galaxy fielded all of the biggest names of their overseas contingent -- including Steven Ger-rard, Robbie Keane and Ashley Cole -- and looked to be on their way to a win after Wynne’s own goal on 83 minutes.

The San Jose defender steered a Sebastian Lletget cross into his own net as the Earthquakes defense finally cracked after a sustained

period of Galaxy pressure in the sec-ond half.

Ireland record international goalscorer Keane and Mexican inter-national Giovani dos Santos had both gone close to opening the scoring in the minutes before San Jose’s own goal.

However, with Galaxy’s boister-ous home fans preparing to celebrate a victory, San Jose conjured a goal in a rare foray into Los Angeles territory.

Barrett’s persistence saw him win the ball on the left flank, and he curled an inviting cross into the area which Alashe met to direct into the Galaxy goal.

The draw leaves Galaxy in fifth place in the Western Conference standings with 20 points from 11 games.

Real Salt Lake and Vancouver Whitecaps are third and fourth on 20 points ahead of Los Angeles on goal difference.

The Colorado Rapids head the table with 27 points from 13 matches.

In Sunday’s other game, MLS Cup champions Portland downed Van-couver 4-2 in the Pacific Northwest derby, which saw three penalties awarded.

Diego Valeri fired Portland ahead from the spot in the fourth minute and Jack McInerney made it 2-0 just before the half-hour mark.

Kekuta Manneh pulled a goal back for the Whitecaps just after half-time but two goals in four minutes from Dairon Asprilla (78) and Dar-lington Nagbe (82) gave the Timbers a 4-1 lead.

Pedro Morales scored a late con-solation for Vancouver with a penalty on 84 minutes.

Meanwhile, Bobby Wood, Tim Ream and Paul Arriola scored to give the United States a 3-1 victory at Puerto Rico in an international friendly on Sunday.

In their opening tune-up for next month’s Copa America Centenario, the Americans dominated their first-ever match against a team trying to make inroads against the more pop-ular baseball and basketball on the Caribbean island.

Ream opened the scoring in the 20th minute, reacting first after Alfredo Morales’ shot, before blasting a left-footed effort past Puerto Rico goalkeeper Matt Sanchez. It was the first goal in 21 US appearances for the Fulham defender.

SPORT 33TUESDAY 24 MAY 2016

FOOTBALL: EURO 2016 PREPERATIONS

Vardy strikes late against Turkey

AFP

MANCHESTER, United Kingdom: Jamie Vardy spared Harry Kane’s blushes with a late winner as Eng-land edged Turkey 2-1 in their first Euro 2016 warm-up match at Man-chester’s Etihad Stadium on Sunday.

Kane opened the scoring in the third minute, but then clipped the post with a 72nd-minute penalty, won by Vardy, after Hakan Calhanoglu had equalised to score Turkey’s first goal against England in the teams’ 11th meeting.

Vardy rode to the rescue in the 83rd minute, the Leicester City hit-man slamming home his third England goal in three games to end Turkey’s unbeaten run at 13 matches and enhance his claim to a spot in manager Roy Hodgson’s starting XI in France.

“Wins are always pleasing and there were some positive aspects,” said Hodgson, whose side face Rus-sia, Slovakia and neighbours Wales in the group phase at the Euro.

“Some large swathes of the game we played reasonably well, but there was also a positive because we’re not the finished article and there’s still work to be done.

“It showed the next three weeks will be vital for us.” In a patchy Eng-land display, Hodgson saw Jack Wilshere play for 66 minutes in his first international game since last June after missing almost the entire season with a fractured shin, while Jordan Henderson continued his recovery from a knee problem as the Arsenal man’s replacement.

Hodgson, who was missing his Manchester United contingent and all of Liverpool’s players bar Hend-erson due to club commitments, confirmed that Vardy will miss Friday’s game against Australia in Sunderland as he is getting married on Wednesday.

Hodgson names his final 23-man squad for the Euro after the game.

Sunday’s match had been billed as an audition for the strike partner-ship of Kane and Vardy, the Premier League’s top two English scorers, but the Leicester star started on the left in a narrow 4-3-3, with Raheem Ster-ling on the opposite flank.

A sparse crowd at the home of Manchester City saw England take an early lead.

Sterling found Dele Alli and he smuggled a pass between Mehmet Topal’s legs to Tottenham Hotspur colleague Kane, whose assured fin-ish into the bottom-right corner was allowed to stand despite an apparent offside. Television pictures appeared to show Turkey coach Fatih Terim using his mobile phone to show fourth official Daniel Siebert the evidence, but to no avail.

It was a goal that highlighted England’s speed of thought and foot in attack, but Turkey’s equaliser 10 minutes later exposed Hodgson’s problems in defence.

Oguzhan Ozyakup’s pass down

the inside-right channel set Volkan Sen scampering in behind left-back Danny Rose.

The Fenerbahce midfielder beat the sliding Joe Hart to the ball and crossed for Bayer Leverkusen’s Cal-hanoglu to sweep home from close range.

After Cenk Tosun had given Eng-land a couple of scares, the hosts switched to a diamond midfield on the hour, with Vardy joining Kane

up front and Sterling taking up the number 10 role. Vardy showed what he could do in a central position by surging clear and inviting a challenge from Topal that encouraged referee Deniz Aytekin to point to the spot.

Kane’s spot-kick grazed the left-hand post and went wide, but Vardy netted the winner from close range after goalkeeper Volkan Baba-can collided with Ismail Koybasi as he attempted to field Gary Cahill’s

back-post header. Turkey substitute Olcay Sahan almost equalised at the death, but his volley drew a superb one-handed save from Hart.

“England are hard to play any-where, but it’s especially hard in England,” Terim told Turkish media.

“I am happy with the team. Players from the Turkish league fought neck-and-neck with players from the world’s most expensive league.”

Champions Spain

kick off Euro 2016

preparations

AFP

MADRID: Two-time defend-ing champions Spain kicked off preparations for Euro 2016 yesterday with a first gather-ing which included just eight of the 25 players called up by coach Vicente del Bosque for next month’s tournament, with the others still tied by club com-mitments.

Among those attending the session at the Spanish federa-tion’s Las Rozas sports complex near Madrid were Chelsea play-ers Cesc Fabregas, Pedro and Cesar Azpilicueta, Athletic Bilbao’s Aritz Aduriz and Mikel San Jose, Manchester City’s David Silva, Vil-larreal’s Bruno Soriano and Celta Vigo’s Nolito.

Ten other players involved in last weekend’s Cup finals, includ-ing Copa del Rey champions Barcelona, have been given sev-eral extra days before rejoining the group on May 28 directly in Aus-tria where the team will train from May 26 to June 1, just before the announcement of the final 23-man squad for the tournament on May 31.

Players from Atletico and Real Madrid, who play the Champions League final in Milan on Saturday, will join their teammates on June 4, nine days before Spain’s first match on June 13 against the Czech Republic in Toulouse, and will only be available for one pre-tourna-ment friendly against Georgia on June 7.

“The preparation from today solely involves thinking about that day,” said midfielder Fabregas. “A lot of our teammates have not yet arrived. We hope they all come in form, healthy and ready for the big competition.”

Midfielder Silva insisted he was raring to go after recovering from a thigh injury.

“I come with a lot of desire, well recovered from my injury. This week will be the time limit (for recovery) and I’ll be in full form.”

Del Bosque also named 11 uncapped promising younger players to bulk up his squad for the friendlies against Bosnia and Her-cegovina and South Korea on May 29 and June 1 respectively.

Spain, bidding to become the first country to win the tourna-ment four times, also face Turkey and Croatia in Group D.

Leicester City striker nets winner in the 83rd minute against Turkey in Euro 2016 warm-up match

Atletico Madrid buy French

second division side Lens

AFP

LENS, FRANCE: Champions League finalists Atletico Madrid yesterday completed the takeover of bankrupt French second division side Lens through a Luxembourg company.

“We hope to bring in Atletico’s expertise,” said Ignacio Aguillo, a member of the Spanish side’s board, told a press conference after a French commercial court approved the takeover.

Atletico will have a direct 35% stake in Lens, while Aguillo is a major shareholder in Solferino, a Luxembourg company that will have the remaining 65%.

Lens, known as the “blood and gold” because of their shirt colours, won the French championship in 1998 but have become embroiled in financial controversy in recent years.

Relegated in 2011, Lens won a promotion place back to Ligue 1 in 2014 but this was blocked by the French league because of budget irregularities.

The sanction was overturned in one appeal but the promotion was later ruled definitively invalid.

Lens stadium has been refurbished for the European

Championship finals -- England will play their key group game against Wales there -- but Lens will be the only second division host of Euro 2016.

Promotion is “a clear objective,” Aguillo said.

“We will respect the identity of the club,” added the Spanish businessman, who said the new owners had a “long term ambi-tion” for Lens.

Aguillo is a partner in the Solferino company with French businessman, Gilles Fretigne, chief financial officer for the European operations of Amber Capital, a US hedge fund.

The Spanish businessman said the takeover still needs the approval of the Atletico shareholders and there would be a general assembly in June.

Facing debts of 12m euros ($13.5m), Lens president Gervais Martel, who will remain in charge, put the club under the control of a bankruptcy court to force an accel-erated sale.

Lens had previously been con-trolled by Azerbaijani businessman Hafiz Mammadov who rescued Lens in 2013 with 20m euros of his own money but failed to provide prom-ised new investment.

England’s Jamie Vardy scores the match winning goal against Turkey goalkeeper Volkan Babacan (bottom) during the international friendly match in Manchester, Britain, on Sunday.

Wales boss Coleman signs new two-year dealAFP

LONDON: Wales manager Chris Coleman (pictured) has signed a two-year contract extension, the Football Association of Wales (FAW) announced yesterday.

Coleman, who has guided Wales to next month’s European Champion-ship in France, had been linked with jobs at Aston Villa and Swansea City in recent weeks.

But he has now signed a new deal that will include the qualifying cam-paign for the 2018 World Cup.

Coleman succeeded the late Gary Speed, a fellow former Wales inter-national, in January 2012.

By overseeing qualifying for Euro 2016, Coleman took Wales to their first major tournament finals since the 1958 World Cup.

“I am delighted to get this opportunity to build on what we’ve achieved so far,” Coleman said.

“It’s a big challenge but it’s one that I feel we can conquer,” the 45-year-old added.

“Once you’ve had a taste of club management you do miss that day-to-day involvement because international management can be a bit lonely.

“But the over-riding factor is that I’m only going to manage Wales one time -- it’s not a job you’re going to go back to.

“This is not the time to sit back

and enjoy the moment. “This is the time we push on and do something special.”

In March, Coleman said there had to be changes in the FAW set-up if he was to sign a new deal.

“It was very important that eve-rything came to a conclusion before we embark on this journey in front of us, and we can concentrate on what’s made us strong,” Coleman said yesterday.

“It wasn’t a case of looking at what we’ve done. We need to keep on improving things and pushing each other before we even get to the players.

“The FAW showed that they really wanted me and I showed them that I wanted to stay.”

FAW chief executive Jonathan Ford said: “We are delighted Chris will be our manager not only at Euro 2016, but also for the 2018 World Cup qualifying campaign.

“We wanted to acknowledge the fantastic work Chris has done with his staff in ensuring qualification to the Euros in France this summer.”

Ford added: “There is no one bet-ter qualified than Chris to lead Wales into its first World Cup in 60 years.

“We wish him the best for Euro 2016 and he carries all our hopes and expectations for the World Cup cam-paign as well.”

Wales begin their Euro 2016 cam-paign against Slovakia in Bordeaux on June 11 before playing Group B games against England and Russia.

Conte fine tunes Italy’s Euro 2016 squadAFP

MILAN: Italy coach Antonio Conte cut several Euro 2016 hopefuls from a preliminary squad yesterday as he unveiled a 30-man squad for the Azzurri’s second pre-competition training camp.

Italy will head to the June 10-July 10 tournament in France looking to reach a second successive final, but are facing a formidable challenge after failing to get past the first round at the past two editions of the World Cup.

New York City FC midfielder Andrea Pirlo and AC Milan’s on-loan Liverpool striker Mario Balotelli were among the big names missing when Conte named his preliminary squad last week for a first training camp fol-lowing the conclusion of Serie A and many other leagues around Europe.

It now looks certain that nei-ther player will feature at Euro 2016, where Italy will also be without key midfielders Marco Verratti (Paris Saint-Germain) and Claudio Mar-chisio (Juventus) through injury.

Conte’s squad last week also did not include players from Juventus, AC Milan and other teams who were involved in cup finals last weekend and they have all returned to the fray.

Juventus players -- goal-keeper Gianluigi Buffon, defenders

Andrea Barzagli, Giorgio Chiellini and Daniele Rugani -- notably return, alongside AC Milan midfielders Giacomo Bonaventura and Riccardo Montolivo.

It meant defenders Armando Izzo (Genoa) and Lorenzo Tonelli (Empoli) were cut, the second piece of bad new for Izzo on Monday after he was ques-tioned by police in relation to his alleged role in a match-fixing affair dating from his spell at Serie B side Avellino in 2014.

Meanwhile, Manchester United defender Matteo Darmian, following FA Cup victory over Crystal Palace at the weekend, returns to the fray alongside PSG midfielder Thiago Motta.

A statement from the Italian foot-ball federation (FIGC) said Montolivo and Motta would be “put through fit-ness tests” to see if they could remain at the camp.

The FIGC said Conte, who will take over at Premier League giants

Chelsea after the summer, will name his final 23-man squad for Euro 2016 on May 31.

Italy host Scotland in a pre-tour-nament friendly in Malta on Sunday, then host Finland on June 6 in Verona.

Italy squad for second Euro 2016 training camp:

Goalkeepers: Gianluigi Buf-fon (Juventus), Federico Marchetti (Lazio), Salvatore Sirigu (Paris Saint-Germain/FRA)

Defenders: Davide Astori (Fioren-tina), Andrea Barzagli (Juventus), Leonardo Bonucci (Juventus), Gior-gio Chiellini (Juventus), Angelo Ogbonna (West Ham United/ENG), Daniele Rugani (Juventus), Matteo Darmian (Manchester United/ENG), Davide Zappacosta (Torino), Mattia De Sciglio (AC Milan)

Midfielders: Marco Benassi (Torino), Federico Bernardeschi (Fiorentina), Giacomo Bonaven-tura (Milan), Antonio Candreva (Lazio), Daniele De Rossi (Roma), Stephan El Shaarawy (Roma), Ales-sandro Florenzi (Roma), Emanuele Giaccherini (Bologna), Jorge Luiz Jorginho (Napoli), Riccardo Monto-livo (AC Milan), Thiago Motta (Paris Saint-Germain/FRA), Marco Parolo (Lazio), Stefano Sturaro (Juventus)

Forwards: Citadin Martins Eder (Inter Milan), Ciro Immobile (Torino), Lorenzo Insigne (Napoli), Graziano Pelle (Southampton/ENG), Simone Zaza (Juventus)

Italian team head coach Antonio Conte leads his team’s training session at Coverciano sports center in Florence, Italy, in this May 20 file picture.

SPORT34 TUESDAY 24 MAY 2016

Australia’s Lyon looks to Murali for spin advice

AFP

SYDNEY: Australia’s premier off-spinner Nathan Lyon said yesterday he plans to call on all-time leading wicket-taker Muttiah Muralitharan for more bowling advice during his team’s tour to Sri Lanka in July.

Lyon is just five wickets away from becoming the first Austral-ian off-spinner to claim 200 Test victims.

He said is keen to gather fur-ther insights from the Sri Lankan great, who worked briefly with him as a consultant bowling coach in 2014.

He said a renewal of that rela-tionship would deliver benefits when bowling in the Sri Lanka series.

“(Mentor) John Davison and myself were recently talking about a few comments that he (Murali) said about how you should be bowling over on the sub-con-tinent,” Lyon told the Cricket Australia website in Brisbane.

“So I’m looking forward to putting those into play and hope-fully it will be good to catch up with Murali again over there. If we can get him down to a training ses-sion that would be fantastic.”

Lyon said he still had much to learn and while he differs from Muralitharan in finger-spinning he was keen to take any advice from the 44-year-old ahead of Tests against spin specialists Sri Lanka and India (away) as well as Pakistan (home) over the next 12 months.

“It’s not so much technical, I’ve got a little bit different action to Murali,” Lyon said.

“It’s more mindset, and attacking and defending in sub-continental conditions.

“Just understanding the game, and somebody of his quality and what he was able to do in sub-continent conditions was pretty spectacular so if I can learn off him by just listening to him and talking to him then I’m heading in the right direction.”

Muralitharan is the only bowler to claim 800 Test wickets. He also claimed more than 500 one-day scalps.

Gayle defends comments a ‘little fun’

AFP

LONDON: West Indies star Chris Gayle has insisted controversial comments he made to a female tel-evision reporter earlier this year were “just a little fun” as he turned on critics including Andrew Flint-off and Ian Chappell.

Gayle, 36, came under fire for asking Australian broadcaster Mel McLaughlin out on a date in a live television interview during a Big Bash Twenty20 game in January.

“I wanted to see your eyes for the first time, hopefully we can win this game and then we can have a drink after as well,” said star batsman Gayle, before add-ing: “Don’t blush, baby.”

Chappell and Flintoff, former captains of Australia and England respectively, were among those to criticise Gayle’s conduct.

But Gayle, in an extract from his autobiography published in The Times on Monday, said of his remarks during the Melbourne Renegades’ match against Hobart Hurricanes: “I meant it as a joke. I meant it as a little fun. I didn’t mean to be disrespectful and I didn’t mean it to be taken serious.”

Flintoff responded on Twitter by saying Gayle had made himself look a “bit of a chop”. But Gayle, in his autobiography, said: “The only chop Freddie (Flintoff) knows is when he used to bowl short to me and I would chop him past back-ward point for four.”

As for Chappell, Gayle said: “Ian Chappell, calling for me to banned worldwide, a man who was once convicted of unlaw-ful assault in the West Indies for punching a cricket official.

Thakur, Fazal get India tickets

Agencies

MUMBAI: Fast bowler Shardul Thakur was the surprise selection in India’s 17-man squad for their Test series against West Indies, the Board of Cricket Control (BCCI) in India announced yesterday.

The 24-year old earned his first call-up to the national side after play-ing a key role in Mumbai’s 41st Ranji Trophy victory in February, picking up 41 wickets in his 11 matches.

Virat Kohli has been named cap-tain of the side for the July-August series with Ajinkya Rahane will be his deputy.

The four-match series will mark the resumption of bilateral ties between the sides after the Caribbean team pulled out midway through a 2014 tour of India over a protracted pay dispute with the West Indies Cricket Board.

The BCCI also announced a weak-ened 16-man squad for the one-day and Twenty20 internationals to tour Zimbabwe.

The uncapped Faiz Fazal, Yuzven-dra Chahal, Jayant Yadav, Karun Nair, Mandeep Singh were included while experienced players such as Rohit Sharma, Ravichandran Ashwin and Suresh Raina were rested.

India will play three one-day

internationals and three Twenty20 games beginning in June.

Vidarbha batsman Fazal along with Yuzvendra Chahal, Jayant Yadav, Karun Nair and Mandeep Singh are uncapped.

The selectors met on Sunday in Mumbai and chose the same 16-man squad for both ODIs and T20Is.

As many as 17 players who were in the squads for India’s previous lim-ited-overs assignments - the tour of Australia and the World T20 - were not picked. They were: R Ashwin, Shikhar Dhawan, Gurkeerat Singh, Ravindra Jadeja, Virat Kohli, Bhu-vneshwar Kumar, Ajinkya Rahane, Ishant Sharma, Rohit Sharma, Umesh Yadav, Mohammed Shami, Harbhajan Singh, Pawan Negi, Ashish Nehra, Hardik Pandya, Suresh Raina, Yuvraj Singh.

The captain Dhoni, with 275 ODIs and 68 T20Is, has more experience than the other 15 players combined - 83 ODIs and 28 T20Is.

“Dhoni has retired from the longer format and we selectors felt that this is the best opportunity for youngsters

to have someone like Dhoni, who has ample experience,” Sandeep Patil, the chairman of selectors, said. “Dhoni himself was very keen to tour with the youngsters so I think it is a very good sign and a good help for the young-sters, who are going to be part of the Zimbabwe tour

“No one has been rested. No one wrote to BCCI or called us (to say) they were not available or they should be rested. It was the decision of the selection committee to pick a young side for Zimbabwe and another side for West Indies.”

Patil, however, said Nehra and Vijay had fitness concerns, while Kohli required “complete rest” after the IPL.

“Ashish Nehra is ruled out because he is undergoing surgery for his ham-string injury, M Vijay was not fit for the Zimbabwe tour with a niggle. The report which we have got from Patrick Farhat says that he (Kohli) needs rest after IPL for his (hand) injury.”

Fazal, 30, is the only player in the squad without a current IPL contract - he was part of Rajasthan Royals until 2011 - and is presently playing league cricket in England.

His selection came as a result of performances in Indian domes-tic cricket. Fazal made 127 in Rest of India’s chase of 480 to win the 2015-16 Irani Cup against Mumbai, and a century and a fifty in India A’s vic-tory in the Deodhar Trophy.

In the 50-over Vijay Hazare Tro-phy in 2015-16, Fazal made 312 runs at an average of 52 in seven innings, and in the 20-over Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy he scored 205 runs at a strike rate of 102 in nine innings.

Rahul had a breakthrough IPL season in Royal Challengers Ban-galore’s run to the playoffs with 386 runs, including four half-centuries, in 12 matches at an average of 55.14. Rahul’s Karnataka team-mate Nair also had a productive IPL, in which

he was the second-highest run-get-ter for Delhi Daredevils with 357 runs at 35.70, including an unbeaten 83 in a last-ball win against Sunrisers Hyderabad. Earlier, Nair had made 500 runs in seven matches in the Ranji season.

Kedar Jadhav, the back-up wick-etkeeper in the squad, had helped India A win the Deodhar Trophy with an unbeaten 39-ball 48 in Jan-uary. He had also been part of India’s depleted squad to Zimbabwe in 2015. Jadhav set up India’s 3-0 sweep with his maiden century, but hasn’t played an ODI since.

Mandeep was the leading run-getter in the 50-over Vijay Hazare Trophy, with 394 runs in seven matches at an average and strike rate of 65.66 and 88.73. Mandeep had sus-tained an injury minutes before Royal Challengers’ match against Gujarat Lions in April, but he had recovered since.

Mandeep’s IPL team-mate Cha-hal was also picked. The legspinner is currently the leading wicket-taker in IPL 2016, with 19 wickets in 11 games at an average and economy rate of 17.05 and 7.87. Chahal was the side’s top wicket-taker in 2015 as well with 23 wickets in 15 games.

“This year we wanted variation in our bowling department, that is why Yuzvendra Chahal found a place,” Patil said. “IPL as a tournament is important, it is a BCCI tournament and we know that all international players participate in the IPL, which makes it very competitive cricket. So it is important for the selectors to look into the performances of the IPL.”

Jayant, the third specialist spin-ner in the squad after Axar Patel and Chahal, took eight wickets in Rest of India’s historic win in the Irani Cup in March. The offspinner then made sporadic appearances for Daredev-ils in IPL.

Star batsman Virat Kohli gets new Test deputy in Ajinkya Rahane while MS Dhoni will continue to lead the Indian teams in ODIs and T20s

INDIA SQUADSWest Indies tour squad: Virat Kohli (captain), Murali Vijay, Shikar Dhawan, KL Rahul, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Rohit Sharma, Wriddhiman Saha, Ravi-chandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Ishant Sharma, Mohammed Shami, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Umesh Yadav, Shardul Thakur, Stuart Binny.

Zimbabwe tour squad: Mahen-dra Singh Dhoni (captain), KL Rahul, Faiz Fazal, Manish Pan-dey, Karun Nair, Ambati Rayudu, Rishi Dhawan, Axar Patel, Jayant Yadav, Dhawal Kulkarni, Jasprit Bumrah, Barinder Sran, Mandeep Singh, Kedar Jadhav, Jaydev Unad-kat, Yuzvendra Chahal.

England all-rounder Stokes out of second TestAFP

LEEDS: England all-rounder Ben Stokes is facing several weeks on the sidelines after being ruled out of the second Test against Sri Lanka with a knee injury.

Stokes has been replaced in Eng-land’s 12-man squad by Warwickshire all-rounder Chris Woakes.

Durham star Stokes jarred his left knee during England’s crushing innings and 88-run win in the first Test at Headingley.

He will now miss the second of the three-match series, which starts at his Chester-le-Street home ground on Friday.

The 24-year-old, who is due to see a specialist today, could be out of action for as long as six weeks.

That would see him miss both the final two Tests against Sri Lanka and the subsequent five-match one-day international series with the island-ers starting on June 21.

And with England also facing Pakistan in a four-Test series that gets underway at Lord’s in July, team management will be wary of rushing key player Stokes back into the side.

An England and Wales Cricket Board statement issued yesterday said: “England all-rounder Ben Stokes will miss the second Investec Test at Emirates Riverside after sustaining a left knee injury during England’s first

Test victory at Headingley. “Follow-ing a scan (on Sunday) and review by the medical team, it was advised that Stokes would be unavailable for the match in Durham.

“The 24-year-old will be reviewed by a consultant (on Tuesday), to decide on a management plan.”

Woakes is now in the hunt for a seventh Test cap.

His last appearance came against South Africa at Centurion in January, a match where England lost but won the series.

He will compete for a place in England’s X1 against uncapped Not-tinghamshire quick Jake Ball, in the squad at Headingley.

Both players will join up with

the England squad in Durham after leaving their ongoing matches in the County Championship on Monday.

Meanwhile, Sri Lanka have con-firmed that big-hitting Kusal Perera will be joining their squad.

Perera was cleared to play again two weeks ago after the International Cricket Council lifted a provisional doping ban and all associated charges against him following concerns over the reliability of the drug test carried out by a World Anti-Doping Agency accredited laboratory in Qatar.

The wicket-keeper/batsman’s arrival, possibly in time for the sec-ond Test, will change the balance of Sri Lanka’s squad as he is replacing injured paceman Dhammika Prasad,

who has returned home with a shoul-der injury.

“Kusal will join the team as soon as possible and acclimatise, so he can do some serious work with the bat,” Sri Lanka chief selector Sanath Jayas-uriya told Cricinfo.

England squad for 2nd Test:Alastair Cook (Essex) (capt),

Moeen Ali (Worcestershire), James Anderson (Lancashire), Jonathan Bairstow (Yorkshire, wkt), Jake Ball (Nottinghamshire), Stuart Broad (Nottinghamshire), Nick Compton (Middlesex), Steven Finn (Middle-sex), Alex Hales (Nottinghamshire), Joe Root (Yorkshire), James Vince (Hampshire), Chris Woakes (Warwickshire)

Smith banks on fit-again fast bowler StarcAFP

BRISBANE: Mitchell Starc’s (pic-tured) return will strike fear into the West Indies and South African batsmen in next month’s one-day tri-series in the Caribbean, skipper Steve Smith said yesterday.

Left-arm paceman Starc, 26, has been out of action since fracturing his foot in last November’s historic day-night Test in Adelaide against New Zealand and undergoing ankle surgery.

Starc’s fitness boosts the Austral-ian pace attack which also features Josh Hazlewood, Nathan Coulter-Nile and Scott Boland for the ODI tri-series where each team play three matches against each other, with the top two advancing to the final on June 26 in Barbados.

“It’s nice to have Mitchell Starc back bowling the way he is,” Smith told reporters before the team’s departure.

“He’s looking fresh and bowling at good pace.

“Hopefully, some of the South African and West Indies batsmen are a little bit scared at the moment.

“It’s exciting to have him back and hopefully he can have some success straight away, or pick up where he left

off.” Starc has been charging in off his full run-up and bowling with impres-sive pace at the National Cricket Centre in Brisbane over the past few days in preparation for the West Indies trip. Wicketkeeper-batsman Matthew Wade was struck a painful blow in the stomach from Starc in the nets yesterday.

Smith, who came home from the Indian Premier League early with injury, said he was fit to take his place on the tour.

Mitchell Marsh and Glenn Max-well, who both suffered from side strains in India, are also expected to be OK for the tri-series opener against the West Indies in Guyana on June 5.

“I think they’re both going to be right to go,” Smith said. “Maxy’s had a chance to recover and I think he’ll be fine for the first game. We’ll wait until we get over there and the med-ical staff can assess him then but I think he’s tracking really well. Mitch Marsh has been getting through his loads up here this week, he’s been bowling well and batting well.”

Smith dispelled concerns about his fitness, saying he had fully recov-ered from the wrist injury that cut short his IPL season earlier this month.

“It’s coming along good, it was nice to rest it for a couple of weeks and not pick up a bat or catch any balls. It’s done it the world of good,” he said.

Justin Langer, the former Test opener and current coach of Western Australia, will stand in as head coach in place of Darren Lehmann, who has been given an extended break from touring after suffering from deep-vein thrombosis earlier this year.

Australia squad: Steve Smith (capt), David Warner, George Bailey, Scott Boland, Nathan Coulter-Nile, James Faulkner, Aaron Finch, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Usman Kha-waja, Nathan Lyon, Mitchell Marsh, Glenn Maxwell, Mitchell Starc, Mat-thew Wade, Adam Zampa.

Australia captain wary of pink ball Test at GabbaReuters

MELBOURNE: Australia captain Steven Smith has no qualms about playing another day-night test at Adelaide Oval but is wary of how the pink ball will perform in the humid conditions expected at Brisbane later this year.

Australia play Pakistan in the first Test under lights at the Gabba on Decem-ber 15, despite warnings from former players and pundits that muggy conditions could make the ball unplayable for batsmen.

In the inaugural day-night match against New Zealand in drier Adelaide conditions last year, the ball hooped around menacingly during the floodlit late sessions and Australia won in three days.

Cricket Australia (CA) hope to schedule another Test against South Africa at Adelaide Oval in November but the Proteas have balked at the prospect, cit-ing a lack of experience with the pink ball.

“I think it worked well, the one Test at the Adelaide Oval,” Smith told report-ers in Brisbane yesterday.

“I personally believe that’s the best place to play a day-night Test match but we’ve got the one at the Gabba this year so it will be interesting to see how that goes.

“It’s just a little bit different with the ball and humidity that quite often is around in Brisbane, so it could be very difficult for the batters, particularly if there’s grass left on the wicket.”

Fears that the pink ball might not last the required 80 overs in Test cricket saw a grassy pitch prepared for the Adelaide match, making the task much harder for batsmen.

“I think we still need plenty of development with the ball to make sure that we don’t prepare a wicket that suits the ball with plenty of grass on it,” Smith added.

Faiz Fazal in action during an IPL game in the 2011

season.

SPORT 35TUESDAY 24 MAY 2016

Thunder humble Warriors to seize play-off lead

AFP

WASHINGTON: Behind 33 points from Kevin Durant and 30 by Russell Westbrook, the Oklahoma City Thunder hum-bled defending NBA champion Golden State 133-105 on Sunday to seize the lead in their play-off series.

The Thunder grabbed a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven Western Conference finals and captured momentum with the lopsided blowout, making Tues-day’s fourth game at Oklahoma City crucial for both clubs.

“We have got to keep the same intensity, same attack mode,” Westbrook said. “They didn’t have the best record in the NBA for nothing. We’ve got to come back with the same mindset and play with the same intensity.”

Golden State, which set an NBA record with 73 regular-sea-son wins, has not lost two games in a row all season but will have to quickly bounce back from an embarassment.

Either the Thunder, who have won 10 best-of-seven series in a row when going up 2-1, or the Warriors will face the Eastern Conference winners, the Toronto Raptors or Cleve-land Cavaliers, in next month’s NBA Finals.

In addition to sparking the highest-scoring performance by any team in any NBA play-off game this year, Westbrook and Durant each added eight rebounds and blocked two shots while Westbrook also contrib-uted 12 assists.

Stephen Curry led Golden State with 24 points and Klay Thompson added 18, but Curry hit only 7-of-17 shots from the floor, Thompson shot 8-of-19 and Draymond Green was 1-of-9. The Warriors were also outrebounded 52-38.

Durant scored 23 in the first half while Westbrook added 16 as the Thunder leaped ahead in the second quarter and piled on more punishment in the second half, stretching the lead to 117-80 after three quarters and went on to match a club playoff scor-ing record.

The Thunder closed the sec-ond quarter on a 32-7 run to seize a 72-47 half-time edge, aided by the Warriors missing 21 of their last 23 first-half shots from the floor.

Golden State lost their three prior play-off defeats in the past month by a total of 19 points, nine fewer than they lost by in game three.

Green kicked Thunder big man Steven Adams of New Zealand in the groin late in the second quarter and could face a suspension for game four.

Oklahoma City outscored Golden State 29-13 on fast break points, humbling the team that led the NBA in that cate-gory. Time and again Durant and Westbrook penetrated the Warriors defense to slam down a dunk or simply toss in a layup.

The Warriors, who hit only 19-of-55 shots from the floor in the first half (34 percent), faced their largest half-time deficit of the season.

Bumgarner stars as Giants keep winningAP

SAN FRANCISCO: Madison Bumgarner pitched 7 2/3 dominant innings and doubled in a run in the fifth to lift the San Francisco Giants over the Chicago Cubs 1-0 on Sunday night.

The Giants won for the 11th time in 12 games and took two of three from a Cubs team with the best record in baseball.

Bumgarner (6-2) struck out six and allowed three hits and two walks while winning his fifth straight deci-sion. The Giants have won each of the left-hander’s last six starts.

The Giants won despite a persistent problem hitting with runners in scoring position.

Dodgers 9, Padres 5, 17 InningsYasiel Puig hit a tiebreaking, two-run single with

the bases loaded and one out in the 17th inning and Los Angeles beat San Diego to snap a four-game losing streak.

Red Sox 5, Indians 2David Ortiz went 4 for 4 with a solo home run and a

double that sent a fan flying, Jackie Bradley Jr. extended his hitting streak to 27 games and Boston beat Cleveland for its 10th win in 14 games.

Tigers 9, Rays 4Jordan Zimmermann (7-2) left with a strained right

groin after allowing two runs and five hits in 5 2/3 innings.Miguel Cabrera and Victor Martinez homered for

Detroit, which has won six of seven. Cabrera also left early. with a left knee bruise after being hit by a pitch in the seventh.

Chris Archer (3-5) gave up six runs and eight hits in three innings.

Blue Jays 3, Twins 1Jose Bautista and Josh Donaldson started the game

with back-to-back home runs in a three-run first inning against Phil Hughes (1-7), who leads in the major leagues in losses. Marcus Stroman (5-1) allowed one run and three hits in 7 2/3 innings, one start after giving up career-highs of seven runs and 13 hits in a loss to Tampa Bay. Roberto Osuna got four straight outs for his ninth save.

A day after Donaldson was ejected by umpire Toby Basner in the first inning, John Gibbons got the early exit from crew chief Joe West in the fifth — the fourth ejec-tion of the year for the Toronto manager.

Mets 3, Brewers 1Noah Syndergaard (5-2) struck out 11 in seven over-

powering innings, allowing an unearned run and six hits.Michael Conforto homered in the third off Chase

Anderson (2-6) as New York completed a three-game sweep.

Nationals 8, Marlins 2Max Scherzer (5-3) struck out eight while giving up

two runs and six hits in eight innings with no walks. He has 38 strikeouts in his past three starts, including a record-tying 20 against Detroit. Justin Bour ended Scherzer’s shutout bid with a two-run homer in the sev-enth. Washington won the three-game series and took a 7-6 edge in the season series.

Mariners 5, Reds 4Leonys Martin got four hits, Robinson Cano drove in

two runs and Seattle completed a three-game sweep that extended Cincinnati’s losing streak to seven.

Phillies 5, Braves 0Jerad Eickhoff (2-6) pitched five-hit ball over seven

innings for his first win since April 13, and Philadelphia avoided a three-game sweep. He had lost his previous five decisions. Cameron Rupp homered for the Phillies, and Maikel Franco had two RBIs.

White Sox 3, Royals 2Todd Frazier tied for the AL lead with his 13th home

run, Melky Cabrera drove in two runs and Chicago avoided what would have been the first sweep against the White Sox this season.

Rangers 9, Astros 2Cole Hamels (5-0) won his career-best 12th straight

decision. He fanned a season-high 11 in eight innings, allowing two runs — one earned — and five hits as the Rangers completed a three-game sweep.

Texas has won six straight from Houston and 14 of 16. The Astros have lost four straight overall.

Diamondbacks 7, Cardinals 2Zack Greinke (5-3) won for the fifth time in six starts,

allowing one run and five hits in eight innings.Angels 10, Orioles 2Jered Weaver (4-3) took a shutout into the seventh

inning to win for the first time since April 26, and Carlos Perez homered, had three hits and drove in a career-high five runs.

Yankees 5, Athletics 4Michael Pineda (2-5) allowed three runs and six hits

in six innings to win for the first time since his opening start this season, Starlin Castro hit a tiebreaking, two-out single in the sixth off Jesse Hahn (1-2) and New York extended a winning streak to five for the first time since winning seven straight from last June 1-9.

Detroit 9 Tampa Bay 4

NY Mets 3 Milwaukee 1

Seattle 5 Cincinnati 4

Washington 8 Miami 2

Philadelphia 5 Atlanta 0

Boston 5 Cleveland 2

Chicago White Sox 3 Kansas City 2

Texas 9 Houston 2

Toronto 3 Minnesota 1

Arizona 7 St Louis 2

LA Angels 10 Baltimore 2

NY Yankees 5 Oakland 4

BASEBALL RESULTS

Lightning take control with Game 5 win Agencies

PITTSBURGH: Tyler Johnson deflected Jason Garrison’s wrist shot from the left circle into the net 53 seconds into overtime and the Tampa Bay Lightning seized control by beating the Pittsburgh Penguins 4-3 in Game five of the Eastern Conference finals on Sun-day.

Nikita Kucherov led a come-back from a two-goal deficit with two goals as the Lightning won for the second time in the three games in Pittsburgh. They will not have to return there if they can win Game 6 on Tuesday in Tampa, where teams split Games 3-4.

The Lighting are one win away from the Stanley Cup finals for the second straight season.

The Penguins gambled by returning goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury to the net for the first time in 51 days, benching rookie Matt Murray, but Fleury was outplayed by rookie Andrei Vasilevisky, who made 31 saves to Fleury’s 23.

Fleury now is 1-8 in his last nine play-off starts.

One constant on every Tampa Bay goal: Penguins defenseman Kris Letang, playing without usual partner Trevor Daley, was on the ice. Daley will miss the rest of the playoffs with a broken left ankle that occurred in Game 4.

Olli Maatta, back after being benched for three games for uneven play, figured on two of the Penguins’ first three goals -- exactly what coach Mike Sul-livan wanted upon returning him to the lineup.

But, again, the Penguins’ big names, Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, could not produce a goal

in a Game 5 that, based on prior NHL results of series tied at 2, sends the winner on to the next round about 75 percent of the time.

The Penguins led 3-2 late in the third, but Kucherov scored his second of the game -- and 11th of the play-offs -- at 16:44. Johnson’s shot from the left point deflected to Kucherov behind the net, and he easily beat Fleury on a wraparound.

The Penguins took their 3-2 lead by scoring in the final minute of each of the first two periods -- literally the final second of the

first period -- with left winger Chris Kunitz involved in both goals.

After the Lightning rallied from a two-goal deficit to tie it at 2-2 on goals 1:10 apart in the sec-ond by Alex Killorn and Kucherov, the Penguins regained the lead when Kunitz punched the puck past Vasilevskiy with 50 seconds left in the period.

Maatta swiftly carried the

puck beyond the goal line, then fed it to the high slot to Malkin, who put it on net. Just as Vasi-levskiy seemed ready to grab it, Kunitz nudged it into the net for his fourth of the playoffs and third of the series.

Previously, after holding the Lightning to four shots in the first period, the Penguins scored the game’s first goal with only seven-tenths of a second left.

Kunitz, while falling down, shoved the puck up-ice to Bryan Rust, who beat defenseman Victor Hedman for a shot that rebounded to defenseman Brian

Dumoulin, who put it inside the far post.

Pittsburgh made it 2-0 only 1:30 into the second. Carl Hagelin shifted to the right of Vasilevskiy to deflect Maatta’s pass to Patric Hornqvist for his seventh of the playoffs.

But after Phil Kessel missed a chance to put the Penguins up 3-0, Killorn’s wrist shot from the left circle eluded Fleury at 13:15 for his fifth goal. Kucherov fol-lowed 1:10 later with his 10th of the playoffs, a one-timer from the left circle created by Vladimir Namestnikov’s pass.

TAMPA BAY LEAD EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS 4-3

Tampa Bay Lightning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy (right) makes a save against Pittsburgh Penguins left wing Chris Kunitz (centre) during their game five of the Eastern Conference Final of the 2016 Stanley Cup Play-offs at the CONSOL Energy Center in Pittsburgh on Sunday.

Russell Westbrook (top) of the Oklahoma City Thunder goes up against Harrison Barnes of the Golden State Warriors during their game three of the Western Conference Finals of the 2016 NBA Play-offs at Chesapeake Energy Arena in Oklahoma City on Sunday.

Defending champs suffer 133-105 defeat as Thunder grab 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven series

The Peninsula

DOHA: Qatar Olympic Committee (QOC) has been accorded the Inte-grated Management Systems (IMS) certificate.

An IMS certification is a quality system that improves the process and service quality in a company and thus leads to increased efficiency within the system.

The much-vaunted International Organization for Standardization (ISO) certificate was handed over yesterday at a special gathering.

“In pursuit of our vision of certify-ing Qatar Olympic Committee (QOC) with best industry standards, Plan-ning and Development Department achieved this objective by certifying all departments in QOC with Integrated Management System, which includes following standards: ISO 9001.2008 Quality Management System, ISO 14001.2004 Environment Management System and BS OHSAS 18001.2007 – Health & Safety Management System,” Selim Kseib, Country Chief executive of Bureau Veritas said.

IMS certification aims to have as common management system

requirements and is intended to be used as a framework for implement-ing two or more management system standards in an integrated way

Yesterday, Kseib handed over the Integrated Management System (IMS) certificate to QOC General Secretary Abdulrahman bin Thani Al Kuwari in the presence of other QOC officials.

Speaking on the occasion Dr Al Kuwari complimented the entire QOC team for achieving the set targets and for been awarded the IMS certification.

“Credit goes to all of you for the success the QOC have achieved for the certificate we received,” the QOC official said while speaking at the cer-tificate awarding ceremony.

The certificate handed over by the Bureau Veritas official states: “Bureau Veritas certify that the management system of the above organization has been tested and found to be in accord-ance with the requirements of the management system standards.”

Bureau Veritas was appointed as the certification body while QOC had engaged the services of Excell-edia Consultancy to guide and assist in completing the relevant Integrated Management Systems requirements.

The scope of the certification is in line with the QOC Strategy Map

2017-2022: “Planning and coordina-tion services to national federations to improve sports performance, sports facilities utilization and community participation in various sports in the Qatar.”

The QOC in their pursuit of sus-tainable sport development have also expressed the commitment to: “Consistently adopt a planning and coordination approach aimed at meet-ing client satisfaction, complying with the legal IMS requirements in order to improve sports facilities utilization, sports performance and communi-ty’s participation, thus strengthening Qatar position in the international sport arena. “

The other areas the QOC has laid emphasis to “Enhance overall sat-isfaction of QOC clients. Ensure that appropriate measures are deployed in planning and coordination activities to prevent injury and ill health of peo-ple working under the control of our organization. Ensure that appropri-ate measures are deployed in planning and coordination activities to prevent pollution, reduce natural resources consumption and waste to minimum extent wherever appropriate.”

QOC is also ensuring that all the ‘system policy’ is duly followed by all.

“Ensure all processes are on a continual improvement path, by set-ting realistic and challenging targets and through regular review of its per-formance indicators. Ensure that our

employees are encouraged to cap-italize on continual processional and personal development and are empowered to demonstrate leader-ship in their respective areas of work.

Ensure that all people working under control of an organization are made aware of policy, IMS requirements and their related responsibilities towards complying with IMS.”

36 TUESDAY 24 MAY 2016

Qatar Olympic Committee awarded IMS certificate

Rio’s youth set to harness their talent in Qatar

The Peninsula

RIO DE JANEIRO: The success-ful conclusion of Qatar Olympic Committee’s (QOC) ‘Shine’ athletics tournament which was conducted in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on Sunday, saw a total of 10 talented young athletes winning places on a training camp at Doha’s world-renowned Aspire Acad-emy for Sporting Excellence.

The Aspire Academy, whose alumni include Qatar’s sporting hero, Mutaz Barshim offered this golden opportunity to promising athletes of the meet which saw over 200 young athletes competing.

The QOC established the Shine project to provide support and assistance to young athletes from dis-advantaged backgrounds from across Rio de Janeiro and leaving a compel-ling legacy from the Rio 2016 Games. The QOC, Qatar Athletics Federation and Aspire Academy for Sporting Excellence partnered with Futuro Olimpico, an NGO founded by Bra-zil’s Olympic bronze medallist from Atlanta ‘96, Arnaldo de Oliveira, and the Rio de Janeiro Athletics Federa-tion to organise the project.

Speaking about the vision behind the Shine project, Dr Thani Al Kuwari, Secretary General of the QOC, said:

“The Qatar Olympic Commit-

tee believes in the power of sport to change lives and we were determined

to ensure that we grasp the opportu-nity of the Rio 2016 Games to leave a positive impact on young athletes in Rio de Janeiro. This will provide a true legacy for both Brazil and Qatar. It is our sincere hope that our Shine project will provide invalu-able support for these athletes on their journeys to become Brazil’s next Olympic heroes. We look for-ward to following their progress as their careers develop.”

The Shine tournament was attended by several officials from Qatar including Sheikha Asma Al Thani, Marketing Director at the QOC, Mohammed Al Kuwari, Sec-retary General at the Qatar Athletics Federation and Dr Hazem Anabtawi, Deputy Director at the Aspire Acad-emy. The officials were able to meet the athletes and learn more about how the project will benefit them and their future careers.

Athletes were competing across 24 events and the most notable result

of the day came from 21 year old Gabriel Oliveira Constantino whose

time of 10.47s in the men’s 100m was just 31 hundredths of a second short of the Olympic qualification time. Despite not qualifying on this occasion, there will be further oppor-tunities and Gabriel’s performance won him a trip to Qatar and a place on the training camp with four other boys and five girls.

Speaking from the competition, Mohammed Al Kuwari said:

“It has been a pleasure to witness the huge amount of talent on display at the Shine Tournament today, and we pass our congratulations to all the athletes that have qualified to train in Qatar.”

“The Qatar Athletics Federation and Aspire Academy for Sporting Excellence are committed to the global development of athletics and we hope that these young athletes’ development and performance will be enhanced by our world-class coach-ing, sports science expertise and state-of the-art facilities. We cannot wait to welcome them to Doha and we hope their stay will be one to remem-ber forever.”

In addition to Sunday’s Shine tournament, the QOC are pro-viding further support to Futuro Olimpico, which aims to take athletics to students at Rio de Janeiro’s public schools. Proceeds from public entry fees to Bayt Qatar, the QOC’s hospitality house for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, will be donated to the NGO ena-bling them to buy uniforms and equipment for the athletes and for further athletes to benefit from the partnership.

Speaking about Shine, Arnaldo de Oliveira said: “Today’s Shine tour-nament has been a huge success and

it has been so inspiring to see ath-letes from Futuro Olimpico qualify for the once-in-a-lifetime trip to Doha.”

“This will be the first time that many of them have left Brazil and the opportunity to train at the world-class facilities and experience a new culture will be essential to their development.”

Also in attendance at the Shine tournament was Brazil’s multiple World and Paralympic Champion, Terezinha Guilhermina, who will be competing in the Rio 2016 Paralym-pic Games this summer. The Shine Ambassador inspired the young ath-letes by sharing her own story of how sport transformed her life from a childhood of poverty to a sporting hero. She said:

“Sport had an amazing impact on my life. I went from being Terezinha Guilhermina, the one who dreamed, to Terezinha Guilhermina, the one who achieves her dreams. I experi-enced first-hand last year the impact that hosting the Doha 2015 IPC Ath-letics World Championships had on changing perceptions and breaking down barriers in Qatar and the Mid-dle East”.

The athletes will travel to Qatar with Arnaldo de Oliveira later in 2016 for the week-long training camp.

The Aspire Academy regularly hosts training camps for Asia’s most talented young athletes enabling them to enhance their development and performance through tailored and optimised training programmes.

The Shine athletes will benefit from the same experience, helping to provide new knowledge and expertise that will support their future training programmes.

‘Shine’ tournament selects 10 athletes for training camp at world’s renowned Aspire Academy for Sporting Excellence

Winners of the ‘Shine’ Athletics Tournament, pose for a photograph with QOC officials and ambassadors .

QSL rewards Qatar Cup social media ambassadors The Peninsula

DOHA: The Qatar Stars League hosted a special lunch at the Fraiser Suites in Doha for the Snapchat ambassadors who played a valuable role in mak-ing the recent Qatar Cup Snapchat Live story a grand success.

Each guest was also awarded with certificate of appreciation and a gift for their efforts over the 2016 Qatar Cup competition.

Speaking at the event, QSL’s Executive Director and Communication Khalifa Al Haroon said; “It was a fantastic opportunity to have Qatari media ambassadors, who contributed to the success of the Snapchat story and aided the promotion of the 2016 Qatar Cup competition. I would like to take the opportunity to personally thank the ambassadors for their efforts over the competition and look forward to building on this work going into the new QSL season.”

Whilst social media ambassador Dr Mohammed Saadi was quick to praise the efforts of the QSL and the Snapchat Live story; “ As a ambassa-dor, I am very proud of the effort and work that we put in with collaboration with the QSL. I believe this is the start of a strong relationship with the aim of rasing the profile of the QSL and football in Qatar in general.”

The QSL media team will now be looking to build on the impressive fig-ures achieved across social media over the Qatar Cup competition. Over 1.5 Million users watched the live story of the Qatar Cup final, which was the first ever football event covered as a Snapchat Live Story in Qatar.

The social media ambassadors who played a valuable role in making the recent Qatar Cup Snapchat Live story a grand success, pose for a photograph with Qatar Stars League Officials.

Al Sadd set for training camp in AustriaThe Peninsula

DOHA: Qatar Stars League side Al Sadd has confirmed their pre-season training plans ahead of the start of the next QSL season.

Al Sadd’s head of football Mohammed Ghanem Al Ali has confirmed that the squad will be meeting in Doha on July 10, ahead of their tour to Austria, where they will take part in a training camp on July 15.

Ghanem also confirmed that another training camp for the side will be held in Al Ain, UAE a few weeks before the start of the QSL season.

In a wide ranging interview with the Al Sadd website, Ghanem also con-firmed that they will be sticking with a youth policy despite missing out on a trophy this term.

“Despite being in a bad situation in terms of the results, we brought out players who we will depend on in the future, starting from next season - players like Salem Al Hajri, Meshaal Al Shammari, Nasser Al Nasr, Musab Khodr and Hamza Al Sanhaji. We will continue with this policy, which Al Sadd has been leading with.”

Al Sadd finished the domestic season without any honours, after being edged out of the Emir Cup on penalties by Lekhwiya.

Gabriel Oliveira Constantino (left) wins 100m event during the ‘Shine’ Athletics Tournament.

QOC General Secretary Abdulrahman bin Thani Al Kuwari (third left) receives the Integrated Management Systems certificate from Selim Kseib, Country Chief executive of Bureau Veritas (second left) at the Qatar Olympic Committee headquarters.