SPORT | 12BUSINESS | 01

Qatar to lead growth in global

gas export capacity

AFC Champions League: Al Duhail, Al Sadd eye winning starts

Tuesday 11 February 2020

17 Jumada II - 1441

2 Riyals

www.thepeninsula.qa

Volume 24 | Number 8164

Hundreds of excitingsporting activities linedup across the countryTHE PENINSULA/QNA – DOHA

Qatar will celebrate the National Sport Day (NSD) with hundreds of exciting activities being organised across the country for the ninth year in a row today.

Qatar, the first country in the world to have allocated a dedi-cated day to keep its citizens occupied in sport and physical activities, will today see thou-sands of people taking part in various events.

The celebration of the coun-try’s sports day comes in imple-mentation of Amiri Resolution No. 80 of 2011, which stipulates that on Tuesday of the second week of February of each year will be the NSD, in which all res-idents are encouraged to partic-ipate in sporting activities and enjoy sport in all its forms.

All public and private organ-isations in the country are all set to celebrate this unique initiative with a rich lineup of events and activities aimed at promoting health and fitness through sport.

The Qatar Olympic Com-mittee (QOC) will celebrate this year’s NSD in cooperation with Msheireb Properties.

The QOC, along with various national sports federations will mark the day by offering members of the local community a wide-ranging programme of sports activities and demonstra-tions at Team Qatar Sports Village in Barahat Msheireb.

Jassim bin Rashid Al Buenain, Secretary-General of the QOC, said: “This year is an Olympic year, which makes National Sport Day 2020 an even more signif-icant day! The events and

activities we have planned with the valuable help of national sport federations and stakeholders, will give our community the oppor-tunity to try new sports and enjoy engaging workshops.

"There will be an opportunity to meet with some of Team Qatar’s star athletes. It is our hope that these world-class ath-letes will encourage young people to be physically active, and perhaps even inspire the future generation of Qatari athletes,”

“Qatar recognises the impor-tance of sports, and it is a key goal of ours to encourage people to stay fit and active, not only on National Sports Day, but all year long. Qatar is one of the first countries in the world to have a paid national holiday which is dedicated solely to sports and

exercise, which reflects both the forward-thinking leadership of Qatar’s sports leaders, and the fact that sport is an important pillar of the Qatar National Vision 2030.” He added.

The event will feature a diverse range of sports catering to all ages, including athletics, basketball, vol-leyball, gymnastics, table tennis, boxing, wrestling, taekwondo, karate and judo. Throughout the day there will also be live sports workshops featuring gymnastics and martial arts, as well as on-stage entertainment from football free-stylers and sport jugglers.

Meanwhile, Aspire Zone Foundation (AZF) and its member organisations, Aspire Academy, Aspetar, and Aspire Logistics will also host NSD activ-ities which will include more than 20 unique events for all members of the community to enjoy. Moreover, AZF will host more than 18 entities partici-pating in NSD celebrations. As with previous years, 2020’s plans prove that Aspire Zone Foun-dation does offer something for everyone, no matter their age or level of fitness.

AZF’s three-member organ-izations join forces to provide a sporty day full of innovative activities such as foot-vol-leyball, ‘Run&Bike’ and obstacle-course race.

Katara Cultural Village is also set to host thousands of visitors today with 54 public and private entities, including 17 sports fed-erations, 15 ministries and gov-ernment departments, 15 health institutions, and food companies, partnering together to celebrate the NSD. �P2

Minister of State for Energy Affairs, President & CEO of Qatar Petroleum, H E Saad bin Sherida Al Kaabi (centre), with the Secretary-General of the GECF, Yury Sentyurin (left), and other officials during the launch of the GECF’s Global Gas Outlook 2050 at Sheraton Grand Doha Hotel yesterday.PIC: BAHER AMIN/THE PENINSULA

Qatar going ahead with implementation of mega LNG projects: Minister Al KaabiMOHAMMAD SHOEB THE PENINSULA

H E Saad bin Sherida Al Kaabi, Minister of State for Energy Affairs and President and CEO of Qatar Petroleum, said yesterday that the State of Qatar is moving forward with imple-menting its mega projects that will see its LNG production rise from 77 to 126 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) by 2027.

“This will not just enhance our ability and flexibility to meet additional global demand, but will also help the shift to less carbon intensive energy in many parts of the world,” H E Al Kaabi said.

He added: “In parallel, the State of Qatar remains focused on achieving the highest envi-ronmental standards in its LNG industry to significantly reduce emissions by applying the best

available industry technologies and CO2 sequestration.”

This came as H E Al Kaabi was addressing an event held by the Doha-based Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) on the occasion of unveiling the GECF’s ‘Global Gas Outlook 2050’.

H E Al Kaabi also said that Qatar was looking forward to host the 6th GECF summit of heads of states in Doha in 2021.

The Minister of State for Energy Affairs said: “While fossil fuels will continue to dominate the global energy mix, natural gas will be the only form of hydrocarbons to increase its share during the next 30 years. Today, the share of natural gas in the global energy mix stands at about 22 percent. By 2050, this is expected to rise to 27 percent, according to the outlook, which

is being launched today.”His Excellency praised the

launch of the Global Gas Outlook 2050, which sheds light on the expected road ahead during the next three decades and offers an important view of the chal-lenges and opportunities we can expect along the way.

“There is no doubt that living in today’s world, one can easily feel the economic and geopo-litical pressures that are impacting free trade, economic competitiveness, industrial activity, energy demand and price levels affecting most, if not all nations around the world.”

Concerns over a slowdown in world economic growth and a looming global recession are also challenges that have a sig-nificant impact on the prospects of energy demand and con-sumption, he added. �P2

Importance of balancing development and environment stressedQNA — DOHA

Minister of Municipality and Environment, H E Eng Abdullah bin Abdulaziz bin Turki Al Subaie said that the environment is a priority to which Qatar and the Ministry attach great impor-tance in the field of land and marine environment, adding that this importance emanates from Qatar National Vision 2030, which made the envi-ronment one of its key pillars.

In his opening remarks at the

first environmental forum held by the Ministry yesterday H E the Minister said that preserving the environment is through enacting legislations, laws, initiatives, and community projects, and ensuring cooperation of com-munity members, especially that protecting and preserving the environment is a shared respon-sibility of all individuals and institutions.

He pointed out that the Min-istry has an organisational, super-visory and executive role in

various environmental issues, and that a number of other authorities have competencies and tasks related to preserving the envi-ronment, stressing the importance of achieving a balance between the requirements of the devel-opment process in the State and addressing environmental chal-lenges and finding radical solu-tions to them.

He said that one of the goals of holding this forum was to act as a link with the concerned author-ities and the various members of

society who are specialised in the field of the environment.

Responding to questions by the participants, His Excellency affirmed that the Ministry is currently examining the proce-dures that guarantee the pro-vision of various types of support to the fishermen, adding that the Ministry has recently developed a mech-anism for monitoring the marine environment by ships to detect fishing violations and others, in coordination with

other authorities concerned.In the wild environment and

support for livestock field, the Ministry officials affirmed that mobile veterinary clinics and private markets for farms are made available in cooperation with Qatar Development Bank, pointing out that there is a com-mittee formed in the Ministry to evaluate the process of preventing grazing and its implications, and to study the period for grazing and the possibility of allocating certain places for that. �P3

Al Thawadi highlights Qatar’sworker welfare reformsSIDI MOHAMED THE PENINSULA

Secretary-General of the Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy (SC) Hassan Al Thawadi has said that the crit-icism on worker welfare in Qatar has died down.

Speaking at a session under Education City Speakers Series held at Qatar National Library yes-terday, he said that many reforms had been undertaken as a moral obligation of Qatar, as workers conditions have been improved and the sponsorship system has been completely abolished, and these reforms will continue.

“Qatar was the first country to set a minimum wage for workers in the region, while many countries set a minimum wage according to special agreements

for specific nationalities.”Al Thawadi further said: “We

also need to identify the mis-takes we have made in the past and look at how we avoid them in the future. At the SC, we look at ourselves as an experiment to see what works and then extend it nationwide. If you implement something without first testing it, the consequences can be sig-nificant and can even harm those it is supposed to benefit.”

Regarding misconceptions of some people against Qatar, he said that everyone who visited Qatar from athletes, sports teams and visitors goes with a good impression about Qatar, and they also admired the Qatari culture, so we see them taking memorial photos in Souq Waqif and many others places, and their impression in general is a good. �P3

The Secretary-General of the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy, Hassan Al Thawadi (right), during the Education City Speaker Series held at Qatar National Library yesterday. PIC: BAHER AMIN/THE PENINSULA

Shura Council approves draft law on medical treatment abroad

QNA — DOHA

The Shura Council held yesterday its regular weekly meeting under the chair-manship of the Speaker of the Council, H E Ahmed bin Abdullah bin Zaid Al Mahmoud.

The Council discussed the Services and Public Utilities Committee’s report on a draft law organising medical treatment abroad, which aims to facilitate procedures for treating Qatari patients abroad and providing them with the best services.

Under the law's provisions, the state will treat citizens abroad and bear treatment and other costs. The Council approved the draft law and decided to refer its recommendations thereon to the government.

At the end of the session, H E the Speaker briefed the Council on His Excellency's participation in the 30th Extraordinary Conference of Arab Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) on Saturday, held under the slogan “Supporting the Palestinian Brothers in Their Just Cause (the Issue of Arabs and Muslims)”.

H E also briefed the Council on his meetings with a number of heads of Arab parliaments on the sidelines of the conference.

The National Sport Day will feature a diverse range of sports catering to all ages, including athletics, basketball, volleyball, gymnastics, table tennis, boxing, wrestling, taekwondo, karate and judo.

OFFICIAL NEWS

DOHA: Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and Deputy Amir H H Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamad Al Thani sent yesterday cables of condolences to H M King Maha Vajiralongkorn of the Kingdom of Thailand on the vic-tims of the attack in a shopping centre in the city of Nakhon Ratchasima in Eastern Thailand, wishing the injured a speedy recovery. The Prime Minister and Minister of Interior, H E Sheikh Kha-lid bin Khalifa bin Abdulaziz Al Thani, also sent a cable of condolences to the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Thailand, H E Prayut Chan-o-cha, on the victims of the attack in a shopping centre in the city of Nakhon Ratch-asima in Eastern Thailand, wishing the injured a speedy recovery. QNA

Amir sends condolences to King of Thailand

02 TUESDAY 11 FEBRUARY 2020HOME

QRCS signsagreementwith QSCQNA — DOHA Qatar Red Crescent Society (QRCS) and Qatar Scientific Club (QSC) signed yesterday a coop-eration agreement to implement Imdad programme sponsored by the Sports and Social Activ-ities Support Fund of Qatar Central Bank. The agreement was signed by the Secretary-General of QRCS, Ali bin Hassan Al Hammadi, and the Executive Director of QSC, Hareb Mohammed Al Jabri. Al Hammadi welcomed the agreement and considered Imdad programme as one of the most important social programmes of QRCS, as it aims to train and empower young people, one of the most important segments of the Qatari society.

Shura Council Speaker meets Azerbaijan official

QNA — DOHA

The Speaker of the Shura Council, H E Ahmed bin Abdullah bin Zaid Al Mahmoud, met yesterday with the Chairman of the State Committee on Affairs with Diaspora of the Republic of

Azerbaijan, H E Fuad Muradov, and the accompanying dele-gation.

They reviewed parlia-mentary relations between the State of Qatar and the Republic of Azerbaijan and ways of sup-porting and developing them. A number of topics of common

interest were also reviewed.The meeting was attended

by H E the Chairman of the Qatar-Asian Friendship Group, Rashid bin Hamad Al Maadadi, and H E the Ambassador of the Republic of Azerbaijan to the State of Qatar, Rashad Ismayilov.

The Speaker of the Shura Council, H E Ahmed bin Abdullah bin Zaid Al Mahmoud, with the Chairman of the State Committee on Affairs with Diaspora of the Republic of Azerbaijan, H E Fuad Muradov, and the accompanying delegation in Doha, yesterday.

Message to UN official

QNA — VIENNA

The Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, H E Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdul-rahman Al Thani, sent a written message to the Director-General of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in Vienna, H E Ghada Wali.

The message was delivered by the Ambassador of the State of Qatar to Austria and its Per-manent Representative to the United Nations and interna-tional organisations in Vienna, H E Sultan bin Salmeen Al Man-souri, during his meeting with the Director-General in Vienna.

The Permanent Represent-ative of Qatar emphasised the importance that the State

attaches to the United Nations Office on Crime and Drugs due to its distinguished role in com-bating crime and drugs, and the State of Qatar’s keenness to provide all forms of support necessary for the new Director-General to help her in carrying out her duties.

The Director-General of the United Nations Office in Vienna commended the cooperation between the State of Qatar and the United Nations, especially the continuous support from the State of Qatar for the pro-grammes and projects of the United Nations Office in the field of crime prevention and criminal justice, and its support for the goals and principles upon which the United Nations was founded.

The Ambassador of the State of Qatar to Austria, H E Sultan bin Salmeen Al Mansouri, with the Director-General of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, H E Ghada Wali, in Vienna.

MoPH implements strategic initiatives to promote community healthTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

The Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) implemented many important strategic initiatives with many of its partners to contribute to promoting the health of the Qatari community, supporting the population’s healthy lifestyles, and encour-aging them to do regular physical exercise, according to the levels recommended by the World Health Organization.

Qatar National Nutrition and Physical Activity Action Plan comes among the most prominent initiatives imple-mented by the Ministry of Health in this regard, as the plan achieved several successes during the year 2019 through the implementation of its goals and recommendations, among the most notable are the ‘Fat, Sugar and Salt reduction Initi-ative in Qatar” to cut such content in food and beverages by engaging the public and private sectors and preparing a road map for the next three years, continuing the imple-mentation of the Health in the Workplace program and involving new entities in the program, and continuing to implement the national

program for health-promoting schools.

The plan also contributed to the imposition of a selective tax on soft drinks and energy drinks, training and strength-ening the capabilities of health care providers on the nutrition guidelines for the State of Qatar to standardize nutritional mes-sages for all members of the Qatari community, and con-tinuing to implement the school canteen guide to ensure the availability of healthy food and drinks for school students.

The implementation of the guidelines for foods and bev-erages in health facilities and workplaces is also being fol-lowed up to ensure the availa-bility of healthy options, and the implementation of the World Health Program on new growth plans for schoolchildren from 5 to 19 years old to monitor obesity rates, overweight and underweight.

Within the framework of the recommendations and projects of the National Plan for Nutrition and Physical Activity in 2020 a healthy cookbook containing more than 70 recipes for popular and other foods on the healthy way will be prepared and printed free of

charge, along contributing to prepare the Qatar 2021 report on the physical activity of children and young adults.

The Ministry of Public Health and its partners are working to implement the National Health Strategy 2018-2022, which set several goals to be reached by 2022, in the framework of promoting physical activity and healthy lifestyles.

The goals of the National Health Strategy include increasing years of life by one year for the population aged 65 years and over, in addition to reducing the tobacco con-sumption rate by 5%, and achieving 100% of health pro-motion and disease prevention initiatives included in the National Development Plan of Implementation For the health care sector, and 55% of gov-ernment and semi-government organizations benefit from occupational health and wellness programs.

The State of Qatar, through adopting a ‘health in all policies’ approach, will be able to adopt at least one community as a health city by the World Health Organization.

Qatar going ahead with implementation of mega LNG projects: Al Kaabi

FROM PAGE 1

“And of course, addressing environmental concerns remains a key focus area for the energy industry, as global efforts continue to combat climate change and to reduce CO2 and other emissions.”

In this context, he said, many countries around the world have set environmental objectives that would help reduce emissions, and limit the increase of global temperatures to below 2 Degrees Celsius.

“At the same time, these countries are also working very hard to enhance their compet-itiveness by transitioning into various sources of energy that would help achieve such envi-ronmental objectives without hindering their economic growth.

“This transition is fueled by the need to drive greater socio-economic development, help

people improve their incomes, and support the performance of business and industries. And while seeking cleaner and more economic and sustainable alternatives, it is obvious that natural gas has a key role to play. It is versatile, flexible, economic and clean.”

“More and more countries are moving away from burning coal, and are building infra-structure for cleaner alterna-tives including natural gas,” he said.

“I am often asked about renewables and whether we see them as a threat to gas. The answer is no. We believe that natural gas and renewable are complementary. As the cleanest of fossil fuels, Natural gas comes handy when the sun is not shining or the wind is not blowing. Energy from natural gas can be dispatched quickly in a cost-effective manner. I firmly believe that the combi-nation of natural gas and renewables offers a reliable, flexible and cost-effective pathway to a lower-emissions energy system.”

According to the key findings of the 4th edition of the outlook report, the global natural gas demand is expected to increase by about 52 percent from 3,924 billion cubic metres (bcm) in 2018 to 5,966 bcm by 2050, with 1.3 percent CAAGR (compounded average annual

growth rate) over the period. And the gas production in GECF countries, including Qatar, will grow by almost 50 percent by 2050 to over 2.5 trillion cubic metres (tcm), underlining the continued importance of the group.

H E Minister Al Kaabi, and H E Dr Yury Sentyurin, Sec-retary-General of the GECF highlighted important findings of the report in their respective speeches. Later, they also unveiled the hard copy of the ‘Global Gas Outlook 2050’ report during the event which was attended by dignitaries and industry experts and represent-atives from GECF member countries.

Dr Yury Sentyurin, Sec-retary-General of the GECF, highlighted the importance of natural gas and its great potential as energy source for sustainable development due

to the efficiency, availability, and eco-friendly nature of the resource.

The GECF Global Gas Outlook is a unique worldwide energy outlook focusing solely on natural gas, which aims to be a global reference for insights into gas markets. The publication represents an impartial view on gas market evolution by highlighting the most likely developments in the medium- and long-term.

In order to have a broader mapping of the uncertainties shaping the development of gas markets multiple scenarios are needed. To this end, the Forum addresses future uncertainties and their possible impact with alternative scenarios through its annual publication of the Global Gas Outlook.

In addition to these envi-ronmentally sound features of natural gas industry ecosystem, Dr Yury informed that the Forum strives to prove itself as an environmental learning and knowledge sharing hub, in par-ticular by implementing the state-of-art practices. For instance, it comes as a positive development, that the current edition of the organization’s landmark forecast was pro-duced at the highest environ-mental standards – using recycled paper and vegetable inks – for the first time in the GECF history.

Exciting sportingactivities lined up

FROM PAGE 1

Qatar Shell and Qatar Football Association (QFA) are also teaming up to organise a number of family-oriented activities at Katara Cultural Village as part of the award-winning Koora Time pro-gramme. Events will run from 7 am to 5 pm today, offering families the opportunity to participate in a variety of football and fitness activities in a fun and non-competitive environment.

The Minister of State for Energy Affairs, and President & CEO of Qatar Petroleum, H E Saad bin Sherida Al Kaabi, during the launch of GECF's Global Gas Outlook 2050 at Sheraton Grand Doha hotel, yesterday. PIC: BAHER AMIN/THE PENINSULA

Palestinian PM meets Qatari envoy to Ethiopia on sidelines of African SummitQNA — ADDIS ABABA

The Palestinian Prime Minister, H E Mohammad Shtayyeh, met with the State of Qatar’s Ambas-sador to Ethiopia, H E Hamad bin Mohammed Al Dosari, on the sidelines of the 33rd Ordinary African Union Summit in Addis Ababa.

The meeting reviewed the bilateral cooperation and issues of mutual concern.

The Summit kicked off on Sunday at the AU headquarters, under the theme "Silencing the Guns: Creating Conducive Con-ditions for Africa's Devel-opment". During the summit, South Africa will assume the chairmanship of the African Union from Egypt for one year.

Culture Minister visits Sports Clubs' players exhibition

QNA — DOHA

The Minister of Culture and Sports, H E Salah bin Ghanem Al Ali, visited yesterday the second day of Qatar Sports Club’s veteran players exhi-bition, organised by the Veteran Players Committee in Katara Cultural Village.

H E the Minister toured the exhibition and the pavilions dedicated to highlight the achievements of Qatar Sports Club over 60 years. The organising committee also dedicated pavilions for the most distinguished players of Qatar Sports Club to highlight their accomplishments.

The exhibition also includes murals representing the history of the club, and display screens featuring meetings, memories and achievements. H E the Minister of Culture and Sports praised the exhibition, stressing its importance in reviving such a cultural and sports heritage.

The Qatar Club exhibition sees remarkable turnout throughout the day, including distinguished presence of stars of the clubs, officials and dig-nitaries, who are keen on learning about the club’s achievements and veteran players.

Labour Minister meets official from AzerbaijanQNA — DOHA The Minister of Administrative Development, Labour and Social Affairs, H E Yousef bin Mohammed Al Othman Fakhro, met yesterday with the Chairman of the State Committee on Work with Diaspora of Azerbaijan, H E Fuad Muradov, who is currently visiting the country, in the presence of Ambassador of the Republic of Azerbaijan to the State of Qatar Rashad Ismayilov.

The meeting discussed aspects of mutual cooperation, especially issues related to the Azerbaijani community, and means of promoting and developing them.

03TUESDAY 11 FEBRUARY 2020 HOME

Qatar, Azerbaijan discuss boosting ties

The Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, H E Sultan bin Saad Al Muraikhi, met yesterday with the Chairman of the State Committee on Affairs with Diaspora of the Republic of Azerbaijan, H E Fuad Muradov, who is currently visiting the country. The bilateral relations of cooperation between the two countries were reviewed, as well as topics of common interest.

Katara opens doors to enthusiasts for National Sport Day celebrations THE PENINSULA — DOHA

The Cultural Village Foun-dation (Katara) is ready to receive thousands of visitors today to take part in the diverse line-up of activities in cele-bration of the ninth edition of the National Sport Day.

The event will see the par-ticipation of 54 public and private entities including 17 sports federations, 15 ministries and government departments, 15 health institutions and food companies, according to the organisers.

This year’s celebration focuses more on community participation to allow people of all age groups to take part in

sporting activities, whether they are common visitors, ath-letes, children, women or persons with special needs. Hosting the event is Katara’s contribution to spread sports awareness and promote healthy lifestyles.

Thousands of citizens and residents are expected to par-ticipate in the important annual event to enjoy different types of physical activities in a healthy and entertaining atmosphere.

This edition of the Sports Day is also distinguished by many new activities organised for the first time, such as the air show presented by the Qatar Air Sports Committee in

the morning and evening, and activities for persons with special needs provided by the Qatar Down Syndrome Asso-ciation, along with marine shows and competitions held on Katara Beach, and dragon shows with the participation of Chinese team.

Many governmental entities will take part in today’s event by presenting different sport activities for the public, such as the Ministry of Economy and Commerce, the Ministry of Municipality and Environment, the Ministry of Transport and Communications, Qatar General Electricity and Water Corporation (Kahramaa), and t h e H a m a d M e d i c a l

Corporation. In addition 15 health centres are taking part in the event providing free

services including health con-sultations and medical exam-inations. The event will also see

participation of restaurants and coffee shops which will provide healthy food and drinks.

A file picture of the boxing match during the previous edition of Katara’s National Sport Day celebrations.

The Minister of Municipality and Environment, H E Abdullah bin Abdulaziz bin Turki Al Subaie, at the first Environmental Forum held by the Ministry, yesterday.

Importance of balancing developmentand environment stressed

FROM PAGE 1

He said that the Ministry provides support to animal farms, with a view to using them properly in the animal production in cooperation with the relevant authorities. The

forum, which dealt with ways to preserve the environment and ensure its sustainability, included notes, proposals and discussions by the participants on the most important environ-mental challenges, including

marine and land domains, fishing laws and legislations, protection of rare wild animals and natural wildlife from over-grazing, as well as addressing inspection and environmental violations in various forms.

Al Thawadi highlights Qatar’s worker welfare reforms

FROM PAGE 1

For the importance of using technology in the World Cup projects, he said: “Data protection is vital for us. As we engage with technology com-panies, we are also working with experts to look at how we can ensure we safeguard the privacy of individuals and ensure we don’t just step into the world of technology to create a successful model for the World Cup, and then find it has serious repercussions beyond.”

Al Thawadi further said that organising the World Cup in Middle East is important stating, “Unfortunately, our region suffers from over-expenditure in the sporting sphere. All countries within the region, even those with limited resources, pay unbelievable amounts of money into sport, whether it’s infrastructure, on players, on hosting teams. But the payback from the sporting industry into the economy, for job creation or contributing to GDP, is minimal.”

“At this World Cup, we’re trying to create opportunities for the people of the region and elevate the recognition of the sporting industry and how it can contribute to industry creation, job creation, and innovation,” he added.

Speaking about importance of hosting the World Cup, Al Thawadi said: “Football is a lighthouse and a beacon. People can gravitate towards it, and it can impact people’s lives. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, not just a football tournament for 28 teams. It’s a chance for the world to come and see who we are and build bridges between nations and people, and to break down stereotypes.”

He also said that major sporting events place a lot of requirements on a host nation. “And from our experience, it’s very important that the plans

you have in place fit with the nation’s overall development plans. That’s what we did. From day one, we recognized we were lucky to have a 12-year gap from when we won right to host the World Cup.”

“That allowed us to plan, but also to sit down and develop our legacy plans. The legacy started from day one. Many nations only start looking at legacy after the tournament, but we planned for it. We worked hard to com-municate and engage with stakeholders from beginning to understand what our nation’s goals and vision were, and what was required, and how we could fit into that,” he added.

Every tournament has to have a unique element to bring it close to people’s hearts. In our case, innovation as at the core of what we do. We want to provide the most advanced, engaging experience for all fans who visit Qatar, and research and development is essential to this.

On the topic of sustaina-bility, he stated: We have com-mitted to this being the first carbon-neutral tournament. That’s a huge commitment we have taken on our shoulders and we’re looking at it across the whole Qatari ecosystem.

“Many projects have taken into account the issue of sus-tainability such as the metro and its importance in people’s health, and special materials were used in building some roads and the amount of water and energy used was reduced,” he said.

About the volunteering strategy, Al Thawadi said: “In 2-3 months, a national volun-teering strategy will be launched that addresses the issue of developing volun-teering capacity for the World Cup. But it’s also about instilling the volunteer essence

and ethos within our commu-nities and within ourselves - Qataris, expats, visitors, everyone.”

“The idea is to demon-strate civic engagement and enable people to contribute to their communities through volunteering. It instils a sense of camaraderie and responsi-bility and community. A national volunteer strategy aims to bring together different stakeholders to develop an ini-tiative that will be one of the legacies that lasts beyond the World Cup,” he added.

Earlier, commenting on the session, Khalifa Essa Al Kubaisi, Media Relations and Press Office Manager, Qatar Foundation, said: “Our Edu-cation City Speaker Series hosts experts and thought-leaders from Qatar and beyond to give their insights and share their experiences on a wide spectrum of topics.”

“It provides the community of Qatar with an opportunity to both hear from, and engage with, these speakers in the spirit of open dialogue and the exchange of perspectives. In this way, the Education City Speaker Series reflects how QF is committed to providing plat-forms for discourse, inter-action, and the sharing of knowledge, and we are delighted to have today wel-comed His Excellency Hassan Al Thawadi as our latest speaker.”

For his part, Eng. Meshal Al Shamari, Director of Qatar Green Building Council: said “With less than three years till kick-off of the carbon-neutral FIFA World Cup 2022, Qatar’s sustainability journey feels faster, more challenging, and more exhilarating constantly. But our decisions for sustain-ability today must be made with the intention that they will carry us not just to 2022, or even 2030, but to genera-tions ahead.”

QBRI encourages residents to stay active to improve healthTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

National Sport Day was first held in Qatar in 2012 and it provides an excellent oppor-tunity to unite the country’s residents to take part in fun sporting activities.

But there is another essential aspect to National Sport Day. It is the timely chance to promote healthy living and raise awareness of why an active and sensible life-style is important in keeping diseases at bay.

Qatar Biomedical Research Institute (QBRI), part of Hamad Bin Khalifa University, was launched in the same year as the first National Sport Day. The similarity does not end there as QBRI also actively encourages a healthy lifestyle. It does so to improve and transform healthcare through innovation in prevention, diagnosis and treatment of diseases affecting the Qatari population and the region.

QBRI has three centers of excellence - the Cancer Research Center, Diabetes Research Center and

Neurological Disorders Research Center - and all three encourage staying active and eating well to reduce the risk of disease.

The Cancer Research Center focuses on understanding the cellular and molecular basis of cancer initiation and pro-gression with a focus on breast cancer, which is the most common type of the disease among females globally.

Dr. Eyad Elkord, a Principal Investigator at the Cancer Research Center, said: “Main-taining a healthy lifestyle lowers the risk of cancer onset and dif-ferent studies showed that sig-nificant numbers of cancer deaths are due to lifestyle-related risk factors. Exercise controls tumor growth by mobi-lising immune cells within the body and releasing some factors from muscles with anti-tumor properties.”

“Moreover, regular exercise and healthy eating habits maintain stability within the body, known as hemostasis, and could help to prevent cancer initiation. Aerobic and cardio-vascular exercises, coupled with

a balanced and nutrient-rich diet, are highly recommended for healthy individuals as well as cancer patients undergoing treatment.”

The Diabetes Research Center serves as a catalyst to promote innovative research on both Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes and related metabolic disorders. Its primary goal is to gain fun-damental knowledge and enhance the understanding of

social, molecular and genetic causes of the disease.

Dr. Paul Thornalley, Director of the Diabetes Research Center, said: “Exercise is good for the health of dia-betics, whether they have Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes. It helps to improve your health and also decrease the risk of complica-tions of diabetes. Patients with Type 1 diabetes should check with their physician before

taking on a new exercise routine to plan how to best manage their blood glucose and insulin injections accordingly.”

“For Type 2 diabetes, which is often associated with being overweight and obese, exercise is a good way to control and improve body weight, the body’s responsiveness to insulin and blood glucose control. Par-ticularly, in recently-diagnosed Type 2 diabetes, exercise may help along with a decreased calorie intake to reverse the development of diabetes.”

“In overweight and obese people, doing more exercise and eating in moderation to lose weight will help prevent devel-oping Type 2 diabetes. It is rec-ommended to do about two-and-a-half hours’ exercise per week,” said Dr. Thornalley.

The Neurological Disorders Research Center focuses on investigating neural conditions of increasing prevalence in Qatar and the region. These ail-ments are wide-ranging and include autism spectrum dis-order, intellectual disability, epilepsy, Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease.

Dr. Yongsoo Park, a scientist at the Neurological Disorders Research Center, said: “Neuro-logical disorders result from problems of the central and peripheral nervous system but physical exercises and activities can make our nervous system active and healthy, and therefore reduce the risk of neurological disorders.”

“Physical exercise leads to and increases neurogenesis (creating new neurons), neuro-plasticity (improving neural networks) and synaptic trans-mission (enhancing neurotrans-mitter release and improving brain function) so the neuro-logical benefits of exercise is significant. For elderly people, yoga, walking, running and swimming are highly recom-mended, but a healthy diet, good sleep and staying socially engaged with friends and family is also beneficial.”

“We should be doing every-thing we can to lead a healthy lifestyle. That means eating well, exercising, avoiding harmful things, getting enough sleep and avoiding stress,” said Dr. Park.

Dr. Eyad Elkord, Dr. Paul Thornalley and Dr. Yongsoo Park

04 TUESDAY 11 FEBRUARY 2020HOME

AMAN launches video contest for childrenQNA — DOHA

The Protection and Social Rehabilitation Center (AMAN), part of Qatar Social Work Foun-dation, launched a video competition entitled 'My Day Without Video Games', in conjunction with the cele-bration of the Gulf Children’s Day and in cooperation with the Doha Film Institute; the Shafallah Center for Persons with Disability; and the Media Center for Youth at the Ministry of Culture and Sports.

AMAN has started receiving entries for the competition and will continue receiving them until March 12.

The competition targets participants aged 7-15, with videos less than a minute using either a camera, mobile phone or iPad. The guardian's consent is also required.

The rights of the videos will belong to Aman, which is entitled to use or publish any video it deems appropriate with the name of the winning par-ticipant credited and mentioned.

Participants will be informed if their video was approved or rejected by March 20. The winners will be announced in the second week of April.

The awards adminis-tration has allocated valuable prizes to the winners, where the winners from first to tenth place will receive a certificate of appreciation and QR5,000, while eleventh to twentieth places will receive a certif-icate of appreciation and QR3,000; twenty-first to thirty will receive a certificate of appreciation and QR2,000; while thirty-first to forty will be awarded a certificate of appreciation and QR1,000.

This competition aims to encourage participants to achieve balance between physical movement, mental activities and daily duties away from video games, as well as to develop their life skills in a cre-ative and influential way.

It also seeks to launch freedom of artistic and creative expression for the contestants, with the aim of collecting the

largest number of videos expressing the topic and pro-viding the opportunity for the largest possible number of participants.

Director of Awareness Man-agement at AMAN, Abdul Aziz Al Ishaq, and a specialised com-mittee will judge the enteries according to an evaluation form and specific criteria developed by the AMAN, in agreement w i t h t h e a w a r d s administration.

Head of Technical Pro-duction Department at AMAN, Maha Al Mannai, explained that a safe childhood is a major goal that AMAN is keen to adopt, which is in line with the inter-national agreements ratified by the State of Qatar, the most important of which is the Con-vention on the Rights of the Child.

Executive Director of the Media Center for Youth at the Ministry of Culture and Sports, Dr Hamad Al Fayyad, said the competition spreads knowledge and awareness in a creative style by inspiring talents and creative individuals.

Ministry of Education trains graduates in teaching skills

QNA — DOHA

The Ministry of Education and Higher Education celebrated yesterday the conclusion of the first phase of Tamheen programme, which aims at qualifying non-pedagogical Qatari graduates to work in the teaching profession. A total of 23 female trainees attended the training.

Undersecretary of the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, H E Dr. Ibrahim bin Saleh Al Nuaimi, con-gratulated all those responsible for the program on the achievement they have made in attracting the first group of female trainees, and their success in the first phase of the programme to move afterwards to the field training.

Dr. Al Nuaimi underlined that the Ministry of Education and Higher Edu-cation, represented by the Training and Educational Development Center

(TEDC), is working hard to provide support for the trainees through pro-viding the suitable competencies to give them the theoretical and prac-tical training, as well as practicing the educational process at schools.

For her side, Director of Training

and Educational Development Center, Hessa Al Ali, praised the accomplish-ments achieved in the first phase of the programme, and the Ministry’s support in this regard, as well as the cooperation of the partners — Mada Assistive Technology Center and the

Teach for Qatar organization — in addition to those responsible for the programme’s planning and quality a s s u r a n c e , t r a i n i n g , a n d supervising.

She added that the Ministry of Edu-cation and Higher Education aims to

enhance and develop an effective workforce with a high level of qualifi-cation and training in the educating field.

She believed that the trainees will carry out a leading role at schools, urging them to be armed with scien-tific expertise which will enable them to succeed in the second phase of field training.

Meanwhile, CEO of Mada Center Maha Al Mansouri reviewed the objec-tives of Tamheen program which aims to spread awareness of the importance of education and digital knowledge, as well as keeping pace with the indus-trial revolution’s requirements which includes each of the student and the teacher, in addition to the educational environment, and the strategies and methods of teaching.

She stressed the importance of focusing on the student as the primary focus for the educational process, and developing the student’s skills to keep up with the technological qualifications and skills that the students of the 21st century are distinguished with.

Tamheen is a pioneering initiative launched by the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, aiming at qual-ifying Qatar University graduates and attracting them to the teaching profession.

Undersecretary of the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, H E Dr. Ibrahim bin Saleh Al Nuaimi, interacts with trainee graduates at the conclusion ceremony of the first phase of the 'Tamheen' programme.

QICCA registered 26 arbitration cases in 2019QNA — DOHA

Qatar International Center for Conciliation and Arbitration (QICCA) of Qatar Chamber confirmed its keenness to

make more efforts to keep abreast of developments in the field of arbitration and its rules and procedures, noting that in the year 2019 the center registered 26 arbi-tration cases, issued seven judgments, and two concili-ation and mediation verdicts.

The State of Qatar has become a regional arbitration center after a remarkable development in the preva-lence of arbitration, said QICCA board member for International Relations, Sheikh Dr Thani bin Ali Al Thani, noting that the issuance of the arbitration law in civil and commercial matters has fostered the culture of arbi-tration in the business com-munity and made arbitration an effective legal instrument.

This came during press statements on the sidelines of a seminar held by the Qatar International Center for Con-ciliation and Arbitration yes-terday on the practical problems facing the conduct of the arbitration case, which discussed the procedural aspects of arbitration in com-mercial disputes, the formal rules applicable and the study of practical problems that face the progress of the arbitration case.

Executive Director of the AMAN Center, Dr. Mansour Al Saadi, said that contemporary legal systems have established a legal regulation of com-mercial arbitration upon which there is an agreement, and that defines commercial disputes brought before it, simplifies how to choose the procedural rules on which it is based, and the substantive rules to which disputes are subject in order to avoid

practical problems and ensure that the requirements of the adversaries are met.

He added during his opening speech that the arbi-tration litigation is a set of interlocking procedures that take place during a period of time, and aims to investigate the case and form an opinion on it in order to issue an arbi-tration ruling on its subject, noting that arbitration liti-gation is a procedural way to activate the arbitration agreement, which is charac-terised by privacy and speed in separation, confidentiality of procedures and mutual trust between the parties on the one hand and the arbi-tration body on the other hand.

For his part, the interna-tional arbitrator accredited to the courts of the Sultanate of Oman, Dr. Abdul Hanan Al Issa, praised the Qatari expe-rience in arbitration, indi-cating that there is an interest from the Omani side in iden-tifying aspects of institutional arbitration through the Qatar International Center for Con-ciliation and Arbitration, where work is currently being done on the procedures for the Oman Center for Con-ciliation and Arbitration, which was established in 2019.

Al Issa gave a presentation on the most important points related to the progress of the arbitration lawsuit, the problems related to subcon-tracting contracts, the proce-dures followed in free arbi-tration, the end of procedures for non-payment of arbi-tration fees, and the problem of appointing an expert in the dispute, among others.

Tamheen is an initiative by the Ministry of Education and Higher Education to train Qatar University graduates and attract them to teaching profession.

Doha Institute holds Sport Day activities THE PENINSULA — DOHA

The Doha Institute for Graduate Studies hosted an exciting cele-bration of National Sport Day on Sunday, featuring a variety of athletic and dynamic activ-ities.

The activities emphasised the importance of sport and a healthy lifestyle.

The event featured different fun-filled activities, including the annual Doha Institute mar-athon, tug of war, cycling, squash and a football match between the Doha Institute and the College of North Atlantic, in addition to an introductory meeting about the boxing pre-sented by Qatar’s first profes-sional boxer, Sheikh Fahd bin Khalid Al Thani, and other

energetic sports activities.The celebration witnessed

the participation of a large number of Doha Institute employees, including faculty members and administrators in addition to students, who engaged in multiple sports activities.

On the occasion, the event’s coordinator, Khadija Buhlaiqa,

said, “The National Sport Day is an event in which we high-light many sports and health activities. The organisation of such an event at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies has become an annual tradition in line with Qatar National Vision 2030 on creating an interactive, active and healthy lifestyle.”

Cyclists take part in a race organised by the Doha Institute.

05TUESDAY 11 FEBRUARY 2020 HOME

Sidra Medicine marks Qatar National Sport Day with young inpatientsTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

Sidra Medicine celebrated Qatar National Sport Day with

its young inpatients in the paediatric wards. The Child Life team organised a variety of indoor games and

activities to keep the children entertained and making them an important part of Qatar’s sports day celebrations.

The Child Life team celebrating National Sport Day at Sidra Medicine's paediatric ward.

Diverse activities at Mall of Qatarto mark Sport Day celebrationsTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

In celebration of the National Sport Day and to promote the social and personal benefits of sports and recreation, Mall of Qatar is hosting a variety of fun and fitness activities throughout the month of February.

Whether you’re a beginner or fitness enthusiast, Mall of Qatar will have some-thing fun and challenging, for everyone. Join in with sports activities including basketball, football, golf, athletics, with professional instructors on hand to offer advice and encouragement. Plus, there’s plenty of prizes to be won with daily chal-lenges at each activity.

When you have challenged yourself e n o u g h , e n j o y h i g h l y

energetic live performances on the Oasis Stage featuring professional football free-stylers, gymnasts, thrilling bike acts and much more.

“Mall of Qatar has always been com-mitted to encourage sports activities and a healthy lifestyle, that’s why we have taken the Sport Day celebrations to another level for 2020. As the Nation’s Mall, we understand the importance of benefits of being healthy and active and have organized over 20 days of sports events and activities for all ages. Our employees are also taking part in the cel-ebrations as we have organized our very own Olympic games called the Mall-ympics. Happy National Sports Day Qatar!” said Khaled Sam Hosn, CEO, Mall of Qatar.

Mall of Qatar marks Sport Day celebrations with diverse activities and thrilling shows.

Nehmeh organises Mega Industrial Expo 2020 THE PENINSULA — DOHA

Qatar-based Industrial Solutions leader ‘Nehmeh’ has organised the annual Mega Industrial Expo 2020 showcasing a range of the world’s leading brands in construction solu-tions.

The two-day event was held on February 4 and 5 at a five-star hotel in Doha where Nehmeh showcased power tools, ventilation systems, light construction tools and machinery with a focus on concrete machinery along with demonstra-tions to let guests have a first-hand product experience of the machines and its applications.

An important part of the event was the launch of the Qatar’s first locally manufactured ‘Roof Top Package Unit’ by Nehmeh Air Condi-tioners and introduction of Belgium based ‘Beton Trowel’ brand renowned for Concrete & Compaction Equipment. The event also featured key note address by experts from Beton Trowel, Nehmeh Air Condi-tioners and Makita over the two days.

‘Nehmeh App’ the region’s first industrial solutions mobile app was highlighted to guests at the expo. Nehmeh, one of the leading indus-trial solutions providers in the GCC, represents world class brands which are leaders in their respective cat-egories. For over 65 years, tens of thousands of people depend on reliable industrial performance solutions by Nehmeh. This mega

event succeeded in attracting vis-itors including retail partners, sup-pliers, end-users and others related to the construction industry.

Visitors also included managers from Qatar looking for solutions to improve their efficiency and produc-tivity on sites. Brands participating at the expo were Makita, Nehmeh Air Con-ditioners, Stampa, SDMO, Beton Trowel, Sofy, Portacool, Koshin, Awelco, Dr. Schulze among many more. Demon-strations were held on specially pre-pared areas showcasing tools, equipment and machinery. Expert pro-fessionals from Singapore, Germany and Belgium presented to the audience new introductions and technologies along with an informative Q & A session.

“Nehmeh range of Industrial Solu-tions cover major solutions required for the Qatari construction market.

This concept event has been developed keeping in mind the requirements of our customers and I am glad to say that the event has been well received by the guests over the years,” said Emil A. Nehme, Chief Executive Officer at Nehmeh.

“With the support of our partners, we have the ability to cover major construction solutions as required here in Qatar. Witnessing the popu-larity of such an event, we are inclined to hold more such regular events as part of our calendar of activities,” he added.

‘The Nehmeh Corporate Cata-logue 2020’ was launched during the event. Awards bestowed to various partners as tribute to their efforts and achievements. In addition, four lucky visitors also walked away with reward trips, gold coins and stay vouchers.

Dean of HBKU’s College of Public Policy wins international positionTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

The Dean of the College of Public Policy (CPP) at Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU), Dr. Leslie A Pal, recently attended a meeting of the Exec-utive Committee (EC) of the International Public Policy Association (IPPA) hosted by KU Leuven University, Belgium.

During the meeting, Dr. Pal was elected as Vice-President

of the IPPA, an organisation widely regarded as the main international association of public policy scholars and researchers.

As an institutional member of the IPPA, the CPP will par-ticipate in an International Workshop in Quito, Ecuador, this July, and the main interna-tional conference in Barcelona, Spain, next year. CPP is HBKU’s newest college, offering a

much-demanded Master of Public Policy program.

The college’s mandate is to expand HBKU’s research capacity while engaging in meaningful national and inter-national discourse.

CPP appoints and retains faculty of the highest caliber, and its students are selected on the basis of academic excel-lence. For more information, visit cpp.hbku.edu.qa.

Participants during the meeting hosted by KU Leuven University in Belgium.

Visitors during the annual Mega Industrial Expo 2020.

Philippine REIT opportunities to benefit Qatari and OFW investorsTHE PENINSULA — DOHA

The Association of Filipino Realtors & Entrepreneur Executives in Qatar (AFREEQ), a salient business society of Filipino property professionals and SMEs in Doha, has expressed enthu-siasm that Philippine Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) would now open doors to more foreign direct investments from Qatari businessmen and other successful Qatar-based holding companies engaged in the global property industry.

With the new Rules and Regula-tions (IRR) in place, the prospect of investing in Philippine REITS has just become more attractive as investors would now enjoy the convenience of fractional investing across various income generating real estate prop-erties through a diversified portfolio under a globally competitive legal framework similar to successful REITS in Asia particularly those in Malaysia, Korea, Hong Kong and Japan, not to mention the benefits of the recent amendments in terms of taxation and other perks.

After more than 11 years since the Philippines enacted the REIT law through Republic Act 9856, its corre-sponding IRR has finally been released last January 20 by the Philippine’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) with the approval of the country’s Department of Finance (DoF).

REITs are known to be property-based stock products with legal mech-anisms that allow investors to earn from various income-generating real estate as assets. This financial vehicle has been in practise in many coun-tries and has managed to gain popu-

larity in recent years.AFREEQ Chairman Joseph

Timothy Rivera (pictured) is opti-mistic that Philippine REITs would attract the savvy Qatari investor market given their strategic Arab business mentality notwithstanding the conservatism of Islamic investment practices in place. Qataris will now have the opportunity to a range of Philippine asset-backed securities in addition to traditional direct real estate investment options within generous foreign ownership limitations imposed under Philippine law. With the REIT framework, the income potential for each investment is spread across several units and would certainly reduce the risk of income losses due to unforeseen market performances of individual real estate properties.

However, Rivera likewise under-scored that the opportunities with Philippine REITs would also benefit small and medium investors such as Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) and Filipino expats living in Qatar as they may now invest in the Philippine property market with the same diver-sified portfolio across several assets made available to big ticket investors without the need of purchasing one whole individual property.

He welcomed the recent announcement of leading Philippine developer Ayala Land who recently filed its application for a REIT offering to the SEC with other prime devel-opers in the Philippines expected to follow suit in the coming months. With most Philippine property devel-opers having representative offices in Doha, Rivera is happy on the pros-pects that REIT investment

opportunities would soon be available to investors both OFWs and other nationalities here in Qatar.

Rivera, who is also an Investment Promotions Partner of the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) in the Middle East has shared that the prospects of having REIT companies investing as an Ecozone Developer or Ecozone Facilities Company entitled to fiscal incentives for eligible projects are now being studied by the policy and planning department of PEZA. He believes that recent proposals for the crowd-funding of economic zones would attract more investments through the REIT framework.

Under the current IRR, the con-ventional 12% Value Added Tax (VAT) previously imposed on the transfer of properties to a REIT in exchange for its shares and added income as well as document stamp taxes has been removed, subject to terms. Present rules also require reinvestment to prime Philippine properties and 90% of distributable income needs to be released as dividends to all share-holders with reasonable withholding taxes and even less depending on the status of the investor. Public partici-pation within the Philippine REIT framework has also been lowered to 33% giving developers more appetite in controlling their respective assets under the REIT scheme.

06 TUESDAY 11 FEBRUARY 2020MIDDLE EAST

5 Turkish soldiers martyred in northwest Syria attackREUTERS & ANATOLIA — ANKARA

Syrian government forces killed five Turkish soldiers in northwest Syria yesterday, Turkey’s defence ministry said, after Turkey deployed thou-sands of troops there to stem a Syrian government offensive which has displaced half a million people.

The attack, on a newly established Turkish military base in Taftanaz in Idlib province, happened a week after eight Turkish military per-sonnel were killed by Syrian army bombardment.

The two incidents marked some of the most serious direct confrontations between Turkish and Syrian troops in the nearly nine-year-long conflict in Syria, where Ankara backs rebels who once hoped to topple President Bashar Al Assad.

Turkey said it retaliated for the latest strike.

“Targets identified in the region were immediately tar-geted intensively...and the nec-essary response was given. The targets were destroyed and the blood of our martyrs was not left on the ground,” the defence ministry said.

Turkish officials have told a visiting Russian delegation that attacks on Turkish obser-vation posts in northwestern Syria must be stopped imme-diately and that such assaults will not remain unanswered, the Turkish presidency said.

In a statement following talks between Turkish presi-dential adviser Ibrahim Kalin and the Russian delegation, the presidency said the Russians were told that attacks on Turkish forces were unac-ceptable and that Moscow must fulfil its duties as mandated by a 2018 de-escalation deal between Ankara and Moscow

A Turkey-backed Syrian rebel commander said the insurgents had also launched a military operation near the town of Saraqeb, south of Taftanaz, with Turkish artillery support.

Turkey has sent large rein-forcements to Idlib, where it already mans a dozen military observation posts under a deal with Russia and Iran aimed at reducing the fighting around Idlib, the last major enclave of opposition to Assad.

Several of the posts are now surrounded by Syrian gov-ernment forces, but Turkey has poured 5,000 troops and convoys of military vehicles across the border, carrying tanks, armoured personnel car-riers and radar equipment to bolster its presence.

“What is striking about the Turkish reinforcements... are their size and the nature of the weapons, all within a week, This is unprecedented,” said Turkey-based Syrian military defector general Ahmad Rahhal.

As the conflict escalated in Idlib, Turkish and Russian offi-cials met in Ankara for talks. The two countries back opposing sides in Syria, where Moscow’s military intervention in 2015 helped swing the war decisively in Assad’s favour.

A Turkish diplomatic source said the delegations held two hours of discussions, their second meeting in three days, without giving details on the outcome of Monday’s session.

Russia and the Syrian gov-ernment say they are fighting terrorists in Idlib, which is largely controlled by jihadist fighters.

Turkey, which hosts 3.6 million Syrian refugees, says the offensive has set off a fresh humanitarian crisis. It says it cannot absorb any more ref-ugees and has demanded Damascus pull back in Idlib by the end of the month or face Turkish action.

Meanwhile,the death toll from Sunday’s Russian air-strikes in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province has risen to 26, according to the White Helmets civil defense agency.

The Syrian opposition air-craft observatory said the areas near Idlib’s city center and vil-lages were targeted.

Earlier, it was reported that 17 people had been killed when Russian warplanes struck opposition-held areas in Idlib’s Sheikh Ali, Atarib, Kafr Nouran villages on Sunday.

Yesterday, the White Helmets said the airstrikes also killed nine civilians in Ibbin village. Turkey is continuing to send reinforcements to the de-escalation zone, with a Turkish convoy — including scores of tanks — deployed at different points in Idlib.

The Bashar Al Assad regime and its allies have continued intensified air and land attacks on civilian settlements in the zone.into a de-escalation zone in which acts of aggression are expressly prohibited.

Palestinians gather for a demonstration in support of prisoners in Israeli jails, in front of the International Committee of the Red Cross building in Gaza City, Gaza, yesterday.

Nearly 700,000 displaced in Syria as bombardment spikesAFP — ABIN SEMAAN, SYRIA

A Russia-backed regime offensive has displaced close to 700,000 people in northwest Syria since December, the United Nations said yesterday, as bombardment by Damascus and Moscow killed 29 civilians in 24 hours.

Syrian government forces backed by Moscow have pressed a blistering assault against the last major rebel bastion in Syria’s northwest for more than two months.

The violence in the prov-inces of Idlib and Aleppo has displaced 689,000 people, said David Swanson, spokesman for the United Nation’s humani-tarian coordination office, OCHA.

“The number of people being displaced in this crisis is now spiralling out of control,” he said. The exodus is one of the largest of the nine-year civil war and risks creating one of the worst humanitarian catas-trophes of the conflict. It comes amid heightened bombardment

by the regime and Russia which left 29 civilians dead in less than 24 hours.

Six children were among

nine civilians killed early yes-terday in raids on the village of Abin Semaan, in Aleppo p r o v i n c e w h e r e

Russian-backed regime forces have been waging a fierce offensive to retake a key highway, said the Syrian

Observatory for Human Rights.At the site of the raids, a

rescue worker carried out the body of a little girl in a thick woollen blanket, while one of her relatives pleaded for the body.

Volunteers shivering in near-freezing temperatures hacked away at mounds of rubble, rescuing a dust-covered man and a little child who had been trapped beneath.

The latest air strikes follow a night of heavy bom-bardment by Russia and the regime that had already killed at least 20 civilians in the neighbouring provinces of Idlib and Aleppo, according to the Observatory.

Around half of Idlib province, along with slivers of neighbouring Aleppo and Latakia provinces, is dominated by jihadists of the Hayat Tahrir Al Sham alliance and their rebel allies. Some three million people, half of them already displaced at least once by vio-lence elsewhere in Syria, live in the area.

Protester killed in southern IraqAP — BAGHDAD

Iraqi security forces shot and killed at least one protester in the country’s south yesterday, official said as the five-month anti-government protest movement enters a critical stage.

Security forces fired live rounds to disperse crowds at the rally site near the al-Ain University in the southern city of Nasiriyah, killing a demon-strator, two medical officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

The latest death comes as the anti-government protests, which engulfed Baghdad and Iraq’s south in October, are at a key point as activists are trying to maintain a critical number of people on the street and tensions continue to escalate between the demon-strators and the followers of a leading radical Iraqi Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Nasiriyah has emerged as a

frequent flashpoint of protest violence.

At least eight protesters were killed in the southern city of Najaf last Wednesday, when followers of Al Sadr stormed the protest site and fired live bullets.

Al Sadr initially threw his weight behind the anti-gov-ernment uprising but recently re-positioned himself toward the political establishment after political elites selected Mohammed Allawi as prime minister-designate, a candidate he endorsed.

Since then, al-Sadr has issued a dizzying array of con-tradictory calls to followers, asking them to return to the streets, days after withdrawing support from the protests. His conflicting calls have exacer-bated existing tensions between anti-government demon-strators and the cleric’s followers.

Anti-government protesters who took to the streets last

October in Baghdad and southern Iraq to decry rampant government corruption, poor services and unemployment, have rejected Allawi’s can-didacy. At least 500 have died under fire from security forces in the movement, now in it’s fifth month.

On Sunday, Baghdad Uni-versity students held national flags during a protest in front of the Ministry of Higher Edu-cation and Scientific Research in the Iraqi capital.

Meanwhile, the US Central Command denied reports about the withdrawal of US troops from 15 bases in Iraq. “Reports that the U.S. has pulled out of 15 bases in Iraq are not correct,” Centcom media relations officer Major Beth Riordan said in a statement. Abu Dhabi-based Sky News Arabia earlier reported that the US is pulling out from 15 bases in Iraq and that France, Germany and Aus-tralia had submitted a similar request.

US killing of Soleimani weakens IS fight: IranAP — VIENNA

The head of Iran’s nuclear programme said yesterday the US killing of a high-ranking Iranian general has weakened the fight against the Islamic State extremist group in the region.

Ali Akbar Salehi told a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna that last month’s drone strike that killed Gen. Qassem Soleimani showed “the US administration has not yet come to its senses in recognizing the realities on the ground.”

Washington targeted Soleimani, who headed Iran’s expedi-tionary Quds Force, saying that he was planning attacks on Amer-icans. In his role, Soleimani was also critical to efforts to mobilise militias in Iraq to fight the Islamic State group, and Salehi called him “the most instrumental element in combating ISIS.”

Tehran retaliated for the killing of Soleimani by launching a barrage of missiles on on two Iraqi military bases hosting American troops. There were no fatalities. Salehi reiterated, however, that Iran was prepared to do more.

“Be it known as my country strongly retaliated once, it will never hesitate to strike back when necessary,” he said.

The US last month added new sanctions on Salehi’s Atomic Energy Organization of Iran and on Salehi himself, freezing any assets the director had within US jurisdiction.

In Vienna, US Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette focused his remarks on Iran’s nuclear program, saying Tehran was still not providing the IAEA with answers about the discovery of uranium particles in a warehouse near the Iranian capital.

AP — OCCUPIED JERUSALEM

An Israeli court yesterday sentenced Palestinian resistance icon Sheikh Raed Salah (pictured), to 28 months in prison. Salah has already served 11 months in prison.

Dozens of Palestinians organised a stand in solidarity with Salah before the Israeli court in northern city of Haifa issued the sentence.

In an exclusive interview, Khaled Zabarqa, Salah’s lawyer, said that Israel’s endless bids to silence Sheikh Raed Salah were meant to pave the way for announcing the controversial peace plan in the Middle East. He added that “the charges against Sheikh Salah were related to Friday preaching and articles he wrote in July 2017, in soli-darity with Palestinians pro-testing in front of the gates of the Al Aqsa Mosque.”

He pointed out that the Sheikh’s response to these charges was that “what came in the speeches is based on Islamic law and the Israeli law should not prosecute him for his faith and beliefs.”

For his part, Muhammad Baraka, the head of the Higher Follow-up Committee for Arab Citizens in Israel, termed the verdict “unfair.” In a statement, Baraka said that the “ruling was prepared in advance, and was based on racist foundations and incitement against Arabs.”

He pointed out that the target of the ruling was not only Salah, but also the overall work and political discourse of the Arab masses inside Israel.

Israeli court jails Raed Salah for 28 months

Israeli oppn co-leader: Netanyahu makes Trump plan a ‘stunt’AP — OCCUPIED JERUSALEM

A leading Israeli opposition figure said yesterday that embattled Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has turned a US initiative for ending conflict with the Palestinians into a campaign “stunt” by pushing for the immediate annexation of West Bank settle-ments.

Co-leader of the Blue and White party Yair Lapid insisted he was against unilateral steps endangering what he described as President Donald Trump’s promising Mideast plan. He expressed hope that the Pales-tinians would come around to negotiating based upon the US blueprint.

Lapid is slated to become Israel’s next foreign minister if his party prevails in the March 2 election and fellow party leader Benny Gantz wins the premiership.

“Nobody expects Israel or the Palestinians to take the plan face value the way it is and just make sure it happens. Eve-rybody understands this is a framework, a very detailed one,” he told an audience of foreign correspondents in Jeru-salem, before zoning in on Netanyahu.

Lapid went on to condemn what he said was the prime minister’s planned “unilateral steps” to annex parts of the occupied West Bank.

“This is something that came out from the prime min-ister’s office right after the plan was presented. Probably, it seems, for campaign reasons. And this is something you don’t do. This is too serious to become a stunt in the campaign,” he added.

The Trump plan is widely viewed as being favourable to Israel since it would allow it to eventually extend sovereignty

over all of its West Bank settle-ments along with the strategic Jordan Valley.

The Palestinians have angrily rejected the US plan since it would provide the Pal-estinians with limited autonomy in several chunks of territory with a capital on the outskirts of Jerusalem, and only if they meet stringent conditions.

Netanyahu has sought to sell the plan, and his close rela-tionship to Trump, as a tes-tament to his master states-manship ahead of the country’s third elections in less than a year. He’s also seeking to gal-vanize his hard-line base by annexing territory ahead of the election. The proposed move could establish facts on the ground that would be difficult to reverse, and make the prospect of a contiguous Pal-estinian state all but impossible.

The attack, on a newly established Turkish military base in Taftanaz in Idlib province, happened a week after eight Turkish military personnel were martyred by Syrian army bombardment.

A rocket is remotely-fired from a truck-mounted launcher at a Syrian rebel fighters’ position in the countryside of Idlib towards regime forces positions in the Aleppo province, yesterday.

07TUESDAY 11 FEBRUARY 2020 AFRICA

AP — KAMPALA

South Sudan President Salva Kiir yesterday was named the top “spoiler of peace” in a new award that seeks to shame him and others into taking serious steps to end bloody conflict in the world’s youngest country.

Kiir and rival leader Riek Machar are under growing pressure to form a coalition government this month, the sig-nificant next step in a fragile peace deal signed in 2018 to end a five-year civil war that killed nearly 400,000 people.

The deadline has been extended twice and the inter-national community is signaling impatience. The upcoming deadline is February 22.

Now a Uganda-based group,

Atrocities Watch Africa, is citing Kiir and others for their roles in the conflict that also has dis-placed at least 2 million people. Many fled to Uganda.

The “spoiler of peace” award citation accuses Kiir of being unwilling to compromise on major issues needed to form the coalition government. It also asserts that under his command and control, government-backed fighters killed thousands of people and committed atroc-ities such as looting and razing villages.

Ateny Wek Ateny, a spokesman for South Sudan’s presidency, described the award as “nonsense.”

Dismas Nkunda, a Ugandan activist who established the awards, said he hopes that “with

these awards the individuals, businesses and other institu-tions that are derailing the peace process in South Sudan will not continue as usual now that we know them.”

Other winners of the awards announced in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, included the Ugandan government, South Sudan’s military, an oil con-sortium and other political and military figures in South Sudan.

The Ugandan government, which has backed Kiir in his efforts to prevent rebels from taking power, is accused of facilitating arms transfers to South Sudan in contravention of a European Union arms embargo. Uganda, which denies any wrongdoing, insists it sent troops and equipment at the

request of Kiir’s administration as rebels threatened to enter the capital, Juba.

The civil war erupted in South Sudan in late 2013, when a rift between Kiir and his deputy, Machar, escalated into fighting often along ethnic lines. Both men have been accused of violating multiple ceasefires.

The regional bloc medi-ating South Sudan’s peace process, IGAD, said in a com-munique over the weekend that further extension of the deadline to form a coalition government “is neither desirable nor feasible.” It said Kiir asked for time to consult and report back on Saturday.

A key issue that remains is the number of states South Sudan should have, with IGAD

calling it an internal matter for which a “solution should come

only from the South Sudanese people.”

Salva Kiir wins dubious ‘spoiler of peace’ award

South Sudan President Salva Kiir attends the closing session of the 33rd African Union Heads of State Summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, yesterday.

War dominates AU summit as leaders vow Libya support

AFP — ADDIS ABABA

African Union leaders vowed yesterday to push peace efforts in Libya, a sign of the bloc’s desire to play a bigger role in resolving the continent’s conflicts.

As the 55-member group wrapped up a two-day summit, Smail Chergui, the AU’s Peace and Security Council chief, offered assistance to revive Libya’s faltering UN-led peace process.

“It’s (the) UN itself which

needs us now,” Chergui said.“It’s time to bring this situ-

ation to an end... the two organ-isations should work hand in hand for that goal,” he added.

Libya has been torn by fighting between rival factions since a 2011 Nato-backed uprising killed dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, who took over as AU chair, has said Libya is one of two conflicts he wants to focus on during his tenure.

The other is South Sudan, where a civil war that began in 2013 has left hundreds of thou-sands dead — but talks on the sidelines of the AU summit ended in deadlock.

The AU leadership has com-plained about being overlooked in Libya-related peacemaking efforts, which have been led primarily by the UN and heavily involved European nations.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Saturday said he understood the AU’s “frustration” at having “been put aside” when it comes to Libya.

The North African state remains in chaos, mostly split between strongman Khalifa Haftar, who controls eastern Libya, and the UN-recognised government in Tripoli.

Talks between Libya’s warring factions ended on Sat-urday with no deal on a ceasefire. The UN has proposed

a second round of negotiations for February 18.

Chergui said the AU could support peace if a cessation of hostilities agreement is finally signed, declaring the AU wanted to be part of an observer mission to ensure any deal is respected.

“This is an African problem, and we have a certain sense that maybe others do not have,” Chergui said. Despite AU optimism, analysts are sceptical.

Observers pointed out that the AU will need to overcome financial constraints and political divisions if it wants to achieve its goal of “Silencing the Guns” — the theme of summit talks.

“The AU will occupy the place that the protagonists of the conflict are willing to give it,” said Mohamed Diatta, a researcher for the Institute for Security Studies.

“If these protagonists believe that the AU can provide the solution, they will turn to it, and it will not be up to the UN to decide that.”

But the AU must overcome internal division to adopt a common position on Libya, he said. “The AU bandwidth on Libya cannot in any way be compared to the UN’s involvement, just in simple terms of knowledge and presence on the ground,” said Claudia Gazzini, from the Inter-national Crisis Group (ICG) think-tank.

Meanwhile, on South Sudan, leaders tried to bring longtime rivals to reach a deal.

President Salva Kiir and rebel leader Riek Machar face a deadline of February 22 to form a unity government — a milestone that was delayed twice last year.

Ramaphosa met separately with Kiir and Machar on

Saturday, and the rivals sat down in the same room Sunday alongside Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and Sudanese Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok.

Hamdok is the current chair of the eight-member East African bloc IGAD, which has taken the lead in South Sudan peace negotiations.

But the flurry of activity on the sidelines of the AU summit did not result in a breakthrough in the dispute over the number of regional states in South Sudan — a contentious issue as the borders will set out divisions of power and control in the young country.

IGAD said that despite the lack of progress to date there could be no more delays in forming a power-sharing gov-ernment. “Further extension is neither desirable nor feasible at this stage of the peace process,” the statement said.

Algeria prosecution seeks 20-year sentence for Bouteflika’s brotherAFP — ALGIERS

Algeria’s state prosecutor is seeking a 20-year jail term for the brother of former president Abdelaziz Bouteflika, lawyers said Monday, as he seeks to appeal a 15-year sentence.

The once mighty Said Bouteflika, 62, was long seen as the real power behind the presidency after his brother suffered a debilitating stroke in 2013. He had served as a key presidential aide but was detained in May last year, a month after Bouteflika quit office weeks into mass protests against his bid for a fifth pres-idential term.

In September Said Boute-flika, along with several other senior regime officials, were sentenced by a military tribunal to 15 years in jail for “con-spiring” against the state and undermining the army’s authority.

A court in Blida, south of Algiers, began hearing an appeal against the sentence on Sunday behind closed doors and amid heavy security.

The deliberations con-tinued on Monday, also behind closed doors, with the defence

team presenting their argu-ments, according to defence attorney Farouk Kessentini.

Kessentini is representing General Mohamed Lamine Mediene, known as “Toufik”, who for 25 years headed the powerful Department of Intel-ligence and Security, and was sentenced in September alongside the former presi-dent’s brother.

Also in court were Medi-ene’s former right-hand man, General Athmane “Bachir” Tartag, and Louisa Hanoune, who had served as secretary general of the left-wing Workers’ Party.

The four defendants are accused of having met in March 2019 in a bid to derail plans by the army high command to force the departure of president Bouteflika.

Said Bouteflika allegedly wanted the intelligence bosses to dismiss the army chief of staff at the time, General Ahmed Gaid Salah.

Defence lawyers hope the four will be released after Alge-ria’s balance of power shifted following the December 23 death of Gaid Salah at the age of 79.

Cars burnt down by suspected members of the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) during an attack on Monday.

UN warns of major shock as Africa locust outbreak spreadsAP — JOHANNESBURG

Uganda scrambled to respond to the arrival of the biggest locust outbreak that parts of East Africa have seen in decades, while the United Nations warned that “we simply cannot afford another major shock” to an already vulnerable region.

An emergency government meeting hours after the locusts were spotted inside Uganda on Sunday decided to deploy mil-itary forces to help with ground-based pesticide

spraying, while two planes for aerial spraying will arrive as soon as possible, a statement said. Aerial spraying is con-sidered the only effective control.

The swarms of billions of locusts have been destroying crops in Kenya, which hasn’t seen such an outbreak in 70 years, as well as Somalia and Ethiopia, which haven’t seen this in a quarter-century. The insects have exploited favo-rable wet conditions after unu-sually heavy rains, and experts say climate change is expected

to bring more of the same.UN officials warn that

immediate action is needed before more rainfall in the weeks ahead brings fresh veg-etation to feed new genera-tions of locusts. If left unchecked, their numbers could grow up to 500 times before drier weather arrives.

“There is the risk of a catas-trophe,” UN humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock told a briefing in New York, warning that a region where 12 million people already face severe food inse-curity can’t afford another jolt.

Over 450 civilians killed in central Mali last yearAP — DAKAR

Militants and ethnic-based militias killed more than 450 civilians in central Mali last year, making it the deadliest year in the region since the country’s crisis began in 2012, Human Rights Watch said in a new report yesterday.

Militants have even begun pulling men off public transport based on their eth-nicity and killing them, the group said, underscoring how extremists have inflamed ten-sions between communities that long lived in relative peace.

Of the 456 civilian deaths documented by Human Rights Watch, 116 were directly blamed on the Islamist extremists. The remaining 340 killings were acts of communal violence carried out by ethnic-based militias, and the report said the true toll is unknown.

“Armed groups are killing, maiming, and terrorising com-munities throughout central Mali with no apparent fear of being held to account,” said Corinne Dufka, West Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “The human toll in shattered lives is mounting as the deadly cycles of violence and revenge continue.”

Militants kill at least 30, abduct dozens in northeast NigeriaAFP — AUNO, NIGERIA

Militants killed at least 30 people and abducted women and children in a raid in northeast Nigeria’s restive Borno state, a regional government spokesman said.

The attack on Sunday evening targeted the village of Auno on a key highway linking to regional capital Maiduguri.

The militants stormed in on trucks mounted with heavy weapons, killing, burning and looting before kidnapping women and children, state gov-ernment spokesman Ahmad Abdurrahman Bundi said.

They targeted travellers who had stopped for the night and torched vehicles.

A journalists saw the smouldering wreckage of trucks, buses and cars lining the road at the scene of the attack.

The militants “killed not less than 30 people who are mostly motorists and destroyed 18 vehicles,” Bundi said in a statement after visiting the scene. The assault, some 25km west of Maiduguri, occurred in

an area where fighters from the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) have been active, mounting roadblocks to target security forces and civilians. There was no imme-diate claim of responsibility for the attack.

Witnesses said militants set alight 30 vehicles in the raid, including trucks that had stopped overnight on their way to Maiduguri.

“Many of the drivers and their assistants who were sleeping in the vehicles were burnt alive,” said Babakura Kolo, a member of a state-backed anti-jihadist militia.

The militants combed through the village, looting and burning shops and property before withdrawing, he said.

Kolo said the militants took away three buses carrying women and children to Maid-uguri which had parked in the village for the night.

“We still don’t know how many women and children they took away but the number is huge,” he said. Auno lies on the 120km highway linking

Maiduguri to Damaturu, a major regional city in neigh-bouring Yobe state.

The highway has been increasingly targeted by ISWAP militants in recent months.

Militants disguised as sol-diers have set up roadblocks to abduct and kill passing trav-ellers and have above all tar-geted members of the security forces. The UN has complained of an upsurge of violent attacks in recent weeks across the con-flict zone.

The increase comes after the Nigerian army last year launched a new strategy that saw it withdraw troops from remote bases into larger so-called “super camps”.

The military says the tactic has helped to stem jihadist attacks but local residents and aid workers say it appears to have bolstered the jihadists by leaving vast swathes of territory unprotected.

Last month four Nigerian soldiers were killed and seven injured when the militants attacked troops positioned in Auno.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, who took over as AU chair, has said Libya is one of two conflicts he wants to focus on during his tenure. The other is South Sudan, where a civil war that began in 2013 has left hundreds of thousands dead — but talks on the sidelines of the AU summit ended in deadlock.

Over the course of a few weeks, soldiers rampaged through the region, killing thousands, committing mass rapes, burning villages to the ground, and driving more than 700,000 people to flee into neighbouring Bangladesh.

08 TUESDAY 11 FEBRUARY 2020VIEWS

CHAIRMAN

SHEIKH THANI BIN ABDULLAH AL THANI

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

DR. KHALID BIN MUBARAK AL-SHAFIeditorinchief@pen.com.qa

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MOHAMMED SALIM MOHAMEDm.salim@pen.com.qa

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MOHAMMED OSMAN ALI osman@pen.com.qa

EDITORIAL

QATAR is celebrating the 9th edition of National Sport Day today. The National Sport Day is a pioneering ini-tiative adopted by Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani who issued the Amiri Decree No. 80 for the year 2011, which stated that the second Tuesday of February every year shall be a sport day which encourages everyone to participate in sporting activities.

The National Sport Day (NSD) has been celebrated across Qatar since 2012, and is an extremely popular day which aims to bring people together in celebration of sport, while encouraging people of all ages to stay fit and active. Qatar is the first country in the world to devote a day to sports, where citizens and residents learn about various sports and activities and their many benefits.

The Committee of the National Sport Day has com-pleted all the preparations for the launch of Sport Day activities in all regions of the country. On this day, min-istries and other government and public bodies and institutions organise sport events for their employees and their families to raise awareness of the importance of sport and its role in the lives of individuals and societies.

The primary goal of NSD is to promote sports and to educate citizens and residents on ways to reduce health risks associated with an inactive lifestyle. Mul-tiple free sporting events will be held throughout Qatar, including cycling, swimming, football, basketball, tennis, taekwondo, beach volleyball, water sports competi-tions and indoor activities in clubs and sports federa-tions. The day is also an opportunity to bring commu-nities closer together through sport, based on the sporting principles of team building, inclusion and unity, participation, fitness and health.

Sports is one of the most important pillars of Qatar National Vision 2030. Sports allow people to develop their personalities, raise morale and increase positive aspects and traits such as leadership, self-respect, dis-cipline, and punctuality. Qatar believes that sports diplomacy complements the role of official diplomacy in building bridges of communication, in addition to deepening social and cultural ties between people.

The National Sport Day is the culmination of great efforts that has placed Qatar on the global sport map with its world-class sports facilities and preparing the community for the success of major events in the run up to hosting the 2022 World Cup.

The Sport Day is also a step on the path to achieving Qatar’s National Vision, building a conscious and qual-ified society, with a genuine passion and a healthy body to build the country and achieve its renaissance and development in various fields.

Celebrating Sport Day

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Quote of the day

In Libya, we want an immediate cessation of hostilities and external interference. The arms embargo must be respected.

Smail Chergui, AU's Peace and Security Council Chief

A file picture of presiding judge Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf, (fourth right), reading a ruling at the International Court in The Hague.

On January 23, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague imposed emergency “provisional measures” on Myanmar regarding its actions against and treatment of the Rohingya minority - my people. To the average person this may sound like incomprehensible legalese. But for many Rohingya, who had long been waiting for the international community to take meaningful action to end their suffering, this was some of the best news they had ever received.

With this decision, the United Nations’ “World Court” effec-tively instructed the government of Aung San Suu Kyi to respect the requirements of the 1948 genocide convention and bring an end to its military’s attacks on the Rohingya. This decision marked the first time that a credible international body said “enough” to the government that for so many decades has abused and oppressed us.

My people’s plight captured global headlines in August 2017, when the Tatmadaw (the Myanmar military) launched a vicious “clearance operation” in the Rakhine State, which was home to more than a million Rohingya. Over the course of a few weeks, soldiers rampaged through the region, killing thou-sands, committing mass rapes, burning villages to the ground, and driving more than 700,000 people to flee into neighbouring Bangladesh.

As shocking as the violence was, it was only the tip of the iceberg. For decades, the Myanmar authorities have con-fined the Rohingya to a virtual open-air prison in the Rakhine state. It denied us citizenship since 1982, effectively rendering us stateless. Our freedom of movement even within Myanmar is extremely limited. We are expected to acquire official per-mission, and often pay bribes, to leave our home villages. Healthcare and education are off-limits to most Rohingya. This is all part of a deliberate effort by Myanmar not only to dehu-manise us, but also to make our lives so miserable that we have no option but to leave.

Of course, even leaving the country is not easy for people who have next to nothing. Other than people who have been pushed in to Bangladesh as result of the violence, and forced to survive in refugee camps, only a few managed to leave the Rakhine state and build a life for themselves abroad.

I was one of these “lucky” people. I fled Rakhine state in the 1990s when I was denied access to a university education simply because I was Rohingya. I have since watched from afar how the Myanmar authorities have carried out their genocidal cam-paign against my people with impunity.

This is why the ruling means so much to us. I was in the court at The Hague when the verdict was delivered. I had to try really hard not to cry. As I witnessed an official body openly condemn Myanmar for what it did to us, I thought of my friends, family and acquaintances who suffered so much. I thought of the scores of people who shared with me the pain of losing loved ones to the violence of the state. That verdict convinced me that my decades of campaigning for the Rohingya finally achieved something.

The case against Myanmar at the ICJ was brought by The Gambia, a self-described “small country with a big voice on human rights”. The actual case will take years to conclude, but the imposition of provisional measures is a significant victory along the way.

The ICJ’s orders are binding on Myanmar and create legal obligations that must be enforced. The provisional measures imposed by the court require the government to prevent genocidal acts, ensure security forces do not commit genocide, preserve evi-dence of genocidal acts and report back on its compliance. It remains to be seen whether Myanmar will listen to the court and take genuine action. The official reaction has so far been muted, apart from a press release by the Foreign Ministry claiming that the court’s verdict presented a “distorted picture of the situation”.

Unfortunately, it is highly likely that the Myanmar gov-ernment will simply continue to do what it has long been doing to avoid taking responsibility for its crimes - delays, denials, empty promises and endless pleas for “more time”. Aung San Suu Kyi has herself been leading the gov-ernment’s PR efforts. It is both sad and ironic that someone who so many Rohingya supported for many years has now become both an apologist and enabler of the Tatmadaw’s genocide.

But there is still some space for optimism.

Myanmar will now be required to provide regular reports to the ICJ on what it has done to improve the situation. A failure to comply could lead to the matter escalating to the UN Security Council. While China has so far shielded Myanmar from the action at the UNSC, the ICJ’s ruling will undoubtedly encourage the global community to do more to protect the Rohingya.

There is no question that the wheels of international justice have started turning. Last November, the International Criminal Court (ICC) announced it was launching an investigation into crimes against humanity committed by the Myanmar security forces against the Rohingya. In the same month, my own organisation, Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK, launched a “universal juris-diction” case against Myanmar in Argentina. This is based on the principle that some crimes are so horrific that they concern humanity as a whole, and can be tried anywhere regardless of where they were committed.

The pressure appears to be getting to the Myanmar lead-ership. On January 20, Myanmar published its own investigation into the events that transpired in the Rakhine state in the past few years, for the first time admitting that “war crimes and serious human rights violations” had taken place. This report, however, was a blatant PR exercise to deflect attention from the ICJ ruling, and it failed to address many of the most serious violations. It is abundantly clear that Myanmar cannot be trusted to investigate itself, and the international community must deliver justice.

In 2017, as the deadly crackdown by Tatmadaw sent hundreds of thousands fleeing across the border, I spent a month in Bangladesh. During that time, I listened to the stories of countless refugees and wit-nessed their pain. They told me how they dodged bullets as they fled towards the border. They told me how they helplessly watched their family members being killed and their villages torched to the ground. But they never talked about revenge. They never expressed any desire to avenge what our home country did to them. They told me that all they want is justice. They told me that they want justice for them-selves, for the loved ones they lost and the Rohingya com-munity as a whole.

As the court’s decision to rebuke Myanmar for its treatment of the Rohingya was read at The Hague, I was thinking of those refugees. I was thinking how this decision is going to bring them one step closer to achieving justice.

Ultimately, we the Rohingya want to return to our homeland and live in peace with other communities that also call Myanmar home, without having to fear for our lives. Last month, the ICJ offered us a glimmer of hope that this could one day become a reality - now we need the world’s help to secure the future of our people.

Tun Khin is President of Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK.

Rohingya justice: Why the ICJ’s public rebuke of Myanmar matters

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TUN KHIN AL JAZEERA

09TUESDAY 11 FEBRUARY 2020 ASIA

Azerbaijan ruling party wins parliamentary polls AFP — BAKU Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev’s ruling party yesterday celebrated a huge win in snap parliamentary polls but inter-national observers and the opposi t ion denounced sweeping violations.

Aliyev, 58, hoped to boost the government’s image by holding early elections and replacing discredited old elites with younger technocrats.

His ruling party won a majority in Sunday’s election but the opposition claimed it was “totally falsified” and several parties boycotted the vote altogether.

The sole opposition poli-tician who made it to the new legislature was Erkin Gadirly of Republican Alternative Party (ReAl). All other parties repre-sented in the parliament, the Milli Majlis, are seen as pro-Aliyev.

The Musavat opposition party demanded that the result be annulled and fresh polls held.

Counting showed the Yeni (New) Azerbaijan party with 72 seats in the 125-member par-liament, according to early results of the first-past-the-post ballot, the central election commission said.

But in a strongly worded

joint report, international o b s e r v e r s d e n o u n c e d numerous voting irregularities, saying restrictive legislation and the political environment prevented a level playing field.

“Significant procedural vio-lations during counting and the tabulation raised concerns whether the results were established honestly,” said observers from the Organi-sation for Security and Coop-eration in Europe and the Council of Europe.

They criticised numerous instances of ballot stuffing and multiple voting, pressure on voters, candidates, and observers as well as the absence of campaign coverage in mainstream media.

More than 5.3 million people were eligible to vote, and turnout stood at 47.8 percent, election officials said.

The ruling party had

promised a democratic election, but opposition parties have accused the government of limiting their ability to cam-paign and several parties boy-cotted the vote.

On Sunday night, Vice Prime Minister and Yeni Azerbaijan executive secretary Ali Ahmedov congratulated his party on “yet another great victory” after exit polls put it on a course to win a majority.

“We are grateful to those who have voted in support of our president’s policies,” Ahmedov told journalists.

Elections had originally been scheduled for November this year but in December Aliyev called early polls after a surprise dissolution of the legislature that is dominated by his party.

The move followed the replacement of the prime min-ister and a number of veteran officials within the presidential administration and the government.

Analyst Anar Mammadli said public anger over eco-nomic problems has been growing in the South Caucasus country of nine million people.

“Aliyev chose to hold elec-tions eight months ahead of schedule as he fears that protest sentiment would grow further by November,” he said

ahead of the vote. With most powers concen-

trated in the presidency, par-liament has a limited role in the Caspian nation’s political system.

Electoral commissions are controlled by Aliyev’s party and all of the oil-rich country’s tel-evision stations refused to allocate airtime to the opposition.

Prominent opposition leader Isa Gambar decried dra-conian restrictions on freedom of assembly, saying “people are being arrested and tortured” for participating in peaceful protests.

None of the elections held in Azerbaijan since Aliyev came to power in 2003 have been recognised as free and fair by international observers.

Aliyev has ruled the ex-Soviet state with an iron fist since he was first elected in 2003, after the death of his father, Azerbaijan’s Soviet-era Communist leader and former KGB general Heydar Aliyev.

Under the Aliyev dynasty, Baku has faced strong interna-tional criticism for persecuting political opponents and suffo-cating independent media.

Members of a local electoral commission count ballots at a polling station after a snap parliamentary election in Baku, Azerbaijan, on Sunday.

THE PENINSULA — THIRUVALLA,

The role undertaken by the Joyalukkas Foundation in the rehabilitation of flood victims of Kerala is nothing less than great, said Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan in his inau-gural speech during the second get-together of the Joy Homes beneficiaries held at Dr Alex-ander Marthoma Auditorium at 11.30am yesterday.

In his speech, the CM also expressed the gratitude of Kerala Government towards Joyalukkas Foundation.

The foundation has built and handed over 250 houses for the families who lost their dwelling places during the dev-astating floods at a cost of

Rs150m. The Joyalukkas Group has extended highly com-mendable voluntary services during the floods, the CM added.

The state is witnessing the astounding progress of Rebuild Kerala initiatives, employing advanced and contemporary technologies and methods, he said.

A number of dignitaries attended the function where MA Arif, MP, gave away the mementos to the elated home owners and Mathew T Thomas, MLA, launched the Joyalukkas Foundation Handbook.

As part of another noble ini-tiative by Joyalukkas Foun-dation, NK Premachandran, MP, distributed Dialysis kits to

the needy. About 100 families, who are beneficiaries of the project, from Pathanamthitta, Kottayam, Alleppey, Quilon and Idukki, participated in the get-together.

The function was presided by Cherian Polachirakkal, Municipal Chariman, Thiru-valla. Joy Alukkas, CMD of Joy-alukkas Group, Jolly Joy Alukkas and Elsa Joy Alukkas, both Directors of Joyalukkas Group also participated in the function, among others.

Currently, about 160 fam-ilies have moved into their new homes and the rest of the houses will be handed over soon, said Joy Alukkas, CMD of Joyalukkas Group during the event.

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan attends the get-together of the beneficiaries of Joy Homes project, an initiative by the Joyalukkas Foundation, yesterday.

Joy Homes project reinforcesRebuild Kerala initiatives: Vijayan

Taiwan scrambles jets again to intercept Chinese aircraftREUTERS — TAIPEI

Taiwan’s air force scrambled for a second day in a row yesterday to intercept Chinese jets that approached the island claimed by Beijing as its own, as tensions between the two took on a potentially dangerous military dimension.

Taiwan’s Defence Ministry said Chinese jets, accompanying H-6 bombers, briefly crossed an unofficial mid-line in the Taiwan Strait that separates the two, prompting its air force to rush to intercept and give verbal warnings to leave.

The Chinese aircraft then withdrew to the western side of the line, the ministry added, without identifying the jets.

The H-6s were on a training mission in the Pacific having passed through the Bashi Channel that separates Taiwan from the Philippines, the min-istry added and shared a picture of a Taiwan F-16 accompanying one of the H-6 bombers.

China has been flying what it calls “island encirclement” drills on-off since 2016 when Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen first took office. Beijing believes Tsai, who won re-election last month, wishes to push the island’s formal independence.

Tsai says Taiwan is an inde-pendent country called the Republic of China, its official name. On Sunday too, Chinese jets, including J-11 fighters, flew into the Bashi Channel then out into the Pacific before heading

back to base via the Miyako Strait, located between Japan’s islands of Miyako and Okinawa, to the northeast of Taiwan.

According to Taiwan’s official Central News Agency, the F-16s scrambled on Sunday carried live missiles.

There was no immediate comment from China yester-day’s incident. This is only the second time since 2016 that Taiwan has said that Chinese jets had crossed the strait’s median line. Their military aircraft tend to keep to their own sides.

China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, though, urged Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party “not to play with fire”. The DPP have been “adopting a stance that increases cross-strait confrontation, intensifying new moves for Taiwan-U.S. collusion, using the opportunity to seek independence and openly car-rying out dangerous provoca-tions”, it added.

China’s Eastern Theatre Command described Sunday’s fly-by of military’s combat ready patrol as a “completely legit-imate and necessary action aimed at the current situation in the Taiwan Strait and safe-guarding national sovereignty”. The latest fly-bys came as Tai-wan’s vice-president elect, William Lai, was returning from a visit to Washington, where he attended the high-profile National Prayer Breakfast, at which US President Donald Trump spoke. China denounced Lai’s trip.

Malaysia yet to decide on new search for missing plane

REUTERS — KUALA LUMPUR

Malaysia yesterday said it has yet to decide on launching a new search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, which went missing with 239 people on board nearly six years ago, following a report that a new effort to find the plane could be mounted.

Malaysia’s ministry of transport said it has not received any new credible evi-dence to initiate a new search.

“However, the ministry will review any new evidence that it officially receives,” the min-istry said in a brief statement.

On Sunday, Australia’s News Corp reported that a new search could be mounted pos-sibly this year, based on new evidence that it said showed the plane could have ended up in an area adjacent to the pre-vious search area in the Indian Ocean. News Corp reported that US exploration firm Ocean Infinity was in discussions with the Malaysian government to mount a new search on a no find no fee basis.

Ocean Infinity did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Flight MH370 became one of the world’s greatest aviation mysteries when it vanished on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014.

Grief swells as Thais mourn 29 killed in mass shootingAFP — NAKHON RATCHASIMA

Grieving relatives of 29 people murdered by a rogue soldier in Thailand held tearful Buddhist prayer ceremonies yesterday, as fresh details emerged of shoppers cowering in terror while the gunman stalked the mall.

Holding portraits of their relatives and dabbing away tears, families of the victims arrived yesterday morning at a city morgue in Nakhon Ratch-asima, better known as Korat, in the morning to carry home coffins bearing their dead.

The gunman — Sergeant-Major Jakrapanth Thomma — was shot dead by a commando unit Sunday morning, ending a rampage that left 29 dead and scores more wounded.

The killer started his killing spree on Saturday afternoon with weapons stolen from a barracks’ arsenal, where he gunned down Mehta Lertsiri, 22, who was guarding the depot.

“I don’t know what to do next,” Mehta’s grief-stricken

grandfather, Udom Prapotsang, said outside of the morgue waiting to claim his body.

“His four-year-old son keeps asking why he can’t call his dad.”

After seizing the weapons, the shooter drove to a Buddhist temple, where blood splatters and bullet holes attested to the horrors that unfolded.

Narissara Chotklang, a 52-year-old Pharmacist, was among nine people to die there.

Her funeral rites began late yesterday a few kilometres away, where hundreds of mourners lined up to pour water over a jasmine garland placed delicately over her out-stretched hand.

The attacker then moved to the town centre mall, where a terrifying siege unfolded late Saturday.

Armed with automatic weapons, the gunman held out overnight as hundreds of shoppers sought refuge in toilets, storerooms and under tables — staying silent or making a break for the exits

when they could.Pressed to the ground in an

office inside a Japanese home goods shop, Partiya Aree, 29,

tried to control her breathing as she watched the masked soldier stop just yards away on the shop’s own CCTV.

“He was carrying a gun, looking left and right con-stantly,” Partiya said.

Alongside 21 others, they

disabled location services on their phone fearing the social media-obsessed gunman might be able to find them.

Her group escaped several hours later, flanked by police in a sprint for the mall entrance “which felt like forever.”

But others were not so fortunate.

Flowers and messages of condolences including one saying “RIP Korat, we will not forget” piled up outside the bullet-riddled mall.

A Buddhist monk in orange robes led a prayer ceremony on a grass verge outside the mall for Peeraphat Palasan, shot dead as the gunman sprayed bullets into traffic, killing the 25-year-old engineer.

His father, Witoon, was among a dozen mourners crying, kneeling, hands clasped -- some holding incense sticks -- in prayer.

“My son had just finished work and came here to go shopping,” Witoon said.

“I never thought I would lose him so soon.”

People pray for victims who died in a mass shooting at Terminal 21 shopping mall in Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand, yesterday.

Aliyev, 58, hoped to boost the government’s image by holding early elections and replacing discredited old elites with younger technocrats.

10 TUESDAY 11 FEBRUARY 2020ASIA

Xi appears in public;coronavirus deaths increase to 908REUTERS — BEIJING

People across China trickled back to work yesterday after an extended Lunar New Year holiday as the government eased restrictions imposed to counter the coronavirus, but the World Health Organisation said the number of cases outside China could be just “the tip of the iceberg”.

The death toll from the epi-demic rose to 908, all but two in mainland China, yesterday as 97 more fatalities were recorded — the largest number in a single day since the out-break was detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December.

Across mainland China, 3,062 new infections were con-firmed on Sunday, bringing the total number to 40,171, according to the National Health Commission (NHC).

Wu Fan, vice-dean of Shanghai Fudan University Medical school, said there was hope the spread might soon reach a turning point.

“The situation is stabilising,” she told a briefing when asked about the spread in Shanghai, which has had nearly 300 cases

and one death. But WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, speaking in Geneva, said there had been “concerning instances” of transmission from people who had not been to China.

“The detection of a small number of cases may indicate more widespread transmission in other countries; in short, we may only be seeing the tip of the iceberg,” he said.

The virus has spread to at least 27 countries and terri-tories, according to a Reuters count based on official reports, infecting more than 330 people. The two deaths outside mainland China were in Hong Kong and the Philippines.

The death toll from the

outbreak has now surpassed that of another coronavirus, Severe Acute Respiratory Syn-drome (SARS), which brought a global epidemic in 2002/2003.

The epidemic has caused huge disruptions in China with usually teeming cities becoming virtual ghost towns after Com-munist Party rulers ordered lockdowns, cancelled flights and closed factories and schools.

Ten extra days had been added to the Lunar New Year holidays that had been due to finish at the end of January. But even yesterday, many work-places remained closed and many people worked from home.

Few commuters seen during the morning rush-hour on one of Beijing’s busiest subway lines. All were wearing masks.

Jin Yang, who works in a department of China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange, rode a bicycle to work instead of public transport. Staff were told to wear masks, avoid face-to-face meetings and the canteen was closed.

Another employee sur-named Chen said the insurance

company he worked for had barred people from taking public transport.

“I usually take subways but this morning it cost me 200 yuan one way by cab,” he said.

One Beijing government official, Zhang Gewho, said it would be be harder to curb the spread of the virus as people returned to work and efforts to combat it had entered a critical period.

“Beijing will see an influx of people returning to the city. The capacity of communities and flow of people will greatly increase and the difficulty of virus prevention and control will further rise,” he said.

Hubei, the province of 60

million people that is the hardest hit by the outbreak, remains in virtual lockdown, with its train stations and air-ports shut and its roads sealed.

The coronavirus is also a huge test for President Xi Jinping, who has largely kept out of the spotlight, leaving Premier Li Keqiang to take the public lead in government efforts to control the outbreak.

Yesterday, Xi appeared among the public for the first time since the outbreak mush-roomed, and was shown by state television inspecting the work of community leaders in Beijing, and wearing a mask as he had his temperature taken.

In Britain, the government said yesterday the number of confirmed coronavirus cases there had doubled to eight and it declared the virus a serious and imminent threat, giving it additional powers to isolate those suspected of being infected.

Much remains to be deter-mined about the virus, which has been linked to a market selling animals in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province, including how easily it spreads and how deadly it is.

Chinese researchers found that its incubation period could be up to 24 days.

It had been thought to be up to 14 days.

Chinese President Xi Jinping inspects the novel coronavirus prevention and control work at Anhuali Community in Beijing, yesterday.

65 more cases confirmed on cruise ship in JapanREUTERS — TOKYO

Passenger tests aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan confirmed at least 65 more cases of coronavirus yesterday, as some passengers took to social media to warn against depression over their confinement.

The figure takes the tally on board to 135, showing a rapid rise in the outbreak on the ship docked in the port of Yokohama. Among the new 65 cases are 45 Japanese and 11 Americans, Japan’s health ministry said.

“This is not news that anyone of us wanted to receive,” the captain told passengers in a broadcast over speakers in their

cabins.“However, we have been

also advised since we are in the early quarantine period of 14 days, it was not unexpected.”

The captain’s remarks formed part of an audio recording posted on Twitter by Yardley Wong, a passenger doc-umenting the experience on the ship, using the hashtag #anxiety. Japan’s health ministry con-firmed the 65 new cases in a statement.

The Diamond Princess was placed in quarantine for two weeks upon arriving in Yokohama, south of Tokyo, on February 3, after a man who dis-embarked in Hong Kong was diagnosed with the virus.

Rains to end Australian bushfires within daysAFP — SYDNEY

Australia’s months-long bushfires crisis will likely be over within days, officials said yesterday as heavy rainfall extin-guished several massive blazes and was forecast to douse dozens more as down-pours swept south.

Days of torrential rains have caused flash flooding in New South Wales and Queensland, dampening once-raging fires that volunteers had battled in vain for months.

Sydney experienced its wettest period in 20 years amid several days of heavy rainfall that led to chaotic scenes across the city. The Bureau of Meteorology said 391.6mm of rain fell in Sydney over the past four days — the highest total in such a period since 414.2mm were recorded in

February 1990. Several major bushfires have been extinguished by the deluge, including a “mega-blaze” that burned through 500,000 hectares north of Sydney and a similar-sized fire to the city’s south, bringing relief to residents and firefighters.

New South Wales Rural Fire Service spokesman James Morris said about 30 fires were still burning yesterday, but it was expected they would soon be extin-guished as the rain moves south in the coming days.

“By the end of the week it’s likely they will be out,” he said.

Drought-stricken areas across the country’s east also received welcome downpours but more sustained and wide-spread rainfall will be needed to offset a years-long dry spell.

Philippine govt urges court to shut down leading TV networkAP — MANILA

The Philippine government’s chief lawyer asked the Supreme Court yesterday to shut down the country’s largest TV network by revoking its oper-ating franchises because of alleged constitutional viola-tions, in a move critics called an attempt to muzzle the media.

President Rodrigo Duterte has repeatedly attacked ABS-CBN Corp., along with at least two other news agencies, for making critical reports about him, including his crackdown on illegal drugs that has left thousands of mostly poor drug suspects dead.

Solicitor-General Jose Calida said he filed the petition against the TV network and its subsidiary, ABS-CBN Conver-gence Inc, for abusing its fran-chises and violating a constitu-tional prohibition on foreign investment in Philippine media. ABS-CBN denied the allegations.

Calida accused ABS-CBN of “broadcasting for a fee, which is beyond the scope of its leg-islative franchise.”

ABS-CBN said Calida’s alle-gations were baseless and that it has complied with Philippine laws and had secured permits.

Bangladeshi in Singapore infected with coronavirusANATOLIA — DHAKA

A Bangladeshi worker in Singapore has been infected with the novel coronavirus, the island nation’s Ministry of Health (MOH) said yesterday.

“Case 42 is a 39-year-old male Bangladeshi national who is a Singapore Work Pass holder and has no recent travel history to China,” the MOH said in a press release.

The total number of people infected so far in Sin-gapore is 43.

Dr Ayesha Akther, assistant director of Bangladesh’s Direc-torate General of Health Services, said that this is the first case of a coronavirus infection for any Bangladeshi national.

“But we have come to know it from the website of Singapore’s Health Ministry and some news outlets. We will check it through our own channels,” Akther said.

Pedestrians brave strong wind and rain in Sydney, Australia, on Sunday.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said: “The detection of a small number of cases may indicate more widespread transmission in other countries; in short, we may only be seeing the tip of the iceberg.”

Pakistan govt to open 50,000 new shops for subsidised itemsINTERNEWS — ISLAMABAD

The government of Pakistan has made a plan to provide jobs and daily-use items to people on subsidised rates under which 50,000 new retail shops will be opened.

Geo News reported while quoting sources that Rs25 bn have been allocated for the pro-gramme in the first phase. The citizens will get loans up to Rs500,000 for opening retail shops and 1,500 such shops will be opened immediately.

The sources said the Utility Stores Corporation (USC) will supply 60 percent items to retails shops, while the shops owners will arrange rest of items from

open market. This plan of the government will provide jobs to 50,000 families.

Prime Minister Imran Khan has also directed to continue the Rs7bn relief package to Utility Stores till the end of Ramazan. The prime minister was informed that the Utility Stores need up to Rs10bn funds after which he directed the concerned ministries to make arrangements for pro-viding resources.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Imran Khan said his government will announce various measures to reduce the prices of basic food items for the common man in today's meeting.

The prime minister also explained that the concerned

government departments had also begun doing an in-depth probe into the flour and sugar price hike.

In tweets, he acknowledged the difficulties the ordinary people, including the salaried class, were confronting and had decided to announce a number of measures for giving relief to them come what may.

“I understand the difficulties ordinary people incl salaried class are confronting and have decided, come what may, my govt will be announcing various measures that will be taken to reduce prices of basic food items for the common man in cabinet today,” he wrote on his Twitter account.

The prime minister also wrote, “At the same time all the relevant govt agencies have begun doing an in-depth probe into the flour and sugar price hikes. The nation should rest assured that all those responsible will be held accountable and penalised.”

While chairing a meeting of his economic team a day earlier, the prime minister asserted that a government having no com-passion had no right to stay

. He hinted at going to any extent to provide relief to the masses in terms of prices of essential commodities, including flour, rice, pulses, ghee and sugar.

The prime minister has been regularly holding meetings of his

economic team and taking deci-sions, however, tangible results are yet to be seen. He also has recently directed the provinces to take every possible step to check profiteering and hoarding of goods.

Meanwhile, Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Asad Umar said the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government was taking all possible measures to provide relief to poor people facing price hike issues now a days.

Talking to local media, the minister said the government was well aware of the genuine problems of masses and there was no doubt that inflation has increased enormously.

Pakistani student in Wuhan misses father’s funeral, anxiety growsREUTERS — ISLAMABAD

From his dormitory in the locked-down Chinese city of Wuhan, PhD student Hassan spoke to his father in Pakistan for the last time on Thursday, as the 80-year-old begged him to come home. The next day, Hassan’s father died of a heart ailment.

Hassan is one of more than 1,000 Pakistani students in China’s Hubei province, thought to be the epicentre of the coro-navirus, who have been told by their government that it has had to rule out their return home for the moment.

Hassan has since stepped up his efforts to travel home as his

desperation grows, having missed his father’s funeral, but received conflicting information from Pakistani officials.

“They need me at this time, my mother needs me,” said the PhD computer architecture student, who asked to be iden-tified only by one name in order to protect his family’s privacy.

His increasing anxiety is shared by other Pakistani stu-dents in Hubei, some of whom are increasingly critical of their government’s response to the situation.

“My very dear students in China...we r intensely discussing the situation @ highest level & will make the best decision in view of all factors with ref to

devastating #coronavirus potential global pandemic,” State Health minister Zafar Mirza said on Twitter on Sunday.

Hassan contacted his uni-versity, who supported him leaving, and Pakistan’s embassy in Beijing. He said he was later told by Chinese authorities in Hubei that he could be evacuated if Pakistan’s embassy in Beijing contacted them, but that had not occurred.

A Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman did not respond to Reuters’ request for comment.

Hassan said he was then told by a Pakistani official on yes-terday that they were planning to evacuate all students.

11TUESDAY 11 FEBRUARY 2020 EUROPE

Merkel’s party in crisis as heir apparent quitsAP — BERLIN

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s heir apparent unex-pectedly threw in the towel yesterday, plunging her conservative party into an even deeper crisis as it struggles to agree on its future political direction after losing votes to the far right.

Annegret Kramp-Karren-bauer told leading members of the Christian Democratic Union, (CDU), that she won’t be seeking the chancellorship in next year’s general election, upending Mer-kel’s plans to hand her the reins after more than 15 years in power.

The announcement follows days of in-fighting within the party over its handling last week of the election of a gov-ernor in the state of Thuringia.

Regional party lawmakers there voted with the far-right Alternative for Germany party, or AfD, to oust the left-wing incumbent, defying appeals from Kramp-Karrenbauer and further undermining her leadership.

The vote in Thuringia broke what is widely regarded as a taboo in post-war German

politics around cooperating with extremist parties.

“The AfD stands against everything we as the CDU rep-resent,” Kramp-Karrenbauer told reporters yesterday in Berlin. “Any convergence with AfD weakens the CDU.”

She likewise ruled out any cooperation with the Left party of former Thuringia governor Bodo Ramelow, who headed the former East German state from 2014 until last week. She will remain as Germany’s defence minister.

Merkel has said she will not run for a fifth term in Germany’s next general election, which is now scheduled for fall 2021. But any shift to the right in Merkel’s party could trigger a breakup of her federal coalition with the center-left Social Democrats

and increase the chances of an early national election.

“If it’s up to me, it won’t have any effect on the stability of the grand coalition,” Kramp-Karrenbauer said after announcing her planned withdrawal.

But leading figures in Mer-kel’s party expressed concerns about fallout from the announcement.

Peter Altmaier, Germany’s economy minister and a close Merkel ally, said the Christian Democrats were in “an unu-sually serious situation.”

Among the names currently being bandied around as future CDU party leaders are Health

Minister Jens Spahn and Frie-drich Merz, who were beaten to the leadership by Kramp-Karrenbauer in 2018. Armin Laschet, the governor of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s most populous state, is also being mentioned as a possible contender.

While Spahn and Laschet are considered centrists, Merz has tried to appeal to the con-servative wing of the party that has flirted with the far-right Alternative for Germany. A lawyer once tipped to lead the party in the early 2000s, Merz was sidelined by Merkel before she became chancellor in 2005.

Bavarian governor Markus

Soeder, the leader of the Christian Social Unio n, the Bavarian-only sister party to Merkel’s CDU, is also the focus of some speculation.

Merkel’s spokesman Steffen Seibert told reporters in Berlin that she stood by her decision not to run for a fifth term in 2021, despite the latest development.

The Alternative for Germany welcomed Kramp-Karrenbauer’s resignation, as did Germany’s former domestic intelligence head, Hans-Georg Maassen, a vocal figure on the right of Merkel’s party since his ouster as Germany’s spy chief in 2018.

Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (centre), leader of Germany’s CDU party leaves a press conference following a meeting with her party’s leadership, in Berlin, yesterday.

Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer ruled out any cooperation with the Left party of former Thuringia governor Bodo Ramelow.

Toll rises as storm moves eastward across EuropeAP — BERLIN

A strong winter storm that has battered Europe with hurricane-force winds and heavy rains and killed at least five people moved eastward yesterday, causing severe travel disruptions across the continent.

After striking Britain and Ireland on Sunday, the storm moved on, leaving a trail of damage including power cuts for tens of thousands of homes across Europe.

A mother and her daughter died in Poland after the storm ripped off the roof of a ski rental equipment building in the mountain resort of Bukowina Tatrzanska, near the border with Slovakia, and sent it hur-tling onto people standing near a ski lift, police said. Three other people were injured in the incident too.

In Sweden, one man

drowned after the boat he and another person were sailing in on the southern lake of Fegen capsized. The victim was washed ashore and later died. The other person is still missing, according to the Aftonbladet daily.

Two men, one in the north of Slovenia and another in southern England, also died after their cars were hit by falling trees.

Five people were injured in the Czech Republic in incidents related to the storm, authorities said, including a woman who was hospitalised after she was hit by a tree. The number of Czech households without elec-tricity reached 290,000, according to power company CEZ.

Britain, which bore the brunt of the storm on Sunday, was assessing the damage and working to get power restored

to 20,000 homes. However, for parts of northern England and Scotland, the respite is set to be brief, with forecasts of blizzards and snow.

“While Storm Ciara is clearing away, that doesn’t mean we’re entering a quieter period of weather,” said Alex Burkill, a meteorologist at Brit-ain’s Met Office. “It’s going to stay very unsettled.”

The storm has now largely passed through France, though meteorologists warned that the Mediterranean island of Corsica could see winds as high as 200 kph. Waves lashed the northern coast, and high winds blew a truck onto its side on the A2 highway that links Belgium with France. Up to 130,000 homes were without electricity Monday morning, stretching from Brittany, in western France, through Normandy and the northern regions.

Rescuers working on the A2 motorway after a truck was tipped over in the early morning from strong winds brought by storm Ciara, in Marly, northern France, yesterday.

Fathers in Denmark get eight weeks paid parental leaveBLOOMBERG — COPENHAGEN

New fathers are entitled to at least eight weeks paid leave under a new labour agreement reached in Denmark.

The deal, concluded over the weekend by the Confed-eration of Danish Industry and the Central Organization of Industrial Employees, extends the amount of paid leave to which new parents are entitled from 13 weeks to 16 weeks, according to a statement. Five weeks are allocated to mothers and eight to fathers, with house-holds deciding how to split the remaining three weeks.

“We, the two sides of industry, are staying up to date and taking part in ensuring a more equal distribution of the leave,” Lars Sandahl Sorensen, the confederation’s director general, said in the statement.

Spanish govt to ban glorification of Franco's regime

REUTERS — MADRID

The Spanish government plans to make it illegal to glorify the regime of former dictator General Francisco Franco as part of a reform of the coun-try’s criminal code, the Socialist Party said yesterday.

Franco, who ruled Spain from 1939 until his death in 1975, ordered the execution or imprisonment of tens of thou-sands of his enemies, while as many as 500,000 people died in the preceding civil war. His nationalist legacy still divides Spain and looms large over its political system.

“In a democracy you don’t pay tribute to dictators or tyrants,” parliamentary spokes-woman Adriana Lastra said. She did not spell out what would constitute “glorification”.

The government also aims to exhume the bodies of Franco’s victims buried in mass graves and remove any Francoist symbols still on display in public places, Lastra said. In recent years, many street names commemorating Franco and his allies have been changed and public statues removed.

In October, Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s care-taker government removed the former dictator’s remains from an imposing state mau-soleum where he was buried in 1975 and transferred them to a small private cemetery, provoking mixed reactions from across the political spectrum.

The far-right Vox party dismissed the proposed legal reform as a pretext for shutting down free speech.

‘Russia ready to exchange ambassadors with Ukraine’ANATOLIA — MOSCOW

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (pictured) said yesterday that his country was ready to exchange ambassadors with Ukraine.

“The Ukrainian side recalled the ambassador, threatened to break off diplomatic relations. Now, someone mentioned the possibility of (Ukranian Pres-ident Volodymyr) Zelenskiy’s decision to return the ambas-sadors. We will be fine with it,” the minister told Russian daily Rossiyskya Gazeta in an interview.

Despite tensions, he said, the two countries were strongly tied together.

“Our countries, even in the

current conditions are strongly interconnected in the economy, transport, humanitarian affairs, family ties. And, of course, it is unreasonable to constantly erect some barriers, now for air

travels, now for railway transport and simply for com-munications,” he said.

Turning to Russia-Nato relations, Lavrov said Moscow was concerned about the planned military drill, Defender Europe 2020, the largest deployment of US-based forces to Europe for an exercise in more than 25 years.

Lavrov doubted the Nato claim that the drill was not against Russia.

“In terms of military expenditure, equipment —tanks, combat aircraft, attack helicopters, IFVs (infantry fighting vehicles), armoured vehicles, warships, submarines — only the European members of Nato, without taking into

account American figures, out-number our armed forces by more than twice,” the minister said.

“Where they found a com-parable opponent, I don’t know. For sure, Russia is not the dom-inant military force in Europe. It is Nato.”

Lavrov slammed the initi-ative of “Military Schengen” in the context of Nato’s mil-itary cooperation with the European Union, which implies the modernisation of all transport arteries up to the eastern border of the alliance such that any major military equipment can pass freely to the east.

“Naturally, we will react. We cannot ignore the processes,

which provoke a great concern. But we will react in a way that does not create unnecessary risks,” Lavrov said.

While Nato continues moving eastward, he added, Washington plans to deploy intermediate-range nuclear missiles in the Asia-Pacific region, including Japan and South Korea.

“The geographical distances are such that if American inter-mediate-range and shorter-range missiles are placed at these points, a significant part of Russia’s territory will be under attack, and in the case of Japan and Korea, our entire ter-ritory up to the Ural moun-tains,” the Russian minister added.

Man convicted of plot to attack London tourist sites

AP — LONDON

A former Uber driver was convicted yesterday of plotting a vehicle and weapons attack on London tourist sites, just over a year after he was cleared of attacking police with a sword outside Buck-ingham Palace.

Jurors at London’s Woolwich Crown Court found Mohiussunnath Chowdhury guilty of preparing terrorist acts and other terrorism charges.

Prosecutors said 28-year-old Chowdhury planned a van, gun or knife attack on targets including Madame Tussauds wax museum, London’s pride parade and an open-top sight-seeing bus.

Prosecutor Duncan Atkinson said during the trial that Chowdhury desired to “unleash death and suffering” on non-Muslims after absorbing sermons from extremist preachers including al-Qaida’s Anwar Al-Awlaki.

He confided his plans to undercover police officers posing as fellow extremists. He was arrested in July.

Greece speeds up creation of migrant centre to ease tensionREUTERS — ATHENS

Greece plans to accelerate the creation of detention centres on its outlying islands in the Aegean Sea after a backlash against overcrowded camps by some migrants and nearby resi-dents.

Authorities said they would proceed with the purchase of land on the islands of Lesbos, Chios and Samos, and press ahead with plans to create holding facilities on state-owned land on Kos and Leros.

Thousands of migrants are waiting on the islands for their asylum applications to be proc-essed, most of them in over-crowded camps known as reception centres.

Migrants on Lesbos pro-tested last week against poor living conditions and residents of the island took to the streets demanding the reception facil-ities close.

“The government has decided to close today’s anarchic facilities and create

controlled, closed facilities,” government spokesman Stelios Petsas said in a statement.

Hundreds of thousands of people crossed into Europe via Greece in 2015 and 2016 before a deal brokered by the European Union limited the flow. There has been a resur-gence in arrivals since around September 2019.

Last year, more than 74,000 refugees and migrants arrived in Greece, according to the United Nations refugees agency UNHCR. Most of them arrived on Lesbos, Chios and Samos after crossing and about 40,000 are now in effect trapped on the islands.

Aid groups have described living conditions in some of the island camps as appalling.

“We need 20,000 people to be transferred from the islands to the mainland in the next weeks and months to come,” Philippe Leclerc, UNCHR’s head in Greece, told journalists after a meeting with Greek Migration Minister Notis Mitarachi.

A view of temporary camp for refugees and migrants next to the Moria camp during heavy rainfall on the island of Lesbos, in Greece.

12 TUESDAY 11 FEBRUARY 2020EUROPE

Boris Johnson warned of court battle over Scottish independence voteAFP — LONDON

A Scottish lawmaker who won a landmark legal case against the UK government’s suspension of parliament has warned Prime Minister Boris Johnson he faces legal action if he blocks a new vote on Scottish independence.

The Scottish National Party (SNP) wants a second refer-endum to be held now that Britain has left the European Union, as a majority north of the border with England wanted to stay in the bloc.

Johnson has refused to transfer powers from London to the devolved government in Edinburgh under the Scotland Act for a new vote to be held.

But SNP lawmaker Joanna Cherry suggested the Scottish Parliament should support a non-binding consultative ref-erendum, then let judges decide if it had the power to do so under the legislation.

“Boris Johnson should be put on notice that we have options and we are not afraid to push forward,” Cherry wrote on Twitter.

“The balance of legal opinion is that we might well win any court challenge & I don’t believe that losing would set us back any further than where we are just now.”

Cherry, the SNP’s interior affairs spokeswoman at the UK parliament, was among a group of lawyers who successfully challenged Johnson’s sus-pension of the UK parliament last year.

The suspension was widely interpreted as a bid by Johnson to limit the scope for MPs to have a say on his Brexit strategy.

Some 55 percent of Scots voted to remain part of the United Kingdom in 2014, seem-ingly taking the issue off the table in what was described as a “once-in-a-generation” decision.

But nationalists argue Brexit represents a material change in Scotland’s constitutional arrangements with the UK gov-ernment in London.

Some 62 percent of people north of the border voted to remain in the EU in 2016.

A recent Panelbase poll indicated 56 percent of Scots

were in favour of the Scottish Parliament legislating to hold a referendum if the UK gov-ernment continued to block demands for a vote.

Scotland’s First Minister and SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon has refused to sanction any “wildcat” unauthorised referendum.

But she has also said she would not rule out seeking legal clarification of the Scottish gov-ernment’s power to hold a con-sultative referendum.

She restated that position at an event at the European Policy Centre in Brussels yesterday.

“But if you ask me whether I think we should expend our energy on a legal process with an uncertain outcome or on building the political case for independence and an inde-pendence referendum, I choose the latter. That is my judgment,” she added.

Britain departed the EU on January 31 but is continuing to follow EU regulations at least until the end of the year. During the transition period, the British government and EU leaders will try to negotiate a free trade deal and agreements covering other areas. Britain wants the trade agreement to cover goods and services and exclude almost all tariffs.

Ukraine presses Iran over downed jet's black boxes

BLOOMBERG — KIEV

Ukraine is pressing Iran to send the so-called black box recorders from the Boeing Co. plane that crashed after taking off from Tehran last month, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko said.

“The black box and coop-eration with Tehran was the very difficult issue from the beginning and we will try to keep the message” focused on recovering the data, Prystaiko told the Foreign Press Associ-ation in Rome yesterday.

Iran is under international pressure to provide more information on the circum-stances that led to the shooting down of Ukrainian Interna-tional Flight 752. The flight-data and cockpit voice recorders may provide clues to what happened when the 3-year-old Boeing 737-800 abruptly plunged to the ground two minutes after takeoff from Tehran, killing all 176 aboard. It occurred days after the killing by the US of Iran’s top general, Qassem Soleimani.

Iran has “no plans for now” to send the black box from the plane to Ukraine or any other country, the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency reported on January 19.

Prystaiko said that now “we have to plan in the longer run how to get the black boxes and how to get the investi-gation going; we are coordi-nating with five nations.”

The issue is not “because some soldier was trigger-happy and over reacted, we want to know the chain of command, who gave the order, to be brought to justice,” Prys-taiko said.

UK coronavirus cases double to eight, government declares ‘imminent threat’REUTERS — LONDON

Britain said yesterday that the number of confirmed corona-virus cases had doubled to eight as the government declared the virus a serious and imminent threat, giving it additional powers to isolate those suspected of being infected.

Alarm over the coronavirus that emerged in Wuhan, China, in December is driven by its rapid spread and the fact that infectious disease experts cannot yet know how deadly or contagious it is.

It has killed more than 900 people, most of them in China, and has spread to at least 27 countries and territories. The two deaths outside mainland China were in Hong Kong and the Philippines.

The new cases in England were all known contacts of a previously confirmed British patient in France, and were identified by public health offi-cials working to trace possible cases.

“We now know the new cases announced today are all closely linked to one another,” Public Health England Medical Director Yvonne Doyle said in a statement. “Two of these new cases are healthcare workers.”

“As soon as they were iden-tified, we advised them to self-isolate in order to keep patient contact to a minimum. We are now working urgently to identify all patients and other healthcare workers who may have come into close contact, and at this stage we believe this to be a relatively small number.”

The BBC reported a doctors’ practice in the southern English city of Brighton had been tem-porarily closed after a staff member tested positive for coronavirus.

Health minister Matt Hancock declared the virus “a serious and imminent threat to public health” to give doctors more powers to isolate people.

“We are taking a belt and braces approach to all nec-essary precautions to ensure public safety,” he said. “Clinical advice has not changed about the risk to the public, which remains moderate.”

Arrowe Park Hospital, near Liverpool, in northern England, and Kents Hill Park, in Milton Keynes, some 50 miles north of London, have been designated as isolation facilities.

EU diplomat under fire again for ‘Greta syndrome’ remarkREUTERS — BRUSSELS

The European Commission had to apologise again for a comment by foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, who had questioned young people’s commitment to the fight against climate change, referring to it as “Greta syndrome”.

Speaking in Brussels on Wednesday, Borrell said he had doubts about young people’s genuine engagement to tackling climate change, and questioned whether they were ready to change their lifestyles to help compensate miners and others who will be most affected by measures to cut carbon emissions.

“It is fine to demonstrate for climate change as long as you are not asked to contribute to pay for it,” Borrell said, calling this attitude “Greta syndrome” in reference to 17-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg.

Under pressure, Borrell, a Spanish socialist, later apologised. “I want to apologise to anyone that may have felt offended by my inappropriate reference to the important youth movement fighting #climatechange,” he tweeted on Saturday.

But facing more criticism on social media and from jour-nalists, a commission spokeswoman was forced on Monday to repeat Borrell’s apologies, describing his remarks as “inappropriate”.

“We hope with that tweet ... the situation is clarified,” spokes-woman Dana Spinant told a news conference, adding that all commissioners supported young activists engaged to reducing the impact of climate change.

Yesterday, the BBC said that it will make a new documentary series with Thunberg, charting her life and exploring the science behind climate change.

EU's fast response to Albania quake raises supportAP — TIRANA

A fast response by the European Union to the earthquake in Albania that killed 51 people has increased the bloc’s popularity among the tiny Western Balkan country’s population, according to an EU official.

A survey published yes-terday on the Albanian public perception of the EU showed that support for Albania’s mem-bership in the bloc grew from 93% in 2018 to 97% last year.

“Apparently the EU’s fast

response to Albania’s earth-quake has had its impact on the people’s support to join (the bloc),” said Luigi Soreca, the EU’s delegation ambassador to Tirana.

The 6.3-magnitude earth-quake on November 26 also left 17,000 others homeless and caused $1.1bn in damages.

The first decision that was made by the new European Commission team that took its post in early December was a $14m grant to assist Albania’s quake efforts.

Brussels led the interna-tional efforts of around 780 res-cuers rushing to the country to help prevent more deaths, most of them coming from EU member states.

Albania and North Mace-donia are expecting that the EU will likely decide this spring in favor of launching full mem-bership negotiations following the adoption of a new method-ology, which apparently has pleased France, the main opponent of taking that step last October.

French academic jailed in Iran ‘weakened’ by hunger strikeAFP — PARIS

A French-Iranian academic jailed in Iran in a case that has raised tensions between Paris and Tehran is very weakened by a hunger strike that she began in late December and refuses to halt, a support group said yesterday.

Fariba Adelkhah, who was detained in June, has been on hunger strike since December 24 in Evin prison in Tehran as she awaits her trial.

“She is very weakened and is finding it hard to keep her balance,” the Paris-based

support group seeking her release said in a statement.

“Despite calls by us and pressure from the prison and judicial authorities, she has still not stopped her hunger strike.”

Fellow researcher Roland Marchal, who was detained at the same time as Adelkhah, is “distraught” and dealing with health problems that are being worsened by his incarceration, the group said.

Both were summoned for separate hearings on February 5 at the Revolutionary Court that is handling the case without their lawyers present.

The hearings were overseen by the hardline judge Abolqasem Salavati, who has presided over several contro-versial cases in recent years.

They are both charged with “colluding to commit acts against national security”. Initial espionage charges against Adelkhah have been dropped.

“They consider they are now facing a long judicial pro-cedure without end,” the support group said, adding that it appeared a trial should begin before Iran’s New Year holidays start on March 20.

Dual national Adelkhah, an

expert on Shia Islam, and East Africa expert Marchal, a French citizen, are both researchers with Sciences Po University in Paris.

Iran is holding numerous Western citizens in prison, adding to tensions between Tehran and the West following the unilateral rejection by the US of the 2015 deal on the Iranian nuclear programme.

Australian Kylie Moore-Gilbert of the University of Mel-bourne is serving a 10-year sen-tence on espionage charges and British-Iranian Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was jailed for

five years.According to rights groups

outside Iran, at least 11 foreign or dual nationals are currently being held in Iranian prisons following arrest by the Revolu-tionary Guards or intelligence ministry.

Also jailed and serving a 10-year sentence is Iranian American businessman Siamak Namazi, who has been held since 2015. His elderly father Mohammad Bagher Namazi, who was arrested after visiting his son, is on a restricted medical leave and cannot leave Iran.

A worker in protective clothing cleaning the floor of the pharmacy following reports a member of staff was infected with the 2019-nCoV strain of the novel coronavirus, in Brighton, southern England, yesterday.

Seven found guilty of plotting attacks in RussiaAP — MOSCOW

A Russian military court convicted seven members of a left-wing youth group of terrorism charges yesterday and sentenced them to prison terms ranging from six to 18 years, in a case that human rights groups called fabricated.

A three-judge panel of the court in Penza in western Russia found the members of the group Set (Network) guilty of membership in a terrorist organisation and the illegal trafficking of weapons.

Defence lawyers said they

would appeal the verdict.Some of the defendants ini-

tially pleaded guilty to some charges but later said they had given false confessions under torture by electric shock.

Russian investigators had initially accused the group members of preparing to carry out attacks during Russia’s March 2018 presidential election and when Russia hosted the World Cup soccer championship later that year, but they failed to document those early claims during the trial.

The prosecution charged

that they illegally bought weapons and explosives and conducted training drills as part of a plot to overthrow the government.

Human rights activists and Russian opposition members have accused the Federal Security Service (FSB), the main KGB successor agency, of fab-ricating the case.

Alexei Navalny, Russia’s leading opposition figure, denounced the court’s verdict as “horrible” and said “the tes-timony about a fictitious ter-rorist organisation has been extracted under torture.”

Boris Johnson should be put on notice that we have options and we are not afraid to push forward,” Joanna Cherry wrote on Twitter.

Venice carnivalA gondolier floats as The ‘Pantegana’ (Big Rat) sails on the Grand Canal with other decorated boats for the traditional regatta which officially opens the Carnival in Venice, yesterday. The Venice carnival takes place until February 25, 2020.

13TUESDAY 11 FEBRUARY 2020 AMERICAS

US indicts 4 PLA members for Equifax breachAFP — WASHINGTON

The US Justice Department has announced indictments of four members of China’s People’s Liberation Army for alleged involvement in the massive 2017 hack of the database of giant US credit rating agency Equifax.

The hackers are accused of stealing the sensitive personal information on some 145 million Americans, in one of the world’s largest ever data breaches, said Attorney General Bill Barr.

“This was a deliberate and sweeping intrusion into the private information of the American people,” he said.

The Justice Department indictment charged four members of the Chinese army’s 54th Research Institute — Wu Zhiyong, Wang Qian, Xu Ke and Liu Lei — with multiple counts of hacking, computer fraud, economic espionage and wire fraud.

Officials said it took well over a year to track them through the 34 servers in 20 countries they allegedly used to hide their tracks.

“This was an organized and remarkably brazen criminal heist of sensitive information

of nearly half of all Americans, as well as the hard work and intellectual property of an American company, by a unit of the Chinese military,” Barr said.

The hack stunned US offi-cials, and came in the wake of a similar intrusion on the US government’s civil service database at the Office of Per-sonnel Management (OPM), also blamed on the Chinese.

US officials believe the Chinese military has under-taken the hacks to amass a huge amount of data on Amer-icans for strictly intelligence purposes.

After the OPM hack there were deep worries that Beijing could use it to identify US spies working under the cover of non-intelligence jobs.

FBI Deputy Director David Bowdich said there was no evi-dence yet of the Equifax data having been used, for example to hijack a person’s bank account or credit card.

But he added: “If you get the personal identifying infor-mation of people, you can do a lot with that.” The indictment described a determined but patient effort to get into the computer systems of Atlanta-based Equifax.

Sanders, Buttigieg lead in New Hampshire ahead of primary

REUTERS NASHUA/MANCHESTER, US

Democratic presidential contenders Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders began the last full day of campaigning in New Hampshire yesterday hoping to build on their momentum after topping the field in the Iowa caucuses last week.

Buttigieg and Sanders face nine rivals in today’s New Hampshire nominating contest, including US Senator Amy Klobuchar who has boosted her support and pulled into third place in two polls.

The man they are all seeking to take on in the November election, Republican President Donald Trump, will try to command the national spotlight with a campaign rally of his own scheduled for Monday night in Manchester, the state’s largest city.

Sanders, 78, an impassioned progressive who represents neighboring Vermont in the US

Senate, has long led in opinion polls for the New Hampshire contest.

But Buttigieg, a 38-year-old moderate and military veteran who served two terms as mayor of South Bend, Indiana, has gained ground since the Iowa contest.

Deeply trailing in New Hampshire polls, former Vice President Joe Biden kicked off a rainy cold day by visiting with unionized school bus drivers at a depot in Nashua. One driver asked for a picture, saying “My grandmother is never going to believe me.”

Biden then had the driver call her grandmother, and he spoke to her. The candidate reminisced about driving school buses to earn extra money while a law student at Syracuse Uni-versity in the late 1960s.

He also won a late endorsement from New Hamp-shire state Senate President Donna Soucy, who said on Twitter, “Joe has the experience,

the tenacity and the empathy that we need in the White House.” A similar wave of late endorsements before Iowa’s vote didn’t save Biden from a third-place finish.

A pair of polls released late on Sunday and early yesterday showed Klobuchar of Minnesota pulling into third place behind

Sanders and Buttigieg following the party’s debate in the New England state on Friday.

“After that debate, some-thing switched,” Klobuchar told MSNBC in an interview yes-terday. “It just allowed the people of New Hampshire to see me in a different way.”

Klobuchar has questioned

whether Sanders — a self-described democratic socialist — can attract the centrist voters Democrats need to beat Trump, and questioned whether Butt-igieg has enough experience as a former mayor to counter the President.

“I’ve won statewide,” including rural and suburban

areas, she said, making an appeal for the large number of undecided and independent voters in the state and noting that Trump won narrow vic-tories in several key states in 2016.

A Boston Globe’s poll, con-ducted with Suffolk University and WBZ-TV, showed Sanders with 27%, Buttigieg with 19% and Klobuchar with 14% among 500 likely voters polled over the weekend. The survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

A separate poll by WHDH/Emerson College also showed Klobuchar pulling into third.

The Sanders campaign expects to draw a large crowd in Durham yesterday evening when progressive star US Rep-resentative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and rock band The Strokes join him for a rally.

Senator Elizabeth Warren sought to excite voters on Sunday with her detailed “a plan for that” playbook.

“This is not the moment for small ideas, this is not the moment to nibble around the edges of big problems, this is the moment to meet big problems head on with bigger solutions,” she told a crowd on Sunday.

Democratic presidential candidate and US Senator Elizabeth Warren takes the stage at a campaign town hall in Lebanon, New Hampshire, the US, on Sunday.

Buttigieg wins delayed Iowa countAFP — WASHINGTON

US Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg narrowly won the chaotic Iowa caucuses, collecting 14 delegates, ahead of Bernie Sanders with 12, according to the state party on Sunday.

The delayed results were marred by multiple technical issues, and the outcome has been subject to complaints and demands for a “recanvassing” check of the vote.

Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and Sanders, the leftist senator from Vermont, were separated by a razor-thin margin in the caucuses held on Monday.

“You can expect us to be asking the Iowa Democratic party for a recanvass of the discrepancies that we have identified and found for them,” Sanders campaign manager Faiz Shakir told CNN on Sunday.

“It’s been handled incom-petently from our per-spective.” The national Dem-ocratic party chairman has ordered a review of the results following the technological problems and as doubts were raised about the accuracy of the process.

US President Donald Trump's campaign flags are seen for sale in Manchester, New Hampshire, where the President was scheduled to hold an election campaign rally yesterday.

Trump lashes out at Jones, predicts GOP Senate victoryAP — WASHINGTON

US President Donald Trump is predicting a GOP Senate victory in Alabama following Democrat Doug Jones’ vote at the impeachment trial.

Trump in a Tweet on Sunday lashed out at Jones as a “lightweight” and called his vote to convict “partisan.” “So good to see that Republicans

will be winning the Great State of Alabama Senate Seat back,” Trump wrote.

Lizzie Grams, a spokes-woman for Jones’ campaign, said the senator declined to comment.

In a statement after his vote, Jones said he “reluctantly con-cluded” that the evidence was sufficient to convict Trump of both abuse of power and

obstruction of Congress. “Sen-ators are elected to make tough choices,” he said in the statement.

Jones faces reelection this fall in a heavily Republican state that Trump carried by 28 percentage points in 2016. In an upset, Jones narrowly won a special election for a vacant seat in 2017 against Republican nominee Roy Moore.

Winter attraction Tourists make their way through the frozen landscape at Ice Castles in North Woodstock, New Hampshire. The castles are created and maintained by ice artisans who start construction in September. The ice is lit at night by internal lights that put in a dazzling display of color and motion.

More than 100 US troops diagnosed with brain injuries from Iran attack: OfficialsREUTERS — WASHINGTON

The US military is preparing to report a more than 50 percent jump in the number of cases of traumatic brain injury stemming from Iran’s missile attack on a base in Iraq last month, US officials said yesterday.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of an announcement, said there were over 100 cases of TBI, up from the 64 previously reported last month.

The Pentagon declined to comment, but in the past had said to expect an increase in numbers in the weeks after the attack because symptoms can take time to manifest and troops can sometimes take

longer to report them. No US troops were killed or faced immediate bodily injury when Iran fired missiles at the Ain Al Asad base in Iraq in retaliation for the US killing of Revolu-tionary Guard General Qassem Soleimani in a drone strike at Baghdad airport on January 3.

Pentagon officials have repeatedly said there has been no effort to minimize or delay information on concussive injuries. But the disclosures fol-lowing Tehran’s attack has renewed questions over the US military’s policy regarding how it internally reports suspected brain injuries.

Since 2000, about 408,000 service members have been diagnosed with traumatic brain injury.

US to prioritize refugee cases delayed by Trump travel ban

AP — SEATTLE

President Donald Trump’s administration has agreed to speed up the cases of some former interpreters for the US military in Iraq and hundreds of other refugees whose efforts to move to the United States have been in limbo since he announced his travel bans three years ago.

The news was contained in a settlement filed in federal court in Seattle yesterday. It concerned more than 300 ref-ugees who were on the verge of being permitted to come to America in 2017 when their applications were halted as part of Trump’s efforts to restrict travel from several mostly Muslim nations.

Some of those affected are close relatives of refugees who are already in the US, while others are from 11 countries, including Egypt, Iran and Somalia, that Trump singled out, citing security reasons.

“The government tried to keep refugee families apart under the pretense of national security,” said Lisa Nowlin, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Wash-ington, which sued along with several other organizations.

Buttigieg and Sanders face nine rivals in New Hampshire nominating contest today, including US Senator Amy Klobuchar who has pulled into third place in two polls.

NY sues Trump administration over exclusion from traveller programsREUTERS — NEW YORK

New York state sued President Donald Trump’s administration yesterday to void a policy barring hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers from enrolling in federal programs that help travelers speed through airport security lines and borders, describing the ban as political

punishment. The administration adopted the policy last week in response to New York’s passage last year of a so-called Green Light law allowing illegal immi-grants to apply for driver’s licenses and limiting federal immigration authorities from accessing records from the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles.

State officials said the ban would undermine public safety and cause economic harm by slowing travel.

The lawsuit, filed in Man-hattan federal court, said the administration’s action violated the US Constitution’s guar-antees of equal protection and equal sovereignty among states and its prohibition on federal

coercion. It marked the latest front in political fighting between Democratic-controlled New York and Trump, a Repub-lican born and raised in the state.

A US Justice Department spokesman declined to comment. The Department of Homeland Security policy banned New Yorkers from

joining or renewing their par-ticipation in so-called Trusted Traveler programs. These include Global Entry as well as three other programs that allow faster travel between the United States, Canada and Mexico.

The state called the ban a “punitive measure intended to coerce New York into changing its policies.”

14 TUESDAY 11 FEBRUARY 2020AMERICAS

El Salvador Presidentbriefly occupies CongressREUTERS — SAN SALVADOR

President Nayib Bukele and a group of soldiers armed with automatic weapons briefly occupied El Salvador’s Congress on Sunday, stepping up a pressure campaign to force lawmakers to back a crime-fighting plan.

Watched by soldiers in full battle uniform, Bukele, 38, sat in the seat reserved for the pres-ident of Congress and cupped his hands together to pray, he said, for patience with law-makers, few of whom turned up at the special session.

“If those shameless people don’t approve the plan of terri-torial control, we’ll summon you here again (next) Sunday,” he told supporters in a fiery speech outside, as he left the building.

Lawmakers were due to meet yesterday to discuss the President’s proposals, Congress president Mario Ponce said, in

a possible s ign of de-escalation.

Critics warned of a looming constitutional crisis, however. Human Rights Watch, a U.S.-based group, called the event “an exhibition of brute force” and said the Organization of American States should urgently meet to discuss the situation.

Bukele won office last year after a savvy social media cam-paign feeding off popular dis-content with two parties that had ruled the Central American country since the end of a civil war.

Channeling that same frus-tration with traditional parties, he attacked Congress for foot-dragging over approval of a $109m multi-lateral loan he has

sought to equip police and sol-diers to fight crime.

His cabinet called Sunday’s special session after Bukele said on Friday that Salvadorans had a legal right to insurrection in such situations, calling for pro-tests and briefly removing law-makers’ security protection details.

The President’s move to pressure lawmakers was backed by defense minister René Merino Monroy and police director Mauricio Arriaza Chicas.

However, El Salvadoran think-tank FUSADES said there were no grounds for the exec-utive branch to call such a session, since Congress was functioning normally.

On Sunday, hundreds of Salvadorans responded to Bukele’s call to demonstrate, waving banners and blowing whistles outside Congress, as soldiers and police officers stood by to protect them, a witness said.

“We are here because of the insecurity we have in our

country, and the lawmakers do not want to recognize that,” said Adelma Campos, a 43-year-old housewife. “They do not want to work for the people who gave them their votes.” Although the murder rate in El Salvador has declined steeply since Bukele took office, authorities continue to battle gangs that control vast

territory in the Central American country.

In a statement, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights called on Sunday for “dialogue and full respect for democratic institutions to guar-antee the rule of law, including the independence of the branches of public power.”

A man walks over a partially flooded expressway after heavy rains in Sao Paulo, Brazil, yesterday. Heavy rains and floods in Brazil

Desperate Mexico region uses guns, children to fend off cartelsREUTERS RINCON DE CHAUTLA, MEXICO

When the 56-year-old mother-in-law of David Sanchez Luna was tortured and killed after venturing out of her small Mexican community encircled by drug cartels, he let his seven- and ten-year-old daughters receive military-style weapons training.

Unable to send their children to school and too afraid to step out of their enclave of 16 mountain villages in the vio-lence-plagued southwestern Guerrero state, residents say they have been left with little choice.

“They do this to prepare themselves to defend the family, their siblings and defend the village,” said Sanchez Luna, a corn farmer in a rugged region which five years ago formed a self-defense “community police” militia to protect itself.

The move by the villagers to offer arms training to school-age children shocked the nation and made global headlines last month after local media broadcast images of children as young as 6-years-old toting guns and showing off military manoeuvres.

While elders in the mainly

indigenous community near the city of Chilapa privately concede young kids would not be used to fight cartel gunmen, they say their gambit to get the help of far-away officials in Mexico City is borne of desperation.

Ten musicians from the area were ambushed and killed last month by suspected Los Ardillos cartel members after stepping out of the territory guarded by their self-defense militia, known as CRAC-PF. Their bodies were burnt, officials said.

The attack followed a spate of murders in recent year, including a beheading, that rattled the 6,500 residents whose lush land sits amid fertile poppy-growing farmland that feed Guerrero’s heroin trade and supply routes to the United States.

The grisly murders and siege-like conditions facing res-idents go to the heart of cartel power and state failure in modern Mexico, where runaway violence tears at soci-ety’s fabric.

“This is a public cry for help by a community that’s been cor-nered,” said Falko Ernst, an International Crisis Group (ICG) analyst. “They’ve been trying to get assistance by federal and

state government, unsuccess-fully, so they’re trying to escalate the language to try to negotiate and get help.”

President Manuel Andres Lopez Obrador said those who arm children “should be ashamed of themselves” and denounced the use of children

to grab attention. Lopez Obra-dor’s government has struggled to get a grip on gangs and vio-lence, with a record 34,582 murders last year.

Residents remain deeply suspicious of regional author-ities and the smattering of local policemen in their villages, who

they accuse of being the eyes and ears of the Los Ardillos.

Parents say their children are forced to stop formal edu-cation once they reach about 12 years of age, as the middle schools are in territory con-trolled by the cartel.

Abuner Martinez, 16, stopped attending school a year ago after his father was kid-napped outside CRAC-PF ter-ritory, tortured, and then beheaded.

“I got scared at that moment. I didn’t want to go to school,” said Martinez, who now wields a shotgun as he guards a checkpoint.

The Los Ardillos want to extort the farmers and force them to grow opium for the cartel, said Sanchez Luna’s brother, Bernardino, who founded the CRAC-PF.

“We find ourselves under siege,” he said.

CRAC-PF repelled a major attack by Los Ardillos in January 2019, but residents live in fear of the siren, a community alarm system, going off again.

Farmers tend their corn fields with shotguns slung on their backs, while armed CRAC-PF militiamen keep guard and patrol their territory round the clock.

Children walk in a single file, holding toy and real guns, as they demonstrate newly learnt skills from military-style weapons training, in Ayahualtempa, Mexico, on February 3, 2020.

Brazil: Evacuees from China begin quarantineAP — BRASILIA

Dozens of Brazilians repat-riated from Wuhan, China, epicenter of a new virus, landed on Sunday at an airbase in the Brazilian state of Goias, where they will spend the next 18 days in quarantine.

The operation, dubbed Return to Beloved Homeland Brazil, has brought back 34 Brazilians and their foreign parents to an airbase some 150km from the capital city of Brasilia.

The Brazilian students and families could be seen leaving the aircraft wearing masks that covered their mouths and noses, some waving small Bra-zilian flags at TV cameras.

They were then trans-ferred to buses that took them to transit hotels, equipped with Internet, phones and leisure areas.

The 11 crew members and seven health professionals dis-patched in each of the two air-craft will also be subject to observation for an undeter-mined time period.

Before landing in Goias at about 6am local time, the air-craft stopped in Warsaw, Poland, where six Polish res-idents repatriated along with the Brazilians were transferred to local authorities.

Brazilian newspaper Folha de S. Paulo reported on Feb-ruary 7 that Brazil had received similar requests from South American countries, including Bolivia, Costa Rica, Argentina, and Colombia.

The daily said that Brazil’s decision to only take on Polish individuals had irritated some diplomats, who believed the move to be “ideological”.

Brazil’s ministry of foreign affairs denied the allegations and said it had been “impos-sible to attend demands to transport more than 80 pas-sengers from different nationalities.”

Armed soldiers stand inside the Legislative Assembly during a protest outside the Legislative Assembly to make pressure on deputies to approve a loan to invest in security, in San Salvador, on Sunday.

President Nayib Bukele says Congress is dragging its feet over approval of a $109m multi-lateral loan he has sought to equip police and soldiers to fight crime.

Brazil's national security force to fight deforestationREUTERS — BRASILIA

Brazil yesterday authorized its national public security force to support efforts to fight defor-estation in the Amazon, amid worries that 2020 could see another surge in destruction of the world’s largest rainforest.

Justice Minister Sergio Moro approved the security force, composed of police with special military-style training, to support operations carried out by environmental agency Ibama in Para state through the end of the year, according to the official government gazette.

P a r a i s B r a z i l ’ s

second-largest rainforest state and sits along the so-called arc of deforestation that encircles the Amazon and is rapidly pen-etrating deeper into the forest.

The announcement comes as scientists, environmental enforcement agents and official statistics point toward another potential spike in deforestation this year, after soaring to an 11-year high in 2019.

Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon doubled in January compared with the same month a year ago, data from space research agency INPE showed on Friday.

Ibama environmental

enforcement agents said last week that usually deforestation falls to a minimum during the current rainy season, from roughly October to April, but this year they are seeing illegal loggers and land speculators continuing to act unusually aggressive.

Ibama is severely under-staffed and underfunded, with agents saying this means they cannot contain deforestation in such a vast area as the Amazon.

Agents also complained of a lack of police support last year.

The Amazon absorbs vast amounts of carbon dioxide

and scientists say its pro-tection is vital to curbing climate change.

The surge in deforestation and fires in the Amazon last year provoked international condemnation of the right-wing government of President Jair Bolsonaro who has called for protected areas of the Amazon to be developed.

Environmentalists say that Bolsonaro’s pro-development rhetoric is encouraging illegal clearances of land.

Bolsonaro says he is being unfairly demonized and that Brazil remains a model for conservation.

Bolivia’s Morales travels to Cuba for medical treatmentAFP — BUENOS AIRES

Former Bolivia leader Evo Morales traveled to Cuba from Buenos Aires yesterday for medical treatment, Argentina’s President Alberto Fernandez said. “I believe he needs treatment and had to travel. He spoke to me a few days ago,” Fernandez told Radio Conti-nental yesterday.

Morales has been living in exile in Argentina after resigning as Bolivia’s president in November and fleeing fol-lowing three weeks of protests against his controversial re-election in a poll the Organi-zation of American States said was rigged. He first sought asylum in Mexico and then settled a month later in

Argentina.“As a refugee he isn’t barred

from going to Cuba. He has rights and can exercise them,” said Fernandez.

Morales is standing as a Senate candidate in Bolivia’s May 3 general election but faces arrest if he returns.

The interim government of President Jeanine Anez accuses him of sedition and terrorism over an audio recording in which he allegedly urges sup-porters to lay siege to major cities including La Paz.

Since resigning under pressure from the Bolivian mil-itary, Morales has spent his time among left-wing allies in Mexico, Cuba and Argentina.

He is barred from standing for president in May’s election.

Bribery trial beginsagainst Ecuador’sformer presidentRafael CorreaAP — QUITO, ECUADOR

Former Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa and 20 other high-ranking politicians and business leaders went on trial yesterday, with prosecutors accusing them of orchestrating a multimillion-dollar bribery operation.

Chief Prosecutor Diana Salazar opened the proceeding at the National Court of Justice, describing a scheme in which Correa’s PAIS Alliance political party took cash in exchange for lucrative public works contracts.

“A criminal structure com-prised of various public offi-cials with strategic roles was created,” she said. “Those roles facilitated accepting money from businessmen or their representatives in exchange for infrastructure works.”

The case could have wide implications for Correa, who held the presidency between 2007 to 2017 and won the loyalty of millions of poor Ecuadoreans with generous health and social programs. He is currently in self-imposed exile in Belgium and rejects the charges against him.

“This is all a big farce,” he said in a video posted last month on Twitter. The former president still harbors political aspirations, though he cannot run again for president, and his role in any future election could be hindered by the outcome of the trial.

15TUESDAY 11 FEBRUARY 2020 HOME

CROSSWORD MALL ROYAL PLAZA

QU pharmacy students explore Qatar’s pharmaceutical industry through Qatar Pharma

THE PENINSULA — DOHA

As part of its aim to integrate science and practice, Qatar University’s (QU) College of Pharmacy (CPH) organised a visit for its pharmacy students to visit Qatar Pharma, the first pharma-ceutical manufacturer in Qatar. The visit also comes as part of ongoing efforts to strengthen ties between industry and academia.

The visit to Qatar Pharma was organised within the scope of the Pharmaceutics course, which is a science-led subject for the application of scientific knowledge to design medicines that improve the quality of peo-ple’s lives.

These visits allow students to learn how the industry applies science to create a wide range of essential medicines. It also strengthens their capability to meet the challenges and demands of practising in the community, hospital and indus-trial settings.

Dr. Ahmed Al Sulaiti, Chairman of Qatar Pharma, warmly welcomed the student delegation supervised by Prof Katerina Gorachinova, Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences at CPH, and encouraged them to pursue careers in this highly pro-ductive and innovative sector of the economy.

Qatar Pharma is the leading sterile dosage forms manufac-turer in Qatar committed to pro-viding local and international markets with safe and effective small and large volume parenteral solutions, eye drops, and haemodialysis solutions. They also manufacture topical dosage forms like creams, lotions, and solutions and their future mission involves science-based development of affordable, highly effective, safe and high-quality solid dosage forms.

During the visit, Dr. Halim Jaffer, General Manager at Qatar Pharma and his team showed the students the cleanroom facilities and explained the terminal ster-ilisation and aseptic processing in sterile products manufac-turing. The students were then shown the quality control labo-ratory, to view the finished product quality control tests.

CPH Dean Dr. Mohammad Diab commented on the visit saying: “One of the main goals of

the college is to integrate knowledge with practical expe-riences to enhance students’ development and career path. The role of pharmacists in Qatar, the Middle East and the world has grown from simply dis-pensing medications to becoming valued providers of health care services.”

He added: “Exploring Qatar’s pharmaceutical industry through Qatar Pharma is a means to allow the integration of knowledge and practice thus engaging students and making their experiences more comprehensible and knowledge related. This lies under the main objective of the MoU between Qatar University and Qatar Pharma in developing and carrying out collaborative activities.”

Commenting on the fruitful visit, Prof Katerina Gorachinova said: “In our contemporary society, the role of the phar-macist is evolving very fast. Only innovative teaching methods,

which integrate theory with practice, are productive. Through the visit, students had the oppor-tunity to view the application of parts of the Pharmaceutics II cur-riculum in an industrial setting. They observed the implemen-tation of sterile compounding and manufacturing standards that support the best care of patients. We hope for many more educational trips to Qatar Pharma in the future.”

Second-year Pharmacy student Laila Shafei said: “Qatar Pharma has shown us the journey of each drug from being a chemical substance to a proper medicine on the shelf in the market, and what happens behind the scenes for all these medications to be valid for patients’ use.”

Another student, Halima Saadia said: “During the visit to Qatar Pharma, we realised how critical the role of a pharmacist is in drug production. We also got more information and insight on marketing and various job opportunities.”

Pharmacy student Nebras Galal said: “The Qatar Pharma visit allowed us to observe the application of pharmaceutics concepts from our lectures in real-time systems and gave us additional insights into IV med-ication safety.”

Qatar University’s College of Pharmacy students pose for a group photo during their visit to Qatar Pharma.

The visit to Qatar Pharma was organised within the scope of the Pharmaceutics course, which is a science-led subject for the application of scientific knowledge to design medicines that improve the quality of people’s lives.

Vaanam Kottattum ( transl. Let it rain) is a 2020 Indian Tamil language film co-written and directed by Dhana Sekaran of Padaiveeran fame. The film stars Vikram Prabhu, Aishwarya Rajesh and Madonna Sebastian in the lead roles.

VAANAM KOTTATTUM

Anveshanam (2D/Malayalam) 2:30 & 6:15pmThe Room (2D/Drama) 5:00pm; Birds Of Prey (2D/Action) 7:15 & 9:30pm; Malang (2D/Hindi) 9;00 & 11:30pm; Latte And The Magic Waterstone (2D/Ani-mation) 2:00 & 3:45pm; Frozen II (2D/Comedy) 5:30pm; Vaanam Kottatum (2D/Tamil) 7:15pmJaanu (2D/Telugu) 11:30pmTerra Willy: Unknown Planet (2D/Animation) 2:00pmAnjaam Pathira (2D/Malayalam) 3:45pm; Varane Avashyamund (2D/Malayalam) 8:45 & 11:30pm

Birds Of Prey (2D/Action) 11:30am, 2:00, 4:30, 7:00, 9:30 & 12:00 midnightVarane Avashyamund (2D/Malayalam) 11:45am, 2:45 & 8:30pm; Jaanu (2D/Telugu) 11:00amAnveshanam (2D/Malayalam) 5:45 & 11:30pmMalang (2D/Hindi) 2:00 & 8:00pmVaanam Kottatum (2D/Tamil) 5:00pm

LANDMARK

AL KHOR

Anjaam Pathira (2D/Malayalam) 3:15pm Shylock (2D/Malayalam) 8;30pm Anveshanam (2D/Malayalam) 12:30, 3:00, 5:30, 8;00, 10;30pm & 1:30amVarane Avashyamund (2D/Malayalam) 12:30, 3:15, 6:00, 8:45, 11:30pm & 2:15amMalang (2D/Hindi) 1:00, 6:00 & 11:00pmJaanu (2D/Telugu) 12:30pmVaanam Kottatum (2D/Tamil) 6:00pm

ASIAN TOWN

ROXY

FLIK Mirqab Mall

Bad Boys For Life (2D/Action) 11:20am, 1:45, 2:55, 4:10, 6:35, 7:10, 8:35, 9:00 & 11:30pmBirds Of Prey (2D/Action) 10:30am, 11:10am, 11:40am, 12:40, 1:20, 1:50, 2:50, 3:35, 4:00, 5:00, 6:10, 7:10, 7:35, 8:20, 9:20, 9:45, 10:30, 11:30pm, 12:00 midnightDolittle (2D/Comedy) 11:10am, 2:30, 1:40, 3:05 & 5:30pmLatte And The Magic Waterstone (2D/Animation) 10:00am, 1:10 & 2:30pmMalang (2D/Hindi) 7:20, 9:35 & 0:20amSpies in Disguise (2D/Animation) 10:30amTerra Willy: Unknown Planet (2D/Animation) 10:50am, 11:50am, 3:40 & 5:20pmThe Room (2D/Drama) 11:00pmThief Of Baghdad (2D/Arabic) 4:20, 5:50, 7:55, 10:00pm & 0:05amThe Gentlemen 12:40, 5:05 & 6:20pmVarane Avashyamund (2D/Malayalam) 10:10pm

Anveshanam (2D/Malayalam) 11:00am, 1:50, 4:45 & 9:10pm; Bad Boys For Life (2D/Action) 11:00am, 1:00, 5:40, 6:00 & 10:30pm; Birds Of Prey (2D/Action) 11:00am, 1:10, 3:20, 3:30, 3:40, 5:50, 6:00, 8:10 & 8:20pm; Dolittle (2D/Comedy) 10:30, 11:00, 12:30, 1:10, 2:20, 3:20 & 5:30pm; Jaanu (2D/Telugu) 6:10, 10;30 & 11:45pm; Latte And The Magic Waterstone (2D/Ani-mation) 12:30, 4:20, 4:30, 6:20 & 6:30pmVarane Avashyamund (2D/Malayalam) 10:10pmMalang (2D/Hindi) 8:10, 8;20 & 11:00pmVaanam Kottatum (2D/Tamil) 1:00, 4:00, 7:00, 7:40, 8:20,8:30 10:00, 10:40, 11:20 & 11:30pm

Anveshanam (2D/Malayalam) 2:30pmBad Boys For Life (2D/Action) 4:30pm,Varane Avashyamund (2D/Malayalam) 7:00 & 11:30pmBirds Of Prey (2D/Action) 9:30pmVaanam Kottatum (2D/Tamil) 11:30pmLatte And The Magic Waterstone (2D/Animation) 2:00 & 5:15pmTerra Willy: Unknown Planet (2D/Animation) 3:30pmThe Room (2D/Drama) 7:00pmMalang (2D/Hindi) 9:00pm

Anveshanam (2D/Malayalam) 2:30 & 6:45pmThe Room (2D/Drama) 5:00pmMalang (2D/Hindi) 7:00pmBirds Of Prey (2D/Action) 7:15 & 9:30pmLatte And The Magic Waterstone (2D/Animation) 2:00 & 5:30pmTerra Willy: Unknown Planet (2D/Animation) 3:45pmVaanam Kottatum (2D/Tamil) 9:15pmJaanu (2D/Telugu) 11:30pmAnjaam Pathira (2D/Malayalam) 2:30pmFrozen II (2D/Comedy) 5:00pmVarane Avashyamund (2D/Malayalam) 8:45 & 11:30pm

16 TUESDAY 11 FEBRUARY 2020MORNING BREAK

Parasite makes Oscars history with stunning best picture win

AFP — HOLLYWOOD, UNITED STATES

South Korean black comedy “Parasite” made movie history at the Oscars yesterday, becoming the first non-English-language film to win the best picture award — Hollywood’s biggest prize of all.

A genre-defying thriller about a poor family infiltrating a wealthy household, “Parasite” won four awards, stunning the pundits who believed the Academy would never crown a subtitled Asian movie.

“It’s such a great honour. I feel like I’ll wake up to find it’s all a dream. It all feels very surreal,” a jubilant Bong Joon-ho, who also won best director honours, told journalists backstage, calling the night “crazy.”

“Parasite” also won the Oscar for best international feature, and became the first Asian film to scoop best original screenplay.

“I thought I was done for the day and ready to relax,” Bong had said earlier after his best director win, promising to “drink until next morning.”

Bong also paid tribute on stage to his childhood hero and fellow nominee Martin Scorsese, drawing a standing ovation for the veteran director of “The Irishman”—which went home empty-handed.

But a bigger shock was in store as the movie beat frontrunner “1917” to win best picture, the night’s final prize.

“It feels like a very opportune moment in history is happening right now,” producer Kwak Sin-ae told an audience of Tinseltown A-listers, who cheered the film’s wins throughout the night at the Dolby Theatre.

Bong predicted that “naturally we will come to a day” when “a foreign lan-guage film winning this won’t be much of an issue.”

The pre-Oscars favourite “1917,” Sam Mendes’s innovative and personal World War I movie about two soldiers crossing no-man’s-land, had to settle for best cin-ematography, visual effects and sound mixing prizes.

The movie — filmed to appear like one continuous shot — had swept up tro-phies at several other galas in the build-up to Sunday.

Joaquin Phoenix won his first Oscar for his turn in supervillain origin story “Joker,” the film that started the night with the most nominations.

In an emotionally charged speech, the actor railed against injustice and “an egocentric worldview” that leads to envi-ronmental destruction, before paying tribute to his actor brother River, who died of a drug overdose in 1993.

Renee Zellweger sealed a remarkable comeback by winning best actress for “Judy,” dedicating the award to the Hol-lywood screen legend she portrayed.

“Judy Garland did not receive this honor in her time. I am certain that this

moment is an extension of the cele-bration of her legacy,” she said in accepting her second Oscar.

Pitt, who claimed his first acting Academy Award for his supporting turn in Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood,” was one of several winners to strike a political note.

“They told me I only have 45 seconds up here, which is 45 seconds more than the Senate gave John Bolton this week,” he said, referring to President Donald Trump’s recent impeachment trial.

“American Factory” — the first film from Barack and Michelle Obama’s pro-duction house, about a Rust Belt factory reopened by a Chinese billionaire — won best documentary.

Best adapted screenplay went to Nazi satire “Jojo Rabbit,” about a young boy corrupted by fascism.

Taika Waititi, who is of Maori origin, said he hoped the win would inspire “all the indigenous kids in the world who want to do art and dance and write stories.”

Laura Dern won best supporting actress for her turn as a feisty divorce lawyer in “Marriage Story.”

The event’s luxury and glamour con-trasted with the grief in Los Angeles over the recent deaths of Golden Age film legend Kirk Douglas and Oscar-winning basketball star Kobe Bryant.

Record Grammy-winning singer Billie Eilish sang a moving version of

“Yesterday” to accompany the “in memoriam” montage for those Hol-lywood lost this year, which opened with Bryant and closed with Douglas.

Music was a prominent theme throughout the night, which began with a medley addressing a swirling row over the lack of minorities and female directors on the star-studded nominee list.

“We celebrate all the women who directed phenomenal films and I’m so proud to stand here as a black, queer artist,” singer Janelle Monae said.

Elton John won for best original song from “Rocketman,” a film about his life.

Rapper Eminem, who won an Oscar in 2003, made a surprise appearance on stage to perform his winning song “Lose Yourself” -- which was heavily bleeped out by censors.

Icelandic composer Hildur Gudna-dottir won best original score for her haunting music for “Joker.”

“To the girls, to the women, to the mothers, to the daughters, who hear the music bubbling within, please speak up,” she said. “We need to hear your voices.”

No female directors were nominated this year — a theme referred to by several celebrities.

Natalie Portman, a best actress Oscar winner in 2011 for “Black Swan,” literally wore her feelings — she had their names stitched into the Dior cape she wore to the gala.

AFP — HOLLYWOOD, US

The Barack and Michelle Obama-produced film “American Factory” snagged an Oscar for best docu-mentary — a win for Netflix, which backed the story of a manufacturing plant in the US Midwest reopened by a Chinese billionaire.

The film charts a Rust Belt community’s journey from optimism at the giant plant’s reopening, which brought back vital jobs, towards creeping anger and disillusionment, as the Chinese management imposed strict, exhausting demands on workers —and sacked those who did not comply.

“Our film is from Ohio and China,” director Julia Reichert said. “But it really could be from anywhere that people put on a uniform, punch a clock, trying to make their families have a better life.” “Working people have it harder and harder these days, and we believe that things will get better when workers of the world unite,” she said in accepting her statuette.

Co-directed by Reichert and Steven Bognar, the film is an all-access look at how both American and Chinese workers, from blue-collar to management, had their lives transformed by powerful global economic forces.

The story was moving enough to catch notice from none other than the Obamas.

The former first couple acquired “American Factory” early last year at the Sun-dance Film Festival, where it had won the directing award.

It was released on Netflix in August 2019 as the first offering from the former first couple’s Higher Ground Pro-ductions company.

The film’s co-producer and the factory’s chairman were unable to leave China for the ceremony, due to White House restrictions on travel over the coronavirus panic. “That inconvenience pales when compared to people losing their lives, suf-fering because of this virus,” co-director Bognar said backstage. The Obamas con-gratulated Reichert and Bognar for their win Sunday, with the former president calling the film “a complex, moving story about the very human consequences of wrenching economic change.”

“Glad to see two talented and downright good people take home the Oscar for Higher Ground’s first release,” he tweeted. The former first lady said she was “glad to see their heart and honesty rec-ognized—because the best stories are rarely tidy or perfect.”

Obamas’ first film wins best documentary Oscar

South Korean director Bong Joon-ho with the award for Best International Feature Film “Parasite” during the 92nd Oscars at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, California, yesterday.

FROM LEFT: Best Actor winner Joaquin Phoenix, Best Actress Renee Zellweger and Best Supporting Actor Brad Pitt pose with their Oscars in the photo room during the 92nd Academy Awards in Hollywood, California, yesterday.

Laura Dern displays her Oscar for best actress in a supporting role.

Taika Waititi holds his Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for “Jojo Rabbit”.

FROM LEFT: US producers Mark Nielsen, Josh Cooley and Jonas Rivera, winners of the Best Animated Feature Film “Toy Story 4”.

Snow problem for Japan’s ice sculpture festivalAFP — SAPPORO, JAPAN

Every year, tens of thousands of tourists flock to the snow festival in the northern Japanese city of Sapporo, attracted by some 200 large, but intricate ice sculptures. But this year, there’s a problem: no snow.

With high temperatures that festival-goers put down to climate change, organisers were forced to truck in powder from distant towns for their signature sculptures in an unheard-of ice crisis.

“This lack of snow is unprecedented,” said Yumato Sato, an official in charge of organising the snow festival, which normally uses 30,000 tonnes of the stuff for sculptures

ranging from anime characters to famous racehorses.

“We had to bring in snow from places we had never reached out to before” such as Niseko, a town about 60km away from Sapporo famous for its skiing, he said.

Adding to the problem was the need for pristine snow, perfect for sculpting. “The snow needs to be free of dirt, oth-erwise the sculptures can break up,” he said. “We barely managed to scrape together enough snow.”

Record low snowfall in Japan this year has also forced many ski resorts to shut their pistes. According to Weath-ernews, one quarter of the 400

resorts surveyed had been unable to operate.

There has been a knock-on effect on one of the snow festi-val’s main attractions—a 100-metre-long, 10-metre-high slide — that had to be reduced in size.

Snowfall in Sapporo has been less than half the annual average, according to the Japan Meterological Agency’s local observatory. High temperatures melted the snow in mid-December and the mercury is expected to stay above average.

This posed a major chal-lenge for the 125 local Self-Defense Forces troops who painstakingly construct the sculptures each year that can

be as high as 15 metres, according to commanding officer Colonel Minoru Suzuki.

“Due to record warm weather this year, we didn’t have much snow and the snow

contained more water which made the statues melt easily,” Suzuki said.

People visiting the Sapporo Snow Festival in Sapporo, Japan.

FAJR SUNRISE 04.54 am 06.12 am

W A L R U WA I S : 14o↗ 18o W A L K H O R : 13o↗ 18o W D U K H A N : 12o↗ 18o W WA K R A H : 12o↗ 23o W M E S A I E E D 12o↗ 23o W A B U S A M R A 17o↗ 19o

PRAYER TIMINGS WEATHER TODAY

HIGH TIDE 06:05 – 17:21 LOW TIDE 00:16 – 13:43

Relatively cold daytime and scattered clouds with a chance of light rain at first and slight dust to blowing dust at times, cold by night.

Minimum Maximum13oC 21oC

ZUHRMAGHRIB

11.48 am05.27 pm

ASR ISHA

03.01 pm06.57 pm