GULF TIMES

published in

QATAR

since 1978MONDAY Vol. XXXX No. 11419

January 6, 2020Jumada I 11, 1441 AH www. gulf-times.com 2 Riyals

BUSINESS | Page 1 SPORT | Page 8

QATAR | Phone calls

Amir holds talks withTurkey’s president

Talks with Turkish,French counterparts

QATAR | Reaction

Sabotage of Czechmosque condemned

His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani held yesterday evening a telephone conversation with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. During the phone call, they reviewed the developments of events in the region, especially in Syria and Libya, besides what happened recently in Iraq, and discussed ways to maintain the security and stability of the region.The conversation also dealt with the strategic bilateral relations and prospects for developing them.

HE the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohamed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani held yesterday phone calls with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and French Minister of Europe and Foreign Affairs Jean-Yves Le Drian. During the two conversations, they reviewed the latest regional developments, especially the recent developments in Iraq, and ways to solve the contentious issues in the region.

In brief

FM, Pompeo discussregional situation ...HE the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Aff airs Sheikh Mohamed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani held yesterday a telephone conversation with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. During the phone call, they reviewed the recent regional developments, especially the latest situation in Iraq, and ways to solve controversial issues in the region.

Qatar has strongly condemned the sabotage and racist graff iti against Muslims at a mosque in Brno, the Czech Republic. In a statement yesterday, the Ministry of Foreign Aff airs stressed Qatar’s rejection of targeting places of worship and intimidating people.

Mall of Qatar expansion plans see 1,000 luxury residential units

Qatar in talks with ATP for new dates

Record 38.78mnpassengers useHIA in 2019

Hamad International Air-port (HIA) served a record 38,786,422 passengers in 2019,

the most since its start of operations in 2014, it was announced yesterday.

In addition to being HIA’s “most successful year yet”, 2019 also showed a year-on-year growth of 12.44% compared to passenger numbers in 2018, according to a statement.

Eight new passenger destinations were added to HIA’s global network in 2019: Davao, the Philippines; Ra-bat, Morocco; Izmir, Turkey; Gabor-one, Botswana; Langkawi, Malaysia; Mogadishu, Somalia; Malta; and Lis-bon, Portugal.

Three new cargo destinations were also added to HIA’s network - Istanbul, New York and Almaty.

Fifteen airlines operating at HIA increased their weekly fl ight frequen-cies, including Kuwait Airways, Salam Air, Philippine Airlines, Oman Air and Air India Express. HIA also welcomed two new airline partners, namely Air India and Tarco Aviation. This led to HIA handling a total of 232,917 aircraft movements in 2019, which was 5.57% more than the previous year.

Badr Mohamed al-Meer, chief op-erating offi cer at Hamad International Airport, said: “2019 has been a spec-tacular year for HIA, having broken our record for the most number of passengers ever served since com-mencing our operations. It was also an exciting year for the airport as the gateway to some of the world’s biggest sporting events, including the IAAF World Athletics Championships Doha 2019 and FIFA Club World Cup Qatar 2019, which were successfully hosted by Qatar.

“Looking ahead, we’re focused on increasing our operational capacity through our major airport expansion project, which is a vital part of the air-port’s rapid growth and the country’s preparations to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup and beyond.”

HIA announced its multi-phased airport expansion plan in 2019. Phase A of the expansion is set to comprise a central concourse linking concourses D and E, and will increase the airport’s

capacity to more than 53mn passengers annually by 2022.

Phase B, which will be completed af-ter 2022, will extend concourses D and E to further enhance the airport’s ca-pacity to more than 60mn passengers annually.

The expansion project will also fea-ture a 10,000sq m indoor tropical gar-den, a 268sq m water feature, 11,720sq m of landscaped retail and F&B space and 9,000sq m of world-class Al Mourjan lounge, the statement points out.

HIA stressed that it also intro-duced innovative solutions in 2019 to achieve operational excellence and enhanced passenger experience in the terminal.

The airport implemented advanced software solutions for passenger fore-casting and queue measurement, which provides real-time passenger traffi c forecasting as well as calculating waiting times and throughputs, which are visualised on a live dashboard, al-lowing the airport to keep waiting times in check. The software has ena-bled the operational staff to be proac-tive and stay agile in the terminal’s dy-namic environment.

Along with HIA’s self-check-in and self-bag-drop kiosks, which was in-troduced in the terminal to provide passengers with a faster and smoother check in process, HIA recently intro-duced 10 automated security gates at the pre-immigration area, so that passengers can scan their own board-ing cards and proceed to immigration, providing passengers with a “truly au-tonomous travel experience”.

HIA was voted as the ‘Best Airport in the Middle East’ for the third consecu-tive year in 2019 at the 16th Annual Global Traveler’s GT Tested Reader Survey Awards in Los Angeles, recog-nising it for its outstanding perform-ance in providing an exceptional expe-rience to travellers. It also received the ‘Best Passenger Experience Initiative’ silver award at the Future Travel Expe-rience Asia Awards 2019 in Singapore in November 2019 in recognition of the second phase of its Smart Airport Pro-gramme. To Page 16

Qatar’s gateway achieved 12.44% increase in passenger numbers in 2019 compared to previous year HIA handled a total of 232,917 aircraft movements in 2019, 5.57% more than in 2018

His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani held a telephone conversation with Iraqi President Dr Barham Salih. During the phone call, the two sides reviewed the developments in Iraq, particularly the recent events, and means for calming the situation in Iraq and sparing the region of further tension and escalation.

Amir, President Salihreview Iraq situation

The Public Works Authority (Ashghal) yesterday opened the second flyover at Umm Lekhba Interchange on Sabah Al Ahmad Corridor to provide free traff ic flow from Al Markhiya to Doha. The 537m-long bridge, with two lanes in one direction of Al Markhiya Street to 22 February Street, accommodates around 4,000 vehicle per hour. Page 16

Second flyover opens at Umm Lekhba

The Amir of Kuwait, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah, met in Kuwait City yesterday with HE Saad bin Sherida al-Kaabi, the Minister of State for Energy Aff airs and the President and CEO of Qatar Petroleum. Talks during the meeting covered various aspects of the brotherly relations between Kuwait and Qatar and co-operation in the energy field. The meeting was attended by the Kuwait’s Minister of Oil and Minister of Electricity and Water Dr Khaled Ali al-Fadhel, who is also the Chairman of Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC), and the delegation accompanying HE al-Kaabi. The meeting took place on the occasion of the signing of a long-term gas sale and purchase agreement between QP and KPC. Page 6

Amir of Kuwait meets al-Kaabi

Iraq asks foreign troops to leaveReuters/AFPBaghdad/Tehran

Iraq’s parliament called yesterday for US and other foreign military forces to leave amid a growing

backlash against the US killing of a top Iranian military commander that has heightened fears of a wider Mid-dle East confl ict.

In a war of words between Iran and the United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Washington would target any Iranian decision-makers it chose if there were further attacks on

US interests by Iranian forces or their proxies.

Qassem Soleimani was killed on Friday in a US drone strike on his convoy at Baghdad airport, an attack that took US-Iranian hostilities into uncharted waters and stoked concern about a major confl agration.

The Iraqi parliament passed a reso-lution calling for an end to all foreign troop presence. “The Iraqi govern-ment must work to end the presence of any foreign troops on Iraqi soil and prohibit them from using its land, air space or water for any reason,” it said.

There was no immediate comment

on the Iraqi move from the US State Department or Pentagon.

Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis was also killed in Friday’s strike.

Some 5,000 US troops remain in Iraq, most in an advisory role.

Earlier yesterday, Iran lambasted Donald Trump after the US president threatened to hit 52 Iranian sites hard if Tehran attacks Americans or US assets in retaliation for Soleimani’s death.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei promised on Friday that Iran would seek harsh revenge for So-leimani’s death. To Page 6

Kahramaa registration goes smartBy Shafeeq AlingalStaff Reporter

In a move aimed at enhancing cus-tomer service, the Qatar General Electricity and Water Corporation

(Kahramaa) yesterday launched the smart registration service.

The new facility helps subscribers automatically complete proceedings without submitting documents to get electricity and water connection. The initiative is part of Kahramaa’s eff orts to improve services and transform to a smart entity.

With smart registration, in case of shifting accommodation, the tenant will be registered with Kahramaa au-tomatically as soon as the contract is

registered with the Ministry of Munic-ipality and Environment (MME) and he need not submit a request to shift the connection to the new residence or pay the security fee. Connecting and integrating the systems with the MME and the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) allows Kahramaa to inquire about all the transactions. Kahramaa’s registra-tion needs title deed and contract to be documented and approved by the MoJ and the MME.

Kahramaa will send a notice to the tenant to create the application im-mediately after the rent contract is registered with the MME. The security deposit will be added to the fi rst bill. A notice will also be sent to the building owner to create a request for the new tenant based on the contract and to

register the tenant as a subscriber to Kahramaa.

The announcement was made dur-ing a press conference at Kahramaa’s headquarters in the presence of Engineer Nasser al-Khuzaie (Head, Continual Im-provement section, Planning and Qual-ity Department); Engineer Mohamed al-Badr (Head, Systems Development, Information Technology Department); Omar al-Yafi e (Assistant director, Infor-mation Systems Department, MME) and Khaled Mohamed Amin (Acting director, Information Systems, MoJ).

Al-Khuzaie said Kahramaa is proud of developing the new system that in-cludes automatic data querying from the authorities, creating requests, up-dating data and registering subscribers with the Corporation. To Page 4

Iranians gather around a vehicle carrying the coff ins of slain Major General Qassem Soleimani and others as they pay homage in the northeastern city of Mashhad yesterday.

2 Gulf TimesMonday, January 6, 2020

QATAR

Qatar voiced its strong condemnation and denunciation of the air strike which targeted a military college in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, leaving scores of students killed and injured.In a statement yesterday, the Ministry of Foreign Aff airs said that the airstrike may amount to a war crime and crimes against humanity.The statement called on the international community to take immediate action to protect the civilians and open an urgent investigation into the incident, paving the way for bringing the aggressors to international justice. The Ministry of Foreign Aff airs expressed the condolences of Qatar to the families of the victims and to the government and people of Libya, wishing the wounded a speedy recovery.

Qatar has voiced strong condemnation and denunciation of the blast which targeted a passenger bus in northwestern Burkina Faso, causing deaths and injuries.In a statement yesterday, the Ministry of Foreign Aff airs reiterated the firm position of Qatar on rejecting violence and terrorism, regardless of motives and reasons.

Qatar signed yesterday the Arab Customs Co-operation Agreement, at the headquarters of the General Secretariat of the League of Arab States. Qatar’s Permanent Representative to the Arab League, ambassador Ibrahim bin Abdulaziz al-Sahlawi, signed the agreement on behalf of Qatar. The agreement aims to combat customs crimes and violations in light of the close cooperation between customs departments in the Arab countries. - QNA

The Zakat Fund at the Ministry of Endowments and Islamic Aff airs provided aid worth QR15,866,574 during December 2019. It was disbursed to beneficiaries of families registered with the Fund, in addition to some beneficiaries eligible for emergency one-time aid. The aid included permanent assistance, which is provided monthly with a value of QR9,632,477, one-time aid with a value of QR2,457,690, as well as QR3,305,943 tuition fees and QR420,465 treatment fees along with QR50,000 for those in debt distress. The Zakat Fund is the government entity which collects Zakat and pays them to the beneficiaries who meet the Shariah conditions. - QNA

The Ministry of Municipality and Environment (MME) renewed its call to farm and camel owners to adhere to the decision that bans camel grazing, in order to preserve the natural environment and contribute to the eff orts that the ministry is making to enrich wildlife in Qatar. The ministry said that the patrols of Department of Protection and Wildlife at the Ministry of Municipality and Environment work around the clock to control violations, and to take all legal measures in this regard, noting that during December last year, 111 violations were registered, and all the necessary legal measures were taken to preserve the environment. - QNA

The Ministry of Education and Higher Education, represented by the Department of Teachers Affairs, yesterday announced that it has started to receive applications for professional licences for school heads, including principals and deputies who meet the requirements, in accordance with the Professional Licence Policy, through the registration link https://rukhsa.edu.gov.qa, starting today through January 12.This came in the context of the ministry’s continuous eff orts to develop educational cadres and upgrade the teaching and learning processes in Qatar, and out of the belief in the importance of obtaining

a professional licence as a guarantee of the quality of educational practices.Those wishing to apply for professional licence must pass the training programmes according to the category they belong to. This includes first-time applicants and those those who want to renew the licence. Registration opened at the beginning of the first semester of this year for all teachers and co-ordinators who meet the requirements for first-time applicants for a professional license, or those who hold an expired licence and have the desire to renew it in accordance with the approved terms and mechanisms. - QNA

Qatar condemnsTripoli air strike

Burkina Faso bus blast condemned

Qatar signs Arab customs pact

Zakat Fund gives aid worth over QR15mn in December last year

Ministry of municipality calls for abiding by camel grazing ban

Ministry starts receiving applications for school heads’ professional licence

QRCS sponsors 71 Palestinian physiciansQNADoha

Qatar Red Crescent Society (QRCS) is preparing to receive

10 Palestinian physicians in Qatar, under the Amiri Medical Scholarship Pro-gramme for the academic year 2020-2021. Conducted in co-operation with Ha-mad Medical Corporation (HMC) and Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS), the programme has lately closed online application.

The selected candidates from Gaza and the West Bank will come to Qatar to study a wide range of postgraduate medical spe-cialisations for 4-5 years, in order to qualify for cer-tifi cation by the Arab Board of Health Specialisations (ABHS).

Executive Director of Re-lief and International De-velopment at QRCS Dr Mo-hamed Salah Ibrahim said that supporting the health sector of Palestine is a top priority of QRCS’s foreign humanitarian operations. “It is part of our enormous eff orts to provide all forms of help for our Palestin-ian brothers and sisters,” he added.

The purpose of the pro-gramme, he explained, was to ensure high-level, com-prehensive health services that meet the needs of vul-nerable and underserved groups in Palestine, to build the capacity of local physi-cians and nurses, upgrade healthcare services, im-prove the medical education environment, and reduce foreign referrals and waiting

lists,” he added.“To that end, QRCS

adopts several mechanisms of providing health facilities with resources, enhancing the skills of medical pro-fessionals to ensure better quality services, address-ing inadequacies in medical services, and fi lling in the gaps in medical supplies at government and public hos-pitals,” said Dr Ibrahim.

Since its launch in 2003, the Amiri Medical Scholar-ship Programme has ben-efi ted 71 physicians in total, including 36 from Gaza and 35 from the West Bank. So far, 12 and 14 physicians have returned to Gaza and the West Bank, respectively. The remaining physicians are still pursuing their resi-dency training at HMC.

Among the many vi-tal medical specialisations covered by the programme are neurosurgery, anaesthe-sia, cardiology, neonatol-ogy, paediatric cardiology, ophthalmology, orthopae-dics, urology, emergency medicine, general surgery, cardiothoracic surgery, ra-diology, plastic surgery, psychiatrics, and internal medicine (gastroenterology - oncology, haematology - rheumatology).

As per the conditions of scholarship, the gradu-ates are required to return to work in Palestine’s gov-ernment hospitals, public health facilities, or univer-sities for at least double the duration of scholarship period. This is intended to benefi t as many patients as

possible, as well as to pass the acquired expertise to the other physicians who could not attend the programme.

The programme has been an extraordinary success in modernising the health sec-tor of Palestine. New major specialisations were intro-duced, such as cystoscopy. At the European Gaza Hos-pital, a new Department of Neurology was established, and existing services were developed, such as neo-natal intensive care units, radiology, and orthopaedic surgery. As a result of these achievements, the learning environment became much more advanced, and the mortality rates decreased signifi cantly, particularly at the divisions of neonatol-ogy.

Qatar Red Crescent Society is preparing to receive 10 Palestinian physicians in Qatar, under the Amiri Medical Scholarship Programme for the academic year 2020-2021.

Culture ministry to launch Doha

Publishing Fellowship ProgrammeQNADoha

The Ministry of Culture and Sports, represented by the QFPD, is set to launch the

fi rst edition of the Doha Pub-lishing Fellowship Programme (DPFP) on Sunday January 12, in co-operation with Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU) Press.

This year’s inaugural DPFP will host 42 Qatari, Arab and foreign publishers from 22 coun-tries around the world in a two-day forum boasting seminars from leading publishing indus-try experts, at the Doha Interna-tional Book Fair.

General Manager of the QFPD Ibrahim Abdulrahim al-Buhash-im said, in a press conference yesterday, that the DPFP is a spe-cialised professional programme that provides an opportunity for Qatari publishers to meet Arab and foreign counterparts. He pointed out that the programme aims at establishing professional relations between publishers and enhancing the concept of intellectual property in addi-tion to bringing publishers from around the world to trade rights for books and further promoting cultural exchange.

He added that the programme works to exchange publishing among the participants in a way that serves the publishing in-dustry in Qatar, which is still in its infancy and helps the Qatari writers to access other cultures, as publishing experts are hosted from countries that have a lot of experience in this fi eld such as Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and the Arab Maghreb countries, as well as the participation of publishers from Turkey, US, France, South Africa, Italy and Argentina.

For his part, Executive Di-

rector of HBKU Press Bachar Chebaro said: There is a part-nership between the Ministry of Culture and Sports and the to produce this programme. The QFPD and the HBKU Press have been mandated to follow this work.

The Doha Publishers Fellow-ship Programme will include an opening speech by HE the Min-ister of Culture and Sports Salah bin Ghanem bin Nasser al-Ali, and representative of the QFPD and the HBKU Press, in addition to representatives of Arab and foreign publishers.

The Doha Publishing Fellow-ship Programme provides pub-lishers with a sophisticated elec-tronic system that allows them to register their accounts, or-ganise meeting times with pub-lishers, exchange ideas, explore opportunities to acquire, and sell copyright. The programme will

also provide participants with the opportunity to attend semi-nars and partake in dialogues managed by leading specialists in the fi eld of publishing.

Seminars will off er experi-ences of copyright, and universal copyright market, and will make room for the eff orts made to de-velop this industry.

It is worth noting that the Qa-tari Forum for Publishing and Distributors was established last year by the Minister of Culture and Sports Decision No (51) of 2019, with the aim of raising the professional level of the publish-ing and distribution industry; promoting co-operation be-tween publishers and distribu-tors; distributing the produc-tion of Qatari authors locally, regionally and internationally; and participating in local and foreign publishing and distribu-tion exhibitions in co-operation

with the ministry and other competent authorities; as well as documenting and strengthen-ing the relationship between the forum and cultural and scientifi c bodies.

The forum also aims to de-velop the publishing and dis-tribution industry by setting up and participating in specialised professional courses, revitalising the cultural movement, co-ordi-nating eff orts and positions with Qatari associations, forums and cultural centres in regional and international forums in co-op-eration with the competent au-thorities in the state, and making a contribution to strengthening the legal framework to provide legal protection of rights In-tellectual property and related rights for Qatari authors, region-ally and internationally, in co-ordination with the competent authorities.

Off icials at the press conference yesterday.

QU adopts electronic system for new students’introductory meetings

QNADoha

Qatar University has adopted, for the fi rst time, an electronic

system for inductory meetings for new students in the spring semester 2020, which started yesterday and will continue until January 9 for all colleges.

Chairman of the Strategic Initiative Committee on the Electronic Induction Pro-gramme Dr

Nizam Hindi said that the online induction meeting aims to develop the educational process at Qatar University by facilitating time and eff ort for new students, and a seamless transfer of information via a link sent to their e-mail in-cludes videos containing in-

formation of interest to them in their university life.

He explained that the intro-ductory meetings focus on clar-ifying the university’s policies and laws, the most important information and instructions that enable them to enter and use the electronic portal to reg-ister the courses for the Spring 2020 semester, as well as getting to know the IT services available at Qatar University to manage their academic aff airs and other types of services and student support.

He pointed out that the stu-dent is being tested via an elec-tronic link to ensure that he is familiar with the introductory programme paragraphs, and that his success in it is a con-dition to allow him to register the academic subjects for the new academic semester.

QATAR3

Gulf Times Monday, January 6, 2020

QTM 2020 to strengthen travel and tourism sector

The staging of ‘Qatar In-ternational Exhibition for Travel & Tourism’

(QTM 2020) is poised to meet the unprecedented growth in tourism in Qatar and will pro-vide a platform to create busi-ness opportunities for industry professionals and buyers in the tourism and travel sectors.

Slated in November at the Doha Exhibition and Convention Centre (DECC) under the theme ‘Discover People, Place and Culture’, QTM 2020 will bring in key government and public sec-tor authorities, domestic and foreign tourism entities, and travel and tourism pro-fessionals, providing a plat-form for mutual relations to

enhance tourism resources and cultures.

Under the patronage of HE the Prime Minister and Interior Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani, the inaugural edition of QTM will strengthen Qatar’s travel and tourism sector, and will rein-force business and investment opportunities in tourism prod-ucts and services, according to a statement.

Having recognised tourism as one of the priority sectors fundamental to expanding Qa-tar’s economy and increasing private sector investment, the Qatar government has come up with various measure to boost tourism, including visa-free entry for citizens of more 80 countries free of charge, the statement said.

As per an announcement by the World Tourism Organisa-tion, “Qatar has now become the most open country in the Middle East and the eighth most open in the world,” in terms of visa facilitation.

Qatar is also one of the fast-est-growing tourist destina-tions among the major cities worldwide with massive growth expected in the next few years. As per the Qatar National Tour-ism Sector Strategy 2030, Qatar is targeting 5.6mn international tourist arrivals by 2023.

Investment in the tourism sector is expected to reach $4bn by 2028, with the share of the tourism sector in GDP to reach $36.57bn. The tourism and hos-pitality sector is also expected to grow, keeping with the FIFA guidelines to have 60,000 hotel rooms by 2022.

Abdel Aziz al-Kaabi, vice president, Nextfairs, said: “We are proud to hold this exhibi-tion under the patronage of the Prime Minister and Inte-rior Minister, and that reiter-ates the government support to the tourism sector as one of the pillars of Qatar National Vision 2030 to diversify the economy. Qatar Travel Mart 2020 will boost Qatar’s position on the international tourism

map and make a major tourist destination in the region.”

For businesses in the travel industry, as well as their cus-tomers, technology plays a vi-tal role. QTM 2020 will feature the latest in travel and tourism technology and hospitality au-tomation, with global travel industry experts showcas-ing innovative and up-to-date technology to the discerning customer. QTM 2020 will be in-troducing new technology pro-viders into the budding travel and tourism industry in Qatar, the statement said.

Another highlight of QTM 2020 is the ‘Hosted Buyer Pro-gramme’, where professional buyers and purchasers, which include top level, senior ex-ecutives, and decision makers from a variety of companies and industries, will attend the exhibition.

The programme gives ex-hibitors and attendees the opportunity to meet interna-tional purchasers from Asia, Europe, Russia, Far East, and

Latin America face-to-face in a highly-eff ective environment designed to save time and mon-ey, enabling new business and signing of new agreements.

In addition to the exhibition, QTM 2020 will feature a con-ference that will enable indus-try professionals to stay abreast

of the latest news and updates from various tourism sector. The exhibition will also em-brace the ‘Global Village’ that acts as a hub to connect dif-ferent parts of the world under one roof showcasing heritage and philosophies of diff erent countries.

Qatar International Exhibition for Travel & Tourism in November will provide a platform for mutual relations to enhance tourism resources and cultures

Abdel Aziz al-Kaabi, vice president, Nextfairs.

WCM-Q conference on muscular dystrophies

Medical experts from all over the world will meet at Qatar National Con-

vention Centre on January 11 to 13, for a Weill Cornell Medicine – Qatar (WCM-Q) conference, exploring precision medicine approaches to the treatment of congenital muscular dystrophies and neuromuscular disorders.

Nine distinguished interna-tional speakers from elite uni-versities and research institutes in France, Switzerland, the US and the UK will give talks pre-senting their experiences at the conference.

The conference is open to in-vitees only on January 11 and 12 but open to the general public on the fi nal day.

The event will focus in par-ticular on the potential for pre-cision and genomic treatment approaches to congenital mus-cular weakness in myopathies and dystrophies. It will also ad-dress the challenges facing im-plementation of such treatments and will outline ongoing interna-tional eff orts to overcome these challenges. The conference is sponsored by Qatar National Re-search Fund, a Qatar Foundation member.

Mohamed Chand Khan, who won 50 gold coins from Malabar Gold & Diamonds’ newly opened Al Nasr store, receiving the prize from manager Faisal and a team member.

Malabar Gold & Diamonds draw winnerOoredoo tv App off ers entertainment on the goOoredoo announced yes-

terday that its Ooredoo ONE entertainment

is available on the go with Ooredoo tv App.

The Ooredoo tv App enables Ooredoo ONE customers to ac-cess more than 60 channels at home or when they are out and about at no extra cost.

Viewers can choose from a whole host of genres, from kids, series and movies, to news and more. Both live channels and on-demand entertainment are available, and customers can choose from several languag-es including Arabic, English, Hindi, Urdu, and more. View-ing can be controlled by fi n-gertips using the virtual remote control.

Channels available in-clude popular news channels Al Jazeera, Sky News, BBC, and CNN International, while viewers can catch their favour-ite programmes and series with channels, such as CBC Drama, Nile Comedy, and Nat Geo.

Children will enjoy Boo-merang, Cartoon Network, and Spacetoon, among oth-ers, and a host of movies is on show with Rotana Cinema, Turner Classic Movies, and Zee Cinema. You can catch also cricket match with Ten Cricket and many more.

Accessing Ooredoo tv App is quick and easy; customers should download and install

the App on their smartphone or tablet. To sign in, they will need their IPTV account number or their mobile number or their Ooredoo App credentials.

Manar Khalifa al-Muraikhi, director, PR and Corporate Communications at Ooredoo, said: “We know our Oore-doo ONE customers enjoy the entertainment available on Ooredoo tv, but also that they may not always be home to enjoy it.

“So, the Ooredoo tv app is ideal – they can access ex-

actly what they like to watch at home, anytime and anywhere. We’re constantly looking for ways in which we can enhance our off ering, and making our amazing Ooredoo tv entertain-ment available conveniently on the go is a great way for us to make sure we’re giving our customers what they want.”

Customers can download the Ooredoo tv app from the App Store and Google Play. Customers who do not yet have Ooredoo tv can sign up at any Ooredoo shop.

HBKU opens registration for Spring 2020 language coursesAs part of its aim to pro-

mote the exploration of diff erent countries and

cultures, the Translation and Interpreting Institute (TII), part of the College of Human-ities and Social Sciences at Hamad Bin Khalifa University, has opened registration for its spring 2020 language courses.

Courses available for chil-dren, teenagers and adults, in-clude Arabic, German, French, Chinese, Portuguese and Spanish. Meanwhile, adults can also enrol in Italian, Rus-sian, Turkish, Japanese, Ko-rean and English language courses. The courses, led by the Language Centre at TII, will provide a cultural context for personal development, profes-sional enrichment and travel purposes.

Students can look forward to a culturally enriching learn-ing experience where they will be taught the language through carefully planned lessons that use up-to-date methodologies and songs, games, crafts, music, drama, and art to facilitate the learning process.

Dr Ahmad Nazari, director of the Language Centre at TII, said, “The vast range of language courses is designed for people of all ages and levels of profi cien-cy. The courses are designed to promote an immersive learning experience that is both eff ec-tive and engaging. We welcome

Courses include Arabic, German, French, Chinese, Portuguese and Spanish.

the community to enrol in one of the language courses, which will not only expand their language repertoire but also enhance their knowledge of the diff erent coun-

tries and cultures that make up Qatar’s diverse society.”

The classes are led by quali-fi ed instructors with prior ex-perience in teaching children

and adults, and will be held at fl exible timings through-out week. All courses will be held at Penrose House in Education City.

QNL hosts workshop on special writingAn enthusiastic group

of young adults took part in a special writing

workshop at Qatar National Li-brary recently. The session was led by producer, writer, jour-nalist and media skills trainer Andalous Ibrahim.

An accomplished author and multimedia specialist, Ib-rahim introduced participants to writing a range of diff er-ent content including articles, stories, and text for radio and television. They also learned simple methods for using their writing skills to eff ec-tively deliver information. The youngsters were able to tap into Ibrahim’s holistic experi-ence across print and broadcast journalism in diff erent media outlets in Qatar.

One of the event’s partici-pants, Uhud Fadi, said, “Writ-ing is my favourite hobby to

work on in my spare time. I am always on the lookout for opportunities to improve my writing skills so a huge thanks

to the Library for organis-ing this workshop, which has helped me learn new aspects of creative writing.”

Andalous Ibrahim leading the workshop at Qatar National Library.

QATAR

Gulf Times Monday, January 6, 20204

Al Messila unveils unique hydro-wellness ‘Worlds’Al Messila, the fi rst Luxury Col-

lection resort in Doha, is unveil-ing another premier proposition

with the launch of The Worlds in its Wellness Ladies Retreat, the region’s “fi rst and most extensive ladies” well-being destination.

The four Worlds are a “unique fa-cility, never seen before in the Middle East”, a press statement notes.

Each World is themed diff erently, depending on the specifi c wellness journey off ered: Oriental, Floral, Mys-tic and Mineral.

They house fl oatation tanks, cocoon beds, oxygen rooms, Kneipp walks, hammams and salt rooms, and each world can be experienced in a person-alised four-hour journey.

Guests can also luxuriate in pools, steam rooms and saunas accessed alongside a premium range of treat-ments and protocols that are 100% ex-clusive to Al Messila Wellness Retreat.

They combine to produce a “unique well-being destination within a one-of-a-kind wellness resort”.

“The overall resort experience at Al Messila focuses on the well-being of our guests and our Wellness Retreat

provides a safe and nurturing envi-ronment” said Patrizia Hofer, general manager of Al Messila Resort & Spa.

“The Worlds open up a whole new universe of well-being that transcend a conventional spa, providing holis-tic experiences that touch the body and the spirit,” added Dr Alison Stone,

general manager of Al Messila Ladies Retreat.

Leveraging on the traditional well-ness practices of the East, the “richly decorated” Oriental World provides cleansing rituals designed to eliminate toxins and negativity, bringing guests spiritually closer to positive energies.

The Mystic World instead reaches out to guests’ inner selves through the calming sounds of nature, sensory stimulators and chromo therapy to en-lighten the spirit.

In the Mineral World, guests are ex-posed to the powers of the ocean, where they can dive in and indulge in healing elements, while the Floral World wraps them in a cocoon of beauty, enlivened by the scent of fl owers, which they can inhale to leave them blooming with wellness, the statement points out.

“Our passion for transformative well-ness journeys is the core of our holistic well-being off ering,” explained Dr Stone. “Our wellness approach bestows an array of well-being services integrated through lifestyle, retreats, fi tness programmes and personalised well-being journeys.”

The Worlds are just a part of the ex-tensive off erings of the Wellness Re-treat. Specialists guide guests on a tai-lor-made journey, where they begin to embrace wellness, drifting into a state of equilibrium between mind and body.

Guests in search of holistic thera-pies based on ancient traditions can discover them in individualistic pri-vate suites, each with their own steam

rooms and hydrotherapy. “Each guest is supported by a team of qualifi ed retreat co-ordinators who curate personal programmes based on individual needs and goals, all with long-term wellbeing and balance in mind,” added Dr Stone.

The Wellness Retreat, built on a “luscious urban oasis” surrounded by

an indigenous environment of trees, birds and water, features 26 treatment rooms, two fully equipped gyms, pri-vate training, spinning and movement studios, three mineral pools and a day-light enhanced private recreational pool, as well as a Food Lab cooking classroom, according to the statement.

The Oriental World The Mystic World

The Ministry of Commerce and Industry, in co-opera-tion with Nasser Bin Khaled Automobiles, announced the recall of Mercedes-Benz AMG GT S model of 2015

over the transmission torque handle not meeting manufac-turer specification.

Separately, the ministry, in co-operation with Abdullah Abdulghani & Bros Co, announced the recall of Toyota Camry and Camry Hybrid model of 2019 due to possible defect in rear seat belts.

The ministry confi rmed that the recall campaigns come within the framework of its ongoing eff orts to protect con-sumers and ensure that vehicle dealers follow up on defects and repairs. The ministry has said that it will co-ordinate with the dealer to follow up on the maintenance and repair works and will communicate with customers to ensure that the necessary repairs are carried out.

The ministry urges all customers to report any violations to its Consumer Protection and Anti-Commercial Fraud Depart-ment, which processes complaints, inquiries and suggestions through the following channels: Call Centre: 16001, e-mail: info@moci.gov.qa, Twitter: @ MOCIQATAR, Instagram: MO-CIQATAR, mobile app for Android and IOS: MOCIQATAR.

Mercedes-Benz, Toyota models recalled over safety concernsVodafone off ers complimentary

subscription to WAVO by OSN

Vodafone Qatar has launched the fi rst off er of 2020 that gives postpaid and prepaid customers the opportunity

to enjoy unlimited entertainment through a complimentary subscription to the online streaming service, WAVO by OSN.

On WAVO, viewers can watch exclusive award-winning series that are not avail-able anywhere else, the biggest Hollywood blockbusters, Arabic shows and movies, a great selection of Western lifestyle talk shows and reality TV, as well as exclusive Turkish series with all the latest episodes.

Vodafone Qatar’s Flex and Unlimited Postpaid customers will enjoy a one-month complimentary subscription from the date of opt-in. To activate, customers need to click on the link in the SMS they will receive

and follow the simple instructions.All Prepaid customers can also enjoy one-

month complimentary subscription. All they need to do is recharge with any card of QR20 or above and wait for the SMS with a link, which will be sent within 24 hours of recharge.

The off er is valid until February 29. For further information, visit www.vodafone.qa/wavopromo.

Kahramaa registration goes smart

From Page 1

“The new facility ensures speedy completion of customer transactions, save time and eff ort and reduce the number of customers in service centres. The system has been proved effi cient and eff ective,” he said.

The new system, developed in accordance with Qatar National Vision 2030, is aimed at making Kahramaa a paperless enterprise, helping it achieve sustainable de-velopment by preserving the environment and reducing carbon emission.

Omar al-Yafie, Mohamed al-Badr and Nasser al-Khuzaie and Khaled Mohamed Amin announcing details of smart registration service yesterday.

Alfardan Motorcycles launches world-class service center in The Pearl-Qatar

• The new service center boasts exceptional interiors and designs.• Features state-of-the-art technologies, and provides upscale services.

Alfardan Motorcycles, renowned company that acts as the exclusive agent and distributor of Ducati, KTM, Triumph, BMW Motorrad, Piaggio, Vespa, Moto Guzzi, Aprilia, Husqvarna motorcycles has recently announced the launch of its latest

upscale service center in The Pearl-Qatar, ushering in a new chapter of the company’s success story in Qatar and highlighting its excellence in providing its customers and clients with adequate and exceptional services.

The new service center embodies Alfardan Motorcycles’ unwavering commitment to enhance the experience of motorcycle owners in Qatar, and it boasts exceptional minimalistic, modern & grand interiors and designs, and features internationally renowned and celebrated brands and offers its patrons state-of-the-art technologies and up-scale services in an effort to ensure customer satisfaction and loyalty.

“We are elated to announce the relocation of Alfardan Motorcycles’ service center to The Pearl-Qatar in an effort to provide outstanding service and experiences to our valued customers.” stated Mr. Ayad Al-Siaidi General Manager — Alfardan Motorcycles

“The newly launched service center in The Pearl-Qatar, truly embodies Alfardan Motorycles’ vision of not only providing our customers with the most sought-after, advanced and internationally-renowned motorcycles, but also focusing on providing adequate, up-scale and exceptional maintenance services as well. We chose to launch the new service center in the Pearl-Qatar, as it represents the highest forms of luxury in the country, and it provides easy access to most of our customers and clients.” he added.

The new service center aims to act as a paradigm shift in maintenance services that are provided in the country. It has been designed in accordance with international standards and is equipped with highly-advanced technologies that have been specifically developed to suit the advanced maintenance requirements that the company’s customers demand. The service center technicians have been trained at the highest level, to ensure any maintenance requirements are met adequately and proficiently. This is all part of Alfardan Motorcycles’ ambitious plans to maintain its leading position in the market and to its customers in Qatar with the exceptional services and products they deserve.

The new Alfardan Motorcycles service center will also include an up-scale showroom and a spare-parts sales center under one roof, giving customers a great opportunity to discover the latest motorcycle models. “The relocation of our service center to its latest location at the Pearl-Qatar allows us to reinforce our commitment to our valued customers, and allows us to deliver on our promise of providing them with exceptional products and after-sales services.” concluded Mr. Ayad Al-Siaidi

To celebrate the relocation of Alfardan Motorcycles’ service center to its current location at the Pearl-Qatar, a march was organized from Batabit Center to The Pearl to introduce motorcycle owners in Qatar to the newly-launched service center.

QATAR/REGION/ARAB WORLD

Gulf TimesMonday, January 6, 20206

QP in long-term pact for LNG supply to KuwaitQatar Petroleum (QP)

and Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) have

entered into a long term sale and purchase (SPA) agreement for the supply of up to 3mn tonnes per annum of liquefi ed natural gas (LNG) to Kuwait.

Under the 15-year agreement, LNG deliveries to Kuwait’s new LNG receiving terminal at Al Zour Port will commence in 2022 to support meeting Ku-wait’s growing energy needs and demand, particularly in the power generation sector.

The agreement was signed by HE Saad bin Sherida al-Kaabi, Minister of State for Energy Af-fairs and QP president and chief executive and Dr Khaled A al-Fadhel, the Minister of Oil and the Minister of Electricity and Water, the chairman of KPC in Kuwait City. “We look for-ward to providing reliable LNG

supplies to our brothers in Ku-wait for decades to come...This agreement extends Qatar’s long standing LNG supply relation-ship with Kuwait well into the 2030s and highlights our com-mitment to meeting Kuwait’s LNG requirements,” al-Kaabi said.

He expressed the confi dence that the exceptional reliability of Qatar’s LNG supplies would provide KPC with the required fl exibility and supply secu-rity to fuel Kuwait’s impressive growth.

“Kuwait is embarking on an ambitious path of economic growth, which requires cleaner energy sources such as natural gas that will contribute to re-ducing emissions and improv-ing local air quality,” al-Fadhel said. Whilst KPC is working towards increasing local natural gas production, there remains a

pressing need to secure imports of natural gas supplies, accord-

ing to him. This agreement re-inforces the solid relationship

between Kuwait and Qatar and further strengthens the ties

between the two hydrocarbon entities.

HE al-Kaabi and al-Fadhel along with the off icials of QP and KPC at the SPA ceremony in Kuwait.

Troops arrest 11 Palestinians in Jerusalem

QNAJerusalem

The Israeli occupation forces arrested yesterday 11 Palestinians in Isawiya

village and Qalqilya in occupied Jerusalem.

The occupation forces ar-rested 10 Palestinians after raid-ing and searching their homes in Isawiya village in occupied Jeru-salem, local sources said.

The occupation forces also ar-rested a young man in Qalqilya, after raiding his family house and tampering with items.

The occupation forces also detained on Saturday night a young man from Al-Ubeidiya town, east of Bethlehem, at Zaa-tara Military Checkpoint be-tween Ramallah and Nablus.

The Israeli soldiers searched the detainee and seized a sum of 4,000 shekels in his possession, and later handed him a notice to go to meet its intelligence.

Black-clad Iranians mourn generalAFP Tehran

Black-clad mourners packed Iran’s second city Mashhad yesterday as the

remains of top general Qasem Soleimani were paraded through the streets after he was killed in a US strike.

“Iran’s wearing black, re-venge, revenge,” they chanted as darkness fell and they followed a truck carrying Soleimani’s coffi n towards the fl oodlit Imam Reza shrine.

The mourners threw scarves onto the roof of the truck so that they could be blessed by the “blood of the martyr”. So-leimani, who spearheaded Iran’s Middle East operations as com-mander of the Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force, was killed in a US drone strike Friday near Baghdad airport.

He was 62.The attack was ordered by

President Donald Trump, who said the Quds commander had been planning an “imminent” attack on US diplomats and forces in Iraq.

Soleimani’s remains had been returned before dawn to the southwestern city of Ahvaz, where the air resonated with chants and shouts of “Death to America” during a procession.

People held aloft portraits of Soleimani, one of the country’s most popular public fi gures who is seen as a hero of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.

The “million-man” turnout in Mashhad, northeastern Iran, forced the cancellation of a night ceremony in Tehran, said the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps who urged citizens in-stead to attend a memorial today at Tehran University.

Soleimani’s assassination ratcheted up tensions between Tehran and Washington and sparked fears of a new Middle East war.

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatol-lah Ali Khamenei vowed “severe revenge” and declared three days of mourning.

Late Saturday Trump warned

that America would target 52 sites “important to Iran & Ira-nian culture” and hit them “very fast and very hard” if American personnel or assets were at-tacked.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mo-hamed Javad Zarif tweeted that “targeting cultural sites is a war crime”. Iran’s army chief said Trump’s threat was an attempt to distract the world from So-leimani’s “unjustifi able” assas-sination.

“I doubt they have the courage to initiate” a confl ict, said Major General Abdolrahim Mousavi.

Iran’s communications min-ister, Mohamed Javad Jahromi, branded Trump in controversial terms in a Twitter post.

Khamenei’s military adviser, Brigadier General Hossein De-hghan, told CNN that Iran’s re-sponse to the assassination “for sure will be military and against

military sites”. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo admitted there was a “real likelihood” of an Iranian attack on US soldiers, warning however “it would be a big mistake”.

In Lebanon, Hassan Nasral-lah, the head of the Hezbollah movement, insisted the “price” for Soleimani’s killing would be attacks on “US military bases, US warships, each and every of-fi cer and soldier in the region”. US-Iran tensions escalated in 2018 when Trump unilaterally withdrew from a landmark ac-cord that gave Tehran relief from sanctions in return for curbs on its nuclear programme.

A year on, Iran began hitting back by reducing its nuclear commitments with a series of steps every 60 days, the most recent deadline passing on Sat-urday.

In Tehran, deputies chanted

“Death to America” for a few minutes during a regular session of parliament.

“Trump, this is the voice of the Iranian nation, listen,” said speaker Ali Larijani.

Soleimani’s remains and those of fi ve other Iranians — all Guards members — killed in the US drone strike had arrived at Ahvaz airport before dawn, semi-offi cial news agency ISNA said. With them were the re-mains of Abu Mahdi al-Mu-handis, the deputy commander of Iraq’s powerful Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary umbrella group, who was also killed in the strike.

Soleimani’s remains are due to be fl own to the capital, where Khamenei is expected to pray over them at Tehran Univer-sity today before a procession to Azadi Square.

They will then be taken to the

holy city of Qom for a ceremony at Masumeh shrine, ahead of a funeral tomorrow in his home-town Kerman. In neighbouring Iraq, pro-Iran factions ramped up pressure on US installations with missiles and warnings to Iraq’s troops late Saturday.

In the fi rst hints of a possible retaliatory response, two mortar rounds struck Saturday near the US embassy in Baghdad, secu-rity sources said.

Almost simultaneously, two rockets slammed into the Al-Balad airbase where American troops are deployed.

Iraq said there were no casual-ties. The US military also said no coalition troops were hurt.

In another possible act of re-taliation, hackers claiming to be from Iran breached the website of a little-known US govern-ment agency and threatened more cyber attacks.

Tehran steps back further from N-dealReuters Dubai

Iran said yesterday it would further roll back its com-mitments to a 2015 nuclear

deal with six major powers, by enriching uranium without restrictions, but Tehran will continue to co-operate with the UN nuclear watchdog.

State television said Iran would not respect any lim-its set down in the pact on the country’s nuclear work: whether the limit on its number of uranium enrich-ment centrifuges to its en-richment capacity, the level to which uranium could be enriched, or Iran’s nuclear Research and Development activities.

“Iran will continue its nu-clear enrichment with no lim-itations and based on its tech-nical needs,” a statement cited by state television said.

Iran has steadily over-stepped the deal’s limits on its nuclear activities in response to the United States’ with-drawal from the accord in 2018 and Washington’s reimposi-tion of sanctions that have crippled Iran’s oil trade.

Tehran says it can quickly undo those breaches if those sanctions are removed.

Iran had been expected to publicise its latest stance on the deal this weekend.

But its announcement coin-cided with a major escalation of hostilities following the US killing of top Iranian military commander Qassem Soleim-

ani in a drone strike on Friday in Baghdad.

Under the nuclear deal, Te-hran undertook to curb its nu-clear activities in exchange for a lifting of many international sanctions. President Donald Trump’s withdrawal of the United States from the deal led to a sharp deterioration in US-Iran relations. European powers are trying to salvage the agreement, but Iran has repeatedly said they are not doing enough.

Iran has already breached many of the deal’s restric-tions on its nuclear activi-ties, including on the purity to which it enriches uranium, its stock of enriched uranium, which models of centrifuge it enriches uranium with and where it enriches uranium.

It has, however, not gone far over the purity allowed — the deal sets a limit of 3.67% and Iran has stayed around 4.5% in recent months, well below the 20% it reached before the deal and the roughly 90% that is weapons-grade.

The deal as a whole was designed to increase the time Iran would need to obtain enough fi ssile material for a nuclear bomb if it wanted one — the main obstacle to pro-ducing a nuclear weapon — from around 2-3 months.

While its breaches initially made little diff erence to that so-called break-out time, a growing number of advanced centrifuges are coming on-line, which could have a more signifi cant impact, diplomats say.

Iranians gather in the northeastern city of Mashhad yesterday to pay homage to top general Qasem Soleimani after he was killed in a US strike in Baghdad.

Regime strikes kill nine in northwest SyriaAFP Ariha

Syrian regime air strikes killed nine civilians in the embattled opposition stronghold of Idlib yesterday, a war monitor said.

Militant-dominated Idlib has come under mounting bom-bardment in recent weeks, displacing tens of thousands of people in the northwestern region home to some 3mn.

The regime air raids in the town of Ariha also wounded more than 19 people, said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on sources inside the war-torn country.

An AFP correspondent saw a large patch of blood on the road at the site, near a gutted building and the torched remains of two cars.

The remains of the victims lay by the side of the road in plastic body bags. The Damascus government has repeatedly vowed to re-take Idlib, which is run by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a group dominated by Syria’s former Al Qaeda affi liate.

A ceasefi re announced in late August was supposed to stop Rus-sia-backed regime bombardment of the region after strikes killed some 1,000 civilians in four months.

But the Observatory says sporadic bombardment and clashes continued, before intensifying in the past month.

On January 1, missiles fi red by regime forces killed nine civil-ians including fi ve children in a school turned shelter in the town of Sarmeen.

Syria’s war has killed more than 380,000 people including over 115,000 civilians since it started in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests.

Oman calls for dialogue to resolve issues in region

The Sultanate of Oman has called

for dialogue to resolve contro-

versial issues in a way that ends

the conflict in the region, QNA

reported from Muscat.

The Foreign Ministry of the

Sultanate of Oman, in a statement

yesterday, said that the Sultanate

is following the recent unfortunate

developments of the state of ten-

sion and escalation between the

United States and Iran, and calls on

the two parties to favour dialogue,

and to search for diplomatic

means to resolve contentious

issues in a manner that ends the

conflict in the region. The Sultan-

ate of Oman also called on the

international community to take

advantage of both sides’ unwilling-

ness to escalate.

Syrian rescuers known as the White Helmets walk amidst the rubble scattered across a street following a reported regime air strike in the town of Ariha in the Idlib province, yesterday.

Iraq asks foreign troops to leaveFrom Page 1

Hundreds of thousands of mourners, many chanting, beating their chests and wail-ing in grief, turned out across Iran to show their respects after Soleimani’s body was returned home to a hero’s welcome.

Black-clad mourners packed Iran’s second city Mashhad as the remains of General Soleimani were pa-raded through the streets.

“Iran’s wearing black, re-venge, revenge,” they chanted as darkness fell and they fol-lowed a truck carrying So-leimani’s coffi n towards the fl oodlit Imam Reza shrine.

The mourners threw scarves onto the roof of the truck so that they could be blessed by

the “blood of the martyr”.Soleimani’s remains had

been returned before dawn to the southwestern city of Ah-vaz, where the air resonated with Shia chants and shouts of “Death to America” during a procession. People held aloft portraits of Soleimani, one of the country’s most popular public fi gures who is seen as a hero of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.

Trump tweeted on Satur-day that Iran “is talking very boldly about targeting certain USA assets”.

He said the United States has “targeted 52 Iranian sites”, some “at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD”.

ARAB WORLD/AFRICA

7Gulf Times Monday, January 6, 2020

Somali militants attack military base in KenyaAFP Nairobi

Militants from Soma-lia’s Al Shebaab group yesterday stormed a

military base used by US forces in Kenya’s coastal Lamu region, destroying several aircraft and military vehicles, according to Kenyan police and army offi -cials.

Attackers breached heavy security at Camp Simba at dawn but were repelled and four militants were killed, said army spokesman Colonel Paul Njuguna.

Al-Shabaab has launched regular cross-border raids since Kenya sent troops into Soma-lia in 2011 as part of an African Union force protecting the in-ternationally backed govern-ment — which the militants have been trying to overthrow for more than a decade.

The Lamu region, which in-cludes popular tourist beach destination Lamu Island, lies close to the Somali frontier and has suff ered frequent attacks, often carried out with roadside bombs.

Njuguna said “an attempt was made to breach security at Manda Air Strip” at 5:30am but it was repulsed.

“Four terrorists’ bodies have so far been found. The airstrip is safe,” he said, adding that a fi re had broken out but had since been dealt with.

Kenya’s Inspector General of Police Hilary Mutyambai said offi cers were “on high alert” af-ter the attack.

An internal police report seen by AFP said two Cessna aircraft,

two American helicopters and “multiple American vehicles” were destroyed at the airstrip.

Local government offi cial Irungu Macharia said fi ve peo-ple had been arrested near the camp and were being interro-gated.

Neither Kenya nor the US have admitted casualties as yet, despite Shebaab claiming to have killed 17 Americans and nine Kenyan soldiers.

US military offi cials con-fi rmed the attack and said US and Kenyan forces had repelled the Al Shebaab fi ghters.

“Working alongside our Kenyan partners, the airfi eld is

cleared and still in the process of being fully secured,” said the US Africa Command (Africom) in a statement.

The nearby civilian airport at Manda Bay, which brings tour-ists visiting Lamu Island — a Unesco World Heritage Site — was closed for several hours after the incident, according to the civil aviation authority.

Al-Shabaab said in a state-ment it had “successfully stormed the heavily fortifi ed military base and have now taken eff ective control of part of the base”. Africom accused Al Shebaab of lying in order to create false headlines. Shebaab

countered with a second state-ment, saying it had been a ten hour fi refi ght and mocking the US “inability to fend off an at-tack by just a handful of stead-fast men”.

The group referred to an uptick in US military air strikes under President Don-ald Trump, accusing the US of “strafing villages from above and indiscriminately bom-barding innocent women and children.”

Africom said in April it had killed more than 800 people in 110 strikes in Somalia since April 2017.

The Somali militants have

staged several large-scale attacks inside Kenya in re-taliation for Nairobi sending troops into Somalia as well as to target foreign interests.

The group has been fighting to overthrow an internation-ally-backed government in Mogadishu since 2006, stag-ing regular attacks on govern-ment buildings, hotels, secu-rity checkpoints and military bases in the country.

Despite years of costly ef-forts to fight Al Shebaab, the group on December 28 man-aged to detonate a vehicle packed with explosives in Mogadishu, killing 81 people.

Seven children among 14 killed in roadside bomb in Burkina FasoAFPOuagadougou

Seven children and four women were among 14 ci-vilians killed when a road-

side bomb wrecked their bus in northwestern Burkina Faso, the government said yesterday, con-demning the “cowardly and bar-baric act”.

Nineteen more people were hurt, three of them seriously, in Saturday’s blast, the communi-cations ministry said.

Education Minister Stanislas Ouaro said the bus was using a road that was supposed to be closed to traffi c because of the risk of attacks in the region near the border with Mali.

No group said they planted the bomb but militant violence in Burkina Faso has been blamed on militants linked to both Al Qaeda and Islamic State groups.

Ouaro said the dead were among around 160 passengers aboard three buses carrying 104

students. The explosion hap-pened in Sourou province, a se-curity source said, telling AFP: “The vehicle hit a homemade bomb on the Toeni-Tougan road.”

Meanwhile, the army reported an assault against gendarmes at Inata in the north on Friday, say-ing “a dozen terrorists” had been killed.

The deaths came after 35 peo-ple, most of them women, died in a massacre on December 24 in the northern city of Arbinda and seven Burkinabe troops were killed in a raid on their army base nearby.

The Islamic State in West Af-rica (ISWAP) said it had attacked the military base but made not mention of the Arbinda massa-cre.

Burkina Faso, bordering Mali and Niger, has seen frequent militant attacks which have left hundreds of people dead since the start of 2015 when extremist violence began to spread across the Sahel region.

At least 30 dead in Libya military academy off ensiveReutersTripoli

At least 30 people were killed and 33 others wounded in an attack on a military academy in the

Libyan capital late on Saturday, the health ministry of the Tripoli-based government said in a statement yes-terday.

Tripoli, controlled by the interna-tionally recognised Government of National Accord (GNA), is facing an off ensive by military commander Kha-lifa Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA) that began in April.

There has been an increase in air strikes and shelling around Tripoli in recent weeks, with fears that fi ghting could escalate further.

Forces allied with the GNA described Saturday’s attack on the military camp at Al-Hadhba as “an aerial bombing” launched by their eastern rivals.

An LNA spokesman denied involve-ment.

GNA Health Minister Hamid bin Omar told Reuters earlier in a phone call that the number of dead and wounded was still rising.

Tripoli ambulance service spokes-

man Osama Ali said some body parts could not be immediately counted by forensic experts.

Earlier, the ambulance service ap-pealed for a temporary ceasefi re to al-low its crews to retrieve the bodies of fi ve civilians killed on As Sidra Road in southern Tripoli and to evacuate fami-lies. Emergency teams withdrew after coming under fi re while trying to ac-cess the area on Saturday, it said.

The GNA Foreign Ministry called for referring Haftar and his aides to the International Criminal Court on charges of committing “crimes against

humanity”, adding that it will call for an emergency UN Security Council meeting to discuss the alleged crimes.

Ankara, which last week passed a bill approving a troop deployment in Libya to support Tripoli, also condemned the attack and said the international com-munity needs to take steps to achieve a ceasefi re. “It is crucial for the inter-national community to urgently take necessary steps to halt external sup-port for the pro-Haftar army and its attacks and establish a ceasefi re in Lib-ya,” the Turkish foreign ministry said in a statement.

Japan govt orders tighter immigration procedures after Ghosn fl ees countryReutersTokyo

Japan yesterday said it would tighten immigration meas-ures after former Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn fl ed the country while on bail, its fi rst offi cial response to an as-

tonishing escape that has transformed the executive into an international fugitive.

Authorities have remained quiet after Ghosn revealed on Tuesday that he had fl ed to his childhood home of Lebanon to escape a “rigged” justice system in Japan.

All government offi ces and most businesses in Japan have been shut for the new year holidays.

The former Nissan Motor and Renault chairman was ar-rested in Tokyo in November 2018 and faced multiple charg-es of fi nancial wrongdoing, which he denies.

Justice Minister Masako Mori said Ghosn’s “apparently il-legal” departure was very regrettable and added there was no record of him leaving the country.

She promised a thorough investigation and said authori-ties had issued an international notice for his arrest.

“I have instructed the Immigration Services Agency to co-

ordinate with related agencies to further tighten departure procedures,” she said, adding that Ghosn’s skipping bail was not justifi ed, and that the court had revoked his bail.

Separately, prosecutors issued a statement defending Ja-pan’s justice system, saying his departure ignored the legal system and amounted to a crime.

It remains unclear what Japan might do to bring him back.It has extradition treaties only with the United States and

South Korea, meaning it might be diffi cult to return Ghosn from Lebanon. Mori was due to brief reporters in Tokyo to-day morning.

Lebanon this week said it had received an Interpol arrest warrant for Ghosn. It has said he entered the country legally.

A senior Lebanese security offi cial said it was not yet clear whether Ghosn would be summoned for questioning over the warrant, but added that Lebanon does not extradite its citizens. The Wall Street Journal has reported that Ghosn slipped out of Japan aboard a private jet hidden in a large black case typically used to carry audio gear.

He was accompanied by a pair of men with names match-ing those of American security contractors, the newspa-per said, citing people familiar with an investigation into the escape.

Libyan people mourn during the funeral of those killed in an attack on a military academy in Tripoli, yesterday.

Nigeria militants kill four soldiers in base assault

Machine-gun wielding militants killed four Nigerian soldiers and wounded 11 more during an attack on an army base in the northeast, military off icials said yesterday.Fighters from the Islamic State West African Province (ISWAP) arrived in six trucks to attack the Jakana base, near the city of Maiduguri, on Saturday evening, according to the off icials.The troops forced the militants to retreat after a prolonged gunfight. In recent weeks, ISWAP, an off -shoot of regional group Boko Haram, has intensified attacks in the region, targeting soldiers but also mounting fake checkpoints, killing and abducting civilians.The decade-long insurgency in northeast Nigeria has killed 36,000 people, according the UN and displaced a further 2mn.

Travellers are seen gathered at the Lamu jetty following an attack by Somalia’s group Al Shebaab on a military base in Manda, Lamu, Kenya yesterday.

AMERICAS

Gulf Times Monday, January 6, 20208

Venezuela police block Guaido on way to parliamentAFP/ReutersCaracas

Venezuela’s opposition leader Juan Guaido yes-terday hit out at the po-

lice for preventing him from at-tending the National Assembly where he was due to be voted in for a second term as parliament speaker.

Lawmakers were due to elect the new National Assembly president, with Guaido widely expected to be confi rmed in the post he has held for the past year.

But when he arrived at the as-sembly yesterday morning, po-lice prevented him from entering.

“This is unprecedented!” Guaido told a member of the se-curity forces with whom he had a heated exchange.

For the last year, Guaido has led opposition to Venezuela’s so-cialist president Nicolas Maduro.

Last January, Guaido declared himself acting president — a move quickly supported by more

than 50 countries — after parlia-ment offi cially branded Maduro a “usurper” over his 2018 re-election, which was widely de-nounced as fraudulent.

Despite intense pressure from the opposition and the United States — which has imposed sanctions on regime fi gures — Maduro has retained power, thanks largely to support from the armed forces.

The National Assembly is the only branch of government in opposition hands.

But it has been sidelined since 2017, when the Supreme Court, made up of Maduro loyalists, de-clared it in contempt.

The court has since annulled its every decision.

Journalists as well as lawmak-ers were prevented from access-ing the site.

AFP journalists saw police and army blockades in the streets surrounding the assembly build-ing in the capital Caracas.

“The regime is kidnapping and persecuting deputies, mili-

tarizing the Federal Legislative Palace, preventing access and blocking entry to the free press,” Guaido said on Twitter.

“This is the reality in Venezue-la: the desire for change in the face of a dictatorship that con-tinues to persecute.”

The national press workers un-ion launched a “worldwide alert in the face of the Nicolas Maduro regime initiative to block the press” from reaching parliament.

Guaido has accused the ruling Socialist Party of off ering leg-islators suitcases of cash to vote against his second term as the head of the National Assembly.

“Neither the dictatorship nor the state’s repressive appara-tus decides who can get in,” said Guaido, standing at a police bar-ricade a block from congress, in-sisting he will not enter the leg-islative palace until all others are allowed in.

Troops for more than an hour reviewed the credentials of each lawmaker, in what critics called a strategy to delay the session

or prevent the assembly from reaching quorum.

As of the early afternoon, sev-eral lawmakers said they were still unable to enter.

State television showed foot-age of Socialist Party legislators passing quickly through security cordons.

Last month, the legislature changed its internal procedures to allow lawmakers to vote vir-tually in eff orts to allow the par-ticipation of those who cannot be physically present.

The opposition sees that as a last resort, in part because the change was struck down by the supreme court.

The opposition says that about 30 opposition legislators are in exile or in hiding due to judicial proceedings, most of which are associated a failed military up-rising in April.

The government in Decem-ber approved legal proceedings against four opposition lawmak-ers accused of treason and con-spiracy.

Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido speaks to reporters outside Venezuela’s National Assembly building in Caracas yesterday.

5 killed, 60 hurt in Pennsylvania highway crashReutersNew York

At least fi ve people were killed and about 60 transported to hospitals after a Pennsylva-nia Turnpike crash early yesterday, involv-

ing a tour bus, two tractor-trailers and passenger vehicles.

The cause of the pileup in Mount Pleasant Township, about 64km southeast of Pittsburgh, was under investigation.

“Coroner has confi rmed fi ve fatalities,” turn-pike spokesman Carl DeFebo said on Twitter.

He said about 60 patients were transported to three area hospitals in Westmoreland County.

An 140km stretch of the turnpike remained closed yesterday from New Stanton to Breeze-wood exits, he said.

Video and photographs of the pre-dawn crash appeared to show it involved a bus, two tractor-trailers as well as passenger vehicles.

Prosecutors seek 12-year jail term for Kenji Fujimori

Peruvian prosecutors are seeking a 12-year prison term for former lawmaker Kenji Fu-jimori on charges of attempting to buy votes

in a plot to keep ex-president Pedro Pablo Kuc-zynski from being impeached.

Prosecutor Bersabeth Revilla accused the son of jailed ex-president Alberto Fujimori of bribery and infl uence-peddling.

Also charged are former lawmakers Guillermo Bocangel and Bienvenido Ramirez.

Prosecutors are seeking 12 years in prison for the former and 11 years for the latter.

Prosecutors said Kenji Fujimori had reached a deal with Kuczynski to pardon his father in exchange for helping Kuczynski survive an im-peachment vote. Thanks to the abstention of a group of lawmakers led by Kenji Fujimori, Kuc-zynski survived the initial attempt to remove him in December 2017 over alleged bribes from Brazil-ian conglomerate Odebrecht.

Prosecutors in 2018 launched a preliminary investigation of Kenji Fujimori, Ramirez and Bo-cangel after secretly recorded videos surfaced in which the men sought to bribe a fellow lawmaker to oppose the impeachment.

The tapes led to Kuczynski’s resignation and to Kenji Fujimori’s loss of his legislative seat.

Prosecutors are also investigating the sister of Kenji, Keiko Fujimori, over money received from Odebrecht and other sources for her 2011 and 2016 election campaigns.

Peruvian opposition leader Keiko, 44, was placed in preventive detention in October 2018 but was freed on November 29 following a Con-stitutional Court ruling, which had no bearing on the corruption case itself.

Mexico to build cemetery for unidentified violence victims

Mexico will build a cemetery in one of the country’s most dangerous cities because of a high number of unidentifi ed and un-

claimed dead, authorities said over the weekend.More than 15,000 people were murdered in

Ciudad Juarez between 2008 and 2019, including 1,497 last year, according to offi cial fi gures.

“It is intended for the victims of the northern area of Chihuahua, precisely because of the large number of unidentifi ed people or those who no one is claiming,” Eberth Castanon Torres, a coor-dinator at the local prosecutor’s offi ce, told AFP.

The cemetery will cover 50,000sq m, have a visual identifi cation area, a body preparation area, and six funeral cold rooms for 300 corpses.

Some 2,400 burial niches are reserved for tem-porarily storing bodies.

Prosecutors hope that the site will allow them to obtain genetic profi les of victims.

Since December 2006 — when the federal gov-ernment launched a military off ensive against the drug cartels — around 275,000 assassinations have been recorded in Mexico, according to offi -cial data.

White House formally briefs Congress on Iraq strikeReutersWashington

The White House on Saturday sent formal notifi cation to Congress of Friday’s US drone

strike that killed a top Iranian gen-eral, amid complaints from Demo-crats that President Donald Trump did not notify lawmakers or seek ad-vance approval for the attack.

The US strike that killed Iranian military commander Qassem Solei-mani in Iraq has caused a dramatic rise in tensions between Iran and the United States and its allies.

The classifi ed notifi cation was sent under a 1973 US law called the War Powers Act, which requires the administration to notify Congress within 48 hours of committing armed forces to military action or imminent actions.

White House national security adviser Robert O’Brien confi rmed the notice had been sent and told Fox News on Saturday night there were numerous legal grounds for the attack.

He said Justice Department law-yers had signed off on the plan.

“This was an absolute legal op-eration,” O’Brien said. “We feel very good about the legal basis for this military operation.”

House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, said it raised more questions than it an-swered.

“This document prompts serious and urgent questions about the tim-ing, manner and justifi cation of the Administration’s decision to engage in hostilities against Iran,” Pelosi said in a statement.

She said the “highly unusual” decision to classify the entire docu-ment compounded her concerns and “suggests that the Congress and the

American people are being left in the dark about our national security.”

A senior Democratic aide de-scribed the notifi cation as “brief and insuffi cient.”

In the notifi cation, Trump’s ad-ministration was expected to have explained the circumstances, the authority under which the action was taken and the expected scope and duration of the military involve-ment. The White House declined comment.

Senator Bernie Sanders, a con-tender for the Democratic nomina-tion to run against Trump in No-vember’s presidential election, said on Saturday that Congress must take immediate steps to restrain the president “from plunging our nation into yet another endless war.”

Senator Elizabeth Warren, anoth-er Democratic presidential candi-date, told reporters on Saturday that Trump has taken the United States “to the brink of war” and called his actions “reckless. He evidently has no plan.”

Pelosi has said the strike in Bagh-dad was conducted without specifi c authorization from Congress and “without the consultation of the Congress.”

She described the administra-tion’s military engagement as “pro-vocative, escalatory and dispropor-tionate” and said it put US citizens, troops and their allies in danger.

The Pentagon on Friday briefed staff members from the House Armed Services Committee and Senate Armed Services Committee on the attack.

On Friday, Democratic US Senator Tim Kaine introduced a resolution to force a debate and vote in Con-gress to prevent further escalation of hostilities with Iran.

Republicans in Congress have generally backed Trump’s action.

Anti-war activists march from the White House to the Trump International Hotel in Washington, DC, on Saturday, protesting the US drone attack that killed Iranian General Qasem Soleimani on January 3.

Key Senate Republican wants to start impeachment trial within days

The head of the US Senate Judiciary

Committee said yesterday he wants

the Senate to launch an impeach-

ment trial of President Donald Trump

within days, even if it means changing

Senate rules so the chamber can

move ahead without receiving articles

of impeachment from the House of

Representatives.

“My goal is to start this trial in the

next coming days,” Republican Sena-

tor Lindsey Graham told Fox News

Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures.

“If we don’t get the articles this

week, then we need to take matters in

our own hands and change the rules...

so we can start the trial.”

The Democratic-controlled House

of Representatives last month voted

to impeach Trump for abuse of power

in pressuring Ukraine to investigate

a political rival and for obstructing

Congress’ investigation.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi,

however, has not yet sent the articles

to the Senate, where the president will

be tried, as Democrats have sought to

pressure Republicans to call witnesses.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McCo-

nnell, a Republican, has said the Senate

cannot proceed with a trial under its

rules until it receives the articles of

impeachment from the House.

He has argued any decision on

potential witnesses should come after

senators have heard opening argu-

ments and have had a chance to ask

questions.

In saying he would work with

McConnell to change the rules if

necessary, Graham said any delay in

holding a trial was denying Trump an

opportunity to confront the accusa-

tions and was impeding Congress’

ability to pursue other business.

“What she’s doing is bad for the

country,” Graham said of Pelosi.

“It’s bad for the Senate. It keeps us

from getting on with the business of

the American people. It denies the

president his day in court.”

No eyes? No problem. Marine creature expands boundaries of vision

By Will Dunham, Reuters Washington

A cousin of the starfi sh that resides in the coral reefs of the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico lacks eyes, but can still see, ac-

cording to scientists who studied this creature that expands the boundaries of the sense of sight in the animal kingdom.

Researchers say that the red brittle star, called Ophiocoma wendtii, is only the second creature known to be able to see without having eyes — known as extraocular vision — joining a single species of sea urchin.

It possesses this exotic capability thanks to light-sensing cells, called photoreceptors, cov-ering its body and pigment cells, called chro-matophores, that move during the day to facili-tate the animal’s dramatic colour change from a deep reddish-brown in daytime to a stripy beige at nighttime.

Brittle stars, with fi ve radiating arms extend-ing from a central disk, are related to starfi sh (also called sea stars), sea cucumbers, sea ur-chins and others in a group of marine inverte-brates called echinoderms. They have a nervous system but no brain.

The red brittle star — up to about 35cm from arm tip to arm tip — lives in bright and complex habi-tats, with high predation threats from reef fi sh.

It stays hidden during daytime — making the

ability to spot a safe place to hide critical — and comes out at night to feed on detritus.

Its photoreceptors are surrounded during daytime by chromatophores that narrow the fi eld of the light being detected, making each photoreceptor like the pixel of a computer im-age that, when combined with other pixels, makes a whole image.

The visual system does not work at night, when the chromatophores contract.

“If our conclusions about the chromato-phores are correct, this is a beautiful example of innovation in evolution,” said Lauren Sumner-Rooney, a research fellow at Oxford University Museum of Natural History who led the study published in the journal Current Biology.

Laboratory experiments indicated the brittle stars have rudimentary vision.

Placed in a circular arena, they moved toward walls that were white with a black bar, sugges-tive of a daytime hiding place.

Another scenario showed they were not sim-ply detecting brightness versus darkness.

When they were presented with gray walls making it so no part of the arena was lighter or darker overall, they still moved toward the black stripe, which was centred on a white stripe so as to refl ect the same amount of light as the gray.

“It’s such an alien concept for us, as very visu-ally driven animals, to conceive of how an animal might see its habitat without eyes, but now we know of two examples,” Sumner-Rooney added.A handout photo released by researcher Lauren Sumner-Rooney of the Ophiocoma wendtii..

ASIA9

Gulf Times Monday, January 6, 2020

Death toll in Cambodia building collapse hits 36The search for victims in

the rubble of a collapsed building in southern

Cambodia drew to a close yes-terday with the fi nal death toll at 36 - the latest tragedy in a string of deadly construction accidents.

Cambodia Prime Minis-ter Hun Sen said 23 people had been pulled alive from the rub-ble of the seven-storey hotel, which crumpled to the ground in seaside Kep on Friday afternoon.

Yesterday rescuers also man-aged to free a dog trapped in the debris.

“This is yet another tragedy,” said Hun Sen, who promised families of victims would get $50,000 each in compensa-tion, while those injured would receive $20,000, he said.

He told reporters the contrac-tor responsible for the construc-tion had died in the accident, while the building’s owner had been detained.

The rescue eff ort lasted more 40 hours, mobilising hundreds of soldiers and labourers us-ing excavators, drills and pow-er saws to clear concrete and cut through metal bars of the pancaked structure.

Cambodia is undergoing a con-struction boom, with hotels, high-rises and casinos springing up under little regulatory oversight.

The tough and often danger-

AFPKep

A rescue team carry a victim from the collapsed building which was under construction in Kep yesterday.

ous labour is undertaken by an estimated 200,000 construction workers, mostly unskilled, reli-ant on day wages and not pro-tected by union rules, accord-ing to the International Labour Organisation.

Last June, some 28 people died in the collapse of a building under construction in Sihanoukville, a beach town fl ush with Chinese investment that.

Worker advocacy groups point to low safety standards that raise

the risk of accidents at construc-tion sites - which often serve as the temporary homes for the la-bourers and their families.

Worker Ei Kosal said on Satur-day that he, his wife and two oth-er women were having a meal on

site when the building collapsed.Their two companions were

crushed.“I did not expect to survive...

it’s like I have just been reborn,” Kosal said at hospital he was admitted to after injuries.

Bangladesh orders arrest of former chief justice

A Bangladesh court or-dered the arrest yes-terday of former chief

justice Surendra Kumar Sinha and 10 others on charges al-leging they embezzled near-ly half a million dollars, a prosecutor said.

“All of them are fugitives from justice,” prosecutor Khurshid Alam Khan said, adding Sinha was accused of embezzling money and laundering it from one bank account to another.

Sinha headed the South Asian nation’s Supreme Court for a landmark verdict on ju-dicial independence that went against the government, but fl ed Bangladesh in late 2017 amid allegations he had been forced to step aside.

Opposition groups and rights activists said the depar-ture of Sinha was a blow to the credibility of the judiciary in the Muslim-majority country.

Sinha, 68, now lives in North America.

He was the fi rst Hindu to be made chief justice of the offi -cially secular Muslim-majority nation of 168mn since its inde-pendence from Pakistan in 1971.

Sinha’s departure came af-ter a rare statement from the Supreme Court in October 2017 said other judges had accused him of graft and re-fused to sit with him on the top bench.

Just months earlier, Sinha had led the Supreme Court in a decision that scrapped parliament’s power to sack top judges.

The ruling overturned a 2014 constitutional change introduced by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

In a written statement is-sued before he left the coun-try, Sinha expressed dismay over criticism he had faced from the government over the ruling, saying he was “worried about the independence of the judiciary”.

He later wrote a book titled A Broken Dream: Rule of Law, Human Rights and Democra-cy, detailing the saga, saying he had been forced to resign and fl ee after being threat-ened by a military security agency.

AFPDhaka

S K Sinha headed the Supreme Court for a landmark verdict on judicial independence that went against the government

Lanka FM to visit India on Jan 9-10

Dinesh Gunawardena, Sri Lanka’s minister of for-eign relations, skills de-

velopment, employment and la-bour relations, is set to visit India on January 9 and 10.

This is the fi rst offi cial visit by Minister Gunawardena, also a former journalist, after he as-sumed offi ce in November 2019 following the presidential elec-tion, the Colombo Page newspa-per reported.

After winning the November 16 election, President Gotanaya Rajapaksa also visited India later that month on the invitation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The India trip was the fi rst overseas visit by President Rajapaksa.

IANSColombo

Premadasadeclared leader of opposition

Former Sri Lankan presi-dential hopeful Sajith Pre-madasa has been formally

declared as the opposition leader in parliament.

Speaker Karu Jayasuriya an-nounced in parliament that Pre-madasa has been accepted as the opposition leader, reports the Colombo Gazette.

The United National Party-led United National Front (UNF), the main opposition in parliament, had proposed the name of Premadasa following his defeat in the Novem-ber 16, 2019 presidential election.

Sajith Premadasa is the son of Ranasinghe Premadasa who served as the president from 1989 until he was assassinated in May 1993 by the LTTE.

In the November 16 elec-tion, he managed to get 42.91% of the ballots, while President Gotabaya Rajapaksa secured a majority of 51.21%.

IANSColombo

Indonesia beefs up patrols after Chinese fi shing boat ‘trespassing’

Indonesia is stepping up sea and aerial patrols of islands near the disputed

South China Sea, an offi cial has said, following a diplo-matic spat over “trespassing” Chinese vessels.

Military aircraft and three warships with some 600 navy, army and air force personnel have been deployed to waters around the Natuna islands, which border the South China Sea.

Indonesia has detained Chinese vessels in the fi shing-rich waters in the past.

“Territorial violations by foreign vessels in Indonesian exclusive economic zone... are a threat to Indonesian sover-eignty,” defence commander Vice Admiral Yudo Margono said in a statement.

The move comes after In-donesia summoned the Chi-nese ambassador this week and lodged a “strong protest” over a Chinese coast guard vessel escorting Chinese fi sh-ing boats around the islands in

mid-December.Beijing responded that it

has “historic rights” in the re-gion and that fi shing boats had been carrying out “legal and reasonable” activities.

China lays claim to huge swathes of the South China Sea, where it is accused of building military installations and artifi cial islands - and ramming fi shing vessels.

Vietnam, Taiwan, the Phil-ippines, Malaysia and Brunei also have claims in the South China Sea.

Beijing claims the majority of the resource-rich waterway through the so-called nine-dash line, a vague delineation based on maps from the 1940s as the then Republic of China snapped up islands from Japa-nese control.

Indonesia does not have a claim in the South China Sea, but said it would not tolerate incursions by China - a key trading partner - into its near-by waters.

“There is no compromise on Indonesia’s sovereign-ty,” Presidential spokesman Fajroel Rachman said .

AFPJakarta

Fans of K-pop’s Blackpink star Lisa pummel Thai cafe

A Bangkok cafe drew the wrath of thousands of fans of K-pop girl group

Blackpink, following “inap-propriate” comments posted by the owner about a visit from Thai superstar member Lalisa Manoban.

Referred to as “Lisa” by fans, the Thai member of South Korean pop group Blackpink shared pictures on Instagram from a photoshoot at MQQN Cafe in Bangkok on Thursday to her more than 28.1mn fol-lowers.

Her post, which showed her posing on the yellow seats of the retro-themed diner, drew more than 3.5mn likes and 20,500 comments.

But what should have been a New Year’s boon to the cafe quickly turned sour after the owner made lewd comments about her visit, attempting to sell the furniture she sat on and the cutlery she used.

His posts on Facebook - which have now been taken down - went viral as Thai fans accused him of sexual harass-ment, and he swiftly apologised for his “inappropriate post”.

“I accept all criticisms... I am deeply sorry for what hap-pened,” said the owner, whose

Facebook page has now been hidden.

MQQN cafe was shuttered yesterday, with a “closed” sign tucked behind its silver doors.

The furore spilled onto the cafe’s Facebook page, drawing negative one-star reviews from fans demanding “respect” for

Lisa and promising to boycott the establishment.

“How stupid he is to turn an op-portunity into a crisis,” said a com-menter, who urged the boycott.

Formed in 2016, Blackpink - made up of Thailand-born Lisa, two South Korean members, and one from New Zealand -

has helped to raise K-pop’s glo-bal profi le with tens of millions of fans worldwide.

It was named in Time maga-zine’s “100 Next” most infl u-ential in 2019, and was also the fi rst female K-pop group invit-ed to perform at the Coachella music festival.

AFPBangkok

A “closed” sign is seen on the door of the popular MQQN retro cafe in Bangkok yesterday.

After Indonesia deadly fl oods, few hear climate ‘wake up call’

Floods that killed 60 peo-ple in Indonesia’s capital after the biggest rainfall

since records began should be a wake-up call to climate change in one of the world’s biggest carbon emitters, environmental groups said.

But, despite the catastrophe in Southeast Asia’s biggest city, authorities see no greater im-petus for more cuts to planned carbon dioxide emission re-ductions or other measures to address climate change.

The fl oods “should serve as a strong reminder to the gov-ernment that things can’t be business as usual,” said Yuyun

Harmono, a campaign manager at the Indonesian Forum for the Environment, the country’s biggest green group.

With one of the world’s long-est coastlines Indonesia, the world’s fourth most populous country, is extremely vulnerable to climate change. The met-ropolitan region of the capital Jakarta is home to 30mn peo-ple and parts of the city near the coast are sinking just as sea levels are rising.

However, the country is the world’s fi fth-largest emitter of the greenhouse gases that are blamed for causing the climate crisis. It is also the world’s top exporter of both thermal coal and palm oil, whose cultivation has reduced the amount of car-bon dioxide absorbing forests.

At least 60 people were killed after the rains on New Year’s Day, Indonesian authorities said on Saturday evening. Nearly 100,000 people remain evacu-ated from their homes.

Indonesia’s meteorologi-cal department said it was the heaviest one-day rainfall since Dutch colonists began keeping records in 1866 and squarely blamed rising global temperatures.

“The impact of a one degree increase can be severe,” Dwiko-

rita Karnawati, the head of the agency, told a news conference. “Among that is these fl oods.”

The fl oods were “a big wake up call,” said Hidayah Hamzah, a research analyst at the World Resources environmental group in Jakarta.

Social media users criticised the government for not doing enough on climate change af-ter the fl ooding. Twitter user @wolfi ecoconut said: “Indone-sia is a country that is prone to disaster but we don’t care about the environment.”

But the green lobby has little sway in Indonesia.

Some 18% of Indonesians believe there is no link between human activity and climate change, one of the highest per-centages among the world’s 23

biggest countries, according to the 2019 YouGov-Cambridge Globalism Project.

When asked if the govern-ment would do more on cli-mate issues after the fl oods, the Ministry of the Environ-ment and Forest’s Climate Adaptation director Sri Tantri Arundhati said there are no plans to change policy or shift the targets for cutting carbon dioxide output it agreed under the Paris Accord.

Rida Mulyana, director gen-eral for electricity at the energy ministry, said the government would stick to a plan for moving to renewables that means more than half of power generation will still rely on coal for the next decade.

Part of the government’s

solution for Jakarta’s regular fl oods, which are not usually as bad as the recent ones, is to move the capital to the island of Borneo by 2023, a plan environ-mentalists fear will exacerbate deforestation.

Plans to improve Jakarta’s fl ood defences include build-ing two dams and works on the city’s biggest river.

“There aren’t a lot of peo-ple who realise the impact of climate change,” said Nirwono Joga, a researcher at the Urban Studies Center in Jakarta.

“When the fl ood recedes and people get back to their homes and resume normal activities, fl ood management or concrete actions to com-bat climate change will be forgotten too.”

ReutersJakarta

The metropolitan region of the capital Jakarta is home to 30mn people and parts of the city near the coast are sinking just as sea levels are rising

10 Gulf TimesMonday, January 6, 2020

ASIA/AUSTRALASIA

Nearly A$25mn raised as Australia reels from bushfi re furyAFPEden, Australia

A global appeal to help Aus-tralian fi refi ghters tack-ling catastrophic bushfi res

raised almost A$25mn yesterday, as swathes of the country suff ered extensive damage and the death toll from the long-running crisis hit 24.

East coast seaside towns were plunged into darkness, ash rained down on rural communities and major cities were again cloaked in choking smoke, even as stunned Australians tried to regroup amid a wave of cooler air and light rain.

The weekend marked some of the worst days in the country’s deadly bushfi re crisis, with hun-dreds more properties destroyed

and the overall death toll climbing to 24, including a man who died Saturday trying to save a friend’s home. Comedian Celeste Bar-ber used her international social media fame to launch a Facebook fundraiser for fi refi ghters that al-most reached its A$25mn ($17mn) target in just two days with dona-tions from all over the globe.

American pop star Pink said she would donate US$500,000 to the fi refi ghters, a donation matched by Australian actress Nicole Kidman. World number one Ash Barty pledged to hando-ver all her winnings from this week’s Brisbane International tennis tournament — potentially US$250,000 — to the Red Cross. Around 200 fi res continued to burn yesterday, many out of control, although only a handful

prompted emergency warnings as temperatures dipped.

Everywhere, millions of be-leaguered residents struggled to come to grips with a catastrophe that has taken place on a near-continental scale, unfurled over months and altered daily life. “We’re in uncharted territory,” New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian said. “We can’t pre-tend that this is something that we have experienced before. It’s not.”

Authorities have struggled to keep pace with the severity of the crisis – which has now scorched an area almost the size of Ireland.

While bushfi res are common in Australia’s dry summers, climate change has pushed up land and sea temperatures and led to more extremely hot days and severe

fi re seasons. Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Saturday announced the largest military call-up in liv-ing memory, mobilising up to 3,000 reservists to assist exhaust-ed volunteer fi refi ghters.

Warships and combat helicop-ters have already been repurposed to help with the largest maritime evacuation in Australia since World War II — moving some of the 4,000 people trapped for days on the foreshore of Malla-coota to safety. Up and down the coast, thousands of people re-mained displaced and many more weighed an uncertain future.

Noreen Ralston-Birchaw, 75, lost her home in Mogo on New Year’s Eve and said she was un-sure what to do. “At this very mo-ment, I don’t want to go back and see my house laying burnt on the

ground,” she told AFP. “I don’t want to rebuild there.”

Prime Minister Scott Mor-rison also announced the estab-lishment of a Bushfi re Recovery Agency, that will run for at least two years and help survivors get back on their feet, a signal that the path ahead will be long and diffi cult. Even for those not in the fi res’ direct path, the crisis has put Australia’s much-admired out-door lifestyle on hold: barbecues have been barred under blanket fi re bans, top sporting events have been called off and beach trips cancelled.

The country’s distinctive fl ora and fauna will take years or dec-ades to recover -- countless thou-sands of gum trees have been lost and experts on Kangaroo Island said half the koala population has

been wiped out. Queen Elizabeth II yesterday said she was “deep-ly saddened” by the fi res, and thanked the emergency services “who put their own lives in dan-ger” to help communities.

Yesterday brought milder con-ditions including some rainfall in New South Wales and neighbour-ing Victoria state but some com-munities were still under threat from out-of-control blazes, par-ticularly in and around the town of Eden in New South Wales near the Victorian border.

“The sky is still red,” said John Steele, 73, who was evacu-ated with his wife from their rural property north of Eden late Satur-day. “We’re not out of the woods yet.”

In Cooma, in inland southern New South Wales, the fi re crisis

turned into a fl ood disaster when a large tower carrying 4.5mn li-tres of water swept away cars and fi lled homes with mud. “First bushfi re and now fl ood, back-to-back disasters,” a shaken resident who asked not to be named told AFP.

Australia’s capital Canberra was ranked as the city with the poorest air quality in the world on Sunday by Air Visual, an in-dependent online air quality in-dex monitor, amid a severe haze caused by the fi res. Flights were cancelled, galleries were closed to safeguard public health and a large consignment of facemasks was being brought in.

In some rural areas, police pa-trolled the streets amid reports of looting and break-ins in bushfi re-aff ected areas.

Light rain brings brief respite from bushfi resReutersSydney

Australian authorities be-gan assessing the damage yesterday from heatwave-

spurred bushfi res that swept through two states a day earlier, as cooler conditions provided a temporary respite from blazes that have scarred the country’s east coast for weeks.

Light rain and cooler tem-peratures in the southeast of the country were a welcome change from the searing heat that has fuelled the devastating fi res, but offi cials warned they were not enough to put out almost 200 fi res still burning.

“It certainly is a welcome re-prieve, it is psychological relief if nothing else,” New South Wales (NSW) state Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsim-mons said in an afternoon brief-ing on the situation. “But unfor-tunately it is not putting out the fi res.”

Tens of thousands of homes in both NSW and Victoria states were without power yesterday as a large-scale military and police eff ort continued to provide sup-plies and evacuate thousands of people who have been trapped for days in coastal towns by the fi res.

Initial estimates put damaged or destroyed properties in the hundreds, but authorities said the mass evacuations by resi-dents of at-risk areas appear to have prevented major loss of life. Twenty-four people have been

killed since the start of this year’s wildfi re season.

Fire offi cials said tempera-tures were expected to rise again during the week and the next major fl ashpoint would come by Thursday, but it was too early to gauge the likely severity of the threat.

“The weather activity we’re seeing, the extent and spread of the fi res, the speed at which they’re going, the way in which they are attacking communities who have never ever seen fi re

before is unprecedented,” NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said.

Thousands of people have been evacuated from coastal towns at the peak of the sum-mer holiday season, in one of the biggest co-ordinated operations since the evacuation of Darwin after Cyclone Tracy fl attened the northern city in 1974.

Australia has been battling blazes across much of its east coast for months, with experts saying climate change has been a major factor in a three-year

drought that has left much of the country’s bushland tinder-dry and susceptible to fi res. Follow-ing are highlights of what is hap-pening across Australia: Prime Minister Scott Mor-

rison said Singapore and Papua New Guinea have made off ers of military support; New Zealand was sending an additional three Air Force helicopters and crews, two Army Combat Engineer Sec-tions and a command element to support Australian Defence ef-forts.

As smoke cleared, about 350 people were due to be airlifted out of the Victorian town of Mal-lacoota yesterday, where around 1,000 people were evacuated by sea on Friday. That would leave about 400 people who had cho-sen to stay in the community, The Age newspaper reported. No fi res were burning out

of control in the New South Wales, but four fi res in Victoria had Evacuate Now or Emergency Level warnings. A threat earlier on yester-

day to the NSW town of Eden had eased by late afternoon, and au-thorities said evacuation was no longer necessary. Haze from the fi res was turn-

ing skies orange as far away as New Zealand; police there asked people to not call the emergency phone number. In Canberra, offi cials asked

for 100,000 extra breathing masks from the national stock-pile as the country’s capital re-corded the worst air quality in the world yesterday, according to the IQAir AirVisual global index. The masks are expected to arrive today. Actors, popstars and Brit-

ain’s royal family stepped in to off er support for victims of the fi res, helping to raise millions for fi refi ghting services and wildlife shelters. The death of a 47-year

old man who was defending a friend’s rural property in NSW took the national toll this season to 24. NSW Premier Berejiklian said there was no one unac-

counted for in NSW; Victorian authorities said four people were unaccounted for in Victoria. The federal government on

Saturday announced an unprec-edented call up of army reserv-ists to support fi refi ghters as well other resources including a third navy ship equipped for disaster and humanitarian relief. It also announced the creation of a fed-eral bushfi res response agency. RFS Commissioner Fitzsim-

mons criticised the government for not informing him of its pol-icy proposal, saying he found out about it from the media and it cre-ated confusion on one of the busi-

est days ever for fi ghting fi res. PM Morrison also faced

criticism for a video he posted on social media outlining how the government is tackling the fi res. Morrison has been under sus-tained attack handling of the cri-sis after he jetted out for a family holiday in Hawaii.

He apologised and returned early but was heckled and snubbed when he toured fi re-hit regions in recent days. More than 5.25mn hectares

(13mn acres) of land has been burnt this fi re season. Almost 1,500 homes have been destroyed in NSW state alone.

Rural Fire Service volunteers (RFS) and Fire and Rescue NSW off icers (FRNSW) contain a small bushfire which closed the Princes Highway south of Ulladulla, Australia.

Christmas decorations are seen nearby a destroyed house in Cobargo, in New South Wales.

Bernadette Foster, a Dignams Creek resident who has run out of petrol, poses for photos with her pet dogs at the evacuation centre in Cobargo.

Fireworks light up the sky behind ice sculptures on the opening day of the Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival, in the northern city of Harbin, Heilongjiang province, China.

Snow Sculpture Festival

Duterte tells military to prepare to evacuate Filipinos in Iran, IraqDPA Manila

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte yesterday directed the military to prepare to

evacuate thousands of Filipinos in Iran and Iraq if hostilities escalate in the Middle East.

Duterte issued the directive during an emergency meeting

with defence, military and police offi cials, said Arsenio Andolong, spokesman for the Department of National Defence.

“The sole agenda was how to insure the safety of our country-men in the Middle East, especially those in Iraq and Iran as the ten-sion between the United States and Iran rises,” Andolong said in a statement. “The president tasked the armed forces to prepare its air

and naval assets to evacuate and bring home our countrymen if and when open hostilities erupt in the Middle East that may endan-ger their lives,” he added.

There are currently 1,600 Fili-pinos in Iran and 6,000 in Iraq, Andolong said.

The death of top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani in a US drone strike has stoked fears of a new war in the Middle East.

Japanesewoman turns 117 years old, extends record as oldest personKane Tanaka has extended her record as the world’s oldest person by celebrating her 117th birthday at a nursing home in Fukuoka in southern Japan. Tanaka marked her birthday with a party yesterday along with staff and friends at the nursing home, television footage from local broadcaster TVQ Kyushu Broadcasting Co showed. Tanaka, whose birthday was on Jan 2, took a bite from a slice of her big birthday cake. “Tasty,” she said with a smile. “I want some more.” Tanaka was last year confirmed as the oldest living person, aged 116 years 66 days old as of March 9, according to Guinness World Records. Tanaka’s record age is symbolic of Japan’s fast-ageing population, which coupled with its falling birthrate is raising concerns about labour shortages and prospects for future economic growth. The number of babies born in Japan fell an estimated 5.9% last year to fewer than 900,000 for the first time since the government started compiling data in 1899, according to Japan’s welfare ministry. Tanaka was born prematurely in 1903 and married Hideo Tanaka in 1922, ‘Guinness World Records’ said. The couple had four children and adopted a fifth.

A bluefin tuna sold for 193.2mn yen ($1.8mn) in the first auction of the new year at Tokyo’s Toyosu fish market, the second highest price on record, NHK broadcaster reported. The tuna was caught off northern Aomori Prefecture and weighed 276kg (608lbs), according to NHK, which translates into a price of about 700,000 yen per kilogram. The successful bidder was Kiyoshi Kimura (above), the head of the company that runs sushi restaurant chain “Sushizanmai,” NHK said. Last year Kimura paid a record 333.6mn yen for a tuna at the auction, exceeding his previous record price in 2013.

Tuna sells for $1.8mn in Tokyo auction

Dozens arrested after HK protest targeting Chinese tradersScuff les erupted between police and protesters in Hong Kong yesterday, with dozens of arrests made, after thousands marched near the border, shouting pro-democracy slogans and venting their anger at mainland Chinese traders. The demonstrators in Sheung Shui took aim at so-called “parallel traders” from China who buy vast amounts of duty

free goods in Hong Kong and take them back to the mainland to sell at a profit. Locals say it pushes up prices, overcrowds neighbourhoods and adds to growing tensions between Hong Kong residents and mainland Chinese. “The mainland Chinese come here, block the streets with their bags ... rents have gone up and it has made things more expensive

for Hong Kongers,” said Jasmin, a 19-year old student dressed all in black, who only gave her first name. “I want the government to know that too many of them are coming over here.” The marchers, including families with children, shouted slogans such as “Liberate Hong Kong, Revolution of our times!” and “Patriots use China-made products, don’t parallel trade!”

The Russian government has published a plan to adapt the economy and

population to climate change, aiming to mitigate damage but also “use the advantages” of warmer temperatures.

The document, published on the government website on Sat-urday, outlines a plan of action and admits that changes in the climate have had a “prominent and increasing eff ect” on socio-economic development, people’s lives, health and industry.

Russia is warming 2.5 times quicker than the planet on av-erage, and the two-year “fi rst stage” plan is an indication that the government offi cially rec-ognises this as a problem, even though President Vladimir Putin denies that human activity is the cause.

It lists measures such as dam building or switching to more drought-resistant crops, as well as crisis preparations including emergency vaccinations or evac-uations in case of a disaster.

The plan is needed to “lower the losses and use the advan-tages”.

It says climate change poses

risks to public health, endangers permafrost, increases the likeli-hood of infections and natural disasters.

It also can lead to diff erent species being pushed out of their usual habitats.

Possible “positive” eff ects are decreased energy use in cold re-gions, expanding agricultural ar-eas and navigational opportuni-ties in the Arctic ocean.

The document lays the groundwork for various agencies and stresses the need for more research on economic vulner-abilities, without detailing fi -nancing.

Among a list of 30 measures,

the government will calculate risks of Russian products be-coming uncompetitive and fail-ing to meet new climate-related standards as well as prepare new educational materials to teach climate change in schools.

Russia is one of the most vul-nerable countries to climate change, with vast Arctic regions and infrastructure built over per-mafrost.

Recent fl oods and wildfi res have been among the planet’s worst climate-related disasters.

Russia formally adopted the Paris climate accord in Septem-ber of last year and criticised the US withdrawal from the pact.

Putin however has repeatedly denied the scientifi c consensus that climate change is primarily caused by man-made emissions.

Yesterday Russia’s meteoro-logical service predicted tem-peratures up to 16° Celsius higher than normal today and tomor-row, when Russia celebrates Or-thodox Christmas.

“Weather on Christmas will be warmer than normal almost on the entire Russian territory,” it said on its website.

The service said temperatures were expected to be 4-8C higher than normal in the European part of the country, and 10-16C high-er beyond the Urals.

BRITAIN/EUROPE11Gulf Times

Monday, January 6, 2020

French police shot and injured a knife-wielding man in the northeastern

city of Metz yesterday, two days after a suspected Islamist radical stabbed a man to death near Paris, investigators said.

Metz public prosecutor Christian Mercuri told AFP that the man in yesterday’s in-cident, who was known to po-lice both “for his radicalisation and for a personality disorder”, shouted Allahu akbar before being shot.

A police source told AFP the suspect, who was born in 1989, threatened offi cers when they arrived on the scene and that they fi red shots to overpower him.

“He is injured but his life is not in danger,” the source said, adding that no-one else was hurt.

Mercuri said he was taken to hospital, where he was placed in custody, and was under in-vestigation for the attempted murder of police offi cers.

The 22-year-old man who killed a man and injured two women when he ran amok in a park in the Paris suburb of Villejuif, was also said by wit-nesses to have shouted Allahu akbar.

A convert to Islam, the at-tacker, who was shot dead by police, also suff ered from psy-chiatric diffi culties.

His stabbings are being treated as a terror attack.

Mercuri said he was in dis-cussions with terrorism pros-ecutors about whether they

should also take charge of the investigation in Metz.

In the Villejuif case, the of-fi ce of the anti-terrorism pros-ecutor said on Saturday that “although the perpetrator had a proven history of serious psychiatric problems” the in-vestigation had shown “a dis-tinct radicalisation ... as well as preparations for his attack”.

A bag belonging to the man, identifi ed by police as Nathan C, was found at the scene.

It contained works by ultra-conservative religious writers and a letter that read like a last will and testament, investiga-tors said.

Laure Beccuau, the pub-lic prosecutor in the town of Creteil who had been handling the probe before it was taken over by the anti-terrorism bu-reau, said the assailant spared the life of the fi rst person he met the park after the man, a Muslim, recited a prayer in Arabic.

He then stabbed a 56-year-old man in the heart and also injured his wife aged 47 before knifi ng a 30-year-old female jogger in the back.

The two women were dis-charged from hospital on Sat-urday after being treated for their injuries.

The attacks come just days before France marks the fi fth anniversary of the killing of 12 people at satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris by two brothers vowing allegiance to Al Qaeda.

France remains on high alert after being hit by a string of at-tacks by religious extremists since then, with more than 250 people killed in total.

French police shoot knife man two days after Paris attackAFPStrasbourg

UK Foreign Secretary Do-minic Raab has urged Cyprus to “do the right

thing” in the case of a Brit-ish teenager convicted of lying about being gang-raped in Ayia Napa but cautioned against ag-gravating the situation before her sentencing this week.

Last week, a judge ruled the 19-year-old wilfully indulged in public mischief in claiming that she was raped by a group of Israeli males while on holiday in July.

She has since alleged that Cypriot police forced her to sign a retraction and, as she awaited sentencing tomorrow, the wom-an appealed to both Raab and Boris Johnson, the prime minis-ter, to bring her home.

“Please support me with your actions, not just with your words,” she told Raab and John-son in comments to the Sun.

In response, the foreign min-ister said he had “very serious concerns” about the woman’s treatment and had discussed these with his Cypriot counter-part, Nikos Christodoulides.

“We have registered our con-cerns in crystal clear terms,” he told BBC One’s Andrew Marr Show yesterday. “The Cypriots are very sensitive about political interference in that case, so we will encourage them to do the right thing in the right way.”

Asked what the UK could do if the teenager were jailed, Raab said: “I’m not going to get ahead of Tuesday, but it is very fi rmly on my radar and I want to see that vulnerable young woman safe and sound back home with her family, and to be able to start her recovery.”

UK travel advice for Cyprus currently makes no mention of the case.

Asked whether the advice

could be updated to warn Brit-ons against visiting Cyprus, Raab said: “We always keep our travel advice under review.”

Speaking earlier to Sky’s So-phy Ridge On Sunday, he said the case needed to be handled “very sensitively”.

Raab added: “We need to be careful that we don’t do any-thing which aggravates the situ-ation between now [and] the date of sentencing, which is on Tuesday.

“But the concerns that we have, and that I have, have been squarely and fi rmly and cat-egorically registered with the Cypriot authorities.”

The teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, could face up to a year in prison and a €1,700 (£1,500) fi ne.

“We don’t control the Cypriot justice system, they’re very sen-sitive in Cyprus about perceived political interference, but there are clear questions around the due process, the fair trial safe-guards that have applied in this case,” Raab told Sky.

He said the fi rst priority was to see the teenager released.

“So that’s what we’re doing and we obviously need to han-dle this case very sensitively to make sure we don’t do anything counter-productive,” Raab said.

One of the men accused of taking part in the gang-rape, Yona Golub, told the Mail on Sunday that the group were pre-paring to sue the teenager.

“We deserve compensation for what we went through. I don’t know how much I should get,” the 18-year-old told the newspaper. “They need to put her in prison and only after-wards should they deal with the compensation.”

He claims he was in a diff er-ent hotel room but was arrested because he was on holiday with two friends who had been in the same room.

Golub was one of 12 Israeli males aged between 15 and 20 who were arrested over the in-cident but released after the woman signed a retraction statement.

Raab pressures Cyprus over Ayia Napa caseWoman convicted of lying about being gang-raped is due to be sentenced tomorrow

By Matthew WeaverGuardian News & Media

The husband of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliff e, the British-Iranian mother

held in jail in Iran, is seeking an urgent meeting with UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson to ask what plans the government has to keep dual national prisoners safe.

Richard Ratcliff e spoke to his wife by phone on Saturday fol-lowing the US drone strike that killed the Iranian general Qassem Suleimani on Thursday at Bagh-dad’s airport.

His wife, a 40-year-old char-ity worker serving fi ve years in Tehran’s Evin prison on charges of spying, was “scared and pan-icking”, he said.

The couple had no idea what to expect, he added, but feared it could mean her serving her full term, or even another added sen-tence.

“Her fi rst concerns were what is going to happen to the Ameri-can prisoners. Then what will happen to us. Prior to Christmas, we had our parole rejected, so it wasn’t looking good.

“She said to me she didn’t ex-pect to get out before the end of her sentence, and was worried they were going to add another sentence, which they have been threatening,” said Ratcliff e, who lives in the UK where he was recently joined by their young daughter.

“We are one of their major chess pieces. Increased tensions and anger and a real volatility now will not be good news for

any of those who are held,” he added.

As many as fi ve people with dual British-Iranian nationality, or with UK connections, are be-lieved to be in Iranian prisons.

They include Kylie Moore-Gilbert, a British-Australian academic, who has been in Evin prison for more than a year, hav-ing reportedly been given a 10-year sentence.

Anoosheh Ashoori, 65, an engineer and a UK-Iran dual citizen, is serving 10 years in the same Tehran jail on spying charges.

His wife, Sherry Izadi, spoke to him on Saturday and said she feared he no longer had a “hope in hell” of being released.

Ratcliff e said he was pleased the UK foreign secretary, Domin-ic Raab, mentioned dual nation-als, and his wife, on the BBC’s

Andrew Marr Show yesterday.It was important the UK gov-

ernment “counsels calm”.“But also pieties aren’t going

to cut it at this point. It [the gov-ernment] needs to be very clear [about] its priorities for protect-ing British citizens. And that does need Boris Johnson to stand up and say something,” he added.

The prime minister meeting the families of those held would send a clear signal “that these lives matter” and “where his pri-orities are”, he added.

Ratcliff e said he would be ask-ing for Johnson “to be talking directly to US President Donald Trump about how he is keeping people safe”.

“I want to be asking Boris Johnson what is his plan. I want Boris Johnson to be asking Don-ald Trump what is his plan,” he said.

Zaghari-Ratcliff e’s husband seeks urgent meeting with UK premierBy Caroline DaviesGuardian News & Media

Ratcliff e outside the Iranian embassy in London last June. He said his wife was ‘scared and panicking’ after the death of Qassem Suleimani in a drone strike.

Silly walk

Men take part in a ‘Silly Walk’ event to perform the cult comedy Monty Python’s special way to walk, kicking their legs to their heads, stumbling or walking backwards, on Saturday in Brno, Czech Republic. The event is inspired by the British comedy group Monty Python and its sketch or humorous ascent on a gloomy walk.

A drunk driver ploughed into pedestrians in an Italian Al-pine village yesterday, killing

six German tourists and injuring 11 other people, emergency services said.

The accident happened around 1.15am (0015 GMT) in the village of Lutago, near the Austrian border in an area popular with skiers.

A group of German tourists had just got off a bus as they returned

to their hotel from an evening at a nightclub when the car slammed into them at high speed – throwing some of them dozens of metres.

“I cry with those who have lost their children, their brothers and sisters, their friends, in the night,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel wrote on Twitter, wishing those in-jured a swift recovery.

Six Germans were killed, a fi re service offi cial in Lutago told AFP.

Eleven other people were injured – two of whom were seriously hurt and fl own by helicopter to a hospital in the Austrian city of Innsbruck.

The local head of Italy’s paramil-itary carabinieri police force told AFP that the driver had between 1.9g and 2.0g of alcohol per litre in his blood, about four times the maximum allowed level.

The 27-year-old local resident was charged with murder and put in hospital under police guard.

“I had just dropped the youths off when I saw the car coming at a crazy speed,” the bus driver told the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.

“I fl ashed my headlights in vain to tell the driver to slow down. A

few seconds later I saw these poor kids fl ying through the air in my rear-view mirror.”

Roughly 160 emergency workers went to help out after the accident and a fi eld hospital was set up at the side of the road.

“A terrible scene, people on the ground, cries and pain, a tragedy – we don’t have the words,” a ho-tel receptionist told Corriere della Sera. “We have asked several times for a radar on this road as drivers speed up as soon as they leave Luta-go and here, one kilometre from the centre, they go at 100kph.”

“The New Year has begun with a tragedy,” South Tyrol governor Arno Kompatscher told reporters.

South Tyrol is a largely German-speaking province aff orded a high degree of autonomy from Rome, known in particular for the Dolo-mites mountain chain.

German offi cials said the coun-try’s consulate in Milan was in close contact with the local authorities and staff were helping the people aff ected.

Lutago, in the picturesque Aurina valley, is popular with tourists who ski at Klausberg and Speikboden.

Six die as drunk driver hits pedestrians in Italian AlpsAFPRome

Flowers and candles are seen at the scene where a suspected drunk driver fatally struck a group of German tourists in Lutago, Italy.

Russian govt unveils climate ‘adaptation’ planAFPMoscow

Incumbent conservative defeated in Croatia presidential vote: exit poll

Croatia’s incumbent conservative president was defeated by a leftist former prime minister in a run-off election yesterday, an exit poll showed.Zoran Milanovic took 53.25% of the vote and incumbent Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, who was trying to unite a fractured right wing, 46.75%, the exit poll on state-run HRT television showed.Croatia voted yesterday to elect a new president in a race between candidates from the ruling conservative Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) and the main opposition party the Social Democrats.In the first round two weeks ago, the Social Democrats’ candidate and former prime minister Milanovic beat 11 other candidates to come first with 29.6% of votes.He finished ahead of Grabar-Kitarovic with 26.7%.The president’s role is largely ceremonial in Croatia.The head of state cannot veto laws, but has a say in foreign policy, defence and security matters.

Sanchez’s bid to form new Spanish government fails in first vote

Interim Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez failed to net enough support in a first-round parliamentary vote yesterday to form the first coalition government in Spain’s recent history.The leader of the Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) received 166 of the 176 votes he needed for an absolute majority to approve his proposed coalition with the left-wing United We Can alliance.Tomorrow parliament will hold a second round of voting in which only a simple majority – more “yes” votes than “no” votes – is needed to approve his coalition.

12 Gulf TimesMonday, January 6, 2020

INDIA

Tiger found dead in Goa village

IANSPanaji

Forest offi cials are investigat-ing the death of a Royal Bengal tiger in Goa’s Mhadei Wild-

life Sanctuary after its carcass was found in a village yesterday, state Chief Wildlife Warden Santosh Ku-mar said.

The carcass was found by resi-dents of Golvali village of North Goa district, he said, adding that more details about the tiger’s death would only be known after a post-mortem.

“At this moment, I cannot say more until I speak to the team when they return. After that, we will get a postmortem done and then the rea-sons will become clearer,” Kumar said.

A team comprising of a deputy conservator of forests and range for-est offi cers are currently conducting an investigation.

The Golvali village is located in the lower reaches of the Western Ghats. The Mhadei Wildlife Sanctu-ary is a part of a tiger corridor, which spreads across the forests in Goa, Karnataka and Maharashtra. As per a census conducted by the central wildlife authorities, the presence of fi ve tigers was recorded in Goa.

NCP gets plum portfoliosin Maharashtra cabinetIANSMumbai

The much-awaited distri-bution of portfolios for 32 cabinet ministers and

10 ministers of state was car-ried out by Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray yesterday.

The Nationalist Congress Party got key portfolios includ-ing fi nance and home.

In what was described as “an equitable allocation” of re-sponsibilities in the 43-mem-ber strong ministry, Thackeray will handle general adminis-tration, IT, information, and law.

NCP’s Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar is the new fi nance minister; his party colleague Anil V Deshmukh is the new home minister, and Jitendra Awhad gets the housing min-istry.

Thackeray’s son and Shiv Sena leader Aditya Thackeray has been assigned environment

and tourism & Protocol, sen-ior colleague Subhas Desai will handle industries, and Eknath Shinde is the new urban devel-opment.

From the Congress, Balasa-heb Thorat will handle the rev-enue department, Nitin Raut will be in charge of energy, and former chief minister Ashok Chavan has been given the and public works department.

The other important cabinet portfolios allocated are: Shiv Sena: Dadaji D Bhuse – agricul-ture; Uday Samant – higher & technical education; Sanjay D Rathod – forest; Gulabrao Patil – water and sanitation; Sandi-panrao Bhumre – employment guarantee; Anil Parab – trans-port; Shankarrao Gadakh soil and water conservation.

NCP: Chhagan Bhujbal – food and civil supplies; Jay-ant Patil – water resources; Dhananjay P Munde – social justice; Dilip Walse-Patil – labour; Nawab M Malik - mi-nority development; Hasan Mushrif – rural development;

Rajendra Shingane - Food and Drugs Administration; Rajesh Tope – public health and Bala-saheb P Patil – co-operation and marketing.

Congress: Varsha Gaikwad – school education; Sunil Kedar – animal husbandry, Vijay Wa-dettiwar – backward classes; Amit V Deshmukh – medical education; K C Padvi – tribal development; Aslam R Shaikh – textiles, fi sheries and ports Development and Yashomati Thakur-Sonawane – women & child development.

The Maha Vikas Aghadi comprising an alliance of Sena-NCP-Congress was sworn in on November 28 with Thackeray and six ministers, followed by a cabinet expansion on Decem-ber 30, taking the ministry to the full strength of 43.

Thereafter for a week, there was a big tussle among the three partners over the portfo-lios, which was amicably set-tled on Saturday and Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari granted his assent yesterday.

Students,teachers hurtas violencerocks JNUIANSNew Delhi

Violence swept the Jawa-harlal Nehru Univer-sity yesterday as several

masked individuals, both male and female, thrashed students, including girls, and teachers in-side the campus with wooden and metal rods.

Two members of the Jawaha-ral Nehru University Students Union (JNUSU), including presi-dent Aishe Ghosh – who was reportedly hit over the eye with an iron rod, received severe in-juries. They accused the Akhil Bharatiya Vidhyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the students’ wing of the Bharatiya Janata Part, for the rampant violence.

“I have been brutally beaten up by masked people. I don’t know who they were,” Ghosh said as she broke into tears while blood fl owed profusely from her head. She was to a nearby hospital.

JNUSU general secretary Satish Chandra was also injured in the attack. JNUSU vice presi-dent Saket Moon also accused the ABVP of leading the attack, which was bolstered by outsiders.

In a WhatsAapp message to the media, Moon said: “ABVP has formed a mob of goons from outside the JNU campus. They are going room to room with sticks and stones.”

Hostel rooms and lobbies were vandalised while several vehicles were damaged in the violence.

The situation turned violent after masked goons attacked a peace march being carried out by teachers and students against violence on campus.

Earlier, the ABVP had accused leftwing students of vandalis-ing the Periyar hostel and se-verely injuring various students present inside the hostel.

“Around 4 to 500 members of the leftwing gathered around the Periyar hostel, vandalised the hostel and forcibly entered the hostel to thrash the ABVP ac-

tivists inside,” ABVP’s JNU unit president Durgesh told IANS.

The ABVP claims its presiden-tial candidate Manish Jangid was injured and may have suff ered a fractured hand after he was as-saulted.

He also alleged that stones were hurled on students which caused severe head injuries to some of them.

“They hurled stones and used batons to thrash students in-side,” he added.

After the violence the admin-istration issued a statement say-ing there was a “law and order situation” on the campus and that police had been called to maintain order.

However, the message, is-sued by the JNU registrar, was later withdrawn.There was no explanation why the statement was withdrawn. No offi cial was available for comment.

Prohibitory orders were clamped on the campus with the imposition of Section 144.

Delhi Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal, who condemned the vio-lence and directed Delhi Police to take necessary steps, tweeted: “The violence in JNU against stu-dents and teachers is highly con-demnable. Directed @DelhiPolice to take all possible steps in co-or-dination with JNU Administration to maintain law and order & take action against the perpetrators of violence. The situation is being closely monitored.”

Meanwhile, Delhi Chief Min-ister Arvind Kejriwal has de-manded Home Minister Amit Shah’s resignation over the de-velopments.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi slammed the central govern-ment over the violence.

“The brutal attack on JNU students & teachers by masked thugs, that has left many serious-ly injured, is shocking. The fas-cists in control of our nation, are afraid of the voices of our brave students. Today’s violence in JNU is a refl ection of that fear. #SOS-JNU,” Gandhi said in a tweet.

Activist Irom Chanu Sharmila (centre), known as the Iron Lady for her struggle against the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) in Manipur, prepares to speak during a ‘Burqa and Bindi’ protest against the new citizenship law in Bangaluru yesterday.

Govt seeks Bollywood help on citizenship rowAgenciesMumbai

The Indian government yesterday invited numer-ous Bollywood stars and

fi lm industry personalities to a private gathering in an eff ort to garner support for a new citi-zenship law that has triggered weeks of sometimes violent protests nationwide.

At least 25 people have been killed so far in clashes with the police during fi ve weeks of pro-tests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which eases the path for non-Muslims in the neighbouring Muslim-majority nations of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh to gain Indian citizenship.

If combined with a proposed National Register of Citizens,

critics of the CAA fear it will discriminate against India’s Muslim minority and chip away at its secular constitution.

Two industry sources said they had received invites to yes-terday’s gathering at a fi ve-star hotel in Mumbai.

Roughly 20 to 25 people from both the Hindi and Marathi fi lm industry attended the event, one of the sources said.

The invitation said the event hosted by two senior leaders of Prime Minister Narendra Mo-di’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) aimed to “facilitate a discussion on myths and realities pertain-ing to the (CAA)”.

Wooing Bollywood stars, who have a huge social media following among Indians of all faiths, could help the BJP alter some of the negative narrative around the new law.

The law, and the outrage it has prompted, pose a dilemma for a fi lm industry that has some big-name Muslim personali-ties, but caters predominantly to the majority Hindu popula-tion.

A handful of Bollywood fi g-ures have condemned the CAA, while some others have faced criticism for not weighing in on the issue.

Modi has often appeared alongside actors and fi lm indus-try fi gures at public events.

The industry has, in turn, produced fi lms that some crit-ics have said approached politi-cal endorsements.

On Saturday, more than 100,000 people took part in a peaceful protest against the CAA in Hyderabad.

A source close to the BJP who was involved in organising yes-

terday private gathering said several party leaders had been enlisted to help explain the ra-tionale of the CAA to various professional groups such as lawyers.

In New Delhi, Home Minister Amit Shah accused Congress leaders Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Rahul Gandhi of misleading people on CAA, and reiterated Indian minorities would not lose their citizenship under the new law.

“I want to ask the people of Delhi if they want to choose a government which instigates riots in Delhi for politics,” Shah said.

“What is wrong in CAA? Should citizenship not be given to minority immigrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Af-ghanistan?”

Attacking the Congress, Shah

said it was a promise of Mahat-ma Gandhi which the party did not fulfi l in 70 years and it was fi nally done by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

He also slammed Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.

“Kejriwal misleads peo-ple on CAA. Rahul baba and Priyanka Vadra played the role of instigating riots by mis-leading people on CAA,” Shah told hundreds of BJP workers at Indira Gandhi Indoor Sta-dium.

“You are provoking people of the country by telling them they will lose their citizenship. I want to tell the brothers and sisters of minority community that no Indian minority citizen would lose his or her citizenship because there is no provision of getting back citizenship in the CAA.”

Doha-based Non-Resident Indian entrepreneur J K Menon has urged the Kerala government to facilitate the utilisation of labour potential in the state. Addressing the Global Kerala Assembly in Thiruvananthapuram, Menon also called for taking measures to turn the state into a medical and educational hub, start civil aviation colleges, and constitute a global forum of experts from education, health and tourism sectors to assist new entrepreneurs through a single-window facility. Representatives from 47 countries participated in the Global Kerala Assembly.

NRI entrepreneur speaks at Kerala event

Why BJP can’t have majority in the Rajya Sabha this yearIANSNew Delhi

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party has been trying to get a majority in the upper

house Rajaya Sabha ever since the party won a landslide election.

Haryana and Maharashtra – the two big states that went to the polls last year – had given

the BJP hopes to move stead-ily in that direction. As 73 upper house seats go to polls this year, the party’s hope for a majority will continue to remain a dream, at least for now.

Out of the 73 seats, 69 will fall vacant this year. Of the Ra-jya Sabha MPs whose tenure will come to an end, necessitating the poll, 18 belong to the ruling party, while 17 are from the Con-

gress. Four seats have been lying vacant anyway.

This year alone, 10 seats from Uttar Pradesh will get vacated. The BJP won’t be harmed there as the state government is being run it. But the party that will be di-rectly hit is the Samajwadi Party which was unseated by the BJP.

In the 245 member Rajya Sabha, the BJP has 83 MPs and the Congress 46. But, the BJP is

likely to hover around where it already is and not inch closer to its dream of getting the majority.

The primary reason for it is the fi ve-state loss in a year alone for the BJP. The party lost Chhat-tisgarh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh in December 2018. The following year brought good news for the BJP, which swept back to power with an even big-ger mandate of 303 seats in the

Lok Sabha. But, it is the member count of state assemblies that aff ects the number any party has in the Rajya Sabha.

Moreover, 2019 ended in a bleak note for the BJP. Though the party grappled to ensure it forms a government in Haryana, its number of MLAs fell. While in the outgoing assembly, the BJP had 47 members, after the state election, it fell to 40.

Maharashtra has been an equally sombre story for the BJP where the non-negotiable stand on sharing of the chief minister’s post between the two pre-poll allies - BJP and Shiv Sena led to the Sena walking out of the Na-tional Democratic Alliance and forming the government with the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party. In 2014, the BJP got 122 seats in the Maharashtra

assembly, but won 17 seats less in 2019. However, the tally for the Congress rose in both Haryana and Maharashtra by 16 and 13, respectively.

As many BJP senior leaders like Aviation Minister Hardeep Puri and Delhi BJP leader Vijay Goel are on their way out this year, the majority in the upper house remains elusive for the ‘world’s largest party’.

Security off icials went into a tizzy when a farmer along with his minor daughter attempted to break into Matoshri, the private home of Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray in Mumbai yesterday morning, according to sources. The farmer had come from Panvel in Raigad district and armed with some papers, tried to force his way onto the high-security road outside Matoshri. When the 45-year old man and

his 11-year old daughter were stopped by police, he protested and shouted that he wanted to meet the chief minister. However, police stopped them and bundled them into a waiting van. On hearing about the commotion, Thackeray and son, Environment Minister Aditya Thackeray, immediately asked the police to release the man and his daughter and get the details of their grievances.

Farmer tries to enter Thackeray’s home

PAKISTAN13Gulf Times

Monday, January 6, 2020

Military spokesman Ma-jor-General Asif Gha-foor has declared that

Pakistan will not allow its soil to be used against anyone.

Quoting Prime Minister Im-ran Khan and Chief of Army Staff General (COAS) Qamar Javed Bajwa, Ghafoor told ARY News channel: “We will not al-low our soil to be used against anyone.”

“Pakistan will not be party to anyone or anything, but will be a partner of peace, and peace alone,” he said, quoting the prime minister.

The director-general of the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), in reply to a question re-

garding the killing of Iran’s Ma-jor-General Qasem Soleimani in a US strike on Friday, said that the regional situation had been altered and Pakistan would play its role in helping peace prevail.

Soleimani was killed on Friday morning in a US strike on Bagh-dad’s international airport, in a dramatic escalation of tensions between the two countries.

Shortly after, General Bajwa in a call with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had emphasised the “need for maximum re-straint and constructive engage-ment”.

Discussing the phone call be-tween the army chief and Pom-peo, Ghafoor said that Bajwa had said two things.

“Firstly, he said that the re-gion was improving from very bad conditions, adding that the Afghan reconciliation process is very important for this improve-ment.

“He added that Pakistan

would play its role in this and wants the focus to remain on the issue.

“Secondly, the army chief had told Pompeo that tensions in the region should be reduced.

“He said all relevant countries should move forward with con-structive practices and dialogue.

“Pakistan will support all peaceful eff orts and hopes the region doesn’t go towards an-other war,” Ghafoor quoted the army chief as saying.

Responding to a question re-garding rumours that Pakistan would participate in the war by supporting the United States against Iran, Ghafoor said that these were just rumours circu-lating on social media.

He clarifi ed, however, that this was not the fi rst call [be-tween Pompeo and Bajwa].

“From the Afghan recon-ciliation process to the regional security, the army chief has an important role,” he said, adding

that the Foreign Offi ce had also issued a statement.

The Foreign Offi ce via a state-ment had also expressed “deep concern” over the tensions, urg-ing all sides to exercise restraint.

“My request to the people and

media would be to only pay at-tention to statements from an authentic source,” Ghafoor said, adding that they should ignore “propaganda” and “rumours of enemies of the country”.

“India is playing the lead role

in spreading these rumours,” he said, adding that he had read an Indian news article claiming that Pakistan had ditched Iran, linking this to the resumption of Pakistan’s participation in a US military training and educa-tional programme.

“In our bilateral relations with America, training co-operation was suspended. For the past four to fi ve months, America has been talking about restoring this because training engagement in military to military co-opera-tion goes on.

“Linking something that has been going on for quite a few months to this incident is part of that propaganda campaign,” Ghafoor said.

The army’s spokesman said that peace had been achieved in Pakistan after a lot of sacrifi ces, adding that the nation will play its role for peace in the region.

“We will not be part of any ef-fort to ruin this peace,” he said.

Pakistan will play role to keep the peace: militaryPakistan won’t allow its soil to be used against anyone, says military

InternewsIslamabad

Overall 45% Pakistanis are optimistic about the year 2020, which is higher

than the global average fi gure of 37%.

Pakistan globally ranked 25th in the hope index, with net hope of 25%, which was 13% above the global average of 12%.

However, Pakistan ranked lower than India, which had a net hope of 42%.

According to the “End of the Year Poll” conducted by Gal-lup International Association (GIA), the oldest global track-ing study in the world that was launched in 1977 by Dr George Gallup, people who are living in

the Middle East are mostly pes-simistic (52%), while those liv-ing in India and West Asia are mostly optimistic.

On a country-by-country level, the most optimistic citi-zens concerning 2020 are in Nigeria (73%), Peru and Albania (70%), Kazakhstan (67%) and Armenia (62%).

On the pessimistic scale, the ranking is headed by Lebanon (76%), Hong Kong (68%), Jor-dan (60%) and Italy (59%).

The global hope and despair index are strongly infl uenced by the age and education younger people (up to 34 years of age), and people with a higher educa-tion level are signifi cantly more optimistic.

Religion, in that respect, is not a deciding factor.

Western Europe is the most pessimistic region after the Middle East, while non-EU Eu-ropean countries are almost two times more optimistic than the westerners.

Americans are signifi cantly more confi dent than Russians in their expectations for a better new year.

Nigeria, with the greatest population in Africa, leads this ranking every year.

For decades Gallup Inter-national Association has been measuring the perception of personal happiness around the globe.

In the last couple of years, usually about one out of two in-habitants of the planet declares they are either very or somewhat happy.

This year’s results are no ex-ception.

The top fi ve countries ac-cording to the global happiness index are Columbia (88 points), Indonesia (86 points), Ecuador (85 points), and Kazakhstan (83 points), followed by Nigeria and the Philippines with 78 points each.

The least happy countries are Jordan (-38 points), Lebanon (-15 points), Syria (-7 points), followed by Hong Kong and Iraq with minus fi ve points each.

Note that many of these coun-tries have witnessed signifi cant social upheaval and protests over the course of 2019.

Comparison to previous years shows that signifi cantly less people in Russia, Hong Kong, Lebanon and Mexico are report-

ing happiness, while the latter is increasing strongly in Azerbai-jan, Ecuador, Ukraine and Ro-mania.

According to GIA president Kantcho Stoychev: “Our global hope and despair index, refl ects fi rst of all, the political and eco-nomic situation and the direc-tion of development in every respective country through the eyes of the ordinary peo-ple, while the happiness index reveals personal perceptions, closely related to a given nation-al character.

“It seems that people around the world are about four times happier in their personal lives compared to their lives as citi-zens of their countries.

“Kazakhs, Armenians, Indi-ans, Vietnamese, just to name a

few, are both happy personally and socially optimistic, while Bosnians, Polish, Koreans and Spaniards are among those who report high levels of personal happiness, combined with high levels of social pessimism.

“Unhappy personally and socially pessimistic are, for ex-ample, the Lebanese and Jor-danians, but Syrians and Iraqis are exactly on the opposite end of the scale they show signs of social optimism, while unhap-piness dominates their personal lives.

“In general, social optimism and personal happiness are not related to the wealth of the re-spective country.

“The current political situa-tion and its perspectives are the dominating factor.”

45% Pakistanis optimistic about 2020InternewsLahore

Major-General Ghafoor: My request to the people and media would be to only pay attention to statements from an authentic source.

Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi has re-affi rmed Pakistan’s politi-

cal, diplomatic and moral sup-port “to the valiant Kashmiri people in their just struggle for human dignity and their inal-ienable right to self-determi-nation” in accordance with UN Security Council resolutions.

In his message yesterday on the ”Right to Self-determination Day” of people of Jammu and Kashmir, the minister said that Kashmiris around the world are observing the 71st anniversary of the United Nations’ commit-ment that the Jammu and Kash-mir dispute would be decided through the democratic method of a free and impartial plebiscite under the UN auspices.

“Through this resolution, the United Nations affi rmed its sup-port for the realisation of the inalienable right to self-deter-mination of Kashmiris, a right from which all other fundamen-tal freedoms and basic human rights fl ow,” he said.

Qureshi regretted that this right has not yet been realised

“because of the unabated re-pression and state terrorism by India in the Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir and for over seven decades, the human dig-nity of Kashmiris is being vio-

lated on a daily basis in occupied Kashmir”.

He said the United Nations, especially the Security Council, bears the responsibility to en-sure fulfi lment of the promise of

granting the right to self-deter-mination to the Kashmiris.

“India’s illegal and unilateral actions of August 5 (last year) aimed at altering the disputed status of Occupied Kashmir and

bringing about demographic change to undermine the right to self- determination of Kash-miris have been widely rejected,” he said. “India’s unrestrained oppression has reached unprec-edented levels with the inhuman lockdown now in place for over 150 days.

“Each additional second on the curfew clock is a burden on the world’s collective con-science.”

Qureshi urged the inter-national community to act in support of the fundamen-tal freedoms and basic human

rights of Kashmiris and urge India to allow the UN Fact Find-ing Mission to Kashmir to ascer-tain the reports of grave human rights violations there.

He said India must allow United Nations Military Ob-server Group in India and Paki-stan unhindered access to carry out its duties in Indian-admin-istered Kashmir.

Qureshi added that if India had nothing to hide, it must al-low international media and civil society to visit and report on the human rights situation in Kashmir.

Qureshi reaffi rms support for KashmirisInternewsIslamabad

Qureshi: the UN bears the responsibility to ensure fulfilment of the promise of granting the right to self-determination to Kashmiris.

Youth shout slogans during a protest in Lahore on ‘The Right to Self-determination Day’, demanding the implementation of the United Nations resolution on Kashmir.

Prime Minister Imran Khan has condemned an inci-dent in Nankana, in Has-

sanabdal town at a Sikh shrine.On Friday, dozens of demon-

strators protested in Nankana over the alleged unjust treat-ment of police in a case involving the marriage of a young couple, which was portrayed as a com-

munal issue by the Indian media.Khan said in a series of tweets

that the Nankana incident was “against his vision and will fi nd zero tolerance and protection from the government including police and judiciary”.

Interior Minister Brigadier (re-tired) Ijaz Shah visited Nankana yesterday to ascertain the facts regarding Friday’s incident.

He said that he was in Nankana on the directions of the prime minister.

“What happened here on Fri-day was a conspiracy by those who are against the brother-hood and national sovereignty,” Shah said, adding: “Interna-tional media projected the in-cident wrongly and twisted the facts. Prime Minister Khan’s government is standing by the Sikh community, and those who were behind this incident will be brought to the book.”

On Friday the Foreign Offi ce rejected Indian allegations of the

desecration and destruction of a holy place in Nankana Sahib as “not only false but also mischie-vous”.

“Attempts to paint this inci-dent as a communal issue are patently motivated. Most im-portantly, the Gurdwara remains untouched and undamaged,” the Foreign Offi ce said.

“All insinuations to the con-trary, particularly the claims of acts of ‘desecration and destruc-tion’ and desecration of the holy

place, are not only false but also mischievous,” the Foreign Offi ce said.

“The government of Pakistan remains committed to uphold-ing law and order and providing security and protection to the people, especially the minorities.

“The opening of the Kartarpur Sahib Corridor is a manifestation of Pakistan’s special care extend-ed to the minorities, in line with the vision of the Quaid-e-Azam Mohamed Ali Jinnah,” it said.

Nankana incident against my vision, says PMInternewsIslamabad

Prime Minister Khan: said that the Nankana incident ‘will find zero tolerance and protection from the government’.

Outcry over KP education ministerDPAIslamabad

Prime Minister Imran Khan’s party was under fi re for its decision to ap-

point a high school dropout as the education minister in a northwestern province.

The government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province an-nounced a cabinet reshuffl e on Saturday and appointed Akbar Ayub Khan as minister for el-ementary and secondary educa-tion.

The English-language news-paper Dawn reported that the minister quit his studies before completing the 12th grade and moving to Canada.

He never received a higher education.

After the report sparked out-rage on social media, the pro-vincial government’s spokesman justifi ed the appointment in a video message by saying that the new minister could speak fl uent English.

“Imran Khan’s party appoints a matriculate as provincial edu-cation minister and his stalwarts defend this insult to the [Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s] public by say-ing he can speak English,” said Syed Talat Hussain, a prominent journalist with more than 3mn followers on Twitter.

In September, the provincial government was forced to with-draw an order stipulating that schoolgirls must wear hijabs af-ter opposition from civil society groups and outcry on social me-dia.

Govt off icials urged to adapt to social mediaSpecial Assistant to the Prime Minister on Information and Broadcasting Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan has said that social media is taking over electronic media and that government off icers needed to adapt to the changing scenario.Addressing information off icers at a function held at the Information Services Academy (ISA), she said that electronic media had witnessed its boom around a decade ago, but now the fast-growing social media was dominating screens.Awan added that in the 24/7 environment of news flow, the role of information off icers was highly significant in disseminating information about policies and activities of public importance.“The current era is about social media and it is helpful in disseminating news and information,” she said, adding that the situation had also led to the spread of fake news as well as twisted news which needed to be countered.

University issues new code of ethics for studentsPakistan’s largest university, the University of Karachi (KU), has issued a new code of ethics for students, asking them to refrain from what the institution describes as “activities against the ideology of Pakistan and the religion of Islam”.The guidelines issued to the students stress that those studying at the university have no right to interfere in the administrative activities of the educational institution.The rules were issued by KU Student Adviser Dr Asim Ali.

By Nick Cohen London

There are worse leaders than Scott Morrison. The “interna-tional community” includes torturers, mass murderers,

ethnic cleansers and kleptomaniacs beside whom he seems almost benign. But no leader in the world is more abject than the prime minister of Australia.

He cuts a pathetic fi gure. A leader must speak honestly to his people in a crisis. The sly tactics of climate change denial, the false consoling words that it’s a scare and we can carry on as before, have left Morrison’s words as meaningless as a hum in the background. Nothing he says is worth hearing.

Australian English is rich in its descriptions of worthless men: a dry thunderstorm, a third armpit, a glass door on a dunny, a pocket on a singlet, an ashtray on a motorbike, a submarine with screen doors, a roo-bar on a skateboard. Morrison is all of the above, but a British saying sums him up: “too clever by half”. Morrison won last year’s Australian general election, although his conservative Liberal party was expected to lose, by slyly mobilising opinion against tax rises in general and environmental taxes in particular.

The climate change denialism he espoused is a moving target. In the 1990s, lobbyists funded by the oil industry acted as if the overwhelming majority of scientists who understood the subject were in a conspiracy against the public. They accused the authors of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports of being guilty of a

“major deception” when they discussed the human infl uence on climate. Many still hold to the original sin of this denialism.

Even as Australia burned last week, Tony Abbott, Morrison’s conservative predecessor, was still saying the world was “in the grip of a climate cult”. Abbott proved he was willing to make others suff er for his wilfully ignorant belief by scrapping a carbon tax when he was in power in Australia in 2014. A fallback position is emerging. It accepts that manmade climate change is real but withdraws the concession as soon as it has been made and loses it The fi nal fallback and the fi nal degradation will come, I predict, in the mid-2020s when the right abandons denialism completely, admits that climate change is catastrophic, but adds it’s far too late to do anything about it, which it may well be.

Scott Morrison is hunkered down in stage two. He grudgingly acknowledges the existence of man-made climate change but hurriedly adds that other causes are at work. The climate has always changed and it’s not worth bearing the costs of challenging a polluting culture. It worked in last year’s elections, but sounds absurd today.

“By not recognising climate change as a serious threat you fail to prepare overworked, underappreciated fi rst responders for larger, more frequent bushfi res that devastate communities,” said one previously solid Morrison voter, after he had learned the truth about conservatism as his family waited to be evacuated from a New South Wales beach.

Despite its failure, perhaps because of

its failures, the do-nothing Australian right remains admired across the conservative world. The 2019 election was meant to be a climate change election about the killing of the Great Barrier Reef, the extreme drought and average summer temperatures across the continent hitting 40C. Yet Morrison and his campaign team managed to turn it into an election about the Australian Labor party’s tax plans.

It’s as if crime writers spent their time detailing the cunning of criminals while never mentioning the victims

So impressed was Boris Johnson that he hired Morrison’s boys to win the British general election. Fawning coverage followed of the digital “whiz-kids” from New Zealand: Sean Topham, 28, and Ben Guerin, 24. In Australia, the hotshots refi ned their technique of dumping hundreds of crude variations on the same theme on social media. They described how Labor would raise taxes and warned that a proposal to encourage electric cars threatened motorists. Labor wanted to hit “Australians who love being out there in their four-wheel drives”, said Morrison, as his propagandists targeted ads at owners of Ford Rangers, Toyota Hilux and every other popular model, saying that Labor would increase the price of “Australia’s most popular cars”.

In Britain, the same team banged home the crude message in a thousand diff erent ways that Johnson would “get Brexit done”.

Politicians and political journalists who eulogise the cunning of clever operators aren’t being wholly asinine. How a party wins a campaign remains a matter of importance. But not one of them added, after the praise for the wise

guys and whiz-kids had ended, that the boys from the Morrison campaign were the Neville Chamberlains of Australian politics who had convinced Australians to ignore the greatest threat to their nation’s security. It’s as if crime writers spent their time detailing the cunning of criminals while never mentioning the victims left bleeding on the fl oor.

The Brexit Morrison’s operators helped to sell to the British is, like climate change, an exercise in three-stage denial. First comes the refusal to admit there will be pain. Then a guarded concession that there may be “bumps in the road” and,, you can predict, in a couple of years, when it is too late to save the car factories and science parks, will come admission that Remainers were right, but that doesn’t matter now.

When Morrison won the Australian general election and the gilets jaunes forced Macron to scrap his proposed fuel tax, liberals received stern lectures about how people did not want to meet the cost of fi ghting climate change; the point was a good one. After Leave won the 2016 Brexit referendum and Johnson won the 2019 general election, lectures on how voters did not want to be told that Britain was making a terrible mistake followed in turn. Of course, they were true too.

But it is also true that you cannot postpone a rendezvous with reality forever. Whatever memes the right pushes out, whatever social media strategies they adopt and propaganda they trumpet, the lesson the refugees on Australia’s beaches know too well is that fi re still burns. - Guardian News and Media

Nick Cohen is an Observer columnist

Gulf Times Monday, January 6, 2020

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CHAIRMANAbdullah bin Khalifa al-Attiyah

EDITOR-IN-CHIEFFaisal Abdulhameed al-Mudahka

Deputy Managing EditorK T Chacko

Australian infernotakes a heavy tollon wildlife in NSW

It is a tragedy beyond words that at least 480mn animals have perished in the bushfires raging in the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW) since September 2019. The unprecedented figure in modern history is based on a 2007 report for the World Wild Fund for Nature (WWF) on the impacts of land clearing on Australian wildlife in NSW, the University of Sydney said on Friday in a state-ment. So far, more than 5.25mn hectares (13mn acres) of land have already burned across Australia, while more than 1,800 homes have been destroyed or damaged. Also, 24 people have died.

To calculate the impacts of land clearing on NSW wildlife, the authors of the previous study had obtained estimates of the population density of mammals in NSW and then multiplied it by the areas of vegetation ap-proved to be cleared. Professor Chris Dickman, co-author of the original study, used the same formula and came to the estimation that 480mn animals have died in the NSW bushfires since September. All six Australian states and one territory have been hit by the bushfires, but the

study on animal fatali-ties relates only to NSW. “The authors deliberately employed highly conserva-tive estimates in making their calculations. The true mortality is likely to be substantially higher than those estimated,” the university said.

Many of the affected animals are likely to have been killed directly by the fires, with others succumbing later due to the depletion of food and shelter resources and predation from introduced feral cats and red foxes. The figure includes mammals, birds and reptiles, but does not include insects, bats or frogs. The true loss of animal life is likely to be much higher than 480mn. Wildlife experts told the NSW state parliament in November that at least 2,000 koalas had died in bushfires, although that esti-mate was said to be extremely conservative. The experts told the inquiry that the bushfire crisis had increased the risk of koala extinction, only adding to the destruction of their habitat by extensive land clearing for agriculture and urban development.

Australian farmers have also lost tens of thousands of livestock in the bushfires, with many having to euthanise animals suffering from heat stress and burns. “While we don’t know exact numbers yet, there has been a signifi-cant loss of livestock in parts of the country, most recent-ly in areas such as northern Victoria and the south coast of NSW,” Fiona Simson, president of the National Farm-ers’ Federation, said. She said the dairy sector was among the worst affected sectors.

It may be recalled that the massive bushfires have been fuelled by an unprecedented heatwave. The year 2019 was the country’s hottest and driest on record. Last week temperatures topped 40.5C in Sydney and similar tem-peratures scorched much of the rest of the country last week. The bushfires sent choking smoke into major cities. Australia’s military deployed ships and aircraft on New Year’s Day to help rescue thousands of people trapped by fires in coastal tourist destinations.

The extreme heat in Australia last week was caused by a combination of unique patterns in rain, temperature, and wind, factors that scientists were able to detect in advance. But Australia is also in the grip of an aggravating climate crisis. The Amazon rainforest fires in Brazil earlier and the raging inferno in Australia are all indications that mankind has to take steps on war footing to pull back from the brink.

480mn animals are estimated to have died in bushfi res since September

Australia’s PM reveals much about the right’s eff ort to deny reality

Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison visits a wildflower farm in an area devastated by bushfires in Sarsfield, Victoria state.

By David ZurawikThe Baltimore Sun

The word “unprecedented” is often used when discussing the nastier political tactics of President Donald Trump.

And in many cases, that’s a perfectly apt word.

But if you think there has never been anyone as reckless, transgressive, and cruel as Trump in modern American politics, you need to see “McCarthy,” an outstanding, two-hour, prime-time PBS documentary on Joseph McCarthy, the infamous Republican senator from Wisconsin on PBS as part of public television’s venerable “American Experience” franchise.

Based in part on a deeply-researched and richly-textured 1983 biography, A Conspiracy So Immense: The World of Joe McCarthy, by historian David M Oshinsky, and focusing on the years 1950-54 in McCarthy’s Senate career, this is not a documentary that overtly has anything at all to do with Trump. But debuting in today’s Trump-saturated America, the parallels are impossible to ignore. So too, is the physical link of Roy Cohn moving from McCarthy’s chief counsel during his infamous Senate hearings to personal attorney and mentor to Trump in later years.

Start with all the talk from Trump and some of his allies about conspiracies, with one of the latest being the incredible claim that it was Ukraine, not Russia, that meddled in our 2016 presidential election.

Unprecedented? For a president of the United States, yes.

But been there, done that for McCarthy almost 70 years ago in

language even bigger and more over-the-top than Trump’s, as indicated by the title of Oshinsky’s book, A Conspiracy So Immense. The phrase comes from a 1951 McCarthy speech in the Senate in which he says: “How can we account for our present situation unless we believe that men high in this government are concerting to deliver us to disaster? This must be the product of a great conspiracy on a scale so immense as to dwarf any previous such venture in the history of man. A conspiracy of infamy so black that, when it is finally exposed, its principals shall be forever deserving of the maledictions of all honest men.”

The junior senator from Wisconsin was explaining the Communist takeover of China and expansion throughout parts of Eastern Europe as the result of what he alleged was a conspiracy that extended deep into the American government. And who were those Americans who “shall be forever deserving of the maledictions of all honest men?”

Dean Acheson, then secretary of state, was one. Army General George Marshall, chief of staff to two Democratic presidents, and Secretary of Defence in 1951, was another. The Marshall Plan, which provided US aid to a devastated Europe after World War II, was named after him.

McCarthy stopped short of calling Democratic President Harry Truman a conspirator working with the Communists to undermine America. The president was merely a dupe looking the other way and going along with all the deep-state perfi dy, in McCarthy’s fevered analysis.

If you think “fevered” is too strong or loaded a word, wait until you see

McCarthy in the documentary when he is in high dudgeon talking about Communists as skunks and rats.

And how about those faked images and words that President Trump champions in social media like the wrestling meme he re-tweeted that shows him body slamming someone with a CNN logo for a face?

Using the technology of their day, McCarthy’s team used the same kind of manipulated images to attack opponents.

McCarthy was not up for re-election in 1950, but Maryland senator Millard Tydings was. Like Trump, McCarthy held grudges big time and

tried to personally destroy those he held them against. One of the people against whom he held a major grudge, according to Oshinsky’s book, was Tydings for the role the Democrat played on a Senate subcommittee that investigated McCarthy’s tactics.

McCarthy campaigned against Tydings in Maryland in 1950 accusing the Maryland senator of “protecting Communists for political reasons.” On the eve of the election, McCarthy’s staff circulated a composite photo intended to make it look as if Tydings and Earl Browder, one-time chair of the Communist Party USA, were in a “friendly conversation.”

Tydings lost the election, and McCarthy was seen as playing a signifi cant role in that, a perception that only enhanced his power.

Oshinsky, a professor of history at NYU, is featured prominently in the documentary, along with a half dozen other historians with similar levels of political and cultural knowledge.

Among those caught up in McCarthy’s accusations was Owen Lattimore, a Johns Hopkins University professor and State Department adviser on China who was among nine people accused by McCarthy of being a Soviet spy.

McCarthy is shown on fi lm describing Lattimore as “the architect of our Far Eastern policy, a policy that has so far sold into Communist slavery 400mn people.”

Donald A Ritchie, historian emeritus of the US Senate, tempers that claim by describing Lattimore as a left-leaning China specialist who, “wanted the United States essentially to support the Communist takeover and recognise China.”

Lattimore, who was in Afghanistan at the time of the attack against him, called the charges pure moonshine and McCarthy a “madman” for lobbing them.

“Is Lattimore arrogant? Yes,” author Oshinsky says. “Is Lattimore a traitor? Absurd. Is McCarthy getting traction for all of that? Unbelievably.”

From the image of Oshinsky talking about McCarthy getting traction, the screen fills with a 1950 newsreel showing McCarthy sitting at a desk piled high with envelopes. He’s going through the mail that has him “snowed under” with comments on Lattimore, according to the announcer, who

says the situation is building to a showdown when Lattimore returns from Afghanistan to face a Senate hearing.

Lattimore’s arrival back in America is recounted for the documentary by his son, David Lattimore, against a rich tapestry of newsreel footage and evocative still photographs of the massively covered event.

“My mother and I went to what is now JFK (airport),” David Lattimore says. “And it was a strange, underground, almost sort of Dante-esque setting with a long corridor that he was going to have to come down running the gauntlet of, who knows, a hundred reporters and photographers with their big ... cameras and fl ashbulbs.”

A montage of still photographs humanises the family and speaks volumes about what it felt like to be on the wrong end of McCarthy’s reckless cruelty.

“McCarthy became a demagogue by preying on people’s fears and turning Americans against each other,” writer and director Sharon Grimberg says in PBS press materials. “It’s a story about the fragility of democracy and how someone in power can pervert democracy. And it’s about being willing to challenge a bully and stand up for our sense of decency as Americans.”

“McCarthy” is an eff ort PBS can be proud of. It meets the highest hopes that the most enlightened founders of public broadcasting had for the medium: to provide context to events based on facts and verifi ed images. – Tribune News Service

David Zurawik has been TV/media critic at The Baltimore Sun since 1989.

COMMENT

Gulf Times Monday, January 6, 2020 15

The pivotal issues America faces in 2020

Quit smoking, add years to your life

By Kay C JamesThe Heritage Foundation

As Americans head into the new year and the kickoff to the Roaring ’20s 2.0 (and they will roar), policymakers

will be faced with some incredibly important decisions. Several issues will take centre stage, ones with the potential to signifi cantly shape the people’s future, from immigration reform to college loan debt.

Certainly one of the biggest will be the Senate impeachment trial of President Trump. Although the outcome is nearly certain – there aren’t enough votes to remove the president from offi ce – the issue will steal the air from other issues until the trial is concluded.

Post-trial, here are some issues likely to dominate 2020. Each represents a fork in the road, and the direction the nation chooses will be critical:

IMMIGRATIONPresident Trump could roll out a

new immigration plan as the country head toward the elections. In addition to trying to secure more funding for desperately needed border security, a part of the plan could include another attempt at creating a merit-based legal immigration system, rather than one that’s based primarily on family ties.

A system that favours applicants with desirable job skills would shift

legal immigration’s focus from being centred on the desires of immigrants to being centred on the needs of the American people and our economy.

A merit-based system also more easily allows “patriotic assimilation,” creating a more unifi ed nation rather than one divided into special-interest groups.

ELECTION INTEGRITYWith the 2020 elections coming,

citizens must be assured that the electoral process for federal, state and local elections is fair.

Although many on the left deny it, voter fraud exists. Even the Supreme Court has noted that voter fraud is a clearly documented part of America’s history. Unfortunately, politicians and advocacy groups on the left continue to fi ght laws that require an ID to vote. They’ve even sued states that have tried to purge voter rolls of people registered in multiple jurisdictions who could vote more than once in an election.

Moreover, the push to eliminate the Electoral College would increase the infl uence of large urban centres at the expense of small states and rural areas, striking at our constitutional structure that balances the rule of the majority with protections for minority interests and state governments.

EDUCATIONPoliticians have fl oated proposals

of free college tuition for all and loan forgiveness for everyone carrying college debt.

Characterised as “investments in our future,” the reality is they would be a suff ocating fi nancial burden on every taxpayer, especially middle- and lower-income citizens. There’s also an inherent unfairness to forcing Americans who couldn’t aff ord to go to college themselves to pay off the loans of those who could.

One also has to question what kind of return taxpayers would get for their “investment.” Many colleges are indoctrinating students into a socialist, “America is evil” ideology, and often students graduate unprepared for a career and unable to pay off the enormous college debt they accumulated. Some 40% of those who start college don’t even fi nish within six years.

Despite these issues, because federal loan money is handed out with little scrutiny as to students’ ability to pay it back, colleges have had free rein to raise prices at rates often double that of infl ation. In addition, more than a million people default on their loans annually, leaving taxpayers to pick up the tab. “Free” college tuition would only make things worse.

CHINAUnder the brutal governance of the

Chinese Communist Party, China presents a combination of risks America has never before faced.

Chinese authorities direct attacks on our government cyber networks, steal the intellectual property of our companies, and threaten the travel of

ships and planes over international waters. The authoritarian regime is also spending enormous amounts of money to build up its off ensive military machine.

As US policymakers start to pay more attention to China’s threats, we can expect to see more recommendations for rebuilding America’s military to keep China’s in check.

Moreover, while the national security threat is very real, because so many raw materials and fi nished goods come from China, the US will continue attempting to build more positive trade relations with the country. Besides being good for Americans economically, a better trade relationship also serves as a deterrent to Chinese aggression, since there’s little incentive to attack a major market for its goods.

What Americans do about any one of these issues in 2020 – China, electoral integrity, education, or immigration – could represent a major turning point for America. From safeguarding the right to vote, to protecting the nation from foreign aggression, to deciding whether more taxpayer money is the solution to rising college debt, the new year will certainly provide several opportunities to make pivotal decisions about America’s future.

Kay C James is president of The Heritage Foundation (heritage.org)

Tribune News ServiceWashington, DC

As resolutions go, quit-ting smoking could be the most important choice on a smoker’s list.

Smokers are more likely to develop diseases like lung, throat and mouth cancer. And they’re more likely to die earlier than are people who don’t light up.

Dr J. Taylor Hays, director of the Mayo Clinic Nicotine Dependence Center, says it’s never too late to quit the habit. He explains why here:

To younger smokers, those younger than 40-years-old, Dr Hays asks, “Do you want to add 10 years to your life?”

He says, if the answer is yes, quit smoking.

“Do you want to avoid all of the ill health eff ects - chronic lung disease,

heart disease, lung cancer?” he asks. “Stop smoking.”

Dr Hays says those diseases are inti-mately associated with smoking, and, if people stop at a young age, they’ll avoid virtually all of them.

“And they’ll add years - not just length of life, but quality of life,” says Dr Hays.

As for older smokers, Dr Hays says it’s never too late to stop.

“Make an attempt,” he says. “You still can avoid a lot of the ill health ef-fects of smoking, stopping whenever. So if you’ve tried and failed, try again. It’s never too late to quit.”

Dr Hays says the best way to quit is to make a plan and stick to it.

“And that plan should include some counselling and behavioural therapy, and medications that will reduce withdrawal and help maintain absti-nence,” says Dr Hays. - Mayo Clinic News Network

PBS documentary on McCarthy provides context needed to understand Trump

The parallels between President Donald Trump and the infamous Republican senator from Wisconsin, Joseph McCarthy, are impossible to ignore.

Live issues

It’s never too late to quit smoking.

WARNINGInshore : Strong wind expected

at places Offshore : Expected strong wind

and high seaWEATHERInshore : Relatively cold daytime

with some clouds and slight dust at times, cold by night

Offshore : Partly cloudy with chance of scattered rain becomes scattered clouds later

WINDInshore : Northwesterly 10-20/24

KTOffshore : Northwesterly 12-22/28

KTVisibility : 4-8 KM

Offshore : 3-7/9 FT

TODAY

TUESDAY

WEDNESDAY

Maximum Temperature : 220c

Minimum Temperature : 170c

Maximum Temperature : 230c

Minimum Temperature : 150c

Maximum Temperature : 230c

Minimum Temperature : 190c

BaghdadKuwait City ManamaMuscat Tehran

AthensBeirut BangkokBerlinCairoCape TownColomboDhakaHong KongIstanbulJakartaKarachiLondonManilaMoscowNew DelhiNew YorkParisSao PauloSeoulSingaporeSydneyTokyo

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Fisherman's forecast

Three-day forecast

16 Gulf TimesMonday, January 6, 2020

QATAR

Ashghal opens 2nd fl yover at Umm Lekhba InterchangePublic Works Authority

(Ashghal) yesterday opened the second fl yover bridge

at Umm Lekhba (Landmark) In-terchange on Sabah Al Ahmad Corridor in co-ordination with the General Directorate of Traffi c. With a capacity of around 4,000 vehicles per hour, the 537m-long bridge with two unidirectional lanes from Al Markhiya to Doha will improve traffi c in the area by providing free fl ow from Al Markhiya towards Doha.

Road users coming from Al Markhiya Street towards Doha can pass through the new fl yover without diversions. The new fa-cility will also ease the pressure on Immigration Intersection by off ering a parallel route to Khalifa Street towards Doha.

The fl yover serves Duhail, Madinat Khalifa, Al Markhiya and traffi c coming from Al Corniche and heading for Doha and Al Gharrafa via 22 February Street. It also off ers an alternative route for road users coming from commer-cial facilities and educational and health institutions in addition to those coming from Qatar Univer-sity. The opening of this bridge comes two months after the opening of the fi rst fl yover bridge of Umm Lekhba with a length of 820m from the new Al Hateem Street to 22 February Street. The two fl yovers cross 22 February Street to form three lanes which will contribute to the free fl ow of

traffi c towards 22 February Street and Doha south.

It is worth mentioning that Ashghal has completed 65% of the 11km Umm Lekhba Inter-change development works. Con-struction of Qatar’s longest and vital interchange is under way round-the-clock. Once com-pleted in the last quarter of 2020, Umm Lekhba (Landmark) Inter-change will signifi cantly improve traffi c and shorten journey time by more than 70%.

The bridges provide nine arter-ies that provide a free traffi c fl ow in nine directions in addition to the free traffi c on Al Shamal road as well as the underpass of the old interchange linking Al Markhiya Street and Sabah Al Ahmad Cor-ridor. Umm Lekhba Interchange consists of four levels and nine bridges that provide free traffi c fl ow in all directions. It can ac-commodate more than 20,000 vehicles per hour.

Five bridges consist of two lanes in one direction while the other four bridges include one lane in one direction. The in-

terchange is the second highest interchange in Qatar after the in-terchange of Umm Bishr on the G-Ring Road.

Umm Lekhba Interchange will ease the traffi c congestion on Doha Expressway, especially at Al Gharrafa (Immigration) Inter-change and Al Duhail intersec-tions. It will also ensure smooth traffi c fl ow for those coming from Doha Corniche, Markhiya, Madi-nat Khalifa and Duhail in the di-rection of Al Shamal Road, Sabah Al Ahmad Corridor, Al Gharrafa and Gharrafat Al Rayyan areas to Al Luqta and Al Rayyan.

Umm Lekhba Interchange is also located in a densely populat-ed area with vibrant commercial activities, many government en-tities and educational and health facilities as well as complexes and commercial markets.

The Interchange includes a so-phisticated intelligent transpor-tation system where surveillance cameras, vehicle number monitor, vehicle classifi cation and emer-gency traffi c system will be in-stalled for effi cient traffi c control.

A view of the second flyover bridge at Umm Lekhba (Landmark) Interchange opened yesterday by Ashghal.

The Interchange includes a sophisticated intelligent transportation system where surveillance cameras, vehicle number monitor, vehicle classification and emergency traff ic system will be installed for eff icient traff ic control

After rain, strong winds and drop in temperature expectedStrong winds are expect-

ed in some places today along with cool conditions

around the country, the weather forecast shows. Off shore areas, too, are also likely to see strong winds today along with high seas, according to the Qatar Met department.

Doha and other parts of the country experienced some rain and thundery conditions yesterday, particularly in the evening, as had been forecast by the weather offi ce in a report on January 1.

In the report, the depart-ment had also said northwest-erly winds were expected to af-fect the country from Sunday evening, becoming strong at times in some areas.

This, in turn, would lead to a noticeable drop in temperature with the minimum ranging from 10C to 17C, as well as high waves exceeding 7ft occasionally, the report said.

Today’s detailed report says it will be relatively cold during the day and some clouds and slight dust are also likely at times. It will also be cold by night. Partly cloudy conditions have been forecast for off shore areas along with scattered rain.

The wind speed may go up

to 28 knots and 24 knots off -shore and inshore, respectively, with the sea level rising to 9ft at times.

The minimum temperature today is expected to be 15C in Wakrah, Mesaieed and Abu Samra, 16C in Al Khor, 17C in Doha and Dukhan, and 18C in

Ruwais. The maximum, on the other hand, will range from 20C in Ruwais to 23C in Abu Samra, with Doha likely to see a high of 22C. Yesterday, a minimum temperature of 18C was record-ed in Al Khor, Turayna, Batna and other places, while in Doha it was 21C.

Rain in Doha yesterday.

Thundey conditions in parts of Doha yesterday. PICTURES: Shaji Kayamkulam

Record 38.78mnpassengers useHIA in 2019From Page 1

Further, the airport was named the ‘Best Airport for Pas-senger Experience’ for the sec-ond consecutive year in a study by AirHelp, the world’s leading air passenger rights specialist.

HIA is currently a candi-date for the ‘Best Airport in the World’ award by Skytrax, which had classifi ed it as a fi ve-star airport in 2017, making it one among only fi ve other airports in the world and the only one in the Middle East to achieve this prestigious status. Currently holding the ‘Fourth-Best Air-port in the World’ and the “Best Airport in the Middle East” ti-tles, HIA continuously works to improve all aspects of the pas-senger experience, the state-ment adds.

The results of the Skytrax World Airport Awards will be announced in March. Passen-gers can vote for HIA by visiting the offi cial Skytrax World Air-port Survey website at http://www.worldairportsurvey.com/Surveys/favorite_airport.html