page 01 nov 17 - the peninsula · 2016-11-16 · h e sheikh abdullah bin nasser bin khalifa al...
TRANSCRIPT
Star cast set for Commercial Bank Qatar Masters 2017
BUSINESS | 21 SPORT | 32
Commercial Bank gets nod to
raise capital
www.thepeninsulaqatar.com
Volume 21 | Number 6983 | 2 RiyalsThursday 17 November 2016 | 17 Safar 1438
H M King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa of Bahrain with Prime Minister and Interior Minister H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani during the "Arabian Gulf Security 1" exercise held in Bahrain, yesterday. Also seen are Crown Prince, Deputy Supreme Commander of Bahrain Defence Force and First Deputy Prime Minister Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa; and Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince, Deputy Premier and Minister of Interior Mohammed bin Nayef bin Abdulaziz Al Saud. → See also page 2
PM attends Arabian Gulf Security exercise
Qatar to boost food securityIrfan Bukhari The Peninsula
Qatar is steadily moving towards self-sufficiency in food and apart from locally
produced vegetables, popula-tion's needs of meat and dairy products are also being met by local farms.
Among others, a 100% Qatari-owned livestock farm —Baladna — is providing around
2,500 stocks of sheep and goats for local meat consumption.
Qatar had planned to achieve national food security and launched Qatar National Food Security Programme (QNFSP) to bring the country close to food self-sufficiency by 2023.
As per an agricultural report released last year, Qatar was 8.5% “self-sufficient” in meat in 2013, up from 6 percent in 2009.
→ Continued on page 8
Clinical norms ready for 11 health issuesHuda N V The Peninsula
Giving clarity on man-agement of patients, the Ministry of Pub-lic Health (MoPH) has developed clin-
ical guidelines for some 11 health conditions.
The 11 guidelines have been developed out of 30 diseases embodied in the National Clin-ical Guidelines for Qatar as part of the ministry’s efforts to achieve the National Health Strategy (NHS).
The guidelines aim to address large variations in the quality of care delivery across the country. At present, physi-cians from all over the world practice in Qatar bringing with them variations in clinical prac-tice. With set standards, providers will have more clar-ity on management of patients.
The guidelines cover com-mon cold, tonsillitis, community acquired pneumonia, asthma in children, asthma in adults, hypothyroidism, hyperthy-roidism, hypertension, diarrhoea in children, lower UTI in females and obesity, the
ministry said yesterday.The ministry will organise
workshops for developing the remaining guidelines. All guide-line content that is developed will go through senior execu-tive review and sign-off prior to publishing to be available for all healthcare professionals through the MOPH website.
“The guidelines centralise the efforts in dealing with com-mon diseases here,” said Dr Mohamad Adel Ali El Chaer, Specialist- Endocrinology, Aster, who had participated in the workshops for setting up obesity guidelines.
→ Continued on page 8
Qatar Airways declared Best Airline in the WorldQATAR Airways has been declared Best Airline in the World by New York-based Air-Help Worldwide.
Qatar Airways captured the number one spot over 77 other airlines ranked by Air-Help internationally. Using data collected from world-wide travellers who look to AirHelp for support, the rank-ings indicate which airline tops the charts in helping travellers when an issue arises.
Qatar Airways Group Chief Executive Akbar Al Baker said: “Qatar Airways’ Best Airline in the World award from AirHelp is truly an honour and a credit to the thousands of men and women that work for Qatar Airways around the world. Qatar Air-ways staff are dedicated to delivering the highest levels of service, which brings pas-sengers back to Qatar Airways again and again. At Qatar Airways, we believe that your trip — be it a holi-day with your family or business travel with col-leagues — begins the minute you travel with Qatar Airways.”
Qatar Airways is renowned for its customer service and Arabian hospitality; striving to make every trip a pleasant and memorable one.
→ Continued on page 4
Baladna farm produces 2,500 herdsof sheep and goats per month.
Baladna drive
2,500
100%Qatari-owned farm to have the largest sheep stocks available in the GCC and the Middle East.
The guidelines
The 11 guidelines have been developed out of 30 diseases embodied in the National Clinical Guidelines for Qatar.
The guidelines aim to address large variations in the quality of care delivery.
02 THURSDAY 17 NOVEMBER 2016 HOME
Prime Minister and Interior Minister H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani with Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Bahrain Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa in Manama yesterday. During the meeting, they reviewed the fraternal relations between the two brotherly countries. Bahrain's Deputy Prime Minister Sheikh Ali bin Khalifa Al Khalifa also attended the meeting.
Prime Minister meets Bahrain counterpart
The Peninsula
The Cabinet has approved a draft decision by the Minister of Municipality
and Environment establishing departments in the administra-tive units that make up the Qatar General Organization for Stand-ards and Metrology and set their terms of reference.
The approval came at the Cabinet's regular weekly meet-ing held at the Emiri Diwan premises yesterday. The meeting was chaired by the Prime Minis-ter and Interior Minister H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani. The Cabinet reviewed a letter by the Ministry of Transport and Communica-tions on the 8th periodic report of the e-Government Steering Committee on its work during the period from January to June 2016.
The committee, chaired by the Minister of Transportation and Communications and with mem-bership of representatives from the concerned authorities, was
tasked with the follow-up of the implementation of the e-govern-ment strategy, and the achievement of coordination and communication rules between the Ministry of Transport and Communications and other min-istries and government agencies, in order to ensure that the plans and programs of these bodies are aligned with the overall e-gov-ernment strategy.
The report highlighted the most important achievements of the Committee: digital services index increased by 103%, raising the efficiency of administrative processes by 67%, the adoption of the master plan of the second phase of the strategy from 2016 to 2017, and discussed the adop-tion of the financial budget for the e-government for the fiscal year 2016, and the results of the first assessment of the digital trans-formation of government agencies.
The Cabinet also approved joining the International Soci-ety of City and Regional
Planners (ISOCARP).The ISOCARP is an advisory
body officially accredited by the Unesco. It supports private devel-opment, population and urban planning projects. The Cabinet then reviewed the following top-ics and took a set of decisions. The Cabinet reviewed a draft law amending some provisions of Law No. (7) of 2012 on the educa-tional voucher system.
The Cabinet also reviewed a draft decision by HE the Minister of the Interior amending some provisions of decision No. (12) of 2008 on the insurance fees on non-Qatari mechanical vehicles. The Cabinet also reviewed a let-ter by the Chairman of the Board of the Regulatory Authority at QFC on the annual report and audited accounts of the Author-ity for 2015. It also reviewed a memo by the Minister of Admin-istrative Development, Labor and Social Affairs on the results of the 104th regular session the Arab Administrative Development Organization.
Cabinet reviews e-govt progress
The Peninsula
Al Jazeera Center for Studies held on Tuesday a seminar entitled “The Battles of Mosul and Raqqa
and the Fate of ISIS” to discuss the motives and agenda of the main regional and global actors involved in the battles of Mosul and Raqqa,
The seminar was held in cooperation with Al Jazeera Mubasher to try to answer ques-tions related to possible challenges facing the players,
the US position on the ongoing battles following Trump’s election.
Participants in the seminar emphasised that there are sev-eral players in the battles of the northern Syrian city of Raqqa and the Iraqi city of Mosul. Along with the two regimes and the supporting sectarian militias, there are regional powers like Iran, Turkey and Arab countries in addition to the global super-powers like the US and Russia who are involved in the battles.
Speakers assured that the
ISIS will be uprooted from the two cities because there are concerted military efforts to defeat it, but its military defeat does not mean an end of the organization under the current power struggle among the regional and international pow-ers in the region.
Marwan Kabalan from the Arab Center for Researches and Policy Studies argued that the Irani imperial project raises fear for Gulf countries, in particular Saudi Arabia. Iran is using Yemen as a tool to pressure Saudi and is trying to change the
regional order in away serving its imperial projects, Keblan observed.
Dr Laka Maki from Al Jazeera Network emphasized that the regional powers are using local forces as tools in their regional power struggle and battles of Mosul and Raqqa will improve the status of some powers.
Superpowers set up the agendas in the region and their priority is fighting ISIS, Samir Salha, a Turkish academic, said and this according to him will seriously affect human’s iden-
tity and change demography. Eric Davis from Rutgers Uni-
versity mentioned that it is difficult to predict what Presi-dent Trump's policies in the region will look like, but his pri-ority will be fighting the ISIS and he will cooperate with Russia to achieve this purpose.
There is a possibility of end-ing support to the Syrian opposition, said Davis, declin-ing the idea that the US has a role in the establishment of ISIS and he said Bashar Al Assad and Malki of Iraq are responsible for the situation.
Al Jazeera Center for Studies discusses Mosul and Raqqa crisesSeveral players
Participants say there are several players in the battles of northern Syrian city of Raqqa and Iraqi city of Mosul.
Seminar held in cooperation with Al Jazeera Mubasher.
03THURSDAY 17 NOVEMBER 2016 HOME
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QNA
Minister of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs H E Dr Ghaith bin Mubarak Al Kuwari
met yesterday with the head of the Turkish Department for Religious Affairs Mohamed Gor-maz, who is currently visiting the country.
They discussed issues of joint interest during the meeting.
Speaking to the press after the meeting, the Minister said that they agreed on the impor-tance of enhancing ties to the benefit of Muslims around the world. He said that there were many areas for cooperation between the two countries when it comes to religious affairs, like w o r k i n g t o r e m o v e
misunderstanding about Islam and Muslims in the current world. Institutions that could benefit from enhanced cooper-ation would be Awqaf, Da'wa and Zakah, the Minister added.
For his part, the Turkish offi-cial expressed his delight at visiting Qatar with a high-rank-ing delegation to work on activating partnership in reli-gious affairs. He also highlighted the strong ties between the two countries.
He stressed on the impor-tance of cooperation in light of the tough times facing the Islamic world. He said that strong cooperation between Turkey and Qatar would help reduce some of the suffering seen in the Islamic world today.
Gormaz added that Qatar and Turkey have a shared ambi-tion for joint work that benefits Muslims around the world. He revealed that there will be joint committees that will examine enhancing cooperation in areas of joint interest.
Minister of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs H E Dr Ghaith bin Mubarak Al Kuwari and Qatari officials with the head of the Turkish Department for Religious Affairs, Mohamed Gormaz, and his accompanying delegation in Doha yesterday.
Qatar and Turkey to enhance relations in religious affairs
Helping Muslims
Strong cooperation would help reduce some of the suffering seen in the Islamic world today: Minister
Joint committees to be set up to examine areas for enhancing cooperation.
04 THURSDAY 17 NOVEMBER 2016 HOME
Fazeena Saleem The Peninsula
An innovation sup-ported by Qatar Foundation’s (QF) eighth season of Stars of Science
could give more accurate results of genetic testing and benefit cancer patients.
'Automated slide dropping in genetic testing,’ is invented by Sadeem Qdaisat from Jordan, one of the finalists of the eighth season of Stars of Science, the Arab world’s leading scientific ‘edutainment’ reality TV programme.
Four finalists of Stars of Sci-ence yesterday presented their innovations during a press con-ference held at the QF Headquarters.
Among them, Qdaisat’s invention is a device that
automates the preparation of slides for genetic testing. Genetic testing for cancer is a type of medical examination that can identify if a person has devel-oped the disease due to hereditary reasons.
The automated slide drop-ping in genetic testing automates
the process of genetic testing, aiming to eliminate human error and cross contamination. In addition, the automation proc-ess helps to drastically lower costs, attain increased time effi-ciency and improved outcomes.
“I have done several steps of research earlier with the help of Qatar Foundation and Stars of Science managed to put them all in one system which reduce the possibility of errors caused dur-ing manual testing. For example, in Qatar, the temperature and humidity are very high and this can make an impact on the test results, therefore a test done here and in the US may produce dif-ferent results. The automated slide dropping in genetic testing is done in a climate-controlled robotic station and it prevents any errors which could occur due to weather conditions,” said Qdaisat.
“Also a manual test would take 33 minutes and with the automated system it can be done within 8.4 seconds,” said Qdaisat.
He also said that the QF as well the Hamad Medical Corpo-ration provided a vital platform for his work. Qdaisat has already been approached by several companies for the multi produc-tion of the ‘automated slide dropping in genetic testing.’
“Patients inspire me, and I will do whatever it takes to save a life. I am committed to being an honorable, compassionate contributor to my community,” he said.
Sevag Babikian from Leba-non presented an Efficient
Desktop 3D Printer, which saves time and material waste com-monly found in commercial desktop 3D Printers when tem-porarily printing support pieces not in the original requested design.
A Samrt Autism Shirt invented by Abderrahim Bour-ouis of Algeria supports families
by providing phone App to remotely monitor children with autism.
Ghassan Yusuf of Bahrain’s Auto Scoring and Management in Taekwondo, acts as an auto-mated digital eye (alongside a referee) to classify and score the type of kicks used during the fast game and archives all results for
players in football. These four finalists vie for a
share of $600,000 in seed fund-ing, determined by a jury deliberation and online voting from the public. The winner of the season will be announced on Saturday, at 10.30pm (KSA) on MBC4, during the grand finale.
Stars of Science invention to boost genetic testing
Special screening at Ajyal for visually impairedRaynald C RiveraThe Peninsula
Visually impaired and hard-of-hearing viewers can enjoy the fourth Ajyal Youth Film Festival
with the screening of the special ‘trans-adapted’ version of The Idol by two-time Oscar-nomi-nated Palestinian director Hany Abu-Assad.
The screening is part of this year’s unique festival offerings presented by Doha Film Insti-tute (DFI) and marks the UN International Day of Persons with Disabilities. It is presented in collaboration with the Translation and Interpreting Institute of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Hamad bin Khalifa Univer-sity and follows the successful screening of the Hero and the
Message last year.Visually impaired audiences
can view the film through sound with audio description of the sound effects.
Hard-of-hearing viewers and those who have difficulty understanding speech, will ben-efit from subtitles enriched with information about sound effects and music.
“The inclusive experience of The Idol highlights our commit-ment to bring a deeply inspiring film from our region to new audiences. We extend our appre-ciation to the students at Hamad bin Khalifa University for their painstaking effort to creatively adapt the film for all audiences and provide a unique cinema experience,” said DFI CEO and Festival Director Fatma Al Remaihi.
Ajyal’s inclusivity also extends beyond the realm of film
viewing experience with the inclusion of two young jurors with disabilities this year, according to Deputy Festival Director Reem Saleh.
More than 500 jurors from the ages of 8 to 21 who make up the Ajyal Competition Jury will watch and analyse a dynamic programme of films under three competitive sec-tions – Mohaq, Hilal, and Bader – followed by discussions and events including panels, work-shops and Q&A sessions with filmmakers.
The jury, Saleh said, will cri-tique a dynamic programme of films ranging from documenta-ries to narrative features.
“The jurors will not only view the films but analyse them according to academic meth-odology. This will help the jurors express ideas and encourage critical thinking,”
stressed Saleh, adding the films will provide the young jurors a wealth of knowledge on how filmmakers tell stories as well as what the youth around the world go through.
A diverse line-up of 70 films from 33 countries are fea-tured at this year’s festival which will open on November 30 with the spectacular Mon-golian adventure film The Eagle Huntress and conclude on December 5 with the animated film The Red Turtle.
Highlighting the theme of positive social change, the fes-tival includes 24 features and 46 short narratives/documen-taries on real and relevant issues that affect the youth glo-bally. It features public and jury screenings, interactive panels and masterclasses, red carpets, exhibitions and family activities.
Breakthrough
'Automated slide dropping in genetic testing,’ is invented by Sadeem Qdaisat from Jordan, one of the four finalists.
The invention helps to lower costs, attain time efficiency and improved outcomes.
H E Sheikha Hind bint Hamad Al Thani with finalists of Stars of Science TV programme and alumni at Qatar Foundation.
The Peninsula
H E Sheikha Hind bint Hamad Al Thani, Vice- Chairperson and CEO of
Qatar Foundation (QF), met the four finalists of this season’s Stars of Science TV programme, as well as alumni from the show, ahead of the finale on Saturday.
During the gathering at QF headquarters yesterday, Sheikha Hind talked with the science and research role mod-els about their ideas and ambitions for the future, which
align with QF’s desire to embolden innovation and entrepreneurship in Qatar and the region.
Noting their position as powerful community repre-sentatives, Sheikha Hind stated: “You are shining examples for future generations who will go on to pursue scientific studies. You each have a unique ability to positively influence the region’s young minds as inspi-rational role models, and your recent visit to Qatar Academy was undoubtedly a source of
great encouragement for the young students.”
The meeting served as an exciting prelude to the conclu-sion of the hugely-popular ‘edutainment’ TV show, currently in its eighth year. An initiative of Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Devel-opment (QF), the series aims to showcase creative solutions that address regional and global chal-lenges within the information technology and energy indus-tries, as well as the environment and health sectors.
FROM LEFT: Stars of Science finalists Sadeem Qdisat, Ghassan Yusuf, Abderahim Bourouis, and Sevag Babikian during a roundtable at the Qatar Foundation Headquarters yesterday.Pic: Kammutty VP / The Peninsula
Amna Pervaiz RaoThe Peninsula
The season of overnight stays in the desert has arrived in Qatar as fami-
lies are spending nights over the weekend in the desert at the seaside to feel the pleasures of a cold breeze.
Tour operators are offering wonderful opportunities for visitors to become familiar with the desert. Most desert safaris are conducted in large four-wheel drive cars driven through the dunes (known as dune bashing) to a remote site in the desert.
The tour operators usually have a tent, where tourists can relax, enjoy the food and drink, listen to traditional music, go on camel rides and sand sports (dune buggies and sand surfing).
A popular custom ‘desert safari’ is a must-do in Qatar.
“I have been on a few desert safaris. I always hire a driver from the beach to ride us to the sand dunes. The first was truly terrifying, the sec-ond felt like we had ruined the driver’s day just by crying, and
the third was certainly good and the driver knew his job. It was certainly the best,” said James, a British expat at Khor Al Udaid located in south of Qatar.
“It is always an incredible experience when the weather changes. We leave our home after Friday prayers and arrive at the beach. We set up our camp, we swim in the sea. Kids really enjoy the buggy ride. We prepare our dinner. Late night we go fishing near the seashore. While watching the stars, we fall asleep,” said Jasim Abdul-lah, a Qatari native at Al Ghariya Beach located at the north of Qatar.
“We usually come here for camping. We avail of the Woqod petrol station nearby. We set our own camp and enjoy jet skiing. Bonfire at night keeps up the thrill. We prepare bar-becue at night. The white sand of the beach is like refined pow-der. With clear blue sea and a shoreline scattered with pretty pink, white, red and yellow sea-shells, Fuwairit is a real gem,” said Ahmed, a Qatari citizen on Fuwairit beach located in north of Qatar.
Families enjoy nights with sands and stars
A star-speckled sky above the desert.
Qatar Airways sets the bar high
Continued from Page 1"As passengers worldwide
see customer service being diminished by many major air-lines, they are instead being driven to choose carriers that offer more than just a seat from A to B. An airline such as Qatar Airways, who understands the importance of putting the cus-tomer first, is setting the bar high and is an example for the rest of the industry of how to put the customer experience at the forefront of the airline product,” AirHelp Chief Exec-utive Officer Henrik Zillmer said.
AirHelp was formed in 2013 to assist passengers worldwide who have experi-enced delays, cancellations or overbooking. To date, the company has helped over 1.2 million passengers resolve their air travel-related issues.
Sheikha Hind meets finalists
05THURSDAY 17 NOVEMBER 2016 HOME
Qatar favouritedestination of Italians: Envoy
QNA
The Diplomatic Insti-tute of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs hosted Ambassador of Italy to Qatar,
Guido De Sanctis, to talk about Italian-Qatari relations in the presence of a large number of diplomats and officials of the Ministry.
The Ambassador under-lined Italian-Qatari historical ties which began in the early seventies of the last century when Italy voted in favour of Qatar's accession to the United Nations, adding that since then the relationship between the two countries continued through constant communica-tion with the Italian embassy in Kuwait until the official open-ing of the Italian embassy in Qatar in 1992.
The Ambassador said that he has been working in Qatar for three years, and at the end of this year he will return to Rome after 25 years in diplo-matic work within Italy and abroad.
The Italian Ambassador said there are about 4 million Italian living abroad, pointing to the presence of Italian labour
in GCC countries in general and Qatar in particular, where there are about 2,100 Italians.
He also said that Qatar in recent years has become a favorite destination of Italians due to the development which provides a lot of job opportu-nities for them, as well as the good reputation enjoyed by Qatar that encourages foreign-ers to work here.
With regard to the areas of cooperation between the two countries, the Ambassador said that his country's relationship with Qatar is extensive in mul-tiple fields, adding that the most prominent features of this rela-tionship on the economic side is the opening of an Italian trade office in Qatar for the develop-ment of small and medium enterprises.
Qatar is experiencing an industrial transformation period as it seeks through its national vision for economic diversification, De Sanctis said, stressing Italy's willing-ness to provide support as it is able to play an important role in this economic transformation.
The Ambassador referred to the Italian cooperation with Russia in this area as it, thanks to the Italian expertise in the industrial field, was able to manufacture and has a strong economy.
Regarding the cooperation in the military field, De Sanctis praised the defence agreement signed between the two coun-tries in 2010.
Minister of Energy and Industry H E Dr Mohammed bin Saleh Al Sada, South Korean Ambassador to Qatar Park Heung-Kyeong, and other officials cutting the cake during Korean National Day celebrations at Grand Hyatt Doha Hotel. Pic Baher Amin/ The Peninsula
Bilateral Ties
De Sanctis praised the defence agreement signed between Italy and Qatar in 2010.
South Korean Embassy marks National DayThe Peninsula
The South Korean Embassy marked the National Day at Grand Hyatt Doha hotel
on Tuesday.The ceremony was attended
by Minister of Energy and Indus-try H E Dr Mohammed bin Saleh Al Sada, South Korean Ambas-sador to Qatar Park Heung-Kyeong, and other officials.
Relations between Qatar and South Korea have strength-ened, said the Ambassador. “The Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani visited South Korea in November, 2014. In exchange, South Korean presi-dent, Park Geun-hye visited Qatar in March, 2015”, he added.
During their visits, the two
countries utilised the opportu-nity to boost their relations further in several fields like energy, infrastructure, educa-tion, health care, IT and telecommunication, said the ambassador.
“Qatar is still supplying to North Korea about one-third consumption of its natural gas (about 13 million tonnes annu-ally) and one tenth of total petrol consumption (about 100 million barrels per annum).”
South Korean companies participated in building several infrastructure development projects in Qatar including Doha metro tunneling project, Lusail Expressway project, Umm Al Haul power and water plant, hospital of Hamad Med-ical City.
The two countries are coop-erating in the non-hydrocarbon sector.
There is Qatar and Korean joint venture for manufacturing LED bulbs with special design for Middle East at a cost of $34m with the capacity of 500,000 units per year.
In the health sector, some Korean hospitals are coordinat-ing with the hospitals operating in Qatar to share medical expe-riences, knowledge and techniques.
A Korean-Qatar Medical Forum will be held by the end of this month between Korean hospitals and Hamad Medical Coropration (HMC).
The forum will coincide with the World Innovation Summit for Health (WISH).
Health Minister appoints Director of Health FinancingThe Peninsula
MINISTER of Public Health H E Dr Hanan Mohamed Al Kuwari has appointed Kha-lid Al Mughesib as director of Health Financing and Insur-ance Department and Minister’s Advisor for Insur-ance Affairs.
The decision is part of the Qatarisation policy on key positions at the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH).
Prior to the new appoint-ment, Al Mughesib worked as Director of Tax Department at the Ministry of Finance. He also held the position of Insurance Advisor to the CEO of Qatar Financial Centre (QFC) in addition to holding several and essential leader-ship positions.
Al Mughesib joined the Ministry of Finance in mid-2014 as Advisor at the Minister’s office. With more than 20 years of local, regional and international insurance experience, Al Mughesib Khalid helped in setting the corner stone for the health insurance in Qatar.
He has the Certificate in Insurance Practice from the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII) UK and being a mem-ber and Ambassador of the International Insurance Soci-ety (IIS), New York since 2011.
He held the post of Dep-uty CEO, Board Member, Qatar Insurance Services (Qatarlyst) a QFCA company in 2010 with offices in Doha, Dubai and London and led a successful divestment proc-ess in a way of sale to an international firm.
06 THURSDAY 17 NOVEMBER 2016 HOME
HEC Paris in Qatar receives major award
The Peninsula
HEC Paris, one of the world’s top three providers of exec-utive education programmes, has
retained its title of Educational Institute of the Year after being presented with the Qatar Enter-prise Agility Achiever in Education Innovation accolade
for the second consecutive year.HEC Paris in Qatar was rec-
ognised during the prestigious award ceremony organised by Entrepreneur MENA and held at the Grand Hyatt Doha to hon-our leading entrepreneurs, innovators, and companies across the country. Named ahead of other educational bodies, the business school was praised for continuing to boast the highest levels of excellence in education, and exceeding cri-teria such as highly-acclaimed educational programmes, involvement with Qatar as a nation, promotion of entrepre-neurship, bolstering the business through corporate custom programmes, and ini-tiatives supporting family business, among others.
Its high calibre of graduates was a contributing factor for HEC Paris in Qatar’s nomina-tion, including the recent graduation of H E Sheikha Hind
HEC Paris in Qatar officials after receiving the award in Doha.
bint Hamad Al Thani, Vice- Chair-person and CEO of Qatar Foundation for Education, Sci-ence and Community Development, who joined the prestigious HEC Paris alumni community last month.
Prof Nils Plambeck, Dean & CEO of HEC Paris in Qatar, said: “It is an honour for us to have received the Qatar Enterprise Agility Award for the second con-secutive year. Receiving such an accolade strengthens and rein-forces our team’s efforts in driving a knowledge sharing economy for the benefit of Qatar.”
“Since Qatar Foundation invited HEC Paris to establish a campus in Doha in 2010, we have celebrated the graduation of a number of key business figures representing a significant portion of Qatar’s industries. As a key player in Qatar’s education land-scape, we continue the pursuit of partnerships to bolster the busi-ness climate in Qatar, and build upon our profound experience to develop entrepreneurs and busi-ness leaders of the future. We are proud that our partnership with Qatar Foundation helps contrib-ute to Qatar National Vision 2030
and the award underlines the success of our combined efforts.”
The 2016 Qatar Enterprise Agility Awards, Entrepreneur of the Year awarded successfully nominated businesses and indi-viduals who have established and put into practice innovative ways to contribute and strengthen the lively Qatari economy. BNC Pub-lishing, as part of the Entrepreneur MENA franchise, awarded businesses across mul-tiple categories considered benchmark enterprises in the third annual edition of the awards.
Education Honour
HEC Paris in Qatar has retained its title of Educational Institute of the Year after being presented with the Qatar Enterprise Agility Achiever in Education Innovation for the second straight year.
HBKU's College of Islamic Studiesholds lecture on Al Amiri The Peninsula
THE Muhammad bin Hamad Center for Muslim Contribu-tion to Civilization of Hamad Bin Khalifa University’s Col-lege of Islamic Studies recently held a public lecture titled “Al-Amiri and the Establishment of an Essential Structure for Comparative Religion”. The lecture was delivered by Professor Ibra-him Zain, Visiting Professor of Comparative Religion at the College of Islamic Studies.
The main objective of the lecture was to create aware-ness among scholars and students alike, with regard to the contribution of Muslim scholars and their pioneering role in the field of Compara-tive Religion.
The lecture focused on the significance of Al Amiri discovering an academic basis for the comparison of religions, guided by the gen-eral categorisation of religious traditions in the Holy Qur’an. Professor Zain spoke about Al Amiri’s cul-tural and intellectual background. The scholar (d. 381 AH) belonged to a school of thought developed by Al Kindi, popularly known as the first Arab philosopher, and was concerned with uphold-ing the fundamental proposition of the compati-bility of reason and revelation. In his ground-breaking work Al-Ilam bi Manaqib Al-Islam, Al Amiri categorised various religions on the basis of Surat Al Hajj (22), verse 17 which says: “On the Day of Resurrection Allah will most certainly judge among those who believe, and those who became Jews, and Sabaeans, and Christians, and Magians, and those who associate others with Allah in His Divinity. Surely Allah watches over everything.”
QU and GOIC sign agreement for technical consultingThe Peninsula
Qatar University (QU) and Gulf Organization for Industrial Consulting (GOIC) have
signed an agreement to establish strategic collaboration in diverse fields such as informatics and media, technical consulting, research, and training.
The agreement was signed by QU President Dr Hassan Al Derham and GOIC Secretary General Abdul-Aziz H Al Ageel in the presence of QU VP for Academic Affairs Dr Mazen Hasna, QU VP for Research and Graduate Studies Dr Mariam
Al Maadeed, and QU VP for Student Affairs Dr Khalid Al Khanji, Dr Ali bin Hamed Al Mulla, GOIC Assist-ant Secretary General for Industrial Projects Sector, Shamlan H O Al Jeheidli, GOIC Assistant Secretary General for Industrial Information & Studies Sector as well as QU fac-ulty and staff.
According to the agreement, both institutions will provide tech-nical, administrative and financial consulting and assessment for the implementation of small and medium enterprises (SMEs), and share technical information, ses-sions and statistical data in the field
of economy and industry. The agreement also covers collabora-tive studies in the field of petrochemicals, metals, pharma-ceuticals and food industries, technical diagnostic studies to define the various opportunities and challenges that SMEs face, and research and field surveys on indus-trial strategies and policies with the aim to develop the industrial sec-tor in the GCC.
Both institutions will also coop-erate in providing joint conferences, seminars, and workshops, as well as internships and training for QU students.
QU President Dr Hassan Al Derham and GOIC Secretary-General Abdul-Aziz H Al Ageel after signing the deal.
Diversion on Dukhan South Service RoadThe Peninsula
The Public Works Author-ity, Ashghal, will close a two-kilometre section of
the Dukhan South Service Road (DSSR) and divert traffic to the Dukhan North Service Road, between the Temporary Truck Route and the Dehailiyat Interchange.
The partial closure, which has been designed in coordina-tion with the General Directorate of Traffic, will be implemented tomorrow and be in operation for one year.
The road change is required to enable the construction and connection of a bridge on the New Orbital Highway and Truck Route project.
During the diversion, Ash-ghal will divert road users who typically use the Dukhan South
Service Road to the Dukhan North Service Road, which will provide one lane in each direc-tion for traffic. The speed limit will remain at 80kph.
Service road vehicles that use the DSSR to travel from Dukhan to Doha will need to use the Dehailiyat Interchange and take the exit at the Dukhan North Service Road before trav-elling east towards the Temporary Truck Route and onwards to Doha, as shown in the attached map.
Service road vehicles that use the DSSR to travel from Doha to Dukhan will need to turn right at the roundabout on the Temporary Truck Route, and travel in a north eastern direction before turning left onto the Dukhan North Service Road and continuing towards Dukhan.
Bedaya Centerparticipates in international varsities fairThe Peninsula
The Career Development department at Bedaya Center for Entrepre-
neurship and Career Development (Bedaya Center), the joint initiative by Qatar Development Bank and Silatech, participated at the recently held Qatar Interna-tional Universities Fair (QIUF). The three-day event witnessed the participation of 113 universities during which the centre’s Pavilion for Counseling and career guidance offered its services to all visitors of secondary schools, university students as well as post-graduate students.
On the occasion, Reema Fahad Al Khater, Marketing Manager at Bedaya Center, said:"Our participation this year is distinct at all levels, as we always strive to partici-pate in such exhibitions to help students choose their academic path and future in line with their expectations. This year, Bedaya’s perform-ance was impressive, as we were able to attract a good number of students looking for guidance that would ena-ble them to determine their choices and how best to implement them by attend-ing the finest universities in the world.”
DESS opens community gardenThe Peninsula
Doha English Speaking School (DESS) Commu-nity Garden, an
interactive sustainability edu-cation project jointly developed by Qatar Green Building Coun-cil (QGBC), DESS, Gulf Contracting, and Friends of DESS (FOD), was opened yes-terday as part of Qatar Sustainability Week.
Located at DESS, the project provides children with practi-cal learning opportunities across multiple subjects such as the environment, science, math, computing and art. Combined with the school’s state-of-the-art curriculum, the DESS
Community Garden helps stu-dents learn about the environment in a number of ways, including the use of renewable energies, recycled materials, and the role of plants and vegetation.
The community garden project is to be rolled out to other schools across Qatar in an effort to provide members of the wider community with practi-cal learning opportunities around sustainability and envi-ronmental protection, in line with the sustainable develop-ment goals of the Qatar National Vision 2030. Commenting on the launch of the project, Dr Alex Amato, Head of Sustainability at QGBC, said: “The completed
garden installation provides the children with a proactive and practical way to learn about how plants and food are grown, about Qatar’s unique flora and natural environment, and about sustainability, including renew-able energy, recycling, and the water cycle.”
In addition to serving as a learning tool, the DESS Commu-nity Garden project will produce various sets of data, which will be used as part of environmen-tal research by Qatar Foundation in the future.
Sean Sibley, Head Teacher at DESS, said: “This new garden provides great ways of introduc-ing environmental topics into our curriculum".
A Doha English Speaking School (DESS) student with Qatar Green Building Council (QGBC) experts during the launch of ‘DESS Community Garden’.
07THURSDAY 17 NOVEMBER 2016 HOME
Italian festival begins at Lulu HypermarketThe Peninsula
Festival Italiano was inau-gurated by Ambassador of Italy to Qatar Guido De
Sanctis yesterday at Lulu Hyper-market, Al Gharrafa. The inaugural ceremony was also attended by many other digni-taries from renowned corporate business groups. The festival will continue until November 21.
Aptly titled “Festival Ital-iano”, this event is being hosted by Lulu Group to upkeep the team spirit and solidarity with the ongoing “Week of Italian Cuisine: The Extraordinary Ital-ian Taste” organised by the Italian Embassy and Italian Trade Commission, and the objective was to introduce and promote the foods and food hab-its of Italy among the local community as well as the large cross-section of ethnic commu-nities hailing from various countries.
Lulu Group has been organ-ising this event in Doha as part of Lulu Food Fiesta in a big way for the first time in 2004 in asso-ciation with the Italian Trade Commission, Dubai, and they continued this legacy in the sub-sequent years as well.
A 35 metres long Pizza was cut as part of the celebrations. Also replica of the Colosseum, Leaning Tower of Pisa and other ancient structures of Italy were created and displayed at the venue. The event was also con-ceptualised to accelerate the imports of agricultural pro-duce, cheese and other Deli products, dry groceries, Italian cooking ranges, other electri-cal appliances, houseware from Italy to the Middle East. Lulu is always in the forefront of organising festivals that would promote agricultural produce of local as well as countries like Italy, France, Holland and
Spain etc. The Management of Lulu said that complete plan-ning for the various activities and promotions have been finalised and final touches were given to the complete event schedule.
Italian recipe contests, cook-ing lessons and demonstrations by leading Italian chefs, insights into various cooking styles and
ingredients of Italian cuisine are some of the activities planned in the food categories.
Other attractions include special counters and kiosks pro-moting exciting offers on different Italian electronics and home appliances, new product launches and demonstrations, designer sunglasses from lead-ing Italian brands, exquisite world class collections of Italian perfumes and beauty accesso-ries, latest and trendy range of fashion wear and footwear to suit all age groups.
Mohamed Althaf, Director of Lulu Group, said: “We have been conducting Festival Italiano from the year 2004 onwards in Qatar and always strive to launch innovative promotions every year. We are indeed thankful to HE the Ambassador of Italy Mr Guido De Sanctis and his entire team, and the officials of Italian Trade Commission for their wholehearted support and
we consider it our privilege to associate with them in hosting this festival. “Benvenuti”, wel-come to the Italian Festival!”
Lulu Hypermarket Group owned and managed by Yusuf-fali MA is one the most successful and highly diversified consumer business groups in the Gulf region, having major presence in the fields of supermarkets, department stores and hyper-markets all over the GCC countries.
The Group was christened in 1966 by establishing its first venture in the UAE. The Group today stands as an epitome of professional success with its highly diversified and expand-ing business empire spanning the globe. Presently, the Group operates 131 shopping malls and hypermarkets. Besides, the Group owns export & re-export houses, meat processing plants, garment manufacturing units and IT training institutes etc.
Italian Ambassador to Qatar, Guido De Sanctis, and other officials inaugurating Festival Italiano at Lulu Hypermarket-Al Gharaffa, yesterday. Pic: Baher Amin/ The Peninsula
Italian recipe contests, cooking lessons and demonstrations by leading Italian chefs, insights into various cooking styles and ingredients of Italian cuisine are some of the activities planned at the festival.
Sealine sees rise in demand for campingSidi Mohamed The Peninsula
As registration for winter camping comes to close today, Sealine camping site has
witnessed increase in demand as well as the number of serv-ices offered that campers need.
“The registration started on October 2 and will end today, while the camping season will continue until April 15. Camp-ing sites like Sealine have witnessed more of campers," said Omar Salim Al Nuaimi, Director of Environment Pro-tection Department in an interview with Al Rayyan Channel.
To provide necessary serv-ices campers may need, Hamad Medical Corporation is offering ambulance and air ambulance as well as civil defence cars.
Campers don't anymore need to go to Doha for their needs. The Sealiine area has more than 25 restaurants as well as other food outlets and services available.
Police patrols are making tours of the sites every day. In addition, Ministry of Municipal-ity and Environment Inspectors monitor campers for violations. Al Nuaimi said: “The most com-mon violation among campers is digging land using equipment to level it, which violates envi-ronment law."
He advised campers to use only simple equipment.
“Some violations, can be settled, like campers increas-ing their camping space. They will be warned and asked to settle it, but some cases can't be settled and the violator will have to pay a fine or it will be deducted from his QR10,000 guarantee,” he said.
“In wildlife sites, campers are allowed to take 50sqm space and at coastal sites only 30sqm. They can also change sites in coordination with authorities concerned,” he added.
For the first time campers are allowed to plant a maxi-mum of five local trees such as Sidra, Al Ghaf, Al Gharat.
Last winter, 43 violating campers were blacklisted, and barred from obtaining licence. In the previous season, 85 campers registered violations, which means there was decrease in the number of violations.
Camping Season
Hamad Medical Corporation is offering ambulance and air ambulance as well as civil defence cars.
At wildlife sites, campers are allowed to take 50sqm space and in coastal sites only 30sqm.
08 THURSDAY 17 NOVEMBER 2016 HOME
Ezdan Mall grows vegetables in kitchen gardenIrfan Bukhari The Peninsula
As Sustainability Week is being marked in Qatar with a number of green activities, there is a shopping mall in the
town that not only sells vegetables in its hypermarket but also grows (though symbolically) some of them at its kitchen garden.
The outdoor kitchen garden has been divided into various parts; each part assigned to various departments of the mall like secu-rity, facilities, customer services etc. Now the mall management calls security as “securi-Tree” and facil-ity as “facili-Tree”.
And this shopping centre is Ezdan Mall. The mall is also run-ning a campaign “Green Dream 2022” aimed at planting 22 mil-lion plants by Qatar 2022 FIFA World Cup. The parking areas of almost all malls serve the motor-ists alone for parking purposes but Ezdan Mall’s parking-lot is also providing a base to spread the message of love with environment and nature.
Vertical gardens, recycled benches, plant seeds and saplings, green tutors, pictures of Qatar’s flora and smiling-faced security personnel are there entertaining residents with professional guid-ance on how to grow plants and why to love them. Almost on a daily basis, (during weekdays), kids from various schools visit the mall and leave the “Green Academy” with deep love for flora.
“I have attached all of my hopes to the children. They are our future,” says Malik Qaiser Awan, the Group GM Ezdan Malls, the man who conceived Green Dream 2022
few years ago. “We imported fruit and vege-
table saplings from Switzerland and here at the mall we started kindling love for environment and green-ery in the hearts of school students in particular and community in general.”
On the outdoor garden, Awan said: “Different departments of the mall have been assigned patches of land in the dedicated kitchen garden area. Now our security is securi-Tree and facility as facili-Tree.”
Today, under Ezdan Mall’s “Fourth Community Immersion Project”, the mall employees are going to the students of Sherborn International School on their school’s green day. The event has been named as “Green Day”.
With notable Qatari environ-mentalist Dr Saif Ali Al Hajari, Ezdan Mall is set to launch a big environmental initiative for which the mall has already committed QR500,000.
Talking to The Peninsula, a green tutor, who actually works in security department, said that they used to teach children how to grow plant seeds in eggshells.
“When the seed grows into a sapling, it is transferred to a rela-tively bigger pot.”
Another employee of the mall said that there was competition among various departments over the outdoor kitchen garden.
Schoolchildren enjoy Dhow FestivalThe Peninsula
Students of 14 Independ-ent and international schools went for an edu-
cational trip to the sixth Katara Traditional Dhow Festival yes-terday to get a glimpse of the rich Qatari maritime heritage.
They were assigned differ-ent projects and activities that tested their understanding of maritime life and the life their grandfathers led. Some of the projects and activities were painting a dhow, writing essays, and photography.
The Wives of Heads of Mis-sions in Qatar (WOHOM) in Doha were also among those who visited the festival yesterday
Accompanied by Katara General Manager Dr Khalid bin Ibrahim Al Sulaiti, WOHOM represented by Lebanon, Pal-estine, Algeria, Chad, Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and Hungary, among others toured the festival venue.
“From my perspective, I think this is the most interest-ing cultural event that I have attended in Doha so far, as it
contains an amazing crowd and is well organised,” said Daphne Sohan, the wife of Sin-gaporean ambassador.
Roqaya Al Mahy, the wife of Chad Ambassador, stressed the importance of preserving culture, as new generations should be well aware of their own cultural identity. She said: “Katara’s Dhow festival is a charming opportunity to
authentically experience the past while living in a modern era.” Dhow Trips from The Pearl-Qatar to Katara and vice versa also continued from 3pm until 9pm.
Visitors including students enjoyed coffee and traditional Qatari Karak at the festival’s traditional café designed in an authentic Arabic style seating where the visitors can experi-
ence the past.Moreover, visitors were
also enthralled by Daloub Operetta which begins at 6.30pm daily and evokes Qatari history through tradi-tional live performance.
Yesterday’s action-packed traditional maritime competi-tions including Al Haddaq, dhow loader and Alghazl con-tinued yesterday.
QA starts contest for football fansThe Peninsula
Qatar Airways has invited football fans from around the world to showcase their best freestyle moves and post
them to social media using #QatarAirways Cup, to be in with a chance to win a pair of tickets to the Match of Champions in Doha on December 13.
The Match of Champions pits FC Bar-celona, one of the most successful football clubs in the history of the sport, against Al-Ahli SC, one of the most beloved clubs in the Middle East and recent winner of the Saudi Professional League, Saudi Super Cup and the King Cup. Qatar Airways is
the official airline of both clubs, who will go head to head at Al Gharafa Stadium in Doha on December 13.
Fans can show their football skills by creating a fifteen second video that they can share using #QatarAirwaysCup on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook. One can also submit the video through the online application on www.qatarairways.com/qrchallenge. A Qatar Airways committee will choose the winners.
Winners will be announced on Qatar Airways’ social media channels. The com-petition started on November 15 and continues until November 29. The win-ners will be announced on December 1.
All details and terms and conditions are available on www.qatarairways.com/qrchallenge. Qatar Airways Senior Vice President, Corporate Communications and Marketing, Salam Al Shawa, said: “This competition is a special gift to all of our travellers, and millions of social media fans across the world who love football. Pro-fessional players from both FC Barcelona and Al-Ahli SC, such as Lionel Messi and Omar Al Somah, inspire millions of foot-ball enthusiasts around the globe. With this, Qatar Airways Cup competition fans will have great fun showcasing their own skills for the chance to win a dream come true."
CRA issues 31 violation notices The Peninsula
THE Communications Regu-latory Authority (CRA) has conducted a routine inspec-tion of shops selling radio and telecommunication equip-ment and a total of 31 violation notices were issued for using or selling equipment without valid licences.
CRA’s inspection team visited a total of 60 sites over a two-week period, targeting popular locations for sale of communication equipment including malls, souqs, com-mercial areas, as well as neighbourhood grocery stores, said a press release yesterday.
CRA issued 31 notices for a range of violations; the most common being shops selling mobile phones without a valid licence. The notice entails the non-compliant shops to regularise their licence or to obtain the right licence if they do not have one. If the appropriate licences have not been obtained, CRA is empowered to take legal action against the defaulters.
CRA manages Qatar’s radio spectrum, and conducts rou-tine inspections to ensure compliance with the Telecom-munications Law. Under the Law, the import and sale of radio and telecommunication equipment requires an author-isation from CRA. Approvals are necessary to ensure the equipment meets certain safety and technical standards.
'One of best employers in HRD in GCC' award for AshghalThe Peninsula
Public Works Authority ‘Ashghal’ was awarded during the third edition of
“The GCC Best Employer” brand awards in the Gulf region for the year 2016, which was held in Dubai recently.
“Employer Branding Insti-tute” organised the awards ceremony in collaboration with Asian Foundation CHRO, the strategic partner for the event.
Ashghal received the award, as one of the best e m p l o y e r s i n H u m a n Resources development in the Gulf region.
The Institute developed a number of factors based on which the winners were selected. Those factors focused on the winners’ commitment to a framework that provides a role model for learning and develop-ment initiatives.
The framework also excels in applying recruitment best
practices, training, employees retention, and works towards continuous innovation. It also enables employees to improve their performance, attract new employees and ensure retention, in line with its business growth and building a global workforce culture.
The award was received by Saif Ali Al Kaabi, Manager of Human Resources Department in Ashghal, in recognition of the development of human resources policies and practices
over the last five years, making it "a unique place to work".
Winners were selected by an expert panel of judges compris-ing HR consultants from GCC countries who chose winners from a list of 100 government, semi-government agencies and private companies.
The Public Works Authority continues its efforts in support-ing distinctive and creative workforce initiatives with regards to attracting and retain-ing employees, and always seeks
to be a key player in workforce recruitment in Qatar and the GCC.
During the past years, the authority has been a career ambition for many profession-als and engineers because of the authority’s job stability, attrac-tive privileges, employees’ training and development pro-grammes as well as its large-scale projects, which ena-bled the authority to be awarded as one of the best employers in the GCC.
Baladna 'has most sheep in Mideast'Continued from Page 1
“Baladna farm is committed to an essential and major contribution to Qatar’s food security programme. Our monthly average production var-ies between 70-80 tonnes of milk, and 2,000- 2,500 heads of sheep and goat, and 1,500-2,000 tonnes of animal feed," Kamal Bazerbashi, Cluster Marketing Manager, Baladna Farm said.
Baladna claims to have the largest stock of sheep available in the GCC and Middle East. The meat, milk and feed are sold under the brand name "Baladna" at the farm's own outlets at The Pearl, Corniche and Al Khor. "We are set to launch a new outlet at Al Gharafa," Kamal added.
The farm was established three years ago, while it started branding its products in January this year. The farm produces purebred Awassi sheep, the highest meat and milk-producing breed in the Middle East. “We have received a very good response from the local market,” said Kamal.
To another question, he said: “As we are the first and only farm with the largest sheep live-stock available in GCC and the Middle East, the market feedback is exceptional and encourages us to move forward."
The farm also develops and produces its own KAFI animal feed at its factory where raw mate-rials are mixed, processed and then delivered to
the breeding department to be used for the farm’s sheep and also sold to customers outside.
“Our short-term plan is to penetrate the retail local market and have our dairy product on the shelves in hypermarkets and other shops with adherence to the original taste which differenti-ates us. Our next plan is to export our products to other GCC states.”
For quality control purposes, the farm con-ducts certain examinations on animals’ blood and body fluids. Talking on the challenges, Kamal said: “The main difficulty we have faced is to spread the awareness among the customers on how to distinguish our products from the commercial brands in the market.”
Continued from Page 1
"The guidelines will help introduce benchmark standards for quality of healthcare in the country. On the patient’s side, they can be assured in terms of quality of the care they receive irrespec-tive of the doctor or healthcare facility they are seen at,” he said.
“We are waiting for the ministry to issue the guidelines to the clinicians so that physicians will be able to ensure that their man-agement of various diseases are relevant, consistent, evidence-based and up-to-date. Many doctors do follow the guide-lines that we had recommended in obesity care,” he added.
After the initial 30 Guidelines have been developed, the min-istry's Quality Team will continue the process of National Guideline development. Guidelines will be regularly revised and updated, said the ministry.
The ministry's National Clinical Guidelines team has also con-ducted numerous awareness presentations at provider sites including Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC), Primary Health-care Corporation (PHCC), Al Ahli, Sidra Medical Research Centre, Family Medical Clinic, Qatar Petroleum, Aster Medical Group and Al Emadi Hospital, with further presentations scheduled in the future. The Healthcare Quality and Patient Safety Department has developed a National Clinical Guidelines Team. The team has in turn communicated with key healthcare providers across Qatar to create a Stakeholder Representative Group. The Clinical Guide-lines Team has received nominations of expert physicians from key stakeholders, who will engage in developing the guidelines, said the ministry.
Green Drive
The mall is also running a campaign “Green Dream 2022” aimed at planting 22 million plants by Qatar 2022.
Young students on an educational trip at the sixth Katara Traditional Dhow Festival yesterday.
Health norms to be regularly developed: Ministry
Baladna Farm at Al Khor.
09THURSDAY 17 NOVEMBER 2016 MIDDLE EAST
Opposition members attending a campaign meeting in Kuwait City, yesterday. Opposition groups are aiming for a comeback in parliament after a four-year boycott.
Kuwait poll campaign
Aleppo
AFP
Syrian government and Russian warplanes pounded rebel-held parts of northern Syria yesterday, including
battered second city Aleppo, where food aid rations were all-but-exhausted after months of regime siege.
The renewed bombardment has killed at least 20 people, including nine children, in Aleppo alone in the last 24 hours, and sparked anger from the United States and United Nations.
It comes as President Bashar Al Assad said in an interview that US president-elect Donald Trump could be a "natural ally" if he fights "terrorists".
Damascus considers all those who oppose Assad's government to be "terrorists" like the Islamic State group, which Trump has said should be the focus of US involvement in Syria.
Damascus and its ally Rus-sia launched a wide-ranging
assault on rebels on Tuesday, shattering a month of relative calm in the rebel-held east of devastated Aleppo.
A correspondent in the east reported heavy bombardment throughout the night and into the morning.
And the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor, said at least 12 civilians, among them four chil-dren, had been killed in government air strikes and artil-lery fire in eastern Aleppo yesterday.
That followed the deaths of at least eight civilians in the besieged opposition-held side of the city on Tuesday, the monitor said.
The Observatory also reported ongoing strikes in Idlib province, in northwestern Syria, which is mostly controlled by a coalition of rebel groups
including Al Qaeda's former affil-iate Fateh Al Sham Front.
The monitor said six people had been killed in strikes in the village of Kafr Jalis in Idlib on
Tuesday night."The shelling targeted inno-
cent civilians in their homes in Kafr Jalis, and there is a lot of destruction," said Yahya Arja from the White Helmets civil defence in the province.
"We worked through the night to lift the debris and remove the martyrs and surviv-ing civilians, and now we're trying to remove the rubble blocking the roads," he said.
The bombardment ended a period of relative respite, partic-ularly in eastern Aleppo, where Moscow halted air strikes on October 18 ahead of a series of brief ceasefires.
The ceasefires were intended to encourage residents and sur-rendering rebels to leave the east, but few did so, expressing fear of moving into government-held territory.
Food aid stockpiled in the east is all-but-exhausted, with international organisations and their local partners saying they were distributing the final rations in recent days.
Jerusalem
AFP
Israel's parliament gave ini-tial approval yesterday to a controversial bill to legalise
thousands of West Bank settler homes, a measure that has drawn international anger and divided the government.
The measure which would apply to an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 Jewish homes in the occupied West Bank requires three more full parliamentary votes to become law.
There have been reports that a behind-the-scenes compro-mise could see the bill now stall.
The vote in the Knesset, or parliament, was 58-50.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu initially opposed the bill, fearing an international backlash and legal implications, but voted in favour on Wednesday.
Netanyahu faces pressure to hold his right-wing coalition together and not be seen as moving against the powerful settler movement.
There were reports that Netanyahu had reached a com-promise with Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon, who had threat-ened not to vote, that could see the bill stall.
Kahlon, whose centre-right Kulanu party controls 10 seats, voted for yesterday's initial backing but said he would withdraw support in the future if it "harms" the country's high court.
The statement was a refer-ence to the West Bank Jewish outpost of Amona, which is under a high court order to be demolished by December 25 because it was built on private Palestinian land.
The bill would legalise Amona, where some 40 fami-lies live, along with other homes built on private Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank.
Israel MPs give initial backing
to bill to legalise settler homes
Regime bombs rebels; Aleppo food aid runs out
Aden
Reuters
Yemen’s Houthi group said yesterday it was ready to stop fighting
and join a national unity gov-ernment, raising hopes of a resolution to a conflict that has killed more than 10,000 people.
The announcement appeared to confirm the details of a deal set out by US Secretary of State John Kerry a day earlier that he said included plans for a ceasefire starting today.
Mohammed Al Bukhaiti, a member of the political council of the Houthi’s Ansarullah group, said Saudi Arabia had also agreed to end its involvement in the war — though there was no official confirmation from Riyadh.
An Arab alliance led by Saudi Arabia intervened in the Yemen conflict in March last year in support of Presi-dent Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi after the Iran-aligned Houthis advanced on his interim cap-ital in Aden and forced him into exile. “Ansarullah’s posi-tion has been and still is with stopping the war and the establishment of a national unity government that incor-porates all political components,” Bukhaiti said, responding to a question on Kerry’s announcement.
“The new thing is in the position of Saudi Arabia, which has agreed in princi-ple to stop the war as one of the parties to the conflict,” Bukhaiti added.
After months of bombings and other attacks, no side has emerged as the dominant
force in a war that has dis-placed more than three million people, left parts of the population on the edge of starvation and given room for a powerful branch of al Qaeda to expand its operations.
Kerry, in what could be his last trip to the Gulf before President Barack Obama’s term ends in January, said on Tuesday that officials from the Houthi group and the Saudi-led coalition meeting had agreed to a ceasefire starting on Thursday. Under-lining the complexity of the situation, Hadi’s government quickly rejected the move, complaining that it had been bypassed. Copies of a UN peace plan seen by Reuters in October suggested he would be sidelined in any future government.
Jerusalem
AFP
A GOVERNMENT-backed Israeli bill to limit the volume of calls to prayer at mosques has been blocked by an unlikely source — the coun-try's ultra-Orthodox Jews.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had backed the controversial bill, which gov-ernment watchdogs had called a threat to religious freedom. It had been due to get its first reading in parlia-ment this week until Health Minister Yaakov Litzman, a member of the ultra-Ortho-dox United Torah Judaism party, stepped in.
Litzman appealed the bill Tuesday night, saying it could affect similarly loud Jewish prayers, Israeli media reported. The bill, proposed by members of the far-right Jewish Home party, was adopted by a ministerial committee and was due to go through three readings in parliament before becoming law. The bill will now be put on hold until a ministerial committee holds a second vote. The bill was drafted in response to noise from mosques, but would in theory apply to all religious institutions — including synagogues.
Israeli bid to turn down mosque prayer calls blocked
Ankara
Reuters
Turkey’s armed forces will recruit more than 30,000 new personnel over the
next four years, a defence min-istry official said yesterday, to help plug staff shortages after widespread purges following a failed coup.
More than 110,000 people have been sacked or suspended in the military, civil service, judi-ciary and elsewhere in a security crackdown that followed the
putsch in July. Some 20,000 people have been removed from the military system alone, among them 16,000 military students, the official said.
Human rights groups and some of Turkey’s Western allies have voiced concern at the scope of the purges, fearing President Tayyip Erdogan is using the abortive military coup as a pre-text to curtail dissent.
The 30,159 new personnel will be admitted into the armed forces through the naval and army military academies, while
the rest will be employed as offi-cials, sergeants and in other posts, the defence ministry offi-cial said.
A Turkish military spokes-woman confirmed new personnel would be hired, though she could not confirm the number. The armed forces said in an e-mail that it currently employs nearly 360,000 military personnel.
Ankara accuses the US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen for orchestrating the July 15 coup bid, in which rogue soldiers commandeered tanks, fighter
jets and helicopters to attack the parliament and attempt to over-throw the government.
Gulen, who has lived in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania since 1999, has denied involve-ment and condemned the coup.
The need to replenish mili-tary ranks comes at a time when Turkey is fighting, both inside and outside its borders, Islamic State militants and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which is deemed a terrorist group by the European Union, United States and Ankara.
Egypt policeman sentenced to life for killing vendorCAIRO: A Cairo court sen-tenced a policeman to life in prison yesterday for shooting dead a vendor in a dispute over the price of a cup of tea, judicial officials said. The incident in a Cairo suburb last April inflamed anger over a string of police abuses which the government has promised to end. The court convicted low ranking officer Zeinhom Abdel Razzek of murdering the street vendor after they quarrelled over the price of a cup of tea. The court also con-victed him of the attempted murder of two passersby he wounded in the shooting.
Saudi denies Cairo visit to mend fences with EgyptRIYADH: The Saudi Ambas-sador to Egypt has denied reports about a visit by a high-profile Saudi delegation to Cairo to mend fences with Egypt. Ahmed Kattan said on Twitter yesterday Egyptian news reports about the visit were groundless.
Egyptian media earlier said a high-level Saudi dele-gation had arrived in Cairo on Tuesday to discuss ways of easing tension between the two Arab allies. Egyptian-Saudi relations strained last month after Cairo voted in favour of a Russian draft res-olution regarding war-torn Syria.
Houthis want to end war and form unity govt
Turkey to recruit over 30,000 soldiers
Civilians check destroyed buildings in the Syrian village of Kfar Jales, on the outskirts of Idlib, following air strikes by Syrian and Russian warplanes, yesterday.
People's Resistance Forces, loyal to President of Yemen Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi, attack Houthi sites with heavy artillery in Taiz province, Yemen, yesterday.
20 dead in bombing
The renewed bombardment has killed at least 20 people, including nine children, in Aleppo alone in the last 24 hours, and sparked anger from the United States and United Nations.
T he International Criminal Court (ICC) has suffered another lethal blow with Russia’s decision to withdraw from the organisation. Vladimir Putin signed an order to sever ties
with the body amid calls for his military to be referred to the ICC over air strikes in Syria which killed hundreds of children and civilians. Putin instructed his foreign ministry to notify the United Nations of the country’s refusal to be subject to the activity, and Moscow’s move follows similar action by Gambia, South Africa and Burundi, who had bid adieu to the organisation alleging discrimination and bias saying that the ICC was aggressively pursuing African leaders while ignoring human rights violations and atrocities by other countries. The Russian media reported that the government was pulling out of the 2002 Rome Statute which establishes the ICC status and powers, although the Kremlin never ratified the agreement it signed in 2000.
Russia’s action will not come as a big surprise because the ICC has been struggling for legitimacy and some degree of success since its inception. Unlike other
UN institutions whose works don’t directly clash with leaders and their interests, the ICC has a dangerous and tough task of holding to account leaders committing crimes against humanity. Unfortunately, some of the most powerful leaders in the world have also been accused of participation or collusion in human rights violations or crimes against humanity, in other
countries, perpetrated mostly in the name of protecting democracy and human rights.
The ICC has never been able to deliver on the expectations placed on it and has been struggling all along. The court was intended to prosecute and bring to justice those responsible for the worst violations of international law - genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. But its control is limited. A number of countries including the US, China, India, Pakistan, Indonesia and Turkey have not signed the treaty, and adding to its disrepute, only African defendants have been put on trial.
Reacting to the Russian withdrawal, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, issued an appeal to all countries attempting to withdraw from the ICC. He said such actions will only lead to “deserting victims of the most abominable international crimes” and the countries could not claim their action was based on principle.
But the UN official’s appeal is unlikely to elicit a positive reaction. The UN needs to seriously rethink the role of ICC and undertake serious reforms if the ICC is to survive and make a positive contribution.
10 THURSDAY 17 NOVEMBER 2016 VIEWS
E S T A B L I S H E D I N 1 9 9 6
CHAIRMANSHEIKH THANI BIN ABDULLAH AL THANI
EDITOR-IN-CHIEFDR. KHALID BIN MUBARAK AL-SHAFI
ACTING MANAGING EDITORMOHAMMED SALIM MOHAMED
DEPUTY MANAGING EDITORHUSSAIN AHMAD
Another blow
QUOTE OF THE DAY
The global path of globalisation demands a course correction. The global economy now constitutes one of the greatest challenges to our economies and to our democracies.
Barack ObamaUS President
Russia’s decision to withdraw from the International Criminal Court will further weaken the organisation.
East Aleppo, Syrian government forces sent a text message to resi-dents of east Aleppo on Sunday, demanding they leave the rebel-controlled area within 24 hours or
risk their lives during a major offensive.“Our dear people living in east Aleppo, the
militants kill your children and take your women,” read the text message, which declared the government’s intent to retake rebel-held districts of the city.
Approximately 250,000 people are believed to be living in besieged east Aleppo, and Syrian government forces have reversed recent gains rebels made last month in their effort to break the siege.
East Aleppo resident Shamel Mohammad understood the text message loud and clear, but he is not going to leave. “In general, I don’t want to leave. I just want the supply route to open, for food and aid to return to the city, and to go back to how things were before the siege,” said Mohammad, who sells stationery.
Other residents of east Aleppo, although they have already stayed through five years of civil war, now want to leave owing to the cur-rent conditions. “Of course, I want to get out,” Fatima Lababidi, a school teacher and mother of four, told Al Jazeera. Both she and Moham-mad live near the dividing line between government- and rebel-held areas in Aleppo, near the citadel.
But whether or not they want to leave, many agree that leaving is nearly impossible. “There’s no way out. The regime doesn’t open the route for us and doesn’t stop bombing,” said Lababidi.
Despite deteriorating conditions and dwindling food supplies, Mohammad said: “I don’t want to move away. My biggest dream is we return to the security and safety of six
In east Aleppo ‘there is no way out’Adam Lucente and Zouhir Al ShimaleAl Jazeera
years ago … that we may eat and drink and live a little.”
According to Mohammad, opening a supply route to east Aleppo by linking it to rebel territory west of the city, not migration, will accomplish this. “The last time the route at Ramouseh [military academy] was opened, people died there but aid could get in.”
Small amounts of aid from other parts of Syria reached east Aleppo when rebel groups took the Ramouseh military academy in August.
Conditions are getting worse in east Aleppo, according to many observers. “Electricity is always cut off, [there’s a] high increase in prices, and an acute lack of vegetable avail-ability, fuel is almost non-existent in markets, the bread quality and quan-tity is abating,” Humam Al Malah, a member of the Syrian Network for Human Rights, in the Aleppo gover-norate, told Al Jazeera.
“Maybe the most difficult obstacle is the lack of stored fuels that is required for the generators.”
Late last week, the UN warned that east Aleppo risks mass starvation if food is not allowed in immediately, and pleaded that the Syrian government, Russia, and rebel groups permit food to be delivered.
It has been disputed who is responsi-ble for civilians’ inability to leave east Aleppo. Recently, Syrian state media reported that rebel groups are prevent-ing civilians from escaping, seeking to use them as human shields. However, many east Aleppo residents say it is the government, not rebel groups, that is preventing their escape.
“From what I’ve seen, the regime is the one attacking the people here,” said Lababidi, when asked about reports of attacks against people try-ing to flee east Aleppo. She said
leaving is impossible due to the gov-ernment-imposed siege and the general violence: “There’s no way out. All the routes are closed and there are battles all around the city.”
Some observers, such as al-Malah, are sceptical about the routes that the government says exist for people to leave. “From our point of view, it is only to deceive the public, because the cross-ings are monitored by the regime’s snipers, and any attempt by anyone to cross it might lead to them being shot,” he said.
“The people also fear crossing to the regime territory as it might lead to their arrest, especially without international parties guaranteeing their safety.”
Until the situation changes in east Aleppo, Mohammad waits. “The worst part of it all is that no one cares or pays attention to our suffering, death, agony or starving,” he said. “If things ease up, only God knows.”
ED ITOR IAL
Men walk near the rubble of damaged buildings in the rebel-held area of Old Aleppo, Syria.
Recently, Syrian state media reported that rebel groups are preventing civilians from escaping, seeking to use them as human shields. However, many east Aleppo residents say it is the government, not rebel groups, that is preventing their escape.
11THURSDAY 17 NOVEMBER 2016 OPINION
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Putin’s green light for atrocities
On Monday, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump spoke by phone about Syria and agreed
on “the need to work together in the struggle against the No. 1 common enemy— international terrorism and extremism,” accord-ing to a Kremlin statement. Hours later, Russia and its Syrian allies launched a massive new bombing campaign against eastern Aleppo
and other rebel-held territories. Just a coincidence? Not likely, given what we know about Putin.
There are no Islamic State forces in Aleppo, though Trump does not appear to be aware of that fact. There are an estimated 250,000 civilians who, according to the United Nations, received the last available food rations last week.There are also rebel forces that until now have been trained and supplied by the United States and its allies, as well as groups linked to Al Qaeda. Surrounded by Syrian, Iranian and Shiite militia forces since July, all face the same brutal ultimatum President Bashar Assad has delivered to other rebel-held areas: Surrender, or die through bombing or starvation.
Putin’s evident aim is to sup-port the Assad regime in a campaign to overrun the city, and perhaps other rebel-held areas, during the 2½ months of the US presidential transition. If so, the result will likely be the worst humanitarian catastrophe yet in a
war that has already seen more than 400,000 people killed by bombing, chemical weapons, tor-ture and other depravities. Yet neither the outgoing nor the incoming US president appears willing to do anything to prevent this calamity.
President Barack Obama was asked about Aleppo at his news conference Monday by a journalist who pointed out that the United States had intervened to prevent a similar assault on the Libyan city of Benghazi. “We don’t have that option easily available to us,” said Obama, who recently set aside sev-eral such options, such as grounding the Syrian air force. He added that the administration would continue to press for “humanitarian safe spaces and cease-fires” before conceding, “I recognise that that has not worked.” While the honesty was welcome, Obama’s apparent will-ingness to watch fecklessly as hundreds of thousands of people are starved and bombed during his final weeks in office is morally
abject. It will deepen the ineradica-ble stain Syria will leave on his legacy.
Trump, for his part, has all but given Putin the green light for atrocities. While we don’t know the specifics of what was said in his conversation with the Russian ruler, the president-elect in an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Friday repeated that “Syria is fighting ISIS and you have to get rid of ISIS. Russia is now totally aligned with Syria.”
Again, the Syrian regime is not fighting the Islamic State in Aleppo. It is bombing and besieging its own citizens, with Russian and Iranian help. In refusing to allow aid deliv-eries and in targeting hospitals, it is willfully committing crimes against humanity. “I don’t think anybody wants a quarter of a million people to be starving in east Aleppo,” said Jan Egeland, the head of a UN-backed humanitarian task force. Tragically, he is wrong. The Assad regime and Putin want it. Obama is unwilling to prevent it. And Trump is, at best, indifferent.
The Washington Post
Unlike thousands of Ameri-cans protesting in the streets for days on end, members of an armed militia group in Georgia
appear happy and relieved as they conduct routine weapons training in their semi-secluded camp in Atlanta.
Leader Chris Hill believes the Georgia Security Force III% (GSF) has a champion in President-elect Donald Trump. The assumption of the former Marine is not without merit.
The Republican business mogul, who was endorsed by the influential National Rifle Association, has promised to remove a ban on gun-free zones in schools and military bases on his first day in office.
According to his website, he also plans to lift limitations on gun and ammunition purchases, appoint pro-gun ownership Supreme Court judges and institute an unprecedented national right to carry arms.
“We are going to protect our Second Amendment,” Trump said in a campaign video.
But guns are not the only thing that draws the militia to Trump; they share another commonality. A hardline stance on immigration and “radical Islam” are among the group’s core tenets.
It was this concern for safety that led an Anadolu Agency photojournalist Mohammed Elshamy to introduce himself as Billy to the GSF camp.
“They scare the crap out of me,” Hill, who goes by the code name Blood Agent, said of extremist international groups that use Islamic insignia. Trump, who campaigned on a platform of a “total and complete shutdown of Mus-lims entering the United States”, is his man for the top job.
The GSF camp, covered with Trump banners, hats and other memorabilia, stays partially hidden under the dappled sunlight of the forest. The 11 men up for training the day Anadolu Agency visited the site are all wearing military fatigues, covering a t-shirt in Hill’s case that says “when tyranny becomes law, resistance becomes duty”. Before the drills begin, Hill breaks out a black acoustic guitar with
metal strings to give the group a 15-minute concert, playing country music wear-ing a camo hat and jacket, with a cigarette in his mouth.
Before long, members
Militias in US have new champion in TrumpCanberk Yuksel & Mohammed Elshamy Anatolia
who came for the FTX – Field Train-ing Exercise – pick up semi-automatic and scope-equipped rifles and take positions in front of targets.
Some train at close range with green upper body shaped gun tar-gets, while others lie down on white floorboards with “GSF III%” sprayed on them to put in long-range practice.
A little out from the parked black heavy duty trucks and large solid-color tents scattered around the camp site is a white trailer, used as a depot for training equipment and protection from the elements.
Not far away are playground swings for the handful of 8- to 10-year-olds frolicking around. But they are not here to just stand by and get out of the way as the adults get going with the training. Soon enough, Ashton, 11, approaches his father, Hill, and picks up a pistol to start working on his short-range accuracy.
The GSF is one of hundreds of extremist militia groups across the United States, that feels emboldened by the Republican campaign for the White House. They thrive on the attacks he unleashed on immigrants and Muslims, but the main factor that motivates them is guns, along with their nagging suspicions that his rival, Hillary Clinton, was against gun ownership, despite her insisting otherwise.
The militia self-identifies with a broader, nationwide phenomenon called the 3 percent group, named after a disputed premise that only 3 percent of Americans took up arms during the American Revolution to
win independence from the British.Hill and his people, dressed in
combat fatigues, spend their weekends undergoing improvised military training in the woods to fight off a range of perceived threats — threats that will proba-bly never materialise, such as an Islamic takeover, a Russian inva-sion or total collapse of the economic system.
Now with a Trump administra-tion set to take power, and with both houses of Congress seized by Repub-licans, real change can happen in gun control, for better or worse.
The US has a problem with guns. In a country of approximately 325 million people, there are enough guns to arm every single man, woman and child.
Nearly 13,000 people were killed in gun violence this year, according to Gun Violence Archive. From post September 11, 2001, to 2011, the average number of victims who lost their lives to gun violence was 11,101, while the average number of US citi-zens killed by terrorism was 17, according to Justice Department figures.
After Omar Mateen killed 49 people and wounded dozens more in Florida in June, a local journalist in Philadelphia wondered how easy it would be to get the same gun Mateen used to commit one of the deadliest mass shootings in American history.
From the moment Helen Ubinas gave her driver’s license to the sales-person to her passing a background check, it was seven minutes total to purchase an AR-15, a semi-auto-matic assault rifle once used by the US military.
Outgoing president Barack Obama was left frustrated by a gridlocked Congress when it came to introducing changes to existing gun legislation, some of which were even backed by the Republi-can-leaning NRA, such as plugging holes in the background check sys-tem. Obama, while introducing gun control measures in January in an executive-order capacity, was over-whelmed with tears as he recalled the Sandy Hook elementary school shoot-ing in 2012 that killed 28 people, including 20 children between the ages of 6 and 7.
But among all the dooms day sce-narios the GSF holds on to for motivation to keep training, it’s the fear of radical Islam and refugees that takes the spotlight. That fear led Hill’s group to protest last month at the site of a proposed mosque in the small suburb of Covington.
The longstanding mosque in nearby Doraville had reached full capacity and was seeking to expand on the site — until locals at a planning meeting voiced concerns of rape, radi-calisation and losing American values.
The Georgia Security Force pro-tested outside, fully armed, and the decision was postponed by the council for safety reasons.
Rewind to present day, and you can notice a pattern. A week after the end of a bitter election cycle, and vio-lence and hate have been on the rise.
The non-profit rights group South-ern Poverty Law Center said the frequency and intensity of hate attacks since the Nov. 8 election are even worse than those committed in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attack.
The attacks target minority
groups, including blacks, Latinos and Muslims. In his first television interview as president-elect, Trump said he was “so saddened to hear” about the attacks. “And I say, ‘Stop it’, if it helps.”
Nihad Awad, the president of the largest Muslim advocacy group in the US, was nevertheless con-cerned when he talked to Anadolu Agency about his reaction to the election result and the ensuing environment of protests and attacks. “No one can uproot us from our country and we have to remain positive and hopeful,” said Awad, who heads the Coun-cil on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). “We should not allow fear to paralyze us.” Awad had a message for Trump: Be presidential and assure Ameri-can Muslims and all other minority groups that you would not “discriminate or target any community or any minority based on ethnic background, religion or country of origin.
“This is what the Constitution and the law of the country say. Equal protection and equal treat-ment.” With two months to go before he takes office January 20, it is anyone’s guess how much of the divisive rhetoric of a hard-fought campaign would make its way into the Oval Office, but Trump is ready to pledge working toward unity.
“This will prove to be a great time in the lives of ALL Ameri-cans,” he tweeted over the weekend. “We will unite and we will win, win, win!”
Former marine and the leader of the Georgia Security Forces Chris Hill also known as ‘General Bloodagent’ is seen during military drill with group members of Georgia Security Force in Flovilla, Georgia, recently.
The US has a problem with guns. In a country of approximately 325 million people, there are enough guns to arm every single man, woman and child.
There are no Islamic State forces in Aleppo, though Trump does not appear to be aware of that fact. There are an estimated 250,000 civilians who, according to the United Nations, received the last available food rations last week.
12 THURSDAY 17 NOVEMBER 2016 ASIA / AFRICA
ICC urges African defectors 'Don't go'The Hague
AFP
"Don't go!" That was the h e a r t f e l t appeal to A f r i c a n
nations as the International Criminal Court opened its annual meeting yesterday under the cloud of a wave of unprec-edented defections.
Gambia on Monday formally notified the United Nations that it was withdrawing from the court, following in the wake of South Africa and Burundi.
"Don't go," pleaded Senega-lese politician Sidiki Kaba, the president of the ICC's Assembly of State Parties meeting in The Hague.
"In a world criss-crossed by violent extremism... it is urgent and necessary to defend the ideal of justice for all," he said.
The tribunal opened in 2002 in The Hague as a court of last resort to try the world's worst crimes. But in his passionate plea, Kaba admitted it was going through a "difficult moment".
He acknowledged some had
seen "injustice" in the investi-gations brought before the court so far, but he offered reassur-ances, saying: "You have been heard."
The court had to redouble its efforts to convince countries to return, and to ensure that there was truly universal justice for all, Kaba said.
Amid accusations of bias against Africa, Kenya, Namibia and Uganda have also indicated they are considering pulling out of the Rome Statute, the ICC's founding treaty.
"Though the powerful may seek to leave the court, the vic-tims everywhere plead for its involvement," UN human rights commissioner Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said.
He insisted "there is no sub-stitute for the ICC" and in the long term "these states will boo-merang back as the court is
accepted by more and more states".
"By withdrawing from the Rome Statute, leaders may shield themselves, but it would be at the cost of depriving their people of a unique form of protection."
He warned "a new trend of isolationism" sweeping the world would trigger more attacks on the court.
"Now is not the time to abandon the post, now is the time of resolve and strength".
"Do not betray the victims, nor your own people... stand by the court... it is the best that we have." The defections will take a year to come into force. Cur-rently nine out of the 10 ICC investigations are in African countries. The other is in Georgia.
But on the eve of the meet-ing, ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda revealed there was a "reasonable basis" to believe US troops as well as the Taliban and Afghan forces may have com-mitted war crimes in Afghanistan. In her report, she said she would decide "immi-nently" whether to ask to launch a full-blown investigation in Afghanistan.
Japan gives Malaysia 2 patrol boatsTokyo
Reuters
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said yesterday that Tokyo will give Malaysia
two patrol boats, a move that visiting Malaysian Prime Minis-ter Najib Razak welcomed as an aid to promoting stability in the South China Sea.
Najib arrived in Japan on Tuesday on a visit that comes
just weeks after he was in China on a six-day visit in which he agreed to buy four Chinese patrol boats in his nation's first significant defence deal with China.
"Today's agreement - Japan is willing to hand over two decommissioned patrol vessels to our maritime enforcement agency - shows the nature of our relationship is now broad-based," Najib said.
Najib said talks with Abe
touched the disputed sea issue, adding: "Malaysia continues to play its part to ensure the South China Sea will be an area of peace and stability, without which we cannot achieve prosperity."
Discussions also included the planned high-speed rail link between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, set to be built by 2026 and with the two neighbours set to finalise a bilateral agreement in December.
Boko Haram rebels suffer defeats in Cameroon DAKAR: Boko Haram has dra-matically scaled back attacks in Cameroon in recent months, analysts said yesterday.
The Islamist movement - which controlled an area the size of Belgium in northeast Nigeria last year and raided Cameroon and other neigh-bours to expand its "caliphate" - had since suf-fered a string of defeats, International Crisis Group (ICG) said.
The report came days after security and UN sources said hundreds of Boko Haram fighters and their families had surrendered on another frontline in Chad.
There was no comment from any of the factions of Boko Haram which is still seen as one of the main secu-rity threats in West Africa.
"We've seen a dizzying downwards spiral in the number of attacks and suicide bombings," said Hans De Marie Heungoup, one of the report's authors.
Two years ago, attacks were happening on an almost daily basis, he said.
But the number had falled to between six and eight a month since September.
"(The Boko Haram) has suffered heavy losses and seen its conventional capac-ities reduced," the study said recently.
Nairobi
AFP
Kenya said yesterday it will delay by six months the closure of the Dadaab ref-
ugee camp, the world's largest, after calls by the United Nations and the aid groups to postpone it on humanitarian grounds.
Interior minister Joseph Nkaissery said the move follows a request from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to delay the dismantling of the camp, origi-nally planned for this month. It has now been pushed back to May.
"I wish to announce that the government has accepted the request to extend the deadline for the completion of the
repatriation of Somali refugees and the eventual closure of Dadaab refugee complex by six months," he said.
Nkaissery said a comprehen-sive repatriation programme would be rolled out next month at the camp, which is home to hundreds of thousands of mostly Somali refugees.
"The repatriation will con-tinue to be carried out in a humane, safe and dignified man-ner," he said.
Nairobi has taken a hardline position, claiming Dadaab acts as a terrorist training ground for Shabaab Islamists, and has pub-licly and repeatedly said it would remove all Somali refugees from
the country by the end of the year.
"Delaying the closure of the camp by six months is certainly better than deporting the refu-gees in two weeks. But with the new date... the refugees will con-tinue to feel that they must leave," said Gerry Simpson, a researcher at rights group Human Rights Watch (HRW).
"Forcible returns are illegal. Kenya must end its threats to close Dadaab and the UNHCR and donors must press Kenya to publicly reassure the Somali ref-ugees and tell them that they are welcome in Kenya until they are able to return home safely."
In September HRW warned
in a report that the repatriation of Somalis from the sprawling Dadaab camp violated interna-tional standards and that refugees were returning home involuntarily only to face perse-cution and hunger.
The Kenyan government dis-missed the report.
Refugees will be returning to a country that already has over one million people displaced from their homes, where five million lack enough food and where African and Somali forces are still fighting Al Qaeda-aligned Shabaab militants. An estimated 18,000 have returned this year -- 10,000 since the announcement of the closure.
Kenya delays closure of Dadaab refugee camp
Middelburg
AFP
Two white South African farmers briefly appeared in court yesterday on assault
charges after an online video emerged showing them pushing a black man into a coffin and threatening to burn him alive.
Willem Oosthuizen and Theo Martins Jackson, both 28, were remanded in custody after their lawyer decided not to apply for bail.
Magistrate Jongilizwe
Dumehleli said the pair should return for another court hear-ing on January 25.
The men face charges of kidnapping and assaulting 27-year-old Victor Mlotshwa over an incident that occurred in August at a farm near the town of Middelburg in the east-ern province of Mpumalanga.
The clip shows one of the assailants shoving a black man, clearly in distress, into the wooden coffin and trying to force down the lid. They are also accused of threatening to put a snake in the coffin.
Yangon
AFP
Former UN chief Kofi Annan has expressed "deep con-cern" over violence in
Myanmar's Rakhine state where the military killed dozens of peo-ple over the weekend, sending hundreds of Rohingya fleeing to Bangladesh.
The military has locked
down a strip of land along the border, an area largely home to the oppressed Muslim minority, since deadly raids on police posts last month.
The army says troops have killed nearly 70 people as they hunt the attackers, who they say are radicalised Rohingya mili-tants with links to overseas Islamists.
Annan called for an end to the bloodshed in a statement
released as seven members of a commission he heads on Rakhine held talks with local officials in state capital Sittwe.
"I wish to express my deep concern over the recent violence in northern Rakhine State, which is plunging the state into renewed instability and creat-ing new displacement," he said.
"All communities must renounce violence and I urge the security services to act in full
compliance with the rule of law," he added.
Yesterday, the commission members will head to villages hit by the unrest.
The US is also "concerned by reports of a spike in violence" in Rakhine, US State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Tru-deau said in Washington, urging the government to allow a "cred-ible and independent investigation".
Annan 'deeply concerned' over Rakhine violence
Two white SA farmers in court for assault charges
Burundi exodus creating African refugee crisisNairobi
Reuters
A five-fold surge in Burun-dians fleeing to Tanzania to escape
political violence in their trou-bled central African homeland is creating one of Africa's big-gest refugee crises, a charity said, amid warnings from activists of genocide threats.
Some 10,000 Burundians have arrived in neighbouring Tanzania each month since August, increasing the popu-lation in three overcrowded
north-western camps to almost 250,000 people, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said.
"This is rapidly becoming one of Africa's biggest refugee crises," MSF's Tanzanian head of mission, David Nash, said.
"Unrest in Burundi (is) showing no signs of abating."
Almost 325,000 Burundi-ans have fled since the crisis began in April 2015 when Pres-ident Pierre Nkurunziza decided to run for a third term, which he secured in a disputed election in July 2015.
Half of those fleeing
Burundi have gone to Tanza-nia and others to Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The refugees say they are fleeing harassment, worsen-ing hunger and an uncertain future, Nash said.
Crimes against humanity are being committed in Burundi, with the risk of inten-sifying to genocide, the International
Federation for Human Rights and Burundian Human Rights League said on Tuesday - charges the government has repeatedly denied.
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe holding a joint news conference at Abe's official residence in Tokyo, yesterday.
Members of the Economic Freedom Fighters carry a placard as they gather during the appearance of Theo Martins and Willem Oosthuizen in court, in Mpumalanga province, yesterday.
Repatriation
The move follows a request from the UN to delay the dismantling of the camp, originally planned for this month: Minister.
Kenya assures that the repatriation will continue to be carried out in a humane, safe and dignified manner.
Justice for all
In a world criss-crossed by violent extremism...it is urgent and necessary to defend the ideal of justice for all: Official
13THURSDAY 17 NOVEMBER 2016 ASIA / PHILIPPINES
Duterte trusts Trump's immigrant policyManila
Reuters
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte (pic-tured) thinks he will get along with Donald Trump as the US pres-
ident-elect "has not meddled in human rights" issues, and he trusted Trump's judgment to deal fairly with the undocumented workers he plans to kick out.
Duterte's hostility towards traditional ally the United States has defined his presidency so far, but he has changed his tune since Trump's surprise election win last week.
"It was a well-deserved vic-tory. You (Trump) are the chosen leader of the most powerful country," Duterte told reporters
at a function at the presidential palace.
He acknowledged Trump's intent to crackdown on illegal migrants. Large numbers of Fil-ipinos are believed to be working illegally in the United States and remittances from all US-based Filipinos is equivalent to 3 per-cent of the country's GDP.
"I trust in his judgment that
he would be fair in the matter of the treatment of illegal immi-grants. I cannot talk for the illegals because, whether Pres-ident Trump or anybody else for that matter, an illegal is always an illegal."
Duterte's volatility and will-ingness to castigate anyone he disagrees with earned him the nickname "Trump of the East" when he was campaigning as the alternative candidate in a pres-idential election he won in May by a big margin.
His warm words for Trump contrasts starkly with the abuse he poured on incumbent Barack Obama for daring to voice con-cern about the death toll in Duterte's drugs war.
When asked if he thought he would get along with Trump, he said he could be friends with
anyone and noted the incom-ing president had not said anything about human rights - a no-go topic for President
Duterte and a trigger for his rage.
"We don't have any quarrels. I can always be a friend to any-body especially to a president, a chief executive of another coun-try," he said.
"He has not meddled in the human rights."
Presidential spokesman Ernesto Abella yesterday said Trump's migration policy would have little impact on the Philippines.
He declined during a regu-lar briefing to give an estimate of the number of Filipinos work-ing illegally in the United States.
Abella said there were mech-anisms in place to provide them with business and employment opportunities and the govern-ment encouraged them to return home before Trump takes office.
Manila
AP
Philippine authorities said yesterday a tipoff from the US Drug Enforcement
Administration allowed them to arrest a Malaysian man who allegedly tried to smuggle 4.6kg of suspected cocaine into the country.
Bureau of Customs officials presented Nassir Uddin Bin
Mohd Hasnan to the media at Manila's international airport, where he was arrested yesterday.
Officials said he was arrested Monday after arriving on an Ethiopian Airlines flight from Addis Ababa and Togo.
Officials added that he was carrying in his bag several canisters of chocolates con-taining 216 pieces of pellets of alleged cocaine valued at $468,000.
Alleged Malaysian drug mule arrested in Manila
NZ evacuates tourists stranded by quakeChristchurch
AFP
Rescuers in New Zealand yesterday completed a mass evacuation of tour-
ists stranded after a devastating earthquake, as officials in the capital Wellington sealed off dozens of potentially dangerous office blocks.
The last of the trapped hol-idaymakers boarded the navy ship HMNZS Canterbury late yesterday at Kaikoura, the South
Island seaside town that bore the brunt of the powerful 7.8 tremor.
"We got them all out, it was a superhuman effort," Red Cross spokesman Simon Makker said from the stricken town.
"The last of them were cheering and dancing down the street on their way out. It was pretty cool."
Vessels from the United States, Canada and Australia are also steaming toward the town to provide emergency supplies and logistical support.
At the time of the quake,
Kaikoura's population of 2,000 was bolstered by about 1,000 tourists, attracted by the region's renowned whale-watching cruises.
They were stranded when the tremor, which claimed two lives, severed road and rail access, leaving the town short of water and with little power.
Makker said most of the vis-itors were airlifted out by military helicopters, with about 250 set to depart on the HMNZS Canterbury for nearby Christch-urch late yesterday.
"There might still be a few stragglers left, but the focus now turns to the welfare of the resi-dents," he said.
Wellington was initially thought to escaped serious dam-age but the local council said that engineering inspectors had raised concerns about some 60 downtown buildings.
Prime Minister John Key said he was "staggered" at the build-ing's failure given the strict building codes in Wellington, which sits on a network of fault lines
Former vice-sports minister questioned in S KoreaSeoul
AFP
South Korean prosecutors questioned a former vice sports minister yesterday as
their probe into the corruption scandal engulfing President Park Geun-Hye spreads to
preparations for the 2018 Win-ter Olympics.
Kim Chong, who served as vice sports minister for three years until last month, is accused of helping Choi's foundations win lucrative state contracts.
He was mobbed by report-ers as he walked into the Seoul prosecutors' office yesterday, TV
footage showed. He is also accused of pressuring a former head of the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Games organising com-mittee to resign after he refused to award a contract to a firm linked with Choi.
Cho Yang-Ho, the chairman of Korean Air, took the helm at the committee in 2014 when it
was struggling with construction delays and funding problems.
He is widely credited with turning the situation around and bringing in big-name sponsorship -- but abruptly resigned in May.
He has said media reports he was forced out by Kim for refus-ing to help Choi are "90 percent correct."
Prosecutors are also inves-tigating whether Kim played a role in a recent decision by his ministry to provide a cash sub-sidy to a winter sports foundation run by Choi's niece, who is widely seen as her key aide. They are also seeking to quiz Park over her role in the scandal .
Most-wanted graft fugitive returns to ChinaBEIJING: China's most-wanted corruption suspect returned to China from the United States yesterday after turning herself in, a major victory for the ruling Communist Party's overseas hunt for fugitive officials.
Yang Xiuzhu, a former deputy director of Wenzhou's construction bureau in the booming eastern province of Zhejiang, surrendered to Chi-nese authorities after spending 13 years in hiding overseas, the party's graft-busting Central Commission for Discipline Inspection said in a statement on its website.
Yang was ranked number one on the list and is the 37th fugitive to return so far, the commission said.
Chinese officials "intro-duced relevant policies to Yang Xiuzhu, advising her to abandon her resistance and give herself up, and get leni-ent treatment in accordance with the law", it said.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said her return was an important result for Sino-U.S. anti-cor-ruption cooperation and expressed thanks.
IS-linked rebels release Filipino hostageZAMBOANGA CITY: An IS-linked militant group in the Philippines’ troubled south has released a Filipino hostage, but kept hold of his 8-year-old son, according to the military.
Western Mindanao Com-mand said in a statement yesterday that Elmer Romoc -- who was abducted along-side his son and wife over three months ago -- was released in the island prov-ince of Sulu.
"His son, Ricson, is still in captivity. Intel monitoring and coordination with the Anti-Kidnapping Group are currently being conducted by the Western Mindanao Com-mand," said spokesman Major Filemon Tan Jr.
Malaysian national Nassir Uddin Bin Mohd Hasnan covers his face as he is presented to the media by customs officials, in Pasay city, Metro Manila, yesterday.
Bangkok
Reuters
Thai health officials yester-day said 33 new Zika virus cases have been detected
in the country as officials step up screening for groups at high risk from the disease such as pregnant women.
"We confirmed 33 new cases last week and have detected the virus in two further provinces," Ministry of Public Health spokesman Suwannachai Wat-tanayingcharoenchai said.
Suwannachai said health campaigns warning travellers about Zika have been increased as many Thais flock to the cap-ital Bangkok to take part in
national mourning activities for King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who died on October 13.
"This is a period of move-ment with people coming to the capital from the provinces to take part in various activities," he said.
"We have to remind them that Zika is a silent disease and some people won't have symptoms."
Thailand became the first country in Southeast Asia in September to confirm Zika-linked microcephaly, a condition that results in babies being born with small heads, and has one of the highest number of Zika cases in the region.
Other parts of Southeast Asia have reported dozens of
cases of Zika, including city state Singapore where 450 cases have been reported in 2016.
Thailand has reported more than 680 cases of Zika since Jan-uary but its Department of Disease Control has said the virus is manageable.
In neighbouring Myanmar, a pregnant foreign woman was diagnosed with the mosquito-borne virus last month - the first case confirmed in the country.
Zika infections in pregnant women have been shown to cause microcephaly as well as other brain abnormalities.
The connection between Zika and microcephaly first came to light in Brazil, which has confirmed more than 1,900 cases of microcephaly.
Thailand detects 33 new Zika cases
Illegal migrants
Duterte acknowledged Trump's intent to crackdown on illegal migrants. Large numbers of Filipinos are believed to be working illegally in US.
The Philippine President said he could be friends with anyone and noted that Trump had not said anything about human rights.
Evacuees walk away from the New Zealand Air Force helicopter that brought them to the town of Woodend, yesterday. RIGHT: Earthquake damage to State Highway 1 is seen in south of Kaikoura.
Over 100 tigers 'killed or trafficked' each yearHanoi
AFP
With fewer than 4,000 left in the wild, tigers are on
a precipice -- yet more than 100 of the big cats are still killed and illegally trafficked each year, according to fresh analysis.
The latest estimate comes as experts and dignitaries, including Britain's Prince Wil-liam, gather in Hanoi for an international wildlife confer-ence which kicks off today.
The two-day meet joins governments, NGOs and activists to combat illegal wildlife trade and is being hosted in a country that has become a nexus for smug-gling and consumption.
Traffic, which campaigns to protect endangered animals and help governments catch those who trade in their parts, published a new analysis look-ing at 16-years of tiger seizure data from across the globe.
They estimate an average of 110 tigers became victims of the trade each year since 2000.
14 THURSDAY 17 NOVEMBER 2016 PAKISTAN / AFGHANISTAN
Waseem Akhtar (centre), mayor of Karachi and member of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) political party is greeted by supporters after his release from the Central Prison in Karachi, Pakistan, yesterday.
Mayor of Karachi released
Islamabad
AP & Reuters
Some 400 Turkish nationals affiliated with a chain of inter-national schools in Pakistan were ordered
by Islamabad to leave the coun-try within 72 hours, officials said yesterday ahead of Turk-ish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's visit.
The teachers from the private PakTurk Interna-tional Schools and Colleges, backed by US-based Turkish preacher Fethullah Gulen's Hizmet group, will have to leave Pakistan along with other school staff and their families by November 20, school and government offi-cials confirmed.
The move was announced on the website of the Pak-Turk International chain of schools and colleges, and confirmed by two school officials. Both offi-cials spoke on condition of anonymity saying they feared for their safety when they returned to Turkey.
Turkish officials have
accused the school of being affiliated with the movement of US-based dissident cleric Fethullah Gulen. Erdogan is to arrive in Pakistan later on a two-day visit.
He has accused Gulen sup-porters of staging a failed July 15 coup attempt. His govern-ment later seized hundreds of social, educational and health care facilities and sacked thou-sands of employees on suspicion of working for Gulen.
The school operates 28 campuses throughout Pakistan.
Pakistan expels 400 Turks over Gulen links
Exit order
The teachers from the private PakTurk International Schools and Colleges, backed by US-based Turkish preacher Fethullah Gulen's Hizmet group, will have to leave Pakistan along with other school staff and their families by November 20, school and government officials confirmed.
Islamabad
AP
Pakistan's prime minister and powerful army chief travelled yesterday to a
strategic area along the border with India to observe a drill meant to display the country's military might amid escalating tensions with New Delhi over the disputed Kashmir region.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Army Chief Gen Raheel Sharif watched the exercise
— dubbed "Strike of Thunder" and complete with planes, tanks, artillery and other heavy weap-ons — to test the army's preparedness.
The drill, in the Khairpur Tamiwali desert area near the district or Bahawalpur, came three days after Indian fire in Kashmir killed seven Pakistani soldiers in a new escalation between the two nuclear-armed rivals. The two sides have traded fire repeatedly in recent weeks across the Line of Control, which
divides the Himalayan region into India- and Pakistani-con-trolled zones. Both Pakistan and India claim Kashmir in its entirety.
Pakistan's army chief has less than two weeks before retirement after his three-year term. The government has not yet named his successor.
In a speech at the drill, Paki-stan's prime minister paid a glowing tribute to the armed forces and reiterated his govern-ment's commitment to fighting
terrorism. Nawaz Sharif also issued a veiled warning to India, saying that Pakistan would deliver a "befitting response" to any hostile enemy action.
The latest escalation was set off by a deadly September attack on an Indian military base in the Indian-controlled part of Kash-mir. India has blamed Pakistan-based militants for that attack and others, a charge Paki-stan denies.
Tensions have run high since Indian troops killed a Kashmiri
militant leader in July. The kill-ing ignited some of the most violent protests in years, and dozens of people have been killed in India's resulting crackdown.
Despite pleas from the United Nations, the two sides have continued to exchange fire in Kashmir. The violence has forced thousands of villagers on the Pakistani side to flee for safety. India says it has been retaliating for Pakistani viola-tions of a 2003 cease-fire.
Berlin/Kabul
Reuters
Chancellor Angela Mer-kel’s cabinet yesterday approved the continu-
ation of Germany’s deployment of up to 980 sol-diers to Afghanistan through the end of 2017, a government spokesman said.
The decision, which must still be approved by parlia-ment, came less than a week after armed Taliban militants stormed the German consulate in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif and killed at least four Afghans and wounded more than 100 peo-ple. “With up to 980 soldiers, the German army will in future advise, support and train Afghan security serv-ices,” said the government in a statement. Germany, which heads the Nato-led Resolute Support mission in northern Afghanistan, has its soldiers stationed on the outskirts of Mazar-i-Sharif, and another 150 soldiers in Kabul.
The Nato mission includes a total of 13,000 foreign troops from Germany, Italy, the United States and others. The Nato forces are focused on training the Afghan army and police, not combat oper-ations. Germany is also slated to provide up to 1.7 billion euros in civilian aid to Afghanistan through 2020.
Washington/Kabul
AFP
The United States insisted yes-terday its soldiers and spies in Afghanistan are not sub-
ject to prosecution by the International Criminal Court and any war crimes probe into their actions would be "unwarranted."
On Monday, ICC chief pros-ecutor Fatou Bensouda said she is considering whether to launch
a full investigation into allega-tions that US troops and CIA operators tortured Afghan pris-oners between 2003 and 2004.
But Washington has not rat-ified the Hague-based court's founding Rome Statute, and State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau said the United States thoroughly inves-tigates allegations against its personnel. "We have a robust national system of investigation
and accountability that is as good as any country in the world," she said.
"We do not believe that an ICC examination or investiga-tion with respect to the actions of US personnel in relation to the situation in Afghanistan is war-ranted or appropriate," she added. "As we previously noted, the United States is not a party to the Rome Statute and has not consented to ICC jurisdiction."
While the US has been lead-ing calls for those behind atrocities in the Syrian conflict to be brought to justice in The Hague, there is no chance of any US soldiers ending up in the dock. month, criticising moves by some African countries to pull out of the court, State Depart-ment spokesman John Kirby said Washington thinks the "ICC has made valuable contributions in the service of accountability."
Kabul
AFP
A suicide bomber on foot struck a government vehicle in Kabul yes-
terday, killing at least six people and wounding 10 oth-ers, officials said, in an attack claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group.
The latest bombing to hit the Afghan capital came during the morning rush hour, as mil-itants intensify nationwide attacks on the Western-backed government.
"A suicide attacker on foot targeted a vehicle belonging to security forces in downtown Kabul," interior ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said.
He put the death toll at six, including five civilians and one military official, with 10 wounded in the blast, which occurred close to the defence ministry.
Earlier, the interior minis-try had put the death toll at four, including two security officials.
Another security official said the targeted vehicle belonged to the government's VIP protection unit.
The SITE monitoring group said the Islamic State's local Khorasan province affiliate had claimed the attack in a
communique claiming it had targeted Afghan intelligence officials.
Fighters from IS, which controls territory across Syria and Iraq, have been making steady inroads in Afghanistan, winning over sympathisers, recruiting followers and chal-lenging the Taliban on their own turf, primarily in the coun-try's east.
The assault underscores ris-ing insecurity in the war-torn country nearly two years after US-led Nato forces formally ended their combat operations.
It comes after four Ameri-cans were killed on Saturday in a suicide bombing inside Bagram Airfield — the largest US military base in Afghanistan — in a major breach of security.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the bombing, which left 16 other US service members and a Polish soldier wounded.
In July, IS jihadists claimed responsibility for twin explo-sions that ripped through crowds of Shia Hazaras in Kabul, killing at least 85 people and wounding more than 400 others. The bombings marked the deadliest single attack in the Afghan capital since the Tali-ban were ousted from power in a 2001 US-led invasion.
Islamabad
Internews
ADVISER to Pakistani prime minister on foreign affairs Sar-taj Aziz yesterday said United States (US) president-elect Donald Trump would deserve Nobel Prize if he intervenes and succeeds in resolving the Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan.
“Trump would deserve Nobel Prize if he helps resolve Kashmir dispute,” he said on a lighter note while respond-ing to a question regarding Trump’s offer to mediate between Pakistan and India.
Aziz indicated that Paki-stan will welcome any such intervention by the US pres-ident-elect Donald Trump.
The US president-elect, in an interview with an Indian newspaper in October, had said that he would be pleased to mediate between Pakistan and India. “Well, I would love to see Pakistan and India get along, because that’s a very, very hot tinderbox. That would be a very great thing. I hope they can do it,” said Trump.
Sartaj Aziz also revealed that Pakistan will participate in the Heart of Asia Confer-ence scheduled to be held in India on December 3, 2016.
Of those being asked to leave, 108 are staff members and the rest are family members.
At Ankara's airport before leaving for Islamabad, Erdogan praised Pakistan for showing sol-idarity with Turkey against Gulen's movement — which Tur-key has designated a terror organization.
"They moved rapidly in the direction of ending the (Gulen movement's) presence in Paki-stan and toward thwarting their attempts at unrest," Erdogan said.
"As you know Pakistan has asked persons linked to the organisa-tion to leave the country by Nov. 20. This is very pleasing for us."
One of the Pak-Turk school officials denied that the institu-tion was in any way related to Gulen.
He said school was registered locally and fulfilled all local legal requirements. The other official said the school will challenge the decision because it wasn't possi-ble for so many people to leave on such short notice.
Both officials said that the expulsions will not hinder the day-to-day functioning of the school system, since the vast majority of the 1,500 staff mem-bers are Pakistani.
Erdogan said Turkey's edu-cational authorities would help Pakistan overcome any problems the expulsion may cause.
"We will do whatever we can to ensure that there is no void or suffering as a result of the ouster of this organisation from the country," he said.
Sharif and Army Chief watch military drill at India border
A Pakistani student walks past the private PakTurk International Schools and Colleges in Islamabad, yesterday.
Six dead in IS suicide bombing in Kabul
US rejects ICC war crimes investigation
Trump would
deserve Nobel
if he resolves
Kashmir row: Aziz
German cabinet
backs continued
military mission
in Afghanistan
15THURSDAY 17 NOVEMBER 2016 INDIA
Mining tycoon Gali Janardhan Reddy's daughter, Bramhani sits with her groom, Rajeev Reddy during their wedding at the Bangalore Palace Grounds in Bengaluru. Tycoon has taken over a royal palace at a reported cost of $75m to celebrate his daughter's wedding.
$75m wedding
No water sharing; Punjab assembly passes resolutionsChandigarh
IANS
Refusing to accept the recent Supreme Court rul-ing on the SYL canal which
held the termination of water sharing agreements as "uncon-stitutional", the Punjab government took a defiant stance with an assembly reso-lution yesterday stating clearly that Punjab would not spare any water for Haryana.
Punjab Deputy Chief Minis-ter Sukhbir Singh Badal yesterday dubbed the unanimous resolu-tion adopted by the state assembly to say "no" to river water-sharing with other states as "historic" and said it had given the "final burial" to the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal issue.
Badal, who is also President of the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal, said the assembly's direc-tions yesterday, to the state government and its officers not to allow construction of the SYL canal and to recover money from other states for water sup-ply, were final and binding.
"It is a historic decision. This has given the final burial to the SYL issue," Badal told the media here after the resolution was adopted. The assembly directed the Cabinet, government and its
officers "neither to hand over any land of the state to any agency for construction of the Sutlej-Yamuna Link canal nor allow anyone to work on this project and give any sort of cooperation for this purpose in the larger public interest".
Punjab Chief Minister Par-kash Singh Badal, who has already stated not to accept the Supreme Court ruling and vowed not to let a single drop of water go out of Punjab, moved the resolution.
The special one-day session of the Punjab assembly was con-vened yesterday to protest against the Supreme Court ver-dict on a Presidential reference that dubbed a 2004 law passed by the house to end a water-sharing agreement as "unconstitutional".
The resolution also directed the Punjab government to demand payment from other states for the river water sup-plied to them over the past few decades. It asked the govern-ment to seek the Centre's help to recover water dues from Har-yana, Rajasthan and Delhi.
The Punjab government, on Tuesday, had ordered de-noti-fication of nearly 5,000 acres of land acquired for the SYL canal nearly four decades ago.
Opposition slams govt over demonetisationNew Delhi IANS
The opposition yester-day tried to corner the government in the Rajya Sabha over the demonetisation issue
on the first day of the Winter Ses-sion of Parliament, accusing it of leaking the information of demonetisation beforehand to a select few and demanded a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe into the matter.
However, the treasury benches stuck to their guns and asserted that there was no leak and that the move was a "war on corruption".
Speaking on the issue, Dep-uty Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Anand Sharma termed the move as a "Nadir-shahi farman" (autocratic order).
Defending the government, Union Urban Development
Minister M Venkaiah Naidu said the hardships faced by the peo-ple were "birth pangs" which will ultimately result in happy out-come. Sharma, as also other opposition leaders including
Ram Gopal Yadav, who was recently expelled from the Sama-jwadi Party, demanded a probe into the "selective leakage" of the demonetisation move.
"No ordinance was brought for demonetisation. This is a Nadirshahi farman...Which law gave this government the right to bar me from withdrawing my money from the bank," Anand Sharma said.
Congress leader Pramod Tiwari called the government "Kaliyug ka Bhasmasur" (refer-ring to the mythological demon that could reduce to ashes eve-rything it touched) - that would ultimately destroy itself.
"No civilised country has done this (demonetisation) in recent times. Only four people have done this. The first three are Muamar Gaddafi of Libya, Mus-solini of Italy and Hitler of Germany. The fourth is our Prime Minister Narendra Modi," Tiwari
said as treasury benches erupted in protest. Tiwari also reiterated the opposition demand of a JPC probe into the matter.
Rejecting the government's argument that the November 8 demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes will end the
menace of fake currency in India, Ram Gopal Yadav said: "Do you think our enemy countries will wait for two months before they forge new currency notes? They may have already started it."
Yadav also raised the issue of "selective leak" about the new
currency, referring to a tweet by Punjab Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Sanjeev Kamboj wherein the latter shared a pic-ture of the new Rs2,000 note on November 6 — two days before Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the demonetisation.
Delegation of members of parliamentarians and leaders from various political parties march towards Rashtrapati Bhavan against the government’s decision to withdraw 500 and 1,000 notes, in New Delhi, yesterday.
Currency woe
Winter Session of Parliament, accusing it of leaking the information of demonetisation beforehand to a select few and demanded a JPC probe.
Treasury benches stuck to their guns and asserted that there was no leak and that the move was a "war on corruption".
No end to long queues at banks & ATMs; anger growsMumbai
IANS
People waited in long-wind-ing lines outside bank offices and ATM kiosks for
the seventh consecutive day yes-terday to deposit or exchange spiked currency notes or draw cash, the marking of indelible ink at cash counters to prevent mul-tiple transactions making a marginal effect.
When IANS correspondents went on a round early Wednes-day morning, they found a few banks in the National Capital Region (NCR) sans indelible ink which, the government announced, would be used to mark customers to prevent them
from visiting different banks to withdraw or exchange money.
In the absence of indelible ink, bank officials and police had a tough time managing the crowds, since they could not identify people making repeat visits. A police official deployed at Kotak Mahindra Bank said: "Since ink is not being used, it is difficult for us to identify those who are visiting banks multiple times."
"It has been decided that banks, while exchanging old bank notes for new currency, will put indelible ink on the right index finger of customers like during voting. It has already started at 11 State Bank of India branches in Delhi yesterday
morning," an informed source said.
However, an SBI official in Sector 16 of Noida said: "We have not received indelible ink from the RBI. We have been told that it will reach here by this evening."
Meanwhile, chaotic and ser-pentine queues outside automated teller machines con-tinued even on the eighth day since the November 8 announce-ment on demonetisation of old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes.
There were people who felt it was necessary to visit banks repeatedly as banks would not allow full exchange of the amount permitted by the government.
Sushma Swaraj suffers kidney failureEXTERNAL Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, undergo-ing treatment at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) for kidney failure, might have to wait for at least 15-30 days before she finds a matching kidney donor, sources at AIIMS said.
"Sushma Swaraj has undergone some of the important tests before kidney transplant.
She has gone home yes-terday but will again come back today for further inves-tigations," a source said.
Sushma Swaraj, 64, a dia-betic, also underwent dialysis. She was admitted to the AIIMS on November 7 over health complications.
Sartaj Aziz to visit country next monthNew Delhi IANS
Pakistan´s foreign policy chief, Sartaj Aziz, has said he will travel to India early
next month for the Heart of Asia Conference, describing it as a "good opportunity to defuse the tension" between the two nuclear-armed neighbours.
"Unlike India, that had sab-otaged the Saarc summit in Pakistan by pulling out, Pakistan
will respond by participating in the Heart of Asia being held in Amritsar, India, on December 3," confirmed Aziz to PTV news on Tuesday.
The adviser said he himself will participate in the confer-ence. Aziz, however, said it has not been confirmed yet whether he will meet his Indian counter-part on the sidelines of the conference or not.
"Despite the fact that Indian forces killed our seven soldiers
along the Line of Control on Monday, Pakistan will not boy-cott the conference," Aziz maintained. Aziz's trip to India would be the first by a senior Pakistani official since terrorists attacked an army camp in Uri, in Jammu and Kashmir, on Sep-tember 18, killing 19 soldiers. India has blamed the attack on Pakistan-based terrorists.
India retaliated with cross-border "surgical strikes on terror launch pads" later in September,
and claimed several casualties. Islamabad has denied the cross-border raids by India.
Since then, heavy shelling and firing across the simmering Line of Control has led to deaths of civilians and soldiers. On Monday, in a rare admission, Pakistan stated that seven of its soldiers were killed in overnight firing by India on the LoC. In recent weeks, both Islamabad and Delhi have expelled each other's diplomats.
Kolkata
IANS
A 48-YEAR-OLD man suf-fered a cardiac arrest and died while standing in queue for the third consecutive day to withdraw money from a bank here, while in a separate inci-dent a man received injuries after he fell on a glass cabin due to the jostling inside a bank yesterday.
Saudu Rehman, 48, died due to cardiac arrest after he was unable to withdraw money from the last three days in Ballimaran area of Old Delhi.
Rehman, a resident of Ahata Hajjan Bi Rodgran area of Ballimaran, worked
as computer designer. His shop was located in Chandini Chowk, where he designed cover pages of books and dairies. According to Siraj, his younger brother, Rehman was depressed from the past week after the demonetisation of high value currency. He was unable to withdraw money from the Bank of India, Ham-dard Dawakhana branch, for the past three days.
Rehman every night at around 3am. would join a long queue at the bank but despite that could not with-draw money since sometimes the bank management shut the bank citing 'non-availability of cash', time out or other rea-sons, Siraj said.
Man suffers cardiac arrest in queue; another injured in fall
Mumbai Metro goes cashlessIN ORDER to counter the current cash crunch post-demonetisation, Mumbai Metro here yesterday said it will issue single and return journey token in real-time cashless trans-actions.
For this, Mumbai Metro One Pvt Ltd (MMOPL) has tied up with Paytm, a leading mobile wallet through which commuters can buy tickets.
Communters can install and recharge the Paytm app on their mobiles, switch it on, scan the QR code for identying Mumbai Metro as the payee, and pay the correct amount of fare. A unique transaction ID will be displayed on the Paytm app and the mobile phone with the ticketing officer at the counter will receive a SMS with the same transaction ID.
'White Collars'
400
The probe was focused on a number of Italian and Chinese professionals and businessmen, most based in Prato.
officers deployed as part of the investigation.
16 THURSDAY 17 NOVEMBER 2016 EUROPE
People walk next to an Omani dhow set up in front of the Institut du Monde Arabe (Arab World Institute) as part of the exhibition “Aventuriers des Mers, De Sinbbad a Marco Polo” (Ocean Explorers, From Sindbad to Marco Polo) in Paris, yesterday. The exhibition runs until February 26, 2017.
Cultural expo
Military cadets gather in front of a huge poster depicting members of the Rurik dynasty during a mass lesson at Moscow’s VDNH (the Exhibition of Achievements of National Economy) exhibition centre, yesterday.
Lesson for cadets
From the court
Russia’s Supreme Court yesterday, overthrew Alexei Navalny’s conviction but sent his case back for retrial.
Navalny had hoped that the court would simply close the case and reacted with frustration at the ruling.
Moscow
AFP
Russia yesterday lifted a criminal convic-tion for opposition politician Alexei Navalny after a
European Court of Human Rights ruling—but said he must now face a fresh trial.
The ruling concerns the 2013 conviction of high-profile anti-corruption whistleblower and Kremlin critic and co-accused businessman Pyotr Ofitserov for embezzlement.
After a long-running trial in the city of Kirov, Navalny received a five-year suspended sentence over a 2009 deal with a state timber company.
The European court ruled in February that the men were deprived of a fair trial and found guilty over “acts indis-tinguishable from regular commercial activities.”
It told Russia to pay dam-ages of €8,000 ($8,600) to each defendant and cover legal costs.
In yesterday’s decision, Rus-sia’s Supreme Court overthrew the men’s convictions but sent
their case back for retrial.Navalny had hoped the court
would simply close the case and reacted with frustration at the ruling. The Supreme Court “prac-tically refused to fulfill the ECHR decision. They did not close the case but sent it back for a new hearing,” he wrote on Twitter.
He said the ruling was made “so I can’t take part in politics and do my investigations,” although lawyers said he is now eligible to stand in elections.
Kiev
AFP
Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko asked Don-ald Trump for support
against “Russian aggression” during a congratulatory tele-phone conversation with the US President-elect.
Trump’s victory has been met with trepidation in Kiev because of his praise of Russian President
Vladimir Putin, and his apparent indifference to the Western coa-lition against Moscow.
Trump suggested earlier this year the US could accept Rus-sia’s annexation of Crimea if it led to improved relations between the two nations, which are bitterly at odds over Syria.
Poroshenko congratulated Trump on his victory and said he wished “to work together with his administration to
further strengthen the strategic partnership between Ukraine and the United States”, accord-ing to a statement by the Ukrainian presidency.
He also “underlined neces-sity of strong support from Washington in fight against Rus-sian aggression and implementation of crucial reforms” in Ukraine. The two men agreed to organise “a bilateral meeting”, the statement said.
Canberra, Australia
AP
TWO elderly French tourists died of heart attacks moments apart while snor-keling on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef yesterday, offi-cials said.
The 76-year-old man and 74-year-old woman died while diving with a group of 21 elderly French people at Michaelmas Cay, in Queens-land state, said Association of Marine Park Tourism Oper-ators executive director Col McKenzie. “It just appears to be perfect storm: two events occurring at the same time,” McKenzie told reporters.
“We’re dumbfounded. In 35 years, I’ve never seen a similar event,” he added. The benign weather and sea con-ditions could not explain the tragedies, McKenzie said.
The group had been div-ing from a catamaran operated by Cairns-based Passions of Paradise when the tragedy occurred, he said.
Both victims had declared “pre-existing medical condi-tions” in paper work before they went into the water, said the company’s chief execu-tive, Scotty Garden.
Athens
Reuters
A GREEK left-wing urban guerrilla group claimed responsibility for an attack with a hand grenade on the French embassy in Athens last week, which wounded one guard. The attackers were riding a motorcycle when they threw the hand grenade outside the building opposite parliament, in one of Athens’s best-guarded areas.
In a statement uploaded on Athens Indymedia website, the Revolutionary Self-defence Group described the attack saying it was in protest at France’s foreign policy and its treatment of refugees.
The group has also claimed responsibility for an attack on headquarters of the Socialist PASOK party in Athens in 2014 and an attack against Mexican embassy in August.
“The political aim of Rev-olutionary Self-defence Group in all three armed interventions was clear: attacking the state oligarchy, dictatorship of the capital and its armed guards,” the group said, warning of more attacks against police. Greek police were investigat-ing the authenticity of the claim, one official said.
Rome
AFP
Italian police launched a crackdown on illegal immi-gration from China, on the
day President Xi Jinping was due to arrive for a stopover visit.
In an operation dubbed “White Collars”, the GDF finan-cial police said they had ordered 15 arrests and 111 raids on premises across five regions as well as placing another 83 people under formal investigation.
The moves were ordered by a prosecutor based in Prato, an outlying suburb of Florence that is home to one of Europe’s larg-est Chinese communities.
Some 400 officers were deployed as part of an investi-gation into clandestine immigration, the forgery of res-idency permits and criminal association, the GDF said.
The probe was focused on a number of Italian and Chinese professionals and businessmen, most based in Prato.
Xi was due to spend yester-day on Italian island of Sardinia in a stopover en route for a three-country tour of Latin America.
He was to be treated to din-ner by Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, who has made improved trade and investment ties to China one of the priori-
ties of his administration.Relations between the
police and the Chinese commu-nity in Prato were strained earlier this year when a raid on a textile factory suspected of breaching labour laws ended in violent clashes involving 300 people, two arrests and injuries to four policemen.
Beijing made representa-tions to Italian authorities over June incident, urging them to ensure that Chinese nationals were not being tar-geted unduly.
Days after the mini-riot, police made a series of raids con-nected with an investigation into a Chinese association suspected of organising vigilante patrols of Prato’s Chinatown which alleg-edly targeted African and Arab residents.
London
AP
British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson is offering Britons an unrealistic and
unachievable vision of the UK’s future outside the European Union, Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem said.
It’s the latest sign that Britain’s
effort to woo EU leaders before formal exit negotiations is meet-ing with scepticism.
Dijsselbloem told the BBC that Johnson “is offering to Brit-ish people options that are really not available.”
British officials have been reluctant to provide details of what they hope to get from negotiations.
But Johnson was quoted by Czech newspaper Hospodarske Noviny as saying UK would likely have to leave the EU cus-toms union, while retaining access to bloc’s single market in goods and services. The customs union and the single market are both pillars of the EU’s model of tariff-free trade within the bloc of 500 million people.
Belgrade
Reuters
Serbian police have seized a weapons cache including more than 100 hand gre-
nades and 30kg of explosives, Interior Minister Nebojsa Ste-fanovic said yesterday, the biggest haul uncovered in 15 years in a country awash with illegal arms.
Ten people were arrested in raids in the northern towns of Apatin and Sombor which also yielded 12 anti-armour grenades,
two rocket launchers, detona-tors, eight assault rifles, a heavy machine gun, semi-automatic rifles and 6,000 bullets, the police said.
“We are worried not only because of the probable use of weapons in our country, but also because of the probability they could have ended up in European capitals and been used in crim-inal acts,” he said.
Stefanovic said the investi-gation was continuing. “There are always concerns about the terrorist threat,” he said.
Plentiful arms supplies, including automatic and anti-tank weapons, remained in private hands after the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s. Many are now in the caches of criminal groups who regularly smuggle weapons outside the region.
Some of the assault rifles used by Islamist militants who killed 130 people in Paris a year ago were produced in the 1980s in the former Yugoslavia’s state arsenal.
The latest weapons find comes after several gangland
slayings in Serbia and at a time of tension in the region.
Authorities in neighbouring Montenegro are investigating an alleged plot to sway an election there last month, when 20 Serb citizens were arrested and accused of planning armed attacks.
Last month, the Serbian police moved Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic and his family to a safe location after uncover-ing a weapons cache near his parents’ home, which he regu-larly visits.
Russia orders retrial of oppn leader Navalny
Two French tourists die on Great Barrier Reef
Poroshenko seeks Trump's support
Guerrilla group claims attack at French embassy
Italian city cracks down on Chinese community
Johnson accused of offering unrealistic Brexit vision
Serbian cops seize biggest weapons cache in 15 years
Explosives seized during an police action near the north-western Serbian town of Apatin.
17THURSDAY 17 NOVEMBER 2016 EUROPE
A passer by photographs the Brandenburger gate on a foggy day in Berlin, yesterday.
Fog envelopes Germany
Farewell tour
When we see people, global elites, wealthy corporations seemingly living by a different set of rules, avoiding taxes, manipulating loopholes... this feeds a profound sense of injustice, the outgoing US President said.
Athens
AFP
Globalisation has brought many eco-nomic benefits to the world but needs a “course correction”
to address growing inequality, US President Barack Obama (pictured) said yesterday on his European farewell tour.
Obama spoke during a visit originally planned as a valedic-tory lap, but which has become focused on reassuring jittery allies after the shock election vic-tory by Donald Trump, a staunch critic of free trade agreements.
“The global path of globali-sation demands a course correction,” Obama said in an eagerly-awaited speech in Ath-ens, before continuing his
journey to Berlin. “When we see people, global
elites, wealthy corporations seemingly living by a different set of rules, avoiding taxes, manipulating loopholes... this
feeds a profound sense of injus-tice,” he added.
During the trip, the outgoing president has repeatedly referred to the anger that lately brought success to populist movements in Europe and the United States, such as the Brexit referendum and Trump’s shock victory last week.
In comments on Tuesday Obama cautioned the world must guard against “a rise in a crude sort of nationalism or ethnic identity or tribalism that is built around an ‘us’ and a ‘them’”.
European governments, especially eastern countries close to Russia’s orbit, have been shaken after Trump appeared to call into question Washington’s near 70-year security guarantee by saying he would only help Nato allies if they paid their way.
Trump welcomed Britain’s
shock vote in June to leave the European Union (EU) and has been a critic of global free trade agreements.
However, Obama was at pains to stress that Europe—and Nato—would remain the corner-stone of US foreign policy.
The US-led Nato grouping is
“absolutely vital” to US interests and a strong, unified Europe was good for America and the world, Obama said in comments aimed at reassuring old partners.
“We know what happens when Europeans start dividing themselves up... the 20th century was a bloodbath,” he said point-edly on Tuesday.
While Obama has generally been welcomed in Greece, there were some who came out onto the streets in protest.
Around 2,500 people bran-dishing banners denouncing US “imperialism” and calling Obama a “persona non grata” were turned away on Tuesday as they tried to breach barriers and reach the city centre, with police firing tear gas and stun grenades.
Many Greeks are suspicious
of Washington after it helped install a repressive seven-year dictatorship in the country in the 1960s, and trade unions, leftist and anarchist parties have denounced US involvement in wars in the Middle East.
Several hundred of the pro-testers appeared to be from Greece’s vocal anarchist move-ment, police told reporters.
On the first day of his visit, Obama also touched on issues that have shaken Greek society—a dramatic influx of migrants fleeing war and poverty and a crippling financial crisis.
He lauded the people’s “extraordinary compassion” for the hundreds of thousands of people who have landed on Greek shores since the start of Europe’s worst migrant crisis since World War II.
Brussels
Reuters
MILLIONS of tourists and business people visiting Europe will have to complete a €5 euro ($5.35) online secu-rity check before arrival if an EU plan to tighten controls on foreigners who do not need visas wins approval.
The system is expected to back, would check people’s identity documents and res-idence details against a variety of EU security and crime databases.
Following IS group attacks in France and Belgium and mass arrival of migrants and refugees in Greece, the executive hopes screening can close loopholes at its borders for violent militants, criminals and would-be illegal immigrants.
It would affect citizens of around 60 countries who can visit Europe’s Schengen area for short trips without first applying for a visa, including Americans, Japanese and -depending on what arrange-ments London negotiates for leaving the EU — potentially Britons too.
The scheme, to be sent for approval to governments and European Parliament, is intended to be self-financing through application fee. The Commission estimates its set-up costs at around €200m and annual running costs at €85m.
It would also address Euro-pean concerns over plans to expand visa-free travel to two big neighbours, Turkey and Ukraine, and would apply immediately to people from non-EU states in the Balkans such as Albania and Serbia.
Berlin
AFP
Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel intends to stand for a fourth term in
next September’s elections, a close political ally said.
“She will run for the post of chancellor,” Norbert Roettgen, a senior member of Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party, told US television channel CNN.
“She is absolutely deter-mined, positioned and ready to contribute to reinforcing the international liberal order,” he said.
Merkel—leader of Europe’s biggest economy since 2005 -- has suffered a rocky year,
marked by a string of electoral defeats and deep criticism even from within her own camp over her decision to let hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants into Germany.
Yet the shock election of US populist Donald Trump to the White House has forced greater responsibility for defending Western values and interests onto her shoulders, analysts say, with some even crowning her the new “leader of the free world”.
“The chancellor is one of the cornerstones of the politi-cal concept of the West as an actor on the world stage. So she will run, she will act like a responsible leader,” Roettgen said.
Marrakesh, Morocco
Reuters
US Secretary of State John Kerry had hoped his presence at a Marrakesh
conference to decide on the finer points of a historic agreement to stave off climate change would be a victory lap.
Instead, he found himself having to address uncertainty created by the election of Don-ald Trump, and what his presidency might mean for the US commitment to 2015 Paris agreement to cut global green-house gas emissions.
In a speech yesterday, Kerry urged countries to treat the earth’s changing climate as an urgent threat, citing melting gla-ciers, stronger storms, and record-breaking droughts.
“While I can’t stand here and
speculate about what policies our President-elect will pursue, I will tell you this: In the time that I have spent in public life, one of the things I’ve learned is that some issues look a little bit different when you’re actually in office compared to when you’re on the campaign trail,” he said.
Trump has called climate change a hoax, and said he would rip up the Paris deal, halt any US taxpayer funds for UN global warming programmes.
If he follows through on his promises, he would undo legacy of President Barack Obama, who has made climate change a pol-icy priority and called rising temperatures and other fallout from cl imate change “terrifying”.
“For those in power in all parts of the world, including my own, who may be confronted
with decisions about which road to take at this critical juncture, I ask you, on behalf of billions of people around the world: Don’t take my word for it ... I ask you to see for yourselves.”
The Paris accord won back-ing from enough countries to enter into force on November 4.
The US worked closely with China to build support for the agreement, and the partnership helped persuade other countries to back the agreement.
For now, the United States is proceeding as usual. The White House presented a plan in Mar-rakesh, in the works long before Trump’s victory, for a “deep decarbonisation” of the US economy by 2050 that foresees an 80 percent cut in emissions from 2005 levels.
Without mentioning Trump, the 111-page plan said it was
“achievable, consistent with long-term goals of Paris Agreement, and an acceleration of existing market trends” that would “require increasingly ambitious decarbonisation policies”.
But Trump’s election raises prospect of the US not fulfilling its commitments and has raised doubts among delegates in Mar-rakesh about whether Washington will still be a part-ner in the agreement.
China, the biggest green-house gas emitter, ahead of the US, said it would push ahead with its promises to limit climate change and urged Trump to reconsider. “As the largest devel-oped economy in the world, US support is essential. We have to expect they will take a smart and wise decision,” Liu Zhenmin of Chinese delegation said in Marrakesh.
Rome
AFP
FRESH testimony yesterday from survivors of a deadly shipwreck in the Mediterra-nean raised the likely death toll for the past 48 hours to 240 people, confirming fears of rescuers who had warned dozens probably died.
The new tally is based on information gathered by the UN’s refugee agency (UNHCR) from 15 survivors, who said some 135 people had drowned or lost when a din-ghy sank on Monday.
Some 95 others were feared dead after another dinghy sank on Tuesday.
Nine bodies have been recovered in total after both incidents, while a 10th person was seen to have drowned but could not be pulled from the sea by rescue teams.
Monday’s survivors arrived yesterday morning in the port of Catania in Sicily, where they spoke of their ordeal.
“The survivors told us that there were about 150 people on board, so there would be about 135 missing,” UNHCR spokesman Iosta Ibba said.
The latest deaths will lift total number of migrants who have died trying to cross Med-iterranean this year to just over 4,500, according to a UNHCR count based on bodies recov-ered and survivor accounts.
The Malta-based charity MOAS, which deploys two rescue boats in the area, said yesterday “it is almost cer-tain the true death toll is much higher than the recorded figure .
Hanoi, Vietnam AP
Britain’s Prince William urged Vietnam’s leaders yesterday to step up the
fight against wildlife trafficking, the main theme of his first visit to the Communist country.
The prince, who is president of United for Wildlife, met Viet-namese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and Vice President Dang Thi Ngoc Thinh before the start of a two-day conference on illegal wildlife trade that begins today in Hanoi.
During his call on the prime
minister, William “said he was looking forward to hearing what Vietnam was doing to tackle the challenges presented by illegal wildlife trade”.
William also toured Hanoi’s Old Quarter, where he visited a traditional medicine shop and a primary school. He then joined local celebrities, traditional med-icine experts and wildlife activists for a discussion about changing social attitudes toward the use of illegal wildlife products.
“The prince’s visit is very important,” said Nguyen Phuong Dung, deputy director of local group Education for Nature
Vietnam. “He has already drawn a lot of attention from the pub-lic, and his message on protecting wildlife will reach many people.”
Vietnam is a major transit point and consumer of traf-ficked ivory and rhino horns, which people mistakenly believe can be used as a cancer cure.
The official Vietnam News Agency said Prime Minister Phuc told William that Vietnam has paid great attention to raising awareness about wildlife con-servation and has handed down severe punishments for violators.
Obama urges 'course correction' on globalisation
EU plans online screening for visa-free travellers
Merkel to seek fourth term: Ally
Survivors say migrant toll likely to be 240
Britain's Prince William (left) is greeted by Vietnam's Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc at the Government Office in Hanoi, yesterday.
Prince William urges Vietnam to fight wildlife trafficking
Kerry warns of climate threat at Marrakesh
18 THURSDAY 17 NOVEMBER 2016 AMERICAS
Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (right) and Cuban President Raul Castro inspect the guard of honour during a ceremony at Revolution Palace, Cuba, yesterday. Trudeau is on a official visit to Cuba where he will discuss several investment proposals besides meeting dignitaries.
Trudeau in Cuba
Washington
AFP
A California senator introduced legisla-tion to rid the United States of its electoral college, the system
that allowed Donald Trump to win the presidency despite Hil-lary Clinton’s lead of nearly one million votes.
The measure comes amid calls for reform following last Tuesday’s presidential upset, but is a long-shot.
“This is the only office in the land where you can get more votes and still lose the presi-dency,” said Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer, who introduced the measure.
The US Constitution speci-fies that the electoral college ultimately decides the presiden-tial election, not the popular vote.
Each US state is given a number of electors, which cor-responds to the size of the state’s population.
In 48 of 50 states, rules require all of a state’s electors to cast their votes for whichever candidate wins the popular vote there, in a winner-take-all system.
Under these rules, the win-ner of the electoral college vote does not always correspond to the candidate who won the country’s popular vote.
“The electoral college is an outdated, undemocratic system that does not reflect our mod-ern society, and it needs to change immediately. Every American should be guaranteed that their vote counts,” Boxer said.
Although Clinton received nearly 800,000 more votes than Trump, according to the latest partial results, she lost in the electoral college.
The electoral vote is at 290 for Trump and 232 for Clinton, although one state has yet to be
called. No matter its turnout, they do not have enough elec-tors to bring Clinton a win.
More than 4.3 million people have signed a petition on the change.org website asking the college’s 538 electors to elect Clin-ton on December 19, when their votes will be officially counted.
But because 26 states legally mandate that electors vote according to the rules and it is almost unprecedented for the remaining states’ electors to dis-obey, there is little possibility of a Clinton presidency.
Clinton’s popular vote per-formance brings to mind the 2000 election, when Democrat Al Gore lost the White House despite taking 48.4 percent of the popular vote to George W. Bush’s 47.9 percent.
Hundreds of Constitutional amendments have been pro-posed over the decades concerning the electoral college, but none has succeeded.
Amending the Constitution requires the agreement of two-thirds of Congress and ratification by three-quarters of the states.
Trump himself had strongly criticized the electoral college in 2012 calling it a “disaster.” Yesterday, however, he changed his tune. “The Electoral College is actually genius in that it brings all states, including the smaller ones, into play. Campaigning is much different!” Trump tweeted.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio arrives to meet with President-elect Donald Trump at Trump Tower, New York, yesterday.
New York/Washington Reuters
President-elect Donald Trump shuffled his transi-tion team again, jettisoning
a national security expert and lobbyists from his inner circle as he closed in on naming two loyal Wall Street backers to key eco-nomic positions.
Trump, also cleared a paper-work snag that had temporarily stalled his transition after he put his Vice President-elect Mike Pence in charge of the process.
“Very organised process tak-ing place as I decide on Cabinet and many other positions,” Trump said on Twitter. “I am the only one who knows who the finalists are!” Trump said.
At the top of his list for senior economic positions are campaign finance chair and Wall Street vet-eran Steve Mnuchin as treasury secretary, and long-time backer and billionaire investor Wilbur Ross for commerce secretary, according to Trump ally and activist investor Carl Icahn.
However, a well-known Republican moderate was pushed out of transition planning. Mike Rogers, a former US representa-tive from Michigan who had been mentioned as a possible pick for CIA director, suddenly left the transition team.
The Trump team still needs to provide more paperwork before detailed agency-by-agency briefings can take place, a White House spokeswoman
said. The team will need to pro-vide a code of conduct and certify that its transition team members do not have conflicts of interest.
Additional changes are likely. Pence and Rick Dearborn, exec-utive director of transition team, are “removing any lobbyists,” a transition aide said.
“This is to ensure Trump’s commitment to ban lobbyist involvement is being upheld at all levels of transition,” the aide said.
Trump, who had pilloried opponents for being beholden to industry interests during his cam-paign, came under fire from, Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, for including lobbyists on his transition team.
Washington
Reuters
A US advisory commission warned yesterday that Chi-na’s growing military might may make it more likely to use force to pursue its inter-ests and called for a probe into how far outsourcing to China has weakened the US defence industry.
The annual report of US-China Economic and Security Review Commission pointed to a growing threat to US national security from Chinese spying, including infiltration of US organisations, and called on Congress to bar Chinese state enterprises from acquir-ing control of US firms.
The release of the report to Congress comes a week after Donald Trump won the presidential election. Trump, has vowed to take a tougher line in trade and security dealings with China than President Barack Obama.
The panel is a bipartisan body set up in 2000 to mon-itor national security implications of the US trade and economic relationship with China and to make rec-ommendations to Congress for legislative and adminis-trative action.
Its also called on Congress to back more frequent US Navy freedom-of-navigation operations in South China Sea, where China’s building of artificial islands with mil-itary facilities has raised concerns about future free-dom of movement.
The commission said ongoing reforms of People’s Liberation Army would strengthen Beijing’s hand and noted China was close to com-pleting its first domestically produced aircraft carrier.
Rio De Janeiro
Reuters
Police yesterday arrested a controversial former governor in Rio de Janeiro
as part of an ongoing investi-gation into voter fraud during recent municipal elections.
The former governor, Anthony Garotinho, has been serving as municipal secretary in Campos dos Goytacazes, where his wife, Rosinha Math-eus, another former governor, is serving as mayor. Both, despite repeated denials of wrongdoing by each, have been frequent tar-gets of corruption allegations.
Brazil’s federal police, which arrested Garotinho in Rio, confirmed his detention. A spokesman for the city of Campos said mayor’s office did not yet have any informa-
tion about the arrest.Although Garotinho and
Matheus are no longer as prom-inent as they were in recent decades in Brazilian politics, the couple once enjoyed strong support in Rio’s sprawling sub-urbs and many other blue-collar areas across the country.
Garotinho in 2002 sur-prised many when he made a strong showing in the first round of Brazil’s presidential elections. One of their nine children, Clarissa, now serves in Congress.
In recent years, however, Garotinho and Matheus, each as governor and as municipal officials in Campos, have been known as much for controversy and investigations into corrup-tion and voter fraud as for their past electoral success.
Houston
Reuters
Demonstrators fanned out across North America early yesterday to
demand the US government halt or reroute the Dakota Access pipeline as the companies behind the controversial project asked a federal court for permis-sion to complete it.
In what organisers said were the largest demonstrations to date against the pipeline, thou-sands of people rallied outside Army Corps of Engineers offices, banks and energy companies, a day after the Obama adminis-tration delayed granting a permit needed to finish the project.
The project has drawn oppo-sition from Standing Rock Sioux
tribe as well as environmental activists who say it could pollute water supplies and destroy sacred historic tribal sites.
Police used mace and arrested several protesters in Cannon Ball, North Dakota near the path of the pipeline.
“Their job is to protect us, but instead they’re protecting cor-porate interests and profits and money,” said Tosu, 38, of San Jose, California.
Robert F Kennedy Jr, founder and president of Waterkeeper Alliance, said the project was an “environmental crime.” “There’s real victims,” Kennedy told reporters at Cannon Ball protest.
Morton County Sheriff’s Department said there were 25 arrests at the Cannon Ball protest and demonstrators tried to block
a railroad with a pickup truck.Energy Transfer Partners,
the main company behind the pipeline, is seeking an easement to tunnel under Lake Oahe, the North Dakota water source at the heart of the protests. On Mon-day the Army Corps delayed that approval, which was seen as a partial victory for protesters.
Energy Transfer and its sub-sidiary, Sunoco Logistics Partners, filed papers in US dis-trict court in Washington, DC, seeking to “end the Administra-tion’s political interference in the Dakota Access Pipeline review process.”
Energy Transfer asked the court to declare that the project had the legal right to proceed and needed no further govern-ment approvals.
Call to abolish electoral college
Trump shuffles transistion team; eyes loyalists for Cabinet posts
Panel suspects whether China weakening US militarily
Former Rio governor held in voter fraud probe
Dakota pipeline protests spread as firms fight back
Police detain a protester during a protest in Mandan against plans to pass the Dakota Access pipeline near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, North Dakota, early yesterday.
Seeking reform
California senator introduces legislation to rid the country of the system. The measure comes amid calls for reform following last Tuesday's presidential upset.
Although Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton received nearly 800,000 more votes than Trump, according to the latest partial results, she lost in the electoral college.
19THURSDAY 17 NOVEMBER 2016 HOME
FAJRSHOROOK
04.33 am
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02.24 pm
MAGHRIBISHA
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PRAYER TIMINGS
The Peninsula
Prince Michael of Kent offi-cially inaugurated GEMS Wellington School - Qatar, a branch of Premier Schools International, in a formal
ceremony yesterday with founding families, students, parents and teach-ers of the school, as well as several dignitaries including H H Sheikh Ahmed bin Mohammed Saud Abdul-rahman Al Thani and Ajay Sharma, British Ambassador to Qatar.
The delegation also included Dino Varkey, Managing Director & Board Member, GEMS Education; Sir Chris-topher Stone, Chief Education Officer, GEMS Education; Peter Burdon, Chief Schools Officer, GEMS Education and Jonathan Dey, CEO & Principal, GEMS Wellington School – Qatar.
After a ribbon cutting and plaque unveiling Prince Michael toured the school, and visited classes. As Patron of GEMS Wellington International School, in Dubai, Prince Michael has seen the number of GEMS Wellington Schools in the UAE and abroad grow. Today he visited GEMS Wellington School – Qatar, a branch of Premier Schools International for the first time.
“I am delighted to be able to visit and inaugurate GEMS Wellington School - Qatar. The school is provid-ing high quality British education with an international flavour to the local community. Each student I have met today is happy and confident, which is a testament to the education they are receiving at these schools,“ said Prince Michael.
Located in the heart of Al Wakrah, Qatar, GEMS Wellington School is owned and operated by GEMS Educa-tion in Qatar and joins the GEMS’ English National Curriculum school network in the Middle East which includes GEMS’ flagship GEMS
Wellington International School in Dubai.
Commenting on this milestone, Dino Varkey, Managing Director and Board Member, GEMS Education said: “We are celebrating the development of GEMS Wellington schools as a lead-ing provider of world-class British curriculum to international students. Over the years, these school have become a trusted environment of excellence where students thrive and succeed. We are proud to say that almost 10,000 students attend GEMS Wellington Schools in the GCC, and our alumni from these schools have been accepted by the leading Universities and Colleges in the world.”
Modelled on the distinguished GEMS Wellington International School in Dubai, GEMS Wellington School – Qatar is GEMS Education’s second school in Qatar, offering
the academically renowned National Curriculum for England. The pro-gramme has been adapted to suit students who come from countries around the world and expect a British education that prepares them for their lives as global citizens and innovators.
Jonathan Dey, Principal of the school said: “Getting the best out of each student is our priority, as the school shapes how a student will learn and interpret the world as an adult. Parents are invited to be involved in their child’s education, and our team of qualified and dedicated profession-als prides itself on the relationships they have built with parents and the community environment that has been created.”
Varkey added: “The school is a dynamic and forward-thinking school, empowering students to develop the
necessary skills for future success at university and future employment, meeting the high demands of the tech-nological era. The school is built to an extremely high standard and is spa-cious, bright and modern, and our classrooms are equipped with a vari-ety of state-of-the-art resources for the modern day learner.”
The school which opened its doors in October last year offers an outstand-ing education from Foundation Stage to Year 9 and has a Ministry of Educa-tion license to expand to Year 13 in the coming years.
All the GEMS Wellington schools offer a uniquely crafted progression from the Early Years Foundation Stage, through an enriched and developed National Curriculum for England into personalised qualification pathways incorporating IGCSE, GCSE, BTEC curriculums.
GEMS Wellington School-Qatar inaugurated
Prince Michael of Kent, with other officials, inaugurating GEMS Wellington School - Qatar, yesterday
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HIGH TIDE 07:00 - 18:15 LOW TIDE 14:00
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over most area at first. Misty/foggy
over most places at first becomes
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The Peninsula
McDonald’s Qatar is introduc-ing its brand new Signature Collection Burger and also
conducted a special tasting preview among media influencers, food bloggers, loyal consumers and fre-quent users of McDonald’s mobile app and ordering website.
Amongst the limited line up of guests included winners from McDonald’s online campaign where participants entered for a chance to be a part of the exclusive tasting.
It was one-day event across five specifically chosen pilot testing stores, namely, Markhiya, Lagoona, Almeera Qutaifiya, City Center ground floor and Barwa City.
The five selected restaurants accommodated 120 guests of dif-ferent nationalities, whom McDonald’s Qatar believes, provide an overview of their customer demographics.
Each participant enjoyed a com-plimentary mouth-watering burgers during the event.
For those feeling left out, the general public will get their chance to savour the new burgers on the official Signature Collection launched in selected restaurants. These burgers are in-store for a lim-ited time only and available from the 5th of November until Decem-ber 31.
The Signature Collection Burg-ers will entice the taste buds of patrons who appreciate rich flavors, prepared with delicately chosen ingredients and come beautifully presented. The Signature Collection line up consists of Chicken Mexi-cano, The Mushroom and The Clubhouse.
“We cater to our customers’ needs and we are confident they will find our burgers just as delicious as those in served in gourmet restau-rants. There is nothing better than having an affordable premium sandwich served fresh and ready to eat,” said Mr. Kamal Saleh AlMana, Managing Director of AlMana Res-taurants & Food Co. the owner and operator of McDonald’s restaurants in Qatar.
McDonald’s Qatar introduces Signature Collection Burger
The Peninsula
AMAN Qatar Foundation for Protection and Social Rehabilitation Centre par-ticipated in eighth Children Helping International (CHI) conference under the title ‘Sustainability development goal’ in Bangkok yesterday.
The consultative meeting aimed to cut down violence against children and to protect them from the impact of Internet. This meeting will open its doors for cooperation exchange of experiences and knowledge among the participating organisations.
Aman participates in eighth CHI meet
The Peninsula
With the participation of more than seventy trainees, the Ministry of Education and
Higher Education launched a training programme for directors, assistant directors and heads of sections of var-ious departments.
The training programme for empowering leaders was organised by the Department of Human Resources at the ministry in cooperation with the Qatar Finance and Business Academy (QFBA).
There were 31 directors of depart-ments and assistants directors besides 40 heads of sections from the Ministry of Education and Higher Education par-ticipating in the training programme.
The leadership empowerment pro-gramme aimed to build the capacity of educational leaderships and equip them with necessary skills and knowledge they need in their leadership positions, said Dr. Abdulaziz Mohammed Al-Horr, CEO (QFBA) who is running the workshop.
The teaching aids and materials being used in the workshop will help trainees to take part in decision mak-ing, enhance their personal and professional developments which they need to deal with while performing
administrative works, Al Horr outlined.
According to Al Horr, participants are expected to benefit from a number of complementary activities offered during the workshop, including inter-action and exchange of experiences to implement what they learn in the actual careers and leadership practices.
The opening session of the work-shop included some conceptual questions about administrative and leadership with aim of exploring con-cepts and perceptions that participants have about the leadership positions.
Models of successful leaderships and communications skills were also part of issues discussed during the workshop.
The training programme is divided in two advanced levels including the-oretical and practical parts and each of these programmes comprises of 80 training hours implemented within eight sporadic days from 8am to 1pm. The programme will continue until the coming December.
Along this, the ministry yesterday launched a training program compris-ing of eight interval workshops and 80 hours that will be held within a period of two months. A total of 40 heads of sections will participate in this training programme.
Ministry launches training programme for leaders
Officials, staff and participants during the event.
20 THURSDAY 17 NOVEMBER 2016 HOME