BUSINESS | 13 SPORT | 17 Belgium stand in France’s path to World Cup final QIB wins ‘Best Islamic Bank in Qatar Award’ Volume 23 | Number 7583 | 2 Riyals Tuesday 10 July 2018 | 26 Shawwal I 1439 www.thepeninsula.qa FRANCE VS BELGIUM 9.00PM TODAY’S MATCHES Amir aends swearing-in ceremony of Erdogan THE PENINSULA DOHA: Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani attended the inaugu- ration ceremony of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for a new presidential term as the first President of the Turkish Republic after the new constitutional amendment. Erdogan took the oath in the capital Ankara, at the Grand National Assembly, chaired by Acting Parliament Speaker Durmus Yilmaz. Erdogan’s re-election at the June 24 polls marked Turkey’s tran- sition to an executive presidential system of government, doing away with the prime minister’s post, among other changes. The inauguration ceremony, which was held in Presidential Compound yes- terday evening, was attended by a number of heads of states and gov- ernment, representatives of heads of states, ministers, heads of parliaments of some countries and representatives of international organizations. Earlier on his arrival in Ankara, H H the Amir was welcomed at Esenboga International Airport by Turkey’s Min- ister of Youth and Sports Osman Askin Bak and Qatar’s Ambassador to Turkey Salem bin Mubarak Al Shafi along with members of the Qatari Embassy in Ankara. Erdogan won an absolute majority in the presidential election with 52.5 percent of the vote. Crowds cheered Erdogan along his convoy’s route as he made his way to the inauguration cer- emony. The presidency tweeted with the hashtag #NewEraWithErdogan. A special one lira coin (less than 25 US cents) was minted for guests with the image of the presidential palace, dated July 9, 2018. “As president, I swear upon my honour and integrity, before the great Turkish nation and history, to work with all my power to protect and exalt the glory and honour of the Republic of Turkey,” Erdogan told parliament as he took the oath of office. Erdogan referred to the principles of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the modern Turkish Republic. He vowed to “remain loyal to the rule of law, to the democratic and secular republic, and to Ataturk’s principles and reforms”. Speaking to journalists after the cer- emony, Erdogan said: “Everything was good in front of the nation, I hope it will be better in the future.” →CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Advisory Council discusses draſt law on workers’ support fund THE PENINSULA DOHA: The Advisory Council which met yesterday with Speaker H E Ahmed bin Abdullah bin Zaid Al Mahmoud in the chair, referred a draft law for estab- lishing workers’ support and insurance fund to the Legal and Legislative Affairs Committee for consideration and report thereon to the Council. The Advisory Council continued its consideration of its agenda, discussing a draft law establishing the fund. Under the draft law a fund named “Workers’ Support and Insurance Fund” is to be established, and shall have independent legal per- sonality and budget and will be under the Council of Ministers. →CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani is being received by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara, yesterday. Erdogan becomes first Turkish President under new Constitution Vows to follow Ataturk’s principles and reforms Qatar Airways plans 250 destinations by 2022 DOHA: Qatar Airways will continue its expansion plans by adding new destinations and purchasing new aircraft. Akbar Al Baker, Group Chief Executive, Qatar Airways, said yesterday that the award-winning airline will increase its reach to around 220 destinations by 2022 from the current count of over 164 destinations. Adding the expansion for its new destina- tions for its air cargo, the total number of destinations will reach around 250 destinations. “Qatar Airways will continue its march ahead, we will continue expanding and continue pur- chasing new aeroplanes to fulfil our need for network expansion not only for us but also helping our partners in which we have invested to also keep on expanding the network and pro- viding them the capacity they require,” he said addressing a press conference held yesterday on the occasion of receiving a specially-branded Boeing 777 air- craft painted in FIFA livery, ahead of the tournament’s Semi-Final and Final match. The bespoke aircraft, which features distinctive FIFA branding, was hand-painted in Ireland. “We are tremendously excited to celebrate our passengers’ love for football by bringing this unique, one-of-a-kind aircraft to Moscow. As Official Partner and Official Airline of FIFA, we are proud to be able to unite football fans from around the world in Russia, helping them to experience the magic of the FIFA World Cup,” Al Baker said. “This beautiful aircraft further cements our com- mitment to our important part- nership with FIFA, as well as our loyalty to millions of football fans around the globe who have gathered in Russia to cheer their teams on,” he added. Qatar Airways had recently revealed a host of upcoming new global destinations, including the announcement that it will be the first Gulf carrier to begin direct service to Luxembourg. Other new destinations to be launched by the airline include Tallinn, Estonia; Valletta, Malta; Cebu and Davao, Philippines; Langkawi, Malaysia; and Da Nang, Vietnam. →CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan takes oath of office at Grand National Assembly of Turkey in Ankara, yesterday. SACHIN KUMAR THE PENINSULA Education Ministry launches summer entertainment centers QNA DOHA: The Ministry of Education and Higher Education announced its summer entertainment centers and activities which will be launched on July 17, with five centers each for girls and boys scattered in and outside of Doha. Head of Events and Activ- ities Department at the Min- istry Fatima Al Obaidli said the centers target all students of government school within the age group 6-18 years nationals and residents and nationals in private schools. →CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 E lite divers hauled four more young foot- ballers out of a flooded Thai cave yester- day, authorities said, bringing to eight the number saved in a stunning rescue mission but still leaving five others trapped. “Hooyah,” the Thai Navy SEALs, who have played a crucial role in the against- the-odds operation, said in a Facebook post as they announced that a total of eight members of the “Wild Boars” football team had been rescued on Sunday and yesterday. Thais have been fixated on the crisis, hoping desperately for the safe return of the 12 boys and their 25-year-old football coach, after they ventured into the Tham Luang cave complex after practice and be- came trapped by rising waters more than a fortnight ago. Eight rescued from Thai cave, but five remain trapped Rescue operation THE PENINSULA/GRAPHIC NEWS
Transcript
BUSINESS | 13 SPORT | 17
Belgium stand in France’s path to World Cup final
QIB wins ‘Best Islamic Bank in
Qatar Award’
Volume 23 | Number 7583 | 2 RiyalsTuesday 10 July 2018 | 26 Shawwal I 1439 www.thepeninsula.qa
FRANCE VS BELGIUM9.00PM
TODAY’S MATCHES
Amir attends swearing-in ceremony of Erdogan
THE PENINSULA
DOHA: Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani attended the inaugu-ration ceremony of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for a new presidential term as the first President of the Turkish Republic after the new constitutional amendment.
Erdogan took the oath in the capital Ankara, at the Grand National Assembly, chaired by Acting Parliament Speaker Durmus Yilmaz. Erdogan’s re-election at the June 24 polls marked Turkey’s tran-sition to an executive presidential system of government, doing away with the prime minister’s post, among other changes.
The inauguration ceremony, which was held in Presidential Compound yes-terday evening, was attended by a number of heads of states and gov-ernment, representatives of heads of states, ministers, heads of parliaments of some countries and representatives of international organizations.
Earlier on his arrival in Ankara, H H the Amir was welcomed at Esenboga International Airport by Turkey’s Min-ister of Youth and Sports Osman Askin Bak and Qatar’s Ambassador to Turkey Salem bin Mubarak Al Shafi along with members of the Qatari Embassy in Ankara.
Erdogan won an absolute majority in the presidential election with 52.5 percent of the vote. Crowds cheered Erdogan along his convoy’s route as he made his way to the inauguration cer-emony. The presidency tweeted with the hashtag #NewEraWithErdogan. A special one lira coin (less than 25 US cents) was minted for guests with the image of the
presidential palace, dated July 9, 2018.“As president, I swear upon my
honour and integrity, before the great Turkish nation and history, to work with all my power to protect and exalt the glory and honour of the Republic of Turkey,” Erdogan told parliament as he took the oath of office.
Erdogan referred to the principles of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of
the modern Turkish Republic. He vowed to “remain loyal to the rule of law, to the democratic and secular republic, and to Ataturk’s principles and reforms”.
Speaking to journalists after the cer-emony, Erdogan said: “Everything was good in front of the nation, I hope it will be better in the future.”
→CONTINUED ON PAGE 2
Advisory Council discusses draft law on workers’ support fundTHE PENINSULA
DOHA: The Advisory Council which met yesterday with Speaker H E Ahmed bin Abdullah bin Zaid Al Mahmoud in the chair, referred a draft law for estab-lishing workers’ support and insurance fund to the Legal and Legislative Affairs Committee for consideration and report thereon to the Council.
The Advisory Council continued its consideration of its agenda, discussing a draft law establishing the fund.
Under the draft law a fund named “Workers’ Support and Insurance Fund” is to be established, and shall have independent legal per-sonality and budget and will be under the Council of Ministers.
→CONTINUED ON PAGE 2
Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani is being received by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara, yesterday.
Erdogan becomes first Turkish President under new Constitution Vows to follow Ataturk’s principles and reforms
Qatar Airways plans 250 destinations by 2022
DOHA: Qatar Airways will continue its expansion plans by adding new destinations and purchasing new aircraft. Akbar Al Baker, Group Chief Executive, Qatar Airways, said yesterday that the award-winning airline will increase its reach to around 220 destinations by 2022 from the current count of over 164 destinations. Adding the
expansion for its new destina-tions for its air cargo, the total number of destinations will reach around 250 destinations.
“Qatar Airways will continue its march ahead, we will continue expanding and continue pur-chasing new aeroplanes to fulfil our need for network expansion not only for us but also helping our partners in which we have invested to also keep on expanding the network and pro-viding them the capacity they
require,” he said addressing a press conference held yesterday on the occasion of receiving a specially-branded Boeing 777 air-craft painted in FIFA livery, ahead of the tournament’s Semi-Final and Final match.
The bespoke aircraft, which features distinctive FIFA branding, was hand-painted in Ireland.
“We are tremendously excited to celebrate our passengers’ love for football by bringing this unique, one-of-a-kind aircraft to
Moscow. As Official Partner and Official Airline of FIFA, we are proud to be able to unite football fans from around the world in Russia, helping them to experience the magic of the FIFA World Cup,” Al Baker said.
“This beautiful aircraft further cements our com-mitment to our important part-nership with FIFA, as well as our loyalty to millions of football fans around the globe who have gathered in Russia to cheer their
teams on,” he added. Qatar Airways had recently
revealed a host of upcoming new global destinations, including the announcement that it will be the first Gulf carrier to begin direct service to Luxembourg. Other new destinations to be launched by the airline include Tallinn, Estonia; Valletta, Malta; Cebu and Davao, Philippines; Langkawi, Malaysia; and Da Nang, Vietnam.
→CONTINUED ON PAGE 2
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan takes oath of office at Grand National Assembly of Turkey in Ankara, yesterday.
SACHIN KUMAR
THE PENINSULA
Education Ministry launches summer entertainment centersQNA
DOHA: The Ministry of Education and Higher Education announced its summer entertainment centers and activities which will be launched on July 17, with five centers each for girls and boys scattered in and outside of Doha.
Head of Events and Activ-ities Department at the Min-istry Fatima Al Obaidli said the centers target all students of government school within the age group 6-18 years nationals and residents and nationals in private schools.
→CONTINUED ON PAGE 2
Elite divers hauled four more young foot-
ballers out of a flooded Thai cave yester-
day, authorities said, bringing to eight the
number saved in a stunning rescue mission
but still leaving five others trapped.
“Hooyah,” the Thai Navy SEALs, who
have played a crucial role in the against-
the-odds operation, said in a Facebook post
as they announced that a total of eight
members of the “Wild Boars” football team
had been rescued on Sunday and yesterday.
Thais have been fixated on the crisis,
hoping desperately for the safe return of
the 12 boys and their 25-year-old football
coach, after they ventured into the Tham
Luang cave complex after practice and be-
came trapped by rising waters more than a
fortnight ago.
Eight rescued from Thai cave, but five remain trapped
Rescue operation
THE PENINSULA/GRAPHIC NEWS
02 TUESDAY 10 JULY 2018HOME
Qatar, Kenya talk investment opportunities The Minister of Transport and Communications H E Jassim bin Saif Al Sulaiti held talks with Kenyan Minister of Transport, Infrastructure, Housing and Urban Development, James Macharia, in Nairobi yesterday. The two ministers discussed aspects of cooperation between Qatar and Kenya in the fields of transport services, ports and aviation, and means of further enhancing them. They also discussed potential investment opportunities in these fields, in addition to a number of matters of common interest between the two friendly countries. The Qatari Ambassador in Nairobi, Jabr bin Ali Al Dosari, attended the meeting.
Talks held to boost Qatar-Tunisia ties Secretary-General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs H E Dr. Ahmed bin Hassan Al Hammadi met yesterday with Ambassador of the Republic of Tunisia to the State of Qatar, Salah Al Salhi. During the meeting, they discussed bilateral relations and ways of supporting and developing them, in addition to issues of mutual interest.
QIA calls on sovereign wealth funds to invest in non-pollution sectorsTHE PENINSULA
DOHA: The Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) participated in the One Planet Summit for Sovereign Wealth Funds held in Paris to encourage countries to reduce pollution and in particular to encourage sovereign wealth funds to invest in non-pollution sectors.
QIA is one of six sovereign funds that support the One Planet initiative, which was adopted by French President Emmanuel Macron.
The Initiative has resulted in the for-mation of a working group of which QIA is a founding member. The efforts of these six bodies was culminated in the formulation of a framework containing general non-binding principles, The mentioned sovereign wealth funds cooperate to realise goal of these principles, which is entering into investments in non-polluting sectors.
On the sideline of the summit, President of the French Republic, Emmanuel Macron,
met with Sheikh Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Saud Al Thani, Chief Executive Officer of QIA. The meeting dealt a number of topics of mutual interest.
The CEO of the Qatar Investment Authority stressed, in remarks,
the importance of the role played by QIA in realising the principles of this initiative in cooperation with other sovereign funds. Sheikh Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Saud Al Thani also met with a number of French officials.
French President Emmanuel Macron (fifth left) and Sheikh Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Saud Al Thani (third right), Chief Executive Officer of QIA, at the event.
DOHA: Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani has received a written message from the President of Ivory Coast, Alassane Ouattara, pertaining to the bilateral relations and ways of enhancing them. The message was received by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs H E Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani during his meeting with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ivory Coast, Marcel Amon Tanoh, yesterday.
Amir receives message from President of Ivory Coast
ClOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani with Sudan’s President, Omer Al Bashir and former president of Turkey, Abdullah Gul, during the inauguration ceremony of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for a new presidential term as the first president of the Turkish Republic after the new constitutional amendment. H H the Amir is welcomed by Turkey’s Minister of Youth and Sports, Osman Askin Bak, upon arrival at Esenboga International Airport. H H the Amir; Venezuelan President, Nicolas Maduro, and other officials during the inauguration ceremony
Amir attends swearing-in ceremony of Erdogan
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
Following his swearing-in ceremony, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited Anitkabir, Ataturk’s mausoleum, and penned down his comments in the memorial notebook, Anadolu Agency reported.
He wrote: “Our nation, which has deemed me worthy as their first president, has also determined their lawmakers.
“As the 12th president [of the nation] and the first president of the presidential system, I once more vow to strengthen the unity and brotherhood of our nation, develop the country, and elevate the state.
“We are determined to meet the goals of our republic, which are entrusted to our future gen-erations by Your Excellency and your comrades, on its 100th year of founding.”
Advisory Council discusses draft law on workers’ support fund
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1The fund’s aim is to provide the nec-
essary financial resources to support and insure the workers and to pay their dues decided by the Dispute Resolution Committees.
The fund’s resources include 60% from the official value of issuing and renewing work permits annually and the returns of its investments in addition to donations, wills, gifts and grants accepted by the Board of Directors of the Fund, in addition to the funds allocated by the State.
After the discussion, the Council decided to refer the draft law to the Legal and Legislative Affairs Committee for con-sideration and report thereon to the Council. The Advisory Council held its regular weekly session under the chair-manship of its Speaker H E Ahmed bin Abdullah bin Zaid Al Mahmoud. During the session, the council discussed the report of the Internal and External Affairs Committee on the request for general
discussion submitted by a number of members on the harm suffered by children of divorced or widowed Qatari mothers and fathers from the siege countries.
The council also discussed the report of the Services and Public Utilities Com-mittee on the increase of shops rentals.
The Council decided to report to the relevant committees for further consid-eration. Meanwhile, the Advisory Coun-cil’s Legal and Legislative Affairs Com-mittee held on Monday a meeting as part of the council’s 46th regular session under the chairmanship of its rapporteur Nasser bin Rashid Saria Al Kaabi. The committee reviewed draft law on establishing a workers’ support and insurance fund and decided to continue to review the draft law in its next meeting. The Advisory Council’s Services and Public Utilities Committee also met yesterday as part of the 46th ordinary session under the chair-manship of its Rapporteur Mohammed bin Mahdi Al Ahbabi.
Qatar Airways plans 250 destinations by 2022
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
Al Baker added that Qatar Airways has strong capital, liquidity and enough reserves that will enable it to achieve the desired expansion.
“QA is a very well capi-talised airline. So if we lose one or two or three years, it does not mean that we have no more cash in our company to sustain our losses. Any suc-cessful business has to create reserve and QA has very strong reserve to sustain our going forward expansion plans. So regardless what we lost we are not going to slow down our expansion,” Al Baker added.
“Qatar Airways is not going to slow down because there are external pressures on us. We will always find new ways to get more business,” he said.“Hopefully very soon we will be again showing very handsome profits,” he added.
In December 2017, Qatar Airways launched daily services to the cultural capital of Russia, St. Petersburg, dou-bling the number of Russian routes operated by the carrier.
Engr. Badr Mohammed Al Meer, COO at HIA, stated: “As we prepare for the 2022 World Cup, we are thrilled to witness our national carrier celebrate the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia with this truly unique and spectacular aircraft. This moment encapsulates the spirit of the FIFA World Cup, cele-brating football, art and culture on an international scale”.
Summer entertainment centers launched
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1She added that the activ-
ities cover cultural, intel-lectual, social, sporting, artistic, recreational, educa-tional and technological fields. The activities will keep the students occupied.
She urged parents to reg-ister their children and allow them to participate and enjoy the summer activities made available in the centers. Reg-istration is open from July 15 to August 16.
03TUESDAY 10 JULY 2018 HOME
Culture Minister reviews ties with Serbian Envoy
Minister of Culture and Sports H E Salah bin Ghanem Al Ali met here yesterday with the Ambassador of the Republic of Serbia to the State of Qatar, Jasminko Pozderac. Talks during the meeting touched on aspects of cooperation between the two countries and means to promote them in the cultural and sports fields.
Ooredoo’s new offer on Dawli QR10 cardsTHE PENINSULA
DOHA: Ooredoo announced yesterday a new offer on its popular Dawli QR10 card. With the new offer, Hala customers, who purchase a Dawli QR10 card, will receive 32 bonus international minutes, on top of their standard Dawli 10 allowance.
The 32 bonus international minutes are eligible for calls to India, the NTC Nepal network, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia and the Philippines (both the Globe and Smart Mobile network).
The extra allowance will be valid until
11.59pm the day after the Dawli Card 10 is activated. Dawli Cards are Ooredoo’s International Calling Cards and it can be used from any Ooredoo Hala mobile account to call internationally to select countries at one of the best or lowest rates in Qatar. With a Dawli QR10 card, cus-tomers can enjoy 18 international minutes to Bahrain, Bangladesh, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philip-pines, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Syria, Thailand, Turkey, the UAE and Sudan. Dawli QR10 allowance is valid for seven days from activation.
MCS to translate collection of Georgian stories into ArabicTHE PENINSULA
DOHA: The Ministry of Culture and Sports (MCS) yesterday signed an agreement to translate, print and publish the collection of Georgian stories by Nodar Dumbadze into Arabic.
Nodar Dumbadze is one of the most famous 20th century writers born in 1928 in Tbilisi, Georgia. He received the Lenin prize and was famous after publishing “Granny, Iliko, Illarion, and I” which touches
on the childhood and youthfulness of a Georgian boy orphaned during the war years. “I Can See the Sun”, “Don’t Be Afraid, Mother!” are some of his novels translated into Arabic.
The agreement was signed by Cultural Consultant to the Minister of Culture and Sports, Faleh Al Ajlan Al Hajri, and Ambassador of Georgia to Qatar, Nikoloz Revazishvili.
Head of the Research and Cul-tural Studies Department at the Min-istry, Mohammed Hassan Al Kuwari, said the story collection will be
translated into Arabic as part of a comprehensive system adopted by the ministry to translate creative works. He added that the Ministry chose Dumbadze as he is one of the most prominent writers of the second half of the 20th century, not only in Georgia but on an interna-tional level.
He said the department is responsible for translating and typing the book to make it available to the public during the 29th Doha International Book Fair.
In addition to this, some Qatari pieces will also be translated into Georgian as part of the Ministry’s keenness to offer creative and useful pieces to Georgian speakers.
This comes as part of the Depart-ment’s strategy to translate Qatari pieces into four international languages.
Cultural Consultant to the Minister of Culture and Sports, Faleh Al Ajlan Al Hajri (left), and Ambassador of Georgia to Qatar, Nikoloz Revazishvili, exchange documents after the signing of agreement.
In addition, some Qatari pieces will be translated into Georgian as part of the Ministry’s keenness to offer creative and useful pieces to Georgian speakers. This comes as part of the Department’s strategy to translate Qatari pieces into four international languages.
QCRI’s summer camps to hone computing skills of children THE PENINSULA
DOHA: To hone their computing skills, children aged from 8 to 13 will be offered free lessons at summer computing camps run by the Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI), part of Hamad Bin Khalifa University.
QCRI will run separate pro-grammes for age groups 8-10 and 11-13 from July 15 to July 26. No prior experience is required. QCRI’s Director of Educational Initiatives, Dr Eman Fituri, said the summer camps provide a great oppor-tunity for kids to learn coding, develop teamwork and problem
solving skills, inspire creativity and have fun. “We will be running some of our most popular activities including programming with Cozmo, Makey Makey and Little Bits,” Dr Fituri said.
The programmes teach coding and computational thinking, and foster creativity,
innovation, teamwork and problem solving.
In the Cozmo programme, campers will be exposed to robotics and will learn how to programme Cozmo to explore, make decisions, complete tasks and create basic artificial intel-ligence (AI) behaviours. In the Makey Makey programme,
children will create their own physically interactive games using the Scratch programming language and the Makey Makey
micro controller. The Little Bits programme involves using electronic components to create interactive prototypes.
04 TUESDAY 10 JULY 2018HOME
HMC to hold recruitment drive on July 19 for experienced nurses, midwivesTHE PENINSULA
DOHA: Hamad Medical Corpo-ration (HMC) is looking to recruit graduate midwives and nurses, from all specialties, who are currently living in Qatar.
To enable interested candi-dates to submit their applica-tions, HMC will hold its first ‘Open Day for Graduate Nurses’ in Doha on July 19 at Bayt Al Diyafah in Hamad Bin Khalifa Medical City, said a statement.
To be considered for employment, candidates must have a BSc Nursing degree with a minimum of two years of appropriate work experience, valid Qatar ID, valid Qatar Council for Healthcare Practi-tioners (QCHP) credentials and have passed the prometric examinations and no objection certificate (NOC), or the ability to obtain one.
Only candidates meeting the above criteria will be considered for positions. Candidates should bring along their QID and cur-riculum vitae (CV) on the day, as well as any appropriate cer-tificates and paperwork.
Three sessions for interested candidates will be held on July
19 – 8am to 9am; 10am to 11am, and 12pm to 1pm. These are repeated sessions (it is only nec-essary to attend one; there is no advance registration) and ses-sions will be used to provide information about available roles and HMC. During the ses-sions, interested candidates will have an opportunity to submit their application and CV.
There are currently more than 9,000 nurses and mid-wives working at HMC in a range of roles. Newly-recruited nurses will cover a variety of
specialties, supporting the current nursing and midwifery workforce.
“Nurses are at the frontline of delivering safe and compas-sionate care to our patients and they bring experience and skills that make a positive difference to the diverse population groups we care for. As HMC continues to expand its facilities and services, we welcome qualified and committed people to join our nursing teams,” said Dr. Nicola Ryley, HMC’s Chief Nursing Officer.
A nurse caring a patient at one of the health centres of HMC.
Short-term traffic change on Orbital Road from July 12 THE PENINSULA
DOHA: The Public Works Authority (Ashghal) yesterday announced a short-term traffic change on Orbital Road as the tunnel prior to Umm Al Juwashin Interchange and leading to Al Khor will be closed.
The detour is designed in coordination with The General Directorate of Traffic to facil-itate the construction of the New Orbital Highway and Truck Route.
The diversion will be implemented in two stages on two back-to-back weekends: the first phase commences on
Thursday midnight, July 12 and continues till Saturday, July 14; the second phase starts on Thursday midnight, July 19 and continues till, Saturday July 21.
During the closure, road users travelling on the Orbital Road from Mesaieed and Salwa Road to Al Khor can continue their journey to Umm Al Juwashin Interchange which intersects the Orbital Road with Dukhan Road. Then, the motorists ought to use the northeastern loop leading to Dukhan Road and drive for a distance of one kilometer then turn right onto the next exit and follow signage to re-join the Orbital Road.
1.8 million people benefit from Qatar Charity’s aid THE PENINSULA
DOHA: Qatar Charity (QC) has revealed the size of relief aid provided during the first half of 2018, as the number of bene-ficiaries including the victims of wars, disasters and crises, reached 1,847,728 people, mainly Syrians, who were displaced and refugees.
Relief occupies a significant place in QC’s projects because of the crises that hit many countries in the region, espe-cially Syria, said a statement.
Qatar Charity has been a pioneer in its relief interventions, as it has a spe-cialised administration, trained teams and field offices in more than 26 countries around the world and always provides relief assistance to those in need regardless of their race, religion and gender. QC’s Humanitarian aid delivered during the first half of 2018 in 39 coun-tries around the world, benefited those
affected in conflicts, disasters and crises, mainly the internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Syria and Syrian refugees in Turkey, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon.
The relief assistance has also been provided to the needy in Yemen, India, Niger, Iraq, Palestine, Jordan, Somalia, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Sudan, Ethiopia, Central Africa, Afghanistan, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Chechnya, Morocco, Indonesia, Pakistan, Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, Tanzania, South Sudan, Djibouti, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka, Ghana, Kyrgyzstan, Kosovo,
Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania and Nepal.
Relief assistance delivered during the first half of 2018 covered comprehensive relief, basic winter requirements, social cohesion, livelihoods, protection, shelter, non-food items, food, health, education, water and sanitation. The amount of aid varied by crises. The aid provided to Syrians, occupied the first place, bene-fiting about 877,000 people, while the aid delivered to Myanmar and Somalia ranked second and third respectively.
Qatar Charity attached the special importance to the education sector, which has received the most support in the case of the Syrian crisis in view of the need in this sector. The charity also gave signif-icant attention to comprehensive relief, food supply and health
Qatar Charity was ranked first for more than one year, in the world in terms of the relief for the Syrian people at the level of humanitarian NGOs, according to the report of Financial Tracking Services (FTS) of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
Today, the world is witnessing the highest rate of displacement in the history as a result of conflicts and humanitarian challenges. Some 65.5 million people have been forced to leave their homes and vil-lages to seek refuge. Ten million people were denied citizenship and access to basic rights, such as education, health care, employment and freedom of movement.
People in Kosovo carry the food aid provided by Qatar Charity.
GAC seizes 4.8 tonnes of chewing tobacco
DOHA: The General Authority of Customs (GAC) announced that it seized 4.834 tonnes of illegal chewing tobacco.
At Hamad Port, several shipments were seized on suspicion and examined two containers. A seizure report was issued and the materials were referred to the con-cerned authorities.
The Sea Customs Department has recently revealed a number of attempts to smuggle items and the various methods used by smugglers. This confirms the vigilance of customs offi-cials and their keenness to prevent the entry of pro-hibited and narcotic sub-stances into the country, reflecting the authority’s con-fident steps towards devel-oping work performance and the efforts of the inspectors which facilitate the task.
High school students explore the world of media at NU-QTHE PENINSULA
DOHA: More than 75 high school students spent part of their summer break exploring the world of media, news, and film-making at Northwestern University in Qatar (NU-Q).
The annual summer pro-gramme, which is designed to give 15 to 18-year-olds a chance to sample life as a Northwestern student, saw the highest turn-out of participants to-date with 17 nationalities represented, including a record number of international students who flew in to take part. The programmes were led by NU-Q Journalism Professor, Miriam Berg, and Communication Professor, Rana Kazkaz.
Throughout the two-week programme, participants took courses on news creation,
journalistic photography, news production, storytelling and film-making. They also were able to put the theories they learned in class to test by creating and pre-senting their own news reports, documentaries, and short films.
“This programme, which is media-centric, encourages them to explore new areas of learning in a setting that is similar to what they will experience as under-graduates in college. It is also an opportunity to discover new pas-sions and opportunities,” said Everette E Dennis, Dean and CEO.
The students also bring a new level of enthusiasm to NU-Q. “The students were extremely engaged in the program and the overall expe-rience we have tried to create,” said Professor Berg. “They have thoroughly embraced all of the
many components we have introduced them to, from pho-tography and video production, through to seeing their stories come to life during the editing process.”
NU-Q’s high-tech facilities, including the fully-automated Newsroom, editing labs, and pro-duction studios were also available for the students to explore and use.
On the last day of the program students presented their final projects to the NU-Q com-munity, and their friends and family. One of the participants, Jessica Peggy Riekert, who flew in from Zambia for the program said, “It’s been a great learning opportunity, especially since our professors are very hands-on and give us good advice from their personal experience. I also enjoy interacting with the
students from such diverse back-grounds.” Another student, Fai Al Nuaimi, who is an aspiring Qatari journalist said, “North-western is my dream university, especially since I’ve always wanted to be a journalist. I figured that this program would give me insight on what to expect as a potential student at NU-Q.”
She added, “Media is an important part of everyone’s life, and it’s how we’re all connected nowadays. It’s particularly rel-evant to us [Qataris] after the blockade that hit us one year ago, and it is important for us to think critically about the news and to stay up-to-date with it.”
International students like Amna Naseer, an Indian who resides in Saudi Arabia, had to overcome several obstacles for a chance to pursue her passion for media and journalism. After
waiting two years to attend the program, she said, “North-western is like a dream come true – I definitely feel like it was worth the wait. My favourite part
of the programme is that you get to experiment a variety of dif-ferent things, from presenting in the newsroom to editing our own films.”
High-school students during their visit at Northwestern University in Qatar.
Relief occupies a significant place in QC’s projects because of the crises that hit many countries in the region, especially Syria, said a statement.
Accord on mutual exemption of entry visa for citizens of Qatar, China signed THE PENINSULA
DOHA: Minister of State for Foreign Affairs H E Sultan bin Saad Al Muraikhi met yesterday with State Councillor and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, Wang Yi, during his current visit to China.
At the outset of the meeting, the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs referred to the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries, praising the tangible and accelerating devel-opment of bilateral relations in all fields. For his part, China’s State Coun-cilor and Minister of Foreign Affairs underlined the depth of the
Qatari-Chinese relation and its remarkable development, com-mending Qatar’s successful hosting of the previous session of the Arab-China Cooperation Forum.
A final agreement was signed between the government of the State of Qatar and the People’s Republic of China on the mutual exemption of entry visa for citizens of both coun-tries. The meeting discussed the stra-tegic relations between the two coun-tries and means of supporting and developing them in the diplomatic, economic, trade, tourism and consular fields, in addition to the topics on the agenda of the eighth session of the Arab-China Cooperation Forum.
Minister of State for Foreign Affairs H E Sultan bin Saad Al Muraikhi and State Councillor and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, Wang Yi, sign the agreement in China, yesterday.
05TUESDAY 10 JULY 2018 MIDDLE EAST / AFRICA
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JOHANNESBURG: The son of scandal-hit former South African president Jacob Zuma appeared in ankle shackles in a Johan-nesburg court yesterday to face corruption charges linked to his father’s government before being released on bail.
Duduzane Zuma, 34, worked for the Gupta family, which is accused of corrupt dealings with the government, including being granted lucrative mining contracts and influencing ministerial appointments.
Underlining the Zuma family’s dramatic change of fortunes, he was charged over involvement in a bribe allegedly offered to former deputy finance minister Mcebisi Jonas by the Guptas in 2015. “He is charged with corruption for offering undue gratifi-cation to a public officer,” National Prosecution Authority spokesman Phindi Mjonondwane told reporters.
“The state did not oppose bail because he has been cooper-ating.” Jonas has said in a sworn statement that the Guptas offered Jonas the post of finance minister in return for obeying the fam-ily’s instructions -- for which he would allegedly be paid 600 million rand ($50m).
“The charges are based on allegations made by Mcebisi Jonas,” Duduzane’s lawyer, Rudi Krause, said, adding that his client denied all wrongdoing.
JERUSALEM: The UN agency for Palestinian refugees has warned that cuts to key programmes in the Gaza Strip and occupied West Bank are planned over the coming weeks if a US funding freeze cannot be overcome.
Figures were not yet available on the cuts being planned if the major gap in financing is not resolved, but a letter sent to agency staff at the weekend highlights areas targeted. A source familiar with the plans described the areas expected to be affected in further detail, saying they included employment pro-grammes, housing assistance and mental health support, among others.
MAIDUGURI: Nigeria’s military command says it has handed to the government and the United Nations more than 180 former child soldiers who had been arrested or rescued in various military operations in Nigeria’s northeast.
Commander Nicholas Rogers said Monday during the handover ceremony in Maiduguri that the children were former Boko Haram fighters being turned over in line with international humanitarian laws. He said many children coerced into using weapons against the state were killed in fighting between Boko Haram and government forces.
The UN Children’s Agency says the children’s release comes after they were cleared of ties to Boko Haram. It said eight girls and 175 boys will receive medical attention and psychosocial support before reuniting them with their families. The children range in age from seven to 18 years.
JERUSALEM: The Israeli government plans to make it easier for Israeli settlers to obtain firearms, Israeli daily Haaretz reported yesterday.
According to the news-paper, proposed legal changes would make all Israeli citizens with firearms training eligible for a gun permit. The proposed changes would apply in par-ticular to settlers living near Israel’s West Bank separation wall, which snakes through the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Roughly 145,000 Israelis currently hold firearm permits, not including sol-diers and police personnel, according to Haaretz.
The newspaper quoted Amir Ohana, a member of the Knesset (Israel’s parliament) for the right-wing Likud party, as saying that armed citizens can support Israeli security forces against what he described as “terror incidents”.
REUTERS
ANKARA: President Recep Tayyip Erdogan pledged to build a “strong Turkey” with a powerful defence industry and expanding economy as he was sworn in yesterday with new powers.
Assuming the new executive presidency he has long fought to establish, Erdogan took the oath of office in parliament before addressing international leaders gathered at the Presidential palace in Ankara.
“We, as Turkey and as the Turkish people, are making a new start here today,” he told the dignitaries and thousands of guests. “We are leaving behind the system that has in the past cost our country a heavy price in political and economic chaos.”
Erdogan, 64, says the new, powerful executive presidency is vital to drive economic growth, ensure security after a failed 2016 military coup and safeguard Turkey from conflict across its southern border in Syria and Iraq.
“We are embarking on this road by using this opportunity as best we can for a strong parliament, strong government and strong Turkey,” he said.
The introduction of the new presidential system marks the biggest overhaul of governance since the republic was estab-lished on the ruins of the Ottoman Empire nearly a century ago.
The post of prime minister has been scrapped and the pres-ident will now be able to select his own cabinet, regulate min-istries and remove civil servants,
all without parliamentary approval.
Erdogan’s supporters see the changes as just reward for a leader who has put Islamic values at the core of public life, championed the pious working classes and overseen years of strong economic growth.
Marc Pierini, a former EU ambassador to Turkey and vis-iting scholar at Carnegie Europe, said Erdogan’s new powers would effectively make him a “super-executive president”.
Turkey is a member of the Western military alliance, Nato,
but it has been at odds with the United States over military strategy in Syria and with the European Union over Ankara’s large-scale purges of state insti-tutions, armed forces, police and media following the failed coup.
Investors were waiting to see whether cabinet appointees would include individuals seen as market-friendly, and par-ticularly whether Mehmet Simsek, who served as deputy prime minister, would continue to oversee the economy, said Inan Demir, a senior economist at Nomura International. The
lira, which is down 16 percent so far this year, was little changed from its opening at 4.5680 at 1700 GMT. It had gained earlier in the day but then briefly dropped more than 1 percent after a decree removed a clause stipulating a five-year term for the central bank governor.
“We will strengthen our defence industry and border security. We will make very big investments in every area ... in order to become one of the 10 largest economies,” Erdogan said.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan praying with his wife Emine Erdogan, during a ceremony at the Presidential Complex in Ankara, yesterday. RIGHT: People listening to the speech of Erdogan.
Erdogan promises a ‘strong Turkey’
Zuma son in South Africa court on corruption charges
Nigeria military hands 180 child soldiers to UN, govt
AP
SANA’A: Yemen’s interior minister yesterday demanded the United Arab Emirates shut down or hand over secret prisons that The Associated Press reported are under the control of the Emiratis and its allied militias. At least 80 detainees have been freed from the facilities in recent weeks since an Associated Press investigation detailed sexual abuse and torture at the sites.
It was the first time Interior Minister Ahmed Al Maysari has gone public with the demand in talks with an Emirati official, seeming to contradict the UAE’s repeated denials that it has authority over any prisons in Yemen. The AP first reported in an investigation last year that the UAE and its allied militias were running a network of secret detention facilities around southern Yemen, beyond the control of the government of Yemeni President Abdrabuh Mansour Hadi.
Former prisoners and security officials described widespread torture at the facil-ities, which are housed in loca-tions ranging from Emirati-run military bases to a former nightclub run by a UAE-backed
security chief and his anti-ter-rorism squad. The prisons have held thousands of Yemenis swept up in the U.S.-backed campaign against al-Qaida, though the detainees are held without charges or trials. U.S. personnel interrogated detainees inside some of these prisons, the investigation also revealed.
In June, the AP revealed that hundreds had been sub-jected to sexual abuses, including one incident in the Beir Ahmed prison in the southern city of Aden where detainees were lined up naked as guards probed their anal cavities. Sexual abuses were filmed as a way to turn sus-pects into informants, detainees reported.
On Sunday, Anwar Gargash, the UAE state minister for foreign affairs, dismissed as “fake news” reports that the Emirates control prisons or have set up a base on the Yemeni island of Socotra.
“In Yemen, the Emiratis have been subjected to an unjust smear campaign because it bears its responsi-bility toward regional security with courage and boldness,” he said. Al Maysari, who has come under pressure from families
of detainees who have disap-peared into the prison network, has previously said he has no authority over the prisons and that he can’t even enter the southern city of Aden without Emirati permission.
In Yemen’s three-year civil
war, the UAE is part of the Saudi-led coalition battling iranian-backed rebels known as Houthis who have taken over most of northern Yemen. Ostensibly, the Emiratis and Hadi’s government are allies in that fight. But tensions have been high between them.
Yemen demands Emirates shut down prisons
Israel to ease gun restrictions for settlers
UN agency for Palestinians warns of cuts ahead
Erdogan took the oath as the new executive President of Turkey before addressing international leaders gathered at the Presidential palace in Ankara.
AP
BERLIN: Germany’s Finance Ministry says authorities are examining a request from Iran to repatriate hundreds of millions of euros in cash held in a Hamburg-based bank.
Bild newspaper reported yesterday that the Iranian regime wants to bring home ¤300m ($353m) it has in the European-Iranian Trade Bank to have on hand when American financial sector sanctions come into effect.
Finance Ministry Jeanette Schwamberger confirmed the request had been made, and says it’s now being checked by financial regulators as are all large transactions involving countries where there might be possible “money laundering or terror financing.”
Germany examining iranian request to move $353m cash
06 TUESDAY 10 JULY 2018ASIA
India’s Supreme Court reaffirms death to four Nirbahaya convictsIANS
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court yesterday rejected review petitions filed by three of the four convicts and upheld the death punishment in the horrific 2012 gang rape and murder of a young Delhi professional who came to be known as Nirbhaya.
Chief Justice Dipak Misra, Justice R Banumathi and Justice Ashok Bhushan said the petitions lacked grounds for a review.
Convicts Mukesh, 29, Pawan Gupta, 22, and Vinay Sharma, 23, had sought recall of the Supreme Court’s May 5, 2017 verdict upholding the death sentence awarded by a trial court and
confirmed by the Delhi High Court. The fourth, Akshay Kumar Singh, 31, had not filed for a review.
Pronouncing the judgement, Justice Bhushan said the review petition must show an error resulting in miscarriage of justice. He said none of the peti-tions by the convicts pointed out to an error leading to miscarriage of justice.
The court also said the hearing on the appeals against the Delhi High Court judgement confirming the death sentence lasted 38 days as defence lawyers were given full oppor-tunity to state their cases.
“Review applications cannot
be entertained. (A) convict cannot be allowed to re-agitate the grounds of appeal. There has to be an apparent error on record to show it resulted in miscarriage of justice.
“The death row convicts failed to point out error in the judgement. (The) convicts were heard elaborately during appeals and no grounds have been made out for review of its verdict,”
Justice Bhushan said.The victim’s mother Asha
Devi said she hoped the convicts would be executed soon.
“There is more fight ahead, but we have got justice once again. We hope that the legal for-malities are taken care of and the culprits are taken to the gallows as soon as possible.” Union Min-ister for Women and Child Devel-opment Maneka Gandhi said she
was “satisfied” with the Supreme Court verdict in the case that led to the amendment of the Criminal Procedure Code to make rape punishable with death penalty.
The convicts, who lived in Delhi, are now left with another legal option, seeking a relook at death sentences through a cur-ative petition.
Curative petitions are filed to challenge the death penalty on the grounds that an evidence or a legal point was not argued, violating principles of natural justice.
If curative petition is also dis-missed, then a mercy petition can be filed before the President of India who takes a call on the
basis of the opinion given by the central government.
The December 16, 2012 gangrape and murder of the 23-year-old paramedic student, Nirbhaya, the name given to her by the media which means fearless, caused global shock and outrage.
The crime was committed inside a moving bus in south Delhi by six drunk people. Nir-bhaya and her male friend, who survived the attack, had just fin-ished watching a movie.
The woman was thrown out on the road, severely injured. She succumbed to her injuries on December 29, 2012 at Mount El izabeth Hospital in Singapore.
Samsung to make India global export hub: ModiIANS
NOIDA: The world’s largest mobile factory unveiled by South Korean tech giant Samsung in Noida will not only generate more jobs but also make India a global export hub, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said yesterday.
Inaugurating the new facility spread over 129,000sqm at Sector 81 here, Modi said Samsung will export 30 percent of the handsets made at the Noida factory to other markets.
“India is currently second in terms of phone manufacturing. Out of 120 mobile factories, 50 are in Noida only. Altogether, over 400,000 people are working in those units and Samsung is spear-heading this with a workforce of 70,000 people.
“The new facility with give direct jobs to 1,000 people, taking the existing workforce at
this plant to 6,000. The best part is that the company will export 30 per cent of the handsets made here to other markets,” Modi told the gathering here.
The Prime Minister said the new mobile manufacturing unit will make India-South Korea relations stronger as Samsung’s biggest global R&D centre was already here.
“Almost every middle class Indian family is using at least one Korean product. Samsung has a distinct space in India. India is going through digital transfor-mation and I encourage more companies from South Korea to come and invest here,” Modi noted.
Launched in the presence of Modi and South Korean Pres-ident Moon Jae-in who took the Metro to reach the facility, the plant will help Samsung India double its annual mobile pro-duction capacity to 120 million units by 2020.
All Samsung mobile phones, including the flagship Galaxy S9, S9+ and Galaxy Note 8, are being manufactured at the Noida plant.
“We are aligned with gov-ernment policies and will con-tinue to seek their support to achieve our dream of making
India a global export hub for mobile phones,” said HC Hong, Chief Executive Officer, Samsung India.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Yogi Adityanath, Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, during the inauguration of the Samsung Electronics smartphone manufacturing facility in Noida, yesterday.
SC bans outsiders from offering prayer in Taj Mahal mosqueIANS
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court yesterday refused to allow outsiders to offer prayer at a mosque in the Taj Mahal premises, saying the historic monument, which is one of the seven wonders of the world, “must be protected”.
A bench headed by Justice A K Sikri and Justice Ashok Bhushan said there was no need to perform prayers at the Taj Mahal only as it dismissed a plea filed against Agra authorities’s order debarring outsiders from offering prayers on Fridays at the mosque inside the Taj Mahal complex.
“Why should people go to the Taj Mahal for prayers, there are other mosques also where they can offer their prayers,” asked the bench after petitioner Syed Ibrahim Hussain Zaidi, President of Taj Mahal Masjid Management Committee, contended that several tourists visit the city throughout the year and the order to restrain them from offering their prayers at the complex was “illegal”.
The district administration, to ensure foolproof security to the world heritage site, on January 24, ordered that only those with valid identity cards would be allowed entry to the monument complex to offer prayers on Fridays - when the Taj Mahal remains closed for tourists.
Malabar Gold & Diamonds opens biggest showroom in India’s Udupi
THE PENINSULA
UDUPI: Malabar Gold & Diamonds, one among the largest jewellery retailers globally with over 220 retail outlets has inau-gurated its bigger relocated showroom at Udupi, Karnataka, India. The showroom, located at Geethanjali Shopper city, Geethanjali Road, Udupi was inau-gurated by Miss World Manushi
Chhillar on Saturday in the presence of Malabar Gold & Diamonds, India Operations – Managing Director, Asher O; Regional Head, Iflu Rahman, and other heads of various depart-ments along with the Management team members of the group.
The new showroom is the biggest jewellery showroom in Udupi and has a wider collection of gold, diamond, platinum and
silver jewellery in bridal wear, party wear and casual wear designs along with branded watches. Apart from displaying jewellery specific to the culture and celebrations of Karnataka, the big and spacious showroom with plush ambience will enhance the shopping experience of loyal clientele, who have made the existing store their favourite shopping destination.
Miss world Manushi Chillar inaugurating the biggest Malabar Gold & Diamonds showroom in Udupi.
Apex court open to live streaming of proceedingsIANS
NEW DELHI: In a step aimed at bringing transparency and accountability, the Supreme Court yesterday said it was open to live streaming of its proceedings under “compre-hensive and holistic guidelines”.
A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra, Justice A M Khanwilkar and Justice D Y Chandrachud said that if they go for live streaming, it would start off with one court as a pilot project and then it could be extended to the remaining courts.
The bench sought the assistance of Attorney General K K Venugopal and other senior lawyers.
Venugopal told the court that the government would set up a dedicated channel on the lines of the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha TVs if the court decided to go for live telecast of its proceedings.
Justice Chandrachud said that the live streaming would bring transparency and access to justice. He said the litigants would know what transpired during the hearing of their cases.
“I may not be present in the court, yet I will be able to know what is happening,” said Justice
Chandrachud while pointing out that clients and litigants have the right to know if a matter was being adjourned and why.
“We are only enforcing the principle of open-court hearing,” the court said.
In the course of his submis-sions, the Attorney General said that the live streaming of the top court’s proceedings would discourage some lawyers from raising their voices.
“There won’t be raising of voices,” he said, in an apparent reference to a situation in the past when lawyers became too loud in making a point, a conduct not appreciated by the court.
The top court had on February 9 sought Venugopal’s assistance while dealing with three petitions, including those filed by senior counsel Indira Jaising and lawyer Mathews J Nedumpara.
Jaising sought the live streaming and video recording of court proceedings of cases of national importance with a bearing on a large section of people.
Jaising had based her PIL on the right to receive information under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution and the principle of open courts and access to justice as protected under Article 21.
Normal life grinds to a halt as rains batter Mumbai for third day IANS
MUMBAI: Heavy rains continued to batter Mumbai, its surroundings and large parts of Maharashtra for the third consec-utive day yesterday, hitting normal life and disrupting rail and road traffic, an official said.
In a major operation mounted in neighbouring Palghar, the
administration rescued over 275 villagers stranded in their 100-odd homes on the coastal salt-pans in Vasai which flooded this morning due to heavy overnight rains.
Mumbai’s lifelines, the Western Railway (WR) and Central Railway (CR) were running late by around 15-20 minutes due to waterlogged tracks at various points on the network, causing
misery for millions of morning-evening peak hour commuters.
WR cancelled 50 services and another 100-plus were delayed adding to commuters woes, but there was no major breakdown in operations despite tracks being flooded at many places.
While Mumbai Airport offi-cials said there were no major flight disruptions, Ixigo CEO
Aloke Bajpai claimed that 28 percent of all flights were hit by delays to and from Mumbai, with services to New Delhi, Hyderabad, Chennai, Hong Kong and Singapore affected yesterday.
As a precautionary measure, Eduation Minister Vinod Tawde announced closure of all schools and colleges in the city and sur-
rounding measures for the day.The city was lashed with 78.6
mm of rain, and suburbs got 68.1 mm till Monday evening, and heavy rains continued with short spells of break.
So far, in the past 20 days, the city has received 54 percent of its average annual total rainfall, said the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation.
Gangster Munna Bajrangi shot dead in Uttar Pradesh jailIANS
LUCKNOW: Dreaded gangster Munna Bajrangi was shot dead inside a high security prison in Baghpat in Uttar Pradesh early on Monday, causing a major embarrassment to the Yogi Adityanath government.
The 51-year-old criminal was shot 10 times in the head and chest from close range with a sophisticated handgun and his body was then dumped into a gutter inside the prison premises, a police officer said.
What has embarrassed the government and the police is the fact that a high-tech pistol found its way inside the prison and almost in the same manner disap-peared after the crime.
Chief Minister Adityanath ordered the suspension of four prison officials following the incident and vowed to take stringent action against the guilty.
His lawyer called it a “staged killing” and said the “adminis-tration and the state government had forced the jail authorities” to bring the unwell Bajrangi to Baghpat, setting aside pleas that the hearing be done through video conferencing.
Pronouncing the judgement, Justice Bhushan said the review petition must show an error resulting in miscarriage of justice. He said none of the petitions by the convicts pointed out to an error leading to miscarriage of justice.
07TUESDAY 10 JULY 2018 ASIA
Pompeo meets Ghani, offers support for Taliban talksREUTERS
KABUL: U S Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, on a surprise visit to Afghanistan yesterday, promised support for President Ashraf Ghani’s bid to start peace talks with the Taliban and repeated the United States would be willing to take part.
The visit, at the end of a tour of Asian countries including North Korea and Vietnam, was Pompeo’s first to Afghanistan since he became Secretary of State in April.
He said the strategy announced last year by Pres-ident Donald Trump of sending more troops to increase pressure on the Taliban and push them towards negotiations was working, and would reassure Afghans “that we will support them as they continue fighting to liberate their country and their people.” “The strategy sends a clear message to the
Taliban that they cannot wait us out,” he said.
Pompeo’s visit follows one by the State Department’s top diplomat for South and Central Asia, Alice Wells, who said this month that pressure was building on the Taliban to
respond to Ghani’s offer for peace talks.
Standing with him at a news conference in the presidential palace in Kabul, Ghani, who earlier this year offered peace talks without preconditions, said it would be necessary to move with caution.
“If we think only in one day a 40 year-crisis can be ended we are being unrealistic,” he said.
Following a three-day ceasefire during last month’s Eid holiday, the Taliban, fighting to restore their version of strict Islamic law, have so far rejected Ghani’s offer of talks, demanding the withdrawal of international troops from Afghanistan.
However, Pompeo repeated an offer for the United States to take part directly in talks with the Taliban. They have rejected negotiations with what they con-sider an illegitimate Western-backed government in Kabul and demanded direct talks with
Washington.Pompeo said the peace
process would be Afghan-led but added that the United States would be prepared to partic-ipate to help resolve differences and said support from neigh-bouring countries would also be needed.
“An American role will be
important in this, but we can’t run the peace talks, we can’t settle this from the outside,” he said.
As well as the battle against the Taliban and Islamic State fighters operating from Afghan-istan, Pompeo discussed plans for October elections in the country and presidential
elections due early next year, amid tensions between powerful regional leaders and Ghani.
Pompeo said he hoped for a reduction in violence before the elections, which the Taliban have refused to support. “We’re counting on all the actors in the region to be supportive of that,” he said.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is greeted by Afghanistan’s Chief of Staff Abdul Salam Rahimi, as he arrives at Gul Khanna in the Presidential Palace in Kabul, yesterday.
Son-in-law of Sharif jailed for one yearAP
ISLAMABAD: Pakistani authorities have sent the son-in-law of the former prime minister to jail after a court sentenced him to one-year imprisonment in a corruption case.
Mohammad Safdar was convicted on Friday and authorities arrested him on Sunday from the garrison city of Rawalpindi.
Yesterday, he was taken to a jail, where he will serve his one-year-sentence if he does not seek bail.
The development came days after an anti-graft tri-bunal convicted former premier Nawaz Sharif, his daughter Maryam Nawaz and Safdar over purchases of luxury apartments in London.
Sharif and Nawaz were sentenced by an anti-graft tri-bunal in absentia as they were present in London, where Sharif’s wife is critically ill.
Sharif is expected to return home Friday and he can be arrested if he does not get bail.
Nawaz, Maryam to be arrested on arrival: Law MinisterINTERNEWS
LAHORE: Federal Law and Information Minister of Pakistan Ali Zafar has said the government will implement accountability court’s orders in letter and spirit and arrest ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif and his daughter Maryam Nawaz on their arrival at any airport in Pakistan.
He was speaking at “Meet the Press” programme at the Lahore Press Club yesterday Zafar said
the (caretaker) government had no mandate to interfere in the state institutions’ working or criticise their decisions, he said, adding that anybody having res-ervations against any court judgment should file an appeal.
“The law enforcement agencies will arrest Nawaz Sharif and Maryam Nawaz at airport, if they did not get bail before landing in Pakistan,” Zafar told journalists.
He said the court’s judgement
against the Sharif family would not affect holding of general elec-tions on July 25.
“General elections will be held on time and that too in a free, fair and transparent manner,” he asserted.
Answering a question about the arrest of Nawaz Sharif’s son-in-law, Zafar said the government would extend full support to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to implement court orders that called for retired Captain
Safdar’s arrest. “The law enforcement agencies are on the move to arrest Capt Safdar,” he said.
With regard to putting the names of former president Asif Ali Zardari and his sister on the Exit Control List (ECL), the min-ister said it was the government’s responsibility to properly assess the law enforcement agencies’ requests before putting names on the list.
Acknowledging that it was a
common practice to put names on the ECL just on law enforcement agencies’ requests, Zafar said the courts had given relief to many and chided the government for putting people’s names on the ECL without assessing such requests.
“The caretaker government is assessing every request and questioning investigators about the grounds (on which a request is made) before putting names on the ECL,” he said.
Head of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, Imran Khan (centre), and other party leaders display copies of their manifesto for the general election, in Islamabad, yesterday.
Imran promises 10 million jobsAP
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s oppo-sition leader and former cricket star who has set his hopes on becoming the country’s next prime minister unveiled yesterday his party’s ‘manifesto’ ahead of this month’s parlia-mentary elections.
Imran Khan is promising 10 million new jobs, better health and education facilities if he wins the July 25 vote. Titled “Road to New Pakistan,” the manifesto is similar to other ambitious past pledges
by political parties that ended up unable to make good on them.
But Khan told reporters in Islamabad he was only making commitments that he believes can be implemented — including tackling the widespread poverty by turning Pakistan into an Islamic welfare state.
“An easy solution to the problems that Pakistan is faced with does not exist,” he said.
Khan also used the venue to criticize former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif who was sentenced last week in absentia by an
anti-graft tribunal to 10 years in prison over purchases of luxury apartments in London.
Khan asserted that Sharif indulged in corruption and promised to ensure justice for all and improve the country’s ailing economy.
Analysts say Pakistan will likely have a coalition government after the elections, as no single political party is expected to get a two-third majority in parliament. Any party that gets a simple majority in the 351-seat house can form the government.
Mike Pompeo said the strategy of sending more troops to increase pressure on the Taliban and push them towards negotiations was working, and would reassure Afghans “that we will support them as they continue fighting to liberate their country and their people.”
The US president plans to meet alone with his Russian counterpart and his translator, triggering concerns in the US and Europe regarding what he might concede if left alone in the room.
08 TUESDAY 10 JULY 2018VIEWS
What will Trump and Putin agree on at the Helsinki summit?
On July 16, US President Donald Trump will meet in the Finnish capital Helsinki a tri-umphant Russian President
Vladimir Putin, who has just secured another victory in the Syrian war and obtained the international recognition he wanted from hosting the World Cup.
The Russian president will seek to exploit the growing rift between the United States and the European Union and the intensifying Iranian-Israeli rivalry to achieve his two main goals: Break Russiaout of international iso-lation and become the sole kingmaker in Syria.
But in pursuing a deal with Trump, Putin poses the biggest threat to the legitimacy of his US counterpart domes-tically and internationally. The US estab-lishment and intelligence community largely believe that the Kremlin favoured him in the 2016 US presi-dential race and an investigation into alleged Russian interference is still ongoing.
At the same time, Trump is con-fronted with an increasingly disgruntled group of allies who are wary of Russia’s aggressive posturing. That he will be meeting Putin right after attending the Nato summit in Brussels and visiting the UK (which has just had a major diplo-matic crisis with Moscow), will not
please any of them.
The choice of Helsinki as the venue of the summit is not coincidental. The Finnish capitalhas hosted leaders of the two super-powers for important talks on two other major occasions.
In September 1990, a month after Iraq invaded Kuwait, US Pres-ident George H W Bush met with Soviet leader Mikhail Gor-
bachev in Helsinki to discuss the crisis in the Gulf.
Preoccupied with the dissolution of the Eastern bloc after the fall of the Berlin Wall and with a Soviet Union on the verge of collapse, Gorbachev was negotiating from a position of weakness. Bush wanted his commitment to imple-menting sanctions on Saddam Hussein’s regime and he got it, in exchange for
support for his counterpart’s reform plans.
In March 1997, US President Bill Clinton met Russian President Boris Yeltsin to discuss a range of security and economic issues, including nuclear dis-armament. At that summit, the Russian president had no trump cards to play.
The economic situation in Russia had been persistently deteriorating while the government was waging a highly unpopular war in Chechnya. Badly needing US financial support and backing, Yeltsin decided to concede to the expansion of Nato into Eastern Europe in return for Russia’s integration in the global economy with US help. For that disastrous decision, he was labelled a “US puppet” by his opponents.
On July 16, President Trump will meet President Putin, but this time around, it seems, the roles have been reversed. The US president is facing a growing legitimacy crisis at home, where he is perceived as “a Russian puppet”, while his Russian counterpart has been dealt a powerful hand.
This will be the fourth meeting between the two leaders since Trump took office in January 2017. They met twice during the July 2017 G20 summit in Germany and once on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit (APEC) summit in Vietnam last November.
Since they last met, Trump suc-cumbed to domestic pressure and took a number of anti-Russian measures, including approving lethal weapons sales to Ukraine in December,expelling Russian diplomats from the US in March, striking the Syrian regime andimposing additional sanctions on Russian officials in April.
Putin, too, upped the ante by giving a provocative speech on March 1, issuing unveiled threats of an arms race with the US. Then, after his re-election, he took advantage of the simmering US-EU trade war and the Iran nuclear deal crisis to re-engage with France and Germany, while also negotiating with Israel on key points of concern regarding the Syrian war.
Putin’s actions left Trump with no choice but to move up the meeting and
send his national security adviser John Bolton to Moscow to set it up.
The US president plans to meet alone with his Russian counterpart and his translator, triggering concerns in the US and Europe regarding what he might concede if left alone in the room.
But despite these fears, no real breakthrough in US-Russian relations should be expected until Special Counsel Robert Mueller finalises his investi-gation. Lifting US sanctions on Russia, recognising its annexation of Crimea, and pulling US troops out of Eastern Europe are all off the table for the Hel-sinki summit; Trump’s hands are tied by US domestic politics.
The only issue on which he can concede to lure in the Russian president is the Syrian war. Trump will give up Syria to Putin the way Gorbachev left Iraq to Bush in 1990.
The prerequisites for this deal are already in place. Trump’s closest ally, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is scheduled to meet Putin on July 11, just five days before the Hel-sinki summit; this will be their third meeting this year.
Russia is engaging the Israeli prime minister, aiming to repeat the Deraa scenario in Quneitra province near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Trump seems fine with the idea of ultimately removing US troops from the Al Tanf area on the Jordanian-Iraqi-Syrian border in return for keeping Iranian forces and their proxies away from southwest Syria.
Apart from that, the aftermath of the summit will also give an indication of how relations between Washington and Moscow will develop in the near future. Will a direct line of communication be re-established, most notably on arms control negotiations?
Will the Russian ambassador in Washington have more access to US officials moving forward? Will the US establishment become more receptive to engaging Moscow without tangible shift in Russian policy post-Helsinki summit? If there is a change on one or more of these fronts, it could bring more dynamism into US-Russian relations.
JOE MACARON
AL JAZEERA
QUOTE OF THE DAY
Our Arab brothers are standing by us
against this deal, so as many countries in
Europe, Asia, Africa and others that
started to show their resentment against
this deal too.
Mahmoud Abbas Palestinian President
N Korea’s delaying tactics must be dealt with appropriately
Will North Korea work on denu-clearization in all seriousness
and take steps toward con-crete action? It is hard to say that the concerns harbored by related countries have been dispelled.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited North Korea and held talks with Kim Yong Chol, vice chairman of the Workers’ Party of Korea. The biggest issue is concrete steps toward “complete denucleari-zation” of North Korea, as was agreed during the US-North Korea summit in mid-June.
The US side stressed that progress was made during the talks, saying both sides agreed on the establishment of a working group involving both countries to address such tasks as the verification of denuclearization.
Yet it is unsatisfactory that there have been no visible results regarding a road map that incorporates procedures
and timelines for dismantling North Korea’s nuclear weapons, disposing of its nuclear material and so forth.
North Korea’s Foreign Ministry made self-centered claims in its statement, saying that the US side only made demands for denuclearization in a unilateral and high-handed manner.
It can be said that the problems stemming from the fact that the summit fell short of working out the substance of “denuclearization” still remain. The joint statement issued after the summit stated clearly that the two countries had committed to “hold follow-on negotiations at the earliest possible date,” but it took more than three weeks to realize the latest talks. Pompeo at one time even declared that he would not establish a timeline for negoti-ations with North Korea.
It seems that the United States has been taken in by North Korea’s delaying tactics, which Pyongyang has also fully utilized during past denu-
clearization talks.North Korea has done
nothing more than blow up a nuclear test site in May, while taking no measures toward denuclearization. It has also been pointed out that North Korea, while concealing the actual state of its nuclear devel-opment, has been increasing its production of highly enriched uranium. It is essential that first of all, North Korea declare the entire state of its nuclear program and indicate a process toward denuclearization.
During US-North Korea negotiations, such issues were also left pending as the repatri-ation of the remains of American soldiers missing in action during the Korean War and the destruction of North Korea’s missile engine testing facility.
It is necessary to take pre-cautions against North Korea making a pointed display of its “concessions” on these issues so as to receive “compen-sation,” while putting denu-clearization on the back burner. Kim Jong Un, the chairman of the Workers’ Party
of Korea, has actively made inspection visits to factories and farms near his country’s border with China. Without doubt, North Korea intends to gain assistance from China and rebuild its economy, on the tailwind of eased tensions with the United States.
South Korea has also moved to raise issues related not only to sports and human-itarian areas, but also to large-scale economic cooperation, including connecting railways, during working-level talks with North Korea.
It is cause for concern that there have been moves to ease the international community’s punitive pressure on North Korea, before progress is made toward North Korea’s denuclearization.
Pompeo will hold talks with the foreign ministers of Japan and South Korea in Tokyo, explaining the results of his talks with the North Korean side. The three countries should reconfirm their cooperation and compare and adjust their strategies.
Along foreign dignitaries, some 10,000 people participated in the ceremony as Turkish citizens from all walks of life including leaders of religious communities, teachers, firefighters, village heads, tradesmen, miners and dentists were invited at the ceremony.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who won an absolute majority in the presidential election with 52.5 percent in June 24 vote, yesterday took oath of office as the
first President of the Republic of Turkey under the new executive presidential system. The oath taking ceremony was attended by 22 heads of the states, 28 prime ministers and parliament speakers from different countries as well as representatives from Turkey.
Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, Presi-dents of Pakistan, Somalia, Bosnia, Georgia, Venezuela, Zambia and Moldova were among the heads of states attending the inauguration ceremony. This change has come in line with the constitutional changes approved in a ref-erendum in April 2017.
Along foreign dignitaries, some 10,000 people partic-ipated in the ceremony as Turkish citizens from all walks of life including leaders of religious communities, teachers, firefighters, village heads, tradesmen, miners and dentists were invited to the ceremony, Anadulo News Agency reported.
This has come following a ceremony held on Saturday, where 600 lawmakers from seven political parties consti-tuting the newly-elected Turkish parliament took their oaths and observed a moment of silence to pay respect to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of Republic of Turkey.
In order to mark this signif-icant transition from a parlia-mentary system to an executive presidency, one Turkish Lira coins and stamps were specially issued.
P r e s i d e n t E r d o g a n announced his Cabinet under the new presidential system which mark the historical tran-sition to an executive presi-dential system of government, doing away with the post of prime minister and making other changes. The new cabinet
has 16 ministers instead of 26, which has been made up of former politicians and bureaucrats fulfilling the statement the President had made earlier.
Shortly after taking the oath President Erdogan said: “Turkey will improve in every field including democracy, fundamental rights, freedoms, economy and large invest-ments, promising to be president of all 81 million Turkish citizens and worthy of our nation.”
Speaking about the advantage of the new presidential system, President Erdogan stressed: “Turkey is leaving behind a system (parliamentary) which cost the country politically, socially, economically”.
The parliamentary system was blamed for destabilising the nation’s political system, because of repeated military coups and misunderstanding between the presidents and first ministers of the state. No doubt that a powerful exec-utive presidency will create a stable environment that will allow the country to take “steps for the future in a stronger manner” with efficiency in the decision-making process to face challenges lying ahead.
THE JAPAN NEWS
After many wasted months, and with time to reach agreement with the EU fast running out, May needs to lay out a clear proposal and confront its inevitable critics. In the end she might fail — but further indecision makes failure all but certain.
All thoughts and views expressed in these columns are those of the writers,not of the newspaper.
All correspondence regarding Views and Opinion pages should be send to editor-in-chiefoffice or mailed to the [email protected]
Bosnia remembers Srebrenica victims inmoving ceremony
Theresa May’s make-or-break Brexit moment
TALHA OZTURK
ANATOLIA
BLOOMBERG
The remains of 35 Srebrenica genocide victims were placed on a truck laden with flowers in the Bosnian
city of Visoko yesterday morning for their final journey to a cemetery.
The victims will be buried in the village of Potocari, northwest of the city of Srebrenica, on Wednesday to
mark the 23rd anniversary of the genocide.
Even after 23 years, the remains of victims are still being discovered and funeral cere-monies still being carried out in Bosnia-Herzegovina. A total of 6,575 victims lie buried at the Sre-brenica Genocide Memorial in Potocari.
Hundreds of people attended the ceremony in Visoko to bid an emo-tional farewell to the victims.
The blue truck carrying the coffins was covered with a large flag of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Hanifa Sehovic was among those who came to bid farewell to the victims although she has already buried her family members.
“Every year I participate, it feels very difficult to me. I do not have anybody here today, but all of these are our brothers and sisters, I buried my family. My father is not com-pletely buried. We could not find his remains,” said Sehovic.
Mensura Alic was also present at the ceremony. “Today I am here because of these martyrs and my child who was among these victims,” said Alic.
After passing by a Sarajevo suburb Vogosca, the truck stopped in front of the Presidency building
near a special memorial for children who were killed during the Bosnian War between 1992 and 1995. Around 1,500 children were killed during the 1995 siege of Sarajevo.
Grand Mufti of Bosnia and Herzegovina Husein Kavazovic led a collective prayer around the truck.
As the truck passed through the streets of capital Sarajevo, thou-sands of people, including women and children, could be seen crying. Many showered the truck with flowers and raised their hands for prayers.
Nearly 170 identified victims are in the Podrinje identification center in Tuzla, but mostly because of incomplete remains the families of the victims have not yet been buried.
The youngest victim of the gen-ocide to be buried this year is Vesid Ibric, born in 1979, while the oldest victim to be buried this year is Sahin Halilovic, born in 1924.
Srebrenica was besieged by Serb forces between 1992 and 1995 during the Bosnian War. Back then, Serb militias were trying to wrest territory from Bosnian Muslims and Croats to form their own state.
The UN Security Council
declared Srebrenica a “safe area” in the spring of 1993. However, Serb troops led by General Ratko Mladic — who now faces genocide charges in The Hague — overran the UN zone despite the presence of around 450 Dutch soldiers tasked with acting as UN peacekeepers.
The Dutch troops failed to act as Serb forces occupied the area, killing about 2,000 men and boys on July 11 alone.
Some 15,000 Srebrenica men fled into the surrounding mountains but Serb troops hunted down and slaughtered 6,000 of them in the forests.
Hours ahead of a make-or-break meeting with her Cabinet, British Prime Minister Theresa May had
yet to settle on a proposal for her country’s future relationship with the European Union. After many wasted months, and with time to reach agreement with the EU fast running out, May needs to lay out a clear proposal and con-front its inevitable critics.
In the end she might fail — but further indecision makes failure all but certain.
To put it mildly, May is in a tough spot. She leads a weak minority government (because her call for an election last year backfired).
Her party is bitterly divided
between those seeking a deal as close as possible to EU membership and others who want what they call a clean break.
The EU, to make things worse, opposes any compromise that might plausibly bridge that gap. Any proposal she advances is therefore likely to founder — either because it provokes a political revolt against her leadership, or because the EU rejects it, or quite possibly both.
Whatever she does, the risk of a chaotic no-deal Brexit is growing. But there’s no chance of resolving the impasse until May puts her job on the line by setting out a plan.
Up to now, the EU’s position has been clear: The UK can take a deal like Norway’s, which would grant membership in the EU’s single market for both goods and services, but which would also
require Britain to accept the free movement of people, the juris-diction of the European Court of Justice, and whatever new laws and regulations the EU sees fit to enact — all without having any say in the running of the union. This option would also rule out new trade deals with other countries.
Alternatively, the UK can nego-tiate a free-trade agreement like the one the EU has with Canada. That would be better than no deal at all, but not nearly as good for UK producers (especially of services) as membership of the single market.
Anything less than single-market membership has the further drawback of requiring a new customs border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, or between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.
Reviewing these bleak possibil-ities underlines the folly of Britain’s choice to quit the EU. Conceivably, that choice might yet be reversed, though not without great political upheaval. For now, what’s needed is a plan — any plan — to avoid a cliff-edge exit next March.
Indications are that May is going to propose a complicated middle course between Norway and Canada. The EU is likely to resist this, and it won’t be popular with much of her party.
A better approach would be a Norway-like arrangement that would remain in place for as long as it takes to negotiate an enhanced version of the Canada-EU free-trade agreement — or, preferably, have second thoughts and ask to rejoin the union.
Critics of the Norway approach are right to say that it satisfies nobody. It’s constitutionally defective because it involves obli-gations without representation — a fatal flaw for any long-term solution.
It also involves continuing uncertainty, precisely because it leaves open the question of what
As the truck passed through the streets of capital Sarajevo, thousands of people, including women and children, could be seen crying. Many showered the truck with flowers and raised their hands for prayers.
comes after. But it avoids the cliff edge, minimizes short-term dis-ruption, and lifts the deadline that’s making wise calculation and calm negotiation next to impossible. Securing those ben-efits ought to be the immediate priority.
If May proposed this, she could expect Brexit supporters to cry betrayal. But that’s a risk she should steel herself to face. She must propose a plan for least dis-ruption to the country, ask for voters’ support, and face down her opponents — or else stand aside and let somebody else do it.
Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May giving a statement to the the House of Commons on Brexit in London.
Indications are that May is going to propose a complicated middle course between Norway and Canada. The EU is likely to resist this, and it won’t be popular with much of her party. A better approach would be a Norway-like arrangement that would remain in place for as long as it takes to negotiate an enhanced version of the Canada-EU free-trade agreement — or, preferably, have second thoughts and ask to rejoin the union.
Srebrenica was besieged by Serb forces between 1992 and 1995 during the Bosnian War. Back then, Serb militias were trying to wrest territory from Bosnian Muslims and Croats to form their own state.
10 TUESDAY 10 JULY 2018ASIA / EUROPE
AFP
SINGAPORE: A Singaporean woman was sentenced to 33 months in jail for her role in a massive bribery scandal dubbed the “Fat Leonard” case that rocked the US Navy.
Gursharan Kaur Sharon Rachael, 57, a former lead con-tract specialist with the US Navy, was charged at a district court in the city-state in late 2015 for leaking confidential information in exchange for cash and luxury vacations.
She had been giving the information to Malaysian businessman Leonard Francis, who ran a port services firm called Glenn Defense Marine Asia (GDMA).
The portly, Singapore-based Francis— dubbed “Fat Leonard” — had admitted to plying officers with cash and other perks to ensure US Navy ships stopped at ports where his firm operated.
Twelve US Navy officers had pleaded guilty in the United States to charges relating to their roles in the scandal, with nine of them sentenced to various jail terms and fines.
AP
MAE SAI, Thailand: Four more of the youth soccer players trapped for over two weeks in a flooded cave in northern Thailand were brought out yesterday, an official said, bringing to eight the number extracted in the ongoing high-stakes rescue operation.
“The eighth person is out and the operation is done for today,” Sitthichai Klangpattana, flag officer to Thailand’s navy SEAL commander, said. “Four boys were brought out today.”
He didn’t comment on the health of the boys or how well the operation had gone. After yesterday’s rescue effort, four boys and their coach were still inside the labyrinth cave.
On Sunday, when the high-risk operation to rescue the 12 boys and their coach began, teams of divers brought out four of the boys but waited several hours before confirming their safe rescue.
The Facebook page of the Thai Navy SEALs, who have been central to the rescue operation, was updated last night to say “two days, eight boars” — a ref-erence to the Wild Boars, the name of the boys’ soccer team.
The message, like most posted by the SEALs, ended with the fighting cheer adopted from the US Navy: Hooyah.
Chiang Rai acting Gov. Narongsak Osatanakorn said earlier yesterday that the second phase began at 11 a.m. and authorities “hope to hear good news in the next few hours.”
“All conditions are still as good as they were yesterday,” Narongsak told a news con-ference. “The boys’ strength, the plan - today we are ready like before. And we will do it faster because we are afraid of the rain.”
Authorities have been rushing to extract the boys, ages 11-16, and their coach from the cave as the annual monsoon bears down on the mountainous region in far northern Chiang Rai province. Workers have been laboring around the clock to pump water out of the cave, and
authorities said Monday that heavy downpours overnight did not raise water levels inside.
The four boys guided from the cave on Sunday in an urgent and dangerous operation that involved them diving through the cave’s dark, tight and twisting passages were happy and in good health, authorities said. “This
morning they said they were hungry and wanted to eat khao pad grapao,” Narongsak said, referring to a Thai dish of meat fried with chili and basil and served over rice.
Still, the four were under-going medical checks in a hos-pital in the provincial capital and were not yet allowed close
contact with relatives due to fear of infections. Relatives were able to see them through a glass par-tition, the governor said.
The boys and their coach went exploring in the massive Tham Luang Nang Non cave on June 23 after a soccer practice, and were cut off when a rain-storm flooded the cave. A
massive international search operation was launched and it took 10 days to locate the boys, who had taken shelter on a dry slope deep in the complex.
The search and rescue oper-ation has riveted people both in Thailand and internationally, with journalists from across the globe traveling to this town along the border with Myanmar to report on the ordeal.
Interior Minister Anupong Paojinda had said early Monday that the same group of expert divers who took part in Sunday’s rescue would return to extricate the others because they know the cave conditions and what to do. He had said fresh air tanks needed to be laid along the underwater route. Authorities have said extracting the entire team from the cave could take up to four days, but Sunday’s success raised hopes that it could be done faster.
Sunday’s mission involved 13 foreign divers and five Thai navy SEALs. Two divers accompanied each of the boys, all of whom have been learning to dive only since July 2, when searchers found them. Cave rescue experts have said they consider an underwater escape to be a last resort, especially with people untrained in diving.
Four more boys brought out of flooded Thai cave
AFP
MANILA: The draft of a new Philippine constitution submitted to President Rodrigo Duterte yesterday would grant him new powers and a chance to extend his stay in office by up to eight years.
Under the current law Duterte will have to step down in 2022, when his six-year term is up. But the proposed shift to a federal system laid out in the draft would allow him to run for two additional terms of four years each.
“The adoption of a new constitution... effectively results in a fresh start for all,”
said a statement from the committee that crafted the draft on the president’s orders.
The draft constitution has several obstacles to clear before it can become law, including a congressional debate and a public referendum.
The latest polls — surveying around 1,200 people — show only 37 per cent of Filipinos back changing the constitution while 29 per cent are against it.
According to the draft the country would be divided under a federal system into 18 regions which would have a greater degree of control over their own affairs. Duterte says the reforms would
shift power away from Manila elites and help seal long-stymied peace agreements with insurgent groups fighting for greater regional autonomy.
However critics fear the 73-year-old president is aiming to hold on to power past constitutional limits which were put in place after the fall of the Ferdinand Marcos dictatorship.
Duterte said over the weekend that he would not seek to stay in office beyond his term’s end in 2022.
Christian Monsod, one of the framers of the Philippines’ current constitution, said the reforms are the only legal way to
get around term limits. “In other words, the question is... is federalism a Trojan horse to stay in power?” he asked at a policy forum last week.
The draft also allows the president to use “lawless violence” as a justification for imposing military rule. Under the current constitution, “invasion or rebellion” are the only two legitimate reasons for declaring martial law.
Military rule has a dark past in the Philippines, where it was used by Marcos to jail thousands of political foes, with thousands of others allegedly killed by the security forces.
Duterte could extend rule under draft constitution
Singapore woman jailed in graft case
REUTERS
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump suggested yesterday that Beijing might be seeking to derail efforts aimed at denuclearising North Korea, but added that he was confident that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un would uphold a pact the two agreed on last month.
W a s h i n g t o n a n d Pyongyang have presented differing views in recent days on progress on denucleari-sation following a Trump-Kim summit in June. Yes-terday, Trump suggested that China, North Korea’s chief ally, might be interfering in reaction to the Trump admin-istration’s stance on US-China trade. “I have confi-dence that Kim Jong Un will honor the contract we signed &, even more importantly, our handshake. We agreed to the denuclearization of North Korea,” Trump wrote on Twitter.
AP
HIROSHIMA: Rescuers in southwestern Japan dug up more bodies yesterday as they searched for dozens still missing after heavy rains caused severe flooding and left residents to return to their homes unsure where to start the cleanup. More than 100 people were confirmed dead in the disaster.
Minoru Katayama, 86, rushed back to his home in Mabi city, in Okayama pre-fecture, and found his 88-year-old wife, Chiyoko, collapsed on the first floor. Floodwaters had started rising so fast that the elderly couple was caught by surprise. “My wife could not climb up the stairs, and nobody else was around to help us out,” Katayama told national broadcaster
NHK. His wife, who stayed behind and let her husband flee, was among more than 20 people who were found dead in the city, where a river dike collapsed.
At a hospital in Mabi town, about 300 patients were temporarily trapped inside, but all had been safely airlifted by emer-gency rescue workers by early Monday.
The Fire and Disaster Management Agency said 108 people were confirmed dead as of Monday night. Officials and media reports said at least 80 people were still unaccounted for, many of them in the hardest-hit Hiroshima area.
The Japan Meteorological Agency said as much as 10 centimeters (3 inches) of rain per hour fell on large parts of south-western Japan. All rain warnings have been lifted. A Hiroshima resident, Seiji
Rescuers search for dozens still missing after Japan floods
Rescued schoolboys are moved from a military helicopter to an awaiting ambulance in Chiang Rai, Thailand, yesterday.
Residents try to upright a vehicle stuck in a flood hit area in Kurashiki, Okayama, Japan, yesterday.
Toda, took precautions because of his memories of flooding four years ago that killed more than 70 people in Hiroshima. But he was shocked and helpless when
he saw his restaurant, which he opened nearly 40 years ago, filled with mud heaped about 1 meter (yards) above the floor and windows smashed.
The eighth person is out and the operation is done for today,” Sitthichai Klangpattana, flag officer to Thailand’s navy SEAL commander, said
AFP
BUCHAREST: Romanian Pres-ident Klaus Iohannis finally dismissed top anti-graft prose-cutor Laura Codruta Kovesi after long resisting attempts to remove her by the country’s left-wing government.
The campaign to sack Kovesi, considered a symbol of the fight against graft in one of the EU’s most corruption-plagued members, has attracted vehement criticism from the opposition and concern from the international community.
The government had claimed victory in May after the Constitutional Court ordered the president to fire the popular head of Romania’s Anti-Cor-ruption Prosecutor’s Office (DNA).
But the president delayed,
leading prominent figures in the ruling Social Democratic Party (PSD) to raise the prospect of his impeachment.
“In a state governed by the rule of law decisions of the Con-stitutional Court must be respected... Romania’s president signed the decree today,” to sack Kovesi, Iohannis’ office said in a statement. An emotional Kovesi confirmed in a televised statement that she would no longer be working for the DNA but said she would remain a prosecutor.
“I have a message for the Romanian people: corruption can be defeated. Don’t give up!” Kovesi added, flanked by dozens of prosecutors.
She took aim at the govern-ment’s controversial legal reforms, which critics say will hobble the powers of the
judiciary.“The brutal way in which
they are trying to force through the justice reforms shows they want protection for the past, the present and the future,” she said.
Kovesi, a 45-year-old former basketball player, had held the high-profile post since 2013. She was re-appointed by Iohannis for another three-year term in 2016.
But in February the gov-ernment launched a process to oust her, with Justice Minister Tudorel Toader accusing her of “violating the constitution” and “harming Romania’s image” abroad.
Iohannis, who is from the centre-right and has frequently clashed with the government, had initially said he was “not convinced” by arguments to remove Kovesi.
REUTERS
HELSINKI: Finland is considering reinstating border controls for travellers from Schengen countries for four days from Friday, during the Helsinki summit between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“In order to increase security, we have assessed that rein-stating control in our internal borders would be justified,” said Kimmo Elomaa, a senior official at the Ministry of Interior.
He said the aim was to block access of individuals who might disturb general order and security during the summit.
The government is to make the official decision on the border checks at its meeting on Friday. Trump and Putin will meet in Hel-sinki on Monday, July 16.
Several demonstrations have been planned during their visit to Helsinki. The biggest one, billed as promoting environment, peace, human rights and democracy, is scheduled for Sunday, the day Trump is expected to arrive.
The 26 European countries in the Schengen agreement allow free movement among them without border controls.
Finland last reinstated border control for travellers from Schengen countries in 2008, for a meeting of foreign ministers of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.
Finland may reinstate Schengen checks for Trump-Putin summit
Romanian president sacks anti-graft prosecutor
China might be interfering on N Korea: Trump
11TUESDAY 10 JULY 2018 EUROPE
REUTERS
LONDON: Prime Minister Theresa May’s strategy for leaving the European Union hung in the balance yesterday after two leading eurosceptic ministers resigned in protest at her plans to retain close EU ties after Brexit.
Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson decided to walk from his job just hours after May’s Brexit minister David Davis did the same. Instead of turning up at a conference of foreign ministers, Johnson instead held crisis talks at his official residence in central London for most of the day.
The two resignations leave May badly exposed at the top of a government unable to unite over Britain’s biggest foreign and trading policy shift in almost half a century.
It also puts a question mark
over whether the leader will try to weather the resignations and stand firm in her commitment to pursue a “business friendly” Brexit, or will be faced with more challenges to her authority and calls to quit herself.
The pound fell from around $1.3340 to trade as low as $1.3259, down 0.2 percent the day, after Johnson’s resignation was announced.
Addressing parliament just minutes after her office announced that Johnson, the face of Brexit for many in Britain, had quit, May told lawmakers she appreciated the work of her two ministers.
She added with a hint of irony: “In the two years since the referendum, we have had a spirited national debate, with robust views echoing around the cabinet table as they have on breakfast tables up and down the
country.”“Over that time, I’ve listened
to every possible idea and every possible version of Brexit. Mr Speaker, this is the right Brexit,” she said to jeers from the oppo-sition Labour Party.
The departures raise the stakes for May, who believed that she had secured a hard-won agreement with her deeply divided cabinet of ministers on Friday to keep the closest pos-sible trading ties with the EU.
But it soon began to unravel, when Davis resigned late on Sunday and launched a no-holds-barred attack on her plan, calling it “dangerous” and one which would give “too much away, too easily” to EU negoti-ators, who would simply ask for more.
With Johnson’s resignation, a noisy rebellion among the ranks could gather steam. Many Brexit campaigners in her Con-servative Party say she has betrayed her promise to pursue a clean break with the EU.
But in parliament, her words suggested she had decided to face down the dissenters rather than changing her plans.
The EU has been keen to focus minds in Britain. European Council President Donald Tusk raised the idea that Brexit might be called off, writing on Twitter:
“Politicians come and go but the problems they have created for people remain.”
“I can only regret that the idea of Brexit has not left with Davis and Johnson. But ... who knows?”
With less than nine months before Britain leaves and just over three before the EU says it wants a deal, May has been forced to show her cards that she will commit the country to pursuing the closest possible trading ties with the EU.
Her earlier reluctance to spell
out her strategy was for fear of encouraging exactly this - angering one of the two factions in her Conservative Party that have sparred with each other since Britain voted to leave at a 2016 referendum.
Many eurosceptics accused her of siding with the “Remainers” in her cabinet - those who voted to stay in the EU and have been lob-bying for a Brexit that would pre-serve the complicated supply chains used by many of Britain’s biggest companies.
REUTERS
PARIS: France’s Emmanuel Macron declared himself humbled by his first year as pres-ident yesterday, but said he was determined to pursue his ambi-tious reform agenda in spite of polls showing him losing support among working-class voters.
Addressing a joint gathering of the French national assembly and Senate at the Palace of Ver-sailles, Macron sought to con-front critics who have dubbed him “president of the rich”, while not stepping back from his pledge to transform France.
“I know I can’t do everything, I know I can’t succeed in every-thing,” the 40-year-old former investment banker told law-makers, calling himself “humble but determined”.
In many respects the 90-minute address was an acknowledgement that he had isolated some sectors of his electorate, especially with a raft of pro-business reforms, while re-emphasising that root-and-branch reform was needed to reinvigorate the economy and put France on a stronger footing.
While polls show his popu-larity falling, Macron pointed to an increase in foreign investment since his election, with tech com-panies opening new research hubs, banks moving employees to Paris and French universities
luring foreign brains - part of the so-called “Macron effect”.
Striking an at times modest tone, Macron looked to counter accusations that he is arrogant and out of touch.
“This is an office that, real-istically, requires humility,” he told the audience, seated in an ornate meeting hall in the gilded palace of France’s former mon-archy. “But humility in oneself, not humility for France.”
A raft of recent opinion polls have shown his popularity lan-guishing at below 40 percent, which pollsters attribute to both irritation with his perceived aloofness and sometimes cutting language, and impatience with
policies that have yet to improve the lives of many, particularly the less well-off.
He defended his decision to slash a wealth tax, the move that first prompted opponents to brand him “president of the rich”, a label he has struggled to shake off since.
“A policy for businesses is not a policy for the rich,” he said, in his clearest statement addressing the unwelcome tag. “It’s impossible to pretend you can redistribute wealth if you don’t create it in the first place.”
France might have managed to avoid the increase in income inequality that many Western
countries have experienced in recent decades, he said, but it had failed to create a society which valued merit and social mobility.
“What has emerged in France is an inequality of destiny,” he said, reemphasising the need for an overhaul of eve-rything from education to on-the-job training to better prepare French people for changes in technology and the demands of the workplace.
He told parliamentarians he expected a reform of unem-ployment insurance aimed at encouraging workers to take on new jobs to be on the statute book in the spring of next year.
“The priority of the coming year is simple: build the welfare state of the 21st century,” he said.
In a gesture to left-wing opponents, several of whom boycotted the speech because of the monarchical overtones inherent in its setting, Macron said he would seek to amend the constitution so that lawmakers could debate with the president during joint sessions of parliament.
“Victory! Macron gives in. Next time, he’ll have to listen and answer,” said far-left firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon, who earlier derided the French president as “Macron the First”.
After a year in charge, Macron humble but determined
French President Emmanuel Macron addressing a special congress gathering of both houses of Parliament (National Assembly and Senate) in the Palace of Versailles, outside Paris, yesterday.
AP
MOSCOW: A court in Chechnya yesterday ruled to keep a human rights activist in custody despite interna-tional criticism of his arrest.
The court in the central town of Shali extended Oyub Titiyev’s arrest for another six months. Titiyev, the head of Chechnya’s branch of Russian human rights group Memorial, has been in jail since his arrest in January on drug possession charges, which Memorial described as a sham. His trial is set to start next week.
The United States, the European Union and interna-tional rights groups have con-demned Titiyev’s arrest as part of official efforts to muzzle critical voices in Russia. Chechnya’s regional leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, rejected the criticism, saying Titiyev’s arrest was in line with the law.
Chechnya rights activist kept in jail
REUTERS
LONDON: British Prime Minister Theresa May will fight any attempt to oust her after two leading eurosceptic ministers resigned in protest
at her plans to retain close ties to the European Union after Brexit, her spokesman said.
Asked whether May would contest any vote on a confi-dence motion in her leadership, her spokesman said: “Yes.”
May will fight any ouster attempt
UK foreign secretary and Brexit minister resign
BLOOMBERG
LONDON: Dominic Raab, 44, is an amateur boxing champion who holds a black belt in karate. In one of his previous roles, he served as a key adviser to David Davis, the man he’s replacing. Davis is also famously pugnacious, and was a reservist for Brit-ain’s SAS special forces.
Although ambitious, Raab initially struggled to get pro-moted under former Prime Minister David Cameron, and opted to make trouble instead, fighting to stop people in prison from getting the vote, and for tougher sanctions for Russian officials accused of human rights abuses.
On Brexit, this is his history: Before he became a member of Parliament he worked both for David Davis, one of the original “Brex-iteers” and for arch-Remainer Dominic Grieve. Raab is firmly in the Brexit camp and cam-paigned alongside former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and Environment Sec-retary Michael Gove to leave the EU in the 2016 referendum. It’s likely that May chose Raab at least in part because of his credentials as a true believer in the Brexit cause.
She voted to remain in the EU two years ago and still can’t say whether she would support Brexit if a new refer-endum were called today. Yet she knows she needs the support of Brexit backers like Raab to give her strategy political credibility.
Despite his euroskeptic outlook, Raab acknowledges that many voters in his con-stituency southwest of London felt strongly the other way. Since the 2016 refer-endum he has adopted a policy of meeting one anti-Brexit constituent a week to hear them out. He is a liber-tarian lawyer whose instincts are for a hard Brexit, making his willingness to accept the job of selling a soft one a sur-prise. His decision could also damage his long-nursed pros-pects of one day leading the Tories.
Dominic Raab replaces David Davis as new Brexit Secretary
Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson (top), and Brexit Secretary David Davis.
REUTERS
AMSTERDAM: One of the Dutch parliament’s Brexit rapporteurs said yesterday the government was drafting a “playbook” to be ready by October in case Britain leaves the European Union with no deal in place.
The Netherlands, along with Ireland, are anxious to see an orderly British exit from the EU next year preserving close eco-nomic ties with the bloc as they are both among Britain’s largest trading partners.
The Dutch have already begun hiring 1,000 extra officials, mostly in the port of Rotterdam,
to prepare for the extra bureaucracy required for British goods to go through customs before entering the EU after Brexit.
The Dutch parliament unan-imously approved a motion from their three Brexit rapporteurs on Friday asking the government to prepare for a no-deal Brexit “and the associated potential chaos”.
Rapporteur Pieter Omtzigt said in a telephone interview with Reuters on Monday that the Dutch economy has too much at stake for the government not to begin preparations for a possible British crash out of the EU should negotiations collapse.
“For us, we need to have a clear view that there’s a British government in place with support of a majority that knows what kind of Brexit they want,” he said, alluding to months of paralysing feuding between pro-Brexit and pro-EU members of Prime Min-ister Theresa May’s Conservative cabinet.
“As we do not see that clearly, we have asked the government to intensify contingency planning.”
The Dutch government has agreed to begin planning and will brief lawmakers in September, Omtzigt said.
“We would rather have hired
1,000 more teachers or nurses, but we must be prepared just in case,” he said.
He noted that parliament took its decision shortly before May presented her cabinet’s Brexit negotiating position on Friday - and well before two senior ministers resigned yes-terday in protest at her plan to stay economically aligned with the EU.
He said May’s approach, now in doubt in the face of a possible revolt by hardline eurosceptic members of her party following the resignations, “would have been a good place to start nego-tiations two years ago”.
Dutch cabinet drafting ‘playbook’ for chaotic Brexit AFP
SARAJEVO: As EU states look to stem migrant flows to the continent, aspiring European Union member Bosnia is caught in the middle, with thousands of immigrants stuck in the impoverished Balkan country.
The vast majority of migrants and refugees aim to claim asylum inside the 28-nation EU and Bosnia is irritated at European plans which would see their movement halted at its frontier — in effect making Bosnia the continent’s border guard. In early June, the European Commission agreed to provide Bosnia with 1.5 million euros ($1.7 million) to help cope with the arrivals seeking to reach the EU.
As a key section of the migrant route into Western Europe, Bosnia decided to set up a reception centre in Velika Kladusa, in the coun-try’s northwest, near the border with EU member Croatia.
Bosnia unwilling to play EU’s migration border guard
12 TUESDAY 10 JULY 2018AMERICAS
Trump slams Nato military spendingBLOOMBERG
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump said North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies haven’t boosted defence spending enough and linked that issue to a trade deficit with the European Union as he prepares to travel to Brussels this week for a summit with alliance members.
“By some accounts, the US is paying for 90% of Nato with many countries nowhere close to their 2% commitment,” Trump claimed yesterday in a Twitter posting.
In 2014, Nato members pledged to spend at least two percent of economic output on defense by 2024. But Trump’s claim that the US pays 90 percent of Nato’s total defense spending isn’t corroborated by available data. Based on Nato’s annual report for 2017, the US share of defense spending by Nato members as a whole (in dollars at current prices and exchange rates) is 72 percent.
According to an analysis last month, the US share of Nato’s total civil and military budget is 22 percent, or about one-fifth of the total, compared with 10 percent for the UK and France and less than 15 percent for Germany and the rest from other alliance members.
In an earlier Twitter posting, the president singled out Germany for contributing just 1 percent, which he said is one-fourth of what the US is spending. “This is not fair, nor is
it acceptable,” he said.Trump also took aim at what
he indicated were trade ineq-uities with the EU yesterday in an indication he will attempt to link the US commitment to European security with trade. “On top of this the European Union has a Trade Surplus of $151m with the US, with big Trade Barriers on US goods. NO!”
The US Commerce Depart-ment’s Bureau of Economic Analysis website said that the EU had a trade in goods surplus with the US in 2017 of $151.4bn — not million.
According to an internal EU memo obtained by Bloomberg and using BEA figures, when including trade in goods, trade in services and primary income from invest-ments, the US has a 12 billion-euro surplus with the EU.
Trump’s comments come the day after US Nato Ambassador Kay Bailey Hutchison said efforts to prod members into increasing their defense spending are finding success. Separately, the
US envoy said she’s concerned that Russia is trying to “flip” Turkey and other American allies to its column.
“Nato really is making progress, and they are doing it really at President Trump’s insistence,” Hutchinson said.
“It’s very clear, and he’s been very direct about the Europeans needing to do more for their own security.”
Hutchison, a former Repub-lican senator from Texas, took up her Nato role in August. Nato leaders are scheduled to meet in Brussels on Wednesday and Thursday.
In the past few weeks, Trump has sent sharply worded letters to the leaders of several European countries, including Germany, Italy and Norway, as well as to Canada, urging increased defense spending and warning that the US was losing patience.
“It will become increasingly difficult to justify to American citizens why some countries continue to fail to meet our shared collective security com-mitments,” Trump said in a letter addressed to Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg.
Estimated 2017 defense
spending as a percentage of GDP was 1.2 percent in Germany, Europe’s biggest economy. Only five Nato members — the UK, Estonia, Poland and Greece, as well as the US — were forecast to have met the two percent target in 2017.
Some diplomats fear the president will threaten to pull troops out of Europe without more spending on defense, despite US denials.
Separately, doubts about Trump’s commitment to European security have pushed EU leaders to boost defense cooperation.
US President Donald Trump and US First Lady Melania Trump walking from Marine One as they depart from Morristown, New Jersey, yesterday.
Trump confident in top court choiceAP
MORRISTOWN: President Donald Trump is going down to the wire as he makes his choice on a replacement for retiring Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, but he said with his final four options “you can’t go wrong.”
Trump spoke to reporters as he concluded a weekend in New Jersey spent deliberating his decision at his private golf club amid furious lobbying and frenzied speculation. Relishing the suspense, Trump insisted he still hadn’t locked down his decision, which he wants to keep under wraps until a 9pm Monday announcement from
the White House.“I’m very close to making a
final decision. And I believe this person will do a great job,” Trump said. Asked by reporters how many people were being considered, the president said: “Let’s say it’s the four people ... they’re excellent, every one.”
While Trump didn’t name the four, top contenders for the role have included federal appeals judges Brett Kavanaugh, Raymond Kethledge, Amy Coney Barrett and Thomas Hardiman. The White House has been preparing information materials on all four, who were part of a longer list of 25 names vetted by conservative groups.
Trump tweeted later Sunday that he was looking forward to the announcement and said an “exceptional person will be chosen!” He is hoping to rep-l icate his successful announcement of Justice Neil Gorsuch last year.
The president has spent the days leading up to the decision mulling the pros and cons of the various options with aides and allies. He expressed renewed interest in Hardiman — the runner-up when Trump nomi-nated Gorsuch, said two people with knowledge of his thinking who were not authorized to speak publicly. But the situation appeared to remain fluid.
Journalists setting up in front of the US Supreme Court building, in Washington, DC, yesterday.
US unlikely to reunite migrant families on time: ACLUAP
SAN DIEGO: The American Civil Liberties Union said it appears the Trump administration will miss a court-ordered deadline to reunite young children who were separated at the border with their parents in more than half of the cases.
The ACLU said the adminis-tration provided it with a list of 102 children under 5 years old and that “appears likely that less than half will be reunited” by Tuesday’s deadline.
The Justice Department asked US District Judge Dana
Sabraw for more time last week but the judge on Friday did not grant a blanket extension, saying only that he would consider certain exceptions. He told the two sides to discuss possible exceptions over the weekend and report to him yesterday.
The Justice Department said early yesterday that the admin-istration “worked tirelessly” since Friday “toward the shared goal of promptly reunifying fam-ilies while ensuring the safety of the children.”
“The results of that work have been highly encouraging, and the Department of Justice is eager to
present its progress to the court on Monday and to chart a path forward to safely reunifying other families expeditiously.”
Children were increasingly separated from their parents after Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced in May that a zero-tolerance policy on illegally entering the country was in full effect. While parents were crim-inally prosecuted, children were placed in custody of the Health and Human Services Department.
Trump reversed course on June 20 amid an international outcry and said families should remain together.
On June 26, Sabraw set deadlines of Tuesday to reunite children under 5 with their fam-ilies and July 26 for older children. Sabraw, who was appointed by President George W Bush, wrote that the “situation has reached a crisis level” and that the “chaotic circumstances” were of the government’s own making.
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said there were “under 3,000” children separated from their parents. Previously, he said 2,047.
“It’s extremely disappointing that the Trump administration
looks like it will fail to reunite even half the children under 5 with their parent,” said ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt. “These kids have already suffered so much because of this policy, and every extra day apart just adds to that pain.”
The ACLU sued in March on behalf of a Congolese woman who was separated from her daughter for five months after seeking asylum at a San Diego border crossing and a Brazilian asylum-seeker who was sepa-rated from her son after an arrest for illegal entry in August near the Texas-New Mexico border.
Trump claimed in a Twitter posting: By some accounts, the US is paying for 90% of Nato with many countries nowhere close to their 2% commitment.
Tropical storm Chris set to become hurricaneREUTERS
RALEIGH: Tropical storm Chris, slowly moving along coast of the Carolinas, is expected to build into a full-blown hurricane today, while former Hurricane Beryl dwindled into a heavy rain-storm as it crossed north-eastern Caribbean, the National Hurricane Center said.
Chris, which formed off the North Carolina coast early on Sunday, is only expected to get stronger, the NHC said. Early yesterday, it was blasting winds of 60 miles per hour as it moved at about 2 mph northward some 200 miles southeast off the coast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.
“Swells generated by Chris are expected to increase and affect portions of the coasts of North Carolina and the mid-Atlantic states during the next few days,” the NHC said. “These swells could cause life threatening surf and rip current conditions.”
The chances of Beryl reforming into a tropical storm were put near zero. The weather service discontinued posting advisories about the storm late Sunday.
Tropical Storm Chris was expected to remain well off the US coast, and the latest projections show it possibly making landfall in Nova Scotia tomorrow or early Thursday.
Mexico plans to deployown border police forceBLOOMBERG:
MEXICO CITY: After months of Donald Trump’s contro-versial clampdown on immi-gration, Mexico’s President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is planning his own border police force to stop undocumented immigrants, drugs and guns from crossing into the country from Central America, his future chief of public security said.
Picked by Lopez Obrador, Alfonso Durazo stressed that the new force would be part of a larger regional development effort to ease the poverty and violence that lead so many Central Americans to cross into Mexico. The police corps will be sizable, he said, and will be deployed to Mexico’s northern border as well. He declined to offer more specifics as the details are still being decided.
“We’re going to create a border police force that will be highly specialized,” Durazo said in an interview.
“They need to apply the law,” including stopping undoc-umented migrants and human traffickers from crossing into Mexico, which Durazo said often takes place with the help of corrupt officials.
Lopez Obrador and the party he formed in 2014 won a landslide victory in last week’s
election after voters disgusted with rising crime, corruption and poverty kicked the nation’s established parties out of power.
AMLO, as he’s known, also got a boost from pledges to protect Mexicans against an immigrant crackdown by US President Donald Trump.
Now, he’ll be faced with the unenviable task of securing the nation’s own untamed southern border, while avoiding the hard-line tactics he has criti-cized Trump for.
Lopez Obrador, who takes power on December 1, will meet with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday. Immigration is likely to be one of the topics they discuss.
Durazo stressed that the most important measures to contain immigration under Lopez Obrador will be human-itarian and will include coordi-nation with Central American countries to improve the quality of life of their citizens.
The former private sec-retary to ex President Vicente Fox, said Mexico’s security strategy has utterly failed and needs to be overhauled. “The legitimate use of force by the state is a resource,” he said. “But it shouldn’t be the first resource, it should be the last one.”
The new administration’s first priority will be to fight the causes of the violence.
Haiti unrest strands US volunteersAP
P O R T - A U - P R I N C E : Volunteer groups from several US states were stranded in Haiti after violent protests over fuel prices canceled flights and made roads unsafe.
Church groups in South Carolina, Florida, Georgia and Alabama are among those that haven’t been able to leave, according to news-paper and television reports.
Some flights were resuming on Sunday afternoon, according to airline officials and the flight tracking website FlightAware. American Airlines spokesman Ross Feinstein said in an email that two flights bound for Miami and one for New York had taken off Sunday afternoon.
But even getting to an airport could be risky, US offi-cials warned. The US State Department issued an alert urging its citizens on the island to shelter in place and not to go to an airport unless travelers had confirmed their departing flight was taking off.
US tourist dead in Mexico shootingAP
MEXICO CITY: Mexico City authorities are investigating the death of a US tourist killed by what appeared to be a stray bullet in a shooting at a taco restaurant in a wealthy capital neighborhood.
The city prosecutor’s office said a 27-year-old American woman was leaving the res-taurant early Saturday when gunmen aboard a motorcycle fired on a man authorities identified as a bouncer at an area bar. The man was wounded, but survived.
Authorities said in a statement that there was no indication the two victims knew each other. The attackers escaped.
BUSINESSTuesday 10 July 2018
PAGE | 15PAGE | 14
Doha Bank hosts ‘May 2018
Recognition Awards’
Xiaomi shares fall on Hong Kong debut
Qatar firms’ Q2 earnings expected to pick up by 13% SATISH KANADY
THE PENINSULA
DOHA: The aggregate earnings of Qatar’s listed companies are forecasted to pickup by 13 percent year-on-year in the second quarter of this year (Q2, 18).
IQ (Industries Qatar) bottom line is forecasted at QR1.2bn vs. QR513m YoY, up 73 percent, led by higher petrochemical product prices.
In addition, Commercial Bank’s net income is to reach QR410m vs. QR 88m YoY, on healthy balance sheet growth
and lower provisioning, according to a ‘GCC consensus estimate’ by SICO Research.
According to analysts’ esti-mates, GCC’s second quarter profits are forecasted to be 16 percent higher YoY, and increase 9 percent on QoQ basis. The SICO
analysts have compiled esti-mates for 150 companies across the region representing 78 percent of the total market cap-italisation. In Qatar, they have covered a total of 15 companies, including 8 banks.
Kuwaiti companies’ Q2, 18 earnings are forecasted to increase by 12 percent YoY. Kuwaiti banks estimated to report an aggregate profit of KWD 171m, up 26 percent; NBK (KWD 94m, +31 percent), KFH (KWD 46m, +7 percent) and CBK (KWD 11m vs. KWD 1m YoY).
Also, analysts expects
Mezzan bottom line to improve form KWD 2m in 2Q17 to KWD 4.2m in 2Q18m, led by a lower base, growth in own brand of snacks and distribution of bottled water in Kuwait.
In Q2, Omani companies’ results are expected to gain 9 percent YoY. Bank Muscat to report its 2Q18 bottom line at OMR 44.8m (+12 percent) vs. OMR 40.1m, on NIM support. Ahli Bank Oman earnings esti-mated to improve 33 percent (OMR 6.9m), and Bank Sohar is expected to post a Q2 net income of OMR 8.5m, +53 percent. In telecoms, Omantel’s
Q2 net profit is forecasted to decrease 2 percent (OMR 16.7m), while Ooredoo Oman bottom line is estimated to increase 8 percent (OMR 7.4m).
UAE companies’ aggregate earnings are estimated to increase 16 percent YoY, mainly on banks reporting 17 percent higher YoY overall profit in 2Q18. ADCB’s Q2 net income of AED 1.2m is estimated to be 22 percent higher YoY, on NIM expansion and higher non-interest income. FAB’s net earnings to stand at AED 2.8bn, up 10 percent and ENBD’s 2Q18 net profit to grow 14 percent at
AED 2.3bn. In addition, Etis-alat’s bottom line is expected to stand at AED 2.2bn, up 12 percnet, on favourable forex impact and better Maroc oper-ations. In real estates, Emaar Malls Q2 results to improve 17 percent at AED 557m, on start of Fashion Avenue expansion.
Saudi companies’ profits are expected to increase 18 percent YoY. Petrochemical sector Q2 results are estimated to improve 73 percent, as higher product prices will pos-itively impact the quarter. SABIC’s bottom line to go up 56 percent at SAR 5.76bn in Q2.
Boosting tiesMinister of Energy and Industry H E Dr. Mohammed bin Saleh Al Sada (left) with Denis Manturov, the Russian Minister of Industry and Commerce, during a discussion on the possible areas of co-operation between Qatar and Russia, held on the sidelines of the International Industrial Trade Fair (INNOPROM) that was officially opened on Sunday evening in the city of Yekaterinburg in Russia.
QIB wins ‘Best Islamic Bank in Qatar Award’THE PENINSULA
DOHA: Qatar Islamic Bank (QIB) has won the Best Islamic Bank in Qatar Award from the World Union of Arab Bankers (WUAB). QIB Group CEO Bassel Gamal received the award during the WUAB’s Excellence Awards Ceremony 2018, which was held in Beirut last week.
The WUAB is an umbrella group for more than 500 bankers in the Arab region and around the world. This was the WUAB’s fourth annual ceremony for Arab
banking excellence and achievement.
“We are proud of winning this award of excellence as the best Islamic Bank in Qatar. The prestigious award reflects QIB’s outstanding position as a leading Islamic financial institution in Qatar, the region, and the rest of the world,” Gamal said.
He said the award of excel-lence is a regional recognition of QIB’s continuous growth over the past years and its active role in Qatar as one of the largest Islamic financial institutions.
“The award from the WUAB also reflects our genuine affili-ation with bodies that work to bring together Arab financial institutions and seek to strengthen their regional and international presence to serve common interests and enrich the banking experience of interna-tional customers.” added, Bassel Gamal.
This latest award reflects QIB’s continued growth. The Bank registered prosperous growth rates for the fifth consec-utive year. QIB Group CEO Bassel Gamal (centre) with WUAB officials duirng the awards ceremony in Beirut.
IQ (Industries Qatar) bottom line is forecasted at QR1.2bn vs. QR513m YoY, up 73%, led by higher petrochemical product prices.
World Bank CEO adds to voices of worry over global debt pileupBLOOMBERG
SINGAPORE: Global debt is becoming a bigger worry as the global policy tightening cycle takes hold, a top boss at the World Bank warned yesterday.
“After a decade of low interest rates, the corporate and public debt in many places has ballooned to a staggering $164 trillion,” Kristalina Georgieva (pictured), chief executive officer of the World Bank, said in an interview in Singapore yesterday with Bloomberg Tel-evision’s David Ingles and Haidi Lun.
“With interest rates going up, that attention on debt sus-tainability has to be stronger.”
Central banks across the world are under pressure to follow a Federal Reserve that’s raising interest rates faster than initially anticipated, putting par-ticular stress on emerging markets and developing economies.
The need for structural policy changes, including
responses to waves of anti-glo-balization, remains great as policy makers in most econ-omies haven’t taken sufficient action during the extended period of low borrowing costs, Georgieva said.
“We don’t see many coun-tries taking advantage of this period of strong economic growth to carry forward struc-tural reforms,” she said.
“And our advice to countries is, do not wait. Good times may not last -- they usually do not last forever.”
World debt, including household debt, ballooned to $237 trillion in the fourth
quarter of 2017, according to calculations by the Washington-based Institute for International Finance. That’s more than $70 trillion higher than a decade ago.
Georgieva said countries must take a hard look at the affordability of projects that they’re undertaking, including in infrastructure, amid still fairly low interest rates.
She warned of the “white elephant” problem and said the World Bank is working harder to attract private-sector investors for “blended finance” projects.
The World Bank CEO also said: “So far what we see is that the impact of this worry about protectionism on the world economy is relatively modest” even though the World Bank is concerned about the impact on investor confidence.
“Our recommendation is focus on where anxiety comes from and solve the problems that are causing this anxiety to turn into a political momentum against trade.”
Singapore seeks compensation from Malaysia for rail projectREUTERS
SINGAPORE: Singapore will try to recover costs incurred for a high speed rail (HSR) project with Malaysia, which have exceeded $184m and are still growing, if the new government in Kuala Lumpur confirms it has cancelled the project, officials said yesterday.
Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has said he was cancelling HSR project to link Kuala Lumpur with Sin-gapore. He said Malaysia would talk to its neighbour about any compensation.
“Should Malaysia cause the HSR project to be termi-nated, we will deal with the question of compensation from Malaysia for costs incurred in accordance with the bilateral agreement and with international law,” Sin-gapore’s Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan told parliament.
14 TUESDAY 10 JULY 2018BUSINESS
9,265.00 -60.15 PTS0.65%
QSE FTSE100 DOW BRENT7,687.99 +70.29 PTS0.92%
24,762.17 +305.69 PTS1.25% Dow & Brent before going to press
$73.48 -0.32
MarketWatch
Doha Bank hosts ‘May 2018 Recognition Awards’THE PENINSULA
DOHA: Doha Bank has hosted its ‘May Recognition Awards’ ceremony at Doha Bank tower to honor outstanding achieve-ments of its staff members and teams.
The awards brought together employees from various depart-ments and business units, whose performances deserved special recognition. During the cer-emony 8 awards were dis-tributed to individual staff and various teams and branches.
Mahatab Alam won the ‘Most Committed Staff’ award, while Shirin Sameer Abdallah Abushaikha triumphed in the ‘Best Recovery Effort’ category,
the ‘Best Dealer’ title was secured by Murad Maher Ali and Prem Alphonsus Roman Noronha, Mustafa Hassan Mohamad Hassan and Joan Sal-vador Delos Reyes walked away with the ‘Best Cross Functional Team’ award.
More over the ‘Best Cus-tomer Service Employee’ title was awarded to Ahmed Sayed Mostafa Aly, while Asharaf Pal-lickare Ahamed Muhammed-kunhi grabbed the ‘Best Personal Finance Executive’ award. The ‘Best Branch’ award was assigned instead to the Doha Festival City branch and the ‘Best Branch for Retail Liabilities’ award was presented to the Al Gharaffa Branch.
Doha Bank’s Group CEO Dr. R. Seetharaman commented: “Doha Bank applauds the efforts of the winners of this month’s
awards. Their hard work and success will inspire more indi-viduals to become top achievers in the months to come. At Doha
Bank, we will never stop to rec-ognize talent through innovation and build strong career paths for our employees.”
Doha Bank’s Group CEO Dr R Seetharaman (fourth left) with recepients of the ‘May 2018 Recognition Awards’ ceremony at Doha Bank tower.
QC hosts visiting Italian delegationTHE PENINSULA
DOHA: Qatar Chamber yesterday held a meeting with a visiting Italian agricultural sector trade delegation, headed Roberto Moncalvo President of Coldiretti Association, a leading farmers union in Italy.
The meeting discussed ways to enhance cooperation between the Qatari and Italian private sector in the fields of agriculture and livestock production, feed production and food processing, in addition to introducing Qatari businessmen to the most important Italian agricultural products and reviewing the pos-sibility of exporting them to the Qatari market, QNA reported.
Qatar Chamber Board Member, Mohammed bin Ahmed Al Obaidly, stressed the impor-tance of exchanging visits between businessmen and investors from both countries to
discuss opportunities for joint cooperation and establish trade alliances and to benefit from the attractive investment climate in both countries, expressing Qatar Chamber’s willingness to
encourage the establishment of successful partnerships between private sector companies in both countries.
He pointed out that the Qatari economy is attractive to
investments in terms of oppor-tunities, privileges and legis-lation, especially in light of the State’s focus on the launch of a large number of projects to develop infrastructure and logistics, calling on the Italian investors benefit from the incen-tives provided by the Qatari gov-ernment, and to establish bene-ficial bilateral partnerships with their counterparts in Qatar.
In turn, the head of the Italian delegation presented an overview of Coldiretti Associ-ation, which focusses on organ-ising the work of agricultural companies and providing farmers with machines, fertilisers and materials for agriculture, while working on harvesting and processing of crops, calling on the parties to make joint efforts to establish bilateral investments between the Qatari investors working in this area and their counterparts in Italy.
Nissan admits falsifying data on cars made in JapanAFP
TOKYO: Nissan admitted yesterday that data on exhaust emissions and fuel economy had been deliberately “altered”, dealing a blow to the Japanese car giant’s efforts to recover trust after an inspection scandal last year.
The company did not say how many cars were affected by
the falsifications, which were uncovered during voluntary tests of all parts of Nissan’s operations conducted in the wake of last year’s scandal.
It said tests on exhaust emis-sions and fuel economy had “deviated from the prescribed testing environment”. In addition, inspection reports had been drawn up “based on altered measurement values”.
Mohammed bin Ahmed Al Obaidly (right), Qatar Chamber Board Member with Roberto Moncalvo, President of Coldiretti Association, during their meeting at Qatar Chambers premises.
China & Germany swear to keep trade free with raft of deals REUTERS
BERLIN: Germany and China signed a raft of commercial accords worth some ¤20bn ($23.51bn) yesterday, with their leaders reiterating commitments to a multilateral global trade order despite a looming trade war with the United States.
The deals, involving German industrial giants like Siemens, Volkswagen and BASF, come with the two leading exporting powerhouses being forced into an unlikely alliance in defence of the open global trade on which both their economies depend.
“We both want to sustain the system of World Trade Organi-sation rules,” Chancellor Angela Merkel said at a news conference she gave alongside Chinese Premier Li Keqiang.
“It’s a multilateral, interde-pendent system that at its best involves a plurilateral, win-win situation if we all stick to the rules,” she added.
Underlining the extent that the two countries, rivals in man-ufacturing exports, are allies when it comes to trade liberal-isation, Li said China would further open its economy to foreign investment.
China, he said, is prepared to open up its insurance and bond markets to foreign investors and has in place intel-lectual property guarantees to ensure that German companies need not fear losing proprietary technologies if they operate there.
Chinese investment is increasingly disputed in Germany, with many com-plaining that Beijing offers less
access to German companies than Berlin allows China, and Merkel called for China to open its markets further.
“We are against unilater-alism - we are in favour of free trade,” Li said.
The two leaders also expressed continuing support for the 2015 nuclear non-pro-liferation deal with Iran that was rejected by US President Donald Trump, with Li warning of “unforeseeable conse-quences” if the agreement falls apart.
Despite that, Merkel implicitly conceded that there was little Germany could do to shield companies with dealings in Iran from potential US sanctions.
“It’s a question for countries themselves, how they want to invest,” she said.
China’s Minister of Industry and Information Technology Miao Wei (sitting left), German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier (centre) and German Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer (sitting right) sign a letter of intent on automated and connected driving as German Chancellor Angela Merkel (standing right) and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang look on at the Chancellery in Berlin, yesterday.
France to unviel plans to cut public spendingAFP
VERSAILLES: French Pres-ident Emmanuel Macron said yesterday that the government would unveil a plan to cut public spending and keep the budget within European Union deficit targets “in the coming weeks”.
“There can be no tax cuts or increased investments without slowing the con-tinued growth of our spending,” Macron told law-makers in a speech at the Versailles Palace, promising “bold and courageous decisions”.
15TUESDAY 10 JULY 2018 BUSINESS
BREAK TIMEVILLAGGIO & CITY CENTERCROSSWORD NOVO Pearl Qatar
MALL
Note: Programme is subject to change without prior notice.
LANDMARK
ROXY
AL KHOR
ASIAN TOWN
Ant-Man And The Wasp (2D/Action) 10:15, 10:40, 11:30am, 12:45, 1:20, 2:00, 3:15, 4:00, 4:30, 5:45, 6:40, 7:00, 8:15, 9:20, 9:30, 10:15, 11:55pm & 12:00midnight Taxi 5 (2D) 1:10, 5:20 & 9:30pm Loving Pablo (2D) 11:00am, 3:10, 7:20 & 11:30pm Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2D/Action) 10:45am, 1:30 & 4:15pm Tag (2D) 10:00am, 12:15, 4:30, 6:45, 9:00 & 11:15pm Leilet Hana Wa Srour (2D/Action) 2:30pmEscape Plan 2: Hades (2D/Action) 10:00am, 2:40, 7:20pm & 12:00midnight Sicario 2: Day of The Soldado (2D/Action) 12:10, 4:50 & 9:30pm The Incredibles (2D/Animation) 10:00am & 2:45pmLittle Witch (2D) 12:30, 5:15 & 7:30pm Qalb Omnah (2D/Arabic) 9:45pm & 12:00midnight Ocean’s Eight (2D/Action) 10:00am, 12:15, 5:15, 7:30, 9:45pm & 12:00midnight Deadpool 2 (2D/Action) 2:30pm Ant-Man And The Wasp (3D/IMAX) 10:30am, 1:00, 3:30, 6:00, 8:30 & 11:00pm
Doby & Disy’s Dream Town (2D/Animation) 2:00 & 3:30pmPantham(2D/Telugu) 2:00pm Na Band Na Barrati (2D) 2:00pm Sanju (2D/Hindi) 2:15 & 7:00pm The Little Witch (2D/Comedy) 3:00pm The Incredibles 2 (2D/Animation) 5:00pm Ant-Man And The Wasp (3D/Action) 5:00, 7:15 & 9:30pm Qalb Omnah(2D/Arabic) 9:15pm Tej: I Love You(2D/Telugu)4:30pmMr. Chandramaouli (2D/Tamil) 11:15pm Tag (2D/Comedy) 11:30pmThe First Purge (2D/Action) 9:45pm Taxi 5 (2D/Action) 11:45pm
ROYAL PLAZA
Doby & Disy’s Dream Town (2D/Animation) 2:15pmAnt-Man And The Wasp (2D/Action) 2:15, 7:00, 9:15 & 11:30pm Pantham(2D/Telugu) 2:15pm The Incredibles 2 (2D) 4:45pmThe Little Witch(2D/Comedy) 4:00pm Sanju(2D/Hindi)4:30&8:00pmTag (2D/Comedy) 6:00 & 9:15pm Taxi 5 (2D/Action) 6:00pm Qalb Omnah (2D/Arabic) 7:15pm The First Purge (2D/Horror) 11:30pm Mr. Chandramaouli (2D/Tamil) 11:00pm
Ant-Man And The Wasp (2D/Action) 2:30, 7:00 & 9:15pm Doby & Disy’s Dream Town (2D/Animation) 5:30pmPantham(2D/Telugu) 3:00pm The Little Witch (2D/Comedy) 2:15 & 4:15pm Sanju (2D/Hindi) 6:15 & 11:00pm Tag (2D/Comedy) 7:00pm Loving Pablo (2D/Crime) 9:00pm Taxi 5 (2D/Action) 11:30pm The First Purge (2D/Horror) 12:00midnight France Vs Belgium 9:00pm
Ant-Man And The Wasp (2D/Action) 11:00am, 1:30, 4:00, 6:30, 9:00 & 11:30pm Sanju (2D/Hindi) 11:45am, 5:30 & 11:15pmThe Incredibles 2 (2D/Animation) 12:15, 2:45 & 5:15pmMr. Chandramouli (Tamil) 2:45 & 8:30pmThe First Purge(2D/Action) 7:45, 9:45 & 11:45pm
Ant-Man And The Wasp (2D/Action) 12:30, 3:10, 5:50, 8:30, 10:00 & 11:10pm The Incredibles 2 (2D/Animation) 2:45 & 7:30pm Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2D/Action) 7:00 & 9:50pm Little Witch (2D) 12:30 & 5:15pm Pantham (2D/Telugu) 12:30 & 6:50pm Tej: I Love You (2D/Telugu) 3:40 & 10:00pm Tag (2D) 12:30, 2:40 & 5:15pm
Follow the story of a small witch who is determined to be the best witch of the forest and along with her raven Abraxas rolls from the one in the other adventure . From such a little witch you will need to love.
FLIK MirqabTHE LITTLE WITCH
Ant-Man And The Wasp 10:20, 11:40am, 12:45, 2:20, 3:10, 4:45, 5:35, 6:30, 7:20, 8:00, 10:45, 11:05pm & 12:10amDoby & Disy’s Dream Town 10:40am, 12:30, 2:20 & 5:10pm Dead Pool 2 1:50 & 5:05pm Incredibles 2 11:20am, 2:00, 6:00, 4:10 & 7:00pm Tag 11:30am, 1:40, 3:50, 6:50, 8:55 & 11:40pmJurrasic World: Fallen Kingdom (2D/Action) 11:55am, 2:30, 7:30pm Ocean’s Eight 10:50am, 1:05, 4:35, 6:40, 8:55, 9:30, 10:05pm Qalb Omnah 4:20 & 10:45pm Maya The Bee 3:20pm
The First Purge 8:30, 11:25pm & 12:20am Woman In Times of Blockade 11:45am, 9:45, 11:25pm & 12:20am
Mideast sovereign investors increase allocations into private creditTHE PENINSULA
DOHA: Equities have overtaken bonds to become the lead asset class for sovereigns across active, passive and factor strategies, this year.Middle East sovereign investors is showing growing interest in private markets with increased private credit and infrastructure allocations.
The sixth Invesco Global Sov-ereign Asset Management Study, an annual in-depth report on the complex investment behaviour of sovereign wealth funds and central banks, showed Middle East sovereigns remain the most committed users of active man-agement, with an average of 65 percent of portfolios actively managed.
This year’s study was con-ducted face-to-face amongst 126 individual sovereign investors a n d c e n t r a l b a n k
reserve managers across the globe representing $17 trillion of assets, of which 62 are central banks (35 in 2017), reflecting their growing status as sovereign investors.
Middle East sovereign investors also often pursue opportunistic strategies in less traditional, less efficient markets where active management can potentially deliver significant alpha. They also tend to have a significant internal active equity team, which means that the cost
implication of higher use of active strategies is muted. Asian sovereigns have a relatively similar profile in being signif-icant users of active man-agement, driven largely by the perception that their local equity markets are less efficient than the US and Europe, as well as
having longer average holding periods for their equity mandates.
The average allocations to equities have increased to 33 percent from 29 percent in 2017. The increase in equity allocations has been driven by a number of factors, including the equity bull market. On average, equity returns were 8.7 percent amongst respondents, which sig-nificantly supported strong out-comes at portfolio level (9.4 percent in 2017, up from 4.1 percent in 2016).
With most regions showing strong demand for private markets, Middle Eastern sover-eigns are the most targeted in their programmes, with alloca-tions into private credit increasing 44 percent and infra-structure increasing by 33 percent.
In contrast, for private equity
a similar number of sovereign investors are reducing alloca-tions in favour of other forms of private market asset classes as those making new allocation.
With allocations to equities increasing over the past five years, as a result, nearly half of sovereign investors are now incrementally or materially overweight in equities. Whilst many sovereign investors are content to remain overweight, some are not comfortable with the status quo.
More than a third (35 percent) plan to reduce equity weightings over the medium term, with the intent overall to make small reductions rather than cut significantly.
Of those looking to reduce weightings, many are driven by views that equity valuations are high on both absolute and rel-ative bases, and that markets are
at risk of correction, either due to geo-political or economic cycles. Specific issues acting as headwinds to equity markets include macro concerns such as the possibility of a trade war, China, valuations, and inflation.
Zainab Kufaishi (pictured), Head of Institutional Sales for Middle East & Africa at Invesco, commented: “Whilst sovereigns remain increasingly committed to equities as a core growth asset, there has been a real shift within these equity portfolios.. Although passive strategies have been major beneficiaries, it is far more nuanced than a movement from active to passive; portfolio traffic is actually moving in multiple directions. Looking forward, factor strategies are the clearest winners, with sovereigns seeing factor as a third pillar between traditional active and passive management.”
Xiaomi shares fall on Hong Kong debutAFP
HONG KONG: Shares of Chinese smartphone giant Xiaomi fell almost 6 percent in its trading debut in Hong Kong yesterday, a long-awaited IPO over-shadowed by the start of a US-China trade war and bearish investor sentiment.
Shares opened at HK$16.60 ($2.12) in Hong Kong, down from their IPO price of HK$17.00 and dived 3.8 percent in morning trading, falling as much as 5.9 percent to HK$16 at one point.
Investors felt a lack of con-fidence even before public trading started, selling their shares at a discount on the
unofficial “grey market” last week, Bloomberg News reported.
Despite being one of the most anticipated Chinese tech-nology IPOs this year, Xiaomi saw a disappointing valuation of US$54bn, well below its ambi-tious US$100bn target.
Founded in 2010 by entre-preneur Lei Jun, Xiaomi has grown from a start-up in Zhong-guancun, China’s “Silicon Valley,” to become the world’s fourth-biggest smartphone vendor at the end of last year, according to International Data Corp.
Lei has described Xiaomi as a “new species” of company with what he describes as a “triathlon”
business model combining hardware, internet and e-com-merce services. Its products range from smart home gadgets like air purifiers to non-tech items such as pillows and ball-point pens.
A delay in Xiaomi’s plan to launch new so-called Chinese Depository Receipts (CDRs) in Shanghai as well as doubts about the sustainability of its business model were also among reasons for the lower valuation, analysts said.
Chinese authorities devised the CDR programme, under which homegrown companies listed abroad can simultaneously list at home, after watching
technology heavyweights Alibaba and Baidu launch on Wall Street.
The plan aims to help devel-opment of China’s still relatively immature and volatile share
markets and allow domestic investors to invest in the coun-try’s big tech champions.
Xiaomi founder, chairman and CEO, Lei Jun (third left), hits a gong at the company’s IPO launch on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in Hong Kong, yesterday.
Middle Eastern sovereigns are the most targeted in their programmes, with allocations into private credit increasing 44% and infrastructure increasing by 33%.
16 TUESDAY 10 JULY 2018MORNING BREAK
HIGH TIDE 00:45 – 15:30 LOW TIDE 08:00 – 22:00
Hot daytime with slight dust to blowing
dust on some areas at times.
WEATHER TODAY
Courtesy: Qatar Meteorology Department
Minimum Maximum 34oC 44oC
FAJRSHOROOK
03. 22 AM
04. 50 AM
11. 39 AM
03. 03 PM
06. 30 PM
08. 00 PM
ZUHRASR
MAGHRIBISHA
PRAYER TIMINGS
Starbucks to ditch plastic straws by 2020AP
NEW YORK: Starbucks will eliminate plastic straws from all of its locations within two years, citing the environmental threat to oceans.
The coffee chain becomes the largest food and beverage company to do so as calls to cut waste globally grow louder.
While plastic straws account for a small percentage of the waste that ends up in oceans, they’ve become a flashpoint.
A week after its hometown of Seattle banned plastic drinking straws and utensils, Starbucks said that by 2020, it will be using straws made from biodegradable materials like paper and specially designed lids. The company already offers alternative straws in Seattle.
Other cities, like Fort Myers Beach in Florida, have banned plastic straws. Similar proposals are being considered in places like New York and San Francisco.
The push to ban plastic straws gained traction after a viral video in the year 2015 showed rescuers removing a plastic straw from a sea turtle’s nose in graphic detail.
The issue of waste more broadly is coming up in company boardrooms.
In February, Dunkin’ Donuts said it would eliminate polystyrene foam cups from its stores by 2020.
McDonald’s shareholders voted down a proposal requesting a report on plastic straws in May. But the burger chain recently said it would switch to paper straws in the United Kingdom and Ireland by next year, and test alternatives to plastic straws in some US locations.
McDonald’s also said this year that it would use only recycled or other environ-mentally friendly materials for its soda cups, Happy Meal boxes and other packaging by 2025.
One reason big chains say it will take time to change may be the difficulty in
securing adequate supplies. Imperial Dade, a foodservice and janitorial supplies dis-tributor based in New Jersey, says it’s seen a huge spike in demand for alternative straws in recent months.
“Our biggest challenge is trying to locate alternative sources so we can satisfy the demand,” said Laura Craven, the company’s director of marketing.
Craven also said she’s starting to see more awareness about the need for exemp-tions for straws that bend, which people with disabilities and others may need. Starbucks says it expects an alternative it has to work in that regard.
While plastic drinking straws have become one of the more high-profile envi-ronmental issues, they make up only about 4 percent of the plastic trash by number of pieces, and far less by weight.
Straws add up to about 2,000 tonnes of the nearly 9 million tons of plastic waste that ends up in waters around the globe each year.
The advocacy group 5 Gyres notes that the top five biggest sources of single-use plastic are plastic bags, water bottles, to-go containers, to-go cups and straws.
The strawless lids will begin to appear in Seattle and Vancouver Starbucks this fall, with phased rollouts within the US and Canada next year.
A global rollout of the strawless lids will follow, beginning in Europe where they will be used in some stores in France and the Netherlands, as well as in the United Kingdom.
A man stirring his iced coffee with a straw, at a Starbucks coffee shop, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Justin Bieber & Hailey Baldwin are engagedREUTERS
WASHINGTON: Pop singer Justin Bieber became engaged to model Hailey Baldwin over the weekend, according to US media reports.
The couple dated in 2016 but had broken up. Last month, they appeared together pub-licly, leading to speculation from fans that they had rekindled their r o m a n c e , C N N reported.
The pair got engaged on Saturday during a trip to the Bahamas, E! News said.
Agents for Bieber, 24, and Baldwin, 21, did not immediately respond to requests for comments.
Bieber’s parents
put up social media posts that helped spark speculation about the pair.
A tweet posted by Baldwin’s father, actor Stephen Baldwin, also seemed to allude to the engagement, saying: “Always pray 4 Gods will !! He is moving in the hearts of JB&HB,” according to CNN. The post is no longer on Baldwin’s Twitter account.
Mozilla working on new browser for AndroidIANS
SAN FRANCISCO: The maker of Open Source browser Firefox, is reportedly working on a new Internet browser “Fenix” for Android operating system (OS).
The new app is expected to target a younger, tech-savvy audience, Android
Headlines reported recently.Mozilla contributors started contrib-
uting more actively in the project since June, according to GitHub’s version history overview.
There has been no comment from the “Fenix” developers about their plans of commercialising the browser in the
immediate future, the report added.The reasons for developing another
browser for Android remains equally unclear from the developers’ end, espe-cially when Firefox remains one of the most popular internet portals with over a 100 million installs to date, according to its official Google Play Store listing.
MOSCOW: The Qatar @roadto2022 Exhibition at the historic GUM department store in Moscow is now open.
Located on the ground floor of the store, the free-to-attend attraction offers visitors a fascinating trip through football history, with memorabilia including match-worn shirts from legends such as Pelé, Diego Maradona and Xavi Hernández, along with mascots and official balls from past tournaments.
In addition, the exhibition show-cases Qatar’s plans for the next edition of the tournament in 2022, while cel-ebrating the country’s football history, including the comprehensive FIFA World Cup™ tickets collection of Qatari collector Mohammed Abdulatif.
Lana Kayed, the Supreme Com-mittee for Delivery & Legacy’s (SC) Head of Art & Culture, organised the exhibition.
“The objective of the exhibition is to engage with football fans in Russia
and introduce them to Qatar’s prepa-rations for the World Cup,” said Kayed.
“We want to showcase the passion for football in Qatar and highlight foot-ball’s unique ability to unite people of all cultures and backgrounds.”
Kayed thanked Abdulatif for sharing his memorabilia, which is proving a highlight for visitors.
“Mohammed is an engineer but he has an incredible passion for football and he’s built up a vast collection over the years. It includes tickets from every opening match and final — it’s the most complete tickets collection in the world.
“We also have the official poster from the match Pelé played in Qatar in the 1970s, which was donated by former Al Rayyan player Ali Al Ali.”
Kayed added: “Showcasing per-sonal collections highlights the fact this is a people-led exhibition, which I think is a beautiful part of the installation. We’ve really tried to display people’s passion for football.”
In addition to viewing memorabilia, visitors to the exhibition are given the chance to record a personal message
for the people of Qatar. They can also view sculptures created especially for the exhibition by leading Qatari and Russian artists.
The exhibition is open from 10:00am to 10:00pm every day until Sunday, 15 July.
The Qatar @roadto2022 Exhibition
is one of several installations organised by the SC during the 2018 FIFA World Cup™.
Majlis Qatar and Elements Qatar are attracting hundreds of visitors a day in Gorky Park, while the Qatar-Russia portals are giving people a glimpse of life in the two countries.
Childhood stress you suffered may affect your kids’ healthIANS
NEW YORK: Experiencing childhood trauma resulting from separation of parents or witnessing violence at home may have long-term effects, suggests a new study that found that ill effects of such stress can reach the children of the sufferer.
The results, published in the journal Pediatrics, showed that the children of parents who themselves had four or more adverse childhood experiences were at double the risk of having attention deficit hyper-activity disorder and were four time more likely to have mental health problems.
“This is the first research to show that the long-term behav-ioural health harms of childhood adversity extend across generations from parent to child,” said study lead author Adam Schickedanz from Uni-versity of California, Los Angeles, US.
For the study the team ana-lysed information from a United States national survey con-taining information from four generations of families.
The researchers looked at whether the parents were abused, neglected or exposed to other family stress or mal-treatment while growing up and analysed information on their children’s behaviour problems and medical diag-noses of attention deficit disorder.
The types of childhood hardships analysed for the research included divorce or separation of parents, death of or estrangement from a parent, emotional, physical or sexual abuse, witnessing vio-lence in the home, exposure to substance abuse in the household or parental mental illness.
The findings showed that a mother’s childhood experiences had a much stronger adverse effect on a child’s behavioural health than the father’s experiences.
“If we can identify these children who are at a higher risk, we can connect them to services that might reduce their risk or prevent behavioural health problems,” Schickedanz also explained.
Bear’s bid to predict FIFA World Cup match winnerPamir, an 11-year-old Tien Shan white-clawed bear, chooses Belgium while attempting to predict the result of the soccer World Cup semi-final match between France and Belgium during an event at the Royev Ruchey Zoo, in Krasnoyarsk, Russia, yesterday.
Justin Bieber and Hailey Baldwin
Drake’s 25 songs hit Billboard Hot 100 chartAP
NEW YORK: Drake officially owns the Billboard charts, where seven of his songs currently sit in the Top 10.
All 25 tracks from Drake’s ultra-popular “Scorpion” album, released on June 29, are on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
His former No. 1 hit, “Nice for What,” returns to the top of the chart, while “Nonstop” debuts at No. 2. Drake’s other songs in the Top 10 are “God’s Plan,” ‘’In My Feelings,” ‘’I’m Upset,” ‘’Emotionless” and “Don’t Matter to Me,” which includes previously recorded vocals from Michael Jackson.
Drake’s new feat breaks the Beatles’ 1964 record, when five of their songs reached the Top 10 in the same week.
Overall, Drake has 31 Top 10 hits, tied with Rihanna. They only trail behind The Beatles (34) and Madonna (38).
“Scorpion” sold 732,171 equivalent albums — based off album sales and streams — to debut at No. 1 on Billboard’s 200 albums chart. The album earned a record-setting 745.9 million on-demand audio streams and is his eighth No. 1 album on the chart.
