SPORT | 18 BUSINESS | 15 QFMA to further boost Qatari capital market Djokovic powers past Federer into Australian Open final Friday 31 January 2020 6 Jumada II - 1441 2 Riyals www.thepeninsula.qa Volume 24 | Number 8153 Pack up to 100 GB when you travel with the new Qatarna 5G plans Amir honours outstanding graduates of Military College QNA — DOHA Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani patronised the graduation ceremony of the 15th batch of students of Ahmed Bin Mohammed Military College at its headquarters yesterday morning. The graduation ceremony was attended by Prime Minister and Minister of Interior, H E Sheikh Khalid bin Khalifa bin Abdulaziz Al Thani, a number of Their Excellencies the Min- isters, a number of leaders of military colleges from brotherly and friendly countries, guests and parents of graduates. Upon H H the Amir’s arrival to the podium, the Qatari national anthem was played. Then commander of the grad- uates’ queue came forward to request H H the Amir to review the queue of the 119 graduates from the State of Qatar and a number of sisterly countries, such as the State of Kuwait, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the Republic of Sudan, the Tunisian Republic, the State of Libya and the Islamic Republic of Mauritania. After that, the graduates staged a military parade with slow and normal march before H H the Amir. H H the Amir then honoured 10 outstanding graduates. The 15th batch handed over the flag to the 16th batch, and the order for promotions was then read out. At the end of the ceremony, the graduates took the oath and the national anthem was played. Commander of the Ahmed Bin Mohammed Military College Staff Colonel Abdulhadi Mohammed Al Hajri gave a speech on the occasion in which he said that the graduating batch takes pride in the honour of H H the Amir’s attendance. The 119 graduates, he said, were distributed over the Armed Forces, Amiri Guard, Internal Security Force (Lekhwiya), State Security Bureau and a number of graduates from sisterly coun- tries, such as the State of Kuwait, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the Republic of Sudan, the Tunisian Republic, the State of Libya and the Islamic Republic of Mauritania. They have carried out internal and external field training and exercises with determination and courage in order to follow the path of pre- vious generations, he added. He pointed out that, as a con- tinuation of the work plan and achievements in the College, the third and fourth courses of the undergraduate candidates diploma graduated on Wednesday. Last Sep- tember, the College received the 19th batch to begin their careers in the field of pride and dignity, he said. Staff Colonel Al Hajri noted that, in pursuit of H H the Amir’s vision, the College will be a meeting place to enhance broth- erhood and friendship with brotherly and friendly countries, and that members from the Republic of Iraq and the Republic of Rwanda joined for the first time with this batch. P2 Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani reviewing the queue of the 15th batch of Ahmed Bin Mohammed Military College graduates. RIGHT: H H the Amir honouring an outstanding student. AJCS ranked first in Gulf region for the third year THE PENINSULA — DOHA Al Jazeera Centre for Studies (AJCS) was ranked the top think tank in the Gulf region for the third year in a row by the Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program (TTCSP) at the University of Pennsylvania in its 2019 Global Go To Think Tank Index (GGTTI) and the fourth in the Middle East and North Africa region, a step up from last year. It is still the only Arab think tank among the global think tanks applying the best quality assurance and integrity policies and proce- dures. According to the 2019 index, which was released on Wednesday, AJCS was ranked first in the Gulf region among a total of 62 think tanks and fourth in the Mena region among a total of 507 think tanks. In addition, it is the only Arab institution under the cat- egory of “Best Quality Assurance and Integrity Pol- icies and Procedures” and ranked 55th in the world. The 2019 index will be co- launched in 130 cities around the world, including Doha, in research symposia on the role of think tanks in states and societies with the participation of nearly 1000 researchers and experts. The Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program at the Uni- versity of Pennsylvania ranks think tanks under 30 criteria using strict methodology, ren- dering its annual Global Go To Think Tank Index a unique resource and a distinguished data base of global think tanks. Speaker reiterates Qatar’s support for Palestinians’ rights QNA — OUAGADOUGOU Speaker of the Shura Council, H E Ahmed bin Abdullah bin Zaid Al Mahmoud stressed the State of Qatar’s firm position from the Palestinian issue, and all initiatives that would see the Palestinian people gain their right to establish an inde- pendent state based on the borders of June 4 of 1967 with East Jerusalem as the capital. His Excellency was speaking at the 15th session of the Parlia- mentary Union of the OIC Member States (PUIC) Con- ference in Burkina Faso and called for cooperation between Islamic countries, especially with the occupation showing greater disrespect to the international community by expanding in occupied Arab land. His Excellency stressed that the State of Qatar continues its support to the Palestinian people, and noted that Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani directed to support the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) after the United States halted its financial support of the agency. H E also reiterated the State of Qatar’s firm rejection of violence and terrorism, considering it a threat to the peoples, and called for continued efforts to counter it. His Excellency expressed Qatar’s sol- idarity with Burkina Faso, fol- lowing the latest terrorist attacks the country suffered from. He added that Qatar’s position was to reject double standards when it comes to terrorism or linking it to one religion, culture, or race. He also called on the importance of distinguishing between terrorism and the peo- ple’s right to resist occupation. His Excellency said that Muslim countries suffered from policies that antagonised Islam and Muslims, adding that Muslim countries are always accused of being behind any violent incident. He noted that the Muslim world has one of the most important factors for unity and cooperation, which is unity of faith. H E the Speaker discussed corruption and said that the State of Qatar held the conference of the Global Organization of Par- liamentarians Against Corruption, and called on non-members to join the organization in order to better fight corruption. His Excellency warned that, lacking a united voice, Muslim minorities are suffering from discrimination and dis- placement. He added that the State of Qatar calls for uniting the efforts of Muslims, and warns of the threat oppressing minorities could pose to inter- national peace and security. H E expressed hope that the conference will play a role in uniting the Muslim world and finding a mechanism to unite Muslim minorities. He also expressed his thanks to Burkina Faso’s president, government, and people for their good reception and thanked President of the National Assembly of Burkina Faso Alassane Bala Sakande, who is also the head of the conference, along with President of the House of Representatives in Morocco Habib El Malki for his efforts in the previous conference. P3 37 countries participate in Souq Waqif Honey Exhibition SIDI MOHAMED THE PENINSULA The third Souq Waqif Honey Exhibition 2020 began yesterday with participation of over 150 companies, from 37 countries, showcasing more than 50 varieties of honey. The 10-day event is being organised by the Private Engi- neering Office (PEO) in cooper- ation with the Ministry of Com- merce and Industry and with the participation of the Ministry of Municipality and Environment. Compared to last year, the number of companies partici- pating in the event has increased by 25 percent. The exhibition is open to the public from 8am to 12 noon, and from 3pm to 9pm, except Fridays when it will be open from 3pm to 10pm. “The exhibition includes more than 50 types of honey, of which 10 are being displayed for the first time in the Exhibition. Local companies are partici- pating in the event because their honey is of superior quality,” said General Supervisor of Souq Waqif Honey Exhibition, Khalid Saif Al Suwaidi. Speaking to The Peninsula yesterday, he pointed out that “For the first times countries like Sweden, Denmark, and America participating in this exhibition. The exhibition also includes Omani laboratory which can check the quality of honey. Visitors can get their honey tested from this labo- ratory by paying QR30.” He expects the sale of honey to be more than previous year’s exhibition. A total of 37 tonnes of honey was sold during the previous edition, while officials expect sale of 50 tonnes during this year’s exhibition. Calligraphy expo highlights creativity of Qatari artists RAYNALD C RIVERA THE PENINSULA It doesn’t take an under- standing of the Arabic language to appreciate the beauty of the calligraphic works on display at “Calligraphy and Illumi- nation” exhibition which launched yesterday at Katara Cultural Village. A diverse collection of 32 works by six Qatari calligra- phers are on show at the exhi- bition which runs for two weeks. They include those by Ibrahim Ali, Moza Al Kuwari, Abdullah Fakhro, Nasser Hamad Al Khalaqi, Iman Al Saad and Issa Yousef Al Hassan. With expertise in different types of Arabic calligraphy, the artists provide visitors a closer look into the exquisite beauty of Arabic scripts used not only to express ideas but as an art form from architecture to design. Visitors are given a peek into the long history and development of Arabic callig- raphy through the variety of glyphs and forms used by the artists. Fakhro said he is partici- pating with seven of his works in which he used Kairouan Kufic script, and the Kufi cal- ligraphy of the Holy Qur’an. With a degree in Civil Engi- neering, Fakhro is a member of Qatar Fine Arts Society who has participated in numerous exhi- bition both in Qatar and abroad since 2001. In his five works being showcased, Al Hassan exhibits diverse forms and techniques using different media such as special kinds of paper and ink to introduce the aesthetics of the various types of calligraphy. Holding a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Qatar University, Al Hassan has keen interest in Arabic calligraphy combined with fine arts and participated in many local exhi- bitions and events. With a penchant for Arabic calligraphy and the art of gilding and ornamentation, Al Saad displays calligraphy com- bined with floral and other dec- orative patterns and characters. With BA in English Literature from Qatar University, Al Saad creates artworks whose ele- ments are chiefly inspired by Islamic manuscripts. She has taken part in many exhibitions in Qatar. P3 119 graduates include students from Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan, Sudan, Tunisia, Libya and Mauritania.
Transcript
SPORT | 18BUSINESS | 15
QFMA to further boost Qatari capital
market
Djokovic powers past Federer into Australian Open final
Friday 31 January 2020
6 Jumada II - 1441
2 Riyals
www.thepeninsula.qa
Volume 24 | Number 8153
Pack up to 100 GB when you travelwith the new Qatarna 5G plans
Amir honours outstanding graduates of Military College
QNA — DOHA
Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani patronised the graduation ceremony of the 15th batch of students of Ahmed Bin Mohammed Military College at its headquarters yesterday morning.
The graduation ceremony was attended by Prime Minister and Minister of Interior, H E Sheikh Khalid bin Khalifa bin Abdulaziz Al Thani, a number of Their Excellencies the Min-isters, a number of leaders of military colleges from brotherly
and friendly countries, guests and parents of graduates.
Upon H H the Amir’s arrival to the podium, the Qatari national anthem was played. Then commander of the grad-uates’ queue came forward to request H H the Amir to review the queue of the 119 graduates from the State of Qatar and a number of sisterly countries, such as the State of Kuwait, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the Republic of Sudan, the
Tunisian Republic, the State of Libya and the Islamic Republic of Mauritania.
After that, the graduates staged a military parade with slow and normal march before H H the Amir.
H H the Amir then honoured 10 outstanding graduates. The 15th batch handed over the flag to the 16th batch, and the order for promotions was then read out. At the end of the ceremony, the graduates took the oath and
the national anthem was played.Commander of the Ahmed
Bin Mohammed Military College Staff Colonel Abdulhadi Mohammed Al Hajri gave a speech on the occasion in which he said that the graduating batch takes pride in the honour of H H the Amir’s attendance.
The 119 graduates, he said, were distributed over the Armed Forces, Amiri Guard, Internal Security Force (Lekhwiya), State Security Bureau and a number
of graduates from sisterly coun-tries, such as the State of Kuwait, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the Republic of Sudan, the Tunisian Republic, the State of Libya and the Islamic Republic of Mauritania. They have carried out internal and external field training and exercises with determination and courage in order to follow the path of pre-vious generations, he added.
He pointed out that, as a con-tinuation of the work plan and
achievements in the College, the third and fourth courses of the undergraduate candidates diploma graduated on Wednesday. Last Sep-tember, the College received the 19th batch to begin their careers in the field of pride and dignity, he said.
Staff Colonel Al Hajri noted that, in pursuit of H H the Amir’s vision, the College will be a meeting place to enhance broth-erhood and friendship with brotherly and friendly countries, and that members from the Republic of Iraq and the Republic of Rwanda joined for the first time with this batch. �P2
Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani reviewing the queue of the 15th batch of Ahmed Bin Mohammed Military College graduates. RIGHT: H H the Amir honouring an outstanding student.
AJCS ranked first in Gulf region for the third year
THE PENINSULA — DOHA
Al Jazeera Centre for Studies (AJCS) was ranked the top think tank in the Gulf region for the third year in a row by the Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program (TTCSP) at the University of Pennsylvania in its 2019 Global Go To Think Tank Index (GGTTI) and the fourth in the Middle East and North Africa region, a step up from last year. It is still the only Arab think tank among the global think tanks applying the best quality assurance and integrity policies and proce-dures.
According to the 2019 index, which was released on Wednesday, AJCS was ranked first in the Gulf region among a total of 62 think tanks and fourth in the Mena region among a total of 507 think tanks. In addition, it is the only Arab institution under the cat-egory of “Best Quality Assurance and Integrity Pol-icies and Procedures” and ranked 55th in the world.
The 2019 index will be co-launched in 130 cities around the world, including Doha, in research symposia on the role of think tanks in states and societies with the participation of nearly 1000 researchers and experts.
The Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program at the Uni-versity of Pennsylvania ranks think tanks under 30 criteria using strict methodology, ren-dering its annual Global Go To Think Tank Index a unique resource and a distinguished data base of global think tanks.
Speaker reiterates Qatar’s support for Palestinians’ rightsQNA — OUAGADOUGOU
Speaker of the Shura Council, H E Ahmed bin Abdullah bin Zaid Al Mahmoud stressed the State of Qatar’s firm position from the Palestinian issue, and all initiatives that would see the Palestinian people gain their right to establish an inde-pendent state based on the borders of June 4 of 1967 with East Jerusalem as the capital.
His Excellency was speaking at the 15th session of the Parlia-mentary Union of the OIC Member States (PUIC) Con-ference in Burkina Faso and called for cooperation between
Islamic countries, especially with the occupation showing greater disrespect to the international community by expanding in occupied Arab land.
His Excellency stressed that the State of Qatar continues its support to the Palestinian people, and noted that Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani directed to support the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) after the United States halted its financial support of the agency.
H E also reiterated the State of Qatar’s firm rejection of violence and terrorism, considering it a threat to the peoples, and called for
continued efforts to counter it. His Excellency expressed Qatar’s sol-idarity with Burkina Faso, fol-lowing the latest terrorist attacks the country suffered from.
He added that Qatar’s position was to reject double standards when it comes to terrorism or linking it to one religion, culture, or race. He also called on the importance of distinguishing between terrorism and the peo-ple’s right to resist occupation.
His Excellency said that Muslim countries suffered from policies that antagonised Islam and Muslims, adding that Muslim countries are always accused of being behind any violent incident.
He noted that the Muslim world has one of the most important factors for unity and cooperation, which is unity of faith.
H E the Speaker discussed corruption and said that the State of Qatar held the conference of the Global Organization of Par-liamentarians Against Corruption, and called on non-members to join the organization in order to better fight corruption.
His Excellency warned that, lacking a united voice, Muslim minorities are suffering from discrimination and dis-placement. He added that the State of Qatar calls for uniting the efforts of Muslims, and
warns of the threat oppressing minorities could pose to inter-national peace and security.
H E expressed hope that the conference will play a role in uniting the Muslim world and finding a mechanism to unite Muslim minorities. He also expressed his thanks to Burkina Faso’s president, government, and people for their good reception and thanked President of the National Assembly of Burkina Faso Alassane Bala Sakande, who is also the head of the conference, along with President of the House of Representatives in Morocco Habib El Malki for his efforts in the previous conference. �P3
37 countries participate in Souq Waqif Honey ExhibitionSIDI MOHAMED THE PENINSULA
The third Souq Waqif Honey Exhibition 2020 began yesterday with participation of over 150 companies, from 37 countries, showcasing more than 50 varieties of honey.
The 10-day event is being organised by the Private Engi-neering Office (PEO) in cooper-ation with the Ministry of Com-merce and Industry and with the participation of the Ministry of Municipality and Environment.
Compared to last year, the number of companies partici-pating in the event has increased by 25 percent. The exhibition is open to the public from 8am to 12 noon, and from 3pm to 9pm, except Fridays when it will be open from 3pm to 10pm.
“The exhibition includes more than 50 types of honey, of
which 10 are being displayed for the first time in the Exhibition. Local companies are partici-pating in the event because their honey is of superior quality,” said General Supervisor of Souq Waqif Honey Exhibition, Khalid Saif Al Suwaidi.
Speaking to The Peninsula yesterday, he pointed out that “For the first times countries like Sweden, Denmark, and America participating in this exhibition. The exhibition also includes Omani laboratory which can check the quality of honey. Visitors can get their honey tested from this labo-ratory by paying QR30.”
He expects the sale of honey to be more than previous year’s exhibition. A total of 37 tonnes of honey was sold during the previous edition, while officials expect sale of 50 tonnes during this year’s exhibition.
Calligraphy expo highlights creativity of Qatari artistsRAYNALD C RIVERA THE PENINSULA
It doesn’t take an under-standing of the Arabic language to appreciate the beauty of the calligraphic works on display at “Calligraphy and Illumi-nation” exhibition which launched yesterday at Katara Cultural Village.
A diverse collection of 32 works by six Qatari calligra-phers are on show at the exhi-bition which runs for two weeks. They include those by Ibrahim Ali, Moza Al Kuwari, Abdullah Fakhro, Nasser Hamad Al Khalaqi, Iman Al Saad and Issa Yousef Al Hassan.
With expertise in different types of Arabic calligraphy, the artists provide visitors a closer
look into the exquisite beauty of Arabic scripts used not only to express ideas but as an art form from architecture to design. Visitors are given a peek into the long history and development of Arabic callig-raphy through the variety of glyphs and forms used by the artists.
Fakhro said he is partici-pating with seven of his works in which he used Kairouan Kufic script, and the Kufi cal-ligraphy of the Holy Qur’an. With a degree in Civil Engi-neering, Fakhro is a member of Qatar Fine Arts Society who has participated in numerous exhi-bition both in Qatar and abroad since 2001.
In his five works being showcased, Al Hassan exhibits diverse forms and techniques
using different media such as special kinds of paper and ink to introduce the aesthetics of the various types of calligraphy. Holding a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Qatar University, Al Hassan has keen interest in Arabic calligraphy combined with fine arts and participated in many local exhi-bitions and events.
With a penchant for Arabic calligraphy and the art of gilding and ornamentation, Al Saad displays calligraphy com-bined with floral and other dec-orative patterns and characters. With BA in English Literature from Qatar University, Al Saad creates artworks whose ele-ments are chiefly inspired by Islamic manuscripts. She has taken part in many exhibitions in Qatar. �P3
119 graduates include students from Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan, Sudan, Tunisia, Libya and Mauritania.
02 FRIDAY 31 JANUARY 2020HOME
FAJR SUNRISE 04.59 am 06.18 am
W A L R U WA I S : 13o↗ 18o W A L K H O R : 11o↗ 22o W D U K H A N : 11o↗ 18o W D O H A : 13o↗ 21o W M E S A I E E D 11o↗ 21o W A B U S A M R A 10o↗ 20o
PRAYER TIMINGS WEATHER TODAY
HIGH TIDE 08:02 – 21:56 LOW TIDE 02:16 – 16:06
Misty at some places at first becomesrelatively cold daytime with some clouds, cold by night.
Minimum Maximum13oC 21oC
ZUHR
MAGHRIB
11.47 am05.19 pm
ASR
ISHA
02.55 pm06.49 pm
TOP: Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani with officials and graduates at the Ahmed Bin Mohammed Military College, yesterday. ABOVE: Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani during the graduation ceremony at the military college.
Amir meets heads of military colleges from brotherly and friendly countries QNA — DOHA
Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani met yesterday, at the headquarters of Ahmed Bin Mohammed Military College, with heads of military colleges from brotherly and friendly countries, who called upon H H the Amir to greet him on the occasion of their visit to the country to attend the grad-uation ceremony of the college’s 15th batch.
H H the Amir met with Staff Major General Faleh Shuja Faleh from Kuwaiti National Guard, Staff Brigadier General Khaled Shuja Al Otaibi from Ali Al-Sabah Military Academy, the Commander of Sultan Qaboos Military College in the Sultanate of Oman Staff Brigadier General
Mohammed bin Rashid bin Ali Al Hosani, the Commander of the Military College in the Republic of Sudan Staff Major General Ahmed Mohammed Al Hassan Al Amas, the Com-mander of the Mutah Uni-versity military wing in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan Staff Brigadier General Ali Radwan Al Momani, the Com-mander of the Military Academy of Cherchell in the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria Major General Quraid Salim, the Commander of the Royal Military Academy in the Kingdom of Morocco Staff Colonel Rasheed Al Saduqi, the Commander of the Turkish Mil-itary Academy Gultakin Yarali, the Commander of Pakistan Military Academy Staff Major
General Mohammed Ali, the Commander of the National Defense University of Malaysia Lieutenant General Abdul Halim bin Hajj Jalal, the Com-mander of Saint-Cyr Military Academy in the French Republic Colonel Jean Marc Robert, the Commander of National Defense University in Mongolia Colonel Purevsuren Zhargalan, the Commander of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in the UK Brigadier General James Steven Andrew Carr-Smith and the Com-mander of Rwanda Military Academy Brigadier General Ephrem Rurangwa.
The meeting was attended by Prime Minister and Interior Minister, H E Sheikh Khalid bin Khalifa bin Abdulaziz Al Thani.
Amir honours outstanding graduates of Military College
FROM PAGE 1
He added that with the continued cooperation with the Royal Military Academy Sand-hurst, an exercise entitled ‘Oryx
Endeavour’ was carried out by the Academy candidates in cooperation with Ahmed Bin Mohammed Military College on November 2019, where the
implementation of such exer-cises is one of the strongest areas of bilateral cooperation between sisterly and friendly colleges. Al Hajri said this great
work and effort couldn’t have been accomplished without God’s grace and success first, as well as the full support and permanent directives of H E the
Deputy PM and Minister of State for Defence Affairs, the continuous follow-up of H E the Chief of Staff and the concerted efforts of the commands of the
Ministry of Interior, the Internal Security Force (Lekhwiya), the Amiri Guard and all the forces, units, bodies and directorates in the armed forces.
Minister of Transport and Communications meets Senegal’s Minister of Tourism and Air Transport
Minister of Transport and Communications, H E Jassim bin Saif bin Ahmed Al Sulaiti held talks at the Ministry offices yesterday with the Minister of Tourism and Air Transport of the Republic of Senegal, H E Alioune Sarr. The two ministers discussed aspects of cooperation in the fields of air transport and civil aviation and means of further enhancing them. They also discussed potential investment opportunities available in those fields and a number of matters of common interest between the two friendly countries. The meeting was attended by Qatar Airways Group Chief Executive and Secretary-General of Qatar National Tourism Council (QNTC), H E Akbar Al Baker and the delegation accompanying the Senegalese official.
03FRIDAY 31 JANUARY 2020 HOME
OFFICIAL NEWSSymposium to shed light on growth of Fintech in QatarTHE PENINSULA — DOHA
Stakeholders representing the private sector, start-up community, banks and regu-lators will come together to discuss Fintech regulatory developments in Qatar, regionally and globally in a symposium taking place on February 4.
The symposium is set to focus on the emerging regu-latory framework supporting the growth of Fintech in Qatar and is co-hosted by Qatar Uni-versity’s (QU) Centre for Law and Development, under the College of Law, Qatar Financial Centre (QFC) and DLA Piper Global Law Firm.
The symposium will feature a special panel session focusing on the new wave of regulatory technologies (RegTech) that is currently revolutionising the supervision of financial services and other compliance-focused sectors.
Managing Director of the Financial Sector Office in QFC Authority, Henk Hoogendoorn reiterated the commitment of the QFC to attracting and fos-tering Fintech firms in Qatar. He noted, “In light of the QFC’s sus-tained commitment to attracting financial institutions to Qatar, we are pleased to support this event on the growth of Qatar’s financial technology sector and engage in key discussions on its regulatory development. As Qatar’s Fintech strategy is cat-alyzing the presence of local and international Fintechs, the need to develop and refine regulatory frameworks is a growing area of importance.”
He adds, “QFC offers an extremely conducive envi-ronment for Fintechs to do business in Qatar. Last year, we widened the rules and guidance of licensed firms on the platform to include Fintech service
providers, and also have a range of benefits and incentives tai-lored specifically to them. As a result, we are welcoming an increasing number of Fintechs with unique propositions onto our platform.”
The aim of this symposium is to provide a forum where the perspectives of stakeholders can be communicated and exchanged and to enhance awareness of Qatari progress in regulating Fintech.
The event is part of a three-year project funded by the Qatar National Research Fund titled “Fintech and RegTech: Building a resilient, inclusive and com-petitive legal and regulatory framework for 21st century finance in Qatar” (NPRP11S-1119-170016). The project helps Qatar achieve its Qatar National Vision 2030 goal of diversifying its economy by examining existing Qatari regulations relating to Fintech, and sup-porting necessary regulatory reforms through initiatives such as expert publications, working groups, policy forums and symposiums.
Centre for Law and Devel-opment Section Head of Law and Policy Dr. Andrew Dahdal commented, “This event is an important opportunity for com-munication and overcoming silos in Qatar’s Fintech sector. The ability to express the prior-ities of enterprise directly to regulators is vital to building an effective and resilient Fintech ecosystem.”
Amir receives written message from Prime Minister of Sweden
Doha: H H the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani received yester-day a written message from Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Swe-den, H E Stefan Lofven, pertaining to bilateral relations and the means to advance them. The message was received by HE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Sultan bin Saad Al Muraikhi, during a meeting with HE Ambassador of the Kingdom of Sweden to the state Anders Bengt-cen. QNA
Woqod opens Sealine petrol station
THE PENINSULA — DOHA
Qatar Fuel “Woqod” yesterday opened Sealine petrol station, raising its network of fixed and mobile petrol stations to 103.
Woqod’s Managing Director and CEO, Saad Rashid Al
Muhannadi, said: “We are pleased to open a new fixed petrol station in Sealine. Woqod aspires to expand its petrol sta-tions network in the country to meet the rising demand for petroleum products and achieve the goal of providing
customers with access to best-in-class products and services at their convenience and comfort. Woqod has recently accelerated the process for the construction of new petrol sta-tions to meet the fuel needs of the country. Woqod team would like to extend their grat-itude to all concerned govern-mental and private entities that contributed to the completion of this project.”
New Sealine petrol station is spread over an area of 12,000 square meters and has three lanes with six dispensers for light vehicles, and one lane with two dispensers for heavy vehicles, which will serve Sealine and adjoining areas.
Sealine petrol station offers round-the-clock services to residents, and includes Sidra convenience store, manual car wash, oil change and tire repair, in addition to sale of gasoline and diesel products for both light vehicles and heavy vehicles.
A view of the new Woqod petrol station at Sealine.
Legal & Legislative Affairs Committee studies law on minimum wage
Doha: The Legal and Legislative Affairs Committee of the Shura Council held yesterday a meet-ing, chaired by its Rapporteur H E Nasser bin Rashid bin Saree Al Kaabi. The Committee resumed its study of the draft law on determining the minimum wages for workers and domestic workers, and decided to submit their recommendations on it to the Council. QNA
MME to monitor deep-sea marine environmentTHE PENINSULA — DOHA
The Ministry of Municipality and Environment’s department of monitoring and environ-mental lab will monitor the marine environment at deep sea in cooperation with Qatar
University’s research vessel Janan. The trip will take place in February.
Director of the department, Hassan Al Qassmi, said that it was part of a project to prepare a comprehensive plan on marine life in the country.
He added a lot of work had been done to coordinate with Qatar University and its research.
The Ministry’s Ali Al Kuwari said that the annual trip focuses on the country’s economic zone and lasts for several days.
Officials with Qatar University’s research vessel Janan.
The symposium will be co-hosted by QU’s Centre for Law and Development, Qatar Financial Centre and DLA Piper Global Law Firm.
PM receives phone call from Iraqi counterpartDoha: Prime Minister and Minis-ter of Interior H E Sheikh Khalid bin Khalifa bin Abdulaziz Al Thani yes-terday received a phone call from the Prime Minister of the Repub-lic of Iraq, H E Adel Abdul Mahdi, in which the Iraqi Prime Minister congratulated His Excellency on the occasion of his appointment as Prime Minister, wishing him suc-cess. During the call, they reviewed the close bilateral relations between the two brotherly countries and the prospects for strengthening them, in addition to the latest develop-ments in Iraq. QNA
Qatar reaffirms support to Palestinians’ rights
The Speaker of the Shura Council of Qatar, H E Ahmed bin Abdullah bin Zaid Al Mahmoud, taking part in the 15th session of the Parliamentary Union of the OIC Member States (PUIC) Conference in Burkina Faso. He stressed the State of Qatar's firm position on the Palestinian issue, and all initiatives that would see the Palestinian people gain their right to establish an independent state based on the borders of June 4 of 1967 with East Jerusalem as the capital.
Calligraphy expo highlights creativity of Qatari artistsFROM PAGE 1
The exhibition was inaugurated by Dr. Khalid bin Ibrahim Al Sulaiti, General Manager of Katara, with a number of diplomats, officials, artists and art enthusiasts.
Commenting on the exhi-bition, Al Sulaiti underlined that the exhibition highlights the creativity of Qatari artists in various fields of art.
“The works are distin-guished, beautiful and varied, and we invite everyone to visit the exhibition and enjoy the works presented,” he added. The exhibition is open until February 12.
Qatari artist Issa Yousef Al Hassan (left) talks about one of his works to Dr. Khalid bin Ibrahim Al Sulaiti, General Manager of Katara (right) and other guests at the launch of “Calligraphy and Illumination” exhibition at Gallery 1 of Katara Building 19, yesterday.
04 FRIDAY 31 JANUARY 2020MIDDLE EAST / AFRICA
Palestinians to take opposition to Trump ‘peace plan’ to UN ANATOLIA — UNITED NATIONS
Palestinian officials will seek to galvanise opposition to US President Donald Trump’s controversial plan for Middle East peace at the UN Security Council in the coming weeks, Palestine’s ambassador to the UN said on Wednesday.
Speaking with reporters in New York, Riyad Mansour said Palest inian Pres ident Mahmoud Abbas would address the Security Council in the next two weeks and out-lined plans for a draft reso-lution to oppose the peace plan that Trump unveiled on Tuesday.
Mansour offered few details of what would appear in the draft resolution, saying only that it would use the “strongest possible” language and that Palestinian officials “would like to see strong, large opposition to this Trump plan.”
On Tuesday, Trump unveiled a long-awaited plan for Middle East peace that was quickly criticised for favouring Israel and dashing Palestinian hopes of one day running their own country.
According to Mansour, the proposed deal gives Israelis the “upper hand” and “is not a recipe for peace or justice. It is a recipe for the destruction of
the national right of the Pales-tinian people, and it will not fly.” “It is not acceptable, and those who think the Palestinian people will evaporate — they will not. Those who think the Palestinian people will pack up and leave — they will not,” said Mansour, flanked by Tunisia’s UN ambassador.
Earlier, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the world body’s position on Israeli-Palestinian peace had not changed after the announcement of the US peace plan and referred back to pre-vious Security Council resolutions.
“The United Nations remains committed to supporting Pales-tinians and Israelis to resolve the conflict on the basis of United Nations resolutions, interna-tional law and bilateral agree-ments and realizing the vision of two states — Israel and Palestine — living side by side in peace and security within recognized borders, on the basis of the pre-1967 lines,” Dujarric said in a statement.
Palestinians hold placards which read “Palestine is not for sale” as they protest against the US peace plan proposal at the northern entrance of the West Bank city of Ramallah, yesterday.
Mass protests in Palestine slam peace planANATOLIA — GAZA CITY/RAMALLAH
Thousands of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and occupied West Bank yesterday rallied in protests against US President Donald Trump’s Middle East peace plan.
Demonstrators in Gaza organised two rallies where they displayed banners denouncing the so-called “Deal of the Century” and raised slogans demanding it be scrapped.
The Hamas-run gov-ernment media office staged a demonstration in front of the office of the United Nations
Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process (UNSCO), west of Gaza.
The protesters held banners conveying their categorical rejection of the American plan and affirming Jerusalem’s status as the capital of Palestine.
Over in the occupied West Bank, a march was held at the northern entrance to the cities of Ramallah and Al-Bireh.
The Israeli army fired rubber bullets and tear gas to break up the protest while demonstrators responded by pelting stones and torching tires. Witnesses also reported similar clashes near the city of Al-Khalil (Hebron).
Health officials said 18 Pal-estinians were injured in the clashes and eight of them were hospitalised for treatment. According to the Palestinian Red Crescent, five of the pro-testers were shot with rubber bullets, another 12 were affected by tear gas, and one was hurt by a stone thrown by an Israeli settler.
On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump released his much-hyped plan to end the Israel-Palestine dispute.
There was, however, no Palestinian representative at the announcement, which saw Trump referring to Jerusalem as “Israel’s undivided capital”.
Kuwait, Morocco call for a just solution to Palestine issue
ANATOLIA — KUWAIT/RABAT
Kuwait and Morocco have called for a fair solution in Palestine in line with interna-tional law in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s Middle East peace plan.
“While acknowledging US efforts to end the conflict between Israel and Palestine, Morocco finds that the solution “should satisfy the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people,” Morocco’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.
Morocco will examine the peace plan’s details “very carefully,” it added.
Kuwait’s Foreign Affairs Ministry also released a statement on the plan.
“A just and comprehensive solution to the Palestinian issue can be reached only through compliance with rel-evant international legitimacy resolutions and terms of ref-erence laid down by the inter-national community, chiefly an independent and sovereign state on the June 4, 1967 border with its capital in East Jerusalem,” it said.
Tunisia also weighed in on the plan, saying the estab-lishment of a fair, compre-hensive and lasting peace in the Middle East was through the recognition of the rights of the Palestinian people.
Warplanes kill 10, strike hospital in Syria offensive
AP — BEIRUT
Warplanes struck a town in a rebel-held enclave in northwestern Syria, killing at least 10 people, including some who were fleeing the attack, opposition activists and a rescue service said yesterday. The attack, believed to have been carried out by Russian warplanes backing a Syrian government offensive, also put a local hospital out of service, they said.
The late Wednesday night assault on Ariha, a town in Idlib province, comes as the rebel-held enclave is under intense fire
amid Syrian government advances on the area, which had been controlled by the opposition for nearly eight years.
The Russian Defense Ministry rejected claims it was behind the attack, calling them a “provocation.” The ministry said Russian warplanes did not fly any combat missions in the area.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the death toll from the airstrikes was at least 10 civilians. The rescue Syrian Civil Defense, known as the White Helmets, said 11 people, including a child, were killed when the Russian
warplanes hit a road used by displaced people trying to leave Ariha. Both the Observatory and the White Helmets said a local hospital and a bakery were struck.
At least 24 people were wounded, including a doctor, a White Helmet vol-unteer, three women and two children, the rescuers said.
A video shows the damaged hospital in a residential area, with medical equipment broken, supplies strewn over the floor and windows and doors dislodged from their frames.
At least six people, relatives of patients, were killed as they waited outside the hos-pital, said Zuheir Qarat, a surgeon. An anaesthesiologist was critically wounded, Qarat said, and remained at the hospital for over an hour until rescuers were able to evacuate him after the raids ended, along with 15 patients. Hospital generators and one hospital car were burned, he added. No patients were hurt.
Qarat described three raids before mid-night, within minutes of each other. “It destroyed the hospital and put it out of service,” Qarat said in a voice message from Ariha. “There were also people injured from neighbouring buildings.” The Ariha hos-pital, also know as al-Shami, is the only medical facility in the area with surgical facilities. There are no government-run hospitals in opposition-held areas, where health and education services are based on donations and international aid.
Footage from Ariha showed the main road blocked with rubble from destroyed buildings.
An aerial view of the rubble and debris at the site of reported air strikes on the town of Ariha in the northern countryside of Syria’s Idlib province, yesterday.
Iraq parties locked in talks over new PM as clock ticksAFP — BAGHDAD
Iraq’s political factions were in high-stake talks yesterday to name a new prime minister, after the President set a February 1 deadline to replace Adel Abdel Mahdi.
Months of mass anti-gov-ernment protests led Abdel Mahdi to resign in December, but he has stayed on since in a caretaker role while political factions have struggled to find a successor.
Two days ahead of tomor-row's deadline, “President Barham Saleh is hosting the various political blocs to try to find a consensus candidate,” a source from his office said.
Saleh had sent a letter to Iraq’s deeply-divided par-liament, giving it until Saturday to nominate a new premier after months of paralysis. Oth-erwise, he said, he would name someone unilaterally.
As the clock was ticking, the United Nations’ top official in Iraq ramped up pressure, too.
“It is high time to restore confidence by setting aside par-tisanship, acting in the interest of the country and its people,” said Jeanine Hennis-Plass-chaert in a statement.
“Iraq cannot afford the ongoing violent oppression nor the political and economic paralysis.”
According to Iraq’s consti-tution, parliament’s largest bloc must nominate a prime min-ister within 15 days of legislative elections.
The candidate is then
tasked by the president with forming a government within one month.
But Iraq is in uncharted waters, as the constitution makes no provisions for the PM’s resignation and the 15-day period since Abdel Mahdi stepped down has long expired.
It is also unclear if the con-stitution allows the president to name his own candidate in this situation. Saleh’s letter sent factions into last-minute crisis talks, with one political figure saying they were “tense”.
Anti-govt protesters rush for cover amid clashes with riot police following a demonstration in Al Wathba Square Baghdad, yesterday.
African leaders gather to seek solution in Libya AFP — BRAZZAVILLE
African leaders yesterday began a diplomatic push in the Congolese capital Brazzaville aimed at bolstering efforts to end the Libyan crisis.
The talks include Moussa Faki Mahamat, chairman of the African Union (AU) Com-mission, and Ghassan Salame, the UN’s secretary-general’s special representative, along with several African presidents.
They were to meet behind closed doors with the head of Tripoli’s UN-recognised gov-ernment Fayez al-Sarraj, and separately with envoys from strongman Khalifa Haftar, who controls eastern Libya, a Con-golese diplomat said.
The aim is “to search for solutions for resolving the Libyan crisis, as recommended by the (January 19) conference in Berlin,” the office of the Con-golese presidency said in a statement on Wednesday.
Leaders of the 55-nation AU are to meet in Addis Ababa on February 9 and 10.
The Berlin conference com-mitted world leaders, including the presidents of Russia, Turkey and France, to an agreement to stop interfering in the long-running conflict, be it through weapons, troops or financing.
But it failed to forge “serious dialogue” between the warring parties or get them to sign up to a permanent truce.
The presidents of Congo, also called Congo-Brazzaville, of Mauritania and of Djibouti were present at the start of Thursday’s meeting, while Algeria’s new president, Abdel-madjid Tebboune, was repre-sented by his prime minister.
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, whose country had hosted the Berlin talks, had initially been expected for the talks but did not come.
Libya has been mired in chaos since a 2011 NATO-backed uprising that killed longtime dictator Moamer Kadhafi.
The crisis has deeply worried countries to the south of Libya, which are already bat-tling a bloody insurgency.
Assault on Idlib pushes 700,000 to flee: US EnvoyREUTERS — BEIRUT
An assault on rebel-held northwest Syria by government forces in recent days has pushed some 700,000 people to flee toward the Turkish border, raising the spectre of an international crisis, US Special Envoy for Syria James Jeffrey said yesterday.
Backed by Russian air power, government forces have rapidly advanced on Idlib since last week, upending an area where millions have taken refugee since the start of Syria’s nearly nine-year war.
Jeffrey told a news briefing that Syrian government and Russian warplanes had hit Idlib with 200 air strikes “mainly against civilians” in the past three days.
He said the assault had set “700,000 people who are already internally displaced on the move once again toward the Turkish border, which will then create an international crisis”.
Moscow and Damascus say they are fighting militants.
Turkey to airlift citizens from Wuhan in ChinaANATOLIA — ANKARA
A Turkish cargo plane was set to leave for China yesterday to airlift citizens of Turkey and other nearby countries from the city of Wuhan, the heart of the deadly coronavirus outbreak.
The cargo plane will leave Etimesgut Military Airport in the capital Ankara to evacuate 34 Turkish citizens as well as seven nationals of Georgia, seven Azerbaijanis, and one Albanian.
The plane will airlift people stranded in Wuhan at their request to return to Turkey following detailed health exams under quar-antine conditions.
The Turkish plane, at the initiative of the Health Min-istry, will carry health per-sonnel experienced with infec-tious diseases.
Former Nigerian minister bailed in oil scandal caseAFP — ABUJA
A former Nigerian justice minister accused of complicity in a billion-dollar oil scandal involving Shell and Eni was yesterday granted bail by a high court in the nation’s capital.
Judge Abubakar Kutigi ordered the release of Mohammed Adoke from custody to face his trial along with other suspects.
The judge asked him to provide surety of 50 million naira ($139,000) before he could leave custody.
The court then adjourned the case to March 26. Adoke, who also served as attorney-general between 2010 and 2015, was arrested last month. He was accused of money laundering and collecting a bribe worth 300 million naira to broker the $1.3bn sale of lucrative offshore oil block OPL245 to Shell and Eni in 2011. Adoke has pleaded not guilty to the charges along with two co-accused.
Both Shell and Eni have denied any wrongdoing in the case, dubbed the “Malabu scandal” after the key company involved in the deals.
Former Nigerian oil min-ister Dan Etete is still on the run over the scandal. The Abuja court yesterday issued a warrant for Etete’s arrest.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas would address the Security Council in the next two weeks.
05FRIDAY 31 JANUARY 2020 ISLAM
Life after deathThe question whether
there is a life after death does not fall under the jurisdiction
of science, as science is con-cerned only with classification and analysis of data. Moreover, man has been busy with scien-tific inquiries and research, in the modern sense of the term, only for the last few centuries, while he has been familiar with the concept of life after death since times immemorial. All the prophets of God called their people to worship God and to believe in life after death. They laid so much emphasis on the belief in life after death that even a slight doubt in it meant denying God and made all other beliefs meaningless. The very fact that all the prophets of God have dealt with this meta-physical question of life after death so confidently and so uni-formly - the gap between their ages being thousands of years - goes to prove that the source of their knowledge of life after death as proclaimed by them all, was the same, i.e., Divine revelation.
We also know that these prophets of God were greatly opposed by their people, mainly on the issue of life after death, as their people thought it impossible. But in spite of oppo-sition, the prophets won many sincere followers. The question arises: what made those fol-lowers forsake the established beliefs, traditions and customs of their forefathers, notwith-standing the risk of being totally alienated from their own com-munity? The simple answer is: they made use of their faculties of mind and heart and realized the truth. Did they realize the truth through perceptual con-sciousness? Not so, as per-ceptual experience of life after death is impossible. Actually,
God has given man, besides perceptual consciousness, rational, aesthetic and moral consciousness too. It is this con-sciousness that guides man regarding realities that cannot be verified through sensory data. That is why all the prophets of God while calling people to believe in God and life after death, appeal to the aes-thetic, moral and rational con-sciousness of man. For example, when the idolaters of Makkah denied even the possibility of life after death, the Quran exposed the weakness of their stand by advancing very logical and rational arguments in support of it:
“And he has coined for us a similitude, and has forgotten the fact of his creation, saying: who will revive these bones when they have rotted away? Say: He will revive them Who produced them at first, for He is the Knower of every creation, Who has appointed for you fire from the green tree, and behold! you kindle from it. Is not He Who created the heavens and the earth, able to create the like of them? Yes, and He is indeed the Supreme Creator, the All-Knowing.” (36:78-81)
At another occasion, the Quran very clearly says that the disbelievers have no sound basis for their denial of life after death. It is based on pure conjecture:
“They say, ‘There is nothing but our present life; we die, and we live, and nothing but Time destroys us.’ Of that they have no knowledge; they merely con-jecture. And when our revela-tions are recited to them, their only argument is that they say, ‘Bring us our fathers, if you speak truly.’ (45:24-25)
Surely God will raise all the dead. But God has His own plan of things. A day will come when
the whole universe will be destroyed and then again the dead will be resurrected to stand before God. That day will be the beginning of the life that will never end, and that Day every person will be rewarded by God according to his or her good or evil deed. The explanation that the Quran gives about the necessity of life after death is what the moral consciousness of man demands. Actually, if there is no life after death, the very belief in God becomes irrel-evant, or even if one believes in God, that would be an unjust and indifferent God: having once created man and not concerned with his fate. Surely, God is just. He will punish the tyrants whose crimes are beyond count: having killed hundreds of innocent persons, created great corrup-tions in the society, enslaved numerous persons to serve their whims, etc. The Quran very emphatically states that the Day of Judgment must come and God will decide about the fate of each soul according to his or her record of deeds:
“Those who disbelieve say: The Hour will never come unto us. Say: Nay, by my Lord, but it is coming unto you surely. (He is) the Knower of the Unseen. Not an atom’s weight, or less than that or greater, escapes Him in the heavens or in the earth, but it is in a clear Record. That He may reward those who believe and do good words. For them is pardon and a rich pro-vision. But those who strive against our revelations, chal-lenging (Us), theirs will be a painful doom of wrath.” (34:3-5)
The Day of Resurrection will be the Day when God’s attributes of Justice and Mercy will be in full manifestation. God will shower His Mercy on those who suffered for His sake in the worldly life, believing that an
eternal bliss was awaiting them. But those who abused the bounties of God, caring nothing for the life to come, will be in the most miserable state. Drawing a comparison between them, the Quran says:
“Is he, then, to whom We have promised a goodly promise the fulfillment of which he will meet, like the one whom We have provided with the good things of this life, and then on the Day of Resurrection he will be of those who will be brought arraigned before God?” (28:61)
The Quran also states that this worldly life is a preparation for the eternal life after death. But those who deny it become slaves of their passions and desires, make fun of virtuous and God-conscious persons. Such persons realize their folly only at the time of their death and wish to be given a further chance in the world but in vain.
“Until, when death comes unto one of them, he says, ‘My Lord send me back, that I may do right in that which I have left behind! But nay! It is but a word that he speaks; and behind them is a barrier until the day when they are raised. And when the Trumpet is blown there will be no kinship among them that day, nor will they ask of one another. Then those whose scales are heavy, they are successful. And those whose scales are light are those who lose their souls, in hell abiding, the fire burns their faces and they are glum therein.” (23:99-104).
The belief in life after death not only guarantees success in the Hereafter but also makes this world full of peace and hap-piness by making individuals most responsible and dutiful in their activities. Think of the people of Arabia. Gambling, wine, tribal feuds, plundering
and murdering were their main traits when they had no belief in life after death. But as soon as they accepted the belief in One God and life after death they became the most disci-plined nation of the world. They gave up their vices, helped each other in hours of need, and settled all their disputes on the basis of justice and equality. Similarly the denial of life after death has its consequences not only in the Hereafter but also in this world. When a nation as a whole denies it, all kinds of evils and corruptions become rampant in that society and ulti-mately it is destroyed. The Quran mentions the terrible end of ‘Aad, Thamud and the Pharaoh in some detail:
“(The tribes of) Thamud and ‘Aad disbelieved in the judgment to come. As for Thamud, they were destroyed by the lightning, and as for ‘Aad, they were destroyed by a fierce roaring wind, which He imposed on them for seven long nights and eight long days so that you might see the people laid prostrate in it as if they were the stumps of fallen down palm trees. “Now do you see remnant of them? Pharaoh likewise and those before him and the subverted cities. They committed errors and those before him, and they rebelled against the Messenger of their Lord, and He seized them with a surpassing grip. Lo, when the waters rose, We bore you in the running ship that We might make it a reminder for you and for heeding ears to hold. So when the Trumpet is blown with a single blast and the earth
and the mountains are lifted up and crushed with a single blow, then on that day, the Terror shall come to pass, and the heaven shall be split for upon that day it will be very frail. Then as for him who is given his book in his right hand, he shall say, ‘Here take and read my book! Certainly I thought I should encounter my reck-oning.’ So he shall be in a pleasing life in a lofty garden, its clusters nigh to gather. “’Eat and drink with wholesome appetite for that you did long ago, in the days gone by.’
“But as for him who is given his book in his left hand, he shall say: ‘Would that I had not been given my book and not known my reckoning! Would that it had been the end! My wealth has not availed me, my authority is gone from me.’” (69:4-29)
Thus, there are very con-vincing reasons to believe in life after death. First, all the prophets of God have called their people to believe in it. Secondly, whenever a human society is built on the basis of this belief, it has been the most ideal and peaceful society, free of social and moral evils. Thirdly, history bears witness that whenever this belief is rejected collectively by a group of people in spite of the repeated warning of the Prophet, the group as a whole has been punished by God even in this world. Fourthly, moral, aesthetic and rational faculties of man endorse the possibility of life after death. Fifthly, God’s attributes of Justice and Mercy have no meaning if there is no life after death.
—www.islam101.net
Why Do Muslims love Jerusalem?
If you have a Muslim co-worker, friend, or neighbour, you might have caught them one
time or another slipping away to complete one of their five daily prayers. Because Muslims are required to pray in the direction of the Ka'aba, or Holy Mosque, in the city of Makkah, Saudi Arabia, you might find them awk-wardly facing the wall or crunched behind their desk in an effort to follow the practice of the Prophet (Peace be Upon Him) in praying toward the most revered mosque in Islam.
But before Muslims, or even the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) himself, ever began praying toward Makkah, they prayed in the direction of Masjid Al Aqsa in Jerusalem. This place of worship is described in the Holy Quran as blessed pre-cincts, making it the third holiest site for Muslims (after the mosques in Makkah and Medinah). Its status dates back to the times of many great prophets such as Abraham, Solomon, Moses, and Jesus. Muslims believe that the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) once travelled on a winged-creature to Jeru-salem overnight. It was there that he was greeted by all the prophets to have ever walked this earth and it was there that he led them all in prayer. Hence, this mosque, built upon the Mount of Solomon, is espe-cially important to all Muslims for its significant historical tradition that commemorated al l prophets and Abrahamic religions.
Later during the life of Muhammad, the direction of prayer was changed to Makkah because God sensed His Prophet’s love for the sanctuary in his birthplace. So why, one might ask, was the direction not toward the Ka'aba from the very beginning? For one, the
original direction was a symbolic representation of the shared beliefs and her-itage of Muslims, Jews, and Christians. Muhammad (PBUH) regarded all pre-ceding prophets as his brothers and it was through Jerusalem he could honour their leg-acies. The direction of prayer changed later in order for Islam to uniquely contribute to that pro-phetic heritage, but for the rest of history, Jerusalem and its sanctuaries would continue to be revered by Muslims for the value they had for all of God’s messengers.
Religious SignificanceMuhammad (PBUH)
inspired his followers to share in his love for both Jerusalem and Masjid Al Aqsa through numerous sayings: completing one prayer in the mosque is worth five hundred prayers in merit; if you were to travel anywhere in the world, let the mosque in Jerusalem be a priority; if your intention is pure in visiting the mosque, all of yours sins are forgiven; and so on and so forth. But perhaps the most resounding narration of the Prophet is one that states: if you are not able to visit Masjid Al Aqsa, then at the very least, send oil
to light its lamps. In other words, do all that you pos-sibly can to support the mosque and its congre-gants, no matter where you are in the world.
Historical ImplicationsA few years after the
death of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), Umar bin Al Khattab eventually became the Caliph. It was during his time that Jeru-salem was conquered by the Muslims. Umar ulti-mately made his way to the holy land in order to offi-ciate the transfer of power. When he arrived, the patriarch invited him to pray in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Umar refused because he feared that if he prayed in the church, Muslims would eventually want to honour him by converting the church into a mosque. Out of respect for the Christian sanctuary, Umar prayed nearby instead. And, just as he predicted, later Muslims eventually built a mosque named after him that stands to this day in the area he chose to pray in.
It was also during this visit that Umar contracted a covenant with the people of Jerusalem, promising their physical well-being, and the safety of their property, churches, and the community at large;
none would be harmed or forced to leave their religion, and just as impor-tantly, sanctified places and items would not be desecrated. These values were upheld throughout much of historical Muslim rule of Jerusalem from as early as the reconquest of Salah Al Din to Ottoman administration over the land for close to five hundred years.
Salah Al Din, for example, despite the years of bloodshed throughout the Crusades that preceded his reconquest of Jeru-salem, mercifully spared thousands of civilians and left almost all religious sanctuaries undamaged. Similarly, under the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman, the Western Wall was greatly expanded and refined, eventually becoming a place of devotion for many Jews in Jerusalem. Tribunal records during the Ottoman era also demonstrate Jewish participation in Islamic courts as plaintiffs and wit-nesses, as well as serving in administrative positions.
*Tesneem Alkiek. Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research Fellow. She is a Phd. Candidate at Georgetown University in Islamic Studies.
—www.islamicity.org
The golden tomb of the Al Aqsa mosque in the Old City of Jerusalem ( Al Quds)
Surely God will raise all the dead. But God has His own plan of things. A day will come when the whole universe will be destroyed and then again the dead will be resurrected to stand before God. That day will be the beginning of the life that will never end, and that Day every person will be rewarded by God according to his or her good or evil deed.
“The best thing with which to color your gray hair is henna or katm.” [Abu Dawood and At-Tirmithi]
Jabir Ibn ‘Abdullah may Allah be pleased with him narrated that Abu Quhafa, the father of Abu Bakr may Allah be pleased with them came on the day of the conquest of Makkah with his hair and beard extremely white. The Prophet
sallallaahu `alayhi wa sallam ( may Allah exalt his mention ) said: “Change his hair color with something and do not use black.”
Salmah, the Prophet’s sallallaahu `alayhi wa sallam ( may Allah exalt his mention ) maid, said: “Anyone who complained to the Prophet sallallaahu `alayhi wa sallam ( may Allah exalt his mention ) from pain in his head, he sallallaahu `alayhi wa sallam ( may Allah exalt his mention ) would say to him, ‘cup it.’ And when complained from pain in the foot, he sallallaahu `alayhi wa sallam ( may Allah exalt his mention ) would tell him, ‘Dye it with henna.’” [Abu Dawood and Ibn Majah] She also said: “Whenever the Prophet (PBUOH) had an ulcer, fester or eczema, he ordered me to put henna on it.” [Authentic, Jaami’ Al-Usool by Ibn Al-Atheer]
Henna has been utilized since ancient times as a dye to color the nails, hands, feet and hair. The traditional henna is manufactured from a plant known as Law-sonia Alba. This plant is cultivated in Saudi Arabia, India, Sri Lanka, Iran, Egypt, North Africa and Australia among others.
The effective dye component of henna is called Lawsone. It consists of fat, resin, manitol and volatile oils. It is mentioned in the Islamic Encyclopedia of Medicine that the ancient Egyptians used henna in mummification.
The Egyptian henna is typically a green substance that gives the hair a reddish brown color. Other colors are obtained by adding other dyes to the natural henna. Some women in Sudan add a substance called paraphenylen ediamine to the henna to reduce the time needed for dyeing from an hour to several minutes. But this mixture can be fatal although its cause is unknown and this is why people who apply henna are warned against adding this substance. Henna in itself is safe and doesn’t have any known side effects. It is 100% natural. The henna found in different brands of shampoos in stores and pharmacies is free of this substance.Recent medical researches:
Many people in recent years have been inclined to use natural substances. The idea of returning to using some old substances that were once used as cos-metics is gaining ground in the medical field. One of these substances is henna. If we look at the different haircare products available off-the-shelf like shampoos, conditioners, hair color and hair creams, we will find that much of them contain henna. This substance is described in the Hadeeths as being the best source for hair dyeing. What is the scientific evidence that encourage the return to the use of henna? An American magazine specializing in skin diseases, Cutis, once pub-lished an article about henna in its first edition in 1986. Dr. Natu is a famous pro-fessor of skin disease from New York University in America, stated that henna has several benefits, the most important being as follows:
1. Its effects are not permanent. It does not stick permanently to the roots of the hair like other artificial hair colors. Henna starts to fade after 3 to 6 weeks. It then disappears completely and leaves no residue.
2. Henna is compatible with all natural hair colors. 3. Henna enhances the natural color of hair and gives it shine. One would
have to use it several times before any visible changes in color appear.
4. Henna strengthens each individual hair, restores damaged hair and prevents split ends. There are many different shampoos and con-ditioners that contain henna and do not give the hair any new color. They give it beauty and glow.
5. Extensive usage of henna is safe in com-parison with other artificial sub-stances. There are only rare cases of skin sensitivity.
veral times before any visible changes in color rr
a strengthens each individual hair, ,,ged hair and prevents split ends. .y different shampoos and con-ontain henna and do not tt ny new color. They yynd glow.ive usage off in com-other
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Henna leaves with powder on a ceramic bowl.
Henna and its uses in the past and today
06 FRIDAY 31 JANUARY 2020ASIA
Gunman fires at Indian protesters after going live on FacebookREUTERS — NEW DELHI
A gunman went live on Facebook to warn he was taking his “final journey” before firing at a protest against India’s new citizenship law in Delhi yesterday, wounding a student.
The shooter, dressed in a black jacket, brandished a single-barrel weapon as he stood metres away from dozens of policemen outside Jamia Millia Islamia University, where more than 1,000 protesters had gathered for a march.
He shouted slogans against the protesters, including hijab clad women, before firing at them in the first such incident in the capital during more than a month of demonstrations.
“He was in front of all the people — protesters and policemen who were standing nearby, but he jumped in from this side, bran-dished the gun and said ‘Come I will give you freedom’,” a witness who gave his name as Aamir said.
The Citizenship Amendment Act fast-tracks Indian citi-zenship for non-Muslim minor-ities from three neighbouring countries.
By late yesterday, hundreds of riot police armed with teargas canisters and backed by water cannon patrolled the area as pro-testers sang the national anthem and waved the Indian flag.
Yesterday’s shooting raised concerns from the opposition that youths are trying to take the law into their own hands to crush any dissent against the government.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has rejected the protests and members of his Hindu nationalist party and its
affiliates have painted the pro-testers as anti-nationals.
This week, India’s junior Finance Minister Anurag Thakur encouraged supporters at a state election rally in New Delhi to chant slogans calling for traitors to be shot, drawing a reprimand from the election commission.
Minutes before firing, the shooter, who identified himself as “Rambhakt Gopal” had uploaded posts onto his Facebook profile saying this will be his “final journey” and urging readers to “remember his family”.
His video showed him walking through a road near Jamia, where the students were gathering.
On his Facebook the shooter had also posted photos of himself posing with a gun and he is seen wearing a saffron T-shirt, the colour of Hindu nationalists.
Police later said they had detained the suspected gunman but gave no details. They said one student was injured in his hand.
Facebook later said it had
taken down the gunman’s account.
“There is no place on Facebook for those who commit this kind of violence,” the social media giant said in a statement. “We have removed the gun-man’s Facebook account and are removing any content that praises, supports or represents the gunman or the shooting as soon as we identify it.”
The main opposition Con-gress party said the shooting
showed comments by leaders of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party could stoke violence. “Is this what BJP leaders... intended? Creating an armed militia of radicalised youth,” the party said in a tweet.
India’s Home Minister Amit Shah tweeted that he had spoken to the chief of Delhi police and asked him to take strict action.
“The federal government will not tolerate any such incident, will take serious action
and the perpetrator will not be spared,” he said.
Modi’s government says the citizenship law is needed to help members of persecuted reli-gious minorities who fled to India before 2015 from Muslim-majority Afghanistan, Bang-ladesh and Pakistan.
But protesters say the law, and a proposed national reg-ister for citizens, discriminates against Muslims and violates India’s secular constitution.
People hold placards with the image of Mahatma Gandhi on the occasion of the 72nd anniversary of his death as they form a human chain outside Jamma Masjid to demonstrate against the government’s new citizenship law, in New Delhi, yesterday.
Japan’s former Emperor Akihito better after fainting
AP — TOKYO
Japan’s 86-year-old former Emperor Akihito fainted at his residence though he regained strength after a good night’s sleep, the palace said yesterday.
Akihito underwent an MRI of his brain that showed no clinical condition that could cause a fall, but doctors rec-ommended close monitoring of his health for a while, according to the Imperial Household Agency.
Akihito abdicated last April and now holds the title of Emperor Emeritus. His wife Michiko was at his side when Akihito fainted on Wednesday at the Imperial Palace and she called the palace doctor, palace officials said.
The doctors found Akihito still unconscious and sounding as if he was snoring. He regained consciousness and went to bed but woke up nor-mally yesterday morning, offi-cials said.
Amnesty: Asia seeing growing repression, resistanceAP — BANGKOK
Authoritarian governments in Asia are undermining human rights and demonising their critics, but they face a rising tide of protest from young people who defy grave risks to protest such repression, Amnesty Inter-national said in its annual report on the region.
The human rights group’s annual survey of the Asia-Pacific region, released Wednesday, said India and China, the two most populous nations, are trying to impose their “own bleak, domineering
vision on the continent, per-ceiving minorities as a threat to ‘national security.’”
The “main takeaway” from the report is that in Asia, “we saw an escalation of the repression in many countries. But we also saw an increase in the resistance and protest, often led by young people from Hong Kong to India, from Myanmar to Thailand,” Nicholas Bequelin, regional director for Amnesty International, said.
“We saw increased mobili-zation by young people to defend their rights. Demand accountability, justice, action on
climate and rights for all,” Bequelin said.
The effort to silence crit-icism and prevent the public from holding public officials and corporations accountable is a worrying trend, it said. But anti-government protests in Hong Kong and elsewhere showed an abiding will to resist repression, it said. Some high-lights from the report.
In Sri Lanka, anti-Muslim violence broke out after Easter Sunday bombings that killed more than 250 people, mainly Christians, in three churches and three hotels. Across the region,
all governments need to make more headway in protecting and empowering indigenous popu-lations, the report said.
In Afghanistan, more than 2,500 people died and 5,676 people were injured from January to September, mainly in attacks using homemade explosive devices that often were carried out by the Taliban against minority ethnic groups.
In Myanmar, the military carried out war crimes in Kachin, Rakhine and Shan states, as internal strife con-tinued, the report said.
The report also noted
Australian detentions of refugees and asylum seekers and turning boats of people fleeing their home countries back to sea. In Japan, where refugees rarely are granted asylum, the government has not yet ratified the Migrant’s Convention to protect rights of a growing population of foreign workers.
In Pakistan, journalists, human rights defenders and members of the Shiá Muslim community were among the hundreds of people who were “disappeared” by security forces, often detained without charges or trial, the report said.
Avalanche at Japanese ski resortJapanese media gather at a ski resort in Tomamu in central Hokkaido yesterday, following an avalanche accident. A French national was in critical condition after he was caught with seven compatriots in an avalanche near a ski resort in northern Japan, a local official said.
India reports its first case of coronavirusREUTERS — BENGALURU,
India reported its first case of the new coronavirus yesterday, saying a woman in the southern state of Kerala had tested positive in an outbreak.
The patient was an Indian student of Wuhan University in China, India’s government said in a statement, adding the patient was stable and in iso-lation in hospital.
“We had sent blood samples of 20 people from Kerala, of which 10 returned as negative. Out of six that were pending, the sample of a female student from Wuhan has come back as positive,” Kerala’s Health Minister, K K Shylaja Teacher, told reporters.
The patient was being treated in an isolation ward in the district of Thrissur, Teacher said.
A total of 806 people recently returned from China were under observation in Kerala for any signs of the virus, the state government said on Wednesday.
A senior Indian gov-ernment official said bringing Indian nationals home from Wuhan was not the best option due to the risk of infection but that an aircraft was on standby and facilities to quarantine them have been identified.
Australia defends plan for island quarantine campAP — CANBERRA
Australia’s government yesterday defended its plan to send citizens evacuated from the epicentre of China’s novel coronavirus emergency to a remote island used to banish asylum seekers and convicted criminals, despite warnings that some Australians would prefer to stay in China.
Australia is preparing to send potentially hundreds of its citizens rescued from Hubei province to a quarantine camp on remote Christmas Island. The Indian Ocean island has been used by the government in a widely condemned policy of banishing asylum seekers who attempt to arrive by boat to offshore camps.
Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said notorious Christmas Island struck the right balance between sup-porting Australians stranded in China and protecting the wider Australian population from the potentially deadly disease.
“The reality is people need to be accommodated some-where for up to 14 days,” Dutton told reporters in Canberra.
“I can’t clear out a hospital in Sydney or Melbourne or Brisbane. I don’t have a facility otherwise that we can quickly accommodate for what might be many hundreds of people and Christmas Island is purpose-built for exactly this scenario,” he added.
The Australian Medical Association, the nation’s leading medical advocate, said the Australians would be better quarantined on the Australian mainland.
“We feel that the repatri-ation to Christmas Island — to a place previously the focus of populations under enormous mental and physical trauma and anguish — is not a really
appropriate solution,” the asso-ciation’s president Tony Bartone told Nine Network television.
But Dutton dismissed that criticism as based on doctors’ longstanding opposition to the government using Christmas Island, Nauru and Papua New Guinea to accommodate thou-sands of exiled refugees that Australia refuses to accept.
The United Nations has condemned Australia’s indef-inite banishing of asylum seekers to island camps as inhumane, stoking violence and mental illness.
Christmas Island was also chosen because of its prison-like facilities to house foreign criminals who face deportation after serving sentences in Aus-tralian prisons.
The facilities currently house only a family of four Sri Lankan asylum seekers who are fighting deportation.
Dutton said the family and Christmas Island locals would be kept separate from the quar-antined population.
Austral ia ’s Chinese diaspora has been scathing of the island’s re-purposing as a quarantine site, which the opposition argues is the gov-ernment attempting to justify the millions of dollars spent on the facilities’ existence.
Australians in China say Australian officials have told them they will need to pay 1,000 Australian dollars ($673) and agree to go to Christmas Island to be repatriated.
Australian Wenbo Yu, whose wife and two children are in Wuhan, said his family was con-sidering rejecting Australia’s evacuation offer. “We’d rather they stay in Wuhan,” he told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.
“Compared to Wuhan, we believe Christmas Island is even more unpredictable,” he added.
Australia heat wave renews bush fire worriesAFP — SYDNEY
Australia was bracing for a heat wave to sweep across the coun-try’s fire-ravaged southeast in the coming days, with the forecast stoking fears the soaring temper-atures could inflame bush fires.
Temperatures reached above 40 degrees Celsius yes-terday in South Australia state, where dangerous fire weather warnings were issued in several bushfire-prone areas.
The heat wave is then expected to hit Melbourne and Canberra today before parts of Sydney reach 45 degrees Celsius on the weekend.
Authorities say the searing heat, accompanied by dry winds, would bring severe bush fire conditions to parts of New South Wales and Victoria — where more than 80 fires are still burning across the two states.
“We’ve had the benefit of some suppressed, benign con-ditions over the last few days. However, as we’ve heard, it’s going to be hot and dry,” Vic-toria Emergency Services Com-missioner Andrew Crisp said, urging residents to be prepared for bushfires to flare. “If you’re gonna wait until you see the smoke or the fire at your doorstep, it’s far too late. You’ve gotta get out early,” he said.
Storms are forecast to follow the heat wave, bringing rain that could help dampen fires but also the potential for wild weather, including flash flooding.
Extreme weather has bat-tered parts of Australia in recent weeks, bringing giant hail, floods and landslides.
The renewed fire threat came as worst-hit New South Wales announced an inquiry
into the catastrophic bush fire season, which has left at least 32 people dead and devastated vast swathes of the country since September.
“The scale of these fires has been unprecedented and we must leave no stone unturned,” Premier Gladys Berejiklian said.
“This inquiry will allow NSW to learn from this season and the catastrophic conditions we’ve faced, and apply these learnings for the future.” That comes on top of a Royal Com-mission inquiry announced by Prime Minister Scott Morrison earlier in January.
The months-long crisis has sparked renewed calls for Aus-tralia’s conservative gov-ernment to take immediate action on climate change, with street protests urging Morrison to reduce the country’s reliance on coal.
Minutes before firing, the shooter, who identified himself as “Rambhakt Gopal” had uploaded posts onto his Facebook profile saying this will be his “final journey” and urging readers to “remember his family”.
07FRIDAY 31 JANUARY 2020 ASIA
All eyes turn to WHO as China virus deaths rise to 170, infects 7,711REUTERS — BEIJING,
Hundreds of foreign evacuees from the Chinese city of Wuhan entered quarantine yesterday as deaths from a fast-spreading virus rose to 170 and markets shuddered at the impact of an inevitable big hit to the world’s No. 2 economy.
All eyes were on the World Health Organisation (WHO), which has held off declaring the flu-like coronavirus a global emergency but was to recon-sider that later in the day.
Such a declaration would trigger tighter containment and information-sharing guidelines, but may disappoint Beijing, which had expressed confi-dence in defeating the “devil” virus.
The coronavirus, which orig-inated in an illegal wildlife market in the central city of Wuhan, has now claimed 170 lives and infected 7,711 people in China, latest official data showed.
Almost all the deaths have been in Hubei province — of which Wuhan is the capital —where 60 million people are now living under virtual lockdown, staying inside their homes and only venturing out with masks on.
“Most of the shops are closed. We cannot go out and buy food,” Si Thu Tun, one of 60 students from Myanmar trapped in Wuhan, told online news outlet the Democratic Voice of Burma.
“Honestly, I have one big potato and three packs of instant noodles and some rice,” he said. Myanmar plans a special flight to get the students out within three days.
As other countries fly cit-izens out, cut flights and heighten screening, another 105 cases have emerged in at least
16 places from Japan to the United States.
An Italian cruise ship’s 6,000 passengers were kept on board while tests were held on two Chinese travellers.
The crisis has stoked a wave of anti-China sentiment around the globe, from shops barring tourists to online mockery.
“The weapons that will protect us from the new coro-navirus are not fear and aversion, but trust and cooper-ation,” said South Korean Pres-ident Moon Jae-in as Seoul pre-pared to evacuate the first of about 700 citizens from Wuhan.
Streets in many Chinese cities were largely deserted and tourist attractions shut. Star-bucks coffee shops were requiring temperature checks and masks.
Cases of human-to-human transmission outside China are of particular concern to medics, but it is too early to determine how lethal the coronavirus is, as there are likely to be many cases of milder infections going undetected.
It has an incubation time of between one and 14 days.
Chinese National Health
Commission Minister Ma Xiaowei said this week the virus was infectious during incu-bation, unlike Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), another virus that emerged from China and killed about 800 people in 2002 and 2003.
The global cost from SARS was estimated at $33 billion, or 0.1 percent of world GDP in 2003. Many economists fear the impact on global growth could be bigger this time as China now accounts for a larger share of the world economy.
Foreign students stuck in Wuhan are launching social media campaigns, making phone calls and writing letters urging their governments to get them out as soon as possible.
Pakistan said that quar-antine regulations prevented it from flying out the more than 500 Pakistani students and their families from Wuhan. Bang-ladesh and India said they were putting aircraft on standby.
Muhammad Rauf, 30, a Pakistani master’s student, told Reuters he and around 40 others were locked in their Wuhan dormitory for all but four hours a day.
“How long will the lockdown be?... What will we do? Just count down our days?” he said, adding they had been calling for an evacuation plan from their government for ten days.
Pakistani Health Minister Zafar Mirza said he understood students were anxious, there were no current plan to evacuate them — but the embassy was providing support.
“We are following Chinese regulations according to which the whole place is under quar-antine. As they open it, we will decide accordingly,” he told Reuters by phone.
Medical staff in protective clothing are seen carrying a patient from an apartment suspected of having the virus in Wuhan, in Hubei province, yesterday.
Three Japanese evacuees from Wuhan test positive for virus, two had no symptomsREUTERS — TOKYO
Two of three Japanese people evacuated from China and found to be infected with a new coronavirus had not shown symptoms, the health ministry said yesterday, adding to worries about the fast-spreading virus and its economic fallout.
The three cases were among 206 Japanese people who were evacuated to Tokyo on Wednesday from the Chinese city of Wuhan, the epicentre of the epidemic that has killed 170 people in China and infected nearly 8,000.
While the vast majority of cases have been in China, more than 100 cases have also appeared in about 15 other countries. Later on Thursday, a Chinese man in his 50s, who had previously stayed in Wuhan, was found be infected in the western prefecture of Mie, Kyodo news agency reported.
A Chinese woman in her 20s, who had previously stayed in Wuhan and was studying in
Kyoto, was also found to be infected, broadcaster NHK said.
That brought the total number of cases in Japan to 13 including the three evacuees.
The two people who were confirmed as infected but had not shown symptoms were the first such cases in Japan, though suspicion has been rising else-where that people who have the virus but no symptoms can infect others.
That would make the virus much more difficult to control.
Japan on Tuesday classified the virus a “designated infec-tious disease”, which would allow compulsory hospitali-sation and the use of public funds for treatment.
But the designation - which takes effect on Feb. 7 after ordi-nances are issued - does not apply to people without symptoms.
Asked about concern over transmission of the virus from people who have not shown symptoms, a health ministry official said it was not clear whether that had happened.
Shigeru Omi, head of the Japan Community Health Care Organization, told a briefing that there were reports of such transmissions in China.
Chinese National Health Com-mission Minister Ma Xiaowei said this week the virus was infectious during incubation, which can range from one to 14 days.
A second charter flight car-rying 210 Japanese nationals arrived in Tokyo on Thursday. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said 13 of them felt unwell.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, inaugurating a task force to deal with the virus, said the gov-ernment would take all steps to prevent its spread, including tracking and checking people who had been in Wuhan.
Among Japan’s cases was a tour bus driver who was infected after coming into contact with Chinese visitors.
ANA Holdings, Japan’s biggest carrier, said its bookings for flights from China in February fell by half, while those for flights to China plunged 60 percent.
2 US airmen killed in Afghanistan crash: Pentagon
ANATOLIA — ANKARA
Following two days of silence and reported investigation, the Pentagon has confirmed that two US airmen were killed in an Air Force plane crash Monday in Afghanistan.
“The Department of Defense announced today the deaths of two airmen who were supporting Operation Freedom’s Sentinel,” it said in a statement released on Wednesday.
Lieutenant Colonel Paul K Voss, 46, and Captain Ryan S Phaneuf, 30, died on Monday in the crash of a Bombardier E-11A aircraft in Ghazni, central Afghanistan, it said.
The cause of the crash remains under investigation.
On Monday US Forces Afghanistan (USFOR-A) spokesman Colonel Sonny Leggett announced that a US Air Force plane crashed in Afghanistan, without giving information on casualties. “While the cause of the crash is under investigation, there are no indications the crash was caused by enemy fire,” Leggett tweeted.
However, the Taliban claimed that its forces had shot down the US. plane.
Zabihullah Mujahed, a Taliban spokesman, claimed in a statement on social media, “All staff and pas-sengers, including key officers of the CIA, have been killed,” posting pictures and video of a plane with apparent US markings.
Afghan officials earlier in the week had said their forces were pushed back by Taliban snipers when they tried to approach the crash site.
The US military conducted 2,434 air strikes in the war-hit country to drop 7,423 bombs, marking a steady rise over 7,362 weapons released in 2018, the US Air Forces Central Command (AFCENT) said in a report on Monday.
S Korean officials face eggs as quarantine plane takes offREUTERS — ASAN/SEOUL
Angry South Koreans volleyed eggs and expletives yesterday at a minister and officials trying to defuse their ire over plans to quar-antine hundreds of citizens set to be flown home from the epicentre of a new virus epidemic in China.
The first of up to four flights planned to evacuate South Koreans from Wuhan departed yesterday night carrying some 360, after an unexpected hours-long delay because China had only approved one flight.
South Korea also reported its fifth and sixth confirmed cases of the virus yesterday, including the first patient infected in South Korea. Pre-vious cases only involved people
who had travelled to Wuhan.As the South Koreans were
gearing up to fly out of Wuhan, protesters in Asan and Jincheon, cities about 80km south of Seoul, the capital, used tractors to block access to facilities ear-marked for quarantine centres.
In Asan, demonstrators threw eggs and shouted expletives when Chin Young, the minister of interior and safety, arrived to talk to them on Thursday. Police held up umbrellas as a shield.
“If it’s so safe why don’t you bring them to your home?” one protester shouted at Chin.
The minister said he sym-pathised with the concerns, saying the facilities were chosen as the only ones large enough to accommodate the evacuees.
‘Palace guard’ members in traditional Korean costume wear face masks as they perform for tourists at Deoksugung Palace in Seoul, yesterday.
Pakistan Bar Association seeks changes in accountability lawINTERNEWS — ISLAMABAD
The Supreme Court Bar Asso-ciation (SCBA) of Pakistan has emphasised the need for legis-lative changes in the National Accountability Ordinance (NAO) as well as improved training modules of NAB officials to curb misuse of power by the anti-graft watchdog.
“The dignity and credibility of an institution which is
responsible for accountability in the country should be up to the mark and must meet the highest standards set interna-tionally for such like institutions of pivotal importance,” said Syed Qalb-i-Hassan, the pres-ident of the SCBA.
In a statement, he also expressed concern over proce-dures and mechanisms used by NAB authorities during pro-ceedings conducted by them.
The SCBA president said that NAB was established for the purpose of curbing corruption and malpractices at the highest level and for establishing the rule of law across the board, but the procedure adopted by the bureau had raised questions in prudent minds of society about the methodology of arrest, inquiries, investigations and delayed trials.
The arrest of suspects
without collection of evidence had become a norm and the trend of searching evidence for justifying the arrest had become the order of the day, regretted Hassan.
Belated accusations, he said, against different people and inquiries spreading over years without their finalisation were against fundamental con-stitutional rights of the citizens.
The most important and fundamental rights, including the right to liberty, he said, were being compromised due to non-professional approach of officials of the bureau.
Therefore, he said, the SCBA wanted legislative changes and improved training modules for officials of the bureau to curb the practice of misuse of power and authority by them.
Asia ramps up defences against deadly outbreakAFP — MANILA
Asian nations have sealed borders and clamped down on Chinese visitors as they try to protect themselves from a deadly virus epidemic.
The outbreak has killed 170 people in China, infected over 7,700 more and sparked pro-gressively more urgent precau-tions around the region.
Here are some key measures taken outside mainland China: - Hong Kong - Six of the territory’s 14
mainland crossings were sealed from Thursday as the city took steps to cut the number of people arriving.
Visitors from the ground-zero central Chinese province Hubei, as well as people who have visited the area, are banned from entering Hong Kong.
Japan - If quarantine authorities judge that an arriving visitor has the virus, that person can be barred entry, the Japanese immigration service has said.
Kazakhstan - The Central Asian nation announced Wednesday it has stopped issuing visas to Chinese citizens and will cut all major transport links with China over the outbreak.
Cross-border buses were ordered to stop from Wednesday, followed by the suspension of passenger train services from Saturday.
Malaysia - Visitors from Wuhan and surrounding Hubei province have been banned since Monday.
Authorities have tempo-rarily stopped issuing visas for Chinese citizens from the hard-hit areas.
Maldives - The Indian Ocean atoll nation of the Mal-dives, which welcomes 284,000 Chinese tourists every year, has banned direct flights from China from Friday.
The ban will affect the national carrier, as well as three Chinese airlines operating five daily f l ights to the archipelago.
Mongolia - Mongolia has
closed its border with China to cars, temporarily shut schools and suspended all public events.
The measures announced Monday by the vast, landlocked country were some of the most drastic steps taken by any nation.
The Philippines - Visa-on-arrival privileges for Chinese were suspended Tuesday to slow down the entry of tourists from the country, while Fili-pinos were advised to avoid non-essential travel to China. The Philippines reported its first case of infection yesterday.
Cases of human-to-human transmission outside China are of particular concern to medics, but it is too early to determine how lethal the coronavirus is, as there are likely to be many cases of milder infections going undetected.
The decision by Trump to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel while ignoring the legitimate rights of Palestinians in international law was seen by international actors as direct support for Israel’s suppression policies on Palestinians.
THE graduation ceremony of the 7th batch of Al Zaeem Mohamed Bin Abdullah Al Attiyah Air College students, held on Wednesday at its headquarters in Al Udeid Air Base, was a momentous day in the history of the country as first Qatari female fighter pilot passed out of the academy that day along with 96 other cadets.
Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, who presided over the graduation ceremony, hon-oured the fighter pilot, while the commander of the college, Staff Brigadier Pilot Hamad Hadid Mubarak Al Ibrahim, expressed his pride in the graduation of the first Qatari woman as a fighter pilot after finishing the required hours of training efficiently and competently.
She will join the ranks of scores of other women who are proudly serving the forces in various capaci-ties including flying helicopters. There are a good number of women who are employed in medical, IT and administrative fields of defence forces.
Like any other modern State, Qatar has always given equal opportunity to women in all fields and the effort has borne fruit over time as many women are now in leadership positions in various institu-tions and industries.
This is a huge positive as it is not that common to see females in decision making posi-tions in many other countries in the region.
Doha has clearly set an example in the region by providing equal access to resources like education without any discrimination that anyone who dreams big have a very good chance of making it a reality. As mentioned on H H Sheikha Moza bint Nasser’s Instagram feed “Quality education is essential for every child. It can give children equal opportunities to build a better future for themselves and society as a whole.”
The impact of easy access to quality education can be seen all over the Qatar workplace. Young cit-izens are taking charge and bringing about innova-tions and applying out-of-the-box ideas in every aspects of life. Among them are a good number of women leaders who are shining not only in the tra-ditional fields such as academics and healthcare, but also doing outstanding work in scientific research, policy making and sports to name a few.
Many glass ceilings were broken over time and with a supporting leadership and administration more and more girls will join the ranks of the first female pilot, who scripted history, and will see their dreams come true.
The previous administration took a view that if the United Kingdom made this decision they'd be at the back of the line - we intend to put the United Kingdom at the front of the line.
Mike Pompeo, US Secretary of State
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (second right) speaking to Palestinian officials in Ramallah.
The Israeli authorities have made it a tradition to bomb Gaza at least once a month. Most recently, their F-16 jets have bombed the south of Gaza under the pretense of retaliation. On the other hand, it goes without saying that Israel constantly does everything in its power to increase pressure on Gaza to make it uninhabitable to the local people.
In addition to the systematic embargo in effect since 2006, while it enforces control and limits movement across the Rafah Border Crossing, it also demol-ished all existing tunnels from the enclave. At this point, bombing the already strained region strengthens claims that Israel now aims to drive off the local people.
While today it is Israeli experts and politicians who broach the idea of relo-cating Gazans to the Sinai Peninsula, the issue was first proposed to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on August 8, 2014, by the leader and government of an Arab nation.
Since its establishment as a state, Israel has constantly been making moves to claim Gaza as well as unlawfully occupy Palestinian lands. The first appearance of Gaza on the agenda was actually in 1956 when Igor Ayland pro-posed that its inhabitants be relocated to a region in the Sinai Peninsula. Remaining on the agenda until the present day, this offer was once again opened to international debate when Trump became president of the US and has become a subject of debate more in recent years since Abdel Fattah Al Sisi seizing power through a coup in Egypt. This was because accepting the Pales-tinians in the Sinai was a demand attached to Sisi’s ascension to power.
The plot to relocate Palestinians does not appear to be an easy and readily-agreeable possibility. For it to materi-alise, first, an extreme right government must emerge from the elections in Israel.
The proposal to relocate Gazans to the Sinai Peninsula, so far discussed by Israeli experts and politicians, was first suggested to Mahmoud Abbas, by an Arab state and leader on August 8, 2014. Though the issue appeared to have been closed with Abbas’s rejection, it now appears that this was only true for Pales-tine’s agenda and that it is just now being discussed in regional countries. As such, in February 2017 in the Jordanian town of Aqaba, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met former US Secretary of State John Kerry, King Abdullah II of Jordan and Egyptian President Sisi on the relocation of Palestinians to the Sinai. An international agenda is being pushed as Israel leaks these talks to the press.
For the plan to be put into motion, Israel needs to form an official alliance with Egypt and regional actors must acknowledge their inability to solve the Palestinian issue. The issue of relocating Gazans to the Sinai Peninsula has become an issue of debate in the US since
Trump became president. His claim to bring peace to the Middle East aside, his policies since he became president seem certain to cause serious injury rather than bring peace. The decision by Trump to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel while ignoring the legitimate rights of Palestinians in international law was seen by international actors as direct support for Israel’s suppression policies on Palestinians.
Trump invited the leaders of Jewish settlers, whom the US recognised as illegal within international law, to his oath-taking ceremony during his presi-dency is another important indicator of his support for Israel. Another issue in which international law is neglected is the refugees’ right to return. Proposing to change the legal definition of Palestinian refugees, Kushner, who is at the same time Trump’s son-in-law and chief advisor, sought to change their interna-tional legal status. Any change in the def-inition of refugee will take away almost all the rights of Palestinians including their right to return.
When evaluated in terms of the coun-tries in the region, it appears that some events, especially those that took place in recent years, have brought Jordan and Egypt closer to this idea.
The scenario of relocating of Pales-tinians does not seem, in our opinion, an easy and immediately acceptable possi-bility. For this to happen, firstly, an extreme right government must emerge from the elections in Israel. Additionally, Israel has to form an official alliance with Egypt, and subsequently, the actors in the region must acknowledge their weakness in solving the Palestinian issue. At this point, when we look at the countries of the region, even though they do not express this openly, the fact that they are all struggling with their own internal problems certainly encourages the Zionist regime. Another thing that Israel is aiming for that will serve its own pur-poses is to especially weaken Gaza eco-nomically and force its inhabitants to migrate. In this regard, it is a very important development that one of the most recent studies reveals that one in four young people living in Gaza wants to live somewhere outside the enclave.
Even though all the current condi-tions and the situation seem in favor of Israel, there are also many unknown dark spots waiting for Tel Aviv. The pos-sibility of a move towards relocation backfiring is fairly high. Such an attempt will mark the failure of all Israeli strat-egies to seek a peaceful solution before the international public.
Again, such a move is initiated, pressure from the Arab and Islamic world will occur and will force Israel and its supporters to take a step back. This would again mark an important defeat for Israel before international public opinion.
In addition to the possibility of Israel’s use of force to ensure the relocation of Palestinians living in Gaza to the Sinai Peninsula, there is also a possibility of achieving this peacefully. However, this is dependent on the acceptance of Arab countries in the region. From this end, it is not a coincidence that Trump’s son-in-law and chief advisor David Kushner visited the countries of the region one by one, especially on the “Deal of the
Century,” in 2019. However, the fact is that many of these countries are strug-gling with civil wars and conflicts pre-venting them from prioritizing the Pales-tinian issue. It is also highly probable that if their regimes, many of which are on thin ice, take such a chance, this will heat up the streets in their own countries.
Finally, we should also mention that the plan to relocate Gazans is very likely to fail. In fact, during the occupation that has been going on for over 70 years, projects for exiling the Palestinians have never been out of the question. However, the implementation of such a project in the near future is more likely to trigger a global earthquake than a regional one. This frightens many international actors, the U.S. in particular. In spite of this, Israel’s plan and intention to this end stand before us as a reality. Therefore, the peoples of the region and their coun-tries should be more careful about the issue.
When looked at carefully, it will be immediately understood that what Trump calls the “Deal of the Century” is not an issue brought up by Republicans in the US for the first time. In 2002, then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice introduced the Greater Middle East Project and said a new world order existed under this project.
She mentioned many issues that we are currently going through, from the division of Sudan and Yemen to the Syrian civil war. For this reason, many issues that are actually addressed as the “Deal of the Century” will come/be brought to our attention 10 years from now. Therefore, the countries of the region should be more attentive today.
As a result, the fact that Israel is intensifying its pressure and military operations in the region does not mean the people living there will have increas-ingly difficult days — in fact, it means that more difficult and troubled days are awaiting the region in general. Although Israel does not currently have the social and political environment in place to realize a relocation in the near future, it is investing in persuading regional coun-tries on Gazans’ future migration by taking advantage of these countries’ cir-cumstances in the current chaotic envi-ronment. Actually, the motive behind its increasing, unprovoked pressure on Gaza and its constant bombardment of the region is its intention to invest in the future.
The author is an academic member of Necmettin Erbakan University.
‘Deal of Century’ and the plan to relocate Palestinians
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GOKHAN BOZBAS ANATOLIA
09FRIDAY 31 JANUARY 2020 OPINION
When the new coronavirus genome sequence was posted to an online genetic databank in early January, Hotez immediately saw the close similarity to SARS and realized that the samples sitting in storage had the potential to defend against the new coronavirus.
Britain will leave the EU at 11 pm London time on Friday, following Boris Johnson’s victory at last month’s general election. Much has been written, including in this column, about the results of the election, and in particular how the Labour Party lost it so badly. But Brexit also means another postmortem - why did the efforts to stop Brexit fall short?
There were effectively two routes by which Brexit could have been stopped - either for parliament to legislate for a referendum with a “remain” option during last year’s standoff, or by electing a par-liament that would do this.
Neither succeeded.The Remainers were
unable to convince enough lawmakers to back a plebi-scite -- on two occasions non-binding parliamentary votes were lost narrowly. The debate will continue indefi-nitely as to whether and to what extent Labour’s ambiguous Brexit position hurt Labour itself. But it clearly hurt the chances of a referendum.
But nor could they con-vince voters to elect a par-liament that would deliver a referendum. This is only partly explained by the fact that many voters whose support such an effort would have needed weren’t pre-pared to back Jeremy Corbyn as a possible prime minister.
Smaller pro-European parties could have held the balance of power after the election. Yet the reality proved to be a series of mishaps and missed opportu-nities, from the botched launch of The Independent
Group to the ups and downs of the Liberal Democrats, the failure of the two to work together when such an
alliance would have been at its most powerful, and not forgetting the vast array of new anti-Brexit “center” parties.
Yet these failures speak to something more fundamental. The Remainers didn’t win the argument. It’s often over-looked that public opinion hasn’t shifted much from the 52% to 48% outcome in 2016. Number Cruncher polling indicates that Brits were still evenly divided on Brexit at the time of the election, with 46% saying it was wrong, 44% saying it was right, and about 85% of voters on both sides backing their original vote.
The shift in headline numbers has been glacial and is largely explained by com-positional change -- those who have died since 2016 are much likelier to have been Leavers, while those newly eligible to vote are much likelier to be Remainers.
Similarly, despite asking the question in many different forms, few polls showed more than narrow net support for a second referendum with an option to Remain.
This paints a very different picture than the outpouring of enthusiasm for the EU shown by thousands marching and the millions signing petitions. Part of the difference is that many 2016 Remain voters -- particularly fiscally conserv-ative, “status quo” types -- were quite happy to go along with David Cameron’s Remain campaign, but were never staunch Europhiles.
Much like the parties, the anti-Brexit campaign groups were numerous, in some cases reflecting the inter-section of Brexit and tradi-tional party loyalties. There were certainly cases where this became an issue -- for most of the general election campaign the groups couldn’t even agree on tactical voting advice.
Then there were doubts around democratic
legitimacy. Remainers repeatedly argued that a democracy can change its mind, as many countries indeed did after referendums on the EU that failed to ratify a significant change.
However I struggle to think of a comparable refer-endum in which the change option had been endorsed by the public, only for voters to be asked to vote again without the change being implemented. Attempts by some activists to delegitimize the 2016 vote, whether based on allegations of campaign overspending or foreign inter-ference, failed to move the dial.
It’s also worth consid-ering the legacy of the 2016 Remain campaign, and what lessons were and were not learned. The predictions of a year-long recession after the referendum — which never occurred — made it rela-tively easy to dismiss all sub-sequent warnings about the costs of Brexit as “project fear.”
What’s more, the cultural gap underlying the Brexit divide has not gone away. While many Remainers, par-ticularly those on the eco-nomic left, have tried to explain Brexit through eco-nomics, this was not the main driver of the Leave vote.
And finally, the fatigue factor. Many people were just fed up and wanted to move on from Brexit gridlock. Boris Johnson’s mantra of “Get Brexit done” stuck and his victory pro-vided the killer blow. But ultimately, it may well be that stopping Brexit simply wasn’t on the cards once the referendum had delivered its verdict.
The author runs Number Cruncher Politics, a nonpar-tisan polling and elections site that predicted the 2015 UK election polling failure.
Why Brexit opponents lost the vote and the argument
In a suburb south of Boston, robots have already started manufacturing a potential vaccine against the fast-spreading coronavirus. Another candidate vaccine - developed when a similar virus terrified the world - sits in deep freeze in a repository in Houston, ready to be thawed and formu-lated into thousands of vials for further testing. Yet another is being put together at facilities in San Diego and Houston, with projections that it could be tested in people by summer.
To scientists, the work to create a vaccine against the new coronavirus is advancing with a speed they could barely have imagined a decade ago. At the same time, it’s not even close to quick enough to contain the spreading infection - and in many ways, the out-break will test the capacity of science to react in real time to a new and unknown “pathogen X” that takes the world by surprise.
“Traditional vaccine devel-opment efforts have usually taken decades, not months,” said Barney Graham, deputy director of the Vaccine Research Center at the National Institutes of Health, which hopes to have a vaccine in human testing by April. “This is, first, a response to this new virus, but it’s also a drill for pathogen X . . . press the system, to see how rapidly we can go.”
When a mysterious new illness emerges and public alarm is at its peak, there’s a race to develop a way to prevent or treat the disease. But by the time a promising can-didate is ready, it’s often too late for it to be helpful against
the outbreak that triggered the rush. Public interest, funding and the urgency that drove the early vaccine development can quickly taper.
“We were getting candidate vaccines, the epidemics would die down and they’d get put back on the shelf,” said Jac-queline Shea, chief scientific officer of Inovio, a biotech company that has been devel-oping vaccines for Zika, Ebola and Middle East respiratory syndrome.
That’s what happened with severe acute respiratory syn-drome (SARS), to the dismay of Peter Jay Hotez, co-director of the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Devel-opment. Eight years ago, he and his co-director, Maria Elena Bottazzi, won federal funding to create a vaccine against SARS, a coronavirus that emerged in 2002 and infected 8,000 people and killed nearly 800. By 2016, they had manufactured enough of the potential vaccine to get through toxicology tests and human safety trials.
But the team tried and failed to win various grants to bring their experimental vaccine through further testing. They say about $2 million could have funded essential and time-consuming toxicology studies and ready it for phase 1 trials - the technical term for the first-in-human studies that typically determine the dosing and safety of a drug. Although the threat of SARS has receded, it was becoming increasingly clear that coronaviruses, long thought to cause mild illness, were able to cause serious pandemics.
When the new coronavirus genome sequence was posted to an online genetic databank in early January, Hotez imme-diately saw the close similarity to SARS and realized that the samples sitting in storage had the potential to defend against the new coronavirus.
“Had we been able to secure the investment, we
could have done all the phase 1 trials. We could have poten-tially been ready to vaccinate in China, now,” Hotez said. “This is the problem with the whole vaccine infrastructure - it’s reactive, not anticipatory enough. ‘Oh, SARS is gone now, let’s move on.’ “What the scien-tific response to the new coro-navirus has shown so far is how the first step in the process - designing and even beginning to manufacture the vaccine - can happen nearly overnight, due to the emergence of new technologies.
Scientists at the National Institutes of Health were strate-gizing with a Massachusetts biotech company, Moderna, over the winter holiday break, about collaborating to build a vaccine for the virus. As soon as the genome of the virus was posted online in early January, the NIH designed the piece of the vaccine that should trigger the immune system to rec-ognize and disable the virus. NIH sent their design to Moderna, which could inte-grate it into its virus platform and rapidly scale up manufac-turing. The NIH hopes to have the vaccine in the first safety trials by April.
At Inovio, a biotech company headquartered outside Philadelphia, a team began working on designing a vaccine hours after the sequence appeared, said Shea, Inovio’s chief operating officer. The company farmed out pro-duction of one piece of its vaccine to a contract laboratory in Houston and is making the other component at its facility in San Diego. The company is gearing up for the lab and animal tests that will be nec-essary before safety trials in people.
Pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson has also jumped into the vaccine effort and estimates that it will be eight to 12 months before their candidate is ready for testing in people. Many countries are also working on different
approaches, in parallel.“The actual technical feat of
making a vaccine against this virus is probably not going to be that hard,” Hotez said. “The problem is you can’t avoid, or even compress the timelines very much for safety testing.”
That means scientists are flooded with public interest in their vaccine efforts right now and must temper their excitement with the reality that there will be a months-long wait, at minimum, for a vaccine that’s ready for its first tests in people.
“What is the value of a vaccine if development takes a year in the context of the current situation, which seems to be moving very rapidly? The value of a vaccine is we don’t actually know what the tra-jectory of the epidemic could be,” said Richard Hatchett, chief executive of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, a global alliance that is funding the Inovio and Moderna efforts and another vaccine being created by researchers at the University of Queensland in Australia.
For example, if the out-break is still raging after initial safety tests, it is possible that experimental vaccines could be used to protect people on the front lines of treating the disease or in emergency situa-tions, before they are approved for the general population, as happened with Ebola. When Ebola devastated west Africa in 2014, a vaccine was not ready. But when Ebola resurfaced in 2019 in Congo, more than 200,000 people were vaccinated.
If the infections have begun to subside by the time vaccines are through the first round of safety testing, getting a vaccine approved would still be useful in case the virus flares again - but showing that it is safe for healthy people in the general population will take time and continued effort.
In the meantime, researchers are also looking at ways of quickly repurposing
existing antiviral drugs to see whether any might work against the coronavirus. Paul Stoffels, chief scientific officer of Johnson & Johnson, said the company had donated 100 boxes of an HIV medication, Prezcobix, to clinicians in Shanghai to see whether it showed any efficacy against the illness. Purdue University researchers hope to test experi-mental drugs that were initially developed against SARS. At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, researchers have been gearing up to test remde-sivir, an experimental antiviral drug that has shown promise against other coronaviruses but failed against Ebola.
But every step takes time. Even having the right labo-ratory tests, ingredients and animal models of the disease are crucial and time-con-suming steps. Laboratories have been waiting for the viral genome to be synthesized by companies and are anxious to get samples of the actual virus.
A decade after SARS, another coronavirus emerged that caused Middle East Respi-ratory Sydrome (MERS). Many think the coronavirus in China is a lesson that this family of viruses will continue to cross from animals into humans and cause potential pandemics. That means they would like to be prepared, with vaccine plat-forms that can be readily adapted to new infections, and antiviral drugs that work broadly for multiple diseases.
“Emerging viruses, they’re a moving target. They come and they go, and sometimes they come and they don’t go. But it’s impossible to predict the tra-jectory of an emerging virus,” said Timothy Sheahan, assistant professor at the Gillings School of Global Public Health at UNC. “So one way we’re trying to maximize the utility of a given antiviral drug is to develop broad-spectrum antivirals. Rather than have one drug for one bug, we want one drug for many bugs.”
Coronavirus vaccine research is moving at record speed
MATT SINGH BLOOMBERG
CAROLYN Y JOHNSON THE WASHINGTON POST
What’s more, the cultural gap underlying the Brexit divide has not gone away. While many Remainers, particularly those on the economic left, have tried to explain Brexit through economics, this was not the main driver of the Leave vote.
There were effectively two routes by which Brexit could have been stopped — either for parliament to legislate for a referendum with a “remain” option during last year’s standoff, or by electing a parliament that would do this. Neither succeeded.
A file photo of Pro-European Union (EU), anti-Brexit demonstrators wave Union and EU flags as they protest opposite the Houses of Parliament in London.
10 FRIDAY 31 JANUARY 2020EUROPE
Decision on Huawei won’t affect UK-US ties: PompeoAP — LONDON
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said yesterday that the US and Britain would retain and enhance their special rela-tionship once the UK leaves the European Union this week.
He also said that American unhappiness with the British decision to allow the Chinese tech company Huawei to play a role in the country’s high-speed wireless network would not affect broader ties.
As President Donald Trump’s Senate impeachment trial neared a close in Wash-ington, Pompeo met with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to re-register American con-cerns about Huawei. But he stressed that he expected they could be addressed as more details emerge on what limits will be placed on the company and with advances in commu-nications technology.
Pompeo played down con-cerns that Huawei’s presence in Britain’s 5G network would severely disrupt intelligence sharing within the so-called “Five Eyes” partnership of English-speaking nations that includes the US, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
“That relationship is deep. It is strong, it will remain,” Pompeo said at an event with
British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab before meeting Johnson.
“I am confident that as we work together to figure out how to implement this decision that we’ll work to get this right.”
“We were trying to make the case, as we made the case with every country in the world, that we think putting Huawei technology anywhere in your system is very, very difficult to mitigate and therefore not worth the gamble,” he said.
“But as we move forward together to make sure that next generation of technology is right, is secure and operates under a Western set of values and system, we’ll get to the right place,” Pompeo said.
A State Department spokesman said the talks with Johnson focused on
“strengthening bilateral ties” and “the importance of main-taining the integrity of commu-nications networks.”
On Tuesday, Britain decided to let Huawei have a limited role supplying new high-speed network equipment to wireless
carriers, ignoring Washington’s warnings that it would sever intelligence sharing if the company wasn’t banned.
Britain’s decision was the first by a major US ally in Europe, and follows intense lobbying from the Trump
administration as the US vies with China for technological dominance.
Pompeo is in London on the first leg of a trip to Europe and Central Asia that will also take him to Ukraine, Belarus, Kaza-khstan and Uzbekistan.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson (right) greets US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on his arrival to hold talks at 10 Downing Street in London, yesterday.
EU nations give Brexit final nodAFP — BRUSSELS
The remaining 27 member states of the European Union signed off on the Brexit with-drawal agreement yesterday with an exchange of diplo-matic messages.
Unlike Wednesday night’s emotional scenes in the European Parliament, where MEPs passed the deal into EU law, the capitals’ “written pro-cedure” was low key.
The European Council said in a brief statement that the withdrawal agreement would enter into force at 2300 GMT on Friday, the moment Britain officially leaves the EU.
“From that time on, the UK will no longer be an EU member state and will be con-sidered as a third country,” the statement said.
The United Kingdom has been a member of the com-munity that became the European Union for 47 years, but British voters decided to quit the bloc in a 2016 referendum.
Britain formally leaves the EU bodies on Friday, but will continue to follow EU trade and travel rules until the end of the year under a transition period.
German nurse ‘poisoned babies with morphine’AFP — FRANKFURT AM MAIN
A nurse in Germany has been arrested on suspicion of poisoning five premature babies with morphine, police said yesterday, adding that the infants had survived.
The woman was taken into custody on Wednesday after investigators found a syringe containing breast milk and traces of morphine in her locker at Ulm University Hospital in southern Germany.
The babies, who were between one day and five weeks old and staying in the same hospital room, all sud-denly developed breathing problems “at almost the same time” in the early hours of December 20, Ulm police chief Bernhard Weber said.
“Only because of immediate action taken by the staff could the five lives be saved,” he told a press conference.
Doctors do not expect the infants to suffer any lasting
harm. The young nurse taken into custody has yet to be for-mally charged but faces five counts of attempted man-slaughter and grievous bodily harm, Ulm prosecutor Christof Lehr told reporters.
She denies poisoning the babies, he added.
Hospital staff initially sus-pected the infants had caught an infection, “but this could be ruled out after urine tests”, police chief Weber said.
The tests did however show traces of morphine — although two of the babies had not been prescribed the heavy painkiller as part of their care.
The hospital notified the police on January 17.
A search of the lockers of employees on duty around the time of the incident turned up the syringe “filled with breast milk”, said Lehr.
Testing “confirmed the ter-rible suspicion that the syringe contained morphine”, he said.
Prosecutors believe the
woman acted with premedi-tation and “accepted that the babies could die” as a result of her actions, Lehr said.
Her psychological state is currently being evaluated.
Ulm University Hospital said “rapid medial intervention” meant the babies’ conditions
“were stable again within 48 hours and they could breathe on their own again”.
“We very much regret that this incident could have hap-pened and we sincerely apol-ogise to the parents and children,” a hospital statement said.
A view of the children’s hospital, where a nurse reportedly poisoned five babies, in Ulm, southern Germany.
France anti-govt protestFrench anti-riot policemen control unionists demonstrating in front of Amgouleme train station against the visit of French President Emmanuel Macron during the 47th International Comics festival, in Amgouleme, France, yesterday.
European rights court faults France for prison overcrowdingAFP — STRASBOURG, FRANCE
The European Court of Human Rights yesterday ordered France to pay thousands of euros in damages to dozens of inmates after ruling that authorities had not taken suffi-cient measures to end prison overcrowding.
The case was filed by 32 inmates of six prisons including one of France’s largest at Fresnes, outside Paris, which holds 2,500 people — nearly double the number of beds at the site.
“The court considered that the personal space allocated to most of the applicants had fallen below the required minimum standard of three square meters (32 square feet) throughout their period of detention,” it said in a statement.
It also criticised a “lack of privacy in using the toilets” at the six facilities.
France has about 70,800 people behind bars at 188 pen-itentiaries according to official figures from October 2019. Official capacity is 61,065, for an occupancy rate of 116 percent.
Nearly 1,500 mattresses are placed on the floor because no beds are available.
Conditions in French prisons have long been an embarrassment for the state, with President Emmanuel Macron himself once describing them as “disgraceful”.
An official report on condi-tions at the Fresnes prison in 2016 found it to be infested with rats, and prisoners sleeping three to a 10-square-metre cell. It also criticised a shortage of personnel.
MEPs demand universal mobile phone charger in clash with AppleAFP — BRUSSELS
The European Parliament demanded yesterday that the EU urgently force tech companies to adopt a universal charger, setting up a clash with Apple and its widely used iPhone connector cable.
A resolution, voted 582 in favour and 40 against, called on the European Commission to publish an impact assessment on introducing a common charger “with a view to pro-p o s i n g m a n d a t o r y provisions”.
It cited consumer and
environmental problems with having a variety of chargers on the market as an argument to finally bring in an EU law on the issue.
European legislators have been pushing for a universal charger for a decade, but Apple has ferociously resisted.
The US company insists that its Lightning cable that charges its iPhones is part of a stand for “innovation”.
Consumers currently have to decide between three main chargers to power their phones: Lightning ones for Apple handsets, micro-USB ones
widely used on most other mobile phones, and USB-C ones that are increasingly being used.
That range is greatly sim-plified from 2009, when dozens of different types of chargers were bundled with mobile phones, creating piles of elec-tronic garbage when users changed brands.
But the world still generates 50 million tonnes of electronic waste a year, MEPs said, under-lining the need to take firmer measures. The EU accounts for nearly a quarter of that waste.
Apple, which already uses USB-C connectors on some of
its iPads and laptop computers, says legislation to force a uni-versal charger for all mobiles in the European Union is unwarranted.
“We believe regulation that forces conformity across the type of connector built into all smartphones stifles innovation rather than encouraging it, and would harm consumers in Europe and the economy as a whole,” it said in a statement.
“We do not believe there is a case for regulation given the industry is already moving to the use of USB Type-C through a connector or cable assembly,”
it said. But French MEP Geoffroy Didier said after the vote: “European consumers deserve better than indecent waste and pollution dictated exclusively by the commercial interests of a few industrial groups.”
The European Commission is preparing an impact assessment on the possibility of forcing manufacturers to offer just one type of charger.
It is due to be completed late this year, with EU officials to decide then whether to send a bill to the European Parliament to enshrine that in an EU regulation.
German far-right leader faces tax evasion probeAFP — BERLIN
The figurehead of Germany’s far-right AfD party Alexander Gauland is being investigated for tax evasion, prosecutors said yesterday, after his parlia-mentary immunity was lifted by MPs.
Gauland, 78, is one of the most prominent figures in the populist “Alternative for Germany” party, which rails against immigration, Islam and environmentalism.
Yesterday, German parlia-mentarians voted to remove his legal immunity to facilitate the probe, first reported by German media last March.
Frankfurt prosecutors said they would search Gauland’s properties as part of the investigation.
A spokesperson for AfD said the investigations con-cerned “old proceedings from the year before last”.
UK to evacuate citizens from Wuhan today AFP — LONDON
Britain has received clearance to evacuate around 200 of its citizens from Wuhan, the Chinese city at the epicentre of a deadly virus outbreak, the government said yesterday.
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said the charter flight would leave early today (Friday) morning, after receiving the necessary clearance from Beijing.
“We are pleased to have confirmation from the Chinese authorities that the evacuation flight from Wuhan airport to the UK can depart at 0500 local time on Friday, 31 January,” he said.
“The safety and security of British nationals is our top priority.
“Our embassy in Beijing and consular teams remain in close contact with British nationals in the region to ensure they have the latest information they need.”
Record heat forecast for coming yearsAFP — PARIS
The coming five years are anticipated to be warmest period on record, Britain’s Met Office said yesterday, warning of an outside chance of Earth breaching the Paris deal 1.5C temperature rise cap before 2024.
In a regular “decadal forecast” looking at predicted near-term climate trends, it said that each year between 2020-2024 is set to be 1.06-1.62C hotter than historical averages.
The Met Office forecast it “likely” that the hottest year on record, 2016, will be beaten in that time frame.
“The latest five-year forecast suggests continued warming, consistent with sus-tained high levels of green-house gases,” said Doug Smith, a Met Office fellow and decadal prediction export.
“Uncertainties exist within the forecast, but most regions are expected to be warmer and forecast patterns suggest enhanced warming over land, especially northern parts of Europe, Asia and North America — extending the ongoing trend.” The forecast said barring a large volcanic eruption that could dent global heating with Sun-blocking debris, average five-year tem-peratures are expected to be between 1.15-1.46C above pre-industrial levels.
Pompeo's talks with Johnson focused on “strengthening bilateral ties” and “the importance of maintaining the integrity of communications networks.”
11FRIDAY 31 JANUARY 2020 EUROPE
Thousands held on cruise ship at Italy port over feared coronavirus casesAFP — CIVITAVECCHIA
More than 6,000 tourists were under lockdown aboard a cruise ship at an Italian port yester after two Chinese passengers were isolated over fears they could be carrying the coronavirus.
Samples from the two pas-sengers were sent for testing after three doctors and a nurse boarded the Costa Crociere ship in the port of Civitavecchia to tend to a woman running a fever, the local health author-ities said.
Costa Crociere confirmed the ship, carrying some 7,000 people in total including the crew, was in lockdown.
It came as China reported its biggest single-day jump in coro-navirus deaths and global fears deepened over a spread of the disease, with at least 15 coun-tries confirming infections.
Costa said a 54-year old woman from Macau “was placed in solitary confinement in the
on-board hospital last night with her travel companion”, and the crew was following instructions from the health ministry.
The Costa Smeralda, the company’s flagship and the fifth-largest cruise ship in the world, “came from Palma de Mallorca and is currently engaged in one-week cruises in the western
Mediterranean,” it said. Italy’s Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said the government was “not worried, but vigilant and cautious”.
The couple flew in to Milan from Hong Kong on January 25, before getting on the cruise at Savona in northern Italy, according to Italian media reports.
“The couple’s cabin has been isolated and they are in with the doctors,” an unnamed passenger was quoted as telling ANSA news agency.
“We’re a bit worried of course. No-one is getting on or off the ship apart from the doctors. This holiday risks ending in a nightmare”.
The ship then stopped off in Marseilles and Barcelona, as well as Parma de Mallorca, according to an itinerary on its website.
It had been due to sail for La Spezia in north Italy late yes-terday, but would be detained
in the Civitavecchia port near Rome “until we have an update on the health tests,” said port captain Vincenzo Leone.
There are some 750 other Chinese passengers on board, who all appear to be in good health, media reports said.
The World Health Organi-zation, which initially down-played a disease that has now killed 170 in China, was
preparing to meet yesterday to decide whether to declare it a global emergency.
Silvio Brusaferro, president of the Italian national health institute, said that all suspected cases in Italy so far had turned out to be false alarms, but the health service was “ready should any cases of infection emerge”.
Beij ing has taken
extraordinary steps to arrest the spread of the virus, including effectively quarantining more than 50 million people in Wuhan and surrounding Hubei province. The pathogen is believed to have emerged in a market that sold wild game, and spread by a Lunar New Year holiday season in which hun-dreds of millions of Chinese travel domestically or abroad.
Passengers are seen onboard the Costa Smeralda cruise ship of Costa Crociere, in Civitavecchia, Italy, yesterday
Pensioners march during a one-day general strike called by nationalist trade unions throughout the Basque Country and Navarra, in Bilbao, Spain, yesterday.
Russia reports 1st virus case; closes border with ChinaANATOLIA — MOSCOW
Russia has reported its first suspected coronavirus case as a citizen who returned from China was hospitalised yesterday.
Officials said the man recently travelled to China’s Hainan Island and was admitted for treatment in the city of Tula, around 200km south of Moscow.
The patient was placed under observation at an infec-tious diseases ward on Wednesday, the Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Well-Being said in a statement.
Health officials carried out sanitation and epidemic pre-vention measures at the patient’s place of residence, it said. In a separate statement, Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova announced that Russia has closed its border with China to pedestrian and vehicular traffic.
She said railway service was limited from yesterday midnight and trains will only operate between Moscow and Beijing.
A decision on air traffic will be taken by today, Golikova added.
“We should implement a regime that would allow the return of Russians with appro-priate quarantine measures
and the possibility of Chinese citizens leaving Russia,” she said.
Russia’s measures come as the death toll in China has climbed to 170, with 7,711 con-firmed cases of pneumonia caused by the coronavirus, also known as 2019-nCoV.
Earlier yesterday, China’s National Health Commission said 38 people died in the country over the past 24 hours and a total of 12,167 people were suspected of being infected.
Since the outbreak late last year, China has put Wuhan city — where the virus originated - under lockdown.
However, the virus has spread beyond China’s borders, and cases have been reported in Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Thailand, the US, Sin-gapore, France, Malaysia, Aus-tralia, and Vietnam.
Travellers from China are being screened for the virus at airports, worldwide and several airlines have suspended flights to Wuhan.
The World Health Organi-zation’s (WHO) Emergency Committee reconvened yes-terday to assess the situation.
The committee is expected to decide whether the outbreak constitutes a Public Health Emergency of International Concern and present recom-mendations to manage its spread.
Russia frees backpacker after Putin pardonREUTERS — MOSCOW
Russia freed a US-Israeli woman yesterday who had been jailed on drugs charges, after President Vladimir Putin granted her a pardon.
Naama Issachar’s release came ahead of talks in Moscow yesterday between Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who flew in from Washington to pass on details of a US peace plan, which Israel supports and Palestinians reject.
The right-wing Israeli leader, under criminal cor-ruption indictment, faces an election on March 2 and has campaigned on his ability to protect Israel’s interests abroad.
Issachar was jailed for seven and a half years after being arrested last April when police found nine grams of cannabis in her bags during a stopover at a Moscow airport on her way from India to Israel.
Her family called her treatment disproportionate and the case opened an unusual public rift between Russia and Israel.
“It has been a long journey that I would not wish upon anyone,” Yaffa Issachar, Naama’s mother, was quoted as saying by the Jerusalem Post, having travelled to Moscow for her daughter’s release. “Now, all I want is to hug my daughter Naama.”
EU renews efforts to resume Kosovo-Serbia talksAP — PRISTINA, KOSOVO
The European Union’s top diplomat yesterday called on Serbia and Kosovo to resume dialogue, saying it’s the only way to normalise their ties and achieve a final agreement.
Talks between the Balkan neighbours broke down in November 2018, when Kosovo imposed a 100 percent tax on Serbian goods over Belgrade’s refusal to recognise Kosovo’s independence.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell is on a two-day
trip to Kosovo before travelling today to Serbia.
“My duty, my task my endeavour my objective, is to accompany, facilitate the nego-tiations between Serbia and Kosovo,” Borrell said after meeting with Kosovar President Hashim Thaci.
“Because the problem can only be solved by Serbia and Kosovo, with the negotiations between the two of them, and the result can only come from an agreement between the two of them,” Borrell said.
“There is no other solution.”
The EU-mediated negotiations started in 2011, but stalled when Kosovo imposed the tariffs on Serbian products about 14 months ago.
Serbia’s intervention against Kosovo’s inde-pendence-seeking ethnic Alba-nians in 1998-99 prompted NATO to intervene to stop the conflict. Serbia doesn’t accept Kosovo’s 2008 declaration of independence, although its former province has been rec-ognised by about 100 countries, including the US and most EU nations.
March by pensioners
Immigration to Switzerland rises ahead of key EU voteREUTERS — ZURICH
Net immigration to Switzerland rose again last year, official data showed yesterday, ahead of a May referendum pushed by the right-wing Swiss People’s Party on ending an accord with the European Union on the free movement of citizens.
Immigration contributed a net 55,000 people to Switzer-land’s population last year, the State Secretariat for Migration said. The foreign population stood at 2.1 million at year’s end, or around a quarter of the overall 8.5 million.
Net immigration from the European Union and EFTA countries Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein increased by nearly 32,000, mostly as Romanians and Bulgarians took advantage of the full opening of the Swiss labour market for them as of June 2019.
The biggest groups of EU citizens living in Switzerland are from Italy, Germany,
France, Portugal and Kosovo.In a binding referendum on May 17, voters will decide whether Switzerland should take back unilateral control of immigration, if necessary at the cost of abrogating the free-movement pact with the EU that took full effect in 2007.
The referendum under the Swiss system of direct democracy is being billed as Switzerland’s “Brexit moment”.
The referendum drive reflects unease with the influx of foreigners. But imposing limits on EU citizens would violate bilateral accords that enhance Swiss access to the EU single market, the lifeblood of the export-led Swiss economy.
Most Swiss oppose the idea of ending the free movement pact, a poll published this month found.
Campaigning to oppose the proposition in the referendum is a priority for the Swiss gov-ernment, which has struggled to put relations with the sur-rounding EU on a new footing.
Italy’s 5-Star braces for splits as identity crisis deepensREUTERS — ROME
Italy’s ruling 5-Star Movement faces the prospect of desertions and ruinous splits which may be impossible to stem at a spring congress, party officials are warning.
The anti-establishment movement, which won twice as many votes as its nearest rival at the last national election in 2018, has been beset with problems ever since.
It shed votes when in gov-ernment with the hard-right League until August last year, and has done so since forming a new administration with the centre-left Democratic Party (PD).
Now 5-Star’s parliamen-tarians and supporters are divided between those who want a return to its origins as a go-it-alone protest party, those who favour cementing the alliance with the PD, and those wanting to hook up again with the League.
5-Star’s candidate won just 3.5 percent of the vote in a regional election in northern Italy on Sunday after former leader Luigi Di Maio resigned,
complaining of backstabbing from colleagues.
“The Movement used to be poetry and hope, now it’s guer-rilla warfare and suspicion,” said Max Bugani, a veteran 5-Star pol-itician who now works with its mayor of Rome, Virginia Raggi.
Bugani, an influential 5-Star figure since its foundation in 2009, said the party could soon split up, and that this would be better than “pushing on together but arguing every day.”
Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, an independent close to 5-Star, wants it to commit to a
long-term alliance with the PD in a “progressive front” against the popular rightist bloc spear-headed by League leader Matteo Salvini.
This strategy is backed by 5-Star’s founder, comedian Beppe Grillo, but is resisted by Di Maio and other senior figures who want to remain equidistant from left and right, free to join forces with one or the other as circumstances dictate.
Opinion polls put 5-Star on about 16 percent support, half its 2018 level and lagging the PD on 19 percent and the League on 30 percent.
The party’s tensions are likely to come to a head at a congress intended to pick a new leader, reorganise, and set policy prior-ities. Originally set for March, 5-Star said ytesterday it had been pushed back by “a few weeks”.
But some of its lawmakers see defections even before then.
They fear that caretaker leader Vito Crimi, a low profile senator, may struggle to impose discipline on an increasingly anarchic parliamentary group.
“We are going to lose some
people,” said a senior source, suggesting some deserters were financially motivated to avoid an internal 5-Star rule obliging its lawmakers to give up part of their salaries to fund causes decided by party members.
Last month, three 5-Star sen-ators defected to the League, depleting the government’s already slim majority, and a League official said contacts were under way to lure another five or six.
Asked to comment on this, a 5-Star member of the gov-ernment said “it’s possible.” The difficulties of 5-Star, which defines itself as post-ideological, may have been inevitable once it transformed itself from an angry protest movement to a party of government, effectively joining the “system” it was born to fight.
“5-Star’s internal organisa-tional failings are a key part of its decline because political parties are first of all organisations,” said Mattia Zulianello, a political sci-entist at Birmingham University who specialises in populist parties.
5-Star’s founder Beppe Grillo
Samples from the two passengers were sent for testing after three doctors and a nurse boarded the Costa Crociere ship in the port of Civitavecchia to tend to a woman running a fever, the local health authorities said.
12 FRIDAY 31 JANUARY 2020AMERICAS
Republicans hopeful Senate will acquit Trump in impeachment trialREUTERS — WASHINGTON
A Democratic push to force Republicans to accept witnesses at President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial in the US Senate appeared to be flagging on Wednesday, raising the possibility he could be acquitted as early as today.
As senators questioned both the Trump legal team and the Democratic managers of the trial, Trump lawyer Alan Der-showitz offered an expansive defence of presidential power that provoked astonishment among Democrats.
“If a president does some-thing which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in an impeachment,” Dershowitz said, referring to the charge that Trump abused his power by using congressionally approved security aid as leverage to get a foreign power to smear his political rival, Joe Biden.
Democratic Senator Mazie Hirono told reporters: “That was one of the most bizarre things I’ve ever heard as a response.”
Senator John Barrasso, the third-most senior Republican, said it was possible the trial could end on Friday without witnesses being called, as Dem-ocrats want.
“The momentum is clearly in the direction of moving to final judgment today. That vote will be today. We still have a couple of members who said they want to listen to the answers to questions, but that’s where the momentum is,” Bar-rasso said.
Asked when the vote might take place to settle the debate
over witnesses and move to either acquit or convict Trump, Barrasso said probably today afternoon or late that day.
Other Republican senators were predicting a similar outcome in conversations with reporters during breaks in Wednesday’s proceedings.
The Democratic-led House of Representatives approved the two articles of impeachment being heard in the Republican-controlled Senate in December. Democrats have sought to per-suade at least four Republican senators to vote with them in favor of witnesses to assure a majority vote in the 100-seat chamber. Democratic Senator Chris Coons was asked during a break if the Democrats’ fight for witnesses was lost.
“I don’t know that for sure one way or the other,” he said, but called the tone and ques-tions of senators “not encour-aging.” Democrats were not conceding defeat, however.
“My gut tells me we’re making progress, progress, progress,” said Senate Demo-cratic leader Chuck Schumer.
Late yesterday, White House
deputy counsel Patrick Philbin was asked if Trump agreed that foreign interference in US elec-tions is illegal.
“Mere information is not something that would violate the campaign finance laws,” Philbin replied.
Democrats said they were aghast that a lawyer for Trump would suggest it is OK to solicit foreign interference.
“I’m pretty stunned,” said Senator Mark Warner, top Dem-ocrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee. While the Senate is expected to acquit Trump and
leave him in office no matter what happens, allowing wit-nesses could inflict political damage on the president as he seeks re-election on November 3. One such witness is former national security adviser John Bolton, who left the White House in September after several sharp disagreements with Trump over the direction of foreign policy.
The New York Times has reported that Bolton wrote in an as-yet unpublished book that the president told him he wanted to freeze $391m in
security aid — passed by US Congress to help Ukraine battle Russia-backed separatists — until Kiev pursued investiga-tions into Democrats, including Biden and the former vice pres-ident’s son, Hunter.
On Wednesday, the White House objected to the book’s publication. A letter from the White House National Security Council to Bolton’s attorney said that based on a preliminary review, the manuscript appeared to contain “significant amounts of classified information.”
Trump Defence team lawyer Jane Raskin arrives for the impeachment trial of US President Donald Trump on Capitol Hill, in Washington, DC, yesterday
Bolton presses White House over Ukraine chapter of bookBLOOMBERG — WASHINGTON
John Bolton’s (pictured) lawyer said he’s still waiting to hear back from the White House after asking last week to expedite the classification review of the Ukraine portion of his client’s book in case he’s called to testify in the Senate impeachment trial.
Attorney Chuck Cooper on Wednesday released a January 24 email that told the National Security Council, “Given that Ambassador Bolton could be called to testify as early as next week, it is imperative that we have the results of your review of that chapter as soon as possible.”
President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser
has emerged as a central figure in the Senate trial after reports that he had written a draft man-uscript alleging that the pres-ident had told him directly that
he wanted military aid to Ukraine withheld unless the country publicly announced an investigation into his political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden.
Since those reports, Trump and his defense team have tried to discredit the former senior aide. Deputy White House Counsel Patrick Philbin on Wednesday said Bolton was “disgruntled” and “wouldn’t have nice things to say about the president” after being ousted in September.
Philbin also said the White House counsel’s office had been notified by the NSC that it was reviewing the book to ensure it didn’t contain classified material.
Asked yesterday on Fox
News whether the Trump administration is trying to stop Bolton’s manuscript from being published, White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said: “Absolutely not,” and that the review isn’t a “political decision.”
In a January 23 letter released on Wednesday, the NSC’s senior director for records, access and information security management, Ellen J. Knight, indicated the White House was seeking to block publication of Bolton’s book in current form.
“The manuscript appears to contain significant amounts of classified information,” Knight said.
“The manuscript may not be published or otherwise
disclosed without the deletion of this classified information.” She said it remains under review and and that they’d seek to “more forward as expedi-tiously as possible.”
Cooper said he has “received no response what-soever” regarding specific con-cerns with Bolton’s chapter on Ukraine since his January 24 email in response to Knight’s letter. “We do not believe that any of that information could reasonably be considered clas-sified,” Cooper said in the email.
Trump himself laid into Bolton in a Twitter thread Wednesday morning. The pres-ident said Bolton “begged” him for a job, and that he got it despite warnings to Trump not to hire him.
US House seeks to curb Trump’s military options against IranBLOOMBERG — WASHINGTON
Congress is once again trying to curb President Donald Trump’s military options, even after tensions with Iran have lessened since the US strike that killed an Iranian general.
The Democratic-led House passed two bills yesterday, though neither is likely to advance in the Republican-led Senate. The first measure, which passed 228-175, was introduced by California Dem-ocrat Ro Khanna and would ban the use of federal funds for military action against Iran not authorized by Congress.
The second, which passed 236-166, was introduced by Representative Barbara Lee and would repeal a 2002 mil-itary authorisation the Trump administration cited as part of the justification for the strike that killed Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in early January.
Los Angeles Fire Department personnel investigate the scene of a fire at a multi-storey building on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles, California, on Wednesday.
Trump launches coronavirus task force
REUTERS — WASHINGTON
The Trump administration has launched a task force with a brief to protect the United States from the fast-spreading coronavirus, as the country prepared to evacuate more of its citizens from the epicenter of the outbreak in Wuhan, China.
In a statement yesterday, the US State Department said Washington would arrange extra evacuation flights from Wuhan with capacity for private US citizens, on or about February 3.
It did not say how many planes it would deploy for how many people, but that pas-sengers would be subject to screening, health observations a n d m o n i t o r i n g requirements.
Nearly 200 Americans, mostly US diplomats and their families, were evacuated from Wuhan this week and are being held in voluntary quar-antine at a military base in California.
Overnight, the White House announced the for-mation of a presidential task force to lead the administra-tion’s response to the virus, including monitoring and con-taining the spread of the disease.
Biden under pressure to prove he can thwart GOP attacksAP — SIOUX CITY
With five days until the Iowa caucuses, Joe Biden is fending off a new onslaught of GOP attacks over his son’s business overseas and facing piling pressure to show Democratic voters he can handle the incoming.
As Republicans amplified their allegations against the former vice president, accusing him of nepotism and worse in a series of charges stemming from the impeachment trial of Pres-ident Donald Trump, the Biden campaign promised an aggressive and direct counter-strategy ahead of Monday’s first nominating contest.
Biden planned to speak yes-terday in Iowa on the same day Trump plans a rally in Des
Moines. The Biden campaign was mindful that the last-minute GOP meddling in the Democratic race provides something of a preview of the election ahead should Biden be the party’s nominee. As such, it was a test of whether Iowa voters would see strength or weakness in Biden’s response.
Biden made his case Wednesday by openly mocking Florida Senator Rick Scott, a Republican, for running a digital ad in Iowa that repeats Trump’s discredited theories about Biden’s work in Ukraine as vice president and his son’s private business dealings there.
The ad came a day after Trump’s impeachment defense team repeatedly framed Hunter Biden’s tenure on an energy firm’s governing board as the real
corruption in need of investigation.
“A senator from Florida, sitting in Washington, has decided to start running negative ads against Joe Biden just days before the Iowa caucus,” the elder Biden told several hundred Iowa voters in Sioux City.
“What do you think that’s about? Look, it’s simple,” he said, returning to an oft-used line: “They’re smearing me... because they know if I’m the nominee, I’m going to beat Donald Trump like a drum.” Biden adviser Anita Dunn was even more pointed, saying of the Scott ad: “We’ll pay him to keep it up.”
Biden campaign manager Greg Schultz said, “This is all a help to us” because it valid Trump’s fear.
Police probe apartment fire
Kobe Bryant’s death throws spotlight on crash-warning systemAP — LOS ANGELES
The crash that killed nine people including Kobe Bryant has led to calls for crash-warning systems to be installed in more helicopters, but regu-lators and pilots worry that the instrument can trigger too many alarms and prove distracting.
“Another warning system screaming at you isn’t going to help,” said Brian Alexander, a helicopter pilot and aviation lawyer.
“You don’t want to inundate the pilot.” All nine people killed in the crash were officially identified as of Wednesday night, according to the Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner.
The victims had previously been identified publicly by friends and family.
The death of the basketball star Sunday has highlighted the debate over the merits of what’s known as the Terrain Awareness and Warning System, or TAWS, which would have sounded a voice alarm if the aircraft was in danger of hitting the ground or some object, such as a tower or a wire.
It is required in medical helicopters but not in com-mercial ones like the one used by Bryant.
National Transportation Safety Board officials say it is too early to tell whether a TAWS on Bryant’s Sikorsky hel-icopter could have prevented the crash. But they think it should have been installed on
the aircraft, and they criticized federal regulators for not car-rying out the NTSB’s recom-mendation over a decade ago to mandate such equipment on helicopters with six or more passenger seats.
While some pilots believe TAWS is unnecessary and refer to its warnings as “nuisance alarms,” Peter Goelz, a former managing director of the NTSB, said there is “no reasonable excuse” for the system not to be installed on all choppers.
“From a safety perspective, you want all the safety enhancements that are available,” he said.
“The trade-off is worth it.” The NTSB recommended that the Federal Aviation Adminis-tration require the system after a Sikorsky S-76A carrying workers to an offshore drilling ship, crashed in the Gulf of Mexico near Galveston, Texas, killing all 10 people aboard in 2004. Ten years later, the FAA mandated such systems on air ambulances only.
FAA officials had ques-tioned the value of such tech-nology on helicopters, which tend to fly close to buildings and the ground and could trigger too many alarms.
The pilot in Sunday’s crash, Ara Zobayan, had been climbing out of the clouds when the chartered aircraft went into a sudden and terrifying 1,200-foot descent that lasted nearly a minute, investigators said Tuesday.
It slammed into a fog-shrouded hillside, scattering debris more than 500 feet.
While the Senate is expected to acquit Trump and leave him in office no matter what happens, allowing witnesses could inflict political damage on the president as he seeks re-election on November 3.
13FRIDAY 31 JANUARY 2020 AMERICAS / CLASSIFIEDS
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US sending Brazilian migrants to Mexico to await US court hearings
REUTERS — WASHINGTON
The United States has begun sending Brazilian migrants crossing the border from Mexico back there to await their US court hearings, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said on Wednesday.
Brazilians will be sent to Mexico under a programme known as the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP). More than 57,000 non-Mexican migrants have been returned to Mexico under that effort since it launched a year ago, according to the DHS.
The programme is one of several moves by the adminis-tration of US President Donald Trump to limit access to asylum at the US-Mexico border. Trump faces re-election in November and has made immigration a focus of his 2020 campaign.
The DHS cited a rising number of Brazilians arrested at the border in its announcement on Wednesday.
US Border Patrol caught roughly 17,900 Brazilians at the
southwest border in the last fiscal year, which began October 1, 2018. The figure was a sharp increase from 1,500 arrests a year earlier.
It was first reported earlier this month that the Trump administration had weighed the inclusion of Brazilians in the MPP programme. The programme previously had covered Spanish-speaking migrants. But the addition of people from Brazil, where Portuguese is the official
language, expands its reach further. Rogelio Pinal, the head of the human rights office in Juarez, Mexico, said that Bra-zilians who cross the border in El Paso, Texas, and are sent to wait in Juarez will be taken to a federally run migrant shelter and provided with an interpreter.
The DHS said in its announcement that US federal law did not limit the scope of the programme to any one nation-ality or language.
Migrants, mostly from Central America, run from security forces, near Frontera Hidalgo, Chiapas, Mexico, in this file photo.
Colombia offers work permits to hundreds of thousands Venezuelan migrantsREUTERS — BOGOTA
Colombia will allow hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan migrants to legalise their presence in the country through work permits meant to bring them into the legal economy, the government said on Wednesday.
Colombia is the principal destination for Venezuelan migrants fleeing from political, social and economic crisis under the government of Pres-ident Nicolas Maduro.
Unlike its neighbours, Colombia has not imposed stringent immigration require-ments on Venezuelans, and 1.6 million now live in the country.
The United Nations said last year the figure could rise to 2.4 million by the end of 2020.
The first permit is a renewal of the so-called PEP visa, which was previously used by the government to give legal status to migrants.
It could benefit some 200,000 Venezuelans who entered the Andean country before November 29 last year, the migration agency said in a statement.
The second measure,
known by its Spanish initials as the PEPFF visa, will be granted to Venezuelans who have formal job offers, the agency said. It will take force in a few days, it added.
The permits are meant to help the government identify Venezuelans residing in Colombia and bring them into the legal economy, in a bid to reduce spending pressures on Colombia, which has com-mitted to providing basic services like healthcare and school places to migrants.
Last August, President Ivan Duque said Colombia would give citizenship to 24,000 children born to Venezuelan migrant parents in Colombia, to prevent them from being stateless and less able to access education and healthcare.
During a visit last week by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Duque called on the international community to mobilise greater resources and efforts to help with the crisis.
Managing the crisis will require $1.35bn this year to meet migrants’ basic needs in 17 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean that are sheltering them, according to the United Nations.
Venezuel’s Maduro seeks to re-establish consular relations with ColombiaREUTERS — CARACAS
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Wednesday said he was willing to re-establish consular relations with neighbouring Colombia, amid a standoff between the two countries over a fugitive former Colombian senator who was captured in Venezuela.
Maduro, a socialist, last year suspended relations and gave Colombian diplomatic and consular staff 24 hours to depart in response to conservative Pres-ident Ivan Duque’s government’s help to the Vene-zuelan opposition’s efforts to bring humanitarian aid into the crisis-stricken country.
Colombia, like most Western democracies, rec-ognizes Juan Guaido, chief of Venezuela’s opposition-held National Assembly, as the country’s rightful leader.
Colombia’s Justice Ministry earlier this week said it would approach Guaido to request the extradition of Aida Merlano, who was imprisoned last year for vote buying but fled by climbing out her dentist’s office. She was captured in Venezuela on Monday.
“It is a bad joke. Do you think Juan Guaido directs Venezuelan police?” Maduro said during a state tel-evision broadcast. Nevertheless, he proposed the restart of consular relations between the two countries.
“We are neighbors... we are obligated to have diplomatic and political relations,” he said.
Maduro calls Guaido a US puppet seeking to oust him in a coup and frequently accuses Duque of aiming to destabilize his government.
On Wednesday he added that Merlano, in Ven-ezuelan custody, was “saying everything about the Colombian political class.” Duque earlier on Wednesday said Venezuela should deport Merlano through Interpol. He said Maduro had allowed many other countries that recognise Guaido to maintain a diplomatic presence in the country.
Missing butterfly activist found dead in MexicoAP — MEXICO CITY
Authorities have found the body of a missing farm leader who was active in protecting the wintering grounds of the monarch butterfly in Mexico, prose-cutors said Wednesday.
Investigators in Michoacan state said the body had been identified as Homero Gómez González, who had not been seen since January 14. Last week, prosecutors called in 53 local police officers for ques-tioning in the disappearance of Gómez González,who was head of the management council of the El Rosario butterfly reserve.
Officials did not give any information on the cause of death. Activists said his death could be related to dis-putes over illegal logging, water or income from vis-itors’ fees. Authorities did not immediately speculate on a motive in the apparent killing.
Homero Aridjis, an environmentalist and poet who is a longtime defender of the butterfly reserve, called the death of Gómez “worrisome.”
“If they can kidnap and kill the people who work for the reserves, who is going to defend the environment in Mexico?” Aridjis said.
Gómez González was a former communal land officer who led efforts to preserve the pine and fir mountaintop forests where the butterflies spend the winter. Millions of monarchs come to the forests of Michoacan and other areas after making the 3,400-mile migration from the United States and Canada.
They need healthy tree cover to protect them from rain and cold weather. Mexico has clamped down on illegal logging, which was once a major threat to the reserves but which has fallen to about one-third last year’s level.
Brazilians will be sent to Mexico under a programme known as the Migrant Protection Protocols. More than 57,000 non-Mexican migrants have been returned to Mexico under that effort since it launched a year ago.
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QFMA to further boost Qatari capital market: CEOLANI ROSE R DIZON THE PENINSULA
The Qatar Financial Markets Authority (QFMA) is working to further improve the performance of Qatar’s capital market, which has previously been ranked among top 10 financial markets in the world in various indicators related to measuring capital market performance.
Qatar’s capital market con-tinued to build on its successes, as it achieved growth and devel-opment amidst various interna-tional and regional conditions, supported by a robust national economy, QFMA Chief Executive Officer Nasser Ahmad Al Shaibi said yesterday.
He was speaking at the opening of the 3rd QFMA Con-ference which was formally inaugurated by Qatar Central Bank (QCB) Governor H E Sheikh Abdulla bin Saoud Al Thani, in the presence of H E Sheikh Mohammed bin Hamad Al Thani, Deputy Governor of QCB, with the participation of local, regional, and international offi-cials, specialists, experts, and stakeholders in the finance sector.
In his speech, Al Shaibi said the forum seeks to find solutions for the challenges currently faced by global financial markets which include challenges related
to innovation, technology and sustainable development, legis-lation, governance and investor protection.
“Many of our financial markets have been able to keep pace with the development required to meet these chal-lenges. We at Qatar Financial Markets Authority are continuing
to develop procedures and systems to enhance the per-formance of the Qatari capital market, improve its attrac-tiveness, and increase the investment opportunities for investors. We are doing all we can to improve the performance of the capital markets to
unprecedented levels that we aspire. But to ensure sustaina-bility, continuity, and competi-tiveness to keep pace with all global developments, we are required to work together to consolidate the principles of gov-ernance, disclosure and trans-parency to achieve further devel-opment in the financial markets,” Al Shaibi added.
Speaking to The Peninsula on the sidelines of the event, Paul Andrews, Secretary General of the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO), said Qatar’s capital market was well-positioned in addressing challenges affecting the sector.
“The markets here are well-positioned because they’re thinking about these issues around investors and investor inclusion, and how to make the markets as safe as possible, rec-ognising that markets entail risk. And I think the issues around dis-closure, education, which are the key components, are the focus of the QFMA. And it’s very great to see the focus that we see in Qatar on investors, which is very important to an organisation like IOSCO,” he added.
In his keynote speech earlier, Andrews also highlighted the issues on sustainability and development of smart capital market systems using financial
technology, which are of great importance amidst rapid devel-opments in the global financial markets. He also reiterated the importance of strengthening the role of the regulatory bodies in protecting the interests of the investors.
Jalil Tarif, Secretary General of the Arab Union for Securities Commissions, said the value of global financial markets
increased by 26 percent to $94 trillion in 2019 compared to the previous year, while the Arab financial markets also increased to $3.2 trillion last year.
“There has been rapid developments witnessed by the global financial markets in various fields, despite the sharp fluctuations in the performance of global financial markets, w h i c h r e f l e c t s t h e
volatile economic and political conditions, especially those related to the exacerbation of the international trade crisis and the uncertainty about the effects of Britain’s exit from the European Union, as well as developments in international interest rates and oil prices. These markets have continued in the long term from achieving their gains,” Tarif added.
Qatar Central Bank Governor H E Sheikh Abdulla bin Saoud Al Thani (second left) and QCB Deputy Governor H E Sheikh Mohammed bin Hamad Al Thani (second right) with other officials, during the 3rd Annual QFMA Conference held at Sheraton Doha Hotel, yesterday. PIC: BAHER AMIN/THE PENINSULA
QFMA Chief Executive Officer, Nasser Ahmad Al Shaibi, addressing the event.
Spanish Santander Bank Executive Chairperson Ana Botin (left) and Santander Group’s Chief Executive Officer Jose Antonio Alvarez arrive to announce the company’s 2019 results in Boadilla del Monte. Spanish banking giant Banco Santander reported better-than-expected earnings last year despite Brexit uncertainties leading to a massive €1.5bn hit on ($1.65bn) on its British business, slashing 2019 net profit by 17 %.
BoE slashes UK growth forecastAFP — LONDON
The Bank of England yesterday slashed its estimates for UK economic growth this year and next, one day before the country exits the European Union.
It came as BoE policy-makers, in governor Mark Car-ney’s (pictured) final monetary policy committee (MPC) meeting, voted to keep its main interest rate at 0.75 percent by a 7-2 majority. “The question facing the MPC at this meeting was whether the new decade would start with a bang,” Carney told a press conference, adding that he had “no regrets” over his monetary policy record at the BoE since taking the reins in 2013.
Some analysts had expected the Canada-born central banker to have joined the ranks of those demanding a quarter-point rate cut to 0.50 percent.
The minutes of the latest BoE meeting showed that two doveish policymakers had cited “downside risks” to the bank’s projections arising from “Brexit uncertainties and a weaker world outlook”.
While not agreeing to a rate cut to help prop up Britain’s
economy, the central bank did predict troubles ahead.
The British economy would expand by only 0.8 percent this year, the BoE said, down sharply on its previous 1.2 percent forecast.
In 2021, gross domestic product was expected to grow 1.4 percent, down on Novem-ber’s estimate of 1.7 percent.
However the decision to keep the cost of borrowing on hold lifted the pound by around half a percent against the dollar and euro.“Given growing expectations of a rate cut this month, the over-whelming vote in favour of holding rates comes as a sur-prise,” said Deloitte economist Debapratim De.
“The post-election bounce in business sentiment seems to have bought the bank some time,” he added in reference to the convincing election victory in December for Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Con-servative party that unlocked Brexit.
Britain departs the EU today ahead of an 11-month transition period during which time Johnson’s government will seek to strike new trade deals with the EU and coun-tries worldwide.
Carney, soon to become UN special envoy on climate action and finance, steps down as BoE chief in March.
Andrew Bailey, head of the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority regulator, replaces Carney after the incumbent agreed to put back his departure three times to help steer the British economy through Brexit’s delays.
An economic boost pro-vided by the post-election political stability meanwhile is not expected to have a lasting impact despite government promises of major infra-structure spending.
Berlin passes five-year rent freeze law to check hikesAFP — BERLIN
Berlin’s Parliament yesterday passed a controversial law to freeze rents for the next five years in a bid to combat soaring rents and rapid gentrification in the German capital.
Berlin has seen its housing costs double over the last decade as employees lured by
the strong job market move into the city. The new law, expected to come into effect in mid-Feb-ruary, will cap rents until 2025, after which any increases will be limited to 1.3 percent per year in line with inflation.
According to the city’s department for urban devel-opment and housing, it will affect over 1.5 million
apartments. Exceptions include social housing and new apart-ments built since 2014.
Some particularly high rents could even be lowered after the first nine months of the freeze, while landlords who break the rules could face fines of up to € 500,000($550,000).
The rent freeze, passed by a slim majority of 85 votes out
of 150, is a flagship policy of the local governing coalition of the centre-left SPD, the Greens and the far-left Linke parties.
But it has faced fierce oppo-sition from other political parties and the property sector.
The conservative CDU has already indicated that it intends to challenge the law in Ger-many’s constitutional court.
Others fear that the freeze will simply discourage devel-opers from building in Berlin and ultimately worsen the cap-ital’s housing crisis.
According to the property website Immowelt, Berliners spend a quarter of their income on housing costs. Only 18.4 percent of the city’s roughly four million residents own their
own property, one of the lowest rates in Europe. For now Berlin is the first and only of Ger-many’s 16 federal states to introduce a rental cap.
Yet the SPD, which is also the junior coalition partner in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s federal coalition, has pledged to champion rent controls nationwide.
French state lender to launch multi-billion euro fund
REUTERS — PARIS
French public investment bank Bpifrance has raised several billion euros from private and sovereign investors for a new fund that can be used to fend off activist investors targeting French companies, its head said.
Sovereign wealth funds, French insurers, big com-panies and wealthy families are among the first investors to commit money to the new fund, which is being called Silverlake.
“The aim is to eventually raise a bit more than 10 billion euros when the (capital) raising is done,” Bpifrance Chief Executive Nicolas Dufourcq said.
“We’re doing a first closing that should be several billion,” Dufourcq told a journalists, declining to give names of the initial investors.
The new fund would give extra financial firepower to Bpifrance, which already manages a €15bn portfolio of state shareholdings.
Trade helps US economy grow
2.1% while consumption slows
16 FRIDAY 31 JANUARY 2020BUSINESS
Trade helps US economy grow 2.1% while consumption slowsBLOOMBERG — WASHINGTON
US consumer spending moderated and business investment continued to deteri-orate at the end of 2019, while a smaller trade deficit and more home construction helped keep economic growth steady.
Gross domestic product expanded at a 2.1 percent annu-alised rate in the October-December period for a second straight quarter, according to Commerce Department data yes-terday. The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for 2 percent growth.
Consumer spending decel-erated to a 1.8 percent pace, below projections and the weakest since the first quarter, while a key gauge of prices watched by the Federal Reserve rose less than expected. Nonres-idential business investment declined for a third straight period, the longest stretch since the last recession.
Bigger cutbacks in business investment remain a risk if they translate into weaker job gains and slower consumer spending. The suspension of production for Boeing Co.’s 737 Max, for one, is set to weigh on the economy at least through the first half.
Nonetheless, healthy job cre-ation, cheap borrowing costs and signs of stabilisation in global manufacturing after trade agree-ments between the US and its
biggest trading partners should support the economy as Pres-ident Donald Trump seeks re-election.
Even so, full-year GDP grew 2.3 percent in 2019, the slowest of Trump’s presidency and below his promised target of 3 percent. Economists expect growth to further moderate in 2020, as the waning effects of tax cuts and cooling wage gains make achieving that goal difficult in the late-stage expansion.
“The consumer is starting to pull back a bit,” said Kevin Cummins (pictured), senior US economist at NatWest Markets.
While the Fed has signaled it will hold rates steady barring a major shift in the outlook, further weakness in inflation could spur the Fed to lower interest rates this year after three reductions in 2019, Cummins said.
A closely watched gauge of underlying demand grew at the
slowest rate of the year. So-called final sales to domestic pur-chasers, which exclude the vol-atile trade and inventories com-ponents of GDP, expanded 1.6 percent in the fourth quarter. Excluding government pur-chases, final sales advanced just 1.4 percent, the weakest in four years.
Slower consumption growth is consistent with the message from central bank policy makers. The Fed, in a statement Wednesday at the conclusion of a two-day policy meeting, sof-tened its characterisation of household spending growth to “moderate” from “strong” as “business fixed investment and exports remain weak.”
Nonresidential business investment declined an annu-alised 1.5 percent after falling at a 2.3 percent pace in the previous three months. Spending on struc-tures and equipment weakened, particularly in the slumping energy sector, and trade uncer-tainty continued to weigh on companies.
“The outlook for the business investment side of things is pretty dark,” Cummins said.
Meanwhile, the autoworkers’ strike at General Motors repre-sented a drag on fourth-quarter growth. Motor vehicle output subtracted 0.81 percentage point from GDP, the most since late 2015, following the largest boost since 2009. GDP excluding auto
production climbed 3 percent in the fourth quarter after 1.3 percent in the previous period.
At the same time, a pickup in home building helped soften the blow. Residential construction outlays increased at a 5.8 percent rate, the strongest in two years and following a 4.6 percent advance in the third quarter.
A narrowing in the trade deficit, largely due to a sharp drop in imports amid the US-China trade war, gave a signif-icant boost to the main GDP number. Net exports added 1.48 percentage points to growth, the most since 2009. That helped to offset a 1.09 percentage point drag from inventories.
Meanwhile, the Fed’s pre-ferred underlying inflation measure, the personal con-sumption expenditures price index excluding food and energy, rose at a 1.3 percent annualised pace in the quarter, well below policy makers’ 2 percent objective.
A separate Labour Department report out yesterday showed initial filings for unem-ployment benefits fell by 7,000 to 216,000 in the week ended January 25. The four-week average, a less volatile measure, decreased to 214,500. The his-torically-low figure suggests a solid labour market.
The third-quarter figures will be revised in February and March as additional source data are compiled.
Deutsche Bank reports fifth annual loss in a row in 2019AFP — FRANKFURT AM MAIN
Germany’s biggest lender Deutsche Bank said yesterday that it lost €5.7bn ($6.3bn) in 2019, its fifth annual loss in a row and its second-worst ever result.
Deutsche’s net result was sig-nificantly worse than the €5.3bn loss forecast by analysts surveyed by Factset, dragged down by the costs of a massive restructuring launched in July.
2019’s loss was “entirely
driven by transformation-related effects,” the bank said in a statement. A total of three billion euros went on charges, write-downs in the value of intangible “goodwill” assets and costs relating to the restructuring and severance pay for the first among over 18,000 planned job cuts.
Deutsche slashed its payroll in 2019 by 4,100, to around 87,600, it added.
Meanwhile tax effects related to the restructuring weighed on
the bottom line to the tune of €2.8bn. Deutsche reported rev-enues of €23.2bn, down eight percent year-on-year, and a pre-tax loss of €2.6bn.
Nevertheless, “our new strategy is gaining traction,” chief executive Christian Sewing (pic-tured) insisted in a statement.
Deutsche says that 70 percent of the costs it expects from the restructuring up to 2022 have now been accounted for in its results.
CROSSWORD
A 40 year-old playboy's life turns upside down when he comes to know that he has a 20 something year-old daughter.
SPORTIt's never easy to play Roger. I mean, obviously he was hurting. You could see it in his movement. Respect to him for trying his best: Novak Djokovic
Australian Open men's and women's
semi-finals at Melbourne Park
Zimbabwe vsSri Lanka Day 5, First Test in Harare
TENNIS CRICKET
TO
DAY’S
A
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Super Bowl: Chiefs, 49ers ready as final prep beginsAP DAVIE — FLA
Running back Tevin Coleman returned to practice yesterday as the San Francisco 49ers began final preparations for the Super Bowl, while the Kansas City Chiefs had everyone on the field as they put the finishing touches on their game plan.
Coleman, who dislocated his shoulder in the NFC cham-pionship game, took handoffs during team drills during the 1-hour, 40-min workout at the University of Miami’s practice facility.
He looked to be in good spirits, too, slapping hands with his team-mates and leaping after one play in particular.
“We’ll see as the week goes how much the pain tolerance is for his shoulder,” said 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan, who also has Matt Breida and breakout star Raheem Mostert at his dis-posal in the backfield.
Coleman was listed as limited on the injury list along with linebacker Kwon Alex-ander, who returned from a torn pectoral muscle in the playoffs, and safety Jaquiski Tartt, who has been dealing with sore ribs.
“They all got to go,” Shanahan said. “”I’m expecting them to be good by Sunday.”
The 49ers practiced in
helmets and shells on the freshly resurfaced grass practice fields as they worked on first- and second-down installations, just as they would do during a normal workout yesterday.
The session included 11-on-11 team periods in which the offense and defence worked against scout team looks.
Meanwhile, the only injury concerns heading into the week for the Chiefs were defensive tackle Chris Jones, who was hobbled by a calf strain in the AFC title game, and tight end Travis Kelce, who has been dealing with a sore knee.
Chiefs coach Andy Reid said that Kelce was fine and that Jones was “good to go” after a 90-minute workout yesterday. Reid wanted to keep the week before the game relatively light, so the Chiefs installed virtually the entire game plan for Sunday night’s game before they departed Kansas City.
That allowed them to deal with the circus of opening night Monday and more media responsibilities on Tuesday without worrying about putting things in place for the game.
“They loved it,” Reid told a pool reporter after the workout, which took place at the Miami Dolphins’ practice facility under sunny skies and with tempera-tures hitting 80 degrees. “They
got a little sunshine, so they loved it.”
There were several visitors to practice, including the Fox Sports crew that will broadcast
the game Sunday night. Joe Buck and colour analyst Troy Aikman were joined by sideline reporters Chris Myers and Erin Andrews, while the pregame
crew of Curt Menefee, Michael Strahan and Jimmie Johnson watched the workout.
At the end of practice, Reid asked Johnson - recently voted
into the Pro Football Hall of Fame - to speak to the team.
“I competed against him and always respected him,” Reid said.
A general view of the helmets of the San Francisco 49ers and Kansas City Chiefs and the Vince Lombardi Trophy on display in Miami, Florida at the Hilton Downtown.
49ers ‘firing on all cylinders’ in preparation for SundayREUTERS — NEW YORK
Super Bowl LIV is still two days days away, but the San Fran-cisco 49ers are already looking sharp and ready for the Kansas City Chiefs with two practices to go this week.
“It’s awesome,” head coach Kyle Shanahan told reporters yesterday. “I wish the players could have two weeks every week to do a game plan. I mean for them to come out on a today and to be firing on all cylinders, it’s not usually like that.
“Usually we put in a game plan Wednesday morning, and there’s a lot of mistakes.... You’ve got to kind of catch up as the week goes on. Usually you feel pretty good by Sat-urday. But when you get a whole week to go through it, you feel a lot better.”
Shanahan said he put in a few new plays yesterday after pulling some out of the game
plan last week, a luxury afforded by the two-week window leading up to Super Sunday.
And it wasn’t just the Niners’ offence that was clicking yesterday.
“It went fantastic actually,” cornerback Richard Sherman said. “Today was one of our better practices, I would say. I’ll leave it up to the coaching staff to say, but everybody was really executing. It was a really sharp day.”
Chiefs head coach Andy Reid’s teams have been histor-ically outstanding after a bye week, going 18-3 in the regular season and 5-2 in the posts-eason during his time in Kansas City and Philadelphia.
Many credit that record to extra time for the offense to prepare, but Sherman sees the sword cutting both ways in this case.
“You hear all this talk about
giving a team all this time to prepare, but you give a great defence this much time to prepare, it’s going to be sharp,” Sherman said.
“Guys are gonna be on the details. They’re gonna be on every indicator, every personnel adjustment, every adjustment we make defensively.”
As expected, the 49ers are mostly healthy, with only three players limited by injury on yes-terday’s report: running back Tevin Coleman (shoulder), line-backer Kwon Alexander (pec-toral) and safety Jaquiski Tartt (ribs). Alexander and Tartt are both expected to play, as they have throughout the playoff run, while Coleman has a shot despite what looked like a serious injury sustained less than two weeks ago.
“Tevin looked good today,” Shanahan said. “... He’s running very well, like he always does when he’s healthy. So we’ll see
as the week goes how much the pain tolerance and stuff is for his shoulder.”
Whether Coleman is able to play or not, the 49ers feel com-fortable spreading the rushing workload around. Raheem Mostert erupted for 220 yards and four touchdowns in the NFC Championship Game against Green Bay, but Shanahan said he has faith in every back.
“I go into games not truly set on, ‘Hey, this guy’s going to get all of them,’” Shanahan said. “When we go in, our guys are so very similar, and they all could be our No. 1 back at any time, that it’s not as stressful of a decision as you guys would think, because they’ve all done such a good job.”
While San Francisco will likely have to throw more than
the previous two games -- in which Jimmy Garoppolo attempted just 27 passes -- Shanahan said the Chiefs’ defence will dictate much of what the 49ers do.
“Our philosophy is just, it depends on what the defensive philosophy is,” he said. “We’re trying to attack in everything we do. Whatever their fronts are, whatever their coverages are.”
Fans wait for the opening of the Super Bowl Experience at the Miami Beach Convention Center yesterday. Football fans are in town for Super Bowl LIV between the San Francisco 49ers and Kansas City Chiefs to be held at Hard Rock Stadium on Sunday.
People stand near a makeshift memorial to NBA star Kobe Bryant, who was killed along with his daughter and seven others in a helicopter crash on January 26, in LA Live Plaza outside Staples Center, yesterday, in Los Angeles. The helicopter that crashed into a Los Angeles hillside killing NBA legend Bryant and eight others, was not equipped with vital software that alerts pilots when aircraft are too close to the ground, officials said.
Lakers return to practice amid grief over Bryant’s deathAP — EL SEGUNDO, CALIF
The Los Angeles Lakers ended practice with a few somber, almost plaintive laughs. As they left the court, they all passed under the oversized 8 and 24 outlined in white on the black wall above the door to their locker room.
Anthony Davis and several other Lakers paused and looked up at Kobe Bryant’s two retired numbers for a moment before they moved forward.
The Lakers are still grieving and mourning Bryant’s death Sunday in a helicopter crash along with his daughter, Gianna, and seven others. Los Angeles’ players and coaches returned to work Wednesday at their training complex with a determination to keep Bryant and the victims in their thoughts while getting on with the business of basketball and life.
“We want to represent what Kobe was about, more than anything,” Lakers coach Frank Vogel said. “We’ve always wanted to make him proud, and that’s not going to be any different now.”
Vogel, who joined the Lakers eight months ago, was the only person to speak to the media after the workout. The loss apparently was still too raw for the players, including superstars LeBron James and Davis, who played in the Olympics with Bryant.
Although Bryant retired in 2016, he is still enormously important to his franchise and his sport. Ever since the Lakers drafted the 17-year-old guard from suburban Philadelphia in 1996, Bryant had been a face of this franchise and a basketball-mad city while he became a five-time NBA champion and his team’s career leader in points and games played.
The current Lakers are still grappling with the loss while they prepare for their next game Friday night at Staples Center against Portland.
“We’ve become a family in a very short time,” Vogel said of the Lakers’ roster, which features only one player who suited up with Bryant. “It’s something that we talk about in the NBA with your teams, but this group in particular has really grown to love each other very rapidly, and we understand the importance and the opportunity we have this year. This has just brought us closer together.”
Outside the Lakers’ training complex, a tem-porary wall of remembrance has grown to nearly the entire length of the building, bookended on either side by large photos and colourful memo-rials to the Bryants. Fans have streamed through the security gates and up to the wall throughout the past three days, using markers to inscribe their thoughts and prayers on the white surface.
Bryant’s death has temporarily overwhelmed an exciting season of rebirth for the Lakers, who have missed the playoffs for a franchise-record six straight years. The current Lakers are poised for a serious run at the franchise’s 17th champi-onship, with James and Davis leading a bur-geoning powerhouse to the Western Conference’s best record at 36-10.
The Lakers’ two biggest stars had friendships with Kobe. James and Bryant were team-mates on two US Olympic teams, while Davis also was a young backup on the 2012 Olympic squad.
James wrote an emotional Instagram post about Bryant on Monday, saying: “I promise you I’ll continue your legacy man! You mean so much to us all here... and it’s my responsibility to put this (team) on my back and keep it going!!”
18 FRIDAY 31 JANUARY 2020SPORT
Djokovic powers past Federer into finalAFP — MELBOURNE
Novak Djokovic shattered the hopes of ailing rival Roger Federer yesterday to sweep into a record eighth Australian Open final and move closer to his 17th Grand Slam crown.
In the 50th instalment of one of sport’s greatest rivalries, the Serb shrugged off a tentative start to reinforce his recent dominance, showing no mercy to the Swiss maestro in a 7-6 (7/1), 6-4, 6-3 win.
He will play either fifth seed Dominic Thiem or seventh-ranked German Alexander Zverev in Sunday’s final, but it will take a monumental effort to prize another title from the 32-year-old.
Of the seven Melbourne finals Djokovic has made, he has won them all.
If any extra motivation was needed, winning on Sunday will see the Serb reclaim the number one ranking after Rafael Nadal was sent packing in the last eight.
“Respect to Roger for coming out tonight when he was obviously hurt and not even
close to his best in terms of movement,” said defending champion Djokovic, who is into his 26th Grand Slam final.
“He started well at the beginning and I was pretty nervous. It was very important for me to win that first set. Men-tally I relaxed after that.”
It was the fourth time Djokovic had beaten Federer at the semi-final stage in Mel-bourne after doing the same in 2008, 2011 and 2016.
Federer, the 2018 champion, came into the match carrying a groin injury that he picked up in his five-set, come-from-behind quarter-final win against Tennys Sandgren.
He was seen around Mel-bourne Park before the match with tape on his upper right leg and there were even rumours that he might pull out. But that is not in the 38-year-old’s nature -- he has only ever given up four walkovers in his long career -- and the show was on.
Djokovic was clear favourite after beating the third seed in every Grand Slam meeting since Wimbledon 2012, but in their 50th career clash it was Federer
who initially set Rod Laver Arena alight.
The opening game, on Fed-erer’s serve, lasted six minutes in an indication of what might be in store.
Then against the odds the 38-year-old, the oldest man in a Grand Slam semi since Jimmy Connors in 1991, broke Djokovic on his first service game with an unbelievable backhand passing shot.
The edge didn’t last long with the Serb immediately hitting back to even it up.
But the power and finesse of the Federer game was trou-bling Djokovic, who was on the back foot and was broken once more to go 4-1 behind.
Federer had three break points to make it 5-1, but Djokovic dug deep to fend them off as he clawed back, breaking once more as the Swiss was serving for the set.
It went to a tiebreaker which the second seed domi-nated to pull off a remarkable turnaround in a set that Federer threw away. Federer took a medical time at the end of it, apparently for a back issue, and
he wasn’t moving as freely in the second set.
But he clung on until he fluffed an easy shot at the net to hand Djokovic set point at 4-5 and the Serb cracked a top-quality crosscourt volley to go two sets to one in front.
Djokovic was pumped and Federer rapidly running out of steam.
When the Swiss star was broken to go 4-2 behind in the third, there was no way back as his rival extended his winning record over him to 27-23.
Ailing Roger Federer fails to get going as Novak Djokovic wins Melbourne battle
Kenin of US ousts No. 1 Barty to reach Australian Open finalAP — MELBOURNE
Sofia Kenin never flinched. Not when she was twice a point from dropping the opening set of her first Grand Slam semi-final at the Australian Open. Not when she was twice a point from dropping the second set, either.
And the American is into her first major final at age 21 -- beating the woman ranked No. 1, Ash Barty, to get there. Now Kenin will need to beat a former No. 1, Garbiñe Muguruza, to grab the trophy.
Kenin saved a total of four set points to stop home hope Barty’s bid to give Australia a long-awaited singles champion at Melbourne Park, pulling out a 7-6 (6), 7-5 victory on a sti-flingly hot day yesterday.
“I was telling myself: ‘I believe in myself. If I lose the set, I’m still going to come out and believe,’” said the 14th-seeded Kenin, who never had been past the fourth round at a major. “Yeah, I really did a great job with it. I didn’t give up.”
Muguruza fended off four set points in the opener of her semifinal and wound up defeating No. 4 Simona Halep 7-6 (8), 7-5 in a matchup of players who have won Wim-bledon and the French Open but not the Australian Open.
It was a streaky contest: Muguruza led 5-3 in the first set before Halep took 15 of 17 points to earn a pair of set points. Muguruza then took seven con-secutive points. And so on, until Halep put a shot in the net to relinquish that set, then smashed her racket and sat on the sideline, shaking her head.
“I think I played many top-10 players in a row, got the victories. Definitely it’s a sign that my tennis is good,” Muguruza said. “Doesn’t matter how many Grand Slams you have. Even if you have 15 Grand Slams, you go out there and you have somebody that can beat you.
“Excited to have one more match here.”
Barty - who won the French Open last June, beating Kenin along the way - was hardly at her best yesterday, especially at the most crucial moments. Maybe she was burdened by the task of trying to become the first Australian woman since 1980 to get to the final of the coun-try’s Grand Slam.
“Unfortunately, couldn’t quite scrap enough to get over the line,” said Barty, who held her niece on her lap at the post-match news conference. “Just didn’t play the biggest points well enough to win.”
Instead, Kenin is the first
A m e r i c a n other than a W i l l i a m s sister to reach the Australian Open final since Lindsay Davenport in 1995. And Kenin is the first American woman to beat the No. 1 player at any major since Serena topped Venus at Wimbledon in 2002.
“She has the ability to adapt,” Barty said. “She’s e x t r e m e l y confident at the moment, as well.”
T h o s e inside the sport know. But Kenin has been over-shadowed by some of the many other American women making waves in recent years.
“I mean, yeah, I know
people haven’t really paid attention much to me in the past. I had to establish myself, and I have,” Kenin said. “Of course, now I’m getting the
attention, which I like it. Not going to lie.”
Kenin, who was born in Russia and moved to Florida as a baby, burst onto the scene in
2019 by winning three singles titles, upsetting Serena Williams in the third round at Roland Garros, and soaring from No. 52 to No. 12 in the rankings.
She didn’t face a seeded player in this tournament until yesterday, but did eliminate 15-year-old sen-sation Coco Gauff in the fourth round.
Barty and Kenin stepped out in Rod Laver Arena in the early afternoon under a cloudless sky and a vibrant sun. The temper-ature topped 100 Fahrenheit (38 Celsius) in the first set, 20 to 25 (10 to 15) degrees hotter than it’s been for much of a chillier-than-usual 1½ weeks so far at Mel-bourne Park.
Barty braced herself by wearing an ice towel around her neck at changeovers.
In addition to making it uncom-fortable for players and fans alike, the conditions caused balls to zip through
the air and fly off rackets, ren-dering it that much harder to control shots. Add that to some jitters, and neither woman was at her best in the opening set.
Barty’s one-handed slice backhand was not as reliable as it normally is. Kenin’s movement and groundstrokes seemed to lack their usual verve.
It took Kenin 43 minutes to register just one forehand winner, while 11 of her initial 14 points resulted from unforced errors by Barty.
After one lost point, Kenin hit herself in the thigh. On the next, she flubbed a high volley and dropped her racket to the ground. Up in the stands, Kenin’s father, Alexander, who is also her coach, put his hands on his head.
Hours later, he could smile as he looked back at the big win and ahead to what’s next.
“The basic plan that we developed, we stuck to it, and it looked like it worked,” Dad said.
Asked what he thought it will be like to see his daughter participate in her first Grand Slam final, he replied: “Never been there, so I don’t know. Let’s see.”
Barty had two chances to claim the first set but couldn’t. Same thing happened in the second.
Kenin now will climb into the top 10 of the rankings. One more win, and she’ll achieve something even more signif-icant: The right to call herself a Grand Slam champion.
“She deserves that respect,” Barty said, “and she deserves the recognition.”
Sofia Kenin of the US celebrates after beating Australia’s
Ashleigh Barty during their singles
semi-final at the Australian Open
in Melbourne yesterday.
Spain’s Garbine Muguruza celebrates after beating Romania’s Simona Halep during their singles semi-final at the Australian Open yesterday.
AUSTRALIAN
OPEN RESULTS Collated results on day 11 of the
Australian Open Grand Slam at
Melbourne Park yesterday
(x denotes seeding):
WOMEN'S SEMI-FINALS
Sofia Kenin (USA x14) bt
Ashleigh Barty (AUS x1)
7-6 (8/6), 7-5
Garbine Muguruza (ESP) bt
Simona Halep (ROM x4)
7-6 (10/8), 7-5
MEN'S SEMI-FINAL
Novak Djokovic (SRB x2) bt Rog-
er Federer (SUI x3)
7-6 (7/1), 6-4, 6-3
‘I can still win Grand Slams’ - Federer has no plans to retire AFP — MELBOURNE
Injury-hit Roger Federer said yesterday he had no plans to retire and insisted he was still in good enough shape to win Grand Slams after crashing out of the Australian Open semi-finals to Novak Djokovic.
The 38-year-old fell to the Serb 7-6 (7/1), 6-4, 6-3, admitting he only had “a three percent” chance as he nursed a groin injury picked up in his quarter-final epic against Tennys Sandgren, where he saved seven match points. Despite the disap-pointment, the Swiss great believes he is still a force to be reckoned with.
“Yes, I do believe that,” the world number three said, when asked he if he was confident about adding to his 20 Grand Slam titles. “I think by having the year that I had last year, also with what I have in my game, how I’m playing, I do feel that, yeah.”
Federer, who reached last year’s Roland Garros semi-finals and lost a five-set Wimbledon final to Djokovic, said he hopes to return to Melbourne in 2021 for a crack at a seventh title.
“You never know what the future holds. Especially my age, you don’t know,” he said. “I’m confident. I’m happy how I’m feeling, to be honest. I got through a good, nice training block. No plans to retire. From that stand-point, we’ll see how the year goes, how everything is with the family. We’ll go from there. Of course, I hope to be back.”
Federer was seen around Melbourne Park before the match with tape on his upper right leg and there were even rumours that he might pull out of the semi-final. But that is not in the 38-year-old’s nature -- he has only ever given up walkovers four times in his long career, and never retired from any of his more than 1,500 matches over two decades.
Federer said the injury did not appear to be serious.
“I’m very happy that I don’t feel any worse than when I started. That’s super-encouraging. So I think we’ll go from there and we’ll see if I need to do another scan or not,” he said.
Djokovic said he had “huge respect” for the resilient Federer’s record of never retiring from a match.
“I did have retirements throughout my career. I know how it feels when you’re hurt on the court. It’s an amazing fact that he has never retired his match, not a single match, throughout his career. Huge respect for that.”
Serbia’s Novak Djokovic (right) shakes hands
with Switzerland’s Roger Federer at the end of their
singles semi-final match on day 11 of the
Australian Open in Melbourne
yesterday.
19FRIDAY 31 JANUARY 2020 SPORT
Hathab Round 7 to begin today at Longines Arena at Al Shaqab Riders guide their horses during the Vet Check yesterday ahead of the Hathab Round 7, which will begin today at Longines Arena at Al Shaqab.
Sapporo takes lead in bidding for 2030 Winter Olympics
AP — TOKYO
The city of Sapporo is the first to officially bid for the 2030 Winter Olympics and becomes the early favorite after the Japanese Olympic Committee approved its candidate file late on Wednesday.
Sapporo was host to the 1972 Winter Olympics and could face competition from Salt Lake City in the United States, which is also being men-tioned as a possible bidder, along with Barcelona and a bid tied to the Pyrenees.
Salt Lake held the 2002 Winter Olympics and Bar-celona held the 1992 Summer Olympics.
Sapporo Mayor Katsuhiro Akimoto got a strong endorsement earlier this month from International Olympic Committee President Thomas
B a c h . S a p p o r o h a s strengthened its case by stepping in at the last minute and agreeing to hold the mar-athons for this year’s Tokyo Olympics. The IOC abruptly made the change because of Tokyo’s fierce summer heat.
There is no timeline for naming an Olympic host city under the IOC’s new bidding procedures.
Beijing will hold the 2022 Winter Olympics, largely because many European cities withdrew from the bidding. Beijing won in a close final vote against Almaty, Kazakhstan.
Milan-Cortina in Italy will hold the 2026 Winter Olympics.
On the summer side, the IOC has named Paris to hold the 2024 games with Los Angeles up for 2028.
Tokyo’s Olympics open on July 24.
Klopp doesn’t care about records as Liverpool close in on titleAFP — LONDON
Jurgen Klopp insisted Liverpool are not motivated by making history after the runaway leaders took another step towards the Premier League title with a 2-0 win at West Ham.
Klopp’s side have turned the title race into a pro-cession and they moved 19 points clear at the top with their 23rd victory from 24 league games this season.
Mohamed Salah opened the scoring with a first half penalty at the London Stadium and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain wrapped up Liverpool’s 15th successive league win after the interval.
Second placed Man-chester City are now so far behind Liverpool that the question is not if but when the Reds clinch their first English league title since 1990.
The Reds have won 31 of their past 32 league fixtures, only dropping points in a 1-1 draw at Manchester United in October.
With 14 games left, Liv-erpool’s incredible run has given historic overtones to their impending title
coronation. But Klopp is only concerned about getting Liv-erpool over the finish line, with any landmarks set on the way merely the icing on the cake.
“In a season you have to dig in, you don’t breathe pretty much, then after 38 games you come out of the water and see how you did,” Klopp said.
“I’m not too much con-cerned about records. We had a record at Dortmund and Bayern beat it the next season.
“I don’t want to be boring. We just don’t feel like that.”
The European and World champions are now 41 games
unbeaten in the league -- just eight away from the 49-match English top-flight record set by Arsenal’s ‘Invincibles’ across 2003 and 2004.
Matching that Arsenal team’s achievement in going an entire league season without defeat is within Liv-erpool’s reach, as is Man-chester City’s Premier League record of 100 points.
Liverpool’s latest success on a chilly night in east London will be just a footnote when the full story of their likely title triumph is written, but they still managed to record another small piece of history.
They have now beaten all
19 of the other teams in the league at least once this season -- the first time the club have achieved that feat in the top-flight.
Told of the milestone, Klopp maintained his only motivation was to get the best from his team in each match, but he did stop to br ief ly sa lute the achievement.
“This game, it was not a brilliant performance. The difficulty tonight was to get rhythm, keep rhythm and stay concentrated. Their biggest chances came because we gave them away,” he said.
“I trust these boys 100 percent with my kids, but
they still made these ridic-ulous mistakes. It’s com-pletely normal that you don’t always perform at the highest level.
“It is not a motivational problem for us. We are Liv-erpool, we have a proper history and everyone knows what we have to do to reach that.
“If it was easy to get this number of points other teams would have done it. It’s just really incredibly difficult.
“If we reach any records we will take that when it happens.”
West Ham manager David Moyes admitted Liv-erpool deserve their place among the Premier League’s all-time great teams.
But, as a former boss of Liverpool’s two greatest rivals, he unsurprisingly stopped short of anointing them the best English football has ever seen.
“They are as good as there has been at this moment in time. It’s very difficult when you have been the manager of Everton and Manchester United to say that!” Moyes said.
“They are an excellent side. They have so many strings to their bow. But when you think of some of the great Manchester United and Arsenal teams of the past, it’s difficult to judge them (as the best ever).
“Two years ago everyone was saying it was impossible to beat Manchester City.”
Liverpool’s German manager Jurgen Klopp applauds the fans following the English Premier League match against West Ham United.
Klopp’s side have
turned the title race
into a procession and
they moved 19 points
clear at the top with
their 23rd victory from
24 league games this
season.
United bank on Fernandes to quieten fans’ furyAFP — LONDON
Manchester United finally secured a deal to sign Portu-guese internat ional midfielder Bruno Fernandes on Wednesday ending a long-running chase of the 25-year-old.
United are badly in need of midfield reinforcements due to the absence of Paul Pogba and Scott McTominay through injury, whilst Pogba’s future at the club beyond the end of the season is very much in doubt.
Fernandes will cost the Red Devils an initial €55m (£47m, $61m) with up to €25m more in performance-related add-ons.
However, United know to their cost that even such a huge fee is no guarantee of success after seven years of decline since former manager Alex Ferguson retired in 2013, despite splashing over £1bn on transfers.
So, who is Fernandes and can he help lead a
revival of United’s fortunes? Goals galore One area where Fernandes clearly fits United’s needs is a goal threat with top scorer Marcus Rashford sidelined by a back injury to compound the absence of Pogba and McTominay.
He scored 63 times in 137 appearances for Sporting since returning to his homeland in 2017 after spells with Novara, Udinese and Sampdoria in Italy.
Of those 47 have come in the last season-and-a-half as he has blossomed into a potent threat, earning com-parisons with Chelsea manager Frank Lampard - the top scoring midfielder in Premier League history.
“He is a complete player, and if you ask me to compare Bruno with a player, I will say Frank Lampard,” former Sporting manager Carlos Carvalhal told talkSPORT.
Fernandes’s ability to shoot from range could be the key to unlocking deep-lying defences that
Solskjaer’s men have struggled to break down this season.
Moreover, he has also been a creative force during his time at Sporting, pro-viding 42 assists in total and creating the most chances in the Portuguese league for the past two seasons.
‘Finished article’ Unlike m a n y p r o d u c t s
from the Portuguese league, Fernandes is making the move to England in the prime of his career rather than as a precocious youngster.
One of those young talents went onto become one of United’s best ever players when Cristiano Ronaldo made the move from Lisbon to Manchester in 2003 as an 18-year-old.
With United languishing fifth in the Premier League, six points off the top four, ani-mosity towards Woodward and the club’s American owners, the Glazer family, has risen among the club’s fanbase in recent weeks.
They are now banking on another lavish purchase in Fernandes to quieten that discontent.
Bruno Fernandes
Fernandes will cost the Red
Devils an initial €55m (£47m,
$61m) with up to €25m more in
performance-related add-ons.
Zimbabwe victory push in second Test frustrated by rain, bad lightAFP — HARARE
Heavy rain and bad light in the afternoon frustrated Zimbabwe’s push to build a match-winning position on the fourth day of the second Test against Sri Lanka in Harare yesterday.
A downpour mid-afternoon forced the players off the field and, although they returned briefly after tea, only 54 overs were bowled in the day, restricting Zimbabwe to 241 for seven at the close, an overall lead of 354.
The Zimbabwe captain Sean Wil-liams, who made a century in the first innings, was 47 not out when bad light forced the players off and must now decide whether to declare overnight to give his bowlers a full day to try and win the match and square the two-Test series.
Brendan Taylor set the tone for the home side during the morning session when he made his second half-century of the match.
The 33-year-old struck a rapid 67 as the hosts added 117 during an extended morning session.
Lasith Embuldeniya was again the pick of the Sri Lanka bowlers, striking in the third over of the day when Regis Chakabva edged to Dhananjaya de Silva at slip having added just a single to his overnight 14.
Taylor joined Prince Masvaure who was run out for 35 after a needless mix-up over a second run and in spite of a dramatic dive for safety.
Timycen Maruma, who was drafted in as a ‘concussion substitute’ for Kevin Kasuza who was stretchered off on Wednesday after being hit on the head at short leg, scratched around for 14 balls before being stumped off Embuldeniya for a duck.
At the other end Taylor had picked up quickly from his run-a-ball 62 in the first innings, passing 2,000 runs in Test cricket on his way to 67 from 75 balls.
His innings, which included eight fours and a six, ended when he was on the wrong end of an lbw shout from Lahru Kumara, the ball looking certain to slide down the leg side.
Sikander Raza added 70 with Wil-liams for the sixth wicket before also departing leg before, this time to a ball from left-arm seamer Vishwa Fernando that appeared to pitch outside leg stump.
In the brief 26-ball passage of play in the yesterday's evening session Tinotenda Mutombodzi stepped too far away to off to give himself room and lost his leg stump to Suranga Lakmal.
Williams played serenely for his 47 which came off 76 balls and included six fours.
Zimbabwe 406 and 241-7 (B. Taylor 67, S.
Williams 47 not out, P. Masvaure 35, Sikander
Raza 34; V. Fernando 2-43, L. Embuldeniya
2-81)
Sri Lanka 293 (A. Mathews 64, D. Karu-
naratne 44, O. Fernando 44; Sikandar Raza
7-113)
Match situation: Zimbabwe lead by 354 runs
with three wickets remaining
BRIEF SCORES
SPORT | 17
Lakers return to practice amid
grief over Bryant's death
SPORTKlopp doesn't care about records as Liverpool close in on title
SPORT | 19
FRIDAY 31 JANUARY 2020
Lakp
BrB
n't care ds as ose in
‘No secrets’ as Thiem and Zverev battle for first Aussie finalAFP — MELBOURNE
Dominic Thiem says there are “no secrets” between him and Alexander Zverev as they prepare for a battle of “small margins” to make an Australian Open final for the first time.
The fifth seed faces his good friend today after stunning world number one Rafael Nadal in the last eight, with a crack at seven-time champion Novak Djokovic in the decider at stake.
Thiem and Zverev have played each other eight times, with the Austrian holding a 6-2 advantage, i n c l u d i n g their last t w o
encounters. They have never been forced into a five-setter.
“We have no secrets from each other. I mean, we played so many times, also on very special occasions already, at the ATP Finals, semis, French Open q u a r t e r s , ” s a i d t h e 26-year-old.
“It’s a nice rivalry we have. It’s great that we add an Aus-tralian Open semi-finals to this one. Going to be a close match again.”
“Same if two top-10 players play each other
(in the) semis of a Slam. The deciding moments are very small, small margins. I’m looking forward to it,” he added.
Thiem is better known as a clay-court
specialist and has expe-rience of the big
t i m e ,
making the French Open final over the past two years, beaten each time by Nadal.
But this is the furthest he has got on hardcourts at the Majors and knows he is on the cusp of a crack at shattering the stran-glehold Djokovic and Federer have had on the tournament, sharing 12 of the last 14 titles.
“One of us is going to be in the finals. But it’s still a very long way to go,” he said.
Seventh seed Zverev has long been tipped for great things, but until now the 22-year-old has failed to deliver at the Majors. He
is into his first Grand Slam semi-final after taking a more relaxed approach, admitting that in the past he was trying too hard to make his mark.
“In a way, I was maybe paying attention to it too much, to the Grand Slams. You know what I mean?” he said.
“I was just playing better tennis at the other tournaments. At Madrid, Rome, other Masters, the World Tour Finals. The Grand Slams maybe meant too much for me. “This
year I actually came into the Australian Open with absolutely no expectations.”
Taking the pressure off has worked wonders, with Zverev battling past former champion Stan Wawrinka and dangerous Russian Andrey Rublev en route to his clash with Thiem.
Regardless of what happens on Rod Laver Arena on Friday, h e i s content with his
tennis, and his life.
“Do you have to prove a point to anybody in this world? Maybe to your parents, out of respect or something like that,” he said.
“But anybody else, this is your life. You do with it what you feel is right. All I’m going to say, I’m always going to try my best.
“I am always going to do everything I can to win tennis matches, to at least do the best thing I can on the tennis court when I’m playing in front of people, just to have respect in front of the crowd.”
Zverev has already gone a long way to winning over Aus-tralian fans, donating $10,000 for each match he has won to the country’s bushfire relief fund.
If he claims a maiden Grand Slam
in Melbourne on Sunday, he has vowed to also hand over his A$4.12 million ($2.78m) win-ner’s cheque to the same cause.
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Thiem and Zverev have played each other eight times, with the Austrian holding a 6-2 advantage, including their last two encounters. They have never been forced into a five-setter.
Thiem faces his good friend today after stunning world number one Rafael Nadal in the last eight, with a crack at seven-time champion Novak Djokovic in the decider at stake.
Seventh seed Zverev has long been tipped for great things, but until now the 22-year-old has failed to deliver at the Majors.
Al Gharafa target victory over Qatar SCFAWAD HUSSAIN THE PENINSULA
After a stunning victory over Al Rayyan last week, Al Gharafa – boosted by the arrival of striker Jonathan Kodjia - are confident of giving a good show against any opposition they face at the QNB Stars League (QSL). The Slavisa Jokanovic-coached side will host Qatar SC with the same approach, eyeing victory in their Round 14 clash today.
Al Gharafa shocked Al Rayyan 4-2 after a hat-trick by Ivory Coast’s Kodjia, who excelled in his debut game in Qatar following his move from Aston Villa.
The Cheetahs are currently fourth in the QSL standings with 23 points, trailing Al Sadd by 4 points with Al Duhail (33 points) and Al Rayyan (28 points) occu-pying the first two spots.
They face an opposition in Qatar SC, who have shown an improved performance since former Qatar international Wesam Rizik replaced Spaniard Carlos Alos Ferrer as their manager. They held points leaders Al Duhail to a goalless
draw in their Round 12 game. Al Gharafa’s coach Jokanovic,
who is hoping to earn full points in today’s game, expects resistance from Qatar SC at Al Gharafa Stadium.
“Qatar SC are one of the much-improved teams this season. They did not suffer any defeat in recent matches and achieved important victories, especially against Al Sadd,” Jokanovic said at a pre-match press conference.
“Our opponents in the next game have good players who are able to quickly switch from defence to attack, which may be dangerous to us, but our target is to win despite the difficulty of the game,” he added.
Apart from Kodjia, Al Gharafa will be banking on the Algerian duo of Sofianne Hanni, Adlene Guedioura, Ahmed Alaaeldin, Amro Seraj, Othman Al Yahri and Muad Hassan in the match.
“Al Gharafa provided a good match against Al Rayyan in the previous round. All players appeared at a good level, espe-cially new striker Kodjia who scored three goals, which may
not be repeated in every game, I expect him to increase his focus to provide the same not only at the level of scoring, but also in other aspects,” he said.
“We played some games without some professional players, but once they all are available, we will provide a better level and return to vic-tories,” Jokanovic added.
Meanwhile, Qatar SC coach
Rizik hoped for a good per-formance from his side. “We will face Al Gharafa with full force and we have to be careful. God willing, we will perform well,” said Rizik.
“I am convinced that any team should have a bad match, which happened against Al Wakrah (goalless draw). Eve-ryone admitted that the per-formance was not enough to satisfy us. It was a lesson for us and we have benefited a lot."
“I am waiting for my players’ reaction against Al Gharafa. I consider this match as a special challenge for them. As is the case with all matches, we consider it as a big mission for us,” the coach said.
“We did not think we needed to change the side in the winter transfer window on the front of overseas professionals. But I spoke to the team management about recruiting two Qatari players, who would be good additions,” said Wesam.
The match will kick off at 6:45pm after today’s first match between Al Wakrah and Al Sha-hania, which will be played at Al Wakrah Stadium from 4:35pm.
Our opponents in the next game have good players who are able to quickly switch from defence to attack, which may be dangerous to us, but our target is to win despite the difficulty of the game: Al Gharafa coach Slavisa Jokanovic
QSL: Al Khor snatch point against Al Ahli as Umm Salal hold Al ArabiTHE PENINSULA — DOHA
Al Khor snatched their second equaliser right at the death to hold Al Ahli to a 2-2 draw in Week 14 of the 2019-20 QNB Stars League at the Al Ahli Stadium yesterday.
New recruit Lucca Borges was Al Khor’s star as he scored a double (23rd minute and 90+5).
Abdelrahman Moustafa (11th minute) and substitute Nabil El Zhar (49th minute) were Al Ahli’s scorers.
Al Ahli now have 17 points and Al Khor 10.
Al Ahli had beaten Al Khor 3-2 in the first leg of 2019-20 QNB Stars League.
Moreover, it was a con-solation and a valuable point for Al Khor, who are struggling to stay afloat. The Knights had suffered
a 0-1 defeat at the hands of Umm Salal in the previous round.
Al Khor, in their bid to improve their results, had offloaded Brazilian Wagner Ferreira and recruited his compatriot Lucca Borges, who represented Al Rayyan in the 2018-19 season, in the winter transfer window. And the move paid off for them.
Meanwhile, Al Ahli are also doing well under new coach Nebojsa Jovovic, who
replaced Ruben de la Barrera. The Brigadiers had beaten Al Sailiya 1-0 in the previous round.
Coming into the match, possession was invariably even for both teams. Al Khor made more use of the wing play, while Al Ahli preferred to attack through the middle.
Abdelrahman took Al Ahli ahead with a shot from outside the box.
Lucca helped Al Khor draw parity halfway through the first half with a free-kick.
A minute into the second half, captain Nabil came off the bench in place of Mohsen Hassan and imme-diately earned a penalty when Musab Abdulmajid fouled him.
Nabil placed home the rebound after goalkeeper
Baba Djibril blocked the shot.
As Al Ahli cruised to their second successive win, Lucca fired the equaliser, which resulted from a free-kick from inside the box.
Meanwhile at Al Arabi Stadium, hosts Al Arabi were held to a 1-1 draw by Umm Salal in their exciting clash yesterday.
Al Arabi's goal was scored by German player Pierre-Michel Lasogga in the 64th minute, while Umm Salal's goal was scored by Raoul Oscar in the 86th minute of the match.
Following the draw, Al Arabi moved to 19 points while Umm Salal are on 9 points now.
The first half ended without a goal despite attempts from both the sides.
Yesterday's Results
Al Ahli 2- 2 Al Khor
Al Arabi 1-1 Umm Salal
Today's matches
4:35pm: Al Wakrah vs Al
Shahania at Al Wakrah Stadium
6:45pm: Al Gharafa vs Qatar SC
at Al Gharafa Stadium
QSL ROUND 14
Al Gharafa striker Jonathan Kodjia (left) with his team-mate during a team's training session.
Al Khor's players celebrate their goal against Al Ahli yesterday.
