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Thai city holds vigil for 29 victims of mass shooting10WORLD

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Ali claims Pro Mod victory for BapcoVeteran Bahraini racer Hani Ali powered to a roaring victory in the Pro Mod class to highlight a hugely exciting fourth and penultimate round of the 2019/2020 Bahrain Drag Racing Championship, held last week at Bahrain International Circuit (BIC) in Sakhir. P16

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YEARS AT YOUR SERVICEIran rocket launch fails to put satellite into orbit

• Sunday’s failure came after two failed launches of the Payam and Doosti satellites last year.

Tehran

An Iranian rocket failed to put a satellite into orbit yesterday, state televi-

sion reported, the latest setback for a programme the US claims helps Tehran advance its ballis-tic missile programme.

The launch happened at Imam Khomeini Spaceport in Iran’s

Semnan province, some 230 kilometers (145 miles) southeast of Iran’s capital, Tehran.

A Simorgh, or “Phoenix,” rocket couldn’t put the Zafar 1 communications satellite into orbit, however, due to a low speed, Iranian state TV reported.

The launch had been planned amid celebrations ahead of the February anniversary of Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Iran routinely unveils tech-nological achievements for its armed forces, its space pro-gramme and its nuclear efforts during this time.

Sunday’s failure came after two failed launches of the Payam

and Doosti satellites last year, as well as a launchpad rocket explosion in August.

A separate fire at the Imam Khomeini Space Centre in Feb-ruary 2019 also killed three re-

searchers, authorities said at the time.

The rocket explosion in Au-gust drew even the attention of US President Donald Trump, who later tweeted what ap-peared to be a classified sur-veillance image of the launch failure.

The three failures in a row raised suspicion of outside in-terference in Iran’s programme.

The US alleges such satellite launches defy a UN Security Council resolution calling on Iran to undertake no activi-ty related to ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons.

An image showing the launch of the new Raad-500 missile.

AUB BD10,000 prize scheme to promote digital banking TDT | Manama

In continuation of its com-mitment to provide an

enhanced customer experi-ence, Ahli United Bank (AUB), launched its eRewards pro-gramme.

The programme offers cus-tomers the chance to win priz-es of up to BD 10,000 while using the mobile and internet banking platforms of the bank.

This programme covers both customers who are reg-istered as well as customers who are yet to be registered on the AUB mobile and online banking platform.

Customers who are regis-tered on the AUB mobile app or online banking can now make their bill payments or fund transfers easily through AUB’s enhanced user interfaces.

Each transaction will auto-matically make them eligible to win.

“We understood that there is an initial hesitation with adap-tation to new channels. How-ever, we are confident that, once customers start using the broad spectrum of functional-ities available to them through our digital channels, they will appreciate the convenience and speed it provides them,” said Suvrat Saigal, Deputy Group CEO-Retail Banking at AUB. Full Report Page 5

Suvrat Saigal

Kuwait speaker throws Trump peace plan in the binKuwait City

One of Kuwait’s top par-liamentarians has been filmed throwing the

peace plan presented by US Pres-ident Donald Trump into a bin.

At a meeting of the Arab In-ter-Parliamentary Union in Jordan’s Amman, National As-sembly Speaker Marzouq Al

Ghanem said that the proposal, which has been perceived as favouring Israel, was “destined to die” because of its bias.

“They want us to move Pal-estine from a central cause to a secondary one, and from the centre to the margins,” he said.

“It will not happen. History is not behind you, geography does not help you, and demography

does not play to your advantage. Palestine will return, Jerusalem will return sooner or later.”

He was then filmed holding up the peace plan and dropping it into a bin.

“These are the documents of the so called deal of the centu-ry,” he said, holding a bound file of papers.

“Their appropriate and real

place is the dustbin of histo-ry,” he said as he threw the file, apparently into a rubbish bin positioned next to him.

Last month, US President Donald Trump unveiled a Mid-dle East plan for peace between Israel and the Palestinians which the Palestinians have rejected saying it is biased in favour of Israel.

B I A S E D P R O P O S A L

Marzouq Al Ghanem

Real growth engine EDB attracted 134 foreign firms last year, bringing $835 million in FDI

• A number of senior government officials and EDB board members were in attendance. 

• The presentation provided further insight into a number of investment success stories.

Manama

Hi s Roya l H i g h n e s s Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the

Crown Prince, Deputy Supreme Commander and Chairman of the Economic Development Board (EDB) yesterday chaired the EDB board meeting held at EDB headquarters, at Bahrain Bay.

During the meeting, HRH the Crown Prince highlighted the Kingdom’s achievements across all sectors, and stressed the im-portance of implementing vari-ous economic strategies in order to further advance sustainable development, in line with the Kingdom’s comprehensive de-velopment, led by HM the King.

HRH the Crown Prince em-phasised that Bahraini citizens remain an integral part of Team Bahrain’s efforts, and highlight-ed the Kingdom’s commitment to providing quality opportu-nities for citizens in tandem with the growth of the national economy. 

HRH the Crown Prince went on to note that the Kingdom’s economic competitiveness is cen-tred around wide-ranging sus-tainable diversification efforts designed to enhance its business

environment and create further investment opportunities.

Khalid Ebrahim Humaidan, Chief Executive of the EDB, then presented the latest economic indicators and developments regarding the performance of the Kingdom’s national econ-omy. According to data issued by the International Monetary Fund: Real GDP increased by 2 per cent in 2019, non-oil growth increased by 2.2pc due to im-proved performance in sectors such as financial services and manufacturing and growth in the oil and gas sector increased

by 1pc.Mr Humaidan went on to

highlight the EDB’s success in attracting Foreign Direct Invest-ment and creating quality op-portunities in the local market.

The EDB attracted 134 foreign companies into the Kingdom in 2019, resulting in a total direct investment of USD 835 million.

These investments are pro-jected to create more than 6,000 job opportunities in the local market over the next three years.

On this note, Mr Humaidan explained that companies from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, State of Kuwait, France, India, Ja-pan, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong and others have invested across the Kingdom’s various sectors, including hotels and restaurants, financial services, information communication technology (ICT), telecommu-nications, manufacturing and logistics, real estate, tourism, education and health sectors.

Mr Humaidan remarked that each of these investments fur-ther enhance Bahrain’s econom-ic diversification efforts.

The presentation provided further insight into a number of other investment success stories from 2019.

HRH the Crown Prince chairs the meeting in the presence of HH Shaikh Nasser, Deputy Premier Shaikh Khalid, Finance and National Economy Minister Shaikh Salman and Dr Hassan Fakhro.

6,000job opportunities were

created in the local market last year through investments attracted by

EDB.

02MONDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2020

Illegal shrimp-trawling vessels cause damage to Dive Bahrain

Probe ordered into the incident; data tracking on to find culprits

• A Dive Bahrain spokesman confirmed that work is already underway to fix the damage caused.

• Since its official opening, Dive Bahrain has had an overwhelmingly positive response from around the world.

Manama

Dive Bahrain yesterday announced that illegal shrimp-trawling vessels

entered the protected bounda-ries of the dive site causing ma-jor damage to the underwater attraction.

The authorities are working to identify the vessels in ques-tion, which were in breach of Ministerial Order (205) for 2018, banning fishing using trawling nets, and the notice to mariners issued by the Ports and Mari-time Affairs Authority, which mandates a two nautical mile exclusion zone around the sub-

merged attractions.The Minister of Industry,

Commerce and Tourism Zayed Al Zayani said “While the dive site sustained damage, work continues to build the largest underwater park which will continue to provide a thrilling diving experience for those who visit and, more importantly, a viable habitat for local marine species.”

He announced that an inves-tigation is underway using de-tailed radar and tracking data to

identify the vessels. An investi-gation by a team of specialised marine investigators identified clear evidence, both on the fu-selage of the submerged aircraft and the seabed, that points to a collision between the fuselage and “heavy trawling nets”.

Commenting on this issue, Dr Mohamed Bin Daina, Chief Ex-ecutive of the Supreme Council of the Environment remarked that ‘’This incident serves as fur-ther evidence of the profound-ly negative effect fishing with

trawling nets has on the seabed ecosystems, reefs and on the ma-rine environment overall.”

A Dive Bahrain spokesman confirmed that work is already underway to fix the damage caused.

He added “The enormously positive response Dive Bahrain has received, locally, regionally and internationally, had already accelerated work on the oth-er pre-planned elements of the dive park including a replica of a traditional pearl merchant’s

house, sunken ships and sail structures.

“But this incident has en-couraged us to add even more elements, bolstering the unique-ness of Dive Bahrain’s offering and, of course, expanding the potential habitats for marine life. Stay tuned for more exciting an-nouncements in the near future from Dive Bahrain”.

Since its official opening in September 2019, Dive Bahrain has had an overwhelmingly pos-itive response from around the

world and the site continues to be a key area of focus for Team Bahrain. Amateur and profes-sional divers from more than 50 countries have thus far made the journey to Dive Bahrain, which offers a truly unique wreck-div-ing experience.

O n c e c o m p l e t e d , t h e 100,000m2 Dive Bahrain site will be the world’s largest under-water dive park, and a key addi-tion to the Kingdom’s growing tourism sector. 

Minister of Finance and National Economy Shaikh Salman bin Khalifa Al Khalifa has received French Ambassador to Bahrain Jerome Cauchard. He praised distinguished economic partnership between both countries and growing co-operation mainly in the economic and investment field. The Minister of Finance and National Economy underlined keenness on boosting bilateral economic and financial co-operation to serve common interests. Both sides discussed a number of issues as well as the latest global economic developments.

Bahrain attends WUF 10 in Abu DhabiAbu Dhabi

Bahrain Centre for Stra-tegic, International and Energy Studies (DERAS-

AT) Board of Trustees’ Chair-man Dr Shaikh Abdulla bin Ahmed Al-Khalifa attended the 10th World Urban Forum.

The six-day symposium opened yesterday under the patronage of Abu Dhabi Crown Prince and UAE Armed Forces Deputy Supreme Committee His Highness Shaikh Moham-med bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

The United Nations (UN) Human Settlements Pro-gramme is organising the (WUF 10) in Abu Dhabi under the theme: “Cities of Opportu-nities, Connecting Culture and Innovation”.

  Dr Shaikh Abdulla bin Ahmed Al-Khalifa addressed a discussion session which fo-cused on strengthening part-nerships in the field of sustain-able development in the Arab region and North Africa on “The role of think tanks in sus-tainable urban development”.

Mashroo3i Youth Business Competition registration extended TDT | Manama

The Labour Fund “Tam-keen” has extended the registration period of the

6th edition of Mashroo3i Youth Business Competition, for the year 2019 – 2020, due to the high the demand where the appli-cations reached more than 150 application, until February 15th, 2020.

This extension is granted to allow a larger segment of the Bahraini youth to join the com-prehensive program that will enable them to transform their business ideas into successful entrepreneurial projects.

Mashroo3i Youth Business Competition targets in its 6th edition Bahrainis aged 18 to 35 in teams of 2 to 3 individuals who wish to have their entrepreneur-

ial ideas polished and developed into successful businesses.

The Evaluation Committee of “Mashroo3i” has begun the process of reviewing the applica-tions received in order to select qualified applicants for the up-coming stages of the programme.

The competition will conclude by honouring the best three pro-jects during the final ceremony.

Moreover, a number of awards will be distributed among the participants including the Fea-sibility Study of the Year Award, the Business Model Award, the Marketing, Sales and Promo-tion Award, Most Responsible Business of the Year Award, the Charismatic Entrepreneur of the Year, the Innovation Award, E-Business of the Year Award, Active use of Social Media Award and the People’s Choice Award.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr Ebrahim Janahi, Chief Executive of Tamkeen, said, “Mashroo3i Youth Business Competition attracts a large segment of am-bitious young Bahrainis who intend to pursue entrepreneur-ial career paths; therefore, this extension aims to allow more individuals with innovative ideas to take part in the programme and benefit from key training op-portunities that will enable them to actualise their business ideas, and consequently contribute to the growth of the private sector in line with Bahrain’s Economic Vision 2030.”

For further information re-garding Mashroo3i Youth Busi-ness Competition visit www.tamkeen.bh/mashroo3i and follow us on our social media channels @tamkeenbahrain.

Strong French ties

An investigation is underway using

detailed radar and tracking data

to identify the vessels.

AL ZAYANI

Once completed, the 100,000m2 Dive Bahrain site will be the world’s largest underwater dive park.

Bahrain Indian School (BHAVANS) spellers shined in “Bhavans’ International Spell Bee” Grand Finale organised by Indian Educational School, Kuwait on February 8, 2020. The competition took place at BIS premises, wherein a video conference was set up between all the eleven finalist schools of BHAVANS Group (both in GCC and India) which reached the Grand Finale after several rounds of knock out rounds. The ambience of the hall was ‘buzzing’! The hall was packed with confident spellers and parents, cheering on the competitors. All of the participants worked incredibly hard to prepare themselves for the finale of the spelling challenge. After a number of nail biting rounds, BIS’s Arnav Singh Dewan (Grade II) secured second position. He received the cash prize of USD 1250 and a trophy. Steve Chalil Biju of Grade VIII and Rachana Redla of Grade III were the other finalists from BIS.

Spell Bee success

03MONDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2020

China ‘confident and capable’ to totally defeat corona threat

The epidemic is raging, but panic is even more terrifying, says envoy

• Mr Anwaer said China has always been proactive carrying out international co-operation in epidemic prevention and control in an open, transparent, co-operative, and responsible manner.

TDT | Manama Abhitab Kumar

China is effectively imple-menting all measures to contain the threat caused

by the novel coronavirus in the country, said Mr Anwaer, Chi-nese envoy to the Kingdom, while speaking at a press conference held at the InterContinental Re-gency yesterday.

“Following the outbreak, the Chinese government mobilised all resources to tackle the threat. Chi-nese President Xi Jinping made important directives. On the first day of the Chinese Lunar New Year, he presided over a meeting of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Commu-nist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee to restudy, redeploy, and remobilise the epidemic pre-vention and control work,” the envoy said.

“Chinese Premier Li Keqiang rushed to the front line of epidem-ic prevention and control work in Wuhan to further study and de-ploy to strengthen prevention and control work. At present, China has built an all-round and mul-ti-layered prevention and control system focusing on Wuhan and Hubei from the central govern-ment to the local level. Its work in all aspects is open and trans-parent, and it is advancing in a scientific and orderly manner,” he highlighted.

He said the Chinese govern-ment has always put the people’s lives and health in the first place, exerted its institutional advan-tages of focusing on major events,

and used the nation’s strength to fight the epidemic.

“It has adopted the most com-prehensive and stringent preven-

tion and control measures, many of which go far beyond the Inter-national Health Regulation (IHR). In order to control the epidemic as soon as possible and bring the situation back to normal, we have adopted a series of extraordinary decisive measures.

“The Chinese government and the army urgently dispatched medical staffs and expert teams to assist Wuhan City, the core area of the epidemic; Wuhan City has temporarily closed all the exit pas-sages, temporarily suspended the city public transportation, which effectively suppresses the spread of the epidemic; two special hos-pitals for infectious diseases have been established in the shortest

time to focus on the isolation and treatment of confirmed patients.

“The 1.4 billion Chinese people consciously responded to the gov-ernment’s call to cancel all kinds of Chinese Lunar New Year party activities, not to go out, not to be contagious, and not to increase chaos.

“They supported the fight against the epidemic with prac-tical actions and expressed their patriotism. Faced with a severe epidemic, we demonstrated Chi-nese speed, Chinese efficiency, and Chinese spirit.”

Mr Anwaer said China has always been proactive carrying out international co-operation in epidemic prevention and control

in an open, transparent, co-opera-tive, and responsible manner, add-ing that it has notified the World Health Organisation (WHO) and other countries of the outbreak information in a timely and pro-active manner.

“China has taken the initiative to invite WHO experts to visit Wuhan, and Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to visit China. Many countries and international organisations have highly praised China’s ep-idemic prevention and control measures.”

Although the epidemic situa-tion is complex and serious, the prevention and control work is gradually achieving effective re-sults. Although the number of novel corona virus pneumonia in-fections is high, with the unremit-ting efforts of China, the mortality rate of the novel corona virus ep-idemic in China is very low, only about 2.1 per cent, far lower than other previous epidemics such as SARS, MERS, and H1N1 influenza, a statement issued by the China Embassy in the Kingdom said.

“From February 1, the number of cures began to exceed the num-ber of deaths. As of February 4, a total of 892 discharged patients were cured. I believe the epidemic will usher in an inflection point. We are confident and capable to defeat the epidemic,” the state-ment added.

Mr Anwaer speaks at the Press conference.

Wuhan City, the core area of the epidemic

has temporarily closed all the exit passages,

temporarily suspended the city public

transportation, which effectively suppresses

the spread of the epidemic.

MR ANWAER

Suspected cases test negative for coronavirusManama

Thirty-nine suspected cas-es, 28 Bahrainis and 11 ex-pats, have tested negative

for the novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV), which was first detected in China in January, Health Min-istry Undersecretary Dr Waleed Al Mena revealed.

He added all tests examined at the Public Health Laboratory were negative which confirm the Kingdom of Bahrain is free from the new strain of virus.

The Health Ministry Undersec-

retary was speaking on the side-lines of an inspection visit paid by President of the Supreme Council for Health Lieutenant General Shaikh Mohammed bin Abdullah Al Khalifa and Health Minister Faeqa Al Saleh to Ibrahim Khalil Kanoo Community Medical Cen-tre to follow up on preparations to counter 2019-nCoV.

Dr Al Mena said in a statement to Bahrain News Agency (BNA) that the Bahraini university stu-dents returning from China have been dealt with according to the preventive measures followed lo-

cally and internationally. He added some measures were

stepped up depending on how close those students were to the

epicenter of the epidemic, Wu-han. The students were quar-antined for 14 days to ascertain they did not contract the virus, he noted.

With regard to the seven con-firmed cases in the UAE, the Health Ministry Undersecretary affirmed daily coordination and follow-up with the UAE Health Ministry, represented by Assis-tant Undersecretary for Centers and Health Clinics Dr Hussain Al Rand, the Chairman of the Na-tional Committee for Interna-tional Health Regulations and the

Control of Pandemics. The aim, he pointed out, is to

monitor the latest developments and prevent the spread of the vi-rus in the Gulf region by collecting passengers’ data at airports and closely follow up on their health situations.

Dr Al Mena has stated that the quarantine wards at Ibrahim Khalil Kanoo Community Med-ical Centre are a step forward in boosting health services and the preemptive measures adopted by Bahrain to stop the virus from entering the Kingdom.

New centre for diff-abled planned TDT | Manama

A new specially-equipped centre will be built by the authorities in the Kingdom, which will

provide comprehensive care for the different-abled individuals here.

It is learnt that the centre will offer nine different types of services to the diff-abled individuals.

The centre will be built to provide a comprehensive service to the dis-abled, Social Development Ministry sources said.  

This comes as part of a nationwide effort to improve the welfare of the special needs community.

As part of the initiative a key park in the southern region has been equipped with special facilities to inclusive to special needs.

With the intent of enriching the lives of the special needs population in the Kingdom, the Southern Municipality

has taken measures to make Khalifa public park in Riffa inclusive. 

“The move comes with our belief

that people with special needs are an important part of Bahraini society and the too have recreational needs that

they want to experience,” the munic-ipality stated.

The buildings in the park are made to be inclusive and permitting easy access to people with special needs, while parking are also designed to be easily available to them.

“Certain areas have been selected to install sporting and game facilities for the special needs. This will be of great benefit to them as well. This includes a basketball court that is not too high.”

A snake and ladder ground which would allow access to wheelchairs would also be built in the future, the

municipality announced.Bahrain has been taking many steps

to empower the special needs society. Earlier it emerged that societies and

associations catering to the special needs population may not have to pay electricity and water bills if a new proposal gets approved.

The proposal has been made by a group of parliamentarians in attempt to erase the burden of electricity and water bills for societies that support differently-abled individuals.

According to the proposal, the soci-eties should be completely exempted from paying the utility bills. 

“The welfare of the special needs population of the country is of great interest to the Kingdom. Enabling their care could mean supporting the societies that support the disabled,” the explanatory note of the proposal mentioned.  

The centre will be built to provide a comprehensive service to the disabled.

MINISTRY SOURCES

Bahraini university students returning from China have been dealt with according to the preventive measures followed locally and internationally. DR AL MENA

Youth and Sports Affairs Minister Aymen Almoayyed with diff-abled individuals at Bin Faqih race.

04MONDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2020

Pursuant to Article (49) of the Central Bank of Bahrain and Financial Institutions Law No. (64) of 2006 and its amendments, and based on the decision taken by members of the Board of Directors of New Hampshire Insurance Company (NHIC) on 5th March 2019. The Central Bank of Bahrain hereby gives notice of the Cancellation of the license of New Hampshire Insurance Company (NHIC) - Bahrain Branch registered under Commercial Registration No. 55880-1 issued on 01/03/2005.

The CBB decision was published in the Official Gazette Issue No. 3453 on 9th January 2020.

Notice to Cancel theLicense of New Hampshire

Insurance Company(NHIC) - Bahrain Branch

House ‘keenness on national security’ lauded Manama

Mi n i s t e r o f I n t e r i -or, General Shaikh Rashid bin Abdullah

Al Khalifa, yesterday received members of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and National Securi-ty Committee  at the Council of Representatives, led by its Chairman, MP Mohammed Al Sisi.

Chief of Public Security, Lieutenant-General Tariq Al Hassan, attended the meeting.

The Interior Minister wel-

comed the lawmakers, hail-ing the role of the council in promoting the interests of the

nation and citizens. He also highlighted the dedication of MPs in supporting security ef-

forts, asserting that the Interior Ministry will continue to carry its security protection missions. 

The minister highlighted the importance of interaction and coordination in the best inter-

ests of the nation and its citi-zens. He also praised the Coun-cil’s role in reinforcing legisla-tive work.

The lawmakers expressed thanks and appreciation to the Interior Minister, hailing the competency of security person-nel, highlighting their dedica-tion to developing legislation to promote security, stability and national accomplishments.

The meeting reviewed topics of common interest and co-op-eration and co-ordination be-tween the two sides.

General Shaikh Rashid holds talk with lawmakers.

Medical centre for suspected corona cases inspected

Manama

Supreme Counci l for Health (SCH) President, Head of National Medical

Team to prevent coronavirus Lieutenant-General Dr Shaikh Mohammed bin Abdulla Al Khal-ifa, and Health Minister Faeqa Al Saleh, visited Ebrahim Khalil Ka-noo Community Medical Centre.

The visit came to check the centre’s readiness and the prepa-rations taken to allocate it to iso-late and receive suspected cases of the emerging coronavirus.

They were briefed on the mechanism of receiving and transferring patients, and the preventive measures to prevent the transmission of infection were examined.

The medical team was direct-ed to follow the therapeutic pro-tocols and procedures to con-trol the infection, and to apply them in a proper manner that ensures maintaining the safety and health of patients, noting that no infection has been re-

corded in Bahrain.Consultant of Infectious Dis-

eases Dr Jameela Al Salman, re-viewed the ministry’s efforts in developing the general plan and medical protocols to combat the emerging coronavirus based on international guidelines, and the Gulf Health Council on keeping pace with global and regional precautionary measures.

She explained that according to the World Health Organi-sation (WHO), the confirmed cases should be isolated, and the suspected cases are ap-plied to the isolation until the laboratory results appear, and if the suspect is confirmed to be infected, the isolation is performed, and if the result is negative, the patient is given instructions to stay at home for 14 days.

Dr Al Salman highlighted that the organisation has published on its website all precautionary guidelines related to the disease and is publishing all updates on the spread of coronavirus.

Housing Ministry distributes ‘5,000 units’ in Salman Town

One of the projects implemented in line with the directives of HIs Majesty Manama

As part of implement-ing the directive issued by His Royal Highness

Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the Crown Prince, Dep-uty Supreme Commander and First Deputy Premier, to distrib-ute 5,000 housing units, in line with the royal directives, Hous-ing Minister Bassim Al Hamer announced the distribution of Salman Town’s units in North-ern Governorate.

The minister said that Salman Town project is one of the major projects being carried out in line with the directives of His Majes-ty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa to build 40,000 housing units.

Minister Al Hamer explained that the town is distinguished by the areas designated for its public parks, and beaches, highlighting that its islands are linked with a network of roads and bridges, noting that the city

was designed to be connected to a number of main entranc-es to accommodate the traffic movement of the residents and visitors.

He pointed out that its in-cludes all needed services such as: major and subsidiary electri-cal stations, a water station and another for wastewater treat-ment, mosques, kindergartens, schools, a university, a major hospital and health centres and

clinics, and a sports city that includes a football stadium.

Over 700 building viola-tions made by the benefi-ciaries were discovered at government housing units by Housing Ministry inspectors.

According to ministry sources, beneficiaries of so-cial housing units are making changes that are endangering the safety of housing units.

An inspection team was able to find 774 serious vio-lations that endangered the building and its inhabitants.

The technical from the Ministry of Housing said that they taken pictorial evidence

during the inspection visits. Many of the violations include

wrong engineering practices, which led to cracks in walls, damage to water system and electricity system.

Damaging sewage system was also an issue.

According to the ministry, the beneficiaries attempted to fix the issues but struggled to do so due to the high financial costs. 

The ministry explained that there were 67 violations in Sal-man City, 63 violations in the eastern city of Al Hidd, 19 viola-tions in the Tubli Project, 79 vi-olations in the Lawzi project, in addition to 124 violations in the Busaiteen project, 131 violations in the Northeast of Muharraq Project, and 155 violations in the Sitra project, 49 violations in the Nabih Saleh Project, 51 violations in the Al Malikiyah Project, and 36 violations in the Jidhafs Housing Project.

The ministry urged citizens to take permission from the authorities before making any modifications to the building units.

A Health Ministry official briefs the beneficiaries on the project.

40,000housing units will be distributed to

beneficiaries at the earliest as directed by His

Majesty.

Bahrain participates in OIC preparatory meetingJeddah

The delegation of the Kingdom of Bahrain participates in the Sen-

ior Officials Preparatory Meet-ing (47th Session) of the Coun-cil of Foreign Ministers of the Member States of the Organi-sation of Islamic Co-operation (OIC), headed by Ambassador Fatima Abdullah Al Dhaen, Director of the Organisations Directorate.

The meeting is being held at the headquarters of the Organ-isation’s General Secretariat from 9 to 11 of February 2020,

in Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The meeting discusses all the

draft decisions submitted to the meeting of the Council of For-eign Ministers of the Member

States of the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation scheduled to be held next April in Niamey, Republic of Niger under the slo-gan “United against Terrorism for Peace and Development”, where the Palestinian issue and the Arab-Israeli conflict top the topics tabled for discussion.

The preparatory meeting will also discuss the most important developments in Palestine, the Holy City of Jerusalem, the oc-cupation of the Golan Heights, the Israeli occupation of Leba-nese territories, as well as the peace process in the Middle East.

The Kingdom’s delegation at the meeting.

GCC health projects reviewed Manama

Health Minister Faeqa Al Saleh received a delega-tion led by GCC Health

Council director-general Sulei-man Al Dakhil, who outlined projects being implemented in cooperation with member states.

Health Ministry Assistant Un-dersecretary for Public Health, member of the GCC Executive Commission Dr Mariam Al Ha-jeri attended the meeting which focused on the 2020 plans.

The minister commended the role and efforts exerted last year in the GCC member states, stress-ing the importance of joint coor-dination to enhance the stand-ard of health services benefiting citizens.

GCC Health Council direc-tor-general Suleiman Al Dakh-il shed light on the 2020 pro-grammes and projects which aim to promote prevention and enhance health support and services, including immigrant screening programs, visitor screening, and the Gulf Centre for Disease Prevention.

The meeting also focused on safety programmes, children’s awareness programmes, elec-tronic application, stressing the importance of bolstering training programmes, holding scientif-ic conferences and developing health and research cadres, as well as the health support, uni-fied procurement, central reg-istration and the information centre.

05

business

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2020

AUB announces BD 10,000 prize scheme promoting digital banking

More digital transactions lead to higher chances of winning

• The campaign is set to run for 6 months with winners being announced at the end of every month

TDT | Manama

Ahli United Bank (AUB) announced launching an eRewards programme in

continuation of its commitment to provide an enhanced custom-er experience.

The programme offers cus-tomers a chance to win priz-es of up to BD10,000 while using the mobile and inter-net banking platforms of the bank.

This programme, AUB said, covers both customers who are registered as well as customers

who are yet to be registered on the AUB mobile and online bank-ing platform.

Customers who are registered on the AUB mobile app or online banking can now make their bill payments or fund transfers easi-ly through AUB’s enhanced user interfaces.

Each transaction will auto-matically make them eligible to win. The more transactions one makes, the higher the chances of winning. Customers who are not yet registered, will get 10 points upon registration and then one point on every subsequent trans-action.

The campaign is set to run for 6 months with winners being announced at the end of every month.

“We understood that there is an initial hesitation with adap-tation to new channels. Howev-er, we are confident that, once

customers start using the broad spectrum of functionalities available to them through our digital channels, they will appre-ciate the convenience and speed it provides them,” said Suvrat Saigal, Deputy Group CEO-Retail Banking at AUB.

“The programme has been de-signed to encourage customers to use the bank’s online plat-forms for their day to day trans-actions. Through this innovative programme, we hope that AUB’s customers utilize the benefits of AUB’s digital channels.’

This follows multiple en-hancements that the bank has been undertaking in the dig-ital space to help customers enhance their online experi-ence across all digital touch points.

To download the AUB M-Bank Bahrain mobile app, visit Google Play or the App store. Suvrat Saigal, Deputy Group CEO-Retail Banking at AUB

Trump to make lower, $2 billion spending request for border wallReuters | Dubai

US President Donald Trump will request $2

billion in new funding for border wall construction in his 2021 budget, substan-tially less than he sought last year, according to senior administration officials.

The lower request, due to be unveiled on Monday, shows that the adminis-tration needs fewer new resources to build the wall along the US-Mexico bor-der after it shifted resources to the construction project from the US military.

The sum was first re-ported by the Wall Street Journal.

A year ago, the Trump administration asked Con-gress to provide $5bn for the wall, on top of $3.6bn to replenish funding the administration had taken from military construction projects. “Illegal aliens from Mexico are going to pay for the wall ... through remit-tance, 100 per cent,” Trump said.

Jassim Mohamed AlseddiqiChairman

This information has been extracted from the consolidated financial statements for the year ended 31 December 2019which were approved by the Board of Directors on 9 February 2020 and audited by KPMG Fakhro.

Sh. Ahmed Bin Isa Al KhalifaVice Chairman

Sattam Sulaiman AlgosaibiChief Executive Officer

www.khcbonline.comLicensed by the Central Bank of Bahrain as a Retail Islamic Bank

FINANCIAL RESULTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2019All amounts are in BD 000’s

CONSOLIDATED INCOME STATEMENT For the year ended 31 December 2019

Income from equity securities

Income from placements with financial institutions

Fees and other incomeTotal income before return to investment account holders

Income from financing assests and assets acquired for leasing

Less: Return to investment account holders before Bank’s Share as Mudarib

Finance expense on placements from financial institutions, non-financial institutions and individuals

Return to investment account holders

Profit before impairment allowances

Total incomeStaff cost Other operating expensesTotal expenses

Net impairment charge(LOSS) / PROFIT FOR THE YEARAttributable to:Shareholders of the parent

Basic and diluted earnings per share (fils)

Non-controlling interest

Earnings per share

Income from sukuks

Finance expense on medium-term borrowing

31 December2019

(Audited)

(15,087)

31,3342,183

10,031(1,687)

5,72647,587

(23,544)

19,556

8,1586,036

14,1945,362

(20,389)(15,027)

(14,937)(90)

(15,027)

(15.86)

8,457

(11,703)(1,241)

31 December2018

(Audited)

(8,602)

26,565955

6,3771,4222,842

38,161

(14,221)

19,315

7,1755,252

12,4276,888

(6,288)600

659(59)600

0.69

5,619

(8,190)(2,054)

Bank’s Share as a Mudarib

CONSOLIDATED STATEMENT OF CASH FLOWS For the year ended 31 December 2019

OPERATING ACTIVITIES

Payment for assets acquired for leasing, netReceipts from financing assets, net

Receipt of profit on short-term placementsReturns paid to investment account holders

Payment of profit on placementsPayment for expensesOther receipts Payment for charity

(Payments) towards / Receipts from placements fromfinancial institutions, netReceipts from placements from non-financial institutions andindividuals, net

Withdrawal from customers’ current accounts, net

Net payment to CBB reserve accountIncome from sukuk receivedNet cash generated from operating activitiesINVESTING ACTIVITESPurchase of sukuk

Disposal / (Purchase) of equity securitiesPurchase of investment in real estate, net

Proceed from redemption / sale of sukuk

Receipt of dividends / income from equity securitiesPurchase of property and equipment, netNet cash used in investing activities

Net cash used in financing activities

FINANCING ACTIVITIESPurchase of treasury shares, net

Finance expense paid on medium-term borrowing(Repayment) / drawdown of medium-term borrowing, net

Net increase in cash and cash equivalentsCash and cash equivalents at 1 JanuaryCash and cash equivalents at 31 DecemberCash and cash equivalents comprise:Cash and bank balances (excluding CBB reserve)Placement with financial institutions with original maturitiesof 90 days or less

Receipts / (withdrawals) from investment account holders, net

31 December2019

(Audited)

(41,357)

9,621(17,786)

2,183(10,454)

(11,703)(19,441)

3,964(235)

(29,839)

14,184(4,610)

99,040

(37,407)3,2691,438

-343

(452)(32,809)

(350)

(42,948)

23,283121,171144,454

78,946

65,508144,454

(12,311)

10,006

(1,241)

165,461

31 December 2018

(Audited)

50

40,392(15,145)

955(7,184)

(8,190)(10,642)

2,878(422)

34,084

59,111(3,360)

80,629

(63,205)15,135

(97)(105)1,478(674)

(47,468)

(1,234)

(3,238)

29,92391,248

121,171

78,581

42,590121,171

(4,341)

5,937

(2,054)

(13,444)

Transfer to Zakah fund

Transfer to statutory reserveNet treasury shares purchased

Employeeshare

incentivescheme

Treasuryshares

Statutoryreserve

Sharecapital

(Accumulatedlosses)

TotalEquity

Total Non-controlling

interest

31 December 2019Equity attributable to shareholders of the parent

(Audited)

105,000-----

105,000

8,225

-8,225

-

--

-(11,295)

--

(435)--

(11,730)

(29)

--

29

---

(729)

(15,788)(187)

65--

(14,937)101,172

85,707(187)

94(435)

-(14,937)

2,290

2,200---

(90)-

103,462

87,907(187)

94(435)

-(15,027)

Balance at 31 December 2019

Issue of shares under incentive scheme

For the year ended 31 December 2019

Balance at 1 January 2019Loss for the year

CONSOLIDATED STATEMENT OF CHANGES IN EQUITY For the year ended 31 December 2018

Loss of Control

Transfer to statutory reserveNet treasury shares purchased

Transfer to Zakah fund

Employeeshare

incentivescheme

Treasuryshares

Statutoryreserve

Sharecapital

TotalEquity

Total Non-controlling

interest

31 December 2018Equity attributable to shareholders of the parent

(Audited)

105,000

105,000

-----

105,000

-

-8,159

8,159

--

8,225

66

--

-

-(10,212)

-

(10,212)--

(1,083)---

(11,295)

(70)

(29)--

41

-

(70)---

10,162

(729)(441)(16)

42-

(66)659

(907)

(11,069)113,039

101,172(441)(16)

83(1,083)

-659

101,970

(11,069)2,645

2,290-

(296)--

-

2,645(59)

-

115,684

103,462(441)(312)

83(1,083)

-600

104,615

(11,069)

Balance at 31 December 2018

Issue of shares under incentive scheme

Balance at 1 January 2018 (as previously reported):

Restated balance at 1 January 2018

Impact of adobting FAS 30

Profit for the year

(Accumulatedlosses) /

Retainedearnings

As at 31 December 201931 December

2019(Audited)

104,37665,508

324,355195,050129,09717,10243,98917,7816,251

28,4937,750

939,752

127,453134,654

58,105-

19,798340,010511,835

105,0008,225

(11,730)-

(15,788)85,7072,200

939,752

31 December 2018

(Audited)

99,40143,637

327,640161,324108,67811,52550,03918,0816,251

16,4987,865

850,939

158,349120,470

70,41641,357

10,512401,104346,373

105,0008,225

(11,295)(29)

(729)101,172

2,290

850,939

Employee share incentive scheme

Non-controlling interest

Treasury sharesStatutory reserveShare capital

Accumulated losses

Total liabilities, equity of investment account holders,owners’ equity and non-controlling interest

Investment in equity securitiesInvestment in real estate

Medium-term borrowing

Total owners equity

CONSOLIDATED STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL POSITION

06WEDNESDAY, JUNE 12, 2020

We are pleased to have closed 2019 strong – our operational

performance has gone above and beyond our

set-targets for the year with Line 6 in full commercial operationALBA’S ACTING CHIEF EXECUTIVE, AALI AL

BAQALI

Alba sales’ volume, production surge TDT | Manama

Al u m i n i u m B a h r a i n (Alba), the world’s larg-est aluminium smelt-

er ex-China, closed 2019 by achieving a record in its metal sales.

S a l e s v o l u m e r e a c h e d 1,350,326 metric tonnes (mt), up by 33 per cent Year-over-Year (YoY), while production topped 1,365,005 mt, up by 35 pc Year over Year.

For the fourth quarter of 2019, metal sales’ volume reached 405,259 mt, up by 54pc YoY,

versus 262,346 mt in Q4 2018, production figures reached

401,175 mt, up by 62pc YoY versus 248,149 mt in the same

period of 2018. Commenting, Alba’s Acting

Chief Executive, aAli Al Baqali said: “We are pleased to have closed 2019 strong – our oper-ational performance has gone above and beyond our set-tar-gets for the year with Line 6 in full commercial operation. And, this achievement has been made more significant with our re-markable Safety performance of Zero Lost Time Injuries (LTIs) in 2019.”

Alba will release its Full- Year and Fourth Quarter 2019 Finan-cial Results on Thursday.

Banagas participated in an Environment, Health and Safety family day organised by the Bahrain Petroleum Company (Bapco) on January 11, 2020, at the Bahrain International Circuit. Banagas Chief Executive, Dr Sh. Mohammed bin Khalifa Al-Khalifa and Executive Management members attended the closing ceremony, alongside officials from the National Oil and Gas Authority (NOGA) and Oil & Gas companies. Shaikh Mohammed bin Khalifa bin Ahmed Al-Khalifa, Minister of Oil, visited Banagas pavilion where he was welcomed by Dr Sh. Mohammed, Mohamed Yassin Al Hosani, General Manager of Administration & Finance and Ahmed Abdulla Al Kooheji, Manager Health, Safety, Environment and Industrial Security. The Bapco EHS Family Day under the slogan “We care” included activities related to the environment, health and safety, aiming to instil a culture of occupational safety and promoting health awareness in the society.

BCCI seminar on personal data protection

TDT | Manama

The Bahrain Chamber of Commerce and In-

dustry (BCCI) is holding on Wednesday at 9:00 am in Al Majlis Hall of its main premises ‘Bait Al Tijjar’ an awareness-raising seminar on Law no. (30) for the year 2018 on the protection of personal data.

The seminar will explain the law and its implication to individuals and business-es and will shed a scope light on the proper mecha-nism for collecting, storing, and managing personal data as per the law. BCCI called on its members to attend and participate.

Dubai airport sees rare drop in passenger traffic

Reuters | Doha

Dubai International Air-port, the world’s busiest

airport for international trav-ellers, handled 86.4 million passengers in 2019, dropping 3.1 per cent from the previous year to post a rare annual fall in traffic.

Chief Executive Paul Grif-fiths said factors behind the drop included a temporary runway closure, the collapse of India’s Jet Airways, and the worldwide grounding of the Boeing 737 MAX. The airport lost an estimated potential 3.2 million passengers as a conse-quence, he said.

Dubai is a popular destina-tion for Indian airlines such as Jet, while flydubai, based at the airport, is a major MAX customer.

A spokesman initially said it was the first time ever annual passenger traffic had fallen but later clarified it had also fallen in 1986 and 1991.

Passenger traffic had also disappointed in 2018, when a return to double digit growth had been expected, but instead it grew just 1pc, its slowest pace in 15 years.

Aircraft landings and take-offs fell 8.6 per cent to 373,261

during 2019, while the aver-age number of passengers per flight increased 5.8pc to 239.

Passenger traffic increased by 1.3pc in the fourth quarter to 21.9m, with the airport han-dling on average 7.2m passen-gers each month throughout the year.

First quarter passenger traf-fic is likely to be impacted by the coronavirus outbreak in China, which has led to travel curbs and suspension of flights to and from the world’s biggest economy.

The United Arab Emirates, of which Dubai is a part, is sus-pending all passenger flights to and from mainland China, except Beijing, from Feb. 5.

Chief Executive Paul Griffiths

Singapore Airshow hit by virus fears as 70 exhibitors pull out• Organisers said they were expecting more than 930 companies from 45 countries and 45,000 trade attendees - down from last time

Singapore

More than 70 exhibitors including US aerospace

giant Lockheed Martin have pulled out of the Sin-gapore

Airshow over concerns about the coronavirus outbreak, but organisers insisted Sunday that Asia’s biggest aviation event would still go ahead.

Precautionary measures -- in-cluding a major reduction in public attendance and temper-ature screenings -- have been imposed ahead of the open-

i n g o f

t h e e v e n t

w h i c h opens Tuesday

in the city-state, which has report-

ed 40 coronavirus in-

fections.Organisers were also encour-

aging attendees to greet each other by bowing or waving in-stead of shaking hands.

Leck Chet Lam, the managing director of organiser Experia

Events, confirmed that more than 70 exhibitors

have decided not to partic-ipate, but said there was “still

strong presence” at the show.The biggest names in aero-

space participate in the Singa-pore Airshow, and often massive deals -- such as aircraft orders from major carriers -- are an-nounced at the event.

The outbreak, which has killed more than 800 people and infected tens of thousands

across China, has spread to nearly more than two dozen other countries and sparked global concern.

Many nations, including Sin-gapore, have barred the entry of travellers who had been to China recently from entering or transiting through its terri-tory to counter the spread of the virus.

Despite that ban, the Chinese air force will take part in the air show for the first time. The acrobatic team will participate in the flight displays -- the high-light of the biennial event -- but more than 10 Chinese compa-nies have withdrawn.

On Friday, Singapore upgrad-ed its disease alert to the sec-

ond-highest level on its four-point system.

Lockheed Martin, and plane maker De Havilland, pulled out after the alert l e v e l was raised.

Canada’s Bombardier had al-ready withdrawn.

The South Korean air force’s aerobatics team had pulled out of the Singapore Airshow earlier this week because of the virus outbreak.

Dubai is a popular destination for Indian

airlines such as Jet, while flydubai, based

at the airport, is a major MAX customer

Most regional markets end lower; Saudi Aramco rebounds• Aramco snaps five days of losses

• Saudi banks slide

Reuters

Most major Gulf markets fell yesterday, led by Saudi

Arabia as concerns about the

effect of the spread of the coro-navirus on oil prices weighed on the country’s petrochemical and banking shares.

Oil prices posted their fifth straight weekly decline, as speculators backed away due to weaker consumption figures and expectations the coronavirus will remain a drag on demand.

Saudi Arabia’s benchmark in-dex fell 1.3pc, weighed down by a 1.7 per cent slide in Al Rajhi

Bank and 2.6pc fall in Saudi Ba-sic Industries.

State-owned Saudi Aramco closed up 2pc at 34.05 riyals, however, having earlier touched a new low of 32.8 riyals, not far from its initial public offering price of 32 riyals.

In Dubai, the index slipped 0.6pc with Dubai Islamic Bank losing 0.9pc and Emaar Proper-ties shedding 0.8pc.

Emaar Malls dropped 2.3pc.

After the market closed, the mall operator reported a more than 6pc decline in fourth-quarter profit to 554 million dirhams ($150.83 million).

Qatar’s index was down 0.5pc, hurt by a 7.4pc slide in United Development Company (UDC) as it extended the previous ses-sion’s losses.

O n T h u r s d a y, t h e f i r m saw its biggest intraday fall since January 2016, after re-

porting a decline in annual profit.

The Abu Dhabi index edged up 0.1pc as United Arab Bank jumped 10.3pc after the lend-er said its board will meet on Wednesday to discuss financial results.

In Egypt, the blue-chip index was flat with Commercial In-ternational Bank Egypt losing 1pc and Ibnsina Pharma gaining 2.9pc.

Closing BellSAUDI 1.3 pc to 7,953 pts

ABU DHABI 0.1pc to 5,090 pts

DUBAI 0.6pc to 2,752 pts

QATAR 0.5pc to 10,149 pts

EGYPT n at 14,108 pts

BAHRAIN 0.2pc to 1,659 pts

OMAN 0.1pc to 4,126 pts

KUWAIT 0.4pc to 6,959 pts

07MONDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2020

Huawei Sues Verizon for Patent InfringementTDT | Manama

Huawei filed patent in-fr ingement lawsuits

against Verizon in the United States District Courts for the Eastern and Western Districts of Texas. The company is seek-ing compensation for Verizon’s use of patented technology that is protected by 12 of Hua-wei’s US patents.

“Verizon’s products and services have benefited from patented technology that Huawei developed over many years of research and devel-opment,” said Dr. Song Li-uping, Huawei’s Chief Legal Officer.

As a leading communica-tions equipment and smart device provider, Huawei re-in-vests 10 per cent to 15pc of its revenue in R&D each year. The company has spent more than $70 billion US dollars on R&D in the past decade, which has resulted in more than 80,000 patents worldwide – includ-ing over 10,000 patents in the United States alone. These innovations are not just the cornerstone of Huawei’s own success; they are also widely used by companies around the world, delivering value both in the United States and else-where.

Before filing the lawsuits in Texas, Huawei negotiated with Verizon for a significant period of time, during which the com-pany provided a detailed list of patents and factual evidence of Verizon’s use of Huawei patents. The two parties were unable to reach an agreement on license terms.

“We invest heavily in R&D because we want to provide our customers with the best possible telecommunications solutions,” continued Dr. Song. “We share these innovations with the broader industry through license agreements.”

“For years now we have suc-cessfully negotiated patent li-cense agreements with many

companies. Unfortunately, when no agreement can be reached, we have no choice but to seek a legal remedy.”

“This is the common prac-tice in the industry. Huawei is simply asking that Verizon respect Huawei’s investment in research and development by either paying for the use of our patents, or refraining from using them in its products and services.”

Huawei respects and pro-tects intellectual property rights, advocating the legiti-mate sharing of patented tech-nologies through cross-license or paid license agreements. For more than two decades, Huawei has engaged in exten-sive cross-license negotiations with major patent holders in the telecommunications in-dustry, signing more than 100 license agreements with ma-jor ICT vendors in the Unit-ed States, Europe, Japan, and South Korea.

Since 2015, Huawei has re-ceived more than US$1.4 bil-lion dollars in patent license fees. To date, it has also paid over US$6 billion dollars for the legitimate use of patent-ed technologies developed by industry peers. 80% of these license fees have gone to com-panies in the United States.

Innovation and protection of intellectual property are the cornerstone of Huawei’s suc-cess. In 2018, Huawei’s R&D expenditure reached US$15 billion dollars, close to 15% of the company’s annual revenue. Huawei was ranked fifth on the 2019 EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard, pub-lished by European Commis-sion.

Huawei is more than willing to continue sharing its leading R&D accomplishments with the industry and society as a whole. This includes both US companies and consumers, because sharing innovation more broadly is what drives the industry forward.

Food-share apps seeking to help environment

AFP | London

Jack Convery pops into a London branch of Italian eatery Coco di Mama to

grab a cut-price lunch ordered on his smartphone’s food-shar-ing app Karma.

The 27-year-old Amazon em-ployee -- with an eye for a bar-gain and for helping the envi-ronment -- uses a mobile phone app that sells surplus food from hundreds of UK restaurants at discounted prices.

“Anything I can do to help the environment and look after the budget as well is beneficial, so yeah, it’s a win-win,” Con-very tells AFP after collecting his bag from the counter near Old Street Tube station.

“It ends up working out much cheaper than to go to (British supermarket) Tesco and buy a meal for one,” he adds, not-ing that he can usually source his daily dinner for about £3.50 ($4.54, 4.10 euros) via the app.

Decomposing food waste is a key source of greenhouse gases -- and a staggering one third of all food is thrown away, accord-ing to industry estimates.

Environmental dangerAmid growing public outcry

over the climate emergency, consumers are switching on to the environmental danger of carbon dioxide and methane emissions.

Britain’s cafes and restaurants are also embracing apps that generate some revenue from rescued food that would oth-erwise be destined for landfill.

However some restaurants happily give unsold food to homeless charities on a daily basis.

Swedish start-up Karma was founded in Stockholm in 2016 and its app now helps serve 1.0 million users in Britain, France and home market Sweden. In the UK alone, it offers 2,000 outlets.

Rival app Too Good To Go also offers cut-price meals with a similar approach.

Britain-based Olio, mean-while, enables its 1.7 million customers worldwide to give their own unused food items free to other users, via collection from their homes.

“We do not plan for the day to

end with zero waste, because at the end of every day we want to have some stock on our shelves” for customers not using the apps, says Sara McCraight, head of branding at Coco di Mama.

“When we give to charity partners, that’s great. But with Karma we get some money re-covered; (it) doesn’t cover costs

but it helps.”

‘Apps are important’Joao Campari, food expert

at environmental campaigners WWF International, argues that apps are an “important” way to cut waste.

“With food loss and waste creating at least eight percent of all emissions, it’s vital that as many people as possible re-duce their personal food waste,” Campari says.

“To do this, we need tools that are easy to use, and also help raise awareness of the scale of the problem.

“Most people have a mobile device so apps are an obvious and important way of educating and enabling action.”

Wastage occurs throughout the food supply chain: on farms, during transport, in retail stores like supermarkets.

“In truth, the best way to cut emissions from food loss and waste is to prevent food be-ing lost on the farm and in the supply chain before it reaches end-consumers,” adds Campari.

Yet in developed nations, most food waste occurs in restaurants and private homes -- at a time when an estimated 820 million people in the world do not have

enough to eat, according to the World Health Organization.

‘Main competitor is rubbish bin’

“We throw away one third of food we produce each year,” says Tessa Clarke, co-founder of Olio.

“What that means is that roughly 10 percent of annual greenhouse gas emissions come from food waste alone, which I like to point out to people is four to five times greater than the carbon emissions that come from the global aviation indus-try.”

She adds: “I like to say that our main competitor is the rub-bish bin.”

While these apps are clearly benefitting consumers and food retailers, experts say they do not address the core problem.

“These are good for raising awareness but they’re not in themselves solutions, because there’s still food surplus or food waste being produced,” mulls professor Martin Caraher at City University London’s Cen-tre for Food Policy.

“With 10 billion meals a year still ending up in the bin, the UK has not closed the door on the food waste problem.”

Users of apps like Karma can pick up left over food from restaurants at cut-rate prices, an arrangement that benefits consumers, businesses and the enviroment as food waste is an important source of greenhouse gas emissions

Users can choose from a number of eateries in their area that have leftover food

The meals on offer are still good and by selling them via apps restaurants can recover at least some money

Dubai’s Al Khaleej Sugar says operating full capacity

Reuters | Dubai

Dubai’s Al Khaleej Sug-ar, which operates the

world’s largest port-based re-finery of the sweetener, said on Sunday it had been oper-ating at full capacity since late December after a “bad” 2019.

“The changes came only af-ter Christmas, prior to Christ-mas we were status quo and all what we are seeing today is a reflection of the Thai shortage of raws,” Jamal al-Ghurair, managing director of Al Khaleej, told reporters at a briefing ahead of a three-day industry conference in Dubai.

Thailand’s sugar produc-tion in the 2019/20 crop year is likely to fall 28 per cent from a year earlier to a nine-year low of 10.5 million tonnes, as

drought curtails cane supplies.The lower production is ex-

pected to limit exports from the world’s second-biggest exporter and support global prices.

Ghurair said though the shortage in the Thai crop helped white sugar premiums pick up, he saw global demand as largely unchanged, adding that it was difficult to predict how long white premiums would stay favourable.

“I don’t see any trigger from demand side.”

Al Khaleej is exporting its white sugar to “all the usual markets” with demand from East Africa and the Red Sea staying the same, Ghurair said.

The refinery is also continu-ing to export to Saudi Arabia, with close to a third of sales going to the kingdom.

General view of the Al Khaleej Sugar Refinery in Jebel Ali in Dubai, UAE

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2020

Hon. Chairman Najeb Yacob Alhamer | Editor-in-Chief Mahmood AI Mahmood | Chairman & Managing Director P Unnikrishnan | Advertisement: Update Media W.L.L | Tel: 38444692, Email: sales@newsofbahrain.com | Newsroom: Tel: 38444680, Email: news@newsofbahrain.comSubscription & circulation: Tel: 36458394 | Email:subscription@newsofbahrain.com | Website: www.newsofbahrain.com | Printed and published by Al Ayam Publishing

HUSSEIN IBISH

During US President Don-ald Trump’s impeachment trial, the lead Democratic

Party prosecutor, Adam Schiff, cit-ed reports that Republican Party senators were warned that if they wavered, their “heads would be on pikes”. Republicans feigned outrage. Last week, Mr Trump was acquitted by the SenateRepublican majority, which had vowed to do just that before the witness-free trial – essentially just a debate – began. Several of the so-called moderates who were indignant about Mr Schiff’s “pikes” remark justified their acquittal votes by saying the president had “learned” a lesson and would be chastened.

That would be a rational re-sponse. But less than 48 hours after the verdict, the president initiated what will almost cer-tainly be an extended campaign of vengeance against his perceived enemies.First to go were two key witnesses against the president and, to add an appropriate level of

fear, an innocent bystander.Few will weep for Gordon

Sondland, just fired as US am-bassador to the European Union, who donated $1 million to Mr Trump’s inauguration festivities. He is unlikely to get a refund. Yet it is shocking to see anyone dis-missed for merely testifying to the US Congress. Far more disturbing was the summary ouster from the National Security Council staff of Lt Col Alexander Vindman, a decorated Iraq war veteran, and his otherwise uninvolved twin brother, Lt Col Yevgeny Vindman. Both were marched out of their White House offices by armed security guards.

This first round of payback came immediately after Mr Trump railed against the “crook-ed”, “vicious”, “horrible”, “bad”, “dirty”, “evil and sick” people who had not sided with him. His spokeswoman vowed that such people “should pay”. At the annu-al National Prayer Breakfast, the president said he rejects the core Christian doctrine of loving your

enemies and suggested that his supporters were all pious people while his opponents – including Senator Mitt Romney, a Repub-lican who voted to convict him, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi – simply use religion to conceal their wicked deeds.

The campaign of intimidation is plainly just beginning. Another likely victim is the whistleblow-er who first alerted Congress to the president’s efforts to coerce Ukraine into announcing an in-

vestigation into Joe Biden, Mr Trump’s possible opponent in the 2020 presidential election, and his son. Indeed,Senator Rand Paul – a Trump ally – has been attempting to expose this whistleblower by name, making further punishment possible. Also at risk is the in-spector general of the intelligence community, Michael Atkinson, who allowed the whistleblower’s complaint to be passed to Con-gress – as legally required.

The Vindmans, the whistle-

blower and Mr Atkinson all fol-lowed the law and did their du-ties. But they enraged Mr Trump and so must “pay”. Many other officials could similarly be in jeopardy. Republican senators are preparing hearings against Mr Biden and his son. Officials from the Department of Justice are being investigated for hav-ing themselves investigated the Trump campaign. And the ad-ministration is reportedly search-ing for ways to strike back at Mr

ALL MEN PROFESS HONESTY AS LONG AS THEY CAN. TO BELIEVE ALL MEN HONEST WOULD BE FOLLY. TO BELIEVE NONE SO IS SOMETHING WORSE.JOHN QUINCY ADAMS

QUOTE OF THE DAY

Donald Trump has

embarked on a dangerous

mission

Justin Thomas

Saturday morning, my fa-vourite cartoons on the TV and a bowl of sugary break-

fast cereal on my lap. Life didn’t get much sweeter for seven-year-old me. However, this tranquil oasis would shatter with the flick of the vacuum cleaner switch as my mother left no corner of the rug unclean. This was my earliest experience with noise pollution.

A global public health con-cern, noise pollution is defined as harmful or annoying levels of noise, with a detrimental impact on human or animal activity.

While the disruption of my car-toon-watching was justified by the pursuit of clean carpets, there are frequent occasions where the ends do not justify the noise. A TV show disrupted is a minor incon-venience but there are situations where the level of noise pollution disrupts lives and ruins health.

This growing public health concern is linked to a range of problems, from hearing impair-ment and sleep disturbance to hypertension and heart disease. A report by the European Envi-ronmental Agency estimated that around 125 million Europeans, 40 per cent of the population, are regularly exposed to noise levels

above 55 decibels. This is the point at which prolonged noise is potentially damaging to health. The EEA goes on to suggest that around 900 thousand cases of high blood pressure, hyperten-sion and 43 thousand hospital admissions a year are because of noise pollution.

Beyond physical health com-plaints, a German study also found a link between noise pol-lution, depression and anxiety. The study published in the sci-entific journal PLOS One in 2016 included data for over 15,000 people and looked at a range of noise sources, from road and air traffic to noisy industry and loud neighbours.

After crunching the numbers, the research team concluded that high levels of noise doubled the risk of depression and anxiety in the general population. The World Health Organisation also acknowledged this link, suggest-ing that over long periods, noise pollution has a “detrimental in-fluence on wellbeing and per-ceived quality of life.”

As the number of cars has increased, along with other noise-producing machines, so our cities, decade on decade, have become louder. This increase in volume can be quantified in deci-

bels and is evident in hearing loss among city residents.

An ongoing study by Mimi Hearing Technologies, a compa-ny for digital hearing tests, has resulted in the development of

the World Hearing Index. This study of hearing impairment has collected data from over 200,000 participants worldwide, using an app called Mimi that allows people to conduct a medically

certified hearing assessment on their smartphones.

The findings suggest that hear-ing impairment is strongly relat-ed to a city’s noise. People living in places with more noise pol-

A concerted effort to

punish the whistleblower,

the witnesses and those who

co-operated with the

impeachment probe

undermines American

democracy

Studies show a link between

how anxious you feel and

the noisiness of your

surroundings

Our cities are getting too loud; rising decibel levels are more than just a nuisance

Hon. Chairman Najeb Yacob Alhamer | Editor-in-Chief Mahmood AI Mahmood | Chairman & Managing Director P Unnikrishnan | Advertisement: Update Media W.L.L | Tel: 38444692, Email: sales@newsofbahrain.com | Newsroom: Tel: 38444680, Email: news@newsofbahrain.comSubscription & circulation: Tel: 36458394 | Email:subscription@newsofbahrain.com | Website: www.newsofbahrain.com | Printed and published by Al Ayam Publishing

TOP

4TWEETS

04

02

03

01

Reminder: by delay-ing climate action

for decades, it now takes radical transformation to keep us safe. I realize it’s appealing to think that after Trump things could return to some retro idea of “normal” or “moder-ate” - but embracing deep change is now impera-tive. #Bernie2020

@NaomiAKlein

The GOP rallied around Trump because they

knew he’d advance the con agenda no matter what. If Dems can’t do that whether the nom-inee is Warren, Biden, Bernie, Buttigieg, we will deserve what comes next.

@owillis

Sharing this alarming news I read. #WHO

states a research that says 1 in 10 Indians will devel-op Cancer in their lifetime.Taking a humanitarian ground Sir, #narendramodi you are the guardian of so-ciety /nation Hon’ble PM of India so this is for your kind understanding, perusal,

@ShatruganSinha

President @realDon-aldTrump : My Ad-

ministration has under-taken an unprecedented effort to secure the south-ern border of the United States. We entered into historic cooperation agreements with the gov-ernments of Mexico, Hon-duras, El Salvador, and Guatemala. #SOTU2020

@StateDept

Disclaimer: (Views expressed by columnists are personal and need not necessarily reflect our

editorial stances)

Schiff, Mr Romney and Ms Pelosi, among others.

Mr Trump claimed “full vin-dication and exoneration” by the Senate. But, in fact, not only was the trial a mockery of any judicial proceeding, and the only Senate trial in US history in which no witnesses were allowed, many of the key senators who ultimately sided with him acknowledged that Democrats had proven their case and that what the president had done was inappropriate, trou-

bling and wrong. Yet except for Mr Romney, all concluded the correct response was to acquit Mr Trump and endorse his re-elec-tion.

Meanwhile, Mr Trump seems not only un-chastened, but en-raged and even emboldened. He has specialised in using the powers of his office to attack his perceived enemies in an unprece-dentedly personalised and vindic-tive manner. For example, he re-peatedly urged his officials to per-

secute and legally prosecute his opponents, particularly Hillary Clinton, his presidential opponent in 2016, and James Comey, the former FBI director.

Republicans in Congress show few signs of discomfort with the budding retaliation campaign, and those that have urged caution were reportedly rebuffed. The president has plainly drawn the inevitable lesson. Throughout his life he has relied on bluster, bullying and threats and has got away with skirting laws, norms and conventions. And most of his supporters will cheer the per-secution of the likes of Lt Col Vindman, his brother and the whistleblower.

One important democratic guardrail still standing is the No-vember election. Mr Trump’s pop-ularity numbers are robust and the sound economy he inherited from Barack Obama remains har-dy. Besides, having just got away with an attempt to subvert the coming election, Mr Trump might be tempted to try again.

If he is re-elected by whatever means, there is every danger that the accelerating slide towards American autocracy could well be completed.

1814Napoleonic Wars: The Battle of Champaubert ends in French victory over the Russians and the Prussians.

1840Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom marries Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.

1846First Anglo-Sikh War: Battle of Sobraon: British defeat Sikhs in the final battle of the war.

1861Jefferson Davis is notified by telegraph that he has been chosen as provisional President of the Confederate States of America.

TODAY DAY IN

HISTORY

These days the Wuhan novel Corona virus issue finds itself splashed in front page of newspapers and made top news of most

mainstream media. Scientists are busy trying to understand and find a cure. They say that there is a long way to go to find any deterring or curing med-icine. Therefore, the focus now is on strengthening the protection mechanisms available.

However, viral infections come and go and corona virus in no different. More people might have died due to influenza than corona virus at a given time interval so there is no need to panic but taking pre-ventative measures very seriously is what doctors and health experts recommend us.

The world is yet facing another very serious issue but not too much is said about it in the mainstream media. The Desert Locust plague is destroying the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of farmers in several countries in East Africa, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and other countries ranging from western parts of the Subcontinent to few provinces of Iran. Laying their eggs along the way, the incident has broken the record of locust invasion in the region for decades. Most of the people in the countries affected are subsistence farmers and depend on cultivation to support themselves and their families.

As of Feb 03, 2020, the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) reported that locust swarms have inundated vast agricultural areas in Ethiopia, Kenya, Ugan-da, Tanzania, Somalia, and South Sudan. Additionally a new swarm of locusts ob-served in Sudan-Egypt border, Eritrea, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Oman. FAO has warned that if proper mechanisms are not utilized, the swarms can destroy the livelihoods of millions of farmers and the areas affected could witness food insecurity and famine for years to come.

The regions affected have experienced drought and famine in previous years be-cause of unpredictable rainfall patterns, desert encroachment (desertification) and climate change that has reduced arable and subsistence farming fields.

So far, international assistance is rare and the local countries are trying their best to ward off the swarms using traditional meth-ods, but proven to be ineffective given the

big size of the swarms and the wide geographical areas covered.

FAO documents show that a typical swarm con-sists of about 40 – 80 million locusts per square metre, covering an area of 1200 square kilometres, making a total of around 50 to 100 billion locusts per swarm. Flying at height of about 2,000 metres and at a speed of 100- 200 km per day, devouring on tones of vegetation on the way.

Coping with such huge population of locusts is a daunting task for the respective countries with inadequate resources. It is at this critical time that global aid is needed if the poor people in those countries are to survive and prepare themselves for the next planting season.

Of great concern is the eggs laid by the swarms in the areas they travelled. The eggs can hatch at any time provided suitable conditions are met including average amount of rainfall. They will form another round of swarms and not only this year, but next year is also going to be difficult, if not impossible, for farmers to plant, cultivate and harvest their crops and the vicious cycle of famine and drought continues unabated.

With persistent drought and famine in the coun-tries, instability follows. Unemployed farmers immigrate to ‘greener pastures’ and in so doing put their lives at risk and become victims of smugglers and traffickers.

Therefore, it is at this critical time that the world community’s assistance urgently needed to break the chain reactions of poverty, famine, starvation and immigration.

YENUS S

It is at this critical

time that global aid is

needed if the poor people

in those countries are

to survive and prepare

themselves for the next

planting season.

Another issue of concern

Republicans in Congress show few signs of discomfort with the budding retaliation

campaign, and those that have urged caution were reportedly rebuffed. The

president has plainly drawn the inevitable lesson.

Throughout his life he has relied on bluster, bullying and threats and has got away with skirting laws, norms and conventions.

lution tend to experience more significant hearing loss. The res-idents of Delhi have the highest rates of hearing loss, while the residents of Vienna have the low-est. Zurich, Switzerland has the

lowest levels of noise pollution, while Guangzhou, China has the highest.

Social media data is also telling and yet another way to explore how bothered people are by noise. It is cliché to say that people frequently “take to Twitter to vent their outrage”. This can be outrage about many things, and noise annoyance is no exception.

Our research team at Zayed University recently began look-ing at a sample of the UAE’s Twit-ter data of eight million tweets as a way of exploring the glob-al public health concern about noise pollution. Along with our

collaborators at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, we de-veloped an algorithm to identify and categorise noise complaints, pinpointing their exact location. We found all the usual categories of noise annoyance complaints being voiced in the Twitter data, from construction and traffic to noisy neighbours. The findings of this preliminary research will be published later this month in Computers in Human Behaviour Reports.

Being able to see the time and location of noise annoyance com-plaints is essential. In future, so-cial media could be used, along with more traditional methods, to help identify noise annoyance hotspots. Accurately identify-ing such problematic times and places is an excellent first step in addressing the issue.

Noise is a global public health problem that we can’t ignore. Electric cars will go some way to reduce traffic noise. Another solution is to plant more green-ery. One of the many benefits of trees is their efficacy in absorbing sound. They can reduce noise in their immediate vicinity by be-tween five and 10 decibels.

Given that we have chased si-lence from our cities, this is one way to invite quiet back in.

Our cities are getting too loud; rising decibel levels are more than just a nuisance

Our research team at Zayed University recently began

looking at a sample of the UAE’s Twitter data of eight million tweets as a way of exploring the global public health con-cern about noise pollution.

Along with our collaborators at Massachusetts Institute of

Technology, we developed an algorithm to identify and categorise noise complaints,

pinpointing their exact location.

Hon. Chairman Najeb Yacob Alhamer | Editor-in-Chief Mahmood AI Mahmood | Chairman & Managing Director P Unnikrishnan | Advertisement: Update Media W.L.L | Tel: 38444692, Email: sales@newsofbahrain.com | Newsroom: Tel: 38444680, Email: news@newsofbahrain.comSubscription & circulation: Tel: 36458394 | Email:subscription@newsofbahrain.com | Website: www.newsofbahrain.com | Printed and published by Al Ayam Publishing

TOP

4TWEETS

04

02

03

01

Reminder: by delay-ing climate action

for decades, it now takes radical transformation to keep us safe. I realize it’s appealing to think that after Trump things could return to some retro idea of “normal” or “moder-ate” - but embracing deep change is now impera-tive. #Bernie2020

@NaomiAKlein

The GOP rallied around Trump because they

knew he’d advance the con agenda no matter what. If Dems can’t do that whether the nom-inee is Warren, Biden, Bernie, Buttigieg, we will deserve what comes next.

@owillis

Sharing this alarming news I read. #WHO

states a research that says 1 in 10 Indians will devel-op Cancer in their lifetime.Taking a humanitarian ground Sir, #narendramodi you are the guardian of so-ciety /nation Hon’ble PM of India so this is for your kind understanding, perusal,

@ShatruganSinha

President @realDon-aldTrump : My Ad-

ministration has under-taken an unprecedented effort to secure the south-ern border of the United States. We entered into historic cooperation agreements with the gov-ernments of Mexico, Hon-duras, El Salvador, and Guatemala. #SOTU2020

@StateDept

Disclaimer: (Views expressed by columnists are personal and need not necessarily reflect our

editorial stances)

Schiff, Mr Romney and Ms Pelosi, among others.

Mr Trump claimed “full vin-dication and exoneration” by the Senate. But, in fact, not only was the trial a mockery of any judicial proceeding, and the only Senate trial in US history in which no witnesses were allowed, many of the key senators who ultimately sided with him acknowledged that Democrats had proven their case and that what the president had done was inappropriate, trou-

bling and wrong. Yet except for Mr Romney, all concluded the correct response was to acquit Mr Trump and endorse his re-elec-tion.

Meanwhile, Mr Trump seems not only un-chastened, but en-raged and even emboldened. He has specialised in using the powers of his office to attack his perceived enemies in an unprece-dentedly personalised and vindic-tive manner. For example, he re-peatedly urged his officials to per-

secute and legally prosecute his opponents, particularly Hillary Clinton, his presidential opponent in 2016, and James Comey, the former FBI director.

Republicans in Congress show few signs of discomfort with the budding retaliation campaign, and those that have urged caution were reportedly rebuffed. The president has plainly drawn the inevitable lesson. Throughout his life he has relied on bluster, bullying and threats and has got away with skirting laws, norms and conventions. And most of his supporters will cheer the per-secution of the likes of Lt Col Vindman, his brother and the whistleblower.

One important democratic guardrail still standing is the No-vember election. Mr Trump’s pop-ularity numbers are robust and the sound economy he inherited from Barack Obama remains har-dy. Besides, having just got away with an attempt to subvert the coming election, Mr Trump might be tempted to try again.

If he is re-elected by whatever means, there is every danger that the accelerating slide towards American autocracy could well be completed.

1814Napoleonic Wars: The Battle of Champaubert ends in French victory over the Russians and the Prussians.

1840Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom marries Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.

1846First Anglo-Sikh War: Battle of Sobraon: British defeat Sikhs in the final battle of the war.

1861Jefferson Davis is notified by telegraph that he has been chosen as provisional President of the Confederate States of America.

TODAY DAY IN

HISTORY

These days the Wuhan novel Corona virus issue finds itself splashed in front page of newspapers and made top news of most

mainstream media. Scientists are busy trying to understand and find a cure. They say that there is a long way to go to find any deterring or curing med-icine. Therefore, the focus now is on strengthening the protection mechanisms available.

However, viral infections come and go and corona virus in no different. More people might have died due to influenza than corona virus at a given time interval so there is no need to panic but taking pre-ventative measures very seriously is what doctors and health experts recommend us.

The world is yet facing another very serious issue but not too much is said about it in the mainstream media. The Desert Locust plague is destroying the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of farmers in several countries in East Africa, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and other countries ranging from western parts of the Subcontinent to few provinces of Iran. Laying their eggs along the way, the incident has broken the record of locust invasion in the region for decades. Most of the people in the countries affected are subsistence farmers and depend on cultivation to support themselves and their families.

As of Feb 03, 2020, the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) reported that locust swarms have inundated vast agricultural areas in Ethiopia, Kenya, Ugan-da, Tanzania, Somalia, and South Sudan. Additionally a new swarm of locusts ob-served in Sudan-Egypt border, Eritrea, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Oman. FAO has warned that if proper mechanisms are not utilized, the swarms can destroy the livelihoods of millions of farmers and the areas affected could witness food insecurity and famine for years to come.

The regions affected have experienced drought and famine in previous years be-cause of unpredictable rainfall patterns, desert encroachment (desertification) and climate change that has reduced arable and subsistence farming fields.

So far, international assistance is rare and the local countries are trying their best to ward off the swarms using traditional meth-ods, but proven to be ineffective given the

big size of the swarms and the wide geographical areas covered.

FAO documents show that a typical swarm con-sists of about 40 – 80 million locusts per square metre, covering an area of 1200 square kilometres, making a total of around 50 to 100 billion locusts per swarm. Flying at height of about 2,000 metres and at a speed of 100- 200 km per day, devouring on tones of vegetation on the way.

Coping with such huge population of locusts is a daunting task for the respective countries with inadequate resources. It is at this critical time that global aid is needed if the poor people in those countries are to survive and prepare themselves for the next planting season.

Of great concern is the eggs laid by the swarms in the areas they travelled. The eggs can hatch at any time provided suitable conditions are met including average amount of rainfall. They will form another round of swarms and not only this year, but next year is also going to be difficult, if not impossible, for farmers to plant, cultivate and harvest their crops and the vicious cycle of famine and drought continues unabated.

With persistent drought and famine in the coun-tries, instability follows. Unemployed farmers immigrate to ‘greener pastures’ and in so doing put their lives at risk and become victims of smugglers and traffickers.

Therefore, it is at this critical time that the world community’s assistance urgently needed to break the chain reactions of poverty, famine, starvation and immigration.

YENUS S

It is at this critical

time that global aid is

needed if the poor people

in those countries are

to survive and prepare

themselves for the next

planting season.

Another issue of concern

Republicans in Congress show few signs of discomfort with the budding retaliation

campaign, and those that have urged caution were reportedly rebuffed. The

president has plainly drawn the inevitable lesson.

Throughout his life he has relied on bluster, bullying and threats and has got away with skirting laws, norms and conventions.

lution tend to experience more significant hearing loss. The res-idents of Delhi have the highest rates of hearing loss, while the residents of Vienna have the low-est. Zurich, Switzerland has the

lowest levels of noise pollution, while Guangzhou, China has the highest.

Social media data is also telling and yet another way to explore how bothered people are by noise. It is cliché to say that people frequently “take to Twitter to vent their outrage”. This can be outrage about many things, and noise annoyance is no exception.

Our research team at Zayed University recently began look-ing at a sample of the UAE’s Twit-ter data of eight million tweets as a way of exploring the glob-al public health concern about noise pollution. Along with our

collaborators at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, we de-veloped an algorithm to identify and categorise noise complaints, pinpointing their exact location. We found all the usual categories of noise annoyance complaints being voiced in the Twitter data, from construction and traffic to noisy neighbours. The findings of this preliminary research will be published later this month in Computers in Human Behaviour Reports.

Being able to see the time and location of noise annoyance com-plaints is essential. In future, so-cial media could be used, along with more traditional methods, to help identify noise annoyance hotspots. Accurately identify-ing such problematic times and places is an excellent first step in addressing the issue.

Noise is a global public health problem that we can’t ignore. Electric cars will go some way to reduce traffic noise. Another solution is to plant more green-ery. One of the many benefits of trees is their efficacy in absorbing sound. They can reduce noise in their immediate vicinity by be-tween five and 10 decibels.

Given that we have chased si-lence from our cities, this is one way to invite quiet back in.

Our cities are getting too loud; rising decibel levels are more than just a nuisance

Our research team at Zayed University recently began

looking at a sample of the UAE’s Twitter data of eight million tweets as a way of exploring the global public health con-cern about noise pollution.

Along with our collaborators at Massachusetts Institute of

Technology, we developed an algorithm to identify and categorise noise complaints,

pinpointing their exact location.

10

world

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2020

Rich from cheating. Taking advantage of

other people. Do they think they can spend

the money in hell?JAKRAPANTH THOMMA, THE SHOOTER WROTE IN A POST ON HIS FACEBOOK

ACCOUNT

Thai city holds vigil for 29 victims of mass shooting• A total of 29 people had been killed and 57 were wounded

• Most of the victims were at the city’s Terminal 21 shopping centre

• Police named the shooter a 32-year-old soldier Jakrapanth Thomma

Nakhon Ratchasima | Thailand

H olding candles and writing condolenc-es as monks chanted

prayers, hundreds of Thais held an evening vigil Sunday for the 29 victims of an “unprecedent-ed” mass shooting carried out by a soldier.

Sharpshooters killed the gun-man on Sunday morning after a 17-hour ordeal, including a night of firefights and terrifying dashes for mall exits by shop-pers trapped in the Terminal 21 mall in Nakhon Ratchasima, also known as Korat.

The provincial governor told reporters that the total death toll -- including the gunman -- stood at 30.

The dead include civilians, one of them a 13-year-old boy, and security forces going after the rogue soldier, who was upset over a debt dispute, according to Thailand’s prime minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha.

“It is unprecedented in Thai-land, and I want this to be the last time this crisis happens,” he said earlier outside a hospital where victims -- some in critical condition -- were being treated.

Those who attended the somber vigil scrawled messages on white sheets of paper laid out on the ground, including “Re-member Forever” and “I wish you a good afterlife”.

Prayut, a former army chief, blamed a “personal problem” over the sale of a house for the soldier’s rampage, which began on Saturday afternoon near an army barracks and was for sever-al hours relayed by the gunman via Facebook posts.

The attacker, identified as Ser-geant-Major Jakrapanth Thom-ma, used a stolen M60 machine gun and rifles from one of Thai-land’s largest barracks as well as a military humvee to carry out the attack.

Prayut said the gunman over-powered security at the bar-racks’ arsenal and that “care-lessness” was not a factor.

“We don’t leave the arsenal depot alone -- we had people guarding it.”

Volleys of gunfire rang out as the siege ran into dawn, hours after Thai security services stormed the ground floor and freed scores of terrified shop-pers.

They sent cascades of mes-sages to friends and family on social media from storerooms, barricaded in toilets and hid-den under tables as the gunman stalked the mall.

With the machine gun slung over his shoulder and in full combat gear, Jakrapanth swag-gered through the emptied out floors in haunting footage cap-tured by CCTV cameras.

Evacuees recounted how an ordinary Saturday at the busy shopping centre descended into horror as he entered.

“It was like a dream... I’m grateful I survived,” Sottiyanee Unchalee, 48, told AFP, explain-ing she hid in the toilet of a gym inside the mall as she heard the gunfire.

Filipino teacher Aldrin Bali-quing said he was ushered into a storeroom by staff as the shoot-ing began.

“We were there for six gru-elling hours... I’m in shock,” he said.

Scores of people made a dash for it as police and soldiers in masks and wielding assault ri-fles took control of the ground floor following a gun battle and

scoured the fleeing crowds for the assailant.

‘Like a Zombie movie’“It was total panic, it was

like a zombie movie,” Chanatip Somsakul, 33, said of his escape with his wife and three-year-old daughter.

“People jumped on motor-bikes and ran in all directions.”

Several hours later the gun-man was shot dead. Photos showed smiling units of elite soldiers and police emerging from the mall.

The gunman relayed his shooting spree through Face-book posts which charted the attack from an army barracks to the city mall.

The bloodshed began Sat-urday afternoon when he shot three people -- among them at least one soldier -- at a senior officer’s house and then at the nearby army barracks, before driving a military vehicle to the town centre.

There the gunman used the stolen weapons to unleash car-nage in the town centre.

Throughout the day he posted images of himself and wrote sev-eral posts on his Facebook page.

In one Facebook video -- since deleted -- the assailant, wearing an army helmet, filmed from an open-top jeep, saying, “I’m tired... I can’t pull my finger anymore” as he made a trigger symbol with his hand.

There were also photos of a man in a ski mask holding a pis-tol.

Thailand’s digital economy minister Buddhipongse Punna-kanta said he contacted regional executives at the social media giant to report the activity.

“I think this might be the first time that this happened in Thai-land and it caused a lot of prob-lems,” he said.

A Facebook spokesperson said the gunman’s accounts were re-moved and it will “work around the clock to remove any violating content related to this attack as soon as we become aware of it.”

Thailand has one of the high-est rates of gun ownership in the world, and several shootings at courthouses last year renewed concern about gun violence.

Gunshots heard from Thai mall as gunman still inside

Victim’s family members cry at a hospital following a gun battle involving a Thai soldier on a shooting rampage, in Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand

Chilling footage released yesterday showed the killer smiling and firing a gun at a shooting range, while covered in army camouflage (Daily Mail)

A picture shows Jakrapanth Thomma,

who is the alleged attack-er, in front of an explo-sion at the mall after he opened fire on Saturday

Survivors tracked killer via CCTVNakhon Ratchasima | Thailand

In a fourth floor toilet of the Terminal 21 mall shoppers jammed cubicle doors against the entrance to keep out a Thai soldier

on a shooting spree, tracing his movements through fragments of CCTV passed on by friends on the outside.

Barricaded in the women’s toilet with a few dozen others, Chanathip Somsakul, a 33-year-old music teacher, and his wife poured through social media and made frantic calls to friends and family -- police officers, mall workers, nurses.

Their daughter Chopin sat watchfully on a ledge, a three-year-old bystander to a mass killing without precedent in Thailand.

Nakhon Ratchasima, a mid-size Thai city entwined like much of the northeastern Isaan region by tight family connections and social media networks, quickly began to rally to its own trapped inside.

“A friend who works at the mall was talking to a guy in the CCTV control room... he gave us updates on the location of the gunman,” Chanathip told AFP on Sunday.

Those details shared over messaging apps may have saved the lives of Chanathip, his family and the 20-30 others inside.

But in the swirl of competing information, dread gripped those hidden inside cupboards, storerooms and toilets across the mega-mall.

“Everyone was terrified and lost. There was so much infor-mation going around, people weren’t sure what to believe,” Chanathip added.

Sergeant-Major Jakrapanth Thomma swaggered through the mall, a machine gun slung over his shoulder, helmet on and in combat gear in full view of CCTV cameras.

By the end of his spree at least 27 people would be dead -- himself included. Many more are wounded, several critically.

Fear snapped through Chanathip’s hideout when someone banged on the toilet door.

“I thought it could be the gunman. A lady asked ‘who is it?’ but there was no answer. She wanted to open the door but we all convinced her not to.”

Chanathip had just finished teaching a music lesson and -- like hundreds of others -- was eating in the mall with his family when gunfire erupted.

His family took refuge in the women’s toilet. Some men pulled the toilet doors off and wedged them against the entrance.

At 9pm on Saturday they received word from police that they could leave, which they did -- in an orderly fashion at first, along with dozens of others.

But gunshots rang out as they reached a car park, sparking a wild sprint for survival.

Inside, scores of others remained trapped, cowering in gym toilets, under restaurant tables and in store rooms and hoovering up information on the whereabouts of the gunman.

From inside the stockroom of H&M, Aldrin Baliquing, a Fili-pino teacher in his 40s, meditated to stay calm.

“I was so scared because the shop where we were trapped was just above the establishment where the gunman held his hostages,” he said, referring to unconfirmed reports the rogue soldier had taken human shields.

As police began to clear bullet-riddled cars and rust-red blood stains on the street that had dried in the Thai heat, survivors tried to make sense of a night of terror.

“I’m still in shock but coping,” Aldrin said.

people sitting in the Terminal 21 shopping mall in Nakhon Ratchasima

11MONDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2020

Four rare mountain gorillas ‘killed by lightning’ in Uganda

Kampala

Four endangered mountain gorillas, including three

adult females, have been killed by an apparent lightning strike in a Ugandan national park, a conservation group has said.

A post-mortem examina-tion has been performed on the four, including a male in-fant, who died on February 3 in Mgahinga National Park in southwest Uganda.

“Based on the gross lesions from the post-mortem... the tentative cause of death for all four individuals is likely to be electrocution by lightning,” the Greater Virunga Transbounda-ry Collaboration (GVTC) said in a statement Saturday, although laboratory confirmation will take two to three weeks.

The four were members of a group of 17 known as the Hir-wa family which had crossed into the Mgahinga National Park in August last year from Volcanoes National Park in neighbouring Rwanda.

“This was extremely sad,”

GVTC executive secretary An-drew Seguya told the BBC.

“The potential of the three females for their contribution to the population was im-mense.”

The other 13 members of the group had been found.

In 2008, there were estimat-ed to be only 680 of the great apes left but thanks to conser-vation efforts and anti-poach-ing patrols, their population has grown to more than 1,000.

Due to these efforts, in 2018 the mountain gorilla, a sub-species of the eastern gorilla, was moved from “critically endangered” to “endangered” on the IUCN’s “Red List” of threatened species.

Covering the northern slopes of three volcanoes, Mgahinga National Park is part of the Virunga massif shared with Rwanda and the Demo-cratic Republic of Congo.

The massif is one of the most important conservation sites in the world and one of only two places where mountain gorillas are found.

Thanks to conservation efforts and anti-poaching patrols, the population of mountain gorillas has grown to more than 1,000

Suspicion, uncertainty cloud Chechen murder in FranceLille | France

At the end of January, French emergency ser-vices found the body of a

man in a hotel room close to the train station in the northern city of Lille, mutilated with scores of stab wounds.

The man was Imran Aliev, 44, originally from Russia’s restive northern Caucasus region of Chechnya but who had lived for the last few years in Belgium.

He had gained a following as a video blogger at times critical of the Chechen leadership un-der its strongman ruler Ramzan Kadyrov.

S u s p i c i o n i m m e d i a t e l y emerged that the killing was a political assassination and could be the latest in a series of sus-pected moves against trouble-some figures living in exile in Europe critical of the Kremlin or Russia’s regional leaders.

Sources close to the inves-tigation told AFP in Lille that the murder bore the hall-marks of having a political motive.

But caution has also been urged due to the lack of clear evidence so far and the com-plexity of Aliev himself, who was prone to unpredictable and vulgar outbursts on his YouTube and Facebook video channels, where he went by the pseudo-nym of Mansur Stariy.

Travelled with killer?Aliev had arrived in Lille from

neighbouring Belgium on the night of January 29 to January 30 along with another man who was also travelling on a Russian passport. They both checked into a room in a hotel in the square in front of the Lille-Flan-dres train station.

The emergency services en-tered the room around 1030 GMT on January 30 and discovered Aliev’s body. The source close to the investigation said that the crime scene was marked by ex-treme savagery and Aliev had 100 stab wounds. A knife was

found in the room.A prominent exiled Chechen

blogger based in Europe who goes by the name of Tumso Ab-durakhmanov swiftly wrote on his Telegram channel he be-lieved the killer had flown to Spain from Russia, then moved on to Berlin, before going to Bel-gium by train on January 20.

The men then spent a week in Belgium before travelling to-gether with Aliev to Lille, where he allegedly murdered his com-panion.

Abdurakhmanov claimed that the man, whom he even identi-fied by name, then returned to

Russia and is now safely back in Chechnya.

Asylum in BelgiumAliev’s video blogs, usually in

Chechen language rather than Russian, were marked by strong diatribes against Kadyrov who stands accused by rights groups of using a personal militia to attack opponents.

But according to the Cauca-sian Knot Russian-language news site, Aliev’s comments were often vulgar, expletive-rid-den and also inconsistent. In one video, rather than criticising Kadyrov he had even sworn an oath of allegiance to him.

According to the source close to the investigation, Aliev had obtained the status of a political refugee in Belgium at the end of 2012 after making a second re-quest for asylum -- a first request in 2011 had not succeeded.

Refugee status was granted to all his family, including his wife. He has several children born between 2002 and 2008.

The source said that Aliev has the profile of a figure who is violent and aggressive.

Nonetheless, he was never the subject of a criminal conviction in Belgium, although he did spend several months in prison in 2015 for making threats and carrying a banned weapon, an-other source close to the inves-tigation said.

‘Political motivation’Lille prosecutors have opened

an investigation against “X” for murder. Such investiga-tions against “X” are opened in France when prosecutors be-lieve the crime was pre-med-itated but don’t yet know by who.

Lille police are carrying out the investigation and no arrest has been made yet.

The murder “bears all the characteristics of having a po-litical motivation” but “it is wise to be prudent”, said a source close to the investigation. “Many people could have wanted him,” added another source.

Attention on the case in Lille has been magnified by a row between Germany and Russia over the killing of the former Chechen rebel com-mander in a Berlin park in late 2019.

Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, a 40-year-old Georgian national, was shot twice in the head at close range in Kleiner Tiergar-ten park on August 23, allegedly by a Russian man who was ar-rested shortly afterwards.

President Vladimir Putin has vowed to help Germany with the investigation but has described Khangoshvili as a “fighter, very cruel and bloody” who had taken part in separatist activities and also been involved in blasts on the Moscow metro.

Chechnya’s leadership, under Ramzan Kadyrov (pictured here), had been the target of criticism by Imran Aliev, whose mutilated body was found in the French city of Lille in January

President Vladimir Putin has vowed to help Germany with the investigation but has described Khangoshvili as a “fighter, very cruel and bloody” who had taken part in separatist activities and also been involved in blasts on the Moscow metro.

Britain, Ireland hit as Storm Ciara whips over northwest EuropeLondon

Britain and Ireland were lashed by howling winds

and inundated with driving rain yesterday as Storm Ciara left homes without power, wiped out sports events and disrupt-ed travel around northwestern Europe.

The bad weather also hit France, Belgium, the Nether-lands, Switzerland and Ger-many throughout Sunday, causing scores of flights to be cancelled.

In Britain, more than 30,000 homes were left without power, largely in eastern England.

The highest wind speed re-corded was 93 miles (150 kilo-metres) per hour at Aberdaron, on the tip of northwest Wales’s Llyn peninsula.

At Wet Sleddale Reservoir in northwest England’s Lake Dis-trict national park, 151.8 milli-metres of rain fell in a 24-hour period.

Rail companies urged passen-gers not to travel and operated reduced timetables and speed restrictions.

In the central Scottish city of Perth, three people were injured after part of a pub roof collapsed on Saturday.

Sports events were also hit.The English Premier League

fixture between champions Manchester City and strugglers West Ham was called off due to “extreme and escalating weath-er conditions”, City said in a statement.

The entire Women’s Super League football programme was called off, including derbies be-tween Arsenal and Tottenham, and Everton and Liverpool.

The north London clash was a sell-out, while the latter was

due to attract a 20,000-plus crowd to Goodison Park.

In London, organisers can-celled a 10-kilometre race in which 25,000 runners were due to take part, while major city parks closed.

In rugby league, both Super League fixtures were post-poned.

Meanwhile Queen Elizabeth II, staying at her Sandringham country residence in eastern England, did not go to church due to the high winds. The 93-year-old is the supreme gov-ernor of the Church of England.

Flights groundedAbout 120 flights to and

from Amsterdam Schiphol, the third-busiest airport in Europe, were cancelled, largely affecting KLM, British Airways, easyJet and Lufthansa services.

Several airports in Germa-ny had to cancel flights as the storm swept in from the north.

Frankfurt, Berlin, Munich, Cologne and Hanover were

among those affected, while at Dusseldorf, 111 flights were scrapped on Sunday.

In Belgium, the Royal Meteor-ological Institute issued an alert for Sunday of winds reaching 130 kph, or more, with the risk of property damage nationwide.

Some 60 flights departing or arriving at Brussels Airport have been cancelled as a precaution, according to an airport spokes-man, who said further delays were possible.

In Ireland, around 14,000 homes and businesses were without power, national broad-caster RTE said, as the republic began counting ballots in its general election.

Ireland’s Met Eireann mete-orological service said winds would occasionally reach storm force 10 on western and north-ern coastal waters.

“Storm Ciara will continue to produce very strong west to southwest winds over Ireland with mean speeds of 50-65 kph and gusts generally of between

90 and 110 kph, higher in Atlan-tic coastal areas,” it said.

“A combination of spring tides and high seas will result in a sig-nificant risk of coastal flooding.”

Saturday’s opening ceremony of Galway’s year as European Capital of Culture, was scrapped due to bad weather buffeting Ireland’s west coast.

Earlier French forecast-er Marion Pirat told AFP that high winds were expected in the north and northwest of the country, potentially strengthen-ing to 120 kph overnight Sunday. In the Vosges, winds could hit speeds of 140 kph.

The storm could make tough going for the Six Nations rug-by clash between France and visitors Italy at 1600 GMT at the Stade de France in Paris.

The Dutch Football Associa-tion announced that Sunday’s four top-flight matches had been postponed, while the Bel-gian top division also called off its matches.

In Britain, more than 30,000 homes were left without power, largely in eastern England

12MONDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2020

Marfa | United States

It only took a moment for US Border Patrol agents to spot a flash of color in a steep-sid-

ed canyon, then to identify a man in a black cap lying on a rock.

The man, agents discovered, was from Guatemala and part of a group of undocumented mi-grants making an illicit crossing of the Rio Grande river which separates Mexico from Texas in the United States.

Left behind when he injured his knee after making it across the river, the man was stranded for three days in a desolate ra-vine in the San Rosendo Canyon of west Texas until Border Patrol agents found him.

Operating in remote and in-hospitable terrain miles from an-ywhere, the green-clad Border Patrol agents are on the front-lines of a wave of Central Ameri-can migrants heading into the US that has prompted a crackdown

by President Donald Trump.Journalists accompanied the

Border Patrol for three days in Texas, documenting the routine of the agents tasked with guard-ing the frontier amid growing controversy over Trump’s im-migration policy.

“If we were born somewhere else, we would do the same,” Thaddeus Cleveland, the agent in charge of the Border Patrol station in Sanderson, Texas, said of the northward-bound migrants he encounters.

Technique and technologyBorder Patrol agents play a

complex role along the US-Mex-ico border, something between a police officer, a bloodhound and a rescuer.

“The agent has to be an ath-lete,” said operations officer Arain Carrera, 35.

In Texas’s Big Bend sector, agents are responsible for mon-itoring hundreds of miles of ter-rain, including 515 miles (830

kilometers) of the Rio Grande river, lined by perilous canyons and arid deserts where opera-tions to track and arrest people can last for days.

Patrols can be on foot, on horseback, or in trucks, and agents have access to night-vi-sion goggles, motion sensors, cameras and dogs trained to de-tect drugs. Yet making arrests is often more about technique than technology.

“We’re looking for footprints, and since there’s no dirt, we have to look for kicked-over rocks, for broken brush and things of that nature, that give us a sign that someone has been through this area,” Cleveland said, describing the tracking skills agents use.

Surge haltedTheir adversaries are the traf-

fickers who guide migrants in exchange for thousands of dol-lars, and employ scouts to stand on the Mexican side of the Rio

Grande and watch the agents’ movements.

Last year, the approximately 500 agents in the Big Bend sec-tor detained 1,624 people.

That was just a small segment of the nearly one million undoc-umented migrants apprehended between October 2018 and the end of September 2019, most of whom were from violence-torn Central American countries like Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras and aiming to claim asylum in the US.

Trump campaigned on crack-ing down on illegal migration, and has pressured Mexico into deploying troops along its south-

ern border to stop the migrants.The measures have paid off:

just over 52,000 arrests of un-documented migrants were made in September 2019, down significantly from months prior.

Saving livesYet the crackdown has seen

US immigration authorities ac-cused of human rights abuses stemming from the Trump ad-ministration’s now-halted policy of separating migrant children from their parents, along with dire conditions at some Border Patrol stations that were turned into makeshift detention facili-ties amid last year’s surge.

The agents say they aren’t just enforcing the law, but also saving lives.

“When we hear people vilify-ing our agents for the job that they do, it just truly comes down to not knowing the reality,” said Matthew Hudak, the Border Pa-trol chief of the Big Bend sector.

Though traffickers can charge between $5,000 to $10,000 per person to take them across the border, they often show their clients little regard.

“Human smuggling is a costly endeavor because it’s all about money and they don’t care about the individuals that are cross-ing,” Derek Boyle, commander of the border crossing in the town of Presidio.

A typical day on patrol can turn into “a life-saving situation where we’re actually rescuing them out of mountains, rescuing them out of the creeks, rescu-ing them out of the rivers,” he said.

In the case of the Guatema-lan migrant discovered by the agents, he was taken to a hospital for an operation on his knee. Just over a week later, he was on the move again, this time in the custody of the US govern-ment, which Carrera said would deport him back to Guatemala.

A Border Patrol vehicle drives at dusk in the Big Bend sector near Ruidosa, TexasDerek Boyle, the agent in charge of the Border Patrol station in Presidio, Texas, walks through tall grass on the US-Mexico border

Border patrol agents Arain Carrera and Thaddeus Cleveland approach an injured Guatemalan migrant in a remote canyon of west Texas

US Border Patrol agents in Texas are responsible

for hundreds of miles of terrain and use

everything from drug-sniffing dogs to cameras

in their patrols

Last year, the ap-proximately 500 agents in the Big Bend sector de-

tained 1,624 people.

US border patrol agents

Part bloodhound, part police, part rescuer

Surrendered Pakistani Taliban spokesman escapes custodyIslamabad

A leading member of the Pa-kistan Taliban has escaped

custody more than two years after surrendering to author-ities, a senior security official said yesterday.

The confirmation comes days after Ehsanullah Ehsan -- the former spokesman for the Tehreek-e-Taliban Paki-stan (TTP) -- released an audio message claiming he had es-caped detention and was now in Turkey.

A senior security source said Ehsan was “one of our major assets in identifying and later tracking down militants”.

The source was unable to confirm claims that Ehsan was in Turkey, or provide details of how he escaped.

Ehsan was infamous for is-suing chilling claims follow-

ing TTP attacks and has been linked to some of the country’s most bloody attacks -- includ-ing the bombing at a park in Lahore during Easter 2016, and the targeting of education activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai.

Ehsan surrendered to au-thorities in 2017.

Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan (left) and with fellow TTP member Adnan Rasheed in Shabtoi, South Waziristan, in 2013

Louvre throws open blockbuster Leonardo show for all-night viewingParis

Short of something to do at around 4 am on a weekend

in Paris late in February?How about a (free) visit to

the Paris Louvre museum’s show-stopping exhibition of the Italian Renaissance master Leonardo da Vinci, hailed by critics as the most significant display of his works in years?

The Louvre announced on Sunday that for its final days of opening on Friday February 21, Saturday 22 and Sunday 23, the exhibition would be open all night as well as for its regular daytime hours.

“For visitors it will be a unique chance to see or see again all these works by this genius of the Renaissance and in a par-ticular atmosphere at night,” the head of the Louvre, Jean-Luc Martinez, told the Journal du dimanche newspaper.

Entry will be a free but a res-

ervation made online from this Tuesday will be obligatory. Over 30,000 tickets will be up for grabs.

The aim is to “say again to everyone that this museum is

for everybody,” added Martinez.The exhibition, which opened

in late October, marks 500 years since the death of Leonardo in the historic town of Amboise in the Loire Valley on May 2, 1519.

It groups 162 works including loans by Queen Elizabeth II of Britain from the Royal Collec-tion, the British Museum, the Hermitage of Saint Petersburg and the Vatican.

It does not include Leonardo’s most famous work the Mona Lisa which, although in the Lou-vre, organisers decided should remain in its usual exhibition space to avoid overcrowding.

The other notable no-show is the Salvator Mundi, the work that became the most expen-sive painting ever sold when it fetched $450 million at a Chris-tie’s auction in 2017.

Mystery now surrounds the painting -- whose authenticity is disputed by some experts -- as it has not been seen in public ever since the record-shattering sale.

Rumours have on occasion swirled it might make an ap-pearance at the exhibition but so far it hasn’t.

Entry will be a free but a reservation made online from this Tuesday will be obligatory.

BIRD OF PREY (15+)(ACTION/ADVENTURE/CRIME) OASIS JUFFAIR:12.30 + 3.00 + 5.30 + 8.00 + 10.30 PMOASIS JUFFAIR (VIP): 10.30 AM + 1.00 + 3.30 + 6.00 + 8.30 + 11.00 PMOASIS JUFFAIR (ATMOS): 11.00 AM + 1.30 + 4.00 + 6.30 + 9.00 + 11.30 PMCITY CENTRE: 11.00 AM + 12.30 + 1.30 + 3.00 + 4.00 + 5.30 + 6.30 + 8.00 + 9.00 + 10.30 + 11.30 PM + (12.30 MN + 1.00 AM THURS/FRI)CITY CENTRE:(ATMOS): 11.30 AM + 2.00 + 4.30 + 7.00 + 9.30 + 12.00 MNCITY CENTRE (IMAX 2D):10.30 AM + 1.00 + 3.30 + 6.00 + 8.30 + 11.00 PMCITY CENTRE (VIP I) : 10.45 AM + 1.15 + 3.45 + 6.15 + 8.45 + 11.15 PMCITY CENTRE (VIP II) : 11.15 AM + 1.45 + 4.15 + 6.45 + 9.15 + 11.45 PMSEEF (I):10.30 AM + 11.30 AM + 12.30 + 1.00 + 2.00 + 3.00 + 3.30 + 4.30 + 5.30 + 6.00 + 7.00 + 8.00 + 8.30 + 9.30 + 10.30 + 11.00 PM + 12.00 MN + (1.00 AM THURS/FRI)WADI AL SAIL: 10.30 AM + 11.30 AM + 1.00 + 2.00 + 3.30 + 4.30 + 6.00 + 7.00 + 8.30 + 9.30 + 11.00 PM + 12.00 MN

MARGOT ROBBIE, MARY ELIZABETH WINSTEAD, EWAN MCGREGOR

MALANG (PG-15)(HINDI/ACTIONSTARTING FROM THURSDAY 06TH , 7.00 PM ONWARDSOASIS JUFFAIR:12.30 + 3.15 + 6.00 + 8.45 + 11.30 PMCITY CENTRE: 11.30 AM + 2.30 + 5.30 + 8.30 + 11.30 PMSEEF (II): 12.00 + 3.00 + 6.00 + 9.00 + 12.00 MNWADI AL SAIL: 11.15 AM + 2.15 + 5.15 + 8.15 + 11.15 PM

ADITYA ROY KAPOOR, ANIL KAPOOR, DISHA PATANI

THE ROOM (15+)(THRILLER)OASIS JUFFAIR: 2.15 + 7.00 + 11.45 PMCITY CENTRE:11.15 AM + 1.30 + 3.45 + 6.00 + 8.15 + 10.30 PM + (12.45 MN THRS/FRI.)SEEF (II): 10.30 AM + 12.30 + 2.45 + 5.00 + 7.15 + 9.30 + 11.45 PMWADI AL SAIL: 12.15 + 2.30 + 4.45 + 7.00 + 9.15 + 11.30 PM

OLGA KURYLENKO, KEVIN JANSSENS, JOSHUA WILSON

LATTE AND THE MAGIC WATERSTONE (G)OASIS JUFFAIR (KIDS CINEMA): 12.45 + 9.15 PMSEEF (II): 11.00 AM + 12.45 + 2.30 + 4.15 PM

ASHLEY BORNANCIN, DANNY FEHSENFELD, LESLIE L. MILLER

TERRA WILLY : UNKNOWN PLANET (PG) OASIS JUFFAIR (KIDS CINEMA): 10.45 AM + 7.15 PMCITY CENTRE: 10.30 AM + 5.00 PMCITY CENTRE (3D) : 12.30 + 7.00 PMSEEF (II): 10.30 AM + 12.15 + 2.15 + 4.15 PM

TIMOTHÉ VOM DORP, EDOUARD BAER, MARIE-EUGÉNIE MARÉCHAL

BAD BOYS FOR LIFE (PG-15)(ACTION/COMEDY/CRIME)OASIS JUFFAIR:12.15 + 3.00 + 5.45 + 8.30 + 11.15 PMCITY CENTRE: 10.30 AM + 12.00 + 1.00 + 2.45 + 3.45 + 5.30 + 6.30 + 8.15 + 9.15 + 11.00 PM + 12.00 MN + (1.00 AM THURS/FRI)SEEF (II): 10.30 AM + 1.00 + 3.45 + 6.30 + 9.15 + 12.00 MN + (12.30 MN THURS/FRI)WADI AL SAIL: 12.45 + 3.30 + 6.15 + 9.00 + 11.45 PM

WILL SMITH, MARTIN LAWRENCE, VANESSA HUDGENS

DOLITTLE (PG)(ADVENTURE/COMEDY/FAMILY) دددددد OASIS JUFFAIR (KIDS CINEMA): 2.45 + 5.00 + 11.15 PMCITY CENTRE: 12.00 + 2.15 + 4.30 + 6.45 + 9.00 + 11.15 PMSEEF (II): 11.00 AM + 1.15 + 3.30 + 5.45 + 8.00 + 10.15 PMWADI AL SAIL: 11.45 AM + 2.00 + 4.15 + 6.30 + 8.45 + 11.00 PM

ROBERT DOWNEY JR., ANTONIO BANDERAS, MICHAEL SHEEN

THIEF OF BAGHDAD (PG-13)(ARABIC/ACTION/COMEDYCITY CENTRE: 10.30 AM + 12.45 + 3.00 + 5.15 + 7.30 + 9.45 + 12.00 MNSEEF (II): 12.15 + 2.30 + 4.45 + 7.00 + 9.15 + 11.30 PM

MOHAMMED EMAM, YASMINE RAEIS, AMINA KHALIL

1917 (PG-15)(WAR/ACTION/DRAMA) CITY CENTRE:10.45 AM + 1.15 + 3.45 + 6.15 + 8.45 + 11.15 PMSEEF (II): 6.15 + 8.45 + 11.15 PM

GEORGE MACKAY, DEAN-CHARLES CHAPMAN, MARK STRONG

JUMANJI THE NEXT LEVEL (PG-15)CITY CENTRE: 12.30 + 3.15 + 6.00 + 8.45 + 11.30 PMSEEF (II): 12.00 + 2.45 + 5.30 + 8.15 + 11.00 PM

DWAYNE JOHNSON, JACK BLACK, KEVIN HART

THE GENTLEMEN (15+)(CRIME/ACTION) ددددددد دددددد CITY CENTRE: 11.00 AM + 1.30 + 4.00 + 6.30 + 9.00 + 11.30 PM

MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY, CHARLIE HUNNAM, HENRY GOLDING

AL FELOUS (THE MONEY) (PG-15)(ARABICCITY CENTRE: 11.15 AM + 1.45 + 4.15 + 6.45 + 9.15 + 11.45 PMSEEF (II):6.00 + 8.30 + 11.00 PM

TAMER HOSNY, ZEINA, KHALID EL-SAWI

FROZEN 2 (PG)(ANIMATION/ADVENTURE/COMEDY) CITY CENTRE: 11.15 AM + 1.30 + 3.45 + 6.00 + 8.15 PMSEEF (II): 11.30 AM + 1.45 + 4.00 + 6.15 PM

KRISTEN BELL, IDINA MENZEL, JOSH GAD

SPIES IN DISGUISE (PG)(ANIMATION/ACTIONCITY CENTRE: 11.00 AM + 1.15 + 3.30 + 5.45 + 8.00 + 10.15 PM

WILL SMITH, TOM HOLLAND, KAREN GILLAN

MASAMEER: THE MOVIE (PG)(ANIMATION/COMEDY) CITY CENTRE:2.30 + 10.30 PM

ABDULAZIZ AL-MUZAINI, ABDULAZIZ AL-SHEHRI, MAZROA AL-MAZROA

MIRACLE IN CELL NO . 7 (PG-15)(TURKISH/DRAMA) CITY CENTRE:9.00 + 11.45 PM

ARAS BULUT İYNEMLİ, NİSA SOFİYA AKSONGUR, İLKER AKSUM

CHHAPAAK (PG-15)(HINDI/DRAMA) دددددد ددد SEEF (II):8.30 + 11.00 PM

DEEPIKA PADUKONE, VIKRANT MASSEY, MADHURJEET SARGHI

ANJAAM PATHIRA (PG-15 )(MALAYALAM) OASIS JUFFAIR:2.45 + 8.00 PM

KUNCHACKO BOBAN, SHARAFUDHEEN, INDRANS

SHYLOCK (PG-15)(MALAYALAM) OASIS JUFFAIR:12.15 + 5.30 + 10.45 PM

MAMMOOTTY,MEENA,SIDDQUE,RAJKIRANA

VARANE AVASHYAMUND (PG-13)(MALAYALAM) From Thurs. 6th 7:00 PM Onwards OASIS JUFFAIR:12.45 + 3.30 + 6.15 + 9.00 + 11.45 PMSEEF (I): 12.00 + 2.45 + 5.30 + 8.15 + 11.00 PMAL HAMRA : 3.00 + 9.00 PM

SURESH GOPI, SHOBANA, DULQUER SALMAAN, KALYANI PRIYADARSHAN, URVASHI

ANVESHANAM ()(MALAYALAM) OASIS JUFFAIR:10.30 AM + 1.00 + 3.30 + 6.00 + 8.30 + 11.00 PMSEEF (I): 11.15 AM + 1.45 + 4.15 + 6.45 + 9.15 + 11.45 PMAL HAMRA : 12.00 + 6.00 + (12.00 MN THURS./FRI)

JAYASURYA, LAL, LENNA, VIJAY BABU

VAANAM KOTTATTUM (PG-13)(TAMIL) From Thurs. 6th 7:00 PM Onwards OASIS JUFFAIR:11.45 AM + 4.30 + 9.15 PMSEEF (I): 10.45 AM + 1.15 + 3.45 + 6.15 + 8.45 + 11.15 PM

VIKRAM PRABHU R. SARATHKUMAR, R RADIKAA SARATHKUMAR,AISHWARYA RAJESH,

13 MONDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 202014 TUESDAY, JANUARY 28, 2020

C R O S S W O R DAcross1- Exclamation to express sorrow; 5- Bear up there; 9- Western Native Americans; 13- “Goldberg Variations” composer; 14- Freedom from war; 16- Swabbies; 17- Reflected sound; 18- Appropriate; 19- Split; 20- Antlered animal; 21- Single unit; 22- Brings out; 24- Furniture wood; 26- Faucet problem; 27- Like some bears and icecaps; 29- Unselfish; 33- Lustful deity; 34- “David Copperfield” wife; 35- Neighbor of Sask.; 36- Singer Garfunkel; 37- Experiment; 38- Skid row woe; 39- Will of “The Waltons”; 41- ___ She Sweet; 42- Weeps; 44- Incoming; 46- Less outgoing; 47- Tyler’s successor; 48- Pass the breaking point; 49- Ring combo; 52- Loss leader?; 53- Portfolio; 57- Actress Moore; 58- Summarize; 60- Minerals; 61- “Ars Amatoria” poet; 62- Brazilian ballroom dance; 63- Tears; 64- Network of nerves; 65- Exam used to measure aptitude or intelligence; 66- Go out with;Down1- In the sack; 2- Ornamental fabric; 3- Dull pain, often in the head or back; 4- Soon; 5- Turmoil; 6- Freshen, as a stamp pad; 7- Saltimbocca seasoning; 8- Essen exclamation; 9- As above; 10- Baby powder; 11- HOMES part; 12- Fast fliers; 15- Endless; 23- Decease; 25- Musical ability; 26- Clear of vermin; 27- Kitchen gadget; 28- Sleek swimmer; 29- Departing; 30- Blast from the past; 31- Say; 32- Cheek; 33- Narrative of heroic exploits; 34- Imbibe; 37- Suit makers; 40- Swimmer’s fear; 42- Chinese tea; 43- It opens your parachute; 45- Pledge; 46- Be short with; 48- Runs through; 49- Scent; 50- Campbell of “Scream”; 51- Send forth; 52- Pinnacle; 54- La Scala solo; 55- Equinox mo.; 56- “___ quam videri” (North Carolina’s motto); 59- Absorb, as a cost;

Yesterday’s solution

How to playPlace a number in the empty boxes in such a way that each row across, each column down and each 9-box square contains all of the numbers from one to nine.

Yesterday’s solution

S U D O K UAcross1- Grave; 5- Not quite right; 10- Capital of Norway; 14- Buck follower; 15- Circular water container; 16- Mormon state of western USA; 17- Paint unskillfully; 18- Roman general; 19- Lacking; 20- One of the Baldwins; 21- Queen of Egypt; 23- Where ___?; 25- Patsy; 26- Factional; 31- Short-tempered; 35- Luau instrument; 36- Academy award; 38- Refute by evidence; 40- Seizures; 42- Room at the top; 44- Came to; 45- Easily broken; 47- ___ bleu!; 49- Smoking alternative; 50- Come to terms; 52- Unfinished detail; 54- Biblical beast boat; 56- Sunblock letters; 57- Petty thieves; 62- Floating ice; 66- Centrepiece of the human face; 67- Chocolate substitute; 68- Hog sound; 69- Warts and all; 70- Oklahoma city; 71- Network of nerves; 72- Curved; 73- Range rover; 74- General ___ chicken;

Down 1- I did it!; 2- Unwritten; 3- Pouting grimace; 4- North American lynx; 5- The x-coordinate of a point; 6- Handle roughly; 7- Any of the Antilles; 8- Grain stores; 9- Be short with; 10- Unseat; 11- Lead; 12- Actress Turner; 13- Cries of surprise; 22- Impersonator; 24- O Sole ___; 26- Whiff; 27- Director Kurosawa; 28- Put a new price on; 29- Plays are divided up into these; 30- Pertaining to birth; 32- Stitch up; 33- Steak order; 34- Klondike territory; 37- Puerto ___; 39- Look after; 41- Title of a knight; 43- Goalpost part; 46- Fall faller; 48- Paranormal letters; 51- Estab-lishes; 53- Exertion; 55- Hot-dog topping; 57- Attitude; 58- The doctor ___; 59- For fear that; 60- Author ___ Stanley Gardner; 61- Wine choice; 63- Untruths, tells falsehoods; 64- Not tricked by; 65- Supplements, with “out”; 66- Apprehend;

‘Malang’ takes you from one ‘thrill’ to anotherMalang is a tale of re-

venge involving five key players - Advait

Thaur (Aditya Roy Kapur), a young man running away from relationships; Sara (Dis-ha Patani), a footloose NRI girl looking for excitement in the land of her migrant parents; Jezebel (Elli Avram), a gold-en-hearted Swedish expat who makes a living by selling herself and peddling drugs; Michael Rodriguez (Kunal Kemmu) a straight-laced police officer who believes in abiding strictly by the

rules; and the aforementioned carefree cop who revels in crossing the line at the slightest pretext.

The film has style aplenty, but the core of the plot is built on devices that resemble facile con-trivances rather than believable twists. As a result, despite the vim and vigour of the making, Malang is never more than mid-dling.

Beginning with a prison brawl staged primarily to establish the physical invincibility of the male protagonist, the film plunges

into the two faces of policing that Agashe and Michael rep-resent.

Cliches rush forth uncontrol-lably from all directions - rave parties, a collapsing marriage, youngsters out to court danger, and police raids ending badly - while the murders take place one after the other all in the course of a few hours of Decem-ber 24. The past and the present are intermeshed to place before us the jigsaw pieces that explain why Advait is like a man pos-sessed.

Anil Kapoor’s interpreta-tion of the rough and

ready cop is on the money as Kunal Kemmu is impressively steady

M O V I E R E V I E W

DON’T MISS IT

Disha Patani and Aditya Roy Kapur in ‘Malang’

14 MONDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2020

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Al Pacino dating ‘Midsomer Murders’ actress Felicity Dean?Los Angeles

Hollywood veteran Al Pacino is reported-ly dating “Midsomer

Murders” fame actress Felicity Dean after years of being single.

The two made their debut as a couple on the red carpet at the BAFTAs, reports dailymail.co.uk.

“They have known each other for years but are now a couple. Attending the BAFTAs together

was a big statement,” a source said.

Pacino,79. has had several long term relationships over the years, but he’s never married.

He is father to three chil-dren – the eldest is daughter Julie, with acting coach Jan Tarrant, and twins Anton and Olivia with actress Beverly D’Angelo.

On the work front, Pacino has been nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his per-formance in “The Irishman”. Interestingly, this is his first Academy Award nomination in the 27 years of his career.

Sara Ali Khan: I don’t take people’s opinions seriouslyMumbai

Actress Sara Ali Khan, who is gearing up for the release of “Love Aaj Kal”, says that

she doesn’t take people’s opinions too seriously. She added that in the age of social media, people make and break opinions only too quickly.

“I think it (passing judgments quickly) is great. I feel you should make your judgments quickly because in the age of so-cial media, you also take it back quickly. When someone says that he or she doesn’t like a shot or

a song (in a film) in a glance, but if they will watch it two or three times, then they might like it. So, I feel we shouldn’t pay heed to what people say. I think everything is there in an open display, and people express their opinions a lot in today’s time. People make and break their opinions too quickly, so I don’t take it too seriously,” said Sara, while promoting her up-coming film “Love Aaj Kal” with co-star Kartik Aaryan in Mumbai.

Khloe Kardashian, Kylie Jenner and Kris Jenner attend close friend Malika’s baby shower

Los Angeles

American media per-sonalities Kylie Jenner, Kris Jenner, Khloe Kar-

dashian attended close friend Malika Haqq’s bear-themed Baby Shower.

According to People maga-zine, Malika who is an Amer-ican actor and also one of Khloe’s best friend is expecting her first child, a baby boy in the coming month.

Yesterday, Khloe, Kylie with their momager Kris went to the celebration.

The baby shower was decked out in teddy bears and bear-like colours including bear ears for guests, a five-tiered bear cake, moss bear statues as well as a brown and white balloon archway.

During the event, Malika who was completely surprised also gave an emotional speech and couldn’t control her tears while thanking everybody who was present.

Haqq also disclosed the iden-tity of her baby’s father as she said, “Whether you brought me lunch or called me or texted

me... I’m incredibly thankful to Odis Flores for my little boy.”

Best friend Khloe even doc-umented the baby shower showing off the lavish deco-rations and food selections at the party.

Beauty mogul Kylie Jenner also shared a few moments from the day on her social me-dia.

“The most beautiful baby shower for the most beauti-ful pregnant woman inside & out!,” read the caption of the post shared on her Ins-tagram.

Justin Bieber performs ‘Yummy’ on SNL

Los Angeles

Singer Justin Bieber surprised his fans by

performing ‘Yummy’ on Saturday Night Live (SNL).

The singer even hint-ed his fans about the sur-prise as he shared a post on his Instagram and wrote, “Here we go. #snl @nbcsnl. Bringing out a little surprise tonight.”

According to People magazine, in the episode hosted by America’s drag queen RuPaul, it was Jus-tin’s first live television performance since an-nouncing the new album.

The song ‘Yummy’ that came out on January 3, is all about the popstar’s wife Hailey Baldwin, who was also on the set to support his husband.

Bieber who was decked up in a black t-shirt and baggy jade pants was lat-er joined by few backup dancers in the green box.

Los Angeles

Singer Rihanna has re-vealed in an interview that her plan for Valentine’s

Day is “to be in the studio.”According to Billboard, in

an interview with The Cut in New York when asked about her plans for Valentine’s Day, Rihanna said: “I’m going to be in the studio.”

The beauty mogul was in New York to celebrate the of-ficial launch of her first fash-ion collection ‘Release 2-20’ at

Bergdorf Goodman.“I’m so excited actually.

I can’t say who I’m working with, but it’s somebody I’ve been wanting to work with him for a long time,” she further said.

However, later Rihanna couldn’t help but spill the beans that she would be working with Pharrell Williams, who is an American Singer.

The two have previously worked together on the record titled ‘Lemon’, that came back in 2017.

Lindsey Morgan joins ‘Walker, Texas Ranger’ rebootLos Angeles

Actor Lindsey Morgan has boarded the cast of “Walk-er”, the reboot of “Walk-

er, Texas Ranger”.According to Deadline, “The

100” actor will star opposite opposite Jared Padalecki in the reimagining of CBS’ 1990s ac-tion-crime series.

Padalecki will play Cordell Walker, a widowed father of two finding his way back to his family while serving in the most elite law enforcement unit in

Texas. Walker returns to his home in Austin after two years of under-cover work on a high-profile case

to discover that his family needs his attention.

He attempts to reconnect with his children, navigate clashes with his conservative family, and find unexpected common ground with his new partner Micki (Morgan) who

is one of the first women in Texas Rang-ers history, while growing increasingly suspicious about the circumstances surrounding his wife’s death.

“Walker, Texas Ranger”, starring Chuck Norris in the title role, had an eight year run on CBS till 2001. Four years later, the network came out with a TV movie on the subject.

Anna Fricke is penning the new take and will executive produce with Padalecki, Rideback’s Dan Lin,

Lindsey Libertore and Dan Spilo.

It’s confirmed!

Raveena Tandon to feature in ‘KGF:

Chapter 2’Mumbai

Actress Raveena Tandon is all set to maker her comeback in films with “KGF: Chapter 2”.

Director Prashanth Neel, who is helming the second part of the action drama “KGF”, took to Twitter on Sunday to announce the addition of Raveena to the film’s cast.

“The lady who issues the death war-rant has arrived!!! A warm welcome to you

@TandonRaveena mam. #KGFChap-ter2,” Prashanth tweeted.

According to Prashanth’s tweet, Raveena will essay the role of Ramika

Sen in the project. Actor Sanjay Dutt is also a part of the film. He will play

the role of Adheera, who is an antagonist.

Kartik Aaryan thrilled about his first action movie

Mumbai

Actor Kartik Aaryan has shown his romantic

side and comic skills in var-ious Bollywood films. Now, the audience will get to see his action avatar in a film to be helmed by “Tanhaji: The Unsung Warrior” director Om Raut.

The action thriller in 3D backed by Bhushan Kumar’s T-Series, will be shot in In-dia and various locations abroad.

“I’ve been keen to do an out and out action film since a while, and Bhushan sir knew about it. I recent-ly watched ‘Tanhaji…’ and was completely blown away by not only the spectacular visuals but also the narra-tive style. Om Raut’s vision when it comes to action sto-rytelling using 3D is unpar-alleled,” said Kartik.

“I’m super excited to be a part of his next film and can’t wait to start work on my first action movie,” he added.

The director added: “In the initial stages of the script itself I knew Kartik would fit the character well and I am glad to have him on board.”

Justin Bieber

Kartik Aaryan

Al Pacino and Felicity Dean

Sara Ali Khan

Lindsey Morgan

Khloe Kardashian, Kylie Jenner and Kris Jenner

Malika Haqq

Raveena Tandon

Rihanna

15

sports

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2020

Naseem hat-trick extends Pakistan’s dominance

Naseem Shah becomes the youngest player to record a hat-trick as Bangladesh face defeat

AFP | Rawalpindi, Pakistan

Teenage paceman Naseem Shah became the young-est player to record a Test

hat-trick as Pakistan closed in on victory against Bangladesh in Rawalpindi on Sunday.

Just when Bangladesh seemed to have fought their way back into the match at 124-2, minutes before the close on the third day, Naseem destroyed them with three wickets off successive de-liveries.

Aged 16 years and 359 days, he becomes the youngest play-er to record a Test hat-trick, besting Bangladeshi Alok Kapali who achieved the feat aged 19 in 2003.

Naseem trapped Najmul Hos-sain Shanto leg before off the fourth ball of his seventh over for 38, then followed up with dismissals of Taijul Islam (lbw) and Mahmudullah (caught) with the next two deliveries.

Naseem had figures of 4-26 before he left the field with a shoulder injury.

Shanto and Mominul Haque, unbeaten on 37 at the close, had added 71 for the third wicket after they lost Saif Hassan on 16 and Tamim Iqbal on 34.

At the close, Bangladesh were 126-6 and needing another 86 runs to avoid an innings defeat with two days to play.

Naseem, who burst onto the scene on Pakistan’s Australia

tour last year, is also the young-est fast bowler and second bowl-er overall to take five wickets in a Test innings.

He achieved that feat at 16 years and 307 days against Sri Lanka in Karachi last year.

‘Special talent’“I wanted to do something

that people remember about me and this is a special achieve-ment for which I thank (the) Almighty,” Naseem said after the match.

“I can’t describe my feelings and the way (the) crowd (was) backing me up can’t be de-scribed in words.”

Pakistan’s Babar Azam, who scored 143 in the first innings of the Rawalpindi Test, praised

Naseem.“There is no doubt he is a spe-

cial talent,” said Azam at the close of play. “It’s an outstand-ing achievement at this very young age and the best thing about him is that he bowls to the plan given to him.”

Pakistan were bowled out for 445 in their first innings.

Saif, playing his first Test, was on a pair after his sec-ond-ball duck in the first in-nings but he started confidently to reach 16 with four bounda-ries before he was bowled by Naseem.

Iqbal, fresh from scoring the highest first-class score on Bangladeshi soil of 334 not out last week, was trapped leg-be-fore by Yasir.

Earlier, Pakistan lost seven wickets either side of lunch with Sohail holding the innings to-gether.

He struck seven fours and two sixes for his third Test half-century before holing out off spinner Taijul Islam to deep mid-wicket.

Last man Naseem was run out to end Pakistan’s first innings.

A 10,000-strong holiday crowd had come in anticipa-tion of Azam scoring a double hundred. But resuming at 342-3, he was out to the first ball of the day, edging to Mohammad Mithun at first slip.

Azam’s 143 was his fifth Test hundred and a masterclass of at-tractive batting, which included a six and 18 fours.

Asad Shafiq, who put on 137 for the fourth wicket with Azam, added just five to his overnight score before he was caught behind off fast bowler Ebadot Hossain for a 65 that included nine boundaries.

Naseem Shah celebrates after taking a hat-trick

16and 359 days is the age

of Naseem Shah

Noor Sports lift U-12 Academy Cricket titleTDT | Manama

Noor Sports Bahrain defeated Star Cricket Academy (Blue) by 4

wickets in the final to lift the Acade-my under 12 Cricket Title on Friday at Alba Ground.

Batted first Star Cricket Acade-my (Blue) was bowled out for just 49runs. Mohit Yogesh Kumar made the things easy for Noor Sports with superb bowling performance, who took 5 wickets for just 8 runs. Chas-ing the target of 50 runs in 20 overs, scoring was not that easy for Noor Sports as they had to struggle in front of Captain Madhav Anil Kumar who took 5 wickets for just 6 runs. Hre-haan Ahmed (15) and Ayaan Kumar (10*) batted sensibly for Noor Sports and reached the target in the12th over itself.

In the Loser’s Final Alba Red beat Alba Blue by 8 wickets to win the Sec-ond Runner up position. Batted first Alba Blue has scored a reasonable to-tal of 101 runs for the loss of 7 wickets. Captain Vidhaath Bhaskar top scored with 30 and Opener Aryan Pankaj scored a polished 27 runs. Akshar Lenin (13 for 2) and Tarun Prabhu (6 for 2) were the pick of the bowlers. In replay, Alba Red chased the total very comfortably by losing only 2 wickets. Shaurya Nair top scored with an unbeaten 36 and Opener Jugal Jigar scored a well matured innings with 28 runs.

Hassan Noor, Alba Club Board Member and the Director of Carbon, B.K.Suresh, Senior Head of Procure-ment and Former Indian Player, In-dian team Selector, Former Chief Bowling Coach of MRF Pace Founda-

tion and High Performance bowling Master class Coach T.A.Sekar were the guest of honours in the final. They have congratulated the winners and also gave away the prizes.

Under 12 Champions with their trophies

The following awards were also distributed at the award ceremony.

Sl no Awards Player’s Name Team1 Best Batsman Sai Sarthak Alba Red2 Best Bowler Mohit Yogesh Kumar Noor Sports3 Best Fielder Ayaan Kumar Noor Sports4 Best Wicket Keeper Tanush Deepak Patil Noor Sports5 Promising Player Hrehaan Ahmed Noor Sports6 Most youngest Player Pranav Vishnu Star Cricket (Red)7 The only Hat trick Sarvesh Gheewala Alba Red8 The Emerging Player Aryan Pankaj Alba Blue9 Man of the match in the Final Mohit Yogesh Kumar Noor Sports10 Man of the match in the Loser’s Final Shaurya Nair Alba Red11 5 wicket Haul Mohit Yogesh Kumar Noor Sports12 ,, Madhav Anil Kumar Star Cricket (Blue)13 Player of the Tournament Sai Sarthak Alba Red

Players of Mudabbar CC and Karnataka Royals after the finals of CBA 25 overs cup for Division C league. Mudabbar CC lifted the cup after defeating Royals by 3 wickets. Nadeem Gujjar from Mudabbar CC was awarded the Man of the Match

FCTG winter singles tournament concludesTDT | Manama

FCTG concluded their Winter Singles Ten-

nis Tournament on Fri-day at Bahrain Tennis Federation courts in Isa Town.

In the Men’s Division Finals, Norman Abastil-las claimed the Flight 2 title over Ghaith Arnaout. Ghait Arnaout, however, overpowered Pradeep Bhandary on Flight 3 cat-egory.

Ruzbeh Engineer won over Faro Tandoc on men’s flight 4 while Jose Adap eased passed Lloyd bermas on flight 5 cate-gory.

Alvin Alcantara de-

feated Abhinav Girish to claim the flight 6 title. Khalil Arnaout won over Abdulrahman Rajab in veteran’s category.

In ladies Division Fi-nals, Thess Corral won the flight 4 title over Mi-chelle Pedro, with Maria Cyra Oblea overpowering

Grace Dela Cruz to take the flight 5 title. Jocelyn Pre won over Joan Culpa in flight 6 category.

Abhinav Girish defeat-ed Rikhill Bhojwani in Under 14 category while the latter bagged the un-der 12 category defeating Clark Sayago.

Winners with FCTG Chairman Gerry Toledo (Left) and FCTG Vice Chairman Eric Alabastro (Right)

Rossi says in no hurry to retire from MotoGPAFP | Sepang, Malaysia

It a l i a n Mo t o G P l e g e n d Valentino Rossi said Sunday

he was in no hurry to retire amid speculation the veteran might quit the sport after sev-eral lean years.

The seven-time MotoGP champion was previously ex-pected to decide his future mid-year, after being replaced at Yamaha by Frenchman Fabio Quartararo for the 2021 season.

But after setting the fifth fastest lap time Sunday from a pool of 26 riders at the pre-sea-son test in Malaysia, Rossi ap-peared to be in good spirits about the subject.

“The situation now looks like I have a bit more time... I’m not in a hurry,” he told reporters when asked if he would make a decision in July or August.

Rossi, who turns 41 later this month, clocked his fastest lap time at 1min 58.541sec on

the 5.5km-long track on the Sepang test circuit.

He also told reporters that he wanted to see how the first half of the MotoGP season went this year.

“The most important thing are the results,” he said.

“I want to try to continue, but I will (only) continue if I am competitive.”

The MotoGP will see another test session in Qatar starting on Feb 22, with the season to begin on March 8.

Monster Energy Yamaha’s Italian rider Valentino Rossi steers through a corner

Monfils wins in Montpellier againAFP | Montpellier, France

Frenchman Gael Monfils won the Montpellier ATP

tournament on Sunday with a 7-5, 6-3 straight sets victory over Canada’s Vasek Pospisil.

It was a first tournament win for a year for the popular 33-year-old world No.9 who was top seed at Montpellier.

Pospisil fell during the match and appeared to be carrying an injury to his right leg.

This was a ninth career tour-nament win for Monfils and his third at Montpellier which he also won in 2010 and 2014.

Gael Monfils in action in Montpellier

Ali claims Pro Mod victory for Bapco Hani Ali powered to victory in Bahrain Drag Racing Championship’s penultimate round at BIC

TDT | Manama

Veteran Bahraini racer Hani Ali powered to a roaring victory in the Pro

Mod class to highlight a hugely exciting fourth and penultimate round of the 2019/2020 Bah-rain Drag Racing Championship, held last week at Bahrain Inter-national Circuit (BIC) in Sakhir.

Competing for Bapco Motor-sports Team, Ali clinched first place following a hotly contested final race against Bahrain1 Rac-ing ace Khalid Al Balooshi.

Ali posted a winning time of 3.729 seconds down the eighth-mile with a top speed of 324.30mph. Al Balooshi had a pass of 4.269s at a top speed of 226.92mph.

Ali was one of only three Bah-raini competitors to climb to the top of the podium at the end of the meeting, which was organ-ised by BIC in cooperation with

the Bahrain Motor Federation (BMF), the Bahrain Drag Racing Club (BDRC) and the Bahrain Motorcycle Club (BMC).

Around 140 competitors took part, including more than 100 in the cars classes and the others in

the motorbikes categories. All the action was held along

BIC’s NHRA-sanctioned quar-ter-mile drag strip.

Yousif Khamiri and Sayed Yousif Faisal were the other two homegrown talents to emerge

victorious on race day. Khamiri triumphed in the Index 9.5 cat-egory while Faisal claimed first place in the Street Fight Bikes class.

Khamiri took his win after beating Abdulwahab Al Mu-taib in their final with a run of 9.497s at 224.41mph, while Faisal had a winning mark of 9.561s at 226.00mph.

Meanwhile, the Kuwaiti and Saudi contingents competing in the round also featured a hand-ful of winners.

Amongst the competitors from Kuwait, Ahmed Alsaeei won in the Outlaw Front-Wheel-Drive class after beating Zakari-ya Alkuwari in their final with a time of 8.583s at 292.62mph; Mohammed Suliman won the Pro Street V8 with a 7.362s pass at 292.36mph to defeat Esmail Ebrahim; Fahad Kadida over-came Jaber Salman in the In-dex 8.5 final with a 8.645s run

at 245.22mph; and Mohammed Alawwad defeated Christopher Dominique from the USA to win the Pro Bikes class with a time of 4.005s at a top speed of 279.06mph.

Five Saudis triumphed. Ali Saleh Ebrahem won the Out-law 6-Cylinder category with an 11.366s pass at 102.27mph to beat Hamad Al Merbati; Abdulla Al-shamsi won the Super Street V8 in 4.422s at 271.64mph to defeat Hussain Mohammed; Thamer Al

Khaldey overcame Ali Khamiri with a 10.615s pass at 186.69mph to triumph amongst the Index 10.5 drivers; Khalid Aldoseri defeated Fadi Abu Jamus in the Index 8.5 Bike final with a time of 8.485s and a top speed of 254.89mph; and Mishari Alturki won the Super Street Bikes class after finishing the final ahead of Bader bin Eidan in 4.467s with a top speed of 259.33mph.

Elsewhere in round four, Ab-dulmajid Al Zarooni of the UAE won the Competition 4.5 class after beating Obaid Al Balooshi with a 4.522s pass at 249.15mph in their final.

At the end of all the racing, the winners were presented their re-spective trophies in the podium ceremony attended by BIC, BMF, BDRC and BMC officials.

The drag racing season now heads to the 2019/2020 cham-pionship finale, scheduled for February 25 to 28 at BIC.

16MONDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2020

They [Bournemouth] deservedly went

in front, we never really got ourselves

into the game but we gradually grew into it

CHRIS WILDER,

SHEFFIELD UNITED MANAGER

324.3mphwas the top speed

recorded by Hani Ali who posted a winning time of

3.729 seconds

A car in action at BIC

Bapco team members after the race

Winners celebrate on the podium

Brave CF hosts Indian MP and former IPL chairmanTDT | Manama

BRAVE Combat Federation, Bahrain’s biggest- ever

sports enterprise, has a deep relationship with India, having hosted three events in the coun-try thus far and having massive support from the MMA-loving locals, as the only truly glob-al promotion in the world to host events and invest in the country’s MMA scene. And 2020 promises to be yet another ex-citing year for Bahrain and In-dia sports.

BRAVE CF president Moham-med Shahid recently met with Rajeev Shukla, former chair-man of the IPL, and they talked about different areas of coop-erations that could be mutu-ally beneficial for both coun-tries and their sporting scenes. Shukla made it a point to thank HH Shaikh Khalid bin Hamad Al Khalifa for the impact he has made in the sports industry in India through mixed martial arts, as well as congratulating His Highness for his part in the development of sports in Bahrain.

At the meeting, that was

also attended by Mohammed Mansoor, managing director for Exelon and chairman of Saara Group, they discussed the future of BRAVE Combat Federation and mixed martial arts in India, as well as cricket in Bahrain.

Different areas of coopera-tion between the two nations and their respective sporting futures were also discussed in Shukla’s visit to the Kingdom of Bahrain.

S i n c e i t s i n c e p t i o n i n 2016, BRAVE Combat Feder-ation has counted on India as one of its premier areas of development.

The fastest-growing organ-ization in the world hopes to empower the India MMA scene not only by giving its fighters the much-deserved interna-tional exposure they crave, but also putting on global events in areas such as Mumbai and Hyderabad.

Mohammed Shahid with Rajeev Shukla

Sheffield weather the storm to climb upAFP | Sheffield, United Kingdom

Sheffield United closed to within two points of a

Champions League place by coming from behind to keep Bournemouth perilously close to the relegation zone with a 2-1 win at Bramall Lane.

John Lundstram came off the bench to score the winner as the Blades moved up to fifth after Billy Sharp had cancelled out Callum Wilson’s early open-er for the visitors.

Defeat leaves Bournemouth still just two points above the bottom three, having played a game more than most of their rivals to avoid relegation.

The only game in the Pre-mier League due to yesterday went ahead after a pitch in-spection as the effects of storm Ciara, which saw Manchester City’s clash with West Ham postponed, were not enough to convince referee John Moss to abandon the game.

Early on it was the hosts who were blown off course as the Cherries looked to build on back-to-back wins that had hauled them out of the bottom three.

Wilson struck his second goal in three games with an emphat-ic finish on the rebound after Harry Wilson’s initial effort was blocked.

United responded just in time to go in level at the break when captain Sharp was quickest to react as the ball flashed across the Bournemouth goal after the visitors failed to clear a corner.

A day after Jordan Pickford’s blunder nearly cost Everton all three points Dean Henderson did no harm to his chances in his challenge to be England’s number one at Euro 2020.

Henderson produced a bril-liant save from Ryan Fraser to prevent Bournemouth retaking the lead 20 minutes from time.

That save proved crucial when six minutes from time Lys Mousset’s cross was controlled and finished by Lundstram on a trademark run into the box to keep the Blades dreams of European football next season very much alive.John Lundstram scores Sheffield United’s winner at Bramall Lane