085010 120010 6 RAMADAN GREETINGS The Chairman and staff of Muscat Media Group extend their heartiest greetings to His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said on the advent of the Holy Month of Ramadan. ‘Oman’s message of peace to world’ SARAH MACDONALD [email protected]ASTANA: Oman can be an ex- ample to other countries on how to build a society in which there is no terrorism or extremism, said Sheikh Dr Kahlan Nabhan Al Kharusi, Assistant Grand Mufti of Oman. Al Kharusi, who spoke to Times of Oman on the sidelines of the fifth Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions in Astana, Kazakhstan, says he attributes the peaceful nature of Omani society to several factors such as its long history as a nation to which the population closely identifies, and the moderation with which Omanis are raised. “Omanis are confident of their identity. This is one of the lessons we need to understand. Let the new generation of Muslim youth be confident of their identity,” he said. Al Kharusi, an Oxford-edu- cated scholar of Islamic Studies, says Oman also has a long his- tory as a state so it knows how to run its internal politics and for- eign affairs as a nation and state, whereas other countries may not have the same experience. “It’s also the wise leadership of His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said. For any nation to avoid such negative phenomenon, they do need a wise leadership, a lead- ership that comprehends all the components of society in the pro- cess of development and progress of the society,” he added. Moderation in all aspects of life is also an important antidote to extremism and this is a value Omanis are raised with, learning this from their history and their religion, said Al Kharusi. >A6 Assistant Grand Mufti of the Sultanate says Oman’s tolerance can be an example to other nations OMAN OMR292m deals 2 The Ministry of Housing said that until May trade contracts worth OMR292m were received. >A6 REGION Saudis executed 3 Al Qaeda in Yemen executed two Saudi accused of spying for the United States. >A7 OMAN Call to donate blood 1 Blood donation during Ramadan will not affect a person’s ability to observe a fast, said an Omani official. >A5 TOP THREE INSIDE STORIES HM exchanges Ramadan greetings MUSCAT: On the advent of the Holy Month of Ramadan, His Maj- esty Sultan Qaboos bin Said has exchanged cables of greetings with the leaders of the Arab and Islamic countries. In his cables, His Majesty the Sultan has expressed his sin- cere greetings along with his best wishes of good health, happiness and long life to the leaders and the people of their countries further progress and welfare. His Majesty the Sultan has prayed to Allah the Almighty to be- stow His blessings and bounties on all Muslims and endow them with good faith, security, peace and sta- bility to prevail over all Muslim countries. >A6 WORLD LEADERS Ramadan begins today MUSCAT: Thursday will be the first day of Ramadan, the Main Committee of sighting the new moon of Ramadan 1436 AH, announced. The main committee an- nounced the sighting of the new moon in a number of governorates in the Sultanate. After the sighting, the commit- tee declared that Thursday will be the first day of the Holy Month of Ramadan 1436 AH. The statement is as follows: >A6 HOLY MONTH DIGEST VIDEO SCAN THIS QR CODE TO INSTANTLY LAUNCH THE VIDEO Top stories in one minute with our new daily Digest 100 44 THURSDAY, June 18, 2015 / 1 Ramadan 1436 AH timesofoman.com wtimesofoman.com facebook.com/timesofoman twitter.com/timesofoman blog.timesofoman.com ISO 9001:2008 Certified Company RAMADAN PRAYER TIMINGS Dhuhr 12.13pm Asr 3.31pm Maghrib 7.00pm Isha 8.23pm Fajr (Tomorrow) 3.53am IFTAR 7.00PM FAJR 3.53AM A3 Fires at petrol stations ring alarm bells
Transcript
085010 1200106
RAMADAN GREETINGSThe Chairman and staff of Muscat Media Group extend their heartiest greetings to His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said on the advent of the Holy Month of Ramadan.
ASTANA: Oman can be an ex-ample to other countries on how to build a society in which there is no terrorism or extremism, said Sheikh Dr Kahlan Nabhan Al Kharusi, Assistant Grand Mufti of Oman.
Al Kharusi, who spoke to Times of Oman on the sidelines of the fi fth Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions in Astana, Kazakhstan, says he attributes the peaceful nature of
Omani society to several factors such as its long history as a nation to which the population closely identifi es, and the moderation with which Omanis are raised.
“Omanis are confi dent of their identity. This is one of the lessons we need to understand. Let the new generation of Muslim youth be confi dent of their identity,” he said. Al Kharusi, an Oxford-edu-cated scholar of Islamic Studies, says Oman also has a long his-tory as a state so it knows how to run its internal politics and for-eign aff airs as a nation and state, whereas other countries may not have the same experience.
“It’s also the wise leadership of His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said. For any nation to avoid such negative phenomenon, they do need a wise leadership, a lead-ership that comprehends all the components of society in the pro-cess of development and progress of the society,” he added.
Moderation in all aspects of life is also an important antidote to extremism and this is a value Omanis are raised with, learning this from their history and their religion, said Al Kharusi. >A6
Assistant Grand
Mufti of the
Sultanate says
Oman’s tolerance
can be an example
to other nations
OMANOMR292m deals
2The Ministry of Housing said that until May trade contracts worth
OMR292m were received. >A6
REGIONSaudis executed
3Al Qaeda in Yemen executed two Saudi accused of spying for the
United States. >A7
OMANCall to donate blood
1Blood donation during Ramadan will not aff ect a person’s ability to observe a
fast, said an Omani offi cial. >A5
T O P T H R E E I N S I D E S T O R I E S
HM exchanges Ramadan greetings
MUSCAT: On the advent of the Holy Month of Ramadan, His Maj-esty Sultan Qaboos bin Said has exchanged cables of greetings with the leaders of the Arab and Islamic countries.
In his cables, His Majesty the Sultan has expressed his sin-cere greetings along with his best wishes of good health, happiness and long life to the leaders and the people of their countries further progress and welfare.
His Majesty the Sultan has prayed to Allah the Almighty to be-stow His blessings and bounties on all Muslims and endow them with good faith, security, peace and sta-bility to prevail over all Muslim countries. >A6
W O R L D L E A D E R S
Ramadan begins today
MUSCAT: Thursday will be the fi rst day of Ramadan, the Main Committee of sighting the new moon of Ramadan 1436 AH, announced.
The main committee an-nounced the sighting of the new moon in a number of governorates in the Sultanate.
After the sighting, the commit-tee declared that Thursday will be the fi rst day of the Holy Month of Ramadan 1436 AH.
The statement is as follows: >A6
H O L Y M O N T H
DIGEST VIDEOS CA N T H I S Q R CO D E TO I N STA N T LY L AU N C H T H E V I D EO
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THURSDAY, June 18, 2015 / 1 Ramadan 1436 AH timesofoman.com wtimesofoman.com facebook.com/timesofoman twitter.com/timesofoman blog.timesofoman.com ISO 9001:2008 Certifi ed Company
MUSCAT: More than three in-cidents of vehicles catching fi re at petrol stations in the last 15 days have once again highlighted the fi re and explosion risks while refuelling.
On June 3, a car caught fi re while refuelling in Bidbid at around 8a.m.
In another incident, on June 2, a car caught fi re at a petrol station in Yanqul.
This Tuesday, two people were injured and some vehicles were damaged in a fi re at a petrol sta-tion in Al Ghubra.
Daryle Hardie, CEO of Safety First Oman, said it was shocking to learn of so many incidents hap-pening during the last fortnight. “I believe there are a specifi c set of rules and my advice is to follow these rules and regulations,” he told the Times of Oman.
He also said that there are several statutory warnings like switching off mobile phones and vehicle engines, and not smok-ing, etc. while fi lling petrol, which customers tend to violate most of time. “Not many customers heed
these warnings, which are dis-played prominently at all fuel sta-tions for their own safety,” he said.
The PACDA also advised mo-torists to exercise caution while fi lling petrol every day.
“People should switch off the vehicle’s engine while refuelling, and they should also not smoke or talk on mobile phones. The petrol station attendants should also en-sure that the fuel pump nozzle is disconnected from the fuel tank before the vehicle leaves,” it said.
Mark Pudwell, business de-velopment and training man-ager, Competence HR, said that one worrying issue arising out the recent petrol station fi res is the apparent lack of conformity to regulations.
Staff training“Staff at petrol stations must re-ceive appropriate and regular training to ensure that they un-derstand the risks, how to mitigate them and what to do in the event of a fi re. Another area of concern is that of educating customers. Notices are clearly displayed at all
petrol pumps regarding switch-ing off car engines, no smoking, and not using mobile phones, and customers who fl out these vitally important regulations must be re-minded by the pump staff without fear of being abused or ridiculed.
Petrol delivery “The most contentious issue re-garding the dispensing of petrol is the method of delivery from the pump to the car. All pump dispensers appear to be fi tted with a trigger lock which allows the person dispensing the fuel to leave the pump connected to the car tank and walk away to attend to other customers. Not only is this risking a large fuel spill but also the lives of those in the car and outside. These locks cannot and should not be depended upon to function correctly at all times and at no time, should the atten-dant leave the pump while the fuel is fl owing. This is not permitted anywhere in Europe and pumps are not fi tted with these locks deliberately.
“The entire process and level of
equipment needs immediate re-view in order to protect valuable assets and lives,” he added.
Workers in garages say loose battery cables in cars are also a major cause of fi res.
“Loose cables and old wiring can cause sparks, which is espe-cially dangerous if it occurs near oil pipelines. Bare wires are ex-tremely dangerous and can defi -nitely ignite a fi re. Fuel pumps that are not fi xed properly can also be a cause,” said a mechanic.
Poor maintenance and over-heating of engines are other caus-es of fi res in summer.
“I have seen people neglect coolant leaks, simply fi lling wa-ter in the radiator when the tem-perature starts rising. This will ultimately lead to the engine over-heating at some point and cause a fi re,” he explained.
He also said a fi re can erupt in a car in a matter of seconds, es-pecially if it is near the fuel pump, adding, “Motorists should keep a fi re extinguisher handy at all times. You never know when it will be required.”
With the spate of fi re
incidents at petrol
pumps, concerns
have grown over the
dangers involved
in refuelling and
implementation of
rules and regulations
DANGER SIGNALS: Poor maintenance and overheating of engines are the other causes of fi res in
summer.–OK Mohammed Ali/TIMES OF OMAN
Citizen arrested for setting car ablazeTimes News Service
MUSCAT: A citizen was arrested by Al Khaboura Police for setting a vehicle ablaze.
A source from the Royal Oman Police (ROP), said that they re-ceived a call from the Omani own-er of the vehicle, stating that an unknown person had set his car on fi re after he had parked in front of his house.
After gathering all the informa-tion and leads, the ROP was able to identify and arrest the accused. The suspect confessed to setting the vehicle on fi re.
Legal procedures were taken be-fore presenting him to court.
Smuggling foiled The Directorate General of Com-batting Narcotics and Psychotropic Substances at the Muscat Interna-tional Airport foiled an attempt by a passenger arriving from an Asian country to smuggle in narcotics. On being thoroughly frisked, nar-cotics were discovered in the pas-senger’s stomach. A source at the ROP said that they recovered 90 capsules from the suspect and re-ferred him to the public prosecu-tion for further investigations.
R O P A C T I O N
Hadith of the dayABU HURAIRA related that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: ‘Whoever fasts during Ramadan with faith and seeking his reward from Allah will have his past sins forgiven. Whoever prays during the nights in Ramadan with faith and seeking his reward from Allah will have his past sins forgiven. And he who passes Lailat al-Qadr in prayer with faith and seeking his reward from Allah will have his past sins forgiven.’ (Bukhari, Muslim)
A4 T H U R S DAY, J U N E 1 8 , 2 0 1 5
TODAY’S DUAA‘ALLAH, on this day make my fasts the fasts of those who fast (sincerely),
and my standing up in prayer of those who stand up in prayer (obediently), awaken me in it from the sleep of the heedless, and forgive me my sins,
O God of the worlds, and forgive me, O one who forgives the sinners’.
Welcome O Ramadan!The blessed month of Ramadan adheres to the magnanimous principles of empathy and sharing. From sunrise to sunset, there is a purging of emotions, surrender of ego and an understanding of human suff ering, AFTAB H. KOLA writes
Beginning today, a special month has dawned upon us. A month of blessings, Ramadan is a period wherein Muslims worldwide, not only abstain from food, drink and sex from sunrise to sunset, but also spend more time
in prayer, giving charity, doing good deeds, reciting the Holy Quran for long hours, and other acts which entail rewards from Allah.
The idea behind this abstention is not to experience hunger and thirst only, but to inculcate taqwah (fear of Allah). The Holy Quran has explained taqwah in some 160 verses and there are hundreds of Hadiths of the Prophet (peace be upon him) describing its meaning and signifi cance. In fact, this fear of Allah, the taqwah, is the essence of all Islamic ibadahs (worships).
Fasting is a process of self-purifi cation, self-right-eousness, and spiritual development of the self. Be-sides the religious angle, it is a surest prescription for securing good health and having a positive mind which can lead to a peaceful life. Let us pray that we inculcate the real spirit of Ramadan in our lives, in our homes and in our communities.
The Holy Quran says, “O Believers, prescribed for you is the Fast, even as it was prescribed for those that were before you... The month of Ramadan, wherein the Quran was sent down to be a guidance to the peo-ple, and as clear signs of the Guidance and Salvation. So let those of you, who are present at the month, fast it; and if any of you be sick, or if he be on a journey, then a number of other days... And eat and drink, un-til the white thread shows clearly to you from the black thread at dawn; then complete the Fast until the night.” — Surah II: 183-187
Thus, in the Quran, Allah has ordained us to keep fast for the full month. Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) said, “There are three people whose supplication is not rejected: the fasting person until he breaks fast, the just leader, and the supplication of the oppressed.” (Narrated by Al-Tirmdhi and Ibn Majah).
Reward of fastingAbu Hurairah (may Allah be pleased with him) relates that the Holy Messenger (PBUH) said, “The reward of each good act may be ten to seven hundred times, but the reward of fasting is an exception as Allah says, ‘Fasting is for My sake and I will reward for it as much
as I like.’ A fasting man gives up food and drink for His sake. He will have two great joys: one, at the time of breaking fast; and the other on meeting his Lord. The smell of the fasting person’s mouth is better than that of musk before God and fasting is a shield against evil. A fasting man should not indulge in obscene talk or noisy demonstrations or rioting. If anyone abuses him, he should excuse himself from retaliation saying that he is fasting.” (Bukhari, Muslim)
Intention for fastingLike in all actions, intention is the action of the mind, hence nothing needs to be said if one’s mind is clear about one’s intention. Saying specifi c words can help focus one’s mind and has thus been recommended by scholars. There is no need for these words to be in Arabic unless you speak Arabic. The following is what should be in your intention: “I intend to keep the fast tomorrow in the month of Ramadan.”
The greatest achievement is that a person’s soul is liberated from the shackles of their wishes and desires and moves a step further towards the lofty summits of knowledge and intellect. They move a step closer to the Kingdom of Allah by rising above all mundane needs. For this purpose, fasting puts a restriction on all things that cause an enhancement of our desires and take us towards pleasure. When a person endures such constraints, he is able to break his bond with this world and come closer to his Creator. It is this aspect of fasting due to which it is said that fasting is for God and He alone will bestow the reward for it.
The second achievement of fasting is that the doors of temptation and revolt are closed to a great extent. It is the tongue and the private parts on which the devil attacks the most. Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) said that whosoever could give him guarantee of two things: one between the two cheeks and the other be-tween the two legs, he would guarantee him Paradise. Fasting puts a check on both these instincts and weak-ens all inclinations of going overboard with these two. It makes it easy for a person to do all things that are pleasing to Allah and refrain from those that are dis-pleasing to Him. It is this, which caused Prophet Mo-hammed (PBUH) to say that Satan and his army are chained during the month of Ramadan.
The third aspect that a person gains from fasting is
that his actual distinction — freedom of will — is given a great chance to develop and strengthen so that his character becomes adorned with the qualities of re-solve and determination. He gets disciplined enough to control all sorts of emotions and reactions rising in his self. If a person’s willpower is weak, he can neither control his wishes from exceeding the limits nor can he remain steadfast on the Shari’ah.
The fourth thing a person gains from fasting is that he inculcates and strengthens the spirit of sacrifi ce in himself. This urges him to show compassion towards people who are less privileged. Experiencing hunger and thirst in fast brings him closer to the underprivi-leged and makes him realise their needs. Fasting af-fects everyone according to his own disposition.
The fi fth thing that a person achieves in Rama-dan is solitude and isolation which make them to spend more time in reciting the Holy Quran with a view to understanding and practicing its teachings. It was during this sacred month that the fi rst rev-elation of the Holy Quran was made to Prophet Mo-hammed (PBUH) as the guidance for mankind and for disciplining life and restoring the life stream to its pristine purity.
The social aspect of fasting in Ramadan is that the whole atmosphere is suff used with religious piety and devotion to Allah. There is one extra congregational prayer, Taraweeh, during the night. The sadaqat (vol-untary charity) is also given with greater zeal and fer-vour in this month.
Thus, the whole Muslim society is inspired by the love of Allah. Abu Huraira reported Allah’s Messenger (PBUH) as saying: ‘When Ramadan begins, the gates of Heaven are opened, the gates of Hell are locked, and the devils are chained.’
This is the month of the Holy Quran, and in this month falls the Night of Qadr, which is better than one thousand months. Allah chose this month and a particular night in this month to grace humanity with His Final Testament. The moment of this revelation became a sacred moment, and that time and month became an eternal time for us. Allah chose this time, and He has fi lled it with His countless blessings.
Ramadan is a special time to get closer to Allah and to seek His blessings and bounties. Wishing you all a blessed Ramadan.
MUSCAT: Blood donation is safe after breaking the fast in the even-ing and the donor will have no problem fasting the following day, a senior Omani health offi cial, told the Times of Oman.
Blood donation during Rama-dan will not aff ect a person’s abil-ity to observe a fast, said Dr Sabria Al Hashami, director of the De-partment of Blood Services at the Ministry of Health, while encour-aging people to donate blood given the anticipated reduction in sup-ply in the fasting month.
According to her, blood dona-tion drives will be conducted and the central blood bank will receive donors from 7.30p.m. to 11.30p.m. every day during Ramadan.
Mobile unitsMobile units will be operating dur-ing the same hours in diff erent lo-cations throughout the month.
Commenting on the demand for blood during Ramadan, Dr Al Hashami said, “The demand is a
dynamic process and sometimes diffi cult to predict. However, the main issue is the marked reduc-tion in the supply because of the fasting hours and the fact that not enough donors come for donation to the centre in the evenings or mobile units and blood donation drives outside.”
The gap between blood supply
and demand can be ‘severe’ dur-ing Ramadan for these reasons, she added.
The offi cial also noted that all blood groups during Ramadan are in short supply, specifi cally O and A blood groups.
Asked how many units of blood the central blood bank should have per day, Dr Al Hashami said that
a minimum of 200 units per day is required.
On the 95 per cent target for voluntary donation, she said, “In 2014, an overall 87 per cent of the total donations were from volun-tary donors across the Sultanate, but some of the blood banks of gov-ernorates are close to 90 per cent.”
She also said that the society is a
‘partner’ in the health-care system and the Department of Blood Ser-vices will certainly advocate and support such a partnership.
In addition, Dr Al Hashami re-ferred to the World Blood Donor Day, which was observed on June 14, saying that the allocation of a global day for blood donors is considered recognition of the en-tire world for the important role played by non-remunerated vol-untary blood donors.
MisconceptionCommenting on blood dona-tion during Ramadan, Dr Ahmed Hamed Al Wahaibi, senior con-sultant in Family Medicine at the Ministry of Health, said that some people are under the mis-conception that donating blood while fasting will invalidate their fast, but in fact you are not putting anything in the blood vessel that would break the fast.
It can be done both while fasting and after breaking the fast but the donor should be examined to make sure that he or she is fi t to donate blood, he told Times of Oman.
Medical experts have
clarifi ed that blood
donation is safe after
breaking the fast
in the evening and
the donor will have
no problem fasting.
Blood donation drive
will be held in Muscat
and central blood
bank will receive
donors from 7.30p.m.
to 11.30p.m. every
day in Ramadan
June
July
Thu
18Lulu
Bausher
Fri
19Mars
Al-Ghubra
Sat
20Rameez
Hypermarket
Sun
21Said bin Taimur
Mosque,Al-Khuwair
Mon
22City
Centre
Tue
23City
Centre
Wed
24Tariq bin Taimur
Mosque, Al-Khodh
Fri
26Al-Seeb
Souq
Sat
27Al-Zawawi
Mosque,Al-Khuwair
Sun
28Said bin Taimur
Mosque,Al-Khuwair
LuluWadi Kabir
Al-AmeratPark
Al-AmeratPark Rawasco,
Al-KhuwairAl-HijraMosque,
Al-Ansab
Al-Wafaamosque,Mabela
Mon
29Abu Obaida
Mosque, Al-Azaiba
Tue
30Al-Khoudh
Market
Wed
1Mabela
Souq
Sun
5Al-JeetaliMosque,Al-Hail
Mon
6City Centre
Seeb
Tue
7Sultan Qaboos
Mosque,Ruwi
Thu
9LuluSeeb
Fri
10JawaharatAl-Shatti,
Qurum
Mon
13Al-Khoudh
Market, Seeb
Tue
14Mazoon
Complex,Ruwi
RameezHypermarket
MarsHypermarket
Um Al-QuraMosque,
Al-AzaibaWholesaleAl-Amerat
CornicheMuttrah City
Center,Seeb
Hilal Al-KhaliliMosque,Bausher
CornicheMuttrah
SeebSouq
Ramadan 2015 mobile blood donation drive
Graphics
Exhaustion, speeding main cause of Ramadan accidentsTimes News Service
MUSCAT: Most accidents that happen during the holy month of Ramadan are due to exhaustion and speeding, a Royal Oman Po-lice (ROP) statement said.
“During Ramadan, the driver is exhausted as he stays up late which directly aff ects his driving ability. The body works involun-tarily when exhausted, which in turn forces the eyes to shut for a few seconds. Those few seconds can force the vehicle off its path and cause an accident,” the re-lease said.
Saying that speeding is also a reason for a mishaps during Ram-adan, ROP release said, “Drivers tend to speed before the Maghrib prayers to get home for iftar with their families and this, without doubt, results in numerous fatal accidents,” the statement said.
It added, “It is during Ramadan every year that a lot of accidents have been reported”.
The ROP has urged drivers to
stop and rest if they feel tired or sleepy. “If the driver feels sleepy, he should immediately engage in some activity to stay awake, such as opening the car window, speak-ing to a co-passenger, changing the posture, or stopping the car and walking a few paces. The driver must also focus on other vehicles and note the way they are driving. If they are weaving or are not driving at a steady pace, then
they are also on the verge of fall-ing asleep,” the statement said.
During the last few days of the month there have been cases of people being run over on the inner streets and markets as a result of the rush of families who are out shopping for Eid Al Fitr holidays.
Pedestrian movement increas-es during this time and the ROP has urged drivers to be careful when driving in congested areas.
A D V I S O R Y
PDO supports Nepal quake-hitTimes News Service
MUSCAT: A total OMR114,000 has been raised by Petroleum De-velopment Oman (PDO) after a staff appeal to help victims of the Nepal earthquake.
More than 1,300 employees do-nated money after the earthquake struck Nepal in April impacting thousands of families and causing widespread devastation.
The funds raised will be used to rebuild homes. The PDO has been working with Oman Charitable Organisation (OCO), which is un-der governmental fi nancial super-vision, to ensure all donations are used as eff ectively as possible.
Abdul Amir Al Ajmi, PDO’s external aff airs director, handed over a cheque for OMR114,000
to the OCO at its headquarters in Muscat.
He said, “There is a great spirit of compassion in the PDO and many of our staff members were very moved by what happened in
Nepal, especially as the country is still dealing with the aftermath of the disaster. Our staff asked us to organise an appeal and then vol-untarily made contributions from their salaries.”
R E L I E F E F F O R T S
SAFETY FIRST: The ROP has urged drivers to stop and rest if they
feel tired or sleepy.
HELPING HAND: The PDO staff organises an appeal and then vol-
untarily made contributions from their salaries.–Supplied photo
A6
OMANT H U R S DAY, J U N E 1 8 , 2 0 1 5
Oman Air is very happy with the Thales in-fl ight systems off ered in our aircraft. Their innovative graphical user interface enables business and economy passengers to control the same impressive list of entertaining and informative features
Engineer Abdulaziz Al Raisi, chief offi cer, management aff airs, Oman Air
MUSCAT: His Majesty Sultan Qa-boos bin Said has sent a cable of con-dolences to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of the Republic of Turkey on the death of former Turkish Pres-ident Suleyman Demirel. In his ca-ble, His Majesty the Sultan has ex-pressed his sincere condolences and sympathy to President Erdogan, the government and the Turkish peo-ple, praying to Allah the Almighty to rest the deceased’s soul in peace and grant his family patience. -ONA
T U R K E Y
MUSCAT: His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said has sent a cable of congratulations to President James Alix Michel of Seychelles on the oc-casion of his country’s National Day. In his cable, His Majesty the Sultan has expressed his sincere greetings and best wishes to President Michel and his country’s people. -ONA
S E Y C H E L L E S
The leaders expressed their warm greetings along with their best wishes to His Majesty the Sultan, praying to Allah the Almighty to protect His Majesty and grant him good health, happiness and a long life to achieve the aspirations of progress and prosperity for the Omani people. They prayed to Al-lah the Almighty for the return of this occasion on His Majesty, the Omani people, the Arab world and Islamic nations with bounties and blessings. -ONA
R A M A D A N
Oman Air to install Thales in-flight system in its fleet
Times News Service
MUSCAT: Oman Air has an-nounced that it has selected the Thales AVANT in-fl ight enter-tainment system for its fl eet ex-pansion. The national carrier of the Sultanate selected the AVANT Android system, enabling a fully customised passenger experience for Oman Air.
The announcement was made at the Paris Air Show on June 15.
It covers a total order of 25 air-craft — 16 B737s, three 3 A330s, and six B787s. These include the latest additions to Oman Air’s fl eet, as well as the airline’s forth-coming B787 Dreamliners, en-hancing both its narrow-body and
wide-body capacity.The technology that Oman
Air has selected will feature the state-of-the-art AVANT Android system and Thales’ Touch PMU handset. As a result, passengers will have access to a wide selec-tion of on-demand entertainment delivered through a passenger ex-
perience interface developed spe-cifi cally with Oman Air.
Engineer Abdulaziz Al Raisi, chief offi cer, management aff airs, Oman Air said, “Oman Air is very happy with the Thales in-fl ight systems off ered in our aircraft. Their innovative graphical user interface enables business and economy passengers to control the same impressive list of enter-taining and informative features.”
“Oman Air is currently under-going an expansion programme that will see us operate 70 aircraft by 2020. As our fl eet grows, we re-main committed to ensuring the highest standards of passenger experience.
The in-fl ight entertainment systems we deploy are a key part of that experience and we have al-ready received very positive cus-tomer feedback,” he said.
“Thales’ systems and services match well with what we want for
our passengers and operations. We found them to be the right company to work with and the whole team at Thales truly sup-ports our vision,” added Al Raisi.
Every day, 750,000 passengers across 75 partner airlines use Thales InFlyt Experience sys-tems, making the company one of the most successful developers of in-fl ight entertainment systems in the world.
Dominique Giannoni, chief executive offi cer, Thales InFlyt Experience said, “We are pleased that Oman Air selected our An-droid Avant system for their fl eet of B787s, B737s and A330s. Oman Air is undertaking signifi cant ex-pansion of their fl eet.
“Their choice of equipping their newest planes with the latest gen-eration AVANT is a testament to our long lasting partnership in delivering a premier passenger experience.”
The AVANT Android
system will enable
a fully customised
experience for Oman
Air passengers
BEST FACILITIES: Passengers will have access to a wide selection
of on-demand entertainment. –Supplied photo
Oman helps resolve world confl icts“These are probably the elements that are required to prevent youth from joining such extremist groups,” Al Kharusi said.
He said Oman can also be a peaceful leader by continuing its role as a neutral political player that helps countries in confl ict seeks solutions rather than being party to the confl icts itself, as it has done with Iran and the USA and now with Yemen. This is not just good for world peace but for the Omani society.
“I think this is what Oman is trying to do — bring people to-gether and try to make reconcilia-tion between them and try to solve whatever troubles or problems might occur in a peaceful manner. This benefi ts your own society as well as giving a good example for others,” he said.
Al Kharusi was able to repre-sent Oman’s peaceful and tolerant nature at the congress in Astana, which was a good opportunity for religious leaders from all back-grounds to work together to fi nd solutions to global problems. Inter-faith dialogue to promote peace and tolerance is important, but now world religious leaders need to put their words into ac-tion, he said.
The congress brings together religious and political leaders from many diff erent faiths and philosophies including Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Shintoism, Taoism, Zoroastrianism, and Baha’i, in-cluding leaders from within the diff erent sects and cultures of these religions.
The congress, an initiative that was started by Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev in 2003, is held every three years with the aim of fostering peace and toler-ance among diff erent religious
groups and in the world as a whole. This year much of the discussion focused on limiting religiously-inspired violence and extremism.
Irresponsible extremists“It is important and necessary for us to participate and give our thoughts and share our experi-ences and to listen, also, to people of other faiths and experiences, get their insights, and see what are the underlying elements of what we are witnessing now of irresponsi-ble extremist activities all around the world,” Al Kharusi said.
According to him, there is great value in listening to the other par-ticipants because they are infl u-ential, high-ranking religious rep-resentatives of their faiths. These leaders can give accurate por-trayals of their own religions and teach their own followers about other belief systems without rely-ing on stereotypes.
“In every faith there are, un-fortunately, some people who mislead their people and they present a distorted image about other faiths so unless you listen to people who are concerned,
who know about their own faiths, people of knowledge and pro-found experience, we wouldn’t be able to correct the stereo-typed image we have about other religions,” he said.
Many leaders spoke of the basic concepts of most religions, taken from their teachings and values, which tend to share the goals of peaceful coexistence, tolerance, combating extremism, and coun-tering violence and terrorism. While Al Kharusi sees the discus-sions between leaders of diff erent faiths as very important, he said positive talk isn’t enough.
“This means that the concepts that we are trying to present at such meetings are going to be no more than just theories. They aren’t going to fi nd their way to be implemented and be practised. This means we wouldn’t be able to counter terrorism. We wouldn’t be able to achieve peaceful coex-istence because we wouldn’t have any programmes. We don’t have any practical plans,” he noted.
Al Kharusi said that religious leaders need to put more empha-sis on the goals and create plans and strategies to reach them, rath-er than just speaking about the basic concepts of their faiths. He sees a need for short, medium and long-term plans to tackle current problems like terrorism.
“We have to be more ambitious and call for projects and plans and strategies to tackles problems like terrorism, to elevate high the level of implementing these recom-mendations in these societies,” he said.
Al Kharusi said one important change would be including youth in these discussions and address-ing their needs. There is a need to engage those who are at higher risk of being recruited by extrem-
ist groups because of their pov-erty, unemployment, lack of edu-cation, and lack of political and social involvement, he noted.
Extremism needs to be stud-ied and analysed to fi nd out why youth join and correct miscon-ceptions youth have and get them engaged in thoughtful activities and enlighten them about their religion and life, he said.
Causes of extremismAl Kharusi is optimistic that change is possible because he has noticed many leaders from diff er-ent Islamic sects and cultures not just denouncing terrorism and blaming it on others, but acknowl-edging that there are causes for extremism within their own so-cieties. More than 20 representa-tives of Islam spoke at the con-gress and he said they all admitted their societies’ failures.
“They are confessing, let’s say, that Muslims are suff ering from terrorism and extremism and they admit the fact that there should be something to be done. I think this confession is the fi rst step towards handling correctly the is-sue of terrorism,” said Al Kharusi.
Going forward, Al Kharusi said he and the other participants from the congress would take home the message of peace and tolerance and the need to make changes in their societies. They will share what they have learned with their followers.
“They are all convinced now they have to pass this message to their people and we have all agreed on this. We can’t underes-timate such a role. If we, all of us participants from diff erent faiths, traditional faiths and worldly faiths, if we are to do so and bear this responsibility, I think we can change a lot,” Al Kharusi said.
C A L L S F O R R E C O N C I L I A T I O N
HM sends condolences
HM sends greetings
< FROM
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Sheikh Dr Kahlan Nabhan Al
Kharusi, Assistant Grand Mufti
of Oman.
OMR292m realty deals inked in MayTimes News Service
MUSCAT: Trade contracts worth OMR292,211,518, were received along with fees total-ling OMR5,791,470 during May, Dr Ali Azzan Al Hashami, dep-uty registrar for transactions and auditing of real estate in the Ministry of Housing, has said.
He said 32,597 real estate deals were inked in the same month which included sale, gift, inheritance, and swap, apart from mortgage, foreclosure and dismantling transactions as well as visas.
Dr Al Hashami said the to-tal value of sale contracts was OMR149,562,081 from 7,049 transactions across all the gov-ernorates, and OMR4,398,257 was received as fees for those transactions. Dr Al Hashami also revealed that during May, 20,853 ownership titles were issued with some owned by other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) nationals.
Of these, 4,694 titles were is-sued in Muscat, 3,498 in North
Al Batinah, 3017 in South Al Batinah and 2,777 in Al Dakh-iliya, in addition to 1,948 titles in North Asharqiyah, 1,415 in A’Dhahira, 1,253 in South Asharqiyah and 1,200 in Dhofar.
Buraimi accounted for 530 ownership titles, Al Wusta for 342 and Musandam Gover-norates for 179 of them, apart from 4,786 new land plots that were registered. Al Hashmi also stated that 157 GCC nationals bought real estate in the Sul-tanate in May, of which UAE nationals owned 71 properties accounting for 45 per cent of the real estate owned. They were fol-lowed by Kuwait with 53 and 34 per cent, Bahrain with 21 and 13 per cent, Qatar with 11 and 7 per cent, and Saudi Arabia with one.
Most of the properties owned by GCC nationals are situated in North Al Batinah.
These totalled 46, or 29 per cent of the real estate compared to other governorates, with both Muscat and South Asharqiyah accounting for 15 per cent and 23 per cent respectively.
M I N I S T R Y O F H O U S I N G
On this occasion, the Ministry of Awqaf and Religious Aff airs has sent its congratulations and blessings to His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said on the advent of the Holy Month, praying to the Almighty Allah for the return of the Holy Month on His Majesty for many years to come. The ministry also congratulated Omani people and the Islamic Ummah (Na-tion) on this occasion. -ONA
R A M A D A N
Greetings
Moon sighting
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REGIONT H U R S DAY, J U N E 1 8 , 2 0 1 5
Qassem Al Rimi, the new military commander of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Al Rimi, aka Abu Huraira Al Sanaani, was among the Yemen-based group’s founders and its military chief who has recruited a generation of fi ghters. He succeeds to top ranking Yemeni militant Nasir Al Wuhayshi who was killed in a US drone strike in Yemen.
Al Qaeda kills two Saudis accused of spying for AmericaADEN: Al Qaeda militants in Yemen killed two alleged Saudi spies on Wednesday, residents said, accusing them of planting tracking devices which enabled the assassination of the group’s leader in a suspected US drone strike last week.
Residents said Al Qaeda charged the men with planting chips which pinpointed the location of several Al Qaeda commanders slain in recent months, including its boss Nasser Al Wuhayshi, whose death along with two other militants the group announced on Tuesday.
Images posted on social media by Al Qaeda supporters showed armed militants on a beach car-rying banners surrounding two
blindfolded men kneeling on the sand. “They executed two Saudis, named Al Mutairi and Al Khaledi. They put the two men on the cor-niche in the city of Mukalla... they opened fi re at them in front of a big group of residents,” one resident, who was present on the beach, told Reuters by telephone. He asked to stay anonymous for his own safety.
CorpsesThe men’s corpses were later pictured tied to wooden planks and hung from a bridge beneath a banner.
Later on Wednesday, residents reported that a suspected US drone bombed a Mukalla hotel used by Al Qaeda militants, killing six people.
Wuhayshi, a former aide to Osama bin Laden, also served as deputy leader of Al Qaeda’s global organi-sation, and his assassination de-prives Al Qaeda of a charismatic leader who directed a series of am-bitious attacks.
AQAP has plotted foiled bomb plots against international airlin-ers and claimed responsibility for the deadly shooting at the French satirical newspaper Charlie Heb-do. It has also orchestrated attacks inside Yemen in recent years, tar-geting government ministries, military camps and soldiers, killed hundreds of people.
Despite evacuating its embassy and intelligence offi cials from Yemen this year, the United States
has killed fi ve other senior fi gures in AQAP in 2015, but the organi-sation may be empowered by civil war raging in the country.
Analysts and Yemeni govern-ment offi cials say the strikes often rely on local informants.
Saudi Arabia has used a network of tribal and family connections to infi ltrate AQAP in Yemen, and a tip-off from Riyadh helped foil a planned suicide bomb attack on a plane over Detroit in 2009.
The Yemeni off -shoot of Al Qae-da has operated openly in Mukalla, the capital of Yemen’s southeast-ern province of Hadramout, since army forces withdrew in April, taking advantage of months of po-litical chaos and violence. — Reuters
Y E M E N
INFORMANTS EXECUTED: A man walks in the old quarter of Sanaa,
Yemen on Tuesday. Residents said Al Qaeda charged the men with
planting chips which pinpointed the location of several Al Qaeda
commanders slain in recent months. – Reuters
A8
INDIAT H U R S DAY, J U N E 1 8 , 2 0 1 5
‘Government should ensure Lalit returns to face probe’
CHENNAI: Rejecting allegations of vendetta levelled against him and the UPA, former fi nance min-ister P. Chidambaram on Wednes-day demanded that the govern-ment should ensure that Lalit Modi returns to India to face the probe by Enforcement Directo-rate on various charges, including money laundering.
Addressing a press conference, he said External Aff airs Minister Su-shma Swaraj’s action in helping the tainted former IPL boss get travel documents from the UK was in vio-lation of rules and a case of favourit-ism shown to someone she knew.
He also demanded as to who de-cided not to appeal against the Del-hi High Court decision to restore the passport of Modi last year as normally a reversing decision is al-ways challenged in a higher court.
The Congress leader wanted the government to release the let-
ters exchanged between him as Fi-nance Minister and the Chancel-lor of Exchequer George Osborne in which he had urged for sending Modi back to India since he was facing criminal charges here.
He said after the reply to his fi rst letter, he had written a second let-ter couched in stronger words to Osborne that Modi was facing in-vestigations in India, his passport has been revoked, he had no right to live in the UK and he should be sent back to India.
Humanitarian gestureChidambaram raised the question if Swaraj wanted to help Modi as a humanitarian gesture as was being claimed why did she not write to the Indian High Commission and ask for the issue of Indian travel documents to him instead of rec-ommending issue of UK travel documents.
Chidambaram demanded dis-closure of fi le notings in the MEA about who decided not to appeal against the High Court order.
“Someone had taken the decision and I would like to know who took it. When a division bench of the high court sets aside cancellation of Lalit Modi’s passport, who took the decision not to fi le an appeal in the Supreme Court. Was ED at whose instance the passport was cancelled consulted in the matter.
“Furthermore, who took the de-cision to issue a fresh passport to Lalit Modi. Will the government make public fi le notings,” he said.
The former minister said Modi was an Indian passport holder and his stay in London without visa was in violation of all rules and that was one of the grounds on which his return was demanded.
“Why did Swaraj help him get a long term visa or a residency of
Britain when he was facing serious criminal charges in India,” Chid-ambaram said.
If it was a question of humani-tarian ground, then why did she not stress on Modi’s return to India to face charges while help-ing him get travel documents, he said adding it was clearly a case of abuse of authority and violations of rules.
The charges under provisions of FEMA and Money Laundering Act were serious criminal off ences levelled against Modi, he said.
On the charge of vendetta he said Finance Minister Arun Jait-ley’s reply on Tuesday that notices in 15 of the 16 cases against Modi still stood spoke for itself.
Asked why Modi was not barred from leaving India in 2010, the for-mer fi nance minister said, “At that time there was no ban on his travel and that it was only a stage of in-
quiry. Why do you assume he will not return.”
Asked about the prime minis-ter’s silence, he referred to Jait-ley’s reply on Tuesday that the whole government shared a col-lective responsibility for decisions taken by a minister and said, “I assume that the Prime Minister takes responsibility as PM.”
Replying to other questions, Chidambaram said on the ba-sis of facts disclosed so far it was an abuse of authority and violation of rules.
To a question about the defence by BJP of Swaraj after RSS came out in her support, he said, “It shows who is the master.”
To a BJP charge that Congress has raked up the issue because there are woman leaders, he said it was rubbish and told journalists not to lend dignity to such allega-tions by raising them. -PTI
Congress leader P.
Chidambaram said
External Aff airs
Minister Sushma
Swaraj’s action in
helping the tainted
former IPL boss to
get travel documents
from the UK was in
violation of rules
and a case of
favouritism shown to
someone she knewPROTEST: Congress activists protest against the central government over the Lalit Modi controversy in Kolkata on Wednesday. - PTI
Prime Minister
launches
‘Narendra Modi
Mobile App’ to
connect with all
NEW DELHI: Stepping up his digital presence, the prime min-ister on Wednesday launched ‘Narendra Modi Mobile App’ to provide instant updates and an opportunity to receive messag-es and emails directly from him.
The Android-based appli-cation is also aimed at giving a chance to people to interact with him and share ideas and suggestions.
“Launched ‘Narendra Modi Mobile App’. Come, lets stay connected on the mobile! The Mobile App has several innova-tive features. You can download it from Play Store. Feedback is welcome,” Modi tweeted.
The application description said, “download the app and get the latest updates anywhere, anytime! Highlights of the Nar-endra Modi app include receiv-ing the latest news and updates, exclusive opportunity to receive e-Mails & Messages directly from the PM and ‘Mann Ki Baat’ with the PM.”
It further said, “small Tasks, big satisfaction: contrib-ute and earn Badges through to-do tasks.”
InteractionApart from providing a chance to interact with the Prime Minister and share ideas and suggestions, it will also give latest thoughts from Modi and his blogs.
“Know more about PM Nar-endra Modi through unique insights in the Biography sec-tion as also his governance ini-tiatives and achievements,” the description said, adding learn more about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s eff orts aug-menting India’s global recogni-tion and how governance was improving lives through info-graphics. - PTI
S H A R I N G I D E A S
J&K shuts down over Sopore killings
SRINAGAR: Shops and schools shut down in parts of Indian-administered-Kashmir on Wednesday to protest against a string of apparently targeted kill-ings that has triggered fear in the restive region.
Hundreds of police and para-military troops in riot gear pa-trolled Kashmir’s mostly deserted main city of Srinagar after separa-tist groups called a strike over the killings which they have blamed on undercover security forces.
Unidentifi ed gunmen have killed four separatist activists in-cluding two former rebels in the last week in the Sopore area of northern Kashmir.
“The eff ect of the strike is widespread across towns in the Kashmir valley and other Muslim majority areas of the state also,” a senior police offi cer said on con-dition of anonymity.
The killings began on June 9 when gunmen shot and killed a member of a group led by top sep-aratist leader Syed Ali Geelani.
That was followed by the kill-ing of three more activists — one a sympathiser of the same group
and two former rebels — a few days later. Police said initial in-vestigations indicated rebel group Hizbul Mujahideen was behind the attacks and announced a re-ward of two million rupees for information.
“Many people whose political leanings are known are fl eeing
Sopore,” a former rebel from the area, who wished not to be named, said. Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mufti Mohammad Syed called a meeting of top gener-als and top security offi cials for Wednesday, after earlier order-ing a probe into who was behind the deaths. - PTI
T A R G E T E D K I L L I N G S
DESERTED: A security jawan stands guard at Lal Chowk in Srina-
gar on Wednesday during a strike against the recent killings in
Sopore town of Jammu and Kashmir. - PTI
Why did Swaraj help him get a long term visa or a residency of Britain when he was facing serious criminal charges in India
P. Chidambaram, Congress leader
A10
FIND-IT-ALLT H U R S DAY, J U N E 1 8 , 2 0 1 5
PRAYER TIMINGS
Dhuhr 12.13pm
Asr 3.31pm
Maghrib 7.00pm
Isha 8.23pm Fajr (Tomorrow) 3.53am
OMAN
Max 40Min 33
Max 34Min 30
Max 35Min 29
Max 46Min 30
Max 41Min 28Max 43
Min 28
Max 43Min 28
Max 33Min 29
PARTLY cloudy skies over governorate of Dhofar with chances of isolated rain and mainly clear skies over the rest of the Sultanate. Chance of late night and early morning low level cloud or fog patches over most of the coastal areas of the Sultanate and chance of convective clouds development over Al Hajar mountains and adjoining areas associated with isolated rain occasionally thundershowers and downdraft winds during afternoon. EXPECTED WIND: Along the coastal areas of Dhofar and Al Wusta governorates wind will be southwesterly moderate to fresh, while it will be easterly to southeasterly light to moderate occasionally fresh over the rest of the Sultanate.SEA STATE: Rough along the southeastern coast with a maximum wave height of 4 metres and moderate along the rest of Oman’s coast with a maximum wave height of 2 metres.HORIZONTAL VISIBILITY: Good over most of the Sultanate becoming poor during thundershowers and fog.THE NEXT 48 HOURS OUTLOOK: Partly cloudy skies over governorate of Dhofar with chance of intermittent drizzle over mountains and the coastal areas. Chances of convective clouds developments over Al Hajar mountains and adjoining areas during evening and chances of rain occasionally thundershowers may be associated with hail and fresh wind.Chances of late night and early morning low level clouds or shallow fog over most of thecoastal areas.
Kuala Lumpur 31 24Lisbon 33 19London 23 14Madrid 28 15Manila 34 27Mexico City 21 15Miami 29 27Moscow 18 12New Delhi 41 23New York 27 18Oslo 15 12Panama 32 26Paris 21 15Perth 22 15Prague 18 12Rio de Janeiro 29 22Santiago 21 10Seoul 30 18Singapore 30 28Stockholm 14 11Sydney 17 13Taipei 37 27Tokyo 24 18Toronto 23 17Vienna 22 16
PHARMACIESRound the clockAl Hashar Pharmacy, Ruwi: 24783334Appolo Medical Centre, Hamriya: 24782666Muscat PharmacyRuwi: 24702542, Salalah: 23291635Atlas PharmacyGhubra: 24503585; Ruwi 24811715Muscat RegionAl Hashar, Ruwi1 24 Hr Br. Tel. 24537080Muscat, Al Sarooj. Tel: 24695536Belqees, Al Khoudh (OIB) Tel. 24535398Belqees, Ma’abelah. Tel: 24454624Dhofar RegionMuscat, Al Nahdha Road, Salalah. Tel. 23291635
HOSPITALS1st Chiropractic Centre: 24472274Al Amal Medical & Health Care Centre: 24485052Al Musafi r Specialised Medical Clinic: 24706453Hatat Polyclinic LLC,Ruwi: 24563641, Azaiba: 24499269, Sohar: 2683006Al Raff ah Hospital: 24618900/1/2Al Massaraat Clinic & Laboratory: 24566435Al Makook Medical Coordinance Centre: 24499434Apollo Medical Centre, Hamriya: 24787766, 24787780Capital Polyclinic: 24707549Badr Al Samaa Polyclinic, Ruwi: 24799760/1/2Capital Clinic, Seeb: 24420740Ceregem National Raak: 24485633Dr Harub’s Clinic: 24563217Elixir Health Centre: 24565802Emirates Medical Centre: 24604540Hamdan Hospital: 23212340International Medical Centre LLC: 24794501/2/3/4/5Kims Oman Hospital: 2476010024 Hrs Emergency: 24760123Lama Polyclinic, Sohar: 26751128,
MBD: 24799077, Al Khuwair: 24478818Magrabi Eye and Ear Hospital: 24568870Muscat Private Hospital: 24583600Welcare Diagnostic and Treatment Centre, Al Khuwair: 24477666Al-Hayat Polyclinc LLC: 22004000
ROYAL OMAN POLICEEmergencies and inquiries: 9999General Directorate of Passport and Residence: 24569603Directorate General of Customs: 24521109Traffi c violations inquiries: 24510228Public Relations Admin: 24560099
ACCOMMODATIONAl Bahjah Hotel: 24424400Al Bustan Palace: 24764000 Al Khuwair Hotel Apartments: 24478171Al Madina Holiday Inn: 24596400Al Maha International Hotel: 24494949Al Fanar Hotel: 24712385Al Falaj Hotel: 24702311Al Qurum Resort: 24605945Azaiba Hotel Apartments: 24490979Beach Hotel: 24696601Bowshar Hotel: 24491105Coral Hotel Muscat: 24692121Crowne Plaza Muscat: 24660660Crystal Suites: 24826100Golden Tulip Seeb: 24510300Grand Hyatt Muscat: 24641234Haff a House Hotel: 24707207Hotel Muscat Holiday: 24487123InterContinental Muscat: 24680000Majan Continental Hotel: 24592900Marina Hotel: 24711711Midan Hotel Suites: 24499565Mina Hotel: 24711828Muttrah Hotel: 24798401Nuzha Hotel Apartments: 24789199Oman Dive Centre: 24824240Park Inn: 24507888Qurum Beach House Hotel: 24564070Radisson Blu Hotel: 24487777Ramee Dream Resort Seeb: 24453399Ramee Guestline Hotel: 24564443
Ruwi Hotel: 24704244Safeer Hotel Suites: 24691200Sheraton Oman Hotel: 24772772Shangri-La’s Barr Al Jissah Resort and Spa: 24776666The Chedi Muscat: 24524400The Treasurebox Muscat Hotel: 24502570Sifawy Hotel +968 24749111Juweira Hotel +968 23239600
MUSEUMSBait Al Baranda: Corniche (seafront opp fi sh market), Open from Saturday to Thursday 9am to 1pm and 4 to 6pmNatural History Museum: Al Khuwair, Tel: 24604957, Open from Sat to Wed: 8am to 1:30pm Thurs: 9am to 1pmMuseum of Omani Heritage: (former Omani Museum), Madinat Al Alam, Sat-Wed 8am to 1:30pm, Thursday - 9am to 1pm, Tel: 24600946Armed Forces Museum: Bait Al Falaj, Tel: 24312651, Open from Sat to Wed: 8am to 1:30pm; Thurs 9-12pm and 3-6pm; Fri 9-11am and 3-6pm. Al Hoota Caves 24498258; Turtle Beach 96550606/96550707Children’s Science Museum: Shatti Al Qurum, Tel: 24605368, Open from Sat to Wed: 8am to 1:30pm, Thursday: 9am to 1pmOman-French Museum: near Muscat Police Station, Tel: 24736613, Open from Sat to Wed: 8am to 1:30pm, Thurs: 9am to 1pmBait Al Zubair, Muscat: Tel: 24736688, Al Saidiya St., [email protected] from Sat to Thurs: 9:30am to 6pm.National Museum Ruwi: Tel: 24701289, Open from Sat to Wed: 8am to 1:30pm, Thursday: 9am to 1pmSohar Fort Museum: Tel: 26844758, Open from Sat to Wed: 8 to 1:30pm Thurs: 9am to 1pmMuscat Gate Museum: At Al Bahri Road, Muscat open from Sat to Wed 8am to 2pm
L I S T I N G S
LISTINGS
LONG DISTANCE BUS TIMINGS (OMAN NATIONAL TRANSPORT COMPANY SAOC) *SUBJECT TO CHANGE
QURIYAT - SUR - JAALAN (Route 36)Dept Destination Arrival Operating Time Time Days 15:00 Quriyat 16:30 Daily15:00 Sur 18:00 Daily15:00 Jaalan 19:30 Daily
FROM JAALAN-SUR-QURIYAT (Route 36)Dept Destination Arrival Operating Time Time Days 05:30 Sur 06:45 Daily05:30 Quriyat 08:30 Daily05:30 Ruwi 10:00 Daily
TO AL BURAIMI (Route 41)06:30 Sohar 08:50 Daily06:30 Buraimi 11:00 Daily08:00 Buraimi 14:30 Daily via Ibri13:00 Sohar 15:45 Daily13:00 Buraimi 17:40 Daily16.00 Sohar 18.35 Daily16.00 Buraimi 20:20 Daily
TO AL BURAIMI (Route 41)07:00 Sohar 08:55 Daily07:00 Ruwi 11:40 Daily13:30 Ruwi 20:20 Daily via Ibri13:00 Sohar 14:55 Daily13:00 Ruwi 17:40 Daily13:00 Sohar 19:20 Daily17:00 Ruwi 22:15 Daily
TO SINAW (Route 52)17:30 Sinaw 20:50 Daily
TO SINAW (Route 52)07:00 Ruwi 10:25 Daily
To Yanqul (Route 54)14:30 Nizwa 16:50 Daily14:30 Yanqul 19:30 Daily
To Yanqul (Route 54)06:00 Nizwa 08:40 Daily06:00 Ruwi 11:00 Daily
TO IBRI (ARAQI) (Route 54)08:00 Nizwa 10:20 Daily08:00 Al Araqi 12:30 Daily
SALALAH TO DUBAI (Route 102)15:00 Dubai 07:00 Daily
TO MARMUL (Route 101)06:00 Marmul 16:30 Daily
DUBAI TO SALALAH (Route 102)15:00 Salalah 07:00 Daily
TO DUBAI VIA FUJIRAH & SHARJAH (Route 204)Dept Destination Arrival Operating Time Time Days 07:00 Fujairah 11.45 Daily07:00 Sharjah 13.30 Daily07:00 Dubai 14.00 Daily
FROM DUBAI VIA FUJIRAH & SHARJAH (Route 204)Dept Destination Arrival Operating Time Time Days 16:00 Sharjah 16:30 Daily16.00 Fujairah 18.15 Daily16.00 Ruwi 23.00 Daily
FROM MUSCAT (RUWI) TO MUSCAT (RUWI)
CHINA: A cycle-rickshaw driver rides through a puddle following
heavy rain in Beijing. -AFP
—www.met.gov.om
E V E N T S
Indo- Pak Mushaira on July 31 at Al Bahja Hall in Qurum.
Art of Living Foundation to organise Yogathon on June 21 at Bowsher Sports Complex Muscat supported by Ministry of Sports Aff airs, Ministry of Health and Embassy of India.
Mobile mammography unit of the Oman Cancer Association will be off ering its screening services throughout Ramadan. The unit will be available for free mammography at the OCA headquarters in Al Ghubra between 9.30 am to 1 pm and 10 pm to 11.30 pm. For further information call 24498716 and 80077477.
Blood donation schedule, apart from the central blood bank, people can donate in other locations based on the following schedule in Ramadan: June 18: Lulu Hypermarket, Bausher (mobile unit) June 19: Mars Hypermarket, Al Ghubra (mobile unit); June 20: Rameez Hypermarket (mobile unit) and Lulu Hypermarket, Wadi Kabir (mobile unit); June 21: Said Bin Taimoor Mosque, Al
Khuwair (mobile unit); June 22: City Centre and Al Amerat Park (mobile unit); June 23: City Centre and Al Amerat Park (mobile unit); June 24: Al Saed Tariq Mosque, Al Khodh (mobile unit) and Rawasco, Al Khuwair (mobile unit).
The Port Security And Coastal Surveillance Oman, organised by the Global Exhibitions & Conferences LLC, 17th August to the 18th August 2015 at the InterContinental Muscat.
Food & Hospitality Oman, Oman International Exhibition Centre, Muscat, Oman, 07-09 Sep 2015.
Oman Health Exhibition & Conference is a 3 day event being held from 7th September to the 9th September 2015 at the Oman International Exhibition Centre in Muscat.
C I N E M A S C H E D U L E
BAHJA CINEMA
STARS CINEMA
Film Information - 24540856 / Advance Booking - 24540855Website: www.albahjacinemaoman.com
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Jurassic World (Action / Adventure)Cast: Chris Pratt, Judy Greer, Ty Simkins9.30 pmCP No: 1495 (PG12)
Dead 2 India (Horror )Cast: Joseph Milson, Meenu Mishra, Anand Krishna Goyal11.45 pm CP No: 1512 (18+)
The Homesman (Drama) Cast: Tommy Lee Jones, Hilary swank, Grace Gummer11.45 pmCP No: 1513 (12+)
Dil Dhadakne Do (Romance/Drama/Comedy ) – PG12Cast: Anil Kapoor, Ranveer Singh, Shefali Shetty, Anushka Sharma Priyanka Chopra 9.45 pm
The Dead 2: India - 2D (18+) HorrorCast: Joseph Millson, Meenu Mishra, Anand Krishna Goyal11:55 pm
A11
PAKISTANT H U R S DAY, J U N E 1 8 , 2 0 1 5
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‘Politicians are better suited to run country’
ISLAMABAD: In a surprising outburst ostensibly against the powerful security establishment, Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari said on Tuesday that politicians were bet-ter suited to running the aff airs of the country.
“You are here for only three years,” he said in an apparent jab at the army chief.
Addressing an oath-taking ceremony for PPP offi ce-bear-ers from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, Zardari said, “I know the art of war better than anyone else.”
Organised by former lawmaker and Pakistan Peoples’ Party Fata President Akhunzada Chattan, the event was attended by PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and other prominent leaders of the former ruling party.
The PPP co-chairman ex-pressed annoyance at the pur-ported character-assassination campaign against him and his party.
“It needs to stop! There is a lim-it to everything.”
Warning the establishment, which he accused of tarnishing PPP’s and his image, Zardari said, “Anyone who tries to disturb us will get a befi tting response. Be wary! If this doesn’t stop now, I shall come out with a list of gener-als who have been accused start-ing from the time Pakistan came
into being. And then you’ll spend the rest of your lives providing ex-planations.”
In an apparent reference to the power he is supposed to wield, the former president said he could bring the whole country to a standstill on a single call.
“If I give one call, the whole country from Karachi to Khyber will come to a grinding halt.
“The lockdown will continue until I call it off .”
Zardari said he wanted to sup-port the Pakistan Army since it was “being challenged by the neighbouring India on the bor-ders while terrorist organisa-tions and India’s primary foreign intelligence agency, the Research & Analysis Wing, were creating chaos within Pakistan”.
In the same vein, Zardari said he was aware who pulled the strings of banned outfi ts and cler-ics, alluding to their alleged collu-sion with the establishment.
Lashing out at his political ri-vals, the PPP co-chairman said had he supported Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf when it arrived in Islamabad with a sit-in to topple the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government, Imran would have succeeded.
“Being a supporter of democ-racy, I wanted the PML-N govern-ment to complete its tenure,” he said. “It would make me happy if the incumbent administration
could improve the economy.”The ruling party will have no
excuse that they were not given enough time, said Zardari. “I am not in a hurry. I can wait for the sake of democracy.”
He also lashed out at former president Pervez Musharraf, who has been in Karachi for the past several months and has been politicking from the plat-form of his party, the All Pakistan Muslim League.
“I spent years in jail… but the commando could not spend three months in prison.”
Zardari’s speech comes days after paramilitary Rangers Sindh chief Major-General Bilal Akbar blamed a nexus of political lead-ers, civil servants and gang lords of fostering and harbouring or-ganised crime and terrorism in Karachi, as well as amid reports that the authorities were mulling over extending the scope of the ongoing operation in Sindh, the province that the PPP has been governing since 2008.
PPP leaders have been mak-ing angry speeches in parlia-ment after the Rangers chief’s statements, but pundits are at-taching much importance to the timing of Zardari’s speech, since the former president had been in a conciliatory mode on a number of issues after his party lost the 2013 general elections after completing their fi ve-year tenure. — Express Tribune
Warning the security
establishment,
which he accused
of tarnishing PPP’s
and his image, PPP
co-chairman Asif Ali
Zardari said, ‘Anyone
who tries to disturb
us will get a
befi tting response’
Anyone who tries to disturb us will get a befitting
response. Be wary! If this doesn’t stop now, I shall
come out with a list of generals who have been
accused starting from the time Pakistan came into
being. And then you’ll spend the rest of your lives
providing explanations
Asif Ali ZardariPakistan People’s Party co-chairman
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Wednesday censured former President Asif Ali Zardari for his tirade against the army, saying the PPP co-chairman’s speech was unacceptable in times of war.
“Criticising the army will only strengthen elements who want to destabilise Pakistan,” said the Nawaz.
“The army and sol-diers are fi ghting Opera-tion Zarb-e-Azb and the entire nation supports them,” he said.
UnacceptableHolding a consultative meeting at the Prime Minister’s House to discuss Zardari’s state-ments, the PM said, “Criticism against the armed forces is unaccep-table.” — Express Tribune
Nawaz condemns outburst
Minister accuses his offi cials of corruptionKARACHI: Sindh Minister for In-quiry and Inspection Haji Muzzaf-far Ali Shujra on Tuesday levelled serious allegations of corruption against offi cials working under his own government.
Addressing a press conference on Tuesday, Shujra said offi cials working at various provincial government departments, par-ticularly fi nance, education and health, had developed a strong co-ordination to loot and plunder the public money. Shujra – who is co-ordinator to Sindh chief minister’s inquiry and inspection team and has the status of a provincial min-ister – said the offi cials working in these departments had siphoned off funds by violating the rules.
“An example of corruption is of-fered by some offi cials in the home department who disfi gured an amount mentioned in a summary moved by chief minister and mis-appropriated Rs200 million,” he said. He said Sindh chief minister had ordered not to build new po-lice stations but home department amended his summary and or-dered to establish more police sta-tions, while renovating preexisting ones in various districts.
“Some time ago, the chief min-ister directed offi cials of home de-partment not to build a police sta-tion except in Shikarpur district, but offi cials changed the order. We have started inquiry into the aff air to fi nd out as to who did this and on whose orders,” he said, adding that he had recorded the statement of three former home secretaries in this regard.
Shujra, who was fl anked by of-fi cials of his department, said that chief minister has given him full authority and around 284 inquir-ies of various government depart-
ments and offi cials have been initi-ated by him.
Talking about the illegal ap-pointments in local government department, he said hundreds of jobs had been given against the rules. “Around 1,500 employees were appointed in Tando Ghu-lam Hyder in a day. The local offi -cials involved in it received hefty amount,” he said.
“Some 105 fake employees were also appointed in education de-partment in Naushehro Feroz. Not only these people were appointed, but they were given huge amount in the name of outstanding dues,” he added. The CM’s coordinator said offi cials of food department stocked government wheat in a private factory and then got a gov-ernment loan, showing the wheat as their property. — Express Tribune
S INDH
An example of corruption
is offered by some officials
in the home department
who disfigured an amount
mentioned in a summary
moved by chief minister
and misappropriated
around Rs200 million
Haji Muzzaffar Ali ShujraSindh Minister for Inquiry and Inspection
Seven killed in house fi re
RAWALPINDI: A family of seven burned to death Wednesday when a fi re broke out in their home due to a short circuit, in Rawalpindi’s Chaklala Scheme-III, Express News reported.
According to Radio Pakistan fi re erupted in the double-storey house while Shaukat Cheema, 35 and his wife Aisha, 32 were asleep in the house with their fi ve young
children. Excessive suff ocation subsequently lead to the death of all seven family members. The eld-est of the children, Hasan, was 14, while Fatima being the youngest was four years old.
Rescue teams and police arrived at the scene and shifted the family to District Headquarters Hospi-tal where they were pronounced dead. — Express Tribune
RAWALP IND I
COMMEN ARYT I M E S O F O M A NT H U R S DAY, J U N E 1 8 , 2 0 1 5
Founder: Essa bin Mohammed Al Zedjali Chairman and Editor-in-Chief: Mohamed Issa Al ZadjaliDeputy Editor-in-Chief: Anees bin Essa Al Zedjali Chief Executive Offi cer: Ahmed Essa Al Zedjali
Printed and published by: Muscat Media GroupP.O. Box 770, Ruwi, Postal Code: 112, Sultanate of Oman.
A crocodile swimming down a city street. A bear hugging an air con-ditioner outside a second-fl oor apartment window. A hippo loiter-ing outside a Swatch store. Pen-guins drowned. And a young white lion dead from a police bullet to the
head. Those are images from Tbilisi, the capital of the Republic of Georgia, where fl ash fl oods last weekend killed 12 people and devastated the local zoo.
The elements will sometimes do worse things to a city. One has to wonder, though, what the lion, the pen-guins and the apes (all among the 300 zoo animals that perished in the fl oods) were doing in cages and fenced-off enclosures in a narrow valley in the middle of a city -- as defenceless in the fl ood as prison inmates would have been. Zoos these days say their goals are conser-vation and biological research, but they are really the same inhumane menageries that existed 100 and 200 years ago. The tragedy should make governments re-view the rules for keeping wild animals in captivity. The Tbilisi Zoo was set up in 1927 in the valley of the Vere River, which fl ows through the Georgian capital. After the weekend’s fl oods, Georgia’s spiritual leader, Patriarch Ilia II, blamed the Communists for the dis-aster, saying the zoo had been fi nanced with money from the sale of melted-down church bells. “The zoo must be closed and a new one built in a diff erent place because this one is built on sin,” Ilia II said.
More likely, the problem was that the zoo was just too close to the river. In the last years of former presi-dent Mikheil Saakashvili’s reformist administration, there was talk of relocating the zoo to a safer place. A new road had been built in the valley, and traffi c noise and exhaust made conditions even worse for the ani-mals, already living in cages and enclosures too small to allow the big cats or wolves enough exercise. Then Saakashvili’s party lost an election in 2012 to a bloc led by billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, and most infra-structure investment in Tbilisi stopped.
Ivanishvili himself keeps a menagerie in his na-tive village of Chorvila. He is especially fond of his penguins. I was told an apocryphal story about them in Tbilisi. Apparently, one of the penguins choked on a swallow. “What was the swallow doing down the penguin’s gullet?” Ivanishvili supposedly yelled at his menagerie keeper. “The real question is what the pen-guin was doing in Chorvila,” the man replied.
That question applies to Tbilisi and, in fact, to any big city that has a zoo full of exotic animals.
Zoo defenders say the establishments have evolved into important science and conservation centers.
“The work that organisations like the Wildlife Con-servation Society -- headquartered at the Bronx Zoo -- do is invaluable in the fi ght against species decline and extinction,” John Scott of Fordham University wrote in a 2012 paper. “Therefore the modern zoo serves as a vessel both for the conservation of the ani-mal kingdom, but also to inspire and foster a new gen-eration committed to the preservation of all species.”
The Tbilisi Zoo, too, lists conservation as its No. 1 purpose, and recreation only as an afterthought. Still, zoos are primarily fi nanced by the sale of tickets and concessions, and conservation doesn’t require that animals be removed from their natural habitats and locked up. The penguins that died in the Tbilisi fl ood were of a rare African variety teetering on the edge of extinction. Why couldn’t conservationists take care of them in South Africa, where they can be reintroduced into the wild without traveling 7,600 miles?
The Tbilisi Zoo initially housed mainly local spe-cies, and its researchers did a lot of hybridisation work aimed at breeding. For example, they tried but failed to produce a cross between a peacock and a tur-key. This kind of thing may sound funny, but it actually makes some sense. In contrast, keeping a lion in a cage half a world away from where wild lions roam does nothing for conservation. Theoretically, it could serve a legitimate educational goal, but it didn’t in Tbilisi: The police who simply shot many of the animals that escaped during the fl ood seemed to know nothing of their expected behaviour toward humans. That’s how Shumba, a white lion that was a favourite with the lo-cal kids, died. “I know for sure there were no orders to kill,” Zurab Gurielidze, the zoo’s director, said. In the debate over the modern zoo’s split personality, there’s plenty for professionals to argue about. Given that they never have enough funding for their research, the loss of revenue from zoos could hardly be welcome. What’s more, companies that run zoos will fi ght tooth and claw against their closure, as a fi rm called the Pro Zoo Foundation did in Costa Rica. Last year, Pro Zoo prevailed, winning the right to manage the country’s two zoos for another 10 years.
Despite this opposition, the world should move away from the zoo industry’s inhumane legacy. Travel is getting cheaper and easier, and documentaries can easily show kids lions that aren’t locked in cages. Sci-entists would hardly argue against setting up govern-ment-funded research bases near the animals’ habi-tats as an alternative to big-city zoos. What happened in Tbilisi shouldn’t be written off as just another natu-ral disaster: For the animals that died, there was noth-ing natural about it. — Bloomberg View
Close zoos, in tribute to dead lion of Tbilisi
One has to wonder, though, what the lion, the penguins and the apes (all among the 300 zoo animals that perished in the floods) were doing in cages and fenced-off enclosures in a narrow valley in the middle of a city — as defenceless in the flood as prison inmates would have been
Letters, containing not more than 200 words with full name, address and telephone number, may be sent by mail (Times of Oman, P.O. Box 770, P.C. 112, Ruwi), by fax (24813153) or by e-mail ([email protected])
CRIME AGAINST NATURE
After nearly two decades of fl irtation, Donald Trump has fi nal-ly put his considerable money into a presidential campaign, which will make the race more entertaining.
Outside of professional wrestling, no one mixes ego with bravado quite like Trump.
But say this for Donald Trump: He is a brilliant salesman. It is a use-ful talent to have in politics. The man himself may have had his share of fi nancial and professional challenges, but the Trump name endures as a distinctively American brand of gaudy luxury.
Whether Trump is worth the $8.7 billion he claims — and most esti-mates are far lower — hardly matters. He has enough money to self-fi -nance his campaign, enough to stay in the race for as long as he wants. That could prove to be a nightmare scenario for the Republican Party, not only because of Trump’s eagerness to attack his fellow party mem-bers, but also because of his penchant for appealing to the party’s bas-est instincts. His announcement speech was heavy on saber-rattling toward China and Mexico. In Trump’s view, the two countries are de-stroying the American economy because US leaders are terrible nego-tiators. Luckily, Trump knows “the smartest negotiators in the world” — he may even be one himself — who would do things like threaten auto manufacturers with massive tariff s if they move jobs overseas. This, despite pronouncing himself a supporter of free trade.
Trump’s comments on Mexican immigrants (“They’re bringing crime,”) stood in sharp contrast to the inclusive tone that Jeb Bush set in his announcement speech on Monday. If the Republican candidate with the biggest megaphone is also the most hostile to Mexico, it will be diffi cult for the party to win over Hispanic voters. With any luck, his Republican rivals will realise they cannot trump Trump’s jingoism and feel compelled to refute it. — Bloomberg View
Is the GOP ‘Trumped’?
For an event which has been looming for many months, indeed years, the possible exit of Greece from the euro still possesses an unusual capacity to spook fi nancial markets. Shares across
Europe have been dropping sharply all week, which does raise the question as to whether equity investors are an unusually inattentive bunch. According to the latest German fi gures, the continuing doubts about Greece’s ability or willingness to honour its debts is having a de-pressing eff ect on business confi dence in Europe’s largest economy. In so many Greek dramas in the past, there was a feeling that, in the end, the can would be kicked further down the road, to employ an overused phrase.
This time, though, there is a nervousness that a reckoning is upon us. The rhetoric of the Greek government does not help. On Monday, the Prime Minster Alexis Tsipras was defi ant as ever, declaring that his mandate from the Greek people was to end austerity, as if simply voting for an anti-austerity party is enough for a nation to have its debts forgiven by the rest of the world. He said that Europe wishes to “humiliate” Greece, with the ECB wanting fi nancial “strangulation”.
Tsipras speaks as though Greece had been somehow forced into taking on this vast mountain of debt in the fi rst place, as if it were a kind of reparations imposed on it after a war. It was not. The debt was freely taken on by Greece as one of the benefi ts of joining the euro, and being able to borrow on international markets at low, German-style interest rates. Those funds were then, by and large, consumed rather than invested in the Greek economy.
That, in essence, is why Greece is in a mess now, and why its econ-omy desperately needs reform. It is true that the austerity packages attempted by successive Greek governments may have made matters worse; but there has always been a basic problem of indebtedness, in point of fact pre-dating Greek entry into the euro, or the European Union for that matter. So much of the debate about Greece has, un-derstandably, been about whether the Greek people would be better or worse off leaving the euro, that this more fundamental issue has been neglected. Inside the eurozone there will be continuing auster-ity, whatever happens. Outside the eurozone, Greece will fi nd life no easier, at least in the short term.
Its debts in what would then be a foreign currency, the euro, will be revalued, and the nation will be liable to experience a bout of severe infl ation and unemployment with the new drachma. In the end, every nation has to learn to live within its means, or face the consequence that no one will lend to it, which forces the issue anyway. Greece is very near that moment, and not for the fi rst time in the country’s his-tory. — The Independent
Deal or not, Greece to
remain in trouble
L E O N I D B E R S H I D S K Y
More awareness needed on petrol stations safety rulesThis refers to the news story, Two injured as Ghubra petrol sta-tion catches fi re (June 17). The frequent incidents of fi re at petrol stations are a source of great concern. Whiles some serious introspection is needed, the fact remains that high temperatures also contribute to the frequently reported fi res. It is time that we end the fl outing of guidelines laid down for the petrol stations and begin fi nding scientifi c solutions to this problem that haunts all of us, especially during the summer months. The scientifi c reasons behind these incidents should be brought to wider public atten-tion. The fi lling station attendants should make sure that every aspect of the rules is being followed. While a car is being re-fuelled,
nobody should be inside it. Such an approach might help in preventing major injuries in the case of a fi re at a petrol station.Anna KavalamMuscat
Those littering should be made to clean the roads Like every year, a large number of people will be travelling to Salalah by road during the forthcoming Eid holidays including tourists and residents. After a long drive when one reaches Qitbit and stops over for refreshment in the only service area, it is sad to see solid waste spread all over the road. One can see the waste even in the white sand dunes along the road. There is no arrangement to collect the garbage and dispose it off . I urge the authorities concerned to
take notice of this situation and take corrective measures. I can’t understand why travellers throw so much rubbish there. Apart from this, we are yet to see action against the off enders who throw items from their vehicles while driving. Do they care about the negative impact of this act? It is high time that littering is treated as a crime and the off enders are slapped with punishments. They should be made to clean the roads, parks and malls or slapped with hefty fi nes. Abdullah HussainMuscat
Drug pricing system needs to be reviewed in countryThis refers to the online story, Oman’s Health Ministry to moni-tor drug pricing (June 16). In my
view, the pricing concept adopted by drug distributors is totally wrong. My question is, why are the medicines so expensive? I agree that a price correction was done by the Ministry of Health recently but more needs to be done because this is about our health.Jaison MathaiMuscat
Install network jammers in cars to stop use of mobilesThis concerns the ubiquitous use of smartphones while driving. The need of the hour is to make car manufacturers install phone network jammers on the whole of a car’s front portion. This is the only way by which phone use by drivers can be stopped.Aoun Naqvi Mawaleh
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Not long ago, the US was beginning to look ominously
like the dystopia described by Karl Marx. Compa-nies appeared to be freeing themselves of the need for workers, relegating the lat-ter to chronic joblessness and penury.
Lately, though, US employ-ers seem to be hiring more workers than they know what to do with. Troubling as that may be for productiv-ity, it suggests that Marx will have to wait a while longer for his vindication.
Typically, labour produc-tivity is seen as a crucial driver of prosperity. The more goods and services people produce for each hour worked, the more there is to go around. With plenty of supply to satisfy demand, the economy can keep growing, and income per capita can keep rising, without stoking damaging infl ation.
Around the time the US economy hit bottom in 2009, however, things got turned upside down. Companies slashed costs and workers
so quickly that productiv-ity rose even as the broader economy languished. Output per hour grew faster than it had in the same part of any of the last six major recessions.
This created a decidedly Marxian picture, in which corporate profi ts boomed, aided in part by the growing ranks of the unemployed, whose desire for jobs kept downward pressure on wages. Productivity began to look like the enemy of prosperity: If companies could keep increasing output without hiring new workers, millions of people might be condemned to permanent unemployment.
Here’s how Marx de-scribed the phenomenon back in 1867: “The condem-nation of one part of the working class to enforced idleness by the over-work of the other part, and vice versa, becomes a means of enriching the individual capitalists.”
Happily, the situation in the US has changed some-what. While still far from normal, the economy has
added 5.6 million jobs over the past two years, and wage growth is showing signs of picking up its meager pace. Because the broader econ-omy hasn’t grown as fast as employment, the job gains have translated into a decline in productivity.
Overall, annualised growth in output per hour has been slower in the current recov-ery than in previous expan-sions. The productivity slow-down has engendered much concern among economists. Some hope it’s a data glitch.
Others worry that the benefi ts of the information age may be waning, or that the economy has somehow lost its entrepreneurial dynamism.
That said, the US has bounced back before. The country’s history of innova-tion, together with constant advances in automation, strongly suggest companies will keep fi guring out ways to produce more with fewer humans. Whether that leads to a time of abundance or a Marxian dystopia is another question. — Bloomberg News
NATIONAL HERITAGE COMMISSION MEETING MUSCAT: His Highness Sayyid Faisal bin Ali bin Faisal Al Said, minister of national heritage and culture, yesterday presided over the sixth meeting of the National Com-mission for the Conservation of National Heritage. The committee discussed, among other aspects, the regular publishing of the Omani studies journal. Sayyid Faisal said the eleventh issue of the journal, which was being printed at present, would contain topics on various aspects of Omani heritage and environment. He noted the ministry had already published ten issues and that the subjects in the journal included results of archaeological research conducted by the British, French, German and Italian missions operating in the Sultanate. He said the ministry welcomed and encouraged such kind of researchers.
FROM OUR ARCHIVES
It’s not just financial markets that are taking fright at the brinksmanship between Greece and its lenders. With the common-currency project at risk of unravelling, the real economy is also having a conniption
One reason European Union offi cials are al-lowing Greece to toddle
dangerously close to the cliff top of exiting the euro is their oft-asserted belief that the situation is ring-fenced. A Greek default or departure from the single currency would be its own af-fair, the argument goes, without spillover eff ects. But that’s turn-ing out to be not quite as true as Europe’s leaders would like to have us all believe.
With the European Com-mission discussing what Valdis Dombrovskis, vice president for euro policy, euphemisti-cally calls “less favorable sce-narios,” investors are betting on contagion. And by driv-ing Spanish and Italian yields higher, at the same time as US and German levels decline, they’re suggesting that compla-cency over Greece’s exit may be misplaced at best. It’s not just fi nancial markets that are tak-ing fright at the brinksmanship between Greece and its lend-ers. With the common-currency project at risk of unravelling, the real economy is also having a conniption. Figures today show German confi dence slumped for a third month in June to its low-est level since November, and was signifi cantly weaker than economists had forecast.
It’s possible the current con-tagion could reverse no matter which way the Greek crisis gets resolved. It may turn out that it’s the uncertainty that’s rat-tling investors, and that they’re indiff erent to whether Greece stays in the euro or goes, so long as there’s some fi nality to the outcome.
“We are pretty much wait-ing for almost any outcome to
buy,” Luca Paolini, who helps oversee about $460 billion as chief strategist at Pictet Asset Management, told Bloomberg reporters Inyoung Hwang and Sofi a Horta e Costa. “If there is a Grexit or a default, there will be a fi nal selloff , which will be a good entry point for us. The fundamentals of QE and earn-ings growth would then reassert themselves.” Greece contrib-utes less than 2 per cent of the euro region’s gross domestic product, and European banks have slashed their exposures to Greek assets in recent years -- hence the argument that a car crash involving Athens might leave bystanders unscathed.
That’s dangerous thinking, though, since its departure would pose an existential threat to the euro. European Union Economic and Monetary Com-missioner Pierre Moscovici obliquely characterized the risk that dare not speak its name, when he said on Tuesday that
“I’m attached to two charac-teristics of the euro. The fi rst one is integrity and the second one is irreversibility. To me, the euro is more than a fi xed-rate zone. It’s more than that; it’s re-ally a single currency.”
By abandoning the currency, Greece would disprove the “ir-reversibility” part of the equa-tion, which would fatally wound the “single-currency-not-just-currency-pegs” conclusion. And that, in turn, could induce traders to try to force more euro members to quit the club the next time there’s a whiff of eco-nomic trouble on the periphery of the continent. That’s the risk that the euro’s guardians are taking as they fl irt with Greece’s exit. — Bloomberg View.
Greece economic woes to spread to Spain, Italy
TODAY IN HISTORY1579 Sir Francis Drake claims San
Francisco Bay for England. 1856 The Republican Party opens its fi rst
national convention in Philadelphia. 1912 The German Zeppelin SZ 111 burns in
its hangar in Friedrichshafen. 1926 Spain threatens to quit the League of
Nations if Germany is allowed to join. 1953 Millions of Americans watch former
football player O.J. Simpson–facing murder charges–drive his Ford Bronco through Los Angeles, followed by police.
HISTORYNET.COM
GraphicsGraphic News /
Russia warns US over plans for border troops
Source: Wire agencies
Moscow has said it will strengthen its forces in Eastern Europe if the US decides to station tanks and heavy weapons in NATO states on Russia’s border for the first time since the end of the Cold War
CrimeaAnnexedby Russia
RedzikowoUS missile defencebase to open 2018
DeveseluUS missile base toopen October 2015
Kaliningrad
U K R A I N E
BELARUS
GERMANY
ITALY
F R A N C E
U K
S P A I N
500km
Iskander-M(SS-26 Stone)
Controlled byRussian-
backedrebels
M1A2 Abrams
US plans
US plans to store around 1,200 vehicles, includingM-2 Bradley fighting vehicles, armouredhowitzers, and M1-A2 tanks
NATO members
Former WarsawPact countries
To store equipment for brigade of up to 5,000 US troops in Baltic and East European states to deterpossible Russian aggression
Russian responseSays move would violate tacit agreements of 1990s
Moscow could speed up deployment of Iskander missiles to Kaliningrad, and beef upforces in Belarus
1
23
4
75
6
1 Estonia 2 Latvia 3 Lithuania
4 Poland 5 Romania
6 Bulgaria 7 Hungary
Each to store equipment forcompany of 150 soldiers
storage for battalionof around 750 soldiers
Deborah Loewenberg Ball, the dean of the University of Michi-
gan’s School of Education. believes the training that teachers get while they are in school needs to be drastically improved. Last year, I wrote about her eff ort to develop a professional training curricu-lum that would allow begin-ning teachers to be far better grounded in their craft than they are now.
Recently, I learned about another eff ort she has led, which I also think deserves wider attention. It tackles one of the most divisive top-ics in K-12 education: How to evaluate teachers so that the best can be rewarded and the worst fi red.
In New York - a state where the issue has been especially contentious - Governor An-drew Cuomo earlier this year pushed through legislation that calls for student test scores to count for as much as 50 per cent of a teacher’s eval-uation, up from the current 20 per cent. The teachers’ unions were incensed, believing that test scores are a simplistic and unfair means of assess-ing teachers. So were many parents, who joined a boycott movement that resulted in an estimated 165,000 students opting out of this year’s stand-ardised tests.
A teacher evaluation sys-tem “is only good if the teach-ers respect it and trust it,” says Vicki Phillips, a director of ed-ucation for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Teachers are convinced that evaluation systems that overly rely on test scores are punitive, which the political rhetoric often underscores. For instance, Cuomo’s stated reason for changing the state’s teacher evaluation was that some 96 per cent of teachers got top grades under the old process. He scoff ed at those results as “baloney.” That’s hardly going to get teachers to buy into your new evaluation system.
Which brings me back to Michigan. In 2011, the state Legislature there changed the tenure law, making it easier to fi re incompetent teachers. But it also set up the Michigan Council for Educator Eff ec-tiveness, which was charged with coming up with its fi rst-ever statewide evaluation system. Ball was named chair-woman of the council. Two years later, it came back with its recommendations.
The fi rst thing I noticed about the council’s recom-mendations is that they com-pletely avoid the divisive political language that has alienated teachers. Instead of casting teacher evaluation as primarily being about get-ting rid of bad teachers, they instead recast it to put the emphasis on teacher improve-
ment. An evaluation system that stresses improvement instead of punishment has a much better chance of being embraced by teachers.
Such an emphasis isn’t just good politics. It’s also an important way to help make schools better. “Very few teachers can’t improve,” Ball told me recently. And most teachers want to improve - but have no means of getting use-ful feedback. The council’s idea was that the evaluations could be used not just to rid the system of incompetent teachers - though it would certainly do that - but also to give all the other teachers critical feedback. It also envi-sions transforming profes-sional development, which is now mostly a wasteland, into a mechanism to put that feed-back into practice.
There are two fundamental pieces to the Michigan coun-cil’s plan. The fi rst piece is teacher observation. In most schools, it’s the principal who observes the teacher, often haphazardly, and rates him or her based on personal bi-ases, which may or may not be sound. Ball and her colleagues would instead rely on observ-ers who have been trained in using certain tools that have been proved eff ective. These observations would be the ba-sis for the teacher’s feedback - feedback meant to encourage and help, rather than threaten.
The second piece is what the council calls evaluating “student growth.” Here the point would be not to meas-ure student achievement in absolute terms - Does Johnny read at a fourth-grade lev-el? - but rather to measure whether Johnny had made a year’s worth of improvement from the level he was reading at when he was in the third grade. This would be a more accurate representation of the diff erence the teacher made, and would take into account the wide range of learning levels teachers often have to contend with.
Some of this growth evalu-ation would undoubtedly be done through tests. But not all of it, or even most of it. “You have to look at objectives for students for the year and see if they made progress,” says Ball. There are ways to do that that don’t require standard-ised testing.
I wish I could tell you that this story has a happy end-ing, but it doesn’t. Legislation that embodied the work of the council failed to pass the Michigan Legislature in the last session. More recently, the chairman of a related Senate committee, Phil Pav-lov, has essentially tossed the council’s work aside in favor of “local control.”
That is Michigan’s loss. But perhaps other states and school districts can look at the work of the Michigan council and learn from it. In which case, it could still be America’s gain. — The New York Times
How to grade a teacher?
Marx’s likely views on US productivity
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MERS outbreak in S. Korea a ‘wake-up call’, says WHO
GENEVA: The MERS outbreak in South Korea is a “wake-up call”, the World Health Organisa-tion warned on Wednesday, say-ing that a lack of knowledge and substandard controls in hospitals had contributed to the spread of the disease.
The WHO urged all countries to be more vigilant as South Ko-rea reported its 20th death from the Middle East Respiratory Syn-drome virus, and criticism grew of its eff orts to contain the crisis.
“The outbreak really should serve as a wake-up call for coun-tries,” WHO assistant director general Keiji Fukuda said after an emergency committee meeting.
“All countries should always be prepared for the unanticipated possibility of outbreaks like this and other serious infectious dis-eases,” a WHO statement said.
WarningThe warning came as alarming reports emerged in South Ko-rea of new cases that had slipped through quarantine measures that already aff ect thousands.
And on Tuesday, German au-thorities reported that a national had died after contacting MERS during a trip to Middle East, but said there was no indication the virus had spread.
The WHO’s emergency com-mittee meeting held on Tuesday concluded that a lack of aware-ness about the virus among health workers and the public in South Korea was a major contributing factor to its rapid spread.
Others included the fact that MERS patients had been kept in crowded emergency rooms for long periods, and the practice in South Korea of going to multiple hospi-tals for second and third opinions on diagnoses and treatment — so-called “doctor shopping”.
The custom of many visitors and family members staying with infected patients in their hospital rooms also facilitated the spread of the virus, the committee found.
However, the UN health body said that “conditions for a public health emergency of international concern have not been met”.
The virus appeared in South Korea on May 20 when a 68-year-old man was diagnosed after returning from a trip to Saudi Arabia. Fukuda described surveil-lance footage of the crowded hos-
pital emergency room where he stayed for several days.
“It’s clear that the person was coughing a lot and was also mobile in the emergency room... You re-ally get a sense of how one person can lead to so many infections,” he said.
South Korea’s health ministry said that a 54-year-old woman who died on Wednesday had be-come the 20th victim of the out-break. It also reported eight new cases including four infected at the Samsung Medical Centre in Seoul, considered the epicentre of the outbreak.
That took the total number of infections including those who
have died to 162, the largest out-break outside Saudi Arabia.
The number of new infections had fallen for three days in a row from 12 on Friday to four on Tues-day, when the ministry said it was cautiously optimistic the worst was over, but the latest number dashed those hopes.
“We think that more new cases can sporadically occur en masse in hospitals other than Samsung,” Kwon Joon-Wook, a senior health ministry offi cial, told reporters in Seoul.
Critics say the government’s handling of the crisis shows it has done little to improve lax public safety standards since the Sewol
ferry disaster in April 2014 which left more than 300 dead and saw the prime minister resign.
Almost all infections so far have been restricted within hospitals, but several patients diagnosed in recent days were not among those put under quarantine.
Preventing the spreadOne patient reported on Tuesday in the southeastern city of Daegu developed symptoms on Saturday but continued his normal activi-ties, including going to work and visiting a public bathhouse. An-other patient, a 55-year-old am-bulance driver at the Samsung hospital, continued to go to work by subway for days after develop-ing symptoms including fever and came into contact with hundreds of people.
President Park Geun-Hye ear-lier this week said it was “im-portant to prevent the spread of excessive public anxiety” but the Dong-A Ilbo newspaper slammed the government for playing down the magnitude of the outbreak. - AFP
The World Health
Organisation urged
all countries to be
more vigilant as
South Korea reported
its 20th death
from the Middle
East Respiratory
Syndrome (MERS)
virus, and criticism
grew of its eff orts to
contain the crisis
PREVENTIVE MEASURES: South Korean workers spray antiseptic solution at the customs, immigration and quarantine offi ce (CIQ) of
Gimpo International Airport in Seoul on Wednesday. - AFP
DUBLIN: The Irish national fl ag fl ew at half mast and parliament was suspended on Wednesday in tribute to the six young peo-ple who died when an apartment balcony collapsed during a 21st birthday party in California.
“The fl ag of our country fl ies at half mast as a mark of respect and sympathy to the families of the bereaved,” Irish Prime Minster Enda Kenny told parliament.
Five Irish citizens and an Irish-American woman, all aged either 21 or 22, died after a fourth-fl oor apartment balcony collapsed at a building in Berkeley, located two blocks from the University of Cal-ifornia campus.
At least seven people were in-jured, with some in a critical con-dition, during the accident in the early hours of Tuesday morning.
Three of the dead were stu-
dents from University College Dublin, Ireland’s largest universi-ty. “It is a disastrous day for UCD,” the university’s student union president Marcus O’Halloran told Irish media on Wednesday.
CondolencesParliament held a minute’s si-lence after statements of con-dolences from all parties before proceedings were suspended for 90 minutes in tribute.
The victims were identifi ed as 22-year-old Ashley Donohoe, an Irish-US dual citizen from Cali-fornia; and Olivia Burke, Eoghan Culligan, Niccolai Schuster, Lor-can Miller and Eimear Walsh, who were 21 and from Ireland.
Ashley Donohoe and Olivia Burke were cousins.
The Irish students were all on the J1 work-study summer visa
programme, which allows them to teach, study, conduct research and work legally during their stay in the United States. About 8,000 Irish students applied for the J1 programme this year, with Califor-nia the most popular destination.
The accident dominated the front pages of all Irish newspa-pers on Wednesday and radio pro-grammes have dedicated entire broadcasts to covering the story.
“A nation left heartbroken” read the headline in the Irish Dai-ly Mail, accompanied with smil-ing pictures of the six dead.
“When you look at the papers this morning, don’t you see the fac-es of your own children?” Kenny said in parliament. The Irish fl ag, the tricolour, fl ew at half mast at all state buildings across Ireland. The US fl ag was also at half mast at the US embassy in Dublin. - AFP
A C C I D E N T
Pope Francis urges respect for migrants
VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis on Wednesday called for respect for migrants and suggested that “people and institutions” who close doorsto them should seek forgiveness.
The pope’s appeal, made at the end of his weekly general audi-ence, came amid growing debate in Europe on how to deal with an immigrant crisis that has included clashes at the French-Italian borer between police and migrants.
Forgiveness “I invite you all to ask forgiveness for the persons and the institu-tions who close the door to these people who are seeking a family, who are seeking to be protected,” he said.
France and Austria have stepped up border controls on mi-grants coming from Italy, turning back hundreds and leaving grow-ing numbers camped out in train stations in Rome and Milan.
Persisting discord In a sign of persisting discord over how to deal with the migrant cri-sis, Italian Prime Minister Mat-teo Renzi threatened retaliation if other EU countries did not agree to take their fair share of refugees that land on Italy’s shores.
Matteo Salvini, leader of the right-wing Northern League which has won votes from people fearing migrants bringing diseas-es and leeching resources from a long-stagnant economy, hit back at the pontiff .
“Out of curiosity, how many im-migrants are there in the Vatican State?” northern Italian broad-caster Radio Padania Libera quot-ed Salvini as asking. The pope said “these brothers and sisters of our are seeking refuge far from their lands, they are seeking a home where they can live without fear.”
Human dignity He asked for prayers that their “human dignity always be respect-ed” and urged the international community to “work together and effi ciently to prevent the causes of forced migration”.
France, Italy and Germany agreed on Tuesday to join forces to identify migrants arriving by sea and to swiftly relocate them across the European Union or send them back to their home countries if their claims for asylum in Europe are rejected. - Reuters
I M M I G R A N T S C R I S I S
HOMAGE: Flowers and a framed photograph mark a makeshift memorial near the scene of a fourth-
story apartment building balcony collapse in Berkeley, California on Tuesday. - Reuters
Ireland mourns six killed in California balcony collapse
A15T H U R S DAY, J U N E 1 8 , 2 0 1 5
MARKEWWW.TIMESOFOMAN.COMT H U R S DAY, J U N E 1 8 , 2 0 1 5B
Muscat
6,468.52 - 25.26
- 0.39%
Dubai
4,087.99+ 8.94
+ 0.22%
Abu Dhabi
4,580.12+ 35.01
+ 0.77%
Saudi Arabia
9,543.22- 1.29
- 0.01%
Kuwait
6,266.95+ 8.25
+ 0.13%
Bahrain
1,367.21 + 2.30
+ 0.17%
Qatar
11,884.28+ 10.73
+ 1.09%
CURRENCY RATES* DRAFT RATES (OMR1)* GOLD PRICES*Forex rates vs OMR1*
US Dollar ................................. 2.58
Euro ............................................2.28
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Falcon Insurance plans initial public off eringA. E. [email protected]
MUSCAT: Falcon Insurance, a subsidiary of Al Anwar Holding, plans to fl oat an initial public of-fering on the Muscat Securities Market (MSM), the parent com-pany said in a disclosure state-ment on Wednesday.
The fl otation is subject to ap-proval by regulators and share-holders, Al Anwar Holding, which has a 51 per cent stake in Falcon, said in the statement. However, the company did not make it clear whether the issue will be addi-tional shares or disinvestment of existing shareholders or a com-
bination of both. Details such as the volume of the off er, price and timing will be fi nalised and an-nounced after receiving those ap-provals. Al Anwar shares rose 1.89 per cent to 270 baisas amid 4.41 million shares changing hand.
Market sources said that the in-surance regulator Capital Market Authority (CMA) last year asked national insurance companies to go public within three years (in line with an amendment in Insur-ance Companies Law) and that is one of the reasons for Falcon’s proposed share off er.
Also, Falcon has to raise its paid-up capital to OMR10 million in line with the CMA stipulation
on minimum capital. As many as eight locally incor-
porated insurance companies, including a reinsurance fi rm, will off er shares to investing public within three years to comply with the recent amendments in insur-ance law.l Apart from Falcon, the national insurance fi rms that are expected to fl oat shares on the lo-cal bourse are Al Ahlia Insurance Company, Muscat Insurance, Muscat Life Insurance, National Life Insurance, Oman & Qatar In-surance and Vision Insurance.
Further, the Sultanate’s only re-insurance fi rm — Oman Reinsur-ance Company - will issue shares to investing public.
Although the Sultanate has 22 insurance companies, only four companies — Dhofar Insurance, Oman United Insurance, Al Ma-dina Takaful and Takaful Oman — are listed.
Of this, Al Madina Takaful and Takaful Oman are Islamic insur-ance fi rms. Of the 22 companies, 16 fi rms do not have the stipulated OMR10 million minimum capital and six fi rms have either OMR10 million or more paid up capital.
Currently, only new companies are required to have a minimum capital of OMR10 million and need to go public when listing shares on the Muscat Securities Market (MSM).
P R I M A R Y M A R K E T
NBO picks arrangers for bond issue DUBAI: National Bank of Oman has mandated four banks for a po-tential capital-boosting bond issue that it plans to print after the sum-mer, banking sources said.
The country’s third largest bank by market capitalisation has picked Citigroup, Credit Agricole, National Bank of Abu Dhabi and Standard Chartered to arrange in-vestor road shows, Reuters said.
The US dollar-denominated bond would boost the bank’s Tier 1 (core) capital. Earlier this month, shareholders of the bank approved the issuance of a Tier 1 instrument of up to $300 million. - Agencies
‘Banks should get more time to meet SME loan target’
MUSCAT: Banks should be given more time to comply with the decision of the Central Bank of Oman (CBO) that requires them to allocate 5 per cent of their to-tal loans to small and medium enterprises (SME), said a senior Omani offi cial.
“It is nearing 3 per cent now (while) they have to reach 5 per cent. The reason is that our defi -nition of the SMEs is very strict,” Ali bin Masoud Al Sunaidy, the minister of commerce and indus-try, told reporters on Tuesday.
He made the comments after an agreement signing ceremony in which a number of companies joined hands with the Public Au-thority for Small and Medium Enterprises Development (Ri-yada) to support entrepreneurs through special off ers on their products and services.
5 per cent target In 2013, CBO stipulated that commercial banks’ loans to SMEs must account for at least 5 per cent of their total loans, in a bid to contribute to the development of the entrepreneurship sector
in the country. Al Sunaidy said that the banks are growing so the 5 per cent is becoming a greater amount and they have been re-questing that the defi nition of SMEs be revised. “We have not agreed on expanding the defi ni-tion. We are still putting pressure on the banks,” the minister added.
He said that there are several options to address this issue, namely revising the 5 per cent, giving them a longer period to meet the target or changing the defi nition.
“My opinion is (to) give them a longer period. Keep the 5 per cent. Do not change the defi nition for now and do not push them to (reach) the 5 per cent very ag-gressively,” Al Sunaidy noted. The minister believes that another ex-tension may be necessary.
Extension They have already been given a one-year extension until the end of 2015, he said, adding, “I think there is no harm in giving them one more year… I do not think we need to put more pressure on the banks.” Al Sunaidy said that he thinks the authorities, including CBO offi cials, will discuss and re-view the decision this year. In 2013, CBO asked commercial banks to meet the 5 per cent tar-get by December 2014. However, they were given a one-year extension until Decem-ber 2015 following requests from the banks.
Leave for starting business The minister also commented on a proposal that would allow gov-ernment employees to get leave for a period not exceeding four years without salary to manage their enterprises.
The Ministry of Civil Services and the Ministry of Finance are discussing the issue, he said, add-ing that he thinks the Ministry of Finance has an objection related to the issue of who should pay for the social security for them during the four-year period.
SME section In addition, the minister high-lighted the need to dedicate a special ‘section’ for SMEs in government bodies to follow up compliance with the allocation of 10 per cent of the governmen-tal purchases and tenders for small and medium enterprises and accelerate the payment of their outstanding dues.
Al Sunaidy also welcomed the initiatives by the Ministry of Education to promote the culture of entrepreneurship at schools, saying that the society’s ‘mindset’ should be changed.
Central Bank of
Oman rule requires
banks to allocate
5% of their loans to
small and medium
enterprises Ali bin Masoud Al Sunaidy.
– A. R. RAJKUMAR/Times of Oman
NEW PROPOSAL Minister commented on a proposal that would allow government employees to get leave for a period not exceeding four years without salary to manage their enterprises
B O N D S
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MARKETT H U R S DAY, J U N E 1 8 , 2 0 1 5
Al Jazeera Steel forms joint venture in Saudi ArabiaMUSCAT: Al Jazeera Steel has entered into a joint venture agreement with a local business entity in Saudi Arabia and formed a limited liability company named Al Jazeera Oman Steel Products Company LLC. The joint venture com-pany will sell and market the company’sproducts in the Saudi market. Al Jazeera owns 51 per cent of the share capital in the joint venture eff ective from June 15, 2015.
Boeing strikes dealwith Russian fi rmPARIS: Boeing said it struck a $7.4 billion deal to sell 747-8 freighters to Rus-sia’s Volga-Dnepr, providing a much-needed boost to the jumbo-jet programme amid fl agging demand for four-engine aircraft. The compa-nies signed a memorandum of understanding that will add 20 cargo variants of the hump-backed 747 to Volga- Dnepr’s fl eet, Boeing announced on Wednesday at the Paris Air Show, the aerospace industry’s largest trade expo.
Singapore’s exports decline SINGAPORE: Singapore’s overseas sales unexpectedly fell for the fi rst time in three months, signaling a weaken-ing growth outlook for the export-dependent nation. Non-oil domestic exports fell 0.2 per cent in May from a year earlier as shipments of petrochemicals and electronics declined, data on Wednesday showed.
- Times News Service/Agencies
B R I E F S Opec exports revenue takes a beating; drops below $1tr
LONDON: Opec nations’ revenue from petroleum exports plunged below $1 trillion last year for the fi rst time since 2010, highlighting how slumping crude prices hurt countries reliant on oil sales to fund their economies.
The group’s 12 members earned $993.3 billion in 2014, a decrease of 11 per cent from a year earlier, according to the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries’ (Opec) annual report published on Tuesday.
Their combined current ac-count balance slumped by 35 per cent to $273.6 billion as the drop in exports was accompanied by an increase in imports.
The revenue drop shows the strain on the group’s members as they increase pumping at a time of oversupply, following a Saudi
Arabia-led strategy of defending market share instead of prices. Opec nations agreed on June 5 to keep a production limit of 30 mil-lion barrels a day, a level they have exceeded every month since June last year, according to data.
“Given the weakness in the fi rst half of the year, another sub-one-trillion-dollar revenue year re-mains on the table,” Hamza Khan, an Amsterdam-based senior com-modity strategist at ING Bank, said by e-mail on Wednesday. The impact on the government fi nances of some Opec members could be mitigated by increased production and foreign direct in-vestment, he said.
Brent for August settlement
gained 1.2 per cent to $64.43 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. The benchmark crude has rebounded 43 per cent since reaching a six-
year low of $45.19 in January.If Opec keeps pumping at cur-
rent rates through the third quar-ter, production will have exceeded demand for the longest period in at least three decades, Interna-tional Energy Agency (IEA) data show. Almost all the group’s mem-bers aren’t earning enough from current oil prices to balance their budgets, according to data.
Venezuelan President“Opec members may have been blind-sided by lower revenues last year, but they appear to be mitigating risks moving forward,” Khan said.
Venezuela, which had been one of the most vocal Opec members
in calling for a production cuts to support the oil price, has changed its stance. The country’s Oil Minister Asdrubal Chavez said on Tuesday the oil market will stabilise by the end of this year and called the June 5 meeting ‘very successful’.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced last month plans for joint investments with Russia of over $14 billion in do-mestic oil projects. - Bloomberg News
Revenue drop shows
the strain on Opec
as they increase
pumping at a time of
oversupply, following
a Saudi Arabia-led
strategy of defending
market share
instead of prices
Asia becomes one of the costliest expat destinations: SurveyHONG KONG: Asia has become one of the most expensive regions for people working abroad, shows a new survey, with its major cities accounting for half of the top 10 costliest expat destinations.
Hong Kong climbed one place from last year to become the world’s second most expensive place for expats, Mercer said in its annual Cost of Living Sur-vey on Tuesday, with Singapore, Shanghai, Beijing and Seoul also making the shortlist.
Much of the change in rankings is down to currency fl uctuations, with the appreciation of the yuan against the dollar pushing up the cost of living in China, which now accounts for nine of the top 30 most expensive expat cities in the world. “Chinese cities jumped in the ranking due to the strength-ening of the Chinese yuan along with the high costs of expatriate consumer goods,” said Mercer executive Nathalie Constantin-Metral in a statement.
Tokyo cityBy contrast Tokyo, ranked the most expensive city for expats in 2012, fell four places from last year to number 11 due to a slump in the Japanese currency after a massive easing programme by its central bank.
“Japanese cities have contin-ued to drop in the ranking this year as a result of the Japanese yen weakening against the Unit-ed States dollar,” added Constan-tin-Metral.
Overall, the cost of living in Western European cities dropped due to a slide in the euro. The
three cities that made the top 10 — Zurich, Geneva and Bern — use the Swiss Franc, which jumped in January after the central bank removed a ceiling on its strength.
Leading the rankings was the Angolan capital Luanda, which retained its top spot due to the high price of imported goods and security services used by many foreigners.The survey by the Mer-cer consulting group compares the cost of over 200 items in 207 cities, including housing, food, transport and entertainment.
It takes New York as its base city for comparison, and meas-ures currency movements against the dollar, which has ap-preciated signifi cantly from a year ago as the health of the US economy has improved. - AFP
C O S T O F L I V I N G
HAVE YOUR SAY Send us your comments at facebook.com/timesofoman blog.timesofoman.com [email protected]
PRODUCTION: If Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries keep pumping at current rates through the third quarter, production will
have exceeded demand for the longest period in at least three decades, International Energy Agency (IEA) data show. – File picture
was the fall in 12-member group’s earnings in 2014 at
$993.3 billion, compared to a year earlier, says
the Opec annual report published on Tuesday
11%
LUANDA LEADSLeading the rankings was the Angolan capital Luanda, which retained its top spot due to the high price of imported goods and security services used by many foreigners
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ISIN .................................................. SECURITY NAME ...............................................................................................VOLUME ..............TURNOVER ................... TRADES ...........OPEN PRICE ............. HIGH .................... LOW ............... CLOSE PR. ..........PREV. CLOSE.......... DIFF (RO) .................DIFF % ......................LAST PR............... LAST BID .....................LAST OFFER ................. MARKET CAP ........PAR VALUE
MUSCAT: Weakness in heavy-weight stocks dragged down the MSM 30 Index to 6,468.52 points, down by 0.39 per cent. MSM Sha-ria Index closed at 998.57 points, up by 0.02 per cent.
Al Anwar Holding was the most active in terms of volume and turnover. However, Wednes-day’s top gainer was Al Maha Ce-ramics, up by 2.93 per cent, while Renaissance Services, down by 4.19 per cent, lost the most.
As many as 928 trades were executed in the session gener-ating a turnover of OMR5.52 million with over 30.6 million shares changing hands. Out of 46 traded securities, six ad-vanced, 20 declined and 20 re-mained unchanged.
Omani investors were net buyers for OMR1.75 million, while foreign investors were net sellers for OMR1.48 million fol-lowed by GCC and Arab inves-tors for OMR270,000 worth of shares.
Financial Index declined 0.35
per cent to close at 7,895.12 points. Al Anwar Holding and Taageer Finance gained 1.89 per cent and 0.70 per cent, re-spectively.
Al Izz Islamic Bank, Al Shar-qia Investments, Al Madina In-vestments, Al Madina Takaful and Bank Sohar declined 2.44 per cent, 2.16 per cent, 1.25 per cent, 1.11 per cent and 1.08 per cent, respectively.
Industrial Index continued its tepid trend to close un-changed at 8,419.65 points. Al Maha Ceramics, Al Anwar Ce-ramics and Oman Cables in-creased 2.93 per cent, 0.93 per cent and 0.91 per cent, respec-tively. Construction Materials, Gulf International Chemicals, Galfar Engineering and Raysut Cement fell 2.44 per cent, 0.85 per cent, 0.76 per cent and 0.65 per cent, respectively.
Services Sector Index re-treated strongly by 0.49 per cent to end the session at 3,497.86 points. – United Securities
Al Maha Ceramics, up by 2.93 per cent, was
the top gainer, while Renaissance Services,
down by 4.19 per cent, lost the most
Sensex rises; rupee recoversMUMBAI: Notwithstanding the market trimmed half of its late afternoon session gains, good progress in monsoon amid last half-an-hour buying ahead of the outcome of the Federal Open Market Committee monetary policy meeting helped the bench-mark S&P BSE Sensex rallied by 146 points to end at one-week high of 26,832.66, despite weak European cues.
Bulls seemed to be steadily tak-
ing control of the market after recent bearish trend, extending gains for the fourth straight ses-sion. Wary operators preff ered to cover their short positions.
Rupee recoversThe rupee snapped its last four-day losing streak, recovering 14 paise to close at 64.12 per dollar on fresh dollar selling by export-ers due to weakness of dollars in the overseas market. Persistent
rise in the equity market also boosted the rupee value against the dollar.
The rupee resumed higher at 64.18 per dollar as against the Tuesday’s closing level of 64.26 per dollar at the Interbank For-eign Exchange Market and fi rmed up further to 64.09 before ending at 64.12 per dollar, disclosing a gain of 14 paise or 0.22 per cent. It had dropped by 42 paise in previ-ous four trading days. - PTI
I N D I A N M A R K E T S
Oman bourse signs pact
with Taipei Exchange
Tims News Service
MUSCAT: Capital Market Au-thority of Oman and Taipei Ex-change have signed an agreement for providing expert consultancy services to the former.
The contract covers consul-tancy assistance to be provided by the Taipei Exchange to assist in the design and development of capital market products and services in Oman aimed at sup-porting the growth of small and medium enterprises. Abdullah Al Salmi, executive president of the Capital Market
Authority (CMA), signed a con-tract at the 40th annual meeting of the international securities market regulators (IOSCO) in Londoon on Tuesday.
The signing session was also attended by Yahya Abdullah Al Jabri, chairman of the CMA and chairman of Duqm Special Economic Zone authority, and leading members of the Tai-wanese fi nancial services sector.The CMA undertook a review of many SME markets and SME consultants before selecting the Taipei Exchange as its expert consultant advisor.
C O N S U L T A N C Y
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FEATURET H U R S DAY, J U N E 1 8 , 2 0 1 5
B I L L I O N A I R E K E N F I S H E R , A U T H O R O F “ B E A T T H E C R O W D ”
A N D C H I E F E X E C U T I V E O F F I S H E R I N V E S T M E N T S ,
S A Y S T H E T R I C K T O N A V I G A T I N G T H E M A R K E T S U C C E S S F U L L Y I S T O T U N E I T A L L O U T
Traders often look at the news to anticipate what their next move should be. When will
the Federal Reserve raise rates? Is the housing market coming back? Is the jobs report going to be a disappointment?
But Ken Fisher, author of “Beat the Crowd” and chief ex-ecutive of Fisher Investments, says the trick to navigating the market successfully is to tune it all out. Fisher, whose fi rm manages more than $64 billion, says investors are wasting time by worrying about the wrong things. He recently spoke with The Washington Post about what investors should focus on instead. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
How can investors fi gure out which headlines matter and which ones should be ignored?Markets are very eff ective at pre-pricing information that will happen in the next three to 30 months. They are not very in-terested in things 10 to 15 years from now, and they are not really interested in things next week.
That would include things like the bankruptcy of Social Secu-rity or global warming’s impact or how millennials are no damn good. It doesn’t matter what the answers to those questions are. Markets won’t price that now. It’s too far off in the future. Like-wise, things that are coming at you too soon, they’re behind you so fast that they cause nothing but very minor ripples.
How can people train themselves to think of events that way?You start with the presump-tion that if everybody is worry-ing about something, you don’t have to worry about it — be-cause they’re doing it for you. You should worry about some-thing else.
Investors are obsessing about when the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates. Is that a mistake?There’s endless discussion about what will happen when the Fed raises short-term rates. Most people leap to a conclu-sion, whatever the conclusion is, as opposed to the way I would have them think about it, which is to say: Have they ever raised short-term interest rates before for the fi rst time in a business cycle? And what have markets done after that? That’s thinking independently.
I can tell you for fact the Fed has raised short-term interest rates for the fi rst time in a cycle, every single cycle.
And you can fi nd every sin-gle one of those, and you can measure what happens three months, six months, 12 months, 36 months, 60 months after.
And you know what? Increas-ing interest rates for the fi rst time in a cycle has never been predictive of anything.
People are worrying about something they’ve worried about many times before. Yet history shows us we don't have to worry about it.
Is it ever possible to know what's really driving the stock market? Should we bother?A simple lesson that I think young people in particular should know is that it’s easier in life to determine “what” than “why.” Even in things as discrete as medicine, they’ll fi nd that something works to solve a prob-lem, but they won’t necessarily know why it works.
So why is it that the ini-tial spike in interest rates has no impact in markets that we can discern in any way? I’ve got my theories, but they're all
“whys,” and it’s harder to prove them. Instead of worrying about it, worry about some-thing else. It forces you to look at what are the other goods and bads [in the market] and be an independent thinker.
Any advice for young investors who are just starting out?Young people don’t have experi-ences to bias them any which way, but the bad part is they don’t have any helpful experiences ei-ther. That’s all the more reason for the young person to read — to learn the lessons of the past as a replacement for the experience.
The question that perennially is asked is: If you were a young investor, what would you invest in? If you’re a young investor, the best thing to invest in is yourself. Build your capital. Learn your capabilities.
How can people get better at learning from their mistakes?Our natural human propensity is to do what’s called shunning regret and accumulating pride. Accumulating pride means “I bought it, I’m smart.” Shunning regret is, “I bought it, it went down, I was victimised, it’s not my fault.” You want to reverse that. Take your successes and presume that they were at least partly luck. For your failures, look for what you did wrong. That’s counter to the way hu-mans normally want to behave, but this is tailored to reducing your error rate.
How should investors plan around that, knowing that they’re going to be wrong on a pretty regular basis? Don’t take too big a bet to try to hit big, because you risk ending up just going home. Whatever it is you’re doing, you should do something that would perform relatively well if your hypothesis is dead wrong and you do really poorly. Therefore, while I tend to believe those categories are the ones that should lead the market, that doesn’t leave me in a posi-tion of wanting to not be exposed at all to the other sectors.
How can people try to go “against the crowd” without taking on too much risk?The most important part of in-vesting is not the investment. The most important part is com-ing to know yourself.
If you know your skill set, your interests, your needs and who you are, you won’t make too many mistakes, because you won’t outstep what you know how to do. Are you really trained to do this? Have you really stud-ied it enough? Or are you taking a crazy risk because you don’t re-ally know what you’re doing and all of your friends told you to do it? This is adult peer pressure.
Warren Buff ett has this great line about how it’s a little bit like baseball. You don’t have to swing at everything. It’s about knowing yourself and knowing what you can do with a bat and what ball you can’t hit successfully.
— Washington Post-Bloomberg News
For your failures, look for what you
did wrong
Ken FisherChief executive of Fisher
Investments
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Apparel Group opens Empora in Sultanate
MUSCAT: Apparel Group, a lead-ing retailer and one of Middle East’s fastest growing business conglomerates, has announced the opening of Empora multi-brand fashion department store at Oman Avenues Mall.
Empora encompasses a wide se-lection of brands and categories in a compact, shopping-focused for-
mat off ering shoppers a relaxed yet an exciting shopping experience catering to entire family and ages, says a press release.
Speaking on the occasion, Nilesh Ved, chairman, Apparel Group, said: “At Apparel Group, our strategy is to bring to the mar-ket unique retail concepts and life-style experiences to provide our
customers the best product and customer service in the industry.
"The launch of Empora multi-brand fashion department store concept marks yet another mile-stone in the history of Apparel Group and brings us a step closer to opening 1,200 stores by the end of 2015.”
Empora as a concept works to-wards leveraging the growing po-tential of the mid-segment market, with a head turning new take on fashion and beauty.
Aff ordable costThe concept has been envisioned around customer’s happiness on availing high quality international brands at an aff ordable cost, with an aim of innovating their shop-ping experience. It is a one stop destination covering all require-ments under one roof off ering fashion, beauty, kids range, foot-
wear, accessories and fragrances. Empora boasts a collection of
100 plus international brands un-der one roof with an exceptional mix of established labels such as such as Codentry, ADL, Kenneth Cole Reaction, Bimbus, Name It, Only, Vero Moda, Beverly Hills Polo Club, Hush Puppies, along-side accessible everyday collec-tions such as Aeropostale, Palla-dium, Birkenstock and Garage to name a few.
The brand’s next store launch is scheduled at Al Naeem Mall, Ras Al Khaimah in the UAE and will gradually expand its retail pres-ence across the GCC region in prominent markets with an aim of opening 25 stores by 2019.
Attracting customers from across the region, the iconic de-partment store off ers an unparal-leled shopping experience to all who walk through its doors!
Empora encompasses a wide selection of
brands and categories in a compact, shopping-
focused format off ering shoppers a relaxed
yet exciting shopping experience catering to
entire family and ages
Al Wisal FM radio now off ers greater listener penetrationMUSCAT: With Al Wisal FM’s radio station expansion into Al Sharqiyah Governorate, covering the whole of the governorate in-cluding the north and the south, the advertisers will now be able to reach a much broader segment of Oman’s local and expatriate population with complete broad-cast coverage spanning the capital Muscat, Batinah, Dhofar and Al Sharqiyah, in line with the sta-tion’s well-known and established connection with the listeners.
Through out-of-the-box and innovative concepts, ideas, pro-grammes and custom-made shows for its wide range of cli-ents, Al Wisal seeks to maximise its reach on the national level in order for advertisers to eff ec-tively achieve their objectives and implement highly success-ful marketing campaigns, says a press release.
Reaching 2.1 million listen-ers across the nation, Al Wisal’s robust expansion eff orts will en-able a much greater and more di-verse audience base to tune in to Al Wisal’s rich, entertaining and socially-responsible content and programming.
Eihab Abutaha, CEO of SAB-CO Media said, “We are confi -dent that our expansion into Al Sharqiyah will further boost our national presence and add sub-stantial value to our current and potential client base. Our ad-vertisers have always had a very keen interest and belief in adver-tising on radio with both Al Wisal FM and Merge FM due to strong content, community-driven ap-proach and solid geographical reach to Oman’s most populated governorates and regions.
Feroz Khan, director of Sales and Marketing added, “Al Wisal’s underlying objective in terms
of its listeners is to eff ectively engage all segments and demo-graphical components of Omani society into the rich and enter-taining Al Wisal experience, by maximising the station’s pen-etration fi gures and ultimately covering the entire Sultanate.”
Since its foundation, Al Wisal FM has continued to serve the various strategic marketing needs and expectations of Oman’s top sectors and industries, along with specialized niche sectors through its diverse and broad ros-ter of clients from the private and public sectors including banking, telecom, automotive, FMCG and ministries, among others.
Over the years, Al Wisal has played a strong and visible role in trailblazing social media in Oman and was recently ranked among the top twitter accounts on the national level with over 208,000 followers. It was also ranked No. 1 within all local media - according to the offi cial new media website: socialbakers.com
Representing more than 71% of the entire Sultanate, Al Wisal’s expansion into Al Sharqiyah will enhance Al Wisal’s total geo-graphical spread to reach more than 2.1 million people. Al Wisal’s on air and online content will ac-tively cater to the vibrant gover-norate and its people through a variety of means which include hosting more offi cials from the region for various interviews, an increased focus on the gover-norate’s events and activities, in addition to a range of commu-nity-related topics and issues. Al Wisal has also increased its popular live coverage shows and reporting in various wilayats of Al Sharqiyah North and South governorates in eff orts to engage its people on all levels.
E X P A N S I O N
Pizza Hut expands network with 35th outlet at Oman Avenues MallMUSCAT: Pizza Hut, the iconic global brand and Oman’s favourite pizza place, has further expanded its presence by opening its 35th outlet at Oman’s newest shopping destination - Oman Avenues Mall, in Bausher. The Pizza Hut casual dining restaurant is located on Level 2 of the Avenues Mall and has been welcoming pizza lovers with its classic interiors, exclusive seating and inviting ambience, says a press release.
“It is our pursuit to make Pizza Hut as accessible to our valued guests as possible. The brand new sit-down restaurant in the Ave-nues Mall, brings us even closer to our customers as we provide a pit-stop, to refresh and refuel, amidst their leisurely shopping and enter-tainment activities,” stated Vivek Pande, CEO, Khimji Ramdas Life-style Group.
Pizza afi cionados can treat themselves to their favourite dishes ranging from garlic bread, chicken wings, pizzas, pastas and much more. The menu, in addition
to the classics, also includes ‘great value combos’, which are perfect as quick eats.
“Our menu has been designed to meet the palates and preferences of the entire family, off ering some-thing special for everyone and this trend continues at our brand new outlet in the Oman Avenues Mall. We take this opportunity to welcome our patrons and all food lovers in Oman to spend a few de-licious moments with us at our new restaurant,” stated Yogesh Shah, general manager, Khimji
Restaurant Division.Pizza Hut outlets are spread
across the length and breadth of Oman; both in the capital and inte-rior regions. The brand has over the years established itself as a popular dining hotspots with its diverse for-mats ranging from restaurants to delivery and express outlets. In ad-dition to the Oman Avenues Mall, Pizza Hut is present in other popu-lar malls in the Sultanate namely, Qurum City Centre, Muscat City Centre, Lulu Nizwa, Lulu Salalah and Safeer Mall Sohar.
C A S U A L D I N I N G
Al Shomoukh Nursery conducts graduation day for pre-schoolersMUSCAT: Al Shomoukh Nursery held its fi rst graduation ceremony for its pre-schoolers on the nurs-ery premises.
The ceremony included a sweets buff et and refreshments. It was a major success as it is the fi rst grad-uation ceremony for Al-Shomoukh Nursery since it opened its doors for children on January 11, says a press release.
It was hats off to children at Al Shomoukh Nursery as they left to begin their new journey in a big school. Children wearing tailor-made graduation caps and gowns were treated to a special gradua-tion ceremony, where every child was presented with a certifi cate as a souvenir of the occasion.
The children performed a short skit of Little Red Riding Hood, and then sang few songs. Certifi cates were then handed out amid cheer-
ful applause from parents, friends, and teachers.
Meriam Sabra, director of Al Shomoukh Nursery, said, “It is re-ally sad to say goodbye to our pre-schoolers but we are so proud of them. Their days in the nursery were full of exploration, creation, laughter, discovery, growth, and fun. A big thank you goes for the
hard work, dedication, and nur-turing ability of our staff that has equipped children with opportuni-ties to achieve their full potentials for the next milestone in their life.”
Al Shomoukh Nursery is a place where families feel confi dent that their children are getting adequate child care to foster the develop-ment of the whole child.
C E L E B R A T I O N
Malabar Gold & Diamonds wins superbrand status for third yearMUSCAT: Malabar Gold & Dia-monds, one of the leading jewel-lery retailers with a strong retail network of 134 retail outlets spread across nine countries, achieved the Superbrand status third time in a row.
Superbrands organisation, the independent authority and arbi-ter of branding, announced the achievement in the 11th annual Superbrands tribute event, which was held to honour the UAE’s strongest brands at Interconti-nental Hotel Dubai Festival City on Monday, says a press release.
Speaking on the occasion, Shamlal Ahamed, managing di-rector, International Operations said, “This is a great collective achievement for us and I take this opportunity to thank our custom-ers, team members and investors without whose wholehearted support this remarkable feat would not have been possible.”
Malabar Gold & Diamonds of-fers impeccable jewellery, widely accepted and popular among all
class of customers alike. Since their inception in 1993, the jewel-lery chain strives to deliver more than they promise. In a world of competition, excellence matters everything else.
Outstanding brands such as Malabar Gold & Diamonds distinguish themselves from the competitors through crea-tive marketing strategies, cus-tomer friendly policies, show-rooms with warm and inviting interiors,combination of cutting
edge designs, unmatched grace combined with style, attractive prices, superior customer service and distinctive after sales servic.
The Superbrands Council in each country comprises individu-als who have shown exceptional aptitude in business and who have a thorough knowledge of that particular country’s markets and methods of business. With such high standard set for the brand, every progress to reach a milestone will be a success story.
R E C O G N I T I O N
Omani law fi rm sweeps the board in legal 500 rankingsMUSCAT: Independent law fi rm, Al Busaidy Mansoor Jamal & Co. (AMJ) has consolidated its mar-ket leading position after record-ing another impressive perfor-mance in the 2015 edition of The Legal 500 EMEA.
Released in April, this prestig-ious annual guide to law fi rms in Europe, Middle East and Africa ranks AMJ as a top-tier fi rm across all fi ve practice areas under review. The rankings make AMJ the only law fi rm operating in Oman to achieve top-tier status across the board in banking and fi nance, cor-porate and M&A, dispute resolu-tion, projects and energy and ship-ping, says a press release.
The Legal 500 also names two of the fi rm’s partners on the elite ‘leading lawyers’ list and recom-mends four lawyers in the edito-rial commentary. Managing part-ner Mansoor Jamal Malik has
won the unique accolade of lead-ing lawyer for his projects and energy as well as corporate and M&A practice and is described in the guide as ‘a prominent fi g-ure in the Oman legal market’. Senior partner, Dr Said Al Bu-saidy, referred to as ‘one of the greatest legal fi gures in Oman’, is recommended for dispute reso-lution. Partner Marcus Pery is recognised as a leading lawyer for banking and fi nance and recom-mended for corporate and M&A.
Partner Ardeshir Patel is recom-mended for both corporate and M&A and banking and fi nance and Special Counsel Graham Mouat for shipping.
Malik remarked, “We are de-lighted to have retained our top-tier rankings of previous years in four practice areas and to have tier 1 ranking restored for dispute res-olution. This very strong Legal 500 result is an outstanding achieve-ment and refl ects hard work and dedication of the whole fi rm.”
I M P R E S S I V E P E R F O R M A N C E
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Meshan Sweets opens new outlets in cooperation with Zubair SEC
MUSCAT: Meshan Dates and Sweets opened its new sales out-lets and coff ee shop under the pa-tronage of Dr Ali Masoud Al Su-naidy, Minister of Commerce and Industry, as it expands its business in the local Omani market. The ceremony was held in the pres-ence of a number of government offi cials and reputable business people including entrepreneurs and supporters of small enterpris-es, says a press release.
This step is in conformity with the objectives drawn by “Meshan” and its strategy for commercial ex-pansion in response to the require-
ments of the market and sales vol-ume recently achieved. The four sisters — Wafa, Shatha, A’hed and Wa’ed Al Jabri — have announced, at the very beginning of the start of their project, their fi rm and ambi-tious desire to position “Meshan” as market leader in the fi eld of Om-ani dates and sweets. After four years in the small enterprises are-na, they proudly succeed in open-ing a new commercial outlet which is new and diff erent in its design, vision and internal structuring.
The new shop refl ects the spirit of innovation and creativity found in Meshan’s various products, while maintaining its authentic-ity and adopted philosophy. Today, “Meshan” presents a new model of a shop and café that off ers pastries with Omani and oriental fl avours, thus standing out with its unique features amongst other brands in the local market. Its contemporary atmosphere highlighted through the cafe space blends between the fragrance of the past and the el-egance of modernity.
Meshan Dates and Sweets has proven its seriousness in the path of entrepreneurship through the hard work and eff orts made by the four sisters, Wafa, Shatha, A’hed and Wa’ed Al Jabri, for their zeal and confi dence in establishing their own independent economic en-tity. They undertook a set of leading steps that are exemplary for each entrepreneur. The sisters benefi t-
ed from the various opportunities and experiences made available by the Public Authority for Small and Medium Enterprises Development (Riyada), and Al Rafd Fund. Two years ago, “Meshan” joined Zubair Small Enterprises Centre (Zubair SEC) and shortly after won Zubair SEC’s Direct Support Programme, which provided “Meshan” the op-portunity to take advantage of the intensive strategic, technical, ad-ministrative, fi nancial and legal advisory services made available by the Centre to enable entrepreneurs to grow and overcome any obsta-cles in their way for development.
Brand developmentMeshan has collaborated with Zubair SEC to further develop its brand and corporate identity and organise its products to refl ect professionalism in the market.
Moreover, it expanded its partner-ships to insure permanent outlets for their products with other re-nowned trademarks in the local and foreign markets. After having worked on the eff ective marketing strategy with the Zubair SEC advi-sors, “Meshan” has today become an Omani brand led by four Omani entrepreneurs marketing an Oma-ni product with an innovative way characterised by sophistication and high standards of creativity and quality.
Khalid Muhammad Al Zubair, Managing Director of The Zubair Corporation, said: “Today we have a successful example of Omani women entrepreneurs who were able to prove themselves in the private sector. Their determina-tion and will were evident as they developed themselves and skills, learned from the experiences of
others, and invested in real oppor-tunities to build their project”.
“Both the public and private sectors did not spare any eff ort in supporting entrepreneurs and owners of small and medium busi-nesses while proving their eff ort, determination and perseverance to achieve success.
“It is a priority for both sectors, in compliance with the directives of His Majesty, may Allah protect him, to enable owners of small and medium enterprises to achieve success and contribute to this vital sector by enabling it to pro-gress, prosper and compete with their counterparts in the global markets,” he added.
Collaboration between Omani entrepreneursMeshan new sale outlet was de-signed and executed by Shumookh
Engineering Consulting, founded and managed by Jokha Al Husaini-ya, who is also one of the members of Zubair SEC and winner of its Direct Support Programme. The Centre worked to establish com-munication and cooperation be-tween its members to join eff orts for the progress and development of their projects.
During the launch ceremony, Shatha Al Jabri gave an introduc-tion on the new marketing plan for the company and the approach fol-lowed in marketing and promotion to align with the new launch of the new outlet; a clear indication of so-phistication, creativity and persis-tence to achieve success.
Wafa Al Jabri, Founding Partner of Meshan, said: “In the beginning I thank everyone who believed in Meshan and supported us and shared today our celebration of this new outlet. I thank Dr Ali Al Sunaidy, Minister of Commerce and Industry. I also extend my gratitude to Sheikh Khalid Al Zubair for everything he made available for us, along with Zubair SEC for the genuine support, guid-ance, and assistance for the last two years till today.
“I also thank all offi cial insti-tutions that facilitated and con-tributed to our success as entre-preneurs and owners of small business. We are happy to inaugu-rate the new Meshan outlet today in collaboration with Zubair SEC”.
The new shop
refl ects the spirit
of innovation and
creativity found in
Meshan’s various
products, while
maintaining its
authenticity and
adopted philosophy
BankDhofar completes launch of its brand at new Salalah AirportSALALAH: Reaffi rming its po-sition as a strategic partner and key contributor to the major de-velopment projects in the Sultan-ate, BankDhofar has completed the launch of its brand at the new Salalah Airport which started op-erations on June 15.
Earlier, the bank signed an exclusive strategic partnership agreement with JCDecaux — the number one outdoor advertising company worldwide — to exclu-sively reserve strategic advertising and media spaces at Salalah Air-port, says a press release.
“Being part of this magnifi cent project gives us the opportunity to further amplify our communica-tion channels and extend our pub-lic outreach. This emphasises our commitment to be the best bank in Oman and in the Gulf, and goes in line with our continuous eff orts to provide world class banking products and services. Such mas-sive project will defi nitely enrich the tourism in the region and will
boost local businesses. We are very proud to welcome Salalah visitors through this new gate-way,” said Abdul Hakeem Omar Al Ojaili, Acting CEO at BankDhofar.
BankDhofar works constant-ly to reach out to customers through diverse channels, restat-ing its commitment to provide best customer experience and innovative banking solutions, products and services. Bank-Dhofar brand has always been associated with the best cus-tomer experience and aspires to always be the best in all its op-erations and business practices.
On his part, Sebastien Soares, managing director of JCDecaux Oman, said: “Salalah new air-port is one of the large-scale developmental projects in the Sultanate and JCDecaux Oman is honoured to be part of it in as-sociation with OAMC. Our long term strategic partnership with BankDhofar underlines JCDe-caux Oman’s commitment to
provide its clients with premi-um and tailor made advertising solutions that meet the brand’s communication strategy.”
Samer Ahmed Al Nabhani, general manager of Commercial Operations at Oman Airports Management Company (OAMC), also noted: “The increase of air-port passengers’ traffi c experi-enced in the last years demon-strates that Oman is growing fast. The opening of the new Salalah Airport comes within OAMC strategic plan to expand with ambitious infrastructure developments in order to cope with this passengers’ growth. OAMC is proud to provide the best passenger experience to the visitors of Dhofar region travel-ling through the new Salalah Air-port. We are also pleased to have BankDhofar on board with their airport branding. We believe this opportunity will give BankDhofar an extended reach to local and in-ternational audience.”
S T R A T E G I C P A R T N E R
Joyalukkas remains Superbrand DUBAI: Joyalukkas, one of world’s leading jewellers, has now been recognised as a Super-brand for sixth time in a row by the panel of judges at this year’s Superbrand award ceremony. Joyalukkas has been bagging the Superbrand award continuously since 2010.
Joyalukkas was deemed a Su-perbrand at the Superbrand’s Tribute Event, an award ceremo-ny that witnessed the presence of the best in media and peers. John Paul Joy Alukkas, executive di-rector, Joyalukkas Group and So-nia John Paul, director, accepted the award on behalf of Joyalukkas Group, says a press release.
The Superbrand’s organisa-tion is an independent authority that is acclaimed worldwide, and is dedicated to paying tribute to exceptional brands from across the globe. This laurel encourages brands to maintain their supe-riority in terms of branding and services. It is only the best global brands chosen by the Superbrand Council that feature in the Super-brand’s UAE book, and Joyaluk-
kas will appear in it for the 6th consecutive year.
“It is a proud moment for us at the Joyalukkas Group. We would sincerely like to thank the es-teemed panel of judges for this great encouragement. We are honoured, humbled and more driven than ever, to achieve our single goal since inception of be-ing ‘the world’s favourite jewel-ler’,” said Joy Alukkas, chairman and MD, Joyalukkas Group.
“Being recognised as a Super-brand for the sixth consecutive year is a great achievement for us
at the Joyalukkas Group. But this title has also added responsibility as we strive to bring our valuable customers the best in choice, ser-vices, value and design. I’d like to thank the judges for this prestig-ious award and promise to con-tinue the good,” said John Paul.
The Joyalukkas brand has come a long way, with a humble begin-ning of one showroom to now be-ing a globally recognised jewellery retail chain with over 105 show-rooms. It has revolutionised the jewellery retail industry with its innovative schemes and off ers.
S I X T H T I M E I N A R O W
Trainees at BIIT complete course
MUSCAT: Bahwan Interna-tional Institute of Technology (BIIT), part of the Bahwan Cy-berTek (BCT) Group, has created job opportunities across various industries within the private sector and imparted training to Omani nationals, tailored to the job requirements of the various employers in the Sultanate, after a detailed analysis that clearly identifi ed the gaps in the indus-try needs versus the existing skill level of the job seekers.
Over 30 potential Omani na-tionals of leading global and lo-cal exchange companies in the Sultanate, Travelex and Hamdan Exchange recently completed a
7-month training programme, says a press release.
Training objectiveThe objective of the training was to prepare Omani youths for their jobs in the above organisa-tions through providing hands-on skills and exposure to cus-tomer service, English language skills, information technology, core job specialisation skills in the foreign exchange trade, personality development pro-grammes and soft skills, project-based work, on-job training, and relevant case studies within the forex industry.
The trainees demonstrated
their learning skills during the final day presentation through concepts and role plays, dur-ing which they showcased im-mense understanding of their job roles by applying the skills gained through the tailored in-tensive programme.
In his closing remarks, C. K. Bharathi, BIIT, emphasised to the trainees the importance of customer service excellence and briefed about BCT’s services in competency building and skills enhancement which are focused towards national initiatives of the Government of Oman in the areas of Omanisation among public and private organisations.
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Ooredoo to launch 3rd cycle of Arab Mobile Challenge
MUSCAT: Ooredoo announced yesterday that it will extend its support for the Arab Mobile Chal-lenge, which has already complet-ed two successful cycles and has now kicked off its third cycle for 2015-2016.
Originally launched in 2013 as a pilot programme covering fi ve countries, the Arab Mobile Chal-lenge, co-founded by Ooredoo, wel-comed nearly 700 regional teams from 14 Arab countries in 2014.
The Global Mobile App Chal-lenge enables teams of up to six members under the age of 35 to develop mobile apps designed to
make an impact in the education, health, entertainment and em-ployability/entrepreneurship sec-tors, says a press release.
Ooredoo’s role has been criti-cal for the sustainability of the programme and its continued outreach, and in 2015 the com-pany plans to invite young people to participate in the challenge from Algeria, Oman, Kuwait and Qatar. Ooredoo supports a rich portfolio of youth entrepreneurial initiatives as part of its strategy to provide opportunities for youth across the Arab world.
Dr. Nasser Marafi h, Group CEO,
Ooredoo said: “Ooredoo supports young talent through initiatives like the Arab Mobile App Chal-lenge because we want to enrich the lives of young people and en-courage them to reach their full potential. Last year’s challenge introduced a range of life-chang-ing apps to the marketplace, with particular focus on the traditions and aspirations of the Arab world. This year will deliver a host of new innovations and ideas that make a real impact on their respective communities.”
With continued support from eco-system partners across the
region, special endorsement from the GSMA, and a presence at the Mobile World Congress, the Arab Mobile Challenge is the largest platform of its kind in the region. It is the regional chapter in the Global Mobile Challenge, which hosts young, innovative minds from around the world.
Greg Young, CEO of Ooredoo Oman, said: “We are very excited about being part of this innovative challenge. One of our missions is to support and enable the devel-opment of young Omani talent, and there are many budding ‘tech’ enthusiasts out there, who are just waiting for the right opportunity to showcase their abilities. We are looking forward to seeing the in-spiring ideas they come up with”.
Graduating from the Arab Mo-bile Challenge 2014-15, the team behind the innovative game “He-roes from the Past”, took part in the Global Mobile Challenge in Bar-celona. This team won fi rst place and showed the world that young Arabs’ innovation and entrepre-neurial spirit can take a lead on the world stage.
This year, the Arab Mobile Chal-lenge is introducing two tracks, one for ideas and one for early
stage start-ups. This will enable people with technical skills and also people with great ideas that can translate into viable solutions to participate. This approach has been adopted to engage a larger pool of talent in the region and en-sure that teams are being judged as fairly as possible based on their level of development.
For the MENA region, AMC 2015 will run one-day boot-camps in diff erent countries and provide remote acceleration with a toolkit covering the same material for participants who cannot attend. By registering on www.arabmobi-lechallenge.com, teams can receive up-to-date information on events.
Partners on the programme in-clude IE Business School, GSMA, Oasis500, Supcom, Wamda, The Space, Qatar Living, and The Queen Rania Centre for Entre-preneurship. Finalists will be in-vited to Regional Finals in Janu-ary 2016. Winners are eligible for either fi nancial prizes or the op-portunity for a fully-paid invita-tion to compete at the Global Mo-bile Challenge in Barcelona, also founded by the Applied Innovation Institute (AII), and hosted by the Mobile World Congress.
The Global Mobile App Challenge enables
teams of up to six members under the age
of 35 to develop mobile apps designed
to make an impact in the education,
health, entertainment and employability/
entrepreneurship sectors
Copa America 2015 live on beIN Sports
MUSCAT: Copa América 2015, the main international football tournament for national teams in South America, will be broadcast in high defi nition, live on beIN sports channels. beIN Sports, which is a leading provider for sports channels is broadcast-ing all live action of global sports events, says a press release.
The 44th edition of the Copa América competition will be or-ganised by CONMEBOL, South America’s football governing body. The tournament will be held in Chile till July 4. The par-ticipating teams are: Chile (host nation), Argentina, Colombia, Paraguay, Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, Brazil, Uruguay, Venezue-la, Jamaica and Mexico.
Mustafa Sultan Electronics – Entertainment Factory (Pay-Tv) division is pioneer in Pay TV business for more than 20 years and is the distributor for beIN SPorts in Oman. Besides BeIN sports, MSE-EF is a lead-ing distributor for OSN. They have a showroom in Al Khuwair and three kiosks in Muscat City Centre, Qurum City Centre and MGM and also off er the Pay TV services through their sub deal-ers spread across in Sultanate.
F O O T B A L L
Third SPAR supermarket opensMUSCAT: The world’s largest food retailer SPAR has opened its third supermarket in Oman, this time in Madinat Qaboos. The re-cently renovated 1,200sqm retail space in the Assarain Building in Madinat Sultan will deliver a wide assortment of fresh produce including fruits and vegetables, meat, fi sh, deli, bakery and food-to-go range from Kitsu.
Customers can expect good value food and non-food products imported from diff erent countries with high standards of hygiene, friendly customer service giving them a premium quality shopping environment which is truly inter-national, says a press release.
Speaking on the occasion, M. Sridhar, CEO, SPAR Oman, said: “Standing high on the pillars of service, freshness, value, range and assortment, SPAR supermar-ket in Madinat Qaboos will off er its customers a rewarding experi-ence like none other. SPAR Mid-dleast has worked closely with SPAR Oman to design a customer friendly layout and ambience, that brings both convenient and pleas-urable shopping experience for customers in Muscat.”
The store’s main focus is on freshness with more than 400 sqm dedicated to fresh fruits and vege-tables, butchery, fi sh, fresh bakery and kitsu – food on the go. To max-imise customer delight from day one, SPAR is off ering free home delivery. To celebrate the Rama-dan spirit SPAR has launched its “Shop & Win” promotion across its three outlets in Bausher, Al
Khuwair and MQ. Every OMR5 spent at any SPAR store in this Ramadan, can reward customers with LG LED TVs, home theater and SPAR gift vouchers. Themed ‘Shop & Win promotion is set to run until August 8.
“Being a customer-centric or-ganisation our focus has been on providing maximum value addi-tion through our diverse product
off erings combined with excellent customer service,” stated Deven-dra Kumar, Head Retail for SPAR.
“Keeping in tune with the Ram-adan festivities, “Shop & Win” merges well with pre-Ramadan festivities, which enables our loy-al shoppers to win, making this promotion more noteworthy. For more on this customer friendly ini-tiative patrons can dial 24692315.”
M A D I N A T Q A B O O S O U T L E T
Joyalukkas unveils ‘Easy Gold Purchase’MUSCAT: Now buying Joyaluk-kas jewellery is easier than ever. Joyalukkas has introduced new and most benefi cial Easy Gold Purchase scheme.
Get one month instalment as cash gift voucher with one year scheme. Pay in easy monthly in-stalments of OMR10, or multi-plication of 10 for 12 months and get one month’s instalment as ad-ditional benefi t only for jewellery purchase, says a press release.
Joyalukkas is the world’s most desirable and fastest grow-ing jewellery brand. Joyalukkas easy gold monthly purchase plan brings you the best instalment plan for ever, leading to easy pur-chase of jewellery of your choice. Under this plan, you get more than you pay for and also get at-tractive price for your shopping! When you invest in gold, you se-cure your family’s future with the guarantee of purity and trust.
B E N E F I C I A L S C H E M E
Centrepoint embraces Ramadan spiritMUSCAT: With the holy month of Ramadan upon us, the warm spirit of togetherness and festivity can be felt at the Centrepoint store where a warm and ethnic shopping environment has been created to symbolise the festive spirit.
Traditionally, Ramadan sees a rise in the number of families meeting for suhoor and iftars and with the holy month coinciding with the summer holiday months, Centrepoint stores have launched a Ramadan and Eid specifi c collec-tion which are comfortable for this heat while exhibiting the festive season spirit, says a press release.
“Centrepoint has worked care-fully towards providing its cus-tomers with products that blend in the festive spirit while retain-ing the fresh summer look across
its brands. We have embraced the spirit of Ramadan and what shop-pers will be able to experience will yield a vibrant yet ethnic feel in our stores,” said Vinod Talreja, di-rector, Centrepoint.
Highlighting a wide spectrum of colours, designs and mix-and-
match options at aff ordable pric-es, the Baby Shop collection pro-vides kids between 0 – 16 years with several fashion options to choose from this festive season.
Moving from children to adults, Splash’s festive collection ranges from statement pieces for men and women this season with a special emphasis on sequins in the designs, which is bound to make the designs special for any occa-sion. With trends such as white romance and rogue passion for women, this festive collection is aiming to include elegant and so-phisticated items of clothing. The trends surround colours such as white, red and fl oral prints, which is perfect for Ramadan and in-cludes pieces such as wrap skirts, kaftans and palazzo pants. For
men, expect dapper and opulent pieces which include smart jackets and crisp printed shirts that will be ideal to wear for an occasion.
No outfi t is complete without dressing up the feet, hence, head to Shoe Mart for comfortable and on trend footwear that will get you all glammed up with glitter-ing stone-studded heels, suave muted styles and exotic animal prints. Gents can seek comfort and style with a classic touch in traditional Arabic slippers made out of genuine leather.
When done with all, then head to Lifestyle to shine like a diva with their new range of premium hair styling brands that include Amika & Juicy and Toronto-based celebrity hair stylist, Marc Anthony’s ‘True Professional’.
S P E C I A L C O L L E C T I O N
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Bank Muscat wins Best Self Service award
MUSCAT: Bank Muscat, the fl ag-ship fi nancial services provider in the Sultanate, has won the ‘Best Self Service Banking Project in the Middle East 2015’ award by The Asian Banker.
In recognition of innovative technological initiatives, the bank’s Call Centre was honoured at the Middle East & Africa Tech-nology Implementation Awards ceremony hosted by The Asian Banker, says a press release.
Bank Muscat operates the larg-est Call Centre in the banking sec-tor in Oman. Featuring the best in class technology, the Call Centre handles on average 200,000 calls a month. The automated integrat-ed voice response (IVR) system handles 60 per cent of the calls re-ceived by the Call Centre and the
remaining calls are answered by phone bankers. The language op-tions for the IVR facility include Arabic, English and Hindi.
Of late, the Call Centre is wit-nessing increased levels of IVR calls. The enhanced IVR facility does not require pre-registration and customers can log in for the service with their 16 digit debit card and 4 digit ATM PIN num-bers. The revamped phone bank-ing service was introduced as part of the bank’s commitment to ex-cellence in providing innovative banking solutions. Driven by the latest technological features of-fering a wide range of options, the phone banking presents a unique facility that allows cus-tomers to bank at convenience from ‘anywhere, anytime’. For people constantly on the move, the service is a boon.
The phone banking services include fund transfer to own ac-count, third party account within Bank Muscat and third party account outside Bank Muscat. Customers can also utilise the service for speed transfer of funds to India. The service can also be availed for utility bill payments such as water, electricity, tel-ephone, internet, Ooredoo and Omantel mobile top-up, school fees and credit card payment.
The service also includes real time balance enquiry for saving and current accounts, loans, credit card and deposits. Customers can also generate and receive mini or detailed ac-count statement on registered email addresses.
The Call Centre assistance becomes critical, especially dur-ing non-banking hours to report card loss or any other urgent mat-ter. In case of lost or stolen card, customers can block the card themselves against misuse. The Call Centre is on constant vigil against card fraud as the centre is equipped to detect fraudulent card transactions. Transactions at high risk vendors and PoS are always monitored.
Other services include request for cheque book and application forms; real time deposit and ex-change rates for select currencies using exchange rate calculator and branch locator to identify the nearest branch, in addition to special services.
To use the phone banking IVR facility, customers are required to follow the audio instructions after contacting the Call Centre on 24795555. The Call Centre has achieved 100 per cent Om-anisation with a healthy 50:50 male, female ratio.
In recognition
of innovative
technological
initiatives, the
bank’s Call Centre
was honoured at
the Middle East &
Africa Technology
Implementation
Awards ceremony
hosted by The Asian
Banker
Unbeatable deals at Bait Al AhlamMUSCAT: This Ramadan the Khimji Ramdas Group is off ering unbeatable deals at its spanking new furniture showroom Bait Al Ahlam in Seeb.
The 4,000 sq metre show space for the most eclectic furniture from around the world is now of-fering customers OMR25 gift vouchers for every OMR100 spent. What’s more these vouchers can be redeemed instantly, which means that shoppers get more val-ue for every purchase made at the store, says a press release.
Says N. S. Vijaya Kumar, CEO, KR Infra, “We want customers to come and experience style and comfort in style. If you’ve been to Bait Al Ahlam you will see a wide range of furniture showcasing the best designs and craftsmanship from all over the world. Our pieces project the higher standards of liv-ing and luxury that we see today in homeowners; they cater to con-temporary tastes and guarantee the best in terms of quality and durability of materials used. What sets us apart is our uniqueness in the choice of furniture; the items that you see here are exclusive to Bait Al Ahlam to give customers a choice of something extraordinary and exceptional.”
Believed to be one of the largest of its kind in Oman, Bait Al Ahlam opened its doors in February this year and is already the talk of the town for its wide range of furni-ture displayed across a sprawling,
sublimely decked out show space. The Ramadan promotion will give customers choice pickings from an eclectic selection of custom de-signed furniture.
“Bait Al Ahlam actually means ‘All about your Dream Home’. And that is exactly what we convey with our furniture. Each display area is designed to represent the home of everyone’s dreams. Whether it is furniture for a villa or an apart-ment, customers can be sure to fi nd quality at the right price. With
more than 50 per cent of our mer-chandise sourced from Europe, there is a wide variety of choice for furniture to suit all tastes,” says Prem Anand, Divisional Head, Bait Al Ahlam Home Furniture.
The showroom is open from Saturday to Thursday from 9.30am to 9.30pm and on Friday from 4.30pm to 9.30pm. Ramad-han timings are from Saturday to Thursday 10am to 1pm and 7pm to 12am and on Friday from 7pm to 12am.
F U R N I T U R E S H O W R O O M
Bait Al Ahlam actually means ‘All about your Dream
Home’. And that is exactly what we convey with our
furniture. Each display area is designed to represent
the home of everyone’s dreams. Whether it is furniture
for a villa or an apartment, customers can be sure to
find quality at the right price
Prem AnandDivisional Head, Bait Al Ahlam Home Furniture
WWW.TIMESOFOMAN.COM
SPOR SY O U R G A M E
SECTIONC T H U R S DAY, J U N E 1 8 , 2 0 1 5
ALI AL HABSI HEADING TO NOTTINGHAM FOREST!Several UK-based websites have posted news linking the Omani hero with Championship side Nottingham Forest while some have reported about Ali expressing his desire to stay in England. >C6
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Team India wary of buoyant Bangladesh in one-day series
DHAKA: Mahendra Singh Dho-ni’s India expect a close contest when they clash with fast-improv-ing Bangladesh in a three-match one-day series starting in Dhaka on Thursday.
Bangladesh may have lagged behind in fi ve-day Tests but they have enjoyed considerable suc-cess in limited-overs cricket, having stunned England to make the World Cup quarter-fi nals in March before trouncing Pakistan 3-0 at home a month later.
India have lost only three of 29 One-day Internationals against Bangladesh, but senior bats-man Suresh Raina refused to take victory for granted in the upcoming series.
Raina, who led an under-strength Indian side to a 2-0 win over Bangladesh last year, said his team had begun taking Bangladesh more seriously following their re-cent success.
“As you can see we are fi elding our best team despite the hectic schedule,” he said.
“It shows how much importance we give to this one-day series be-cause it is not easy to beat Bangla-desh now.”
Raina was happy that unlike the one-off Test last week, when more than nine sessions were lost due to rain, the ODI series has reserve days for all three games.
If a match is abandoned or can-not be completed on the fi rst day, play will resume on the following day from the point where it left off .
“It’s a good thing, but it means we have to plan for play to split on two days,” said Raina.
“The rain is not in our hands.”A series win — or even a narrow
1-2 loss — would help Bangladesh leapfrog the West Indies into sev-enth place in the world rankings, boosting the country’s chances
of reaching the 2017 Champions Trophy. Hosts England, plus the next seven highest-ranked sides on September 30, 2015, qualify for the tournament.
Pace bowler Taskin Ahmed, who made his debut against India with a fi ve-wicket haul last year, said the hosts were confi dent of doing well in the ODI series.
“Our team is strong, everyone is doing well,” he said.
“If we can continue to be con-sistent, I hope something good will come out of it.”
Rookie RahmanBangladesh have called up rookie left-arm pace bowler Mustafi zur Rahman for the series after he impressed in his Twenty20 inter-national debut against Pakistan in April.
Rahman will join skipper Mashrafe Mortaza, Ahmed and Rubel Hossain in the pace attack that has become Bangladesh’s new strength in limited-overs cricket.
All three matches will be played at the Sher-e-Bangla National Sta-dium in Dhaka, with the second and third games scheduled for June 21 and 24.
ENJOYING A LIGHT MOMENT: Indian cricket captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni, right, Shikhar Dhawan, and Suresh Raina share a light mo-
ment during a practice session at the Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium in Dhaka. – AFP
MIRPUR: Bangladesh ODI skipper Mashrafe Mortaza says they are going into the three-match series opener with the belief that they have the wherewithal to beat India in Thursday’s game.
Mortaza said his side has gone from strength-to-strength in the last few years and that gives them the confi dence of playing hard against much fancied rival like India.
“I fi rmly believe India are favourites but when we get on the fi eld, we don’t think who is favourite or who is not. I hope we can play our best cricket. After the 2007 World Cup, we started to believe that we can beat any team,” Mortaza said on the eve of the series-opener.
“We never lost our men-tal strength despite losing matches. Of course, if we are playing against a higher-ranked
team they will be the favourites but we don’t think that we can’t beat them,” Mortaza added.
The Bangladesh captain said the recent-past records are en-couraging for them and all they need is to fi re in unison.
“Bangladesh is one of the
teams doing well in ODIs right now apart from Australia, Eng-land, India and New Zealand. I have told the boys to look at the statistics that we are not far behind any of these teams.
“Everyone believes in them-selves. We have to show it on
the fi eld, but this is no pressure. One or two could have a bad time but if many of us are in form, we can have a good time,” he said.
The skipper wants his players to adopt the one-match-at-one-time approach.
“We should take it match by match which is more important for us. We have to do well and then think about the next game and so forth.
“We have to learn how to deal with such pressure too. We are improving so we must handle this sort of pressure. Taking pressure won’t be good for us. We faced similar pressure at the World Cup where even those who believed in us could only hope that we would reach the second round.
So just like we did it there, we will take it match by match,” he said. - PTI
Mortaza upbeat about team’s chances of beating India
UPBEAT: Bangladesh ODI cricket captain Mashrafe Mortaza
speaks to the media. – AFP
MUSCAT CLUB EMERGE CHAMPIONSMuscat Club outlasted Ahli-Sidab to emerge the champions of the Ministry of Sports Af-
fairs Oman Handball Championship at the Sultan Qaboos Sports Complex on Wednesday.
In a keenly-contested fi nal between the two capital-based team, Muscat kept their cool
at the crucial junctures to win the match 26-20 and with that the title. Earlier, Majees got
the better of Seeb to take the third place. Said Hamdoon Al Harthy, Undersecretary at the
Ministry of Transport and Communications for Ports and Maritime Aff airs, presided over
the fi nal day’s proceedings and handed over the trophies. — JUN ESTRADA/Times of Oman
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Dhoni hasn’t changed
DHAKA: It’s been six months since Mahendra Singh Dhoni quit Test cricket but the man-ner in which he used to approach the shorter format “would not change” as his philosophy is to adapt as per the demands of the situation.
Questioned if his approach has changed at all, Dhoni responded in negative.
“No, it will be quite the same because what’s important is for the team to win. And we will have to see what kind of roles and re-sponsibilities suit the individuals playing in the XI, and accordingly, we will decide.
“Being adaptive and constantly looking to improve is something that’s important at the interna-tional level,” Dhoni said today at the pre-match press conference on the eve of the fi rst ODI against Bangladesh, here tomorrow.
“The regime is still the same. As I said it’s the demand of the game. Its not about me but as to what the team demands from me and what the situation is when I go into bat. So it will still be the same. It also depends on where I am batting. If I am batting at 5 and 6, the demands are very diff erent compared to if I am batting at 3 and 4,” Dhoni said.
Recently Dhoni trained at Del-hi’s National Stadium for a day under local coach M P Singh.
“Let us not make it complex. It’s a small thing that keeps on going. It’s a lot to talk about but it’s very basic and very simple. You can have your own idea,” the skipper said.
While the target is to win the series but Dhoni also stressed on the importance to switch off dur-ing rain-breaks as it can hamper the momentum.
“Our target fi rst and foremost is to win the series by taking one game at a time. That is something that makes our job slightly easy. Because there is also chance of rain, so it is important to remain focussed. If we gather some kind of momentum, it’s important that we switch off at the right time
with the rain break. And once the time comes for us to switch on, we should be able to do that and try to get as many runs as possible.”
Asked if he has followed Bang-ladesh’s performance during their 3-0 series win against Pakistan recently, Dhoni sounded a bit dis-missive. “Frankly its very diffi cult for us to watch any other nation playing because we play through-out the year. Yes, I have said “thank you” to one of the formats but still the amount of cricket that has happened its very diffi cult to follow any other series. As far as videos are concerned, we have the luxury of video analyst. More than that I cant really comment on it,” said Dhoni.
Dhoni said that Bangladesh can do even better provided they have good fi rst-class teams providing a supply line of players.
“It’s more important to have a good fi rst-class team and I feel the upcoming players in Bangladesh, most of them have done well when-ever they have got an opportunity to play. That’s defi nitely good for them because to have a bigger pool of players is something that’s im-portant so that if a few of your top players get injured because of the amount of cricket they are playing, somebody is replaced.”
Dhoni also did not divulge any-thing about playing XI.
“We will see whatever the best XI is. Not start new season. It’s
closing towards end of last sea-son. One more series after this. Then offi cially, you can say it’s off -season. Then a new season starts after that.”
The Indian skipper also praised the Bangladesh ODI side, “They are a very good ODI team. Also if you see they have been playing ODI cricket for a long time. And also with their T20 coming in, it gives the guys more exposure and at the same time it gives them the right kind of calculative power as to when they can take the risk and when its important to back off . I have always felt they had a very good ODI side.
“They have shown improve-ment when it comes to Test crick-et but obviously its played over 5 days, couple of innings each so you have to play bit more consist-ent cricket. As time progresses you will see them improving.”
Dhoni also made it clear that the core of this team will be going into the 2017 Champions Trophy in England as well as the 2019 World Cup in Old Blighty.
“If you look at the top four or fi ve batsmen, it seems that if they are fi t and are in decently good form, they are the ones who may go into the next World Cup or the Champions Trophy. But maybe, we need to improve is the bottom three, maybe after the fi rst four. 5,6 & 7 and particularly 7 because they are very crucial.”
“The reason being more of often that the No 7 batsman for you, 90 percent of the time he has to bowl you 10 overs. So we are still look-ing (at an all-rounder). Last one and a half years, I don’t think our bottom order has got a lot of op-portunity to bat specially in teh subcontinent,” the skipper added.
“The top-order has done a re-markable job because of which 5,6 & 7 haven’t had many opportuni-ties to bat. It becomes a bit diffi -cult, the reason being if somebody is batting at 7, if he goes in one game where we are 5 or 6 down and he has to score that 50-60 runs. You get an opportunity like that maybe in 10-15 games.”
While there was liberal praise for Bangladesh crowd who throng in large numbers at the stadiums to the support the ‘Tigers’, Dhoni was not particularly amused about the traffi c problems as the city moves at slow pace.
“The people here love their cricket. They come to support their team, they enjoy their crick-et and I feel that’s something very important for an international side if you have people of your country loving your sport coming to back you in the stadium. It just pushes you to do even better, give in more than 100 percent.”
“Yes, the traffi c has gone worse from what it was but other than that the people are nice. It’s a good place, provide the traffi c.” — PTI
Mahendra Singh
Dhoni might have
quit Test cricket
six months ago
but his philosophy
of adapting as per
the demands of the
situation remains
the same
The regime is still the same. As I said it’s
the demand of the game. Its not about
me but as to what the team demands
M.S. Dhoni, India ODI skipper
Williamson stars again as Kiwis amass huge totalNOTTINGHAM: Kane Wil-liamson took a toll of England’s attack for the second match in a row as New Zealand scored 349 for seven in the day/night fourth one-day international at Trent Bridge on Wednesday.
Williamson just fell shy of mak-ing back-to-back hundreds fol-lowing his 118 in New Zealand’s three-wicket win at Hampshire’s Rose Bowl ground on Sunday that gave the World Cup fi nalists a 2-1 lead in the fi ve-match series.
Opener Martin Guptill made 53 and all-rounder Grant Elliott an unbeaten 55 off 52 balls.
New Zealand, after winning the toss, had threatened a huge score at 187 for two off 30 overs.
England fought back well with the ball, fast bowlers Mark Wood (one for 49 in 10 overs) and Ste-ven Finn (one for 51 in 10) return-ing fi ne fi gures.
But Mitchell Santner smashed 44 off just 19 balls, including 28 off one over from leg-spinner Adil Rashid.
England also didn’t help their cause by dropping several catch-es, albeit a number were diffi cult chances.
The most England have made batting second to win a one-day international is 306 for fi ve, needing 305, against Pakistan at Karachi in 2000.
Both England and New Zealand were unchanged on Wednesday and, given the general dominance of bat over ball this series, it was no surprise when Blackcaps skip-per Brendon McCullum opted to
bat fi rst after winning the toss.Guptill had made 18 when he
checked a drive off Finn, who couldn’t hold the low caught-and-bowled chance to his left, despite getting both hands to the ball.
England managed a break-through when McCullum, on 35, undone by the bounce trying to cut Wood, was caught behind by Jos Buttler.
England fi nally saw the back of Guptill for 53 when they held the most diffi cult of the three chanc-es he gave when Finn, running back from mid-on, made light of an awkward chance over his shoulder after the batsman had been deceived by a Ben Stokes slower ball.
Williamson and Taylor, who made 110 at the Rose Bowl, had shared a stand of 206 on Sunday.
They managed ‘just’ 101 be-tween them on Wednesday with Taylor, deceived by Finn’s slow-er ball, lbw for 42 as he aimed across the line.
Williamson, who struck Rashid for six, fell for 90 when he drove left-arm paceman Da-vid Willey to a leaping Rashid at mid-on.
He faced just 70 balls, includ-ing 12 fours and a six.
Williamson’s 73rd innings at this level saw the 24-year-old be-came the fi fth-quickest batsman to score 3,000 ODI runs.
Rashid, having been struck for four sixes and a four by Santner in the 48th over, conceded just fi ve in the 50th and last over of the innings. - AFP
O D I S E R I E S
PLAY WASHED OUT IN SRI LANKA-PAKISTAN TESTBad weather washed out the opening day’s play without a ball being bowled in the fi rst
Test between Sri Lanka and Pakistan in Galle on Wednesday. The umpires abandoned
play at 2pm (0830 GMT) after incessant rain showed no signs of abating and the large
covers at the Galle International Stadium became waterlogged. Play will start 15 minutes
early on the second day, weather permitting. But rain has been forecast over this southern
coastal town on all fi ve days. Sri Lanka and Pakistan are due to play three Tests, followed
by fi ve One-day Internationals and two Twenty20 matches. — AFP
Pakistan football federation chief Hayat denies reports of dismissalKARACHI: Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) President Faisal Saleh Hayat on Wednesday denied local media reports that he had been dismissed following an extraordinary meeting of the rul-ing body.
“I am still the president of the PFF,” Hayat said. “The reports are completely untrue. It is all just lies for political ends.”
The PFF met in Islamabad on Tuesday and local newspaper Dawn reported that Arshad Khan
Lodhi had been appointed the act-ing president in place of Hayat.
“Today’s congress meeting saw majority of members deciding to take action against the PFF president and secretary due to their incompetence and fi nancial embezzlement,” Kashmala Tariq, who was elected chairman of the PFF women’s wing, was quot-ed as saying.
Hayat, however, said Tariq had no authority within the PFF.
“First of all, who are these peo-
ple in legal terms? We should understand that they are non-entities in the PFF,” the former politician said.
The 62-year-old Hayat, who sits on Fifa’s strategic commit-tee, is planning to stand as presi-dent again in the PFF elections on June 30.
He faces competition from Zahir Ali Shah in the vote, which will take place at PFF headquarters in La-hore after previously being moved to Abbottabad district. - Reuters
F O O T B A L L
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SPORTST H U R S DAY, J U N E 1 8 , 2 0 1 5
Zakariya, Khamis win titles in Al Musannah
MUSCAT: Oman Sail’s Ranking Race in Al Musannah conclud-ed on Tuesday after three days of intense racing helped to give the Sultanate’s most promising young sailors a chance to impress coaches as national selection draws ever closer.
At a closing ceremony and prize-giving, sailors, parents and Oman Sail coaches gathered to-gether to celebrate the achieve-ments of Oman Sail’s Youth Pro-gramme and look forward to the forthcoming Optimist and Laser 4.7 events.
Oman’s gold medal winners at the GCC Championships led the
way after nine rounds of racing with Zakariya Al Wahabi coming out on top in the Optimist class and Khamis Al Wahaibi emerging victorious in the Laser 4.7 class.
Overall, The Wave, Muscat Sailing School proved most suc-cessful, with Al Musannah in sec-ond, Sur narrowly behind in third and Marina Bander Al Rowdha a close fourth.
The Optimist and Laser 4.7 races were preceded by a fi ve-day training camp to gauge the perfor-mance and progress of 55 sailors
from the Oman Sail Youth Pro-gramme, sponsored by Omantel and Oman Shipping Company.
Oman Sail’s Ranking Races provide regular updates as part of Oman Sail’s established Perfor-mance Pathway, a roadmap that outlines the stages of progress from youth level to professional sailing, culminating in the ulti-mate goal of winning a medal for Oman in sailing at the 2024 Olym-pic Games.
The Ranking Races are the start of a busy summer season for
the youth sailors as the best in the Optimist class head to Cyprus for a two-week training camp in July in preparation for the National Optimist Championship at the be-ginning of August and World Op-timist Championship in Poland at the end of August.
The four top performing Laser 4.7 sailors will attend a training camp in Sur before heading to Holland for a training camp and World Laser 4.7 Championships that take place from August 6 to 14 in Medemblik, Holland.
Oman’s gold medal
winners at the GCC
Championships
led the way with
Zakariya Al Wahabi
coming out on top
in the Optimist
class and Khamis Al
Wahaibi emerging
victorious in the
Laser 4.7 class
KEEN COMPETITION : Young Omani sailors in action at the Oman Sail’s Ranking Race organised in Al
Musannah. – Supplied photo
TIME TO IMPRESS: Oman Sail’s Ranking Race provided stern test for young Optimist and Laser 4.7 sailors. – Supplied photo
Neymar named in fraud lawsuit linked to Barca transfer
PSC all set to host Omantel Ramadan cricket tourney
MADRID: A Spanish judge has accepted a legal complaint fi led by Brazilian investment fund DIS that alleges it was the victim of a fraud perpetrated in Barce-lona’s signing of forward Neymar from Santos.
DIS, which owned 40 percent of Neymar’s rights when he was at Santos, alleges it was paid less than half the cash it was entitled to when the player agreed to join the Spanish and European cham-pions in 2013.
Barcelona, former president Sandro Rosell, incumbent Josep Maria Bartomeu, who is stand-ing for re-election, Neymar, his father, Santos and two of the Bra-zilian club’s executives were all named in the lawsuit, according to a court statement published on Wednesday.
The complaint is the latest twist to a saga that has resulted in Barcelona, Rosell and Bartomeu facing trial for tax fraud over the Neymar deal.
However, this is the fi rst time that Neymar himself has been named as a defendant in a lawsuit linked to the transfer.
Bartomeu was a vice-president under Rosell when Neymar was signed in 2013 in a complex deal involving multiple contracts with the player and his father.
Bartomeu, Rosell, who re-signed over the allegations, and the club have been accused of de-frauding the tax offi ce of some 13 million euros ($14.7 million).
Prosecutors have asked for a prison sentence of two years and three months for Bartomeu and
seven and a half years for Rosell, plus fi nes and payments of out-standing taxes totalling more than 60 million euros.
The tax probe was launched af-ter a club member questioned the fi gures given for the Neymar deal. Barca initially said they paid 57.1 million euros but later admitted the cost was nearer 100 million.
The court said on Wednesday that as part of the probe into the DIS complaint, English clubs Chelsea and Manchester City, Barca’s Spanish rivals Real Ma-drid and German side Bayern Munich had been asked for de-tails of off ers they made for Ney-mar when he was at Santos be-tween 2009 and 2013. - Reuters
MUSCAT: Pakistan Social Club (PSCB) has been organising fre-quent sports, cultural and social events since many years for the people residing here in this beau-tiful country Oman. One of our most popular event is Ramadan tape ball fl oodlight cricket tour-nament that starts every year on the fi rst day of Ramadan and lasts till end of the month.
PSC is pleased to announce the much-awaited annual ‘The Ram-adan Cricket Tournament 2015’ with lots of spectacular cash priz-es and rewards. This year’s tour-nament will start on Friday.
“People of all ages in Muscat, Sohar and Salalah simultaneous-ly will enjoy this healthy and col-ourful event that will last about a
month,” Muhammad Zaeem, PSC General Secretary, said while an-nouncing the event.
“PSC appreciates Omantel con-tribution in promoting healthy activities in Oman and to be the presenter of our most favourable and much-awaited sports event for the fi fth consecutive year,” PSC vice-chairman Raja added.
“This year PSC aims not only to welcome cricket players and fans from across Oman but also people with varying interests by the addi-tion of more games and more priz-es for spectators and sports lovers especially for families. The events include musical chair, balloon blow, tug of war and mini basket-ball games,” Kaleem Akhtar, direc-tor of the tournament, said.
The mega event will be kick off on Friday on lush green ground at the Pakistan School Muscat, and on Saturday in Sohar. “We are sure that this tournament will be anoth-er unforgettable event for sports lovers,” Muhammad Munir said.
“This is the fi fth consecutive year of Omantel presenting this tournament with Pakistan Social Club and Omantel is delighted to be part of this major sports event of the country,” Mohammed Has-san Al Lawati, Manager Events at Omantel, said.
For further details contact: Abbas (99344649), Kaleem (95262759), Tahir (92893063) in Muscat, Haji Soukat (9786040) in Sohar and Fazal (99499225) in Salalah.
F O O T B A L L
A N N U A L E V E N T
WRONG FIGURE! Neymar
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GRAND SLAM GLORY SO CLOSE FOR MICKELSON
TACOMA: Phil Mickelson turned 45 on Tuesday still seeking to over-come what he calls the “huge obsta-cle” of fi nally winning the US Open and completing his career Grand Slam. The popular American is al-ready in the record books with his six runner-up fi nishes to the year’s second major leading the all time list. The last of those came two years ago at Merion outside Phila-delphia and he admits it was the most painful of his near misses as mistakes late in his fi nal round let in Justin Rose for the victory.
But Mickelson, a fi ve-time major winner, insists that far from being demoralised by his US Open ago-nies, he takes heart from his per-formances. “I’ve always been some-body, ever since I was a kid, that got motivated by failure, that worked harder because of failure,” he said.
“Some people get discouraged by that, and it almost pushes them away. But for me it’s been a motiva-tor to continue to work harder and get over that hump, whether it was
trying to win my fi rst major cham-pionship that took signifi cantly longer than I thought it would, whether it’s trying to win an Open Championship or whether it’s try-ing to win a US Open championship. “The fact that I’ve come so close is actually a motivator for me to work harder. And it’s encouraging that I’ve done well in this tournament. “It’s encouraging that I’ve had suc-cess and that I’ve played some of my best golf in this event and that I’ve had a number of opportunities.”
Touted as a major winner from his amateur days, Mickelson had to wait until he was nearly 34 before winning his fi rst major at the 2004 Masters. He followed that up with the PGA Championship in 2005 and a second Masters triumph the following year.
After a gap, a third Masters title came in 2010, by which time he had fi nished second, or tied for second, fi ve times in the US Open.
To general surprise, his fi fth ma-jor title came in the British Open in
2013, just a month after his Merion mistakes. That left him just a US Open win away from becoming just the sixth man - after Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Ben Hogan and Gene Sarazen - to win all four of the Grand Slam titles during the course of his career.
His fi rst bid at that accolade end-ed tamely last year when he could only tie for 28th at Pinehurst, but, despite a poor season so far, he be-lieves that his game is back together.
And then there is the venue for this year’s US Open. Chambers Bay, south of Seattle, breaks with US Open mould in that its a links-type course similar in many ways to the championship courses of Scotland - St Andrews, Turnberry, Troon and Muirfi eld where he clinched his British Open success with a closing 66, the best round of his career, he said on that occasion.
The memory of that day and that win, Mickelson believes, could spur him to Grand Slam glory this week.
“I think that’s a good point in that having success at Muirfi eld, when the course was dry and fi rm and fast and brown, much like it is here, gives me much more confi -dence that I’m going to play well,” said Mickelson, who closed with a 65 for a share of third place at last week’s St. Jude Classic in Memphis. “I had a good week last week and I’m hoping to carry some of that momentum into this week.” - AFP
The popular American is already in the record
books with his six runner-up fi nishes to the
year’s second major leading the all time list
Blues start title defence against SwanseaLONDON: Chelsea will start the defence of their Premier League title with a home game against Swansea when the 2015/16 season gets underway on August 8.
Next season’s calendar released Wednesday gives Liverpool a chance to banish memories of their 6-1 drubbing at Stoke on the fi nal day of last season, as they re-turn to the Britannia on day one of the new campaign.
Another highlight of the open-ing weekend is Tottenham’s visit to Manchester United.
Manchester City start out at West Brom, while Arsenal kick-off against new West Ham boss Slaven Bilic at the Emirates.
Promoted Bournemouth be-gin life in the top fl ight at home to Aston Villa, with fellow newcom-ers Watford and new manager Quique Sanchez Flores at Everton. Play-off winners Norwich host Crystal Palace.
Elsewhere on day one, Steve McClaren — one of three new bosses — starts out as Newcastle manager against Southampton at St James’ Park and Leicester are at home to Sunderland.
Once the opening weekend is out of the way Chelsea head to Manchester City for an early-season blockbuster, followed by clashes at West Brom and at home to Crystal Palace.
Manchester United are at Aston Villa on week two, followed by a home game with Newcastle and a trip to Swansea.
For City, Chelsea are followed by Everton (away) and Watford (home), with Arsenal taking in Crystal Palace (away), Liverpool (home) and Newcastle (away) af-ter their opener.
The fi rst Manchester derby of
the season comes at Old Traff ord on October 24, with the Etihad clash penned in for March 19. United face Chelsea in a tasty-looking festive clash on Decem-ber 28 and meet them at Stamford Bridge on February 6.
McClaren’s fi rst taste of the north-east rivalry with Sunder-land will come at home on October 24, the fi rst Merseyside derby is set for October 3 at Anfi eld, with November 7 the date for the fi rst
meeting between Arsenal and Tottenham. Chelsea face Arsenal fi rst on September 19, playing the reverse fi xture at the Emirates on January 23.
Bournemouth and their 11,700-capacity stadium can look forward among other home ties to December 12 (Manchester Unit-ed), February 6 (Arsenal), April 2 (Manchester City), April 16 (Liv-erpool) and April 23 (Chelsea).
The season runs to May 15, with
Chelsea closing at home to Leices-ter. Manchester United close at home to Bournemouth — a fi xture which could have implications at both ends — with Arsenal at home to Villa and Manchester City at Swansea. Liverpool go to West Brom and Everton host Norwich.
Elsewhere on the fi nal day it will be Newcastle v Tottenham, South-ampton v Crystal Palace, Stoke v West Ham and Watford v Sunder-land.- AFP
E N G L I S H P R E M I E R L E A G U E
DEFENDING CHAMPIONS: File photo of Chelsea celebrating triumph.
City raise Sterling bid to £40 millionMANCHESTER: Manchester City have made a fresh and much improved off er of £40 million to Liverpool for want-away Eng-land international Raheem Ster-ling, according to reports in the English press.
Liverpool are thought to value the livewire 20-year-old winger at £50 million (69 million euros) and they are likely to turn down the off er even though Sterling has told Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers he wants to leave An-fi eld. City off ered £25 million plus add ons last week and this second approach for Sterling is unlikely to be their last. The club’s chair-man Khaldoon Al Mubarak has promised “high-quality” signings after Manuel Pellegrini’s charges failed to meet expectations dur-ing their failed defence of the Premier League title.
For their part the once-mighty Merseyside outfi t remain keen to convince Sterling to sign a new
contract, although he rejected a deal that would have paid him around £100,000-a-week earlier this year.
Sterling’s refusal to commit to Liverpool has angered the club’s supporters, who jeered him at an end of season awards dinner.
Agent Aidy Ward’s subsequent claim his client would not even sign for “£900,000-a-week” prompted Liverpool to cancel a scheduled meeting to reopen talks in May. Sterling says his is-sue is not about money, stating in an April interview not sanc-tioned by the club, that he did not want to be viewed as a “money-grabbing 20-year-old”. Liver-pool’s sixth-place fi nish means they cannot off er him Champions League football next season and a disjointed campaign on the pitch personally has not helped.
Arsenal, Chelsea and Man-chester United are also reported to be interested in Sterling. - AFP
F O O T B A L L
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SPIELBERG: However good the party turns out to be, Red Bull are feeling far from bullish as Formula One descends on their home Aus-trian circuit in search of excite-ment this weekend.
Last season, when Austria’s sce-nic Spielberg circuit returned to the calendar after an 11-year ab-sence, the hosts revved up the fans by winning in Canada with Aus-tralian Daniel Ricciardo.
This time, with both their driv-ers sure to collect penalties in the next few races for exceed-
ing the engine allocation, there will be a lot more criticism than optimism wafting around in the mountain air.
Neither Ricciardo, whose per-manent smile has been tested to the full, nor Russian team mate Daniil Kvyat have come close to winning and former champions Red Bull, now fourth overall, have not been shy in blaming engine partners Renault.
Mercedes have won six of seven races and qualifi ed on pole in all of them, with double world cham-
pion Lewis Hamilton and title rival team mate Nico Rosberg — last year’s race winner — again clear favourites.
“Unfortunately, the Red Bull Ring is a real power track so we won’t be with the front-runners,” Red Bull motorsport consultant Helmut Marko told the offi cial Formula1.com website.
“But even if our drivers will hardly see the podium this year, the fans will get entertainment at its best,” added the Austrian.
The sport could do with that,
after the most recent race in Mon-treal proved a rare letdown and last weekend’s Le Mans 24 Hours drew a record crowd of 263,500 specta-tors to watch an endurance series that is fast gaining in popularity.
Le Mans winnerForce India’s Nico Hulkenberg, who won Le Mans with Porsche team mates Earl Bamber of New Zealand and Britain’s Nick Tandy, can expect plenty of attention as he returns to the regular job.
While his car has a Mercedes
engine, and team mate Sergio Perez set the fastest race lap last year, Force India are treading wa-ter until an upgraded chassis de-buts in Silverstone next month.
Mercedes, with Hamilton 17 points clear of Rosberg and aiming for his fi fth win of the season, can expect to set the pace.
“I feel good, the race was strong for me in Austria last year and my qualifying is better this year so I plan to take that there and try to rectify the loss I had last year,” said Hamilton, who needs one more
pole to equal his 2014 tally.Williams, who swept the front
row in Austria last year with Bra-zilian Felipe Massa on pole along-side Valtteri Bottas, can hope to be challenging Ferrari for a podium place.
“The atmosphere is going to be great again I’m sure,” said Bottas, third in Montreal, of a rural circuit situated against a backdrop of Al-pine pastures and distant peaks.
“With the upgrades we are bringing here, we are expecting another strong weekend.” - Reuters
Last season, when Austria’s scenic Spielberg
circuit returned to the calendar after an 11-
year absence, the hosts revved up the fans
Red Bull have plenty to beef about
Australian great Clarke dies aged 78SYDNEY: Australian distance running great Ron Clarke, who set 17 world records in the 1960s, died in a Gold Coast hospital after a short illness on Wednesday morn-ing. He was 78.
Clarke never won a gold medal at the Olympics, taking home a bronze from the 10,000 metres in 1964 and fi nishing fi fth in the 5,000 and sixth in the longer dis-tance in Mexico in 1968.
At his peak in 1965, however, Clarke redefi ned distance running by destroying record after record from the two-mile race through to the one-hour run.
He was the fi rst man to run un-der 28 minutes in the 10,000m and his time of 27:39.4 in Oslo that year stood as the record until Finn Lasse Viren bettered it at the 1972 Munich Olympics.
“Today is a very sad day for ath-letics in Australia, with news of the passing of legendary runner Ron Clarke after a battle with illness,” Athletics Australia president Da-vid Grace said.
“Ron will forever be a legend of our sport and we are grateful for his extensive contribution to the sport of athletics, as well as to pub-lic service during a life that should be celebrated.”
Clarke was selected to light the cauldron at the 1956 Olympics in his home city Melbourne as a teen-ager but retired three years later to study accountancy.
He returned to the track in 1962 and claimed his fi rst world mark the following year in Melbourne, taking the 10,000m and six mile marks in one race.
Third place in the 10,000m be-
hind American Billy Mills at the Tokyo Olympics followed in 1964 before his extraordinary 1965 saw him win the coveted Track & Field News men’s Athlete of the Year award. Clarke ran nearly 50
races and improved world records 12 times, starting by claiming the 5,000 metres record in Hobart in January and taking 39 seconds overall off the 10,000m mark.
Despite training in the Alps for
the Mexico Games, Clarke was un-able to compete against athletes better used to the altitude and did well to fi nish the 10,000m at all.
He won his fourth Common-wealth Games silver medal in Edinburgh in 1970 and although he never claimed a title at a major multi-sports Games, he did own an Olympic 10,000m gold medal given to him by Emil Zatopek.
“Look after this. You deserve it,” the Czech told him in 1968 after handing over one of the three gold medals he won in distance events at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics.
Clarke later served as mayor of the Gold Coast, the resort city which will host the 2018 Com-monwealth Games.
“Ron was a great man,” said 1960 Olympic 1,500 metres champion Herb Elliott.
“His contribution to athletics was enormous. He was also a won-derful contributor to public health through lifestyle programs and gymnasiums and the communi-ties in which he lived. Ron will be greatly missed.” - Reuters
L O S S F O R A T H L E T I C S
NO MORE: This fi le picture taken on April 24, 2008 shows Austral-
ian Ron Clarke running with the torch during the Beijing Olympic
torch relay in Canberra. Australian athletics mourned the loss of
champion distance runner. – AFP
Ron Clarke was the first man
to run under 28 minutes in
the 10,000m and his time
of 27:39.4 in Oslo that year
stood as the record until
Finn Lasse Viren bettered it
at the 1972 Munich Olympics Capello facing sack as Russia managerMOSCOW: Under-fi re Fabio Capello’s reign as Russia manag-er looks doomed after the coun-try’s sports minister said a deci-sion on the Italian’s future had already been taken.
“There’s no secret, we’ve already taken certain decisions (about Capello’s fate),” ITAR-TASS news agency quoted minister Vitaly Mutko as saying on Wednesday. “All the questions concerning national team management will be settled before the end of the month,” the minister said.
Ex-England manager Capello — reputed to be the highest paid international coach — has come under increasing pressure fol-lowing a dismal run of results in Russia’s Euro 2016 qualifying campaign.
The R-sport agency quoted an unnamed football union source as saying that the offi cial an-nouncement of Capello’s depar-ture will be made once the two
sides hammer out the vast sum it will likely cost to buy him out of his contract.
“The decision has already been taken. But there are still some technical details concerning the size of compensation for cancel-ling Capello’s contract,” the agen-cy report said.
Press reports also said that the RFU were considering three new candidates, naming CSKA head coach Leonid Slutsky, FC Kras-nodar manager Oleg Kononov and former Russian assistant coach Alexander Borodyuk.
Meanwhile, the RFU said Wednesday that no offi cial deci-sion about Capello’s fate has been taken yet.
“In connection with the in-formation about the possibility of Capello’s retirement the RFU would like to inform that no of-fi cial decision upon the case has been taken,” the organisation of-fi cial site stated. — AFP
F O O T B A L L
UNDER FIRE: Russia’s coach Fabio Capello. – Reuters
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Ali Al Habsi heading to Forest!
MUSCAT: Is Omani goalkeeping hero Ali Al Habsi heading for Not-tingham Forest?
The answer is: Yes. That is if one believes what the sports and foot-ball news portals in England have been writing about.
Several websites, including that of Nottingham Post, have been re-porting about of the Omani legend being linked with Forest.
Former Wigan Athletic goal-keeper was released by relegated Wigan and now Nottingham For-est are reported to be keen on the 33-year-old stopper, reported www.nottinghampost.com.
“Goalkeeper Ali Al Habsi is the
latest player to be linked with a move to the City Ground as Dougie Freedman’s search for a number one keeper continues,” it said.
The Omani captain joined the Latics on loan before sealing an estimated £4million transfer fee soon after and he immediately es-tablished himself in the fi rst team.
Ali, who is now a free agent, had an outstanding penalty save record during his time at Wigan, saving 50 per cent of all penalties faced. He also won FA Cup with the Latics. And that earned him links to Arse-nal and Liverpool.
Meanwhile, website www.all-sportsnews.co.uk said Nottingham
Forest are now been linked with a move for Al Al Habsi and he could be playing his trade at the City Ground next term.
“Now 33-years-old Al Habsi could be the answer to Dougie Freedman’s prayers as the Not-tingham Forest manager steps up his search to fi nd a man in between the sticks for the up and coming season,” it said.
For Ali, who made over 150 ap-pearances for Wigan, Nottingham Forest could be his next port of call.
“He has the experience to en-joy a successful run at Forest and could really contribute to their promotion bid for Premier League football,” it said.
Wants to stay in EnglandMeanwhile, Wigan Today website said Ali is hoping to stay in Eng-land as he weighs up his options.
Oman international Al Habsi says he is in no rush to secure his future, it said. “I would like to stay in England, I hope there is an op-tion for us to do that,” the website quoted Ali as saying.
“But I will take my time, hope-fully there will be more good times ahead.”
Several UK-based websites have posted
news linking the Omani goalkeeping hero
with Championship side Nottingham Forest
while some also reported about Ali Al Habsi
expressing his desire to stay in England
IN DEMAND: Ali Al Habsi
Swiss Fifa inquiry investigates 53 suspicious bank transactionsBERNE: Swiss prosecutors look-ing into corruption at global soc-cer body Fifa have identifi ed 53 suspicious bank transactions, the attorney general said on Wednes-day, stressing that the investiga-tion may take time.
Michael Lauber told journalists he would not rule out interview-ing Fifa President Sepp Blatter and General Secretary Jerome Valcke, although Switzerland had so far targetted no individuals in the scandal that has rocked inter-national soccer.
Switzerland, where Fifa is based, announced its criminal in-vestigation and seized computers at Fifa headquarters last month on the same day that the United States shook the sport with the announcement of indictments of 14 soccer offi cials and business-men as part of a separate probe into corruption.
“We are faced with a complex investigation with many interna-tional implications,” Lauber said in his fi rst public comments since his offi ce obtained the computer data last month.
“The world of football needs to be patient. By its nature, this investigation will take more than the legendary 90 minutes,” he said, referring to the length of a soccer match.
Fifa’s ethics committee con-fi rmed it was conducting its own investigation into individuals suspected of breaking the rules in relation to bidding for the right to host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, which were granted to Rus-sia and Qatar respectively.
It said it was prepared to inves-tigate more suspects and take on extra staff if needed.
Also on Wednesday, Switzer-land’s third largest listed bank, Julius Baer, said it had launched an internal investigation in con-nection with Fifa. It said it was cooperating with the authori-ties and did not say when its own probe had begun.
Swiss private banks have been buff eted by a storm of scrutiny and regulation in the past fi ve years, largely linked to accusa-tions of helping rich American and European clients avoid tax by stashing money in secret ac-counts in the past.
The attorney general was clear that Blatter and Valcke could be among those summoned for ques-tioning: “There will be formal in-terviews of all relevant people. By defi nition, this does not exclude in-terviewing the president of Fifa and
this does not exclude interviewing the secretary general of Fifa.”
Lauber said his team had ob-tained evidence on 104 bank-cli-ent relationships, each of which represented several accounts. Switzerland’s Financial Intelli-gence Unit anti-money laundering agency had identifi ed the 53 suspi-cious transactions fl agged up from information supplied by banks.
Blatter was re-elected to a con-troversial fi fth term just two days after the graft probes became public. However, he announced the following week that he would step down and a new presidential election is due between Decem-ber and February.
Garcia report Swiss authorities have said their criminal investigation specifi cally targets the decisions to stage the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. Both Russia and Qatar deny wrongdoing and say they are preparing to hold the tournaments as scheduled.
Asked whether the Swiss in-vestigation could derail Russia’s plans, Lauber said that decision was not his problem.
Lauber said his work was com-
pletely independent of the ongo-ing U.S. cases.
While Switzerland had re-ceived and fulfi lled a request for legal assistance from the United States, it had not asked for any such help in return, he added.
His investigation was looking closely at material generated by Michael Garcia, an American law-yer hired by Fifa to investigate eth-ics violations who spent years ex-amining the Russia and Qatar bids.
Garcia’s report has never been published and Fifa has released only a summary which exoner-ated the Russian and Qatari bids of serious wrongdoing.
Garcia quit saying the sum-mary mischaracterised his re-port. However, it resulted in pro-ceedings being opened against unnamed individuals which his successor Borbely said he has continued.
“The (ethics committee) is car-rying out several proceedings into football offi cials on suspicion of breach of the Fifa Code of Ethics based on the fi ndings of the inves-tigation into the decision for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups,” Bor-bely said in a statement.
“Should new evidence come to light, the investigatory chamber will widen the group of suspects. (It) is prepared to increase its staff numbers at any time if needed.”
Lauber said the U.S. authorities had not asked for Garcia’s report.
Lauber said his offi ce had seized nine terabytes of data. By compar-ison, the U.S. Library of Congress estimates on its website that its entire collection of printed works amounts to 10 terabytes.
However, a single personal computer hard drive may hold several terabytes, which can be quickly fi lled up with material like high defi nition video.
He said he had no complaints about Fifa’s cooperation to date. Fifa said in a statement that the Swiss investigation was based on a complaint that it had made itself last November.
“Fifa is cooperating fully as an injured party in the actions by Swiss authorities,” it said.
“Fifa itself instigated these pro-ceedings in November 2014 when it presented the fi le on the 2018-2022 Fifa World Cup bidding process to the Swiss Offi ce of the Attorney General.” - Reuters
F O O T B A L L
PARIS: Qatar paid the Afri-can Football Confederation $1.8 million to present its bid for the 2022 World Cup at a congress, the continent’s top football offi cial told a French magazine.
Caf President and Fifa vice-president Issa Hayatou said he saw nothing wrong with the payment made before the confederation held a congress in the Angolan capital Luanda in January 2010.
Qatar won the right to host the 2022 World Cup later the same year at a controversial Fifa vote now under investiga-tion by Swiss authorities.
Paris-based Jeune Afrique magazine asked Hayatou about the donation from Qatar. “It was $1.8 million, not one million. Paid in two times 900,000 dollars,” the contro-versial Caf chief replied.
“The Qataris gave it to us to be able to show their plan (for
the 2022 World Cup) during the congress.”
Hayatou insisted he had not expected other candidates, in-cluding the United States and Australia, to pay for a similar privilege.
“Not necessarily. We didn’t ask Qatar to do it. They pro-posed it. We did not ban the other candidates from taking part in the presentation,” he was quoted as saying, while also denying that it was a bid to buy African votes.
Clear conscience “I convened immediately after a meeting of the Caf executive committee to say that what had happened did not commit us to anything. I did not make any recommendation and eve-ryone voted according to their soul and conscience.”
Hayatou also denied there was any corruption in the vote which gave the 2010 World
Cup to South Africa.Asked about the payment, a
Caf spokesman said that Qatar “wanted to have this privilege exclusively” to make its pres-entation.
“A proposition was made to the executive committee which adopted it. Qatar pre-sented its bid. The money was paid to Caf and is noted in the confederation’s accounts,” the spokesman added.
Qatar did not comment on the report but has in the past strongly denied any wrongdo-ing connected to its bid.
Hayatou also denied any knowledge of bribes paid to secure the 1998 and 2010 World Cups.
U.S. investigators believe that a $10 million payment made by South Africa to a disgraced Caribbean football offi cial was a bid to buy votes. South Africa has strongly denied any wrongdoing. - AFP
Qatar paid Caf $1.8m to make World Cup bid
Wilshere fi ned £40,000 for anti-Spurs chants
LONDON: Arsenal star Jack Wilshere was fi ned £40,000 on Wednesday and warned over his future conduct after being charged with making controversial re-marks about rival club Tottenham.
The 23-year-old England player had taken to the microphone and led fans in two crude chants about
their arch-rivals during an open-top bus parade, a day after Arse-nal’s 4-0 win over Aston Villa in the FA Cup fi nal last month.
“Arsenal’s Jack Wilshere has been fi ned £40,000 and severely warned as to his future conduct after admitting to a charge of misconduct,” said a statement re-
leased by the Football Association.“Wilshere was found guilty of
making and/or inciting certain comments during the club’s open bus trophy tour after their FA Cup Final victory, with his conduct deemed to be improper and bring-ing the game into disrepute.”
Wilshere, who came through
Arsenal’s youth system, had al-ready expressed regret over his behaviour.
“Sharing back2back Cup wins with so many amazing Gooners is a dream come true. Apologies if I upset or off ended any of u with my celebrations,” he tweeted in the aftermath of the incident. - AFP
F O O T B A L L
Wawrinka latest star to fall at Queen’s ClubLONDON: Stan Wawrinka became the latest star to suff er a shock exit from Queen’s Club as the French Open champion was beaten 7-6 (7/4), 7-6 (13/11) by South Africa’s Kevin Anderson on Wednesday.
Just 24 hours after Rafael Na-dal’s fi rst round defeat against un-heralded Ukrainian Alexandr Dol-gopolov, it was Wawrinka’s turn to succumb to an unexpected loss at the Wimbledon warm-up event in west London.
The Swiss second seed had swept through his fi rst round clash against Australian Nick Kyrgios in just 49 minutes as he looked to fol-low his memorable fi nal triumph over Novak Djokovic in Paris with his fi rst ever grass-court title.
But, in the second round, Waw-rinka couldn’t fi nd a way to subdue the big-serving Anderson, who fi red down 22 aces en route to his fi rst win over a top fi ve ranked op-ponent this year.
Wawrinka had been hoping to extend his winning run to nine matches, but the towering 6ft 8in Anderson had won their last three meetings, all in 2014, and he proved a thorn in the 30-year-old’s side again. A hard-fought fi rst set looked to have swung Waw-rinka’s way when he secured two set points at 6-5, only for the Swiss to let Anderson off the hook as the
29-year-old raced through the sub-sequent tie-break.
The superstitious Wawrinka was still wearing his ‘lucky’ pair of garish red, white and grey checked shorts that caused a stir during his triumphant run in Paris, but his fortune took a turn for the worse in the second set.
Anderson had brought Lleyton Hewitt’s Queen’s farewell to a pre-mature and painful end after sav-ing a match point during his fi rst round victory against the four-time champion.
He claimed a more high-profi le scalp on this occasion thanks to a dramatic second set tie-break which saw Wawrinka save fi ve match points and Anderson rescue two set points before the South Af-rican fi nally sealed his win.
In the quarterfi nal, Anderson will play either world No. 79 Dol-gopolov or Spain’s Guillermo Gar-cia-Lopez.
Earlier, French seventh seed Gilles Simon ended Thanasi Kok-kinakis’s emotional Queen’s Club debut with a 6-4, 6-2 second round victory over the Australian teenager.
Kokkinakis has spent much of this week in the air after making the long fl ight back to Australia to spend a day at home with his sick grandmother before an unsched-uled return to Queen’s. - AFP
T E N N I S
WWW.TIMESOFOMAN.COMSECTIONC
auren Graham was on a trip to Japan with her friend when she got a call from her agent. Director Boaz Yakin needed someone to play a wife and mother in his upcoming movie Max,
about a family struggling to sur-vive the loss of a son in Iraq.
“I was told, ‘The filmmaker wants to talk to you, but they’ve already asked Thomas Haden Church’s opinion of who should play his wife, and he really re-sponded to you,’” she recalled. Graham is a veteran of two popular television series, Gilmore Girls and Parenthood, but she insisted that she had only one thought.
“I was hit with this horrible feel-ing that he thought I was Heather Graham,” she said, sitting for an interview at a Los Angeles hotel. “It was inconceivable to me that Thomas even knew who I was. I couldn’t believe he ever watched an episode of Gilmore Girls. I was sure he didn’t watch Parenthood.
“I do have to say that his com-ments gave me the street cred that I needed in that moment,” Graham added with a laugh.
The title character in Max, set to open on June 26, is a pre-
cision-trained military dog who eats, fights and sleeps at the side of US Marine Kyle Wincott on the front line in Afghanistan un-til Kyle is killed. A traumatised Max is discharged and sent state-side, where he connects with Kyle’s grieving family, including his mother (Graham), his father (Church) and his teenage broth-er, Justin (Josh Wiggins).
The transition isn’t easy for any of them. Max is a dog who doesn’t trust strangers, while Justin has his own issues with Kyle’s death and doesn’t want to have to deal with his brother’s troubled dog.
“I was struck at how poignant the story was,” Graham said. “We really delve into the world of these military dogs and how vital their work is for our military. This is also a story about a family heal-ing from loss. They come together over this dog.”
There is a poignant scene during Kyle’s funeral in which the griev-ing dog lies down by the casket.
“We did research,” Graham said, “and that’s what these mili-tary dogs do when they lose their people in war. They actually won’t leave the casket.”
Graham based her character on members of her own family. “She reminded me of my grandmother, who was a missionary and South-ern Baptist,” the actress said. “She was a kind woman, but an incred-ibly strong one. I also based her on certain traits of my grandfather, who was a man of few words, but had this quiet strength.”
This mother isn’t like her televi-sion alter egos, Graham added.
“I always play these flaky, ex-tremely verbal people,” she said. “This was different. This woman felt like a part of my childhood.”
Relating to the dog who played Max was easy for Graham, who considers herself a dog person.
“I had a wonderful German shepherd,” she said. “I remember getting my Hannah from a Bur-bank rescue.
It didn’t take long for her to find Hannah, though. “I found the girl in the next cage,” Graham recalled. “It was a crazy, instant connection and the best, smartest, sweetest dog I could ever find as a friend. She was with me during tough times, and I even had someone drive her to New York to be with me when I was working.
“This was a major dog friend-ship,” she said. “I haven’t been able to get another dog since she passed. I’m working on it.”
A two-year-old dog from Ken-tucky named Carlos played Max, along with several stunt doubles. Carlos is a Belgian Malinois, one of the breeds most favoured by the military. They are lean and highly focused, and can sniff out drugs, bombs and dead bodies. They have a 270-degree field of vision and a bite force that equals 1,400 pounds per square inch, and can run 30 miles per hour.
“There is something really spe-cial about that breed,” Graham
said. “They’re more intense and restless than German shepherds, but they also have this extreme intelligence and the adaptability. I was around Carlos and knew there was so much going on with him. All of us really bonded with him.”
Born in Honolulu, Graham grew up in northern Virginia and was raised by her father, Larry Gra-ham, longtime president of the National Confectioners Associa-tion, the main lobbying arm of the candy industry.
She earned a degree in English from Barnard College in New York and a master’s in fine arts from Southern Methodist Uni-versity in Dallas. Graham began her career on the television se-ries Townies, and went on to roles on Caroline in the City and News Radio, as well as such films as Bad Santa,The Pacifier, Because I Said So, It’s Kind of a Funny Story and A Merry Friggin’ Christmas.
Her breakout role was Lorelai Gilmore on Gilmore Girls. “The fan
base still knocks me out,” she said. “It’s so interesting to see how peo-ple still embrace the show so many years later. The enthusiasm never dies down.”
There are rumours of a Gilmore Girls movie in the works. Graham denies them, but sounds intrigued.
“It’s not up to me,” she said. “We didn’t have a last season, and the fantasy would be to finish the show the way the show’s creator wanted to do it.”
Parenthood did have a planned ending, but Graham still felt sorry to say goodbye to Sarah Braver-man. “It was really difficult to think that the show is over,” she said, “but really nice to have a great ending. I felt really sentimental. Every moment counted. It was that melancholy feeling of sen-ior year of high school, where you don’t want to leave your friends be-hind, but it’s time to move on.”
The finale featured a flash-for-ward to the family’s later years, which Graham found disorienting.
At 48, the actress said, she doesn’t feel like someone who’s been around for nearly a half-cen-tury. “I feel so young,” she said.
“I guess I’m playing out the next chapter.” — Cindy Pearlman/The New York
Times News Service
T H U R S DAY, J U N E 1 8 , 2 0 1 5SIGHT & SOUND
The actress’ new drama is about a soldier’s family
struggling to deal with his death
LAUREN GRAHAM ON ‘MAX: MOVIE WITH A DIFFERENCE’
ETCETERAT H U R S DAY, J U N E 1 8 , 2 0 1 5
KNOWS HOW TO SELL A STUNT
When the camera is rolling, the 6-foot-4-inch Brit-ish actor doesn’t hold anything back. “I popped my shoulder out when I fell off a horse in Rome (2005-
2007),” he said. “I broke two fi ngers in King Arthur (2004) when I hit the stunt guy, who was wearing a brass helmet at the time. It was a fi ght scene, and I punched his helmet.
“I ruptured my meniscus when I was running about in The Three Musketeers (2011),” Stevenson added. “I had a crutch or a stick for two or three weeks, but I never missed a day of fi lming.”
In Big Game, an action fi lm scheduled to open nationwide on June 26, the 51-year-old actor doesn’t treat himself gently.
“I got to hang outside of a helicopter,” he said with some glee, “although my stunt double did the best shot because he got to do it at 2,000 feet up.”
Stevenson also jumped out of an airplane - or at least he made it look as if he did.
“I had to fall backward into the void,” he said. “The wind ma-chine was going, and all I had to do was not let my feet come bouncing back up into the shot. I dropped about fi ve feet. My dignity and pride got hurt a lot more than my body.”
In Big Game Stevenson plays a sleek, gray-haired Secret Ser-vice agent guarding the president of the United States (Samuel L. Jackson). When Air Force One is shot down in the wilds of Finland by a group of rogue Americans, the survivors must rely on the wilderness skills of the 13-year-old Finnish boy who fi nds them.
“When I opened the script, I thought, ‘What on earth is this?,’” Stevenson said, speaking by telephone from his home on Ibiza, an island off the coast of Spain. “I couldn’t stop reading it. It’s got just enough tongue-in-cheek that says, ‘Don’t take me too seriously, but enjoy the ride.’”
The villains consider killing the president “the ulti-mate act of patriotism,” Stevenson said. “They’re getting rid of someone they feel is undermining America by re-ducing the costs of the military. ‘He’s not being a strong leader, so let’s make room for someone else. It’ll benefit the country.’”
The fi lm, which was shot on location in Finland, reminded the actor of the adventure fi lms he watched as a boy growing up in the North of England. The middle son of a Royal Air Force pilot, he spent Saturday afternoons at the movies with his brothers.
Stevenson considered becoming an actor but, not knowing how to proceed, went to art school instead.
“I would sit in front of a blank piece of paper and liter-ally imagine myself walking around in a world that hadn’t been created yet,” he recalled. “It’s not that much diff er-ent from fi lming.”
His interior-design career was fl ourishing when a chance encounter with an actor in a pub led him to the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. He was 27.
Stevenson worked steadily through his 30s, but didn’t
really make an impact until Rome. The hit series cast him as Titus Pullo, a soldier who enjoyed his food while fi nd-ing himself in the middle of important historical events.
It was a stressful time for the actor, who was in the process of divorcing his fi rst wife, actress Ruth Gemmell.
“A lot of things were going on in my life then,” Steven-son recalled. “I was going through a divorce. It wasn’t ac-rimonious, it was just very sad. It had run its course. I quickly realised that this profession had better mean more, had better be worth something. It was all I basically had.
“It taught me to get out of my own way,” he added. “I learned not to concentrate on other actors’ careers as a calibration as to how I’m doing. I decided, ‘This career I’m having better be enough.’”
Since Rome ended eight years ago, Stevenson has fo-cused mostly on action pictures such as Punisher: War Zone (2008), The Three Musketeers, Thor (2011) and its sequel Thor: The Dark World (2013), and G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013). He played Marcus Eaton in Diver-gent (2014) and Insurgent (2105), and will return for Allegiant, now shooting. He also spent a season on Dexter (2012).
In September Stevenson will appear in the crime thriller The Transporter Refuelled, a reboot of Jason Statham’s The Transporter (2002).
“I’m playing the Transporter’s dad,” he said. “I’m like a ham-
my old James Bond, staying in the kitchen cooking in a pinny (apron) while my son goes out and saves the world.
“It was a barrel of laughs to do,” the actor added. “Of course I save the day, although junior may claim the glory. We can’t put an old spook down.”
Stevenson’s other big upcoming project is the Starz series Black Sails. He’s fresh from two months in South Africa filming the show’s third season, which will air next year. He plays pirate Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard.
“I jumped at the chance,” he said. “Blackbeard was 6-foot-4, and this was back in 1715. He was probably like Keith Rich-ards from the Rolling Stones. He had that much presence.”
Stevenson clearly is fascinated with Blackbeard.“Men born of his low station in life would never leave be-
hind any great legacy or name to be remembered,” the ac-tor said. “That was left to the landed gentry. These people forged their own lives and became much more notorious than a lot of people. Your status and position in society were very important in those days.”
Stevenson’s career in Hollywood is a long-distance aff air: He and his partner, Italian anthropologist Elisabetta Carac-cia, have been based in Ibiza for much of their relationship. They have three sons ranging in age from 11 months to 7 years old. - Nancy Mills/The New York Times News Service
T H E AC T O R P L AY S A S E C R E T S E RV I C E AG E N T I N T H E N E W AC T I O N M OV I E ‘ B I G G A M E ’
ETCETERAC9T H U R S DAY, J U N E 1 8 , 2 0 1 5
Boxing is not unlike
acting. They’re
both professions
in which one can
zoom from zero
to 60 in
an instant
Corey Stoll’s upcoming projects include two studio movies, Ant-Man and Black Mass, a trio of indie features
- Glass Chin, Dark Places and Anes-thesia - and a second season of the cable-television series The Strain. Back in 2013 he co-starred on House of Cards, which is streamed online, and in 2010 he shared the stage with Liev Schreiber and Scarlett Johansson in a Broadway revival of Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge.
He clearly is a man of many media. “It’s nice that all of these projects get out there somehow, but I get as much enjoyment out of doing a reading for a room with 10 people,” Stoll said during a re-cent telephone interview from California. “I think it’s a really great time to be an actor. There are so many diff erent outlets and so many diff erent types of roles to play, and I’m happy to go where the opportunities are.”
The fi rst out of the box of those upcoming projects will be Glass Chin, set to debut in thea-tres and video on demand on June 26. Stoll assumes leading-man status in the drama, which chronicles the downfall of Bud Gordon (Stoll), a once-promising boxer from New Jersey who still is haunted by his last fi ght. Life isn’t terrible, and Bud’s girlfriend Ellen (Marin Ireland) adores him, but he wants more.
When he reconnects with J.J. (Billy Crudup), a slick, seemingly worldly loan shark, Bud gets in way over his head.
Boxing is not unlike acting, Stoll said: They’re both professions in which one can zoom from zero to 60 in an instant.
“You can be picked from obscu-rity at a very young age, in boxing and acting, and suddenly be very rich and very famous and at the centre of that world,” he explained. “And so a lot of people fi xate on that hierarchy, and on attaining and retaining that status. Bud is re-
ally a victim of that, because it can all go away just as quickly.”
Anyone contemplating see-ing Glass Chin should know, go-ing in, that it’s a moody, dark lit-tle fi lm. It’s also, oddly enough, a boxing fi lm in which Bud never is glimpsed in the ring and a murder tale in which most of the violence is perpetrated off screen.
“It was funny,” Stoll said, laugh-ing, “because the S.A.G. rep kept on showing up on set, like every other day, because they didn’t be-lieve that there weren’t any stunts set up for the day’s work. But there really weren’t, because it’s a char-acter study. It follows a lot of those noir, pulpy tropes, but really it is about the characters.
“I like that,” he said. “I hope peo-ple come to it knowing what to ex-pect. We’ve got an incredible cast that (writer/director) Noah Bushel pulled together. He’s got a great eye for casting, and the dialogue that he wrote is pretty brilliant.
“So the story is set within this violent world, but it’s about the power dynamics and the rela-tionships, the things that happen before the violence,” Stoll added. “Those are our action scenes.”
While Stoll hopes that Glass Chin will fi nd an audience, the only question with his next fi lm, Ant-Man, is how big its audience will turn out to be. The latest install-
ment in the Marvel Cinematic Uni-verse, Ant-Man will open on July 17. Paul Rudd stars as Scott Lang, a redemption-seeking ex-con who, with the help of some outlandish secret technology, emerges as the superhero Ant-Man.
Michael Douglas plays Hank Pym, Lang’s mentor and the origi-nal Ant-Man, with Evangeline Lilly as Hope Van Dyne, Pym’s es-tranged daughter. She has joined forces with Darren Cross (Stoll), Pym’s competitor and former protege. Cross possesses an even-more-advanced miniaturisation suit and quickly evolves into Ant-Man’s archenemy, Yellowjacket.
“Despite however many tens of millions of dollars the fi lm cost to make,” Stoll said, “it was one of the most collaborative fi lm experi-ences I’ve ever had. I really felt in-vited to come and play, and we had the time to shoot every scene in a number of ways, to show a certain weakness or vulnerability in the character, while also making him the scary bad guy that you crave in this kind of movie.
“I loved the whole experience,” he said. “You enter a movie like this understanding that you’re part of a machine, but, as giant franchise machines go, I think Marvel has succeeded in fi nding idiosyncratic actors and directors to come and do what they do. You get the sense
that they know that’s part of the formula, is allowing people to play a little bit.”
In the second season of The Strain, Stoll will return as Dr Ephraim Goodweather, the C.D.C. entomologist desperate to stop the spread of a vampire contagion. In the based-on-fact Black Mass, he plays Fred Wyshak, the hard-nosed attorney who prosecuted gangster James “Whitey” Bulger (Johnny Depp). The Strain will be back on July 12, while Black Mass is scheduled for release on Sept. 18.
It’s a heady prospect for Stoll, whose rise to prominence has been slow and steady. At 39 the na-tive New Yorker boasts dozens of fi lm and television credits, most notably North Country, Midnight in Paris, The Bourne Legacy, House of Cards and Homeland.
Back when he attended a high school for the performing arts, Stoll recalled, he didn’t realise what working would encompass.
“Without being too deliberate about it,” he said, he assumed that he’d act mostly in theatre produc-tions, with occasional small roles on television shows or in movies.
“That was really an exciting prospect, just being able to do that,” Stoll said.
“The more I worked, and when I started to work professionally, the idea of working with great people
and playing interesting roles be-came the two most exciting things. That really hasn’t changed.”
What has changed is that now he’s occasionally No. 1 on the call sheet. It’s a gift, Stoll said, but for a reason that may surprise people.
“The luxury is not having to make every scene count, which is a great feeling,” he explained. “Every scene counts, all the time, but, when you have a smaller role and you’re either coming into somebody’s already-established television show or it’s a small role in a fi lm, there can be a certain pressure to justify your presence. That’s what I mean.
“If you only have a handful of scenes, you really want to go all out,” the actor said.
“That can be a lot of fun, and you sometimes get a license to play your scenes more theatrically or in a broader way, in a more trans-formative way. But, being No. 1, you show up every day and you’re just there, and you can take your foot off the gas a bit and let the character emerge more organical-ly, from an accumulation of scenes, instead of packing everything into every minute.
“So that’s a real luxury, being the lead,” Stoll concluded.
“In many ways that makes it eas-ier than being a supporting actor.” -Ian Spelling/The New York Times News Service
Katy Perry ‘faked’ confi denceSINGER KATY PERRY says she had to “fake” her confi dence when she started her career in the music industry. The 30-year-old has had a mul-titude of hit tracks and is known for her daring live performances but she says she suff ered from self-esteem issues when she entered showbiz, reports femalefi rst.co.uk. “There’s an intense level of confi -dence that sweeps over me and I can really command a stage, and back then, I could do it, too. I just had to. I had to fake it until I made it,” USA Today magazine quoted Perry as saying.
No big B’day plans for NicoleNICOLE KIDMAN will be turning 48 on Saturday, and while several stars plan lavish birthday par-ties much in advance, the actress says she prefers quiet celebration with family over a “big birthday thing”. “I don’t really cel-ebrate a big birthday thing. I always say I get enough attention so I don’t need anymore. I just like to have my family really close and snuggle,” eonline.com quoted Kidman as saying. Kidman and Keith Urban’s ninth wedding anniver-sary is also coming on June 26. The 47-year-old actress says she will spend the day with her husband. “Keith is doing a gig so I’m going with him. I’ll be dancing on the side of the stage,” she said.
Eli to direct shark thriller ‘Meg’DIRECTOR ELI ROTH will reportedly direct the fi lm adaptation of Meg, which is about a giant, prehistoric shark, for Warner Bros. According to sources, Roth is in talks to direct the fi lm. The book revolves around two men who band together to neutralise an ancient shark that’s threatening the California coast. In the fi lm, the shark will be ter-rorising the coast of China rather than California. Andrew Fischel and Cate Adams will oversee devel-opment for Warner Bros.
Chickens named after Aniston, TherouxHOLLYWOOD COUPLE Jennifer Aniston and Justin Theroux have had two chickens named after them. Aniston, who got engaged to Theroux in August 2012, says they couldn’t come up with names for all of their live-stock because they have 17 chickens at their Bel Air mansion, reports people.com. “We attempted to do that, but there are 17 of them now. We did get two baby chicks as a gift named Justin and Jen. I’ve lost track because they all look alike,” said Aniston. “We use the eggs every day. Justin makes great pasta. They taste deli-cious,” she added.-IANS
HOLLYWOOD
COREY STOLL: A BOXER’S TOUGHEST FIGHT COMES OUTSIDE THE RING
C10
ETCETERAT H U R S DAY, J U N E 1 8 , 2 0 1 5
With ‘Dope’, director Rick Famuyiwa is
making a homage to the early 90’s gangster
movies while adding his own twist
W hen Shameik Moore got the part of Malcolm, the soft guy in a tough world at the heart of the fi lm Dope, he had a problem.The movie is an answer to, a repudiation of and
a reconciliation with the street-wise black cinema
of the early 1990s, Boyz N the Hood (1991), Juice
(1992), Menace II Society (1993) and more. But
Moore, who is only 20 and spent much of his youth
in Christian schools, hadn’t seen any of those foun-
dational fi lms. So for a week, before fi lming began,
he embarked on a crash course guided by Rick Fa-
muyiwa, the writer/director of Dope.What Moore found was context, but not, strictly
speaking, inspiration.“I think what Rick did, how he shot it and ed-
ited it, makes it similar,” Moore said, “but how we
performed is totally opposite.”That’s because Dope set to open on June 19, is
a sort of photo negative of those fi lms, keeping
their structure while upending their conven-tions - almost a Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead approach to that era. Winks to those fi lms are sprinkled throughout Dope, but the harshness of that era, and its reliance on gang-ster narratives, largely are replaced with joy and wit. They’re relatives, but ones kept at arm’s length.In the early 1990s the antiheroes were as appealing, if not more so, than the heroes. By contrast, Dope takes a character type that was eff ectively invisible in that time - the black nerd - and imbues it, in John Hughes-like fashion, with glory. It’s a modern-day black coming-of-age tale for an era in which the heroes are more likely to be cre-ative experimenters like Donald Glover, Kanye West and Pharrell Williams than the gangster rappers of decades past.
“There are some gangsters, but it
wasn’t shot from the perspec-tive of a gangster,” said Williams, the music-and-fashion impresa-rio who served as one of the fi lm’s executive producers and also wrote and produced its music. “It homes in on the mentality of someone who’s from there but not of there. And it doesn’t exclude the ‘hood, it includes the ‘hood. It’s encouraging.”
Much like those early-’90s fi lms, Dope was made
on a relatively small budget, in the low seven fi g-
ures. After its premiere at Sundance in January, it
became one of the most lauded fi lms of this year’s
festival circuit, starting a bidding war among dis-
tributors - Open Road Films won, paying $7 mil-
lion - and receiving a standing ovation at Cannes.Part of its resonance undoubtedly has to do
with its revision of a world made familiar thanks
to pop-culture engraving. What Dope does is to
reinvigorate that milieu with new characters and
perspectives. Malcolm and his two friends, Diggy
(Kiersey Clemons) and Jib (Tony Revolori), fetish-
ise 1990s hip-hop, play in a punk band - Awreeoh,
pronounced “oreo” - and try to steer clear of trou-
ble. They are on the bottom of the high-school food
chain, largely anonymous except when being mus-
cled by the local hoodlums.Malcolm aspires to get into Harvard, which leads
to an unlikely series of events that propels him and
his friends into a caper that takes them into the gang
and drug underworlds they’ve spent years avoiding.
All the usual criminal touchstones are upended,
however: They use their school’s science and com-
puter labs as work space and use the Internet to fa-
cilitate distribution, primarily to suburban white
children, and the spoils end up largely as bitcoins.Throughout this Malcolm never quite becomes
a full antihero. Rather he, like the fi lm, plays with
expectations, shifting attitudes and approaches as
the situations warrant.
Dope not only recasts the outsider as hero but also peels back the outer layer of the tough-guy character to reveal something more
complex. Malcolm fi nds himself under the thumb of Dom (A.S.A.P. Rocky), a drug dealer.
“I knew Rocky would subvert so much of what those ‘90s ‘O-Dog’ type characters represented,” Famuyiwa said, referring to
the antihero of Menace II Society, played by Larenz Tate, “In many ways Rocky is more
Malcolm than Shameik.”What Famuyiwa - who will turn 42 this month
and spent his teenage years in Inglewood, Cali-
fornia, where Dope is set - wanted to capture was
a sympathy to the circumstances that could lead
even a well-intentioned young person down a bad,
irreversible path.“Kids I grew up with who weren’t O-Dog that
are still alive, they’re deep into that now, or they’re
dead or in prison,” he said.“But in my mind they were regular kids. I don’t
see them the same way everyone else does.”That speaks to some of the nuance that was lost
as fi lms such as Boyz N the Hood and Menace II So-
ciety became phenomena.In the early 1990s “the most pop thing you could
be was a gangster,” said Allen Hughes, who with his
brother Albert wrote and directed Menace II Soci-
ety, the bleakest and rowdiest of that era’s movies.
“There wasn’t any optimism at all in our fi lm.”Some scenes in Dope recall key moments in that
generation of movies. The opening scene of Mal-
colm in his bedroom is a nod to Q (Omar Epps) in
his bedroom in the opening scene of Juice (1992),
a fi lm about four friends torn apart by violence.
Malcolm and his friends are forever running
from the Bloods, much as Ricky and Tre were in
Boyz N the Hood. Near the end of Dope, when Malcolm pulls a gun
in a tough situation, the tug of war between fear
and self-determination is familiar from both Q and Tre.These gestures aren’t simple homage.
They also encourage a fresh reading of the older movies by underscoring a streak of vulnerability that was always at their cen-tre, hiding behind the bluster.Those movies crested when Famuyiwa
was at fi lm school at the University of South-ern California in Los Angeles, double-ma-joring in critical studies and fi lm production under the tutelage of the fi ery professor Todd Boyd, who later helped write Famuyiwa’s di-rectorial debut, The Wood (1999).
While there was a palpable excitement about the fi lms of the day, Famuyiwa recalled, “there
was defi nitely skepticism. There was a lot of discussion about the door
being open, but who the door was open to and the
stories being told.”When he left, he wanted to make movies that
bridged both parts of his studies, the practical and
the critical. He was inspired by those black fi lms
that were suddenly in the mainstream, but also by
fi lms such as Wes Anderson’s Rushmore (1998)
and Bottle Rocket (1996), which Famuyiwa saw
when Anderson screened it on campus, and which,
like Dope, features an unlikely, bumbling criminal
partnership. “It’s only now that I made Dope that I
feel that those two worlds have come together in an
organic way,” he said.Williams emphasized this broad reading of
Dope. “What we were trying to communicate is
that there were so many lenses and ways to look at
the ghetto and urbanised places,” he explained. “I’m just so happy to be able to use the term ‘the
’hood’ and the phrase ‘an American fi lm’ in the
same context.” -Jon Caramanica / The New York
Times News Service
ETCETERAC11T H U R S DAY, J U N E 1 8 , 2 0 1 5
Jurassic World breaks
box offi ce records
JURASSIC WORLD has stormed into the global record books to score the highest worldwide open-ing weekend in history. Colin Tre-vorrow’s much-hyped fourth mov-ie in the franchise about a dinosaur theme park that goes terrifyingly awry when the Indominus Rex es-capes, grossed a massive $511 mil-lion (£330m) over its fi rst weekend of release, Rentrak reports.
Final Harry Potter instalment, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2 held the pre-vious world record opening at $483.2m in 2011, making Jurassic World the fi rst to open above the $500m mark. Jurassic World took $204.6m in the US putting it just behind Marvel’s The Avengers, which earned $207.4m in 2012, as the second-highest domestic opening ever. The last Jurassic fi lm came 14 years ago with Ju-rassic Park III - the threequel to Steven Spielberg’s 1993 classic. Analysts had predicted a box of-
fi ce smash for Jurassic World giv-en this long wait but estimations of a $125m opening have been far exceeded. One possible reason for Jurassic World’s success is likely its appeal for multiple genera-tions - those aged under 25 today and those who were fans of the Nineties original.
The 3D format proved popular with 48 per cent of US audiences opting to don the glasses, while lead star Chris Pratt is a familiar face, having starred in Guardians of the Galaxy and The Lego Movie last year. Jurassic World dwarfed competitors, with Melissa Mc-Carthy’s Spy adding $16m and earthquake movie San Andreas $11m. No studio tried to rival Universal by releasing a new fi lm, in what proved a wise move.
Will Jurassic World go on to become the highest-grossing fi lm of all time, beating Avatar and Titanic? We need to wait and watch. -Jess Denham/The Independent
‘Pitch Perfect 2’ is set to hit the screens
MUSICAL COMEDY fi lm Pitch Per-fect 2 will be released in India by Uni-versal Pictures India on June 26. The movie, directed by Elizabeth Banks, stars Academy award nominee Anna Kendrick, Rebel Wilson, Hailee Stein-feld and Brittany Snow. “I was so proud to see our poster go up after the Fast & Furious poster. I think it’s important
for women to see that someone wants to tell their story and make a movie that’s not about who’s going to get married and have a boyfriend,” Banks said in a statement while talking about the fi lm. Considering the popularity of the previous in-stalment, the expectations are running high with the release of the sequel too.
Salman Khan shares ‘Bajrangi Bhaijaan’ painting
BOLLYWOOD SUPERSTAR Salman Khan, who is awaiting the release of his upcoming fi lm Bajrangi Bhaijaan, shared a black and white painting of a couple on micro-blogging website Twitter. The black and white painting shows a couple in love. The woman is seen sporting a red bindi in the art-work. Bajrangi Bhaijaan, Salman cap-
tioned the post. The 49-year-old Dabangg star also shared the Hindi poster of the upcoming fi lm, which is directed by Kabir Khan and co-produced by Salman and Rockline Ven-katesh. The fi lm, which also stars Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Kareena Kapoor Khan, is set to hit screens on Eid-ul-Fitr which is likely to be celebrated on July 18.
Preity Zinta says she’s not quitting ‘Nach Baliye 7’
ACTRESS Preity Zinta, a judge dance-based reality show Nach Baliye, has denied rumours that she is quitting. The 40-year-old took to micro blogging website Twitter and wrote: “2be honest I’m quite surprised 2hear rumors that I’m quitting the show & not there on time when I’m always the fi rst 1to ar-rive. Strange na (sic)” Ekta Kapoor, the producer of the reality show, had also denied the rumours on Monday say-
ing “news about her leaving the show is absolutely rubbish.” Meanwhile, Preity is excited about Salman Khan starrer Bajrangi Bhaijaan and can’t wait for the film’s release. She wrote on Twitter: “Cannot wait to see this movie real soon @BeingSalmanKhan as usual you are killing it Muaah #bhajrangibhaijaan”. -IANS
B R I E F S
W O R L D R E C O R D
Orson Welles centenary
As we are bombarded with new documentaries and tributes to the great man,
there may be a sense of Too Much Welles. There are three rival new documentaries about him. Sev-eral of his fi lms are being rere-leased. An online campaign has just been launched to raise mon-ey to complete his unfi nished late feature, The Other Side of the Wind, about a macho, Heming-way-like fi lm director.
Magician: the Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles, Chuck Workman’s new documentary about Welles, begins with the cel-ebrated sequence from Citizen Kane of magnate Charles Foster Kane (Welles) as a dying old man in his Xanadu retreat, dropping the snow globe and whispering hoarsely “rosebud”. Unpicking what he means is supposed to be the key to Kane’s personality.
Welles wasn’t keen on the rose-bud idea, which had apparently been thought up by the fi lm’s co-writer Herman J Mankiewicz.
“It was the only way we could fi nd to get off , as we used to say in vaudeville,” he later told Peter Bogdanovich. Nonetheless, it is still the narrative device that is referred to most frequently when fi lm-makers and historians are trying to understand Welles him-self. One of the paradoxes about Welles is that he still seems as mysterious as ever in spite of the huge amount of information that continues to be unearthed about him. He is far too slippery a fi gure for biographers or critics ever fully to be able to explain.
Many countries have a claim on Welles. When Hollywood turned its back on him, he was forced to look outside the US for opportu-nities. “Like the fruit pickers, I go where the work is,” he once joked. With his taste for blarney, Welles often seemed like an honorary Irishman. It was to the Gate Thea-tre in Dublin he came as a penni-less teenager at the very start of his career, lying about his age and claiming to its founder Michael
MacLiammoir that he was “a not-ed actor from the Broadway stage”.
The Spanish think Welles is one of their own. He clearly loved Spain, worked there frequently and his ashes were buried there, in a well in Ronda. He identifi ed strongly with Cervantes’s day-dreaming Spanish knight Don Quixote, the subject of one of
his many unfi nished fi lms. The former Yugoslavia has its claim on Welles too. He shot The Trial and The Deep in Croatia and met his collaborator, muse and girl-friend Oja Kodar there. He also appeared in cameos in various movies shot in the Balkans.
“I often make bad fi lms in order to live and I’m sorry to say quite a lot of these bad fi lms were in your country,” he explained to local in-terviewers. Mexico has its claims on Welles and so does Brazil (where he made his ill-fated foray to fi lm It’s All True). There have long been rumours that a print of his original version of The Mag-nifi cent Ambersons, before it was savagely cut by editor Robert Wise after a disastrous preview in Cali-fornia, is lurking somewhere in South America. In the latter part of his life, Welles seemed almost part of the British establishment. He was a regular fi xture on chat shows. He had infl uential British friends, among them John Gielgud. - Geoff rey Macnab/The Independent
Many countries have
a claim on Welles. When
Hollywood turned its back
on him, he was forced to
look outside the US for
opportunities. ‘Like the fruit
pickers, I go where the work
is,’ he once joked
It is entirely in keeping with the life and career of Orson Welles (1915-1985) that the
centenary of his birth is being marked in such excessive fashion
