Ashghal opens Tilted Intersection to traffic - Qatar Tribune

Qatar’s Mutaz Essa Barshim, who won the high-jump gold at the IAAF World Athletics Championships in Doha on Friday, poses with his medal alongside Qatar Olympic Committee President and Doha Worlds Organising Committee Chairman HE Sheikh Joaan bin Hamad al Thani, after the medal ceremony in Doha on Saturday. Barshim is flanked by silver-medallist Mikhail Akimenko (L) and bronze medallist Ilya Ivanyuk of Russia. (AFP) PAGE 12

TRIBUNE NEWS NETWORKDOHA

AS part of its initiative to boost self-sufficiency, Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar’s (WCM-Q) national public health cam-paign has installed state-of-the-art greenhouses at three Qatar Foundation (QF) schools.

With the greenhouses, the

Khayr Qatarna initiative aims to teach schoolchildren crucial lessons about food security, environmental sustainability and healthy eating.

Qatar Foundation’s (QF) Pre-University Education and Your Health First have col-laborated to build the climate-controlled greenhouses at the Renad Academy and the Al Khor and Al Wakra campuses

of the Qatar Academy. They give more than 1,000

students the chance to take hands-on lessons on how to cultivate a wide range of fresh produce, including toma-toes, cucumbers, aubergines, strawberries and peppers.

As a part of QCM-Q’s ‘Sahtak Awalan - Your Health First’ campaign, Khayr Qa-tarna was launched in 2018 to boost self-sufficiency in Qatar and help the younger genera-tion avoid non-communicable diseases such as obesity and type-2 diabetes by teaching

them the importance of a bal-anced diet rich in fresh fruits and vegetables.

Buthaina Ali al Nuaimi, president of Pre-University Education at QF, said, “It is wonderful that, with the Khayr Qatarna greenhouses, we are able to teach our students at Qatar Foundation schools about food security, environ-mental issues and healthy eat-ing by actually letting them get their hands in the soil and seeing the plants thrive under their careful stewardship.

“This is a truly rich and

compelling educational expe-rience and it supports the the-oretical lessons the students learn in science class, as well as helping them appreciate where their food comes from and making them very enthu-siastic about healthy eating.”

In the initial phase of Khayr Qatarna, greenhouses were installed at 10 second-ary schools. Several tonnes of fresh fruit and vegetables have already been harvested. All the crops have been granted the status of ‘Premium Products’ by the government.

Khayr Qatarna greenhouses installed at 3 QF schools

Khayr Qatarna has installed greenhouses at schools across Qatar to teach students about healthy eating, food security and sustainability.

1,000 students to get hands-on lessons on cultivating a wide range of fresh produce

CHAMPION CROWNED

Stars of Science presents top eight innovatorss (PG 16 )

2019 eventful for Qatar in terms of cultural engagement (PG 2)

Renewed protests took place under live fire in Iraq’s capital and the country’s south Saturday as the government struggled to agree a response to days of rallies that have left nearly 100 dead. PAGE 7

Protesters flood Iraq streets anew as death toll nears 100


SOMALI Minister of Health and Social Care Dr Fawziya Abikar expressed her gratitude to the people and government of Qatar as she marked the opening of a child- and moth-er-care centre built by the Qa-tar Charity in Mogadishu.

The minister also hailed Qatar Charity’s initiatives to set up hospitals and healthcare units for vulnerable groups in countries such as Somalia.

The QC-funded child- and mother-care centre is part of the Central Hospital of the De-nali district of Somali capital Mogadishu, which is home to a large number of displaced people. “The establishment of a model child and mother

care is very important for So-malia at present, as specialised centres have not been fully op-erational in most areas after successive crises in the coun-try for nearly three decades,” Abikar said.

Many local officials, a team from the hospital administra-tion, physicians Across Conti-

nents, some dignitaries of the district and Abdul Nour Haj Ali, director of Qatar Charity office in Somalia were present at the inaugural ceremony.

Ali spoke about the impor-tance of establishing the child and mother- care centre that provides health services to the people of the region and neighbouring areas suffering from the lack of basic health and first aid services.

He added the centre was established after a survey was carried out to identify the health-related needs of the people in the area. Physicians Across Continents participat-ed in conducting the survey and also helps run the centre, he added.

Somali health minister hails Qatar Charity’s initiatives

Somali Minister of Health and Social Care Dr Fawziya Abikar

QRCS helps 24,000 in Qatar through its Humanitarian Services Fund this yearQATAR Red Crescent Society’s (QRCS) Hu-manitarian Services Fund has so far benefited around 24,000 people, the society has said in a statement.

The assistance ranged from regular aid to low-income families to special emergency assistance.

“QRCS continues to pursue its humanitar-ian and development mission for the Qatari society with a view to improving living condi-tions at all levels, the statement said.

Through its Humanitarian Services Fund, QRCS offers many forms of support to the vulnerable sections and promote solidarity in society. Cash and in-kind assistance are given to needy families during certain times of the year such as the Holy Month of Ramadan, and to those who lost or had their homes damaged in natural disasters, the QRCS statement said.

It also provides one-time assistance to solve issues threatening the stability of fami-lies. PAGE 2

Ashghal opens Tilted Intersection to traffic


THE Public Works Author-ity (Ashghal) has fully opened the Tilted Intersection, an oblique multi-lane highway convergence in the shape of an elongated ellipse that draws in roads from four areas includ-ing the Khalifa Avenue.

With four signalised junc-tions above a 2.7 km tunnel connecting Al Gharrafa Street and Huwar Street, the Tilted Intersection — which also links Al Luqta Street and Khalifa Av-enue — will significantly reduce traffic congestion in the area.

The mega convergence also makes it easier for traf-fic feeding into the buildings of the Qatar Foundation, the Sidra Hospital and the Qatar National Library. It is also ex-pected to reduce travel times for motorists heading to Doha, Al Gharrafa, Al Rayyan and Al Luqta, and facilitate easier ac-cess to Gharrafat Al Rayyan,

Bani Hajer and Dukhan.With these openings, road

users heading from Al Shamal Road to Al Rayyan and Qatar Foundation can use the new tunnel and intersection across Al Gharrafa Street and Huwar Street without the need to use the busy 22 February Street.

The openings also serve traffic to the Education City

Stadium, which will open at the end of this year and will host the semi-finals and the final of the FIFA Club World Cup in December.

The Tilted Intersection in-cludes a signalised roundabout, which has different design from the usual roundabouts. The new design of the rounda-bout will have Khalifa Avenue

main free- flow traffic pass through it, similar to Gharrafat Al Rayyan Interchange to fa-cilitate traffic and to serve as a link between Doha, Dukhan, Al Gharrafa and Al Rayyan.

Moreover, the number of lanes at the new intersection has been increased, with three main lanes in each direction and two service lanes to accom-modate approximately 8,500 vehicles.

The event marking the opening of the intersection was attended by Central Municipal Council (CMC) Chairman Mo-hamed bin Hamoud al Shafi, Ashghal’s Projects Affairs Di-rector Eng. Yousef Abdulrah-man al Emadi, Director of Traffic Engineering and Safety Department at the General Di-rectorate of Traffic Brigadier Mohamed Marafi and Highway Project Department Manager Bader Darwish along with a number of engineers from Ash-ghal and the contracting com-pany.

The Public Works Authori-ty has been keen to set up land-scape and beautification works at the Tilted Intersection and a tunnel as part of the country’s plan to beautify the streets and part of Khalifa Avenue project works.

The Tilted Interchange is an oblique multi-lane highway convergence in the shape of an elongated ellipse that draws in roads from four areas.

Mega convergence to significantly reduce traffic congestions on several roads

How to use Tilted IntersectionMotorists on Al Luqta Street should use the main road

passing through the Tilted Intersection to go to Dukhan and vice versa. Those on Al Luqta Street heading north towards Al Gharrafa or south towards Al Rayyan should proceed through the service lanes, take the roundabout and follow the signs to reach their destinations

Offences on flight: Qatar signs Montreal ProtocolQatar has signed the 2014 Montreal Protocol, which gives individual states around the world more powers to deal with the rise in disruptive passenger behaviour on-board flights.The agreement was signed by Qatar’s Civil Aviation Authority President Abdullah bin Nasser Turki al Subaey and Interna-tional Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) Secretary-General Fang Liu, in Montreal, Canada. The 2014 Montreal Protocol or Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Civil Aviation has amended some aspects of the Tokyo Convention. (QNA)

Continued on page 2

Also see page 3

SUNDAYOCTOBER 6, 2019

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United States 8Pompeo blasts ‘harassment and abuse’ after Democrats subpoena White House

02 Sunday, October 6, 2019

Contact US: Qatar Tribune I EDITORIAL I Phone: 40002222 I ADMINISTRATION & MARKETING I Phone: 40002155, 40002122, Fax: 40002235 P.O. Box: 23493, Doha.

QNADOHA

2019 has been an eventful year for Qatar in terms of cultural activities aimed at showcas-ing Qatar’s inclusive culture to the world while preserving its quintessential cultural identity.

Ranging from the inau-guration of the magnificent National Museum of Qatar by the Amir His Highness Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al Thani, to celebrating Doha OIC Youth Capital and Qatar-India Year of Culture, the current year has seen Qatar holding numerous cultural activities to engage with the world at the cultural level.

Qatar has dedicated cen-tres to promote cultural her-itage such as Nomas Center. Besides, Qatar holds Marmi In-ternational Falcon and Hunt-ing Festival, Al Galayel Hunt-ing Competition and the Traditional Dhow Festival, in

addition to celebrating Qatar National Day on December 18. These are aimed at preserving and promoting the age-old cul-tural traditions of the country.

The National Museum of Qatar embraces as its cene-trpiece the restored historic Palace of Sheikh Abdullah bin Jassim al Thani (1880-1957), the son of the founder of mod-ern Qatar. The building was both the home of the royal family and the seat of govern-ment, and was subsequently the site of the original National Museum. Alongside the palace, the new museum built over an area of 40,000 square metres, includes innovative artworks designed by Qatari and inter-national artists, as well as rare and precious artefact collec-tions, documentary materials and interactive learning activi-ties.

Famous architect Jean Nouvel’s dynamic architectural design echoes the geography of Qatar while evoking the history and culture of the nation.

Doha OIC Youth Capital

rises the motto “Youth is the Power of the Nation”

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Culture and Sports, in coopera-tion with the Islamic Coopera-tion Youth Forum and under the supervision of Qatar Cent-er for Cultural and Heritage Events Doha is holding array of activities under the motto ‘Youth is the Power of the Na-tion’ as part of Doha OIC Youth Capital for 2019.

The event provides suitable environment for young people to know and interact on chal-lenges facing empowerment of Muslim communities.

In the framework of the event, Doha Youth Camp for Voluntary and Humanitar-ian Work will be organised in cooperation of Qatar Red Crescent Society from October 28 to November 6. The camp represents an opportunity for Muslim youth to share experi-ences in the field of volunteer-ism and humanitarian work.

The camp aims to develop the capabilities of Muslim youth in the areas of relief and disaster management, discuss the experiences of some Islam-ic countries in volunteering, humanitarian and relief work, and motivate young people to acquire and spread a culture of social responsibility and volun-teerism.

The event will be a simula-tion of real and realistic experi-ence of the situation of refugees and the victims of natural dis-asters and wars. Throughout the camp period, participants will live in tents similar to the refugee camps.

Doha OIC Youth Capital also includes the Doha Youth Innovation Award which hon-ours outstanding works in visual arts, photography and short films, in cooperation with the Islamic Cooperation Youth Forum (ICYF), and in partner-ship with the Visual Arts Cen-tre, Doha Film Institute and the Youth Hobbies Centre.

Since its election as the member of the Intergovern-mental Committee of the 2005 Convention for the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Or-ganization (UNESCO) in June, 2018, Qatar has made several efforts in support of cultural events that facilitate dialogue among diverse communities.

The assistance ranges from aid for low-income families to special assistance for those who have some emergency

2019 an eventful year for Qatar in terms of cultural engagement

English Modern School, Al Khor hosted the second annual ‘Study in Malaysia University Fair’ recently. Year 7 to 12 students, parents and staff met with delegates who represented some Malaysian universities and received academic and career guid-ance. The school organised the event with the belief that senior students, who are interested, will be successful in their application process and be accepted at one of these prestigious universities. (TNN)

ENGLISH MODERN SCHOOL AL KHOR HOSTS ‘STUDY IN MALAYSIA FAIR’

Nearly 24,000 benefit from QRCS humanitarian services in Qatar


QATAR Red Crescent Soci-ety (QRCS) has helped around 24,000 beneficiaries in Qatar so far this year through its Hu-manitarian Services Fund, ac-cording to a press release.

The assistance ranges from regular aid to low-income fami-lies to special assistance for those who have some emergen-cies.

QRCS continues to pursue its humanitarian and develop-ment mission for the Qatari so-ciety with a view to improving living conditions at all levels. Through its Humanitarian Ser-vices Fund, QRCS offers many forms of support to the vulner-able, promoting solidarity in society.

Cash and in-kind assistance

is given to needy families during certain times of the year such as the Holy Month of Ramadan, as well as families whose homes are damaged due to some dis-aster.

Other examples include help for workers who face dif-ficulties, transportation refund for destitute cases, and one-time assistance to solve issues threatening the stability of the family.

With these provisions, QRCS could reach out to 321 widows and female breadwin-ners, 268 older persons, 388 zero-income persons, 1,244 low-income persons, 24 fami-lies of penitentiary inmates, 33 persons with special needs, 565 monthly assistance cases and 60 emergency assistance cases.

“The Humanitarian Services Fund is a charitable programme

aimed at helping the most vul-nerable groups of society that cannot find a job, like orphans, widows, older persons and per-sons with special needs,” said Muna Fadel al Sulaiti, executive director of Volunteering and Local Development at QRCS.

“It also takes care of vulner-able families that cannot meet their basic needs, in order to keep them stable and protect them against the risks of pov-erty and homelessness.”

She added, “This is the only programme dedicated to those who need financial or social as-sistance. It serves as a haven for the vulnerable groups, to miti-gate the economic, social and psychological impact of abject poverty. This way, it proactively prevents the negative conse-quences both at the individual and collective levels”.

The National Museum of Qatar embraces as its cen-terpiece the restored histor-ic Palace of Sheikh Abdullah bin Jassim al Thani (1880-1957), son of the founder of modern Qatar

Muna Fadel al Sulaiti, executive director of Volunteering and Local Development at QRCS.

MME stresses need for safe disposal of hazardous wastes

QNA DOHA

THE Ministry of Municipality and Environment (MME) has stressed the importance of the safe disposal of hazardous waste through licensed companies and authorities.

The ministry said according to the provi-sions of Law No 30 of 2002 and its executive regulations, under which circulating, managing or re-exporting harmful substances and haz-ardous waste at home or abroad was prohib-ited, only companies with a licence issued by the MME’s Department of Radiation Protection and Chemicals can dispose hazardous waste.

The ministry called on all parties that make or possess hazardous waste, including used bat-teries and oil, to contact companies and entities licensed by the ministry to receive, treat or re-cycle these wastes.

In its report, the ministry said the used oils are oils that lost all or some of the properties during operation, making the colour change to dark and the smell become strong.

The report also noted that the effects of waste oils are under the list of carcinogenic chemicals harmful to human health and can kill all living organisms. Moreover, if disposed in the seas or oceans, they increase the activity of anaerobic bacteria causing water poisoning and changing the acidity as they block oxygen from reaching the organisms in the seas or oceans.

Waste oils disposal in agricultural land kill microorganisms in the soil and cover the leaves with a layer that affects plant growth process, leading to the death of plants and destruction of soil, the report said.

The report reviewed the process of safe dis-posal of used oil and the procedures to be fol-lowed.

92 percent of Khalifa Avenue project completed, says Emadi

Continued from page 1

CMC Chairman Shafi said the opening of the tunnel and in-tersection within a a month shows Ashghal’s keenness to complete projects as soon as possible.

Ashghal’s Projects Affairs Director Yousef al Emadi said the authority has completed 92 percent of the Khalifa Av-enue project.

Emadi said Ashghal seeks to complete the work of Khali-fa Avenue project by next year after the completion of the rest of the intersections and beau-tification works on the road.

Brigadier Mohamed Marafi, director of Traffic Engineering and Safety De-partment at the General Di-rectorate of Traffic, said the opening of the Tilted Intersec-tion would improve traffic -- whether it’s from Al Gharrafa Street, Huwar Street, Al Luqta Street or Khalifa Avenue Road.

He said the new design of the intersection would facili-tate a smooth traffic flow and reduce travel time, especially after the opening of the Tilted Intersection, which opened in early September, where it provides a free traffic flow between Al Gharrafa and Al Rayyan.

Nation 03Sunday, October 6, 2019


SOMALIA’S Minister of Health and Social Care, Dr Fawziya Abikar, praised the Qatari government and people for supporting the Somali people and appreciated Qatar Char-ity’s initiatives to help vulner-able groups, set up hospitals and health units, and care for mothers and children.

This praise by the minister came during her speech at the opening of a child and mother care centre established by Qa-tar Charity in the central hos-pital of the Denali district of the Somali capital Mogadishu, where a large number of the displaced people live.

“The establishment of a model child and mother care is very important for Somalia at present, as specialized centres have not been fully operational in most areas after successive crises in the country for nearly three decades,” Abikar said.

Many local officials, a team from the hospital administra-tion, Physicians Across Conti-nents, some dignitaries of the district, and Abdul Nour Haj Ali, director of Qatar Charity office in Somalia were present at the inaugural ceremony.

For his part, Abdul Nour Haj Ali, director of Qatar Char-ity’s office in Somalia, spoke about the importance of estab-lishing the child and mother care centre that provides health services to the people of the region and neighbouring areas suffering from the lack of basic health and first aid ser-vices.

He added that this centre

came after a survey was carried out to identify the health-relat-ed needs of the people in the area, noting that Physicians Across Continents participated

in conducting the survey and also contributes to running the centre.

Mohammed Abubakar Jafar, an official of the De-

nali Directorate, praised Qatar Charity’s continuous humani-tarian efforts and its relief and development assistance for the Somali society.

The construction of this centre contributes significantly to enhancing the health aware-ness of the people of the region and providing health services to the residents of the area that houses a significant number of the displaced.

The 600-square-metre centre is expected to provide health care to residents of the area and surrounding ar-eas with a focus on maternal services and child care. The centre including 11 clinics, all designed to provide health ser-

vices, was built at a total cost of nearly 400,000 Qatari riyals. The region has a population of 20,000, mostly children, women and the elderly in IDP camps.

It is worth mentioning that Qatar Charity attaches great importance to the health sec-tor in Somalia, where a health centre with many additional facilities has recently been opened in Somaliland. An-other health centre was inau-gurated in Garowe, the admin-istrative capital of Punt land state in northeastern Somalia. The implementation of other health projects will start in dif-ferent parts of the country over the next few months.

Somalia health minister hailsQatar Charity’s programmes

Somalia’s Minister of Health and Social Care Dr Fawziya Abika and other dignitaries at the launch of a child and mother care centre in the central hospital of Denali district in Mogadishu recently.

The centre was designed to provide health services with a focus on maternal services and child careTRIBUNE NEWS NETWORK

DOHA

CELEBRATING over a decade of continued success and sig-nificant expansion in Qatar, Al Meera Consumer Goods Company Q.P.S.C. launched a nationwide campaign to mark its 14th anniversary, reward-ing its customers for their loy-alty and trust.

The 14-week promotional campaign, which fittingly re-flects the number of years cel-ebrated, is running from Sep-tember 29, 2019 to January 4, 2020. Spanning across Al Meera branches – with the ex-ception of Maar and WH Smith branches – it will offer Al Meera Rewards members the chance to win big prizes in a series of raffle draws. The Meera Re-wards programme aims to give redeemable points to loyal cus-tomers and joining is compli-mentary -- by downloading the mobile App. For every QR200 they spend at Al Meera, custom-ers will be entitled to one raffle draw coupon. The prizes, which will be distributed on a weekly basis, will consist of 15 iPads 6 32GB Wi-Fi, one 20g gold bar, one 50g gold bar and one 100g gold bar. The draws will be held across Al Meera branches.

Al Meera said: “As Qatar’s “FavouriteNeighbourgood Re-tailer”, we have fulfilled our promise by building a legacy that is only strengthening its footprint with our stakeholders, team and loyal customers. Our unparalleled dedication to eve-ry customer, in every branch, speaks for itself driving future growth.

“We have been committed to providing Qatar with qual-ity and locally sourced produce, honesty and an enhanced shop-ping experience and as a result, we are considered the commu-nity’s leading retail provider and destination of choice and will continue to strive to exceed expectations. Over the past dec-ade, Al Meera has cemented its place among the leading nation-al companies in Qatar. On the occasion of our 14th anniversa-ry, we celebrate our remarkable growth in the market.”

To enter the draws, custom-ers will need to be registered with Meera Rewards App, and be shopping at Al Meera stores. Draw winners will receive a confirmation via SMS or via call from Al Meera, and will need to visit Al Meera branch in which the draw was held to col-lect their prizes by submitting a valid ID.

Al Meera launches promotional drive to reward customers

QCS joins US embassy breast cancer awareness campaignTRIBUNE NEWS NETWORK

DOHA

QATAR Cancer Society (QCS), represented by its Chairman Sheikh Dr Khalid bin Jabor al Thani, participated in the recent illumination of the US embassy in pink, to mark the World Breast Cancer Aware-ness Month.

Chargé d’Affaires at US Embassy William Grant, As-sistant Minister of Health Af-fairs at the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) Dr Salih al Marri and Director of Public Health Sheikh Dr Mohammed bin Hamad al Thani attended the event aimed at raising awareness of the importance of early detection of cancer.

Breast cancer is one of the most common cancers among women in Qatar and globally.

Dr Khalid said, “QCS’ participation in this event is a continuation of its efforts towards raising awareness of cancer and ways to prevent it. We are keen to serve as a com-

munity partnership platform to contribute to making Qatar a leader in cancer prevention and its burden control.”

He also stressed the im-portance of supporting in-dividuals living with cancer and promoting professional development and scientific research in the field of cancer.

He further pointed out that QCS has launched na-tional campaign ‘Blossom’

this October targeting differ-ent sections of Qatari society residing in different regions of the country throughout the month.

Dr Hadi Mohamad Abu Rasheed, head of Professional Development and Scientific Research Department at QCS said, “In 2016, according to Qatar National Registry (QNCR) there were 266 indi-viduals diagnosed with breast

cancer in Qatar of which 96 percent were females and three percent males, includ-ing 25.94 percent Qataris and 74.06 percent non-Qataris.

Dr Abu Rasheed added that one out of 12 women developed breast cancer be-fore the age of 75 and almost 64 percent of breast cancer cases diagnosed in 2016 were in early stages (stage1 and stage2).

MZ SKIN all set to launch at Galeries Lafayette Doha soonTRIBUNE NEWS NETWORK

DOHA

LEADING aesthetic expert Dr Maryam Zamani will launch her skincare brand, MZ SKIN, at Galeries Lafayette Doha this month.

Galeries Lafayette Doha is located in the newly developed 21 High st at the heart of Katara Cultural Village, the ultimate destination for fashion, luxury, art and culture.

MZ SKIN is the latest addi-tion to the Parisian Department store and a landmark for exqui-site luxury skincare. With her vast experience in surgery and skin rejuvenation, Dr Zamani is an anti-ageing powerhouse. The launch of her brand three years ago has changed the perception of clinical skincare from purely

functional to a sensory experi-ence.

Renowned in the UK as ‘the eye doctor’, Maryam is a highly respected oculoplastic surgeon and leading aesthetic doctor, while her skincare collection, MZ SKIN is treasured by A-list and Royal clientele, includ-ing Elle Macpherson, Gwyneth Paltrow, Arizona Muse, Selma Blair and Princess Charlene of Monaco.

MZ SKIN is an award-winning skincare brand that performs, with a focus on anti-ageing and skin health. The collection is an alchemy of medical know-how and opu-lent textures. Each product is formulated with pioneering in-gredients and trusted actives to deliver the essence of beautiful skin – age-defying luminosity.

Dreama observes Arab Child DayTRIBUNE NEWS NETWORK

DOHA

THE Orphan Care Center (Dreama), one of the centres under the umbrella of Qatar Foundation for Social Work, re-cently observed the Arab Child Day 2019 under the slogan ‘Dif-ferent, but We Are One’.

The day is observed on October 1 on the anniversary of the martyrdom of Moham-med Al-Durra, the child shot by the Israeli occupation on September 30, 2000.

A number of activities, events and workshops reflect-ing the cultures of the Arab world are held every year to introduce other Arab cultures to the community with a view to highlighting the importance of unity and cohesion among Arab peoples.

Dreama concluded the cel-ebration in Qatar Mall with the participation of the Protection and Social Rehabilitation Cent-er (AMAN), the Family Coun-seling Center (WIFAQ), Shafal-lah Center, Best Buddies Center and Al Noor Center, under the umbrella of Qatar Foundation for Social Work. The celebra-tion was marked by a number

of awareness activities related to childhood and family.

Mariam bint Ali bin Nasser al Misnad, Dreama Executive Director, said the celebration of the Arab Child Day comes within the framework of car-ing for children and preserving their dignity.

She added that Dreama

continues to raise awareness about childhood among all segments of community.

On her part, Nour al Mo-hannadi, director of the Social Awareness Office at Dreama, said the annual celebration stems from a sense of respon-sibility and partnership to serve the targeted group.

Ailyn Agonia Kabayan Corner

Reports by For events and press releases email [email protected] or call (974) 4000 2222

Ailyn Agonia


PICE Qatar hosts sports events to support its Math Whiz programme for PSD, PISQ students

GEARING UP FOR MATH WHIZ

THE Philippine Institute of Civil Engineers Qatar Chap-ter (PICE Qatar) organised a series of sports events re-cently featuring basketball

and badminton tournaments. This year’s tournaments were ini-

tiated with the aim of raising fund for the PICE Qatar’s Math Whiz, which will be held on October 18 and No-vember 1 at the Philippine Interna-tional School-Doha, and Philippine School Doha campuses, respectively.

The professional group’s basket-ball tournament billed 6th Confer-ence of the PICE Qatara’s Presidents Cup was held at Al Arab Academy Gymnasium.

The friendly tournament featured two competing teams whose players are male basketball enthusiasts de-rived from the organisation’s Execu-tive Committee and active members of the Constitution, Standing and Ad Hoc Committees since year 2017. The ladies of the organisation made up the bulk of cheerers.

This year, Team Neon Green swept the tournament with a 4 – 0 rout against Fuchsia “Bullies” in the

best of seven series. Banking on the new comer power twins of Antonio Abenoja II and Jard Lee Cortez, the rejuvenated “Neons” took advantage of the seemingly drained “Bullies” and managed to control the boards in the dying minutes of the game. The final score was 48-46.

According to the organisers, prep-arations for the 7th Conference of the same tournament is ongoing with the first game being scheduled as soon as the venue becomes available.

The basketball tournament was followed by the launch of of the 2nd

President’s Badminton Cup which was an exclusive special series objectively also aimed at supporting and funding the PICE Qatar’s Math Whiz.

About 40 players participated the fun-filled Badminton Cup-Mixed Doubles which combined the begin-ners and intermediate categories from officers, general members and family members.

The successful 5-day elimina-tion round concluded on Friday. The tournament still has remain-ing two more days to hold its semi-finals and finals match scheduled on

on October 11 and 18, respectively. Each winner will receive a certificate and trophy as per their designation - Champion, 1st Runner Up and 2nd Runner Up.

Going back to its historical emer-gence, badminton sports became of-ficially prominent to PICE Qatar way back in July 2018 as part of “Sports and Recreations” activities to the said organisation including the participa-tion of family members and friends. The programme is aimed introducing badminton competitions to PICE Qa-tar members, encouraging the idea of lifelong exercise and enhancing fitness and wellness through quality time experiences, joining together with their families and friends, and bidding training and support to in-dividuals who are interested in both recreational and high-performance levels of badminton.

The successful 1st President Cup last March 2019 and the 2nd Bad-minton Cup Special Series had the same format, but the latter tourna-ment had more remarkable objec-tives and gave more inspiration among the participants.

The winning team receives the trophy.Participants of the sixth Conference of the PICE Qatara’s Presidents Cup

Representatives of Filipino community participate in

meet on domestic workers

AROUND 26 representa-tives from different Fili-pino community organi-

sations under Bayanihan Qatar, a federation of around 30 groups mainly from the grassroots sector, attended the two-part conference for house-hold service workers held at the Holiday Inn recently.

The sessions covered dis-cussions on Qatar Labor Law No 15 of 22 August 2017 which relates to domestic workers. The activity was conducted by the International Domestic Workers Federation (IDWF) and attended by representatives from the Ministry of Adminis-trative, Development, Labour and Social Affairs (MADSLA) and the International Labor Or-ganization (ILO) in Doha.

Bayanihan Qatar President Jerry Ronquillo led the super-vision of the conference which he underlined as important platform to educate the work-ers at the same time to ensure their welfare. He said, “We are delighted to be part of this activity supported by the gov-ernment of Qatar. The pres-ence of representatives from MADSLA speak of the com-mitment of the host country in protecting the rights and wel-

fares of the expatriates. We, at the Filipino community, are grateful that we have this kind of dialogues between the au-thorizes, key institutions and the workers.”

A follow up conference is being planned tentatively scheduled on November 22 as part of the efforts to educate the workers on the provisions of Qatar law.

The members of Bayani-han Qatar include Qatar Pili-pino Helping Hands (QPHH), BMKQ, Kaagapay ng Mangga-gawang Pilipino (KMP), The Filipino Community (TFC), HERO Qatar, Kapuso, Filipino Vloggers in Qatar (FVQ), Ka-bisig, NIKTK Ilokano Group, OFW Barkadahan sa Qatar (OBQ), PGBI, Elite Qatar, Brethren, Familia, GGGBAI, GSSI, FAMS, AGWI, GRII Lady Force, TSDQ and Filipino He-roes in Doha (FHD).

While the current leader-ship of the organization also includes Pascual Castro as Vice President for Internal Affairs and Aries Tacderas as Vice President for External Affairs. Other elected office-bearers were Charlene Talaue as Secretary and Jovie Ignacio as Treasurer.

Participants at the second President’s Badminton Cup

THE Primary Health Care Corporation (PHCC) and the Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) are collabo-rating to deliver dementia training to family physi-cians on the occasion of World Alzheimer’s Day this year.

The training aims at enhancing physicians’ knowl-edge and skills for appropriate diagnosis and care management of dementia patients, depression in old-er people and delirium.

Dementia mostly affects older people. Approxi-mately 50 million live with dementia worldwide and the number is likely to reach 82 million by 2030.

In Qatar alone, it is estimated that 4,440 people are living with dementia, which is expected to go up to 41,340 by the year 2050, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

High-quality primary healthcare services are vital for people with dementia and their families to avoid inappropriate hospital admissions, which are associ-ated with worsened quality of life of both the person with dementia and his family, and financial burden.

Family physicians in primary care have an impor-tant role in early identification and care management of dementia.

PHCC has established memory clinics, integrat-ing secondary care and specialists in selected PHCC regional specialist centres, which ensures easy access in a community setting. Patients are then referred to secondary care settings for severe dementia and com-plex needs.

DrSamya al Abdulla, executive director of Op-erations, commented: “Timely diagnosis is important for people with dementia to empower them to make their own decisions, plan the best possible care and optimise clinical management. Ensuring early identi-fication through case findings in PHCC in a demen-tia-friendly, non-stigmatising setting, closer to the patient’s home is a key priority for us going forward”

The partnership between PHCC and HMC will bring care closer to the community.

PHCC, HMC join hands to deliver dementia management training

05Sunday, October 6, 2019

MADTalks to hold financial literacy fest for Filipino expats

AILYN AGONIADOHA

MADTALKS (Making A Dif-ference), a Filipino learning or-ganisation under the auspices of Philippine Business Council Qatar, will be hosting a financial literacy festival featuring a series of back-to-back learning events from October 11 to October 20.

From October 11 to 14, Filipino nationals under Reg-istered Financial Planners Philippines will be having their final comprehensive financial plan presentation. The pro-gramme aims to empower hard working Filipino expatriates to promote professionalism in fi-

nancial planning practice in the Philippines.

“RFP wishes to encourage more Filipinos to prepare for their impending ‘retirement for good’ mission. RFP upholds global standards in financial planning practice through the promotion and awarding of ‘RFP® Registered Financial Planner’, the mark of excel-lence in financial planning, to Filipino members who meet the Institute’s qualification,” said Ellen Labastida of MADTalks.

On October 16, Personal Fi-nance coach and mentor John Randell Tiongson will give a talk to high school students and teachers of the Philippine

School Doha (PSD) on the im-portance of financial education to youth and millennials. The session is now in its second year with PSD.

Labastida said, “Research suggests that most millenni-als struggle with their finances, including basic financial disci-pline. Though better educated than their predecessors, they face greater financial uncer-tainty as well. As the new gen-eration carries new personal financial responsibility, it is in-deed important for the youth to be prepared for a path leading toward financial and economic security.”

On October 18, the Filipino

Money Talks Qatar Conference 2019 is set to present three mo-tivational speakers from the Philippines at The Crowne Pla-za –The Business Park on Octo-ber 18, from 12:30pm to 6pm.

John Randell Tiongson, author of several best-selling finance books, such as ‘No Nonsense Personal Finance, Build Your Future’ and ‘Money Manifesto’, will talk about ‘Phil-ippine Market Outlook 2022 & Investment Planning’ during the conference.

Another featured speaker Rex Mendoza will be tackling employment and entrepre-neurship. Mendoza is the au-thor of two best-selling books

‘Firing on All Cylinders’ and ‘Trailblazing Success’. He is the president and CEO of Rampver Financials, a creative niche player in the financial services industry in the Philippines since 1993.

Dodong Cacanando, a farmer, businessman, author and inspirational speaker, will be discussing ‘Agripreneur and Business Stewardship’. Cacanando is the owner of Mo-riah Farms in Bukidnon, where he grows grass-fed livestock and pesticide-free vegetables. He is also the founder and head of Semilya sa Kinabuhi, a foun-dation that teaches unique ap-proach to business.

On October 19, a seminar titled ‘Ready, Set, Retire’ will be held. The seminar is a no nonsense retirement planning seminar where participants will learn how to properly prepare for their retirement.

“Find out how you can truly live a life of comfort and learn about proper investments that are best suited for your needs objectively. The sooner you prepare, the earlier you can retire and live life on your own terms and the sooner you get to pursue full time your dreams,” said Labastida.

On October 20, a talk titled ‘Farm for Profit’ will be held which is aimed at helping over-

seas Filipinos to grow their own abilities and develop a fruitful mindset.

Labastida said, “While most exercise will teach people how to farm, this training will ex-plain farming as a business. Just like any business, a farmer must learn to train his people, im-prove systems, develop markets and manage finances. Under-standing these things is the key to making a farm profitable.”

“Overall the events next week will tackle financial education, opportunities and money matters affecting one of the major pillars of Philippine economy – the overseas Filipi-nos,” she added.

TASMU’s Smart Qatar Program unites youth to celebrate Techies Day


TASMU Smart Qatar Program, a flagship programme by the Ministry of Transport and Com-munications (MoTC), marked this year’s Techies Day by host-ing a group of technologically-advanced youth on the minis-try’s premises.

Techies Day, which is ob-served on October 3, aims to promote careers in technology among young people. The day celebrates people who love tech-nology, with a greater focus on promoting jobs in the tech field amongst the youth.

To highlight this year’s Te-chies Day, TASMU invited par-ticipants from its most recent hackathons to attend a tour led by Eman al Kuwari, senior op-erations specialist at TASMU. During the tour, Qatar’s tech-nologically-advanced youth got

to learn about TASMU’s Smart Qatar Program and the future career opportunities this will bring to the nation.

Eman al Kuwari said, “Be-tween 2017 and 2022, Qatar will develop the necessary techno-logical infrastructure and equip youth, entrepreneurs and pro-fessionals with advanced digital skills in an effort to accelerate the growth of the job market in the ICT sector by 10 percent every year. This is something TASMU is committed to sup-porting and promoting within our youth.”

TASMU is the central plat-form uniting global innova-tors with the needs of the local market to execute Qatar’s smart country vision. It fosters col-laboration with governmental entities to align collective efforts in delivering the QNV 2030 through innovation and ad-vanced technology.

HBKU international cybersecurity contest mulls response to emerging cyber threats


A complex and dynamic array of cybersecurity threats provid-ed the context for Hamad Bin Khalifa University’s (HBKU) first Qatar International Cyber-security Contest (QICC), which took place from October 1 to 3. Organised in partnership with the competition’s Official Air-line Sponsor, Qatar Airways, the event also highlighted ongoing efforts to protect critical infor-mation and networks from cy-ber threats.

Over the course of three days, a total of 130 academics, experts and students took part in a contest organised by five of HBKU’s colleges. Among them were 45 Qatar-based and 85

international participants from over 30 countries. All contrib-uted to interactive sessions de-signed specifically to tackle ex-isting cyber vulnerabilities and encourage future innovation. Participants also benefited from expert discussions and work-shops that considered emerging threats and sustainable techno-logical development in the area of cybersecurity.

All HBKU contributions to the QICC were designed taking into consideration the syner-gies between cybersecurity is-sues and key research interests. The College of Islamic Studies’ Empower Cyber-Akhlaq Com-petition encouraged attendees to consider cyberspace through the lens of ethics and morality. Other competitions included the College of Humanities and

Social Sciences’ Fake News Detection Contest, while the College of Science and Engi-neering provided opportunities to engage in advanced ethical hacking research activities as part of the Qatar International Hacking Contest. Teams also went head-to-head in the Col-lege of Law’s Cybersecurity Moot Competition, as well as the College of Health and Life

Sciences’ Genomics Cybersecu-rity Contest, which emphasised the importance of securing ge-netic data.

Dr Roberto Di Pietro, QICC committee chair, said, “Our ac-tivities amply demonstrated that cyber threats cut across all sec-tors of business and society and require solutions form the gov-ernment, industry and academ-ia that are agile and innovative. The world also needs academ-ics, experts and policymakers capable of understanding the complex and multidisciplinary aspects of today’s cybersecurity landscape, in order to develop appropriate responses. To this end, we’re confident that we provided contestants with tools and ample food-for-thought for the challenges that lie ahead.”

A total of 130 academics, experts and students took part in a contest organised by five of HBKU’s colleges.

Ooredoo Money named Best Global Mobile SolutionOOREDOO Money service has been named Best Global Mo-bile Solution 2019 by Money-Gram, Ooredoo announced on Saturday.

Senior officials from the leading telecommunications operator accepted the prestig-ious accolade on behalf of the company at a ceremony held at the Ooredoo’s Headquarters recently.

Thanks to the Ooredoo Money service, thousands of customers in Qatar can access

money transfers anytime, any-where, to remit funds to 200

countries and territories around the world, courtesy of Money-

Gram. The Ooredoo Money app allows customers to send trans-

fers quickly and easily with just the tap of a screen, with com-petitive fees and exchange rates.

Manar Khalifa al Murai-khi, director PR and Corporate Communications at Ooredoo, said, “We aim to make Ooredoo Money the number one digital financial transaction platform in Qatar. Being able to quickly ac-cess everyday financial transac-tions is a big priority for our cus-tomers, and we’re delighted our partnership with MoneyGram enables us to fulfil this need.”

The event will feature a series of learning events from October 11 to 20 as part of ‘retirement for good’ mission

Techies Day, which is observed on October 3, aims to promote careers in technology among young people.

Senior officials of Ooredoo at the award ceremony.

Nation

Smartphones Are Grenades In Our Kids’ Pockets

FIREWORKS exploded first thing on Tuesday morning and it was amazing: Twitter was crackling with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg blasting

Democratic presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren, and Warren doubled down on a pledge to break up the social media behe-moth to protect us all from the monopolis-tic company’s darker side.

The smackdown began with leaked au-dio of a Zuckerberg meeting with Facebook employees in which the CEO said it would “suck” if Warren were elected. Zuck vowed to aim the full force of his company against her as president: “If someone’s going to try to threaten something that existential, you go to the mat and you fight.” Warren slammed back: “What would really ‘suck,’” she tweeted, “is if we don’t fix a corrupt sys-tem that lets giant companies like Facebook engage in illegal anticompetitive practices, stomp on consumer privacy rights, and re-peatedly fumble their responsibility to pro-tect our democracy.” Meanwhile, all I could

think about was the kids.Our kids. Your kids. Everyone’s kids.

The high school kid who took his life last month in Tennessee due to cyberbullying.

Kids are walking around middle schools and high schools with smart-phones and apps that have become a bul-ly’s best friend. Live grenades, you might even say. And all we parents are doing, it seems, is watching, helplessly, as Big Tech keeps getting bigger and bigger while our kids get sucked deeper and deeper into the diabolical depths of their profit-making devices and apps.

Sure, parents try to monitor their kids’ social media use. But this can’t be all we do. Not with kids like Channing Smith be-coming casualties.

Just hours before Zuck vs Warren, the story of the Tennessee high schooler’s death was making the rounds nationally. He took his own life after being humiliated by cyberbullies, his family says. Channing was distraught after a screenshot of him kissing another boy was disseminated, un-beknownst to him.

The youngster’s story was on my mind

from the night before when, over a cup of morning coffee, the Twitter face-off un-folded between Zuckerberg and Warren. It felt timely.

Companies like Facebook, which also owns Instagram, control so much of our online lives, our privacy, our personal time, and with very little accountability or mechanisms to flag or halt increasingly toxic behaviour.

From the way it handles user data al-lowing its platform to be used for meddling in US elections, there are many major con-cerns about this company. Just as there are concerns about Google and so many other digital companies that have poked into our lives in ways large and small.

But as a parent, one concern rises above all others: What is all of this doing to our kids? And when, if ever, do we say the harm

is becoming too great to ignore, whether it’s digital addiction or bullying or being victim-ised in some other way by the tech universe? The digital world, in just a matter of a few years, has ballooned into a virtually lawless place. And our children are in the line of fire, whether through the exponential spread of child pornography, as a New York Times investigation recently documented, or through soul-crushing cyberbullying, which also appears to be on the rise.

Pew Research Center recently found that a majority of US teens have experi-enced at least one of the following: “Online cyberbullying, including name-calling, being subject to false rumours, receiving explicit images they didn’t ask for, having explicit images of themselves shared with-out their consent, physical threats, or be-ing constantly asked about their location and activities in a stalker-ish fashion by someone who is not their parents.” Even local police can see the uptick.

“The technology today and what’s out there with all the different apps and how they can hide their identity and spoof dif-ferent numbers, it’s crazy,” said Deputy

Chief Ted Caiola, whose Upper Gwynedd Township police department is one of sev-eral feeding the North Penn School Dis-trict in Montgomery County. He said kids come to realise, “‘Hey, look, I can do this and not get caught.’” In Tredyffrin Town-ship, the veteran cop in charge of police in that Chester County community agreed that officers are summoned to many more bullying calls in today’s digital age than they ever did before the advent of social media. Michael Beaty would know; he’s been a suburban law enforcement officer for 32 years “We’ve had to adapt with the growth of technology and find a way for us to continue doing our job,” said Beaty, who became police superintendent in Tredyf-frin two years ago.

As tech companies worry about their hegemony, parents should step up our own worrying game. Pew found that less bullying happens if kids spend less time online. That’s a good start.

(Maria Panaritis is a national award-winning columnist for

The Philadelphia Inquirer)

The digital world has ballooned into a virtually lawless place, and children are caught in the line of fire

Opinion

THE VIEWS EXPRESSED ON THE OPINION AND ANALYSIS PAGES ARE THE AUTHORS’ OWN. QATAR TRIBUNE BEARS NO RESPONSIBILITY.

FINALLY, one GOP senator had the guts to tweet the obvious: “The Pres-ident’s brazen and unprecedented appeal to China and to Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden is wrong and

appalling.” Thank you, Mitt Romney, but let’s get more specific.

Trump’s shakedown of Ukraine’s president and appeal to Beijing are the acts of an autocrat who disdains the law and twists foreign policy to serve his own vendettas. To hell with our once-proud image as a country where leaders are sub-ject to the rule of law.

Because let’s get this clear. According to US election law, it is illegal for any per-son to solicit, accept or receive anything of value from a foreign national in con-nection with a US election.” And there is no question that Trump has been solicit-ing – like mad.

Consider what we already know. De-spite the claims of the president and his minions – trumpeted in dishonest TV ads — Trump’s squeeze on Ukraine has nothing to do with “corruption.” In the transcript of his July phone call with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the word corruption is never even mentioned. In-stead, the president immediately presses Zelenskiy to investigate a crazy, de-bunked theory that Ukraine, not Russia, hacked into Democratic emails in 2016 and framed Russia. Then Trump squeezes Zelenskiy to investigate former Vice Pres-ident Joe Biden. Add to this the fact that Rudy Giuliani and Trump have praised two very corrupt Ukrainian prosecutors who refused to investigate the company on whose board Hunter Biden sat. To the contrary, Joe Biden, along with the Eu-ropeans and the International Monetary Fund, pushed for the firing of one of those corrupt prosecutors.

In other words, the truth is exactly the opposite of Trump’s claims. The US presi-dent shook down a Ukrainian leader who desperately needed the defensive weap-ons Trump was withholding – and is still squeezing Zelenskiy to investigate Biden.

This makes the corruption problem in Ukraine worse.

“Trump put dramatic pressure on Zelenskiy,” says Daria Kaleniuk, a leading anticorruption activist in Kiev. “He fired the US ambassador who was helping us and asked our president to interfere in the Prosecutor General’s office. But law en-forcement needs to be independent of po-litical interference if we want to guarantee rule of law.” Of course, the Trump propa-ganda machine keeps churning out the word corruption. But if you doubt Trump shook down Zelensky, just read the tran-

script of their phone call, along with texts from US diplomats who make clear their dismay about a likely quid pro quo.

Veteran diplomat William Taylor, the charge d’affaires at the US Embassy in Kiev, texted plaintively to a senior col-league, “Are we now saying that security

assistance and (a White House meeting between Trump and Zelenskiy) are condi-tioned on investigations?” Instead of just saying no, the colleague wrote, “Call me,” taking the conversation private. More on this will inevitably emerge.

And then there is Trump’s public ap-peal to China to “start an investigation into the Bidens.” Again, this has nothing to do with corruption.

“When the only American citizen President Trump singles out for China’s investigation is his political opponent, it strains credulity to suggest that it is any-thing other than politically motivated,” Romney also tweeted, correctly.

Trump knows full well this echoes his appeal to Russia during the 2016 cam-paign to “find” Hillary Clinton’s missing emails. On or around the same day as the Trump appeal, Russian hackers started releasing purloined texts from Democrat-ic servers. Trump cares not. He is willing to request that Beijing – our main strate-gic rival – do him a favour by digging up dirt on Biden. We already know Trump

told Xi Jinping he’d stay silent on Hong Kong while trade talks continued. So what would Trump pay if Beijing complied? Yet Trump’s twisting of US foreign policy in service of his vendettas doesn’t stop there. He has asked the leaders of Australia, Brit-ain, and Italy to investigate whether their own intelligence services engaged in a plot against the Trump campaign in 2016 by contributing to the Mueller report.

As the Sydney Morning Herald put it, “The idea that Australia was somehow part of a conspiracy to help Mrs Clinton in 2016 is nuts.” But Trump’s nuttiness may make allied intelligence services less likely to cooperate in the future.

Meantime, when I speak with pro-de-mocracy activists from Ukraine, Russia, and elsewhere, they despair at watching Trump besmirch America’s image.

“Putin wants to show the world that of-ficials everywhere are corrupted, and that all the world runs like Russia,” the coura-geous, and well-known, Russian journal-ist Yevgenia Albats told me. “Trump has helped Putin’s argument that the United States is no different from Russia.” The real risk is that a large number of Ameri-cans may not care. A 2018 study coau-thored by Stanford University’s Larry Di-amond found that three in 10 Americans would prefer a more authoritarian form of government in the United States.

Romney has broken the ice, and made clear he opposes Trump’s effort to ignore the rule of law. Will anyone else break the silence of the GOP lambs?

(Trudy Rubin is a columnist and editorial-board member

for the Philadelphia Inquirer)

Will GOP Stand Up Against A Lawbreaker In The White House?

TRUDY RUBIN TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE

Mitt Romney’s resistance to Trump’s effort of ignoring the rule of law should at least persuade his partymates to stand up against their Republican leader

(Tribune News Service)

APROPOS of nothing, Missouri Governor Mike Parson decided recently to not-so-boldly wade into the three-year-old

controversy surrounding NFL players who kneel during the national anthem.

While questions about pregame protests and players calling attention to inequality and police brutality were front and centre during the 2016 and 2017 seasons, the on-field issue has faded over time, with far few-er players taking a knee this year.

Either Parson didn’t get the memo, or the governor has just plain run out of ideas as he casts about for inspiration in his quest to castigate the “extreme left.” He’s awfully late to this debate — perhaps the governor would like to weigh in on what’s wrong with ‘New Coke’ while he’s at it.

With all the urgent issues facing Mis-souri — 120,000 people have lost Medicaid coverage, gun violence has increased dra-matically in the state, and the president’s trade wars have left local farmers reliant on government bailouts — Parson chose this moment to denounce kneeling? On Parson’s personal Twitter account, the gov-ernor wrote: “The worst part of where the extreme left is going is how they openly dis-respect the American flag and kneel instead of stand during our National Anthem. I’ll al-ways stand for our flag and for our country.” If the tweet seems a bit like a bolt out of the blue — not to mention contradictory to the views Parson has voiced in the past — it was.

Just last year, Parson paid a visit to Chiefs training camp and said that while kneeling is not something he agrees with, players have a right to express themselves.

“We all have individual freedoms in this country,” Parson said then. He was abso-lutely correct.

So why the change of heart, Governor? The fact that you have a campaign to run next year surely has nothing to do with this seemingly random flip-flop — right? Cam-paign manager Steele Shippy said Parson be-lieves that Democrats are trying to tear apart the fabric of the foundation of America.

“Free speech works both ways,” Shippy said. “We want folks to stand up for the American Dream.” A national conversation about patriotism began in 2016 after former San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaeper-nick knelt during the national anthem to send an important message about social justice issues. Other NFL players soon fol-lowed, drawing the ire of conservatives around the country and President Donald Trump. But how is exercising one’s First Amendment right with a silent protest an attack on America? The explanation offered by the governor’s campaign rings hollow, and deservedly, online criticism of Parson has been pointed and swift.

One Twitter user wrote: “Kneeling for the anthem to protest police brutality & racism does not disrespect our flag or our country. What disrespects our country is an unelected Gov throwing tens of thousands of children off Medicaid … ” “Parroting GOP talking points of distraction is not leader-ship,” wrote another.

Kansas City, of course, is the only Mis-souri city with an NFL team. And not one Chiefs player has protested the anthem or the flag since Marcus Peters was sent pack-ing last year. So, what, exactly, is agitating the governor? Armed with the advantages of incumbency and a curiously early endorse-ment from President Donald Trump, Par-son appears well-positioned for the 2020 Republican gubernatorial primary. But the anthem tweet is unquestionably a politician ploy, suggesting that perhaps the governor is running a bit scared.

Parson, who has an actual record to campaign on, certainly can do better than seeking to divide the state by lobbing po-litical grenades solely for the purpose of scoring points with his base. The governor should focus on explaining to all Missouri voters his priorities for the state going for-ward. And while politicking via Twitter is risky business, Parson is going to need to be much quicker on the draw if he wants to take a stand on social media.

Random Attack On National Anthem Protests Is An Obvious Political Ploy

National anthem protest against police brutality is a dead issue now and the Missouri governor must stop politicising the matter to divide the

people and garner political points

ESTABLISHED SEPTEMBER 3, 2006

HAMAD BIN SUHAIM AL THANI CHAIRMANADEL ALI BIN ALI MANAGING DIRECTORDR HASSAN MOHAMMED AL ANSARI EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

MARIA PANARITIS TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE Big Tech keeps getting bigger and big-

ger while our kids get sucked deeper and deeper into the diabolical depths of their profit-making devices and apps

The US president shook down a Ukrainian leader who desperately needed the defensive weapons Trump was withholding. This makes the cor-ruption problem in Ukraine worse


KANO: At least 16 people, including 11 soldiers, have been killed in jihad-ist attacks in Nigeria’s northeastern Borno state, military and militia sources said Saturday. Rival factions of Boko Haram launched the attacks on military and civilian targets between Thursday and Saturday, they said. On Thursday, fighters from the IS-aligned Islamic State West Africa Province ambushed a military convoy near Mauro village in Ben-isheikh district, a military source said. “Our men on patrol fell into a terrorist ambush... which claimed 11 soldiers and wounded 16 others. Two other soldiers are still missing,” said the officer, who asked not to be identified. He said the troops were travelling in three vehicles. “The ter-rorists made away with 11 AK-47 rifles and anti-aircraft gun mounted on the gun truck,” he said. (AFP)

16 killed in militant attacks in Nigeria, say sources

KIGALI: Unidentified gunmen killed eight people and in-jured 18 during an overnight attack in northern Rwanda near the border with DR Congo, police said Saturday. The attack took place in Musanze district which at-tracts tourists because of its Volcanoes National Park and its mountain gorillas, they said. Six people were killed with machetes or knives and the others were shot dead, a police statement said. “Se-curity forces were quick to provide emergency services to the residents of the area and investigations are still ongoing to find these terror-ists,” it added. The area has repeatedly been targeted by Rwandan rebels operating from the Democratic Repub-lic of Congo. One such group is the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, created by Rwandan Hutu refugees in eastern DRC after the genocide of Tutsis by majority Hutus in Rwanda in 1994. (AFP)

Eight killed, 18 wounded in Rwanda attack

News in brief

AFPBUHERA, ZIMBABWE

IN eastern Zimbabwe’s parched Buhera district, Omega Kufakunesu’s family has been forced to scale down daily meals to just a portion of vegetables and sadza, a thick maize-meal porridge.

In the morning only the children get the porridge, and everyone skips lunch.

“During the day we have wild fruit collected by the children, and at night we have smaller portions of sadza with vegetables,” harvested from the communal village garden, said Kufakunesu, sitting out-side her thatched round hut.

A palmful of shumha, a drought-resistant wild fruit, is all she will eat during the day until dinner time.

“We have reduced our food portions so that its enough for everyone,” she said.

But there are days when “my husband and I don’t eat at all” to make sure the chil-dren have some food, she said. Zimbabwe is experienc-ing one of the worst droughts in history, blamed on the ef-

fects of the El Nino weather cycle. In addition, the for-mer regional breadbasket is in the throes of its worst economic crisis in a decade with inflation estimated to be over 900 percent.

Because of the combined effect of drought and an ail-ing economy, more than five million rural Zimbabweans, nearly a third of the popula-

tion, are going to face food shortages before the next har-vest in 2020.

A disturbing feature of this year’s food shortages is the increase in the number urban poor who are vulner-able.

The government estimates that up to 2.2 million people in towns and cities are strug-gling to feed themselves.

WFP country representa-tive Eddie Rowe said there are “more hungry people than ever before in Zimbabwe”.

In August, the United Nations extended its appeal for aid–from $234 million in February to $331 million to feed the combined total of over seven million Zimbabwe-ans, roughly half the country’s population.

Buhera is home to around 300,000 people and experi-ences dry spells even during good rainy seasons. It is one of the areas hardest hit by the drought.

To make matters worse, it was in the path of Cyclone Idai which devastated Mo-zambique and parts of eastern Zimbabwe earlier this year.

According to the UN, most of Zimbabwe’s 60 districts will have exhausted their sta-ple maize stocks by October.

The Kufakunesu fam-ily and neighbouring villag-ers have been lucky to have boreholes to draw water for drinking, washing and wa-tering the garden–but the water is drying up due to the heat and scanty rain.

Families survive on one meal in drought-hit Zimbabwe

Gulf / Middle East / World 07Sunday, October 6, 2019

Protesters flood Iraq streets anew as death toll nears 100

AFPBAGHDAD

RENEWED protests took place under live fire in Iraq’s capital and the country’s south Satur-day as the government strug-gled to agree a response to days of rallies that have left nearly 100 dead.

The largely spontaneous gatherings of demonstrators -- whose demands have evolved since they began on Tuesday from employment and better services to fundamental govern-ment change–have swelled de-spite an internet blackout and overtures by the country’s elite.

Among the 94 dead across the country since Tuesday, 55 were killed in Baghdad while 250 others in the capital were treated for sniper wounds, the Iraqi parliament’s human rights commission said.

Nearly 4,000 people have been wounded since the pro-tests began in Baghdad and spread to cities across the south, it added.

On Saturday, dozens gath-

ered around the oil ministry in central Baghdad, facing live rounds fired in their direction, a photographer said. Thou-sands also descended on the governorate buildings in the southern cities of Diwaniyah–where gunfire was unleashed into the air–and in Nasiriyah, correspondents said.

A curfew in Baghdad had been lifted on Saturday morn-ing. Parliament had been due to meet at 1:00 pm (1000 GMT) but could not reach quorum,

after firebrand cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s bloc of 54 lawmakers and other factions boycotted the session. The former militia leader threw his weight behind the demonstrations on Friday with a call for the resignation of PM Adel Abdel Mahdi.

Sadr’s movement has the power and organisation to bring large numbers of sup-porters onto the streets, but at the risk of alienating many of those whose protests in recent days have been based on reject-

ing all of Iraq’s feuding political factions. Parliamentary speaker Mohammad al-Halbusi had extended a hand to protest-ers saying “Your voice is being heard”, and he had been hoping to discuss job creation and so-cial welfare schemes with law-makers in the session.

But the mainly young, male protesters have insisted their movement is not linked to any party or religious establishment and have scoffed at the recent overtures by politicians.

TOPSHOT - Iraqi protesters take part in a demonstration against state corruption, failing public services, and unemployment, in the Iraqi capital Baghdad’s central Khellani Square, on Friday. (AFP)

Nearly 4,000 people have been wounded since the protests began in Baghdad and spread to cities across the south

Sadr supports protestersMoqtada al-Sadr threw his weight behind the dem-onstrations on Friday with a call for the resignation of PM Adel Abdel Mahdi. Sadr’s movement has the power and organisation to bring large numbers of sup-porters onto the streets

Erdogan: Military to launch air, ground operation in Syria

DPAISTANBUL

TURKISH President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Satur-day that his country will carry out a military intervention in north-eastern Syria “as soon as today or tomorrow.” “We will carry out this operation both from land and from air,” Erdogan said on Saturday, re-ferring to the east of the Eu-phrates River in Syria, mainly controlled by a US-backed Kurdish militia.

“We have made our prepa-rations, we have finalized our operation plans, given the nec-essary instructions,” Erdogan told his ruling party members in Ankara. Turkey has been “forced” to take military action for its own security and so that Syrians displaced by the war can return home as soon as possible, Erdogan said. Turkey says it hosts 3.6 million Syrian refugees.

Erdogan previously said Ankara planned to relocate as many as 2 million Syrians to a 30-kilometre-deep safe zone that would stretch from the east of the Euphrates to the border with Iraq.

Turkey already controls ar-eas west of the Euphrates fol-lowing two military operations there. NATO allies Turkey and the US have been carrying out joint air and ground patrols along the north-eastern Syr-ian border with Turkey since the two agreed in August to

create a “safe zone” there. Tur-key considers the US-backed Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) in the region as terrorists and has called for it and other allegedly linked groups, including the Syrian Defence Forces (SDF), to be completely removed from its borders.

Washington relied on both the YPG and the SDF in their attempt to defeat the Islamic State extremist group in Syr-ia. The US has been carrying out joint military operations against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria under the name Op-eration Inherent Resolve (OIR).

“Air and ground patrols demonstrate our contin-ued commitment to address Turkey’s legitimate security concerns,” OIR spokesman Myles B Caggins tweeted, re-iterating its cooperation with the SDF “on crushing [Islam-ic State] remnants.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

HK protesters defy mask ban as city grinds to haltAFP

HONG KONG

MASKED pro-democracy pro-testers marched through Hong Kong in defiance of a ban on face coverings as much of the city ground to a halt on Satur-day, with the subway suspend-ed and many shops shuttered following another night of vio-lence.

Thousands of protesters staged unsanctioned marches and flashmob protests at mul-tiple locations, a day after the city’s leader outlawed face coverings at protests, invoking colonial-era emergency pow-ers not used for half a century.

The latest acts of resist-ance came after a night of widespread chaos as hardcore protesters trashed dozens of subway stations, vandalised shops, set fires and blocked roads.

As the crowds began marching, city leader Carrie Lam released a stony-faced video statement in which she condemned protesters for “a

very dark night”. “We can-not allow rioters any more to destroy our treasured Hong Kong,” Lam said as she called on citizens to distance them-selves from the more hardcore protesters.

Throughout the afternoon and evening crowds gathered in masks, most of them mod-erates without the helmets and body armour worn by more radical protesters.

They formed human

chains and chanted slogans or sang protest songs.

“The anti-face mask law is the first step,” Hosun Lee, a protester in Causeway Bay, said, saying he feared more laws under the emergency or-der were on the way.

Some gatherings were light-hearted. In the har-bourside district of Tsim Sha Tsui, a masked man walked dressed in a banana costume, the word “Revolt” emblazoned

on its front. But in Sheung Shui, close to the Chinese bor-der, reporters saw groups of masked protesters smashing the windows of businesses ei-ther owned by mainland Chi-nese entities or thought to be supportive of Beijing.

Police officers -- many of whom had their faces covered and were not wearing identi-fication numbers -- were seen tackling a young couple wear-ing masks in the district of Central.

Crowds shouted “triads” at the police and the couple were eventually released. But an-other masked man was hand-cuffed and led away soon after.

Hong Kong has been bat-tered by four months of in-creasingly violent pro-democ-racy protests. The rallies were ignited by a now-scrapped plan to allow extraditions to the mainland, which fuelled fears of an erosion of liberties promised under the 50-year “one country, two systems” model China agreed ahead of the 1997 handover by Britain.

Australian couple charged with spying in Iran released

AFPSYDNEY

AN Australian travel-blog-ging couple who were de-tained in Iran on spying charges have been released and returned home, Austral-ian Foreign Minister Marise Payne said Saturday.

Perth-based Jolie King and Mark Firkin had been documenting their journey from Australia to Britain on social media for the past two years but went silent after posting updates from Kyr-gyzstan and Pakistan about three months ago.

They were alleged to have used a drone to take pictures of “military sites and forbidden areas”, an Iranian judiciary spokesman said last month.

Payne said Saturday the pair had been reunited with their family in Australia fol-lowing “very sensitive nego-tiations” with Tehran. “We

are extremely happy and relieved to be safely back in Australia with those we love,” the couple said in a statement issued by the for-eign ministry on Saturday.

“While the past few months have been very diffi-cult, we know it has also been tough for those back home who have been worried for us.” The couple asked for privacy and said intense media coverage “may not be helpful” in the negotiations for the release of a third Aus-tralian detained in Iran in an unrelated case.

Melbourne University Academic Kylie Moore-Gil-bert, who specialises in Mid-dle East politics with a focus on Gulf states, had been de-tained for “some months” before King and Firkin were arrested. Her case also came to light last month. Moore-Gilbert is accused by Irani-an authorities of “spying for another country”.

UN rights chief says troubled by HK violence KUALA Lumpur: UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet said Saturday she was “troubled” by Hong Kong’s increasingly violent pro-democracy protests, and stressed that any measures to quell the unrest must be grounded in law.

The city endured another night of chaos Friday, after leader Carrie Lam banned face masks at demonstrations, invoking colonial-era emergency powers not used for half a century.

Hardcore protesters trashed dozens of subway stations, van-dalised shops with mainland China ties, built fires and blocked fires. “We are troubled by the high levels of violence associated with some demonstrations that have been taking place in the past days,” Bachelet said during a visit to Malaysia.

She said she was “alarmed” by injuries to police, protesters and journalists covering the demonstrations. (AFP)

(File photo) Leon Kufakunesu (right) hands a plate of jackalberry fruit to his mother which she has resorted to serving the family as a midday meal while saving up the little mealie meal left for dinner, at Buhera in Zimbabwe’s Manicaland Province.

N Korea and US officials at N-talks after latest missile test

AFPSTOCKHOLM

NORTH Korean and US offi-cials on Saturday gathered for new nuclear talks in Stockholm after months of deadlock and Pyongyang’s defiant test of a sea-launched ballistic missile this week. North Korea’s Kim Myong Gil and Stephen Biegun, the special envoy of US Presi-dent Donald Trump, are part of the teams at the talks.

The two were meeting at a heavily guarded venue on an island off Stockholm, several hundred metres from the North Korean embassy, a correspond-ent said. The first cars with tinted windows started arriving just after 9:00 am (0700 GMT).

“I am encouraged that US and (North Korean) working level delegations are current-ly in Sweden to hold talks,” Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde tweeted.

“Dialogue needed to reach denuclearization and peaceful solution.” Asked if he was hope-ful about the talks, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said dur-

ing a visit to Athens: “We are very hopeful that we will make some progress.” “We’ll share ideas,” he added. “We need a lot of work.” Similar-level talks on North Korea’s nuclear disarma-ment were held in Stockholm in March 2018 and then in Janu-ary this year.

North Korea frequently couples diplomatic overtures with military moves as a way of maintaining pressure on nego-tiating partners, analysts say, and many believe this weapons system gives it added leverage.

Pyongyang tested what it called a “super-large” rocket on Wednesday just hours af-ter it said it was willing to re-sume working-level talks with Washington.

Kim Myong Gil said he was “optimistic” about the talks, speaking in Beijing on his way to the Swedish capital. Washington has been eagerly awaiting a resumption of the dialogue, which has virtually stalled after a Hanoi meet-ing in late February between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

AFPBRUSSELS

EU and UK officials are to re-sume talks on Monday on Brit-ain’s plans for a managed Brex-it after a weekend hiatus during which London was under pres-sure to revise its proposals.

The European Commis-sion is adamant that, as they stand, “the UK proposals do not provide a basis for con-cluding an agreement”.

That grates with Britain’s government, which considers

the proposals it submitted on Wednesday to be “a fair and reasonable compromise”.

After hours-long talks in Brussels on Friday failed to move the dial, a UK spokes-man said: “We want a deal and talks continue on Monday on the basis of our offer.” Time is running short for the two sides to close the gap.

British Prime Minister Bo-ris Johnson is determined to take his country out of the the European Union at the end of this month.

An October 17-18 EU sum-mit is to determine whether Britain is headed for a Brexit

deal, no-deal, or an extension.But European diplomats

emphasise that London needs

to offer revised, viable propos-als within days and certainly before the end of next week, so

any haggling and legalistic work is done before the summit.

“Everything must move

very quickly and any nego-tiation has to start at the be-ginning of next week,” one diplomat told AFP. “We will evaluate next Friday whether it’s been possible to bring the positions closer.”

Although Johnson has called his Brexit proposals a broad “landing zone” the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barni-er, and his team are unsure how far Britain will budge.

The EU refuses to charac-terise the talks held so far as negotiations.

EU presses UK to resubmit Brexit plan as end-game looms

NEWS IN BRIEF

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump has announced that he wants people to be denied US vi-sas if they cannot afford health care in order to prevent immigrants from “financially burden[ing] our healthcare system.” In a statement released late on Friday, the White House said “immigrant visa applicants will have to demonstrate that they will be covered by health insurance within 30 days of entering the country or have the financial resources to pay for medical costs.” The new rule, which will come into effect November 3, applies to those seeking visas, not those seeking asylum, and will not apply to children, the White House said. (DPA)

US to deny entry to immigrants who cannot afford health careROME: Pope Francis on Saturday appointed 13 new cardinals, the top league of the Vatican’s hierar-chy. Ten of cardinals are under the age of 80 and therefore able to vote in a conclave that will deter-mine his successor. The ceremony to mark the new cardinals - who hail from Europe, the Americas, Asia and Africa - to the College of Cardinals took place at St Peter’s Basilica on Saturday. The appoin-tees are mostly ideologically aligned with Francis, whose papacy has been notable for its emphasis on the plight of migrants and the poor and the promotion of dialogue with other religions. By appoint-ing cardinals from different regions, Francis is giving more visibility to far-flung dioceses. (DPA)

Pope Francis appoints thirteen new cardinals

AFPWASHINGTON

THE Trump administration complained on Saturday of har-assment by Democratic law-makers who issued subpoenas for White House documents regarding President Donald Trump’s alleged pressuring of Ukraine for political favours.

And in a key development, a potential second whistle-blower was reportedly weigh-ing whether to come forward.

The latest explosive turns in the impeachment investi-gation against Trump came as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused Democratic-led congressional committees leading the inquiry of having “harassed and abused” State Department employees by contacting them directly for documents rather than going through department lawyers.

“That’s harassment,” Pompeo said during a visit to Athens, “and I’m never going to let that happen to my team.”

The House committees leading the probe issued their subpoenas as evidence mounted that Trump abused his powers by attempting to use US military aid to pressure Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky to seek damaging information on 2020 Demo-cratic rival Joe Biden.

The investigations were touched off by reports that an original whistleblower -- re-portedly a CIA analyst -- had filed a formal complaint to the intelligence community in-spector general about Trump’s alleged pressuring of Zelensky.

Trump and his supporters have aggressively attacked that still-anonymous whistleblower -- Trump denounced the per-son as “close to a spy” and a Democrat operating with sec-ond-hand information.

In a tweet early on Saturday, Trump said that “the so-called

Whistleblower’s account of my perfect phone call is ‘way off,’ not even close... This is a fraud against the American people!” But if a second whistleblower emerges, and if that person in fact has more direct informa-tion about the events in ques-tion, as the New York Times reported late Friday, the allega-tions would become more diffi-

cult to shrug off.The Times said the second

official was among those inter-viewed by inspector general Michael Atkinson about the allegations lodged by the origi-nal whistleblower.

The newspaper, citing two people briefed on the matter, said the second official was still pondering whether to

lodge a formal complaint.Congressional investiga-

tors led by House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff have promised a quick and expeditious inquiry, but said Friday that the White House was not cooperating.

“The White House has re-fused to engage with -- or even respond to -- multiple requests for documents,” said a letter signed by the Democratic chair-men of the House oversight, intelligence and foreign affairs committees. “His actions have left us with no choice but to is-sue this subpoena.”

In their letter to acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, the commit-tees demanded that he turn over the requested files by October 18. The subpoena fol-lowed a demand earlier on Fri-day for documents from Vice President Mike Pence.

Pompeo blasts ‘harassment and abuse’ after Democrats subpoena White House

DAWN.COMISLAMABAD

PRIME Minister Imran Khan on Saturday once again advised the residents of Azad Jammu and Kash-mir (AJK) against cross-ing the Line of Control to support the struggle of the people of Indian-occupied Kashmir, who have been un-der a crippling lockdown for over two months now.

“I understand the an-guish of the Kashmiris in AJK seeing their fellow Kashmiris in IOJK (Indian-occupied Jammu and Kash-mir) under an inhumane curfew for over 2 months,” the premier said in a tweet.

“But anyone crossing the LoC from AJK to provide humanitarian aid or support for Kashmiri struggle will play into the hands of the Indian narrative,” he wrote.

That Indian narra-tive, Prime Minister Imran explained, tries to divert attention from the indig-enous struggle of Kashmiris against brutal Indian occu-pation by trying to label it as “Islamic terrorism” being driven by Pakistan.

“It will give India an excuse to increase violent oppression of Kashmiris in IOJK & attack across LoC,” he cautioned.

The prime minister’s ad-vice comes a day after tens of hundreds of emotionally charged Kashmiris from dif-ferent parts of AJK set out

in vehicular and motorcycle rallies to Muzaffarabad on the call of pro-independence Jammu Kashmir Libera-tion Front (JKLF) to show solidarity with the besieged people of occupied Kashmir.

A JKLF spokesperson had told Dawn that the marchers would put up at different places in Muzaf-farabad on Friday and re-sume their march towards Chakothi sector at 10am on Saturday. “From Chakothi we will cross over the cease-fire line (LoC) for Srinagar,” he said, expressing his de-sire for the administration and police not to create hin-drances for them.

Earlier on Friday, Mu-zaffarabad administration and police officials had visit-ed the local press club to ap-peal to people to avoid get-ting close to the LoC “in the interest of their own safety”.

“There are strong ap-prehensions that the Indian army would resort to shell-ing at the people assembling along the LoC which can subsequently cause serious casualties,” divisional com-missioner Chaudhry Imtiaz said, urging “the partici-pants of all rallies and pro-cessions not to provide any opportunity to the enemy to hurt unarmed citizens”.

There were reports that the administration had planned to stop the march-ers beyond Chinari, located about 10 kilometres before the LoC.

Pakistan PM Khan cautions AJK residents against crossing LoC to aid occupied Kashmir struggle

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivers a speech at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center in Athens, Greece, on Saturday. (AFP)

14 hurt in grenade attack in Indian Kashmir

NEW Delhi : At least 14 people were injured in a grenade at-tack by militants near a government office in India-administered Kashmir on Saturday, police said.

The insurgents reportedly targeted a security patrol outside the heavily guarded complex in the town of Anantnag, over 50 kilometres from the main regional city of Srinagar. The grenade missed the target and exploded on the road-side, injuring a traffic policeman as well as 13 civilians, includ-ing a journalist, police said on Twitter.

The injuries were “minor,” and all but one of the wounded were discharged from hospital after receiving first aid.

No outfit claimed responsibility for the attack. Local media reported that Saturday’s attack could possi-bly be the first militant attack near a government office since India’s crackdown in the region. (DPA)

Asia / Europe / United States

TRUMP-UKRAINE CALL IMPEACHMENT PROBETop US, Taliban negotiators meet in Islamabad

DPAISLAMABAD

TOP negotiators from the United States and the Tali-ban sat together in Islama-bad in a fresh push to revive the Afghan peace process, a month after talks collapsed, officials said.

“US special envoy Zal-may Khalilzad and Taliban representatives met in Is-lamabad,” said a Pakistani official on the condition of anonymity.

He said both the Tali-ban representatives and US envoy were staying in Islamabad till Sunday and may meet again. There was a possibility that the Taliban leaders meet Prime Minis-ter Imran Khan, he said.

A Taliban source con-firmed that the first face-to-face meeting between the US chief negotiator and Tali-ban took place on Thursday, while the other source said it was followed up on Friday.

After arranging the meeting, Pakistan was try-ing to persuade the Taliban on the ceasefire issue, one of the major concerns that led US President Donald Trump to pull out of peace talks, the official said.

The Taliban delegation is being led by the group’s co-founder and head of the political wing, Mullah Ab-dul Ghani Baradar, who remained in custody in Pa-kistan for eight years before being released in 2018 to fa-cilitate the peace process in Afghanistan.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi confirmed that a meeting between the Tali-ban and the US delegations was scheduled.

Khalilzad has been shuttling back and forth to the Pakistani capital since Trump asked Islamabad in December for help in bring-ing the Taliban to the nego-tiating table.

The US and Afghani-stan accuse Islamabad of backing Taliban factions, a charge Pakistan denies.

Seven Philippine ex-rebels killed by IS-linked gunmen

AFPMANILA

SEVEN former Muslim rebels have been killed in the south-ern Philippines, military and police authorities said on Sat-urday, in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group.

They said the dead were all members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), for-merly the country’s largest guerrilla group but which be-gan decommissioning weap-ons last month under the terms of a 2014 peace treaty.

A pro-IS armed group called Dawlah Islamiyah at-tacked an MILF camp near the town of Shariff Saydona on Friday, sparking fighting lasting several hours, said Lieutenant-Colonel Ernesto Gener, commander of a local army battalion.

IS claimed responsibility in a communique seen by SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadist activity.

The jihadists said eight MILF members were killed, but local police commander Lieutenant-Colonel Arnold

Santiago told reporters the authorities were only aware of seven deaths.

Locals said they saw seven bodies being loaded onto a boat at a riverbank in Shariff Saydona, about 900 kilome-tres south of Manila.

MILF spokesman Von al Haq declined to comment.

The MILF peace pact end-ed decades of Muslim rebel-lion that had claimed 150,000 lives by government estimates in the Mindanao region, home to the Catholic nation’s large Islamic minority.

Paris police attacker had ‘radical vision of Islam’

AFPPARIS

A STAFFER at Paris police headquarters who stabbed four colleagues to death in a frenzied attack adhered to “a radical vi-sion of Islam”, an anti-terror prosecutor said on Saturday.

The 45-year-old computer expert had been in contact with members of Salafism, an ultra-conservative branch of Sunni Islam, and defended “atrocities committed in the name of that religion”, Jean-Francois Ricard told reporters.

Three police officers and an administrative worker died

in the 30-minute attack on Thursday at the police head-quarters, a stone’s throw from the Notre-Dame cathedral in the historic heart of Paris.

The assailant, named as Mickael Harpon, was eventu-ally shot dead by police.

The messages exclusively concerned religion, and the at-tacker ended the conversation with “Allahu Akbar” (‘God is greatest’). Harpon, who sup-ported the Charlie Hebdo at-tacks in 2015, changed his at-tire in recent months, shunning “all Western clothes in favour of traditional garments to visit the mosque”, Ricard added.

The committees demanded that White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney turn over the requested files by October 18

“The White House has refused to engage with -- or even respond to -- multiple requests for documents. His actions have left us with no choice but to issue this subpoena” - said a letter signed by Democratic-led congressional committees


Indonesian military marks 74th anniversary

Indonesian soldiers perform during a ceremony marking the 74th anniversary of the Indonesian military at Halim air force base in Jakarta on Saturday. (AFP)

A week’s windowEuropean diplomats empha-sise that London needs to offer revised, viable proposals within days and certainly before the end of next week, so any haggling and legalistic work is done before the summit

Thousands march for independence in Scottish capitalEDINBURGH: Thousands marched in Edinburgh on Saturday calling for Scottish independence, with a possible British exit from the European Union just weeks away and calls growing for a fresh vote in Scotland on breaking from Britain.

The demonstrators, many carrying Scottish flags, some wearings kilts and a few playing musical instruments -- including bagpipes -- set off from Holyrood Park in the heart of the Scottish capital. Among them was lawyer and Scottish Nationalist (SNP) lawmaker Joanna Cherry, who was behind one of the successful legal challenges to Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s decision to suspend parliament.

Nationalists argue that the 2016 British referendum in favour of Brexit means another inde-pendence referendum is necessary -- because Scotland voted by 62 percent to stay in the EU. (AFP)


MASRAF Al Rayan has opened its new branch in Al Khor as part of its expansion strategy to meet the grow-ing demands of its customer base, the bank announced in a statement on Saturday.

The new branch will provide all the services and products offered by Masraf Al Rayan, including account opening, personal finance, vehicle finance, ATM, credit card, money transfer servic-es, SME accounts and other

innovative banking solutions to serve the customers the bank.

Hamad al Jamali, General Manager of Private and Retail Banking, stated, “The opening of the new branch in Al Khor city is part of the top man-agement’s deliberate steps to

expand further and as part of the bank’s strategy to meet the increasing needs and demands of customers and provide them with the utmost innovative fi-nancial products and services with ease and expediency”.

Jamali added, “Our prime objective is to grow our exist-ing branch network to cover the widest possible geographi-cal area within the state.

“These branches will form a successful network of prod-ucts, services and banking solutions placing Masraf Al Rayan in a leading position in terms of innovation under the provisions of Sharia laws in

Qatar and abroad, which will contribute in increasing busi-ness growth and financial per-formance”.

Masraf Al Rayan currently

operates 16 branches in Qatar, supported by a network of 95 ATMs throughout the country.

The new branch, like oth-er branches has highly quali-

fied staff and provides inno-vative banking technologies to ensure that customers are provided with the best levels of comfort.

Masraf currently operates 16 branches in Qatar, supported by a network of 95 ATMs throughout the country

Masraf Al Rayan opens new branch in Al Khor


QATAR will host the 6th Gas Summit of Heads of State and Government of Gas Export-ing Countries Forum (GECF) member countries, Qatar Pe-troleum said in a statement on Saturday.

The announcement was

made during the conclusion of the 21st GECF ministerial meeting in Moscow.

Minister of State for Ener-gy Affairs, President and CEO of Qatar Petroleum HE Saad Sherida al Kaabi, welcomed the hosting of the summit and said, “Qatar is honoured to host and welcome the Heads of States and Government of

the GECF member nations in their summit in 2021.

“We look forward to a highly successful meeting that reflects our deep belief in dialogue and cooperation in the effort to meet the world’s growing demand for energy.”

Kaabi said, “Qatar is com-mitted to the responsibilities it carries as the world’s leading

liquefied natural gas producer, foremost of which is encourag-ing regional and international

dialogue as well as promoting natural gas as the cleanest of fossil fuels and the destination fuel in the transition to low carbon economies.”

This will be the second summit to be held in Doha af-ter the forum’s first summit on November 15, 2011. The sum-mit will offer an opportunity for dialogue at the highest lev-

els on the latest developments and trends related to the glob-al gas industry.

The forum’s 5th summit will be held in Malabo, Equa-torial Guinea on November 26-29, 2019.

The GECF, which is head-quartered in Doha, is an in-ternational governmental organisation that provides

a framework for knowledge sharing among its member countries.

The organisation is made up of the world’s leading gas exporting countries and was set up with the objective to increase the level of coordina-tion and strengthen the col-laboration among its member countries.

Qatar to host 6th GECF Heads of State Summit in 2021

QNA DOHA

QATAR National Bank (QNB)’s weekly commentary covered the impact of the trade war on China, Europe, the United States, as well as the rest of the world.

The report noted that the war is just part of a global competition for economic in-fluence.

The report said that in the bigger picture, the war reflects a shift in geo-strategic politics from cold war (1950-90), to US dominance (1990-2010), and now to a multipo-lar world (from 2010).

Focusing on the US econ-omy, QNB’s commentary said that the US economy has, so far, been relatively insulated from the negative effects of the trade war by the tailwind of Trumps tax cuts.

The report noted however that the impact of that stimu-

lus has started to fade. QNB expects the tightening of the Fed, as well as the tariff will eventually take a toll on GDP growth.

“With Presidential elec-tions next year and all likely candidates supporting act-ing tough with China over its trade practices, we are most likely stuck with the current tariffs or further escalation for the foreseeable future,” the QNB report said.

On China’s economy, the report said the direct impact of the trade war on China is greater than on the US due to the former’s export-led model of economic growth.

During the five years lead-ing to the financial crisis, China specialised in becom-ing the factory of the world, diverting its large labour force from rural to urban areas and from agriculture into manu-facturing.

“The trade war is a chal-

lenge because it attacks Chi-na’s export-led growth model, but is also an opportunity as it encourages rebalancing,” the report noted.

As for the EU, QNB said that mature economies across

Europe are struggling with both demographics (particu-larly ageing populations) and domestic politics (such as na-tionalist influences that are fuelling issues like Brexit).

The report notes that

both these challenges have depressed both GDP growth and inflation. The report has reviewed some of the actions taken by the European Cen-tral Bank (ECB) to address those issues.

The trade war has mate-rially impacted the engine at the core of the Eurozone, Germany’s high valued-added and export-orientated manufacturing sector. As a result, European politicians are working hard to divert President Trump’s attention away from European agri-cultural subsidies, Europe’s own import tariffs and the

high value of automotive exports sent from Europe to US.

The report said the UK, however, is a special case, as it would have a much weaker negotiating position with the US due to the small size of its economy.

Other countries around the world (such as Canada, Japan, and Mexico) are ac-tively seeking to keep their trade ties with the US in the clear, due to the large ex-posure they have to the US market.

“Both the US and China would like a face-saving deal of some kind and this is an upside risk. However, these countries are long-term stra-tegic rivals, so any deal will be neither substantial nor com-prehensive. Hence, we con-sider further escalation to be more likely than a cease-fire or de-escalation,” the report noted.

QNB sheds light on impact of trade war on EU, China, US

A truck passes by China Shipping containers at the Port of Los Angeles recently. (AFP)

BP chief executive Bob Dudley to step down next year

AFP LONDON

BP said on Friday that Chief Executive Bob Dudley, who oversaw the energy giant’s re-sponse to and recovery from the devastating Gulf of Mexi-co 2010 oil spill disaster, will leave next year.

American Dudley, 64, will step down on February 4, 2020 and retire at the end March, the company said in a statement, adding he will be succeeded by upstream divi-sion boss Bernard Looney, from Ireland.

The announcement brings the curtain down on Dudley’s 40-year career at the London-listed energy major, eventu-ally steering it back into profit following the deadly oil spill tragedy that badly damaged its reputation.

BP clocked up vast losses on clean-up and compensa-tion costs and was forced to axe thousands of jobs and sell billions of dollars of assets to meet a total bill of about $70 billion.

Dudley was parachuted into BP in October 2010 after his predecessor, Briton Tony Hayward, was forced to quit amid heavy criticism of his handling of the disaster.

- ‘Most challenging time’ -”Bob... was appointed chief executive at probably the most challenging time in BP’s his-tory,” Chairman Helge Lund said on Friday.

“During his tenure he has led the recovery from the Deepwater Horizon accident, re-built BP as a stronger, safer

company and helped it re-earn its position as one of the lead-ers of the energy sector.

“This company -- and in-deed the whole industry -- owes him a debt of gratitude.”

The BP-leased Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded off the coast of Louisiana while drilling a well 5,000 feet (1,500 meters) below sea level on April 20.

Eleven rig workers were killed in the blast that caused 134 million gallons (507 mil-lion litres) of oil to spew into Gulf waters.

It took 87 days to cap the out of control well, and the oil slick stretched across an area the size of Virgina, blackening beaches across five US states and hitting tourism and fish-ing.

The spill was one of the worst environmental disasters to strike the United States.

Looney, 49, joined BP in 1991 as a drilling engineer and rose through the ranks to lead its upstream division, which comprises exploration and production.

The summit will offer an opportunity for dialogue at the highest levels on the latest developments and trends related to the global gas industry

Services The new branch will provide all the services and products offered by Masraf Al Rayan, including account opening, personal finance, vehicle finance, ATM, credit card, money transfer services, SME accounts and other innovative banking solutions to serve the customers the bank

A view of Masraf Al Rayan’s new branch in Al Khor city.

The branches will form a successful network of products, services and banking solutions placing Masraf Al Rayan in a leading position in terms of

innovation under the provisions of Sharia laws in Qatar and abroad, which will contribute in increasing business growth and financial performanceHamad al Jamali, General Manager of Private and Retail Banking

Trade war impact On China’s economy, the report said the direct impact of the trade war on China is greater than on the US due to the former’s export-led model of economic growth

BP CEO Bob Dudley (AFP)

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2019

Cityscape to feature overview of Qatar’s real estate market PAGE 10

US unemployment falls to 50-year low in September PAGE 11

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DELEGATES to Cityscape Qatar Conference will get a multi-sector overview of the country’s real estate market and expert insights into the gross yields within its residen-tial sector, the organizers said in a statement on Saturday.

Cityscape Qatar will run at the Doha Exhibition and Con-vention Centre on October 22.

The overview and insights will be delivered by Pawel Ba-nach, General Manager and Anum Hasan, Senior Market Research Analyst of ValuStrat, the region’s leading advisory, valuations and research con-sulting group.

The two will present a comprehensive overview of the current market covering the entire property spectrum including residential, com-mercial, office, retail, hospital-ity and industrial.

They will then drill down into gross yields within the residential sector and examine the issue of leasing versus buy-ing apartments in the context of The Pearl and Lusail.

“All sectors have different trajectories and are in differ-ent stages of development,” said Banach.

“In every sector there are assets which are performing better compared to the others. For example, in the residential sector apartments in prime locations are performing bet-ter in terms of occupancy, as rents in these locations have reduced to make them afford-able to a larger section of the population.”

Banach says the Qatari market is now benefitting from pro-active public sector initiatives including the re-cently released freehold zones law, which increased the num-ber of freehold zones, allowed non-Qataris to own freehold property, enabled 100% for-eign ownership and 100% re-patriation of profits across all sectors.

“Government spending and policies have been key in en-couraging foreign direct invest-ment in Qatar real estate. Ro-bust government spending has been crucial in driving investor confidence and has also aided economic diversification and private sector development.

“Moreover, the govern-ment continues to introduce

policies and laws which en-courage foreign investment and augment capital flow,” he added.

Banach also contends that new financial incentives will also help spur the market.

“Recently banks have started offering very attrac-tive interest rates to encour-age home ownership. Moreo-ver, developers are also now offering payment plans over 3-5-year period not only on off plan properties but also handed over properties in The Pearl and Lusail in order to augment buying opportuni-ties,” he says.

One of the speakers at this year’s conference, Edd Brookes, Head of the Mid-dle East from commercial real estate broker Cushman & Wakefield Qatar, has dubbed the local market as “probably one of the most stable in the region with demand slowly converging towards equilib-rium, assisted in no small way by a flight to quality and more affordable property costs for occupiers.”

Brookes says the market is benefiting from positive senti-

ment accrued from scaled-up transport options and great ownership and incomes secu-rity. He identifies the medium cost housing sector as the best performing asset, especially in locations outside Doha but which are now commutable thanks to the Metro network.

The powerful Cityscape Qatar Conference has been

designed for institutional in-vestors, private, investors and semi-government officers and C-level executives from the real estate, finance, legal and asso-ciated sectors. A combination of high-level presentations and expert panel discussion will deliberate trends impacting the market. Invites are avail-able by registering online.

“The invite-only format underlines our policy of curat-ing content specific to senior leadership,” said Carlo Schem-bri, Exhibition Director.

“It ensures delivery of a forum where invitees can net-work with the world’s wealthi-est investors and industry professionals in Qatar and the region.”

Meanwhile the free-to-attend Cityscape Talks series will return to the show floor of Cityscape Qatar on October 23 and 24, with a wide choice of presentations.

“Attendees will hear ex-pert views on how to max-imise their real estate invest-ment, discuss market trends, get keen insights on which to base better informed buying decision and network with

potential business contacts,” explained Schembri.

“There will also be indus-try sessions focusing on key themes for real estate bro-kers, architects, engineers, and other professionals. These sessions will enable profes-sionals to exchange ideas with like-minded colleagues look-ing to develop their skills and establish closer links with the key governing bodies of each domain.”

Cityscape Qatar, the only real estate exhibition and conference of its kind in the Gulf state, is set for a success-ful showing this October 22-24 with exhibitor and visitor feedback from last year’s event promising a high international turnout.

The event is being held under the patronage of HE Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al Thani, Qatar’s Prime Minister and Minister of Interior.

Cityscape Qatar is sup-ported by Qetaifan Projects as Platinum Exhibition Sponsor, Qatari Diar as Gold Exhibition Sponsor, and Barwa as Official Strategic Sponsor.

Cityscape to feature overview of Qatar’s real estate market Multi-sector insights to be aired as legal and financial incentives boost FDI potential

A file photo of last year’s Cityscape Qatar conference in Doha.

EU opens probe into Boeing tie-ups with Brazil’s Embraer

AFP BRUSSELS

THE EU said on Friday it had opened an “in-depth investigation” into plans by US aviation giant Boeing to form joint ventures with the world’s number three planemaker, Brazil’s Em-braer, citing competition concerns.

The European Commis-sion is “concerned that the proposed transaction may remove Embraer as the third largest global com-petitor in the already highly concentrated commercial aircraft industry,” it said in a statement.

The move by European competition authorities risked aggravating already tense US-EU commercial ties.

Europe is preparing its response to billions of dol-lars’ worth of tariffs Wash-ington is looking to slap on its goods after the WTO gave it the go-ahead to retaliate for illegal subsidies to Boe-ing’s rival Airbus.

US President Donald Trump has already imposed tariffs on steel and alumin-ium imports, impacting Eu-rope.

Trump is especially un-happy with the EU’s com-petition commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, who has flexed regulatory muscle on US tech giants and who spearheaded the probe into the proposed Boeing-Em-braer partnerships.

The main tie-up in the EU’s sights is Boeing’s plan to swallow most of Em-braer’s commercial busi-ness, creating a $5.3-billion (4.8-billion-euro) joint ven-ture that would allow the US company to offer planes with capacity of up to 150 seats -- a market in which Boeing currently does not compete.

The other, smaller joint venture involves the mar-keting of a KC-390 military aircraft Embraer makes.

“With our in-depth in-vestigation, we want to make sure that mergers in commercial aircraft do not significantly reduce effective competition on prices and product development,” Ve-

stager said in the statement.The European Commis-

sion noted that Embraer is the leading global manufac-turer of regional jets.

It said that “potential entrants from China, Japan and Russia seem to face high barriers to entry and expan-sion and may be unable to replicate within the next five or even ten years the com-petitive constraint currently exerted by Embraer.”

The Boeing tie-up with Embraer’s commercial busi-ness, announced in July last year, was seen as a response to a similar strategic part-nership announced in Oc-tober 2017 between Airbus and Canada’s Bombardier.

Boeing and Embraer have frozen moves on their planned partnership while they address the European Commission’s concerns.

The statement said the Commission has until Feb-ruary 20 next year to decide whether the joint ventures reduced competition in the sector.

A statement issued by Boeing and Embraer noted that their join project “re-mains subject to regulatory approval” and had already passed an assessment by US authorities.

It said it would assist with the EU investigation, but added that the probe meant its initial plan to complete work on the joint venture at the end of this year had now been pushed back to “early 2020”.

Key factor The main tie-up in the EU’s sights is Boeing’s plan to swallow most of Embraer’s commercial business, creating a $5.3-billion (4.8-billion-euro) joint venture that would allow the US company to offer planes with capacity of up to 150 seats -- a market in which Boeing currently does not compete

PlayStation slashes price of cloud video game service

AFP SAN FRANCISCO

SONY Interactive Entertainment recently slashed the price of its PlayStation Now cloud video game service as it braced for Google to launch challenger Stadia in No-vember.

PlayStation Now subscription prices were cut by about half in the US to $10 monthly, the same cost as Stadia Pro subscriptions available with a “founders edition” of the new Google streaming video game service.

Japan-based Sony also boosted the library of games that PlaySta-tion Now users can access through its consoles or on personal com-puters powered by Windows soft-ware.

“We have accumulated a wealth of knowledge in cloud gaming since PlayStation Now’s launch in 2014,” Sony Interactive Entertainment chief executive Jim Ryan said in a statement.

“That, coupled with our 25-year legacy in the games business

and strong partnerships we’ve forged with publishers, positions us to continue leading and inno-vating in this field as the gaming industry evolves.”

Titles added to the service’s library included “God of War,” “Grand Theft Auto V,” and “Un-charted 4: A Thief’s End,” which will be available through the end of this year.

French video game titan Ubisoft in September launched a Uplay+ subscription service in the US and Europe that lets us-ers access its library of games on Windows-powered personal com-puters.

Ubisoft also disclosed plans to next year join a Stadia streaming game platform.

Stadia will take consoles out of the equation, letting users play games on a range of platforms in high-resolution quality on differ-ent media from smart TVs to con-soles or smartphones.

That presages something of a gaming revolution.

Google chief executive Sundar

Pichai explained at a major video game industry show in Los Ange-les in June that the idea with Sta-dia is “to build a game platform for everyone.”

Some games will be free and others will require payment. Google is selling a Stadia control-ler similar in design to those used for Sony PlayStation or Microsoft

Xbox consoles.Cloud-based games have long

been the norm on smartphones, where the model has long been to offer game apps for free, then

make money with ads or sales of digital items to players.

Google recently unveiled a subscription service for games and apps on Android-powered mobile devices in a direct chal-lenge to freshly-launched Apple Arcade.

Google Play Pass promised access to games free of ads or hawked virtual wares at the same $4.99 monthly subscription price as Apple Arcade, where titles are tailored for Apple devices.

It will also include apps such as Accuweather that are free of in-app purchases, upfront payments or advertising.

Gaming fans walk past a logo at the Playstation games section at the Los Angeles Convention Center. (File photo) (AFP)

GROWING COMPETITION

Public sector initiatives Banach says the Qatari market is now benefitting from pro-active public sector initiatives including the recently released freehold zones law, which increased the number of freehold zones, allowed non-Qataris to own freehold property, enabled 100% foreign ownership and 100% repatriation of profits across all sectors

Smart games Cloud-based games have long been the norm on smartphones, where the model has long been to offer game apps for free, then make money with ads or sales of digital items to players

PlayStation Now subscription prices were cut by about half in the US to $10 monthly

Economy & Business10 Sunday, October 6, 2019

Economy & Business

AFPMUMBAI

INDIA’S central bank on Fri-day cut interest rates for the fifth time this year, putting them at a near-decade low, while it also slashed its growth forecasts as authorities strug-gle to kickstart Asia’s third-largest economy.

The Reserve Bank of In-dia (RBI) said the benchmark repo rate -- the level at which it lends to commercial banks -- would be reduced by 25 basis points to 5.15 percent, the low-est since March 2010.

“The RBI decided to con-tinue with an accommodative stance as long as it is necessary to revive growth, while ensur-ing that inflation remains within the target,” the Mum-bai-headquartered bank said in a statement.

The bank also slashed its economic growth forecast for this financial year to 6.1 per-cent, from 6.9 percent, not-ing that the global economy has been losing steam owing to long-running trade uncer-tainty.

RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said, “We have cut rates by 135 basis points since Feb-ruary and it takes time for its impact to be transmitted to the real economy.”

Analysts were divided on the potential impact of the move, with some saying the measures would do little to jumpstart the stuttering econ-omy.

“A 25 basis points cut, which was within forecasts, will neither significantly bump up consumption nor investment,” said Ranjan Chakravarty, product strate-gist at Metropolitan Stock Ex-change.

“The bank needs to be more aggressive to give a proper push to growth. Unfor-tunately this was another op-portunity foregone for now,” he added.

Others said more rate cuts could be on the cards in De-

cember as officials try to ramp up rural consumption and economic activity.

“Demand in India is abys-mally low and GST (goods and services tax) returns were at an 18-month-low in August, reflecting muted consumption demand,” Garima Kapoor, economist at Elara Capital, said.

“RBI has room for rate cuts in the range of 15-30 basis points in December as per be-nign inflation dynamics,” she added.

Inflation rose to a 10-month high in August but was within the RBI’s target range of four percent.

Despite the succession of cuts, economists say banks have failed to pass on the ben-efits to consumers, meaning borrowing costs for loans re-main high.

India has the world’s worst bad-loan ratio, prompting the government to announce a $10-billion liquidity lifeline to public-sector banks in this year’s budget.

In June, economic growth slowed for the fifth straight quarter to 5 percent, according to official figures.

In August, the once-boom-ing auto sector -- seen as a crucial barometer of economic health -- reported slump-ing sales for the 10th-straight month, forcing companies to shut down manufacturing plants.

Desperate to ramp up investment, Finance Minis-ter Nirmala Sitharaman last month announced corporate tax rates for domestic firms would be slashed by almost a third to 30 percent, making it one of the lowest in the region.

Experts say the tax reforms are aimed at attracting compa-nies spooked by the China-US trade war.

Authorities have in recent weeks rolled out a series of measures to boost the econo-my and battle grinding unem-ployment, which is at its high-est since the 1970s.

India’s central bank makes fifth rate cut, slashes growth forecast

AFPWASHINGTON

AMERICA’S jobless rate tum-bled in September to its low-est level in 50 years, according to government data released Friday, delighting the White House even though it may not assuage recession fears as President Donald Trump’s trade wars persist.

Meanwhile, with a strong dollar and slowing global economy, the US trade defi-cit widened in August, as the trade conflicts ate into export growth.

Trump immediately cheered the good jobs data, claiming his economic record should shield him from efforts to impeach him, and shortly after said a trade deal with China was possible soon.

But there was less-than-stellar news as well: the pace of job creation was the slow-est in four months and wages fell, while the manufacturing workforce also shrank for the second time this year.

Unemployment fell two tenths of a point to 3.5 per-cent, matching the rate last recorded in December 1969, and well below what analysts had forecast, according to the Labor Department.

Employers added a total of 136,000 net new positions, which was below expectations, with notable slowdowns in ed-ucation, government, finance and business services.

The August job gain was revised up sharply to 168,000, nearly 40,000 more than orig-inally reported.

But signs of the slow-down were unambiguous: at 157,000, the average for the last three months is now well below the 223,000 a month recorded during 2018.

“Breaking News: Unem-ployment Rate, at 3.5 percent, drops to a 50 YEAR LOW. Wow America, lets impeach your President (even though he did nothing wrong!),” Trump tweeted.

The hotly-anticipated jobs

report also landed amid a raft of worrisome economic data showing Trump’s trade wars have put a dent in the business environment and suggesting hiring should slow in the com-ing months.

Average hourly wages fell by a penny to $28.09 last month, well below economists’ expectations, putting an end to a year-long string of steady gains and limiting consumers’ spending power in the coming months.

“Wages are up by almost 3 percent. That’s a fantastic increase for everybody out there working. We’re very happy about those numbers,” Trump told reporters at the White House.

But meanwhile the mining sector added no workers after three straight months of lay-offs, and the auto sector shed

workers for the fourth month in a row. “Job growth is set to slow much further,” Ian Shep-herdson of Pantheon Macro-economics said in a note to clients.

“This is as good as it’s like-ly to get until the trade war is resolved.”

But given the dwindling supply of workers in the US economy, some groups con-tinue to benefit: unemploy-ment among Hispanics fell to its lowest level since records began in 1973.

And for workers without a high school diploma, the job-less rate fell to the lowest since records began in 1992.

The latest data did not reflect the nationwide strike launched last month by Gen-eral Motors employees, who walked off the job the week af-ter the survey for the Septem-ber jobs report was conducted.

In a separate report, the Commerce Department said the yawning US trade deficit rose by nearly $1 billion in Au-gust as weakening foreign de-mand and the churning trade conflict ate into US export growth.

However, Trump said there is a “very good chance” to reach a trade deal with Chi-na soon.

“Right now we’re in a very important stage in terms of possibly making a deal. If we make it, it will be the big-gest trade deal ever made,” Trump said.

But the unexpected trade deficit increase could weigh on GDP calculations for the third quarter, with a global econom-ic slowdown expected to weak-en US exports while the strong US dollar has fueled imports.

As a result, the US trade balance crept 1.6 percent higher to $54.9 billion for the month, surpassing econo-mists’ expectations.

Imports increased 0.5 per-cent, while exports rose 0.2 percent, rising more slowly than in July.

US unemployment falls to 50-year low in Sept

US unemployment fell two tenths of a point to 3.5 percent, matching the rate last recorded in December 1969.

US trade deficit widened in August, as the trade conflicts ate into export growth

New positions Employers added a total of 136,000 net new positions, which was below expectations, with notable slowdowns in education, government, finance and business services.

Paypal drops support for Libra cryptocurrencyDPA

NEW YORK

FACEBOOK lost a high-profile partner for its Libra cryptocurrency on Friday, as PayPal announced that it was dropping its support.

The well-established on-line money transfer service is-sued a statement on the deci-sion after US markets closed, confirming media reports that it was leaving the Libra Asso-ciation.

PayPal did not give a rea-son for leaving, but Bloomb-

erg and other media had re-ported that the move came in light of strong political opposition and regulators’ concerns.

“We remain supportive of Libra’s aspirations and look forward to continued dialogue on ways to work together in the future,” PayPal said.

It also stressed the impor-tance of its ‘longstanding and valued’ partnership with Fa-cebook.

According to the media reports, Visa, Mastercard

and Stripe are also con-sidering abandoning the cryptocurrency.

The digital currency is to be managed by the Libra As-sociation out of Switzerland.

Upon presenting the plans in June, Facebook had a list of influential partners under its belt.

Facebook executive David Marcus, who is responsible for rolling out the ambitious project, said official Libra As-sociation members will be an-nounced next week, according to the reports.

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RBI has reduced the benchmark repo rate by 25 basis points to 5.15 percent, the lowest since March 2010.

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VINAY NAYUDUDOHA

IT was last October Mutaz Essa Barshim was seen on crutches, looking up a flight of stairs at the Aspire Hospital. It was a dreadful sight to see for one of the great high jumpers of all time, who was recovering from the serious ankle injury he suffered during a meet in Hungary.

A year later, there was the same Barshim at the Khalifa International Stadium on Fri-day – waiting to run in and scale the high jump bar. His eyes shining bright and fo-cused, he went on to do where even many of the bests would fail given the pressure --

deliver a stunning perfor-mance!

Participating in a few meets and with 2.29m being his high-est mark throughout the year, Barshim flew over 2.37m in a flash and flawless. The packed 48,000 stadium went ecstatic.

Among those witnessing Barshim’s historic home mo-ment were The Amir His High-ness Sheikh Tamim bin Ham-ad al Thani, HE Sheikh Joaan bin Hamad al Thani, Chairman Doha Worlds 2019 Organising Committee and President, Qa-tar Olympic Committee, Dr. Thani Abdulrahman al Ku-wari, President, Qatar Athlet-ics Federation, Barshim’s fam-ily and others.

There was an immedi-ate frenzy as Barshim was hugged by HE Sheikh Joaan and Dr. Thani. He then waved to the fans, went for a victory lap which was cut short as he was called up for a quick television interview. Soon he rushed several floors up to meet HH The Amir.

“He (the Amir) was very excited, very happy. I went to see him after the end of the competition, and he said ‘Well done. I have no words to say. You did everything, more than I expected’. He’s really happy, he’s proud and I am proud too,” said Barshim much later while speaking to the media.

It was well past midnight before Barshim could have got the chance to be all by himself to reflect on the greatness of his own glory.

From winning his first Asian Games title as a teenager in 2010 and the World U20 gold medal the same year, the now 28-year-old Barshim has come a long way. From the Asian Games, to the Olympics to IAAF World Champion-ships – the world has seen him dominate the men’s high jump event like no other.

This time though it wasn’t about whether he could do it or not. But how, given his long re-covery and the workload on his body. But it was the supreme motivation which did the trick.

It wasn’t just he though who was motivated. Just as the clock raced towards 8.15pm, fans from almost every corner of the stadium flocked in. This included sections of stands which had poster and placard-waving Qatari fans willing him over the heights.

“I am jumping, and they (the crowds) just showed up, the stadium was full,” said Barshim. “They believed in me, they supported me, and I believe this will spark some-thing, for the nation itself, for the upcoming events.

“Today I saw the joy in peo-ple’s eyes.”

One wonders if Barshim would have dreamt of this while lying in the hospital bed in August 2018 when he tweeted a picture of his and of the X-ray showing a screw being inserted for repair just above his ankle. It was scary.

“My injury last year could have been career ending,” explained the champion, who only returned to training in April this year.

T h e n there were

self doubts. “You start pos-ing questions like am I ever going to jump again and you start hav-ing questions about yourself. But now I am just thinking about the future and I am really hap-py where I am,” he tells you.

Despite his great return through sheer perseverance, hard work and belief, Barshim attributed his success to the people who stood by him and his home fans. “I have won a lot of medals but this one was

at home, so it feels different.

E v e r y -body came here and

supported me a lot; I just wanted to do it for them. They

are the champions tonight, not me,” he

told the media.As for the fi-

nal show, Barshim seemed to be going great guns – sailing clear in first attempt on 2.19, 2.24, 2.27, and 2.30 before two stutters at 2.33. These two failed attempts also brought about a hush inside the stadium. The big roar soon returned when Barshim jumped over 2.35. But so did neu-tral athletes Mikhail Akimenko and Ilya

Ivanyuk.The mark of 2.37

became the new norm. Barshim was in first up and the crescendo

followed as he made the crowd clap and cheer aloud.

The longish run-up and the lift-off off his left foot (using

the Fosbury Flop technique), the Qatari star went neat,

clean and well over. The other two failed in

their attempts for Barshim to crowned the well-deserved champion.

The first to jump and hug Barshim just after he cleared 2.37 was fellow competitor Gi-anmarco Tamberi of Italy.

The ‘showman’ jumper, who keeps moustache and beard only on the left side of his face, the other clean-shaven, said he was delighted of what his good friend had achieved.

“On champions can per-form under such great home pressure and Barshim is a great champion. He’s my good friend and I’m pretty sure than he is the best high jumper ever that we’ve seen. Also how he did it is amazing. To jump 2.37 and in that way, just he can do it.”

What a memorable turna-round since 2018 to 2019. Next August, Barshim will look to keep another date with destiny aiming to turn his now Olym-pic bronze and silver into gold at Tokyo in 2020.

Truly Great: Barshim beats dreadful past, looks ahead to glorious future

The Amir His Highness Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al Thani with Mutaz Barshim after he defended his IAAF World Championship men’s high jump gold with a sensational triumph at the Doha Worlds 2019 at a packed Khalifa International Stadium on Friday.

Asian, Qatar athletics associations dedicate

Barshim’s win to wise leadership

QNADOHA

THE Asian and Qatari athletics federations dedicated the win of Qatari Olympic and world champion Mutaz Barshim at the IAAF World Athletics Champion-ships Doha 2019 to the wise leadership.

President of the Asian Athlet-ics Association (AAA) Dahlan al Hamad expressed his delight with Barshim’s win, saying that the athlete’s return from injury and overcoming all obstacles proved once again that he is the world’s best at high jump. Al Hamad added that Barshim’s achievements adds to the gloss of Qatar’s organization of the competition, and delights Qatari citizens and residents alike. He also extended the congratulations to HE President of Qatar Olympic Committee (QOC) Sheikh Joaan bin Hamad al Thani, who also chairs the competition’s organizing commit-tee, for the win.

For his part, HE President of Qatar Athletics Association Dr Thani bin Abdulrahman al Kuwari expressed his pride at Barshim’s defence of the high jump title. He said that what the Qatari athlete did today (Friday) was a great accomplishment, given that he had just returned from injury. Al Kuwari added that Barshim’s dominance is a true testament to his talent and commitment. He stressed that the support of the country’s wise leadership to sport was a main reason to the excellence shown in different sports competitions.

Qatar Athletics Federation’s Secretary-General Mohammed

Issa al Fadala also expressed pride in the outstanding achieve-ment of Barshim.

He said that the achieve-ment did not come from a vacuum, but is a fruit of the sup-port and guidance of the wise leadership and its sponsorship of sports and athletes in Qatar.

Al Fadala said that this new achievement is a great honour not only for the Qatar Athletics Federation and Barshim but for all the people of Qatar, espe-cially the youth, who are able to compete at the highest level with creativity and excellence in various fields if equipped with capabilities, qualifications, self-confidence, and determination for success.

Director of Qatar’s national athletics teams Khalifa Abdul-malik stressed that Barshim’s achievement shows his true character.

Abdulmalik said that Bar-shim outdid himself and other champions despite the injury, pointing out that this achieve-ment has a special taste because it was achieved in front of the home crowd.

Khalid al Marri, Deputy Direc-tor of national athletics teams and Director of Qatar Athletics Federation, praised the high fighting spirit of Barshim and the confidence he had during the competitions to succeed in reaching his goal and retaining his title. He pointed out that Barshim managed to recover from injury in record time before the start of the world athletics championships, stressing that winning the gold represents a tremendous achievement for the Qatari sports.

Gold medallist Qatar’s Mutaz Essa Barshim celebrates on the podium during the medal ceremony for the men’s high jump at the IAAF Athletics World Championships Doha 2019 at the Khalifa International Stadium on Saturday. (AFP)

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2019© IAAF

“I was not 100-per-cent ready but when I came here and saw all those people cheering for me, even if I was dying, I would do everything I can.”

Qatar’s Mutaz Essa Barshim exults after clearing 2.37m in the men’s high jump at the Khalifa International Stadium on Friday. (AFP

Barshim (right) celebrates with supporters after winning the men’s high jump final at the Khalifa International Stadium on Friday. (AFP)

Barshim is congratulated by Puerto Rico’s Luis Cas-tro Rivera soon after after the men’s high jump final at the Khalifa International Stadium on Friday. (AFP)

Barshim (right) with coach Stanislaw Szczyrba of Poland talk on the podium after the medal cere-mony at the Khalifa International Stadium in Doha on Saturday. (AFP)

AFPDOHA

SIFAN Hassan surged to her second gold medal of the World Championships with victory in the 1,500 metres on Saturday, shrugging off the doping controversy that has embroiled her banned coach Alberto Salazar.

The 26-year-old Ethiopian-born Dutch runner romped home in a world leading cham-pionship record time of 3min 51.95sec to take gold, with 2017 champion Faith Kipyegon of Kenya claiming silver and Ethi-opia’s Gudaf Tsegay bronze.

Her winning time was the sixth fastest in history, just under two seconds adrift of Genzebe DiBaba’s world mark of 3:50.07 set in 2015.

It was Hassan’s second gold medal of the champion-ships following her win in the 10,000m, making her the first woman to successfully double in the two events.

It capped a tumultuous week for Hassan, who was left stunned after Salazar’s four-year doping ban was an-nounced on Tuesday.

Salazar was barred from the championships following the ban and his athletes from the Nike Oregon Project train-ing group were ordered to im-mediately cease all communi-cation with him.

“It’s a very hard week for me,” Hassan told the BBC.

“I was so just angry and I could not talk to anyone. I just ran all out. That hard work can’t be beaten by anything.

“It’s what makes me angry, I have been clean all my life. I work hard, I’m not an emo-tional person but it makes me

so mad.”Hassan had run a master-

ful race. After taking her time at the back of the pack, she hit the front towards the end of the first lap and was always in control at the Khalifa Stadium.

Britain’s Laura Muir was on her shoulder at the bell but Hassan turned on the speed with around 250m to go to put clear daylight between her and the rest of the field, fin-ishing around 20m ahead of Kipyegon.

Hassan had startled many at the start of the champi-onships after her win in the 10,000m, showing a devastat-ing turn of speed over the clos-ing laps to take gold.

However she found herself at the eye of storm on Tuesday when news of Salazar’s four-year suspension rocked the championships.

Salazar, 61, was suspended for a catalogue of drugs viola-tions uncovered in a years-long investigation by the Unit-ed States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA).

Hassan joined the Oregon Project in late 2016, shortly before an internal report by USADA detailing Salazar’s malpractice was leaked in early 2017.

Netherlands’ Sifan Hassan reacts after winning the women’s 1500m final at the Khalifa International Stadium on Saturday. (AFP)

Double gold as Hassan

wins women’s 1,500m crown

AFPDOHA

JOE Kovacs of the United States won the men’s shot put world title on Saturday with his sixth and final throw of 22.91 metres. The 30-year-old’s effort was the joint third longest of all time in one of the all-time great shot finals that saw the 32-year-old champi-onship record of Switzerland’s Werner Gunther eclipsed by all three medallists.

“It is great to do this in front of my wife,” said Ko-vacs who was also 2015 world champion. “I just kept telling myself to hang on in there and keep calm. It will come good.”

Olympic champion Ryan Crouser took silver with a final effort of 22.90m.

Kovacs bags thrilling men’s shot put with final throw

DALILAH Muham-mad calls it her epiphany, the mo-ment that set off a

chain reaction for all that came next: Olympic gold, world re-cord and – on Friday night at the IAAF World Athletics Championships Doha 2019 – a long-awaited world title.

To get that gold, she not only had to be the fastest ath-lete on the night, but the fast-est of all time. Ten hurdles, 52.16 seconds, one lap of the track and a place firmly es-tablished among the all-time greats.

But back to that epiphany. It was early 2016, Muhammad was 25 years old and coming off a season where her talent had failed to truly fire. Two years prior, she had won world silver in Moscow but 2014 and 2015 were mediocre seasons, the New York native strug-gling with a string of injuries.

She picked up a quad strain in an early-season race in 2014, ran on with it and made things worse, her form never hitting the highs of the previous year. Her issues lin-gered in 2015 and in Febru-ary of 2016, she parted ways with coach Yolanda Demus and linked up with Lawrence Johnson, who trains a group of high-level hurdlers at his base in Northridge, California.

It was around then she had a realisation.

“Why not me?” Muham-mad recalls herself thinking. “Someone’s going to win the 2016 Olympics so why can’t it be you? You fought really hard in 2013, so let’s go for it.”

She adds now, almost four

years on, “that’s what I’ve been going with ever since.”

Muhammad claimed Olympic gold in 2016 in Rio, the humble, hard-working daughter of parents Nadirah and Askia suddenly catapulted to international stardom.

She ran 53.13 to win gold, a few ticks down on the 52.88 she ran to win the US title ear-lier that summer, and what both races showed was that she had within her the capa-bility to rewrite the world re-cord of 52.34, held by Russia’s Yuliya Pechonkina since 2003.

That magical day arrived in July this year, Muhammad blitzing her opponents to take her event to a new level with

her world record of 52.20. “I have not watched that

race that much and the reason is just because I didn’t want to relive that moment and have that be the highlight of my ca-reer,” she says. “I was so hap-py but ultimately the World Championships title was the goal this year.”

She took a week off train-ing after Des Moines, then went back into base work with her focus on Doha.

There was no disguising her biggest threat, the woman who could force Muhammad to settle for her third world sil-ver medal. Sydney McLaugh-lin had been a 16-year-old sen-sation and her US teammate

when Muhammad took gold in Rio, but in 2019 in Doha, she was by far the woman most likely to beat her to gold.

For many previous races Muhammad would tell herself highly specific things as she settled into her blocks, but this time her mind went blissfully blank.

“I think sometimes we get too in our heads and try to do everything perfect, sometimes you just have to trust in what you’ve been doing all year, trust in your training,” she says. “I wasn’t really thinking about anything: just go for it.”

Muhammad had run 15 strides as far as hurdle nine in the past, but the exuber-

ance of her start on Friday night meant she was only able to hold that until hurdle eight this time, with fatigue setting in that bit sooner.

“I definitely did think the race was pretty fast from the start. Sometimes you tell your-self to back off a little, that you’re going too fast, but in this race I knew there was no holding back. By the last 100 you zone out and then you’re trying to hold on.”

McLaughlin came charg-ing at Muhammad off the 10th hurdle, but Muhammed wasn’t for catching. She hit the line exhausted, elated in 52.16, 0.07 clear of McLaughlin.

In recent weeks her coach had often said to her that the short turnaround to Tokyo – now less than 10 months away – meant Muhammad would only get two weeks’ break for her off-season, but the world record-holder, with some justification, feels she’s earned more.

“There’s no way I’m taking two weeks,” she laughs. “He’ll see me in a month.” (IAAF)

Of Dalilah Muhammad’s 400m hurdles world record triumph in Doha

(L-R) Silver medallist Sydney Mclaughlin and gold medallist Dalilah Muhammad of the USA, and bronze medallist Rushell Clayton of Jamaica on the podium during the medal ceremony for the women’s 400m hurdles at the at the Khalifa International Stadium in Doha on Saturday. (AFP)

STAR SHOW

This means so much. I just wanted the world title so much but to break the world record again is fantastic. I didn’t even know who won the race. I was just looking to see who won and then I noticed when they said world record that I had broken it.– Dalilah Muhammad

US MEN, JAMAICA EVES WIN RESPECTIVE 4X100M RELAYS

(L-R) USA’s Noah Lyles, USA’s Michael Rodgers, USA’s Christian Coleman and USA’s Justin Gatlin celebrate winning the men’s 4x100m Relay final at the IAAF Athletics World Championships Doha 2019 at the Khalifa International Stadium on Saturday. The United States won a first men’s 4x100 metres relay title in 12 years as Christian Coleman and Noah Lyles get their second Doha gold. The 100m winner Coleman, 100m silver-medallist Justin Gatlin, Michael Rodgers and 200m champ Noah Lyles crossed the line in a national record 37.10 seconds to win from title holders Britain (European record 37.36) and Japan (Asian record 37.43). (AFP)

Jamaica’s Natalliah Whyte, Jamaica’s Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, Jamaica’s Jonielle Smith and Jamaica’s Shericka Jackson celebrate after taking gold in the women’s 4x100m relay final on Saturday. (AFP)

Fraser-Pryce wins ninth world title in relayAFPDOHA

JAMAICAN sprint legend Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce secured her ninth world title on Saturday in Doha as Jamaica won the 4x100

metres relay.The 32-year-old, who

won her fourth world 100m title last Sunday, ran a storming second leg to put Jamaica firmly in the driving seat.

Shericka Jackson had a

big enough lead to breach the line in 41.44 seconds with Britain’s 200m world champion Dina Asher-Smith anchoring her team to the silver (41.85sec).

For Asher-Smith, it completed a superb cham-

pionshps as she also took silver in the 100m.

Defending champions United States rounded off an underwhelming champi-onshps for their 100/200m women sprinters, taking bronze in 42.10sec.

Venezuela’s Yulimar Rojas celebrates winning the women’s triple jump final at the Khalifa International Stadium on Saturday. Rojas retained her title recording a best mark of 15.37 metres. Shanieka Ricketts of Jamaica took silver with a best of 14.92m while Colombia’s Olympic champion Caterine Ibarguen won bronze (14.73m). (AFP)

USA’s Joe Kovacs celebrates after winning the men’s shot put final at the Khalifa Interna-tional Stadium on Saturday. (AFP)

Venezuela’s Rojas retains women’s triple jump title

TIME M/W EVENT ROUND

19:02 W 100M Hurdles Semis 19:15 W Long Jump Final

19:40 M 1500 Metres Final

19:55 M Javelin Throw Final

20:00 M 10,000 Metres Final 20:50 W 100M Hurdles Final

21:15 W 4x400M Relay Final

21:30 M 4x400M Relay Final

DOHA 2019 WORLDS SUNDAY SCHEDULE

Sports 13Sunday, October 6, 2019

AFPVISAKHAPATNAM (INDIA)

ROHIT Sharma on Saturday struck a second hundred in his debut as Test opener to help In-dia set South Africa a daunting 395 to win the opening match of their series.

The hosts declared their second innings on 323 for four in the final session of day four in Visakhapatnam.

South Africa were 11 for one at stumps with Aiden Markram, on three, and Theunis de Bruyn, on five, at the crease.

The visitors need another 384 runs and India nine wickets on the final day to get ahead in the three-match series.

“We picked up a crucial wicket, so as a team we are happy with the way things went

today and hope to start off well (tomorrow),” Indian batsman Cheteshwar Pujara, who made 81 in India’s second innings, told reporters.

“It will not be easy to bat on this pitch on day five, with a lit-tle more assistance for the spin-ners. And with variable bounce, even the fast bowlers will come into play.”

Ravindra Jadeja struck ear-ly after trapping first-innings centurion Dean Elgar for two in the fourth over of the innings.

The left-handed Elgar, who made 160 in the first innings, was given not out by the on-field umpire only for India to get the decision overturned with a TV review.

Markram and de Bruyn then played out the remaining overs from spinners Ravichan-

dran Ashwin and Jadeja until bad light forced the extended play -- to make up for lost time due to thunderstorm on day one -- to be called off.

Sharma, who made 176 in India’s first innings of 502 for seven declared, is the first bats-man to hit two tons in his first match as a Test opener.

He also hit 13 sixes, the most in a Test match, breaking Wasim Akram’s record of 12.

Sharma put on 169 with Pujara to frustrate South Africa after the loss of opener Mayank Agarwal for seven.

“The way Rohit was playing allowed me to settle down. Only he can play such shots on this track,” said Pujara.

“Our partnership between lunch and tea was crucial. Our communication was good as we

have batted together a lot in Un-der-19 cricket. It was enjoyable

to watch his batting from the non-striker’s end.”


AL Rayyan handed Al Sadd only their second defeat in 27 QNB Stars League matches as The Lions brushed aside their eternal rivals 4-2 in the ‘Qatar Clasico’ at Jassim Bin Hamad Stadium on Saturday.

Al Sadd were hoping for a positive reaction after suffering a heavy 4-1 defeat at the hands of Al Hilal in the AFC Champi-ons League on Tuesday.

Goals from Gabriel Mer-cado, Rodrigo Tabata, Ab-dulaziz Hatem and Yacine Brahimi, sealed only the third victory of the season for Al Rayyan. Nam Tae-Hee and Baghdad Bounedjah both struck for the hosts.

With both sides going into the match unbeaten this sea-son, much was on offer for a raucous crowd as the pre-match buzz found its way to the large number of fans present at the stadium.

Al Sadd got off to a good start and Bounedjah in the opening minutes, forced Fahad

Younis into a save.The Lions however, drew

first blood when Mercado met Tabata’s out-swinging corner -- the Argentine sent jis effort straight down the middle into the roof of the net in the 25th minute.

Al Sadd soon hit back three minutes later when South Ko-

rean midfielder Nam skidding effort flew past Younis.

But Al Rayyan were on the ascendancy and soon took the lead before half time despite sevral Al Sadd pleas for offside. Brahimi’s accurate drive was saved by Saad al Dossari onto the path of Tabata who easily finished off the rebound.

Al Sadd came out on the attack after the break and Bounedjah thought he had the equaliser but his effort was ruled out for offside.

The Algerian though got his team back in the game mo-ments later. Hamid Ismail’s cross into the box found last season’s highest goalscorer

who powered his header into the far corner.

Al Rayyan have lost their previous three league matches to Al Sadd but seemed a rejuve-nated side this season.

“It was a very nice game, it was open for both sides. Our team in the first few games this season made some mistakes,

but today we didn’t make those mistakes. The coming inter-national break will be a good opportunity for the team to rest and prepare for the next games,” Al Rayyan coach Diego Aguirre said after the match.

Five minutes after Al Sadd equaliser, Hatem made it three for Al Rayyan all thnaks to Do-sari’s shocking error.

Brahimi slalomed into the box before releasing Hatem whose shot squirmed under the despairing arms of Al Dossari.

Brahimi put the result beyond doubt when he wres-tled his way into the box be-fore launching a vicious strike which the goalkeeper was not able to save.

Brahimi did have a penalty saved late on, but the damage was already done and “We are very sad to lose, we played against a good team and I con-gratulate them on the win. Cer-tainly the last match against Al Hilal had an impact, but Al Rayyan deserved to win. We have to do more to win match-es,” Al Sadd coach Xavi Her-nandez said.

Al Rayyan held on for a famous and well-deserved vic-tory which sees them climb to fourth place, while Al Sadd are third with a game in hand.

In the late match, goals from Abel Hernandez and Abdulrahman Moustafa sealed 2-01 victory for Al Ahli over Qatar Sports Club at the Al Ahli Stadium.

Lions win 4-2 at the Jassim Bin Hamad Stadium as Al Sadd

suffer their only second league loss

in 27 games

Al Rayyan players celebrate Yaccine Brahimi’s goal during their QNB Stars League match dubbed ‘Qatar Clasico’ against Al Sadd at the Jassim Bin Hamad Stadium on Saturday. Al Rayyan won 4-2.

Super Al Rayyan beat rivals Al Sadd in thrilling Clasico

Osaka sweeps into China Open final on just two hours’ sleep

AFPBEIJING

NAOMI Osaka said that she had just two hours’ sleep before crushing title-holder Caroline Wozniacki to sweep into the China Open final on Saturday.

The 21-year-old Japanese will play world number one Ash-leigh Barty of Australia in Sun-day’s championship match in Beijing -- and will hope to have had a bit more rest.

The Australian Open champion said that she was so hyped up after defeating Bian-ca Andreescu in three thrilling sets on Friday night that she barely slept.

“I went to sleep at 4:00am, I woke up at 6:00am, so solid two hours, I can’t really sleep after my matches,” said Osaka.

“I just feel like my adrena-line’s up more during the tough-er matches so it makes it harder to sleep. It’s definitely been a bit crazy time-wise,” she added, having returned to the court to face Wozniacki less than 24 hours after defeating Andreescu.

But if the two-time Grand Slam champion was exhausted, it did not show in a 6-4, 6-2 vic-tory in 84 minutes against the Dane. Osaka held off all seven break points she faced against Wozniacki.

The world number four

showed flashes of irritation as she let Wozniacki off the hook at 3-3 in the first set, tossing her racquet on the floor.

But in the ninth game, the pressure on the 19th-ranked Wozniacki told, Osaka grabbing the break of service with an ar-rowing forehand.

Osaka, like Wozniacki a for-mer number one, broke her op-ponent at the start of the second set to underline her superiority, before racing to a thumping win.

The Japanese insisted that she was the underdog against Barty. They have played each other three times before with the 23-year-old Australian win-ning twice.

Barty said that she has “never been happier” on and off the court after she saved match point against Kiki Bertens of the Netherlands in their semi-final.

The French Open champion committed 52 unforced errors but still just about emerged vic-torious in a nail-biting 6-3, 3-6, 7-6 (9/7) triumph.

Barty, who surged to the top of the rankings in June, said there had been “massive growth” in her mental fortitude when she faces crunch points.

“That’s gone hand-in-hand with adding some new people to my team, trying to work with them behind the scenes,” Barty, said.

NEWCOMER Fabio Quarta-raro snatched pole position on Saturday for Thailand’s MotoGP, but reigning champion Marc Marquez remained hot favourite to clinch his sixth premier class title at the Chang International Circuit after coming third in qualifying. The 20-year-old Frenchman Quartararo sealed pole with a 1min 29.719sec qualifying lap, just ahead of Spanish com-patriots Maverick Vinales and Marquez. Quartararo’s rookie season has seen the Petronas Yamaha rider climb to seventh in the rankings, fast emerging as one of Marquez’s biggest rivals. “I’m really looking forward to tomorrow’s race,” a beaming Quartararo told MotoGP TV. Marquez, 26, has a comfort-able 98-point lead against his closest rival Ducati’s Andrea Dovizioso, who finished seventh in qualifying. The Honda rider only needs to best Dovizioso by two points in Sunday’s race to seal his sixth premier class title and eighth overall champi-onship. But he has struggled throughout in Buriram, with a crash sending him to hospital on Friday and another spill dur-ing qualifying. Marquez told MotoGP TV he wished he had been a little faster but was still “happy” with the result. The superstar won the first Grand Prix in Thailand last year in a thrilling last-corner showdown with Dovizioso. (AFP)

Newboy Quartararo takes pole for Thailand MotoGP

Quick read

USA gymnastics queen Simone Biles made history on her open-ing appearance at the 2019 world championships on Satur-day by landing a triple double skill on the floor which will be named “Biles II”. The 22-year-old, who is set to add to her record tally in Stuttgart of 14 gold medals at her fifth world championships, landed one of her two new skills -- a triple-twisting double back on floor -- during qualification for the team event. “@Simone_Biles tumbles into history again with her gorgeous triple twisting double tuck on floor! What a moment!,” proudly tweeted the official USA Gymnas-tics account. It means Biles now has three skills named after her and could leave Stuttgart with a fourth if she lands a double-twisting dou-ble tuck dismount off the beam. Biles is set to star in Tuesday’s team final, the women’s all-round final on Thursday and the appara-tus finals next weekend. (AFP)

Gymnastics queen Simone makes history at worlds with ‘Biles II’

Milner sends Liverpool eight points clear;

Slumping Spurs rocked at BrightonAFP

LONDON

JAMES Milner scored a stop-page-time winner as Liverpool moved eight points clear at the top of the Premier League with a thrilling 2-1 victory over Leicester, while Mauricio Po-chettino’s problems mounted after Tottenham’s 3-0 loss at Brighton on Saturday.

Liverpool won for the 17th consecutive league game thanks to Milner’s dramatic contribu-tion to a thrilling clash at An-field.

Jurgen Klopp’s side ruined Leicester manager Brendan Rodgers’ first return to Liver-pool since being replaced by the German in 2015.

By extending their remark-able winning streak, Liverpool have piled pressure on second-placed Manchester City ahead of their home game against Wolves on Sunday.

“It was a super game. We upped the tempo. The football we played was so important,” Klopp said.

Liverpool took the lead in the 40th minute when Milner’s long ball was misjudged by Leicester defender Jonny Ev-ans and Sadio Mane clinically

slotted in his eighth goal of the season.

Mane has scored exactly 50 goals in 100 Premier League games for Liverpool, making the Senegal winger the 10th player to reach that milestone for the Reds.

James Maddison snatched third-placed Leicester’s equal-iser in the 80th minute when he collected Ayoze Perez’s pass and drove his shot under Adrian’s

weak attempted save.But five minutes into stop-

page time, Marc Albrighton took the ball away from his own goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel and then clipped Mane, with Milner converting the penalty after a VAR review.

At the Amex Stadium, Tot-tenham’s crisis deepened as they turned in a desperate per-formance, while Hugo Lloris suffered a serious arm injury

after another howler.Tottenham keeper Lloris

dropped the ball on the goal line and hurt himself in the process in only the third minute, allow-ing Neal Maupay to open the scoring.

It only got worse after that as Aaron Connolly’s double gave the impressive Seagulls a deserved three points.

It ranked as one of the worst performances of Pochet-

tino’s reign and, following on from Tuesday’s 7-2 Champions League humiliation to Bayern Munich, the dark clouds are mounting over the club.

Pochettino was forced to emphasise his commitment to Tottenham this week amid speculation he has grown dis-tant from a squad distracted by several players who have been linked with moves.

“We have to keep going. I have to say thank you for the fans. I feel sorry for them,” Po-chettino said.

“Now you cannot find any words to console them and our players because I think we are living a tough moment.”

Everton manager Marco Silva is also under increasing pressure following a 1-0 defeat at Burnley that left his team fourth from bottom.

Jeff Hendrick got Burn-ley’s 72nd-minute winner after Everton had right-back Seamus Coleman sent off early in the second half for a crude lunge on Dwight McNeil.

Aston Villa’s 5-1 demolition of Norwich was given a royal seal of approval with Villa fan Prince William in attendance with wife Kate and his young family at Carrow Road.

Liverpool midfielder James Milner reacts after scoring the winner against Leicester City at Anfield in Liver-pool on Saturday. (AFP)

Rohit cracks another ton as India set daunting 395 for South Africa

India (1st Innings) 502-7 declSouth Africa (1st innings, overnight 385-8):

D. Elgar c Pujara b Jadeja 160 A. Markram b Ashwin 5T. de Bruyn c Saha b Ashwin 4D. Piedt b Jadeja 0T. Bavuma lbw I. Sharma 18F. du Plessis c Pujara b Ashwin 55Q. de Kock b Ashwin 111S. Muthusamy not out 33V. Philander b Ashwin 0K. Maharaj c Agarwal b Ashwin 9K. Rabada lbw Ashwin 15Extras (b12, lb4, nb5) 21

Total (all out, 131.2 overs) 431 Fall of wickets: 1-14 (Markram), 2-31 (de Bruyn), 3-34 (Piedt), 4-63 (Bavuma), 5-178 (du Plessis), 6-342 (Elgar), 7-370 (de Kock), 8-376 (Philander), 9-396 (Maharaj), 10-431 (Rabada) Bowling: I. Sharma 16-2-54-1 (nb1), Shami 18-4-47-0 (nb1), Ashwin 46.2-11-145-7, Jadeja 40-5-124-2 (nb1), Vihari 9-1-38-0 (nb2), R. Sharma 2-1-7-0India (2nd innings):

M. Agarwal c du Plessis b Maharaj 7R. Sharma st de Kock b Maharaj 127C. Pujara lbw Philander 81R. Jadeja b Rabada 40V. Kohli not out 31A. Rahane not out 27Extras (b8, lb2) 10

Total (4 wickets dec, 67 overs) 323

Fall of wickets: 1-21 (Agarwal), 2-190 (Pujara), 3-239 (R. Sharma), 4-286 (Jadeja) Did not bat: G. Vihari, W. Saha, R. Ashwin, I. Sharma, M. Shami Bowling: Philander 12-5-21-1, Maharaj 22-0-129-2, Rabada 13-3-41-1, Piedt 17-3-102-0, Muthusamy 3-0-20-0.South Africa (2nd innings):

A. Markram not out 3D. Elgar lbw b Jadeja 2T. de Bruyn not out 5Extras (lb1) 1

Total (1 wicket, nine overs) 11

To bat: T Bavuma, F. du Plessis, Q. de Kock, V. Philander, S. Muthusamy, K. Maharaj, D. Piedt, K. Rabada.Fall of wicket: 1-4 (Elgar); Bowling: Ashwin 5-2-7-0, Jadeja 4-2-3-1.

SCOREBOARD

India’s Rohit Sharma acknowl-edges the crowd after his second century in the first Test against South Africa on Saturday. (AFP)

Sports14 Sunday, October 6, 2019


HIS Highness Sheikh Mo-hammed bin Khalifa al Tha-ni-owned and bred Raahah (Asraa Min Albarq) tasted her first Group 1 (PA) suc-cess in seven attempts when she landed the Qatar Arabian Trophy Des Juments for four-year-old mares at ParisLong-champ on Day 1 of the Qatar Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe weekend, Saturday.

The black type 2,000-me-tre race carrying a purse of 150,000 euros was hotly contested, with a tight finish with the François Rohaut-trained and François-Xavier Bertras-ridden Raahah win-ning by a neck. The Mrs Elizabeth Bernard-trained and Jean-Bernard Eyquem-ridden Jaazmah Athbah fin-ished in second and the Royal Cavalry of Oman-owned and Charles Gourdain-trained Vivabaina was a further neck behind in third under Olivier Peslier.

Drawn wide, Raahah raced on the outside of the field with

no cover. Jockey Bertras be-gan asking her to accelerate in the final turn and the bay mare showed great bravery to battle the whole way down the straight, holding off a strong challenge from Jaazmah Ath-bah.

“She was very unlucky last time out, not any fault of hers but due to another runner”, commented win-ning jockey Bertras. “She has improved enormously lately and came into this race in top form. You need a tough run-ner to win today. Jaazmah Athbah put us under pres-sure in the final 50 meters, but Raahah is stubborn and never gives up!”

Raahah was supplemented into the race – a judicious de-cision by her owner and her trainer, François Rohaut. She came here off a career best when placed third in the Prix Nevadour (Gr3-PA) at Tou-louse in August.

Skalleti wins openerThe 2019 Qatar Prix de

l’Arc de Triomphe weekend

opened with the Gr2 Prix Dollar, which boasts a value of 200,000 euros. It was won by the starting favourite, Skalleti (Kendargent), who runs in the colours of Jean-Claude Seroul and is trained by Jérome Reynier in Mar-seille. Skalleti was steady out of the stalls and sat last in this six-runner race over 1,950 metres. He was ridden with perfect patience by reign-ing champion jockey Pierre-Charles Boudot.

The English raider, Moun-tain Angel (Dark Angel), trained by Roger Varian, led the race from the off and ac-celerated coming out of the straight.

He gamely held off his challengers, but Skalleti, who had not moved until two-fur-longs out, came easily up the rail to challenge him in the fi-nal furlong.

Skalleti, who was sup-plemented for this Group 2, placed a sharp acceleration to pull away and win by three quarters of a length. Moun-tain Angel held on easily for second place under Olivier Peslier. The Charlie Appleby-trained Line Of Duty (Gali-leo) finished almost a length behind in third under Wil-liam Buick.

The Revenant dominant

Five runners lined up in the Gr2 Qatar Prix Dan-iel Wildenstein (Gr2) over a mile. Impulsif (Dubawi) led the race at a steady pace, with the favourite Olmedo (Wootton Bassett) keen in behind.

The Revenant, who was making his return to the track having been off since May, showed his predilection for the soft ground and stormed up the track to beat the Jean-Claude Roget-trained and Christian Demuro-ridden Ol-medo in the second place and the Carlos Laffon-Parias-trained and Maxime Guyon-ridden Shaman (Shamardal) in third spot.

Made To Lead winsThe Qatar Handicap Des

Juments, a handicap for four-year-old and older mares, was won by Made To Lead (Linngari) in the colours of Thierry Marechal.

The E. Lyon-trained four-year-old bay mare fin-ished one and a half lengths in front of Mrs P. Brandt-trained and Maxime Guyon-ridden Strong And Stable (Motivator).

Anapurna’s has an outstanding run

The exceptional tandem of trainer John Gosden and jockey Frankie Dettori struck again for more Group 1 glory in the Qatar Prix Royallieu (Gr1) with the outstanding race mare Anapurna (Fran-kel), in the colours of Helena Springfield. Dettori once again produced a perfect ride, keep-ing just enough in hand that when Napurna was challenged in the closing stages, she was able to produce a second burst of acceleration to secure victo-ry. The Aiden O’brien-trained and Christophe Soumillon-ridden Delphinia, for the Cool-more associates finished in second just over a length away.

Holdthasigreen on the top

In the colours of Jean Gilbert, in partnership with Claude Le Lay, Holdthasigreen (Hold That Tiger) put the clock to rights in this year’s Qatar Prix Cadran (Gr1), the mara-thon that crowns the lead-ing stayer. Last year, he went down by the smallest margin to Call The Wind (Frankel) in this race, and this year he had his revenge. Trained in France by Bruno Audouin, he won

today by three quarters of a length in front of his old rival, with Dee Ex Bee (Farhh) com-pleting the podium.

La Poutanesca triumphs

Third in the Prix Volterra (L) in her early career, La Pou-tanesca (Falco) was back in the winners’ enclosure for the final race of the day, the Prix Qatar Racing And Equestrian Club. In the colours of Alain Michel Haddad, the mare had not passed the post in front since March 18 at Compienge in heavy ground. The cut in the track today certainly gave her edge back and the David Smaga-trained filly travelled strongly throughout the race near the leaders. She took the lead a furlong out and bat-tled to hold her lead from the strong-finishing Plantlove (Planteur).

The President of the Qa-tar and the Asian Equestrian Federations and QREC Vice-Chairman Hamad bin Abdul-rahman al Attiya, QREC Board Members Mohammed bin Ab-dulla al Kuwari and Ahmad Mohammed Alabdulmalik, Al Kass TV General Manager Issa bin Abdulla Al Hitmi and QREC Racing Manager Ab-

dulla bin Rashid Al Kubaisi crowned the winners.

Qatar dominates Arabian races in Paris: Kuwari

QREC Board Member Ab-dulla bin Mohammed al Ku-wari, lauded Qatar’s sponsor-ship of the Qatar Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, the world-class standard and huge success of the event.

“This year’s renewal is ex-cellent with the massive suc-cess of Qatar’s horses in the Arabian races over the last two days as they dominated all Arabian races so far,” he said following the races of Day 1 at ParisLongchamp, “Such domination confirms the su-periority of Qatar’s Arabians. We look forward to more suc-cess on the finale of the Qa-tar Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe weekend.

“The presence of Qatari horse owners at the sales as-sociated with the Qatar Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe and the purchases they’ve made demonstrate their intention to bring good horses to Qatar and to racing at Al Rayyan Park. This will enhance local racing and back our efforts for continuous development.”

HH Sheikh Mohammed’s Raahah edges Jaazmah Athbah in tight finish

Raahah claims first Gr1 PA race

TRIBUNE NEWS NETWORKPARIS

ELEVEN classy purebred Arabians with rich records of black type winnings and plac-ings will be in the fray for the world’s top racing event for Arabians - the Qatar Arabian World Cup (Gr1/PA). France’s iconic ParisLonchamp will host the one-million euro race for four-year-old and older pure Arabians over 2,000 me-tres just 40 minutes before the Qatar Prix de l’Arc de Triom-phe race, on Sunday. Among the 11 runners, six Qatari-owned horses will seek to take the cup back home.

The list includes a trio owned and bred by His High-ness Sheikh Abdullah bin Khalifa al Thani. The Alban De Mieulle-trained Tayf fin-ished second in his last two outings; a listed mile race at Baden Baden in September and the mile-long (Group 1 PA) Qatar International Stakes at Goodwood in July.

However, the seven-year-old grey son of Amer won the (Group 1 PA) UAE Cup at the same course (Paris-Lonchamp) and (2,000m) distance in May. He finished nearer last than first in the Qatar Arabian World Cup last

year. He will be partnered by Ronan Thomas.

Another De Mieulle’s charge, Yazeed, was a win-ner when was last called out. The six-year-old grey son of Munjiz won the (Group 1 PA) Qatar Gold Sword over the same distance at Al Rayyan Park, Doha, in April. He fin-ished fifth in the Qatar Ara-bian World Cup last year. He will have Olivier Peslier as his partner.

The Antoine de Watri-gant-trained Marid finished second last time and that was in the (Group 1 PA) Doha Cup over the same distance at Deauville in August. The last win of the four-year-old grey colt of TM Fred Texas was in October 2018 when he landed the (Group 1 PA) Qatar Arabi-

an Trophy Des Poulains over the same distance at Saint-Cloud. He will be guided by Harry Bentley.

His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Khalifa al Thani’s Ebraz finished third in the Qatar Arabian World Cup last year. The Julian smart-trained six-year-old grey son of Amer won his last outings. He won the (Group 3 PA) Shadwell - Coupe Du Sud-Ouest Des Pur-Sang Ar-abes over 1,900 metres at La Teste Buch and the mile-long (Group 1 PA) Qatar Interna-tional Stakes at Goodwood in July. He will be steered by Maxime Guyon.

Al Shaqab Racing’s Khat-tab was the runner-up in the Qatar Arabian World Cup last year. The Thomas Fourcy-

trained seven-year-old grey son of Amer was last seen at Deauville when he finished third in the (Group 1 PA) Doha Cup over the same dis-tance in August. His latest win was at Toulouse when he landed the (Group 2 PA) Prix De Carthage – Hannibal over 2,000 metres. He will be rid-den by Jerome Cabre.

Khalifa bin Hamad bin Khalifa al Attiyah’s Rodess Du Loup finished sixth in the 2018 edition of the Qatar Ara-bian World Cup. The Charles Gourdain five-year-old grey son of Dahess finished fourth in his last outing - a listed mile race at Baden Baden last month. His record includes being the runner-up of the (Group 1) Doha Cup at Deau-ville and the winner of the (Group 1 PA) President of the UAE Cup at Doncaster over the same distance in August and September 2018, respec-tively. He will have Charles Gourdain in the saddle.

The other five contenders include two who won their last outings and three who were placed when they were last seen. The P. Collington-trained Mashhur Al Khal-ediah won a listed mile race comfortably in front of Tayf and Rodess Du Loup at Baden Baden last month. He will be ridden by Jean-Bernard Eyquem. The Polska AKF SP. Z.O.O.-owned and M. Kacpr-zyk-trained Salam Al Khaledi-ah won a Group 3 (PA) event over 2,600 metres at Varsovie in August. He will have Szc-zepan Mazur in the saddle.

Qatari horses aim to dominate Qatar Arabian World Cup again

Yazeed, in the colours of HH Sheikh Abdullah bin Khalifa al Thani, is among the main contenders for the Qatar Arabian World Cup race at ParisLongchamp on Sunday.

Sheikh Abdullah’s French King among 11 challengers

TNN & AFPPARIS

HISTORY-SEEKER Enable will face 11 rivals in Sunday’s Qatar Prix de l’Arc de Triom-phe with the dual winner of European racing’s crown jewel allocated stall nine in Thurs-day’s draw.

The John Gosden-trained mare is odds-on favourite to secure an unprecedented third win in the five-million euro showpiece at Longchamp with legendary Italian jockey Frank-ie Dettori in the saddle. The Italian master jockey has a li-on’s share of the Arc titles with six victories in his record and he will be seeking his seventh and straight third with Enable.

Continuing her extraordi-nary record, Enable has won three group ones this year; namely, the Coral Eclipse over 2,000 metres in early July, the King George VI And Queen

Elizabeth QIPCO Stakes over 2,400 metres 3 weeks later and the Darley Yorkshire Oaks over 2,400 metres in August when she was last seen.

The His Highness Sheikh Abdullah bin Khalifa al Thani-owned and bred French King heads the list of challeng-ers. The Henri-Alex Pantall four-year-old chestnut colt of French Fifteen has had an in-credible series of success this year. He landed the Gr1 HH The Amir Trophy in February, the Gr 2 Carl Jaspers-Preis in May, the Gr 2 Grosser Hansa-Preis in June and the Gr 1 Lon-gines Grosser Preis von Berlin in August last time. All four vic-tories were over 2,400 metres.

The one and only Arc win-ner to emerge from Enable’s starting stall over the past half century was another mare, Ur-ban Sea, in 1993.

The dozen-strong field is the smallest since Dylan Thomas prevailed in 2007. He was trained by Aidan O’Brien, who on Sunday sends over one of Enable’s main dangers in the gifted three-year-old, Japan.

Ryan Moore’s mount is drawn beside Enable in stall 10. Like his next door neighbour he boasts course and distance form having landed the Grand Prix de Paris in July.

And like Enable, who reeled off her 10th Group One in the Yorkshire Oaks in August, Ja-pan was last seen out at York’s Ebor Festival, winning the Jud-dmonte International.

“He’s a lovely relaxed horse with loads of class” O’Brien has said of Japan. The master Irish trainer has another string to his Arc bow in the shape of Magi-cal, ridden by his 21-year-old son Donnacha.

The main home hope is French Derby winner Sottsass who sets out from stall one with last year’s fourth, Waldgeist, trained by Andre Fabre, from stall four.

Another with serious claims is Ghaiyyath, the wide margin winner of a Group One in Germany on his latest start.

Three of Sunday’s field - Fi-erement, (stall two), Blast One-piece (stall four) and Kiseki (stall seven) - are trained in Japan.

History-seeking Enable bids for third straight Arc today

11 top PAs to contest for top honours in 2,000m race

Sports 15Sunday, October 6, 2019

François-Xavier Bertras rides Raahah to the victory in the Qatar Arabian Trophy Des Juments for four-year-old mares at ParisLongchamp on Day 1 of the Qatar Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe weekend on Saturday. Raahas won the race by neck.

QREC Vice-Chairman Hamad Abdurahman al Attiyah presents trophy to the connections of the Qatar Prix Chaudenay winner.

HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Khalifa al Thani receives the trophy after his horse Raahah won the Qatar Arabian Trophy Des Juments at ParisLongchamp Racecourse on Saturday.

Yazeed, son of Munjiz, won the (Group 1 PA) Qatar Gold Sword over the same distance at Al Rayyan Park, Doha, in April.

Enable on the way to winning his second Qatar Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe at ParisLongchamp Racecourse under legendary rider Frankie Dettori last year.

The Last Word16 Sunday, October 6, 2019

Stars of Science Season 11 presents top eight innovatorsTRIBUNE NEWS NETWORK

DOHA

QATAR Foundation’s (QF) edutainment reality TV show ‘Stars of Science’ has cho-sen its top eight innovators through extensive auditions as the competition for the title of ‘Top Arab Innovator’ heats up.

“Presenting your ideas to the world is a courageous thing to do; however, pursuing and fighting all the challenges and hardships you will face takes another level of courage and patience,” said Prof Fouad Mrad, Stars of Science jury member. “This year’s contest-ants have already shown us this kind of bravery, persever-ance, and the star quality we have always been looking for.”

Half of the top eight in-novations for Season 11 are of a medical nature. Nuha Abu Yousef, a Jordanian doctor,

earned her ticket to enter the Stars of Science laboratory with a wearable device that allows patients with afflicted facial muscles regain control over their affected upper and lower eyelids. Meanwhile, fellow medical professional Youssef El Azouzi from Mo-rocco joined the competition to further develop his design

of an affordable flow modu-lator stent that directs blood flow in heart failure patients toward the kidney to decrease the chances of complication due to heart failure.

Also entering the medical innovation arena is Imaded-dine Azzouz from Algeria. The chemist turned his grief for the loss of loved ones from

lung cancer into motivation to invent a technology that allows the early detection of cancerous cells through the patient’s breath. Medical stu-dent from Sudan Abdullah Alghaitabi plans to work on his fertility indicator wrist-band that empowers women in family planning.

Mohamed Kharrat from

Tunisia joined the show with the humanitarian purpose of developing smart swimming shorts that would detect an im-minent drowning accident and automatically inflate, saving the life of the potential victim by keeping them afloat. An-other contestant with a noble cause is Husam Sameer. The Iraqi engineer is keen to pro-

tect and secure the planet for future generations by invent-ing sustainable efficient com-fort concrete panels to reduce the use of air conditioning.

The final two innovations supplement cultural and re-ligious lifestyles in the Arab region. Anfal al Hamdani, an agricultural engineer from Oman, was inspired by the

Omani kitchen and created the dry lime auto extractor to ease the use of this popular cooking ingredient. Abdulrah-man Saleh Khamis from Qatar designed an interactive edu-cational prayer carpet to help Muslims better perform their prayers.

Viewers can tune into Qa-tar TV and seven other region-al channels, as well as watch online, to follow the top eight’s journey in developing and re-fining their ideas. The show has a brand-new format that puts greater emphasis on sus-tainability and solving modern challenges.

Meanwhile, registrations are open for Stars of Science Season 12. The deadline for re-ceiving applications is the end of November, this year.

Visit www.starsofscience.info/applynow/sos.html to register.

The top eight innovators at the ‘Stars of Science’ season 11 have been selected after extensive auditions.

Experts, advocates discuss challengesto right to education

TRIBUNE NEWS NETWORKGENEVA

EDUCATION Above All (EAA) and Human Rights Council gathered some of the world’s leading experts and advocates to discuss the current state of affairs of the right to education.

Focused on ways to elevate the issue as a fundamental hu-man right and with an empha-sis on celebrating achievements while also looking at some of the seemingly intractable challeng-es, the roundtable discussion featured a variety of perspec-tives and dynamic ideas.

EAA co-hosted the roundta-ble in cooperation with the Hu-man Rights Council in Geneva and the Qatar Fund for Devel-opment (QFFD).

Moderated by Marc Leman, chief executive officer of URG, the roundtable featured open-ing remarks from Khalifa Al Ku-wari, QFFD director-general.

Participants included Kate Gilmore, deputy high commis-sioner for Human Rights, UN-HCR; Vincent Defourny direc-tor of UNEESCO Liaison Office,

Geneva; Chief Executive Officer of EAA; Elin Martínez, senior researcher of Human Rights Watch; Amin Awad, director of Middle East and North Africa Region, UNHCR; Alison Joyner, Education in Emergencies Spe-cialist, Plan International Norge.

Other participants were Vic-toria Ibiwoye, founding director of OneAfricanChild Foundation for Creative Learning; Dr Koum-bou Boly Barry, special rappor-teur, UNHCR; Bushra Zulfiqar, Global Education director, Save the Children Bangladesh; Syl-vain Aubry, Legal and Research Advisor, Global Initiative on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights;. Maya Ghazal, UNHCR and Benyam Mezmur, member of Committee on the Rights of the Child.

Discussion focused on the need to protect education as a fundamental human right and the ways in which local advo-cates can support innovative so-lutions and provide insights into their specific contexts in order to address ongoing challenges.

Since the proclamation of the right to education, new chal-

lenges have emerged that re-quire immediate and more crea-tive solutions.

Youth advocates present at the roundtable shared their viewpoints on these issues and others, pushing those gathered to commit to real, actionable change. Ideas such as an an-nual international day for the protection of education in con-flict, put forth by Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, founder of EAA, during her keynote address to the Human Rights Council the previous, was lauded as a way to move the conversation forward and create more accountability in the space.

Commenting on the event, Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, UNHCR, Kate Gilmore said, “To protect edu-cation from attack, we need to ensure accountability for those who deliberately deny the right to education. They agreed today that they will do this through providing the vision support-ed Grass root individuals and groups can also be powerful if they act together.”

TNG unveils ‘Teachers as Innovators’ award to mark ‘World Teachers Day’


THE Next Generation (TNG) School has introduced ‘Teach-ers as Innovators’ Award to celebrate World Teachers Day 2019 in line with this year’s UNESCO theme ‘Young Teachers: Future of the Pro-fession’.

The objective of the award is to recognise and appreciate the efforts of those teachers, especially the ones new to this profession, who strive every day to introduce innovative practices into their pedagogi-cal approaches.

Speaking on the impor-tance of innovative teaching practices, TNG Director Riyaz Bakali said, “TNG believes that young teachers have the skills and the tools to create an enabling and technolo-gy-enhanced environment, which encourages independ-ent thinking and inspires students to become responsi-ble global citizens. We invite young people to join hands with us to make every child’s educational experience a meaningful one.”

Commenting on the in-troduction of the award, Ailia Rizvi, principal TNG, said: “The Teachers as Innovators Award is very close to my heart. At TNG, our teachers are mindful of their respon-

sibility to prepare students for the challenges of the fu-ture and it has been an excit-ing journey watching them critically evaluate practice, understand expectations, col-laborate and plan educational interventions to empower our students. We are very proud of them.”

This year, the ‘Teachers as Innovators’ Award was re-ceived by seven teachers at TNG. These include: Dulanjali Jayasinge - for harnessing data to introduce educational inter-ventions to improve student performance; Sahla Nazlin - for effectively creating tech-

nology-centred classrooms to enhance student engagement and to develop self-learners; Maryam Habib - for introduc-ing learning centres at Kinder-garten to meet the Early Years Foundation Stage - EYFS cur-riculum standards with out-standing outcomes.

Others are Rabiyathul Alvia - for her Empathetic-leaders initiative that paired secondary and kindergarten students to work together on learning concepts; Jeni-lee Eltanal - for introducing Learning Menus – a form of differentiated learning that empowers learners to take

control of their learning in the classroom; Ayesha Sultana - for designing an Urdu Qaida that supports in the develop-ment of a synthetic and logical process of teaching and learn-ing the Urdu language; and Aneeqa Zaheer - for introduc-ing a framework for student leadership projects that en-gaged the students in redefin-ing or improving on different elements of the global school culture.

Besides the award, TNG has also introduced several other awards to appreciate and motivate the efforts of its teaching staff.

This year, seven teachers at TNG were presented the ‘Teachers as Innovators’ Award.

The roundtable was hosted by EAA, the Human Rights Council and the QFFD

The discussions focused on the need to protect education as a fundamental human right.

Sherborne students regale audience at South African Embassy concertCATHERINE W GICHUKI

DOHA

SHERBORNE Qatar students enthralled audience with their melodious songs at a concert titled ‘Cactus, A celebration of Voice and Instruments’. The concert was organised by the South African Embassy, in collaboration with the school and with support from the Cultural Village ‘Katara’, on Thursday.

About 80 children from Sherborne Qatar school par-ticipated in the concert.

Besides the students, re-nowned South African singer Lilian Sebeko and a drummer also mesmerised the audience with their solo performances.

Speaking to media persons on the occasion, South Afri-

can Ambassador to Qatar HE Faizel Moosa said they chose the school as it was an inter-national school with children from different countries. “Be-sides, Sherborne Qatar’s music

school is very good with great teachers like Sebeko. There-fore, we planned this event in coordination with the school.”

The ambassador said it was an excellent idea because

music brings people together. “Music brought South Afri-cans together when Mandela was in prison. We had a ‘Free Mandela’ concert in the UK, which was attended by more

than 100,000 people.”He said that engaging chil-

dren in arts, culture and music is a kind of investment, which will help produce efficient fu-ture leaders.

Moosa said Katara wel-comed their proposal for the concert, adding that the em-bassy has several collabora-tions with Katara. “One of our artistes will be displaying

some of the arts in Katara in the near future. We are also working together with Katara on a painting project for en-try to the Guinness Book of World Records.”

Besides the 80 children from Sherborne Qatar school, renowned South African singer Lilian Sebeko and a drummer mesmerised the audience with their performances.

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